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  • Fattening, Not Flattening

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the Moon of Radical Change

    Wednesday gratefuls: New wheelchair. #19! Better comfort for Kate. Covid days and Covid nights. With the flu on its way. Hunker down, USA. A gift from Ancient One, Tom Crane. Safeway. Picking up groceries in my jammies. Cool weather ahead. And, snow! Drive down that fire danger. Yeah.

    On the drive down the mountain to Safeway the Sun angle, the brown and gold Grasses, naked Aspen among the Lodgepole sent me back to trips to Aunt Marjorie’s house for Thanksgiving. Over the hills and through the woods.

    Picked up some squash today. Yum. Also, thought I indicated I wanted 5 tomatoes. Got five pounds instead. Chili tonight. Safety wise pickup is the gold standard. As it is in terms of limiting impulse purchases. However.

    The third surge of the first wave has come up hard against the rocky shore of pandemic fatigue. We have fattened the curve, instead of flattening. And, we are at it again. This time though with a broader reach in regions. That dovetails with three accelerants: the seasonal flu, cold weather and more indoor gatherings, winter holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah.

    By the time 2021 arrives two months plus a little from now we might be ready to skip ahead to 2022.

    The fall after college, 1969, Judy and I moved to Appleton, Wisconsin. My bakery job had me up at 4 am as my first Wisconsin winter closed in. The owner, almost joyous for a Norwegian (I now know.), used to sing, “I’ve got my love to keep me warm.” Yeah. But, he was the boss, you know. I can still hear him. Seems like the perfect song now.

    Or, this. The weather outside is frightful, the fire is so delightful, and since we’ve GOT NO PLACE TO GO, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! (caps mine, ya know.)

    Did I forget to mention the election? An election is coming. Like winter. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote.

    Local satellite gathers dust from meteor. The Lockheed-Martin works off Deer Creek Canyon Road celebrated as their designed and built OSIRIS-REX blew on asteroid Bennu and collected (they hope) dust in an extended ring.

    There is a robust space industry in Colorado and it will get much bigger if Trump’s Space Force decides to permanently locate its headquarters here. It has a temporary headquarters in Virginia but there are already several sites here: Buckley AFB, Peterson AFB, Schriever AFB with 10 of its fifteen units in the state already.

    Back to writing. Kate read the first half of Jennie’s Dead and her response to it jarred me back to the keyboard. I can’t exercise until next Monday so the time is easy to find. I feel good, like I know I should. Writing buoys me up.


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  • Soul

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the Moon of Radical Change

    Sunday gratefuls: Jon, Ruth, Gabe. Kate. Jon’s drawing for the gate at the bottom of the loft stairs. Ruth’s Apple fritters. Easy Entree’s beef stew. Borgen. Kate reading Jennie’s Dead, what’s written. The 8 point Buck in the back yard. Kep trying to decide what to do.

    “When I think of soul of the nation,” Joy Harjo, the United States poet laureate and a Muscogee (Creek) Nation member, said, “I think of the process of becoming, and what it is we want to become. That is where it gets tricky, and that is where I think we have reached a stalemate right now. What do people want to become?” Elizabeth Dias, NYT, 10/18/2020, Biden and Trump Say They’re Fighting for America’s ‘Soul.’ What Does That Mean?

    Highly recommended. Elizabeth Dias is smart and knows her soul history. Of all the wonderful reflections on what the soul of the country might mean, I found Joy Harjo’s the most cogent.

    Our soul, our American soul, becomes knowable in the thousands of tiny decisions, and big ones, that we make every day. Where do we live? With whom do we live? What do we drive? What do we eat? For whom do we vote? Who deserves our attention?

    It’s possible, in a country as affluent as ours, to get lost in the tiny decisions. Will we wear a mask? Whose mail do we read? Whose products do we buy? Where and how do we get our healthcare? These are all important questions in our daily lives, but we often forget that the aggregate of our choices has enormous consequences for our mutual well-being. If we don’t pay attention, we forget the other, imagine that our choices matter only to us, only to the ethical framework of our family, our work, our small community.

    One way to infuse those tiny decisions with broader meaning is to become intentional about them. Remember think global, buy local? If you want peace, work for justice? Do I buy the gasoline powered car or do I buy the electrically powered car?

