Looking Forward/ Looking Back

Leaving Alaska is always hard for me. Leaving my 91 year old father and 83 year old mother, harder yet. I can barely say goodbye as I hug them at the airport, and I always feel like I'm on the close-up cameras as I fumble my way through all of the security gates making one security suspicious mistake after another, while teary-eyed. And this time feels no differently.

Once you've walked a mile in someone else's shoes you can never walk in your own again without new understandings. I have spent a lifetime learning just how challenging life can be for others, how different from my own obstacles or my own challenges.
I have been blessed with opportunities to be a part of other's disease processes. I have spent daytimes, night times and even parts of lifetimes helping others transition from this life to another. I've been at sick beds and at death beds and at the side of a multitude of chemo chairs, as well.
I have had my parents live with me for 9 months as my mother battled the worse form of breast that there is. I have held hands before and after surgeries, watched poison drip into others' veins during chemotherapy. And now, I am having opportunities to see how others must battle their own aging processes......while fighting for life, the sanity, and the happiness of another ......while still trying to stay strong, capable and find some daily joy of their own.

The battle we wage against Alzheimer's and the inroads it makes on the hearts and spirits of those who suffer with it (and all of us who love and care for them) is a battle you cannot even begin to imagine until you walked the walk and talked the talk ...at the very same time.

Now, that I've spent the last three years coming to Alaska to help my father with my mother's losses to this terrible disease, I can see that it makes the 9 months that they lived with me in Oregon while my mother battled stage 3b (out of 4 stages) of inflammatory breast cancer pale in comparison.
Even chemo, radiation and surgery seem easy compared to watching someone you love disappear bit by bit......while still with you physically in this dimension. The moments of clarity, like moments when one's world makes sense, or is filled with beauty, only makes the day, like the moments..... even more precious.

Amidst the hard times, my family and I were still able to share priceless moments, still managed to find something......even if it was something hard and awful......to laugh about and days when the sun did shine that we absolutely did not allow that day to be wasted.

I walked down to the beach three times, to the Gastineau channel twice, drove myself all through town, chased a bear, shared a bear medicine power ceremony with candles and sage with my dear sister-in-law, went out both ends of Douglas Island as far as the roads could go, went to the Mendenhall Glacier and watched tourists with as much amazement as they watched us, and spent over a whole month with my own two dearly loved parents.
My dad tells me I saved his life by coming up with only two days notice as I did. I know he was stressed to the max, and my taking over gave him not only a break but new hope that he could continue this journey with my mom's disorder. I know we helped my mom.
After her 4 day collapse on the floor and an almost complete disconnect into what appeared to be final stage Alzheimer's, we managed to bring her back to the previous 'moderately advanced levels' and improve her diabetes levels, her blood pressure, and her coping skills. That alone, made this unexpectedly challenging month(and a quick ticket to a long journey) both amazing and worthwhile. I have promised to come back in a few more months, and to continue that pattern for as long as I am able and need to do so.

Here, I am up on one of the highest streets on Douglas Island...a new development that sadly fills my beautiful hillside with houses upon houses...but provides an awesome view of Juneau across the channel. It symbolizes and represents growth and change...and not always in ways that we wish for, or appreciate. But change is still transition and moving forward as opposed to deterioration ,which is change that moves us back.

It was a moment of great appreciation of size and depth and breadth of all that my eyes could see and my own heart could feel and the knowledge that as hard as it is to leave these people and this place, I know I will be back very soon.

Mendenahall Glacier: One Way to Measure Global Warming

My home state of Alaska is incredibly beautiful. Each and every time I return home from my adopted state of Oregon, I am taken aback at not only the views at every turn, but amazement at how rapidly progress and development has altered that landscape.

Unfortunately, Alaska is also one measurable place in the world where the effects of climate change on natural habitat and native species is easy to measure. ABC news recently did a piece on the little Arctic village of Kivalina.

The Inuit village of Kivalina is only one of an estimated 200 villages in the far north fighting for its own survival due to the effects of global warming. Just before this little town was to celebrate a $3million sea wall along its Alaskan Arctic coastline, 160' of its 1,800 feet of wall simply washed away after a modest 40 mph wind storm. Needless that ceremony and development photo op were promptly cancelled.

