• Category Archives US History

  • A Strong Week

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Garden Path Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Ruth, creating three oil paintings: Dear Dad. Mia, an artist, too. Tiny. Gabe. Loud and full of bad jokes. Here yesterday through tomorrow. Doug. Finished Garden Pathing the main level. For the most part. A small bathroom and that weird wall in the new dining room remain. Kep, better this morning. A bit. Doverspike. Driving into Denver. Into Spring. Leafy Deciduous Trees. Daffodils. Feelings. Still Winter on Shadow Mountain.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Teenagers

     

    We’re treating Kep empirically. With antibiotics. Hoping that whatever took him downwards is an infection and not cancer. The first couple of days of amoxicillin will tell us what we need to know. He’s comfortable, lying down. Not coughing. No labored breathing. I had to dry pill the meds this morning and found my grip strength inadequate. Messy and difficult. Gotta get back on that resistance work. This is unacceptable and unnecessary.

    Ruth and Mia brought Kep up the stairs last night so he could be with us while we ate Beau Jo’s pizza. That was sweet. We had the living room still in dishabille from Doug’s work. Couch across from the Fire place. My chair at a right angle to it. Ruth sat on the ottoman, Gabe and Mia on the couch. Kep took his night time meds in pizza crust. Didn’t work so well this morning.

    Ruth and Gabe are comfortable up here. It’s a second home in the Mountains for them. I’m glad they feel that way. Makes me feel like a good grandpa. Both of them bring friends up. Another clue about how they feel about Shadow Mountain.

    It’s nice to have people noises in the house. Footsteps. Refrigerator door opening. Food disappearing.

     

    Doug got almost finished with the main level. That wall and the small bathroom. He’s going to finish the downstairs next week. Gotta message Vince for an art hanging and small fix-up day. Some mild furniture rearranging. Later one more day with Robin and Michele. I know the remaining closets and storage areas. Probably one morning’s worth. Be good to have all of those things accomplished.

     

    Another good workout today. 240 minutes for the week. Enough. May go with the kids on their hike today. May not. Depends on how I’m feeling.

    A strong week. Luke on Sunday. With Doug. Doverspike. The kids. Exercise. Breakfast with Alan tomorrow. Maybe take the kids, too. Dreams. First dream session with Irene at 11:00. Life up here on Shadow Mountain. Real life.

     

    Still reading Undertow. Maybe a quarter done. Sharlet’s a good writer. And he’s empathetic even when he’s with folks like he discusses in the “manosphere.” This is the online world of incels, sluthaters, fans of the guy who shot up a college in California because it hadn’t given him the “beautiful girlfriend he deserved.” He reports on them as they are, not as they should be, not as he feels about them, but as they are.

    He did the same thing with Rick Wilkerson, Jr. The third generation clergy in a mega church dynasty. Miami. A guy who thinks the gospel is about getting yours and being pretty. Sharlet builds a portrait of an America most of us (readers of this blog, for example) have no idea exists. Or, if we do, we know little about the real people inside it and how they live their lives. Remember the subtitle: a slow motion civil war. I can see what he means already.

    The manosphere and the Wilkersonsphere are Archimedian levers that pry open cracks in the body politic. As are the Christian Nationalists heading for northern Idaho and those wealthy coastals exercising their right to exit, heading West.

    I can see them all from up here on Shadow Mountain.

     


    Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Hermitage Politics Shadow Mountain US History

  • Vive la difference

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Garden Path Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Alan. Bread Lounge. Mussar. Thursday. Kep with pain resolved. Doug. Colorado Cold. 14. Snow showers off and on. Safeway. Grocery pickup. Lab tests. Thyroid. Plus a few. Nichie. Kristie. Dr. Gonzalez. Ruby. Ivory. Ruth. Gabe. Jon, a memory. Kate, always Kate. Ukraine. Russia. China. India. USA. Liberals. Socialists. Communists. Belize. Marilyn.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Mountain Dawn

     

    Another good workout yesterday. Hitting 200 + minutes a week this last month. 11 more to go this week. Feels good. No resistance work though. Need to get back to it, but I’ve found a reluctance that I don’t understand.

     

    Doug didn’t show up yesterday. That’s what he had said on Tuesday. That he wouldn’t be working Thursday or Friday. Then he said he would be here. Guess whatever it was came up anyway. Might be Snow. He could be a skier. Folks in the Mountains prioritize matters differently. Dr. Doverspike has changed two appointments with Kep due to sudden outbursts of Powder. Makes sense to me. Even if I can’t do it.

