Gratitude

Five things to be grateful for today:

1) Feeling rested and healthy after two weeks with the flu
2) Vibrantly blue and purple dyed hard boiled eggs for breakfast :)
3) Beautiful sunny weather this weekend
4) Friends to have fun and relax with
5) Mojitos

Gratitude

Five things I'm grateful for today:

1) Fresh rain pouring down on the world and my now clean car
2) Feeling of safety and health and it's all going to be ok
3) Warm puffy white Gap vest
4) Coconut chocolate breakfast bar, yum
5) The prospect of savory Japanese food for lunch with a good friend

Gratitude

Five things I'm grateful for today:

1) Warm salmon on a bed of greens and veggies
2) A beautiful day
3) Getting to walk around Lake Merrit on my lunch break
4) Access to clean drinking water
5) My independence and having my own mind

Gratitude

Five things I'm grateful for today:

1) A landscaper who knows what he's doing and takes initiative to fix things
2) Caprese frittata (mozzarella cheese, basil, and cherry tomatoes) and bacon for breakfast
3) Sparkling cocktail rings
4) Free Zumba class w/ a friend :)
5) Walking in the hills w/ another friend :)

Gratitude

Five things I'm grateful for today:

1) Dating :)
2) A good, secure, interesting job
3) My education
4) Meat & veggies
5) Life and health

Radio at 5:30pm

I've noticed this odd trend in the last few weeks. I'm sure it existed before but I just discovered it. Around 5:30pm everyday and lasting until 5:35pm or so, all radio stations play commercials. Not music. And not one station - ALL stations. It's like they all agreed to play music definitely at 5pm because that's when people get off work but 5:30? Eh, let's pause for a moment and play an ad. I understand some ads and the cycle of playing music vs commercials comes and goes but it's pretty universal. I have six preset stations and I cannot find ANY music during those five minutes or so. I will listen to any kind of music just to have music but there's nothing.

Next time you're in the car at 5:30pm, try the radio and see what happens. Funny, huh?

Gratitude

Five things I'm grateful for today:

1) Health insurance
2) A good job with interesting projects to work on
3) Sliced fresh jicama from Whole Foods
4) Sunshine!
5) My two adorable cats Mitch and Nora (best cats ever after my beloved childhood Frisky RIP)

Gratitude

Five things I'm grateful for today:

1) Bacon & eggs
2) My home
3) A job
4) Hot water
5) A beautiful sunny day :)

Gratitude

Five things I'm grateful for today:

1) Lovely friends who are catsitting Mitch and Nora
2) My trip to Guatemala to visit dear friends (leave this Sat!)
3) That I live in a safe and protected country with running water and no mobs killing seven UN workers, that I could do something as simple as choose what eyeshadow colors I wanted to wear this morning because war is not on our ground.
4) Feeling well-rested after crashing at the early early hour of 10:30pm last night
5) Dinner last night with a good friend and good food

God, I am grateful to you everyday for what you have given me and continue to give me. You are my everything. Thank you.

Figuring out things as a new homeowner

I took a break from my Veronica Mars marathon to venture out yesterday to buy groceries and buy branch clippers. I'm quite proud of myself for clipping almost all the branches from my purple flower tree (type??) yesterday. The branch was hanging on the ground but as I pruned, it slowly rose back to its natural height. I felt so proud. I was telling my coworker about this simple task and my happiness, and she said she also feels proud when her green bin of compost is full from her yardwork. Even though its OUR house and our chores, we feel very self-back-patting when we complete our house tasks. Yey me - I'm now the owner of branch clippers. I've also bought a long fruit picker and reachingly picked bags of lemons from my tree. Green thumb, here I come!

I love the pink flower tree in my front yard. It covers my driveway and car with flowers. I was proud of myself for sweeping up the flowers the best I could and sweeping my neighbor's driveway of the wind-fallen petals. I love lately driving to work with flowers covering my car. I feel like I'm in a parade as the flowers gently or ferociously fall off as I travel through streets and the freeway. I love my pink flowered-covered car.

House, I really love you.

Veronica Mars - how did I just discover this show??

