Category Archives: Friends

Family, Friends, GeekWorld, Writing

Back In Its Own Stall

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79  bar falls 29.84 1mph ENE dew-point 61   Summer, hot, moving toward muggy

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

The cracks in the red car’s head were tiny.  I saw them.  They ran, in one instance, down the threads that hold the spark plug in place.  While threading in a spark plug or under pressure, these cracks could have broken loose and allowed oil and exhaust gases to invade the spark plug and generally foul things up.  Carlson was thoughtful in showing them to me.

We’ve sunk almost $5,000 in this car this year.   That’s almost a year’s car payments.  Even so, we could put in the same amount next year and still be ahead of the game.  It runs quite well now, though there is that piece that fell off on the way home.  No kidding.  A big chunk of something fell off.  I’m going to take it back and ask them about it, but not today.  It looks like a shield or rock barrier, not metal, rather some kind of composite, tarpaper like material.

It’s 31-32 miles per gallon on the highway alone justifies keeping it in our two vehicle collection.  The pick-up we’ll park for the most part in the not too distant future.  $90 a tank to fill it up.  Ouch.  And it sucks the gas down, too, with its v-8.  What were we thinking?  It is, though, a useful vehicle for errands and landscape chores.  Another advantage is its four-wheel drive.  (Oh, come to think of it, that’s what we were thinking.  In 1999, when we bought it, Kate still had call and  hospital duty.  She had to be able to get to where she was needed.) That makes it potentially important in a severe winter situation.  Besides, pick-ups and SUV’s have lost significant value.  We could get nowhere the value it is to us.  So, it will stay, too.

Our neighbor went to bed apparently healthy, then woke up the next day with MS.  A striking and sudden life change.  It has occasioned a major alteration in their lives.  They went from the salary of a 58 year old career civil servant at the peak of  his career to a fixed income household.  This was six months ago.

How it will affect their family dynamics over the long haul is an open question.  The prednisone  makes  him cranky.  He’s gone from an active guy who built his own observatory and sailed Lake Superior to a wobbly man who can no longer read.  His mental acumen seems fine, but for now he wanders, lost in the bewilderment of this rapid change, as well he might be.

Today is an inside day.  I’m going to write on Superior Wolf, get ready for my research on Unitarian Universalism in the Twin Cities and, maybe, crack the case and clean off my cooling fan.

Art and Culture, Friends, Garden

A Bad Break

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68  bar steady 29.65  2mph  ESE  dew-point 56  Beltane, Sunny and sort of warm

                       First Quarter of the Flower Moon 

“Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.” – James Russell Lowell

My docent friend, Bill Bomash, fell 10 feet into a culvert at a mountainside home in Brazil.  He had gone there to visit a friend who had recently completed his new house.  I wrote about him a couple of months ago.  He had two weeks in an all Portugese speaking hospital after the intial orthopedic surgery because he developed an infection, not unusual when a lot of hardware goes into the bone.  This happened in January.  He faced six months of recovery when he finally got back to Minnesota in early February. 

Now this:

Hi everybody.  Well I got some disappointing news the other day.  I’ve been having more pain in my leg and when I went into the doctor he said that he thought the hardware in my leg was failing.  As a result, there was too much movement in the bone. I’m going into the hospital again on Monday for surgery to remove all the hardware and have a rod inserted through the bone to hold it in place. I’m afraid it’s pretty much back to square one.
    It looks like it will be quite a while yet before I can return to touring.
    I’ll get back to you with an update after the surgery and I have returned back home.

In a much more modest instance I had three months of recovery after surgery to repair my ruptured Achilles tendon.  It drove me nuts.  Six months after the initial break Bill now faces another six months of recovery.  Geez.

Off to Costsco for dogfood, then chainsaw Charlie will emerge and start whacking off limbs.  Of trees.

