Category Archives: Feelings

Aging, Coronavirus, Family, Feelings, Friends, GeekWorld, Health, Jefferson County, Judaism, Minnesota, Mussar, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Paying the Price

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Fall and the RBG Moon

Monday gratefuls: Groveland. The Ancient Ones. The ancientrails of wondering and friendship. The Darkness. The Stars, now steady. Kate’s stoma site. Getting clear and healthy. Kate. Just Kate, always Kate. Exposure. Fear. 28 degrees this a.m. The Gold in them thar Hills: Aspen. Magwa, the hero Rat. The clan.

So what happens to me. I over prepare. I go deep but the subject has only so much time. I’m disappointed. Did I give them anything? Did I intervene too little? Was I defensive? Will they want me back? Especially yesterday with It’s Beyond Me.

Zoom of course. Perhaps my choice of style, a discussion rather than a straight presentation. The inherent ambiguity of the topic. Felt off when it finished.

Also, I need this. I need to try something new. Learn something new. Be in this zoom moment as an actor, not only a passive observer.

Watched Social Dilemma on Netflix. The second of three documentary recommendations from the ancient ones. Again, not much new. Still, disturbing. I’m writing this in Firefox, using duckduckgo as my search engine. I practice good hygiene on Facebook and still love the old friends and Irish Wolfhounds. I heard the young, bright manipulators, but did not hear the path forward. Unless it’s regulation. Which is a duh unless you hate regulation as evil government intervention. I’m for it.

As I changed Kate’s bandage yesterday, we talked. I’m wondering how we can lift ourselves out of, or away from, this medicalization? I mean, I don’t want to see you as a patient all the time, but with all these appointments and treatments, it’s hard. Our life is not that. Yet, it is.

Right then, Rabbi Jamie called, wondering how Kate was? She mentioned this thought I’d just had. He listened. He had some time before Yom Kippur and wanted to connect with some folks. They miss us. We’ve been absent even from zoom mussar for over a month.

Covid. Makes all this hard. Kate can’t go to Patchworkers or Needleworkers. We don’t go to mussar at CBE. Or, services. Or the occasional program. It will soon be Sukkot and the booth is up, but we’re not there to participate. Yes, this is life now. Yes, it has its price.

God, this is cheery.

Family, Feelings, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Third Phase

Over the Hills and Through the Woods

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Lughnasa and the RBG Moon

Monday gratefuls: RBG, social justice warrior. The American people. We won’t get fooled again. Our flawed democracy in all its tattered glory. Surgery eye drops. Kate’s several good days. Rigel and her healing. Orion right at the end of the driveway at about thirty degrees. The equinox tomorrow. This bittersweet quote: “We’re still able to do all the things that need to get done without pumping biofuels into a beautiful, beautiful fading world.” Kate Winslet, Vanity Fair

Visits now. Somewhat fraught. Will they bring the virus with them? Should we wear masks all the time, inside and out? A frisson of doubt.

But God how good it was to see Jon cooking Salmon in our kitchen. Cutting up heirloom Tomatoes from his own garden. Zucchini’s, too. Ruth helping. Gabe wandering around.

Gabe took off with Grandma’s phone and Ruth’s assent. Just don’t killed, ok? Big sister love. When he returned, he had photographs of two mule deer bucks with big racks. They let me come close.

Ruth talks, an adderall influenced pace. Fast. Chatty. Engaged. They’re all excited to be here, to be with Grandma and Grandpop. This soup is good, Grandpop.

The Yam soup I made a couple of days ago. Do you want to see a picture of the Yam? Sure. That is huge! It was the biggest Yam I’d ever seen. Part of the produce basket from Easy Entree’s. The recipe called for two and a half to three pounds of Sweet Potato. This one Yam sufficed.

Jon had roasted Salmon, cut up Butternut Squash, ravioli, Zucchini, and Cherokee Purple heirloom Tomatoes. A meal together. Our Colorado family. Sweet.

Ruth and I went up to the loft. She sat in my reading chair and I sat in the one I’d put together for her. Both from Ikea, the same.

Tennessee Grandma and I go to Ikea a lot. I saw these chairs there. They even have rocking ones. I bought a lime green rocking chair for my room at Stapleton Goodwill. $15.

Is this at your mom’s? Yes.

Tik Tok’s a big part of the culture right now. I spend hours on it every day. I decided to rearrange my room at night late. It took me two hours because I couldn’t make any noise. At your mom’s? Yes. She recorded some of this for Tik Tok. I only have four pieces of furniture, but it’s a small room.

