I took a withdrawal from my good karma savings today, and/or I was very lucky!! My old Ranger pick-up died going down the ramp from Fauntleroy in West Seattle, right before the dip where it starts the incline going up to the W Seattle Freeway bump. We had just finished setting up Mom's new bed and I was headed home when the truck just stopped running. I couldn't even coast far enough to get over to the relative safety of the side. I assumed I didn't have any flashers even because there were no lights at all on my dash board! My only option was to be watching the rearview mirror and wave frantically with my left arm and stomp my brake lights as cars were rounding the bend and coming down the ramp towards my back end... One guy didn't focus until he was so close that I put my head back against my seat head thing and brace myself just before he woke up and swerved - fortunately there was no car to his left.
No panic really. I've always been sort of cool in emergency situations, but I did start to shake a little once a squad car finally pulled up behind me with his lights going. After what seemed like 10 or 15 minutes. My arm was aching by then!
Anyway, all is good, and I will never forget the sensation and the thoughts I was having just before it happened: "I wonder how much longer I can keep this thing (my Ranger) running?"
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
the thump-thump-thump of a helicopter
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
to-dos
I have this list of to-dos
so many things I want to do
so many thing I am doing
so many things I am enjoying doing
all the while
feeling that death is knocking on my door
I'm too busy to answer
so many things I want to do
so many thing I am doing
so many things I am enjoying doing
all the while
feeling that death is knocking on my door
I'm too busy to answer
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
I've been distracted with some travel plans recently, and less active here. Ever since my first airplane ride at age 17, I get really excited about "going on a trip". I took a whole roll of film showing the airplane wing on that flight! I used my own money to fly down to Portland to buy clothes for my upcoming first year of college.
We're flying down to LA at the end of April where we will go on the Universal Studios Tour and then depart the next day for a 3-day "Pacific Coastal" cruise from LA up to Vancuover,BC. I'm also hoping to visit the Getty Museum the morning before we board. Nate and I were hoping to do Disneyland again, but that was just too much!
One really fun part of this adventure is that other family members will be joining us for the cruise! Party on!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
wouldn't you know it?
Yesterday I said something positive about Bush. The following article is from today's editorial page:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/395470_jackson11.html
Bush strikes last blow to environment
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/395470_jackson11.html
Saturday, January 10, 2009
showing my colors
While watching the live newscast just now with President George W. Bush christening the new aircraft carrier "USS George H. W. Bush" --
I don't dislike the man. He's actually a likeable guy. But I am still perplexed and amazed that we the people voted him in as our President, and he has been our "leader" for the past 8 years. I have disagreed with just about everything he has stould for and everything he has done during his time in Washington. I will give him credit though for recently establishing "the largest marine reserve ever created" when he designated several Pacific Ocean regions as national monuments, but that's about it.
Friday, January 9, 2009
writer David Sedaris and NYC
Being a Northwesterner?, or just a non-New Yorker, and having been to NY city 4 times or so, the "City of Angels" story is one of my favorites from David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day". A short excerpt about a friend of a friend visiting from South Carolina:
"That was the root of the problem right there. Visiting Americans will find more warmth in Tehran than they will in New York, a city founded on the principle of Us versus Them. I don't speak Latin but have always assumed that the city motto translates to either Go Home or We Don't like You, Either. Like me, most of the people I knew had moved to New York with the express purpose of escaping Americans such as Bonnie. Fear had worked in our favor until a new mayor began promoting the city as a family theme park. His campaign had worked, and now the Bonnies were arriving in droves, demanding the same hospitality they'd received last month in Orlando."
"That was the root of the problem right there. Visiting Americans will find more warmth in Tehran than they will in New York, a city founded on the principle of Us versus Them. I don't speak Latin but have always assumed that the city motto translates to either Go Home or We Don't like You, Either. Like me, most of the people I knew had moved to New York with the express purpose of escaping Americans such as Bonnie. Fear had worked in our favor until a new mayor began promoting the city as a family theme park. His campaign had worked, and now the Bonnies were arriving in droves, demanding the same hospitality they'd received last month in Orlando."
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
at least these people have lights >>>4:55 am today, in the early morning darkness after dropping off Inday at the bakery. Waiting at the red light at the bottom of the hill, the light turns green, and I start to pull out. Just then, in front of me walks a young man with his bicycle, dressed completely in black. Dressed in black, dark color bike and no light. I brake!! He does a stutter-step as I point at the light. No words. Just a dumb kind of look on his face.
Lucky for me.
REALLY lucky for him!
Monday, January 5, 2009
"New Deal gets a raw deal when conservatives rap FDR"
Two articles rom this morning's (5Jan09) Seattle Times editorial page, one so true, and one very sad:
"New Deal gets a raw deal when conservatives rap FDR"
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008587334_opin05sirota.html
"Sex trafficking: the evil behind the forced smiles"
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008587333_opin05kristof.html
"New Deal gets a raw deal when conservatives rap FDR"
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008587334_opin05sirota.html
"Sex trafficking: the evil behind the forced smiles"
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008587333_opin05kristof.html
Gaza
Upon reading and watching reports from Gaza the past few days, I remembered being enroute to Vietnam in a ship somewhere in the Pacific Ocean (Summer 07). The "6-day war" exploded, and we got this little mimeographed newsletter with fragments of the news reports. We are headed to Vietnam, another "war", and thinking "the whole world is falling apart!"
An OPERA singer, singing a RAP song, about a COWBOY...
From an interview I heard on NPR radio yesterday, with two guys who have researched the kinds of music, songs and instruments we the people like least. And they then produced some compositions like the above... I will try to locate some of their "music" and add a link here.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
"Dreams of a Pubescent Slug"
"Dreams of a Pubescent Slug", by Jim ColbertWon an award at the Edmonds Art Festival.
On the Award Inscription, the Jury Committee found it necessary(?) to change the title to "Untitled"...
the sounds, the whistles and the whines, passing overheadthose sounds were ok
the whump!! whump!
that's the sound we didn't want to hear
the rockets were hitting nearby
cr
---------------------------------
"Just when you thought you might get a good nights sleep the bad guys drop some rockets and mortars on you (note the holes from shrapnel). The black object in the foreground is an airplane drop tank converted to a hot shower. Painted black it absorbed the sun's heat and made for a lukewarm shower." - photo from Nigel Smuckatelli's flickr photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/smuckatelli/
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