May 23, 2007Travelog: Colorado Springs
While exploring Colorado Springs, we stayed at the B&B Cheyenne Canon Inn, at the base of Cheyenne Mountain where NORAD is tucked inside. It is a beautiful 13,000 square foot estate operated and tended by a former ski bum turned real estate agent who grew up just down the block. This is his ground zero.
This grand old gal has worn many masks: she was a family home, a casino, a meeting place and speakeasy, a brothel, and now a squeaky clean B & B. One hundred and thirty five years of floors contentedly groaning out a lively heritage, accessorized by claw foot bathtubs, stained glass windows and period antiques. The Inn survived a devastating flood only later to be taken by fire and in an amazing stroke of luck was rebuilt to its original grandeur when the architectural plans turned up.
We comfortably roamed the house in our embroidered bathrobes in the evenings, watched a movie from their library and leafed through local historical books. A neighborhood chef prepared the most wonderful gourmet breakfasts and chatted about the town and its inhabitants. Wine and h'ors d'oeurves in the afternoon in a glorious sitting room as large as my home and had ceiling to floor windows that drew the world in. What a relaxing way to end a day after walking the Garden of the Gods, shopping in Manitou Springs and experiencing Pike's Peak.
Innkeeper Nancy assured us that the masseur was excellent. And he was: skilled, friendly, a graduate from the Culinary Institute of America, refreshingly honest with a great sense of humor. Afterwards we luxuriated with champagne and strawberries dipped in chocolate on the front veranda as we waved to passerbys.
We liked the local haunt, The Blue Star, but the Broadmoor is just minutes away for a fancier dining experience and a round of world class golf. If you go, we hope you will remember us to Kevin, Nancy and Craig.
Memories, 2/9/07
Standing at the counter, I am watching this elaborate rail system weave up, around and through the warehouse dry cleaners. Neatly pressed and bagged clothes are in clusters, tagged and identified for pick up. Corresponding tag numbers are on our ticket, because those are our possessions and we want them back to reuse.
Memories are like that. Every once in a while, the sound of a baritone voice in a restaurant or someone whistling while they work or the sweet scent of skin on a tshirt sweeps me up and whisks me along fast moving rails to a memory. In that instant, I pull forward those long tucked away moments to feel them again in real time.
I grew up in Silicon Valley long before somebody, somewhere made it into something it's not. My home was at the cusp of apricot orchards and involved all day bicycle wanderings into the foothills and to the percolation ponds for pollywogs.
Back then, the days were long. Back then, a little girl could wander and explore. Sometimes I was so lost in play it would startle me to realize the day was darkening and street lights were coming on, and I was a ways from home.
My dad would begin his nightly walk, cigarette in hand, up and around the neighborhood, in a leisurely stride and happy whistle. That was my call home. I would dash out from under a bush and fall in step with him, taking his hand. Even when darkness had fallen and dinner was warming under a tent of foil in the oven he waited on me, asked about my adventures, and led me home. How glad I am to have these claim tickets now that he's gone.
Not It, 2/9/07
An opportunity arose to vacation in Hawaii. In addition to the normal things to see, the waterfalls and restaurants, the culture, hiking the scenic trails and exploring plantations, we discovered there was a nesting ground for green sea turtles. I love turtles.
With great anticipation to witness something profound, we headed there with swimsuits beneath our shorts and snorkel gear in the back seat. Reading about this place on the short drive, we learned it was the last remaining black sand beach on the island, that all the rest had been covered by lava flows by the nearby active volcano, and that green sea turtles had been returning here for years, although their numbers were diminishing.
The gray black sand was gritty as we dashed towards a beautiful cove. Where were the tour guides and vacationers with their digital cameras? How could this be, an empty beach save a lone sign cautioning us not to touch the turtles but not prohibiting anyone from swimming there. We talked about it a while, the care to take if we were going to undertake a swim along, and all agreed to proceed.
There, on the rocks where the sand met the sea, were three enormous green sea turtles, taking the waves and the seaweed in stride. We put on our gear and gently eased into the water twenty feet away. I dipped my mask halfway in, watching them maneuver the rocks with their flippers to balance and turn. They were magnificent.
I slowly snorkeled the cove, stopping to investigate and explore, when I noticed one of the turtles three or four feet below the edge of my toes. He seemed kind of interested in me. I quieted as he glided by and drew away, returned to gently sweep a safe distance away, checking me out.
On one such glide, in the most deliberate way, he looked right at me, as if inviting me along. I snorkeled along above, excitement filling my lungs and watching him closely, he swimming below and just ahead, setting the pace, every now and again checking that I was still there.
We did this a while, who knows, 5 minutes? It was so fun I completely lost track of time. When I looked up, I noticed we were far from shore, and reluctantly had to turn back. When I neared shore, I wistfully looked back to where the turtle had been, and was shocked to find him right on my heels, below and behind, following me at a safe distance.
This had to be a coincidence. So I tried again, gliding along and turning away from shore, and he headed out just ahead, a sidelong glance to make sure I was following. Right then I named him Not It.
My young son was in the water near the shore with my ex and we glided past them for a couple of underwater camera shots. What they most remember is the laughter they could hear coming from my snorkel. It was one of the best days ever!
Apr 18, 2012
Apr 17, 2012
A Slice of Heaven
An unscheduled weekend fell my way, made even more unusual by the hubs having plans. Three buddies were heading up for what was a decidedly guy's weekend. So while their big plans were to dash from thing to thing, first the shooting range, then golfing and possibly tossing a fishing pole in the water at Lake Almanor, the dog and I headed out on a weekender.
I mulled over what to do with the time. Friends offered a couch, but I wanted some much needed solitude and the Gold Country seemed like the place to find it, especially with it being off season. That of course meant being a stone's throw to Calaveras Big Trees National Park which is one of my lifelong favorite destinations.
Last week's weather had been wet and stormy with thunder and lightning, but Saturday was a hang yer head out the passenger car window kind of day. We loaded the back seat with gear and set off without much of a plan.
A long, windey road leads to Jamestown, and there we found a vintage 19th century hotel on Main Street, checked in to cottage 3 which consisted of a bed and a toilet and tv. Plenty for us. It was vintage old, not vintage quaint, but the walk along the wooden plank sidewalks and peering into closed antique shops was fun. There was a handmade sign at the Jamestown Hotel, CLOSED, with a for sale sign. When the hotel opened almost 200 years ago, I'll bet the settlers could never envision this hotel not to be the anchor and jewel in their thriving town.
Most everywhere in the Gold Country is on a slow bleed, except for Sonora that embraced growth and change in a side-by-side set up, leaving the old downtown undisturbed but offering modern conveniences and medical access. The other Sonora has thriving neighborhoods, shopping, upscale restaurants, a theatre, modern hotels and a hospital. Those who can afford to, come here to retire.
Early on Sunday after a light breakfast we arrived at Big Trees Calaveras around 8, no one around, not even the park rangers. I tucked the $8 day use fee in an envelope and dropped it into the slot. Calaveras was covered in the most glorious blanket in snow!
The south campground was impassable, so we parked near the lower trailhead at North Grove. Our footprints were the first of the day in the fluffy, dry powder that drifts along the sides of the path, on this sunny and warm morning. This was Sam's first time...
Let's say she took to it. We hiked and played and stopped to take photos sans collar and leash. She zigzagged the trail leaping up and over logs and hopping through snow like a bunny. She went crazy over the snowballs dissolving in her mouth and dusting her face. It was so beautiful, so quiet. Every rustle and breeze, with snow falling from higher branches from too heavy a burden, and trickling little creeks that formed from the runoff, it was interesting and new.
On the way back we met hikers - families with little people, and some guys from South Dakota with eyes glued on the redwoods. Everyone was dressed warmly, but we were comfortable in tennis shoes and jeans with only a sweatshirt. Like I said, it was a glorious day.
One more quick detour before leaving, to White Pines Lake, and a stop at Starbucks for some fruit and cheese to share, and we were on our way, unwinding ourselves back to onto the interstate. Sam leisurely napped and I made a big pot of soup and tossed my tennies in the dryer.
I mulled over what to do with the time. Friends offered a couch, but I wanted some much needed solitude and the Gold Country seemed like the place to find it, especially with it being off season. That of course meant being a stone's throw to Calaveras Big Trees National Park which is one of my lifelong favorite destinations.
Last week's weather had been wet and stormy with thunder and lightning, but Saturday was a hang yer head out the passenger car window kind of day. We loaded the back seat with gear and set off without much of a plan.
A long, windey road leads to Jamestown, and there we found a vintage 19th century hotel on Main Street, checked in to cottage 3 which consisted of a bed and a toilet and tv. Plenty for us. It was vintage old, not vintage quaint, but the walk along the wooden plank sidewalks and peering into closed antique shops was fun. There was a handmade sign at the Jamestown Hotel, CLOSED, with a for sale sign. When the hotel opened almost 200 years ago, I'll bet the settlers could never envision this hotel not to be the anchor and jewel in their thriving town.
Most everywhere in the Gold Country is on a slow bleed, except for Sonora that embraced growth and change in a side-by-side set up, leaving the old downtown undisturbed but offering modern conveniences and medical access. The other Sonora has thriving neighborhoods, shopping, upscale restaurants, a theatre, modern hotels and a hospital. Those who can afford to, come here to retire.
Early on Sunday after a light breakfast we arrived at Big Trees Calaveras around 8, no one around, not even the park rangers. I tucked the $8 day use fee in an envelope and dropped it into the slot. Calaveras was covered in the most glorious blanket in snow!
