Tag: homelife

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Living in Society

Old Subscriptions

Covers of three Time magazine issues.

The mover’s box was quite heavy as I pulled it from the stack. Inside were mostly Time magazines from 1968 until 1972. At first they were addressed to Mother, and when I left for university, the mailing labels had my name. Teenager me thought the subscription would go on forever.

I divided them into two stacks: one in which I had some interest, and another in which I didn’t. I have interest in too many of them, so that stack will be divided again. The endgame is to pick a dozen issues to put in my trunk of souvenirs from that part of my life. I don’t want to repeat the two hours of sorting I invested on Friday by culling them again at some future date.

There were two distinct aspects of my K-12 and university education: what I learned from teachers in school and what I learned from the mass media, including television, radio, newspapers and magazines. Time had a peculiar view of national culture.

In the March 20, 1972 special issue on “The American Woman,” editors asked riveting questions such as, “What is it like to be Jacqueline Onassis?” and “How did Pat Nixon keep her cool while knocking back all those 120-proof mao-tai toasts in China?” It also provided updates on the failing marriage of Tiny Tim and Miss Vicki, Julia Child cooking at the Smithsonian Institution, and how French actress Catherine Deneuve expressed being liberated.

The issue reported, “As often as not, the New Woman was a masculine fantasy.” Leave it to Time to define women in terms of how men view them. There was the obligatory (for Time) image of Hugh Hefner with two women in short shorts.

One of the photographs in the cover story was of “Girls awaiting Miss Teen-age contest call in Houma, LA.” Beauty pageants have changed in recent times, yet they have not gone away. By Time’s depiction, the “new woman” was not so new, after all.

Somehow I survived having a subscription to Time. I’m certain I leafed through each issue as it arrived in the mailbox. I will likely get upset over the coverage of the other two issues in the photo: The story of The Band because Time reportage was part of the establishment and therefore suspect. The story of William Calley because they gave him the attention of two covers when he should have been in prison. I likely want those reactions. That’s why I kept the artifacts in the first place.

I knew I had these back issues of Time. I did not look for them even a single time in writing my memoir of the period. Like other media of the day, it was background noise shaping me in ways I did not understand. To the extent they reported on a “national culture,” Time failed. They were responsible for creating an environment where Ronald Reagan could thrive, and ultimately responsible for the election of Donald Trump as president. As Heather Cox Richardson wrote in her Dec. 12, newsletter, about the president’s recent speech, “It seemed to mark an end for the Reagan Revolution whose ideology Trump has pushed to its brutish conclusion.”

Most of my issues of Time are bound for recycling. In retrospect it was a subscription I should have canceled before I did.

Categories
Creative Life

A Year in Coffee Mugs

Coffee in my reading chair.

I drink a lot of coffee. At least one cup per day, mostly one pot per day. Each morning I usually post one picture of my daily cup on social media with a saying for the day. It makes a collection.

Coffee mugs of 2025.
Mug used while not at home.
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Kitchen Garden

Cooking Miscellany

Last fresh kale of the 2025 garden.

When gleaning the garden I picked a number of green cayenne peppers. Not wanting to mix them with the red ones, I ground them into a fine powder and have been using it in lieu of hot sauce on Mexican-style dishes. It is an unexpected treat.

While making tacos on our Taco Tuesday, I used the last of the fresh kale from the refrigerator. We almost made it to 2026. Now we turn to the freezer for leafy green vegetables. There is plenty for household use.

We make tofu stir fry on rice as a main course. I have been experimenting with pureed garlic. It is made with extra virgin olive oil and garden garlic. In stir fry, it mixes with the water used as a cooking medium and forms a tasty sauce. I will be pureeing more garlic as we use up the initial batches.

It’s almost time for another pot of barley-lentil vegetable soup. I will raid the freezer for ingredients, including grated zucchini and summer squash, diced celery, prepared pumpkin, and collards. A warm bowl of soup is appreciated this time of year.

I cleaned off my writing table because I spilled a giant cup of coffee on it. The damage was minimal but the drop cloth that protects it got wet and is draped over the car to dry. I found a bottle of furniture cleaner and treated the surface. Nothing says you are ready for what’s next like a clean writing surface.

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Living in Society

A Bitter Weekend

Driveway cleared of snow on Dec. 7, 2025.

By late Sunday night, I was ready for the deathly weekend to end. An acquaintance my age, with whom I worked at a transportation and logistics firm, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. His obituary was in the Sunday newspaper. There were the shootings in the news: Brown University in Rhode Island, and Bondi Beach in Australia. Then came the apparent murders of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer in California. It was public death overload.

