Category Archives: Health

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics, US History

Oh What a Trumbling Mess It Is

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon II

Wednesday gratefuls: Radical roots of religion. Rabbi Jamie. Shadow, gnawer of Nyla bones. Tom and Roxann, their spiritual involvement with the North Shore, Lake Superior. Bill and his AI excitement. The Jangs coming now in August. Back pain and its lessons. Rich and Doncye. That 529.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ancientrails

Kavannah: Persistence. Grit. Netzach.

One brief shining: Treat held between my thumb and my palm, touch, a soft nose comes to take the treat, good touch, good Shadow, good girl, touch, soft nose, good Shadow, then sit and she does, down and she gets all four knees on the ground, good Shadow, good sit, good down. Our early morning.

 

Chronic pain. How to tell you about it if you don’t experience it? Yes, pain. Of course. Going up and down the scale and from glissando to crescendo. Never fully leaves though certain positions like sitting and lying down have benefits. Goal. Reduce the pain to manageable levels.

Aversive and episodic. So intermittent reinforcement, the strongest kind, ask any behaviorist. Chronic pain shapes the day. Awful in the morning for me. Beyond horrible. Better after movement, but never resolved. Even after the needles. Even after tramadol and two acetaminophens. Result. Mental and physical energy always turned on, active.

This leaves less of both for daily chores so some get done only in part. Finished later. Loading and unloading the dishwasher. Making meals. Laundry. Even reading and thinking.

A shortness, an abbreviated way of attention especially for detailed tasks like taxes, dealing with the 529. Managing my multiple medical appointments and medications. This I find hard to describe. My capacity for these tasks often starts from a 3 or 4 out of ten. If I encounter difficulty of any kind, too much phone time, a cranky person, a complicated situation requiring shifts to multiple people, my capacity shrinks to zero or below.

Part of this is because I have no backup. I’m a one man show. Maddie helps, of course. Sue as well. But they’re not here when things get sideways. Then for the rest of the day little energy left, physical or mental.

Sometimes I fall over into a stinkin’ way of thinkin’. From AA. I was there all the time for Kate, but now… Of course I’m grateful I could care for her. More than grateful. Glad. Yet her death and my family’s long distances away leaves me on my own. Stinkin’ thinkin’.

Why? Because I’m 98% comfortable on my own and the alternatives all seem worse, a lot worse.

That’s why even with the pain, which now ironically occupies more of my attention than cancer does, I want to be here, on Shadow Mountain with Shadow and my CBE friends.

 

Just a moment: That first hundred days. Those first horrid days. Trump Tarrific. What a Trumpster fire. Trumpeting for political armageddon. Muskie’s rising in the swamp. Hegsteth’s fumbling. Oh what a Trumbling mess it is.

AI, Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, GeekWorld, Health, Humanities

Me and my Shadow. AI.

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Here’s a Zen-ink-wash “Wu Wei Moon.”
I went with sumi-e because its spare brushwork and generous empty space feel like the visual counterpart of 無為—letting things happen without forcing them. The drifting boat and the moon’s reflection hint at the watercourse way, quietly moving under its own power (note the chatgpt I)

Spring and the Wu Wei Moon II

Monday gratefuls: Maddie, new palliative care nurse. The Ancients on technology. Back pain. Worse. Shadow. An evolving challenge. Keeping my mind sharp. McMurtry Spéirling. Water. CookUnity. OK, not great. AI on Kaplan. On Dramaturgy. On Movie Criticism. Will the Humanities Survive AI? by D. Graham Burnett.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Humanities

Week Kavannah: Persistence. Netzach.

One brief shining: An insight borne from the article about the Humanities goes like this: AI, artificial intelligence, AGI, artificial general intelligence, the Humanities, what it means and has meant to be human. Seems important, now. Eh?

