Category Archives: Jefferson County

Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Jefferson County, Judaism, Music, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Narrow, Pharaoh Mind

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Spring and the Corona Luna

Wednesday gratefuls: The garbage collectors. Zaidy’s Deli for Seder fixings. Jewcy for the Haggadah. Kate’s no leak bandage routine. Seoah’s potato and sausage soup. New kabbalah class starting today. Learning and the ability to learn. Books. Printing presses. Newspapers. The much maligned, but oh so important news media. Diane’s willingness to get up early to talk. Mark and Mary in month long lock downs (of varying strictures). Gov. Polis and Mayor Hancock (Denver) for stepping up. Jeffco, too.

What’s the idiot up to now? That’s how I think of my first look at the news when I get up. These days though I find the question moot. He already did it by screwing up the testing, playing keep away with the national stockpile of medical equipment, and blaming, blaming, blaming rather than acting.

John Prine died. One of my favorite musicians. Hello in There. Angel from Montgomery. Ballad of Sam Stone. An American original like Bob Dylan, who was a fan of John’s. Covid-19.

Passover starts tonight. Easter is on Sunday. Zaidy’s Deli in Denver, performing a mitzvah, offered takeaway Seder boxes with matzo, Manischewitz blackberry wine, brisket, haroset and other sides, items for the seder plate. Rigel and I drove over to CBE yesterday to pick up our order. Eve, the executive director at CBE, had put haggadahs in there.

Like many synagogues, most, I imagine, CBE will hold a virtual Passover meal on Thursday night. We’ll use the Jewcy Haggadah, the ritual for the service. It has the famous four questions including how is this night different from all other nights?

The primary purpose of Passover is to recount to children the foundational story of the Hebrew slaves and their liberation from Egypt. Kids hunt for the hidden afikoman, a piece of matzah, and get a reward if they find it. They also hear about all the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, sing songs, and generally have a good time.

Passover brings many friends and family, including a Gentile or two or more, into a bubbe’s home. Not this year. The story with the plagues has been changed by a plague. The irony has not been missed. Many of our friends are sad because this is a joyous occasion, a time to celebrate, and not having folks in the house will seem very strange.

At passover we move from a narrow place, a narrow pharoah mind, to an expansive place, the Promised Land. Rabbi Jamie in last week’s morning prayers, Maladies and Melodies.

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

We Are At Home

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Spring and the full Corona Luna

Tuesday gratefuls: A good workout. All the delivery people: USPS, UPS, Fedex. Again, and still, all the service workers, warehouse workers, truck drivers, doctors, nurses, governors and mayors who’ve chosen to confront life under the pandemic. And, again, the coronavirus for unveiling the lies we tell ourselves to preserve our status, our pollution, our failed economic systems. Seoah, who cleans and cooks and smiles and laughs and orders from Lululemon.

The snow is melting. We’ve had bright sun shiny days. Jeffco put the entire county on stage 1 fire restrictions indefinitely. It’s unusual for that restriction to come this early, with much snow still to come. Not good news.

What would happen right now if we had a major disaster, like a wildfire? It would up end our life here and create a turmoil wherever we had to go. Or, an earthquake in California. A hurricane hitting Florida or New Orleans. Tornadoes in the south. Disasters during an ongoing disaster. Are we ready for these? They will happen.

We’ve flagged off our housecleaner for the second time. We’ve continued to pay her though, as we will pay our hair stylist. These are one woman businesses. They are our contract employees so we’re supporting them. How long? Don’t know.

Seoah cleans so we’re ok. And the hair? Somebody said a couple of weeks ago that we were only three weeks from knowing everybody’s true hair color. Shaggy’s been my look most of my life. Another couple of months is NBD.

Another zoom time this morning with Clan Keaton. Linking the far flung Ellises and our first cousin, Diane. Mark sent me a clip from the Arab News announcing a 24 hour curfew in Riyadh. Residents can only go out between 6am and 3pm for food and medicine. Today begins a month long lockdown in Singapore with somewhat looser restrictions. San Francisco’s been shelter in place for longer than most.

