blind insight

Chicken pieces parts.

Not to belabor the "why do conservatives oppose gay marriage" point, but here's yet another barely-coherent "justification" for such opposition from Princeton scholar Robert George. In contrast to David Frum, George seems to support the legalization of gay "civil unions." Yet gays, he says, are not entitled to sanctify their committed loving relationships through marriage because they lack "sexually complementary" parts that can be used for the purpose of procreation.

I can't speak from personal experience, but having spent a rather educational hour or so at a live, gay sex show in Bangkok, it is my reasoned conclusion that gay men do, in fact, have sexually complementary parts. Admittedly, that's probably not the case for lesbians, and George probably was not thinking about strap-ons when he wrote his rant. But what, exactly are "sexually complementary" spouses? Does this mean simply that round pegs fit into round holes? Or rather that one spouse's parts make the other spouse's parts feel good? Wouldn't spouses with fingers and tongues and maybe even toes or knees or elbows qualify as "sexually complementary" under the latter interpretation? And are conservatives even allowed to enjoy one another's "parts"? I'm not buying this "sexually complementary" excuse.

George might have a stronger point when he talks about marriage as geared chiefly towards procreation. Yet these days, many, many lifelong sexual unions (whether hetero or homo) do not include birthing and raising children, and many more include kids acquired through adoption, artificial insemination, re-marriage, surrogacy, and probably some means that I haven't even considered.

George also says that "moral obligations of fidelity and exclusivity" hold marriages together. He seems to argue that gay people are incapable of forming exclusive, faithful lifetime bonds because they cannot impregnate one another using their sexually complementary parts. I've been sitting here trying to come up with a sizzling, intellectually unassailable rejoinder to this assertion. But so far, all I've got is this: Hogwash. And more hogwash.

Let's first set aside the fact that roughly half of all marriages fail, and that (if women's magazines like Glamour, Redbook, and Cosmo are any indication) infidelity is a veritable epidemic plaguing marriages these days. Regardless of how their marriages ultimately fare, I think it's fair to postulate that most people get married because they love each other and want to build a life together. Sometimes they want to raise children together. Sometimes they don't want children at all. Sometimes they have to work a little harder to have children together. Sometimes one or both of them already have children. Sometimes they are well past their child-bearing years. But it seems inherent in human nature that we seek to form lasting bonds of love, devotion, fidelity, and exclusivity with a partner. We want to stand up with that person in front of our friends and families and proclaim our love. There's certainly no place in the marriage ceremony for the nuptial couple to display their sexually complementary parts (at least since we stopped parading the virgin-blooded sheet before the wedding guests).

I know it's time for me to move on and observe elsewhere, and go back to writing about fun stuff like yurt trips and birthday parties and my nephew's prodigious burping abilities. But to David Frum, Robert George, President Shrub, Sen. Wayne Allard, and the rest of the folks who are falling over themselves to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, I pose a simple question (which my mother used to mutter in response to the prayerful bigotry of Head Promise Keeper and former CU football coach Bill McCartney): does your wife suck your sexually complementary parts?

A few words from Mrs. Claus.

More later, but I wanted to call your attention to Harvey Fierstein's wonderful op-ed in today's New York Times. He provides some additional perspective on the same-sex marriage issue. As I said last week, I'm still struggling to understand why this should be an issue in the first place. Bravo, Harvey.

Dead boy walking.

The New York Times ran a very interesting article today in the Health section, a conversation with psychologist Laurence Steinberg about punishment for juvenile offenders. The piece focuses on the trial of John Lee Malvo, the young man accused of committing the DC-area sniper killings along with John Muhammad. Muhammad has been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by a Virginia jury. Malvo is on trial now in another Virginia jurisdiction.

