Category Archives: Weather +Climate

Great Work, Politics, Science, Weather +Climate

Important NYT Article

May 2, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Rushing Waters Moon

nyt, may 2019 I’ve included several brief quotes here, but if you have time read the article. It’s not long. What is remarkable about it is its analysis of the gap between current political institutions and the passionate concern of young folk and those of us who know climate change is already well upon us. Something’s happening here, to quote Buffalo Springfield

“…the squabbling and endless recriminations in Westminster are just a particularly farcical version of a global phenomenon. The world’s political classes are, increasingly, rendering themselves almost completely irrelevant in the eyes of their constituents…

Young people even in rich countries like America and Britain, terrified of what the world will look like when they are in their 50s and the current governing elites are safely dead, are increasingly willing to embrace extraordinary measures. In both countries, more young people are questioning or rejecting capitalism itself…

The kind of vision in public works and collaboration that no more than a few generations ago created the United Nations, welfare states, space programs and the internet now seems inconceivable to the richest and most powerful governments on earth, even if the very fate of the planet depends on it…

The last 30 years or so have seen a kind of war on the very idea of visionary politics. Where ’60s rebels called for “all power to the imagination,” the consensus of the opinion makers who took over as those social movements sputtered has been precisely the opposite: The very idea of unleashing the human imagination on political life, we are consistently told, can lead only to economic misery, if not the gulag…

“…with scientists warning us we may have precious little time before rates of planetary warming lead to irreversible consequences, the one thing that seems clear is that refusal to engage in this kind of imaginative exercise is the real danger.” nyt, may 2019

Family, Health, Science, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

How do we know?

April 30, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Rushing Waters Moon

Kate was in the dentist’s chair for 3 hours. Four crown preps. All that drilling. Exhausting. She has temporaries on now. May 13 she gets the actual crowns. Much shorter visit.

Snow much less than predicted. Maybe 3 inches rather than a foot. Weather5280 reeled back their forecast, but we still got less than their numbers.

OK. New pastime. Looking up data about prostate cancer reemergence treatments. Ugh. So much information, so little of it digestible by this non-medical, non-science person. Imaging studies like the axumin scan have competitors. The data comparing those competitors is available, but mostly in journal articles. I can only read them for so long before my attention rate drops.

Another issue that arises is availability of certain imaging modalities. A promising new isotope based on gallium is not yet approved by the FDA. Only two , a choline based isotope which the Mayo Clinic uses, and the amino acid based axumin, have passed FDA trials. Even then, the trials vary in their consistency and in the type of information gathered. The gold standard of evaluation in imaging studies is histologic examination of their findings. That is, the sites identified by the imaging have biopsies and the pathologist determines if the cells are cancerous or not. Difficult to pursue in any numbers.

Once the imaging is done, which can produce 3-D maps of cancerous lesions, but with real caveats, especially the lower the presenting PSA rise, like mine, treatment plans are next. After a radical prostatectomy there are two treatments: hormone therapy (think chemical castration) and radiation. A huge issue in choosing treatments, especially newer ones like Cyberknife is the slow growth of prostate cancer. Statistical studies must be conducted over 10-15 year periods. If your new treatment is less old than that, the likelihood of good studies following actual patients are difficult to impossible to find.

So in both cases there are problems. This isn’t big news to those in medicine. Docs have to work with incomplete and unverifiable data all the time. That’s a major part of what makes practicing medicine such a high wire act and something I’ve come to admire the more I’ve learned. Even so, as a patient, I prefer certain knowledge and definitive options. Just. Not. Possible.

One more issue. Where to get treated. Right now my urologist has referred me to Anova Cancer Care. Anova and Urology Associates (my urologist’s group) are in the same organization. The more I think about it, the more I want a second opinion. Not because I distrust anybody, but because I want the chance to explore options other than the Cyberknife.

Although. Cyberknife does match up well with what I understand about my reemergence. The confounding factor with is the necessarily imprecise nature of the petscan. Cyberknife can kill lesions and tumors it knows are there. But, not ones that the petscan can’t find. There’s more, but I’m tired of thinking about it for now. Gonna go have breakfast.

