Category Archives: Politics

Back Pain, Dogs, Family, Health, Holidays, Politics

Black Friday

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Samain and the Radiation Moon

Friday gratefuls: Chart House. Thanksgiving. Ruth. Shadow, the rascal. Hip pain. The National Guard. Our weakened nation. Colorado. The Rockies. Wyoming. The Wind River Range. Yellowstone. The Druid Pack. Wolf 21. The West. Bison. Elk. Mule Deer. Lodgepole and Bristlecone Pine. The Krummholz line. 14’ers. Skiing. A-Basin. Aspen. Vail. Steamboat. Telluride. Crested Butte. Breckenridge. Copper Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Waxing Moon

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Gevurah      “While Chesed is associated with flow, Gevurah provides the structure that allows this flow, acting like river banks to channel energy. It is seen as essential for establishing healthy boundaries, creating space for important work, and preserving what is most valuable.”

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: The Chart House sat me at a four top, the last in a full house, where Great Sol’s presence came through a window wall; Mackenzie from Florida, my server, was cheerful and kind asking me if I was ready to order: Caesar Salad, Filet Mignon rare with Garlic mashed Potatoes, and Key Lime Pie which I quit halfway through the Filet, got a box for the rest, and trudged up hill to Ruby, my hip no longer quieted. Happy Thanksgiving.

 

Just a moment: Trump calls out the National Guard. Of West Virginia. To D.C. Where a judge rules their presence illegal. Ignored. Meanwhile a former CIA trained counter terrorism Afghani who lives in the state of Washington decides to drive cross country. Adding tragedy to tragedy. A living remnant of our failed war intersects violently with the idiocy of saving our cities by occupying them.

What does our rotund Dear Leader conclude from this? We need to tighten immigration. No, Donald. You need to stop using military force as a tool of repression and suppression. Instead of following the judge’s order red tie guy wants 500 more troops.

You need to, oh hell, I’ll just say it, resign and take Vance and Hegseth and Noemi and Kennedy with you. You can all live happily in MAHA/MAGA world at Mar-a-Lago while the adults get back to the serious business of governance.

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

Dog journal: Shadow has me looking at animal behavorists. Her behavior baffles me. She continues to hold back from coming inside. No treats, no cajoling, no sweet talk works. She does come inside, on her own time. Where she enjoys her meals, treats, toys, time with me. As if the back and forth of only moments before never happened.

She also, in spite of trying several different methods, will not let me put a leash on her. When I have, rarely, succeeded, she doesn’t seem to mind walking with the leash.

Other than those two behavioral quirks-major ones, I admit-she remains a sweet, loving girl who sleeps curled next to my pillow, enjoys treat play, toys, visitors both canine and human.

 

Health: The hip steroid injection does not seem to be holding. Disappointing since I had it just last week. The ablation, on the other hand, has relieved my pain on the left side. Wearing the neck brace when I drive helps fight fatigue. Too early to tell on the radiation with seven more sessions to go.

Family, Politics

Mad King Donald

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Samain and the Radiation Moon (3 sessions)

Thanksgiving gratefuls: Jackie. Ruth. Shadow. Todd and Alise. Rocky Mountain Cancer Care. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Mary. Mark. Diane. Gabe. The Ancient Brothers. Alan. Joanne. Marilyn and Irv. Tara. Luke. Ginny and Janice. Leo. Eleanor. Annie and Luna. Derek. My Wild Neighbors. The Night Sky. Orion. Polaris.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Gevurah      “While Chesed is associated with flow, Gevurah provides the structure that allows this flow, acting like river banks to channel energy. It is seen as essential for establishing healthy boundaries, creating space for important work, and preserving what is most valuable.”

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Ruth, my beloved granddaughter, who drove up here from Longmont and in turn drove me to my radiation session in Littleton, came back and put together the new kitchen stool for cooking, finished her chemistry homework with Luke’s assistance, and, for a final flourish made a sugar cream pie.

 

This morning she leaves for A-Basin to ski. Where she and her Dad skied every winter from when she was three or four. Fewer skiers on Thanksgiving day.

