David Byrne

vole

My garden has a vole, most likely more than one. How do I know? I had one run up my arm! My lill terrier Jack saw something in a brush pile. Wanting his life to be full of adventure, I grabbed hold of one of the larger branches at the base of this pile and gave it a little jiggle enticing Jack into frenzied excitement as he burrowed deep under this brush pile, barking and whining. I guess the joke was on me. I was squatting there, laughing at jack and encouraging him to "get it " when this little brown thing ran out of the pile, using the branch that I was holding onto as his lill super highway , he ran right up my arm. YIKES I stood up, spun around causing it to just run right off me, and I uttered some sound like ohhwahh. It was so fast I couldnt even really see it. It was dark brown and didnt have a tail like a mouse or rat. Late last night I googled "vole", just on a hunch and omg thats what this was. Now I have to figure a way to convince this guy and his most likely rapidly increasing family to move out of my garden or die. My folks are in town so we will go have lunch somewhere nice and just visit. No vole hunting today. In my google quest I learned about the kind of damage these guys can do, none of which I have seen yet. No burrows, no chewing of bark on trees but I have had a few dahlias disappear and they were right in line with the pond and this brush pile. My dogs have been acting like there is something around the fish pond which is in a direct line with this brush pile, which believe me will be turned into wood chips asap. I have naked ladies all around the greenhouse (amyrillis belladonna) and they lay over creating a perfect tunnel for these voles to get into my garden.the next bed has daylillies which also make perfect tunnels for these guys to run through. My plan is to clear away these leaves that hang, making their hidden tunnel visible so my dogs who are terriers and hunters can eradicate these critters for me.

Dusty

outting 121
Originally uploaded by Random42

her last visit to the beach

the Beatles

I was born at the end of 1959. My sisters, five and six years older than me loved the beatles and listened to their music. It was a part of my life. I remember the stacks of albums,and looking at the art and photography, soaking in every detail trying to figure out who the people on the cover of sergeant peppers lonely hearts club band were, I knew Shirley temple and marylin monroe, . I played lots of hooky from school often Mom would need to run errands and I would get to be alone at home and my alone time would turn into music time, We could stack several albums onto the turntable and lay under the piano where the stereo was perfect. A beatles album or two would always get played along with anything else that caught my eye. My parents didnt listen to rock and roll. Mom is a classically trained pianist so their music collection was quite straight. Dad Loved vicki Car, they did like dixie land jazz, herb albert, and of course broadway musicals .. The beatles to me were so cool, why dont we do it in the road had to be the nastiest thing I had ever heard and I remember one my sisters yeling along as she listened to it. It was liberating. The beatles broke up when I was 10. Later on I bought my own albums,starting with Elton Johns goodbye yellow brick road, and moving on to my all time favorite, Pink Floyd. The beatles were gone. John Lennin was killed the year I got married. I dont think I understood him at all then. I really didnt know anything more than what my young mind imagined from looking at the album art as a kid. There has been something in the air these last few years. another beatle mania of sorts. Last fall we were in Las Vegas. I love to see shows, and after doing a bit of research I decided the best show in vegas was LOVE the Cirque du Soleil show.. Well it was amazing. It was that acid flashback I had been waiting for all my adult life. Of course over the years I have sung along to all the beatles music, the words were always easy to hear but i dont know if I really thought about all the meanings or how beautifully the music was written. Walking out of that theater, they play all you need is love and everyone sings along. It hit me pretty hard, this music is part of humanity. Here we are among hundreds of people from all over the world and they are all singing along. A few weeks later we saw across the universe, a beautiful movie by Julia Taymor. The movie was perfection, Beatles music, beautifully sung and glowingly illustrated to tell a story in this fantastic movie. So beautiful. It made me want more. I just finished watching the beatles anthology. It was fascinating. made me ache, made me smile. made me miss George Harrison, and John Lennin. Made me want to listen to more music. Such a privilege to see these old interviews, to see a time line of the beatles and to see them being creative. but most of all I was struck by how much good music they made and so happy that I can still listen to it.

Food

Recently a friend started a food blog. She talks about nutrition and actually takes photos of what she eats and posts them every day. She has gone on to lose 12 lbs in the last few months. When I first heard of this blog I thought wow how brave to photo everything she eats and post it, imagining 20 pictures of a binge eating weekend full of images of small groups of gummy bears adding up to a five lb bag. But my friend hasnt had any slips. She ate a chocolate truffle at a garden show and I think that is the only treat she has allowed. I struggle with my weight... actually physically I struggle. tying shoes can be a bitch. I am not a couch potato. I am active. I hike and I garden. I eat healthy foods,I love vegies and grow them year round. use 2 % milk in my coffee,(blecch) I regularly start my day with fat free plain yogurt and fresh berries. I dont eat fried foods or refined carbs, I dont eat candy (unless you count the box of sees I hid in the linen closet last week) My biggest problem is I dont like to be hungry and I dont want to deprive myself of food that tastes good. I want to be able to eat like a skinny person, believe me I have watched how those bitchs eat. " I dont have to worry about getting fat, I can eat whatever I want" meanwhile I am eating my fresh veggies fruits and whole grains, lean meats/fish and non or low fat dairy.....When we were in hawaii a few weeks ago,I was going to act like it was a SPA vacation.... I gained 4 pounds... I ate non fat plain yogurt with berries and banana for breakfast every day, had a salad for lunch every day and had grilled or raw fish for dinner with veggies every night. I avoided the macadamia nuts, coconut anything, bread in any form including the banana bread and i didnt have any desert. I guess I should have avoided the mai tais too. I believe I am healthy. My dr says I am not. I feel stronger and physically more capable now than I did in my 20s when I weighed what my dr would say is a healthy weight for someone of my height. I can climb hills without needing to stop to catch my breath like I used to when I was skinny. I have never let my weight stop me from living my life. I am not ashamed to wear a bathing suit in public. I know I feel better about myself than most skinny women who see endless flaws in themselves. but damn it,,,, i want a smaller number to show up on that scale.

