64 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-6-16”

  2. Good and happy new year to all! Seeing the photos from vacations brings back pleasant thoughts. 🙂

    My brother did get my bathroom sink in working order. He was able to wrap a little plumber’s tape around the internal faucet seat part to fill in the gap that allowed for leakage. If that has to be replaced every so often, it is a lot less expense than doing the whole sink and faucet. I like keeping the original sink that seems right for this house.

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  6. I found out Cadee’s story last night. (Our guest dog). She is a pure bred Pomeranian of show quality. Somehow a woman with children had her. She posted one night on Facebook that she was going to have to take the dog to the pound because she needed things for her children not the expense of a 5 week old puppy. The children had been rough with the puppy and broke her tale. That explained why sometimes when I picked her up, if I touched her tail she screamed. For the price of a couple of packs of diapers my friend rescued the puppy. She is definitely Diva Dog and had the cutest personality. I think my poor husband was smitten.
    Of course we are back to normal around here because Mr. P kept telling Amos that Mama had a new girl dog and didn’t love him anymore. Amos has reclaimed his territory. Lulabelle is also glad Cadee is gone because she didn’t understand why that little puff could sit on her human’s shoulders and she couldn’t. Never mind that Loe weighs 75 pounds. If she could somehow find a way to crawl up in Mr. P’s arms and be carried around she would do it.
    Dogs! Aren’t funny?

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  8. I got a happy birthday from my husband as he was putting kibble in the dog’s bowls. He kissed me on the forehead and went back to bed.
    I suspect a few people from work want to do birthday lunch today. I asked Mr. P last night if he had anything planned for me–I don’t want to over book myself and eat too much if he is taking me to dinner–he said no. I doubt that.
    Ex-husband said he sent BG a message reminding her that today is my birthday, but considering I took all of her money out of her checking account (to pay me back) and gave her $20 for the week (you need to learn to pace yourself and budget) I doubt she got me anything and cards these days are too expensive for her limited funds. Perhaps she can write Happy Birthday on a scrap of paper. 😉
    My friend Aunt Lezee wants to take me to dinner –just the girls— tomorrow night. I am also exited because her across the street neighbor’s birthday is tomorrow, so Lezee makes 1 coconut/Lane cake and splits it between the two of us. It’s my favorite.

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  9. Happy Birthday Kim!! You were given a most beautiful sunrise in the forest of Colorado this morning….bless the day that you were born!! ❤
    I'm certain you all will miss Cadee….was she ever the most beautiful little thing….
    Lulah goes in to see Dr Cor for her final puppy shot….she'll be staying in the car until they call her back….wild thing she is!
    What is that humongous bird in the photo Janice?

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  12. Why not spread the party over a few days? 🙂

    We’re so unused to rain we don’t know how to behave in California when it’s wet.

    And of course three Adorables are clueless looking out the window– except for the urge to put on their colorful boots and puddle jump!

    Which is probably the right answer anyway! 🙂

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  13. Never under estimate the power of puddle jumping. Oh! And mud pies! Every child should learn to make mud pies. It takes skill!
    You can teach them
    It’s raining
    It’s pouring
    The old man is snoring
    Went to bed with a bump on his head
    ‘Didn’t wake up in the morning

    Which now that I think about it and the happy tune to which it is sung…childhood rhymes really are morbid. But, maybe they won’t get it. It obviously took me years. 😉

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  16. Happy Birthday to Kim.

    And to her and all the rest of you, Happy Three Kings Day/Epiphany/Last Day of Christmas/Twelfth Night. The early church records show that January 6 was probably formally celebrated before December 25. The celebration is of Christ’s revelation as the Son of God and combines the Nativity, the visit of the Magi, and of Christ’s Baptism. The Coptic and Eastern Churches which follow the Gregorian Calendar celebrate on this day (the Eastern Churches which follow the Julian Calendar celebrate on the 19th). So, in commemoration, I’m reposting (as I used it as one of the Advent pieces) this Syrian Orthodox hymn for this day:

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  17. Whether the weather be fine,
    Or whether the weather be not;
    Whether the weather be cold,
    Or whether the weather be hot;
    We’ll weather the weather
    Whatever the weather,
    Whether we like it or not!

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  18. What’s a switch?

    Nobody under 50 knows what a switch is.
    That’s one of the problems with the world.

