Category Archives: Politics

Memories, Minnesota, Politics, US History

The Flyover

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The Off to College Moon

Friday gratefuls: Dreams. Irene. Mnsaves. 529’s. Cash. Sue Bradshaw. Great Sol. My Lodgepole Companion. The sweetness of life. Alan and Joanne. Tom. Joy. Diane. Indiana. Morristown. Alexandria. Muncie. Ball State. Wabash. The liberal arts. Ruth and the UC-Boulder library. Coach Prime. Finding a jeweler for my Pearl. Whippets. Irish Wolfhounds. Sight hounds. Wolf-dogs.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The lessons of pain

Kavanah: HOLINESS קְדֻשָּׁה Kedusha   Holiness, dedication, specialness   (רוּחָנִי Ruchani: spiritual, cognitive function = intuitive/abstract)  On this one I part company with tradition. I do not consider these antonyms poles of this midot. [גוּפָנִי Gufani: physical, earthly; literally “bodily/fleshly”; cognitive function = sensory/concrete] [חִלוֹנִי Chiloni, Common, worldly, secular] I specifically seek-and find-the holy, the sacred in the physical, the earthly, the body. In the ordinary and the common.

One brief shining: Long ago my journey veered away from any notion of transcendence, of anything spiritual that took me away from my body, from my deep interconnection, even interpenetration with the world as I experience it daily; the Celts taught me that yes there is an Otherworld, but that it does not distract from, rather it enhances the holiness of Animals, Plants, Water, Fire, Air, Mother Earth so that this world and that world meet, in my case often through the wonder of my own body or the gentle swaying of the branches of my Lodgepole Companion or the fawn, already losing her spots who dines in my backyard.

 

 

Since Tim Walz’s nomination for Vice President on Kamala Harris’s ticket, the Midwest is having a moment. Having lived in the Midwest from the age of one and a half through sixty-eight, I’d say I qualify as a Midwesterner. I now have both the experience of those sixty plus years and the kind of clarity that ten years and nine hundred miles distance provide, having lived in the Rocky Mountain West since late 2014.

Here are the states I consider Midwestern: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan-the Upper Midwest and Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio-the lower Midwest. The U.S. government includes Missouri, North and South Dakota, and Kansas, but they fall, in my thinking, in another category. Perhaps the Plains States. My criteria is neither demographic nor geographic, rather it is what I felt was the Midwest all the time I lived there.

Though raised and schooled through undergraduate work in Indiana, the Lower Midwest, I spent my adult life after college in the Upper Midwest, first Wisconsin, then Minnesota. The distinctions between Lower and Upper are real, yet so are the shared realities.

I find these stereotypical “finds” by those writing about the Midwest at least mildly insulting. Hotdish. So, casseroles. So what. Found in church basements and kitchen tables all across the U.S. Friendliness. Maybe more a surface congeniality rather than the surface grumpiness of New England? Both conceal a wariness about strangers I find usual rather than unusual. There’s a wholesomeness in the Midwest. Check out any Midwestern high school, bar scene, the back pages of a big city’s free newspaper. Look at this silly article and see other stereotypes like Midwesterner’s say jeet (?), have never worn a proper Halloween costume, and wedding photos are taken in fields. Come on, guys.

My Midwest has a distinct and often apposite combination of heavy industry and agriculture. Beans and corns vie with Detroit, Akron, Gary. Both have taken heavy hits over the last part of the last century and into this one. The Rust Belt. Corporate farming. My Midwest has Chicago as its big city though Cincinnati and Cleveland, Detroit, and the Twin Cities are also major urban areas. My Midwest does have an emphasis on county fairs and state fairs that does mark it out, primarily due to the strong agricultural sector in all these states. My Midwest may have been more religious once, but that has changed rapidly in past decades.

My Midwest shares with other regions systemic ills like racism, sexism, classism. Witness George Floyd, for example.

