free teapot

This is definitely not a post about prop 8. Nor is it a post about how sad I am that prejudice is nearly law. This is not a post about the difficulties explaining to my daughter why suddenly some of the women she knows so well, who even helped guide her into this world, could now be criminals. Nope, this post is not about how ashamed you should be for voting for attempting to make your own bedroom policies the only ones allowed and same-sex marriage illegal. This is a post about my teapot.

What? I've never told you the story about my teapot? Oh, my, we need to remedy this immediately.

Here we have a photo of one of my favorite places. Death Valley. (I just had to show one of my favorite wildlife photos from there: the rare, north american gravel monkey seen in it's winter plumage.) Now, about 20 miles or so to the North is a high desert valley that contains one of life's enduring unwitnessed phenomena. The sliding stones of racetrack playa. It's way out there, like 30+ miles along a rutted gravel road that has the distinction of eating tires and undercarriages. It turns out that getting there you pass a place called teakettle junction. An intersection with the habit of having many teapots hanging from the sign erected there.

But remember, this is not a post about me crying, thinking about how if my partner and I would be criminals for having the family we do if we simply had the same genitalia. And it's most certainly not a post about how passing prop 8 would be taking a step backward in society. Let me be clear, this is a post about where to find a free source of teapots.

I'd read somewhere that the national park service has to remove the teapots periodically because they pile up so quickly. It's really an unlikely place for a trash-heap, being so far out and all, but folks just can't help themselves and like the romantic idea of their teapot rusting away out there. Well, according to the nps, littering is what its called when you leave stuff behind out in the wilderness. So a few years ago, I found myself there with the need of a new teapot and I saw a real beauty. No embossed message in memoriam of anyone, no conspicuous reason for having left it behind. I figured, hey, why not help out the rangers with a little clean up and take one home to, er.....uh, dispose of. Yeah, dispose of, like on my stove!

So please don't think this is a post about how narrow minded I think you are being if you voted for prop 8. And don't think I'm saying that maybe not today, but in the near future, we will look back at this and see how pathetic our society was being. And whatever you do, please don't think that I'm angry about this whole thing. Because I'm not. I'm fucking pissed. So focus, and read this post for what it is: a hint on where to get another teapot, should you need one.

Nice one, huh? Two years later and working good. So, since this wasn't a post about prop 8 at all, let me not say how heartbroken I am as a parent, failing to come up with a good answer for my kid's inquisitive mind. Nope, it wasn't a post about how while trying to explain that some people don't want families to be anything but a mommy and a daddy, I couldn't adequately answer her simple question:

"Why don't they like families?"

Really, it is that simple. Go ahead and hate your own family if you have to. But don't pass any legislation to make intolerance mandatory. And remember, as a desert hermit once said "everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if it is wrong......."