Back Yard Tour

My mom and her husband began planting trees in memoriam when my brother David died 23 years ago. It has transformed the back yard of my childhood. At the very beginning you may see an orange flag in the front yard. That is where they intended to plant the tree for my nephew Zac the day after I filmed this.



Follow this link if the embed doesn't work for you.

2 seconds 2 bees

I've shared spring, fall and winter colors before, but summer kind of got left behind. More to come on flickr soon.

Tiger lilies in front of my house. Our former renters planted them...she liked to garden.

Karen Armstrong on Compassion

It seems I keep coming across TED.com. A few weeks back I watched this talk given by Karen Armstrong. You know, the woman who was a nun and got tired of religion, but was still curious so she wrote all these incredible books about the religions of the world? (None of which I have had the time to read.)

I like what she has to say about compassion. A few quotes:

It is compassion that will bring you in touch with the divine; once you get rid of ego, you can experience the divine.

A lot of religious people prefer to be right rather than compassionate.

It's time we moved beyond the idea of toleration and moved toward appreciation of the other.

I like that last one. Toleration is passive. Tolerance is important, but if it is too quiet, it is implied consent of intolerance. Appreciation is active, and thoughtful. If it doesn't come naturally, a practice of appreciation forces one to really examine the other, to look for something to appreciate. The other can no longer be so separate. When it does come more naturally, appreciation creates harmonious bonds.

Karen Armstrong wants the thoughtful spiritual people of the world to "help with the creation, launch, and propagation of a charter of compassion...." Follow the link to find out how.

Dinner, Lisa, and my first YouTube upload

I finally went to see my good friend Lisa Mann perform. I have her first CD, which she said at this little show is now a collector's item. It is, too...good songs on there. Go and buy one before they're all gone. You can sample her songs at her MySpace page.

She was playing alone at this little place called The East Burn. Or is it The EastBurn? They have yummy food...I had potato pancakes that seemed to have a little influence from the Japanese version. I also had the ravioli special made with sunchokes and artichokes. My sweetie met me there. He's been working a lot again. He's not so into this kind of music, and his ears bother him, so it was especially sweet that he joined me. He got their fries, which were a mix of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and leeks. Oh, I would go back even if just for those. The leeks were sliced into slivers, so were these crispy green things that had a taste reminiscent of fried onions, only more refined, as leeks are. I'm not a big fan of sweet potato fries, but the leeks made these quite delicious.

Actually, when I arrived there was a guy drumming along with Lisa, but he left after a couple of songs. He was drumming with his hands on a box contraption. That just goes to show you how much I know about music these days.

The first thing I was inspired to do was pull out the crayons from the double shot glass and start drawing on the butcher paper that served as a tablecloth. I draw like a kid. When Lisa saw it she loved it. I'd already decided if she liked it, it was hers. When I told her so after the show, she jumped up and down in a little happy dance. Of course I had to hang on to the image just a little by taking a photo.

Her final song was a cover of a Tom Waits song. Of course I thought immediately of my blogging friend in Nashville, so I thought this was as good a time as any to see how good a video my little camera could produce for YouTube. And I have to say, not bad, not bad at all for a pocket-sized camera.

While I wait for that video to upload, here's my sweetie's drawing that he started after I was all done.

Fight the Power

Comcast is our internet provider. I really like having high-speed internet. But they are so annoying, and they are trying to keep their corporate power and squelch the rights of individuals. What to do? Fight for net neutrality.

I really like the bit where the fist grabs the flowing stream of bits and stops it. It is a simple, vivid depiction of what comcast and other giant corporate entities are doing to our freedom.

Save the internet.