Winter Garden Planning Moon
Another bit of photoshop work. This photo in Pizarro’s house in Lima, Peru.
One other odd bit of info. Tomorrow I go off private health insurance and enter Medicare. A transition I’m making with this beautiful lady.
Also, look tomorrow for Imbolc posting.
Winter Garden Planning Moon
Second (and last of this class) photoshop class tonight. Boy, is this a complex program and it’s only one in the Creative Suite. Lot of cool things but they will require a good bit of fiddling with before I get good with them. A lot of fiddling.
(granddaughter Ruth and lightning)
As I walked to the parking lot from the huge Champlain High School building tonight, it hit me that this is the future for many of us over 65. Classes, taking up space in buildings occupied by kids during the day. And what a great deal that we have this kind of learning available.
Last week I used one of the second floor bathrooms. In the men’s room the toilet paper was on a heavy, padlocked metal chain. The janitor was there and I asked him about it. He said you wouldn’t believe the condition of the restrooms at the end of many school days.
Best news. My cousin Leisa, in a coma for a couple of months following a stroke, has begun to speak. Stunning and happy news.
A productive day, another 1,500 words on Missing, some tentative stabs at the first essay in Reimagining and a long workout with little knee pain. Yeah.
Since I’ve shifted to this new work schedule, life seems fuller and busier. Seems odd, but it’s true. I guess I’m stuck with an internal engine that will just keep humming along until it can’t work anymore. There are much worse predicaments. In fact this may not be a predicament, just life continuing.
Winter Garden Planning Moon
Back to late-stage industrial capitalism. (see a couple of posts down) In that article from the Atlantic Monthly that I referenced earlier it points out the collapse of middle class wage manufacturing jobs in the US. At the same time I heard yesterday that in spite of the fact that wages have increased slightly, consumers seem to be saving the money instead of spending it.
Then, the radio reporter went on to say, 70% of our economy is driven by consumer spending. Do you see the problem here? We challenge old-age benefits like social security and medicare, demand people take responsibility for their own retirement (which, if successful, will increase savings–which makes sense). We also have an economy, a pillar of which, manufacturing, that used to provided millions of middle-class wage level jobs–think auto workers, steel workers, rubber (tire) workers and their like–is now dominated by robotic machinery. This is done to reduced the work force and hold down wages, both to compete with international manufacturers, such as the ones in China and other parts of Asia.
So, if the economy is driven by consumers (70% is a big chunk!), and the trend in hiring is to use more machines and less workers, and a further trend is to bust unions (see all the right to work laws under consideration in state legislatures) and chip away at employee benefits, then who will be left with money to prop up the economy.
Unemployed people or people employed at below living standard wages don’t line up at Target or Best Buy or head out to restaurants. Not because they don’t want to. Because they can’t.
The big contradiction then is this: our economic engine requires more and more economies on the part of industry and business to stay competitive in global and local trade. Many of these economies come at the expense of income and benefits for American citizens (read: consumers), the very ones who drive our economy. So?
Winter Garden Planning Moon
On a round of errands. First stop. CVS. Two items: a knee brace, number 2 for my left knee, now complaining because I’ve left it unsupported. I think.
And, of all things, Nair. For my head. Yes, that’s right. I’m about to try something I consider weird. Sort of the anti-Rogaine approach to hair loss. This stems from a period, recent past, when my hair grew out and the remaining hair on top insisted on standing up and imitating a mohawk, a really wispy, faint mohawk. What to do?
Comb it over? Didn’t work. Static electricity kept popping it back up. Kate cut it with the rest of my hair but then the remaining lawn on top had a raggedy look. So, I took the clippers and shaved the edges. Ah. More symmetrical.
Still. Looked silly. Next stop. The razor. Yes, I shaved my head. I know, but hey, I said adjusting to the last third of life had its moments. This is one of them for me. Kate suggested a hypoallergenic depilatory. Say that one ten times fast.
I find this product on shelf space devoted to waxing. Specifically Brazilian bikini waxing. I know. Do I want products like that on my head? Fortunately, the old standard from long ago, Nair, comes in several flavors, one of them for sensitive skin. Mine. Gonna try it.
What’s next? Johnson’s Wax for that all day shine.
