Viva La Cafe'!

I know not everyone is a coffee drinker but wanted to share that I was at Starbuck's this weekend and I got a free iTune song download with my cup of Joe. I realize that with StarBuck's profit whoring that they are still making a big chunk of change off of my $3.60 cup of Cinnamon Dolce Latte but I just love the indulgence now and again. They also give away large bags of coffee grounds for free that can be used to spread in the garden. How to Spread Coffee Grounds In Your Garden

Research continues to support that coffee lowers risk of diabetes, Parkinson's disease, colon cancer, and headaches. It can also be a mood lifter and treat headaches. See more here Health Benefits of Coffee

Often, like a rainy day like today, or late in the evening, I prefer tea. Eastern traditionalist have always known that tea has even more antitoxins than coffee. Many articles conclude the same information as Dr. Gaynor's below:

"Dr. Mitch Gaynor, a cancer specialist at Cornell University’s Strang Institute, says results of initial tests show that the antioxidants in tea inhibit your body’s cells from becoming cancerous. Another study gave tea a role in preventing strokes. And there are studies that suggest that tea strengthens the cardiovascular system.

Other benefits include cavity reduction and improved fluid balance. Not to mention that the typical cup of tea has about 40 milligrams of caffeine, less than half a cup of coffee. And two small cups of green tea contain as much vitamin C as one glass of orange juice." Full Article http://www.privateclubs.com/archives/1999-jan-feb/sports_handf-tea.htm>Health and Fitness Tea Time

My favorite place to shop for tea and coffee is the Decatur Farmer's Market where I can get choices from all around the world for just pennies per pound.

I'm always looking for coffee/tea info and should probably look up clubs on Meetup.com or something to find others with the same fetish. Where do you find your favorites?

Trip Report: New Orleans Oct 2007

WARNING! This post is long and rambling. I decided to keep a journal for mystelf of my trips so when I get old, well I am old, I can remember where I went and what I did. I'm going to file this away so don't feel like you have to read it and respond.

Day One
It was a packing frenzy as I got ready for the trip at the last possible moment. Who really likes to pack anyways. Items were literally flying across the room into my bag with my undergarments being almost doubled in relation to what I actually needed. Women over packed underwear. This much I knew. Did men under pack underwear and somehow there was this underwear balance in the universe? I made a note to ask one of my guy friends about this later. At the last second I remembered the real reason why I was going to New Orleans – a wedding. Quickly I added the dress I always wore to weddings, the matching slip on shoes, and, with a brief eye flooding memory, my Grandmother’s pearl necklace. Still in the box. It was the only thing I packed with care. Luckily I hadn’t unpacked my quart sized plastic container of all my liquids from my last trip so I quickly added that to the bag. Ha, my laziness had paid off again!

I drove two hours from Atlanta to Birmingham, AL because I got a great deal on a flight from Birmingham to New Orleans. I’ll have to remember to check those flights more often. I stopped in at a Cracker Barrel somewhere over the AL border to eat. At some point, although I’m not sure where, I crossed over the accent line as everyone was speaking in a hard southern dialect. I waited patiently to see if I would be receiving the Old Timer’s Breakfast or Grandpa’s Southern Fried Breakfast, knowing all along that there was a gulf of differences between the two. I would have to pay better attention at the AL airport because I knew that there were many other places that began with New besides New Orleans. New Delhi, India, and New Jersey came to mind.

Caren and I enjoyed the ease of parking at the actual airport as opposed to parking in the next county like we do when using the Atlanta airport. Everything was a breeze until Caren had to go through the extra security line because she was wearing too many silver bangles up her arm. I stood next to her and waited while the security guard went over the procedures. She was told that she could stop the frisk at any time if she felt uncomfortable and then was asked if she understood. Caren’s response of “Sure, knock yourself out” sent me into giggle spins. It become one of those moments where the act of stopping myself from laughing only made it worse. I thought of taxes, watching bowling on TV, but none of these boring thoughts kept me from my outbursts. By the time it was over I was still howling all the way to the gate.