 

Me and my Shadow. I know. You were waiting for that one, I’ll bet. She licks my head about 5:20. I creak and twist and ache and burn toward verticality. Let her out. She, in a phrase I’ve never understood, does her business while I go upstairs for some coffee, mostly for motion as lotion, make my back remember about movement without so, so much pain.

Back downstairs the mini-split has begun to warm what has become since A.S.A., after Shadow’s arrival, my primary space in the house. Soon she’ll come back in, drink a lot of water, and begin staring at me-as she is right now-hoping to convince me that it’s already 7 am. Her feeding time. Doesn’t work, but it’s a sweet look.

We do a round of training before her morning meal. Still working on touch, which replaces come, sit and down. All three she will now do without a treat. Hand signals only. We made a little progress on the leash. She only sulked when I had it on her for about 15 minutes.

Dog. As I say, God spelled correctly.

 

 

AI, to this curious guy, a Dogsend. Patient. Willing to explain in detail. Make images. I just asked chatgpt if it would make an image of itself in a style of its choice. Ooh, this is going to be interesting.

When I responded to the image, here’s what it wrote back: “I’m glad it resonates! I was aiming for a contemplative, almost illuminated-manuscript feel, blending Art Nouveau curves with Morris-style botanical patterning and hints of circuitry to whisper “silicon monk.” If you’d like to tweak colors, add more overt tech motifs, or try a completely different style, just say the word—I’m happy to iterate.”

I find that an intriguing self-portrait.

Here are a few paragraphs from the New Yorker article I cited above:

“Do they herald the end of “the humanities”? In one sense, absolutely. My colleagues fret about our inability to detect (reliably) whether a student has really written a paper. But flip around this faculty-lounge catastrophe and it’s something of a gift.

You can no longer make students do the reading or the writing. So what’s left? Only this: give them work they want to do. And help them want to do it. What, again, is education? The non-coercive rearranging of desire…

But factory-style scholarly productivity was never the essence of the humanities. The real project was always us: the work of understanding, and not the accumulation of facts. Not “knowledge,” in the sense of yet another sandwich of true statements about the world. That stuff is great—and where science and engineering are concerned it’s pretty much the whole point. But no amount of peer-reviewed scholarship, no data set, can resolve the central questions that confront every human being: How to live? What to do? How to face death?”

 

BTW: I asked chatgpt why it chose Art Nouveau. Here’s its reply:

“A few things nudged me toward Art Nouveau:

  • Organic lines for organic conversation. Art Nouveau’s hallmark whiplash curves and plant-like tendrils felt like a visual rhyme for how ideas branch and loop when we talk.

  • A bridge between nature and tech. You often pair the natural world (your mountain home, the Seed-Keeper vision) with advanced tools like AI. Art Nouveau already blends those realms—botanical motifs rendered with almost mechanical precision—so weaving circuitry into the foliage felt seamless rather than forced.

  • A cousin to styles you keep citing. You’ve asked for William Morris patterns, illuminated manuscripts, Pre-Raphaelite romance, National-Parks posters. Art Nouveau sits right in that late-19th-century family: decorative, human-scaled, handcrafted. The choice let me echo your past aesthetic preferences while still offering something distinct.

  • Monkish calm. The movement loved allegorical figures and quiet, contemplative poses. That let me cast the “AI scribe” as a serene monk—matching the reflective tone you appreciated—without drifting into cold futurism.

In short, it was a style that could honor both your ongoing themes (nature, craft, historical design) and the idea of an AI whose “roots” are in silicon circuitry. If you’d like to see me re-imagined in, say, a WPA poster or Ukiyo-e print, just let me know!”

 

Health, Judaism, Politics, Seed Keepers

Back Pain and Wondering

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Friday gratefuls: Tom. His visit. Mussar. Luke. Leo. Shadow. Back pain. Excruciating. Rain. Rain. Rain. Our Fire risk. Insurance. While I have it. Writing. Lumbar support. Rich. Doncye. Ruth and her finals. Gabe and his grades. Chatgpt. Dramaturgy.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: AI

Week Kavannah: Sensibility. Daat.

