SUENOSDEUOMI'S RUMINATIONS: Suenosdeuomi

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More Good News

Democrats View Socialism More Positive Than Capitalism

57% of Democrats now view socialism positively

47 % of Democrats view capitalism positively

Good News

Rate Of Death Worldwide

1/4th of the 80th

1/7th of the 70th

Poverty

90% Lived In Extreme Poverty - 10% Now!

Survival

95% Less Likely To Be Killed Than 100 Years Ago.

Life Expectancy

30 Average - Past

71 Worldwide - Now

80 In Developed Nations

Education

90% Read & Write

under 25 worldwide

Good News

Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology Author,

on Real Time with Bill Maher 8.10.2018

Neil Young wrote his song Old Man for a guy just like Garrett, an old Ranch Hand that fixed and mended everything needed on a ranch. Almost 70 years old, he is too old to find work on a ranch, so he found a job at a hotel in downtown Santa Fe where they treat him well he said.

I loved that song in my youth in the seventies, when I had no idea how it originated and was barely able to comprehend the English words, but the feeling ...

March For Our Lives - Santa Fe

The tailend of a long line of protesters about to reach the plaza.

Hey-hey, ho-ho, the NRA has got to go!

Plenty of Pets

Glad that I left our aging Isabella-girl at home.

I did observe one tiny dog snapping at another exuberant tiny pup.

Comfort animals offered much needed emotional support

especially as we listened to New Mexican school kids

reading out loud the names & the ages of kids

victimized by gun violence.

I had tears in my eyes.

A 15-year-old girl that came over to sit with me on a bench

shared that a kid showed up at her school with a bomb - for the fun of it!

Since then she is scared. Only 3 more years before she can vote!

A girl sitting on the edge of a sidewalk, holding a huge sign that told her story
of a bomb scare at an airport that now has her scared going to school.
Yep, she confirmed to me she was afraid.
Shocking.
I never had to experience such fears, not growing up and not as an adult.
My generation, Boomers, failed these kids.
While we protested for peace,
we got discouraged by being ignored and did not push enough for change.
Loudest Silence in US Social Protest
Emma Gonzalez
6 Minutes 20 Seconds

We Call BS on your inactions. YES!

Ban Assault Rifles

If it were up to me, ban all weapons,

but having to accept the 2. amendment right

we will settle for a ban on assault-style weapons.

Military-style weapons do not belong in civilian hands.

No,

the majority don't want all weapons banned.

We want effective & enforced background checks.

We want the loopholes that allow for illegal gun sales blocked.

We want recent legislation reversed

that allows for those with mental disabilities to own guns.

Most important we want the see the political will in our politicians

to do what it takes to stem what amounts to a public health crisis,

gun violence.

We support further studies on the matter,

but not on cost of delaying legislative action NOW.

Yes, guns are weapons of destruction.

Guns kill.

Knives & cars can kill but are not designed for such,

are not as effective in killing as weapons are.

Guns are not toys.

Ownership of guns needs regulations.

Same as ownership of vehicles needs regulations.

Guns are fun for some,

I urge those to put their entertainment aside

in favor of safety for us all,

especially for our kids.

2016: NRA: $1,053,050 Total Contributions

$1,052,550 - 99.0% to Republicans

Top Republican Beneficiaries: Senator Marco Rubio & Ted Cruz

2018 NRA: $309,168 Total Contributions 97.7% to Republicans

Support Senator Sanders' current bill

S.2095 - Assault Weapons Ban of 2017

Bernie Sanders supported a ban on assault weapons since 1988!

Change The Culture - YES!

Slash the bloated military budget - YES!

Vote! Vote! Vote!

#MarchForOurLivesSantaFe

live via our Mayor Alan Webber @MayorWebber

#VoteThemOut - #VoteThemIn

Sumo Is Missed

Sumo's passing bewildered me. Witnessing death is powerful, so irrevocable, so final, such a demarcation of time before and after.

At first, his absence was palpable, it seemed to permeate our space.

I would glance at the spot in our home where he had passed on and felt - a spaciousness that I did not want to attach any quality to, it just was. It was odd, but it also felt sacred.

I got busy, seemingly intent on setting things in order and on demarcating time. Beddings got washed and remade for the three of us. The floor got moped, vet documents got reorganized, incense got burned and Isabella got to go out on the retractable lead frequently. This was one lead I ceased to use after I tumbled over my bike when I used the lead's handle to break my bike when an oncoming car had threatened to get too close to Sumo who was running alongside, about 9 years ago. I had worried about Sumo's unpredictability potentially threatening me on my bike, but Sumo was always good, on his perfect behavior when out and about with me. It was my own panic that had caused that fall.

