The Governor and the Chicken Lady

A True Story Retold...

Christian Archibald Herter, who lived from 1898 to 1967, was Governor of the state of Massachusetts from 1953 to 1957.  This is a story he told on himself.

 I heard a version of it in a sermon in the 1980’s from a dear Anglican priest, Fr. David Schofield, who used it to illustrate how important it is for us to know who we are.   Although I remembered the story vividly, I wanted to be sure I had the Governor's name right.  When I checked it out on the internet I found the tale has been repeatedly used  to make many points, but I think it hardly needs any amplification to be of great value.  Here it is as I remember it.

~~~~~

Christian Herter, a graduate of Harvard and the governor of Massachusetts mid 1950’s was seeking re-election.  He was having one of those really hard days on the campaign trail.  He had spoken at a morning breakfast meeting where he had no more than a cup of coffee while his listeners ate.   He had then skipped lunch altogether to meet other duties,  consoling himself that his last scheduled event on the trail was at a church barbecue.  He arrived a bit late and was relieved to see food was still being served.  The Governor  was really hungry. The queue was quite long but he resisted the temptation to be recognized for special treatment and stood at the end of the line.  The day was coming to a close, he was tired, he was hungry and everything smelled so good.  As he moved down the serving line he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken.  She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line.

“Excuse me,” Governor Herter said. “Do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?”

“Sorry,” the woman told him. “I’m supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person.”

“But I’m so hungry, I haven’t had a bite all day.” 

“I’m sorry,” the woman said again. “Only one piece to a customer.”

Governor Herter thought of himself as a modest and unassuming man but he suddenly decided to throw his weight around just a little bit. He pulled himself up to his full height and asked the woman behind the platter of barbecued chicken, “Excuse me, but do you know who I am?” 

“Why, yes, Governor, sir, I do.  Do you know who I am?”  she replied. 

Governor Herter had to confess that he didn’t have any idea who the lady was.

“Well, I’m the chicken lady, and it's one piece per person. Now please, sir, kindly move along.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Free Milk of Human Kindness ...from Silicon Valley to Rwanda

Friendship is certainly boosted by proximity, but over my lifetime there have been a number of people who I have been destined to respect and love and yet not get to have anywhere near my neighborhood.  Such are my friends Roger and Faith Shaw.

Visiting with Roger and Faith in 2007

When we lived in Carmel on the cliffside estate, our employer had us host a fundraiser for visiting Rwandan cyclists who spoke every manner of smile but very little English.   Faith, who at that time lived in San Jose, was hired to translate their Kinyarwanda so the guys could tell their stories to the  invited guests.

Faith and I had one of those instant bonds; we found that we spoke the same language indeed.  Over the next few years my husband and I had some very dear encounters with Faith and her husband, Roger. For a time we lived close enough to visit each others homes.

While time and distance came between us, for Roger and Faith left California and moved to Rwanda, my appreciation of who my friends are and what they are doing continues to grow.

I hope you will watch an unsophisticated but fascinating video of Roger, learning about his larger neighborhood and showing why he wants to give milk to Mwendo neighbor children, but before you do, from their web page  in Rwanda, here is a bit of Faith's background:

First and foremost, she herself was a refugee separated from her parents after fleeing Rwanda's first genocide. She was taken in by another family, but was shamelessly exploited. They told her that her parents were dead, that there was no hope and they forced her into servitude.
A year later, Mrs. Hindley, an English missionary rescued Faith and hid her under blankets in the footwell of a vehicle and drove her to freedom. Mrs. Hindley re-united Faith with her parents. Later, growing up as a refugee in Uganda with very little money in the family, an unknown sponsor paid her school fees. 
Faith eventually attended Makere University. One evening, outside her college dorm, she discovered an abandoned baby crying in the trash. She took him to hospital and made plans to adopt him. Unfortunately, despite Faith's efforts, the little boy died a few days later. 
Sometime after graduating, Amin's soldiers arrested Faith on trumped-up charges and held her in a cell where she was certain to be raped that very evening. However, a man who described himself as a friend of her father's saw her in jail and somehow negotiated her immediate release. Neither Faith nor her father ever identified the man.   
