Fun in Ava

Over Memorial Day weekend, Kelly and I drove to Ava, Missouri, to visit my brother Ray and his wife Janet. They only moved there in October after Jan retired, but they had bought the house (read “wreck”) some time before and spent some major time and effort rebuilding/renovating it. Even if I hadn’t seen “before” photos I would think the “after”/finished product is stunning! See?

They have a double lot with several nice big trees - elms, redbuds, maples, etc. There's a great deck on the side right off the dining room.

If you think that’s nice, you should see the inside…Brazilian cherry floors (gorgeous!), beautiful cabinetry, a great layout, and excellent craftsmanship throughout. Such a nice home!

On Friday afternoon while Ray went to pick up Kathie at the Springfield airport, Janet showed us around Ava. Well, we did other stuff too since the Ava tour only takes about ten minutes. The town is small (we think about 3200 residents) but packed with lots of stuff. It’s the county seat, surrounded by cattle farming, and has a quaint town square, affordable housing, low humidity (ahhhh!), a nice grocery store with low prices and great produce, a good variety of churches, a few restaurants and bars, and a park with swimming pool, tennis courts, and a walking path - just down the street from Jan and Ray’s. I was favorably impressed.

So Kelly and I were hanging out with Jan and Sam the Dog when Ray and Kathie walked in the door from the airport, Ray shaking his head. Kathie had just realized when they pulled up in the drive that she had left her checked bag back at the airport. Hadn’t even thought to go pick it up from baggage claim! We teased her mercilessly all weekend for that one.

After Ray and Kathie returned on Saturday morning from the airport (again), we all went over to Ava Drug for hot dogs, fresh squeezed lemonade, and five cent ice cream scoops. I’m not kidding – the ice cream was five cents a scoop! Needless to say, the place was hoppin’. Then we toured the square, checking out the shops. The one that caught my attention was Eliz Arts, owned by artist and art teacher Elizabeth Ann Jackson Brown. Hanging throughout the shop are large discs she makes of stained and not-so-stained glass. Very cool.

Unfortunately, the natural food store had just closed for the day, so we didn’t go in there, but we did see where the tornado of a few weeks earlier had damaged the front of the store. Yikes!

Here's Ray's new project. He's planning to paint this cute little VW black and white before he takes it up on Route 66 for his birthday this month. It's got a little kitchen and a bed in the back! My son-in-law has been eating his heart out over this photo.

Saturday evening we went to the Ava Family Theater (also on the square) to see the new Indiana Jones movie. It was the only show and there were only two showings that evening, but really - who needs more than that? I was amazed that Indiana Jones was even showing, since it had only come out the day before. And my soda was one dollar. I haven’t seen a dollar soda at the movies since…well…a very long time ago.

I didn't get a good pic of Janet (except in her housecoat), so here's a shot of her "garden sculpture". Heh heh. That girl knows how to have some fun, I tell you!

On Sunday, Ray barbecued up some ribs, hamburgers, and dogs to go with the excellent salad their friends Pat and Lynn brought and the yummy lemon meringue pies their other friends and neighbors Sue and Jerry brought. The weather was perfect and we all had a great time. If only I was independently wealthy…I could get used to this kind of life.

Can you see Sam the Dog under Kelly's feet?

Sunday evening and Monday we feasted on leftovers (did I mention the breakfast casserole Pat brought over?). We did walk some, but I could have definitely used some pants with elastic waistbands! Everything was delicious.

Sadly, we took Kathie back to the airport on Monday evening and Kelly and I left Ray and Jan on Tuesday morning. The drive home was long and tiring, but I figure we’ll go back again in the not too distant future. Thanks, Ray and Jan, for a wonderful time!

$41.8 Million Heads Up

According to the AARP's monthly newsletter in May, the IRS spent $41.8 million "to mail notices alerting taxpayers to expect economic stimulus payments". Guess they figured we'd all miss that $600 being deposited into our bank accounts. Or did they just want to make sure Bush got the credit?

Kathie says my blogging leans toward the political side. Go figure.

Weird Words

I just finished reading Charlotte Bronte's last novel, Villette. Would I recommend it? Not really. I much prefer Jane Austen's novels, all seven of which I just finished a couple of weeks ago. I did pick up some weird new vocabulary words from Villette, though. Here they are:

• Hebdomadal, which means weekly, as in "Lucy hadn't had time for her hebdomadal bath. She wondered that Dr. Bretton declined her offer of tea." (I just made that one up; it's not a direct quote from the book. The book is much, much wordier.)


• Contumacity. Merriam-Webster Online only had a definition for contumacy, which means stubborn resistance to authority. If I hadn't seen it in a novel written in the 1850s, I'd swear that one was invented to describe Kelly.


• Condign, which means deserved or appropriate, as in "condign punishment". Why couldn't she just write "appropriate punishment"?


