Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

In Evergreen

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Located at Life Care Center Evergreen I’m only a short walk from Congregation Beth Evergreen. Elk often fill the driveway, mountains on the horizon outside my room. I love being in the mountains, near home, while I work rebuilding my strength.

Occupational therapy. Activities of daily living. Increasing standing stamina. Moving plastic cones from one spot to another. Using a hand crank machine to rebuild arm muscles. Learning ways to work around a stiff leg.

Physical therapy. Walking with the walker. Feel strong. More standing stamina. Using a device that makes me rotate left, then right.

Speech therapy. Cognition. Difficult word finds. How to make sure my voice can be heard.

In theory I’m eager to do each one because it moves me closer to home. In fact, due to fatigue I often find myself wanting to pass. Fatigue=low T, head drop strain on back, the cellular level hit my body took from the pneumonia. I tire quickly, find the work onerous instead of challenging.

Mary and Joseph (oh, Mary and Joseph. Ha.) have been so wonderful. Working on matters related to home coming. Cleaning. Finding things I need. Visiting. Being the buffer between home and my absence. So necessary right now.

Still unsure how this will all workout. A significant part of me wants a simpler, less demanding life. I feel that in my bones. Another significant part of me loves Shadow Mountain, my home. The memories.

Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain

Moving Parts

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Life Care Center: Evergreen, day 8

5:30 am:   Charlie. Charlie. I have your synthroid.

6:30 am: Have to get your vitals. Blood pressure. O2 saturation. Temperature. Heart rate. A brief whir. Contraction. Release.

In between I lay with my hands on my chest, eyes closed. Drifting. Sometimes considering nothing. Dozing off. Wondering about the purpose, the meaning of this end of the trail life. About family. Friends. Dogs. Mountains.

Breakfast. Biscuits and gravy. Scrambled eggs. Oatmeal. Pretty good.

Brittney stops by. Time for physical therapy. Needed.

Over now. The day stretches out ahead of me. Languid. Outside mountain summer heat builds.

What happens next? Return to Shadow Mountain. Assisted living. Unsure. Joe’s on it with Rich for the assist.

My feelings are in flux. Jettison the house. Keep the house. Be alone. Seek some help. What will I be physically capable of? Unclear.

Moving parts. So many.

Far Right, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Quiet Days

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A slow day. As Saturdays can be. Moderate temperature, slight breeze, sun. I like quiet days. Especially after the excitement of my self-engaged head gashing.

This Sunday, and most of the next week, has similar possibilities. Only out of house: Tuesday 9 am CT scan and Friday’s 11:30 suture removal.

Beginning to have serious conversations about my future on Shadow Mountain. My goal? Stay right here. There are various ways to get there, not sure what makes the most sense yet.

 

Oh. George. Orwell. Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission which proposes that the separation of church and state is “…a legal error…” (W.P. June 26, 2026)

Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair.

Family, Health, Jefferson County, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Through the Looking Glass

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Day three post fall and gash. Wound gets cleaned today. Not sure how I’d do it by myself. Maybe Ginny.

Reverberations. Can I handle myself alone? Just me and my life alert medallion? I think so, but some doubt now. Don’t like that.

Melissa provides a cushion I needed and still need. Mary, too, but she’s leaving late July, going back to winter in Melbourne. Tara and Arjean will be here right after until late August. After that, back to the old ways.

Investigating.

Flash flood. Bear Creek, Evergreen and Kittredge. Wednesday night. There are state installed flash flood warning signs in Kittredge: climb to higher ground. Took out private bridges, sent logs rushing downstream, flooded basements. Hwy. 74 closed overnight.

Like Minnesota the West has weather that can kill you, too. Flash floods. Wildfire.

Texas to require bible reading in public schools. Trump’s inaptly named Religious Liberty Commission plans to work against the separation of Church and State. Vance compares himself to Nixon. Iran and U.S. trade strikes after peace document signed.

We have fallen through the looking glass. Red-pilled and angry.

Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain

Shameless

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Chose not to go down the hill for a CT scan of my head. To check for a brain bleed. Too many scans of late. No problematics. Could have been otherwise.  An emotional rather than a rational decision.

Surrounded by love. Ruth held me in her lap, holding a towel against my gash. Bled profusely as head wounds do. Mary and David helped me (lifted me) to my feet. Ruth and Mary called my clinic which got me in right away. 10 minutes from home.

Wound cleaned, hair around it clipped. Waited until Anna, a p.a. came in. She did a thorough exam for neurological effects. Head wound = possible brain bleed.

The lidocaine would feel like “stinging bees,” she said. Ha, I thought. I know what they feel like from my beekeeping years.  Pretty close, except for one which exceeded expectations. Mary says she, Ruth, and David watched Anna work. At the back of my head and numbed. I waited. No real pain afterward. Later the other parts of my body that hit the tile hard declared themselves. Achy. Some low level pain.

I crawled into bed and went to sleep.

More appreciative now of my Life Alert medallion which would have come to my aid had I been alone.

Old age can be tough. Keep yourself in shape.

Looking forward to three medical intervention free days.

I see Vance trying to rehabilitate Nixon! The deep state took him down. Yeah, right. If by deep state you mean: independent journalism (ironically the Washington Post of yesteryear), the FBI, Congress, and the courts.

Shameless. All of them. Enemies of truth, justice, and the American way. Villains of Superman Comic equivalence.

Quiet summer days. What I want.

 

Family, Great Work, Health, Shadow Mountain

One More Reason to Dance

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The Summer Solstice. Sol Invictus, the all-conquering sun. Put Sweden and the Solstice in your browser to see naked blond people dancing around huge bonfires. The growing season, whose beginning we celebrated at Beltane, has come to its midway point. The energy giving power of the sun available during longer days. Corn in Iowa well beyond knee high even in June.

We need this maximum sun for agricultural crops, flower gardens, trees and grasses. Photosynthesis is Sol loving us as only a nuclear fusion reaction can. Vividly. With all its fullness.

Yet. All these positives granted and celebrated, I find one more cause to dance. The Summer Solstice marks the end of the triumph of the light begun on the longest night, last Winter’s Solstice. From this point forward darkness will grow, the nights will become longer until at the Vernal Equinox, the nights will be longer than the days. This is the beginning of the triumph of darkness. I love those cold, dark nights of Midwinter. I look forward to a blazing fire, snow falling, Black Mountain turning white.

Mary has a mission. Using her librarian’s fundamental need to impose order, she’s going through each room, sector, and cabinet rearranging, culling, making sure each item has a place. Expiration dates runout? Toss. Smell rancid. Trash it. She’s filled bag after bag, all headed to the landfill in Park County, This work energizes her, makes her smile.

I’m going through anoter of trial related imaging this week and next. Feeling stronger, stamina an issue. Better than before!

Family, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Sport

A bullet proof terrarium

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Mary and I watched an episode of Grace on Britbox. Stars John Sims, a favorite of hers from the mind-twisting, post-modern Life on Mars.

She made a list of cleaning supplies. I ordered them and Melissa will pick them up. Not sure what she means to clean since she’s done nothing else for the last few days. But, go Mary.

 

So the Toad Prince glared out of his bullet-proof terrarium as the Spurs extended the finals by beating the Knicks in the Garden. Didn’t protect him from the boos.

 

Meanwhile on Shadow Mountain I grow a bit stronger each day. First working session of PT today. Looking forward to gradually regaining some strength. OT on Thursday.

Ruth’s coming up today. Her surgery is tomorrow. It will shorten her too long ulna which has caused her a lot of pain. This past weekend she returned from her week long stint as a camp counselor in Wasilla, Alaska. A camp for hemophiliacs.

Shadow loves the sunny, low-70s days. Lounging. Barking at intruders. Coming in only to go back out.

