Tag Archives: Vermont

The Political Has Never Been So Personal

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I count among my family and friends people all across the political spectrum. I don’t mean that I have a crotchety old uncle who has never voted for a democrat in his life, but he’s family so we tolerate him anyway; or that I have a neighbor I barely talk to who has a Romney bumper sticker — I mean I have several loved ones and friends, people who attended our civil union out of love for us (even though our relationship made them uncomfortable), people who celebrated the birth of our son and who adore him as much as we do, people I honestly respect and admire, who are staunch conservatives. As the election season heats up and the campaign gets increasingly negative, and the populace seems ever more polarized, I confess that it’s sometimes hard to recall that respect and admiration. I try to always be civil and respectful in political debates, and remember that the people I am sparring with are friends and colleagues, but it’s hard because the critical issues in this presidential election are so personal, if you’re not on my side, you are not just against my candidate: you are against me, my gender, my family, my lifestyle, and my planet.

A lot of the conservatives I know say they vote Republican because they believe in small government and they care about the economy, and they don’t pay too much attention to the social issues. I care about the economy, too, but I can’t afford not to pay attention to social issues, because the G.O.P.’s position on social issues is a personal attack on everything I hold most dear. Think I’m being overly dramatic? Here are concrete examples of what I mean:

1. Marriage Equality

Romney and Ryan both support amending the U.S. Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage. That is, they would outlaw my marriage. How can I not take that personally? Penelope and I have jumped through so many hoops to make our family secure for ourselves and our kids — by joining in a registered domestic partnership in Chicago in 1998, by having a civil union in Vermont in 2001, by marrying in Vermont in 2009, by making sure both of us were listed as “parent” on Hank’s birth certificate, by doing a second-parent adoption of Hank in 2011, by keeping our wills, advanced health care directives, and durable power of attorney documents current — how could we dream of voting for a ticket that wants to unravel all that we have built? And honestly, how could our friends and family dream of doing that to us through their votes, no matter how sluggish the economy?

2. Employment Discrimination

Penelope and I are both working mothers, and our family is very dependent upon both of our incomes. Therefore, I am troubled by the G.O.P. platform on employment discrimination on two fronts: equal pay and discrimination based on sexual orientation. First, Romney won’t go on record as supporting the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first legislation that President Obama signed into law, which extends the statute of limitations to give women a fair opportunity to challenge pay discrimination in court. Second, Romney does not support including sexual orientation and gender identity within the protections of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act. In 29 states, people can be fired from their jobs just for being gay, and they have no recourse to sue for wrongful termination. I am lucky enough to live in one of the other 21 states, but most Americans are not so fortunate. Again, how could I support a ticket that doesn’t support my right to get paid fairly for the work I do, or that would have me live (and work) in the closet out of fear that I could be fired because of who I love?

3. Reproductive Rights

Since Missouri Congressman Todd Akin’s cataclysmic comments on “legitimate rape” last month, there has been a lot of press about the G.O.P.’s platform and how it would ban abortion without exception for rape, incest, or even to save the life of the mother. Now, thankfully, my hard-fought pregnancy was very much wanted and expected, and I’ve never had to face the agonizing choice of whether or not to have an abortion — but many, many women are not so lucky. (Also, I am just now realizing that the results of my prenatal testing are not yet in, so perhaps I had better not count my chickens….)

Reasonable minds are always going to differ about abortion, but the G.O.P.’s prurient interest in the goings-on of our uteruses doesn’t stop there: both Romney and Ryan support “Personhood” amendments that would define life as beginning at conception. (Romney told Mike Huckabee so last October, here; and Ryan infamously co-sponsored with Akin a federal bill that would have done the same.) Maybe life-beginning-at-conception doesn’t sound so bad to you, but make sure you’ve thought it through. If the fertilized blastocyst has all the rights of a full-fledged human being, your IUD, or, fellas, your girlfriend’s birth control pills, are suddenly illegal, because they prevent that little blastocyst-citizen from implanting in the uterus (aka “murder”). Maybe you are having trouble conceiving, and you’ve been saving up for years to afford IVF — too bad: that procedure is also illegal.

