Category Archives: Friends

Denver, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Friends

Leave a comment

Spring and the Garden Path Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Luke. My son. Doug. Kep. 8 degrees and Snow. A good night. Slept well. A fresh look for the main level. On its way. Alan and his joy. His move to a castle in the sky. John Porter, co-owner of the Bread Lounge. Evergreen. My Mountain town. Fixing the walkway around Evergreen Lake. The Elk dining on exposed grass along Hwy. 74. ChatbotGPT4. AI. HUMINT.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Luke

 

Down the hill to Evergreen yesterday. The Bread Lounge. Alan. Came up in a rental Polestar from his new place high above the mean streets of Denver. His Tesla is the shop for expensive body work. The skin of the Tesla costs. He backed into a truck last year but this was the first time he could get it in a place he trusts. The Polestar he says doesn’t do everything his Tesla does. How could it?

He had some concerns about his move. Waiting for the elevators. The noise of a forced air system. And from the outside. The Mountains are quiet. Has had good elevator conversations and not long waits.The forced air came on with a whump but after building maintenance replaced the filter, a whu. So that’s good. He said he can tell the place is quiet because when he opens the patio door it’s noisy.

A good gym with everything you’d want. Hot tubs. A movie room. A dining room for guests on the top floor. A view to the southeast with Pikes Peak. And a nighttime view that’s spectacular. Cheri posted a picture of it on Facebook. Very urban. Going down and walking to restaurants, to get food, go to a jazz club. Plus everybody’s calmed down now the move is over. Alan was in fine spirits.

Met the owner of the Bread Lounge, John. Shook his hand. Oh. A very strong grip. Made me feel a bit fragile. He’d been on the Evergreen Fire Department Board. And, I imagine, a volunteer. Strong like bull. Alan knows lots and lots of people. He comes up every Friday for Rotary breakfasts at the Country Day school. We meet after that.

A bit of Snow made the drive down what I call technical. Had to use all my Minnesota driving knowledge. Plows had not been out and the light Snow had become icy. All those years of seeing Snow on roads in the Gopher State have trained me. I can see what I’m looking at.

 

Right now it’s single digit temps and high winds up here on Shadow Mountain. The Lodgepoles swaying. Snow blowing up in whorls. A cold blue Sky.

Going into Evergreen again today to have lunch with Kate Strickland and Michael Banker at Campfire Grill. Looking forward to that. I saw them last at the Dushanbe Tea House in Boulder.

Speaking of younger friends. Luke’s coming up tomorrow. Kat’s reading the book I gifted to her. I like that I have these links to the upcoming generation. And to Ruth and Gabe’s. Makes me feel like an elder.

 

Doug worked yesterday. Got started in the kitchen. Says he may come back today. Getting closer. Not sure yet if he’s going to do the downstairs right now or later.

 

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Down the Garden Path

Leave a comment

Spring and the Painted Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Benjamin Moore’s Garden Path. Doug. A sweet guy. Kat, interested in philosophy, psychology, psychedelics. Nichie. Kep. Changing colors. Shadow Mountain. Firm beneath me. Black Mountain. The Sun. The Moon. The Lodgepoles and the Aspen. Those Mule Deer Does on the road yesterday. The Black Bears beginning to roll over and shake their paws. Ah, time to get up, it’s Spring. Ramadan. Allah. The Prophet Mohamed. Jesus, the Messiah. Abraham, the father of them all.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Spring Snow

 

Had a grocery order to pick up yesterday morning. Took myself out to breakfast at Aspen Perk’s. How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan went along. Pushed open the door, looked inside. One person at the bar. Nobody in the booths. Just right.

The cheerful waitress with a lot of tattoos on  her right arm came up. She has round glasses, blond hair, and a smile. Always. Can I look at your book? Sure. I’m interested in self help, psychology, philosophy. This is about psychedelics. Those, too. Some of the best insights I’ve had came from taking LSD.

