Queer Femme in the Country

My Country Days are Numbered

2012-02-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

My gosh, so much has been going on and I have had a hardtime not only carving out some time to blog but also in narrowing down thetopic. I have so many things to write onbut today I decided I wanted to let you know about a new and major change. The Queer Femme is leaving the country. Yes, atotally unanticipated turn of events came about a couple weeks ago; I wasattending a job-hunting seminar one day and received a text from Angela to callher on my break. Wanda had announcedthat she had decided to move to Arkansas to live with her sister and thesister’s family. Wow. Okay, we definitely did not see that coming.

After giving up our fantastic jobs, leaving our lovingcircle of friends and professional groups to help Wanda through her illness,she decided to make arrangements to leave. All I can say about that part is…well there really nothing I can sayabout it. We weren’t considered in thatdecision so that is all. So, as one ofmy old mentors used to say... “Next?!” Wetook a few days to figure out what our “next” step would be and have decided tomove on to the big city. In the jobhunting course offered by Madera County I learned that out of the top 20hardest places to find a job in the country, 5 or 6 of our local Central Valleytowns were at the very top. I cantestify that my skills have not been of any use to employers around here. For weeks recently, there were 3 jobsavailable in Chowchilla. One required agriculturalbackground, one was a pastor, and one was at KFC. I looked today and the only one that wasfilled was KFC. The other two are stillthere. Not a lot of hope. With we are down to one vehicle, only one ofus would ever be able to work outside of town and with no jobs in town, it just is not a promisingfuture. It makes me very sad forChowchilla that the economy has gotten this bad for them. More businesses are going under and therejust is no reason to stay.

I’ve enjoyed a lot about my time here and have tried to findthe bright spots in it. But faced withthis new choice, we decided it’s time to move on to Los Angeles. We have 1) been fortunate to meet someamazing women at Butch Voices conferences over the last few years who live inLA, 2) we have other friends from Reno who have moved down there, plus 3) I’vewanted for years to live nearer to my brother who lives there too. So at least we won’t be going there withoutknowing anyone. I’m sure it will offerus different challenges from those Chowchilla did; but life without challengesprovides very few opportunities to grow and change. I’m for growing. I’m also for succeeding without having tobloody your head from banging it on the wall like this.

There are a lot more blogs left to write about myexperiences here in the country so I’ll still be blogging and bringing thosestories to you, but now I’ll be changing gears and going through more changesas we work our way into the city. Whatwill become of Queer Femme in the Country? I don’t honestly know, fair readers. I plan to keep blogging but I guess I should change the name onceeverything is switched around. Got anyideas for names? You guys always havegood comments and suggestions so feel free to share them with me.

In the meantime, the QFITC is still officially in thecountry, even as I’m on a train to LA to search for a job and place tolive. Peace out.

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Link to Farming video for Email Followers

2012-01-22T23:12:00.000-08:00

For those of you that follow my blog via email, I noticed when it emailed me a copy of the most recent post Farming: Not Just for White People, the link to the video (which shows up on the blog page) did not come through in the email version. I am not sure why, but in any event, here is the link if you'd like to view the video:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/QuzhwkaNC40?rel=0

Sorry for any inconvenience.

QFITC

Farming: Not Just for White People

2012-01-22T20:47:00.000-08:00

My mom sent me this video in one of the many, many, many emails she sends me each week. Mom is one of those sweet retired ladies whosees every “forward” (as I call them) as a potential source of new and greatwisdom and actually reads them all. Shedoes. Then she lovingly decides whowould benefit from which and forwards them on. I finally told her, “Please don’t be offended, but I honestly don’t havetime to read them all and usually I just delete them.” Mom then developed a code that tells me whichones have personal notes to me inside them so I don’t delete the ones where sheis actually asking or telling me something. (And my friends wonder where I get my analytical tendencies.) Butsometimes the subject lines intrigue me and I admit to looking at a select few. Today I got this one called "Farmers Tribute: So God Made A Farmer" from Farms.com:

I have to say I have enjoyed some of Paul Harvey’smonologues or diatribes over the years. I’m sad that he’s gone; while I did not always agree with him, I didrespect him as a news-person. And franklyhe was a comforting voice and reminder of what my mom would call the good olddays (which my grandma always told me were not really so good.) The narrative of this video piece is a bit tooreligious for my personal taste, butI get the sentiment for farmers and I’m sure many people will love itsreferences to God and his/her love for the farmers. Now that I am closer to farmland and farmingthan I ever dreamed I would be, I see a lot more of what goes into it, and Iwould not even pretend to think I truly have more than an inkling. What I have witnessed while driving aroundcountry roads or overheard at the local coffee shop or listened to Wanda’sfarming and farm-worker friends talk about is still impressive: work that never ends but simply shifts fromone crop or harvest to the next, dealing with Mother Nature’s inconsistenciesand turmoil, or simply hard and often back-breaking work. The sometimes poetic description in the videois probably a good representation of what the farming life involves. I respect it. It is humbling; not only for the amount of work that most modern workerswould not willingly sign up for, but also for what it means to the rest of whojust wake up and know there is going to be fresh food at the supermarket or farmstand with very little thought about what it takes to get it there. What must it feel like to be a farmer andknowingly work to feed people? Rewarding? Unappreciated? Wherewould we be without them?

What jumped out at me in watching it and maybe it did foryou too, is…with one exception right in the beginning, all of these farmers arewhite. What the hell? This video certainly was not filmed aroundhere. The Central Valley has a lot morediversity in their farmers. I’m surethere is still a preponderance of farm owners that are white, but there areplenty of farmers that are more diverse than this little “slice of Americana”would have you believe. Also, if we stepaway from the idea of who actually owns the farm since in many cases evenaround here that could be a corporation, where are the actual farm workers inthis video? Can most farms be worked byjust dad+mom+2 kids these days? I don’tthink so. When I drive around here, the workers I see farming lettuce, almonds, cotton, corn, and more include a lot more brown faces than white ones. Can you say Cesar Chavez? Whydon’t the brown people show up in the film?

I admit I’m going off half-cockadoodle-dooed here. This is not a piece I spent a weekresearching for you; I’m just calling it like I see it and videos orcommercials like this that want us to pretend all the farmers are white hetero-normativefamily units is ridiculous. I tried tofigure out how old the video piece is. According to Farms.com YouTube channel it looks like they made the videoand posted at in June 2011. The PaulHarvey voice-over may be years older (it's credited in several places as being from an essay he delivered in 1978 to the National FFA), but the video's photographic images are what bugged me. Where are the Latino/Portuguese/Black peoplein this picture? The queers? Yes…there are LGBT farmers out there. Howabout women farmers (that are not standing next to their Central-Casting-lookinghusbands)? One of the toughest people Iknow around Chowchilla is an amazing woman farmer. I did look up a couple statistics and founda graph from a report by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service(2007) that showed tremendous growth in both women and Hispanic farmers. While White male farmers have been the traditional operator, growth by non-Whites and females have been outpacing for several years.


		There were 306,209	female principal operators counted in 2007, up from 237,819 in 2002 –	an increase of almost 30 percent.

I guess before I drive my blog “tractor” over the edge here,I really just want to say that I’m tired of the misrepresentation. It is easy to blame the media and the corporationsand whomever else we like to blame for that kind of thing. But it is up to us to question it. I amone of those people who proudly wore a button around San Francisco for like 10years that said “Question Authority.” You’reprobably not surprised by that; since then I’ve learned to expand that to“Question Everything.” In these days ofCGI usage in daily commercials and government cover-ups and hypocriticalevangelist ministers with mistresses and/or tapping their feet for boy-sex inpublic restrooms, and magazines photo shopping cellulite off of everyone over15 so we all think we are supposed to be something we’re not….yes. Question Everything. If something doesn't look or sound right toyou, like a charming little video about farming that tries to sell you a loadof bullshit and subliminally or brazenly shows you that perfect picture offarming is a white opposite-sex type of family where everyone’s hair blows inthe breeze, don’t buy it. Get mad. Challenge things. Do some research and find out the truth. If you are reading this then you have thepower at your fingertips. Farming isnot, nor has it ever been, just for white people.

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Ode to Chanclas

2012-01-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

The weather around here has been pretty nice this week. I’ve made multiple comments on the Facebookpages of my friends in Reno saying how much I do NOT miss the snow. Except for looking out the window at while Icurl up with my wife someplace warm with a Hot Apple Pie cocktail in myhand. While I admit she and I had somepretty outrageous late night drunken snow angel-making adventures, for the mostpart I like it much better here in the Central Valley farm country for winter.

I inherited a lovely 40+ year old garden started by thewoman who owned the home we rent. I wishI could have met her and learned exactly how to take care of each and everyplant she lovingly placed in my garden haven. I guess I could call myself The Reluctant Gardener, but I’m really notall that reluctant about it, just uninformed. I’ve never had the opportunity to grow a dozen rose bushes, lily’s andother bulbs or the other 897 plants (I might be exaggerating but perhaps not,it’s hard to count them all) I’ve become the caretaker of. I’ve been told by the current owners not toworry about all those plants; that if I want to rip some out or if some happento die, that it is okay. Maybe for them,but of course I take it as a personal challenge to keep each of the originalowner’s “babies” alive and well. So far,I’m doing pretty good (pats self on back.)

One of the great things I’ve learned about on my gardening“path” is the beauty of a pair of chanclas. First I must tell you that I only recently learned this term. When I first saw a pair I thought they waytoo boyish for moi, and in fact, the people I knew that wore them were gay guyfriends in LA. When I would visit there,I admired how cute they looked with their socks and chanclas but didn’t reallysee myself wearing them. And they always lookedreally convenient and comfortable; very LA. I didn't know they had a name, I since I have a penchant for making up terminology, I called them“slippee-slidee shoes"; made sense tome.

So this past summer in Chowchilla after I realized that gardening is well, kind of dirty, Ididn’t want to ruin my sneakers, and flip flops were not always the smartest choice while mowingthe lawn, I grabbed a pair a pair of chanclas while shopping for supplies atone of the big-box stores around here. They were marked down to $5 so I figured what the heck. Angela said, “So you got yourself a pair ofchanclas?” I said, “What? You mean theseslippee-slidee things? She laughed hystericallyand said, “Umm, yeah. They’re calledchanclas. You’ve never heard that?” Obviously, no I had not. Knowing my thirst for knowledge, she said,“Look it up.” So first stop, Urban Dictionary; one of my favorite sources. There I learned about chancla, chanclas, chancleta, chancletas, and awhole buttload of other words with the root “chancla” but that are a littlerude and get into some name-calling; you can go look them up yourself too, butnow I know bit more about my chanclas. They are delightful. They aredelicious. They may not be de-lovely,but who cares; they feel good!

Now that I have a pair, I notice them everywhere…at thegrocery store, the Starbucks, Carl’s Jr. (Wanda’s favorite place to get take-outlunch from) and all the other hot spots of Chowchilla. How did I ever live without thesethings? I can wear them out in thegarden, kick them off by the door, and hose’m down. They aren’t as slippery on the grass asflip-flops and offer more protection. Iadmit I’m one of those lesbians who learned while living in San Francisco towear socks with my Birkenstocks. Subsequent butch girls pressured me to get rid of them, but secretly Ilove them and so of course I have worn socks with my chanclas even while mywife laughs at me. But she does ittoo. So there is the added advantagethat when it’s not sunny and warm outside, you can do them with socks. I think they kind of look cute. Here’s Angela in her chanclas with shortslook.

Then I realized a couple weeks ago that duh, there’s no snowhere...it's not summer, but I can wear them in the winter too! I just added black socks for a monotone black chanclas winter “kickingback in sweats” look. Why not?

Okay, I admit they are not pretty. They are not femme-y. They definitely qualify in lesbian practicalityand casual fashion though. It’s hard tobe dressed up and femme-y every minute of this country life so a girl has tohave some more practical options. I mayhave to look into some ways to bling them up a bit though before next summer. This country life is just different that way. No point in wearing Jimmy Choo's for lawnmowing, raking, gardening and whatnot. Well maybe for whatnot.

Blessed are the chanclas for they may be worn by many, are ideal for a range of budgets and purposes, and will make your feet say “ahh.”

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VSPW To Undergo Gender Change?

2012-01-07T17:32:00.000-08:00

Note to reader: This particularpost turned out to be much more than I imagined when I started, so be preparedfor a bit longer read than usual. Go getyour coffee first. I am not affiliatedwith either side of this issue, nor do I claim to be any kind of expert. Just a citizen of a small Central Valleytown.

Valley State Prison for Women from www.cdcr.ca.gov

It has taken me all these monthshere in Chowchilla to get sort of “settled.” For those who read this blog regularly, you’ve heard many of the challengesand differences my wife and I have faced in moving here. It is only now starting to feel like we livehere rather than just visiting. It’shard finding the right descriptor. Iwanted to say comfortable, but most of the time it’s really not comfortablehere. There are some very nice people tointeract with in addition to our friends, but even though Angela grew up here,we are essentially outsiders and probably always will be. Small towns are not always as welcoming as seenon cable TV movies. In my opinion, itdirectly correlates to how insulated this community is and that they feel theyhave to protect their way of life. Doesjust being a lesbian in your town mean I am trying to change your way oflife? Maybe it does to most of them…thecircle feels pretty closed.

I don’t give up or give ineasily, so we prevail by being an ongoing presence here whether we are liked ornot, welcomed or not. My friends willtell you that neither Angela nor I are good at just sitting around or kickingback and letting things roll. I havebeen an activist of one type or another since 1988 in San Francisco. I personally believe that part of the reasonwe are put on earth is to make ourselves into the best we can be and to makedifferences large or small whenever and however we can. So even though I’m far away from my circle oflong-time friends and the years of political and activist contacts I made whereI used to live, you can’t take the activist out of the girl.

I’ve been paying attention to thelocal news as much as possible and there are a couple of pretty big issues atstake right now. One, which I’mfollowing but want to do more research on, is the high speed rail project. I am for the concept but can see why many ofthose affected in this town are fighting it. That’s a whole other blog post. Theother is the conversion of Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW), one ofChowchilla’s two women’s prisons to a men’s prison. The primary concerns I’ve talked to townsfolkabout fall into:

Social service overload: It is said that when women are in prison,families do not “follow” the prisoner at the same rate as when men are inprison. Families tend to “follow” andmove to where the husband/father/babydaddy is. Relocation to a town that already has 17-20+% unemployment and very fewjob availabilities is hard. I can tellyou about that personally. It is assumedin these conversations that any or all families who move here will be withoutother resources and will likely add to the already heavy load the few localcaseworkers have and bankrupt the county as there is already a heavy demand dueto unemployment, general assistance, food stamps, WIC. It could overload the offices that servethose needs. Also, those families withchildren will overload the school system where kindergarten classes alreadyhave more than 30 kids per classroom and very few teachers have any assistancein the classroom. I hear an impliedracism or classism in many comments on this subject but that is not even beingacknowledged in the arguments.
Public safety: Some of the area communities are alreadyconsidered low income/high crime. Thereis high drug-related crime in Madera already and statistically men’s prisonsincrease crime in the area as drug trafficking inside prison is big businessand law enforcement battles it inside and out. It is assumed that bringing in male prisoners means they will be moredangerous than women prisoners. Chowchilla sees itself as an all-American model of small-town goodnessand no one wants to increase crime around here. I have to say that while crime does occur it is minimal compared tolarger places.

These are reasonable concerns andecho my own upon hearing of the situation. I’m one of those citizens that believe we have to pay attention to whatis going on and not just assume someone else has our best interest atheart. I may be a newbie here, but I’mgoing to be affected by the fallout, the taxes, the crime, the unemployment alongwith those who’ve lived here their whole life. Maybe more, being an outsider and all. So I saw this meeting notice in the newspaper for an informationalmeeting in the Madera County Board of Supervisors chambers. It was held a few days ago and Angela and Iwere there to see what we could learn. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) wasrepresented by a panel of 5, umm, experts, and they presented their case andhoped to clarify how moving the girls out and the boys in to one whole prisonis not going to affect anyone really. Hmmm. I put on my skeptical hat(imaginary of course; with my blue hair and my butch wife I don’t need any moreattention) and hunkered down in my seat.

First of all, I found out thatall of this is happening because of “The Realignment” as referred to many timesby the CDCR. Earlier in 2011 before Imoved to California, Gov. Brown signed legislation meant to close the“revolving door” of low-level prisoners that repeatedly cycle in and out of thestate prisons. Because the state prisonsare extremely overcrowded the mandate is to reduce the overcrowding, because ofcourse nobody wants a new prison built in their backyard even if the statecould afford some new ones. Most of ushear about overcrowding but I did not know until this week that at the timethis went into effect, the state prisons were at 202% of capacity. Capacity means 1 person, 1 cell. Even after “The Realignment” finishes, theywill still be over-capacity but only 137.5%. It’s such a strange number. Ikeep trying to imagine the torture of the one guy who is the 37.5%. Does he share 3 cells? Do 3 other prisoners get to share him? Does he move around every other night so noone has to share with him for very long? Anyway, I digress.

I picked up 8 pages of very goodinformational material and listened to two hours of testimony and discussion,but because I like you, I’m going to consolidate it into the most fascinatinghighlights.

