So Much Grief

It is getting harder and harder to be optimistic about raising a daughter, or the world we are leaving to her, and how the world views her. I am in so much anguish over what is happening in this country. The LIES from SCROTUS judges to get their lifetime confirmations. The straight up evil hypocrisy and dirty games of these MAGAts is despicable, especially when they continue to shout and bemoan CoUnTrY oVeR pArTy and pAtRiOtS. Fucking hypocrites.

And the AUDACITY of Clarence Thomas to suggest revoking all of these rights... except Loving v. Virginia, since he personally benefits from that. The fucking arrogance. Shouldn't be surprised though, it's just typical Republican: It doesn't matter unless/until it affects me. It's like they say; you're a lawyer for yourself, and judge for everyone else. 

And NO ONE seems to be paying attention to the HUGE implication of this: THE SUPREME COURT JUST RULED THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO PRIVACY. That is fucking chilling. And if you're just cruisin' cause Roe v Wade doesn't affect you (or at least you think it doesn't). Just wait. They're coming for more. Sooner or later it WILL affect you. And you won't have a right to privacy, and you celebrated it when it happened.

It's the Christians who celebrate this that piss me off the most. The hypocrisy. And they won't take ten seconds to suspend their mindset to simply consider so many of these truths that, because they ignore, turn them to Pharisees...

    -The Bible NEVER forbids abortion
    -The Bible says LIFE BEGINS WITH BREATH
    -God says a fetus has less value than a woman in Exodus
    -God mandates abortion for unfaithful wives in Numbers 5:19-22
    -God frequently demands the slaughter of infants & fetuses
    ...and if you say "that's the Old Testament! It doesn't count! Jesus brought a new covenant!" Well guess what...
    -Jesus Christ NEVER EVEN MENTIONS IT
    -Jewish Law (then AND now) puts the life of the mother above that of the fetus and requires an abortion to save the mother's life. And guess what. Jesus was a Jew who respected Jewish Law.

If you're still opposed to abortion, fine. Just stop pretending it's because you're religious. You're not. You're a Pharisee addicted to the letter of the law and making sure everyone adheres to something that doesn't even affect you.

Ectopic pregnancies, cancer, missed miscarriages, and a myriad of other health conditions will KILL a woman without a pregnancy. If you are happy about SCROTUS's decision, you have not only condemned these women to die, but you've celebrated it as well. Good luck explaining that to God. Now you've read it, you can't claim you didn't know it.

THIS "BIBLICAL" VIEW IS YOUNGER THAN A HAPPY MEAL!!!! 

That's right, it wasn't that long ago that Obama wrote: 

        God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law                 plainly exacts: “If a man kills any human life he will be put to death” (Lev. 24:17). But according         to Exodus 21:22-24, the destruction of the fetus is not a capital offense. … Clearly, then, in                     contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.

I'm sorry, did I say Obama? I meant the conservative evangelical seminary professor from Dallas Theological Seminary, who wrote this in Billy Graham’s magazine in 1979. Check out the link above.

A 13 year old can't legally adopt a baby. Why can she have baby? Why can you impose pregnancy, childbirth and raising a baby on her? And shit, 13 is being generous. I've read awful stories of nurses reporting helping an 8 year old deliver a baby (this was in the United States). A FUCKING EIGHT YEAR OLD. You think she was being promiscuous? No, she was fucking raped by her uncle and then forced to deliver the baby. She didn't know what was happening and had to be given a teddy bear to calm down. I have to keep scrubbing that from my memory because every time I think about it makes me fucking sob hysterically and I can't even deal with this world. And this is EXACTLY what you are celebrating by celebrating this ruling. This comes hand in hand with it.

The government won't let you claim a fetus on your taxes because they don't consider it a person yet.

If you wanna play that Ted Cruz angle "oh it didn't outlaw it, it just put it back to the States" well shut the fuck up. State laws are for shit that don't make sense to make a blanket implementation of across our diverse country. For instance, I can't imagine Arizona and Maine operating under the same agricultural laws. But this is a goddamned HUMAN RIGHT. It is not flexible. An 8 year old girl in Arizona should not be any less free than an 8 year old girl in Maine.

