Category Archives: Denver

Asia, Denver, Family, Korea, The West, Travel, US History

The Buckhorn

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Friday gratefuls: The Buckhorn Exchange. Appa and the long guns. Umma eating beef tenderloin. Buffalo Bill Cody. Guru, the Malaysian Sikh, partner to Mary for 28 years. Their attendance at my son’s command ceremony and Mary’s at my son and Seoah’s wedding. Mary’s long stay in Hawai’i after being deported.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mark in Saudi Arabia

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Ahavah. Love.

Tarot: The Woodward, #11

One brief shining: Ruby drove into the Buckhorn parking lot at 4:45, the first car there for the evening; as Great Sol boiled the asphalt at 102 degrees hipsters rode by on electric scooters and expensive bicycles with very thin tires, the RTD station filling up with early evening commuters while I waited to dine with Appa and Umma, my son and Seoah in Denver’s oldest restaurant.

The Jangs: The whole clan visited the Denver Museum of Natural History in the afternoon. They found its size amazing, Joseph said. Dongun and Dioon (his sister) (please note: I may have these spellings wrong) loved the mummies.

Leaving Shadow on her own in the back yard, Ruby and I left for Denver around 4 pm, filling her up at the Conoco station before hitting 285. Only with my new seat cushion would I willingly drive down the hill. It makes driving bearable, not pain free, but not excruciating.

As I drove down the hill, evening commuter traffic flowed in the opposite direction, west to Littleton and south up 285 to the Mountains. Nice to go against the traffic. Easier.

Picked up 20+ degrees as I left the Rockies and got back on the High Plains, another reason not to drive down the hill. I did though, as we Mountain folk do, have a light jacket with me, knowing the Buckhorn would be air conditioned and the Mountain evening air would be cool.

Appa’s vision of the American West comes from John Wayne movies. The Buckhorn Exchange, 130 years in the same building next year, hosted many famous men of the Wild West era like Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hitchcock.

Founded by a German family, it has, I only tumbled to this yesterday, the feel of an old world Germanic hunting lodge. And, in fact, all the stuffed animals died under the guns of the founding family.

We also learned from our knowledgeable waitress that during Prohibition you could order Pumpernickel Bread. A whole loaf would be brought to the table and inside it would be a bottle of whiskey.

My son, Appa, and I had the special, Elk and Buffalo tenderloin, while Seoah and Umma had beef tenderloin. Appa cleaned his plate and ate some of Umma’s as well.

A fitting final evening meal in Colorado. Seoah’s sister’s family stayed behind, finishing off the gyros from Monday’s way too much for one night supper. They had been surprised by how much they had been spending. Even with a weaker dollar, the won to dollar conversion is not favorable so the actual cost of things snuck up on them. An easy mistake to make your first time out of your own country.

Denver, Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Korea, Politics, Travel

Family and Friends

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Shabbat. Ruth and Gabe. Alan. Shadow. Golden Stix. Nathan. The Greenhouse. Gladiolas. Lilies. Hot weather. Above 60 all night. Gabe reading. Ruth driving. Alan going to New York to see Francesca. Joanne. Ginny and Janice. Annie and Luna. Coming to visit. Back and leg pain. Labrum tear. Artificial tears. Jim Butcher. Marrow Bones. Wildflowers.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Talking to Ruth and Gabe

Week Kavannah:  Roeh et hanalod. Foresight. Knowing what will be needed in the future.

One brief shining: Ruth and Gabe lounged on the lower level while we spoke of family things, matters of consequence and difficulty, from the lens of old age, a college sophomore, and a high school senior, being with each other as listener, as witness, as grandfather and grandchildren, while Shadow moved among us giving out kisses and attention, her way of saying, yes, I hear you, too.

 

Family and Friends: Met Alan at the Dandelion for breakfast. The waitress knows us, smiles when we come in.

French toast and bacon for me. Corned beef hash and eggs for Alan. Speaking of travel, bones unhappy and bones made happier, brothers and sisters, friend stuff. We are easy in each others company, knowledgeable about each others past.

Alan and Cheri moved to a Denver downtown condo three years ago. Great move for them. They live within walking distance of the Denver Art Museum, the Colorado History Museum, the Denver Library, the State Capitol, the Courthouses. The Denver Center for Performing Arts sits right across the street where they attend ballet and theater.

