Welcoming in A New Year-
Cindy's 53rd Calendar Year

Happy New Year, Welcome to 2006- we hope it is a good year, full of love, full of life, full of each other.

Jay and I celebrated the New Year with less hubbub- going out for dinner and fun on the 30th and spending the 31st reading, relaxing, going out on errands and returning home to eat gormet vegetarian pizza, drink yummy sparkling asti spumante wine, and play on the computer. It took me about three hours to re-design my home page and start up this page- surprising how much work that is, right? How long will I keep this up? Will I still be doing it when I am 80? Will I still be doing it in my 54th year? Time will tell.

My Aunt Lois lost a very special sister, Ruth, who was in her 80s, this last week. She and my cousins are adjusting to this loss. Life is unpredictable- have you noticed that too? Even when something predictable happens, we are often caught unawares. Life continues though, whether we think we are ready or not, and we continue striving to understand our existence, looking for meaning in the messiness that is our life. Mankind has done this for eons; it is a process filled with honor, even when none is felt at the time. Precious moments become obvious only in retrospect- memories of everyday conversations and being with others become transformed into something tangibly precious. A woman in her 80s, having met me five minutes before, told me so the other day. She was a generous soul to attempt to give me so much so quickly. The outer boundary of being, our death and the deaths of those we love, transforms what we have taken for granted.

Later in the day I visited with a woman midway through her 10th decade of life. She told me of the many states she had lived in, periodically struggling to remember names, places, things. I chuckled with her about it, giving her permission to be the way she was without embarassment. She thanked me for talking with her, for sharing time with her, and asked me to come by again. I told her I come to her building about once a year. Her eyes widened, "I might be dead then!", she exclaimed. Yes, I told her, but if she were still around I would make a point to stop by and visit with her. She shook her head yes. This was what we had, and it was good.

It is late, the actual turning into the new year is approaching as the sun chases the night, and the day, around the world yet again. Best wishes for all. Best wishes for all.

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.- Aart Van Der Leeuw

<= Click the New Year's revelers for pictures...

"When we begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves."- Katherine Mansfield

My mom has loved to decorate her house, especially her kitchen, with chickens and roosters for a while now. I have made several contributions to her collection over the years. Because of this, chicken decor tends to catch my eye- but none so surprisingly as the fun Christmas tree decor I ran across in the entry to Homestead Farms Restaurant in Lynden. To see a picture (since I happened to take one...), click on the snowflake over there on the right =>

"It is a long baptism into the seas of humankind, my daughter. Better immersion than to live untouched."- Tillie Olsen

There is a small square in downtown Mount Vernon- an area that used to be a street, paved with bricks, now with raised bed plantings, trees, benches, etc. Jay and I have been there many times, but one fall evening as we walked about before a concert at the Lincoln we ran across a stone archway with a plaque mounted on it and a marker on the ground in its pathway. It took us by complete surprise, to simply pop up one day like that. The plaques seemed to commemorate the life of a man who served in WWI, but the date of death was in the '20s- which made no sense. The ground plaque was clearly very old- yet where did it come from? Where did this large stone arch come from?

We searched the archives of the local paper for information, to no avail. It remains a mystery to this very day... Yikes!

Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, I have failed three times, and what happens when he says, I'm a failure. - S. I. Hayakawa

I worked the last two years with Mary Bradley, the two of us working throughout four counties. We spent day after workday together- you have to get along or, well, or it sucks. Mary and I got along.

Mary had many, many stories to tell from her long and eventful career in nursing, some amusing, some insightful, and all with a point. Mary,like myself, enjoyed sampling foods from around the world and a, albeit more tempered, liberal political view. Since we spent a lot of time together driving and eating out for lunch, this was all good.

If you click on the picture of Mary and I up on the left, it will take you to a nice old Chinese poster revamped by Jay to reflect our work.

Mary retired at the end of November 2005. We had a celebratory potluck luncheon complete with a projected photo/picture collage presentation put together by myself with the assistance of our co-worker Anita Brown. It was fun. Mary and her husband Ike enjoyed the send-off. We all wished Mary the best.

The picture on the right is of Anita, clicking on it takes you to a meeting form Jay found to help us keep our brains sharp as we deal with the aftermath of losing Mary.

and, when the time comes to let it go, . . . let it go.- Mary Oliver

I have been home, sick with a sinus/ear infection, and on my 6th day of antibiotics- yuck. Avelox, like all drugs these days, has such a scary list of side effects (like rupture of a tendon) that it makes one pause... This med makes me dizzy, with a yucky nausea kind of thing going on, for a few hours after taking it- it is a once daily dose, thank goodness. I am going to try my hand at going in to work tomorrow, Thursday.

