All Our Relations

Years ago I visited an elderly care center with a friend of mine...we went to see her grandfather before he died. I'd never met him before. He was in a wheel chair in a hallway, bent and shriveled, head bowed as if asleep or already gone...when I noticed him, he looked up at me through glass lenses which were as thick as the bottom of a pop bottle, accenting the size and meaning in his beckoning eyes. His fixed on mine, and a wizened hand motioned toward me to come to him. I stood by his side, he motioned me closer, closer...'til my ear was next to his mouth. He whispered, "In the end it's the wink of an eye!". Then his head dropped again, seemingly inattentive. That was nearly 4 decades ago. I've carried his message with me ever since, just as death has been riding on my left shoulder since my first combat experience.

The world ends for some 160 thousand people each day, as it will surely for each of us eventually...which is what makes our todays all the more precious. We are given the present, this gift...and our sensory organs to physically experience it. We build tactile memories through touching the Earth and her beauty in some way, each day. Through and with all our relations.

The American Dream

Who exemplifies "The American Dream"?

Was it George W Bush who was born on third base and believed he hit a triple? Went on to throw our economy into a tailspin?

Is it Willard "Mitt" Romney who was born the son of a rich man, a politician...who drove Massachusetts into a tailspin? Who bought and sold workers as if they were chattel? Everything, anything for a buck?

Or is it a mixed race child who has experienced multi-culturism, suffered his mother's death at an early age...raised by a grandfather, veteran of WWII and a grandmother who hit the glass ceiling in her profession? A child who came of age and questioned his role in that time and that America? Who graduated from university and went on to get his advanced degree at Harvard and become the editor of the Harvard Law Review...and, though offered many high paying jobs, decided to work for the underprivileged...the ones who weren't born into entitlement such as Bush and Romney...

The American Dream personified is President Obama.

We should all be proud.

Sheri Dixon, fellow homesteader and author extraordinare

And a shameless plug for our homestead:

http://www.homestead.org/SheriDixon/LilacMoon/LilacMoon1.htm

Her website which includes information about her books and where to order:

http://www.sheri-dixon.com/index.html

And

Her blogsite:

http://www.qotu-ncn.blogspot.com/

The Onion Makes So Much Sense In Times Like These

PITTSBURGH—Citing three years of exhausting partisan politics, constant gridlock in Congress, and an overall feeling that the entire nation has "completely lost it," President Barack Obama openly asked a campaign-rally crowd Tuesday why he'd want to serve another term as president of "this godforsaken country."

"My fellow Americans, I come to you today to ask, why?" Obama said to 1,200 people gathered inside a gymnasium at Taylor Allderdice High School. "Why can't our congressional leaders work together to create jobs? Why can't Wall Street ever be held accountable? And most important, why on God's green earth would I voluntarily subject myself to this nonsense for another four years?"

"I'm dead serious," the president continued, saying that any reasonable person would have walked away the moment the Senate minority leader announced his main priority—above creating jobs and improving American health care—was to make Obama a one-term president. "I'm asking if anybody out there can come up with even one reason why I'd want to endure this unmitigated shit show for another minute, let alone through 2016. What's in it for me, ex­actly? Can anyone answer that? Anyone at all?"

After a long silence during which crowd members mostly just shuffled their feet and stared at the ground, Obama said, "Yeah, that's what I thought."

Arguing he'd have to be certifiably insane or some kind of sadistic freak to extend his presidency, Obama asked why anyone with half a brain would willingly open himself up to constant vilification by media strategists, or place himself in a situation that involves so much work for such little reward. He also asked the audience how "messed up and sick" he'd have to be to devote nearly a decade of his life to an unending cycle of political gamesmanship that stifles progress at every turn.

At one point during the 40-minute address, Obama wondered aloud if anyone could blame him for wanting to avoid another four years of idiotic questions about his birth certificate, racist immigration laws, Eric Cantor, citizens who know in their hearts the country must switch to renewable energy but simply refuse to do so, the South, antigay bigotry, and "just all of it, really."

"Today this nation faces difficult questions," Obama said. "For one, how bad must it have gotten for a politician to gladly—gladly—give up the most sought-after elected position in the world? And also, of all the people listening to me right now, is there even one of you who would honestly want to trade places with me? There isn't, is there? And I don't blame you."

In the coming weeks, Obama will reportedly continue to take his anti-second-term message across the country, asking ordinary Americans if they agree that his being on the ballot in November would make him a complete and total moron. Sources within the president's new "One Goddamn Reason" campaign confirmed he is genuinely curious to see if one American citizen can tell him why leaving the White House isn't the best thing he could possibly do for himself and his family.

"I have a pen and some paper right here," Obama said Wednesday morning at a town hall meeting in Ohio. "Let's list the pros and cons of being president. Con: There are people out there who literally want to shoot you dead. Con: We live in a country seriously considering a Newt Gingrich White House. Con: You can help 40 million Americans receive health care, sign legislation that regulates a financial system run amok, give the order to kill Osama bin Laden, help topple Muammar Qaddafi's tyrannical regime without losing the life of one American soldier, end the war in Iraq, repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, stave off a second Great Depression, take out more than 30 top al- Qaeda leaders, and somehow everyone still calls you the next Jimmy Carter."

"Can anyone out there name a pro?" continued Obama, gesturing at the silent crowd with his pen. "That's okay. I asked a bunch of people in Pittsburgh the same exact question yesterday, and they couldn't, either."

While many Beltway observers questioned Obama's new strategy, saying the president could hurt his chances of serving a second term by saying he doesn't want to serve a second term, others argued Obama seems to have finally rediscovered his voice.

"Whenever I watch him on the stump asking a crowd, 'Why am I fucking here right now?' or saying things like, 'I think I'd rather die than do this job again,' he's so fiery and passionate I'm reminded of the 2007 Obama," Democratic strategist Karen Finney said. "The one who thought he could make a difference before a broken, nonsensical political system and an insane populace robbed him of his humanity, ripped out his heart, and left him for dead.

Drought

We're concerned about our water table...we need rain.

This is our "pond"...dry peat.

October 3rd is the actual date of Robert's birthday (87)...not a spry pup, by any means.  I made camerones mariposa on the grill (butterflied shrimp) and some porcupine meatballs...finger food.  He had 3 rum and cokes.  He thought the first one that Cheryl made was too 'wimpy'...so I made him one where he could taste the dark rum...then he had another later on.  We laughed and tried to just be in whatever conversation he began which meandered along no apparent tangents...I was surprised that it was fairly easy to get him back into the car at the end of the day...of course, Cheryl's brother Jeff was helping him along on the opposite side, so he was very balanced and steady for the amount of fun he'd had.