The Not-At-All Highly Anticipated Return of Photo of the Day

The Saturday night carnival.

Bix

The kitten nursery is closed for another year. Sigh....

This is Bix (named for jazz great Bix Beiderbeck), one of the cuties who came through the nursery. I just love this photo.

Well, let's see. It's been a while, hasn't it? Shall I catch you up?

One 4-day hospital stay and one ER visit for my usual zarfing mystery disease. (Actually it now has a name -- Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome -- worst name ever.)

Mom successfully moved from senior home to a lock-down home that specializes in dementia care. All good, except now we're fighting various insurance companies because her care is now close to $6000 a month.

Happily volunteered extra hours in moving our shelter animals to their new home. Our gorgeous new facility opened last month and is a huge success already. It's beautiful and a wonderful space for our critters. Big, open spaces. 10 x 10 rooms instead of cages and kennels. Our cats even have condos with windows! And they love sitting on the windowsills watching the birds fly by.

I've received extra training on dogs and have taken to working with them one day a week. At our mobile adoptions they seem to give me either the pit bulls (which I love!) or the problem dogs. Last Saturday we had a dog that was so much of a problem that I had to call Husband to come collect me and trouble-pup from the event and give us a ride back to the shelter. Problem-pup kept barking at every animal that came near him. Considering we had 5 other shelter dogs, a police K9 demonstration, and were massed in front of a pet store -- this was a problem.

Add to that severe writer's block and various personal problems and you have an excuse for my silence. Thanks for checking back. Just look at Bix, that makes everything OK.

New and Improved
The above is one of the new cat condo rooms in our beautiful new Humane Society. Check out this story for more pictures and coverage of our grand opening.

The Tom and Annette Lantos Center for Compassion is our beautiful, state-of-the-art facility that opened yesterday. The day exceeded expectations with 27 adoptions. No figures yet on how many adoptions we had today.

The new space is beyond amazing. Big, bright, beautiful. The cat condos and dog dorms are large and comfy spaces where our critters can sleep, play, and stretch their legs. The cat condos ring the outside of the building so have windows on the world that our cats have already discovered. The window ledges are crowded with happy bodies sleeping in sunbeams and watching the birds in the trees. The dog spaces have comfy big beds and places for them to roll around and play. The kitten nursery is a huge space with viewing windows so customers can watch the kittens being fed and being all cute.

There are new areas for our birds, reptiles, and wildlife. We have a big play space with a retractable roof for our dog training classes and for them to just run around and chase balls. Forget small shelters with chain link fences and small cages. This is the exact opposite. And our animals are already showing the positive changes. They are more relaxed, healthier, and happier. And so are we.

This has been a sad weekend with all of the September 11th remembrances. But for me, it's been a joyful thing to have our beautiful space finally open and for the public to see what we've done.

Scenes from Silver Creek: Mrs. Blakey and the Amazing Disappearing Joint

Mrs. Blakey was the least popular teacher at Silver Creek High.

Junior high students were told horror stories about her by their older siblings and went into Freshman Social Studies with severe trepidation. She was like our own version of the boogeyman. Only in polyester pantsuits and a beehive hairdo about 20 years out of date.

She ruled her classes with an iron hand wrapped in an iron glove. And room 402 always smelled of her personal combination of baby powder and chalk dust.

To give you an idea of what a martinet she was, on my first day of her class (my very first day of high school) she gave me detention. Her reason? My older brother, Peter, had earned it but graduated without serving. In her power-mad world this made sense, even seemed fair. But to me it just served to make me loathe her as much as I had been warned I would.

Mrs. Blakey was approximately 137 years old and, it was rumored, had actually always lived on the site of Silver Creek High even before it was built. She was some sort of ageless, eternal evil siren and her lore only increased once you realize that nobody ever saw her outside of room 402. Ever.

She was never seen in the grocery store or the library. Nobody ever saw her walking across the parking lot in the morning. She was never witnessed going into the teacher’s break room or the cafeteria. I always supposed that she hung from the ceiling at night.

Because I have always had awful luck I drew Mrs. Blakey every single year. And by senior year she and I had reached an understanding: she would ignore me and I would stick pins in my Mrs. Blakey voodoo doll while she wasn’t looking.

Scene: room 402. I’m sitting in the last row of the classroom, trying to be invisible and counting the minutes until lunch. In the desk next to me Ricky Garcia is trying to be invisible and practicing his joint rolling technique while hiding behind his textbook. Out of nowhere, Mrs. Blakey calls on Ricky to answer some lame question about the Continental Congress or the Gross National Product of Peru. And Ricky, in a cannabis haze, panics and throws the joint into my lap.

Mrs. Blakey, seeing something flying across the aisle, stomps back in her Frankenstein shoes, her lime green polyester pantsuit making sparks as she walked. And there I am, all bored innocence, with a joint in my lap.