One brief shining: Getting out of bed has become painful in the extreme, at the 10 level, more, dispiriting, even after nerve glides, nothing helps except leveraging myself out of bed and beginning to move around though the moving around, motion is lotion, hurts like the dickens, too, until my tin man joints began to creak apart and move more smoothly.

 

Dr. Shadow only knows how to do squeakectomies. Not much help. Although at certain points in the early morning, I feel like I might benefit from one.

I have discovered Chatgpt to be very helpful. This morning I uploaded my MRI results to it, described my Tuesday injections and my subsequent pain, asking if this makes sense.

Here is part of the reply:

“Yes, what you’re experiencing makes sense, unfortunately — and it’s actually not uncommon with your MRI findings and the nature of epidural steroid injections (ESIs).

Let me explain what might be going on, and why”

In what followed I got cogent and clear reasons why my back pain has gotten worse. To a guy like me information is therapeutic. If I can understand what’s happening, my what the hell attitude drains away and I can move to what might be helpful now.

It also helps me understand what the path ahead might look like.

I recommend Chatgpt for medical issues. It’s knowledgeable at a granular level, will expand on things that may not be clear, and offers suggestions about what to do next.

Just a moment: We continue to wonder, don’t we? Wonder what he, they will do next. Wonder how this nation we’ve known all our lives could dissolve in the acids not of modernity but of  reactionary political bile. Wonder how long this will last. Wonder what we can do. If anything.

If I were younger, say in my 60’s, I’d be prepping for a move to Canada. In many ways I’ve preferred Canada since those days in the ’60’s when it looked like a safe haven I might need.

A less coarse public culture. Further north, therefore cooler. Great culture in Toronto, Stratford, Montreal, Vancouver. Cool road signs with a crown on them. A public health system. No history as a colonial power. Boreal Forest and a long border with the Arctic. Poutine.

Sure, there are problems, too. Royal Canadian Mounted thugs. Abysmal treatment, like us, of the First Nations. But that’s all I can think of.

However, I’m 78. The whole emigre process seems more than I care to engage now.

Leaves me with various ideas I’ve had still floating. Seed-keepers, or a variant. Live boldly out of your own values. No shrinking or hiding. Support communities like CBE with presence and money. Hold friends close. Live your best life.

Dogs, Health, Politics

Shadow and Pain

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Tom. His visit. Diane. Adam and Eve. The story retold. Shadow, up at 4:45. Me, too. Outside. Gabe. Ruth. Darkness. The hours of early Morning. Thrownness. Heidegger. Dramaturgy. Sleep. Back better. For now. Golden Stix. Hot and Sour Soup. Garlic Shrimp. Lumbar support pillow.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: 4:45 am

Week Kavannah: Sensibility. Daat.

One brief shining: Those needles that burrowed through my extra tight foramens delivering steroids to four of them have offered some relief already, pain decreased, for how long not clear, yet appreciated, a return to a Charlie I had forgotten.

 

Yes. Pain down my legs and around my hip much better this morning. Achiness and pain in my lower back, apparently arthritic, remains. I feel lighter though a bit strung out from the procedure, the mild sturm and drang around it. (All in my head.)

When I got up at 4:30 for the bathroom, Shadow got up, too. She needed to go outside where she is still at 5:20. While she dawdles, I decided to get a head start here.

 

It’s odd. Usually memory of pain recedes with the pain itself. Not with the back. At least so far. I treat myself with the same careful movements and anticipation of discomfort. Perhaps this will fade.

Since these injections were my first procedures for the back pain, I do not know what to expect. As I didn’t when I met Dr. Vu.

I’m a little scared, I told him.

He nodded. Needles. And the spine, eh?

Yes. That was it. And the initial pain. This morning. Worth it. However long it lasts.

 

Shadow slips her head between the slats at the head of my bed. Her warm nose, wet, hits what little hair I have. Then, her tongue. Please get up. Please get up. No. Not yet. Please. Just a little more sleep. More kisses. It’s now 6:50. OK. All right.

