Olivia Hawaii Cruise, 2006

The days leading up to our trip was filled with business, stress and anxiety. We were juggling the three kids and the two dogs at five different locations, times, and people. Of course we waited to pack until the night before, and then Aunt Flo came to visit the morning before our trip. Needless to say, I was a wee bit of a crazy bitch.

HG, being the perfect woman that she is, just helped me through it and after a short night sleep, we were up bright and early for our trip to Portland International Airport.

Getting on the plane was a sigh of relief and I was so excited I could have peed my pants. We watched movies and before we knew it, we were touching down in beautiful Hawaii.

We met some fellow Olivia Portland travelers on the plane and shared a cab to the ship port. They were fabulous and we knew we would be friends right away.

We were leid while embarking and were ready to start our incredible trip, and we had our first Mai Tai’s with our new friends.

After the mandatory lifeboat drill, we had fun the rest of the evening.

Let’s just say that I perhaps partied a wee bit much that first night, because I was not loving life as much the next morning when we arrived in our first port, Hilo. We had a shore excursion booked, so I needed to get up and moving. We went to breakfast where we were invited to dine with a lovely couple from Vancouver Island. I ordered a Bloody Mary with breakfast and was feeling much better as we visited. This particular couple were fascinating to me. One of the ladies was married to a man and had a child before coming out to her husband; her husband later came out to her. Not only that, but he is also the biological father to the child that her partner gave birth to, and the three of them co-parent their children, he even lives with them part time. I only wish things could be that amicable in OUR life.

After breakfast, we were ready to tour the beauty of the Big Island.

It was beautiful there and the weather was quite lovely, even though Hilo on average receives three times as much rain every year as we do here in Portland. Our tour guide was very good and told us a lot about the island, how and when it was formed and about the plants, flowers and animals that live there.

This is a lava formation that was made when lava oozed up and around a tree, killing the tree, and leaving this hollow tube as a result. This happened thousands of years ago, and the lava formation remains.

We got to talking to some of our fellow Olivia travelers on our tour. We met two lovely women from Brooklyn who endured an 11.5 hour flight to arrive in Hawaii. The one woman, begged me to sing Sound of Music songs to her on the bus, which of course I did. Her partner said that she frequently requests people to sing the Sound of Music to her.

We met two young women from Rochester who we continued to get to know during the rest of our cruise. Their flight from New York entailed them needing to flag stop in Phoenix due to a gentleman dying on the plane! They were both police officers who were lucky (or unlucky as it was) to be picked for the Newlywed/Oldywed Game at the end of the cruise.

After the tour, we embarked once again to the Norweigian Wind and set sail for the Fanning Islands.

We were at sea for two days.

I found that the secret to avoid any kind of sea sickness was to remain a bit buzzed at all times. Everytime I felt a little sea sick, I would have a drink and all would be well. Since we had no where to GO for two days at sea, I admit that we spent a fair amount of time by the pool sipping Corona, watching, meeting and having fun with the many women that we met.

We met women from all over the world. Older women, younger women, couples, singles. Women who had been in relationships for decades, some who were just friends, some who were broken up, but travelling together anyway, (ONLY lesbians do this people, it’s a strange but true fact.) It was certainly the best part of the trip; all of the many women we met.

Every afternoon, there would be concerts by the pool, and throughout the day there were many, many activities that we certainly could have partaken i; lei making, dance lessons, seminars. I did take two Hula lessons, and although I’m certainly not ready to open up my own Hula school, HG said I was the best one out there.
We would nap late in the afternoon and then dress for dinner. Sometimes we would listen to live music beforehand, or just hang out. Our only disapointment on the entire cruise would certainly be the food. It was not good. Not good at all. We had one or two good meals, but for the most part, not pretty.

The group committment ceremony was held on the first sea day, and we decided to participate. We weren’t sure if we would, or just do our own thing, we were glad that we did. Our new friends Dana and Tanya came with and it was quite nice. There were many couples there, some had been together as long as 35 years, others, like us, new to our committment to eachother. It was touching to experience that kind of energy.

That night was Formal Night and we had dinner with Dana and Tanya then sang karaoke and danced, danced, danced.

HG doesn’t usually dance, so it was FUN. We all had a great time!

The next day was another sea day. We played Bingo (and lost,) and sat in the sun, and drank more Mai Tai’s and beer. We napped, and had dinner, and a little more dancing.

The next day we arrived in Fanning Island.

Fanning Island is located 900 miles south of the Hawaiian Islands in the Republic of Kibrati. There is no running water or electricity and it is inhabited by native people who were brought there hundreds of years ago to cut down coconuts. They are self reliant, on the sea and by whatever is brought to them by passing ships once or twice a year. Norweigian Cruise lines uses it as one of their ports of call and I’m sure provides some assistance to the native people, helping out with the school and providing learning supplies. It was beautiful and lovely and HOT. The Fanning Islands are 121 miles north of the equator, and let me tell you something about the equator; it’s a little warm there.

