I saw Ani Di Franco!!!

Oh my Goddess!!




So yesterday was one of the best days of my life!

I went to Willits and we had an awesome playgroup, it was like a party! Great snacks, terrific people - all the elements.

Then we went to our old place to check the mail and get some stuff and I had to go to the bathroom but we didn't have any toilet paper - just the mail. So I ....um...well...how do I say this? I wiped my ass with my student loan bill!!!! ROFL!

Feel free to virtually high-five me at this point

*slap!*

We went home, I got all cute, left the kiddos with my man, picked up Carlee and proceeded to the BEST CONCERT EVER!







Ani's opening act was non other than the amazing Judy Grahn (who's the head of my graduate school program in Women's Spirituality at ITP Palo Alto).

Judy

So I heard Judy and her latest poetry (amazing) and then during Ani I ducked out and hung with Judy for a moment then back for MORE ANI!!!!!



How can I describe an Ani Di Franco concert? Ani could find the words but I can't.

2 T-shirts, forty dollars
1 bumper sticker, 3 dollars
Seeing Ani DiFranco with your best friend, priceless!!!

And now I have a sexy man walking around my house wearing an Ani T-shirt (pause for momentary drooling)

It was the Best day! Did I say that already?

Local Flavor

For those of you unaware, I live in what's called the Emerald Triangle. Live in the US and smoke pot? It was probably grown within a hundred mile radius of where I live. I came across a local article in The Willits News that really got me mad. It was basically accusing the hippies who travel through our way to help with marijuana harvests by trimming (or what's also called clipping) it, of terrible things. I'll post the article and then my response. I thought it would be an interesting peek for those curious as to what it's like to live in my Nor Cal sub culture.

Soon summer and fall will be here...with the pungent smell of pot in the air. Our unwanted guests, the self-proclaimed "people of the street" will be flooding our town looking for trim work in the booming pot-growing businesses that surround our communit
The Willits News
Article Launched: 04/02/2008 10:46:37 AM PDT

Personally, I dread the thought of the "street people" and their dogs filling our parks, our creeks (behind many residents' homes), our parking lots and fields, buzzing around like flies at our local food establishments, grocery stores and our library.

They stay because our local self-interest pot growers will hire them to trim their harvest. They stay because we have a food bank and Saint Anthony's generous Daily Bread.

We are all aware that "street people" can be rude, threatening and dirty. It is embarrassing to drive through town and see many of them with their signs "Will Work for Pot." It certainly gives tourist driving through our town a great impression of Willits. (Sarcasm here).

These "street people" and their grungy dogs, camp in, poop in, and throw trash in our creeks, parks and on private property. They use and abuse our community and want freedom from responsibilities, yet have no problem abusing social services.

I will clarify there is a difference between the "street bums" and homeless individuals/families who want to help themselves but need temporary assistance.

Many citizens in the community complain to law enforcement, but law enforcement can only do so much. The "street people" have legal rights.

We, as citizens, must come up with ideas and hopefully solutions to help discourage our unwanted guests. I suggest we write suggestions to the editor of The Willits News, since law enforcement and our city council do read The Willits News. I can't
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imagine them not reading recommendations that may help towards a common goal for our community.

So, here are a few of my suggestions to the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department, the Willits Police Department, and Willits City Council:

1. Property owners need to post "private property/keep out" signs. Check with local law enforcement on trespassing laws.

2. Fast-food establishments should have a policy to not give out free food to the street people.

3. Fast-food establishments should have a policy that "if you do not eat here, you can't camp out here." I won't go to Jack in the Box in the summer or fall. All the street people camp out on their outdoor tables.

4. All grocery stores should post signs "no vagrancy/no soliciting" at their business.

5. Our Mendocino County Major Crimes Task Force should donate a small percentage of monies seized at drug raids to our local food bank and to Our Daily Bread to compensate them for their struggle to feed the "street people" who are here as a work force for local pot growers. Remember, these pot growers contribute nothing to our community. When they buy things, it's self-serving only. It's only fair a bit of the drug money be contributed back to the community.

6. The two senior complexes should and need to hire 24-hour security guards to give our community seniors a sense of security. They should not feel threatened or afraid.

These are suggestions I hope will be considered by the community. I encourage this community to pull together and come up with some solutions.

