More Peace

"May every sunrise hold more promise

 and every sunset hold more peace... ."

~Umair Siddiqui

Heartwork

By Suzy Kassam

Each day is born with a sunrise

and ends in a sunset, the same way we

open our eyes to see the light, 

and close them to hear the dark.

You have no control over

how your story begins or ends.

But by now, you should know that

all things have an ending.

Every spark returns to darkness.

Every sound returns to silence.

And every flower returns to sleep

with the earth.

The journey of the sun

and moon is predictable.

But yours, 

is the ultimate

ART."

 Leaf Of The Day

October 12th 2016

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

 

Art About Town: San Francisco "Large Four Piece Reclining Figure"

 "Large Four Piece Reclining Figure."

Henry Moore

1973

"Everyone has their own ways of expression. I believe we all have a lot to say, but finding ways to say it is more than half the battle."

~Criss Jami

Salome: In Every Inch In Every Mile

It's been such a long time since I posted a new entry to my series, Art About Town, so while I was in San Francisco last Saturday, I just had to capture at least one piece of public art for the blog! Public art is everywhere in San Francisco, which is one of the reasons I love it there so much! This particular piece is by Henry Moore, and it sits on the corner of Van Ness and Grove streets, near the Civic Center. It's bronze, and there are seven casts of this piece located around the world. I am planning to do some additional photos of this piece, hopefully before the end of autumn. When I do, I will update the group in my Flickr Public Art album so you can see the additional photographs! 

Leaf Of The Day

October 11th, 2016

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

 

Thoughts On A Zombie Apocalypse

"Do what you love and the zombies will follow."

~Jesse Petersen

Flip This Zombie

Look closely at this photograph. It's very late in the day, the sun is setting, and their appears to be a lot of people walking about on the beach. Ocean Beach to be exact. But what's the story? Are they just live human people, enjoying a really warm evening at the beach, after a day of watching the Blue Angels? Or are they zombies wandering aimlessly about the beach, in search of brains? Well, I think we all know it's the first scenario, but in my silly, sarcastic imagination, I see the victims of the impending zombie apocalypse, caused by the Donald Trump presidency!

I don't like feeling this way... well... not really! But sometimes I wonder how anyone could possibly support a man who spouts lie, after lie. Admit on a hot mic... to anyone that would give him attention... that he engages in sexual assault of women. Admit that children are a nuisance, align with brutal dictators, cheat hard working contractors out of money for services rendered. Admit cheating on his current wife. Call women PIGS, DOGS, and SLOBS. Cheat students by taking their money in a fraudulent university scheme. Engage in housing discrimination. And threaten to use the office of the presidency to carry out his own personal vendettas!

Have folks brains already seized up? Or has the zombie apocalypse already begun, and we just don't know it yet, because the news has been filled daily with yet another stupid story involving the man-child known as Donald Trump? I was looking at that amazing sunset last night, as we drove along the coast, and instead of focusing on how beautiful that sunset was, I couldn't help but wonder what exactly it was I was looking at, because lately, I can't tell. Maybe I am just politically weary. Maybe after we vote in November, my brain will see things clearer. 

I sure hope so!

How about you? 

Do you feel like you see things clearly right now?

 Leaf Of The Day

October 10th, 2016

Mood: Amused/Terrified

~Me :)

 

Stronger Together

"Only by binding together as a single force

 will we remain strong and unconquerable."

~Chris Bradford

The Way Of The Dragon

It was a beautiful day in San Francisco yesterday! And an especially beautiful day to enjoy the Blue Angels, as the buzzed above the San Francisco bay! I love October in San Francisco, but lets face it, I love any day I get to spend in my favorite city! But in case you have any doubt about how lovely it was, or how exciting the air show went, just take a look at the pictures below! I work hard on them, and I am exhausted, but I am so happy with how they came out!

See what I mean?

While watching those amazing pilots, flying above us at super fast speed and precision, I couldn't help but think about Hillary Clinton, and the slogan of her presidential campaign... "Stronger Together!"

It's such a refreshing thought. Bringing us back together. All of us! No one left out because they are a girl, or republican, or democrat, or single, or married, or christian or muslim, or for any reason! 

REAL UNITY!

The last time we really had a strong sense of unity, was in the days and weeks after September 11th, 2001. It took a national tragety to remind us, we are all Americans, and we embraced it, but not nearly long enough. When we get through this election, lets try to regain that sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. Let's be friends.

We are ALL AMERICANS!

America is GREAT, and ALWAYS HAS BEEN!

Let's embrace our shared values!

Let's be friends.

Stronger... Together!

I love my San Francisco!

 And I can't wait to spend more time here this month! 

Stay Tuned!

 Leaf Of The Day

October 9th, 2016

Mood: Happy

~Me :) 

All You Really EVER Need To Know About Donald Trump

"You know, it really doesn't matter what the media write

 as long as you've got a young, and beautiful piece of ass."

