Category Archives: Health

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, World History

Prep. Korea.

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Spring and the Kepler Moon

Monday gratefuls: Gatorade. Dulcolax. Miralax. Gas-X. Colonoscopy prep. Tara, taking me. My son and his wife’s wedding anniversary. Seven years. Probate. Jon, a memory. Kate, always Kate. Kep. Doug. A freshly painted interior. A good experience. A freshly cleaned out interior. Not such a good experience. Brother Mark in Saudi. An old Saudi hand. Mary in Eau Claire, teaching. A Mountain early morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Korea

 

The newest wrinkle in colonoscopy prep. Split prep. You drink half of the 2 quarts of Gatorade and Miralax starting at 5 pm the day before. Then, six hours before the procedure get up and drink the other half. That meant I started hitting the Gatorade again at 4 am. This morning. A treat.

Ritualistic. Coming to the temple of medicine purified, washed out. Following orders. Preparing yourself for an inner journey. A journey of exploration and discovery.

Not terrible. Not much fun either. Every ten years seems like about the right amount of time to wait. This should be my last one.

 

Finished Undertow and began Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen. A thoughtful exercise in political theory and history. Obama praised it. A  good read for anyone interested in the deeper roots of today’s political malaise.

 

Not sure I would have paid much attention to Korea had there not been a personal connection. Now I see articles about Korea and read them. K-Pop. K-drama. The first one I read about, the second one I watch.

Korean history intertwines with Japan, as its occupier and invader off and on over the last 500 years. The occupation of Korea by Japan from 1910 to 1945 ended with the finish of WWII. My daughter-law’s father was born during the occupation.

Since the Japanese engaged Koreans in forced labor, including sex work as comfort women, and took land from its Korean owners, there has been a long standing resentment toward the Japanese in Korea. That seems to be changing now.

A key driver in the change is the emergence of China as a regional powerhouse and global leader. Korea, like many Asian nations, saw China as the epitome of civilization, adopting the Chinese writing system and Confucian values. Now Korea finds itself a small country in the shadow of an increasingly aggressive China.

Taiwan stands out as a possible flashpoint in the Far East. The U.S. has worked hard at relationships with Asian countries like the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Australia, and, ironically, Vietnam. This means Korea finds itself embedded in a struggle between great powers. Who are its allies? The U.S. Yes. But Japan as well.

There is also a good deal of tourism from Korea to Japan. My daughter-in-law’s father raised her to differentiate between the Japanese government and the Japanese people. Korea and Japan have vibrant economies and democratic governance.

What does the future hold for Japan/Korea relations? It seems to me that current geopolitical realities predict closer ties between the two. As the soft diplomacy of tourism and popular entertainment work on the two nations, perhaps a new relationship between them will emerge.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Holidays, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Oh. Huh.

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Doug. Nearly done. Snow melted. Low fire danger. Tara. Ofer. Jack. Adam. Cheka. Andrew. Savannah. Robbie. Arjean. Tara’s seder. The Cyberknife. The CT. Diane. Kim and Patty. Carmela. The medical physicist. Norbert, Tara’s dog who died suddenly. Julie and Sophia. Jayden. Safeway pickup. A blue Sky early morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cheka and Andrew

 

Patty, a sweet lady and the lead radiation therapy tech, told me yesterday, as I left the CT room zipping up my jacket. Have a good Easter. I smiled. Jolted. No I said in my head I’m more of a passover guy now.

A strange moment. My reaction, that of an outsider to a cultural norm assumed so easily it’s not checked, surprised me. I didn’t realized how far down the Jewish path I’d traveled in my heart. This was not intellectual, it was visceral. Nope, wrong holiday.

When I mentioned it to Tara last night at her seder, she nodded. Yes. And it doesn’t get easier. Sometimes you smile. Sometimes you say something. Sometimes you’re just frustrated.

Tablet Magazine is an online magazine for Jews. I read it off and on. Yesterday I took a quiz titled what kind of Jew are you? For a goof. With little variance from my truth, that I’m not Jewish, I answered the questions. Are most of your friends Jewish? Certainly here yes. Have you attended a Jewish function in the last week? Of course. Do you belong to a synagogue? I do. I came out an affiliated Jew. Huh.

