A Green Ash Tree for La Belette Rouge

This is the largest green ash tree in the Salt Lake Valley according to the experts at Arbor Care. It grows in my backyard. When I was a child I had the world's best rope and wood slat swing that hung from an enormous branch that is now a phantom limb. Green ash trees fell prey to a borer and few survived. We aggressively treated this tree. It survived and still grows at an almost alarming rate. It is a very heavy wood and in a big wind storm it self prunes. Several years ago a smallish branch came down breaking several of the tiles on the roof of the main house. There is no way to really give you an idea how large this tree is, but the tall two storied house is a toy beneath it.

Chris Will You Please Stop Booking This Racist Pig

Lifted from yesterday's Salon Opinion Piece by Joe Conason
This has been a screaming point for me for a long time. I do not understand why Chris Matthews or any News Show host on MSNBC would book this racist prick.

In Washington media circles, Pat Buchanan is a well-liked and avuncular figure, presumably owing to his personal qualities rather than his crank politics, but for him to be encouraged to pontificate endlessly on the subject of race on television is worse than ludicrous. The late William F. Buckley Jr. expelled Buchanan from the pages of the National Review many years ago for his crudely anti-Semitic rants, which included a very unattractive tinge of admiration for Hitler. (Prejudice against Jews, unlike some other forms of bigotry, is anathema to most conservatives.) So obnoxious was Pat's blustering bully-boy attitude that he became intolerable even to the intolerant.

As for racism, where to begin with him? Discussing Sotomayor on MSNBC, Buchanan accused her of adopting the same attitudes that had kept blacks down in old Dixie. "Her entire career is based on advancing people of color, which is done at the expense of white people," he cried in that familiar high-pitched whine. "That was what was done in the South. They're doing it now to white males now…"

Except that Pat didn't mind so much when "they" were doing it to black folks in the South. He explicitly supported the race-based "Southern strategy" of his old boss Richard Nixon, whom he advised to avoid meeting with Coretta King one year after the murder of her husband, Martin Luther King Jr. In April 1969, he warned Nixon in a White House memo that visiting Mrs. King would "outrage many, many people who believe Dr. King was a fraud and a demagogue and perhaps worse ... Others consider him the Devil incarnate. Dr. King is one of the most divisive men in contemporary history."

Did Pat's views toward blacks and other minorities mellow over the decades? More than 20 years later, he was still supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa, noting that there was nothing in our own Constitution that would preclude a white minority ruling a black majority. (Such is the color-blind jurisprudence that he would no doubt like to see on the high court. Of course, he also told Nixon to burn the Watergate tapes, a key indication of his deep respect for law and justice.)

In his memoir, "Right From the Start," he suggested that the segregated District of Columbia of his boyhood had worked just fine:

"There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The "negroes" of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours."

Feeling Good

This Little Piggy Went....

Oh my fucking god, I've just torn my toenail off. I have turned into my own torturer. Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.....

We Have The Beginnings of a Plan

I never thought I'd say this to you, John Huntsman, but thanks for the great Huntsman Cancer Institute. And thanks to you, Manal, for being there working at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and checking that doctor out. I sure know how to pick the great daughters to informally adopt. And thanks to you, Ms M, for bringing that movie a week ago I didn't know I'd need to watch today. Seven Pounds. It helped to cry those tears. And thanks to you, Susu, for sending me a copy of your book of poetry. It takes me back through all the time we knew each other, and before, and after all those years. It has been a comfort to read your gorgeous words and remember how close we all once were, when we were young, you, Z, and I. We were something weren't we? Someday I'll write about us all. I left us out of the novel Maggy, because we were too big for her story. We deserve our own book. Sleep well, Z. Tomorrow we have work to do.

And thanks to all of you and your good energy and kind words and the warm wishes. Thanks to you, I'm as centered as I've ever been.

Small Cell Squamous Lung Cancer

It is very bad news. The healthy one, the thin one, the vegetarian, the one who quit smoking very young (she dabbled for a couple of years as a rebellion, but never really took to it) the one with children and grandchildren, the one with a million reasons to live--she's the one with lung cancer. The crazy one with not a single living relative and damn few friends, the one who will not quit smoking for anyone or anything, the one who's overweight, who eats whatever she wants, stays up all night, sleeps late, the one who isn't careful about anything, the one who takes at least thirteen pills a day and chases them with espresso, the one who forgets to put anything on her stomach until four in the afternoon and sucks down ice cream and potato chips after midnight--she's the one in the pink, who seems destined to keep hanging on, even when she doesn't want to.