Thankfully, at that moment, Grace Minolli (always a kiss up) starts to answer the question about the Continental Congress or Peru and Mrs. Blakey is momentarily distracted. So I did the only honorable thing: I throw the joint across the aisle to Liam O’Connor. Who throws it to Andrew Neison. Who tosses it to Laura Fontaine. Within minutes this become the most well traveled doobie in the history of drugs. In an informal debriefing in the locker corridor after the Social Studies period it was decided that out of a class of 28 students, at least 17 had at one time had this joint on their person.

The only problem was that at this same debriefing it was also discovered that nobody walked out of the class with the contraband. Or at least nobody admitted to it.

At the end of the school day, when my friend Sean and I walked past the closed door of room 402, it was noticed that the room had a certain aroma surrounding it.

And that day Mrs. Blakey was finally seen off of the school grounds. Buying Hostess Twinkies at the 7-11.

Thanks
Thanks everyone for your good thoughts, kind wishes, prayers, and general support. It's been a rough week, but we're hanging in.

Mom's new situation is going as well as possible. She's not happy, but she hasn't been happy in over a year. The new place is, ultimately, safer which is what's important at the moment. There's 24-hour nursing care and they check on her frequently so our fear of her falling again is dimmed somewhat. In her old place she had her one one-bedroom apartment and unless someone was with her or just outside the door, chances are she'd fall and wouldn't be found for a bit.

We haven't seen her, but the management has been great about keeping us updated. She was very confused and angry at first, no surprise. She was moved from the hospital to her new place by ambulance and they got her into her new room as quickly as possible. I don't know if she's on her new meds yet, but this place specializes in dementia care and know all about dealing with someone as difficult as mom is these days. They say she's eating well, talking to the care aides, and everything is going as well as can be expected.

My family is dealing with all this in their usual manner. My eldest sister, mom's primary caregiver, is wracked with guilt and generally falling apart. My brothers are being "men" and handling the paperwork and insurance details. And me? I'm nicely detached, thank you. Filling in holes, being calm and reasonable. Trying to help while staying away from most of the soap opera.

Sigh...

Mom Update
Short story: not good.

She's deteriorating rapidly. The other night she was found wandering down the street in the middle of the night. Proving beyond a doubt that her current senior home is not right for her. Luckily the police found her and took her to the hospital. No injuries, but confused, agitated, and aggressive.

We found a lock-down facility for her. (The sounds awful!) It's not a prison, just a secure senior residence that specializes in dementia and Alzheimer's patients. She'll be unable to wander away and will have access to more medical care than the place she has now. She'll have her own room, a shared bath, a and 24-hour nursing staff that has a lot of experience dealing with people like mom.

She was released from the hospital today and taken by ambulance to her new place. They suggested we stay away for a bit to minimize her confusion. So we'll stay away for a few days. This weekend we'll move her things out of the senior home and back to the house. At her new place we'll just move over photos and a few personal items.

It's been a very stressful week. Lots of e-mails shooting around between the siblings. Phone calls. Tears. Guilt. And more stress. But I think this is the best we can do. Her new place has gotten a good review from everyone we've spoken with. Mom's new doctor will work on her meds to figure out the best mix to address her anger and aggression. And she'll be safer in a place she can't get out of.

And, all in all, the whole thing sucks big time.

Health Woes

I've been sick off and on for a week. Mostly on. I am, once again, the zarf queen.

As if that weren't bad enough, my mom has taken a turn for the worse.

Last week she was in the ER on Monday. I was in on Tuesday. I went in with her on Monday and it was an ordeal, to put a positive spin on it. Her dementia has completely taken over and there's no longer even a shadow of the woman who used to be my mom. She used to be passive-aggressive, but mild-mannered. But last week she bit, spit, kicked and hit me and two nurses. It took three of us to put bandages on her after she took a fall at the senior care home.

She's taken three falls in two months and has broken her arm and gotten a concussion. Her anger and aggression has gotten to the point where the care home has decided they can no longer care for her. She's taken swipes at the staff and had a run-in with another resident. That was the last straw. They're not a dementia home, they're a senior residence for people with mild health problems.

So my family has been scrambling to come up with a new care facility. We're having her evaluated by a dementia specialist which is step one. We've received recommendations on board care homes that are geared towards people with Alzheimers or dementia. It'll be yet another jarring change for mom. Hopefully the dementia doctor can adjust her medications in a way to help curb the anger and physical aggression. We all have a feeling that this will be the last place mom lives, so we want it to be comfortable, safe, and as homey as possible. In her current situation she has a little one-bedroom apartment with her own things around her. The bed she shared with my dad. Her collection of magnets. We're not sure if we'll have that option in her new place, but we'll do what we can to make sure it's the best we can do.

