Birthday again

Elizabeth took me to the Red Lobster for lunch. Love the food there and we had a great time talking. It is great to have a daughter and a friend all in one.

Birthday!

Another year older and....I'm still here! I am a little surprised that I made it this far. This last year started out scary and for awhile got scarier. Right now all is well and I am looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not everything is going great...my son John, Hailey's dad, is back in the slam. Drugs again. He was out two years and couldn't quite get it together. He had lots of help and support but drugs take it all away. Meth is a life killer and Hailey was very upset about her dad. She is making it through this with lots of heart. She is a good kid...well most of the time...She has been missing school and we have to see her teachers on Monday. They want her to sign an attendance contract. She is also seeing a counselor at school.

I voted against pot last week...California is not going to make it legal. Though the idiots keep trying. I am not against the dying using pot to get through the bad times. I am against making pot legal for our kids to get into. John started out using pot and then meth. Both these drugs have not done him any good. If anyone thinks that marijuana is harmless they should read the information found here: Marijuana

The news is doing a series on OxyContin. My stepmother died of cancer. Toward the end they gave her a prescription for OxyContin. I was sent to the drug store to get the prescription. The doctor had made a mistake on the state form and the drug store couldn't fill the prescription. The form had to be taken back to the doctor and a new one signed. The doctor would not issue a new one without the first one being taken back. He had to account for every copy of the form so that the ruined form had to be sent back to the state. Now kids are getting Oxy from their parents, from other kids on the street, and from Mexico. All the restrictions from the past didn't do a bit of good to keep this drug from hurting our children. How will anyone keep our kids from being hurt by marijuana if it is totally legal?

My children grew up when meth became popular and easy to get. I talked to them about drugs. But I didn't know what crystal was. I remember telling my son John not to use it because it sounded dangerous. Of course I had also told him and all my kids not to use pot. A lot of good that did. It took awhile to find out what crystal was. John said that he wouldn't try it though his friend had some. I remember that friend. He was a nice kid that one day told me that he was going to marry my daughter when he grew up. A few years later his family did an intervention but it didn't get him off meth. He did time in Arizona and in California. I saw him about ten years ago and he looked really bad. I have heard that he finally got his life together. I would like to have hope that my son could do that too. Several of my son's friends fell into drugs. Some of them made it out a couple of them died. Some like my son are still sinking.

The day my stepmother died I took all her pill bottles and emptied them into the garbage including the Oxy.

WAP

The name has been changed so that it is not actually WAP anymore. It is now the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. I had not been there since last year. So tonight I'm one tired cookie. I need to get out and walk a lot  more. Anyway had a lovely time with Gail. She was so nice about me being slowed down since my health problems. She is a lovely person and I very much enjoyed her company. I do have some photos.

Outside of gift shop. The photo does not really show the sparkle of the sun catchers.

Both the Zoo and the Animal Park have lots of flamingos near the entrances.

Giraffe skull. This shows that what seems like horns are actually bone and part of the skull. At another location there was a rhinoceros skull but I didn't take a photo.

We took a ride around the park. Since the mono rail is gone they have what they call a tram tour. We took that around the park. We got a good view of the giraffes. The tram is 30 minutes and while they do stop for pictures...have to be quick to take them.

The cattle are the decendants of the original ancestors of the long horned cattle brought to America by the Spanish. They became the Mexican cattle that were brought to Texas and mixed with other cattle that eventually developed into the colorful Texas Longhorns. They were on a hill above the road.

We did see some zebra but the view was limited. One bad thing about trying to take photos on the tram and also on the mono rail before is the time of day and usually being on the shadow side of many of the animals.

After the tram ride we walked to the lions.

Sitting up on his rock and trying to ignore us.

A keeper was hand feeding the lions treats through a heavy wire. She was walking away after eating treats. Taken through the glass.

He decided to get some treats and came over. I shot this through the glass.

We had some lunch and then headed for home through the big bird cage. Lots of shadows make it hard to get good pics, but this one was standing in the sun.

I drove home through Ramona. Was glad to be back home...I need to do more walking...

