Yep. I’m in love. Today I got a ride with Ted into town early, and hiked up to the Arboretum. Filled with flora from California, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa, I could barely take two steps before finding some exotic succulent, or a bench nestled among rare red-flowering eucalyptus, or scurrying rabbits and quail. I met the curator — oh how I covet his job! — and let my eyes guide my barely-clad feet through this wonderland garden.

Walking through the upper neighborhoods I found a perfect triangle patch of land for sale, overlooking a crested view of the bay, and surrounded by charming houses nested in lush, colorful gardens. No price, but it’s better that way. I need to send my parents on a pilgrimage first. Like-minded people, decent public transportation, beautiful neighborhoods, pedestrian and bicycle friendly, the only thing lacking is an eminently affordable cost of living. Real estate prices reflect the desiribility of a place, and Barbara warned that choosing a cheaper location got her house broken into five times in nine months — elsewhere there’s gang violence. Needless to say, she moved.

Next stop was the UC Santa Cruz campus. The students hurried through forest pathways and over foot bridges, taking for granted the park-like atmosphere and even a family of deer calmly grazing by the side of a classroom building. Elsewhere there are rolling fields, and food-producing gardens fed by student composting efforts. I finally grabbed a bus back to town, happy to rest my feet and refuel with a wrap from the little one-woman sidewalk cafe,  Alfresco.

I got to the library, the bookstore, and submitted my application to New Leaf organic grocery before Ted picked me up again on his way back. In the evening we watched the news (aka The Daily Show) and the Olympics, savoring the speedball slalome and the gracefully stunning figure skating, interspersed with conversation about Buddhism, Burning Man, and Ted’s own experiences at the Olympics as a gymnastics coach and international judge. He talked about how the US is slipping into a Third World country, and how capitalism and the military are preventing us from making our schools and transit systems and industry top-notch — instead we’re patching holes in a sinking boat as the infrastructure becomes outdated and degraded.

Of course, with all the traveling he and Barbara do, they see the effects of extreme thinking all over. In Turkey you can hardly mention human rights, and women are pressured to stay out of politics altogether. Politics is about compromise and reconciliation instead of creating a world we’d all like to see. Ted grew up in an era of the Can-Do attitude, and he’s seen how people can create an entire city without money or violence — the sharing of art, intellect, goods, and services he’s seen at Burning Man. Much as the authors of Cradle to Cradle advocate hinking of ways we can increase our positive impact on the environment rather than simply being “less bad,” Ted and Barbara seem to hope and work for changes in the way we interact, making the world not only safe and peaceful but vibrant and alive.

Now the question is how to act in a way the increases the meaningful connections between people, throughout time and space, and our habitats and cultures? As Ted said, the best thing would be if the Dalai Llama was ruler of the world — but if he was, he wouldn’t have to rule at all, because it would only happen when we all agreed that compassion was more valuable than currency.