STANZA gifted me a hunk of tiramisu for my birthday.Getting older is a blast with Suzanne.A red lips shirt is always in fashion.“Tiramisu” is a jaunty word to say.One of my slice-o-birthday-cake cufflinks.
So about now, you’re wondering if you missed the final tales o’ Portland and the Bruce concert. I can assure you that you have not missed a one. The Portland “difficulties” have continued to haunt me here in UT, even as I attempt to put together the ending stories of our “cursed” trip. It seems a slew of Portland photos I distinctly remember taking have gotten lost somewhere in my iCloud. I didn’t even know that was possible. But they certainly are nowhere on my actual phone, so I’m cloud-sleuthing, so to speak. Trust me—the last Portland stories soon will be told, with or without pix.
Thanks to y’all who took a moment out of your day to send me a birthday wish on the 10th. I’m sure I have mentioned it in posts before, but I regard my birthday as my true Thanksgiving Day. It is the day of the year when I find myself reflecting on my full life of blessings, luck, interesting characters, and all-around treasury of days-add-up-to-decades of constant wonderment. The kindnesses shown me by those in my tribe—and by those in strangers’ tribes—have baffled, befuddled, and bewitched me for the whole of my life. My gratitude knows no bounds. Thank you. And I mean you. Yes, you.
Suzanne took me out to birthday dinner at STANZA, as she did last year. I’m making a bigly deal of it here because I’m voting for it to become a forgone conclusion that STANZA is my official birthday dinner spot. Suzanne is a literal-minded person. This is my little way of clobbering her over the head with the hint that I want my birthday dinner at STANZA every year I have a birthday. (Do you think she got my birthday dinner point?)
We just got seated at STANZA when a rain deluge began, complete with a lightning show. Suzanne arranged the weather just for my viewing pleasure, I’m sure. Suzanne ordered her usual pasta, as a result of which she still smells garlicky today. I ordered the pan-seared halibut but due to some unforeseen kitchen problem, the halibut had to be scratched from the menu. Scallops showed up in front of me instead, and I was so glad because now I can make up a new word to say I ate “scallopbut” on my 59th birthday. The folks at STANZA gifted us tiramisu for dessert. The night was perfect.
I found the perfect Valentine’s Day Tie o’ the Day for me: a Nicole Miller necktie full of paisley hearts. We left Skitter home while we went to dinner last night. The poor thing sat around the house all by herself, wearing her very own lipstick-and-lips Tie o’ the Day for the occasion. Meanwhile, Suzanne and I went to dinner at the Oasis Cafe in downtown SLC. We had a groove-tastic conversation—as we always do. (The food rated only a “meh” review from me, so I doubt we’ll revisit the place.) I, of course, wore my heart-covered, Suzanne-made cape on our evening outing. I did manage to see someone else sporting a different type of eye-catching cape at the restaurant, as well. I had to be low-key to take this photo of the other cape, and I apologize for not being able to get close enough to it to find out what it was made of. But believe me, its feather-like, petal-like look was stunning. However, I still prefer my own cape, to be sure. It flies me around the sky oh-so very well.
There was a minor scuffle in the Tie Room today. When I went up to calm things down amongst the neckwear, I found the entire group of my made-from-feathers Bow Ties o’ the Day gathered in protest. They were there with their tiny microphones and signs—their cell phones pointed and filming in every direction in case something juicy happened. It seems they were upset because I haven’t worn them often enough for their liking. I realized they were right. They haven’t been in the TIE O’ THE DAY rotation regularly. I haven’t paid much attention to them for a very long time. During our public negotiations, I promised them I would change: I need to re-examine how often I wear them. I also promised them reparations in the form of agreeing to wear each of them during the next week. Peace now fills the Tie Room again. I was wrong. I admit it. And now we can all get back to business. I wish more people would admit when they are wrong, then move on.
