Yearly Archives: 2016

Asia, Travel

Traveling

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Spring                                                                   Wedding Moon

incheon to Hong KongAt Incheon Airport on our way to Honk Kong, then Singapore. This airport is phenomenal. So easy to use. Again, why, oh why, can’t the U.S. get it? We have a lot to learn from these polite, organized cultures. Of course, they could learn a few things from us, too.

We leave Korea with a certain sadness joined with great happiness. Looking forward to relaxing in Singapore.

Well. Didn’t get this sent. No internet available on the plane. Now in Hong Kong, waiting on our flight to Singapore.

Both Hong Kong and Incheon seem oriented (ha) to the luxury shopper with Bulgari, Vuitton, Ferragamo and many other upscale shops. Hardly anyplace to eat unless you want jewels or duty free liquor.

20160412_123610I’ve read stories about landing at Honk Kong, but it was smooth. You do come down right after the water. I also read Taipan awhile ago. Peaked my interested. Another trip. Maybe include that visit to Taipei. Decided against that. Too complicated after a week of wedding. Wonderful, but tiring.

Clouds cover the mountains rising up from the sea, so Hong Kong itself is shrouded though we have fifteen, twenty foot high windows at our gate area. A new bridge across the bay is under construction and its bones are visible, no roadway yet. Chinese, Malay, Caucasians, Indians and many more make one vast source of income for Cathay Pacific. Capitalism, in this sense, is a great leveler. If you have cash, you can participate.

 

Asia, Family, Travel

And so

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Spring                                                  Wedding Moon

wedding1

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Kate and Seoah’s mother after lighting the candles symbolizing the unity of the families
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The bride’s side. Her mother and sister in traditional wedding attire.

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Seoah’s father, mother and two sisters

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Fellow Air Force officers: Kevin (L) and Daniel (middle)
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Asia, Family, Garden, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase, Travel

Living in the present, surrounded by the past

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Spring                                                         Wedding Moon

Ellis and Jang
Ellis and Jang (Mary’s photo)

Yesterday we took a trip to the past. To Seoah’s family home and the village of the Jang family for at least four generations. The neighbor women sat at a low table eating from dishes and dishes of food. They looked up curiously as we came in the small traditional house, then went back to their meal.

(Kate took all the rest of these photos.)kids

The house had little furniture, mostly low tables and one chair, a massaging recliner that Mary (my sister) says is common in Singaporean households. Often the only chair in the house.

We met many black-haired children who ran around, curious and a little uncertain, Seoah’s two sisters and her older brother. Seungpil, husband of her younger sister, has been our taxi driver in a sleek, well-maintained black Hyundai, a Grandeur.

finding conifer
finding conifer

Seoah’s mother had charge of a compliment of women in the kitchen which had food plates and bowls and pans on all of its surfaces. Her father, a trim man, 71 moved with the grace of a 30 year old. He farms a large number of plots, some vinyl greenhouses, a rice paddie and several fields. I asked to see it and we walked around it all.

He proudly pointed to a tractor and said, in clear English, “John Deere!” He had a combine, a grain drier and a second Massey-Ferguson, older. He grows vegetables, hay and some fruit. Like any good farmer in the spring, after we left his home for the Bamboo Museum, he headed back into the fields.

john deere

Seoah’s home village nestles among low mountains that look (and probably are) ancient. They’re very beautiful, often mist covered and extending in ranges for some ways. Sangkuk is well beyond the metro region of Gwangju, in the country. As nearly as I could tell, the area around Sangkuk is only agricultural, no folks living the country life and commuting into the city.

fields and tombs
Jang family fields. Note tombs in forest clearing toward the right

 

Asia, Family, Travel

Songtan

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Spring                                                                          Maiden Moon

Ancientrails posting now from Songtan, South Korea. Pics, later words. Sorry about the inverted picture. I’ll fix it later.

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Asia, Family, Travel

Almost

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Spring                                                                            Maiden Moon

The last or next to last North American post until the end of April. My laptop rests between layers of clothes in its foam sheath in the big red suitcase. Due to arthritis I’m making my carry on, a backpack, as light as possible and the laptop adds too much weight. So, I may not post anything until Korea after this one.

Nothing says I’m getting ready to go like a medical conundrum. Over the last couple of days my blood pressure has chosen to go up and down, labile. If we were staying here, I could just go in and get it dealt with on Monday. But, no way am I staying home, especially this trip. So, we’re going to have to do something today. Not sure what yet. We’ll decide when Kate gets up.

I woke up this morning wondering when Santa Claus was going to come. That’s how excited I get before a big trip. Everything’s packed, arrangements are made. All that remains is this untoward medical insult. Sigh.

 

 

Art and Culture, The West

Whispering Wind Designs

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Spring                                                                                Maiden Moon

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERADrove to Golden today to meet Jerry of Whispering Wind Designs. He had my birthday present finished and we agreed to meet at the Golden Diner for breakfast. Jerry has the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen on a guy. Movie star twinkly. With his weathered face from years as an airplane mechanic and his long gray hair swept back into a ponytail the teeth and his direct gaze gave him an intensity I had not expected.

