Mabon and the Harvest Moon
Shabbat gratefuls: Shadow of the morning. Out in the darkness. Mary in Oz. Mark on the Arabian Desert. My son and Seoah on the Korean Peninsula touching the Sea of Japan. Me in the Arapaho National Forest among the Rocky Mountains. Ruth and Gabe on the High Plains.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei
Week Kavannah: Simcha. Joy. Simcha Torah. Sukkot. Artemis. Shadow. Ablations.
Tarot: Paused
One brief shining: Amazon boxes pile up on my living room floor, two new wastebaskets, terracotta pots for Artemis, a bottle of Calcium plus vitamin D3, healthy snacks like Edamame and popcorn and protein bars, no longer shopping in the physical world (IRL) I have become instead a receiving clerk, checking goods against their invoices, having to dispose of the packaging.
Shut Down: Talked with my son last night. How about those Yankees? He’s a baseball fan, reading the stats, watching games, caring about the playoffs. I’m a fan of him so I pay some attention, enough to know when something of note has happened, like the Yankee’s hyper symbolic loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. Oh, Canada! Tariffs can’t win the game.
We had father and son scans this week. My PET scan. His CT and MRI. He gets semi-annual scans for hepatitis B as I said earlier and this time an MRI for his back. Geez. And we don’t even share DNA. Surveillance, which, oddly is his primary work in Korea.
“I might need some cash, Dad.”
Oh, some financial crisis in his and Seoah’s life? Nope. He’s not getting paid. Because of the government shut down. Oh. Well. His opinion of Congress has hit an all time low. As he points out, they still get paid.
Not to mention all those young men and women he’s responsible for. Many in their late teens. Living off base with kids and rent and refrigerators. And no money.
Grrr.
It’s one thing when the politics of stall and wait are on the front page. News about stuff happening somewhere else. Yankee’s lose! Federal worker’s furloughed. May get back pay. May lose their jobs entirely.
Another thing when your son has car payments, groceries, dog food to buy. When he’s doing that in service to his nation. Then, it’s personal.
Government matters. And ours, especially Congress, has been asleep at the switch for so long. So damned long.
Wake up, America!
Health: My medical October continues this week with a visit to my ophthalmologist. Glaucoma. Then, two trips to Lone Tree for nerve ablations. Doesn’t end until a week from Monday when I visit my oncologist to discuss results of my PET scan. Big fun.
Cousin Diane, who leaves this month for a trip to Peru to see Machu Pichu, had planned to spend time in the Peruvian segment of the Amazon. But. When she saw the travel medicine doc: Nope. She, like almost everybody in the U.S., had not gotten a yellow fever vaccine before age 60. And, for some reason, they no longer work at our advanced ages. No Amazon for Diane.