The flight was uneventful, as was the 20 min. cab ride to the hotel Pere Marquette. I remembered there was a park near my mother’s place in St. Louis called Pere Marquette. I made a note to Google that later to see who this guy was and why he kept getting things named after himself. After a quick fresh up at the hotel we hit the streets of the French Quarter to meet up with the wedding party to watch the Gators ultimately lose to LSU. The bar was packed with both Florida and LSU fans with constant whoops and shouts going back and forth. I had a complete blast despite the loss because everyone was having so much fun by hooting and cat calling to the other side. After the game, Caren and I were wide awake so we hit the streets again in route to Harrah’s. All that could be seen from the rear of us was asses and elbows as we charged up the street for a little gambling and at 1am in the morning we were definitely up to no good. I learned quickly that everything in N.O. was over the top and constantly caught myself in behavior that would have been unusual for me at home. The phrase “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” was reminiscent in my mind.

Day Two
Had a leisurely breakfast at Café Dumont of coffee and beignets. Cheryl and Eric were right. The beignets are awesome! How is it that every culture has figured out how to fry dough? I wonder if I can get these in Atlanta. After breakfast we took a swamp boat tour down the Mississippi River and into the marshes. The tour guide was a true Cajun but his sing-song accent was easier to understand than the accent of the waitress at the Cracker Barrel. Captain Bob pointed out all kinds of various native birds and plants. It was wild when he attracted alligators to the boat by throwing marsh mellows overboard. Naturally all of the people ran to the side of the boat where the gators got fed causing the boat to tip and lean hard to one side which made me very concerned. He let us touch the teeth on a dead alligator skull and showed us that they were not very sharp. He explained that the teeth were meant to hold on to its prey so that the alligator could pull it under the water and drawn it instead of tearing it to shreds. Very sneaky. He said that one time after a local gator clamped on to a guy’s leg a Game Officer shot the gator two times in the back in order to try kill the gator. The gator let go but later after they caught it they found that the bullets bounced off the gator’s back with no penetration. Captain Bob said the scales on the back are harder than bone and the best way to kill a gator was by penetrating its tummy. He held a baby alligator that he kept in a tank and let us touch the scales to prove he was right. He was right but the whole time I kept wondering where the momma was and if Captain Bob had some kind of previous record that I needed to know about. Another animal that Captain Bob pointed out was a Nutria. Apparently N.O. considered these guys to be a pest because they destroyed the natural barrier to the marshes. So you can shoot these guys all you want and N.O. will give you $5 for each tail. I knew I wouldn’t be able to shoot one because they were too cute, like a beaver, even if they were semi-aquatic over sized rodents. I could tell Captain Bob would have not second thoughts.

After the swamp boat tour we hustled back to the hotel and it was presto-chango as we transformed from swamp tramps to classy wedding ladies. Caren was decked out wearing clear plastic high heel shoes that I thought only Diva’s wore. The wedding of her niece, Anne, went off with out a hitch and was elegant in its simpleness. There was no bridzilla here as her niece laughed freely and let everything roll right off of her. Caren’s family and mine held the same values. If something goes wrong then it’s not only worth laughing about but most likely will be turned into a family legend that will be laughed about for years to come. Anne’s shoes matched her true Florida personality and stunning white dress. They were simple white flip flops laced with pearls that screamed out the lyrics of Buffet’s “Margaritaville”. Oh how I missed those crazy lazy days of Florida. The reception was held at an oyster bar in the French Quarter around the corner from the chapel. The second floor was reserved for as we dined on oysters, shrimp, Cajun chicken strips and red beans and rice. Afterwards we threw beads off the balcony at the crowd, again accompanied by hoots and hollars. It was interesting that there were tons of beads on the ground but nobody bothered to pick them up. They just wanted to catch them. There was something magical about catching one as if the act proclaimed that that day was your luckiest day and for Anne it was just that.

After the reception broke up we quickly changed back into our street clothes and headed back to Harrah’s for more abuse. After it was all said and done I had broke even over the course of the weekend. Some time during the night we gave it up and decided to walk up and Bourbon Street. Every bar it seemed had a cover band so we popped into one and got sucked into the dancing frenzy bopping and weaving to “I Wish I was Jessie’s Girl”. The crowd had gone completely wild as if this song engineered rock and roll itself and this bar in N.O. was the only place on earth to be. Drug and alcohol free that I was at that moment I somehow got swept up in the energy as well. Dizzily we walked back to the hotel and passed a row of strip joints where the dancers were trying to coax in the gents. Suddenly, I doubled up over and choked with laughter. Caren tried to shake me into saneness until I whisperer “Look at the shoes”. Yep, every single dance girl wore high heel clear plastic shoes. Swear to God!