The lovely thing about vacationing with 1800 lesbians in the middle of fucking NO WHERE, in heat hotter than HELL, with nothing else better to do than drink and sit on the beach is:

The lesbians sometimes take their tops off.

This is a MILD one. I’ve got some good ones, including one I sent Kami featuring my beautiful wife, (shhhh, don’t tell HG, I have copies available for $1,000.00 each, checks or paypal only please.)

After our day on Fanning Island, it was back to the ship for TWO MORE DAYS AT SEA, where we proceeded to drink more Mai Tai’s, take more naps (which I hope you know is code for we had a lot of sex…) and meet more interesting people.

One night we had a White Party, where everyone dressed in white. We had dinner with Kim and Debi the ladies we met from Kauai and had a grand time at the dance where we met four more girls from Portland. It was one of the most fun evenings of my life. I danced and danced until HG told me we had to leave, (I obeyed, because I’m a dutiful wife.)

We arrived in Kauai and I was exhausted from all of the partying and laying around we did. We didn’t plan a shore excursion there, which was probably a good thing since a lot of them were cancelled because of the Tsunami they had that morning. We didn’t feel a thing, but the captain said there was one and I believe him!

The first thought that I had when we entered into the little village shopping area was, “Wow, look at all of the straight people.” After spending five days with all lesbians being completely out and free, it was a strange feeling.

In Kauai we decided to take a tour of waterfalls and had the WORST tour guide in the history of tour guides. He kept telling us that he was a terrible tour guide, and he WAS. But we saw some waterfalls, saw the beach, and got a basic idea of Kauai.

The next day was Maui. We were met at the ship dock by some local lesbians who came out to greet us with waving rainbow flags. It was very hospitable of them. We were on a tour that day to do the downhill bike ride from the top of Halekala volcano.

Yes. RSG rode a bike 21 miles. It was downhill, but we don’t care about that fact.

The volcano was amazing. We were at 10K feet and I felt a little loopy up there. Loopier than usual I should say. This is the view from the top:

Those are clouds BELOW us.
This is the crater itself:

Now apparently Hawaiian volcanoes don’t blow up like Mt. St. Helens did. Hawaiian volcanoes OOZ. They ooz their molten lava all over the damn place and make islands but they don’t blow. Good to know.

After the bike ride, we returned to the ship where we changed into our Luau clothes and went to the Sheraton Kaanapalli resort for a luau. We had good food and bad Mai Tai’s, the sunset was amazing and the hula dancers were very cool.

The next day we spent in Kona, which is hot, and we mostly hung out. We shopped a little, we had lunch, we went and looked at tatoos. No we didn’t get one, but a lot of girls were.

The last night on the ship we were able to go to the ships specialty restaurant. HG wanted to go and I kept putting off making reservations. When I did, they were full. Two ladies we met who were ATF agents in S. California invited us to go with them. That afternoon while we were hot tubbing with some ladies from Virginia, the ATF girls told us that they now had other plans and for us to take their reservation. HG was happy and I was happy because we got our picture taken with Captain Lars.

I think Captain Lars like having the ladies of Olivia on board!

The next morning we docked in Honolulu, and because our flight was delayed for eight hours, we rented a car and Dana, Tanya, HG and I hung out all day. We went to Pearl Harbor, which was boring, but a good piece of American History and we went to Waikiki Beach, which was beautiful and also a good piece of American history.

While waiting for our flight, I counted 25 Portland Ladies of Olivia on our flight. I was certain that if our plane crashed, Jerry Falwell would say that it was because the plane was holding so many homo-sexual-women. But we were safe from the wrath of God, this time.
We arrived home to Portland at 5:30 in the morning to rain and 41 degrees.

But enough happy memories to last a lifetime, or at least for a year until we go here.

It was a delight to recap this amazing experience for all of you, Mahalo and Aloha.

My new addiction

As I was ordering my Holiday Cards from Costco.com, I stumbled upon the greatest MF invention I have ever in my life seen.

And now I’m completely obsessed.

It’s called MyPublisher.com and you create your photo albums, however you want, with captions, without, with stories, or not, big pictures, small pictures, 2 pictures per page, 12 pictures per page, whatever, however you want to do it.

After you’re finished creating it, they make it for you in a hardcover linen or leatherbound book.

AND

You can share your book with other online and order additional copies if you want.

Yes, I’m doing my cruise pictures.

Yes, I’m working on my blog post at the same time, because my blog post will become the story to go with my picture book.

