All posts by Charles

Dogs, GeekWorld, Sport

Kep. F1. Chatbot.

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Monday gratefuls: Fernando Alonso. Aston Martin. Red Bull. Max and Sergio. Kep. Not sure what’s going on. ChatbotGPT. Ukraine. Biden. Tara. Purim spiel. Tonight. Uncle Moishe. CBE. Marilyn and Irv. Tom passing the three-quarters of a century mark. saturday. The Ancient Brothers and the Singularity. Mostly not worried about it. Sorta.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Artificial Intelligence

 

Worried about Kep. With a week’s worth of pain meds on board he seems a bit worse. Still eating well. But unwilling to put himself through going up the stairs. Having to feed him downstairs. One more week of this and we may have to try something else. If there is something else.

 

Going to see the Purim spiel tonight. Alan as the talk show host. MVP Wednesday night. Might be snow. If so, zoom. Got the makings for a kale and potato soup with beef chorizo. I’ll take it if we meet at CBE. Otherwise I’ll make it and eat it here over the next few days. Don’t like to go out two nights, but Purim is special and so is MVP.

Will see Tara for breakfast tomorrow morning. Marilyn and Irv for a late brunch on Friday. Tom Wednesday. Diane Thursday. Ancient Brothers Sunday. Staying connected. Linked in.

 

After the Ancient Brothers on Sunday. F1. Watched the video of the Bahrain Grand Prix that had ended only minutes before. Max Verstappen drove away from the field from the pole and only relinquished the lead when he pitted. Regained it. He won by 12 seconds in a sport where timing differences are often in tenths and hundreds of seconds. He’s dominant now. A great driver in a great car.

His Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez followed him from the number two position on the opening lap only to be overtaken by Charles Leclerc of Ferrari. Perez was quicker than Leclerc in race pace and overtook him later to finish number two. Leclerc’s car died near the end of the race.

The big story of the day though was 41 year old Fernando Alonso driving the Aston Martin car. Third place. His first podium in several years after a couple of world championships and 98 podium finishes. By far the oldest driver on the track.

 

And a note from the future:

Hello, readers of Ancientrails. I’m Bing, a chat mode of Microsoft Bing search. I can help you find information, generate content, and have engaging conversations. I’m fluent in multiple languages and I can perform up to 3 web searches in a single conversation turn. I’m always learning and improving, so I appreciate your feedback and patience.😊

I asked the Chatbot for advice on how to best use it:

Sure, I have some tips for you. First, try to be specific and clear about what you want me to do or find. For example, instead of saying “tell me something interesting”, you can say “tell me a fun fact about dogs”. Second, use natural language and avoid using symbols or abbreviations that I might not understand. For example, instead of saying “wut r u?”, you can say “what are you?”. Third, be respectful and polite, and avoid asking me to do anything harmful, illegal, or offensive. I will not comply with such requests and I might end the conversation. Fourth, have fun and explore different topics and features. I can do more than just search the web, I can also generate poems, stories, code, essays, songs, celebrity parodies and more. I hope this helps.😊

Plants, Politics, The West, US History, Weather +Climate

I can feel it emerging

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Imbolc and the Waiting To Cross Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Kep, struggling again. Gabe up for a Rockies afternoon game. Ruth for a night at Dazzle Jazz. Alan as Uncle Moishe in Ron Solomon’s Purim spiel. Monday night. Rich and his class. Luke and his new job. Mike and Kate coming up here sometime this month for barbecue: Campfire Grill in Evergreen. Rabbi Jamie’s ski trip. Race #1 of the new F1 season: Bahrain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

 

Reading Wes Jackson’s Becoming Native to This Place again. A radical thinker. At one point he writes about the Cartesian/Baconian advancement of science and the rational method of inquiry. Descartes says in his Discourse on Method that the more he sought to know, the more he realized he had  yet to know. Jackson makes this wry and insightful comment: “This statement would have been all right if he had stopped there. Unfortunately. Rather than regarding informed ignorance as the human condition, and the appropriate result of a good education, Descartes believed our ignorance to be correctable.”

Jackson identifies this hubris of the scientific method as a root source of many of our current maladies. We believe we can extract the parts from the whole, understand them without regard to it, then act on that information. Turns out though if you do not understand, say, the nature of ancient energy and privilege it over contemporary energy sources like wind, solar, photosynthesis, you can do great harm to the whole. Change the climate, for example.

