What am I to do About "The Crash"?

Everywhere I look, I see portends of the impending crash of civilization. I'm not talking about a biblical end of the world but a very human-engineered end. I just don't see how we can avoid total economic collapse, total environmental collapse, total oil collapse or all three.

The system cannot hold. Need I count the ways for you?
* creeping fascism, surveillance, and the erosion of freedom in the U.S. and other developed countries
* unending, meaningless wars that the populace opposes but which cater to the greed of banksters and defense contractors
* globalization and so-called free trade that benefits no one but the multi-national corporations and the elites that control them
* an exploding population and diminishing resources
* governments and media that lie to the people over and over again (9/11, the "death" of Osama bin Laden, the "safety" of nuclear power, vaccinations, genetically modified food, radiation, pharmaceuticals, fish from the Gulf oil spill, on and on)
* skyrocketing government and personal debt
* widening gap between super-rich and the rest of us
* declining wages
* rising prices
* increased demand for oil, diminishing reserves
* governments that are beholden to business interests not to the people
* the stealing of elections
* the declining dollar

OK, that's enough. You can fill in the other hundred or so reasons for concerns.

I've known for a very long time, probably two decades, that this just could not continue. The "this" being pretty much everything you see around you. Cars, consumption, TV, electronics, the Internet, government. I've known that the best strategy was to buy some land in a moderate climate with a good source of water and live off the grid.

The thing is that's just not been possible for me for a number of reasons, one being financial. Now I am not even sure as if I had the money if I could physically work as a farmer. For sure I'd have to wear a mask to guard against infection from the fungi and micro-organisms that live in the soil. And then there's the pharmaceutical thing. All the prophets I'm reading say, "Take care of your own health. No one else will." But if there is no transportation after the crash, then I and millions of others won't get the drugs they need to live.

So, the post-crash world will be fine for the young, the strong, the healthy, the landed, and the partnered (spouse or friend), but not so great for the aging, the weak, the ill, the renters, and the single.

So for all of you who have your stash of cash, I recommend that you spend it on some farmland near a friendly community of like-minded individuals. Good for you.

For the rest of us, we'll just have to:
* Live fully in the here and now.
* Be good to our neighbors, our family, and our friends.
* Work at building community and relationships with the people who live in our surroundings.
* As much as possible, prepare for the crash as we would prepare for an earthquake. Store water, non-perishables, books, meds, matches, a camp stove, fuel (safely, of course), comfortable clothes, blankets, a deck of cards, paper and pens, and toilet paper. There are more things too, but you can check with any emergency preparedness site for more info.
* Prepare for the big changes that are coming, but don't give into fear. Fear never does any good.

Osama bin Laden, the Dialysis Patient

Shortly after 9/11, there were many reports that bin Laden was on dialysis. Jokes went around about bin Laden receiving dialysis treatments in a cave in Afghanistan. At the time, I didn't pay much attention to this, but for the two years I was a dialysis patient, I sure wondered, "How in the hell can he still be alive? All these many years on dialysis!"

As the majority of American dialysis patients are dead within five years of starting dialysis, it seemed ludicrous to me that a man on the run, subject to extremely challenging conditions and probably often unsanitary conditions could survive for more than a decade on dialysis. That's why when it was recently announced that bin Laden had been killed, I thought, So much bullshit. Is everything the government says a lie?

Here, for example, is an article by the respected British newspaper the Guardian about Osama getting a portable dialysis machine in late 2001. This same article states what has already been reported elsewhere: that Osama was visited by the CIA while hospitalized in July 2001 in Dubai. The New York Times reported that Osama died in December 2001. For extensive links to credible reports of bin Laden's death in 2001, see this site.

Now the American spin doctors--aka American mainstream media--are attempting to cover their tracks, stating that Osama's dialysis is one of the "myths" about him. I love this report from ABC News, which states that there was no evidence of dialysis treatments at the Pakistan compound where Osama was "killed." Well, OK, that could mean one of two things: 1) Osama was not on dialysis, and he was killed a few weeks ago, or 2) Osama may have been on dialysis, but the man who was killed a few weeks ago was not Osama. Guess which one I'm banking on?

