Katie? Have you been chewing on the rug again?

I have to take a moment out of this little travelogue to share some personal pain with you -- the beloved deranged -- who are following this blog.

We have had a family crisis.

Our darling daughter, a three-year-old boxer, Katie Rose, the light of our life, a not-very-pretty girl, perhaps, but a kind and loving soul, one for whose future we had great plans, announced recently that:

a) She is going into the Air Force (Thank god it wasn't the Marines.) and

b) That she is . . . (Lord help us.) . . . a lesbian.  

Editor's Note:  There was a time when a military career and an "alternative" sexuality were mutually exclusive; but as a result of recent changes in attitude, (and the gutsy work of our, until yesterday, not-quite-as-ballsy-as-we had-wished, but now ballsy-as-an-Angus-bull president.)military service is no longer the exclusive domain of heterosexuals. 

Frankly, we've suspected for some time.  All of her playmates are girls.  She's extremely athletic.  She loves to play with all kinds of balls, but frankly has no use for them when they are attached to another dog.  She's kind of tough-looking, although we think she's beautiful.  She has whiskers on her chin.  She kicks ass.

The news was hard for us at first.  I found Patti sitting in the dark, sobbing into a wedding dress she was keeping in Katie's hope chest.  We argued for hours over whether or not the early hysterectomy that I had insisted upon and Patti had resisted (She said she wanted Katie to have the opportunity to be a mother, but I suspect it was really more about the grandpups.) might have played a role in this distorted development.  We reviewed every aspect of our personal relationship, looking for reasons.  We spoke with our pastor, who wasn't entirely helpful, but assured us he would do everything he could to calm the congregation and prevent anyone from firebombing our house.

Then, finally, we came to terms with it.  After all, she is our only daughter.  We joined PFLAGD (Parents and Friends of Lesbian and Gay Dogs).  We began recording every episode of The Ellen Show, ordered Logo on the cable, and went to two Kathy Griffin concerts.  Patti bought a second wedding dress and stored it in the hope chest right alongside Katie's own.  We have decorated our house in rainbow flags. 

She's here.  She's queer.  We're used to it!

And just when we had formed a whole new vision of ours and Katie's future, just when we had gotten used to the idea of having adopted, special needs, mongrel grandpups, Katie tells us she's going to be permanently stationed in North Carolina -- an eastern state which, aside from Asheville, is populated largely be knuckle-dragging morons and hillbillies, overrun with Baptist churches, and whose major contribution to the American economy is the production, processing, and distribution of a poisonous plant that kills or maims more people every year than all the wars in the world.  It is a place where love is apparently reserved for -- purebred, heterosexual, Baptist canines.

There will be no wedding.  There will be no grandpups.  It just ain't fair, y'all.

Serving proudly, but unmarried!

photo ©Bill Resto

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