Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween

Nothing fancy just want to wish you all a very scary Halloween. Think of the dead and think of the future. That's what this night is for according to tradition. Could even say happy New Year for all you Celts out there.

P.S. Miss Deb hope you celebration is a great one.

Susan

Friday, October 30, 2009

One word blog

ONE WORD.........As requested, here it is.......:-)............. Lets see how honest Multiply friends are...leave a ONE WORD comment that you think best describes me. It can be only one word. No more. Then copy and paste this on your page so I may leave one word about you

Kathy said to do this so I am. Thought it was a cute idea. so have at it.

Susan

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

No longer a Nicotine Addict

I can't remember how long ago it was that I decided I would tell you all how I was going to quit smoking. Months at least.

Well it didn't work. that time.

Now thanks to a most wonderful book, I can say that I am happily no long a smoker. Last nite I celebrated my third week of no smoking. After three weeks all the nicotine that was ever in your body is gone. I am the happy non smoker and I will never be a smoke again. I know this for a fact.

the wonderful book I read is titled " The Easy Way to Stop Smoking".

My dear friend Scott gave this to me after he quit. I know you will laugh at the Easy Way if you have tried but I tell you that after reading this book it is easy.

When I choose to put out my last cigarette (9PM that Monday evening three weeks ago) I knew it would be forever, actually he tells you to keep smoking while you read the book and before I got it finished I wanted to quit so bad I just couldn't wait to finish the book.

I know you are questioning how this is possible but take my word for it and if any of you want to quit smoking and couldn't do it, like me, then give this book a read. It might take two, maybe even three reads, depending on how bad you are, but believe me if you want to stop it will work.

The Easy Way to Stop Smoking

By Alan Carr

Do it, its great. I am the happy happy non smoker, I do not feel deprived and the withdrawal was really no big deal. I am so healthy right now, I feel great, have tons of energy. I forgot what this felt like.

Oh and I only gained 4 pounds and have lost 2 of them all ready.

Susan

Poetry Wednesday/Sylvia Plath

 

The Ghost's Leavetaking


Enter the chilly no-man's land of about
Five o'clock in the morning, the no-color void
Where the waking head rubbishes out the draggled lot
Of sulfurous dreamscapes and obscure lunar conundrums
Which seemed, when dreamed, to mean so profoundly much,

Gets ready to face the ready-made creation
Of chairs and bureaus and sleep-twisted sheets.
This is the kingdom of the fading apparition,
The oracular ghost who dwindles on pin-legs
To a knot of laundry, with a classic bunch of sheets

Upraised, as a hand, emblematic of farewell.
At this joint between two worlds and two entirely
Incompatible modes of time, the raw material
Of our meat-and-potato thoughts assumes the nimbus
Of ambrosial revelation. And so departs.

Chair and bureau are the hieroglyphs
Of some godly utterance wakened heads ignore:
So these posed sheets, before they thin to nothing,
Speak in sign language of a lost otherworld,
A world we lose by merely waking up.

Trailing its telltale tatters only at the outermost
Fringe of mundane vision, this ghost goes
Hand aloft, goodbye, goodbye, not down
Into the rocky gizzard of the earth,
But toward a region where our thick atmosphere

Diminishes, and God knows what is there.
A point of exclamation marks that sky
In ringing orange like a stellar carrot.
Its round period, displaced and green,
Suspends beside it the first point, the starting

Point of Eden, next the new moon's curve.
Go, ghost of our mother and father, ghost of us,
And ghost of our dreams' children, in those sheets
Which signify our origin and end,
To the cloud-cuckoo land of color wheels

And pristine alphabets and cows that moo
And moo as they jump over moons as new
As that crisp cusp toward which you voyage now.
Hail and farewell. Hello, goodbye. O keeper
Of the profane grail, the dreaming skull.

Upon her birthday

Enjoy

Susan

use this link to get to the poetry tour

http://lauritasita.multiply.com/journal/item/1528/Poetry_Wednesday_Sign_in_and_take_the_tour

Monday, October 26, 2009

TEACH TOLERANCE

Looking For Autumn and Finding Winter




My good friend Barbara came up from Phoenix last week and we headed up to Flagstaff to find us some foliage. As you can see we did find some beautiful aspens on the way up to the San Francisco Peaks. Flag is very famous for it's aspens. Well when we got to the Snow Bowl which is where the ski lifts start, half way up the Peaks we discovered Winter. The temp was about 30 something, it was lightly snowing and there was snow on the Peaks.
It was just so wonderful I found myself speechless. Barbara and I couldn't have been happier. What a great day.
Eventually we had to go back down to warmer climes but the cold still is with me. Now I know where to go this year when I want real winter .

