Happy Holidays everyone!

A message for mom:




From Maddy

Happy Father's Day, Dad


I still miss you terribly...

It was such a privilege to spend your last few days by your bedside, holding your hand, Dad. I miss you a great deal, but know you were suffering horribly. No one should have to see his or her parents in such a state. I am relieved that you are no longer enduring the extreme agony I constantly saw on your face.

Getting to talk with you, urging you to close your eyes and let go of your failing body so you would no longer suffer, was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. You were stubborn until the very end, doing it your way, in your own sweet time. I will always be thankful to Melanie and Joanne for urging me to come to your bedside. It was worth every moment.

Getting to spend that precious time with you as you finally let go, and reliving the many good memories and storytelling shared with my cousins in Massachusetts as we all celebrated your life, was one of the best things I've ever done.

I will always be your little girl, daddy. I love you.


Lynn Worrell

May 18, 2007
Citrus Heights, CA

Obituary:

Mr. John M. Hanberry, 87, of Hanover died Tuesday, May 8, 2007 in the South Shore Rehab Center in Rockland after a long illness. He was born in Rockland on January 1, 1920, son of the late Patrick and Mary (MacLellan) Hanberry. He was raised and educated in Hanover and was a 1937 graduate of Hanover High and was a graduate of the Brockton Business School. He served in the Army during WWII and was a member of the Hanover American Legion in Hanover and a member of the American Legion in Concord CA. Mr. Hanberry was a self employed Accountant. He was an avid Sports Fan and enjoyed Bingo and playing the Lottery. He was a collector of Antique Cars, Trains and Clocks. Mr. Hanberry lived many years in CA, TX and GA before returning to Hanover 5 years ago.

He is survived by 1 son, Stuart Hanberry of Rio Rancho NM, 1 daughter, Lynn M. Worrell of Citrus Heights CA, 1 brother, William Hanberry of Marshfield, 1 sister, Margaret Dill of Hanover, many nieces and nephews and several stepchildren. He was the former husband of Luella (May) Hanberry of Albuquerque NM and the husband of the late Ada (Davis) Hanberry and the brother of the late Donald Hanberry and the late Joseph Hanberry.

A Graveside Funeral Service will be held on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 1 PM in Holy Family Cemetery in Rockland. Visiting hours omitted. Arrangements are by the Sullivan Funeral Homes.

Memorial donations may be made to the Hospice Services of Mass, 557 Main Street, Wareham MA 02571 or to the Activities Department at the South Shore Rehab Center, 115 North Ave, Rockland MA 02370.

Listening to this song on Father's Day while I look at my favorite pictures of you, hoping to somehow erase the images of your final days from my mind.



My Father's Voice
Written by Judith Owen (Dog on the Bed Music)

Oh my father voice
was a very special thing
and when I went to sleep
I knew I'd wake to hear him sing
every morning, he'd warm up
there was hope that it would bring
in the joy in his face
when he reached that haloed place

So I made my choice
I chose my father's voice
on my father's voice
was a very healing thing
and in our house of mirrors
there was safety it would bring
and the clouds above my bedroom
would part, and show me spring
and my pride reached it's fill
and my sadness lost it's will
and I had no choice
but to choose my father's voice
oh my father's voice
is still a very special thing
but he doesn't seem to understand
the pleasure that it brings
to my friends, who love to hear him
when he sings old xmas hymns
and I'm proud and I'm pleased
that thru him, they must see me
I'm the acorn, he's the oak
heart strung girl, heartfelt bloke

Here's the recording of my call from Obama. Didn't have to spend a dime. I used Rob's idea about hooking directly into my PC with an old hand-held cassette recorder microphone I had. Just dialed up my answering service voice mailbox and held the microphone next to the receiver. It is a 2 MB .wav file so takes a bit of time to download. Hope it is in the right format for anyone to be able to listen. If anyone knows how to convert this to an MP3 file let me know, or volunteer to do it for me. :D I think all you need to do is right-click on the file link below, open in a new window, and the file will start downloading for playback automatically.


http://members.aol.com/butrflynet/images/obamacall2lynn.wav

Late last night I checked my telephone messages from the last couple of days. Usually there are none or lots of hang-ups from people dialing the wrong number. To my amazement, this jovial, deep baritone voice starts talking to me. For the first half a minute I was skeptical, thinking it was my brother playing a joke on me because of my obsession with Obama. But, lo and behold it was the real deal. Better yet, it was the live real deal, not the typical recorded message from politicians. Now I have to figure out how to make a recording of it and then get it on my computer so other people can hear it!