His work shows a craftsman’s attention to detail. The legs on the table, for example, are made from four pieces of knotless beetle killed pine, then fitted together with tongue and groove joinery. The surface, coated with an industrial quality sealant, retains the slightly wavy grain of the bluish wood, a color given by the progress of the beetle as it kills the tree, and the ends have a curved piece of pine joined to the main body of the table.

Supporting craftspersons and artists means there will be a next generation of makers. When I can, I prefer to buy this kind of product. He’s going to give us a bid on benches and a table plus four chairs for our dining area.

 

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Health, Memories, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, Third Phase

One Year Ago

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Spring                                                                                   Maiden Moon

Had blood drawn yesterday for my third post surgery PSA. Right now they come every quarter, routine surveillance. The first two have showed .015 which is the clinical equivalent of none. Since the results have followed the best hoped for pattern, I’m experiencing no anxiety about them.

Today is my second annual physical with Dr. Lisa Gidday. This physical revisits a key moment from cancer season. The start of the season. It was last year at my first physical in Colorado when Dr. Gidday found a suspicious hardness in my prostate. I count cancer season as having begun with that physical on April 14th and ending in late September with my first follow up PSA.

It was a short time compared to my image of what cancer is typically like. It went: initial suspicion, see urologist who confirmed Gidday’s finding, biopsy, diagnosis, decision on treatment, surgery, recovery, first PSA after surgery. All this in six months.

There is the question of a cure. Does this mean I have no more prostate cancer? Did the end of cancer season mean the end of the cancer threat? No, it does not. Things look good, very good, but the clinical reality is that a few cancerous prostate cells could have escaped and are dormant right now. My gut says no, that is not the case. I feel rid of the traitorous bastards.

In fact, I feel very healthy right now. Yes, I have this damned knee, lower back and shoulder, but they’re nuisance level. Yes, I have chronic kidney disease, but it seems stable. In fact the numbers that gauge its severity actually improved in my last blood work done in October. Yes, I have insomnia, but it’s just one of those damned things.

My point here is that aging means an accumulation (for most of us) of chronic conditions. We can choose to focus on those as ongoing problems, become obsessive about them and drown ourselves in anxiety or we can recognize their inevitability and, if not embrace them, at least accept them with grace. Most of the time.

The anxiety is unnecessary. That is the point of Yama, the Tibetan deity. To worship Yama we envision our own death, see it coming, embrace its part in our story. When we can truly accept the reality of our own death, anxiety about what may deliver it to us becomes redundant. We may not know the particulars, but we do know the outcome of our life. It’s the same for all of us.

 

Cooking, Dogs, Family

Gratitude

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Spring                                                                           Maiden Moon

20160321_110457Kate. Such a sweety. She wanted to thank the Sano staff for the good care they took of Vega: a lasagna with a great ragu sauce, a lasagna with mushrooms, a pecan pie and a tomato/mozzarella salad. We took all this over at 12:30 yesterday for their 1 p.m lunch hour. Looked like the work of a pro-caterer.

The big attraction though was Vega. When I brought her in, she slumped down, tried to be small. No more poking or cutting or needles or things, please. Then all the Sano staff gathered around her, petted her, cooed over her and she brightened up, smiled. Georgia, a vet tech, said, “Well. It was all worth it.”

And it has been. Last night as I got on the treadmill for my evening workout I looked out the loft window to the north, a good view of our backyard. There was Vega, her tail held high, hopping through the deep snow, on her own mission. The sight moved me to tears. Yes, it was all worth it.

Colorado, Dogs, Great Work, Mountains, Science, The West

Beast

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Spring                                                                     Maiden Moon

beast inFinished a 2010 book, The Beast in the Garden, today.  By David Baron, an NPR reporter, Beast examines the changing nature of the wildlife/human interface especially through an examination of mountain lion activity in and around Boulder, Colorado in the late 1980’s into the mid-1990’s.

Baron did an exhaustive amount of work.  He recreates the time period in which Boulder’s love for nature and its actions to both create and preserve a natural setting resulted in tragedy and conflict. After several years of encouraging wildlife into the city through tolerance, rings of urban parks and conservation of land outside its limits but contiguous, Boulder had an irruption of deer. An irruption is, as Baron says, very similar in meaning to its volcanic homonym.

There’s a saying here on Shadow Mountain, “If you have deer, you have mountain lions.” That proved true in Boulder. The problem was, that since the elimination of the wolf, mountain lions no longer had any predator of their own and had become desensitized to their ancient foe: the canid. No longer did just any dog barking drive away mountain lions. That meant the lions could follow their main food source, deer, into human inhabited areas where they could encounter dogs.

Some cougars began to hunt dogs. The combination of hunting deer, their ancient and still most frequent prey, and dogs, kept as pets and therefore nearby human’s daily life, led to certain cougars becoming habituated to humans. Habituation involves suppression of the once instinctive fear of humans engendered by early farmers and ranchers near extermination of the species. Once that fear is suppressed humans are bipedal potential sources of dinner. Dogs were eaten. Cougars lounged in people’s backyards. A few attacks occurred. Then, a couple of deaths. This book tells that story.