Your Community-Owned Grocery Store 802-863-3659 82 South \Vinuoski Avenue, Burlington Open 7 am — l l pm every day - l".B'l' (.".lI‘(l.S, (i/\'l'c;1r(ls, Knight (lords 5:: n1ariulacturers' coupons welcome! ‘email ]ockie@together.net website: www.jockiemorino.com " ’ R5/MPX North Professionals fackie Marina REALTOR 802-655-3377 x23 800-639-4520 x23 ”Out” and Servin Community since OUI‘ 989 ; Psychoanalysis Individuals 6: Couples 9 Center Court Northampton MA 413-584-2442 ' Janet Langdon, Mdiv, NCPsyA Pastoral Counseling Jungian orientation ‘River Road, Putney VT 802-387-5547 j|ies|@sover.net Butchly very once in a while I Ewonder if I should turn in ' my butch card. It’s not that I want to resign; far from it, this is the only way I know how to be. I am what is called a soft butch, or, a gentle butch. I’m not quite sure exactly what this means, but I know what it doesn’t mean. I don’t wear stomping boots or drive a motorcycle or tune the car myself or hunt or drink shots of tequila with beer chasers. It definitely means I’m not femme. I have to fess up, though, that I loved cooking din- ner for my girl last night. There’s not much prettier on a table than a plate of spaghetti dressed up with vegetable fmery: little _ fringes of broccoli, gems of gold- en shitake mushrooms, lengths of ‘ green beans, disks of pale zucchi- ni and slices of bright red Lipstick SweetiPeppers. I took special care with the zucchini, peeling only alternate stripes from the green skin before slicing it to give the dish a carnival look. She seemed to enjoy it even though she had to take over the final cooking because I don’t have enough experience in the kitchen to handle timing. I washed dishes instead. As a callow youth I thought cooking was sissy work, so I got out of it whenever I could. I was just as insular about sewing and remember my utter disgust at the requirement of a sewing class in junior high and the mortification of having to cre- ate a skirt. I might have worn it once. Those skills disappeared from my memory banks ahnost immediately. ' Or so I thought. I still remember how to sew a hem — I’ve had to do it often enough on jeans. My hems are a little unique though, as I also mastered the basting stitch and have managed to combine the two. So rather than a few dozen tight, neatly. placed stitches, there are only about one dozen great big bast- ing-sized hem stitches anchoring the hem of each leg. Butch bast- ing gets the job done without ome Fr The much fuss. Every autumn I am overwhelmed with a desire to cook up apples into sauce and store it away for winter. I suspect that along with the gay gene I inherited from some wayward aunt or uncle, I got my grandma’s canning gene. Too bad I didn’t get her skill. The best I can do is crowd the stuff into the freezer rather than can it, but I love making it: peel- ing and watching the skins pile up in the sink, coring, quartering and fill- ing a deep pot, then cooking the apples down, unsweetened and with no added preservatives or other gunk. Just plain apples, the way Mother Nature meant them to taste and the way you can’t buy them any more. It gives / me unbutchly warm fiizzies just to think of making applesauce on a blustery fall night with darkness hugging my home, the tempera- ture dropping outside and Alberta Hunter shouting the blues on the CD player. This year I had to give up that pleasure. I have another project started that needs to get done before the holidays. Do I dare to confess that I am crochet- ing an afghan for my mother? At 95 her eyes aren’t good enough to notice the flaws. For some rea- son my afghans either gain or decrease stitches on an irregular basis — I end up with wavy edges that would disqualify me from any country fair exhibition, even Lesbian Arts and Crafts.. Except for this lap rug, I’m pretty much retired from making afghans, since I’ve made I 9 ‘ them for everyone I could foist one off on. Now I crochet crit- ters. These are definitely more of a butch product, if I may-assume‘ I that any kind of needlework doesn’t get me tossed out of Club’ ' Butch. There is no rhyme or rea- son to these critters. They start out as little dolls (yes, I make dollies) who get their character. .fi‘om color and what could loose- ly be called pattern. Take the Christmas Critter. Her face and body are made with a rainbow yarn heavy. on the reds and greens, and her limbs are either red or green, depending on what was in my It gives me--.—. unbutchly warm fuzzies-" . just to think of. making applesauce on ' a blustery fall night with f darkness hugging my home, the temperature ‘ dropping outside. . hand at that particular «moment. To jazz them up, I festoon the critters with buttons and thus, like some old maiden aunt, have a button collection of great pro- portions. The Christmas Critter has big shiny gold buttons down the middle of her chest which give her the air of being a gaily wrapped gift. Her eyes, nose and mouth are dark buttons like bits of coal. She’s a cheerful critter, and completely original. I never know what’s going to come off my needle and neither do the hapless souls I gift with kooky critters of their own. These are not only femme critters either. Even the ones in blonde dreadlocks or the pink and