No house maintenance. No threat of wildfire or home insurance problems. Lots of restaurants nearby. A good spot for urban living.

I prefer, still, the Arapaho National Forest, Wild Neighbors, Shadow Mountain, room to have a greenhouse. Might I change? I suppose. But not anytime soon. Too much artifice, too busy, too noisy, too little green in Denver for me.

I came home, took a short nap and greeted Ruth and Gabe who drove from Boulder to see me. Our visits always have depth, fun. Laughing and intense conversations.

Ruth told stories of her trip to Korea. How amazing it was to be a minority. To immerse herself in a culture other than her own.

She learned hangul, she said. The Korean alphabet. She could read words, but had no idea what they meant. Her Mandarin approaches fluency so Asian languages are not (ha) foreign to her.

She wants to do a summer abroad there next summer. I hope it works out for her.

Gabe has begun to read. That is, books of his choosing. He went into the loft, got Peter Pan, Night by Eli Weisel, Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, and I,Robot. The books I give to him with one rule. If you take them, you read them.

Lunch at Golden Stix. A rejuvenated Chinese restaurant in Aspen Park.

 

Just a damned moment!  In closing I offer the first two paragraphs of this NYT article: A White Nationalist Wrote a Law School Paper Promoting Racist Views. It Won Him an Award. I give it the OMG award.

“Preston Damsky is a law student at the University of Florida. He is also a white nationalist and antisemite. Last fall, he took a seminar taught by a federal judge on “originalism,” the legal theory favored by many conservatives that seeks to interpret the Constitution based on its meaning when it was adopted.

In his capstone paper for the class, Mr. Damsky argued that the framers had intended for the phrase “We the People,” in the Constitution’s preamble, to refer exclusively to white people. From there, he argued for the removal of voting rights protections for nonwhites, and for the issuance of shoot-to-kill orders against “criminal infiltrators at the border.””

Denver, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health

Treatment

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan’s birthday. Shadow and her hugs. Tara and her friendship. Ativan. Open-sided MRI. Denver. Pain docs. Oncologists. Back and leg pain. Cancer. Rain. Cool morning. Tara’s Volt. Greenhouse underway. Nathan. Natalie. Shadow Mountain Home. Cookunity.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow

Week Kavannah: Zerizut for p.t. and resistance.

One brief shining: Once again into the not-so-welcoming maw of an open-sided MRI machine, this time fortified with 1 mg of Ativan and Tara’s hand, the same stocky tech; the pounding began as Lorentz forces pulsed through the machine, investigating, in a deep way, the tissues and bone of my hips.

 

Cancer and backpain: Second round. First round in March for my lumbar spine. This round checking for metastases in my hip joint and providing information for placement of the SPRINTS nerve stimulator, the next move for back and leg pain.

Metastases would be bad news, requiring some change in my treatment protocols. My gut tells me that’s not what this is, but important to know. And if that’s not it, I can turn to care of my back pain, continuing my usual treatments for cancer.

That would mean more attention to physical therapy, resistance, and cardio work. I need to do that anyhow of course. My reluctance has become a pattern, a habit. Not a good one. How to fix it?

Perhaps my participation in the Sloan-Kettering cancer counseling trial will help. I think some of my reluctance to get back to my former regular exercise habits lies in a what’s the point attitude? Gonna die anyhow. I do not approve of this attitude at a conscious level yet my inactions points to assent to it at a deeper level in my psyche.

I start this trial today at 1pm. A local therapist and I will have the first of 8 full sessions. I don’t recall the intervals right now.

Comes at a good time for me. Been wondering about the inner adaptations I’ve made. Most of them helpful, adaptive, some not. Seems normal.

 

Friends: Tara came on time in the Saltzman Volt. I gathered up my two Ativan tablets, my wallet for taking care of the co-pay, and my fleece for the cool Mountain mid-day.

We drove off, leaving Ruby at home since driving her on Ativan would not be good. For her. For me. For other drivers. At the Hogbacks, where the High Plains meet the Front Range I popped the first tablet. Waited. Nothing much happening so I popped the second one well before we reached Denver.

Tara and I talked about kids, hers and mine, grandkids, mine. About back and neck pain. She has both. About mussar. CBE. About traveling. Tara’s a world traveler, often solo. Her next big trip is to Namibia. African Wildlife and a world class beach.