Music

I am about half way through the beatles anthology. I am enjoying going back through time, listening to music of my youth, bemoaning the fact that I dont own all the music I once did. I have abby road and the white album on my itunes. and thats it! I have lots of lennon and the mcCarthy stuff that was released to itunes... contemplating going out and buying cds (ugh)to complete my library or even downloading them illegally reasoning that I have already bought the record albums, 8 tracks, cassettes, over the years....and what do I find? this morning I found this article http://gizmodo.com/365630/paul-mccartney-signs-400-million-itunes-deal-for-the-beatles woot...now I just have to waIT A LITTLE LONGER AND RUBBER SOUL WILL BE MINE,...AGAIN Been a wonderful few months, did a week in mexico, and another in Maui...we were flooded once again, and survived. I am working in the garden starting veggie seeds and pulling weeds. Saw George Carlin last week and sometime last month we saw MIKA who was so much fun here is a lill bit of hawaii http://youtube.com/watch?v=IbBInitjfzk

Catching up

I never thought I would go so long without having to vent here, isnt that what a blog is for? Venting? Lets see, I last blogged about our trip to vegas, dont think I got to the best part of that trip, the drive through death valley and bristle cone, mono lake Bodie and Yosemite. We even spent a night at the ehwahanee.I think Every Californian needs to visit all those places every so often. Bodie is my favorite place to take pictures. I would love to be there for sunset just once. I always seem to be there at the height of sunlight, not the best light for interesting pictures. After we got home, I continued to drive Yoshi to school and hike in the mmwd. I am trying to cover all the trails on mt tam. I have found some beautiful places, some very steep climbs. hasnt done anything to kick my weight loss dream into reality but I do know I can climb hills and it feels good.
I took my daughter to see HIM and the band bleading through opened. they were a very typical headbanging metal ( I guess) screaming band. I did get a kick out of them though because in our game of thinking up wacky band names, One of my favorites it bloody gauze and bleeding through would make a great opening act for them...lol I have a new band name, "wool socks and birkenstocks" lol came to me because I have been knitting wool socks and discovered how freaking awesome they are paired with birkenstocks. I wear my wool socks all day long, makes the wood floor feel warm. Oh seeing Him was fun, My daughters friends are not fans and she figured I like him so I should take her. He is good, the band was tight, he didnt play every song we love but he did sing beautifully. I just wish he would knock off the smoking, he went through a whole pack in his act... makes my lungs hurt!. I had Thanksgiving here at my house this year and I am very proud of how well I did. It went off without a hitch! We had a willie bird which was fantastic, never going to cook anything but willie bird. Scott got it from work, I guess George Lucas knows how to treat his employees. The kids brought over rockband which is so much fun we played it for 8 hours and had a gas. I was a week into a cold and couldn't sing, which sucks still getting over this cold. been sick for almost a month...argh, I have done all my christmas shopping thanks to amazon.com I do not understand people shopping on black friday...what the hey Jim and I are heading to Mexico in a few weeks, I asked my friends if they would like to help us donate some school supplies to a school near where we are staying and only one of them responded. They are all a bunch of raciest a holes who hate "mexicans" they think EVERY spanish speaker in the usa is Mexican, illegal and aiming to take over our country. pisses me off so much.... cant they see that if someone, a business offers spanish for its spanish speaking customers, it isnt because the spanish speakers are too lazy to learn english it is because the business wants to make more money. it reminds me of how the jews were targeted before ww2 in Germany, propaganda made them into the cause of anything bad, we are doing the same thing to mexicans and all other spanish speaking peoples. I used to work doing esl and I never met anyone who spoke spanish who didnt want to learn english, I also have never met a lazy "mexican" I know so many young families who have come here and made businesses for themselves worked their butts off and have been able to buy homes so many of the white trash kids I went to school with are still living in apartments...anyway I dont want to get too pissed today.... just hate stupid people who are paranoid and unkind. We saw Kathy Griffin last week. she was a riot, loved her and her new doo, back to natural curly hair, so much better for her face to have soft hair. ok thats enough cant wait for sweeny todd