Ruth works two jobs. As a Starbucks’ barista and a cleaner in the CU library. She also has a full class load in the pre-med curriculum that includes biology, chemistry, statistics, and sociology. I’m so proud of her.

Gabe won a writing prize in a story contest that included 13,000 entries. 700 winners. Go, Gabe. He also got accepted into the University of Montana’s writing program with a $5,000 scholarship. Both of them had incredibly difficult childhoods, then their Dad died.

I admire their resilience.

 

Just a moment:  Here’s an important article in this month’s Atlantic:  The Conservative Movements Intellectual Collapse. Here are two sentences that give you the flavor.

“Trump’s most outrageous innovation was dispensing with the pretense that he needed to provide reasons for his positions…His greatest apostasy was not his rejection of any particular set of ideas, but his categorical rejection of the whole notion of ideas.”   And there you have it. Rule by whim and fancy. Our very own Mad King Donald.

The author, Jonathan Chait, one of my favorite Atlantic writers, shows how first gradually, then in toto, even previously independent think tanks like the Heritage Foundation fell under the Trumpist spell, explaining, for example, the strategic importance of Greenland and the Panama Canal, then, when nothing happened regarding them, stayed silent.

In the vacuum of ideas that is the Trumpian black hole it is not surprising that such entities as the New Apostolic Reformation, Christian Nationalism, and White Supremacists now led by Nick Fuentes who blithely owns his anti-Semitism with no cover at all, have taken the place of thought.

This may, as his term moves closer to its event horizon, leave a real opening for those of us with, well, ideas. There are now, for example, three mayors of major U.S. cities: Seattle, Boston, and New York City who are democratic socialists. Even the faded remnant of the Democratic Party may come up with an idea or two. (he said hopefully.)  May it be so.

 

 

Cancer, Health, Politics, US History

Riders in the Storm

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Samain and the Radiation Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Ruth. Sugar cream pie. Driving me to radiation today. Luke and Leo. Anne. Waxing crescent Moon. Christmas lights. Jackie and Rhonda. Shadow the mystery. Dog Poems. Billy Collins. Cold night. Darkness growing. Alise and Jenna. Skiing at A-Basin. Jon and my son. Brothers. Gabe, accepted to Montana. Black Bears. Mountain Lions. Wolves. Canada Lynx. Bobcats. Fox.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Linear accelerators

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Gevurah      “While Chesed is associated with flow, Gevurah provides the structure that allows this flow, acting like river banks to channel energy. It is seen as essential for establishing healthy boundaries, creating space for important work, and preserving what is most valuable.”

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: With Hannukah presents, Christmas presents, a kitchen stool, a ceiling fan, sheets for my bed all delivered, most still in their boxes, my living room looks like a receiving dock, a few opened, those Silence Please mugs for Gabe and Ruth, the Tuskegee Airmen hoodie and baseball cap plus the crystal ball with the planets suspended in it for my son, jigsaw puzzles, a color chart for the wall for Ruth, the kitchen stool, the ceiling fan, the sheets, mechanical puzzles of the most difficult category still taped and sealed shut. Holiseason

 

Alise and Jenna pull me a bit this way and that, put the plastic mesh on, and get me a warm blanket to cover my bare chest. Then they leave the room, closing the foot and a half thick lead and concrete door, and I am alone, offering my cancer as a sacrifice to the gods of radiation with my hands gripping metal rods behind me, keeping my arms out of the way.

A flashing red light signals danger, stay out, yet I remain. The Clinac iX whirs and buzzes, its looming bulkiness hidden from me, rotating, bringing the beam to bear on just. the. right. spot.

And. Over. Alise of the cold hands helps me get up while Jenna strips off the sheet, wipes down the hand rests and the neck rest, readying the sliding bed for another sacrifice already in waiting.

From reading yesterday I learned that a Clinac costs $1.5 million dollars and requires between three and five hundred thousand dollars in maintenance per year. The clinic or hospital also builds a concrete room with thick walls and doors to house it.

 

Just a moment: Comey and James cases dismissed. Presidential fatigue an issue. Red tie guy wants a bigger ballroom. Nobody seems to know whose page they’re reading from in Ukraine peace negotiations. Whatever happened to Gaza?

