May Days- Celebrating Mothers
And Summer Blooms Ahead

5/29/06:
Today is my sister's 54th birthday. Happy Birthday Linda Cobb!

Linda lives with her kind husband, Jerry, outside of Olivet, Michigan. Linda also devotes herself to the evening program she runs, serving developmentally disabled people, and spearheads their yearly involvement in the Special Olympics. They are so very lucky to have her.

Best Wishes Linda.

I would like to believe when I die that I have given myself away like a tree that sows seed every spring and never counts the loss, because it is not loss, it is adding to future life. It is the tree's way of being. Strongly rooted perhaps, but spilling out its treasure on the wind.- May Sarton

5/29/06:
I read a book a couple of months back called When I Lived in Modern Times, that I have been meaning to write a little about, so now I will. It is a novel set at first in London before and during WWII, then later in what would become the State of Israel. Scratch a Jew and you've got a story... You might even get to say something yourself. How do we begin a sentence? 'Listen'.

A Jewish couple escapes from Latvia to London at the end of the 1800s. In 1923 their daughter meets a man who promises to marry her, but never returns after going back to America, and never sees or acknowledges his daughter, Evelyn, who tells us her story in this book. Evelyn's mother is kept by a Jewish man who educates Evelyn about her heritage and then encourages her to go to Palestine after her mother dies.

The book tells the story of Evelyn's journey into adulthood while living in the young city of Tel Aviv and describes how she feels part of an incredible time, when the world is being catapulted forward into modernity. Evelyn falls in love with, and becomes pregnant by, a man who ends up being part of an underground Jewish terrorist group fighting for an independent Jewish state. She ends up fleeing Palestine as the British are withdrawing, returning many decades later with an adult daughter, who is herself learning to define who she is, not understanding her mother's journey into modern times. I liked the novel, with its setting in a history I am not all that familiar with.

Jay and I watch about an hour of television every month or two. Last night we exceeded our usual dose by watching Pacific War: They Filmed the War in Color, a French production using old color footage that seems more current than the usual black and white footage. We are often insular, so it is helpful to hear even slightly different takes on our past. The film makes mention of lapses in support at home, not making a big deal of it but talking about steps the US government took to bolster support for the war, WWII. This has always been known, what with all the government war propaganda posters and films made back then, but you never hear it simply stated, out loud. The ferocity of the Japanese fighters was also hightlighted, pointing out cultural/philosophical differences of opinion about what it means to be alive that made, and still make, it harder for us to understand, predict and fight our "enemies". While watching, I kept remembering my old friend Margaret, from Uzbekistan, and an entry made on my very first web page:

We have struggled for centuries trying to understand, or not understand, each other. We continue to struggle today, bursting into fits of anger and violence as we search for the place where we can live in peace. Maybe it will be a place where we all can live, free from the final obstruction.

Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them -- and then you destroy yourself.- Richard M. Nixon

5/27/06:
It may come as a surprise, but I get many ideas for entries on my pages, and then forget them. Other times I save pictures or web pages on my computer for later use, where they laze about, waiting for me. Jay gave me some pictures in April that have been waiting thus for me. These three pictures were taken from our back porch/deck on the same day, 4/15/06.

Jay grew up just a couple of miles from our home, returning to the Skagit Valley in 1999, after living in Bellingham, California, Seattle, and Pennsylvania. He remarked the morning of 4/15/06 that the snow line seemed a lot lower for the time of year than he remembered, and so he took some pictures. Later that day a rainbow appeared (notice the increased cloud cover), begging to also be photographed...

You can particularly see in the rainbow photo a hill of ground, behind which only the tops of trees can be seen. This hill of ground is the dike built up along the river for flood prevention- we are kind of close to the river. The brick building seen behind the dirt dike is actually on other side of the river, and is part of the Anacortes water system, a nearby Skagit County city on Fidalgo Island.

:) Stay tuned for more later about our home, our yard, the view from our porch, etc., etc...