    Rush had a point when he said, “Our children are being taught by the radicals of the sixties.”.

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  21. My household has a small scale celebration for Twelfth Night. Nothing fancy and no visitors, just a quiet celebration for the immediate family that helps with the letdown one gets after all the Christmas rush. We started it after Eldest Sibling married and moved away. She and her spouse always come for Christmas, but always leave after New Year’s. It felt a bit lonely after they left, so we started commemorating this day with small gifts (for a while, we drew names and got gifts under $2, but now there are only three people so it doesn’t really work) and a little bit of special food that we really enjoy (which in this family generally includes cheese and chocolate).

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  22. Some of my employees are doing a happy dance because I’m back at work. There have been some major payroll glitches as the bookkeeping firm tried to take over the job. They did manage to find and fix some but other issues were a problem as well. As soon as my coworkers knew I was coming back, they started telling the employees to be patient. Aji Suun would fix everything once she got back to work. No pressure…

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  23. Wait…. Now it’s today?

    That can’t be right… I posted her Happy Birthday yesterday…..

    Kim, I think you should check your birth certificate. You seem to have the date wrong. 😯

    Well, whichever day it is, Happy Birthday from AJ and Cheryl. 😆

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  25. This year, I got the cheese (smoked cheddar) and chocolate (dark). I also got a 1000 piece puzzle of an M.C. Escher print, titled Belvedere: http://www.mcescher.com/gallery/recognition-success/belvedere/. Dad loves Escher prints and we all love puzzles. We did two while the hordes were here, a thousand piece mystery puzzle that had no picture to consult (yes, Mumsee, I know that some people never use the picture anyway) and a 500 piece puzzle, which seemed really easy after the mystery one.

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  27. How can you not look at the picture?

    The gardener next door showed up this morning which is strange since everything is soaked. It’s making the dogs crazy (the gardening noise).

    Yeah, that rain song is pretty depressing. I used to cry at Humpty Dumpty — but never thought through “It’s raining, it’s pouring” very deeply I guess.

    More rain coming today. Whee. Look at us!

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  28. Got into a multi-person discussion yesterday on FB when someone kept insisting that the churches needed to “open their doors” to let the homeless sleep inside those facilities.

    Seems to me there are multiple issues with this — if a church feels it can handle that, then fine, but many are simply not equipped (overnight supervision, etc.); not to mention that churches often are embedded in the middle of residential neighborhoods and there are the neighbors who must be considered as well.

    Anyway, this guy was so pushy, would not take no for an answer, insisted this is what churches needed to do now that it was raining.

    There is a cold-weather shelter with bus transportation to and from … But I was told many don’t choose to go because they have accumulated so many belongings (tents, bikes, a lot of stuff in some of these street encampments).

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  29. All of which the church would be expected to house, of course, to anyone who stopped by.

    The local Redwood Gospel Mission here runs homeless shelters for those wanting to come. They have lockers for their gear, showers, food, etc. They send them off in the morning with a sack breakfast and they can return in the evening for dinner. If they want to attend the service, fine, it’s not mandatory.

    The numbers are much higher now and with the cold and rain, they’ve begun opening what are called “Nomadic Shelters.” A church agrees to house up to 40 people for a night. RGM staff bring the folks to the church in a bus, and also provide cots. Folks leave their belongings in the lockers at RGM.

    Churches do NOT have to provide a meal, but most do. Ours also does a skit with a gospel theme. They were here one night for our Advent service, so they were invited to join us in the sanctuary after dinner. Several came.

    Most are tired. 2 RGM personnel are here all night and at least one church member. My husband was the responsible person the first night and said everyone was pretty much asleep by 8:30 with no problems.

    We let the neighbors know before we held the first one, but only one called to ask questions. We’ve had no problems, a large turnout of support from the church and many grateful people. One night we even had a birthday cake for one of the homeless children.

    It’s a good and safe ministry.

    An article in our paper today said it would $110 million to house the homeless in our community. We can’t even take care of the roads, where is that money supposed to come from?

    I believe the church can stand in the gap with Nomadic Shelters and other facilities in our community. Was your person eager to help, Donna? Or was he throwing rocks?

