Yosemite's Half Dome.

According to recent news reports, America’s unemployment rate isn’t going to be sinking anytime soon.  Just about everyone I know is finding it necessary to tighten their belts and look for cheaper ways to do everything, or simply do without.  Arianna Huffington wrote a terrific piece last Tuesday, suggesting that Americans might do well during the next decade to reflect and redefine what constitutes “the good life”.  Consumerism and materialism didn’t cut it yesterday, is failing us today, and won’t fulfill us tomorrow.  When’s the last time your sleek refrigerator or fancy car listened to your problems or made you laugh?  But spending time with loved ones is a good gig and can be the cheapest entertainment around.

Summer’s over.  It’s an odd time to be doling out travel recommendations, but I’m odd.  Also, there are plenty of three day weekends that creep up when you least expect them, not to mention the winter holidays, then spring break, and before you know it, next summer.  Am I thinking ahead?  I am.  But if you want to get away with friends or family (or both) and not spend a ton of money, American’s national parks will not disappoint.  And if you want to visit one of the really popular ones like The Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, or Yosemite, you have to book in advance if you plan to stay overnight.

On Friday, leaving San Francisco and heading to Mammoth Lakes, we stopped in Yosemite for the day.  It was hot and, being the end of summer, there was little to no water in the totemic waterfalls, but I dare you to visit and not feel joy.  I dare you.  Just go ahead and try.

Yosemite makes me happy.  Being there made me feel as if I had “the good life”.  It inspired me, just as Yellowstone and Grand Teton did last summer.  Nature like that, in all its grandiosity, fills one’s soul with a healthy relativity, a sense of the bigger picture.  And what a beautiful picture it is.

Forget about plane tickets.  Find the closest national park (Yosemite is a mere five hour drive from Los Angeles), book a cabin or tent, or bring your own, and enjoy one of the pleasures this country provides so very, very well – the earth, in all its glory.

This, from a city girl.

By August 31^st, we’re to have only 50,000 troops remaining in Iraq.  With the departure this week of the last combat brigade, it looks as if we’ll meet that deadline.  Are we supposed to feel good about this development?  Are we meant to feel anything at all?  I remember the March evening seven and a half years ago, driving in my car, when “shock and awe” commenced.  I remember cursing George W. Bush’s name and every Congress member who allowed him the vote to go to war.  Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi broke off negotiations this week with Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to form some sort of coalition government, so complaints about leaving now are rampant, both in this country and Iraq.  As there was no good and right time to go into and invade Iraq, so there will be no good and right time to leave.

Pakistan is experiencing a natural disaster of massive proportions, though because it’s not quite epic, the world doesn’t seem nearly as focused as we did for the Indonesian tsunami and the Haiti earthquake.  Monsoon flooding has killed over 1600 and left millions homeless.  So far, the U.S. has pledged $150 million in aid.

Gay marriage in California is on hold until the week of December 6^th, when the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments against Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

On a similar note, in Mexico City, an eleven member court reaffirmed the law that gives gays and lesbians the right to marry and adopt children.  That didn’t sit well with Mexican prelate, Cardinal Juan Sandoval, who accused Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of bribing the judges.  “Would you want to be adopted by a pair of faggots or lesbians?” he asked.  That’s not a very Christian attitude from a guy who is supposed to represent Christ on earth.  God is shaking his head somewhere.

Target has been in hot water lately from liberals boycotting the store that sells everything because Target gave $150K to a PAC in Minnesota that runs ads for GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer who opposes gay rights.  Got that?  A similar boycott of Best Buy is happening for the same reasons.  And many thought the Supreme Court’s decision to allow corporations and businesses to donate directly to independent election campaigns was long overdue.  They were wrong.

In huge news, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will resume September 2nd after nearly two years.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet in Washington with President Obama on September 1^st and then hole up together in Lincoln’s bedroom and hash things out once and for all.  I don’t really mean to make light, but there’s a reason this wasn’t on every newspaper’s front page this past week.  Sadly, most of the world gave up a belief in Middle East peace a long time ago, though I suppose stranger things have happened.  Nothing comes to mind just this second.

On Tuesday, Rod Blagojevich, former governor of Illinois, was found guilty of lying to federal agents.  But wait.  What about the other 23 charges against him?  The jury was deadlocked, or at least one woman couldn’t make up her mind.  Saturday, he was signing autographs at Chicago’s Comic-Con event.  He thinks he’s a super-hero.

