Honey, I'm Home

Holy mortgage payments, Batman!! Pat owns a house. Stay tuned for updates coming soon!

9-11 Remembrance

Please, Lord, this...

...not this....

Journey To a Consecration in Navajoland

Just home from Navajoland, the Shiprock and Farmington area to be more precise.

I had the pleasure of traveling with 40 good souls from St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Trinity Cathedral and other valley churches. David Kaiser was our trusty "motor coach (not bus!) operator". Janet Kaiser was our very able organizer and Cruise Director.

Our journey's purpose was to celebrate the consecration of David Bailey as bishop of the Navajo Area Mission.

Pictures and more information are at Flickr.com under my files as Patinphx.

Cathy Eden for US Senate

I'm stumping by telephone for Cathy Eden, the only woman candidate on the Democratic primary ballot.

It ain't easy.

First my only working phone is my cell phone. And because I don't have the company with the best coverage, I must call from the front porch in order to get calls to go through.

Most people have voice mail and it is a simple matter to leave a message from the script provided by Eden for Arizona campaign. Interestingly the only time a human answers the telephone, the person to whom I need to speak is not there. Every single one of them has given me permission to call back later. I must sound good to them. As for the left messages, I sound like a canned message. I try to personalize the message by using the voter's name at least once. Best I can do.

Cathy's website is www.edenforaz.com.

I'm happy I can help Cathy Eden's campaign in the way.

Oh, yes! Vote for Cathy Eden on your Dem ballot by mail or at the polls on August 24th.

Go Cathy!!

July Respite

Phoenix Arizona blisters from mid-June through September. During monsoon season, we get an occasional break from the 105 -- 115 degree (Fahrenheit) temperatures. Now is such a time.

Our dew point and humidity rise and the cloud cover shades us. Over the past three days we have enjoyed mild temperatures under 100 degrees. I resumed walking and busing for pleasure, not just for getting to work. Summer in Phoenix is estivation time for me. I just hide out in air conditioning until a respite like this.

Joy to the world! It's cool this morning. Only 86 degrees. Our respite will end today or tomorrow. But I will remember this blessing as we resume hot, hot weather.

Happy Independence Day

God Bless America!

Here's my favorite celebration for today courtesy of cartoonists Cantu y Castellanos:

I am an immigrant to Arizona, having lived in the Phoenix area over 35 years. I don't expect to leave, though one never knows what the future will bring. Many people in Arizona have worked themselves into a miserable frenzy over Mexican border immigration laws and policies. Rather than evaluate each new neighbor as an individual, many in Arizona have formed a blanket belief that anyone coming to AZ from Mexico is inherently evil, a bringer of smuggled people or drugs, an automatic addition to urban gangs, or a sneak thief intent on sucking up American benefits without paying taxes.

I know Mexican nationals living here without valid documentation who have started businesses, paid taxes, bought their home, contribute to their churches and charities. In short, they live just as I--a transplanted Nebraskan--live. Responsible people should be recognized and welcomed. People who come here from anywhere to create trouble, divert resources, or especially commit crimes need to be deported and KEPT THE HELL OUTA OUR NATION, not just Arizona.

Right now my chosen home state is not behaving as I would prefer. We will have a new law, SB1070, by the end of this month that is an embarrassment to me and quite a few other Arizonans. It is sufficiently egregious that even our state courts may stay its implementation. This law attempts to usurp federal border and immigration policies for local enforcement. Although I disagree with this law personally, if it drives immigration reform at the federal level, it will have served a noble purpose.

In the meantime, Baldo is my neighbor. I don't care where he was born!

God bless America!

...as I understand God.

As a child my understanding of God came from Christian teachings, specifically the Episcopal Church's teachings. As an adult I can't just shake off my understanding of God as Creator, Redeemer, and Guide-Teacher-Friend. Yet my understanding has repeatedly changed, grown and expanded as my life progresses.

