A case of the nonstop grins

On Saturday I'm going to do something I've never done before. A big boost out of the rut where I seem to spend most of my time comfortably wallowing.

I've been jamming with a group every Friday for the past nine months, playing guitar and singing. It's one of the high points of my week, confirming what I've known for a long time: that making music with friends tops the list of things that make me happy. Living the dream, you might say.

I've been lucky in that it's a particularly congenial group of ten men and women, all snowbirds except me. We have a lot of laughs and none of us is obsessively picky or tries to manage the group. Four of us have played together for years, onstage and off, though they've never played for money. We have seven singers, four guitars, a mandolin, an accordion, a percussionist, a slide guitar and an autoharp.

I feel profoundly blessed to be allowed to participate in this group. Sometimes when we're doing a particularly entertaining song, I get a case of the nonstop grins and a rush from my toes to the roots of my hair.

Most of the time we just play for fun, each in turn calling for a favorite tune we do only once, for better or for worse. But when the San Carlos Canine Refuge organized a benefit show and invited us to participate with a half-hour set, we had to get a little more focused. There will be at least 200 people in our audience, probably more.

We're one of five opening acts for the star performer, Jeremy McComb (pictured here, isn't he a cute pup?), who's flying down from Nashville to headline our show.

In the last week we've added two extra rehearsals, spent a lot of time sorting through dozens of songs to come up with nine that we feel are ready for prime time, and tweaking introductions, solos, arrangements, harmonies... Though occasionally the higher expectations plus a deadline have altered our usual laid-back atmosphere, I think the process of refining our music has been good for us. Especially for me,  the most junior of the guitarists.

And that's my challenge: I have never before played guitar in front of an audience. None of my cohorts is aware of this, and I don't plan to tell them until after the show is over. (None of them reads this blog, so I'm safe in confessing here.) When all this is behind us, we'll only have a couple more Friday jams together before everyone heads north for the summer.

We'll be doing country/western songs, in keeping with the Nashville theme.  If you're curious, here's our songlist. Each of us has at least one solo/lead, and mine is "I'll Fly Away."

 Cowboys Of Baja

 Folsom Prison Blues

 I’ll Fly Away

 Throw Another Log On The Fire

 Kansas City Star

 Gold Watch and Chain

 In Spite of Ourselves

 Someday Soon

 Jambalaya

Report from Sendai

This eloquent email is from a woman who teaches English in Sendai, Japan, the epicenter of the disastrous March 11 earthquake and tsunami, sent recently to friends and family to let them know she's all right. I'm sharing it as a guest blog. Reading it brought on a tectonic shift in my own priorities and concerns.

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.

Utterly amazingly where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."

Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often.

We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not. No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.

There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun.

People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.

Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains are Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.

And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my friend's husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.

Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.

Cindy Burke

Little triumphs

For about three weeks now I've been sort of fostering a litter of three puppies, which I guess would make them about five weeks old. Theirs is a sad story, if it's true. Reportedly their mom hung out with a bunch of undesirables down by Marina Real, and someone complained about the pack to the local Comisario. The police showed up and shot three dogs, one of which may have been Mom. This can't be substantiated, we only know what the Guaymas shelter employees told us when they delivered the pups to the San Carlos Canine Refuge, where I volunteer.

For the first week we fed them with an eyedropper. I took them home at night and fed them every three hours. Now they're used to a bottle and starting to drink out of a bowl, so I take them home only two or three times a week, to give our night employee a break. I've named them Dulce, Cleo and Bruno.

Dulce is arguably the smartest of the trio, while Cleo is the most affectionate and Bruno the quietest, and most docile. None of them resemble the others: Dulce is black and white with freckled paws, Cleo's pink and white coloring with a black and brown mask makes me think of a pit bull, and Bruno looks like a baby Rottweiler. My friend Greg took closeup photos of Bruno and Cleo during the Nuts for Mutts Walk two weeks ago, and they've already changed a lot since then: brighter, more alert, with more personality. We think they'll be fairly large dogs, which doesn't work in their favor among the majority of adopters who are looking for little dogs. What is in their favor is that they're going to be very socialized. After all, they think their mommy is human.

Our routine: I put about two ounces of milk in a double dog bowl and set it in front of their crate. Then I open the door and they pile out, wandering just a bit before gathering around the bowl and beginning their meal. Watching them connect with the bowl was a triumph that made me feel like celebrating.

Meanwhile I'm warming the formula for the first bottle. Last time I was in the States I bought one of those bottles with the collapsing plastic liner to reduce gas which was a serious problem the first week. Then I let two pups explore, wrestle and discover toys while I bottle-feed the third.  To clean up after them I carry the one I'm feeding in a football hold so the feeding can continue, and do the cleanup one-handed. After each is fed he is burped at least a couple of times and allowed to walk around, stimulating more burps. Baby wipes come in handy when their paws need cleaning. I get clean bedding into the crate while feeding the last one, and put the crate on the floor with the door open. This morning they all trooped back into the crate and went to sleep with no help from me. Voila! Crate-trained puppies!

Yesterday at the Refuge Dian,  a new volunteer showed up to walk dogs, and I asked her if she'd ever bottle-fed puppies before. "Uh, no." So I sat her down with Dulcie and the bottle. The look on Dian's face when the pup settled into her lap and latched onto that bottle was priceless. I'm thinking we could market the experience for people with hypertension, depression or high blood pressure.

The litter is at the perfect age for training volunteers; they take to the bottle with enthusiasm and burp without much difficulty. The feeding process is demanding, but I confess I'll miss it a little, when they no longer need it, which could be in another week or so. But then, there are always more puppies...

I've developed a profound respect for mother dogs who make themselves available 24/7 for the greedy little guys.  And mothers of triplets. How do they do it?