And some would tell me that god would have a plan in all of this.

The Z of Time and Illness

The passage of time is a mystery to me
Like the days that pass when I do nothing
And the tasks go undone, the weeds take over
The tree, though topped stands like a hulking monster
It presses on the fence, tangled round it's gorgeous trunk
The upper limbs rank with the scent of early decay and last night's
Rain so rare this time of year I will remember it as April not late
May, early June, my birthday always comes too soon

The sister of my soul, my whole life long, the level headed one
Now puts her fate in the hands of anyone with a crackpot theory
Or so I think, other than the doctor who says, it's there where the
Trachea branches into the primary bronchi just before it reaches the
Fertile soil of the lungs in and out of hardly any oxygen there rests the mass
Growing like the weeds, the vines, the knot of trunk that pushes on the fence.

No air flows and a vocal chord is paralyzed making the voice a high tight complaint
The lack of options narrows down to doing almost nothing, or getting up and fighting
As if all life depended on it. Her blood depleted of breath's oxygen one lung closed
She wants to think it over. Odd that she, the child of a mathematician who was the
Perfect parent, has rejected hard science, medicine, the certainty of numbers, pulse ox
Sed rate in favor of intuition, the spirituality of mysticism, the soul's belief in the souls truth

I can do nothing but await her fate as if my own life depended on this one decision still unmade.

The Unthinkable

I won't be visiting much over the next little while. My closest friend, Z, the one who has power of attorney over my estate and medical care has either a treatable cancer, or lymphoma that has gone on too long, undiagnosed and untreated, to be anything but a death sentence. She has had polymyalgia rheumatica and so has ignored the dry hacking cough for so long I can't remember when it started. I remember asking her about it as long as 6 or 8 months ago. She thought it was one thing and another. Finally she began to have trouble breathing. It was nothing in her lungs; they were clear. She worries about money. Worries about unnecessary medical expenses and doesn't want to worry her kids or burden them. She has been a vegetarian for 40 years but for the last year or more has been very careless about eating well. Prefers to manage it all homeopathically. But her sed rate is alarmingly high. The prednisone to treat the polymyalgia rheumatica might have been the cause of her lack of apatite, lack of interest in food, fatigue, weakness, depression, the low grade fever, night sweats. She has lost so much weight, but blamed it on the prednisone. She thinks she can treat this illness with fresh juices. She worries about the fact that she hasn't the strength to mow the lawn. And it goes on like this for so long. Now they have found a mass in the primary bronchi which, thus, far appears to be lymphatic tissue. Friday she was told that it is either bad news but treatable, or bad news and untreatable. A biopsy is scheduled for Monday. She is convinced it is lymphoma that has spread throughout her body. Too late to treat. I argue with her. We don't know yet. She has all the symptoms and has for so long, thinking it was the prednisone that caused the night sweats, the fatigue and all the rest. She has finally told her children. Her daughter flew in last night. Z asked me to come over yesterday and help her get ready for her kids. God forbid they should now how hard it's been for her. Her back lawn is a meadow. The two dogs matted and shaggy. All I can do is sit on the back porch with her and listen.

She has been the patient friend, the rock of Gibraltar, my sane and steady friend since we were both 17 and early admissions students at the University of Utah. We were the only girls with the first group of students ever admitted to the U in their brand new Early Admissions program. We could not have been less alike. She has always said hers was the perfect loving and supportive family. Her father was Chairman of the Math Department.

My father was getting his PhD in psychology and I couldn't have had a worse family life. My reasons for skipping my senior year were complicated-- mostly I just wanted to get out of my parents house. My home life had always been difficult, so living in the dorms at the U sounded like paradise to me. Z continued living at home with her family.

There have been times in our long history together when one or the other of us was living half a world away from the other. Years at a time when we were not in touch. But whenever we saw each other, it was as if no time at all had passed and we would again take up the conversation as if it had been paused for the length of time it would take to make a cup of tea. I can't imagine life without her. I never thought for a second that I would outlive her. It is unthinkable. I am numb and furious.

