Connections

This is a photo of a submarine propeller. I took it last weekend in San Francisco. I was cruising blogs this morning and found the delightful street-pix. His latest pix is of a huge propeller. It triggered my thoughts of my tiny one, and voila. His street scenes are fantastic: the every day transposed.

And Annie has a new family member - a cute little grey creature who has already won the hearts and minds of her humans. Jojo has great photos of the harvest moon, and great road trip photos in the PNW.

Nuff blogging for me now...I gots a movie to go see!

Good News

Good news all around: Shasta is doing so much better! She is back to her old self, we still have a few days of antibiotics left. More testing needed, but looks as if the problem was an infection and not liver cancer. Whew. Nothing like a little death scare.

Today I completed a 5k with a couple of work buddies. We did it! We were quite the crew - one of us has heart problems, the other an active sinus infection, and me with my bum knee. But we did it! It was a gloriously sunny fall morning walking along the Monterey Bay. Afterwards, coffee and panini at Beckman's. Yummy. I raised $175 for 3 environmental groups. Race organizers gave away cool tee-shirts, and cloth shopping bags stuffed with goodies like trail mix and gift certificates. I fit right in with my Prius - there were many in the lot, as well as other pure electric very small cars.

Oh, I got a photo of a guy dressed in plastic bags -- but that's for later. Don't forget: get out there with your camera and snap some plastic bag images. It'll be fun to see what we get.

Blessings - have lovely weekend, friends.

Good (Photos of) Plastic Bags Are Hard to Find

I challenge you to take an insightful photo of a plastic bag(s). Can you do it? Send to outofthelotus@yahoo.com at the end of October.

Photo by AB Bettencourt

Remember the kid in American Beauty who shot the ethereal video of a plastic bag blowing in the wind? The scene is simple -- a white plastic bag is caught in the wind in front of metal security doors that come down at night in front of liquor stores in tough neighborhoods. The scene is shot in slow motion. The bag goes up and down and left and right and around and around. It could be a bird, or a butterfly, or a cloud. But it's not. It's a piece of litter on a dirty street. And as such it's a metaphor that even in the toughest place, and perhaps most often in tough places, beauty happens. And do you know, some say that use of plastic bags is environmentally preferable to paper? Others say both paper and plastic harm the environment and animals, and encourage us to wean off both ways of transporting groceries, etc.

Have you ever found the beauty in a plastic bag? Or the indignity of plastic bags in the natural environment? Can you capture the sadness that wells up when you view the flotsam and jetsam of human debris? Robin Andrea and Roger began a lovely series wherein they invited folks to submit photos of the natural world around them. This plastic bag idea is the other side of the Good Planets coin.

I have discovered that photos of plastic bags are abundant: There are 15,513 photos of plastic bags on Flickr.com. In order to keep your vision fresh, I encourage you not to look at them if you want to embark on this project.

I’ll compile submissions for a late October post. Charge yer camera batteries…ready, set, go…!

Blogs I Have Just Clued In to

It seems there is never enough time to read blogs. I sneak time at work. Bad girl. I need to retire so I can blog more thoroughly and on my own time. Here are some great finds of late:

If you like travel, food, good photography and humor, What do I know? is a gem. That blog led me to a most interesting thing called Plastic Bag Gallery. What a cool idea, what fun. Gives me an inspiration to start something like that on my blog. More later...stay tuned.

Weeks and weeks ago Robin Andrea told me about a blog that is being written (beautifully I might add) by a former student of my university. I finally took the time to check out Ezra and I couldn't be happier. Politics, economics, social issues, he blogs about 'em all. Intelligently and humbly.

For a good dose of crooks, politics, current events, LGBTI, Poverty Barn has it. This blog allowed me to see that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released its third annual report on the most corrupt members of Congress entitled Beyond DeLay: The 22 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (and two to watch). I hadn't seen nor heard this. Oy.

Anywhooooo...I am continually impressed with the dialogue that is occurring in blog-land. A crucial antidote to the blather that passes for 'news' these days.

Can you say, "Tourista?"

Sometimes it is fun to play 'tourist' in a city I actually consider a second home. Who the heck started this trend of silver men and women street performers? I played with one in Victoria, here R. plays with one at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.
Hungry for lunch, we stop at a clam shop. They had a great decor and funny posters. Oh, and the shrimp and chips were good too.