When Tara and I had breakfast there a while we back, we’d speculated that this same waitress might be a Ph.D. student. Obviously bright and engaged, she makes an impression. Maybe late twenties.

I’d noticed a y’all the last time Marilyn and Irv and I ate there and asked her about it. Yes, originally from Texas. Ah.

We chatted for a bit after she brought my coffee. She’s struggled with depression and has some good results with psychedelics. I told her about the Plant Magic Cafe. She got excited. Just by the name!

Two eggs, crisp bacon, country potatoes, sour dough toast. Breakfast out. After dinner at Three Victorias last night. Livin’ high on the hog.

Michael Pollan took me through his conclusions gleaned from his study of psychedelics, his interviews with researchers, guides, and promoters, his own trips. He was of the opinion that legalization would take a while. And would need careful thought and guidance.

He hadn’t counted on Oregon and Colorado. A strange combination of libertarians, latter day hippies, and millenial/gen Z enthusiasts squeaked out a win in both states. Oregon first, Colorado last year.

I gifted the book to Kat. We’d exchanged names. She seemed surprised and delighted. Come back in and we’ll talk about it. Maybe I’ve made another friend in the younger age brackets. That would be nice. She’s going to visit the Plant Magic Cafe, too.

 

Brother Mark has Saudi on his mind. He got a job offer there for a position through August 31st. He’s been all over Saudi Arabia and this is a new spot. Something he relishes. Reminds me of Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Ray Stevens and the Sheik of the burning sands. Back in the less woke day. As my sister Mary said, he’s keeping up the tradition of the traveling Ellises. Indeed.

 

Doug has Kate’s old sewing room almost finished. Garden Path by Benjamin Moore is a color that shows up in brother-in-law Jerry’s big painting of the Blue Ridge mountains near his house in Belews Creek, North Carolina. It’s a light green. I’ll post some pictures when thing are a bit further along.

 

 

 

Cooking, Dogs, Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Snow Days

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Kep. Snow. Cold. Books. James Pogue. Jane Benett. Wes Jackson. Cetaphil. Great workout. United Health Care. Health Insurance. The American Medical System. CBE. Ruby and her faithfulness. ChatbotGPT, an interlocutor. This Dell laptop. My desktop. The home office, getting closer. Probate. Kate, always Kate. Her memory in foam. LL Bean. Chewy. Amazon. USPS. UPS. Lifelines in the Mountains.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dr. Doverspike

 

I’m three quarters through How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. A good read. Learned a lot about psychedelics. Or, ethnognens. Makes me more eager to try some again. A trip to the Plant Magic Cafe and I should be able to find a guide. Learned of guides in the book. Very un-60’s, but it sounds useful to have a psychologist available on my first trip back to the interior homeland.

I recommend the book. A lot of good history of psychedelic research, of how the 60’s blew up decades that’s right decades of research with psychedelics. A cast of characters that include Timothy Leary, Al Hubbard, Ram Dass, Henry Osmond, and many other key figures in the years since Albert Hoffman accidentally discovered LSD for Sandoz, the pharmaceutical giant, on November 16th, 1938.

Pollan recounts the history in magazine article style (thanks, Diane). He also tells of his own trips after overcoming a long hesitation about experimenting with hallucinogens. The research he covers should provide comfort to anyone who would like to use these drugs but fears them because of the propaganda from the 60’s and 70’s.

Another great workout yesterday. 266 minutes for the week already. 9 hours of sleep. I feel good. Like I knew I would.

 

Friday. Well. Left this. Sitting here on my browser. And watched the Snowfall, had a Fire in the fireplace, read. Watched some TV. I took a Snow day. It was fun. Was gonna mail my taxes, run some errands, but the day was too beautiful. Still Snowing this morning. One Snow day. Two Snow days. A reason I live in the Mountains.

Although. Supposed to have my second round of radiation yesterday. Nope. United Profit Care still dithering on whether to approve it. Anova Cancer Care and United’s just say no team are in communication.