Can you say cool?

Can you say RSG is obsessed?

Because I SO AM.

Kami? Do you know about this?

I’m so done with scrapbooking.

So done.

Now, I must go back to making my ALBUM!

Shut Up and Sing

HG and I went to see this movie yesterday at the Fox Tower in downtown Portland. Let me just describe it in one word, AMAZING. The documentary follows the inside happenings of The Dixie Chicks and the “incident” that changed their career forever. The incident being of course Natalie Maines statement that she was ashamed the president of the United States was from Texas. Personally I thought she was being nice; I’m ashamed that the President of the United States is from the United States, or for that matter, human, (or IS he?)

When the Dixie Chicks latest album, Taking the Long Way came out, HG and I bought and loved it immediately. The music was raw and personal and absolutely moving and beautiful. I especially loved, Not Ready to Make Nice, as it reminded me of my own journey these last few years and how very much it hurts to have people turn their back on you.

How much it hurts, and how hard it is to sometimes move past that pain to forgive and forget. Sometimes I don’t think that it’s even possible. The best revenge is success, and that is what the Dixie Chicks have done.

I loved the pure genius of the movie, the pure genius of their manager, and the fire in Natalie Maines that moved them from where they were to now where they are; an emergence of artistic talent that came from deep inside of them channelled by change.

The fact that these three women were able to capitalize on the ignorance and stupidity of a bunch of flag-waving, red-neck, Bush-following sheep is BRILLIANT, (and quite American of them, I might add.) The aforementioned sheep are portrayed honestly and in all their glory, I especially liked the quote, “I believe in freedom of speech, but not out of the country, or out in public.”

Uh, yeah. I’m certain that’s what our forefathers had in mind.

It was an amazing movie, one that I will certainly own on DVD the day it comes out, and I highly, highly recommend it. You can see the movie trailer here.

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In Other News,

It was snowing today.

Mahalo

Thank you so much to everyone who has sent their warm wishes, comments, e-mails, and phone calls. HG and I really appreciate it so much. And yes, she’s still HG because she says that she wants to always be my girlfriend.

I hope y’all enjoyed the photos. I kept back some of the more risque ones, to protect the guilty!

I’m still working on my long post. It’s coming along, but trying to juggle the kids, Thanksgiving, working, planning DD#3’s eighth birthday, and now the thought of Christmas has been a lot more difficult than I expected. I’m thinking Tuesday I may have a moment to myself. Tuesday.

I keep remembering the warm sun of Hawaii, the gentle rocking of our cruise ship, the sound of the waiter asking me if I would like another Mai Tai. Yes, those thoughts are still with me and I hope to keep them with me until my NEXT Olivia vacation.

For now, HG and I are off to Home Depot to order new carpet and then downtown to see Shut Up and Sing before I go to my Glamorous Waitressing Job. Until Tuesday.

Aloha.

The Most Amazing Experience

Our Olivia Cruise in Hawaii was one of the single most amazing experiences of my life and there is so much to recap. I couldn’t have ever imagined how incredible it would be, and I am so anxious to write about it, relive it and share it.

Unfortunately, I also couldn’t have imagined how incredibly tired I would be returning to “real life” after such an experience and it has been very difficult getting back in the swing of things, including blogging.

I have gone through the pictures, uploaded a bunch, even tagged and labeled them. You can see them on my Flickr account here. I made them public, so my new Ladies of Olivia friends would be able to see them as well.

Enjoy the beauty of the scenery, (HG made fun of me for taking so many pictures of mountains, but I found everything so amazingly beautiful.)

I’m working on a long post, that will have to wait until after I cook a twenty pound turkey.

Wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving, and for my international friends, Happy Thursday!

Ciao y’all.

Back from paradise

and illegally married too!

We had a fantastic, wonderful, life altering, amazing experience that we will remember for a lifetime. I have about 600 pictures, and as soon as I go through them, I’ll get them uploaded to Flickr so that everyone can see just how amazing it was.

I am EXHAUSTED and haven’t seen my kids in 12 days, so I’ll have to get back to blogging tomorrow.

Aloha!

ALOHA!

In just a few short hours, HG and I will be off to the beautiful Hawaiian Islands to have fun and frolic with 1500 lesbians on a big, big ship with lots of food and drink.

Oh, and get illegally married too!

We’ll be back in ten days.  Yes, I’m taking my laptop, so I may be able to update.  If not, y’all be good.  I’ll catch you when we get back.

There will pictures, and I will be tan!

Aloha my friends!

Security Clearance, 2

I had to do something about the amount of spam that I was receiving so I enabled that you need to be registered to comment. I’m sorry if it’s a pain in the ass, I just can’t stand getting the comments about increasing the size of my penis, cuz, I just don’t have that problem. My penis is the same size, every time, and I really don’t need it any bigger.