And for the last goddamned time, there is separation of church and state in this country. Not everyone here is Christian. If you believe it's forbidden, then YOU don't get one. You do not have the right to impose that belief on anyone else!! Jesus NEVER FORCED HIS VIEWS ON ANYONE. He made an offer and let them use their own free will. For fucks sake he didn't even shut down the brothels! He simply offered prostitutes a different choice. And if they didn't follow Him? He moved on. He left her to live her life, letting the Holy Spirit doing work from there. YOU SHOVING YOUR VIEWS ON THE NATION IS SO UNCHRISTLIKE, PHARISAICAL AND HYPOCRITICAL!!!!! If you still disagree with this and think religion is okay in this country, well, as I mentioned above, this ruling violates Jewish law, so according to their First Amendment, you have violated their religious liberty. If that makes you upset and you still don't like it, just admit you only care about cis white Christianity (that you don't even understand. Ugh.)

And my God, the amount of reports I'm hearing of people that I actually know celebrating this decision, or waffling on it and saying they don't know what they think cause they could never do it themselves... even though they DID get an abortion before, and they DID force women to abort their children before... you are what's wrong with this country. And if YOU can't do it - then YOU don't do it! Just cause I could never go skydiving doesn't mean I make it illegal for others who can. Ever notice how Jews can't eat pork, but they don't fight to make everyone not eat pork? They don't rally and protest and throw an insurrection because they want pork to be illegal in this country. Be more like that.

I don't even know if I'm angry or sad anymore. I can say that I'm in anguish over this.

I am so, so, so sorry Sophie. I'm sorry for everyone in this country who is so happy that you will be forced to die should you have an ectopic pregnancy. I value you immeasurably above that, just like God does.

Laguna Beach, Tiny Tutus & The Dentist

Last weekend we got to take serious advantage of a beautiful home up in the hills over Laguna Beach. It was Megan's godparents place and we crashed from Friday to Sunday and it was such a treat. Can you believe this was the view that we woke up to every morning - and we weren't even in the master bedroom??

Plus we had another room right off of ours that was perfect for Sophie. It's always a struggle when we travel, if there's no extra room for Sophie's crib (or if, like most times, it's the bathroom) we're then basically ousted from those rooms once she goes down, or at least long enough that we know she's down for sure, and then there's a lot of sneaking around. So it was nice.

We got to spend time in the house and enjoy a beautiful deck with this beautiful view, and the girls loved playing with the wonderfully social cat in the house.

On Saturday, we went down to the beach. Sophie wasn't much of a fan of the waves and water this time around, but we did play in the sand for a little while.

Sunday was Father's Day, so AJ and Chris took off early to golf (which was actually quite impressive considering they were up until 2a the night before). Bryce wasn't feeling so hot, so I took Sophie down to the beach again just us. We walked around the town and went to the playground, which was much less crowded than Saturday and therefore much less intimidating, and she had a great time, in her brand new outfit.

That evening we went back down to the beach for our dinner reservations. It was super crowded which made it not exactly as relaxing as you'd want, but it was still a really nice time! It's so fun to watch AJ & his BFF since middle school become girl dads together.

Bryce was singing to Sophie and
asking her which songs she wanted
to hear. It's so funny to watch them
communicate

We were so sad to leave that beautiful house!

Sophie and I both had Monday off for Juneteenth, so I had planned to try out a "Tiny Tutus" class and scheduled her her first dentist appointment that day. I was pretty worried about the dentist appointment because she still has a lot of bottom teeth due to come in and every time we try to get a look in her mouth, she ain't havin' it.

...but she ended up doing amazing! Everyone actually raved about how great she was. She cooperated, even if she was pretty confused at wtf was going on, but Lord knows Cocomelon on the ceiling definitely helped.

She got a slinky prize and a new toothbrush, and she was ob-sesssssssed with the toothbrush. I had to open it for her immediately and she didn't want to put it down.

Her Tiny Tutu's class was... interesting LOL. When these classes accept these ages, I guess I feel like they know what they're doing... and it's not that they don't, but the very nature of kids that age is still just a bit of a cluster. And Sophie is a little bit of an observer... she needs to sit back and watch for a little bit before she can jump in. But, there were definitely some cute moments. And it makes me that much more anxious and excited for when she can ~really~ appreciate a ballet class!

So that was our pretty-eventful past week. And randomly, AJ plays in a beach football league and it started up again.

It really is summer out here in California.

Ballet Recital

My adult ballet class got to be a part of the studio's annual dance recital last weekend. It was of course optional and I was all for it, but when it was coming down to it, it felt like a little more than I had bargained for and started to be a little stressful (and expensive! damn these costumes!) but in the end, I'm really glad I did it and I'm sure I'll say yes to the next one in 2023 cause for some reason I always end up doing that myself.

