A Belated Valentine's Day Message

I wish you all a belated Happy Valentine's Day! I hope that your February 14th was as full of love and as sweet as ours was. We had flowers, music, a special dinner, chocolates, and spent an enjoyable evening here, at home, in our wee canyon cottage.

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The photo above is of my 40-year-old solid brass peace sign. I posted an almost identical photo last year on Valentine's Day. I used these two symbols together because the heart and the peace sign are natural allies. This peace sign and I have been working for years to end America's culture of war. My peace necklace has always inspired me and I have been able to keep on keeping on because my heart is in what I do. Yep, I got "heart".

Its like the song says, "You gotta have heart!" America lost "heart" a long time ago. A century of ever rising militarism and seven years of Bush extremism plus an unnecessary war have drained the economy. Americans have been left without jobs, homes, medical care, and many of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

Yesterday there was another mass shooting. Shootings at schools, shootings at colleges, shootings in homes, shootings in malls - shootings have become common, weekly events. Think of the ever spreading epidemic of mass shootings in America as symptomatic of a society addicted to violence and war. A nation that has "heart" does not seek solutions that depend solely on guns and bombs.

A nation that has "heart" does not neglect its elderly, its mentally ill, its homeless, its hungry, its children, or its wounded soldiers. Nor does it betray its working citizens by outsourcing their jobs overseas. A nation that has "heart" does not waste the money provided by taxing its citizens to support endless wars that destroy other nations. A nation that has heart, like a family that has heart, like a person who has heart, takes care of people and extends a weaponless hand to its neighbors. A nation that has "heart" engenders mutual trust and friendship with other nations.

"You gotta have heart". Tune out the heartless drummers pounding their drums of war and listen instead to the rhythm of life that beats within your heart. Yep, "You gotta have heart...All you really need is heart!"

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Years ago when I met my husband he asked me to sing harmony with him. Later on that evening, I found myself on the stage at the La Paloma Theater in Encinitas, CA singing harmony on "Dark as a Dungeon". We were married soon after.

One of my favorite albums of all time is Spirit, the 1968 debut album by Spirit. It is timeless and a joy every time I listen to it (I have it on CD now). Anybody else out there into Spirit?


Several days before Valentine's Day, I was looking up Spirit for my daughter when I stumbled across a website page with their available albums. That's where I found the perfect album for a Valentine's gift for my ukulele playing, guitar playing, singing spouse. So I clicked on the pictured "Spirit Live at The La Paloma" and ordered it from CD Baby. If we had known that Spirit was playing a gig at the La Paloma back in 1993 we would have been there!


Anyway, it was kind of a past revisited full circle connection kind of a gift - he liked it! And I love the garden gnome couple on the bench and the garden gnome giving a heart to his love that he got for me. We will find special places for them in our yard and garden.

We have quite a few garden gnomes - they have "heart".
...................Kitchen Window Woman................................

A "Take Back America" Peace Sign - Our Family Project

I've posted the story of our Peace Sign in honor of Veteran's Day, November 11th, 2007, with a special nod to my father-in-law, who retired as a "Mustang" Lt. Commander after a thirty year career in the Navy, and my father, who survived a glider ride into WWII in Europe, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and suffered the after effects of combat for the rest of his life. Both of our beloved WWII veterans are no longer with us, but I would like to note that both of these honorable men firmly supported the anti-war movement. My father-in-law disdained Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq, and my father, after fighting the Nazis in Europe, would have been sickened by the rise of private armies like Blackwater Worldwide, in his own country. My husband and I are activists because we honor our fathers who continued throughout their lives to "support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic" by questioning the government and speaking their minds.

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Catfish and I started the summer with a very definite project in mind. Although the result looks as if it could be knocked out in a day or two there were many steps involved. Sandwiched in between the weekend Stop Blackwater encampment and rally in Potrero, and the beginning of San Diego's 2007 firestorms on Sunday, October 21st, our new Take Back America, red, white, and blue peace sign was finally completed on Sunday, October 14th

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Some of you may recall that last Christmas season (2006) our eldest son, a disabled vet, not only put up our regular holiday lights, but built us a giant colorful, blinking peace sign as well. It was quite a surprise. When the holiday season ended, friends and family asked me if we were going to leave the peace sign up. It was, after all, the only peace sign for miles around. It seemed to me that its bright beautiful message was shinning through the dark night and the darkness that has engulfed our country since the reign of Bush and Cheney began. We decided to keep the peace sign lights burning - until this war is ended and we bring our troops home.


Above is a photo of our original peace sign. We kept it on for many months. It was late spring when we noticed that it was deteriorating. My son had stapled several stands of multi-colored Christmas lights on an old partial sheet of plywood that had been out in the weather and set the lights on a timer. The sheet of plywood was beginning to mildew and fall apart and a strand or two of lights had burned out. There was no way it was going to endure through years of perpetual war in the Middle East as envisioned by Cheney, Bush, and their neoconservative cabal. What to do but make a new one.

Catfish and I talked it over and planned. It was decided that the lights on this peace sign would be red, white, and blue as we are both sick of war loving, profit hungry conservatives waving the colors of democracy while committing war crimes and trashing the Constitution. It was to be a Take Back America Peace Sign. The background would be blue upon which a white peace sign would be painted so that it would stand out during the day.

Our youngest son and a friend with a truck went down to town to buy a sheet of plywood which was then cut in half. My daughter and I went after the primer, the paint, brushes, and a roller tray. The four ft. square of plywood was primed and then painted with three coats of outdoor blue enamel. Next, my husband armed with a ruler and a piece of string penciled the peace sign on, masked around it and painted it white. When the paint was dry it was time for lights.


We liberated the chasing lights we had ordered from an online company from their boxes. What an intimidating tangle of lights!


My protest partner, however, was not deterred by the snarled mass of lights. He quickly came up with a system, went to work, and remained at his peace post until the project was completed.


It had taken several months from the time we began planning a new peace sign to its' completion in mid October. We worked on it, as time allowed, at a relaxed and enjoyable pace.


Finally, one week before the firestorms, it was finished, moved into position, wired to the timer, and ready to go! Come on Sunday night....we wanted to see our peace lights!


The lights came on but it was still not dark enough.


It got darker.....


And darker......



Until - Here it is! Red, white, and blue for democracy, for the Constitution, for our America!

You should see it in action. The lights chase around in a circle but at different times. It's beautiful every night!
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NOTE: Tomorrow we are going to march in San Diego's Veterans Day parade with Veterans For Peace and will later attend SDVFP's Arlington West in Oceanside. Then we are going to stay at our favorite place at the beach for several days. I will write when we return.

What if they gave a war and nobody came?

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine....
.............Kitchen Window Woman................