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.

TURNING OVER A NEW YEAR.

It is a marvelous feeling to look back on a year and find good things among the inevitable sorrows. I can say with certainty that good health is a giant totem along with grandchildren who live and learn well that life is what you put into it, brings me great joy. Grandchildren are the frosting to match the silver in my hair. Friends are gold without which life would be tarnished. I can truthfully say my cup runneth over.
I will toast all of you tonight as I hoist a glass with my son and daughter-in-law, even if the end of this year was a bummer and a lesson learned.



I received this packet from the postmaster with ruined Christmas cards and bills ransacked for checks, then tossed on Sheep Ranch Road, found there, and returned to me. It is a federal offense to steal from a postal box and I will contact them this morning. Don't know if they will bother to lift  a print from paper. I'll let you know. What I learned, is never to put checks in my mail box at Christmas time. And, I'm grateful they were found so my friends don't wonder why they didn't hear from me. It took over two hours at the bank to get my account changed. If they hadn't been found, I wouldn't have known and my account information could have been sold to some professionals.

But on to the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, but never in want. (Traditional.)

I love toasts and here are a few fun ones:
As you slide down the bannister of life, may all the splinters point in the wrong direction!

Here is one bottle for the four of us. Thank God there's no more of us.

Bless oh Lord, these delectable vittles
May they go to your head and not to your middles.
Here's to the bottle that holds a store of imprisoned joy and laughter,

Here's to the bottle, many more bottles, and others to follow after. 

(But, don't rack up too many.) 
Happy New Year

SOLVING THE PLASTIC PROBLEM

Those handy, dandy, flimsy plastic bags are going to be forever banned in grocery stores and I for one am going to miss the little suckers. Not that I use them for groceries, I have my own heavy-duty canvas bags that are so much more efficient and practical.  My major grocery store keeps a recycle bin in front of the store. I reach in and grab a gob of used bags and line my garbage cans with them. They are great for picking up dog pop and other nasty chores.

 Of course we all know that plastic bags end up in the rivers and oceans and cause a horrible situation for wildlife. Mine go to the landfill.

Now, will people graduate to paper bags?  They don’t kill wildlife, but paper bags use billions of trees every year.  35% of trees cut world-wide are used in the paper industry, 4 billion trees.  They continually replant trees for the paper industry, but manufacturing them causes 70% more chemical pollution than plastic bags, just another damaging environmental process.

Ta dah!!!  Here comes super plant to the rescue—–HEMP!
http://www.hempbasics.com/shop/hemp-information

The above link gives you in-depth information about hemp, its value and what countries produce it for commercial products, etc. and etc.
But, here are some basic facts about hemp you might want to think about:
According to the Department of Energy, hemp requires the least specialized growing and processing procedures for all hemp products. (And there are many.) Hemp can be grown organically. Hemp is also a natural weed suppressor due to fast growth of the canopy.
Hemp produces more pulp per acre than timber on a sustainable basis, and can be used for every quality of paper. Hemp paper manufacturing can reduce waste water contamination. Hemp’s low lignin content reduces the need for acids used in pulping, and its creamy color lends itself to environmentally-friendly bleaching instead of harsh chlorine compounds.

 Hemp fiber paper resists decomposition, and does not yellow with age when an acid-free process is used. Hemp paper more than 1,500 years old has been found. Hemp paper can also be recycled more times than wood-based paper.
 Hemp fiberboard produced by Washington State University was found to be twice as strong as wood-based fiberboard. No additional resins are required due to naturally-occurring lignins.

Okay, that’s the basics. Besides, hemp doesn’t make you high and the seeds are nutritious and higher in protein than soy products. Hey, what’s not to like?  It’s a no brainer.  Do you think if we wrote our congressional representatives they would subsidize hemp?  No, the current paper industry would buy them off. I’m sooooooo cynical. But, we might be able to prod our governor into action in California.

A LOW KEY CHRISTMAS

I know, I know, Christmas is over. I've been distracted and busy with long neglected upkeep around my place. I got tired of cleaning gutters and I had a company install gutter guards.  Now I have a leak right in front of my front door. They've been back twice to fix things. Maybe by next week it will get fixed  Luckily Christmas was very low key. I put a wreath on the door. The tree in front of my living room window, undecorated.


In the dining room I set up some decorated mini-trees They stay decorated in the box. With one string of lights in the living room window and another facing the street. That was it.