• Collyrium, which means eyewash. Somehow, this word comes from the diminutive of kollyra, Greek for a roll of bread. How on earth did we ever get from breadroll to eyewash?


• Palsp. I think this may have been a typo because I couldn't find it anywhere online. It's kind of a cool word, though - don't you think? It could mean the sound a cat makes when he's coughing up a hairball. "Kathie was startled awake by a palsp in the other room. Might Pork Chop have accidentally swallowed the new kitten? Che was nowhere to be found..." (Hey, believe me, that's as believable as the plot of Villette - maybe more so after this weekend's cat perch incident.)

There were more weird words, but I didn't start marking the pages - so I could go back and find them later - until I was more than half way through the book. I'm not rereading the first half to locate the ones I missed now. Someone else read it and let me know, ok?

Nurses Week is done!

By Wednesday afternoon, I'd already put in my 80 hours for the pay period. I was exhausted and happy! It was a successful Nurses Week. If you don't believe me, read Janet's opinion here.

Yeah, it wore me out but I truly didn't mind. I love Nurses Week because I love nurses. Of course, I may be a little biased - Jessie is a nurse and Kelly is working diligently on becoming one.

So you'll understand why I love nurses, read the following post I wrote on our nursing blog back in November of 2006. (Sorry, it's not accessible to the public or I would just link you to it.)

"I have worked with nurses for seventeen years. They are the best kind of co-workers to have, and this is why:

• Nurses can fix anything – not just patients. Nurses have to be resourceful because they’re on the job 24/7, while most other departments close down over weekends and nights. Probably the maintenance guys hate it when they have to come behind and try to fix something the nurses already “fixed” (do I hear grumbling in the background?), but I think it’s great. Katie W. in the Dream Pool told me this weekend she’s building her second fence. I am so-o-o impressed.


• Nurses appreciate every little thing you do for them. I used to run down to Dietary and pick up bedtime snacks for the diabetic patients on PCU. The nurses just thought I was wonderful. Last month, I made arrangements for everyone to attend the Spartanburg Magnet Hospital workshop. You’d think I had given each and every one of them diamond earrings for their birthdays. They were all so sweet and appreciative. I don’t even get that kind of appreciation at home.


• Nurses are trustworthy. According to this year’s Gallup survey of 1,000 Americans, nurses were the professionals that were trusted most – even more than doctors and police officers! That’s saying something, I tell you.

There are other reasons I love working with nurses. They like food, I like food. They work hard and they know how to have fun. But mostly, I love working with nurses because they are among the most caring creatures in the world. Most of you know that my daughter is a NNICU nurse. How she does it I will never know. She didn’t get it from me. "

So it was my pleasure to bring you strawberry shortcake, Janet, because - yes! - you are marvelous. Next trip, maybe you can come along with us! (If you didn't read Janet's "opinion" at the link shown above, that last may appear to be a bit of a non sequitur to you...)

Upside down tomatoes

Every thing grows in southern California. Just need some dirt and a little water, stick it in and -- Voila!

The problem comes when I try to grow tomatoes. The plant gets huge. I've tried everything -- stakes, lines, cages, freestyle -- nothing keeps the darn things up.

This year I think I've solved it with my plant in a bag. I ordered the bag online from Gardener's Supply, stuck my plant through the bottom and filled it up with some time release fertilizer and dirt (I think the proper term is soil -- where I grew up in Kentucky, it was dirt).

Two weeks into the experience all's going well. The plants are healthy, growing, and the bugs can't get to them. They're still trying to decide whether to grow up toward the sun or down with gravity.

I think I'll be giving up the ground garden!

Getting Ready for the Big Hike

In less than three months, Kathie, Joan, and I will hike, along with Kathie's buddy Hisako and her hubby, the Hadrian's Wall National Trail end to end. I've wanted for years to walk across England so I am just as excited as I can be!

This particular trek is 84 miles from Newcastle on Tyne at the east end to Bowness on Solway on the west. We're planning to cover it in 7 days, which means I've gotta be able to walk twelve miles a day. (I've maybe covered eight miles in one day, and that was on the Inca Trail in October of 2000. I remember slipping and sliding around on the muddy rocks and wondering if maybe Kathie - usually at least 100 steps ahead of me - wasn't really my twin but descended instead from mountain goats.)

My hip joints aren't nearly as happy hiking as they used to be, so I've been doing laps at Citadel Mall to try to get myself ready. How humiliating is that? I'm officially an old fart, Kelly says. Then again, maybe she just says that to get out of walking with me - she may be only 21, but I doubt she could do eight miles if her life depended on it!

To keep myself from getting incredibly bored, I read a magazine or listen to Harry Potter books on CD or talk to Kathie on the phone while I walk. This week, I did 21 miles. Somehow, I have to quadruple that. So much for having a life.

