GIRLS AND BEER.

I am very ambivalent about birthdays. I don’t celebrate my own, nor others, normally. Other people remember mine. I often don’t. But, Margo on the right, was also not celebrating her birthday, but here we are having a birthday get together for Margo. Basically just an excuse to have a girls night out. Amanda, on the left, is new in town and works at Quyle pottery. A new Brewery in town, we decided to try their beers. But, check out the glasses, Amanda’s glass is tall, Margo has a mug.


Pam and I each have a heavy “brandy” style glass?  Beats me. We ordered a taster and my favorite beer is Black Butte Porter. This brewing company doesn’t make a porter, but their stout was excellent and the rest of their beers were too. Glad we went, but, just a pass on the food. So, go for the beer.

Pam Quyle runs a pottery in Murphys that started with her parents 61 years ago. We’ve been long time friends and Pam decided we will have dinner at my house in February. She is the organizer so, now I know what kind of beer everyone likes. February it is. Maybe we’ll  not celebrate another birthday if we can find a friend born in February? I gave Margo the best card. We’re all single. On the front it reads, “I was trying to find a man for you.” On the inside it read, “But, why get something so useless.”

I know, its bad. I was the fourth recipient of that card. I scratched my name out and put in Margo’s. It’s a girl thing. It went well with the beer.

ARE YOU RELATED TO GENGHIS KAHN?

My great-grandmother started this quilt when she was 94 years old. It was her first time to use an electric sewing machine, her eyes were weary, and the quilt is very poorly sewn, and was unfinished. My mother handed it to me, and I asked my quilt guild friends at one time, could it be rescued? Their answer was, only keep it if it has memories for you.
I've finally hemmed the border and yarn tied it, nothing of beauty, but useable. Quilters have many homilies about working on quilts, a lot of nostalgia induced from working with saved scraps of material, parts of your children's clothing, Aunt Elsie's wedding veil or a favorite blouse or dress. As I worked some magic crept in. I thought of the few encounters I had with her. She spoke a jumble of French mixed in with her English. I could see her beautiful smile when she picked up my older sister's first child, and hugged her. She would touch my cheeks with soft, soft hands. I traced her work closely with my hands and thought about her. It crossed my mind that she touched this quilt, handled it, and it has never been washed. Could a person feel the DNA from a past great-grandmother?  Silly, I suppose but I got emotionally involved with this homely quilt.

My mother's family was French. When she did an extensive genealogy, she found out that there was some American Indian blood in her family, which explained the hawk nosed Indian features of some of my uncles.
Speaking of features, when I was growing up, my dad used to call me his "little Mongolian" because I had very slanted, Asian looking eyes. One of my brothers and my oldest daughter have that same feature, except, as we aged, our eyes have become more occidental.

Now, a genealogist I know, red-haired and blue-eyed, had serious burns and went to a plastic surgeon. He told her, I see you have Asian or African background from the way your scars rope.
She told him it couldn't be, she had traced her ancestry into the 1600's and had a clear view of who she was.

Segue forward to DNA ancestry testing which is very popular and affordable right now. The plastic surgeon was right. She knew there was a family story that the grandson of Genghis Kahn, Kublai Khan had invaded their Polish village in the 1200's. From the British Royal Museum, she got a map of Khan's conquests and sure enough, their village of Besko was invaded. Kahn pillaged and burned his way across much of Asia and Europe, killing the men and impregnating as many women as he could. They say now that one out of 200 men are related to Kahn. Hmm!  Interesting. Maybe my Dad knew something I didn't and I could be related to Genghis Kahn.  Guess it is time to get a DNA test.

See what can happen to you when you connect with the past through an old quilt?

Congress Critters from both parties work against what is best for the 99% of working people who just want to raise their families, have a decent job,  and get a bit of fun out of life. I side with the party who champions working people most. But this came in my mail:

Democrats who shill for corporations at the expense of their constituents.  We must let them know we are watching and won’t forget when it comes time for re-election.  I'm disgusted that I sent money to five of the people on this list and I've let it be known I won't send another dollar.  That is a Republican bill trying to gut the DODD-FRANK protections from another Wall Street melt down.(It didn't pass, by the way.)


The second one is the Keystone Pipeline. The Governor of North Dakota keeps touting the jobs it will bring, some say exaggerated numbers, but no mention is made about the town flooded with oil from a pipeline leak that ruined their wells and made them evacuate their homes and businesses. Leaks, we are told, happen all the time in these pipelines.  Gas is at its cheapest in years and we don't need that pipeline. It is an environmental disaster as we get cleaner and cleaner energy.



I can't say they are ALL TOTALLY bad, but it needs watching.

