Monthly Archives: February 2013

Family, Feelings, Friends, Latin, Third Phase, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Getting My Kicks

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Imbolc                                                                             Valentine Moon

Woke up, saw fluffy white snow outlining the trees, shrubs and fences.  A beautiful way to start my 66th year.  Spoke with brother Mark, Mary kept off by technical issues.  A new hard drive.  Always a good way to lose a program or two.  As they say in the Old Testament, blessings and curses.

I’ve been motoring along this morning finishing up a lengthy session in Ovid.  Or, I should say, several one hour or one hour + sessions that equal a lengthy one.  I’ve translated 21 verses and I’m confident of most of what I’ve done.  There are still hitches in my git along, but at least for right now I seem to have a flow underway.

Almost finished with the Eddas.  Then I’m going to put pencil to large format desk pad and start roughing out Loki’s Children.  I want to get it thought through to some extent before I start my revision of Missing.  That way, if I have to change things in Missing (and I think I will) I can do that in the upcoming 3rd revision.  I hope #3 is what will make me ready to start the search for an agent.

As I said the other day, I’m cruising into the third phase of my life, which I count as having started with the arrival of my Medicare card, with clarity of purpose, emotional support from family and friends, and good health.  Here we go.  Charlie, the final chapter.

Aging, Dreams, Family, Garden, Latin, Our Land and Home, Third Phase, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

The Life Ahead

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Imbolc                                                                Valentine Moon

So.  66.  Tomorrow.  How that long-haired, green book bag carrying, dope smoking political radical could be turning 66 is, I admit, a puzzle.  Yes, he looks a bit different in the mirror.  Well, ok, quite a bit different.  Instead of long hair, little hair.  Instead of the book bag, a kindle.  Not smoking at all.  Hmmm, still a radical though.  Guess the other stuff is detritus of past fashion.

After passing the last great social milestone before the final one, that is, signing up for Medicare, my life has taken on a new cast.  I’ve written about it here, a change that came gradually but with a strange persistence.  That new cast has home, writing, Latin and friends as its core.  It entails reduced traveling into the city, a much lower profile in terms of volunteer work in either politics or the arts.  A word that sums it for me is, quieter.

Quieter does not mean less energetic or engaged, rather it signals a shift in focus toward quieter pursuits:  more reading, more writing, more scholarship, more time with domestic life.  Unlike the pope I do not intend to give up my beloved theological writing. (Kate believes he’s suffering from dementia.)  I intend rather a full-on pursuit of the writing life, novels and short stories, a text on Reimagining Faith.  This full-on pursuit means active and vigorous attention to marketing.

The primary age related driver in this change is greater awareness of a compressed time horizon, not any infirmity.  How many healthy years will I have?  Unknown, though I do actively care for myself.  Still, the years will not be kind, no matter what I do.  So, I had best get my licks in now, while I can still work at my optimum.

So, the man turning 66 has a different life ahead of him than did the man turning 65.   An exciting and challenging life.

 

Asia, Cinema and Television, Literature, Politics

Politics

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Imbolc                                                                 Valentine Moon

Kate and I continue to watch House of Cards on Netflix.  We’re on episode 11 of 13.  I’ve enjoyed it though the cringe factor of reducing opponents to relapse and the casual, I use you-you use me attitudes speak of a world in which humans have only instrumental value, rather than intrinsic.

Still, when the stakes are high, the tactics get messy; I have no doubt of that; but, the world of political intrigue that resorts to the more extreme tactics represented in  House of Cards has not been part of my political experience.  Of course, I’ve never really left state level politics, so my range is narrow.

Civil Servant’s Notebook, the novel I mentioned a couple of posts ago, has very similar content, though in a Chinese metropolitan context.  I promised when I mentioned it excerpts, but they’ll have to wait.

The world view presented in many of the characters is bleak, a sort of aimless grasping propelling many of these bright, capable people.  There is also a strange dance between the hardest of hard core realism, e.g. life is absurd and a keen yearning for the pure political actor, impossible to corrupt and acting with the best interests of the people always in mind.  At various points the characters come off as actors in a dark political thriller, only later seeking love and friendship, even spiritual salvation.  It is, I believe, an important book.

Garden, GeekWorld, Great Work, Holidays, Our Land and Home

Pruning Weather

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Imbolc                                                                   Valentine Moon

Last of the furnace vendors.  Get your hot one, right here!  Red hot and cozy!  Discounted. Tax credited.  Rebate worthy.

