Proud to be an American

American flag made out of recyclable plastic by artbikemike on Flickr.  Love this.

Seeing the flurry of patriotic statements about "never forgetting" and the associated flag-filled images on Facebook gave me that same uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach that I felt in 2001. So I wrote this as my status:

12 years later, I'm still uncomfortable when I see all the 9/11-related patriotism and statements. Yes, it was a horrible act of violence. But I will also never forget being viewed by my fellow Americans with distrust just for being brown and looking "like them".

I'm sure, in my 900+ Facebook "friends" there were those who thought this was inappropriate to post, or thought it was reasonable collateral damage for what "they" did to us.  Thankfully they kept their thoughts to themselves.  (I've unfriended some already for making offensive comments about Lunar New Year, racial slurs against our president, and general assholery after the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin verdict.)

Yesterday a friend told me that the new Miss America is Indian-American. I was stunned, and even though I think beauty pageants are stupid, sexist and outdated, I was just a little bit thrilled.  I've written before about how I feel invisible in popular culture.

As it turns out, the "article" he linked was actually a collection of really ignorant and racist tweets posted after Nina Davuluri's win was announced.  You know, the usual stuff calling her a terrorist, foreigner, blah blah blah.

I'd love to say I was surprised to see them, but I'm not.  You see, I grew up in Western Pennsylvania in the 80s. It was mostly white and Catholic, neither diverse nor liberal, and the polar opposite of where I live now.  As a child I was taunted for the color of my skin, my parents' religion, my "weird" name, told to go back to my country (uh, born in Pittsburgh, thanks), called "camel jockey", etc.

My experience is sadly not unique, as my friend N wrote so eloquently yesterday. While I can thankfully say that I really don't encounter racism anymore, many still do.

I'm rolling my eyes at CNN and other news media picking up the racism/ignorance angle and being so shocked about it.  I mean really, are there people who think this stuff doesn't exist in our "enlightened" times?

But another part of me is thrilled that (at least some) mainstream media is calling it out as unacceptable and defending Nina Davuluri's "right" to be chosen as Miss America.  (As stupid as I think the whole idea of Miss America really is.)

So maybe the times, they are a-changin'.  Just a little.

Love and happiness

Yesterday we went to a wedding.  This was the first one we've attended in 7 years, unbelievably. I guess we're just in that phase of life where everyone is already married, has decided not to get married, or elopes.

T was very excited about it - we got her a new dress and matching hair clips, told her she could wear her dress-up black shoes, and said she could dance.  I prepped her for the part where she would need to sit quietly and listen to the ceremony.

The invitation said "aloha attire" and BabyM was the only one who had anything vaguely resembling that.  TJ and I settled on ocean blue, and T's dress had flamingos, which I figured was close.

we honestly didn't plan this level of matchiness!

It was a perfect day for a wedding by the lake.  Both girls were in remarkably good spirits despite interrupted naps.  The room was filled with love and good wishes for the happy couple, as all weddings are.

But this wedding was different from all the others we've attended.  This one had two brides, who have been together for 14 years and married for 10, but are only now able to make it legal.  It was an honor to be invited, and I am *so* grateful to M and T for the opportunity for their wedding to be the first one my girls experienced.

T asks a lot of questions, and yesterday she asked *why* people get married.  I told her that people get married when they find someone they love very much and want to spend the rest of their lives with that person.

I love that T never got the memo about marriage being only between a man and a woman.  I hope that when she and her sister are grown up, they'll be incredulous that it was such a big deal for two women or two men to get married, just like I am still surprised that my own marriage would have been illegal in some states a few decades before I was born.

As expected, we had to leave a bit early due to missed naps and early bedtimes, but it was a wonderful, perfect, lovely way to end our weekend. 

