....that his family could not attend

He's my brother in law, but I love him like a brother. He lost his partner of 17 years in 2006.

My youngest brother in law is gay. And he fell in love. And the person that he fell in love with fell just as hard.

And they got engaged.

And they got legally married on Friday, July 22, 2011 in Washington, DC.

And we were not with them. Because, y'see, we live in South Carolina, and the chance that South Carolina will ever approve gay marriage is about 20%. That's the percentage of people who voted Yes to a proposed constitutional amendment allowing same sex marriage in our fair (unfair) state.

And, well, I just don't like the fact that they had to travel to Washington, D.C. to legally wed. They will have a ceremony when they return for family and friends, but we were not able to watch them when it became official. And that makes me sad.

I have not asked permission to put any photographs up, so I can't but I hope they will allow me to photograph the local ceremony....I'm just filled with joy for them, and sadness that I was able to waltz down the aisle in a fancy dress and pledge my vows with my nearest and dearest only a few inches away, and they were cheated out of that joy.

I hope that by the time my children reach marryin' age, things will change, and I think they will.

The United States Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that NO state could forbid interracial marriage. In 1967. Forty-four years ago. Federal law always trumps state law, so the provision in South Carolina's constitution forbidding interracial marriage, passed after the Woah* in 1865, was automatically null and void as soon as that ruling was handed down. One day, the United States Supreme Court will rule that both the federal government and ALL STATES must honor valid marriages performed in other states. It won't be long.

On that day, every state will be forced to recognize marriages performed in other states. It won't mean that South Carolina will have to pass an amendment allowing for gay people to marry in our state. They will just have to recognize and treat as valid marriages performed in other areas.

Wanna guess how long it took for South Carolina to allow interracial marriages?

February, 1999.

If either one of our kids are gay, I hope they like destination weddings. Lessee, the War Between The States ended in 1865, and interracial marriage was allowed in SC in 1999.....It only took 134 years. We'll see...I'll be dead as the proverbial doornail before it happens here.

T'aint right. Oh well. Blessings and joy to the newlyweds!!!! Roger's parents just celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. And now all of their 7 children are married!!!

*That's Southern for war.

....to quote a man who had his brains blown out while serving our country

I got to thinking about this the other day. I have a list of "Blog Inspiration Topics" to turn to when I'm feeling dry. But while I am feeling dry, I am going to solve the entire mystery of life on this planet and leave you a wiser, more enlightened person who is prepared to take on the universe and grow spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. OK?

But that's not all! What else do we have for the contestants? After you read this post you will automatically wake up the next morning looking EXACTLY THE WAY YOU HAVE ALWAYS DREAMED OF LOOKING. After you do, please consider sending me a love offering via paypal. OH EM GEE!! I figured out how to install a real paypal button!! (see right hand column)

Okay, enough joking. But you know what I was just wondering? Remember all that hideous furniture that game shows used to give away? I wonder if anyone still owns theirs?

Life is not fair. And the first thing I need to say is that being able to type this on a computer, while my college & law school & Phi Beta diplomas are proudly displayed in my garage, means that I am one of the richest people on the planet.

And having my wonderful kids makes me one of the richest people....Oh COME ON. My kids spend their idle summer days dreaming up ways to divest me from my money. And every K-12 parent knows what August brings. The School Supply lists go up and your child reminds you that you need ONE GREEN ONE INCH BINDER WITH 8 MULTICOLORED TABS and ONE TWO INCH YELLOW BINDER and ONE THREE INCH ORANGE BINDER with a 3 punch pencil holder and SIX YELLOW HIGHLIGHTS and FIVE BOXES OF KLEENEX and THREE BOTTLES OF HAND SANITIZER and a JOURNAL (I've sent in 11 journals so far. None have ever been seen again) and, if you're pathologically cheap like me, you fight off the temptation to just gather up all the leftover crap from last year, spray the binders with Windex, and toss the whole seething mess in a box to take in on the first day.

I'm not getting very far with my theme am I?

I guess I just don't want to face it. Because it's not fair that life isn't fair. Every book, every movie, every porn video* I've watched on the internet has happy endings.

*Kidding, but I know of a guy who has porn running on one computer while doing business at home on another and the other day his boss asked him what was that moaning sound in the background (he had forgotten to mute the porn) and I forgot what excuse he gave his boss, but that's probably a good thing, because the first part of this is a true story.

Face it, I'm not going to solve a problem that has baffled the brightest minds through the ages except what about this?

What if reincarnation is real? (I believe).

What if you are allowed to choose how many challenges you take on while alive in order to face them and grow spiritually? (I believe).

Here's a weird story. I used to have a psychic that would do email past life readings. And I asked her to do one for a friend of mine. Now this friend had two kids, and adored them. He spoke of them constantly, spent every spare minute with them, and I would have voted him as Father of the Year without a second thought.

The psychic said that he had been a doctor in a past life around 1890, and his beloved sister died of a disease. He spend every minute at the lab trying to figure out how to cure the disease that took his beloved sister and neglected his own wife and children. He asked for a new life to correct this and learn to be a good husband and father. Soon after I sent him this (which he never mentioned to me ever and I didn't bring it up) he took a job which required him to be at work 100 hours a week. Soon he was divorced and took a position at an office in another country. Computers. Japan. His kids barely know what he looks like.

