December 1st World AIDS Day

In honor of World AIDS Day I have a little story

I have a very good friend who I have known for more that 20 years.

This past month he was able to celebrate a very important anniversary. Twenty years ago last month he was told by his doctor that he had HIV and that he only had maybe two years to live. That was twenty years ago.

So we will never know if it was the great medicines they have come out with for fighting HIV that saved him or he was just one of those people who get the virus but never get AIDS. Who knows

All I know is that my dear friend is still among the living and he and I are still able to enjoy a very wonderful friendship.

Nice story and true but we all must remember that there are not always happy endings like that. I had many good friends who never got past the two year mark, not even the six month mark. Dead and gone so many years ago when the meds weren't quite so good, or they just didn't work.

This world is covered with HIV/AIDS, with many people having it who can't get the medicine to help them or who don't believe in the reality of the disease. Others who have superstitions regarding its cure. Governments that won't help their citizens. It just goes on.

So today is what there is. There will be big meetings and many talks by famous doctors. Yes this has all helped over the years and it has become in some places a manageable disease. This is not so true in other places in the world and it still continues to spread and it still is causing horrible deaths. Even now young people aren't worried about getting HIV any longer so they have stopped having safe sex. They think I'll just take the cocktail and I will be fine.

Who knows what will happen in the future, it is only twenty years since these drugs started. I guess we will have to wait and see what will happen with them. The virus could mutate. You know how those nasty viruses are. Life goes on. People don't even know what the red ribbon means any more and it was the first. I still wear mine. How about you.

Don't ever forget that it still out there, be aware and help when you can by donating to organizations that help with AIDS research or help people living with HIV/AIDS.

Not every one is as lucky as my friend.

Check out the banner I had on by blog yesterday where you can link to information regarding the fight against HIV/AIDS

Susan

World AIDS Day

Tomorrow is World Aids Day. I thought I would start a little early with this nice banner that I got on line. Please don't forget AIDS is not over. Click on the banner for lots of ways to help.

Susan

Art Sunday/Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. In both his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his personal vision of modern American life.^[1]

 ^{Of course the best thing about Eward Hopper to me is that wonderful use of dark, light and shadow. His work is so dream like but at the same time so real.}

^{I haven't but in his most famous, Nighthawks, because I think everyone knows it, but if not let me know and I will be happy to post it.}

^{Enjoy, susan}

 

Follow this link back to Nemo's Art Sunday tour. http://nemo4sun.multiply.com/journal/item/209

 

Light against the darkness

The candles have been lighted against the darkness that will not be dispelled until the Celebration of the Solstice.

Susan

No Poetry Wednesday

No poems today just a big Happy Thanksgiving Day to all of my friends out there in cyberland.

May the day be happy for you in what ever way you choose to celebrate if you do.

This day really isn't about eating, even though you would never know it. There are many out there with nothing to eat or very little.

I also don't think it is about giving thanks.

I think it is about being thankful. You can be thankful in your own heart or mind, don't need something or someone to give thanks to.

So I hope that even in these hard times that all of you are able to have at least one thing on this Thanksgiving day to be Thankful for.

Susan

 

Discover the Cosmos

2009 November 23

Crescent Earth from the Departing Rosetta Spacecraft
Credit & Copyright: ESA (MPS for OSIRIS Team), MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Explanation: Goodbye Earth. Earlier this month, ESA's interplanetary Rosetta spacecraft zoomed

Feed the Hungry

 This was sent to me by the Care People. Even if you don't want to send money to them, maybe you can donate food to you local mission or food bank. Even a few cans of tuna or some peanut butter, bags rice or beans, or potatoes anything helps. I donated to my local mission yesterday with just what I listed. Throw in a a bag of cat and dog food too. got to think of the whole family. There are many people right here in this country with very little to eat this year.  So all of you who are able get out there and give

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	Dear Susan, As you prepare to spend Thanksgiving with your loved ones this week, please remember the 1 billion people throughout the world suffering every day from chronic hunger. 25,000 women, men and children die from malnutrition and hunger-related causes every single day. This tragedy will be repeated again on Thanksgiving Day. But CARE is working to turn things around. Through our emergency relief efforts, sustainable farming assistance and maternal and child health programs, we help prevent hunger-related deaths and improve the lives of millions of families suffering from poor diet and lack of food. So, please, share the spirit of Thanksgiving with those living on the brink of disaster caused by hunger and poverty by making a gift to CARE today. We thank you and wish you and your loved ones a Happy Thanksgiving. Sincerely, Helene D. Gayle, MD, MPH President and CEO, CARE

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This message was sent to susanvd@earthlink.net. Make sure all your communications from CARE are reaching you! Add CARE to your trusted e-mail sender list. CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting root causes of poverty. Our U.S. headquarters is located at 151 Ellis Street NE, Atlanta, GA, 30303-2420. Federal and state compliance notices.

