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June 2022

A fitting final image for the end of Pride Month, this collection of hand washes from Stonewall Kitchen marks a subtle nod to the rainbow, while reminding of our last trip to Ogunquit. Anything that brings back such a happy memory is worthy of a blog post, no matter how brief. Happy Friday – and Happy Pride!

The bridge between the FaceBook/Twitter crowd and the SnapChat/TikTok crowd seems to be found in a single name and space: Instagram. Somewhat regrettably, I don’t focus much on my Instagram account, but I’m trying to change that, especially since so much of my previous creative endeavors have focused on visual elements. 

The lagging interest in my Instagram account is indicative of a larger lagging in much of my social media lately – and quite simply I’m just not that interested. Most of my posts are in service of this website and any new blog entries. 

Both FaceBook and Twitter have gotten mired down with the awfulness that is so prevalent these days (and I am guilty of Tweeting the hell out of our present political predicament) so Instagram is usually a safer space for viewing flowers and pretty things, and for keeping things light and whimsical. We need more of that. 

So go on and follow my foolish ass on Instagram here. (You know you want it!)

After a glorious weekend, it seems the weather has caught up with the general sentiment of the sane and humane people of our country. These are dark times, my friends – a worldwide pandemic rages on, the rights of women are being stripped and set back fifty years, and one whole political party would rather see guns available to all than safe and affordable healthcare. Whenever the world deals us a blow against human rights – and as a member of the LGBTQ+ community I have personally felt more than a few of them over my lifetime – I tend to turn to my chosen person, hunker down in our home, and shut the outside world out. So it was that we spent this weekend by the pool, working in the gardens (mostly watering to keep things alive in such heat) and watching a movie to lighten the mood (in this case it was ‘Spotlight’, the one about the Catholic priests who molested thousands of kids in Boston). On with the rainy recap…

Do you remember how we used to live?

A song for a summer night, because music hits differently in the heat. 

A summer friend returns. 

Little drops of sun on the ground. 

Finally enough love, but never enough Madonna. 

A trio of summer smiles. 

Because Pride still matters – perhaps now more than ever. 

Lulled by the sea and drawn by the undertow of downtime, this year’s BroSox Adventure was everything Skip and I wanted it – and needed it – to be. 

Speaking now or forever hold your rights.

An old love rekindled. 

A simple but divine summer dinner. 

Dazzlers of the Day included Billy Reilich and Fabio Bonavento. 

It was the summer of 1987 and at the ripe old age of twelve I’d already fallen in love. 

Even more strange was that I hadn’t even seen the object of my desire in person – only pictures and images in catalogs and books – yet I knew what my heart wanted. 

It wasn’t Madonna, who was about to unleash the fabulous song (and wretched movie) called ‘Who’s That Girl’. It wasn’t the school jock who lived a few blocks away, though we’d shared a tender good-bye to childhood right about that time. It wasn’t even a person. 

My heart belonged to a flower – an iris. 

Enraptured by Lee Bailey’s stunning photos and descriptions of the various iris plants he grew, I’d been under their spell even though the only ones I’d ever seen in real life had been the common bearded variety, which bloomed rather early in the season. Suzie’s family garden had a big bed of them, and to this day their spicy fragrance brings me back to those idyllic days. 

While the bearded iris and their tubers were lovely, I longed for something more rare, and something that bloomed deeper into the summer months. I wanted the Japanese iris. 

As described by Mr. Bailey, these were magnificent plants that held butterfly-like blooms high in the air, elegantly and delicately swaying in the slightest breeze. They came in purple and white, and new hybridizers were working on pinks. Though I searched for them everywhere, the closest I could find was a Siberian iris, which more than happily filled the hole in my heart. 

My Mom allowed me two Siberian iris plants from Faddegon’s, and I planted them near the front of our perennial border that June. They already had buds on them, and I would eagerly return home from school and bolt to the backyard to see if they had bloomed. It seemed to take forever – almost the entire month went by before they deigned to open up. When at last they did, their dark purple flowers were as beautiful as I’d anticipated – a rare moment when expectation met reality, and the heart sang for such a gorgeous sight. Those Siberian iris would expand each year, and eventually I would separate them and re-plant them, sending some to friends, moving others to various spots in the yard, and to this day there is a big clump of them in my parents’ backyard, and one in mine as well. 

That is not, however, the plant you see pictured here. This is the long-sought-after Japanese iris, the original holder of my heart, and that first brush with plant love was rekindled this week when it finally came into bloom after years of neglect. 

When we first moved into our home, I couldn’t wait to try a Japanese iris. I planted it in a space off of the pool, but far from a hose or water source, and somewhat in the shade, which meant it didn’t get the wet and sunny conditions it thrives in. Other plants filled in and took over my attention, so this one blended into the background, its handsome sword-like leaves standing on their own and giving a striking vertical element to the space, but no blooms came, so I sort of gave up on it. 

As the best of perennials do, it came back year after year, producing a relatively small fan of leaves, but nothing else, until I was about to dig it out last year. Fortunately, there was a new space created by a cherry we’d cut down (shout out to George Washington), and with nothing else to fill it, I moved the iris there. It was close to the hose at last, and I decided to pamper it a bit for a year to see what it might produce. As the season progressed, and I kept the watering up, along with some fertilization, the leaves expanded and grew into a fine and impressive clump – much thicker and more robust than any other year. It must have liked all the new sun and nourishment it was getting, but it was too soon for a flower to show up, so I put it to bed last fall with the hope of something better this year.

The reward came this past week, when it unfurled these majestic blooms, beautifully veined and accented with little throats of golden sunshine, and my love affair with the iris was instantly rekindled. (I’m once again on the hunt for a pink variety…)

It is difficult to put into exact words the mix of anger, rage, weariness, fright, worry, and determination I feel after hearing of the Supreme Court’s rulings on abortion and guns this past week. That the highest court of our great country is now populated by a majority of people completely and entirely out of step with the majority of America is a problem many of us predicted when Donald Trump was running against Hillary Clinton in 2016, and these are the fruits of that disastrous election. The man who incited and executed an attempted coup of America, the man who refused to act like a true American and participate in the orderly transition of leadership, and the man who was more focused on illegally extending his role as President than helping us through the COVID pandemic, installed three of the justices who are now stripping Americans of their rights. All three of those justices lied under oath when they claimed Roe versus Wade was settled law and they saw no need to change it. 

Most people who lie on their job application or during their job interviews don’t end up getting the job, or are subsequently fired from the job. That’s how it works, unless you’re on the Supreme Court, where honesty and integrity and basic human decency no longer matter.

Many of us understand that this is precisely what the Republican Party has been working toward for years. It’s why I was so adamant that every Presidential election was also a Supreme Court election. These awful decisions are also enshrined in the current Republican platform, and the only way to begin righting the wayward ship that America has become is to vote them out in this year’s elections, and all elections, until they start speaking for the people they represent. 

I am lucky enough to never have been in a situation where abortion would have to be a choice for me, and if I were, I don’t know what that decision would be. But that should be a personal decision for anyone and everyone faced with that choice – because it is a choice. The right to choose doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights – taking away that choice absolutely does. 

For those who don’t believe abortion should be allowed, you absolutely have the right to those beliefs, and you have the right to not have an abortion. If you’ve been raped as a teenage girl, you have the right to carry the baby to term. If you have an ectopic pregnancy that will ultimately end up killing you, you have the right to see it through whatever might result. What you don’t have the right to do is tell another woman she can’t make her own choices. 

Our country must start to speak out against these decisions, and then we must vote against the party whose platform is officially against choice, against marriage equality, and against the very rights for which America was created.