I do... NOT

We went to Stan's youngest brother's wedding this weekend in the Ozarks. After sitting through the service, I thought: "It's no wonder that 70% of Missourians vote against gay marriage." Although it was nice to see family and they were very happy that we were there (and my outfit matched the wedding colors!), the view of marriage underlying the ceremony was positively repugnant. No same-sex couple and exceedingly few straight ones (this was a second marriage for both the groom and the bride) could meet the theological standards evinced in the homily. Nor should they try, IMHO. Still, if this fairy tale is held up to straight couples (at least those of a certain religious persuasion) as the godly ideal, then it makes a lot more sense why the fight for marriage equality isn't just about convincing people of the blatantly unjust discrimination suffered by people who can't get health insurance for their loved ones. It makes statements like Sen. Santorum's "marriage is not about affirming one person's love for another person" make sense. The preacher actually pronounced Stan's brother and his new bride "man and wife." Hello? Ward Cleaver has left the building...

I learned other things this weekend, too. Chief among them was that my recovery time after a red-eye flight is growing longer with each passing year. I think the curve may have gone exponential at this point!

Also: my description of the fully-automated men's room at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport was incomplete. O'Hare has automated toilet seat covers.

And: Missouri had disappointing trees. It's October, right? I was expecting to see some lovely fall color. After all, it's the freakin' Ozarks! But no, no such luck. A few not-very-vibrant yellows, but mostly greens.

Finally, we had a great train ride on Sunday. (Our return flight landed in San Jose, so we had to take Caltrain back up the Peninsula to get our car at SFO.) Now that we don't live on the Peninsula anymore, we rarely get to leisurely absorb the changes and continuities in San Mateo County life. It was nice to get to observe for an hour.

We remarked on our "planes, trains and automobiles" weekend (our car to American Airlines to the rental car to American to VTA bus to Caltrain to BART to our car). Fifty-four hours door-to-door. Whew!