    Our national soul gathers force, gathers power, gathers momentum for change in these choices. Easy to forget. And, I agree with Harjo that we’ve reached a stalemate of sorts now. Our attention has been distracted by 2020.

    What’s next? Locust? Volcanoes? Asteroids? No. What’s next is November 3rd. This is a big decision. But it will be our collective choices that make it. America will announce to the world the state of its soul’s health on November 3rd.

    Is our soul just an enlarged continuation of the white male project? Or, do others have a voice? Do those who value community, diversity, globalism have the strength to redefine our soul. We will see.


    Beyond the Boundaries Commentary on the news Coronavirus Family Health Humanities Minnesota Our Land and Home Politics Shadow Mountain US History

  • Mountain Recluses

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the RBG Moon. Orion, Mars, Venus, and the Great Dog

    Monday gratefuls: Ancient friends. Their journeys. Learning and education. Life. All those drops for my eyes. Peanut butter and Rigel. Carne asada, twice baked potato, and salad. Safeway pickup. That snow yesterday. Mom’s yahrzeit on the 17th.

    A bright, sunshiny day in the high 50’s. I worked at my computer. Turned around. A gray day. Snow blizzarding down, swirling. 39 degrees. Colorado. An hour later. No snow. Blue sky. Sunny. Black Mountain absorbed it all.

    My ancient friends keep talking about the Ground Hog day nature of their lives. Not so for me. Each day has its own challenges. Our meal times vary. Sure, there are equivalent actions at familiar times: feeding the dogs, a.m., coming up to the loft, writing this blog. Breakfast, change Kate’s bandages. Noon or so nap. Evening dog feeding, some television. In between these though I could be reading, painting, writing.

    Our life had a cloistered feel even before the pandemic. That’s intensified, for sure. We don’t have the occasional meal out. No movies. No CBE. Zooming with family, friends, synagogue classes. Yes, not the same as in person, as we all know now.

    Both of us though are introverts. Kate even more so than I. Happiness is a book, a project, a downtime hour painting or sewing, watching a movie. Of course we love our kids, our grandkids, our friends, the folks at CBE. We would like to see them more often. But, not too much more often.

    Mountain recluses. That’s us. Just got a novel, A Life of Li Bai. Either at retirement or upon banishment Chinese literati took up mountain living, usually as recluses. Li Bai, a Tang dynasty poet exiled in the time of the An Lushan rebellion is a mountain poet.

    Here’s one of his memorized by generations of Chinese schoolchildren:

    Thoughts in the Silent Night (静夜思)

    床前明月光，   Beside my bed a pool of light—
    疑是地上霜，   Is it hoarfrost on the ground?
    舉頭望明月，   I lift my eyes and see the moon,
    低頭思故鄉。   I lower my face and think of home.

    And another famous poem (in China) by Han-Shan, or Cold Mountain, Poem 302:

    出生三十年， I’ve been in the world for thirty years,
    當遊千萬里。 And I must have traveled a million miles.
    行江青草合， Walked by rivers where the green grass grows thick,
    入塞紅塵起。 And entered the frontier where the red dust rises.
    鍊藥空求仙， Purified potions in vain search for immortality,
    讀書兼詠史。 Read books and perused the histories.
    今日歸寒山， Today I return to Cold Mountain,
    枕流兼洗耳。 Pillow myself on the creek and wash out my ears.

    The pandemic has changed our lives, but not that much. Li Bai or Han Shan could have lived here.

    The Consolations of the Mountains. Our wild Neighbors. The dark night Sky filled with Stars and Planets and Galaxies. The Lodgepole Pine and the Aspen. The dancing, sparkling Streams. The sturdy Rock. The thinner Air. Shadow Mountain home.


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  • RBG and Mars

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall The Full RBG Moon and Mars

    Saturday gratefuls: Kate’s better breathing, stamina. Easy Entrees Oktoberfest meal today: Pork Schnitzel, Bavarian Pretzels, and German Cucumber Salad. Prosit! Sukkot. The Sukkah is up at CBE. Harvests all round the world. Confirmation on masks, social distancing, staying away from crowded enclosed spaces. My new lens. My new cheaters. Fall. It’s courage and sadness.

    The alignment this morning of the full RBG Moon and Mars happened just over Black Mountain, a bit to the northwest. Beautiful in the early morning sky. Mythic, too. The warrior God of ancient Rome and the warrior Woman. Anima and Animus. The full power of masculine and feminine writ large. A good time to remember that this miserable administration has only a few weeks to its reckoning.