And we all shine on

Wow, I guess a woman's got time for crafts, keeping the house in decent shape, or a blog, but not all three :)

These past several days have had the theme of "Crafty Good Karma". I got an Etsy 'Conversation', which is like an email, from a local seller who needed help setting up her shop. Since I was all relaxed from my vacation, I said "sure, why not" and set up a time to meet her at a local restaurant with free wireless Internet access. She gets help on the technical side of posting items on Etsy and I get to eat a fabulous quesadilla, so everyone wins.

I met her at the restaurant and walked her through the process of listing a new item, how to resize pictures, save them in a folder to organize them, and then upload them to Etsy. All in all a couple of hours, not too bad. She offered to pay me in cash, but seriously, I didn't need to be paid for that. But when I saw her gorgeous jewelry, I asked her if she would make me something cool. I am so excited to receive the necklace she's making me. You'll see why when you check out her Etsy shop.

She makes the cutest necklaces out of old rosaries and prayer medals and all sorts of vintage, upcycled components. Very awesome.

The next event in my theme of "Etsy Good Karma" was that the winner of a charity auction for my high school finally contacted me. I had donated a custom-made necklace and earring set back in the spring, and had exchanged a few emails with the winner, but she went on vacation, and I went on vacation, and no progress was made on this project. But finally she told me what she wants, so I'll get started on her project this weekend. Yippee!

And then it hit me. I love making jewelry, but it's not the majority of what I sell on Etsy. My magnets and stamped dog tags sell *much* better than my jewelry. And yeah, I could make lots of jewelry for myself (I'm working on it!). But I realized I could satisfy my jewelry making fever by making gifts for people, and *also for donations to charity auctions and raffles*.

So I can actually *do good* with my jewelry. How cool is that? So far I've committed to another custom necklace and earring set for my company's Annual Giving Campaign raffle, and also for a final fundraising auction for Barack Obama's campaign.

I'm not really down with giving money to political campaigns, but Obama has a way of making people want to give him money :) Maybe that makes him a really good (salesman) politician, but whatever he's selling, I'm totally buying into it. Smart and articulate? Sign me up, dude.

I suppose that's an indication of how low our standards have gotten for politicians. Speaks in perfect sentences, check. Coherent and makes sense, check. Top notch college and graduate degrees, check. Bingo, you are now the best candidate for President of the United States. Seriously, anyone can win, even raging idiots who drive drunk, can't speak, and are on vacation all the time, so if you meet the criteria above, you must be preordained.

So anyway, I can assuage my conscience by not actually giving him money, but donating a custom jewelry design option for an auction event to raise money. You can see my donation as well the details and signup link for the Halloween Bash here.

Pretty cool, huh? And now I'm off to make more jewelry. Because I'm pretty close to getting *behind* in my orders now. Yikes.

In the midnight hour, she cried

Tesla concert. Last night. Showbox SODO. Crappy venue. Opening band Cinder Road. Mostly bland. Kickass cover of Rebel Yell.

Watch it:



Not much to say about Tesla, except that they suffer from the same problem as Def Leppard. Years of hard partying have really taken their toll on singer Jeff Keith's voice. He sounded awful and hoarse, and butchered most of the songs. He said he was getting over a bad flu. If the flu was the cause of his horrid voice they should have postponed the show. But my guess is that the band just wanted to recapture their 80s glory and make some money for their retirement and figured that the 80s fans would hear the songs in their head the way they were supposed to sound. And somehow he and Lily Tomlin have morphed into the same person. Very strange.

On a bright note, the guitarists were pretty incredible, yet again. They have honed their skills to perfection and played a variety of songs to prove it: country, rock, metal, and even a little Spanish-sounding stuff a la Gipsy Kings that segued nicely into my favorite Tesla song, "Love Song". But the illusion was shattered when Jeff started singing. Blech.

Did I miss the memo about metal bands jumping on the flag-waving "support the troops" bandwagon? I'm all for quietly respecting the sacrifices our military makes for our country but it makes me slightly nauseous when my entertainment waves its politics at me. And then performs awful songs about it. Each band had its own new crappy song about a soldier at war.

If you want a good political statement song, try "Deja Vu (All Over Again)" by John Fogerty. Now that's a good war song.