I understand the hesitation on United’s part. My PSAs are undetectable. The two mets only show mild uptake of the tracer. Could be that the androgen deprivation therapy has not yet finished working on these two and will knock them back, too. Yet. We can kill these two sites and eliminate them from my future.

Whatever transpires, I’m at peace with it. Because, how does it help me not to be? I’ll consider an appeal, sure, but is the sturm and drang worth it? Not really confident it is.

 

On Monday I had my glaucoma check and had dinner with Ruth and Gabe. I haven’t left the house since. Stuff kept canceling. Radiation on Tuesday, then on Thursday. Alan this morning. Doverspike’s coming by at 2 pm to give Kep some acupuncture and check on his progress. Still Snowing today so I think I’ll skip the trip down the hill until tomorrow. Buy a new pair of Keens and visit the Plant Magic Cafe.

I’ve enjoyed these in the house days. I can write, read. Could work on my Korean and my calculus but I didn’t. Kep and me. The fireplace. Got in my cardio minutes. Watched some movies. Cooked. I love time alone. Wouldn’t want it to be all I have, but these last three days on a Mountain top with Snow drifting down. Food in the refrigerator. A Fireplace with Wood stacked nearby. A nice vacation.

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage

The Great Circle Route

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Dr. Repine. Space Invaders, or Visual field exam for glaucoma. That sweet tech whose name came out muffled through her mask. My Phonak, something with the battery or the charger. My “insurance” company. American medicine. The labyrinth. Little India. With Ruth and Gabe. Ruth driving. More assured. Gabe with some facial hair. Driving the great circle route around Denver.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Night Sky on Shadow Mountain

 

Busy day. Feed the Kep. Write Ancientrails. Breakfast. 100 minutes of workout. Shower. Drive to Littleton. Eye doc. From Littleton to Northfield to pick up Gabe and Ruth. Over to Little India. Back to Northfield. Drive home. A complete circle around the Denver metro. 120 plus miles.

 

While eating with Ruth and Gabe at Little India, where Ruth knows the wait staff, a call came in from Anova Cancer Care. No approval yet for my radiation. Could be a week. Oh. They took me off the schedule.

Frustrated. But not surprised. If I had another option, I’d have taken it. Pre-existing condition has made me permanently joined to the Minnesota medical insurance behemoth, United Health Care. Their second guessing of my oncologists has been a dynamic theme since they denied my first axumin scan.

Constantly caught within a triad of big insurance, big pharma, and the folks trying to deliver my health care. There is no scenario in which you build a health care system like the one we have. It creeks. It leaks. And it makes having cancer or any other chronic illness a constant challenge.

 

Every six month glaucoma check. Stable. Dr. Repine is thorough, but quick. She explained my heterochromia to me. I have a blue rim around my brown eyes. Arcus senilis. Fatty lipids create a white haze around the outer iris which refracts the brown beneath as blue. Common, apparently. Odd.

 

I should explain my workout numbers. They’re generated by my fitbit. It gives double minutes for time in the cardio and peak heart rate zones. That way I can workout for 50 or 60 minutes but end up with 100 minutes of workout time according to the NIH standards. The minutes not in the cardio or peak zone are still in the zone of moderate exercise. The NIH recommended 150 minutes represents moderate exercise. Or, they say, 75 minutes of vigorous exercise. The cardio and above fits into that level of exercise. Thus, the double minutes on the fitbit.

 

Gabe thinks I’m going to live to be 95. Or, a hundred. When, he noted, he would be 38. Doubtful. But it’s sweet he thinks that. He’s got some peach fuzz. Conflicted about it. Maturing is hard. Though he seems on that path.

Ruth says school’s going well. She’s still struggling. Depression. OCD. But she’s got a therapist she really likes and sees regularly. Working at it. She’s not alone. The number of teenagers with serious mental health issues has grown alarmingly. Especially since Covid.

