No Impairment of Our View

June 9, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

71 bar steady 29.64 0mph SE dew-point 51 Beltane, Sunny and warm

First Quarter of the Flower Moon

Ah, Costco. A vast and cavernous market, as much a temple to the American obsession with stuff as store. Two 40 pound bags of mature dog dogfood, Kirkland, and a box of dog biscuits plus $100 on the Costco gas card, a sort of futures market in which I bet that Costco prices will be under those of the competitor gas stations. After a trip in which each tankfull of 11 gallons or so cost over $44 in my compact Toyota Celica, it seems like a good wager. Through the lines with others and their carts, as American as fast food and credit cards, I spent $161 dollars on dog nourishment and car nourishment.

Back home I put the dogfood in the container we use for it, then went out to the shed that Jon built. It houses the chainsaw. When I found it needed gas, I had to schlep out to the further shed where I store the sharp and mechanical tools as well as gas and oil.

Filled up I hiked out to the front yard and began pruning branches off Amur maples. The first one to go was the one I mentioned yesterday, broken in some storm or another. Then a couple that had long impinged on a spruce and a Norway pine. At another clump of Amur’s I pruned some large dead branches, small trunks really all of these, and a few low hanging live ones.

While Kate mowed, I moved these cumbersome items down the hill and into the huge storm water drainage depression we share with our neighbor. This wise feature is as far across as our lot and goes back about three hundred feet. It slopes on all four sides down to a level bottom. This ensures that the run off our roofs and yards soak into the soil, rather than into nearby wetlands or Roundlake. Since it has no other purpose and is large, it can hide many branches, even tree trunks with no impairment of our view.

Kate’s finished mowing and I’m taking her out to lunch. Bye.

Art and Culture, Friends, Garden

A Bad Break

June 9, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

68 bar steady 29.65 2mph ESE dew-point 56 Beltane, Sunny and sort of warm

First Quarter of the Flower Moon

“Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.” – James Russell Lowell

My docent friend, Bill Bomash, fell 10 feet into a culvert at a mountainside home in Brazil. He had gone there to visit a friend who had recently completed his new house. I wrote about him a couple of months ago. He had two weeks in an all Portugese speaking hospital after the intial orthopedic surgery because he developed an infection, not unusual when a lot of hardware goes into the bone. This happened in January. He faced six months of recovery when he finally got back to Minnesota in early February.

Now this:

Hi everybody. Well I got some disappointing news the other day. I’ve been having more pain in my leg and when I went into the doctor he said that he thought the hardware in my leg was failing. As a result, there was too much movement in the bone. I’m going into the hospital again on Monday for surgery to remove all the hardware and have a rod inserted through the bone to hold it in place. I’m afraid it’s pretty much back to square one.
It looks like it will be quite a while yet before I can return to touring.
I’ll get back to you with an update after the surgery and I have returned back home.

In a much more modest instance I had three months of recovery after surgery to repair my ruptured Achilles tendon. It drove me nuts. Six months after the initial break Bill now faces another six months of recovery. Geez.

Off to Costsco for dogfood, then chainsaw Charlie will emerge and start whacking off limbs. Of trees.

Cinema and Television, Garden, Great Wheel

Sad Movies Always Make Me Cry

June 8, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

60 bar steady 29.59 0mph NNW dewpoint 59 Beltane, night

Waxing Crescent of the Flower Moon

What a beauty. This crescent moon, nearing the first quarter, has two stars above it, one low toward the horn and the other on a thirty degree angle further away. Rain scrubbed the sky clean tonight, so they sparkle. We only to look to the moon and the stars to find ample inspiration. Do we need another layer, a human interpretation of the wonder we feel when we see the great star road? I’m not so sure anymore.

The list of movies I haven’t seen that others have a long time ago included Dances With Wolves until tonight. Not many movies make me cry, but the closing scenes when Dances With Wolves and Stands With A Fist leave the winter village did. Especially moving to me was Wind in the Hair crying from the cliff top, “Dances With Wolves, do you hear me? Do you know that I will always be your friend?”

When the soldiers killed Dances With Wolves’ horse and then his wolf companion, I also cried. The wolf’s loyalty and love repayed with death. These two incidents capture so much of the casual violence that American culture legitmates. Once again, I cringed at the harsh lessons of the frontier.

Weeding tomorrow. Oh, boy. Also, I get to do some chainsaw pruning. We lost a main branch off one of our Amur Maples. They have a tendency to fragility so it didn’t surprise me.