Not sure how much further I want to go with this today. Thought it would be more fun to write, but it kind of brought me down. Why? Don’t know.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mountains, Politics

Got it now

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The Off to College Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Diane. Ruth in Willville. Taking college classes. Eating dorm food. Gabe, coming up this weekend. My son and Seoah, a year ago yesterday in Songtan. Travel. Celebrex will help. Affirming life. Not waiting on death. Greeting Great Sol. The new fan in my bedroom. Keeping me cool. Electric blankets. Eyes. The occipital lobe. Frontal cortex. Amygdala. Hippocampus. Gray matter. White matter. Limbic system. Sloshing around in our skulls.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mark’s new job!

Kavanah:  PEACE  שָׁלוֹם Shalom   Peace, quietness, wholeness (קוֹר רוּחַ Kor Ruach: Calm, composure, literally a “cool spirit”) [בֶּהָלָה Behala, beh-ha-LAH: Fear, alarm, panic]

One brief shining: The blue Sky silhouettes the gentle curve of Black Mountain, its stony bulk covered by green Lodgepoles and clonal colonies of Aspen, at ten thousand feet it rises another twelve hundred feet above my home here on the top of Shadow Mountain, yet does not lord it over us, rather graces us with a neighborly, oh, there’s another Mountain feeling.

 

Sometimes I read more into what people say than they intend. I’m not the only one, I’m pretty sure. Let me give you an example. In conversation with my long time and dear friend Tom he made a casual comment about my application to get a Whippet puppy. “That’s a life affirming choice.”

He meant, I now believe: “That’s a life affirming choice.” I heard: I’m relieved you’ve finally made a life affirming choice after several weeks focused on death or disability. Which, of course, reflects my immersion, partial, yes, but tangible nonetheless, in matters cancerous over the last few weeks.

Since, in fact, that day after my bar mitzvah, when he and Paul listened in on my telehealth visit with Kristie. I try, and most of the time believe I succeed, in living a balanced life when it comes to cancer. That is, I acknowledge its existence, keep up with my blood draws, doctor visits, take my meds. Do what’s needed, what I can do. After that let it lie as a complex fact of my existence, not really at the level of consciousness most of the time.

Over the time since my PSA went up during my drug holiday, sooner than Kristie expected, I’ve been up and down, a shortened life span, wrestling the lesser demons in my body, mostly in an unhappy stew of uncertainty about where things stood. I felt Tom had ridden through my cover and seen the other side. Now, he may have. But in this instance he was not talking about that, but instead he was giving me a thumbs up for doggy possibilities. Sorry, Tom. Got it now.

 

Just a Moment: The asshole snuck above the fold with his usual gauchity, douchebagness. Doing politics in Arlington Cemetery. Flouting military rules designed to prevent it. I suppose this falls under the there’s no such thing as bad publicity rule. I’m so, so tired of him, of his disregard for decency, for the rule of law, for his support of white supremacists, his misogyny, his overall creepiness. So tired.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Politics

Eternal True Love

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The Off to College Moon

Monday gratefuls: UC Boulder. Willville. Dushanbe Teahouse. The Flatirons. Starting out on her own, Ruth. The liberal arts. Studio arts. Philosophy. Political science. 50 degrees. Good sleeping. Dogs. Whippets. Home. The temperature differential of altitude. 31 degrees yesterday! 84-51. College. Learning. For its own sake. Hillel. The sweetness of seeing a girl grow into a young woman.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Boulder

Kavanah: BEAUTY  תִפאֶרֶת Tiferet  Beauty, harmony, balance. Sixth Sefirah: Reconciliation, synthesis, integration; the Heart (between Chesed & Gevurah)

One brief shining: Ruth sat across the small metal table from me, eagerness and doubt flowing through her like Boulder Creek which ran beside us, advice from her uncle, struggling with her mom, excited for a U.S. political history class and her first class in her major studio arts the next day, and ordered genmaicha, a tea approved by the Tokugawa Shogun, its history recounted to her by me, showing that first burst of undergraduate sophistication. She hoped. Oh, the places she’ll go.

Took the first step to get a Whippet. Well, first two steps. I applied to adopt a Whippet/Australian Cattledog mix and sent an e-mail to Horsetooth Whippets. Sent this with slight modifications to both of them:

“My wife died three years ago. Over the years we had 6 Whippets and 9 Irish Wolfhounds plus two IW/Coyote Hound mixes. Sighthounds appealed to us with their independent, yet loving manner.