My Best Friend Needs Me

My best friend is having a life threatening medical crisis. She needs me. I'll write when I can, but please don't leave me.

One Good Thing To Do This Weekend Is Sign This Petition

VoteVets sent me this petition this morning. I signed it. Now I'm asking you to sign it. I'm told it might be a touchy link.

This is a YouTube clip and hopefully guidance to the petition. If all else fails, google VoteVets.org. That should get you there. Sign up. It's free. Get their email updates. It's a really good organization. And if you still aren't convinced that the Bush/Cheney Administration needs prosecuting, read this:

**Please circulate widely to friends and on social-networking sites*

Torture Photos Show Rapes of Detainees, Former Officer Confirms
The real reason Dick Cheney has become so loud: he's afraid

Each week brings shocking new revelations. The U.S. mass media is not reporting on the most explosive story of the week.

The world now knows why President Obama reversed his earlier decision to release the 2,000 photos of prisoners barbarically tortured, abused, and humiliated under the direction of the Bush/Cheney gang.

Some of the photos of the prisoners show U.S. personnel torturing, sexual assaulting and raping male and female detainees, including children. The existence of these photos was confirmed by former Major General Antonio Taguba. Taguba had earlier been in charge of the inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

On May 21, Cheney went on national television to defend torture and sickeningly attacked Obama for sacrificing "innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things." We'd like to hear him explain how rape and sexual assault are just "unpleasant things" that have spared innocent lives. The last few months has proven that the abuses, the sexual assault, and the most barbaric violations of human rights cannot be attributed to a few bad apples. Such tactics were commonplace, officially sanctioned and elevated to the level of government policy.

The torture methods, like the war itself, have never been about saving lives. A recent column in the Nation echoed what IndictBushNow reported last week: "The Bush administration, hellbent on justifying its forthcoming invasion of Iraq, was ransacking the intelligence bureaucracy to find or produce two things that, it turns out, did not exist: weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq and cooperation between Al Qaeda and the regime of Saddam Hussein."

The Iraqi people have never waged war on the United States and no Iraqis took part in the attacks of 9/11. Bush & co. wanted to go to war, and were just looking for an excuse.

So why, given the recent revelations, has Dick Cheney responded so publicly in defense of the Bush administration's war crimes? He's afraid! He's not just concerned about preserving the administration's "legacy" -- he's concerned about preserving his own neck.

Don't believe us? Take it from Cheney's daughter, Liz, who recently explained her father's outspokenness on CNN: "He certainly did not plan when he left office to be doing this... Then when [Obama] suggested in the Oval Office itself that he would be open to the prosecution of former Bush administration officials including many who weren't political appointees potentially, you know really, I think, made my dad realize this was just fundamentally wrong. We had to speak out."

Our argument for prosecution is becoming irresistible. The fact is that every revelation lays bare a whole new level of criminality. The more details come about the Bush administration's heinous acts and deliberate deception of the American people, the more people are starting to talk about justice. Already, many people who once said, "we need to move forward" are beginning to reconsider: no one can move forward until we have come to terms with the country's past. That means accountability: the indictment of the criminals.

Big Pick-up Sticks

Cherry Picker Takes On Tree and Wins! Well, Mostly

You cannot imagine the noise of this tree massacre. I know it's horrible to kill a huge tree but this tree was on its last legs and was planted too close to the wooden fence and the little house. So gird your loins. These photos are rather graphic.


And the search for the perfect stick is on. Good dogs, now would you just haul this mess out of the driveway and hide it somewhere. I suggest a big hole, so start digging.

Temporary Difficultiles

What with a tree coming down like bombs around my house, and what with having my Administrator visiting, and what with having an old dog who hates loud noises and any change at all, it's been a loud and trying morning. I'll be back with pictures and more details. Until then, keep your hardhat on. Step carefully.