An Emily Dickinson poem declares to us that “Hope is the thing with feathers—/That perches in the soul—.” It’s that invincible slice of fire in us that makes us go forth when we would really rather be stagnant—whether out of fear of what’s next, doubt about how to continue, or an apparent lack of energy to sally forth. The smallest hope in each of us can kick our metaphorical and literal butts off the couch and out into the world of living a life—if we let it. Hope keeps us ticking when our situation is looking dire. Sadly, some of us are currently in such a state that we have nary a spark of hope left inside at all. In all reality, it’s more than likely every one of us has run out of hope at least once in their lives. Personally, in those times of a hope-drought in my life, that’s when I was fed by other people’s hope. Sometimes people shared their hope with me, and I tried with all my heart to take it in. I fed off seeing those people moving—with their kind hope—through tough times and into their more hopeful futures. Sometimes I flat-out stole the hope I saw and heard in others. I stole their tidy inspirational quotes and attitudes. I stole acts of service I had watched them perform for others, and then I performed those same acts of service for others when I could see the need. I want to repeat this and make it clear: I didn’t just borrow a cup of hope—I stole all the hope I could. Me—I’m the Hope Burglar. I had to trust what I stole and use it to kindle my own feathery hope into being again. It is because of needing to replenish my own hope that I learned an important lesson about it. Stealing hope is not against any law of the universes. Nobody loses anything in the transaction. Everybody gains. True hope, in fact, encourages a kind of promiscuity. It likes to get around. True hope wants to abide within every one of us. Hope, by its very nature, wants to invite everyone to its party.
Last night Suzanne and I ventured to The Eccles Theater in Salt Lake City, for a performance of AIN’T TOO PROUD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE TEMPTATIONS. It’s a Broadway musical not BY the Motown group, but ABOUT the group. If you’re too old to remember The Temptations, or if you’re too young to have a clue about the group, do yourself a favor and visit YouTube to watch a video or two of their classy synchronized dance moves which accompanied their complex vocals. The Temptations’ choreography was somehow simple but extravagant at the same time. The group’s tight moves were sweetly innocent, while simultaneously being slickly seductive. Their smooth moves were the equivalent of crushed velvet. The performances in this particular production at The Eccles stood up well to what can be seen in existing footage of the real shows. There are also the iconic songs themselves, like “My Girl,” “Just My Imagination,” and “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone.” As always, my fave Temptations songs are the most desolate, bleakest songs in their catalog—like one of their lesser known hits, “I Wish It Would Rain.”
I used the night out as a chance to finally wear my silver floppy Bow Tie ‘o the Day for the first time. I won’t mention my lapel pin, although I stand by its sentiment.😏 I even wore a new jacket to last night’s show. Suzanne didn’t seem to like it though. It is cut differently than any other jacket in my closet, and the fabric’s brown plaid pattern is more traditional than what I usually cover myself with. After Suzanne first observed me in my jacket, all she kept saying was, “It’s not like what you wear. It’s not like what you wear.”—over and over again. It was as if the very sight of me in my differently-fangled jacket had stunned Suzanne into a mystical fog of confusion and repetition. Personally, my new jacket looks kind of Sherlock Holmes-y to me. Very Heathcliff-esque, if you know what I mean. I wore a splashy golf cap to balance things out.🕵️♀️🔍
TIE O’ THE DAY presents a photo of Mom and her only child—my big brother, Ron. He and Marie drove up to spend some time with Mom over the weekend. According to Dad, all of Mom’s five children are “only children,” because that’s how she loves us. Yup.
Yes, I am aware this is one of the selfies I already posted in Part 1, which was about our quest for a marriage license in December of 2013. I tried the last couple of days to find our photos from the hasty ceremony that day, but I couldn’t locate them. I’m sure the pictures are safe on a memory card in a phone about 4 phones ago—in a storage bin somewhere in the garage. It’s tangled in a ball of useless old phones and old phone chargers we don’t dare get rid of. It’s where obsolete phones and their accessories go to die. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a few elephants have wandered off to die there, as well. Seriously, we have a little bit of everything in our garage—except my new truck. No room at the truck inn.
Part 1 of this tale took us all the way from Millard County, through Juab County, and eventually to the office of the county clerk in Utah county—where we were given paperwork to fill out to get a marriage license, and after we had filled out the application, we were then told the Utah County Clerk would not be issuing licenses to same-sex couples, despite the law demanding he do so. Maybe it’s just me, but I think we should have been told the county wouldn’t issue us a marriage license BEFORE we were given the paperwork to complete. In addition to the simple illegality and rudeness of the office, we were also in a hurry to get married before a hearing that morning could possibly end in a stay of the marriages. Time was of the essence.