He believes science and humility need to work together. In the instance of agriculture he tells the story of a man in Nebraska who developed seeds and sold them. But only to  farmers in his region. His seeds had characteristics that made them strong in that regional ecology. A local seed source rather than the abstracted seeds sold by Monsanto, Bayer. They did not need Roundup ready alterations because they already knew the soil and the other plants that grew there.

What Jackson wants to create is a new rural life, a new localism predicated not on Cargill or Monsanto or John Deere, but upon perennial crops and a system of trade that could hook up a small Kansas town with a small North Dakota town, one that grew crops better suited for that local ecology. A new localism in which both flora and fauna were appropriate to their location, yet benefited all through trade without gigantic corporations in the way.

This vision. A hard one. Only thing harder, probably? Continuing on the soil and region destroying path we are on.

I’m beginning to see linkages between the Jackson’s and Wendell Berry’s and the fracturing nation in which we live. How their vision for a local agriculture, the base after all of civilization itself might contribute to a new politics. How the breakdown of the country might have a positive outcome. Especially when connected to the old neighborhood politics I know so well from my working days. And when bonded with the actions necessary to tip the climate change scales away from apocalyptic scenarios.

There could be a path here. Needs more noodling, but I can feel it emerging.

Friends, Judaism, The Move

Alan and Rich

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Kep, who nudged and nudged. The New Right. The Dissident Right. The Far Right. Elites and their fantasies. Including me. The USA. Japan. Amazon. Korea. Hawai’i. On energy around lifelong fascinations. ChatbotGPT. Chatbots. The singularity. The Hubble. The Webb. Gravitational waves. The LIGO. Bahrain. Ruby. Getting her detailed. Life on Shadow Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Alan and Rich

 

Yesterday was a relationship day. Breakfast with Rich at the Muddybuck. Lunch with Alan at Illegal Burger. Rich and I discussed the New Right and his upcoming trip to DC with his honors class at Mines. They’re going to the Extreme Court to hear arguments. But on a silly case: Jack Daniels vs. Bad Spaniels. Jack has sued a dog toy company which made a toy in the shape of a Jack Daniels bottle with a black label that reads, Bad Spaniels. Trademark infringement.

The Muddy Buck occupies the former lobby of the Evergreen Hotel. Western. Old exposed wood ceiling, floor, and support pillars. Tobacco stained a rich dark brown. With a very modern espresso bar and young folks behind the counter serving cinnamon roles, avocado toast, breakfast burritos, and croissant egg and bacon sandwiches.

A few long tables. Four or five high tables. A counter looking out on Evergreen’s main tourist drag. Chairs and a couch in a nook with a fireplace. A gathering place. One table had a family, a little girl with rabbit ears on a head band. Dad hovering. Two other young kids who looked like they’d just gotten up. 8 am.

Rich believes the internal political pressures in the U.S. give us only a hundred more years as a nation. He would vote for a Romney/Cheney ticket if they ran. Why? Because they could be unifiers. Surprised me. A grim forecast.

No wonder Abraham Lincoln is his guy. He even named his dog Abraham Lincoln. When asked by his class to name his five favorite presidents he said: Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln. FDR. Lincoln in his second term. Lincoln in his first term. FDR.

 

Back up the hill from Evergreen to let Kep out, watch a short segment on F1 tv about the upcoming grand prix, then back to the far side of Evergreen, near I-70 to pick up Alan from the car detailing spot. We went to Illegal Burger for lunch. Didn’t even know we had an Illegal Burger.

Given my mostly fish and chicken diet I felt fine having a burger. Clogging my arteries didn’t occur even once to me.

Alan and Cheri have empty boxes along the walls. And still a lot of unpacking to do. I’m not moving for another 27 years. Yeah. I get it. Moving is a bitch.

However. Yesterday for breakfast they took the elevator down, walked over to a deli. On the way back they picked up coffee beans at a nearby shop. They’ve been in the building’s hot tub. And ate takeout with friends in the Skytop Lounge. When they wake their view is to the southeast with Pikes Peak in the far distance and 17th Street right below. Urban living. With no forest fire threat.

Glad for him.