We have disappearing ice caps and measurably diminishing ice floes. We also have polar bears that have literally drowned at sea. While the bears are superb swimmers, their ice bergs have literally disappeared and they swim for hundreds of miles trying to find something to climb up on, until they finally succumb to their own total exhaustion and drown. And because the bears have to swim off and away from land to reach fishing grounds for their own subsistence and survival, every day can be one where they fight for their own lives.

Here, in Juneau, we can see the most amazing differences made in the disappearing ice caps in our own famous Mendenhall Glacier. This glacier once reached clear out to the lake that you can see here. Now, entire portions of bare rock show and are never covered by ice except for periods of winter snowfall. Bit by bit, our beloved glacier is disappearing. Some say that the day will come when we won't be able to view it all. It will be around the bend you can see here and out of sight.

On our beautiful sunny day drive, my mom and dad and I joined a busload of tourists...fresh off of their Tour Ship, the Westerdam...as they disembarked from their transport to view our glacier.

Not being able to resist a photo opportunity, I took a photo of my dad with the glacier behind him...and him, one of me...shown here. My dad was once a very talented photographer. Learning from his own father during the 1920's, he developed his own black and white photos during the 40's through 80's. Digital photography has changed everything.

While he has his own digital camera, it is of little or no interest to him. To him, it has taken the heart, soul and spirit of true photography away from the art form. None of us knows when digital photo have been photo shopped and whether photos now are real or illusion. Things are no longer black and white, or even shades of grey.

Very little...like the topic of glacial warming...is black and white anymore. Their are shades of grey, as well as many colors in this new world of ours. And like digital photography, there are those who think facts are manipulated and photos doctored to make a point.

This one has not been. Just like our memories of the past and our visions of our futures, we look out and we look back...and the loss of what was, is very sad. But sometimes, the loss of what can never be again, is sadder yet.

Heaven on Earth: Especially When the Sun Shines!

Alaska is an extraordinarily beautiful State and nothing is more lovely than the Juneau-Douglas area when the sun shines brightly. Unfortunately, both Juneau and Douglas Island reside in the Tongass National Forest, and as such, well...it rains a lot as rain forests tend to do!

I live now in Oregon and I can tell you that statistically Oregon is considered a very rainy state. We have jokes that you can tell a true Oregonian by the webs on their feet and so on. But our yearly rain total in Salem, Oregon is less than 1/3 of the rainfall in the Juneau area!

When I was growing up here, I worked for three different State Departments. I started out as a clerical aide for the Dept. Of Highways, later worked in the Dept. of Fish and Game issuing commercial fishing licenses to large fishing boats and ended up a year later working in the Governor's Office, Dept. of the Secretary of State. At all three places, when the sun came out and we had an exceptionally beautiful and warm day...we were literally given the afternoon off from work!!!!

Now, after being here at my parents' home on Douglas Island for a full month, we have had the worst rainy season summer in recorded history. I have had three (ok, two and one half) days of sunshine in one month and yes...I gave myself the afternoon off!

After several hours of preparation (trust me, this is not an exaggeration) my dad and I got my mom dressed and into the car for a ride. Once we rode out to the very end of North Douglas Road...one of the most heavenly places on earth. Not only can you see across to the other side of the Juneau mainline as you drive, but by the end of it you can see Admiralty Island (which my grandparents once homesteaded in the first few years of 1900.)

One of my uncles was actually born there, and if they could have toughed it out a bit longer...we would have been granted ownership rights to the entire island. Admiralty Island is now worth a small fortune and a few lucky people have managed to snag expensive lots there. Others have managed to purchase land on Horse and Colt Island and a few others nearby. You have to have generators and a boat to get to your cabin, but it is so beautiful!

Oh, if only.......

Dancing With the Stars: Cloris Leachman?

Glitter, glitz, glamour and gams...that was the opening night of the new season of 'Dancing With the Stars.' It was also a night of surprises...some good and unexpected and some not so good...and perhaps, better left unsaid.

Watching DWTS from the Douglas Island, Alaska home of my 91 year old father and 83 year old mother, certainly gave it all a new perspective. My parents had never seen the show before but learning that my 92 year old mother-in-law in Oregon loved the show and was staying up late three nights in a row to watch it, made them all the more eager to check it out.

Trying to explain the purpose, the process, and the procedures of scoring ...not to mention the personalities of the three judges was something else! All of a sudden, I wondered why I watch it and enjoy it so much ;) I saw 99% of it, and yes, we talked through almost all of it with their questions and my answers, but I think they enjoyed the experience!

