I March For All Those I Love

INSTEAD OF WATCHING the Inauguration of the Imbecile In Chief, I spent the day working on my signs for the Women's March Los Angeles, a sister march to the one in D.C.  Given all the hateful rhetoric that this moronic imbecile spewed throughout his campaign, my list of slogans was extensive.  I had written them all down on a pink legal pad.  I didn't want his name to appear on my sign - I feel that feeds his sick ego too much.  I wanted to say something about diversity, about white privilege, about ignorance, about fear mongering, about being our brothers keeper.  What I ended up with was:

THE WOMEN'S MARCH IN LOS ANGELES was an incredible experience.  We left our house in Burbank at around 6:30 a.m., parked in the lot at the NoHo Metro station.  Caught the Redline to Pershing Square.  Metro cars were full but not packed when we arrived.  There were a couple hundred people milling about at Pershing Square and we made our way up the steps to see where people were gathering.  After about 30 minutes we were encouraged to walk around to the other corner where the day was going to be kicked off with a blessing from an Indigenous Tribal member. After the blessing the crowds began to move towards the corner but suddenly everything stopped moving.  We were not far from the street, and could hear most of what was being said on the speakers - but nothing was moving.  We came to realize later after viewing photographs that so many people showed up - streets began closing everywhere due to the number of people who showed up.  We were supposed to march from Pershing Square to City Hall - but the entire route filled up solidly with people - and instead of a march - we had a stand!!

70,000 rsvp'd / 140,000 anticipated / 750,000 people showed up.

SIGNAGE WAS the subject of much photography.  My sign went a bit viral the night before the march - on Facebook, and eventually Reddit (of which I know nothing about).  My message seemed to resonate with many.  I had many women ask if they could be photographed with me and my sign. My friends began calling me the 'darling of Instagram' due to the frequency of photo requests.

750,000 people.  No arrests.

I SAW WOMEN with young children in strollers.  I saw women pushing their grandmothers and great grandmothers in wheel chairs.  I saw dads carrying daughters on shoulders - those daughters carrying signs high as their little arms could hold them up.  I saw trans-gendered women proudly marching among crowds who accepted them for who they are.  There were groups of women dressed in period costume, giving a nod to those women who marched so long ago to fight for our right to vote today.  The air was filled with an incredible spirit of solidarity against all that wreaks in our current administration.

750,000 people.  No cell service.

BY 9:00 A.M. WE NOTICED we had no cell service - just too many people at once trying to record the event.  Around 11:00 a.m. we began walking down 6th street and made our way to a stage that was queuing up for Barbra Streisand, Jane Fonda, Miley Cyrus, and others.  Our group of 4 leaned our backs against a closed business along the sidewalk and decided to just hang out in this location for a bit.  The street was full of people and it seemed to be getting more crowded by the moment.  I was scoping out our surroundings and realized the building across the street had a cell phone tower on top of it - all of us had a signal and we began checking in, posting, and seeing areal views of where we were - insanely crowded.

750,000 people.  All related.

I AM FILLED WITH HOPE at the number of protests worldwide, in solidarity toward basic human kindness.

Comb Wash Road

Written from my 25 years later perspective…

May 24, 1990. Day 6 of my first trip through the Southwest. Me, Mike, and Colleen – age 5 (almost 6).

We were tent camping and had spent the first night in Williams Arizona, three more nights at the Grand Canyon, and we were just waking up from our 5th night of tenting in Monument Valley, Navajo Nation Reservation. It was very windy throughout the night and the fine powdery red sand found its way into all sorts of unexpected places. Ice cold shower in the morning was a surprise, but I was clean and ready for the days adventure. (This campground we stayed at no longer exists - they've built an incredibly beautiful hotel called The View on this sight and moved the campground to a different location) 

Heading northeast on 163, just a couple miles driving and we saw some vendors selling jewelry just off the road, a few cars, old tables with displays of jewelry neatly laid out before us. Colleen stayed in the car because it was still chilly out – sun hadn’t kicked in yet, and Mike and I were looking over the jewelry. The woman we tried to engage in conversation seemed less than interested in friendly banter – and answered our questions politely but with no smile and no enthusiasm. I glanced over to the car to see how Colleen was doing and she wanted to join us – so I waved her to join us. Immediately the woman snapped out of whatever funk she was in, and wanted to show Colleen everything! We bought 3 bracelets. Good start to the day!

