Kaleidoscope

Change

2009-09-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

I heard a fascinating story on PRI about a Portuguese guy who tried to get a song from his favorite band Deolinda turned into the new national anthem. It' a satireical song bantering about the idea of change. Small world anyone? In the end it's all a joke, said the guy who started it. But for now, it's good song, a hilarious idea, and 3,000 signatures toward a petition for change. Yes we can. No we can't.

10 things I love about my new house

2009-09-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

1.) The built in book shelves all throughout the house

2.) The damp smell of Escondido creek foliage that permeates the air

3.) A neighbor's rooster that thinks morning is a continuous state

4.)My new Coventry red and white modern square dishes

5.) The teal chenille area rug from Urban Outfitters that makes me want to lay on the floor all the time

6.) The vintage chandelier above the dinning room table

7.) The kitchen floor that looks like wood but is actually carpet

8.) The door bell that plays about 15 different songs, including "Happy Birthday"

9.) All the fruit trees: Grapefruit, peach, avocado, orange, and pomegranate

10.) The empty garage

brrr!

2009-06-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

Homework at the beach is always a good way to fake yourself into thinking you're having a weekend, so I jumped on the Sprinter to head to O'side today. It was a good alternative since I'm sick of driving and am not willing to pay over $3.00 a gallon. But, it was windy and frigid while Escondido was oh so sunny. Stay where the sun is shining. Criminal law always sounds better in the sun.

Check. Check. Check.

2009-05-19T16:53:00.000-07:00

My 3x5 card was smashed full of to-do scribbles made with my mini purple sharpie. Every time I was distracted during finals I would pull the little card out of the front of the clear plastic pocket crammed with legal documents, and jot down one more thing to do during my two weeks off. The time is here! Hurray! Here's what I did today:

1.) Made hundreds of espresso beverages.
2.) Read the pros and cons of every prop drafted to save California from its budget deficit
3.) Took my car over to Rick's Muffler for some alignment and repair. And while the car was being fixed I walked around downtown and
4.) Voted
5.) Opened a savings account.
6.)Read an article in TIME and an article in The New Yorker. Then at home I
7.)Set up online bill pay
8.)Found a new dentist and made an appointment
9.)Sorted through all the lovely literature I intend to read in the next two weeks:

Libel per se

2009-04-08T23:56:00.000-07:00

8 Hours later.
The researcher is back.
Hopefully not just from the library, but into the blogging world :)

I love my cityscape

2009-01-29T14:13:00.000-08:00

Wobbly

2009-01-07T17:01:00.000-08:00

As I was driving down the road with a friend on a trip to Julian today we noticed a man riding his bycicle along our narrow two lane road. Now cyclists on this road are always an anoyance because there isn't really room for them, but I do greatly appreciate people who ride their bikes. I think the world would be a better place if more people road a bike instead of driving. But this particular cyclist, despite the gray hair and heavy visage, may have taken his training wheels off for the first time today. He sat demonstratively low and wobbled from side to side with the rotating motion of the pedals. We swerved to avoid him.

Winding up the inclined turns toward Ramona, we spotted yet another cyclist trying to get some equilibrium. He seemed to think that if he jerked his handle bars from side to side he might make it up the hill faster. Instead he ended up looking as if he might turn and tumble down the twisted road and into the Oak trees at any moment.

Are some people just never meant for certain things? Or do all people who are a cyclist, surfer, biker, sky scraper window washer, etc. go through a wobbly period? I would hope that wobbles lead to efficiency but one can never assume. Bike licenses anyone?

Fraudulant years

2009-01-04T10:20:00.000-08:00

These are the playmate years, and they are demonstrably fraudulent. The scene is reputed to be acrawl with adorably amoral bunnies to whom sex is a pleasant social favor. The new culture. And they are indeed pleasant and available, in exhausting quantity, but there is a curious tastelessness about them. A woman who does not gaurd and treasure herslelf cannot be of very much value to anyone else. They become a pretty little convienience, like a guest towel . And the cute little things they say, and their daintly little squeels of pleasure and release are as contrived as the embroidered initials on the guest towels. Only a woman of pride, complexity, and emotional tension is genuinely worth the act of love and there are only two ways to get yourself one of them. Either you lie, and stain the relationship with your own sense of guile, or you accept the involvement and the emotional responsibility, the permanance she must by nature crave. I love you can be said only two ways.

-Observations from popular 60's fiction writer, John D. MacDonald

Josh Radin in the rain

2008-12-18T15:25:00.000-08:00

Last night it was pouring rain. It had been pouring rain for 3 days with only a little sunshine break the day before. I pulled myself from the cozy wood burning stove in my house and declared that I was going to the gym.

"Now?!"said the others. Yes now. My life doesn't end when it rains. Rain is life. I pulled up to the gym to see people running crouched over with hands above their heads as if eggs were falling from the sky. People never looked like that in DC. California has a special look. It's called the raining chicken run.

Pouring rain, a soy Joy misto, and a little Josh Radin.

Bring it on. I'm smiling.

Model fam

2008-12-02T12:48:00.000-08:00

I'm thankful

2008-12-02T11:52:00.000-08:00

Oma said when she took her dog Bear to the groomer the day before thanksgiving they asked if she was having a lot of company over.

