My Santa Barbabyan

So a friend who is a second generation astrologist told us that King Ezra will be good with funds. In fact, he's off to an early entrepreneurial start and wants me to sell baby onesies. Of course, I will have to see what the rest of the world (or, at least Santa Barbara) thinks of his design. See Ezra modeling on this blog! Not bad for a 5 month old, eh?

Other babies are, by now, rolling over, enjoying tummy time, breaking teeth and doing a whole host of other things. Ezra just seems to want to play, chill and make cooing and car sounds. The competitive, irrational part of me is getting drawn into the comparison game. Why isn't my little man rolling over yet? But all the books say babies do things when they want to, not when mom and dad, or other books want them to. Ezra's smile and active reaching hands are another buddha baby reminder that all things happen when they are meant to happen.

On his first Summer Solstice Parade, Ezra did manage to stay happy the entire day. Mom even got away to the beer garden. How's that for a five month benchmark? I know I'll get grief for that last sentence!

Developed Nation Guilt

How do you stay positive and upbeat in life AND stay informed about world events? It seems the two are contradictory, yet I know plenty of well-informed, happy people. I imagine that each one of you has a personal philosophy that keeps the news just out of reach of your soul, and that you protect your soul with a special potion of kindness, that radiates out to protect you, sort of like anti-oxidents fighting off free radicals. Speaking in nutritional terms, if we all had a diet of daily news alone, we would be withering in darkness and shame.

My baby teaches me daily about the importance of being in the moment and appreciating all you have. Even when he's upset, it is an honor to hold him and cherish him. I am in this beautiful bubble of love, and I feel the community I live in is an extension of that bubble, somehow protected from the atrocities I read about in the paper. Yes, bad things have happened to me, to my friends, to my family, in my community. We will never be free of sadness and heartbreak, but most everyone I know is in the privileged top 20% of the world population, where food, shelter and a source of income have never been in question.

Perhaps this ramble is about developed nation guilt. Is there such a thing? You know you have it all, and yet you want more, and you feel guilty, because you know how extremely lucky you are already? Yet, compared to those around you, you are considered lower middle class on an economic scale, so you strive for greater things. If this is a disease, I have it.

So, what is the cure? Perhaps living your life to the fullest and accomplishing as much as you can, because you have the privileged position to do so. And giving back.

Big Brother Ventures Out into the world

This is not about an Orwellian world. Rather, about my real flesh and blood big brother. A renewed interest in God led him on a 6 day trip into the rural depths of Haiti where he volunteered at an orphanage with a group of fellow parishioners. This past weekend, I visited him with my cousin in law and we ended up his captive audience for a slide show with over 300 pictures. Images of major urban decay, and the decay of the flesh from aggressive parasites on many beautiful Haitian children and adults they treated flashed up on the screen, along with pictures of children wishing to be adopted. Supposedly, you can adopt these children for $5000 each. You can also pay for one year of education for one child, which includes a hot meal every day for $100 a year. Talk about a different economy.

It wasn't all despair. My brother asked the orphans to dance for the camera. At first reluctant, they moved shyly, slowly. Then, after seeing the instant playback, they morphed into happy children with broad smiles all wiggling and waving. He also taught them how to make a silly batmanesque mask over their eyes using their hands. Directors and orphans alike all posed with this mask, as if it was a local custom.

I asked him if the experience changed him. He didn't really have an answer. He knew the work was hopeless in a way. All those infected with worms would most likely just get reinfected. The poverty is rampant, as is the prevalence of AIDS. Yet, he fell in love with the people, who he described as beautiful and innocent. If they live with hope, then anyone can drum up a dose of hope in their lives.

Way to go big brother.

Vicarious Happiness

Today, I pulled some siteplans off the web for inspiration and sat down with my colored pencils and started to sketch out my ideal community. It included lots of green and blue not so much tan, peach and gray. In other words, lots of open space and water features and not so many buildings and paved surfaces. There was a garden large enough to feed 35 people--my maximum human count for an eco community where you know everyone, rather than just nod at them from a distance--a safe level of intimacy without overcrowding. My design has a common house, a large vegetable garden, citrus orchards, two herb gardens, a water tower, small barn with chicken coop and a bee keeping area. There are enough buildings to house 12 families, from 2 to 4 people each (roughly 35 people). Half of these homes are over store fronts, so that the community has an external revenue source and central access to basic sundries. I imagine pods of such communities connected together, each specializing in production of one or two items that neighboring communities would like to purchase or trade. "How many acres?" you might ask. "What is the average square feet of the homes?" I have no idea. I'm not a landplanner. In fact, I don't even have the landscape in which to lay my plans. But like the Beatles "I've got a driver, and that's a start", its in my imagination, and in my coloring book, and that's worth something.