Isabella loves the extra give on the retractable lead, this girl is all smiles when out and about and people notice. She gets quite a bit of attention if not given freely, she will ask for it, from strangers. Amazingly Isabella is just about as happy as she can be. She no longer lags behind, in order to allow for Sumo to take the lead. She knows where she wants to go and it is now up to me to adjust to let her have the lead after about a decade of my pups following me. That was our deal, I take them just about everywhere, but for them to come along, they had to follow ME. I have rarely gone anywhere without my pups over the last 11 years. So I struggle a bit with letting Isabella set the pace as this girl has got a good nose and likes to sniff endlessly in one spot. But watching my pups, they never got mad at each other for such things, they just adjusted to each other and to me. I struggle with getting irritated when the air is frigid, I want to reach a sunny spot but Isabella got her own agenda. It is a give and take and we are doing great on the whole. I have made it a point to give Isabella more attention, take her out a bit more often and to different places. I use our van more frequently on errands now so she can come along. Today Sunday, with parking free downtown, we made it to the plaza where we had not been in a while. Isabella knew exactly where she was and headed toward crossing the street to show up at Overland Sheepskin where they treat doggies very kindly. Bright eyes, waggly tail up, big grin she was waiting to get acknowledged and sure enough got a treat. I appreciate those friendly gestures from so many strangers that chose to notice this girl and be kind to her.

Meanwhile, when I open a banana or peel a tangerine I miss Sumo's bright, expectant eyes looking up at me in hopes to get a bite. Contemplating that I will never again ride my scooter with Sumo is tough. It is something I really loved. It is an image I had that propelled me to go look for a canine companion. One to take along on adventures.

Death has a way of peeling away what is nonessential and exposing what is or is not. I have been feeling my isolation as I feel the lack of emotional support in my life. The kindest response to my sharing of the news of Sumo's passing came from a supervisor at one of our grocery stores, a Dutch woman with whom years ago I would share the trails at our dog park on occasions. Maybe it is our common European background along with our similar age that allowed me to actually feel the authenticity of our interaction that soothed me like no other. Life goes on. Spring shows signs way too early for us up high at 7,000 feet. I hope of planting green grass over Sumo's burial site as Sumo loved grass, not just for self-medication but he seemed to truly enjoy eating some greens, so grass seems most befitting for his resting site.

Mellow Yellow

Steamed plantain with pan-fried tilapia made for a feast for me and made for special, hand-fed treats for my furry friends. To my surprise, this included our finicky kitty, who got the least contaminated (by my liberal use of turmeric and peppers) bits of fish. Tumeric turned the tilapia bright yellow, blending perfectly with the yellow of the plantain. There is something especially appealing about the color yellow in food for me. I love bananas and have to hide them out of my sight, or their cheerful yellowness will beckon to me. Canaries, golden yellow melons, hold a much stronger attraction for me than any of the other kind. There probably are deeper reasons to our attractions and our use of colors, even in food. Van Gogh's often interpreted use of yellow related to his physical and psychological health does come to mind. Whatever it may be, we enjoyed our monochromatic meal.

SUMO 12 Years Old

Today Sumo is 12 years old

which would make him 64 in human years.

My little guy caught up with me!

Yes, this year Sumo aged.

In March Sumo's Vet took an educated guess,

Cancer!

The vet did not expect him to live to June.

But here he is, still among us,

still curious and taking an interest.

But Sumo slowed down a lot,

sleeps a lot,

seems to conserve his energy

by sitting and waiting,

rather than moving and exploring.

My high-energy buddy,

that ran 12 miles in front of 10 dogs

now attempts half-hearted spurts after bunnies.

My formerly fearless guy now gets spooked easily.

The clanging of his bowl against the brick floor

will make him hesitant about approaching his food.

I got Sumo a big whole chicken as a present.

I boiled it, took off the meat and made the rest into a stew.

I offered smallish size portions through the day,

so I can check how he digests.

Today, I decided to add Isabella's supplement for joints, Connectin,

to Sumo's diet as I had observed an unfamiliar stiffness in his limbs.

Yesterday, we picked up another bottle of CBD oil

it seems to make a difference.

I sure wish we had more scientific research on the medical benefits,

but the anecdotal evidence seems overwhelmingly favorable.

Observing Sumo's changes made me sad - and glad he is still among us.

Taking shorter walks in less familiar places

I discovered this charming entry yesterday.

Back In The Saddle

Rode my Buddy, my scooter for the first time in 9 months, for the first time since a car bumped me from the back while riding down our main street, for the first time since my body got catapulted over the front end and splattered across the road. The incident was traumatic for me, even though it could have been so much worse in terms of physical harm. While my leg has not been the same, aches every day since and my mobility stays limited and a challenge, it is the psychological trauma of not having seen it coming, not having had any options to avoid the collision, of feeling victimized and somehow afraid that nope, the world is not a safe place.

