Charming , renovated house(old house),recently landscaped(couple of
bushes and some flowers). Beautiful French Windows and outdoor Patio and
Courtyard(no backyard). Guest House and 3/4 bath(converted Garage); three
bedroom and a Den(not very big). Full(what does that mean?) 2 and 1/2
Bath. 1926 sq. ft. Very Bright. Three offers already in!! Asking Price:
$729,000. Open House this Saturday or call : Exceptional Value Realty
today. p.s. This is not in Beverly Hills . It's in a modest, middle
-class neighborhood. Anybody want to buy a house?

I feel so relaxed and clean........what else? A shower. A nice, long,
warm shower on a lukewarm/cool, breezy summer night. My nightgown feels
so light , and my bed so inviting......I'm really ready to roll
out.............but.......but I wanted to talk about future projects for
this website....something I can sleep on, with many ideas sprouting;
hopefully remembered in the morning. Project One: A movie list like
AFI's 100 top movies of all time. But it will be Peach's picks with
recommendations and not 100. Project Two: Convincing Luigi to borrow his
laptop in September when we go to Italy, because I would like to do
'Stories form the road" like Jay Project Three: Book Reviews(This is
going to take a while because......of Project Four.) Project Four: List
all the books I have wanted to read that have been collecting dust on
the little Headboard shelf above my bed and stacked next to my
nightstand. Project Five: Do a 'DietaryAnalysis'; weird food
combinations of what Americans eat.(suggested by Sarah: after doing a
long comment on her blog, she suggested: "Why not put that as a subject
for your Blog") Project Six: (and most important!) Update and Clean up
this website with 100% help of my Techie cousin. I'll start with Project
Four:

BOOK AUTHOR GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL The Fates of Human Societies- JARED
DIAMOND GREEN DOLPHIN STREET- ELIZABETH GOUDGE ANIMAL STORIES- JAMES
HERRIOT WEST WITH THE NIGHT- BERYL MARKHAM THE GREATEST GENERATION - TOM
BROKAW MADE IN AMERICA- BILL BRYSON WRITING FOR YOUR LIFE- DEENA METZGER
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY- OSCAR WILDE THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS- JAMES
FENIMORE COOPER THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR- THOMAS J STANLEY/WILLIAM D
DANKO REASON FOR HOPE A Spiritual Journey- JANE GOODALL LOVE, MARRIAGE
AND MONEY- GAIL LIBERMAN/ALAN LAVINE GOD WAS NOT IN THE FIRE- DANIEL
GORDIS A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SENSES - DIANE ACKERMAN THE FOUR
AGREEMENTS- DON MIGUEL ORTIZ LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET- RAINER MARIA RILKE
BIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI- PARAMAHANSA YOGANANDA EXODUS 1947 The Ship That
Launched a Nation- RUTH GRUBER DEBT PROOF LIVING- MARY HUNT THE SUN, THE
GENOME AND THE INTERNET- FREEMAN J DYSON WHAT WENT WRONG? Western Impact
and Middle Eastern Response- BERNARD LEWIS

This is a bit scary. This is just a partial list. There are more books I
want to read. It appears that if I were to live to 95 I might not be
able to read everything I wanted to..........should have started sooner.
This initial list is a combination of books I never got a chance to read
in High School; Books I picked up at Borders and a few I just 'ran
across'. One I bought at Amazon used and wondered why it was so cheap
($2). It turned out to be a first publication from 1945 in excellent
condition . (I guess its not quite an antique). One I stole from
Luigi(The internet one). Let me know if you have read any of them and
what you thought in my Comment Section. It's after 2 am.........Sammie
(my cat) is waiting for me to go to sleep so he can sleep on my feet.
Buenas Noches, Peach

I called my girlfriend last night and her husband answered. He said she
was taking a nap and he would let her know that I called. He said he was
feeding the baby and in fact I could hear him in the background.
Normally my friend's husband is very friendly and gregarious. His voice
sounded different and he appeared to be unusually sullen and quiet. I
asked him if everything was o.k. and he embarked on what appeared to be
an explanation of his family. I still wasn't getting it until he said"He
was the Bus Driver." "The Bus Driver?" I asked. He then proceeded to
tell me that a cousin of his was the Bus Driver who was driving the Bus
in Jerusalem that was blown up the day before. "The family had just gone
to a wedding the day before" he said, "And the next day they all had to
go to a Funeral." " I'm so sorry " was I all I could say. When my
girlfriend first met him she told me he was an Israeli. They have been
married now for three years. I really love both of them.......they are a
great couple. Harriet and I have been friends now for several years.
Luigi and I have gotten together with them a few times. That Six Degrees
of Separation or whatever that phenomenon is, has really brought this
close to home for me. Hearing about the latest act of terrorist violence
in the Mid East just a couple of days ago, and then to actually speak to
a friend that had family on that doomed bus. He also mentioned to me
that his mother and father "live 200 feet from that Bus stop where it
was blown up." I'm not sure what to say any more at this time. All this
violence is making me sick. I'm also sick of the UN; sick of
Politicians, ..........sick of the whole thing........do I
meditate?....do I pray?....will this ever end....? NO! I am not going to
boycott Starbuck's!!! Just because they're Jews!...There are good
Muslims out there; but this specific Muslim Organization wants
Starbuck's boycotted. If that isn't anti-semitism............. All
political discussions seem pointless to me right now. Just that it boils
down to hate and more of it. Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow........
Peach

