*sigh*

deyo can't fix my car. We're going to have it towed to Lim's. If he can't, I think it might be done for. It's got such a nice CD player, too. :(

I was hoping we could keep it going until we could afford a used Prius or Subaru Forester. I'm thinking we might have to buy an interim cheap used car.

*grumble*

Casey lost a radiator hose yesterday. We were going to fix it tonight. We couldn't stop at Kragen because my serpentine belt went bananas (didn't break, just went slack) a mile from home -- cheers to zpdiduda who rescued me so I could bring the cold groceries home, while deyo waited for the tow truck.

I guess early tomorrow we'll go to Kragen for parts when it's cool enough to bicycle, come back, and fix the cars before it heats up too much.

Both cars within 24 hours. Dude. Not fair.

Okay, this is just me being fussy:

"I've got half an acre of lawn, a swimming pool and three teenagers," said Alex Theriault, a contractor from Danville whose bi-monthly water bills top $1,400. "I can't afford not to cut back. But I'm not losing the lawn. My kids like it too much. And I'm not losing the pool. I like the pool."

HALF AN ACRE. We live on half an acre, and our lot is HUGE. He's got half an acre of lawn in Dublin, land of McMansions. How many kids does he have that he needs that much for them to play on? There are schools with smaller lawns and playgrounds. I do not feel sorry for his damned lawn.

(We don't water our lawns, though I consider it for the back yard -- about 1/12 acre -- for the dogs. But so far, we don't. I soak the corn patch for about 5 hours, total, a week. Our flow is too low to have that be a whole lot, we can't water the corn and take a shower at the same time, no pressure. I water the peas, beans, and other veggies, one bucketful per patch, for a total of four patches right now, every other day. I'll have to water the pumpkins and melons when they go in. But that doesn't add up to a lot.)

(Folks from elsewhere: It's normal for us to barely rain from May through October. We irrigate, or we dry out.)

Read kyburg's essay: http://kyburg.livejournal.com/943131.html

And this:
http://lexica510.livejournal.com/72559.html
Phyllis Martin and Del Lyon celebrated their 50th anniversary together by getting married in SF four years ago. They were the first to do so, when Gavin Newsom started the trend.

And this is very important:

What they decided:

The State can't do that. Separate but equal is not equal. Existing state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples are unconstitutional. Those laws should be interpreted as if the opposite-sex ban did not exist -- i.e. ignore the unconstitutional bits, go ahead and keep enforcing the rest in a manner consistent with this Court opinion. Florists, start building the bouquets.

Damn, there goes the sanctity of my marriage. *sniffle*

From Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, Democrat from the SF Area:

I welcome the California Supreme Court’s historic decision. I have long fought against discrimination and believe that the State Constitution provides for equal treatment for all of California’s citizens and families, which today’s decision recognizes.
I commend the plaintiffs from San Francisco for their courage and commitment. I encourage California citizens to respect the Court’s decision, and I continue to strongly oppose any ballot measure that would write discrimination into the State Constitution.
Today is a significant milestone for which all Californians can take pride.

---

I CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT IT MEANS!!!!!!!!!!

Joe quotes the decision
( court ruling )

Note: It's still possible to amend California's constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. That'll require vigilance. I'm ready.

This was a useful community for awhile, but when you get obnoxious advertising with the commentary, "not gonna delete it, i'm the mod - to those threatening to leave the comm, do it," it's better just to do it.

(edited to add: The post has been deleted. The community's primary moderator linked to her (unrelated) website, asking people to click on the google ad links. When folks complained and said they didn't want to be part of a community that encouraged that behavior, she deleted (and disabled) comments and said that she was the moderator and wasn't going to delete it and folks threatening to leave could do so. They didn't lose many -- couple of hundred out of 7800.)

A ship carrying two tons of red paint collided with a ship carrying one ton of blue paint on high seas. (click)

One nice thing about Iron Man was that it was easy to imagine nisaa in that dress Pepper Potts wore to that dance.

Last night, my margarita (the La Pinata house margarita, very good) was green. Joe had a "blue agave" margarita, which was intensely turquoise.

(8:40:18 AM) joedecker: Blue agave, Agave tequilana Weber var. azul, is the only subspecies of Agave tequilana allowed to be used to make true Tequilia in Mexico as per federal law
(8:41:44 AM) Me: so the blue agave margarita is a blue agave tequila margarita with BLUE added :)
(8:41:51 AM) joedecker: I suspect that's correct
(8:41:57 AM) joedecker: that can't have been natural
(8:43:24 AM) joedecker: Mezcal can be (is?) made from other forms of agave
(8:43:44 AM) Me: Yeah, I think the blue came from a chemical plant ;)
(8:44:21 AM) joedecker: Mezcal is also what typically contains the "worm", typically, and you *need to know this*, an agave snout weevil.
(8:45:57 AM) joedecker: I think the phrase "agave snout weevil" may just have to enter my usage
(8:47:01 AM) Me: no wonder deyo doesn't like it ;)
(8:47:09 AM) Me: (I like "agave snout weasel" better.)
(8:47:24 AM) joedecker: yes, but it's hard to fit one into the bottle

I AM VERY HAPPY.