    No. I don’t relish Trump’s struggle with Covid. Not when I view him as just a man. I neither wish nor celebrate suffering on anyone. Sure, I might joke about it, but in the end, no.

    As a scumbag President, cheerleader for the Proud Boys and the Klan, as a misogynist, a racist, a mocker of the disabled, and as an ignorant man in a job that requires learning though, I’m glad he’s sidelined. May he be out of the picture long enough to ensure his defeat.

    Saw Dr. Gustave yesterday. Still at 20/25 for distance. He seemed disappointed. I’m not. Things are so much clearer. Colors are brighter. The World has a certain freshness to it. It seems younger. Cataract surgery gives me a boost mentally.

    Had to sign permission for my right eye to get cut. Acknowledge that I still had blurry, hazy vision in it. Forms and checklists, scheduling. The usual morass of American medicine.

    I won’t rant. I won’t. Yet, for all the questionnaires, all the releases signed, the same ones over and over, the system, well, no, not a system, the chaotic, entangled delivery of medical care here in these United States, medical care itself is often thwarted rather than delivered.

    If you’ve followed this blog at all, you may recall my struggles with the axumin scan and subsequent imaging. Kate still has no wheelchair. She went in Wednesday and got prepped for an unnecessary procedure, called off before it was about to start. Why? What caused her shortness of breath that has now abated? Will we get a referral to Dr. Taryle to answer those questions? Unclear.

    The referral system demanded by insurance carriers is at the heart of all this trouble. It’s the way we curb medical costs. They say. It’s the way they guard their profit margin, I say. Wish we could just get Marine One to pick us up at our front door and deliver us to the doctor or the hospital. That we could get the same kind of care as the President. That all of us could get that kind of care.

    Delay, denial, and skepticism are the main tools of this failed institution. Sure, there are doctors who know what to do, hospitals that deliver excellent care, but how can we access them? The burden of making the system move too often falls to the sick one. This is cruel and inhumane.

    Hoping for a massive and radical change in how Americans receive medical care. Vote. That’s a start.


    Aging Commentary on the news Coronavirus Family Feelings Health Politics Shadow Mountain Third Phase US History

  • WTF

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the RBG Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Family, near and far. Friends. Ancient and new. ADT. Androgen Deprivation Therapy. It’s not just Lupron anymore. For Charlie H. 27 degrees this morning. The Denver Post. Decompensation in full public view. The orange excrescence. Dez and the wheelchair. Kate. And her anger.

    What a long strange trip it’s being. Geez. Took Kate to Swedish for her thoracentesis. We found the ambulatory care unit hidden down a corridor tacked on to the main building, but leading further, past the ACU. Hospitals are often like English buildings with various floors built at different times, different buildings, too, then all stitched together with elevators and hallways.

    I wheeled Kate into Room 9, really a small stall covered with a curtain, where Alice, the nurse, cared for Kate. Alice. Hmm. They hooked Kate up to the hospital oxygen, took her blood pressure, and her O2 saturation. We’d already decided that I would go eat breakfast, so I left for the cafeteria.

    Where there had been a number of tasty options, there were now breakfast burritos wrapped in tinfoil, fruit in cups, some with yogurt, scrambled eggs in small plastic containers. I went with the breakfast burrito and blueberries buried in yogurt.

    Not bad. I stayed in the cafeteria awhile because it was big, airy, very few tables spaced far apart. Not many people. Safer. Weird to think about personal safety in the hospital, but. Covid.

    I find a place in one of those hallways connecting two buildings, no one there, but with a convenient, lonely chair. Kate called after about twenty minutes.

    Come get me. I’m done. Oh. It was before 10:30, the time of her procedure. Huh. I got up and walked down the ACU corridor again, past medical oncology, and cardiac testing reception. Wondered briefly what it was like to spend your working life in such a dismal looking space.

    When I got there, Kate surprised me. The ultrasound tech came and said there is no pleural effusion. What? She had an IV in, four pokes, she has terrible veins, and she looked angry. As well she might. We’d come in Friday evening, about an hour and a half round trip, for a drive up Covid test. Then we’d come Tuesday for the ct scan. Another hour and a half plus the contrast, and a long ride across other corridors and into other buildings to find an available cat scan machine.