Let’s cut up that oil painting paper. O.K. We bought a large roll of paper sized for oils a few months back, pre-Covid. I put the paper up on the art table and Ruth held one end while I cut with an exacto knife. Oh, you’re scoring it? As it turned out, yes. Maybe a three foot, four foot long piece. Good enough for several paintings.

After they left, I got out a new canvas and set it on the art table. Have you started painting again, Grandpop? No, I hadn’t. Why not, I wondered?

All three of them are at ease here. Jon takes a nap. Gabe plays with Kep, walks in the backyard. Ruth sits with Kate and talks sewing, cooking.

Before we went to sleep last night I said to Kate: I feel our family’s doing well. Like it’s whole. That makes me happy.

She agreed.

Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Friends, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

An Age of Wonders

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Lughnasa and the 1% crescent of the Labor Day Moon

Thursday gratefuls: A better day for Kate yesterday. Chewy prescription order shipped. Mahi-Mahi in tomato sauce. Easy Entrees. Mary, Mark, Diane. Generous, kind. Tom and his knotty gift. Knotical. The Ancient Ones, my FFs, friends forever. Alan. The compounding pharmacy for my surgery eye drops. Rigel, the Yipper. Kep, the Snuggler.

An age of wonders. Peak TV. There has never been so much good television, ever. And, there might not be again since Netflix spends money as fast as the Mississippi flows into its delta. Right now I’m watching the Turkish series, the Gift, an English limited episodes drama, The Third Day, and the Sony production, Away. The Gift and the Third Path fall in the folk horror genre, like the movies Midsommar and the Wicker Man. Away stars Hilary Swank as commander of the first expedition to Mars. Great Britain and Korea also make compelling television.

Every Tuesday morning I speak with cousin Diane in San Francisco, sister Mary in Singapore, and brother Mark in Riyadh. At the same time. With video. On Sundays I speak with the Ancient Ones, my FF’s, friends forever, in Minneapolis and Maine. Every other Thursday Alan Rubin and I have a video chat. Without Zoom the pandemic would be so much worse.

Another wonder. I wonder who will rid us of this troublesome President? Several million of us, I hope. Gotta work to make it happen. Encourage friends and co-workers. Family. Vote! Make phone calls. Send e-mails.

I’m reading Rage, Bob Woodward’s book. It’s the only Trump era book I’ve read, finding my Trump box always filled to overflowing and not wanting to add that last word. It’s not revelatory so far, except for the big news of Trump’s early understanding of the nature of Covid. That’s a major item. He goes back to the beginning of Trump’s administration to put this story in context.

Early in the book Woodward tells the story of Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum. He told his cabinet, after they tried to dissuade him, that he wanted the tariffs. Just implement them and we’ll see what happens, he said. His finance cabinet folks said the U.S. economy is nothing to play with. Do it anyway.

This after they pointed out that we’re no longer a steel producer or an aluminum producer and tariffs would therefore have the result of raising prices on imported products, not invigorating our once dominate foundries.

He went ahead.

An early signal of Trump’s discounting of experts and privileging his gut response.

I also read, yesterday, this troubling article by NYT columnist, Thomas B. Edsall. Most of us know, I think, that we live in partisan bubbles these days. Our friends, our news sources, our own analysis of the political. Even families. We don’t talk politics on Thanksgiving or at the reunion. Our lives are hermetically sealed from the other.

I’m guilty. I see the Trump base, the MAGA reactionaries as I think of them, as both deluded and obedient. Edsall shows that this sort of us/them thinking might end in violence around and after the election. Our descent into Banana Republic status has gained momentum.

What do we do? It’s not as easy as “having conversations with those with whom we disagree.” First of all, most of don’t know many with whom we disagree, at least not well enough to start a civil, literally, conversation. Second, even if we do know a few and engage them, our minds tend to be as made up as theirs. Where’s the gap, the space, for understanding each other. It’s thin at best.

My admittedly partisan notion is that we first need to lower the intensity of public discourse. I believe electing Biden will do that. Then we need to do a careful, honest, and serious review of our own attitudes. Push white supremacist ideologues back to the fringes where they belong while opening ourselves to the pain and anguish of Trump’s base.

This does not mean denying our own convictions. I won’t give an inch on eliminating racism, providing health care and food and housing for the neediest in our nation. Even so, I need to consider the sort of policies that would also benefit the white working class, would address the fears of white suburban women that their safety and their children’s is at stake, would reassure the small business owner that we care about their survival.

