Jon Stewart Defends NEA, School Children From Republicans, Fox News (VIDEO)

Why are children singing a song about President Obama evil and children singing a song praising President Bush American?

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Going Home

After 60 days of being somewhere else, either a hotel room, a hospital room, a friend’s or relative’s house, I’m headed home.

For a little more than a week now, I’ve said “I’m heading home on Saturday.”  Or “I’m going home on the 19th.”  It wasn’t until I tried to write out the date, 9/19/09 that I realized how perfect it was that this was my going home date.

I was married on 1/19/91.  Now, another day of 9s sends me home again to be with Mike and the animals in our own house.   9/19/09 is also the beginning of Rosh Hashanah.  The new year.   A sign from the universe that I am ready; that this is the right decision.  At least it would be if I believed in signs and omens.  Okay, I do believe in them just a little; just enough to use them to support my decision when people ask me if I’m sure I’m ready.

Going home is the start of the next part of this adventure I’m having with cancer and illness and recovery.   I have had only one mission, only one responsibility these past 60 days:  get better.  I have created routines and patterns that support that mission.  Exercise, PT homework, yoga, water, water, water, good food, the company of good friends and lots of time with Mike and Rigley.  Lots of time with those that love and support me.   This is not the pattern I had before I knew I was sick.

I like this pattern better.  I like these habits more.

I am trepid about re-entering the world.  I still need the recovery habits:  I need to nap.  I need my friends and family.  I need sleep, yoga, exercise, PT homework.  But now I need to add the work of work and the work of being in my own house with my own responsibilities. God how I will miss someone else making my bed!

I do not want to fall back into the quagmire of  habits from my pre-surgery life.  I am not interested in 18 hour work days and never having time for my family and friends, let alone for taking care of myself.    I want to throw out all the stuff in my closets and drawers and cupboards that no longer serve me.  I want to strip down my possessions and my life to only those things that matter, that serve me now.

In my yoga practice, one of the intentions I say during breath work is, on exhale to say in my mind, I release what I don’t need.  On the inhale I say in my mind, I breath in what I need.   This intentional meditation is helping me see how much of what I do is no longer needed;  the old things, the old thinking, the old patterns to support my old life.  I don’t need them any more.  I am not that person any more.  In some cases I haven’t been that person for decades.  Yet the old thinking, the old physical stuff, is still part of my life.   I am still dragging it around, making room for it in my closets, my basement, my mind and my relationships.

So today I say to myself:  Shona Tova and wish my self a good and sweet year.

All coffees are not created equal

I live in Seattle and I’m a coffee snob.  Shocking, I know.  But I mean it in a way most people wouldn’t think.

Starbucks converted me from being OKAY with a cup of Folgers or McDonald’s on the go.  They made me question the premise that coffee was coffee.   But Costa Rica with its incredible coffee really sent the message home:  all coffees are not created equal.  Whether served in the little family-run shacks sitting alone along remote highways overlooking the jungles and the coffee fields or out of a thermos on the Pacuare, the coffee con leche blew our minds.

Starbucks influence was  the “oh god how can you drink this stuff” kind and the Costa Rica influence was “wow, I never knew a cup of coffee could be this good.” And that was said about the coffee con leche served at the Denny’s in San Jose next to our hotel!

I love coffee.  I barely function in the mornings until I have a cup.  It doesn’t even have to be a full cup, just a sip or two and a warm cup in my hand.  The ritual of making coffee is as important to waking up as the coffee itself, especially on the weekends.  But still, I’m a snob.

Right now I’m drinking a weak-a** cup made with left over coffee in my mother-in-law’s cupboard.  I ran out of my kind.  I almost cried when I saw the dried out, too-large grounds in the generic bag.  I knew it had come from one of those large bins where coffee sits for days losing its flavor, losing the wonderful oils that make the creme appear.  Losing whatever resemblance to coffee it once had.

But still, I boil water.  Put a brown-paper filter in the Milta cone.  Pour the coffee (strong please) in the cone.  Pour the organic 1/2 and 1/2 in the cup and wait.  Just before the boil I pull off the tea kettle, the pre-whistle sound dying as its removed from the heat.  I moisten the grounds.  Let the water pour through.  Then pour in more water to finish the cup.  Coffee.  But this time, a disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong I’ll drink it.   I’ll probably have two cups because that’s my pattern now since living with my mother-in-law these past months.  I wake up at 4:30 or 5:00.  Make coffee, take drugs, Facebook, email, eat a Nancy’s yogurt or a bowl of Shredded Wheat and head back to bed.   If I were home, the ritual would be different.  I’d barely get half a cup of coffee drank before I raced out the door to work.  I rather like this new ritual and I’ll be sad to leave it on Saturday when I get to go home.

But back to the coffee.  Starbucks, I’m sad to say, is in the I-will-if-I-have-to category.  For my taste, they over-roast their beans.  The subtleties and nuances lost.  Fortunately, they’re found on every corner and in most groceries stores so I’m saved from coffee withdrawal syndrome in an emergency, but it doesn’t really come close to itching that ‘ah’ spot for me.

But a good cup of coffee, crafted by a small-batch roaster from exceptional beans; that’s an aha moment

Mike and mostly get our coffee from CoffeeAM.  They offer coffees from around the world and the grace of each bean, the essence of the ground, the water, the sun where they grew fills the cup and the senses.  The steam alone from a cup of Sulawesi coffee is enough to jolt me into happiness.  It’s a near-religious experience.

I know everyone has their favorite and I’m all for that.  Whatever makes you happy, whatever gives you that aha moment in the first few minutes after rising, that’s the coffee for you.  For me, I’m going to beg Mike to bring over a bag of Guatemala Santiago Atitlan Fair-Trade coffee.  The 300 farmers in this volcanic region of Guatemala sun-dry the beans the old-fashion way.  They’ve planted  trees to provide shade for the coffee plants, which reforests the region and returns biodiversity to the area.  And makes great coffee.

Coffee matters.  A lot, as it turns out, at 5:24 in the morning.

Interview: Terry Gross and Max Blumenthal

Worth listening to.  An interesting discussion about the Republican right and their plan to delegitimize President Obama’s presidency.   Goes into the history of the rise of the extremists in the GOP and their current activities.

Listen to it here: Terry Gross

Max Blumenthal – “Republican Gomorrah” On Democracy Now

Interesting interview between Max Blumenthal and Democracy Now.  Interesting perspective on how the Republican Party went from Eisenhower to Palin.

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