A Wonderful Weekend....

This past weekend, Jan. 6th through the 9th, we took off for our yearly music convention in Atlanta GA. There have been 14 GAFilks, since their inception in 1998 and I have attended all but one of them. I met my beloved partner, best friend and wife - Dreamweaver - for the first time ever at the first GAFilk Convention. A brief definition of "Filk"must now occur -  filk is a form of music about science fiction and fantasy subjects created from within science fiction and fantasy fandom, often performed late at night by fans sitting in a rough circle and singing or playing instruments at science fiction conventions, though there are now dedicated filk conventions. Its been around for fifty years at least and the word filking arose as a typo of the word "folk" music in a convention memo. What makes it hard to define is that the songs are not all about Sci-Fi/Fantasy subjects, and may reference things like cats, computers, personal faith, space flight, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Sometimes real folk music gets performed even. The phrase is "Filk is what Filkers do." thereby encompassing a universe of creativity and connections. 

So....

Last Friday we were off to the Filk, and were pulling into Atlanta at about 4:00 PM

Rolling into and through Atlanta....

(And since I was driving - NO, I did not take these pictures.)

And this is the view from the 11th floor hotel room we checked into...

Rob, our master of ceremonies...

 Having arrived and checked in, we were downstairs for what has become the tradition of the GAFilk Convention - a New Years celebration and countdown. By virtue of always falling on the second weekend of January, GAFilk is the first filk convention of the year, and possibly the first convention in the Scifi/Fantasy Genre, period, of the New Year, too. So there is a countdown, and champagne and sparkling cider and we begin the Con by singing Auld Lang Syne...ALL the verses, including the unpronounceable Scots dialect ones.
There is a great deal of socializing and hugs and joy as over a hundred people see their best filking friends they only get to see once a year, or happily make first time attendees feel welcome and honored too.

Welcome in a new year of Filking! 

At which point, afterwards the singing begins in
earnest in the first open filk of the con.

 The next day as I came down to the con, I encountered the snake! One of our long-time members has a snake who's been going to the con about as long as I have - a Ball Python named Spot. This however, was not Spot...Spot has a new traveling companion, a much younger and smaller ball python named Saffron...I immediately went to meet the new snake, and got to hold him while his owner visited elsewhere in the filk room.

Me and Saffron, the Ball Python....

Saffron and I visiting - we both dozed a bit for a bit...

I wish at this point to add a wonderful thing that happened. As you see in the picture above, my convention name tag says "Cameron". While Cameron is one of my actual legal names, it is not the uber feminine one I grew up being known by. As I have worked through being a female to male transgender and considering transitioning. I have been using the name Cameron more and more and  it is probably the name I will use as a man, post transition. So, all of these good people I have been attending this convention with for 14 something years all did a double take and said - one by one - " 'Cameron'? Whats up with that?" My answer was to say well there's a long version and a short version answer to that, and the short version is I am a female to male transgender and Cameron is the name I am using as a man."

And without exception, the answer was "Oh cool! OK...Cameron it is." Oh my - what a wonderful group of people - no judgement, total acceptance, no problem! Only one person wanted to ask some questions - and their main point was, "Are you happy?" And when I said yes, they said that was all that mattered! Fandom is a wonderful community of people! 

So, our second day of the convention went on filled with much good music and friendship and fun...here are some pictures...

Cat Faber, formerly of the group Echoes Children - she is amazing!

This was the double shot - the sign up for anyone
who wanted to sing two songs back to back...I've done double shots
before myself - but not this year...

Elise Matheson - the Super Secret guest for this year's GAFilk

Brenda Sutton of the group Three Wyrd Sisters in the open filking.

More open Filk...

Elise again - she was wonderful and funny and a very talented blog writer
jewelry artist, singer and story teller - a woman of many talents. 

Open filk at night after the banquet  - this is where we all sit and sing
till the break of day in a Filker's bardic ring! 

Open filk...

Open Filk....

Brenda Sutton performing again...

Bill Sutton, Brenda's husband, who is equally,
amazingly talented...

Mac Carson performing his signature song
"Brother Michael" which gets requested every year!

My Guitar...it was good to be playing again - I've been out of practice
due to school, but by Sunday morning,
I felt like I was back and able to play...

Fiber Geek and Dreamweaver - they have been best friends
since before Dreamweaver and I ever met and
their friendship is utterly precious!
I love them both and I am honored to be in their lives! 

Sunset from our hotel room on Saturday night....