There's plenty of stuff out there to read about the sniper killings and Malvo's defense that he was under Muhammad's powerful influence, and there's no real need for me to go into that here. But the Steinberg piece focuses on an extremely complicated and troubling issue -- how should we punish juveniles who commit horrendous crimes? Should we execute them? Should we lock them up forever, like my client who was seventeen when he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison? Or should we adopt Steinberg's view that even the worst juvenile offender has the potential to be rehabilitated, and that many such "problem children" outgrow their antisocial behavior? Given how little effort the prison system seems to make towards rehabilitating inmates of any age, there seems little likelihood that juveniles who are sentenced to standard prison terms (even in juvenile facilities) will walk out the doors equipped for productive, law-abiding lives. So to implement Steinberg's ideas (with which I tend to agree), we would need to fundamentally rethink the way we approach punishing juvenile offenders.

As best I can tell, criminal justice systems around the country are doing little towards addressing the unique circumstances facing juvenile offenders. Juvenile diversion programs have proliferated around the country, and seem to have some success in preventing recidivism by getting kids out of the criminal justice system and into mentoring, community service, and other targeted rehabilitative programs. (Incidentally, last year Colorado Governor Bill Owens cut most of the funding for juvenile diversion programs here. Those programs magically were saved from the shredder when Owens' own son committed some "youthful indiscretions" and wound up in diversion.)

But a kid like Malvo, accused of a violent crime, will never be a candidate for juvenile diversion. His options, assuming his insanity/duress defense fails and he is convicted, will be limited to life or death, and he will spend the remainder of his days either in an adult prison (he is 18 now) or possibly some type of juvenile facility. Virginia allows individuals as young as sixteen years old to be executed, so Malvo's youth will not protect him from the death penalty in that state (the second-most bloodthirsty in the country when it comes to imposing capital punishment).

I'm unequivocally opposed to the death penalty, so it's hard for me to imagine how a jury can sentence an eighteen-year-old boy to die, particularly when that boy appears to have been manipulated into committing horrific acts by a powerfully charismatic adult. How can any of us say that this young man can never, ever become a productive member of society? What service do we render to the victims, or to society as a whole, by ending his young life? Steinberg's approach, "under which most youths are dealt with in a separate justice system and none are eligible for capital punishment," seems to take into account the potential for a young offender to learn to control impulses, manage anger, and reject pressure from peers and other manipulators.

Yet as Congress and the states pass increasingly draconian sentencing statutes and strip judges of virtually all discretion to tailor sentences to reflect offender-specific circumstances, it seems unlikely that the criminal justice system ever will address effectively the unique characteristics and needs of juvenile offenders. The result, of course, is that instead of helping kids who commit crimes to turn their lives in a positive direction, instead of offering them a second chance at a productive life, the criminal justice system will become (or more accurately, remain) a reliable producer of hardened criminals.

Can someone please explain to me who benefits from this, and how?

It's only words.

I'm back! Steve's birthday weekend was wonderful. He entered his 30s with grace and style and only a minor hangover. Last night, we shifted gears into my birthday celebration, which has been extra-special because it coincides with my gorgeous nephew Nathan's first Colorado visit. He is a two-month old bundle of snuggly joy!
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I've spent a lot of time lately bemoaning the abysmal quality of the average American's writing skills. I've been editing a brief for a lawyer working on a death penalty case in another jurisdiction, and have been frustrated and surprised at her inability to convey her important (and pretty compelling) issues coherently. But even when someone's life isn't on the line, it seems that more and more people are incapable of writing logical, articulate, even COMPLETE sentences.

Recently, I commiserated about this problem with my mother, who is even more of a stickler for good grammar than I am. She's been editing research papers for the CU students in my dad's history class (a freshman course about 1947 as a watershed year in American history), and she tells me the quality of most of these students' writing is appalling. I'm shocked to think that so many students could make it to college as liberal arts majors without learning how to write, but then again, I've got this fifty-year-old lawyer in Wyoming who can't do it. Steve and I were talking about this recently and agreed that high schools need to place far more emphasis on teaching students how to write. If you don’t learn it in high school, you may never do so. Steve’s a good example of how important high school writing training is. Though he's an engineer and hasn’t had to do much serious writing for ages, his twelve years of rigorous Catholic education ingrained spelling, grammar, and other important writing principles into his very being.