Still don’t want to convert, but I may have already. I thought of the old ways of becoming a lawyer, a physician. You read the law, worked in a lawyer’s office until you grew proficient enough to set out on your own. Same with physicians. I may have read Judaism as I’ve attended mussar, gone to shivas, been part of one for Kate, have two Jewish grandchildren.

Certainly there’s a deep reality in me now that identifies with Jews. With Kate’s loved faith. With the people and the community I’ve come to know as a result.

Hope you have a good Easter. Unless you’re more of a passover sort.

 

First radiation treatment yesterday. Cyberknife again. The same place where I had 35 sessions in 2019. Lone Tree. Anova Cancer Care. Chose The Band for my music. The Weight. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Up on Cripple Creek. Music to be radiated to. An atomic playlist.

Afterward I drove over to Sally Jobe and got another CT. This one to facilitate the planning on my T3 met.

When I left the room after my session, my images were still up on the computer screens. I asked Patty what they were. She showed me my hips, my femurs. A blue grid with small squares over lay the area just away from my left hip. On the grid were brown marks. The points the Cyberknife uses to follow the medical physicist’s plan.

I’m at the start of this journey, ending now on April 19th. Probably eight sessions in all. I don’t know what might occasion another session or two.

 

Doug has begun painting my bedroom. The final piece of his work. He may finish today. Furniture rearranging after. Then some time to take art out, find the right places for various pieces. After that some help to hang it.

 

Tara’s house, 6060 Kilimanjaro Road, accessed off Jungfrau Drive, overlooks Mt. Blue Sky (formerly Mt. Evans). A steep driveway that I would not want to have to plow or have plowed. But a beautiful location.

The seder began at 4 pm. I left at 8:30. Tara presided over a teaching seder. Being the former director of religious education at CBE. We retold the Exodus story. Learned the symbolism of the objects on the Seder plate. Dipped parsley in salt water and ate it. The tears of oppression. Put horseradish, maror, on matzah and tasted the bitterness of slavery.

Every year Jews not only celebrate, but relive the experience of the Exodus. The moment of their birth as a free people.

Powerful.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Guns and Poses

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Jackie. Patty. Carmela. Cyberknife. Dr. Simpson. Mary voting. And winning. Wisconsin Supreme Court. The late season wet Snow on the Lodgepoles. More than predicted. Doug. Starting on the lower level. Mark in Hafir Al Batim. Settling in during a slow period at the University, Ramadan. Kep. Kate, always Kate. Gabe and Benihana. His 15th. Ruth, now 17 + a day.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Black Mountain white

 

Doug came. I had to move upstairs to the third level, my new home office. He’s painting the lower level. I can still sleep down there for now.

It’s a lot to have somebody working on your home for this long. Constant disruptions. Some mild. Like clearing the common room surfaces. Others not. Getting the dining room cleared. Another person working in the house. Doug’s easy. Friendly. Competent. Even so.

I chose this. I know. And I like the result already. Good thing, eh? I’ll like it even better when the arts rehung. Not yet. Not for a good while yet.

After that one more round with Robin and Michele. Then I’m going to let things be for a good long while. Enjoy the house. The Mountain.

 

Kep’s death does open the door to travel for me. I no longer have to worry about someone else coming in while he’s in decline. Chose to not do that.

There is a Southern saying. When the last dog dies. Now I feel the love and pang in that. Also the release. Thinking about some day trips once the weather turns away from Winter. Maybe longer trips. Around the state, the region.

The first time in over thirty years that I’ve had no one to come home to. And the first time in a few years when I’ve had no one to care for except myself. An odd feeling. Untethered. A bit floaty. Is this real life if no other life depends on me? Suppose I’ll get used to it, but right now I feel, what, almost irresponsible.

 

Look at the Wisconsin Supreme Court election map. It’s a tale, again, of rural and urban except for the southern tier of the state. Because I lived in Wisconsin, I happen to know that southern tier accepted immigrants, especially from Bismarck’s Germany. They were socialists and anti-draft. Bismarck had instituted the first draft which prompted a wave of emigration. Their political legacy lives on. Wisconsin politics, like Colorado, are complicated.

Mad City = Boulder. Milwaukee = Denver. Southern tier of Wisconsin = Front Range and the wider Denver Metro. Wisconsin’s Lake Superior counties = Aspen, Vail, Copper Ridge, Breckenridge

There’s a populist streak in both states though Colorado has more of the Western libertarian, leave me alone ethos.