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Art Sunday

These works are by Louis Mason who lives in Arizona and his work is considered Outsider Art. What ever it is I just love it.

I am tucking his work all over the place because I don't remember how to do the HTML: stuff. Later

Susan

Friday, October 16, 2009

Happy Feral Cat Day

Multiply wouldn't let me print the page I wanted because it was in Java script.

I will have to tell you on my own about the wonderful orgaization , Alley Cat Allies ,that helps feral kitties. Then I will give you their web site link and I hope you will visit.

These people are all about spay neuter and release. Also about finding these poor babes good homes and of course getting volunteers to get out there and round up those homeless feral kitties. So if you can help in any was it would be a good thing.

http://www.alleycat.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=191&srctid=1&erid=5884732

thanks for listening

Susan

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Out Of Africa




This is a place down the road ten minutes from my house. As you can see it holds many animals. These animals were all rescued from some horrible fate. The white rhino no picture was rescued from a canned hunt. Where they chain the animal and someone just walks up and shots them. Nice huh? Any way, some rich guy who saw the rhino bought him from the canned hunt people and then asked Out of Africa if they would take care of him for life. So is the story of all the animals here.
Out of Africa was origionally located in Phoenix, but it was just too hot for the animals and the lease, and well you know all those storie. Thankfully they decided that this was the place to be. It really does look a lot like the Serangeti.
As soon as they relocated all the people in the towns around here adopted them, volunterred to help get the place up and running. It has just been great. I have been there 3 times. Everytime a new guest comes to their new home. This time it was the new baby Zebras, who where born there. I could go on but it is easier for me to give you the web site.
Enjoy
http://www.outofafricapark.com/

DENIAL IS WHAT SEPERATES US FROM THE "ANIMALS"

STUPIDITY IS A CONDITION IGNORANCE IS A CHOICE

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST IS DEPENDENT ON WHO CAN LAUGH THE LONGEST

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Poetry Wednesday

From my favorite poet Mary Oliver, beauty

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

© Mary Oliver. From The Paris Review # 124, Fall, 1992

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Art Sunday

Check out my photos for my Art Sunday presentation

Susan

Art Sunday at the Desert Botanical Gardens with the Dale Chaully Glass Exhibit


This is my good friend Barbara who lives in Phoenix and one of the women I went with to the show.

A few year back I posted a Dale Chaully art sunday. It was his garden exhibits taken from the internet. Well this past summer I was able to go to a real live exhibit in Phoenix at the Desert Botanical Gardens. A beautiful place showing off all the desert treasures of Arizona and the glass exhibit. I sure hope you enjoy some of the pieces glass sculptures I was able to capture.
Susan

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

Ok I just want to say after typing that title, that I went to see them this past Sunday at our neighborhood college. They have a fine auditorium .

Anyway, The Orchestra and of course Wynton Marsalis, the fabulous classical and jazz trumpeter, just rocked. Well jazzed. A complete ensemble of great jazz musicians from the very young in their twenties to a fine Scottish Sax player who is in his early sixties. These guys turned out a mixed repertoire of New Orleans style jazz, Duke Ellington and Thelonius Monk. One piece they played by Monk, titled Green Chimneys started in one place moved to another place and then tied it self up in a neat little package right where it started.

They decided on their pieces basically right before they come on stage or even while they were on stage. It was great. They were so lose. At one point only the rhythm section, piano, bass and drums were on  stage with one trumpet, Wynton, trombone, great sax Think that was it, they were moving in and out of some serious New Orleans pieces and just riffing and grooving with each other, it was great.

Just made my month. If they come to your neighborhood it is definite that you should attend.

Here is a web site for you to find out more about this group and  the Jazz  at Lincoln Center Program that is helping to educate the music listening public to great jazz.

Click on Orchestra and Tours

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

Ok I just want to say after typing that title, that I went to see them this past Sunday at our neighborhood college. They have a fine auditorium .

Anyway, The Orchestra and of course Wynton Marsalis, the fabulous classical and jazz trumpeter, just rocked. Well jazzed. A complete ensemble of great jazz musicians from the very young in their twenties to a fine Scottish Sax player who is in his early sixties. These guys turned out a mixed repertoire of New Orleans style jazz, Duke Ellington and Thelonius Monk. One piece they played by Monk, titled Green Chimneys started in one place moved to another place and then tied it self up in a neat little package right where it started.

They decided on their pieces basically right before they come on stage or even while they were on stage. It was great. They were so lose. At one point only the rhythm section, piano, bass and drums were on  stage with one trumpet, Wynton, trombone, great sax Think that was it, they were moving in and out of some serious New Orleans pieces and just riffing and grooving with each other, it was great.

Just made my month. If they come to your neighborhood it is definite that you should attend.

