Category Archives: Third Phase

Family, Health, Mountains, Science, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Third Phase

A Pearl Pendant

February 27, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

The waning Valentine Moon hung over Black Mountain this morning, Jupiter dangling below like a pearl pendant. The beauty here, the distinct and unique sense of place, the simple knowledge of being in the Rockies makes this a special place, hard to leave. Conversations still underway, no decisions until we talk to the pulmonologist, Kelly Green. Even so, moving seems the most likely outcome.

611333-ancient-roman-wall-with-street-nameboard Every day I’m getting a bit stronger, stamina improving. Probably back to a new workout in a few days. I’m feeling the need to get moving, but my trainer said to wait another week. As my buddy Mark Odegard pointed out a couple of years ago, our old bodies don’t snap back the way they used to. I went way down with this whole illness and my body will require time to climb back up again.

We saw Edwin Smith, the surgeon, yesterday. He’s methodical, taking care to make sure that this operation will actually benefit Kate and that she’ll come through it well. He talked about a feeding tube placed down her throat. Kate said no thanks. He wanted the tpn. It’s in and working. Now he wants Kate’s visit to a pulmonologist to happen before he’ll schedule surgery. Makes sense since she had the pneumothorax (collapsed lung) and some concerning findings on x-ray about her lungs.

The methodical approach has an element of foot dragging and ass-covering to it, I think, but I believe I overestimated that. I was in the middle of my no good, very bad horrible three weeks the last time we saw Smith and I formed an opinion colored by my own malaise. Now I believe he sees a tricky and mildly questionable (in his opinion) procedure he’s to perform on a 75 year old woman in fragile health. First, do no harm. Even though it drags the process out, I agree.

Due to Kate’s more intensive care needs at this point I’ve bowed out of all my CBE obligations. I’m not reliable since Kate’s situation seems to get more fluid over time. This is true now because of the build up to the feeding tube, then the feeding tube placement, and the aftercare.

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

Big

February 26, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

20190218_073058 Oh, my. Physical yesterday and a visit for Kate to see Lisa, too. We often go for each others appointments, especially with Lisa, our internist. I got a clean bill of health though I have to have labs drawn today. My follow-up chest x-ray was clear. Clear. No pneumonia, no disease process. Just clear. Wasn’t expecting that after the first one, but hey…

Kate’s situation continues to be problematic. From her most recent hospital visit Kate got a referral to a pulmonologist. While treating her for the pneumothorax, collapsed lung, the pulmonologist at Swedish saw signs of what might be interstitial lung disease. Could be another complication of Sjogren’s.

When Desiree wheeled the ekg machine out of the room, my heart’s fine, too, Lisa turned to us. “You’ve got to think about moving.” Oh. My. “I don’t want to. I like where we are. And the last move was awful.” “Health is number one, right?” Right.

As I wrote a few posts back, the thought has occurred to both of us. Kate’s suffering more from the altitude than I am. However. My O2 saturation hovers around 90 here, just barely enough to consider healthy. There’s a case to be made for my being helped by a move to lower ground, too.

Move. The word makes me clench. Spent a lot of last night in bed trying to figure out how to cope with this. Severe cognitive dissonance between my love for our home, for Shadow Mountain, for the Rockies, and my love for Kate and for my own health. In the end, no contest. We gotta move. Hate to say it. Feels like a failure of sorts, though I don’t know why.

Just how low do we need to go? Don’t know. That will be important. Several factors will converge to create a sweet spot for a new place: altitude (low enough for easier breathing for both of us), enough room for the dogs, quiet, and no more than approximately 30 minutes from Evergreen. I’d also like to see a single level and forced air heat. Not to mention that a new place has to fit our budget. Oh, joy, another mortgage process.

When? Not sure. Maybe in the next three months.