This clown car administration honks its horns, spins in circles, confuses themselves while the rest of us gasp open mouthed at matters never associated with the Presidency. Like his press secretary assuring us that the President does NOT want to execute members of Congress. Relieved to hear it. Like wanting to build a yet bigger gilded ballroom, one out of proportion with the White House.

Riders in the storm. Into his world we’re thrown.

 

 

Cooking, Dogs, Politics, US History

Never Waste a Crisis

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Samain and the Radiation Moon (#1)

Monday gratefuls: Meds. Orgovyx and Erleada. Radiation. Dr. Carter. Our current mess. Shadow, the regressor. Never waste a crisis. Cold weather. A Mountain morning. Sheet pan cooking. The Ancient Brothers. My electric blanket. Ukraine. Gaza. All the people. Imagine. Peace. Cold war. My son. His neighborhood: South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, the Philippines.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Learning, again, from Shadow

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Gevurah      “While Chesed is associated with flow, Gevurah provides the structure that allows this flow, acting like river banks to channel energy. It is seen as essential for establishing healthy boundaries, creating space for important work, and preserving what is most valuable.”

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: The Chinese cleaver, now my favorite knife, sliced through the peeled Red Onion, halving it, and then cut 1/2 inch wedges, after the Onion, halving each Cherry Tomato as easily as the Onion, finally cutting the salami into 1/2 inch strips and placing all of them in the big mixing bowl with the Pepperoncini, the vinagrette, the Chickpeas, the quartered Radicchio, mix with the wooden spoon till coated, then spread out evenly on a sheet pan and roast at 450 for twenty minutes. Four meals. Slick.

 

Dog journal: Diane noted the other day that I’d stopped writing about Shadow as our relationship had begun to normalize. Well… Right now we are, once again, at Shadow outside, her breakfast ready an hour and a half ago;  her outside Water frozen, and yet she. will. not. come inside. Why? I have no idea.

Unless. Was it my erratic, drug addled behavior on Friday afternoon and part of Saturday. She’s used to me behaving one way and I slept the day away, fed her an hour late in the evening. Whatever it was, she has returned to her skittish, threshold shy persona of months ago and bolts, flees instead of coming in to eat and drink. Primal needs. A puzzle.

 

Just a moment: Though I can see his decompensation, though his erratic behavior, both in foreign affairs and domestic matters long ago became self-evident, though he has no moral compass and plummeting poll numbers, yet his wrecking ball of an administration continues to level much more than the east wing of the Whitehouse.

USAID. Gone. Department of Education. Almost Gone. Trust in the CDC. Weakened, maybe beyond fast repair. Trust in economic data produced by the U.S. government, the basis of sound decision making. Shattered. Misuse of the military, illegal orders. State murder in the Caribbean. Firing military leaders of color. Firing female Admirals and Generals. Diminishing trust in our Universities and Colleges. Ruining our reputation as a staunch ally. Aiding former enemies and punishing friends.

I’ve been thinking about the political axiom, never waste a crisis. Why? Because change has to happen then, the only choice is how, if possible, to direct it. If we can use this random, crazed attack on our republic as an opportunity to build it back better, more responsive to the needs of Now-think climate change, an open hearted country, defender of the weak, health care, affordable housing, education relevant to all student’s needs-then perhaps this immoral agent of flagrant corruption will have served a purpose.

Back Pain, Health, Politics, US History

25th Amendment?

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Samain and the Radiation Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow of the morning. Artemis in late fall. The bare Aspens. The duller green of the Lodgepoles. Gray, cloudy Skies. Recovering from the ablation drugs. Still no pain except for one area over the right hip. Remembering this man, the one before the pain. Ruth coming up the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. With a sugar cream pie. Winter Solstice less than a month away. Holiseason well underway.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son’s sophisticated ethical reasoning

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Gevurah      “While Chesed is associated with flow, Gevurah provides the structure that allows this flow, acting like river banks to channel energy. It is seen as essential for establishing healthy boundaries, creating space for important work, and preserving what is most valuable.”

