Let's make canned carmelized onions! First go to Safeway and purchase a dozen sweet onions and some cider vinegar. Then chop the onions up.




















18 cups of chopped onions.

Add 3/4 cup water, 3 cups sugar, and 3 teaspoons canning salt. Turn the burner on your 1950s Visibake gas stove on and set the onions to boil, covering the pot for the first 20 minutes.



















Boiling onions.

Be surprised at how much liquid comes out of the onions! After the liquid has been dramatically reduced (it took forever), add 2 1/2 cups cider vinegar. Boil some more until it has reduced some more and the onions have gotten dark. Taste. Exclaim "Delicious!" loud enough to startle one or more of your feline companions, who have completely forgotten about how they pushed the back door open last night and ran away, causing yours-truly to have hysterics in the backyard because I could not find Puff, who finally crawled out of the bushes after 45 minutes, thereby ending said crisis.




















Ready to be canned.

Be somewhat disappointed that the batch and a half of the carmelized onion recipe made only one large jar and four small jars worth of canned deliciousness.



















Canned carmelized sweet onions.

As I was typing this two of the jars made that pleasant popping noise, indicating the jars sealed correctly. Canning is fun!

As a child I always wanted to find a secret staircase. Nancy Drew, whose mystery stories I loved (was that a sign I was a homo or what?), found several over the course of her sleuthing career.






















Secret staircase!

I am out at a historic ranch site, where the 1870s house is being restored. They have been pulling off later additions and removing concrete slabs. I watch as the workers dig holes in the ground, checking to see whether they are finding artifacts.






















1870s Ranch House.

The original house had five or six rooms, one of which had a basement. For Arizona, especially Arizona in the 1870s, that is very unusual. One reason why they may have built it is that the Apache were still raiding ranches at this time. If Apache approached, you could send the women and children down into the basement to keep them safe from bullets.

So the workers had removed the concrete floor in the room next to the room where the basement is. As they were digging up the loose dirt they started to hit rocks. I took over and soon uncovered a rectangular rock foundation with loose board lying inside of it.

























Foundation and rocks.

The basement has a closet sticking into this room, and after I pulled off the boards I quickly located the beadboard ceiling of the closet. However, the area next to it had fill dirt and as I started to remove it I found out that the rectangular area was the original stairways down into the basement.





















Partly excavated staircase.

It is difficult to see, but I uncovered the wooden top step of the staircase, leaving the rest still buried in dirt.





















Top step.

I know, not as exciting as Nancy Drew's secret staircases, but it pretty amazing to see a long-buried wooden staircase, one that helps tell the story of life on this ranch back in the days when you had to hide in the basement if the Indians attacked (and as far as I know, the ranch was never attacked).

Well, what have I been up to? Not really paying attention to the news, I watched some telly the other night and the political ads were just ridiculous. I went to Ms. Ruth McClung's website (the Republican running against my US Representative) and it was like looking at some high school student's term paper. She claims she is a rocket scientist. Right.

Work is going well, I am still gainfully employed. The shingles pain has largely subsided and I correctly diagnosed someone else as having this affliction.

Last night I made another batch of watermelon rind pickles, using half brown sugar instead of refined white sugar. They come out much darker, although I think the taste is probably the same. Someone asked why I am making them- Holiday presents!





















Brown sugar watermelon rind pickles.

Is it just me, or is Facebook just getting boring?

Question... So which is worse, a politician who publically pretends to hate the homosexuals, while personally not giving a crap (e.g., George Bush, John McCain); or a politician who publically pretends to love the homosexuals (with some reservations), while personally not giving a crap (e.g., Barack Obama)?

This has been on my mind the last few days, especially after Mr. Obama directed the Department of Justice to file injunctions on National Coming Out Day and on the day when people were remembering the deaths of bullied gay teenagers. So fucking awesomely classy, Mr. Fierce Advocate.

At least if John McCain had won, I would have not had any expectations dashed.

I changed high schools between 9th and 10th grades. It was a miracle. At the very small school I had attended (300 kids, kindergarten through 12th grade), I was unpopular. Picked on because I was physically weak and too smart. Some of the kids suspected I was a fag. I had no close friends, I was miserable.