Know thyself.- Socrates

5/26/06:
As I came home from work yesterday I saw a young girl, maybe eight years old, walking along our one-lane road, nearly to where she would be crossing the end of our driveway. I slowed down as I approached, although already going quite slow, the girl hurried across our drive and I began turning into it. The girl turned, I thought at first to watch me pull in, but she turned as if surprised, opening her jacket as she turned. Flower petals fell from inside her jacket, dropping to the ground where Jay sets our garbage can every Wednesday evening.

I positioned my car, parked, and gathered my items as I opened the car door. Thank you for not killing me. I'm glad to be alive. I examined thoughts that came through my mind and, finding none to reference these words from a child, said "Oh?" It happens to me a lot, cars almost hit me. Thank you for not killing me. The girl said this as she scooped up flower petals from the ground. I voiced the only idea my feeble mind came up with, "you have to be careful". As the little girl started walking back toward where she had been coming from when I first saw her, I heard her say I like being alive.

"Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told anyone how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established."- Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)

5/21/06:
Remember that really nice picture of Jay standing in front of the Darigold sign in Lynden on Mother's Day? We finished there and headed back down to Bellingham to hit the used bookstores, then shared a vegetarian burrito at Diego's. We got two great pictures in Diego's parking lot (we're easy to entertain), one of the car wash's sign and another of Pik-Me-Up Espresso, a neat little place that used to be a gas station when Jay was a child.

My nice little Olympus camera broke while we were in Michigan early last month. It was a little over a year old and had been carried constantly in my purse, banging about, so that I could snap pictures at will. Jay dismantled it, determined that the focus mechanism was off-kilter, but was unable to fix it. What a nice man. I plan to buy another good/bargain camera to take along wherever I go... At present I am at the mercy of kind Jay and his camera.

Jay likes to snap photos from our back porch when something grabs his attention, like an eagle in the tree, the snow level on the mountains, or someone walking down the road carrying an unusual object. He took the photo at left on Easter Sunday- can you make out what caught Jay's eye?

Here, take a look at the close-up/detail to the right. This man carried a wooden cross a long way on Easter Sunday. It is interesting how varied man is in what he gets out of experiences and observations. I hope this man heard the whisper, heard all there was to hear, during his journey. Where would Christianity be if Judas had not taken action, if they had not killed Jesus? In life we sometimes gain the most from those things that have given us the most pain. What is a man to do with, to think of, adversity? It is a strange world, and all of it is made by everyone's God. The lessons are all here for us to learn, to think about. There is no end to what I do not know.

All of the significant battles are waged within the self.- Sheldon Kopp

5/20/06:

Well, guess what? You know how I keep putting pages of pictures on this website about our different remodeling activities? Yeah, we remodeled the entry, the kitchen counter and cupboards, the bedroom closet, the bedroom floor, the whole bathroom... sounds a little familiar, if not boring, right? Well, our interior remodeling is now finished- can you believe it!

Click on the picture of me hiding my morning face from Jay's camera for pictures of our living/kitchen flooring replacement activities...

"Our needs are few," said Chinese sage Lao-Tse (b. 604 BC). "Our wants are endless."

5/17/06:
Mother's Day evening we went to see a movie I had been looking forward to, Heart of Gold, a film that records Neil Young and his band as they are on the way to and then play at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium for the world premiere of their Prairie Wind album (August 2005).

Neil Young's vision had become blurry while attending the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies mid-March 2005 and a checkup discovered a brain aneurysm. Neil got together with friends to make this album just prior to his surgery for the brain aneurysm the first of April 2005.

This album's contents fit together like one long song reflecting Neil's life and what matters to him: his wife, his father (called "The Dean of Canadian Sports Writing") who had died of Alzheimer's disease a few months before, his 1941 Martin D28 guitar that belonged to Hank Williams, and more... songs of life. During the concert/movie Neil talks between songs about the next's subject; the intensity of his singing underscores the personal meaning of this album.

