Thrashin ’round on a Saturday afternoon

I just have to share this photo of the little guy in the back yard. He’s such a cutie.

MC’s Guide to Showing Your Dad Some Love

Hey, I’m happy to report that the Sarasota Herald Tribune is running a piece I wrote on things to do for this coming Father’s Day. The story appeared in today’s paper in the TICKET section; page 6E if you’re an old-fashioned get-the-ink-on-your-hands kind of person. Click here Celebrating Dear Old Dad to read the story online.

Florida State Rep Race, District 70 starts to look interesting

Looks like Republican Doug Holder will have some competition in November. Savvy politico Nancy Feehan has thrown her hat into the ring, officially filing today for the race for State Representative, District 70.

From the cheap seats, it’s looking like a no-brainer for voters south of Bee Ridge Road in Sarasota, stretching all the way down to the Charlotte County line. Holder voted last year for legislation that would allow oil drilling as close as three miles to the area’s beaches – I think it includes Siesta Key, Casey Key and others.

Bad enough that he voted for near-shore drilling, but what really got me was that (according to the Sarasota Herald Tribune) Holder said he only voted that way because he knew the legislation wouldn’t pass but he wanted to “open the discussion.” To me that’s pretty astounding – voting for something you don’t believe in because you’re pretty sure it won’t pass? That’s the kind of clarity, consistency, and protection I want in a State Rep for sure. NOT.

Feehan lives in Osprey, and if elected, would be representing more coastline in Sarasota County than anyone else in the House. I’ll have to find out where she stands on the issue. Stay tuned.

Lee C., and MC’s most beautiful day

A guy named Lee — and yes, he knows who he is — gave me one of the best moments of my life … ever. I remember it like a dream, but it was real. We were in his car, driving on a gorgeous, clear, fresh-aired summer day in New Hampshire.

We were driving on a highway headed toward a mountain. We were going to hike together. He said he had something he wanted me to hear and he slipped in a bootleg, not-yet-in-release copy of U2’s Joshua Tree. (more…)

Beethoven rocks my world

I wish Beethoven could be my lover. I’m sure he smelled bad, had yellow teeth, and was probably a difficult man, but still … he gets me. Or at least his music does … and it’s certainly spent enough time playing in my bedroom.

While I’ve written in the past about being in bed with the Bard, I have to say, if I had to choose, I’d choose the other bad boy of the arts and make my lover Ludwig von Beethoven.

In fact, I did quite a long time ago, (more…)

Update: Travesty continues for truckstop tiger

One of my readers in Louisiana wrote to me with this message about the “Tiger at a Truckstop” story I posted a while back.

“Swung by yesterday and had a look.

He looked bored and hot … . Not many visitors … . It was sad … very, very sad.”

The reader is a regular reader and commenter on this blog and I really appreciate his effort to go check out the story in person. If you’d like to help this tiger, you can SIGN A PETITION at http://freetonythetiger.wordpress.com/ or look on Facebook for Free Tony the Tiger.

New changes to “Abortion Bill” unfair to men say outraged House Repubs

As most of you know, Governor Crist received some amendments along with the health care bill he received on June 7th. The amendments have people referring to the bill as the “Abortion Bill” and essentially would require that women who want an abortion during their first trimester of pregnancy be required to pay for, have, and look at — or hear a real-time description of –a live ultrasound image of the embryo or fetus inside her womb, before having an abortion.

But what hasn’t been reported in most mainstream media is that an amendment to those amendments was received late last night in the Guv’s office. Thus this breaking (balls) news:

The revised amendments, require — essentially — that all men — seconds before they put their penis inside any women’s vagina (doesn’t count if it’s a man they’re schtupping or if it’s oral sex, for um, obvious reasons you should have learned about in grade school) be required to view pictures of used baby diapers, as well as happy smiling babies, listen to soundtracks of screaming, as well as cooing, babies, and sign a contract stating that they will a) pay for the pregnancy tests if the women freaks out because her period is late while offering calm reassurance that it will most assuredly be negative because he was, um “really careful”; b) pay for the ultrasound if the woman they’re knocking boots with gets knocked up; c) pay for the abortion if there is one; and d) pay 50% of all costs incurred in bearing, birthing, taking sick days or maternity leave not paid for by employers (because most of them don’t anymore), as well as pay for child care for working mothers, and half of all costs of raising the kid up through and including four years of college.

Sources in Tallahassee (I drove up there when I heard of this new development so I could get a first-hand report on the situation) told me that the bill is now being referred to as the Stop Look Listen & Sign Before You Fornicate Bill, though others, for simplicity’s sake, are just calling it the Pre-Sex Bill.

Over coffee this morning, most experts around the capitol were saying there’s little chance that Crist will oppose the bill now that it carries this new, clarifying language — since everyone knows men already desperately desire to be more fully informed in the moments just before they get their rocks off and have been searching for years for ways in which they could more wholly participate, emotionally and financially, in every precious post-coital moment that follows — from the seconds-later “Baby, you were great” whispers to the weeks later “Crap, my period’s late” screams.

