Hi Lowell & Canie,

Lowell, there is nothing better than an animal story and with you, there is always something just a tad unusual about them. The two of you must have such great pleasure enjoying Zima and the neighborhood animal friends.

Canie, my heart goes out to you. But keeping Lowells animal story in mind and your Mom Canie, here's something from the past that rather gives both an understanding of how much we love our family and friends and our animals in life as well.

When I first moved to Petaluma I had a client named Phil. He was Italian and had been a commercial fisherman all of his life. He really liked me and every Friday he brought me fresh fish to eat. He had a cousin nearby who owned a fish store, so he got it fresh from that days catch. Not long after I met him, him wife died and we became good friends and I visited him in his home often. In a sense he was the best kind of Father I never had and a tremendously good friend.

He had a dog that got cancer and he was going to have to put the dog to sleep. So before he took him to the vets, he gave the dog his best day. He took him out to the ocean and tossed sticks for him and let him retrive them and gave him a McDonalds hamburger for lunch and then said goodbye at the vets.

About two years went by and one night I had a dream that Phil was walking his dog down the sidewalk near where he lived. In my dream I was driving down the street, and yelling hello as I went by, but he couldn't hear me. I knew the time was drawing close when he would be going home to be with his dog. But before he left, he was part of a PBS video called, "Kings No More." It was the story of the decline of salmon fishing. Phil is still here with me in that video and I love watching it and remembering what a wonderful friend he was. Yeah, I really miss him.

The highlight of my life while we are seeming to go there is that I've put my house on the market. The end of this particular era of my life is nearing a close. I've put lots and lots of love in decorating every inch of this place and I hope those who come to live here will feel it. I'm going to rent for a bit as the housing market is starting to decline and I want to wait until it hits a level where its a buyers market.

After that, a whole new panorama of life will begin which includes working on getting a Bachelors Degree in Vocational Education. It simply takes your years of work experience and gives you credit in the form a degree. SF State has the program, so I'll be there for a spell. I've got my books to get published and when it all gets turned around, in some form or fashion I want to become a teacher.

But as soon as I get from this house to the next and before school starts, if at all possible I'm heading to Cape Cod to see my son Andre. Its been awhile since we saw each other.

Reminds me of that song. For every season, turn, turn, turn. They say as a door closes, God opens a window. Its true.

One last thing. Don and I took a drive to Santa Rosa today and on the way back stopped off near our study area. When we were out there the last time, about a mile down the road we saw a huge area of land that had been bulldozed and had trepidations about housing going in there, so close to the Rodgers Creek Fault. Today we saw a sign and it said another vinyard was about to be planted. Volcanic soil makes wonderful vinyards and that's why Napa and Sonoma Counties are one the nations largest producers of wine.

Petra