The south campground was impassable, so we parked near the lower trailhead at North Grove. Our footprints were the first of the day in the fluffy, dry powder that drifts along the sides of the path, on this sunny and warm morning. This was Sam's first time...
Let's say she took to it. We hiked and played and stopped to take photos sans collar and leash. She zigzagged the trail leaping up and over logs and hopping through snow like a bunny. She went crazy over the snowballs dissolving in her mouth and dusting her face. It was so beautiful, so quiet. Every rustle and breeze, with snow falling from higher branches from too heavy a burden, and trickling little creeks that formed from the runoff, it was interesting and new.
On the way back we met hikers - families with little people, and some guys from South Dakota with eyes glued on the redwoods. Everyone was dressed warmly, but we were comfortable in tennis shoes and jeans with only a sweatshirt. Like I said, it was a glorious day.
One more quick detour before leaving, to White Pines Lake, and a stop at Starbucks for some fruit and cheese to share, and we were on our way, unwinding ourselves back to onto the interstate. Sam leisurely napped and I made a big pot of soup and tossed my tennies in the dryer.
Apr 16, 2012
Tobacco is Different
By Dan Morain, Senior editor (The Sacramento Bee)
dmorain@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Sunday, Apr. 15, 2012 - 12:00 am
Page 1E
Copyright 2012 . All rights reserved.
Tobacco is different.
In the coming weeks, Californians once again will witness the industry's formidable power. Cigarette makers Altria and R.J. Reynolds will spend tens of millions of dollars telling us why Proposition 29, the latest attempt by anti-smokers to raise tobacco taxes, is a terrible idea.
In slick television ads, shills will explain how the $735 million that would be raised by the measure annually would be wasted on the creation and operation of a bloated bureaucracy. The industry probably will succeed. It usually does.
Ordinarily, I agree with arguments against initiatives. Proposition 29 on the June 5 ballot has its problems. But my decision is easy any time I have to choose between tobacco companies and cancer researchers, doctors who treat cancer and public health experts who try to prevent cancer.
The industry has "lied, misrepresented and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as 'replacement' smokers, about the devastating health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke."
Those words didn't come from some anti-smoking fanatic. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler wrote them in 2006. After spending six years presiding over a Justice Department suit against the industry, Kessler concluded the industry violated civil provisions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law intended to combat the Mafia.
Given that only 11.9 percent of adults in this state smoke, you'd think tobacco would be on the run. But just as its products kill its customers, the industry is efficient at killing new taxes. This is one of only three states that haven't raised tobacco taxes since the start of the 21st century, and it's no accident.
The industry has spent $102 million on campaigns in California since 2000, including $66 million to defeat the last tax initiative in 2006. Tobacco companies have shelled $23 million to destroy the latest measure so far. More will come.
It makes good business sense. Proposition 29 would tack $1 to the cost of a pack of smokes, pushing the state tobacco tax to $1.87. Whenever prices rise, usage drops, particularly among young people, a coveted market; if people don't start smoking young, they probably never will.
Proposition 29 would earmark 60 percent of the new money, $441 million, for research into cancer and other tobacco-caused diseases. Another 15 percent would create "California research facilities" focused on prevention, detection, treatment and cures for tobacco-related illness. About $120 million would go to existing anti- tobacco programs.
To oversee the money, there'd be be a nine-member board that would include, among others, three UC chancellors and three directors of National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers in California.
Presumably, the board would tilt to California researchers. The initiative says the measure's purpose would be to fund "research in California."
But the measure also contains a sentence suggesting that research money could go outside the state: "All qualified investigators, regardless of institutional affiliation, shall have equal access and opportunity to compete for funds in this act." The tobacco industry homes in on that line, contending that tax money raised in California would be spent outside California.
Jim Knox of the American Cancer Society, one of the initiative's main supporters, called the claim "another tobacco industry lie" and added that the "explicitly stated purpose" of the measure is to keep the money in California.
Initiatives are a terrible way to make laws. They are ambiguous. Promoters load them with their fondest wishes. But initiatives serve a function. Voters can step in when powerful forces block reasonable legislation.
The Legislature hasn't approved a tobacco tax increase since 1993, and that was a 2-cent boost to fund breast cancer research. Lawmakers have failed no fewer than 30 other times to raise tobacco taxes in the past 30 years, according to a body count of dead tobacco bills compiled by Proposition 29's backers.
The industry won't take an out-front role as it fights Proposition 29. It will pay for others to do that. Its use of fronts is a tactic laid bare in once-confidential tobacco industry documents housed in an online repository at UC San Francisco. The documents have become public as a result of various lawsuits against the industry.
One prominent opponent of Proposition 29 is Americans for Tax Reform, the nonprofit corporation headed by professional conservative Grover Norquist. Norquist pushes candidates for office to sign pledges vowing to oppose all tax increases – including tobacco tax hikes.
Norquist has a rich history of involvement with the tobacco industry. Industry documents show Americans for Tax Reform received upward of $1 million from cigarette companies between 1995 and 2000.
Patrick Gleason, a Norquist aide, didn't answer my question about whether Americans for Tax Reform still accepts tobacco money. I took that as a yes.
It's a close call whether tobacco is less popular than career politicians. But to tar the initiative, industry spokespeople write in the California voter guide that a "career politician" is promoting Proposition 29. That'd be former Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata.
Perata had his difficulties; he faced a federal criminal investigation during his time in the Senate, though no one was charged. Now 67, having survived prostate cancer, Perata sees Proposition 29 as a part of his legacy.
"No, no, no," Perata said, when I asked if he plans to seek a paid job within the bureaucracy the initiative would create. But he'd happily take an unpaid slot on the board "to make sure it gets launched correctly."
I'll be surprised if he gets the chance. People who might ordinarily support the tax hike won't have much reason to go to the polls in June. Many will find reasons to vote against it, courtesy of tobacco-funded ads. The $441 million fund for research is one reason to vote for Proposition 29, so long as the money stays in California. If that's not reason enough, here's another: The tobacco industry doesn't want it.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/15/4413061/big-tobacco-fires-up-anti-tax.html#storylink=cpy
dmorain@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Sunday, Apr. 15, 2012 - 12:00 am
Page 1E
Copyright 2012 . All rights reserved.
Tobacco is different.
In the coming weeks, Californians once again will witness the industry's formidable power. Cigarette makers Altria and R.J. Reynolds will spend tens of millions of dollars telling us why Proposition 29, the latest attempt by anti-smokers to raise tobacco taxes, is a terrible idea.
In slick television ads, shills will explain how the $735 million that would be raised by the measure annually would be wasted on the creation and operation of a bloated bureaucracy. The industry probably will succeed. It usually does.
Ordinarily, I agree with arguments against initiatives. Proposition 29 on the June 5 ballot has its problems. But my decision is easy any time I have to choose between tobacco companies and cancer researchers, doctors who treat cancer and public health experts who try to prevent cancer.
The industry has "lied, misrepresented and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as 'replacement' smokers, about the devastating health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke."
Those words didn't come from some anti-smoking fanatic. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler wrote them in 2006. After spending six years presiding over a Justice Department suit against the industry, Kessler concluded the industry violated civil provisions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law intended to combat the Mafia.
Given that only 11.9 percent of adults in this state smoke, you'd think tobacco would be on the run. But just as its products kill its customers, the industry is efficient at killing new taxes. This is one of only three states that haven't raised tobacco taxes since the start of the 21st century, and it's no accident.
The industry has spent $102 million on campaigns in California since 2000, including $66 million to defeat the last tax initiative in 2006. Tobacco companies have shelled $23 million to destroy the latest measure so far. More will come.
It makes good business sense. Proposition 29 would tack $1 to the cost of a pack of smokes, pushing the state tobacco tax to $1.87. Whenever prices rise, usage drops, particularly among young people, a coveted market; if people don't start smoking young, they probably never will.
Proposition 29 would earmark 60 percent of the new money, $441 million, for research into cancer and other tobacco-caused diseases. Another 15 percent would create "California research facilities" focused on prevention, detection, treatment and cures for tobacco-related illness. About $120 million would go to existing anti- tobacco programs.
To oversee the money, there'd be be a nine-member board that would include, among others, three UC chancellors and three directors of National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers in California.
Presumably, the board would tilt to California researchers. The initiative says the measure's purpose would be to fund "research in California."
But the measure also contains a sentence suggesting that research money could go outside the state: "All qualified investigators, regardless of institutional affiliation, shall have equal access and opportunity to compete for funds in this act." The tobacco industry homes in on that line, contending that tax money raised in California would be spent outside California.
Jim Knox of the American Cancer Society, one of the initiative's main supporters, called the claim "another tobacco industry lie" and added that the "explicitly stated purpose" of the measure is to keep the money in California.
Initiatives are a terrible way to make laws. They are ambiguous. Promoters load them with their fondest wishes. But initiatives serve a function. Voters can step in when powerful forces block reasonable legislation.
The Legislature hasn't approved a tobacco tax increase since 1993, and that was a 2-cent boost to fund breast cancer research. Lawmakers have failed no fewer than 30 other times to raise tobacco taxes in the past 30 years, according to a body count of dead tobacco bills compiled by Proposition 29's backers.
The industry won't take an out-front role as it fights Proposition 29. It will pay for others to do that. Its use of fronts is a tactic laid bare in once-confidential tobacco industry documents housed in an online repository at UC San Francisco. The documents have become public as a result of various lawsuits against the industry.
One prominent opponent of Proposition 29 is Americans for Tax Reform, the nonprofit corporation headed by professional conservative Grover Norquist. Norquist pushes candidates for office to sign pledges vowing to oppose all tax increases – including tobacco tax hikes.