We headed off again on I-15, to try to obtain a license in another county ASAP. Suzanne drove, and I regularly posted updates on Facebook for friends and family—about where we were on our journey and what was going on. If I didn’t update our status in a timely manner, I got texts asking me to. We had a little posse of support behind us, cheering us on. It was pleasantly unexpected. We had no idea how many folks were hoping for us to succeed in our mission. We strategically decided to not even try our luck in Salt Lake City, because we knew the lines of people doing the same thing we were doing were long, long, long. Ain’t nobody got time for that! I mean—we were racing the clock.
We decided to keep going north, into Davis County—which happened to be our home county anyway. We were not particularly hopeful this would end well for us. We showed up at the Davis County Clerk’s office in Farmington with fingers and toes crossed. My friends, I still cannot believe how we were welcomed with open arms by everyone in the office. There were a lot of couples there, and the county staff knew we were all trying to beat the possible stay which could be the outcome of the hearing—in effect, shutting down the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. I’m sure there were extra workers there, anticipating the crowd. Watching the office workers’ well organized assembly line of various legal forms was like watching one of those Rube Goldberg chain reactions where you push one marble which rolls through tubes, across tiny bridges, under a toy train car, down a miniature water tower, and so on, you finally end up with a contraption-made slice of bread on a plate. The office workers happily helped expedite us through the entire bureaucratic process. They weren’t stuffy or standoffish. They shared in the excitement around them. At the end of the paperwork, out of nowhere, a minister approached us and asked if we wanted her to perform our ceremony. After decades of no-you-can’t-marry-the-person-you-love, a perfect stranger asked if we wanted to get married. Two other strangers near us asked if we needed witnesses to the ceremony, which we did. They were our witnesses and we, in turn, were theirs. Yes, we had made it in time. We were triumphant. Plus, the hearing ended up with a decision in our favor anyway. There was no stay that day.
Y’all are, of course, welcome to your personal beliefs about gay marriage, which might differ from mine. So be it. I certainly would never presume I have the right to tell you what adult you can/cannot marry. But I will say that the support we had from good ol’, church-going Utah folks was incalculable—before and after we got hitched. It is still. Almost to a person, our friends and family members—and the strangers we met that day—were joyous about our ability to finally legally marry. They want our marriage to succeed. I can also report to you that in my nearly 60 years on the planet, the near-palpable glimpses of eternity I have experienced have shown themselves only at rare moments when I have been in Suzanne’s presence. I have never experienced such transcendence without her by my side. If there is a forever, I do not doubt we will be together in it. 💍🎩💝
I regret only one kindness we missed-out on the day we got married. It’s something we read about in the newspaper the next day. Apparently, after we were married and well on our way back to Delta for the holidays, an older Mormon married couple showed up at Farmington where the marriage ceremonies were still going on. The straight couple showed up with hundreds of cupcakes to give to the newlyweds. They said they felt compelled to do it, because everybody should have a piece of cake on their wedding day. I cannot argue with that sentiment. Kindness wins again. ,😉
On our way out of Log Haven, after a glorious meal of celebration and gratitude for each other.We took a selfie by the coats. Nobody else does that.Isn’t Suzanne dreamy?Suzanne opted for the salmon.I chose the tenderloin with asparagus and mashed potatoes.A little bit o’ blur doesn’t matter when you are having a splendid time.Even through the blur, you can see our happiness seeping through.
Log Haven is quickly becoming our go-to restaurant for our anniversary dinner. I sense it’s a tradition in the making. Because we got married so close to Christmas, we think of our Log Haven dinner as sort of a combination Anniversary/Christmas evening in the snowy mountains.
We never intended to get hitched so near Christmas. We never knew when, or if it, would be legal for us to marry at all in our lifetime. And then suddenly, it was legal in Utah. Maybe. On Friday, December 20, 2013, the state of Utah began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, based on a U. S. District court’s ruling that day which found barring same-sex couples from legally marrying violates the U. S. Constitution. However, there was to be another court hearing on Monday, December 23rd that could possibly stay or even throw out the ruling. We had to get a marriage license ASAP, just in case the whole possibility to marry went kaput.