Faith left Uganda and moved to Kenya and took a job as a teacher. Later she won a scholarship for post-graduate education for refugees. She moved to England to become a student again. It was here that she met and married her husband, Roger. They had two daughters, Zoe & Murika, and later the family relocated to the USA. In 1994, they watched Rwanda's second genocide unfold on the TV news. It was a horrifying event resulting in the murder of 800,000 people. The aftermath was heart breaking. Among many awful tragedies, thousands of children were left without anyone to care for them. This painful reality weighed heavily on the hearts of Faith & Roger and they recalled how someone had helped Faith when she had been a child in need. They couldn't quite reconcile their comfortable family life in California with the suffering of so many abandoned children in Rwanda.

In 2000 Faith visited her homeland and saw children in need in the aftermath of war.
In 2003,  Roger and Faith bought a four bedroom house in Ruhengeri.

They hired a nanny - Judith, and a cook - Gatzinzi, and they accepted the first four orphans, Ruzindana, Anne, Mutoni & Alice. Faith's dad did a great job of running the home and being a role model for the children and staff to look up to. Sadly for all of us, he passed away in 2006. 

In 2006 they incorporated and children kept coming...if the cook
didn't find another orphan, one of the children did.  Faith sold her paintings and jewelry she made to support the children and her church helped too. She would fly back and forth from their home in San Jose, California where Roger was still working in Silicon Valley... but it wasn't the vision they had.  They wanted the children to  live as a  family and they decided together to give up their work and home in California to become  Mom and Dad to an ever growing family in Rwanda.


In 2012 they relocated the rescue home to Bugesera. The website has wonderful pictures of the home they built there and the children who are growing up. It isn't accurate to call the Ishimwe rescue home an orphanage, for the children who live there are sons and daughters.  Faith and Roger have eighteen children!


 In the years since,  Roger has built a fish farm, a whole other story in itself, to help the area be more self sustaining.   Faith started Pioneer School, a place where the Ishimwe children can learn amongst other children of the community, broadening their sense of belonging and purpose.  The Ishimwe children learn at home to grow their food, and raise animals. At school they study reading, writing, arithmetic, computers, music and art and they are learning how knowledge, work and cooperation can call forth abundance enough to share.

Which brings us again to  Roger's latest hope and his video.  The children at Pioneer School all get a big fresh glass of milk each day from the cows at the Ishimwe home.  Roger wants to bring free milk to the neighboring school and several homes where the children are not able to attend school.

After watching Roger's video, I  remembered an advertising slogan from an American bread company of the 1950's, "build strong bodies twelve ways."  We can laugh now at white Wonder Bread with its 12 added nutrients, but Roger's milk will build strong bodies and it is also likely to kindle love and good purpose in the grateful recipients.

And to think of the promise that is attached to giving even a cup of cold water to a little one.


hoping the best for you,

Jeannette
ABOUT DONATIONS!
Some people have asked if they can donate...yes, that would be lovely!
  If you click on the video link that is in the story and I will provide it again HERE you will see to the right of the video picture is a donate button through an organization that Roger chose called Generosity.   They do not charge a fee to either side, but they do make a space to give Generosity a donation as well, if you so choose.  This site requires a credit card.

I gave my donation via PAYPAL to the Ishimwe website  with a note to specify that this particular donation was for MILK MONEY  for ROGER,  You simply click on the button to make a single donation and the option for PAYPAL will come directly up as well as other choices.

Three Memoirs of Improbable Life Paths

None of the three autobiographical books I've read of late are hot off the press, but they were all new to me. And oddly, these three very different lives have a lot in common.

Late summer a friend gave me a copy of the 2011 New York Times Bestseller, Kisses from Katie.  I confess that I took it home and set it on a shelf.  It didn't look like "my kind of book."  I found the title to be cloying.  However, I trust my friend and wanted to be able to respond when asked if I had read the book, so I carried it on a road trip to Idaho and brought it home again, no more familiar with the story of the young woman on the cover than I was before my journey.