Rigel, my last hound, died a year ago. I’m 77 and not strong enough to care for another big dog. But I have plenty of energy and love for a Whippet sized dog, plus obvious long familiarity with dogs. I speak dog.

You may wonder about my age. I do, too, sometimes. I have two friends who are willing to sign a document as a friendly home if I die or become incapable of caring for a dog. I also have a codicil in my will gifting $10,000 to whomever takes over care of any animal living with me when I die.

I miss the warmth and love that comes from having a canine companion.

My wife and I always acquired litter mates. 3 x 2. For companionship. We found that made for a better doggy world for them. I’m open to purchasing two.”
Partly a recognition of my more limited mobility. I won’t be traveling as much. And my related but different homebodiness. Mostly though. I miss having a dog. I am alone, but not lonely. That’s true as far as it goes and describes a state of becoming that satisfies me. Especially with all of my friends. Yet having a dog to care for, a dog that would care for me back, to have again eternal true love as is normal between a dog and their human companion would enrich my life. And, hey, I’m all for enrichment.
Just a moment: Soon, maybe this week, the grind toward November begins. Harris still with momentum. 45 still off the front page or below the fold. (below the first screen?) His campaign has staggered away from Biden’s abdication, flummoxed it seems. Won’t last. However he can pull it off the orange one will, like the bad penny, turn up again. It’s still a close, close race. No certainty to either side.
Sure, Kamala is ahead in national polls. But we’ve learned to our frustration that winning the so-called popular vote is too often insufficient. The electoral college is, as we used to say in the 60’s, where it’s at. That’s why her leads in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin matter more. Go, blue.
Health, Politics

What happens now?

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The Off to College Moon

Friday gratefuls: Ginny. Janice. Friends. Healing. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. A cool Mountain morning. Fall in the Sky as Great Sol’s angle changes. Elk Bulls clashing, ready for the rut. Bears a month or so away from hyperphagia. Mountain Streams at their shallowest points. Crowds from Denver, pre-Labor Day, at Upper and Lower Maxwell Falls. Story. Lake Evergreen. Paddleboarders. Kayakers. Canoeists. The Otherworld after the Jeffco 73 turnoff on Brook Forest Drive. My home world.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seasonal change

Kavanah:  Serenity    Menucha

One brief shining: Sitting at an outdoor table at the Parkside with Alan and Joanne when a buzzing in my ear directs me to my phone, Evergreen Medical calling; Hello, Josh; Charlie, your PSA is .4; a bit of whiplash because it did not post on my Labcorps account and it had surprisingly and most thankfully gone down rather than up taking me out of the shortened life span version of my cancer.

 

Later in the day when I spoke with my son he said I looked more relaxed, healthy. Oh. Well. Could I have been more worried than I thought? It takes a worried man to sing the worried song. After all.

My chest had opened up, my head sat straighter on my shoulders. Ironically, knowledge taking back me to a welcome uncertainty about my future. No longer time limited, at least not with suggested parameters. Ye know not the day nor the hour. Back to that. Well, yes.

Why serenity has topped my intentions for the last week and still does today. The residue of the Pearl along with the blood draw on Tuesday made me stand in love on one foot and trying to absorb a sooner than imagined death on the other foot. Not a recipe for inner calm.

In this August 24 life I have passed through the waters guarded by Scylla and Charybdis, lashed to the mast of my trireme with wax blocking my ears. Removing the wax an act of bravery itself, but necessary. No wonder I looked healthier.

 

Just a moment: What happens now? The buzz after Biden’s abdication and the week of the Democratic National Convention has shaken the race, put the orange one on his back foot. May he stay there. Though. Suspect he won’t. His usual blend of bluster and anger and white grievance commingled with not well crafted outright lies will push him back to the headlines. At least for some of the time.