Day Three
Poured down rain all day long. We ate brunch with Anne and rambled through the French Market. Then we headed home with fond memories of fun, laughter and an emblazed image of a young bride in her wedding dress throwing beads off a balcony to a cheering crowd below.

Columbus Day

Yes, I'm one of those lucky ones who gets to celebrate the raping and plundering of the Native American Indians also know as Columbus Day by taking the day off of work. I've often wondered why this continues to be an American federal legal holiday. I was taught in primary school that Columbus discovered America. Yet a National Geographic article I read proclaimed that the Vikings were most likely to discover America first. Also, a Geography class of mine held the theory that the Native American Indians came from Asia, migrating using wind currants to Polynesia then to Alaska and then further to continental North America. So didn’t they discover it first? I guess that debate will always continue. I don’t know either since I wasn’t there.

So off I went to do some Googlevesigations and found many articles on Columbus. One article I read by History Professor Thomas C. Tirado had this particularly disturbing information regarding the era of Columbus.

“Looking for “new worlds” was not one of the motivations of the Age of Discovery, but finding new routes to Old World marketplaces was. What a shock it was, therefore, to bump into a hitherto unknown world by accident. Even greater, though, was the shock of finding millions of PEOPLE. By chance the first natives that the Europeans encountered were among some of the most primitive societies in the world. Since all peoples of the world had been accounted for as having descended from the sons of Noah, these natives were considered subhuman. In fact, not until years later did the Vatican under Pope Paul II issued an Papal Encyclical positing that the natives were rational beings with a soul. The 1537 statement explained that the Indians descended from sinful Babylonians who, during the Great Flood, fell off a mountaintop, grabbed onto a tree limb, and floated to the New World.

More than a generation after the initial contact, when the Spaniards encountered the more sophisticated natives of terra firma, such as the Mayas, the Aztecs and the Incas, the earlier image of "barbarian" still persisted in their minds. The Europeans simply could not see the true native societies. Or, perhaps the Europeans did not want to see anything more than primitive societies. The European settlers cared little for the indigenous culture and saw only a labor force in the Indian population. Thus, the native cultures–as well as the native population–began to disappear as the invaders advanced into the hinterland. In what can only be described as one of the greatest Holocausts of all time, disease and other conquest- and invasion-related activities led to the destruction of tens of million of natives. Only today are we realizing the enormity of the loss of people and the inestimable loss of culture.”

Professor Tirado reminds us to place Columbus’s merits into the time in which they were achieved. Still, I have trouble celebrating this as I feel so much sadness for those that were lost and marginalized. I suppose that’s why I read so much about WWII because I feel this need to understand in order to prevent.

Yet also after reading about him, I found him to be an amazing man and I loved reading about his journeys. A privateer ship once burned his ship and he survived by swimming six miles to shore. He fancied in the delights of the most sought after aromatic delectable spices. He landed in the Bahamas surrendering to a soothing warm climate, lush vegetation, new plump juicy fruits, and some of the most beautiful aqua waters found on earth. I have to admit, there’s an explorer in all of us that can relate to that instinctual need to find out more. When I was little, long before “Raiders of the Lost Arc”, I wanted to be an archeologist. I would bury my secret treasures in the back yard and draw maps marking the treasure spot with a big ‘X’. Then I’d follow the map to ‘discover’ the treasure. I love to read books about exploration like ‘The Travels of William Bartram’, “My First Summer in the Sierras” by John Muir, as well as several books I have on climbing expeditions. When hiking I often write journal entries and take a snipit of a plant that I don’t recognize so I can look it up later. I have a box of rocks, bones, and shark’s teeth from my exploits. Even now when I walk in the woods I know I will probably never discover anything new but just knowing it’s new to me is enough. I’ve noticed that even when I walk the exact same trail twice it is never exactly the same.

I also found in my Googlevesigations that many Latin American countries celebrate this day as Dia de la Raza (Day of the Race), celebrating the Spanish heritage of the Latin American peoples. Some Americans celebrate Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day. I came to my own conclusion that the day can be both a celebration of culture and a memorial of loss. Maybe celebrating the heart of an explorer is not such a bad thing and in mind I’ll think of it as just that.

