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Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 06:19 am
Morning writing has mainly been in response to a "cold call" like email, where i've been sent an alarming message about a cement plant in the watershed. The correspondent signed his name and attached a photo, but didn't point out he's "a spokesman for the Quarry No group." http://www.quarryno.com/

One thing that bugs me about the activism against the quarry is that i think there's a huge NIMBY thing going on with the Cupertino residents who don't like the trucks and noise of the quarry that has been there longer than many of them have. I don't get the impression many of the activists are ready to forgo building and cement in structures. While i want the quarry regulated and managed and monitored, i rather thing it's a good thing that the extractive industry needed to support the bay area's sprawl is local to us. Cement is not being hauled from near Mt Shasta (i think that's the next closest location for cement), cement is not being extracted in some remote rural location where there are no citizens with time and clout to make sure it's well managed.

So i felt Mr Quarry No was trying to use me by sending an inflammatory message ("[Quarry] Expansion Spills Into Park") -- is it really? Or can you just see the piles of dirt? -- and not noting his affiliation with the activist "group."

Is it a group? Or is it him? He's also the owner of the domain, signs letters "[person], on behalf of the Members of QuarryNo." He's the founder of the group, per this article http://www.losaltosonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19575&Itemid=46 . A TV website says "[person] is the founder of a group called QuarryNo with some 400 members," but what constituties membership? Clicking the "sign up" button? There are no meetings publicized on the site, no place to join in discussion.

The creek group may have dysfunctional leadership, but there's a board and there are multiple voices.

--==∞==--

Today i'm supposed to write about "2. Friends and family" but i seem to have written about "3. Meeting and Community." I know my inspiration for moving focus every day was to make sure that i balanced the morning time i have across the different areas of my life. Does order mater?

Friends and family should include our cats, and i was thinking of the ephemeral nature of the nicknames we use with them. (What do i have to remember these nicknames, the tender moments that inspire them, when the cats pass away? I miss the sweetness of Greybrother and the force of Greybeard's personality, still.) Mr M has been "Honey bunny" for a long time, capturing his affectionate, easily spooked nature. I dubbed Greycie Loo "Bossy Biscuits" one day, watching her kneading Christine's lap one evening. She has a very self possessed air to her, an arch look, and an engagement in what we are doing. Edward had been dubbed "Honey bear" -- his pale gold coloring well described, his strength and size captured. Edward is endearing himself so deeply to me, in how when he comes home from a walkabout he often comes to find us and say "mrrow," and he's learning to come into the bedroom in the morning, an hour or so after breakfast time to ask politely to be let out.

So now our clouder is one on honey and biscuits, which is quite fun.
--==∞==--
Work skypes. I'm about to disappear into the all consuming activity.

I am stressed by it, but i did manage to leave it all night.