     

    In Mussar yesterday Sally, a Trump supporter who lives this half of the year in Ecuador but comes in through zoom, said she doesn’t understand all the emphasis on differences. We should be emphasizing how we’re alike, she said. She’s been a good friend to Anshel, a trans man at CBE, and to Luke, the gay former ex-executive director of CBE. And they appreciate her for her friendship.

    So the group went off on how everyone has a divine spark (Lurianic kabbalah), is made in the image of God. I agree with the conclusion though the metaphysics for me are different. We’re all children of the stars made of atoms passing through this phase of their existence.

    Sally has a wedge issue here and she’s not wrong. We need to emphasize our commonalities. What’s beneath this though is a right wing attack on identity politics. In order to get justice we have to recognize that though we are all one in the eyes of God or the universe differences do exist and they matter when the favors of our civilization get distributed.

    For example, we also discussed deed covenants in Denver. No Negroes. No Latinos. No Jews. I’ve mentioned before the first house I bought in Minneapolis had similar covenants. These covenants were legal until 1964 when the Civil Rights Act passed. So here’s the problem. Folks with the power to enforce injustice recognize differences. Ask any gay man or woman. Any trans student forced to choose between gendered bathrooms. Ask any Jew. Any Latino working in the fields of California’s Central Valley or on the lawn of homes of any gated community in the U.S.

    That’s not all though. The differences matter in a positive way, too. The richness of a world with Tex-Mex food. With Chinese bronzes from an ancient civilization. With folks among whom you feel comfortable. With hamburgers and pizza. With Italian and Hmong and Tagalog and Arabic and Latin and Korean. With sons from India and daughter-in-laws from Korea. With genders recognized along the continuum that has always existed. With bulgogi and moo goo gai pan. With sushi and a full Scottish breakfast. With tartans and kente cloth. With black skin and white skin and yellow skin and brown skin and red skin. With skiers and snowboarders. With Olympic athletes and amateur golfers.

    We need difference. Vive la différence.

    Yet we also need to recognize our dependence on the Sun and on Mother Earth. We eat. We laugh. We bark. We cry. We wail. We hurt. We experience awe. We roar. We swim in the ocean depths and fly high above the Lodgepole Pines. We are one as travelers through the vastness on this tiny blue marble.

    Are we all one? Oh, yes. Are we all different? Oh, yes. Can we merge these two truths? Oh, yes.

     

     


    Mussar Politics US History World History

  • Memory Foam and Vibrant Matter

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Septic and Waste. Ruth. Gabe. Probate. My son’s diligence. Kate, always Kate. That Tempurpedic mattress. Sleep. The changing of the times. Kep’s good appetite. Taxes finished. Beau Jo’s pizza. Finished. A workout day. Vibrant Matter. Assemblages. Conatus. Aporetic. Learning new words. ChatbotGPT4. Fun. Resting heart rate getting lower. Dreams. Playfulness. Snow and Cold coming.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Probate and my son

     

    Didn’t expect this. Rotated the Tempurpedic mattress Kate and I bought around Thanksgiving of 2015. Settled in the other night for sleep. Realized that this memory foam mattress contained imprints of Kate’s body. And I was lying on top of them. Felt good. Much like life in the house. The imprints of her life and mine are everywhere, from the collection of specialized kitchen utensils to the small glass Turtle on the new home office shelf. Her sewing room now a dining room. The Portmerion plates, bowls, serving platters. Bought on our honeymoon in London. The oriental rug she bought for her townhouse. Jerry’s two big paintings. Imprinted. In my heart. Imprinted forever. Her memory a blessing.

    Ruth has decided she wants to go to CU Boulder, get a BFA with a concentration on printmaking. This is a change from Cornell for a Pharm.D. which has been her focus for the last couple of years. And she may change again. And yet again. She is, after all, sixteen, soon to be seventeen. The time of wide swings in interests, goals, dreams. May she find herself, her focus, her own way when it’s time.

    Meanwhile Gabe’s wrestling with facial hair, dead lifting two hundred pounds, and trying to get his GPA up to a B this semester so I’ll take him to Benihana.

