Spring Not

And then it got cold. Some elevations near me received snow. Very pretty in the news. Not so much so for gardeners near those higher elevations.

The news casters talked about the last two times it snowed in the Bay Area low enough for it to stick in San Francisco.

In February 1976 it snowed and I have pictures of Papa scraping snow off the windshield of my 1964 Rambler Ambassador. That is the nearest that car came to snow.

In January 1962 I woke up one Sunday morning (at least memory calls it a Sunday) to look out my bedroom window on a backyard that looked like someone had taken a giant sugar duster to the yard and sprinkled powdered sugar all over it. I couldn't believe my eyes and I hurried out to the dining room to open the floor-to-ceiling drapes for a better look! Wow! It wasn't powdered sugar at all ! It was snow. I woke up the rest of the family to come see my amazing discovery.

This time it did not snow at the lower elevations as predicted on Thursday and Friday. In fact, it barely rained. Some weird convergence of pressure systems made for unusual weather.

Is it global warming or some other source of climate change, or just odd weather? Humans have always noticed and talked about the weather. After all, at its extremes weather can wreak havoc with our lives, remind us of how fragile we are and how much we are not in control of nature.

Maybe that is why we like the theory of global warming so much--it puts us in a central position and in control. Not to say we should be wasting fossil fuels the way we do, but I do think there are other reasons not to waste.

I would love to see less waste, and I would love to see the true cost of our wasteful misuse of nature's bounty factored into the cost of the things we buy and discard so haphazardly. I have wanted to see that since I was an undergraduate in college in the 1960's and a fellow student in Econ 1A raised the question of how we could or should factor in the cost of the use of non-renewable natural resources. It is a disappointment to me that almost fifty years later we still don't have any formulas for doing this.

If someone knows of a history of climate or weather that I could request next month from the library as one of my monthly books, I would appreciate it. The historian in me questions some of what I hear as science. (Just a skeptic at heart, I guess.)

I am grateful to live in a free society, where I can be a skeptic, and where I can even show what may be my ignorance without worrying about reprisals. Grateful too, very grateful that I have a warm spot to hunker down in today, more than enough tasks to keep me busy--which ones to choose first--and that the weather is warming up.

A blessed Sunday to everyone.

February Saints

Yesterday was the Feast of St. Brigid of Ireland. Today is the Feast of Candlemas also known as the Feast of the Purification. These are wonderful feasts. I particularly love Simeon who says upon meeting the Christ Child, "Lord now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation". The Elizabethan composer, Gibbons, set it to music--a fine and beautiful motet indeed.

I am watching the Democratic candidates debate. They are making history. I hope that one of them will win and make further history. An end to an unjust war that has besmirched our national character and our standing in the world. An end to poverty in our life times. (Perhaps and economics of generosity instead of scarcity. Certainly higher taxes for the ultra rich to discourage CEO's from walking away with tens of millions of dollars. A pricing structure for energy that puts money back in consumers' pockets when the the company profit reaches a certain level--Exxon Mobil is a scandal in my estimation.)

What does this have to do with two women's feasts? Am I digressing. Not really. St. Brigid was a nun who had charge over a community and is reputed to have been responsible for a miracle involving making sure there was enough beer to go around. The Blessed Virgin was a mother, who watched the household economy as women ever have; when her son came of age and performed his first miracle it had to do with making sure there was enough wine to go around.

Women have always fed and washed, combed and clothed, the children and the elderly. We haven't always had a strong voice in politics, although history shows that queens have led as well as kings, and that the pantheon of saints shows us women leaders.

Only in recent times (the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) have we had fewer women leaders (I think of the demise of Catholic women's religious orders here) and an economics of scarcity.

So on this Marian feast, one of my favorite in the calendar because of its text and images, the music and the candlelit procession around the church, I pause to ponder women's role yet again and say a prayer for Hillary, a strong woman who is making history.

Cold and crisp

I think fall is definitely turning into winter. It is decidedly cold in the mornings and this old body doesn't want to rise and shine!

The dryer repair man came and determined nothing wrong with the new dryer. One circuit breaker had popped, giving the dryer less voltage to work on. It is now running with the smallest load I could set up in it--hand towels. I'm betting it has popped the breaker again and will not dry the towels. Next call--the electrician. Oh, and the dryer vent cleaner cleaned the vent yesterday--guess what, it didn't need cleaning!

The hand towels can be strung out above the washer and dryer, if they come out wet. Clothes and sheets cannot. It is at moments like this that I find it difficult to find my blessings and be grateful. Life with a disability is not easy. That's an understatement. Yes, it certainly is. More assistive technology would be a blessing. Fewer restrictions on earnings for the disabled who, because of the nature of our health care payment system must rely on Social Security benefits, would also be a blessing, and in fact are a necessity.

Why can disabled persons who are blind have a substantial gainful activity level of $1500 per month while the "non-blind" can only earn $950 before losing benefits? Why is this income level not calculated as after tax rather than before tax? Wouldn't it make infinitely more sense to simply allow disabled people to work up to 22 hours per week, keep their benefits and be paid what is usual and customary for whatever type of work they are doing?

Wouldn't it also make marvelous sense to train people at their real skill level, recognize and encourage work-at-home possibilities (that are real and not scams) and help people find them? Many of the able-bodied "telecommute". Why shouldn't I? In a sense I am doing so right now, writing this blog post, shopping for supplies for my small business, tending cafepress/margueritemanor.com and my Squidoo lenses.

In addition to three degrees from "world-class" or "first tier" universities I also have a myriad level of computer skills, design skills adn people skills that are underutilized. I need mentoring and networking and this should be part of vocational rehabilitation.

If there is any candidate for president who wants to take up the needs of the disabled, I will vote and campaign for that person (provided the rest of what he or she advocates isn't too far from what I too, believe). So far I don't see or hear anything that suggests the issue is even on the political radar. Disabled people vote. Our family members vote. Our caregivers and helpers vote. Even our neighbors and friends vote. That is a lot of people, a lot of votes.

I hadn't meant to be political today, but here it is. I think I may have said it before. I will say it again, I am sure.

The sun shines in and that is a blessing. The dryer is heating and that too is a blessing. Now I can do laundry again. (If the washing machine will just hold up!) Praise and thank God!