Being a teenager has never been easy, but the changes over the last decade or so have created so much frisson for them. Gender. Climate Change. LGBTQ+. Two working parents. Political division. The woes of higher education roiling their attempts to sort what comes after high school.

What can grandparents do? Love them.

 

Asia, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Sweetness

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Waiting To Cross Moon

Sunday gratefuls: For each of the Ancient Brothers and their uniqueness. Zoom. Kep drinking Water. That ancient Water. Recycled through time, now in an aluminum bowl near me. And, in Kep. Becoming Kep. Dr. Doverspike skiing the Powder. Organizing and cleaning out my freezer. Done. Cooking my own food. Chicken. Pork. Fish. Sustainable all. Frozen Vegetables and Fruit. Eggs. Seeing Gabe on Monday night. Ruth thrifting in Boulder.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing what we’re looking at

 

Sweetness. My son and his wife. Dressed for golf. He’s shooting for a 20 handicap. He’s got the bug big time. So does she. They play every weekend. Often 36 holes or more. Murdoch has become less independent. More of a lap dog. Odd. Might be sensing the upcoming move.

Sweetness. Seeing those old men on my zoom screen opening their hearts. Letters from great-grandchildren. Imagination. Looking up at the stars and out to the tides. And into each other. Special and irreplaceable. Church.

Gettin’ things done. Home office getting closer. Needs a great rug. Some more art. Working my way through the needs attention inbox. Finished it. Nothing left. Feels good. Money piling up in my accounts. Changed draw from the rollover, but no money going out for drugs. Orgovyx free now until the end of the year. Erleada still no word. I’ll lower the draw when I find out about it. Not till then though. Potentially $2,200 a month.

The freezer. Threw out old meat. Made three compartments: Fruits and Potatoes. Vegetables. Meats. Much better. Food of my own making. Yes.

 

Reading my way into the changes in our world. The times they are achangin’ agin’. Becoming Native to This Place. Vibrant Matter. Christian Nationalism. Seeing Like a State. Perilous Bounty. Lots of magazine and newspaper articles. Other reading I’ve done over the years. Localism. Anti-corporatism. A reverence for nature. Threads I held and hold dear. Now running through a crowd of folks who hate government, love the Founders and the Extremes, guns, staying in your tribal lane. Who are willing to regulate women’s bodies. Who want to exit the current culture and live in the West.

There is a post-Enlightenment movement that has handholds for all these folks, for me. Post modernism. Regenerative agriculture. Rebuilding rural communities. Rebuilding inner city neighborhoods. Enforcing monopoly laws. Reinstating the estate tax. A wariness of Big Pharma, Big Grain, Big Ag, Big Business.

Getting clearer. Details and conflicts. Roots. Possible impacts on current politics.

 

A bit of good news. La Nina is gone! An El Nino will startup sometime this  year. Water will follow for the dry West. And this Forest in which I live. May it be enough to create a moderate Fire season as opposed to a high or extreme one. Something to ease the mind. Help the Snowpack and the Colorado River Basin.

How bout that time change, eh? So. Much. Fun. Kep’s making moves for food. Early, he thinks. Really, a bit late. I slept in. Right past the change. Now Kep and I are living it together. Oh boy.

 

 

Dogs, Dreams, Fourth Phase, Friends, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Birthing a New Worldview?

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Dr. Doverspike. Kep. Acupuncture. Salmon. The lick mat. Powder on the way. Back country skiing. Snow today. Black Mountain white. Dawn. Tom in Mendocino. His 75th today. Happy birthday, Tom. Cafe Beaujolais. Doug the Painter. Marilyn and Irv. The 60’s are not dead. Psilocybin. Mescaline. LSD. Ayahuasca. Peyote. Good friends, in depth conversations. Ruth calling me yesterday.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s call

 

Brunch with Marilyn and Irv at Aspen Perks. We discussed the Alan Lightman PBS series: Searching: A quest for meaning in the age of science. We all found Lightman’s emphasis on the journeys of specific Atoms from Supernovas to Solar system formation to Planets to life to us and back out again after death reassuring. Yes. And we also thought his reductionist materialism left out an important perspective. A world beyond, within, in addition to this one we can know with our sensorium. Dreams. Hallucinogens. Mystical experience. Emergent phenomena as evidence, including consciousness. The John Cleese moderated University of Virginia panel on reincarnation.

