Winter Cold Moon
Yearly Archives: 2017
Choose
Winter Cold Moon
How often do we get chances to start over? I guess no more than a couple of times a day. I know, sounds like too little, eh? Maybe you’re right. Let’s go with, oh say, infinite chances. Why? Because each moment brings a choice, paths that you can take from that place to a next one. And, each time you have a choice, you can choose. Differently.
Now you’ll probably say that the baggage carrying you to this moment isn’t amenable to being sloughed off, ignored, put in the past. You’re right. Even on a new path you carry the backpack filled with prior choices. Such a load can be heavy, weighing you down, making forward or sideways or diagonal movements seem sluggish or downright impossible. Or, you can choose to set the backpack down. Just leave it. It won’t matter. All that’s in it is from yesterday or further away in time. Its content will stay there and if you need something, go back and pick it up. After all, it’s your baggage. So, recommendation here: left luggage for your weight.
All right. Now that you’ve made a new choice, gone down a different path, jettisoned the constraints you imagined held you back, get on with it. Afraid? That’s ok. Fear is a clue. You’re alive. The way ahead is uncertain. But, think about it. The way ahead is always uncertain. If fact, we all have to realize that there may be no way ahead. The next moment may find us in the grave. So, given the choice between the grave and doing something you fear–which means you are still alive–you can choose to be, if not brave, at least rugged.
And guess what? Once you’ve gone ahead and made that speech, gone for that interview, told that person how you really feel, jumped off the high board, walked into that first class, settled in your seat for the flight to Nepal, you’re ready for your next choice. And the one after that. And the one after that. You’re free to choose the rest of your life. May as well.
Yes
Winter Cold Moon
‘ludes
Winter Cold Moon
Travelers
Winter Cold Moon
Gertie and Rigel are our go-go girls. When coats go on, their tails wag and they grin. Now I know why.
Vagrant Morpheus
Winter Cold Moon
It’s 2:30 a.m. Do you know where your sleep is? I sure don’t. Ironically, I just purchased a product recommended by my physician’s group. It actually worked pretty well, but didn’t quite push me over into the second sleep cycle. I think it will work over time. But. Not tonight.
My body insists on a medieval rhythm, the old sleep cycle of two four hour segments broken up by an hour or so awake. I don’t always get 8 hours but I do get that time in between. Whether I want it or not.
So, I’m communicating with you during the break. Of course, I’m using the laptop, blue light screwing with my something or other, but what the hell? I’m awake.
The quiet of deep night soothes me. Sometimes I wonder why I waste this peaceful time; especially up here on Shadow Mountain with the forest and other mountains around us, all the wild night time critters prowling, but silent. The mind goes wide open, distracted by none of the busy daytime humanness of trucks and cars, phone calls, errands.
I’m using this opportunity in the middle of the night to talk about the sleep I’m not having. I get that it’s ironic, too. So, from the dark, in the Rocky Mountains, I’ll stop all this irony and go back to bed.
Seeing the Surgeon
Winter Cold Moon
Final visit to my surgeon today. X-rays of the new knee will be taken. This whole process has been much harder than I imagined, though I admit my imagination didn’t have much information.
Was it worth it? The next few weeks will give a certain answer. Going back to the decision to have the surgery answers this question from another perspective. The only direction for my arthritic knee, 90% of its cartilage gone and bone spurs asserting themselves, was to get worse. Since it made hiking and working out difficult, the future for an active life did not look positive. In that regard even pain cessation and stabilization of the joint would be success. I’m hoping, and seeing, that the end result will be more, letting me back into workouts and hikes. So, unless something unforeseen asserts itself, the answer will be yes, it was worth it.
Would I recommend it? Not without making the recovery process clear. A month plus a little is a long time to be medicated and in pain. Healing, too, requires physical therapy which exacerbates, initially and for some time, the pain and the need for strong drugs. This is not an easy choice unless you really want fewer restrictions on your activity level. I did.
The aging process offers many character building opportunities. This has been one of them.
Bought Just-In-Case
Winter Cold Moon
The full cold moon lights up the back, hanging above Shadow Mountain in the northwest sky. A dusting of fresh snow, maybe 1/2″, was easy to clear off the back deck. Minnesota cred should find me feeling warm at 23 degrees, but I’m slipping, beginning to absorb the local definitions of cold. If it’s in the single digits, down coats and Sorels. Well, I’m not quite there. Not yet.