God, as I understand God, is beyond the confines of the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Quran, or any other sacred writings. God is beyond human understanding other than how we choose to anthropomorphize a deity. God is productive in far more ways than male or female. God is the sum and substance of all that is seen and unseen in and beyond the known universe.

As each element of creation comes into being, it is imbued with the nature of the Creator. Stars, planets, black holes, little planets like Earth have life in ways beyond human understanding. So, too, do paramecia, amoeba, viruses, seeds, nuts, and all plant and animal life.

For me God is present in all Creation. How could it be otherwise?

Waiting

Waiting is usually not too hard for me.

So I've been waiting. It seems like I've been waiting a long time. Waiting to hear if lender(s) will approve the short sale of a home I'm trying to buy. There is absolutely nothing I can do to hurry the process.

I was carefully cautioned by my real estate professional that short sales take a long time and can even fall apart on the day of the final signing. Final signing. Doesn't that sound like a prized ritual of commerce? Then I read an article in the Arizona Republic that made more clear what a "long time" really meant. Ouch. We are just at the beginning of a long time.

It feels like it has been six months, but it has only been six weeks. Prayers are welcome! I wrote a prayer asking Abba to help me awaiting the perfect timing and solution. I'm pretty sure He knows I meant "Hurry up, Dad, please!" But I know that perfect timing and perfect solution lead to the best outcomes.

So wait I will!

Practicing perpetual patience,

Pat

Now I'll Git Fit

I came home from work today to find my latest issue of AARP Magazine. Opening to a random page I found myself looking at advice for gardeners regarding bending, raking, pushing a wheelbarrow, and doing squats. Each gardening activity was accompanied by an exercise to improve muscle performance for each job.

I was not gardening today, but my work involved bending, lifting and carrying light loads. After every workday, I feel like I need a total back replacement. Mercifully a warm shower and a good night's sleep followed by a day off from work relieves the aches and pains until the next work day.

Semi-retirement: What a blessing! Think I'll try a couple of these exercises. Maybe.

That's How She Is

Recently I re-wrote my e-mail tag line to say that I don't do social networking, but I write a blog.

In all honesty I play with a blog. I am more apt to embed a video I like or comment on someone else's writing with a link to the original material. It took me a while to learn how to upload pictures, embed videos, and create links that worked. So I guess it is useful to practice those skills sometimes, but I feel myself filling up with the Great Unwritten. It's time to live up to my tag line, to relieve the clogged up case of literary constipation.

Yeah, yeah. Promises, promises.

Okay now: once a day, every day, write, write, WRITE!

Wolfram Alpha Search is Phenomenal!

Give this fascinating search resource a try. For an introduction: Wolfram Alpha .

It's like an instant Almanac only better and with greater scope. This is a must for mathematicians, chemists, physicists, astronomers, and even biologists. But there's terrific uses for the rest of us mere mortals as well. Stock and bond info, anyone? Enjoy!

Thanks to Auguste Charles for this treat.

Jill Bolte Taylor's Stroke of Insight (Ted Talks 2008)

This is a lively and fascinating video I saw before. Every time a friend has a stroke, I recall Jill Bolte Taylor's 18 minute message and I search it out on Ted Talks (www.ted.com) . I'm sharing it here and now as I think of a friend recovering from a stroke:

Superstition Reigns

Part of me wants to tell you all about a house on which I have made a buy offer.

Part of me is superstitious enough to keep my mouth shut.

All of me is getting a little impatient with the real estate face-saving practice called short selling. And if you think I'm having a little problem with this, please try to imagine the struggles of the home seller who is valiantly and honorably trying to stay ahead of foreclosure.

My ReMax Professional, Danielle Martinez, warned me that making an offer on a short sale would be setting myself up for a long drawn out process that could fall apart even at the last minute of closing. Caution to the wind, I made the offer. (I've always been this way. Give me advice and watch me ignore it!)

So now I sit in short sale limbo. And wait.

More as the process continues..... (Is that a promise or a threat? Lol!)