We also discussed family, grandkids, and dream work that happens at CBE. Gonna join the dream work group.

 

Dr. Doverspike came to see Kep at 2. He agrees that Kep’s recovery is slower and less obvious than he had hoped. Could be some spinal issues, too. He believes we’ve handled the pain and may (he hopes, me too) be looking at a need to strengthen muscles. That will be easier once Kep can move freely in the yard, but that won’t happen for another month or so. Snow.

Kep seems happier, more alert. Pain under control. He also stands taller when he’s not exhausted.  I’m willing to go a full month to see if we can generate better results. I did move Kep’s food downstairs.

Doverspike is off to the interior Mountains today hunting for powder.

 

Started a fascinating book yesterday by Jane Bennett, Professor of Political Theory and chair of the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Vibrant Matter. She’s arguing for what she calls the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Thing-power. “I will try to give voice to a vitality intrinsic to materiality, in the process absolving matter from its long history of attachment to automatism or mechanism.” p. 3

I’m reading it as part of my project of understanding the New Right and as part of my Becoming a Pagan project. There’s an odd and uneasy convergence between the two. It may be only the sound of rebellion against received wisdom, but there may be more, too. I’m beginning to wonder if the forces threatening to drive our nation apart might have deeper, more profound roots than has been noticed so far.

Those roots might have fertile soil in a rethinking of the influence of the Enlightenment and the role of science in our daily and political lives. In other words we may be trying to birth a post-enlightenment worldview. One that honors science and rationality, but dethrones it from an imperial position to a collaborative one. A lot going on here. Only have a partial toe in the water.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain

And I Am Glad

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Friday gratefuls: How to Change Your Mind. Philpott. Pollan. High Winds. Lodgepoles swaying. Doverspike. Marilyn and Irv. Aspen Perks. Tara, pronounced terra. Mussar. Luke at mussar. Rabbi Jamie. Alan. His castle in the sky. Making the new office mine. Doug the Painter. New Amsterdam, a show with a lot of heart. Ditto The Last of Us.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dazzle Jazz Sunday Brunch with Ruth

 

Realized I’ve focused on relationships of late. Making lunch and dinner and breakfast dates. Spending time with friends. Family. Talking with folks on zoom. Texting. This is not a change in focus, but a change in both quantity and quality. As I age, my precious, the one ring that binds them all, is love.

Much less focus on what might be considered work. Much more attention to the lives of others. Not volunteering. Did enough of that. No, this is about the thicker web of close in family and friends. About being there for them as they are for me.

Seeing and being seen. Touching and being touched. Something to do with living alone. To paraphrase Alvin Toffler who said High Tech, High Touch. High Alone, High Touch.

In other words to live alone happily, as I do, means I have a greater need for intimacy with friends and family. And so it has come to be. As the authors of The Good Life, the book about the longest longitudinal study of human development, the Harvard Study of Adult Development say with a nod to the favorite wisdom of real estate: Relationships. Relationships. Relationships.

Introversion does not mean isolation or hermetic solitude. It means gaining energy from your own company. I find deep conversations with friends a source of solace, a source of gladness, a place to give and receive thoughts about life situations. I do not find them energizing. Though in their wake I do feel stronger, held up, buoyed by their now invisible presence.

Alone, but not lonely.

 

Perhaps you could call this the emet, the truth in context of introversion, of widowhood. Those of us already inclined to recharging ourselves alone. Those of us in an unwanted, yet fully accepted life without our partners. We can adapt well to the role of widower, from the Latin root *uidh-, to separate, divide. (Etymology) But we cannot adapt well (and should not) to a life without others.