Terri Cader

Willits

My posted response:

I wanted to jump in and comment on this article. Number one, these "street people" as you call them are not lazy bums. They have an environmental and social ethic that prevents them from living the traditional American lifestyle. Here are some points I need to get off my chest.

1. These seasonal travelers in our community (hereafter called STs) rescue street dogs and care and feed for them even when they can barely afford to feed themselves. This is why they often have dogs with them.

2. STs are not exculisivly here for the trim work, they are often passing by on their way to outdoor festivals where they make a living selling handcrafted goods.

3. STs often do not "smell." Using natural soaps and deoderants that wont give them cancer or pollute the environment they often times smell like PEOPLE not the chemical fragrances we are all so accustom too.

4. STs are from a culture with propably one of the highest regards for Elders you will find in the US. Accusing STs of scaring seniors is RIDICULOUS.

5. If local growers weren't growing and trimming wasn't available work locally how on earth do you think families here could afford $4,000 mortages?? We are lucky to live in a small town with a thriving local business community. Every time pot money is spent to buy a pair of earings, a dress, a pair of shoes, dog food, a book, a CD, etc it supports our wonderful mom and pop shops WHICH could not survive without it.

6. Every local trim job I've seen and heard about (and there have been many) provide healthy, usually vegetarian, meals to their trimmers. Accusing trimmers of draining our resources, again, is simply a false assumption made in ignorance.

7. I count my blessings everyday that I live in an area where we have a way to take control of our community back through the dollars generated by pot. I'm grateful we don't live in a community where we don't stand a fighting chance against corporate and government control. I know that pot, and the sales tax it generates, provides for myself and my family access to local food, art, community events, alternative schools, naturopathic doctors and alternative healers, handcrafts, etc we would not have access to elsewhere.

I'm really shocked that The Willits News would even print this. If this article had accused a race of people of these things, or a certain age group, or a certain religion, no one would publish this article. Here this author has gotten away with it by not being specifically racist, sexist, or agist - however this article is still just as cruel and ignorant. If you're truely interested in community Terri Cader you wouldn't be so openly discriminitory against one of the sub-cultures in our midst who actually practice what they preach and feel called to live an alternative lifestyle.

Ugh, Terri, just turn your TV back on, crap in the fresh water in your indoor toilet, shop at Wal-Mart, live in your environmentally destructive cement and wood housing, use your aluminum filled deodarant and your cancer causing shampoos from Rite Aid so you smell like "Melons" or whatever pleases you more then the smell of your own body, and do us all a huge favor and SHUT UP.

Valentine's Day Cards and Preventative Hair Care

We made Valentine's cards for some relatives, mostly for grandparents and Nyk's bio father.








Then yesterday when I picked Nykki up at La Vida we were told that during the routine morning head check in the kindergarten, one little girl had some lice eggs in her hair. Lice is a problem with public schools these days. If a child has lice the school is reluctant to send them home or make them stay home until it's cleared up because they will not get paid by the state for the child that day if they are not there and the schools, especially Nykki's, need every penny.

So I checked his head when we got home and didn't find anything but I figured prevention is the best medicine so we were out until 7 PM last night doing loads of sheets and blankets at the laundra-mat and then came home and put mayonnasie on our heads.



Fun fun fun

I've heard once you get it, it's really hard to get rid of so I really would like to avoid getting it. I've seen friends try to get rid of it naturally only to have it come back again and again and then they break down and use the chemical kits.

I would love lice prevention ideas from you mamas.

Willits Walk for Fitness!

Yesterday Nykki, Ronan and I (Seth is still feeling under the weather) participated in the first, seasonal, Willits Walk for Fitness organized by the Willits Heathy Action Team (WHAT).


I am so greatful to live in a community with wonderful elders, like Jed Diamond, creator of WHAT. Jed, along with his beautiful wife Carlin and volunteers from the community mapped out a 5 mile route around Willits. The idea is to encourage people to regularly walk 10,000 steps per day, which has been found to be the optimum amount for health.



