Wish They All Could Be California…Wines

Lughnasa                                 Waxing Green Corn Moon (99% illuminated)

Kate and I watched Bottle Shock, a movie about the U.S. Bicentennial year taste test between French and American wines.  California’s Napa Valley wines won.  The British oenologist who created the test redid it in 2006 anticipating that the French wines would win.  They did not.  Napa again.

It’s a bit difficult for me to tell whether I don’t get it because I don’t drink alcohol, but the whole veneration of vinculture and its products seems overblown.  Just sayin’.

Tonight the almost full Green Corn Moon is a yellow orb hanging high in the southeast sky.  It makes the evening enchanted.  The Japanese have moon viewing platforms.  Seems like a good idea to me.

More medical visits tomorrow with Kate, trying to track down the elusive next and hopefully better treatment.

Not sure whether I wrote anything about the whole Favre who-ha, but here it is:  thank god it didn’t happen.  Any superbowl won by the Vikings with Brett Favre at the helm would have tainted the experience and us long suffering Viking’s fans deserve a clean win, straight up with no cross state retired quarterback in the mix.  That said, it does not appear to me that either Tavaris Jackson or Rosenfels have the stuff, but I hope I’m wrong.

Time at the Temple

Lughnasa                                   Waxing Green Corn Moon

A tour with students attending a summer Chinese class went well.  These kids were a bit shy at first, but they warmed up and began to interact.  We investigated the honoring of ancestors, the development and elaboration of Confucian thought and Taoist thought as well as the introduction and spread of Buddhism.  I’ve still not hit on a good way to talk about these three.  In the West we often refer to them as religions, but they’re not, at least in their original forms, religions.  They are philosophies of life, but philosophy of life is an opaque term.  The word religion obfuscates and philosophy creates confusion.  Still a conundrum.

After that tour I spent some time wandering in the temple, as Mark Odegard once referred to the MIA.  The American art tour for the Chilean students this Friday has forced me to investigate new works and revisit in a new way some I already know well.  Jean-Marie told me about a tour she gave called, Picturing America.  Some good tips there.

Lunch with Antra, Sally, Mary, Jean-Marie.  Mac and cheese from the bambino menu for me.  Back home.  Nap.

Now, work out.