Tie a yellow ribbon

My nephew, Ryan, was deployed to Iraq on Wednesday, May 25th. Kimmy (his mother, my sister) gave me a call to let me know that he arrived in Baghdad on Friday and would fly by helicopter to the base (he's a tank mechanic).  When I talked to him last weekend, he said he was excited, nervous, and it probably wouldn't hit him until later.  He'll most likely be in Iraq for the full year.  Our little man grew up fast.   

Picture taken on July 4th, 1995

Dead grass and more in the neighborhood on Halloween night.

Neighbors kneeding the camera.

Meet Ladybug and Little Dead Riding Hood,

and her brother the big bad wolf!

FINALLY a visit back east

I had a wonderful visit back east to visit family! My sister came down in the beginning of the week with Ryan and Ashley. Besides a visit with an ol' Travelers friend, I really had a nice time getting my parents settled into their "new" cottage. The remodel looks wonderful! It was really a wonderful week, despite my mom thinking that I worked the whole time. Like her neighbor Lucille says, "Don't wait so long next time!"

Cappuccino has Betty trained

It didn't take long for Betty to learn that Cappuccino demands to be groomed. And it didn't take long for Cappuccino to learn how to go up to Betty and ask nicely. Now he just needs to stop circling and moving away so she can do a proper job.

Truetts come to San Diego

Bill and Betty decided that they've had enough of New Hampshire winters and took Larry up on his offer that San Diego was a beautiful place to live. They moved out in July, which is the start of our "worst" season, when you have to run the air conditioner because it can get into the 90s. They really appreciate being able to live with us AND THE CATS! They weren't too thrilled with me taking their picture until I started mentioning the cats, then I got a smile out of both of them!

I had a craving to make cupcakes and I imagined my neighbor's would be willing to help. I gave Ian and Corrine the cookbook to look through: "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World." They chose a variation on the basic chocolate cupcake: Cookies and Cream cupcakes. I had to pick up some cocoa and Newman-O's and on Sunday afternoon, we got started. From batter to cookie on top it took us a little less than 2 hours. Ian is graduating 6th grade, so he saved the cupcakes for that celebration on Monday. He decorated his cupcake with a half cookie just like in the picture in the cookbook.

Zauchas in San Clemente

We got to see two college friends this spring, Randy and now Jim. Laurie and Jim were out in California this past week and we got to meet up in Orange County for dinner. Jim, Courtney, and Ryan met up with us on Thursday night for Mexican. It was a wonderful visit, their mini-me's are very special, and I'll just stick to posed people pictures versus candids.

Celebrate pi day!

Randy had a vacation planned to San Diego for some golf at Torrey Pines and baseball. He came out early to visit with us. We drove out to see the desert wildflowers by way of the mountain town of Julian. It was a perfect day for it, 55 degrees in Julian and 80 degrees when we got down to the desert. 4000 foot elevation change; it's like I flew in a plane and my ears popped. what?!

Julian is one place in Southern California where they can grow apples (a token amount) and a cottage industry of apple pie shops popped up. They import the apples for the pies. So here we are in Julian on March 14th, 03/14, eating pie on pi day, 3.14! I remember Randy saying that once but I forgot it. Hilarious, whoo-hoo!

SD Hospice Art Committee

I have been volunteering with San Diego Hospice and the Institute for Palliative Medicine for over three years now. I don't remember what introduced me to San Diego Hospice, but I aligned myself with the preeminent Hospice organization in the country. Once my workload increased, I could no longer devote the time and energy required of a Patient Care volunteer. Their website has a picture of the Intensive Care Center on the home page. But Hospice isn't a "place to go when you're dying," it's a philosophy of pain management and caring to improve quality of life at this stage.

About a year ago I began volunteering with the Art Committee assisting with the art rotation. Six times a year, paintings are rotated at the ICC. Artists pick up their work which was on exhibit for the prior two months and new artists bring in their work to be displayed for the next two months. We refer to this exchange as "rotation", not "hanging" although some hammering is done at the end of the morning to display the works. The Center is then open to the public the following weekend with an artists' reception with wine and cheese and a chance to meet the artists and purchase a painting. Their website has a picture of the facility on the home page.

A few months ago, two long-time fixtures of this event, the staff liaison and the Art Rotation coordinator retired after more than 10 years of service. The Art Rotation and Reception has improved and streamlined itself greatly in this period with everyone's input and assistance.

So it was no big deal when Gail asked if I would be willing to step in as Art Rotation coordinator. I was already bopping around performing the different tasks of the morning, learning the ropes as it were. If they needed a figurehead, I wouldn't mind. They failed to mention at the time that it included laundry duty! White gloves are worn by the people who help deliver the artwork to and from the artists and they would need washing before the next time. It also turns out that as coordinator, you are the point person if there are any questions, but my common sense has served me well.