News to Me: Blogspot is a Christian Hangout

In the years since I started this blog, I never before hit the "Next Blog" tab...until tonight. What an awakening! I must have scrolled through 40 of the next blogs. This was the run-down: 90 percent Christian-themed, 5 percent for family and friends only (we had pizza for lunch, Jenny took her first step, that kind of stuff), and 5 percent disease-oriented.

Granted, there must be thousands of blogs on this site, maybe tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, who knows. And maybe I just happen to be in a Christian zone. I always thought the "next blog" was arranged alphabetically, but it must be based on date of inception or number of visitors or something else.

I don't really fit in very well with my neighbors, as I discuss a lot of things they wouldn't think to cover, like the ridiculous stories the government tells us about 9/11 and the death of Osama bin Laden. I can't imagine any of the Christian blogs questioning authority. Actually, Meister Eckhart, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King Jr., and Matthew Fox are the only Christians that I can think of off the top of my head who have questioned authority.

Oh, well, I'll leave it to you, dear readers, to bring more visitors to Heidi's heart.

Third World Wages, First World Prices

One field in which the work world has drastically changed is writing. From the late '80s through the late '90s, I was often making $100/hour for writing magazine articles and corporate newsletters, and as much as $90/hour for editing. Today on craigslist.com, writers can make $5-$10 for a 1,500-word "thoroughly researched" article. For those of you who aren't writers, this would take between 15 and 25 hours of work, at between 20 and 67 cents/hour, well below the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. and the California minimum wage of $8.



I recently met up with a former student of mine while I was walking my dog in the neighborhood. Daniel said that I should check out elance.com, the site at which he gets all his work. He has been working through this site for years. He admitted that when he started out, he was shocked at how little he was making, as he was competing against English-speakers throughout the world, many of whom in countries where $150 went 20 or more times farther than it does here. After many years, though, he said that clients come back to him because they like the work he does and they will pay what he's worth. I checked it out.

Like many such sites, elance talent bids for work. You can buy into different plans--five bids per month for free, then the fees increase, depending on the number of bids you wish to submit. In addition to this, elance takes 6.75-8.75 percent of your earnings, the highest percentage going to those contractors who have the least amount of work--boy, isn't that the way the world works! The jobs I've seen so far have been abysmal. Twenty 400-word articles with synopses for less than $500 (the maximum bid). Back in the day, I could make that much for two articles. On a good day, maybe even one.

This wouldn't all be so bad if prices had gone down in the past couple decades, but that sure has not happened. As anyone who has ever shopped for his or her own food knows, the cost of living has skyrocketed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the government agency that calculates the Consumer Price Index (CPI), claims that prices have increased by 277 percent since 1980. That, however, is quite deceiving, as the BLS reconfigured the way it calculates the CPI back in 1980. Instead of sticking to the things that everyone needs to survive, like food, housing, medical care, transportation, and clothes, the BLS started to throw in items that you either don't need or you can certainly do without, things like iPads. Because, as has been the case throughout history, when a new technology first hits the scene, it's expensive, but as time goes on and consumers are buying more of the thing and the cost of producing the thing decreases and there's more competition in the marketplace, the price to consumers also decreases. But a lot of these items are durable, which means you don't buy them every week or even every year. They're not like a loaf of bread or a pound of beans. If you look at the real inflation rate from 1980 to 2011, it's more like 1,110 percent.

I can vouch for a much-higher inflation rate than the government reports. My first apartment in 1977 was a cute one-bedroom that rented for $175/month. When I got married in 1978, we rented a much bigger place with built-in mahogany bookcases, a walk-in pantry, two bedrooms, and a sun room that was glass on three sides. This was $300. The place I'm in now is a small one-bedroom that is poorly maintained by the landlord. The railing on my porch is termite-ridden and falling down. Many of the exterior boards are either cracked or not flush, allowing rodents to come in from time to time. It's easy to see the structural damage in this 1920s-era house, of which I rent the back half for $1,020. Though we aren't comparing apples to apples, as my first apartment was much better maintained, yet the percentage increase is 483. I have no basis for comparing medical costs, as I have always had some sort of insurance, but these costs certainly go well beyond the government CPI.