And then...there are the elephants!These are our two elephants who travel with  us - Bronte and  Gabe.
We think they did a lot of filking we didn't know about after we went to sleep.
Turns out Cat Faber travels with elephants too - so they all got to wave at each other. 

 So after a wonderful glorious weekend...the Con came to an end - which always makes us sad...

Closing ceremonies where guests receive hats. 

And Brenda leads the final song, "Strangers No More We Sing" (that she wrote)
which none of us can sing without crying, because it's beautiful,
it perfectly expresses what the con is all about
...and when we sing it, it means the con is over. 

So, the Convention, GAFilk 14 is over. *sigh* Of course, you *KNOW* what this means....don't you? 

We're gonna sing some more! 

That's right - for those who do not have to leave on Sunday and can stay over til Monday, the convention rooms are still ours for one more night, and the Dead Dog Filk begins! And we sing right into the night again!!!! This year, Dreamweaver and I were able to stay for the first time ever through Monday and it was a very good thing we did because the Dead Dog Filk was magical - most of the "professionals" were still there, and brought their instruments back out and some of the most powerful, beautiful music I've ever heard at a GAFilk convention was played that night! And it wasn't just the "Pro's" - everyone still there, including us amateurs were in it - singing, sharing songs, harmonizing, jumping in and playing along. It was the best night of the convention for us!

Some of the incredible music we heard at the Dead Dog Filk....

Which just kept getting better and better....

And better!!!! 

FiberGeek and her grandson listening to the music!

We finally gave up and packed it in and went to bed all tired and happy, remembering of course that we had a drive back in the morning  Our Godson, Fiber Geek's grandson was a perfect example to us of how to end the con - of course, he has two speeds - full tilt boogie and crashed out sound asleep. 

Our God-son...the Next Generation of Filk!

And then we packed up, packed out and said our farewells to our friends with many, many hugs (and some tears!) and drove home after four days of wonderful music and friendship! It must be said that we came home to a house in perfect shape and our animals calm, well cared for and happy to see us, due to the efforts of our friend Miles who took over animal sitting our brood while we were gone. And having our furbabies calm and happy and well cared for - we can give no higher praise to our friend! He made the trip possible!
The only, single complaint I had about the whole weekend was (of course) that the hotel bed was evidently a stack of cinder blocks cunningly disguised as a bed with sheets and blankets! Ugh - I was so glad to get home to my nice warm water bed with my cats! And my kitten Thor - the kitten without fear, as Miles calls him - was glad to see me too! 

Thor asleep on my chest the night we got home - purring away!
He and I were so glad to see each other! 

So GAFilk is done for the year - we have the memories of good friends, good fun, great music and the knowledge that this time next year, we will once more head out - off to the filk! 

Strangers No More

Copyright ©1987 by Brenda Sinclair Sutton- All Rights Reserved

Plans are made, pennies pinched,

Time goes creeping by,

Bags and instruments are packed,

Our bosses shake their heads and sigh.

We're going for a weekend,

We'll drive or fly or crawl

To the oddest burgs and ballrooms

Where we answer to the call (of)

Chorus:

One voice singing, one hand strumming,

Slowly building note by note there starts a quiet humming,

Lyrics brush the memory, somebody starts a drone,

The basses fill the bottom in, there sounds a baritone.

Layer upon layer swells with alto and contralto,

The melody enhanced by soaring tenor and soprano.

Strangers no more we sing, and sing, and sing, and sing!

Strangers no more we sing, and sing, and sing, and sing!

She drives a truck, he computes

That one teaches school.

The only rule among us is, "There really are no rules."

Some like ose, some fantasy,

Some science fiction strong.

The one thing that unites us is

Our love of harmony and song (with)

Chorus

Bridge:

Some folks fit in easily, no matter where they are.

Others stand off from the rest and pin their hopes on stars.

We each spent some time drifting in a crowded world, alone

But now we pack our bags and songs,

And skip off to our monthly home (where)

Strangers no more we sing, and sing, and sing, and sing!

Strangers no more we sing, and sing, and sing, and sing!

Well, it's been too long. How's your life?

Familiarity.

A kiss, a hug, a back gets rubbed

By one of every five I see.

You read my shirt. I read your badge.

We sit and trade a song.

I may not know you Friday night,

But we're good friends when Sunday's gone (with)

Chorus twice.

New Years Day, 2012 - Transitions and Changes....