Family, Health, Our Land and Home, Weather +Climate

Optimism

April 27, 2019 Charles 2 Comments

Spring Rushing Waters Moon

Took Kate out for errands yesterday. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is. She went into the goldsmiths and got a new battery for her mercury dime-faced watch. I parked, came in and found her looking at wedding rings. Well, replacement wedding rings. After 29 years she has misplaced hers. Vega ate mine with the watch band I used to hold it long ago. It’s out there somewhere in the wilds of Andover. Kate walked into the goldsmiths, walked to the car. We went to Hopsin’s Dry Cleaner, the post office, and the Village Gourmet, looking for a bread box.

When we got back home, she was not ashen, not exhausted. Her stamina has improved. A lot. A testimony to weight gain, blood and iron infusions, and her commitment to ot/pt. Her face is fuller at 94 pounds. We’re both cautiously optimistic. Next up is the lung diagnosis and the j-tube placement. Some day.

I’m off to Bailey this morning for our month’s worth of thc. The Happy Camper. I’m going to take the opportunity to go to the Rustic Station for breakfast. Their sweet cream pancakes are wonderful. Tom and Mark and Paul, I’ll eat them with mindfulness of our trip to Durango.

20180615_101542 It’s a blue sky, sun shiny Colorado day. We get a lot of them though in recent months we’ve also had our share of dark and gloomy. I like both. The sunny days lift my spirit; the gloomy ones inspire my creativity.

Got groceries delivered and the house cleaned yesterday. Having groceries picked and delivered relieves a major energy drainer. Well worth the extra 10-20 bucks. Sandy, our house cleaner, got energetic and washed some bedding, my electric blanket included. At first, I thought she had shorted it out like the first one that got washed, but no, it lives!

Cooking, Health, Politics, Science, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

No to impeachment

April 24, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Rushing Waters Moon

abyss Jupiter hangs west of the Rushing Waters Moon while Antares sits below it, also to the west. Black Mountain has a faint reddish glow as dawn sun pushes up the Shadow Creek valley. In this light our lodgepole pines look lush, a vibrant healthy green against the red-tinted Black Mountain. Another Rocky Mountain morning.

Made corned beef and cabbage last night using the Instapot. I can’t say why I like this appliance so much, maybe the idea of using a pressure cooker at altitude. This was on Kate’s list of meals for me to cook this week. Strangely liberating, having someone else come up with the menu.

Got a call from Anova Cancer Care last night. A warm young woman. We scheduled an appointment for May 17th, hoping that’s out far enough for me to have had my axumin scan. They want a cd of it. The docs at Anova are radiation oncologists. Who wants to need an oncologist? Nobody. But, to have them available and experienced when you do. Pretty damned valuable.

Impeachment. A bad idea. Trump needs to be invalidated at the ballot box. Impeachment and all the hoopla surrounding it would only embolden all the creepy crawling things wearing those red hats. Vigilantes at the border. Proud Boys gearing up to attack the liberal left. McConnell. Republicans who have been Jim Jonesed by the orange tumor on our democracy. The regular white folks who think putting others in their place, domestically and abroad, is what Americur is all about. The judges who somehow believe in the infallible words written in the constitution, not by founders who were complex and nuanced, but by the almighty herself working through their pens. We need all these folks to suffer defeat in the democratic way, in an election, a fair election. Which might be more difficult to pull off than we imagine.

Family, Health, Weather +Climate

Stressed

April 19, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Rushing Waters Moon

20190205_072936 Stressed. That’s me. Boiled over. Had to pick up Kate from Swedish yesterday. Drove in, 45 minutes, ready to leave. Do you have the oxygen? That’s Kate’s portable O2. No. Well, we can’t let her out of her legally without oxygen. She won’t die on the way home. Legal. Go find an O2 canister. OK. Over to Safeway, walking. No. Driving, after waiting several minutes for the valet to find our car. King Sooper. No. Hot. Fine. Going back to Conifer. Drove home, 45 minutes. Picked up O2. Talking myself down from being really angry. My fault. I forgot it. Why? I need a break. A respite. Too long at this now. 7 months. Two of those months sick myself. Now my psa kerfuffle. I’m distracted, feeling more responsibility than I can manage. Nobody’s fault. Life in our third phase lane right now.

The background noise from my psa has created a lot of static on my inner radio. Sometimes hard to hear myself think. Sometimes anxious. Sometimes concerned. Sometimes distracted by domestic matters. In between maybe and for sure right now. Tough place to live. Wish my years of this and that for inner peace was up to handling this, but right now they aren’t.

