Jaci Dawn

This morning I read a blog that reflected my emotions after reading about the terrible murder of Park Ranger Margaret Anderson by a young man who, by all appearances, was an ex-soldier suffering PTSD.

The tragedy of Margaret Anderson was enough, but I felt it was compounded by the death of the shooter – an also needless and senseless death. My heart is torn: for the family, friends and co-workers of Margaret Anderson, first and foremost. I still remember quite vividly the moment I realized my own father carried a concealed handgun with him whenever he went out into the National Forest to patrol. I was around the age of 15 and I asked him, point-blank, why he carried a hand gun.

“There are people out there who would shoot first,” was his candid reply.

It had never occurred to me before that moment that a Forest Ranger or a Park Ranger was a dangerous job (aside from the obvious animal dangers).

The story of the man who killed Margaret Anderson also struck a chord with me: a young man who had been deployed, who was suffering from bouts of PTSD, in trouble with the courts and his ex-wife, who went over the edge. Initial reports claimed he had survival training; his death by hypothermia and drowning suggest otherwise. Personally, I suspect his was a suicide. A very slow suicide.

I don’t want to defend Benjamin Colton Barnes. There is no defense. But I wonder about our country’s response to young men and women returning from war with the scars of PTSD on their psyches. Would it have changed anything if Barnes had been able to seek and find the help he so desperately needed? What triggered him to act out so blindly and aggressively over the weekend? Are we doing enough for our veterans?

I am immensely proud of my own son who is a soldier in the US Army. I love my country. Like my friend, Jodi, who wrote the blog I read this morning, I just am left with some questions.

Sharing this is something I had to think very hard about. It’s a departure from my usual post. I’m breaking a personal rule here: leaping into something that could be construed as a political statement. I just feel the questions need to be asked and they need to be asked by the mothers and the spouses of the soldiers returning from war. Please read with an open mind (including the comments, if you will) this post from The Hidden Springs Hillbillies.

I stuffed Christmas away in the attic today. I am going to hurt like the dickens tomorrow. The attic is an 8×6′ space with sloped walls. I have to put on knee pads to crawl in and out of there and no one can help me because there isn’t enough room for one person to turn around, let alone two. I pity my husband if I ever leave him and he has to figure the attic out on his own.

Bwahahahahaha!

I am posting an email I received from Word Press yesterday. If you are like me and you hate monkeys, please ignore that word in the report. Otherwise, it is pretty fascinating stuff (to me). I’ve never received an “annual report” on my blog before so *I* think it is really cool. 🙂 Here it is:

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Mostly, it says “THANK YOU” to my fans, readers, friends and family. I am still slightly amazed that so many people love my post on canvas water bags (Jodi, I am still looking for one for you so if I find one…)

THANK YOU!

Long, Long Ago or Once Upon a Time –

The year 2011 dawned with fresh hope, fireworks and New Year’s Resolutions. I always make Resolutions and I usually keep about half of them for about half the year.

One resolution I made for 2011 was to take a photo per day. I kept that one.

I was going to lose 15 pounds. I lost it. I gained it back. Harvey gained it, too.

I was going to be healthier.

January was wet and miserable. I started the journey I am still on. Like the walk along the Willamette River, it looks like a straight path, but up ahead there’s a curve. Health-wise, I wasn’t certain 2011 was going to be a good year.

I talked to my dad a lot in the early months of 2011. He was scared for me. I was worried I was losing my marbles (like how I slipped that photo in? #39 of my 365). I had a Cat-Scan, ultrasound, x-ray and I-don’t-remember-what-all now. And no one would tell me anything. Except my urologist. He was firmly planted in the I-don’t-know camp. He admitted that.

March, thankfully, pulled me out of my self-imposed self-retrospect. I seriously needed a reality check. Life is good, don’t you know? And better when you are a grandmother. I have my little tan boys and my pasty white boys and life is GOOD. Hugs, kisses, laughs.

By April, my life was feeling a little more in balance. The little balancing rocks were given to me by a seer at a faerie festival: according to her, if I could keep the rocks balanced in the palm of my hand, life was balanced all around. Apparently, I hadn’t had to use my prednisone inhaler and my hands were steady at the tame.