Tara and I are especially close. She tutored me on Hebrew for my bar mitzvah. I’ve gone to her house twice for passover and several other times. She brought Eleanor, her puppy, over to play with Shadow. I’ve known Tara since Kate and mine’s first night at CBE.

 

AI, Denver, Friends, GeekWorld, Politics, US History, World History

Precursor Chemicals for a World War

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

Shabbat gratefuls: A day of teshuvah. Returning to the land of my soul. To the me as I was thrown into the post-war world. Pain. Oh. My. Leo XIV. Rerum Natura of Pope Leo XIII. A world that cries out for justice. Love, compassion, and justice = leadership. Eh, Paul? Shadow. A good night’s sleep.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Standing upright in the world

Week Kavannah: Zerizut. Enthusiasm.

One brief shining: Walking in to the bathroom, the shiny new restaurant, a Cheese Cake Factory, had no customers, only anxious waiters, greeters, cooks, runners dressed in black like faux monastics waiting to go into service, anticipation rolling through them like slow waves of prayer.

 

Alan got a free invite to the soft opening of a new Cheescake Factory at Colorado Mills. Free food. A chance to enter a birthing, another mostly identical sibling for other Cheesecake Factories came out of its construction womb into the full light of a new business day.

First, the manager of the Colorado Mills, Kirma, came to our table and greeted Alan. She’s in Evergreen Rotary with him. A big get for her, this well-known anchor level restaurant.

Over the course of our meal, the service manager who had recently hired 305 people to work in the new restaurant, stopped by. Alan chatted her up. After she left, he said, “This is where I live. Corporate training.” He managed all the sales training for Centurylink before he retired.

Earlier in the morning I had breakfast with Marilyn and Irv at Primo’s, the small cafe near their home in King’s Valley. Marilyn and Salam left this morning for Jacksonville, Florida to visit Marilyn and Irv’s son. From Jacksonville they fly on to Cozumel for another Grandmother-Granddaughter trip.

By the time I got home. Whew.

 

Just a moment: I listen like a fanboy to Hardfork, the NYT podcast on high tech, mostly AI. This latest entry casts a very interesting light on the personas of AI’s. Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton point to a trend in AI responses that are overly congratulatory, That’s a great business plan!, or biased toward positive responses, Your attitude toward vaccines makes you special!

They associate this turn toward the obsequious with the likes of social media.  Whatever keeps the user in front of the screen longest. Hallucinations and objectivity be damned. This level of customer pleasing could wreck a key feature of AI: its reputation for honesty. Yes, it has hallucinations, but they are not intentional. This is.

 

Trump Tarrific has begun attempts to unravel the mess he’s made of the world economy. Some sorta deal with Britain. Talks of talks with China. Let’s make a deal!

America First, of course, has the unintended consequence of sullying the reputation of our once hegemonic nation. Or, perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps that lowering of the flag is exactly the point. Disentangle us from world shaping responsibilities. A casual attitude toward the plight of others, a laser focus on the perceived solutions to problems at home. This is blood and soil nationalism, the precursor chemicals for world wars.

Denver, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Politics

My Aching Back

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Shadow. More out and about. Alan. Tupelo Honey. Ritalin. My aching back. Limiting. Good sleeping. 23 degrees. Some wind. Great Sol. Sunlight on the Lodgepoles. Taking out the trash. Vince. Marina. Ana. Sunny days.  The Mountains.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow’s wiggly energy

Week Kavannah: Netzach with a dash of zerizut and simcha

One brief shining: Each night before I go to bed, my baby, I say the shema: Hear oh Israel, yod hey vav hey is (God), yod hey vav hey is One, touch my menorah and say I am content with what I have and I’m content with who I am, and immerse myself in this ancient faith made new by Reconstruction, by my own journey, by Kate’s, by its insights into the nature of this strange efflorescence of the universe knowing itself, humanity

 

Aversive conditioning. Wanted to try Tupelo Honey, a Southern restaurant in downtown Denver, a downtown I do not know well, having had few occasions to drive into it or park; I suggested it to Alan for my birthday lunch, he agreed; he could walk from his condo.