Speaking of super-heroes…or liars, take your pick, Roger Clemens is facing 30 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine for lying to a federal grand jury about using steroids and human-growth hormones.  We’re talking about a baseball player.  Murderers don’t serve that much time.  Sure, it would be nice to have a sport where an equal playing field didn’t require everyone participating to shoot-up, but 30 years?  I’ve never liked Roger Clemens, never thought he was a “good egg” as my dad used to say, but surely we shouldn’t be spending tax money to incarcerate baseball pitchers for lying, should we?

And speaking of bad eggs (don’t you love my segues?), there’s a bunch of them all over the U.S. causing salmonella poisoning.  It’s hard to keep up but, for the record, I bought a dozen at Ralph’s yesterday and ate two and I feel fine.  For more info, check out this comprehensive list of brands you should be aware of in case you decide to make yourself an omelet or soufflé anytime soon.

Hey, did you hear about the mosque they want to build at Ground Zero?

What about Brett Favre deciding to come back ONCE AGAIN and play his twentieth season in the NFL?

What about Dr. Laura deciding NOT to come back after thirty years in radio?  She claims she’s through having her 1^st amendment rights trampled upon after being criticized for using the N-word on her show in response to a black female caller looking for advice on how to deal with some of her white husband’s insensitive friends.  Dr. Laura is a pig.  If that’s insensitive to the porcine population, I apologize, but I will not quit.  I’m so grateful, however, that Schlessinger did.

So thanks for listening.

If your phone rings in the middle of the night, it’s never a good thing.  My heart skips a painful beat when I’m awakened this way and I’m anxious as I pick up.  At our house, 9.9 times out of ten it’s the wrong number and the caller on the other end thinks of English as their second or third language.  It ends up an unfortunate inconvenience, but I’m always happy it isn’t awful news from a relative.  I wonder why non-English speaking persons are calling each other at three in the morning as I doze back to sleep.

At 2:45am this morning, the phone rang.  I remembered right away that the cordless we usually have next to our bed had been left downstairs and I said as much to the husband as he raced to answer.  He didn’t quite make it in time so the machine picked up.  As I stumbled after, I heard what sounded like someone crying, pleading for us to pick up the phone.  Naturally, I thought someone in the family had died so my heart starting pounding wildly out of my chest.  That’s what phone calls in the middle of the night do to me.  I fear the worst.

Then my husband picked up and started to explain to the person on the other end that he had the wrong number.  “Who are you looking for?” he said.  By this time, I was on the staircase landing.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief, realizing that the phone call wasn’t for us.  Then I listened to my husband’s side of what sounded like a ridiculous conversation.

“No, Amber doesn’t live here.  You need to dial the 310 area code.”

“No, this isn’t Amber’s number.  She has the same number but in the 310 area code.  This is the 818 area code.”

“Okay, you’re not listening…no I’m not Jason and Amber has NEVER lived here.  This is 818, you need to dial 310.”

If you’re wondering why we know about Amber, it’s because we’ve received a few dozen phone calls over the years for her and figured out the mix-up.  I’ve never called Amber to introduce myself and tell her she has nice friends who don’t listen, but I’m going to get around to it this week.  In the past, we’ve received intimate messages for her on an answering machine that clearly states “You’ve reached the Neils…”  I’m pretty sure it would be too much of a coincidence if her name was Amber Neil.  Mostly, I’ve picked up the phone with my usual, non-descript “hello”, only to be greeted with someone on the other end who launches right into, “Hi sweetie, it’s me.  What are you doing?”  Man or woman, it doesn’t matter.  Everyone who calls Amber appears to have a cozy relationship with her.  I quickly explain, before they get more personal, that I’m not Amber though I’m flattered that they think I am, because Amber sounds like a name given to someone much younger than I.

Back to the husband and the middle of the night call.  After patiently explaining again that the man had dialed the wrong number, and that he needed to hang up and dial the same seven digits with a different area code for Amber WHO HAS NEVER LIVED HERE, the husband was getting irritated.  When he finally got off the phone, I looked at him.  “You have to hear the message he left,” the husband told me, smiling, and played this back for me: Phone Call.

