Category Vanilla Life

Conflict

August 20, 2016 Relationships, Vanilla Life  4 comments

I’ve had a certain amount of conflict in my life of late – nothing personal, at least no more than usual when you’re rather greedy in your personal relationships.  It’s been in some of those relationships with people you don’t choose, but end up thrown together with.

Sometimes you like each other, sometimes you don’t, but most of the time we tend to behave, it rarely goes beyond not taking lunch together, or not striking up a conversation about the show you watched last night.  Once in a while though, you get someone who doesn’t play by the normal rules.

Years ago, I worked with a man who was both almost comical in some of his eccentricities, but genuinely frightening in others...

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To a Tea

January 25, 2013 Cooking, Service, Vanilla Life  12 comments

I post so much about tea that I thought I would expound on it because, well, because I can.

I did a tea portion of a class before a formal Leather dinner and it was, apparently, a revelation to a lot of people, so maybe it will have some value here, too.

Tea is a lovely beverage.  It is the second most consumed drink in the world, after water.

Experts say tea provides as many disease-fighting flavonoids antioxidants as fruits or vegetables.

Antioxidants are naturally occurring chemicals that promote a healthier immune system.

White tea contains the most antioxidants, followed by green tea. Black tea undergoes a fermentation process, which severely decreases its antioxidant content (though it still has more than coffee).

Additionally, tea contains a lot of other natural compounds that prom...

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Inauguration

January 21, 2013 Politics, Vanilla Life  4 comments

What else could I post about today?

I hadn’t planned to watch the inauguration in particular, but it was on and then came the inaugural address.

I did not believe I would live to see a black president, at least not for another 20 years.

I know, I know, he’s half black, what the fuck ever.  His wife is black, his children are black and I don’t give a shit what the idiotic and asinine birthers think, or say.

He’s not the first black man for whom I voted for President.  I voted for Jessie Jackson in 1988.

I just looked up Jessie’s speech, his Common Ground speech, and what both slave drew and I were most struck by was how similar it was to the inaugural address to day.

If you’d like to read it, the text of the speech is here, but I’m going to quote a few parts of it:

America’s not a blanket...

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Fairness is Coming

January 18, 2013 In the News, Vanilla Life  9 comments

slave drew pointed out a story to me today in the local paper, the Courier-Journal.

The online link to the story, Kentucky — it’s a state of Fairness, is here, but I want to quote some of it, too.

“As our coalition of organizations has worked across the commonwealth over the past several years to advance lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) anti-discrimination protections, that’s what we’ve been hearing. Most folks seem to agree everyone deserves the opportunity to earn a living, put a roof over their head, and eat at their favorite restaurant without the fear of being turned away just because of who they are.

This week Vicco, a small Appalachian town of just over 330 residents, confirmed everything we’ve heard by becoming the fourth municipality in Kentucky and smallest ...

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Passages

January 15, 2013 Memories, Relationships, Vanilla Life  13 comments

It has been a strange few days in several ways.

I had gotten a letter earlier this week from the daughter of a woman I grew up with.  She was a friend of my mother’s, though, over time, she became more a friend of mine.

I had visited her when we were on our honeymoon and went back to my hometown.  She was Portuguese in heritage, and an artist.  She and her husband owned a little junk shop in the town I grew up in, a place that we visited regularly.

She sold comics and books and I remember taking old ones in and trading them for different used books and comics.

It was in her store that I clearly remember seeing a rhinestone brooch and telling my mother how pretty it would be on a black dress.

I was all of nine or ten and I remember my mother saying, “But you don’t HAVE a black dress.”

I ...

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Father B

January 14, 2013 Memories, slave drew, Vanilla Life  6 comments

I am going to post tonight something I wrote earlier today.

The minister who married us is leaving the church.

Yes, I was married in a church and the ceiling did not fall down on us.

I wore a leather pillbox hat and leather gloves I’d been given as a piece of earned leather.

I’m not really a Christian at all – I don’t honestly know how I’d define myself, it changes nearly daily.  But we both wanted a fairly traditional ceremony, none of the unity candle and vows we wrote ourselves.

slave drew grew up in an Episcopalian church, and that was where we went to be married.

We were very lucky, our minister was a lovely man, and a wonderful speaker, and is now leaving us for the greener pastures I always knew would beckon.

We in the congregation were asked to write something for him to...

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One of Those Days

January 13, 2013 Bluegrass Leather Pride, Events, Fringe Elements, Great Lakes Leather Alliance, Kink Events, Vanilla Life  16 comments

Ever have one of those days?

It began with a LARGE dog mess that had to be cleaned up.  A mess that spanned two rooms.  First thing.

I’ve worked on laundry all day, which I honestly don’t mind, but it’s been a lot of steps up and down stairs, since the laundry is in the basement.  There has also been moving the clean clothes up to the upstairs, another flight.

I feel as though I’ve been doing a stair master all day, and while that’s not bad, my joints are beginning to protest.

I had another mess to clean up when the big plastic container of liquid laundry detergent somehow fell off the dryer, breaking the screw top, and spewing a certain amount of soap over the dryer, the washer, and some of the clean clothes.

Then there was the large pool of detergent on the floor.

I got it cleaned up,...

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Indolence

January 10, 2013 slave drew, Vanilla Life  2 comments

I have had an unusually lazy day, in some ways..  slave drew had a minor procedure yesterday and I’ve spent most of my day laying in bed with him, watching television.

I did run an errand or two, and made a rather lovely dinner of a fish casserole with olives and garlic and potatoes and lemon.  I’m also looking after a friend’s dogs while they’re out of town for a couple of days.  I do need to run out and take care of them shortly.

I rarely have the kind of day that involves watching a move or two, a longish nap this morning, and the seeming inability to do ANYTHING of any value.

Although, having written my own blog about accepting quiet as a time to recharge, perhaps I should just shut up and enjoy, huh?

 

 

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Routine

January 9, 2013 Bluegrass Leather Pride, slave drew, Vanilla Life  4 comments

I am sitting in bed, with slave drew, watching television and generally hanging out, something we rarely do.

He is playing on his Kindle, surfing and at this moment translating a German phrase of some sort.  He tells me it says, I am very cute, smart, clever, sympathetic, pretty and arrogant on top of it.

I think you have to be German for it to make sense.

We are watching Midsomer Murders, one of our BBC mysteries, about which it always strikes us that so many people could be murdered in these sleepy English villages and there still be enough to put on the next year’s church fete.

I am drinking a lovely tea, a black one made with rose petals and tiny buds.  It would likely be too flowery for most people, but I’m quite fond of it.  It smells like a bouquet of roses.

I spent some time tod...

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Nothing is Wasted

January 7, 2013 Relationships, Spirituality, Vanilla Life  5 comments

I spent some time today going through an old hard drive.

I found several things I’d been looking for, including, hallelujah, that story about the cat named Stiletto.

It needs a bit of reworking, the place it ended up was a bit different than the place it began and I want to work on it a bit, but I am much happier to have found it.

I found some other things, too, some bits and pieces of writing, some things that I was glad to find, some I’d forgotten, some I’d remembered but given up on.

One of the things I found was something I’d written about advice, and one part of it in particular struck me.

Someone a long time ago gave me a lot of good advice, but one of the ones I had mostly forgotten was, “Nothing is wasted.”

Everything prepares us for the next thing.

Our lives are linear; we can...

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