cathleen's place

I’ve decided blogging isn’t for me. I’ll leave this blog here to be a nice reminder for me of my struggle to quit smoking. I’ve enjoyed finding unusual things to share with any who happened to stop by. I’ve also enjoyed telling about our travels. And of course, who doesn’t like to rant about the nuttiness and injustices in the world?

There simply are too many blogs. There are millions of them, millions of people with something to say. I no longer wish to add to the noise, confusion, whining, opinions, and conceit.

"To engage with the summons of our souls is to step into the deepest ocean, uncertain whether we will be able to swim to some new, distant shore. And yet, until we have consented to swim beyond the familiar lights of the port left behind, we will never arrive at a newer shore."

~James Hollis, from Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life

This is the best video I've ever seen. Best = most uplifting, happiest, most amazing in it's scope, and even most educational. I watch it over and over. (The video is Dancing 2008, the image is from his earlier video.)

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

I hope you'll go visit Matt. His site is wonderful.

Oh, and buy some Stride gum.

I found out what lolcats are and I'm addicted. I'm usually a little late for these parties, but oh well, who cares? Amirite?

And who doesn't like Maxine? Oh, really?

Artists. They do the most amazing things. Like:

Ron Mueck - For more of the funniest videos, click here

I read an article about lawsuits against Wal-Mart (or is it WalMart, I can't remember and am too lazy to look it up and they keep changing it). It looks like the company could face over $2 billion in fines. Yowza! I hate WalMart. I feel like I lose about 100 IQ points just walking in the door, not to mention feeling guilty for being willing to purchase anything that they sell.

The article is by Inspired Protagonist over at Seventh Generation. Here's part of the article:

Altogether, Wal-Mart faces more than 70 lawsuits, filed throughout the country, in which employees have accused the company of making them work off the clock or miss required breaks. Cheating people who make so little is pretty unconscionable. But to learn that the practice was part of a national strategy, well, that’s a sad statement on big business.

Now, here's the part that I thought was sort of funny: In the comments section, there are WalMart apologists! Yes! It's so weird to me that people would go to an article in the Seventh Generation Newsletter and write nice things about WalMart, or worse, criticize people who are damning WalMart. It's sort of funny because it reminds me of $cientology trolls who make a habit of flaming all over stories/articles/comment sections that are critical of $cientology. But not exactly funny because it's disgusting.

I'm just saying.

Like guitar music? Like new, young, fresh musicians? Try this:

This is the best Anonymous video so far. Nothing shows how much fun they are having like this great piece. It's 4 1/2 minutes of pure pleasure.

Your Mission: Spy vs Sci from LRonHu88ard on Vimeo.

Join us on July 12 for Spy vs. Sci. It's a very fun way to change the world.

From Environmental Working Group:

"The human race is now polluted with hundreds of industrial chemicals with little or no understanding of the consequences. Babies are born pre-polluted with as many as 300 industrial chemicals in their bodies when they enter the world. Testing by Environmental Working Group has identified 455 chemicals in people, and again, no one has any idea if these exposures are safe."

Do you get it? It seems to me that global warming isn't going to matter -- our species won't be able to reproduce in a few generations. Visit EWG and see what you think.

Kim and I and Jeff spent an hour on Sunday looking at possible houses, even though we've made up our minds that Blueberry Hill is the absolute best. I haven't written about this house, but as soon as it's ours, I'll show you why we held out for it.

After wasting some gas driving all over Portland, we needed some good physical exercise. Haris had told me that a visit to the Audubon Society was a must, so that's where we headed. It's at 5151 NW Cornell Rd., right on the edge of Forest Park. I wanted to see some rescued birds and hike in the lush Oregon primeval forest -- and I wasn't disappointed.

I love trees. Even that awful tree in our front yard in Clearwater -- we spent hours pulling up the sprouted seeds from that tree -- was truly a beautiful tree.

That's our favorite bird, the turkey vulture. This poor guy was enjoying some road kill when a motorist tried to make him into someone else's dinner. He won't be released -- he was too badly injured. But he's extremely well cared for here.

I'm a big fan of helping folks who are doing good works. The Audubon Society has been around forever and I've never really paid much attention to all the good they do and the myriad ways they improve our world. So I dropped a few thousand dollars in the gift store to help them out.

"Greg thought he was so clever to make this rigid mesh bag to hold our clams alive on our boat anchor while we are at the island--- but the sunflower sea stars are more clever, as they can eat the clams right through the bag!"

This is from Lauri, our lovely friend up north. You can read more about her life in Alaska here.