Grandma

This Grandma is eighty-eight years old and still drives her own car. She writes:

Dear Grand-daughter,

The other day I went up to our local Christian book store and saw a
‘Honk if you love Jesus’ bumper sticker ..

I was feeling particularly sassy that day because I had just come from a
thrilling choir performance, followed by a thunderous prayer meeting..

So, I bought the sticker and put it on my bumper.

Boy, am I glad I did; what an uplifting experience that followed.

I was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection, just lost in
thought about the Lord and how good he is, and I didn’t notice that the
light had changed.

It  is a good thing someone else loves Jesus because if he hadn’t
honked,  I’d never have noticed.

I found that lots of people love Jesus!

While I was sitting there, the guy behind started honking like  crazy,
and then he leaned out of his window and screamed, ‘For the love of
God!’

‘Go! Go! Go! Jesus Christ, GO!’

What an exuberant cheerleader he was for Jesus!

Everyone started honking!

I just leaned out my window and started waving and smiling at all those
loving people.

I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love!
;
There must have been a man from Florida back there because I heard him
yelling something about a sunny beach.

I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger
stuck up in the  air.

I asked my young teenage grandson in the back seat what that meant.

He said it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign or something.

Well, I have never met anyone from Hawaii , so I leaned out the window
and gave him the good luck sign right back.

My grandson burst out laughing.

Why even he was enjoying this religious experience!!

A couple of the people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that
they got out of their cars and started walking towards me.

I bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended, but this is
when I noticed the light had changed.

So, grinning, I waved at all my brothers and sisters, and drove on
through  the intersection.

I noticed that I was the only car that got through the intersection
before the light changed again and felt kind of sad that I had to leave
them after all the love we had shared.

So I slowed the car down, leaned out the window and gave them all the
Hawaiian good luck sign one last time as I drove away.  Praise the Lord
for such wonderful folks!!

Will write again soon,

Love,  Grandma

The Golden Rule

Across the globe, the so-called “golden rule” is cherished. Many religions and philosophies provide variations on this message:

Islam: “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.”

Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

Confucianism: “Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.”

Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty: do not do unto others that which would cause you pain if done to you.”

Judaism: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man.”

Christianity: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Five Decades

Just recently I hit a milestone and joined the 50 crowd. Yes, on May 15th I turned the big 5-0! I must admit, this birthday bothers me a bit! When I hit my 20’s, I was happy because before long I could drink legally and vote. I was no longer a teenager and could be looked on as more of adult although I probably wasn’t acting like one at that point. When I hit 30 I still wasn’t bothered by it. I was living in Southern California, had a great girlfriend at the time, was making decent money, and really enjoying life! Turning 40 was quite fun. I had moved to the Pacific Northwest, married my wife, and still had a great time. In fact, Debbie threw me a surprise party for my 40th birthday and I ha many friends show up and we had a blast. Turning 50 is a different story!

Before I slide into a depressed diatribe, I will explain what we did for my 50th. I didn’t want a surprise party, but did have a party. We invited some friends to join us on or boat and celebrate my fifty years on earth by going on a day cruise. Deb and I had taken the boat up to Elliot Bay Marina from where we moor the boat in Tacoma the day before. Our friends came up there. Some friends I hadn’t seen in quite some time showed up! We enjoyed some food and drink then took a cruise around Bainbridge Island. It was very fun and I had a great time. Now I am not complaining about my life, in fact I have a good one! I have a lovely wife who loves me very much, enjoy some fantastic friends, have decent income which has us enjoying a fairly good life. We have a beautiful home, a real nice boat, and really have no real worries right now but turning 50 is bothering me. First off, I don’t have very good longevity genes, especially if I follow the path of my parents. Both of them passed suddenly in their early fifties. I do believe I am in much better health than they were. They both smoked, I do not. I try to eat healthy most of the time, but do enjoy a fattening snack from time to time and try to watch my weight. Right now I am really watching my intake and have dropped almost 10 pounds. I have been known to imbibe in an alcoholic bevy or two, but hey, got to have some fun in life right? I run quite frequently and try and stay as active as possible, but as I look at old pictures and myself in the mirror, I can see myself looking older these days. For many years I looked younger than my physical age, but do see a change slowly encroaching.