Here’s what the CDCR had to sayabout our two main concerns:

Social Services: No need to worry folks. They have statistics that say that actuallymenfolk have fewer visitors (women are 43% “unvisited” but men are 59%“unvisited”) and families do not “follow” as often as you think. They stated that the level I-II inmates aremoved around frequently depending on how their points go up and down making itimpractical for most families to up and move. When asked by Madera County whether frequently means every 5 months orevery 3 years, the CDCR could not specify, but they still said families movinghere will not be a problem. Statistically only 1-4% of prisoner families are anticipated tomove. The CDCR’s Notice of Exemptionreport notes that VSPW typically houses 3,800 inmates and they don’t expectthat to change (except for their gender of course.) 3,800 x 4% = 152 potential families thatcould move to the area. See? No biggie.
Public Safety: The CDCR had some very colorful (and probablyexpensive!) charts on hand to show that based on reported crimes within the prison,the women have a much higher rate of criminal activity. So see, now that the men are coming,everything will be even easier to deal with! If you happened to wonder what is happening to all those existing womenprisoners, their numbers have been (or will be) dwindling through attrition andrelease and now only higher level prisoners are coming to VSPW (the lower levelcrimes staying at the county jails now). The VSPW ladies will be distributed between the other 2 remaining statewomen’s prisons; one is the other here in Chowchilla (CCWF), and the second inCorona (CIW). There is no need to worryabout the new prisoners being more violent or anything. The men housed here will be level II. CDCR explained the levels this way, in caseyou are curious:

Level I: low security risks, often candidates forprison camps or farms
Level II: low to medium security. This also includes level II SNY. I researched and this stands for SensitiveNeeds Yard prisoners. Sensitive needsprisoners include those who are at danger from the general prison populationssuch as sex offenders, mentally ill, old/infirm, ex-gang members, or highnotoriety ones like Charles Manson or Phil Spector.
Level III: Medium security risk
Level IV: Highest security risk

CDCR chart showing prison visit statistics

Local county and city representativesspoke out with these counterarguments:

Social Services: District Supervisor Dr. Charles Martinbrought up the fact that 4% of the prisoners families moving here may not soundlike much, but those 152 families, even if each only had 2 children meansroughly 300 children would be added to the school system. He stated that inChowchilla all classrooms are already at and over capacity for optimumlearning. In classrooms that are alreadyoverloaded, he pointed out it only takes 1 disruptive student to alter thewhole learning process. Those 300children would impact nearly every classroom in the district (if all moved toChowchilla). Even spread over all ofMadera County, it is potentially a significant impact on all school resourcesfrom space, supplies, general expense and personnel. Sidenote: Personally,I’ve had to take advantage of some social services myself since I am stillseeking employment. During the times Iwas dealing with a caseworker, I found out that they had to work extremely longdays for weeks on end, without a choice really, because the caseloads wereenormous. I wish I could remember thenumber she told me, but in an orientation class I had to take, we were told ifwe had to call our caseworker, don’t expect a call back for at least a week becauseof the number of people each is trying to take care of. Seeing an opportunity for work, I of courseoffered my services, but was told that they were unable to hire newpositions. Thinking about how evenhalf of those 152 families needing assistance upon relocating would impact theSocial Services offices both here and in Madera makes me cringe for thathardworking staff.
Public Safety: Madera County DA Michael Kietz attended and broughtup what I think are more critical points. Now that all crimes in Madera County that do not meet the State standardof serious or violent felonies including those requiring registration as a sexoffender (AB109), and are sentenced to county jail rather than stateimprisonment, the burden to the criminal system is bound to increase. In addition, there is the issue of crimesthat occur inside prison since theprison is in Madera County. I neverthought about this aspect before. Apparently each county can choose not to prosecute those crimes, butMadera has chosen over the years to take those crimes seriously and prosecute. Whatare they supposed to do? Let them getaway with it? In spite of the statisticsCDCR presented about women’s crime versus men’s crime, the experience of the DAis that the nature and types of crimes committed by males, in particular drugtrafficking, bring in groups of criminals that exist on the “outside” tofacilitate the trafficking “inside” and just this alone is going to increasethe DA office’s workload. There are ofcourse other non-drug crimes as well. Mr.Kietz estimates that to handle the increased prosecution load plus the increasein local prisoners and related expenses, he will need an additional budget ofroughly $670,000 to handle it. Where isthat funding to come from?

All things come back to economics. The State has been mandated tocut prisoners and therefore the CDCR’s budget has been cut to correlate to fewerprisoners. The CDCR stated at themeeting they are not “gaining” anything by The Realignment because they arelosing funding too. The fact sheet Ipicked up at the meeting from the CDCR states that money will flow to the countiesfrom vehicle license fees and State sales tax. Funds have been temporarily allocated to counties for 2011-12 but nextyear supposedly there will be a permanent allocation after an assessment hasbeen made of initial distribution to number of offenders. So supposedly funding will be taken care of,but the concerns I heard relate more to when, how, and will it be enough?

CDCR chart showing employment at the prison

One main problem seems tobe communication, or rather lack of it. The County feels the State is ramming this down their throat. Because there has not been much collaborationfrom the State to work with local administrators, it felt thatway from my vantage point too. Managementby intimidation is never as effective as management by objective orcollaboration. Why is that so hard forpeople to get? Anyhoo, State Senator Cannella, Madera County Supervisor David Rogers, Chowchilla Council Member Isaac Jackson and all the other people who spoke were very concerned aboutthis. After listening to all of it, Ifelt the same skepticism and lack of distrust in the CDCR representatives whowere there. They were there to explainhow this all came to be, and said up front they did not have many answers. Most of the difficult questions will have tobe forwarded on to others in the CDCR who can possibly answer them or morelikely, pass them on to another State agency that is in charge of the fundingand related concerns.

I walked away feeling betterbecause of increased knowledge about how the prison system works and how theprisoners are categorized, but not because those CDCR representatives gave meany confidence in them. They are justdoing their jobs, right? Unfortunately,regardless of impact? Their poorapproach in working with the locals shows their lack of any other perspectiveand that makes me not trust them. Theprisoners being relocated here will be low-to-medium risk because our existingVSPW facility is just perfect for that level and requires only “negligible”changes. One group out, a few minordetails like taking out shower partitions for the ladies privacy, then bring inthe next group. But if we have no realimpact as a community on this change, why would we think we’d have any impactif the State finds 4 years from now that there is overcrowding in the system oflevel 3 and 4 prisoners and Chowchilla is just the right size? They say that won’t happen. Maybe it won’t, but what they’ve shown so fardoes not make me comfortable. I guessthat’s just one more thing.

It was highly recommended by theMadera County Supervisor that the CDCR take the time to meet with localofficials, in particular the DA and I really hope they do. It might go a long way in helping citizenslike me believe they want to work with us. But in reality they don’t have to, so we’ll see what they do next. I believe it’s important to look forward, tochange or grow, and not keep things the way they are “just because.” But change just for the sake of change is not necessarily good either. The County is concerned because the State didnot have to do an environmental impact report and the County has no doubt therewill be impact. If this needs to happenand it will improve the state, then that is overall better for me and for Chowchilla. In doing some reading and researching, someof it makes a lot of sense. But nobody wants to be told what to do,especially on their own property. LGBTpeople know all about that, with half the country trying to tell us what we cando, think, or feel with our own minds and bodies. If you want to put your hands on mine, thenyou better do something to make me want you to. Otherwise I’m going to fight back. It’s just that simple. So CDCR,you might want to make your next “date” with Madera County one where they’regoing to want to go to second base with you. Or face the wrath of the small town folks.

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Country Holiday Wrapup

2011-12-31T12:44:00.000-08:00

Some of you might have noticed I have not blogged too muchduring the holidays. Part of that wasbecause I took up the NaNoWriMo challenge to write a novel; November isNational Novel Writing Month I found out. I’ve wanted to write a book for some years and so I used that challengeto start it. I have not finished it, butit did incent me to get a very good start and I will finish it. The downside was that writing a certain number of words per day meant I could not do itall. I know…hard for a recoveringperfectionist, but I had to make some choices.

I tried to seek out as many ways possible to enjoy somethingabout these holidays even though at times I hardly noticed we were in themiddle of the “season.” This is just notthe happy holiday time my wife and I would have had in our previous life inReno. We are very grateful to all thefriends we have made (or in Angela’s case, continued with) inChowchillaland. We would go insanewithout you, but in this type ofcaretaking situation, there are very few opportunities for socializing since weare pretty much tied to the person we are taking care of. Here are some of the ways I found tocelebrate in spite of all that which were fun to enjoy and holiday-esque:

Chowchilla Christmas Tree Lighting

I saw this event in the local paper and it was on a Saturdaynight. Most towns have a similar ritualand I thought it would be festive. Istarted talking about it and heard a mixed response from the natives. Apparently, the town of Chowchilla for yearshad a Christmas tree out in the middle of main street. At an intersection. I had a hard time figuring out how that wouldwork with traffic and all, but the townsfolk liked it, it had “been that way”and people figured out how to work with it. Until that one person I guess. Somebody had to go and ruin it by running into the tree and thenCalTrans came in and put a stop to it. Although we call Robertson Blvd our “Main Street”, in fact it is StateHighway 233 so guess whose rules Chowchilla had to play by? The state put the kybosh on it and eversince, the Christmas tree was lit on a lot up off of Front Street. Here's a photo of a similar tree in Kingsburg.

Then…Rite Aid bought up that lot and is(nearly finished) building a new store there. Part of the deal is apparently that they had to keep the Christmas treetradition alive. So corporate Americanbeing what it is, they imported some large pine tree and installed it out in asmall swatch of redwood-chipped dirt out by the sidewalk on Front street andthat is now our Christmas tree. On thischilly Saturday evening in early December, many of the townsfolk gathered,including this lesbian and my wife. Westood in the Rite Aid paved parking lot and bought hot chocolate, coffee, andhomemade cookies from the Lioness booth, trying to ignore where we were. We crowded around Wanda and her wheelchair,quickly rolling into some very good local friends with jolly hats on. The local junior high and high school bandsplayed, a woman with a nice voice I could barely hear sang a tune, and localpeople made speeches from the stage. Eventually Santa Claus showed up riding on a vintage fire truck and allthe families swarmed into line for the kid pictures with Santa. Pretty small town quaint.

Madera Electric Tractor Parade

Okay, this one I could not pass up. I have to say I was a bit like an 8-year-oldmyself…”Angela, please can we go? PleaseAngela, can we go see the electric tractors?” Maybe it’s what I call my “butch twist” that loved the whole tractoridea or just simply the novelty, but I have not knowingly attended such aparade in my history. No one I mentionedit to in town had ever been. “Whaaaaattt? I asked myself. Howcould you live somewhere that people put lights on tractors and drive them downtheir main street and not go see it? Butthat’s the kind of girl I am. I guess Ipestered her sufficiently, but I think Angela was interested in going too, soon that night we bundled up and headed to Madera. We had looked up in advance to see where theparade route would go, and joy of joy, discovered that someone in Mader isbrilliant! They combine this uniqueholiday event with one of our favorites…a wine walk! Or rather a “stroll” as they called it. Either way!!

We parked within walking distance and headed towards the crowd. The first business we saw that appeared to beparticipating was actually a beer brewery, but a guy walked out and said “freebeer” so we turned on our heels and went in. Three Monkey’s brewing was in the final stages of opening their breweryand while not yet open for sales, were giving out samples of all their variousbrews. They were all very good. I was really surprised by their IPA. I am not normally an IPA fan. I prefer maltiness over hoppiness, but thelady convinced me to try and I have never had such a good one. (Sorry Reno “Icky” fans!). We met some people from the Madera Chamber ofCommerce that helped us get started on the official wine stroll and we had agreat time overall. I discovered a greatnew restaurant, Maya Grill on Yosemite downtown. Had a terrific tamale when I got my winesample there and it was so good we did go back recently. By that time, the streets were crowded andthese two blue-haired lesbians wandered into the midst of farmers and townsfolkto cheer on all the tractors, quads, fire trucks and flatbed trucks justcovered in beautiful Christmas lights. Iam a fan of parades of all kinds, but I have to say this really was one of myfavorites so far in my life. If you arein the area at Christmas time next year, look into it. Between the parade and the wine stroll it wasreally fun and everyone was in a pretty good holiday mood. They make it fun for those who don’t drink byoffering mugs at a lower price who those who want to stroll with their kids orjust have cocoa or hot apple cider at each stop on the map. Check it out.

I ended the season by going into cahoots with my brother totravel down to Los Angeles to surprise my mom who was also visiting there forthe holidays and thought I would not be coming. I am very fortunate that my family and I are pretty tight and my brotheris one of my bestest friends. As theholidays wrap up and all that lies before me is New Year’s eve and day, I hopeyou all found something in your own season that stirred your heart a littleand made you glad for at least one someone in your life. I face many challenges in this new country-fiedlife I’ve fallen into, but I remain grateful for the people and places in mylife that bring me peace and joy. Nowonto the New Year!

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Seniors Are Not Saints

2011-12-27T12:22:00.000-08:00

An incident happened a couple weeks ago that should not haveaffected me the way it did. I started towrite about and got kind of stuck, so I let it sit a bit and decided to tackleit again.

As a queer femme I have had remarkably few negativeincidents because of my queerness, especially compared to stories from my butchfemale or gay male friends. Like manyother femmes, I “pass”, meaning that just to look at me there is nothing distinctly“gay” about me that puts up people’s sensors or gaydars or other filters thatalert them to something they don’t like. Or maybe I should just say something that shows them what is differentfrom them.

Because I don’t really “look” gay, I’ve had to fight my wayout of the closet. I’ve spent more timeconvincing people I am gay than most LGBT folks spend telling others they arenot. I’ve always joked about getting arainbow “L” tattooed on my forehead. Iwant people to know. I love that I amqueer. It’s as much a part of me asbeing a woman, or being American. Idon’t “rub people’s noses in it” (an expression I find distasteful, but one thatmany straight people I’ve known over the years say when they are okay with mybeing gay up to a degree, but please don’t tell them more than they want toknow or are comfortable with.)

So a few weeks ago, one of the Chow Chow Sisters (CCS)around here told me about an exercise class. I miss going to the gym, but since I’m still looking for work, extraslike gym membership are not an option right now. I checked out a yoga class here in town, butyou have to buy an $80 card up front so that’s out too. So when the CCS told me that it was free, myears perked up. This life of caretakinginvolves a lot of shoving and lifting but not so much aerobic activity. Have you ever walked with an elderlyperson? Or pushed a wheelchair? You just can’t go that fast. So I thought a slow paced exercise classwould be a great way to get back into it, and maybe get some good stretchinglike I was craving. The CCS told me itwas at the senior center but assured me anyone could go. I didn’t want to seem like I was takingadvantage of what few perks the seniors have these days, so I called the nextbusiness day to make sure it was cool. The administrator said it was twice a week, you did not have to be asenior and they welcomed having newcomers. Great. I made a commitment tomyself to start the next Thursday.

I figured it might be a little surprising to them the firstday I showed up and it was. InChowchilla, it is pretty rare for anyone over 60 not to know most people. The senior center feels like that when youwalk in. They don’t know you, thereforeyou are an outsider. I walked down anarrow hallway that opened into a large recreation room. On one side are pool tables; on the other endof the room is a stage with large round tables and chairs filling the space inbetween. A walkway had been forgedbetween the tables to allow for the line-dancing class that was taking placethat morning. I am sure I looked a bitlost. A young-ish (at least for theseniors) fat chick with blue hair doesn’t show up wandering around at theChowchilla Senior Center every day. Two olderwomen were sitting at a table watching the pool-players and drinkingcoffee. They noticed my lost expressionand said hello. I asked if they knewabout the exercise class and they said no one was here yet for it and invitedme to sit down. Very kind and friendly butI said I figured I’d wander around for a while. As I made my way toward the area they pointed to, another lady came upand asked me if I needed help. Oh, did Imention I was carrying a yoga mat? LOL. I wasn’t sure what I wasgetting into and the last time I had attended a class it came in handy. That kind of made it clear I had no idea whatI was doing. The woman introducedherself by her formal name, but a few minutes later I learned she goes by PeeWee. She was slender and petite, withblondish hair perfectly coiffed. She wasdressed comfortably; casual but not sweats or exercise wear. She said she was there for the class too andled me to the room. She seemed concernedthis morning that no one was there yet besides the two of us, but soon afterthe room began to fill, then fill some more. That first time there was 11 or 12 of us and we barely fit in theroom. It was suggested we move out intothe rec room area but it sounded like there was some “bad blood” with theline-dancing group and so we stayed.

It was kind of sweet, talking to all these older ladies andthe class was pretty much what I was hoping for, mostly stretching andrange-of-motion exercises to get your blood and joint fluids movingaround. We used hand weights and a thoseelastic bands for resistance exercises. The women all knew each other so one suggestedthey all introduce themselves; very polite. I made some jokes to put them at ease and they were helpful withexplaining different things. They allhad this farm life common experience that I picked up in the comments they madeduring class. I felt good afterwards anda couple of the ladies stopped this blue-haired girl to welcome me and chat alittle. I went home feeling positiveabout the experience and told Angela they were nice. She said, “Just wait until they ask you aboutyour husband.

I went again the next Monday. It was a smaller group and I got a kick outof the different characters in there. None of them wore work-out clothes like a t-shirt and sweatpants…theyall wore “outfits” and had their hair done. A few wore Keds type shoes; not too many Nikes in the bunch. We took a break halfway through and had icewater from a pitcher. They all commentedon how much chlorine was in the water, while I subtly sipped on my bottledwater and avoided the pitcher.

The next class day had about seven or eight ladiesagain. Kind of the “core” group. This one cracked me up; she was a bit biggerand taller than the rest and definitely the biggest loudmouth, but generallyfunny. Whatever exercise we were on, she was over there doing somethingelse. The ladies tended to chat whilestretching and this day got on the topic of the prison out here in chowchilla;how it is being turned from a women’s to a men’s and a recent story in thepaper about how a guy had been let out after 9 turns in prison and immediatelycommitted another burglary. We allgrumbled, including myself, about the problems of repeat offenders. The loudmouth then said, “They should all be puton an island somewhere.” A couple peoplenodded and mmm-hmmmed. Then she said,“Just like all the gays. Those gay menand gay women should all be put on an island.” Nods and mmm-hmmms all around. Rut-roh.

As we were putting ourfeet in the elastic band for some quad stretching, the aging bully carried on,“God made man and woman that way for a reason and they need to learnthat.” WHAAAAATTT??? Omigod Omigod my blood is boiling up in myhead. Part of me wanted to keep onexercising and ignore it. They don’t getit. At 82, this one probably neverwill. But I can’t sit here and listen toit. I can’t say nothing and hold myhead up. It was one of thosemoments. I felt some discomfort in theair. Perhaps some of the ladies wereuncomfortable with the topic, or maybe they were more polite or whatever, noteveryone was in on the mmm-hmmms and comments, but probably four or five ofthem had become a chorus for the loudmouth. The blood was pounding so hard in my head as I calmly pulled up my elasticstrap, folded it up, gathered my weights and words. I could not get into a biblical lecture here;my verse knowledge is not strong enough anymore. I decided I would merely stand up and be apresence. That she should know that youcan’t always “tell” who is gay. That Iwas not afraid of her and her words, but that I don’t have to tolerate herpersonal ignorance. Without breathing, Istood up, entered and crossed the circle of exercising ladies and theiranti-gay chatter. The teacher said, “OhPamela, do you have to leave early?” “Yes”, I said, “I do. To everyoneI said, “I happen to be a lesbian. And Ithink I’ve heard enough ignorance and judgment for one day.” I looked at as many of them in the eyes as Icould. I was so angry I could not saymuch more than that. The room wentsilent like the air had been sucked out. It’s one thing for them to say those things. It’s another to be caught. As I continued past the loudmouth, she said,“God made you that way. Bless you.” Like I need her blessing. Jeez. I looked at her then kept on walking with pride and dignity.

Well it’s one way to get your blood pumping. Ignorance is everywhere. I’m glad my spiritual self recognized it as ateaching moment and gave me the strength and words; they felt like they werecoming from some “other” place. To standup for the person I am. Quietpower. That’s the ticket sometimes.

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Thanksgiving Thoughts

2011-11-24T11:36:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, Turkey Day, Gobble Gobble Day…orwhatever you like to call it. I’m one ofthose people in a situation where it is not easy to access what to be gratefulfor. I’m without most my friends, a job,my car, or much hope for things to improve anytime soon. It has become a rare and splendiferous thingjust to spot another gay person. I spendmost of my day trying to help out in a mostly thankless and decliningsituation.