Stay tuned.

Forget the Prius...

Think 300 - MPG, that is. Carlsbad, just up the road here in San Diego, has its own King Leonidas at the Gates of Thermopylae with the "wingless flight" Aptera slated to begin production at the end of 2008.

The first vehicles...note that's not "cars"... to roll off the production line will be electric only and travel 120 miles from one plug in to the house electricity line. The next version, slated to roll out in 2009 will be an electric hybrid with a 2 gallon gas tank, getting 300 -- yes, 300 - mpg.

Watch the video to understand why this is not a "car".



Amazing. Now why didn't the big US car makers come up with something like this? Patty, cynic that she is, might say it has something to do with the oil industry connection.

Post script from Pat: The Aptera will only be available in California - for now. Go here to learn more about them.

Dr. Taylor's Stroke of Insight

Kathie sent me this to post "with proper recognition". I'm not quite sure what kind of recognition she has in mind - perhaps that our mother (some of us think) recently had a minor stroke? Anyway, the video is almost nineteen minutes of neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor talking to an audience in Monterey about her own stroke back in 1996. Fascinating! You won't believe what she "got" from the experience.

And Now I Have Three!

Not to be outdone by family additions, the West Coast household welcomes two new kitties debuting today on the Internet, Black Zulette and IvoryLena. They were "rescue" kitties totally pampered by their original rescue owner, right down to the acrylic nails.

PorkChop has been lonely since Don Diego de San Diego died just before Christmas. A cat can watch just so much bird TV by himself.

Introducing IvoryLena...


"I'll take milk and sugar with my tea, thank you..."

And Black Zulette...

"I'll have that bird for dinner, s'il vous plait..."

In case the reader is wondering about the names, the young ladies arrived with the names Ivory and Ebony. Hayley, grandaughter #1 and the rower, wanted to name them after the women who started ZLAC, America's oldest rowing club for women right here in San Diego, and I wanted to keep some part of their original name. Our choices were Zulette, Lena, Agnes, and Caroline. Not a hard choice to make.

PorkChop? Well, he's still hissing around and rethinking the "answered prayer" thing.

And Baby Makes Five!

And now we present, born just yesterday afternoon, LaLa and Patrick's younger brother - Matthew Boyd!



OK, so he's sleeping. How about his proud older sister holding Matthew...



And his older brother, totally in love with him, trying to teach him "Itsy Bitsy Spider"...



And a happy family of five!



Matthew Boyd's stats: 7 lbs 8 oz, 20 inches long, born at 1:23 p.m. on 3/3/08. (The happy father predicted the closest delivery time, then did a fabulous job as Mom's coach - "C'mon Honey...push, push, PUSH!")

Children of Bhutan

Once we left the trailhead at Paro on our high altitude Himalaya "walk" we encountered few villages, really more like settlements, in this remote, rural part of the world. As usual for my trips to the Himalayas, I carry about 200 toothbrushes in lieu of candy and look for the children and schools.

Six days into walking and climbing we came to the settlement of Lingzhi and a boarding school of 80 children in primary grades.


A beautiful view from a realtor's point, but at 13,150' winter stays around for nine months of the year. The Lingzhi area has about 300-400 people, most living a great distance from the school.

By law, men and boys are required to wear a "gho" in schools, government offices, and on formal occasions. It is like a roomy bathrobe, tied with a belt and a little tricky to getting it on right and proper. Once fixed, it is warm, comfy, and lots of things can be stuck inside, both front and back. The girls at Lingzhi wore a long version of the gho. I wondered what this young one was carrying inside her gho.


Like the Children of Cuba, the children of these mountains are as photogenic as the scenery.

Most of the children living at these high altitudes had the reddened cheeks from exposure to the sun and cold.


Does the young boy below seem to be listening attentively to a school lesson? Or could he be trying to figure out a group of white people singing "Old MacDonald Had A Farm", chicken, pig sounds and all? On the spur of the moment it was the only children's song we all knew.


Four more days of walking and several passes, we came to the settlement of Laya, a settlement on the smuggling route from Tibet, and another school.


The Layap culture is based on yak herding, their beast of burden. We had not seen a vehicle road since leaving Paro ten walking days back, and the value of the yak was clear, even if they didn't eat the beast unless it was accidentally killed. One afternoon we came across some men butchering a yak below the trail. The unfortunate beast had been on the short end of a yak fight, and our cook took the opportunity to buy some fresh meat. I always said I wouldn't eat yak, but if you get hungry enough... tastes pretty much like hamburger.

Laya is unique in the world for these conical hats, beaded sometimes elaborately in the back, worn by the women of the area. Women are the primary yak herders and the hat is believed to keep the herd fertile.


By now we had learned to leave the singing to the children, and they did next to a bonfire several hours into the cold night.

