Those Poor Children

Just wrote to my representatives about the children on the border, the ones the US government says it doesn't have to provide food and water and soap for (all while Trump charges the Secret Service, whose job it is to protect him and his family, rent at his properties). Disgusting.

Anyway, here's what I wrote:

I am writing to you today as one decent human being, one decent American, to another.

The migrant children, some as young as 5 months, having not only been ripped away from their families, but now being held without access to proper food, water, medical care, need to be taken care of.

Period.

Full-stop.

Do not use them as a bargaining chip to get funding for any other thing, including immigration enforcement.

Do not use them to complain, as I have keep hearing politicians do, that it’s “the other side’s” fault or that the children’s parents broke the law. I don’t care if their father is Jeffrey Dahmer and their mother is Ted Bundy. Which, incidentally, these people are not. They are refugees. Maybe ones that fit our asylum requirements, maybe not. Maybe they are “only” economic refugees. Maybe they are fleeing climate change or violence. But they are people and they, particularly their children, now artificially orphaned by the Trump Administration’s cruel policies, are in distress.

We are Americans. We take care of children. We take care of people in distress. It is the decent thing to do and Americans are decent people. Those there, on the ground, including government workers, are trying, even coming in on their off hours to help. Other Americans are coming with donations of diapers and soap and toothbrushes and paste – only to be turned away.

Other countries take care of such influxes with refugee camps and invite in organizations like the Red Cross. Why aren’t we doing something like that?

We used to be a country that could handle things like this, would even help other countries.

Please do whatever you can to take care of these children. And do it without delay.

Thank you.

Out and Back

Crescent Beach, Oregon

 My family is getting into hiking. Though we remain rank amateurs, we are learning.

The terminology: out and back (you go out, get to the end and turn around to end up at your starting point), loop (as the name suggests, you go in a big circle and end up back where you started) and point-to-point (you end up at a different place than where you started).

The difficulty rankings: easy, moderate, difficult. Though people have done studies and even math (!) to determine a ranking scale, it’s, of course, kind of a subjective thing.

Easy is easy. Usually short (as short as ¼ of a mile, no longer than 2), flat, this is the trail for strollers and wheelchairs.

Moderate is a leap up from that. Longer: the ones we’ve been on have been 5-6 miles. Some changes in elevation. My phone tells me, when I do one of these, that I’ve climbed anywhere from 40 to 60 flights of stairs.

Moderate is currently our sweet spot.

I’m a little hesitant to try difficult. These trails cover longer distances (8+ miles), with more elevation changes and more difficult terrain, requiring things like “scrambling,” using your hands as well as your feet.

Hot Springs Trail, Big Bend, Texas

I once wrote an article about thru-hikers, who hike for months at a time. Once they’ve hit their stride, so to speak, they hike around 20 miles a day, carrying all their stuff, then sleep in a tent on the ground, to get up in the morning and do it all over again.

Nah, I’m a proud “slack-packer.”

I feel I am roughing it if my hotel doesn’t have a spa. 😊

My husband and daughter at Hood River, Oregon

Nice day hiking, a shower, dinner at a restaurant serving locally sourced produce in some sort of cuisine before sleeping in a bed. Perfect.

Would You Take A DNA Test?

The way people can research their family tree these days is amazing and these people were so great to share their stories with me:

https://thebuzzmagazines.com/articles/2018/02/shaking-family-tree

All in the Family

Just wrote an article for The Buzz Magazines here in Houston about family members living with or near each other. It's both the way things used to be and something that is becoming more common now.

Think you could do it? :o)