Norquist has a rich history of involvement with the tobacco industry. Industry documents show Americans for Tax Reform received upward of $1 million from cigarette companies between 1995 and 2000.
Patrick Gleason, a Norquist aide, didn't answer my question about whether Americans for Tax Reform still accepts tobacco money. I took that as a yes.
It's a close call whether tobacco is less popular than career politicians. But to tar the initiative, industry spokespeople write in the California voter guide that a "career politician" is promoting Proposition 29. That'd be former Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata.
Perata had his difficulties; he faced a federal criminal investigation during his time in the Senate, though no one was charged. Now 67, having survived prostate cancer, Perata sees Proposition 29 as a part of his legacy.
"No, no, no," Perata said, when I asked if he plans to seek a paid job within the bureaucracy the initiative would create. But he'd happily take an unpaid slot on the board "to make sure it gets launched correctly."
I'll be surprised if he gets the chance. People who might ordinarily support the tax hike won't have much reason to go to the polls in June. Many will find reasons to vote against it, courtesy of tobacco-funded ads. The $441 million fund for research is one reason to vote for Proposition 29, so long as the money stays in California. If that's not reason enough, here's another: The tobacco industry doesn't want it.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/15/4413061/big-tobacco-fires-up-anti-tax.html#storylink=cpy
Apr 12, 2012
Kicking Cancer's Butt
Feeling shaky but good after a hard, productive week. Hubs vibes are anxious about what will the future look like in a month, or six, or a year. Thank you, Lord, for this day and the gifts you have given us.
'Tis the season for piles of work. The calendar boxes are full of projects. One thing at a time, and it works that way too, and the piles do shrink. More pile up behind but at least there's progress.
Mine is an invisibly important role, if you do well, I should add, for nothing becomes more visible than leaving people in the lurch. More changes at work - a new supervisor, for example, and two co-worker spots open. I'm puttying the gaps.
In California, Prop 29 is on the ballot. It is a .96 tax levied on packs of cigarettes with the proceeds going entirely to cancer research and finding a cure. I pray every day this passes.
We're a split house on this measure, with the hubs an avid smoker and me in recovery now 34 years clean. We have debated long and hard about what it means to be addicted, as if years indicate anything other than a longstanding habit. This is a passionate topic we tiptoe around until something like Prop 29 bursts on the scene.
The fact is, growing up, everyone we know smoked, and everyone quit one by one. Even the old guard entrenched in the habit for 50+ years quit. Not everyone died of cancer, but most of them did, at least in my world.
I do not believe sin taxes are unfair in the least, and if additional levies make them too expensive for some, all the better. I do not believe we have a constitutional right to smoke. To go out of our way to cause ourselves cancer. And then expect the rest of us to partially foot the medical bill for their care through higher premiums. And then turn around and sue the tobacco industry for their poor choices.
That's hard to wrap my head around. If someone aggressively drives in the fast lane and wears no seatbelt, they are upping their risk. There's no guarantee they will die, but we recognize that as reckless behavior. We even have laws requiring seat belts because it kills more people who do not wear them. But when someone smokes around others, it's like they are being reckless with me in the car, and the kids, and their friends. Is their right to smoke more important than my right to protect my health, even with irrefutable statistical evidence that smoking causes cancer?
I endorse Prop 29 all the way around, and not just because of my job. If Prop 29 passes, it will generate up to $800 million a year in CA for cancer research. No more endless hunts for new and promising researchers; no more poorly equipped labs with low paid assistants. It feels something like a cosmic rebalance of the bad to good thing.
There's not much more worthwhile than finding a cure. Real National Academy of Sciences stuff. I want to be around to buy a celebratory tshirt and wear it to rallies, emblazened with the words: During My Lifetime We Kicked Cancer's Butt.
'Tis the season for piles of work. The calendar boxes are full of projects. One thing at a time, and it works that way too, and the piles do shrink. More pile up behind but at least there's progress.
Mine is an invisibly important role, if you do well, I should add, for nothing becomes more visible than leaving people in the lurch. More changes at work - a new supervisor, for example, and two co-worker spots open. I'm puttying the gaps.
In California, Prop 29 is on the ballot. It is a .96 tax levied on packs of cigarettes with the proceeds going entirely to cancer research and finding a cure. I pray every day this passes.
We're a split house on this measure, with the hubs an avid smoker and me in recovery now 34 years clean. We have debated long and hard about what it means to be addicted, as if years indicate anything other than a longstanding habit. This is a passionate topic we tiptoe around until something like Prop 29 bursts on the scene.
The fact is, growing up, everyone we know smoked, and everyone quit one by one. Even the old guard entrenched in the habit for 50+ years quit. Not everyone died of cancer, but most of them did, at least in my world.
I do not believe sin taxes are unfair in the least, and if additional levies make them too expensive for some, all the better. I do not believe we have a constitutional right to smoke. To go out of our way to cause ourselves cancer. And then expect the rest of us to partially foot the medical bill for their care through higher premiums. And then turn around and sue the tobacco industry for their poor choices.
That's hard to wrap my head around. If someone aggressively drives in the fast lane and wears no seatbelt, they are upping their risk. There's no guarantee they will die, but we recognize that as reckless behavior. We even have laws requiring seat belts because it kills more people who do not wear them. But when someone smokes around others, it's like they are being reckless with me in the car, and the kids, and their friends. Is their right to smoke more important than my right to protect my health, even with irrefutable statistical evidence that smoking causes cancer?
I endorse Prop 29 all the way around, and not just because of my job. If Prop 29 passes, it will generate up to $800 million a year in CA for cancer research. No more endless hunts for new and promising researchers; no more poorly equipped labs with low paid assistants. It feels something like a cosmic rebalance of the bad to good thing.
There's not much more worthwhile than finding a cure. Real National Academy of Sciences stuff. I want to be around to buy a celebratory tshirt and wear it to rallies, emblazened with the words: During My Lifetime We Kicked Cancer's Butt.
Apr 5, 2012
The 7%
I was updating my LinkedIn account this morning, reminiscing a little bit along the way about the friends and neighbors who were left behind when it was time to move on. Those were lonely times knocking around by myself with the kids in tow, and thank God for them giving purpose and more love than I could ever give back.
FB has an app where you can list every place you've visited and they will calculate what percentage of the world you've seen. It says I have seen 7% of the world.
Just 7%. Feels like more. I guess because it doesn't calculate holding a newborn puppy fresh from its' momma's belly, or feeding an Emu in Australia. It doesn't count holding hands as someone passes away, playing follow the leader with a green sea turtle or standing just outside Westminster Abbey, weeping as I touched the stones and unable to go inside. What percentage would it give to laying flat on the grass watching a meteor shower, or putting it all on the line for love?
Those damned statistics can make anyone feel bad about good news! With 80% of life used, and 20% to go, and 93% of the world left unseen, what does that imply?
(Nothing important.)
FB has an app where you can list every place you've visited and they will calculate what percentage of the world you've seen. It says I have seen 7% of the world.
Just 7%. Feels like more. I guess because it doesn't calculate holding a newborn puppy fresh from its' momma's belly, or feeding an Emu in Australia. It doesn't count holding hands as someone passes away, playing follow the leader with a green sea turtle or standing just outside Westminster Abbey, weeping as I touched the stones and unable to go inside. What percentage would it give to laying flat on the grass watching a meteor shower, or putting it all on the line for love?
Those damned statistics can make anyone feel bad about good news! With 80% of life used, and 20% to go, and 93% of the world left unseen, what does that imply?
(Nothing important.)
Apr 3, 2012
One Big Dog Day
Recently we headed into the Gold Country for a day of snooping in the shops. It's like catnip to the hubs, who can't resist a visit with the shopkeep to talk coins and clocks. Sammy did the meet-n-greet thing with half the town, it seemed like, and was warmly received. Smiles, pats, big discussions about her temperament, and a couple of dog treats made it a pretty fine afternoon.
It had been storming all last week and today it was sunny and beautiful, mid 60s. Sammy was very well behaved, except for that really REALLY fun bichon in the antique shop that wanted to play, and everyone had to rush to pick them up. Not in here!!!
On the way up, we made a quick detour in Auburn and were sitting at the light. Sam was on my lap smiling at the cars and people, everyone waving, and then over our shoulder we heard a really loud voice through a loudspeaker say 'Quit looking at me.'
What was that? We spun around in our seats and saw a motorcycle cop sitting behind a bush at the exit, smiling and looking right at Sam. 'MEOW', he said.
Sam's ears perked up and she kept watching him, wagging and smiling, and the cop wagging and smiling back. He said, 'He was probably a motorcycle cop in his last life.'
We heartily laughed as we waived our goodbyes and headed on our way. (I think maybe the cop is trading up on the next go-round.)
It had been storming all last week and today it was sunny and beautiful, mid 60s. Sammy was very well behaved, except for that really REALLY fun bichon in the antique shop that wanted to play, and everyone had to rush to pick them up. Not in here!!!
On the way up, we made a quick detour in Auburn and were sitting at the light. Sam was on my lap smiling at the cars and people, everyone waving, and then over our shoulder we heard a really loud voice through a loudspeaker say 'Quit looking at me.'
What was that? We spun around in our seats and saw a motorcycle cop sitting behind a bush at the exit, smiling and looking right at Sam. 'MEOW', he said.
Sam's ears perked up and she kept watching him, wagging and smiling, and the cop wagging and smiling back. He said, 'He was probably a motorcycle cop in his last life.'
