Daily Archives: January 15, 2012

Family, Travel

Shopping in the Physical Universe Is So Last Millennium

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Winter                                       First Moon of the New Year

Off to Joann Fabrics with Ruth.  Kate and Ruth found fabric to make several dresses, some for Ruth and some for Elizabeth, her American Girl doll.  Granpop went off into the wilds of mall land, proving to himself once again that shopping in the physical universe is so last millennium.

Searching in real time for objects that can be in one of several locations takes a lot of time and, as happened to me this morning, is not always successful.  I did get a new battery for my watch…something that has to be done in the physical world since I don’t remove my own watch backs, though I could I suppose.

Finding a camera strap and a lens cap for my camera proved impossible in the amount of time I had.  Best Buy had neither one, but I did pick up some double A batteries.  The Wolf Camera, supposed to solve my remaining problem acted like the ivory pileated woodpecker.  It just wouldn’t appear.

By the time I got back to Joann Fabrics, an hour plus later, Ruth and Kate had made it to the cash register.  They paid, we hopped in the car and went to Panda Express.  Big fun all round.

Weather +Climate, Writing

Yearning for True Winter

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Winter                   First Moon of the New Year

Cloudy with sun.  Another cheery day here in Denver.  At the moment though my heart yearns for the closed in, snowy gloom of a true northern mid-winter.

This is good weather for taking Ruth on a fabric shopping expedition and granpop will tag along to have lunch with grandma and granddaughter. I look forward to this and will enjoy it.  Probably quite a bit.

But.  It’s not the interior landscape brewed up by howling winds from the northwest, temperatures plunging far below zero and snow so thick going anywhere just can’t happen.

Those days find me in my Herman Miller chair, sandwiched between my desk with its two sloped editing and reading stands and my bookcase with reference materials for art history, philosophy, my current novel, the reimagining faith project and work with Latin.

A crackling fire burns in the green metal gas stove at one end of the small rectangle while my computer and printer punctuate the other.  There’s a tea kettle nearby for heating water to a precise temperature for brewing different kinds of tea.

Here, my body and mind have learned, work happens.  An odd sort of work, I admit.  Work of the heart and the mind, a wordsmithy, data and information in and paragraphs out.  No leather aprons or bulging biceps required.  Nimble fingers help.

Yes this sort of work happens in all seasons and in all manner of weather, but there is none more suitable than the quiet of a snow silenced, cloud darkened day.

The desire for this weather and this place comes, in part. from missing fall and returning to a weak, almost non-existent winter.  More than that though that yearning reflects a sense that I have identified my work, that I have it underway and I want to stay at it.

That is, however, my feeling this morning, here in the Best Western, before we connect up again with the grandkids.  When we do, this will be the best place to be.