About noon yesterday my back ached. I didn’t know where I was. Mostly I wondered why the hell l had suggested a downtown location. Turns out I parked not too faraway from the restaurant, but my lack of familiarity with downtown Denver, and my silly attempt to use Google’s walking directions led me far away from my goal. Lunch with Alan.

I arrived after a tortuous route, twenty minutes late, my back screaming. No celebrex, remember? Turns out that part of downtown is known for its complexity. So, now I know, eh? Pain does not encourage a thoughtful or rational approach to problem solving. The body wants it to stop. That distracts the mental work necessary to, say, follow a confusing map in a no through streets part of the city.

Food was good. Not great. I expected the kind of fried Chicken my Aunt Mame used to make at the Copper Kettle in Morristown, my mom’s hometown. Nope. A thin skin with some sweetness in it. The rosemary and thyme crispy potatoes were good.

Walking back to the garage Alan went with me. I had already tumbled to the fact that it was much closer than my original route. My back had already gotten agitated and didn’t calm down until I was back home. If I go into Denver again, I may park, as Alan suggested, at a strip mall outside of downtown and Uber in.

Not gonna be anytime soon.

 

Just a moment: Talked to buddy Paul Strickland yesterday. He and his wife, Sarah, attended a conference in Camden, a Maine seaside town. Conference title: Democracy Under Threat. His thoughts after the conference have not yet congealed, but he did report some interesting facts.

One especially chilling number. Counting Russia, China, and India as authoritarian governments plus smaller countries like Belarus, Hungary and many others, some 71% of the people on earth live under authoritarian regimes. 71%. That means democracy serves less that 29% since some of those are monarchies, but not necessarily authoritarian. A sad day for our planet.

Denver, Family, Fourth Phase, Shadow Mountain

Thanksgiving Down the Hill

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Samain and the 2% crescent of the Moon of Growing Darkness

Friday gratefuls: Water Grill. The Spiny Lobsters. Fresh Oysters. Thanksgiving with Ruth and Gabe. Jen. Gus. LoDo. Denver. Down the Hill. Shadow Mountain Home. Ruby. With her Snow shoes on. Cold night. Living alone. Kate, always Kate. Talking to her. Ruth potentially on the Dean’s List. Her next semester classes. A history minor.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabe’s hug

Kavannah: Perseverance and chesed

One brief shining: Only a brief while before it swam in a large aquarium with many other Spiny Lobsters, then it boiled in a pot, got cleaved in half, plated with liquid butter and coleslaw, given to a server, and delivered to my bibbed presence where I took the small fork and deftly lifted most of its meat out of one half, dipped a chunk in butter, and the great circle of life went on.

Straight outta the waters of Southern California.

 

The Water Grill. A fancy, and by that I mean expensive, Sea food restaurant. It has a Seahorse sculpture over its door, but no signage visible from the street. My second Thanksgiving in a row eating a Thanksgiving meal down the Hill in Denver.

With two downtown Thanksgiving’s literally under my belt (ha) I’m curious about the number of people who no longer cook a meal for friends and/or family. The reason? Both times all street parking has been full and the restaurants I saw had packed tables.

The Bib

The Water Grill has many tables and booths, a big place with glass buoys made into chandeliers, old boat propellers and coral behind the booths. Full. And stayed full over the two hours Ruth, Gabe, Jen, and I ate there.

Don’t know about the others but my excuse is I no longer have the stamina, the standing in one place capacity to cook a full meal. When the bill came, I paid it, thinking about what I had really purchased. Sure, a meal. But that was secondary. What I really paid for was the two hours spent eating by Ruth’s side, talking to her about college, talking to Gabe. Jen.

Remember that Thanksgiving we ate at the Water Grill? When I was a freshman at UC-Boulder? We had Oysters and Spiny Lobsters! Oh, right. I remember.

I’ll remember the sudden and unexpected Bear hug I got from Gabe, from behind, as I got up to put my coat on. Heartfelt. And, from Ruth after that. A brief hug with Jen.

Brought to mind the Ira Progoff seminar in Tucson, April of 2014, when I realized we needed to move to Colorado to support the kids. The fruits of that decision as well as my decision to stay here, not move to Hawai’i. Which I could easily do now if I wanted.

Love is a verb and it becomes real, Velveteen Rabbit real, in moments like these.

