Busy week

This week seems to be so much busier than usual, probably because of the holiday on Monday.
I had my second bead embroidery class on Tuesday (picture to follow eventually), went out to lunch with some of the other women in class afterwards. Tried Puerto Rican food for the first time, even plantains. I'll be going back for more.
Wednesday was mostly errands, this morning dentist (bad planning on my part because today is also my 33rd wedding anniversary and I sure hope the novocaine will have worn off by dinnertime).
Tomorrow evening, we're handing out another scholarship. Have to get flowers in the morning, because, for the first time, the recipient is female, kind of nice. Our list of criteria calls for somebody going into computer science, among quite a few other things, and that's usually a young man.
Saturday, shopping, mostly in Berkeley (more supplies for bead embroidery and storage and a bit of linen-like fabric from Stonemountain and Daughter) and no plans for Sunday. I think by then I'll be ready for a really quiet day.

Fort Campbell suspends regular duties in favor of suicide prevention training

This morning, the local TV station I watch ran this through on the bottom of the screen. I managed to find the story online.
I found it interesting because just recently one of the members of the Bridge Rail Foundation was invited to speak at Quantico about just this and just two weeks ago, I was discussing the rising rate of suicide in the military with another member of the BRF who works in a veteran's home nearby.

Whatcha wearing Wednesday

I found this - http://nicolemdesign.blogspot.com/2009/05/accidental-watcha-wearing-wednesday.html which links to this: http://dearfii.blogspot.com/2009/02/diary-of.html - quite by accident this morning and thought it looked like fun. So, here's what I'm wearing this Wednesday.
I'm beginning to wonder whether I have a foot or a shoe fetish (husband would go with the latter, he calls me (totally unjustly) "Imelda."). I actually had to go out and buy new nail polish because everything I had clashed completely with the cherry red sandals. And while the new one matches, I'm pretty sure I'm so not a red toe nail kind of person. I'll try black next.
The picture in the center was done on a lark - me, reflected in the door into the kitchen.
I'm obviously going through a very "unserious" period.

A new petition

Dayna Whitmer of the Bridge Rail Foundation started another petition to be submitted to legislators soon. So far, not very many signatures but a couple of pretty important ones: one is a man from New Zealand who is a co-designer of the suicide barrier on the Grafton Bridge (which had a barrier that was removed, at which time suicides increased fivefold. A new barrier was constructed very quickly after that.), the other is Richard Seiden whose study we always quote when we explain to people who say, "If you put up a barrier, they'll just go somewhere else to take their lives." just how wrong they are. He identified 515 people who had been prevented from jumping and found that only 6% went on to take their lives and on 2 people went back to the bridge.
So, please add your signature to the petition.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/suicide-barrier-funding-eligiblity-ii

Thank you!

Rodeo Beach - again

Checklist for beach visit:

wear sunscreen - check
wear hat, no matter how stupid it looks - check
collect beach glass - check
look for rocks with holes - not so much
watch surfers - check
talk to lots of dogs frolicking on the beach - check
take pictures of marine life - check
take pictures of marine layer - check
avoid stepping on dead birds - check
support husband while he fishes debris out of inappropriate footwear - check
watch whole classes of school children march up hill and back down again à la Duke of York's men (and forget to take picture) - check
deeply inhale fresh sea air - check
forget all other rubbish - check
make plans for return trip - check
I'd call that a successful trip to the ocean.

The Biker Babe Wanna-be Necklace

I made this necklace quite a while ago, the weave goes by at least two names: Rhinos Snorting Drano, Stairway to Heaven. Whenever I wear it, I feel I ought to wear black leather and ride a Harley, and that's where the name comes from.
But that's not how I wear it. Here it's paired with one of my little black dresses and lately I've worn it to meet with aides to legislators and for awards ceremonies. They (both the necklace and the dress) will get a few more outings of the same nature.
This morning, we met with another aide for the same purpose as last time and it seems that Lynn Woolsey's efforts are successful: several legislators have signed on to the bill. I'm very new to this effort, the other members of our group have been doing this much longer and know much more about who to talk to and how. I'm reasonably familiar with facts and statistics and pretty good at telling a very short version of our story.
There will be another petition and I hope many, many people will contact their representatives because this isn't just a local issue but a nation-wide one. Sure, many more people jump from the Golden Gate Bridge, but they do so from plenty of other bridges all over the country:
In no particular order ..............
the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia
the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York
the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge in Santa Barbara County, CA
the Piscataqua River Bridge in Maine
the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York
the Aurora Bridge in Washington State
the Coronado Bridge in San Diego, CA
the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida

Bridge visit

Just a few pictures of the Second Annual Bridge Visit, May 8, 2009.
There were four of us: Larry, his sister, her husband and I and, yes, there actually is a picture that includes me. I’m much more comfortable behind the camera.
I apologize for the randomness of these pictures, but blogger is very wonky today. I do not see pictures, just the HTML code, so I cannot arrange them in any order or write text to go with them. I'll try to edit later.