                                                                          

 ~Donald J Trump

Marie Claire Magazine

Donald Trump, The Man Behind The Mouth

October 4th, 2016

 

Leaf Of The Day

October 8th 2016

 

Mood: PISSED OFF

~Me :)

 

What About Breakfast At Tiffany's?

 "To live is the rarest thing in the world.

 Most people exist, that is all."

~Oscar Wilde

I have always love Breakfast At Tiffany's. I have always been just a little jealous of Holly! She lived her life, the way she wanted! Most of society turned their noses up at Holly Golightly, but Holly didn't care! Lucky her. Don't get me wrong, I have pretty much lived the life I wanted, and made the choices I wanted, and lived moment to moment at times, but I never learned to not carry the opinions of others along with me! Why have I let others tell me NO? Or YOU CAN'T! Or SHAME ON YOU! Or my personal favorite, TOO BAD YOU NEVER LIVED UP TO YOUR POTENTIAL, because I wasn't interested in a career.

Why did I care about what they think?

The ones who didn't have to live my life?

I don't anymore! But thinking about my upcoming tests

 has me a bit contemplative I suppose. 

What will a positive cancer test mean?

It will mean a significant change in my life, and different opportunities that I would choose voluntarily I suppose.

 People go through it every day.

 Death is a door we will all go through one day. 

Shrug.

I think at the moment I want to go through the rest of my

 life just like Holly.

On my own terms.

Not giving a flying...ahem...fuck.

And in the end... being vulnerable... but strong enough to admit it!

Leaf Of The Day

October 7th, 2016

Mood: Quiet But Okay

~Me :)

 

Waiting...

Leaf Of The Day

October 6th, 2016 

"And I will wait for you like the leaves for their rain..."

~Avijeet Das

Just the Leaf Of The Day today. I am tired. But it will pass.

I know it will!

Mood: Quiet

 

~Me :)

 

 

The Non Surprise Of October

"One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

~Plato

As I said in yesterday's post, the vice presidential debate probably won't sway the poll numbers too much, and I still believe that's true. My take on the 90 minute debate is this... Mike Pence acted like a career politician. He stopped short of supporting Donald Trump on some key issues, and flat out lied the rest of the time. Not a huge surprise! He probably made the more conservative wing of the republican party, the ones who still grasp onto both intelligence and at least a small amount of social decorum, feel better about the Trump/Pence ticket! Yes, there is at least one adult on the ticket!

Tim Kaine did a fine job of representing Hillary Clinton and had no obvious missteps. In fact, he did his best to remind both Pence and the American viewing audience of Donald Trump's words. I think he came across as likeable, but passionate, exactly what I expected! But it will be 24 hours or so before some of the scientific results are in, so we will see then if this had any real effect on things.

One thing I do know, the one quote I believe that will be talked most about between now and the next presidential debate on Sunday will be the one by Mike Pence, towards the end of the debate...

"You've whipped out that Mexican thing again."

~Mike Pence to Tim Kaine

In response to Time Kaine, regarding 

the Trump/Pence stance of immigration.

Sigh.

Republicans?

Leaf Of The Day

October 5th, 2016

Mood: Quiet

~Me :) 

One Chance... Thought's On A Vice Presidential Deabte From A Political Junkie

"The first duty of a man is to think for himself."

~Jose Marti

The one and only Vice Presidential Debate takes place tonight. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia will face Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana. As a democrat, and a self described politics and news junkie, I was well aware of him and his record in Virginia. He has served as a City Councilman, Mayor, Lieutenant Governor, Governor, and Senator. While Mike Pence has been a Congressman and Governor. Both men have served their respective parties, apparently to the satisfaction of their constituents. Although Governor Pence ruffled some feathers a while back in his home state. You can learn about it for yourself here. I don't need to throw in my two cents, you can probably guess by now how I feel about things. 

What I am thinking about today, is really about how it's a fine line that a vice president walks, when it comes to their own personal stands on issues that sometimes contradicts or at least perhaps doesn't quite match the stands of the people they agree to support. In this case, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. As a democrat, I have learned a lot more about Tim Kaine, then I have about Mike Pence, it's just the nature of things. As much as I love politics, and I do, I simply can't learn every detail, about every politician in America! So, I have spent a little time getting to know who Mike Pence is. And what I found suprised me!

As much as he supports Donald Trump, he has veered away from some of Trump's most controversial decisions, such as choosing to release his personal tax returns, while Donald Trump will have none of it. I can admire that. He is a better spoken individual, choosing his words more carefully, and he shows no real sign of the off putting bombastic behavior of Trump! What he does do is follow behind Trump with a broom, sweeping away the stupid lies Trump tells himself, and his supporters. He seems to be quite the spin artist, and I find myself feeling sorry for him, more than I do most of the other spin artists that serve at the pleasure of Trump. What choice does he have? Someone has to try to make Trump make sense!