I will not pack anything this time around. I’m packed out from the last move. I’ll have to dramatically reduce my library, I’m sure. Maybe it’s time. A lot to consider, a lot to do. Just when we’re both at our tip top physical best, too. But Lisa’s right. Health is number one.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Health, Kabbalah, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Hail a New Creation

February 25, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

My life flows on in endless song;
above earth’s lamentation,
I catch the sweet, though far-off hymn
that hails a new creation. “How can I keep from singing?” Robert Lowry

When I opened this page, Robert Lowry’s hymn came to the surface. I could sing this verse with no pauses for personal editing. The rest of them? Not so much. But, no matter. This one has a powerful, here and now message and it came to me from my unconscious.

third phase The woes of the body, our lamentations here on Shadow Mountain, are of the tactile world, the one bound up in life and death; but, they are not of the soul, the spirit, the ohr, the imago dei. No. In my soul (a word I’ve come to use more freely of late, meaning that part of me that bows to the god in you, namaste.) I can hear the sweet, though often very far-off hymn. It hails a new creation coming into existence even now, one shaped by the lamentations, but not determined by them.

That new creation is a new sort of intimacy for Kate and me, one forged not in the upbeat, I did it, achievements of the family and career second phase, but in the existential reality of the third phase. In the third phase the body begins to let go of life, gradually, a bit here, a bit there. At the same time the fruits of a lifetime of meditation, awareness, thought, friendship ripens. The soul begins to unfold, ready.

Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy, said that September 29th, the Saint’s Day of the Archangel Michael, is the springtime of the soul. (odd coincidence. Kate’s bleed was on September 28th) What I’ve always liked about this idea is that it marks soul growth as occurring best in the fallow time. The fallow time, especially after Samain, Summer’s End, on October 31st, is that point when the growing season ends. An analogy to the third phase seems apt to me. The fallow time is a time for going within, going deep, finding nourishment in the eternal parts of ourselves, our soul.

That is what is happening for us. Our souls are flowering in the decay of the body. That flowering of the soul (I see a lotus.) is the new creation, perhaps not as far off as it seems.

Blessed be.

Asia, Family, Great Wheel, Health, Memories, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase, Weather +Climate

A seed

February 3, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Moon

20180828_185716 The waxing moon has not brought the weight gain I’d hoped. Maybe next month. We talked yesterday about eating disorders and their relevance to Kate’s situation. Through a combination of aversive conditioning, nausea and cramping triggered by eating, the dry mouth issues of Sjogren’s that can make food unpalatable, a generally depleted musculature that makes it difficult to work up an appetite, and a feeling of malaise we’ve not been able to shake, eating has become problematic. Sounds like an eating disorder. If it quacks…

One sobering reality driven home by my illness (on the way out, but not gone) is how much the two of us depend on me to live in this house. If I got to Kate’s level of dysfunction, we’d have to move. When I was sick, especially Wednesday and Thursday, my body tingled. Arthritis in my left hand, thumb, knuckles, finger joints and the thumb of my right hand got bad enough that I couldn’t unlock the front door or open a package of sliced turkey. My stamina was almost nonexistent and I had no hunger. This lead me to the conclusion that my workouts are now a matter of marital necessity. They keep me strong, agile, healthy. We need to protect my schedule so I can always get them in. I’m sure this moment comes for many couples as they age, where one partner’s fragility makes their mutual independence more at risk.

abyss Much as I like the dark, the cold, the snow, I also love the growing season. Imbolc, Feb. 1st, (or, as for all Celtic holidays, a full week of markets and dances), marks the turn from winter, the season just past, toward spring, or Ostara, which we celebrate on the spring equinox. That’s what Groundhog Day celebrates, Imbolc, and a European belief that if a furry rodent saw it’s shadow, there would be six more weeks of winter. In Germany it’s the badger that is the predictor. The Pennsylvania Dutch apparently shifted to the groundhog.

Whichever, shadow or not, and usually not accurate, the attention to mother earth while snow’s still on the ground, occurs because the Great Wheel has turned past the Winter Solstice, allowing light to begin it’s slow increase, culminating in the heart of mid-Summer on the Summer Solstice.

Imbolc then, is the first season of a new agricultural year. Imbolc, in the belly, referred to the freshening of ewes whose pregnancies would finally bring some long awaited milk into the family larder. The lambs also add to the flocks. It was a signal that the fallow time that began back in October of the previous year at Samain, summer’s end, would again be followed by a fertile season. The growing season itself doesn’t begin, on the Great Wheel, until Mayday, Beltane. But Imbolc assures us that there will be food produced this year, even if the days are still dreary and cold.

What is freshening my soul these days? What seed has been fertilized and begun to grow? Imbolc is important; even when the world seems to have gone fallow for us, we find the Great Wheel still turning, still pushing us toward the next growing season.

