I love that sarameg gets pedicures still. I feel like my work here is done.

I went to the library and paid $10.05 in fines and another $6 to replace the library cards that got lost with my wallet.

Went to yoga today. And partially finished a dress I'm sewing. I also took a long nap (yay nap!)

I think we're going to the aquarium tomorrow. I hope so because right after we'll go and have the really yummmy fish tacos!

My mom's on the same wavelength as yours, Hil. My sister and I spoke with her about gay marriage last year, and she was all for civil unions and legal rights, but no using the word "marriage" for any such unions. Kris and I argued that she was playing with semantics, but she stayed firm.

I did get Mom to giggle when I was telling her about the Beaker "Ode to Joy" video at YouTube, and the "Habanera" one as well. Her Comcast connection was pretty spotty when I was out there in July (the audio was fine, but the video was a string of still photos instead of smoothly moving images), but I'm hoping her new computer she got last week has fixed that problem.

My niece and nephew love to show Mom new stuff on the computer when they come over--she wants to show them these videos.

I love that sarameg gets pedicures still. I feel like my work here is done.

Hah! Truth be told, it's probably only my 4th in the past year, but it is becoming a habit. Last one was a month ago.

My mom's on the same wavelength as yours, Hil. My sister and I spoke with her about gay marriage last year, and she was all for civil unions and legal rights, but no using the word "marriage" for any such unions. Kris and I argued that she was playing with semantics, but she stayed firm.

I think its more emotional than semantic (it is with the people I know). I'm not saying that their feelings are rational... it just seems like a visceral thing.

Whoopie Goldberg had that short-lived sitcom a few years ago. Her brother (I think) was marrying a man and every time they said "Husband" about each other or the officiant said "husband and husband" she cracked up.

The sentiment seems just old-fashioned to me.

I'm trying to find a clip on YouTube. There isn't much from that show and a bunch of it is in German. Who'd a thunk it?

Well, my mother replied that she liked hearing the guy in the video say "Hee-yuh, in Maine." No comments on the actual content.

I think it must really be generational, because my mom thinks the same thing, and she has never been married and doesn't really have a high opinion of the institution! But marriage = man + woman, and anything else is completely fine and good, but not actually marriage.

Sort of related to this topic, I have some conservative friends who I really respect, who really think that the government should stay out of things and then things will be good. And they have a very strong moral fiber and really believe in doing what is right, and most of the time I agree with them about what is right. So it occured to me (who was raised an independent liberal who always thought of conservatives as the bad guys) that these conservative believe more than I do that people are good and will do the right thing. That is, they believe that left to their own devices, people will help each other and make sure no one is left destitute by and illness or will go hungry. And I, a liberal, think that people are inherently selfish and that if someone (the government, church, societal expectations) doesn't interfere, people tend to look out for number one and other people will go hungry, bankrupt and ill. This is a mind change for me, because I always have seen liberals as people who care about others and conservatives as out for their own gain.

I've always been a hobbesian liberal (life as nasty, brutish and short) and been all about the social contract as a means to mitigate it, but a concerted effort, not a natural thing. Locke pissed me off for reasons I've forgotten on that account. I think he thought it was our nature, which I think is BS.