Once I finally began reading, I found a rather amazing tale of a girl who, based on a three week mission trip to Uganda during her senior year in high school, asked her parents for permission to postpone college for a year so she could return to Uganda and teach little children there.  Katie Davis was born in 1989 making her now twenty-five years old  in 2014.   That is especially important for her because Ugandan laws require residents to be twenty-five years old to adopt children and she has been the foster parent to thirteen little girls!  ***Yes, I know that exclamation points are best used sparingly.  I think I have have restrained myself greatly using only one; considering the  information contained in my last sentence, perhaps there should have been  thirteen of them.***

Next the 1990 Ben Carson story  Gifted Hands  fell into mine.  While Katie Davis is a daughter of privilege, her school's homecoming queen and class valedictorian,
Dr. Carson, born in 1951, was one of two sons of a working mother in inner-city Detroit.  The book opens with a letter to the reader from Sonya Carson who writes:

Dear Reader, As the mother of Ben and his brother, Curtis, I had a lot of challenges.  Being one of twenty-four children, married at age thirteen, and later having to get a divorce after finding out my husband was a bigamist were just a few of them....

Ben Carson begins his story sharing his childhood  struggles with a convincing vulnerability.  I had read on the back jacket that he became  director of pediatric neurosurgery at John Hopkins Medical Institutions at age thirty-three, but I found little hint of that possibility as I read the chapters about his young life. I also had no idea how much brain surgery explanation I was getting myself into, but once I began this book there was no way I going to skip over any of it. In addition to his passion as a surgeon, Dr. Carson offers himself as a motivational speaker for young people.  He believes that "With the right help and the right incentive, many disadvantaged kids could achieve outstanding results."   He certainly has.

Son of Hamas...This incredible chronicle was published in 2010.  Mosab Hassan Yousef was born in the West Bank city of Ramallah "to one of the most religious Islamic families of the Middle East."  It was the same year I was giving birth to my first child in California so I have a very real sense of how long he has been on the planet; he is now thirty-seven years old, but he has lived in an utterly different world than the one I know. He is currently living under political asylum somewhere in America.   He didn't set out to write a New York Times bestseller, but he has.  He didn't set out to do many of the things he has done.

I am recommending these books to you.  I am  reticent to tell you much about their journeys as they are so personal and I want to neither add nor take away from the narrative of these brave souls.  Each one of them hopes to make the world a safer and better realm for others and to tell their respective stories they have to trust the reader to look beyond cultural or emotive differences.  These three lives with not a word written of them already represent tremendous  giving and impact in the world. Sharing one's story is an additional gift, a tremendous vulnerability and I am glad to have been a recipient.


I 'll be interested if you have read any of these books.

If you haven't read Mr. Yousef's book, start there, it's truly a challenging and powerful story and ever so pertinent to trouble stalking our globe.  I am already thinking of rereading it.


By the way, each of these books had an acknowledged co-writer:
Katie Davis with Beth Clark
Ben Carson with Cecil Murphy
Mosab Hassan Yousef with Ron Bracken

Painting and Praying

Thinking of dear ones....

For Herb M. I am so glad you have been part of my life, with prayers and tears and hope brighter than any colors we can see or share...

For Susan H. as she mends in the hospital tonight.

For my traveling darlings ...

For Bill M. and his dear GJM.

For a sweet foot that has walked ever so many miles for me and mine.

*** *** **** **** ** *******

California Fires and a Little Town Called Weed

Oh my dear California, so dry you have been and beset by fires.

Cal Fire says they have answered at least 1000 more fire calls than usual by this time of year.  The KING fire, that is believed to be arson, started east of Sacramento on September 13th and is only 35 % contained as of today.  It has already hit over 90,000 acres.  Some news reports compare it to cities - it's said to be a wildfire bigger than the entire city of Las Vegas - to help us get a sense of how much terrain that is. There are fires near Yosemite too.  Another dear town that has suffered is Oakhurst.

On August 9th we set out to drive up into northern Idaho to a family wedding and a visit in the new home family had recently made there.  Our planned route to Idaho was up in the air for a few days as the most direct way via Highway 97, off Highway 5 at the town of Weed, was closed for while due to fire.  Fire was already on our minds as my brother's northern California ranch had a front row seat for the "Log Fire,"  one of the several blazes that got started from the July 29th dry lightening strikes.  It came very close, but the ranch itself is unscathed.

Out on Highway 97, the firefighters contained the flames and reopened the road, so we stuck to our original plan to go north to Weed and over on 97 instead of getting ourselves to Reno and then north into Idaho.
