Posted by shana on Apr 3, 2009 in
Friday Gold Stars! More than just corn fields and rolling hills and bluffs by the river, more than stunning, sweeping vistas, bald eagles and morning glories and friendly, friendly people, more than just the state I’m proud to have called home for a year and a half,
… Iowa becomes today the third state in the union to overturn the ban on gay marriage, and for that reason, all of Iowa is receiving this week’s coveted Gold Star.
Perhaps you never thought of Iowa as particularly cutting edge. Well, think again. Despite the stereotypes about cornfields and only cornfields, Iowans have always seen themselves as ahead of the curve: As Iowa goes, so goes the nation, they say, right? They were right on Obama a year ago, and hopefully they’re right on this too. From the ruling, as quoted in the New York Times:
“Since territorial times, Iowa has given meaning to this constitutional provision [of equality], striking blows to slavery and segregation, and recognizing women’s rights. The court found the issue of same-sex marriage comes to it with the same importance as the landmark cases of the past.”
Iowa now joins Connecticut and Massachusetts as the first states to uphold same sex marriage. It is, as you can see, also the first state in the Midwest to do so. Quoth one of the activists involved in the suit:
“We are blessed to live in Iowa.”
Indeed. A big fan of wide open spaces and corn fields and friendly people myself, I’ve always felt this way. And today Iowa has done me proud once again. Pay attention, other states! Iowa is makin’ moves.
Tags: news flash, photos
Posted by shana on Mar 28, 2009 in
Friday Gold Stars! We blew it off last week without any mention. We were out of town, after all. But this week, Friday has come and Friday has gone, and now here we are, on Saturday, and still no post.
Could it be that Mac and Shana just don’t really like or value anyone enough, even in a kind of goofy way, to spend a couple minutes awarding them an imaginary gold star? What selfish, insular people! Keeping all those imaginary gold stars for themselves!
Of course, this is not the case, as we hope you understand. I think everyone here agrees that imaginary gold stars only bring you joy when you give them away.
Neither has it been a problem of having no one in our lives that we like or value; in fact, the problem is quite the opposite! We think and we think and we just can’t decide!
Gold stars to Megan the wedding cake goddess, for the dreamily delicious cake testing all day Saturday?
Gold stars to everyone who’s helped Megan test cake over the past few weeks?
Gold stars to Thia for being so happy to host us in DC and because it was so good to see her?
Gold stars to Jill for changing her flight back to Austin so she could hang out with us?
Gold stars to Catherine, Amanda, and other Bonnies, because they wanted to hang out with us and we couldn’t and we feel bad?
Gold stars to Southwest airlines, for having such cheap flights in and out of Midway?
Gold stars to Rohn and Ammy for not destroying the house while we were gone?
Gold stars to Mike Ditka, for being so manly?
Gold stars to my boss at work for finally giving me a enough hours so now I won’t be kicked off the health insurance? :-\
Gold stars to my health insurance? To health insurance in general? To health? Ahh! How can you give an imaginary gold star to “health”??
Gold stars to whomever we forgot? Are you offended? Oh no!!!
You see, this week, things have gotten out of control. They say that failure to make a decision is a decision in itself, and it seems that they have hit the nail on the head this week. I guess that makes Mac and me the nails. Mac has actually recommended just giving a black star to ourselves for the crappy job we’ve been doing with gold stars.
But no, let the madness stop! There’s enough depressing news out there, no one wants to hear that on top of it all, Mac and Shana were paralyzed with to hand out any imaginary gold stars this week. And so we’ve made a decision, and the winner is:
Threadless, for having a $5 t-shirt sale. Mac got us each a shirt, just for fun and to make us smile – mine says “being vague is almost as much fun as doing this other thing…” and it’s yellow, and Mac’s is a picture of a cop holding hands with a donut with sprinkles and a cup of coffee, and it says “Crime Sucks.”
The t-shirts have made us both very happy, in an “it’s the little things” sort of way. With this in mind, I encourage you all to consider stimulating this depressing economy by spending up to $5 on something little that makes you smile and laugh. A stack of post-it notes shaped by the first letter of your first name? A Reese’s peanut butter cup? Bubbles? Sleeping in? That’s free!
And if you feel like it, let us know what you got. We love love comments. :)
Tags: family, friends, little things
Posted by shana on Mar 13, 2009 in
Friday Gold Stars!,
making friends I don’t know if we’ve mentioned this before, but Rohn (né Julius) was a rescued cat.
We got him through Feline Friends, a really great cat rescue organization in Chicago with volunteer foster families that take care of the rescued cats until they get adopted. I dare, dare dare you to click on that link and then not get a kitty. They are so cute, so completely, captivatingly, heart-breakingly cute.
We spent a lot of time looking at this website, and Mac spent a lot of time on the phone with Toni from Feline Friends (they’re pretty much bffs now), to find not only the perfect cat, but the perfect match for our little family.
And we found him:
Those eyes, that face… and when we met him in person, we knew, because wow, what a personality. And over the last two months he has proven to be exactly everything we ever hoped for. Even Amarok would have to agree…
buddies
We’ve often wondered, though, about Rohn’s past. Amarok is also from the streets, and was rescued as a very tiny kitty at a very very young age – we’ve often thought of this as a good bonding point for the two boys. Unfortunately though, we don’t get in on these conversations, and we’re left to wonder, Where did our little Rohny come from? How did he come to be abandoned? How was he rescued? What was he like, in those early days?
So imagine our surprise and our delight when we awoke this morning to an e-mail from Catherine, our new friend and Rohn’s Choice for this week’s Gold Star… because Catherine was Rohn’s rescuer.
In a brief e-mail, she told us how, with a just-rescued dog already in the car one day on the West Side, she first spotted Rohn:
Yep. That’s sounds just exactly like our little guy.
In fact, it sounds so much like him, that we’ve already adopted that phrase for every day use. For example, “What? I jumped in the sink!” Or, “What? I’m playing with pink feathers!”
Yes, the Gold Star this Friday goes overwhelmingly to Catherine, both for rescuing Rohn so that he could eventually come to be part of our family, and for sending us this e-mail so that we can know a little more about our little guy.
This post is a glut of pictures of Rohn in honor of her receiving this prestigious award. Congratulations! 
Tags: cats, friends, photos
Posted by shana on Mar 6, 2009 in
Friday Gold Stars! It’s finally, here, that most anticipated day of the week, Friday! And what better way to celebrate our happiness than to recognize someone else who makes us happy by bestowing upon them the most honorable of all honors: an imaginary gold star.
We know you’ve been waiting eagerly all week to hear who the first recipient will be, and Mac and I have considered the issue carefully. We’ve decided that as much as we’d like to give gold stars to each other (ha), and as much as we’d like to give gold stars to both of our cats (though they’ve been kind of high maintenance drama queens lately, they put up with all the picture taking pretty well), that that would be a poor decision for our first awarding of Friday Gold Stars. We’ve decided instead to award Gold Star two others, yes, two, who also feature prominently on our blog, though not because we post funny pictures of them every other day.
This week’s Gold Stars go to…
Jim/Dad, and
“Cowboy’s Mom,”
for being the only ones to ever comment on our blog.
Congratulations!!!
And thanks! We love getting comments! It makes us feel special and appreciated. :)
Should this post inspire all the rest of you to start leaving comments as well (you don’t have to be one of our parents to do it!) you just need to click on the little yellow posty note by the title of the post and have at it.
Happy Friday!
Tags: friends
