in danger animals

don't bother trying to help a 4 year old distinguish between endangered and in danger. you will just become frustrated.

here is miles channeling the spirit of the predatory bird (hawk?eagle?) painted into the mural on our local laundromat on 23rd st, el arroyo.

so as the interest in animals grows and grows around here
(what does an eagle's egg look like?
does a raccoon climb as good as a monkey?
does a skunk eat animals?--these questions all within about 30 seconds of each other, kind of rapid fire, get the answer and move on to the next one--and this can go on for a LONG time)
we have moved into the research stage (i don't know the answer to many of these questions so we are cleaning out the bernal library's wildlife section). books about spiders, eagles, kangaroos, cheetahs, chameleons, wolves, snakes, poisonous animals, and skunks are all over miles' bedroom floor. there is no raccoon book! what really stinks is that near the end of all these cool books where we learn about earth's creatures and how they exist in a kind of harmony with each other there is a chapter that inevitably tells us that this creature is endangered or close, and that its biggest enemy is man. but I never would do those things says miles. and you wouldn't make a cheetah in danger mommy. right? right i say. hmm. it seems like everything i do puts a cheetah in danger.

i am starting to feel more and more that the annoying hippies in college were ahead of the game. save the whales! save the earth! if they would only have taken off the annoying tie-dyes and poured the patchouli down the sink (sorry CS) and turned off the endless grateful dead and bob marley i would have listened better. i have to admit i was a little on the hippie side for a while but then i heard a whole different kind of music and it took front seat. i got sucked into an exciting hedonistic existance by proximity to some super cool punk rockers and artists who were just a lot of fun to hang out with and didn't talk much about the plight of the planet. cassie and shannon if you are reading this you know what i mean! not that i would give up those friends and years and really the whole wild ride i was on there for a while for anything.

so i recently joined SPUR
which you should check out online, pretty cool and hopeful, but with enough glimpses of developing turmoil to keep me interested. there was a link to an article about coal
that i think was also an ad in the new yorker. i think the ad was titled "so you think you are making a difference?" or something like that. i have actually spent some recent nights crying after talking all day about in danger animals and then reading scary books like fred pearce's With Speed and Violence about tipping points in climate change. being a worn out old mommmy and having PMS adds to the tears i'm sure i don't want my kids to grow up in a world without polar bears and cheetahs and pandas and tiny kangaroos.

so what do i do? i'm writing in this blog. share the anxiety. get in touch with your
inner hippie. the little kid who wants to see wild creatures. if you have some money put solar panels on your roof. annoy a friend or a family member with some scary reading material about global warming and the very bad behavior of the most dangerous animal on earth.

sorry to be heavy.
alternating between poo and global catastrophe.
next time i will tell a story.
goodnight