Lughnasa Kate’s Moon
Gosh, the problems of the modern age. My fitness/sleep tracker, a Jawbone UP3, stopped synching. Annoying. When I sent a note to customer support, no response. None. Hmm. So, I clicked news on Jawbone for a google search. Oh. Liquidation, July 2017. Well, that explains it.
Over time I’ve become pleased with being able to track my steps and my sleep, the constant feedback helps me modify my behavior in certain directions like more regular sleep times and more steps during the day. I found this motivating. To suddenly go without it is, well, annoying and frustrating. But, of course, really only means going back to the way things were before. Spent a half hour looking at other options this morning. I really liked that the UP3 allowed me to wear when it I showered and sleep tracking for this insomniac has assisted me a lot. Nokia Steel HR. Not out yet, but this fall. I’ll wait.
It’s been a rainy, cold week here on Shadow Mountain. The dial on the various fire risk signs is either on low or moderate. Gotta love the monsoons. Yesterday we came home from Beth Evergreen and it was 71 in Evergreen, 60 at the house. Not very far mileage wise from Evergreen, but the altitude really makes a difference.
Ruth and I are going to the Fiske Planetarium tomorrow for a show on the moon. Kate will go along, as will Gabe. That way Jon can have time to work on the bench in the dining room. I’ll have a chance to stop at the 
Oh. Right. Slept in yesterday until 7:30 am. About 2.5 hours past normal rising. The guy from Conifer Gutter came by to give us an estimate on needle guards for our gutters. Then, well, I worked out and forgot to post.
Dark ecology. I’ll post more about this both here and on AncientrailsGreatwheel.com, but it interests me a lot right now. It’s a contrarian view of the climate crisis, but not in a denier vein. These are folks who accept climate science, but take a pessimists look at the likelihood of change, at least change sufficient to stave off disaster. They don’t see it happening. This could be equated to the final stage of the grief process, acceptance.
I’m not familiar enough now with the movement to comment in depth, but the tone of it strikes a chord in me. Admittedly, it’s a melancholy chord though the more you know about both climate science and the current political will to tackle change, the more that chord may come to dominate the melody of your life. It’s either brave, facing reality in spite of its horror, or defeatist. Maybe it’s both.
Carpenter’s malady. Jon drove to Lakewood for urgent care yesterday, an infected unremoved splinter. This is a midpoint picture of the work he’s doing. He has cabinet maker level skills. The panels on the facing of the benches are made from small pieces of cedar, the lip of the bench is wood from his old house on Pontiac. When finished, Kate will add cushions over the bench lids. One half of the seating around our beetle-kill pine dining table will now be cushioned benches.
“Earth rapidly is approaching the point where the amount of warming locked in by human pollution exceeds the limits nations set last year at the international climate meeting in Paris, according to government-backed research unveiled Monday.
So there is not only the Donald to wreak havoc with the future, but the already emitted carbon dioxide and other gases like methane.
How can we work now to help them be resilient, proactive in their adaptive strategies? How can we work now to help them develop psychological/spiritual tools for coping with the cultural stresses that are inevitable? We cannot brush away the bad effects by magical thinking. Oh, the world will catch on and act in time. No, it won’t and it hasn’t. We need sober work on how to live with changed weather, increased heat, moving targets for animals and crops in terms of altered seasons, the disruptions of sea level rise, spread of insect borne diseases and the like.
Jon starts back to work today. One last month of commuting from Conifer to Aurora, then he moves into his house. It’s been a series of difficult, often wrenching moments for him since last May. He decided then he’d had enough of his marriage to Jen.
Judy and I met in the midst of the rebellion of the late 60’s. We were both running from wherever we’d been, whoever we’d become and ran right into each other. Smack. The relationship with her was intense, a wedding on an ancient burial mound in Indiana, a quick honeymoon to Canada, then a move to Wisconsin, leaving behind Indiana forever. We played a lot of sheepshead in Appleton and I remember the cases of beer stacked around the house while we played. Neither one of us knew how to sustain our marriage so we split apart without divorcing, got back together briefly, bought a farm together and proceeded to wreck our life together with bickering, long absences.