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  30. It was hard to tell — but he seemed to be promoting the All Saints model (a liberal Episcopal church in Pasadena?). The churches that own property here are the older / mainline ones in residential neighborhoods, often with shrinking and aging congregations. The larger, more vibrant churches all lease or rent space, which adds a big complication with landlord issues.

    There would have to be a network & storage facilities worked out — otherwise I could see the encampments just setting up around the churches during the day.

    My thought is to support the folks who have been doing this for more than 100 years on the waterfront and already have a hard-working coalition of more than 2 dozen churches (ours included). The mission is trying to expand, they opened a women’s only shelter just a few years ago (one of our church members helped head up that effort).

    Another problem, though, is that I can imagine the conflict between the “preaching and not preaching” factions — this guy on FB (I’m guessing) does not envision the gospel as being part of this endeavor.

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  31. I don’t know how true this is, but someone at the council office told me “90%” of the homeless in the most recent rain outreach a couple days ago turned down temporary overnight shelter, mainly because of all their “stuff.” There is a way it can be stored in downtown LA, they’d be given a numbered ticket to claim it all within 90 days, but they still largely preferred to hunker down and ride it out in the tents instead of uprooting.

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  34. I don’t know about California, nor even NC, but I know that Virginia was regulated about housing overnight guests. Our church was certified as a feeding station in emergencies, but not for overnight shelter.
    They require shower and other facilities. Otherwise it is not legal.

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  35. My understanding is that is the purpose of tents, to keep the rain and snow off. It certainly does not keep predators out. Remember the Idaho guy getting bit by a bear in his tent? A lot of people camp without tents unless it is raining, then they use the tent.

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  37. Same here, Chas. In fact, husband started a fund in our last church to turn a closet space into shower facilities so the church could be open to that. When we left, the money was repurposed elsewhere.

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  38. Chas is correct, you also have to have so many toilets per number of people and you have to be completely ADA compliant. There is a lot of liability in housing people and some that most church facilities cannot absorb.
    My church twice a year hosts Family Promise for two weeks at a time. The people are brought there to sleep only. Someone from the church must spend the night with them and a meal is provided. When I served on the vestry we looked at installing a showers (male and female) and it was not feasible for our building.
    It is very easy for others to tell churches, businesses, etc what the OUGHT to do, but they don’t understand the compliance issues that come with it. If you are feeding them you take the liability of food poisoning, allergies, etc. Providing a shower? What happens if someone slips and falls? What are your safety procedures if someone becomes ill or heaven forbid dies while they are your “guest”?
    Those churches (like my own) who have addressed these issues have done so very thoughtfully. It isn’t a matter of “hey bring a pillow and blanket and come camp out here for the night”. You or someone has to provide those things. Family Promise usually brings roll away beds that they bring and leave at each church for the two week period

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  39. As Kim said, there are stringent requirements. I mentioned showers because that was the only one that disqualified our church. It has men & women’s rest rooms on each floor and adequate feeding facilities. They had a weekly church supper and catered to funeral receptions, weddings etc.

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  40. There are churches in LA that do this — some said they just post a sign saying they aren’t liable — but I’ll try to check it out more

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  42. My husband went in to talk to the County Health Department after a member pointed out that if we served a meal, we would have to upgrade our church’s kitchen to commercial kitchen status.

    The cost would be well over $20K and would trigger all sorts of other upgrades we would have to do, thus costing even more.

    My husband went in and asked the question. One planner said yes, we’d have to upgrade but when his supervisor heard WHY R asked the question he said, “No. We’ll waive everything if that’s all you’re doing to help the RGM.”

    RGM also has the insurance rider–same member asked about that. He was very touchy about everything until his wife got a hold of him and he’s been very docile and supportive ever since!

    Showers are at the RGM.

    Many people probably see churches and think, “Look at the waste of that big empty building,” and while it is true our sanctuary is not used much during the week, the rest of the building has heavy usage.

    I’m thinking, too, if a homeless person asked today to come in out of the rain to sit and read where it’s dry, I don’t think anyone would object.

    A friend is a church secretary in another town and they offer showers to the homeless–one at a time and ONLY when the pastor or an elder is in the building, for her safety’s sake.

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  43. You might look into the Nomadic Shelter movement, Donna, to see if there are any in the South Bay. Up here, they’ve been going strong for 20 years–not in my town, but in Vacaville and possibly Sacramento. A story idea! Score!