Kate’s bleed happened on September 28th, the day before Michaelmas, Steiner’s “springtime of the soul.” The sequelae has lasted through the last of Fall (Mabon), through Samain, through Winter, and now into Imbolc. Imbolc suggests that somewhere buried in the detritus of ten units of blood, bowl resection, rehab, multiple imaging studies, the stent placement, and continuing insults from Sjogren’s and weight loss lies a lamb, or at least a ewe’s egg. Finding it will not be, hasn’t been easy; but, I believe it’s there, that the Spring Equinox will find us moving forward into a new growing season for Kate’s soul and her body. May it be so.

Family, Health, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Virions. Damn them.

February 1, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Moon

health This morning the waning crescent moon had its horns turned up toward Venus and Jupiter, Saturn hovered beneath it. Antares and Scorpio glittered beside them. We have much less light pollution than the Denver metro.

My no good, very bad, terrible horrible day on Wednesday gave way to a morning spent in bed with a substantial fever, chills, generally icky feelings. I was sick on Wednesday. No wonder the end of the day felt like I was swimming through jello. Today, not so bad, but I’m going to rest today, too. Illness didn’t occur to me on Wednesday because it’s been such a long time since my last one, maybe a year and a half, maybe more. That streak’s over.

At this age I felt relieved when the sickness declared itself. There are other possibilities. Blocked arteries around the heart, in particular. One passing the threshold into active blockage could reduce blood flow to the heart, make me tired.

Instead, a virus. The zombies of the pathology world. Bits of DNA or RNA floating around as virions, ready to pierce host cells and use their internal machinery to create more virus. Wish they’d skipped evolving, been an evolutionary dead end. But, no. As a current host, I can say that these are not organisms you want to invite to the party. They’re gate crashers and they leave a mess behind.

What would have been an inconvenience in my 30’s or 40’s raises issues of mortality in my 70’s. What if I get pneumonia? What if I can’t shake it? Is it really an illness or are the symptoms coming from something more systemic? Am I gonna die? A good run while it lasted. Goodbye.

Or not. I feel better, though not well, this morning. I’m glad because the degree of fatigue I felt on Wednesday could have been the harbinger for a much more serious issue. When the fever came yesterday, I felt the relief I described above, but I also felt a mild level of fear. Will this escalate? I’m not frail, in fact I’m in excellent health for a man of my age; so, I should still be able to ride out even a moderate to serious illness, but I’d sure rather not.

What a pair, we said to each other more than once yesterday.

Aging, Colorado, Family, Friends, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel, Weather +Climate

Worn Out

January 31, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Winter (last day) Waxing Moon

OK. You guys win. Extreme Minnesota macho points earned these last few days. And, I saw that Paul Douglas predicts a 100 degree temperature swing! 100 degrees. You wouldn’t want to hear that if it was 52 outside and the direction was up, but in this situation, hallelujah brothers and sisters! Thank you, Jesus. And, Mohamed. And, Moses. Meanwhile up here in the tropical Rocky Mountains we’ve had mid-40’s for highs.

Yesterday. OMG. I pushed myself past some inner limit, way past. When I got up, it wasn’t a hop of bed, ready to greet the day moment. It was a let’s pull the blanket back over my head, switch the electric blanket back on and quit the world at least for the morning moment. Not a good time.

I had to make chicken soup with matzo balls (made by Kate). I had to take the soup to Golden with Kate. I had to go to CBE and teach the first hour of religious school, then head out for Aurora and Jon’s show. While down there, I had to go to Maria’s Empanada’s and get a dozen for Kate. I could head back up the mountain.

Any of these things separately, happy, joyful tasks. All of them on the same day, a day that started with fatigue on waking? The happiness and joy would have to be in retrospect. I make chicken soup from scratch, with a whole chicken, cut up celery, onions, carrots, and garlic sauteed first. Wine to deglaze. Add water, lot of water. The chicken in its wire mesh cage. Wait for it to boil. Up here, longer than normal. An hour or so of simmering, then a package of frozen peas and one of frozen corn. Another ten minute. Retrieve the chicken, set it out to cool. Later, pick the meat from the bones. Put it in the soup. A lot of standing.