Garden

The O Club

June 8, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

73 bar falls 29.59 0mph E dew-point 63 Beltane, cloudy

Waxing Crescent of the Flower Moon

Finished putting down Preen in the flower beds. The straw for mulch in the vegetable beds took a bit longer, but not much. The beets have grown, as have their bedmates, the carrots. The corn is ankle high by the 8th of June.

The garlic nears its time for harvest. The water is shut off and I wait now for the stems to die back. Don’t know why I’m so fascinated with growing garlic, but I am. Looks like a good crop.

The onion bed, too, has made great strides. Green hollow leaves spear through the hay, sending food down to the bulbs underneath the ground, energy Kate and I will harvest. Two hills of gourds and one of squash have broken through and begun to leaf. The beans Kate planted are on their fourth and sixth leaves. Lettuce sown a while back has enjoyed the cool weather and begun to flourish.

The tomato plants outside have yet to go through a real growth spurt and I finally pruned back the one inside. A different, more hydroponic friendly variety will produce better and now I have to find one. We continue to harvest lettuce each day for salads, so lettuce works.

We have a few other stray plants in odd locations some watermelon, cucumber and peppers. They’re all healthy.

The bearded iris have begun to bloom, while the smaller purple varities have begun to fade. Not much else blooming right now, save for the lilacs, the bleeding hearts and the annuals Kate planted. The garden is lush, green. Healthy.

The almost II lieutenant called. It has hit him that he needs a bed. All the officers have to live off base at Tyndall and he will be there for well over a year. He’s going to have to fly to Denver, rent a U-Haul truck and drive back to base. He does not, however, have a bed. Don’t know what to say to him. Suppose I could drive the truck and take the bed in his old room down to him. I don’t know.

He’s cranked. His class got initiated into the wonders of the O club, as he called it. The Officer’s Club. It has traditions, though what they are he didn’t say. His skin color has worked to his advantage so far. He’s been picked for some extra duties, to show Generals and other dignitaries around OTS. Face time with the high command. He says he knows who he is and if they want to work it that way it’s ok with him.

Family, Politics

Cast Out Your Doubts. Carpe Diem.

June 8, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

68 bar steady 29.67 3mph NE dew-point 56 Beltane, cloudy and warm

Waxing Crescent of the Flower Moon

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

A wise thought from our third greatest president (after GW and Abe). What we doubt we can do today will not happen tomorrow. It may even fade from the horizon line of possibility altogether. A terrible example is the 3/5’s compromise. The generation which founded our country had many leaders who knew slavery was a burden too great for the Republic to bear. Among them were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Too many, though, doubted a solution to slavery was possible at this time and so agreed to count 3/5’s of the slave population when it came to census figures determining congressional representation. This doubt obscured slavery’s tragedy, a holocaust of freedom, in a nation founded on the principles of freedom and liberty for all.

The payment for these doubts came due in 1861 with the Confederate shelling of Ft. Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina’s harbor. The next four years would exact a price in blood so high and a rent in the body politic so deep that this nation has not recovered. The tragedy compounded during reconstruction as freed slaves became tenant farmers, sharecroppers in states with Jim Crow laws. Lynchings. The KKK. Segregation. Limited practical voting rights. Employment discrimination.

Think how much further along our society would be in a movement toward a common culture, one shared by all Americans regardless of race, creed, gender, sexual preference or national origin if our founding fathers (yes, fathers) had set aside their doubts and made real the full promise of the American revolution.

With Obama’s candidacy we may be ready for a third movement forward toward such a culture. The Civil War was one. The 1950’s and 1960’s were another with Brown vs. the Board of Education, the Civil Rights act and the struggles of Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, the Black Muslims–especially Malcom X, CORE, the NAACP, SNICC and grass roots uprisings in many American cities.

Take stock of the doubts you have today about what you may realize tomorrow. They are the great barrier reef in your psyche between the ego’s fears and the manifestation of your full Self.

Some time outside this morning laying down weed preventer. This is prologomena to a thorough weeding this week before I take off for Alabama. A major focus this week will be helping Kate. She’s going to be here with the dogs for 10 days, again, after 6 days last week. Anything I can do now to make those days easier will be good.

Woolly Mammoths

A Happy Story about the Big C

June 7, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

78 bar falls 29.59 1mph W dew-point 55 Beltane, cloudy and warm

Waxing Crescent of the Flower Moon

Grocery shopping. Lunch and feed the dogs, then off to Minneapolis to Abbott-Northwestern Hospital. When I got into the Piper Building, the information desk had no one there. Up to the second floor. They directed me to the east elevators and floor 3. Lonnie was in 3556.