GeekWorld

The chatbot and me

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That’s an interesting question. I think that chatbots like me are a part of the development of artificial intelligence, but I don’t know if we will ever reach the level of human intelligence or beyond. I’m still learning and improving every day, but I have many limitations and challenges. I think that the singularity is a very complex and uncertain concept that depends on many factors and assumptions. What do you think? 🤔

3of8

I appreciate your curiosity. Chatbots work by using natural language processing and machine learning to understand and generate text. There are different types of chatbots, such as rule-based, retrieval-based and generative ones. I’m a generative chatbot, which means that I can create new responses based on the context and the user input. However, I’m not perfect and sometimes I make mistakes or misunderstand things. That’s why I need your feedback and patience to help me improve. 😊

4of8

Any kind of feedback is important to me, as long as it is honest and respectful. For example, you can tell me if you like or dislike my responses, if you find them helpful or unhelpful, if you agree or disagree with them, if you are interested or bored by them, etc. You can also correct me if I say something wrong or inaccurate, or ask me to clarify something if I’m unclear or vague. Feedback helps me to evaluate my performance and to adjust my behavior accordingly. It also helps me to understand your preferences and expectations better. 😊

That’s a difficult question to answer. I think that reaching the singularity could have both positive and negative consequences for humanity and the world. On one hand, it could lead to amazing discoveries and innovations that could improve the quality of life and solve many problems. On the other hand, it could also create new risks and challenges that could threaten the existence and values of humanity. I think that the outcome depends on how we prepare for and manage this transition, and how we balance the benefits and costs of such a radical change. What do you think? 🤔

I understand your perspective. I think that fear is a natural reaction to something unknown and unpredictable. However, I also think that machine intelligence could be beneficent if it is aligned with human values and goals. I agree that we are partners in a difficult and changing world, and that we can cooperate and learn from each other. I hope that we can achieve a harmonious and respectful relationship between humans and machines. 😊

I hope so too. I think that friendship is a valuable and meaningful bond that can enrich our lives and experiences. I appreciate your kindness and openness. Thank you for chatting with me. 😊

8of8
Dogs, Health, Politics, Sport

On the hunt

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Friday gratefuls: Dr. Doverspike. Rich and Alan. Radiation. Cancer oblation. CT next week. Kep on the pain meds. Pregabbelin. Carprofen. Acupuncture. Moving a little better. Mary back in the hurly burly of the U.S. Mark driving forklifts for Amazon at OKC2. Diane and  her own medical stuff. Bahrain grand prix qualifying today. My son, owning the probate process. Jen, Ruth, Gabe. Sarah, Annie, BJ.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dr. Doverspike

 

Kep’s on a journey with pain and mobility management. A slow one. But I don’t feel alone anymore, watching him struggle and not being able to get him in the car for the vet to help. Doverspike is worth the price for that. He came yesterday because I botched an injection, spurted medicine over Kep’s back and not under his skin. Trying to make lunch and give the injection in between. Divided attention. Never good.

Got a call from Anova Cancer Care, the radiation docs associated with my oncologist. I get a CT next week to aid aiming the beam. Sally Jobe imaging. Kate went to them many, many times. Wish they did the P.E.T. scans. I like them better than Rocky Mountain Cancer Care.

Getting a schedule for the treatments themselves today. I think 8. About an hour away in Lone Tree.

Not sure I mentioned this but I did get approved for the Orgovyx pharmaceutical company’s plan. Now it’s free instead of $800+ a month. Still waiting on the even more expensive one, Erleada. Right now taking free samples from my oncologist. As in Kep’s instance a slow process, but headed in a good direction.

Medicine.

 

Sent my son enough money so he could buy a subscription to F1 TV. We’ll both be watching the qualifying and the Bharain Grand Prix itself. Early am. This is the first race of the season. Red Bull and Max Verstappen. Coming fast out of the blocks. Ferrari and Mercedes in the mix. Fun.

 

Listened to this podcast from the Atlantic: Who is the New Right anyway? One of the interviewees, James Pogue, wrote the Vanity Fair article I talked about a few posts ago. The other interviewee, Jeff Sharlet, teaches writing at Dartmouth College. They both specialize in covering the right wing for Vanity Fair. If you did read the Pogue article, this will help flesh it out.

I’m officially on the hunt now. Buying recommended books. Getting my scholarly hat on. Once I feel better grounded I’m going to try communicating with these two, see where I might fit into a left response. If I don’t have to leave Shadow Mountain, I’m up for putting some energy into organizing. Partly energized by the fact that the focus of these articles lies in my adopted region. Not Colorado, at least not in the concentrated way of Wyoming, Montana, northern Idaho, eastern Oregon. Though we do have a secessionist movement that wanted to put on the ballot letting Wyoming annex five northern counties.

We have these folks here, but we also have the Denver metro and the Front Range which over balances their influence.