True story.

If you think all psychics are frauds, you're wrong. Only 99% of them are.

I believe that reincarnation is real and that you choose your challenge and try to meet it. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.

Well, okay, now that I've solved the problem that has baffled the greatest minds, I have a complaint/query/bitch/whinnne.

How come, when someone does you wrong, are you considered "whiny" "unprofessional" and "boring and pathetic" and "mildly annoying" if you want to talk about it?

(the above adjectives have been applied to me recently and it smarts. It stings.)

There are people who attempt to deal with hard things by talking them out on their blogs and they are constantly being criticized and mocked. I've done some of it myself. Privately. The only blogger I've ever called out in public is Dooce and that's because she insulted my kids. Oh, and Violent Acres kindly stated that I should have been aborted instead of adopted because I whined so much and also called my kid's teeth gruesome or hideous or something like that. Did it affect me? Do I remember it? I had them put braces on my kid's teeth when we could not pay our car & home insurance bill.

Oh go away, people who feast on other's stupidity, faults, and misfortune like hungry wolves after a kill. Go away. Shut up.

I am. I don't care how trippy and zen and hippie and wacko and gooney it sounds (and it sounds that way to ME). I'm tired of putting negative thoughts into the world.

I'm going to try to stop.

...and by the way, Headmistress, eat it

This video describes the story behind Ricky Nelson's song "Garden Party"...where the title of my post originated...

Well, I got up and drank my Diet V-8 Splash and then I checked my Tarot Card Of The Day. It was the Devil. O-kay.....

Your Tarot Card
THE DEVIL - CARD 15
Like Death, the Devil at first appears to be a scary character but look again, he's really more of a caricature than anything else.
When the Devil turns up it may be time to face our inner fears, the ones that come up from our past/childhood, confront them and then break free from them.
Fears are only so scary when they're buried inside of us.
Once we can face our fears then we can see that our own personal Devil is not so scary after all and that's when we can break free from him and move forwards in our lives.
This card can also show temptation, as in the temptation for another person, to have an affair on the part of one or both of the parties.
It can mean you being very negative about your future prospects.
You might even be depressed or at the start of a psychological illness due to stress and worry.

Maybe you need to take a step back and see the situation more clearly.

Two things happened recently which struck deep at my childhood fears. Maybe you'd like to hear about them. First of all, I looked at my "No Longer Friend" page on Facebook and noted that I had lost a couple of friends. I could understand. One of Dooce's closest friends deleted me. That's okay. Then the Ipad post resulted in another friend being dropped. I probably don't have to explain that one.

Then somebody called me a fangirl. Why? Because I mentioned that I admired a popular blogger. They said I was boring and pathetic.

I was so sad. I couldn't get out of bed. I cancelled a lunch date. I simply had nothing to do yesterday but sit around and stew in a puddle of my own angst. And I did it, oh SO well. Oh yes indeed.

But I decided that I needed to take a step back and see the situation more clearly, as the Tarot card indicated.

Hey, maybe you think I'm unchristian to play around with the Tarot. Maybe your finger is hovering over the Delete button and will be taking me off of your friends list. I don't take the Tarot seriously. Cracker Barrel sells Magic 8 balls. I always play with one. I don't take that seriously either.



Here's the face of a 6th grade girl that nobody liked. The new kid at school. Trying to break into cliques that had formed in kindergarten. My parents moved us to Columbia just before I started 6th grade and I had no friends. In 5th grade, I was the member of a close bunch of girlfriends in Blacksburg, Virginia. We had sleepovers..We wrote letters to David Cassidy and Donny Osmond...We discussed boys and female functions and giggled and compared our tans. Suddenly I had nothing but a few letters to sustain me.

I finally went to the guidance counselor. "Well, Lorrie," she drawled, removing her reading glasses, "You need to be nice and friendly and then people will like you." So I did, and I met a girl in 7th grade who was a bridesmaid in my wedding and when I walked the aisle to collect my diploma, I knew had a group of friends to squee and hug waiting for me after the ceremony. Ever since that moment in the guidance counselor's office, I labored under the impression that if I was just nice and friendly everybody would like me.

My worst fear.....Will you like me? Do you like me? Is there something you don't like? Maybe I can fix it. But if I fix it, maybe someone else will stop liking me!! Oh, it's the same old story...As I marched down the aisle at my wedding, I mentally recited to myself the fact that 50% of marriages end in divorce. I sure was a cheerful bride. As we listened to the wedding service I was hyperventilating so badly that Roger had to hold me up.

"I couldn't believe it," Roger mused that night as I eagerly ripped open gift after gift while he videotaped me. "You could speak to ten thousand people without breaking a sweat. What on earth got into you, and how long are you planning to unwrap gifts, anyway?" Till I can prove to myself that people really like me, hon, I whispered to myself.

"I've never seen anything like it," Roger mused twenty years later. "You're still friends with people who remember when you had braces. And how many of your old boyfriends do you chat with on Facebook? Ten? Twenty?" I WAS 33 WHEN I GOT MARRIED OKAY AND I HAD A LOT OF OLD BOYFRIENDS. And the answer is THREE.

Okay, you get the point. And though there's pain in my chest, I still wish you the best, but

Take me as I am or leave me be

If you can't give me all, give me nothing.
And nothing's what you'll get from me.