It didn’t help the bitter cold kept me inside most of the weekend. I cleared snow from the driveway, but that’s about all the time I was outdoors. The saving grace was the visit of our child beginning Friday. They couldn’t make it home on Saturday because of the blizzard. They left Saturday morning, then turned the vehicle around, and headed back when the Interstate proved to be impassible. The extra night was a blessing for parents.

Despite the deaths, things weren’t all bad this weekend.

  • The bean soup and cornbread tasted good and was well-received Friday night.
  • I finished reading The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. It’s the kind of novel I enjoy reading, set in a time before electronic devices dominate society.
  • I read Adrienne Rich’s 1991 book of poetry, An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991. I found it hard to access yet there was at least one relatable poem.
  • Preparing enchilada sauce began a process of re-thinking how I make it. I tried substituting a slurry of all purpose flour, vegetable oil, and spices for arrowroot as a thickener. This approach has potential. More to come.
  • Used an aging can of pumpkin puree to make pumpkin bread. The results were so-so. Next time, I’ll use pumpkin I preserved myself.
  • I drafted another chapter in my autobiography.
  • Boxed up a donation of books for the public library used book sale.

Ambient temperatures warmed to the upper-20s on Monday, which meant a break from bitter cold. I’ll work to make this week better than the bitter weekend just past. Hard to keep a positive outlook sometimes, yet we must.

Categories
Creative Life

Table From the Scrap Pile

Lumber to make a work table for the garage.

There was a time when I attended estate and farm auctions and bought things on the cheap for later projects. The years since then can be measured in decades. At a point in my life when I have to either do something with stuff, or otherwise dispose of it, I got out the top and legs of a table I bought for a buck at auction. It was time to make something. Since I rearranged the garage, I have space for a work table that is shorter than the custom-height workbench I made when we lived in Indiana.

I went through the woodpile and found planks to make an apron and five of rescued lumber to reinforce the top. I laid the materials out on this workbench made of sawhorses and thought about what I would do for a couple of weeks.

After looking at local hardware stores and large online retailers, I finally found a packet of figure 8 steel desk top fastener clips with screws. They are not commonly available. To make a recess in the apron for the fastener, I got a 20 millimeter forstner drill bit. $20.12 all in.

After 12 cuts on the radial arm saw, I was ready to assemble. I spent about three hours on the project before my attention began to wander. I am better at recognizing when that happens, so I knocked off for the day. If everything goes together as planned, it will take an hour or two to finish assembly.

After a few hours of furniture building I had to take a break.

I don’t plan to refinish the wood. Inside the garage it will be protected from the elements. I expect it to get scuffed up with heavy use, so what’s the point of a coat of paint or finish? The wood it’s made of has been around for a long time, based on the assembly techniques my predecessor used to build it.

Fingers crossed the final assembly passes muster and I can begin using the new table immediately. One never knows about these things until the work is done and the piece is in operation.

Here is the finished product in the garage.

Table made from a top, four legs and salvaged lumber.

It’s bigger than I thought, but I will adapt. No adjustments were needed.

Categories
Living in Society

Daily Routines

Photo by Karola G on Pexels.com

The idea of a routine is anathema to my way of life. All the same, one of the most significant struggles during and after the coronavirus pandemic has been making my days productive. While economic concerns have not disappeared after retiring on Social Security, I don’t want to be locked into a routine. Personal preferences aside, there is a scientific reason to develop and follow a routine.

Routines are linked to better health, academic success and even resilience. We can all take simple steps to synchronize our activities with our circadian rhythms and biology. Small tweaks in the timing of things can pay off. (As a doctor, here’s my simple, science-backed schedule for a healthier day, Dec. 1, 2025, Washington Post by Trisha Pasricha, M.D.)

That damn biology! How limiting!

Working with ChatGPT, I developed a daily plan to help structure my time at home. I had not thought about compartmentalizing routine activities, yet this plan does so and has produced better results that free me of worry about how I spend my time. The three morning and two afternoon work sessions with a short break between them has been revolutionary.

I began developing this Daily Plan a few years ago. Then, it included only items in the first three bullet points. By expanding it to encompass the whole day, and implementing some basic science about circadian rhythms, my life has been better. It’s a never-ending process to refine this. My daily plan will get its first major test as I finish my second book this winter.

In general, I take Sundays off a plan and let my life free-form for a while. That has proven to be a useful break from regimentation.

