Category Archives: Family

A Tradition Thousands of Years Old

April 20, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

59 bar rises 29.84 1mph NE dewpoint 46 Spring

Full Moon of Growing

Kate and I observed a tradition thousands of years old tonight. We got out the Haggadh, put the horseradish, cilantro, haroset, boiled egg and lamb bone (we substituted a chicken leg.) on a Seder plate. A small egg shaped cup held the salt water, the Elijah cup stood ready for his return. We had matzoh and we hid the aphikomon for the dogs. They were, as the passover ritual suggests, children unable to inquire. We worked together within the limitations of our planning and availability of certain goods to produce a meal, to read the Seder ritual and retell the timeless story of enslavement and liberation, the Exodus.

This Haggadh, the language and shape of the Seder laid out in book form, is hopeless. It is sexist in the extreme; sexist where no law of faith requires it. Kate suggested I write one of my own and I just might.

It is a little strange for me, metaphysically speaking, to participate in this ritual with solemnity, which aspects of it requires. Once I get in the flow of it though the ritual and the language and the songs blend together and become a hymn to the life of a people and their relationship with their highest and best sense of themselves. It is a story which acknowledges human frailty as well as longing for the divine, bravery as well as fear. It is their story, but also our story. Bondage, liberation and the struggle for freedom belong not just to the Jews, but to everyone.

Family, Garden, Travel, Weather +Climate

Compounding Pharmacies

April 17, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

44 bar rises 30.06 2mph N dewpoint 31 Spring

Waxing Gibbous Moon of Growing

A gray, cool start after a shirt sleeve day yesterday. We’re still in the hurry up and wait phase of gardening. It’s a bit too early for clean up, certainly too early for planting anything but cold weather crops. We don’t tend to do those, at least not so far, so the hydroponics are our primary entry in this years vegetable garden. The lettuce seedlings and tomato plant I put under the light first have grown rapidly. Not ready for harvest anytime soon, but on the way.

Kate made me aware of compounding pharmacies, a vestigial remnant of that which all pharmacies used to be, independent pharmaceutical manufactories. There are six in Minnesota including one in St. Paul, St. Peter and Wayzata. The Wayzata pharmacy has a glitzy name, RxArtisans. I knew a few of those when I was in college. The growth and reach of pharmaceutical companies has reduced the average pharmacy to nothing more than a retail distributor of already compounded drugs. This results, of course, in a matching of patients to available drugs and their available dosages, whereas the compounding pharmacy matched drugs to patients both in dosage and delivery vehicle.

The Delta buyout of Northwest, not a merger, will not be certain for some time to come. The pilots association of Northwest and the other unions flight attendants, ground crews and mechanics are about to become part of a larger, non-unionized pool. This creates probable labor and culture conflicts from day one. Also, congress and the regulators still have to approve, as does Wall Street. Both companies share price dropped the day after the announcement, an unusual event. Also, both airlines have an aging fleet of planes and debt hangover from their respective bankruptcies. The State of Minnesota wants its incentives back since Northwest, with the merger, violates the remain in Minnesota provision. All this reflects the turbulent nature of an industry who excels in nothing quite so much as an uncomfortable experience delivered for hundreds of dollars.

Family, Travel, Weather +Climate

Air Conditioning

April 10, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

33 bar steep fall 29.69 7 mph NE dewpoint 32 Spring

Waxing Crescent Moon of Growing

Just got a call from the Sierra Club inviting me to my own party. I said, “OK.”

The rain turned to part snow around 4:50PM and looks like it’s mostly snow now. As soon as the temps drop, it will transition to full snow and if it comes up this rate, it will accumulate.

Checked out airfare to Dallas/Ft. Worth in July. Only for family would I go to Dallas/Ft. Worth and only for a family reunion would I go in July. Once, long ago, I took the train from Indiana to Ft. Worth where my Dad’s brother, Charles, lived. On the way I got molested while taking pictures with my Brownie camera, but I said, “Don’t do that.” to the guy who put his hand between my legs and he went away. It was not a big deal then or now.

I hit Ft. Worth just as the temperature racked up 107. I didn’t know the temperatures in the world really got that hot. I knew it theoretically, but empirically? No way. This would have 1956/7 and I’d only experienced air conditioning on rare occasions. I remember repeating after I got back: I went from an air-conditioned train, to an air-conditioned car, to an air-conditioned house. This was remarkable.

What the temps will be like this time I have no idea, but air-conditioning has gone from a comment-worthy rarity to a personal necessity. I have no doubt we’ll be well cooled.

That weather seems a long way from the winds today, which hit 34 at 2:10pm, and the driving snow that builds up on our lawn as I write this.

Family, Weather +Climate

Hairdo By Tesla

April 10, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

38 bar falls 30.02 7 mph N dewpoint 31 Spring?

Waxing Crescent Moon of Winds

Snow. Lotsa snow. An inch an hour possible. Winds gusting this morning up to 13 mph. That ol’ Hawthorn giant has his sinewy grip on us and won’t let go. My hope is that it winds down before Saturday, since I’ve got to travel about 200 miles north to Bemidji. When I signed up to speak there last September, I didn’t imagine I might face blizzard conditions on the 13th of April. Northern living.