(details later)

Herons and egrets are among my favorite birds. They remind me strongly of the bird-dinosaur link. Around here, we have great blue herons, snowy egrets, great egrets, and if you know where to look, black-crowned night-herons and occasional green herons.

hitchhiker and I stumbled into a heron rookery (black-crowned in some trees, snowy egrets in others) accidentally last week, it was like magic. They make gentle *snork* noises and fly around and look all prehistoric.

Herons and egrets are pure carnivores. Most eat molluscs, crustaceans, other aquatic invertebrates, fish, baby aquatic birds (close your eyes, duckling-lovers), and amphibians, great egrets and sometimes great blue herons also hang out farther away from water and eat small mammals and reptiles, too.

This is all as a minor babble and a link to this extraordinary series of yellow-crowned night-heron photos. I haven't yet seen a yellow-crowned. That, and the reddish egret, are on my "want to see" bird list.

I just learned to use Powerpoint for a geography presentation.

There *is* a way to keep my total number of slides in the single digits, right?

I didn't find it.

I hung out at Sweet Adeline's Bakeshop for awhile with iridium today, and they had the most beautiful cupcakes in the history of the world.

( pic )

Wanna know what's bad? I didn't actually try one because they almost intimidated me with beauty.

Look at the face on this kitten: http://isolt.livejournal.com/719738.html
(She needs a home. She's in Michigan, now.)

La Pinata, a small, family-owned Mexican restaurant chain in the bay area, makes a huge, hearty chicken soup, very basic, and right before they serve it, they dump about half an avocado worth of big-bite chunks of avocado on top of it.

You would not believe what a good thing this is.

zpdiduda has a massive avocado tree, and gave us some. Today I heated up a liter of good chicken stock with some tortellini, added chopped up chicken sweet italian sausage leftover from last night's dinner, and firm-cooked broccoli leftover from the same dinner, and when it was all hot/cooked, I served it up into two big bowls and tossed half an avocado, in chunks, on the top of each bowl.

It's so perfect.

You can't really cook avocado, it loses all structural and flavor integrity, but on top of a hearty chicken soup, it's just the perfect flavor/texture/temperature complement.

deyo decided to work from home about an hour ago.

Our internet just went to hell, with erratic connection. We'll be on and off all day.

I saved my potential astronomy extra credit stuff by storing it in a private LJ post. I can't get to that or where he stores them on the school website dependably. Today might involve a visit to an internet cafe. I don't feel like dressing and going out. Well -- at least the Eon has good bearclaws.

*grumble*

I was going to write something for no-diet day today, but other parts of life jumped in front of me, so I did those.

I will write something tomorrow, though. But being as today's the day, I figured I'd pin this here before the clock ticked over.

That's juverna and me.

There are more good pics in that set she's got.

Also (while I'm making public posts, might as well add this): The past few days have been really busy in terms of being out of the house and doing stuff, or in the house and doing piles of homework. Finals are very soon, I've had a couple of very social weekends, and on top of that, I currently have my right wrist braced most of the time because three knuckles and most of the small carpal/metacarpal bones are all fired up with RA. That's profoundly affecting how much LJ I'm managing to read and respond to. I have an exam this morning, but then things will lighten up to "normal" for a few days, while I study for one exam and finish some easy extra credit projects. I've saved tabs with your important/interesting posts in bookmarks three separate times over the past few days, sure I would get to them, but now, I'm not as sure, because they've stacked up. I apologize.

Quit with the penis-snipping. Sheesh.

(Yes, I have an opinion on this. No, this post is not filtered.)

(My strong preference is that adults be allowed cosmetic surgery on their genitals if they want it, but that parents shouldn't be able to choose it for their infants, any more than we'd have them do earlobe sculpting as an option for newborns.)

I shouldn't have waited so long to get an appt to get my re-formed ganglion cyst looked at. It's going to be bigger and hurtyer by then.

Ralphie from A Christmas Story was one of the exec producers of Iron Man, which was pretty good.* (He still has the big blue eyes, too.)

I did a lot of schoolwork today, and am pretty tired, so should sleep now. Tomorrow will involve more schoolwork, more housework (which I ignored today) and a dog park.

*Rereading his IMDB page, he was also "William" in the movie. I don't remember a William. Who was it, if you can tell me without leaving spoilers for others?

Made me cry:

"I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about."

MakerFaire this year was summed up with this word: "exhausting"

More photos
Everyone else's photos

We didn't get nearly enough photos of family and friends there, this time.