    Next month is birthday month for this pair. Ruth on the 4th and Gabe on the 22nd, Earthday. Brother Mark’s birthday on the 11th and Dad’s on the 12th, the date of Kate’s death. Also Kate’s second yahrzeit. Gabe will turn 15. A big month for family.

     

    Read chapter 2 of Vibrant Matter. Jane Bennett uses a big Electric grid blackout in 2003 to demonstrate how vibrant matter can act within what she calls an assemblage and affect both human communities and other assemblages. The notion of vibrant matter for her entails a new way of understanding accountability in the political and legal spheres.

    Though Enron played a role in this blackout so did the deregulation of the electric grid, changing the rules so power generated in Ohio could be sold to homes in California. More. The behavior of Electricity itself. When running through a grid on its way to a more distant destination Electricity might follow the path set out in the contracts or it might choose to follow a different route. In this case it did, creating on its own a loop of Electricity running through the grid in Ohio and other near by states. In the end it was a complex interaction of vibrant matter, Electricity, Trees falling on transmission wires, Wildfire, legislation, corporate greed, and the building out of exurbs that created the blackout.

    This understanding of vibrant matter as what Benett calls an actant changes the legal considerations for assigning blame. A fascinating approach to what I might call animism or paganism.

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. US History

  • A Psychedelic Old Age Anyone?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting To Cross Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Movies. Women Talking. TV. New Amsterdam. On Joy, Season 4, episode 1. The Last of Us. Finale. Furball Cleaning. CJ Box. James Pogue. Anarchy. Political Violence. Decivilization. Michael Pollan. How to Change Your Mind. The Plant Magic Cafe in Denver. Keens. Ruth and Gabe this afternoon. Taxes. It’s time. Silicon Valley Bank. Vibrant Matter.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: ChatbotGPT

     

    This week. One eye exam. Two radiation treatments. Three visits with friends. And a Peruvian glazed chicken breakfast for supper. Almost Christmas. Gotta figure out my playlist for the Cyberknife. Coltrane. The Band. Cool jazz. The Blues. The Goldburg Variations. Not sure.

    Yes, there’s a bit of absurdity to my life. It veers from the sublime to the profane and back again. Wait a minute. That’s everybody’s life isn’t it? One moment we’re watching our grandson make his uneasy way across the floor to us and the next we’re paying bills. Getting on a jet plane for that much needed vacation. Stuffing the grocery list in our pocket and heading out to Safeway or Lunds.

    We can’t afford to stay in one state too long. Neither the mundane or the profound. Not built for it. A continuous state of ecstasy would drive us mad. Too much of the quotidian dulls us, pulls under. We all need to work on our ecstatic to the ordinary balance.

    That’s why I plan to head into the Plant Magic Cafe someday soon. See if there’s someone who can help me find a willing source for some psilocybin. It’s been a minute for me. It’s now legal in Colorado to receive a gift of psilocybin. And to have it in your possession. But you can’t buy it.

    Not that that’s the only source of ecstasy for me. Dream world. Hiking in the Mountains. Reading a great poem. Discovering new ideas. Deep conversations with friends. Writing. Even so. It is one and I want to go again.

    There was this time, you see. Long ago and far away. But not so long ago, really. When students opposed a stupid war. Men walked on the Moon. And there were drugs to help you find your own way among the stars. The music, too. That wonderful music. We did slip the surly bonds of normal life. A time when the ecstatic to the ordinary balance tipped toward the ecstatic.

    We lived it. Some of us. Then many of us, most of us, allowed the lapping Waters of work and family to serve as a constant draught from Lethe. We never fully forgot though. A bit of Tinkerbell’s dust remained caught in our hair.

    No. I don’t want to go back to a psychedelic age of protest and up the establishment. That was college. This is old age. What I want is a psychedelic old age. And protest? Of course. Always. Up the establishment? Never quit on that one. Or the protest either for that matter.

    Thing is I can’t stay up late lying on the floor with my head between the speakers and the Doors cranking out Riders on the Storm.

    What’s that look like? A psychedelic old age. About to find out.