It’s a desperate message, sure.  The reason it amused my husband was because as soon as he picked up the phone, the man’s voice became completely less pathetic and he wanted to know who the hell he was talking to.  Suddenly, the hysterical pleading appeared to be an act, quickly dumped when the audience wasn’t the one intended.  My husband found himself mistaken for “the other man”, so Amber’s life had left him flattered him, also.

We love Amber, even if her friends lack phone etiquette.

It’s still news, whether I give it to you all on Friday or Sunday.  And it’s all still pretty interesting.  Thanks for your patience.

In California, where everyone is gay, Judge Vaughn Walker made his decision and believes that Prop 8 is unconstitutional.  (See for yourself.  Download “..the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law in Perry“.)   Motions for an appeal will begin quickly.  Forget the fact that tons of people agree with his decision.  Here’s my question.  How is it that we got to vote on this in the first place?  Seriously, I’m in need of enlightenment.  51% of voters in the Golden State decided the state constitution should revert back to the earlier definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.  Yet one of the huge reasons this state is in such a bad way is because of the two-thirds requirement of votes in our legislature, with our elected representatives, to pass a budget or raise taxes.  So we’ll gladly discriminate in our little voting booths with a simple majority but when it comes to the budget and taxes, we want a whole lot more than that.  (To that end, vote YES on Prop. 25 come November 2^nd).  It’s not my best argument, but it’s one that resonated with me.

Vaughn’s decision was based on compelling evidence presented in court by attorneys Theodore Olsen and David Bois against Prop 8 and an uninspired defense for Prop 8.  Turns out all the witnesses, from both sides, helped Walker come to the conclusion on a judicial basis that homosexuality is not a choice and that children reared in same-sex households present to the world the same complicated selves as children raised with a mom and a dad.  So there.  It looks as if the majority of experts on legal decisions such as this believe, if it goes all the way to the Supreme Court, Walker’s ruling will stand.

Elena Kagan was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday and was sworn in yesterday as the 112^th justice and the fourth woman on the Supreme Court.  We now have three women sitting among six men on the nation’s highest court and I’m thrilled, period.

August 6^th marked the 65^th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.  Japanese commemorate the day at exactly 8:15am when the atomic bomb “Little Boy” hit, killing 70,000 people immediately and 70,000 from radiation in the years following, and signaled the beginning of the end of the war with Japan.  No American representative has ever attended the event, nor been invited (duh), but that changed this year when U.S. Ambassador John Roos was welcomed on Friday.

In Kenya, 71% of registered voters came out to effectively change the course of how their country is governed.  Approving a new constitution to replace the old one written up after Kenya’s independence from Britain in 1963, this one hopes to eliminate corruption and provide checks on presidential power, while addressing land grabs and tribalism.  71% of voters turned out, peacefully. For a new constitution.  Worth noting, don’t you think?

First it was tweeted as an assassination attempt, then a simple crude bomb, and finally a harmless firecracker set off near Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s motorcade Wednesday.  Any way you look at it, Ahmadinejad was unharmed which means the world still has to deal with the crazy man.

A lot of people who make their living fishing in Alaska’s Bristol Bay don’t want the Pebble Mine Company constructing their enormous mine near their waters filled with sockeye salmon.  Honestly, what grabbed me about the story, other than the idea that those poor little salmon that I love to eat might be hurt or worse, was the picture the LA Times included of Katherine Carscallen, a third generation Alaskan fisherwoman.  She’s adorable!  Maybe Janine Turner in “Northern Exposure” wasn’t such an unrealistic casting decision.  I see a calendar in the future: “The Fisherwomen of Bristol Bay”.

And, of course, speaking of Alaskan Bristols: Levi and Bristol have called off their engagement again because Levi may have fathered a child with another girl.  I’m bothered that I don’t even have to use their last names.

A New York City commission on Tuesday cleared the way for construction of an Islamic Center two blocks from Ground Zero.  While I wholly support and agree with the commission’s decision based on the laws this country provides regarding freedom of religion and all that, I do wish they would have chosen a site further away.  Just saying.