What surprised them the most was not what surprised me. I'd barely heard of Brook Burke and was surprised to see what a good dancer, she was. I expected Lance Bass to be good and he was... frankly, a bit too good for show #1. Some stars do have a bit of advantage experience-wise! I loved Cloris Leachman's exaggerated comedy routine with the judges and Len's kissing her leg. But...I hated having to listen to the censor's bleeps backstage. That seemed inappropriate for a family show and ruined the good energy I love about the show. I'm sure some people loved her anyway, but I felt it detracted from her other pluses.

Misty-May Treanor had stronger more muscular-like energy than I'd expected, and her case of nerves surprised me for someone used to performing in front of Olympic sized crowds. And Toni Braxton who danced very well, as I expected, was hyper nervous with her anxiety over her heart irregularities.

It took me until the next day to figure out who dancing pro, Lacey Swimmer was....I also watch "So, You Think You Can Dance?" on occasion.... and forgot she was a previous season finalist on that show. Now, she is a professional dancer with Lance Bass on Dancing. Definitely a power couple to keep an eye on. It was actually cute listening to Lacey describe her teen crush on Lance during his boy band days. Their hip, young energy will be a real addition to the dancing, I think and should give traditional Len heart palpitations for sure, and not the good kind ;)

All in all, an interesting start to the season...let's see if my elders can stay awake and follow tonight and Wednesday night's shows or if I have to watch it alone ;)

Bear Tales

In the middle of a lot of hard work, I've also had some really great adventures. In spite of lots of rain, I've managed to hike out to the Treadwell Gold Mine twice, walk through the little town of Douglas three times and get within 10' of a brown bear.

My father carries the energies of the 'Bear Totem' so things having to do with bears, bear paws and bear power animal medicine are always fascinating when I am working with family energies at home in Alaska. So, it didn't surprise me one bit to discover that several bears had been sighted prowling through the Douglas Island neighborhood...looking for fast food restaurants and 24 hour cafes that most of us called dumpsters and garbage cans.

This particular little fellow was making the rounds of several neighborhoods and was spotted by one of my cousins from his hillside 'picture window.' The Douglas phone lines lit up like the 4th of July to let me know, and off I raced( camera in hand as I cruised through town in my dad's car, looking for the little fellow. I saw so many gatherings of people, I thought for sure he still had to be around, but they ended up being groups of skateboarding kids or their group visiting parents. So, after 3 levels of hillside streets and about a miles worth south to north, I almost gave up.

But, then I decided to head down to my brother's and lo and behold! I could see another people gathering on our main street. Bear sighting! The little fellow had apparently been looking for me ;) for as soon as I showed up he hopped the fence right right into my brother's back yard. My sister-in-law and I raced through her house, yelling to lock up the dog and peering through windows for a photo op.

Little Bear jumped the fence and headed up the mountain, but I hopped back in the car, SIL riding shotgun with my camera and off we went. When looking for bear, you look for 1)groups of people 2)the local police with their bear horn and finally 3)the bear.

Two streets and a cop later, there he was! And he headed straight for us! My SIL got so excited she zoomed when she should have clicked and we almost lost the photo but managed to snag these shots.

It was so exciting. I ended up being hemmed in by two police cars (literally, I was in the intersection backing up crookedly) and could have been cited and ticketed for interference. But I was all ready with my 'mea culpa' and my I'm sorry officer, I'm from Oregon' speech. But I flashed my dimples and my camera and got off with a grumpy look through their windows.

Last year, they had to catch and release almost 40 bears in one season in Juneau-Douglas. Luckily, this one wasn't held hostage nor did he have to meet his maker (which only happens if they chase a dog or head towards a human) and was allowed to go back up the mountain with a couple honks of the bear horn.

SIL and I headed back to her lovely yard and had a bear power ceremony with candles and sage and talked about bear's message to us ....let's see, what might it have been...'all that is hidden is not lost, but soon found' or perhaps 'determination and perseverance through crossroads creates opportunity'.

Note, my leather camera bag in one photo...yep that's a bear paw design. Must have been fate ;)

AAQI: Purple Ribbons of Love

Awareness, recognition, tribute, and memory come in many forms. And having awareness and paying tribute to those who have faced the challenges of Alzheimer's is a special mission.

Ami (rhymes with salami) Simms is just such a person. And Ami's Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative is just such a mission.

