Adams Avenue Roots Festival San Diego California

the sun is shinning, the grass is green
and it's not Christmas but tomorrow! another
Adams Avenue Roots Festival San Diego California
in Normal Heights


Portuguese folk musicians

recycle & don't kill, Earth day

"It is our earth, not yours or mine or his. We are meant to live on it, helping each other, not destroying each other."
~J. Krishnamurti...

my little tribute to Earth Day

14 Surprising Things You CAN Recycle
taken from Star12

1. Appliances – Goodwill accepts working appliances or contact the Steel Recycling Institute to recycle them

2. Batteries (rechargeable and reusable) – visit www.batteryrecycling.com and find out how to dispose of yours

3. CDs/DVDs/Game Disks – refurbish scratched disks with www.auraltech.com

4. Compact fluorescent bulbs – You can take them to your local IKEA store for recycling.

5. Computers and electronics – many computer manufactures take back old computers to recycle for free

6. Eyeglasses – you can donate your used eyeglasses or call your local eye care chain to see if you can recycle them there
7. Foam packing – Call the Plastic Loose Fill Producers Council to find a drop-off site

8. Ink/toner Cartridges – www.recycleplace.com will pay for them or you can get them refilled at a reduced rate at most office supply stores

9. Oil – visit www.recycleoil.com to find out where you can recycle used motor oil

10. Sports equipment – try reselling, donating or trading it in at your local sporting good store

11. Toothbrushes and razors – visit www.recycleline.com

12. Tennis Shoes – Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program turns old shoes into playground and athletic flooring. Visit www.nikereuseashoe.com.

13. Phones – visit www.donateaphone.com to find out how to recycle and/or donate your used phone

14. Cardboard Boxes – donate yours to local nonprofits and women’s shelters

and now on meat...
here about 16 quotes of famous characters on vegetarianism and no-meat diets
sadly, i am not a vegetarian, yet... i am a cruel as all meat eaters
but the more i think about it, the sadder i become
i hope i have the strength to change a hamburger for some inoffensive nuts
if i ever do it, it would be for the animal cruelty reason
maybe you like these famous people would like to give it a try too



"Vegetarian food leaves a deep impression on our nature. If the whole world adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of humankind."
~Albert Einstein

"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
~Pythagoras (6th century BC)

"A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses... Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends."
~George Bernard Shaw

"My situation is a solemn one. Life is offered to me on condition of eating beefsteaks. But death is better than cannibalism. My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by mourning coaches, but by oxen, sheep, flocks of poultry, and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarfs in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures."
~George Bernard Shaw

"People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times."
~Isaac Bashevis

"If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons."
~C. S. Lewis

"One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make the bones with;" and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying himself with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle."
~Henry David Thoreau

"I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement to leave off eating animals."
~Henry David Thoreau

"Since visiting the abbatoirs of S. France I have stopped eating meat."
~Vincent Van Gogh (in a letter to his brother Theodore)

"Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own."
~Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

"As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields."
~Leo Tolstoy

"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral."
~Leo Tolstoy

"Flesh eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act, which is contrary to moral feeling: killing. By killing, man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity, that of sympathy and pity towards living creatures like himself and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel."
~Leo Tolstoy

"Flesh eating is unprovoked murder."
~Benjamin Franklin

"I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men."
~Leonardo da Vinci

"I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question to right of humans to eat other sentient beings."
~Cesar Chavez

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated... I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants."
~Gandhi

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
~Thomas Edison

"The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion."
~Mahaparinirvana (Buddhist)

To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana."
~Buddha



more info in case you want to stop eating animals too
http://www.vegsoc.org/

i hope i find the enlightenment and discipline to stop eating meat
hopefully one day, the only meat-eaters in my household will be
Frau Kitty and Herr Gato, as cats are strict carnivores

and don't miss Earth Days
the PBS documentary
it follows the development of the ecological movement
and the first Earth Day back in 1970
very informative!
this beautiful planet and all its inhabitants
animals, insects, plants deserve something
have forgotten, they deserve our
respect

signed,
why am i growing a conscience?
it is painful and a lot of work!

sunday beer pizza

am Sonntagabend, ein kaltes Bier (und Pizza?)
on Sunday evening, a cold beer (and pizza?)
domingo por la noche, una cerveza fría (¿y pizza?)

