Category: Writing

This week was hit or miss regarding weather. Some days were drop-dead gorgeous with ambient temperatures in the low 70s and blue skies filled with large, cumulus clouds. Other days it rained and rained and rained. Conditions were never that good to get the garden planted because there was too much moisture in the soil. The portable greenhouse is filled with seedlings ready to go into the ground.

Feeling Alone in the Universe

There is nothing like looking at the sky to make us feel alone in the universe. The sky was exceptionally cloudless Saturday night when I was out to watch for the aurora borealis.

Northern lights, or the aurora borealis, were visible around the area, just not near where I live. I explored the neighborhood to find a place with a broad expanse of unobstructed sky so I could attempt to view them. I stayed up late to witness the phenomenon, yet my naked eyes couldn’t see it.

The forecast was “very likely geomagnetic storming will persist through the weekend as several additional Earth-directed Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are in transit to Earth’s outer atmosphere…” It sounds scary, yet it Earth doing what it evolved to do.

Instead, I looked at the stars on a clear spring night and contemplated the meaning of being alive. It was more blessing than curse.

Hall of Fame Awards

My friend Bill invited me to join him at the 2024 Johnson County Democrats Hall of Fame Awards event in Coralville. He was being inducted for his long political activism as business manager for an electrical workers union. I was happy to sit at his table during the event.

I flipped the program and saw the list of past Hall of Fame honorees printed on the back. So many friends were inducted. A significant number of them died since their induction. I wouldn’t normally go to an event like this, yet am thankful for the opportunity.

Trump Trial in New York

I’ve been following the Donald J. Trump trial for election interference. He was indicted under New York law for falsifying documents to avoid publicity about an affair with a woman who made adult films. My standby code of living is if you are male and don’t want people to know about an affair, keep your pants zipped. It seems clear from the trial the 45th president has no regard for the rule of law. A highlight this week was when his lawyers asked the judge to lift the gag order so he could respond to the woman with whom he had the affair. The proper venue for doing that would be for him to give testimony in the trial, the judge ruled. The prosecution is nearing the end of making their case.

Immigration

I have more to say about immigration. I started re-posting two of my old articles about it on Saturday. It turns out I wrote a lot of them since beginning this blog in 2007. Around 2010, I worked with a group of clergy to get the City of Iowa City to declare itself a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants. That’s the opposite direction our current government is pursuing. Never mind that the city did not adopt such a policy. It has been a bug-a-boo among Republicans for a long time. Immigration is something about which everyone has an opinion yet few are willing to resolve its problems.

Kitchen-Garden

With my spouse gone for the week my cooking has been different. I made pizza, a casserole, sandwiches with French-style bread, and tacos my way (which is spicy). I cooked through this phase and am ready for her to return this week. On Sunday I bought a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream from the local grocer and ate it for dinner.

Jack Daniels Whiskey

I have a fifth of Jack Daniels Old No. 7 Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey in the house. I’ve had it for many years and it is half gone. This week I poured some over ice and sipped it until the ice melted and the liquid was gone. The main benefit, other than a brief, fleeting, alcohol buzz, was that I slept through the night for seven straight hours. I did enjoy waking with the realization I slept through the night. Whiskey has gotten too expensive to buy, so I plan to make this bottle last.

There are a lot of moving parts in my current life with the biggest being to get the garden planted. After plot three, there are four more to go. It seems like a much bigger job this year compared to last. I’ll keep at it.

Garden vegetables overwintered: cilantro, spring onions, kale, collards, and garlic. The garlic grew where it was planted last year, so I will pull it before tomatoes go into that spot. Main crop of garlic is about 12 inches tall. The last order of tomato seeds, cucumbers and squash arrived via USPS on Saturday. The shift from indoors to outdoors work is evident this week.

Electricity Outage

On Tuesday a big storm rolled in and took the electricity out for a brief moment. It was enough to risk losing the edits I was making on my autobiography. Luckily, my computer saved my then current work in the browser and I was able to restore it, rename it, and proceed on. Losing a day’s edits is unwanted, but a writer can recover from that. Luckily, because of technology I don’t understand, I didn’t lose anything when electricity failed and the CPU and screen died.

Optometrist

This week I had my annual appointment with an optometrist for a diabetes screening. It is remarkable how many tests and the diversity of equipment they used for this exam. With a special camera, the attendant took a photo of my retinas. There was almost no change to note year-over-year. I’m clear for another as far as diabetes is concerned until the next appointment in 2025.

The optometrist has been mentioning cataract surgery as a future possibility for the last few years. The thing is, while I experience some vision deterioration, the amount of change does not affect everyday activities like reading and driving. If doc recommends it, I am going to delay until there is some kind of actual problem. The annual screening is fine.