I added Veronica Mars into my netflix queue awhile ago with the intent of watching it "someday." I had heard the show was critically acclaimed when it was on from 2004-2007 and never received the millions of viewers it needed to stave off cancellation (like one of my faves Arrested Development, wipe away tear) but I never really watched it. I go through seasons of tv watching (really into it, kinda into it, not watching at all/reading like a crazy woman) and if a new show catches me in a tv watching mood, I can hook on and become obsessed. If I try to jump in a season late, I sometimes just don't fall in love or even understand the show. That happened with me and Lost, also. I watched a single season 1 episode but it had a ridiculous polar bear in it and I was like, wtf. That ended that. When the third season started and my new roommate loved it, I borrowed the dvds for seasons 1 & 2 to catch up and become entrenched. Eh. I found the writing overly dramatic (no one talks like that, esp for weeks on end!!), the characters stupid (few had the urgency to make practical, life-saving decisions and instead moped around having intense discussions), and the mysteries of the island contradictory and absurd (.... I,... don't even know where to begin). My friends insisted that it was the first season and the pilot that were amazing and had made them BFF's and they now kinda stuck with their mopey, aimless, weird but not in an interesting way friend that they kept hoping would perk up and be great again. Maybe if I had watched the pilot, I would have kept the Lost needle in my arm, too, even after the high was long gone. Anyway, just one example, of how joining a show in the middle of a season or later can be too difficult.

So, interesting, both Lost and Veronica Mars started in 2004. That fall was not a tv watching time for me so that explains that.

Anyway, I started Veronica Mars last week when I was sick from work and it's AMAZING!! I cannot stop. Seriously. I am addicted. I'm in the middle of season 3 and I started less than a week ago. I stayed up until 5am on Saturday night bc I had to finish Season 2. When I finally peeled myself off the couch and saw the time, I started laughing. When's the last time a show has drawn me in so well? It's great not knowing anything about the show before you start because the mysteries and character relationships really do surprise you.

Why did I not watch this show before?? I think bc I had heard it was a high school girl who solves crimes which sounded Encyclopedia Brown-y. I would actually describe it as a father/daughter PI team and the girl happens to be in high school. Which placing her in high school is a nifty way to work in a lot of cases that need to be solved by acquaintances who know Veronica enough to ask her for help but not be too forced. I do love Murder She Wrote but a whole lot of nieces somehow came out of the woodwork to be murder suspects is all I have to say.

** Ok, a few spoilers below - I realize someone reading this may have seen this show years ago and it's old news but it is hard to love a show years later and want information on the web without spoilers. So fair warning.

Omg, from the beginning, I've been wondering if Logan and Veronica get together. They had a chemistry and just pop off the screen together. I have the hugest crush on Logan and love how he protects Veronica and looks at her. Jason Dohring is a great actor and has that star quality. He has a film or show coming out soon according to IMDB - I hope he breaks into uber-success bc he's awesome. I started watching youtube videos of the best moments of Veronica and Logan. I am crazy obsessed with their character relationship. I'm in the middle of season 3 right now and if they don't end the series together, I'm going to be writing letters. I hate when they break up! I think I might be too into this show... I kinda watch episodes just to see the scenes with Veronica and Logan. After I finish the series, I'm going to haunt Veronica Mars fan sites and read everything I can. Yes, everything. I will be occupied for awhile.

Maybe another reason I didn't watch the show is I didn't know there was a love element to it. Kristen Bell is great at being the lead and Logan doesn't play enough to be a co-lead exactly but all the posters just had her alone. I thought it was about her solving mysteries alone. I had no idea there was intense boy drama! I'm also wondering, couldn't Logan have solved crimes with her? He's devious and not above going beyond the law - wouldn't they have made a perfect team? Perhaps this does happen in the rest of the season but so far, he's separate from her crime-solving life and seems to be watching from the side. Bring him into it!

Ok, I can't wait to finish watching Season 3 tonight. 5am bedtime? Hopefully, a bit earlier but we'll see how far my obsession takes me...

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is taking another leave of absence from Apple. I hope that his health hasn't declined so much but it might be that way. Keep fighting, Steve.

Why is there such a fascination with him? I think besides what he's done with Apple and making the easy-to-use products key to everyday lives, and coming back to a company that kicked him out, and his visionary language, I think the sum of the parts is he's a CEO we like. I would argue that most of us would love to have lunch with him and that parts of us want to be him. There aren't many CEO's that we think that about. We may envy the lifestyle of the (business) rich & famous but we don't overwhelmingly respect them as people.