An anti-big business conversation might yield interesting results, for example. Debt relief. Job protection and job education for those below middle class income. Higher pay for “essential” jobs since we know how essential they are.

Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, General, Health, Weather +Climate

She Can Handle Them

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Six inches of snow, at least. Cold weather.Rigel’s most excellent visit to the doctors. The Rommertopf chicken as leftovers. Yum. Visit with the clan.

It got cold. Fast. Rained, drizzled ice. Dropped away from summer with the snap of an aspen twig. It Snowed starting around 3 p.m. yesterday and snowed into the night. About six inches, though it could be more since water since rain fell, too. The storm was a big one and its effect on our lives was immediate. Comforters came out, windows got closed, doors remained shut.

Rigel and I went into VRCC, the Veterinary Referral and Critical Care in Englewood, at 2:15 p.m. It had not started to snow much but the roads were wet from the Rain and the temperature was in the mid-20’s. I drove carefully down the mountain to Aspen Park, watching for those treacherous patches of ice that can come in shade.

I’d gotten up from a 2 hour nap and discovered I had just enough time to make it to the appointment on time. That meant I had to hurry cautiously, given the roads and Colorado drivers. We made it and the other drivers looked like Minnesota winter veterans. Unusual, but appreciated.

When I took Rigel into the VRCC three weeks ago, it was around the same time. And, 95 with a clear blue sky. I ran the air conditioning as I waited. Yesterday, down the hill, it was a steady, cold rain. A bald headed tech came out to get Rigel, put the blue and white leash over her neck and led her inside. This time I ran the heater. Colorado.

Rigel saw her internist and her cardiologist. Yes, she’s a dog, but, hey… She’s also Rigel.

About an hour later a gray headed, blue eyed, cheerful woman in a sturdy blue mask came out and talked to me through the car window. Like a car hop for those of you who remember. Pleased, her eyes wrinkled in a smile above the mask. Rigel has some insuffiencies in both the mitral and aortal valves, but it’s minimal. She’ll be able to handle it. The vegetative lesion is smaller today and as it organizes her chances of stroke shrink day by day. I’d like to see her again in six months.

Her internist wants us to continue her meds for 12 weeks. These are not cheap meds, but since the cardiologist thinks this was bacterial, it’s the smart choice.

On the way home Rigel stuck her head out the window and let her ears and facial hair stream backward. Happy to have the visits done? Don’t know. But, happy.

Nothing is over with. She’s still sick, though improving in a way that makes us all glad. The tech who brought her back out remembered her from her admission. She looks so much better now! And, she’s such a sweet girl. Yes, she is.

Our winter weather will continue only until Sunday when we’re at 69, then 71. Whiplash.

Sister Mary says Denver weather was on the English language Japan channel yesterday and today. Glad it’s for Snow and cold and not wildfire.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Health, Our Land and Home, Painting, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate, Writing

Open to Ideas

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Lughnasa, the Labor Day Moon and Mars

Afternoon note:

In a curious mental place. I’m calm, not spending time worrying about results or outcomes. I’m busy cooking, shopping, feeding, pilling, driving, listening, changing bandages. Organizing crafts people for work here. Dealing with my own health. Working out. Getting sleep. Zooming with friends, family, CBE.

I want to write and paint. I don’t seem able to. That’s not my way. I believe we choose our reality, live into the life we want. Ergo, if I’m not doing something I want to do, I’m not choosing it. An effective and self-motivating belief. Normally. I’m accountable for my life, no one else.

Right now though my mind seems full. That’s the way I experience it anyhow. I’m trying to work on my Groveland presentation for the 27th, It’s Beyond Me. That’s the title, not my problem, btw. I go along, get a little done, find a set of definitions or some great examples, like the Chukchee in 19th century Sibera who would bare their buttocks in the direction of the wind and ask for better weather, then I wander away, no longer interested.

Not procrastination. Sure, I indulge from time to time, but it’s never been a defining feature for me. Not lack of sleep. I’m rested and exercised.

A similar phenomenon when I want to write, paint. When I say write, I mean work on Jennie’s Dead, my current novel about half done. I can’t put myself in the writing mental space. Can’t pick up a brush. Not blocked, Not afraid. My energy seems all used by life.

The other things I’m doing take attention to detail, regular action, compassion, endurance, imagination, follow through. Yes, I know that. But I’ve not had this trouble before that I recall.

When I want to do something other than domestic things, my mind goes fuzzy, unwilling to open, to wonder, to create. No space for it. That’s how it feels.