So if you want to comment, (and I really hope that you do,) you just need to be a registered user. You can register by clicking on the Register button on the bottom right, pick a user name and password, (Firefox will remember it for you, because Firefox rocks,) and that’s it. No secret handshake, no special chant, just register. It’s safe, it’s easy, it’s not the law but it really decreases my spam and stress, which makes a much happier RSG.

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HG and I are on our way for Monkey Waxes, Pedicures, and Mystic Tans.

In that order.

And then there’s the packing.

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Looks like Ross came through for us.

Looks like HG’s illegal wedding ring will be FedEx’d to us before noon today.

Ross better not be jerking my chain, or by Bob, I will be one irrate soon-to-be-lesbian-bride.

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It’s still raining.

It’s NOT pretty here in the Portland Metro area. Rivers are rising and there is no end in sight.

Yuk.

That’s all. I’m off like an illegal wedding dress!

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OMG!

I almost forgot.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DON’T FORGET TO VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Three more days

Until our illegal wedding vacation to sunny rainy Hawaii. Nothing is packed, but it’s ready to be packed.  We’re ready, now we just need some sunshine over there!

Thanks to everyone for your advice regarding my daughter.  I’m going to get a few things set in motion to get her the help that she needs; I appreciate everyone’s honesty and help.

A big shout out to the bitches over at the Big Blog Blowout! They gave me a drunk dial last night, but I was busy at my glamorous waitressing job waiting on 12 guys who gave me a $138.00 tip!  Sorry I missed the call though…and sorry I couldn’t be there to kiss all the pretty girls!

Looks like Ross over at Love and Pride might be coming through for us on the illegal wedding ring front.  He told us on Thursday that the ring was coming from Isreal and should be to Philadelphia on Monday and to us on Tuesday.  This was barring any customs issues.  I’m hoping since it’s coming from Isreal, which is afterall, the promise land, and about God,  there won’t be any customs issues and my girl will have her illegal wedding ring for our illegal wedding. Speaking of God…
Random Thought Regarding Illegal Marriage:  It’s kind of interesting that the religious right do their damndest to prevent us from having equal marriage rights but the truth of the matter is that we can’t get married in the eyes of the government, but can only get married in the eyes of God, which is I think what they’re trying to prevent in the first place.

That is all.  HG and I just returned from DD#1’s soccer game in the RAIN.  Now I’m off to the shower to get ready to go to another day at my Glamorous Waitressing Job.  I’m ready for a slow night that I don’t make any money because I made so much last night, but at least I’ll be home early with HG.

Ciao for now y’all.

Random Thoughts for the Weekend

Being away from my children on the weekends has become increasingly difficult.  It probably has a lot to do with the fact that the communication between their father and I is non-existent and there is no cooperation to co-parent in any way, shape, or form from his side of things.

Lately, every weekend I’ve spent a fair amount of time in tears with my heart aching, feeling as though my children live two seperate lives.  They have their life with us Monday through Friday and their life with their father and his girlfriend on the weekends.  DD#3 said that because her dad’s girlfriend comes over so much, she feels like she has a Mom over at Daddy’s house.  That’s okay with me, I want them to feel loved and safe, I just wish that I didn’t feel so disconnected from them on the weekends.

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I am worried about DD#2 and her reading.  She doesn’t seem to be increasing her reading fluency at all and has stopped developing in that area.  I’ve been concerned about her reading since she was in the first grade and have been told every year that she will eventually just get it, and it will click for her.  She’s now in the fourth grade and supposedly reads at the beginning of a third grade level.  I think that assessment is generous, because it seems to me that she is reading more at a second grade level.  I am feeling increasingly anxious about this and feel as though I’m failing as a parent, that I haven’t been proactive enough.  To try to change that, the first thing I’m going to do is have her eyes examined, and then find out what I can do to perhaps have her examined for a reading or learning disability.  It’s heartbreaking.

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It’s raining non-stop.  The worst thing about it is that once the rain starts in the Pacific NW, it doesn’t usually stop for a long, long while.

Like until July.

I don’t mind the rain so much, but these last few days just came out of no where and have been very, very wet.  Traffic has been a nightmare because somehow during the summer, Oregonians forget how to drive in the rain.

HG and I leave in five days for our Hawaiian cruise.

It’s suppossed to rain.

In Hawaii.

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Once again, I cooked a lot this week.  Every night but one, when we had pizza.

HG is taking me out for sushi tonight.

Yippee.

I think I’ll have a glass of wine too.

Or two.

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My hair is no longer blue.

Stay tuned for a picture.

Let’s just say it’s dark.

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Have a great weekend y’all!