But I don't really want to write today about the decline and fall of American prosaity (is that a word? It should be.). Rather, the fact that I'm so worked up over this bad writing that I'm editing has me wondering why I place so much stock in a person's writing ability and style. I've ended relationships over bad writing, at least indirectly. A few years ago, I was dating a sweet-but-utterly-wrong-for-me man whose inability to spell, punctuate, or use proper grammar actually destroyed whatever attraction I originally had for him. My dear friend Lily and I bonded over our respective needs to break up with our boyfriends during an all-night conversation marathon in a Bangkok hotel room. When I told Lily about one of this guy’s particularly egregious (and repeated) spelling mistakes, she instantly understood why I could not continue to date him.

During my brief (but entertaining) foray into online dating, I weeded out potential contacts based on the literacy of their profiles or contact e-mails. I was willing to forgive minor spelling errors and obvious hasty-typing mistakes, but I'm sure I rejected some terrific men because they repeatedly used "it's" as a possessive or spelled definitely with an "a." One man prefaced his e-mail by admitting his dyslexia, which led me to overlook some of his writing errors (though not his lack of personality, poor guy). On the other hand, while some women fall for men with bulging biceps and others swoon for fast cars or hefty wallets, I'm a sucker for a well-turned phrase. Witty, articulate e-mails, snappy literary allusions, and deft word-play would find me eager to explore further contact with a cyber-suitor. More than once, I was disappointed to discover that a man with a smooth keyboard style presented an altogether different "live" persona. I guess I learned that you can't judge a man ENTIRELY by his ability to write, although mostly I discovered that the internet is not my preferred medium for meeting men. I do still wonder if I could make any money by penning “The Elements of Love: Strunk & White’s Guide to Internet Dating Success.”

Of course, some of my favorite people in the world are average writers, and I don't love them any less because of it. But while I have unique relationships with each of my parents for different reasons, my mom and I have a special connection based on our shared grammatical anality. In college, I would call her at all hours of the night and read my papers to her over the phone (hard to imagine, but this was before e-mail and speedy electronic document transfer). No one else has ever edited my work with such care and precision, although some of my FPD colleagues now come close.

My bond with my best friend, Julie, has endured sixteen years and vast separations of time and geography at least partly because of our shared love for words and our support of one another's various writing endeavors. For the past eight months, Jules has been traveling around the world with her husband. As much as I miss her, her absence doesn’t feel quite as painful because she’s been sending me a steady stream of e-mails and postcards filled with her razor-sharp wit and vividly detailed observations. Through our written words, we’ve been able to share both the great adventures and day-to-day minutiae of each other’s lives, and when I read her e-mails, I can almost imagine that she’s telling me the story over a glass of wine at Potager.

And when Steve and I first met, I was a tiny bit concerned that his engineering background would translate into dull, awkward e-mails filled with spelling errors. Imagine my delight upon receiving my first e-mail from him and discovering its contents to be literate, articulate, grammatically solid, properly spelled, and funny!

As the Bee Gees (hey -- I was born in the '70s) once sang, "it's only words/and words are all I have/to take your heart away.

We interrupt this program . . . .

Just a quick note to assure you, my dear and faithful readers (both of you?), that I have not abandoned my blog! But I'm in the throes of editing a 100-page brief for a Wyoming capital defense attorney and getting ready for Steve's (and my own) birthday extravaganza, so have not had time to set to type any of the bizarre and random thoughts that are floating through my mind these days.

Blogging fun to resume shortly, I promise!

To have and to hold.

In honor of today's landmark ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, finding no constitutionally-defensible reason for the state to prohibit gay marriage, I'm reprinting below an e-mail I sent to my friend Rebecca. (She posted this on her blog a month or so ago; I've edited it slightly here.) I was writing in response to this essay by conservative pundit David Frum. For the record, while Rebecca has been a Frum fan, she parts ways with him on this issue.

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Here's one from your golden boy, David Frum. Frum seems to be saying that we shouldn't allow gay marriage because these not-quite-marriage thingies that are proliferating around Western Europe and North America are too fuzzy and don't provide a stable family union in which to raise children. Alas, he's created an incredibly faulty syllogism, and I'm a bit disappointed that one as wicked smart as Frum has gotten so intellectually lazy.

