Happy Halloween

Have a pumpkin spice latte and slice of pumpkin cheese cake, on me. Wishing you all a fun evening.

Ruby Tuesday (on Thursday)

Like Sepia Scenes, I've just discovered Ruby Tuesday.

Here is my first contribution.

Sepia Scenes #2

Welcome to Sepia Scenes, week two, the place to visit to see the new become old and the old resurrected.

My paternal grandparents, Esther Johnson and Henry Leland Bastian. Two photos taken circa 1918 in Rhinelander, Wisconsin and joined as one using mosaic on Big Huge Labs Flickr toys in 2008.

An unexpected Surprise at lunch today

Jeremy Lee Renner, is an American actor and musician born in Modesto, CA, just up the road from us in Turlock. Jeremy's dad, Lee has worked at CSU Stanislaus (where I also work) for forever. Renner has made a career out of playing charismatic anti-heroes - portraying an Eighteenth Century vampire, a gun toting alcoholic, and a notorious serial killer, among other film roles.

In addition to having done extensive theater work, Renner has starred in several major independent films, including the upcoming 2008 Iraq war thriller, The Hurt Locker (directed by Kathryn Bigelow), and Dahmer (which earned Renner an Independent Spirit Award Best Actor nomination, as well as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (with Brad Pitt), Swat with Colin Farrell and 28 Weeks Later.

Every summer a book is selected for the summer reading program and this year's selection was Into the Wild by Jack Krakauer. John Mayer, chair of the Theatre Department proposed to Lee that the campus do a reading of the book and Lee took it one step further. He thought it was a great idea and said if Jeremy was available, he would try to get him involved too. Well - John was all over THAT idea and that is how I found myself in this picture.

From left to right that is Nick, our lead student technician, Ken, our technician, Jeremy Renner and yours truly.
He is a genuinely down to earth nice guy and the reading was terrific.

So, what did YOU do at lunch today?

After all the TALK, we walked the WALK

It was the most beautiful and perfect Autumn day today. The air was crisp and clear; the traffic free flowing and easy. We made it to Sacramento and Land Park in great time, found a hassle-free parking spot, and strolled off to find Tammy's Warriors.

Here we are - Don, yours truly, Tammy, Krista and Tanner. Tanner is becoming quite the successful little traveler. This is his second adventure into crowds and being around lots of other animals. He's great. In the car or in the house though, it's a whole other matter. He goes into guard dog mode and protects his territory ferociously.

Tammy and Lisa, trading whispers and secrets, as only life-long friends can.

Ready! Set!

GO!!

The walk took us around the park covering about a one mile circuit. The organizers allowed for 90 minutes of walking time. The route was dotted with signs all along the pathway displaying the names of those being honored. Cheerful red and white balloons were everywhere.

Dave and Tammy. Don't you love Tammy's purse. The butterflies are as care-free as her spirit.

Tanner was well decorated with his Walk for the Cure sticker.

There were thousands of people there curling around the pathway like a great white snake. Noise and laughter and good cheer sparkled in the air.

At the end of the walk there were many young, high school age volunteers hand-slapping, high fiving, and clapping us in.

Family and friends galore. It was so bright and sunny. Lots of shadows interfered with getting a decent picture. HOWEVER, there was an official walk photographer and as soon as I get that picture I'll post it here with the entire group.

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Facts about ALS

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.

A-myo-trophic comes from the Greek language. "A" means no or negative. "Myo" refers to muscle, and "Trophic" means nourishment–"No muscle nourishment." When a muscle has no nourishment, it "atrophies" or wastes away. "Lateral" identifies the areas in a person's spinal cord where portions of the nerve cells that signal and control the muscles are located. As this area degenerates it leads to scarring or hardening ("sclerosis") in the region.

As motor neurons degenerate, they can no longer send impulses to the muscle fibers that normally result in muscle movement. Early symptoms of ALS often include increasing muscle weakness, especially involving the arms and legs, speech, swallowing or breathing. When muscles no longer receive the messages from the motor neurons that they require to function, the muscles begin to atrophy (become smaller). Limbs begin to look "thinner" as muscle tissue atrophies.

Although the cause of ALS is not completely understood, the recent years have brought a wealth of new scientific understanding regarding the physiology of this disease.

While there is not a cure or treatment today that halts or reverses ALS, there is one FDA approved drug, riluzole, that modestly slows the progression of ALS as well as several other drugs in clinical trials that hold promise.