Big, wet system moving in for Easter. Good news for the fire season. The timing is a little difficult since I’m taking Ruth, Jon, and Gabe to a Rockies game on Sunday and it will be cool and wet. If the game happens. Gabe turns 11 on Monday.

Back to regular workouts. That’s helpful for the stress. My O2 sat % has improved markedly. My body responds well to exercise, gains strength fairly quickly. That’s good news at 72.

Cooking, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Just Passing Through

April 14, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Rushing Waters Moon

A bit of snow. Twice. Over the last couple of days. Any moisture is good moisture in a drought and we’re climbing out of one here in Colorado.

Cooked that tenderloin roast yesterday. Oh, boy, is that good meat. And, it provides several meals over the week. Bread, potatoes (instant pot for 6 minutes), and asparagus in a sauce Kate found at Tony’s. We ate at 4 p.m. Kate said it was like a holiday meal.

sabbath2 Yes, a sabbath meal, I replied. I’m still fascinated with the idea of the sabbath, especially as I’ve learned more about it at CBE. In Jewish thought the sabbath is far from a day of rest, though it is that, too. It is a foretaste of life when tikkun olam, healing of the fractured world (or, more interestingly, of a fractured God), has succeeded and every day is a sabbath. The sabbath pulls the observer away from the technological world which has come to so dominate us, setting aside a time for family, for study, for nourishment of the self.

There are, it’s true, a lot of rules. I don’t even know most of them, but one of the rules is that you have the best food on the sabbath. Also, sex. You can’t light a fire (or, turn on electricity since it causes a spark), so the cooking has to be done before hand.

It could be one model for retirement, for the third phase. That is, the third phase as a time of personal enrichment, caring for others, enjoying the best life has to offer. Why not? And, you could golf, too, if that turns your crank.

prostate cancer Got an appointment with Dr. Eigner’s physician’s assistant, Anna Willis. If my PSA rise needs further attention, I know she’ll get me in to see Eigner. I’ve calmed down about it, the tincture of time as Kate says. Who knows, perhaps it’s nothing at all. Though I don’t think so. Glad it’s this Monday. Although. That could mean the confluence of death and taxes. Would be ironic.

Next Saturday night is the communal seder at Mt. Vernon Country Club. We’ve gone a couple of times, had reservations last year, but Kate’s shoulder surgery knocked us out of that one. Although the pesach meal is commonly referred to as the seder, seder means order. The haggadah, which means telling in Hebrew, reflects the order of the passover ritual. Used to be many, if not most, of the haggadah were a small blue booklet from Maxwell House Coffee. Over the last decades though the number of haggadahs has multiplied, driven by changes among the various branches of Judaism, yes, but more by cultural/political concerns like feminism, environmentalism, reconstruction.

pesach chagall The central point of the passover is the reenactment of the Exodus and the creation of a Jewish people. I learned last year that the telling (the haggadah) of the story focuses on children. You might be familiar with the four questions, proceeded by the often satirized question, Why is this night different from all other nights?

Easter is coming, too. I plan to take Gabe plus Jon and Ruth to a Rockies game to celebrate. No, not Easter. Gabe’s birthday.

Asia, Commentary on Religion, Family, Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Weather +Climate

Death, and given the date, Taxes

April 11, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Rushing Waters Moon

This time the snow storm underperformed. Maybe 3 inches. Good news, really, since it means Colorado Pulmonary Intensivists won’t close and we’ll finally get to have a delayed visit there, pick up Kate’s ct reading and discuss her j-tube surgery.

fear Got my own thing going on, too. Second PSA showed a slight uptick from a month ago, from .12 to .13. As Kate said, probably in the lab’s margin of error. Still, it is cancer we’re talking about here. Any increase over .1 sends some sort of signal, just how serious a one I don’t know. Going in to see the urologist as soon as I can get an appointment.

Not the best judge of my anxiety about this. When I sent the note to Dr. Eigner, the surgeon who removed my prostate, I said my psa had gone up to 1.2. That’s a huge difference from .12. I misplaced the decimal point. Not at my calm best on that e-mail.

As I hear myself thinking, my self talk is like this. I need more information. I don’t know enough to know whether this is bad or just something we’ll need to watch. Or, both. But wait. It’s cancer. You know, CANCER. I don’t want to have a sell-by date given to me, or worse an expiration date. This body no good after 13 years. Oh, come on. We all die. And, you’ve even referred to your eventual cause of death as your friend.