Drove home into the Mountains as Mother Earth turned her other face toward Great Sol, the early Night fully fallen when I pressed the garage door opener and drove Ruby into her stall.

 

 

 

Asia, Denver, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Navigation

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Shabbat gratefuls: Gaza. Palestinians. Israel. Iran. Lebanon. Syria. River Otters in K.L. Herons, too. Mary, Mark, Guru. Daylight saving time. (Just kidding, I’m not grateful for this.) Ginny, Janice, and Luke. Primo’s. Pinõn and Oak. Kindling. Ready for Yule. Santa Fe. Clay Fireplaces. Shadow Mountain’s Fireplace. (Is a shower a Waterplace?)

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hardwoods

Kavannah: CONTENTMENT   Histapkut הִסתַפְּקוּת  Contentment, simplicity, moderation; from ספק to divide/apportion  (נַחַת Nachat: Satisfaction, gratification, comfort) (קִמּוּץ Kimutz: Minimalism, frugality, thrift)

One brief shining: Drove down the hill yesterday to Variety Firewood, took a wrong road and found decommissioned Army Fort Logan, a rush of familiarity from having spent time at Warner/Robbins, Hickam, and Osan USAF bases, unexpected, wandered around a bit, gave up, with reluctance entered the address into my GPS, and found it.

Panoramic image of Fort Logan, 1908, William Bevington

Yeah. Occasional luddite here. I like to use maps and my own sense of direction. Often, three times in the last thirty days for example, and I just realized this, I’ll navigate on my own having looked at Google Maps before I go, only to discover a filigree in the turns or exits that I forgot or mistook. Realized that if I used maps as I used to, I’d have the map with me. That sturdy, paper simulacrum of this place or that. Nope. Now I look at an electronic map, put the key moves in my memory and drive on.

Gonna continue to do this. I like getting lost, seeing things I hadn’t expected, didn’t know were there. Like decommissioned Fort Logan which gave me a start with its similarity to the places my boy has lived over the last fifteen years. Its Civil War era buildings are still there, too. At least some of them. Its large parade ground, too. Part of it has become a National Cemetery.

I also enjoy wandering through different neighborhoods, seeing how people live. What stores are there. In this instance I got to see the Halloween decorations of these lower middle class/working class homes. Some quite elaborate including a looming pirate and several witches.

Small, split Oak

Yes. I did find Variety Firewood. An interesting place. A huge open area with used/junked cars against a tall chain link fence, then piles of Pine wood with huge sections, piled higher than me, smaller split logs piled around a large Conifer. Concrete highway markers made bins next to them: Oak. Pinõn. Cedar. Pallets near the ramshackle old house OFFICE held split logs of Cherry, Apple, Hickory, more Oak.

Behind all these old signage, big ones, cluttered around each other reminding me of the warehouses in New Orleans that hold Mardi Gras float decor.

Thanks to Celebrex I opened Ruby’s trunk and loaded her up with Oak and Pinõn. Enough to make her tail heavy as I drove home. They had no logs, only split wood. Which, for most folks would be fine. I want to find a location that has whole logs of Fireplace size. Hardwood. Until I do a couple of the largest split Oak pieces will have to do. The Pinõn will perfume Shadow Mountain home.

The old woman in the office warned me not to trip over her dog’s long rope. She came out, measured the wood I’d selected, and for it and a box of kindling I paid $27. In Minnesota this would have been exorbitant. Here in the arid West, and down the hill from my Mountain home where only Pine is available, a price I paid without complaint.

Stopped at Oyama Sushi on the way home for a sashimi lunch.

Aging, Denver, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Hell disguised as a motel lobby

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Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Rosemark. Dismal souls adrift in a two star motel. Lucille’s Cajun Cafe. The Ancient Brothers on AI. The AI summary. A helicopter overhead. Great Sol brightening up my world. Driving down the hill. Driving back up the hill. Derek’s electric chain saw. His work in my yard. A low flying plane. Red Beans, grits, and poached Eggs. Joanne’s On the Run.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Spontaneity

Kavannah: Patience

One brief shining: The receptionist, displaying spandex in ways best left behind the desk, took me to the locked memory support unit, punched in a few numbers on a key pad, and I was in hell configured as the lobby of a two or three star motel, with chairs, some regular, many with wheels; it contained people, old people, staring up at a television screen that had a fall themed display on it, not even the shopping channel, then I found her there, among them.

