beulahland

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My Tumblr

My Tumblr

It's fun to just throw my photos up in here. 

benefit garage sale in agritopia this weekend

I'm just quickly copy/pasting this here. It's a benefit garage sale in Agritopia for this family (pictured below), the two parents were in a plane crash back in August. I know the mother of the family is still in the hospital, I'm not sure about the father, actuallly he must be too. I'm going to try to go to it, really early on Saturday morning--I have a baby shower at 10 am in Phoenix, but I think I will have time to go if I can get up early. more info: http://www.nierecovery.com/

AZ Garage Sale What is cool even in the AZ summer heat??....wearing your heart on your sleeve!
 
Admit it: you like to help, and (perhaps even more) you like to buy stuff.  Why not do both! Donate to a good cause (and purge your dust ridden household items) for the: "h♥pe for Nie" Nielson charity garage sale!
 
-Who: anyone who loves to donate or buy stuff
 
-What: furniture, household items, silent auctions, baked goods, nick knacks, gift certificates (and hopefully more to come!)
 
-Where: Agritopia Community Center (Agritopia Loop Rd Gilbert, AZ 85296) Turn right off the higley exit of the south loop of the 202 going eastbound. Agritopia is the 1st right off the freeway.
 
-When: Sat Sept 27th (7:00 am to 1 pm)
 
-Why: because we love Nie!
 
We will also be selling some of Stephanie's famous favorite baked good recipes (and some fresh cinnamon rolls!!).  If you are interested in donating/volunteering your stuff, creations, time, entertainment (??) or if you just have mad baking skills please email me at [email protected]  Get involved....Sept 27th!!!
 
Download the flier and spread the word.
 
http://teamboo2000.blogspot.com

dream job! pretty pictures!

This ad below is on craigslist, which seems kinda funny to me. SNL finds interns using craigslist? Really? I guess they do! I was just watching SNL. I don't think I've watched it for years....I used to have to watch it every Saturday night as a teenager.

You know how SNL will put up still photos of their host before and after the commercial, they just flash a quick picture of the person who is the host and then go to commercials or back to the show? Well, they had all these beautiful pictures of Michael Phelps---not just beautiful cuz he is this amazing athlete---though partly cuz of that---but beautiful too cuz of the post-processing of the pictures, the first was so gorgeous, all grayed out but somehow really sharpened and saturated at the same time.....so now I am looking online for those picures, but haven't been able to find anything so far...got any ideas where to look? I did come across this craigslist ad though. Can you imagine how fun that would be, to be both a student and an intern at SNL?

Saturday Night Live Photography Intern (Midtown)

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Reply to: [email protected] ^[?]
Date: 2008-09-05, 12:36PM EDT

Looking for a student to intern in the photography department of Saturday Night Live.
Interns will assist on photo shoots with the hosts and musical guests for the show, setting up lighting equipment and being on hand for whatever is needed. Other duties include framing, working on the computer, printing, shooting rehearsals, general office work, etc...
Must be available two or three full days a week plus Saturday and must receive school credit for the internship.
Please reply with days of availability and resume. Cut and paste resume in email, no attachments please.

• Compensation: no compensation
• This is an internship job
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID: 828561591

labor day weekend

fastest . summer . ever (in my whole entire life).

~oranges (the last friday in july)

When I was 8 or 9 years old, we went to California and I got sick. It seemed like I threw up orange juice all day long until I finally felt better. By then I had missed out on the trip to Knott's Berry Farm that I had been really, REALLY looking forward to. Consequently, I didn't---couldn't----eat oranges until about 10 years later. I felt like I rediscovered them one Christmas, when I started making orange juice for all of us all Christmas vacation long from the trees in the backyard.

Anyways, I am going to California tomorrow. For a convention for my work, but believe you me I will be getting a lot of fun stuff in there too, even if I have to stay up all night and wake up super early to do it. I'm a little nervous. I tried to soooo hard to save money for it, but....well I think I am going to be entertaining  myself with free stuff. That's okay, San Diego is so pretty to look at and I'm bringing my camera, so I'm not complaining, but oh man I can think up a billion things to do when I know about something months in advance and I start looking up stuff on the internet everyday.

I went to the convention last year and here are some postcards that I bought at a coffeehouse/bookstore in the area near the convention center.  They are all advertisements for oranges, made a long time ago, and I think they are absolutely gorgeous.

 

 

this girl in singapore

So there's this girl whose blog I used to read all the time. I would check her blog every time I sat at the computer to read blogs and I kept coming back because she always had something posted. I think I must have come across her blog at least three, but actually probably four years ago and in all that time I think she posted pretty much every day, maybe skipping a few days here and there, but not very often.

She once sent my sister something in the mail. I had posted about how Becky was doing the 3-day 60 mile Susan G. Komen Walk for the Cure against breast cancer, back when our mom was deep into chemotherapy for her own breast cancer, and this girl sent Becky a card to encourage her in the walk.

Well this girl, whose name I never knew, because she had an anonymous blog and never gave that much identifying information away about herself, just one day stopped blogging. Her blog is still there, I check on it frequently, but nothing. It's been now about three and a half months since she has written anything.

I just wonder so much what happened. One guess would be that her computer broke beyond repair, but she seemed like a girl who really liked tech stuff and I think that wouldn't stop her from writing. She'd either get a new one or use one at work or school or the library or somewhere.

She lives completely on the other side of the world and a couple times something that she had written or her country came up in some conversation that I was having and I wanted to tell about what she had written or just something I knew about because I had read about it on her blog.

And so I would say something like, "Oh yeah, my friend in Singapore, blah blah blah" just because sometimes in conversation it is too hard to explain that what you are talking about you actually just read on a blog and the blog writer is not exactly, truly a real life friend (although you do leave comments sometimes so you kinda feel like friends) but do you know what I mean? Have you ever done that? Started to explain something but then you would have had to explain that you are saying such and such cuz you read it on a blog, so you just skip the explanation and it probably just sounds like you have a friend in Singapore or Canada or Scotland or somewhere...And you just kinda let it seem like that cuz the person you are talking to doesn't even know what a blog is, nor would they even get it if you tried to explain it and besides, blogs are not the point, huge ginormous spiders in Singapore that your friend took pictures of are the point?