At the end of the annual Art Committee meeting at the end of September, they awarded my common sense with this lovely silver clock engraved with "2008 SDH Art Committee Volunteer Of The Year." The Art Committee Chairman, Mary, encouraged me to open it (at the time I didn't know it was a clock.) The top swivels and I noticed a sticker, "Oh, look, it has a alarm so I won't be late to the next rotation!"

85th Birthday

Our neighbors, Angel and Yoli in black on the left, planned a surprise 85th birthday for Angel's dad, Leelo. It was a lovely gathering of friends and family. Many of their friends are musicians. Sam played some ballads on the guitar. Joe from Lucern didn't perform but made the music selections. As for Wayne, any story told with a British accent and hand gestures is funny.

Wailin' Sarah Palin

Photo Credit: We For Animals

D. A. Kolodenko's column, Presently Tense, in this week's San Diego Citybeat is titled, "Animal rights and wrongs -- Sarah Palin's Hypocritical Speechwriter." Matthew Scully wrote speeches for many Republicans including Sarah Palin's turn at the Republican National Convention. It's amazing that a person who penned a book (in 2003) titled, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy could pen a speech for a "lifelong animal killer."

Read the entire column here: Animal rights and wrongs

Sarah Palin's disregard and abuse of animal welfare has been reported by U.S. New and World Report, The Los Angeles Times, and the Huffington Post. Let's expose this wolf in sheep's clothing and the senseless violence she embodies.

I also want to share this email I received:

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following. Please read.

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler, September 5, 2008

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COMMENTS:

Thank you for publishing Eve Ensler’s letter and informing me about Sarah Palin vs animals. It has always been a mystery to me how one can say he loves God, yet hurts his creation.

End of Summer

Labor Day traditionally marks the end of summer and back to school. Here in San Diego, summer goes on for a couple more months. The pacific ocean and the land has warmed up to bring us many more days of warm summer-like temperatures.

So what did you do to mark the "end of summer"? Cynthia and I took a ride down to Mission Gorge and the old dam. Except that she took me "the back way" and I was whining as I am know to do when faced with a little endurance test and warm temperatures. We stopped at a trail head where a lot of mountain bikers were heading across this bridge. There's a number of trails out there for rugged bikes and their peddlers.

The San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park ended their summer hours on Labor Day weekend. Since we hadn't been up there in a few years, we drove to Escondido to the wild animal park. They've since added a balloon ride and extended their train ride, charging $20 and $15 respectively. Since we've been on the old train ride (when my sister was out visiting in, wow, 2005?) we passed on this one. Later in the day when we went, the temperatures were cooler and the lions were more playful. We also visited the elephants and gorillas. Was the gorilla thinking what I was, "when will this heat break?"

Visit from Oregon

Reba's nieces, Halley & Natalie are down from Oregon spending a whopping 17 days with their auntie. They came over for a swim on Sunday and had so much fun. They were laughing and swimming and playing and splashing. By the time they got out, it hit them; they were tired. They do hope to have time for another visit before they leave at the end of the month.

Happy Father's day

Happy Mother's Day! But I didn't get a mother's day photo. No mouse clutching a violet left on my back stoop. No other cat presents found in the house. It was a nice, quiet, relaxing day of little work. Eat, Nap, Play (or take a few walks, as we did.)

We've made up the word "Napazol" which is the spinal fluid in a cat which causes them to sleep 18 hours a day. When there are a few cats around us, we often succumb to the ambient Napazol.

Mother's Day update: Later in the day I did find a present on the bed. Wooster carries this fluffy tufted toy around in his mouth and makes that "mewling" sound. Usually it just makes it to the bedroom and each day I take it back out to the living room container of cat toys. Today it made it up on the bed. Sweethearts.

Make the best of it

Here's a picture of my parents when I last went back to visit 2 years ago. They're going through a difficult time right now with my dad's health failing and my mom as caregiver. It's a very difficult time as you can imagine, both physically and emotionally. I thank my aunt for being there to relieve my mom (for grocery shopping) and I thank both her and Allen for visiting with my dad. Thank you.

"Make the best of it. When you make the best of whatever you're focused upon, your future will be better than your now. If each moment you're making the best of what-is, no matter what it is, you make the best of it; make the best of it; make the best of it—your future just gets better and better and better, and better. "

Excerpted from a workshop in Boulder, CO on Saturday, June 7th, 2003
©1997-2007 Abraham-Hicks Publications.

Pick a peck of paintings

I met Kathryn through Organic Athlete. When I was shopping at People's Coop, I went upstairs to the deli and noticed that her paintings were on display! She paints sweet still lifes, lives? {smile} Here's a note from her:


Thanks for taking a look at my artwork! There's still time, the exhibit is up until May 9, so there are still more than 6 weeks left. So definitely do spread the word to anyone you think might be interested. I've sold a lot of work there, and as it sells, I replace it. I'm really enjoying it, getting all that great feedback.