As someone who is currently watching a loved one face the challenges of Alzheimer's on a daily basis, I now see its relentless assault on the dignity of human life every day of my own life. Living with it, or loving someone who does, is vastly different from that of simply hearing about it, reading about it, or simply viewing it from afar.

When someone you love (in this case my mother) has Alzheimer's, you truly understand why Alzheimer's is known as the silent thief. It not only robs you of someone you know and loved, but also of the happy memories you want (and need) to hold onto.

Instead, everything seems replaced by the endless and unrelenting challenges and decisions of the daily life of the Alzheimer's victim. From the moment, we wake up in the morning, til our last deep breath at night, we have to make constant choices on their behalf.

When to wake them up, how to wake them up, when to feed them, what to feed them, how to change their clothes, what kind of clothes to change them into, how to best help them walk, or sit down, or even on some days, roll over.

You have to make choices and judgments about everything that is, or is not best for them. Are they strong enough to walk today? Can they actually make it safely down the stairs, is it time to stop the stairs (their only true exercise) and have a hospital bed, how do you bring in outside help when those involved vehemently don't want it and definitely don't think that they need it? If the closest nursing facilities are miles and miles away which ends up being easiest on all concerned, and best for all concerned. The list is daily .....and it's endless.

You wake up thinking of all that you, and they, have to do that day. You think of all of the daily activities, to monitoring and treating insulin levels if they are diabetic (as my mom is) to personal hygiene issues, to how to deal with nightmares and daytime illusions and confusions.

My beloved mother began her battle with this relentless disease about three years ago. Like many others, we did not recognize it by its symptoms alone. We noticed only unusual personality changes or aging aberrations of memory. We made and she made, excuses and rationalizations for the symptoms and we all tried to explain it, or laugh it off as stress or tiredness or just part of the aging process. It's so easy to be in denial and so hard to face the facts and deal with the cards we've been dealt.

In time, as those changes became magnified, we realized that the person we knew and loved, was transitioning into someone else. Alzheimer's has already made inroads on the the body with balances and movement issues, with sleeping and not remembering eating issues, with loops of memory that sometimes cycle in 15 minute increments...over and over....all day long.

There are good days, really good days, when the mind is clear...when she wakes up all bright eyed, ready for morning coffee and then challenging days, when she doesn't want to wake up, have her blood sugar tested, or go through the same old things over and over. Days when she wakes up and thinks she's in someone else's' house and just wants to go 'home' and be with her own mother. Days when she doesn't recognize a visiting grandchild or remember what she ate 10 minutes before.

And this is still the 'good stage' of Alzheimer's. My mother knows who she is, who we are ,and she can still carry on delightful and interesting conversations. The harder stage is when they don't know who you are, who they are, can't get up at all, and either rage with endless frustrations of not knowing and not understanding or go into a sleep-state resembling a coma.

It's all hard. Even the easiest stages were hard. The middle stage is harder yet. Someday, they don't know where they are, if they ate, when they ate, what time of day (or night) it is, and get trapped in the darker places of their psyche where they actually realize and accept their diagnose and fear for the days ahead...not only for themselves but for their caregivers.

These later stages can last for years, even decades. Bit by bit Alzheimer's robs its victims and victimizes and martyrs its helpers. Exhaustion on both sides is common, feelings of alienation or disassociation from the rest of the world, as if living in a fragile bubble that could suddenly be burst with something far worse.

This is what we, who care for those who wear the faces of Alzheimer's deal with. It is what they, the Alzheimer's victim, faces. And it's why we all seek to raise awareness, understanding and research monies for this dreadful disease. The one disease that erodes the very foundations of all of our lives and weakens and depletes the joy of our spirits.

Ami Simms of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative has started a new project The Virtual Quilt Project, where each of us can Create a Patch with the name of a person you know who has/had Alzheimer's. It will link back to her web page, and if you tell her where you put your patch, she will then link back to you.

Our goal for World Alzheimer's Day (September 21) is to raise awareness of the 5.2 million Americans (26.6 million people worldwide) who have this disease. To make this project work, we need as many Virtual Quilt Patches to be created and linked as possible.

Please check Ami's web pages out and make a link for and on your blog. You can make a difference and that difference truly counts.