Anyways, I keep thinking about this girl and I just wonder so much what has happened that she went from writing all the time to absolutely nothing.

the week, the weekend, the week before

• Next month I am going to San Diego for work. When I'm there, one thing I want to go check out is the cactus garden in Balboa Park. I went there last year and I am so looking forward to going back. It's just off to the side of the road, kinda down a slope and there are the coolest, strangest looking cactus there. You could easily miss it, but I had the best time wandering around in it last year and keep thinking about going back. I'm curious to see if the cactus and plants were actually as strange as I remember.

• I ordered a Mexican style vintage dress from Etsy. It came in the mail last night. I was inspired by these girls, Jessica and Barni. I kept looking at Etsy and all these dresses were so expensive, but then I found one for $14, went to order it and a screen popped up saying it had been sold. So I kept checking back and finally found a good size/right fit/good price dress and yay! it arrived yesterday. Now....where to wear it too. Maybe on my stroll thru the crazy cactus park....

 

• A light rail test train came to downtown Phoenix last week. We got emails that it would arrive at 10 am, so we went out and waited for it. Waiting was nice, cuz it was cloudy and therefore not so killer hot. I am SOexcited about light rail. Opening weekend is Dec 27th and you can ride free all weekend. I think I want to have a light rail party. There are other train videos besides this one on youtube, but I added it because it shows the train going past my favorite pasta place at about 50 seconds in. My . absolute . favorite .  Wanna come have lunch with me sometime? We'll go there. In a few months you can take the train.

 

 

Last Sunday it rained so much in Tempe, I have NEVER seen so much rain. I went to Trevor's birthday (his sixth) and then stopped by Annie's parents' house to give Annie some pictures and then instead of going home, I drove by this park/water retention area near my house and the water in it had to be up ten feet, I think, because when I went back last night it was still full of water but had receded a lot and you could tell that it was about 10 feet. Someday I will tell you the story about going swimming in the park after a monsoon microburst.

my map

My map for the ESRI convention next month

yay! i can hardly wait to go to San Diego for the ESRI convention!

Take two, this is gorgeous ( you were the rockets you were the glow)*

Last weekend? The fourth of July? SO MUCH FUN!

On Friday Thuy and I went to the baby shower of Andrea and Jessica. We haven't seen Andrea since about 1997. Oh we used to get into so much trouble with Nea. We met her at a rave, we used to go dancing at a place called Chupa west of the Icehouse with her, staying up ALL night and then back to Moon Valley where she would fix a pot of tea and quesadillas and then up to a mountain around Sunnyslope to watch the sun rise and then to the Willow House for coffee and then to her Catholic church on Central and then to my house on the other side of town to swim and paint our nails the darkest ever (ever!) shade of red. Her solution to sleepiness for staying up all day and all night and all day? Oh, just go to bed early the next night, she'd say. We would do the craziest things....once on Valentine's Eve, Nea and our other friend Barni spent the night and the next day we went to the funeral of one Emma of Snowflake, Arizona. Emma had died on Valentine's to go be with her husband, one of the many people who talked about her said, leaving behind something like 12 children, their spouses, 80 grandchildren, 114 great-grandchildren, 32 great-great grandchildren and even a few great-great-great grandchildren. Emma was 103 and get this: she loved, loved playing elaborate practical jokes on people that involved costumes and well thought out intrigue. Person after person talked about the stuff she came up with and how she fooled everyone. After hearing a few of these tales, I started to feel a little better. I had been feeling really worried about crashing a funeral. But I think it was right up Emma's alley. Her obituary in the paper had made me think that there could be no better funeral than this one at a ward in Laveen to go to, but here's the thing: me? I looked like I fit in. Andrea and Barni? Um not so much. First off, they were the only Mexican and Somalian girls at the party, er I mean funeral. And Barni? She had blue hair. Seriously. She had dyed her super-short hair blue. But you know what? Nobody really seemed to notice us. We were sitting so far back we literally couldn't even see the front, that's how many people were there.

I went to Europe with Andrea in July and August of 96. Then maybe a year passed. She brought the three girls she was nannying to my college photography class to get pictures taken. It was probably October. We took pictures and later I delivered them to her and I think that was the last time I ever saw her. I know she was aching to get back to Europe and I think she lived in Spain for a year and then in Peru for a year.

So okay, so the baby shower? At Andrea's sister's restaurant called Lola's on Camelback. Her sister had the most AMAZING food for us and the two desserts---a tart and a cake----were SO good. I can't wait to go back to her restaurant. Anyone wanna go with me?

[Okay, so guess what? On the way to the baby shower, I was running late to get Thuy, I had to shop for baby clothes ( a cute little pajama outfit in lime-sea green with hot pink flamengos on it) and get coffee at Wildflower and I was on my way there and I get a text message: I am engaged! from a number I do not recognize and I call it back and Shouraseni is engaged! To Oliver! I don't know Oliver, but SSR, I'm over the moon for you, girl!]

Here's Andrea and Jessica and Baby Fatima on her way.

  

   

So then that Friday night we went to Lan's house and ate all the good food  and icecream we cooked up and swam in her pool and the sky turned the most amazing shades of gold and peach and dark blue and I could barely stand it, it was that gorgeous, a preview of monsoon storms on their way. We played in the pool and I just stared up-up.

Then we went to Tempe Town Lake and the fireworks lasted so long that Becky W. said wouldn't it be crazy if they were doing an experiment to see how long it will take before people will just start to leave....who would be the hold-outs til 4:30 in the morning? (Uh, me.)
                                                                         

The next day I slept in til 9:45!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People this is simply INCREDIBLE. I thought I totally lacked the ability to sleep past about 7 am. It felt so good I am tempted to try it again, but I think the thing is it is probably some magical thing that can only happen on magical THREE DAY WEEKENDS. Ahhhhh, three dayzzzzz, every weekend should be 3 days.

I had planned to take my mom to see Sex & the City, cuz it seemed like a happy movie and we need happy. But then I saw an ad for the American girl movie and well any movie about a girl reporter during the Great Depression trumps any other movie EVERY SINGLE TIME. Except actually we didn't get around to seeing it. Maybe this weekend?

Then that night we went over to the Sung house. And all the kids and their spouses and their kids and Zelda and Snowball the dogs were there and we took pictures and then ate dinner. Yay for real Chinese food!

I love this picture of Ali and her Auntie and Mom. And that baby bump? Baby on his way this fall! :-)

 

So the next day Sunday.......SunSplash with the Truongs. After a leisurely trip to Target get a suit (Becky) and a sundress (me), we met the Truongs at the water park.

