Sorry For The Absence

Got too much going on with the house right now to blog. I work hard all week at the office, and then I have two days to work on restoring some order to the chaos. This involves more than merely moving everything back to where it was. Hopefully I am accomplishing some improvements and deep cleaning in my too short weekends.

Life isn't all bad though. My highlight of the week was saving a box turtle that was slowly walking across the road. And I plan to stop everything to watch the USA v.s. England World Cup game today. You gotta take the good where you can get it.

Another New UN Report...

... how can the world continue to ignore this information? A June 2, 2010 article in the Telegraph by Louise Gray is reproduced below.

Eat Less Meat to Save the Planet - UN
The World Needs to Change to a More Vegetarian Diet To Stand a Chance of Tackling Climate Change, According to a Major New United Nations Report.

The group of international scientists said the greatest cause of greenhouse gas emissions is food production and the use of fossil fuels. 

But while the use of coal and oil could be gradually replaced by renewable energy sources like wind and solar, the world will always need to eat.

As the world population increases it is feared that the production of food will become the main cause of climate change and environmental degradation.

The International Panel of Sustainable Resource Management pointed out that agricultural production accounts for 70 per cent of global freshwater production, 38 per cent of land use and 19 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

The report, that will be presented to world governments, said the only way to feed the world while reducing climate change is to switch to more a more vegetarian diet.

"A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change," it read.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, said ordinary consumers can help fight climate change by eating less meat.


"The Panel have reviewed all the available science and conclude that two broad areas are currently having a disproportionately high impact on people and the planet's life support systems—these are energy in the form of fossil fuels and agriculture, especially the raising of livestock for meat and dairy products," he said.

Mr Steiner said governments could encourage people to eat less meat by reforming the system of taxes and subsidies so vegetarian food is cheaper.


"Smart market mechanisms, more intelligent fiscal policies and creative policy-making are among the options for internalising the costs of unsustainable patterns. Some tough choices are signalled in this report, but it may prove even more challenging for everyone if the current paths continue into the coming decades," he added.

Lord Stern of Brentford, the author of the influential Stern Review that first argued for economic measures to fight climate change, also believes the world needs to eat less meat.

He has already warned that the price of meat and other "carbon intensive" goods will need to go up to fight climate change.

A Moment

Life can change in the blink of an eye. One of our patients, a young woman of 23 with an 18-month old child, was in a terrible car accident. All I know at this point is that she has a closed head injury and possible severed spinal cord. I don't know if she will live or die or live with disabilities. I can't stop thinking about it, worrying about her.

In Buddhism it is often said that the span of our lives is like a dew drop on a leaf — beautiful, precious, and extremely short-lived. Life is remarkably unpredictable. None of us knows what life will bring. In any moment everything we take for granted can change. It is easy to become paralyzed with fear and to be honest I do struggle with this at times.

Obviously the better way is to keep our impermanence in back of our minds and live each day well. I am amazed at how much time I waste in this context, how easily I become focused on the mundane tasks that get me from yesterday to today to tomorrow. These chores need to be done in order for my life to function well, but the trick is to not let them become my reason for getting up in the morning like an automaton.

Is this some sort of an epiphany? No, I already know these things. Chelsey's accident just makes me think about it all over again.

Scooping Litter In Candlelight

We had some strong storms come through the area yesterday leading to a very romantic episode of scooping litter. How do the Amish do it???

Owl Box

Bumped into this streaming video of an owl box containing four nearly adult chicks. I wish I had time to just sit here and watch it. After finishing Wesley The Owl I am more in love with owls than I was before. The box belongs to a family in California, who put the box up two years ago but didn't have residents till this year. The owls are totally unaware of the camera. Right now they are just sleeping so all I can see is the feathers of two of them moving with their breathing, but it's like meditation. Beautiful.

The Next Josh Groban

Three people have sent me this video to post. He is a British youngster of Irish and Scottish descent named Declan Galbraith with a lot of musical talent. This video shows him at age 12 singing his own composition. The auditory quality of the first video leaves a lot to be desired but you need this version to understand the lyrics of the chorus at the end, the message of which is dear to my heart. Below it is a copy that sounds better but without the lyrics.

Version with lyrics:


Better musical quality, no lyrics provided:

Sorry For The Delay -- Here Are The Videos

Don't you love the sideways viewpoint? He clearly speaks in sentences now as long as you don't care what order the words are in.


Cyrus heard Saeed cough in the computer room and took off running. I played this video for Cyrus and we both laughed at the sound his feet made smacking the kitchen floor. He made me replay it several times.


