This past week started off with a bang– fireworks on Monday for Guy Fawkes night!

We had the good fortune of spending the evening at the lovely Foxglove right on the waterfront, where we celebrated a friend’s birthday with amazing cakes from Pandoro— a gluten-free dark chocolate cake which was divine, and a lovely carrot cake. I’ve been on a total carrot cake kick lately — I made one last weekend using the BBC’s yummy scrummy carrot cake recipe, which I highly recommend. It isn’t called yummy scrummy for nothing!

And then, of course, there was the US election this week, which was big news here in New Zealand. I spent most of Wednesday being nervous and trying not to hit the refresh button on the New York Times website every three seconds. I actually found out the result of the election from my Wednesday evening yoga students, who happily informed me before class began that Obama had won.

However, this election cycle was very exciting beyond just that. In addition to Obama winning a second term, Elizabeth Warren won in Massachusetts, unseating Scott Brown. Maine, Maryland, and Washington state voted to allow same-sex marriage, bringing the US to nine states, plus the District of Columbia that offer marriage equality. And Minnesota voted not to ban it, which is a step in the right direction for sure.

And, Tammy Baldwin, Congressperson for the 2nd district of Wisconsin, was elected to the US Senate.

Tammy Baldwin and I in 2002.

I had the absolute privilege of working on Tammy’s campaign back in the day when I was in graduate school in Wisconsin, and have so much awe and respect for her. She’s one of the very few who went into politics for the right reason– to try to make a difference and to make people’s lives better. I could not be happier that she’s now made history as being Wisconsin’s first female senator and beyond that as the first and only openly gay member of the US Senate.

And then yesterday was “Gay Red Shirt Day,” here in New Zealand, after Prime Minister John Key told a radio host last week that he was wearing a “gay red top.” When later asked about his use of the word “gay,” Key responded that he used the word to mean “weird” and that he hadn’t meant any harm and had used it in the sense that his children use it, and that it is in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Which is all well and good– except that you do kind of want your prime minister to be more thoughtful and articulate than a 13 year old!  So “Gay Red Shirt Day” was organized and received quite a bit of media attention here in New Zealand– it was even announced on the radio as I was getting ready for work, which was pretty exciting.

So of course, Laura and I both donned our gay red apparel, and took a wander down to Parliament.

And lots of other people did too. It was quite lovely to see so many red shirts among the sea of black and grey apparel that tends to be the Wellington uniform.

Even the Canterbury Wizards cricket team got into the spirit (though I suppose they probably wear red pretty frequently…)

After work on Friday we went to my first professional cricket game, which was great. We even made it onto the big screen at the game, which was pretty exciting. And Wellington won, which is always good!

Everyone was sitting on our side of the stadium, so the other side looks totally empty. But there were people in the stands!

Anyway, now that I’m back to working full time, there’s much less time for writing during the week. Spending all day on the computer at work, I’m not much inclined to immediately hop on my laptop again in the evenings. In fact, I’m trying to spend as little time on the computer as possible at the end of the day. So my posts have been a bit more sporadic this past month, and that will probably continue. But I hope that everyone is doing well, and do give that carrot cake recipe a try!