Food prices are even more shocking. Currently, I'm paying up to $3.99 for a single bell pepper, a little more than $4 for a gallon of milk, close to $4 for a loaf of bread, and almost $5 for a dozen eggs. Working for 20-67 cents an hour, I could spend two days earning enough to buy my breakfast.


This brings the point home of what globalization has done. It's drastically lowered wages and the buying power of the American consumer, while taking overseas what once were well-paying jobs. And yet the cost of living continues to climb. My competitors for writing jobs are in places where the cost of living is a whole lot cheaper than it is here. I can't imagine, for example, that a small, poorly maintained one-bedroom apartment in a town in Bangladesh or a village in Mali rents for $1,020/month. For someone in these circumstances, writing 20 articles for less than $500 is no doubt a boondoggle.

A More Encompassing View of Motherhood

On this Mother's Day, my hope is that all women and their individual decisions regarding children will be honored and respected. Mothering and motherhood manifest in so many ways that go well beyond the narrow view of giving physical birth.

The woman who lovingly cares for animals or for her garden, the one who brings in homemade baked goods for her coworkers, the gal who remembers her friends' birthdays with cards and calls, the woman who has a deep connection with nature or who works for peace and justice or is a counselor, a therapist, a doctor, a nurse, an acupuncturist, a teacher, or a massage therapist--all these women manifest the loving, nurturing qualities of a good mother.

I'm sure that today many women who do not have children are feeling down. As I have often felt on Valentine's Day, they feel that everyone else but them has been invited to a huge party. Just as the unloved (at least in a romantic sense) are uninvited to the Valentine's Day party, childless women are left out of the Mother's Day celebrations, especially after their own mothers have died. Up until that time, the focus is on the women who gave birth to them, but once they're gone, the focus then shifts to themselves.

Of course, some women are happy with their decision not to have children, but others may have wanted children but never found the right person with whom to have them or were physically unable to conceive. To these women and to society as a whole, I say, Expand your notion of motherhood.

The world could certainly do with more nurturing, caring, loving, attending, healing, helping, guiding, and nourishing. And not simply from biological mothers but from everyone, female and male, of child-bearing years or not. Just think how dramatically life on this planet would change if we all went out into the world beaming love at the world as a mother beams love at her child. And if we cared about each person we met with the concern and consideration that a mother gives to her child.

If each one of us acted as good mothers every day, I can't see how we would ever tolerate the destruction of the rainforests or the drumbeat to war or the imprisonment of the innocent or the torture of the never-brought-to-trial. Also, like a mother, we would insist on punishment and correction if the world strayed. If we looked at banksters, for example, as a mother would look at a child who has committed serious wrongs, we would not allow them to continue their evil work. We would insist that they take a time-out or we'd take away all their toys and privileges. Wouldn't that be fantastic--a time-out from unchecked greed and the ungodly wealthy deprived of their toys and privileges! Now that's the kind of mothering banksters need!

So Many of my Female Friends Are Childless

As I was going through my phone list today, searching for friends to whom I could wish a happy Mother's Day, I realized that somewhere around 90 percent of my female friends don't have children. This would not be so remarkable if they were in their teens or twenties, but they're in their late 40s to late 70s.

The rate of childlessness among my friends is much higher than the norm, which now stands at 20 percent for women aged 40-44. According to a June 2010 Pew Research Center study, this is double the rate in 1970, when only one in 10 women beyond child-bearing years was childless. Granted, this study only concerns itself with biological mothers, not adoptive or stepmothers. One does not have to physically give birth to a child to be a mother, but this study only looked at those who did give birth.

As is as to be expected, women with at least a bachelor's degree are more likely to be childless than those with no college degree. For more educated women, the rate of childlessness rises from one in five overall to one in four. White women are more likely to be childless, but rates of childlessness are rising among blacks and Latinas.

One would think that a key reason for increasing rates of childlessness is society's greater tolerance of women who either cannot or choose not to have children. Surprisingly, this is not the case. According to the Pew report, although "about half the public -- 46% in a 2009 Pew Research Center poll -- say it makes no difference one way or the other that a growing share of women do not ever have children, Ssill, a notable share of Americans -- 38% in that 2009 survey -- say this trend is bad for society, an increase from 29% in a 2007 Pew Research survey."

