Daily Archives: June 13, 2014

Anoka County, Dogs, Friends, Minnesota

Nighttime Fireworks

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Beltane                                                                 Summer Moon

It’s night time in the exurbs. The full summer moon lights up the neighbors lighting up the sky. With fireworks. Yes, our neighbors have a fascination with fireworks, a fascination that seems to strike them most often around 10 pm. And no, I don’t know why.

We have two dogs with mild thunder phobias and the fireworks often set them whining. I don’t blame them. They make me whine, too. The dogs though can’t know that the neighbors are, for the most part, peaceable and friendly. The other part being the 10 pm fireworks, of course.

They seem to have gone silent. Nope. Another one. Gertie’s upset. The nights around the 4th and the night of the 4th itself are the worst.

Just let Gertie in the bedroom. That’s her safe place when there’s thunder or fireworks. Rigel’s ok if she’s with her sis, Vega. If not, she heads for the small hallway coming in from the garage. Enclosed and dark.

It would be nice to find a place without even these signs of human habitation. Out there. You know. Colorado.

Colorado, The Move

Red Tape.

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Beltane                                                                    Summer Moon

We have actual red tape. It goes on stuff that’s leaving the house before we do. Boxes, right now, of DVDs and books. Other things will follow. So in this case red tape means freeing up room for the green tape. That’s the stuff that will leave with us for Colorado. And the yellow tape means we’re not sure quite yet.

Surprised myself today when sorting DVDs at how many I want to keep. Probably not rational since most movies are available somewhere for streaming. Movies by favorite directors like Weir, Wender, Anderson, Bergman and movie houses like Hammer, classics from Criterion or other art house companies, plus the stuff of my youth like the Mummy, Frankenstein and Dracula are all in the green tape box. A weird comfort, as with many of my book categories, knowing I can reach for one whenever I need it.

There will be many decisions like these. We have asked the SortTossPack folks to come the last week of June to move things out of the garage, take the furniture to the consignment shop and a first load of books and dvds to half-price books.

 

Sport

World Cup

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Beltane                                                                    Summer Moon

The World Cup. Is the time when the rest of the world shows why their obsessions matter more than ours. Now that’s not hard to understand when our World Series goes global by having a left coast team play an east coast team. Or, when our Superbowl refers to a match among paid giants whose fight is not gladitorial only in that it is not to the death. At least not usually. It’s also easy to understand the attitude that soccer, played in outfits suitable for a day at the beach, has a more human tenor than one played in flannel or  hyper-padded spandex with gloves and helmets.

And, granted, in a more globalized economy, in a world with jet service to anywhere in less than a day, an event that includes 204 teams from six continents (presumably Antarctica is too chilly for shorts and polo shirts) has the right to call itself the World Cup.

Still. If I understand it right, soccer is hockey played on grass. Here’s my first hurdle. In spite of 40 years a Minnesotan, hockey has not become even a little interesting. I know. I know. A venial sin, but a sin nonetheless. However, if I don’t like it on ice, grass doesn’t make it better. Plus, what’s with the beach outfits? Are those really any costumes for grown millionaires to wear in public? At least basketball is played indoors. Or something.

Anyhow. I liked Brazil. I hope either Brazil or Argentina wins. Why? Because I’ve been there? Maybe. On the other hand, and I do know what this means, are you ready for some football?

General
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Beltane                                                             Summer Moon

A quote by Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, passed on by Bill Schmidt, and to which I say amen.


Every life is a point of view directed upon the universe. Strictly speaking, what one life sees no other can. Every individual, whether person, nation or epoch, is an organ, for which there can be no substitute, constructed for the apprehension of truth…. Without the development, the perpetual change and the inexhaustible series of adventures which constitute life, the universe, or absolutely valid truth, would remain unknown…. [R]eality happens to be, like a landscape, possessed of an infinite number of perspectives, all equally veracious and authentic. The sole false perspective is that which claims to be the only one there is.

Art and Culture, Latin, Translating Metamorphoses

Phone Latin

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Beltane                                                                        Summer Moon

Greg and I have done phone Latin for over four years.  We just finished another go and he found the verses I found difficult challenging, too. That makes me feel ok. Like life, if I have a partner in my confusion, I’m fine. Then we can work on it together. And, if we don’t achieve clarity, we’re still together. Just confused together.

It is a weird thing to contemplate, this long term relationship, now in its fifth year during which Greg and I have seen each other twice, once when I met him at the UU church in Wayzata and a second time when he and Anna, his significant other, came to Kate’s retirement party at the MIA.

Conducting all these sessions over the phone has an anachronistic feel, yet for the study of a language, it has worked just fine. We have the internet in common, using Perseus as an interlocutor for definitions and usage. We met weekly for the first two and a half years, then we went to every two weeks, the schedule we follow now, though even that gets spread out some due to our mutual schedules.

This fall, the long term project can get underway at last.

Right now I’m working on the story of Apollo and Daphne, which Antonio del Pollaiolo has rendered here with Daphne beginning to sprout what will become the leaves of the laurel tree. Ironically, the laurel becomes the symbol of male athletic dominance.

 

 

Latin, Translating Metamorphoses

Wanting to do better

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Beltane                                                                    Summer Moon

The last time Greg (Latin tutor) and I had a session I fumbled around, missing this nuance and that one. Determined to do better I dug into each word over the last couple of weeks, getting its exact declension or conjugation and meaning, noting that before I went on. Then I hit those five verses I mentioned before and felt I’d stumbled into a dark Latin basement. Unable to see I flailed around but even the commentaries, which usually unstick me, didn’t help.

We’ll see how things go today. I’m still hopeful that by fall I’ll be translating on my own, but those verses challenged that timeline.

Kate’s off to a quilt show in St. Cloud, so I have the dog watch to myself.