Of course I disagree with him completely in his opposition to gay marriage. But if he read his piece over, I think he'd have to recognize that he's not made a case against gay marriage at all. He's simply made a case against the non-marriage thingies, which he himself recognizes are used by almost as many straight couples as gays in places like France and Canada.

Frum states that kids benefit significantly from growing up in stable two-parent households. He also says kids do better when they have both a mother and a father at home. But he doesn't provide any anecdotal or statistical evidence as to whether kids who grow up with ANY two parents at home in a stable committed family relationship do better than kids who grow up in single-parent homes or whose parents are divorced. I think he's right that kids do better when they have two parents at home who love one another and are committed to the family relationship. He's wrong to say that these two parents must be a man and a woman. He's also missing a huge logical step in his argument by claiming that the short life span of the non-marriage "pacts" or civil unions means that gay marriages are doomed to be short-lived as well. Nothing in Frum's piece provides any evidence that gay civil unions last a shorter (or longer) time than straight civil unions. And nothing indicates that gay marriages are any less (or more) likely to last than straight marriages. If marriage lasts longer than civil unions, then why shouldn't gay marriages last longer than gay civil unions? And if Frum wants to promote marriage over fuzzy civil partnerships because it's better for children, why is he opposed to gay marriages?

What Frum should realize is the true point his article makes is that marriage is better for kids, and that if gay marriage was legalized everywhere, gay people would be fully empowered by law to raise their kids in stable two-parent homes with all the legal benefits of marriage AND the stronger commitment of marriage compared with non-marriage partnerships. Why doesn't Frum take his logical thread to this obvious conclusion? Because he just hates the idea of gay marriage. Why? As a straight person who has absolutely no tolerance for or ability to comprehend homophobia, I really can't tell you. But Frum clearly is afraid of the very idea that healthy, well-adjusted children can be raised by gay people who've made a lifetime commitment to one another.

Trains, planes, and automobiles (or maybe just skis).

I was going to write about more weighty matters, but I've been utterly consumed by trip planning over the past few days. When travel opportunities arise, I find myself incapable of doing anything but dreaming of jetting off to exotic locales, searching for the sweetest deals on lodging, airfare, and extras, and learning about all the little-known secrets a potential destination has to offer. Needless to say, since Steve and I started talking about getting away for New Year's Eve, I've been completely obsessed. Luckily, Steve has tolerated my madness quite well, taking the well-advised attitude that my insanity means less work for him.

Our initial plan was to go to Whistler, since we get discounts on skiing and lodging there via our Copper Mountain/Winter Park ski passes. Alas, we came up with this idea a wee bit late; the entire town of Whistler apparently was booked for New Year's Eve back in July. After a few dozen e-mail inquiries, I did find a cute little place for a great price. It also looked like I could get a mileage seat for one of us and a cheap ticket for the other (because I need a few more miles to keep premier status for next year on UAL). Things were looking good, and we figured to do the six-night trip for around $550 per person including transportation, lodging, skiing, food, and (of course) beer.

But the best laid plans . . . . .

First, the couple we were going with got engaged (damn them! :-)) and now have to visit family over the holidays. Then, just when it looked like other friends were going to join us, or that I'd figured out an alternative to bring the trip without our budget even if we went alone, it turned out that there are no more mileage seats available, and the cheap fare I'd been monitoring on United has evaporated.

We also flirted briefly with the idea of going to Hawaii, even putting a mileage seat on hold. Unfortunately, I have now learned that if you want to spend the most possible money on Kauai lodging, you should travel between December 26 and January 7.

Then, while I was moping on the phone to Steve this morning, he mentioned the idea of a hut trip. A quick look at the online availability chart confirmed that the 10th Mountain Division huts have all been booked since early fall, so it looked like our plans were foiled once again. All of a sudden, the idea came to us. . . what about a yurt?

A few google searches later, I discovered a yurt system I'd never heard of before on the New Mexico border, between Alamosa and Taos. I checked the availability chart on the website, and lo and behold, there appeared to be two huts open over New Year's. I called and got a machine, and left a message fraught with urgency. Then I sent an e-mail filled with exclamation points. Then I waited, and waited, and called again. This time, the phone line was busy, and my repeated dialing over the next two hours met with nothing but busy signals. I began to get nervous . . . perhaps a New Year's Eve adventure was not in the cards for us?

