Wild Dogs of the Chesapeake

Today we took the dogs to a dog beach on the Chesapeake. That sounds so much better when I write it than it was in real life. We drove about thirty miles out of the way to give them special doggie time on the beach.

Now, I should say that we have some great dog parks in Seattle. There’s one at Warren Magnuson that we like. There’s about a mile-long walk to a fenced off spot on the lake where hundreds of dogs gather every weekend morning. It’s that heaven all dogs are supposed to go to.

This was, well, not really heaven. We had to pay six bucks to get into the park. The dog beach itself was small and cramped, even for the two dogs there–ours. There was no fence at all to keep the dogs on the beach, either. So I acted as a human fence, shooing them back whenever they tried to run wild into the rest of the park.

After, we stopped at a deli. Pulling in, I drove over a curb with the trailer. It’s the kind of minor driving incident that makes me like cars with lots of clearance. And clearance wasn’t a problem at all this time, either. Weight was.

Once we were on the road again, Ami said, “Do you hear that noise?”

Ami and Lug Nuts

I groaned inside. Yes, I heard that noise. Sure enough, I looked in the rear view mirror, and the front, driver’s side trailer wheel, the one I’d driven over the curb, was flapping.

We stopped, and I looked behind us at a gas station across the street. It was barely a block’s length away.

They were almost closed, but not quite. And not thrilled about lending us their lug nut wrench, but they did. For my penance, I worked the jack, which was handily already attached to the trailer. We had a spare. It was full-sized and new. Somehow, we were in and out of there in about 25 minutes.

Oh, right. This was a post about a contest.

For this contest, I want to hear your best car trouble story. We’ll pick one storyteller to award the prize to. (Hint: it’ll help if you make us laugh.) And this prize is a good one.

You will win your very own, only barely used National Equality March commemorative t-shirt! Almost as good as if you were there. There’s only one size, so you might have to give it away if it’s not the one you happen to wear. I wore it on the day of the march, but it will be clean and fresh smelling when I send it to you, promise.

So, send us your car story by 11 p.m. tomorrow, EST, and you’ll be entered in the contest.

Good luck!

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Ami and Ruby in Iowa

In honor of our married state, as of this afternoon when we got to Iowa, this contest will concern the Hawkeye State.

Iowa was once part of the French colony, New France, and takes its name from one of the tribes that predate the white folks, the Ioway. Its western border is marked by the Missouri and Big Sioux rivers, the eastern by the Mississippi.

Sixty-one percent of Iowa’s three million people live in urban areas–this is the result of a decrease in reliance on agriculture to support the economy. But in case you are worried, there is still plenty of corn to be found here.

The state motto of Iowa is “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.” It is in this spirit, perhaps, that in 2007, Judge Robert Hanson of Polk County District Court decided for the plaintiffs in Varnum v. Brien. Six couples had sued the county recorder for his refusal to grant them marriage licenses. In 2009 the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously upheld his decision.

Said the court:

“Our responsibility, however, is to protect constitutional rights of individuals from legislative enactments that have denied those rights, even when the rights have not yet been broadly accepted, were at one time unimagined, or challenge a deeply ingrained practice or law viewed to be impervious to the passage of time.”

On April 27, 2009 Iowa began granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Eighty-four applications had been filed by 4 p.m. that day.

So, to win this contest, tell me a fun fact about Iowa. Or about marriage. Or about marriage in Iowa. You decide. The winner will be picked at random from all the entrants. (Don’t worry, you can look it up–I did.)

What will you win? Why, your very own souvenir of this great state of Iowa. We’re not sure what it’ll be yet, but we have good taste in tchotchkes–as good as our taste in wives.

We’ll pick the winner tomorrow night, late. You’ve got time.

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Well, you could.

The winner of this contest will receive one of our stunning, hand dyed and hand screenprinted Onesies!

Let us know in your entry which is your favorite design (check  a couple posts back for pics), and tell us if a 12 month or 18 month size would be better.

All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this post answering one of this week’s questions. One right answer can win, but the response with the most right answers will trump.  Drum roll, please!

From Paula Martinac’s The Queerest Places,

1) In what Massachusetts town, at 20 Quincy St., did Henry and William James’ little sister Alice live with her partner, Katharine Loring? From Martinac’s review:

Henry James– who pictured a Boston marriage in his novel The Bostonians– wrote that Katharine’s love for Alice was “a devotion so perfect and generous…that to brush it aside would be almost an act of impiety.”

2) In which Louisiana town, in a rented room on Royal St., did Truman Capote write his first literary sucess, Other Voices, Other Rooms? Martinac’s reports:

“By the time I was ten”, Capote remembered as an adult, “I was sitting up all night long to write.” He was also already putting himself to sleep by taking a few swigs of whiskey.

3) Which St. Louis author worked as a young man at the International Shoe Company– where he met, befriended, and became infatuated with “a brawny worker named Stanley Kowalski, a “ladies’ man”…”

Kind of makes you want to go out and visit Queer America, huh?

We will choose a winner at 1 p.m. (or so) tomorrow. Any entries posted before we choose will be eligible. We’ll update this post with the winner when he or she is chosen.

(P.S. If you would like to donate a prize for a future contest, let us know.)

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You don’t have to be queer to enjoy these books, and you don’t have to be queer to enter this contest.

1. Rolling the R’s by R. Zamora Linmark
2. Faith for Beginners by Aaron Hamburger
3. Hello, Cruel World by Kate Bornstein
4. Babyji by Abha Dawesar

All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this post naming the last book you read. Recommend it, pan it, promote the book you wrote–whatever. Winner will be chosen at random. If you are shy, or have other reasons for not wanting your entry noted, you can send us an e-mail at arewemarried@gmail.com.

We will choose a winner at 11 a.m. (or so) tomorrow. Any entries posted before we choose will be eligible. We’ll update this post with the winner when he or she is chosen. If you win and have already read any of the books, we will donate them to a book drive or queer youth organization.

(P.S. If you would like to donate a prize for a future contest, let us know.)

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