Category Archives: Friends

Family, Friends, Holidays

I hope you hear I love you often

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Samain and the Radiation Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Napping. Tom’s wonderful pictures. Happy birthday Roxann. The Great Lake Superior. Knife River. Duluth. Two Rivers. Tofte. Gooseberry Falls. Tettegouche. Silver Bay. Lutsen. Cascade Lodge. Grand Marais. Painter’s Point. The Gunflint Trail. Naniboujou Lodge. Isle Royale. So many memories. The Arrowhead. Ely. The Boundary Waters.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s Sugar Cream Pie

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  SERENITY   Menucha     Serene, carefree, literally “at rest/comfortable”    “In Jewish tradition, ‘menucha’ (מְנוּחָה) signifies a profound state of spiritual and physical rest, tranquility, peace, and fulfillment, going far beyond merely ceasing work. It is a core concept tied to the Sabbath (Shabbat) and the ultimate spiritual destiny of the soul.” Gemini

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: A bit of Snow, a surge of cold Air as if the weather here knew Thanksgiving had passed and the graver part of the fallow time had come; with the change those Christmas lights and Hanukah decor make sense as Advent starts tomorrow; in the past folks gathered around fires in smoky rooms to tell stories and legends of Raven, of Yggdrasil, of Krampus, of Spider Woman, of children lost in the forest, of Great Bears and Hunters cast into the sky.

 

Black Friday. A day I associate with greed and the exposed dark heart of capitalism. Children clamoring in their innocence for TV ad driven next best things. Toys. Dolls. Video games. Tech. And their parents driven by love into long lines hoping to find the wanted thing at a price they can actually afford.

This represents the nadir of our economy, exploiting parental love by manipulating our children, turning them into agents/influencers working for Mattel, Nintendo, American Beauty and inflicting on those same children as they grow the somehow heart connected thought that the oh so perfect thing can express their affection, or, satisfy their own. Bah, humbug.

No. Not a Scrooge about gifts. I love gifts and gift giving. What I do not love, what I hate is the casual cynicism of marketing that turns gifts into faux transactions, creating false desires, and forcing people into debt. I’m with Tiny Tim and the Christmas Turkey.

The times for gathering with friends and family around food, song, on an icy pond, trekking on snowshoes, those moments I love about holiseason and its many highlights like Samain, Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, the Winter Solstice, Yule, New Years.

We humans need others of our kind and holiseason offers ample opportunities to draw close. Lord knows we need them all year, yet in the cold and dark of the fallow time, we need them even more.

So I wish for you, as we cross the boundary of Creepy Friday, a season of love and eggnog. Of dreidels and Christmas Trees. Moments of true warmth where the glow of one heart touching another provides comfort and solace.

I hope you hear the words I love you as often as possible, from as many people as possible. And from as many dogs, in their own way, too.

Art and Culture, Back Pain, Cancer, Friends, Health, Music

All Alone Behind the Lead Lined Door

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Samain and the Radiation Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Todd. Alise. Varian. Clinac. Warm blankets. My plastic guide. Sniper rifle beams. Radiation entering my body, headed toward T4 bone marrow/lesion. Only nine sessions to go. Pain still gone. Hip, too. Wearing neck brace when I drive. My treatment November. Chart House. Luke and Leo coming today. Shadow inside. Yeah!

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Medical Engineering

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: No Cyberknife moving in its calculated dance around my body, this time a Varian Clinac iX, which Alise controls from a multi-screened room on the other side of the thick lead door that closes quietly, leaving me alone with a linear accelerator hulking behind me, and the precision locating beams-red and green-reading my location as the Clinac moves, buzzing and clicking.

 

Cancer: This session of radiation, my third, has a single target, the lesion in my bone marrow at T4. Instead of going all the way to Lonetree, I hop off 470 at Broadway and head up to Rocky Mountain Cancer Care (RMCC).

Most of the treatment in this case involves positioning my body accurately, using green and red lasers plus the plastic mesh that fits under my chin and over my bare upper thorax. Alise put it in place using the tattoos, small black dots inked on the sides of my chest by Todd during the CT planning procedure.

Since precision in aiming the beam of radiation is key both to killing the cancer cells and not damaging the rest of me, I get the need for multiple ways of saying go here, not there to the radiation. In and out in twenty minutes, less than five of which involved actual radiation.

 

Back and hip pain: The ablation continues to give me a pain free left lower back and upper left. The hip feels mostly good, too. Just a bit of tweak if I move in an odd angle.

