All posts tagged: santa cruz

My heart is aching for these trees and for all of us.

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I have lived next to this grove of redwoods for the past 7.5 years. It’s one of those parts of the neighborhood that is in the background, always there and sometimes enters the conversation. “I live in Seabright, near the NHS headquarters. On so-and-so street.” “Oh, do you live on that street with the redwood grove?” “Yes! Isn’t that a lovely spot? A fairy ring right in Santa Cruz.” I have no idea how long these trees have been here, but they have the potential of living longer than this city, indeed, longer than this nation. They are sentient beings who feel and communicate in ways we can’t even understand. They are remarkable in their robustness, able to withstand both heat and fog and in their majestic thrust to the sky, they house many other beings that I encounter daily in my life in this neighborhood. These great trees also bring us oxygen while recycling our CO2, they are an integral part of the health of this city. I woke this morning with a broken …

Rocky Horror at the Del Mar

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This post is about parenting, police, and a healthy dose of humor and gratitude. My daughter has reached the age where she likes to go out with her friends on her own. I knew this would come, it always does, right? I did it. In fact, when I was much younger than her, I was sneaking out of my house, going to parties with my friends, drinking wine coolers and “cruising the loop”. Ah, the joys of rural, small-town teenage life! So, yeah, I knew this time would come. I’ve prepared myself for it. My daughter and I have talked about it, adnauseum- the requisite conversations about not getting into cars with drunk people, about letting me know where she is at all times, about calling me if she’s in trouble… no matter what. So far, so good. She’s been open and honest with me and I’ve trusted her. So on that Wednesday, as we assembled her costume- a bustier, stockings, lacy dance shorts and character shoes- her plans for that weekend’s performance of Rocky Horror were revealed to …

Blog & Breakfast Thursdays

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One of my favorite things about our community at NextSpace is watching the users define the experience. Today we kicked-off a community blogging event that many hope will spread across the globe. Spawned from a conversation between members Mahesh Grossman and Margaret Rosas, the idea is to provide a forum for people to get a weekly blog post out. By providing an incentive (breakfast), a goal (hitting the “update post” button) and a sense of belonging (many people gathered with an in kind goal) this event will serve to ease the self-induced pressure many people feel about getting their blog posts out. While this version is local to NextSpace, the idea clearly has legs. A global “Blog and Tweet Thursday” movement just might take off. While the official Twitter hashtag has not actually been set, the two most popular are #babt (Blog and Breakfast Thursday) and #batt (Blog and Tweet Thursday). Mahesh thinks that it would be most powerful if people across the world were blogging and retweeting each others’ blogs at the same time …