This New Year's Day,2012, will begin the third year that I've been "Out" on this blog as transgender - FTM - Female to Male. There have been some changes since I made that post in July of 2009, some of them that are pretty significant. I went back and re-read that post, "Pardon Me, Your Umbrella is Leaking", and the changes are leaping out at me. I am the kind of person who has come to understand that changes are always with us, that change should be expected, that (in the words of Kiya Heartwood of the music group Wishing Chair) "...the only gospel that I know is things are gonna change." 

Otherwise, after re-reading what I wrote back then, now would be the perfect occasion for eating crow. 

Mostly, I stand by what I wrote in that blog post. Its still very relevant, and very important. Nor do I feel the need to go back and edit it. The thoughts I had back then were where I stood at the time, at the beginning of figuring out somethings that were of absolute, ultimate importance in my life. I don't need to change the past to acknowledge the present. But I do need, I think, to revisit it in order to see the nature of those changes and what they mean in terms of where I am now. 

The change in perspective comes, of course, at the end of the blog, where I make a very definitive statement that "...since I am already sure that transitioning is not the answer for me...". That has changed and is changing daily. I'm pretty sure I will be physically transitioning to male at this point. I have a lot of thoughts and questions still, that I intend to spend some serious time on, before I take such drastic step. But I am of an entirely different mind here on this, than when I wrote that blog post several years back. And I want to stop and think out loud here about it for a bit.  

I think one of the factors that influenced the "I am not going to transition" stance I took was fear, pure and simple - fear of a number of things. The first part of that fear was that I was at the very beginning of acknowledging something that had been in existence for me my entire life - something that I had never had words for. "Tomboy" covered it fairly well when I was a child, mostly...until that became socially unacceptable when I moved into my teens. At that point I was expected to stop being such a "boy" and grow up and be a young lady. Not to put too fine a point on that, it was hell. I wrote in that first blog post that I felt that for the first part of my life that my culture and society denied "what I am by making me try to present as a feminine heterosexual woman (and I did try, people, for 36 years of my life I tried!)". There is close to half a lifetime of serious, real pain behind those words. Of a daily effort that deep inside, I loathed every minute, and trying to do so made me loathe myself. So, at age 36, when I came "Out" as a lesbian - a butch one - that seemed to settle me into a comfortable identity, a place where I could be me. It fit, supposedly. Only, it didn't. Not totally. There was still this sense of missing a step, that jarring sense of "not quite". I still did not have the language, the words, the necessary information to make sense of just why things still didn't work in my life. Oh, I was happy enough, much happier than I ever was attempting to fit the "binary heteronormative" mode of being a woman. And yet...I still wasn't there, wasn't at home within myself. I knew there was still something more that was not right, even if it remained a vague unease, a discomfort that would not pass and grew more profound as time went on. So, when I made that final realization, with the sound of a key turning in a lock, that I was transgender, it was a pretty terrifying place to be. I had to take every assumption I'd ever had (again) and re-think everything I ever thought I knew (AGAIN!) and start all over. How many times have I had to do this? Far too many - and it never ever gets any easier. Stating then that I was just never going to transition was a safer place to stand, when starting out to contemplate the complete change of everything I ever thought I knew - and then tearing it all down. 

The second part of that fear was for my relationship with my partner - my wife, Dreamweaver. And for her, as well. This is not a journey I am on alone. She is very much hostage to any decision I would ever make about this and she has had her own journey thus far. She too, started out in a fearful place. She has had a lifetime of dealing with men who have been abusers and who have damaged her and scarred her - she had found a very safe haven in being with a woman, in her lesbian identity, in feeling safe and secure in our love. And oh, gee, whoops, um...I'm a guy? Oh no, no, no. Talk about my world going upside down? This totally blew her's apart! And the track record of relationships surviving one partner transitioning is very poor - most of the time they break up. The idea of this fundamental shift tearing Dreamweaver and myself apart was perhaps the most terrifying fear I've ever had. And she felt it too, perhaps worse than I did. We didn't have one identity crisis - we had two. Mine - and hers. 

Its a very understandable, gut wrenching fear - for both of us. But I should have trusted us. I should have trusted her. She has walked every step of this journey, mine and hers, right next to me. And she has made it very clear that she's with me to the end of my days, irregardless of who or what I am. She has managed to work her way from moments of being horrified over the changes this forced upon her, to utterly supporting my need to transition, and that is a distance of near infinity to walk for her. And she has done so with immense amazing courage. Not, of course, that its all resolved and just fine now...I suspect that we have many more twists and turns on this road of transformation together, and a lot of them will be very, very hard. But I trust her. I trust us. Whatever the future, I know that I can trust that there will be an "us" that will last til death do us part - and beyond, if God or the Gods are kind. 