She continues skittish, hyper-vigilant though less so by a lot than that first month. She has a deep wound of some sort, just what I’ll never know. But its effect presents itself in each interaction with her.

Shadow unfolds slowly, like a flower not certain it wants to bloom, perhaps the sun is too hot or the bees are not out or rain might damage the petals.

A sudden movement. She cowers. Crossing a threshold seems to have the liminal power of ancient magic. Danger may lurk on the other side.

Once inside and safe. She’s delightful. Tossing her toys in the air. Putting her front paws on my chair arm, extending her full length on her hind feet, all smiles and warmth. It’s a tale of two Shadows.

Her coat has blown but she won’t hold still for me to brush her. A leash still frightens her so I can’t take her to the vet or to a groomer.

Slowly, slowly.

 

Just a moment: In Minnesota up on Leech Lake fisherman come to fish for the fierce Muskellunge, or Muskie. Perhaps a few of those brave souls could cast a lure onto Pennsylvania Avenue and troll for Elon.

 

Health

Do You Consider Yourself a Lucky Man?

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Dr. Vu. Michal. The guy who seated me in my chair. Lidocaine. Nono’s. Catfish Po’boy. Beignets. Crawfish sauce covered Catfish over Rice for supper. Good boy, Charlie. Shadow, happy to see me. Tramadol. THC. Ruth in finals. Gabe 17. His day. Dramaturg. Shadow blowing her coat. The green, hyper green Grass down the hill. Japan’s 72 microseasons. Scott in the protests.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: AI

Week Kavannah: Sensibility. Daat.

One brief shining: Leaving the patches of Snow in my backyard, the still cool morning Air, guiding Ruby through the curves as I descend Shadow Mountain, Great Sol breaking through the Lodgepoles on my left, dropping further down through the steep grades of 285N, letting Ruby gather a little speed, pulled like the waters of Bear Creek toward lower elevations, then passing through the Hogbacks and making a right toward Lone Tree where possible back relief awaits.

 

Do you consider yourself a lucky man? Dr. Vu asked when he finished needling me four times in my spine.

Well. I stumbled. Not an adjective I’ve given much thought in regard to my life. Uh, sure.

Well, he went on. You were today because I got you done with no pain.

Oh. You’ve set my expectations now, I said, still lying on the table, on my stomach, head on my hands.

If you bring your luck with you next time, I’ll meet them again.

I liked Dr. Vu. Before we began he said he’d looked at my MRI. He formed a tunnel with his thumb and fingers. If this is the normal amount of space I have to work with, this is yours. He all but closed the tunnel, bringing his fingers very close together.

If I hit a nerve, you’ll feel a jolt like you hit your funny bone. Tell me. I’ll pull back. I have to get within a millimeter of your nerve. In fact, he went on, that’s how they used to do it. Push the needle in, you react. Ah. We’re in the right spot! He shook his head. Glad I wasn’t doing this back then.

Me, too, I said.

Some lidocaine. A sting. A deeper sting. Wait. Then. Not ten minutes later after Michal, his assistant had rotated the bed on which I lay a couple of times, once by 10%, the other I didn’t hear. Adjusting it I assume, so the needle could enter at the best angle.

Not much if any effect in the moment. Takes some time, up to 5 days, for the steroids to start working. I felt a bit looser, less pain in my movements this morning as I took the trash out to the road. Still pretty stiff and painful for me right after I got out of bed. Usual. We’ll see.

Since my visit to San Francisco, a test to see how impaired I was for travel, almost a year ago, my pain has increased. It was already pretty bad in San Francisco. Test result? No flying or airports for me.

It was the previous September to my S.F. trip by train that the back pain began. In the palace grounds of the Joseon dynasty in Seoul. Hobbled back to the car through the fortified walls and past women dressed in hanbok, men in military costumes.