All this physical distancing and social distancing has begun to work. How much it will flatten the curve and what happens when it ends are still uncertain. Like our lives.

Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History, Woolly Mammoths

Seeing

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Spring and the Corona Luna

Monday gratefuls: Corn dogs. State Fair corn dogs. The Minnesota State Fair. The Great Minnesota Get Together. The Great U.S. stay apart. The bailout. I think. Being alone with Kate and Seoah. Those pictures of Murdoch from Brenton. Life in a world historical event. Life. Death. The power of Monday.

Here’s what I’ve seen. A black SUV, a Lexus, next to me at a stoplight. Latex gloved hands on the steering wheel. On the road to Loveland Saturday all the LED road signs read: Avoid Non-Essential Travel. A cascade of it’s gonna be later messages from Instacart. So many maps and graphs and charts. Fewer cars on Black Mountain Drive, especially when I go out for the newspaper around 5:30 am. Empty parking lots. A closed outlet mall. So many e-mails starting with we care about you and that’s why our business is doing X. Friends and family on zoom. The rabbi on zoom, singing about breath. A sign at Bergen Bark Inn. We’re taking care of the dogs of essential workers like doctors, nurses, firefighters, police, grocery store workers. The worker at Starbucks extending a credit card reader so I could insert the card, then remove it on my own. My own gloved hand on the hose nozzle at the Phillips 66. That bottle of hand sanitizer in my cup holder. Seoah with her lysol spray hitting each package that gets delivered.

When will it ever end? When will it ever end?

And, yet. A moment in time like no other. Yes, the Spanish Flu. Yes. But, no. Not in this millennia. Not in my lifetime. Not in this century.

The first quarter of 2020 has not gone so well. What with all the dog bites, then Gertie’s death, then the plague. Yes, the Moronic plague. And, the virus. True.

However, I find it exciting, too. What will happen next? How bad can this get? Wow. Really? The ways people are coping. The empty streets of big cities around the world. The bravery. The stupidity and the cupidity.

Like one facebook meme said: This is the first time we could save the world by watching television.

Cooking, Coronavirus, Family, Jefferson County, Talmud

Thanks for coming to work

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Spring and the 1% sliver of the Leap Year Moon

Monday gratefuls: A chicken! King Sooper had a chicken! I got the second to last one. Drug makers. Pharmacists. Nurses, especially nurses. All health care workers, all around the world. Politicians, in particular U.S. governors and mayors, actually confronting the crisis. Democrat senators holding the line for working people. Fear. Keeps people inside.

Grateful for Brother Mark, confronting a difficult time in Saudi Arabia, doing well. Staying in touch with his colleagues, learning new tech. So many of us have to make dramatic changes in our working lives. Those who can. Hurray!

I think about all those folks like waiters and chefs and busboys and retail store workers whose jobs have disappeared. A good time to be retired. A good time to have sold your company. Though there is that falling market thing.

I’m on daf 8b, the second side of page 8, of Shabbat, the second tractate of the Talmud, a collection of commentary on the mishnah, written legal theory from the older oral tradition. I just got daf 17 of Shabbat today, so I’m closing in on being current. I’ll get back to one a day this week for sure.

Went to the grocery store, King Sooper, yesterday. Found, 9 days after I started looking, a whole chicken. That means I can make the chicken noodle soup that Kate likes so well. After my workout this morning. No more than 3 chicken products, no more than 3 ground beef. Signs. King Sooper looked somewhat less devastated than Safeway did last week. Perhaps the panicked ones have begun to calm down, realizing this is a marathon, not a sprint.

Pharmaceuticals. I went to King Sooper because I needed to pick up an albuterol inhaler that I use for exercise. Oh, the clerk said, I have two for you. Of the same thing? Yes, I’ll take the $10 one. She laughed. The other, brand name inhaler, was $94. Same drug, same amount, same delivery method. Which one would you choose? Everybody got a good laugh.