I tried my darnest to get a double jogging stroller before the event but it was not meant to be so Nykki tried to walk the route while I pushed Ronan. We didn't make the whole 5 miles but Nykki, at nap time, managed over half that and I was very proud. He wanted to finish it so badly and to catch up to the older children who got nearly a mile ahead of us by the time all was said and done. His legs hurt though so when the bus came by to pick up stragglers and get them to the mercantile for the big finishing party, I encouraged him to be OK with taking it.



He conceaded.



The walk was a fabulous new way to get a view of our community, which we rarely get to see since we live in the woods outside of town. I loved the cute homes, picket fences and neatly manicured lawns. We saw a rainbow in between the small showers and we actually saw lots of sun which was a welcome sight after nearly a week of snow.


The magical light of Brigid!

When Seth is feeling better and we have a double jogger we plan on walking the route regularly and we'll all be ready to take the whole thing at the next community walk on the 18th of May!

.::Classic Mother, Lover, Goddess::.

Two years ago the state of California assinated nobel peace prize nominee Stanely Tookie Williams. I was there. Here's what I wrote.

December 13th 2005

"Mommy! Mommy! Tookie's calling for help!" my friends son shouted as we readied the children to go to the vigil, two hours before Tookie's death. How do you explain this to the children? We tried but kept getting stuck, it just wasn't explianable.

The crowd was overwhelming. Nykki slept in his stroller the whole time. We held candles. It was dark. It was nosiey. Then at midnight a hush fell over the crowd. An odd silence as it seemed everyone there held their breath for a half hour. Because we had the children we were surrounded by cameras. Literally. Everyone 14 and over in our group was interviewed, everyone was photographed. Babies and puppies - they sell.

"You appear very emotional can you please tell us why?" the news reporter asked as he shoved a mic in my face. He looked like he was 18 years old. Polished and buffed like a doll. Suits, shoes, clothes and coats that could fund an inner city youth program for months. I forget what I said but I remember my voice was shaking.

At one point two men walked through the crowd yelling at us damn liberals and how people are dying on the streets every day - they were right. Where was our community when Tookie entered a life of crime? Where are we now as new 'thugs' are born everyday? What are we doing to help those children have a better life?

"Why don't you tell the truth!?" one British man yelled at the reporters "You can't get into the EU if you have the dealth penalty! The whole civilized world thinks you're barbaric! Tell the truth!"

"The state of California just murdered an innocent man! Why don't you report that?!" Another man yelled.

I'm still recovering emotionaly and physically. I still cry everyday but I would go again in a heart beat. I pray to Goddess I will never have to.

Movies to watch this weekend. Dead Man Walking, Shashank Redemption, Life of Daivd Gale.

And I ask myself, what can I do? How can I prevent murder both by people and the government??






Nykki and his good friend at a Save Tookie rally two years ago.

Willits Council supports ban on plastic carryout bags

Council supports ban on plastic carryout bags
By Linda Williams/TWN Staff Writer
Article Launched: 11/23/2007 10:47:44 AM PST

Plastic carryout bags will be banned throughout Mendocino County if the sentiment of the Willits City Council is echoed by other county jurisdictions.

Mayor Tami Jorgensen requested input from citizens and the council prior to the vote. Willits was the first county jurisdiction to discuss carryout bags as an agenda item. The Mendocino Solid Waste Management Authority will likely wait to vote on the ban until early 2008, after all other jurisdictions in the county have reviewed the issue.

Members of the public who spoke at the council meeting supported a future ban, although Lynn Kennelly of the Willits Chamber of Commerce requested businesses be given time to transition to the new requirement.

A Pine Mountain resident spoke of his constant efforts to remove litter from the area, citing three areas in particular where the flimsy bags tended to congregate. Others spoke of the desire for everyone to transition to reusable bags. One person wrote a letter to the council, describing creeks in the area after winter rains being festooned with the bags. Gerry Ward of Solid Wastes of Willits advised one council member that he supported a ban; the plastic bags fouled machinery and were major nuisances when placed in recycle containers.

Most of the discussions by the council centered on global issues associated with the plastic bags. Allowing retailers to charge customers a fee of 10 to 12 cents for each paper bag used to recover their increased costs was considered a reasonable future step.

If MSMWA votes to support the proposed countywide ban on plastic carryout bags in early 2008, the next steps will be to pass ordinances at the county level and within each city to make it the law in Mendocino County.