One of my favorite Jazz drummers, Michelle Tannen, will be playing Eric Larivee’s Summer Cocktail tonight and tomorrow night at Ryles. Cabaret done right! Here’s the direct link to the show: http://www.ryles.com/event.cfm?event_id=5737

http://www.rylesjazz.com/
So consider this an open invite from Beck’s Cafe for all to attend!

I’ll be there Saturday night, so if you are there as well, please come over and say “hi”!

Many of us in the Greater Boston Community know of, have seen or are connected in some way to Aliza Shaprio aka Heywood Wakefield of Truth Serum Productions.   The show was terrific and Aliza put her heart, soul and super creative mind to Truth Serum Productions and TraniWreck and many other endeavors.

On Monday, July 25th, 2011, Aliza suffered a stroke

You can read all the updates on her at “Aliza’s Brain Trust” and just as important, would you please consider donating to help her?   She only had Mass Health for her insurance and she has a serious condition.  Even $5.00 would help her.  Thanks for reading and considering it!

There is a new handbook out for those transitioning in the workplace and for HR professionals as well.   Written by Christine Duffy,  a lawyer with the Association of Corporate Counsel, the the world’s largest community of in-house counsel, the guide, “Gender Identity and Expression in the  Workplace — A Pragmatic Guide for  Lawyers and Human Resource  Professionals” is aimed at both the transitioning person and the HR professionals most commonly tasked with working with them.

Here’s the link to the free guide you can download:
http://www.acc.com/accdocket/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=1287371

And a big thank you to Andrea James at TS Roadmap for spreading the word on this important resource. She has this resource and many others on transitioning at work on TS Roadmap

So our last cat from childhood died.  She rocked.  She grew up with my daughters and tolerated them well.  She even let them pet her and clothe her (I’ll let your imaginations run wild with what two elementary school girls will “lovingly” dress a cute girl kitten up in).   As my cat grew older she learned, well that’s the wrong word really, she demanded, to perch on our shoulders like a pirates parrot.   When we got our little dachshund she co-existed just fine with our dog….until the evening when she would purposefully stalk our dog like a jungle predator.

Our cat had character!

But her passing away left a void in our home so, we had to get another cat.  I wanted a lizard room…how fun would that be converting one of my daughter’s rooms into a lizard room?  Just imagine the cool nights, nothing on TV, just watching them kind of, you know, doing whatever it is lizards do at night (probably alot like the Geico gecko though, wouldn’t be able to get them to shut up most likely).

So another cat we now have.  Adopted from a local shelter.   So, its his first day in the new flat so how’s it going?  Let me tell you:

1. He hides under the couch crying….
2. we compassionately lift the couch to help our cat and console him….
3. while we pay attention to our new feline friend….
4. our couch creeps ever so slowly backward to hit the…
5. table full of various keys, coins, purses which then FLIPS over….
6. our dog wakes up to “secure the perimeter”…
7. cat buries himself into the bottom of the couch….

I foresee a long first night

In what might be the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen from a “Christian organization”, The Massachusetts Family Institute has actually used fear, in place of faith or facts, to try to beat down a cause.   Yesterday, The Massachusetts Family Institute released media, completely based on fear, unsupported by facts, to speak against the Massachusetts Transgender Equal Rights Bill.    I was dumbfounded frankly that such a stark lie would be produced.  They note, in their “about” page that they are “affirming the Judeo-Christian values”, the last time I taught Sunday school, lying wasn’t one of the Judeo-Christian values I felt compelled to teach. I would think the Massachusetts Family Institute would better serve families and “affirming the Judeo-Christian values” by spending it on families to help families make it through tough times.   In the meantime, here’s the clip posted on NECN along with their excellent editorial.

http://www.necn.com/common/thePlatform/web/swf/flvPlayer.swf