I tell each clerk thank you for coming to work. We need you and you’re here. At the liquor store I asked the guy how business was. Slow today, but really busy last week. Well. You might have to help out the other small businesses. You’re right, he said. I might.

King Sooper was not crowded unlike my Safeway trip. In Safeway the aisles were full, people looked dazed. At King Sooper yesterday folks looked like purposeful shoppers, finding what they needed, not in OMG I gotta get to the toilet paper aisle mode. The tables were gone, but the in-story Starbucks was open.

Tried to get some takeout from Rocky Mountain Wraps, but they had closed. Sunday hours. We’re encouraged here to get takeout from restaurants and tip well, try to help the small business folks. I plan to over the next weeks. It’s nice to have some variety. Seoah made a shrimp and pasta meal last night that was very good.

Saw today that restrictions need to get tighter if we’re to control the viruses spread. OK with us.

Aging, Family, Health, Holidays, Jefferson County, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

In the Time of the Crown

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Imbolc and the Leap Year Moon

Thursday gratefuls: the warm reception for my presentation yesterday. Alan and the Bread Lounge. Being the doorman last night for Purim. Seoah greeting me when I got home. Kep, who stayed up waiting on me. The melting of the snow. The coming snow. The drive back from the Kabbalah Experience.

An all CBE all the time day yesterday. Left the house at 7:45 for the Kabbalah Experience. Not a fun drive into morning rush hour in Denver. If I do this again, I’ll do most of them by Zoom. It’s an unsatisfying technology in this context, perhaps because it’s not well integrated into the classroom at Kabbalah Experience.

Yesterday the sun had a corona as it sat behind a veil of cirrocumulus clouds. There was a streaky rainbow smeared across underneath it. Last night the moon, too, had a corona, a faint golden hue with a red tinged outer circle.

Seemed appropriate for life in the time of coronavirus. It’s spreading no rainbows. On the New York Times page I counted 46 stories that were virus related. That’s two-thirds.

Last night at the Purim event at Beth Evergreen I filled in for Kate who had a Sjogren’s flare. She was to be the board member on duty. The bmod greets people at the door. That’s the primary task. I also had to shoo folks into the sanctuary so the Purim spiel (a musical written by CBE’r Ron Solomon) could begin.

There was elbow bumping, some shoe greetings, and the purloined Cohen blessing, live long and prosper with fingers spread to create the shin letter in the Hebrew alphabet. There was bravado. I’m living my life as usual. I’m not afraid. There was cautious laughter with each improvised non-handshake. Even so, more folks showed up than I had imagined. The sanctuary was well-over half full, many of them older, like me.

As I opened the locked door for each congregant or visitor, I greeted them with a welcome, a smile, an occasional elbow bump. Yes, two contagions affected my work. Antisemitism keeps CBE’s doors locked at all times. We’ve had visits from the Jeffco sheriff, the FBI, and letters from politicians expressing support. It’s a virus of the heart, infectious hatred cultured in a stewpot of fear, white supremacy, Trumpian permission.

We had the whole megillah. No, really. The whole thing. On Purim the book of Esther, the megillah, is read in its entirety. It’s the story of Ruth, who saves all the Jews from the evil vizier, Haman. I want to write a bit about Purim, maybe tomorrow, but for today I’ll just add that as Haman’s name comes up in the reading everyone cranks their grogger and shouts boo! Sort of like watching a silent movie when the villain twirls his mustache.

The groggers, the boos, the whole megillah work against both contagions: antisemitism and the coronavirus. Next time you see the word coronavirus whip out your grogger (no, not that. look at the link on grogger above) and shout boo. Might catch on.

Beyond the Boundaries, Colorado, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Jefferson County, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Park County, permaculture, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, US History, Weather +Climate

Deep Guidance

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Imbolc and the Leap Year Moon

Sunday gratefuls: An extra day in my birthday month. DogsonDeployment and the three folks who responded right away. Seoah’s careful scrutiny of the profiles. Kate’s help with Corrine, who called from DoD. Blue skies and warm temps. Atlas Obscura. The Rocky Mountain Land Library. Jon’s offer to stay with Kate while I take the kids on a road trip.