Importantly, there are significant devices and therapies that can manage the symptoms of ALS that help people maintain as much independence as possible and prolong survival. It is important to remember that ALS is a quite variable disease; no two people will have the same journey or experiences. There are medically documented cases of people in whom ALS ‘burns out,’ stops progressing or progresses at a very slow rate. No matter what your individual course or situation may be, The ALS Association and your medical team are here to help.

Have you wondered . . . ?

The first thing you learn when political elections really get rolling, is who amongst the Hollywood celebrity crowd support the liberal/democratic candidate. They make their voices heard all over various information highways. You can't miss them. Their noise is so loud that one wonders if there is an opposing point of view anywhere in Tinseltown.

I wondered so I did a simple Google search to find out who some of the quiet conservative voices might be. Here follows a, no doubt, incomplete list. I'm glad to see that Chuck Norris is not alone although I doubt that he would care if he was.

Chuck Norris

Kelsey Grammer
Bruce Willis
Jon Voight,
Pat Sajak
Patricia Heaton
Angie Harmon
Jason Sehorn, (former cornerback for the New York Giants
Gary Oldman
Stephen Baldwin
Kirk Cameron
Susan Lucci
Dennis Hopper
Rick Schroder
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
the band, Hanson
Dean Cain
James Caan
Robert Davi
Lou Ferrigno
Adam Carolla
Victoria Jackson
Gerald McRaney
Jon Cryer
Lorenzo Lamas
Kevin Sorbo
Robert Duvall
Jerry Bruckheimer

Thank you and Something New

Thank you all so much for your kind and supportive comments on my rant from last week. I truly do not feel so much like the Lone Ranger anymore. Your good words are deeply appreciated and I have achieved a measure of calm about expectations for the future post November 4th.

Today I discovered something new, a photo site that focuses on sepia photos. I love the old fashion look that sepia can impart to an ordinary image so here are two offerings to kick start my participation.

This old farmhouse is in Forest Grove, OR. It was burned and abandoned several years ago. Each visit now, when I see it, it is a bit more failed. I expect that someday soon it will be gone and, gone from memory.

A closer look from the other side.

Writer's Island Journal - Controversial

This week at Writer's Island Journal the prompt is "Controversial". I don't usually rant on my blog. In fact, I cannot think of one time in three years of blogging that I HAVE ranted. However, I have something to get off my chest and this week's prompt pushed me to it. Consider yourself warned.

This election year has been shocking to me. The rabid passion of both parties - not necessarily the candidates but definitely the supporters - has been nothing less than crazed. This is what I object to:

1. I object to self-important celebrities, some of whom can barely string a coherent thought together, influencing young minds;

2. I object to media pundits who fall back on a constant spat of sarcasm, disguising it as humor.

3. I object to media mania that features people exercising their right to question candidates and then pillory them. Think Joe the Plumber who innocently asked a question when invited and is now being raked over the coals.

4. I object to a philosophy that says if you say it loud enough and often enough, than it must be true.

5. I object to 24-hour news showing the same clips at midnight that I saw at 6 a.m. (see #4)

6. I object to the feeling that some are free to post their opinions all over their blogs, in their emails, or in general conversation but God help you if you disagree and say so.

This, to me, is the real controversy. While we are willing to shout to the heavens about freedom of speech, too many of us are mocked, belittled, demeaned and dismissed if we DO exercise that right. Whatever happened to conversation? Whatever happened to the civil exchange of ideas?

So - as one who has, during this election "hunting season" felt mocked, demeaned, belittled and dismissed, I am here to tell you that it plain pisses me off and I will , in the future, be more careful about who I associate with or pay attention to. If civility is lacking, I'm outta there. I am way too old for this shit.

Faith and Perseverance

This morning as I walked into work I noticed once again the condition of two small trees that had been planted in front of the art building just two weeks before. They both got a little shocky from the transplant but then the one perked up and bounced back. The other faded to the point that I thought for sure that it would not make it. But yesterday I thought I spotted a hint of green so I looked more closely this morning and found buds bursting out all over. Just across the threshold of Fall, Spring was bursting free again.

We can learn a lot about faith and perseverance from this tree. When life serves up the hard hits, keeping it simple is a good way to cope. Sunlight, water, time, and the knowledge that your tree buddy right next to you is making it. You can gain strength from your friends. This lesson has been more than confirmed in this past year for our family.

As many of my regular readers know, a great tragedy struck my son's in-law family with the death of one of their sons (George - 27) late last year. In a matter of a very few days Quanah and his wife Erin, decided to pick up and leave their jobs and their life in Indiana. For a newly married couple, this was a terrible decision to make and especially because of the cancer relapse that was driving the decision. But for Q and Erin, it all boiled down to family and being near during the worst of times. George's prognosis started out at most a year and quickly faded to the point that he was gone in 2 1/2 months.

