All marriages should be gay marriages.

By Married To The Sea.

Apple Oat Scones

Here in New England, summer has been creeping away, leaving us fully in the throes of Fall. The trees are yellowing to red. The world smells like hay. And the apples are crisp, tart, and plentiful.

Using apples from our local farm, I recently made some scrumptious Apple Oat Scones (recipe courtesy of the Wakefield Inn).

Ingredients:

2 Cups Flour

1/4 Cup Sugar

1/4 Cup Oats

1 Tablespoon Baking Soda

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoon Cinnamon

1/4 Teaspoon Ground Cloves

1 Apple

1 Egg

1 Cup Heavy Cream

Now, this is a devastatingly easy recipe. And when they are warm out of the oven - tender with subtle, delicious flavors - it will taste like you spent much longer than the half hour it takes to make these scones.

After sifting together the dry ingredients, you add a peeled, cored, and diced apple to the mixture. The egg and cream are combined separately and then folded in to the dry ingredients (in as few strokes as possible).

After generously flouring a flat surface, the dough is separated in half, formed into (approximately 6 inch diameter) circles, and then cut into wedges of four or six.

The scone wedges should now be placed onto a baking stone or a metal sheet lined with parchment paper and placed into an oven preheated to 400 degrees. These scones only bake for 12-15 minutes and are a beautiful golden brown color when finished.

In Which I Make the Case for Not Having Friends

There are many reasons not to have friends. Most of them have to do with you, yourself, being too much of a sociopath or too socially awkward to successfully engage in relationships. But, there are legitimate reasons for 'normal' people to avoid friendships. And, here, I will make the case (in a numbered and organized format).

1) You'll only ever have to move your own shit. You don't buy 600 pound couches or 12 foot long aquariums, but your friends do. And, eventually, they'll move somewhere with it. They're too cheap, or you're too helpful, whatever the case, you'll end up moving it. And hernias can last a lifetime, unlike most friendships.

2) If you're up at 3 am, it's because your own relative died. Eventually, if you are friends with someone for long enough, they are going to assume that you will support them at any time of day or night. And be it a drunk dial or a true crisis, your iphone/blackberry/rotary phone is going to start chiming at an ungodly hour at some point. Do you have many friends? This could be come a common, maybe even nightly, phenomena. And chronic sleeplessness can lead to accidents, a lowered immune system, and even death.

3) You can give yourself advice, and take it or leave it. Friends, once they have known you long enough, are bound to develop opinions about your life. It might be about your clothing choices, your relationship choices, or what body part to pierce next (belly button piercing for everyone!). And while at first it may be fun to have these 'suggestions,' you will soon be feeling pressure from your friends to make decisions that they feel are best for you. Your independence will be deeply compromised. And was our nation not built on freedom from tyranny?

There you have it.

Friendship: The Downfall of (Wo)Man.

Golden Delicious Circles of Crunchy Wonder

First things first, get yourself some onions. Mine are Vidalias and from our local farm (where I was formerly employed - fun fact).

Slice onions and break apart the circles.

Next step, apply beer liberally to a bowl. If you're making these at the end of the summer season, it's best to use the left over beer that people brought to barbecues or picnics. No one is going to drink this beer, (It's Pabst Blue Ribbon, isn't it? It's okay, I'm not judging your redneck friends.) and beer doesn't get better with age.

Add flour and cayenne.

As always, salt and pepper. (Preferably in 1970s shakers like mine, if possible.)

Whisk this all up into a nice foamy, delicious looking batter. Dredge the onions in it. Make sure to flip them over and get both sides coated well. For extra crunch and texture, you can sprinkle them with panko or even add it into the batter.

Oh, did I mention that while you were doing this, you should be heating up some oil? Yeah, that would've been smart. It doesn't really matter what kind you use, and I always just buy buckets of extra virgin olive oil and put that in everything (even baked goods - you'd be surprised, it works).

Unless you have a deep frier, this oil you should've been heating will be in a regular skillet, about an inch deep. And this oil needs to be HOT. Like "don't let your small children anywhere near the kitchen" hot. You should feel comfortable that it would give you third degree burns if someone poured it on you from a castle wall. So, in conclusion, nice and hot.

Time to fry the onions. They'll take a few minutes. Leave them in until they're golden.

Allow them some time to cool before eating.

C'est fini.

Recipe*
2 Large Vidalia Onions
1-1/2 Bottles of Beer
1 Cup of Flour
Salt
Pepper
Cayenne
Panko (if desired)

*None of the measurements are exact. Go with what tastes right/looks right to you. Try it out a few times, tweak it, change it up, make it even better, and then post a blog about it. I dare you.

And, honestly, most people don't think your penis is as awesome as you do.

This has appeared in a number of other blogs, but, it is good enough that I believe it is worth repeating.

The Danger of Not Questioning Why

As an occupation, I am a child advocate. My primary role is to provide support, information, and referrals to childhood victims of sexual abuse and their non-offending caregivers. One of the questions I am asked most frequently by my clients is "why?"

Why? Why did they choose me and my family? Why does he do that? Why didn't I notice? Why didn't she tell me sooner?

There are many painful questions that they have. Unfortunately, most of them will never be answered satisfactorily.

But, what interests me is that the questioning often comes after the disclosure, not before. Now, I do not want this to be construed as victim-blaming, but I am often astonished that there are all these 'red flag' behaviors concerning an individual that they know, but no one, at the time, prior to the assaults, questions why someone would be spending so much time with their child, buying them elaborate gifts, offering free babysitting, etc.

I understand, obviously, that I know the warning signs, while many others have never been educated in them, but even if you had no knowledge around childhood sexual abuse, if you did have practice with analyzing the events of your life and critically considering the motivations and thoughts of others, you might have been led to question why.

It is not the families faults for not questioning. They should be able to live in a world where one must not be on guard for potential trust violations by close friends and family members.

However, this does reconfirm my belief that teaching those analytical skills applies to so many areas of life, and that those who were never taught how to think critically are at a disadvantage. So, I feel it is my job not only to educate families as to what signs to watch out for, but how to think about their lives and the people in them in an even more mindful way.

Welcome to the Internets.

Yes, I'm welcoming myself.

And, no, I'm not new to "the internets," however, I am new to blogging.

Before you cross yourself or do a little circle-circle-dot-dot, I promise that despite my 'newbness' this is not going to be a blog about cute pictures of my children (I don't have any), cute pictures of animals (cute with chris already does that), or cute pictures of hot chicks (see: the rest of the internet for all your pornography needs).

So, Astasia, if those are three things you are not posting about, what are three things you probably will post about? (Good question, self.)

And the answer is:

1) Lesbianism (it's hawt and lovely)
2) Vegetarianism (it's moral and delicious)
3) Feminism (it's equal and necessary)

Depending upon your views, now actually may be the more appropriate time to appeal to your lord or administer a cootie shot. But, if you're somewhat liberal minded, interested in a recipe, a rant, or maybe something scandalous, then, welcome. To the internets, and to my blog. It's nice to have you here.