Karl Strauss, a local brewing company from San Diego
won the World Beer Cup for their Red Trolley Ale
they didn't have it at Henry's but they had on sale
their Amber Lager, delicious too, caramel and smooth flavors



those visual details



closed the week with that cold beer and some
Organic Four Cheese Stone Baked pizza from Von's


added some fresh basil and rosemary

we should declare every Sunday
a Sunday evening beer

more on Karl Strauss from his bottles

Flavia de Luce

"Long ago and far away"
~Flavia de Luce, Dogger, "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie"



Saturday morning glory
phone ringers off
3 cats fast asleep
neighbors quiet


Frau Kitty through plants
Frau Kitty is the sweetness at the bottom of my pie life!



Lucky woke up for the picture, went back to sleep


Herr Gatito mellow, enchanting when he's asleep on my closet for once
he's not allowed there but since Luck's visit he's been a bit 'edgy'
to put it nicely, so to give him (and me) some peace

nothing like the beauty of the silence to read!

41

today, April 14th, is my birthday
i am officially 41 years old
and i am so thankful i made it this far
i only wish i can make it to 80... at least!
but of course in good health
can't wait to see myself with all white hair

my routine today has been like any regular day
i woke up, had coffee, stopped for cake
(well, that was unusual)
unusual too was to have chocolate cake for breakfast
after arriving at work
but in spite of not having big celebrations happening
i've been having a pretty nice day:

my cats greeted me and sunbathed this morning
my mom, my aunt, my sister, and herr Thilo called
i got tons of notes via Facebook from remote and close friends
and we ate chocolate cake at work with black tea


chocolate cake to celebrate my co-worker's and my birthday at work

and for dinner my friend perro and miss m
the m&m team visited me, bought me pizza at Zia
and meet Lucky, the black cat and gave me hope
on finding him a home
nothing like sharing maladies and worries with friends
to feel them dissipate

and i am not sure why
maybe 'cause i've been eating avocados for a while now
or doing yoga more often
but i feel rather happy and thankful to be alive!

other years i had more things going on
but i was less happy
as i get older, i seem to comfort myself
with less and with those little things of life
like a piece of cake, a smile, and a good tea

i thank life for not giving me a migraine
nor an asthma attack today
and for keeping my lungs breathing
and my eyes open to appreciate
this wonderful fluffy cloud in the sky


lovely fluffy cloud covering a radiant sun behind

life is great at 41!
when you only expect smiles from friends
and to be alive


my old Swatch marking 14 on the date

hope you had a great day too
and share for me a smile

and i feel like singing this old Belle & Sebastian song
Ease Your Feet in the Sea
is all about taking shoes off and curling toes, nice!



Ease you're feet off in the sea
My darling it's the place to be
Take your shoes off curl your toes
And I will frame this moment in time
Troubles come and troubles go
The trouble that we've come to know
Will stay with us till we get old
Will stay with us till somebody decides to go
Decides to go
Soberly, without regret, 1 make another sandwich
And I fill my face, 1 know that things have got to you
But what can 1 do?
Suddenly, without a warning
On a pale blue morning
You decide your time is wearing thin
A conscious choice to let yourself go dangling
Hovering
It's an emergency
There's no more wait and see
Maybe if I shut my eves
Your trouble will be split between us
People come and people go
You're scouring everybodies face
For some small flicker of the truth
To what it is that you are going through, my boy
I left you dry
The signs were clear that you were not going anywhere
Anywhere
Save for a falling down
Everything's going wrong
Later on, as I walked home
The plough was showing, and orion
1 could see the house where you lived
I could see the house where you gave
All your time and sanity to people
Then you waited for the people to acknowledge you
They spoke in turn
But their eyes would pass over you
Over you
Who's seeing you at all?
Who's seeing You at all?

Turkish coffee with cardamom recipe

i like drinking coffee
and even if my preferred & daily morning coffee
is made freshly ground, on a French press
i enjoy experimenting and preparing coffee
(and drinking it)
in many different ways when the weekend comes around

i really enjoy the earthy texture and flavor
of a good Turkish coffee with cardamom
so this weekend i made some from scratch



i found the fresh cardamom pods at North Park produce
i ground the small 'balls' inside the pod
but also added a whole pod
ground my coffee very fine
and boiled all with water on a very low temperature
for a couple of minutes

here the complete recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon of extra finely ground coffee (powder consistency)
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom, or 1 cardamom pod

it was delicious! and with a strong taste of cardamom
[i think i added more than the recipe called for,
but i like it cardamom-strong better]
much better, fresher tasting than the almost powered
Turkish coffee already ground
that comes with the cardamom already mixed

my version is much better!

can't wait for the AM to maybe prepare some more

and please DO try this trick at home
nothing like drinking/eating as fresh as possible
and/or home-made too!

