Seattle Trip 2011 - Part 1: Airport Security

Well, we're off to Washington state to attend Michael's middle daughter's high school graduation and visit the kiddos. Because this is the only time off I've got until January, we're taking a couple of days and running up to Vancouver for a mini-vacation. I've never been to Canada, so I'm excited to go. Plus, we're going orca watching one day…in those inflatable Navy Seal-looking kind of boats, so they'll be up close and personal! I'm trying to not think about the "killer" part of their name, killer whales. Or to think about the fact that they're bigger than the boats we'll be in.

So, last night I check, for the second time, the regs on carry-on items. Blades less than 6in are allowed, according to SW's website. I switch MacGyver tools to my small (tiny) purse-sized one (for those who may not know Angie-Speak, "MacGyver tools" are the multi-purpose tools like the Swiss Army Knives). I get to the X-Ray machine, proud of myself for having everything just right - no liquids (all those were checked, and packed in a lined bag In the event of leakage), slip-on shoes, no belts/coins/clunky jewelry, and no sharp, pointy objects outside of the posted regulations.

I sailed through the people-scanning machine, and my first two tubs sailed through X-Ray. As I'm dressing myself, I notice the conveyor belt do an abrupt reverse, and hear the agent commenting "yep, yep, THERE IT IS!" Great. I knew immediately what they were looking at. I knew better than to bring it. But I checked! So they start to go through my bag. Slowly. Carefully, as if there were a poisonous snake hidden somewhere in the bottom.

As I'm standing there, another lady has to have her bag checked as well. Her agent is chipper and friendly (which, while I was envious at the time, since my guy hadn't even said hello, now that I think about it, she probably was a little too chipper for morning-Angie to have handled gracefully). In a pleasant West Texas drawl, she begins: "Gooooood morning, m'am. We need to double check something in your bag...we just simply couldn't identify something. It will only take a moment...oh, there it is! Ok, just one more time through the machine and you should be good."

Meanwhile, my guy is STILL searching through a three-compartment bag as if it were going to explode any minute, especially if he touched the green wire. Still no conversation, no questions, no hint of what he was looking for. He begins the process again for a fourth time. I knew what he was probably looking for and could have helped him find it quicker, but at this point, I was getting annoyed. And an annoyed Morning-Angie is not a pleasant person. Regular, non-annoyed Morning-Angie isn't a pleasant person to start with….

So, now I'm boring holes with my eyes into the poor man, who after all is just doing his job. It's not his fault that SW and TSA rules don't match. It's not his fault some idiot bureaucrat in Washington came up with some really stupid rules. But he's there and he's convenient, he's not chipper, and he's treating my bag like the slightest vibration will cause mass casualties. Pick, pick, pick, gingerly move the laptop case aside slowly, pick, pick, pick, gingerly open zippers slowly, pick, pick, pick...did I mention the tool was TINY? Folded up, it was less than an inch long and 1/2 inch wide. Open, it is less than two inches. WAY less than the three inches in the rules. I've traveled with knitting needles that would do more damage than this thing could. Heck, my car keys could do more damage than this.

I'm pulled from my irritated hole-boring glare by a hand holding the offending tool up in the air, waving it around for his colleagues to see: "Whew! Aww, here it is!" He found it. Goody gumdrops. While this has been going on, Ms. Chipper has apparently encountered another non-morning individual. All I'm hearing out of my left ear is a very loud voice with attitude saying something about terrorists and why does she have to be singled out. In my right ear, Mr. Sullen, very proud of himself for isolating this threat (did I mention the lady next to me was yelling and using words like "knife" and "terrorists" in the same sentence?), began the whole, "I can give you some options…" To which I rudely cut him off, telling him to just throw the damn thing away. It only cost two bucks and was already not worth the 10 minutes and the humiliation it had already cost me (oh, and sir, by the way, have you noticed the irate lady next to us, using the words "knives" and "terrorists" and now "stupid government" in the same sentences? NO? Oh, I guess it's because you were so worried that my one inch, made-in-China, duller-than-Al Gore's-global-warming-lectures knife blade that would inflict mass casualties had it been allowed onto the plane. Thanks).

I grab my bag and stalk off, fuming and red-faced, pissed off at the terrorists who regardless of what our government says, have succeeded in terrorizing us, and have greatly changed our lives, and made huge fools of our Transportation Safety Administration, pissed off that I have to walk bare-foot where people with nasty feet have walked barefoot, wondering if the TSA is in cahoots with the makers of Tinactin athlete's foot medication, and pissed off at our law-makers for being in bed with the security companies that are more interested in selling their latest inventions to airports than our true security. But that's a soapbox for another time (when was the last time Israel had problems with their airlines and terrorists? They don't x-ray people - they profile people, and use dogs to sniff the luggage).

Part 2 Coming Soon...Traveling is lovely. And worth it, right?

So begins the experiment....