At last, I was talking to a very nice man at the Southwest Nordic Center. He confirmed that a yurt was ours for the taking, and took my booking information. Joy! Success! Perhaps now some lawyering could be accomplished!! But just as I finished relaying my accomplishment to Steve, the phone rang again. It was Nice Yurt Guy, informing me that he'd made a terrible mistake in his booking records and there was no yurt open for our dates. I nearly began sobbing, but remained calm and asked him to work with me to figure out an alternative. Finally, after consulting calendars and maps, we came up with a solution!

Steve and I now have (confirmed! reserved! paid for!) a wonderful three-night yurt-to-yurt trip on Cumbres Pass, staying the first night at the Flat Mountain Yurt, about 4.5 miles from the trailhead, then skiing to the Trujillo Meadow Yurt four miles away on day two, spending two nights there (including New Year's Eve), and skiing 4.1 miles back to the car on our final day. The yurts are simple but cozy, warm, and well-appointed, and the area sounds gorgeous! Plus, the whole trip will cost us only slightly more than a single night's lodging in Whistler, even if we don't find anyone else to join us.

I'm going to visit a friend in LA in December, so will keep my premier status on United and get to hang out with a good buddy to boot. And we probably will still make it to Whistler this season, most likely in February, when the snow will be better, the crowds lighter, the mileage seats available, the pass-related discount bigger, and the accommodations MUCH cheaper! So my diligent research will pay off after all.

Now, if only we could find the time (and some extra cash) to get to Hawaii.........

It takes a village.

My Starbucks was jiving this morning! Adam, one of the longtime employees, had his guitar set up in the corner and was happily playing holiday tunes to us groggy professionals en route to our offices. I adore Adam and the rest of his co-workers. They always have a smile and a compliment ready for me along with my tall drip and multigrain bagel. They know my name, know I take my coffee black, and know that I alternate my breakfast selection among two or three different options. Even when the line is out the door, they make sure I have my coffee, my pastry, and the balance on my handy-dandy Starbucks card within a few minutes.

When I first left private practice for the Federal Defender's office, one of the more challenging adjustments to government life was getting used to the absence of firm-bought, secretary-made, always-hot coffee in the office. For years I'd avoided patronizing the Evil McCoffee Empire, but now I was faced with three choices: (1) participate in the office coffee club, which meant having to make the stuff myself, wait for it to drip, and wash the coffee maker on a daily basis; (2) walk several blocks out of my way to an independent coffee shop with lousy pastries; or (3) buy Starbucks. I'm incredibly lazy about my morning coffee -- I want it hot, strong, and NOW with no dirty dishes involved. So the convenience factor tipped the scales in favor of option 3, and I started patronizing the branch located right in my office building.

Within a few weeks, it felt like my neighborhood coffee shop. As I said, they know me there, and they make it feel like home. Starbucks is not the cheapest habit to support, but I've found that the friendly interaction I get at this outlet is as important to me as the caffeine and sugar fix. I don't feel this way about most other Starbucks locations, but this one seems to be staffed by a particularly professional and friendly group that takes pride in ensuring a satisfying morning coffee experience.

This morning, while I was enjoying Adam's musical talents, I started thinking about all the people without whom I would be powerless to survive. Maybe I could bring myself to make my own coffee if I had to, but what would I do without my hair stylist, my "aesthetician" (the chick who waxes my eyebrows), my pedicurist, my personal trainer, my dry cleaner, my cleaning lady, my physical therapist, and the great workers who roll my burritos at Chipotle? I interact over and over with these people every week. Some of them, like my cleaning lady, I never see in person, but without them, my life would be far more difficult.

I'm perpetually indebted to my "people," these men and women whose jobs it is to take care of me and make my life easier. And I get far more out of my relationships with them than simply the services they provide. Many of these folks have been in my life longer than some of my friends; they have weathered job changes, breakups, injuries, and bad hair days with me. I've become very attached to them, and though I'm simply one of the many people they serve each day, I flatter myself by thinking that I mean more to them than a generous tip.

