today's the day: Gay Marriage vote in Maine

Today's election day and there's a REALLY BIG referendum question on the ballot in Maine. In May, Governor Baldacci (formerly opposed to gay marriage) signed a bill to approve same-sex marriage in Maine. Over the summer, of course, the hateful, the intolerant, and the homophobic joined together and rallied to raise signatures on a petition to put a referendum on the ballot to overturn this ruling. By the time the law was originally set to take effect (in September), the petition had been filed and the law was put on hold until today's election decides whether or not gay marriage will be allowed in the state of Maine.

I've already cast my absentee ballot... I am so excited and hopeful and nervous about this. Early polling showed the results would be too close to predict. I actually feel that this is going to all go down for the best. No reason, I'm just feeling optimistic and hopeful. I want to believe that people in Maine are more tolerant than hateful. I read predictions that only 35% of voters would turn out for this mid-term election and I honestly find that really hard to believe, given what a HUGE ISSUE this is. I feel like this will probably be one of the most important things I'll ever vote on in my life. I think there are a lot of people in Maine who will also feel it and get themselves out to the polls. Fingers crossed. I want this so badly for the people I love, for my state, for the human race.

usa part one: Michigan

We flew into Detroit, arriving on Thursday morning April 23rd. As soon as we dropped off our luggage and got cleaned up, we headed out for thai food! which was the number one thing we'd been looking forward to eating on this trip. We spent a few lovely days visiting with all kinds of family. My parents had driven out from Maine for the wedding, and we also got to meet up with my uncle David and his girlfriend Liz, who live in Grand Rapids. Then we spent time with Mike's dad Sandy and his wife Cheri and all their lovely family, and we met Mike's adorable new niece Riley (three months old!) and of course we spent time with Mike's mom Bonnie and her now-husband Les, whose wedding was the reason for our whole trip! and all of their families.

There were so many delicious and fun family dinners, it's impossible to recount them all, hopefully it is sufficient to say that we were hospitably received and very well fed.

The wedding was lovely, it was held at an old arts club in downtown Detroit, called the Scarab Club, right next to the Detroit Institute of Arts. The upstairs club room is absolutely beautiful, an arts & crafts style lounge with awesome architectural details. The wooden beams have been signed by hundreds of artists who've come to visit Detroit since the club was opened in the 1920's.

after the ceremony we had a delicious meal and a musical performance by two cello players.

Then we killed a few hours wandering around downtown Detroit (yikes!) in our wedding togs, until it was time to meet Sandy and Cheri and Robin for some delicious BBQ at the famous Slow's Barbeque. It was totally awesome and delicious, as promised. (this was the other top food we'd been looking forward to eating in the USA!)

back to the US of A.

it's time for our annual trip back to the northern hemisphere!! mike left first, and I followed a week later. my last week in Buenos Aires was totally crazy, as I had a HUUUGE screenprinting project to finish up before the trip, and I was still unpacking and cleaning and moving-into our new house (we had arranged for some nice folks to come stay in our apartment with the dog while we were out-of-town, so we wanted to get the apartment into decent, livable condition!), and then I got the worst head cold right before I left, so I ended up staying up until the wee hours the night before, finishing this work project and sniffling and sneezing and wheezing and then the morning before my flight i was running all over town trying to tie up loose ends and run errands and find cold medicine and i had about 12 minutes to pick out all my clothes for the trip and pack my bags. I did my classic rushed-packing-job resulting in way too much stuff and really heavy suitcases. Normally I don't like taking cold medicines (and thus don't have any in my house) but I was terrified that my head would actually explode during flight so I desperately swallowed as many decongestant-type pills as I could get my hands on. I flew out of Buenos Aires and had a layover in Santiago, Chile. Then flew from Santiago overnight to New York City. Then I had 5 hours to loiter inside of JFK airport before flying to Chicago. Mike met me at the airport in Chicago, about 24 hours after I'd stepped into the airport in BA! (i was SO happy to see him!!!). We spent the night in Chicago and then early in the morning we took Amtrak to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and arrived at Mike's dad's house just a few hours before the wedding.

Spent the next few days in suburbia, enjoying North American delicacies like pancakes and bacon and oatmeal cookies, and getting to know Michigan, Mike's hometown, and all of Mike's family, who were all very very sweet and generous and took great care of us!!

Summer Break in Maine

I left New York and drove north to Maine to stay at my parents' house and see my family and help out with the many wedding preparations. Amy sewed her own amazing dress and I helped her sew silk tulle ruffles for a few days. My parents were putting up a gazebo in their back yard for the wedding. My grandfather built the gazebo himself in the nineteen-fifties, and my parents were married in the gazebo in the sixties. In the seventies a Virginia Slims ad was filmed in the gazebo, in my grandparents' back yard. The gazebo has been in storage, in pieces under a blue tarp since the eighties. All the pieces had to be stripped and sanded and re-painted and put back together. It was a great collective effort, and in the weeks before the wedding dozens of family and friends came to the house to help sand and paint and build.

On Wednesday night my mother sent me to the bus station to pick up an out-of-town wedding guest. When I got there the surprise guest was MIKE! He wasn't supposed to be coming to the wedding but he had found a cheap ticket at the last minute, and for weeks he had been emailing with Judy and secretly plotting with my family to come to the wedding and surprise me! Everyone except for me knew about it! I had no idea my whole family could keep such a secret. As soon as Mike arrived he was drafted into service to help with cleaning and preparations. Amy and I baked and assembled and frosted a four-tier wedding cake with orange custard filling and caramel butter frosting. It used sixty eggs, all collected from my mother's hen-house.

After two weeks of craziness and hard work from dusk to dawn, the wedding turned out completely perfect and fun. Every single thing was just as lovely and enjoyable as it possibly could be. The sky was blue and the weather was pleasantly warm, the ceremony was sweet and succinct, the hors d'oeuvres (made by my sister Alicia) were most delicious, my parents' yard was filled with well-loved family and friends and good people. Everyone was in a fine mood.

George made lobster salad, asparagus, and roasted vegetables for dinner. The cake did not fall over on the way to the table, as I had feared it might, and it tasted wonderful. Amy had made Italian cream limoncello to drink with dessert. Many toasts were offered by friends and family. After everyone else went home, the last of us sat late into the night at one table and finished the limoncello, in the giant tent glowing with candles in the dark yard.