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining:   With the still new sensation of a largely pain free lower back, all manner of things withheld came flooding back: that trip to Korea, maybe by way of Taipei to see the National Museum, even Melbourne in far away Australia, back to Mussar and Bagel Table in person, local travel in Colorado, New Mexico, yet I have to wait, wait until weeks go by and the relief from the ablation and the steroid prove durable not ephemeral. May it be so.

 

A little giddy. A little, not skeptical, but aware things could change. Right now. Yesterday. This morning. No pain bending over, getting out of bed, going upstairs. Not quite true. There is a spot above my right hip that still flares, but I’m sure a lidocaine patch would calm it down. I’m reluctant to feel as good as I want to feel. Protection against disappointment.

And yet. I feel pretty damned good! Since Korea in September of 2023 I’ve lived with chronic pain that seemed only to get worse. With the hip injection and the ablation I can be hopeful of at the very least a much lessened pain experience.

I’m still weak from months of favoring my back, working out, yes, but not at full strength. I can get some strength back though I’m not sure how much.

The fourth leg of medical treatment starts tomorrow.

 

Just a moment: Let me count the ways. Favoring a larger, stronger state in its war against a smaller one. Misogynism with no shame, even bruited as a sign of honesty. Huh? Making millions from deals involving foreign allies. Even ordering the Justice Department to repay hundreds of millions of dollars in doubtfully earned restitution. Pardoning citizens investigated and convicted of insurrection. Directing the department of Justice (note that word) to go after rivals, persons seen as enemies. Having close ties with a man whose ability to tempt and seduce made him a human simulacrum for the devil. Denying food, medicine, and birth control to citizens of poor nations. Blowing up real boats, with real people and calling it an act of war when no war has been declared. Using the military to occupy American cities.

None of this is invisible or in question. Yet it’s wrong on its face, blatant, egregious. All from the President, our President. Why hasn’t the 25th amendment been invoked?

Friends, Health, Politics

L’etat est moi.

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Samain and the Radiation Moon

Friday grateful: Joanne looking well. Snow! Alan, my chauffeur. Rock. The Rocky Mountains. Joanne’s turn around. That driveway. Rainbow Hill Road. El Rancho. Stroke. Rehab. Ablation. Dr. Vu, whom I trust. Lonetree. Thanksgiving. Holiseason. Morgan of Evergreen Orthotics. Evergreen dressed for the Holidays. Christmas lights, well before Thanksgiving. The Chart House. Ruth and her A-Basin ski pass. Jon, of recent memory. Kate, always Kate.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Recovery

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Hakarat Hakov   Gratitude.    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their portion.” Perkei Avot 4:1

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Joanne’s driveway, the stuff of CBE legend with its narrow road, curves, and its lack of a space to turnaround even at the top often necessitating a difficult backing up maneuver, has a modification, a car depth cutout, about 40 feet wide, exposing a rock face that the excavator said  could have been dealt with only by bomb. Much better.

 

But. It did expose an interesting geological phenomenon. At least to me. One large upthrust of granite leans in a southerly direction while next to it a companion upthrust of layered rock leans in a northerly direction. What, I wonder, could produce uplift of two massive chunks of rock, so close together, in two opposite directions? A curiosity. At least to me.

Joanne I’m happy to report has little apparent physical harm from her stroke. And, she is still her well-spoken, quick, and funny self. However. She has, she says, lost forty years of Hebrew. The psalms and the Torah, both of which she has translated, no longer unlock themselves. Her French and Latin have gone, too. She may, she says the doctor’s tell her, get them back. Even reading English requires some effort for her. Joanne, among the most literate persons I’ve ever met, had to spell out the words on the book I took her. The Hour of the Predator. As she said, sad.

We live in the age of gratitude for parts that still work, not surprise at parts that don’t. An age that requires, no demands adaptation to circumstances unthinkable, unimaginable to even our seventy-year old selves. Without that willingness to adapt, to accept things as they are and to become yourself in a new configuration, old age can kill the heart.

