Grocery Shopping Ain't No Fun!

Today, feeling good and optimistic as I usually do, I returned home from an appointment to a message from my 90 year-old mother, 8 hours away in Southern California. She had been grocery shopping and someone stole her wallet from her purse while she was in the store. I could tell she was pretty upset. By the time I called back, a policewoman was at her home taking a report. My mother had already called the bank to put a stop on her debit card. The only other things taken were her ID card, and 20 dollars. She has no idea when her purse was violated. She thought it was close to her all the time. And of course she is trusting, too trusting, and apparently feeling safe in the store environment.

I began to get up tight about it and then thought, wait a minute. She is fine. It could have been worse—she could have been outside of the store and knocked to the ground and injured. So apparently someone thought they needed money worse than she did, (and maybe so). I don't like that the elderly are so vulnerable, yet I do want her, (and others) to have their independence. We soon realized it really didn't matter that much, just a little inconvenience—and another day of shopping as she could not pay for her groceries.

But what her experience brought to mind is what is happening here in California with threats of police officers and firemen being let go because there is no money to pay them. The Sacramento County Sheriff may have to let 200-300 officers go. Other cities are having the same problem. I don’t know if other states are going through this but it is shameful that we have this situation in California. I know one city has been able to avoid layoffs of their police force so far.

When unemployment is so high, new jobs almost nonexistent, people losing their homes, or places to live, it is absolutely no time to cut law enforcement. Crime goes up when people become desperate. We are already seeing that. So we all have to be more careful, more aware.

Live Large and Stay Safe...

~Linda

Humpback Whales, Delta and Dawn in Sacramento

I’ve been wondering if Delta and Dawn are related to Humphrey?

If you haven’t been catching the news this past week, you may not have any idea what the heck I’m writing about. Delta and Dawn are names given to two wayward humpback whales, a mother and her calf, who have wandered inland more than ninety miles to the port of Sacramento, CA. Humphrey is the 40 foot, 40 ton, humpback whale who made nearly the same excursion in 1985. He went as far as Rio Vista, twenty miles or so south of the port of Sacramento. He wondered around the deep channel for nearly a month before swimming back to the Golden Gate area and out to sea. Then in 1990 he was spotted again inland at the Bodega Bay area. His adventure nearly ended when he beached himself in the mud in San Francisco. He was last seen in 1991. There is a plaque at Rio Vista honoring Humphrey’s Sacramento River journey. Many of the people out observing Delta and Dawn are children and grandchildren of those who saw Humphrey on his travels.

Delta and Dawn, names picked by choice of local television viewers, were spotted in the Sacramento River up stream of Rio Vista, May 14. Take a look at a map and see how amazing their journey has been from the Pacific Ocean to Sacramento. The deep channel is not very wide at all. When they arrived at the port area the other day, they swam in circles, unable to go further north because of locks. On Friday, the coast guard and marine mammal people used whale sounds in the hopes of tempting them to start a swim south but that did not work. They decided to leave them alone for the weekend and then on Sunday they started to move south and went as far as the Rio Vista bridge, but then turned around and headed north again. The Coast Guard, Fish and Game, and County Sheriff’s put a floatilla of about 25 boats in action today to discourage their movement north but by late Monday afternoon they were about five miles north of the Rio Vista bridge heading toward the port again. The experts believe the bridge may have stressed them, with the vibrations of traffic crossing, etc., causing them to reverse their course again.

Monday they had hoped to insert a tag tracking device in Delta but put that off until Tuesday. They did take a tissue sample for genetic study from her to check her health and identify what pod they may be from. They also began banging on pipes underwater from the boats to encourage their movement away, and plan to use that device again Tuesday morning.

Another question I have is what would make whales leave their migration route and stray so far from the ocean? I don’t think the scientist can answer that unless a reason is that the mammal is ill. So that leaves another possibility: maybe some time back, Humphrey mentioned his adventures and this mother had nothing else to do but do some inland exploration. Let’s hope she hasn’t got herself and her young calf into a situation she cannot get out of.

Oh, one more question comes to mind. How do the experts know that Delta and Dawn are female. They said that from the beginning of the sighting. I assume the calf swims with the mother but they have stated the calf is female. Does it have to do with coloration? Or?
For some great video of the adventures of Delta and Dawn check out the Sacramento Television station web site. They’ve had great coverage.
http://www.news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=28080

The natural migration of birds, butterflies, and mammals has always fascinated me. The swallows returning every March 19, St. Joseph’s Day, to San Juan Capistrano Mission; the Monarch butterflies to Pacific Grove in Northern CA; the whales; the birds. And I believe they communicate with each other. You know how it is: put out bird seed when not a single bird is in sight, and soon you have one bird, and within minutes a whole flock arrives to scatter seed!

~ Linda