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative
Fall Post Card Sale
Quilt Auction
The Purple Patch Project
Make A Donation
YOU Can Help
QUILT EXHIBIT Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece
Priority: Alzheimer's Quilts

Tribute in Light

Today marks the 7th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9-11-2001 and the 'official' unveiling of the 88 floodlights that make up the Tribute in Light Memorial at the site of the Twin Towers. In thought, and in tribute, we honor the memory of the 2,751 people who lost their lives that day in the Twin Towers, 84 more in Pennsylvania and 40 at the Pentagon.

In speeches and in writings, the sacred spot known as 'Ground Zero' has been called "a place that became acquainted with the dark." With those words taken from a poem, we recognize the darkest spaces and places in other men's hearts that seek to do evil as they blazed out in crashing furies.

I look out my own window here, and see blessings of light that have finally broken through the past 8 days of torrential downpours. In native cultures they might have seen the Great Father's tears or Mother Earth's sorrow. But today, it seems more like a cleansing. A time to wash away the old and bring in the new.

With the opening of the clouds and the illumination of the mountains, water, earth and sand...I can feel the sun's warmth on my previously chilled skin and breath the fresh morning air of a new day.

Through endless days of hard and challenging work with both physical and mental exhaustion, the light's warmth brings in both hope and spiritual renewal. As on all days of remembrance, I think of my own loved ones who are no longer in my physical world, and reach out through other dimensions to those who are now facing living battles with Alzheimer's and related dementia's.

I see, feel and know the 'death that comes without dying.' The slow death of those we once knew and loved as they become someone else we don't always

The week of hardest challenges is behind us now, the newly regained light once more visible. My mother says her night was filled with nightmares. She dreamed all night long of ladders. Over and over, she said, she was climbing ladders. I asked her if she was going up or down and she didn't know.

In this world, as in that world, she has been climbing ladders...up and down through the layers of both the physical and mental subconscious. Some days, she climbs up, other days she climbs down. We are learning to allow those layers, to follow her lead wherever she goes and to hold her hand always so she knows that she is never alone.

I look at the paths that all of our lives take as we deal with the challenges we all face... of not only living, but loss, grief and dying and am grateful for any beams of light that enter those dark and unknown places.

I turn my face into the beauty, into the light, take a deep breath and remember my own roots. For just like the old foundation beams shown here of the Treadwell Gold Mine that once was, my own roots still hold steadfast to the earth beneath the swirling waters of my own consciousness.

If we can feel those roots, we are not rootless. If we can feel the warmth of others' outreaching support, we are not helpless. And though the endless cycles of life bring in change or loss, if we can feel, see, and breathe in the light we have hope and the ability to go forward into another new day.

Today, as my father moves a hand held shower head from downstairs bath to the one upstairs, I will help my mother bathe in the cleansing waters from our glacial sources, clothe her afresh and swaddle her in soft blankets or a clean robe.

Last week's challenges are behind us, the nightmares are seeing the light of day with new understandings, and hope allows us to go on with the knowledge that we shall still have good days as well as hard ones.

Perhaps, that is the greatest gift of 9/11. The gifts of unity, of honor, tribute and remembrance. And the knowledge that we can, indeed, go on.

Walking the Line

There is a fine line between walking through life with happiness and joy and walking it with only an awareness of loss or grief. I have seen both as I visit my family in the small island town of Douglas, Alaska.

My father tells me that Douglas Island was once a peninsula...that Taku Glacier once connected the main land of Juneau with that we grew up calling the town of Douglas. Eons of glacial erosion and alluvial sands changed topography and then geography.

Even my childhood town of Douglas officially changed to Juneau-Douglas after a borough incorporation. And even then, most tourists simply see it an island housing area of Juneau, separated by the Gastineau Channel and connected by a fairly new, modern bridge. As they say, 'everything changes and everything stays the same.'

As I walk the streets of my little home town, I see buildings, that while freshly painted or re-named and re-purposed, are still the buildings of my childhood. Behind their fresh facades and concealing exteriors, the old world still remains at their root. So too, is my own life and the life of my family and all of the families that I might pass on our 'Main Street'....shown above.

None of us knows what goes on in other's lives, what happens behind each of our facades. We don't know how our lives have been re-made or re-purposed, or even how hard it might truly be, day by day. In our house on '4th Street', we face the challenges of not only an aging house, but aging residents. A family, like any family with illnesses and problems, loss and grief, sadnesses and joys.

For the past three days my father and I have focused on bringing my mother out of a deep place known only to Alzheimer's patients and those that love and care for them. The rest of the world, the rest of the family, went on in time and space..but we were in a place where time simply disappears.