We’ve made a decision.  We’ll go with Centerpoint, a dual-stage, variable speed motor operating at 95% or 96.5% efficiency.  A bit more with these options but they optimize the conservation of both natural gas and electricity.  Once we get it in that’s one less matter we’ll have to worry about over the next few years.  A good thing.

After Brad left, an interesting guy, knowledgeable about food as a former catering manager for Lunds, we put on our winter gear.  I got out the Sorel’s and clapped my work gloves on, wool hat and down vest.  Kate got ready.  She has less stringent requirements for work in the cold than I do.

Outside in the deep snow, bright with a clear day’s sun, we first cut back to the ground all the raspberries.  In clearing the snow with a coal shovel, I discovered that I could clear snow and prune in the same motion.  Kate went in afterward and cleaned up.

When I finished in the raspberries, I went to the tangle of grapevines that have grown on our front 6-foot chain link fence.  Originally a Celt (our first and dearest Irish Wolfhound) escape prevent barrier, it now serves mainly to give us an ample supply of wild grapes in the fall thanks to the volunteer vines.  Last summer though there were few grapes.

Lots of leaves and vine, not many fruit.  We’d never pruned it before, or if we did, it was a while ago, so it had overgrown.  I whacked away at the orchard side today;  I’ll finish it tomorrow.  Kate got after the bittersweet.  It was a good day for this work.

Back inside I had a snack of bacon and blue cheese with chestnut flower honey, the first installment in my birthday gift, a monthly specialty bacon club.  How cool is that?  Thanks, Kate.

Family, Our Land and Home

Running the Manor House

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Imbolc                                                                         Valentine Moon

“Bob.  Gas man Bob.”  The sales rep from Centerpoint energy introduced himself, pronounced himself of German ancestry and therefore very excited about strong coffee, minor league baseball and variable speed fan motors.

The second estimate is on the table.  Literally.  At the end of our kitchen table.  Reliance and Center Point.  Nice folders.  Roughly similar costs.  A few bells here, whistles there.

Tomorrow Brad from Air Mechanical comes out.  He’ll be the last.  We’ll make a decision and should have a new furnace by mid-week next week.  At least 95%, maybe 96.5% efficiency if we decide we want the quieter variable speed fan motor.

Owning a home means these kind of transactions go on all year.  The handyman fixes the door.  The snowplower clears the driveway and the sidewalk.  Ray cuts the grass.  Mickman’s opens up our irrigation system and closes it down in the fall.  We have a crew that washes our windows outside twice a year, cleaning the gutters at the same time.  It’s all part of a balance among the things we can do and want to do and what we’re willing to pay others to do.

We do our own pruning, tree removal, garden amending, planting, bee keeping.  I maintain the electric fence and installed it.  We harvest our flowers, vegetables, fruit and honey.  We’re lucky that we can sort tasks out along these lines.  It makes life so much easier.

 

 

Commentary on Religion

German Shepherd Heels

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Imbolc                                                                     Valentine Moon

Benedict has bowed out.  Exit stage right, 2/28/2013.  A man who began his papacy less radically than I imagined gained conservative momentum as he stayed in office, facing down Vatican II, modernism (a bit late on that one, I think) and maintaining a wall of episcopal purple between the Church and its accusers.  Failure depends on perspective and intent, so calling him a failure seems premature to me.

He may have realized that the world for which he hungered no longer exists, will not exist.  In that case he would not be a failure, but simply a warrior facing too strong a foe.  A hero of his convictions, if not his results.  It is, of course, to this outsider, a faux-war that he generaled.  Contraception, gays, criminal priests, the vernacular liturgy, the onswelling tide of secular sentiments, all these Benedict saw as problems, problems requiring a marshaling of the troops and tight theological armor.  Yet these are problems only from within a narrowed, puckered understanding of the richness of life.  Except for those criminal priests.

They are a problem, but Benedict saw them as a problem of public relations rather than for what they were, commentary on the Church’s inane devotion to celibacy and its more than archaic understanding of human sexuality.  Not to mention the criminal acts themselves that in their mundane nature challenge the sacred order.  Literally.

As a former church administrator (Presbyterian), I have a good feel for the difficulties the Vatican faces.  Most of their wounds have come self-inflicted, but the pressures from liberal constituents and conservative constituents make consensus only a dream, not even a far away hope.  Benedict chose to lay the power of his office, the levers over which he had direct control to cover up, dismiss and hide from world of our day.  I doubt that his successor will have much better to offer.