I was so thrilled and impressed with his personal phone call! I've replayed it so many times now I can almost recite it with each nuance that was in his voice. I am so damned proud! How did he know that a genuine phone call would mean so very much more to me than an emailed or snail mailed recognition letter? There's no way the cynic in me can discount it this time as some staffer writing on his behalf.

Until I get a recording for everyone to hear, a transcription will have to do. Just read it while hearing his voice as you read.

March 18, 2007 12:32 PM

Hi Lynn. This is Barack Obama. [long pause] Uh, I'm calling because you know we've been looking at folks who have been using mybarack dot com to organize in the community and uh I know you're one of them. I just want to say how much I appreciate your energy and enthusiasm for the campaign. The work you are doing to make sure we can win is being noticed and I hope you continue to get involved. I'm sorry I missed you, but please know I appreciate all that you are doing. [hmm] I hope you are planning to host a community gathering on March 31st and get your supporters to do the same. We really want to make a big push on that day. Talk to you soon. Bye Bye."

Damn, I'm glad I was on the computer and couldn't answer my phone. It would have been great to talk with him, but now I have proof for everyone to hear and I can play it repeatedly anytime I need a boost in my confidence. What a very nice, genuine guy!

I just saw the man at the rally in Oakland and I know he was up late at the Mark Hopkins fundraiser. How sweet of him to take time out to call and thank me, an unemployed peon who can't give much monetarily right now, but works her butt off to spread the word about his campaign with the hope that someone will notice and hire me.


I am bursting at the seams with pride and want everyone to hear his phone call to me. Please help me figure out how to get a recording of his message onto my computer. It's not a local answering machine that I can take and get transferred to a CD. It's a remote telephone company voicemail box that I have to somehow record and then transfer to a CD. The only way I know to do it is to purchase one of those telephone mikes that sticks on the end of the telephone and records what is being said onto a cassette tape. Is that still the best way to do this without having to spend much money? Unfortunately, there isn't a way to forward the message to someone else to record for me.

I can't believe it has been only a month since Barack Obama officially proclaimed his candidacy for president on February 10th. That's the day I went to his website and signed up for the Sacramento for Obama Group. Since then we had our first organizing meeting on February 22 where 55 of us introduced ourselves, formed committees and broke up into our respective committees to make plans for our future actions.




I'm on the Communications Committee for our group. We had a day-long meeting at Richard and Suzanne-Marie's house the following weekend in Placerville and determined who our targeted audience was going to be for our communications effort and how best to reach them.

Our campaign website was up and running and we produced our first Update newsletter which was emailed to 137 members on March 6th. Our first local gathering of Obama supporters at the Blue Cue in Sacramento on March 10th had more than 200 people in attendance, along with media from 3 local news stations.






Our second Update newsletter was produced as a special edition for the upcoming Rally with Obama in Oakland on the 17th. That one was emailed to 234 members on March 14th.



Our Sacramento group had our own t-shirts made but they didn't have any in my size so I ordered one, cut out the logo then sewed it onto one of my own red shirts. It turned out great and I was quite proud of my handiwork.

I was so excited the night before that I could not sleep. I finally got up at 3 am to read email hoping that would make me sleepy. After a 3 hour nap, I was up again at 7am preparing to head down to Natomas to meet up with the rest of our caravan. The first shift of 35 volunteers from our Sacramento group left Natomas earlier at 8am. Our group of 15 people departed at 10:30. We were sure glad we did!