Despite my maladies, I was able to put some stuff on my page this last week and I was able to finish a book Jay picked up from the library called "The Under Cover Economist", by Tim Harford. The picture at the left is of the book and links to the author's site. I will have more to say later about this book and another economics one I listened to on CD in my car... For now, I will keep it brief since I need to head for bed soon. Both the author of the book and the book on CD offer lots of food for thought, analyzing real world issues with economic tools- sticking to data analysis, kind of cool.

One section of Mr. Harford's book focused on health care, something I know a little about and have a significant number of ideas about. His discussion about the US's and other developed countries' health care delivery systems was helpful. Part of economic analysis focuses on motivation- very interesting, as that is something I focus on in putting information and statements in context. The book's look at the tremendous cost and inefficiency of our unique system of health insurance tied to jobs and health risks (ie: profit risks) hit the nail on the head. The New York Times had a timely piece that dovetails nicely with these ideas today- click on the newspaper's logo to the right to see the article that I copied. I copy these NYT pages because they keep them free on the net for only a short period of time- please check out their site frequently, they are a good information source. Okay, more later, kind of spacey... heading to dreamland, once again.

"Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative."- Kurt Vonnegut

<= Click on the picture for a short story from The New Yorker.

How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man is to become-to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being.- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It is the Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday holiday once again. The picture links to a good site with pictures of Dr. King and the text of several of the pastor's speeches. This man of conviction who encouraged non-violence was killed by an assassin's bullet. Dr. King's body was silenced, but his words live on.

I receive lots of emails that circulate around the country, many with jokes but some making inflamatory political statements. Lots of the political emails incite hatred. It is hard to believe all these years later...

The words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, in response to cold war fears about the "godless communists". Dr. King was killed in the United States after the words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance. For both pro and con information regarding controversies over separation of church and state, go to: www.undergodprocon.org.

Apparently there are at least 282 religions in the United States. While so many worry about whether we can survive if the Christian Bible and God are not ensconced in our government buildings or in words required to be mouthed by our children in school, people around the world continue to fight and die every day for what they perceive to be threats to their own religion and way of life. If God created mankind, whose side is "He" on? For Christ's sake, and our own, stop worrying about the word "God" and start worrying about your soul, about how you conduct your life. You will be judged.

Freedom is just another word, indeed, if you don't let it ring for all.

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion... - Article 11 of the 11/4/1796 Treaty of Tripoli ratified 6/10/1797 by the U.S. Congress

Notice how the shape of the lady's buttocks and of the rounded ice cream scoops on the cone seem so similar?

Ever also notice how just smelling some foods seems to make you fatter? It is indeed true! Well, kind of- smell does have weight.

Click on the pictures for SCIENCE...

"Life itself is the proper binge."- Julia Child

It is all so very interesting, and yet there seems to be no end to the things I do not know. That is good too, as otherwise there would be no surprises, or purpose.

So I continue to wander around, talking to people, asking questions, stumbling into people's lives for a living- a social worker knocking on doors, entering into strangers' living spaces for but minutes, then moving on. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the stories pour out, how much so very many people have to share, how long so very many people have been waiting so that they could tell me their story. It never ceases to amaze me, even though I know, oh so intellectually, that all we have, in the end, is our story.

I knock, and often it takes quite a while for the occupant to make it unsteadily to the door, a surprised or suspicious face tries to understand my purpose, and most often doesn't really, but decides that I look nice enough to invite in, as the kitty hides from the unknown. I gaze upon belongings filled with history: photos from long, long ago, paintings and crafts done by a steadier hand, travel treasures, furniture and objects whose style much of the world has forgotten about. There are questions about my purpose sometimes, and sometimes querries, since I am a social worker, about programs, resources, financial assistance, or what in the world am I supposed to do about this? handing me articles and ads about the new Medicare drug benefit. I give what answers I can- to the latter there seems to be no answers.

The life stories come- sometimes they come rushing out of the bearer's body practically before I can take my seat:

They are so nice to me here. They stop and listen because I cry. I had a hard life; I learned everything the hard way. My dad was alcoholic and mean, he would tell me I was stupid. I have a speech problem and people thought I was stupid because I talked like this- the kids made fun of me at school, they were mean. My family yelled at me and told me I couldn't do anything. I didn't know about the birds and the bees, but I found out and my mom tied me down and made me have an abortion. No, I never had children because they tied my tubes too. I spent lots of time in the hospital. My mom would get so mad at me because I couldn't breathe with my asthma and would shake me and tell me to stop. I had to learn everything myself, but I did and I worked hard- I was a babysitter, a house cleaner, a hotel janitor. The people here are nice, they know I cry a lot.