And, since I'm on the subject of congress critters, I should apologize for this, but these people are holding public office. All are newly elected Republicans for 2015.




There are a lot of good Republicans out there, but, are there so few good ones around they vote in people so out of touch with reality?
My information came from Daily KOS.

Well, I've had my rant for the day. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have something more positive on my mind.

MADDIES RETIREMENT GALA.

I attended a retirement party for my friend Madelaine Krska. She retired from the county as head of the Elections Department and is moving to Arizona as soon as she sells her place. Dang. Maddie gave all the good parties. Now, none of us know what to do?
She requested we come in costume so I went as a gambler. I didn’t make any money at it, but I had a lot of fun.


This is Maddie and a friend whose name I don’t know.


The Arts council puts on a fun event named for the Great Gatsby, and many people at the party attend that event and dressed to do the Charleston and show off their 1920’s and 30’s costumes.


I fit right in with the gangsters.

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Irene sang along with the band.


I normally take decent pictures. With my spare battery in the motor home I avoided flash in a very low light situation, and should have taken 25 good flash photos instead of 104 lousy ones, most of which I had to throw out. Those I saved are mostly marginal. Dang, again. I gambled and lost.


Goodbye, Maddie. We’ll visit you in Scottsdale.


 

MY AMAZING FRIENDS.

After a long day, a doctor's appointment, tests ordered that will change my return date to the motorhome, and other busy details, I stopped in to see Bill and June Foster, retired friends from the Sheriff's Department who live in nearby Angels Camp. It is hard to believe June is 88 and Bill will soon be 90. We don't get to venerable ages without some health problems on the way, but I want to be just like them, my amazing friends.
Bill recently had surgery that removed a gland in his ear. It damaged a muscle and his ability to close one eye. The surgeon told him that would happen in advance. A specialist put some gold beads in the loose layers of skin over that eye and now he can close it. Bill joshes, "Shoot, I've got gold in my teeth and gold in my eye, I'm worth more dead than alive."
June fixed a lovely dinner and Bill couldn't wait to show me his new toy, a vintage Mustang convertible.


"Makes me feel like a kid again," he said. We might age but we don't have to grow old. He does oil painting, golfs twice a week and they travel.
I'm not envious of his car, but I'm envious of that clean garage. (On my bucket list is to have a well organized, clean garage.)  It seems to me if they can make a driver-less car, they could make a self cleaning garage, couldn't they?  The all powerful "they".

RIDING THE HORSE OF FEAR.

Yesterday, I blogged the high cost of gun violence. Making people aware of the hidden costs of guns and their danger can help people realize that something has to be done. I was thinking kids shouldn’t have to be dodging bullets on their way to school in poor neighborhoods. And, shouldn’t it be considered a hate crime when Gabby Gifford was gunned down? And, when young adults shoot down children in schools? Shouldn’t the CIA or the FBI be involved in hate crimes?

I watched Frontline last night for answers and none of those things were discussed. I was right when sometime back I called out the NRA as the new MAFIA.

After Reagan was shot, he didn’t touch on the subject of reigning in the proliferation of guns.
President George H. Bush, when the NRA called federal officers and cops “…jack booted government thugs kicking down doors…” by the NRA’s most successful fear monger, Lobbyist Wayne La Pierre, Bush resigned from the NRA. La Pierre publicly apologized and was chastised by the NRA Board for “backing down”.  And from that point on, he very effectively got his message of fear moving forward and never backed down again.  What is the message?

THE GOVERNMENT WILL TAKE AWAY YOUR GUNS.

Is that what the American people bought into?  Yes.

When Clinton became President, he got gun legislation passed barring the sale of assault weapons, the Brady Bill, requiring identifications and some success toward other regulations. When Gore ran for President, the NRA pressed hard in their home states and won Arkansas and Tennessee to shame them. Their message? Fear.

THE GOVERNMENT WILL TAKE AWAY YOUR GUNS.

During George W. Bush’s terms, the subject never came up.
Now, Obama. After Columbine, he was warned not to buck the NRA. Any attempt would be met with no legislation passed by the Republican house. He shamefully walked away.
But, later, one Democratic senator, a member of the NRA, got movement toward closing the gun show loophole. And the NRA was actually talking compromise. But another gun organization, with 300,000 gun owners warned the NRA that they should never compromise. Always win. The NRA walked away from the table and speared one of their own.  They dropped the ball even though polls show that 91% of Americans believe our gun laws are too lax, and, 80% of NRA member households feel that better gun control is needed.
The assault weapons ban has, in the meantime, expired and was not renewed.
But, by Sandy Hook, Obama could no longer ignore his conscience. He moved fast hoping for some momentum after little 6 and 7 year old kids were gunned down in their school. Five white Republican senators killed that bill.

THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT KIDS IN SCHOOLS FROM A BAD GUY WITH A GUN IS TO HAVE A LOT OF GOOD GUYS WITH GUNS.
That was La Pierre’s response. And, gun sales rose with fear the government was going to take them away. Get them now before they come after us.

What Frontline investigations showed is that is doesn’t take thousands of people to keep that fear moving. It only takes 100’s of dedicated members to call politicians, show up at meetings, to be outside the senators office, to be passing out NRA publications of fear that promise to defeat anyone who supports even basic gun controls. Then with a fat pocketbook, the NRA spreads that fear on television with well targeted ads.They are trying to get legislation passed to prevent lawsuits against them. “Get the government off our backs.”

They ride the horse of fear for the sake of ultimate power. They brag with pride that they stand up to presidents and control government.
The people whose children were gunned downed, and thousands of other gun violence victims, feel betrayed by a government that is hobbled and refuses to protect them.

One woman from the gallery when the vote came up 5 short, shouted YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF.
Joe Biden had to quiet her but in his heart he agreed:  “How could they vote down legislation for identifications at gun shows, the gun show loop hole, back ground checks and bans on assault weapons in public?”
And Frontline?  They did not name the five senators. They are as scared as our government.

The future?  All of the new Republican’s sworn in this month are white, Christians. Not exactly a cross-section of American demographics.

THE HIGH COST OF GUN VIOLENCE.

USA TODAY did an investigative piece on what we pay, that's WE pay, for gun violence. I am not against guns, I own guns but our country has gone whacko for guns and it is out of control. People I talk to agree, some think my calling the NRA the Mafia is out of line. Good friends defend their gun practices to me but they don't own AK47s. And, they are not walking around department stores or coffee shops swinging guns around like they were toys.

Here is a brief rundown of the cost of gun violence in 2010 from USA TODAY
(Keep in mind that it has only gotten worse in 2014.)

Government statistics were analyzed by Ted Miller for the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.

Total cost for 2010 was $174.1 BILLION Try and think about BILLIONS of dollars here. From a medical standpoint:
$153.3 billion was from fatalities.
$16.6 billion from hospital admissions.
$4.2 billion& from emergency room visits.

Costs were broken down this way for 2010:

$5.4 billion in tax revenue lost because of lost work
$4.7 billion in court costs (Current statistics for 2014 court costs, 12 billion.)
$1.4 billion in Medicare and Medicaid costs for firearm injuries and deaths
$180 million in mental health care costs for gunshot victims
$224 million in insurance claims processing
$133 million for responding to shooting injuries

Miller also found that Medicaid covers 28% of hospital admissions for firearm injuries, 37% of hospital days and 42% of medical costs. But in another study, he found that even if people weren't on Medicaid when they were injured, about 8% ultimately enroll in Medicaid after their injuries. "So about half of the medical costs borne by Medicaid may be the best estimate," he said. (BB gun injuries were not included in the statistics.)

Manish Sethi, a trauma surgeon at Vanderbilt University and a researcher for the study, said his team decided to look at the numbers after seeing "a bunch of African-American kids with gunshot wounds" coming through the emergency room. "We have to do something."

So why isn't anything being done?

A federal appeals court in Cincinnati has ruled unanimously that a federal law barring people who have been committed to mental institutions from owning guns is unconstitutional.
Decisions like this make one think about the wisdom of our courts. Yes, in THIS case, the person was mentally incapacitated for a short period of time.

And today we have white supremacists, anarchists challenging the cops on their turf in Texas. They create roadblocks on their own and stop people and warn them of a DUI roadblock ahead, for instance. They follow cops around and aggressively approach cops when they make a stop or an arrest in the name of COP WATCHING. Cop watchers sometimes wear pig ears and brag about making 12 to 20 confrontations per night. Life is getting pretty scary with so many guns, and so many mass shootings.

My friend Domenic Torchia has an answer:

Do you want affordable health care - put a $5 surcharge on every bullet and $100 tax per gun sold that we  could use to lower our insurance premiums for health care. (Anyone caught selling bullets or guns on the black market - $1,000 fine for first offense and $5,000 for each subsequent transgression.

I say the gun activists would find a way around that just as they always have.I don't have answers but tonight, on PBS, FRONTLINE, I hope to understand why change doesn't happen when most people are against the wild proliferation of guns and gun use in public. Stay tuned:

TIME OUT FOR A MOVIE.

On Friday, Karen and I took Paul Moeller to see a movie, UNBROKEN, after the book by Laura Hillenbrand. I became familiar with the story of Louis Zamperini's amazing life when my cousin Gary, from Chatsworth, met Zamperini, signing books in a book store. He said "...at age 94 the guy exuded energy and moved around like he was a young man." He died July 2, 2014 at 97.