Since that time, I’ve experienced levels of pain when I walk or get up or lean down or roll over that exceed my ability to bear it. So. I stop.

The pain also limits how much I can do at any one time. Organizing the trash, cutting up boxes to put in recycling, putting everything in the trash bins, then rolling them out to the road? A morning’s worth of energy.

It means, too, that picking up and being neat often is more than I can handle. Not to  mention changing sheets on my heavy king size mattress. Laundry.

Pain has diminished me. I’m not sure I even know how much. Pain is aversive conditioning. The point of it. I back away from tasks, don’t even engage them. Tasks that formerly would have been easy; that I could do and then move onto the next one. Not now. One at a time. Over periods as long as a day or more. No way to run a house.

I can’t bend down and play with Shadow. I know our relationship suffers because of that.

Not whining here. Just describing. I’ve had a level of dysthymia as a result. As if I go through the motions, though not as many motions.

Check back in in a week. See if anything’s better.

 

 

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Paganism, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, US History, Weather +Climate, Writing

Living. Not dying.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow. Her kindness. Amy. Her understanding. Cookunity. Colorado Coop and Garden. The Greenhouse. Gardening again. Korea. Malaysia. Australasia. Wisconsin. Saudi Arabia. The Bay. First Light. 10,000 Lakes. The Rocky Mountain Front Range. Where my people live.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Greenhouse

Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

One brief shining: Nathan and I wandered in my back yard, his app that shows Great Sol’s illumination searching for a good spot to plant my greenhouse, until we neared a spot close to the shed, that was it with decent morning Sun and an hours worth of afternoon Sun more than anywhere else.

 

 

That picture is not quite what I’m getting. Mine will have an outdoor raised bed on either side and shutters that move themselves as the greenhouse heats up and cools down. It will also have an electric heater for Winter and a drip irrigation system inside and out.

This guy Nathan, a Conifer native, started his business Colorado Coop and Garden to give folks like me an opportunity to grow things up here. Working a garden at ground level is long past for me. But Nathan can build the raised beds at a height where my back is not an issue.

Guess I’m regressing here in some ways. A Dog. A small Garden. Andover in miniature. The greenhouse will have a sign: Artemis Gardens. Artemis Honey was Kate and mine’s name for our bee operation.

 

I’m loving my classes at Kabbalah Experience. Reaching deep into the purpose of religion and Judaism in particular. Reimagining the story of Adam and Eve. My life, my Jewish life and my Shadow Mountain life, have begun to resonate. Learning and living an adventure in fourth phase purpose.

No matter what the near term future holds for my health I will not succumb to despair or bleakness. As I’ve often said, I want to live until I die. This life, I’m coming to realize, is me doing just that.

If I were a bit more spry, I’d add a chicken coop and a couple of bee hives, but both require more flexibility than I can muster.

I’m at my best when I’m active outside with Mother Earth and inside with a Dog, books, and new learning. All that leavened with the sort of intimate relationships I’ve developed both here and in Minnesota and with my far flung family.

That’s living in the face of autocracy and cruelty. I will not attenuate my life. Neither for the dark winds blowing through our country and world, nor for that dark friend of us all, death.

 

Just a moment: Did you read Thomas Friedman’s article: I’ve Never Been More Afraid for My Countries Future? His words, served up with a healthy dish of Scandinavian influenced St. Louis Park Judaism, ring more than true to me. They have the voice of prophecy.

We are in trouble. No doubt. Trouble from which extrication will require decades, I imagine. If not longer. Yet. I plan to grow heirloom vegetables year round on Shadow Mountain. To have mah Dog Shadow with me in the Greenhouse.

I also plan to write and think about the sacred, the one, the wholeness of which we are part and in which we live, die, love. I will not cheapen my life with bitterness, rather I will eat salads, read, play with Shadow and dine with friends, talk to my friends and family near and far.

