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mermaidcamp

Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water

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Steve Miller, Gangster of Love, Ace Contractor

May 31, 2013

The windows in my house leaked badly although the contractor, Tucson Window and Door,  reinstalled them 3 times.  Faulty workmanship is not covered by insurance, and if more than 5 years pass there is no recourse at the registrar of contractors.  I had a big problem that would only become worse if I requested a 4th reinstallation.  I met Steve Miller in my neighborhood while I was walking my dog.  I talked to him in his own front yard about how nice his home looked, and then I saw his truck with his contractor’s license on the side.  I explained my problem and asked him to bid the repair job.

I am extremely pleased with his work because in the process I became aware of other basic problems I needed to correct.  Now my condo walls are actually anchored to my foundation!!!  I am the only one in my neighborhood with a second floor that is no longer blowing in the wind.The stucco job looks excellent, and the way they solved the window problem was brilliant.  I am ready for a rainy season this year with no leaks at all. If you need a construction expert in Tucson who is professional, punctual, and polite, call Steve at SHM Construction.  He is creative and smart about building and materials. His talented sidekick Geraldo does fine work and is lots of fun to have around the house.  I have done many construction projects, and have never worked with such an amiable crew.

Beware of HOA Fraud

May 29, 2013

I live in a small community of 30 town homes in Tucson. Our dues money has been spent to do as much damage as possible to our property value for over a decade. The board has run a charity scam in the home that has a common wall next to mine for about 10 years. They have solicited and collected donations, including truck loads of bread, stored them in the house that has never had pest service, or any basic maintenance. The mainline of the house has been leaking for months, but the board denies any responsibility to make this board member repair the leak. It has been flowing onto the roots of a mesquite tree and causing the ground to heave right next to the sewer out take, and my house. Left to swell and grow the roots are very likely to crack the foundation of my house, but there is no response from our HOA board.  If an HOA board is out of control like this one your real estate value can be taken to zero.  Black mold loves the conditions set up by donation collection and water leaks, and few insurance policies will cover a homeowner whose home is ruined by mold.

Heidi and the Goats

May 28, 2013

My neighbor Heidi loves to farm. She and I both enjoy vegetable and flower gardening in Tucson. She took me to the goat pen this morning to bring home a big load of goat manure for fertilizer.  Heidi has her own chickens at home, but her goat coop arrangement is a shared experience with the owners of the goats, a Waldorf School, and other goat lovers.  She does her duty at the goat pen weekly, and takes home all the milk she gets during her shifts.  I had a French Alpine goat for years, and I made this same arrangement with a friend to do goat care and milking when I went out of town. Fresh goat milk is worth the work.  Heidi makes incredible cheeses from hers.  It was fun to meet the animals who have provided all those fabulous cheeses to our house.

Wampanoag History

May 28, 2013

My visit to Cape Cod and Plymouth to uncover the history of my ancestors was an adventure and a surprise. When I learned that the Wampanoag tribe had lost almost 200 years of the data, graves, and details of the history of their people I was confused and upset.  Next I visited the museum complex at Plimouth Plantation where the culture and historical way of life of the Wampanoag tribe is demonstrated.  It is an attempt to redress and correct some misinformation that has been passed down for a long time.  The young people who work there enjoy their jobs teaching people about their ancestors.

Iron Chef Competition Heats Up in Tucson

May 27, 2013

I had the pleasure of spending some time yesterday with Tucson’s Iron Chef, Ryan Clark. His kitchen at Lodge on the Desert pumps out cuisine that is much adored by my highly evolved and somehow still carnivorous partner Bob and me. We are farmers in our own tiny right and both enjoy dining, although we eat at home or carry out from home 98% of the time.  We go to Lodge on the Desert for our special occasion and holiday meals, when we feel particularly festive.

Recently we attended a Slow Food tasting set up for 250 guests to try local wine beer and food.  It was fun for us and did expose us to new places we have tried since the event.  Now Chef Clark is preparing to host twice as many tasters to Lodge on the Desert this Thursday as part of the Iron Chef competition for this year.  The challengers will bring samples and vie for the chance to try to take the title from Chef Clark in July.  The chef with the most votes from the public will be the challenger, so there is a lot at stake.  Stella Artois is the sponsor, so the blonde Belgian beer will flow freely.  The challengers are not too shabby, and chef Ryan exceeds all expectations as a host in my experience.  This $5 tasting will be a happy hour of outstanding opportunities for those who want to find out what is happening in the kitchens of Tucson chefs.

Bird Houses

May 24, 2013 — 4 Comments

Have you ever thought about all the different ways birds design?  What do birds look for in a piece of real estate?  There must be a very wide variety of tastes.  For an exhibit at the Tucson Botanical Garden artists have designed bird spaces from all kinds of materials.  They are for sale.  Birds have so many choices from rustic to modern.  I love all of them, so it is good that I am not a bird.

Gloria and the Virgin of Guadalupe

May 23, 2013 — 2 Comments

I met Gloria on the flight from Chicago to Tucson recently.  I enjoyed her company and invited her to call me.  She is visiting her son who works at the U of A during the week.  She told me she was Catholic and that as a child she walked to mass by herself.  She is now fed up with Vatican politics, and wants the Latin liturgy to return.  I took her yesterday to see Ted DeGrazia’s chapel to the Virgin of Guadalupe.  She had never seen milagros on altars before.  Since I would not be caught dead or alive without some milagros on me, I gave her a tiny jet key from Venezuela to unlock her future. I have more at home, and she had no offering with her.  I explained that our Virgin is pre Christian and that is all right.  She is both Catholic and pre Christian, and we see no conflict with that. She had a good time with this altar and milagro business.  She also enjoyed the art gallery. I always love to go up there, and am happy I had the chance to share it with someone who really found new meaning in an old practice through an ancient design left behind by a great artist.