There is now no memory of a Monday birthday or family members who came to visit or phoned, or even what she might have eaten for breakfast. We share together and try to re-create those memories, re-place and re-purpose those places, spaces, and times. Three days have simply disappeared in her mind, and are almost frozen in place in ours.

On Thursday, there was a disconnect in all of 'the spaces in between.' My 83 year old mother had an Alzheimer's moment (that lasted a bit more!) between body and brain. All strength just slipped out ....and with that slippage, she simply forgot how to walk. She sat down at the top of the stairs, lay back flat and could not/would not budge.

My 91 year old father and I spent two solid hours trying to wiggle and jiggle her away from the danger of the stairs, themselves. Something that might seem so very simple....became an impossibility. And impossibilities don't exist in our vocabularies...so we kept on trying!

When there is no connection between mind and body, there are no nerve synapses to act upon, no command to lift your right arm, or bend your left knee comes through. We become solid flesh, with spirit hiding within and our physical weight, the sum and mass of which we appear, takes over form.

We tried everything from prying her up with pillow by tiny inch of pillow, to using my body as a wedge, in all shapes and forms, to using a mechanics creeper as a sled (no luck there!) to over- turning two walkers to create chin-up bars and handrails. We could not get her to hold on, or roll over, or most certainly not sit up and hang on or walk!

After 2 hours of trying all of these highly creative attempts, we had only managed to move her back and away from the edge of the stairs to the safety of the upstairs hall opening. My dad admitted that we needed help and using our own 'in be-tweens', we managed to contact my brother at work for help.

In ten minutes, he'd borrowed a car, raced through Juneau, across the bridge and home to help. She was lifted up by strong arms and a sturdy back as if she was a puff of cotton. For whatever unknown reason, he simply said 'put your arm around my neck' and she did.

Something she would not/could not do with us...even if we could have carried her...which we couldn't have. There are limits, we learned beyond the best intentions or most fervent of desires to accomplish. Some things have to just come in their own time...or in her case, her's. And when it is that special time, the synapses connect again, and mind-body-spirit connects, as well.

I realized then, just how the body works over the mind and even over spirit. I realized how connection works and disconnection does not. It was a hard lesson for me with my own resulting intense muscle spasms, back ache and a migraine to follow......as I tried to ease the negativity both physically and emotionally from all of that hard experience. Now, on this the fourth day, my mom is still bedridden but at least she is in her own bed and not on a cold, hard floor.

My dad and I must feed her, change clothing or linens from around and beneath her and still try to recall spirit and optimism in all of us from that hard, dark place of future fears and challenging present

Such, are all of our lives, I think. We live from day to day, dealing the cards that we are dealt, walking the line down the center path the very best that we can. And always, looking straight ahead and hoping things get a bit easier and a little bit better.

We can only know the good times by the existence of the challenging ones. Without the contrast there is no perception or appreciation. So, today, I walk the line, appreciate what I can, and feel gratitude for the goodness of the day and a memory slowly coming back to forge the bond...the bond between the body and the mind...the mind and the spirit.

Welcome back, Mom. Back to walking the line, this strange and challenging journey, once again.

Watch Out! Email Scams Abound!!

Urban myth/e-mail scam about cell phone numbers being publicly listed in a directory:

Cell phone users must register their numbers with the "National Do Not Call" directory by a given deadline to prevent their cell phone numbers from being released to telemarketers.

Status: FALSE CLAIM

This email is a scam that has been circulating through emails since 2004. It is NOT true. DO NOT call the number listed.

Origins: In spite of warnings, this scam continues to proliferate. It began with a misunderstanding about the proposed creation of a wireless directory assistance service.

Please DO NOT Forward any e-mails you are sent about this and letter others know that this is an old urban myth making the rounds for the last 4 almost 5 years.

If you ever wonder if something that you receive in an email is true or false, you can almost always assume it is false. Current e-mails about religion, politics, the Internet, celebrities, you name it...are almost all filled with misinformation and even downright scams trying to influence others and fill them with misinformation for either fun, profit or a political agenda. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. If it sounds too preposterous to be real, it probably is too preposterous to be real...etc. etc. etc.

