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wns hold derby parties instead for as long as i can remember a household from my church has held a derby party and welcomed any and all of the congregation who want to socialize eat a lot of good food watch the races on tv and place 1 bets also for as long as i can remember until he died in 1999 my dad was the official taker of bets at the church derby party he always arrived at the hosts house before the first race on the first saturday in may usually around 10 00 a m and stayed until after the end of the last race in the evening equipped with business card size betting tickets on which he wrote the race and horse numbers he accepted dollar bills and divided up winnings throughout the day being a betting man and a lover of most sorts of gambling he also placed his own bets and generally did well he was a fixture at the party some number of years ago i wish i could remember how many the party needed to find a new home base and we took over the role of hosts every first saturday in may we open our house to any and all church friends who want to come my husband is now the official taker of bets it s a fun laid back day saturday morning as we were getting the house ready for guests we got the news that my uncle and aunt would be coming to the party no big deal right except that they live in minneapolis and we haven t seen them for at least 3 years she s a flight attendant and he s semi retired so when she was asked to work a flight to louisville that had open seats she suggested that he come along only when they were on their way to the airport and he was on the phone to my mom with the news did they realize that it was derby day the twin cities are clearly outside the borders of the land of derby madness it was a little surreal for me to anticipate this completely unexpected visit from some of my favorite relatives when my mind was so firmly entrenched in the normal rhythms of derby they arrived in mid afternoon and my dad came with them my dad was 16 years older than this his youngest brother they didn t look terribly alike although they shared a body type and a fair skin tone my dad s voice was a little lower and after years in southern indiana he had lost his wisconsin born accent but when you were in the room with them both you knew immediately that they were brothers they shared an indefinable essence of miller guy and so on saturday when my uncle greeted me i heard my dad not his voice no but the same pattern of speech the slight clipping of words i found myself watching my uncle closely when he spoke because in the movements of his face the planes of his cheeks the shape of his mouth when he smiles the way he opens his mouth only as far as absolutely necessary to release the words i saw my father their eyes were very alike and so were their gestures and their general body language they re not what i think of as big men but when a miller guy is in the room he is a presence you ll hear him talking and laughing and he ll come over to get to know you when it came time for derby bets my uncle who had already cashed a ticket for several earlier races decided to buy tickets only on the 4 or 5 horses that were 50 to 1 long shots my mother following her standard practice to guarantee a win bought a ticket for each of the 19 horses in the race i chose 3 horses based on their history of running on a muddy track and because my mother had mentioned a couple of times that a jockey named calvin borel was winning pretty much every time he sat on a horse and she is an extremely lucky woman when it comes to winning things and picking horses i threw in a dollar on mine that bird the race was the most exciting i can remember with the jockey threading his horse at afterburner speed along the rail and out to a 6 3 4 length victory the horse was mine that bird a name i hadn t thought of or heard mentioned at any point during the race call because he began in last place and charged to the win in the last quarter mile when the caller announced the winner i cheered and then realized that i wasn t hearing any cries of i won from the crowd of people in the other room out on the deck on the other hand i saw my uncle and my mother celebrating we were the only 3 people with winning tickets the total pot was 129 so we each won 43 for a 1 bet most years even when we re dividing the pot among 10 or 20 winners our payout beats the payout at the track but this year the odds were so massive against mine that bird that churchill downs paid out 103 for every 2 it was nonetheless the largest win at our church party for a great many years we think no one has won so much since gato del sol made a surprise winning run in 1982 and only 2 people split the pot this year we kept the winning in the family we hugged a lot and i thanked my mother for her outstanding tip and we talked endlessly about the amazing the unbelievable the astounding race we d just witnessed we took pictures of us with our fistfuls of dollar bills and we agreed that my dad would have been ecstatic to have been there and watched mike miller anne miller and tiffany miller taylor claim the prize i don t believe in ghosts or an afterlife or angels but i do believe that my dad was here on saturday my uncle and aunt brought him along and made him alive again some days it s hard for me to remember much beyond the very hard time at the end of my dad s life but seeing and talking with his brother brought back bits and pieces of happy memories that had been hiding my dad was here with me two days ago and thanks to that i have a much stronger better sense of him with me now 4 comments posted in family grief happiness tagged family kentucky derby memories a brief moment of lucidity from cal thomas posted on april 7 2009 leave a comment every once in a great while cal thomas says something i agree with for that reason i always skim his column when it appears in the courier journal today i had almost given up hope most of his column is spent excoriating iowa s supreme court for legalizing gay marriage and thereby contradicting genesis 2 24 but then comes this to those on the political and religious right who are intent on continuing the battle to preserve traditional marriage in a nation that is rapidly discarding its traditions i would ask this question what poses a greater threat to our remaining moral underpinnings is it two homosexuals living together or is it the number of heterosexuals who are divorcing and the increasing number of children born to unmarried women now at nearly 40 percent according to the centers for disease control and prevention most of those who are disturbed about same sex marriage are not as exercised about preserving heterosexual marriage that s because it doesn t raise money and won t get them on tv some preachers would rather demonize gays than oppose heterosexuals who violate their vows by divorcing often causing harm to their children that s because so many in their congregations have been divorced and preaching against divorce might cause some to leave and take their contributions with them cal i couldn t have said it better myself http www courier journal com article 20090407 opin ion04 904070332 1054 opini on leave a comment posted in conservatism gay marriage tagged cal thomas conservatism gay marriage homosexuality a wish for a safe world posted on march 13 2009 5 comments my son is gay 8th grade boys who are happily and comfortably out of the closet are pretty rare so he serves as a sort of unofficial