Daily Archives: March 14, 2015

Health, Latin, Myth and Story, Translating Metamorphoses

Pole Vaulting

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Imbolc                                                   Black Mountain Moon

Working on Latin today. A plateau pole-vaulted. For the first time, I worked from the text in Perseus alone, writing nothing down, looking up words in the usual click-on-the-word style with Perseus, but assembling the translation in my head, then typing it into my Evernote file for Medea and Aeson. This is the private equivalent of sight reading and I’m becoming facile at it, at least in Ovid.

If you were here in the room, I’d ask for a high five. This feels like a culmination, a passing through one of the key doors on my way to the amateur classicist tower. Still a good ways to climb, but I’m far beyond the half-way point. Amazing.

Another positive note. After each night’s sleep and each nap, I get a reading on my resting heart rate thanks to my Basis watch, my 2014 birthday present. Before leaving Minnesota I had my resting heart rate down to a 62-67 bpm average, leaning more toward 62. Which is pretty good for a guy in his late 60’s. After being without exercise for almost two months, I began again last month and my heart rate showed up in the 70-73 range and stubbornly stayed there. Just when I had begun to get frustrated with it, it began to drop. Now, I’m running 67.

Feels like a victory, especially at 8,800 feet.

Colorado, Family, Mountains

Off to the Wildflower Cafe

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Imbolc                                             Black Mountain Moon

Drove down Shadow Mountain on Brook Forest Drive. We wondered what it will look like with the snow melted, gone. The mountain scenes change much more often than I would have thought with snow, ice, hoar frost, melting, fog, early morning mists and evening. We have three quarters of a year yet, the Great Wheel yet to turn through spring, summer and fall. There will be green, flowers, dry dusty days with fear of fire and times of aspened yellow.

On to the Wildflower Cafe where we learned that Christa, the tall blond who now recognizes us and brings us coffee right away (we’re their first Saturday morning customers), worked as a bartender at Lord Fletchers for a couple of years while her sister lived in Waconia. The sister moved to Colorado and so did Christa. Minnesota connections abound here: the park ranger for the Pike National Forest from Hastings, a neighbor here from the ‘burbs of Minneapolis. Others whose particulars I don’t recall.

Back up Brook Forest Drive in the oncoming morning, a fierce sun appearing every so often through a notch in a mountain or a small valley, then back into the shade, driving through the Arapaho National Forest.

Anoka County, Colorado, Family, Great Work, Mountains, Third Phase

Make Choices. Live Them.

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Imbolc                                            Black Mountain Moon

P1020952750Selling the house in Andover. We’ve put our best effort into this sale and so far? No offers. Lots of lookers, but no buyers. It’s been four months since we closed on Black Mountain Drive which means for those four months and now a fifth, March, we’ve been paying two mortgage payments. Warren and Sheryl did it for several years and we can sustain it, but we don’t want to.

The longer it lingers, since it has a certain amount of our assets tied up, the leaner and tighter our budget becomes. Not unexpected, but not pleasant either.

There was risk in buying here before we sold the Minnesota house, but it was one we took with our eyes open. I’m glad we made the choice. This house fits us so well. Kate did a great job in finding it. Moving first simplified, by a lot, the whole process of exiting 153rd Ave. NW. And, we got to start our new life here in Colorado.ruthandgabe 86

An interstate move is expensive under any circumstances, especially when you have 20 years of belongings to move. Though we reduced by about a third, we still had a lot to move. The final tally, of course, is not in yet, but even when we add it all up, it will have been worth it.

Why? This was the time to move in terms of our health. We’re still healthy enough to establish a new life. And, moving to Colorado allowed us to accomplish two goals with one move. The first, being closer to the grandkids, was both about seeing them more often and their ages, Ruth, 8, and Gabe, 6.  As with our health, this was the time to move to be part of their lives while they still tune into grandparents.

IMAG0977The second goal we accomplished was to move into a place of great natural beauty with space for our four dogs and our mutual creative work. Living in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains means we have a home where the eco-systems vary by altitude and the altitude varies a lot. It also means spectacular vistas, interesting weather and wildlife.

So, we chose and now we live with the choice. Happily.