This morning I made a statement on someone's Comment Section about how I
felt about his latest entry to his Weblog. He was speaking of the
Israelis storming again into Jenin and other towns with their military
and tanks. I'm not sure exactly what I wrote, but it was about the
continued violence. He answered me that he agreed that the terrorism had
to stop. But he said moving in with tanks would not stop the terrorist
bombings. I would like to respond to Anthony and to address the problem
on this entry. To start with, most Americans know very little of the
history of this conflict. And I can tell you that it goes back more than
50 or so years ago and way before Israel became a Country. As far as
learning more about it , there is an excellent book entitled "What Went
Wrong", by Bernard Lewis. He is a scholar and professor of Near Eastern
Studies at Princeton University. There are a lot of other well written
books out there to read.(Meg, V.P at Blogger had a great list but
unfortunately I forgot her website) Amazon has all of them. Aside from
the history , the current facts are these. Tanks will not stop the
bombings. What they will do is to try to curtail the terrorist groups by
getting to the leaders and jailing them. The Israelis have done house to
house searches in the settlements to rout out their leaders. Of course
the Palestinians feel invaded. But there is no question that their
terrorist leaders are strongly supported. You can tell just from the
graffiti in the settlements. There are pipe bombings ,rocks and bottles
thrown at the soldiers all the time. The Israeli soldiers are not out
there to mass destroy the Palestinian population contrary to what CNN
has told you. Do you always trust the media? I do hope you don't. If I
were a soldier and someone was less than a few yards from me and was
about to throw a Molotov Cocktail at me what would I do? Should I let
him kill me? For those of you who have never been in a war, ask a
grandfather or anyone who is a war veteran, what it's like. It's easy
for all of us to sit on our Ivory thrones and make judgments from our
cushy existence. I am sorry, but it really ticks me off when all the
focus in the news is about how many palestinians were killed by
Israelis. You must FIRST be informed with the facts before you decide
what's going on. Think if we had more 9/11's, which will probably happen
again. Let's say we had about one a week. Given the size of this country
it may still not affect us though. But lets' just say we sit back and
just be scared when the next Bombing or terrorist act occurs. We listen
and pray and hope that it will end. What if it doesn't end? What if it
just keeps on going. One day you wake up and two of your cousins are
killed in Iowa because of a terror attack. You cry, you mourn, you pray.
You go to the funeral and your relatives tell you how awful the inside
of the bus looked. They explain to you of the pictures of the gore and
blood and body parts strewn in the street and in the bus. But you must
go on. Life goes on. The next week you hear in the news that they
toppled a highrise in downtown Chicago. Many,many lives are lost. But
still we must do nothing. No you say? We are expecting the Israelis to
sit on their butts and do absolutely nothing. Just imagine there are no
more checkpoints at the borders. Israelis pull out of every where. They
no longer try to rout out the terrorists. What is so difficult for most
of us to understand is that the situation as bad as it is would get much
worse. I do believe that Palestine has to have a country of it's own and
there are many Israelis who want that as well. They believe there should
be no more new settlements and that some may have to be shut down. But
this, unfortunately will not stop the terrorism. You have to understand
what is going on and why the terrorism would continue. It starts with
innocent young children who are brainwashed to believe that Israelis are
the devil and must be washed from the face of the earth. It is a known
fact that the hatred is propagated in the schools and in their
textbooks. That is why children grow up wanting to become suicide
bombers. They believe that Allah has called for it and they will go to
heaven for these deeds. Nowhere is it written in the Koran about
genocide or killing. You can ask any Muslim you know . Hatred can be
stopped. But I wish I could be more optimistic. Whatever the
circumstances were 100 years ago or what the history of that region
tells us, we have to know that if a child is taught hatred of a people,
an ethnic group or a nation, then the bloodshed will continue. There is
no other outcome. I have often thought I would like to see an exchange
of letters and correspondence between children of different nations to
understand each other better, and to bring them all closer to each
other. I know this exists because I went to an elementary school that had
a correspondence program with a sister city in Japan. I am Miss
Pollyanna here, but I wish there would be such a program between the
Israeli and the Palestinian children. Right now that's an impossibility.
These children will become the adults of tomorrow and will determine the
future of this world. There was an academy nominated documentary film
about an American Journalist who got a group of Israeli and Palestinian
children together. It was an amazing piece of journalism and was the
most astonishing when they finally got them all together for one long
day playdate. The saddest and most disheartening part was the sadness of
one of the Palestinian boys who cried at the end of the day because he
would not see his new friends again. I once heard a Palestinian
Journalist speak on the radio. He said he had hoped his little eight year
old son would eventually exchange e-mails with an Israeli boy. He said
that his hope vanished when his little boy came to him one day and said
he wanted a gun to kill Israelis. I welcome your comments and ideas,
Peach