 That afternoon we stopped to rest and eat a bit in the shade of a tree outside the log cabin

that serves as the Weed, California visitor center.

A small part of a welcome sign mural

We had driven past Weed on Highway 5 many times, but never stopped before  We were charmed and heartened by our brief visit.

Our view from the town of Weed as we ate our carrot sticks and almond butter sandwiches.

   

 

Then we drove on out of Weed, but not without noticing what a fine little town it was. I wish I had taken more pictures.

 And as we headed out highway 97 we saw that fire had indeed swept through on both sides of the road.

Unfortunately little more than a month later, fire raged through the town of Weed on September 15th and the  town of 3000 took a very large hit.  They called it the Boles Fire.

News Photo

The people of Weed lost around 150 homes, their community center, their library, and several churches. The town mill was damaged, as was the elementary school.

You can imagine all  the efforts that are being made to rally round those burnt out of their homes...blankets and meals and money and somewhere to stay and the coming alongside with friendship, hope and energy.  It will be a long haul and hard.

  Life is full of reminders to count our blessings and check our priorities, isn't it?

I watched a video today on Cal Fire which first began serving in 1885.  I sure feel grateful for those who serve from Oregon to the southern border.  Thank you.
  

Every Man...a Piece of the Continent

A few years back we hired an artist and a mason to fix two of the fireplaces in our employer's stone house on the cliffs above the ocean.

 Steve Gally was a friendly and very Central Coast independent kind of a guy whose talk was fast and far ranging, he was interested in the natural world and how to work with and in it, his community and people in general. He got to work when he got here and then he worked hard. He was so hyper-amped, so  excited about everything and so wanted to share, that I found myself somewhat overwhelmed by the boom of his presence, yet I always found him to have the best intentions.   

 After the job was over, he would stop by randomly with some  honey from his bees, or old veggies from the health food store that he would get for his chickens.  When he  ran into us in town he'd treat us as if we were long lost  and blurted out one day that even though we'd been customers, we were different...we were "like friends."


He told us both, more than once, that if  we ever needed any help, ever, ever, any time, to call him.

He had recently stopped by to invite us to walk with him on a ranch south of us.  He said he would be going by at least once a week  and we could come along anytime.  We looked forward to that, but that date won't  happen. We just learned that, Steve, 62 years old, died suddenly on  July 16th of natural causes at home in the garden sanctuary he was building with and for his lady, Jennifer. 

No man is an island,  entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were;  any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.  John Donne

We each have a flashlight he gave us for presents. I hope we shed a little light in his days too.  Man knows not his time.  May he rest in peace.

You can see  a glimpse of some of  the hands on doing and giving Steve was up to on Steve's blog.  

An August Post before it is History

Just begin...

as the month of August ends...

Do you ever read the last page of a book and then rush back to reread the opening lines?

Hartnell Professional Center  Monterey, California

                                         

On my way in for an ultra sound of an elbow the other day,  I was so struck with presence of the building I stopped and took a number of pictures.   The entrance grounds, the building, the blue sky, the oak boughs above the path are a bit of medicine all in themselves.  

This photo was taken from my seat in the waiting area.  I saw a photo of  Clint Eastwood  unveiling a plaque and later read that this building also houses the Clint Eastwood Youth Program, for youth needing to recover from substance abuse.  I saw Clint last night,  not here in town, but on television as he spoke at the Republican National Convention using something reminiscent of the psychotherapeutic empty chair gestalt method. The theory emphasizes that in order to get  fully into the experiential present moment, so you can go forward in life, you may have to extricate yourself from  webs of relationships that have formed your past, without the help of those significant others, and hence you address an empty chair.  Recovery is a big theme in our time.