But there is something inside of me that never allows me toquit and tries to show me the bright side of whatever I find myself in. That is what I am most thankful for rightnow. Of course I cannot imagine lifewithout my wonderful Angela, our loving dog and the wonderful friends andfamily who do love and support us. Istill have my five senses and can walk. Thisis not a pity plea. It is simply theacknowledgement that not everyone has or has grown up with the Hallmark versionof what Thanksgiving is “supposed” to be.

There is some doubt whether Thanksgiving is even somethingto be celebrated since the invasion of America by English settlers did not workout very well for our much mistreated American Indian people. The story we grew up with the pilgrims havinga feast to celebrate a harvest after some pretty rough times might be true, itmight not. I guess that could be its ownblog post. But it is a nice idea and Ihope it is true that they shared with the local tribes. It would be heartwarming. The Wampanoag tribe gave the pilgrims seedsthat would help them grow food that would survive there. Basically it is a day of being grateful foran abundant harvest. WHAT is harvestedis open to interpretation in my book. There are a lot of farmers around here and I hope they are thankful todaybecause they had a good, prosperous harvest. For those of us who do not grow crops, we still harvest. We work. We plant ideas. We plant hopesand dreams. How and whether they come tofruition may not always time out to this specific day, but they can still be inaction even if we cannot see them right now; a work in progress.

I stumbled across this quote the other day and can’t quiteget it out of my head:

“There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all weAmericans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratusbiscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than itused to. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.” -- O. Henry

Canada also has a Thanksgiving, similar in intent but basedon different history. As O. Henry says,ours is unique to us. Each family andindividual’s is unique to them as well. Ihope each of you has at least one “harvest” that you can remember in your lifeas a happy one. If not, while you aresaving room for dessert today, save some room for hope and never say die. The pilgrims managed to found a pretty damngood thing. The pilgrims gave thanksafter a hard and lonely experience in which half of them starved to death. However gloomy your or my picture might look,it might not be as bad of those early settlers’. Maybe you’re still in the middle of your owndifficult experience. It is okay if youdon’t feel thankful right this very minute. Just don’t forget to celebrate and give thanks when the sun finallycomes out. Thanksgiving is not limitedto today.

Cheers.

Getting Comfy

2011-11-20T14:15:00.001-08:00

Typically in the morning, we get up and go over to Wanda’sfirst thing, so we just throw on something easy to go do our morning“chores.” If it’s a bath day, we arelikely to end up all wet too, so there is no point in dressing up. Mostly it is jeans or sweats, now that it’s abit colder. Used to be shorts but thosedays seem to be gone for a while here in the country. This weird thing has happened to ourclosets. I don’t know if it is a lesbianthing or a couples things, but somehow our closets have morphed into a very similarpalette. We definitely have ourindividual femme and butch clothing hanging in there. But over the years, my wife has helped mepick out what I call comfy clothes…sweats, hoodies, pullovers, sweaters…itemsthat are easy to toss on (I think it’s a plot for when she just wants to run tothe store real quick and doesn’t want to wait 30-60 minutes while I “doll” itup) and go. Color-wise, we both like thesame colors. Our closets are in separaterooms. One day I’d love to livesomeplace where one bedroom had enough space for these two lesbians, but untilthat day, we generally have to split up all the closet space and our stuff endsup scattered throughout the house. That’s how we roll.

So most of the time, we are getting dressed in separaterooms of the house. I can’t tell you howmany days we meet up in the bedroom or bathroom or kitchen or wherever, see theother one and say, “Really?” as werealize we are both wearing black pullovers and black sweats and slippers, liketoday. Or the other day it was navysweats and gray sweaters. Or we bothhave on white t-shirts with color coordinating hoodies. Sheez. We don’t try to do it, it just happens. Depending on where we are headed, if we don’t want to appear to beBobbsey Twins, one of us caves in and changes. Guess who that would be? Sometimes we coordinate on purpose, for certain events, but we don’twant to be those “matching” lesbians we sometimes see out and about. What am I talking about? We don’t see lesbians out and about anymorenow that we are in the country. I lostmy “tense” there for a minute. We usedto. We used to have reason to dress up,but not so anymore. From what I’venoticed around town, I’m not sure we are even required to wear shoes. Seems like every other person I see at thegrocery store is wearing slippers. So Ibought some new moccasin type ones I can wear around town too. Sexy? Not so much, but at least this way I’ll look like a native. Unless my wife is with me, then we look likethe most color-coordinated couple in town. We can’t help it.

Sunday Night Cookin'

2011-11-13T20:34:00.001-08:00

It has been kind of a rough day. A friend of Angela’s, a former coworker atKTVN-TV in Reno, our former home ad adopted family, was hit by car last nightwhile crossing the street after covering the UNR game and sustained lifethreatening injuries. JK Metzker foughtfor his life all night but passed away this afternoon. It is very tragic; very sad. He was only 41 and left behind a wife and 3young boys. We are far away here in Chowchilla from thatadopted family and so it’s been a day of staying connected through Facebook andTwitter while everyone deals with the shock as they can. We send our sympathies to the Metzker familyand the KTVN family who will have to face this loss daily.

From personal experience I know there is nothing anyone cansay to you when your partner or loved one dies that really helps the pain. As most everyone else knows, there is very little you can say to theperson who suffers such a loss that really does much; as a friend you feel rather helpless. It’s just what we do to try and makeourselves and the other person feel even a little better. Even though it doesn’t do a lot, it does do a little. All I can do for Angela is make a nice cozyspace today. What the Queer Femme in theCounty does is cook in a situation like this. Here is what I came up with for this slow and sad Sunday. Hopefully you have not been touched by atragedy or loss today. Either way, theserecipes can warm your heart and bring some comfort to your day. Maybe you can make something to share it withsomeone who is having a hard time too. (That can be yourself!) Blessedbe!

Healthy Broccoli Soup

3 crowns of fresh broccoli
1 large onion diced
2 cloves of garlic chopped
extra virgin olive oil
16 oz. can of white beans
pepper to taste
kosher salt to taste
1 carton of chicken broth
1 cup of grated cheese

Preparation:

In Dutch oven, sauté onions in extra virgin oliveoil.

Add 1/2 tsp. Kosher salt to onions.

Add chopped broccoli andchopped garlic.

Add 1 can ofdrained and washed, white beans.

Pour in 1 carton of chicken broth.

When broccoli has softened, puree thesoup mixture using a hand blender.

Add 1 cup of grated cheese and stir until melted. I used mozzarella because it’s what I had,but you can use whatever you like.

Adjust salt andpepper to suit your taste.

Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies
(I made only half this recipe but here's the whole thing)

1 1/2 cups all-purposeflour

1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup softened butter
3/4 cup granulatedsugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3 cups quick oats (I prefer a chewier cookie, so used ½ quick and ½ regularwhole oats)
1 bag of chocolate chips
½ cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, and eggs inlarge bowl, until light and fluffy.

Combine flour, baking soda,salt, and nutmeg in asmall bowl. Gradually beat flourmixture into butter mixture. Stir inoats, chocolate chips, and walnuts.

Roll into small balls andplace on a parchment covered baking sheet.Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for 1 - 2minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Hey, Watch Out!

2011-11-07T19:42:00.000-08:00

One of the things I’ve noticed over the last few months inChowchilla is that a LOT of people seem to walk in the street. At least once a day, often more, when drivingor riding down the street, I have to slow down to avoid hitting a being in thestreet. I say “being” because it couldbe a cat, a dog, or a person or group of persons. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised ifthere were a snake, but I haven’t seen one...yet.

When I say slow down, you probably think, “yeah, because youwere going 40 in a 25.” Not so, mesamis!! I got two traffic tickets acouple years ago after a 20 year reprieve, so I am Suzy Lawfollower now. When I say slow down, I mean from 25 to like5. Here I will be, rolling down aneighborhood street at the speed limit, and there, a couple blocks away will bea group of 5 people, perhaps a husband, a wife, a baby in a stroller and twofriends. They are walking down thestreet chatting, 5 abroad, and see me coming. Or maybe they are riding their bicycles together. I’ve seen it all. Do they move over to the sidewalk or perhapsto the side of the street at least to avoid being hit by a car? No. They keep walking. Apparentlythey own the street but of course no one has told me this. I have to slow down and drive my car at awalking pace until they decide to mosey over at some point. It doesn’t matter if you come up behind them,or are coming at them; they just keep walking and ignore you. In the city this would create some kind ofroad rage and they might get squashed by a car. At least it would invove someone yelling or threatening.

Most of the time I’m not really in a rush around here. Not needing extra drama. But still. Really people? What is thefascination with walking in the street? It’s happened so many times now you can see I’ve really put some thoughtinto this. Everyone knows they shouldnot walk in the street; we learn that before we are old enough to go tokindergarten. Apparently here it is derigeur to teach your child they should walk in the street. Sure there are rebellious teenagers thatblatantly flaunt the “rules” and run around in the street. Some of the people I see walking in thestreet are groups of kids after schoolor teenagers out in the evening. It isjust weird to me to see what looks like a small family reunion strolling downthe streets as if cars had not been invented yet.

Then there are the animals. I love animals of all kinds. Somescare me, but I still love them…like perhaps a python or a cougar or grizzlybear. I see so many animals out runningthe street that it hurts my heart. Iwish I had a farm where I could just scoop them all up and take them somewheresafe to live where they don’t have to dodge giant pickups and old Americansedans…perhaps just an occasional tractor they have to dodge. Since I don’t, I keep my eyes open day andnight. There are times when driving themile-and-a-half to get to Wanda’s that we might see a dozen cats and dogs justout wandering loose. I have to believethat most of them are someone’s pet. Often they do have collars. Ihave not lived anywhere before where it is normal to let your pets run thestreets. In Reno if we saw a dogtrotting down the street, it usually meant it was lost. We would pull over, and try to get theowner’s phone number off the tag, call them and arrange to return theirpet. If I did that here, 1) people wouldthink we were crazy, and 2) we’d never get anything else done.

One reason for this could be that there is no place for aperson to take an animal here to leave them if they are unable or unwilling tocare for them anymore. Anywhere elseI’ve lived, there was some type of county-run place, at least, that you coulddrop them off. What I’ve found out herefrom other animal-lovers is that if you have a pet you can’t take care of,there are a few places you can take them, but the typical price to leave them is$250. That’s pretty steep for a smalltown with 15% unemployment and probably a higher percent on socialservices. Sad.

I’ve thought about why walking around in the streets of Chowchilla is socommon. On the good side, it’s probablyattributable to just being a small town where the pace is slower, there areless people out driving around and it is kind of expected that people look outfor each other. The other day we werecoming home from Wanda’s and when weturned a corner near our home, there was full blown game of street footballgoing on where we going to turn next. Those boys looked so cute and Saturday Evening Post-like playing andyelling and having fun. We just went tothe next street in order not to interrupt their game. On the other side, our remaining vehicle ishaving some seizures lately, so one day when it would not start we had to walkthe 1-1/2 miles to Wanda’s in the morning. (Public transportation around hereis another blog post I think.) Anothertime we had to make the walk in the dark. Not a lot of street lights on the neighborhood streets either. After those experiences, I can kind ofunderstand a little. Not all homes havesidewalks in front of them. There is a certainamount of unevenness too. In the darkespecially we found ourselves walking out in the street without even talkingabout it…just to ensure we didn’t trip or fall.

I did not include photos although believe me, I did considertaking them just to show you what I am talking about. But this is a small town and I did not wantpoint any person out or to embarrass anyone. It’s one of those cultural differences between cities and countrytowns. Most of the people I’ve noticedhave been during the day when walking hazards can be seen, so I really have noother explanation. I would love to hearcomments if you have any ideas or background on this.

It happened again this morning…we were going down a sidestreet and came upon a guy riding a low bicycle with 4 foot high handlebars hecould barely control and was weaving ever so slightly back and forth in themiddle of the street. We drove about3mph behind him trying to stay back enough in case he did end up hitting theground. After a while, he started toswerve to the left again and in correcting he happened to notice us. Then he finally rode to the other side of thestreet like no big deal; as if we had been intentionally following him just tomess up his chi. Maybe these roadwalkers/riders are all listening to a tune we are just not hearing.

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Spicy Fall Cupcakes

2011-10-31T21:43:00.000-07:00

It’s finally beginning to feel like Fall in Chowchilla. It’s a lot warmer kind of Fall than what Iwas used to in Reno, but even so, Fall and the anticipation of all the upcomingholidays usually puts me in the mood to bake. I was watching some Cupcake Warson the Food Network over at Wanda’s the other day.

Sidenote: I have begunto refer to Wanda’s apartment as The Sweat Lodge. She likes a high home temperature, so even asit cools outside I wear layers inside or else swelter. Some evenings require getting down to tanktop level.

Later I came across some food magazines and it really ampedup the itch to bake . I started having acraving for spice cupcakes. I used tomake a mean one in my early baking years that had cranberries in the middle anda buttercream frosting but it’s been so many years I’ve lost the recipe. No bother. I think I’ve baked enough in the interim to create a new recipe forit. I brought it up at the dinner tableand got two wrinkled noses for my efforts. The spice cupcake part sounded good to Wanda but not to Angela. The cranberry part didn’t sound good toeither of them. But then again, neitherof them is as keen on cranberries or cranberry flavored things as I am. I figured if I was going to bake, might aswell make something all three of us would eat, so I started tweaking otherrecipes to come up with something. Inspite of the rising Lodge internal temperature, I prepared to bake.I knew I would scrap the cranberry filling but then Ifigured I’d better tone down the spice elements just a bit for a plainercupcake that would still be delicious. Idid not invent the recipe below. I givecredit to the blog Dinner With Julie. I lookedat a few different cupcake recipes and then changed a few measurements to makea flavor I thought the girls would like. Click here if you want to view the original version.

Spicy Fall Cupcakes
2 1/2 cupsall-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup canola or mild vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 cups milk
Preheat the oven to350°F.

In a medium bowl,stir together the flour, baking powder, spices, and salt. In a larger bowl,beat the butter, oil and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs andvanilla.
Add about 1/3 ofthe flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir it in by hand or with theelectric mixer on low speed, just until it’s combined. Add about half the milkin the same manner, then another third of the flour, the rest of the milk, andthe rest of the flour, mixing just until the batter is blended.

Divide the batterbetween paper-lined muffin tins and bake for 25 minutes, or until the tops arespringy to the touch. Let them cool tipped in their cups to allow steam toescape. Let cool completely before frosting. Makes about 20 cupcakes.

Dinner With Julie topped them with a brown sugar frosting,also found on her link. After readingthrough several similar recipes, crazy femme baker that I am, I decided itsounded good to combine two “brown” ingredients for a rich fall flavor.

Browned Butter Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup water

1 stick of butter, browned

2-4 oz. of softened cream cheese (to your liking)

3 cups powdered sugar (have more on hand in case you need it)

2 T. milk as needed

I did not measure, as I was trying it out, but these are as closeas I could get. Start by melting thebutter over a medium to medium-high heat. Monitor it carefully, stirring often while watching for the butter tobegin to brown. It gives off a nuttysmell as it browns. Just don’t let it burn. Usually takes about 5 minutes. Take it off the heat and let it cool forseveral minutes. Next, combine the brownsugar and water in a glass measuring cup and heat for about 1 minute in themicrowave; stir to ensure the sugar crystals melt fully. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.

With a mixer, beat the browned butter, cream cheese and 1 c. ofpowdered sugar together until a bit fluffy and well blended. Add half the melted brown sugar. Add 1 cup more of powdered sugar, then therest of the brown sugar mixture. Addremaining sugar and/or milk to get the consistency you prefer.

Wait to frost cupcakes after they are fully cooled.

They are delicious. The combination of the browned butter and the brown sugar gives it aflavor somewhere between caramel and maple. The spice cupcake reminds me of a coffeecake but not as sweet. I feel successful since Angela does not reallyenjoy sweets, but she liked the flavor of these a lot. Even the frosting! Try these and I’ll bet you or someone you love will like themtoo. Shoot me a comment and let me knowwhat you thought.

Bake your heart into it. That always helps!

If you found thisblogpost amusing or interesting, then please share it with someone else byusing the buttons below. The QFITC thanks you! =)

Queer Report 10/28/11

2011-10-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

The good news is we continue to have relatively few issues withbeing LGBT here out in the country. Ofcourse, since we are taking care of Wanda most of the time, we are not skippingdown Robertson Boulevard making out. Wenever try to hide who we are and I know that several of the merchants wefrequent regularly around her have us sussed out. We are very out and open with all of thedoctors we visit on behalf and with Wanda. They need to know it is okay to discuss things with either of us. Compared to my own personal experience inNevada, dealing with California is a piece of cake. Like LGBT or not, the system is prepared todeal with us. Paperwork already existsto deal with whether we are married, domestic partnered or both.

So…my latest Queer Report for Chowchilla and surroundingsmall towns can be summed up in this one statement of response…”What the bl**pare you looking at?” The desire to saythis back to people is much more noticeable right here in Chowchilla so I’mgoing to focus on that. I can’t say forcertain that it is our LGBTness, but it is a distinctive something about us andour “look” that makes us stand out from the crowd here. Even little ol’ femme me. I’m still a queer femme, right?

Can they really see that through our windshield? Everywhere we drive around this town, people,whether they are outside gardening, watering a tree, drinking beers with theirfriends in the garage, chasing their children around in the front yard, or chattingwith their neighbor over the fence, stare after us. Not a double take or anything thatdramatic. They see us coming down thestreet, lock on to us with their unbroken stares and turn their head to keep aneye on us as we drive away. We oftenwonder if it is because the car still has Nevada plates. Are that that fascinated by “out-of-staters?” Do they stare because they don’t recognize usand everyone seems to know everyone in this town? Is there a granny tied to a rocking chair onthe roof that we don’t know about? Ormaybe there’s a rainbow hovering over uslike in that Jimmy Dean breakfast food commercial? WTF. Really, there is nothing more interesting for these individuals to lookat than two queer girls driving down their street? It does make us crazy sometimes. It is so obvious when it happens; we alwayslook at each other and say out loud as if to them, “What the f**k are youlooking at!” I guess we are that fascinating!

You’re welcome Chowchilla. We are always glad to bring our sunny queer charm to you, even if it’sin small doses as we drive by your home. Soak it in. Soak it in. We don’t bite as you can see. But maybe our granny will. LOL.

A Change of View

2011-10-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

If you have visited my blog before you might have noticed achange in the layout. Blogger.comrecently added this new “dynamic view” option. The old template is still available but Blogger advises that eventuallyit will be discontinued. I figured Imight as well step into the future and use the new view. One of the cool things about it, for thereader, is that you can choose which view of it YOU prefer. Try playing around with it. There is a grey pull down menu in the upperleft corner. I publish Queer Femme inthe Country in the “magazine” format, but if you find it hard to read, you canchoose your own dynamic view from others in the pull-down list. Here’s how Blogger.com explains it, in theirwords:

“Dynamic Views makeit easier to read your favorite blogs. Better yet, they make it easy todiscover posts written long ago that you may not have read.