    Beyond the Boundaries Feelings Fourth Phase Memories Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. US History

  • I can feel it emerging

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting To Cross Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Kep, struggling again. Gabe up for a Rockies afternoon game. Ruth for a night at Dazzle Jazz. Alan as Uncle Moishe in Ron Solomon’s Purim spiel. Monday night. Rich and his class. Luke and his new job. Mike and Kate coming up here sometime this month for barbecue: Campfire Grill in Evergreen. Rabbi Jamie’s ski trip. Race #1 of the new F1 season: Bahrain.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

     

    Reading Wes Jackson’s Becoming Native to This Place again. A radical thinker. At one point he writes about the Cartesian/Baconian advancement of science and the rational method of inquiry. Descartes says in his Discourse on Method that the more he sought to know, the more he realized he had  yet to know. Jackson makes this wry and insightful comment: “This statement would have been all right if he had stopped there. Unfortunately. Rather than regarding informed ignorance as the human condition, and the appropriate result of a good education, Descartes believed our ignorance to be correctable.”

    Jackson identifies this hubris of the scientific method as a root source of many of our current maladies. We believe we can extract the parts from the whole, understand them without regard to it, then act on that information. Turns out though if you do not understand, say, the nature of ancient energy and privilege it over contemporary energy sources like wind, solar, photosynthesis, you can do great harm to the whole. Change the climate, for example.

    He believes science and humility need to work together. In the instance of agriculture he tells the story of a man in Nebraska who developed seeds and sold them. But only to  farmers in his region. His seeds had characteristics that made them strong in that regional ecology. A local seed source rather than the abstracted seeds sold by Monsanto, Bayer. They did not need Roundup ready alterations because they already knew the soil and the other plants that grew there.

    What Jackson wants to create is a new rural life, a new localism predicated not on Cargill or Monsanto or John Deere, but upon perennial crops and a system of trade that could hook up a small Kansas town with a small North Dakota town, one that grew crops better suited for that local ecology. A new localism in which both flora and fauna were appropriate to their location, yet benefited all through trade without gigantic corporations in the way.

    This vision. A hard one. Only thing harder, probably? Continuing on the soil and region destroying path we are on.

    I’m beginning to see linkages between the Jackson’s and Wendell Berry’s and the fracturing nation in which we live. How their vision for a local agriculture, the base after all of civilization itself might contribute to a new politics. How the breakdown of the country might have a positive outcome. Especially when connected to the old neighborhood politics I know so well from my working days. And when bonded with the actions necessary to tip the climate change scales away from apocalyptic scenarios.

    There could be a path here. Needs more noodling, but I can feel it emerging.


    Plants Politics The West US History Weather +Climate

  • Could Be Fun

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Happy Camper. Smiling Pig. Furball Cleaning. Chance of Snow. Bahrain Grand Prix Sunday. Red Bull. Ferrari. Mercedes. Aston Martin. Alpine. Alpha Tauri. Williams. McLaren. Haas. Alfa Romeo. Probate. House cleaning. Good sleep. Radiation. Pacific Cod. Breaded. Lodge skillets. Cooking. Findlay and the deer. Max. Kep. Tweaking his meds. Dr. Doverspike.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Workout yesterday. 110 minutes.

     

    Down a rabbit hole. A lot of my attention has gone to the Vanity Fair article Diane sent out. Fascinated. No, not going conservative. But the threads of political ideas active in the U.S. have entered a zone of extreme ferment. Not always visible.

    Ever since my Alexandria days fringe political movements have interested me. Even then, in the late 1950’s and 60’s, we had the John Birch Society, the Minutemen, and the Ku Klux Klan active in our town. One of our doctors was a Bircher. Founded in 1958 in Indianapolis one of its early members and top financial supporters was Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries.

    Dad published a page or two from the John Birch Blue Book in the Times-Tribune, our local newspaper. It exposed the radical ideas held by Robert Welch, the Society’s Indianapolis based founder. Made me feel good to see Dad take a stand against them.

    Both the Birch Society and the Minutemen held strong and in the latter case, violent, anti-communist views. Wikipedia entry: “…observers have stated that the JBS and its beliefs shaped the Republican Party, the Trump administration, and the broader conservative movement.[18][19][20][21] Writing in The Huffington Post, Andrew Reinbach called the JBS “the intellectual seed bank of the right.”[22]”

    The KKK passed out leaflets in town from time to time and held recruiting drives at a local restaurant on Highway 9, aka the Highway of Vice Presidents (Dan Quayle and Benjamin Harrison were Hoosiers.)  The Klan has a long and infamous history in American fringe right wing circles, but the Birch Society and its effect on the Koch family has to get its props, too.