The question. Will he seem the smaller, meaner, unserious man that he really is or the norm-breaking, would be strongman idolized by so many who feel cheated out of their American dream? I hope Harris-Walz can keep the sad man behind blue eyes theme going. Frame the orange one as a pathetic loser not focused on freedom or liberty but on self-aggrandizement and bonus points for his billionaire buddies. If they can accomplish this, I don’t know how, then I believe they will be sworn in next January 20th while the red hatters (mad hatters?) foam and froth.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Myth and Story, Politics

An Unserious Man

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The Off to College Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mussar. Rabbi Jamie. Laurie and her Chicago stories. And her chili cheese hotdogs. The Pearl. Ruby. Ruth on campus. Kepler, my sweet boy. Kate, always Kate. The blue Sky above, Shadow Mountain Home beneath. Kamala. Her tagging of 45 as an unserious man. Joanne and Alan at the Parkside. Labcorps. Marilyn and Irv.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kamala and Coach Walz

Kavanah: Serenity  Menucha

One brief shining: A lesson in patience has come my way, the comparatively (to Quest) slow pace of getting my still not available PSA and testosterone numbers sent me down on Wednesday, forced to adjust my attitude, to open my heart to waiting, which has taught me to consider my desire for knowing, for knowing now, for knowing what comes next, for knowing estimates of my life span, that desire changes neither my PSA, what comes next, or my life span. Oh.

 

The story of the Pearl resonates with all who hear it. Though. Realized after recounting this at mussar yesterday Oysters are not kosher. No fins or scales. I’m not observing kosher, perhaps obviously, yet I did have to stop and consider this. If I were to observe kosher, and I have no plan to right now, it would be along the lines of ethical eating. Which is the function of kosher observance in traditional Jewish life. I do eat far less red meat than in the past, partly health and partly to eat lower on the food chain. Use less resources.

Still working on finding a jeweler or silversmith. Harder than I thought it would be. Evergreen Goldsmiths could have done what I wanted, but they closed. Going to the Silver Arrow gallery to see if they have recommendations.

 

No results from Labcorp. Not sure what’s going on. Practicing the midot of serenity. Does it make me serene to get agitated about not having these numbers? No. Will asking my docs to look into it help with my serenity? Yes. So I did that just now. Inner calm. Yes.

 

Just a moment: Listened to the opening twenty minutes or so of Kamala’s speech. Trump as an unserious man. Oh, yes. An epithet so true and so weakening. I hope it gains viral currency. I found her speech fine, but not exceptional. Not a barn burner as we might say in our suddenly spotlighted Midwest. So I stopped listening. Don’t need a barn burner. Need steady, stable, democratic small d. A return to normalcy. Never thought I’d write or believe those words.

She seems to have captured the zeitgeist perfectly. Hyperbolic promises and overheated rhetoric play into the bombast and chest-thumping of the MAGA style. We do not need more of that. We need to take this narrow window Kamala recognizes and keep the orange one in his billionaire fantasy world, his tasteless Trump Tower and gauche Mar-a-Lago. There to await the consequences of his criminal activity as his various trials come to fruition and his debts to his victims come due.

 

 

Health, Kabbalah, Politics

The flow of the Tao

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The Off to College Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Ruth in her dorm room at Willville. With a passion for learning. Gabe home alone. Storm Clouds and high Winds. Breakfast with Tara. Cheryl, the phlebotomist, and my blood draw. The Pearl. Diane and Tom. Brother Mark and the Bangkok urban park. Mary in K.L. My son and Seoah. Songtan. My Lodgepole Companion waving to the keepers of moisture. Perhaps encouraging them. Rain on me.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Blood and its mysteries

Kavanah for the life of August 21, 2024: Knowledge, da’at

One brief shining: Da’at lies directly beneath the keter, or crown, of the tree of life, linked in the downward movement of chi, of life force, of the Tao to hokmah, wisdom, and binah, analysis and planning, feeding in turn hesed, loving-kindness and gevurah, boundaries and strength; knowledge taking shape through consciousness and unconsciousness giving birth to wisdom, to shaping and birthing by the binah.