I’ve been on birth control pills at several times in my life for reasons that have nothing to do with wanting to be free to cat around with men, and our own dear Hank was conceived by IVF, so again, how could I support a ticket that, while ostensibly all about small government, wants to legislate intimate decisions which rightly should stay between me, my wife, and our doctors? How could these friends of mine who are so sweet to Hank and so accepting of our family vote for a party that would so threaten our ability to have future children?

4. Climate Change

Two weeks ago, listening to highlights from Romney’s energy plan on NPR made my blood boil, because it was so over-reliant upon fossil fuels and did not even acknowledge the specter of global warming. Last week at the Republican National Convention, he added insult to injury by openly mocking climate change when he said, “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans” (pause for smirk and eye roll) “and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.” I’m sorry, but that was unforgivable.

Reasonable minds can (and forever will) differ on abortion, but there is no longer any legitimate intellectual debate on the issue of climate change. A few biased “experts” bankrolled by big energy corporations notwithstanding, 97% of American scientists believe that global warming is real and that it is caused by human activity. Here in Vermont, most of us have no doubt that global warming is real: the evidence is all around us. In 2011, we had two 500-year floods, defined as a flood with a 0.2% likelihood of occurring in any given year. Think about that: a 0.2% chance, and we got hit with two of them! Season after season of mild winters are decimating our ski industry and our maple syrup harvest, both of which are critical to our state’s economy, and even more critical to its identity. Here in Vermont, climate change is not a punchline.

If you believe in global warming, you know we can’t afford an administration that doesn’t care about healing the planet. A Romney presidency won’t do me and my family any good if it doesn’t make a meaningful effort to reduce our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels and to reverse the environmental damage caused by climate change, something Romney has shown no interest in doing. I care very deeply about the world my children will inherit, and I cannot imagine voting for a man who apparently thinks environmentalism is a joke.

There: I’m done. There are other reasons I won’t be voting for Romney, but that was never in doubt: this post is about why I hope the people who care about me and my family won’t vote Republican, either, because your vote will have a very real, very personal impact on my life. I have tried to be respectful, and I’ve tried to post links to authority for any assertions of fact. If you leave a comment, please do the same.

-C.

Monkey at the Montshire

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I’ve been meaning to take Hank to the Montshire Musuem of Science for awhile, since my nieces love it and it’s nearby. I wasn’t sure he’d be old enough to get much out of it, though,so today was our first trip. I am glad to report the visit was a success.

Many of the indoor exhibits are for bigger kids, but Hank enjoyed the aquariums full of local species of fish and turtles.

He enjoyed playing in the fountains outside the most. If I’d brought a swim diaper, he’d have happily spent the whole day in the water.

We went for a walk on the nature trails around the museum, and saw many chipmunks and heard lots of birds. We also heard (but did not see) a helicopter, and Hank very carefully said “hel – E – copter” rather than just “copter,” as he usually does.

I hoped the busy afternoon would wear him out and he’d nap in the car on the drive home, but no luck. Now it’s probably too late to bother with a nap, so maybe he’ll at least go to bed early tonight.

Cousin Charlie doesn’t think it’s too late for a nap!

-C.

No, We’re Not Sisters

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Earlier this week when we met with our realtor to make an offer on a new house, he asked us to sign a disclosure form about the customer vs. client and realtor-to-client agency agreement. “Didn’t we sign this already?” we asked, confused.

He grew unaccountably flustered. “Well, you signed it,” he told my wife, and then turned to me, “but you didn’t. I didn’t think it mattered, because I assumed you were sisters.”

We get this all the time, and we are not alone. It happened twice in one recent day to my college roommate and her partner, who are expecting twins this summer. The author of this article on same-sex parenting says this mistake happens so often, she has developed an acronym to describe her response: EOTS — Explaining of the Situation.