    What reading the Vanity Fair article did. First. Though perhaps still fringe movements in regard to the larger society the New Right, the Dissident Right, the Christian Nationalists, the Evangelical right, and the Trumpists do have a strong hold on the Grand Old Party. Second. Some, hardly all, but some of the ideas in the article resonated with my back to the land, anti-war, anti-establishment ideas of the late 1960s. Third. Got me wondering about if this might all weave together at some point. Far left. Crunchy right.

    Most of all. Back in the day. The day being 1968 in Muncie, Indiana. Not all that far from Indianapolis. I told Bill Hariff, leader of the SDS on Ball State’s campus. I want to be a theoretician for the revolution. I know. Naive. Precious. Maybe even laughable.

    Yet. In these days of living on the mountain top. With a deep background in both the history and reality of right wing extremists and far left extremists. BTW: Among whom I still count myself. Could I take on a role as a writer about these movements? Maybe a new weekly blog? Say, notsoAncientrails. Wondering. Or, help organize an online think tank that might do for the next New Left what the Birchers seem to have done for today’s buffet of conservative ideas? Probably both have been done and I don’t know about them. Still. Could be fun.


    Minnesota Politics Shadow Mountain US History

  • Jon. Apocalypses.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Kep, struggling outside. Jen, anxious about money. Ivory going to a new home. Jon’s house mostly cleaned out. My son managing matters from the middle of the Pacific. Cooling down. 62 yesterday in Aurora. Snow midweek. Doubt about the pain management protocols. Trust your doctors and zip up. OK, Kate. Matters of business. The New Right. The Dissident Right. Conservatives. Integralism. Ways of thinking about our commons. Socialism. Globalism.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Bill and his granddaughter in Atlanta

     

    Down to the old house. Jon’s place. Floors still messy, but furniture, piles of clothes, tables. All gone. Almost everything cleaned out. Jen made some decisions about what to keep, what not. Wants to involve the kids. Makes sense. Found Merton’s photographs, slides. E-mailed a pic to BJ.

    Jen took home the Bernini, Kate’s fancy sewing machine she bought with her inheritance money from Merton. Also, Kate’s featherweight. A portable Singer sewing machine. A shop Vac and an air compressor. These matters are on their way to a conclusion though still slow. Now six months out from Jon’s death. Have I mentioned MAKE A WILL!

    The big dumpster outside Jon’s house had cardboard boxes, furniture, appliances in it up to the brim. A life’s material contents on their way to a landfill. Inside remains photographs, art, Grateful Dead tapes, LP’s, a bicycle. Tools. A printing press. Two dishwashers. ? Some other unconnected appliances Jon intended to put in his kitchen, still bare. A metal sink from our garage. A few boxes of indeterminate things.

    The cleaners worked hard. A physical challenge. When Jen and the kids decide what they want to do, the cleaners will finish up and the house will go on the market as a distressed property. I pay the cleaners and may have to cure the mortgage since the bank has begun foreclosure noises.

    When the house sells, and the realtor thinks it will go at or above asking and probably fast, I’ll get my money back. He said hopefully. Oh. Did I mention make a will?

     

    Onto other less dramatic topics like the various apocalypses on the global stage. Climate change. Still trundling along toward Hothouse Earth. Emissions increasing. The Ukraine. Fighting to the death with a wounded Russian Bear. A dangerous animal with a lot of tooth and claw left. All those displaced Ukrainians. Europe discovering it needs muscle. Again. Same with the Chinese sphere Asian countries like Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines.

    Those American right wingers invested in various gilded back to the land exits. The huddled masses of Mexico and Central America yearning to be Americans.

    Racism here in the U.S. White supremacists headed to Idaho and Montana and Wyoming. Different strategies to deny American citizens their vote. Women stuck between a post-Roe abortion wall and unwanted pregnancy. Inflation and high employment running along together. Wildfires, atmospheric rivers, floods, sea level rise, empowered hurricanes. All this the view from the top of Shadow Mountain. Glad to be at 8,800 feet.


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Politics US History World History

  • Kepler. The New Right and the West.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Dr. Doverspike. A man of high energy. And, acupuncture. Kep, the confused. So much adulting this weekend. Dogs. Doverspike’s Mesa. Powder hounds. Alan and Cheri, tired. Very tired. That article from Vanity Fair that Diane sent me. Ukraine, a year in. Soul Food Cook Off. The New Right and the Far Right. Christian Nationalism. Back to blood and soil. A fermenting politics of imminent doom. Good news for Kep.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kep’s pain management

     

    So. Much. To.