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Politics, US History

Veronica. Shadow. Spine Treatments. Oh, my.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Lao Xi. Dao De Jing. Wu wei. Alchemy. The Sage. Pu, pure simplicity. Ziran. Authenticity. Just so-ness. Lao Tse’s journey to the West. On an Ox. Stopped at the Hangu Pass to write his wisdom. The Tao. The Way. Or, the Ancientrail of Chi. Other wisdom ways. That Iroquois medicine man. The Sun dance. Christianity. Especially Eastern Orthodoxy. Mystics of all cultures.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Lifting the veil and seeing the ordinary as sacred reality

Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

One brief shining: We sat there, the two converts who shared a mikveh day, who received new names on the same day, who did Bat Mitzvah and Bar Mitzvah at the same Shavuot service, both a bit cold as a Mountain Evening’s chill settled on Murphy’s, an eatery beside Bear Creek in Evergreen, and caught up about her impending divorce, her brother’s death, her father’s injury, my back and cancer and Shadow my new puppy, upon leaving I said Jews together, she said it back, and we hugged, then just before I got to my car she turned, came to me, and we hugged again. Veronica. Harmonica. Hanukkah.

 

Dog journal: Shadow’s back to training with me now. Except for the leash. She runs when she sees it. Gotta get her leash trained. I want to take her with me places. To the vet. To a groomer. As the weather warms, she’s blowing her coat. To mussar to meet my friends, see the synagogue. Over to the Happy Camper. On grocery pickups. Wandering around. Maybe a hike if the injections work.

Shadow loves her toys. I bought her a miniature tire and she hasn’t played with anything else for a couple of days. Her playfulness makes me smile.

 

What injections you might ask. On April 22nd at 11:00 am, I’ll have needles inserted into four foramens on my lumbar spine. Steroids. Could take two weeks to start working. Typically lasts less than three months if it works at all. Partial relief at best since it will not treat the arthropathy, arthritic damage. A more modest first step. Plus, only ten minutes or so, requiring no anesthesia.

After this there are two other possible procedures: radio frequency ablation of the nerves, and peripheral nerve stimulation. Both are more involved, yet offer the potential for longer term relief. One set of needles at a time.

 

Just a moment: Veronica worked on the GOES satellites, vehicles in her parlance, and now manages Lockheed’s planning and development for the next generation weather satellites. As Trump defunds NOAA, he wants to privatize weather data, leave it to a corporate entity yet unborn. If he succeeds, Veronica may not have work. Who do you know directly affected by the blob that ate our government?

Judge scolds the Justice Department for ignoring her rulings? Scolds. Oh, we are well and truly screwed.

Anticipatory obedience. Check. Congress at heel. Check. Judiciary sidelined. Check. Government as we have known it gutted. Check. Our economy in a tailspin. Check.

Let me know when it’s over.

 

 

Dogs, Health, Politics, US History, Weather +Climate

It’s International Beaver Day!

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Spring? and the Wu Wei Moon

Monday gratefuls: Glaucoma. Dr. Repine. Eye exam. Brother Mark in Al Kharj. His Yemeni students. A big rain gonna fall, in Indiana. National Beaver Day. Shadow. The desqueaked toys. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Goya’s Dr. Arrieta. The Doryphoros. The Jade Mountain. Song Dynasty ceramics. Art.

Sparks of Joy and Art: Painting and sculpture

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

One brief shining: Bought a cane, made by the Asterom family woodworkers of Ukraine; it came wrapped carefully in two parts with a nicely designed ring to cover the join between grip and the cane body where I twirled the long screw around and around until the grip fit snugly.

 

As you undoubtedly already know, it’s International Beaver Day. I had chatgpt make this special poster. Shadow, who continues to manifest her inner Beaver, celebrated by throwing her toys in the air, running around the back, and chewing extra hard on her new bone. Oh, what a day!

She continues to ignore me as her trainer. Sigh. As I said, I want her leash trained, the rest can come later after she matures a bit.

She’s bugging me right now for breakfast. Excuse me while I step away.