Sometimes the fast and furious stories are ones the staff who see them all the time have not heard. And sometimes I hear stories of relatively charmed lives, world travelers with lovely things, with successful children, but most of these also have their own pain.

I am going to give these to my grandson (pointing out envelopes in a box filled with papers and souvenirs from trips to exotic countries taken decades ago)- I loved those travels, what fun! Yes, I fell and broke my back! But I have had many accidents- 7 car accidents, can you imagine? And none were my fault! They (pointing to a sienna-shaded portrait of two young boys) were 5 and 6 when I had the bad one; I was in the hospital for six months and couldn't walk for a year. I have no friends here, I like to stay in my room. Tears well up in the 85 year old eyes. There was no one to take care of them, I had to put them in an orphanage until I was better. Life is funny isn't it? So many accidents and still I am here! I don't know why.

Once again I have to pry myself from the room of yet another person who asks when I will return. One time I felt like I was going to have a heat stroke if I did not get out of the room kept so very hot by its occupant- a person I was warned would not talk to me, yet I could not get out of her room until more than an hour had passed and I had promised to say hi the next day. If you have time, if you stay still and open your heart, there are stories from lives now coming to a close begging to be heard.

"The universe is made up of stories, not atoms."- Muriel Rukeyser

I was reading Gladwell online this last weekend and ran across mention of the incredible predominance of tall men in top corporate positions. That part isn't actually news, but this part is: the suggestion that we form many impressions in the very first seconds we are presented something and often those ideas about something dominate and inform our final decision- subconsciously. Can we become more aware of our perceptions in this "blink" time and use that information to our advantage?

I remember taking myself by surprise as my kids grew up- by saying something that sounded like it came straight out of my mother's mouth. Observing this in myself contributed to my ideas about how profoundly the experiences of our early years impact us- the power of role models being so significant in the development of our selves and yet this contribution is essentially invisible to our conscious processes.

People don't actually look at interview candidates for corporate jobs and consciously think about height as a deciding factor- yet it is. Remember being a child? Who had the power? Who held sway over your world? Most likely it was daddy- and no matter what his height was relative to the rest of the world, he was tall to you. It is no surprise that men, tall men, dominate the positions of power in our economy- those models for us of people in roles welding power were ingrained into our subconscious long ago.

Anyway, it got me thinking, and off on tangents once again. Goodnight :)

...words are more powerful than perhaps anyone suspects, and once deeply engraved in a child's mind, they are not easily eradicated.- May Sarton

A few months ago I wrote about purchasing some books at our local used book store (Easton's Books), despite a backlog of books for me to read, and one was At the Forest's Edge by Physician-Naturalist David Tirrell Hellyer. I bought the book because Dr. Hellyer founded the NorthWest Trek wildlife sanctuary near Tacoma, which I had taken my children to and which Jay and I had visited, and also because the book was signed by the author.

I finally started reading this particular book a couple of weeks ago when I was home sick. I enjoyed it so much I told friends, co-workers and Jay about it. Mr. Hellyer lived a fascinating life, growing up in Japan, Italy and Swtizerland before coming to live in California in 1925 at the age of 12. This autobiography reminded me of the biography of Teddy Roosevelt I had read because the two men shared an avid interest in nature, were very intelligent and extremely busy people, and seemed to have a mission in life. Mr. Hellyer did not become a doctor until in his 30s and always kept active with his other interests- wildlife, family and building things. He did not mention it in his book, but in searching the internet I discovered that he had designed an A-frame vacation home in the 1950s that started that boom.

Dr. Hellyer and his wife Connie purchased some land south of Tacoma as a young couple and added to the size of the property over the years as adjacent pieces became available. They worked to restore natural habitat and later donated the site for a public wildlife sanctuary, retaining access to their home on the property so that they could continue to enjoy its healing properties. Last week the radio announced that David Tirrell Hellyer had died 1/20/06 at the age of 92, survived by his wife, children and many grandchildren. It is enjoyable to read about the lives of kind, gracious and productive people.

Click on the pictures here for info on NWTrek, Dr. Hellyer's A-frames, etc.

When you meet a man, you judge him by his clothes; when you leave, you judge him by his heart.- Russian Proverb

I ran across and interesting artist's obituary in the New York Times earlier this month- Jim Gary, 66 years old. Interesting info on him at: www.kafi-benz.com. Among other things, he had a passion for creating huge sculptures of dinosaurs from junk car parts.

"Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father."- Roger von Oech

Click to Return to: December Page Click to Go On: February Page