Blog authors can nowconfigure their blog to display Dynamic Views, and select a default view thatbest displays the type of posts on their blog. To experience a blog in viewother than the default, you can simply select another view style from the toolbar,which, in some views, collapses into a thin line as you scroll. For the toolbarto reappear, simply hover your mouse over the line.

If the blog you’rereading has Pages enabled, the options will appear in a drop-down menu like theone in the image below."

I’m still figuring it out myself. Some sections seem to have disappeared, butit is supposed to be easier overall for the reader. If you have any difficulties, please add acomment and I will pass your feedback along to Blogger. They are already making enhancements based onfeedback to date.

Hope you enjoy the new format!

Femme: Regular or Diesel?

2011-10-24T21:59:00.001-07:00

Lately we’ve been having troubles…not female ones; cartroubles. Angela’s car has been havingfits all year. It hasn’t run since Mayexcept for a day here and there. It’sbeen to three different mechanics, all highly recommended. We’ve replaced sensor after sensor, plugs,wires, and more. Every time it works well for a day or two then…CHECKENGINE. That damn light is the bane ofmy existence right now. I guess I have atouch of the OCD. Or maybe it’s my Libranature that wants everything to work harmoniously. Either way, I want to fix that light!

Sometimes it’s on for a few days then just goes off. Once it ran fine for almost 6 weeks, and thensuddenly would not start no matter what. That was right after some costly work had been done too. Aargh. When we realized we were going to have to moveto The Country, it was not running. There was no time to deal with it, so we towed it behind the U-Haul, andthen between running around taking care of Wanda and not having jobs to pay forit, it has just sat here since. Werealized we really HAD to get it going. A friend of a relative in town suggested a local mechanic. The mechanic was kind and said he would notcharge us a dime unless he could fix it. He checked it thoroughly over a week or so then called and said he wasstumped also. Every time he went out tostart it, it just started right up. Hecould only get it to exhibit any of its little “symptoms” one time. His computer diagnostics still could notdetermine the cause then it never conked out again while he had it. He called and said everything looked goodthat made any sense and told us to come and get it. He was the fourth professional to come tothis conclusion.

My dad, who I categorize as a “grease monkey”, taught me tobe comfortable around cars. He LOVEDthem. He had tons of them. Of course not all of them worked at the sametime. He always had a project going toconvert a VW Bug into a dune buggy, or rebuild an engine in a 1962 DodgePolara, or refinish something on his old Mercedes. I thought it was fun to hang around with himand hand him a wrench or ratchet or screwdriver and ask him a bunch ofquestions about what he was doing. Thinkingback, that might not have been as fun for him, but it has helped me outnumerous times as I got old enough to drive and had one bargain car or truckafter another. Between the ages of 16 and23, when I was able to buy my first new car, I had a 1962 Ford Falcon, a 1970Plymouth Scamp, and a 1972 Toyota Carina. Then I got creamed in an accident by a pickuptruck. I switched to trucks. Had a 1972 Chevrolet Long bed Pickup, a 1973Chevrolet 4x4 jacked up pickup with KC lights, a 1974 Dodge Pickup, and thelast bargain vehicle…a 1978 Datsun Pickup. 7 cars in 7 years. I learned howto fix at least one thing on every one. Each had its own proclivities. Ionce fixed a battery shelf issue with a flip flop and a bungee cord. My Dodge pickup had a 3-speedtransmission on the column; once or twice a week it would jam when I waschanging gears so I’d have to pull over, climb up over the fender and manually unjam it, thenget it and start ‘er back up. Once mybrother ran his car into a fence and my dad was pissed and said he’d have tolearn how to fix it himself. Guess whodirected the replacement of his right front quarter panel? It was a fun project. I just wish modern cars were as simple.

Since we got it back the other day I decided to try somesimple things, like checking all the fuses in the car. Maybe one would be burned out. No, they were all fine. In my experience, the check engine light hascome on when the gas cap seal is not good. That was worth a try too, so went to a nearby auto parts store and purchaseda new one. Since I was in femme fix carmode, Angela reminded me about a task we needed to take care of on her mom’struck. A friend trying to be helpful hadadded some transmission fluid when Wanda was first in the hospital. Apparently they added a little too much,which we just discovered. It needed tobe removed. We tried a turkey baster butit could not reach the fluid. I know what you are thinking right now, so juststop…lol. Had to get a special kit forsyphoning. It had a narrow 12-foot tubeso I figured it would work. Now was thetime to find out.

Diesel Femme

Put up the hood on the truck and realized the transmissionfluid area was going to be a little hard to reach. Angela went and got me a step stool. We got an empty water bottle to put the extrafluid in. After checking the manual, Irealized transmission fluid should be checked after running the engine a bitbut eventually I was ready to go. Up Iclimbed and opened the fluid chamber. Iput the tubing into it until it hit bottom and started squeezing the siphonuntil the tube was red with pretty transmission fluid. Quickly I pulled the tube up and managed to emptyit into the bottle without getting it all over the engine. Pheww. Had to do it a couple more times. Being outside on a stepstool leaning over anengine apparently qualifies me to work on cars now as a couple of the Chow ChowSisters came over to see what we were up to and said next time they’d leavetheir cars with me to fix. Ummm…probablynot a good idea, but perhaps they won’t remember….

Getting dirty

I finished up by cleaning off one of the battery posts thatwas showing corrosion. My favoritebaking soda and water solution and a nice steel brush. Did the trick. Checked the brake and power steeringfluids. All was well.

Now if we can just figure out the damn CHECK ENGINE light.

Tomato, Tomahto

2011-10-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Weekend before last was my birthday. This being a year where our whole life changed, and without meaning to sound macabre or martyr-ish, it does not seem right now like there is much to celebrate. That's just the reality of the situation. I've been very fortunate in my life to have had many wonderful birthdays, surrounded by those I love and cherish. Everyone has an off year now and again, right? My nature is to look for the "glass half full" part of a situation, so even facing the challenging set of realities that life in Chowchilla entails, I kept my eyes open for something fun to do on my birthday.

Acouple weeks before I had noticed a local TV commercial for a tomato festival thatwas on my birthday weekend. I mentionedit to the wife and asked if she’d ever been. Growing up here, she’s pretty much been to every annual event we’ve runacross so far. This one she hadn’t andthought it might be fun. Since life withWanda is pretty much day-to-day…you never know how she’ll be feeling or whatshe might be up to in a given day…we said we’d just play “wait and see” when wegot closer to the date.

Onthe Saturday of the Los Banos Tomato Festival, Wanda seemed to feel pretty good, so we mentioned we were thinking about going to this event the nextmorning and asked whether she would like to go with us on Sunday. She had never been to it either and seemed upto the challenge. Great.

OnSunday morning we got up and got herready to roll. Literally. She is in a wheelchair. Beingthat it was my birthday, and that it was about a 30 minute drive to the event,I got a day off from cooking. Around here, that meanswe went to McDonald's. Wanda loves aMcDonald's breakfast. Neither of us does,but the only other breakfast options around here would have been too much of await. Being veganish createscomplications at McDonald's. Angela andher mom love the sausage, so it’s easy for them. Sausage biscuit for one, sausage muffin withno egg for the other. Hmmm. Pretty much anything on the menu breaks therules of veganism; they all either have meat, egg, cheese, or a combination of2 or more. "Can I have the SausageMcMuffin without the egg, sausage, or cheese please? Yes, that would be just a muffin with a scaryoil mixture squirted on it." That’s would be helluva bland order. "Can I have yogurtparfait with just the sugary granola and syrupy fruit please?" There are the pancakes (sans butter ofcourse) or the cinnamon rolls. But Iknow those are just empty calories that will jack me up. Sheesh. This is why I am veganISH. Thiswas going to have to be an “ISH” meal, meaning I would have to compromisesomething. I went for the good old eggMcMuffin since it’s the lowest of all the sandwiches in calories and fat and Ifeel less guilty about that compared to all the other options. This is all the stuff I have to consider whenfaced with pretty much any fast food menu. I’m sure all the other vegans know what I’m talking about. I can’t deal with McDonalds blackcoffee. Since they don’t offer soy milkas an option and I didn’t want to spend 500 more calories on a “fancy” coffeethere to cover up the flavor, I compromised on a cappuccino to get the leastamount of milk possible and hoped the coffee part would taste better. I don’t know if I was just high on it beingmy birthday, but I do think the cappuccino was much better than the regularcoffee.

Withbreakfast in our tummies, the three Brooks headed off to our first tomatofestival. As we headed out on highway152 in that direction, it dawned on me. “Doesn’t “banos” mean bathroom?” I recalled from my memories fromconversational Spanish class a few years ago. Angela said, “That is true. Seemsto be the general feeling about it around here.” “Hmmm” I thought, “What a crappy name to givea town.” Okay I could not resist thatpun. I later did look up the translationon Babel Fish. There it said that “LosBanos” means “The Bays”. Can’t say thatI saw much water around Los Banos besides a dried up riverbed we drove over,but I did not see the whole town so maybe it is there. Losbanos.org gives some history as to how LosBanos came to be:

“The nextSpanish explorer to leave his name stamped indelibly on the region was PadreFelipe Arroyo de la Cuesta. He was aFranciscan monk who was stationed at Mission San Juan Bautista from 1808 to1833. On his missionary visits to theIndians he discovered pools of water in the rocks at the summit of themountains in a little creek bed that flowed down into the San Joaquin Valley. At these baths or pools he camped overnightwith his band of friendly Indians from the Mission. Reports of these baths led to the localranchers naming the creek "El Arroyo de Los Banos del Padre Arroyo." In time that lengthy moniker was reduced to"Los Banos Crick."

In 1873 apioneer to the area named Gus Kreyenhagen ran a trading post near Los BanosCreek. The Post Office Departmentdecided to establish a Post Office at the trading post and named it after thecreek, hence the name "Los Banos."”

We drove throughfarmland. Lots of acreage with not awhole lot going on. We passed RedTop. There is market there andapparently there used to be a café. That’sabout all. It looked to me like the caféwas full of some kind of large sculptures? Wooden whales? Missiles? I didn’thave time to really look, but it did not appear to be an open workingcafé. Too bad, we could use more aroundhere. I posted this picture taken at RedTop earlier on Facebook, but am including it here so you get a feel some of thepolitical “temperature” around here.

We carried onpast more crop fields for a few more miles of nothing but, and finally arrivedin Los Banos. It is about 3-4 timeslarger than Chowchilla according to its population sign, but is still prettysmall at 36,000+. Like many small towns,we passed a newer section on the outskirts of town where some chains had movedin, some new shopping centers were built, all of which are about 50% empty atthis time. The Los Banos Tomato Festivalwas being held at the Fairgrounds which were just a few blocks off the maindrag. We did get a little lost and hadto do a couple laps around before Angela sensed where the entrance was. I’m a big fan of using my phone’s GPS featurebut have found that often in these small towns and especially when out drivingon farm roads, GPS often has no idea where I am. I will see the road I’m on but the pointerwill show I’m several blocks away or heading in a different direction. It has reminded me of the importance of notlosing my natural sense of direction. Wehave had to rely on our own senses quite often. Yikes. Canyou imagine? LOL.

The fairgroundsare a cute and tidy set of buildings, paved walkways and grassy areas. Out front was this little gender-neutralbuddy to greet us. Good start, seeing awalking tomato. We looked for handicapparking for Wanda. I thought the pointof handicap parking was to be able to be close. About a block away we found a lot that had a couple blue spots. We got her into the wheelchair and startedheading to the entrance of the festival. Whoops! No ramps on the sidewalkto wheel Wanda down. I noticed that therewas an indentation on the corner across the street but how to get there? Angela saw an area where the cement sloped abit; it wasn’t quite a driveway or a ramp but was enough of a decline we couldwork the wheelchair down it backwards. On to the tomatoes!! We enteredand saw a row of booths lining the walkways. The smell of pizza and beef was in the air. Smiling people dressed in red were lining upat the volunteer booth for their shifts; it was early and no one seemed to knowwhat was going on yet. There was apermanent building that looked like it had an auditorium and therestrooms. It was flanked by the requisitefire trucks and ambulance vehicles that are always on hand at these events withfirst responders that probably don’t wish anyone needed them really, but alwayslook super bored.

We rolled downthe sidewalk looking for tomatoes. Youwould think an annual tomato festival would be loaded with tomatoes with so many farmers around here. Nope. Not a single tomato for sale. Perhaps there would be some yummy food madeout of tomatoes. We scoped out thebooths. Scentsy anyone? Perhaps a straw hat or sunglasses? Or Lucite jewelry with bugs encased init? As for food, we found tri-tipsandwiches, corn dogs (Wanda like!), kettle corn, pizza, nachos, and some delicioussmelling barbecued meats, but nothing made of tomatoes. I guess you could count the pizza with itstomato sauce. Kind of curious.

I investigatedat building across from the petting zoo area (look it this cute little piggy)and discovered a Bloody Mary contest was about to begin.

I could not find anyone who could tell mewhat was happening. The contestantstables were placed in a circle around the room with their pre-made anddecorated Bloody Mary’s laid out for judging. I smattering of folding chairs was setup in the middle of the room,which some people were sitting in. Werewe supposed to go around the room and taste them? I did not see little individual cups. Were they just for the judges and the rest ofus had to stand around drooling? Thatdid not seem very fun to me so I went back outside and we joined the search forsomething with tomatoes in it.

We finally hitthe jackpot at the beverage stands. Theydid not have food with tomatoes but they did have drinks. Here we found the Bloody Mary’s that a personcould buy and drink instead of looking at our photographing. Angela had one and her mom had a “redbeer”. I had read that they had tomato margaritassomewhere and had finally found them so that is what I had. Actually I had two of them they were sogood. Not quite what I imagined butgood. It consisted of a serving of frozenmargarita from one of those groovy machines, mixed with Bloody Mary mix. Not complicated but surprisinglydelicious. The tartness of the margaritawith the spicy tomato-y mix was kind of addictive. That right there was worth the trip.

We wanderedaround a bit more and found a woman who is involved in the local food movementand had some good information about local CSAs (community supportedagriculture) where you can sign up for fresh food baskets. Maybe when I find a job…but it was good toknow this network is out here in the area. I’ve been surprised by the lack of opportunities to buy fresh produceand meat in Chowchilla when it is growing all around us.

This'll sell a buncha tractors, eh? lol

The fair waskind of cute and sweet but after that booth and visiting the John Deere tractors,there wasn’t a whole lot more to do or see at the Los Banos TomatoFestival. They did have kid activitiesso maybe if you brought kids you could while away a few hours watching themhave fun. They had musicians on thestage area which we had listened to as we drank our tomato drinks, but theywere performers for children. They werepretty amusing with their grand gestures and silly songs, but there is only somuch I can take of “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round.”

We wheeled Wandaback to the car and called it a morning. It was a nice day for a drive and it was fun to see and do somethingdifferent. I hope the festival will workon bringing some fresh tomato fare in future years; maybe they should have itearlier in the summer during the height of tomato season? Just a thought.

It's Friday, Friday, Friday

2011-10-07T19:37:00.000-07:00

Anyone else ever watched television with an elderlyperson? They can watch hours and hoursof reruns, or marathons of the same program over and over. It’s about the only thing Mom W. can do thesedays so in order to spend time together, that is usually the activity ofchoice. Or there is always staring offinto space and not talking to each other, but if that is on the menu, I wouldnaturally prefer hours of reruns. Well,naturally to me at least.

Angela realized last Friday that the local highschool football game was going to be at home, so as we were getting changed togo over to Mom W.’s for the evening, she strongly suggested I amp up from flip-flopsto sneakers and to bring a hoodie “in case” we decided to go. Okay, no problem.

It was leftover night. During the week I had made a brown rice/fakechicken/beans/veggies casserole (that tasted a hell of lot better than thatjust sounded...lol) and a batch of fettuccine alfredo at Angela’s request. I try to cut back all my recipes so we don’thave lots leftover, but sometimes you just do so we were trying to finish themup. The alfredo was delicious but I hadto limit myself to a “’taste.” The mainreason I decided to try a vegan-ish cuisine was that I seem to have developedan allergy to dairy after all these years. Alfredo tastes good because it has 1 ½ cups of heavy cream and a stickof butter. If I ate more than a couplebites, I’d be congested and blowing my nose all night long. No thanks. Thankfully my handsome wife was helping finish it off. I had some yakisoba noodles and Wanda workedon some other leftovers. I started toclear the table and tidy the kitchen. Angela was moving her mom to the couch to settle in for another couplehours of NCIS. Or was it CriminalMinds? No disregard to either, but inreruns I find them kind of interchangeable. Angela announced we were going to head over and check out the footballgame. Her mom sweetly offered to let ususe her pass. “Anyone who goes with megets in free”, she said. We declined,hoping that neither of us would pass as a 74 year old woman, and said wethought it was pretty cheap to get in.

After settling her, I was instructed to grab thehoodie and get in the car. It was one ofthose nights where we just had to get out of the house. Maybe it’s something in the greaterconsciousness of what a Friday night should include, but it just felt essentialto get out. The Chowchilla Redskins wereplaying the Corcoran Panthers and we just thought we should be theredammit. When the town with the State Women's Prison plays the town with the State Men's Prison, well anything could happen, right? In a small town I’ve heard highschool football is a much bigger deal than the larger areas where I’vepreviously lived. I’ve read many storiesabout the intensity of football parents, players and coaches in small Texastowns across the plains. Reno was thefirst place I lived where the high school teams got as much attention on thenews as the college or professional games. Different perspective I guess. I thought it would be interesting to check out a game in a small country town.

Here there are no larger teams around until you getout to Fresno for Bulldog football. Iguess our closest pro team would be Oakland Raiders. Since all that seems a bit far away fromRobertson Boulevard (home of the Redskin outfitters, The Shirt Shack) the focusis heavily on the red and white of Chowchilla Union High School. We parked blocks away; this game turned outto be very well attended. We made ourway through the blocked off streets and into the football stadium. After O.co Stadium, this field seems a bitsmall. Are all football fields reallythe same size? They don’t feel like it. Angela was immediately surprised that therewere at least three different booths next to the bleachers that sold everythingfrom tri-tip to fruit smoothies to iced coffee drinks. We certainly never had those options at myhigh school. She says they didn’t either. I guess it’s a pretty new thing. We found seats and surveyed the field. The home bleachers were very full. Shesaid that in her day, NO ONE was allowed on the dirt track. I don’t think anyone was allowed on the trackeither back at my school unless they were on the team. I looked up and saw little groups of teenage girlsand boys, mostly girls straggling along behind each other trying to look asthough they didn’t know that everyone was looking at them, all the whilesecretly enjoying the fact that everyone was.