Mysterious Gift

Someone sent me a laptop. It's a HP Mini-note PC. I'm thrilled, surprised, and curious. Who is this generous gift giver? I've been thinking that the main impediment to my doing any traveling these days is the umbilical cord that keeps me sitting at my chair at my desk tied to my fabulous Imac. I learned a whole world of new tricks here at my desk learning to blog, be a better writer, make new friends, have a life. But this? This is a gift that calls for a THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

I used the tracking info from UPS and it led me to eCOST.com who shipped it. But that's as close as I've been able to get to the humanitarian who sent this to me. Speak up oh generous one. This calls for a hug at the very least.

Supreme Court Nominee Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit
Incumbent
Assumed office
October 7, 1998
Nominated by Bill Clinton
Preceded by J. Daniel Mahoney
Born June 25, 1954 (1954-06-25) (age 54)
The Bronx, New York
Nationality United States
Alma mater Yale Law School (J.D.)
Princeton University (A.B.)
Religion Roman Catholic

She is of Porto Rican descent, and grew up in a tenement in the Bronx. She was born into a very humble background, yet managed to get a very good eduction. She is everything I want in a Supreme Court Judge. And when I first saw her name mentioned I let out a cheer. I have been hoping she would be President Obama's pick. This is the first news story I woke up to--her acceptance of the nomination. Next come the hearings. The Right Wingers will be going crazy trying to smear her in some way, but I don't think she'd have made it this far if she were smearable. She has everything that would make her a target for the White Men's Club that the justice system has always been. Now comes the swift-boating. Hang on Sonia is going to be a bumpy ride.

Art Find

After my last visit to my neighborhood thrift store I told you about my art find. Well this is it. I hope you like it as much as I do. A photo can never do justice to blown glass, nor does it give you an idea of the heft of the piece. When I used to live in Santa Barbara there was an art gallery across from one of our favorite restaurants. I used to drool over this kind of thing but could never afford to buy one of those pieces since they were priced in the hundreds of dollars range. I paid $8 for this beauty.

Cold and Rainy Memorial Day

This is a sight I've never seen on Memorial Day in Salt Lake unless someone went to a party and left the water on outside. It's 53 degrees outside mid-day and I'm trying to keep the house warm because it's supposed to get really cold tonight. A week ago it was early Summer, now it's mid-Spring. This photo is the concrete floor of the gazebo mid day.

It was pouring when I made the dogs go out this morning and Marley never left the covered porch. I had to go out and sit on the bench under the pine trees and wait for Marley to pee. So Marley peed at my feet. Good enough. We came in and Marley disappeared for a minute. Then Cyrus got up and gave me a look like, "What have you done?" I looked over the side of the bed and there was a Marley turd right at the back of Cyrus's bed just where his bum would have been had he been asleep. Marley had tried to trick me into believing that Cyrus was the bad dog, not Marley. Marley got dumped outside along with her turd and left to wait it out while I cleaned Cyrus's bed. It's been one of those days.

Yesterday's Barbeque

I was invited to a barbeque across the street yesterday afternoon. I thought it would be nice to take a little nap before I went. Read for about ten minutes and then drifted off into a deep slumber. The phone rang. I reached around for it and couldn't find it. Then dashed across the room to pick it up off it's base and even with the dash for the phone, I was still asleep, dreaming the whole dash for the phone for all I knew. My friend T. who lives three houses up the street said "Peg, are you awake?" I answered, "Yesh, for all I know I'm ashleep." She said, "Are you going to come to the party?" "Sure, I'm planning on it." She said, "Hurry, it's almost 6:30, and there's still some food left, but it's going fast. And sound like you're drunk." "I feel like I'm drunk."

It took me ten minutes to wash my face, comb my hair, brush my teeth, and change into a new top (from the thrift store) and new shorts (from the thrift store). I let Cyrus and Mawley go out to pee, then headed across the street with Mawley close on my heels. There were about ten grown-ups sitting around yacking, and about eight kids from 18 to 2 in various stages from boredom to candy-high milling around the picnic table or in and out of the kids playhouse. T handed me a paper plate and gave me instructions about what to eat and what to avoid. In her estimation the ribs were better than the bratwurst, and the cole slaw was better than the potato salad. I put a little bit of everything on my plate and joined the kids at the picnic table.