There's not really much to say about it, other than it sure felt weird to be back in the dance and performing world after all this time. Putting in the ballet buns and doing stage makeup, hanging out in the dressing rooms and in the dark wings as someone is dancing in the light with the music blaring. It was also surreal to see how much time had passed from when I used to do this. But it was fun to do it again.

I got really nervous just before we were about to go out and felt really blank in the head, but a lot of that was because the stage was so slippery I was worried about breaking my ankle, but it all went well and it all flew by. AJ took a bunch of quick pictures in the beginning because he didn't want to have his phone out, so none of them really turned out, and no one took video, so these are really all that exist from my performance.

I was told that Sophie was transfixed the entire time I was up there and that she definitely recognized me and realized that it was me up there.

Afterwards, I was greeted by Debbie and AJ and Sophie, with AJ holding a rose and Sophie presenting me with a sunflower and it made me melt and made it all worthwhile.

Til next year...?

Denver, Colorado

Sophie's daycare schedule included a closure the week of Memorial Day, so Debbie had planned to come help us out. So it worked out when Jessica was going to Denver that week for work, so I could go crash with her for the hell of it to get away from it a little bit, and AJ wouldn't be left alone to fend for himself against Sophie. So that's how I found myself in Denver this past week.

I've technically been to Denver before. AJ and I went there in December 2015 to visit his friend, but we stayed at his place just outside the city, and we visited Breckenridge and Vail and went to a Broncos game, and never went into the city itself. So this was my first time in Denver proper. And by the way, the landing was so awful, I was truly lucky to not puke before I got off the plane, and was able to run off and make it to the bathroom to splash water on my face and take enough deep breaths to walk it off.

The hotel was right in the downtown area off the 16th Street Mall. We had a great location and we were able to walk everywhere we wanted to, which included going down to Larimer Square for dinner on our first night.

This site on my drive in. Precious!

Denver clocktower

Larimer Square! Featuring jerseys
of the Colorado Avalanche, currently
in West Coast finals for the Stanley Cup

Nighttime skyline

Jessica had some work to do and I made my own plans, but somehow Jessica was honestly interested in visiting Molly Brown's house, so we did that together. If you've forgotten, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" was a real person in history who is known for surviving the Titanic (you'll know her from Kathy Bates' portrayal in the 1998 James Cameron classic) and she was also a huge suffragette and nominated as a Senator. Her and her husband came from a mining town in the mountains and after it started producing the most gold of mines in Colorado (or the West or something like that) they basically struck it rich and moved to this beautiful crasftsman style house on Capitol Hill. I was especially interested because there was a Titanic exhibit commemorating the 110 years of the voyage this year.

The Denver mint!

Colorado State Capitol Building

REAL White Star Line setting from the Titanic!

Signed script!

THEY provided the props and made it
fun! I did cry otherwise at all the horrific
details that were there from the reality
of the Titanic

That night we went out to a Denver saloon for dinner and the Colorado Avalanche hockey team were taking on the Edmonton Oilers in the West Coast finals for the Stanley Cup, game 1. We got very into it and Jessica, who has never even been to a hockey game, was getting very excited, it was hilarious and I was enjoying it too.

The next day I got to sleep in (what's that like?) and relax and get some work done while Jessica went in to the conference. When she was done, we walked through LoDo down to Coors Field to watch the Rockies take on the Miami Marlins. We were actually really lucky, because the game was supposed to just be a 1:10p game that we wouldn't have been able to make it to, but because the game the day before was rained out, they had a double header so there was a second that we got to make it in for. Only $4 to get in! The stadium was empty and we went up the Rooftop bar for drinks and stood and watched the game for awhile. It was super eventful - ended up 12-11 (Rockies win!) over 10 innings. Of course we left long before that, but it was fun. We had also looked up the special food at the Coors Field stadium and learned about Rocky Mountain oysters. We thought we had to try some until we learned that's an expression for fried bull testicles!! WTF! Thank God we learned that in time.

We left to go to a bar across the street to crash a conference party and even came away with a free dessert. When we got back to the hotel, we put on Titanic to watch haha!

The next day was the last day, and Jessica and I had to say goodbye early since she had to go in to the conference and I had to catch my flight before she would be back. I stayed in the hotel until check out and then I decided to walk up to Union Station and take the train to the airport. It was so lovely! The interior was so nice, I actually wished I had gone sooner and could maybe hang out there to read to work on my laptop for awhile.

Flight back was great. Smooth, on time, anything you could want. AJ picked me up and I got to come home to my baby before taking off for dress rehearsal for my ballet recital tomorrow. Yes, you read that right. I'm starting to regret my decision to partake in it but here goes nothing!