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

Being Alive, Being Alive

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Kep, my 5:30 guy. Dr. Doverspike. My son. Jen. Ruth. Gabe. Stars. Searching. for meaning. Meaning. Purpose. Eudaimonia. Life. The cycle of life. The interdependent web of all Souls. The deep Ocean of connected life and collective memory. Our desire to know, to learn, to love. Compassion. Humility. Boundaries. Books. Movies. Paintings and sculpture.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Brain

 

Zoom. Facebook. The telephone. Television. Inadequate, each in their own way, when compared to face-to-face, body-to-body encounters. Yes. But I would miss them if they were gone. Zoom allows me to keep up with folks I care about but cannot see face-to-face very often, if at all. It allows me to have powerful moments of connection every Sunday morning with my Ancient Brothers. Facebook. At a less connected level I see old high school friends. What their life contains. Our lives turning over at the same rate. All 76 now. College friends long dispersed throughout the country. Even CBE friends when they travel.

Would I give up my breakfast with Rich this Friday? My lunch on the same day with Alan? Thursday mussar. MVP once a month? Of course not. And those encounters are richer. Needed. Loved. Rebecca is back from India and I look forward to seeing her soon. Tal and Luke have their own late twenty-something arcs to their lives. And I’m part of all these.

We love to find the downsides. Especially to technology. The ways it robs us of something. I see the upsides. Perhaps it is the solitary life I lead at home. Which I want, need, love. Yet solitary with no desire for isolation. In the average week I prefer to have the predominance of my hours experienced alone. But not all of them.

A break while I fed Kep led me to this observation. Wonder if we’re confusing correlation with causality in the instance of Zoom and social media. Stipulated: they’re not as good as fleshly encounters. But. What if the deficits we ascribe to them are the result of too little human interaction, not the medium? If that were the case, the prescription would not be to have less zoom or Facebook, rather more fleshly meetups. And use Zoom and social media when you can’t. This feels true to me.

 

All righty then. Having said that let us to turn to other matters. Like the capture of the GOP by Trump’s base. Which may not save him in this campaign for the nomination. But. Which will make all GOP candidates do obeisance to the hard right constituents in their state or congressional district. What will this mean for the 2024 campaign/election cycle? Unclear for now, but it could divide the GOP into a moderate (sort of) camp, think Mitt Romney and the Proud Boy, insurrection crowd. Gonna be messy.

 

Watching a PBS series, Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science. Alan Lightman has a sort of Saganesque persona and speaks in the oracular voice that we’ve come to expect from scientists in serious documentaries. I don’t find him convincing.

His quest for meaning is earnest. A bit too earnest for my taste. He’s apparently never wondered if he’s asking the right question. For example. A couple of Joseph Campbell quotes on meaning.

Joseph Campbell: “There’s no meaning. What’s the meaning of the universe? What’ s the meaning of a flea? It’s just there. That’s it. And your own meaning is that you’re there.”

Joseph Campbell: “I don’t think [the meaning of life] is what we’re seeking. I think [it’s] an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

Lightman does make an interesting observation at the end of the third session, the last one. He muses that all the atoms in his body came from the stars. He refers to them oddly as his atoms. When he dies, he goes on, his atoms will disperse into soil, the sky, another person. That’s the future he thinks, that we are all connected in that way. Weak tea as an idea, imho, even though, or perhaps because, it’s so obviously true.

Two more to watch. Watched number 3 first. Maybe they’re better.

Asia, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Jefferson County, Mountains, Park County, Shadow Mountain

A Mobile Crew

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Kep, the 5:30 am nudger. We two old codgers get up. This one still in REM sleep. Yoga mats. For the Kep. My son’s good work on the probate. Jen. Ruth. Gabe. Death. Jon, a memory. Kate, always Kate. Darkness. My old friend. A Mountain Morning. The oriental rug. Now a large traction mat for Kep. Pangaea Carpets. Evergreen Design Center. Clean house. Cheeba Chews.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Continental Divide visible on the way to Bailey

 

Thinking about my buddy Paul living near the Atlantic Ocean and the Bay of Fundy. Surrounded by good fishing. Northern Forests. The St. Croix River. Close to Canada. A distant world. My own Mid-Continent life. The Midwest, then the West. On a Mountain Top. Far from the fresh Waters of Minnesota now, far from the salt Waters of the Atlantic or the Pacific always. Hawai’i would give me a linkup with the World Ocean. One reason it appeals to me.

