Yesterday was an important birthday for me. It was a quiet one, we pretty much just relaxed and tried to stay dry and warm, as it was a very un-Tucson-like rainy cold day. That evening after dinner Greta surprised me with a peppermint ice cream cake which she had secretly purchased and brought home and hid in the freezer earlier in the afternoon (cleverly waiting for me to make my usual afternoon espresso, for which I would need to get coffee out of the freezer - that woman is muy inteligente!!! Thank you Greta!!)

Anyway, we also went to see Gus Van Sant's new film "Milk," the docudrama biopic about Harvey Milk, first openly gay high-profile elected official ever, a San Francisco city supervisor elected in 1978, murdered by wacko conservative Dan White, another city supervisor. It was a really well-done and moving film and I highly recommend it. One of the saddest things about seeing it is knowing that we're now 30+ years after the time depicted in the film, and still LGBT people are being denied the same rights that straights have, because of powerful and bigoted people who have some nonsensical fear that letting queers marry will somehow ruin the institution of marriage. It's just ridiculous. But it's worth remembering that only a generation ago the same people were fighting for even more basic rights, like the right to even have certain jobs (like teaching). There are those who would turn back the progress made in that time.

Anyway, it was a good birthday yesterday.