He wrote a new eyeglasses prescription, which I will not fill because I like my current glasses and the improved vision they provide.

Robotic Approach to Health

I had a robo-call from my prescription drug insurance company. The machine left a message on my mobile device. When I called back, it was a robotic reminder I needed to fill my prescription, accompanied by warnings about following doctor’s orders. The pharmacy had some kind of robotic reminder system that previously prompted me to refill my prescription. The reason I didn’t refill was my nurse practitioner quit when the university bought the private hospital system. He hasn’t been replaced. When I called the temporary clinic the next town over to discuss, they asked me how many pills I had left. Because of the robot, I had plenty to last a couple of weeks. When I get down to five pills, I’ll phone so they can reauthorize.

In the meanwhile, I met with a group of pharmacy students who suggested an over the counter drug instead of what I was taking. I have been thinking of stopping the prescription drug and self-treating. Did the robots know, and hence their concern?

Mushroom Hunters

While walking on the state park trail I encountered some neighbors I’ve known a long time. They were off trail and I asked if they were looking for mushrooms. Spring Morel Mushrooms are a well-loved delicacy in this region. He answered that was what they were doing. I stopped walking and we talked. The drought is too much for the mushrooms to grow, we agreed. When I hit the turn-around point and returned, they were both gone.

Another Edit Pass

I see an opportunity to improve the draft of my autobiography. When I started, my main concern was getting a story framed on a timeline. Now that it’s done, I want to emphasize my development as a story-teller. I hadn’t envisioned that when I began. I made some changes to the first chapter and now need to follow it through to the end. It was like something nagged at me. Now I know what it was. With gardening season here, I’m not sure how the new edit will be worked into the schedule.

It was a punk week as far as weather goes. Rain and snow kept me mostly indoors. My exercise log shows more indoors workouts which are never as much fun as walking on the state park trail. I managed as best I could.

Women’s Basketball

Sunday I turned on the television and found ABC which was carrying the NCAA Women’s Championship basketball game. Iowa lost to the University of South Carolina 75-87. It was the first time I tuned into a college sporting event since I watched the Iowa football team get shutout by Washington, 0-28 in the Jan. 1, 1982 Rose Bowl. The moral of the story is I shouldn’t jinx the luck by tuning in.

Our high school class reunion planning group was talking about women’s basketball at our meeting this week. I suggested we find one of the women who were leaders in high school to lead the formal program we have planned. One person asked if we had a women’s basketball team. Perhaps there would be a leader from there. We didn’t. We graduated high school before Title IX was signed into law.

Editing the Book

I finished the final rough draft of the first 38 of 62 chapters in my autobiography. This thing may not drag on until summer. My conclusion is I have been over the text so many times, it has become the story. There were some chapters that needed work, but it is a much better draft than what I finished last year.

One lingering concern is including long passages from my journal in the narrative without editing. Some of that writing is a bit rough. When I started journal writing in 1974, I was not very good at it. My argument to myself is that it is better to show the work than sand off the edges in a new narrative. In part, that is to show my progress as a writer in a work intended to showcase my writing. The long passage I wrote in France was particularly rough, yet it serves as an example of how my journal writing started. For now, I’m leaving it in.

The other question is about passages written about long ago events since I started this blog in 2007. There may be a case to just rewrite these. At the same time, they capture a moment in time that would vanish should I re-write them. I left them in at this point.

End of Life Planning

I read Mary Ann Burrows new book, The Last Hurrah: A Living Workbook for a Happy Ending. The book is about end of life planning, but not the kind I expected. She defers to others the tasks of financial and legal advice and writes mostly about how to turn our last days into a celebration. If someone knows me, they know I am not a big one to celebrate moments or have a big to-do about life’s events. The biggest events in my life were our wedding and its two receptions, and our child’s high school graduation. We had gatherings for them. So many of my good friends have died already, I’m not sure who would be left and in good enough shape to travel for a celebration. I started keeping my own obituary a number of years ago. It is pretty bare bones, and that’s the way I like it.

Clear Organic Juice

I went to the grocer to find clear organic juice for my spouse. She wanted organic apple juice, which wasn’t available. In typical (for us) form, I started sending images of various ingredient labels and products. I offered to get non-organic apple juice. In the end, I phoned her and said, “I’ve been waiting in this juice aisle and am starting to get thirsty.” We gave up and I brought home boxed vegetable broth instead.

It was unsettling to be unable to dig in the garden because of inclement weather. The seed potatoes appear to be doing well, and the seedlings are growing. Here’s hoping the coming week find me spending more time in the garden.