Also hanging on the walls of  Hartnell Professional Center,  are a number of  large oil paintings,  gifts from local estates, of the colorful early settlers of old Monterey.  Monterey was the first capital of California, from 1776 to 1822  under Spain and then when Mexico achieved independence from Spain, Monterey was the Mexican capital of California.  Spain had not allowed foreign traders in California, but Mexico opened the ports for trade.  It was in the same year, 1822, that the namesake for this building, William Hartnell  arrived and began his first California ventures in the cattle business and later he began a school for  boys.  You can't live in this area and  not know his name as there is a street, a park and schools named after him, but his story is not fully available and questions of accuracy abound.  I suppose that isn't unusual, is it?   Well, Monterey was not chosen as the capitol when statehood arrived for California in 1849...but it is still a capital little city.

But back to August while it is still the present, for it is about to become history itself.  August gave us a few, and some of our first, sunny days in a good long time. As I mentioned fog on my one and lonely several July posts,  I feel as if I must really share some of the August glory.  Fog is not a hardship like so many of the extremes many regions face, but when it lifts it certainly lifts more than itself.

From Scenic Road in Carmel ...those rocks on the left are the tip of Point Lobos.

Last weekend we climbed down

                                              through the creek...

                                         to a neighboring beach were there was not even a footprint in the sand.

                                             

And later back at home, Mark set the table under the redwoods and cooked our dinner on a fire...now that felt like a summer day.

August 2012...people came and went...one of the guests who left early bequeathed to us tickets to an event we have never had on our personal horizon, the 62nd Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. While we have enjoyed the free parade of antique cars down the Costal Route, we had never been to see the competition exhibit on the 18th fairway of the golf course as automobiles have never been an interest or hobby for either of us.  I learned that Monterey Peninsula is still an open port...by inviting car enthusiasts from all over the world the Concours creates a source of support for many people in need...Prior to this year, donations to charitable organizations exceed 15 million dollars.   As we wandered around the relics of years past, we were also aware of  how many jobs this expensive event creates.   I took a lot of pictures and post a few here for your entertainment.

The cars from India, the "Maharaja cars" were a big attraction and were given the honored spot of the waterside edge of the fairway.  This  award winning 1924 Rolls-Royce  belongs to the Maharana Arvind Singh Mewar of the Palace in Udaipur.  

Saffron colored-a symbol of bravery

The local Carmel Pinecone did a story, "Indian royalty make grand impression at Concours" that unearthed interesting details about the1932 Rolls known as the Star of India.

The grandson of the original owner has repurchased the car after its  44 year exile in Europe and will now return it to India as a present to his father on the occasion of his 75th birthday. 

I liked this green car...

but in one of the merchandise halls I saw the car that is probably closest to my speed.

We never had to go to school in August, but I hear that many schools are already open.

I have seen signs lately urging people to "Please Drive as if Your Children Live Here" which strikes me as a good admonition, not only for driving with such awareness, but to live with an awareness of the children of the future.

History is in the making...and 

September will be here tomorrow.

Away in a Manager

Away in a Manager

The little wooly sheep in this nativity scene belonged to my husband's great grandfather. Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus belonged to his grandmother.  One year we made the little A frame and other animals wandered into the collection.  I remember little hands that use to often rearrange the crowd of adoring animals.  I enjoyed unwrapping these but  wondered where I could place them.  I decided if they were on the wooden tray I could scoop them all up at once when room is needed for a guest.  Tonight they were like another plate on the table...and for me it was a  feast for eye and heart.

Christmas, it's not all sleigh bells in the snow...

While I was doodling on the Paint Program on my computer tonight, this otter  decorated with starfish

floated up to help me wish my readers a joyous time of Christmas preparation.

And various thoughts floated up too...the last weekend before the 25th is often a time of pressure for many people, last minute shopping in the crowds and bad traffic in harsh weather raises the pulse of many....makes it hard to stay focused on what is really important, on the people we love and want to bless.  How to remember not to fuss about details if it is going to cause more tension than joy?

I saw a  few televised clips of Americans in the military who are serving abroad, away from their  families and our homeland this holiday season.  While their families will miss them and they will miss holiday sharing, gifts and decorations, food and parties,  hopefully they won't miss out on being remembered, appreciated, and prayed for.  And I thought too of those who have died in service this last year...Christmas is for you too.