    Now we’d come in a third time in six days. Parked. Gotten tested at the lobby with the temperature gun, received green and white pre-screened for Covid wrist bands, checked in, schlepped to the ACU. Kate had been hospital gowned. a sheet gotten for her to cover up, and a nurse had taken four tries with a very sharp needle to insert an IV. Then, nada.

    Alice. Indeed. We’d gone down the hospital looking glass.

    We have an appointment with Taryle for next week. WTF, doc?

    Also, still no wheel chair. We’re renting one. Though. Dez, Lisa Gidday’s nurse, says she’s on it. I believe her.


    Aging Colorado Coronavirus Family Health Jefferson County Mountains Shadow Mountain Third Phase

  • Paying the Price

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the RBG Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Groveland. The Ancient Ones. The ancientrails of wondering and friendship. The Darkness. The Stars, now steady. Kate’s stoma site. Getting clear and healthy. Kate. Just Kate, always Kate. Exposure. Fear. 28 degrees this a.m. The Gold in them thar Hills: Aspen. Magwa, the hero Rat. The clan.

    So what happens to me. I over prepare. I go deep but the subject has only so much time. I’m disappointed. Did I give them anything? Did I intervene too little? Was I defensive? Will they want me back? Especially yesterday with It’s Beyond Me.

    Zoom of course. Perhaps my choice of style, a discussion rather than a straight presentation. The inherent ambiguity of the topic. Felt off when it finished.

    Also, I need this. I need to try something new. Learn something new. Be in this zoom moment as an actor, not only a passive observer.

    Watched Social Dilemma on Netflix. The second of three documentary recommendations from the ancient ones. Again, not much new. Still, disturbing. I’m writing this in Firefox, using duckduckgo as my search engine. I practice good hygiene on Facebook and still love the old friends and Irish Wolfhounds. I heard the young, bright manipulators, but did not hear the path forward. Unless it’s regulation. Which is a duh unless you hate regulation as evil government intervention. I’m for it.

    As I changed Kate’s bandage yesterday, we talked. I’m wondering how we can lift ourselves out of, or away from, this medicalization? I mean, I don’t want to see you as a patient all the time, but with all these appointments and treatments, it’s hard. Our life is not that. Yet, it is.

    Right then, Rabbi Jamie called, wondering how Kate was? She mentioned this thought I’d just had. He listened. He had some time before Yom Kippur and wanted to connect with some folks. They miss us. We’ve been absent even from zoom mussar for over a month.

    Covid. Makes all this hard. Kate can’t go to Patchworkers or Needleworkers. We don’t go to mussar at CBE. Or, services. Or the occasional program. It will soon be Sukkot and the booth is up, but we’re not there to participate. Yes, this is life now. Yes, it has its price.

    God, this is cheery.


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  • Labor Day

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

    Monday gratefuls: For all those workers who have kept up their jobs, at risk to themselves, so that we might have necessities like food, gas, medical care. Talking with Kate, releasing my angst from below. Letting go of my desire to paint, to write. For now. Spaghetti alfredo last night. Chicken brine. Rommertopf.

    Labor day. What a tough and ironic holiday for right now. Labor day. Millions who had jobs in March have none now. Labor day. Millions who kept their jobs fear for their lives and their family’s lives because of their exposure to Covid. Labor day. Unions representing only a small portion of the work force. Labor day, Certain jobs, like policing, have been exposed for their rotten cultures. Labor day when those who work with their hands have few chances.

    Labor day. The government at the Federal level has abandoned laid off workers. Governments at the state and city levels, levels of government also hard hit by the pandemic and the economic crisis, do what they can. Too little.

    Labor day. Going back to school day. Only for some and those who have gone back have had outbreaks. Back to school for many, most? Boot up the laptop, sign in to the school’s website, go to your class. Learn. Works fine if you have quiet, if you have a laptop, if you have an internet connection, if you’re a self-starter, an already good learner. For others? Not so sure.

    Labor day. September 1 ends meteorological summer and starts meteorological fall. Also augurs the imminent Flu season. How will labor do if Covid and the Flu join hands, mutually infecting people?

    Labor day. An ironic holiday for current times.


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  • America’s Id

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Amber and Lisa. Hummingbirds. Simple joys. Lisa. Her obvious concern and help. Derek, who offered to complete our fire mitigation work. A day of sunshine yesterday. Drove 150 miles yesterday to medical appointments. In air conditioned comfort. Tisha B’av. A day of mourning for the loss of the first and second temples. And, later, for all the trials of the Jews, including pogroms and the holocaust. A somber day. Yesterday.