Any sane person, of course, knows that driving, especially a scooter, in our local traffic in particular, is risky, to say the least. It is my sense of having tried my best to ride defensively - and having failed that has had a dampening effect on me. On top of that having been blamed, by a cop that came to the scene late, noticed scratches on the car and never even checked on my scooter or my helmet or my story. I suspect his quick judgment of faulting me was based on ageism. Older, white haired, confused lady failed to take precautions when attempting to change lanes. He was wrong, it still irks me.

I ride a scooter because I am European, because it is fun and economical, leaves a low carbon footprint and makes sense in our climate of 300 sunny days a year. Economics play though a big part. My scooter costs a fraction to insure and license and supposedly gets as much as 90 miles to the gallon. Compare that to my antique VW van's 12 miles a gallon around town.

So today, not even realizing it had been exactly 9 months since the accident, I got it together to find the envelope with the updated registration that had been sitting unopened for half a year, placed the updated sticker, stuck the needed documents in the compartment and got the engine to turn over without a complaint. Surprise, riding the scooter seemed easier than riding my bicycle. I managed to do my grocery shopping without an incident and got home in one piece eager to go back out again. I hope to regain my confidence and meet life with courage once more rather than shrink from it.

Foul Play!

My honeysuckle bush is haltingly attempting a second bloom after the earlier one, in Spring had gone awry due to another infestation of pests. Not often do I declare a living organism a pest but those ugly, mealy, whitish critters that destroy my pretty, red honeysuckle blossoms deserve such an ugly label. The invasions started a few years ago after maybe a quarter century of problem free existence for this honeysuckle bush. I gave ladybugs a try, but instead of feasting on those bugs, they wanted to mate and escape. I tried soaps of various kinds with limited success, alas, the pests came back this year again and mostly destroyed what should have been a glorious offering for all kinds of birds and bugs.

Now mid-summer a few new blooms emerged once more which gave me the pleasure of watching some hummingbirds hovering near, early this morning upon waking, while still in bed. But by mid-day, this gang of Sparrows had descended and flitted in, about and around. So I watched one of those tiny birds pick apart, methodically, gingerly, one petal after another petal from a singular, most beautiful blossom, not to feed on any of them, but to drop them, discard them, let go of them so as to mess up my outdoor living area. While doing so he and his buddies kept staring in one direction, east, checking on, I don't know what. Why pick apart pretty honeysuckle blossoms? I suspect that pretty, tiny bird, no matter how cute and innocent looking, was a hooligan intent on messing things up for the hummingbirds and for me. I cry foul!

Small Pleasures

I treated myself to a small pot of mini-roses, the kind that over several years filled up a big ceramic pot that over-wintered outside our entry. Those roses would come back into bloom year after year in surprising and delightful patches of colors, but our pot got stolen exactly one month ago. So here is to new beginnings.

Usually, I treat myself to another orchid this time of year, but I got this one early in June and it has been doing great and I sure hope it too will come back year after year like most of my orchids did.

No, I am not enraged, the painted rock is what I found placed on a natural rock among others in the middle of the Santa Fe river last year. It's the closest I got toward anything associated with a natural body of water on our special day today. I like this rock and I like the idea of setting our especially most challenging feelings at Buddha's feet for contemplating. Eventually, the time will come to pass on this gem for someone else to do with as they please.

A simply delicious spinach/feta quiche with a tossed salad was for lunch.

Pure & Simple

Odd to me, to be compared to a Daisy,

as my mentor Dwuno did, about 44 years ago

when she seen a seeming simplicity and purity in my nature

that reminded her of this most common flower, a Daisy.

Odd, since I had just started to discover via the expressive arts

my fascination and 'fatal attraction' with the power of the unconscious,

with the brilliance and complexity that lies within and beneath us all.

The correlation never made quite sense to me, but it clung to my mind

and was what compelled me to take these images yesterday.

Wall Of Love

"There’s been a lot of talk about building walls to divide us. Instead, we’re building a Wall of Love to bring us together. It’s a statement of how positivity, compassion, and connection overcome fear and hate."

This project brings out the creativity and enthusiasm of our diverse community: hundreds of people of all ages have joyfully joined together to create a dazzling Wall 50 feet long and 4 feet high that will be located on the fence outside the Railyard Performance Center (facing the Farmer’s Market).

Our big, beautiful Wall of Love is made up of 12″x12″ individually hand painted squares expressing what each person love, created at Wise Fool, Warehouse 21, Little Earth School, the Children’s Museum and Meow Wolf."