When the team ran off the field at half-time, allkinds of people were milling around. Itdid seem a little casual. Guess thereare some things a small town can still take for granted. The varsity cheer squad stood and cheered onlarge red wooden boxes that spelled out Chowchilla Redskins. (Side note, I dofeel the need to blog further on the subject of Redskins, but just hold on toyour britches for now) I felt bad forthe cheerleaders during their halftime performance. You could tell they hadbeen practicing, but it was hard to follow them because the sound system was sobad. If you stood there waving $100,000 cashat me and told me I could have it if I could just name that song, I would have implodedjust trying to hear it. If the audiencecould not hear it, I do not know how the poor cheerleaders could have heardit. It sounded worse than the littlemono record player I got for Christmas when I was 8. And that was a long time ago, older than thishigh school so they really need to kick up the sound a bit.

All in all it was a fun evening; sweet in itssimplicity and the memories that bubbled up from the past. I wasn’t “out” in high school. I remember going to football games but not reallywatching the game for maybe 10 minutes. We could not sit still! The rest of the time was spent wandering the stands with my girlfriends visitingwith anyone we could find while going back and forth to visit the snack stands for soda, hotdogs and whatnot. Mygirlfriends would be looking for boys while I shyly eyed my secret lesbian girl crushesand hoped they didn’t notice. Except forthe fact that I’m married to the best secret girl crush I’ve ever had, itdoesn’t appear that the high school football experience has changed much. We still ran into people we knew and had fungreeting and chatting. It was stillcolder than you think it’s going to get. A little Friday night football is a good thing.

If you found this blogpostamusing or interesting, then please share it with someone else by using thebuttons below. The QFITC thanks you! =)

Out and About in the 93610

2011-10-02T22:47:00.000-07:00

A few posts ago, I took you on a little tour of thisCentral Valley country town and showed you some of the Chowchilla sights. There has not been a lot going on or changingsince then, although there is a new Rite Aid being built up near the highwayexit that is something we are keeping an eye on. There is actually a glass door in place nowand a sidewalk and its beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Well it will as soon as their doors open, Iam sure. The existing Rite Aid at thewest side of town is already so confused with both Halloween and Christmasstuff that I heard a man marvel the other day as he realized it was still a month away from Halloween. You all know how thatgoes. In these hard economical times,stores can’t bear to miss out on a single sale. It’s just confusing to know which holiday to be buying in advance for…

That reminds me of a gripe I hear almost everyday that I get out and around in this town. It would be awesome to have a few more shopping alternatives. Outside of the few cute clothing boutiques, acouple thrift and hardware stores and some hair and nail salons downtown, there is prettymuch Save-Mart on the east side of town (originally in the same shopping centeras Rite-Aid, but moved to a newer, larger site around 2008), and Rite-Aid onthe west side of town. When Save-Martmoved, nothing replaced them in the shopping center. They left a big black hole there next to Rite Aid. Now Rite-Aid is leaving that shopping centerfor their own new, branded building between downtown and the freeway. A corporation is now a “person” right?, atleast according to the Supreme Court, so you can’t really blame a “person” forwanting fancy new digs if they can afford it. I’m sure the new store will be lovely and those who can will rush toshop there as soon as they open the doors. Rite Aid has lots of fun things the Queer Femme in the Country can peruse for hours, but it's kind of sad that the last two new stores around here were just do-overs of what they already had.

As we’ve watched the new store being built day byday, a local told me about this and I went to take a picture. The phone lines ran through the building. It caused a delay and I’m sure they got this all straightened outby now, but this did make me wonder how that was going to work when I saw it.

Wires going over the wall. Maybe the pole should have been moved?

Wires going in before the roof went on

So far I have not heard any solid news about anyonetaking over the old Rite-Aid space either. So now two black holes will soon exist in the old shopping center. It is troubling for many people who rentor own in that area; it was a factor in why most people liked living in thatpart of town. I can say that many of the“Chow Chow Sisters” have expressed concern, especially those who can no longerdrive, that they’ve not only lost their food source and have to make specialarrangements for the local senior bus just to get groceries, but now they arelosing the ability to walk or wheelchair over for prescriptions or otherdrugstore items. I really hope somesmart grocery chain sees this possibility and takes advantage of it. There is a whole built-in community that isunable to move or follow these new stores. Anyone? Bueller????

With that little rant out of the way, I thought I’dshow you some of the other things I’ve seen around Chowchilla of late…

There have been some beautiful crops outside of town. I love seeing the corn get tall andstrong.

Looks just like at the grocery store.

The corn is as high as an elephants eye...

Have you ever seen cotton? You know, before it turns into something youbuy at Macy’s? I recently discoveredfields of cotton. I was driving past itand thought it was pretty so I took a photo. I had no idea that cotton had flowers on it. There were crops of it in Arizona where Igrew up, but I only seemed to notice it when there were little fluffy cottonpuffs on it so it was obvious to spot. Angela’s mom used to “chop cotton” so she got me up to speed on thecycle of a cotton plant. A pleasantsurprise.

A field of cotton flowers

I was walking through some grass the other day andAngela pointed out how dirty I’d gotten. I was surprised when I looked down and saw this brown stuff across mytoes.

It's almost like dust or soot.

The offending blades of grass.

She pointed out the culprit. Some weird kind of grass that contains the “dirtylooking stuff” that shakes off when you touch it. Who knew?

I noticed this as I was walking up to Wanda’sapartment in the morning. 10:25 in themorning. Already?

Oy. Central Valley summers.

I was standing in line the other day and looked upto realize I was behind a fellow wearing this ensemble. I know it is still summer, but I have toadmire his approach to casual wear. At leasthis courage to march to his own shorts and work boots. Why not?

Anyone heard of "What Not To Wear?"

Then there is this sign I see only one particular street. From where Wanda lives to where we live there are only roundabout routes but this one street is the closest thing to a shortcut. It is only one block long, but has some killer speed bumps and seems rather unfriendly. There is a house with some very threatening signs warning people NOT to dare turn around in their driveway. Since it could only fit two cars across, I certainly hope their neighbors are friendlier. I just try to make sure there is no reason to turn around there because it just doesn't seem worth testing it out. I might never be heard from again. I didn't even want to be seen photographing it, so you'll just have to imagine. However, I did have to take a photo of this sign, which is in several places on the street. I'm not sure which makes me ponder more...the wording of the sign or what kind of person came up with the wording of the sign.

Does your vehicle register half-miles? Mine doesn't. Is an estimate close enough?

A hot Chowchilla day sometimes ends with beautiful color in the sky. This onehighlighted the O EL. That’s what wecall it because that is what the sign says. You can see this older place right off the main drag. Angela says it has not had the M or T forquite some time. Why ruin a good thing,right? Doesn’t everyone know an O EL isa MOTEL? You do now.

The O EL.

Just pretty colors for you to look at.

Have you heard about The Crooked Gene?

2011-09-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

It's a fabulous new website that the Queer Femme in the Country is proud to be part of. The Crooked Gene has just gone live and now anyone can visit without needing a password. What is does is aggregate bunches of LGBT blogs into one easy access space. I love it and would love to see more blogs join up. There are so many blogs and great writers out there and it's hard to stay up with all the new ones. This way you can go to The Crooked Gene Blog Network and find information from the arts, fashion, advice, cooking, sex, news and Tumblrs along with many other categories. Some of the categories are not full yet, so you are welcome to add your own blog.

Here's their official blurb:

The Crooked Gene Blog Network is a directory of blogs that reflect the varied views, opinions, personalities and life experiences of the LGBT community. Our goal is simple- to provide a platform for new and established writers to share their work; and give readers a seamless connection to the minds and literary talents of our community. Visit us at http://www.thecrookedgene.com and enjoy the wide variety of categories and blogs at your disposal. If you are interested in adding your blog or Tumblr to the directory, please visit our application page. We are always looking for new submissions, so submit your blog today! Thank You! :-)

You can also find The Crooked Gene Blog Network here to get ongoing feeds:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Crooked-Gene/159233114114940

Twitter: @thecrookedgene (www.twitter.com/thecrookedgene)

It's a pretty cool idea. QFITC says check it out and submit your own blog if you've got one to join the LGBT party!

Comments are working again

2011-09-26T16:25:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Thank you to one of my readers for pointing out a glitch in the comments section. It was not letting anyone comment! Many of you comment on Facebook or Twitter, but now you should easily be able to add your thoughts here as well.

Comment away!

Thanks for sharing the posts and coming back for more.

Pamela
QFITC

Hunting: Jobs and Catfish

2011-09-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

So mostly what I’ve been doing is job-hunting. I did not write for several days becausefrankly, I was getting kind of depressed. I kept thinking I couldn’t really write about anything because it wouldnot be entertaining enough, then I thought, “Why not? It’s real enough and you are not the only onegoing through it.” OK then. Why not?
This new world of anonymous job-hunting is different andhard. The last time I had to look for ajob, cold, without any contacts, in a place I didn’t know, you could still dropby a company and talk to someone, chat up the receptionist, ask for anapplication or drop off a resume. Peoplewould greet you, smile, thank you and maybe ask you some questions. You could be both pleasant and business-like. It was a start to building a hoped-forrelationship.

If this is the way you remember it too, you would find thisnew reality a rude awakening. Even inthis small town. Many, many people arelooking for work. No one wants to lookyou in the eye when you come in to hand in your resume or ask for anapplication. If you are lucky enough tofind an actual physical location listed where you can go to hand in an actualphysical application and resume, mostly the person takes it, grunts at you, andthrows it in a folder behind their telephone that is already two-inches thick with others who got there beforeyou. It’s grueling. It’s humbling. It’s soul-killing. But it’s got to be done and this is the wayit’s done these days.

I cannot evencount the number of jobs I have applied for online. The only encouraging thing about it is thatthere are jobs online. Most thatI see from the search factors I’ve set up still have nothing to do with me ormy experience and generally fall into a few categories. Medical. Goddess I wish I had an interest in being a nurse. The healthcare system in this country hasreally created a special heaven on earth for nurses, physical andoccupational therapists, CNA’s and the like. Not my game. Then there isSales. I love sales but I really have tobelieve in what I’m selling and the main ingredient I see is insurance. I have always had “issues” with insurancecompanies and feel that would truly be selling (hah!) my soul to thedevil. No. Education. I see lots of jobs from all the nearby colleges and universities but generallyyou either have to have Ph.D. or be a student that can work 15 hours a week for$9.00 an hour. Not much in between. There are a few jobs in thetrades, like plumber, electrician, cable installer and the like.

I applied for a job working forthe city. There were over 200 applicantsfor that one job. I did not get it. I’ve had two whole interviews out of all theapplications. Both told me I wasoverqualified. Okay. I was. But I’ll bet the person who got the job at the city was also overqualified. So some employers know when they see a goodthing. Some don’t. They would rather choose someone lessqualified because it is pretty standard to think “if I hired someone betterthan this job, they will certainly cut and run at the first possibleopportunity.” Think outside theemployment box, people. Overqualifiedpeople can work just as hard as anyone else. Probably harder. Now there is a hierarchy within the overqualified.

Most people probably have heard by now about the local Chowchilla guy who worked at Starbucks, wrote a song about his frustrations andgot fired. Hopefully it will lead himsomewhere else, because the thing is, now that he’s gone, you know I went rightdown there and applied for his job. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Some people around here have other things they are huntingbesides jobs. Apparently we just passedthe first day of dove hunting season. Outside of employment and (when I have money) a good sale, hunting isjust not my thing. Ask my poor “hunting”dog who has never gotten to hunt. PoorHarley.

So why it is a big thing to getyour kid a gun and take them out to shoot some innocent little bird is beyondme. I am not putting down hunting andthe people for which it makes sense, it just doesn't make sense to this lesbian. In the big picture, I accept that some species do get a bit “overgrown” at timesand need to be thinned out. Trees. Warthogs. It happens. But aren’t doves aninternational symbol of peace? Why wouldpeople want to kill one? It just doesn’tmake that much sense to me in modern world. Perhaps they are so tasty people cannot help themselves. Could that be it?

That brings me to catfish hunting. I ran into this gentleman the other day whois a friend of one of the Chow Chow sisters. We ran into him coming out of a store and when he hollered at us to comeover to his vehicle, he wordlessly got out, opened the trunk and startedrooting around. I don’t know what I wasexpecting him to pull out of there, but it was definitely not a livecatfish. Does he have a pool back therethat it swims around in? The fish wasgood size, especially to me.

I do own afishing pole. It happens to bepink. Apparently fish don’t like pinkfishing poles because I’ve never caught a single fish with it, but in a waythat is okay with me. I kind of justlike the “casting” part. But I digress. Since the largest fish on my hook hasprobably been an anchovy for bait, this catfish looked huuuge to me. I joked that he wasn’t fishing, he was hunting. Catfish are intimidating to me, not only to catch but to clean and eat. Yikes. I’ve heard all kindsof stories about how you have to careful or they’ll taste like mud. I’ve had catfish (in restaurants) that tastedwonderful and some that was downright nasty. I’m sure this catfish hunter knows exactly what to do to make them tastegood. He seems to have the artdown. What a guy. Who knows? If the employment picture doesn’t change, I’ll have to drag out thatpink fishing pole and do some fish hunting myself. I wonder if they have any nice halibut orsalmon fillets in the local sloughs and rivers…maybe a can of dolphin-free albacore?

The Great Country Gravy Debate

2011-09-09T14:03:00.000-07:00

We took Mom to the doctor recently and afterward she neededto eat something. She wanted chickenfried steak and thought we should go to Denny’s. I threw up a little bit in my mouth andimmediately got on my smartphone app that tells me what other restaurants areclose by. I saw that there was a local,independently owned “Paul’s Place” that got pretty solid feedback and quicklygained Angela on my side for this. Weknow there is a place for chain restaurants but generally try to avoidthem. I don’t know why old people lovethem so much! My grandma was the sameway when she was alive; there could never be enough KFC or Denny’s for hereither. I was able to pull up the menuand confirm they had chicken fried steak and on the senior menu at that, so weconvinced her to give it a try.

It was kind of a homey version of a Denny’s, with tables,booths, and a long coffee counter. Everything was home-made although the selections were not too out of theordinary: burgers, hot turkeysandwiches, salads, meatloaf, and of course…chicken fried steak, which Mom W.ordered. It looked pretty good when itarrived at the table. I think I have hadit once in my life. It involves beef andfried coating; I know I’m weird but even as a kid I didn’t like those elements. The country gravy looked smooth and creamywith little chunks in it. I asked Mom W.if it was ham because they looked kind of square to me. She said no, it was sausage. I asked if I could taste it. I thought it was really tasty and said thatthe sausage was cooked very nicely. Iasked her if she liked her gravy “white.” I have made biscuits and gravy for Angela a few times, but I make minemore “brown” which she says she likes.

Well this question turned out to open a can of worms…orsausage as it were. Wanda said she likedher gravy a little brown but preferred that it not have sausage in it. Angela said the same. Hmmm, I thought. I always brown the sausage and leave it inwhile I make the gravy to give it more flavor and color. Apparently, my wife likes the flavor of thegravy but does not like the sausage in it. Apparently she has told me this the last two times I made the gravy butit went in one ear and out the other. In the opinion of the Brooks ladies, the only way to make proper countrygravy is with bacon. This prompted moreconversation like, “Are you crazy? Country gravy is made with sausage.” Obviously we come from different parts of the country so that isprobably part of it. That promptedAngela to take an informal poll on Facebook as to whether country gravy shouldbe made with sausage or bacon. Turnedout the majority sided with sausage. Some liked white gravy, some liked brown.

Enough I said. Atleast we’ve established I am not crazy in that country gravy usually has sausage,but it does not solve the problem that if I make it that way they won’t want toeat it. I agreed to make biscuits andgravy on the following weekend, but would make it their way with bacon. They had to agree to give me feedback so Icould tweak it to the way they like it and not just agree they like it if theydon’t. Agreed. The following weekend I made a batch ofbiscuits and gravy from bacon. Not just a little bacon, but a pound ofbacon. I’m not saying it is healthy; itis not. But it was delicious, they lovedit and that is often what matters when it comes to food. Here is the end result:

That was hard to top and was a great weekend “special”breakfast. During the week, breakfastgets a little dull. Mom W. is on a kickwith egg and onion sandwiches and my handsome wife prefers not to eatbreakfast. It’s all I can do to get herto eat a piece of toast and a couple slices of what we call “fake” bacon (I heartyou Morningstar Farms). Has she neverheard of this concept of fuel for the body? “Break”ing the “fast” of sleeping? I used to be the same way; I hated breakfast and though it was a waste oftime. Then I tried a plan where I had toeat in the mornings and realized I felt so much better. I keep hoping that will kick in for the wife…maybe someday. In the meantime, I keep trying to find ideasthat both my Brooks ladies will enjoy. It came to me the other day…Huevos Rancheros! They both like Mexican food, it is not sweetlike pancakes or french toast (which they both dislike), and I could easily adaptit for my egg-hating wife. Brilliant…muahahahaaaaaaaa.

The next step was to try to explain it to my 74-year-oldmother in law who had apparently never had it before. Not interested. Unfazed, I got all the ingredients togethersince Angela at least was on board. Iprepared to make Mom W. her “usual” as I got close to serving time and setabout making the Huevos. Got out thecast iron skillet and fired it up to fry up the corn tortillas to make a crispy base. Then heated up the beans, cooked up some soychorizo to substitute for eggs on Angela’s, chopped up some avocado, and startedheating up the sauce. Hmmm, suddenlymother in law was interested; scratch the egg and onion sandwich.

I will say that the sauce is not fully homemade; I went a little semi-homemade and sautéedbell pepper and onion and mixed into some mild enchilada sauce (or not so mildaccording to my girls…Las Palmas mild is actually at least medium hot). Thereare a lot of steps and pieces to making it and while not rocket science, I onlyhave so many appendages to put it all together with. I am sure there are other ways of doing thisand I have no idea where I learned this, but here’s how I put one together:

Fry up corn tortilla in an inch or so of hot oil of yourchoice (I use canola). I prefer themcrispy, but not quite as brown or crispy as if for a tostada.
Slather cooked and slightly cooled tortilla with refriedbeans.
Sprinkle fresh chopped onions and chopped black olives onthe beans. If you want to kick it up and add chopped or sliced jalapenos orother vegetables, this is a good place to put them.
Fry an egg to “medium” so the yolk is still a bit runny (butif you like hard or sunny side up, I’m not judgin’)
Place the fried egg on top of the tortilla/beans/choppedveggies.
Top with about a ¼ cup of enchilada or ranchero sauce.
Sprinkle with plenty of cheese – I suggest cheddar at leastplus a little bit of queso fresco or cotija – and some chopped avocado or extrachopped olive. Whatever sounds yummy toyou.
Dive in with your fork and feel free to make a mess of it;it is hard to do otherwise.