I've thought about this before - how successful businessmen and women in movies are rarely portrayed positively. They are greedy, scheming, vapid, intellectually lacking, abusive. Most movies are about their conversion from selfish, successful CEO's to kind, give-away-the-business folk. Think Elf or Scrooge (with Bill Murray). I know those are Christmas movies but I saw them recently so they're fresh in my mind. Sometimes there is no ah-ha story; the take-all businessman from Wall Street has not changed at the end.

If we are to believe Hollywood: sales people are sleazy and liars, financial people are slick and out for the dollar, and any plot involving successful lawyers usually reveals some sketchy ethical stuff. If the lawyer is honest and good, the character never makes any money or tries their darnedest not to make any (Sandra Bullock in Two Weeks Notice). To make money, or want money, is to equal a shady soul.

There's one movie I remember portraying someone that works in business, In Good Company, as a good person who's reasonably intelligent and trying to just make a living. I remember being surprised. And a new tv show, Men of a Certain Age, shows a character inheriting his dad's car dealership and wanting to make something out of it. He's basically honest and hardworking. It's refreshing.

So back to Steve Jobs. A lot of CEO's today, I don't know the depth of their style. I have to imagine they're smart to get where they are, and that some/most are trustworthy women and men. But my mind instantly thinks of them as greedy and only about themselves. Steve has felt different.

I'm sure it's not always a picnic to work for him; I've heard he's the tiniest bit detail-oriented. But I appreciate his micromanaging and creativity if it gives us what Apple has.

Steve, can't wait until you come back.

Comments in Japanese

I want to thank anyone for wanting to post a comment but unfortunately, some comments are coming through in Japanese characters and I can't read them. I don't have a translator on my page. If you could post in English, I'd love to read and publish them.

Thanks for reading!

Pressing into hope

Driving into work this morning, I thought about hope and how you have to choose for it. Being hopeful doesn't always come naturally - it's a decision to believe that good things will happen and to keep believing when the good things take awhile to show up.

I will choose hope and to be positive and enjoy everything I have.

I feel my spirits lift already.

Things I'm learning as a new homeowner

1) How to relight a heater's pilot light
2) How to fix a leaking fridge
3) The different sounds a raccoon vs. a squirrel makes in one's attic
4) What a sump pump is and how it works
5) How much I like a working heater

Gratitude

Five things to be grateful for:

1) Nora is healthy
2) A job in a time when many are looking
3) A home :)
4) My new Christmas tablecloth
5) Hosting my family for Christmas next weekend

Gratitude

Five things to be grateful for today:

1) My new house!
2) A new showerhead creating a great shower
3) Electricity
4) My mom's home cooking
5) A job

Gratitude

Five things to be grateful for today:

1) Nora is healthy
2) A new home that I love
3) A heater
4) A dishwasher
5) My family coming into town tomorrow :)

Dogs in the rain

The house next door is in foreclosure and has been mostly empty for about two years. Lately though a group of people have been squatting there. It seems like the people aren't always the same but we can't quite tell the rhyme or reason of their exits and entrances. The current squatters have a junky camper van in the driveway with boards on all the windows and are very awake between 10pm and 2am. I ponder who pays the electricity bill as I hear power tools and the dryer running at midnight.

They also have new additions of a presumably momma dog and three puppies. The dogs' barking is not unreasonably loud. They are usually locked in the backyard with dry food in a plastic lid and a cardboard box and a few blankets for warmth. Mitch and Nora like watching the puppies dig into the dirt yard and yip at each other. Sometimes the puppies disappear and I imagine they're safe inside the house. I'm not usually worried about their well-being.

But then rain came. I woke up Sunday morning around 7:30am to the sound of falling rain from the slightly open window behind my head. Peaceful. Wait. I suddenly sat up and twisted around to open the window more and peer as best I could at the neighbor's backyard. I searched for yellow fur and saw curled-up small creatures below the back stairs. Scanning the yard, I saw the cardboard box had melted into a flattened mess, the blankets were soggy, and the food had turned into brown mush. Where were the squatters? I didn't think they would be as mean as to force puppies to stay outside in the rain with no protection and so I assumed they were out of town.

I kept watching the puppies, feeling helpless. The momma began to walk around in the rain, trailing her leash, while the puppies quietly followed her. Their fur was dirty with blotches of wet brown filth. One puppy attempted to eat the now soupy food. They had no protection from the rain except a small amount of space under the stairs. The rain wouldn't stop and I worried they would get sick from the cold. Where were their owners?