Happiness is...

I was just hanging out after work around my place thinking about some of the simplest pleasures that I enjoy. A few are:

• I like to dump a big bag of M&Ms into a quart sized Chinese soup plastic container and keep it in the fridge. I like to eat them cold. I call it the bucket-o-bits.
• Steaming hot candle lit showers by myself (and with others too if I can find them!)
• I like to burn incense in the morning when I drink my coffee and wind up for work.
• Good pump me up music while I clean like The Rolling Stones.
• The feel of fresh sheets.
• The time of year when you can finally sleep with the windows open.
• The lullaby sounds of trains in the night

What about you?

You Know You're a Harry Potter Fan When

You mutter nonsense Latin words under your breath.

Your computer says "You've Got Mail" and you run outside looking for an owl.

You actually ask for a broom for Christmas.

You mutter "lumos" under your breath every time you turn on a light.

You sort everyone you meet into the four Hogwarts houses (Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin).

You were burned when you couldn't get through the flames of your fireplace.

You had to go to the hospital after you broke your nose running headfirst into the wall between platforms nine and ten.

Before getting up to get something, you always try to summon it first. Accio TV remote!

You watched "Love, Actually" because two minor Harry Potter actors were in it.

You were reduced to tears when you finally had Book 5 in your hands.

You refer to your Chemistry class as Potions.

You spend hours tapping bricks in special orders, hoping that a secret entrance to Diagon Alley will appear.

When playing chess, you yell orders to the chess players and get upset when they don't move.

You yell into the "fellytone."

You say "wicked" all the time because Rupert Grint does.

You get thoroughly overexcited every time you see a word somewhere that is distantly linked with HP (ie. Saint Hedwig's).

You refer to Voldemort as "You-Know-Who", and no one has any idea who you're talking about.

You were kicked out of the movie theater for standing on your chair, throwing your shoe at the screen and yelling "THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN IN THE BOOK!"

You count the days until you're old enough for your Apparation license, and everyone else thinks you're talking about driving.

My Own:

Instead of saying "Goodbye" when ending a call to my family I say " I'm going to disapparate now" and they have no idea what I'm talking about.

I started using the word "filch" in sentences i.e. "Hey, you filched that french fry from me!"

When someone points out typos to me at work I say "Well what can you expect from a mere muggle?"

When someone teases me i.e. "That pool shot looked like something my granny would make!" I respond with "How very Snape-like of you to say".

Anybody have any?

Seattle - Fishing Village By The Sea

A recent trip to Seattle made me remember how much I miss the sea and fishing with my father and brother. Hopefully I'll see them soon. Attached are a few of my photos from the marketplace.


"The Fisherman"
by Barbara Anna Marjanovic

I wait in anticipation
For the morning tide to come.
The gulls crying,
and the waves splashing,
Remind me that it was time to
pull in the nets.
Another day of fishing it is,
Another day of hoping more fish would be caught,
This is my livelihood,
A fisherman's wage I have,
and I wait for my next catch,
To feed my family.
It is this life I have,
Living it day to day,
Not knowing if I will bring in,
a fair catch to warrant a good pay.
I would not choose any other life,
For I love the sea and I love the waves,
A fisherman am I,
Nothing more and nothing less.

Karaoke Online

Whether you are an American Idol fan or not, this web site is so funny it left me in tears. This site provides karaoke tunes. For better or for worse, folks record themselves singing along with the tunes and post it to this site. Like American Idol, some folks are amazingly talented. When I was a child my mother would never let me say mean things about others so she taught me a magic word. Let me just say other singers are 'unfortunate' (my mother's magic word). The web sites ranks the best and worst. The ones with videos are the best.

http://www.ksolo.com/

Ever See a Ghost?

I have a confession. Whenever people or pets pass on in my life they always come to visit me in my dreams afterward. They usually only come to visit once or twice. I've come to the point where I am anxious until they visit. In the dream they tell me they are just fine and they have made it to the other side okay as well as for me not to worry. The whole dream is very soothing and it then allows me to let go of my worry. Although I may have other dreams with them in it, the experience is different from when they 'visit' me. I suppose one could interpret this as a psychological coping mechanism for my grief but I believe they visit me through God's grace and love and that the experience is real. I can't explain it other than it is a 'knowing' feeling. Otherwise, I've never seen a ghost, spirit or had any other brushes with other side at all. What about you? Anybody ever see a ghost!