Got a lie down while the soup boiled, but it didn’t prove very restful. Back at the stove I finished the soup. At that point, time to go to Golden. About a 40 minute drive there, 40 minutes back. Dropped off the soup, 18 cups of it plus matzo balls. Back home to let Kate out. On the road right away to CBE. Spent a couple of hours there, getting food ready, talking to the kids as they came in. This was a first semester review. That went ok.

When Irene came to lead the dreams workshop, I left to go Aurora. This was at 5:00 pm. After a brutal hour and twenty minutes, I was in the gallery, talking to Jon about his new work. When I hit the big traffic on 6th street, congestion that lasted all the way across the city, my body began to resist what I was doing. I got sleepy, inattentive, restless. Just wanted to go home. Felt miserable. Wasn’t even close to my destination. Denver does not have a way to travel from east to west, west to east without encountering either dense urban traffic, or dense, worse freeway traffic on I-70. At 5 pm, that missing artery makes the lives of any one going either way awful.

I’m not describing this well. I was a runner in a marathon. My resources had tapped out around 5 pm. As I got onto 6th street going east past Santa Fe, I hit the wall. Still had to cross Denver, get into Aurora, see Jon, then Maria’s. By the time I pulled out of the Stanley Marketplace parking lot, empanadas steaming in their cardboard box, I had half the marathon to finish. But I was already finished. My bed, however, was over an hour away, 45 miles, the first 20 miles back across the Denver metro. No choice.

Leaving Highway 6 going west, merging onto I-70, then 470, I began to wonder if I was going to make it home. My attention was split between fatigue and the road. At 72 there are many parts of driving that are essentially automated. They took over. I tried to remind myself to watch that car ahead, find the Fairplay exit, slow down in Morrison. It felt like I was carrying the car up the hill toward Shadow Mountain.

Kate, bless her heart, cleaned up most of the kitchen, something that was weighing on me. Get home, beyond exhausted, and clean up? OMG. Usually I clean up right away but the time frame of the day made that impossible. She’s doing better, not gaining weight yet, but she’s willing to pitch in now and again. This time it really mattered.

This morning I’m still bushwhacked, wrung out, sleepy, but I finished the marathon and slept in my own bed. A good start. Read a Harvard Business Review article, Resilience is not about enduring; it’s about recharging. That’s my job today, maybe tomorrow. Recharge.

Art and Culture, Astrology, Colorado, Cooking, Family, Health, Kabbalah, Mountains, Painting, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

So Beautiful

January 29, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon

Our snowpack. Needed for the trees and our well — Our snowpack beside the front door. Needed for the trees and our well

Another 6 or 8 inches of snow yesterday. Snowiest January since 1993. The northern half and eastern quadrant of Colorado watersheds have above average snowpack. Critically, the Colorado Headwaters area is at 116%. The south western quadrant of the state though is below average in two spots, including the Durango area where the big fires burned last summer.

So beautiful. The lodgepoles carry snowy covers on their branches. The deer, rabbits, fox that come through our yard leave their tracks.The rising sun colors the snow on Black Mountain, right now a light flush pink. Bright blue sky behind the mountain.

Not so good for those of us animals who need carapaces and wheels. This is the google traffic map from yesterday. Rush hour. Add in altitude and you get a real mess. This is when commuting to Denver from Conifer separates the brave from the foolish.

metro roads 1 28

Kate’s initiated a get-out of the house plan. She said last week that she felt isolated and alone, so we’re going to go somewhere each day. Yesterday we went to the post office. Today, the King Sooper Starbucks for Kate while I pick up some groceries. Tomorrow? Who knows?

Last week I painted the creation of the universe, the shattering of the ohr. Followed it with the creation of the waters. Next up: land. I tried to show an island in my first attempt. Not so good. I like the first two, I’m starting over today on land. I’m going to get somehow to Eden and humans and that tree. Will take awhile. Hard to say in the abstract paint language I’m using. But, that’s part of the fun.

Astrological learning has been on hold. Painting, exercise, and Kate have gotten my focus along with CBE. Gonna get back to it, though. Probably a reading with Elisa’s astrologer, John, to kick off the next phase of my learning.