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Art Sunday/ Grand Ma Moses, Autumn

I know I am probably being terribly redundant because other people have post Grandma Moses and are post Thanksgiving related art today but I am lazy this morning and have Thanksgiving on my mind both at the same time. So here is a wee bit of fall and pumpkins and fun courtesy of Grandma Moses, one of my favorites.

Susan

Boy Is It Dark

Sure is deep into the heart of autumn.

6;10 AM and it is still pitch dark outside.

Usually at this time of the year I am still asleep at this hour, but the new doggie Miss Sadie has different ideas about  this. She needs her morning outing at least by 5;30. At least I can just open the door and she goes out in the back yard.

Good for her, I won't even venture out to get the paper until I can at least see it.

So I thought I would talk about it. Blogging sure can be fun sometime.

Everyone should go check out rk2this( Tammy) new snake. Very beautiful

A good friends daughter is in NYC giving birth to twins.

I have finally after many years hooked up with an old friend of mine from high school and I hope to hook up with the one that was the other side of our little triangle very soon. I am excited. These girls were my best friends in high school and for a while after in to adulthood.

Just looking at that online thing in the corner of my screen. I really must try that, but for some reason it freaks me out. How about some opinions, since you all seem to be on there. How is it?

Well time to go see if my coffee is ready.

Later

Susan

My 4th Anniversary

It is really hard to believe but as of today November 17th 2009 I have been blogging for four years.

My first blog was on November 17th 2005, obviously. Seems like centuries ago. You can look it up on my Yahoo Profile page ( this is suppose to be a link, but I don't think it worked)  but the title was My First Blog, duh,with a link, that one worked, to the the ASPCA telling everyone how to help shelter animals. Of course I got no comments, But at least I was starting off with my love for animals.

I think the only friends I had at the time were the woman who started me off on 360, Tracey and her son Cameron, who are no longer blogging, but Tracey is Facebooking. I quickly jumped to my old friend David from Scotland who is still around somewhere but mostly Facebooking. will have to stop by later and say hi to him. Slowly things started to fall into place and I met many of my friends who I still have now.  I loved  360 (didn't we all) and we had all those great theme blogging days. Some have managed to still hang on after a brief hiatus. We have lost some old friends. People pass away, some who knows, some got lost in the shuffle with 360 and some just have lives that keep them from doing what we do every day still cyber communicating.  There are those who don't blog any more but that just email. I am very glad to say that some of my communicating has turned into real face to face communicating, like meeting Deb and her family, the greenwytch, the gardener, all of the above. That was really a thrill. After all my initial reason for starting to blog was to meet people. Of course my friend Tracey thought it would be some special guy, but that just isn't me. 

The  right word to describe how I find this strange form of communicating will not come to me, but over the past four years I have managed to meet people from all over the world and form some type of relationship with them. I would never have thought things like this could happen.

Well this has turned into a real ramble. So I will just say to you all out there that if it wasn't for my friends I would not have made it to this 4th year anniversary. Why carry on if you don't have friends to do it with.

Happy Tuesday

Susan

Discover the Cosmos

2009 November 15

M57: The Ring Nebula
Credit: H. Bond et al., Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), NASA

Explanation: It looks like a ring on the sky. Hundreds of years ago astronomers noticed a nebula with a most unusual

What do you Collect?

I have always been a stuffed toy freak. Basically animals. What do you like to collect.

Here is my collection. The big kids sit on the bed as you can see and then they wee ones get that fabulous shelf to hang about. the blue bags with names on them are some of the familie's ashes, but hey, they need a place too.  The guys in front of my books haven't found their permenet home yet and the bunnies and the chick usually come out for spring celebrations.

My origional family of stuffed animals started when I was very young. They have all fallen a part since them and believe it or not most of the ones I have now I have bought for myself over the years. The oldest one I have I got as a present when I was 15.

I have many little collectables all over my house, cows , roosters, Dutch Blue Delft things, many kitties, but most of them where gifts from people over the years. My stuffed guys are the only things that I actually buy for myself. Any where I go when I travel, I just must bring back a stuffed guy. To me that is what collecting is. Something you love that you do for yourself.

So what about you?

Susan

 

What is this Flower

Does anyone have any idea what this plant is? I know it's a suculent, but that is about it.

The flowers are purpleish, with five points, little white hairs around the edge and they feel like rubber. Very weird.