Once again, we are a divided society. Nearly half seem to say it's no one's business but the woman's and her partner's, while almost as many feel childlessness is wrong. I am sorry that so many people feel it is their business to judge another's life path. What a wonderful day it will be when everyone will feel free to fully and completely pursue their own inner vision of their destiny, with or without children.

Paint Your Heart Out

I'm healthy enough to begin volunteering again. Today was my first time back with the meetup.com volunteer group with which I've helped serve breakfast to the homeless, cared for trees in a regional park, and taken a hike with the blind. Today I did some painting for two low-income elderly women through an organization called Paint Your Heart Out.


I arrived at the mobile home park about 8 a.m., the appointed meeting time. I drove about but could only find a group from Target, which was also involved in the Paint Your Heart Out event. I finally located one of the homes that the meetup group was to paint and knocked on the door. A delightful Italian woman--the 90-year-old by the name of Toni--answered the door and invited me in, then made a cup of coffee for me.

Toni's story is typical of many seniors. They bought their houses years ago when prices were cheap and have paid them off, but their living expenses are barely covered by Social Security. Medicare doesn't pay the full bill, so they have hundreds of dollars of uncovered medical expenses each month. In a mobile home park, they may own the home itself outright, but they have to pay a maintenance fee, in Toni's case, it's $700/month, what I consider quite high. So to make a long story short, though she's living in a decent place in a decent neighborhood, she has no money for anything other than food, taxes, medical bills, and car expenses. The last time she had a crew come out and do the painting that we did today, she had to pay $500. So she was very grateful for our help and served us homemade chocolate cupcakes for dessert. (Pizza was provided free of charge to volunteers by a local pizza place.)

I did most of my work, however, at the home of an equally cute 79-year-old named Sonya. She did not interact with us as much as Toni did, though she too was grateful and pleasant. Minthu (pronounced minn tu), a Vietnamese woman about my age, worked alongside me at Sonya's mobile home. We hosed down the outside of her home, then primed her back railing and painted it the same color as her home, a light peach. John, Adrian, and Wiseman, the organizer, painted the eaves on both homes.

Sonya had a shelf that must have been sitting outside for decades. It was covered in dirt. She asked that we paint it. A few of us had a go at cleaning it. I even used the power setting on the garden hose. All to no avail. We left that job undone.

Since I have to be careful about dust and contaminants, I wore a mask the entire day except while eating lunch or taking a water break. I don't want to do anything to damage Pinkie, my new kidney.

At one point during the day, John and I drove to another location to help a Starbucks work group. They were at a hoarder's house, cutting down a bouganvilla bush that had overtaken one side of the house. John and I went with the woman of the house into the backyard and attempted to hide our horror at what we saw. Piles of newspaper that had been left outside for years. Mountains of empty plastic bottles. Machinery that may have worked some time in the past but were now missing multiple parts and had been rusted through and through. Too many odd things for my mind to fully grasp with such a brief look. We politely told the woman that we didn't have the equipment to do the job right now. Through the windows, we could see that stuff was piled to the ceiling. Hoarding is a not-uncommon disorder in America.

I really like the people who volunteer for these meetup events. They tend to be young and enthusiastic. I like their energy. I encourage all to get involved with their communities. It's a far better way to save the world than getting involved with politics. Isn't that the truth!

Whom Would I Love to Meet?

The Dalai Lama was in Long Beach this past weekend. My dear neighbor and friend bought a ticket for me to attend his talk. On the day of the event, he had a sore throat and had to cancel. Later my friend, who had been a key volunteer in facilitating his stay in Long Beach, had been given a last-minute invitation to see the Dalai Lama for a group blessing. She either arrived too late or wasn't sure where to go, but in any event, she missed. out. As the Dalai Lama is to her like Jesus is to many Christians, this was a big disappointment.

All this made me wonder: Who would I feel bad about not meeting if the opportunity arose? I couldn't come up with anyone. Simply shaking hands or saying hello doesn't interest me. If, however, the person had time to have a good conversation over a cup of coffee, well, then I could think of a lot of people I'd like to chat with. But simply being in the same room holds little appeal.

When I gave the subject some more thought, I realized that the only being I would really hate to miss is an ET. That's right, if someone called me right now and said, "Heidi, hurry over to the football field. A huge flying saucer is going to land, and they want you to come on board and spend a few days," and I missed that opportunity, I'd really be bummed.