Neighbors, Ron and Suzy asked me over for Christmas Eve for snacks and wine. His sports room his filled with neon lights and the whole place turns red.


He has a huge collection of sports pennants and about a dozen neon beer signs, bottles and related items. It is a fun hobby and the whole room lights up like a Christmas tree.


Christmas Day was at my son, Ken's. A real, live, nice smelling tree. Still low key with their family of four, my brother, Bill, Doug and I.


Doug managed to get the plumbing contractor in and out, the siding finished, the house locked up and came home for Christmas. He said he was growing webs on his feet in all the wet and muck. He was lucky to get over the pass before it snowed. And, grateful for his own bed.


Theresa and brother Clark stopped by for half an hour, to wish us a merry Christmas before they went to her daughter's family in Acampo to spend the day.


I didn't take many pictures, nor did I bake even one cookie. Laurie did a variety and Doug took time to bake his usual cookies. Plus we decided upon a Cajun Christmas with Laurie's Jambalaya recipe, I made chicken and sausage gumbo, some red beans and rice. And, then there was the famous boudin.
When we made it, the first batch was so tasty, it never got as far as the casings. Ken, Laurie, the boys and I ate the whole batch for dinner that night. So the ingredients were right and tasty, but in the casing, the sausage was too dry and we didn't put in all of the rice which gave the ground meat a gritty texture.  I guess it takes experience to make boudin. I took some home, put it in salad, soup and mixed it with potatoes and onions as a stir fry and it was very tasty. Laurie also experimented and used it with with other ingredients and pronounced it "delicious."
We played cards into the evening, and enjoyed the game of Phase 10 and Elevator.


Both my grandsons, Stewart and Mason are talented graphic artists. Stewart is branching out and made this self portrait entirely with dots.


He likes cartooning and grew up on Calvin and Hobbs, his fav.


He is developing his own cartoon strip and I think he has a web-page. Since I can't even draw a tree, I'm very admiring.
Today, I pick out paint colors for the new house.
Tomorrow, Virginia and her family return from Australia, via Vietnam, and points East.
Kristanne and her family stayed in with the flu and had no plans to make it to Calaveras County for Christmas.
Like I said, low key. New Years parties are, as my husband used to say, are for amateurs. We attended a few where there was no driving. He peeled a couple of dead drunks off the road as a cop and shunned New Year parties. Besides, he liked the early morning after parade and the football games.  Ciao, for now.

TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS CARDS.

Christmas cards trend toward themes. Popular at one time are replicas of old-fashioned cards. So familiar are Currier and Ives, small snowy towns, people sledding through the snow. This one is a famous painting and charming. (Not Currier and Ives.)

This is also a painting. The clothing shows the affluence these children enjoyed, reflecting their times.

A famous Madonna painting. There are so many beautiful paintings of the Madonna in museums all over the world and many of them are replicated on Christmas Cards.

What would Christmas be without an angel?

Or thoughts of peace and good will?

Also from a painting, these happy children playing in the snow.

A more contemporary vision of children playing in the snow.

Something warm and fuzzy.

This is my favorite. It much reflects the era of my childhood. The kids of all ages, a couple of them playing on the floor, the boy reading in his socks with his feet up on a book, apples on the tree, showing your treasures to grandpa. The homey pictures on the bureau. The girls are wearing those awful long stockings I hated so much growing up in a winter clime.

A touch of humor. Birds, animals and nature play heavily on Christmas cards.

This one is such a sweet tickle. It also shows another tradition; we decorate and light up trees in our yards.

Famous artists lend their skills to a Christmas card.
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A Christmas tree can be almost anything.

I read in Smithsonian where it took a long time for Christmas trees to catch on. Now, a Christmas never goes by without a card with a Christmas tree of some kind on it.
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I liked this lovely message. Some are old worn out clichés.

Christmas caroling is something not many people do anymore, but Christmas has its own special music, evolving year by year. But the old songs never go away.

A popular song clings to us for years and here we see a popular song in this card, "...the partridge in a pear tree."

A Christmas card can be whatever you make it. And here I have to salute a local artist, Bambi Papais. She and her sister Judie are both terrific artists admired and locally renowned. So with that in mind, I hope you've enjoyed my rummage through my box of Christmas cards from 1992.
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Happy holidays.
Mary