For the first time in my life I am hit with the realization that unless I hit 100, my life is beyond half over. The young stupid feelings of invincibility are long gone now. What does the future hold but longer waits at the urinal for the piss stream to start, hardly ever sleeping completely through the night without having to make a trip to the bathroom, more involved physical exams (does the first colonoscopy come to mind?), and worrying about the slow break down of the physical body and the inevitable ailments that will pop up! Am I going to give up and let old age take me down, hell no!!! But I am having to stop and think sometimes about growing old and facing my own mortality. I haven’t done that much in the past. Will I change, probably not! I will still enjoy my Makers like always, and rarely will act my age like usually. I figure that if you act old, you get old, so I will still continue to be the immature idiot that you have come to know, love, laugh at, and make fun of hopefully until the day I finally bump into the grim reaper and he says, “Time to come with me!”

And Then the Fight Started

My wife and I are watching “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” while we were in bed. I turned to her and said,
“Do you want to have sex?”
“No,” she answered.
I then said, “Is that your final answer?”
She didn’t even look at me this time, simply saying, “Yes.”
So I said, “Then I’d like to phone a friend.”

And then the fight started….

******************************************
Saturday morning I got up early, quietly dressed, made my lunch, grabbed the dog, and slipped quietly into
the garage. I hooked up the boat up to the truck, and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour.
The wind was blowing 50 mph, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on the radio, and discovered that
the weather would be bad all day.

I went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into bed. I cuddled up to my wife’s back,
now with a different anticipation, and whispered, “The weather out there is terrible.”

My loving wife of 10 years replied, “Can you believe my stupid husband is out fishing in that?”

And that’s how the fight started…

******************************************
I rear-ended a car this morning. So, there we were alongside the road and slowly the other driver got out
of his car. You know how sometimes you just get soooo stressed and little things just seem funny? Yeah,
well I couldn’t believe it…. He was a DWARF!!!

He stormed over to my car, looked up at me, and shouted, “I AM NOT HAPPY !!!”

So, I looked down at him and said, “Well, then which one are you?”

And then the fight started…..

*****************************************
My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary. She said, ‘I want something shiny
that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds.’

I bought her a scale.

And then the fight started…

******************************************
When I got home last night, my wife demanded that I take her someplace expensive…
so, I took her to a gas station.

And then the fight started…

******************************************
After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social Security. The woman behind the
counter asked me for my driver’s license to verify my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left
my wallet at home. I told the woman that I was very sorry, but I would have to go home and come back
later.

The woman said, ‘Unbutton your shirt’. So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair. She said,
‘That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me’ and she processed my Social Security application

When I got home, I excitedly told my wife about my experience at the Social Security office.

She said, ‘You should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten disability, too.’

And then the fight started…

******************************************
My wife and I were sitting at a table at my high school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken lady
swigging her drink as she sat alone at a nearby table.

My wife asked, ‘Do you know her?’

‘Yes,’ I sighed, ‘She’s my old girlfriend. I understand she took to drinking right after we split up those
many years ago, and I hear she hasn’t been sober since.’

‘My God!’ says my wife, ‘who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?’

And then the fight started…

******************************************
I took my wife to a restaurant. The waiter, for some reason, took my order first.
“I’ll have the strip steak, medium rare, please.”
He said, “Aren’t you worried about the mad cow?”"
Nah, she can order for herself.”

And then the fight started…

******************************************
A woman is standing nude, looking in the bedroom mirror.
She is not happy with what she sees and says to her husband, ‘I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly.
I really need you to pay me a compliment.’

The husband replies, ‘Your eyesight’s damn near perfect.’

And then the fight started…..

Dogtown – A Best Friends Final Thought

Sitting in front of the TV watching the National Geographic Channel’s Dogtown is enlightening experience in itself. But when you have been there, twice, you view it with a much different perspective. The partnership between National Geographic and Best Friends Animal Society seems to be a good one and it gets Best Friends tons of exposure. It is also neat to run into some of the people you see on Dogtown at the sanctuary. We watched Dr. Mike work on Riley the horse changing and cleaning his prosthetic. We also had Dogtown Manager, Michelle Besmehn join our table for lunch one day. It’s very interesting watching Dogtown and seeing things you recognize and places you have walked by. But also, there’s nothing quite like a visit to Dogtown and the sanctuary itself to really feel the magic that exists there.

We discovered Best Friends during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. During the disaster, we decided that we had to make some sort of monetary donation to help in the disaster relief. We decided to split our donation between the Red Cross and some sort of animal rescue group helping the lost and abandoned animals left behind. Being the natural skeptic that I am, it was difficult to find the right group to donate to. I wanted as much of our donation as possible to go to the animals. One evening while watching some news footage of the carnage, we saw people helping some dogs with Best Friends t-shirts on. They were interviewed and we were impressed with their determination and sympathy for the dogs they were trying to help. I went to work on doing some due diligence and decided they were worthy of our funds. Once our donation was received, we started getting the magazine and newsletters, and the more I read, the more impressed with Best Friends I became. I discovered their massive networking capabilities and then the volunteering opportunities and began telling Debbie that we had to go there and do some volunteering. Back in October we went for our first time and then again just now. Like I said before, the place is magical. The setting is magical, the people are magical, and visiting Angel’s Rest and seeing the hundreds of little graves of those who have crossed over the Rainbow Bridge, you can’t help but shed a tear.