Just entered the Chicken soup cookoff at CBE. Gonna get some practice today, picking up soup supplies during the grocery shopping at King Sooper. Taking some to a friend, leaving some behind for Kate and me. Kate loves my chicken soup. My heirloom recipe came off the Golden Plump packages when I bought chickens in Minnesota. Here, I do it from memory.

Asia, Cooking, Family, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Puzzled

January 28, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon

20190127_163835 Snowing here. About an inch already. Then comes the cold. But not like the cold my friends in Minnesota are going to feel. For example, Tue -7 for a high, -27 for a low. Wed -15 for a high, -30 for a low. Also, winds in the 10 to 19 mph range. Wind chill will be brutal. Enduring the last of any January will qualify you for Minnesota macho. Plan a trip there now to claim it for yourself.

We got started on the 1,000 piece jigsaw. Kate may have underestimated how long it will take to do all five. She said ten years. After yesterday? Maybe into our 90’s. New to me. Surprised how satisfied I was when a couple of pieces fit together. Kate’s pretty good at this. As you might expect.

Wondered yesterday about the origin of jigsaw puzzles. Kate thinks it was somebody who wanted something for the kids to do. So, I let wikipedia teach me.* Coulda been the Spilsbury kids, I guess.

20190127_174935 The bulgogi was good. So was the dumpling soup. The porkbelly last night? Not so much. Got a little rushed since I fried the smelt at the same time. Shouldn’t have done both. The smelt, which I realize now were considerably smaller than the Lake Superior smelt, fried up fine, but I bunched them together too much. And, fried things don’t work so well as left overs. In the trash after my meal. SeoAh sent me her sauce for the porkbelly, which I used. It couldn’t rescue a too fatty, not enough taste dish. Not sure I’ll try that one again. Didn’t seem worth learning how to do well. Tonight straight up American fare. Macaroni and cheese? Hamburgers? Steak and potatoes? Something more in my wheelhouse.

The snow falls straight down, looks like a gentle, white rain. A flour sifter somewhere above us, gently shaken by the deity we know isn’t there.

I’ve started on a cleanup, straighten, reorganize project for the whole house, loft and garage. Working on one room a day, or more if needed. I’m no Marie Kondo. Just want to get things spruced up a bit. Read an NYT article on stocking the modern pantry. When I get to the kitchen, I’m going to follow its suggestions. Suppose this is a cabin fever moment.

*”Jigsaw puzzles were originally created by painting a picture on a flat, rectangular piece of wood, and then cutting that picture into small pieces with a jigsaw, hence the name. John Spilsbury, a London cartographer and engraver, is credited with commercializing jigsaw puzzles around 1760.^[1] Jigsaw puzzles have since come to be made primarily of cardboard.” wiki

Art and Culture, Colorado, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Health, Third Phase, Travel

Sweet Cream Pancakes and more

January 27, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon

When Mark and Tom were here, we tried to recapitulate our Durango trip breakfast at the Rustic Station. Turned out they only serve breakfast on weekends. Yesterday was my monthly run to the Happy Camper for cannabis. Thank you, Centennial State. Since it was Saturday, I decided to have breakfast at the Rustic Station, just down the hill, the really, really big hill from the Happy Camper. And, I did. These are why. Sweet cream pancakes. Not my usual fare, but they are amazing.

Kate had a not so good day yesterday. Nausea. When that happens, it effects her emotionally. Disappointment. Frustration. Reinforcing her down state. She got better as the day went on, but it had taken its toll. Not sure why.

We’ve started on the 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. We have, too, a 2,000, a 3,000, a 4,000, and a 5,000 piece puzzle. Kate thinks it will take us ten years to complete them. Depends, I suppose, on how much effort we put in.

Back to my six day rhythm of workouts, three resistance, three cardio. Don’t always make the six, but that’s the benchmark. I hit it a lot once I’ve gotten back into it. Always makes me feel better. Three big motivators: increased health span, feel better in the moment, habit.

My Korean cooking chops are modest, but improving. Bulgogi on Friday, a dumpling soup last night. Tonight some pork and cabbage, potatoes. H-Mart also had one nostalgic food for me: smelt. I love fried smelt and when the smelt used to run in abundance on Lake Superior, out of the cold streams that flow down the Sawtooth Mountains, I used to make them a lot. Then the smelt diminished and I haven’t had them for a long time. Kate says I can have all them to myself. Just fine. A beaten egg, seasoned corn meal or bread crumbs, cooking oil. Lunch.