As for why short sales take so long? Check out this Arizona Republic article. Scary. Very scary.

Where in the World is Lubna Hussein?

Okay, let's put M. Lubna Hussein, journalist and Sudanese woman activist, in the history book of Diverse Mind. One more short chapter and we are done: M. Hussein was freed after serving one day of her jail sentence after the Sudanese journalists' union (government sponsored) paid her fine. That was on Sept. 9th last year. (London Times Online) She has left the Sudan and continues to work for 'the emancipation of Muslim women'. (London Times Online)

The second article is a good summary of M. Hussein's fashion crime, the trial, her unwanted early release from jail. The article details several practices common in The Sudan that are demeaning to women and even little girls, including female circumcision (clitoral removal and partial closure of the vaginal opening). Lubna Hussein has much educating and and agitating to do.

My hat is off to her for her activism on behalf of Muslim women.

Lubna Hussein Takes Jail Time -- Belated Report

Last fall as Lubna Hussein's trial for public indecency was postponed, my life was in flux on a lesser but turbulent track. However belatedly, here's the follow up story from an Huffington Post report on September 9, 2009:

KHARTOUM, Sudan — A woman journalist was convicted Monday of public indecency for wearing trousers, but was spared a sentence of flogging. A defiant Lubna Hussein said she would not pay a $200 fine and would take a month in prison instead to protest Sudan's draconian morality laws.

The 43-year old journalist has set out to challenge the police and courts since her arrest in July by insisting the case go to trial, aiming to embarrass the Khartoum government with the publicity. Her prosecution – and the prospect that she could get the full sentence of 40 lashes – drew an international outcry.

The judge's decision to impose a fine equivalent to $200 appeared to be an attempt to curb the criticism.

"I will not pay a penny," Hussein, who during the court session wore the same trousers that sparked her arrest, told The Associated Press after the ruling.

Read the rest here.

Freedom from Facebook

This is independence day.

I just zapped all that I could out of my Facebook presence and deactivated my account.

I removed my pictures, my friends, my places, and even my family. Try as I did, I could not seem to remove my log in data. FB wished me fond farewell and hoped I'd be back soon. "Just log in as before...." Ah.

While it was mildly entertaining to peer into the lives of friends and acqaintances and downright addictive to play the games, Facebook doesn't make much of a place for self-expression. It also channels my known demographics to advertisers so I can be blitzed with any service or product suitable for retirement age spinsters with left-leaning tendencies. Or at least what they think I want. I don't need this; I don't want this.

Buh bye FB; hello Diverse Mind!

Where the Dickens Has She Been??

Where the heck have I been?

Oh it's a long, long time from May to December--and seems even longer the other way around. The winter garden failed. Michael opines that we chose a place too much in the shade, and that is likely so.

On a sunny, warm March day I replanted the garden. Last week I ate beets and lettuce and three vestigial green onions. I harvested the spinach, too, but I plowed it back into the soil as pre-composted nutrients. It looked like something the earth would enjoy more than I would. Let's face it. I'm hopelessly spoiled with store-bought pre-washed velvety baby spinach leaves. This spinach was probably the stuff of Popeye's strength. It certainly looked like it! With sunshine, the spring garden grew just dandy.

Some kind of financial guru has been whispering in my ear as I go to sleep. Dave Ramsey coaches people to get out of debt and stay out of debt. He also talks real estate a lot. Somehow all this late night subliminal chatter has me house-hunting. I'll keep you posted on this adventure later, but at this point I have an offer in on a home at an ideal (for me) location. The sellers are happy, I am happy, however it seems to be taking the lender(s?) forever to make up their mind. I'm told this is the nature of short sales, so I am practicing patience and trying my best not to count my chickens before they are hatched.

I was thinking about starting to write again and I browsed through some of my old posts. I laughed. I cried. I clicked on links. I even sang. I really need to keep doing this. Who cares who--if anyone but I--reads it? It is pieces of my life well worth keeping.