The problem was that we were already decking the halls in Delta for the holidays, and it was late on Friday afternoon when we got the news. All the County Clerk’s offices in Utah were closed for the weekend. We knew we had to get a license and get married as early as possible on Monday morning—before the hearing that might possibly shatter our nuptial dreams. But where would we be able to get married? We stayed stuck to the news on tv and on our phones all throughout the weekend. Some County Clerks around Utah had been wishy-washy about issuing marriage licenses to people like us, even if they had been told they had to follow the law.
By Sunday night, we had decided we had a better chance of being able to get a marriage license if we just skipped over the iffy rural counties around us and drove north. That night, we told Mom we wouldn’t be around the next day because we were running off to get married. She was happy for us and would have come with us, but she wasn’t feeling all that well. I told her not to worry about missing out on the momentous event. I told her we thought it be fun to elope anyway. Early Monday morning, we drove out of Millard County, through Juab County, and into Utah County—where we stopped in Provo at the County Clerk’s office. We walked in and told the woman behind the desk why were there. She handed Suzanne and I papers for us to fill out. We thought: so far, so good. As we filled out our documents, other couples came in and hurriedly got to work on their own license paperwork. We had completed our paperwork, when the woman behind the desk was talking to another person and said, “The County Clerk has decided he’s not going to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.” Hold on! Back the truck up! I said, “When we first walked into this office, we told you why we came here. You gave us the proper paperwork to fill out. Why didn’t you tell us we couldn’t get a marriage license when we first walked in?” Duh. Crickets.
This was wrong in a million ways. By this time, the legal hearing that could stay or reverse our shot at getting married was underway. We were running out of time. Fortunately, reporters from The Salt Lake Tribune were there when Suzanne and I walked out, and one asked if we wouldn’t mind talking to them. He listened, took my name, and one of my quotes showed up in The Trib the next morning. I’m sure nobody in Delta thought for a minute that the quote from “Helen Wright from Delta” came from Mom, although when she read it, she said she agreed with me completely. Anyhoo…we had to decide where to drive next to secure a marriage license. Stay tuned.
According to one Xmas present Suzanne gave me, my behavior last year got me onto Santa’s “naughty” list. I tried so hard to be good, but I won’t argue about the results. I trust Suzanne’s judgment. I didn’t just get a regular lump o’ coal for Christmas, I received a “Big Ass” lump o’ coal—in the form of an oversized bar o’ soap. I know the lump o’ coal soap is a sign I was bad, but the soap smells so heavenly I might want to earn a spot on the naughty list again this year, so I can be gifted another mellifluous “big ass” bar o’ charcoal soap for the sole purpose of washing all of my bad away.
It might surprise y’all to know that Mom has surpassed me in being naughty every year, for decades. She’s better than me, even at being bad. Every Christmas, she got an entire mountain of coal as a present from Dad. Visions of toasty fires, 24/7, in our living room fireplace danced in her head. I kid you not: Mom started a fire in the fireplace upon the occasion of late September’s first chill, and that fire kept going until at least April. She took great pleasure in feeding the fireplace one lump o’ her naughty coal after another, through winter and far into spring if the temperatures were still wintry. Yup, around the holiday season, Dutson’s would deliver at least a half-ton of coal chunks behind our house. The taller the coal pile, the happier Mom was with it. Mom thought it was the best gift every year. She tended to the fire in the fireplace as if it were one of her grandkids learning to swim. She kept her eye on the fire’s progress, and fulfilled its every need. Mom’s fire always gave off perfect warmth and was maximum gorgeous. She loved her lumps of coal, and she loved telling people that a pile o’ coal was the Christmas gift Dad thought she deserved. 🔥
I don’t know what you’d wear to your birthday dinner, but I wore my own birthday balloons Bow Tie o’ the Day. I also wore my birthday cake Cufflinks o’ the Day and my 3-D glasses Lapel Pin o’ the Day. Suzanne took me to dinner at STANZA in downtown SLC, which we have not been to since the pandemic began. It’s one of my fave places to dine. Suzanne had the spinach artichoke cannelloni and I had the pan-seared halibut. We also had dessert: Suzanne had cheesecake and I had a butterscotch concoction of some sort. It was a complete yumfest. The last photo herein is what I found on my chair when I got up to leave. It is that little end of paper they leave on your straw to keep it sanitary. Somehow it made it’s way to my chair, and my butt appears to have twisted it into the shape of a bow tie as I sat and ate. And now I am back on the Lent wagon, until beyond bitter end.