I must admit that I am always cynical and cannot always agree with myself that what I see is true. I am always looking for that rip in reality, that black mark on the pure white, that chink in the armor and I have tried to find it here at a place where it is totally run and funded by donations, but I can’t. The people are totally dedicated to the animals in their care. The vision of the founding members is still clear and focused with those who have come in behind them. Most of the caregivers that were there in October are still there now and are even more determined than ever to find every animal a forever home. What is most awe inspiring is that these people will stop at nothing to give these poor little souls the absolute best life they can possibly have for as long as they remain there. They are truly there for the animals and the animals always come first. They were cast offs , abandoned, abused, lost, forgotten, but no longer. They are totally loved maybe for the first time in their lives and you can see the appreciation and thank fullness in their eyes. We are so glad that Best Friends exists for these babies and if you ever get a chance, pay them a visit and see for yourself what goes on in the country’s largest no kill animal sanctuary. Send in a donation and get the magazine and tell a friend. You’ll be amazed and never forget your experience there. By the way, I am in no way involved with Best Friends except as a member and volunteer and am paid not one penny to share my feelings. See ya in southern Utah someday!!! Oh and one more thing….. DO NOT BUY PUPPIES FROM PUPPY MILLS!!!!!!

Many New Pictures Posted

Wedding

San Antonio 2009

At Best Friends

Have a look at our photos from our recent vacation. Click each image to go to the album or just go here for our complete Flickr Photo Page!

Seppi

Seppi is Best Friends ambassador to the world, and is very cute!

The Personality of a Pig

When thinking of animals and those with distinct personalities, we often think of dogs first then maybe cats and horses. If you can go no further than that, then you haven’t met a pot bellied pig. Our time spent with the pigs in Piggy Paradise at Best Friends Animal Society was so much fun and very enjoyable. Deb loves them, and I really grew towards them after an initial hesitation. Most people think of pigs a dirty, stupid, stubborn animals that are only good on a plate! While it is true that if you visit a typical farm and walk by the pigs in their pen, you’d think they were disgusting. All you see is them wallowing in their own excrement and mud. This is not how a pig likes to live, but are forced to due to areas too small for the number of pigs in them. Typical farms have only small pens for their pigs and don’t really give them much of an option of living they way they want to. A pig absolutely hates to eat where they poop and are actually very clean animals. the pigs at Piggy Paradise where spotless and didn’t even have a smell. Their snouts are a little wet and smudgy, but they like to root around with them. During the summer the staff makes them big mud pools where they like to wallow to cool off and keep their skins protected from the hot sun, maybe they get a little dirty then. They are also so fun to work with!

Every time we ran into other volunteers, we mentioned working with the pigs and we got the usual hesitant response until we told them how much fun they are and are so personable. For instance there’s Dagwood. He is an older guy and gets a little grumpy at times, but is really good when walking. There’s Naniue which means “beautiful” in Hawaiian and she is very beautiful. She’s a big girl, but the staff have her on a diet and she has lost 60 pounds since June. She is already getting around much better since we last saw her in October. She still likes to eat and gets a little pushy at feeding time. We loved Cherry, a shy petite cutie. She is very cute and took a liking to Debbie. One of my favorites was Raisin, and she really liked me. She would walk with me with virtually no prodding. You usually have to throw down some popcorn, peanuts, or shredded wheat in front of them to keep them going, but Raisin just walked along with me and would stop whenever I would. When I got her back to her run she just hung around me while I was in there with her. I could have taken this baby home if I had the opportunity. Next up is Babe, he is a pink pig that was left out in the sun by his previous owners and got sunburned so bad that staff thought he might develop skin cancer. He didn’t, luckily, and is doing fine but he has permanent dark markings on his back from the sun damage and he is really sweet.  Now Metro and Penelope, on the other hand, are real ornery! They are real stinkers and like to snip at you if you aren’t careful. Most of the time, volunteers aren’t allowed in their pens, but I had to check their water and I went in with a poop scooper to ward them off in case I needed. They were okay with me the brief time I was in. Another couple of characters were Jeffrey and Hogan who had minds of their owns when walking, and stubborn……..whoa boy were they ever. Sometimes it was a real chore getting them back into their pens after their walks. Jack is a pretty laid back pig who just takes everything that comes in stride. He gets let out of his pen to just cruise around the compound and he just hangs around until it’s time to go in.