Still an obsession

Arghh, he's at it again. Reading this article actually made me sick to my stomach.

The Famously Intolerant, Bigoted, Dumb-Ass reverend Ken Hutcherson from the Antioch Bible Church, which unfortunately now has moved to my town of Redmond, is now calling on Christians across the nation to buy Microsoft stock so they can vote as shareholders to tell Microsoft to stop providing benefits to same-sex domestic partner couples.

Seriously? You're the leader of a church, and this is the crusade you choose? Not starving kids in Africa (or hell, even in your backyard), or any number of other causes that would actually help some group of underserved people, but a crusade to force a public corporation to change its internal policies *that don't affect you*?

What a freakin' waste of time and resources. I don't understand why "churches" like this get to fly within the nonprofit zone, and don't have to pay taxes, yet can get all up in political and business issues.

So here's my call to action for all of you out there in my circle. If you support companies being able to choose what their internal benefits policies should be without kowtowing to some external bigot, or hell, if you support the rights of *all* types of employees to have access to the same benefits, then please consider buying a couple of shares of Microsoft stock to keep them out of the hands of this crazy and his followers.

Of course, this is just a symbolic gesture, and these crazies will not likely be able to buy enough shares to influence the internal policy at Microsoft. At least I hope that's the case. I'm still baffled at why Microsoft execs ever granted this guy an audience to discuss his 'concerns'. I'm guessing it won't happen again.

If you're on Facebook, and you work at Microsoft, you can join this group. There's also a link there to an open group if you just want to show your support but aren't a Microsoft employee.

Grrr.

How do you like me now, now that I'm on my way?

Thanks to Delta I had to rearrange some of my plans for Friday (and I never did get around to doing any of the work I brought with me!). I met two friends from high school, Dan and Bob, for drinks and dinner. We went to a hip little place called Olive or Twist. Get it?

I hadn't seen Bob since our graduation day in 1991, and I've only seen Dan a few times since then. Bob tracked me down via my work blog a few months ago and badgered me into coming out to Pittsburgh for the reunion. Over several beers (them) and two lemon drops (me) we caught up on each others' lives, argued about politics (in that way people do when they've had a few drinks and don't want to talk details), and got to eat cake from a retirement party someone else was having at the restaurant. Who doesn't like free cake??

We made our way to another (nearly empty) bar and talked about stadiums and economics for another hour or two (and a couple more rounds of drinks). It was a really fun night out - exactly the low key sort of vibe that was perfect for my less-than-gregarious self.

Thanks to the late night, my next day was pretty mellow. I slept in, drank the tea and tomato juice delivered to my room (for free - I love this hotel!) and then made my way over to Macy's (may Kaufmann's rest in peace) to try to find some lunch and then get my hair done for the reunion that evening. I assumed it would be easy to find lunch in downtown Pittsburgh on a Saturday. All I found was fast food joints (nothing good) and some nasty looking pizza at the Macy's "cafe", which was really more like a gross snack bar. So I got a small carton of milk and called it lunch.

You would think after all these years I would have figured out how to make my hair look decent, but I think I'm just missing that gene. Perhaps it's the same one that controls hand-eye coordination, and throwing a baseball the right way? And especially if I'm out of town without my irons (curling and flat) and potions, the chances of me creating a decent hairstyle are slim to none. So I made an appointment with Shelly at the Elizabeth Arden salon in Macy's/Kaufmann's and she did her thing. I did buy some promising gooey stuff that makes the frizz go away, so maybe it's the magic ingredient that will lead to hair nirvana forever. Um, probably not.

Now for the fun stuff. Marcie and her husband Michael came to pick me up for dinner before we braved the reunion. As I mentioned in my previous post, I wasn't sure what to expect from the reunion. I didn't much care for high school, and downright hated it my senior year.

Through the power of the Internet I tracked down Marcie's email address last year and got back in touch with her. She was the valedictorian of our class (seemingly effortlessly) and came across as being above the whole stupid high school thing. I envied her attitude, for sure (but not the valedictorian part, since I was completely happy being #2 having expended little to no effort studying).

