Carlo Says Thank You Too in Everyday Ramblings

So the online store where I buy my pet food has this thing where they ask you to take a picture of your pet in the box the food arrives in and share. This is Carlo last night saying Thank You. Thank you so much for saving Prosebox so that Mom (he calls me Mom, I know, I know) doesn’t look so sad and feel bad that her friends (some of you for 18 years) are going away.

I am so glad we can stay together for now.

It is Easter weekend, my very favorite holiday. Flowers and chocolate and rabbits oh my. Oh and resurrection, and blooming and that deep thrumming life energy that bursts out in spring here in the Northern Hemisphere.

How is Easter for you in the Southern Hemisphere? A nesting in time? A sense of relief after the worst of the long hot months?

Here the rains will be returning but for right now we have cloudy skies and milder temperatures that will make being out and about more enjoyable. Every year I am fascinated watching the birds that are not on the nest and the amazing way that the leaves unfold on all the trees.

They broke ground, literally, on this new 108 unit studio apartment complex on this scruffy parking lot near Portland State this week, a parking lot right on top of the freeway and adjacent to a number of homeless encampments. The parking lot was a magnet for their trash and no cars were safe there after dark.

I saw the building plans and drawings. It will be 6 floors and the whole building will have this interesting triangle shape and it is going to change my world as I walk by it practically every day.

Our City Council approved a bunch of money for infrastructure improvements yesterday. Some old loans are being retired and freeing up this much needed funding. The city is growing so fast!

My work students petitioned me to move my class back about 15 minutes today so that they could come after meetings that other folks scheduled them into. It means they value the class enough to ask for that and I am fine with it.

Nimrod’s last day at work was Wednesday. We don’t have a clue who we are going to report to going forward but our management team is asking for metrics and process and procedure manuals. We have a sort of team of managers to report to now. So far everybody has been friendly so we are trying to stay calm.

I am finding it hard to stay calm with all the news, of dismantling and rolling back and limiting and…oh and hiring people for jobs into agencies they have either an antipathy for or no knowledge of. It is going to take us so many years to undo the damage that is being done right now and that is overwhelming to contemplate.

I have this deep seated fear that I will be spending my years in retirement living in a tarp covered tent in a refugee camp that has been created as a result of decisions being made today not able to afford needed medication and nutrition.

But I know we are resourceful, resilient and adaptive as a species and spring will be beautiful as long as this world exists in somewhat the same configuration as it does now.

And Carlo, who is curled up with his brother on a towel in a patch of sun in a cat bed says, no worries, Mom!

It is all good.

Last updated March 30, 2018