Blue Nettles

Hello everyone:

Hope everyone has a nice relaxing weekend.

Whitey had a profound question that I will put out to everyone. What do bunnies have to do with Easter? And what do eggs have to do with bunnies? Does anyone know?

We are doing 10-12 hour days working at the house. Have sold most furniture and the van. Now trying to sell the car and a few other items. Lots of painting and detailing things at the house. It will be done next weekend so our final few days here (we leave on the 8th) will be relaxing. The good news is that the realtor had 2 groups look through the house 'as is' on Thursday. She has put down the availability date of the 5th even though we say the 1st. It is looking possitive to be rented before we leave and for top dollar. So at least our hard work will pay off.

Thinking of you all and send our love.

Max and Whitey

I find this case very sad and it makes me angry. It has been heard by 19 judges in six courts and it's been appealed to the Supreme Court three times. Now, the United States President and Congress is involved. I cannot imagine the quality of life for Terri, her husband, and her parents and siblings for the past 15 years. The emotional and financial strain must be awful.

Fewer than one-fourth of Americans have put their end-of-life wishes in writing. The paper work is not difficult or expensive. You need a living will (end of live care), prehospital medical care directive (do not resuscitate), letter to agent (representative), durable health care power of attorney. I know our parents have their paperwork in order, I am begging my siblings and their spouses to get it done. Please don't make anyone guess. Don't rely on expressing your wishes verbally, put it in writing.

Thank you.

So, the great news is that Kay and her family will be in Phoenix for Easter. Hazel and George Sr. will also be here. The Bushes will stay with Duane's Aunt Delores. We've talked about some great entertainment ideas and food ideas. We'll have to see how it all works out.

Sounds like fun.

We had a great celebration for Davis' 8th birthday. Yes, he received a brand new cub scout pocket knife. The comment was, "Sweeeeet!" and moments later he opened it up and sliced his finger (not a small nic). There was blood everywhere. Oh boy.

We picked the boys up from school with Davis' friend, Mitchell. We went to Fiddlesticks to play lasertag, bumper boats, ko-carts, and video games. We came home for pizza and cake and ice cream. The boys slept in a pup tent in the living room and watched a movie. I like these small events. They are very special and the boys have a great time.

Ellie, Scouts in Utah don't have time to train in the proper use of knives. They are too busy looking for their troopmates lost in the wilderness, destroying archeological artifacts and scaring the wildlife.

Get the lad a Swiss Army knife with lots of tools inside. He (and his brother, no doubt) can practice opening and closing it for hours. After that they can graduate to mumblpegs. This will improve hand/eye coordination...eventually. It's as good as video games which also purportedly improve hand/eye coordination.

When you come visit this summer the kids can practice skinning the local swuirrels they nail with the slingshots we have for them.

Come on! Let's have some fun!

Ellie, Scouts in Utah cannot be trusted to teach young ones to use knives. They are busy searching for other lost scouts, destroying precious archeological artifacts and scaring off the wildlife.

Get a small Swiss Army knife with a few tools in it. Davis (and James, undoubtedly) can practice opening and closing it for hours on end to try different tools. Next they can graduate to mumblypegs which will improve hand/eye coordination. This is much better than video games -which also improve eye/hand coordination...I'm told.

Luke has been skinning the squirrels that inhabit our space. These are the critters that Gwen has nailed with her slingshot. Come on! Let 'em have some fun!

Yee hah! Yesterday was my last day of work at IPA. Now I become at Trades Assistant at 34 Walcott Street. I have enjoyed my work I have done and met some great people whom I will miss. It has mostly helped me to realize that I want to get back around boats. The break has been good. Just got an email from Nancy, our new 'boss' about all of the plans for us there. Sooooo excited!

Have fun camping and happy St. Patrick's Day everyone.

Love,
Max

Hi everyone, Hope your camping weekend is fun, Ellie. Why is 85 degrees the bad part? Is that too hot or too cold for you? It sounds like a perfect temp. to me. Well, we will be partaking in the St. Paddy's Day Parade tomorrow a.m.. The girls will both be performing with the school in the band. It's a fun parade- everyone gets a little wild and pretends we're not in Salt Lake City. In years past, we have sprayed green paint all over Sandy and taken her, too. I don't know if we will this year- frankly, I don't like handling her around all of the people. It should be a fun day! Well, have a great weekend everyone!Love, Kay

We are going on our first cub scout family campout this weekend. It is at South Mountain Park,not far, in the Phoenix valley. A city park, desert mountain. The good part is that it won't rain, the bad part is it will be 85 degrees. It should be beautiful with green and lots of wild flowers, not many big trees. Davis is very excited. I don't think he will be focusing on school much today. Davis is iching to own a pocket knife. Cub scounts do that training next year.
Jackson is going to a friend's house. I hope he treats them well with all the excitement of a puppy.
I always take too much food. I doubt we will be lounging much.
Have a good weekend.
Love,
Ellie

Davis is making his first sacrament on Wednesday, March 9. He will be making his First Reconciliation (confession). He is very comfortable and confidant. George, my Baptist husband, questions all Catholic practices. It is a prayer service with the Youth Choir singing and then there will be ten priests to hear confessions. There is no dark closet, very open, face to face.