We heartily laughed as we waived our goodbyes and headed on our way. (I think maybe the cop is trading up on the next go-round.)
Mar 29, 2012
Today
Today is for Deb and John and the ordeal they face.
Today is for Momma C and Momma J and Sue's momma, too, who survive and adapt and try.
Today is for facing fear and believing the sun will rise tomorrow on a better day.
Today is for reassurance and holding hands. It is for connecting during the wait-it-out hours, the click of the minutes that seem like hours, and truly knowing you are not alone.
Today is for Momma C and Momma J and Sue's momma, too, who survive and adapt and try.
Today is for facing fear and believing the sun will rise tomorrow on a better day.
Today is for reassurance and holding hands. It is for connecting during the wait-it-out hours, the click of the minutes that seem like hours, and truly knowing you are not alone.
Mar 25, 2012
Just Sleep On It
I sometimes think the only way we recognize terror is for It to be chasing us through the woods with a bloody hatchet.
I lie in bed leisurely stretching awake, mind and body, and there are those lovely few moments when the promise of the day happily looms, before It creeps inside and tries to sap the day of vigor and enthusiasm. Sometimes the biggest challenge is getting out of bed at all, let alone facing the truth that what is happening is not happening to someone else's family. Someone else's friends.
The hairs stand up along my neck when I see the fight is over my chunk of the world. No way will I give up my dividends even as reality pushes them aside. No way, no how.
Anxiety constantly drones in my ear ...
Enough of the whys and wherefores! In my sleep, I scream Come and try, sucker! Bring it on.
I lie in bed leisurely stretching awake, mind and body, and there are those lovely few moments when the promise of the day happily looms, before It creeps inside and tries to sap the day of vigor and enthusiasm. Sometimes the biggest challenge is getting out of bed at all, let alone facing the truth that what is happening is not happening to someone else's family. Someone else's friends.
The hairs stand up along my neck when I see the fight is over my chunk of the world. No way will I give up my dividends even as reality pushes them aside. No way, no how.
Anxiety constantly drones in my ear ...
Why
all paths have led to the same place
where it is dark with worry
while the world turns a cold shoulder
and takes from us our plan for the future
and we have to fight over the scraps
Enough of the whys and wherefores! In my sleep, I scream Come and try, sucker! Bring it on.
Mar 24, 2012
Occupy MyHome
This today from the AP wire service:
3.24.12: NEW YORK -- Bank of America says it has begun a pilot program offering some of its mortgage customers who are facing foreclosure a chance to stay in their homes by becoming renters instead of owners.
(Let me condense the plan here: For 1,000 BofA customers in AZ, NV and NY, the bank will take back the title, lower the rent to below prevailing rent for similar properties, and pick up insurance and taxes. The lucky occupants can remain in their homes for up to 3 years.)
If the pilot works out, I presume by that to mean homeowners do not set fire to the house or the bank, it will be expanded nationwide to (in their words) "stabilize property values" in communities where a lot of empty homes are falling into disrepair, to "curtail neighborhood blight."
----------
I've got a question.
If only a couple of conglomerates control all the meat production and processing...
and if only a few more own all the grocery chains...
and a few others the petrol and utilities...
and the insurance companies...
and the government is now trying to join in
with nationalized healthcare...
and the banks now will snatch up a full quarter of the homes
in the most desirable places to live ...
how are we protecting our free
enterprise and democratic systems
of individual rights and opportunities?
Seems to me we're being set up to be beholdin' to a nationalized version of The Company Store.
3.24.12: NEW YORK -- Bank of America says it has begun a pilot program offering some of its mortgage customers who are facing foreclosure a chance to stay in their homes by becoming renters instead of owners.
(Let me condense the plan here: For 1,000 BofA customers in AZ, NV and NY, the bank will take back the title, lower the rent to below prevailing rent for similar properties, and pick up insurance and taxes. The lucky occupants can remain in their homes for up to 3 years.)
If the pilot works out, I presume by that to mean homeowners do not set fire to the house or the bank, it will be expanded nationwide to (in their words) "stabilize property values" in communities where a lot of empty homes are falling into disrepair, to "curtail neighborhood blight."
----------
I've got a question.
If only a couple of conglomerates control all the meat production and processing...
and if only a few more own all the grocery chains...
and a few others the petrol and utilities...
and the insurance companies...
and the government is now trying to join in
with nationalized healthcare...
and the banks now will snatch up a full quarter of the homes
in the most desirable places to live ...
how are we protecting our free
enterprise and democratic systems
of individual rights and opportunities?
Seems to me we're being set up to be beholdin' to a nationalized version of The Company Store.
Mar 22, 2012
Gung-Ho-Ness
I've been on a reading kick. I honestly run hot and cold on reading, although I enjoy it. I'm an action verb - noise and activity - so I tend to get lazy about it. But when the mind chatter is deafening, I turn to books in a quick succession of great reads: Half Broke Horses, Little Heathens, The Art of Racing in the Rain, The Book of Bright Ideas, and now, Merle's Door.
I've also taken 3 baths with a little spritzes of perfume in the water, and even lit a candle once as I sunk into the hot hot amniotic-like retreat. And get this: all before work.
How very odd.
The hubs and I tackle everything together. But when he's a stressball, I seek out Momma J for advice and balance. I'm pretty sure someone *important* knighted her life's cheerleader. Even as health issues creep into her life and impact it significantly, her voice is so cheerful and sweet when she tries to complain about it, that you are left with the impression that she doesn't really mind. That's because she is the gung-ho-highness.
LOL
The baths and books and candles are my way of seeking balance, so I can find my own gung-ho-ness. Here in the safety of a good read and hot water I will pass the time and improve my attitude.
I definitely go out of my way to take on others' troubles when I feel troubled, because it feels good to do that and lightens my load. I enjoy spending some of the morning in contemplation and prayer for others.
Another friend's mom passed yesterday, and beautifully slipped without pain into Heaven. It was abrupt like the snap of a whip, just a couple of days from start to finish, and the daughters are left dazed and shocked. But in talking with them later, I saw how much easier it is to let go when you have had a great lifelong relationship and watched them live an exemplary life.
Mind chatter: cut it out! I will find my version of Momma J's gung-ho-ness, so help me God. Get it; got it; good.
I've also taken 3 baths with a little spritzes of perfume in the water, and even lit a candle once as I sunk into the hot hot amniotic-like retreat. And get this: all before work.
How very odd.
The hubs and I tackle everything together. But when he's a stressball, I seek out Momma J for advice and balance. I'm pretty sure someone *important* knighted her life's cheerleader. Even as health issues creep into her life and impact it significantly, her voice is so cheerful and sweet when she tries to complain about it, that you are left with the impression that she doesn't really mind. That's because she is the gung-ho-highness.
LOL
The baths and books and candles are my way of seeking balance, so I can find my own gung-ho-ness. Here in the safety of a good read and hot water I will pass the time and improve my attitude.
I definitely go out of my way to take on others' troubles when I feel troubled, because it feels good to do that and lightens my load. I enjoy spending some of the morning in contemplation and prayer for others.
Another friend's mom passed yesterday, and beautifully slipped without pain into Heaven. It was abrupt like the snap of a whip, just a couple of days from start to finish, and the daughters are left dazed and shocked. But in talking with them later, I saw how much easier it is to let go when you have had a great lifelong relationship and watched them live an exemplary life.
Mind chatter: cut it out! I will find my version of Momma J's gung-ho-ness, so help me God. Get it; got it; good.
Mar 21, 2012
Pride Goeth Before the Fall
It's evaluation time at work, a time of reflection and the earnest wish I could evaluate my supervisor the way she is evaluating me. :) I have the best Sup in the world.
The hubs' job is winding down, the company bankrupt from decisions made that he had nothing to do with and no power to solve. For too long he's been the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke, selling like crazy to keep sales on the board and hope in the air.
The owners' instructions have been, and I quote, sell sell sell. And putting aside the integrity of knowingly bidding jobs there was no way to honor, that's just what he's done. The irony here is the company still holds the #1 Distributorship for sales in the US as it sinks in quicksand.
Someone on the outside helped interpret that for us. Why keep selling? Because the company's assets are in the backlog of jobs, which are sellable opportunities. When the company folds and investors come in, they will sell the jobs at a discount and other companies will snap up the chance to be the guys on the white horse saving the day. You've got to admit that is great PR.
It has occurred to us the owner could do that now, sell the backlog and bring the company solvent again, not displace workers, and get on with the hard work of rebuilding the company's reputation and credibility. He's an arrogant guy and would never face that, so instead he's instructed his minions to work hard as he slips out the back.
Time will tell how the investors will fare in all of this. But I know how the employees will do. Other than believing in the work-is-its-own-reward ethic, and collecting 3/5ths of a normal paycheck, all the employees will get out of this is a bad taste in their mouth as they desperately try to stay off the stats of the unemployed for another few weeks.
The hubs' job is winding down, the company bankrupt from decisions made that he had nothing to do with and no power to solve. For too long he's been the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke, selling like crazy to keep sales on the board and hope in the air.
The owners' instructions have been, and I quote, sell sell sell. And putting aside the integrity of knowingly bidding jobs there was no way to honor, that's just what he's done. The irony here is the company still holds the #1 Distributorship for sales in the US as it sinks in quicksand.
Someone on the outside helped interpret that for us. Why keep selling? Because the company's assets are in the backlog of jobs, which are sellable opportunities. When the company folds and investors come in, they will sell the jobs at a discount and other companies will snap up the chance to be the guys on the white horse saving the day. You've got to admit that is great PR.
