Daily Archives: May 29, 2008

News of the Strange

Their Lawlessness Got out of Hand

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57  bar steep fall 29.94  7mph  ENE dew-point 52  Beltane, cloudy and cool

                       Last Quarter of the Hare Moon

Can this possibly mean what it says?  “While cities are hot spots for global warming, study finds people in them emit fewer gases.”  Washington Post, 5/29/2008   In this same vein I watched part of a National Geographic Program on an outlaw biker gang, the Mongols.  The narrator made this surprising statement, “Their lawlessness got out of hand.”  Hmmm.

When I travel by car, I spend more time picking reading material, movies and audiobooks than I do clothing.  This will not surprise some of you who know my fashion sense, late sixties college student unregenerate, yet it always surprises me. 

Each trip has a theme.  Don’t know when that started, but it helps me make decisions on the road and to deepen the experience.  This trip to Denver, in addition to the obvious theme of tribal initiation (the bris), nature writing and trees will occupy my time.  Not hard to figure out where this came from.

My first nights stay is at the Arbor Day Foundation in Nebraska City, Nebraska.  I’m taking along a book I bought awhile back called Arboretum America.  It tells the story of trees in the history of the US.  Also a book of nature writing.

Family

Years of Change

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58  bar falls 30.01 0mph SW dew-point 52  Beltane, cloudy and cool

                  Last Quarter of the Hare Moon

RJ Devick has his offices at 169 and 394, a tall building, 20 stories, for the burbs.  It has a glass curtain wall and looks like the generic office building.  We go out to see RJ once a year.  At those  meetings we examine our portfolio and its performance–fine–any changes in our financial situation, all positive.  More money in savings.  Kate’s income stayed up rather than decline as we had imagined when she made the shift to managed care.  Kate is within 2 years of retirement.  2 years.

These are years of change, not so much in the purpose of our lives, as in the external actions related to it.  Kate will stop working at Allina, but will keep her license up and volunteer more.  Her change is my change, of course, as the stay at home spouse.  She will enter the homeworld full time and we will have to adjust to that.  I don’t anticipate any major issues.

I leave tomorrow morning for Denver and since Kate uses the laptop for her work, I will not be posting for the next week.  Look for a trip summary next Thursday or Friday.

Friends, Garden, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths

The Most Ancient Trail of All

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54  bar falls 30.06  1mph NE  dew-point 51  Beltane, cloudy and drizzly

                   Last Quarter of the Hare Moon

A change has begun to creep over the Woolly Mammoths.  It is at least late fall for us.  One of us had an episode of Bell’s Palsy over the weekend.  He first thought, as I would have, stroke.  The effects lingered into this week. 

Late last night came news of a Woolly spouse.  Cancer of the utereus.  Adenocarcinoma.  A hopeful prognosis if tests next week find it in an early stage.  Even so.   

Frank’s heart attack before he came to the Woolly’s and his bypass surgery after have kept medical issues in front of us, yes, but these are new.  Fresh.  Signals that we have begun to age.  The fact is that such matters are no longer unusual in our period of life.  While still not common, they will begin to pop with increasing incidence until, one by one, this herd of Woolly Mammoths and their spouses follow those of the Ice Age on that most ancient trail of all.

On a cloudy, cool day with a light rain falling this news could be depressing, but I find it just so.  These matters are as key to our developmental age as were graduations in our 20’s and weddings in our late 20’s and early 30’s.  Like those earlier rites of passage, the action is not in the event itself, but in our reaction to it over time. (to paraphrase Saul Alinsky)

I spent an hour and half outside today, planting and transplanting.  Cloudy, cool, drizzly.  Perfect for that work.  Blue fescue, Maiden Grass, cucumbers, watermelon, squash and morning glories will each enjoy the rain on their first day in their new locations.  The daylily transplant project was part of this and continues, in dribs and drabs, as it will until we finish it, probably some time in July. 

We go out to see RJ Devick, our financial planner/money manager, today.  These situations become more and more pertinent as Kate nears retirment age and I  enter that time when eligibility for both pension and social security are upon me.  Considering these matters thoughtfully are also part of our development period.  We are at the cusp of a major change in our lives.