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T is for Tiresome

I’m working on some tiresome projects. A year ago, I cleared out the office I had seen clients in for the past 20 years. I left much of the furniture for the next occupant (with their permission), but I had some containers full of the usual desk miscellany as well as client records. I sorted […]

G is for Grief

Grief. This time last year, I was struggling with grief. It had become abundantly clear that my retirement dream of spending at least half the year traveling, some of it overseas, and some of it in my van, was under major revision. A year previously, my partner BA had suffered an acute attack of vertigo. […]

Hot, Smoke and Snow

Okay, so we all (or at least the vast majority of us) recognize that 2020 is an unusual year. Around here (Colorado) its been extra strange weather wise. Back in May, we had a record cold snap that took out a lot of fruit crops. Frost and freezes in May are not unusual, but getting […]

Pi Day Surprises

I haven’t posted much over the last year or so. Life’s been busy, there have been changes and health challenges for family members, my time and energy have been focused in other ways. And today I feel like writing. One of my current challenges regards my father. He turned 90 in January, and his health […]

Superior, Part 2. Marquette

Hello again from the North country, or as is often said around here, the U P (Upper Peninsula, or yooper) We are in Marquette, Michigan, staying at the town Tourist Park (aka campground). Its a pretty nice place, with water and forest, and very close to the town and Northern Michigan University. We arrived yesterday […]

A New Favorite

As I’ve briefly mentioned before, I bought a van for traveling. The young couple who originally owned it had lived in it full time for over a year and had built it to suit their needs. There were good bones, and it didn’t completely suit my purposes. Weather and time permitting, I’ve been working on […]

Alert

I wrote a few days back about BA’s adventure with vestibular neuritis. The good news is that she’s continuing to improve, and while not back to “normal” she’s much better, walking on her own, doing stuff around the house and feeling stronger every day. She’s not driving yet, but thinking about it. Clearly, we’re in […]

Crepuscule

Crepuscule. Great word, meaning twilight. And as another blogger K. Ottaway noted, its easily mixed up with other words, if your mind is wired like mine. Like corpuscle if you’re medically/scientifically inclined. Crepuscular rays, light spread out from low horizon and clouds. Somehow, my mind likes to take crepuscular rays, turn them into crepuscular clouds […]

Life is What Happens

While you’re making other plans. Or so the saying goes, along with some of its many variants, including one favored by a childhood friend. “You wanna make the gods laugh, tell them your plans.” There’s certainly been some of that going around my house recently. Illnesses, all thankfully resolved, technical glitches (likewise) and then today’s […]

Guilty — Not

I’m not feeling guilty for adjusting plans to what is here now. Altering priorities. Taking time to breathe, reflect. Stopping on a training bike ride to take in the beauty, and get a photo of same beauty, knowing its ephemeral nature. Staying connected to this world that is my home. Yes, the “training plan” had […]

asso,[topm

spm t presume you’ve got your fingers on the correct place on the keyboard. Don’t assume that spell check/autocorrect knows what you are writing about. I have found its more useful to assume the opposite. So many opportunities for erroneous assumption, so little time! Assumption“>Assumption

Tantruming for Adults

Tantrum. An outburst Responding to overwhelm. Times up. Let it go. I find that sometimes it is healthy to “have a fit and fall in it”. Really feeling your emotions and expressing what is going on. A strategy I have used with myself and others, (and this is not original to me) is to […]

Grasp

I loved the “monkey bars” when I was a kid. Grasping onto one bar, swinging to the next, moving along. We used to challenge ourselves to skip increasing numbers of bars. First, a hand on each bar, then skip one between grasps, then two, and finally three. None of us on the playground could go […]

confused creature

Sometimes I’m easily confused. Today is one of those times. This is the weather report that I read in this morning’s paper: Here’s what I see outside: its cold, grey and snowing lightly. Currently, the air temperature is 19 F. Where that fits between the predicted high of 43 and the low of 37, I’m […]

a profusion of poop

Around here, most people have a dog or three. I don’t, not because I don’t like dogs, but because the care and space a dog needs has never really fit in with the other circumstances of my life. It could work now, but there is the matter of the preexisting feline, who “does not believe […]