IRS and Non Profit Status

May 21, 2013 — 2 Comments

Food handling

Food handling

food charity scam in action

food charity scam in action

charity scam

charity scam

donation drop off

donation drop off

operations

food handling

truck of used bread

truck of used bread

food handling

food handling

unload and load

unload and load

IMG_0220

holiday traffic

holiday traffic

The current uproar at the IRS highlights the  much misunderstood function of granting tax exempt status and enforcing it. I have gone through the process of obtaining a 501C3 permit to run a non-profit corporation, and can tell you it is exhaustive and thorough. Like Medicare fraud, there must be pros who go about cheating and defrauding the system from within. Tax exempt status is given to legitimate corporations willing to go through strict accounting documentation to prove that they are satisfying the mission they stated in the original application. By submitting in good faith to this non-profit status scrutiny they are subject to a review of their activities constantly.  Applying for the status is technical and rigorous, as it should be.  Keeping it is equally serious in nature.

Going completely commando, soliciting donations from the public without any IRS permit or reporting of the donations whatsoever is the highly lucrative method that has been used in my neighborhood for many years.  They have begged openly for donations of  food, money, items, and labor.  They ask for public support to store prepare food in a residential condo to be served randomly to presumably homeless people they find in parks. No laws are obeyed, from zoning, to health code, to revenue laws.  They openly ask for donations on the internet, although multiple law enforcement agencies have been informed for many years of the crimes.  This self-appointed charity does not feel the need to obey any laws because no laws are enforced.  The lack of interest of  the government agencies could be seen as negligence.  You might believe, if you love conspiracy theory, that since these charity folks presumably vote liberal democratic tickets, they are allowed with the collusion of our local government, to break all these laws. That is too silly.

I don’t believe there is a conscious effort by government to allow crime to take over the neighborhood.  My impression is that public servants feel resentful about serving the public.  When opportunity arises to feel powerful through corruption, the loyalty of any public servant to act for the benefit of all concerned is questionable. This is where mental illness diagnosis is important.  If only insane and or incompetent people are left to run the government, the government will continue to act against the citizens’ best interests.  I do not think we have good or effective governance.  I do not trust that the money collected by the IRS is well spent.  I have always paid taxes, and benefit from no loopholes.  I pay taxes knowing it must be done.  Waste and corruption are not what I want to buy with my tax dollars, but they are all I see on the menu at the moment.

I am an Okie

May 21, 2013 — 1 Comment

I was born in Tulsa in 1951, and although I moved to Pennsylvania when I was 4, I visited Oklahoma many times in my childhood.  When the musical Oklahoma came out in 1955 I was thrilled and learned the words and music to sing ad infinitum.  I was the soundtrack of some of my best years. I identified with my Oklahoma birthplace which was reinforced by frequent visits, and visiting Tulsans at our home in Pittsburgh.  My parents hung out and had musical hootenannies with other petroleum engineer friends from Tulsa who had come to PA like my dad, to specialize in fracking for Gulf Oil.  They brought much of their Okie lifestyle with them including Woody Guthrie, hickory chips and barbecue.

I went to Tulsa and drove all over the state a few years ago on my first  ancestry discovery trip.  I did feel very at home, although perhaps not in political alignment with the population. I particularly loved the grapes at the farmers market that reminded me of the grapes my grandpa grew when I was very young.  While driving with my uncle to Bartlesville I asked as a joke what we do in case of a twister.  He said we jump out of the car and hide in a drainage culvert.  I started noticing how infrequently these culverts were there on the side of the road, and started having thoughts of vulnerability.  I imagined hustling my fairly nimble but old uncle out of the car and into the ditch to save our lives and I just did not like that idea at all. I made it back and forth across Kansas and Oklahoma without incident, but did find graves and documents from my ancestors who lived through the dust bowl. I respect and admire those Boomer Sooners and pioneer petro peeps who formed the history of the Cherokee Strip and my family tree.  I am sad that my fellow Okies are suffering so much natural disaster and destruction in their lives.  Although I still feel the pride of being from Oklahoma, I know I could not handle living with the terror of tornadoes in my territory.  I have adjusted to wildfires and floods here in Arizona as my natural disasters of choice. I wish the state of my birth a full and speedy recovery.

Michael Dalzell for Shiatsu

May 16, 2013 — 3 Comments

Michael Dalzell

Michael Dalzell

Yesterday I returned to Supportive Care for Healing at the U of A Cancer Center where I am the substitute client for last minute cancellations.  I look at the rotating offers I get as sort of a Zen oracle of healing. All of the therapists are very talented, and the room is spacious and comfortable.  I go when I can, and always feel good as a result.  Since shiatsu is an offering that just did not come up for me on the zen cancellation calendar, I decided to book an appointment in advance to try the work of Michael Dalzell.  My neighbor Mindy told me how much she enjoyed her treatment with him, so onto the table I went.  It was an excellent call.  The stretching movements not only loosened me from within, some kinks that had developed while driving, flying, and traveling for two weeks departed. I am now loose as a goose and ready to put the finishing touches on the summer garden this weekend.  Michael does all his work at cancer centers around Tucson because he finds it very rewarding to help this population.  The benefits are well documented for patients undergoing heavy radiation and chemo treatments. He sees a lot of success using shiastsu as a healing modality.  I am going back next week for two hours.  If you want to schedule a treatment with him or the other fine therapists at Supportive Care for Healing call the super  helpful volunteer desk at 520-694-1812.  They will so hook you up.