And of course, there is the fear of societal judgement, by friends and family - all too often these kinds of life altering decisions result in the loss of friends and family. One of the things that others have said to me, is of course, the classic "If they can't accept you as you are and love you no matter what, then they weren't your friend, anyway." There is a bitter measure of truth in this. But there is also something missing in that statement too. We are all interconnected in our web of relationships and big changes cause growing pains on both sides. I have written here many times of my strained relationship with my father, 84 years of age, who simply cannot ever accept me being gay or transgendered. It doesn't mean he doesn't love me, or that he should be callously dismissed as not being a worthy parent or friend. It does mean that I have to think about where he comes from, his back ground, his era growing up, his paradigms and how the world that was then, formed and shaped him. That I have to realize that he is what he is, and that any ability to shift and change that radically in his thinking is truly beyond him, because of who and what he is. And my coming Out to him as either gay or transgender, would tear his world apart. My being gay identified is something that he and I can just barely manage in the most all out case of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" you've ever seen. He ain't gonna ask, and I ain't gonna tell. And we go on loving each other. Love is not the problem. Or, perhaps the problem is that in his aging and his growing fears and cantankerousness as a man in the end of his life, his love is deep and profound...and conditional. He never has been capable of "unconditional love". Only the profoundly good boundaries and caution we have always maintained of our differences have carried us this far.

But as a transitioned FtM???? Dad would be face to face with changes in me that no amount of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" could ever cover. Testosterone produces profound changes - my face structure will shift subtly, my voice will drop permanently to a male register, I will more then likely grow a beard, I will put on muscle, "top surgery" will configure my chest and upper body structure to masculine...in short, he would be irrevocably faced with the fact that his "daughter" is actually his son. And the fifty years of relationship that I have built with him give me no hope that he has the ability, the mental flexibility to make that shift. He's just not wired for it. Terrifying? You bet! Terrifying enough, that in initially realizing that I am a transgendered man, that my first reaction would be "There's just no way I could ever transition."

The final point of hesitation, that made me go, "Transitioning is not my path" is the fear of some of those above mentioned changes. Testosterone changes more than the outside physical appearance. It changes everything - mood shifts, how one processes emotion, how one thinks. I'm still wrestling that one. Would I still be "me" when it is over? What would that metaphysical place of "I" be, afterwards. Would I still be who and what I am now - and make no mistake, as much as I hate this body I'm in, there are parts of me I value profoundly, and fear and wonder how they would change, on this journey. That, I am still wrestling with, make no mistake. I'll have to get back to you on that one!

So...what has shifted or changed, that in a matter of a few years, I have moved from "never going to transition" to "yes, I will eventually transition". I don't know if its a case of I've "changed", I think its more of a case of that pressure that I have always carried within me of not being right, of not being who and what I am suppose to be having now found its definition, its voice, its narrative, its self awareness and understanding. And its like once that door is opened, there is no going back.

I mention in that first post back then that I avoid mirrors like the plague, especially full mirrors that force me to look and see the female body that I wear. Its more than that - FAR more then that, I just couldn't even begin to find the words for the complexity of it, for the full experience of it. If I don't think about it, my body persists in "feeling" male. Its like I walk within a ghostly form of a man, that the aspects of being female jar and grate on daily. I have good days and bad days. My menstrual cycle and recurring period are consistently among the bad days - really bad days. I loathe and hate my body with a passion during those weeks, furious with the constant obnoxious reminder that my body persists in being female - what an odd way to put it, I suppose. Maybe time will give me better words as I work this out.

 I despise my breasts, and dress to conceal and minimize them as much as possible. Binding them is the next step for a more complete presentation of being male and is something that so far I have grimly resisted - and Dreamweaver agrees with me on this. Because it feels like once I take that step and start binding, the uncontrollable avalanche will start - and once started, it will not be turned aside, and I'm not there yet. Showering is a nightmare. I'm a very clean person - I hate being dirty. But I also despise the utter forced, inescapable intimacy of being confronted with my naked female body when I shower. It totally blows any ability to see or feel anything but the agonizing dichotomy of being a man, and still having to touch and clean and totally, bitterly, unwillingly acknowledge that the form and shape I wear are wrong!