It has occurred to us the owner could do that now, sell the backlog and bring the company solvent again, not displace workers, and get on with the hard work of rebuilding the company's reputation and credibility. He's an arrogant guy and would never face that, so instead he's instructed his minions to work hard as he slips out the back.
Time will tell how the investors will fare in all of this. But I know how the employees will do. Other than believing in the work-is-its-own-reward ethic, and collecting 3/5ths of a normal paycheck, all the employees will get out of this is a bad taste in their mouth as they desperately try to stay off the stats of the unemployed for another few weeks.
Mar 18, 2012
the change-it-up blues
A winter storm dumped tons of snow last night, down as low as 1500 ft. (Auburn). We got married in Auburn, a quaint little mining town of antique shops, restaurants and bookstores. Just like that, what was familiar is dressed up with a fresh coat of Look! Change!
I love the Fall, that glorious umbrella of summer shade that begins its transformation from green to yellow and red to brown. Leaves soothingly trickle down on the wind and gather in swirls at our feet in a crunchy, savory transition. The windows under the big shade tree gradually brighten as we peek between branches, and the room cools and fills with light.
So many places have defined seasons - but not where I live. Our winter sucks. It's fall without the leaves and spring without the green burst of life. Winter here is windy and rainy and sunny and dark, with quick freezes inbetween. It's no wonder the cherry blossoms and daffodils pop out in February rather than April and get shot down.
We have rhythmless seasons, and fall out of tune with what's going on. Our bugs don't die. We have mosquitos in February and flies in December. Early summer trickles into Indian summer, pours into fall and blows through winter.
Change is like that. It is abrupt and terrifying sometimes like eastern seasons, when there's no choice but to deal with it. But more often it is gradual and gentle as a lamb, so subtle in fact, that we scarcely notice it with our busy days and evenings immersed in a good book. By the time it registers on the radar, hey something is different, the jig is up.
Had we been paying attention, we would have seen a thousand subtle unconscious changes we accepted, compass realignments that charted the course to where we are standing. More than likely it's only when spring bursts forth that we look around in astonishment, saying, What, Spring? Again?
I love the Fall, that glorious umbrella of summer shade that begins its transformation from green to yellow and red to brown. Leaves soothingly trickle down on the wind and gather in swirls at our feet in a crunchy, savory transition. The windows under the big shade tree gradually brighten as we peek between branches, and the room cools and fills with light.
So many places have defined seasons - but not where I live. Our winter sucks. It's fall without the leaves and spring without the green burst of life. Winter here is windy and rainy and sunny and dark, with quick freezes inbetween. It's no wonder the cherry blossoms and daffodils pop out in February rather than April and get shot down.
We have rhythmless seasons, and fall out of tune with what's going on. Our bugs don't die. We have mosquitos in February and flies in December. Early summer trickles into Indian summer, pours into fall and blows through winter.
Change is like that. It is abrupt and terrifying sometimes like eastern seasons, when there's no choice but to deal with it. But more often it is gradual and gentle as a lamb, so subtle in fact, that we scarcely notice it with our busy days and evenings immersed in a good book. By the time it registers on the radar, hey something is different, the jig is up.
Had we been paying attention, we would have seen a thousand subtle unconscious changes we accepted, compass realignments that charted the course to where we are standing. More than likely it's only when spring bursts forth that we look around in astonishment, saying, What, Spring? Again?
Mar 13, 2012
And Also With You
Being *this age* is a blessing. My grandmother didn't live this long, and a few friends have been lost along the way, way too soon.
I like that life has taught the difference between what seems important and what really is; why being nice is better than seeming nice; and that the trail of someone's life always leads somewhere.
I have a friend, that's all I'll say about the gal who got me through the tough comprehensive exams in college. We've been friends for 39 years, an astonishing 68% of my life.
I uncomfortably lay in bed sometimes and as I adjust my position wonder what it would be like not to be able to do that. I stand in front of the mirror washing my face and brushing my teeth, knowing that she never has. The invisible things we do for ourselves are her biggest challenges.
But she shines brightly elsewhere. Life has not been easy but she grabbed it with gusto anyway. She had to wait for what she wanted but she traveled overseas; she moved away from home; she met and married the love of her life; she found opportunities and purpose in outreach and blogging about her faith.
The challenges of age and health and finances plague us now and I think of her often, how she faces obstacles and dissolves them away, hoping I am forged of the same steel.
She and her husband are on our minds this morning, as we project our energy and love over the miles, to strengthen them in the days ahead.
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."
~Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, 1894
I like that life has taught the difference between what seems important and what really is; why being nice is better than seeming nice; and that the trail of someone's life always leads somewhere.
I have a friend, that's all I'll say about the gal who got me through the tough comprehensive exams in college. We've been friends for 39 years, an astonishing 68% of my life.
I uncomfortably lay in bed sometimes and as I adjust my position wonder what it would be like not to be able to do that. I stand in front of the mirror washing my face and brushing my teeth, knowing that she never has. The invisible things we do for ourselves are her biggest challenges.
But she shines brightly elsewhere. Life has not been easy but she grabbed it with gusto anyway. She had to wait for what she wanted but she traveled overseas; she moved away from home; she met and married the love of her life; she found opportunities and purpose in outreach and blogging about her faith.
The challenges of age and health and finances plague us now and I think of her often, how she faces obstacles and dissolves them away, hoping I am forged of the same steel.
She and her husband are on our minds this morning, as we project our energy and love over the miles, to strengthen them in the days ahead.
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."
~Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, 1894
Mar 11, 2012
Transitions! Transitions!
We were given new computers at work. It has all sorts of extra stuff and increased power and responsiveness. It has the upgraded Windows 7. I sure hope Microsoft didn't cut the company a deal because it's a dog of a program and tomorrow will put out version 7.125 that fixes all the bugs in the one I just got.
It's black and sleek with a new car smell. I turn it on and sloop! on comes the screen and in a quarter of the time the log in appears. Whoa: that BMW is quick on that curve and I'm used to the old model Toyota.
Some things are generally the same, but oh boy some are not. With this go round, "they" have grouped things in these weird little clusters at the top of the page. That is especially true in Excel which I use predominantly. You can no longer just click on the icon at the top to highlight a square or freeze the top row for a scroll down. You have to find it, to think the way the geekers think, and figure out how it is grouped. And seriously, have a pad and pen handy, because once you spend a bunch of time finding it, most assurredly next time you will have forgotten where it is.
My mom used to set up her address book interestingly. Andy Williams was in the A's and sometimes in the W's and sometimes under C because they met at church. (I wonder what made me think of that.)
Anyway, yada yada, more transitions. But I love the quick download of pdf files with lightening speed, and split frame excel spreadsheets to toggle between them. It's so good I probably don't need that 2nd screen anymore because of that, so the desk is a little more spacious. I now have a shiny new DVD player and the speakers actually work, so really I'm set.
They even transfered over all the Favorites and photos. So my buddy at work had just gotten an upgrade the day prior and I observed her working off both computers for awhile: hunched over a laptop and her new desktop sitting behind.
When she finally came up for air and converted over, I found her wandering around looking for her printed documents, only to realize that she hadn't connected the printer yet.
My printer problems were different. My default settings were to a Dell printer (3) which I assumed was what I printed to before. I printed six or eight things and have yet to find them. I added paper to every printer up and down the hall, and that's pretty much the extent of my technical printer expertise unless you want me to turn it off.
Our printers are networked statewide, so I concluded my docs are probably at an office in Bakersfield with people scratching their heads.
It's black and sleek with a new car smell. I turn it on and sloop! on comes the screen and in a quarter of the time the log in appears. Whoa: that BMW is quick on that curve and I'm used to the old model Toyota.
Some things are generally the same, but oh boy some are not. With this go round, "they" have grouped things in these weird little clusters at the top of the page. That is especially true in Excel which I use predominantly. You can no longer just click on the icon at the top to highlight a square or freeze the top row for a scroll down. You have to find it, to think the way the geekers think, and figure out how it is grouped. And seriously, have a pad and pen handy, because once you spend a bunch of time finding it, most assurredly next time you will have forgotten where it is.
My mom used to set up her address book interestingly. Andy Williams was in the A's and sometimes in the W's and sometimes under C because they met at church. (I wonder what made me think of that.)
Anyway, yada yada, more transitions. But I love the quick download of pdf files with lightening speed, and split frame excel spreadsheets to toggle between them. It's so good I probably don't need that 2nd screen anymore because of that, so the desk is a little more spacious. I now have a shiny new DVD player and the speakers actually work, so really I'm set.
They even transfered over all the Favorites and photos. So my buddy at work had just gotten an upgrade the day prior and I observed her working off both computers for awhile: hunched over a laptop and her new desktop sitting behind.
When she finally came up for air and converted over, I found her wandering around looking for her printed documents, only to realize that she hadn't connected the printer yet.
My printer problems were different. My default settings were to a Dell printer (3) which I assumed was what I printed to before. I printed six or eight things and have yet to find them. I added paper to every printer up and down the hall, and that's pretty much the extent of my technical printer expertise unless you want me to turn it off.
Our printers are networked statewide, so I concluded my docs are probably at an office in Bakersfield with people scratching their heads.
Mar 10, 2012
Little Red Numbers
I got up early and did a little spring cleaning. I went through my inbox, all 1,387 messages, and labeled and organized the keeper messages and nuked the rest. And then I went through the sent box and did the same. And then on to the trash, for a final farewell. Goodbye!
I popped back on to survey the cleansing process and was presented with half a page of twenty four current emails. And there was a ridiculous pang of lonesomeness for missing the comfortable clutter of old emails. WhatEver, brain.