Anyway – in April, I learned that my problem was not life-threatening: I had a 5mm kidney stone lodged in my left kidney. Reminds me of a joke my cousin Patti told us all when I was 8 years old. I called my dad and we celebrated.

The last time we talked was the first of May. On the 5th, he was gone. He planned it, I have no doubt: he knew I was going to be OK and he really just wanted to be done with the pain and suffering that life offers. But for me, that meant a road trip to Ely in the middle of May when it is still winter in the high desert country of Nevada.

June passed in a whirl. I had the surgery that was supposed to end all my problems with little ultrasound waves that supposedly blew up the kidney stone.

My garden bloomed and I spent blissful hours weeding, rearranging, and planning artful projects.If only the weather had been as blissfully cooperative! But there were some nice days and the sun did come out to play!

In August, my mother’s side of the family convened in Oregon. We meet every three years and this is the first time we’ve all landed in Oregon – all of us that could make it, that is. My mother’s two older sisters were there And most of my cousins. We’ve always been very close-knit and it was greatly comforting to be surrounded by strong women who can’t sing a lick but who sing anyway. I LOVE my cousins.

September passed. I think we actually had summer during September but I cannot honestly remember. Maybe a weed of temperatures over 80 degrees and no clouds. The garden faded. I knew by September that the kidney stone persisted, but I no longer felt any great fear.

In a rare appearance, my totem – the Raven – greeted Chrystal and I as we made our last trip down to Ely to settle my dad’s estate. I suppose my toem is the entire family of corvidae,  but Raven is the form I like best. Crows are noisy and bothersome; Raven is solitary and tricky. I took it as a good omen that Raven was there.

Ah, November. Another year older. Perhaps wiser.

And certainly another year full of wonder.

2011 was, perhaps, not the best year ever. It was not the worst year ever. It was what it was. And tomorrow will be what it will be.

So what are my plans for 2012? Ah, yes, that: resolutions and plans. And why not? A goal to meet, perhaps? 15 pounds to lose -again.

I resolve to be a better friend. To remember birthdays in time to send cards and to write letters more often. I resolve to actually pick up the telephone and dial. I hate the phone, but I resolve to actually call my friends from time to time to say “hi”.

I resolve to walk Harvey at least once a day every weekend day, and as the days get longer and we have more daylight, at least once a weekday.

I resolve to not be whiney. I will never keep this resolution because my basic Winnie-the-Pooh personality is that of either Rabbit or Eeyore. I will never be a Tigger. But I will try.

I resolve to find a way to travel more.

I resolve to take up at least one friend on a trail ride. I have two offers. Both friends are better horsewomen than I am. As long as they promise no galloping, I am fine with a trail ride.  Madge & Jodi – this means you guys. Somehow, we’re going to make it happen in 2012.

I’m not going to do the Photo 365 project in 2012, but I resolve to take better bird photos with my new camera. I call this one “Waiting Turns”. (Bushtits)

I hope you all have a safe New Year’s Eve. I am going to go babysit the 3 little blond grandsons while their parents go out. I told my daughter to rent me a Harry Potter movie. 😉 What could be better? Grandsons AND Harry Potter.

Have a Happy New Year and Welcome 2012!!

I hope everyone had a decent Christmas. I say “decent” because I know a lot of people who are suffering emotionally and financially right now. Me, I managed to have a much better Christmas than Thanksgiving. I put my dad out of my mind and let the dead be dead. That sounds cold, but I needed to just let it rest. There will be other days to mourn.

We had a pretty low-key Christmas. Not a lot of gifts under the tree for the grandkids and kids (one each plus an ornament). I am pretty big on tradition: the tablecloth, the fine china, the good silver, a sit-down dinner at the big table, the crystal glasses and a lot of food. This year I just bagged it as too stressful: we ate off of the ordinary china with stainless flatware and we used TV trays. I burned the ham and under-cooked the yams and I didn’t have a melt-down over it.

That made it a nice Christmas.