In the Gulf, we’re hearing there’s no evidence from the FDA that chemical dispersants used by BP to break up the oil spilled from Deepwater Horizon have contaminated seafood.  Gut reaction: how do they know so quickly?  Shouldn’t they wait awhile, conduct more tests and observe before they go making statements like that?  The static kill using mud and cement to stop the damn leak looks good (it’s been three weeks now since oil crept out of the well) and the catastrophe is moving further and further off the front page.  I’m still going to want to know where the shrimp comes from the next time I make my jambalaya.

Massive flooding in Pakistan has killed close to two thousand and affected millions.  Reprisal killings in Islamabad continue, as does the war with Afghanistan.  Pakistan is competing with Haiti right now as one of the worst places to live on the planet.  Unfortunately, the competition is fierce.

On a lighter note, 16-year-old Justin Beiber is writing a memoir and 14-year-old Dutch girl Laura Dekker set sail this week on a trip around the world.  When I was their age, I was popping pimples and trying to understand how Algebra II Trig could possibly become applicable to my life as a future Broadway star.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have pledged to give half of their billion dollar fortunes to philanthropic causes and are asking other billionaires to do the same.  So far, Ted Turner, Microsoft’s Paul Allen, George Lucas and NYC mayor Michael R. Bloomberg have signed on.  Good, good, good.  But it brings up something I’ve been wondering lately.  Travie McCoy’s song “I Want To Be a Billionaire” has been playing on the radio incessantly.  The first line: “I want to be a billionaire so frickin’ bad” makes me ask when it became not enough to simply want to be a millionaire.  How much money do these kids need?  (I just said “these kids”.  Ugh.)

Tonight, 5pm PST, Dallas plays Cincinnati in the Hall of Fame game, marking the beginning of the pre-season in the NFL.  I know it’s unimportant to watch, but I’m turning it on anyway just to hear the sound.

Look for Monday Motherhood tomorrow.  It’s going to be gripping.

We don’t go to church every Sunday.  Too often, life gets in the way.  Some Sundays, the husband wants to go to church with the girls and I just want to sleep late, enjoy my run, read the paper and drink a pot of coffee.  Regardless, I seem to always end up sitting in that pew next to Goldie, Bun Bun or Miss T, listening to the choir and the sermon.  After running in some steamy weather this morning, I jumped in the shower to cool down and then jumped in the minivan headed to Beverly Hills.  I’m so glad I did.

We had a going away party at our house today with about fifteen families.  I didn’t ask around but I bet there wasn’t more than one other family here (if that) who attended mass this morning.  I’m not being righteous; I’m stating a fact.  Things are a lot different from when I was growing up, when Sunday service was an obligation you took seriously, if seldom joyfully.  There were few questions asked and we did as we were told.  I grew up with a punishing God who, we were led to believe, would inflict spiritually bad karma upon us if we didn’t visit for an hour every weekend.

The reasons my friends and many of my generation have turned their backs on organized religion are varied and mostly valid.  They’re also none of my business.  But I am sorry that not everyone gets to hear what I hear every time I walk into our church.  The pomp and circumstance I can take or leave depending on my mood.  The rituals often annoy me.  But the sermon, oh the sermon.  I have yet to be disappointed, or uninspired, by a homily I’ve heard given by any of the pastors who preach where we’ve chosen to worship.  Sure, I remember some more than others but there’s always a gem in the lecture somewhere and it would be unfair of me to keep it to myself.

Today’s sermon came after the Gospel lesson of Luke 10:38-42, if you’re interested in reading it.  The gist of the interpretation, per Rector Mary Haddad, was that there was great value in listening, in meditation, in contemplative thought before action.  At least that’s what I heard.  (The sermon wasn’t yet available online.  Go to AllSaintsbh.org tomorrow and it should be posted.)  Reverend Haddad quoted the poet Mary Oliver and after she did, I grabbed a pen, wrote down the quote and knew I had to share it with all of you.

“Tell me.  What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I realize that if you’re out of a job or struggling to pay bills or just finished cleaning up the vomit your sick child left all over the sheets, pondering a profound and powerful existence is the last thing on your to-do list.  Still, isn’t it a great quote?

For whatever reason, there were more than a few moments last week when I thought to myself, regarding life, “You only get to do this once.”  What I hear at church most Sundays always seems to tie into either what’s going on in my head or what should be going on in my heart.

So thank you to the Marys – Haddad, Oliver and the Mary from Luke 10.