Note: I have tried itbefore with making a second tortilla layer and adding two eggs on top, but Iprefer this version because a) it is easier and b) it is a more reasonableportion, but feel free to experiment.

For Angela’s version, I made two and just put the heated up soy chorizowhere the egg would go and everything else the same. Pretty damn delicious Imust say.

Happy Breakfasting from the Country!

If you found this blogpost amusing or interesting, then please share it with someone else by using the buttons below. The QFITC thanks you! =)

The City Girl cooks for the Country Woman

2011-09-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my kind readers on what I’ve been cookingaround here. I am (quelle surprise) the “chiefcook and bottle washer” as we used to say around the Williard house. It may not sound like my most feminist side, but when it comes to taking care of family, you do what you have to do. My magical kitchen elves must be on strike somewhere.

Taking care of Mom W. who hails fromArkansas means there better be some southern-type food around. She is fond of it. She is a meat-and-potatoes type oldwoman. And biscuits-and-gravy andchicken fried steak. And pinto beans andcornbread and greens.

I am not. My taste buds came ofage eating my way across San Francisco. I had years of exploring restaurants and cafes from the Fillmore (upperand lower), Japantown, Cow Hollow, Laurel/Pacific Heights, Financial District,North Beach, South of Market, Chinatown, the Richmond, the Duboce Triangle, theMission, Potrero Hill, and just about every other corner of that city. To say I have a varied palate would be anunderstatement. I keep an openmind. I did not build this fabulouscurvy figure overnight. Not to say thatI’m going to follow Anthony Bourdain around the world and eat rotted eggscovered in fried crickets. A girl has tohave some limits.

However, I love all types of cooking (as well as the eating part) andpride myself on being able to cook up or down the scale. My current diet is what I call “vegan-ish.” My goal is to rid dairy and meat, but I addedthe “ish” because I’m still having a hard time letting completely go; I’ve justcut waaaay back and I feel good about it. Now for months in Chowchilla I have been trying to somehow integrate orbalance my vegan-ish with Mom W.’s fat-and-carb-fest. It has not been easy. I don’t want to be someone’s food police anda person who makes it to 74 can eat whatever they want. Since I am the preparer of 99% of all meals, I makehealthy, umm…adjustments….where I think I can get away with it, but there havebeen some foods where frankly I believe you just have to go whole Arkansas hogand damn the torpedoes. Yes I am mixingup some metaphors, just like I’m mixing up the menu.

On the healthy side, I tested out Mom W. to see if she would eat an “enlightened”meatloaf recipe I love. Our pal from KTVN days, Jen Jackson, turned me on to this delicious meatloaf recipe andI have made it numerous times. I changeit a bit every time and you can too. Italways comes out great. If you like theflavor of buffalo chicken wings, you ought to try this one. Here’s a recent platter of Biggest Loser's Buffalo Chicken-Blue CheeseMeatloaf served with homemade buttermilk mashed potatoes and the house favoritecanned green beans. Don’t you just lovewhen your teeth squeak as you eat them? Lol. Turned out that Mom W. loved this!

Biggest Loser's BuffaloChicken-Blue Cheese Meatloaf

Olive Oil Spray
2/3 cup Old-Fashioned Oats
1/2 cup Fat Free Milk
2 1/2 tbsp Buffalo Wing Sauce (or more to taste)
1 pound ground Chicken or Turkey
1/2 cup Finely Chopped Celery
1/4 cup Shredded Carrots
1/4 cup Finely Chopped Sweet Onions
2 large Egg Whites (lightly beaten)
1/4 tsp salt
2 oz Crumbled reduced-fat Blue Cheese

PreheatOven to 350 degrees

Lightly mist 9x5 loaf pan with Olive Oil Spray
Combine Oats and milk in medium mixing bowl and stir to mix. Let stand for 3minutes, or until the oats begin to soften.
Stir in the wing sauce until well mixed.
Add the chicken, celery, carrot, onion,egg whites and salt. With fork or clean hands, mix the ingredients well.
Add the blue cheese and gently mix to combine.
Transfer mixture to prepared pan and spread so that the top is flat. Bake for35 to 40 minutes, or until the chicken is completely cooked through and nolonger pink.

Cut into 8 slices and serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

QFITC notes:

Sometimes I have to buy groundturkey because I can’t find ground chicken around here. It is okay; it still tastes delicious.
If the meat seems extra “wet”(I don’t want to know why), then I add a little more oatmeal.
I personally like it spicier so I would double or triple the hot wing sauce if I was making it justfor me. For the wife, I double. For Mom W. I stuck to the recipe. Still good, I just added more wing sauce on top ofmine before diving in.

Another healthy attempt was astuffed zucchini recipe I made. I posted photoson Facebook and my friend suggested I include it here (thanks Michelle!). This is one of those really basic recipespeople make when someone has a mutant zucchini they give you that you don’tknow what the hell to do with it. I think we are heading into mutant zucchini season so you might find yourself in this predicament. Stuffed zucchini boats can be the way to go. This thing was given to Mom W. as you can seebelow. I think zucchini boats or canoesare way too small for this baby, so this was called:

Pamela’s ZucchiniArks

4 medium zucchini (or one gigantic one, whatever yourpleasure. I cut mine first lengthwise, then crosswise for four hefty arks)

1 medium onion, minced

1 (7ounce) can roasted redpeppers, chopped

1/2 green pepper,chopped

2 garlic cloves

1 egg, beaten

2 thyme, sprigs (Mom hates “fancy” spices, so I used Cavender’sAll Purpose Greek Seasoning)

1/4-1/2 teaspoon oregano

Salt and pepper

1-1/4 lb groundturkey (or whatever meat you like, I was going for a healthier version)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1-2 cups shredded cheese (any kind really, Ihappened to have sharp cheddar)

Directions:

Wash zucchini(do not remove ends unless you are working with a mutant zucchini and you haveto).

Bring a potof cold water to a boil and cook until tender, about 10-15 minutes, maybe alittle longer depending on the size of your zucchini. (Or in my case, I forgotto boil the water so I placed scooped out the seeds and whittled my ark to theappropriate thickness. Then placed twoarks at a time in the microwave for 4 minutes per round to cook and also removesome of the fluid from the zucchini, then let them sit to cool so I couldhandle later.)
Meanwhile,heat olive oil in a fairly large skillet.
Sauté garlicfirst, then add onions, green pepper, spices of your choosing.
When theveggies begin to soften, add ground meat (or whatever you are using), seasonwith salt and pepper, and brown until cooked through.
Drain off anyexcess grease.
Set aside tocool slightly.
If you wentfor the parboiling method, when the zucchini have cooked through, remove fromwater, and allow to cool enough to handle. Slice cooled zucchini lengthwise, and scoop out center, leaving a littleveggie flesh to form a "boat.”
Mix groundmeat mixture with the red peppers, and 1 c. of the cheese (or more to taste),and the egg.
Fill thezucchini arks with the mixture, and sprinkle the remaining cheese over the topof them.
Bake in a375ºF oven for 20-30 minutes, until heated through, and cheese begins to bubbleand brown. (For the arks, they needed more like 45 minutes. Just keep checking until they are fork tenderor softer, depending on how you like your zucchini.)

Serve hot. Here's the finished product. There's something that just tastes like "more" about it. Bet you can't eat just one!! Mom W. loved this one too. 2 for 2!

The credit for this recipe comes from a blog by canarygirl. Thank you canarygirl.com. It is a great dish. Here’s the original recipe for what she callsDropDead Delicious Stuffed Zucchini.

I’ve had a harder time “adjusting” breakfast meals,but this blog post is already long so I’ll post a separate one with breakfastrecipes. Since it can be hard to findrecipes in a blog later when think you want to try it, I’ve started a separatesection and will post the recipes only in “Vittles.”

Mangia from the Country!

Life is a highway...or is it a garden?

2011-09-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

Life has lately felt a little like these lyrics from this Rascal Flatts song:

"Life's like a road that you travel on
When there's one day here an' the next day gone
Sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind..."

Being a full time mother-in-law caretaker and a full time job-hunter and a full time “country” femme wife/gardener/LGBT activist/sensual goddess can be a bit challenging at times. As the song says, there is a lot of bending and flexing and not being attached to the plan you woke up with in the morning. To-do lists often are pointless.

I have been up to so many things in the last week or so, I thought I’d better stop and reflect on some, take a breath and get ready for whatever is coming next. We are still trying to move in to our rental on top of everything else. We finally got enough of our "stuff" in that we could basically live here, and immediately nature was on our ass. I mean grass (and everything else) grows like crazy here and it waits for no woman to get out there and cut it down. The landlord kindly (hint, hint) left us a lawnmower and weed whacker so it was time to get cracking. My lovely wife started in on it, but quickly I found out I had to get “trained” on it. I don’t just get to prune roses and make iced tea and mint juleps. Darn.

I know everyone who has ever had a lawn or a garden can feel my pain. I am not whining (although my wife would say I did) but there is a limit to how far one can go in 99 degree heat and humidity and bending over constantly and using electrical tools. Well for this femme there is anyway. I do pride myself on figuring out how to use the occasional power tool, but before I could spin around and put on my gardening tiara, I was mowing a lawn!

It does feel kind of satisfying to garden. I personally never had any real luck getting things to grow when I lived in Reno. We pretty much gave up after three years in a row of unsuccessful vegetable gardening. This is an old garden that is well established and I feel responsible to the former resident not to kill it. No one was living here for almost 8 months, so weeds are everywhere. I’m not afraid to pull a weed, so after mowing I put on some gloves and dug in. Pulling, pulling, and pulling some more. Handfuls! Look I’ve got handfuls of dead weeds in my hands. How cool! Look it's getting cleared out a bit!! Pull, pull, pull then run to the “greens” bin to dump. Pull some more. You get the drill. Finally, my wife, who was apparently withholding very useful information, says, “You ought to get a rake for those.” Hmmm. "How do you rake up weeds without destroying all the pretty stuff?” I thought. She came over and showed me how you can do it. “How the heck did you learn that?” I asked. “How do you think I earned money as a teenager?” she questioned. “Babysitting?” I said. "That’s what I did from like age 12 to 17." “Umm, no”, she said with a look that said “butches don’t babysit, silly.”

Well, however she learned I wish she would have taught it to me about 20 minutes earlier. That was last weekend and I still don’t have full use of my hand back. Although I am left-handed, I am very right-hand dominant in things like gardening, bowling, and scissors. I know it’s kind of weird, but anyhoo, I woke up the next morning and it was as though the fingers on my right hand belonged to an alien. I went to put on my glasses and felt like my hand forgot how to work; very uncoordinated. It kind of concerned me for awhile, like someone had snipped my nerves in that hand while I was in dreamland. Later that afternoon I realized my hand really hurt when I tried to stretch it out and I saw that the pad below my right thumb was about three times the size of the left one. A-ha! I didn’t get A’s for nothing. I went straight to the freezer for an ice pack and learned a painful lesson about over exuberance in gardening. I’m sure there is a lot more I have to learn on that topic.

Also out in the garden you have to watch for things like GIANT bumble bees. Angela said they will sting the hell out of me over and over. I’m talking about the original “throw a saddle on it” type of bee. It loves this one plant.

My inner Buddhist is trying to love the giant bumble bee, but my inner 5-year-old screams silently knowing the death throes I will encounter should it bump into me it according to my wife.

I have noticed a few guys around the neighborhoods wearing shorts and tall rubber boots for their gardening. It's quite a look. I somehow doubt I could get any of them to agree to let me post a picture of them. My first thought was “how much water are they using over there?” but now I get it. It has to be to keep all the damn weed clippings out of their toes. My first crack at the weed whacker involved my feet being coated in grassy "spray". Since it’s hot and sticky, it’s kind of like having grass socks. Not fun. Not pretty with flip flops. Rubber boots are going on the list.

In one morning we pulled enough weeds and cut enough grass and tree limbs to completely fill up the giant “greens” container the disposal company provides. I can’t tell you how sad I was that I would simply have to stop for a few days. Later in the week I figured out that all the clippings dry up after you kill them and then you can use a shovel handle or a rake to smash them down and pile in some more. That’s a good thing, right? It’s the weekend again, so guess it’s time to whack-a-mow again.

Who’s bringing the mint juleps?

All Aboard for the Chowchilla Express

2011-08-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

I’ve been talking about Chowchilla now for a few months. I thought perhaps it was time to do a little Chowchilla "show and tell". It is definitely a small town and there are lots of facts and figures I could put down here, but you can find most of those on City of Chowchilla or Wikipedia.

Coming in to town, the green signs by the highway note that the population is a bit over 18,000. Mom W. says that figure includes those at Chowchilla’s two women’s prisons so the town is really more like 10,000-11,000. That definitely qualifies it as the smallest place I’ve ever (or am likely to ever) lived.

Since Mom W. has lived here nearly all her 74 years, she knows a lot of good places to drive out to see and patiently (well if you count laughing at me) puts up with my city-girl-isms as I get used to the place.


Part of downtown Chowchilla

Let’s start with downtown. Robertson Boulevard is the main drag and even though it has its own name, I hear most people around here call it “Main Street.” The City of Chowchilla website gives an overview of how Orlando Alison Robertson came to purchase the land that formed this town that was “opened” in 1912. saying “…it was not the outgrowth of a geographic or economic need. It was, in fact, the result of the thinking and planning of one man: O. A. Robertson.” Many other smallish towns in the Central Valley were also built on land speculation similarly to Chowchilla in the same time period. Most were then affected heavily by the following depression years before they really got fully rolling. Fortunately, ranching, farming and other agriculturally endeavors begun back then have seen Chowchilla through to today.


Orlando Alison Robertson (from City of Chowchilla website)

One thing I’ve always wondered about Robertson Avenue is why it is so wide. I’ve visited many cute little towns over the years on both coasts and the older sections of town that become vibrant little shopping/eating/cultural hangouts usually have narrower streets where pedestrians can easily shop, wander, and cross back and forth. Robertson Boulevard is very wide, with two lanes in each direction plus room for a parking lane on either side. Not exactly a hop, skip, and a jump. I found an interesting factoid in a little 4-page local newssheet called the Chowchilla Chatter and on the City of Chowchilla website:

In 1913, the 100-foot width dimension of Robertson Boulevard was determined so that a team of horses could comfortably turn around without a problem.

Okay, then. At least it makes more sense now. There are also miles of palm trees lining Robertson, initially 12 miles of them. I’ve heard they (who are these “they”?? I heard it was the county) removed about 150!! of them not too long ago. The high, proud, and waving palm trees are really beautiful and this effect of lining the streets of small farm towns apparently was quite popular as a way of showing drivers on the nearby highways (now freeways) that a town was there. A friend told me this recently and I noticed on a drive around the area that several towns have done this. Kinda cool.

Lined with palm trees (from City of Chowchilla website)

No high-rises in this downtown. When you get off the freeway, there are a smattering of chain stores and gas stations in the first block or so. If you head east, you’d be heading into the “new” part of town. We’ll save that for another time. Not much developed there yet, but I’m sure I can find some stories about it eventually.

Head west and you see several blocks similar to these, mostly small shops owned by locals. Shop local first I always say…

And you already know about my love for the best snow cones in town, conveniently located on "Main Street":

Get your snow cones right here at Delicioso Time

We head past the 4 stop lights in town, going west past the residential section. There is not an obvious dividing line as suddenly…boom…we are in “the country.” Lots of orchards, some livestock, lots of homes that look like ranches to me but I have no idea what they do there to sustain themselves. You know, it looks like a farm or a ranch but there are no crops or anything? Maybe they drill wells or something.

Orchards here can range from cherries to peaches to almonds (lots of almonds around here) to pistachios. A vegetarian or vegan could pretty much live off these orchards.

There are a lot of crops too. The ones I notice the most are corn, tomatoes and cotton.

Then there are the livestock. The manure smell around here constantly reminds me this is a dairy town too. I have to say I love cows and goats. Except for the smell. But I don’t always smell perfect either, so what? We all smell a little animalistic in this 100 degree heat.

After driving through all this, Angela takes us to Dairyland. Dairyland is not an amusement park for cows. No. It is the most adorable school. If I was 6 again, I would want to go to this school. It is old (1915), quaint, and even has a school bell and tower. It was originally a two-room schoolhouse formed so the farm kids did not have to ride the train to Chowchilla. You can read more about Dairyland's history here. It looks so pleasant, doesn’t it? Like some perfect little vortex of time where everyone still reads about Dick running and Sally skipping and Spot frolicking with Jane. I said frolicking. Makes me want to put on a ruffled apron and whip up some chocolate chip cookies just standing there looking at it.

After a brief respite in the shade of these lovely trees, and letting Harley out of the car to stretch her doggie legs, we climb back in and Wanda guides us back to town through a series of back roads I hope I’m never lost in because they all look pretty much the same to me and I’ve seen way too many scary movies. Somehow we ended up on a road I DID know because our storage unit was on it. It winds back to town past the airport. Yes, we have an airport. I had to see it. So do you:

Chowchilla Airport with 1 tiny plane


Where are the rest of the planes? No crop-dusting going on?

The smallest plane at the smallest airport in a small town. At least they have an airport, right? Next to it is some type of concrete plant I think. In front of it is this fine specimen of ancient farm equipment. No reason why that I can tell, so I guess it just goes under “why not?”

Tractor or ancient mini-tank? You decide...

Then of course, no trip around farm country would be complete without one or both of these: a train that comes just when you don’t want it to, and a large scary truck full of some type of produce. Lately it’s been tomatoes or watermelon I’ve seen the most. This truck is carrying tomatoes.

So that concludes my little tour of Chow-town today. If you are a reader from Chowchilla, feel free to post comments if you have any corrections to my information. I love to learn more about where I live! Hope you enjoyed and I look forward to our next adventure!

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Queer Femme in the Country

Out of the Country, Into the City

2011-08-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

We escaped. Well briefly at least. Before all this medical emergency stuff happened, back in the spring, we had paid to attend a conference in Oakland. It is called Butch Voices and we attended for the first time last year in Los Angeles. It was very transformational for both of us and we looked forward to attending it again this year, especially as it would be closer to Reno. Well that all changed, didn’t it? We had given up a lot with all that has been required with the family care taking. We have cancelled other obligations, missed out on various special opportunities, rescheduled visits with friends and other family. That’s fine; we haven’t complained, but this one was going to happen. It took finding three sets of caretakers to cover the various shifts for Mom W., but we were determined to make it happen.

For some of my str8 readers, what follows may sound like a foreign language, but it’s OK to expand the mind. It should be no surprise that in the LGBT community there are as many different variations of us as there are with any other minority group or subculture. In the lesbian group, there are butch lesbians, femme lesbians and many identities in between. “Lipstick” anyone? I consider myself "femme with a butch twist". See the Queer Femme in the Country mow the lawn!