Lower back right still has significant tightness, a little pain. Since the ablations only work on the arthritis, Kylie told me to expect pain from the bulging discs to continue. She was right.

Even so, a huge improvement. My driving stamina, which I will test each day going to RMCC, has improved, too, but not nearly as much as I had hoped. I was not in agony on the drive home, but I was still pretty uncomfortable. That’s with a fifty minute drive out, some sitting and then a drive back for fifty minutes.

I’m going to up my resistance work, stretching, see if I can do better with stronger core muscles.

This sort of adaptation, relief and its limitations, continue the journey of an aging body/self.

 

Opera: Not usually my thing though I love Wagner. I know, I know, an anti-semite, but what an artist! Watched an opera initiated by Yin, of Scott and Yin, with other members of the Chinese Heritage Foundation and staged by the San Francisco Opera.

An amazing, engaging, important work. The Journey of the Monkey King. If you can see it, take the chance. It will not disappoint you. Both libretto and the staging are, in my opinion, genius.

AI, Friends, GeekWorld, Health

Ablated. And happy about it

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Samain and the Radiation Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Brace. Steroids. Ablation. A medical trifecta. Possible surcease from pain of long standing. Long call with Ruth. Alan, the sherpa. All my close friends. Joanne. Marilyn and Irv. Luke and Leo. Tara and Eleanor. Ginny and Janice. Annie and Luna. Joe. Tom. Paul. Mark. Bill. A bit of Snow, now gone thanks to the solar snow shovel. Trending cold. Valium and Lyrica.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Radio frequency heat

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: The med tech with blond hair, a Grateful Dead fan, positioned me on the table, belly button in the center of the pillow, said this will be cold, he was right, then Dr. Gabriel said 1,2,3 before the needle with lidocaine went in for numbing, can you feel this thumping, no, the needles went in deep next to my spine delivering a radio frequency in the 350–500 kHz range which then, like a microwave oven, generated heat in the tissue around the nearby nerve thus cooking the proteins that facilitate transmission of pain from the nerve to the brain. As best I understand it.

 

That happened. Alan showed up in a puffy down vest for the cold weather, I grabbed one of my LLBean vests, my wallet, washed down two valiums and a Lyrica, and got in his intense blue BMV with leather seats, electric because that’s Alan. We were headed for Lonetree. Yet again for me.

As we drove, the drugs began to circulate, playing their necessary havoc with certain speech and motor functions. Valium boy, Alan called me.

Once I’d gotten off the table and into recovery, the CMA brought me water and soda crackers. I didn’t hurt, but the drugs had hit hard, making me unsteady on my feet and foggy.

Alan took me home, saw me open the door, and said, “I’ve gotta scoot.” He had a performance at Parkside Assisted Living in Aurora.

Once inside I took off my vest, put my wallet in its spot, went downstairs to let Shadow out. A little tricky, those stairs. Back upstairs for some food.

After letting Shadow back in, I thought, nap time. Shadow and I went into the bedroom around 1:30 pm. When I woke up, Shadow lay curled beside my pillow and the clock read, 8:30 pm. Well. That was the day, I guess.

A good day. Right now I’m feeling no pain at all but that could be the lidocaine. I won’t know the true results for a week or two.

So the week that was: I got braced, injected, and ablated. But wait! There’s more! Monday begins my ten sessions of radiation. A very, very medical holiseason for me. With life improving results I hope.

 

Just a moment: An AI bubble? So, so hard to say. Here’s a sentence that explains why some people think so: “By one measure, investments in computer equipment and software accounted for more than 90 percent of growth in gross domestic product in the first half of the year.” NYT, 11/22/25

My gut tells me this is not a bubble, rather an instance of tech thinkers outstripping the understanding of folks like me. I’m trusting greed and adventure to produce a happy, safe landing for us all. Time, as we say, will tell.

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?

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.

 

Cancer, Friends, Health

The Missing Hour

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Nurse Marissa. Dr. (Kirk) Harter. Dr. Garapati. The Radiology Tech. The MRI machine that I never saw. Swedish Hospital. Kate, always Kate. The view from a hospital bed. Tara, my sweet friend. Eleanor, who played all day with Shadow. Being driven. Being helped. Rabbi Jamie’s birthday on the fourth. Mayo, helping my buddy, Tom.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Propofol

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Histapkot.  Contentment. Acceptance.                       I’m comfortable with who I am and with what I have.

