My honey’s niece heard an interesting story about me last Thanksgiving and asked if she could interview me for a project for her college Social Justice class.

Here is the result:

YouTube LINK

A sea of red “equality” icons washed over Facebook’s user profiles on Tuesday and Wednesday this week to encourage, honor and support the Supreme Court’s agreement to hear challenges against “The Defense of Marriage Act” and California’s Prop 8.

Here is mine–

I would say that most people who did not agree, remained relatively silent and respectful. Except for my LDS 2nd cousin.

Here is what I wrote in response to her unbelievably passive-agressive post of the LDS church’s ”The Family — A Proclamation to the World”:

I’m almost shaking as I do not do this lightly:

I just de-friended an LDS (Mormon) member of my family whose sole response to the Supreme Court’s ongoing consideration of marriage/benefits equality — and apparently the red “equality” signs all over Facebook — was to post the LDS church’s 1995 “The Family — A Proclamation to the World” with no other comment — but very telling in its timing, on today of all days.

This document basically states that, “…marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children”.

Further, it states that anyone who abides outside of that parameter, “will one day stand accountable before God” and continues, “… we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”

Had she encouraged an actual dialog or made an attempt to understand that some may not believe or feel the same as she does — and that there are indeed, many shades of grey in this world — I would have embraced this. Because of the way this was done (“in your face, infidels”), I regretfully say, goodbye.

You took your stand. I take mine.

Her grandmother (and my aunt) also unfriended at least one of my cousins (her niece) who had the audacity to state that she supported marriage equality. I told my cousin that I found it interesting that once again they had chosen “god” over family.

This particular LDS family continues to demonstrate their lack of understanding of what the “unconditional” part of unconditional love means.

Today marks our 25th Anniversary together.

I still love this guy with all of my heart.

Us in April 1988

I arrived this morning for my 2nd trip to Brazil this year. I’m here for a full three weeks this time because my honey and I are taking off the last half of March for vacation and I won’t be able to be here again until April.

On that note, we are celebrating our 25th anniversary on March 17th and have planned a trip to Prague to visit an historical and storied city that neither of us have yet visited. When I posted that fact on Facebook, every single comment was positive about what a great choice Prague was. Good to know!

We are also planning a big celebration for our family and friends at the Salt Lake Marriott City Center in July to celebrate both our anniversary and my honey’s 50th birthday (Note that we have been together exactly half of his life — and just slightly less than of mine). This will be a large occasion that we wanted to share with all who wish to attend.

When I mentioned that the U.S. Supreme court may actually have cleared the way for us to marry by then, he actually commented, “That would be so cool. Wouldn’t that make a nice surprise announcement!”.

I agree.

Today was the 76th anniversary of my father’s birth.

I miss him every day and often wonder what he would think and how he would react to certain things in the world.

He died a few months before September 11th, 2001 and it tears me apart thinking of his reactions to the changes that took place that day — and which we still deal with on a daily basis.

My honey and I begin planning our 25th anniversary celebration(s) last night and I ended up booking us first class tickets on United Airlines in late March to Prague. Neither of us had ever  been there and for some reason as I looked through the world destinations available to me as a Premier 1K with lots of miles, that city caught my eye.

Within hours of posting about it on Facebook, dozens of friends and family commented affirmatively on the decision — many of them having previously experienced this old European city. I guess I feared more “You may want to rethink that”s or “We hated Prague” comments, but was please to see none.

This year also marks my honey’s 50th birthday and we are thinking of planning a “50/25″ party similar to the one we did for my 50th and our 20th anniversary in 2008. I suspect we may do that in July to avoid weather-related travel for those of our loved ones who chose to traverse I-80.

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On another note, the US Supreme Court has determined to hear two key cases revolving around marriage equality on March 26th and 27th. Wouldn’t this be a good year to be able to actually legalize and legitimize our relationship?

A few days before the recent U.S. Presidential elections, my LDS cousin’s married, adult daughter posted the following on Facebook as a “call to arms”:

Tomorrow is a day of fasting and prayer for our faith. Whoever you are and whatever your beliefs, I invite you to join with our family in spending the day remembering God and this great nation and asking for His blessings on us this Tuesday.

After the election — when Mitt Romney, the LDS candidate she fasted and prayed for — did not win, I posted this:

Wow this stuff really works. My prayers WERE answered on Tuesday.

She retorted with a somewhat typical Mormon response that blamed my supposed iniquity as the root cause of why I would disagree with her political beliefs (not to mention the whole “fast and pray so Romney wins” mantra):

You can have your own need for all things immoral and inane validated by the Democratic Party and turn your back on what you once professed to be true but that doesn’t give you props for being a schmuck on my status.

Her father pulled something similar several years ago when he sent out a blast email exhorting people to give a good rating to his son’s newly-launched music album on Amazon and iTunes. My older brother questioned the propriety and honesty of this request in an email response back and this man proceeded to call my brother “an apostate and embittered ex-member” [of the LDS church] as a way of showing who was on the right side of god.

Interesting tactic.

I was in sore need of some time off from work and my Brazil travels, so I took off two weeks and on Sunday I got in my car and drove 750 miles to Kearney, Nebraska. The next day, I drove to St. Joseph, Missouri via Nebraska City, Nebraska.

I’ve been visiting cemeteries, museums and in general just site-seeing. I spent some time doing genealogy today and found the divorce papers from my great-grandfather’s first marriage. An interesting read that provides a bit more flesh on this man who killed himself in 1915.

I was disappointed to see a number of tombstones pushed over in the Ashland Cemetery in St. Joseph yesterday. I can’t imagine what thrill someone receives from being destructive for destruction’s sake.

Tomorrow I may venture a little further east and continue my journey and photography.

We held our 20th annual family reunion this past weekend in Thermopolis, Wyoming. The weather was hot and the sky filled with smoke from distant fires. Much of the west, including Colorado, Utah, Montana and Wyoming are blanketed this year after an unseasonably dry winter and spring.

Today is the Fourth of July and fireworks are dotting the air around the Salt Lake valley — and in our cul-de-sac. I guess we don’t have as much fire danger in the city in spite of the extremely warm weather and 38 days since the last measurable precipitation.

Last Thursday the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of most of the so-called “Obamacare” [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act] law, which means among other things, 30 million additional Americans will be able to obtain medical coverage. The Right decries this altruism in many different ways, but mostly as “Socialism” and “government meddling”.

The divide in our country on this and many other subjects on the 236th anniversary of its founding is stark and rather scary.

My honey’s parents spent the night with us and just left to fly to LAX, where they will meet other family members for a cruise to Vancouver, BC. We were invited, but with my travel schedule (or lack of one) lately, it’s been kind of hard to make any plans.

I was in Minneapolis on Thursday and Friday and got to have dinner with my brother and his family. Always fun.

I’m heading back to Brazil this week, arriving Saturday. This will make six trips to/from Brazil since mid-January (in 14 weeks). In sheer distance traveled, I will have done the equivalent of circumnavigating the globe four times.

My boss on Friday suggested that if I wanted to move to Brazil, she suspected that the company would support it. My honey was not thrilled, but logistically, I could probably do it for a year or so. He said, “You need to at least be home for our 25th anniversary” (in March 2013).

I guess we’ll see how serious everyone really is. I suggested that perhaps a week-long trip once a month to Brazil might suffice….