Well, it's not going to kill you

Had to share this

Dr. Sanity sent me this tonight to cheer me up.  Enjoy, it's a delight 

Spiritually outraged or outraged spiritually?

My apologies internets it's time for another rant.

I was raised Catholic and all the way through college I attended mass.  In Davis (UCD)  we had a Newman Center  it was the center of most Catholic students lives at Davis, I say most because we were always a bit avant garde and the more traditional of those among the student body choose St. James the actual Catholic parish in Davis.

 I sang in the Sunday 11 o'clock choir and in the Cathedral Choir in Sacramento.  It could get a bit schizophrenic at times. Wait where am I, can I address the priest or assistant bishop by their first names as I usually did in Davis or I am in a place where I have to say Father so and so, or Bishop so and so?

I've never found a place that met the same standards of loving family not hung up on "formal rules" as I did at Davis thus I no longer attend mass, or rather so rarely that it makes people in town who know me do a double take to see me in church - I occasionally go with Mom when she's here.  You've never seen so many heads swivel so fast as the first time I showed up.

But I digress.  As I've worked with Dr. Sanity I've come to realize that my Catholicism is deeply ingrained.  I've had offers from Amy to attend her church (Methodist) with her, I just can't do it.  Part of that is the "old" Catholic teaching that going into any other church but a Catholic you were assured GOD would strike you dead with a lightening bolt on the very spot.  While I no longer believe that, I think, I still cannot bring myself to commit to another religion.

to be continued...

Yes I am feeling much better, thank you

Amazing work with Dr. Sanity the last few weeks has moved me to entirely new ground, back to ranting for instance.

Some day I'll probably share how I ended up under the remarkable care of Dr. Sanity who evens returns emails wishing her a happy Passover.  But not now it's still way, way, way to personal and while I'm feeling much less fragile I am indeed still fragile.  Some of this crap has been buried for years as a way to cope with it.  Some of it came with cancer, it's aftermath and the realization that I'll never be the same person I was before cancer.

But as I said I do feel much better.  I don't collapse into tears at the drop of a hat, I have more energy, I find more joy in the world.  I've done an excellent job (if I do say so myself) of emptying all the crap and beginning to fill back up again.  I'm being very selective about what I want to refill myself with.  Right now I'm comfortable with the love of my family and my friends.  They have stood by me for years as I have struggled to cope with PTSD and recurring depression.  They respect my way of coping which is usually to withdraw from the world.  They know that I love them very much and will leave me to myself until I'm able to reach out again.  Toss in some good wine, food, music and books life is nice these days.

And their are no words for LR, a sometimes grumpy gem that I wouldn't trade for the world.  He accepted me for who I was the first time we met and has never changed his opinion through all the ups and downs.

The Pink Glove Dance

I was sent this email by a friend who has a friend who's daughter-in-law thought up this project.

"Our daughter-in-law,  Emily (MacInnes) Somers, created, directed and choreographed this in Portland last week for her Medline glove division as a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness.  This was all her idea to help promote their new pink gloves.  I don't know how she got so many employees, doctors and patients to participate, but it started to really catch on and they all had a lot of fun doing it.

When the video gets 1 million hits, Medline will be making a huge contribution to the hospital, as well as offering free mammograms for the community.  Please check it out.  It's an easy and great way to donate to a wonderful cause, and who hasn't been touched by breast cancer?"

If you're reading this blog you've been touched by breast cancer, you know how ugly it is because you've read about it here.  Drop whatever it is you're doing and go watch in now.  It's a blast!

The Pink Glove Dance

If the music is bothering you

Let me know.  It has so far ignored all my attempts to disable it and I've grown kind of fond of hearing it.  However if a lot of you find it annoying and offensive I'll remove it.

This is what reconnecting feels like in music

controller="true"autoplay="false" autostart="0" loop="false" height="20" width="100">Mary Chapin Carpenter - Almost Home

no I have no idea why some of the html code displays on this page.  If anyone has pointers on how to fix it please, please, please let me know. Also I promise to disable the autoplay when I make my next post.

And I did disable autoplay - notice that false up there. It appears to be ignoring me

A party in your mouth yesterday

That is if you like Pinot Noir.  Yesterday was the 5th Annual Pinot Family reunion that John Ash restaurant put's on as a fund raiser for the Breast Care Center.  A collection of some of the best Pinot's in the state along with appetizers and a band.  Toss in a beautiful venue and a beautiful day it was perfect.

Unless you live in the area most of the wineries are so small for you to recognize but Sapphire Hill, Siduri, Skewis, Lynmar, Merry Edwards all the greats were there.

In addition the Amador family debuted their first release from their winery Gracianna.  Lisa is spokesperson for Sutter in Sonoma County, oversees the funding raising department among her other million duties.  The winery project has been something they've been working on a long time.  They bot/4444444444444444444444444444444.( Emme's contribution to the conversation)  anyway they both wanted a business they could do with their kids that revolved around wine.  Their son in the winemaker and the Pinot was beautiful.