In the meantime, I throw up a lot. Fun!

Photo of the day: Masks

More from the cemetery girl.

Photo of the day: Optimism

Another day, another cemetery. This is from a local Jewish cemetery. The big surprise there was the grave of Wyatt Earp (yeah, that Wyatt Earp).

Photo of the day: Insert Secret Heart Here

There are a lot of sacred heart images at the cemetery we visited last weekend, but this one struck me because it came with instructions. "You are there!"

And so how was your day? I've got a lead on a contract writing job which would help bring some much-needed cash into our much-depleted coffers. I had a phone interview today and next Tuesday I'll have an in-house interview with a few people. Hopefully it'll be someplace cool with some interesting people. Although at this point I think I'd start on at Burger King for a regular paycheck. This sounds like a great deal because of all the plusses:

1. It's a start-up (and I prefer them to megacorporations)
2. I already know one person there (my favorite ex-husband)
3. It's only a few days a week so I can still spend hours on my volunteer work.

So I'm hoping it turns out to be a good thing.

Summertime Dreams

I am sitting on a chair on a porch overlooking the Petaluma River, or more precisely the slough that contains the Petaluma River as well as about 50 million bulrushes. I might with luck have found the baby that would one day lead our people out of Egypt, but actually I was reading a Thomas Perry novel and daydreaming. From the genius of Jon Carroll at SF Gate.com.

It just makes me think of all those long, lazy summers where you crawl into a lounge chair in the morning and by the evening it's shaped to your ass and makes removal impossible. You sit there all day, with period escapes for the beverage of your choice or a half-hearted game of badminton or horseshoes. Maybe a swim if you are at a pool or lake. But mostly it's watching the bees laze over the seductive lure of warm sage. Tracing lazy trenches in the dirt for ants to ford. Daydreaming about elephant-shaped clouds and anticipating the scent of steak bar-b-quing on a darkening porch. You think of friends chipping in to make salad and ruin dessert, and after dinner plans for either marathon games of cribbage and gin or perhaps a trip out to hear bad local music or drop a few bucks at one of the Lake Tahoe casinos.

But mostly it's about books. The fact that you backed more books than underwear in your weekend bag testifies to your desire to get lost in someone else's mind. A thumping-good read that leaves your mind free from cell phones, deadlines, e-mails, and bills. Spies and explosions. Retired colonels found dead in a vicar's library. A centuries-long galactic war for supremacy of the galaxy. A young immigrant woman looking for love in a culture not her own. Any store, any character you can attach your weekend to is what you want. That and a good strawberry margarita.

CD Pick of the Week: Vieux Farka Toure

Check out The Secret. Ali Farka Toure’s son stands on his own as a singer/songwriter/guitarist with a great African rock/blues style. Some great guest stars including dad, Dave Matthews, and John Scofield add extra interest. Powerful and stylish from start to finish. If you like blues, check out what our African brothers are doing with the genre. This is delicious and sophisticated stuff.

Photo of the day: Gateway

Meanwhile, back at the cemetery ...

Photo of the day: Pieta

More from the Italian Cemetery. A rather impressively-sized Pieta.

The Fourth...
A CNN Poll reveals that only a slight majority (58%) of Americans know in what year we declared our independence. One in four didn't know from what country we seceded. Oh my...

Americans have a notoriously bad reputation for awareness of history and of the vast world beyond the continental US. I remember years ago when I was on a business trip in Chicago, I was stopped by a couple of college students doing a survey for a political science class. They were asking random people in the international terminal to name 5 heads of state from countries other than their own. Nearly 90% of European and Asian residents could. Only 40% of Americans could. I am proud to say that I passed the test -- I even stumped the pollsters when I told them who the President of Malawi was -- they hadn't heard of Malawi.

The 4th of July is an odd holiday. What's the deal with fireworks? Are we reenacting the national anthem? The rockets red glare? The bombs bursting in air? Who decided that we needed to commemorate our giving the finger to Britain with bangs and booms? Cats and dogs all over the US are hiding under beds and wondering what the fuck is going on.

Ah the rituals of the 4th. Burnt hot dogs and watermelon. Root beer floats and small town parades. In my white trash family 4ths for years have been celebrated with the family Olympics. These hotly contested games include a cherry pit spitting contest (for distance, not accuracy), a water balloon toss and, my favorite, the "who the hell am I?" game. Figures from American history are written on a piece of paper which is then taped to your back. Through a series of "yes" or "no" questions you have to guess what person you are. The only problem is that nobody in my family knows anything about American history. For example, one year I had "Ben Franklin" taped to my back. I asked an aunt "was I ever President of the US?" And received the answer "yes." Further questions elicited the helpful information that lived in the 19th century. It's no wonder I lost that year.