Driving through this land can be both stark and beautiful. This morning I was feeling a bit road weary, but eager to explore the ridge along Comb Wash Rd. Mike had read about some petroglyphs along here, and that was our goal – to find some petroglyphs.

Comb Wash Road is near Bluff, Utah. Bluff, Utah is near nowhere, so driving off the main road into an area we’d never been, in a desolate landscape – before cell phones (not that there’d be a signal anyway)…. I wasn’t afraid, just mindful of what we were deciding to do. We had plenty of water and all our camping gear. Still, we needed to proceed with caution onto this dirt road to the west of 191 between Bluff and Blanding. 

The dirt road was much smoother than I’d anticipated. You could easily see how it proceeded north along the western side of this ridge line. We had set the odometer to zero when we left the main road, so we knew exactly where we were when we came upon a man and his truck 50 feet off the dirt road. He was elbow deep in mud, attempting to dig out his truck which had broken through the cracked, dry clay and was now axle deep in a muddy, mucky mess. He was a trail guide from Recapture Lodge in Bluff. He had been scouting for a location to set up camp for a group of folks who were on horseback and expected to find their camp all set up when they arrived. His truck was filled with gear and he wasn’t going anywhere. Mike tried to help him dig a little bit, but it was pretty apparent that wasn’t going to get results. For a brief moment they thought that our truck (a mini-truck) might be able to pull his truck out via some rope – all I imagined was TWO trucks stuck in the mud and wanted to keep our truck on the dirt road! 

We ultimately abandoned our plans to explore Comb Wash, so that we could drive back to Bluff and send a tow truck back for this guy. Since we could declare precisely where he was from the main road – it seemed like this was the right thing to do.
 
Driving through Bluff takes all of a minute, and you may not even realize you’ve done it – so finding “the tow truck guy” was a little bit of a challenge. I think we began at a gas station – and were eventually directed to a large corrugated metal building end of town, surrounded by a large chain-link fence. There was an open gate I walked through, calling out ‘hello?!’ I found an open door into the metal building and found an elderly man sitting in the shade of an office area – I asked him if he knew where we could get a tow truck and he wanted to know why. I began to explain where the guy and his truck were, and asked this man if he was familiar with this road - ‘of course I know that road, I built that road!!’ Oh, well then he’d know exactly what this guy was dealing with. I told him that the trail guide had driven off the dirt road and his truck had broken through into the mud. ‘There’s no mud out there!!’ declared this unhelpful but eager to talk old man. I smiled and said, well whatever it is – his truck is stuck in it up to its axles. Just then a young man walked it to see how he could help – and we were able to explain the situation to him and he said he drive out there right away.

Now it was noon and we decided to have lunch at the diner in Bluff. The waitress brought Colleen a coloring page and we had a decent lunch. About an hour later as we headed north on the 191 towards Moab, I learned that we’d be staying in a Motel and not tent camping for the next couple nights. It was the best news, and nicest Motel I ever stayed in!! (probably not, but I sure appreciated it!!)
 
So day 6 ended with Colleen playing in an awesome playground at a park in Moab - and dinner at the Rio, where portions were huge and prices really cheap!

Paper Feather

I find great enjoyment from cutting up old magazines to be used in future collages.  I look for colors, textures, images, art, paintings, faces, people, patterns, words, phrases, products, anything.  Used magazines are a free medium.  A collage artists gold!   Today I found an image of a bronze feather sculpture, and once I carefully cut it out, it's silhouette looked exactly like a real feather.  Impressive, I know!  I tried to get inspired and put it together with other images, but nothing really grabbed me, so eventually I began to put things away and resigned to trying later.

I stacked my magazine cuttings into a pile, smaller pieces on top.  As I stood to relocate the paper pieces into a box, some of the smaller pieces almost flew off.  When I turned around the image of the feather took flight and gently swayed back and forth as it made its way to the floor, just like a real feather!

Jalama Burgers For The Win

The Helicopter Squadron from Vandenberg Airforce Base has 'flown out' for Jalama Burgers. Oh, they just hop in the ol' helicopter and fly down the hill to the Jalama Beach Store, drop down the rope ladder so a couple of airmen can climb down, run across the stream, and pick up the burger order. No problem!

I'm not making this up, I've seen it happen! It shouldn't have been such a surprise though, our family has driven 3 hours for the same burger! It's THAT good!