Death is not an enemy. It’s an inevitability. Yes, it takes my breath away when my inner conversation veers towards my absence, my annihilation. Sometimes. Other times, I take it in, embrace it. I take from the Tibetan Buddhists that being calm at the moment of your death is a spiritual goal. It is for me and that also means being calm about death since it always approaches, is never further away than your next breath.

We begin and we end. This much we know with certainty. If life, that time between a sleep and a sleep as the Mexica say, is filled with apprehension about the end, then this brief mayfly moment will be wasted. That’s why Yamantaka encourages us to consider our death in as realistic as a fashion as we can. See our dead body. Imagine it in a coffin. Feel the last breath leaving your body. Imagine the world without you.

Not sure about the notion of an afterlife. Reincarnation? The Buddhists think so. Heaven or hell? Very unlikely since I know the literary sources for both of them. Absorption back into the 10,000 things? Makes the most sense, but sense is an artifact of this life and in particular an artifact of human reason. All the data we have comes from our singular experience in this body, in this lifetime. We have no prebirth memories (I find past-life regressions difficult to believe. Which does not mean untrue.). We have no post-death returns save for those who have experienced death and been revived in some way. Even those experiences are brief and inevitably the product of a difficult moment.

death Osiris-nepra What about Jesus? There again, I know the literary sources. The earliest gospel, Mark, probably did not include a resurrection narrative. The dying and rising god is a motif of certain Middle Eastern belief systems, the story of Osiris for example.

Would we all like to have a definitive report back from beyond the pale? Not sure. What if it contradicts our hopes, our beliefs?

Here’s the nub of it. I know and love life. But it is, I admit, all I know for certain, except that it also ends. I’m not eager to trade a known good for an unknown. Most aren’t, I suppose. When a mortality signal like a possible return (or more like a reemergence) of cancer comes, part of me responds with fear, with anxiety. Another part of me responds with acceptance of my death.Which is, in any case, not yet.

Charon and Psyche, John Roddam Spencer Stanhope. 1883

The older I get I realize carrying contradictory states is the norm, at least for me. It’s like pneumonia. I learned this February that you can have both viral and bacterial pneumonia, in fact, you can have different strains of both. At the same time. We’re more complex, less simple than our reductive thinking processes can usually entertain.

One thing I find odd is being given thirteen years to live (a possible prognosis if this is a reemergence), makes me more anxious than not having such a number. Which is silly from a rational perspective. All that’s being taken away, all he said, is the fantasy of immortality. Without such a prognosis I could continue to live, well, ongoingly. Which of course we know not to be true. Anyhow at 72 I’m already two years into the bonus range beyond three score and ten.

Consistency, Emerson said, is the hobgoblin of small minds. On the matter of death and cancer I’m not a small mind.

Family, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate, Writing

Glimmers

April 7, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Rushing Waters Moon

Things we think about here. The snowpack, in all regions of the state, is way above average, nearly 150%. That means three things: an easing of the drought that has plagued the state, especially the southwest corner, a solid supply of water for the Colorado River basin states, and a much lessened fire danger over this summer. So much nicer to go into the summer months with good water supply. The arid west.

It means one other thing, too. Rushing waters. As the snow melts, our mountain streams will swell, spill over their banks. Our waterfalls will peak, like the ones just below us, the Maxwell Falls. The sound of these streams racing toward the South Platte (up here, anyhow) is one of my favorite mountain sounds. The soughing of the winds. The bugling of the elk. Late spring streams full and bubbling, babbling, crashing.

These are the Rockies now and have been the Rockies for thousands upon thousands of years. We’re here for a moment. We living things witness. It may be our most important act. We are the universe aware of itself and its wonders.

April, 2016 Gwangju. Just before the wedding

Kate had a not so good day yesterday. Some nausea. A Sjogren’s flare, maybe related. I hate to see her that way. I wish her recovery was one smooth arc from 77 pounds to 100, 105. It’s not and it will not be, but I wish it anyway.

Ruth had her third or fourth Destination Imagination state contest appearance yesterday. D.I., as she calls it, is a national program that has kids join with 4 or 5 of their peers, invent plays, and, this year, respond to improv challenges. There are judges and her team has placed at state the last couple of years in their age bracket. Don’t know how she did yet.