A couple more days of walking we came to the village of Gasa, famous for its hot springs. Only catch is, no way to get there except by walking - no tourist crowds here! - and were we ready for a little hot tub soaking!

While checking out the dzong/monastery at Gasa, I heard a familiar sound... I felt homesick. I slipped away from the group and asked one of the young monk students, "Is that a cat?"

He went inside and brought out, you guessed it, a very well fed cat.



Previous chapters:
These Boots Were Made for Walking
Doors of Bhutan
Tiger's Nest and Not Your Ordinary Cupcakes
Goodness, Gracious! Great Balls of Fire

One final chapter to come... stay tuned! And then Patty has to finish her Russia stories!

Goodness, Gracious! Great Balls of Fire!

A couple weeks back I wrote about the Doors of Bhutan and one practice in this Buddhist country was particularly puzzling.

Why the ubiquitous public display of the male member in this Himalaya kingdom, soon to be a constitutional monarchy/parliamentary democracy?

No sooner wondered than the March issue of National Geographic arrived in the mail. Inside is an article "Bhutan's Enlightened Experiment" with a terrific description about Bhutan's history and emergence from its cocoon into modernity. And, of course, those amazing National Geographic photographs. If you want to understand Bhutan, run to your local newsstand for a copy or check out the website.

But, back to my story. When I asked a Bhutanese about the phalluses, I was told "it's good luck".

According to National Geographic, though, the significance lies in Bhutanese Buddhism itself. It seems there was a 16th century lama, Drukpa Kunley, also called the "Divine Madman", who "caroused across the countryside...slew dragons and granted enlightenment to young maidens with the magical powers of his 'flaming thunderbolt'".

Have we progressed in the last 500 years?

Courage Under Fire

"Our coach said we wouldn't win today", Hayley said from the back seat of the car.

It was 4:30 AM and dark. I was driving her to the team bus for her first crew racing, a southern California regatta being held in Long Beach this weekend. She and her other Novice buddies had been learning to row for the last six weeks with ZLAC, a San Diego women's rowing club started by four ladies in 1892, Zulette, Lena, Agnes, and Caroline.

"Why would he say something like that", I asked. I wondered about this coach, but I didn't say anything.

"I don't know". Neither of us was awake enough at that hour to think this through.

There was room on the bus but, no thanks, I'll pass on a bus load of teenagers.

Her mother called from out of town at 9:00 AM after we arrived in our separate vehicles and before her first race to ask how Hayley was holding up. "I think she was a little nervous in the car, but she seems fine now", I reported. Indeed, jitters weren't apparent watching these youngsters hanging out together, getting their boats ready and in the water. They were all business in the water and typical 13 year olds on shore.

The other racing clubs were clearly bigger in numbers -- ZLAC pretty much had to race everyone to fill a boat -- but if ZLAC racers felt intimidated it didn't show.

Hayley had two races, an eight man shell to row and a four to "cox", then a third race to cox was added. Most boats had a coxswain (pronounced cox-en) to motivate and keep the team together.

The eight "man" shell for the first race looked long enough to launch a jet.


As they rowed up"river" to get into position, I got my own position on the opposite bank to take pictures for her Mom, that was my assignment for the day. I could see rowers coming down river and focused my camera on the lane that best fit Hayley's description of where they would be rowing. Snap, snap, snap... some good shots and I turned to leave.

Wait, there's another team coming from farther back. Are they in the same race? Could it be?

I waited. Yes, it was Hayley rowing in her boat of eight. Not quite as crisp and speedy as the others, but they were making their way to the finish line.


By the third race, I knew where to look for these plucky girls. Hayley was the "cox" on this boat, filling in at the last minute. I was positioned again, waiting to take that perfect photo, following the progress of the last boat toward my direction. Just a minute... they seemed to get off course, they were almost stopped, were they dropping out? I learned from Hayley later, you can't just "drop out" unless your equipment totally fails. I watched as they got themselves together and started up again, of course by this time very far back in the race. When they passed by, though, they looked beautiful and, in my book, pretty courageous.


I asked Hayley later what happened. "Tanicia caught a crab, we were heading for the rocks", she responded.

Not knowing the lingo at this point, I thought this was a strange thing to be doing in a competitive race. She explained catching a crab is putting the oar into the water other than vertical and it throws the whole boat off, sometimes violently.

I asked how she handled this, being the cox and all. She answered with some technical lingo, then said, "I just kept calm. If I hadn't, they would have all lost it". I think to myself, another generation with a "shield on her arm"!

The day was almost over, but not until unloading their boats back in San Diego, one hundred jump squats for leaving trash on the bus, and a Hannah Montana movie ("Ouma, you need some teen pop culture").