Friends, Garden, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths

The Most Ancient Trail of All

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54  bar falls 30.06  1mph NE  dew-point 51  Beltane, cloudy and drizzly

                   Last Quarter of the Hare Moon

A change has begun to creep over the Woolly Mammoths.  It is at least late fall for us.  One of us had an episode of Bell’s Palsy over the weekend.  He first thought, as I would have, stroke.  The effects lingered into this week. 

Late last night came news of a Woolly spouse.  Cancer of the utereus.  Adenocarcinoma.  A hopeful prognosis if tests next week find it in an early stage.  Even so.   

Frank’s heart attack before he came to the Woolly’s and his bypass surgery after have kept medical issues in front of us, yes, but these are new.  Fresh.  Signals that we have begun to age.  The fact is that such matters are no longer unusual in our period of life.  While still not common, they will begin to pop with increasing incidence until, one by one, this herd of Woolly Mammoths and their spouses follow those of the Ice Age on that most ancient trail of all.

On a cloudy, cool day with a light rain falling this news could be depressing, but I find it just so.  These matters are as key to our developmental age as were graduations in our 20’s and weddings in our late 20’s and early 30’s.  Like those earlier rites of passage, the action is not in the event itself, but in our reaction to it over time. (to paraphrase Saul Alinsky)

I spent an hour and half outside today, planting and transplanting.  Cloudy, cool, drizzly.  Perfect for that work.  Blue fescue, Maiden Grass, cucumbers, watermelon, squash and morning glories will each enjoy the rain on their first day in their new locations.  The daylily transplant project was part of this and continues, in dribs and drabs, as it will until we finish it, probably some time in July. 

We go out to see RJ Devick, our financial planner/money manager, today.  These situations become more and more pertinent as Kate nears retirment age and I  enter that time when eligibility for both pension and social security are upon me.  Considering these matters thoughtfully are also part of our development period.  We are at the cusp of a major change in our lives.

Faith and Spirituality, Friends, Garden, Our Land and Home, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths

Seeking Mastery Within

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54  bar steady 29.78  1mph NW  dew-point 44  Beltane, sunny and cool

                                       Full Hare Moon

The weather remains cool.  This is not a long spring; it’s a long late March or early April.  The gardening upside has been longer lasting blooms on the tulips and the daffodils and the scylla.  This weather has also proved excellent for transplanting, reducing transplant shock to a minimum and resulting in little wilting after a move.  The downside has been slow germination (no germination?) for some vegetable seeds planted and slow growth for the ones that have sprouted.  From the humans who live here in Andover perspective it’s been a great season.  Cool weather to work outside and to further many landscaping projects.

Last night’s conversation about mastery at Tom’s lingers today.  At one point we asked each person to claim what mastery they found in themselves, then we offered evidence of mastery we found in them, too, from an outsider’s perspective.  Various Woolly’s were masters of soulfullness, love, living, listening, communicating, design, the big picture, and drawing others out to see the best in themselves. 

Tom and I were wrong in our assumption that individual Woollys would find it difficult to claim a sense of mastery.  And delighted to be wrong, too.  We affirmed what each Woolly saw as their area of mastery and added ones they hadn’t seen or chose to ignore, e.g. mastery of forensic engineering, computer skills and sheepshead, making the complex accessible, letting go, the body in motion.

In my case, for example, I admitted I couldn’t find anything to claim since I’ve lead such a curiousity driven life, often running full speed down divergent paths at the same time.  Then, I said, “Well, I guess I could claim being a master student.”  That got modified in the eyes of the group to seeker after essential, radical truth.  OK, I can see that.  “You’re a master teacher, too.”  Hadn’t occurred to me, but that’s become a theme in various areas of my life of late, so it must be there in spite of my opacity to it.     

Tom initiated a get together for designing the evening and having me as a co-facilitator, rather than a servant lackey.  He made the food simple, sandwiches and soup followed by a big, really big, cookie.  Others seemed to appreciate the act of co-operation in design of the evening.  Tom and I wanted to introduce better time managment, and we did; but, that was not appreciate by everyone.  “Felt forced.”  Well, yes.  But every time together has its limits and therefore its limits on contribution.

