The Cactus Garden - Photos by Patty Mooney

Around this time of year, when Spring springs at Balboa Park, one of our favorite places to go is the cactus garden. This is a place from which I am sure Theodore Geisel aka "Dr. Seuss" drew some of his inspiration. This showcase of indigenous San Diego plant life draws visitors from all over the world.

Five Fingered Lily - A Poem by Patty Mooney

The Tiare Apetahi
perfumes the air,
a flower so rare it is mythical,
growing only on a Raitea cliff
that juts from the sea.

Three of us climb, slipping back,
then punching forward endlessly as
volcanic loam seeps into our boots.
Cloud underbellies murmur of rain.

Nutea disappears over a hill,
and behind him, my husband.
Alone, my frustration unleashes
its tropic downpour.

I shake the dirt from my shoes,
rub my complaining knees,
then continue the climb.
Nutea & Mark wait at the top
of a waterfall like eagles.

I’m nearly up when I slip
on polished rock, plunging
down a vertical river, a waterslide.
Mark descends to pluck me up,
and shoves me to the summit.

It's flat up here, the sky sapphire,
storm system gone. Nutea shouts,

"Tiare! Tiare!" pointing at glossy

green bushes
fisted with succulent five-fingers
named for the hand of a Princess
who died of a broken heart.

Nutea pulls a plastic container
from his pack,
and begins to fill it.
Suddenly, a heavy wind
conjures black clouds.

We look at the sky as the Tahitian
clamps his lid on fifty fingers.
The temperature plummets
ten degrees.

Thunder cracks the sky,
lightning fireworks.
Gusts of hail
sting flesh, plaster our clothing.

We race down the cliff,
weather chasing like Rottweilers.
At the base of the waterfall,
the sun chews through the clouds,

the wind drops.
Those unruly dogs
jog back
to their master.

The Dalai Lama serves hope to SF homeless

"You know, I'm homeless too." - The Dalai Lama

His Holiness the Dalai Lama was trying very hard on Sunday to make the homeless guests at Martin's soup kitchen relax. The guests included some of San Francisco's most desperate, reviled citizens, men and women who carry their life's possessions in shopping carts and sleep under bridges.

read more digg story

Austin Powers, Yeah, Baby, Yeah - by Patty Mooney

One of the funnest evenings I have ever experienced was the time that Mark and I hosted an Austin Powers party. It was back in 2002, when "Goldmember" had just hit the theaters. In it, Austin must travel back to 1975 to save his dad who was kidnapped by Goldmember in cahoots with Dr. Evil. Mark and I invited a bunch of our rowdiest and most fun-loving friends to come to our house for cocktails. Then we all carpooled to a local Chinese restaurant where we dined lavishly on several exotic dishes. Afterwards, we went to the movie theater where we all spazzed out from laughing at Mike Myers playing multiple sides of himself.

Kudos went to Mark, who coordinated the evening. He had made arrangements with both the restaurant and the movie theater, and everybody enjoyed an unforgettable evening for $20 each.

I'll bet if you were in the party mood and could gather up a nice crowd of your buddies, you could create a similar scenario. Dining establishments and movie theaters would probably bend over backward to please you, because that's just how the economy is right now. Even just an evening at your place with a DVD, some popcorn and your best friends would bring a smile to everyone's face.

And that's something to blog about!

Gabriel of Tikal - A Poem by Patty Mooney

Gabriel thrived in the humid Guatemalan cenote.
His suitcase skin blended with fallen Ceiba leaves.
His ecstatic eyes floated like beads on tepid water.
He cruised from end to end, hungry for meat.
The Mayans considered him a god and fed him

chickens, turkeys, coatamundis, and once a sleepy fisherman

surrendered a foot. But the day the toothy god snapped up
a child the croc's status was revoked, his head paraded high
on a stick for days and then fashioned into a ceremonial mask.

The godless reptile was once more revered,
imbued now with the ghost of the child.

Art and About - Photos by Patty Mooney

From time to time I take my camera out on various excursions and capture some great art work along the way. Let's call this series "Art and About" and you will see more as the days and weeks go by.

The Rodeo - A Poem by Patty Mooney

I feel like an imposter in my down-under hat
with kangaroos on it, I'm a downright hippy.
Would rather see a rattler sunning itself
in the outback than skinned for boots.