The next morning was more of the same, only in San Diego on Mission Bay. The girls had a "duel" with Xavier Rowing Club from Arizona. I was beginning to learn this sport starts pretty early in the morning, like before dawn, getting their boats ready.


Hayley had two races, a four man cox and an eight man row. (I'm starting to learn the talk.) I watched a quiet moment before the four man event...


and the launch for the eight man race.


Hayley was becoming a seasoned racer. She and her team would row almost a mile out into the bay to their starting positions, then bring the boat back across the bay, all by themselves from so far away you couldn't see them in the distance. No mind they would be in last place. It takes a lot of guts for a thirteen year old who knows all the words to Hannah Montana's "Nobody's Perfect" song.

Where are my beads?

So can you tell which of our presidential candidates might have said the following?

“I do not want -- as I believe most Americans do not want -- to sell out American interests, to simply withdraw, to raise the white flag of surrender. That would be unacceptable to us as a country and as a people. But I am concerned -- as I believe most Americans are concerned -- that the course we are following at the present time is deeply wrong. I am concerned -- as I believe most Americans are concerned -- that we are acting as if no other nations existed, against the judgment and desires of neutrals and our historic allies alike. I am concerned -- as I believe most Americans are concerned -- that our present course will not bring victory; will not bring peace; will not stop the bloodshed; and will not advance the interests of the United States or the cause of peace in the world.”

“I am concerned that, at the end of it all, there will only be more Americans killed; more of our treasure spilled out; and because of the bitterness and hatred on every side of this war, more hundreds of thousands of … slaughtered; so that they may say, as Tacitus said of Rome: "’They made a desert, and called it peace.’"

“We are entitled to ask -- we are required to ask -- how many more men, how many more lives, how much more destruction will be asked, to provide the military victory that is always just around the corner, to pour into this bottomless pit of our dreams?

“But this question the Administration does not and cannot answer. It has no answer -- none but the ever-expanding use of military force and the lives of our brave soldiers, in a conflict where military force has failed to solve anything in the past…Instead, the war will go on, year after terrible year -- until those who sit in the seats of high policy are men who seek another path. And that must be done this year.”

“For it is long past time to ask: what is this war doing to us? Of course it is costing us money … but that is the smallest price we pay. The cost is in our young men, the … thousands of their lives cut off forever. The cost is in our world position -- in neutrals and allies alike, every day more baffled by and estranged from a policy they cannot understand.”

Fooled ya. The above excerpts are from a speech made by Bobby Kennedy almost 40 years ago at Kansas State University. The war he was talking about was Viet Nam. We just don't seem to learn, do we?

(At the end of the movie Bobby, I cried my eyes out listening to his City Club of Cleveland speech on violence, given the day after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, while reconstructed scenes of the aftermath of RFK's own assassination flashed on the screen.)

Tiger's Nest and Not Your Ordinary Cupcakes

I was starting to get sick getting onto the plane in LAX, that telltale scratchy throat, the body aches, but 23 hours of flying time later, a day in bed in Bangkok, and I was ready for the first adventure -- climbing up to Tiger's Nest.

Really, the first adventure was flying into the valley of Paro, descending over a high Himalaya ridge into the town that used to be the capital of Bhutan. Our guide, Phil Ershler, had clued us that the approach to Paro was going to be interesting. I might have some other words for what seemed to be nearly vertical banking, more than once, in a commercial airliner to enter the narrow valley. I could look down the plane's wing to the river below. Not much choice, this was the only airstrip in the whole country. I looked over at Phil. He was smiling.

Fifteen of us were here to follow Phil and our Bhutanese guide, Tschering (prounounced chair-ing), through 150 Himalaya miles... on foot... the only trek for which I've had to submit a climbing resume' to be accepted.

The first test... a steep hike from Paro at 7,500' to Taktsang Monastery, or Tiger's Nest, at 10,500'. Actually, thank God, we drove to the trailhead at 8,500'. I know Phil is watching us and deciding whether he's going to need to bring along a "sagwagon" once we get started on the real thing. In the US, it's a van that follows cyclers or runners who can't go on in a race. In the mountains, it's a horse. Not quite as humiliating as being "bagged" on Rainier, but close. I'm tired from my cold, weak from the altitude but I'm drinking, drinking, drinking, trying to pee clear, and hoping I don't look to Phil like I'm going to need a sagwagon on the expedition.


A couple hours up a well worn dirt path through pine, oak and rhododendren forest we get a look at Tiger's Nest through the clouds. Mystical, magical, perched on a granite ledge that drops 3000' to the valley floor, it definitely has that Wow factor.


More walking and some time later -- time has mysteriously become irrelevant - the clouds have cleared.

A closer look at what has become the image of Bhutan, and I am compelled to wonder, as everyone must -- how did they do this? Not only is the monastery built on a narrow ledge, but the approach is even narrower. The monastery burned completely down in 1998 and was reconstructed using an electric tram car from the valley floor. But in 1692 when it was built? It's not like there were electric trams or thousands of Egyptian slaves.