 

Just a moment: Can you say decompensation? You, said he who should be named horrible himself, told a woman reporter, are a horrible person, a horrible reporter. Her error? Asking MBS, the once and future king of the burning sands, about his involvement in the murder and dissection of the Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi. Trump the Horrible went on in the same interchange to say of Khashoggi, things happen.

In another moment of misogyny on Air Force One he turned to another female reporter and said, Quiet. Quiet, piggy.

These do not even come close to his reaction yesterday to a video made by six congressmen, former members of the military and intelligence communities. (see MSNOW clip below)

He called the video and its makers seditious, then later, seditious behavior punishable by death! He also reposted a suggestion to hang them.

Lèse-majesté. Off with their heads! These are the reactions of an unhinged, delusional mind, the mind of a man who sees himself in the famous quote attributed to Louis XIV, king of France, “L’etat c’est moi.” He’s a President, elected and impeachable, one of three parts of a system of government defined by a constitution that explicitly has no room for the divine right of kings.

This is behavior so distant from reasonable that you might expect to hear it shouted from a locked room in Bellevue.

How can we hold him to account?

Cooking, Politics, Writing

Now You Know My Biases

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Monday gratefuls: Snow in the forecast. Rain, too. Joanne’s recovery. Joe Greenberg. Shadow Mountain Home. Shadow Mountain. Evergreen. Pine. Conifer. Black Mountain Drive. Shadow Mountain Drive. Brook Forest Road. Blue Creek Road. Dr. Carter. Radiation. Abby, hip injection. Dr. Matthews, nerve ablation. Morgan, neck brace

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Bubble gum and baling wire

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Hakarat Hakov   Gratitude.    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their portion.” Perkei Avot 4:1

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Got out the Nordic Ware aluminum sheet pan, shiny, but no longer new, and opened the refrigerator to retrieve the brown paper wrapped tail on Shrimp, the minced Garlic both of which I placed next to the Kosher Salt, Red Pepper flakes, and the 1/4 cup measure; the big mixing bowl contained the two dry English muffins which I sliced in half, putting them next to the cutting board.

 

Cooking: Yes, I’m doing it. I canceled CookUnity, ok, but uneven meals. Too often had to throw one out.

I’m going full sheet pan on this cooking thing. They’re easy(ier) to put together and much easier to cook. They also produce four servings at least which means I can store them in meal sized aliquots (a Kate word) to have later. Two sheet pan recipes produce supper for a full week. And, they have vegetables.

The New York Times Cooking section has dozens of sheet pan recipes. Working my way through the ones that sound good and already repeating one I really liked.

It’s not easy. Standing that long hurts. It might be this week reduces the pain. I certainly hope so. Still, it’s worth it. I had to understand my schedule to do it though. I cook them in the morning after my workout. Mornings are my best times bodywise. I can handle the self-imposed abuse plus get something tasty out of it.

 

Just a moment: I don’t do original reporting, but I do read the Silver Bulletin, Vox, Ground News, the Atlantic, the Guardian, the NYT, the WP, the LA Times, Heather Cox Richardson, Wired, and the Bulwark. Can’t help it it seems. I’m a political junkie. Hi, Charlie!

I do also read books by right wingers and lefties alike, focusing on key texts that inform right wing folks like MAGA, the New Apostolic Reformation, and conservative think tanks, while reading left and center books on political ideas.

I’m writing to let you know how I source my opinions, my take on the news, both of the day and the future.

I’m a left of center left democratic socialist, an advocate for racial and gender and ethnic justice, as well as the legal rights of nature and understand the changes necessary to develop a sustainable way for humans to live on Mother Earth.

As a resident of the American West with the heart of a long time Midwesterner, and one who lives both on and in the Rocky Mountains, I have an interior U.S. (not coastal) perspective as well.

As a gardener, a dog lover and companion, a Jew, and a pagan I take all of this: politics, climate change, and social justice work personally.

Meaning: my contribution to the day to day absurdity of the current administration will consist of my own analysis of the news, of matters that matter. Now you know my biases.

