She Said/She Said: Ten Favorite Photos from Our Two Week Vacation

Favorite Vacation Picture #1:

Our first part of our vacation started with a house exchange with a family from Sonora, CA. (We’re a part of HomeForExchange.com, and although in the past six months that we’ve been on the site we’ve received probably close to a eighty or ninety offers, this was our first one!) The family that we exchanged with let us know that they just got a tiny kitten a week before our arrival, so you can imagine how surprised we were when we found this even smaller kitten along with it and a note saying that they just got the second kitten a day before! It was adorable bliss; adorable jumping-and-attacking-your-feet-under-the-covers-all-night-long-but-then-cuddling-with-you-with-fuzzy-fur bliss.

Favorite Vacation Picture #2:

We did lots of cool things in Sonora, CA, including walking around the town (which was an old Gold Rush town) and going for a hike to Natural Bridges, which led to a creek and a cave and us swimming through and kissing under the waterfall in the cave (amazing!—and really unfortunate that we didn’t take our camera with us). On the last day there, we drive to Pinecrest Lake and kayaked together for the first time all around the lake, which was surrounded by mountains and hiking trails, and beautiful, huge, wooded houses! (So lovely!)

Favorite Vacation Picture #3:

Our second part of our vacation was going on our church small group (GESG) camping trip to Point Gualala. Gabrielle and I drove with our friend Miriam up there first, and were soon joined by our friends Jeanette, Joel, and Shawn. While we waited for our second half to join us, we went for a hike (and saw some amazing views!), collected wood, set up the tents and food table, poured some drinks, and started endless rounds of Liar’s Dice. Gabrielle and I left the group early the next day to go back to the Bay and catch our flight to New Orleans!

Favorite Vacation Picture #4:

After flying all night and landing in the hot New Orleans sun, nothing was as good as stuffing ourselves full of beignets and coffee and orange juice at Cafe Dumont!

Favorite Vacation Picture #5:

New Orleans is beautiful, but it sure is hot! Our first day there we mostly walked around a lot of different neighborhoods, and took several breaks to duck inside bars for drinks. This was us at the U.S.’s oldest gay bar, Cafe Lafitte in Exile! It was pretty low key, but we got into conversations with the bartenders and other patrons, and it was definitely a good time and break from the heat!

Favorite Vacation Picture #6:

We walked from the French Quarter all the way to the ship (over two miles) with all of our luggage so we could see the city and also save some bucks. By the time we finally got on the ship, the afternoon glare from the river was so bright that it took several attempts to manage even this shot!

Favorite Vacation Picture #7:

Our first steps in Progreso, Yucatan, Mexico! (We also picked up this hat for Gabrielle in Sonora, CA—-which definitely came in handy during our time in Progreso and Cozumel!)

Favorite Vacation Picture #8:

In Progreso, we visited the Dzibilchaltun Mayan ruins where we saw the Temple of the Dolls (which is where Gabrielle is sitting in this picture), the plaza and amphitheater, and all the other archelogical sites. Our tour guide taught us a lot about astrology and even explained the truth about the Mayan calendar (so we’re not going to die in a year and a half after all! phew!). At the end of our trip, we went into Cenote Xlakah, a natural freshwater sinkhole and swam around with the sardines and lilly pads and surrounded by this beautiful old city! (It totally cooled the Mexico heat, too.)

Favorite Vacation Picture #9:

This is my favorite shot from Mexico. After the ruins, we walked around downtown Progreso and had some delicious Mexican food and margaritas (without ice) and ran into this family with this droopy, sleepy baby in the dad’s arms. Gabrielle and I both squealed a bit when we saw the baby, and when I asked (in very broken Spanish) if I could take their picture, the dad smiled up at me, and scooped up the baby proudly and tighter in his arms. Somehow the way the baby was laying so lazily out of the hot Mexican sun and the way the dad just gazed down and was all too proud to prop him up for a picture makes me smile…

Favorite Vacation Picture #10:

Gabrielle’s birthday! (By this time, Gabrielle was starting to feel a bit moody about getting older…) Because her actual birthday was the day we were flying back, we started celebrating that night. After buying her a couple of drinks and enjoying them with our older gay boy friends that we made while there, we watched our last sunset on the ship on our way back to New Orleans. (Afterwards, many more birthday celebratory drinks and cakes were bought and had with all of our other friends that we made aboard, including our lovely dinnermates!)