That's online for ya! Those addictive little red numbers above the facebook icons that greet you with the sentiment: you were missed, and here is proof. I love that moment just before you click on it, when it feels like holding a card that came in the mail. Someone was thinking of me: let's see who!
But I hate it, too.
Facebook's success is about the clicks it pulls from you, and that means faking you out. Sometimes those little red numbers aren't for you at all, but for someone you know who knows someone's friend's son. I don't need to know/see/read that!!! But that's the game.
Sometimes my willpower is strong and I don't click on those numbers and leave those red tags hanging there unfulfilled. To be powerful and in control. Infuriatingly they hang there, temptingly, knowing I will eventually give in.
It will drive you insane if you're into that sort of thing. Which I am. But you didn't hear it from me.
I popped back on to survey the cleansing process and was presented with half a page of twenty four current emails. And there was a ridiculous pang of lonesomeness for missing the comfortable clutter of old emails. WhatEver, brain.
That's online for ya! Those addictive little red numbers above the facebook icons that greet you with the sentiment: you were missed, and here is proof. I love that moment just before you click on it, when it feels like holding a card that came in the mail. Someone was thinking of me: let's see who!
But I hate it, too.
Facebook's success is about the clicks it pulls from you, and that means faking you out. Sometimes those little red numbers aren't for you at all, but for someone you know who knows someone's friend's son. I don't need to know/see/read that!!! But that's the game.
Sometimes my willpower is strong and I don't click on those numbers and leave those red tags hanging there unfulfilled. To be powerful and in control. Infuriatingly they hang there, temptingly, knowing I will eventually give in.
It will drive you insane if you're into that sort of thing. Which I am. But you didn't hear it from me.
Mar 9, 2012
Reely Cool
Three years ago, Tonya Ritchie went to a Salvation Army store in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada and bought a purple suitcase for $5.
Ritchie, who was in St. John's to attend a friend's wedding, bought the bag to cart some frozen fish back home to Shelburne, Ontario, reports the Star.
Tucked in the bag’s front pocket — zipped shut and stored in her attic for much of the time since then — were three 8 mm film reels containing the childhood memories of a friend, Janet Piper, 51, who lives just three doors down. Incidentally, St. John's is over a thousand miles away from Shelburne.
It wasn't until this January that she realized what an incredible find she had on her hands. Retrieving the bag from the attic for an upcoming trip, Ritchie -- who had not thought to open the front pockets before -- discovered the reels by chance. The reels were labeled to a Mr. James Brander of Glen Williams, Ontario.
Ritchie realized this was somebody's memories, and if they were hers she would want them. Ritchie knew her good friend and neighbor, Janet Piper, 51, grew up in Glen Williams. Intrigued, Ritchie's husband showed Piper's husband the reels. What happened next seems to come right out of a novel.
James Brander was Piper's father. He died nine years ago. And the reels? They documented Piper's childhood with footage from her parents' trip to Disney World, a birthday party and a New Year's celebration.
"We laughed, we cried, we hugged. We were a little freaked out."
No one knows how the reels got to Newfoundland, nor does anyone in Piper's family recognize the purple suitcase.
"It is just bizarre, the chances of me picking it up is crazy," Ritchie said of the purple suitcase.
"To give (Janet) back a piece of her dad is more than I can ever put into words. It is the best five bucks I've ever spent."
Ritchie, who was in St. John's to attend a friend's wedding, bought the bag to cart some frozen fish back home to Shelburne, Ontario, reports the Star.
Tucked in the bag’s front pocket — zipped shut and stored in her attic for much of the time since then — were three 8 mm film reels containing the childhood memories of a friend, Janet Piper, 51, who lives just three doors down. Incidentally, St. John's is over a thousand miles away from Shelburne.
It wasn't until this January that she realized what an incredible find she had on her hands. Retrieving the bag from the attic for an upcoming trip, Ritchie -- who had not thought to open the front pockets before -- discovered the reels by chance. The reels were labeled to a Mr. James Brander of Glen Williams, Ontario.
Ritchie realized this was somebody's memories, and if they were hers she would want them. Ritchie knew her good friend and neighbor, Janet Piper, 51, grew up in Glen Williams. Intrigued, Ritchie's husband showed Piper's husband the reels. What happened next seems to come right out of a novel.
James Brander was Piper's father. He died nine years ago. And the reels? They documented Piper's childhood with footage from her parents' trip to Disney World, a birthday party and a New Year's celebration.
"We laughed, we cried, we hugged. We were a little freaked out."
No one knows how the reels got to Newfoundland, nor does anyone in Piper's family recognize the purple suitcase.
"It is just bizarre, the chances of me picking it up is crazy," Ritchie said of the purple suitcase.
"To give (Janet) back a piece of her dad is more than I can ever put into words. It is the best five bucks I've ever spent."
Mar 6, 2012
The Great Reboot
Western Civilisation: Decline – or Fall?
By Niall Ferguson
As a freshman historian at Oxford back in 1982, I was required to read Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ever since that first encounter with the greatest of all historians, I have pondered the question whether or not the modern West could succumb to degenerative tendencies similar to the ones described so vividly by Gibbon. My most recent book, Civilization: The West and the Rest attempts an answer to that question.
The good news is that I do not believe that Western civilization is in some kind of gradual, inexorable decline. In my view, civilizations do not rise, fall, and then gently decline, as inevitably and predictably as the four seasons or the seven ages of man. History is not one smooth, parabolic curve after another. The bad news is that its shape is more like an exponentially steepening slope that quite suddenly drops off like a cliff.
To see what I mean, pay a visit to Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas. In 1530 the Incas were the masters of all they surveyed from the heights of the Peruvian Andes. Within less than a decade, foreign invaders with horses, gunpowder, and lethal diseases had smashed their empire to smithereens. Today tourists gawp at the ruins that remain.
The notion that civilizations do not decline but collapse inspired the anthropologist Jared Diamond's 2005 book, Collapse. But Diamond focused, fashionably, on man-made environmental disasters as the causes of collapse. As a historian, I take a broader view. My point is that when you look back on the history of past civilizations, a striking feature is the speed with which most of them collapsed, regardless of the cause.
The Roman Empire did not decline and fall over a millennium, as Gibbon's monumental work seemed to suggest. It collapsed within a few decades in the early fifth century, tipped over the edge of chaos by barbarian invaders and internal divisions. In the space of a generation, the vast imperial metropolis of Rome fell into disrepair, the aqueducts broken, the splendid marketplaces deserted. The Ming dynasty's rule in China also fell apart with extraordinary speed in the mid–17th century, succumbing to internal strife and external invasion. Again, the transition from equipoise to anarchy took little more than a decade.
A more recent and familiar example of precipitous decline is, of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union. And, if you still doubt that collapse comes suddenly, just think of how the postcolonial dictatorships of North Africa and the Middle East imploded this year. Twelve months ago, Messrs. Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Gaddafi seemed secure in their gaudy palaces. Here yesterday, gone today.
What all these collapsed powers have in common is that the complex social systems that underpinned them suddenly ceased to function. One minute rulers had legitimacy in the eyes of their people; the next they did not. This process is a familiar one to students of financial markets. Even as I write, it is far from clear that the European Monetary Union can be salvaged from the dramatic collapse of confidence in the fiscal policies of its peripheral member states. In the realm of power, as in the domain of the bond vigilantes, you are fine until you are not fine—and when you're not fine, you are suddenly in a terrifying death spiral.
The West first surged ahead of the Rest after about 1500 thanks to a series of institutional innovations that (to entice younger readers) I call the "killer applications":
1.Competition. Europe was politically fragmented into multiple monarchies and republics, which were in turn internally divided into competing corporate entities, among them the ancestors of modern business corporations.
2.The Scientific Revolution. All the major 17th-century breakthroughs in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and biology happened in Western Europe.
3.The Rule of Law and Representative Government. An optimal system of social and political order emerged in the English-speaking world, based on private-property rights and the representation of property owners in elected legislatures.
4.Modern Medicine. Nearly all the major 19th- and 20th-century breakthroughs in health care were made by Western Europeans and North Americans.
5.The Consumer Society. The Industrial Revolution took place where there was both a supply of productivity-enhancing technologies and a demand for more, better, and cheaper goods, beginning with cotton garments.
6.The Work Ethic. Westerners were the first people in the world to combine more extensive and intensive labor with higher savings rates, permitting sustained capital accumulation.
For hundreds of years, these killer apps were essentially monopolized by Europeans and their cousins who settled in North America and Australasia. They are the best explanation for what economic historians call "the great divergence": the astonishing gap that arose between Western standards of living and those in the rest of the world. In 1500 the average Chinese was richer than the average North American. By the late 1970s the American was more than 20 times richer than the Chinese.
Westerners not only grew richer than "Resterners." They grew taller, healthier, and longer-lived. They also grew more powerful. By the early 20th century, just a dozen Western empires—including the United States—controlled 58 percent of the world's land surface and population, and a staggering 74 percent of the global economy.
Beginning with Japan, however, one non-Western society after another has worked out that these apps can be downloaded and installed in non-Western operating systems. That explains about half the catching up that we have witnessed in our lifetimes, especially since the onset of economic reforms in China in 1978.
I am not one of those people filled with angst at the thought of a world in which the average American is no longer vastly richer than the average Chinese. I welcome the escape of hundreds of millions of Asians from poverty, not to mention the improvements we are seeing in South America and parts of Africa. But there is a second, more insidious cause of the "great reconvergence," which I do deplore—and that is the tendency of Western societies to delete their own killer apps.