Descanso and Alpine

Jackie and I drove up to Descanso this morning. There was an antique sale there. Lots of old and interesting things. I saw an old wooden crank telephone. Back in the 1960s the old wooden phones were changed over to work on modern telephone systems. Years ago I almost bought an old phone until I found out that it had been changed over. Jackie asked and they said the phone was original so went ahead and bought it. I haven't taken it apart and looked inside yet...hope I'm still a happy camper when I do.

We drove home through Alpine and stopped for lunch at the Alpine Inn. Lovely food. I had a wonderful clam chowder. While we waited for the resturant to open we visited a nursery where there were lots of pretty flowers. I was glad I had brought along my camera. Here are some of the photos I took today.

Bottle Brush

The first two photos taken in jpg format and except for downsizing are as taken by the camera

 This one was taken in raw format and edited.

Voting

Tomorrow is the day! First it will mean the end of all the ads and hype that is making watching TV miserable. Second it means I will have to choose between two people that I think should not be our governor. I remember Governor Moonbeam and the problems we had back then. Rose Bird was one. Still I cannot vote for the Meg. URF!  Meg seems like a very nice person and I don't believe all that hype about the maid. The maid was a part time worker and earned more than my daughter does per hour. None of that has anything to do with Meg being our governor. Voting age used to be 21. The first election I could vote in, I voted for Pat Brown...Jerry's father. Guess it will be Moonbeam for sure...well maybe...my husband was smart and got a write in ballot...he picked the independant...maybe I should do that...then that is like throwing my vote away...Moonbeam is looking better. Next time I'm going to get that write in ballot for sure!

Sunrise

Woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise. View toward the east.

View toward the west...Yes my palms again!

Sunshine Makes the Grass Grow

The rain was gone for awhile. I went out and took photos of my palms a couple of days ago. The sky was blue and there were white puffy cotton ball clouds floating here and there. A lovely day.

Here is my palms as they look now with the tallest missing.

Today was nice too and we drove up to Sycamore Park and looked around and took photos. I had been there on a cloudy day and thought that the view was to the ocean but it is not...Just a lot of brushy hills and trails.Taken at Sycamore Park. The green on the road is grass growing from the rain we had.

Just What I Think

This blog is named What I Think. Most of the time I write about day to day things and post photos. Once in awhile I will write something more. I wrote this as a comment on Yahoo News. Here it is with a few edits.

The three middle eastern religions all believe in the same god. People have forgotten that. Each of these religions took different paths and spread out in different ways across the world. There are lots more religions out there than these three but many people like to forget that. And many people have no faith in a greater unseen being. The goodness or badness of people is not about religion but about who the person is inside as a decent human being.

I believe in women's rights so that makes it hard for me to respect the Muslem religion as it is practiced in much of the world. That is just how I feel. I am not scared of Muslems in robes. America has come a long way in a short time. Most of us do not look down on any one because of who they are or how they believe in god. If an American citizen is a Muslem, or a Jew, or a Catholic or other type of Christian or any other religion or non believer they have a right to run for office. I mention Catholic because it was once not possible to get elected president of the United States if one was Catholic. John Kennedy changed that.  It is up to the people to vote or not vote as they think they should. That is what America is about.

We need to use common sense when we choose our representives. That means we should think first before we vote for any one that is a radical no matter what it is they believe in. If someone is going to say that a group of people are scary, first on the list should be skinhead white power radicals. That is what I think.

Rain!

Expected to really see some sunshine this morning but woke up to more rain. I think this is going to be a rainy winter. We haven't had a rainy winter for a few years. It is not that I don't like rain. It gives us green grass and makes things grow...I just like sunshine more. I spent one winter in Washington state. I was a freshman in highschool then. We had lots of cold and snow. That winter was one of the coldest they ever had. My sister and I got to walk down the road to the school bus stop in snow. The first morning that we woke up to snow was beautiful and very quiet. Everything outside looked like a Christmas card. We were from SoCal and it was new to us. We had spent several summers in Washington state but this was our first winter...and our last though we didn't know that at the time.