Monthly Archives: April 2009

Cinema and Television, Garden

Let The Right One In

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Spring          Waxing Seed Moon

Took mulch off this afternoon, off all the beds except the shade bed where some tender mosses lie.   Mulch taken off at this time of year has to remain close to the beds in case it has to go back on due to cold nights.  There are green shoots all round tulips, daylilies, daffodils.  Not much, just above the soil surface, but they are on their way.

A movie Saturday, too.  Last night and this afternoon I watched Let the Right One In, the Swedish vampire movie.  It differs from most vampire movies in its neo-realist style, careful cinematography yet natural compositions.  There is little vampire lore here and what there is seems to run against the grain of the traditional.  Eli, the vampire who is no longer a girl (her pubis has closed, whether sewed or fused is not clear) has remained 12, as she says, “a long time.”  Yet the movie presents her as a twelve year old girl emotionally, not the precocious maturity of young vampires as in Anne Rice’s work.  She has also gathered little in the way of riches or success from her state.

She and Oskar, the lead and also a 12 year old, become friends in an awkward courting ritual that has familiar missteps.  In the end Eli protects Oskar, then Oskar protects her.  A touching story in a gory, blood-dripping way.

Great Work, Politics, Weather +Climate

Wonky Politics

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Spring              Waxing Seed Moon

Kate left home to visit a snow storm.  4-6 inches falls in Denver right now.  Tomorrow will be a good day for a ski oriented family to have a birthday.

Though the southern part of the state has blizzard warnings, we look mild here.  Saturday does not look quite as good as I thought it would for outdoor work.

I popped two alleve and the throbbing went down toward manageable levels.  A vicodin will get me to sleep.  Bearable now.

A week plus of little commitments stretches out ahead of me, so I plan to school myself on Sierra Club issues, especially safe mining and building sensible communities.  Environmental politics has a wonky aspect once you get past tree-spiking and waving signs.  A lot of science and complex theory behind much of the work makes even entry level understanding a challenge.

How have I continued to work without a detailed knowledge of the issues?  Well, two things.  One, I have a good, broad grasp of the issues, just not a detailed one.  Second, the politics have been what interested me initially and politics I understand.   The Sierra Club folks understand the legislative process much better than I do, but in politics I’m a quick study and I was not as far behind in understanding as I was on the issues.

General

One Tooth

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Spring         Waxing Seed Moon

I have become one tooth and I throb.  There is a beat where normally there is none.  My person, my attention absorbed not by pain, but by ache.  This will pass, yet right now it has come on strong.  Yikes.

Aging, Art and Culture

“It’s a Blessing If You Need It.”

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Spring  Waxing Seed Moon

Uh-oh.  On my way back from the Institute this morning I felt my left cheek.  Swollen.  Beginning to ache.  I have a funny feeling this may not be a pleasant couple of days.  I called Jeff Erickson, the root canaler.  His office has closed for the weekend.  Not to worry.  He gave me his cell.  Hmmm.  Had to leave a message.  He’ll call back, I’m sure, but hasn’t yet.

Tours this morning were good.  Very different.  The first, from excell academy in Brooklyn Park, had all 4th grade boys, some African and some African-American.

He just called back.  The anti-biotics I have will be enough to see if this goes down.  The pressure has begun to build.  He said if I still had trouble early next week he might go in and lance it.  I said, “That crossed my mind.  Unpleasantly.”  “Oh, no,” he said, “it’s a blessing if you need it.”   I’ll take his word for it.

Koran and Mohammed were two of the boys.  These were inquisitive, interested kids who’d never been to a museum before.  They wanted to look at everything.  They asked me we had anything by Leonardo Da Vinci.  No.  How about the Blue Boy?  No.  How about Georgia O’Keefe?  Yes.  We made a game out of figuring out which was O’Keefe’s painting.

It’s a cityscape at night, very different from what the boys had seen.  They loved the African masks.  One boy had been to Cameroon and seen his father dance a mask that we had.  They also asked to see illuminated manuscripts.  4th graders.  So we went into the Islamic gallery.  We ended with Chinese calligraphy.  A big hit.  They’d studied Chinese calligraphy and some of their work was in the school hall back at the academy.

Second tour, an Asmat tour, was a couple from Coon Rapids with their 9 or 10 year old daughter.  She had just had a birthday and asked to come to the MIA.  She showed her parents the Chihully in the lobby.  “We studied him in the first grade,” she said.  “Yeah,” her mother said, “she’s culturing us.”