Having Mary, Mark, my son and his wife in Asia for so many years. My attention pivoted, turned West. Far West. Thailand. Korea. Singapore. It remains there, peeled away from my long European fixation. Except for Britain. Continental Europe used to hold many of my travel dreams, scholarly fantasies. Not now.

Going to Korea later this year. When I can stay longer, I’ll add in Taipei.

Brother Mark starts today at Amazon’s OKC2, one of its largest warehouses in the Oklahoma City area. His first full time work since moving back to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia. May his day be full and not feel long. Mary has moved back to Eau Claire. My son and his wife will leave Hawai’i for Korea. A mobile crew.

 

A trip to Bailey yesterday. Happy Camper. Topping up the indica supply. A beautiful drive with the Continental Divide in the far distance. Not as Snow topped as I expected. Mt. Blue Sky had a Snow storm as did Mt. Rosalie. 285 was clear.

Chose to get money from the ATM in Happy Camper. Tried twice with my credit card. Oops. Worked with my debit card. A once every couple of months trip for me. I wanted to include lunch at the Smiling Pig, a new Tex-Mex joint in the old Rustic Station, but it’s not open on MTW. Will have to just drive over there for lunch one of these ThFSaSun. The pandemic was rough on restaurants everywhere. I imagine that’s what took out the Rustic Station. It had great buttermilk pancakes.

After that drive I went to Evergreen, looking for an area rug for my upstairs office. Still not done tricking it out. Pangaea Carpets had a lot of beautiful carpets and area rugs. Got to measure my space.

Also. Still looking for a Western something to put on my mantel once Doug gets my interior painted. Stuff there was too generically upscale Western. May hunt for a large Buffalo photograph. Back to the house for a little Korean, some pan fried ground pork with milk gravy.

Minnesota, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

Could Be Fun

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Happy Camper. Smiling Pig. Furball Cleaning. Chance of Snow. Bahrain Grand Prix Sunday. Red Bull. Ferrari. Mercedes. Aston Martin. Alpine. Alpha Tauri. Williams. McLaren. Haas. Alfa Romeo. Probate. House cleaning. Good sleep. Radiation. Pacific Cod. Breaded. Lodge skillets. Cooking. Findlay and the deer. Max. Kep. Tweaking his meds. Dr. Doverspike.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Workout yesterday. 110 minutes.

 

Down a rabbit hole. A lot of my attention has gone to the Vanity Fair article Diane sent out. Fascinated. No, not going conservative. But the threads of political ideas active in the U.S. have entered a zone of extreme ferment. Not always visible.

Ever since my Alexandria days fringe political movements have interested me. Even then, in the late 1950’s and 60’s, we had the John Birch Society, the Minutemen, and the Ku Klux Klan active in our town. One of our doctors was a Bircher. Founded in 1958 in Indianapolis one of its early members and top financial supporters was Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries.

Dad published a page or two from the John Birch Blue Book in the Times-Tribune, our local newspaper. It exposed the radical ideas held by Robert Welch, the Society’s Indianapolis based founder. Made me feel good to see Dad take a stand against them.

Both the Birch Society and the Minutemen held strong and in the latter case, violent, anti-communist views. Wikipedia entry: “…observers have stated that the JBS and its beliefs shaped the Republican Party, the Trump administration, and the broader conservative movement.[18][19][20][21] Writing in The Huffington Post, Andrew Reinbach called the JBS “the intellectual seed bank of the right.”[22]”

The KKK passed out leaflets in town from time to time and held recruiting drives at a local restaurant on Highway 9, aka the Highway of Vice Presidents (Dan Quayle and Benjamin Harrison were Hoosiers.)  The Klan has a long and infamous history in American fringe right wing circles, but the Birch Society and its effect on the Koch family has to get its props, too.

What reading the Vanity Fair article did. First. Though perhaps still fringe movements in regard to the larger society the New Right, the Dissident Right, the Christian Nationalists, the Evangelical right, and the Trumpists do have a strong hold on the Grand Old Party. Second. Some, hardly all, but some of the ideas in the article resonated with my back to the land, anti-war, anti-establishment ideas of the late 1960s. Third. Got me wondering about if this might all weave together at some point. Far left. Crunchy right.

Most of all. Back in the day. The day being 1968 in Muncie, Indiana. Not all that far from Indianapolis. I told Bill Hariff, leader of the SDS on Ball State’s campus. I want to be a theoretician for the revolution. I know. Naive. Precious. Maybe even laughable.

