Around OakMeadows

Around OakMeadows 

Our 15 year old cat, Bandit, has been limping on his back left leg for about 2 months with it gradually getting more noticeable. The leg was not swollen and he was obviously not in any pain so I thought given time, it would get better. But it didn’t. So today JMM took him to the vet.  The vet says it is probably a torn ligament and there really isn’t anything to be done. I have to be sure to pick Bandit up 4 times a day and put him on the counter so he can eat and drink. He gets down by himself with no problem but he can’t get up.  This we can deal with.  

We are getting some much needed rain. And even better, the temperatures are about 10 degrees cooler. Yea! 

I finished reading The High Tide Club by Mary Kay Andrews. It was a surprisingly good summer read. No mental exertion required. 

The horror in Washington continues. I’ll tell you flat, I am tired of it. But I just cannot pretend it isn’t happening and just bury my head in the sand. This business of taking children away from their immigrant parents and warehousing them in cages in empty WalMart buildings or worse in tents in West Texas has been furious not just with the administration but with the people who still support it. It boggles my mind that this is going on today, in my country. I never, ever thought I would see anything like this. And , you know, I keep thinking, “What is coming next?” What will the next horror be?  It just doesn’t end and it is wearing me down. 

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

Called Senators Cornyn and Cruz:

I’m calling to oppose the president’s appointments of several people who have failed to support for equal right in their careers. I would like you to vote no on:

Kenneth Marcus for Department of Education's office of civil rights.

Ronald Mortensen for Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.

Ryan Bounds to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Britt Grant to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Thomas Farr to the US District Court, Eastern District of North Carolina.

Patrick Wyrick to the US District Court, Western District of Oklahoma.

Thank You note to Marco Rubio (R-FL):

Thank you for going against the president’s plans to ease sanctions on Chinese company, ZTE. Holding them accountable for sanctions violations is commendable, as is publicly disagreeing with the president. Thank you.

Address: 1650 Prudential Drive, Suite 220, Jacksonville, FL 32207

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

Thank You note to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA):

Thank You for introducing the Detention Oversight Not Expansion (DONE) Act. I share your view that increasing oversight of detention centers and preventing prison growth will help bring humanity to our country’s immigration system. Thank you.

Addresses:

KH: 501 I Street, Suite 7-600, Sacramento, CA 95814

PJ: 1904 3rd Ave., Suite 510, Seattle, WA 98101

Email to Rep. Pete Olson and Senators Cornyn and Cruz:

I would like to express my concern that an estimated 5,000 of our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico died as a result of Hurricane Maria. This was considerably higher than the official estimate. I am asking you to ensure PR’s citizens receive the same protection and support as US state residents by initiating Congressional investigations into what happened and how this can be prevented from happening again. 

🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥

I’m writing to oppose the Farm Bill’s proposed SNAP work requirements. It already takes many hours of paperwork  and mandatory appointments for the average hungry American to qualify for SNAP. The Farm Bill (H.R. 2) only adds more punitive work and reporting requirements. We cannot take food from the mouths of over 2 million children, elderly people, veterans, and people living with chronic illness. Please do not approve the Farm Bill with work requirements intact.

Thank you note to Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR):

Thank you for demanding answers about the administration’s policy of separating families and its detention conditions for unaccompanied children. Thank you for using your position to uplift the silenced and highlight this wrong.

Address: 121 SW Salmon Street Suite 1400 Portland, OR, 97204

Anniversary Trip to NYC

We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary on May 31. Part of our celebrations was a trip to NYC with our daughter and son in law. I wanted to see Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Natural History Museum.  All of which we went to. As always, good to go and good to come back home.  Here are a few photos from the trip to the Big Apple.

Central Park

Fine Dining

The Met

Museum of Natural History 

The Frick Museum 

June Thoughts

     He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions. —THOMAS JEFFERSON

Poetry

Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling,
for I saw the last known landscape destroyed for the sake
of the objective, the soil bludgeoned, the rock blasted.
Those who had wanted to go home would never get there now.

I visited the offices where for the sake of the objective the planners planned
at blank desks set in rows. I visited the loud factories
where the machines were made that would drive ever forward
toward the objective. I saw the forest reduced to stumps and gullies; I saw
the poisoned river, the mountain cast into the valley;
I came to the city that nobody recognized because it looked like every other city.
I saw the passages worn by the unnumbered
footfalls of those whose eyes were fixed upon the objective.

Their passing had obliterated the graves and the monuments
of those who had died in pursuit of the objective
and who had long ago forever been forgotten, according
to the inevitable rule that those who have forgotten forget
that they have forgotten. Men, women, and children now pursued the objective
as if nobody ever had pursued it before.

The races and the sexes now intermingled perfectly in pursuit of the objective.
the once-enslaved, the once-oppressed were now free
to sell themselves to the highest bidder
and to enter the best paying prisons
in pursuit of the objective, which was the destruction of all enemies,
which was the destruction of all obstacles, which was the destruction of all objects,
which was to clear the way to victory, which was to clear the way to promotion, to salvation, to progress,
to the completed sale, to the signature
on the contract, which was to clear the way
to self-realization, to self-creation, from which nobody who ever wanted to go home
would ever get there now, for every remembered place
had been displaced; the signposts had been bent to the ground and covered over.

Every place had been displaced, every love
unloved, every vow unsworn, every word unmeant
to make way for the passage of the crowd
of the individuated, the autonomous, the self-actuated, the homeless
with their many eyes opened toward the objective
which they did not yet perceive in the far distance,
having never known where they were going,
having never known where they came from. 

Wendell Berry

Life Around OakMeadows, May, 2018

Birds

Mockingbird 

Cardinals 

House Sparrow

Barn Swallows 

Killdeer 

Red-Winged Blackbirds 

Tufted Titmouse 

Great Egret

Blue Jays

Crows

Hummingbirds 

White-winged Doves

Collared Doves

Inca Dove

Grackles

Cattle Egrets 

Pigeon

Great Blue Heron 

Caracara

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 

Starling

Whistling Ducks

Chickadees 

Butterflies / Insects

Monarchs 

Queens

Giant Swallowtail 

Little Sulphur 

Funereal Duskywings

Pearl Crescent

Blue Darter

Eastern Pondhawk 

Yellow jackets 

Mammals / Other

Squirrels 

Raccoons 

Armadillo 

Deer

Red-eared Turtle

Plans for the Week of June 3-10, 2018

Spiritual 
     ADG/Church
     Daily Reading
     Daily Meditation 

Physical 
     32 Oz. Water daily
     Fruit daily

Quilting 
     Start piecing blocks and lattice for Scrap Nine Patch

Reading
     Grant by Ron Chernow
     The Vertigo Years by Philipp Blom
     The High Tide Club

Cooking 
      Baked Fish, Potatoes, Coleslaw 
      Pork, Sweet Potatoes, GB
      Schwan’s Stir Fry
      Leftovers 

Personal 
     Trip to NYC
     🔥Resistance. Every. Day.🔥