For example, I love hearing about the romantic exploits of Summer, the gorgeous blonde who keeps my brows perfectly shaped. For years I've been encouraging Farah, my nail tech, to travel and to challenge herself. Now that she's back in school and contemplating a study-abroad program, I feel some sense of pride in her accomplishments. Jeremy, my hair stylist, is an enormous man with countless tattoos and piercings, but he's a total softie who always has a hug for me and loves to talk about his 9-year-old son. My personal trainer and tri coach, Barrie, pushes me to test my physical limits and has helped me break personal records. In addition, we've given one another all sorts of personal advice and support over time. Cathy, my physical therapist (like Bob, who preceded her), is always up for interesting political and philosophical discussions while she manipulates my aches and pains.

Sometimes I feel like an economy unto myself, supporting a legion of workers with my wants, needs, and vain indulgences. Since leaving private practice, I've tried to cut down on my expenses, particularly those in the "vain indulgence" category. But I can't seem to give up everything, and the luxuries that involve personal contacts have been the hardest to forego. I guess most busy professionals have a similar supporting cast. Perhaps in this way, we create our own small towns within the urban jungles we inhabit.

A woman of valor.

I made an important discovery this morning! Somehow, I managed to sleep through my vibrating alarm clock this morning (possibly the battery died, but more likely I shut it off and went back to sleep, obliterating the memory of being buzzed awake in the first place). I woke up with a jolt around 5:50, and realized that my doorbell alert system was flashing madly. I knew it had to be my swim-lesson buddy, Monica, who picks me up at 5:45 on Thursday mornings. So I jumped out of bed, cursing madly, grabbed one hearing aid, and tore down the stairs. Just before I opened the door, I realized I was almost naked, so grabbed a jacket and raced outside. I'd managed to pick up the right-ear hearing aid, which meant I couldn't hear a darn thing. Plus, while I could see Monica's car, it was still really dark out, so I couldn't figure out where she was standing. She finally tapped my arm, after she managed to control her hysterical laughing at near-naked, wild-haired, confused little me. Oy vey. But we made it to swimming and even had a decent workout. So what was my great discovery, you ask? Well, it was good to learn that my deaf-chick doorbell can actually wake me up!
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But my harrowing morning was not what I planned to write about today. This day, November 13, is the 94th birthday of my amazing and wonderful grandmother, Flora Mermelstein. My grandmother is a force to be reckoned with, and a constant source of inspiration to me. She lives every day of her life as fully and enthusiastically as she can, and she has never stopped learning, exploring, and challenging herself. At 94, she still works a few days a week as the bookkeeper for a prestigious entertainment law firm in Manhattan. She walks to the Fairway Market and Lincoln Center (and Filene's Basement, where she buys some of her always-stylish outfits). She has always been a fabulous cook, and she still makes delicious meals even when she is cooking only for herself. While she travels a bit less than she used to (her wonderful travel stories fuel my insatiable wanderlust), she continues her annual Rosh Hashana trek to Colorado. When she couldn't get here in 2001 (because 9/11 was just a week before the holiday), the sadness and disorientation we felt in the wake of the terrorist attacks were compounded by the strangeness of her absence.

My grandmother reads the New York Times every day, listens to NPR, and watches public television. She knows more about current events and international affairs than anyone I know (except maybe my father). She is a staunch liberal Democrat, and a vocal supporter of reproductive freedom, gay rights, church/state separation, free speech, and international human rights. Her charitable and philanthropic efforts have ranged from typing Braille documents for the blind back in the '70s (I loved playing with her Braille typewriter when I was a kid) to bringing meals to homebound AIDS patients in the '90s, to her generous financial support for my father's public interest human rights law firm, for the Foundation Fighting Blindness, for diabetes research, and more.

