Song of self

A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.
~Unknown~

Some days are like that. Hearing my own song. It's like I am running around with my fingers in my ears, yelling, "LALALALALALA!"

Today, I hope someone sings for me.

MUST READ

Please go here.

Wanda has voted.

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for.

And the most you can do is live inside that hope.

~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams~

This is the first time I have been excited to vote.

Oregon has vote by mail, making it very easy to vote early. I love it. You can sit down at the table with your favorite beverage and friend, surround yourselves with voter's pamphlets and all the mail propaganda you have received and make your informed decisions in an intensely deliberative manner.

Take your time. No one is waiting in line for your particular booth.

Then you can drop you ballot in the mail and let the USPS do the rest. Or, as I did, you can go to one of many ballot drop off stations and...drop your ballot off. That's what I did.

As much as I love vote by mail, I also used to love the ritual of going to the polling place: standing in line with other citizens, signing my name, going into the little booth, returning my ballot to the election official, and hearing her say, "Wanda Tucker has voted," in a strong voice.

So, after dropping off the ballot and returning to the car, I always say, "Wanda Tucker has voted!" Somehow that makes the process complete.

Whatever method you have available to you...VOTE. Vote early. Vote often. Just vote. That's what I did. (Just kidding about the "often" part.)

Wanda Tucker has voted.

If love grew on trees...

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I wish these grew on trees:

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1) Love

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2) Hope

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3) Truth

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4) Integrity

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5) Fun

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6) Health

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7) Patience

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8) Peace

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9) Laughter

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10) Justice

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11) Mercy

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12) Equality

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13) Tolerance

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14) Prosperity

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15) Faith

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16) Faithfulness

I confess...

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I play the lottery. Not compulsively. I consider it a voluntary tax. Some good programs are funded with lottery dollars and I am willing to participate.

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The real reason I play?

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Hope.

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Someone is going to win. Some day, it could be me. I have a friend who says that "the lottery is a voluntary tax for people who don't know how to do math." Well, I know the odds, but I also know that if I don't play I won't win--even though my chances are not much higher if I do play.

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Hope.

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For a couple dollars a week, I buy dreams. I think about all the good I could do. Those vibes have to count for something. I must be putting good juju out into the universe with all of those positive thoughts.

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Tomorrow, I'll check my ticket. That's what I'm going to do.

The day's commute

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A couple years ago I was on the beach near Duke's Canoe Club on Kauai. Karen came down the beach with her groceries and her lunch. She sat and talked while she ate, telling us about the Oki Diner where she worked as a waitress. She came ashore from the sailboat where she lived to do a little shopping and was headed home to get ready for her shift at the diner. She paddled from the dock you see in the distance.
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Tough commute, huh?
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Justice on my mind

Justice is what love looks like in public.
~ Cornel West ~

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For some reason, justice seems to be on my mind lately and I run across quotes about justice almost every day. Maybe it is because...oh, I don't know...there's not enough of it?

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I want to believe that Life is Good. I want to wear it as a mantle--along with justice.

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It is up to us to see that justice happens. We can choose--not just "politics as usual" but what is true and just and right.

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Join me, will you? And when I stumble, please hold me to the higher order.

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That's what I'm asking you to do.

Response to Superhero Photo Challenge: Counter This

Superheroes are brave. They step out of their comfort zone. They do their best. Here's my first effort to meet the challenge:

Concept is sometimes better than composition:

Macaroons. What can I say?

Take the challenge. That's what I'd do.

The view from my office window today....

These actually go side by side. Like this:


Beyond the trees and leaves is a park. A pond for excess run off ebbs and flows during the rainy season and we watch the ducks and geese play there when the leaves fall off the trees in the winter.
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I'll keep you posted on the seasonal changes. They are really quite magnificent.

Love Thursday ~ 10.16.08

There is no justice we don't make daily like bread and love.
Marge Piercy

Heaven Help Us

(Painted Church ceiling on the Big Island of Hawaii)

If we had been holier people, we would have been angrier oftener.

John Templeton

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I watched the presidential candidates debate tonight.

Did anyone else notice how much time McCain spent talking about Obama (how bad he is, of course) and how little time he devoted to his own policies and plans (other than to say, "I know how to fill in the blank...")?

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Please vote.

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Like most people, I tend to hang out with people who agree with me politically. Probably most people who read my blog (both of you) agree with me, too. But whether you do or don't--Please...please vote.

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That's what I am going to do.

Things that are Green

• Bamboo leaves in my yard
• "Money, money, money...must be funny--in a rich man's world."
• My envy (much to my dismay)
• Pistachio pudding
• Braised chard
• "Green, green...it's green they say on the far side of the hill / Green, green, I'm going away to where the grass is greener still."
• Solar power
• My "Life is Good" shirt
• The jeans of the sidekick of Captain Kangaroo
• Lime
• "God didn't make little green apples, and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime..."
• My photographer status
• Artichokes

Flowers, St. Francis, and Javelinas (or peccaries, but not pecadillos)

I took this shot in the hot desert sun using the macro setting on my Canon PowerShot G5. It was okay, but not as sharp as I wanted it to be. So I went back the next day to try again. My plan was to use the manual focus and see if I could sharpen the picture, but when I went back to that spot, the flowers weren't looking so good.

Later I learned that the night before, a family of wild javelinas came to the center and dined at the feet of St. Francis. Oh, how I wish I could have shot that!

I think they ate the flowers.


That's what I would have done!

It was a week of textures.

In the desert, even when rain and color are absent, texture remains.
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Love Thursday ~ 10.09.08

(In the center of the labyrinth at the Franciscan Renewal Center in Paradise Valley, Arizona)

I love St. Francis. I am not Catholic, but I love the gentleness, lightness of spirit, and service that he is known for. So when I visit the Phoenix area, I go to the Franciscan Renewal Center to soak up the vibes and find some peacefulness in the middle of the desert.

There is a labyrinth there that I like to walk. Being in that flow, I feel I am in water, moving with the waves and tides. In the center of the circle, people often leave a token of their journey.

That's where I found this heart. This time, I didn't leave anything. Instead I took a photograph.

I went to the center and brought my creativity back out with me.

It's a good thing.

What I have learned recently

1. The aisle armrest on the airline seats lifts up if you know where the latch is.

2. Just because food is organic doesn't mean it is good.

3. Women connect. (I already knew that, but it always feels amazingly good to "re-learn" it.)

4. I truly can eat too many French Fries.

5. Laughing out loud in a coffee shop while wearing headphones attracts attention.

6. I love www.pandora.com.

7. Adventure is relative.

8. During Mercury retrograde, bloggers blog sporadically.

9. Google Maps isn't always right.

10. It is good to be home and sleep in my own bed.

11. I still love learning.

My favorite shot of the week

(Picture by me. All rights reserved 2008.)

I've been in Phoenix/Scottsdale this week. While I've been here, I am learning to use my digital camera. This is my favorite shot of the week.

(Once I figure out how to use the camera, my next learning experience will be a program for 'shopping the shots. This is the plain old, uncropped picture.)

I WON!

I won!

Thank you, Brene.

And, thank you, Kelly Rae Roberts~!