~~~

Music, Music Music....

In the morning:

 It's a Saturday morning.  Does thinking it, saying it, writing it, deepen the impression, the preciousness of it?

Does documenting that there is morning light on the wings of a white bird over the waters of the Pacific, that the horizon has a low quilted band of gray soft  clouds and the waters that have already melted in the morning's sun are floating  up into the short blue waves of a promising sky....does that deepen the impression for me?  It is Saturday. Yes.

Our first practice....

We are practicing music much lately. It is hard to describe the mix of music...a group of people centered around an oud player... lots of original compositions from  the oudist and the guitarist...
The violin player studies Egyptian style.  I am playing my flute.  A lovely keyboardist came to practice  the other night...I hope she will come back.  We are in preparation for a December 15th event...more on that later. 
                                                                     The Afternoon:
I have soup  in the crock pot and we ate broccoli for lunch...trying to eat like grown ups once in a while to not let  too many of the Christmas sweets that keep appearing here and there  take control of us. 

We practiced at home this morn but will leave soon.  At home, we had  some of our  music taped to the hearth.  The black-eyed-Susan  is blooming  along the stairs to the laundry room.  I picked a bouquet of that today and hung some cedar boughs with red ribbon.  Pretty heavy level of decorating...huh?  But imagine how the two kitties would  enjoy swatting anything new in the room.  All ornaments would be considered for their amusement.  Trees surround us outside and they are hung with cones and birds and lichen knit right there in their limbs.

 Time to go!     Happy Saturday afternoon and evening to you.

An Anti-dote to Embedded Journalism Troubles

I recently met a man who doesn't read newspapers and doesn't watch television and is not, as he said, "an Internet person."  You can imagine all the things that us news followers have been deeply aware of that I did not tell him about.  I wonder if it is possible to not even hear about the oil in The Gulf or the "change of staff " and the folks in Afghanistan who may be wishing that they too had shunned the media. 

My mother, as I have mentioned before, told me to not write anything that I wouldn't want to have published in the morning news.  And we could add...and don't say anything you wouldn't want  interpretively written up by someone else. Just because a rolling stone won't gather moss you can't assume that nothing else will be collected.   It's important to be careful who you, as they say in the journalism world, embed.
I was thoroughly "embedded" myself this morning and I woke, not because I was ready, but because my cell phone was ringing.  I answered but no one spoke back to me. I put it on speakerphone. I could see who it was that was calling, and I waited, it was someone I'm always willing to talk to.  "Hello, hello, I'm here," I said.  Whistling came through, sweetly, loud and clear.

"Summertime"  was the melody and he can not only  carry a tune, he even mimicked the vibrato of singing.  As I lay in bed, in between giggling and waking,and enjoying the whistled tune. I realized it was an accidental call.  I was apparently the last call he'd made the prior evening and now some button had been pushed and his private whistling was being aired. As innocent as it all was, I felt strange, because he didn't know I could hear him nor had he intended to be heard.  He was free whistling, whistling in his own private moment for all he was worth.