I sat next to Courtney who is 18 and was the oldest child at the party. If Courtney weren't a Downs child I'd be calling her an adult, but she still retains some of the completely uncensored innocence of the child. Her little brother Boris who is Russian and was adopted when he was a baby and also has Downs syndrome, came running at me full tilt and hurled himself into my arms. He straddled my lap and snuggled his face into my neck and gave me a sloppy kiss on my face. He's four now, still not talking exactly, but still quite capable of expressing his needs and wants, likes and dislikes. Courtney said with a chortle, "Boris loves you, Peggy." Well that made it all worth while. The waking up, getting dressed, the facing of other people, the jocularity of half crocked adults, the Mormon grandmother we all adore and need to protect from the knowledge that most of us are either stoned or half drunk or both. That enthusiastic greeting from Boris made it all worth while. The meat was dry, the slaw was soggy, the potato salad was... eh. But the kids and the potato chips were divine.

Since I arrived at the party half an hour before it was scheduled to break up at 7:00, I felt my timing was perfect. There was just enough socializing and dry, over-cooked meat to make me feel half normal, and a part of my little community of neighbors. I'm older than all the neighbors with kids and younger than the great grandmother we were trying to protect from the knowledge that we were not the clean-living grown up children she needs to believe we are. Good party all around.

Mawley was chased by a two year old and a four year old round and round the picnic table till the kids fell down exhausted. Marwley wins again.

Sleepy Saturday

I woke up being kissed on the lips. Prince Charming? No, just Marley. I looked at the clock to see if I should be mad or not and it was 9:30. That's a reasonable hour no matter what my body says, so I got up took the dogs out and had my coffee. I made a list of the things I'd like to accomplish today, but so far (its about 3:45) I have had three visitors. And I've been invited to a neighborhood barbeque this evening. This calls for a nap.

It's a Good and Lazy Dawgs Life Friday

Well for one thing, Marly slept through the night. I woke up with Marley snugged into the bend of my knees. When I woke Marley up she acted groggy. Nothing like a good night's sleep. Outside Marley and Cyrus did their business, and the kids next door were out getting ready for a camping trip to the desert. They heard me talking to the dogs and came over to the tall wooden fence between our yards. Three little voices said, "Peggy, open the window in the fence??? They are four year old twins, Franny and Ruben, and six year old Alvin. The window in the fence was made by the woman who used to own their house. She had Yorkies that were the worst behaved dogs I've every had the displeasure to meet, but my good old dog Lucy, a black Chowbradore, loved the Yorkies, so my neighbor hired someone to make a tiny gate with a lock on my side so Lucy could come visiting. It was too high for the Yorkies to get to my side but perfect for Lucy to jump through. I open the window in the fence and the three kids next door met Marley. They called her Mawley which I like even better than Marley. So now I'm calling her Mawley. Sounds very Bostonian. Mawley gave Ruben a kiss on the mouth and barked at the other two. Now Ruben feels very special.

We have had a succession of visitors including a Chihuahua named Segman, a golden Spanial named Bumper (we call him Boompere) and the dogs from the front house, Roscoe and Tassman--the two very big male yellow Labs. So for a couple of hours there were six dogs visiting. Mawley acted just like a calm, normal, happy, big dog who knows this is her house and yard and I am her mama. I was so proud. The Chihuahua had his nose out of joint because, until now, he was the special one in the crowd over here, but today, Mawley was the special one. Poor Seggy.

I had my breakfast of cantaloupe and cornbread around noon with my second bowl sized cup of espresso and organic milk with a tablespoon of sugar. Oh yes, I'm still hooked. And then I went grocery shopping. Had lovely interactions with everyone I saw. How nice it was not to hate everyone in the store. I found everything I wanted and more. Good buys on good healthy food. I am stocked except for the olive oil I forgot. I took a list but never looked at it. Mawley and I will walk to the store tomorrow. It will be good for us.

My groceries are almost put away and Cyrus is curled up on the dog bed beside my chair. Mawley is chewing on one of those giant rawhide bones Cyrus nurses for a couple of days and then discards. There is a small collection of half eaten giant rawhide bones tucked between his big round bed and the old dog bed that he uses as a pillow and hiding place for treats he's hoarding. Cyrus watches Mawley and all but shrugs. He could care less. We're all so relaxed and happy. It's a very good Friday.