There is also a silent auction, all proceeds come directly to the center and a loyal jeweler who lost his wife to breast cancer designs a one of a kind necklace every year that gets raffled off.

Every year John Ash asks for volunteers from the Center to help set up in the morning and break down afterward.  A free ($50) ticket is provided to each volunteer.  Larry and I always choose the morning shift so we can really enjoy the wine and food after we get off duty.  When we got there yesterday most of the tedious work had been done, the glasses had been polished, table clothes put out, etc.  The only thing left to do was pirate flowers from a wedding that had been there the night before to make LOTS of bouquets and help organize the silent auction items as they came in.

Then is was time for the party in the mouth, Yum

A fine weekend

We finally resumed FWF this week as 3 of the 4 couples were in town.  An event that usually lasts from 6 to 9/9:30 went until 11:30 almost unheard of for us.  I received a lecture from everyone at the table on my unhealthy obsession with my pills and was told to just get that idea out of my mind NOW.

Larry still has all the pills and that's actually fine with me, out of sight, out of mind.

Saturday was an abalone feed for the Fire Department Volunteer firefighters. For those of you who've never had fresh abalone, it's heaven on a plate.  But please take my word for it don't buy it in a restaurant.  It's likely to have been illegally taken, there is a size requirement and a limit on the number you can take at any one time.  Every year people are caught with illegal abalone which are confiscated then donate to non-profits for funding raising purposes.  I hate to stereotype but it's usually Asians from the Central Valley who are the worst offenders.

But I digress, the abalone was fabulous.  We usually get a big group together but this year is came up suddenly so it was just the 2 of us.  We marveled that for all the time we've lived in Healdsburg, 37 years for Larry 23 for me, we know few people.  There are faces I recognize but can't put names too.  But we did get to chat with our head Wine Diva, the chief of Police and her wife the constitutional lawyer.

Then today we thought we were selling some of our timeshares but it turned out that the company wants you to pay THEM money to take them off your hands, thank you no.  I was in a serious funk at that point.

We then met friends for a concert and dinner.  The American Philharmonic is an all volunteer orchestra that puts on free concerts 4 times a year.  They are tremendous.  The evening ended tonight with Beethoven's  Symphony No. 7, a mean piece to play but play it they did with zip and furor.  

We then headed to Chinois, a restaurant I've heard great things about and wanted to try.  We worked  our way through the menu with gusto.  Every single dish was fantastic!  If you get a chance to go jump at it.

Fortunately the beautiful music pulled me out of my funk and dinner the final thing I needed to completely transform the day.

Yea for me!  And it wasn't even fake it til you make it.

I don't know about you but I needed a change

All those bright colors that seemed so right when I first set the new header up now shouted at me every time I loaded my blog.

I needed it more peaceful and a bit more cohesive.  Comments welcome.

It's only 11 pm here so we're killing time so we can ring in the New Year with Rachel  Maddow.  Dr. Sanity suggested I stay away from news for a while but who can pass up Rachel especially on New Year's Eve.

I'm listening to songs I don't even remember loading into my ipod and drinking champagne, Larry is watching a Honeymooner's retrospective and drinking some OLD red wine from the days when Michel Schlumberger was Domain Michel.

Such an exciting evening I cannot tell you.  I was planning to cook scallops (Larry's favorite food) for dinner but we had some chicken satay first and when I'm depressed I'm just not hungery.  Although you'd never know it by my weight because I also become a sloth and sleep half of the day away.

A beautiful hymn Hear me Redeemer that was played at a dear friend's father's funeral just came up on the itunes rotation.  I grew up Catholic, we didn't have the beautiful hymns that the Presbyterians, Episcopals and Methodists have.  I'm adding a link because it is just stunning. Download 13 Hear Me Redeemer

Fun and games

Yes really, at least for 1 night.  We're both BIG Jimmy Buffet fans but have never seen him live.  I found out a few months ago that he was giving a concert in Mountain View.

As an early birthday surprise for LR I got tickets and booked a 3 night stay at one of our favorite hotels in the City.

The first night got sacrificed to FWF that was held on Monday instead.  The third night got sacrificed to not calling the house sitter soon enough.  Max has to take his chemo every other day so we couldn't leave him for more than one night.

But the one night we got, FABULOUS.  Jimmy and the Coral Reefer band along with thousands of singing, screaming fans.  Fans that knew at least part of the words for every single song.  Fans in parrot hats, lamp shades and fin hats.  Little kids dressed in shark costumes.  Landshark lager and margaritas were flowing which only helped the mood of the crowd.  Almost 3 non-stop hours of fun.  I'd forgotten what a blast it is to be in a big crowd, singing along.  He played new stuff, he played old stuff, he even played Bob Dylan's "Everybody must get stoned" with the crowd gleefully sang at the tops of our lungs.

I ended up losing my voice for most of the day but who cares?  I had FUN!

I'd had a rough couple of days before we went so I wasn't sure how involved I'd get but once the music started - oh my.  Jimmy Buffet live does good things for the soul.