I have days where I am mostly OK. The bathroom mirror shows only my face. I can avoid looking down at myself as I dress or undress, and the moment passes...and then I'll have days, sometimes for no obvious reason, where it doesn't matter what I wear, or what I do, I want to violently claw my own body off me - its not mine! And in those minutes I utterly hate it. I understand what sometimes drives some transgenders to cutting as a release valve for these feelings of utter alienation from their bodies...I've never done it, but oh, I can see the temptation of it, the need for it, the release of it! My voice doesn't sound right to me when I speak. And my utter fury of being constantly, instantly interpreted as a "woman" by everyone I meet and therefore instantly in their minds processed into a certain role, a certain "thing" that they may treat in certain ways is a daily agony. It doesn't matter that I'm dressing in every way possible I can to signal Male, man, masculine...hellooooo? Don't you people get it?!? I am not allowed the right to define my own self, to be what I am unless I totally transform everything, utterly and permanently into something they can perceive on a shallow surface level based on their brainless cultural programming.

Oh, yes. Its become very painfully obvious, day by day, struggle by struggle, that I will eventually be transitioning. Why not now? Why not just go ahead and go for it? Oh, there are several good reason...one, and probably the make or break one, is very simple. Money. Transitioning is not cheap. And we are in that lovely euphemistic place of being  the "working poor", stone broke and working paycheck to small art job, to student loan and hanging on grimly between, fighting for gas money and food and bills. It wouldn't matter how READY I am; I cannot afford it at this time. Not yet. Someday that will change, perhaps soon even, as we are working on changing that through painfully saved and invested funds.

Another point in this time frame is that we are planning on moving out of state, at some point, when I finish school. The logical point in time to seriously pursue transitioning is after that move, and it is not impossible that this may fall after my dad passes - not something, mind you, that I want to have happen, or even want to think about. But time is passing and he is showing signs of aging and slowing and I am afraid he and I are
moving into the end of his life and our time together. Which is an agonizing and horrible thought...and its is also a very guiltily liberating thought. But even beyond that, getting out of this area, steeped in conservative fundamentalism and narrow bigotry and homophobia is a very smart move in considering transitioning. Fear of physical danger is actually not high on my list - but I'd be a fool to not see its there either. Moving is also a ways off, both because of finishing school and because of money, again.

And the final point is, that despite this growing internal volcano of pressure, I still have a lot of questions that I want answers too, both mine and Dreamweaver's questions. And I intend, before I put the match to the gunpowder on this, to seek out a therapist with experience in working with transgender issues for both of us, and there will be some serious work done on issues of self, and relationship and what and how and why. And I am not just talking about snagging a therapist to sign the papers blindly to get me past the gatekeepers to get testosterone and surgery - I'm talking about doing real inner work and processing, so that when I take those steps, I will be doing so informed, centered and profoundly ready, secure that Dreamweaver and I will weather what is to come.

So, where my journey has taken me so far? First of all, acknowledge that wherever I am right now, change is inevitable. That what is true today, may undergo a strange and deep sea change in the journey of life and to not let what I firmly believe to be unchangeable throw me when it turns out that the opposite is true. Secondly, I know now that it is very likely that transitioning is going to be a step that I will take. That I am getting on top of my fears...and that, bad or good days not withstanding, I have the strength to do this a step at a time, and do it right. And I know that Dreamweaver is right there with me. And that together, she and I can weather anything.

I will close this with a precious moment that occurred a few months ago...I was getting dressed and grumping my way into my sports bra, that always painful moment of having to acknowledge that yes, these breasts are here, and I have to deal with them. And Dreamweaver, who the year before was horrified over "losing" her lesbian identity if I became a male, thus making her in the eyes of society a straight woman, looked at me all of a sudden and said, "Well, if they're not yours, you shouldn't have to wear them!" See why I love this woman?

She put her finger on it, right there. This body is not mine. And I don't have to spend the rest of my life caught between what I am not, and what I am, and society's judgement of it. This is where I am today. And I most certainly have more exploration and growth ahead, and more words to write as I seek to express what is going on inside of me.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, as the poem says...I left the divergence back there quite awhile ago...

...and the road I'm on is good.

Merry Christmas and Happy Yule!

Our Christmas began on Christmas Eve day, when we went out to my parents and had Christmas dinner, which we cooked and took out to them, due to my dad recovering from a broken shoulder. Mom has mobility issues so its been a hard time for them. However, Dad has been given a good report and taken out of his sling, and begun physical therapy, so thats all good news! We had a wonderful day with them and then we left early enough to make it to the Midnight Christmas Service at our church - here are some of the pictures from the service....

The front of the church.

The Advent Wreath...

The Christmas Tree at the side window.

And I got to wear my kilt, which I adore!!! 