Since then everyone has been going through their own private healing and reconciling to the loss of George; his young bride, parents, siblings, family and friends. For the past year Q and Erin have been living at George and Jennifer's house, a house that they never really got to change into a home. While Erin started caring for disabled sister, Quanah started what would be a long job search, exploring new skills, and doing a whole lot of soul-searching.

As a parent, I learned that, as much as I thought I knew what he might be able to do to hasten the job search to a quick conclusion, I really needed to back off. It's too easy to fall into old parenting habits and forget that you are dealing with an adult child. So ten months later there was still no job but lots of disappointments. Then it seemed as though Quanah and Erin had caught a break.

Erin started teaching kindergarten at St. Francis of Assisi School, the same parish they were married at just a year ago this past June. There was something very circular and comforting about that. At the same time, Quanah went into a six week training program that was sponsored by a couple of companies headquartered in Portland. During the final and nerve-wracking two weeks, there were two job interviews. The first he felt he had no chance at, the second better but with lots of doubts attached to it. Today was the last day of the program and when he opened his envelope to look at his certificate of completion, he also found a job offer.

The offer was from the first company he interviewed with, the company he had no great hopes of receiving an offer from. The details of the offer were amazing - 90 days of training Monday through Thursday followed by assignment to the nightshift on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights - 12 hour shifts. The pay was more than he asked for too. Working nights on weekends may seem like not a great shift but when you consider the plans he has for school, continuing his writing, week night activities and church, well it's actually a pretty good deal.

This past year has been such an emotional struggle. It came on the heels of the one year anniversary of my mother's death. Just about when things started sorting out there, calamity happened again. We watched from a distance the sorrow and struggle of a young couple that should have been celebrating a joyous first year together. But they have come through it and I am in awe of their strength and faith and perseverance. I'm so proud of them and the battle they fought together that bond them even closer together. When the choices of staying in place, playing it safe, and keeping death at a distance knocked at their door, they chose to give up everything and go home. They chose to start over, to be near to family, all for the love of family and the ties that bind them to us.

Whispers

Whispers in my ear -

Do I hear?

Am I listening?

Whispers in my ear -

Self-talk fears

for those so dear -

My eyes glisten.

Do I listen?

Yes, and with tears,

Morning prayers,
ritual of peace,

whispers in my ear.

Travels with Geoff in Portugal - Part II

Here is part two of the continuing adventures of Geoff in Portugal. September found him in Porto for a few weeks. Happy virtual traveling.

Sometimes Something So Right Occurs...

Sometimes something so right occurs and it surprises you. I think we forget sometimes how capable we all are of good. This story, found at Creative Minority Report, is from the Dallas Morning News and is quite simply beautiful: Never has the selection of a homecoming queen sent so many tears falling so freely.

Here's the Story:

Kristin Pass, an 18-year-old senior with Down syndrome, became Aledo High School's homecoming queen Friday to a joyous standing ovation and the flutter of a thousand tissues on a remarkable night for an amazing young woman. Her grandfather, Dr. David Campbell of Corsicana, escorted her onto the field and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek as Kristin joined eight other young women in the Homecoming Court to await the results of the vote, cast by the 360-plus members of Aledo High's senior class.

Erica Pace, Kristin Pass and Kelsey Williams (left to right) pose for a photo after homecoming festivities at Aledo High School. Ms. Pass was named homecoming queen. Then came the announcement ... and pandemonium.

"Oh my gosh! I was sitting in the student section and everyone stood up, crying and cheering for Kristin," said longtime friend and fellow senior Meaghan Geary, 17, who first met Kristin in the third grade. "It was great!"

Carolyn Pass stood at the edge of the football field, taking pictures of her daughter and friends' daughters in the court, when the stadium erupted. "It's just something you can't even imagine," she said. "And afterward, everyone was just running down to her, congratulating her.

And the other girls in the court, they're all just beautiful girls, inside and out." How great is that story. For this to occur, with the backdrop of an abortion rate of 90 percent for Down's Syndrome babies is counter-cultural and beautiful.

I know many people fret and worry over "the next generation." Sometimes I think that the next one might be a far sight better than the ones preceding them.These young men and women saw past her Downs Syndrome and saw a girl who loved others and accepted them for who they were. She did the unthinkable in high school- she looked past how cool someone was.

Her mother said, "Kristin has a lot of friends – she likes everyone. It doesn't matter if you're tall or short, pretty, not pretty, smart, not smart – she likes everybody. She has great friends. And Aledo is a great community." We can look at this story and its implications for our society but most importantly Kristin was so thrilled that she took her crown to bed with her.

