I just wanted to relate a short conversation my seatmate and I had on the plane from Lynchburg to Atlanta last month. I had booked my reservation long after Thom did his, so we weren’t able to get seats together on the small regional jet. It was a short enough flight that we didn’t bother asking another passenger to switch seats with one of us.
After the plane landed in Atlanta, the older gentleman sitting next to me, who was perhaps in his sixties or seventies, asked where I was headed. I told him San Francisco and mentioned that I had been in Virginia with my partner (sitting a few rows ahead of us) to visit his family for Christmas.
He asked, “How long have you two been together?”
Wow. I thought we were going to gloss over the fact that I have a “partner,” but with that I was completely disarmed and at ease.
“Coming up on six years,” I said.
Then he told me about his niece and her partner, who run a B&B in Mendocino! (I should’ve gotten the name of the place!) I guess I needn’t have been quite so wary. Older people know gay people, just like everyone else. And they’ve been around a while. They’ve seen it all.
A couple of weekends ago we had some gorgeous weather, so Thom and I decided to go out in the afternoon. We had brunch at Nini’s, which was recommended to us by Espie. It’s a old-school coffee shop tucked away in a residential area of San Mateo. We’d heard good things, and Nini’s didn’t disappoint. I had an omelette and especially liked the home fries.
I love Thom’s expression. He’s like, “Are you recording?!” Oh, I kid. He’s such a ham. (Mmm, ham.) And apparently I cannot put together a video without adding stock music.
Afterward we went to Coyote Point, the park in San Mateo that faces the bay and has a scenic vantage point for planes approaching SFO. Here’s another video, but first, a production note. I totally replaced the sound in the last few shots with sound effects from iMovie: jet flybys (because we had been talking inadvertently during that shot), and seagulls and waves (since the original sound was pretty weak). Though, it’s kind of funny; you see one seagull, but the sound effect is a whole flock. Ah, the birds! The invisible birds!
We wrapped up the day with a trip to the nearby Peninsula Humane Society (which is where we adopted Tiki and Mojo over a year ago now) and had a nice time visiting with the animals. So cute.
This morning I roused myself out of bed and rushed to the living room. (Like on Christmas morning?) I turned on the TV and eagerly awaited Obama’s inauguration. His inaugural address was sober, but passionate. The nation’s ills won’t be healed tomorrow, but what’s different for me today is the feeling that we’re on the right path.
Today I inaugurate a new domain name for my blog: jefftabaco.com. I’ve been wanting to use my name for my domain and so registered it a long while ago. I used to be more wary of putting my full name out there on the interwebs, but I’ve already started down that path with some social networks and other sites, so I might as well do so here. And this way I can be as fickle as I want in changing the blog title, but the URL will always be me. (Me, me, me.)
But “I love Rebel Prince,” you say. Believe me, I’ve had that domain for over seven years now, so it’s definitely a home. I love the Rebel Prince name (Rufus!) and will use it here … for now. The old site’s archives will continue to work and coexist as a sort of website emeritus during the transition, but eventually I will redirect the site. The old RSS feed now uses the new site’s source feed, so nothing will break for you feed readers, but if you want to be all tidy and future-proof against my website whims, please use the new feed.
As if that weren’t enough change, I also decided to try out WordPress. My web hosting is on Dreamhost, and WordPress is one of their “one-click” installs. That was a breeze, and though WordPress is a different animal from Movable Type, I’m finding my way around pretty easily.
So that’s that. Soon it’ll be time to turn on the TV and enjoy today’s real inauguration.
I am getting ready to start my journey to be with Thom and his family in Virginia for Christmas. He left last week and has been there since Monday; tonight I fly out on a redeye and will join them tomorrow.
We booked our flights separately and several weeks apart, so our outbound flights ended up being completely different. Thom took Delta to Lynchburg via Atlanta, and I am taking United to Charlottesville via Washington (Dulles). (CHO-IAD may well be the shortest flight I’ve ever taken, just 77 miles.) And fortunately we coordinated our return next Monday.
We had a great time at Disneyland a couple weekends ago. It was our first time visiting during the holidays, and it really is pretty magical. A couple of highlights were a four-course dinner at Napa Rose inside the Grand Californian Hotel; and the Disneyland Holiday Time tour, which takes you all over the park, and gets you priority boarding for the Haunted Mansion and It’s a Small World (both are redone for the holidays) and reserved seating for the Christmas parade. There we were, sitting in chairs at the start of the parade route, drinking hot chocolate, and waving to the characters. It definitely made me feel like a kid again!
Here’s a video I shot with my new digital camera and edited in iMovie:
I’ve uploaded my photos to my Disneyland set on Flickr, which also has photos from previous visits.
I think this has to be one of my signs of adulthood: I am going to Disneyland for the second time within a year. When I was a kid, the thought of going twice in the span of a few months would be kind of ridiculous to my parents. But very soon after Thom’s and my recent visit this past June, we thought, OK, when are we coming back? Christmas! So that’s where we’ll be this weekend, especially to see the park all decked out for holidays.
Just to backtrack and quickly re-cap the June visit: It was a lot of fun, despite the weather being oh so hot! The main reason for the trip was a merchandise event for the forty-fifth anniversary of the Enchanted Tiki Room, and we were also celebrating our own five-year anniversary of when we first met.
Travel notes: We flew Virgin America, our current favorite airline. We’re usually á la carte kind of travelers, but for the other arrangements we went with a vacation package from AAA that included admission tickets, parking, hotel stay, and assorted freebies and coupons. We stayed at Hotel Menage, which I really like. It’s basically an old Holiday Inn or similar, but redone as a chic motel. We had rented a Prius from Alamo (I like them ’cause you can check in online or at a kiosk, and then just go out to their lot and choose your car). The nice thing about the hybrid: we drove little enough (just among LAX, the hotel, and the park) that the gas gauge was still at F when we returned the car, so we didn’t have to fill up the tank.
At the park we rode old favorite rides and new ones, like Toy Story Mania; considering the last time I’d been to Disneyland was very pre-California Adventure, a lot was new to me! And thank goodness for FastPass. Sometimes you still have to wait in line even with a FastPass, but it’s a lot shorter and sure beats waiting in the regular line.
Here’s a quick video I slapped together in iMovie, of a few scenes: the Tiki Room and Fantasmic! at Disneyland, and “Circle of Life” (country style) and the Aladdin stage show at Disney’s California Adventure:
So fast forward to this weekend: We’re pretty much following our travel logistics template from the last visit. But in addition, on Friday night we have dinner reservations at Napa Rose in the Grand Californian Hotel, and are scheduled to go on the Holiday Time tour on Sunday. Can’t wait!
Tomorrow, Saturday, November 15, simultaneous protests will take place all over the country to speak out against marriage inequality, especially Proposition 8, which eliminated the right to same-sex marriage here in California. The events start at 10:30 a.m. Pacific (1:30 p.m. Eastern). We’re going to the one in San Francisco at City Hall (Facebook page).