Ellie

YEAH LARRY - YOU ARE OUT THERE!

Well we had our first goodbye last night. We had a really tough start in a social life of any type when we first arrived in Perth. But now as we start to leave we are sad to say goodbye to some friends and hope the friendships can out last the distance.

Ron and his wife Margot are leaving on Monday in their caravan (motor home) to travel around Australia a bit. Ron is Alan (Whitey's step dad's) youngest brother so only 8 years older than Whitey. After we were here for about a year, Ron called Whitey to get some electrical work done. They had really only known each other a bit in their younger years. We all found we had some things in common - mostly eating at unusual restaurants. Well they retired and have been getting a caravan ready for a couple years and 'planning on traveling' for that long. They went away briefly but, like us all, are big procrastinators. A couple months ago they offered to let us stay at their house 'when they left the end of February'. A great opportunity to sell off our furniture and stuff early and have space to finish house stuff. Now they really have to go, no more excuses or they would have roommates not house sitters. All their friends and family are happy they are being pushed into their travels.

But we went to dinner last night witht them and we tried to not get mushy about it but it was quite sad. The good news is that they and another couple are thinking of coming out to SF and see some of the states and Canada in a year or so.

So now we will seriously start selling off our stuff and move very quickly on the house.

cheers,
Max

The Emperor Conrad: and his knighthood he
Did gird on me;
in such a good part he took
My valiant service. After him I went

To testify against that evil law,
Whose people, by the
Shepherd’s fault, possess
Your right usurp’d. There I by that foul crew
Was disentangled from the treacherous world
Whose base affection many a spirit soils;
And from the martyrdom came to this peace.”
- Dante, Pardiso; Canto XV

You haven't heard from me in awhile and I thought I'd let you know what my last month has been filled with. The Department got its new Secretary and his first big task - other than finding where the bathroom and the cafeteria are - was to testify to Congress on our FY 2006 budget.

My office leads this exersize of preparing him for two, 2-4 hour sessions of being grilled by members of Congress. I believe this is a unique exersize of DC's. It reaches its highest, or most extreme form in the candidate preparations for presidential debates.

This is all part of the dance between our different branches of government. Unlike Britian's Parliament, where the Prime Minister is obligated to hold regular "Question" sessions where members can hammer him with barbed questions, the President cannot be required to answer to Congress and the Constitution only requires that he "from time to time give the Congress information on the State of the Union" which by custom has become annual. Cabinet Secretaries are a different story, like other citizens they can be compelled to present themselves to Congress, but can refuse to tell Congress stuff on the basis of "Executive Privledge" and seperation of powers.

In this case the Secretary needs to go to Congress to ask for money, so he will be as accomidating as possible. Members of Congress love these sessions since they have the Adminstration's senior people in their weakest position. The Congressmen use these opportunities to ask about just about everything but the budget request. And the most important thing to remember is the three reasons why Congress holds hearings:

1. To get on TV
2. To get on TV
3. To get on TV

So to prepare the Secretary we put together twenty, 4 inch thick, binders of: the oral statement, the written statement for the record, bios of all the members of the subcommittees, spreadsheets of data, and most importantly, possible questions and answers (Q&As). These Q&As are provided by our consistuent bureaus, a diverse bunch to begin with, and culled and edited by my office and the legislative affairs office.

Beginning two weeks ago, we started holding meetings with senior people from the bureaus with the Secretary, where he could read the Q&As and question the bureau people and try to get comfortable with the answers. Those meetings took about 10 hours over two weeks. Yesterday we did a "murder board" where we then got him used to articulating all the stuff we were cramming him with by asking the questions in the manner of Congressmen, such as "Why are the Chinese stealin' all of America's jobs? What are you doin' about it?" [in a West Virginia accent] kind of question.

So this afternoon we go up and he gets to be in the hot seat and earn his dental plan and his big fancy office. I'm only going since he likes visuals so we created some economic charts and I have to haul them up and set up the easel to hold them. That is - I am the roadie.

So that is what I've been doing for the last month and I didn't mention the adventures with learning to create table of contents in Word or arguing about the trade deficit with economists.

The wounded men’s fellows, seeing them so evil dight, from afar off began to
rain stones on Don Quixote, who did defend himself the best he might with his
target, and durst not depart from the cistern, lest he should seem to abandon
his arms. -- Don Quixote; Part I, Chapt. III