The cowboys have it figured, how to:
separate one bull from twenty,
rope a calf in five,
be a barnacle on the back of a bucking bronco.

The rodeo Bozo pops in and out
of an aluminum beer barrel
as inflamed bulls toss riders, snort
and stamp dirt. Those bulls

put on a show but in the end
they're roped and funneled back
into the holding pen, seething,
quelled. Tough meat.

San Diego's April Flowers - by Patty Mooney

This is a view of Mission Trails which is right in our "backyard."

I do not know the technical names of these flowers but that doesn't stop me from taking photographs of them. Let's just call them San Diego wildflowers. Aren't they beautiful? When you look at them you will realize one of the many reasons I love to go out and ride my mountain bike in the hills and valleys of Mother Nature.

Women's Music is a Gift to the World - by Patty Mooney

I have been a devotee of independent women's music for many years, and at times I have taken my video camera along to special concerts to record these performances for posterity. These are not "professional video productions." That would entail - at the very least - a professional video crew comprised of a Director of Photography with a broadcast camera and an audio technician with a sound mixer. No, these are casual and off-the-cuff recordings that I like to call "Pocket Productions." Many times, if I was not there to record the moment, the performance would have been but a wisp of wind on the wing of a butterfly. I have posted several of these videos up at youtube, and I figured I would turn all my blogger friends on to a few of them today. I hope you enjoy them!

Cris Williamson - "Waterfall"

Holly Near - "Gentle, Angry People"

Ani DiFranco - "God's Country"

Jane Lui - "Freddie Good Times"

Elena - An Original Piece (if you know the name, please tell me!)

The House of Pain - by Patty Mooney

After breaking my collar bone while mountain biking on Porcupine Rim Trail, Moab, Utah

I thought I’d tell you about my first visit to the House of Pain, or the hospital, as it is commonly known.

I was two years old. My parents had taken me out to dinner. When I got home, I was so ecstatic from our special event that I danced and spun in the living room and split my eyebrow open on the corner of the coffee table.

My parents rushed me straight to the hospital where I got my first set of stitches. Now, many years older than that wide-eyed little girl, I have limped or been wheeled down countless hospital corridors. Sometimes I have felt that the hospital, that “heartbreak hotel,” is my home away from home.

One time I came out of there looking like a pirate wearing an eye patch because our cat had gouged my eyeball. I’ve hobbled out of there on crutches after a couple of knee operations, the most recent one a Total Knee Replacement last September. I’ve left a set of perfectly good tonsils and a thyroidal cyst at the House of Pain. After a motorcycle crash on the streets of San Francisco, the ER staff pinned my elbow back together. Several years ago, while driving down Fairmount Avenue in my Easter-egg purple VW bug, a man who should have been wearing his glasses pulled out right in front of me. When we crashed, my lower teeth went right through my chin. A doctor by the name of Goodhead stitched me up that time. I’ve had one or two mountain-bike crashes that left their marks, including a broken wrist. And once I fell off a 500-foot cliff, coming to a landing 30 feet below where I fell off. After that one, I knew I was blessed to be alive.

I could use my visits to the House of Pain as excuses to feel sorry for myself. But there’s something my dad always used to say: A man complained he had no shoes and then he met a man who had no legs.

Let’s take a look at someone who set the world land speed record of 152 mph on a bicycle at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1986. My long-time friend and hero, John Howard, is a three-time Olympian and Ironman who has raced bicycles most of his 48 years. He has suffered a few crashes. Once he was transported by Life Flight to the House of Pain where he was stitched back up and his jaw was reconstructed. Even after this, as soon as he had recuperated, he got back on the horse, so to speak, and came back with a vengeance.

We all know of a man who once was able to leap off buildings in a single bound, who could move faster than a speeding bullet: Superman. Christopher Reeve. One day back in 1995 he was riding his horse in a sporting event in Virginia, galloping at high speed toward a jump with which he was familiar and confident. With his mind set to go the distance, his horse came to a sudden stop, and Reeve was thrown off the horse.

Five days later, he awoke in a hospital in full body traction. His spinal cord severed at C2, he had lost all movement from the lower neck on down. And initially, he was unable to speak. At first, thinking he would be a burden to his family, he wanted to die.

