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  • The Stomach Has Its Desires

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

     22  85%  26%  0mph  NNE  bar 29.97 falls  YuleTide

              Waning Gibbous Cold Moon

     Excerpt of a poem by William Stafford, Choosing A Dog

    Your good dogs, some things that they hear
    they don’t really want you to know —
    it’s too grim or ethereal.

    And sometimes when they look in the fire
    they see time going on and someone alone,
    but they don’t say anything.

    Bill Schmidt sent this poem along from Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.  It is a touching work, especially for those who live their lives in the company of dogs.

    A morning filled with errands.  Took packages for New Years to the Anoka Post Office.  It’s sure easier to mail stuff now than it was a week ago.  Geez.  Practically walked right up to the postal clerk.  One clerk, on the other end of the counter, bald head and heroic biker beard, helped a man set up a General Delivery account.  I looked at the man, fiftyish with black hair laid flat on his head.  His used trench coat sagged with the bow of his shoulders.  His pants looked polished from wear and the boots old.  What had happened in his life?

    At the library I donated several Teaching Company courses on audio tape.  As I walked in with the sacks, I began to think about libraries, how important they’ve been to me at each stage of my life: a refuge in an Indiana small town, a place of scholarship during college and my two post-grad degrees, sources of reading material when my funds were low and most recently a source of audio books.  There are two places in this world where I’ve always felt comfortable:  Catholic churches and libraries. 

    Donating these courses made me consider charity.  Charity always makes me think of Frank Broderick who seems to incarnate charity.  I always feel less than in the presence of his generosity to others, less than because that’s not what I do.  Then I thought, wait a minute.  I’m not Frank Broderick; I’m Charlie.  Charlie’s generosity focuses on his passions:  art, libraries, dogs, gardens and, for some reason I can’t quite define, water.  These are the places where my volunteer energy, cash and other resources go.  And that’s just fine.

    After this, groceries, where my stomach spoke to me down each aisle.  Each time I saw an old food friend like cheese or chips or Kashi cereal my stomach growled and I felt deprived.  The stomach has its desires, its attachments and communicates them; but, those are attachments learned over years of a certain kind of eating.  The process I’m in now is one I’ve gone through before, reeducation.  I’m reeducating my stomach to growl for lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes.  To speak to me of yogurt, right-sized portions and sourdough bread.

    A morning full of errands, and, of learning more about myself.  A good morning.


    Family General 📎and tagged

  • Death, Disaster and Deck the Halls

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    10  80%  24%  0mphESE  bar 30.02 steady  windchill 10   Winter

                             The Full Cold Moon

    Since Kate came back from a disaster preparedness event at work in May, we’ve had a manila folder marked death and disaster.  After a couple of postponements (and, I’m glad to say, neither death nor disaster), we got around to it today.  An odd choice for Christmas Eve, but it fit our schedule.

    We now have a plan and a kit with those things they always tell you to have somewhere.  You know, matches in a waterproof container, blankets, first aid material, things like that.  It’s a large kit, stowed in a plastic container and destined to live in our coat closet until that moment.  My own analysis tells me that fire, tornado and lengthy power outage are the most likely disasters to hit us here in Andover.  I have a hard time imagining Al Qaeda having an interest in Anoka County.  Any of it.  We’re on the high point for some miles, on sand, and far from any body of water that acts up.  Minnesota has no history of hurricanes; but, the folks that did Kate’s event claim we have a moderate risk of earthquake.  Geologically I suppose that’s true, but it seems improbable.

    We also have insurance documents, financial papers, wills and power of attorney stowed in our safe. (No, I won’t tell you where it is.) 

    While Kate dug out the stuff we needed for the kit, I spent time looking up material on cremation and donating a body to the U of M Medical School.  Cremate or donate.  I’m leaning toward donating my body since it seems like a worthwhile thing to do and I do have some anatomical oddities, my ear bones in particular, that my ENT asked me to preserve.  This raises another question though and that is where do kids, grandkids, friends go to remember?  Haven’t solved that one yet, but it’s on the list.  Hope we get to it before its necessary.

    And a merry christmas to you, too!


    Family 📎and tagged

  • A Truthful Christmas Letter

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    A note before bed.  The nights are long now.  The sun set at 4:32 PM today and won’t rise again until 7:48AM.  This is good news for those who like dark, cool nights for sleeping.  I do.

    We’ve received a few of those letters in the mail; you know the ones, dense paragraphs filled with people you don’t know, pets and projects.  One of them stood out.  It was from a former partner of Kate’s.  She wrote of a year filled with her husband’s boss, “and former friend,” indicted for several felonies.  She went on to detail a year with the usual kind of vaguely horrific stuff that happens in all our lives, but usually goes unrecorded, suffered, yes, but not written down.  It was wonderful and made me hopeful for this folk art form.

    We also get a few Christmas cards each year, fewer and fewer since I haven’t sent cards for decades and Kate hasn’t either.  My favorite one so far this year came from cousin Melinda and her husband, Bill, aka, the Hoosier Cowboy.  It had two guys on horses greeting each other in the snow.  The line below them read, From our Outfit to Yours.

    The bookcase consolidation and purging, moving the exercise equipment and downstairs TV project moved closer to completion today.  It would look better with built-ins.

    Brother Mark is back in Bangkok and Woolly brother Mark is back in Minnesota.  Brother Mark had an accident in Phnom Penh. He was hit by a motorcycle, but not injured too badly.  This just before he left for Bangkok.

    Sister Mary, in Singapore, has used all of her vacation days this year to complete her dissertation.  She handed it in and now awaits a verdict as to its acceptability so she can move onto the next stage of the process.  No fun, that waiting.


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