Gertie’s still sore, but she’s running around, wagging her tail. She came up the stairs to the loft yesterday afternoon in spite of the wounds on her haunch. We’re cleaning her wounds with hibi-cleanse. Kate used it before her shoulder surgery.

Gert’s been bitten by many different dogs. Not sure what makes her so bitable. She can be annoying. As for yesterday, we both wondered whether her more feeble habitus, arthritic left leg, blind in one eye and decreasing vision in the other, might make her more vulnerable. Kep’s still the omega in our little pack and he may be looking to move up in the hierarchy. Hope not, because that would suggest more to come.

sps Brother Mark seems to be finding a home in Saudi Arabia, at least an ex-pat style home. It’s nuances are more clear to him, being up north in Arar the weather is more clement and there’s access to other Middle Eastern countries like Jordan, Syria, Iraq. As he said, “Not everybody gets a chance to live in a medieval kingdom.” True that.

Jon has a new show going up on Wednesday, the annual Aurora art teacher’s exhibition. He has several new pieces in it. I will attend, leaving a bit early from religious school. On Friday he, Ruthie and I will wander Santa Fe for the First Friday art crawl. Santa Fe north of Sixth has many galleries, museums, studios. Food trucks come down. It’s fun. I’ve only been once, but I really liked it.

Asia, Cooking, Family, Our Land and Home, Third Phase, World History

Salmon Heads and Organic Miso

January 26, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon

20190125_101104 Yesterday. A do this, then do that, then do that day. 1st up. Feed dogs, then write blog. 2nd. Make breakfast. 3rd. Blow snow. 4th. Workout. 5th. Drive to H-Mart in Westminster. 6th. Back home through rush hour traffic. (bad planning on my part) 7th. Phone call from Kate just as I turned on to Shadow Mountain Drive. Kep attacked Gertie. 8th. Get home, unload, check Gertie. One puncture, a couple of scrapes. 9th. Cook supper. Bulgogi. Clean up while Kate cleaned Gertie’s wounds. 9th. Watch the last of Unforgotten, a Masterpiece presentation. 10th. Finish Terminal list. 11th. Go to bed. Got a lot done. Good use of a day.

Busy days like this go by quickly. I prefer the quiet days. Time to reflect, read, paint. But things have to get done, too. Once in a while I like these days filled with purpose. Used to have them all the time during the growing season in Andover. Planting, weeding, amending soil, tending the bees, working in the orchard. I like the physical stuff blowing snow, carrying groceries, cooking, cleaning, working out.

This morning I’m back for my monthly run to the Happy Camper. THC. Indica for sleep, Sativa for Kate’s appetite. I might head down to the Rustic Station for breakfast. It was closed when Ode and Tom were here, apparently they only serve breakfast on weekends. After that, a quieter day.

H-Mart is a trip. As an experience and as a trip. You definitely enter Asia when you walk through the door. In the aisle entering the building were the giant and tasty Korean pears, bundles of 24 ramen packs. Then on into the produce section. Persimmons, Korean melons, huge papayas, durian, jack fruit, bitter melon, lots of mushrooms, bok choy, noodles. Next up was beef and other meats. A whole 20 foot display held beef hearts, tripe, liver. Sea food. Dead, frozen, live. Packages with whole salmon heads, for example. Sushi fish, some sashimi, beds of ice with prawns, shrimp, large dressed rainbow trout, golden pompano, China grown tilapia.

20190125_150107 I was not the only round eye in there, but I was the only round eye male shopping alone. In this H-Mart, located in a relatively upscale suburb, Westminster, the clientele was mostly Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. In the much larger H-Mart located in more downscale Aurora, the mix is much more diverse with East Indians, Filipinos, more round eyes, Malay, Latino.

SeoAh’s cooking impressed both of us and I was after pantry items for making soups, stir fry, noodle dishes. The bulgogi, which both SeoAh and her husband recommended I buy premade, was supper last night. I threw in some Vietnamese rice noodles. Quick. Tasty. Today I plan to try one of her soups.

Here are a few more photographs of foods on offer.

20190125_145115

20190125_145535

And, finally, a plea from the owners found in the men’s bathroom.