Then afterwards we went home and fell out, exhausted, of course. We woke up the next day with the most blessed beautiful day - we did not have to go anywhere or do anything and that was a blessed Christmas for us both, indeed, with our hectic schedules! We set up a little foot tall tree on our altar and decorated it - we can actually unplug it at night and put it away safe, so the cats can't have too much fun with it. So here is our Yule Altar, with the little Tree...

This is the Christmas/Yule present Dreamweaver got for
me...it's the Wildwood Tarot Deck and its wonderful;
the art is stunning! 

We wish everyone a blessed holiday season - may we keep it in our hearts all year round! 

Our Christmas for each other - Biltmore House Candle Light Tour...

Biltmore House on the night of December 17, taken with my camera phone. 

On December the 17, we went to the Biltmore House in N.C. for the Candle light tour. This is something we have done before many, many years ago, and have longed to return and experience again. This year, we finally decided that we were going, one way or another, even if going entailed eating more cheese sandwiches to afford doing so!

Christmas Tree outside of Cedric's at Biltmore Estates

So, in setting up our reservations, we discovered we could make reservations at several possible restaurants and thought, Cool - that will solve what and where to eat dinner before going on the tour. So the Saturday arrived, and as some of you may know we lost our cat WeeBit in the middle of the night, before our trip. So we set out on the road to Biltmore somewhat sad and tired, even though we were happy to be going on the trip. Then the fun started. Not realizing that the restaurant, Cedric's, was actually on Biltmore Estates, we attempted to find Cedric's via GPS. Then by phone. According to our GPS both Cedric's and Biltmore House are in the middle of downtown Asheville (Which they most certainly are NOT!) and according to 411, Cedric's did not exist. We finally got it straightened out and arrived very late to our dinner. 

Once we were there, it was lovely and we had a fabulous time - some of the best food we've ever eaten and excellent service by the staff! 

Walking up the approach to Biltmore House, after dinner.

From there we went on to the House. For anyone who has never been there, there are hardly words to describe it...Biltmore House is a Châteauesque-styled mansion near Asheville, North Carolina, built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895. It is the largest privately-owned home in the United States, at 135,000 square feet and featuring 250 rooms. 101 rooms are bedrooms.On Christmas Eve 1895, Biltmore House opened its doors for its first family celebration. An art connoisseur and collector, George filled his mansion with Oriental carpets, tapestries, antiques, and artwork, including paintings by Renoir and Whistler, and a chess set that had belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte. After Vanderbilt died in 1914 his widow, Edith Stuyvesant Vanderbilt, completed the sale of 85,000 of the original 125,000 acres to the federal government, which carried out her husband's wish that the land remain unaltered, and that property became the nucleus of the Pisgah National Forest. 8000 acres remain to form Biltmore Estates as they are today, including a dairy, a winery, shops, and extensive glorious gardens. It is still owned today by the surviving descendants of George Vanderbilt, who, as one of the tours states, do not preserve the house to make a profit, but seek to make a profit to preserve the house and its incredible legacy. 

Main Entrance to Biltmore

The glorious part of the Candle Light Christmas Tour is that the house is decorated as it was on the night it was opened to the public in 1895, with Christmas trees in virtually ever room, antique toys, candle light and roaring fires in the fire places. 

Stone Lion at the entry
Not sure if he's happy about his decoration,
or not.....

However, there are no words to describe the experience of walking through the house, nor can pictures do it justice. Photography is forbidden inside the house, but there are rooms in it that are beyond belief - the Dining Hall is 72 feet long, 42 feet wide, and its walls stretch up 70 feet tall. Wall decorations in the Banquet Hall at Biltmore Mansion include priceless Flemish tapestries from the 16th century and medieval weaponry. The room also features a triple fireplace and an organ loft. The oak dining table can expand to accommodate 64 guests and the acoustics are perfect. The organ still plays. Over the doorway of the Hall are the words "Let there Be Peace, oh Lord, in My Time" in Latin.

And then there is the Library. There just are no words. Go look at the link to a picture of the Library here, right now. Go on, go look. There are 10,000 books in this room, and an estimated total of 22,000 total belonging to the estate...which they are STILL working on cataloging! The mural in the ceiling is The Chariots of Aurora by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (1675-1741), which the Vanderbilts purchased secretly from a Venetian family who found themselves in financial straits; they sold it with the proviso that its provenance was not to be remarked upon and the price paid was not to be revealed. Today it is known to have come from the Palazzo Pisani on the Grand Canal in Venice. Now, they do not allow photography inside Biltmore on the tours....however, I was a little bit naughty. 