Might just be the way things are. Or, there may be a solution? Not sure. Open to ideas.

Aging, Cinema and Television, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Friends, GeekWorld, Health, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Zoombies

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Monday gratefuls: Rigel’s appetite. Kep’s centeredness. Our home. Kate feeling better last night. Chicken and blueberries and asparagus and beets. Our front, cleaner, more natural after the stump grinding. The night sky, visible now at 5 a.m. 36 degrees this morning.

Cold here overnight. Down to 36. Refreshing, invigorating. Up early, 4:30 a.m. with enough sleep. I go to bed early, around 8 p.m. The night Sky. Don’t see it much when I get up later, around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. though that’s changing as the Great Wheel turns toward the vernal equinox.

Kate had a hard day yesterday with shortness of breath and not feeling well. I moved a TV into the bedroom. She can watch NCIS and Blue Bloods while resting. She feels better lying down. Our agreement is that the TV goes off when I come to bed. This is a change from her last year and a half when she read through books in a day or two, filling shelves of books she had read.

Rigel’s appetite, boosted by the prednisone she’s on for fever control, is good. She’s gradually returning to her old habits, a couple of cups of dry food with some wet food mixed in. Since her time in the hospital, she’s eaten a lot of canned food. It all has to be single protein, rabbit. That makes it expensive, three to four dollars a can. And she’s a big dog.

Zoombies. Don’t know why I haven’t seen this word yet, but it’s my neologism now. This is the zoombie apocalypse, characterized by so many seen but not felt. I don’t find that zoom eats my brain, but I do know it can cause a deadening if done too much. Many working at home have overloaded.

Yesterday the old zoombies met for what Paul calls our church. The topic was staying healthy as we age. A table with four legs: diet & exercise, relationships, sleep, and regular medical care. Couldn’t remember medical care as the fourth leg so I added curiosity. That works, too. So, five legs.

What we’re trying to do is lengthen healthspan, that period of life where you can do what you want to do with minimal interference from frailty or disease. As we age, so many of us experience dire insults that don’t kill us, but do render us weaker, less able to engage in our lives as we used to know them.

Ideas from the zoombie session: exercise bands, going to the club, cleanses of various sorts, walking, physical labor, interval training, workouts from a trainer, staying in touch with loved ones, with friends, with dogs.

I mentioned curiosity because it acknowledges mystery, wonder, and an openness to the future without trying to control it.

Here’s to your health, your loved ones health. May you live long and prosper.

Colorado, Cooking, Denver, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Health, Jefferson County, Memories, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History, Weather +Climate

Water

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Jon, Ruth, Gabe. All here to celebrate Grandma’s birthday. The specific Animals that gave their lives for our meal: scallops and a tri-tip steak. The heat. When it leaves. Jon and Ruth’s happiness with the gift of Ivory. (our 2011 Rav4). Gabe’s “Air hug. I love you Grandpop.” Rigel at home. The chance to cook for a crowd. Kate. Always Kate.

Didn’t do much for Kate’s birthday on Tuesday. Lots of stuff going on before, that day, and after. But we hit it yesterday. Grandkids. Scallops. The gift of empanadas from Jon and the kids. Rigel up and about. When they left we both collapsed, as usual. A good exhaustion. Happy to see them come. Happy to see them go.

Record heat in Denver. Hot up here, too. Not by other spots standards, I know, but we’ve become acclimated to a cooler day.

You can’t see the Mountains from Denver. Jon. All this smoke and haze, heavy particulates has obscured us. We’re still here. The haze is here and the smell of smoke hangs in the Air like a harbinger. It’s bad further west, but the Wildfire threat is extreme here, too. Humidity at 16. The Ground Water evaporates. The stress on Trees and Grasses grows with the lack of precipitation. A grim reminder that we’re all part of this Ecosystem.

Ruth said that Animals from the Foothills are fleeing into metro Denver. People have been asked to leave water out for them. Can’t do it here. Habituation. Which kills Animals rather than helps them.

The arid West is not the humid East. The Mountains are not the Plains. Whether we realize it all the time or not, our lives have Water as a disruptive actor. The lack of it. Water from the Western Slope, for example, goes to Denver through huge tunnels and pipes. The southern burbs of Denver have depleted much of the Aquifer that sits beneath them. Long periods of dryness lead to extreme conditions for agriculture, Wildlife, and our Forests. The Colorado River Compact promises more Water to its downstream users like Las Vegas, Arizona, and Los Angeles than actually flows through it.