The aquarium is small, but a great visit. They have two transparent tubes to walk through where the fish swim all around you, except under foot. The blurry shot is anchovies swarming. What a beautiful silver and rainbow mass. We watched all kinds of sharks as they glided over our heads, and skates and assorted bass.
The USS Pampanito is a World War II submarine. We took a tour, and yep, it is cramped inside. One of the surprises: there were bunks hanging from the ceiling in the torpedo bay. There they were, black torpedoes, death in a tube, and right above men slept in bunks.This last photo is a rather artistic rendering of guns on deck. There's a certain symmetry and elegance to the railings and guns against the sky.

Hot Fun in the (Last) Summer Time

We left Shasta with Grandma and Grandpa this weekend so she could continue her antibiotics and get tender loving care. We picked her up this evening and she is her barky, high energy self. Has been eating all weekend and seems quite cured. Not like a dog in liver failure. Good News!

We went to the horse races this weekend: a first. It was the YD's choice of a weekend trip. We got a great table next to the window in the clubhouse.
We sat next to a threesome that turned out to be worth the price of admission. A very old gentleman and his wife, and a friend of theirs in her fifties, spikey punky hair, tons (I aint kiddin') of silver bracelets and rings and these folks were a hoot. Being complete virgins in the realm of horse racing, we were on a sort of anthropological excursion. As beginner's luck would have it, we won on the very first race - an entire 50 cents. I read the program and found this horse that was running this particular track for the first time, so I bet $5 for him to place (come in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd). Turns out I shoulda bet $100 on him to win. Because he did. After that, all out bets were complete busts, but we bet small and were doing it for fun. Below are a series of photos I took as the horses were coming at me and going past. I had walked down to the track for an up close and personal view. The surprise was the sound of the thundering hooves as they raced past me. Quite an exhilarating experience.



We did so much more, left after 4 races (each 30 minutes apart), and spent the following day in San Francisco. More on the aquarium and the submarine tour later....

Quick Update

So...Shasta is home and has responded beautifully to hydration and antibiotics. Her liver is not functioning well, and perhaps that is due to an infection, and not something like liver cancer. Those are the best and worst case scenarios. I'm very encouraged, as she began to finally eat last night, and is spunky and yappy. Antibiotics for a week and then more blood work.

One Sick Pooch

Here's Shasta in happier days.

Six nights ago Shasta was throwing up. No biggie. Dogs and cats do it all the time. But since then she's not been eating - and I mean anything. Drinking water, but still dehydrated. Lethargic, not a lot of barking or prancing. She seems sad and low. No pain in belly when touched, and no more throwing up. No fever. Weight loss, though I couldn't say how much. She weighed in today at 13.2 lbs, and I can see that she has lost weight. She used to have quite the barrel belly and was a notorious chow hound.

I took her to the vet today and he's going to run blood tests and x-ray her stomach. He's at a loss for a diagnosis as well. All other animals fine - unlikely she got into any poison as we don't have much around and what we do have is in cupboards. Hmmmm. Poor Girl.

Dreamer

Do you remember this wall paper, drawer liner, fabric design from the seventies? I sure do -- I think I had a scarf in a similar motif. I was visiting my pal once more (go to the July archives for past post) and I had an idea to photograph this grand ol' house. Easier said than done. The spaces are small, and even though I have a wide angle lense, I found it very difficult to capture the essence of the place. All the cool stuff that draws me in -- all the stuff I've known for 50 years. I see closet and attic spaces I used to crawl around in. The seem cavernous to me when I was 4. Now I see them for the tiny spaces they are. This house is human scale: not the Mc Mansions we often build now. The scale of these rooms is practical and frugal. The living room has a high ceiling, but other than that, this is a very energy efficient home. After all these years it is solid, no air leaks, no dry-rot. L. will be 86 next week. Along with her children and grandchildren, she maintains this home, having employed the same house cleaning lady for 17 years who comes every other week for four hours. L. hasn't been upstairs in 3 years because she has hip and leg problems. So Rosa keeps up the place, the kids and grandkids stay there when they visit, and it is a delightful trip into the past.

If you look closely, you can see the Dylan poster on the ceiling. Cool. L. told me this weekend that a few years ago she had the house appraised, and the guy called the place, to her face, "A tear-down." What a clod. It's a perfectly charming house in a lovely neighborhood. People have crazy notions and expectations when it comes to housing in this particular and quaint tourist town. So many older homes have been razed to make room for over-sized stucco palaces in a place that used to be filled with children and 'just folks.' Now, she is surrounded by dark, quiet vacation homes that are occupied perhaps once a year. Few neighbors remain.