-----------False Scam E-mail Example-----------

Subject: Fw: Cell Phone Numbers Go Public today

REMEMBER: Cell Phone Numbers Go Public today REMINDER.... all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies tomorrow and you will start to receive sale calls. .... YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222.It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a different phone number. HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.. It takes about 20 seconds.

Confidentiality Notice: The information contained in and transmitted with this communication is strictly confidential, is intended only f or the use of the intended recipient, and is the property of Countrywide Financial Corporation or its affiliates and subsidiaries. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use of the information contained in or transmitted with the communication or dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited by law. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately return this communication to the sender and delete the original message and any copy of it in your possession.

---------end of Scam E-mail------

The easiest way to check for scams is simply to check out Snopes.com or you can simply type in the primary line from anything in question and bring up posts such as this one.

P.S. I appreciate Shasta's comments on this post...but due to a computer glitch, I lost the original post site and had to re-position it in a draft mode spot! Thanks, Shasta for your comment that you wish others would double check before mailing mulitiple forwards out!!!

Jumbo Alaskan Shrimp

Imagine my surprise when this gigantic Alaskan shrimp came over for a visit! Caught on the back side of Douglas Island by someone from the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, such shrimp are often caught but not always of such impressive proportions!

My brother thought we would get a kick out of seeing 'her'...and a female she most certainly was. Apparently, the shrimp eggs are quite the delicacy, but not even being a shrimp or prawn eater, myself, looking at this specimen was more like viewing an alien species.

He also told me that few people know this, but shrimp are the one species of sea life that are all born female. At around the age of two years old, for whatever reason of genetic selection, some begin to transform and develop into males.

This little gal went back home with my brother to join her sister and apparently became dinner. I can't honestly say that I was sad to see her go....though I did feel a bit sorry for her unhappy ending.

Paper Daisies for an Alaskan Birthday

I am here in Douglas, Alaska, celebrating my mother's 83rd Birthday. It is a cold and rainy day but we are all snug and warm inside and filled with anticipation of family all coming over later for cake, ice cream and gifts for our dearly loved 'birthday girl.'

Wishing for flowers to put out in my mother's special crystal vase and having nothing but wild ferns and some tree branches, I managed to find three pieces of colored paper and created a birthday bouquet out of paper and taped together drinking straws! "Necessity is the mother of invention " and my mother deserves all we have to give her.

Born and raised in St. Martinville, Louisiana to French parents, she grew up as a wild child of the bayous, frolicking under the moss covered trees, picking and eating pecans and sugar cane for treats, and loving the wide open fields and slowly flowing water of Bayou Teche.

My father, on the other hand, was born and raised on Douglas Island near Juneau, Alaska to Finnish parents who came over to search for the ""streets paved with gold" that he'd heard about. My grandfather worked for the Treadwell Gold Mine on Douglas Island until its cave in back in in 1916. My father herded dairy cows as a boy, chasing them onto a small ferry and transporting them across the Gastineau Channel to the Juneau side for pasture. He learned carpentry and photography from his father and electrical training from correspondence courses and eventually became an electrician for Alaska, Electric, Light and Power Company in Juneau.

Meeting one other as school age penpals, they met in person during World War II when my dad went down to meet her in Louisiana, met her, immediately fell madly in love with her and managed to persuade her to not only marry him but move to Alaska...a Territorial state that must have seemed like the ends of the earth to her and to her family.

Raising 5 children in Alaska together, my dad helped my mother battle Stage 3b inflammatory cancer (when they came to live with me in Salem,Oregon) for 9 months, and now he is her primary caretaker as she faces the daily challenges of diabetes and advancing Alzheimer's.

When asked to come up to help, I managed to pack a bag, buy a one way (for now) ticket and arrive in Alaska in just a few days of planning. I came here, knowing that they wanted me to help them go back down to Louisiana for one last visit and knowing how incredibly hard that would be on and for my mother, I had many concerns. Hurricane Gustav has, of course, changed everything.

So now, we sit in our Douglas, Alaskan home, watching TV as we alternately see photos of Alaskan Governor, Sarah Palin intermixed with photos and maps of Louisiana. We are wondering what is happening to the little home they still own in St. Martinville and wonder if it will still be there in the future or if it will flood. It is quite ironic, really.

But today is my mother's birthday and that is the most important thing of all. The gifts are wrapped, the 'bouquet' of paper daisies and ferns set out, and guests will arrive this afternoon.

It will be, as my mother always says, no matter what else happens in the rest of the world......a very good day.