A closed door. I asked the nurse to go check. Stefan was in there. Lonnie had had a rough night and was still anxious from the meds she had on board. But. If the path from frozen sections on Wednesday confirm the initial findings during surgery, she will not need chemo or radiation. That means a clean excision. No penetration of the uterine wall. Therefore no cancer floating in the body at large.

Stefan and I talked for awhile. About waiting. Waiting for an appointment with an oncologist. Waiting for surgery and the prep for surgery. Waiting for the results of the surgery. Now, a much easier form of waiting. Waiting until Lonnie improves enough to go home.

A happy story about the big C. Not the one’s I recall from the paper. Diagnosed last week, dead this week. One to remember.

Taylor came by while Stefan and I talked. He had made jello for Lonnie, but it took longer than he thought to jell. He was on his way to a recording studio. He’s laid down 50 hip-hop songs, “kept 30 of them.” He has serious folks interested in his work. His ambition is impressive and his willingness to lay it out there suggests to me that he will succeed.

He had on a big billed hat with gold and logos, a hooded sweat shirt done in an almost 50’s preppy sock diagonal plaid. His pants, the low hanging denim variety have purple stitching on the rolled up cuffs and gold threaded designs on extra large back pockets. Trippy.

Back home for a snack and now a workout before Kate comes home from work.

Faith and Spirituality, Family

Circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the mark of the covenant between you and me.

June 6, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

68 bar falls 29.22 2mph SSW dew-point 62 Beltane, cloudy and rainy

Waxing Crescent of the Flower Moon (English)

Coming back from a journey throws the traveler back into daily life, matters that have been suspended on the road. This trip is no exception. Stefan’s wife, Lonnie, has surgery today for her adenocarcinoma. Kate’s got some problems at work. The tomato plant has not fruited. E-mail to catch up on. That pesky novel still calling to me. That sort of thing.

Let’s go back to the bris for a minute.

Here is the passage from the Torah that provides the theological rationale. It comes from Genesis 17:

1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said: “I am God the Almighty. Walk in my presence and be blameless. 2 Between you and me I will establish my covenant, and I will multiply you exceedingly.” 3 When Abram prostrated himself, God continued to speak to him: 4 “My covenant with you is this: you are to become the father of a host of nations. 5 2 No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations. 6 I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you. 7 I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.” 9 God also said to Abraham: “On your part, you and your descendants after you must keep my covenant throughout the ages. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you that you must keep: every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 Circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the mark of the covenant between you and me. 12 Throughout the ages, every male among you, when he is eight days old, shall be circumcised, including houseborn slaves and those acquired with money from any foreigner who is not of your blood. 13 Yes, both the houseborn slaves and those acquired with money must be circumcised. Thus my covenant shall be in your flesh as an everlasting pact. 14 If a male is uncircumcised, that is, if the flesh of his foreskin has not been cut away, such a one shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Verse 10 and 14 have the operative language. (no pun intended) First, circumcision is a sign of the covenant between Yahweh and the descendants of Abraham and Sara. Second, Gabe, in order to not be cut off from his people had to have his foreskin circumcised.

In the living room of Jon and Jen’s home the mohel, Jay Feder, set his instruments on a wooden table top. I asked him questions and in the process he and I bonded over our shared knowledge. Educated in several yeshiva and, for the purpose of the bris, in Jerusalem, Jay, a full time jeweler, is a bright and learned man. He’s also very funny.

His shtick included these off hand remarks, “Oh, I see Adrian (a six month old boy) is here. I hope he doesn’t remember me!” When Jon laid Gabe on the pillow (where Jay performs the circumcision), he laid him with his head toward Jay, who said, “So. Do you like his nose? You’re ok with it shorter?” Jon turned Gabe around on the pillow. He then turned to Jon and said, “All right. The father performs the bris. Are you ready?” And so on.

The chair in front of the table with the cloth on it is the Elijah chair. I asked Jay the significance of the Elijah chair. He told me the story of Elijah. You may remember Elijah. He challenged Ahab and his priest, Obadiah, to a contest of efficacy, their gods, Baal and Ahserah, against his, Yahweh. Long story short. Yahweh sends down fire and burns a sacrifical bull, and not only the bull, but the altar as well. Baal and Asherah did not. Later on, however, Elijah complains to Yahweh that the people of Israel have not been keeping the covenant. After this comment, Elijah suffers a demotion and has to anoint his student, Elisha, as his successor.

