Happy Waffle Day!

Today is a magical day.

Four years ago today, someone named Folsom and someone named Walsh, inspired by the sweet news that GW Bush had changed domestic partnership taxation on public employees, hastily joined themselves together in sweet monkey matrimony to become the WaFols tribe forever more. (Wafols. Geddit?)

Here is a recreation of the beautiful moment when we decided to entwine our lives and taxable incomes together forever more:

Him: CRAP!


Me: What?


Him: I just got this notice that I have to pay taxes on all the domestic partnership benefits my work gave you that were untaxed all year! CRAP!


Me: Suck!


Him: OR...we could get married and the benefits would become nontaxable spousal benefits.


Me: So it's December. Couldn't they have told you earlier in the tax year? Effers. Whatever. I guess let's do it. (to Milo) Sorry little buddy. I guess we can't legitimately call you our little bastard any more...

See? We've always had that secret, romantic je ne sais quoi.

Last night, Jamie and I went out a day early (because when you get married on New Years Eve, every day is a holiday. Also, babysitters on NYE? Ha!) and celebrated with the alcohol and the raw fish and the reminiscence, reflecting upon all the words we now use only ironically. Like "romantic" and "privacy".

And we also did some good couple bonding and threatening.

Like...you can never die/divorce me/something-else-unforeseeable because we are In. This. Together. Like it or not, damnit, baby!

Because that? Is hot sweet magical monkey love. Baby.

Happy New Year/Waffle Monkey Love Day to you all!

DISLCAIMER: Our sitters are awesome and would probably totally have sat for us tonight. Just so's you knows. 


PS: Thank you tremendously for all the love about my sister. Here's hoping for a healing 2009! 


PPS: So....sometimes I'm a bit harsher than is strictly necessary. And even though the above is all more-or-less true, it doesn't capture the fact that we are a pretty nauseatingly happy-together couple who are delighted to find ourselves where we are. And even if GW hadn't been evil, babies not in our picture, and privacy something we could say without snorting, we might be in precisely exactly the same place. There, Jamie. I lub you and I may not be particularly publically mushy, but it's ALL MUSH ALL THE TIME in our reality. (OK, not always, but sometimes).

Portland!

A friend of mine recently pointed out that Portland, OR is an entry in the Stuff White People Like book. And, while Portland IS full of things from that book (bumper stickers, hybrid cars, wine, coffee, organic farmers markets, pan-asian-fusion-restaurants, threats to move to Canada, bicycles, lawyers, dogs, living by the water...), his snarky take on our smug whiteness has made me take a step back from my adopted city to think about it. Portland has a LOT of public art. Some good. Some weird. And THIS:

Lots of alternative types. Like him (that's famous papa-Nomad):

Lots of new-age-bookstore-birkenstock-psychic-reading-pan-pagan-types (The Secret was published by a local Portland publishing house):

And we are the coffee/wine/book capital (per capita) of the US:

So that's a large city with a big load of, dancing/protesting/drumming hippies, a side of homelessness (we are bleeding hearts, but not foolproof, apparently), and naturally there's as much extreme yuppie-ism as the rest of the left coast, lots of strippers (really, like...a LOT of nekked here), and rain rain rain... (along with mold, mildew and some of the other fun things that go along with mold)...

It's a mixed bag of interesting and irritating, but I like it here. I've got access to several (although, sadly, fewer all the time) independent bookstores, including the BEHEMOTH of independence, Powell's. Yuppie, organic, beautiful coffee 24 hours a day. Lots of wine, booze, food. It's a city of excess about our excesses. And sure, smug about it. And very white. That's problematic. But not intrinsically wrong.. I grew up in Salt Lake.

Which has a lot of this:

Some of this:

and this... And WAAAY TOO MUCH of this:

I think it's ok here...away from that (hiking aside). My life is here. My kids are here. Hatred and unhappy, unloving people are here too, true, but mostly it is a city of love. Sometimes too much, shreepy, deepy, creepy love. Or nekked love. Or psychically-channeled, a bit off-the-track love...but it's love all the same. *some of these images come from Portland Ground

Cowboy, meet Prison

(subtitle: The Name Game)

Every few months I waffle around (har har) about changing my name to Jamie's, because his surname is COOL with my first name. Seriously. You'd NEVER mess with me if I had his surname coupled with Rebekah. It's just that tough sounding.

Rebekah Cowboy

MY surname is lame with all name combinations (no offense, all Prison-named persons everywhere, but if your name is famous in your country for sounding like a Prison, it's maybe not the best of all names). Also, it sounds a bit like the noise people make when they throw up. So there's that.

Rebekah Prison

But...this is where I have to think about screwing my feminism (and general philosophies about self-worth) to the sticking point. I don't REALLY believe in changing your name...ever. I mean, I've known people with Rainbow Hippie Sunshine names who changed their names to Mary Jones-ish-ities. And many MANY more Mary Jones-es who changed their names to "Running Heart Stone Awesome Pants".

And I do get the merits in that. Sort-of. But...for me? Self-loving, confident, 38 year old me? Eh. I think my identity is melded to being Lame-o-Prison-Gal forever. It's just part of the package.

Plus there's the fact that in three marriages I've kept my name the same. (Not the best argument to have with Jamie). And that it's a bit like a vanity plate. I'd LOVE to not be Rebekah Sing-Sing*, but I am. And I'd really LOVE to be Rebekah Cowboy**, but I'm not.

We did give Zel the Cowboy last name, which I'd protested with great reasoning and logic and many thoughtful thoughts since waaaaay before any child of mine was born (essentially: boy-baby=dad-last-name; girl-baby=mom-last-name). Until she was going to be Zel Prison. Which isn't that bad, right? But my sense of aesthetic won out over my sense of justice (soooo telling), so she's Zel Cowboy forever, unless she decides differently.

And I guess that's the point, really.

* not my real last name
** not Jamie's real last name