Yule and the New Year Moon
Where’s the Webb? From home? 641000 miles. To L2 257000 miles. 71% of journey complete. Slower yet at .2639 mps. Mission day 13. Yesterday the aft instrument radiator got deployed. Today the primary mirror begins to unfold from its launch position. This begins the last deployment, the mirror segments. Complete by mission day 15. Then it’s cruise on, slow, slow, slow. Puff, puff, puff and L2 insertion.
Friday gratefuls: Mussar. Rabbi Jamie. Jodi, Bowe, and Brian. Coming today. Finish early next week, I imagine. Choice. Daily. Too much choice. Habit. Routine. Bed sheets. The family crate. Safeway. Grocery pickup. Covid. Kate, always and still, Kate.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Max in his parka, a snow angel.
Tarot-January spread: Money-The Wanderer, 0 in the major arcana
The whole team gathers here at 9:15. Me. Bowe and Brian. Jodi. We’ll discuss last steps to complete the work. I have a punch list but so far it’s pretty small. Bowe anticipates my concerns and fixes them. Wish I could hire him for everything carpentry I need to get done. Maybe I can?
If I had gone with the Karman cabinets, I would have had a three month wait for delivery. End of January. Even with delays I’m ahead of the curve. Bowe had bookings into March so it could have been much later. Even with Brian’s pokiness this is faster.
I heard one complaint he had: can’t hire good help these days. I’m sure the pool of folks looking for work in Fairplay is not big to begin with and the Great Resignation has upended the entry level job market.
His work is not quite as good as I’d anticipated, but it’s good. Good enough. I like it. I imagined custom cabinetry like in a fancy built home. Not that level. But maybe the next level down. Better than mass produced for sure.
Brian reminds me a bit of Gollum. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Oh, you’ll like these, sir. Attention to detail. Oh, yes. An obsequiousness that hides deep resentment. Not to me, we don’t know each other well enough to have that sort of bad blood, but to customers. To the folks who put demands on his time. To the world which has not seen his genius. Makes me sad.
Read an article on Languishing that ancient brother Paul recommended. Here’s the article’s definition: “Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.” The author describes languishing as the middle ground between depression and flourishing.
I recognize the symptoms in myself. Covid has gone on too long. Add grief. Hard to get the motor runnin’, get out on the highway. I’ve gotten stuff done, mostly d3 stuff, domestic duty day things. The remodel, Herme pushed back against this tendency to slow down, way down around 4 pm.
Finding a center point for my life, finding a way to make my schedule creativity friendly, that’s the big on the table right now issue for me as a person. I feel like this is a good time to go for it.
My grief has had the tincture of time. Part of me now, reminding me always of the beauty and power of my love for Kate, hers for me. I carry it as a gift today, not a burden.
Covid. Well, not gone. For sure. But. I am in a better place, not where I need to be, but better. In spite of omicron. As long as I stay at home, or meet with friends, it barely affects me. I’m tired of masks, yes. I’m tired of thinking about vaccines, about being high risk, yes. I can, however, see an endpoint, a time when covid becomes a flu equivalent. Maybe a booster at a certain time. Masks in some situations. Not an everyday, what’s the death count kinda thing anymore. This year. The truth is out there.
