Spring Rushing Waters Moon
Kate and I discussed ways to relieve my stress. One source of stress for me was the evening meal. Part of me, a very strong part, wants to be a chef every night. Something new, something remarkable. Understand the ingredients, bring out their best, try new techniques. Problem. That requires a lot of forethought. Buy the right ingredients. Have them to hand. Try to replicate things I barely understand. And, it results in duds. Failures. Sometimes. Unnecessary stress.
Kate’s solution? She’ll make a menu plan for a week and I’ll cook it. Oh. I can do that. That relieves me of the need to create and in this instance I’m happy to let it go. Last night I followed her suggestion: spaghetti and sauce, spinach. Straightforward. Tasty. And, no cheffing required. Doesn’t seem like it would be much, but I felt so much better when I saw that menu plan.
No word yet on the Progoff workshop. When I registered, there were only 4 of us and they require 7. Hope it happens. I need the clarity about this time that these workshops always give me. The Colorado years have been wonderful, filled with family as we wanted, saturated with mountains and wild life and blue sky, anchored by new friends and community at CBE. The Colorado years have been awful. Cancer. Sjogren’s. Knee and shoulder replacements. (which have helped us both) Kate’s bleed and the sequelae. Interstitial lung disease. Trips to the E.R. Hospital stays. Vega’s death.
So much here. The grit of my life over the past three and a half years. How has all this changed me? What direction does it suggest? How might I live into it with greater joy, greater passion, greater serenity? I also need a break from the every day. Not just because it’s been stressful as I said below, but because it’s been a long time between breaks. Tom and Mark’s visit was a nice respite, but too short.
The Progoff workshop is five days, morning and afternoon in a retreat center. I’ll be a commuter because of the dogs and Kate’s tpn, plus it’s cheaper. If it doesn’t happen, I’ll have to figure out some other way to get perspective and get a break.
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.
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.
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?
This particular Grateful Dead shabbat, they occur occasionally, honored Leah, who recently left her position as synagogue administrator. She’s a Dead-head who sells tie dyed shirts and other craft items at Grateful Dead tribute concerts. She had a small shrine to the Dead over her desk. What was remarkable about this evening was that Leah’s leaving the job was not completely voluntary.
First full week of resistance work in two months plus. And I have the aches to prove it. That’s the irony at 72. Get in shape. Get some aches and pains. My o2 sats alone have made me glad to have them. You may think it’s a technique problem for me, but I’ve been at this a long time, so my technique is pretty good. It’s mostly the normal strain and wear that comes from making muscles and joints do things they’re not yet quite ready to do.
Always wanted to stop at this drive-through hamburger stand, so I did yesterday. For health food. Two hot dogs and a chocolate shake. The hot dogs were good, so was the shake. I do wonder about the health risks for the people who work there though since the drivethrough is, as you can see, a covered affair. Gotta concentrate the car exhaust.
birthday. He’s pretty excited about that.
When we got into Domo, Denver was 70 degrees. We were, as often happens at this time of year, over dressed. When we got back home around 7 pm, it was 48 up here, headed down to 30. Vivé la differencé!
Kate’s tpn feedings have given her energy. She’s finishing our taxes, for some reason she likes to do them, and in doing so has walked up and down the stairs to our third level twice. She hasn’t done that in months. When I compare where she is now with the dark days just after the bleed in September and the hemicolectomy, she’s a new woman. Is there a distance still to go? Yes. And a significant distance, too, but that doesn’t diminish the gains she’s made. Go, Kate.
I suppose it was growing up in Indiana. We supplied many things to Detroit, lights, batteries, and alternators in the instance of Guide Lamp and Delco near Alexandria. These two factories alone employed 25,000 when I was growing up and most of my friend’s fathers worked at one or the other. Then every May, the greatest spectacle in racing: The Indianapolis 500. Cars and racing were prominent.
Today is chicken soup day. I have a simple truth organic chicken thawed in the refrigerator. It comes out to warm up to room temp. All the ingredients are here. I had to go buy some peas yesterday since I used the original pack in the fried rice I made. Friend Bill Schmidt looked up the Gold’n Plump Chicken 
Mary, she persevered. Sister Mary. When my father died, she insisted that he had a portion of an oil well that should come down to herself, Mark, and me. It took her some time and some legal work, but I got in the mail this week three letters from Roan Resources detailing how we make our claim legitimate.
I’ve been using the Instant Pot. Made a wonderful chuck roast, shredded easily, tasted great. On Saturday I made rice. Turns out three cups of dry rice makes a lot of cooked rice. It cooked for 1 minute. Sort of. There’s a learning curve for guys like me. First, the instant pot, a pressure cooker with bells and a literal whistle, has to heat up to the temperature required to produce the right pressure. That can take a while, maybe 5-10 minutes. Then, it cooks for 1 minute in the instance of rice. Fast, right? Well, yes. But, with foods like rice that have liquid and plump up after cooking, you do what the instant pot cook books call natural release. In essence that means you wait until the pressure cooker depressurizes on its own. 10 minutes. So, to cook 1 minute takes around 20 minutes in real time. Has some resonance with DST.