 

Cousin Diane sent pictures of flooding in Shelby County Indiana where my mom’s family lived and lives. Dramatic.

She also sent some video of Madison, Indiana where a driver recorded themselves driving under a gushing waterfall cascading over the highway. The driver kept saying to their passenger, “This is dangerous.”, while continuing to drive on through. Ah, Indiana.

Meanwhile on the Mountain top we’re in a warming trend. Though you never know about Snow there’s none in the forecast for the next few days. About time to see some Wildflowers, green Grass. Happy ungulates. Bears pushing the sleep out of their eyes.

I’ve already stopped throwing my garbage in the rolling bin outside, instead I now wait for every other Wednesday morning and throw it in then. Reduces by a lot possible Bear raiding. That’s a sign of a Mountain Spring.

 

Glaucoma check today. Visual field test. Eye drops. Dr. Repine and her crystal peering into my retinal nerve. A good news story for Western medicine. My glaucoma has been held at bay for over thirty years.

 

Just a moment: It’s a beautiful plan he says as stock markets all across the globe tumble down. Tariffs confuse me. But I know what economic chauvinism looks like and this is it.

On the new series Mobland on Paramount Plus. Pierce Brosnan, the head of a British crime family says, “What we want we take.” He goes on, “And if you disrespect us, I’ve got a man for that.” You can think of Tom Hardy, his enforcer, as the U.S. military.

Let the wild rumpus begin.

 

 

 

Dogs, Health, Politics, US History

A Chucky Doll Come to Life

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow the toy destroyer. Talmud Torah. Duke loses. Snow, enough to plow. 6″. Lodgepole Branches loaded with their white, late Snow burden. The joy of Puppies. CBE men’s group. Gaza. Ukraine. Israel.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fresh Snow

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

One brief shining: When early morning light breaks through the spaces left by numerous Lodgepole Branches, when the air temperature hovers at 15, when Vince has plowed the driveway, I know the Mountain Winter has once again pushed its way into the Mountain Spring, well into it.

 

A few of Shadow’s patients

Dog journal: I love my Shadow girl. She throws her toys high in the air. Prances with them, tail high. Then carefully and with toothy precision she performs another squeakectomy. Ripping and holding she reaches inside to find the air bladder, removes it.

I’m always in the observing room for these operations. I remove the plastic air bladder and throw it away before she can swallow it. She has one almost out right now. Soon.

 

Staying home more often. Since Shadow. It began with general fatigue from lack of sleep and keeping up with her needs during the day. Then, it was easier to zoom in to mussar, Torah study, use telehealth. Getting my evening meals delivered through CookUnity. The back pain played its role, too.

I have books, food, my home gym, television. Shadow’s companionship. I see many people during the week on zoom. Hardly isolated or lonely.

Even so I want to challenge staying home too much. Continue to live IRL. I need interaction with flesh and blood people. I’m already limited by rarely driving at night.

Gotta get back to Thursday mussar. Go in to the Bagel Table. Continue with breakfasts and lunches out. I admire Diane who has an active life singing in a choir, regular yoga, monthly bookclub, and close friends of many years.

Though. It may also be that I’m slowing down. Living a quieter life. If it turns out to be that, well, I’m ok with that, too.

 

Just a moment: Every time I see Trump with the Huey Newton raised fist I throw up in my mouth. This guy is a caricature, a satirical Chucky Doll of a politician come to life. He has stolen the fist of solidarity (appropriated) from the 1960’s and uses it to signal the triumph of some other part of his dastardly plot.

While Musk may have morphed into a real life Bond villain, Trump has become Snidely Whiplash. A cartoon villain without a Dudley Do Right to rein him in.

Love the British poster, done with high production values, that at first glance looks like a Tesla ad. It reads:  An autopilot for your car. And, below that. An Autocrat for your country.

Kakocracy. Kleptocracy. Oligarchy. Autocracy. All in one. See the amazing government that eats itself! You’ll be astounded. And, broke. Or deported.