Grandma was the first in the family to use an Apple computer, and taught the rest of us about this strange gizmo known as a "mouse." She uses e-mail and has a cell phone, and is pretty savvy about the latest technology. Like most of my family members (perhaps this is where we get it from), she is a voracious reader, and her book recommendations are always superb. She is also a wonderful writer, with a sharp wit and a delightful flair for language. She writes book reviews and other essays for her Hadassah chapter newsletter, but her real talents shine through at important family celebrations, when she treats the honoree to a poem or song. At a recent gala dinner for the 80th birthday of Grandma's boss, a well-known theatre lawyer, the song my grandmother and aunt composed and sang brought down the house and earned kudos from all sorts of Broadway big shots.

I have been incredibly lucky to develop a close and unique relationship with my grandmother. When I was a little girl, my parents would sometimes leave me with her and my grandfather when they went on vacation, so despite the fact that we lived 2,000 miles apart, she and I were able to bond from the time I was very young. During my Vassar years, she gave me my own set of keys so that I could come and hang out in New York City whenever I wanted to. She never complained when I stayed out until the wee hours with friends, and we would have wonderful talks in the mornings over strong black coffee and thin slices of toasted bagel covered with pineapple cottage cheese. One of our most special times together was during my junior year, when I was living in Strasbourg, France. She traveled to France on an Elderhostel program, and we roamed the streets of Paris and Strasbourg together, drinking wine, eating great food, and having wonderful conversations.

My grandmother was (and still is) a beautiful woman, and she had many suitors. But she didn't marry until she was 30, pretty old for her generation, because she was holding out for the right man. She found him in my grandfather, who stole her heart and made her laugh like no one else. Since I reached adulthood, she has always told me never to settle, and to wait to get married until I meet the right man. Of course, since it became clear that I was actually following that advice, she's started pushing me a bit, saying that she doesn't want to live forever, only long enough to dance at my wedding. I joke back that my pickiness is really just a ploy to keep her around indefinitely, but the truth is, I can't imagine getting married without her there to share it with me.

So today, my Grandma Flora is 94 years old. I hope this year brings her great joy and good health and many new experiences. I am forever blessed to have her as my everlovin' G-ma.

Make way for ducklings.

For reasons that remain a mystery to me, we federal employees have today, a Tuesday, off for Veteran's Day. I'm certainly not complaining -- it's nice to have a holiday in the middle of the week! I contemplated skiing or climbing today, but decided to take advantage of the day off and the beautiful weather to take my snazzy bike out for a spin.

The Platte River trail is one of my favorite rides in town, but I've never ridden it mid-week before. It was almost like having my own private bike path -- aside from a few homeless men crouched by the creek under the bridges, I only passed a few other cyclists (just enough to feel safe, really). The absence of traffic allowed me to let my mind wander and to take in my surroundings in a way I typically can't when I have to worry about scanning the path for people and objects.

My sense of smell is always pretty powerful (I joke that it's overcompensating for my eyes and ears), and today it seemed to be working in high gear. As I rolled along, I could smell the changes in the landscape, from the fresh cut golf-course grass to the dry leaves collecting in the underpasses to the smell of the South Platte itself -- not unpleasant, but you wouldn't want to drink it. On the way back, I must have been hungry, because I felt bombarded by intense food smells I've never noticed on the path before. At one point, the smell of chicken noodle soup filled the air, followed a mile or two later by fresh-baked cinnamon rolls. Closer to downtown, I thought I smelled popcorn, but realized it was coming from a nearby construction area.

But the best moment of my ride came about 15 miles into it, right after I turned around. I saw something on the path ahead, and slowed down to try to navigate it. As I got closer, I realized it was a conga line of ducks, waddling purposefully across the path to the river. I stopped and watched as they shuffled along, wiggling their little duck tushies and quacking happily. They paid no attention to me on their way to the water, although one or two of them tossed a beak in my direction as if to say, this is our world, but you're welcome to share it.

It's been a while since I've had such a close interaction with non-domesticated animals in what really is the middle of the city. I was reminded not only of one of my favorite children's books (as my title today suggests), but of the blue-footed boobies I encountered in the Galapagos Islands. These colorful birds spray their guano-ring nests in the middle of the trails and waddle about tending their eggs, oblivious to the camera-happy tourists stepping around them.

There's no great point to this observation (and I need to take a shower now so I can get down to the serious business of laundry and cookie-baking). But this little ducky moment made my day, so I wanted to share it.