 

The tree of life in Kabbalah maps a flow of sacred energy from keter to malkhut, the realm of the shekinah, the feminine sacred, and then, as through a divine pump moving back up through the ten sefirot to keter where the cycle of creation and transformation begins again. Yesterday my blood filled a vial, already containing facts that I need for accurate knowledge of my cancer. The spark of that knowledge exists ahead of its translation into a something that can be considered, only becoming knowable as it moves through the laboratory, carried in drops of my essence, and transformed there into knowledge that I can access, use.

I am especially glad that that using that knowledge, my current PSA and testosterone levels, passes first into hesed, or loving kindness, reminding me that all knowledge comes as kindness, and also, through gevurah with its own boundaries.

A heady way of saying that I’m waiting on my lab results to see if my PSA has returned to undetectable, which would be a big YES, or has continued to rise, sealing my diagnosis of castration-resistant cancer. What framing this waiting kabbalistically does for me is remind me that all of life, all of creation flows up and down the tree, always, including the divine spark, the neshamah or pure soul that is me. Life to death, death to life. Constant change and creation, constant novelty. No destruction without creation. A Shiva view of the nature of life.

 

Just a moment: If you want a recent and readable analysis of the probable effects of an orange win, read this Thomas Edsall article, Trump is not done with us. Here is its last paragraph:

“I am going to give the last word to Timothy Snyder*:

Trump is in the classic dictatorial position: He needs to die in bed holding all executive power to stay out of prison. This means that he will do whatever he can to gain power, and once in power will do all that he can to never let it go. This is a basic incentive structure which underlies everything else. It is entirely inconsistent with democracy.”

*”Timothy Snyder, a historian at Yale and an expert on the regimes of Stalin and Hitler…”

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Politics

Luminescence

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The Off to College Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Ruth, off to college today! Good workout yesterday. The Democratic National Convention. Joe and his years. Joe and his tears. Kamala. Tim. AOC. Go, blue, go. Politics. A frisson of hope. A dollop of excitement. A Discovery of Witches on Netflix. Finishing the filet mignon from my dinner with Kate and her pearl. Tara. Dandelion.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth, her journey of independence which starts today.

Kavanah: KNOWLEDGE   Da’at (DAH-aht)   knowledge, sensibility, awareness; from ידע to experientially/cognitively know

First Sefirah = כֶּתֶר Keter, KEH-tare: Top of head, superconscious mind, literally “crown” (between Chochmah/Wisdom & Binah/Understanding)  This is kabbalah.

One brief shining: Still wrapped in the pearl’s luminescence Monday took me into an intimate place with my grief and with remembrance, a few tears as I recalled our life together, more smiles as I remembered making salads from our vegetables, eating toast with honey from our bees, evenings spent hanging out with our dogs, often Irish Wolfhounds on our laps, Hanukah nights with Gabe and Ruth on Shadow Mountain, driving down the hill to Congregation Beth Evergreen together.

 

As I go into the lab today, get my vein punctured again, small vials of blood filled by the beating of my heart, this lab test’s importance weighs a bit on my lev. Yes, I need and want the da’at, the knowledge, it will bring. Yet it could bring knowledge of a shortened life span. If so, that’s ok, I have no need to last longer than I can. Memories of Kate’s final days comfort me. Not that she wasn’t suffering. She was. But she was resolute, loving, and brave, too. A role model about how to face the end, not with a whimper, but a bang.

Does not change this life, this August 20th life. Which I woke into around 6 am. Opening my eyes from the small death of sleep to an unpromised resurrection. As I have for over 77 years. May continue to do so for years more.

See Tara for breakfast this morning at the Dandelion. Like a workout seeing friends restores me as I hope to do for them. Seeing. Being seen. Hearing. Being heard. Touching. Being touched. The essential food of the soul.

 

Just a moment: So happy to see Kamala and Tim, even Joe, above the fold. And that other person not there at all. The squatter removed from land he had begun to imagine was his alone.

I did not look forward to spending the last of my golden years under a Trumpist storm of bigotry, lavish capitalism, and the decline of U.S. status in the world. Of course, that’s still a real possibility, but now it’s a fight, not a giveaway. I’ll go with Kamala’s: When we fight, we win!