I took this video because Cyrus was loudly and accurately counting the balls as he dropped the balls into the basket. The moment he sees me with the camera he becomes mute. Well, he does whisper the numbers.


Cyrus made use of the rugs rolled up on the living room floor (due to the guys painting our house.) It amazes me how little kids can do the same thing over and over and over and over...


Apparently sound effects are very funny!


This visit he was much more interested in cramming the crayons into the box than coloring. Whatever floats your boat bubsy.


Cyrus loves his own things - his very own bed, pillow, blanket, Mickey Mouse, and baby. The "wind" you hear in this video is the fan above my head.


This series of videos show Cyrus helping Saeed put up a new bird feeder.

Our Weekend With Cyrus

Although Cyrus has slept over MANY times it was always with at least one parent here. This weekend his parents went to a wedding in Raleigh so the little bubsy was here by himself and he did great.

Charging forth with two balls hidden behind his back.

Frow! (love the foot hitched up like a real pitcher)

I tried to take him to Cherry Park but he fell asleep for over two hours in the car. By the time he woke up it was pouring rain so we went to Walmart instead and got some new crayons.

Cyrus caught up on his reading this weekend.

His best friend right now is Mickey Mouse. When I found out Cyrus would be a big brother I bought him a little baby doll so he could play around with the new baby idea. Here he's putting Mickey and baby to bed.

Good job Cyrus (well, sort of!)

He still loves this pop-up toy. Now that he's mastered each of the mechanisms that makes the animal pop up and knows which animal will be popping out of each section I think he feels such satisfaction.

Pretending to go to bed with Mickey.

The best part of this game is yelling "Beddup!" (get up) and getting up really fast.

Master of his domain.

Cyrus 'helped' his Baba put up a new bird feeder today. Here they are walking to the front yard to get the pole.

I love the way his little hand holds onto Saeed's leg.

Another plan for this weekend that never happened due to rain was to finally get out there and learn how to ride the tricycle.

Shortly after Shirin and Gabriel got back Cyrus must have gotten really excited and raced around the house like a maniac. After getting all sweaty he went into Saeed's computer area and absconded with Saeed's smiley face stickers. Perhaps the question should not be, "Why does Cyrus have smiley face stickers all over his face?" but, "Why does Saeed have smiley face stickers?"

The reunited family is on their way back to Athens and my videos are slowly uploading for later posting. This family of three may very well be a family of four the next time I see them, or if Shirin is laboring when I go, a family of nearly four. I think it feels somewhat surreal to all of us. We know and are used to Cyrus but pretty soon there will be a whole other person in the family. What will he look like? What will his temperament be like? Will he get those recessive genes and be blue eyed? Will Cyrus want to knock his block off?

To be continued...

Endurance Runner

Although my house is still in total chaos I noticed a story on the internet regarding Scott Jurek, whose progress I have loosely followed for years. He is an endurance runner of the highest sort. 26 mile marathon? HA! Try 24 hours and over 100 miles completed!

Last Thursday and Friday Jurek competed in a 24-Hour run in France, a run to see how many miles can be run in that amount of time. The American record was 162 (if I remember correctly it was set in 1999 by Mark Godale) -- Jurek completed 165 and came in second place. Why does this matter?

It matters because Jurek is a vegan. It's important to dispell the myth that vegans are weak and undernourished. There are more vegan athletes than you'd ever imagine, such as the Milwaukee Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder, and hockey player Georges Laraque. It's all about being smart about what you eat. You can be a healthy vegan or an unhealthy vegan, a healthy meat-eater or an unhealthy meat-eater. So it's time for antiveganites to zip it. (The American Dietetic Association position paper on vegetarian and vegan diets)

The Superhero

This morning I went downstairs to find all the food and water bowls that I've strewn around the house for the kitties and replenish for the day. Although the kitties have been freaked out by the amorphous plastic sheets they seem to have realized that they're not 'ghosts' but things to hide under and play behind. (Those poor guys are going to have to do some retaping this morning.)

So I'm standing by the coffee pot fixing my first cup of java when I hear Tippy run like a bullet from the computer room through the kitchen and head straight for the plastic sheeting by the living room. I'm transfixed as I watch her plow through the bottom right corner at 100 mph like a super hero! FEARLESS! She, of all the kitties, seems to quickly adjust to adversity and figure out what's a true threat and what she can just plow through like...

... SUPER KITTY!

The corner of plastic that has a super hero hole in it as of this morning.