Diane, my San Francisco based cousin, told me about the book, Cadillac Desert, long ago. That piqued my interest in Water. I’ve been fascinated ever since. The way the Plains states like Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and even parts of Oklahoma and Texas have based their economies on the Ogallala Aquifer, an enormous reservoir of mostly ancient Water that underlies them. No Aquifer, no amber waves of Grain, no fruited Plains. The Great Lakes. Now, the Colorado River.

Consider the Water where you are. It is Life itself. Worthy of your attention.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Health, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Home again, home again

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Friday gratefuls: Rigel asleep on the floor, my side of the bed. Her bag of meds and the schedule laid out by Kate. Palisade Peaches and center cut pork chops. Easy Entree. Amber, again. Rain yesterday, good rain, during a red flag day. All the firefighters deployed to the Western Slope. The Pine Gulch Fire, now the 2nd largest in state history.

Rigel went outside yesterday when the neighbor dogs barked. She came up and down the short stairs between the first level and the second. She ate some canned food and took her first meds at home. As VRCC predicted, she was tired and spent most the time splayed out on the rug.

As was her occasional habit anyhow, she didn’t get up for breakfast. It’s five o’clock, Dad. I’ll feed her a bit later.

As we were going to sleep last night, Kate said, “It feels good to have the whole family back together.” It did. My mind didn’t have to wander all the way to Edgewood to Rigel’s kennel. I could reach down and pat her head. Which I did.

I sent Ruth a text with a short video of Rigel walking out of the VRCC. She is strong, Ruth said. Yes, I replied. Like you and your Grandma.

No matter what happens after this, yesterday was a good day.

Dogs, Feelings, Health

She’s Back.

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Special afternoon edition. Rigel is home! We picked her up at 12:30. She came walking out, a small pink bandage on her left front leg, otherwise pretty normal. A bit tired from the constant bustle of doggy ICU.

We spent just the right amount of money on her. Which was enough to get her back home alive.

I was overcome with feelings of love and gratitude and relief, burying my face in Rigel’s as the vet tech said, “She’s a perfect girl.” An overused word, perfect. But apropos for Rigel. So many of our dogs, most of them, in equally serious situations died. She didn’t. Not today.

Cooking, Dogs, Dreams, Family, Feelings, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

When in need

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Rigel’s strength. The docs at VRCC. Tara. Kate. Amber, two gratefuls for Amber. Wildfires. Extreme Fire Danger. Kep. Ruth. Kate’s sisters. Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain. The Arapaho National Forest. All the wild critters that live within it.

Rigel. Steroids bringing her fever down. Down into normal range. Seeing now if that can last. If so, she may come home today. If not today, tomorrow. She’s strong, otherwise healthy. Dr. Baylis, who diagnosed her allergy to chicken protein, said yesterday that a six week course of oral anti-biotics could find her back to normal. The stroke risk remains though I don’t know how to evaluate it. Guardedly optimistic.

Had a dream last night. A big brown dog bounded through the house. I turned to Kate and said, “Oh, you went in and picked up Rigel!” She’s in my heart. Forever.

Kate seems to have found her advocate about her feeding tube. Amber. Amber is physical therapist with a specialty in wound care. Since the feeding tube goes through the skin, it is a permanent wound. Healing it requires preventing fluids from leaking out onto Kate’s skin.

We’re now thinking that the tube, which was placed in a small part of her stomach left after bariatric surgery, may need to go where we originally thought it was going, into her jejunum. A J-tube. Would require surgery again. Grrr. But if that’s what it takes, we’ll go there.

Amber got the operative report yesterday and found a denser nutrient supplement for Kate’s feedings. That might help, too. It would supply more calories per unit and allow her to slow down the rate of feeding without making it take a really long time. That could help with the leakage.

We’re going back to see Amber today. Might have some news on this later.

Meanwhile my friend Tara has talked me through the recent disturbance in my psyche. She asked me how things were going on, I think, the same day that I told Kate I couldn’t clean the house and cook as much. I told Tara how things were right then. She offered to do many things, but the one I needed was to talk.

So we’ve met for an hour each week since. Three weeks. I calmed down after the first conversation. Over the course of our three talks I’ve come to realize that stuff here: Kate’s, Rigel’s, the house’s, The Denver Olson’s: Jon, Ruth, Gabe, occupy most of my free mental territory. That’s what I meant when I said I could no longer clean and cook as much. Or, rather, at that point stuff occupied more mental territory than I had free. My hard drive had crashed.

With Tara and the Ancient Friends and the Clan I’ve opened up some space and feel better now. Thanks to you all.