Mixed feelings here about protesters at the convention. Deja vu all over again. Except. In 1968 the U.S. had intervened militarily in a civil war. Based on the domino theory which imagined countries becoming communist if touched by red fairy dust. Makes me wonder what those old war mongers thought was so appealing about communism, but that’s another story.

Here the protesters have sided with the Palestinians against Israeli aggression. I agree with the facet of their argument that contends Israel has gone too far. Way too far. Where we part company is in the protesters willing blindness to the suffering of Jews over time, the reason for Israel’s existence, and the horrific nature of the Hamas attack on October 7th. This is a story with no heroes, no glory, no victory.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Politics

A Journey

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The Off to College Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Bagel table. Morning services. Brother Mark. Coffee. Water. Bagels. Lox. Cream cheese. Kate, always Kate. Great Sol. Diane. Shabbat. Lighting the candles. Studying Torah. Lev Grossman’s latest, The Bright Sword. Stories. However told. On television, movies, in books, by friends, by ourselves. The way we make sense of it all.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Stories

Kavanah: SERENITY   Menucha (min-oo-CHAH)   Serene, carefree, literally “at rest/comfortable” 

[Daga, dah-GAH: Worry, care, concern]

One brief shining: Went to King Sooper’s yesterday, a grocery store in Aspen Park, took two checks, cashed the checks with the young woman there, how do you want your money, easiest way, she counted it out to me; it represented the breaking of my relationship with Century Link, former internet provider, and yet more dividends from my time in Andover’s electrical cooperative, as I folded the bills for my money clip I thought about the symbolic nature of money, not only as value but as evidence of a relationship, as proof of obligation, as transmitter of shared commitments.

 

Still feeling a bit dark, heavy. Will pass as this life, this August 17th life, goes on. Finding mornings, right after I get up, weighted. As the new life unfolds, begins to take on its character, in part shaped by my kavanah, in part by human interaction an easing of the weight, a passing over into a new chance at living, one unburdened by yesterday, and with few glances at tomorrow. Living.

Today, in this life, for example, I made coffee. Which I can smell right now as it finishes. Realizing I have less time to write than I like because I drive to Evergreen in thirty minutes for the Bagel Table and the morning service. I’ll see Rabbi Jamie and who ever else shows up. People I care about and who care about me. An elixir strong and potent. Later, Ruth’s coming up for a zoom call with my son. What a treat for me to have them both here at 5 today.

This life will gain its fullness through those encounters, as it will through the hours, the necessary hours alone. The way of a social animal who needs both presence and absence.

 

Just a moment: Kamala has put four sun belts state in play. Recent polls. Another lightening of the load. Who knows what will happen between now and the life of Election Day 2024. But at least I no longer feel tied to the mast of a sinking ship. Somebody plugged a hole in it. Thanks, Joe. Sometimes saying no means saying yes. Giving up means saying I’m all in. Sometimes leaving means staying. A bit of the Tao for today, for this August 17th life.

Health, Politics

Play to win

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The Off to College Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Reconstructing Judaism. Steve. Jamie. Rabbi Jamie. Zoom. Good workout. Cool night. Good sleeping. Kamala and Tim. Top of the fold stories not about the orange ifrit. Global political shifts. Asia. The Middle East. The Ukraine. The U.S. Living till I die. Shaynah. Good teeth. Pain control. Celebrex. Ginny. The Grateful Dead.

Sparks of joy and awe: Realizing I need some help

Kavanah: Joy Simcha

One brief shining: Bought this Ninja blender a couple of years ago with the intent of creating veggie smoothies and fruit smoothies, pushed it to the back of my white marble kitchen counter and there it sat until this last week when I cut up an Apple and an Orange, tossed in a Tangerine, some frozen mixed Berries, and a scoop of french Vanilla protein powder, hit smoothie and listened to it whir, pause, whir faster, then removed the blender jar. Ah.