Within each of these, there is another spectrum of identities. I am a femme who is attracted to butch women and with one exception, all my partners have been that magical combination of masculine within the feminine. There is not a lot of what I consider safe space for butch women in the world. On the whole, butch women are xtremely capable of coping with that, but for all unique groups and subgroups, having a reaffirming space to simply be ourselves, whatever that may be is a positive experience to have.

Butch Voices is a conference for all self-identified Butches, Studs, Tombois, Machas, Ags, and other Masculine of Center (MoC) folks and their allies and supporters, like me. In my former home of San Francisco, this type of community-gathering and discussion was much more common, even if in a smaller support group or informal meeting. As a newly designated “country” girl, it is a rare occurrence to even see another openly gay person, much less a butch woman. Besides my handsome wife of course. This conference was a much needed re-immersion in the queer culture I claim as my own. It was very refreshing to see many people of diverse experiences and identities and helped to remind me we are not alone even when it feels like it. I feel strengthened in my hope to find more community or build one if necessary. Statistically, even in the Central Valley, we cannot be alone!!

There are some really wonderful people in this town and we are fortunate to have str8 supporters and friends. Not everyone does. That doesn’t change the fact that we have certain uniquenesses that most people around us do not fully understand. That is okay; that pretty much goes for everyone, gay or str8. But it does serve to highlight why it is a positive and necessary thing to find spaces that affirm your existence and I encourage everyone, gay or str8, to find theirs. Finding the power within ourselves can only serve us when we actively live out in the world with everyone else.

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” – Audre Lorde

If you are somewhere in the Butch spectrum or know someone who is or might be, let them know to check out www.butchvoices.com or a new group called Butch Nation. (If that link does not work for you, it's their Facebook page.) It’s important to find community and celebrate both our commonalities and our differences. That’s what makes life beautiful and gets the creative juices flowing. Mmmm baby.

Is it a Block Party without a Lesbian?

2011-08-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

Now that the painting is finished, we have started on the physical box-moving part. Oy vay. I hate moving. I mean I don’t really know anyone who *likes* moving, it’s just one of those necessary evils. Especially when you are already getting the evil eye from some of the Chow Chow Sisters at the retirement complex for having been there too long. LOL.

That is why when we heard there was a block party here in Chowchilla we had to take a little break and go check it out. I saw it on the City’s Facebook site and it turned out to be only a few blocks away. We weren’t sure if it would work out initially because Mom W. didn’t know if she wanted to go and deal with her wheelchair in the dirt and grass. She thought it would be harder to push (which is true) so we decided to leave it up to the fates and decide at the last minute.

Now I do have to ponder something a bit before going into the whole block party experience. What do you think of when you hear the term “block party?” In my previous experience, it was usually a group of neighbors that lived on a certain street or in a certain development, that all organized to shut down a cul-de-sac, neighborhood street or even a whole “Casa de Suburbia” development. I knew it was sponsored by the City of Chowchilla, but I guessed, newbie that I am, that it would just be that particular neighborhood in the area of the park it was held at. I walk Harley at that park sometimes; it’s just across the field from Mom W.’s apartment. Groovy.

That day, Mom W. was waffling back and forth about going. We were coming in from a doctor appointment and one of the Chow Chow Sisters was out sitting in her walker on the sidewalk. She said, “I sure wish I knew someone who was going to the Block Party tonight. I don’t mind walking over there but I’m not stable enough to walk back at night.” “Well”, I said, “it sounds like fun. We’re not sure we are going or not.” She responded, “I sure would go if I had a car.” OK. What are you supposed to say to that? Trying to squash down all my latent people-pleasing skills, I wheeled Mom W. into the apartment without saying anything.

We told Mom W. we’d probably go for awhile even if she didn’t want to go. She said she didn’t think she wanted to go. About 15 minutes before it started, she decided she wanted to go. There is no such thing as rushing to get somewhere on time when you are dealing with someone in a wheelchair. There just isn’t. She reminded me about the Chow Chow Sister that wanted to go. I had been thinking of her too, so I went down to her apartment to knock on the door. I said I knew it was pretty short notice, but we decided to go and she was welcome to go with us. She was on the phone, but she covered the receiver, said, “I’ll be out at your car in 5 minutes”, nodded and closed her door. We started loading up Mom W., the guest arrived and we all piled in.

The Block Party turned out to be a city-wide block party. A-ha! There were booths from just about every local business and social services from the Lions club to the senior center to assorted church groups and the local animal rescue agency. It was much more than I anticipated. The basketball court became the stage and various groups like cheerleaders and karate schools performed. It was also the area for the first responders and the local DJ (who was actually pretty good whoever they are.) It was very small country town in the way it was set up, the types of booths that were present and the goods for sale. Since I don’t really know too many people I mostly “people-watched.” It was much more involved than I had thought and from what I saw, it went really well. There were the usual glitches with various food booths; certain things weren’t ready or hot or cold or whatever. There was much better food than you usually find at these types of things. At least everything was not fried like at a state fair. There was a carne asada taco stand; homemade everything including the 4 types of salsa. $1per taco was very affordable. There were the standard hot dog and nacho cheese/chips/jalapeno boats. One booth had taco salads and fresh fruit salad for only $2 each. The cheerleaders sold cupcakes and rice krispies treats, candied apples and those cupcakes that are baked in an ice cream cone – 2 for $1. Can’t complain about those prices. The two most expensive I saw were a church selling homemade peach cobbler with homemade vanilla ice cream on top for $5 and the girls softball group selling strawberry shortcake for the same price. I’m sure everyone made some bank because everywhere I looked people were eating and walking. Not that our little foursome didn’t try a little of this and that.

It was a nice event and a meet and greet for the many people who seemed to know each other. It was a pleasant experience but I have to admit I felt a little out of place. I’m more at home at the Castro Street Fair. I surveilled people watching the cheerleaders perform and knew they had a strong connection to that whole high school thing; more than I ever will. Watching the families and groups of friends break away and start to drift away from the “stage” area afterwards, I was struck how this looked like all the small-town experiences that you see in the movies. Old friends finding and greeting each other, families walking around together, parents talking while their kids ran this way and that or begging for money to go to the children’s playground area (impressive blow-up slides and bounce house type thingies). There were groups of teenagers wandering around trying to have as much fun as possible before their curfews kicked in. Very pleasant. Somehow just very foreign to me. Which is weird; it’s not like I grew up in the projects or in the center of a big city. I had a pretty all-American upbringing myself. It’s just that it was a really long time ago and I’ve been a lot of places and seen a lot of things since then. Oh yeah…and I’m gay. It’s great that the people who live here enjoy the lifestyle they’ve created. I don’t think it’s all that sunshiny underneath the surface, but it is still a nice annual event to celebrate what does work in a small town. 22 years and counting!

Angela and I pushed Mom W. around in the grass for awhile; we perused the vendors. While we were walking, this girl passed Angela and gave her the double take. Definite “gaydar” alert. We saw her with a friend and then later holding hands with a girl several more times during the time we were there. This is the weird thing to me about lesbian-spotting and I don’t mean just here in a small town. They won’t look at you. Not eye contact, much less a smile. I’m a pretty friendly person. I don’t think it is me. This has happened almost everywhere I’ve ever lived, even sometimes in San Francisco. I’ve been with other people when it has happened so I don’t think it’s me. I’m super friendly. I smile at people. Many complete strangers smiled back at the Block Party. I don’t think gay guys do this “ignore” thing, do they? The lesbians? It’s like “yes I see you but I will NOT give you the satisfaction of letting you know that I see you”. I guess that it breaks down to either:

a) They are totally in the closet and don’t want to be seen as “out”

b) They think they are better than you

c) They have an inferiority complex and think you are better than them.

Either way it is ridiculous. To me, being LGBT is to be part of a “tribe.” It seems like a good thing, a kind of relief, to run into other members of your tribe, whatever it is, when you are out in the world. When you are amongst “others” it is wonderful to appreciate the diversity of who is around you. Hell, there is diversity within the tribes as well, but when you see someone of your “kind” whether that is female, male, white, black, Hispanic, Portuguese, from Brooklyn, Los Angeles, or Des Moines a part of you usually goes “ahh – someone like me.” It doesn’t mean you automatically like them, but don’t you usually acknowledge them? Is that so unusual of me? I think it is just politeness; good manners. So what is it with certain lesbians? Don’t make me get started on the above ABCs. I don’t need to read anyone’s beads today (or any other clichés that might come to mind : ), but come on already. Is it that tough to make eye contact and smile at a member of the LGBT tribe? No. It’s not.

On Painting: Part 2

2011-08-12T14:11:00.000-07:00

On my next painting day, my goal was to paint a wall that went up some steps. I had gotten pretty good with an angled brush and a small trim tray. Why not just combine it all together? I could roll it out, then just cut and fill in with my handy dandy angle brush. Imagining myself somewhat like the one-man band character from Mary Poppins, I ascended my handy step stool with a paint tray full of off-white paint so I wouldn’t have to get up and down the steps so much, a fresh roller and my ever-present brush. This is going to be so great! I said excitedly to myself. As I stood on the top step, I surveyed the wall and lifted my loaded roller to its surface. Yes! This was going to be awesome.

I rolled it out as far as I could reach, and as my friend had suggested, reached for my brush to quickly cut in before it all dried to get that even coverage I was aiming for. Hmmm. How do I pick up the brush with this roller and paint tray in my hand? Hmmm. There must be a way. OK, I’ll just carefully lay it in the tray and OH WATCH IT. Can’t wobble at all! The paint almost spilled over the side. OK, breathe. OK, now the roller is down. Let’s just pick up that brush. Got it! No problem. Wow this full paint tray is kind of heavy isn’t it? Balancing it on one wrist while I brush with the other…oh CRAP. Tipped again. Uh oh. I hear a splat. Where did that paint go? Crap. On the floor. Get a grip. No matter, that’s what drop cloths are for right? Phew. That was close. OK, if I get down this step stool quickly enough, I can salvage this mess. C a r e f u l l y. Carefully put the tray down.

After getting the tray out of my hands and onto a safe place on another drop cloth, I cleaned up the cup or so of paint I lost over the side. Jeez that stuff just goes everywhere doesn’t it? I managed not to hit the carpet at all, but the drop cloth was not even worth what it would have taken to clean it, so I just folded it in half and went at it again. It worked much better when I decided to use only one tool at a time. So much for the Mary Poppins approach. Thank the Goddess that Angela was not there to see it. I’m sure I’d have some new nickname to live down. I managed to get that wall finished and this new “roll first, cut second” thing was working for me now. I got the living room walls done and now all that was left was some assorted doorway trims and molding and baseboards in three rooms. Since painting those baseboards really messed up my knees, Angela had suggested I try using her old construction-work knee pads. They were the type that are hard plastic on the outside with gray foamy stuff on the inside. Awesome! My knees still hurt, but I figured out if I got enough pieces of cardboard –one for the trim paint tray, one or two for the edging I could pretty much skate across the carpet backwards on my knees with my head almost upside down on the floor and get these baseboards wrapped up. Thankfully there was no video camera crew hanging around. It did not look pretty but it worked pretty well. I highly recommend.

The next day I went back again by myself. Hell, by this time I had a system. Better not to have anyone around to mess with it. I just wanted to get this thing finished. After my paint dripping catastrophe of the previous day, I decided to slow it down and be really careful. I did a little more carpet/knee pad/headstand sliding and got the last baseboards done. I sat up and let the blood run back to where it is supposed to be and had myself a tall bottle of water. Next up? Doorway trim in the kitchen. There were two doors to be done and I just happened to have a lime sherbet color that would brighten up the kitchen. I got my little trim tray full of paint, got my brush and then thought perhaps I should clean up the little mini roller I had used on some touch up spots that morning. Yes, I should clean that thing up before the paint started drying. I placed all my green paint on the counter next to the sink and started rinsing the little roller. It is so satisfying somehow. Seeing all that white paint rinsing away, cleaning out the roller, seeing the water turn clear. Yay. Now it was time to pull the roller off its handle so they could each dry well. Then I realized the paint roller from yesterday was dry but I had forgotten to separate it from the roller handle. Better do that. I grabbed that fluffy roller in my right hand and started pulling. My left hand held the handle but the right could not get the roller part to budge. OK, just be persistent. It’s only paint for craps' sake, right? Just pull, work it out. OK, pull again, oh yeah, there it goes…SHIT. Crap. Simultaneously throwing the clean roller to the left and diving to the kitchen floor to the right, I grabbed every paint rag in my reach and said a little prayer. This time it shot past the drop cloth onto the floor, but luckily the wet paint rags managed to get it up from the linoleum in time to avoid a permanent stain. Gotta love water based paint. I certainly do! Took some time to wash it up a second time so the Wife would not find little green splotches. Of course, now she will know, but I’ve already saved the day so who cares?

Everything aches from my neck to my knees. I’ve used some really good “rollering” muscles in my abs. You’ll never see them but I can still feel them. But all in all it is such a good feeling. I can walk in that place and know it is all fresh; after the painting came two days of cleaning, scrubbing and rental carpet cleaning. I know that all the hard work was to give us a much-needed respite from 3 adults and 1 large dog in a 1 bedroom senior apartment. It will be worth it to have a little more normalcy. Coming down from such a medical emergency/life changing/job changing trauma is hard. It’s like coming up for air from scuba diving. Gotta take it a little easy. Stop and smell the...hey does anyone know what this is? It's coming up in the garden but I have never seen this variety before. Pretty, isn't it?

Of course the best thing of all is being done and then enjoying a cold beer with Angela and Harley. Ahhhhhhh.

On Painting: Part 1

2011-08-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

My-oh-my it has been DAYS since I’ve gotten to blog. What have I been doing? Painting. Not the fun, colorful, artistic kind of painting. No. I’ve been doing the grueling, arms-up-over-your-head for days on end painting. I cannot tell you all how glad I am about that. It’s just one of those things that have to be done from time to time.

For those of you who read the beginning of this blog, the reason I am a lone Queer Femme out in the farmland of the Central Valley of California is because my wife’s mother had a medical emergency including a series of serious injuries and related conditions that meant we needed to be close to take care of her. Unfortunately, we are limited by the rules of the retirement apartments she lives in that even under these circumstances we can only stay here so long. Our time is coming up so we had to find somewhere to live. Not easy when we are still job hunting, but due to the grace of some family friends we found a little place to move into. Part of them helping us out, was us helping them out by painting it. “Sure!” we said, our hearts full of gratitude for the opportunity. “We’d be glad to!”

Being on a pretty strict budget of late, we were lucky to run into a friend with some buckets of paint to spare, so we got our brushes and rollers together and started in. Oh. My. Gosh. This is where you separate the femmes from the butches. Or is it the Type A’s from the Type B’s? I don’t know exactly, but I was a little leery when I realized Angela and I have never painted a building together. We’ve done some art, so I can’t say we’ve never painted, but this is a whole different kettle of fish. I am a bit of a perfectionist. Angela has the patience of an ant. We talked about it. When I thought about it, I believe the last time I painted an apartment was at least 20 years ago. Angela had never done it. We looked at each other, took a breath, said I love you and started in.

It all went pretty well for the first few days. Yes, I said the first few days. Our friend here locally who donated the paint said she and her son have painted apartments before and can turn one “over” including all the cleaning and painting in 3 days. 3 days? No problem we thought. The first day we put down some drop cloths and figured out which paint to put where. Pulled down old curtains. Taped around some outlets and window frames. I said that the next step I remembered was that you were supposed to “cut”, meaning to paint around the edges of the wall and/or the corners where walls met, depending on the colors. Great, she said. She was itching to really get to painting so she took a roller and I went with the paintbrush and starting “cutting.” Went pretty well, but that took two days for two rooms. And we still weren’t done with those rooms. There is that little thing called trim. Had to go back and paint all the door moldings, the window moldings and sills, then get on my knees and paint all the baseboards white. Oh and there were these little shelf things. Oh and the closet needed a sprucing up to. Oh yes, and there are these things called doors that suddenly looked really dingy so they needed a coat too.

Because Mom can’t be left alone very long, this process could only be done for a couple hours at a time. Then we would have to run to her place to check on her and tend to whatever needed to be done. Then go back at mealtimes and take turns running back and forth. Not the ideal process for a project like this. By the third day, we were still trying to finish up the second room. My rug-burned knees looked like Angela and I had been having a good old time, but no; that was just from baseboard painting. Still, I decided I should probably wear longer shorts out in public for a couple days.

We continued on this way for several days…a couple hours of painting here, a day off there because of doctor visits, another couple hours of painting. It was getting frustrating and felt like we weren’t making much progress. A friend lovingly offered to come over one day when Angela had to stay with her mom and she helped tremendously. Finally I was down to the kitchen, bathroom, and living room. And still more trim to paint as well. Angela had hurt her back and was out of commission. She could hardly move. Suddenly I was the one with no patience. I wanted to get in there, get ‘er done and get us a place to put our stuff. Living out of suitcases gets old after three months if you’ve never tried it. No problem. I’m a Superwoman. Like Rosie the Riveter, I could do it!

On the weekend, I said I would go do some more solo painting. By this time, my perfectionist approach had pretty much disintegrated. I had made some mistakes and was wearing most of them on my “paint” clothes. The friend had a lot of painting experience and we had had a great conversation about the step of “cutting in”. She said a good painter would always cut first, but you could also roll it out first and then cut. By this time I was no longer using cardboard or frog tape to cut. Heck after days of doing it I felt like an expert! Maybe trying it this other way would save me more time and help me get to the finish line. Great idea. I was pretty much “eyeballing” all my work now and you know what? It still looked pretty damn good!!

"On Painting" to be continued….

Doctors Schmoctors

2011-08-03T12:34:00.000-07:00

One of the things Angela and I deal with on a regular basis here in the Central Valley is doctors. Being that the thing that brought us here in the first place was her mom’s injury and a following succession of illnesses, we spend a lot of time at the doctor. Or more like a plethora of doctors. Not just at the doctor, but on the phone with the doctor’s office. No such thing anymore as actually being on the phone with a real live doctor. Not even in this small quaint town. Not just on the phone with the office, but filling out a lot of paperwork and trying to figure out what each different office or doctor is telling us. I know this is not just a local problem, but it makes you want to scream that the left hand does not seem to know what the right hand is doing.

One person tells us we have to make an appointment with a certain doctor to get a prescription. We get the appointment, go to the doctor’s office, wait for an hour, get into an exam room and are told by the P.A. that there is no need to be there. They already called in the prescription. “You can just go over there and pick it up,” they say cheerily with no idea that it took us two hours to get her prepped and ready and transported to their office in the first place. Yippee. Yeah, thanks. In the wheelchair, out to the parking lot, lift into the car. Out of the car, into the wheelchair, into the office and then the crowded little patient room and then reverse the whole process then do it again at the pharmacy. Sure no problem. From what I have noticed in this town at all these doctor appointments, the majority of patients are either over 60 or young mothers with more than one child in tow. This way of operation for doctors’ offices is not easy for anyone, but for these groups it is even more frustrating. For the elderly or moms with kids, getting to and being at the doctor can be nearly an all day affair. At least Mom looks pretty cool wearing her new sneakers. I call them "Wal-Vans".