Damn busy life.........hate neglecting my blog! Short to the
rescue.....shorter blogs=more blogs more often? I'll take a short blog
and a Blog of Note to go..............I Wish! Anyone out there? Do you
know I'm even here? One lonely blogger.....and my poor undetected
Weblog. If any of you were watching the World Cup "8th of finals"(Round
of Sixteen) between Italy and Korea, you know that Italy is out and
Korea will go on to the Quarter Finals. Very depressing for the Italians
and Italia Fans and Luigi of course. He was a bit glum this morning
after viewing the video he had taped at 4:00 a.m. He always watches it
on Univision because he thinks the coverage is better than ESPN; and
they show the ceremonious playing of the country's national Anthems with
each player standing behind a little Korean child.Very impressive and
emotional...reminds me of the Olympics.(The World Cup Matches are being
held in Korea and Japan.) I used to get that emotional for the
Lakers(I'm not sure what happened with that.) What is truly amazing is
that the U.S. has made it to the Quarter Finals! Something that has not
happened in the last 70 years. I have become a fan! Hope that the U.S.'s
success so far will begin to drum up more interest here, in the game
that was banned in Renaissance Florence as being too violent. Watch the
awesome 'head' plays. I saw one player aim the ball from his head
directly into the net for a goal! In the opening Anthem ceremony the
camera scanned the entire stadium.............totally unreal sight.
Every person in that stadium was wearing a red T-shirt (Red and
White--Korean colors). There were probably few exceptions because all
you could see was a sea of red and no other disruptions of color. How do
you get a crowd of almost 65,000 to all don the sameT-shirt? How?! It
pretty much knocked me for a loop staring at that huge 'red' stadium. If
there were ads on the radio and t.v. tomorrow to let everyone know that
they all should show up for the next Dodger Game in Chavez Ravine with
Blue T-shirts, I don't think it would happen.........Sure there would be
many people who would show up in blue....but for sure not all of them!
What makes those Koreans so unified? What the heck makes almost every
single last one of them wear a Red T-shirt to that Soccer Match? I can
tell you that that solid red stadium must have been intimidating as hell
to the Italian team. Soccer has become a compelling contender in sports
and has a strong loyal following in almost every major country in the
world including the Continents of Africa, Asia,Europe, South America and
the MId-East.........Maybe eventually in this country. But I sure wish I
knew how they got the entire Stadium to turn red like
that............what loyalty!!! Stay Tuned, Peach

Wow...........Double Wow!! This evening,around 9:30 p.m., I was rounding
the transition ramp to the 405 Freeway, and came upon an incredible
vision. Incredible, because I had never seen the night sky so clear in
the middle of the city. Heading north and looking out toward the Western
sky to my left, was one of the most beautiful Crescent moons I had ever
seen. It was a perfect slice of glistening silver in a sky so cloudless
and pure, that the shadowed part of the face was observed as clearly
defined as a full moon. The gleam of that sliver of moon was perfectly
framed by a large bright white star to the top left, and an equally shiny
but smaller star, punctuating the bottom left arc of the Crescent.

As I was heading North on the freeway, I kept staring at this vision and being
aware that my driver concentration was being compromised, and the sound
of my wheels running over the lane bumps brought me back and forth to my
driver responsibility. I just couldn't help it . What happened to all
that dirty 'orange' L.A.crap that hangs out day and night in the air
like a blurry, dirty dishwater haze? With that kind of atmosphere it's
rare out here to see many clear nights unless you go all the way out to
Palmdale( which is just what stargazers and eclipse watchers do.) The
only other reason for the heavenly clarity is a strong breeze from the
ocean that carries itself, sometimes, on an inland mission. That is
exactly what happened this evening and the likes of which may not show
up til the next century.

I called Luigi, as soon as I got home. He was
attending a conference in Monterey.

"Did you see the moon tonight?!" I exclaimed.

"Yes. It is so much more beautiful up here."

"But it was outstanding down here too. A wind came up and blew the haze away and the sky is perfect!"