Just signed up for a Food and Land Bookclub. My real interest in it is its association with the Rocky Mountain Land Library in next county over Park County. When I bought the books for the book club, four in all, I found my powers returning. Oh, this is what I’ve got energy for my body said. Book titles: Mayordomo: chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico, Braiding Sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants, One Size Fits None: a farm girls search for the promise of regenerative agriculture, and, The Seed Underground: a growing revolution to save food.

When we first moved here, over five years ago now, I wanted to garden, to learn the native plants, to hike the mountains, learn the land and streams and wildlife. Prostate cancer, bum knee then knee replacement, COPD. Kate’s various medical dilemmas later. Distracted. Accomplished little of these. Some hiking, not much thanks to the COPD and the bad knee. Gardening here required more physical energy than I have available. My first native plants class got interrupted by my prostatectomy. Life. Stuff.

I first discovered the Rocky Mountain Land Library in 2015, our first year here. It was only a dream then, an idea concocted by the former owners of Denver’s most loved book store, Tattered Covers. It now has a ranch in Park County, south of Fairplay, a bit over an hour from here. Buildings and projects have begun to come together. It wasn’t ready when I found it and, as it turned out, neither was I.

During Gertie’s last days I reflected again on my instinctual opposition to euthanasia for dogs. It’s no longer absolute because I saw its necessity as Gertie suffered, but it’s still strong. Were there any other instances in my life where I made choices from an instinctual level?

Instinct? Intuition? Deep inner guidance? Link to a source of knowledge I can’t access consciously? Instinct in any formal sense is probably wrong, but the feeling involved, a strong compulsion, a certainty that this path was mine, had that flavor anyhow.

Turns out there were other such choices. When I turned 32, I knew I had to be a parent. Got a vasectomy reversal. Didn’t work. OK. Adopt. First child, a girl, died in a salmonella outbreak at the orphanage. Raeone didn’t want to go forward. She’d just gotten a new job. My deep push made me agree to take care of the new baby myself, no matter what it took. I took him to work with me until he was 18 months old.

After an Ira Progoff workshop in Tuscon, an intentional stirring of my inner life, I stopped by Denver to see Ruth and Gabe. By the time I left I knew Kate and I needed to move to Colorado. She agreed and so we did. We wanted to live in the mountains and to be in our kids and grandkids lives.

Other less dramatic instances. Saw a movie while in college that featured Manhattan. Put my thumb out and spent the summer of 1968, the summer of love, not in San Francisco, but in Manhattan. Curator of Asian art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bob Jacobson, gave a lecture on Angkor. Specifically he showed the amazing stone bas relief sculpture that runs for a quarter mile around Angkor Wat’s great Hindu temple. And in particular the churning of the sea of milk where gods and demons struggle for a magical elixir. Had to see it. When my dad died and left me enough money to do some travel, I went.

A related but less pressured decision came when I realized I was no longer Christian, that I had to leave the ministry. Had I not met Kate, this feeling would have been tested, but I met her and she allowed me a graceful exit.

Right now I’m feeling a similar push, perhaps not only to the Rocky Mountain Land Library, but to reawaken the me who woke up for twenty springs, twenty summers, and twenty falls glad for the chance to plant lilies, weed onions, harvest garlic, trim the raspberry canes. The me who woke up for several years and knew tending the bees was in the day’s labor. The me who came here excited about the West, about the mountains, about being in a brand new place. We’ll see where this goes.

Asia, Dogs, Family, Health, Jefferson County

Just Another Saturday

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Imbolc and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: SeoAh. What a treasure in our lives. I pick her up around eleven. The zoomguys: Paul, Tom, Mark, Bill. Old friends. Nothing better. Sundays. Still a restful day, a quasi-sabbath. Snow coming.