Celestial bag

This should be interesting - because as I am typing this, I only get the HTML stuff and not a picture but I've checked and there is a picture.
So, anyway: I made this bag today using the instructions (but not the measurements) on this site for basic bag construction:
www.morsbags.com
and the tutorial for decorating a plain bag on this site:
http://dutch-blue.blogspot.com/2007/08/calico-bag-makeover.html
I added a bottom to the bag - I have this thing about bags with bottoms - and there are still small problems to be worked out but I might just make another one these.

A new petition

A member of the Bridge Rail Foundation has started a new petition, this one will be submitted to legislators. It's all explained in the description and so much better than I could do it. Basically, it's about eventually getting funding for suicide barriers on bridges, not just the Golden Gate Bridge, but any bridge that acts as a suicide magnet.

Here's the link:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/suicide-barrier-funding-eligiblity

Please consider signing very soon and, if you feel comfortable, passing the link on to sympathetic friends. The more signatures, the better.

Thank you!

gone going gone everything gone give a damn

Title courtesy of Jack Johnson. He does words a lot better than I do.

Dear Henry,

It’s been two years today since you died. We still miss you more than you can imagine – more than I ever thought I’d miss anybody. And we still wonder, still ask ourselves many, many questions. We still talk about what happened, not daily anymore, but very often because we still can’t figure it all out. We did get some answers from a couple of the kids you hung with. No, they didn’t come forward on their own, I contacted them. Didn’t much like the answers, but they make sense and, in a strange way, and after being very angry for a few weeks, I am more at peace now.

You are still in my thoughts every day, though, not as the first thought that goes through my mind every morning.

We’ll be on the bridge again today, well-behaved this time. We were well-behaved the last two times, too, we just …………… oh, well, nevermind.

Last mass for you this morning. I know you wouldn’t have appreciated those, but I needed them. Not so much anymore.

But, no matter what, you’ll be forever in our hearts.

♥Mom♥

Time on my hands

Obviously, too much time on my hands if I can take pictures of my feet. Actually, I wanted to show off my new Birkies (yes, Birkies, not Birkenstocks; two slightly different but related companies). I just fell in love with the polka dots and would have bought them in red if they had been available in my size. Today is the first day to wear sandals like that, yesterday was cool and drizzly.
Yesterday also was very busy. We, as part of a small group, met with an aide to a Bay Area legislator - all part of the effort to try and get that suicide barrier built. Yes, I found a way to get back to that yet again. And we had a business dinner that night.
Tomorrow is the second anniversary of Henry's death. We'll be on that bridge again, just like last year. Lamppost 47, 11:38 am. This year, it'll most likely only be Larry and I and possibly his sister and her husband. There'll be a mass said for him early in the morning and we'll be there, too. But I think this'll be the last one (unless, of course, I change my mind).

Adventures in sewing

I've been sewing - again. Bags - again. The reddish sling bag is my own pattern. I'd seen a bag I liked on the web but couldn't find an exact pattern. So, I started with a Vogue pattern and changed it so much that it doesn't resemble it any longer at all. I like that bag, it's the right size for me, it hangs nicely from the shoulder, it only has one strap, so nothing can slip off. What I will change for the next one is the interfacing; I think this one needs to be pretty stiff, even stiffer than stiff interfacing. So, it's time I dug out the pellon for the next one. The other thing it sort of needs is a magnetic snap. Even though it sits right under the arm and stays closed that way, a snap would be nice. But, until this morning, I'd never done a magnetic snap. They scared me. I had visions of multiple holes in the fabric, crooked closures.
So, this morning I worked on the Amy Butler bag on the right. Her pattern, her fabric, no originality at all. But it specified a magnetic snap as a closure, so I surfed the web yesterday, read instructions and quite successfully inserted a snap.

In my search for help with the snap yesterday, I came across this tutorial: You SEW Girl: How to insert the best magnetic snaps ever. It worked and I have the pictures to prove it :-) I used interfacing before I inserted the prongs and another double layer of interfacing over the prongs so they won't damage the fabric by rubbing through. No more fear of magnetic snaps!
Now I need to get out into the garden and plant a few new things I bought yesterday in between bouts of rain.