As we closed, Tom observed that the Woolly’s as a group are a master that each of us can turn to for guidance in life.  I nuanced that a bit by suggesting that as a group, over 20+ years together, we have mastered groupness.  We are a living community, best evidenced, as someone said, by the fact that we show up.

I have signed out for the summer at the Art Institute.  I need the break.  I’ll use the time for writing, family and our land.

Art and Culture, Friends, Woolly Mammoths

Anne Looked Grand

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43  bar steep rise 29.74  1mph NW  dew-point 41  Beltane

                                 Full Hare Moon

Whoa.   More socializing today than I get in a normal month.  AM Eric Kjerlling, curator of Oceanic art at the Met, gave an information packed lecture on this vast geographic region and its varied art forms.  He was funny, knowledgeable and deep.  An excellent introduction that I will want to revisit if I get the Asmat special exhibition year.  It was my number 2 choice after William Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelites.  The Pre-Raphaelites are among my favorites in Western art and I hope I get that exhibition.

Saw several folks at the coffee on break during the lecture, but then retired to St. Paul, 1394 Lincoln, for a wonderful couple of hours seeing others from our docent class.  Careen Heggard’s house is appointed by an architect, Careen, and wonderfully casual  and elegant at the same time.  She has a small cottage on the grounds, a former gardner’s residence, which she uses a cabin to which she does not have to drive, tea-house, escape.  Looks an ohana dwelling like we see in Hawai’i.

Morry, Joy and I stood out in the rain by the fire discussing literature.  Joy had a great line, one I hadn’t heard before, “Oh, that.  It’s just my stigmata acting up.”

Anne Grand was there and looked great.  She also seemed sharp.  Quite a relief.  I had worried about her.  Bill Bomash showed up, too, on crutches and looking wan.  I had to leave just as he came so I didn’t get a chance to chat.

Home for a nap at 2:30.  The morning and the lunch tired me out, as socializing tends to do.  I got up from my nap, went out in the rain, dug siberian iris, bearded iris and hemerocallis for Yin.  Scott brought three big bags of  hosta.  I felt like a piker.  I assured him there were more plants.

Woolly meeting at Tom’s.  On mastery.  Ode was home and it was great to see  him.  His report on the exhibit he did for UNESCO, sex ed for Thai teens, inspired me.  The meeting was a good one, deep and funny.  More later.  Paul and Charlie H. couldn’t make it.  More on the content tomorrow.

Friends, Literature, Writing

Current Literature

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59  bar steady  29.90  0mpn WSW dewpoint 44  Beltane

            Waxing Gibbous Hare Moon

A mediocre night at sheepshead, but we had a lot of laughs anyhow.  Bill Schmidt cleaned up the nickels tonight.

While driving back and forth I finished I Am Charlotte Simons, a 2004 Tom Wolfe novel.  It’s reviews are all over the map and I can see why.  On the one hand it is an arresting look at college life in the Ivy league.  On the other hand the characters never reached very deep into my soul.  It was long and brimming with detail, a novel of manners of a sort.  I’m glad I “read” it. (Listened to it.)  Don’t know if I would have finished it as a read.

Another writer who has my complete attention right now is Richard Price, author of Clockers and Lush Life.  I finished Clockers a few weeks ago and bought Lush Life last week.  I’m part way into it.  This guy writes dialogue with an ear like no body I’ve read before.   In Clockers he channels inner city drug dealers and homicide detectives with equal credulity.  Lush Life continues this same kind of street savvy attention to speech and mores, this time on the Lower East Side in New York.  Clockers was set in New Jersey. 

Both of these guys, in different ways, reach into a segment of American life only a few of us witness.  Of the two, Price’s work has the ring of authenticity while Wolfe’s is satirical and just a bit off key.  Still, I enjoy both authors and am glad to have them on the scene.

I returned, last night and today, to a novel I’ve fooled around with since 2001, Superior Wolf.  It has possibilities. 