Detail of  the Library ceiling painting with my Cell phone....

I snuck a shot of the Library Ceiling with my cell phone. There was a tour guide next to us, so I couldn't really aim or focus - I just fired and hoped. All those cornices and stone work up there are a painted illusion.

This shot was taken from the third floor over looking the front entrance and grounds with the glorious decorated tree in the center. The rest of the house is just as glorious as the two rooms mentioned above with a huge ginger bread house in the kitchens in the basement, a swimming pool (!) and a bowling alley, as well as an exercise room.

Exterior shot of Biltmore - my cell phone did amazingly well
 - much better then our actual  camera did; evidently the technology has improved....

And this is the Christmas Tree on the from lawn,
reflected in the pond in front of it.

And in this shot of the tree,
you can see people standing silhouetted against the lights,
which gives you an idea of how big this tree really is!!!

We could not have a had a more wonderful, lovely romantic time, and as it was where we went the year we were dating, almost 8 years ago, it was a lovely thing to both remember, and to bring the reality into the present day and make new memories. We may not get to go every year...but it is a tradition we want to keep as often as we can pull it off - Christmas at Biltmore. Always! 

Happy Winter Solstice!

Happy Winter Solstice everybody! 

In the darkest, longest night of the year, welcome Sun Return!

WeeBit 1999 - 2011

WeeBit 1999 - 2011

We must now say fare well to yet another of our cats. This one hurt - not that they don't ALL hurt when you lose one, but every now and then, it somehow seems to hurt worse than usual. This one did.
12 years ago, I adopted a little kitten that I named WeeBit. She was a tiny bit of fluff, a black midnight calico or properly a Tortoiseshell , with a gorgeous white ruff and glorious orange accents all over her. She was a ball of lightening fast energy, with 2 speeds - full bore all out, and passed out sound asleep and God did not remotely install a reverse gear in this cat. She could literally jump from one side of a room to the other in one leap, no touch down (and did, constantly). I used to put a little kitten play toy ball in a card board box and toss her in to play, hoping she'd wear out before I had to go to bed, because EVERYONE must play when the WeeBit was awake. She was sweet and feisty in a rolling boil of a mix and she loved life. (Somewhere, I have pictures of her as a kitten, which I will post when I find them.)

WeeBit, with her fluffy tail, BeeWit.

She grew into a lovely small cat, with medium long fur, still a rambunctious bundle of energy. And she evolved the craziest relationship with her tail that I have ever seen in a cat. Basically, she didn't know WHAT that fluffy thing at the end of her butt was, and it was obviously out to get her. Her tail would twitch and flip randomly and WeeBit would jump, and stare at it and then do her very best to catch the obviously demon possessed thing following her around. I remember watching her chase her tail at high speed for hours up and around and through and over the back of a metal folding chair in a never ending circle, determined to GET that...that...thing. She never did figure out that it was HER tail, and an actual part of her...the last week of her life she was still trying to catch the darn tail. This resulted in the tail acquiring its own name...the BeeWit. If we posit that BeeWit really was a separate entity, I don't think it was any more resigned being attached to WeeBit as her tail than she was, and it appeared to torment her deliberately.

WeeBit mothered a number of kitten litters before we managed to get her spayed. Three of her offspring are worth mentioning here - one was a TINY kitten that got named Snuggles because that was all the kitten wanted to do - snuggle. Now...99.9 % of the time, calico's are female - the coloring is linked to sex. (Everyone once in a long while a male calico will be born, but is sterile, and then in an even smaller number than that, a fertile male calico will be born, which is like winning the sweepstakes at Vegas odds.)  Snuggles unfortunately, was not a very healthy kitten though extremely cute - he was the only calico kitten she birthed that had her tortoiseshell coloring. Snuggles had a recurring problem of his - yes, HIS -  front legs popping out of socket - you'd look up and there would be Snuggles, limping and staggering, and you'd have to pick the kitten up and gently pop them back in, which never seemed to upset Snuggles, however much it distressed us. So I had Snuggles in my hand one day, gently easing the front leg back into place and did a double take. Snuggles was a male calico! I couldn't believe it! Unfortunately he had other problems as well, one of which included a soft spot on his skull that instead of closing as he grew, spread wider and wider. And I think there were probably other internal problems as well. Sadly, he did not live much past 6-8 weeks. But we've never forgotten him either.

Lugh and Persephone - WeeBit's Kittens, now grown adult cats.