 

Friends, Health, Judaism, Politics

I Know Which Cup the Coin Is Under

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Luke and Leo. Luke leading the Bagel Table. Shadow and her pleading eyes. I’m hungry, Dad. Rachel, my social worker from Birmingham, Alabama. Alan. The Humming Bird. Challah French Toast. Latkes. Beignets. Having a Creole restaurant in Evergreen. Josh and Sarah. Next week’s pain reduction: hip injection and nerve ablation. Ruth and Gabe, the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Chayei Sarah

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Hakarat Hakov   Gratitude.    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their portion.” Perkei Avot 4:1

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: That place that was the Parkside, then for a minute a Mexican Cantina, has become the Hummingbird, a Creole restaurant owned by Josh and Sarah Hess, members of Beth Evergreen, New Orleans natives, where Alan and I had breakfast, his Eggs Benedict on layered biscuits with a side of latke, mine Challah French Toast with a side of bacon, Chicory Coffee French Press with milk, while we discussed his gracious offer to chaffeur (his word) me to my nerve ablations next Friday, for which I will take, forty minutes in advance, two valiums, one Lyrica and a partridge in a pear tree.

I promised to be an amusing ride. Alan took me to my first PET scan in far away Aurora, where Jon lived. Since I’d never had a PET scan, I worried about claustrophobia. I took a single valium. According to Alan, I was an amusing passenger on the way home. Loose lips.

Turns out I don’t need anything for CT scans or PET scans, as I’ve learned over the years since then. MRI’s of the kind I had recently require anesthesia. The Lyrica and valium for the ablations though is anesthesia for this forty minute procedure and I have to take them forty minutes in advance. Which means the ride to the procedure should be amusing this trip. Looking forward to it.

My medical October will climax this month with a neck brace, a steroid injection in my hip, nerve ablations on my lumbar spine, and 10 sessions of radiation on my T4 vertebrae. I will be glad to put all of these in the finished category. For now. All of them, including the neck brace may require further attention in the future.

 

Just a moment: Red Tie Guy reminds me of those street hustlers with three card monte or the coin under the cup. Follow my hands. Democrats in Epstein’s files. Liberating Venezuela. Solving rising food prices by reducing tariffs he imposed, then claiming credit. Shooting cigarette boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific as though they were an arcade game.

Perhaps we could discuss those blue tinted election results, especially the surge of young women voting Democrat. Or, the Latino vote shifting blue as well. Even in precincts that had gone heavily red tie guy just last year.

Sorry, dude. But I know which cup the coin is under.

 

Closing note: I know. It’s bad. It really is. And, three more long years. Even so. Love. Action. Home. Friends. Family. Dogs. A good book. A good movie. A good meal. The Arapaho National Forest. Lake Superior. Grizzlies and Wolves. Wildlands and Wild Neighbors. The Night Sky. Great Sol each morning.

 

Commentary on the news, Dogs, Health, Politics

Made My Heart Glow

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Hanna at Panorama. (Ha) Driving. Sitting with no neck support. Seeing Alan there, too. Forgotten. Tom and Mayo. Hold the ketchup. Mary and the creatures of Oz. Swooping Magpies and the horned Lucifer Bee. Among many others. Gabe’s beautiful photograph. Ruth and her A-basin ski pass. MVP w/o me.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hanna

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Chesed.  Loving Kindness.  “Kindness is the language the deaf can hear and the blind see.”  Mark Twain

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: A forty-five minute drive from home, back and hip flaring, to Panorama Orthopedics across from the Taj Mahal (Jefferson County Building), using my still new handicapped placard to get a bit closer to a clinic devoted to folks with bad knees, arthritic hips, and bum shoulders, only to find that the medical assistant who made my appointment failed to register it in the scheduling system.

 

It was that sorta afternoon. Got sorted by putting me at the end of Hanna’s patients for the day. Which left me sitting in a waiting room chair, no neck support for an hour. Called back. Another waiting room chair. So achy I crawled up on the exam table while I waited and took a nap.

Hanna came in. The third beautiful, young well-dressed woman P.A. I’ve met through Dr. Patel’s practice. I’ve never met him. Her silk blouse and gold bling, watch, bracelets, fancy engagement ring all working well for her.