I rarely go to movies, but I knew if I didn't take time-out and go on the last day it showed in nearby Angels Camp, I'd probably never see it on the "big screen".


Paul is a similar character in ways. He can no longer drive, he's had several strokes, he is impaired but he continues to haul wood, paint the deck, travel to Germany alone, since his wife died, whatever it takes to carry on. His attitude is always, positive, can do.

But fortitude beyond measure embodied Zamperini. It is the story of a kid who fought to grow up when attitudes against "Wops" , or any immigrant, was ugly. His hero brother encouraged him to get revenge by being successful. He did that by becoming a track star at his high school and going on to medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He enlisted in 1941 and showed himself, his fellow prisoners and through Hillenbrand's book, the world, about enduring unspeakable torture. His is not only a story of torture, but survival, resilience, and redemption.

 Hillenbrand felt she had to do justice to his and his fellow POW's most searing memories. After the war, he drank, he was full of rage, shame and suffered flashbacks and constant nightmares. And, once again, he persevered, changed his life and became a virtuoso of optimism. He quit drinking, repaired his marriage and his life and went on to open a boys camp and become an inspiration to others.  

Hellenbrand got thousands of letters and emails from people saying the same thing. 'I never understood my father, my husband or grandfather, what they went through. Why he was in so much pain, why he drank.' 

Understanding and forgiveness heal. He wanted his suffering to be meaningful, and it was. The movie was about his survival and torture, and it was great to see it acted out, but read the book for the full story.

ANNIVERSARIES OF THE HEART.

I love this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It really suits my feelings at the end of a year. I miss those family members gone, and as I go through the rituals of Christmas and the new year, I think of them, little memories tickle in, mostly sweet, some regrets. And, I appreciate the sentiment of "anniversaries of the heart." Here then, the poem. And, a ritual my mother and I shared for more years than I can remember.

The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart,
When the full river of feeling overflows;—
The happy days unclouded to their close;
The sudden joys that out of darkness start
As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart
Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!
White as the gleam of a receding sail,
White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
White as the whitest lily on a stream,
These tender memories are;—a fairy tale
Of some enchanted land we know not where,
But lovely as a landscape in a dream.


My mother was a hard-working person, who tried to make everyone's dreams come true at Christmas. She cooked enough on Christmas to practically keep all of us full until the New Year. An early riser, she would get up before everyone and savor those early morning moments with her first cup of coffee and the crossword puzzle from the morning paper. Other than that, she rarely took time off for herself, but the week between Christmas and New Years was hers. She'd set up the card table and begin a jigsaw puzzle. Anyone and everyone could take part. If someone dropped in, she would engage them in the puzzle. Time floats away as you concentrate on working a puzzle and she chose them to be challenging. Then on New Year's day, the puzzle finished, we took down the tree and put the ornaments away.

I kept that ritual going in my home after she died but then, somewhere, I stopped working puzzles. And this year, for the first time, I missed putting my ornaments away yesterday.

A couple of days after Christmas, I got into my stuffed full quilting closet and there, the "anniversaries of the heart", lay hidden. Memories came pouring out. Lacey doilies she had crocheted. Patches she had made for a bedspread. Her handwriting on wisps of paper pinned to fabric describing its future use. Her button collection.
I kept scraps from clothing she wore or made for my daughters. The closet had so many unfinished dreams, I've yet to finish the job.


With most of the material and stuff I'd put into the closet gone, it is looking much neater on this side. My sewing machine is giving me trouble and is out of the closet. I gotta find something better.


On this side of the closet, those nicely closed drawers were so stuffed full, the bottoms were warped and the drawers couldn't close.


My office is practically unnavigable for the stuff I unloaded from that closet. Yes, it was full of unfinished projects, but marvelous memories it contained have inspired me anew to finish them. Thanks Mom. Thanks Henry.

CRAB MAC AND CHEESE?

Never thought I'd order macaroni and cheese for a festive New Years dinner. With crab it was marvelous; served at Alchemy in Murphys, along with lobster bisque, cornbread, a glass of Frog Tooth pino grigio, and a cappuccino, chocolate mousse for desert. Decadent Yum. Thank you Ken and Laurie for the lovely dinner.

Then a walk to the Murphys Hotel for a cocktail and some loud, fun noise of people rejoicing, enjoying. Home early. Listened to my Antsy McClain Trailer Park Troubadors dvd two times. Rang in the year with the television set and feel great this morning.

Merry have we met
Merry have we been
Merry may we part
And, merry meet again.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE. MAY 2015 BE YOUR BEST YEAR EVER.