I rode with Richard and Suzanne-Marie and Jason. The 6 vehicles had headlights on and Obama signs in our windows. Driving along the 90 mile route to Oakland, other cars were honking and waving at us as we drove down. I wondered to myself if they thought the Senator was in the car with us.

On the way down, Richard told us stories from when he was a teen growing up in Boston and how, on this day 49 years ago he had shaken the hand of another presidential candidate. He'd been walking down the street when he saw a young politician and his pretty wife in a convertible and reached over to shake the young Kennedy's hand. Richard was very excited that he might have the opportunity to shake another president's hand again on the same day, 49 years later. Hearing Richard talk is like listening to a more liberal version of my conservative dad. They share similar accents and magnetic storytelling abilities. And I just adore his wife, Suzanne-Marie. We've many similar interests and hobbies. Meeting them is just one of the many benefits of working to get Obama elected.



The place was already packed with volunteers from all around the Bay Area when we arrived. We were there early enough to get inside, chat with some of the national staff and find good spots for the rally. The gates opened around 2:30 and the crowd suddenly swelled. Waves of people kept coming. They were lined up several times around the surrounding blocks of Oakland City Hall. All told, estimates are that there were 12,000 people there.



Our little group was standing right on the wall of the ampetheater waiting for our opportunity to hold up our huge banner saying "Sacramento for Obama" when the Senator acknowledged us as one of the model grassroots groups in the country. We went crazy waving and cheering when we got our 3 seconds of fame.



And then after a very long day of standing around in our spot, the Senator started his oratory and the crowd pressed closer to get a glimpse of him. I now know what people feel like at those international soccer games and rock concerts where they are packed in like crushed sardines. In spite of that, I felt euphoric after Obama's speech. I was very happy to hear him voice some of the same things I've said to myself. Much of it was the same stump speech I've heard him give several times now, but each one is just a little different, with a little more of the current issues of the day and recognition of issues in the local area of the venue. He is such a great speaker that you really don't mind hearing it again. It still sounds fresh and still gives you goosebumps as you jump to your feet clapping and cheering.

We finally got back to Sacramento around 9 pm after a very long day on our feet. The weather was great! It was already warm when we left Sacramento and briefly turned to typical morning overcast coolness in Oakland. Just an hour before the Senator was due to speak, the sun broke through and out came the sun screen.



I was shocked to see the aerial shots of the size of the crowd. Where we were, we could only see the ampetheater and the first few rows of people behind us. I knew the place was packed, but did not know it extended out around the block.

The impressive thing to me is that Oakland is known for its high crime rate, yet there was not a visible police presence nor any trouble in the crowd. I saw an occasional uniformed officer on the outskirts. The volunteers and campaign staff did a commendable job of crowd control. It felt good to be back in the Bay Area, especially downtown Oakland where I worked for 18 years before moving to Sacramento. Lots of changes since I was last there. Oakland is finally recovering from the earthquake damage it suffered in 1989.

Today, my body is recovering from the swollen feet, stiff back, slightly sunburned face and neck and exhaustion, but it was well worth it!

You can read much more about the day's events on the front page of our website at www.sacramentoforobama.com

And we only have 18 more months to go to get Obama elected!

It's almost spring!

So far, these are the only plants on my balcony to show any signs of having survived the two weeks of freezing temperatures we had. The begonias might have had a chance to drop seed before the freeze. We'll see how things are in a month or two. Right now everything looks very dead.

Is he enough?


Is he Black enough?
Is he American enough?
Is he Rich enough?
Is he Articulate enough?
Is he Christian enough?
Is he Kool enough?

Is he Old enough?
Is he Bodacious enough?
Is he Appealing enough?
Is he Man enough?
Is he Autonomous enough?

Is he Innovative enough?
Is he Skilled enough?

Is he Experienced enough?
Is he Needed enough?
Is he Objective enough?
Is he Unifying enough?
Is he Gorgeous enough?
Is he Honest enough?



Have you had enough?

Enough of politics as usual?
Enough of narrow minds and broad stereotypes?
Enough of bickering and partisanship?
Enough of liars and empty promises?
Enough of wasted time and wasted lives?
Enough of the faithful and the faithless?









