Daily Archives: January 7, 2011

Aging, Family, Health, Retirement, Travel

Giddy Kate

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Winter                                                               Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

A very floaty, giddy Kate rode with me back to her truck at the Hair Salon, then climbed in the green Tundra and drove off for her final night of full time medicine.  This is one happy chippy.  Fun to see her so excited.

Before that we went out to lunch at a favorite spot, a sushi place on old Hwy. 10, Takaido.  Not sure what the deal is, but the inside of the place offered little more than shelter against the wind.  It was cold.  I wanted sushi, but couldn’t imagine it in that chilly a space so I got salmon teryiaki with kani in bento box.  The hot tea warmed my hands and the restaurant slowly warmed to bearable.  They took over a fast food building and the outer walls around the dining area are glass and thin masonry.  Brrrr.

The Spectacle Shoppe called and said our glasses had come in, that’s why we were in that part of town.  This place has a really interesting collection of frames.  The owner has a quirky aesthetic, one that I like and so does Kate.  We’ve bought our last several pairs of glasses there, utilizing left over money in our flex-med account.  This is a big source of business for these folks; they even have a $75 off deal for folks using up their flex dollars.

All of Kate’s glasses were done; she had new lenses put in old pairs and bought a pair of new prescription sunglasses.  Aha.  She can see faraway now.  Good for driving.  My reading glasses were done, but new tortoise shell round frames were still waiting on their lenses.  I’ll have to go after we get back from vacation.

As to vacation.  In spite of the fact that we’re going to Denver, I find myself in an oddly sedentary mode.  Wish I could just flash there and flash back, not go through the whole airport rigmarole.  Why I like the train.  But, the timing on this one ruled out the train.l

Friends, Politics, Retirement, US History

Never Ending Terror

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Winter                                                                 Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

The big day has arrived.  Kate’s last shift.  She’s off right now getting her nails done–her constant scrubbing in and out of rooms made fancy nails silly–and her toes, since she wears sandals almost all year round.  This way she’s dolled up for tonight and for the next week in Colorado.

Back a bit I bought a print by a Minnesota artist, Mike Elko.  It hangs to the right of this computer and looking at it right now triggered a major aha.  The print is the faux cover of a magazine, Practical Paranoia.  It features a cartoon woman with sixties hairdo and clothing, a tear trickling down her face and this copy next to her:  He keeps saying, “If you question me, then the terrorists have won!”  Is all of this really necessary or is he just trying to make me crazy?  I live in…

NEVER ENDING  TERROR!

A Bush era piece, I bought it in part as a lest we forget, a cautionary tale about government gone loony.  As I looked at it right now, I realized a huge difference, a huge positive difference between the Bush and the Obama eras.  We don’t feel this way anymore.  There is no longer the Cheney–Rumsfeld–Bolton–Wolfowitz–Kristol nexus, a sort of demented nerve ganglia that twitched and pulsed cries of alarm at every shadow.  Obama has calmed us as a nation while continuing to actively pursue terrorists, and a sober analysis of the Bush methods.