These maps, with the counties filled in by dominant party (or, inclination), tell one more tale. At least. The story of how difficult a slow civil war (Sharlet), an American Divorce (Marjorie Taylor Greene), RAHOWA (White supremacists) would be. Cities against outlying rural areas. Villages against villages. Neighbors against neighbors. Within one state.

This would not be the simple geography of The civil war. No. It would be the geography of a chess board or a go board.

It would also be the gunned against the largely ungunned. Though of course how many of the armed would fight? Hard to know.

Any such civil war (an oxymoron I just realized) would probably end like a pandemic. When we tired of it and quit.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Literature, Myth and Story, Shadow Mountain, Sport

Mythic

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Spring and Kep’s Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kep. His life and mine together. Diane’s sweet e-mail. Tom’s call. Ruth and Gabe and Mia. The days after. Learning to be alone. Max Verstappen. The Australian Grandprix. My son and his wife. Reading Undertow. Dark Sky by CJ Box. Furball Cleaning. Marina Harris. Ana. Cook’s Venture. Regenerative agriculture. Wild Alaska. Safeway. Stinker’s.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being alone, yet accompanied

 

The Ancient Brothers on myths that shaped our lives. Aboriginal song lines. Dream time. Animal archetypes and totems.* Jesus. The American myth. The Velveteen Rabbit. The Celtic Faery Faith. Ragnarok. We each had a myth that had shaped our lives. Of course more than one, but these worked on and in our lives. In deep ways.

As a young boy, Ode said, his Jesus walked on water. Rose from the dead. Fed the five thousand. A mythic life reaching deep into a boy’s heart and imagination. Tom talked about Animals as bearers of archetypal power. Which  reminds me of the Breston quote below. Bill retold the story of the Velveteen Rabbit. Love makes us real. Aussie Paul, raised in Texas but on stories of Aboriginal life, made the song lines and Dream Time real. Before this creation and after it passes away there will be the Dream Time. I talked about how the Celtic Faery Faith reshaped my spirituality and led me away from Christianity. Going down and in, rather than up and out. A rich morning, one filled with wonder and awe. Our church.

 

Afterward I watched a thirty minute recap of the Australian Grandprix. Listened to the post race analysis. A crazy race with 3 restarts. Verstappen won again in the Red Bull car. Sergio Perez, his teammate, worked his way up to 5th from 20th. Lewis Hamilton, 7 time world champion, finished second, and Fernando Alonso, 2 time world champion, finished third for the third race in a row. There was speculation that Red Bull could run the table this year, win all the Grandprixs. Whether it happens or not, that speculation tells you about the dominance of the Red Bull cars so far this 2023 season.

 

Cut up boxes for the trash. Finished sorting all of our dog stuff. Donation and throw away. Rearranged furniture in the common room. Did a Safeway pickup. Talked with my son and his wife. Weekend things.

 

Radiation approved. Finally. Start tomorrow. Not daily. Continues through the third week of April. That lymph node by my left hip and the T3 vertebrae metastases.

 

Tomorrow Ruth turns 17! A dancing queen. So happy to see her stable and present. She has been such an important part of my life for all of those years. Even more so of course since we moved to Colorado in 2014. Gabe, too. 15 on Earth Day, the 22nd of this month.

We celebrate life even in the midst of death. Like Max’s birth so soon after Kate died. A bit of her soul to him. Ruth and Gabe have seen a lot of death over the last two years. Their Grandma, their Dad. Rigel. Sollie. Kepler. We have sustained each other. As family. And this month we celebrate their young lives. In this moment. The only one we ever have.

 

 

 

* “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”  ― Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Hermitage, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

A Strong Week

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Spring and the Garden Path Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Ruth, creating three oil paintings: Dear Dad. Mia, an artist, too. Tiny. Gabe. Loud and full of bad jokes. Here yesterday through tomorrow. Doug. Finished Garden Pathing the main level. For the most part. A small bathroom and that weird wall in the new dining room remain. Kep, better this morning. A bit. Doverspike. Driving into Denver. Into Spring. Leafy Deciduous Trees. Daffodils. Feelings. Still Winter on Shadow Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Teenagers

 

We’re treating Kep empirically. With antibiotics. Hoping that whatever took him downwards is an infection and not cancer. The first couple of days of amoxicillin will tell us what we need to know. He’s comfortable, lying down. Not coughing. No labored breathing. I had to dry pill the meds this morning and found my grip strength inadequate. Messy and difficult. Gotta get back on that resistance work. This is unacceptable and unnecessary.

