Additions to the Gaines household...

.....soooooo..... the same week that HGTV blessed our living room with a much need makeover, two lovely white stray dogs entered into our backyard and adopted us as owners/landlords.

We named them Jack and Lucy. Lucy is on the right. I'm not sure if you can tell in the photo, but Lucy was riding low when she first arrived out the house. They both were starving and scared out of their minds. It took days to earn their trust and make them feel somewhat safe.

Lucy on the left, Jack on the right.



And within a week, Lucy gave birth to three fully healthy beautiful white puppies. Two girls and one boy. The boy is the one wrapped in Lucy's front paws with the wavy hair. This picture was taken the morning after they were born.




This is me with the puppies at 2.5 weeks. They were just starting to open there eyes.



Here are the puppies at 4 weeks in our bathroom with Lucy standing guard. She was never comfortable in the house so she would run in and out to check on the babies. Meanwhile, I sat in the corner stunned by cuteness.

We named them after there appearances: Curly, Fattie, and Tiny.



This is Fattie.





Lucy and the puppies in the "den" that we created with my cousins crate, some blankets, towels and sheets.



This is a video of the puppies at 6 or 7 weeks. We moved them into the breakfast nook of our house to start socializing with humans and weaning from the mom....The one howling is Curly. We named his that after is long curly hair. His new family that adopted him a few weeks ago renamed him Namche after a city they visited in Nepal.

Got PRIDE!

For the past two years now, I have volunteered for the LGBT pride festival in West Hollywood. I have typically volunteered in the beverage section serving beers (mostly bud light) to anyone in possession of enough tickets. What's soooo awesome about pride is the collective sigh of comfort and safety that everyone feels for those 3 days and nights. Believe me, no one is holding back there waiting for next year.

Crazily enough,  its that same self-expression that I find so amazing, that seems to always  have the community in the news for some type of attack on morals or personal values because of the choices its constituents make or for behaving in a certain way. Really, it's that big of deal if a girl wants to wear a tuxedo to prom or if a guy wants to wear a dress? But I also, kinda, understand the dilemna that some consevatives may have with the label of self expression. While I don't see anything wrong with a girl wearing a tuxedo or fading her hair, or adopting an overall appearance similar to a man's, I do see how people walking around in pasties or extreme latex panties that leave nothing for the imagination can be somewhat disconcerting. I don't know of any other festival in a major city where people can walk around naked and it's expected to be ok. Particularly, if children are around. But just because I don't choose to wear those things doesn't mean that they don't have signifcance for the person who does...I have talked to people who truly feel as though leather, studs, and all other sorts of things are part of their self expression.  So, would I want to  walk down the street in head to toe bondage gear, well no, but I will fight for the right for someone to do so (espeically if I have to bombarded with pictures and video of celebrities asses and sex tapes on tv and in magazines that have nothing to do with self expression and everything to do with exploitation). And of course lets face it, that's part what makes pride so much fun, the surprise and spectacle of it all.

Unfortunately, that same spectacle seems to reinforce bullying, violence, and enhance overall disregard for humanity.  I am not quite sure what makes people so angry, so filled with hatred, so upset at the ideas of the LGBT community that they are driven to violence. I am also not sure why they feel so personal affected by a community that they have no interest in participating with or helping. You don't believe that gay marriage is ok, fine, then don't get gay married (Wanda Sykes) . Why does it bother you so much  if two other people do? You don't think homosexuality is right? So what?! I think your open/closeted bigotry is wrong and hypocritcal. But I am not going to fire bomb your house, or beat you death with a bat... Is your heart just so concerned that they gays won't get to heaven because of the choice of their lifestyle? Well, that's on you, because its not a choice for everyone. Sure, its a choice for the drunk girl on springbreak who wants to show how awesome she is by making out with her girlfriends; but not for 5 year old boys who want to walk around in the mom's high heels or for the girl who knows that she was born into the wrong body and shouldn't have breasts or a vagina. Those are not choices; that is DNA expressing itself.

The entire organizational effort behind PRIDE is arguing for equality rights, equal protection, and limiting prejudice while in a safe and friendly environment. Their efforts, as a minority who can strongly pull together, fight for equality and try to sway policy are unparalleled in today's world, at least in my opinion. And as they continue to struggle, I will continue to fight for equal rights for everyone. I am so rooting for the gays.

