Tuesday, September 30, 2008

What We Have Learned Thus Far

Boy are we busy bees. David and I are in the middle of selling our place while buying a new one at the same time. It's been a whirlwind of storing, staging, and showing. There's also been a Hurricane Katrina's worth of faxing, emailing, and phone calls. Not to mention a healthy 1906 Earthquake's portion of inspections, meetings, and paperwork.Soon the transition will be over and it will be back to business as usual... Meaning sitting around waiting to be matched. Despite having a packed schedule, we somehow managed to go to 2 workshops over the last month.

The first one was about the legal issues that may arise for married same-sex couples. It was hosted by two powerful attorneys who specialize in family law and estate planning. Their names are Deb Kinney and Deborah Wald, or as I like to refer to them, The Debsbians. They spoke passionately and eloquently not just about the legal ramifications of same-sex marriage, but the cultural ones as well. We are standing at the precipice of yet another important civil rights issue and it is heartening to know we are trying to move away from discrimination instead of towards it. "NO" on prop 8! Don't worry, allowing gay people to marry won't cause this to happen:The second workshop we went to was called Negotiating Birth Family Relationships. Since we are planning on doing an open adoption, the intent is for the birth family to be involved in the child's life forever so it's important to nurture a good relationship with them. The workshop mainly focused on fears and expectations. The speaker also gave us different scenarios that may arise and asked how we would handle them. Also, there were bagels.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Like a Throat With a Heart In It

We did it! Yesterday David and I pledged ourselves to each other in front of a Justice of the Peace at City Hall in San Francisco County, CA. It was important for us to get married before November when there will be a vote to determine once and for all if our relationship is valid in the eyes of the law. Apologies to family and friends for whom we didn't have time to organize a party. Fear not, we intend on having a reception early next year to properly celebrate. Here's how it went down... (it helps if you imagine it as a silent movie with piano music playing in the background)
Thanks to Patty and Ross for taking time off work to witness and take photos. We love you!

More photos here.