Ruth and Mia brought Kep up the stairs last night so he could be with us while we ate Beau Jo’s pizza. That was sweet. We had the living room still in dishabille from Doug’s work. Couch across from the Fire place. My chair at a right angle to it. Ruth sat on the ottoman, Gabe and Mia on the couch. Kep took his night time meds in pizza crust. Didn’t work so well this morning.

Ruth and Gabe are comfortable up here. It’s a second home in the Mountains for them. I’m glad they feel that way. Makes me feel like a good grandpa. Both of them bring friends up. Another clue about how they feel about Shadow Mountain.

It’s nice to have people noises in the house. Footsteps. Refrigerator door opening. Food disappearing.

 

Doug got almost finished with the main level. That wall and the small bathroom. He’s going to finish the downstairs next week. Gotta message Vince for an art hanging and small fix-up day. Some mild furniture rearranging. Later one more day with Robin and Michele. I know the remaining closets and storage areas. Probably one morning’s worth. Be good to have all of those things accomplished.

 

Another good workout today. 240 minutes for the week. Enough. May go with the kids on their hike today. May not. Depends on how I’m feeling.

A strong week. Luke on Sunday. With Doug. Doverspike. The kids. Exercise. Breakfast with Alan tomorrow. Maybe take the kids, too. Dreams. First dream session with Irene at 11:00. Life up here on Shadow Mountain. Real life.

 

Still reading Undertow. Maybe a quarter done. Sharlet’s a good writer. And he’s empathetic even when he’s with folks like he discusses in the “manosphere.” This is the online world of incels, sluthaters, fans of the guy who shot up a college in California because it hadn’t given him the “beautiful girlfriend he deserved.” He reports on them as they are, not as they should be, not as he feels about them, but as they are.

He did the same thing with Rick Wilkerson, Jr. The third generation clergy in a mega church dynasty. Miami. A guy who thinks the gospel is about getting yours and being pretty. Sharlet builds a portrait of an America most of us (readers of this blog, for example) have no idea exists. Or, if we do, we know little about the real people inside it and how they live their lives. Remember the subtitle: a slow motion civil war. I can see what he means already.

The manosphere and the Wilkersonsphere are Archimedian levers that pry open cracks in the body politic. As are the Christian Nationalists heading for northern Idaho and those wealthy coastals exercising their right to exit, heading West.

I can see them all from up here on Shadow Mountain.

 

Dogs, Health, Shadow Mountain

Shades

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Spring and the Garden Path Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Doug. Making real progress. Ruth and Gabe and Mia coming up tomorrow. While Doug’s painting. Labs. The phlebotomist. Radiation. Still pending. Kep sleeping in this morning. Still Cold. 8 degrees. Good sleeping. Psilocybin. Hallucinogens. 11 offers on Jon’s house. Taxes. Jon’s, too. A low Snow March winding down. Spring down the hill. Flowers.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A fresh look for Shadow Mountain

 

Gettin’ into a groove. A solid Monday workout. Rest day. Solid Wednesday workout. Then I pick up what other minutes I can on the other days. Always over 150, most recent weeks over 250. Still, however, no resistance. Gotta get back to that.

Also. Reading in the mornings now. Feels right. Finished Swerve, the story of the reintroduction of Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things into Western culture. A big influence on the Renaissance and on today. Got another book in my wtf is going on with the USA reading program. Undertow, by Jeff Sharlet. Subtitle: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. That’s next.

Only three books to go in the CJ Box Joe Pickett series. A partial window into how Wyoming fits into the far right splintering going on right now. Includes the tensions outlined in Billionaire Wilderness which focuses on Jackson Hole and other areas where wealthy folks have begun to buy up ranches and turn them into second homes.

Add this new routine into the lunches and breakfasts with friends old and new, zoom with others. Shadow Mountain Home.