Brother Mark is my Phnom Penh stringer right now, reporting live from the streets. He saw Hanukkah candles and a Chabad House, a crying Chinese girl, a naked Khmer boy playing with a string attached to his sister’s hand, a casino called Nagaworld where he found clean restrooms and lots of smoking. Mark also reports that the Cambodian economy is enjoying steady 7% growth, an increasing affluence he can see compared to his last visit ten years ago. I’m glad to hear this. I liked the Cambodians I met in 2004 during my trip to Angkor.
Apparently, my doc wanted to be sure I’d gotten off the bad drugs. We did my 6-month PSA, still following up after the prostatectomy and did a panel she wanted to see. Lisa cares about her patients and it was clear yesterday she wanted to be sure I was getting past the surgery. A good feeling.
Here’s a note from Pinecam.com to finish off. Just a glimpse into what’s out there:
“Selling a BNIB Radical Firearms AR15 rifle and a Radical Firearms 7.5” AR15 pistol. These are factory-built firearms, not garage builds. New in boxes, never fired.
I bought these before the election “just-in-case” but now I don’t really have a need for them. My loss, your gain.
$500 each. Comes with all factory swag and a few nice extras. Sorry, no mags included.
For some reason I can’t seem to upload photos to this ad, but do have a complete ad with more details and photos on Armslist under “Firearms”.”
Now Entering Trumpland.
Winter Cold Moon
We have entered a long tunnel, dark at its core, though there may be a faint light faraway. This tunnel is the first two years of a Trumpist America. Perhaps it has a sign, somewhere near the entrance: Chamber of Horrors, Fun House, or Hall of Mirrors. It is a Disneyland populated not with Mickey Mouse or Goofy, but the spectre of starvation, a ghoul of no medical care, a banshee of Twitter posts. No one knows what to expect on this first ride through the politics with no name, the policies with no shame.
Each time I read the paper my breath catches, a silent groan followed by a not so silent oath. “God, can you believe this?” This is a theme park in which the theme is noblesse with no oblige. It is a neo-Gilded age fantasy realm in which bankers regulate bankers, climate change deniers run the EPA, a racist is Attorney General, an enemy of public schools runs the Department of Education and generals run the Department of Defense. Were this a parody, it could not have been limned with more precision.
One temptation for third phasers is to hunker down, watch our nest eggs. Keep out of the way. As energy, that most valuable of health resources, wanes, it would be easy to say I have no leverage here, no power in a Trump dominated political realm, so why bother?
That would be a mistake. We third phasers are the group with political experience, who know how to fight asymmetric battles with powerful establishments. It was our generation’s birthright to take up that fight in the 1960’s. We may not lead, but we must support. Why? Because if not us, who? An advantage, a strong advantage we have, is most of us no longer have careers to safeguard, families to raise. We can take risks, challenge politicians with less personally at stake. That’s a powerful tool in this fight.
Our ride through this Chamber of Horrors is no longer optional. That ended on November 8th. Our boats have docked and in just nine days we have to get in and brave the darkness. I hope the person next to you is someone you love.
Snow Eaters
Winter Cold Moon
“Duluth spent about 63 hours below zero from Tuesday night to Friday afternoon, Embarrass hit 37 below zero Friday morning and wind chills across the Northland nosed 40 below zero over the past week.
And the arctic blast isn’t over yet. A wind chill advisory remains in effect until noon Saturday for all of the Northland, with wind chill values into the 30s below zero.” Duluth News Tribune, January 6, 2017
Just an example of why Minnesota came in number 1 on a recent list of worst winters. It’s why the winters here in Colorado, which came in 47th on the same list (seems off to me, but, hey), can seem almost a different season than the one 40 years in Minnesota acclimated me to.
This week has featured both snow and snow-eaters. The snow has not been much, less than an inch, plus flurries today, though last week’s snow freshened up and plumped up our snow cover. Then, we get the chinooks, the snow-eaters.
These ferocious winds can reach 90 mph and exceeded that outside Colorado Springs with 113 mph blasts whipping a fire through a suburban neighborhood. Chinooks are creatures of the mountains. This illustration explains them very well.
In the instance of Shadow Mountain we are on the eastern, lee side, of the continental divide, the right side in this illustration. When the circumstances are right, the winds begin to fall down the lee side, gathering speed and warmth as they plummet toward the plains (adiabatic heating), also losing moisture as their temperature rises. Thus, the snow-eater.
We’ve had two long instances of chinooks this week, one tentatively underway right now. The lodgepoles dip and bend. Near their tops the trees look like they’re wrestling each other. Anything not nailed down blows away. The piles of snow melt. Note that this is not the solar snow shovel, but a separate phenomenon. Just another way in which Colorado winters differ from the sort experienced in Duluth over the last few days.