My father's mid-life crisis consisted of uprooting our family and moving to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My home life became a nightmare of mental abuse from him, his way of dealing with the fact that he was pretty much a failure at everything he did. School became an escape. At Sault High I made friends with some of the girls- Michelle, Angie, Jennifer, Marjorie, Mary, Missy. I got my first ever "A" in gym class (the teacher told me that he graded on how hard I tried, not on how fast I could run). No one cared if I liked to read.

But I still kept quiet about probably the most important facet of my life. I was a homo, a faggot. Queer. Although there wasn't a lot of anti-fag stuff at school (at least I don't remember any), I knew that it was something that other people didn't accept.

At graduation night I remember seeing one of my classmates, Scott, who I didn't know very well. I can see his face in my mind. A few months after graduation, he killed himself, supposedly because he was gay. I remember being startled when I heard this.

I never considered suicide because I always assumed that life would get better after I went to college. I escaped to the University of Michigan, despite my father's efforts to prevent me from going.

The first gay person I met was my resident advisor on my hall. Good lord. All of the stereotypes of gay men that I had heard about- effeminate, high-pitched voice, weird- well, he certainly fit the bill. And I was so insecure that I thought to myself, "If I come out, I will be just like that." So I didn't come out. I remained hidden away. Occasionally I would go to the graduate library and browse the HQ 75 section, looking at the small set of books on the topic. But I was too scared to come out.

I stayed in the dorm my junior year and in February of that year some of the guys decided to have a "No Fags" party. They put up signs all around campus- that red circle with a slash mark through it over two stick figures butt-fucking. That year I had a closeted resident advisor, Mitchell, who did nothing to stop the party. I was too chicken and closeted to do anything either. So I sat in my room fuming while the hall was packed with people attending the "No Fags" party, embarrassed that I was such a fucking wuss. One of the hosts of the party is now a prominent Republican lawyer in Ohio.

So the next Monday I called the University of Michigan's Gay and Lesbian Office, which miraculously the school had, and joined a Coming Out Group which met every week. Going to that first meeting was one of the scariest things I have ever done. This was in the days before the Internet, before major and minor celebrities dared to come out, before there was even a single positive gay or lesbian character on television (Steven Carrington did not count). And I discovered that being an out gay man was so much better than I have ever imagined.

So yes, things do get better. Like every person, I have my ups and downs. But the ups vastly outweigh the downs (in particular, right now is AWESOME). I don't think I would ever have imagined, back when I was a scared teenager, that my life would be as great as it is now.

I travelled north to Flagstaff to go camping with Evan at Upper Lake Mary. We canoed across the lake and I managed not to do anything more embarrassing than have the end of my oar fall off.

























The small cove next to our campsite.




The lake is ringed by tall pine trees. On the mesa next to our campsite I saw elk poop.

























Evan.

We gathered wood for a campfire and Evan made supper. We sipped some nice tequila and had some beers.

























The sun is setting.

After sunset the moon rose and there were a million stars in the sky.





















Campfire.

We were awakened in the middle of the night by the biggest skunk I have ever seen trying to have some corn chips. It ran away after I made a loud hissing noise. I was glad we did not get sprayed.

It was an awesome weekend.

You know I was a big supporter of Obama when he was running for president. Not so much anymore, although I am soooo glad John McCain is not our president. The constant foot dragging over DADT and DOMA and the obvious instructions to the Justice Department to continue appealing these discriminatory laws has dulled my enthusiasm toward Obama. Really, how hard can it be to tell someone in the Justice department to stop?

It sucks being a second class citizen just because religious nuts and politicians need someone to hate so bad. It used to be the Communists, but after they went away in 1989, faggots and dykes and trannies got the spotlight turned on us and holy motherfucking zombie Jesus, it has certainly made Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, and other peoples very fucking rich. It must be alarming to these cretins that the cash cow is going to stop once the young folks grow up or the country goes utterly bankrupt (or both).

Anyways, I expect the nastiness and violence with grow as we grow closer to obtaining equal civil rights. You can see it in the words of that loathsome "person" Maggie Gallagher, who is getting more shrill and threatening as time passes.

Someday, she will be a footnote in someone's PhD dissertation. I hope I live long enough to crap on her tombstone. Isn't that a nasty thing to think? But truly, she and her ilk are evil and don't deserve any respect.