    Let’s start with the pain management and mobility vet, Dr. Doverspike. He drove up at 11am yesterday, a 13 year old German Shepherd in the backseat of his Audi. She goes with him on house calls. Glad she didn’t come in. I would like to have met her, but Kep. Not so much.

    He watched Kep move, take his slow way up the stairs from the lower level. When Kep finally got up, Doverspike took off his stethoscope. Listened. Pressed Kep’s back legs in several different spots.

    Not what I thought. Not torn cruciate ligaments. Muscle weakness. We can bring him to near 100 percent.

    We’ll see, but I want him to be right. He gave Kep an injection, a pregabbepetin capsule and inserted acupuncture needles along his spine and along his shoulder blades.

    He’s the nicest Akita I’ve ever met. I get that a lot. Well, it’s a testimony to you. (And, Joe and Kate)

    Dr. Doverspike has a multi-modal approach to pain. Acupuncture. Different meds. Physical therapy. I have to have Kep stand on the same soft blue plastic device I use for balance. Each back leg, five minutes. Every day.

    Doverspike will come weekly until Kep improves. Then monthly. Then maybe every three months. He does acupuncture each visit. A former Florida guy, but before that Colorado, he lives in Conifer now with his wife. His practice, Mesa pain management and mobility, gets its name from Mesa, his first German Shepherd. She went back country skiing with him. Including jumping off cornices. Often steep ones.

    If he succeeds in getting Kep’s back legs better, I’m sure Kep will live longer. So, go Dr. Doverspike. Not cheap, however.

     

    Cousin Diane found this article in Vanity Fair, Inside the New Right’s Next Frontier, the American West. It fits with this article from the Washington Post about northern Idaho, ‘Christian patriots’ are flocking from blue states to Idaho, and this one from the New York Times: How Montana Took a Hard Right Turn Toward Christian Nationalism.

    The Vanity Fair article focuses more on Wyoming while also taking a much broader look at the New Right. Including tech billionaires who want to build city-states and crypto countries. I plan to reread the Vanity Fair article and match it to some other reading I’ve been doing this year about the Far Right.

    Though anti-globalism features as one of the big ideas promoted by nearly all camps represented in the Vanity Fair article Diane points out the frequent references to Orban in Hungary, the new far right Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and even Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, the Hindu nationalist. Anti-globalists, eh?

    Diane and I both agreed on the privileged nature of those seeking the right to exit. There are deep peculiarities and ironies here, too. Many who to seek to exit have an almost back to the land reverence for nature. Many are also anti-big corporation and all are definitely anti-establishment. There’s a lot to think  about, talk about. Something’s happening here, what it is is not exactly clear.

     

     


    Dogs Health Politics Shadow Mountain The West US History World History

  • Pruning. Oblation. China.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Snow. Cool night. Kep, the early. Now, me too. Good boy! Dr. Simpson. Radiation oblation. Hep B. My son. His wife. Korea. Korean. Hangul. English. Animas chocolates. Thanks again, Mary. Liminal spaces. Lenticular Clouds. The Clouds before a Snow Storm. Mountain Weather. Sano Vet. Palmini. Safeway. Grocery pickup. Stinkers for gas. And quarts of milk.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Moving forward

     

    Quite a day yesterday. Robin and Michele came. All the art is off the upstairs walls. Means Doug can start the first of March. Main level. Garden Path green. The upstairs door will be Backwoods green. Benjamin Moore. They also removed all the clothing I thinned out from the walk in closet. A lot. Coats. Shirts. Shoes. Sport Coats. Michele moved all of the photographs into the closet and consolidated my clothes on one side. She also took an area rug I no longer wanted.

    Kate’s molas from the Cuna Indians are now in a pile on the table. All her sewing related art, too. Everything is off the fireplace mantel. Once Doug is done I’ll have some fun rehanging art. Herme will have to come down for a while. Excited about the new colors.

    Also excited about the leaner feeling the house has now. When I’m ready to move, most of what’s left will go with me. Except for the books. The books have got to slim down. Way, way down. Way down. But I have four years for that painful process. One more visit with Robin and Michele. Then, I’ll be done for now. Three more closets (smaller). Linens and towels. Perhaps once more through the kitchen.