 I hung up and called him back and when he answered I spouted, I wasn't up for singing yet,  the lyrics to the song of his tune:  "Summertime and the living is easy, fish are jumping and ..."

"Ah, my meeting just started, can I call you back?" he said.  Did he sound somewhat bewildered or had he already figured out that he'd called and given me an unintended early morning cell phone concert?

That's how easy it is for information to be unintentionally shared, and while "Bread on the Water"  is no "Rolling Stone,"  here I am telling you about it, albeit not in any way injurious to the identity,  mission or hopefully even the feelings of the exposed whistler.  I'd like to think I'd protect him even if he wasn't someone very dear to me who I've known my entire life.

But think, you could accidentally push the button on your phone while you are making some ad hominem attack, some comment that reveals your  irritations or prejudices rather than your intellect or heart; these things can and do happen. 

I say with great respect that some people have impossibly hard jobs; I can't begin to understand all that some duties might entail.  So all I can suggest is, if at all possible, whistle while you work. It could cover, like love, a multitude of sins and it might even keep you out of the news...though you could still wind up in someone's blog.

Conflicts in Nature Wildcats on the Coast

This is Phoebe's story...I was making jokes last week about having a kitty cam on our cats to see where they go.

I wish I did.

                                                               This is Phoebe

On Sunday I noticed fairly large wildcat scat on the southern path.

Tuesday night about 10 pm we were in the cottage with two friends. Phoebe,our cat, had been walking around with us at sunset and was currently right outside the front door underneath a chaise lounge.

Kitty Bumpkins, who also lives with us had been out and about since early afternoon and we were still waiting for her to show up for the night.

 

While sitting with our visitors, we heard a strange noise, a scraping, tumbling noise and we all jumped up.

Mark threw open the door and we saw a fleeting glimpse of flying calico and something larger chasing.

Then in the dark we hear a most horrible cry.

Our friends had been about to leave but F. helped us search for a little while and D. stayed with Gideon the dog who we weren't sure we should let out, though later we did to see if he could help us track the cats. Two visitors from the main house joined us briefly. We had headlamps and flashlights and sticks. Mark and I continued to search every bit of the 3.5 acres we could reach. Mark scoured the ravine and even went into the neighboring property.

                                          This is Kitty Bumpkins

At around midnight, back near the cottage, I saw Bumpkins. After some serious coaching, I got her inside.  One cat was now safe.

I sat out front of the house for a while calling and watching for Phoebe, my guts wrenching in distress. Mark and I called each other on our cell phones, each trying to cover different terrain. Now Mark was getting tired; well we had been tired when it all started. We didn't know what else to do; there was no sign of Phoebe or her attacker. We lay ourselves down in bed, but every 10 minutes or so I was up again, at the window, or outside, listening. What were the chances she could out run a bobcat?  Where could she go that the wildcat couldn't? I slept a little and woke to a noise. I searched around but found nothing. I lay down again and then some time after 3 in the morning I got up to use the bathroom. Without much hope I went to the front room and there, hunched on the top of a padded chair outside the front door, I saw through the window the curve of her little back. I was amazed and so relieved.

She was moving slowly and just wanted to get in her bed up on my desk where she generally spends the whole night. When I woke in the morning both the cats had gotten on our bed. Phoebe was curled right up against the small of my back, and though the two kitties have been been uniquely possessive and territorial about us, Bumpkins was sleeping peacefully only a few inches from Phoebe.

This morning we took Phoebe to the vet. She has no puncture wounds, or broken bones. She is limping, bruised and tore some claws. She has a fever and is on anti-biotic.

 We'd like to figure out how to catch the bobcat and move it to the wilder wilds. There is a wedding here Saturday...maybe all the people on the place will discourage it from hiding and haunting here.

 Grateful and relieved and too tired to realize how happy I am,

Jeannette

Deep Water Oil Spill

"SPILL : to cause accidentally, or allow intentionally, to  fall, flow, or run out, usually with the result of losing or wasting; hence, to lose, or suffer to be scattered; as to spill water; to spill sand."    so says my 1959 blue hardbound Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary. 