 

Kep’s pain. Managed. A concerning cough showing up though. He’s sleeping more. His life is winding down. Right now he’s sitting in the doorway to the bedroom, a little confused, coughing. Sad to see.

Talked to my son and his wife last night. Told them. Kep was Joe’s dog who ended up staying with us. He just passed up his food. Which is not a good sign. He went outside. Still mobile. Oh. My. My heart. This could be his last days.

So. Much. Death. Here on Shadow Mountain.

Natural. Yes. Hard, so hard. Yes.

 

About an hour and a half later than the above. Went to Evergreen to get blood drawn for lab tests. Thryoid and lipids. The phlebotomist said I was one of her favorites. I liked that of course. Yet who wants to be well known to their phlebotomist?

Had breakfast by myself at the Parkside. Started reading Undertow.  Sounds like it’s going to be good. A series of interviews with folks of the far right. A road trip. I like to take myself out to breakfast once in a while. Feels special. Calming.

On the way back I stopped at Walgreen’s to pick up some Prilosec for Kep. Doverspike thinks we can at least slow down whatever’s going on. Glad.

 

Reflecting on Kep on the drive home, a new meaning for Shadow Mountain came to me. Mountain of the Shade(s). Vega. Gertie. Rigel. Kate. Jon. These are deaths close to the bone. I hope Kep won’t join them soon though I suspect he might.

 

Cooking, Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Letters, Literature, Politics, Sport

Dogs and Cooking and Reading

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Saturday gratefuls: F1 Jeddah. Qualifying. Dr. Doverspike. Kep, pain managed. Walking taller. Cold night. Good sleeping. The light of a new day. A light yellow between the white flocked Lodgepoles. A robin egg’s blue sky above. 5 degrees. Another Shadow Mountain morning. Each day is a new life. A resurrection. A rebirth. Jon’s house on the market next weekend. My son the golfer. His wife, too. Furman. Farleigh Dickinson. No more Arizona. No more Purdue.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Mountain morning

 

So. No radiation this week. Got a call from Dr. Simpson yesterday. Radiation oncologist. Am I experiencing any difficulty in tasks of daily living as a result of my cancer? No. That’s what they wanted to know. They being the just say no team at United Health Care. Might know next week. I feel good about participating in holding health care costs down. Don’t I?

 

Dr. Doverspike came yesterday. We agreed Kep has made steady, but slower than expected progress. Probably because of the long low dose steroids. Stopped those. Now he needs to get outside, wander around. Climb stairs. Rebuild muscles. He’s still 13 of course so he’s not going back to bounding around. He’s calmer. Sleeps through the night. Eats well. A good life.

 

Cooked Salmon last night. Still finding the right temps using the induction cooktop. Found it for Fish last night. No more burning. Setting 7 out of 10. Made cacio e pepe in the morning. Cheese and black pepper spaghetti. Put a couple of Eggs on top of a modest serving. Fancy breakfast. Adding the leftover chorizo from the soup I made last week. Tasted good. Had Salmon, cacio e pepe, and mixed vegetables for supper. I enjoy cooking when I feel up for it. I always make breakfast. Usually, these days, overnight oats. Plus something else. Blueberries. Eggs. Yogurt. If I eat a big lunch, I’ll probably skip cooking an evening meal.

 

I’ve only got a few more books to go in the Joe Pickett series by CJ Box. Then I’m going to shift my fiction reading to the Arabian Nights. A return journey. Still working my way through Vibrant Matter. It’s a short, but dense book. Nearing the end of How to Change Your Mind. Got James Pogue’s book, Chosen Country, on the Malheur Occupation. Still following that far right thread. The newspapers and magazines help me, too. The Proud Boys and their lawyers antics during their sedition trials. An Atlantic article on political violence talking about Portland as a battleground between far leftists, anarchists, and the far right. The abortion pill debacle. Trump and DeSantis. This is gonna get worse.

If Rich is right, it may never get better. Who knows. I may own property in the sovereign nation of Colorado if I lived on another hundred years. What fun.

 

Gotta get some breakfast. Watch qualifying in Jeddah. Read the articles about Purdue and Farleigh Dickinson.

Oh. And the day has fully dawned with bright clear light falling on the Snow covered Lodgepoles. Till tomorrow.

 

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

Snow Days

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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

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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

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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.