     

    Also a long conversation with Dr. Simpson. The pros and cons of radiation for my two mildly active mets. It probably won’t increase your survival, but it will increase the amount of time you can be off the drugs. Oh. The drug holiday coming this summer. So. In terms of risk and benefit? Worth it since the quality of my life is high and a longer drug holiday will enhance it.

    Downsides. Possible bowel obstruction. Possible chronic pain. Possible paralysis. But the odds are very low for those. Decided to go for it. Dr. Simpson’s a good guy. We decided together, Let’s treat it!

    Will get started sometime soon. Probably eight sessions in all. See the old gang. If they’re still there. I know Carmela is because I’ve talked to her on the phone.

     

    China and Russia. Share a long border. 2600 miles. Little real history together in spite of that. Very different cultures. And a lot of that border is far away from centers of population. Bonded now though by their enmity towards the U.S. Putin’s Russia also abhors the decadent West. As in Europe. I can imagine them imagining a war where they guard each others flanks and project power east in the instance of China and west in the instance of Russia.

    I don’t think China understands how weak Russia really is. Their military has suffered tremendously already in the Ukraine. And will suffer more.

    And China may not understand how determined the U.S. is. We’ve made partnerships with Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Australia. Even Vietnam. That means for China to get to our mainland they would have to send out ships and planes from their mainland, through a gauntlet of U.S. allies.

    Just thinking out loud here.


    Asia Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Hermitage Korea Politics Shadow Mountain US History World History

  • A 76’er

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Valentine Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Birthday dinner with Ruth and Gabe. Pappadeauxs. Chiefs win. Kep’s new gettin’ up time. His sweetness. Ruth, newly black hair and pink glasses with crystals. Gabe in his fancy shirt with no pocket. The old man eating alone. An American revolutionary birthday tomorrow. Pulmonologist. The Ancient Brothers on their favorite things. Dogs. Hawai’i. Sushi. Dr. Zhivago. Little kids. The Chiefs. Mendocino. Delmar, California. Shanghai. Wombats.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dining with Gabe and Ruth

     

    Realized yesterday that this is my American revolution birthday: 76. A revolutionary celebration. I like it. All you 76’ers out there. We’re not done yet. May not be nearer to God, but I am nearer to 80.

    As you can tell, my mood has lifted. Thanks to those of you who expressed concern. Sadness stands next to joy. Both are important.

    Pappadeauxs. Disappointing. Could have ordered off the Cajun menu: gumbo, crawfish etouffé, jambalaya, but I chose a dish I first had in Savannah, shrimp and grits. Loved it there. The Pappadeux version was over spiced and not very good. Though. Gabe loved the Red Snapper. Delicious, he said. Ruth had a dish with blackened catfish, cooked oysters, shrimp, and dirty rice. She loved it though, I’m trying to get off sea food. Wants to go to Watercourse, a full vegan restaurant for her birthday. 17. A teen queen.

    Ruth says she’s reintegrating at Northfield H.S. She sounds and looks good. Earlier drug related jitters calming down. We talked about food, being a teen, cancer, laughed a lot. Took one silly picture. Gabe tried with some visible discomfort to dine with aplumb. Those bread crumbs spread around his plate told the tale.

    Glad they were able to join me. They were both eager Eagle’s fans. I told them I wanted the Chiefs to win. Nah, Nah, Ne Nah, Nah. Hey, Hey.

    At the table next to ours an older man than me dined alone. He had on a red and black plaid shirt and ate his catfish carefully. His hair was white, his skin the papery texture I associate with a person in their 90s. Wondered if his wife had died, or if he had been alone a long time.

    Got home about 7:30 pm. I did notice that my jaw clinched on my way home, but it lifted as soon as I got back into the Mountains. This is home and my body knows it.

     

    76. Eh. After three score and ten, we’re all in bonus time. My friends are older now, too. Though I have Luke, 28, and Mike and Kate. Ruth and Gabe. They keep me connected to earlier days of the journey. Glad I’m no longer scanning the horizon for what I want to do.

     

    How bout those Chiefs. Stand up of that Eagle’s player to admit he did grab the jersey of the Chief’s receiver. Resulted in a penalty that gave the Chiefs a chance to run out the clock and kick a winning field goal. Wish I had had the opportunity to watch this one. A true championship game.

     


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