Beltane Sumi-e Moon
A beautiful day in the neighborhood yesterday. Blue sky. White clouds. Mountains covered with the many shades of green possible after a week of good rain. Maxwell Creek and Bear Creek headed to the Gulf with lots of energy. Lucky we live in the Rockies.
Kate had a good echocardiogram yesterday and a good visit with Tatiana, her cardiologist. It was a long day for her though and by the end she’d expended more than her daily allotment of K.U.’s, Kate energy units. She supervised the challah and it turned out tasty and beautiful. This is no minor feat at 8,800 feet since water doesn’t reach 212 degrees and all parts of the baking process, from flour selection to oven temperature and rising of the bread, change as a result. Ruth did it, but Kate made sure it worked.
On the long list of things to be grateful for these last two days have put a line under family and Shadow Mountain.
This little person with the staticky blond hair made supper yesterday, a complicated one. Lamb shawarma, black tie challah and toffee. Kate added a wonderful salad in the Middle Eastern style. Gabe and Jon drove up from Denver, in horrendous rush hour traffic (redundant adjective, I know) for the meal. “Gabe had better like this since we spent all day making it,” she said. He did.
Monday and Tuesday were Ruth’s first two days out of school and we were lucky to have her spend them with us. She cooked, fed the dogs, came up to the loft, “Hi. How ya’ doin’?” I served as her sous chef on the shawarma and Kate did likewise on the challah, but she picked the recipes and guided the action. And the shawarma was good. The challah, too. This is called Black Tie Challah.
She is, though, twelve, still learning to process her emotions. Hard.
Buddy Bill Schmidt shared a paper sent to him by a friend from JPL, Jet Propulsion Laboratories. It’s title is: Science and Enabling Technologies for Exploration of the Interstellar Medium. Exploring among the stars. I mean, wow. Still an avid reader of science fiction, I thanked Bill and noted in my reply that we live in a time when science fiction and science fact often intersect. One of the delightful realities of living through this particular era.
Which brings me back to housework. Housework, in its earthy, basic realm, is a microcosm of the Great Wheel. It’s a cycle that never finishes, food must be bought and cooked, trash discarded, dishes cleaned. Then again and again and again. Likewise clothing gets soiled and must be washed, folded, put away. Toilets and counters and floors and windows get dirty, then cleaned, then dirty, then cleaned. It’s a great wheel because it relates to the true life needs of us all and is, as a result, repetitive, but powerful.
Made it to three sets on my workout. This is slow for me since I’ve had this routine for over six weeks, the time frame in which I usually go back for new exercises. No matter. Things have been busy. Feels good to be have gotten this far given the situation.
SeoAh made a Korean chicken soup. Her mother’s recipe. It was wonderful. She used the leek, some mushrooms, spring onions, and rice noodles. SeoAh used silver ware and I used chopsticks.
Yesterday was a SeoAh day. After breakfast we went to the King Sooper and picked up food for Thai/Korean Chicken Soup and a shrimp/rice noodles dish. SeoAh knows exactly what she wants, picking among the produce items carefully, smelling the spring onions and the leek. On the leek, “I can use this.” So into the cart it went.
After Kate’s shower, SeoAh helped her with her hair, combing it out. Kate’s improving, gradually. She starts P.T. this week or the first of next. Tomorrow morning we have a nutritionist consult to discuss a weight 
Mentioned 
It was also time to slough off some of the Minnesota based, second phase lingering work. Especially the political. I am going to the caucus this Tuesday; however, I no longer see myself as a dedicated activist. But, and I consider this great news, Ruth told me she was walking out on April 9th, standing outside Mcauliffe, her middle school, for seventeen minutes, one minute for each of the Parkland victims. She’s doing it in spite of the fact that adults tell her no one will listen. Go, Ruth!
The melancholy also uncovered a tension I’d been feeling between leaning in to the domestic, cooking, for example, and Kate and mine’s presence in the Beth Evergreen community, and what I consider my work. Recalibrating second phase expectations about work, which I have not yet fully done, feels like a task for this time. In fact, I enjoy the domestic part of our lives and it feels good to devote more energy to it.