Somehow, I thought our Situation would become more obvious to outsiders once we had a baby, but clearly that is not the case. It’s not as if Penelope and I look all that much alike. She’s skinny, I’m… not; she’s got straight light-brown hair, I’ve got thick, wavy dark hair; our facial features are different, our bone structure is different, our mannerisms are different. If there is a resemblance (apart from the fact that we’re both white girls), we don’t see it. Yet the question persists, whenever we meet new people, and even the presence of an adorable toddler who calls us “Ma” and “Mumma” hasn’t helped to correct the misconception.

Generally when we correct people, they react pretty well. New England is, after all, the birth place of civil unions and a stronghold of marriage equality. Gay families have been in the news here for so long that we’ve lost our novelty. Ten years ago when the civil union legislation first passed in Vermont, the rednecks festooned the Green Mountains with “Take Back Vermont” signs (something which amused and infuriated Penelope, whose family first arrived here in the 1700s, well before Vermont was even a state), but that kind of open homophobia is rarely encountered now. I’m sure most of the people who owned those signs haven’t changed their tune, but they’ve been shamed into silence. I know we’re a lot better off than lesbian couples all over the country, for whom the safest answer to the question, “Are you sisters?” is probably, often, “Yes.”

Yet just because we don’t have to brace ourselves for a possible confrontation every time we answer the question doesn’t mean we don’t resent having to answer it, and I’ll tell you why. I bet 99% of the people who ask it don’t think we’re sisters at all. They know exactly what we are, but they’re embarrassed to ask outright, and they think asking if we’re sisters is somehow more polite.

Think about it. You see two women out together, perhaps sharing a meal or a drink, or walking down the street, or sitting next to each other at the airport. If they’re not touching, you probably don’t make any assumptions at all. Maybe they’re friends or coworkers, maybe it’s girls night out, maybe they’re strangers who happen to be walking in the same direction or waiting for the same flight. You don’t know, and you don’t need to know.

Now, what if you see two women together, and something about them tips you off to the fact that they are more to each other? Maybe they stand a little too close, or finish each others’ sentences. Maybe it’s something about the way they look at each other, or the way they refer to themselves as “we,” or the fact that the kid with them calls them both “Mom.” Suddenly, you’re dying to know exactly what their relationship is! You think you know, but geez, you’ve never met real live lesbians before! You don’t want to offend them by saying the wrong thing (what if they’re dangerous?!), but you just have to know. So you ask, “Are you sisters?,” because that’s a safe question, right?

One of these days, I’m going to design a t-shirt for the dyke set to wear when we leave the house together that says, “Trust Your Instincts: We’re Not Sisters.” It will spare us all so many awkward conversations.

-C.

Home in Bloom

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Spot the Toddler!

You can’t do much outdoor gardening before late May, when you live in Vermont. The temperatures are still too extreme. While it isn’t unheard of to have daytime high temperatures in the high 70s and even 80s this time of year, the nights still have some bite. We had a frost warning this past Friday.

The other factor complicating our gardening ambitions this year is the fact that in two short months, we may very well not live here. We have a home under contract in the next town north, and while we haven’t yet done the home inspection (scheduled for Tuesday after next) or all of the mortgage hurdles, there is a very good chance we won’t be here to see the seeds we plant now grow to harvest.

To solve both of these issues, we’re opting to do most of our gardening in containers this summer. We can move containers inside or onto the sheltered porch if cold threatens, and we can put them in the back of the moving van (in theory) if the home-buying adventure goes well. (I say “in theory” because Penelope is a lot more optimistic about being able to move containers full of eight-foot-tall Kentucky Wonder pole beans than I am.)

Anyway, each spring for those few weeks when the poppies and rhododendron burst into bloom, our front yard suddenly looks almost charmingly wild and whimsical (rather than merely unkempt, which it generally is). This might just be my favorite time of the year.

-C.

Hey, Wait, I Got a Real Complaint

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Tomorrow is Tax Day. Well, technically, Tuesday is Tax Day, because tomorrow is Sunday and Monday is a holiday no one outside of the District of Columbia has ever heard of (Emancipation Day — other states celebrate Emancipation Day, but not on April 16). But because I have a full time job, tomorrow might as well be tax day: I’ve got to get these suckers done today.