Plus, a Writer's Collective from a local college was having a meeting there about a book that they're publishing, an anthology called "Hunger and Thirst". They saw my work there and contacted me, wondering if they could use my work on the book cover and within the text. So I said absolutely, and it's in the works now! Will be published in the fall. You can see a preliminary mock-up and links to more info about the book here: http://kathrynlaw.blogspot.com/2008/03/book-cover-mock-up.html

And, I just had another painting--a plein air landscape in Balboa Park-- accepted into a juried show in Fallbrook, opening this Friday. So things are going really well with the painting.

Now is the time to ask yourself

Why do you eat meat? The Humane Society of the United States investigated a Southern California slaughtering plant and documented many unfit cows being tortured and abused. Dr. Michael Greger explains in this video how these practices can contaminate a large quantity of meat. He even wrote in 2003 how USDA regulations do not go far enough.

While you many be outraged, disgusted, saddened by these practices, this is business and there is a demand for the product. By simply asking yourself at every meal: Do I need to eat this piece of meat? you are making a conscious decision to continue or to end these practices.

"Veganism in a nutshell" explains the top five reasons people go vegan (abstain from meat and animal products). What we choose to eat has an impact on human rights, animal rights & abuse, the environment, and our health. I first went vegetarian for the selfish reason of health. I choose to be vegan for the far-reaching impact it has on many facets of our lives.

You already don't eat much if any beef? Congratulations! So you know that you may lose your taste for a food after cutting it out for two weeks. Now how about showing some respect for chickens and fish, the "Rodney Dangerfields" of the animal world. Dr. Neal Barnard of PCRM discusses the benefits of a vegan diet on a variety of health issues, most recently diabetes.

You may choose to close your eyes, but please don't close your mind.

* * * * *

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 Wall Street Journal article on page B1 ("Oversite 'Flaw' Led to Meat Recall") explains factory farming as a business with suppliers and quotas: "The plant for years was a major buyer of older, spent dairy cows from the many dairy farms in the Inland Valley, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles." and "In a statement he gave to Chino police before he was arrested, Mr. Navarro said he felt pressure to ensure that 500 cows were slaughtered each day. If he didn't meet that quota, he said, Mr. Salas would get angry."

Home Sweet Home!

We closed on Monday, moved on Wednesday, and are rather settled in by Friday!

The close in California means escrow closed, loan funded; no documents to sign, no exchange of keys. The seller let us bring over a few fragile items that we didn't want handled by the movers. Otherwise, we had to amuse ourselves until Wednesday morning when the movers came.

Larry headed over with the four kitties at 8:00 a.m. while I stayed back at the condo to help the movers load up the truck. "Why did you get stuck with this?" one mover asked. Oh, no, Larry is on the receiving end. By 11:00 a.m., he called to say it's all unloaded. Wow! Worth every penny! We used their wardrobe boxes (which I had to load and Larry had to unload) to pack clothes right on the hanger, towels, sheets, bedding, and wacky loose items. That was six boxes already unloaded by the time I got home from my shift at the All Vegan store.

Nothing like a move to trigger that nesting instinct. I don't like the transition phase, living out of boxes, so I worked like a true domestic godess to clean and get everything unpacked. Getting the kitties settled was important too. Wooster may loose a little of his belly; he's really loving the extra running room. Percy the lounge lizard managed to get his many hours of sleep on the bed. Puffin the racoon is more nocturnal and mostly hid under the bed until night when he came out to explore. And as you can see by the picture below, Ccino adjusted very nicely just in time to enjoy a sunspot.

Berubes visit San Diego

Smile! We hooked up with David and Ellen on Friday near the end of their vacation. They still hadn't seen the ocean, so we took them to Ocean Beach and Point Loma. Ellen walked in the chilly ocean at Dog Beach and I rinsed off some pup-kiss (dog slobber). I always have to question the wisdom of walking on Dog Beach barefoot, but I do it every time anyway.

We then drove over to Sunset Cliffs where this picture was taken. It was overcast, so no sunset at these cliffs tonight. It's always fun to see family. Even though we couldn't quite remember the last time we saw each other (at least 10 years ago?), it felt like yesterday. Thanks for the wonderful visit!

Draining the French Press

We three were discussing what we were doing this coming weekend.

"You going running on Sunday?"

"Yup", says Dustine. "Are you?"

Well, I can't run with my ankles, my bike barely fits in the car, all I can do is walk on the beach.

"Well that's something," says Marisa.

"But I wish Larry would get up early to join me in that walk. He takes his time getting up, sitting with his coffee."

Then I get home and see this delicate balancing act on the kitchen counter. Yup, Larry needs his coffee.