We had a great dinner on the South Side, at a cute restaurant in an old house called UUBU 6. Over dinner we caught up on the past 15 years. She and her husband have got it together, seriously. Great careers, they obviously like each other, and they even *look* great together. They were awesome company and I'd love to hang out with them again. And I must be grown-up and/or happy, because I was not in the least bit envious of them, just totally happy for her.

Which brings me to another philosophical observation - I had some real trepidation about attending this reunion and seeing a lot of people who made me feel bad about myself back in the day. I had imagined for many years that I'd stroll back into our reunion with my fabulous job, fabulous husband, looking fabulous and the soundtrack running in my head would alternate between Toby Keith's "How do you like me now?" and "Have you seen me lately" by the Counting Crows. And this would absolve all of the icky feelings I had about these people in high school because my life would be so much better than theirs. (Marcie, Judy, Dan and a few other friends excepted here). To put it bluntly, I was bitter for a long, long time.

And that bitterness went away 5 minutes after we got to the reunion. Suddenly 1987-1991 seemed like a lifetime away (it was half my life ago) and I couldn't really remember or summon those bad feelings anymore. People were really nice, even those who didn't give me the time of day in school. And instead of playing up my success (and luck) in life, I found myself mostly just answering questions about where I worked without a lot of elaboration, and talking more about Peanut and Spike.

And maybe it was the drinks I had (the bar we went to seems to think a lemon drop consists of only lemon vodka) but I had a sort of epiphany.

In the few years after I graduated in my bitterness, I thought that beyond the few friends I had who went to a decent college, everyone else wouldn't amount to much. Part of it was a snobbishness on my part and the sheltered life I had, and part of it was a fervent hope that the crap I put up with in high school was all part of the master plan and I'd be vindicated/rewarded after graduating from Caltech and getting a good job. (The geeks shall inherit the earth and all that). I had a very narrow outlook on what it meant to be successful.

Of the folks who showed up (maybe a third of our class), people had done pretty well with their lives despite not following the "traditional" path I'm used to.

Several of my former classmates carry a gun for their jobs or do dangerous work, as special agents, soldiers, state troopers, firefighters or police officers. And every one of them loved their job. It takes a heck of a brave person to do that kind of work - I'm certainly not signing up for it.

Many people have kids, of course, and they were all equally proud of them and happy to talk about them. A lot of people were happily married, and some were divorced but happy about that too. As I talked to people, I realized I was having a good time, and the pressure to show off just went away. It was neat to talk to people who were in a completely different profession than I am, since in Seattle, we're almost always surrounded by techie people. In my high school class we also have a diplomat, a truck driver, a caterer and an environmental scientist who works on hazardous waste stuff.

Anyway, I know it sounds trite, but it took a trip of 6,000 miles and 16 years back in time to make me realize that success comes in all forms. I have known for a few years that I am happy and confident about my life but this was a true test for me. There was no envy in my heart at all this weekend.

Except, maybe, for Marcie's gorgeous diamond earrings. But then again, my wedding anniversary is coming up, so maybe a little birdie will drop hints in TJ's ear. A girl's gotta have her ice. Peace out.

Would you trade your words for freedom

I forgot to mention a few days ago that I voted. I was actually going to skip it because it was a busy day and I hadn't found the time to do the right research. But I felt guilty about that when I thought of people in other countries who can't vote, fought/died for the right to vote, or whose voting system is so corrupt it doesn't matter anyway. While our system has problems, we're not quite that bad yet.

I'm pretty apathetic when it comes to politics. There are only a handful of items I really care about:

--that our leaders are smart and maintain integrity
--a woman's right to choose
--equal treatment/civil rights/non-discrimination for *everyone*
--some degree of taxation to support the education system and those less fortunate
--separation of church and state

I left all of the judge elections blank since I didn't know anything about them.