Now, lest you all think I am a terrible procrastinator, I want to note for the record that I filed our federal tax returns way back on February 2, the day the last of the W-2′s arrived in the mail. All that remains is our Vermont taxes, and my problem is not that I am a procrastinator, but that I am passive aggressive. Filing my Vermont taxes pisses me off, and not because I’m anti-taxation or anti-government, or because I’m not expecting a refund, or any of that. No, it’s because I’m gay.

Wait! You’re thinking, “Isn’t Vermont one of those pinko commie hippie fringe states where the gays marry and have babies and all that?” Why, yes, it is: Vermont was the first state to enact civil unions back in 2000, and the first state to legislate marriage equality (in 2009), and not have it decreed by judicial fiat. I was actually a spectator in the State House the day the House of Representatives voted to override then-Governor Jim Douglas’s veto of the Marriage Equality bill, and I don’t think I have ever been prouder to be a Vermonter.

So I know I shouldn’t be so snarky about my State taxes. I know my wife and I are blessed to be able to file our taxes as a married couple, and if I am going to be passive aggressive about anything, I should aim my wrath and frustration at the IRS. It’s just that it’s so much work. I have to file our federal taxes first, dividing up the various deductions and credits to which our family is entitled so that we can maximize our refund. That usually means calculating the taxes several times over, figuring out whether it makes the most sense for Penelope or I to file as head of household, which one of us gets to itemize the mortgage deductions, which one of us gets to take the child tax credit, and so on. It’s time consuming, and if we could file as married and just lump all of our various deductions and credits together, I’d be happy to do it, even if we didn’t get quite as much money back.

Then, I write letters of protest to include with our Forms 1040, explaining that while we are signing the forms “under penalties of perjury” and declare the financial calculations to be “true, correct, and accurate,” we cannot warrant that “all statements” are true and correct because we know our filing status (“single” and “head of household,” respectively) to be false. I’ve enclosed these letters with our tax forms three years running, but so far I’ve never gotten a response from Uncle Sam.

Anyway, after I do all that, I have to do it all again for the Vermont taxes. There is a box on the Vermont Tax Return form that says “Check here if using Recomputed Federal Return information,” and what that means is, I have to check that box, draft fake federal returns as “married filing separately,” and base all of our State tax information based on these “recomputed” federal returns.

I have spent a lot of time over the years bitching and moaning about the injustice of it all, and periodically, someone will interrupt my rant to ask why I don’t just pay someone to do my taxes like everyone else. The answer is that it is offensive enough that I have to waste my own time drafting FAKE tax returns: I’m hardly going to spend good money to pay someone else to do it.

-C

SOS

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Every March, Penelope’s extended family gathers at her brother’s house for one of our favorite Vermont traditions: sugar on snow. For those non-New Englanders not familiar with this delicacy, the recipe is simple: heat maple syrup to 230 degrees, then drizzle it over a bowl full of clean, packed snow. The syrup will harden into a soft taffy that will curl around a fork. Best served with sour pickles, cheddar cheese (white! Never mind what I said yesterday!), and doughnuts.

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Cousins lining up for snow.

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The syrup arrives. (Requires adult supervision, because it is both dangerously hot and sticky.)

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Hank’s first taste.

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Cousins + Puppies + Sugar High = Really Excited Hank

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When you’ve eaten all the SOS you can manage, stir the left-over syrup into maple cream, and spread it on your toast the next day. Soooo tasty! (Plus, no calories, since you burned them all off stirring, and stirring, and stirring, and stirring….)

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Cousins getting sap right from the source (note the bucket on the tree).

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Does Hank want some sap? …. Well, sure! He likes it!

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The sugar buzz starts to wear off during a walk in the woods, but luckily Uncle Ick* carries Hank home. (Hank can’t say “Eric” yet.)

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Here we are, milling around the sugar house, waiting for the sap truck to arrive. By gosh, there are a lot of us!

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Syrup samples lined up behind the kitchen sink.

Jealous? You can order syrup for your own SOS bash from Uncle Ick at http://www.sweetstonemaple.com. Better pack a cooler full of snow and stash it in your freezer now, though, because that stuff is going fast!

-C