So here we have Becky and Uncle Ty on the Lazy River. And then we have Becky waiting at the so-called Flush waiting for Lan, Ron, Celeste, Ty and Thuy to fall from the swishy-swooshy-swirling-twirling scary as all get out thing that you couldn't pay me to go down. And then we have gorgeous Celeste with her gorgeous mom in the background hopping across the lily pads. And then Becky!

 

So oh there is actually so much I didnt tell you. And so much actually that I wanted to do, but didn't get to, like go to Dragonfly with Thuy and her mom. (Next time, Thuy!) Or stop by Jamie's party which I had really wanted to do.

But oh my, I am thankful, for what I did do and the fun, but especially for the people. I've known the Truongs and the Sungs for almost 20 years! i can hardly believe time goes so fast.  and seeing all of their family, i'm just so glad for that. and seeing andrea and her mom and dad and sister and brother...

well...another weekend is just beginning....

*that song in my head again....

 

I swear it was the Fourth of July I could barely raise my eyes You were the rockets, you were the show The colors, the light, the glow

okay, so i started writing all this below a couple days ago, i was going to write about all the 4th of julys i can remember, but eh, proly not anymore. and i'm just posting this song cuz i remember about 4 yrs ago driving all over the place on the fourth of july listening to it in my car, when after listening to it forever, i realized the words start out "it was the fourth of july" i remember going to central in the morning, making enchiladas with my dad, zooming around getting pretty pink stuff from the gap body shop and then off to pick up Shouraseni and Umai in Tempe and all over town back to Central for the fireworks and this song on repeat, over and over, becky's homemade icecream.....

My friend just emailed me and asked me if I was ready for my favorite holiday. I have always loved loved loved the 4th of July. I know it's always about a hundred and a billion degrees, but somehow in my memories of the day, it doesn't matter in the least. Everything turns out just perfect. Becky makes homemade icecream, I spend the day doing fun stuff and get to see all the people that I love and at the end of the day, fireworks explode in the sky and I have this wonderful flash memory of my favorite scene in a book I read over and over as a kid, Prince Caspian, the part where he is fleeing the castle on his horse into the super scary woods after just learning that his tutor is actually a Narnian, his uncle and aunt have had a baby and might be plotting to kill him. That flash of fear and wonder that I got reading the book, I get it again every time I see fireworks up close.

The last few years I've gone to Central's fireworks. The first time I went, I met up with Karen, Beck and our dad. That day my dad had made his amazing cheese enchiladas and the sky outside got so blue, so dark dark blue and the fireworks were amazing but what blew me away was the sky in the show of lighting and thunderclouds. They had to cut the fireworks short, but only by a few minutes, because by then the monsoon had rolled in and it was raining! Which I rememeber being SO surprised at, because yes there can be clouds and lighting like crazy but it doesn't in the least ways mean it will actually rain. All things considered, it probably won't rain. Maybe it will rain out on the desert and you will smell the ocotillo (there is nothing like that smell), but you won't actually get wet, urban heat island effect I'm thinking.

okay so i had so much more to write, but here is the song:

Gorgeous

I swear it was the Fourth of July
I could barely raise my eyes
You were the rockets you were the show
The colors, the light, the glow

Color me in rags of light
Bury me in silver shine

I see it all the time
You feel so much
The distance in your eyes
Says so much
You're very far away
You won't catch me that way
Catch me that way
I don't know where this feeling begins
I shake and slip fall in again
I can tell the way you look at me now
You are the rockets, the light, somehow

 

 

 

 

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clouds over the southwest in june

this is a test

i am testing typepad widgits.

test

one of my favorite blogs

ok, so that's cool, it worked, but i actually thought it would show a picture of what one of my fav. blogs (that would be BLDGBLOG) looks like right now, but it doesn't it; it just shows what is on BLDGBLOG right now.

is the little pop-up thing kinda annoying? i hover over it and it doesn't pop back down very quickly. is it worth even having it.....hmmmm

Yo, Daddy!

A little note written on a paper towel years ago that I came across recently:

Beating Nebraska was super-important! I'm glad that he specified they were going to watch ASU beat Nebraska, and not just play Nebraska! And that they were taking the dog; otherwise I would have looked all over for her.

Here are some more pictures. I had actually uploaded some pictures and then the internet kinda crashed and so now I am uploading a few them sans much description.

I listen to this song on youtube a lot. So now you know.

LeAnn Rimes~Nothing Better To Do

I'm not even sure why I like this song so much. I like story songs. It's kinda a story. It makes me want to dance-dance-dance and I guess I just really like Rimes's voice in this song. And it reminds me of the May I drove to Georgia with Thuy and stayed there with her part of that summer.

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!RAIN IN MAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look! 2.4 in Gold Canyon last night and almost an inch where I live in this month that usually never sees rain!

okay computer you win.

i just tried to leave a comment on your blog. And yours too. (This happened twice tonight.) the second I went to publish, it disappeared. And people, I cannot even tell you how slow I type and how this is a really big deal. it took a long time to write that comment and when I re-read it, it didn't make all that much sense, so i messed around with the wording until it sounded more coherent.

whatever. i'm going to bed.

sunny dayz [donate your swimsuit!]

Every time I start to think about how pretty soon it's going to be in the hundreds not very long from now, how it won't be that long before it's hot + sweaty even at midnight in the shade, I remind myself that there is always swimming. And then then my spiraling-out-of-control heart calms down and I repeat to myself, Swimming. At least there's Swimming to look forward to. At least we have Swimming. It'll be okay...It'll be okay.

So when I read this below in the electronic newsletter that gets sent out every Wednesday at my work, I got really excited about it and tried to figure out how I can donate some swimsuits. I know I have a couple that I never wore last summer that no longer fit (how convenient, that) and I think I could buy some for not too much at Ross. But I also want to ask you, my friends who read this, if you have any extra swim suits/flip flops/beach towels, please let me have them so that I can donate them! Please! I just love the idea of making it possible for other people to go swimming, cuz really, you know it's going to get sooo hot pretty soon and what a nice way to make someone's day a little better.

