Why I was not here

A few days after my last post a good friend [actually my best friend] had a leg amputated due to gangrene. She seemed to re doing fine by the weekend and then went downhill rapidly and died on July 20th.

I then helped, with several others, to call mutual friends and tell them about her death and 2 planned memorial services. It was hard as I was re-connecting with other old friends with whom I lost contact over my last 2 moves and we had long conversations about past present and future.

Why does it usually take a death to make people who like each other re-connect? And now I am planning a trip to visit these old friends.

Of course nothing is normal weather wise this year so we in Portland where 90 is a rare event had a 10 day stretch of a brutal heat wave and I get heat exhaustion...and during those days me, the dog, cat and computer were all laying low and being very still. I don't have AC - very few in the Pacific Northwest do. Hard for me to get my political brain working under the conditions of grief and heat...

Stay tuned - I will resume as there is so much to say!

Another sad "number"

Today the 3000th of our children died in Iraq. The news clips say that shrub is mourning this death but from what I read he also added that there is no quick end to the war on terror.

I never could understand how anyone can have a "war" on a concept....Wars require specific enemies - not words or actions....

But it's 3000 of our children who have died over there and how many more Iraqi children have died? For what? And why do more have to die?

I hope the new Congress comes in and stops this insanity.

Peace and a saner New Year