"It is so incredible up here as well. I went into Carmel. It is so
beautiful, and very European. I've never seen a town like this yet, in
this country."

"Did you go on the 17 Mile Drive?"

" Awesome. Have you seen those Cypress trees? They were almost extinct when Cabrillo first landed up here. The people that followed liked the trees so much that they were planted all around this area, and are all the way down to Big Sur now."

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it up there with you."

"Yes, you should have come along. When we do come up here again, I'll show you that famous Cypress tree we saw in that movie "Vertigo". Remember that videotape you bought? There's a fence there now, so you can't walk up to the tree any more."

" I should've come with you."

Famous last words. As I sit here alone with my lunar crazed brain, I sign off for the night.

"Au clair de La Lune, mon ami Pierrot.

Prete-moi ta plume, pour ecrire un mot."

Peach

It has been hectic AGAIN! Just got back from a wedding in San Diego.
CONGRATULATIONS MELISSA AND JASON!!!!!!! I am going to display an e-mail
I just sent to a friend as a brief statement , just so my blog does not
go idle......and will be back later this week for more 'content'.
Hi_____, What is Hotmail Messenger? I have been busy as usual. June will
be the worst. There is a wedding in San Diego(whole week-end); my
cousin's graduation from High School;My brother and sister and little
nephew coming in from out of town this week to celebrate Father's Day
altogether;working projects off my desk and clearing out contents of
apartment and moving them to storage before June 31st. I agree with you
that I don't understand how people have time to blog on a daily basis.
It does take thought and reflection and time. I can't do that on a
'drive through' basis. I am self-employed but can soon become unemployed
if I don't kick my own But!!!!! I must work first BEFORE I blog. But
yes, there does seem to be so few of daily blogs with any real
substance. My present contacts excluded off course(from my limited
surfing anyway----maybe three or four---e-mailing my admiration for
their exemplary blogs.) A lot of amazing tech and graphic stuff out
there though. I messed up on the Kodak site and as you know I am not
computer literate. Apparently the site times out after an hour or so.
But I did manage to get a photo of my foot on my blog. That was the only
picture of 'me' on the roll as I was the one who shot the roll. My
cousin who is only (almost) 18 years old promised to beef up my website
as he knows a lot about computers. I'm going to get him to scan some
photos on my blog including photos of myself. I would like to chat with
you also. I'm sure that we can find an opportunity to chat that's
mutually time zone friendly. Your Cyber Friend, Peach

I have unfortunately had a 'hollow' mind this week or maybe my brain was
in a vacuum. Either or, I have been locked into some kind of inertia
that would not let me move forward. I really wanted to write; with many
ideas in my mind and a load of events that happened over the last week
that would not translate into fingers flying over the keyboard. I think
as I sit here that I'm just tired. Maybe my chaotic life is ready for
another short vacation like a three day week-end. Well....it happened to
be a three day week-end last week but it was used up with "things to get
done". I spoke with my Mom this morning about all the junk that has been
accumulating in her Apartment. She wants to get rid of it and I told her
to just get together with her girlfriend at her house and get rid of all
their stuff on the sidewalk. She let me know that she is dearly
'attached' to some of it and can't let go. I have experienced the same
feelings myself when I threw out bags full(9 trash bags to be exact) of
papers, clothes and useless junk last year. But not before much
contemplation and hemming and hawing around because I wasn't sure if
some of it might really be important to me............
important??.......non-functional, wasted garbage!!!!! I remember hearing
something about Feng Shue(sorry --don't know correct spelling) and how
clutter in your household can not only affect your living space but also
your mind. Oriental philosophy is very rooted in spirituality and I am
beginning to realize that whatever form you believe in makes no
difference. Only that spirituality is something that should be part of
the whole pie of life. Feng Shue also brings that into focus. I'm
getting on a diatribe here again, but I truly believe that it is vital
to our lives to understand the connection between us and others and the
great expanse of universe out there. I am not a fanatic but I have made
the realization that yoga and meditation and allying with nature, (to
name a few) and time away from my speedy lifestyle is absolutely
necessary and crucial to a healthy life. Luigi bought a new camera a
couple of weeks ago and gave me his 'old' one. His old one happens to be
a great Canon EOS 10s with three lenses. I used to have a Minolta
SLR(who knows where it is) and I really forgot how to take pictures. So
before I eased myself back into setting the speed and the f-stop and all
the other photo 'stuff' I decided to put it in automatic mode for the
first roll of film. I am going to try to get in one of the photos here
with that "blog this" feature on my blog. Remembering that I am computer
illiterate I hope that it works. If it does just click on the link
either above or below, wherever it ends up and view a picture of my foot
and an espresso cup and saucer..............exciting....isn't it? Oh
well maybe next time there will be better photos from my future camera
adventures. Til next time, Peach