Yesterday afternoon Megan and I went to a party in celebration of Gay Pride day, hosted by my married friends Ron and David. My major concern for the party, of course, was what to wear; I went with a shirt that was about two sizes too small. A guy’s gotta look hot for Pride, right? We got a bottle of pink wine to bring, and on arrival we were handed Jell-O shots that had rainbow layers in perfect ROY-G-BIV order.
There was some dancing, and some chips and dip, and grilling, and beer and cookies. But on the way home, it got serious. I’d been thinking of it as an excuse for grilling and drinking and wearing silly clothes and flirting. But afterwards, Megan and I talked about how we’d kind of misunderstood it. Yeah, sure, it’s a party. But we’d also met Ron’s parents and David’s sister, and talked with people who had been at the parade when it was a march for justice, too. And it’s not just a day for grilling – not any more than Memorial Day, which I also take for granted as a party excuse rather than as a day to honor people who died for things I hold dear.
So, yeah, it’s a victory that Doritos and N*Star were at the parade. And it’s a victory that a guy like me can wear a tight shirt and eat rainbow-colored alcoholic desserts without fear of backlash when co-workers and family hear about it. And while it’s sad that the Gays For Patsy country dancing group has fewer members than it used to, that’s also a victory in its own way, because it’s a sign that gay people can now join any old dance group and it’s not a big deal. But it’s not really fair to think you’re celebrating gay pride if you just send a corporate truck down a parade route and hand out snack chips. And you can’t, or shouldn’t, just borrow being gay for an afternoon as an excuse to get drunk.
The real story there, the real victory, is that Ron’s parents are there at his cookout, chatting about lawn care and paint chips with their son-in-law in a way that you’d never ever have imagined fifty years ago.
Secretly Ironic 
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
I just finished this book and really disliked the ending. It made Trudy into a ditz, she appeared to me to be a strong sensible women in the beginning dealing with life on life’s terms, hard working, structured mid-westerner, who knew what she wanted and achieved it.
I believe Edgar being mute helped him communicated better with the dogs, he was forced to awaken his senses, animals know a lot more than most humans give them credit for, Edgar was forced to listen, touch and learn.
It is not realistic to think she would fall apart after her husband was killed, she must have know that Claude was a bum, it was obvious from his first introduction into the story Gar pick him up after serving time, the author takes great pains forming his character. How could she not know he was trouble? Didn’t she and Gar talk?
It is hard to believe the Vet. didn’t tell anyone that Claude had killed animals in his hospital, and was stealing meds., he fired him. It was hard to believe that Dr. rehired him after he must have known he was in prison and could not get along with his family, duh. No one can be that charming. I get that is was difficult to run the kennel by themselves after Gar’s death but in the long run it would have been a lot cheaper to find a hired hand. Claude didn’t care about what his family worked for he had taken off long before. None of the characters communicated with each other.
I have lived and trained dogs most of my life, some of the ideas were interesting, but the demanding schedule they kept would break most dogs spirit and character. The end was the end of everything, years of breeding, training and all the characters wiped clean. Domesticated dogs would have been dead within a few weeks left on their own, realistically most would have wondered back after the fire was out and they were hungry, having them run off and join Forte was silly.
I really like the first half of the book the author showed great promise a real storyteller in the making, but the story could have been compacted, 200 pages, shaved, it seemed to me that he ran out of steam couldn’t come up with a viable ending so he killed everyone off. What a disappointment. I feel like I waded through 550 pages for nothing, blah. Don’t think I’ll be looking for another book by this Author.
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