Friends, Travel, Woolly Mammoths

The Quiet American

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53  bar falls 29.88 4mph NE dewpoint 33 Beltane   sunny

               First Quarter of the Hare Moon

         odebangkok400.jpg

                                  The Quiet American

Here’s my buddy, Mark Odegard in Thailand.  I can’t tell if this is the palace grounds or not, but I do remember just this sign.  It made me stop and think, too.  He’s just finishing up a safe sex exhibit for UNESCO and says he has come to love Thailand. 

Southeast Asia has a fascinating pull.  Mark and Mary succumbed to it years ago and have spent much of their adult lives there.  I’ve visited only once, but the memories are fresh and pull me back.  Part of the allure, of course, is the unfamiliar.  Southeast Asia as a place has figured little in American thought and history with the notable exception of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.  In those instances subjugation, not understanding was our goal, so the cultures and the people there remained opaque.

Another part of the attraction is the sense of confidence in their culture that these small countries have.  Thailand has not been conquered since the Angkor days of Khmer invasions.  Cambodia, though pummeled and ruined by first the U.S., then the Khmer Rouge, has a sweet, ancient flavor that overcomes even those dismal moments.  Singapore is a confident, bustling country, Asia lite as my sister says.  Malaysia has an old culture, too, layered over now with Islam, but still retaining a rotating monarchy and other traditional customs.  Burma remains largely the old days when the flying fishes went to play in far off Mandalay.  It retains a more traditional cast because the ruling junta has placed an umbrella over the country, blocking out the light and keeping the people subservient.  Indonesia has a huge population and much diversity with its many islands, but its Indonesian reality seems strong to me.

It is also cheap, easy for Americans to navigate financially and in that regard much more appealing than the Euro dominated Europe.

Since I travel often to become a stranger, an outsider, a foreigner, Southeast Asia fulfilled my need at each stop, but each time in a different way:  food, ruins, people, cities, colors, art. 

Someday I will return

Faith and Spirituality, Friends, Woolly Mammoths

In Tutelage to My Self

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41  bar steady  29.41 4mph dewpoint 39 Beltane

           Waning Crescent Moon of Growing

Wet.  Cold.  Dreary.  An inside day.  I was gonna plant beets and carrots outside, but not today.  Maybe Sunday.

Lunch with Tom Crane.  We discussed the meeting at his house where I serve as his assistant.  The topic is mastery.  The word poses some problems for me because it is difficult, if not impossible, to extricate it from its linkage to subordination.  The idea that lurks behind it, though, is strong.  Somewhere in the terms Zen master or Taoist sage or master gardener, even master craftsperson lies a life time of practice, the honing of a skill or a life way on the hard stone of experience. 

We had an interesting conversation about who we had come across in our lives we would consider masters.  I’ll get back to you, but no one leapt to mind.  We also discussed the possibility of naming for others where we see mastery in them.  This gets around the culture bound reticence we upper-middle class Midwesterners have to tooting our own horn.

I admitted that I had not allowed anyone to mentor me, nor had I been willing to be anyone’s disciple.  This is a weakness, I believe, borne of a need to figure things out for myself, to do things on my own.  Tom had the same experience, but for a different reason.  He was thrust into responsibility and expected to survive.  And he has.

This is, in part at least, a vulnerability question.  Can I make myself vulnerable enough to another person to become their student, their disciple.  The result of not doing that is, as Tom and I admitted, a sense that we have never quite arrived, not quite done enough.  A niggle of uncertainty that has no reference within us which we can use to dislodge it.

We also spoke a bit about being in tutelage to the Self.  I said I have been willing to trace my own journey by the vague outlines I feel in that part of me that participates in the greater universe, and which calls me forward to my own destiny.  As a Taoist, I would call that my attunement to the Movement of Heaven, the Tao.  A good lunch on a wet day.