Tim Kaine is... well... rational. He is well spoken and he manages to support Clinton with a easy, non-forced assurance of a man comfortable with his choices. I don't always get that from Pence. But I don't feel like I can really blame that on Pence, because Trump has been a hand full even for his most ardent supporters and surrogates. I don't think Trump/Pence are on the same level as Clinton/Kaine when it comes to political theory. There are differences, but their support is unwavering, and Kaine has had to do little in the way of sweeping up after Clinton's gaffs. 

I think tonight will be the meeting of two career politicians, both talented in their own ways, and both more than capable to behaving like the adult men they are. Here is the difference... if Mike Pence comes out, and sticks to the issues without lunging into a Trump-like tantrum, like the one Trump threw at the first debate, will it move voters to the Trump side? And what will Kaine do to set himself apart from Pence to strengthen the poll numbers for Hillary Clinton? 

I don't know.

We won't know until later tonight I guess. Right now I think Tim Kaine has the clear edge. Nationwide Hillary is enjoying a 5 point lead over Trump, mostly because of Trump's personal emploding. Fat shaming beauty queens at 3 in the morning. Taking pot shots at Rosie O' Donnell. Hinting that she has been unfaithful to Bill Clinton, you know the laundry list. But Pence hasn't really engaged in this behavior, he is simply the clean-up man. It's not a great way to think of a potential future vice president, but what can I do? That is what's happening, and Trump only has himself to blame for that perception.

We'll see.

 Leaf Of The Day

October 4th, 2016

Fun Fact: Tonight's debate is being held in Farmville,Virginia. My mother's hometown!

Mood: Hopeful

~Me 

A Little Bit Of This, A Little Bit Of That

Leaf Of The Day

October 3rd, 2016 

 

"Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity; but it is also breadth and depth and distance. 

What man can stand with autumn on a hilltop and fail to see the span of his world and the meaning of the rolling 

hills that reach to the for horizon?

~Hal Borland

The world was a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, this past weekend! Saturday Alan and I took a short ride to the East Bay, where I did a bit of leaf photography under one of my favorite trees in Cull Canyon, while Sunday was spent watching football on TV with my guy, while the outside showed the first real signs that the earth has finally, finally, turned from treacherous summer, to chilly days, with hints of soft rain! You know, all the things that just make my heart sing! I can't wait for the first baked sweet potato of the year, covered in butter and cinnamon! And in just a couple short weeks we will finally reach our vacation, and with a little luck, we will finally get back to Plumas! I like when life is a little of this, and a little of that!

Don't you?

:)

 "Come said the wind to the leaves one day;

Come o're the meadows and we will play,

Put on your dresses scarlet and gold,

For summer is gone

and the days grow old."

~Children's Song 1880

Mood: Quiet

Me :)

I Am In Love

Leaf Of The Day

October 2nd, 2016 

"Autumn is here

and I am in love.

My heart has taken residence in my mind.

I pick the crisp ochre leaves

and put them in my pocket.

I am in love."

~Kamand Kojouri 

I love this season. And the first day of October was perfect!

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

October, My Favorite Month

 Leaf Of The Day

October 1st, 2016

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there Octobers!"

~L.M. Montgomery

 Anne Of Green Gables

 October is finally here! It's my favorite month. It brings pumpkins and heirloom tomatoes. It brings shorter days, and allows me to finally put back on my favorite sweaters and sweater dresses! It has spooky movies to get me into the mood for Halloween, and October, particularly the later part of the month, is when the Dogwoods usually begin to bloom, but to my delight, this year, the Dogwood trees are celebrating a little earlier than usual. So, it's my delight to display some on Ellipsis early this year!

Magical things happen in autumn. This autumn will be challenging, with the presidential race, so unpredictable, and leaves smiling early, and of course, my upcoming test. I am thankful for the leaves to take my mind off of the frightening me. This season understands me, I really believe that, so I am trusting it to carry me through!

I love living in a world with Octobers!

Mood: Quiet

~Me :)

The Last Smiles Of The Year On Tawny Leaves

Leaf Of The Day

September 30th, 2016 

"Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical description extant of autumn... that season peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness... that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling."

~Jane Austin

Persuasion

 I loved jumping in big piles of leaves when I was a little girl! And I loved going leaf hunting in my yard. I could find all kinds of leaves and colors I didn't know existed! We had a huge Maple tree, with giant leaves, and I just loved everything about that tree. One day, my parents took me aside, and told me that the tree would have to come down. Well, as you might guess, that did not go over well! Gosh, I cried for days, and I swear I felt the pain of each branch as the saw went through it! My friend was being murdered before my very eyes! A living breathing soul was being tortured to death! And it was my parents who ordered the hit!