For the House of Representatives, I voted for Darcy Burner, former Microsoft manager because she's a smart woman, not a career politician and not as icky as her opponent Dave Reichert. God forbid we should be able to find anything concrete about their views instead of empty rhetoric and blathering about lower taxes. Sadly, I don't think she's going to win - it's close and they're still counting but it doesn't look good. I am impressed that she made such a strong showing against an incumbent, with no political background.

I was also happy to see Jim Webb won in Virginia. His opponent George Allen is the kind of ass I ran into a lot growing up.

Other than that it was a fairly boring election. I guess the Democrats have taken over the Senate. Which is better than the alternative, but I wish we had less of this partisan crap and just more smart people running the country.

Like Martin Sheen, or at least his character on "The West Wing". I would love to see the day when an articulate Nobel Prize winner is our president.

Our current situation reminds me of this bumper sticker: "Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot" How can you not love that? And even more, how great is it that we live in a country where I can say that freely on my public blog? Woo hoo!

What a man was 2000 years ago means nothing at all to me today

My road trip included 3 visits to In-N-Out Burger in a week. This is hands down my favorite fast food place, though their fries suck, their menu is limited and I don't even eat their burgers. What I get isn't on their menu: Grilled cheese with grilled onions and no "special" sauce, ketchup and mustard instead.

It's a bit nontraditional - the bread isn't grilled, it's just a hamburger with no meat patty. But they use really fresh ingredients - the bun is nice and squishy, it's real cheese, and the lettuce and tomato aren't those wilted, over-engineered imitation vegetables you'd find at McDoof's or one of those other lower-quality places.

In-N-Out is a family owned chain, which doesn't franchise, and they tell you that on their paper bags. The other thing they print on their bags (and cups and other paper products) is a Bible verse - a different one on each product. Not the entire verse, just the reference to the verse. Normally this sort of thing would bother me, since I'm really opposed to having religion shoved in my face when I'm not expecting it.

However, in this case it doesn't bother me. It's unobtrusive - you usually have to look at the bottom of the cup, or the bottom seam of the bag to find it, plus, the fact that it's just the reference to the verse makes it kind of cool, like a puzzle. Sort of like "hey, if you want to know more about it, go look it up yourself." Not being too familiar with the Bible (though it made for interesting reading during super-boring Religion class lectures in high school), I don't know what the verses are. When I was working at Deloitte, a group of us went to In-N-Out for lunch, and Nicole, one of my teammates, told us what they all were - she had this incredible photographic memory of Bible verses.

Not all companies are this subtle about expressing their religious views. Our very own Alaska Airlines here in Seattle has a really annoying practice of giving you a small card with a Bible verse on it with your meal. Not just a reference, mind you, but an actual verse, and one that refers specifically to Jesus, usually. I could almost forgive a general "Be good to others" or "God is great" verse, as that would cover most religious beliefs. Fortunately most Alaska flights are so short that you don't get a meal, so I haven't seen one of these in a long time. When I did get one, I made it a point to return it to the flight attendant.

This practice irritates me to no end - I've actually written to Alaska Airlines to complain, as have a few of my non-Christian friends, and we got a totally flippant response from Customer Service that said something to the effect of "A lot of people like it so too bad for you" and no apology. Apparently others have complained as well.

Do they not realize that it might come across as offensive to non-Christians, who aren't exactly a small percentage of people in this country? I'm all for private companies pushing their own beliefs and not hiring those who don't adhere to them, but when you're providing a service, is it really necessary to foist those beliefs on your paying customers? (Now if you're a Christian bookstore or some other religion-based business, that's a different story since your customers are actually interested in your religious values.) Unfortunately, Alaska's hub is in Seattle and their prices are often the lowest so I can't boycott them without majorly inconveniencing myself.