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: A ritual of infantilization begins with go to this room on this floor, continues with a nurse telling you to remove all of your clothes, put on some of ours that tie in the back and let your butt hang out, now lie down in the bed and I’ll bring you a nice warm blankie before asking you so many, so many questions they will seem like a lullaby. Which they were.

 

The missing hour: After all of Marissa’s questions had been asked, the IV placed, an oximeter taped to my finger, and a blood pressure cuff attached to my arm, plus one more warm blankie for good measure, Dr. Harter, barely old enough to shave, came by my bed and asked me many of the same questions again. We chose conscious sedation and I signed a temporary reversal of my DNR just in case the anesthesia stopped my heart. That’s something easily and non-invasively fixed. Or so Dr. Harter promised. Happy to observe that was not necessary.

After a half an hour or so of watching people and beds come and go in the Ambulatory Care Unit, a Radiology tech kicked the lock off on my bed and pushed me, pretty fast and confidently, to a large bed-sized elevator to go down one floor to imaging.

A small bay in the room with POWERFUL MAGNETS ALWAYS ON, as the sign read, was the last thing I saw before my missing hour. The tech, an older woman, late sixties I’d say, hooked me up to a machine to read my vitals: heart rate 69, bp 119/72, O2 sat at 97 with a canula, a few other numbers I couldn’t understand. She then came over and pushed some saline into the IV.

Dr. Garapati mused about the advances in medicine I’d seen in my lifetime. I really wasn’t as aware of them as he seemed to think. Still, he seemed nice.

Dr. Harter came on my left, or IV side, and attached a line to my IV, then that line to a hanging bag. This will take just a minute to act…and then I was in recovery, wondering where my missing hour had gone.

A strange sensation, to have no memory at all of the MRI, a good sensation for claustrophobic me. If I have to have another MRI, this is the method I’ll choose. How many times in life can we bypass something terrifying (to me) with the help of so many nice people?

 

 

 

Dogs, Friends, Garden, Greenhouse, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Did He Really Say That?

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Mabon and the Samain Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Tarot. Tara. Eleanor. Hay for the Garlic. Harvesting Kale, Spinach, and Beets. Joe. Joanne. Marilyn. Ric. Luke and Leo. Heather. Ginny and Janice. Cold morning. Sheet Pan meals. Alan. Kongs. Nylabones. Gonoughts. Tires. Doggie puzzles. Sit. Down. Touch. Come. Dodgers and Blue Jays.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The World Series

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hochmah.  Wisdom.   “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.”  Perkei Avot: 4:1   Making medical decisions this week.

Tarot: Reading with Tara

One brief shining: Kitchen scissors did not substitute well for garden shears as I cut Stalks of Kale, Leaves of Spinach, pinching my fingers; I did leave their roots  to nourish next year’s crop, and gently rocked Beet Roots back and forth to pull them from their home deep in the soil of Artemis’ western raised bed.

 

Dog Diary: I watched Eleanor and Shadow play. Shadow pawed up toward Eleanor’s head. Eleanor draped a long black Leg over Shadow’s back. Shadow reached up, gave her a nip. Friends in an intimate moment.

Whenever Tara opened the back door, the two of them rushed in, bouncing, smiling, jumping up, bringing the happy chaos of young animals enjoying themselves, each other, us. Infectious. Joyous. In the present.

A word for Gracie, Anne’s Blue Heeler, who died a few months ago. A calm and pleasant Dog who enjoyed lying in the Light of Great Sol as it streamed through the tall windows of the synagogue’s social hall. Humans sitting around a table trying to figure out how to be more like Dogs. Kind. Loving to all. Compassionate.

 

Artemis: Harvested a gallon Ziploc bag full of Kale and another of Spinach. Pulled up eight Beets, two small but fully round, the others longer, less filled out, all with tiny white roots reaching out from the main, spilled blood red.

Proof of concept. More, much more, than I expected. Today I will harvest Rainbow Chard and plant Garlic. I disconnected the drip irrigation from the hose and shut down the heater in the greenhouse. Without the insulation Nathan has yet to install it can’t hold back the outside temps when they plunge well below freezing.

Ordered a pair of my favorite garden shears from Amazon. They would have been useful yesterday with the Kale and the Spinach, but they’ll be necessary for cutting down my Tomato Plants. Once I get a propane heater for the greenhouse I plan to plant Lettuce, Arugula, and herbs, other plants ok with cold weather.