Reeve’s injury came about doing something he loved: sports. He was a skier, ice-skater and vigorous tennis-player. His version of a wrap party after filming the first Superman was to skipper a sailboat from Connecticut to Bermuda. For years, he often flew a turboprop solo across the Atlantic. Once he was injured in a parasailing accident off Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. He always pushed himself -- and sometimes others -- to squeeze the maximum human experiences out of life.

That same indomitable human spirit propelled his quest to restore movement. In public appearances after his accident, Reeve expressed appreciation for all that he had. Instead of complaining about his bad luck, he continued to celebrate the mystery and preciousness of life. With all that he lost, his was the legacy of a “rich” man who gave by sharing his story with all of us.

Some people have never hurt themselves, never paid a visit to the House of Pain. But I’d rather continue adventuring and pushing my limits with a risk of injury than confining myself to a safe and boring life.

I want to thank John Howard, the late Christopher Reeve and all the others who have fallen and gracefully risen to face their adversities. Their exuberance for life continues to inspire and heal me. And their brave spirits are always with me whenever I climb back on my horse.

Snake In A Pear Tree - A Poem by Patty Mooney

How strange to suck the sweet juice
of pears in their brief season,
as the snake mistakes these trees
for apple, attracted to the red blush.
Gnarled branches scratch its belly
as it winds along limbs
mottled by sun, blending in
with the hissing leaves.

Utility Boxes As Art, Part #4 - by Patty Mooney

Here are some more photographs from the "Utility Boxes As Art" collection. At times I like to get people in the shot, as they add perspective. I suspect that one or more of these particular people are homeless, and so they add to the "gritty nature" of the urban artscape.

It's Time To Get Up In the Morning - by Patty Mooney

"Let's hear those feet hit the deck!" my dad's voice would sail upstairs into the room I shared with my sister, Jeanne. I would hear a brief shuffle of bedclothes in the next room, where my two brother slept. Then silence.

"Well, if Joe and Tom aren't getting up yet," I reasoned to myself, "I'm certainly not going to wake up either." And I'd roll deeper into the blankets. So far, Jeanne had not stirred at all. But actually, I was th e only one who had to rise at 6 AM for my high-school classes which began at 7.

It was freezing cold out of bed during those Michigan winter months. The thought of hiking two miles through the heavy, packed snow came as an additional sleep inducer. Sometimes I would be aware of a padded silence surrounding the entire house and I would instinctively know that the snow had again fallen during the night as I had slept. The eery brightness of the room so early in the morning would confirm this dreaded thought.

The snow was beautiful to gaze at, out the window, but it was no fun to crunch through huge mounds of it, inch by inch, to school. I often wondered if snow shoes - the kind shaped like tennis rackets that appeared to keep a person suspended above the brutal confection of ice - would help in my predicament.

My mind wandered from pillow to snow, creating a reveie which became a dream: I slip out of bed, dress as speedily as possibly in the ice tongs of the morning, wash my face, comb my hair, shuffle down the stairs and murmur hello to my dad who is sitting at the kitchen table having Shredded Wheat with canned peaches, and a cup of coffee, black. He is reading the Detroit Free Press. The section he peruses depends on what time I come downstairs. Usually I arrive during "Sports."

I decide what to have for breakfast, Cheerios or Wheaties. I gulp down a bowlful of my choice slathered in milk and sugar, and finish in two swallows a tall glass of Minute-Maid orange juice. Then, once I've slipped a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into a brown paper bag, I am ready to advance into the morning.

Layered beneath a heavy woolen coat, an oversize woolen sweater, an angora sweater, a flannel blouse, two pairs of jeans, three pairs of knee-highs, a pair of penny loafers, a pair of rubber boots, a knit cap and a muffler, I make for the frnot door after waving goodbye to my dad.

Now I'm out in it. Winds are hurled at me from off the mountains of glittering snow. The silence nearly crushes me. I feel heavy and lethargic, and I'm thinking of options to my life. Quit school? In the Ninth Grade? I creep towards the monotone orange brick institution which is sprawled in the new snowfall. At all entrances, the freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors mill into the building, churning the snow into a river of muddy water and carrying it into the classrooms.

