Socially Acceptable

Hanging in my crib...

Another milestone in the journey that is adoption passed today.  Our last visit from the Social Worker.  Gregg, Sabrina, and I are so happy that's over!  Sabrina babbled, laughed, and smiled the whole time and just exuded her normal happy babyness.  This may have been the shortest visit yet.  I'm ticked at myself for forgetting to get a picture of us with Windsor to add to Sabrina's book showing her one of the kindest people we've met in this process.  She told us her monthy reports get bundled into a package with a "Yes, let them adopt" or "Them adopt?  Are you nuts?" stamped across the top.  In our case, she said she's going to write a personal recommendation that the court approve this placement.  Awesome!  The Boys have been so patient with all of this that I had to take them to the dog park to celebrate.

We can do without these visits for another reason, the $330 a pop they're costing us.  All we have left now are the court costs which will run about $650 plus the cost of a trip back to L.A. county and we're done.  I'll have to say, these last months have been a tough haul financially.  With the housing prices dumping, our bank had closed our line of credit that we planned on using throughout the process back in March so we've had to come up with each months payments without that safety.  It's been tight, but so worth it.  Sabrina is our dream, and we couldn't imagine things without her!  So we'll get through the court stuff and finalize this thing in a month or so, and then it's official!

Prop. 8 Didn't Go Far Enough

Yes that's correct.  The proposition banning same sex marriage in California was too soft.  It needs to be tightened up a bit.  After all, marriage is on the ropes here!  I mean the whole point of it was to protect marriage and children by keeping those uppity homos from gaying it all up.  I mean do you want weddings that look like this?

Or this abomination of Jesus' idea of a perfect marriage?

There's so much wrong with this one, I don't even know where to start...

With all this in mind, deciding who can get married is just the first phase.  Keeping it traditional and Jesus-ey is the next logical step.  Which is why I am now a supporter of the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act, which states:

SECTION 1. Title. This act shall be known as the “2010 California Marriage Protection Act.”

SECTION 2. Section 7.6 is added to Article I of the California Constitution, to read:
"No party to any marriage shall be restored to the state of an unmarried person during the lifetime of the other party unless the marriage is void or voidable, as set forth in Part 2 of Division 6 of the Family Code."

In other words, ban divorce.  That's right, ban it.  The two biggest threats to marriage are divorce and boys kissing.  So once you're married, you're married, for life.  After all, that's what it's supposed to be about, "til death do us part" and all that.  Well as the slogan says, "you're not dead yet".  If you voted for Prop. 8, you have to go to the next level or you'd be a hypocrite, and I don't think you'll find too many of those in church.  This is a real initiative that has been filed with the state for inclusion on the ballot pending getting enough signatures. 

After all if you could think "straight" enough to get married in the first place you should have been smart enough to realize it's forever, no matter how much you can't stand each other.  (I'm talking to you Jon and Kate!)  It's about time someone put this on the ballot because I can't sleep at night worrying about other people's marriages and wishing I could have something to say about them.  Now all I have to do is move back to California.

In the Echo Chamber

Well the new issue of the Echo is out today, the local Phoenix gay magazine .  It's the one with the article about adoption we were interviewed for.  OK I was interviewed for.  Our conversation went something like this:

B is upstairs changing the baby.  G is downstairs cooking dinner.  The phone rings.  The house's built in intercom system we paid extra for is forgotten in exchange for yelling (what Gregg calls the NY intercom).
B:  Hey Gregg remember I told you I set up the adoption interview with the Echo?  Kathy's on the phone you want to come up?
G:  I'm cooking dinner...
B:  What?
G:  I'm cooking dinner!
B:  Oh well do you care if I do it by myself?
G:  Will you do it anyway?
B:  Probably.  I mean yes.
G:  Have a good time...

Kathy and I spoke for about 15 minutes.  She found us via the blogosphere when a fellow blogger put us in touch with her.  The article showcases three couples and how they went about creating their families.  After it was over I went downstairs to tell Gregg about it.

B:  Well I'm done I told her our story.
G:  Cool
B:  So, um, I wanted to ask you if it was OK if I gave her permission to use our full names?
G:  You already told her to.
B:  No I...yeah I did.  Is it OK?
G:  It's OK.

He's wonderful.  How does he put up with me?  *Grin*.

So check it out here.

Vader Is Your Father

...in Dutch. 

I came across this YouTube of a kid's show in the Netherlands, where kids describe something in their lives, a song is written about it, and they perform it on TV as well as on a yearly compilation CD.  This one's about a boy that has two dads, and even in Dutch is kind of a catchy tune.  It's cool that he's so proud to be in a two dad household that he sings about it on TV.

Two Dads?  Wrote a song about it, like to hear it?  Here it go...

Blogging for Dollars

I'm still Mr. Coughy.  (Hey clever!)  At least Sabrina seems pretty much better.  Gregg's still congested.  Thank you day care, with your room full of runny nosed sickies!

I was thinking I should have some juice to get my vitamin C and it made me realize how corporations are playing us bloggers to get the word out on their products.  I've been offered free products via this blog by marketers (one of which was a juice, which made me think about this post) who not so subtly ask that those products get a mention.  I've declined them; this blog is not meant to be used in that vein.  Some of them have graciously sent free product anyway, even after I've made clear I wouldn't give them a write up.  Then I started noticing those products showing up in other blogs.  I can appreciate a good marketing strategy, and I think it's a pretty clever way to get a viral campaign going, so I do give them credit for that. 

What do you guys think?  Would you use your blog to promote a product?  I know some of you have, and so I don't want you to take this post the wrong way.  There were a few times I've read a review of something and found it pretty helpful. 

Because I'm a nostalgic liberal child of the 70's, I'll put my product promotion below.  Be warned:  it's not my fault when you start humming it all day.

Illness Update

Sorry for my lame blogging of late...the illness fairy is still around.  Sabrina's mostly done, Gregg is still coughing and I think I'm having a relapse.  At least there is no fever in any of us.  Ugh.  *Cough*.

Wordless Wednesday