Category: Life Events

By Judi Curry

Let’s begin this article by acknowledging that I am not a believer. I am agnostic at best; still looking for answers that I haven’t yet found. With that in mind, three things have happened over the past few years that I can’t explain, and the latest still gives me goose bumps in thinking about it. Let’s start at the beginning.

Seven years ago my husband Bob died. I joined a widow support group and one of the things we decided to do was to see if a “Medium” could bring our husbands messages back to us. There were nine of us going to Harmony Grove to find out.

As we were all coming from different parts of San Diego, we met at a central location, and I drove with Rosey to meet the others. On the way there, she mentioned that she was always puzzled why she had such a bad relationship with her mother.

Local Newspaper Sends Out Mixed Message About Homeless

About 3 weeks ago, August 17th was the “San Diego Homeless Awareness Day” – a day set up by various media sources around San Diego to bring a new awareness of those less fortunate and who live on the streets and in the shelters.

And about 20 of San Diego’s media sources carried or ran or printed or published 40 or so articles and posts about the homeless and homelessness today.

The OB Rag – along with our sister publication, the San Diego Free Press – joined this effort to highlight the plight of our area’s citizens who have no home, other than the streets, and we both posted a series of articles from the writers of the SDFP and OB Rag. (For other articles from the publications on the homeless, visit the SD Homeless Aware website.)

Many of the articles and posts painted and reflected compassionate understandings of the homeless and their plight, with efforts to examine the underlying reasons for so many homeless in one of the richest nations on earth. This day of awareness followed – by a little over a month – a serial murderer who preyed on sleeping homeless men in San Diego.

Why Didn’t I Know About This?

For the past three weeks, beginning at about 9:00pm, I have received the following calls:

“Hello. My name is Lisa. You have been awarded a full paid, all-expense trip to the Bahamas by just answering a few questions. Are you ready to begin?”

That is call number one.

Call number two comes in an hour later – or so – and it is a foreign voice telling me that he is calling from Windows 7.

“There seems to be a problem with your computer; go turn it on.”

I say that “I don’t have a windows computer” and the voice answers back, “go turn on the windows computer that you don’t have. . . .”

Then my cell phone begins to ring. The first call is from Lisa; the second call is from the Windows 7 Computer guy.

By Anne Haule / Musings of a Boomer Feminist

“Let me help you tighten your helmet. Is the seat okay? Do you know how to shift the gears? Let’s stay on the sidewalk until you get the hang of your new bike. . . . .”

Sound familiar? These could have been my words 25 years ago but they are not my words . . . they are my daughter’s as we get ready to take our first bike ride together on my new bike.

Helmets secured, we take off . . . my daughter in the lead so she can pick a safe route with little traffic. When we start up a hill, she turns around to keep an eye on me. When I topple over, having unsuccessfully tried to turn while going too slowly up the hill, she is right there to help.

As I lie in the street with my bike on top of me (and my ego bruised more than my knees), people seemed to materialize out of nowhere asking if I was okay. My daughter lifted my bike off me and soothingly said, “poor momma, let me help you up.” Had a crowd not gathered, she would likely have offered to kiss my boo-boo.

Red Cross Services for OB During the Gas Leak Evacuation

By South OB Girl

When Ocean Beach residents had to be evacuated because of a gas leak last week, they were met by the arrival of the Red Cross disaster action team. The team arrived on the scene around 10 p.m. on Monday, August 22 to provide canteen services to first responders and evacuees. Authorities asked the Red Cross to set up a Temporary Evacuation Point at Ocean Beach Recreation Center on Santa Monica Avenue.

Maureen Kilkenny, Regional Communications Director of the American Red Cross of San Diego/ Imperial Counties, provided the following information detailing the services provided by the Red Cross during the evacuation.

At 2 a.m. when it was determined it wasn’t safe for residents to return to their homes the Red Cross turned the Temporary Evacuation Point into a shelter.