I've had enough and I think Barack Obama is enough.
Obama represents we who have had enough and want him enough to support his campaign.
Vote for Senator Barack "Enough" Obama as our next president.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Groundhog Day is a traditional festival celebrated in the United States and Canada on February 2. It is a cross-quarter day, midway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox.

In traditional weather lore, if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and fails to see its shadow because the weather is cloudy, winter will soon end. If the groundhog sees its shadow because the weather is bright and clear, it will be frightened and run back into its hole, and the winter will continue for six more weeks.

The custom could have been a folk embodiment of the confusion created by the collision of two calendrical systems. Some ancient traditions marked the change of season at cross-quarter days such as Imbolc when daylight first makes significant progress against the night. Other traditions held that Spring did not begin until the length of daylight overtook night at the Vernal Equinox. So an arbiter, the groundhog / hedgehog, was incorporated as a yearly custom to settle the two traditions. Sometimes Spring begins at Imbolc, and sometimes Winter lasts 6 more weeks until the Equinox.

"Woodchuck" (Marmota monax) and "whistle pig" are other names for the groundhog, a rodent related to squirrels.

Good Golly Miss Molly!

Molly Ivins and Ann Richards must be having one heck of a reunion right about now. Peels of bawdy laughter and knee-slapping plain-spoken honesty between those two grand dames of the south. They both leave a huge void in their place. Rest easy and party hard, you two.



Here are a few of my favorite Molly-isms:

• In Texas, we do not hold high expectations for the [governor's] office; it's mostly been occupied by crooks, dorks and the comatose.

• Good thing we've still got politics in Texas -- finest form of free entertainment ever invented.

• The first rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging.

• What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.

• Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous.

• The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.

• Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.

• You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to.

• It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.

• What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.

• I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.

• I still believe in Hope - mostly because there's no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.

• One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn't waste a lot of time thinking about the people who built their pyramids, either. OK, so it's not that bad yet -- but it's getting that bad.

• It's like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you're wrong.

• In the real world, there are only two ways to deal with corporate misbehavior: One is through government regulation and the other is by taking them to court. What has happened over 20 years of free-market proselytizing is that we have dangerously weakened both forms of restraint, first through the craze for "deregulation" and second through endless rounds of "tort reform," all of which have the effect of cutting off citizens' access to the courts. By legally bribing politicians with campaign contributions, the corporations have bought themselves immunity from lawsuits on many levels.

• Any nation that can survive what we have lately in the way of government, is on the high road to permanent glory.

• During a recent panel on the numerous failures of American journalism, I proposed that almost all stories about government should begin: "Look out! They're about to smack you around again!"

• I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

• I know vegetarians don't like to hear this, but God made an awful lot of land that's good for nothing but grazing.

• The United States of America is still run by its citizens. The government works for us. Rank imperialism and warmongering are not American traditions or values. We do not need to dominate the world. We want and need to work with other nations. We want to find solutions other than killing people. Not in our name, not with our money, not with our children's blood.

Turkey Invades Neighbors



(No, not that turkey. This turkey!)

Calling all turkeys! It's mating season...

Last year we had an early morning visit of perhaps a dozen of the giant parakeets. This morning I was awoken by the sounds of an invasion! I took some of these from my apartment balcony and then walked around to the front of my building and found even more of the long legged things. For a moment I was thinking seriously about Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds in the scene where thousands of crows start gathering around the town. Look at this! I counted more than 100 of the noisy beasts.


It became surreal as more and more of my fellow apartment dwellers came out with their cameras and kids to gawk and squawk back at the turkeys. Each time a vehicle would need to drive through the rush hour turkey traffic, they'd have to honk their horns to get the flock to part their sea of feathers long enough to let the car drive through.




At one point, all the toms were gathered on top of one of the mounds, eye to eye and ruffled tail to ruffled tail strutting and puffing in competition to show off their male prowess to the ladies.

