What is in Izzy's World Today?

This is the wildest halloween decoration I have seen.  The home is huge, which you can't really tell, as the decoration is so big.   It is a private residence on Main Street in Medford, Oregon.  

Tonight I am spending a lovely night in Medord Oregon.  Orginally I came here as it was close to Ashland which I wanted to tour.  I was to meet another woman and we were to tour it together.  She had to leave early, and it was so peaceful here rather than leaving also, I booked it for the whole week.   Visit http://www.grapestreetgardens.com/Executive-Suite-T.htm

to see some photos.  The woman who has the four little guest houses believes in repurposing.  See an inteview of her ideas as shown on the news embedded on her site. 

I was delighted to realize that a church I had been inquiring into and receiving email from was only four blocks away.  Medford Unity Church, so I will be making the 11pm service tomorrow.  Then I have a great organic restaurant all picked out to try out some new ways to fix tofu.  The menu sounded wonderful.  I am only 4 or 5 blocks away from all kinds of restaurants and shops.  Now instead of heading on up to Asland I have become distracted by Medford. I think I am in the Old Town District.   It would be rather nice if I liked it here, as it is much cheaper than Ashland.   But one day at a time. 

My wonderful sister, Marilyn, who I am staying with now, packed me up a goodie bag which I have been eating from the last two days.  Courtesy of some rice and terriaki sauce left in the cupboard along with a wild greens salad, and some pastrami,  from Marilyn, I put together a pretty tasty meal.  Marilyn had even included wine all wrapped up to keep it cold. My sister Marilyn is understated, so the more I know her, the more I appreciate her.  She and her husband have been a true delight and staying at their home as been like being home. 

That said, it is now like being on vacation.   I have not had this freedom for over 20 years, and then I was broke.  Now I am retired and can go where I want, when I want.   Heaven!  I am going to go and check out Cave Junction tomorrow which is famous for the Oregon caves.  I am not sure I am up to the steps, but I will decide that when I get there.  Meanwhile I will enjoy the drive and see the area.   Life is good!

Last night was an adventure with my sister Marilyn and me.  I bought a Breville Cafe Venezia espresso maker from Costco which costs over 200 dollars and then the learning curve began.  The instructions mentioned two different sized filters which I found later hidden away in the Styrofoam with only the small size included in the filter holder.  We decided that the filter holder must really be the bigger filter, the only logical conclusion and made the first attempt.  Coffee came out leaking from the size with lots of grounds, no small surprise.  Then I found the filters and things went a little better.   I was unhappy that it only made two ozs of espresso at a time, so went on to study about espesso makers to see if I could get anything better. 

It is a science and an elaborate process to get the crema which I found out is the best part of the coffee, and the right strength etc.  I am still experimenting.   Think I need a different bean, and a better grinder.  I will play with it some more before going back to my cheapo somewhat broken steam driven Melitta pot.  Apparantely the steam driven burns the coffee, and what I bought was the pump which forces the coffee through with pressure and produces a not quite so hot of coffee.  It may be like wine for me.  The most expensive wines are wasted on me.  I like lots of oak preferably from Australia which I can get for 6,.99 a bottle.   The 20 dollar and up bottle is wasted on me.   Maybe crema is also a finese past my breeding.  

Hi, it has been forever since I posted!  I thought I would bring you all up to date.   I did return to work, but the exposure to the environment just retraumatized me so the doctor said I could no longer work in the Dept of Corrections.  Then he wrote not to return to work at all since I was 62.  So I now have the luxury of looking for a home where ever I want without worrying about a good employment environment.   I have decided on the Ashland, Oregon area, which I love.  

For now I am staying with my sister in Dallas, Oregon which is just outside Salem.  I am enjoying her company and her beautiful home with her pretty garden.  A great way to start the morning.  I will post a picture soon.   So now I am getting ready to make my Christmas presents and just relax for a while.  I am much more relaxed now that I know I will never again have to face high risk offenders, make arrests, do home visits, and face possible injury.  Hi to all of you and I will have to read all of your past posts so see how life has been treating you.   Izzy  

Today was my first day back to work after one year.   I am on a modified duty where for three months only where I have no contact with offenders. Although I keep my original salary I will be working as a low level support staff. At first they had me just sitting in a cubicle staring at everyone. Finally, I took the reins and offered to do something in retrospect will have them loving me for a little while. I said, "Do you have any filing you need done."  Magic words! smile.   I also deleted about 1,000 email messages that had piled up for the first 3 months I had been gone.   Luckily I ran out of mail box space, or I would probably still be deleting them.   Amazing how few had any real value.  

They have assigned me to my favorite office (just lucky, not because I had stated a preference) which is in downtown Seattle, with many of my favorite people.  For today, I wouldn't mind just hanging out, filing for a while.  It sure beats going home at night terrified that an offender on my caseload has murdered or raped someone and I had missed seeing him in the last two weeks. I have had a couple of very close calls, but I have never felt that lucky. I worried that I would never get over the horror of seeing one of my "clients" on the 6 o'clock news.  

Now Washington is actually considering cutting probation for all but the most dangerous dangerous offenders due to budget cuts.  Won't that be a fun caseload to supervise,should that occur?  But for now, I am back, one day at a time, seeing if the post traumatic stress symptons stay quiet so that I can finish out my last 3 years of working.  Filing is so peaceful, but I suspect that is not going to last.

I don't hear much about how schools are planning to train or educate students when information and technology becomes outdated so quickly.   I was particulary astounded to hear that a computer in 2049 will have more computational power than the brains of the whole human race.  I think we are to a point where our method of  thinking and communicating is outdated.  We need not only a new language but an extensive use of powerful metaphors that can impart gigantic ideas with just a few words or signs.   We also need some sort of quick collaborative community making that can and does happen spontaneously so that people can work naturally together to solve problems.   We need either many more wars to kill off 9/10ths of this confusing world, or lots less so we can expect peace and kindness and spend less time defending and more time giving.

After writing the above, I went on to read about Flutter, was almost horrified to see where the future was taking us.  Here is the link with a video about Flutter. What do you think?  Flutter the New Twitter 

I really enjoy seeing President Obama. It is nice to have a president that I enjoy watching, speaks intelligently, has a great sense of humor, and is level headed.  He is also very good lucking, and that doesn't hurt.  This was a enjoyable interview.