The usual threesome (Laura, Larry and I) went to dinner tonight at La Costa in North Bend, OR.  The owner of the restaurant, Rafael, came over and spoke to us and introduced himself.  He pointed to a big banner of two men in full Mariachi garb and said "that is me".  We spoke to him about his singing, and he said "I will sing later".  About 10 minutes later the music playing dimmed and came back without words, and Rafael came out with a microphone and serenaded the whole restaurant. 

Wouldn't it be great if this was the standard fare when we went out to dinner?

Imagine sitting in your favorite Italian restaurant watching and listening as the restaurateur sings an Italian love song to you. 

I started thinking that it would look good for our government to mandate that all restaurant owners must sing to their customers.  They are busy making bullshit laws that regulate things that shouldn't be regulated and sit on their asses when injustices abound, so why not pass a meaningless law that will make us all happy at dinner?

Another beautiful sunny day in Oregon and I am starting to feel sad about leaving this wonderful state.  We are about 6 months away from our move and I don't think I can really express all of my feelings about this massive change.

When the sun shines in Oregon in winter, I get an overwhelming feeling of optimism and hope for a better tomorrow.  Sunny days in Oregon are not terribly rare.  But still we expect rain.  I can think back to the first year I moved here, and my first winter 1998-99 when it was incredibly wet and gray for 5 months.  At first I thought it wasn't so bad, but when March came and it wouldn't stop, and then continued through most of May, it became disheartening.  As I sat through each following winter, i grew to love the rain, and now I feel like that may be what I will miss the most about Oregon.  There is something about the rain that keeps me humble.  The obvious metaphor seems to be of the sun and the rain.  Sun is the eternal optimist, the hopeful, happy bright-eyed fresh wake up in the morning (I am sure there are people in parts of the world that do not feel this way about the sun) with a cup of organic coffee feeling that makes a day worth living.  The rain rarely shows itself when the sun is out.  The rain reminds me that every day is not a sunny day, that there are people who do not wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed, and that I do not have to wake up feeling optimistic hopeful and happy every day.  And for me that has been even more so the reason why I try to wake up feeling that way. Because I know the sun will come out (I was never in Annie), I have always felt about the rain in oregon that I can sense the sun right behind the gray clouds.  In New Jersey I felt like Grey was Grey.  When it was grey the sun was taking the day off.  I never felt that way in Oregon.  Like it's just waiting on the horizon for the right moment to peek out.  And when it does, it is a celebration of sunlight and all that is good in my world. 

I will miss the Oregon rain and the Oregon sun a great deal when we leave.  I am optimistic that the sun will come up wherever we live, and that all that I love about Oregon has found its way into my heart.   

I am ready for my Sunday morning coffee to be done brewing.  We drink organically grown fair trade coffee for several reasons. 

Coffee that is not grown organically is grown in places where it naturally would not grow.  Coffee is a shade-loving plant, and grows most prolifically under a canopy of trees.  In many places where coffee is grown, thousands upon thousands of acres of trees have been destroyed to provide room for the coffee plant to grow.  Coffee has since been genetically modified (bred) to grow without shade in these treeless places.  This is one of many sources of global warming that people are kept unaware of because the truth might ruin your cup of joe and goad you to spend your money on more sustainably grown crops.  Remember that your money is your vote. 

Coffee that is not sold on the fair trade market is purchased from the farmers for pennies on the pound.  That means that the coffee farmer that pours his heart and hard work into growing the tree that produces the coffee beans in your java makes barely enough money to survive.  Meanwhile, the CEO of Folgers turns around and sells you the same coffee for 5$ a pound and makes a 4$ profit on each can of coffee that you buy.  It's not just Folger's.  Any coffee that does not have the Fair Trade label on it is turning this same wheel.  When you buy Fair Trade products, you can be sure that your money is going to the person who sweated so that you can be comfortable.  Wouldn't you hope for the same for yourself?

You can find Fair Trade Organically Grown coffee at your supermarket.  If not, tell the store manager that you want it.  Don't watch An Inconvenient Truth and then sit and complain about all of the problems with the environment.  There are millions of small steps you can take without driving a hybrid car.  Start with your cup of coffee.  I can guarantee you it will taste that much better going down.

My coffee's ready. 

I have been inspired by the two Daniels in my life to enter the world of blogging.  There is a lifetime of words that has been kept inside of me, with a rare appearance in some leather bound journal or othersuch paper meant to sustain my love, pain, joy, grief and general emotional or non-emotional airings.  I say to myself frequently "Write more", and yet those thoughts vanish in moments lost betwen others.  For years I have continued this pattern and I aim to break it now.  Since Jon died my internal challenge has been to discomfort myself, to not shy away from making my words mean something.  I hope to validate my mind's meandering.

While enjoying stuffed cabbage with Laura and Jolene this week I asserted that the healthiest response I can have to death is to think about the qualities of the dead that I will miss the most and to keep their spirit alive by including those qualities into my own personal evolution.  I loved Jon so much and one of the things that I loved and hated about him was that he was never afraid to tell me what he thought and felt.  Sometimes it hurt but never for a sustained period since I had already learned from he and Larry that the only thing that can truly kill you is that which you choose not to learn from.  

So now it is my chance to evolve with Jon.  I will take the chance to say what I feel and what I think without concern for repercussion.  Use words that may hurt to say more than they hurt to hear.  I have always kept quiet for fear of hearing the words leave my lips. 

I have a great deal of love for the world, and in my lifetime I have held some of this love back by not being truly honest with myself or with those around me.  True love means true honesty.  True Honesty reflects true love.  Love is the only thing that will save us from a lifetime of suffering.