Last Saturday we went to the Porter Adventist E.R. (not sure it’s worthy of the name) to have Kate’s feeding tube replaced. The onsite doc did not want to do it, but decided, after consultation with Kate’s surgeon, Ed Smith, to go ahead. His first instinct was right. He put in the wrong size tube. Yesterday we went to see Ed. He’s going to slip a new one in on Monday or Tuesday.

When he saw Kate’s obvious progress, he beamed in his off-center way, head cocked to one side. He’d grown, like most folks do, to appreciate Kate. He asked for a hug before we left. Ed gives a damn. May his kind flourish.

5 days with no fights, no bites. OSHA sign in the room where we feed the dogs. Two Jeffco animal control officers came by for the 5 day check on Kepler’s health. Which is fine. We purchased a Colorado license for Murdoch from them. I knew where his shot records were. Kep got his new license last week.

The guy was big, solid, and young, looked ex-military. The woman with him was the trainee. She did the paperwork while he observed.

“I don’t believe I caught your name?” “Charlie.” “Officer Clark.”

Replaying this because his, “Officer Clark” took me by surprise. I realized then that titles are as much about distance as they are about honorifics. I’m Charlie, a citizen in his home. This was an Officer of the state. In this interaction he held the power, so he needed a gap between familiarity and his role.

They’ll be back on Thursday for the 10 day check on Kep, then he’ll be free. Of course, his freedom now has a check mark against it. Just read the Jeffco animal control ordinance. Not as bad as I feared. Vicious dogs are those who bite off the dog owner’s premises. On site, not vicious. Another report would not be good, but it would not be fatal, either.

We’ve had Kep here five years and he’s never been reported before. No bites to humans. I imagine that will continue.

SeoAh’s plane leaves San Francisco in 48 minutes. It will be a relief to have her here. I need the rest and we need to work out a new plan. Not sure what it will be right now.

Cooking, Dogs, GeekWorld, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Broken. Replaced.

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Winter and the Future Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Hot water in San Francisco! Diane’s recommendation of “Getting Open.” Sleep. Rest. Feeling rejuvenated. The U.S. grocery store. The NYT for endorsing Amy and Elizabeth. Blizzaks. AWD on Ruby. Healing from the dog bite. Almost done.

Cooked last night. Deep fried chicken chunks from a deli chicken. Coated with bread crumbs. Surprisingly good. Broke our vegetable chopper, too. A second time. I prefer hand tools in the kitchen for food prep. Knives, choppers, dicers, zesters. We have a mandolin somewhere and I want to find it. Just ordered a Swedish chopper, made of metal. More durable.

Broke the chopper making a version of Israeli salad. It was the onions that did it in. Well, not the onion, but me, pressing down quick and hard on the onion. Little blades popped off the cutting grid. Not supposed to happen. Got the salad, diced onions (by knife), tomatoes, cucumber, and a generous sprinkling of cilantro. Some lime juice. Some Italian seasoning.

But. I was also gonna warm up the cabbage and potatoes in the microwave. Put them in the microwave at the start. Kate’s taught me to get all the ingredients out before I begin. Forgot about the potatoes and the cabbage. Still in the microwave this morning.

Oh, yeah. Finally got the microwave installed. After the first appointment, I had to have an electrician come out to create a wall socket for it, then reschedule the installation. Happened Saturday. Kate is very happy. She can reheat her coffee. Hot coffee and the crossword in the morning make Kate a happy gal. I’m indifferent to coffee temperature. Cold. Hot. Meh. Not a gourmet.

Spent time yesterday on another modern chore. Cutting up boxes. We get our dogfood through chewy.com. Great service. Reasonable prices. Free shipping. And large cardboard boxes. Bought some airtight dogfood containers, too, through Amazon. Really big boxes. As I’ve noted before, the home has become a shipping and receiving department. All those cardboard boxes that used to get cut up at the warehouse or in the back of the store are now in living rooms across America. Or, garages.