I have no illusions about personally fixing it. The President of the United States and all of our elected officials can’t come to an agreement on how to fix it so I’m not going to get started on that here. It’s just really messed up and until or unless you have excessive dealings with the health system you may not notice it. Back when I had a job and insurance benefits, an occasional delay at an occasional doctor or lab appointment…no big deal. When it becomes your life, it kind of gets under your skin a bit more.

Monday we had an appointment. We arrived about 15 minutes early, being very familiar with what it takes to get there on time now, we always start early. We waited for 90 minutes before being shown into an exam room. Then it took another hour. Poor mom was exhausted by it. I know that it not their “problem”. We arrived at 12:30pm and left a little after 3:00pm. How can people deal with this who are working?

Tuesday we had another appointment, but out of town. We got there on time for a 3:30pm appointment. They closed at 4:30pm (technically) but we still had not been seen. We were the last ones in the waiting room before they finally called us in. I think it was a little after 5:30pm when we left. I lost track.

Today we have an earlier appointment. That does not always guarantee timeliness but I’m hoping it helps at least a little.

One good thing about dealing with doctors and their administrative staffs here, as opposed to many in Nevada, is that they are used to dealing with domestic partners or other variations of LGBT couples and families. Forms actually refer to me as Angela’s spouse like it is no big deal. Imagine that!

It is a really weird feeling to me that most of the healthcare you need in Chowchilla is out of town. That is another challenge for a small town. How do you get good doctors to stay? There don’t seem to be too many here. I guess a small town cannot financially support sufficient doctors with the way insurance billing works today. Many have their “main” practice in Merced or Madera and come here one or more days a week only. It makes me nervous that if something happens to me I could be dead before the ambulance could get me to the nearest hospital. I’ve just never lived that far away from those basic services before. To those who have grown up here, they don’t seem bothered by it; it’s just a fact of life. Some things in The Country are different, but healthcare should be accessible and reasonable for everyone. I don’t care where you live. Things need to change and when they do, maybe people in small towns will have better options. They should have the same access that people in larger towns do. Okay, I’m off the soapbox.

In the meantime, as soon as I get a job I am restocking my first aid/emergency kit. Seriously.

Fried Green Tomatoes

2011-08-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

There is just something about summer that makes me want to eat certain foods. Having neighbors and friends with a plethora of garden produce has lately been dictating what I cook up around here. A fresh tomato is a beautiful thing, for sure. As these wonderful folks have brought me bags of them at various times I cook them up or eat them cut up by the bowlful as soon as possible. The downside of such very fresh produce, especially in this sweltering heat, is that it goes bad really quickly. Can’t let any dust settle on it.

So the other day, I was over at one of these "tomato-pusher’s" homes and they were trying to deal me some more free tomatoes. I saw something and decided to up the ante. What I saw was green tomatoes. I heart green tomatoes. Fried Green Tomatoes.

Yes I will admit there is some association to my beloved pseudo-lesbian themed movie of the same name. The book was more authentic, but aren't they always? Ahh, my little femme heart still flutters when I think of Idgie Threadgoode. When I first saw that film I fell in love not only with Mary Stuart Masterson, but with the idea of fried green tomatoes. Being that I lived in San Francisco at that time, I was unable to find a sufficient number of them to cook with. Even at the produce markets I only found red tomatoes. It wasn’t until last year, when a friend in Reno was talking about the tons of tomatoes they had harvested and giving them away at a board meeting that I first scored my first fresh green tomatoes. Everyone wanted the red ones. Not me, I was the first in line for the green ones. She told me how she liked to make them and it sounded really good. I am more like the Ruth Jamison character than the Idgie character, but unlike Ruth, I am a curvacious femme girl. But I do try to eat well and have learned many tricks over the years for taking high-fat recipes and making them more heart-healthy. I decided to make a grilled version of fried green tomatoes and it turned out incredibly good. So here I am in Chowchilla, eyeing my neighbors tomato plant and thinking I’d rather have the green ones than the red ones. She kindly offers to give me some. Score! Soon I am back in Mom’s kitchen trying to figure out how to modify again since my grill is in storage.

My persistence paid off. Although I still prefer the grilled version, these came out very well. I don’t like them too mushy. If you do, you can just cook them longer.

Pamela’s Grilled (or Baked) Green Tomatoes

Green tomatoes

Lowfat Buttermilk

Salt & Pepper

Panko breadcrumbs

Cornmeal

Spices (I like Cajun Seasoning)

Cut your green tomatoes into fairly thick slices. I'd suggest 1/2" to 3/4". Sprinkle them with salt, pepper, and creole or other seasoning you like.

Prepare a separate bowl or mix then layout on waxed paper, about 1 cup of panko breadcrumbs, about ¼ c. cornmeal and salt, pepper and/or whatever spice mixture you like. I use a tablespoon or so of Creole seasoning. Mix it all up.

Instead of egg or some combination mixture, I simply dip them into a bowl of buttermilk mixed with pepper to your taste. To prepare them, just:

Take a slice, dip it in the buttermilk, shake off the excess a bit then press into the breadcrumb/cornmeal mixture.

Spray with Pam Olive Oil spray or carefully sprinkle olive oil on each one so it does not stick to the grill. You’ll still need a little fat even in the oven to crisp it up and prevent sticking to the pan. Grill or bake until crispy on the outside – about 10 minutes each side if grilling, more like 20 each side if baking.

Now that I am lucky in love with my own little “Bee Charmer”, she has a favorite summertime dessert that goes really, really well with this or any summer meal. Angela is not much for sweets normally but loves this pie. It’s simple, light, and delicious.

Lemonade Fluff Pie

1 regular size container of cool whip, softened

8 oz. can of frozen lemonade, thawed

Note: If you can only find the 12 oz size, do not use the whole can is it will not set up (although it will still taste good. I tried it once.

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 graham-cracker crust – store bought or home-made – you choose

Combine the thawed lemonade and sweetened condensed milk. Carefully fold in (do not stir as it will break down) the cool whip. When well mixed, put the filling in the shell and let it sit in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours. It has such a great tart lemony taste the hardest part is resisting eating the filling by the spoonful before it makes it into the pie shell. If you can let it refrigerate that long you will be a very happy person.

In fact I realize now we could not wait to pounce on it and totally forgot to take an “after” picture. This “before” photo is all you get this time around...

Chow down my fellow chowhounds!

Queer Report

2011-07-30T10:14:00.000-07:00

When I titled this blog, my intention was to allow for talking about this new “country “ experience I’m having, but also chronicle what it is like being LGBT in this environment. Some of this is built into my various blog posts as we have experiences day by day, but I wanted to give you all updates as I go along to see how things change, or do not change, over time down here in the farmland.

Being the kind of femme I am, meaning ME, has not always been as difficult as some other lesbians I know. I was living in San Francisco when I first came out in 1992, and it felt like I had to really, really fight to come out of the closet. It’s kind of hard to explain. It took me until I was 31 to get to that point where the voice in my head (and nether regions if you get my drift) could no longer be ignored or suppressed. I was married at that time to a male husband who was then, and is now, a wonderful friend. After several emotionally torturous months of trying to figure how to deal with all of that, I burst out of the closet. I thought coming out in San Francisco would be like arriving in Heaven to find all of your loved ones standing there going “Welcome! We’ve been waiting for you! What took you so long?” and then we would all dance to a-ha or something. I started going around telling everyone I was a lesbian. Of course, there were some people I was nervous about telling and yes there were some friends who just could not deal and dropped out of the world that I orbited in. The rest of my friends and coworkers would basically look at me and go, “No, you’re not” with the tone of voice your mother would use if you told her you were going to fly to Pluto. “Yes, I am. It took me way too long to figure out but I’ve never been more sure of anything.” “No, you’re not, “they would respond, “You don’t even look like a lesbian.” This sent me on a year of trying everything short of tattooing a rainbow colored “L” on my forehead: I cut all my hair off; I changed the clothes I wore. By the way, flannel is not my color. I wore Doc Martens with everything, including skirts, got all the right rainbow jewelry. It didn’t matter. As an old butch friend told me a few years ago, “Pamela, it does not matter what you do. You will never be butch.” I have to accept it because it will be 20 years next year and it’s still true. I just don’t “look” like a lesbian. Of course that would be a stereotype. I spent way too many years trying to be a stereotype. Go figure. Fortunately I did eventually figure it out and I’m fine being me. It’s just sometimes I really wish people could tell. I don’t want to “pass”; I’m all ready with my witty retorts or cutting sarcastic remarks and I rarely ever get to use them. I use the word “wife” regularly; sometimes I get a raised eyebrow and am so excited to get to explain that to someone, but most of the time people barely blink. That is a good thing.

So the point of all that is: I'm not going back in the closet. Ever. Of course I look a lot more gay when I’m out with my handsome butch wife. She is the one “accessory” I can say will suddenly make me seem gay. Thank Goddess for that. When we are together, we definitely are seen as gay here in the country. As I mentioned briefly in another post, we have only seen one other couple where our gaydar went off on high pitch. There is also a young little baby-dyke we see around town and I give her blessings for her courage in being herself here. Other than that, we have been from Atwater to Madera and rarely see any other LGBT persons. We figure they are incredibly stealth or underground here. Using some keen chameleon-like abilities to blend into pickup trucks, nut trees, and shopping carts, we simply cannot spot them. Perhaps they live indoors and order everything on Amazon. I’m not sure. Statistically there have to be some.

I don’t have anything major to report yet, good or bad, from The Country. I guess that is a good thing overall. If you read my post about our first Chamber of Commerce meeting, we definitely were “seen” but not very “heard.” The biggest thing we get around here is stares. I have a pretty good resource of patience, but even I’m starting to think as we drive around, “What the f*** are you looking at?” Apparently they are thinking the same thing and have not been able to categorize us, except to know that somehow we are not like them. Everywhere you go there is us and them. There are many people here who know we are married, know we are lesbians and seem as though they could care less. Then there was the lady I talked to at unemployment the other day who was questioning my application. She asked if I was married. I said yes. She asked me another question and I said “well my wife and I moved…” and she sputtered the word “Wife?”And I was like “I have a wife, not a husband. We are legally married in California…blahbedy, blah, blah, blah.” She actually stopped and told me I “threw her.” She eventually recovered and of course required 3 more pieces of paper. Boy they sure get it when it comes to paperwork, huh?

Anyhoo, there are some amazing folk out here who have been nothing but accepting and I hope it continues that way for the most part. Many of the older ladies who are our “neighbors” here at the retirement complex understand what and who we are. Some of them just don’t get it and keep asking me how my “sister” is, or giving me some tomatoes to give to my “sister.” My subtle hints don’t work so well on older folks who are always yelling because they cannot hear or see. We just carry on as usual. We hold hands, put our arms around each other, and hug a lot too. We keep it down on the major PDA’s around here, but we don’t pretend we are something we are not. I’m sure I’ve given Angela at least one of those friendly-greeting type kisses when she comes back from walking the dog or wheel chairing her mom around the property. I guess they must think we are really close sisters. Oh we are. Sisters in spirit at least.

Feeling Bugged

2011-07-28T21:59:00.000-07:00

This is probably not a good day to get truly rolling on this topic, but there are a couple things I wanted to point out. The main one is…bugs. I have lived a lot of places and all of them have bugs of one type or another. If you are reading this and live somewhere that does not have bugs, will you please leave your contact information in the comment section? I’ll be in touch.

In the meantime, let’s talk bugs. I have never seen so many flies anywhere else I’ve ever lived. When I comment on that around town, everyone just says, “Well, it is a dairy town” or perhaps they might just utter the word “dairy” and roll their eyes or do some type of head tilt. The Queer Femme cannot vouch for this having never lived in another dairy town, but just based on empirical evidence I’m guessing there is some truth to it.

Every store you go into has flies buzzing around in it: at least 2 or 3. They are hard to kill as you might know. There are some kinds of bugs I don’t mind killing, flies are in that category. Sorry Buddhists. For the most part I don’t kill spiders though…I just remove them. Perhaps that offsets flies a little? Anyway, these persistent flies are everywhere around here. Not just outside buzzing around outside, in the trees, or at a picnic table like good old Uncle Walt Disney would have us believe, but everywhere. They get into your house no matter how hard you try. They are inside all the stores. A few days ago, I was standing in line at the pharmacy to pick up my prescription and counted five different ones zooming and taunting the shoppers.

The part that really surprised me was how they get inside your car. And stay there. You pretty much have to leave windows in your vehicle cracked open a bit due to the oppressive heat. Ergo, you get in the car, take off for your destination, get your tunes all the way you want them, when “What?!!” “What the hell is that?” and you find yourself flinging around your available arm and hand so it looks to the person in the car behind you like you are totally having a spaz attack, or casting spells or something. They are really hard to get out of the car. I actually had to purchase a good old-fashioned fly swatter just for the car. Crazy, huh?

Then there are spiders. For some reason spiders do not bother me that much. In the relationship split of who does what, I am the Spider-Master. Yes, I know I am the femme. My amazing butch wife is very tough in many ways, but not when it comes to spiders. Whenever she is in another room and I hear, “uh, uh, uh, uh” I run in with a cup and a piece of cardboard and save the day. I should have a t-shirt for this. Perhaps “Kitten with a Plastic Cup?” I’ll have to work on that. 9.5 out of 10 times I do scoop them up and remove them outside to their natural habitat. It just does not feel right to me to mess with spider energy. There have been a few times I just could not capture a spider and I don’t really want my wife to have to stand on a box in the yard until I figure out where it is and get it so she can come back inside. So you can see those exceptions are really an efficiency. There are some very busy spiders around here. I have to admire the sheer volume of work one of these tiny little critters creates overnight around here. I took this photo the other evening when walking the dog.

Then last night, there we are in Mom’s apartment and I hear “uh, uh, uh, uh” and go running to where my wife is pointing yelling, “Kill it! Kill it!” It is some kind of giant flying insect so Queer Femme Kitten runs to the kitchen, finds a plastic cup and a piece of cardboard from something we had just bought that afternoon (fortune shines down once in a while) and ran back in like 5 seconds. I nailed it! Mom and I looked at it banging around inside the clear plastic cup and decided it was some giant version of a bloodsucking mosquito. I took it outside and set it free. It might be harmless or it might be horror movie material, like Twilight: Bloodsuckers of Chowchilla. Have to admit I’m glad that one is now flying around outside the house.

Then today I was reviewing some of my tweets when I came across this interesting link from one of my tweeps, @GravyRainbow. If you are a person who pees in the shower you might want to check this out. This bug puts my bloodsucking gigantor mosquitoes and pesky dairy flies to shame. http://morningcupodoom.blogspot.com/2010/12/if-you-pee-in-shower-you-must-read-this.html Let’s hope there are none of these in the Chowchilla Slough!

This week it's been challenging to get on the laptop. In between job hunting and care-taking and going around to doctors appointments, we are working hard on painting the interior of a cute little house we are going to rent. ghostbust certain ones. I grew up in Arizona which has some pretty scary roaches and those I will definitely kill. I was rinsing something in the little house kitchen, looked down to my left and saw a large crawly thing that looked a lot like a large roach. Knowing what would happen if Angela saw it, I put on my Kitten with a Plastic Cup mantle and quietly stepped on it, trying not to hurl. Later she and the landlord came in and I pointed out the bug and said I thought it was dead. The landlord said, “That’s a cricket. They are good luck and you should never kill one in the house. You should catch them and put them back outside” Gulp. I hope in its short life it managed to sprinkle some cricket fairy dust around for us. One more bug for the Kitten with a Plastic Cup. I guess I still have a lot more to learn about the country.

Aliens or what?

2011-07-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of things about Chowchilla and the surrounding farmland and towns that make me curious or that puzzle me. My wonderful readers are getting to hear about them one at a time. Today's item is something that I’ve noticed recently in my meanderings around town.

I think there might be aliens amongst us. Yes, I said it. This town is quite different from anywhere else I’ve been. Why not? This phenomenon has been seen in other places all over the world, but recently there has been an outbreak in my neck of the woods.

Apparently people are being sucked right out of their shoes. That’s right. Look what I have found!

Over the last few days I have seen this multiple times.

It is not unheard of. I’m from Nevada most recently. Ever heard of Area 51? If not, you should check it out. I had friends in Nevada that would go down and spend time trying to watch for aliens down there. Some of you must have seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind or The X Files, right? I just did not know that we were moving into Area Chowchilla 99. I have not seen a rash of citizens wandering around wearing only one shoe. I’m thinking the aliens had to hurry and grab these citizens before they could quite get that other shoe off the ground. These sightings are so random. It could happen anytime, but I’m guessing it happens overnight. I usually find these lonely shoes in the morning. Is anyone in Chowchilla noticing their friends stumbling around in one shoe? Do we need to form a Citizens Against Aliens Taking Our Friends With Only One Shoe patrol?

It’s very strange to go out to walk the dog in the morning and come across these scenes of innocent neighbors who have been taken away. Maybe we should all be tying our shoes tighter. But what about those of us in flip-flops? It is summer after all. I can't be expected to wear shoes all the time.

The problem is that it’s just uncool to tie on your flip flops. But maybe then the aliens would not want us. It might be the way to go.

Citizens of Chowchilla: Tie your shoes or risk the consequences!!

Queer Femme in the Country

My Country Days are Numbered

Link to Farming video for Email Followers

Farming: Not Just for White People

Ode to Chanclas

VSPW To Undergo Gender Change?

Country Holiday Wrapup

Seniors Are Not Saints

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Getting Comfy

Sunday Night Cookin'

Hey, Watch Out!

Spicy Fall Cupcakes

Queer Report 10/28/11

A Change of View

Femme: Regular or Diesel?

Tomato, Tomahto

It's Friday, Friday, Friday

Out and About in the 93610

Have you heard about The Crooked Gene?

Comments are working again

Hunting: Jobs and Catfish

The Great Country Gravy Debate

The City Girl cooks for the Country Woman

PreheatOven to 350 degrees

Cut into 8 slices and serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

QFITC notes:

Sometimes I have to buy groundturkey because I can’t find ground chicken around here. It is okay; it still tastes delicious.

If the meat seems extra “wet”(I don’t want to know why), then I add a little more oatmeal.

I personally like it spicier so I would double or triple the hot wing sauce if I was making it justfor me. For the wife, I double. For Mom W. I stuck to the recipe. Still good, I just added more wing sauce on top ofmine before diving in.

Pamela’s ZucchiniArks

Life is a highway...or is it a garden?

All Aboard for the Chowchilla Express

Out of the Country, Into the City

Is it a Block Party without a Lesbian?

On Painting: Part 2

On Painting: Part 1

Doctors Schmoctors

Fried Green Tomatoes

Queer Report

Feeling Bugged

Aliens or what?