In my mind, a commentator was saying:

"today in Citrus Heights a summit of the world leaders have gathered to air their differences and seek resolution to the ongoing buildup of tension between their countries.

I tried to take a picture of that so I could send it to the local TV station with that caption, but by that time the batteries in my camera ran out... Ah well...

Everyone kept commenting that they'd never seen so many turkeys here before. There must have been a huge population explosion last year. I'm surprised and impressed that the environment around here is able to support them nutritionally and the neighboring humans are so tolerate of the big splatterers.












For anyone interested in the comparatively smaller traffic jam of turkeys from a couple years ago, check these out:

http://butrfly.net/2004_12_01_butrflynet_archive.html

My nephew was released from the hospital on Sunday and my brother and his wife are now home. Nephew is stubborn and as strong as hell and insists on walking around with a walker as his way to deal with the extreme pain he has. The drugs just don't dull it at all. He has a long road of physical therapy ahead of him, but is in good spirits. His cousin isn't doing as well. He was operated on a few days ago but is still in a coma and now has pneumonia. He is a fighter though and is still holding on. My nephew's cousin worships him, they grew up together and are inseparable.

Here's a couple photos of the car. It is unbelievable that anyone survived. We've learned that something to do with the power steering broke and that's what caused my nephew to lose control of the car. The EMTs had to use the jaws of life to remove both men from the car. My nephew said the car engine smashed through the dashboard and landed on top of him when they hit the cement retaining wall in the drainage ditch. Luckily a friend was following them home and called rescue squad when he was unable to get them out of the car.

Wearing seatbelts saved their lives. BUCKLE UP!!

Happy Birthday Dr. King.

We're having a hell of a cold snap here. It was down to 19 degrees here in Citrus Heights this morning and is supposed to get that low again tomorrow. It's 12:30pm and the bird bath on my balcony is still one solid piece of ice. I walked around to take a look at the streams throughout the complex and they have ice on the edges still.

It's only 36 degrees right now, and we're not expected to get much higher than 40 this afternoon. I think most if not all my plants on the balcony have bit the dust. They're all hanging like limp dicks with shrinkage factor from the freeze.

Very cold weather is headed to the Valley this weekend. Have been busy moving balcony plants closer to the apartment walls and covering them for protection.

If there is enough moisture in the cold front we might even see some snow.

Deep Freeze Coming To Sacramento Area
Snow Expected In Sierra; Possibly A Dusting In Foothills

POSTED: 5:59 am PST January 10, 2007
UPDATED: 11:17 am PST January 10, 2007

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A cold snap will begin Thursday in the Sacramento region, bringing some of the chilliest temperatures seen in nearly a decade.

Winds are expected to pick up in the high country today, and a dusting of snow in the Sierra is expected Thursday, with some snow falling in the foothills as low as 1,000 feet elevation.

Temperatures will reach the 50s in Sacramento today, but temperatures will drop Thursday and Friday and reach their lowest on Saturday morning. Residents are urged to take steps to insulate exposed water pipes and cover sensitive outdoor plants.


By Friday, morning temperatures in Sacramento will drop to the 20s, with windchill making it feel colder.

Highs in Sacramento will only reach the 40s Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Those traveling to the Sierra in the coming days should brace for high winds and snow over mountain passes.

My nephew-in-law was in a horrible solo auto accident at the end of the year. He and his cousin were very badly hurt, needing the jaws of life to remove them from the car. Cousin was airlifted to hospital while nephew-in-law went by ambulance. Neither of them were expected to survive the extraction from the car. Cousin is still in a coma and fighting for his life. Nephew-in-law is doing much better than first expected. Multiple broken bones below the waist and in a hell of a lot of pain.

My brother and his wife flew back to be with him and get him settled once released from the hospital. There aren't many opportunities to say something good about companies these days, so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my brother's employer for giving him the week off and the air fare without even being asked. He's had a rough year in 2006 and the company's support means more to all of us than we can ever express to the company owner.

I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that my nephew-in-law will make a good recovery so his auntie can cuddle with him and his baby on the couch next time we are together.