House Butch
Life with Mrs. deWinter

Had such a wonderful weekend with Mrs. deWinter.

8:00 am, Saturday
Tiger Lily, Tourmaline and Teapot arrive at the vet, two in individual cat carriers, one in a picnic basket bungied up to prevent escape. $360 later all cats have rabies and feline leukemia and distemper shots updated, and Tiger Lily has a prescription for Buspirone, the feline version of Buspar, a human-tested medication to treat anxiety, depression, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Pharmaceuticals were a last resort. We had tried everything known to feline lovers to dissuade the beautiful orange boy from his increasingly insane and irritating need to mark everything and everyone. Four days into his medication, he's quit marking, at least inside. Brain chemistry is an interesting thing, isn't it? Medications to treat it — delightful.

Now Tiger Lily was supposed to be named Tiger, according to House Butch, because he's a beautifully orange and white long-haired tabby with a few black whiskers, and because House Butch loves tigers in the wild and in her imagination, but Mrs. deWinter was afraid that naming him Tiger would encourage wild behaviors in him. So the compromise. He cares not what he's named. He is a big pussy cat, but he does like to bite, for love or orneriness, though he never draws blood. It's part of his dominance behavior. I wonder if Mrs. deWinter has noticed that he never smells sweet, as his name might suggest.

10:00 am, Saturday
Home from the vet and pharmacy. Cats are free. We're exhausted. We have a late breakfast, read books, canoodle.

3:00 pm, Saturday
Mrs. deWinter and I clean the kitchen and boil and devil eggs for the potluck.

7:00 pm, Saturday
Small, intimate gathering of old friends and new in ***'s new house, an "It's spring, I have a new house, Just because" party. *** is a not-so-old old radical lesbian feminist, former organizer and small press publisher now doing other kinds of work that are professional and pay well and still manage to change the world. Others present include two former members of the National Feminist Writers Guild, a former youngest member (aka baby dyke) of the Lincoln Legion of Lesbians, the parade leader of the largest-to-date March on the Capitol and the first Gay Rights March in a major city in the Southwest, and a couple of younger women who held their own in such a crusty crowd. Good food, a cozy fire in the wood stove, dogs, dykes, and a fun trip down lesbian-feminist-memory lane. We got home late and slept in on Sunday morning.

3:00 pm, Sunday
After a lazy morning, brunch, and an old movie, Mrs. deWinter and I sat down for our almost-weekly Feng Shui session. Mrs. deWinter has been working as an IT consultant to a major local employer (which also happens to be the headquarters of a major national company) for several years, and several months ago one of her IT colleagues, who had just finished a certification program in Feng Shui (can anyone say high tech-high touch?), came over and did a Feng Shui consult with us as part of her practicum. It was fun! We had tried to Feng Shui our house several years ago, but gave up after reading many books and making many charts. In this three-hour session we learned how to read and treat the Feng Shui of our property, the house itself, the rooms in the house, and even specific objects within rooms. We've been having near-weekly Feng Shui sessions since then, a time to focus on our household and how our domestic environment supports (or not) our relationship and our individual goals. We choose a gua each week and apply some Feng Shui (or other magical treatment) to it. We also do a little clear your clutter with feng shui stint in a gua-related part of the house. This week it was time for some attention to the Love & Marriage gua, and since the Love & Marriage part of our house actually exists outside, we went to that part of the yard and did some spring cleaning. Yes, but does Feng Shui work? you might ask. Well, it works for us.

7:30 pm, Sunday
I make dinner while Mrs. deWinter does some laundry. We have Orange Roughy and Brussels Sprouts. Mrs. deWinter taught me how to cook fish (and brussels sprouts, come to think of it). Would you believe the microwave is the secret for excellent fish? She says fish cooks unevenly in the oven and parts of it get too dry, and microwave cooking solves these problems. She's right.

Mrs. deWinter's Orange Roughy
orange roughy filets
crushed garlic
lemon
butter

Put your filets in a small baking dish. Spoon some crushed garlic (crush your own or buy it in a jar, like we do) on each filet, add a pat of butter to each, and squeeze lemon juice liberally over the entire thing. Cover with waxed paper and cook on high in the microwave for 10 minutes if the fish is fresh, 20 if frozen.

Mrs. deWinter's Brussels Sprouts
brussels sprouts
butter
Ume Plum Vinegar

Bring water to boil in a stock pot. Boil the brussels sprouts until just soft when you stick one with a fork (maybe 8 minutes?). Serve with some butter from the fish dish and a slight splash of Ume Plum Vinegar. Yum.

9:00 pm, Sunday
The L-Word, Season Two, Episode 7, Luminous
Can it really be Episode 7 already? Aren't there just 13 episodes this season? Is there anyone who's not attracted to Bette? Isn't Tina looking great? Shane, oh Shane.

Mrs. deWinter asks: So will Bette and Tina get back together again? I say yes, and she agrees. And will Shane and Carmen get together? I say no, and she agrees. I ask: Will the housemate still be in residence by the end of the season? She says no, and I agree.

10:00 pm, Sunday
The L-Word, Season Two, Episode 7, Luminous
This happens too often. We watch it again. I don't know if it's because we like it or because Mrs. deWinter just doesn't want to face what going to bed on Sunday night means (you know, work begins the next morning).

At the end of round two I asked Mrs. deWinter why we watch these a second time on Sunday nights. Her characteristically clever reply: It's no cigar, but it's close.

Permabutchlink posted by House Butch -- 12:32 PM.

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