From my Dave's Garden Blog:

I have always been interested in local flora and fauna. Since it appears we may be in SW Kansas for a long, long while, I have decided to do something I've always wanted to do...start a flowerbed that is only native wildflowers and grasses. I have always loved wildflowers, a love given to me by my mother, and of course my native state, Texas, famous for its wildflowers. The names alone are intriguing...toadbane, fleabane, eyebane, lungwort, fumewort, spiderwort, Prairie Mallow, Cowboy's Delight, Scarlet Globe Mallow, henbit, Indian Blanket Flower, Indian Paintbrush, Bird's foot trefoil, a yellow flower named "Black Medic", Cursed Crowfoot, Charlock, Goat's Beard, roundleaf monkeyflower, yellow rocket, Prince's plume, the fun-to-say Filaree, Kiss-Me-Quick, locoweed, bear grass, the wicked-sounding resinous skullcap, toadflax, frog fruit...I could go on and on.

With the naming, I imagine that as our pioneer ancestors got further and further out onto the plains, longings for things familiar took over their imaginations, as did longings for sights other than vast expanses of grass, grass, grass, and when it came time to describe a flower out here, where at first glance everything appears barren, those imaginations resulted in the colorful names given to our wildflowering friends.

Besides the awesome names of the wildflowers, as a child I have always been amazed and fascinated by God's gifts to us, especially out on the prairies. Now, having spent time in the grown-up's world, I have spent years purchasing, then babying, my bedding plants. So, when I walk in nature, I appreciate even more the fact that the flowers I see are there by God's design, and grow and are beautiful without any assistance or hard work from yours truly. I have often wondered if I can create landscaping using native plants, grown at the right places, with the right neighbors, to create something at least as beautiful, or even more so, than the pretty but resource (money and natural) consuming bedding plants we have all been brainwashed into using year after year.

Think how awesome it would be to have a fairly care-free landscape around your home. In this area, it would need to be drought and sun and high-temperature tolerant, stand up to the furious winds, and be able to come back after a long, hard winter. We have a variety of wildflowers in this area that should be able to provide a constant bloom, beginning as early as March and lasting up until the first hard freeze. If planted correctly, I theorize that a gardener could utilize the beauty God provides each area of our world to have such a care-free, resource-saving garden.

Improve the soil? Why? These plants love the sandy, crappy, rocky soil we have here!

Water every day, especially during the dry season? Why? The plants that bloom during the dry season LIKE it dry and hot!

Replant the beds next spring? Why? God already planted them for you last year, either by the plant itself, by the wind, or by the birds and insects he made to live in this region!

And speaking of birds...feed the birds? Why? God has provided these plants for the birds that reside here. These plants feed his creatures.

It almost becomes laughable to think about gardening any other way. Perhaps all we have to do is look around us, be observant, and use what God provides for us.

Sounds so simple, and perhaps a bit naive. If it were so simple, everyone would be doing it, right? But by doing it this way, it doesn't make any money for the greenhouses, big box stores, and all the businesses that benefit from the bedding plant business. Not that I don't love my bedding plants...begonias, impatiens, geraniums, lillies, verbena....because I do. But there has to be an easier way...no one plants the fields of wildflowers, and they are breathtaking. Why do my little patches of God's earth have to be any different, especially when right across the road lies such a field...

Thus begins my experiment.

Right now I don't have a dedicated bed, but since I am already to the middle of May, and many of the first wildflowers have bloomed and are gone, I wanted to get started before the wildflower season here got in to full swing. I hope I don't regret not having made a bed further away from the lawn-area (it's no longer a lawn, as the weeds moved into it the two-plus years no one lived here) and my flowerbeds...but for now, I am using the largest bed I have made thus far.

I know this is a many-year project, and most of the research on this stuff has already been done. But, my goal is to come up with a rotation of flowering plants that will have a bed in continual color and interest from the earliest spring days to the last of the fall. A bed that will provide color, then the next round of flowers come up and hide the scraggly-looking ones that are finished and are busy reseeding themselves for next season, so there is the smallest lag time to no lag-time between flowers to seed, before new color/plants pop up.

That has always been the deterrent for my starting a wildflower bed...the scraggly-looking time period the flowers take to reseed themselves after their magnificent display. For example, in Texas, you have the "no-mow" areas where they have seeded the Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes. These areas are unbelievably gorgeous when in bloom, but the two weeks or so after they go to seed are almost equally as ugly. If I can get a proper rotation or planting of wildflowers to cover that reseeding process, that would bloom into the fall, then I will consider myself a great success! If not, I will have fun trying, and will love learning about all of the flowers in the newest area I call home.

The Lesser of Two Evils....

I received an email today from a well-meaning friend, but it made me think, and I have been thinking about things past in my life, so this is just a post to make people stop and think. I don't know, and read and understand this before you leave me an ugly or mean comment, that there is a right answer to this.