Who's got the work ethic now? The average South Korean works about 39 percent more hours per week than the average American. The school year in South Korea is 220 days long, compared with 180 days in the U.S. And you do not have to spend too long at any major U.S. university to know which students really drive themselves: the Asians and Asian-Americans. The consumer society? 26 of the 30 biggest shopping malls in the world are now in emerging markets, mostly in Asia. Modern medicine? As a share of gross domestic product, the United States spends twice what Japan spends on health care and more than three times what China spends. Yet life expectancy in the U.S. has risen from 70 to 78 in the past 50 years, compared with leaps from 68 to 83 in Japan and from 43 to 73 in China.
The rule of law? For a real eye-opener, take a look at the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) Executive Opinion Survey. On no fewer than 15 of 16 different issues relating to property rights and governance, the United States fares worse than Hong Kong. Indeed, the U.S. makes the global top 20 in only one area: investor protection. On every other count, its reputation is shockingly bad. The U.S. ranks 86th in the world for the costs imposed on business by organized crime, 50th for public trust in the ethics of politicians, 42nd for various forms of bribery, and 40th for standards of auditing and financial reporting.
What about science? U.S.-based scientists continue to walk off with plenty of Nobel Prizes each year. But Nobel winners are old men. The future belongs not to them but to today's teenagers. Here is another striking statistic. Every three years the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development's Program for International Student Assessment tests the educational attainment of 15-year-olds around the world. The latest data on "mathematical literacy" reveal that the gap between the world leaders—the students of Shanghai and Singapore—and their American counterparts is now as big as the gap between U.S. kids and teenagers in Albania and Tunisia.
The late, lamented Steve Jobs convinced Americans that the future would be "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." Yet statistics from the World Intellectual Property Organization show that already more patents originate in Japan than in the U.S., that South Korea overtook Germany to take third place in 2005, and that China has just overtaken Germany too.
Finally, there's competition, the original killer app that sent the fragmented West down a completely different path from monolithic imperial China. The WEF has conducted a comprehensive Global Competitiveness survey every year since 1979. Since the current methodology was adopted in 2004, the United States' average competitiveness score has fallen from 5.82 to 5.43, one of the steepest declines among developed economies. China's score, meanwhile, has leapt up from 4.29 to 4.90.
Not only is the U.S. less competitive abroad. Perhaps more disturbing is the decline of meaningful competition at home, as the social mobility of the postwar era has given way to an extraordinary social polarization. You do not have to be an Occupy Wall Street activist to believe that the American super-rich elite—the 1 percent that collects 20 percent of the income—has become dangerously divorced from the rest of society, especially from the underclass at the bottom of the income distribution.
But if we are headed toward collapse, what will it look like? An upsurge in civil unrest and crime, as happened in the 1970s? A loss of faith on the part of investors and a sudden Greek-style leap in government borrowing costs? How about a spike of violence in the Middle East, from Iraq to Afghanistan, as insurgents capitalize on our troop withdrawals? Or a paralyzing cyberattack from the rising Asian superpower we complacently underrate?
Is there anything we can do to prevent such disasters? Social scientist Charles Murray calls for a "civic great awakening"—a return to the original values of the American republic. He has a point. Far more than in Europe, most Americans remain instinctively loyal to the killer applications of Western ascendancy, from competition all the way through to the work ethic. They know the country has the right software. They just cannot understand why it is running so damn slowly.
What we need to do is to delete the viruses that have crept into our system: the anticompetitive quasi monopolies that blight everything from banking to public education; the politically correct pseudosciences and soft subjects that deflect good students away from hard science; the lobbyists who subvert the rule of law for the sake of the special interests they represent—to say nothing of our crazily dysfunctional system of health care, our overleveraged personal finances, and our newfound unemployment ethic.
Then we need to download the updates that are running more successfully in other countries, from Finland to New Zealand, from Denmark to Hong Kong, from Singapore to Sweden. And finally we need to reboot our whole system.
Voters and politicians alike dare not postpone the big reboot. If what we are risking is not decline but downright collapse, then the time frame may even be tighter than one election cycle.
By Niall Ferguson
As a freshman historian at Oxford back in 1982, I was required to read Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ever since that first encounter with the greatest of all historians, I have pondered the question whether or not the modern West could succumb to degenerative tendencies similar to the ones described so vividly by Gibbon. My most recent book, Civilization: The West and the Rest attempts an answer to that question.
The good news is that I do not believe that Western civilization is in some kind of gradual, inexorable decline. In my view, civilizations do not rise, fall, and then gently decline, as inevitably and predictably as the four seasons or the seven ages of man. History is not one smooth, parabolic curve after another. The bad news is that its shape is more like an exponentially steepening slope that quite suddenly drops off like a cliff.
To see what I mean, pay a visit to Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas. In 1530 the Incas were the masters of all they surveyed from the heights of the Peruvian Andes. Within less than a decade, foreign invaders with horses, gunpowder, and lethal diseases had smashed their empire to smithereens. Today tourists gawp at the ruins that remain.
The notion that civilizations do not decline but collapse inspired the anthropologist Jared Diamond's 2005 book, Collapse. But Diamond focused, fashionably, on man-made environmental disasters as the causes of collapse. As a historian, I take a broader view. My point is that when you look back on the history of past civilizations, a striking feature is the speed with which most of them collapsed, regardless of the cause.
The Roman Empire did not decline and fall over a millennium, as Gibbon's monumental work seemed to suggest. It collapsed within a few decades in the early fifth century, tipped over the edge of chaos by barbarian invaders and internal divisions. In the space of a generation, the vast imperial metropolis of Rome fell into disrepair, the aqueducts broken, the splendid marketplaces deserted. The Ming dynasty's rule in China also fell apart with extraordinary speed in the mid–17th century, succumbing to internal strife and external invasion. Again, the transition from equipoise to anarchy took little more than a decade.
A more recent and familiar example of precipitous decline is, of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union. And, if you still doubt that collapse comes suddenly, just think of how the postcolonial dictatorships of North Africa and the Middle East imploded this year. Twelve months ago, Messrs. Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Gaddafi seemed secure in their gaudy palaces. Here yesterday, gone today.
What all these collapsed powers have in common is that the complex social systems that underpinned them suddenly ceased to function. One minute rulers had legitimacy in the eyes of their people; the next they did not. This process is a familiar one to students of financial markets. Even as I write, it is far from clear that the European Monetary Union can be salvaged from the dramatic collapse of confidence in the fiscal policies of its peripheral member states. In the realm of power, as in the domain of the bond vigilantes, you are fine until you are not fine—and when you're not fine, you are suddenly in a terrifying death spiral.
The West first surged ahead of the Rest after about 1500 thanks to a series of institutional innovations that (to entice younger readers) I call the "killer applications":
1.Competition. Europe was politically fragmented into multiple monarchies and republics, which were in turn internally divided into competing corporate entities, among them the ancestors of modern business corporations.
2.The Scientific Revolution. All the major 17th-century breakthroughs in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and biology happened in Western Europe.
3.The Rule of Law and Representative Government. An optimal system of social and political order emerged in the English-speaking world, based on private-property rights and the representation of property owners in elected legislatures.
4.Modern Medicine. Nearly all the major 19th- and 20th-century breakthroughs in health care were made by Western Europeans and North Americans.
5.The Consumer Society. The Industrial Revolution took place where there was both a supply of productivity-enhancing technologies and a demand for more, better, and cheaper goods, beginning with cotton garments.
6.The Work Ethic. Westerners were the first people in the world to combine more extensive and intensive labor with higher savings rates, permitting sustained capital accumulation.
For hundreds of years, these killer apps were essentially monopolized by Europeans and their cousins who settled in North America and Australasia. They are the best explanation for what economic historians call "the great divergence": the astonishing gap that arose between Western standards of living and those in the rest of the world. In 1500 the average Chinese was richer than the average North American. By the late 1970s the American was more than 20 times richer than the Chinese.
Westerners not only grew richer than "Resterners." They grew taller, healthier, and longer-lived. They also grew more powerful. By the early 20th century, just a dozen Western empires—including the United States—controlled 58 percent of the world's land surface and population, and a staggering 74 percent of the global economy.
Beginning with Japan, however, one non-Western society after another has worked out that these apps can be downloaded and installed in non-Western operating systems. That explains about half the catching up that we have witnessed in our lifetimes, especially since the onset of economic reforms in China in 1978.
I am not one of those people filled with angst at the thought of a world in which the average American is no longer vastly richer than the average Chinese. I welcome the escape of hundreds of millions of Asians from poverty, not to mention the improvements we are seeing in South America and parts of Africa. But there is a second, more insidious cause of the "great reconvergence," which I do deplore—and that is the tendency of Western societies to delete their own killer apps.
Who's got the work ethic now? The average South Korean works about 39 percent more hours per week than the average American. The school year in South Korea is 220 days long, compared with 180 days in the U.S. And you do not have to spend too long at any major U.S. university to know which students really drive themselves: the Asians and Asian-Americans. The consumer society? 26 of the 30 biggest shopping malls in the world are now in emerging markets, mostly in Asia. Modern medicine? As a share of gross domestic product, the United States spends twice what Japan spends on health care and more than three times what China spends. Yet life expectancy in the U.S. has risen from 70 to 78 in the past 50 years, compared with leaps from 68 to 83 in Japan and from 43 to 73 in China.
The rule of law? For a real eye-opener, take a look at the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) Executive Opinion Survey. On no fewer than 15 of 16 different issues relating to property rights and governance, the United States fares worse than Hong Kong. Indeed, the U.S. makes the global top 20 in only one area: investor protection. On every other count, its reputation is shockingly bad. The U.S. ranks 86th in the world for the costs imposed on business by organized crime, 50th for public trust in the ethics of politicians, 42nd for various forms of bribery, and 40th for standards of auditing and financial reporting.
