My whole life I’ve seen this school picture of my dad, but it went through the laundry many years ago. I even asked graphic designer friends to try to fix it, but it didn’t work. Now with Artificial Intelligence, I want to cry because I’m seeing it as it was intended to be for the first time. And then I colorized it! I’m almost in tears as he’s been dead for 35 years and this photo was taken in the 1940s.
Shea and I got up at 5am, although I woke up at 3am and couldn’t go back to sleep. We took 3 kittens and 7 dogs, including two of our fosters, to get spayed and neutered at ASS o’clock. In case you’re counting and don’t see enough crates, two of the kittens were in a crate together! I’m glad Shea had the wherewithal to take these pictures while we loaded them in the car on the way back, although this does NOT capture three other dogs that we had on leash/seatbelts, including two fosters and a recent foster, Cookie, who I’m holding in one picture. To try to keep the animals calm, we sang xmas carols, but they were drugged up on the way back, so it probably didn’t help much. It’s exciting to think that all of these animals are now immediately available to be adopted, as this step is mandatory. Some of these animals already have applications in for permanent placement, which is exciting. Like all shelters, I imagine, HSNB is regularly looking for volunteers to bring animals to clinics to get them desexed (yes, that’s a word). I’m so grateful to so many people who have done this as I’ve been able to do a handful of times.
Sunday morning row without a stitch of sun.
Santa Tom and Shea and I get ready for Photos with Santa at Brickmania
Pet Chicken named Pecky at the Photos with Santa:
Frenchie Stella rolls over on a dime:
Watch out Mrs. Santa! Elfette is taking your man!
Vallejo Times Herald Article:
Today, my dad would have been 86. His birthday sometimes falls on Thanksgiving. He died at 50 due to tobacco-related illness, which decreased his quality of life for years before death, and certainly his health. Statistically, I keep telling everyone he could have still been alive and well at this age, but for Camel’s cigarettes that he was handed as a kid for free outside of a package while growing up in Oahu. The addiction was encouraged in society, and certainly when he himself joined the military. After his quintuple bypass at age 48, it only took him one month to beg my mom to buy him cigarettes that he was too weak to go to the store to purchase for himself. She later told me that she regretfully acquiesced because he was incessant. In my tobacco activism, I really grit my teeth when tobacco retailers (poison-pushing peddlers) complain that if we limit the amount of addictive product that they sell to their community, we are “hurting their retirement.” WHAT ABOUT MY DAD’S RETIREMENT? Do you think dying at 50 is what he planned for, and his mother before him, who died at the same age from her own smoking? I’m not talking about people who died in the 19th century here. This is in the latter half of the 20th century! To say nothing of my cousin Ivan Benenati, who died THIS millennium from osteosarcoma from his smoking when he was only 35!!! EIGHT MILLION people die from tobacco-related illness every year. It is THE MOST PREVENTABLE cause of death, and yet it’s still okay to have product placement in nearly every movie, no matter what the mise-en-scene — EVEN SCIENCE FICTION! How does this continue to be normalized!?!
The back deck is near completion, although it’s still missing a step. Thanksgiving started out with my doing a little gardening, a little packing, a little moving (of outdoor items) with Shea’s help, and then I took pictures of the incremental outdoor progress on the house. Still zilch on the floors, doors, bathrooms, and kitchen, though. The brown trim painting on the exterior of the house doesn’t appear to have started either. I do love that the big back deck, which I will eventually cover again and turn into a lanai, is at a consistent height all the way out, but I don’t understand whether they intend to put handrails on either side, a step on three sides, or what. I think it’s safer to have a narrow step rather than the gradual reduction in height that existed before, which people constantly tripped on, despite the bright tape. I also noticed that the “path” between the plum tree and the porch is now narrowed, so I’ll have to remove whatever random growth is there so that there can be a walkable path without jumping onto the deck to go back and forth in the garden for humans and canines. How that will look after the lower step is added could make that a challenge. I’m also pleased that they replicated the width of the bedroom deck. Hopefully, the kitchen deck will make sense, too. I was not really consulted on any of these details, but so far I can live with the decisions that were made.
It also appears that there is less of an awning than before, so it should be easier to install the roof of the back deck and hopefully raise it, even if it has to come down at an angle a bit for privacy.