Drugs: the Human Dilemma, Part 2

By John Lawrence
Is there a balanced way to live so that chemicals released by the brain, which produce feelings of well being and happiness, can happen without addiction to drugs or exercise?

For some these endorphins seem to naturally produce ‘enough good feeling’ without their having to do anything more. For some the ‘happiness gene’ seems to be turned on at all times regardless of what happens in the events of their lives.

For others there is a deficiency that leads to a tendency for them to become alcoholics or drug addicts. A person’s natural energy level seems to have something to do with it. High energy people need to release that energy in non-sedentary pursuits or mitigate the effects of it like so-called ADHD with drugs.

By Mimi Pollack / San Diego Free Press

In May, as I was walking around checking out all the booths at the San Diego Humane Society Walk event, I saw two sweet and funny little faces that drew me in. They were two senior Chihuahuas named Fred and Ethel, like the couple who lived next door to Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. What perfect names for those silly little faces!

Fred and Ethel are two lucky pooches that were taken in by Lionel’s Legacy, a non-profit organization, out of El Cajon, CA, that specializes in rescuing senior dogs.

Lionel’s Legacy was founded in 2011 by elementary school teacher, Laura Oliver, and her family. Lionel was a 15 year old pit bull that inspired them to start an organization that specializes in fostering and finding good homes for senior pets.

When Lionel first came to Laura’s family, he was in terrible shape and everyone thought he had little time left to live. He was painfully thin and very scared. Slowly, he began to trust his new family, and more importantly eat like a lion. He also blossomed into a loving family pet and got along with everyone, including the family cat.

By South OB Girl

San Diego based photographer Vanessa Simmons has attracted quite a bit of attention nation wide with her “Normalize Breastfeeding Tour.” She has previously been featured in Vogue, The Huffington Post, and here at The OB Rag/San Diego Free Press.

Vanessa started Normalize Breastfeeding in 2014 – a project intended to bring awareness to breast-feeding through photography.

And August is National Breastfeeding Month (which many of us may not have known). And August 25 – 31st is Black Breastfeeding Week.

Black Breastfeeding Week (BBW) was created because for over 40 years there has been a gaping racial disparity in breastfeeding rates. The most recent CDC data show that 75% of white women have ever breastfed versus 58.9% of black women.

BBW is intended to focus on the racial disparity and draw attention to the issue. Here are the top 5 reasons behind BBW :

By John Lawrence

Americans are using drugs of various kinds at an increasing rate. Of course drugs have been around for a long time, since the beginning of time in fact.

In 5000 BC the Sumerians used opium.

The earliest record of alcohol production was in Egypt in 3500 BC. Tea in China was used in 3000 BC.

Humans have used various substances to manipulate and alter their mood levels for millennia.

In the category of drugs I include any mood altering substance such caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, prescription drugs such as opiods and other pain killers, amphetamines etc.

For years the residents of the Point Loma and Ocean Beach areas have been complaining of the noise and air pollution spewed forth nightly by SeaWorld. Some people that own dogs have complained that the dogs are scared nightly by the horrendous percussion sounds while trying to hide from the shaking windows and doors. Some people that have children and babies complain that it wakes them up, usually crying, and has affected their everyday life.

Sunday night, August 15th, was one of the worst incidents of noise that I have heard in a long time. The noise reverberated for over two minutes; and as soon as one could relax another wave hit. And it wasn’t just here on the Point. Looking over the comments made on Facebook, Laura stated that she heard it in La Mesa. She said it wasn’t real loud; more like thunder but it was from Sea World.

More details have emerged about the shooting that involved roommates on Ebers Street Monday, August 8th.

The man arrested for the shooting, Lance Touchstone, 40, a resident of Petaluma in northern California pleaded not guilty Tuesday, August 16, to the charges leveled against him: attempted murder and discharging a firearm.

Touchstone’s charges stem from the shooting of the boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend) of his sister Becky, one Jeff Renteria, 30 at their home on the 2100 block of Ebers Street.

Renteria was shot 3 three times and was taken to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries – to his right side with at least one to his abdomen.