I'm not opposed to religion - I just don't want other people to try to convert me or shove their beliefs in my face. To me, religion is very private, and if you want to share it with other people, wait for them to ask, or share it with those who you know have common beliefs. I have friends who are deeply religious and yet don't ever mention that they think I'm going to hell, or that I really should think about going to church/accepting Jesus as my savior/watching the xyz religious movie with them. I really appreciate those friends - I know their faith makes them who they are, and it may be telling them to share it with others, but they seem to "get" that it's not something I want to address in our relationship.

So, did I stir up a hornet's nest with this topic? :)

Intolerant People Suck

(Political rant starting, so watch out.)

This week there was a lot of uproar over Microsoft withdrawing its support for a Washington state anti-gay-discrimination bill. You can read more about it in this article (somewhat biased) in our alternative newspaper The Stranger. I'm fairly apathetic when it comes to politics, but civil rights and abortion rights have always been of interest to me.

The fact that someone would oppose an anti-discrimination bill baffles me. I haven't read much about it, but I'm still astonished as to why the Equal Rights Amendment never passed. Some people argue these bills are "redundant" with other laws. So what? If some large group is feeling discriminated against, and there's sufficient evidence that it's true, why not pass the bill? Isn't voting against something like this in effect saying it's ok to discriminate against x kind of people?

I'm not sure why some segment of Americans (and in most cases it seems to be conservative, usually evangelical Christians) feels like they need to get up in everyone else's personal business. One of my favorite bumper stickers says "Against abortion? Then don't have one."

So if you read the Stranger article, it says Microsoft caved under pressure from this crazy preacher named Ken Hutcheson who has this mega church that meets in the Kirkland High School auditorium. I wish I could say this was somewhere rural, in the middle of the state, out in the backwoods. Unfortunately it's about 15 minutes from where we live in Redmond. And the congregation has several members who work at Microsoft. I know a company as large as Microsoft is bound to have a diverse collection of views and religious beliefs, so I guess I shouldn't be disappointed by that, even though my past experience has shown smart geeky people are usually pretty tolerant (or at least, apathetic) of people's differences.

The thing that gets me is this preacher. How can someone who claims to be doing "God's work" spew such intolerance towards others? And why does he use his position of authority to spread his intolerance? And why doesn't he just stick with preaching and charitable works, rather than meeting with business leaders to threaten them with boycotts so that he can spread his intolerance into our laws. And why does Microsoft give this guy the time of day? He got to meet with Brad Smith, our chief counsel, plus some other high level execs. Why are our execs wasting their time on this crap? In addition "Rev." Hutcheson demanded that two Microsoft employees who testified in the House in support of the bill be fired. (They were reflecting their own personal stance, not representing Microsoft.)

Steve Ballmer explained Microsoft withdrawing support for the bill yesterday in an email he sent to employees. He said they were planning to do it all along (Microsoft is officially "neutral" now) because they had to pick and choose their battles, as well as respect the wishes of *all* shareholders, including the intolerant homophobe ones. (Obviously I'm paraphrasing here.) I can understand not wanting to have a corporate position on this. He did mention that they did not cave in response to this preacher guy - the decision had been made long before that. And they are, of course, not going to fire those two employees. I actually felt better about the whole thing after reading this message. It seemed genuine and heartfelt (maybe his communications staff are just really good) but I didn't get the sense that "the man" was trying to spin the story. And that makes me feel good about working at Microsoft.

There was an article in Seattle magazine a few months ago about Rev. Hutcheson and it just made my skin crawl. He grew up playing football because it was the only way he could beat the crap out of white people. But apparently he changed his racist ways when he met his wife, who's white. I guess his viewpoint changes whenever it suits him (or when it comes to cute women). Plus, having a giant multiracial congregation is probably more lucrative for him anyway. They're saving up money to build one of those giant "megachurches" somewhere in the area. Maybe it'll have a McDonald's in it (see previous post about "Supersize Me") I can't believe this man has so many followers, in what I thought was a liberal city. I'm all for religious freedom but I do strongly believe in separation of church and state, and church and business. And it should stay the heck out of other peoples' (ie non-members) personal business.

Against gay marriage? Then don't have one.