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.

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.

~~~~~

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

In that order.

And then there’s the packing.

~~~~~~~~~~

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.

~~~~~~~~~~

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If the ring fits,

Oh, but it doesn’t.

Dissapointingly enough, we received HG’s illegal-wedding ring today just to find that it does not fit.

Damn.

Ross, the nice man at Love and Pride, is doing everything that he can to get us the custom size in time for our trip, but I must say that I am not overly hopeful.

What is a soon-to-be-illegal-bride to do?

I suggested that we buy her a temporary ring, but she wouldn’t hear of such a thing. So it looks like we either get the ring in time or HG gets married, sans ring.

So dissapointing, so sad, so not like I planned.

Perhaps Ross will come through for us?

Not to mention that our tidy ten day trip is turning complicated. It doesn’t look like our dog Abby is going to be able to stay with my Mom at her new house due to the fact that her yard is not completely fenced and we are terrified that she will freak out, (she’s lke that,) and run away.

The last thing that we want to do is return from our illegal-honeymoon to find that we are short one dog. The only alternative is to take her to the nice lesbian dog kennel and board her the entire time. Poor Abby.

Of course we don’t need to worry a thing about Ginger, as she will be well take care of having the time of her life with her bio-sister and her moms.

But alas, bumps in the road will not deter us from our goal, and yes there will be pictures!

Not looking for love…

In January of this year, I did something a little dangerous, a little daring. I placed an online personal ad on Just Out Personals, a local gay and lesbian publication website. Placing any kind of personal ad, let alone an online personal ad, was something I had not ventured into doing in my newly single life. I envied and admired the people who placed personal ads, and wondered about the interesting people that they might meet.

I wasn’t looking for love, but I was lonely. As a new lesbian, I was stuck in the middle of a strange place; no longer in a relationship with my girlfriend, not fitting in to my old straight life, not fitting in to my new lesbian life. I had a few friends from both lives, but I still didn’t feel like I “fit.” I needed to meet people, to branch out, to discover who I was, to adventure to new places. I was free and I needed to exert my freedom and no longer be stuck in the restraints of control by anyone… not an abusive (ex) husband, not a mentally unstable, jealous girlfriend; I needed to let go.

I stepped out of my comfort zone; the familiar ness of my home, my children, my suburban town of ten years. I was living on the edge, I placed an ad. “Looking to expand my circle of friends,” it said. I was honest on my profile, I chose pictures that were just me, I explained myself, who I was, what I was looking for. Why not? I wasn’t looking for love, just some new people to maybe hang out with once in awhile; other lesbians who would help me to connect with my people, help me to continue to figure out who I was.

By the next day, I had received a few e-mails. It was a good ego boost, it was exciting, it was interesting, I was nervous that whoever answered would miss the “friends only” stipulation on my ad and want something more. I knew I couldn’t give more; I had issues, and baggage and loose strings. I had nothing to offer anyone.

A woman answered my ad that caught my attention. Not by her pictures or even her profile, but by her response to me. She was polite, she was flattering, but not overly so, she was obviously intelligent and articulate and her profile said that she was only looking for friends as well. Seemed safe enough; I wrote back. We had pleasant e-mail conversation, nothing suggestive, but the kind of small talk that two people make when they are getting to know each other. I gave her my IM address and we chatted until late in the evening. I continued to be candid and honest, taking time to be sure I wasn’t giving off any hint of romantic interest; I couldn’t do that, (issues, baggage, loose strings, nothing to offer.) We shared our war stories of our very recent break-ups with our respective girlfriends and all of the dyke drama attached. We were becoming friends.

On January 16th, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we met in person for the first time. It was for coffee, at Starbucks; that would be innocent enough. I was early and sat down to wait for her. I saw a Subaru pull in to the parking lot and knew right away that it was my new friend. We were in Lake Oswego after all, who else would be driving a Subaru but a visiting lesbian? The first time I saw her I thought that she was really cute, even though I wasn’t going there, (issues, baggage, loose strings.) She was so cute that I thought that maybe I could fix her up with one of my friends, do a little matchmaking, when she was ready. I bought her a coffee and we had more pleasant conversation, (or rather, I had pleasant conversation, she listened to my continuous rambling.) We made plans together for that weekend, friends only of course and later I wrote a polite thank you e-mail apologizing for talking too much. I hoped that she didn’t think I was a complete weirdo and never want to hang out with me again due to my overactive chatter. She seemed okay with it and we continued to e-mail and chat throughout the week.

I was certain that I had no romantic interest in her, but I couldn’t stay away from my computer waiting for e-mails or IM’s. I stayed up late, late, late at night chatting with her, barely surviving on a few hours of sleep because she entertained me so.

I was certain that I had no romantic interest in her, but the day before we were getting together, I went shopping and bought a new outfit, and spent $72.00 on new perfume.

I was certain that I had no romantic interest in her, but that day, I decided to cut my hair, (myself,) and do major amounts of grooming a primping.

I was certain that I had no romantic interest in her, but I had butterflies in my stomach when I was driving to the restaurant to meet her.

And even though I was certain that I had no romantic interest in her, as soon as I walked in to the bar where we were meeting, and as soon as I slid into the booth across from her, I was no longer certain that I had no romantic interest in her.

She took my breath away.

I let her talk this time, and we had a lovely time before heading out to meet some friends at a Portland lesbian get-together. I suggested we drive together and then proceeded to nearly rear-end someone on Front Street. As I slammed on the brakes, I did the usual Mom thing of throwing out my arm across her to protect her from the impending crash, because certainly my arm was much more protection than the seatbelt and airbag. She told me later that it was at that moment, when I touched her for the first time, that she knew that she loved me.

We danced together and danced around the subject all evening, but by the end of the night, we, and everyone else knew what was going on. The energy that was between us was explosive, igniting, and so thick that strangers could feel it. We knew we were on the same page and we went with it. It was surprising, amazing and wonderful. Since that day, we have spent nearly every day and night together, building our friendship, discovering our love and making a life together for ourselves and our family.

In two weeks, we will make a commitment to each other on an Olivia cruise in Hawaii where we will pledge our love and life together. And when the moment arrives for me to slip a ring on her finger, I will say a special prayer of gratitude.

To her ex-girlfriend for breaking up with her, to Al Gore for inventing the internet, and to Just Out for designing a personals section that just happened to make all of my dreams come true.