What about science? U.S.-based scientists continue to walk off with plenty of Nobel Prizes each year. But Nobel winners are old men. The future belongs not to them but to today's teenagers. Here is another striking statistic. Every three years the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development's Program for International Student Assessment tests the educational attainment of 15-year-olds around the world. The latest data on "mathematical literacy" reveal that the gap between the world leaders—the students of Shanghai and Singapore—and their American counterparts is now as big as the gap between U.S. kids and teenagers in Albania and Tunisia.
The late, lamented Steve Jobs convinced Americans that the future would be "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." Yet statistics from the World Intellectual Property Organization show that already more patents originate in Japan than in the U.S., that South Korea overtook Germany to take third place in 2005, and that China has just overtaken Germany too.
Finally, there's competition, the original killer app that sent the fragmented West down a completely different path from monolithic imperial China. The WEF has conducted a comprehensive Global Competitiveness survey every year since 1979. Since the current methodology was adopted in 2004, the United States' average competitiveness score has fallen from 5.82 to 5.43, one of the steepest declines among developed economies. China's score, meanwhile, has leapt up from 4.29 to 4.90.
Not only is the U.S. less competitive abroad. Perhaps more disturbing is the decline of meaningful competition at home, as the social mobility of the postwar era has given way to an extraordinary social polarization. You do not have to be an Occupy Wall Street activist to believe that the American super-rich elite—the 1 percent that collects 20 percent of the income—has become dangerously divorced from the rest of society, especially from the underclass at the bottom of the income distribution.
But if we are headed toward collapse, what will it look like? An upsurge in civil unrest and crime, as happened in the 1970s? A loss of faith on the part of investors and a sudden Greek-style leap in government borrowing costs? How about a spike of violence in the Middle East, from Iraq to Afghanistan, as insurgents capitalize on our troop withdrawals? Or a paralyzing cyberattack from the rising Asian superpower we complacently underrate?
Is there anything we can do to prevent such disasters? Social scientist Charles Murray calls for a "civic great awakening"—a return to the original values of the American republic. He has a point. Far more than in Europe, most Americans remain instinctively loyal to the killer applications of Western ascendancy, from competition all the way through to the work ethic. They know the country has the right software. They just cannot understand why it is running so damn slowly.
What we need to do is to delete the viruses that have crept into our system: the anticompetitive quasi monopolies that blight everything from banking to public education; the politically correct pseudosciences and soft subjects that deflect good students away from hard science; the lobbyists who subvert the rule of law for the sake of the special interests they represent—to say nothing of our crazily dysfunctional system of health care, our overleveraged personal finances, and our newfound unemployment ethic.
Then we need to download the updates that are running more successfully in other countries, from Finland to New Zealand, from Denmark to Hong Kong, from Singapore to Sweden. And finally we need to reboot our whole system.
Voters and politicians alike dare not postpone the big reboot. If what we are risking is not decline but downright collapse, then the time frame may even be tighter than one election cycle.
Mar 5, 2012
Labels
There's hang ups going around. Title hangups, those places in the past where you had long and detailed titles that only reflected on you at a dinner party. Titles with a wink, because it isn't in stature or pay.
I've dabbled in being so many things, here and there, a fancy administrative this 'n that, executive and library work, co-ed, donut slinger, and cub scout leader. They are my decopague.
I move every 5-6 years. My hair was brown, then gray, then blonde, then a hybrid, and now it's somewhere inbetween. I have six less teeth than I was born with. Thin then, not so thin now. No tattoos. One surgery scar. Three kids. One ex. A healthy crop of wrinkles.
Some of those labels do not define me in the present. And yet, the good and bad, big and small, silly and sound, proves an ability to adapt. The world can flex and not break. When it's time to pack up the wagon and get a move on for the next phase of the journey, I can.
The hubs and I are sure of it: phase I is over. But not us. We are stronger than ever.
I pray we keep fast the wisdom and devotion to those we love; and that it shows in the choices we make; and that we stay in tune with not only what we have the right to do, but what is right to do.
I've dabbled in being so many things, here and there, a fancy administrative this 'n that, executive and library work, co-ed, donut slinger, and cub scout leader. They are my decopague.
I move every 5-6 years. My hair was brown, then gray, then blonde, then a hybrid, and now it's somewhere inbetween. I have six less teeth than I was born with. Thin then, not so thin now. No tattoos. One surgery scar. Three kids. One ex. A healthy crop of wrinkles.
Some of those labels do not define me in the present. And yet, the good and bad, big and small, silly and sound, proves an ability to adapt. The world can flex and not break. When it's time to pack up the wagon and get a move on for the next phase of the journey, I can.
The hubs and I are sure of it: phase I is over. But not us. We are stronger than ever.
I pray we keep fast the wisdom and devotion to those we love; and that it shows in the choices we make; and that we stay in tune with not only what we have the right to do, but what is right to do.
Mar 2, 2012
Linda Rapp
A little old lady we happened to meet
As we sat in the sun with Sam at our feet
Came walking on by and on chance grabbed a seat.
She said she was searching for her family pet
Who couldn't come with her, she had to admit
For a hospital stay, in Auburn CA.
The Sheriff, he took her from under her nose
And told her he'd place her where she could repose
And wait for her owner whenever she chose.
She had no choice, really, and cried and was mad
But what could she do? Her health was quite bad
And one week turned into three weeks, which was sad.
On the day she was sprung she searched high and searched low
But no one could tell her where the dog had been stowed;
By then, she had no home or apartment to go.
So she stayed in a room in Placer CA
And searched and made calls, but they turned her away
She traveled the state til she hit Monterey
And that is how she came to be on our block
In a chair at our table in complete utter shock
And desperate to find her best friend and lost pup.
My heart lept to action, I had to step in
And so as we talked I began to fill in
Answers to questions and where to begin.
I promised to e-hunt as soon as I could
Find a hint of her dog, and I thought that I would,
But how would I reach her, and how could she call?
Because she had nothing, nothing at all.
She said she would call me to see what I found
(By the time we got home, her calls were profound.)
I said hold your horses: I'm just getting home!
But her heart was in pain and she couldn't let go
So I jumped on to help her and looked on my own.
I found what I think was her dog up near me
And a nice rescue center who knew the story
But now she was homeless and unsuitable, you see?
You're kidding me, right? My heart clutched a bit
as I nodded my head and bit on my lip.
Why not ask the dog if she's still a good fit?
But those are the rules and the dog has been placed
in a home with some stairs and a yard and some space.
I think the whole thing is a total disgrace.
My last glimpse of her down in old Monterey
was turning a corner, in a sad sort of way
No dog was beside her and nothing to say.
There's a little old woman alone and depressed,
who wanders the streets with her cane and her vest
No family to speak of, and feeling adrift.
As we sat in the sun with Sam at our feet
Came walking on by and on chance grabbed a seat.
She said she was searching for her family pet
Who couldn't come with her, she had to admit
For a hospital stay, in Auburn CA.
The Sheriff, he took her from under her nose
And told her he'd place her where she could repose
And wait for her owner whenever she chose.
She had no choice, really, and cried and was mad
But what could she do? Her health was quite bad
And one week turned into three weeks, which was sad.
On the day she was sprung she searched high and searched low
But no one could tell her where the dog had been stowed;
By then, she had no home or apartment to go.
So she stayed in a room in Placer CA
And searched and made calls, but they turned her away
She traveled the state til she hit Monterey
And that is how she came to be on our block
In a chair at our table in complete utter shock
And desperate to find her best friend and lost pup.
My heart lept to action, I had to step in
And so as we talked I began to fill in
Answers to questions and where to begin.
I promised to e-hunt as soon as I could
Find a hint of her dog, and I thought that I would,
But how would I reach her, and how could she call?
Because she had nothing, nothing at all.
She said she would call me to see what I found
(By the time we got home, her calls were profound.)
I said hold your horses: I'm just getting home!
But her heart was in pain and she couldn't let go
So I jumped on to help her and looked on my own.
I found what I think was her dog up near me
And a nice rescue center who knew the story
But now she was homeless and unsuitable, you see?
You're kidding me, right? My heart clutched a bit
as I nodded my head and bit on my lip.
Why not ask the dog if she's still a good fit?
But those are the rules and the dog has been placed
in a home with some stairs and a yard and some space.
I think the whole thing is a total disgrace.
My last glimpse of her down in old Monterey
was turning a corner, in a sad sort of way
No dog was beside her and nothing to say.
There's a little old woman alone and depressed,
who wanders the streets with her cane and her vest
No family to speak of, and feeling adrift.
Mar 1, 2012
2012 Blitz Fundraiser Calendar (ACS)
This calendar is part of my fundraising effort to promote local events. These are our family pets (you will recognize Sammy) from our region, and the Solano County unit who we are hosting until a new office is found. (Their building was involved in an electrical fire in January.)
The calendar proceeds will support the Big Bark of Sacramento, which is a 3 hour Relay walkathon with dogs. We and our pals will be enjoying the great company and weather on June 30th. If you would like to join us, ring me up!
Sam and Lucy
Brandi, Murray and Webster
Bijou
Snickers
Lola, Sherman and Lomax
Gretchen
Tootsie, Sammy and Sunshine
Mrs. Pepper O'Peabody
and Murray
Lucy, Bleu and Joey
Hennessey and Sunshine, Webster,
Gretchen and Monty
Monty
Sammy
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