 

 

Dogs, Family, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain

Abe wept

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Looks as though winter has given way to summer, transiting from low 40’s night time to high 50’s. Spring sprang, retreated, and never returned. The vagaries of climate-change inflected mountain weather.

Mary continues her clean sweep (literally) of all my cabinets. Madam librarian brings order out of kitchen chaos. I have not yet seen her work. Soon.

Meanwhile my muster dog goes out and in, in and out. She’s a sweet presence in my life, affectionate and mostly calm.

Have now completed the length of my driveway and back. Ready for my appointment. I’ll walk in. Walk to the phlebotomist and to Christina’s office. Oh, yeah!

The angle of my recovery has increased a bit, gains coming faster. A virtuous circle of eat more, do more, eat more. May it continue.

In my day (ha) Gillette sponsored fight night. Now its POTUS. With ceremonial weigh-ins at the Lincoln Memorial. Jesus and Abe wept.

Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain

Mattering

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A visit from my rabbi.

A month ago, not sure if I would ever feel better, I asked Jamie to come see me. At the time I’d had thoughts of dropping out of the trial, going into hospice. Tired of all of it. Feeling sick. Life on the line with unproven drugs. Too. Much.

By the time we synched our calendars a month had passed. A month in which I hired a housekeeper, started getting better nutrition, sleep. I was no longer feeling from a mood of weariness.

I wondered now about my purpose in these last years of my life? Jamie told me of some material he’d been reading about mattering. I found it intriguing. Here’s a quick Gemini summary:

  • Significance (or Importance): Feeling seen, essential, and having the small things about you remembered by others.
  • Appreciation (or Recognition): Being valued strictly for who you are, rather than exclusively for what you achieve.
  • Investment (or Ego Extension): Knowing that others are genuinely invested in your well-being and that you are mutually invested in theirs.
  • Dependence (or Reliance): Having people in this world who safely trust and rely on you, without overextending you.
  • Attunement: The feeling that you are worthy of being understood and responded to meaningfully by your community. [1, 2, 3]

I like this because it wraps the question of purpose-self extended outward-in a broad context which includes family, community, and the inner experience of being human. And, in particular for me right now, it shows that purpose can be showing others that they matter.

Not, imh, strikingly new or revolutionary, yet a full advance over achievement and accumulation as life’s purpose. Also, it does not denigrate those, rather it sets them in what seems to me their appropriate context.

I’m focused now on mattering, especially the ways I can help you, reader, know that you matter.

On a health note I have walked unaided almost the full length of my driveway and back. Mary is my wingwoman in case I falter.

Mary has been a kind and helpful presence since she got here. Setting herself things to do like eliminating expired food, cleaning the fridge, and all my kitchen cabinets. Most of all she has come, showed up as my friend Paul likes to say. Family at its best. She matters to me.

Family, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain

Mary. Dopy.

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Shadow has had her breakfast. Mary’s awake. Shadow Mountain coming into the morning.

Mary got a lift with a car service. Arrived around 5:30, looking fancy. She came bearing a delicious meal with prosciutto, cheese, and crackers. We ate as we discussed her trip so far. She has an open ticket, can stay as long she wants. She’s come to help in any way she can.

Carol, my physical therapist from Mt. Evans, talked me into trying a cervical collar. It will provide support, help me with the strain on my back from the head drop. Not sure about it, but the soft collar was not working.

Weather continues cool and rainy. Good sleeping last night.

I think eating regular meals has begun to help. I can walk a bit further, don’t feel as tired. Stopping the abiraterone and the prednisone helped, too. Feeling confident.

Meanwhile in Dopyland. The war. Iran. Over so fast. Not. Cease fire? Not so much. Dopy hits them. They hit back. Federal Housing Finance Director makes next logical career move to acting director of National Intelligence. More pics of Trump vanity project, the Triumphal Arch. Oh, boy.

Best headline about Trump. Ever. Goes to Brett Stephens for: President Ozymandias.