 

Drove out of the garage yesterday morning thinking breakfast. But where? Primos? Aspen Perks? Conifer Cafe? No. I have an open day. Spontaneity. I hadn’t done something with no forethought for a long time. What the hell. I’ll go down the hill, drive up Broadway, and find a new breakfast place. No, wait. Maybe I should go to that diner like place on Santa Fe? Nah. Broadway sounds more fun. Broadway.

Down the hill and onto the Great Plains I passed through Lakewood, then into Englewood, a journey familiar from trips with Kate to Swedish Hospital. Took the sweeping exit off Hampden and turned north on Broadway. Past that sushi place I’ve been to several times. Past a couple of breakfast places, then Whiskey Biscuit showed up. Huh?

Pulled in, got on out, looked in the window. The sign said open, but there was only a lone staff person with a spray bottle spritzing down tables. Nope. If the locals aren’t thronging a breakfast place, I’ll pass.

Drove further up Broadway and got to Evans. Hmm. Lucille’s is just down to the right, I think? Turned on Evans, drove a few blocks and sure enough there was Lucille’s Cajun Cafe. So I’d been there before. It’s Cajun. Found a sweet parking space.

On the way I’d decided also to go visit a friend who had moved into the memory support unit of an eldercare facility. Hadn’t done it before because pain. I can get into Denver feeling good with the celecoxib, but that drive back? Aversive conditioning. Thought again. What the hell. A little pain in return for seeing her? Doable.

The physical pain, which struck, as I knew it would on the way back up the hill, was doable. The psychic pain? Still lingers this morning. She’s alert, no dementia expression while I visited. Apparently she had an episode or two that qualified her. All the others I saw. Definitely impaired. Often staring, or picking at their hands. One woman whom my friend says, “Is a thief.” stuck her tongue out while we talked.

My friend’s room is in the Pink Peace neighborhood. That’s a hallway of doors not distinct from a not so bad motel. The rooms have tall ceilings. Newly built and fresh, they’re pretty good compared to others I’ve seen. Except. My friend has no one to talk to. They all have Alzheimer’s according to her. And the room, while nice, had little personality. It’s her home.

Too, my friend said she’s paying $7,000 a month though everything’s included. It better be, I said. She also said, never trust your kids. They’d put her in there and, again according to her, rarely call or visit. She probably could be on the assisted living side but somehow it would end up costing more.

We chatted for an hour or so. About her family and mine. I told her I trusted my son. After a bit, I wheeled her back to the line of chairs in front of the tv with the thanksgiving display. She settled in, took my hand, we kissed each other on the cheek and I left. Me to the open air and the Mountains. Her. Sitting there until meal time.

 

 

 

Boulder, Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Earth Waves

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The Harvest Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Ruth. Gabe. Boulder. Ruby. Celebrex. Tramadol. THC. Gettin’ old. The gradual arrival of Fall. Great Sol. The Flatirons. The High Plains as they wash up against the Laramide Oregeny’s Rocky Mountains. Mountains as Earth Waves. Second looks at my prostate cancer facts. Kristie. Steve. Dr. Leonard. Mr. In Between. Whippets. My son.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Staying the course with Ruth and Gabe

Kavanah: STABILITY יְסוֹד Yesod    Stable, rooted, grounded; literally “foundation”  Ninth Sefirah = Connection & communication; covenant relationship; regenerative organ  [נְתִיקָה Netika: Disconnected, detached, rootless, neurotic]

One brief shining: We gathered, the three of us, the last of Jon’s close family, sitting outside at the Hapa Sushi Grill and Sake Bar, Jon’s complicated impact on each of us lifted to the surface as we ordered the Multiple Orgasm Roll, the Hapa Special Roll, and a sashimi sampler with Daikon fries while Labor Day freed Boulderites and UC students wandered up and down the Pearl Street Mall.

 

At ten am Gabe and I took off for Boulder, an hour drive from Shadow Mountain. Once on 470 we headed east always driving along the Hogbacks that mark the earlier Oregeny (Mountain Building) phase that preceded the Laramide. Thrust up on angles toward the west, these ancient Rock formations mark the end of the High Plains, or their beginning. Heading east from the Hogbacks the High Plains move toward their lower, yet contiguous sisters that make up the Plains States, running as far east as western Minnesota.