Look closely at the bottom of the above picture and you can see a string of prayer flags from the monastery across that 3000' gorge to the other side. How did they do that? My thought is -- it was shot with an arrow. Archery is the national Bhutanese sport and I have seen a Bhutan archer hit a bull's eye from a football field length distance.


The next question -- why here? It's not from lack of flat places on the valley floor.

Well, it seems in 747 A.D. the founder of Bhutan Buddhism, Guru Rinpoche, or Padmasambavha, flew across the Himalayas from Tibet on the back of a tiger to Taktsang and meditated in a cave for three months. He came out of the cave and converted the people in the valley below to Buddhism. There are several sacred caves at Taktsang, one inside the monastery. A small temple was built above the site in the early 1500's and they thought about building Tiger's Nest for a couple centuries, but they were always busy building some other dzong or monastery until finally a high up monk assigned the task of Tiger's Nest to a teenager! Never underestimate kids.

Non-Buddhists can enter the monastery only with a special permit from the government, and we had one. Most view the monastery across the "ravine", but we were fortunate to go inside. A monk blessed our trip and gave us a Buddhist symbol to wear around our necks. Climbers going into the Himalayas seek out blessings before heading to the hills, and I suspect Phil had something to do with our permit.

Bhutan Majestic tells us:
"It is believed that more merit is gained if we meditate one minute in Taktsang than to meditate months together in other sacred places. Its sacred essence is that of Drubkhang/Pelphug, the holy cave in which Guru Rinpoche and many other renowned saints meditated, and also the body of Langchen Pelgyi Singye had been placed deep in the rocks under the site of Kudung Chorten."

No question, this is a very special place.

Heading down, I paused at a curious place just below the monastery.


It was another cave with what appeared to be hundreds of cupcakes.

I looked closer, still looked like cupcakes, little decorated tasties.


Not so, Tschering said.

Turns out each cupcake was a person, cremated, mixed with a little water to make these shapes, and brought by a relative to this holy place. The soul has left the physical body to await the next reincarnation.



Bhutan Majestic has an excellent historical background on Taktsang as well as daily Bhutan news, well worth reading.

A Mother's Love

I should be paying my bills. Instead, I'm blogging. I don't write for weeks and then I go hog wild. Go figure.

I don't know how to embed this video from the New York Times, so just click on the link and watch, ok?

Imagine That

Kathie e-mailed me this link the other day. To protect the innocent, the significance of the article’s content to us will remain undisclosed here. :)

Anyway, it seems that Karma Wangchuk, a member of the Bhutanese royal family (we think) who is also an urban planning student at MIT, has spent some time shadowing Missoula (MT) city planning officials. Why Missoula? There are similarities between Missoula and Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan and the city of which Mr. Wangchuk is currently the deputy chief town planner.

”There are, of course, a few differences. Instead of black bears and whitetail deer getting into backyards, it's wild boars and elephants. And developers defer to government planners, although they may appeal to the king if they dispute a decision.”

Imagine that.

“'Every citizen has access to the king,' Wangchuk said Wednesday as he prepared to return to Boston. 'That keeps everybody in check. At the end of the day, you don't want to fail the king, country or people. It's shameful to ask that I only benefit and others suffer.'”

That last sentence was bolded by me. Can you imagine our government people (or any of the rest of us Americans, for that matter) thinking like that?

Bhutan has a four-pillared test for making major decisions. According to the article's author, “An action must create sustainable benefits for the economy, the culture, the environment and the government.”

Perhaps we could have gross national happiness if our government used a similar test.

The writer goes on to say that “a recent proposal to aggressively log the nation's extensive forests was defeated because its economic benefits couldn't match its environmental impact.”

Wow. Are you listening, Dubya? How about you presidential candidates?

When Mr. Wangchuck finishes up at MIT, he will return home and run for mayor. Hope he wins.

Doors of Bhutan

I walked 150 high altitude miles of Bhutan's Himalayas in October, through snow, rain, mud, glacial moraine, yak stampedes, over high passes, and saw some of the most beautiful remote landscape in the world. What did I come home with? Pictures of doors and windows and dzongs and children. In this isolated part of the world where buildings are white washed mud and stone, the doors and windows are splashed with color.


Know what the most common response was when I said I was going to walk Bhutan?

You guessed it -- "Where is Bhutan?"

Well, it's a small Buddhist Himalaya kingdom bounded by Tibet on the north and India on the other three sides. The geography is so difficult Bhutan was never conquered or colonized. Mountain climbing was not allowed. Tourists visas were difficult to obtain. Smoking is not allowed. By law, 60% of the country must be covered by forest. Until not long ago, Bhutan was essentially a medieval agrarian society. Most of the people probably didn't know about "us" until television and Internet was allowed in 1999. And so the culture remained fairly pure.