Your view is important...

Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.

Will Durant (1885–1981), U.S. historian. Life (New York, Oct. 18, 1963).

Desparately seeking friends :-|

This past Sunday I attended my cousin beautiful wedding ceremony here in temperate southern California. During the one of the speeches at the reception, my cousin commented that he often makes fun of his new bride for not having enough female friends. At the exact moment, my husband glanced at me and telepathically said, "That's totally you!"

I used to think I had bag full o' broads that I could call friends, until my husband asked me who...So I pushed my chest out and said I have the best group of female friends ever!

1)Jenn
2)Siris
3)Monica
4)Diana
5)Sarah
6) Naana

then he added a caveat of, female friends who I could actually hangout with....

1)Kent
2)Jason
3)Adam
4)Chuck
damn
5)Jindy

This is the sad story of my friendless life. Jindy is a new friend that I am getting closer with as the months go by, but  I am truly missing a serious girlfriend. A homie!

Where are you GF? I can't keep taking my husband to the shoe department everytime we go out... he might divorce me.

NOTICE: Nice professional woman in search of similar female with modern, boho taste, that likes wine, food, and fun. Are you out there looking for me too? Are you bummed that you don't have someone to share TrueBlood, Tina Fey, high heels, good books, and ice cream with? If so, then I am the friend for you. And while I love children, I don't have any yet, so you probably shouldn't either. I have friends with children and they usually don't have time for friends, or they don't have time for me (and rightly so, children are important)... either way, if you have kids, how can we drink wine into the wee hours of the morning while watching Amelie and pretending to speak french to the TV.

And before this turns into a desperate ad for some lonely chick living in one of the biggest cities in the country, I would like to say that new friendship without the crutch of the educational system is difficult. Have you made very many new friends since undergrad or graduate school? How I can I meet like mind ladies to have fun with?

Maybe I should ask some of my boys?

But the real kicker is, if friends are so hard to find why to do I have so many male friends and not female? I can tell you for sure that they aren't watching Amelie with me on the weekends (not that my husband would approve of that anyway).

Where does time go?

Like all other yahoos who wake up everyday, I am amazed with the passage of time. It's relativity is actually astounding. I can sit here and type about all the things that I feel like I just did yesterday, when I actually did them six months ago. And of course this feeling of relativity explodes once you have children or plants or a pet or something. Something that you can watch grow before your eyes will always pull you back into a complete shock of how fast time flies by. And I know that none of this is new. We still around at lunch muttering "oh I can't believe how fast summer got here" or "wow, I feel like we just celebrated Christmas."

Part me thinks that we say these things because there are inevitable and unenviable tasks associated with certain months. For example, everybody knows that April is a bummer because of tax season, even if you file your taxes before then.

"Ugh, I can't believe April is here already." 

October is the same way! Because you know that once Halloween is gone, its Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then New Year's day, and then tax season again.

Conversations with friends

Last night I went out for dinner and drinks with friends of mine who work in the same industry as me. We are all attending a internationally recognized conference in Philidelphia next month for everyone in our field.

Me: "So what are our plans for the conference."

K:  "We get drunk every night we're there."

A:  "I am not so sure that a good idea. I don't want this to be a repeat of Chicago. I say we go out Tuesday night only. That will be fun."

Me: "You know, my goal for the conference is have as many men hit on me as women hit on K. That's what would make my night. I figure with the conference in Philly, I raise my chances at least 50% over not getting hit on at all last year at the Vegas conference. There is a good possibility the larger concentration of black men there will find me attractive."

K: "What are you talking about? Everyone thinks you're attractive! I say 'Me and Lauren...' and someone almost always says 'oh the attractive one?"

A: "It's true. People in my office say the same thing!"

Me: "Wait! So my subtitle is "the attractive one"?!? Awesome! I would prefer "smart, attractive", but hey! I will take it!

Something to remember

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.

- Charles Dickens. In All the Year Round (1860). The narrator (Mr. Sampson), in Hunted Down, ch. 2, New York Ledger (1859).