Two of our kids didn’t make it home for Christmas so we shared the day with just Arwen & Sam and Zephan, Javan & Eli. Javan felt puny all day and so is not in a lot of the photos I took of the boys playing with his Christmas presents. Somehow Javan managed to score the most-played-with toys yesterday but all the gifts were well appreciated and on a quieter day, they’ll all be played with.

Every year we try to do a gag gift. This year we put a big bow around the empty shipping box that came filled with toys from Colorado. All that was inside were what we refer to as “air-head refills”. I thought the boys could pop the air-head refills but they (the boys) aren’t heavy enough. But they loved the box that was filled with “imagination”.

Then they opened the real gifts. And the real fun began.

I got Don an awning to attach to the side of his SUV when he goes camping (or we go, as I fully intend to get some camping in next year). I don’t have a photo of it because it in rather unwieldy: the box is seven feet long by six inches by four inches. Son didn’t attempt to attach it to his SUV because… Guess What! … he needs more attachments to the rack before he can. <sigh> But he has the Rhino Rack and that was what was important.

Don got me a new camera. Yep, it is now time for the old Canon EOS Rebel to say good-bye.

The new camera is a Canon Rebel T2i with an additional 75-300 zoom lens. This camera does a lot more than the old one, including taking videos. The photo resolution is much higher and it more closely resembles the old 35mm film cameras I learned on.

I liked the old camera but it lacked some features that I had come to love with film. I have a home already for the old camera: a gifted photographer who has more talent in her pinky than I will ever have. She likes to photograph people and the old camera will benefit her greatly.

Me, I like to sneak up on the birds in our bird feeder and the critters we encounter when we are camping.

I stood in the picture window today and snapped a number of avian candids.

A band-tailed pigeon poses.

Townsend’s warbler.

Yep, I can see this is going to become quite a hobby: Jaci standing in the picture window, aiming a camera lens in the general direction of the new neighbors, and snapping photos of vivacious little birds. I’m a happy camper.

And on that note, my first video is attached here.

And THAT is the aftermath…

YIKES!

Nothing has been wrapped.

I was going to wrap Don’s stocking stuffers tonight but I can’t find them!

YIKES!

I know I got them home. But I haven’t seen them since Saturday. And I really cannot remember what I did with them.

In other news: I know where Don’s present is. We have all the grandkids’ gifts purchased but not wrapped.

I am now in a state of panic.

And I need to post my very favorite Christmas song before life gets too busy and Christmas is past. So while I go look for that bag of Stocking Stuffers, you can listen to The Royal Guardsmen.

It’s hard to come up with suitable subjects. I think of things during the day and trash them by the time I sit down to post. Today alone, I came up with these subjects:

1. Stopping for Pedestrians (from the POV of a sometimes Ped who APPRECIATES drivers that obey the law and stop and wait). Sadly, I flipped off the jerk who nearly ran over me today and that’s not a good commentary on my character. He was still a jerk.

2. Chanukah and Arwen. Chanukah starts tomorrow and I think I will save that post for tomorrow when I light the menorah. It’s a story about accepting other faiths and how I came to light a menorah before it was “trendy” in Christian circles.

3. My love of music, especially bluegrass and folk and 70’s rock.

Music won out because I found a nice download of Hoyt Axton songs on eMusic tonight. They could offer more Hoyt Axton, but since I own several LPs, I will forgive them.

I need a turntable. Ours died years ago and we have never replaced it. So my collection of Hoyt Axton languishes on vinyl. I once had a collection of Marty Robbins but I foolishly sold it all to a collector in 1977. His LP “Gunfighter Ballads” was my favorite.

The Internet has done wonders for my music collection and since I discovered eMusic and the ease of downloading… I have begun collecting music again. I can’t believe I let it lapse for so long.

First: a confession. I cannot sing. My voice is hopelessly flat. I can’t even follow someone who can sing. This handicap is not to be confused with “tone deaf”. I am not tone deaf. I most certainly can hear that my voice is flat. I can hear when someone else is off-tune or their instrument is off-key.