October 25th is The Walk for the CURE

Don't forget Tammy's Warriors and our walk for the cure of ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease. I've had great success in my fundraising efforts for Tammy and have reached my goal many times over. There are still two weeks to go, so - GREAT THANKS to the many who have made donations, large and small. Every donation, even a dollar, helps. Please click here to learn more.

Altered Art Challenge

Julie at Celtic Woman inspired me to follow up on an art challenge that she is sponsoring with Mary at Back of the Moon.

"Fire Fancies" by Arthur Hacker, leads the viewer to ask the question, "What is going on in this young lady's mind?" I look at her and I see lost in the warmth of the fire, lost in the moment.

The words "lost in" kept on emerging from my thoughts. It finally occurred to me as I worked on my own alteration of Hacker's lovely young girl, that I was feeling rather lost myself this week. What else would account for the disturbing jangle of colors and textures that I selected. And orange is so prominent, a color I don't care for at all.

There are aches in my heart this week for two people who are very important to me. There are many keys to the solutions for the aches but currently they are hanging, unused. So here she sit, shadowed and floating, wrapped in a world of muddied colors. And eeriely yet, she reminds me very much of a photo of me from when I was just 21 years old. The hair and the expression on the face is almost exactly the same.

Withdrawn into darkness
Shadowed, veiled.
Fire flickers.
Embers fade.
Heart burrowed deep
In cold grey ash.
Yet, my lap is warmed.

Demi Purse conclusion

At long last, the little purse that I start making here is completed. I have enough yarn left that I can actually make another one. I put a lining in but made quite a mess of it so I'm taking the lining out and reworking it. It's all about being on a learning curve and now I know what I did wrong.

When I make the second purse, I'm going to add narrow side strips to it so it will open a little wider. However, the size is perfect. It holds my i.d., one plastic card, one lipstick, one cell phone and one skinny digital camera. I am so good to go.

Sabbatical travels - #1

My friend, Geoff, took a semester off to go to Portugal to study the folk music there. His reports of his adventures there have been fascinating, his photos illuminating and revealing of a world of architecture and coastline that I've never seen. I wrote to him last week to ask if I could post his travels here. Several readers at my armchair traveling group will enjoy these, for sure. I heard back from him this morning and he happily allowed me to share the tales of his travels. So if you have never been to Portugal, please click Here to connect with his first stop in the Azores.

OSI - Serendipity - another word for FATE

It was just a year ago this week that I received a call from Quanah about the recurrence of his brother-in-law's cancer. George would be gone from his brand new bride in just 2 1/2 months. This would also be the beginning of a hard journey for my son. In a matter of just a few short days lives, jobs, and futures, would be changed forever. Unknown roads would be explored and followed.

The future is still unknown for Quanah. He would never have imagined that, he, who had expected to find a job quickly after their move from Indiana, would still be jobless ten months later. Fate has been unkind to many this year. Young Jennifer has lost a husband. Sue and Mark have lost a son. Erin has lost a brother. Quanah, out of love for his own new wife, chose to reinvent his life.

Phone rings. Life changes.

Kind fate, counterclockwise turns.

Uncertain fate unknown

TOP - Revisiting - Timeless Love

My grandparents, Esther and Lee Bastian
circa 1918
And below, thirty-two years later, I am safely tucked against their knees. (circa 1950)

Now, fifty-eight years later, I've become the keeper of the family memories. While Don delves into genealogy, I sort through the family photos that have come into my possession since my mother's passing. It will be two years this month that I've said good-bye to her. I am just now sorting through the abundant visual history that was left behind.

As I look through these memories, I regret that I don't have more names readily at hand. Esther and Lee are my father's parents. Dad left us in 2001 and I can identify most of the people in his family pictures. My mother's family is another story. Though I know the names of immediately family and some friends, I remain unclear on many of the relationships. Sadly, I did not go over all these pictures with my mother before she lost her capacity to speak so my most direct link was lost. However, I have one on my mother's cousins remaining and I'm hoping that she can fill in some of the blanks.

I will be posting more pictures as I get them sorted but I especially like these two because of the continuity they express; the years of enduring love they shared. If there is one thing I would advise young parents on now it would be to urge them to talk to their older relatives. Get the stories. Identify the pictures. Be sure to create the lineage for your children. You will be so enriched by the journey and your children will be grateful. They may not appreciate it until they are grown but I can promise you that they will be very thankful for this most loving gift that you can give them, the gift of their own history.







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Don't forget Tammy and the Walk for the Cure for ALS. See post immediately below.