    A video maker held his Black Lives Matter sign in what he called the “most racist town in the U.S.,” Harrison, Arkansas. Here’s an edited version of that experience.

    This video could be titled, America’s Id.

    Also in America’s south, NASA successfully launched its Perseverance spacecraft. Headed to Mars with a helicopter and water seeking instruments, Perseverance continues the human fascination with life not of Earth. It will land in the middle of February, 2021 in Jezero Crater. An excellent explainer about why NASA chose Jezero is this July 28th article in the NYT.

    Though Earthbound and isolated on Shadow Mountain Perseverance gives me a thrill. And, not just a thrill, but a scientific extension of my own interests. It pleases me in a deep way that we’ve not abandoned space exploration. Humans need to know, to explore, to test ideas and equipment. And, Mars! Speculations abound. I’m glad we Americans can still pull together for such an event. Looking forward to next February.

    America’s Id and its shiniest example of hope. We are both, all. This time calls for Perseverance.


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  • Dealing With A Rough Patch

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Almost reorganized living room. Kate’s hands. Dreams. Rains. Cool. The life we live. Nyquil. Pollen. Tramadol. THC. End of the staycation tomorrow. Perry Mason on HBO. Wet earth. Petichor. The tragedies and joys of our days.

    Dreams. Trying to find third gear in a GTO going up a snowy hill. A new phone, different design, metal plate beside the screen. Meeting folks in a coffee shop. Choppy memories.

    Kate’s going through a rough (rougher) patch. Breathing more difficult. Feeling weak. Not eating much. Scares me. Good thing we see the doc tomorrow. Hard to know how to be. Honest? This scares me. Me, too, she says. Or, should I try to remain upbeat, better tomorrow, some new drug?

    Not wanting to send her down, but not wanting to be dishonest either. I find it hard since my default is to go with the clearest, most real. Not sure what helps her. Me.

    It’s been a cool week plus here, nice sleeping. That’s helped both of us. On the other hand the cooler, cloudier weather also dampens the inner weather.

    Derek works hard, moving logs first on a dolly, then with his jeep over to his house and his wood pile.

    Good seeing Mary and Mark this morning. Things are still in between for them both. He’s awaiting the late August, early September startup of his school in Riyadh. She’s waiting for Malaysia’s borders to open so she can go there into 14 days of quarantine. After she’ll be with Guru until the next academic year in Kobe, Japan. Retired. Sorta.


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  • Save Baron

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: The Wolf’s Trail. A gift from a close friend. Thanks, Tom. Amazon. (I know. But, still.) Pick-up. Yet more rain. 49 degrees this morning. Sushi Win. Spring rolls. Wonton soup. Sushi Win special role. Rigel, head out the window, ears back, facial fur streaming back. Ivory. Old reliable. 120,000 miles. Still fine except for air con and a couple of dings. Black Mountain Drive. Brook Forest. Evergreen.

    When I last saw granddaughter Ruth, she told me about a movement among her peers, 14 years old or so, called Save Baron. I love this. His age peers taking either an ironic or a genuine interest in his welfare. Not exclusive notions. What would it be like, they think, to be Baron? With Melania the naked first lady and the orange topped donald as a father? Who better to underline his predicament than those entering high school this year? I hope they succeed. The world does not need another person with the donald’s politics or, even worse, his aesthetics.

    Doom scrolling is impossible to dodge unless you never look at the news, online or on the tube or at your breakfast table. Headlines. Numbers with arrows. Graphs. Maps with red states, orange states, brownish states. A vaccine comment here. A why did they wait so long to lock down article there? An article on the economy here.

    And it’s not like we don’t care. We do. But everyday. All the time. The slow drip, the fast drip. Hard.

    Kate’s had more bad days than good ones recently. Shortness of breath, nausea, general ickiness. Episodic. A bad stretch right now. A lot of it down to Sjogren’s. The rest? Don’t know. Makes things darker here on Shadow Mountain.

    I’ve had another round of allergies. New this year. Not sure what’s up with that, but it’s unpleasant. Stuffy. Runny. Headache. Colors the days here, too.

    Wanted this to be more upbeat, but…


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