Nightmares Not Scary

For the last decade or so, nightmares have not scared me. Whereas when I was a child or young adult, I frequently had nightmares, I now rarely do. But when I do, they do not frighten me.

In the past few years, I've had dreams of ghosts, ghouls, pursuit by demons and murderers, dark forces lurking in abandoned buildings and near-brushes with death. But each time, I felt no fear. It is as if I am simply observing, just as one would observe a beautiful sunset, a curious dog, or an inert pile of garbage. I sometimes wake up, but I am not sweating, my heart is not pounding, and I don't pull the sheets over my head to "protect" me from the Boogie Man. I just wake up, think, "Wasn't that something!" and drop back to sleep. No problem.

A few weeks ago, I dreamed that I had gotten somehow involved with a criminal gang of hillbillies, not that I ever realized there were such things as hillbilly gangs. The hillbillies' rivals were a crime syndicate of well-dressed, sophisticated, young Iranian women in traditional dress. They had an apartment that overlooked the hillbilly hide-out, and so they peered out their second-story windows at us.

One of the hillbilly gals was pregnant--or was she? She was feigning pregnancy but actually had a tummy full of stolen cash--cash that had been taken perhaps from the Iranians. Though I wasn't involved in any criminal activity, I agreed to drive the "pregnant" woman and her fiance to the hospital, where a doctor was to perform surgery and remove the cash.  I witnessed the surgery, which actually took place at a small motel, rather than a hospital. The whole business was quite sloppy and brutal, but the patient was in fairly good condition when she and her fiance entered the back of the van that I drove.

As we were exiting the motel parking lot, a hired gun for the Iranians (I assumed) stood in front of the van and fired three shots, all three of which were direct hits, the final one to my head. The action then stopped, and the dream took place inside my consciousness. I thought, "I must remain perfectly still so he'll believe that I am dead." That's when I woke up. The closest I've ever come to dying in a dream. But I was not at all scared. I found it fascinating from an intellectual standpoint, that's all.

Osama Brought to Judgment, Not Justice

Osama bin Laden is supposedly dead. Hmmm... Interesting that his body was tossed out to sea. Convenient, isn't it? Reminds me of the cleanup jobs at Oklahoma City and 9/11. Get rid of the evidence as soon as possbile.

For the record, I am sure that bin Laden had something to do with 9/11, so I don't believe he's a good guy. If you want to read a really detailed and insightful book about 9/11, I suggest Michael Ruppert's 600-page, 1,000-footnote "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil." There's a much stronger case to be made against former Vice President Dick Cheney as the mastermind of 9/11 than there is against Osama bin Laden.

I listened to what little coverage of the assassination that I could handle. I found it ironic that commentators talked of the innocents who died on 9/11, but they made no mention of the innocents within the bin Laden compound, specifically, the women who allegedly were used as human shields.

I found it disturbing how often journalists said bin Laden had been "brought to justice." I always thought this meant that someone stands trial and is either convicted and sentenced or found innocent and allowed to go free. But I guess that, too, is changing. Now "brought to justice" means that the government determines your guilt and blows you away without a trial. Is this a new precedent?

On "Bloomberg Market Minute" the reporter said that the markets had gotten a boost with the news that Obama was dead, but then went back down because he's old news and is not all that important to give the stock market a lasting boost. Again, strange to hear a man's death discussed in terms of a temporary asset. I wonder if, at this very moment, Wall Street banksters are wondering, "Whose death would push the market up or down, in our favor, of course?"

The simple truth is that, like Manuel Noriega and Saddham Hussein, Osama bin Laden outlived his usefulness and had to be silenced by prison or death. If the guy would have been captured and put on trial, just imagine what secrets he would have divulged. I seriously can't see him saying to the judge and jury, "You're right. It was 19 of my men, armed with box cutters, who foiled the entire U.S. military forces, intelligence agencies, and air transportation system." In the event of a real Osama trial that was open to the public, we'd all be calling for Dick Cheney to "be brought to justice."

Article About Kidney Donor Chain

The following article was written by a young woman who contacted me via this blog. Though I twice offered to talk with her about my experience, she didn't call.