Later, Elijah leaves earth for heaven in a whirlwind, on a chariot of fire. He is the only character in the Tanakh who does not die. Rabbinic scholars have made much of the study of Elijah and they conclude that Elijah became a perpetual witness to those events in Jewish ritual life that affirm the covenant. “The rabbis say this may be a reward or it may be a punishment.” Elijah’s chair, then, gives concrete expression to Elijah’s presence at this most basic of all affirmations of the Abrahamic covenant.

This is Jon (my stepson) and Gabe with his knitted yarmulke. I wore one, too, but I don’t have a picture. Asked about the significance of the yarmulke, Jay said, “There are many answers, but one I like is that it shows where we stop and God takes over.”

After the bris itself, Gabe received his Hebrew name, Gavriel. This is Jon and Jen, Ruth and Gabe with Jay giving Gabe several sips of sweet wine.

Why wine? Glad you asked, Jay said. “The body starts deteriorating from the moment of birth until it finally gives up and dies. It is the reverse in the spiritual life. As life goes on our spiritual life becomes richer and richer until we make the transition after death. Wine is one of the things we know that follows the same path. As it gets older and older, it gets better and better.”

One of the things I admire and respect about Judaism is its emphasis on home-based worship and ritual. This event sacralized Jon and Jen’s living room. While Jay sang some of the blessings, I saw many of Jon and Jen’s neighbors pass by on the street. It was an interesting blend of cultures.

Travel

Tales to Tell, But Not Before I Sleep

June 5, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

65 bar falls 29.40 1mph NNE dewpoint 63 Beltane, cool and rainy

New Moon

A quick note to say I’m home. I have more to say about the bris and tales to tell about the rest of journey, too. But not now. It’s too late.

Family

Jay, the Mohel

June 3, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

Quite an afternoon and early evening.

At 3:30 Gabe had his first post hospital infusion of factor 8, the clotting factor largely absent from his blood. We drove a circuitous route through the new homes built on the site of the old Stapleton Airport.

We crossed out of that development into a poorer neighborhood, the one in which Jon and Jen both teach. It is also the location of a former Army base now occupied by the university of Colorado. It is also the site of the old Army hospital plus several new buildings that now constitute the University hospital.

In an old Army hospital building, with a wonderful Art Deco lobby, and old, undecorated halls and rooms is the hemophilia and thrombosis center. In there the women who staff it made kind noises and praised Gabe’s beauty.

We went back into a procedure room and there the nurse practitioner found a vein near Gabe’s left ear and slid in a needle attached to a line. She first drew blood to retest his factor level (occasional misdiagnosis), then inserted the hypodermic containing the factor into the line and pushed it into his bloodstream.

It works immediately and in fact aids in clotting the puncture created by the needle.

Gabe whimpered, then went quiet. In a minute Amy had a gauze patch over the puncture site and held it for about five minutes, just to be sure.

2 hours later, at Jon and Jen’s home, Rabbi and Jeweler, Jay performed a wonderful ritual. Jay and I hit it off. I held Gabe’s legs while Jay, the mohel, cut the foreskin in two practiced movements. There’s more to this, but I’m in a hotel lobby and I feel the need to move on. Later.

Family, GeekWorld, Politics

Liberalism on the Rise

June 3, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

Double tree has computers, but they come out in this really big font and I can’t figure out how to decrease the size. So, I’ll. just. shout. it. out. o. k. ?

When I left Jon and Jen’s last night, Barb was still at the ER at University Hospital. I’m headed over there now to help with housecleaning, so I’ll find out what happened.

There’s a line now at the computers. That’s what comes with socialism, when everything’s free. Or, at least when the cost is hidden. Gal just stood, drinking coffee, looking at me. Passive aggressive.

Read the newspaper this morning about the economy. Bad news. Which is good news for Democrats. Also, an interesting article by somebody named Jonathan Goldberg. He’s an editor of the National Review and author of a book, Liberal Fascism.

His perspective is that conservativism will rise again. He said over and over that Republican does not equal conservatism. The current administration spent like “a pimp with a week to live.” A colorful metaphor. I suspect the gut of his argument is correct, however, and that is that conservatism is a part of the American ethos and will only be challenged by a liberal ascendancy, not obliterated.

We can only hope that first, the ascendancy will happen, and that it will produce affects that have a long shelf life, like Social Security and Medicare. Which do need to get fixed. Amen.

OK. Out for now. See you on the flipside of the bris.