Crazy week, bad Monday, good curry

Well, I'm too busy this week to write a lot. Trying to babyproof my house in honor of Makaylah... And Pickathon is this weekend, lots to do to get ready for it. Its going to be such a fun time though!! Greg Brown, Iris DeMent, Kris Delmhorst, Mark Erelli, the Wailin' Jennys, Darol Anger, Kelly Joe Phelps..... And, the Raina and Garett Kids Hour should be a highlight!!

Yesterday I began the day with a kitchen fire. A dishrag was on the stove and it caught fire and burst into flames while I was boiling water for tea and had gone in the other room. So I managed to get it out, removed the still-smoking remains from the house and started my day being totally late. Then later my car blew a tire on the 205 near Vancouver (exit 28)(that's Washington, not BC for those of you who are not local...). Then I almost injured myself falling into a deep rabbit hole by the side of the highway, while trying to get some shade. Luckily, Raina was there to help me laugh about it and also to provide a working cell phone and AAA card. So then I had to replace my two front tires and pretty much not have an afternoon after that.... Oh, and then some woman pulled out really fast right in front of me on Fremont and I came extremely close to really hurting both of us. Luckily, my brakes worked well and all it did was make me more tense for a little while. But the evening ended with some really good Thai red curry that Raina and I made and Briel helped us eat. Which made things a lot better.

I sent a petition from Jewish Voice for Peace to a lot of people the other day, and have had several dissenting responses saying that they will not sign something asking for Israel to have a ceasefire. It is not a simple issue at all, and I do not presume to know the answers, I probably know much less than most people about it. But to me some basic facts seem clear. One is that we as US citizens only have any influence over our own government and thus Israel, as their ally. We could have a petition asking Hamas or Hizbollah to disarm, and I'd be the first to sign it, but they already hate us. Do you give advice to your friends or your enemies? Also, it remains true that Israel has killed many many more innocent civilians in both Lebanon and Gaza than Hizbollah or Hamas. I do not want my family in Israel to get hurt, and wish that Israel and the US could try doing less things that make other Middle Eastern countries hate us/them, so that both Israel and people here can be safer. I'm all for hating terrorism, in Israel, Seattle, New York, everywhere. I do hate it that people can be that angry, that the world exists where that seems like the best outlet for some people.... OK, I think I'm getting delirious here and can no longer say anything coherent. I'm sure I already sound naive in many ways. Oh well. Thanks for reading anyway.

Despite a few heated emails on above topic, today was much better than yesterday. Lovely weather, lovely dinner at the new Mississippi Station with Jim & Julie and Kate & Steve (while REM - or all of them besides Michael Stipe - recorded with John Wesley Harding next door and had a drama involving too many birthday cakes). And I got a new cell phone, so I am reachable again. In fact, feel free to email me your number, because my whole cell address book got lost and I'm missing a lot of numbers... So email me your number, or your opinion about Israel, or your opinion about red curry, or the Pickathon line-up....

And here's a totally unrelated picture of a few of the stray kittens born in my backyard last month. Want one?