Whistler Wishes for Meredith

Greetings from sunny Whistler! Dip's right. I had intended to write about Meredith Baxter to give her a holler and a "woot woo!" for coming out before I left town, but ran out of time.

By now, it's quite old news, but it was funny how we learned Meredith was on the boat. We were sitting at the pool when I first heard rumblings about her. Laying on my back reading a novel, I heard a dyke a few chairs down say "MB alert" to her friends. In gay unison, they all sat up, pulled down their sunglasses and looked in one direction. Curious, I, too, followed their gaze, assuming that they were alerting about some ex-girlfriend who'd been stalking one of them or about a hot woman they'd all had their eye on and intended to encircle on the dance floor that night. Nothing stood out, so I pried: "What does MB alert mean?"

"Meredith Baxter is coming our way."

"Who?" I asked, looking toward the woman. Super surprised, I saw the mom from Family Ties headed in our direction. (Of course, I thought she was still Meredith Baxter Birney.)

"Huh," I said to my girlfriend, "I didn't know Alex Keaton's mom was a lesbian."

And then the firestorm of media attention after we got home and her big proclamation on the Today Show, which was extremely brave. It's hard enough to come out on your living room couch, let alone on national morning TV.

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Curve Magazine's Heather Robinson did a great job covering the story, so if you want to read more, check it out online. Congrats Meredith!

All that Hollywood stuff aside, we're here in Whistler celebrating my birthday this weekend. We've been having such a nice time and it's simply amazing how "Olympic-ized" Whistler (and Vancouver for that matter) are becoming. To illustrate my point, I've included the photo below of Patty and I having a sample of the "Triple Lutz," a martini shooter saluting the famous figure skating jump yesterday at the Mallard Lounge (our favorite place to warm the tootsies apres ski and start an evening off right). Thanks to bartender Lisa Marie!

The Fairmont Chateau Whistler has a whole list of special drinks for Olympic enthusiasts and athletes, who dare throw a few back while in Canada for the 2010 Winter Olympics (which is February12-28, 2010).

Alcohol aside, so many other things are changing around here. The roads are wider, the traffic patterns have changed, some of the golf links are being turned into parking lots, huge nordic centers and bobsled tracks have been erected, buildings are popping up, new restaurants are putting up signs, and parking lots are filling with trailers for temporary housing. It will be pretty amazing to be up here for the Olympics, but I think we will all be happy when the torch is passed to the next city.

I'll try and take some more shots this weekend of things in Whistler Village that drive home my point.