Seven Months, Ten Days in Captivity

New York Times journalist David Rohde's account of his capture by the Taliban appears in five parts in the Times. Besides being compelling reading, it also gives a glimpse of life in Taliban controlled territory in Pakistan - at least the small part a captive might experience. Here's a brief excerpt from Part I.

While one guard pointed his Kalashnikov at me, the other took my glasses, notebook, pen and camera. I was blindfolded, my hands tied behind my back. My heart raced. Sweat poured from my skin.

“Habarnigar,” I said, using a Dari word for journalist. “Salaam,” I said, using an Arabic expression for peace.

I waited for the sound of gunfire. I knew I might die but remained strangely calm.

Moments later, I felt a hand push me back toward the car, and I was forced to lie down on the back seat. Two gunmen got in and slammed the doors shut. The car lurched forward. Tahir and Asad were gone and, I thought, probably dead.

For the whole story click here.

LA Moon

Wisdom Springing out of the Garage

Sometimes too much of a good thing becomes problematic. My mom has always been careful about not wasting things and so many things got stored in the garage just in case she might need them. And she was often able to say, I've got just what you need and come out of the garage with the needed item. The one limit to storing things was that the car needed to fit in the garage. But her garage has been an inspiration for us to clean things out in our house. So, not without some conflict I was allowed, with close supervision, to clean parts of the garage while we've been here. Don't get me wrong, I know that things get harder to do when you get older and since my mom worked until just a couple of years ago, she didn't have that much extra time or energy to keep the garage cleaned out.



I'm afraid you have to look closely to see that there is a lot more space on this side of the garage. A lot has been thrown away, consolidated into smaller boxes, and/or given away. Some is still waiting to be given away.






Among the things we found were these little envelopes.








And these badminton rackets.













And these old magazines. I'm sure that someone would find use for these three things so I took pictures and posted them on Craigslist today. The people who can use these things haven't been reading Craigslist today.





I also came across this book I bought in Thailand long ago called Teaching Dhamma By Pictures: Explanation of a Siamese Traditional Buddhist Manuscript by Ven. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. There are 47 pictures which are explained. "Wisdom Springing Out of the Mud" is just one of them.






And this spider.

Eating with Friends and Eating Out

Monday night we had a last minute small feast served by Anchorage friends wintering in LA near their grandson. Thanks again J and B.


Tuesday night we ate at LAVegan, a tiny place, which also turned out to be Thai based but the menu reflected a wider range. We discovered this place Saturday night when we went to Casa Sanchez which is across the street. Tonight Sanchez was so quiet - compared to Saturday - that we really weren't sure it was open. Both (LAVegan and Casa Sanchez are on the 4500 block of Centinela - just south of Washington Blvd. The LAVegan picture gets easier to see if you double click on it.

Gate Almost Done

A lot seemed to get done yesterday. The section of old fence went back up on the new framing and the new fencing went up on the new framing between the front yard and back yard.

Today things seemed to slow down as Brian built the gate. That took more thinking and visually, there was much less progress to see. But the big deal was getting the gate frame done and on hinges so that it swings easily and freely.






So here's where it was yesterday afternoon when Brian had to go to meet a lady about a bike. The frame is ready, the wood is sitting there to be sized and nailed on.

You can see the old gate and almost dead tree and the ivy as it looked last week here.

Garbage

LA residents now have green, blue, and black garbage cans. Green for compostable stuff from the garden, blue for recyclable materials, and black for other stuff. They can also have a once a year special pickup. (When I went to the link just now, I see that there is a once a year garden clean up collection and also a bulky item collection. I guess we combined the two.) Today we had that pickup, getting rid of stuff I've been cleaning out of the garage and yard, and also a lot of the tree and ivy we cut off the old fence, some of the old fence including the gate, and whatever else we had.

Here's the stuff we had out waiting for the truck - this doesn't count filling up my mom's regular three garbage cans as well as the neighbors' (who are out of town) cans.




The guy who picked it up couldn't have been nicer and friendlier and we were delighted that he took everything, even though we came up with a few things that weren't on the list when we booked the extra pick up.

Eating Prickly Pear

It started with two of these that I picked up from the grass in my mom's neighbors' yard. I went over to their yard to see what the fence stuff looked like from their side and to get some of old cans to throw out with our big garbage pick up. Their back hill is mostly prickly pear as you can see in the picture below. Even though the one above is a bit bruised, it was fine inside.

The whole cactus is called a prickly pear and so is the fruit. You can see the red fruit mostly in the upper right. When you see the closer shots below, you can come back to this one and spot them easier.

This morning I had two prickly pear fruit in the house and thought I'd throw them into the oatmeal. But first I checked the internet and got this ten minute video on how to prepare prickly pear. It's ten minutes long and could be edited, but it goes from picking the fruit to getting rid of the pricklers, to eating. [UPDATE October 2017 - I noticed the video was not working any more, so I've replaced it with another from YouTube.]




So with renewed confidence, I scraped off the glochids (prickles) and cut it in half. (When you look at the fruit, the round spots are glochids, clusters of tiny prickles. The individual prickles are nearly invisible. )

Here it is up close. I cut it up and added it to the oatmeal.

Some more pictures of the fruit growing on the cactus. Think about all the fruit growing naturally, without irrigation or fertilizer or even attention, that could
be eaten instead of just rotting. Though I'm sure it feeds lots of birds and other critters. And in Mexico and other places it is part of the diet.

Some species of prickly pear cactus were introduced into North America from tropical America a number of centuries ago. The fruit of these cultivated prickly pear cactus is a common delicacy in Mexico and is sold in markets as "tuna." While all prickly pear cactus are of the genus Opuntia, the non-native Opuntia megacantha is one of the tastiest and most popular. Some native species, especially those with dark purple fruit, are not as flavorful. (from Desertusa.com)

And for Alaskans, I learned one more use for duct tape - to get the prickly pear glochids out of your skin.

Good Morning, Glory

How can flowers be so incredible? These morning glories were even more glorious than they are on this untouched up photo.

Being Where You Can Find Out What You're Good At

A great part of individual 'success' and happiness comes from living
a) where you have the opportunity to discover your talents, and
b) where those talents are appreciated.

We rode down to the beach and the Venice Skate Plaza again and found a variety of skills.




Right near the plaza is a place where you can do your own graffiti legally, but you need a permit.







At the skateboard plaza we saw people with varying levels of skills.





































Whoops.
















And then there was this seven year old girl who skated like the board was part of her body.



This kid has an obvious innate talent here and is in an environment where she could discover that talent and where it was nurtured. She's only seven and skating with a natural skill and at a level that I only saw in a few of the skaters here over the four times I've dropped by. Finding our skills and being able to develop them; much of success is just being at the right place at the right time.

Elegant Tern

J and I passed some gulls at the beach last week
and I noticed one didn't quite fit. It was mostly
white with a bad toupee.

I pulled out the camera and took some shots.
Then I forgot for a couple of

days, but finally emailed the pictures to
my bird experts Dianne and Catherine.

Both independently declared it an elegant tern. They hang out in Southern California and Baja. There's a hummingbird that drops by my mom's regularly, but haven't had the camera ready fast enough. And J spotted a small hawk/falcon like bird on the telephone pole behind the house yesterday evening. There used to be lots of sparrow hawks around here when I was a kid. You could tell by the way they hovered in the air like a helicopter. One of the reasons they were here I'm guessing is there was a huge swamp just down the street full of small animals including frogs. Now it's Penmar Public Golf Course. Better than houses I guess, but not as much food for the top of the food chain. Here's Penmar a couple of days ago.