Jon says he’s tired of living in an unfinished house. Due to remodeling at his school, he gets done much earlier than normal this year, April 21st. He plans to use the long break to get a lot of work done. He’s done rewiring, replumbing, cleared out the old kitchen and purchased newer appliances. He’s done work on the kid’s rooms first, building Ruth a platform bed and Gabe a desk.

The first glimmers of new work. I’m taking my cousin Diane’s idea seriously. She wrote: “I think your writings deserve a wide (wider?) daily audience — they so compellingly chronicle daily life along with stretching the readers’ mind — and also possibly they could be gathered/edited in to a book that would appeal to our age group. Have others suggested any such to you?”

marble-main My plan is to print out all of ancientrails. I started a while back, but gave up pretty far from completion. That way I can fuss with them in the physical world, compile sheets and posts. Much harder to do, ironically, on the computer. Not sure what I plan to do, but that’s the place to start.

Probably going back to Jennie’s Dead. It’s unfinished and I want to complete it. Though. I may take time, too, to start the book Elise and I talked about, the one that comes from the heart. Main point, work is beginning to reassert itself after the long barren period.

Painting? Yes, that too. Not yet, but soon.

Ta for now. Gotta go down and take Kate off her feed bag. She’ll be free for 10 hours. She sounds much better.

Family, Health, Mountains, Music, Third Phase, Travel, Weather +Climate

Soul’s Jumping Off

April 1, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Recovery Moon

BJ returns to the Beacon Hotel and Broadway today. She suggested taking the train to the airport, so I’ll be taking her down to the Federal Center station. It’s very close to Ortho Colorado where I got a new knee and Kate got a new shoulder. We’ll wave to our now spare parts as we pass by.

It’s been a good visit. She and Kate made spritz cookies yesterday. They also sorted through Kate’s stash of yarn. The result is a box I’ll mail to Idaho. Something for BJ to do next summer while she manages renovation of her home there before the Grand Teton Music Festival starts up in August.

We had five inches of snow the night BJ came. It’s gone now from the driveway and roads. Some remains in the shade and on the thicker snow that has been here for a while. As I said yesterday though, we’re not done. Our second snowiest month starts today. Not April Fool’s either.

Not sure exactly what prompts them to do this, but Kepler and Rigel take turns lying down in the narrowest part of our home, the passage between the kitchen and the living room. As a meal is under preparation, they watch. Hope. Then, when it’s ready, they lie there and watch as food gets carried from kitchen counter to dining table, then back. This is beneficial because it promotes good balance as we step between legs and over bodies.

Friend Tom Crane sent a picture from Maui. They’re in, I think, a set of condos just to the right of Whaler’s Village if you’re facing the ocean. He and Roxann were in Lahaina yesterday. Its whaling history had Tom wanting to harpoon something. He said he wouldn’t though because that’s bad juju. Yes. But, maybe he could find a whale of deal in one of Lahaina’s many shops and art galleries. Harpoon that.

Beyond those condos is the Sheraton. It publicizes Pu‘u Keka‘a (Black Rock), a spot where divers sometimes jump into the ocean. Notes from travelers say that such diving is frowned upon. As it well might be, since this rock was, in traditional Hawai’ian lore, the jumping off spot for soul’s to the after life.

halema'uma'u Jules Tavernier — halema’uma’u Jules Tavernier

There is a real and probably unresolvable tension between the booming tourist industry on all the islands and the native population. Many places sacred to the natives, like Pu’u Keka’a, draw tourists. Another such spot is Halemaumau crater on Kilauea. This crater, which has undergone rapid transformation since the most recent eruptions of this active volcano, is the traditional home of Pelé, the Hawai’ian goddess of volcanoes. On any visit in the past there would be offerings scattered around the crater, fern fronds, flowers, bottles of alcohol. Pelé is not an abstract, far-away goddess, but one who upends life on the Big Island often. Even non-native locals give Pelé her due.

Though the USA claims to be a non-imperial power, Hawai’ian history proves otherwise. We took it, dethroned the monarchy, and made the islands safe for sugar plantations. Michener’s Hawai’i tells the tale in easily readable prose.

The stories of these islands have a geologic tale of great scientific interest. They have a Polynesian mariners’ tale that unveils the navigational skills of thosw who took to the seas in catamarans, sailing north to populate these islands. They have a long story of their descendants and their battles, their taboos, their human sacrifice.