We had a good tour of the Asmat show.  They asked questions, interacted and learned.  It was a fun, intimate family experience.

Weather +Climate

What Kate Leaves Behind On Her Trip To Denver (Grandkids)

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Spring                Waxing Seed Moon

Weather guy in the Star-Tribune tried to cheer us with the news that at no time in April has the temperature fallen below zero since record keeping began.  Only in Minnesota would that be seen as a good thing, or maybe better, something you’d need to know.  April!

Today has a bright morning sun, clear blue skies and well below freezing weather.  This is the same kind of weather we had for a good long while back in February although the temperatures were colder.  The mulch in my garden still has ice, but the ground is clear.  Another cool week ahead of us.

Those of us in Anoka County might find the Rum overflowing this week, at least according to NOAA:

.DAY ONE…TODAY AND TONIGHT FLOODING IS OCCURRING OR EXPECTED ALONG MANY RIVERS AND STREAMS ACROSS CENTRAL AND WEST CENTRAL MINNESOTA…PARTICULARLY THE MINNESOTA AND MISSISSIPPI RIVERS AND THEIR TRIBUTARIES. REFER TO THE LATEST FLOOD WARNINGS…STATEMENTS AND OUTLOOKS FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.

Here’s their weekend forecast, too:

Today: Mostly sunny, with a high near 43. North northwest wind between 6 and 8 mph.

Tonight: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 27. North northeast wind around 6 mph.

Saturday: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 43. Northeast wind between 5 and 9 mph.

Saturday Night: A 30 percent chance of snow, mainly after 1am. Cloudy, with a low around 29. North northeast wind between 10 and 15 mph.

Sunday: A 20 percent chance of snow. Cloudy, with a high near 34. Breezy, with a north northeast wind between 15 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.

Sunday Night: A 20 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 24.

Aging, Literature

Megrims Burn in Sun

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Spring         Waxing Seed Moon

“Knowledge can be communicated but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.” – Herman Hesse

Hesse was a key author in my youth.  I’ve revisited him since, as I am Dreiser right now.  They both hold up well, though Hesse can sometimes seem a bit feverish.  Still, his Steppenwolf had an adult anguish that I did not understand when I read it first at 20.  The Theatre for Madmen Only was a place we all could go if we understood the world in which we lived.  6 months ago, when I re-read Steppenwolf, I realized Harry Haller was mad in an existential way, that he had seen too much, walked too close to the flame.  At 20 he was my hero, today he is a cautionary tale.

The mental megrims of last week have receded, perhaps the sun today burned them out or the root canal gave me some concrete pain.  Whatever the reason, I feel once again whole and engaged.  These ups and downs, a neurotic cycle now much milder than in former years, do get tiresome, as I said a few posts ago, but they no longer paralyze me, stop me in my  tracks.  Thank Jung, John Desteian, age and Zoloft for that.

Tomorrow morning Kate flies off to Denver.  She will be in Grandma heaven.  I saw a license plate holder that said, Parents say no?   Dial 1-800-Grandma.  She’s a good grandma, more a doting grandma than a Jewish grandma, though she is both.

Aging

Repairs and Check-Ups

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Spring         Waxing Seed Moon

Not sure how April got lined up this, but today I had dental work from 10 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., two different dentists, one filling and filing, the other drilling and packing.  The first guy replaced a filling I popped out and ground down a burr.  The second guy told me he had had 7 years of bad luck since he kissed the Blarney Stone.  (a poster of it was on the ceiling, noticeable when you leaned back in the chair.)  I hoped it had nothing to do with his skill as a root canaler.

He drilled, prodded, filed, poked, then packed, pushed, pushed, ground and sanded.  A couple of x-rays and he left me with a prescription for antiobiotics and pain meds.  I thought he’d written a script for 1 vicodin.  It made me a little nervous when the pharmacist returned with 12.  What did he think would happen?

An abscess, two of them in my case, can get kick started into active infection by all the jossling and shaking.  I couldn’t blame them, I felt the same way.  Apparently if this happens the infection grows in a confined space.  Pressure builds and ouch.  Well, I’m ready if it happens.

Anyhow, next week on following days I have opthamologist (glaucoma), dermatologist (psoriasis) and audiologist (hearing decline in my one remaining ear).  I’m responsible for all of these, but I made them separately away from my calendar.  By next weekend I should be tuned up and ready to rock.