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  44. Donna, you do have a leash law, of course. There were none evident in those pics. How about tags? Vaccinations? Do you have some sort of spay/neuter law in effect for them? I can’t imagine what it must be like if you don’t.

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  45. I haven’t downloaded anything down to my Kindle White yet.
    And I hate it already.
    Every time I open it, there’s an advertisement.
    “People who bought this also bought……..”
    I hater those ads.
    I paid lots of money for this thing.
    I paid for all the books I have.
    I do NOT want to fool with advertisements every time I open the Kindle.

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  46. Thanks michelle, sent an email to Refuge in Santa Rosa … I don’t know if the churches near downtown are part of a coalition or not.

    But there also is a very emotional debate, ongoing, about providing transitional shelter to the homeless and the city seems almost exclusively focused on “permanent” housing only at this point.

    The emergency rain shelters are just that — emergency only, just to help people get off the streets during bad weather. Many decline. Lots of ripple-effect issues come with it, of course.

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  47. Yesterday a hawk, Cooper’s or sharp-shinned, spent nearly 15 minutes sitting in our backyard plucking and eating a house sparrow.

    My husband remarked that he hasn’t seen any house sparrows today, and is wondering if they finally got the message. 🙂 I do know that a couple of times recently a hawk has sat on the fence or on the back step while sparrows hide in the bushes, afraid to go anywhere until it leaves. I didn’t see the hawk catch the sparrow; I just saw it land with it. But the hawk was an adult, probably an accomplished hunter, and who knows but that it went far enough into one of those bushes that the sparrows no longer feel like the bushes are a sanctuary. We’d be happy enough to have them “camp” in someone else’s yard!

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  48. Chas, that is why I paid extra for my kindle to get the ones without the ads.
    I also figured out how to turn off the wifi, so no ads. I download to my computer and then, every once in a while, use a cord to transfer over to the kindle.
    Getting late this morning, must be time for breakfast.

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  50. Re: Addressing adults- I teach my students to use the Spanish equivalent titles when even talking about other teachers. They can’t say Smith, they have to say Señor, Señora or Señorita before the teacher’s last name before I let them say anything else. It’s not only a Southern thing, it’s a Spanish thing as well.

    Re: Puzzles- I use the picture. Mumsee would have liked a puzzle my aunt had. It was a 500 piece round puzzle all one color: red. A picture would have helped at all.

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  51. Our city council has decided the small houses, or tiny houses, that were not allowed in Donna’s town, can have an encampment here in our town. I guess we’re buying them?

    I keep coming back to how many of these homeless are mentally unstable and why wouldn’t it be better for them to be in a place where they are housed, given their meds and kept safe. How can it possibly be better for them to be “free” to “exercise” their own lives if they put themselves and everyone else at risk?

    I’m thinking about a man who wear black and a knit ski hat to stand in the median of an intersection where I often turn left, at night. You can’t see him for the lights of the cars behind him coming through the intersection and it makes me uncomfortable every time. I asked a woman at church who works the homeless and she said I could call the police and they’d check on him, but chances are, he’s “chosen” to live that way.

    How can that possibly be to his advantage? 😦

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  52. Whatever I order on kindle automatically appears on my phone & kindle (and tablet).

    So the homeless thing is very happening, civil grand jury just today released a scathing report on the #s of temporary shelter beds in LA.

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  53. Ooh, tiny houses. Don’t even say the words around these parts. Of course, these were the size of large dog houses, you couldn’t even stand up in them. I’ve seen larger models used elsewhere — but, again (according to cops who have worked Skid Row), these areas quickly become hubs for drug dealers, prostitution and other criminals and are very hard to control even with supervision.

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  55. Still trying to catch up on yesterday’s threads (reading a little at a time throughout the day). But I wanted to jump in to say. . .

    Happy Birthday, Miss Kim!

    Also to share this little exchange we had here a little while ago. . .

    Forrest (showing us his latest Duplo creation): “This is a flipper flopper!”

    Me: “Oh, it’s a politician, huh?”

    Chrissy: “That’s just what I was thinking!”

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  60. Help us. Huge bolt of lightning and loudest thunder that literally shook the house to the foundation — followed by a downpour of rain and hail — woke me up. That and Tess landing smack on my face. El Niño is here.

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