Gee, what if all those made homeless by Katrina could fill these empty spaces? Just until FEMA gets their mobile homes decontaminated. What kind of an effort would it take to make this happen? Could Bill Clinton make it happen? His book, Giving, was featured on C-SPAN 2 with a panel discussion hosted by Tavis Smiley in Harlem. Pretty inspiring. I wonder how well it would sit with these absentee home-owners to utilize their property in this way? Wouldn't it be grand if they thought it was a great idea? You may say I'm a dreamer...and yes, I am.

Truth

Barack Obama sure knows how to speak truth to power. His comments for Wall Street today were right on the - excuse the pun - money. How long can he keep this up? Telling teachers' unions, the American auto industry, and others, things that they don't want to hear? President Jimmy Carter tried to speak truth to the citizenry and the citizenry told him where he could stick it. Read the 1979 speech - eerie similarities to America today are everywhere. Are we ready to hear some hard truths now? Are we fed up enough to get real? Real fast?

I sure like the way Obama thinks. I like where he's coming from. I think we need a big kick-ass change from top to bottom. One of the things that bothers me about Hillary is that she is so entrenched. The flip side of that concern is, well, maybe she's more realistic about what can and cannot be accomplished. My hopeful heart rejoices at the prospect of an Obama presidency. My cynicism says there's no way a black man in America, especially if he is speaking truth to power, can win. Too many rich people have too much invested in the system the way it is. Did you hear about Alan Greenspan's book yesterday? See, this is what I mean...people in power play this lying game because they have so much stake in the status quo. He couldn't say these bold things while head of the Federal Reserve? Wasn't it his responsibility then, just as now?

I know, I know, diplomacy has its place, and difficult subjects and conversations must be finessed if you want to be effective. But Jesus, Jospeh and Mary, gimmie some truth! All I want is the truth! I think Obama can deliver the truth...I'm just not sure that's going to get him elected.

How are you swinging on the presidential hopefuls these days?

Friday Musings

Empty-hearted in society,
How deeply moved I am
By the snipe calling
In the evening marsh.

-Saigyo.

A Moment

Wow. I had just finished my post yesterday and logged on to Mark’s column. Powerful stuff about fear and the nature of life. His final paragraph grabbed me in my moment of wondering if fearing for my children would ever end:

“Because truth is, you are never far from the suffering and the hell. You are never, ever completely immune, even on your most delightful and mellow post-vacation days. The wolf is always -- and I do mean always -- at the door. It is merely a question of whether or not you wish to simply see him and smell him and give him a moment of respect before moving on, or actually stop, and give in, and offer him the meat from your tired and world-wary bones.”

Like the saying goes, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

Thomas Merton put it thusly, “The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.” So Mark must be reading his Merton, or Merton is communicating through him, or gosh, maybe these ideas span time, cultures and spiritual beliefs.

The dichotomy of suffering and happiness has always intrigued me. This duality is central to Buddhism, as I understand it:
How to manage the whole concept of suffering – how to transform it through observation, contemplation, meditation, loving-kindness and right action. It has always been my nature to want to be happy. What Is Happiness and How Do I Get It? This has been the core cognitive process of my life. I turn this one over on a regular basis, working it and smoothing the rough edges. I’ve heard some say we’ve no right to happiness, no right to even expect it. Ah, but I am Oliver Twist, daring to ask for more.

So, like Mr. Morford and everyone else, I go through life and am sometimes put face to face – nose to nose – with the gruesome, the ugly, the violent, the profoundly sad. The trick is to go on…the trick is to, despite the scowling oaf ladling out the porridge, ask for more. Sir.