In an unexpected and somewhat odd turn of events, John Edwards reportedly has already called Crist, urging the Florida governor to ink his approval on the new bill good and fast, saying “I wish this kind of legislation had been in effect when I was running for President — it would have been a game-changer!”

House Republicans held a press conference this morning stating their unified objection to the revised bill saying it “just isn’t fair!” Many said that such stringent requirements would unnecessarily cause men to have to make informed decisions before “dipping their swords” (I’m quoting here) and, as one House Republican said, “What good would that do any of us?”

Others pointed out that the Think Before You Sink bill (as some of the randier Republicans were calling it) would be unconscionably emotionally unfair to men, not to mention potentially create a severe financial hardship for them in both short and long term.

One Republican lawmaker speaking only on the condition of anonymity because as he said, “I wouldn’t want people to think I could have this problem,” pointed out that forcing men to see pictures of babies, even happy ones, “or God forbid, dirty diapers”, could also have the emotionally devastating effect of causing men to “lose their woodies” at the very moments when they need them most.

Crist has until June 22 to weigh the pros and cons of all the amendments included in the health care bill and in a leaked memo he indicated that he plans to give the issue his full attention in between his appointments at the tanning salon.

Girls’ Night Out — Coolidge talks Camaraderie in today’s Sarasota Herald Tribune

When the working day is done, oh, girls, they wanna have fun … girls just wanna have fun.” — Cyndi Lauper

Photo courtesy of the Sarasota Herald Tribune website

The Sarasota Herald Tribune TICKET is running a piece I wrote about how girls can have fun in the Sarasota area — in and out of the bars. The piece is running in today’s paper, the TICKET section on page 4E — it’s the cover story, actually — whoo hoo!.

You can read the story here: From Bar Hopping to Kayaking, It’s All About Camaraderie.

If you like the story, or have any comments about additional things women can do together for an evening (or even a day) out on the town, either leave a comment on the H-T site, or come back here and comment.

Coincidentally, I’m actually going out tonight for a mini-kind-of-brief girls’ night out … just meeting up with a great girlfriend to chat over a glass of wine — however short it is, it still counts! Whoo Hoo, can’t wait for this workin’ day to be done.

Masked intruder at MC’s house

Here I was, watching a scary murder mystery. Sitting on the couch, minding my own business. Coco, Einstein, Boomerang — all asleep. Then I heard it.

A scratching at the window. Insistent. Einstein was on high alert. With not a little trepidation I made my way into the next room, got close to the windows and could hear my internal voice saying, “C’mon, show yourself you suckers. I’ll take you all on!” (Yes, I’m a not-so-scaredy-cat; I’ve come too far in my life to ever back down now from anybody, much less some crazed killer dumb enough to scratch at a window to let me know he’s outside).

And, I came face to face with a masked intruder!

Literally, this guy was less than two or three inches from my face! And from Boomer’s and Einstein’s too. We were all looking outside, our noses practically shmushed against the window pane. This guy’s face made me jump back and screech. Then I ran for the camera. Snapped him nosing. Then watched as two little baby raccoons meandered around the parent (couldn’t capture them), then watched as the parent Peeping Tom started to leave for more interesting views, I suppose.

Whew. I missed the ending of my movie — oh, I already had figured out whodunit, but still …. enough excitement for one night.

Remains of the day

What happens when our lives are not quite what we expected? When the moment arrives that we see not just what we have become but regrettably, we see, with a glaring, growing, discomfort, what we might have been and now most assuredly are not?

What do we do then, when we’ve reached the moment where future intercepts present and past is just that — in the past? Is it better to remember the days of believing, recall that naivete, reach back with a slightly clawing hand toward the effortless sexual, sensual, emotional, inundation of days gone by?

Is there an alternative?

The thing is — you must, whether you want to or not — remember that time when touching the skin along your lover’s back … running your thumb down the back of the one you thought you loved was in itself a kind of worship at the altar of, yes, of course, a kind of eroticism, but more than that, a kind of exclamation of alive-ness, a cri de coeur for feeling, of feeling, of being felt.

Just the thumb. Against the skin. Slowly running with an irresistible pressure, trailing lackadaisically along the spine, and erotically in every other perspective, heading south with no particular hurry. The luxury of time we had in those moments would have made a mockery of the experience — if we’d had had even the slightest inclination of the paucity of time to come.

That thumb. That skin. All that stillness and moving. All without pretense. All without illusion and/or remembrance of other things past. All without a wish desiring to be fulfilled in some future moment 30 seconds or 30 days forward. All done, all felt, all wordlessly acknowledged without an acknowledgment of the hour, or of the lateness of the day.

Just that twilight moment from day to night; when all that existed was that weighty, weightless, dizzily exquisite feeling of someone’s hand moving along your spine and coming to rest on the small of your back. With no word. No comment or question; no expectation of what comes next; no acute awareness of what does not.

Those — and all the other moments of mundane and super-fabulous and silly and sophisticated moments of loving and working and living and breathing without question— are the remains of the day.

And I want them back.

“A butler of any quality must be seen to inhabit his role, utterly and fully; he cannot be seen casting it aside one moment simply to don it again the next as though it were nothing more than a pantomime costume.” from the novel, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and if you haven’t read it, I can’t imagine what you are waiting for.