I cannot play an instrument. I played clarinet for four years in Middle School and High School. I was an acceptable player. My downfall was marching band. The high school I attended had an amazing marching band that was invited to the Rose Bowl several times before I was a member of the band. They were dedicated. The problem for me lay in the early morning practices on the streets of Ely, Nevada. It would be -10 degrees Fahrenheit and ones’ fingers froze to the metal. Reeds froze. We had to wear dorky uniforms with spats on our shoes.

I took to playing hooky from band (often with my older brother: we got in his Jeep and went exploring White Pine County). My sincerest apologies to William Krch, Band Teacher. Mr. Krch once told me I was a promising clarinet player. I think he was just being nice.

My children can sing and they can play instruments. Arwen has an untrained soprano voice that is quite beautiful to listen to. She picked up the saxophone her first year in band and quickly switched to the clarinet. She made me wish I had kept my clarinet. She was good. She also played percussion at college. Levi picked up the violin and never, ever made a screechy sound with it. Never. Listening to either of them practice was a pleasure.

Listening to me practice was torture.

My lack of talent has never hindered my love of music or my desire to collect music. I want to surround myself in music.

I cannot begin to list the music I love to listen to. I would do the genre a disservice by listing musicians. There are too many. They don’t get radio time, they don’t get Top Billboard press, they don’t get nominations to awards ceremonies. Gillian Welch is great but she isn’t Holly Near a capella (The Mountain Song). Some of the musicians I listen to are known in small circles. Some get air time on websites like http://www.folkalley.com. I sometimes tune in to the Facebook radio station called “Range Radio.” Most don’t make a lot of money. They just make my life enjoyable.

From Brian Grover to Jim Pipkin to Steeleye Span to Danu and Dave Stamey… They make my day. And, hey, throw in a little Jethro Tull and I’m good.

I just want to thank all of the musicians who work so hard. I really appreciate all of you! And trust me – I really can NOT sing but I am not tone- deaf despite what my children think.

(sidenote: when my oldest was 4 years old she declared that I was banned from singing. That is how awful my voice is. And how good her ear is…)

(sidenote #2: when at my family reunion this summer, all my female cousins broke out into spontaneous song. It was awful. It was flat. It was off-tune. I felt at home. It’s genetic…)

You know how sometimes you get into a conversation with someone and they state a “fact” that leaves you scratching your head? And, worse, when you point out their error, they cite some random television program they “learned” that “fact” from? And they’re over the age of 50?

Yeah. I had one of those conversations today.

It started with this brilliant pick sunrise this morning. The “Red sky at morning/Sailor take warning” kind of sunrise. The sun’s rays refracted over the Cascade Mountains and refracted against the low cloud front that was passing through. It was beautiful.

I mentioned it to a coworker. And her reply was nothing of the awe or beauty of the moment, but was simply, “It’s too bad we have so much pollution in our air.”

I had to think: was she talking about the same subject as I was? Pink sunrise, fluffy clouds, refracted light in the atmosphere? A sunrise similar to ones they had thousands of years before air pollution? The kind of sunrise sailors learned to forecast the weather from?

“Um, pollution doesn’t really have anything to do with the sunrise,” I said, confused.

“Oh, yes it does. It makes the sky red.”

OK: smoke from forest fires can make the sun and moon appear red. A smog inversion can create added color to an already vivid sunrise or sunset. But smog is not the cause of pink sunrises or pink sunsets.

She saw it on some television show. No doubt, they explained the whole cause and effect but the show had a slant: air pollution. Therefore, brilliant sunrises and sunsets are the direct result of air pollution.

Even when there’s a front moving through and the sunlight refracts off of the moisture barrier of the clouds. This article from NOAA explains the phenomenon the best. While pollution can play a role, it is most certainly not the cause of a colorful sunrise or sunset. The cause is the angle of the light, the reflection from the clouds, and what color in the prism becomes visible to the human eye (that is to say, what color is reflected off of the cloud and not absorbed).

I walked away from the conversation. I just couldn’t deal with it. But I got to thinking about it on my drive home and I came to the realization that my misinformed friend would love the Rainbow Conspiracy Woman. And I knew that I would have to repost this video.

I wonder if the Rainbow Conspiracy Lady ever watched a beautiful sunrise or sunset and got to thinking about the pollution conspiracy behind those events…??