They have a shorter history of the haoles, non-native Hawai’ians, who came from Asia and the U.S. Some worked the sugar plantations, later the pineapple and coffee fields, mostly from Japan and Korea. Others came with money and power.

Hawai’i has a more than a soft spot in my heart. It’s a second home. Yes, that’s not too strong. We fell in love with the islands long ago and would have lived there if we had enough cash. Yes, in spite of the imperial history and in spite of the tourist industry. They are beautiful, enchanting, mesmerizing. The scent of loamy soil, gardenias, and jasmine are as fresh for me now as when we first went. The combination of lush landscapes, the vast Pacific, and the unimaginable power of the volcanoes that created them, casts a spell, one which we willingly let enchant us.

Dogs, Family, Mountains, Music, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Musicians

March 30, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Recovery Moon

Rebekah_Johnson_-_full Picked up sister-in-law BJ at DIA yesterday. She’s an experienced traveler with a single roll-on bag and bright blue, hard-shelled case which carries her violin. It goes everywhere with her, including in to Sushi Win for lunch. “Cold is not good for it. Changes in humidity.” She’s the concert master for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, so the blue, hard-shelled case carries her means of earning a living.

We talked about the arts over lunch. Interestingly, her s.o. Schecky Ballentyne, a student of the cello great, Leonard Rose, and a teacher of the cello as well as an international soloist, thinks a renaissance of the arts gestates among millennials. A while back when he taught his students could count on getting jobs as professional musicians. More recently his students have gone on other careers instead. Medicine. Scholarship. Computer programming. But. They keep up the instrument, have chamber music evenings with other part time players, and keep their art alive. Schecky believes these folks will create an artistic renewal when they become more settled in their lives. May it be so.

music sasaki and ballentyne Shecky and a pianist with whom he often works, Hiroko Sasaki, have a performance scheduled at the Merkin Hall in NYC. May 24. Here’s the info in case you’re in the Big Apple over that time:

In the 20 years spanned by the music in this evening’s performance, Beethoven revolutionized music and single-handedly created the modern cello sonata. By juxtaposing works from each major period of his life, Ballantyne and Sasaki highlight this composer’s unique musical and spiritual development. For an even more immersive experience, please join Emmy nominee George Marriner Maull, well-known for his PBS and radio specials about music, for a pre-concert lecture at 6:30 in the balcony lobby.

Artists

Scott Ballentyne, cello

Hiroko Sasaki, piano

Program

Pre-concert Lecture: The Music of Beethoven by George Maull at 6:30

BEETHOVEN – Sonata Op. 5 #2 in G minor (1796)
BEETHOVEN – Sonata Op. 69 in A Major (1807/1808)
BEETHOVEN – Sonata Op. 102 #2 in D Major (1815)

Another 5 inches plus of snow here over night. Temperatures cooled down after the overheated week we had. This is powder though so it was easy to shovel the deck. Still snowing and in the teens.

Sandy, our house cleaner, came yesterday. She cleaned the loft, especially the bathroom after the unseating and resealing of the toilet. Always nice to get this space cleaned, about every other time she comes.

Kate continues to gain weight, do her ot/pt which gives her more strength and stamina. The hi-resolution CT next Tuesday should complete the diagnostic work of this whole ordeal. It will identify or rule out any lung disease. Then we’ll know whether she can go ahead with the j-tube placement. If Gupta, the pulmonologist, gives her the ok, that could happen fairly quickly.

20190126_103753 All three dogs love the snow. Rigel and Gertie both go into the drifts nose first, come up shaking their heads, then do it again. Rigel hunts the rabbits that live under the deck and the shed, but she’s never caught one here, as far as I know. Back in Andover, every once in a while. Kep likes to wander in the snow, his black and white body moving in and out of the drifts as he investigates. He’s usually the last one back inside. His genes, after all, hail from the Akita prefecture in Japan, famous for its mountains and snow.

First workout today here in my loft gym for almost two months. If it’s anything like Thursday, I’m gonna need some help to get back downstairs. My quads are still complaining from that session.

In the way of Colorado this snow will be gone by Monday. 44 that day. Right now though it’s beautiful, falling gently on the lodgepoles, the naked aspen, our solar panels. Traction law is in effect. If you have bad tires and cause an accident or obstruct traffic, a big fine. Spring and winter will alternate with each other, probably all through April, perhaps even into May. Heavy snows, then 50 degree + days. Normal for us.