Just looked over pictures from Kate’s trip. Here’s Ruth at her #2 birthday party. Hairdo by Tesla.

Our family is complete again. Kate’s home. The dogs are home. I’m home. Feels good.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, General

Masters of the Universe

April 9, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

42 bar falls 30.14 6mph NNE dewpoint 31 Spring

Waxing Crescent Moon of Growing

Some of this, some of that. Reorganized a few books in the study. Called the folks at NOW fitness to get a repair for the treadmill. Surprise! It has a lifetime warranty. Can you beat that? I bought it 12 years ago and have used it 5-6 times a week since then. Finished Spiderman III. It got better at the end, but it was too adolsecent for my tastes in the middle, felt long. Read about Cristina Sanchez, a late 1990’s matadora. Looked her up on the Web. She quit because of the sexism. Can you imagine sexism in a bull-fighting culture?

Talked to Kate. Talked to Vanguard folks who won’t accept my lawyers letter with a medallion signature. They need yet more paper. Geez. Sorted through several tour related snafus. A nap. Now a workout.

Kate comes home tonight. She went to the Asia Museum in San Francisco and on the way back (today) she encountered the heavily guarded Olympic torch and had to walk a whole block square to get back to her hotel.

Oh, I also took the treadmill controls apart myself and cleaned them, looked for jammed parts. The rest of the assembly is electronics and didn’t look accessible to my limited knowledge. That’s when I called the shop.

Tom Crane has the Woolly meeting in May. He has asked us to think about mastery. In particular he wondered if there was any special meaning behind references to Jesus as master. I looked that up today and found, to my surprise, that each time you read master in the new testament, the word translated is the Greek word for teacher. There’s a reason for this, but the dogs want to go out now. Maybe I’ll get back to it later.

Family, Great Work, Woolly Mammoths

My Y Chromosome

April 7, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

32 bar steep rise 30.08 1mh NNW dewpoint 27 Spring

Waxing Crescent Moon of Growing

This invitation is also for any of you read this blog and would like to come. I’d love to see you.

Sierra Club Power 2 Change House Party Monday, April 14th

7:00-8:00PM

Hosted by Charles Buckman-Ellis 3122 153rd Ave. NW. Andover.Learn about the Power 2 Change campaign, an effort to educate the public about what is at stake in the 2008 elections. High gas prices and America‘s dependence on foreign oil have made energy one of the most pressing and important issues of this political season. We face a crossroads, and we need to challenge all of our elected officials, including the next President, to provide the leadership we need to move America in a new direction on energy. Between now and Earth Day on April 22nd, the Sierra Club is working to get the word out that we need leadership who will make the right choices. Join us for refreshments, meet your neighbors and learn how you can take action. RSVP to Margaret at 612-659-9124 ext. 306 or Margaret.levin@sierraclub.org Visit the web site to learn more about this important effort: http://www.sierraclub.org/power2change/minnesota/

Note: This is NOT a fundraiser.

Come to the event if you can. I’d love to see you. (Anybody who reads this is welcome.)

Whenever Kate comes home and I’m watching a football game or a basketball game, she’ll say, “Aha. Caught you with your Y chromosome in action.” Doesn’t happen often, but had she not been in San Francisco, she could have found me watching the last half and the overtime of the Kansas/Memphis game of the NCAA finals. Whoa. What a game! Kansas, down by 9 with 2:12 left to play and down by 3 with less 2.0 seconds left to play. Chalmers hits the three. Tie. In overtime Kansas takes advantage of a missing big man (Dorsey) and goes on to win pulling away.

That wasn’t all though. Tonight was also Woolly night at the Istanbul. This is a y-chromosome only club. We talked about Rome, about China-Tibet, Danish desserts and Pawlenty’s veto of the Central Corridor light rail. Stefan and Bill celebrated birthdays. A guy’s night out.

Talked to Kate when I got home. She’d called the home phone, left a message and said she forgot I was the Woolly’s and that she’d call tomorrow. I picked up the cell phone, called her cell phone. She answered. I said, “I just called to tell you we’re old farts.” “Why?” “Because I could have had my phone turned on and you could have called me at the Istanbul.” “You called me on the cell phone just to see if I’d answer?” “Yeah. If you hadn’t, that would have meant we were O.F.’s for sure.”

Mailed another package to the serviceman in my life. Still strange.

.

Cinema and Television, Family, Garden, Travel

Really Creepy Vampires

April 4, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

42 bar rises 29.73 0mph W dewpoint 28 Spring

Waning Crescent Moon of Winds

OK. I’m taking off my hair shirt and hanging up my cilici.

Today is Ruth’s second birthday. Ruth is our first granddaughter. The thought of another life, connected to your own, just starting out, makes the world seem a more congenial and more precious place. Her blue eyes, mischievous quality and alertness augur an interesting and bright future. She feeds the dogs, carrying their bowls with that peculiar toddler rolling gate. She also crawls in the dog crate and closes the door to go night/night. (She’s just pretending.) Jon and Jen are good parents, another fact that makes the world more congenial and more precious.