In the 1980's His Majesty King Jigme Singye Wangchuk introduced his goal and philosophy for the country: Gross National Happiness (GNH). Success measured by the people's happiness, not the gross national product, or shopping, or material acquisition.

He envisioned bringing the country into modernity based on Four Pillars - economic growth and development, preservation of their cultural heritage, preservation of the environment, and good governance based on integrity, efficiency, accountability and transparency.


In December 2006, the king abdicated to his son, Jigme Khesar Namgeyl Wangchuk, 26 years old, Oxford educated, and single - the world's youngest head of state who is supervising the transition to a democracy with a constitutional monarchy. A few weeks ago, elections were held for the upper parliament. The oldest elected parliamentarian is 45 years old, and most are in their 20's and 30's.


The next elections in March will form the lower parliament, and Bhutan will be on its way to a westernized democracy with a goal of happiness for its people.


Sound like Shangri-La?


At the end of January, about two weeks ago and a few days after the March elections were announced, the country experienced a series of bomb blasts believed set off by Nepali militants. It seems that in the early '90's, the Bhutan authorities, in a type of ethnic cleansing, stripped citizenship from Hindu Bhutanese who were Nepalese in origin. About 100,000 fled or were forced to leave the country. Most crossed the border to Nepal and still live in refugee camps. An agreement between Nepal and the US last year to resettle 60,000 Bhutan refugees in the United States created more conflict with those who believed they should be allowed to return to Bhutan. The conditions have been fertile ground for Maoists and communist groups to foment militantism in the camps and the bombings appear related to disrupting the elections.


Are you asking yourself, is that what I think it is?

Yes, two large, hairy penises. In Bhutan the penis is a symbol of good luck, and they are everywhere. It is not unusual to come across a guest house or restaurant, like this one in an idyllic 13,000' village, and be welcomed by twin dicks. Or to go to the village spring and have to collect water out of a penis shaped pipe.

The doors of Bhutan are opening. Wishes for Good Luck and Happiness to them as they let us into their world.

Out of the mouths of ...

Where better to ski than the wide open spaces of Vail?


And in what better company than grandbabies? A teen and nearly teen, they object to being called grandbabies.




When one insists on skiing with an open jacket, even with a temperature below zero,
















and the other gets distracted by knocking snow out of trees,














and still wears alien holographic ski googles,


I say they are still grandbabies.

This year, though, they thought they were too old to go to ski school. They came up with a deal. If their Ouma would be their teacher, and they could behave like good students, they wouldn't have to go to regular ski school. Fair enough, I thought.


They lined up to listen, followed through with directions. One problem, though. While I'm OK with teaching more advanced techniques, I didn't know how to get the younger one out of her "pizza-french fries" into parallel skiing. I talked about edges, and knees into the hill, and upweighting, and using your breathing to set a rhythm. But, how to get Jennifer to progress beyond the wedge?

I said to the older one, "Hayley, I don't think I can get Jennifer out of the wedge. You're going to have to help teach her since you're closer to learning how to do that."

Hayley turned to her sister and said firmly, "Jennifer, keep your skis together".

I watched in amazement as Jennifer headed down the mountain, skis perfectly together.

Is there a lesson here?

Advice from George

Words of advice from George Washington on the occasion of his farewell address in 1796:

"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.

"This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

"Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

"It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."

Oh, that we would have listened to George...

It Just Blows My Mind

Here I sit, eating my breakfast and surfing through my favorite blogs. I really should run upstairs and get my shower, given that I need to be at work in an hour, but I've just read a blog post that I must respond to right now or it will torment me all day.

I'm proud to say that Janet Lee is an RN in the Nursery of the hospital where I work. She's a very articulate writer whose blog I enjoy so much. Her cat photos provide a lighter side to her more serious posts, many of which poke at politicians and our crazy society. Don't think I've read one that I've disagreed with. This morning's was no different.

In "Counting Coupe" (and BTW, Janet, that's "coup"!), Janet expresses her concern about her one and only child, a son who is on a Navy ship in the Persian Gulf, in a post about our fearless leader's preference for military measures over diplomacy. I love her phrase, "if Bush hadn't squandered all our good will in the world" - it's so accurate.

So what's upsetting me is the reply of her first commenter, a blogger with whom I'm not familiar. Having no children herself, Marcheline has written on her own blog a post to Janet about how her husband, a former Army Ranger, is a wonderful and fun-loving man as a result of his military experience: "I don't know another man on earth who is as tender and compassionate as he is, and yet I pity the person who would raise a hand to harm me or anyone he cares about."