Anyone rural appreciates the chance to look things up online and order them for delivery. Beats going on a Saturday morning quest for the right pan or sheets or, say, a vegetable chopper. Especially if the stores are miles and miles away. Makes a huge difference to caregivers like me, too. It’s why Sears and Roebuck did so well with their catalog. A shame they couldn’t make the transition to an economy much like the one they introduced back in the late 19th century.

Got doggy things to do now. Tomorrow.

Aging, Anoka County, Commentary on Religion, Garden, Jefferson County, Judaism, Memories, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Early to bed…

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Winter and the Future Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Marilyn Saltzman, who works so hard. Rabbi Jamie’s The Human Narrative class. Truly radical religion. Extra sleep this am. (writing this at 9 am. way late for me) Heirloom tomatoes. Honeycrisp apples. Metamucil. The old garden in Andover where I learned so much. The beautiful light illuminating Black Mountain.

Still tired today, but less so. Got back to the house about 9pm last night after a focus group at Beth Evergreen. The first one of several. Part of a five year strategic planning process. They put me in this group with mostly founding members and other long termers. I was the only Gentile in the room. The focus group started at 7 pm, a time when I’m in my jammies and within an hour of going to bed. Not my time for peak performance.

Felt dull on the way home. Don’t like evening meetings anymore. Used to be my bread and butter. Now I fade after 6, 6:30 pm. The pattern we’ve gotten into. Since I get up between 4:30 and 5:00, it makes sense. But it makes evening sessions requiring, as Hercules Poirot says, “…the little gray cells,” hard.

More sleep still needed, but much better.

Family, Great Wheel, Great Work, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Park County, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Mountain Strong

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Winter and the Future Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: For Paul’s idea of the 60 second hug and zero negativity. For Bill’s call yesterday. For Rabbi Jamie and Art Green, the class at Kabbalah Experience by Zoom. For Sandy, who cleans with energy and whose tumor has begun to shrink. For all the good dogs everywhere. All dogs are good dogs. For Mountain Waste who takes away the stuff we can’t use, don’t need.

Mountain strong. See that a lot up here. Bailey’s town motto is Mountain Strong. Has a sort of defiant, libertarian meaning to most. Clues: lots of comments about guns as a primary home defense system. About citiots. (city idiots) Griping about service up here when we know the difficulties involved.

Also, though. We can handle it our own. We’re neighbors, let’s help each other. Respect the wildlife. Keep the night dark.

I like it. Mountain strong. That’s how Kate and I feel. We’re mountain strong. Can it be difficult up here? Oh, yes. The thin air has caused both of us problems most of the time we’ve been here. On certain days the snow is so good we can’t go anywhere. IREA, the local electrical company, has miles of lines in difficult to reach, yet sensitive to weather places. Like up and down whole mountains. Outages are not uncommon and Kate needs O2 24/7. Generator. Delivery is episodic rather than consistent though we have an exceptional (for the mountains) mail carrier. Not to mention that it’s far away to all the services we need.

All true. What I call the Mountain Way. Just more molasses to crawl through for certain aspects of daily life.

However. The bare rock, the lodgepole pines, the aspen groves, the cold rushing creeks, the deep valleys and tall mountain peaks, the moose, the elk, the muledeer, the fox, the lynx, the bobcat, the mountains lions, the bears, the magpies and the Canada Jays, the crows and the ravens, the curvy roads, the changing seasons. And the clear, dark nights with the Milky Way and Orion and Ursa Major, Gemini and the whole zodiac. The clouds, the lenticular clouds and the clouds with a long straight front coming over Mt. Evans. When they’re lit by the rising or setting sun.

And for me, the two visits from the mountain spirits. The three mule deer bucks who greeted me when I came to close on the house on Samain of 2014. The two Elk bucks who stayed in our yard for a day eating dandelions. The day before I started radiation treatment.

Mountain strong. They promised that, welcomed me on the close of the Celtic year. They promised that, assured me on the day before the Cyber Knife visits. We are neighbors, mountain spirits and humans. We need mutuality to survive. The mountains themselves have greeted me and come to me as companions. Our mountain journey is now five years old and only just begun.

Mountain strong.