Currently Contemplating:

-Missing midwestern fall. I want crisp, sunny October days. I want to kick through piles of leaves, in a sweater, on the way to get a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee. 

-Reoccurring thoughts of getting a tattoo.

-Grad School: Harder than I was expecting.

-Coconut Milk ice cream is a new favorite. Tara, sweetly, bought me the ice cream attachment to our KitchenAid and we finally used it last weekend to make Strawberry Coconut with Chocolate Chips. Divine.

-We’ve almost been together for five years (!!). Tara informed me she wants a toothbrush, or more accurately (I think), she wants my permission to buy a $100+ toothbrush without my dramatic death throws on the floor of Bed, Bath, & Beyond. I think I can give her that.

-We owe at least a short vacation review! It was awesome. I wish we were still gone. We can’t handle humidity anymore. Also, there were beignets in abundance. That’s pretty much the gist…this was one of the views out of our hotel in New Orleans.

Good Day for the Gays!

1.) Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is over as of 12:01am tonight!

2.) California Supreme Court Chief Judge Ware decided to release the Proposition 8 court tapes so that everyone can see that there’s not a single good reason why gay marriage shouldn’t be legal!

3.) The first transgendered star on Dancing With the Stars is premiering tonight! (Dancing With the Stars has been getting a lot of crap about it, so make sure that you support Chaz Bono!)

Shock and Awe

Appalled at Gabrielle’s secrecy and behavior; we’ve been together for nearly five years and she’s known how to make perfect nutella crepes this whole time!?

Kitten extravaganza!

We went up to Sonora to do a house exchange for a few nights and there were two TINY kittens at the house, probably around 6 weeks and 9 weeks. I think this was Tara’s ultimate vacation experience…

Door to Door Jesus Salesmen

Two Christians came to my door yesterday while I was still in my bathrobe and slippers. Once it was revealed I was Jewish and in an interfaith relationship, they applauded me for not being so “strict and and set in [my] religious ways” like “most Jews are.”

I half smiled, told them thank you, and closed the door.

But yep. I’m feeling good ‘cause I guess I have that going for me.

Feminist Hulk Says…

Regarding the New York Senate Being the First Republican-Controlled Legislative Body to Pass a Marriage Equity Bill

Equal rights are not partisan.

Mice.

Amidst all of our packing, from the living room, Gabrielle and I heard a soft rubbling coming from one of the boxes. Gently, the sound scrapped and we heard the tiniest of little scratches, quietly, moving about in what sounded like one of the dozens of cardboard boxes that we picked up from people’s garages.

Gabrielle and I, nervous that a mouse had slipped through our door—carried inside whilst in the bottom of a box, inched ourselves closer to the sound slowly, until we finally cornered it in the least well-lit end of our hallway…

Carefully Gabrielle (for I insisted—she’s always been braver than I) slowly lifted only the corner of the top of the box off, and—not seeing anything more than black darkness—cautiously lifted the remaining corners.

Of course at that time, our mischievous cat, Macky, gave a sound of delight that we found her and that it was only us (she probably heard us creeping slowly at her too) and we carried her out of the box. 

How did our disabled little kitten manage to climb all the way up and play inside this box? 

I don’t know, but it sure scared us.

Incidentally, while unpacking today at our new house, I heard Gabrielle scream. Apparently in one of our bags (a bag that has sat in our old apartment for the past three years untouched (G-d, I hope so!) by us, she spotted a dead mouse. The bag was pretty tattered and torn (roughed up by Macky, smelling a mouse? …by the mouse itself? …or hopefully from wear of being at the bottom of our closet for three years with all of our winter boots…) and clinging onto the side was the mouse’s hard, mostly decayed sharp claws and curly tail.

Yuck. Finding the mouse gave Gabrielle such a scare that I elected myself to “unhook it” (that’s the most appropriate word choice I know) and take it outside.