The Carrots will continue to grow in the cold frame of the east raised bed for a while, though I’ll have to water them now that the irrigation has gone quiet. Next spring I plan to devote that bed to memorial Flowers for Jon and Kate: Iris, Gladiolus, Canna Lilies.

A successful first season. And, a great boon to my daily life.

 

Just a moment: Oh, Jesus. Did he really say “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media site, saying the process would begin immediately. quote from NYT, 10/30/25.

Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

Coming to Summer’s End

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Mabon and the Samain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Paul. Marilyn and Irv. Big O. Closing up the cold frames. 19 degrees this morning. A cold Rain. 23 in the greenhouse. Bye, bye Tomatoes. The Diplomat. High quality TV. Joanne, coming home today. Aspen Perks. Maddie, coming today. CBE bridge this afternoon. Red Tie Guy trying to make nice with fellow tyrant, Kim Jong Un.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow Tires

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hochmah.  Wisdom.   “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.”  Perkei Avot: 4:1   Making medical decisions this week.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Shifted waiting room chairs after Great Sol heated me up, found a shaded one as customers came in, spoke with front desk clerks about brakes, a steering wheel that wobbled at forty miles per hour, which winter tire to buy while I laughed out loud, often, reading Carl Hiaasen’s Beach Fever on the Kindle app of my Samsung phone.

Following Alan’s plan from last year, I had my Snow tires put on a bit early, beating the November scrum that often finds appointments out past Thanksgiving. Big O, not Stevenson Toyota. Cheaper and closer. An 8:30 am drive down Black Mountain/Brook Forest Drive listening to Hard Fork, the New York Times podcast about tech with a focus on AI.

Aspens in sheltered places remain the grand golden torches of the late Fall Forest though most have lost their leaves to Wind and Rain. This is a delicate moment between our bicolored Fall and the bitter weather leading toward Thanksgiving. No Snow here yet, though Black Mountain’s ski runs did collect Snow a week ago.

Elk Cows gathered along Maxwell Creek where it turns and flows through Evergreen, their horned Patriarch lounging as the Cows ate Grass and drank from the cold Waters of this Mountain Stream. Evergreen Lake had no paddle boarders, no kayakers.

A quiet anticipation. Black Bears nearing the end of hyperphagia, hunting for or returning to dens to sleep away the fallow time. Elk Cows and Mule Deer Does quickening with Calves and Fawns.

Humans have on their hoodies, fleece. Most have on long pants though I saw a  man yesterday in bright yellow down vest, shorts, and sandals. Temperatures vary a lot between Sun and Shade, between early morning and midday making what to wear solved only by layers.

10 foot tall skeletons, ghosts made of used sheets, orange trash bags filled with leaves sport pumpkin faces. The increasing and earlier decorations for All Hallow’s Eve, or the feast of Summer’s End, Samain.

Summer has not fully fled with Denver hitting seventy-five this week. A few 60’s in our highs for Shadow Mountain.

We hang here between the final harvests of late fall gardens and the full stop of the growing season. Life in my late seventies mirrors this time. How long until l come to an end of my growing season? Words begin to disappear. The body becoming a brown husk, its seed long harvested, waiting for that first heavy Snow.

Ancient Brothers, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Loved Ones

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Mabon and the Samain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Luke and Leo. Shadow. My dying fan. Vince, who has returned. Artemis, who wants her late fall makeover in her western bed. Old friends and new. Joanne. Her call. Her stroke. Alan and Cheri, visiting her. Ode in his place, his studio. Naked Aspens. Smoky the Bear at high Wildfire risk. Big O Tires, Ruby’s Snow shoes. This morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Professor Luke

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hochmah.  Wisdom.   “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.”  Perkei Avot: 4:1   Making medical decisions this week.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Luke came up with his laundry and Leo, who lumbers along, a big old Dog with arthritis yet his same calm loving presence, Shadow circling him like a quick small bird, wanting to play, not understanding age, yet in her not knowing quickening memories for him of a younger Leo so he moves a bit faster, plays.

 

Loved ones: A weekend filled with friends and family. Rich bringing me Kim’s wonderful soup on Saturday. Our conversation.

After he left, my regular call to faraway Korea, my son on his couch, me in my chair. This now forty-four year long relationship as vibrant and loving as ever. A sweet and kind and compassionate man.