 

Sometimes, at least in my life, it can take even a good idea time to take hold, to move from idea to practice. The blender is not the only instance. Take the Rice cooker and all those bags of Beans. I’ve had brief runs with both the Rice cooker and the Beans, but they faded. Need to find a rhythm where I use all of these simple tools to create more home made food. Of late I’ve fallen into a habit of food purchased out. Not exclusively, but for evening meals almost. Changing this habit is not about saving money, but about good nutrition. Not getting enough vegetables. Maybe not enough protein some days.

I realize now this has been in part a response to pain. Took too much out of me to prep and cook a meal. Hoping the Celebrex will help with that. Though I seem to have entered that twilight medical zone where cures create their own problems. Will have to pay close attention. Being able to handle the daily chores without having to stop due to pain would be a big gain for my day to day.

 

Just a moment: Sure, policy is important. All important to governing toward a desired outcome. Yet this one election, I’m less concerned with policy than with politics itself. To have policy differences matter in an election a democracy has to exist. I continue to see the evident danger of a loss of our democratic norms and practices if Trump should win. Vote this fall and you won’t ever have to vote again. We’ll have fixed it so good. Yikes!

No, I don’t like Kamala’s changes on fracking, on immigration, on health care. Especially that last one on which I’ve been become a mini-expert like many older Americans. Yet I know her changes representing tacking the sail, finding a way to make way in this most crucial of all elections. So I say, sure, tack away.

This election is still fraught, still dangerous. Like holding a suitcase nuke with the time set to November 4th. Play to win.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics, US History

Important to us…

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The Off to College Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Great Sol. Blue Sky. Shades of green. Mark in Bangkok. Ruth and Gabe. Jen. Workout this morning. Reconstructionism tonight. Steve Bernstein. Prostate cancer. Sue. Kristie. Black Mountain. This oh so strange election year. Kamala. Tim. He who must be defeated. Celebrex. Pain relief. Medicine. Hippocrates.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Pain Relief

Kavanah: STRENGTH  Gevura     for a workout today, this August 14th, 2024 life

One brief shining: Rolling, rolling, rolling the thunder sound of green and yellow garbage bins under a brisk Mountain early morning, my driveway, the neighbor’s driveway, then another neighbor’s, a form of sympathetic magic involved, recycling as a solution to global warming, climate change, all of us doing our part. Sort of.

 

Yesterday. Seems so far away. May I, for a moment, speak a word against telephone call centers. An example might be United Health Care. After a good medical day Monday when I felt heard and seen and cared for I followed it up doing what the front desk requested. Changing the name of my PCP from Kristin to Sue Bradshaw. Simple enough, right?

First, the chipper A.I. confident in its ability to take care of whatever I needed. After having said advocate, advocate, advocate, this simple spell did result in a human voice. Ah. Yes, I can help you change the name of your primary care provider. Can you spell her name? B-R-A-D-S-H-A-W. Please hold while I work on changing the name of your primary care provider. Some ditzy tune that would have been a good warmup at a rollerskating rink oh those many years ago. For far too long.

Hello, sir. I was not able to replace nurse practitioner Bradshaw-did I detect a slight tone of how could I anyway?-as your primary care provider. Her credentials do not meet our contractual requirements. I will call Conifer Medical Center and see if I can solve this problem. I’ll put you on hold again.

Images of rollerskates, organ music, girls in short skirts twirling while boys in jeans struggled to stay upright. Boredom. A period where I got all my bills scheduled for payment. A turn at reading the New York Times, first article, second article. Playing Spelling Bee. We’re now 20 minutes or so into this pause while other wheels turned out of my aural range.

Then the climax. A dial tone. Yup, the call dropped off. As you know, if you call back, you don’t reach the person you talked to last time.

Found my spirit doused, my energy cooled for solving minor life bureaucratic annoyances. In spite of pleasantness as my kavanah for the day, I had unpleasant thoughts, not for the first time, about my health insurance.

Just a moment: There will be blood. But for now it’s Harris/Walz placards. A presidential candidate under 60 and a 60 year old vice presidential candidate. A youth movement. Not sure how long this momentum can last, but go, Kamala, go. We have a fighting chance to win now. May her name be ever known as blessed.