Very kind and candid. Probably nothing to be done except hip injections. In 80 year olds (and 78 year olds, too) labrum tears are common, wear and tear of old age and exacerbated by arthritis. Surgery usually not done. Same for my hip. The plan: a second steroid injection, see if we can eke out four/five months instead of three. If not, we’ll have to revisit it. Next Tuesday after my visit to Evergreen Orthotics for my neck brace. A long day on the road.

Too exhausted after all that to make it to MVP. And, I cooked the Cabbage and Butter Beans sheet pan meal! First time in a while I’d made something for the potluck. I missed going because I love that group. Too knackered.

 

Just a moment: Caving. Here’s what I think. The Democrats had proved their point. Republicans don’t care about affordability. Of health care premiums. Of food for the poor. Of food. Trump and his Republican sycophants do what they damn well please with no regard for the rest of us.

So the Dems chose Senators not intending to return and said, end this. We’ll kick and scream, but this way we restart payments to Federal employees and SNAP recipients, plus we get a vote on extension of health care premium subsidies.

 

Dogs: Yesterday, after a long day outside, Shadow came in, laid down and went to sleep. Her legs moved as they will in sleeping dogs. But this time, every so often, her tail would wag softly, briefly. Made my heart glow.

Cooking, Politics, Science

What was the right choice?

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Monday gratefuls: Joy. Simcha. In late Fall, in morning darkness, for Artemis and her children, in Shadow’s eager hugs in the morning. Joanne at home. Shrimp Broil. Cooking. My kitchen. The many trails of our lives. Mule Deer in the yard yesterday. Dr. Patel. Torn labrum. MVP. Evergreen Orthotics.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cooking the Shrimp Broil

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Chesed.  Loving Kindness.  “Kindness is the language the deaf can hear and the blind see.”  Mark Twain

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Though darkness obscures Black Mountain, the Lodgepoles, Derek’s house, the night also offers an advantage to those  Animals with eyes made to see in its limited illumination, so the night falls not as fully as it seems to our human, diurnal eyes; yet, Great Sol’s light which returns Black Mountain to our eyes, his very light obscures and hides completely Stars and Galaxies that make up our Universe, which is the greater veil, night or day?

 

Cooking: Finally. Made the shrimp broil sheet pan recipe, enough for four or five meals.

The standing. Even with my rubber anti-fatigue mats, which help, I had to sit down often after I powered through gathering the ingredients, Shrimp thawed from the refrigerator, sweet Corn, too, baby Potatoes, extra virgin Olive Oil, paprika, cayenne pepper, Old Bay seasoning, and Himalayan pink Salt, and cut the baby potatoes in half, throwing them in the large mixing bowl with two tablespoons Olive oil, and two minced garlic cloves. Stir to coat. Then dump onto the new Nordic Ware half sheet pan.

Knackered with dehusking the Corn and cutting each ear into four smaller pieces, buttering each one, setting them aside. I put the Potatoes into the 425 degree oven, set the timer for 20 minutes, and sat down. Not long, less than five minutes.

Pat the Shrimp dry and toss them with more Garlic and more Olive Oil. Put seasonings into the bowl and stir to coat. Sit down.

Ding. The Potatoes were finished so I placed the Corn on them and put the pan back in the oven. 2 minutes and out, turn the Corn, and add the Shrimp. 2 minutes later, turn the Shrimp. 2 more minutes and done. I sat for each interval.

That first plate tasted so, so good. I love cooking.

 

Just a moment: Caving. Eight Senators. one independent and seven Democrats, voted to end the shutdown without extending health insurance subsidies. A reasonable person can make an argument of compassion. SNAP returns to normal. The military gets paid, National Park rangers along with other  Federal workers, many of whom worked, like the military, with no pay for a month plus, get paid.

A reasonable person could also make a compassionate argument for holding out for the subsidy extensions. Millions of ordinary Americans, including many, many Trump voters will have to pay greatly elevated health insurance premiums. In effect a tax on a necessity, further weakening the cash flow of the middle and working classes.

I don’t know what the right choice was. Do you?