"Twenty-three people and six dogs," my oma said. Despite Stewart unexpectedly jumping on my lap (I excused him, he's from Fresno), the day was beautiful in every sense of the word. Oma made a speech at dinner declaring that we had so much to be thankful for. The Melanoma was no longer a threat and we also had baby Hudson. After a meal full of favorite dishes, I finally found a sport I'm good at. And I don't even know what it's called. PVC golf?

sheish

2008-11-11T17:27:00.000-08:00

I despise self-pity. I was raised that way. "Being in a bad mood is a choice," my mother would always say. But last night, I indulged in an attitude I abhor, and it was wonderful. It was one of those nights when you want nothing better than to curl up in a cozy ball and talk to no one. After talking things over with my editor I concluded that my stories for the next day were settled enough that I could pay attention to the need to rest my cringing body. Simply slipping some tennis shoes on, I grabbed my keys and headed out the door in my North Star sweats. I don't go out in sweats. It makes me feel like everyone is looking at me thinking that I'm a lazy person who has no self respect. Last night I had a little too much self-respect. I didn't care what another soul in the world thought.

When I got to Albertson's I stood at the end of the isle gazing at the pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. After a few minutes I juggled the things in my arms in order to open the ice freezer door. ( I have a theory of starting out without a basket to help keep spending under control and use the arms I was given). The glass fogged up as a slowly reached for the Chunky Monkey and let the door slam shut. hmm, I thought. I know I used to liked this once, but I have never liked nuts in my ice cream. I rested towards one foot, and then the other. A couple scooted past me, making sure they had gathered every kind of snack they could possibly need for the many movies they rented. I tried holding just the cardboard on the lid and bottom of the pint so that it wouldn't freeze my hands. No, this isn't safe enough. I KNOW I like heath. But there were too many options. Vanilla? Coffee? Everything but the....

I finally chose the heath vanilla pint and headed towards the self check out so that no checker would see my obvious selection of pitiful items. At home I shut my door, snuggled into bed with my laptop Gala, picking out another safe selection --Little Women. Thank you, Luisa May Alcott.

I shmirked with deleight when Jo put on her writing cap, a tradition I have picked up myself. I scoffed at Amy's prudishness, and once again wished Beth would wake up to reality. When Jo rushed into the kitchen and yelled at Meg for falling for Brooks, I was right there with her exclaiming "Why does anyone have to get married!? Why can't we all just stay as we are!" I pushed the wet streaks up across my cheek bones and cherished every moment of it.

I am Jo. More than any fictional character that I've ever read. I don't know if I became her, or if she fits me, but either way, she never gets old. And neither does an occasional indulgence of B & J's, pillows and sweat pants.

"I like my coffee black....

2008-11-05T15:31:00.000-08:00

..like our next president," said the man I was serving coffee to a few weeks ago. The man and I laughed until he noted that maybe he should quiet down because not everyone was laughing at his comment.

You can't avoid it though. Coffee and politics go together like trees and soil. I'm not sure which nourishes which, but I know they help each other out a lot. When I trudged across the parking lot with my partner at 4:15 a.m.'s chilled darkness, the one thing I could see before we walked in the door was the huge headline that simply read "OBAMA." The last time I'd seen a headline that big it read IRAQ. Whether welcomed or not, this was morning's headline broke the patterns of history. As NPR touted on their program the day before, Obama's parents couldn't even have legally been married in most states at their time of marriage because of their skin colors.

I realized as I served coffee starting at 5 a.m. this morning that I might be the first person people had a chance to rebound their reaction to the elections with.

"It is what it is," said a spiky gray haired man as I sold our last paper to him just shortly after 6a.m. "I just hope he makes true everything that he said he would in his speech last night," finished the man.

An hour later as my german co-worker joined us at the register beside me, she cheered, raising her hand fisted around a black Sharpy before marking the cup of a woman flaunting an Obama t-shirt.

"We are so glad in Europe," said my german partner. "The change is very good for the US."

Obama's mantra of change was primarily about policy. Now that change is imminent, we're touting it most as a change in the color of our president's skin. Will the fact that a black man is holding the most highly respected position in our country change the hearts and minds of those who have yet to be unmoved by historical policy's racial progress?

My hope is that 50 years from now the front pages of newspapers that sold out by 6 o'clock this morning are still framed and preserved as the day when my country marked a change toward the better in both hearts and policy.

Quotes from a free press

2008-10-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

Suppose you were an idiot.
And suppose you were a member of Congress....
But then I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into
prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to
lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend
on the support of Paul.
-.George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow
man ...which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
-G Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a
sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
-James Bovard, Civil
Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from
poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor
countries.
-Douglas Casey, Classmate of
Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey
and car keys to teenage boys.
-P.J. O'Rourke, Civil
Libertarian

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody
endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
-Frederic Bastiat, French
Economist (1801-1850)

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in
a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps
moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
-Ronald Reagan (1986)

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and
report the facts.
-Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you
see what it costs when it's free!
-P.J. O'Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as
much money as possible from one party of the citizens to
give to the other.
-Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics
doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in
you!
-Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the
legislature is in session.
-Mark Twain (1866)

Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.
-Unknown

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with
a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the
other.
-Ronald Reagan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of
the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the
equal sharing of misery.
-Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is
that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of
folly is to fill the world with fools.
-Herbert Spencer, English
Philosopher (1820-1903)

There is no distinctly Native American criminal
class...save Congress.
-Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
-Edward Langley, Artist (1928
- 1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is
strong enough to take everything you have.
-Thomas Jefferson