I began to feel desperate. I decided to gather supplies and sneak into their backyard to make a warm, safe temporary home for them. I dug through my earthquake kit for a plastic tarp and thick gloves, collected cat food and bowls, and shoved in a few towels all into a garbage bag. I slipped into jeans and shoes and headed over like a reverse dog burglar. My plan was to trespass but with benefactor intentions.

The puppies didn't see it that way. In the back of my mind, I had wondered if they would attack me when I entered but waved that little concern away. Surely they would see my generous heart and willingness to set up a plastic tent for animals that weren't even my own in pouring rain. Yeah, that side of things didn't occur to them.

As I neared the back gate and tried to figure out how to open it, the dogs noticed me and began to bark. Loudly. One or two began to jump on the fence and their tiny claws screeched on the wood. The mommma probably thought I was coming to steal her babies and she was ready to fight for them. Hmmm, time to abandon plan. Perhaps I'm around cats too often (who will usually hide when scared) to think through dogs' tendency to favor attacking with barks, jumping, and teeth.

I walked back to my own backyard, stood on a concrete block and looked over the fence. The dogs were still hovering at the first gate but when the momma saw the dangerous threat of me had moved, she sprinted to my new spot and picked up the barking again. The puppies were slow to realize the new location of danger but when they did, they scampered over to join in the yelping. Leaning over the fence with rain falling on us all, I realized there was nothing I could do to help. The puppies would remain cold and wet. I couldn't control how long they were out there or if they survived. I went back upstairs and held my dry, warm cats. Mitch purred up at me and didn't know how lucky he was.

Later in the day, the puppies were not to be found and I was grateful they were inside. But why did it take the squatters so long to bring them inside?

I tried to save another dog lost in the rain later that day. A mixed pit bull had been wandering our street for a few days and was now shivering with his tail between his legs on the curb next door. Someone had tied a rope around his collar and then to the neighbor's fence. A friend and I gave him blankets and bowls of cat food which he scarfed down. He was cold and very hungry. I called Animal Control (not available) and then the non-urgent police line. They said they would come as soon as possible. Six hours later, I went outside to see the dog still shaking in the rain. I stood in my pajamas and poured more cat food. He breathed in the food. I wanted to put a coat on him but knew that wouldn't work. He didn't bark or seem aggressive and his only reaction to me was when I tried to move the gate so he could lie under the junky camper van in protection from the rain. He became skittish and pulled away as far as he could from the gate but when I stopped, he became calm again. As calm as could be with wet fur and scars on his lower back. I wondered if he was a fighting dog that had been abandoned or just a pet that was let go. His decent collar revealed past ownership.

It was painful to go back inside to my warm house. I hated leaving this animal outside unprotected but there's nothing more I could do. It feels like that too often - that there's only so much we can do and often depending on whether people (or dogs) will let us help.

In the morning, I was ready to call Animal Control if the pit was still tied to the fence but he was gone. I want to believe that he was taken to the animal shelter and cleaned and fed, and not that someone stole him or untied him in cruelty to let him continue to wander. I want to believe that.

Waking up in Oakland part 2

I meant to write more later the next day about my weaving drive through downtown Oakland on my way to work. I usually take a blink-and-you'll-miss-it tour of 880N but that day was different.

My car led me past City Hall and through the Oakland Chinatown I know well with Chinese characters on street signs, perched below their English counterparts. I stopped at a red light and glanced at my right to watch middle school kids finish recess on a concrete patch of playground squeezed between buildings and busy streets. Their teacher looked so young himself as he gathered the last basketball and walked the kids out. How far was their main school? The playground wasn't connected and they had to walk on city streets just to get from one class to another?

I drove by Lake Merritt with its famous globe lights dimmed for daylight and moms with strollers leisurely following the lake's gentle curves.

I saw the Fox Theater, the Paramount Theater, Frank Ogawa Plaza, and all the parts that make up my Oakland. Oakland is more than riots or violence or guns or endless parking tickets. Oakland is diversity and a 3.5 mile lake in freakin' downtown and farmer's markets and teachers making a difference every day and social workers healing families and refugees & immigrants & Californians making their home here and churches praising God while serving food to the hungry. Oakland is Joaquin Miller Park and bike coalitions and Children's Hospital and pho & burritos on International Blvd and Bakesale Betty's in Temescal and Arizmendi on Lakeshore.

Oakland is beauty and peace. It is, and we are making it so.