I hear the shriek of a school alarm. It is my father's two-fingered whistle, followed by, "I don't hear any water running up there," followed by his weightily timed, advancing steps.

I never knew what would happen by the time Dad reached me and I happened to be dozing. By that point, my feet never wanted anything more than to hit the deck and get some water splashed into my face.

A Cartoon by David Sipress

Christchurch, New Zealand: A Hosteler's Paradise - by Patty Mooney

This story was chosen by SanDiegoHostels.org to appear at their site this month. Here it is in its entirety:

Hosteler's Paradise

1982 was a fantastic time for a couple of new lovers to backpack New Zealand. We would usually hitchhike, and whoever picked us up would say, "You two kids should not be doing dangerous things like hitchhiking," and then they would take us exactly where we wanted to go. Hitchhiking the South Island was not as easy as it was on the North Island. Traffic was much more sparse, so we elected to take more buses.

When we reached Christchurch, we hiked from the bus station directly to the Cora Wilding Youth Hostel, an elegant red brick building with an ample and well manicured front lawn. It looked more like the home of a university dean than a hostel. As we checked in, Mark gave our names as "Mr. and Mrs. Mark Schulze," which made me fume inwardly. I was no man's wife! I would take no man's name! Later, Mark explained, "I had to say that we were married, or we wouldn't be able to sleep together.""Oh."
As it was, the rooms were full to capacity that first night, and Mark had to sleep in a men's dormitory while I stayed in a curtained alcove behind the Common Room, listening to a group of men laughing and bullshitting until the warden kicked them out at about midnight.

After breakfast the next morning, Mark and I rented a couple of "push bikes" (bicycles) from a shop down the block. We rode all over town. Christchurch reflected the height of a golden autumn: nearly naked trees surrounded by fallen red, orange and yellow leaves, with a chilly edge to the air. We realized we needed to prepare ourselves for winter on the South Island. We found a couple of second-hand shops close by where we outfitted ourselves with mittens, sweaters, hats and scarves.

Since the hostel featured a kitchen with all the accoutrements, Mark and I stopped at a market for potatoes and broccoli, and then at a fish market where we bought a kingfish upon the proprietor's recommendation. He also provided us with a recipe for blackened fish.

Although that recipe smoked out the kitchen, which created hostility in some of our fellow hostelers, it yielded one of the most marvelous taste treats of the island: a succulent dinner kingfish, the likes of which we had not tasted anywhere before or since. It was the first excellent blackened fish dinner of many to be shared over the next 27 years.

As a "married couple," Mark and I wrangled Room 9 together that night. Since there was a third bunk, and since the hostel was still crowded, we had to share the room with a third, a woman, who walked in on us twice. The first time, she coitus-interrupted us. Fortunately, we had reached a more fulfilling conclusion by the time she returned the second time.

Christchurch was so much fun, we stayed another day to tour the Canterbury Museum, which housed the largest stuffed-bird collection in the country and the Hall of Antarctic Discovery. In town, we explored shops featuring sheepskin coats, hand knit woolen goods, jade tikis and a special map with the world upside-down, depicting the "down under" countries on top of the world.

We tumbled in piles of dried autumn leaves on the banks of the Avon River that coursed through town. After we spotted a couple of canoers drifting past, we rented a canoe and spent our last afternoon in Christchurch lazily "going with the flow."

We have never forgotten our fun times in Christchurch, and the night we smoked out the hostel kitchen. We only hope there is a young couple, enjoying themselves half as much as we did when we were just beginning to explore the geography of love.

Visit SanDiegoHostels.org

A Day At The San Diego Zoo - Photos by Patty Mooney

I highly recommend a day at the zoo to put you in a good mood. The best time is during the week when most people are at work and the kids are in school.

We went last Wednesday and were amazed at the size of the crowds until we realized, "Oh, it's Spring Break." It was still a lot of fun, but it's even more fun when there are no lines at the panda exhibit and Sky Bucket.

Note to parents: Try it without the kids, just to see how romantic it can be for you and your sweetie to stroll through the zoo, hand-in-hand and hopefully guilt-free.

San Diego Zoo Expedition - Photos by Patty Mooney

It was a lovely day. I will post more shots in the future.

