Monthly Archives: January 2012

Humanities, Literature

A New Way to Translate

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Winter                                          First Moon of the New Year

May have found a new method for working on the latin.  Translate it as well as I can, let it sit, then come back to it and go over it to produce an idiomatic translation.  Going back over it and checking word choices forces me to make finer grained decisions among meanings, catch  errors in reading verb tenses and create a better, smoother work.

Up to this point I’ve done step 1, translate as well as I can, then I’ve left it until Friday to go over with Greg.  This may be a mistake, really only part way there.  Gonna try this new way for the next couple of weeks, though I travel next week to Denver and Greg the week after that Portugal, so we won’t be back together until the 28th.

 

 

General

Republicans Work Hard to Elect Obama

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How ’bout those Republicans?  If they work hard enough, they can give Obama the room he needs to squeeze in a second term.  If the economy markedly improves and unemployment begins an appreciable drop, then the Osama card and health care reform might give him the impetus he needs.

Rick Santorum did well in Iowa.  He prides himself on being a conservative on social issues.  Back in the day, conservatives wanted the guberment to keep out the bedroom, not legislate morality and focus on the economy, stupid.  Now they vote, as Santorum did consistently under GW, for deficit budgets to fight wars and promote a right wing agenda.  And they want marriage limited to a man and a woman, abortion made illegal again, guns in your hand whenever and wherever, immigrants treated like criminals instead of an economic necessity and the future of our country and whatever other bible bangin’ notion might occur to someone later on.

Oh, my.

General

Not A Feel Good Day

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Winter                                         First Moon of the New Year

Two tours today.  Fourth graders.  The first group asked questions, had opinions, stayed engaged.  The second group, after lunch, had a couple of boys that wanted to sneak away, hide and was not as engaged.  Hard to say what was going on there.

After those tours, I went over to have lunch with Margaret, executive director of the Sierra Club.  I told her I needed to pull back on my volunteer work.  It felt bad, like I was reneging on a promise, even though I’ve given them three solid years of work.

She was very gracious and kind.  So, I’ll be putting the Sierra Club in the past in a bit.

Tough day, overall.  Not a feel good.

Aging, Health

Man On Fire

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Winter (?)                              First Moon of the New Year
Kate’s off at work.  The dogs are quiet and I’m finishing up some work before I work out.  Just mailed the Sierra Club legcom’s agenda for next week’s meeting.  Moved Gertie and Kona’s crates up stairs.  Read a couple of chapters in The Art of Fielding. (Bill Schmidt, this novel takes place in a college that reminds me of St. Norberts.  You might want to take a look.  Mine is an e-book or I’d lend it to you when I’m done.)

(This is what I think I look like while I’m doing short burst training.)

Now I’m drinking my cup of Awake tea, two tea bags worth.  I read somewhere that caffeine helps workouts and I can report that it’s true.  I don’t get nearly as exhausted 

(This is what I really look like when I’m done.)

These workouts are known as short burst training.  You run or bike or do push-ups, whatever, as hard as you can for 30 seconds or a minute.  Then, you quit and do resistance work, stretching, balance work until your heart rates drops back to base-line.  At which point you do another minute at hard as you can.  You keep this up for four or five short bursts.

The advantage to it is that in between you get all your resistance work done and, when you’re in peak shape, you can do the whole work out in 30 minutes.  It takes me 40 + right now, because my heart rate takes longer to drop back down after the third burst.  But that will change.

 

Humanities, Literature, Myth and Story, Weather +Climate, Writing

A Morning During Our Long November

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Winter                            First Moon of the New Year

Our long November continues.  Patchy snow, mostly bare ground and leafless trees.  Occasional sunshine, like today, otherwise gloomy and gray.   I’m disappointed in the season since I believe we have to earn our springs here and I’m not sure we’re going to this year.  Of course, last year may have counted for two.

Action method and Evernote have both made my work on the computer much more productive.  I can switch seamlessly among projects now without having to do a lot of hunting for files and resources.  Since my days have become more and more study oriented this means a lot to me.

(remember last winter?)

Kate’s out having lunch with a friend, Penny.  I worked on Ovid, finished up my ten verses for this week.  This afternoon I’ll check out my objects for my two China tours tomorrow and probably enter some more of the material I wrote last March at Blue Cloud.

I’m getting close to having that finished.  Once I do, I’ll go back over my notes and start writing again.  I expect I’ll have a rough draft finished in February if things go well.  I’ll start on Book II after that.

 

Aging, Art and Culture, Bees, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Humanities, Myth and Story, Retirement, Writing

On Moving Toward Doing the Work Only I Can Do

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Winter                              First Moon of the New Year

Spent yesterday shifting to my new work schedule.  A couple of hours on Ovid, plus analyzing some of Caesar’s Gallic Wars.  Edited three portions of the Tailte Mythos:  Book I and began clipping postings from Ancientrails to consult for my first essay in the Reimagining project.

Also learned that I can’t go to sustaining status at the MIA until I’ve had 8 years as a docent.  Sustaining would cut my tour requirements in half.

This means I’m going to have duck out of the Sierra Club sooner than I had planned.

No plant starts this year.  I’m going to buy already started plants and of those only those we decide to grow for particular, planned uses.  We’re going to shift our gardening now toward minimalism, toward those things we’ll preserve.  Two colonies of bees.  Emphasizing less maintenance everywhere, planting towards a time when the gardens will need even less, eventually very little care.

Life’s focus changes as our lives change and now I’ve become focused on those kind of things only I can do.  Only I can write the Tailte books.  Only I can set down my scattered thoughts about a sort 0f ur-faith, a common reverence all of us on the planet might share.  Others might/will translate Ovid, but only I will work toward a beginner’s level commentary, one similar to Pharr’s commentary on Vergil.

Not sure why now for this shift except to say that I know my time is finite.  Yes, it always has been, that’s true, but now it seems existential.  No, I’m not covering something up here, I’m not ill, in fact, I just got a set of labs that Kate says are typical of a 40 year old.

Long ago, in my 20’s, I read an article about when certain professions reach their maturity.  You know the material about mathematicians and scientists, early ripe, but certain other professions matured much later, writers and artists, for example, with the oldest age of maturation according to this reckoning being 50, for philosophers.

Factoring in my drinking and an early career emphasis on politics and the practical side of religion, I don’t find 65 to far out of range for me.  I feel mature in my thinking and writing skills now and I need to deploy them or my unique contribution will be lost.

Aging, Holidays

2012

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Winter (snow, at last!)                           First Moon of the New Year

OK.  I stayed up until midnight.  Now what?

Another year.  Didn’t we just do this last year?  The whole new year’s thing.

Kate and I shared champagne flutes of a Fre sparkling wine, toasted her retirement, our family and friends, the next year together, our 22nd as a married couple and then she went to bed, she who usually goes to be around 8pm stayed up until 11:30.

We watched a Netflix streaming movie, Mao’s Last Dancer, a so so movie about a Chinese ballet dancer who chose to stay in the US after a year with the Houston Ballet.  This was the mid-80’s.  The movie barely makes sense in current time.  China’s much different, more confident and we’re much different, less confident.

So, Happy New Year to each of you and all of you, all at once!