Our Girls

Ah, our girls. Now, momentarily, both in their teens. Born of different mothers, fathers, raised together for the last 7 years, they are both delightful and scary. Delightful to watch how they maneuver through life, scary to think of the perils yet to come. YD just rode in her second competition and took home the high point award for the season, as well as many blue ribbons and a second place. She's having a ball, and she's skilled and brave. If you've never been atop a horse, it's a daunting animal. You're up high and you work hard to communicate and cooperate with a very big, heavy animal. She loves horses, the riding, her teacher, her classmates. They cheer for one another from the sides of the arena, and greet each other has they come out of the gate. They work hard and they have passion. Bully for them.
Then there's the OD, living on her own, discovering the world in a way she never has before. Trying on identities, persona's, figuring out who the heck she is. Here she's in drag which cracks me up, because really she's such a femme girl. Watching her work her way through the basics (rent, utilities, food, school, relationships)is scary. Scary because I don't want her to fail. (Hmmm...perhaps there's some projection going on here.) Because I have a lot of fear about the hardships of life knocking her down. Praying she has the internal resources to weave through it and come out smarter, stronger. I work hard at nag-free visits. Why is it I still want to tell her to wash her car? Pick up the clothes off her floor? Put the dining room set in the DINING room and not the living room. Who the hell am I? I put it into perspective by remembering my own 19 year old life. Whoa. It is just so, I don't know, odd, to be living this from the parental perspective. Kind of like an uncomfortable acid trip that just won't end. Not a freak-out, but like the stuff was cut with a lot of speed. Not that I would know what that felt like, you understand. I'm just saying.

Parents of grown kids: does it ever get easier? Throw me bone here, eh?

Just How Gay IS the GOP?

More "outings" of hypocrites could be in the offing. I'm so confused. It wouldn't be an issue if these people were just honest about who they are. But if they were honest, it'd be hard to get elected in their districts. Because of homophobes. Like
themselves. Who cultivate the hate and fear. Because they can't be honest. Because of homophobia. And around and around it goes.

From Mark Morford's column today, my hero:

"Dear eternally baffled, terminally horny humans: You can only poison your own soul for so long. You can only lie to yourself, your wife, your children, the nation, your own miserable and intolerant genitalia before the backlash, the recoil, the nasty acid reflux comes right back up to bite your ass in the cold, cold bathroom stall of life. Do you understand? Do you not yet see?

Do not, at the peril of your very spirit, at the risk of all that is beautiful and good and fluid and sexual and wet and sticky and right, hold so tightly, so violently to your narrow views of sex and love and human behavior that, when you are caught naked and shivering and salivating on your bed of nails doing exactly the thing your beliefs profess to hate, that your very soul explodes, the flowers wilt, the gods laugh and you are handed a tiny yellow ticket guaranteeing your return in the next life as a small, black, cancerous lesion on the underbelly of a hyena. OK?"

On Aging Boomers

I’ve been reading along with Rural Lesbian about her work schedule, retirement plans, living simply. She’s got a good thing going, and the maternal spirit in me is also glad she is saving for retirement.

I was telling RL that one of my biggest concerns is growing old in poverty. Old and infirm. In a stinky nursing home with a lot of other cranky old people. With disaffected, embittered aides. Not my idea of a way to live. At all.

I Googled “transformative nursing homes” and hit the jackpot. I figure with our baby-boomer generation (yes, I am, albeit at the tail end). Hopefully by the time I’m ready for nursing care, the transformation will have already become the standard. How wonderful to have a truly home-inspired living environment, free from the hospital, institutional model. An environment when the residents have an active part in decision-making. Another version of my fantasy of living with friends when I’m aged. We’ll get a big house together and pool our funds in order to hire live-in help. We’ll pay them well; we’ll go for the long haul, not the high turnover.

I worry about my mom, who has advanced Parkinson’s. How long will she be able to live at home? Dad takes good care of her and he is the picture of health. But 24-7 care is exhausting and he’s going to need help at some point. I think it would be great if mom could have live-in care to help out when she is at that point. I also know that a nursing home may end up be the solution – the last one hopefully.

Can this transformation in nursing care come soon enough for her? Probably not.

My wife’s grandparents are still alive and grandpa’s already been in a nursing home for 2 short stays when grandma was incapacitated. He had a fairly decent place to be, but it was institutional for sure. He hated it. He would cry when we came to visit, and cry when we left. Heart wrenching. The best places are out of reach financially for them – what a shame. With all this national debate about health insurance, we ought to add nursing home care into the discussion. Long term care for those who need it but don’t require hospice. A home-like environment filled with life and purpose for those lucky enough to live to a ripe-old age. Those of us who might just need a little help with the small tasks of daily living. Someone sweet and loving to attend to our personal care when we are too frail to do for ourselves. Isn’t that what all of us deserve? Sure it is.

Patton Oswalt- Bush and Cheney as the Dukes of Hazzard

Watch this bad, nasty, dirty bad nasty video clip. I love Patton Oswald. I'd love to have him around so I could meet him for coffee and have him riff on any number of things. He his the king of riff.

In describing the Atlantic City boardwalk, he said, "It's like hopelessness took a big dump on sadness." Ah, Patton, you sweet talker, you.