If that final separation, so final, drives one into a dark place, occulted from the world of the living while still with breath, then. Well, then. There are two widows. One dead and one among the quick. Be it not be so for you if you encounter the abyss made by the departure of one you loved.

And yet. That abyss, perhaps the one into which you stare until it stares back at you, that abyss has meaning in its vasty deeps. Meaning you cannot find if you turn away, run in fear to the corner of your living room or the bar or to the arms of another.

In my own viewing of the deep I have come to accept both Kate’s permanent absence and her undying presence. Yes. She is well beyond my reach. Yes. She helped me cook the other night. Be patient with it, Charlie. She delights in the view of Black Mountain with me, her arm around my waist, her head on my shoulder. She rides up Shadow Mountain Drive with me, looking to see another Mountain Lion, Bear, Elk. And I am glad.

 

 

Cooking, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, GeekWorld, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Mussar

Chatbot helps me cook

Leave a comment

Imbolc the Waiting to Cross Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Tara. Pronounced Terra. Feelings. Sadness. Joy. Confidence. Trust. Vincent coming home. Her invitation to the second night Seder.  Aspen Perks. Poor food but a good place to eat. Quiet. That perky waitress. Kep. An early nudger today. My son. A joy. Becoming Native to This Place. Seeing Like a State. The Reason Liberalism Failed. Christian Nationalism. The changing state of our State.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A deep friendship

 

Tara. Whose name I pronounce as I read it. Tar-ah. But who pronounces it as she was given it, Terra. Gotta learn to say this. Hard. I pronounce as I read something. Not always right. Difficult to change.

We spent an hour plus talking. About her son Vincent who may return from a long stay in New York City next month. About my cancer. About Yamantaka. About matters of the heart. Tara has a profound honesty I appreciate.

She invited me to her second night seder. Her daughter, Julia, has college friends who want to come. So there will be a crowd. Glad to go. In this case I’m going to suck up my caution about covid. I’m tired of it anyhow. Still, it lingers and the in-person attendance at the Purim spiel on Monday suggests I’m not the only one.

Friends. Near and far. So happy to have them in my life.

 

CT scan today. To establish targets for my radiation. Five sessions. Two next week and three the week after. I hope it’s the same crew. I liked them. Kind. Caring. Not exactly looking forward to this, but it’s important. The drive is an hour both ways. That’s a hassle. And, there are non-trivial risks. What I choose to do with this one wild and precious life of mine. Keep it as long as I can.

 

Still playing around with the Chatbot. I made a potato and kale soup last night with chorizo. It blew up the roof of my mouth with its spiciness. Gonna take it tonight to MVP. What to do?

That sounds like a delicious soup!😋 According to web sources12345, some ingredients that are commonly used in kale and potato soup with chorizo are:

  • Chicken broth
  • Onion
  • Garlic
  • Smoked paprika
  • Salt and pepper

You could try adding more of these ingredients to your soup to reduce the spiciness. Alternatively, you could add some sour cream or cheese on top of your soup for a creamy contrast. Or you could add some lemon juice or vinegar for a tangy touch.

I hope this helps you enjoy your soup more. Let me know how it turns out.

A chatty response from Auntie Sydney. I can’t use any dairy because that violates kosher. No dairy and meat in the same dish. Really, the same meal. Gonna add more chicken broth. Then some vinegar if that doesn’t do the trick.

Can’t believe I’m using Microsoft search. It’s been so bad for so long. But, there you go. I did notice that I got ten queries this time. Wonder if they’re gradually upping the limits of the conversations.

I do like that it gives you the sources it uses. Not the same as evaluating them, but then that’s the reader’s task. As it always is.

 

Friends, Judaism, The Move

Alan and Rich

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

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

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Alan and Rich

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Glad for him.

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

Being Alive, Being Alive

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

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

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Brain

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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