HSD collecting swimwear for shelter families

As you shop for a new swim suit, remember there are homeless families who also need bathing suits and beach towels.
Human Services needs your help collecting new bathing suits, gently used or new beach towels and flip flops for families who reside at the city’s Watkins Overflow Shelter. The families need the swimwear for their weekly outings to University Pool. The department is seeking about 160 women’s bathing suits (including large sizes), 40 men’s trunks (including extra large), 150 suits for children between 5 and 14 years old and 100 suits for kids under 5. Also needed are swim diapers in various sizes.
Beginning May 12, donation drop-off sites will be at City Hall and the Calvin C. Goode Building; Police Administration, 620 W. Washington St.; Fire Administration, 150 S. 12th St.; and Parks and Recreation’s maintenance and aquatics section, 1802 W. Encanto Blvd.
For more information, call 602-256-4297.

walking your neighborhood

Check your neighborhood's walkability score:

your neighborhood's walk score

It tells you the distance of stuff like grocery stores and hardware stores and coffee shops that are within a mile or so of your address. As far as I can tell it doesn't take into account things like paths and sidewalks and like whether it might be a hundred and eighteen degrees when you are trying to walk to the grocery store, but it is a fun tool and I think its creators have a really swell idea and could probably do way more with it in the future. (Oh wait, I'm looking a little closer at the site and they even say that they don't take stuff like temperature into account.....)

My neighborhood rates 35 out of a hundred, with 100 being the best. Lately though, by riding my bike and by walking home a few times from the bus, I have realized my walkshed* is way better than I would ever have previously realized. Someday before it gets to be a hundred and eighteen degrees** I want to walk to Mint Thai Cafe and walk back home. I'll get the thai ice tea and eat as much curry as I want and not really care cuz I'll be walking home.

* The places to which you can easily walk are your walkshed.   

** I did this once last summer. Walked home when it was 118. And didn't have keys to get inside so i broke down part of the fence and thank goodness for the hose.

architect + builder to carpenter bees

Earlier today I was looking up helpthehoneybees.com. Go check out the site. It's gorgeous and so sad at the same time.   

And then I started remembering that I have been meaning to go out to where the bamboo* grows and cut some of it to create holes for more carpenter bees to use as houses, to retire to in the evening after their busy days of buzzing and bumbling. Carpenter bees are those big, big black bees that fly really fast that you see sometimes. They don't live in hives, but they seem pretty sociable with one another. The black ones are the girls. If you ever see a golden one, well it's like seeing a unicorn, it's that rare a sighting; they are the boys.

One time I was cutting the bamboo and then came back to see that all the bamboo canes had been taken as homes by the carpenter bees. Each cane that I looked into had its own bee girl in residence. And they really didn't care for me looking down in to their homes. Seriously a little unnerving to realize a shy bee recognizes your presence and wishes like everything that you would get out. For that reason, I've only got this one picture from today. There were at least 5-6 bees buzzing overhead in the bamboo grass, but not very easy to get pictures of, and they all wanted to fly into their apartments and probably turn on their tvs and make a themselves a drink or something. So I didn't stick around for long.

*not really bamboo, but i forget the name for it and it does look like bamboo. anyways, you see that hole/cut there in the bamboo? that's where she lives, the carpenter bee.

    

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Dervaes family farm

I've read about this family before, the Dervaes, who live in Pasadena and grow thousands of pounds of food on about a tenth of an acre and live in really sustainable ways. They sell the food to area restaurants. So then I was reading the Sunday New York Times magazine from last week online and there is this video about them. The two sisters seem like girls I would like to know.

I wish I had bought the paper last week, they call it the Green Issue  & it seems packed full of such interesting stuff. There's an article by Michael Pollan that I haven't read yet. And here is something that makes me ask Really? Really? and is intriguing and funny at the same time:

SWEAT EQUITY: Many people go to the gym to become more powerful. But at California Fitness in Hong Kong, an Asian-based subsidiary of 24 Hour Fitness Worldwide, exercisers are actually powering the gym. The program, “Powered by YOU,” was conceived by Doug Woodring, a Wharton grad, and Lucien Gambarota, a French inventor, who run an alternative-energy company in Hong Kong. When a member begins to exercise, the machine she uses captures the energy she creates as electricity (which would otherwise be lost as heat) and uses it to run a light above the machine. Gambarota says that a person can produce 50 watts of electricity per hour working out at a moderate pace. “If you spend just an hour per day on a machine annually, you could generate 18.3 kilowatt-hours of electricity,” he says. That’s the equivalent of powering a three-bedroom home in New Jersey for 14 hours. Since the program made its debut last year, 13 exercise machines have been hooked up; the chain plans to extend the project to its 24 other clubs throughout Asia. -ABBY ELLIN

key lime pie

Twice lately I have made key lime pie. So good.

This is the key lime pie recipe that I used.

The first time I actually squeezed almost all these tiny limes. The second time I got bigger limes and of course it went a lot faster.

they should make a movie about this girl

I have just been reading about Mary Meader who, during the 1930s, at the age of 21, traveled to South America and Africa to make aerial photographs of places never before photographed that way. Since I work with aerial photos, her story really caught my eye. My, what adventures this girl had!

From her New York Times obituary from last month:

The saga began when Mrs. Meader, whose name was Mary Upjohn at the time, and her first husband, Dr. Richard Light, made plans to marry. They wanted to celebrate their union by approximating the highly publicized round-the-world flight he had made in 1934. She took flying lessons and learned Morse code to be her husband’s co-pilot, navigator and radio operator.

When they were planning their trip, soon after their marriage the next year, many parts of the world had still not been photographed from above. The American Geographical Society was encouraging photographic flights to build an archive of aerial views, and the couple’s idea was to fly over huge swaths of South America and Africa that had never been captured on film from the air.

“It just seemed like a great adventure — something I wanted to do,” she said in an interview with Encore, a magazine about Kalamazoo, in 2006. “Why? I’m not certain, other than we both knew we would be doing something that hadn’t been done before.”

The couple made what may be the earliest photographs of the ancient Nazca lines in Peru. The lines cannot be recognized as coherent figures except from the air. Seen from above, their patterns range from simple designs to stylized hummingbirds and llamas.

In Africa, Mrs. Meader’s photographs showed the stunning ice dome and crater of Mount Kilimanjaro and the serrated glaciated pinnacles of Mount Kenya in beauty and detail impossible in ground photography. She provided new views of native villages, urban areas and the Pyramids of Egypt, among many other subjects.

Her African pictures were published in a book written by her husband and published by the American Geographical Society. In reviewing the book for The New York Times in 1941, Mary L. Jobe Akeley called Mrs. Meader’s photos “superb.”

“They convey a sense of the vastness and grandeur of the continent,” she wrote.