Happy Easter, Everyone!!

The Amazing World of "Body Worlds" - Photos and Story by Patty Mooney

"Plastination unveils the beauty beneath the skin, frozen in time between death and decay." - Gunther von Hagens

One of the most fascinating exhibits you may ever see in your life is Body Worlds, because frankly, what could be more fascinating than the world of the human being?

My husband, Mark, and I decided to take a day to ourselves yesterday and first strolled through the San Diego Zoo, catching the "Panda Show" during feeding time. The male sat there eating bamboo branches while the female circled around and around in the same pattern. Throngs of people came to see them and filled the grounds of the zoo. The humans were just as much fun to watch as were the animals.

Afterwards, we headed to the San Diego Natural History Museum to view the Body Worlds Exhibition. What a juxtaposition: from the San Diego Zoo to Body Worlds; the land of the living to the planet of the plastinates.

I have always been fascinated by the mummies of Egypt and of South America, and by the rituals that various cultures have devised to honor their dead. Plastination, invented by Dr.Gunther von Hagens, M.D. of Heidelberg, Germany, in 1977, is "a process that is part of a centuries-long tradition of preserving and dissecting anatomical specimens." Dr. von Hagens wished to preserve bodies for medical studies, as well as to educate the public on medical issues.

We saw lungs on display; a coal-colored pair that had belonged to a smoker, and a pair the color of chalk that belonged to a non-smoker. We saw a healthy knee versus one that had been decimated by arthritis. And we saw people posed as they had been in life: a yoga woman, a gymnast, a soccer player.


It must be pointed out that Body Worlds is the original exhibition of plastinates featuring the bodies of humans who had gladly donated them (or the bodies of their diseased progeny) for plastination, as opposed to copycat exhibitions which display the bodies of Chinese homeless or prisoners. Dr. von Hagens has been unfairly accused of using illicitly-obtained bodies but this could not be further from the truth. Do your homework, people. If it is not a "Body Worlds Exhibit" then do not pay your money to be ripped off by fakes.

Without going into exactly what the plastination process entails, the Cliff Notes version is this: It's a "Polymer impregnation of perishable, biological specimens," which includes animals and humans. It's a plastic makeover of a flesh-and-blood body.

We are now able to see all aspects of the human body as never before revealed to us. We can learn so much about "our bodies, our selves," in a rich, colorful way. Religious philosopher Teilhard de Chardin once said: “We are not humans on this earth seeking to have spiritual experiences; we are spirits having a human experience." I recommend that anyone who can, embrace this opportunity to explore the mysteries of human anatomy.

There were several families present, many of them wheeling baby carriages, or with children checking out the various displays. People pored over each plastinate in a respectful way, speaking to each other in hushed tones. I think that they could sense that when they walked out of the exhibit, they would feel more alive than ever before.


If you happen to be in San Diego, the exhibit runs through October 4th, 2009. For further information, to to San Diego Natural History Museum. To learn more about Body Worlds, go to the Body Worlds website.

The Emergence of a Hummingbird - Photos and Story by Patty Mooney

It all started about three weeks ago when "Mom" decided to locate her nest outside our house by the garbage cans. The nest, about the size of a porcelain espresso cup, was positioned among the branches of our jasmine bush.

One day when Mom was out and about, capturing insects and stealing sips from the rose grenadine "cocktail" in the hummingbird feeder, I sneaked up and saw two perfect eggs in the nest. It's probably such a cliche to call them "perfect" but how else would you describe them?

Then one cool morning, when Mom was again off doing her own thing, I saw two balls of fuzz in the nest, their little bodies expanding and contracting quickly with their breaths. They seemed so exposed; we have a squadron of noisy crows that regularly patrols the area. But the leaves on the bush seemed a perfect foil.

A few days later, I noticed that one of the chicks was now dominating the nest, and the other one was either hidden or gone. Maybe it's best not to dwell on the fate of the one that was not destined to grow up to twitter in the nearby trees.

As of today, you can see this little fellow has grown big and fluffy, and is almost too big for his teacup. His feathers are showing that incandescent hummingbird green. His eyes are open and he seems aware of me yet calm about it. I have not seen Mom in a few days. He could be flying off very soon. Easter? How apropos that would be.