Winter Garden Planning Moon
Moving into the last third of life. Kate’s coming total retirement, no more part time work, probably sometime around March. The 65th coming up for me. Markers of a turn the vessel of our lives is making, a long slow turn, no Costa Concordia, this one’s on a chart, at least the first markers then the notation, this way there be the unknown.
In the first third we crank ourselves up, get educated, separated, motivated, maybe even liberated. In the second third we’re all about output. Children, money, ambition, advancement. Then this last third, a part of life with little real road map since folks just didn’t use to live this long. Or be healthy this long. Now here we come. Whee.
The briefcase gets put in the closet one last time. The suits rotated to the back of the closet. Paychecks stop. Driving diminishes. The old standards, the important ones, the things we got ready for, studied for, prepared for, lived out, no longer apply.
What if the work was it? What if the identity there was me? Who am I now?
You might think someone out of the day-to-day workforce for as along as I have been, since 1991, going on 21 years, would have answered those questions. Maybe not.
The volunteer work I’ve taken on has had work like trappings,work like I did when I worked for the Presbytery. The Sierra Club and the politics. Even the occasional preaching and organizational consulting. What I used to do. The MIA work has been, I admit, different in content and style, but it had this commonality, complexity and challenge.
And, to be honest, even when I contemplate pulling back toward home, back toward work only I can do, I still see it as work. That is, a full on expression of who I am, hold nothing back, go for it.
Maybe I’m not able to kick back, relax. Let the kids do it. Though. I’m glad I’ve worked with the Sierra Club because it has introduced to me a younger generation very much in the fight, hands on the banner, no letting the flag waver. It makes me feel better about pulling back from political work.
Not sure I know quite what I’m trying to say here, at the end. Maybe I’m worried that my continuing results orientation is a way of avoiding the next turn in our life. A way of not sighing, watching the moon. Patting the dog.
Ancor impari.
Winter Garden Planning Moon
Business meeting this morning. Kate worked yesterday. Still fine tuning the budget, but it looks pretty well crafted right now. Just have to manage it for awhile, get the feel of it. We checked our calendar out through March, making sure we didn’t conflict on car use. Moving to one car has, so far, been easier than I had imagined it would be.
Cranking on Missing now. 1,500 words a day. Challenging, but not too much so that I can’t do it and still do other things.
Still in transition, but the patterns and the rhythm have begun to come clear. Finally, on Friday, I noticed the benefit of the short burst training I’ve been doing. Lower heart rate at higher workloads on the easy days. Increased weight on the resistance work. Gotta keep changing things up.
Winter Garden Planning Moon
Watched “Water” a film by Deepa Mehta. This is a powerful, powerful film. I know. It was made in 2005 and I just got around to watching it. The effects of living north of 694.
Set in Ghandi’s era in India, it features a group of widows who live together in an ashram supported by a sultry widow sold into prostitution by the corrupt widow who rules the ashram. Forbidden to remarry, the widows, many widowed young in arranged marriages, must live as if they were, as Ghandi puts it, “strangers to love.”
This movie is a clear slap in the face to an India still struggling to deal with both independence and the changed global community in which some of their traditions appear at best antiquated and at worst oppressive and cruel.
It is part of a trilogy: Earth, Fire and Water. Kate and I watched Fire last year. It, too, is a powerful movie, this time about love between women caught in loveless marriages.
I just ordered Earth.
Winter Garden Planning Moon
Learning more and more about photoshop.
Winter Garden Planning Moon
Wow. From NASA.
Winter Garden Planning Moon
Kate sent the check off for the bees. Two two pound packages of Minnesota Hygienics. They should come around tax filing deadline. A happier thing to hive bees.
We also decided on the plantings for our garden this season. I’ll wait a bit on sending out the order.
In other news: yes, I left the honey I intended to take Roy Wolf on the counter top. Here. Yes. I left the rug I intended to take to American Rug Laundry in the garage. Here. Yes, I apparently sent a test back to my doctor without my name on it. And that’s just this week.
Who’s turning 65 soon?
On a different note. Two fun groups of kids today. Asian art tours. One kid said, “I have a wonder. I wonder whether the Chinese see our living rooms as weird? Like we see theirs?” Don’t know about you but I imagine either one would see our living room as weird.
The museum has artificial turf and tropical plants, brightly colored metal outdoor chairs and outdoor umbrellas up in the lobby. Called a popup park. One kid asked, “Is this art?” Geez, how would I know?