She went on to have four children, remarry and be a philanthropist to schools in Michigan. It sounds like her work is at Western Michigan University, so note to self: if ever near WMU, try to check out Mary's aerial photographs.

some articles about her:

• one
• two
• three

chickens in the tall grass on a summer day

Pictures from last summer:

Rachel in the background, Rachel's dad Gray Ghost & Parthenia Jones (née Chickini) in the foreground. Gray Ghost's mom was either Gwen or Rock Dove. Rock Dove was later known as Kindergarten Queen because she was tiny as a kindergartener herself (really not bigger than a pigeon) and because she helped raise a brood of 18 babies that all hatched out on the same day.

Parthenia Jones is the remaining one of the original 7. Her siblings were the hens Princess and Tess and the roosters Coco, Petunia, Rockstar and Star. Star actually passed on last Sunday, he was the sweetest doll of a rooster and hopefully I can post pictures of him someday if I track down some old pictures. Wish I had taken more of him.

Chickens love tomatoes. How much, I can't even begin to say. Toast and avocado, well they'll eat that too, thank you very much.

musica

Last night I got to see Mary J Blige and Beyonce's new husband Jay-Z in concert!

It was such a shiny bright show with beautiful lighting effects---I was really impressed. Of course, Mary didn't sing One, the song she has sung with Bono. And Jay-Z played only like two seconds of Crazy in Love, so for my (and possibly your) listening pleasure, here we will link to the youtube videos.

Eh, actually I guess I won't be showing Beyonce's song as Youtube seems to not let you embed the video.

abandoned buildings and ghost towns

A couple months ago, I came across the flickr site of a Texas photographer named Noel Kerns. He takes pictures of ghost towns and old, abandoned buildings. This reminds me that on the way back from California to Phoenix on the 10, I have sometimes noticed this old building out in the desert. I have always thought it would be so cool to go out and explore.

All photos by Noel Kerns. Go check out his flickr site.

Owls in the neighborhood

Owls in the neighborhood

I wrote all of this a long, long time ago; now I will post it.

I.

Labor Day Weekend 2006. Hurricane John up from Mexico and dumping unusual amounts pouring rain on the desert. I was getting ready to go to a Chinese restaurant and went out to the car to get my hair brush. There was no noise, no reason to cause me to look up, but I looked up and saw an owl flying above. Except in pictures, I have only seen an owl once in real life, on my cousin’s ranch north of Globe, but this had to be an owl. Huge wingspan, silent, flying in the dark, it looked just like an owl. It flew into the eucalyptus tree, so I ran under the tree and looked up to see if I could see, but it was completely hidden.

Later on, at the dark and noisy restaurant, sitting in the corner booth, outside the rain fell down, never stopping, I was enjoying the red glow of the lights and my coke, and so thrilled because I had a mystery on my hands: Did I really see an owl? A real live owl?

My fortune cookie read: Seeing is believing.

II.

Weeks later, coming home late on a Tuesday from Jamie’s house. Driving east on Houston towards Lindsay, I saw a whoosh in the corner of my eye and knew immediately what I was seeing. Still driving, but with my eyes no longer on the road, I followed that owl the length of two houses as she flew into an elm tree.

My heart was beating so fast. Ok, so she was real. I really did see an owl……right?

III.

Taking a walk with Becky, this was days or even a couple weeks later, again, at night, of course, rounding the corner onto Melody Road, near the house where the post man lives (the post man who uses a toilet bowl as a flower pot). He seemed like he was working on his car but he was shining a bright light up into the towering eucalyptus on his property and then I heard the faintest sound: whoo……..whoo…….whoo.

Wait, is he making that noise? I asked. We got nearer and then kept walking down the street and we really couldn’t decide. It kind of sounded like a human saying whoo……..whoo…….whoo, maybe trying to coax something from the owl? But then further down the street, we recognized the sound had to be coming from up high, from up in the tree’s branches.

So that had been pretty much proof. An owl had taken up residence in this neighborhood. I started reading about owls and thought maybe this owl was a great-horned owl, but the coloring wasn't quite right. She had the wingspan. She had the ears. But she seemed to be completely white like the owls in the kid wizards movie.

Maybe she was displaced by all the development that is happening around here in all directions. I hope this place works out for her. There are so many cars and people and buildings, but there are lots of small birds and I’ve seen mice, so maybe it’s a good place.

IV.

One morning, leaving for work, it was about half past 5 am, I heard the whoo…..whoo….whoo again.

V.

The last time I’ve had any clue of the presence of the owl was at least a month ago, a little before Thanksgiving. Again a very light whoo…..whoo….whoo at the end of the street coming from the Eucalyptus trees.

Addendum:

All the above was from Labor Day weekend 2006 thru Thanksgiving 2006. At some point, New Years Day 2007, actually I think, I realized there were at least two owls, because they were calling back and forth to each other while I was out doing yard work after the sun had gone down. Then I didn't hear or see even one owl for the longest time, until a few weeks ago when out taking a walk, we looked up and there was the great white owl, huge wings spread out and wheeling around in the sky and making a noise like ekee ekee ekee. Do owls echo-locate?  It's just good to know there is an owl in the skies and trees above my neighborhood. A little magic and mystery in suburbia.

Pictures from October 2005.

In Flagstaff.

picture share

Some pictures here, hidden here at imaginary lines. Hidden because I feel so strange putting up people's pictures in case they don't want them online, but I am in them too and they tell about my life. Some of the pictures may disappear in a few days.

Mmm, it's almost Christmas! It's been the strangest year, the most exhausting year and I have been afraid of Christmas since summer, worried how we 3 will be. I have some plans though to make things nice, but they are surprises and this girl reads here, so nothing to share yet.

I kinda want to have a party to celebrate the Twelfth Night of Christmas (that would be Jan. 5th), to have an Epiphany Feast, to gather and eat King Cakes and see who gets the cake with the baby in it. Whoever s/he is, s/he has to have a party on Feb 2, Candlemas. I have lots of ideas, but it seems like a lot of work. I have to decide really soon if I am going to do this or not.

Epiphany

Deep midwinter, the dark centre of the year,
Wake, O earth, awake,
Out on the hills a star appears,
Here lies the way for pilgrim kings,
Three magi on an ancient path,
Black hours begin their journeyings.Their star has risen in our hearts,
Empty thrones, abandoned fears,
Out on the hills their journey starts,
In dazzling darkness God appears.