Eating a Jalama Burger has always been so much more than a meal for our family, it's mostly about the entire experience of planning the trip. If we're planning a full on camping trip, we can spend months preparing - mentally and practically. Day trips are typically more spontaneous but we still spend 2 to 3 days preparing. It's a dog friendly place, so of course we plan on bringing along Scout and his basic needs (water bowl & what we call 'little scouties' - trash bags). We like to leave early in the morning, make one regular stop along the way, and after arriving we like to walk along the beach to really work up our appetites. Then it's time to place our orders!

This last Monday was no different than any other day trip we'd taken to Jalama Beach, other than the tide was the highest I'd ever seen it, and as we entered the Store and approached the counter, the proprietor smiled and said "You're Patti", and looking at Shannon said "and you must be Shannon". He had been expecting us!

About two years ago Shannon was sitting at the computer and decided to create a Facebook Group Site called: Jalama Burger Fans - it had a fairly slow beginning, but when our neighbor down the street joined the group it really took off - you see, he grew up very close to this beloved campground, and actually went to school with the store owner. The group site is not quite two years old and we've got 537 fans and counting - and we know there are more fans out there!!

A few weeks ago Shannon posted on the group wall that she was craving a Jalama Burger, a couple of days later she discovered that Mike Eittreim, the Store Owner, had posted an invitation for her to come and make her own!! You should have seen the three of us trying to figure out the soonest possible time we could go and coordinate our trip in between weather systems! We laughed at ourselves, but hey... they're really GREAT burgers!!

Mike was very nice and made good on his offer to let Shannon make her own burger (and she made ours as well!) I took a bunch of pictures while the two "burger masters" showed Shannon the ropes. She enjoyed herself a little bit too much - hmmm maybe a summer job?? Oh yeah!! She did a masterful job because they tasted just as wonderful as ever!

It was a once in a lifetime experience - THANKS MIKE! and we want to give a shout out to Mike's mother, Kathleen Eittreim, she is the inventor of the Jalama Burger - KATHLEEN, GOD BLESS YOU!!

New Bikes

So instead of spending the money on a weekend in Vegas - my husband and I opted to buy each other new bikes to celebrate our 20 year wedding anniversary. This is a good thing. We used to ride together when we were first married, but then someone stole his bike and he ended up using mine to commute and well, we just never got our "ride" back. We bought Electra Townies - they're really very nice bikes. God willing, we can ride together for the next 20 years or longer! Happy Anniversary!

laughing

It was not planned, but I have collected 4 videos of my granddaughter laughing throughout her first year of life: one at 3 mo., one at 6 mo., one at 9 mo., and one at a year old. I watch these about once a month - and I laugh every time! What is it about laughter that is so contagious? Especially when its a child laughing? I can't get enough of it! Here's a link to her video's:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSEp7V6LpfU

I wonder what makes an infant laugh... why is it that one particular day they seem to find a particular antic hysterical and the next day they will yawn at the same thing? I guess it doesn't really matter why, just matters that they laugh!!

Time with God

I think the idea of long periods of time set aside to do nothing will always be, for me, just an idea. I often think about how nice it would be to spend an hour or more somewhere quiet, or if not quiet, then somewhere where no one can interupt me. At this particular moment I am actually home alone with the dog, very rare, and here I sit contemplating how nice this is and how any moment now it will end. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the busyness of my life - I love all of it, I just wish I could carve out an hour a day to just go be alone with God somewhere.

Sometimes my quiet time with God is in the kitchen while I'm washing dishes. This actually happens a lot. My husband likes to listen to music all the time and especially when he's in the kitchen, but I prefer no music, no radio, no kids, just the sound of the dish water. I really don't feel like washing the dishes is much of a chore - I find that it's a task I can do without thinking and because of that my mind can go somewhere else. It's the same thing in the shower... I get some of the best ideas while I'm in the shower - so wierd, wish I had a waterproof notepad sometimes.

This afternoon I came home and intended to paint for a couple of hours. I went to my room/studio, turned on a book-on-tape and laid down for a moment to listen to the book. My mistake was leaving my front door open. I rolled over and stared out my door towards the orange tree and rosemary bushes... they needed trimming. Yes, you know it - I got up and got the pruning shears out and went to town. Once I get started it's hard to find a stopping point. I worked until it was too dark to see, and now I'll need to finish this tomorrow afternoon.

I came in to cool off and voila - quiet time blogging. I guess I need to be satisfied with what I get - it's really all very good!!