Though technically the west begins around the 105th parallel in Nebraska, where Rainfall dips below 20 inches a year, the feeling of being in the West, the Mountain West, only begins when you see the Rockies in the distance and their older brethren, the Hogbacks. Coming from the east, of course, as I mostly have.

I have a marked sense of awe, in Hebrew yirah, wherever I drive in the Mountains. This path from Shadow Mountain to Boulder thrills me, as it follows the evidence of plate tectonics active 75 through 35 million years ago, evidence inescapable to the eye and to the internal combustion engine. The hand of Gaia splashing the ocean of land and creating waves in her outermost layer, easy to see even now so long after she finished. Earth waves.

 

Just a moment: Even with the Celebrex on board, the drive from home to Boulder, then to Denver to drop Gabe off on Galena Street and finally back west through Denver and up 285, left me in pain. And long before I finally got home.

When I got back, I hurt so bad I tossed in a tramadol and an edible. Big mistake. My stomach said no, I do not like this, not at all. Please go to bed. So I did. At 4:30 pm. Got back up a couple of hours later.

Worth it though. Gabe and Ruth need time together and time with me. Especially yesterday, two days from the second anniversary of Jon’s death. I gave both of them yahrzeit candles, candles that burn the full 24 hours of a yahrzeit. Had to take Ruth’s back because: no candles at all ever in the dorms. Oh. Yeah.

 

Art and Culture, Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Music, Weather +Climate

Weather and Joy

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Alan. Cheri. The Inspire Concerts. RTD. Federal Center Station. St. Anthony Hospital. New knee, me. New shoulder, Kate. Ruby. 96, high in Denver today. The Ancient Brothers. Kamala. The orange comb over. These disunited States. Rain. Hale. Luke. Leo. Ginny. Janice. Great Sol. Cancer drugs. Jewish music. Today with Ruth.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

One brief shining: Short splats increased to faster, staccato impacts the skylights enlarging the sound, then the Hail, small at first, then larger pounded pounded pounded with the insistence of the natural world not recognizing barriers, pounding against them with the kind of fury increased by falling from a great height as Leo and I looked outside seeing balls of Ice bounce around on the black driveway.

 

A lesson in Mountain Microclimates. While Leo and I enjoyed a hard Rain with Hail, Luke only needed a transparent umbrella at the wedding being held on the west side of Black Mountain in Staunton State Park. Not very far as the Moose walks. Up and down Black Mountain. From their home in the State Park to our yards here on Shadow Mountain, the next Mountain over.

As the bride walked down the aisle, Luke said, the heavens parted and shone a bright light directly on her. Heaven sent. We take in the awe, perhaps dismiss it as random, as unmotivated and therefore meaningless except in a Hollywood sort of way, but yirah is yirah. Wherever and whenever. Yirah is a human emotion, a middot, too, one known in the lev, in the mind-heart. Experienced not in its source but in its recipient.

I enjoyed the thirty minutes or so of heavy Rain, conditioned by decades of Midwestern life to know the nurturance of a good Rain. Good for the crops. Leo wasn’t so sure about the Thunder. He didn’t tuck his tail between his legs, but he did pace. Some Dogs can have an outsized response to Thunder.

Tira, a Wolfhound bitch who lived with us in Andover, once impaled herself on a fence gate and clawed apart and bit, too, a license plate on the Tundra parked just across from the gate. I ran out when I found her and lifted her 160 pound body off the gate in one move. Adrenaline. Fortunately the wound was not deep. Her teeth and front paws though. Bloody.

 

Just a moment: Will elaborate tomorrow, but I spent a joyful day with Ruth today. We walked to Alan and Cheri’s from Union Station. Painful, but doable. So irritating to have this impediment. Walking has been my favorite way to see a city. Now I have to walk some, rest some. Walk some, rest some. Made it to Spire Condominiums across from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Up 38 floors to 3810, Alan and Cheri’s place, for another home based concert. Rabbi Joe Black, senior Rabbi at the huge Temple Emmanuel, sang. As did Eitan Kantor, a local Jewish musician. And a pianist and song writer whose name I don’t have. More on this tomorrow.