Feelings

Fixed

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Imbolc                                                                 New (Valentine) Moon

Over the course of my life I’ve learned how to do many different things.  Among them has not been handyman type jobs.  I’m not clueless but you probably couldn’t tell that if you watched me trying to figure out how to rehang the front door today.

Between us Kate and I approached that door with more years in educational institutions than would be good certification for our sanity.  It defeated us.  We called a mechanical engineer now working as a handyman.  He fixed it.  My kinda solution to these kind of problems.

Having said that I will admit to a sense of male inadequacy during the time he was here.  I mean, I know I can’t fix it; I know he can; so, where does that put me in the testosterone parade?  Pretty far back, almost to the x chromosomes.  I’m not proud of it, but there it was.

Although, on my side, I have read that baldness occurs due to increased testosterone, so by that measure I can just about be the drum major.

Best of all though I have a partner who knows my flaws–I’m bad with a hammer and screw driver–and still loves me.

Our Land and Home, Travel, Weather +Climate

Take A Hike

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Imbolc                                                                     New (Valentine) Moon

Business meeting.  Money matters go well.  Calendar looks good.  I’ve had to pull back my Isle of Skye trip to the US, too much money going out unexpectedly:  furnace, Gertie.  I did find a great alternative though, lodge to lodge hiking on the Superior Trail.  I can do the same length of trip, beautiful hikes with views of Lake Superior, and spend about half the money.

Kate and I have been fixing the front door on the plate today.  I took the pins out of the hinges, levered the door off and we could finally remove the lock from the door.  Kate’s putting a new door knob and lock into the door right now, then I’ll go back up and rehang the door.  He said confidently.  This door’s solid core with a metal front.  Translation:  heavy.  It ain’t heavy, it’s my front door.  Yeah, right.

More Eddas and Latin today as the snow falls.

(winter storm northeast 2013)

A wet snow began to fall this morning and forecasts have it continuing into Monday.  Maybe 4-6 inches.  Not near as much as the poor Northeast.  Getting this monster snow storm after Hurricane Sandy.  Not a good thing.

Asia, GeekWorld, Latin, Literature, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Just Stuff

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Imbolc                                                                                 New (Valentine) Moon

The images, each moved from their numbered folders into new folders named for the organizational scheme that moved me at the moment, have a new home.  I’ve checked the prior machine for missing images, found a few and they’ll get added in tomorrow, but in essence the big image reorganization, self-inflicted, is over.

(Valkyrie (1908) by Stephan Sinding located in Churchill Park, Copenhagen, Denmark)

On March 1st I’m going to hit Missing with my third revision.  I’m hoping this one puts me close to finished that I can begin shopping it to agents.  I think it will, but until it’s done, I won’t know.  Research for Loki’s Children goes well, too. I’m almost done with all the Eddas, then I’ll go back over them again, looking at my notes and underlining, taking pieces here and there that I’ll use.

With the image reorganization I’ve felt a bit off my game this last week, but I’m back now.  Time to step up again.

Each day, though, I have (for the most part) finished a sentence of Jason and Medea.  That doesn’t sound like a very ambitious rate, but by the time a sentence is done, which can be between 2 and 14 lines long, I’m ready to put away the Lewis and Short, the Wheeler and the Anderson, close Perseus and go upstairs.  It’s a pace that, for now, allows me to work at an intense level, get work done steadily and yet allows enough time to do a quality job.

Been reading Civil Servant’s Notebook by Wang Xiaofang.  Author of 13 novels, all about Chinese bureaucracy, this is his first translated into English.  Published by Penguin.  Of all the material I’ve read on China of late this one seems to have the most insight into contemporary China.  Wang gives a satirical perspective on life inside municipal government, but he also strips the veins of a culture deep with history and short on ethical guidance.  I’ve read elsewhere of a moral aimlessness that inflicts contemporary China, but I was never able to put my finger on it until reading Civil Servant’s Notebook.  I don’t have it down here with me now, but tomorrow I’ll quote a few lines from it to show you what I mean.

Dogs

Gertie Update

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Imbolc                                                          New (Valentine) Moon

Gertie has become funnel dog again, wearing the E-collar, E for Elizabethan.  The plastic cone used by vets to stop the obsessive licking dogs get into when they have wounds.  And Gertie has many.

Her tail wags today.  She eats well.  She moves better.  Her resiliency amazes me.  She’s a strong little dog.