Rapture do over

Everybody knows that God keeps time with a sundial, not the UTC or even the GMT. I just had a horrible thought. What if He misses The Big Moment which is scheduled for 18:00 hours UTC? Does that mean we'd be stuck with all the damn Believers?

No bull

Here's some good news. In their recent election, Ecuador made an important step towards becoming a more consciously compassionate society by outlawing cockfighting and banning the killing of bulls in the ring. They need to ban bullfighting altogether but it's a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately Costa Rica, along with Colombia, Perú, Venezuela, Panamá and Bolivia, still allow this barbaric spectacle. Their attachment to bullfighting is especially pathetic given it is, in fact, a legacy of the spiritual gonorrhea the Spanish pricks infected the region with when they fucked the Americas 500 years ago.

But, times really are changing...

Last year the government of Cataluña in Spain banned bullfighting there ... and ... currently Mexico is poised to ban bullfighting entirely. That is significant, especially given that the Plaza México in Mexico City is the world’s biggest bullring. ¡Viva México!

sources: The Informed Vegan and the Irish Times

I'll get around to the personal side of our stay in Costa Rica later but here's one thing... there haven't been any new earthquakes since the 6.0 the other day. Slim comfort given that a really vivid image of the concrete ceiling dropping down and crushing me as I lay on the bed runs in mind whenever I think of it but I'll take it. I just have to think more like the locals. They are very used to them. Earthquakes are a regular occurrence here.

Earthquakes and daytime TV

Sandhill Cranes in a Florida shopping mall last Sunday morning. This is what I love about Florida. I wish we were there now but we decided to spend a few weeks in lovely Costa Rica before settling down in Florida for the summer.

So we're in San José at the moment. The capital. There's plenty of wildlife here too. For example, feeding the pigeons in Parque Central is wildly popular but, as much as I love birds, it seems kind of gruesome to me. It's an all day, every day feeding frenzy that feels like it might, any minute, spin out of control and you know who'd get blamed. The birds.

Holy crap! We just had an earthquake! 6.0 according to the news. The strongest this year to date. It was also felt throughout Nicaragua and Panama...this following an afternoon of repeating stories on TV about Bin Laden interspersed with images of the Mississippi flooding and Ron Paul scolding America again.

Happy Bad Mother's Day

Oh yeah. I almost forgot, Happy Bad Mother's Day to bad mothers everywhere. Today is our Day. I started a drawing to commemorate it but then didn't get it finished in time. Maybe next year.

Ultimate Dog Tease

In case you missed it.... this is hilarious!

U-Turn in 465 Miles

Well, we made it to Florida. Tonight we are staying in a little town in the panhandle called Marianna. It took us five days, at about 500 miles a day, to get this far. If all goes well, we will be in Venice by tomorrow afternoon where we'll stay briefly before going to Ft. Lauderdale then Costa Rica for about three weeks. After that we'll return to Venice where we plan to stay for the rest of the summer.

The drive went pretty well. We only had a couple of fights, regretted only one too-close-to-the-freeway-to-get-a-good-night's-sleep motel and ate at only one really bad restaurant. We did have to battle our cheap ass GPS from time to time but it still works. That's something. And we realized something about the South that never occurred to either of us before. Louisiana and Florida have hogged a helluva lot of coastline from Mississippi and Alabama.

Eye of the Beholder

Eye of the Beholder

I did this painting from a photo I took in Florida last fall. I believe I posted the actual photograph a few months ago. In any case, the painting was my valentine gift to Mr. Lee this year. Unfortunately, I did a little last minute touch up to the sandy area in the bottom quarter of the painting and, in the process, painted over some ruffled chest feathers and forgot to put them back in before giving him the painting. Now, he won't let me touch it up. It's his opinion that artists should not keep changing a piece once they've "finished" it. I, on the other hand, change things constantly. But it's his painting now and he won't let me touch it. I did finally photograph it so.... now I could fiddle with the digital version. This, however, is the painting, as it is.

We leave for Florida this Monday. As usual, I'm half mad running with the details of getting ready. There are so many things to do before we go. I'm taking a lunch break but now got to get back to my list. Enjoy the day.

Local news at 11:59

Other than a very personal, spiritual observation, I'm not much into Easter. As far as rebirth and renewal celebrations go, I prefer the Spring Equinox and this year it was March 20th. But Thea Bella and Baby Leo are enjoying the day with candy, colored eggs and plastic ones, some filled with candy, some with quarters for college and that's good enough for me. My round about way of saying Happy Easter.

As for my friend Bill, unbelievable. Two days prior to visiting him this guy had had a a big juicy vein pulled from his leg like a worm, his sternum sawed open, his heart artificially stopped, all six blockages cut out and replaced with segments of the leg vein and yesterday he was FUCKING RED LETTER FANTASTIC. The giant slice through his chest is practically healed and he was cheery as ever. He did give the hospital staff a scare however because two days after the surgery he went for a walk on his own. He went to the chapel, I'm guessing to say thanks, but it was on an entirely different floor which was out of range of the heart monitors and set them clanging. You can't keep this guy down. Seems his Alzheimer wife entirely forgot he'd gone in for open heart surgery but even that didn't bother him. The three of us had a good laugh about it.

Other than that, I recently started using new hosting sites for the images I post here because they don't put a cap on uploads, Lafango for my own photos and Imgur for reposts of ones I find on the web. Seems I have exceeded my allotted bandwidth with this blog and after that Blogger canalizes older photo postings to make room for new ones.

UPDATE: Lafango sucks. Forget about em. They won't allow my own photos, which I upload there, to repost on my blog. They are useless to me.

My friend Bill

My friend Bill, the 77 year old cool dude ski god who roller blades with his three dogs and cares for his Alzheimer wife and generally runs everyone into the ground younger than him, had bypass surgery the other day. Amazingly, and in spite of his awesome prowess, he had six clogged arteries or veins, whichever. Spaghetti. Yesterday on the phone he said he'd like to learn a little bit about eating a more vegetarian diet. Yay! That's Bill for you. His otherwise wonderful physical condition has everything to do will his perpetually open mind and willingness to change. We're going to visit him at the hospital this afternoon and bring him a starter veggie cookbook. I love this guy. We are slobs who are willing to put up with the most basic of menus... rice, beans, oatmeal, tofu, seitan, a ton of fruit, lots of veggies (fresh and frozen), a little fish, free range eggs, daily giant slices of crustless pumpkin pie etc. and a hell of a lot of Amy's and Kashi organic frozen vegetarian dinners. Bill wants to do stuff like soak and grind soy beans for veggie loafs, IOW, actually cook. After he's fed his wife and dogs, maybe we can get the leftovers.

Monday recap

My brother's garden

Since my last post, I spent time with my brother and his wife in Seattle, was home for two days then M. Lee and I came here to Southern Oregon on Friday, drove his mom to the Bay Area on Saturday to visit his ailing sister and came back to Oregon on Sunday. We will return home in the AM.

I haven't felt much like posting. I got bogged down with photos and once that happens I lose the thread. In two weeks we are leaving for Florida for the summer. I hope to be back on track by then.

It's been wonderful visiting family but not all has been well with everyone along the way. At the moment it's just too complicated to write about and not really my business to do so. Things will work their way out. Tonight I just needed to move the words along.