Again - I know next to nothing about Marcheline so I hope she won't mind my picking on her. Since she's a blogger, she must be wonderful :) and a thinker, and yet I'm wondering how she's missed the fact that many of our Vietnam vets and many of the kids coming home nowadays from Iraq are absolutely haunted by PTSD.

I had several Ranger and Special Forces friends when I was in the military and yes, they were a wild and fun bunch of kids. The emotional damage they suffer now, though, breaks my heart. Remember John? He's a loving, compassionate family man and a brilliant writer - a friend whom I would also trust with my life. Some evenings now, though, he "patrols the perimeter" of his home, continually on the lookout for invading VC.

How can we continue to send our kids into these senseless wars, knowing how scarred they can be when they return? And why do we women still allow it? (I'm obviously including myself here.)

It just blows my mind.

Making Schools, Not War

Kathie and her family visited us here in Charleston over Christmas. As always, we had such a good time! It was so nice to finally meet Isabella, a proud and strong little woman of 5.

Isabella and her mom stayed at Jessie's house and Kathie stayed with Kelly and me. Of course, Kathie cooked for us - some yummy shrimp scampi that she just "threw" together one evening and a wonderful moussaka for Christmas Day. (We like to have international menus for Christmas.)

While she was here, Kathie and I went to see the movie "Charlie Wilson's War", starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. This is how Fandango describes the movie, which is based on a true story: "Charlie Wilson, an alcoholic womanizer and Texas congressman, persuaded the CIA to train and arm resistance fighters in Afghanistan to fend off the Soviet Union. With the help of rogue CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos, the two men supplied money, training and a team of military experts that turned the ill-equipped Afghan freedom-fighters into a force that brought the Red Army to a stalemate. However, the result also empowered the Taliban and terrorists including Osama bin Laden."

The part this description leaves out is the ending (and if you haven't seen the movie but plan to, skip the rest of this paragraph). With the help of American dollars appropriated by our Congress at the request of Charlie Wilson, the Afghanis have driven the Soviets from their country. Charlie is shown meeting with a US congressional committee to request more money, only this time the money is for educating the Afghanis. His request is turned down.

Hmmm.

Kathie gave me two terrific gifts for Christmas - a Crate and Barrel gift card (ooh, they have cool stuff!) and a Netflix subscription. The first movie I selected for my queue was "Syriana". Yes, the movie's a few years old but I had never seen it, even though George Clooney and Matt Damon star in it (two of my "boyfriends", as Kathie calls her favorite hunky-boy actors, singers, whatever).

FYI - "Syriana" is loosely based on Robert Baer's memoir See No Evil, an account of his time in the CIA.

When the DVD showed up in my mailbox a couple of days later, I ripped it open and watched it. Chaos and confusion! There are at least four story lines going on in Syriana, a bit like "Crash". I finished watching the movie, thought about it overnight, then decided to look it up on Wikipedia. Armed with a better understanding of the individual plots, I watched the movie again. My confusion was much reduced this time - but not completely!

The subplot that I did understand from the very beginning was the one about the two young Pakistani men who are laid off from their jobs in an oil field (Iranian?) that has just been bought by a Chinese company. This is how Wikipedia describes it: "Since the company has provided food and lodging, the workers face the threat of poverty and deportation due to their unemployed status. Wasim desperately searches for work. Wasim and his friend join an Islamic school to learn Arabic in an effort to improve their employment prospects. While playing soccer, they meet a charismatic blue-eyed Muslim fundamentalist cleric, who eventually leads them to execute a suicide attack on a Connex-Killen LNG tanker using a shaped-charge explosive from the missing Tehran missile." OK, so that last bit about the missile is from one of the other plots. Keep up.

So, all the young Pakistani guys really wanted was a job.

Hmmm.

When I talked with Kathie the weekend after Christmas, she mentioned a book that all of San Diego is reading this year, entitled Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time. I just finished reading it last night. If you read only one book this year, make sure this is the one. And be sure to buy it from Amazon through this link. Essentially, this New York Times bestseller is about a mountain climber/RN who has dedicated his life to building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Well into the book, he talks about how some kids in these countries have been drawn in to extremist Islamic schools - simply because there are no other schools available.

Double hmmmm.

Back in September of 2001, I talked with a nun friend about the horrific World Trade Center catastrophe. I expressed to her my concern that, in our pain and shock, we would skip a collective soul search for underlying causes and pass right on to a kneejerk military reaction. After all, "What would Jesus do?" I asked her.

Sister Renee, who lives in Philadelphia and works with people who lost relatives and friends in the Trade Centers, responded that the Catholic Church recognizes "justifiable war". As much as I respected her, and maybe because of my respect, I was sorely disappointed by her answer.

I guess I'll read another of Kathie's recommendations next: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.

IN MEMORIAM

Don Diego de San Diego
1992-2007

























Diego was a brave, loyal and loving kittie.
His gentle spirit is free to travel the world.