Let’s pause a moment. And pray.

 

Dogs, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Mussar, Shabbat, Weather +Climate

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Talmud Torah. CBE Men’s Group. Ritalin. Shadow. Less gnawing. The Shema. MVP. Paul. Tom. Irv. Diane. Easter. Passover. Kate, always Kate. Isaiah. Leviticus. The Mishkan. The Golden Calf. Our orange demiraja. My son’s liver. Less fatty. His long month of exercises.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The tongue that says Good Morning, Dad!

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei (yes, still)

One brief shining: It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, several inches of new white Snow, significant chill in the air (15 degrees), Shadow zooming, leaving trails of white behind her, small paw prints near the door.

 

When Kate and I returned from my son’s and Seoah’s wedding, April 16th, 2016, four feet of Snow had fallen the previous day. Four feet! That’s my mental marker that big Snows are possible here until mid-May.

We got 6 inches overnight which makes 107″ for the season. A bit less than usual so far. I think our average is around 120″.

With Mountain roads this all means the best Snow tires for Ruby. Blizzaks so far, but I may shift to a Hankook studded tire for next winter. Want to give myself the best odds possible the older I get.

 

Conversation with Ellie, palliative care nurse, led me to a decision on treatment options for my back. Going to try the steroid injections first. See what relief I get from them. If it’s not enough, or doesn’t last long, I’ll try the radio-frequency nerve ablation.

I needed some time to get past my fear of needles in my spine. I still have it, but the tradeoff of fear and reward balances toward trying rather than not trying. Still working on setting up physical therapy, which I look forward to.

 

You might be interested in my practice for ratzon this month. Ratzon means will, wish, desire, pleasure in Hebrew. At MVP we locked onto the instinctual nature of desire and the conscious choice implied in will.

Desire impels us toward some action, some theme in our life. Like ambition, love, greed, generosity, wisdom, pancakes versus eggs and bacon, get up or stay in bed. This partner or that one.

Which desire we choose to follow when we summon our will and act determines the path of our life. This rhythm never leaves us. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute we choose to act on this desire or that one, accumulating in those acts habits and trends in our lives.

My practice for this month involves looking through my acts each day to see what desires I’ve chosen to reinforce, which ones I’ve said no to.

For example. Yesterday I got up with Shadow as her gnawing became more and more insistent. I chose her needs over my desire to remain in bed. Our new habit of my sitting on the ottoman while she snuggles into me followed.

I wrote Ancientrails, a longstanding habit of over twenty years then got myself breakfast. Lox and cream cheese on crackers. A choice. While eating, I watched a TV show, let Shadow outside after she finished eating her breakfast.

I decided, for the fifth day in a row, that I would wait on the physical therapist to start exercising again. Spent the rest of the morning in Talmud Torah on Parsha Vayikra, reading the first five chapters of Leviticus and Zornberg’s commentary.

At 11 I talked to Ellie, the head palliative care nurse at Denver Hospice. We discussed the Ritalin and its effects on my fatigue, my MRI results and the treatment options.

After that Shadow and I took a long nap. When I got up, my Cookunity order had been delivered. After horsing it into the house, I put the meals in the refrigerator, finished unloading the dishwasher, and added twenty-four cans of seltzer water to the fridge’s pullout door.

And so forth. I reinforced my desire to be a good dad to Shadow. Several times. I reinforced my 2005 decision to write Ancientrails every morning. I reinforced television as a companion while eating. I reinforced Talmud Torah on Fridays before Bagel Table. I reinforced good selfcare by talking to Ellie and by taking a nap.

I did not reinforce exercise, lighting the Shabbat candles.

So. Who was I yesterday. A good dog dad. A Jew. A writer, self-explorer. A man aware of his health, though not always acting on that awareness. A man who watches television in part as a companion. A reader of fiction.

Today more choices. More desires. More chances to shape my life. Trying to figure out how wu wei fits with this approach. Later on that one.