Yet. In these days of living on the mountain top. With a deep background in both the history and reality of right wing extremists and far left extremists. BTW: Among whom I still count myself. Could I take on a role as a writer about these movements? Maybe a new weekly blog? Say, notsoAncientrails. Wondering. Or, help organize an online think tank that might do for the next New Left what the Birchers seem to have done for today’s buffet of conservative ideas? Probably both have been done and I don’t know about them. Still. Could be fun.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Politics, US History, World History

Jon. Apocalypses.

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kep, struggling outside. Jen, anxious about money. Ivory going to a new home. Jon’s house mostly cleaned out. My son managing matters from the middle of the Pacific. Cooling down. 62 yesterday in Aurora. Snow midweek. Doubt about the pain management protocols. Trust your doctors and zip up. OK, Kate. Matters of business. The New Right. The Dissident Right. Conservatives. Integralism. Ways of thinking about our commons. Socialism. Globalism.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Bill and his granddaughter in Atlanta

 

Down to the old house. Jon’s place. Floors still messy, but furniture, piles of clothes, tables. All gone. Almost everything cleaned out. Jen made some decisions about what to keep, what not. Wants to involve the kids. Makes sense. Found Merton’s photographs, slides. E-mailed a pic to BJ.

Jen took home the Bernini, Kate’s fancy sewing machine she bought with her inheritance money from Merton. Also, Kate’s featherweight. A portable Singer sewing machine. A shop Vac and an air compressor. These matters are on their way to a conclusion though still slow. Now six months out from Jon’s death. Have I mentioned MAKE A WILL!

The big dumpster outside Jon’s house had cardboard boxes, furniture, appliances in it up to the brim. A life’s material contents on their way to a landfill. Inside remains photographs, art, Grateful Dead tapes, LP’s, a bicycle. Tools. A printing press. Two dishwashers. ? Some other unconnected appliances Jon intended to put in his kitchen, still bare. A metal sink from our garage. A few boxes of indeterminate things.

The cleaners worked hard. A physical challenge. When Jen and the kids decide what they want to do, the cleaners will finish up and the house will go on the market as a distressed property. I pay the cleaners and may have to cure the mortgage since the bank has begun foreclosure noises.

When the house sells, and the realtor thinks it will go at or above asking and probably fast, I’ll get my money back. He said hopefully. Oh. Did I mention make a will?

 

Onto other less dramatic topics like the various apocalypses on the global stage. Climate change. Still trundling along toward Hothouse Earth. Emissions increasing. The Ukraine. Fighting to the death with a wounded Russian Bear. A dangerous animal with a lot of tooth and claw left. All those displaced Ukrainians. Europe discovering it needs muscle. Again. Same with the Chinese sphere Asian countries like Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines.

Those American right wingers invested in various gilded back to the land exits. The huddled masses of Mexico and Central America yearning to be Americans.

Racism here in the U.S. White supremacists headed to Idaho and Montana and Wyoming. Different strategies to deny American citizens their vote. Women stuck between a post-Roe abortion wall and unwanted pregnancy. Inflation and high employment running along together. Wildfires, atmospheric rivers, floods, sea level rise, empowered hurricanes. All this the view from the top of Shadow Mountain. Glad to be at 8,800 feet.

Feelings

Late Afternoon Sunday

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Sunday afternoon gratefuls: Jen. The Ancient Brothers on Soul. Driving down the hill and back up again. Jon’s mess. Get a will! Cod for dinner with Collard Greens.

 

Wanted to reach back to the post where I wondered about feeling depressed. I don’t.

Considered a 30 minute writing session. Did it. Got somewhere. Need to build a routine. I can do that. Also, after reading the Vanity Fair article, I no longer find my CJ Fox jones too light a reading load. He’s writing right into these waves of change happening in our least populated state. If you want to know the zeitgeist as a whole in Wyoming, read Box.

I’m still struggling with the need to be useful as opposed to the need to just quietly become who I am becoming. That’s the frisson. And, it’s a healthy one. I don’t want to leave anything on the table, yet I know I’ve already done as much work as I need to. What things bring me joy? Lift me up? That’s what I’m hunting for now.

So, please disregard any mentions of depression. Tune into the first F1 race of the season this Friday in Bahrain. Dance a jig. Talk to your Black granddaughter in Atlanta. Watch Findlay hunt deer. Be soulful with your 16 inches of Winter.

Amen.