Friends, Garden, GeekWorld, Great Work

A Fed? LOL

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43  bar steady  29.47 11mph  NNE  dewpoint 42 Beltane

                Waning Crescent Moon of Growing

Well, ok then.  The reader who wondered about my hydroponics is not a Fed.  LOL they said. 

It is a weirdness about the Web that we can connect directly with people, yet know nothing about them.  The weirdness compounds when we realize the people with whom we come in contact in this way, we don’t know at all beyond a few words on a computer screen.  In the case of comments on a website or a blog like this one the stakes are, for the most part, low, but when you consider the apparent number of people who meet up in person after such interactions. 

All this reminds me of Alvin Toffler and his book, Future Shock.  I still remember many ideas from that book because he was a good phrase maker.  High tech, high touch is the one that comes to mind here, but in a slightly different vein than Toffler’s.  His version was that the more we connect through technology, the more we will want to see each other in person.  I believe that’s true, but I’m on another tack here.  High tech, high touch heightens the need, the desire for personal interaction, yes. It produces that desire–the original sense of eros in the Greek, the desire for human contact–in a situation we have not evolved to understand.

We are animals wired over hundreds of thousands of years to read the language in another person’s eyes, the way they hold their hands, the set of their neck, the wrinkles and twitches of the mouth.  Though we are often wrong even with those cues, at least in face-to-face encounters we have a chance to assess, to ponder.  Words on a page are not the same.  Not even close.  It may be that we have a sophisticated reader’s intution about how language reveals the author, but that’s a game often got wrong by critics, so how good can we be?

The point is this, words without flesh, disembodied words put us at a disadvantage.  We can’t judge the intent of a phrase, the reason behind a conjecture.  This has led to the all too familiar problem of flaming where some unhappy soul takes this anonymity and uses it to vent, often just to vent.

Toffler also described Over Choice, a situation where we face more decisions about more matters than we can handle with anything approaching wisdom.  This applies to people we meet through the electronic ether, too.  The reader interested in hydroponics might be a valuable interlocutor, one whose journey with indoor gardening might supplement and enhance my own.  And vice versa.  Or, they could be, as I speculated, a law enforcement officer hiding behind the web’s anonymity.   Because it is my nature to trust first and question later, I accept the response to my speculation at face value; but, I have no face.  Therein lies the dilemma.

We must evolve some method, some means of reading people we meet on the web.  I suppose that’s what Facebook, Youtube, Myspace propose to accomplish, but there it is often meeting people to be meeting people.  And those social networking sites get gamed, too.  An endless loop. 

Enough on this.  I have to get to work writing my piece for the Muse.  It’s taken an odd turn.  Wonder how it will finish?

Cinema and Television, Faith and Spirituality, Friends

Deeply Skeptical of Industrializaton and Technology

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42  bar falls 30.10 3mph WNW dewpoint 22 Spring

             Last quarter Moon of Growing

Into St. Paul today.  Preached (sort 0f) at Groveland.  I say sort of because the presentation consisted of me telling jokes about Unitarian-Universalists and the group discussing their meaning as it relates to UU identity.  This comes from a technique dredged up from those long ago years in anthropology.  Joking behavior, according to anthropologists, helps determine group boundaries.  And so it did.

The discussion that ensued was better than I could have hoped.  It was heartfelt, honest, sometimes bordering on painful.  The latter emerged during a discussion of UU discomfort with faith, with the act of vulnerability.  This leaves UU’s, as the discussion went, with a blank spot when confronted with grief, crisis. 

On the way home I stopped at Cheapo on Snelling and loaded up on mindless action films, the kind I prefer to watch when I’m working out. 

During lunch I finished Princess Mononoke again.  It is a wonderful, complex and beautiful work that gives pause.  It would be perfect to show at the same as Lord of the Rings because both Tolkein and Mizasashi are deeply skeptical of industrialization and technology, yet also unflinching in representing the contradictions and trade-offs as not black or white.  Tolkein seems more either/or than Mizasashi, so I prefer Mizasashi’s take on thing.