Photo of the day: Little Girl's Got Game

Yesterday Husband and I went on a photo safari to one of our favorite locations -- a cemetery. This was taken at the Italian Cemetery in Colma. There were hundreds of monuments with photographs on them, but this one really struck me. It's both sad and weird. Sad in that this poor child obviously died way too young. But weird because...well...what the heck is the story with the racket?

The Return of At the Cafe Bohemian
Yes world music fans, Decca is back. Starting today, June 18th my radio show At the Cafe Bohemian will be back on the airwaves. This quarter I'm on from 7-10 pm (Pacific time) every Tuesday evening. You can listen online or, if your are in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can tune in to 90.1 FM for a tasty blend of music from around the planet. French jazz, Latin pop, Celtic ballads, African blues, you'll never know what I'm going to play next. Mostly because I never know either. Yes, three hours of making it up as I go, and making it all sound damned good too. Tune in, and hear what the rest of the world sounds like.

Beans 'n' Cornbread

Husband and I did a three hour blues show today entitled Beans 'n' Cornbread. It's been far too long since we've tag-teamed on a blues show and we had a lovely time. In the past we've done a sort of "he said, she said" show where he'd play "she's a mean mistreater" songs and I'd play "he's a no good cheater" songs.

Today we just played straight up blues.

It reminded me of a road trip story from a few years ago.

I was driving across the state of Georgia alone on a business trip. Since I wasn't in a hurry, I took a lot of little back roads just for the heck of it. I found a kick-ass blues station and rocked along with the windows rolled down and my best Etta James voice filling the car. At one little hole-in-the wall one-horse town I stopped at this little grocery store for something to drink. There were these two ancient black guys sitting on rockers on the porch -- looking like a stereotype of old guys in a small southern town. Howlin' Wolf was singing one of my all-time favorite blues songs, Smokestack Lightning and I pulled up with the radio blaring. As I got out and walked into the store, one of the old guys drawled out in that syrup-slow accent of the true south "oooh, white girl likes the Wolf."

Yeah, white girl does like the Wolf.

Tomorrow Husband rocks the airwaves with a special entitled Big Bands and Bongos which is self-explanatory. Lots of mambos, lounge-fi, bachelor pad tunes. I can't wait.

Photo of the day: PIt Pup

Just in case you're sick of cute kittens I give you a cute puppy. This is one of a litter of four pit bull puppies that came in with mom. Each is cuter than the next, but this guy is a total flirt. He and his littermates were having a fine time playing tug of war with a chew toy and hanging out in the sunshine. But he came over immediately when I walked up to the kennel and said hi.

In other odd news we have a particularly annoying bird in our yard. He chirps all night long. Aren't birds supposed to shut up when the sun goes down? OK owls and nightingales get a pass. But this chirpy guy is a mockingbird with a huge repertoire and endless energy. As if it already wasn't hard enough for me to get to sleep I now have to deal with Mr. Chirpy and his endless songbook. Husband and I, both die-hard animal lovers, keep saying "shut up." But no...away he goes. I might find it endearing, at noon. But it's midnight and he's singing away.

Revisits

There are some movies I can watch hundreds of times. Some books I will read and reread on a regular basis. And some where once is enough.

It's not even a question of quality. My favorite fiction book ever is Possession by A.S. Byatt. I've only read it once and have no intention of picking up again. Perhaps I'm afraid it won't hold up or that my opinion will change. So maybe that's a bad example. But you know what I mean.

What is that elusive quality that makes something worth revisiting? Why is it whenever The Philadelphia Story is on I have to watch it, in spite of the fact that I can probably quote the entire movie? And yet I have to be in the mood to watch the delightful Hepburn-Tracy comedy Woman of the Year. I can pick up the Dorothy L. Sayers novel Gaudy Night on any day and happily open it an random and be entertained. And yet her equally good book Strong Poison requires the right frame of mind.

My "endless watch" list of movies is practically endless. Casablanca, Singing in the Rain, On the Town, To Have and Have Not, and any of the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or James Bond movies. And about a dozen more, now that I think about it. There are even nights when I should be sleeping (or at least trying to sleep) and yet I'm staying up because I just have to see the end of a movie I've watched innumerable times. A few weeks ago I stayed up because The Big Sleep was on and I'm genetically incapable of turning off that particular Bogart classic.

And when I'm prowling around looking for something to read, my hand naturally goes to the old favorites. I might pick up something I haven't read for a while and, without fail, I'll put it down and pick up Murder on the Orient Express for the hundredth time. Why is that?

There is certainly comfort with an old favorite. A level of brainless relaxation that is, at times, necessary. But it's still odd how often I go with the familiar rather than the different.