Words: Judith Bingham

A moonbow, not sure where I pulled this picture from, but isn't it amazing. Apparently moonbows happen, but they are rare.

Looking for something else, I came across this

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, I went to the ASU v. UCLA game at the Rosebowl stadium in Pasadena last week. When I found out ASU was playing there on Veteran's Day weekend, I decided to go. My dad took us to ASU football games every year since I was a baby, up until the last few years.  We never missed a game, well maybe one or two in 25 years, and I have so many great memories from that family ritual. I really have been wanting to go to a game but going without him would feel too weird. This was a nice middle way of going, but not actually going to an ASU game.

The tickets I got for us were in the UCLA section. They were cheaper that way but if I go again I would get them in the ASU section. The tickets were also general admission and it was Take-big-groups-of-school-kids-to-the game weekend (lots of kids wearing tshirts saying 'I'm going to college' - - -I thought that was cute, I want one), so we were lucky to find the seats that we did. Becky and I are not wearing ASU gold, although between us we have 3.5 ASU degrees! And we really are ASU fans. The game was so close (24-20, ASU's favor) that it literally gave me a headache, that is how badly I wanted them to win! It took a while for my headache to wear off and I would like to apologize here in this blog forum to my dear friends - - -I know I was acting like I had a headache too.

So I have pictures like this at the Jan 1, 1987 and Jan 1, 1997 Rose bowl games that ASU were in. Well, except it being of me and my friends, it's me and my family. In 1986 and 1996 ASU had amazing seasons and when we found out they were going to get to go to the Rose Bowl, our dad went to extreme efforts to get tickets and take us. Seemed appropiate to keep up the tradition of going to the Rose bowl every ten years. See those stands behind Nick? They were selling corn, baked potatoes and sweet potatoes back there. So I got a sweet potato with nothing on it, which is kinda cool cuz that's healthy and you usually can't get healthy stuff at football games.

After the game, we went back to Thuy's and then we went to Hollywood. So here we are standing outside a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf shop on Hollywood Blvd. Karen and Nick, they love coffee.

Bonus picture: Here below is a pic of us in the mirror before Annie's wedding from a few weeks ago. She got married at a chapel in the desert and then we danced outside under a full moon. Her dress was gorgeous, ahh, I loved it so much.

Cat masquerading as exclamation point!

This is Avery. He's new around here. He's not so pointy anymore. He gets plenty to eat and even though he is still afraid of the dog, he's doing alright. He came to be with us the same evening I got my purple girl bike. Two wonderful newnesses on one single night in late September! Oh, and one thing I should tell you: while his name is Avery, everyone calls him Baby Bat.

*pictures from summer o7*

Raleigh and the dicondra grass and the neighbor's house on a painfully hot night sometime back in early July.

AZ Sunset/early July/mercilessly hot night without any breeze on the ground.

McDonalds after record rainfall in Oklahoma City this time last week. We got the deliciosa Fruit and Walnut Salad and french fries, took it all back to the motel room and ate.

Mexican restaurant in Tulsa, 08/20/07under the moon. You can dine on the roof here. But we ate on the first floor, under all the Day of the Dead art, at a table with tall votive candles.

Anderson Cooper. But you knew that. On tv in the motel room. 08/21/07.

Me taking pictures of myself. Oklahoma motel room. 08/21/07

Morning Glory, picture taken this morning.

Sunflowers, this morning.

Summer Monsoons

All day long I check to see what the clouds are doing over the American West. This imagery comes from noaa.gov.

I really liked this one:

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could stop at any house at suppertime and there would be a place set for you?

birds bees babies books funeral war [on our] little blue planet

• scientist birds Brother Bartleby writes intriguingly about birds' nests being a kind of historical time capsule, old nests made of twigs of trees from bygone times, trees that may no longer exist as pioneers cleared them out. His writing reminds me of Annie Dillard.
• prayer (flags) for the bees Cheryl writes about and shows a picture of the prayer flag she made for the bees. Bees have been mysteriously disappearing and scientists are referring to this as Colony Collapse Disorder. I think it's strange that we don't hear more about this....
• Cheryl also has an Etsy Store in which she sells beautiful and very one of a kind bags. I want them all! I have a blue one that she made and I take it everywhere.
• making the day prettier oh my, I love Amy's blog. It's so full of beautiful poems and writing and images. i love the pics of her baby girl. i love what she posted last month posted last month about the Blue Moon.
• Najma's grandfathers funeral Najma, a teenager in Mosul, writes about her beloved grandfather's passing. A curfew was put down because of the war and fifty relatives and friends who had come to mourn her grandfather got stuck in the neighborhood and had to stay there til the curfew was lifted. Najma and her family had to figure out food and places for them all to sleep...
• Her favorite Greene novel so far. Mis_Nomer can't possibly have any idea how many books I have bought and/or searched and/or looked up on Amazon because she reviewed them on her blog. I think I started reading Graham Greene because of her, Freakonomics (a freaky book about economics) was another book I checked out after she talked about it.
• World Changing  This site gives me hope that humans may be smart enough to tackle huge and small environmental problems. It's so interesting, chock full of stuff you've never heard of before. hat tip: Amber

two reasons (among trillions) to go to tucson

1. See the Maynard Dixon Museum.

2. See the Night Blooming Cereus.

                         ladybug tower of cilantro

Not so many weeks ago my dad and I went to Home Depot and bought a ton of plants. All sorts of tomatoes, eggplant, hot and bell peppers, squash, strawberries, watermelons, cantaloupe, cilantro and onions. The next Saturday we went back and bought more. The Saturday after that we went back and bought even more.

All February long while riding the bus home I had been reading a gorgeous book about dirt. I was so excited to finally have a garden. And I was pretty happy because all the leaves that had fallen from the nearby apple trees had made pretty good soil, chock-full of warms. But just in case, we went back to Home Depot for soil and I started composting finally. Sometimes my dad sat beside the garden in a lawn chair and gave some advice. I remember he said not to plant them too close together. And to give them plenty of water. (Considering his head injury, that was a lot for him to figure out to tell me and I was so happy for the advice.)

So now my cilantro is at least 3 or 4 feet tall. Who knew cilantro would grow tall? I think I am as stunned at its height each time I go out there as I was the first time I realized it was so tall. I feel like I have been shown something that had been held as a wonderfully silly secret by the earth, some delightful gag, the sort that would cause you to hold your hands to your mouth to suppress the giggles.