A quiet evening after the workout. Started watching 30 Days of Night. Vampires attack Point Barrow, Alaska just after it heads into 30 days with no sun. One of the vampires says, “We should have come here a long time ago.” A bit of Draculian humor. A good movie so far. Great production values, interesting actors and really creepy vampires.

Kate leaves tomorrow morning at 6:15 AM (with me as taxi driver) for Denver to celebrate Ruth’s birthday, then onto San Francisco for a family practice CME. I plan to do some garden work tomorrow, like put down weed preventer and remove some mulch, maybe rake a bit. It’s still too early to do much, but I’ll be able to get started.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Garden, Our Land and Home, Weather +Climate

Natural Rhythms and Time

April 3, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

53 bar falls 30.03 omph W dewpoint 32 Spring

Waning Crescent Moon of Winds

Over to IHOP for some of that down home country fried food. Always a treat. Kate and I did our business meeting, deposited several thousand dollars in Wells Fargo and came back home. Lois was here. She commented on the amaryllis which have bloomed yet again for me. I do nothing special to them except take them outside in the summer, then back inside in the winter. At some point they decided its ready to bloom, so I put them in a window and water and feed them.

I have no tours tomorrow and so have a good stretch with no art tour work. I like that.

Went outside and looked at the trees. Looks like at least five, two Norway Pines and two River Birch got trimmed back to the hose I used to protect them from sun scald. Those rascally rabbits I presume. In the other area, though, two white pines thrived during the winter, as did a Norway Pine, an oak and, I believe, a River Birch. Feels good to see them growing.

The garlic has begun to push through the soil, a bit pale under the mulch, but I removed it and they will green up fast. Garlic are hardy plants that like a cold winter and they had one this year. They come to maturity in June/July. Drying, then using our own garlic will be a treat.

Wandering around outside gets the horticulture sap rising. I’m itchy to do stuff.

Signed up for a Natural Rhythms and Time course at the Arboretum. It’s a symposium put on by the University’s Institute for Advanced Studies, a real find. If you live in the Twin Cities, I recommend getting on its mailing list.

Faith and Spirituality, Family

Leaving A Profession Well Engaged.

April 2, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

28 bar steady 30.34 0mph SSW dewpoint 24 Spring

Waning Crescent Moon of Winds

“If you’re strong enough, there are no precedents.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

In spite of the perhaps down note I struck in Climbing the Wall yesterday, most of the time I realize that the decision I took when I met Kate, that is, to leave the ministry and concentrate on writing, took a kind of courage and strength many folks have, but never exercise. At 40 years of age, to leave the comfort of a profession well engaged and one in which your prospects appear (at least to others) bright, is too much for most of us.

Without Kate I could not have pulled it off, but I did find this remarkable woman at just the right time. She has supported me every step of the way, including times when I thought I was climbing the wrong wall again. Between the two of us we have managed to defy acculturation with her earning the large salary and me at home. Both of us have brought necessary and key gifts to our marriage, neither more valuable than the other, though, again, the what it means to be male messages of my childhood and those what it means to be female messages from hers could have created shocks too strong to overcome.

It took strength on my part to pull away from the church, but it also took acceptance by Kate of an unusual, even aberrant path for me. It took, in short, the strength of two of us. As most of you who know me well know, this path has not been without difficulty, but it has been worth it.

Faith and Spirituality, Family

A Parent’s Pain, A Young Man’s Journey

March 29, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

42 bar falls 30.04 2mph S dewpoint 20 Spring

Last Quarter Moon of Winds

Joseph called from OTS. He sounded dispirited, demoralized. Drill and military courtesy have tripped him up thus far. His commander has talked about recycling him if he doesn’t improve. He had strings on his uniform, two demerits. Other things, two demerits.

After he hung up, I went into a tail spin myself. When I drove over to Lauderdale for the Chinese New Year’s celebration, I found I couldn’t listen to the lecture on the Ming Dynasty because the obvious dismay in Joseph’s voice distracted me.

It reminds me, as I write this, of the first day of kindergarten. I dropped him off and he began to cry, to run toward me as I turned to leave. My instinct said turn around, scoop him up and take him home. Try this next year. Maybe.

The pain, the deep heart pain, a parent feels when their child struggles has got to be the worst agony of all. Joseph is so dear to me. My instinct is to get in the car, drive down to Maxwell AFB and take him out to dinner. Have a talk, cheer him up. Nope. This is a road he has chosen and one only he can negotiate. If necessary, of course, I’ll be there if it doesn’t work out, but until then he walks on his own.

I can, and will, write him letters and leave messages on his cell phone. Kate and I will send him cookies, but the rest is up to him.

I’m ignorant when it comes to military life, so I don’t know how much of this is the process of breaking down and building back up or how much of it is genuine peril that he won’t finish. One thing I have learned about him though is this, when he sets his heart on something he has a dogged persistence that makes things happen. So, based on his past behavior, I have confidence in him now. The pain, though, is still hard.