Gleeful news! :-D

Whew! Got my definition for indigenous hammered out adequately, I think — thank heavens! It’s been a pretty good couple of days so far, in fact, which makes me very happy. There’ve been a few really nice or fun things that’ve left me pretty pleased with how life is going. Admittedly, I wish I could leave up the very complimentary comments my blog occasionally gets from spammers… but I comfort myself with the thought that if the compliments aren’t sincere then I don’t really want them anyway. Really. Yeah, I’ll keep telling myself that. :-)

But just as a single example, waking up today to the news that SCOTUS has ruled that same sex marriage is legal in all states? -and even better, that this weekend is the Pride Parade weekend in both San Jose and San Francisco?

This is truly wonderful news that gives me a great deal of hope for the US continuing to become a better, more egalitarian, and healthier society. I’m crossing my fingers that the next step is the recognition of families as self-constructed and -identified! That would allow both multi-generational and poly families to be recognized as worthy of familial rights under the law. This ruling by SCOTUS may be just a baby step for now, but I believe we are indeed making progress! :)

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More fabulous news! I’ve already mentioned the Parliament of Religions conference which I and several of my sister scholars were interested in attending in order to present a panel on Women’s Spirituality. The official notification said all presentation decisions would be made by May 15th. However, as the date came and went while we waited, we heard there were more than 4000 presentation applications for the five-day event! Thus we weren’t surprised when they sent out a polite email soon thereafter stating that it would take a little longer to make all the choices and notify everyone. So we continued waiting… and then we heard another sister scholar had had her application accepted already! That caused us to start giving up hope as we waited yet more, to the point that a few days ago I was idly debating whether to write a mildly snarky comment here regarding religious strictures of doing unto others as you’d like done to yourself, and the PoR actually having the courtesy to respond to all the folks who’d put in the time and effort to apply…

-but then I checked my email late last night, and lo and behold: we were accepted!! I’m so excited! Heck, all four of us are — we had literally gotten to the point where we were sure we’d been passed over! It’s going to be a real thrill to get to present in front of some of the world’s foremost religious leaders — and if we can make even one person think more carefully about patriarchy’s destructive legacy, I shall count the entire weekend as a tremendous win! Now I just need to start saving my pennies… oh! -and also now I actually have to work on my planned weight loss! Oh nosers… :-D

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So, remember how some time ago I mentioned that the patriarch of the family that previously owned this house was not what I would call a truly effective handyman? Heh… the Saga continues! See, there’s an alarm system on the house which now works okay — now that we’ve added new batteries and reset the central box, which we had to do because they neglected to give us the connection information.

So once that was done one of my housemates went through the house to check all the individual window and sliding glass door alarm boxes. They’re all working, which is nice. They consist of two magnetically connected pieces: one that’s solid and unmoving, stuck to the wall or doorjamb or whatever — and one that’s on the moving part of the glass. When you open a door or window, the two pieces separate, the magnetic connection breaks, and you hear the little chime that notifies you that a door or window has been opened.

Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work. We were inordinately amused to discover, in the son’s bedroom, that he’d removed the piece that was supposed to be glued down — and simply set it on top of the piece connected to the glass! It stayed quite well due to the magnetics, but as my housemate pointed out, this meant the son could sneak in and out of the house… without his parents ever knowing! :-D

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Other fun stuff in a roleplaying game we’re in:

DM: The forest path is starting to wind more deeply into the trees. It’s getting harder to see the ocean cliff when you look through the trees.

Player 1: I’ve got a high perception… so can I make a Bluff roll to find the cliff?

Player 2: Wait, what? How does he use Bluff to find a cliff? I want to hear his explanation!

Player 3: You just aren’t into puns, are you, dude?

Player 2: …now I get it.

There was much giggling and snickering after that! ;-)