I could go on and on as there are some more, but i think you get my drift here. Pigs are cool and each have very distinct personalities and are way more maligned than they should be. If you do plan a trip to volunteer at Best Friends, spend a morning or afternoon at Piggy Paradise. You’ll have a blast and will fall in love with these cute porkers!

Walking The Pigs

Here’s Deb walking Dagwood the pig at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary’s Piggy Paradise!

Here’s another video of Deb walking another pig, Naniue. Isn’t she cute!

Back At Best Friends Animal Society

Yes we are back at Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah! After our first ever visit back in October, we had always planned to come back some day soon and recently found a real good excuse to come back just six months later. Debbie’s nephew Nick got married and he and his new bride live in San Antonio so we went down to attend the nuptials. Neither of us had ever been to San Antonio and found it to be a very cool city! We didn’t get to see a whole lot, but we did spent some time in the River Walk area, and did visit the Alamo while we were there. The revisited history of the Alamo was absolutely fascinating! Learning it as a kid quite possibly left something amiss. As an adult, I found it much more, lets say digestible. We had a great time and wish the newlyweds all the best in their new lives together!

So since we were all the way down in Texas, and Utah just happen to sit right in between there and home, well why not take a vacation and stop by Best Friends and spend another visit and do some more volunteering! So that is exactly what we did. We had to fly from San Antonio to Phoenix for a quick plane change and then head to Las Vegas where we would pick up our car and drive the 200 plus miles to Kanab. It should have been a no brainer, but due to a nasty front that had moved through the southwest, Las Vegas had high winds and planes were stopped from landing or taking off for about an hour, so we sat on our plane in Phoenix waiting for the go ahead. Luckily we got it, but the landing in Vegas was quite a bumpy and scary one! It didn’t end there, because we still had a harrowing drive to Kanab due to the gusty winds. Kanab and Freedonia actually lost power for a couple of hours but was restored by the time we showed up early this morning. After a few hours sleep we were up and ready to take care of some animals!

This trip we started with working with the horses. Last time we didn’t get to work with them. We really enjoyed it even though we did plenty of mucking the pastures. There’s something not too unpleasant about shoveling horse poop. It really doesn’t smell that bad!! We did allot of grooming too which it is the beginning of shedding season and the horses really seemed to enjoy it! The afternoon had us returning to Dogtown where we had spent allot of time on our last visit. There’s nothing like the fresh smell of Fabuloso when you walk into any of the dog houses! The first thing we wondered about was what happened to many of our dog friends we made on our last visit! It was very enlightening to find out that many of them had been adopted to good happy homes! Kirsten, our favorite dog, had been adopted, so had Ali, Tahiti, Garth, Densani (sp?), and a few others that names are fleeting but faces are not. While it would have been nice to see some of these smiling faces once again, the reality smacks us in the face that this is how it should be and we should be happy, not sad! Emotions conflicting, expectations met in respect, the fact reared it’s head that there were now new doggy faces that had replaced those that had left that needed love and attention. I might add that there were still some familiar mugs we still recognized that had still not met the exuberant fate of finding a happy home. So the battle still continues, albeit happy tales are being told.

One of the new faces we met at Dogtown today was Freddy, a very well behaved hound that had noting but love to show us unfamiliar humans he was dealing with despite the horrible past he lived with! He was left for dead in a taped up box on the side of a road as a small puppy. Someone finally got suspicious of the box sitting on the side of the road and went to check it out. Inside was found a very hungry, thirsty, and weak little dog! He was very lucky to be in wonderful hands and was nurtured back to health where he lived in a nursing home for awhile before finding himself at Best Friends. We met him here only eight days after his arrival, so he was a real newcomer. He is a wonderful dog with a very touching personality and a beautiful disposition that will hopefully land him in a forever home really soon. It is just unbelievable to find people out there that can do such terrible things to loyal and loving animals. They are really feeling, sentient beings that deserve far much better than this. Thank God for Best Friends, the people that work and care for the animals, and also the volunteers that come from around the world to love and spend time with these beautiful souls. We will have pictures coming soon and hopefully some interviews for some podcast shows coming on www.justjoepodcast.com. Also more stories of our visit will be written as I find the time! As you read these words, think about coming down for a visit to see what all this is about! You’ll never be the same again!!!!