Google Earth

re-installed & i am in love with Google Earth
i am flying everywhere!
it all looks so pretty!

from Balboa Park



to Autlán, Jalisco, México



to the Moon

earthquake in San Diego, 7.2

as Easter Sunday rolls in
the land started to shake

Recent earthquakes near San Diego, California

Time Magnitude Location
1 hour ago 5.4 Baja California, Mexico
1 hour ago 5.1 Southern California
2 hours ago 7.2 Baja California, Mexico
from earthquake.usgs.gov

the 7.2 shake was pretty scary
i must confess i am still a bit shocked

aftershocks have been following the whole afternoon
here detailed updates

sure! i panic a bit
i cook soup and do errands to distract me but
i have my water bottles and gatos food handy on
a bag by my door, a flash light, and other goodies

dunno if it's 'cause i was in Mexico City in '85
but this one really freaked me out
waiting that on the next 72 hours that everything settles

and even if freaked out
i couldn't resist sharing this one

morning coffee stirred with a ray of sunshine

as i grow older
early mornings have become the favorite part of my days
the first traces of daylight delineate the plants outside my window
and the fragrance of the fresh ground coffee
bring a sense of warm freshness
and it wasn’t always like that
i don’t really think i ever paid too much attention before
or asked myself (in sort of a serious way) which was
the favorite part of my days

at first i thought i preferred mornings
because of a bit of addiction to the caffeine
she's been a regular in the mornings for a while now
it could be the routine of grinding boiling stirring straining
that unique taste, that distinguishing smell
then i thought it was ‘cause maladies of both
the soul and the body seem to feed on darkness
they all grow stronger at night
the fears, the pains
vanishing at the touch of the most gentle sunshine
also i thought it was the hope that a new beginning brings
and i guess, in any case
is a mixture of all these things
that makes appreciate the daily sun rising
and even if the dullest or most painful of the nights
occur now & then
the little hope of the morning to come
with its beams of light, its hopes, and cafés
has kept my heart warm every day

a recommendation then
to start your days
ah!! that Peet’s coffee
for the french press
the Major Dickason's blend



Peet's coffee, even if bought at a grocery store
is always fresh!
you open the bag and see and smell these oily, shinny,
full of body, perfect grains...
delicious! give it a try, if you don't find it in your city
you can order online

and a tip, get yourself a coffee grinder
you can find one for about $20, if you look or wait
for a sale you can get one as cheap $10
and it will last you for a long time
and get whole grain coffee
even if it's not Peet's
any good fresh oily bean will do
the taste is rather different from previously ground coffee
now to enjoy wonderful fresh roasted mornings
life's short, and millions, fame, and glory
hard to achieve
(and useless to my point of view, if there's no good cafe
nor sunshine...)
so rejoice on the little pleasures of life!
like a good cup of fresh café stirred with a ray of sunshine

the bells of the St. Didacus catholic church

for a moment or two
the sun touched my soul
the bells of the St. Didacus church tolled on the distance
two four five six times, and then stopped
the clocks at my home are always fast 3, 5
ten minutes or so
but my lifetime is not
every time i hear those bells ringing
at the dawn or the dusk
i remember there’s god time who measures it all
my tragedies, my sorrows, and my occasions of joy

life has been strangely unexpected
a surprise every day unfolds
to the simple eyes it all seems the same
yet it is not
because some days the leaves fall
some other days ones, not
the loving blinking of my beige big cat
or the cuddle of the little one
do change one’s soul
like the stroke of the sunbeam
through a chest that is cold
& now this black cat
homeless and alone
comes and out of the blue
& near to me, decides to curl up

the birds that i feed leave a mess
but for me as today, as 6pm
the mess is pure joy
is life, and as long we all are breathing
there’s hope, there’s love

a Friday evening with cats
cold weather but sun
a book a computer a tea
the church distant clock’s song
two three four five six
and it’s done
is this how i was supposed to be when i grew old?
who is this adult who types?
and smiles and cries and worries about cats and birds and loves them all?
guess i never asked myself before
and this is how i turned out
who i have become
while the bells of St. Didacus
keep tolling remote


me wearing flowers