Ladybugs and creatures dressed up like ladybugs cover the cilantro like ornaments on a Christmas tree. 

Today I found these peppers had got color.

My mother and me sitting under the apple trees my dad planted years ago.

whoo? me?

Your Power Bird is an Owl

You are beyond wise. You are so smart, you're almost prophetic. Your inner voice always speaks the truth, and you take the time to listen to it. You are good at seeing who people are... including the darkness of others. As a result, you tend to have a rather dark - yet realistic - outlook on life.

What's Your Power Bird?

I love this one. He's holding her dress. She's got her hair in curlers. They've just arrived at the church. Didn't you guys know about the convention most people take pretty seriously, about the bride and the groom not seeing each other until the wedding starts?

Yeah, they knew about that, they said, but they didn't care. They even went shopping for the dress together.

             The eulogy my sister wrote and read at our dad's funeral April 28, 2007

A few years ago my dad and I started a tradition that I really cherished. We would go out at least once a week on what we called “coffee breaks”, and he would tell me stories about his life, mostly about his childhood. This was a great bonding experience, and it gave me an insight into what made him into who he was. This culminated into a trip back to all the places he lived in Texas in the year 2000.

It started with a trip to his hometown of Mahoney, Texas, which was, and is, hardly more than a crossroads. He was born at home in a little farmhouse in winter. He had an older sister, named Francis, and an older brother, named Josh but called J.W. Their farm was only about 80 acres, but it was filled with all the things a young adventurous boy would want – a big barn full of horses and cows and chickens, a pond with a glorious oak tree growing beside it, a thicket of plum trees by the road, corn and cotton fields, and a woods with a big creek running through it. Best of all, according to my dad, was a garden. My dad had a lifelong love of gardening, and of cooking the vegetables that later he grew for his family. He loved digging in the ground for sweet potatoes, or sitting under a tree and eating a watermelon right off the vine. Growing tomatoes were a favorite of his, and he would experiment with our fruit trees by grafting different types of trees together.

    He spent a lot of time playing as a kid too, because he had several brothers and a sister that came along after him. They would fish in the creek and walk to the school not too far away. They went to church down the road, and he had cousins, especially a guy named Jack Hopper, that he loved to play with. I met Jack Hopper in the year 200, and I could almost see them as little adventurous boys. Jack lived near the church, and there was a humongous blackjack tree right out in front and they would go and play under it.

     He also told me of the patience of his mother. Her name was Fannie May Massey Eden, and one time she made all of her children that had come along by the time little sailor suit outfits. The Great Depression had already hit, and because she was so industrious, she used the fabric from flour sacks. She had all the little outfits ready just in time for church. This was a bit before the Dust Bowl descended on the farm and so there were puddles of water and mud outside after a cool nighttime rain. So what do you think a bunch of little boys dressed in their Sunday best did? Yep. She came outside to find all of them covered in mud from head to foot. So Fannie May patiently brought them all back inside, washed them off and changed them into their week days clothes, and then marched them off to church. By the next Sunday they had learned to behave better, and Fannie May tried again. She was a very patient woman.

     The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were really defining moments of their lives. It was hard to keep the farm going. Their dad, Noah Eden Senior, along with the help of his children, dug a pond out in the woods. Each child put in as much effort as a grown-up would nowadays. This pond filled up with water – I’m guessing it was probably near the creek, and it had enough water in it to keep the cows going, especially the favorite cow, who my dad fondly remembered as Old Mott. Even to this day I’ve never heard anyone mention that cow without respect in their voice.

     As the years went by it became harder to keep the farm going. It just didn’t rain, and my dad would tell me stories about how there would be dust storms that would just come rolling in like a wave. He said that whatever color the dust was you could tell what other state it had come from. So the family decided to sell their farm back to the bank and move on. The headed north to a little town called Glory, and from there they went to the town of Paris, Texas. For awhile they lived in the woods in a tent, and when I asked my dad if it was scary to only have a tent to call home, he looked at me kind of confused and said, “no, it was a big tent.” He knew with God’s help that his parents would provide for him, and they did.

    Everyone in the family who was old enough went to work picking cotton. My dad has a photo of his uncle with this huge sack hanging from his shoulders and dragging along on the ground behind him, and my dad said that even when he was a little boy, that’s what they would wear, and they fill it up with cotton as they picked.

     Now according to my dad, there was no one around who was a better cotton picker than himself. Now I don’t know if that’s true or not, but my dad said that the trick to picking enough cotton to make a difference is to just grab as quick as you can, and if you miss a bowl of cotton, forget about it, just keep going.

     My dad also got a job baling hay, and even though he was only about 11 years old, he would sit there at the hay baler and it was his job, for 12 hours a day, to push the wire through the hay bales. When we were in Texasin the year 2000, we stumbled upon a little country fair, and there was a hay baling machine, and my dad was so excited to show me what he did.

     He saved up some coins from this job, and more than anything, he wanted a pair of boots that had a special strap on them where you could put a knife. After so much hard work, he finally had enough money, and he proudly showed the money to his mother, who immediately took it and added it to the grocery fund. He never told her of his disappointment, because he was a good son, and he never got those shoes.

     Finally the family had enough money to move into a boarding house in Paris, and it was a lucky thing they did, because one, school was starting, and two, his older sister met her husband there. After awhile his sister and her husband moved out here to Arizona, trying to find a better life. Older brother Josh also moved out to Arizona, but this was so he could work in a CCC camp. The wages he earned were sent home to the family.

     My dad continued to work as often as he could. One of his favorite jobs was trying to sell magazines door to door. One day he sold a magazine to a woman for 5 cents, but she only had a dime, so he promised that he would be back on Saturday to give her her change. But Saturday came and his friends begged him to go see a movie, so he did that instead, even though he was uneasy about it. The next Saturday he went to give the woman her nickel change, but she had moved away. I think it stands as a testament to his character that he would still be bothered by that all these years later.

     I mentioned the movies. My dad loved movies. He also loved school, and in school his favorite subjects were geography and history. In these subjects they studied about the state of Arizona, and at the movies, he saw Westerns about the state of Arizona.

     After awhile the family moved on to a little town called Reno, Texas, and my dad went to school in the next town over called Blossom. At one point when the family was living there, they picked strawberries at Ezel Scott’s place, and on our year 2000 trip, my dad took me right to the place where this happened, only now it is a newly built subdivision. The oak trees are still there, though, and my dad pointed them out to me like they were old friends of his.