Two corrections: I am a former journalism, not English, professor. My neighbor Janet took the photo, not me. She should receive the credit. Other than this, Gabrielle did a very good job of discussing the process.
I had queried several publications about my experience, but none wanted a first-person piece, so I'm glad that our story got out anyway.

Local Woman Saves Lives Through Kidney Donation Chain


by Gabrielle Moreira

Ventura County Star

Posted April 29, 2011 at 9:16 p.m., updated April 29, 2011 at 9:16 p.m.

.This story is contributed by a member of the Ventura community and is neither endorsed nor affiliated with Ventura County Star

www.heidisheart.blogspot.com - permission from Heidi



Brandie Pabustan (sitting) with Heidi (standing) during their recovery at the UCLA Medical Center.



Brandie Pabustan was just a few days away from donating one of her kidneys to her husband, Conrad, when doctors called off the surgery.



Brandie’s blood type made her a good match for Conrad and her great health made her an ideal candidate to be a donor.



But it came as an unwelcome surprise when doctors told them during their final blood test that Conrad’s disease-fighting antibodies had started attacking Brandie’s blood, making it all but impossible to move forward with the operation.



“We walked out of there thinking, ‘Great we’re back at square one,’” said Brandie, 35, of Newbury Park.



Brandie then learned about the Kidney Exchange Program at the UCLA Medical Center that would still allow her to help someone and find her husband a new kidney.



The relatively new program searches through the National Kidney Registry, which is the largest registry of its kind in the country, to find matches for the recipient and the donor. A donor is given a match by a recipient who has a friend or family member willing to donate on the patient’s behalf. This process creates a life-saving chain of donors and medically compatible kidney recipients.



The Kidney Exchange program was created in Ohio by Michael Rees, a professor at the University of Toledo. UCLA began its program in 2007 and, to date, has completed about 50 exchanges. Dr. Jeffery Veale, the program’s director, was the first doctor to perform these kidney chains in the west.



“One-third of people are in Brandie and Conrad’s situation, where they have someone willing to donate a kidney, but they’re incompatible.” says Veale. “The great potential of this program is that we’re able to reduce the people on the [deceased donor] waiting list and expand the living donor pool by 33 percent.”



Before Conrad, now 35, received his kidney, he was on a costly and draining process called dialysis that replicates the functions of a healthy kidney. He also was waiting on the “deceased donor list” where kidneys are harvested from cadavers, and the average wait time is eight to 10 years, depending on the donor’s blood type.



“It’s tiring after a while. Your entire life is basically on hold. In order to travel you have to schedule something months in advance at a dialysis center,” said Brandie, who recently experienced the pitfalls of traveling with someone on dialysis. Late last year, she and Conrad had their wedding in Vegas and had to schedule the entire event around his treatments.



Brandie knew that the dialysis was taking a toll on her husband, especially on days before his treatment. She’d find him tired and not feeling like himself. She knew he needed a transplant as soon as possible and ignored his requests to drop the idea. He was worried about her health and she wanted him to get healthy.



“My main concern was if I’d be able to get pregnant. Doctor’s said, ‘No Problem.’” she said. “Then I asked, ‘What if I get cancer?’ and they again said, ‘No problem. Just be healthy, don’t get crazy, don’t eat badly, and don’t play any contact sports’ – which I don’t do anyways.”



With minimal risks involved and a healthy pregnancy still possible, Brandie and Conrad enrolled in the exchange program and began a series of physical, medical and psychiatric tests to evaluate her overall health.



“You have to be extremely healthy. They run a battery of tests on you.” she said. “Regardless of the outcome, I was going to help him.”



Before long she received a call from the medical center about a match for Conrad and a recipient. Brandie’s kidney recipient, only known by her first name, Heidi, is a retired English university professor who received dialysis at the UCLA center and enrolled in the program with her neighbor, who donated on her behalf.



In December 2010, Brandie prepared for her surgery while Conrad was at UCLA undergoing his kidney transplant. His new organ was coming from a man named Albert Scholemer of Pittsburg, PA, who wasn’t donating on anyone’s behalf and simply wanted to save another person’s life.