Canada 2010 Olympic Winter Games Emblem

Recently, some friends and I were laughing at the silliness and strangeness of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games Emblem called Inukshuk. To us it resembled the drunken man’s napkin scribbling of a stick figure, cartoonishly drawn with a comical expression.

Coincidently, I had the opportunity to visit Vancouver and the Whistler Ski Complex the home site of the 2010 Winter Games. To be honest, I wasn’t thinking about inukshuks at all. Since it was still summer I was able to hike along the majestic ski slopes. Mostly living in the east, I was used to the Appalachian Mountains, which are low and gently rolling due to weathering like an old worn leather shoe. In contrast, the Whistler-mountains were carved from rivers and glaciers and are newer formed so that the affects of weather erosion were not so apparent. As I walked along the craggy rim I was astounded by the views of all of the other twisted mountain ridges with their sharp and pointy spires. Snow falls barely clung to the razor like edges. The view was nothing short of breathtaking.

Slowly, almost without notice, I saw my first inukshuk, which is basically a small man-made rock pile often in the shapes of people. I had learned that they were used to mark important spots along a path such as a crossroad or fishing spot. The deafening silence of the walk had lured me into an almost trance like state. Then suddenly I saw another rock cairn. I slowly began to imagine what it had been like for early Pacific Northwest Indians to be traveling for days at a time without seeing a sole person and then to come upon one of these markers. The symbol almost seemed to be saying “I am here” or even more philosophically “I exist” or “You are not alone”.

Before long I came upon a large rock garden where hundreds of these rock cairns existed. Several people were building these themselves. And as I winded through and around the small piles I thought about the hundreds of people that came from all over the world to make these so without much thought I picked out a spot and crouched to make my own inukshuk. There was something childlike about building something without any rules at all. It was freeing to select and set the rocks without any particular reasoning. There was also something pleasing about the weight of each rock in my hand, feeling their unique bumps and edges, knowing that no two inukshuks would ever be alike. I found the simple pleasure to be profoundly meditative. The dirt on my hands connected me to the earth upon which I squatted and as I looked out upon the vistas I felt humbled and small. There was a feeling of wholeness of mind, body, and spirit that reverberated throughout my being. I looked back at the structures as I built.

The week prior to my trip my dog and grandmother had died less than twenty-four hours apart and my heart was still heavy with grief. I had built two rocks cairns, the larger one representing my grandmother, and the smaller one representing my dog. I positioned them carefully to face a majestic glacier. I smiled at the ironic dichotomy between the two. My dog adored the winter. I imagined her here with me running playfully up and down the path, constantly looking over her shoulder to ensure I was following. A photo of her was, in fact, posted on the website of the Atlanta Journal Constitution Photo of Day one snowy day in Atlanta because it was so apparent her love of the snow by her revered expression that was plastered on her face. I took her with me always until she aged because something she loved even more than snow was adventure.

My grandmother, in contrast, who lived to be ninety-five grew up on a farm and traveled to town in a horse drawn buggy. She mostly lived her life in one spot along the hearty banks of the Mississippi River. She never learned to drive and had never flown in a plane. And one thing that I knew was true was that she would never, had she been alive, ever, be standing on the edge of a glacier in Canada. At that I had to laugh and it reminded me of the time I took my grandmother on her first trip to a Chinese restaurant. As we entered the classically decorated joint I thought that she would turn around at the sight of the large fiery red paper model dragon that slithered through the middle of the room. Her face was, as they say, priceless. She fussed and pouted through the menu and about the surroundings. I had to stop her from eating the fortune piece of paper out of the fortune cookie but in the end, she finally admitted that she really like the sweet and sour pork that made me secretly beam with pleasure. As I looked upon her pile of rocks I smiled and wondered what she would be thinking if she were there with me staring at the glacier. For a few brief moments the three of us were reunited and I thought that maybe inukshuks weren’t really so silly after all. It wasn’t until I turned to leave that the tears begin to flow freely down my face as I realized my sadness in leaving them. I was quiet as I descended back from where I had started, the memories and clever thoughts that my grandmother used to say echoed through my mind and it was then that I realized that those who pass never really leave us because they live on inside of us always.