Gay Afternoon with a Bitch, a Stud, and a couple of Quacks

Friday my hometown of Seward finally got a break from the vicious raging of what a few locals have been referring to as Hurricane Sarah. The storm clouds broke, the sun shone gaily, and locals came out-of-doors to assess flood damage.

Our property across the bay, the Alaska Hamptons, is in the flood zone but never floods as it is directly adjacent to a water sucking marsh. During my inspection, I discovered a temporary gift from God that tipped the arrow all the way to the right in my fun meter.

An unused and uncapped well decided to purge itself during the two weeks of heavy rains. Like a garden hose gone crazy, the gay brook trickled politely past the outhouse, made its way through the picnic area, graciously around the garden, and into a depression in the middle of the shooting range.

I have the pond I have been yearning for years, the pond that everyone tells me is a bad idea. Added bonus, it is only a foot deep so the water is, dare I say it…warm.

I had desperately dumped over 30 pounds of wildflower seed over the shooting range this spring, but months of constant blistering sunshine meant that few seeds had actually developed into plants. Previous to becoming a gay water feature, the area looked rather like a bomb went off there. Damn that Global Warming!


Ugly no longer, the pond is a well-polished mirror. It reflects the blue sky, glacier-clad mountains and white spruce, as well as the gay yellow flowers of the vegetables I failed to harvest in a timely manner.

Hamptons poultry are mostly made up of threatened and rare breeds. Our seven-pound Cayuga, Goth and Punk, lost their duckling fuzz and matured into an iridescent black duck and drake over the last month. I carried one in each arm and set them down in the middle of the pond, which they took to like a duck to water. They gaily preened, they gaily glided, and they gaily splashed. They defined gay.


They caught the attention of my five-pound Papillion stud, Moondoggie. He had been gaily roughhousing with our bitch, Gidget Goes Hawaiian, and bounded over the shooting range berm a good ten feet into the lake before setting the ducks with a very distinctive point.

Yes, a point. Moondoggie has been out fetching black labs his entire life and firmly believes that even though he is smaller than most waterfowl, he is still a continental spaniel, aka field dog.

Moondoggie pointed at Goth and Punk, adjusting his position as they swam around him. Chest deep in water, he looked at me, looked at the ducks, looked at me, looked at the ducks, looked at me, looked at the ducks. Completely dedicated, Moondoggie held his point for over half an hour.


‘Dorene,’ he seemed to say, ‘the ducks are swimming in a pond in the middle of our gun range. Hello! Aren’t you supposed to do something drastic about this? What ever happened to that Winchester Sweet 16 you were killing orange clay disks and political signs with just last week? Seriously?’

After fielding some very disapproving looks from my stubborn dog, who refused to respond to repeated commands to ‘come’, I walked over and physically removed him from the pond. Moondoggie enjoyed the rest of the afternoon gaily helping Gidget herd the African pygmy goat kids in and out of their pen.


I know that a few of those who are still reading this story are fuming right now, that I would dare to use what they consider inflammatory language in such a cavalier manner.

Could it be that the American advertising industry has so engrained the idea of branding words into our fabric that if a word has a pop culture meaning every other meaning for that word can no longer be used? We regularly crucify people over using words in proper context with their traditional meaning. Force a written public apology, expel them from school, fire their asses because some one might be offended.

I am offended! When did we become so myopic? Why are we giving so much power to the agenda of haters? Why do we allow them to take away our ability to express ourselves in a proper and fitting manner? Linguistic terrorists. Vocabulary Inquisition.

I am over it.

This is a spike for all of the Freedom of Speech quashers: instead of complaining that it is offensive when I say that I threw some faggots on the fire or that my shirt is gay, instead invest your time in doing something constructive - like actually living a lifestyle of acceptance, civility, and tolerance.

Bitch
-noun
1. a female dog.
2. a female of canines generally.
3. slang
a. a malicious, unpleasant, selfish person, esp. a woman.
b. a lewd woman.

Faggot
-noun
1. a bundle of sticks, twigs, or branches bound together and used as fuel.
2. a bundle of pieces of iron or steel to be welded, hammered or rolled together at high temperature
3. a male homosexual

Gay
-adjective
1. having or showing a merry, lively mood.
2. bright or showy.
3. given to or abounding in social or other pleasures.
4. licentious; dissipated; wanton
5. homosexual