Sunday morning, my four Ancient Brothers, all well past the three quarters of a century mark, gathering around our cyber camp fire to speak of our week, keeping each other up to date on our lives. Then each of us taking a turn reflecting on place and what it means in our world.

A phone call. Sorry I stood you up. Well, Joanne, a stroke counts as a pretty good excuse. We talked, as we do, of matters of the heart, her Albert, my Kate. Life alone. Her path after the stroke that landed her in Lutheran hospital’s ICU. Damned insurance companies. She said men her age peers, early 90’s, suffered from testosteronitis. My age not as much. I felt flattered.

While I talked to her, Leo came down the stairs, his happy face familiar with my place and turning, as is his wont, to the silver bucket in which I keep Shadow’s toys, his collar and his rabies tag getting tangled in the bucket’s handle, surprising him, but in his gentle way, he handled it.

Professor Luke followed, his duffel bag of laundry over his shoulder. Leo went outside to see Shadow. We sat here, in the two leather chairs, friends and coreligionists. I told him I would help him in any way he needed when he took over the bagel table Torah study next week. Filling in for Rabbi Jamie who starts his sabbatical November 1st.

He’s excited about his work, teaching Chemistry at Colorado Community College. I’m so happy to see him finally in a work setting that nourishes him. He’s needed that for as long as I’ve known him, going on four years now.

After he left, Vince showed up straight up from his work with an architectural restoration firm at the Colorado State Capitol. He solved the motion sensor light problem, found an arcing extension cord, and will come back to fix that. I could tell he’s once again my property manager. He’s always been my friend.

Friends, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

Topophilia

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Mabon and the Samain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Rich and Kim. Her delightful vegetarian soup and Rich’s delivery. Dodgers win game two. Shadow and her snuggles. Artemis laughing at the cold nights. Hip and back pain. Red Tie Guy in Korea. My son, his Korean life. Murdoch, sleeping. Cherry Tomato sheet pan recipes. Ruby’s Snow shoes, tomorrow. Joanne.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kim’s soup

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hochmah.  Wisdom.   “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.”  Perkei Avot: 4:1  Making medical decisions this week.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Rich sat down yesterday after delivering Kim’s soup and we had a philosophical conversation about the difference between discoveries like Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and creativity that results in patents since Rich will teach, for the first time at Mines, a class he and another professor are developing on intellectual property. Fun.

 

Rich: A dear friend who volunteered to be my medical emergency contact and my Colorado medical power of attorney since Joseph’s in Korea. Also a very bright guy who’s taught at the Colorado School of Mines for many years. First constitutional law, then an honor’s class, and now will co-develop the new class on intellectual property.

To give you a sense of Rich’s approach, the first place he took students who will be in this class? A company run by two CSU-Boulder engineers, a couple, who develop open source software (her) and open source hardware (her). He’s also reading a lot of Karl Marx.

Also, a bee keeper. Glad to have him as a friend.

 

Oddity: So I’ve told Rich, Tara, and Ruth about my as yet unscheduled MRI. All three want to take me, be there with me. Geez. I admit I don’t know how to handle this generosity. But. I do appreciate it.

 

Artemis: Didn’t get around to harvesting Kale, Spinach, Beets, planting Garlic. Too focused on finding a new fan, one that won’t wake Shadow and me up at night with sudden illumination. Found a fan with no light. Should work.

Maybe today.

 

Place: The Ancient Brothers topic for this morning.

I always referred to Andover, Minnesota as a place with no there there. From Hwy. 10, up Round Lake Boulevard to 153rd Ave. it was an unbroken chain of franchise restaurants, local businesses in malls, a Walmart, and a grocery store. Once I got home though, to 3122 153rd Avenue, there was a there there.

Partly horticultural artifice with Prairie Grass, Flower beds, Vegetable gardens, an Orchard, and a Fire-pit. Partly a Woods filled with Ash, Elm, Cottonwood, Iron Wood, Oak, thick vines and ground covers.

We created a place with a sense of place. The Prairie Grass harkened back to the original Oak Savannah. The Woods were a remnant of a larger Forest. Our various gardens flourished in the Great Anoka Sand Plain, a geological feature of the Glacial River Warren which drained the formerly vast Lake Winnipeg.

When the time came to move to Colorado, there was no question about where to go. The Mountains were calling. This Winter Solstice will mark my eleventh year on Shadow Mountain, a favorite place.