WeeBit's other memorable kitten litter is quite the story. I was cleaning house one day about 6 years ago, and moved a piece of furniture to mop under it. Um. There were two baby-just-born-kittens curled up there together. Insanely healthy, happy well fed chunky kittens. We didn't even know one of our cats was pregnant, let alone who! What the...! So I called Dreamweaver at work and I said "You're not going to believe this, but we have kittens."
Her response: "WHAT!?!?!? How? Who's the mother?"
"I have no idea!" All I could do was settle in and watch, to see who showed up to nurse them, as we had several unspayed lady cats at the time. Sure enough, WeeBit strolled over after getting some food and water and plopped down to nurse. Congratulations! Gave a whole new meaning to the term "stealth pregnancy" - heck, we never realized she'd gone into heat! One was a little all black female kitten, the other was a tabby and white male. We named the little girl Persephone and the little boy Lugh - and they are to this day two of our most amazing cats. Its like Weebit split her personality - Lugh has all her tender sweetness and Persephone has all the vinegar and feistiness. These two kittens incidently provoked the memorable phrase from a friend of mine - "Little wee WeeBit bits with with little wee BeeWits" - say that five times fast.

Lugh and Persephone were the last "wee WeeBits", as we managed to get WeeBit spayed after that. She grew older, over the next six years, as we all do, still able to leap high kitchen cabinets at single bound and sleeping on our bed with us...until about 2 months ago we noticed that she was showing distension in her abdomen. We took her to the vet and that was when we got the shattering diagnosis of Feline Infectious Peritonitis which is fatal. She had the  fast moving kind and the vet told us gently to take her home and make her as comfortable as possible - as long as she had good quality of life, we were good, but we would have to decide when she would have to be put down. Her prognosis was only a matter of weeks, though the vet said doubtfully that she might live a little longer. Heartbroken, we took our little WeeBit home and proceeded to set out to spoil her rotten...er...rottener.

A few weeks went by and aside from distinctly waddling a little from the distension in her belly, she was fine. She was happy...she ate and drank, and slept on the bed with us, demanded being petted and chased the BeeWit routinely. A month went by. She was still in her mind a quite going concern, and very pleased with her world. A few more weeks went by and we began to be in awe of her resiliency and tenaciousness! We would get up every morning and call "WeeBit!" And her head would pop up from where she would be curled up on the foot of the bed and she'd go "Yes? Whats up?", bright eyed and attentive. Two more good weeks passed, where we would check in with her every morning, and go, OK, she's good, we have another good day! Two months of this - both happy and sad and bittersweet.

WeeBit on a pillow in my lap. 

And then, this past Thursday, we could see the downshift. She grew quiet, and began to struggle to get from place to place in the house, and her breathing became labored off and on. She was still eating and drinking and affectionate, but the fun was going out of living, and that was our line in the sand with this - we would not let her suffer into a decline. We had researched vets and prices, so I placed the call and got an appointment on Saturday morning to have her euthanized. We spent Thursday evening and Friday redoubling the spoiling factor - that cat got steak and turkey! She remained affectionate and interested in food, but became increasingly distressed by her inability to make it to the litter pan. She insisted on being near us, preferably in our arms, and cried so piteously when I tried to set her up a nest box on the floor so she could make it to the litter pan, that I gave up and put her back on the bed with us with some towels down for her. Dreamweaver had taken her into the bed room, as I was finishing up on the computer for the evening, when I looked up and saw her - jauntily! - trotting back from the litter pans in the next room, going "Look! See! I can too still use the litter pan!" Sadly, about half way back to the bed room her steps slowed as she ran out of breath and she had to lie down. I picked Weebit up gently and took her to Dreamweaver, where she curled up in her arms.

Dreamweaver held WeeBit for the first part of the night Friday night, and then passed her to me to hold and  cradle. If we put her down for a second, to go to the bathroom or something, she would cry until we picked her back up. Around 2:30 AM, she suddenly mewed a little, and snuggled down closer in my arms....and then simply, quietly, quit breathing. She went in her own time and her own way, curled up with us, and we never had to take her to be put to sleep. We did decide to have her cremated, so I took her body on to the vet anyway to be dropped off for this service, and they were so kind to me there.

WeeBit

So we come to the end of our twelve years with WeeBit (and BeeWit!) - a long and happy life that we were blessed to have shared with this very special cat. There will never be another like her! Blessed be, WeeBit - see you in the summer lands!

Call Me Malcolm - a Transgender's story.

This is incredibly informative, amazing, hopeful and powerful - it addresses issues intrinsically through the narrative of Malcolm's journey in a way that is awesomely personal!