They tend to bloom in the fall. September, and always around halloween.

Does it look familiar to anyone out there?

Help

Art Sunday of the Past.

Since the 17th of this month will be my fourth anniversary of blogging, first with 360 and now here on Multiply, but mostly with all my same friends. I thought I would bring out my very first Art Sunday piece which I just came across recently. I was always rather proud of this because of the little story I wrote to go with it. For those of you  who have never seen this or maybe just don't remember. I give you Salvador Dali.

Art Sunday from the past.

I have spents hours standing in front of this painting tying to figure out he did it.

This is a little story about my fasination with this painting. When I was in my early twenties I lived and worked in and around Washington D.C. The Smithsonian Institute was one of my favorite places to spend my days off. If you add up all the time I have spent in those buildings it would probably come out in weeks in each place.Most of my time was spent in The National Gallery of Art which is also on the Mall. I would wonder around the halls just in heaven staring at all the paintings and sculpture. So many periods of time. So much wonderful impressionism, my favorite Van Gogh "Protrait of the Artist" then one day I walked into a room I never really had noticed before and hanging before me on it's own wall was Dali's " Last Supper". I swear I haven't been the same since. My head swam, I couldn't believe what was before my eyes. It was as if it wasn't real, how could an artist have painted such translucence. You could see right thru practically everything on the canvas, and the colors, like water running through them. Just magnificant...Well as I was standing there I noticed a few other people standing there that were staring just as hard as I was, just standing and staring, and they weren't leaving like the other people strolling through. I had found the obsessed and as I stood there I became one of them. I came back quite often to stare and wonder "how did he do that?" and everytime I would see the same people. Weird.

During this period of time, a year maybe, they started to renovate the Gallery and move things around. Well someone got really smart and gave The Last Supper it's own room and it's own couch, right in front of the painting, as long as the painting, and there we all sat, staring, staring at that incredible painting.

I have many fond memories of the wonderful days I spent there at the National Gallery, but the best part was always being with my silent friends, staring.

Recently I went back and the first thing I went looking for was, guess what, and I was so disappointed to find they had relagated my beautiful painting to a stairwell, I must admit it is a very busy, fancy staircase, but no one really notices it and you certainly can't stop, stand and stare. I tried. It couldn't work. I guess I will never know how he did it. It was always such a pleasure trying to figure out how.

Hope you have enjoyed my little story and if you are ever in Washington D.C. try and make it over to the National Gallery and take a walk up the stairs and give a good hard stare at Salvador Dali's Sacrament of the Last Supper

Happy Sunday

It took me almost a half an hour to sort out the fact that Multiply some how cheated me out of a whole year of blogs. I have been trying to sort out when my blogging anniversary is so I went back and back into my old blogs and found the date, which is Nov. 17th but I haven't been able to find the blogs that go with the year I started which was 05. Oh well a whole year gone to hell. Can't do much about it now. Four year anniversary of blogging coming up soon though. Pretty cool.

Art Sunday - A Little Vincent a Little Toulouse

A tribute to our most wonderful friend, the creator of Art Sunday, The Wicked Witch our Miss Lina, we miss you.

You Know who is who. I have no work to do except post these most fabulous of paintings.

Enjoy

Susan

View From My Deck./Fire on the Mountain

Well actually this one was from the street in front of my house. The world is on fire.

 The one on top is from my deck.The sun is going down and shining through a controled burn from the other side of the mountain. I think it is a little out of control. The wind picked up this afternoon and is blowing the smoke every where. You would think they would check the weather before they start these things. Oh well

It really makes for a great photo op though.

Later.

 

Poetry Wednesday/Sylvia Plath, again

 

Faun

Haunched like a faun, he hooed
From grove of moon-glint and fen-frost
Until all owls in the twigged forest
Flapped black to look and brood
On the call this man made.

No sound but a drunken coot
Lurching home along river bank.
Stars hung water-sunk, so a rank
Of double star-eyes lit
Boughs where those owls sat.

An arena of yellow eyes
Watched the changing shape he cut,
Saw hoof harden from foot, saw sprout
Goat-horns. Marked how god rose
And galloped woodward in that guise.

 

this is for the other Sue, because I know we will turn into the horned beast after hanging out at her birthday celebration all wee.

Plus I am really getting into Sylvia Plath's poetry. it is beautiful in word and thought.

Happy Birthday Sue. You survivor you.

Use this link to get back to Laurita's hosting

http://lauritasita.multiply.com/journal/item/1530/Poetry_Wednesday_Birthday_Party_for_Sans_Souci_110409_Sign_in_and_take_the_tour