What Shamu taught me about a Happy Marriage

I mentioned earlier that I have read a lot of dog training books. My neighbor ( a dog trainer ) loaned me this book. It started as a Modern Love essay that eventually became the most emailed nytimes story of the year. The book details the author's year with the students at a renowned school for professional animal trainers. The lesson she learned was basically reward the behavior you want and ignore the behavior you don't. There is never a no. There is a 'how about this other, better thing over here?' There is silence, praise, reward, and redirection never resistance. The tai chi of relationships.

Here is a pic our dog to be:

Eyes to the Wind

I first heard about Ady Barkan when he confronted AZ Senator Jeff Flake about the Trump tax cut bill in 2017. Ady is a brilliant, radical activist attorney with Ivy League credentials who was diagnosed with ALS at 32. He received a death sentence at 32 a few months after the birth of his first child and a few months before the election of Trump.

His memoir tells his remarkable story. While the premise of his story sounds so sad (and IT IS COMPLETELY TRAGIC AND UNFAIR) it's also oddly hopeful and inspiring. He is using every tool he has to fight our slide into authoritarianism and fascism. Every time I think I don't feel like contacting this representative or participating in that civic event, I think of him and move forward.

Many many dog behavior and training books

We are getting a dog in about two months. It's been a long road to this dog. Ryan has an allergy so it's a dog that doesn't shed. Dogs make Jack nervous so it's a dog with a kind temperament. I've never owned a dog so we needed a dog that is easier than others to train.

So far, I have read Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz, The Art of Raising a Puppy by the Monks of Skete, Let Dogs by Dogs by the Monks of Skete, The Puppy Primer by Patricia McDonnell, and one other train a puppy guide but I can't remember the title. I've also watched youtube videos by Pawsitive Dog Training and Rachel Fusaro.

I have learned a lot but the real learning will happen when we get the dog. I'll keep you posted.

High school reunion SF

I visited San Francisco at the end of September. Great city! All of my high school friends converged and we had a great time. Not much else to say .. we really enjoyed chatting, walking around the city and eating good food.

I've known these people for 33 years

Canada!

I was prepared to leave Seattle in August if there were fires. It rained a lot instead of burning and I'll take a rainy summer any day.. less apocalyptic. Since there were no fires, we stayed in the great Northwest and went to Vancouver.

My mom came with us which was brave of her. We spent two nights at an AirBnB in the Kitsilano beach neighborhood (a new favorite). We visited the largest pool in North America - over 100 meters long. We walked over the Capilano suspension bridge and visited their Redwood park that looked a lot like a Redwood park we visited in New Zealand. We visited their amazing science center and experienced the Fly Over Canada ride.

The kids fought a lot. It was annoying. Our third night we visited the very cool Fairmont in the Vancouver Airport. When we arrived, I put my feet up and wanted to watch a home decorating show on the large TV in our room. The kids instantly started to complain.. they wanted to watch their own show, this wasn't fair, blah blah etc. My mom looked very confused by this behavior. Her children did not do this apparently. She told them it did not matter what they wanted. Their mom was paying for the room so they needed to do what I wanted. This was news to all of us. The kids were so shocked by this idea they were quiet, and I started to consider that 'it doesn't matter what you want' might be something to add to a book I am writing called 'How to make your children less whiney and entitled.'

Kits beach pool

lots of people can visit the pool at one time

Capilano suspension bridge park

All tourists visit the bridge apparently

The Truth About Social Security

There are books I cannot stop talking about. Bad Blood is still one of those books. The Truth about Social Security is now another. Everything you think about social security is a right wing talking point. You think of it as part of the general federal budget, believe the money has already spent, that the program is going bankrupt, it wasn't intended to be your sole source of retirement income, that it's an entitlement, and (if you are under 50) will not be there for you when you retire.  All of those things are complete lies. I am most struck by how completely I have absorbed the right wing propaganda about this program.

The author, Nancy Altman, started her career as a tax lawyer after attending 2 Ivy League universities. She served as a legislative assistant to a Republican Senator in the 70's before the Republicans became crazy, doublespeak peddling devotees of Lenin. She moved on to work in the field of private pensions and then served as Alan Greenspan's assistant in the early 80's when he was chair of a bipartisan committee that developed amendments to the Social Security law. Since then she has worked in public service either directly or indirectly with the Social Security program.

When I tell people that everything they know about social security is not true, they do not believe me. But that is because everything they know, they've heard from the media. Unfortunately, it is hard to get good information on complex issues from the media these days. They seem to feel they have to tell you both sides which in this case is here are some lies and here is the truth, you decide which is which. And of course, you cannot.

The facts of the program are well documented and publicly available. The book is filled with speeches from founders of the program as well as congressional testimony from the time Congress was debating the program. Altman explains that the social security administration employs 40 actuaries. She breaks down actuarial terms and data which isn't great for bedtime reading but interesting earlier in the day.

Reading this book was reassuring -- what a great program! well designed! -- and terrifying -- these crazy people are close to fulfilling their dream of destroying this program.

Nothing to do but keep on fighting the good fight.

Sula

In honor of Toni Morrison, my book group chose the book Sula for the month of September. When I was a sophomore in college I read Beloved, and I understood none of it. My experience being required to read books seem to deplete my engagement with the book and turn it into figuring out what I needed to know about the book for a grade.

Maybe if I'd read Beloved under different circumstances, I may have understood more. But then I was reading the book around the time of the riots caused by the exoneration of the police when they severely beat Rodney King. I remember at the time thinking .. huh. well, I have never had that experience with the police. So, I didn't understand much.

Toni Morrison seems to paint scenes as she writes.. I've never read anything so deep, lyrical and mystical. Sula was her second book written in the early 70's. It is really, truly sad but somehow sort of hopeful in that one of the themes is strong women who can survive anything. I still probably didn't understand half of it.