Speaking of worth something and ideal community, two dear friends just purchased a home in Maine. One sibling and his partner will live upstairs and the couple with their baby will live downstairs--a tiny community of sorts. Both couples are so loving and great, that I am overjoyed for them! The two story home the size of a medium mansion in Santa Barbara is a mere $199,000 in Maine. Why am I still here? Oh yeah. The beach, the people, the ecological mindedness of so many residents. I digress. It feels so good to be happy for my friends! I can't say that I always revel in my friend's accomplishments. I'd like to claim to be so selfless, but its not always the case. I wonder what makes it easy to appreciate some people's successes and not others? It must be the dynamic of each relationship. Here's to experiencing happiness in everyone else's accomplishments.

Elizabeth Kolbert & my Friends

I arrived at the lecture excited to hear an author speak about a book that I had actually read in time. The book in question, Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert, was not a light work of fiction, but a thoroughly researched presentation of studies across the planet stongly indicating human caused climate change--a grave topic. Yet as I located my seat saving poet friend in her bright neon cycling jacket, a little wave of excitement went through me like what you experience when meeting up with friends for a party, or a much anticipated film. Big Bill was there, Dan the Man, the great Earl of SB, I'm not one to George and many others. It was down right festive--especially because this cross section of friends all have concerns about global warming and do things like ride their bikes, buy bio diesel vehicles, grow vegetable gardens, host Moveon.org parties and write letters to congress.

By the end of the evening, the small group of 800 attendees probably felt little party in the atmosphere. When asked what we should do to stop global warming, Kolbert indicated it may already be too late, but to really address the issue, we could start by not just reducing our use of automobiles, but by ceasing driving altogether! Plus, we'd need to cut our energy consumption by 80 percent. She admittedly left this opinion out of the book, as she knew the alarmist sound of such statements would ensure sluggish sales. So basically, we're all scorpions on the back of that frog crossing the river--we want to change, but its just not in our nature to let go of our energy consumption patterns--and like that scorpion who stings the frog, leading to its own death, we too are on that path.

Boy I hope the next lecturer at UCSB has some fresh, optimistic ideas!

But of course, I actually am one to believe there is always hope. How else could I have had a child in this day and age?

I'll

Favorite Quote of The

My favorite quote this particular time period between blog entries is from George:

". . . Classy Fred Blassie, who seems to have been the Dick Cheney of wrestling--he even was rumored to have filed his incisors down to points (in Cheney's case, that makes it easier to eat puppies)."

No I already knew I didn't like Dick Cheney, but now that I've learned that he is also a puppy eater, my disdain has deepened!

I hope to have favorite quotes on a weekly basis, but of course, that would mean I have to actually make an entry every week, and perhaps even more often than that, so my blog isn't just about other's thoughts.

A week without the Internet

Moving to a new place can present its challenges, but technology dependency has raised the bar in challenge impact. For instance, our new home is located next to a large hill, and although this hill is beautifully covered in untamed vegetation that is relaxing to gaze upon from our back yard, we have terrible cell phone reception! So, since we're of the ilk that abandoned the land line in favor of having low doses of RF* beamed at our heads on a daily basis, I now miss most of my phone calls. In addition, we took our time transferring our cable internet connection from old abode to new--thus another level of technological isolation! How am I to know what my friends are doing, blogging, thinking, reading? I can't call, I can't e, I've lost any intuitive abilities, such as those ascribed to the aboriginals in Mutant Message (of course this happened long before cell phones and internet), and to top it all off, the LA times didn't get my change of address notification because I forgot and I couldn't get online, and . . .

It was really terrible. I had to read books, play with by baby more, unpack my boxes uninterrupted by my life as I know it, and life as it is filtered to me through media. Hmmm . . . perhaps I enjoyed this low tech experience.

*RF, Radio Frequency. Exposure limits are set by the FCC for cell phones, using a measurement called a Specific Absorption Rate, or SAR, which measure sthe rate of absoprtion of RF energy by the human body expressed in units of watts per kilogram. The safety limit for a human is 1.6 watts per kilogram. I wonder how many kilograms my baby weighs and what is his SAR of RF. Perhaps its a good thing our new home has poor reception.

Signing Off.