No pretty pictures in this post.
I hate public service announcements and lectures. so don't take this the wrong way. I'm writing this because I'm the worst culprit! So the lecture's to me! Breast cancer has struck again in my family -- two times in one year. In fact -- twice since last summer. It's a plague. But both of my loved ones have been vigilant about getting yearly mammograms, so it was caught early. Stage 0. So they'll have a total cure and a long healthy life.
As I said, I've been the worst about being regular with mammograms and health care. I give myself every excuse in the book and procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate. I have an irrational dread of not only doctors, but bad news. I'm a real chicken. I was feeling like crap in June and finally went to the doctor. I found out I had REALLY high blood pressure. Duh! It runs in my family, yet I couldn't even bother to keep track of it by checking it at the drugstore. I'm on meds now for everything that ails me and hopefully caught it soon enough before any damage was done. And I'm also now caught up on mammograms. All I have left is the colonoscopy.
Anyway, buck up and go get smashed and prodded! An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Think of it this way -- you're missing a possible opportunity to extend the quality and longevity of your life.
Okay -- enough already! :)
old garden bench and tools
patio pots
old blue chair and watering cans
and more pots
Stay tuned because I have an old shopping cart that I'm going to try and use as a succulent planter. :)
This Carnival video shot on Isla isn't mine, but it's a good one! I arrived on Isla in February 2007 just in time to take a few photos on the last night of Carnival.
Isn't she gorgeous!
Will dance for beer!
These women from Holbox showed up on the island the weekend after Mardi Gras. Their driver told me they just wanted to keep dancing. They danced up and down Juarez for free hotdogs and beer! I love the expression of the woman on the right.
The other thing I LOVE about this picture is what it illustrates about Mexicans and their healthy views on body image. Few women in the U.S. with curves and rolls would want to dance in the street in outfits like this. We're embarrassed by bulges and imperfections. But Mexicans seem just fine with their bodies. Have you ever noticed how the local men when it's really hot will roll their shirts up above their bellies (often bulging) to cool off? I wish our culture had the same healthy attitudes and didn't worship stick thin!
The Original Cool!
You gotta have Sol!
Love the new Club Pescador colors!
Brightened up the Mango a bit!
The Batik Factory got a fresh makeover.
Tweety and Friends have a different hue.
The land revolutionaries got a little edgier!
She still loves to run wild patterns around the house, and maul Craig to get a treat!
If you saw these people in a lineup today, what would you think? The men look a little scary. Truthfully, they look a lot like some of the homeless men who lived under the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle. I'm hoping those beards were in vogue back then! Anyway, they are my ancestors. The guy in the back row on the far right side is the direct link. Mathias Bauman. Four of the brothers served in the Union Army during the Civil War, including Mathias. When their parents died, Tina, the only sister, evidently had charge of the purse strings. She caused her own little Civil War. She disinherited Mathias because he changed the spelling of his last name to Bowman after the war. Actually, the U.S. government changed the spelling of his last name to Bowman on his Civil War pension, and Mathias just wanted to make sure he got his checks! That Tina must have been a real witch!
If you look at the scroll above, they all lived fairly long lives! That's really remarkable considering four of them served in the Union Army and the average life expectancy was much lower then than today.
Now here's the scary thing! Every man in that picture has the same exact nose! Even Tina has that nose! And if I showed you a picture of my father in his later years, you'd notice he had the same nose! Uh - oh. I should photoshop that nose onto my face and see how I'm going to like it!
(Uh-oh. Maybe I already HAVE it!)
Okay, this is interesting. A friend forwarded this to me, and it works. Click on this link, then type your address in the boxes at the top of the page. It will show you all the convicted felons in your neighborhood. Look for the red balloons and red push pins. Very enlightening. Not much in my actual neighborhood, but a collection of sexual offenders, arsonists, stalkers, and assaults on the county islands bordering us. I guess I'm a real Pollyanna because I'm surprised! But it's nice to know who lives where you walk, ride bikes, etc... By the way, when you move the cursor away from your immediate neighborhood, you'll need to enter new addresses for the info to come up again.
Speaking of lurking, another interesting little 'thing' popped up this week. I put that little Feedjit gadget down on the sidebar because I enjoy seeing the little dots light up when people hit my blog from various locations. It's fun to imagine who's viewing my blog, where friends might be traveling, or why someone in Dubai would read my blog. I think a lot of the hits from across the pond are random, but sometimes I speculate that maybe one of my friends is taking a wonderful European tour or an exotic hop through Indonesia. It's a little geography lesson!