A Different Tooth Fairy

Today’s daily prompt is cavity, with an obvious link to teeth and dentistry. That I have a complicated and checkered history in this realm is an understatement, something to be explored in detail on another day. There is however, a short story I do have about cavities. My childhood dentist was a quiet man. He […]

Candid–No more Sugarcoating

Time for some candor on my part. You can be my witnesses as I tell myself an uncomfortable truth. I have a problem with sugar, and I’ve fallen off the wagon yet again. If I substitute sugar for alcohol in the first of the 12 steps of AA, its accurate enough. I admit that I […]

Horizon: Finding Perspective

Looking to the sky, the horizon, I’m seeking information: What’s the weather, the time, what is coming up? I also realize that I’m seeking a perspective, something beyond the life of my small self and the vicissitudes of daily life. I’ve had the privilege of traversing the Grand Canyon via the Colorado River twice. My […]

static

Static and Dynamic Electricity. First edition, 1939. I’ve got the third. Grandpa’s book is still available on Amazon. Less static than I imagined Static“>Static

Carving up the year

I’m not much for new year’s resolutions, but I do find the new year and other significant anniversary dates a good time for reflection and review. What’s working in my life, what do I want more of, and its opposite, what isn’t working and what might I want less of? In other words, how do […]

Undulating Twills and other Learnings

After her retirement following many years of teaching and performing music, my partner BA spent quite some time exploring, wondering when her next passion might reveal itself. Eventually, she found weaving. She’d done a little in her youth and enjoyed it, but her energies were largely expended in other ways, and finally with time, space […]

A Treat I’m Truly Appreciating.

My morning started out fine. Up early, coffee, newspaper, email, light breakfast, off to the rec center, swim a mile. Shower, and I’m off doing a few errands, before getting to my office, where I imagine I’ll have time to write a post on Treat before my first client. Arriving at my office, I’m settling […]

Thirty Years Gone

My mom died on December 31, 1987. That’s 30 years ago, nearly half my lifetime. I found it quite odd when, four years ago, I became older than my mother had ever been. I’m the only one of my siblings who has had my mom around for more than half my life. They, being younger […]

Quarterly Review of Blogging. #2

I’ve been blogging for 6 months now. No longer brand new, and still on a fairly steep learning curve. Most of what I said 3 months ago in my first Quarterly Review of Blogging still applies. I’m very much enjoying the community of bloggers, and I remain surprised at how often I’m posting and how much I […]

Cherish, A Preteen’s Soundtrack

One of the soundtrack songs of my youth is Cherish, performed by the Association. It was released in 1966, and you can take a listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hysdyVGpsE Shortly after reading that cherish was today’s daily prompt, the opening bars of this song became the lead ear worm on my internal playlist. Somewhere between 1964 and 1966, […]

Daily Prompt: Communal

8 AM Saturday morning for more than 13 years. Yogalates class at the Y. Someone has since put a trademark on that name, so now its called pilates and yoga fusion on the schedule, but for many of us, it’s still yogalates. Its a drop-in class, free to all Y members. Participants come and go, […]

Let Everything Happen to You

Let everything happen to you Beauty and terror Just keep going No feeling is final. –Rainer Maria Rilke I have this fragment of Rilke’s poem on the wall in my office, as a reminder and support to my clients. Recently, I’ve been needing a fair amount of reminding myself. This week, I’ve been hit a […]

Follow your Bliss

Follow your Bliss. Joseph Campbell famously said this in one of his interviews with Bill Moyers, captured in a PBS series and book, The Power of Myth. “Yet is important to note that following one’s bliss, as Campbell saw it, isn’t merely a matter of doing whatever you like and certainly not doing simply as […]

Sound of Silence

Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again. These are the opening words of Simon and Garfunkel’s song of my youth, The Sound of Silence. You can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fWyzwo1xg0 Pertinent now, in this dark time of year, and I find it even more relevant to this time of MeToo, where decades of silence […]

a not so meager meander

One of the unanticipated benefits of my triathlon training project has been the thinking/meditative time. While I’m running, riding or swimming, I’m also afforded the opportunity to think, ponder, notice. This morning, I made a slightly hurried trip outside to ride my bike.The opportunities this time of year are somewhat meager, paralleling the meager light […]