Two days before, Brandie had started a liquid diet and now, with only hours before her surgery, drank two bottles of citrate magnesium, a saline laxative, to completely clean out her system.



The day of surgery she checked into the medical center and received a laparoscopic surgery that requires several small incisions to allow for a shorter hospital stay and recovery period. For most patients, their hospital stay is 24 to 48 hours, with a recovery period of six to eight weeks. This wasn’t the case for Brandie.



After the anesthesia began to wear off, she felt a throbbing pain from the left side of her back through the lower half of her abdomen and had to be placed on an I.V.



“They didn’t want to put me on an I.V. so that I could go home the next day, but my stomach was empty and I couldn’t take down any of the Vicodin they gave me,” she recalled. “I was throwing it all up.”



Her stay at the hospital was about five days and her recovery period took about seven to eight weeks. Heidi and her neighbor visited Brandie when she was in the hospital and thanked her for donating her kidney. Heidi’s neighbor continued the donor chain by giving one of her kidneys to a recipient on the east coast.



While live donations are a more efficient and safer way to help a person with kidney disease, the average kidney lasts 18 years because there are no “perfect matches,” unless patients have a healthy identical twin willing to donate. When asked how he feels about the chance of another transplant, Conrad simply replied, “This was my second surgery – I’m used to it.”



Brandie hopes that the program and her story will encourage others going through similar situations to participate in live donations so people with kidney disease can experience a longer and more fulfilling life.



“You can miss out on so much,” Brandie said. “Just having a normal life – being able to eat, drink, or do whatever you want.”



This story is contributed by a member of the Ventura community and is neither endorsed nor affiliated with Ventura County Star.

Permitting the Tree its Treeness

Today as you go about your life, be aware of the people, places, and things that you are seeing. Awareness in and of itself will elevate your spirits.

I remember so clearly when I began to really see things, not simply look at them and label them as "tree," "pretty." "yellow," or any of the thousands of labels we all have. Of course, my mind is not completely still, but it is a whole lot better at simply apprehending without labeling and judging than it previously was.

That moment that I remember so clearly took place in the large, grassy area on the upper campus of Cal State Long Beach. I had just attended Dr. Francisco Peccorini's metaphysics class. He was big on "Being." As when I read the trippy writings of Martin Heidegger on time and being, I also felt a little stoned after leaving Dr. Peccorini's class.

To take in this mind-expanding lecture, I sat and simply looked at a tree, without labeling it "tree" or "beautiful" or "big" or "sun-dappled." I simply saw it as a manifestation of Being. Something definitely shifted. Everything appeared lighter, brighter, and infused with meaning.

A few years later, Dr. Peccorini was assassinated on his way to a political rally in San Salvador. In my opinion, his metaphysics and spirituality did not mesh with his politics. The former was loving and embracing, while the latter was elitist and exclusionary. Of Italian heritage, Dr. Peccorini had been born to a wealthy family in El Salvador. That had shaped his politics.

Still, I remembered Dr. Peccorini for the catalyst he had been in my own spiritual development. And for this I am eternally grateful.

To commemorate his life and what he had meant to me, I wrote the following poem for his memorial service. For inspiration, I recalled those moments of awareness while truly seeing a tree.


For Dr. Francisco Peccorini, Assassinated in San Salvador,

March 15, 1989




How fondly I remember metaphysics with you!


How taken I was with your god,


an ocean to drown in without regrets,


a shy sender quietly bestowing meaning on things


which otherwise would cease to exist.

After your lectures, I would sit alone


and gaze at an acacia in the courtyard,


sinking my self into it,


its green a summons to life


like the water which bathes potentiality in the womb.


No internal dialogue was necessary


to give these moments sense.


It was great plenty to permit the tree its treeness,


to allow my self the vast, unarticulated home

of space and time in which to grow.






Perhaps in death


we awaken to the dreams of this life


given width, height, depth and breath.


Instead of the inebriation of abstract thought,


we touch, smell and taste


those things which before were only felt


in the bright recesses of the mind,


in the dark expanses of the soul.


I think of you in death encountering Being head on,


without words to erect barriers,


without the world to cloud your vision.

The Beauty Next Door

In my ongoing mission to get people to see the beauty that is always near at hand, I offer these photos of the orchids on my next-door neighbors' front porch.