I like Neil anyway, but I think a lot of people in the over 50 age group could appreciate this music when seen up close and personal. The movie is very nicely done, focusing on the musicians themselves, allowing us to see them as they sing, play their music, and, most of all, connect.

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.- George Santayana

5/14/06:
Yesterday Jay and I drove up to Lynden, where his mother grew up, to place some flowers from our yard on her grave. Verna died in 1999, so I was never able to meet her. Jay says she loved snowball bushes, so we planted one next to our driveway two years ago, and take some of the flowers to her every May. One of Jay's uncles worked at the Darigold plant in Lynden. They have a sign in front of the plant that looks like it has been there about 40 years, so of course we needed to take Jay's picture standing in front of it.

I sent my mom a package at the beginning of the week that included a towel from the '70s with, her favorite, chickens on it, some dried pineapple rings, a card and a page I wrote for her, that you can see by clicking on my mom's picture, (taken during our visit in April). I talked to her yesterday, got caught up on all the goings on in Michigan, and wished her a happy Mother's Day.

Kira called me today to wish me the same. She was at work and was tickled to have received so many cards from kind people congratulating her on her accomplishments. Thank you everyone.

"Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone."- Gertrude Stein

5/12/06:
Whew! Life is still busy- cool. I work a schedule of mostly 9 hour days so that I can have every other Friday off. This extra day off every other week gives me the [limited] sanity that I possess. Thank god for real life, or LAW-life after work.

We saw an independent film Tuesday evening at our local venue, The Lincoln Theatre, that has earned some awards: Why We Fight. It is a very well-crafted piece of documentary about the American war machine that ties in Eisenhower's farewell speech warning about the dangers presented by the military-industrial complex (In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.), with George Washington's farewell address admonition about military power (avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.), statistics about the economic strata Army recruits come from, very interesting interview vingettes with a retired NYC policeman and Vietnam War Veteran who lost a son on 9/11, and interviews with Dan Rather, Gore Vidal, Eisenhower's son and grand-daughter, and John McCain, among others.

As you know, for me the movie was preaching to the choir. I think it did a nice job of presenting some important information, but it is also important to read the full text of the presidential addresses and look at the stats. The movie clearly has an agenda to push and unfortunately this will turn off some people who actually need to hear the message. There is now and has been for some time, a clear danger to the important things we hold so dear, such as freedom, liberty and democracy, presented by our country's economic ties to the corporations that manufacture military equipment. It is in those companies' best interest for the United States to always be at war. Check out some figures on miltary spending for different nations- it is quite astounding how very, very much we spend. Take a look at how far ahead of even Russia we are- we have chosen to spend money that could have been spent to provide medicines free of charge for retirees, to provide health care for all of our children, to provide free college educations for anyone who chose to go, etc, etc- you get my drift. It is basic economics- every, each, thing you chose to spend money on limits the rest of your choices. We have constricted our national budget, limited our spending on education, health care, energy preparedness and a myriad of other things, by choosing to invest our hard-earned money in war. Some people reading this think that is a fine choice to make, so be it.

The point I think the movie is driving home is that we need to not proceed unconsciously, we need to be sure that how we are proceeding is truly the way we want to proceed as a nation and that how we are proceeding is not instead being driven by greed, by profit for some at the expense of our children's lives. A mention was made that the Vietnam War derailed after the draft was instituted, after middle class children started being killed. The last thing the current administration wants is a reinstitution of the draft, for that very reason. So we sacrifice security at home by deploying our National Guard and we recruit from areas of economic depression. It made me wonder again about how the gap between the upper and lower classes is increasing while the middle class is being squeezed... is this by design? Are they really smart enough to have plotted this all out? To have manipulated the economy so that there are more boys with limited career/income options to pull from? To have more parents who are just grateful to not have to support their kids who join? Sorry, stop me, I don't even want to go there. How fucking scary can you get? I have personally felt that President Bush is motivated by the opposite of what he professes to represent- I do believe that he is motivated by greed, the lust for power and that he has mistaken evil for God, but God help us if I am correct. The reality is that each of us has to decide which side to support, which side we believe honors the sacrifices of those who have gone before us. The stakes are very high.

Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor.- A pirate, from St. Augustine's (November 13, 354–August 28, 430) "City of God"

5/7/06:
Hey, remember way back a month or so ago? Yeah, March 28th Jay and I went to Michigan via airplane, then (cleverly) returned home via airplane April 3rd? Yes, you remember that. Well, yesterday I was pawing through my purse looking for something or other and guess what I ran across? I had forgotten about the little jackknife a co-worker in Seattle had given me, a cute little yellow one I carry in my purse, along with all of the other many things that I may need some day. The point being, I unwittingly, or dimwittedly, carried it on through the portals of homeland security not once, but twice. Interesting.

"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."- Peter Ustinov

5/6/06:
Remember the big deal made of President Clinton lying? Lying about getting a blow job in the Oval Office? Hmmm, how very unusual for a married man to lie about such a thing. How very un-American.

President Bush lied about why this country needed to immediately rush into a war with Iraq. He lied and hundreds of our children are dead. Somehow that is okay, because there might have been a "good" reason for our actions anyway. When our children lie to us, and we catch them in their fib, they often resort to another story, a reason it was okay to lie. As parents we do not accept this behavior from our children, for them it is not okay to lie even if they can later come up with an excuse. If adults were held to the same standards as children, maybe this world would feel safer to me.

Neil Young, as you probably have heard, put out a new CD speaking out against the lies of the US government, speaking out for a real leader for this country. Neil is not new to speaking out politically in his songs; even though he is from Canada he shares the world's concern for the peril we have placed them in. How safe can the rest of the world feel when its mightiest country has become erratic and bullying in its behavior? How safe can they feel when America has abandoned truth and justice, opting only for the American way- subverted into "our way or the highway", apparently. Neil's motives are not remunerative - the CD is streaming for free on his website- click on the USA pic up to the left to go there and listen to Neil ask what we will do after the garden is gone. NPR has two stories on Neil's CD: Fresh Air and All Things Considered.

The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.- John Adams

5/4/06:
I love fiesty 93 year old people:
"So, I noticed you had some chest pain and had to take some nitro a few months ago. That's good that it happens so infrequently."
Oh, it happens all the time! I just don't tell them. They only knew that time because it happened when I was with them.
"Oh. Have you been in the hospital since living here?"
No! If I have that kind of problem, I will just pick up the phone and call the morgue- I'm not interested in going by the hospital on the way! The people here are great, the nurses wonderful, and the manager, oh, she can tell you to go to hell and you'd enjoy the trip, she's great...

"If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age."- George Burns

5/2/06:
This last Saturday Jay and I went to Seattle to see one of our favorite folk singers, Cheryl Wheeler (her name links to the lyrics of a very nice song). We had seen Cheryl perform once before and were not disappointed in our expectations of wonderful songs and lyrics punctuated with incredibly funny stories. This time we were also pleasantly surprised by a musician we did not know, Kenny White, who played keyboards and sang his own interesting songs for the first act. We bought his latest CD. It was a good evening, with music and laughter feeding our souls.

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.- Charlie Parker

5/1/06:
It was a busy weekend, after a busy work week. We put in a bit more of the new flooring- it is almost complete and looks lovely. We also did some yardwork on Saturday and then headed south to Seattle for a concert. But first, important business to attend to! Kira has been working lots of hours and so we went by her new place of barista employment Java Jazz.

We enjoyed a yummy mocha Kira made for us, chatted and hugged. I brought along and gave her a present from my mom, a birthday card from my sister, a U of M jacket I got at Walmart's in Charlotte, Michigan and some things to celebrate her GED completion (a diamond necklace of mine she always coveted, some amber earrings...) and a certificate of achievement collaboratively designed by Jay and I. Click on the coffee girl to the left or the picture of Kira and I at the top of the page to see the certificate. What more fun could a mother want?

Let me fly, says little birdie,
Mother, let me fly away.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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