Anyway, the point of this? The Feedjit gadget also tells me what posts people look at, what searches they perform on my blog, etc... Well -- once in awhile there's a sicko. I just noticed this week that someone in New Orleans had searched my blog for 'skimpy', 'naked', 'nude'. Uhhhh -- sorry buddy! I'm very middle-aged and you don't WANT to see it skimpy, naked, OR nude! I come from basic Midwestern stock and I won't be posting anything skimpy, naked, or nude! So there! By the way, I'm not in the buff in that childhood beach photo. I have on a one-piece suit that blends into the background. Get out your magnifying glass!
And back to the subject of felons -- remember those houses in foreclosure that I speculated were being stripped? On Tuesday, I drove past on my way to run errands. There were two Chandler police units on site talking to a man in a pickup truck. He had pulled the truck back in under a garage to try and hide it. Since the police station is located directly south of there, I'm guessing they had also noticed the ripped out windows and were waiting to catch a thief. I'm hoping they busted the guy!
Book 'em Dan-O!
No, I'm not daft. (Not at the moment anyway!) I know the name of the song is Barbara Ann. But as a kid, I was always the nerd who sang the song with the wrong words! I thought the song was about bobbing around?
The scene here is my birthday party. Since mine's an October birthday, bobbing for apples was always on the menu. Do kids even do this anymore? (Probably not!)
I just noticed this commercial on television last night! I'd never heard of this wireless company. I must be Rip Van Winkle just waking up from my long winter's nap. Anyway, this commercial's pretty funny, and so WRONG!
(But I wonder how much a girl could save on disposable razors in a year? Food for thought in these hard times! Tee hee.)
Craig and Sab chatting it up with a fisherman. And no, he hadn't caught anything.
This waterfall looks a lot better in lavender. (It's muddy water.)
And last of all, a prickly pear cactus. They get really big. And dangerous!
(I've been pricked.)
Neil Young posted this song on You Tube recently. Notice his I-Pod! He takes a bite out of it at the end. It's all about the Big Bust (and I'm not talking Hooters).
The economic situation right now seems surreal -- something we studied in U.S. History, but never expected to experience in our lifetime. I guess it's human nature to think that the bad crap will always happen to someone else. We're acutely aware of the current economic crisis here in Phoenix. It's everywhere we look. Small shops and big chains going out of business, developers going bankrupt, foreclosure signs, high unemployment, long lines at job fairs to get in the door, etc . . .
Real estate is especially bad. People are stuck. The odds against selling or renting a house are huge, so you stay put and watch your equity and home values plunge. Developments and developers all over the valley are bust. Fulton Homes, one of the biggest commercial and residential developers in this area, just declared bankruptcy.
On our walk to the park on Friday, I snapped a few photos on the way. Here's a new (now bust) development just south and east of our neighborhood. It's a scary repetition of what we're seeing all over the Phoenix area -- a sign of the times.
The homes originally started out two years ago advertised in the low 800's. Then they changed the sign to low 700's. Then all the way down to low 500's. The development was originally named Charlevoix, then changed to Montage.
Construction started on three homes (I hope models, because otherwise, some poor souls lost their down payments) and progressed to the stage where windows were in and roof tiles were ready for installation. The exterior insulation then turned yellow and everyone started to notice work had stopped. Then chain link fences went up around all three homes. That's a foreclosure sign -- the bank trying to protect its assets. Now the chain link is down and they're stripping the homes. All the windows have been ripped out. (Look below.)
We're not sure if the bank is tearing them down, or scavengers are having at it. But the house below is being stripped back to the studs.
Anyway, that's a little edition of the Hard Times News from our area! I think a lot of us will need to learn a new vocabulary word before this is all over!
re⋅sil⋅ience -- noun
1. the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.
2. ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy
As Neil Young says -- Keep on bloggin' till the power goes out. Your battery's dead, twist and shout!
Please don't associate this choice of song with my grade school Valentine's pic. SO inappropriate. I just heard the song on the radio the other day, and now I'm singing it to the dog. (Substitute 'Saby' for Baby!)
Valentine's Day has always been a WEIRD holiday for me. The first year we were married, we were in a bad car wreck on Valentine's Day and I broke my back. I ended up spending six months in a brace that had steel girders on the front. Kind of hard to find clothes that fit. (I fell in love with elastic.) Anyway, that was one bad box of chocolates that year! (Not to be too graphic, but they ended up on the hospital emergency room floor.)