model for the kids at school demonstrating for them daily by his mere existence that being gay is just another way of being human and nothing to get upset or angry about in large part because of my son s openness at school and the relative lack of negativity he s received from kids or adults a friend of his let s call him c decided it would be safe for him to come out too one huge difference between them is the fact that c s dad is extremely homophobic but he figured his dad would be angry at first and then get over it so c came out at school and at home and his dad left i don t mean he left the room he left the house he left his marriage he left his family when this happened c tried to fix the situation by recanting on his admission no he said i m not gay after all i don t know what came over me and his dad came back but it didn t last long c had tasted the freedom of being his authentic self of being able to talk freely to my son and his other friends about who he is and who he likes and what he wants from life after a few days c came back out at home and his dad left apparently his dad isn t planning to return to his home as long as he has a gay son living there of course i don t know what the parents marital status was before this maybe it was shaky anyway and he was looking for an excuse to leave but i can t pull together the words to describe how tragic i consider this situation a bright handsome talented young man will carry with him the rest of his life the conviction that he caused the breakup of his family a husband and father is so overwhelmed by hatred and disgust for something that he won t even try to understand that he rejects his own son and by association his wife and other children the other family members must try to cope and sort out their own thoughts and emotions as they re pulled in opposite directions by people they love i do not cannot understand the father s actions i want to go to the mother and beg her to support her son and love him no matter what i want to offer the boy refuge i want the world to be safe for my son and for c and for the countless gblt boys and girls who are sitting in middle school or high school or college today and concentrating not on their classes but on how to tell their families and friends their most private secret so they can finally finally be themselves 5 comments posted in children family glbt issues homosexuality tagged family gay youth glbt homosexuality parenthood wow posted on march 4 2009 1 comment today i watched an ultrasound of my son s heart it was a follow up standard thing as part of making a decision about surgery on his sternum to correct his combination pectus excavatum and pectus carinatum the last time i was in a room with an ultrasound machine i was pregnant with the boy who was now lying on the table watching his tiny heart beat inside him inside me now that heart pumps blood for a 6 foot tall almost man who is still and will always be my baby the doctor pointed out valves chambers and blood flow it was all very cool and also for me not exactly a spiritual moment but a wow moment my boy his actual heart right there on the screen valves rhythmically opening and closing blood flowing in and being pumped out a chunk of untiring muscle that keeps alive one of the people i love best in the world wow 1 comment posted in children family health love parenthood tagged children family heart parenthood ultrasound wedding cake part 2 posted on february 15 2009 4 comments about 8 hours that s how long it took me to make the wedding cake from beginning to mix through placing the final flower it was a wonderful adventure that has left me immensely happy and satisfied yesterday around lunchtime i started baking the layers two great tips that i got online proved helpful to prevent the cake from sticking to the pan cut a parchment paper or waxed paper circle to fit the bottom spray the entire pan with nonstick cooking spray place the paper circle in the bottom of the pan and then spray the paper i used parchment paper and all the layers dropped out of the pans like a dream to help keep the cake layers flat which is what you want for a wedding cake as opposed to a dome shape bake them at a lower temperature for a longer time i baked the cakes at 325 degrees f rather than 350 and had to do very little trimming to flatten them i started with a 14 chocolate layer the recipe is one of my favorites it yields a dark moist cake that isn t overly sweet i made a double batch for each layer which was the perfect amount i wasn t sure about baking time it turned out that 52 minutes at 325 was just right to bake the cake through without drying the edges while that was baking i made the lemon curd filling for the vanilla cakes it s a nice custard easy to make and plenty thick so i knew the layers wouldn t slide while i was frosting the outsides next i figured out how much batter i needed for the 10 and 6 layers my recipe for vanilla buttermilk cake was enough to make three 9 layers but i needed to make two 10 layers and two 6 layers i d done some math based on surface area but it didn t seem to me that i d end up with enough batter after filling each pan halfway with water and measuring the volumes determined that i needed to make a total of 1 1 2 batches but because the batter contained baking powder and wouldn t hold i actually needed to make two 3 4 batches thank goodness for a calculator and for the fact that i measure things on a scale that has weight volume equivalencies built in the 3 4 batch worked perfectly for the 10 and 6 layers they baked about 35 minutes at 325 when they were finished i removed the chocolate layer from its pan hurray parchment paper mixed up the second round of chocolate batter and put the other 14 layer in the oven when it was finished i made the other two yellow layers finally i made some extra thick chocolate buttercream frosting to go between the chocolate layers covered it with a damp paper towel wrapped all the layers in plastic wrap performed geometric manipulations to make them all fit in the crowded refrigerator and got ready to go to dinner this morning i put the vanilla layers together with lemon curd and the chocolate layers together with frosting then it was time to generate 2 cups of egg whites which if you re curious took 13 eggs the swedish buttercream came off like clockwork transforming itself from runny goo to perfectly satin frosting so quickly that i didn t have time to worry we packed everything in car including my mixer and extra ingredients in case i needed to make more frosting and headed for church there i applied a first thin layer of frosting to each of the three tiers to seal in crumbs chloe turned the tiers for me as i worked we put each tier in the refrigerator while i worked on the others so the frosting had time to set next out came the bottom and middle tiers we cut 6 straws just a little longer than the cake was thick pushed them down into the center and then snipped off the extra length which sent tiny bits of plastic flying everywhere they would serve to support the upper layer making them easy to separate when it was time to serve will by virtue of being tallest stood on a chair and looked down from above to ensure that i was placing the 10 tier in the exact center of the one below it on it went and i covered the join with frosting more straws more snipping and the top tier went into place time to pipe we decided on little round beads of frosting ar...
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