Here is the article I received:

Last night, ABC News: Nightline broke the story of more than 300 chimpanzees languishing at one of the world's largest primate research facilities. The report featured video footage gathered by The Humane Society of the United States during a nine-month undercover investigation at the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana -- and showed the routine and possibly unlawful treatment of hundreds of chimpanzees and monkeys. Each animal's suffering detailed in the report was wrenching, but the story of 26 elder chimps currently warehoused at the facility was particularly poignant. Watch our undercover video and see for yourself. These 26 chimps were taken from their mothers in the wild, and have since lived a life behind bars. The oldest, Karen, was captured in 1958, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was still president. Please help end invasive research on these chimps and give them the sanctuary they deserve. Urge your U.S. Representative, Jeb Hensarling, to support the Great Ape Protection Act. The Great Ape Protection Act was re-introduced in the House of Representatives today, on the heels of our undercover investigation. This legislation would phase out invasive research on the more than 1,000 chimpanzees remaining in U.S. laboratories, and lay the groundwork for permanent retirement of the approximately 500 chimpanzees owned by the federal government, including Karen and other chimps at the New Iberia Research Center. TAKE ACTION Please make a brief phone call to Representative Hensarling at (202) 225-3484. When you call, you'll likely speak to a staff member who can take your message. Remember to be polite and professional, and leave your name and where you live so it's clear that you are a constituent. When you call, you can say: "Hello, my name is [your name]. I'm a constituent in [your town]. Last night, ABC News: Nightline aired a report of chimpanzees at the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana. I'm calling to ask Representative Hensarling to please co-sponsor the Towns-Reichert Great Ape Protection Act, to stop this cruelty and to save taxpayers millions of dollars. Thank you." We expect that Congress will receive a huge outpour of calls on this issue. If you aren't able to get through, please keep trying. After you make your call, send a follow up message and tell your friends and family how they can help, too. Thank you for speaking out for chimps held in research. They deserve better than a life of torment and misery. Together, we can make a difference for these amazing creatures. Sincerely, Wayne Pacelle President & CEO The Humane Society of the United States

Copyright © 2009 The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) | All Rights Reserved. The Humane Society of the United States | 2100 L Street, NW | Washington, DC 20037 humanesociety@hsus.org | 202-452-1100 | www.humanesociety.org

And as awful as this is, here is my post:

Two things no one thinks about, as they didn't with the new no-horse-slaughter-for-human-consumption-law, is 1. where will all of these 500 chimpanzees go? Horses are starving to death as we speak, and are being horribly mistreated because there are more horses than good homes. These chimps can't be returned to the wild - that sounds wonderful, but unless there are highly trained people to reintroduce them into a truly terrifying habitat (think jungle predators, and have you ever seen what a dominant male chimp does to intruder chimps in their territory? These "citified" chimps would be torn to shreds in an instant. They have no foraging skills....a creature starving to death in the wild is horrible to witness). And 2. I agree that what they are being put through is awful....but what is worse? A child with a deadly disease languishing and suffering, or a chimp suffering so that child can be cured and live?

I've worked in two horrible places in my life - the neonatal unit & children's cancer ward at the University of Mississippi teaching hospital, where I learned that "soundproof" treatment rooms were NOT in any way soundproof, and in the lab next to my Anatomy & Physiology professor's lab, where he kept "his dogs" -- dogs that he conducted heart medication experimentation on. Anyone who knows me knows my passion and love for animals, but if I had my choice, I would work every day beside those poor dogs, who, by the way, other than the medical things they were exposed to, had a quiet, comfortable, well-fed, climate-controlled life, rather than work one more day hearing a small child screaming in pain due to the "invasive" procedures he and she were having to undergo. If one chimp has to undergo that same torture, so that in 5 years not one more child will ever have to enter a "soundproof" treatment room, I will any day take the chimp undergoing torture than a child.

So anytime the radical, left-wing tree-huggers try to start a movement like this, keep in mind that there are two sides to every story. Are you qualified to adopt and care for a wild animal who has unfortunately, but possibly necessarily, been deprived of its natural life, and will have all kinds of special needs and issues for you to deal with - and if you can't, do you know of someone who can? When we see injustices that we think need to be stopped, before we rock the boat, we should also provide suggestions for the answers to these injustices as well, or well-meaning people very often end up creating even worse injustices as a consequence. It kills me to think of these chimps now languishing in a zoo who is poorly equipped to deal with this intelligent species, and these chimps will have all kinds of behavioural and developmental problems. At least where they are now, they are being fed and kept for the most part comfortable.

And while I could never do these things to either child nor animal, try walking past one of those "soundproof" rooms during a treatment.........

The Pressure of the First Post

Ah, the pressures of that first post. The anticipation of even one person reading the blog, other than yourself, so the pressure's on to be clever, to write meaningful prose.

I finally decided that waiting for the right mood to strike, or for enough time to write something pertinent, pithy, or potentially publish-worthy was silly, so in the interest of getting this started, I would just make the first post & get on with it. So here it is~my very first Blog...