To lose, or suffer...there were eleven bronze hard hats at a Memorial Service today, Tuesday, May 25th, 2010.  Eleven men died in the April 20th,  Deepwater Horizon big rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

One barrel of oil is 42 gallons. I think of things I have spilled, running for rags to mop up the milk or the wine  or the ink.  Hurry, before it's all over everything.  Hurry, mop it up.  A quart of milk, a litre of wine...a small dark bottle of ink...Pelican Ink...that's the brand I spilled.   

The Pelicans fly over us here. They always lift my heart.  "Pelican alert," we call out to each other. "Pelican alert!" I think about the wetlands of the Gulf of Mexico.

Last year I took this picture of a mural on a wall in Monterey, California. 

It's a tall but worthy aspiration ~Protect All Life~and this mural is only focused on sea life.  There aren't even any really tiny not yet breathing on their own human babies pictured.  It's a good goal to think about; what can one do?  One me, one you, what can we do?  How to achieve the will as a people, as a culture, as an economy to prioritize taking care of what is?  Pick a realm, any realm, and apply this hope, this goal.

                                                 F I L L _______I N ________

                                                T H E _______B L A N K S __________

 Sustainable is a very popular word these days, and rightly so.  You know what it feels like to burn the candle at both ends?  You can do it once in a while and then rest up and restore yourself.  But if you are down to one or two candles and it's a long dark night,  maybe it's best to only burn one end at a time and only when you really need the light.  And if you are out in the woods, then you need to care for the flame because it's best not to unleash what we can't contain.

So the blowout prevention failed, the inspectors may have been watching porno or under the influence of crystal methamphetamine and now the big hope is piles of heavy mud with concrete on top of it,  a plan called  "TOP KILL."   

Maybe the oil will eventually get eaten up with DNA altered microbes.  How many  Alcanivorax borkumensis, these are little  rod-shaped bacteria that can eat and get energy from oil, could be safely introduced to the gulf?   That makes me nervous.  Here we are drilling miles below the surface unleashing crude oils into delicate ecosystems and then such a mess could inspire solutions involving synthetic and modified life forms.  Are we sure about that?  What might that do...?

Last week we watched the movie "The Future of Food."  It brings up a lot of questions.  Is it really a good idea to use E-coli  to break into the DNA of one organism so you can splice in the attribute of some other entity?  I am not making this up...

Enough late night reading and musing. I am not going to read anymore about the oil spill tonight.  I am putting out my little candle and going to bed.  I hope that the planned efforts to cap , after five weeks of spilling, are totally successful.  The real mopping up can't really happen until the gushing stops.  Thank you, people who are out there working to stop the damage, washing off turtles and trying to save birds.  I'm sad for the human losses, the lost lives, the suffering of the survivors,  and the enormous number of people who are suffering acute loss of  livelihood and a way of life.  Off shore drilling,  miles below  in the terrain the Beatles called "under the sea an octupus' garden in the shade," may not be where we want to be drilling.

Apparently what happens offshore, doesn't stay offshore...

Celebration...a quiet anniversary

These days we don't live near enough to have a party...but as we celebrate our anniversary together we think of  those who gathered around us that day thirty-three years ago. 

We spent the morning pruning more windows to the sea from our outdoor table.  Only the last few mornings has the sun been hitting this spot. I took this photo this afternoon after we trimmed the thicket. 

We wandered into Carmel for a late lunch...as we waited for a table at Dametra Cafe we walked  in town

and enjoyed the window shoppers.

A young couple was on their honeymoon and  we were mutually feted with a song at Bashar Sneeh and Faisal Nimri's restaurant.

This little diner stood and gently danced to the music. She brought smiles to many.

So it has been a restful day full of flowers and sunshine and the kindness of those nearby...

as we carry love in our hearts for those gone on before us and send our love to those too distant to share with us today.

 ~~~