Life was terribly unfair! 

That was my first lesson about how just unfair life really is. Since then I have had much harsher lessons, and some humorous ones as well, about how sometimes things just have their time. Saying goodbye for me is always bittersweet. Like Autumn. It's been called the last beautiful blast of the year, and of course, it is. I guess that's why I have always felt that, no matter how the rest of the year went, autumn always deserves to be appreciated! I have been jumping in big piles of leaves for 50 years or so, and I don't plan to stop any time soon. And this leaf, in the picture above, is from the front yard of my own home, that coincidently, is the same age as me! Sometimes I like to think that the trees knew I was coming here one day!

Silly. I know.

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

Leaf Of The Day For September 29th, 2016

"We know that in September we will wander

 through the warm winds

  of summer's wreckage.

We will welcome summer's ghost."

~Henry Rollins

Mood: Quiet But Happy

~Me :)

All I Need To Know

"Fear is always with us,

 but we just don't have time for it.

 Not now."

~ Hillary Clinton

Living History

There was a video 9 years ago, that was so endearing, so perfect, that it sealed how I felt about Hillary Clinton as a leader, and how I saw her as a potential president. I have thought about that video many times over the years. It was a tongue in cheek parody of the Sopranos. It ended similar to the Sopranos ended, with us choosing the outcome. And the rest you know. But it's been difficult, especially in the hardest times, not to look back and wonder what might have been. 

So, here we are, a couple days after the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and while most outlets give her the debate by a wide margin, I wake up to find that Trump supporters have engaged in silly shenanigans by rigging non scientific online polls to unfairly project Donald Trump the winner. It's stupid. It's petty. And it doesn't fool anyone. Mostly, at least for me, it just makes me sad.

Hillary prepared for the debate. Donald Trump didn't. It's a part of history now, but to see the continued refusal of his supporters to call him on his lies, misogyny, or any of his ridiculous behavior just hurts my heart. When did that kind of behavior become acceptable? When did we give up on the truth? On civility? On rational thinking? On manners? On each other?

 I don't think the debates to come will do much to sway voters. If you don't know by this point how you feel, then you are incapable of knowing what you want for breakfast. I doubt I will post many more posts specifically about politics, at least until close to the election. It takes too much out of me. I can't keep hurting myself on a daily basis by drowning in the negativity of this election season. The harshest, saddest, most frightening of my lifetime. I have my mind made up. I decided 9 years ago when Hillary ran the first time, that she was what we needed then, and she still is!

This told me all I need to know about Bill and Hillary Clinton.

 

Leaf Of The Day

September 28th, 2016

Mood: Quiet

~Me 

Bite Me!

"After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels!"

~Governor Ann Richards

I am so proud of our next president, Hillary Clinton. She faced the big orange menace, Donald J. Trump, at the debate, with class, panache, style, intelligence, knowledge, facts, and a fierce toughness that will inspire a new generation of little girls to grow up and become great women! More will choose their paths with confidence, because of her efforts to finally break that glass ceiling! 

I wonder how might life might be different right now, had we had our first woman president a couple of generations before I was born? I think I was probably born into the last generation where there was still a condescending snicker, when the thought of a woman president was mentioned. Don't get me wrong, I knew I could be a lawyer or doctor, I knew I could study political science and run for some public office when I was a young woman, but I took a different path, and I have never regretted it, but I wonder sometimes if I had gone down that other road, how far I would have gotten before the misogyny scared me away from my own goals?

 I faced my fair share of it, when I worked as a draftsman for a title company, and it was difficult! It, at times, made me not want to go to work. I mourned my job when that company downsized and turned my position over to the bosses brother, but I never missed the treatment I would get from some of the men I worked with! After I got married I wanted to stay home and be a wife  and mother because I longed for a real family unit I didn't get to have as a child, but don't think for a minute the men of the world didn't have a little more condescension left for whatever woman crossed their path! I faced misogyny just a couple years ago when I went to purchase my car! The first thing out of a car salesman's mouth to a woman should never be... "what color would you like?" There is no need to dwell on how well that deal went. We'll just say, that salesman learned really quick who he was dealing with!

But back to Hillary! Her handling of Donald Trump at the first presidential debate was masterful! She is one more step closer to the White House, where she will be our next president, and I will be damn proud to see the race called for her! And I will be damn happy to see this long election finally over, although I have a feeling the men of this world who find strong, capable women threatening, will ramp up the misogyny. I hold no real hope that as a woman, I will suddenly be treated better, but I can hope that as we heal as a nation from the many things that leave us shattered, we will heal, and one day, I won't have to worry about being treated like I don't know a red car doesn't get better gas mileage then a green car does!

 Leaf Of The Day

September 27th 2016

Mood: Encouraged

~Me :)