     He also took me right to the old high school that he attended for a few weeks, and as we were parked there looking at it, the principal came out and asked us what we were doing. My dad explained that he had gone to school there in 1941, and the woman got very excited and she took us on an entire tour of the school. That was really neat to see.

     While they were in Reno though, there was some sadness. Fannie and Noah Sr. had their last two children – twins – who didn’t survive. So, the family decided it was time for a big change, and they packed up and moved out west to Arizona. My dad was excited and ready to go.

     So in Arizona the whole family was together again, my dad, his parents, his older siblings, and his younger siblings – Lee, Kenneth, Clovis, and Glenna. They arrived in Scottsdale

in November. And just a few days later Pearl Harbor was bombed. Older brother Josh signed up right way. My dad knew he would be next. But at this point though, he was only 14 years old.

     He enjoyed ScottsdaleHigh School. There was “dress like a kid day” and “Wear your pajamas to school” day. They went roller skating and collected metal for the war effort. My dad made two best friends and the three boys ran all over town having fun together. One of my dad’s most favorite activities was playing soft ball, and when I was a kid, he used to try to teach me how to play.

     It wasn’t as easy a first day at school for his younger brother Kenneth, however, because Kenneth made the mistake of announcing in his thick Texas accent to his new class that his name was Kenneth Eden and he was from Blossom, Texas. Some of the boys in the class – including one Joe Carson Smith – nicknamed him Blossom, and it stuck.

     My dad could drive by the time he was 10, but for awhile he had to ride the school bus, and he told me a story once about how in the winter, the boys would make a big pile of tumble weeds and set them on fire to keep warm.

     Well, the high school years went by and my dad graduated. He went and enlisted for the war in January 1944, and he was in the army air corps on April 10^th. At one point, early on, he was waiting with a group of other young men to find out what was going to happen to them next. They were all quiet, because they knew what often happened to boys who go off to war. He took a stick and he started to draw in the dirt, and what he drew was a map of the United States– I’ve seen him do this and it’s amazing – and he included major cities and the highway system at the time. One by one the other boys noticed, and one would say, “hey, that’s where I’m from” and another would say, “we lived there for awhile.” Soon the boys were all swapping stories of home, and they all felt better and a little less afraid, I think.

     My dad made it through the war alive, so did his brother, and they came home.

     For awhile he went to air plane mechanic school in California, where on his weekends he would do things like surf, which I think is so cool. But then he moved back to Arizona

and got a job with the telephone company. On weekends, he would go out into the woods and go hiking. He has perfect orienteering skills. Many a time the four of us have followed him for miles into the woods up above the rim, having no clue where we were, only to have him bring us out of the woods right at our camper, with no problem.

     Once, we were in the woods and it was getting dark and we girls wanted to get back to the campsite, but he said, no, just one more minute, and he had us all huddle together crouched on the ground. There was a full moon and a slight breeze, and all of a sudden, right behind us, was the glorious, eerie call of a bull elk. We froze, and in a minute there were elk walking by us on all sides, calling out to each other as they headed to a pond. That was one of the most amazing experiences I think I’ve ever had. On that same trip we were followed by a bear, and by that point we really did hurry back to the camper. My dad was always taking us on adventures like that.

     Let me back up a moment and tell you about how my mom and dad met. My mom was 13 years old, and the family had just moved to Curry Road. Next door my dad and his parents moved in. My mother remembers that he kind of annoyed her, because he would be outside washing his car, and he wouldn’t wear a shirt, and my mom though that was just awful.

     However, this boy next door turned out to be useful, shirt or no shirt. He asked her out in May of 1973. He told me later that he was so nervous it took him two hours to make the call. I should mention that by this time my mom was a grown-up, not a kid anymore. He asked her out for lunch and she said no, but he could take her to dinner the next day (she told me that this was because she wanted to buy a new outfit to wear). They went to Monty’s La Casa Vieja, just on the far side of the Mill Ave. bridge, and they were put in a waiting room and forgotten. About 3 hours passed before someone realized and seated them, but my parents didn’t notice. It was soon after that that my mom was up on her roof trying to fix her air conditioning unit. It had been a bad day for my mom. Her own mother was in the hospital and there was a chance she would be coming home soon. My mom just could not get the air conditioner working, so my dad sees her and comes bounding up the ladder and fixes her air conditioner for here. Then, he gave her a bear hug, even though she was sweaty and messy. It was at that very moment, she says, that she fell madly, hopelessly in love.

     Her mother unfortunately did not come home, and she passed away shortly thereafter. My mom moved, but she kept dating the boy next door. Two months later, in August, my dad proposed to my mom – and she said no. It was too soon and he needed to be sure she told him. Then he didn’t call her for a week and she got mad and called him and said he better get himself over to her house right now, and he did. He proposed again in August, she said yes, and they were married in December, just 7 months after their first date.

     My dad retired when I was three years old, and that was when the fun began. When I was in kindergarten, I frequently cut school to go have coffee breaks at the old Smitty’s restaurant with my dad. We did that so often that I probably learned more form him than I did in school that year. By the next year though, he sat me down and explained that I was a big girl now and that in first grade, you have to go to school every day.

     My dad took us to football games and on camping trips. Later, after he stopped driving, my sister would take him on long Saturday drives all over Arizona, and he loved that so much. In the last two years my dad was not left alone even one time, with either my mom or sister or I with him. So, my sister would also take him shopping on weekends, and on more than one occasion he even went to her friends parties with her, and he loved that too.

     I mentioned the patience that his mother had to have as she raised all those children. My dad inherited that patience. He took us to school and picked us up ever single day, even though we could have ridden the bus. Often he gave rides home to our friends as well. And he never once complained. Not once. My sister would go dancing till all hours of the night, and he would drive her and her friends there, and then he would wait up all night in the car, just so they would have a waiting chauffer when it was time to go home. He never once complained.

     These last few years have been kind of hard on my dad. He had a head injury two years ago, and a lot was taken away from him. He was often tired, and he couldn’t always remember what he wanted to remember, or think of the words that he wanted to say. But there were two saying which he did remember, which he said to my mom constantly. They were – “what can I do to help you?” and “I love you.” He said these because he was a truly good man, and I know that now he’s in Heaven, and he isn’t tired, and his mind works again like it should, and he is happy. So, as I end this eulogy, I want to say to him not Good-bye, but “we’ll see you there.”