Who is he?

I drive past a highway underpass every day on the way to work. It is right before I enter the tunnel into Alameda. There is a man that is living under this underpass and has been there for about two months. He has what looks like his entire life set up, a bed, a table and chairs, books, pictures a mirror. He used to have a computer on the table but that has been missing for a couple of weeks. Each day I drive by and wonder who he is and how long it will be before the city comes in and throws all his stuff away and forces him to move on. I want to stop and bring him coffee and a donut.

Who are they???

Who are those people on the highway that think they can load up their pickup, not tie anything down and then drive down the highway? Does it not occur to them as they are putting their belongings in the back of that truck that they just might want to tie them down so they don't go flying all over the highway! Tonight on my way home traffic was at a standstill because someone moving stuff from point A to point B had one of their containers come off the back of the truck and their stuff was all over 580. The woman was pulled over on the side of the highway looking back at her stuff all over the highway and talking on the phone. Imagine that conversation, "Honey was there anything important in that blue container, cause its all over the road being run over by hundreds of cars."

Then I could not get away from her. She kept getting in front of me and I kept getting a really good look at what was left in her truck. A big speaker, a giant tool box, a smaller tool box, a 2 X 4, a couple of sheets of plywood and two of those ramps that a person uses to put a motorcycle up on a truck or something. They scared me the most, I could just picture them flying off the back of the truck right on the hood of my my car. I finally got away from her and was very happy to get home.

Oh yeah

I was just reading soup ladies blog and she talked about a concert she went to and it reminded me that I wanted to blog about last week. My beloved and I went into San Francisco to Slims to see the one and only Todd Rundgren. I have been a Todd fan for probably thirty years (did I just say that out loud) and love him as much today as I did when I first heard him. I had seen him once before at the Sausalito Art Festival about twelve years ago. He was younger then, but then so was every one else in the audience. Todd is 61 (or will be the day after my birthday) and he ROCKED the room. I still love him. My beloved is rather concerned because she is starting to like his music, in fact I heard her humming a Todd song the other day.

When I was single one of my criteria for dating someone was that she had to know who Todd Rundgren was, well luckily my beloved did know who he was and now she knows why that was important to me.

Meeting a monk

Well, he is actually an ex-buddhist monk, but still. I had a new engineer come to my work to help out with a project, I had never met him before and I was feeling a little sad, because I love my previous engineer. He is young and seemed very nice even if he did have orange spots in his hair. So we chatted about the work we were going to do and at the appointed time we started. As we walked into the computer room I noticed his tattoo. It was a sitting buddha, the one where he has one hand touching the ground, it had a frame around it and six dots under it and was on his left forearm. And me, being me I had to ask about it.

So, I learned that while in college he got bored and wrote a monastery in Thailand saying he wanted to be a monk. Well, they pointed him to the Thai monastary in northern California and off he went to spend a year and get ordained as a Thai Buddhist monk. His family came from Kansas to participate and then off to Thailand for further study. He spent two years as a monk, until he got a little bored staring at walls all day and chanting, then he met a girl and left the monk life for love. He spent the next year teaching english in north eastern Thailand.

We talked about how lovely the Thai people are and how hot it can get there. We talked about a few other things and I decided I like him and he could stay.

I spent some time wondering at what it took to for a farm kid from Kansas to decide to become a Thai Buddhist monk. Did he even know any other buddhists?

I admire people that find something and go for it.

Of course, the first words out of my mouth (no not a swear word, thankfully) were that I wanted to kill all my users, when I found out the ex-monk stuff, I thought well that first comment is probably not going to do much for my karma. At the end of our conversation he told me that the woman he left the monastary for was now a Buddhist nun. Talk about karma.

Bad Blogger!

OH, I have been such a bad blogger! Blogging is kind of like going to the gym, you have to be a bit disciplined to do it on a daily basis. I will try to be better. I know you all are just so happy to hear this.

Speaking of voting

Last weekend I was in the Castro having lunch with ML and IK and of course our talk turned to repeal of prop 8. I would really assume that 99.99% of the people in the Castro want prop 8 repealed. So, why are there tons of people in the Castro trying to get people to sign petitions to this end? Doesn't it occur to the people in charge that most of the people walking by have already signed up for this?

When two kids stopped me to sign I was a little hostile, I told them why are they here in this neighborhood, aren't you preaching to the choir? Why arent they out in neighborhoods where people don't want to repeal this replusive change to the California constitution?

They were not happy, if you would just listen to us. . .

I don't need to listen to you, I've already signed the petition, I've already given money.

And another thing if you want to change the minds of the people that voted this piece of crap into law, don't send out dirty street kids with their boom boxes that jump out at people and demand they sign something.

Voting

I don't know about you, but I vote in someone's garage, perhaps if we voted in places like this one from the recent Iranian election we might get more people to vote:

Where does it come from?

Watching the news today makes me wonder - where does the hate come from?  The man that took a gun into the Holocaust Museum and killed Stephen Tyron Johns as he opened the door for the old man, was he born hating everyone?

I just don't understand it.   That's all.

They're Back!

I am talking about the goats!  Back to do their part of fire prevention in the hills of the Bay Area.  I know I have said this before, but just looking at them makes me happy.  In fact, they make me sing!

And as they sing in the Sound of Music:

Hm hm hm hmm, odl lay hee, odl lay hee hee, odl lay hee
Ho ho, lady odlee ho, ho ho lady odl lay
Ho ho lady odl lee ho, lady odl lee ho lay
One little girl in a pale pink coat heard,
Lay odl lay odl lay hoo hoo
She yodeled back to the lonely goatherd, lay odl lay odl loo

It takes a village

Tomorrow is a special election in our town.  We are voting on a parcel tax that will go towards our schools.  Our town has really good schools and most people would like to keep them that way.  When I first read about this new parcel tax I was pissed off and wrote the following letter to the editor of the local paper.  Well, I quess I did not look at the paper on April 3rd and we have not listened to our voice mails for quite a while.  My beloved finally listened to them today and told me I needed to listen to one.  A resident of our town read my letter and left a message.  Diane Champlin said she was so touched by my letter that she looked me up.  She wanted me to know that she is a married (forever, her words) catholic woman that felt horrible that Prop 8 had passed.  She wanted to let me know that she has my back on this issue and just wanted to let me know that she had read the letter and was touched.  

I thought I would share my words with the rest of you out there and hope you are also touched by Diane's support as I am.  I hope there are more Diane's out there.


Opinion - Friday, April 3, 2009

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Letter: Building community takes a village

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Dear Editor,

It takes a village.

I have always believed in that statement. I have chosen to not have children and I have never had a problem paying taxes to support a school system that teaches other peoples children. I believe the children of my community should be educated; that is what makes the world better. Right?

Well now the community I have chosen to live in needs more money to support the schools here, the schools where other people's children go to learn to make the world better. Are these the same people on my street with a couple of kids that attend school? Are these the same people that now want me to pay out more money to educate these children? Are these the same people that had a sign in their yard during the last election to vote yes on Prop 8?

Now my village wants me? Needs me? Now my second-class citizen status does not seem to matter? My money is good enough, but my relationship is not? I will pay my parcel tax. In fact, I would pay more than my village is asking because I do believe it takes a village and I am part of that village. Remember that next election, people of my village.

Margaret Fuquea