Here is a web site for you to find out more about this group and  the Jazz  at Lincoln Center Program that is helping to educate the music listening public to great jazz.

Click on Orchestra and Tours

What Next Christmas in June

I have seen it all now.

What is today the 8th of October?

I was just in my local grocery store and they are already putting up christmas decorations and stuffed animals to sell. Usually they would wait till the day after Halloween. Gone are the days they waited till the day after Thanksgiving. I am shocked. All you religious types out there don't have to worry about people taking christ out of christmas, he is long gone. Now it is money grubbing scum capitalist retailers Mas. I tell you it is bad out there

Now as an avowed Naturalist I can celebrate the Winter Solstice and traditional christmas with out ever having to worry about running into anyone named Jesus. That poor boy is out of here.

Just my thoughts, don't every one get all wacko on me, please.

Susan

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Steely Dan Concert

Start:     Oct 27, '09 8:00p
Location:     Dodge Theatre Phoenix
They will be doing the whole Aja album live

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Poetry Wednesday

Ode to the West Wind  
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou,
 from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven,
 like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,  Yellow, and black, and pale,
 and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
 Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed  The wingèd seeds, 
where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave,
until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow  Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth,
 and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
With living hues and odours plain and hill:  Wild Spirit,
 which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

II
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
 Loose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,
 Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, 
 Angels of rain and lightning:
 there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
 Like the bright hair uplifted from the head  Of some fierce Maenad,
 even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, 
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge  Of the dying year,
 to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre 
Vaulted with all thy congregated might  Of vapours, 
from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire,
 and hail will burst: O hear! 

III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean,
 where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, 
 Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, 
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 
 All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet,
 the sense faints picturing them! 
Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 
 Cleave themselves into chasms,
 while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods
 which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, 
know  Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
 And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear! 

IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
 If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; 
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 
 The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou,
 O Uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood,
 and could be  The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
 As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision;
 I would ne'er have striven  As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
 Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
 I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
  A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee:
 tameless, and swift, and proud. 

V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: 
What if my leaves are falling like its own! 
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies  Will take from both a deep, 
autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. 
Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! 
 Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
 Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
 And, by the incantation of this verse,  Scatter,
 as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks,
 my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened Earth 
 The trumpet of a prophecy!
 O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?




Obviously you can tell why I chose this, hope you enjoyed it.

Susan 

Sunday, October 4, 2009

My birthday

Start:     Dec 14, '09 12:00p
It's my birthday. Whats to discribe

Newest From the Furry Family


My little cutie on the deck

We were all just lounging around in the yard the other day and I thought I would snap some fo the cres.

The Clouds are Rolling

This is close to what my valley looks like this morning minus the rain. Hugh black bellied clouds rolling in from the west covering the tops of the mountains. Sitting right next to a giant patch of startling blue. More rain clouds moving in from the North where Sedona keeps her beautiful self. You can see the red rocks of the buttes with the faintest of sun shinning on them. I am so hoping that this will all turn into some type of beautiful autumn rain storm. As usual we sure can use it. It is beautiful, clouds as far as the eye can see. Arizona comes with a really far horizon. I can see mountains from my house that are as far away as the town next to the Grand Canyon. Pretty cool.

Have a great Sunday you all.  Enjoy what ever it is you will be doing.

Susan

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Oh What A Beautiful Day

Oh what a t beautiufl day. I just got back from walking Sadie out in the National Forest behind my house. The sky is that perfect southwest blue with fluffy white clouds moving in on the strong breeze leaving dark shadows on the mountains. I believe it will rain tonight but I hope this will not ruin the viewing of the Harvest Full Moon. Autumn, my favorite time of the year. Sweater weather even in Central Arizona, Samhain , ghots and goblins, early dark. Just the best.

Hope you all enjoy the weekend and are going to Kathy's virtual tailgateing party tomorrow. Should be fun.

Susan

Actually this photo was taken a few winters ago, as you can see no green but it is the "forest" behind my house. Mostly mesquite and pinon pine. Which is what you see here.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Fat Cat Says Just a Reminder

My first blog since the crash. What fun.

Just to remind all out there that the month of October is

Adopt-A-Shelter Dog Month

National Service Dog Month

and the 16th is National Feral Cat Day.

Also on the 21st 1972 the Marine Mammal Protection act was signed into law.

Good month for animals

So adopt a puppy or a grown older doggie ,who needs a good home for life, from your local animal shelter

or help feral cats every where by giving to the Alley Cat Allies at www,alleycat.org. Remember winter is coming and those kitties have no homes. They need to have people help save them. so get hot.

I know you all think I am nuts because animals are so important to me, but I believe that someone has to speak for those who can't speak for themselves.

Susan