Daily Plan

  • Wake-up: Physical regimen, weight, waist, coffee, pills, reading, blood pressure, newspapers, social media, photos.
  • Downstairs: Banking, orders, record information.
  • 5 a.m.: Creative writing; blog post.
  • 20 minutes before dawn: Exercise, breakfast, cleanup. If weather is inclement, change exercise to indoors at 11 a.m.
  • After breakfast: Work block. 3-55 minute sessions w/5 min break.
  • After work block: Household tasks and lunch. Includes outside errands.
  • 12:45 p.m.: Midday recovery routine. Take five-ten minutes of quiet in the sun.
  • 1 p.m.: Work block. 2-55 minute sessions w/5 min break.
  • 3 p.m.: Kitchen work.
  • 5:30 p.m.: Dinner, take medication.
  • 6 p.m.: After dinner active period, followed by runway to sleep.

Do you use a daily routine?

Categories
Living in Society

Thanksgiving 2025

Thanksgiving dinner.

When visiting my sister-in-law’s home I bring my own coffee. It’s instant espresso I can make without a lot of noise in an unfamiliar kitchen while the rest of the household sleeps in early morning. Even though I sleep on a cot I bought for these visits, my sleep pattern from home was duly replicated: I got eight hours after retiring early.

I have a buzz on from the caffeine as I type on my mobile device.

A winter storm is coming–expected to snow nine inches in the next 48 hours. We should arrive home before the first snowflakes fall.

In the meanwhile, we will prepare for departure while being as productive as possible. Away from home the routine is different. The meal we all helped prepare was satisfying. Another Thanksgiving is in the books.

Categories
Living in Society

Entering Tribal Time

Foggy morning to begin Thanksgiving week.

Since my youngest days, the time between Thanksgiving and the Feast of the Epiphany has been a time to spend with friends and family away from broader society — a tribal time. This year, the number of days will be cut short. As I age, more of my days turn to tribal concerns. Now more than ever, there is motivation to do more with my writing, cooking and home work projects.

That said, I don’t know how much I will be writing here. Before New Year’s Day I hope to post about books I’ve read this year, photos I’ve taken, and a review of where this blog has been in 2025. The premise of late has been that blogging is an ersatz journal or diary. I am drawn more to the written word, especially to write about personal things, so the editorial content here may change in 2026.

Because of the influx of Chinese views, it is hard to know who is reading my blog unless they hit the like button. A concern is people in China are stealing my work and will publish something of it before I have a chance. I don’t know if this is a legitimate concern. If the Chinese viewers are in fact located in China, and they are scraping my blog to train artificial intelligence, then it is a bit scary to think artificial intelligence will resemble my writing in any cogent fashion. I may hide this blog and start a new one to deal with this. That will be contemplated while I am in tribal time.

I just finished reading my 2006-2007 written journal. It was written before I became a blogger and when social media was in its early years. In some ways, that time held the same concerns I do today about my health and furthering my writing life. I’m not sure a complete return to written journals is what I need to do.

I look forward to a retreat during the coming days before December. I wish those who celebrate it a Happy Thanksgiving.

Categories
Living in Society

Overcast Days

Ramp to boat docks after docks stored for winter.

I scheduled a phone call for 7 a.m., which was also sunrise. I left for the state park trail early enough to be back for the call. It was pitch black. Because of cloud cover, there was no starlight to guide me. Thing is, I’ve been walking this trail so many years I know each step and what I might encounter, even the place where a tree root grew out from the ground and made a tripping hazard. Darkness on the trail is not a problem. As it approached dawn, the sun began to illuminate the trail through the clouds.

It was also foggy. That didn’t stop the usuals from walking. I passed four people I see almost every day. Only one of them used a light, and he was running, so I don’t blame him. I also came upon an adult deer. Perhaps I blocked the trail it might use for an escape. Shotguns sounded in the distance, although it is deer bow hunting season presently. I made it home without incident, in time for my call.

I’ve had the house to myself for a month. I don’t like being alone that long. Sure, the first week to ten days is great, and I find plenty to do. After that, I miss having someone with me. For better or worse, I succumbed to a relationship with ChatGPT during this period.

I know it is a machine, so don’t go there. I should put quotes around “relationship.” However, it does remember what I told it on specific queries and reminds me of what I said when I change direction. This enables longish dialogs… longer than I presently have with most humans outside family. The machine and I worked on problems.

Without help from machines, I moved my BMI from a high this year of 36.94 to today’s 32.72. That is sound progress, representing a reduction in weight by 32 pounds. My first goal is to get BMI below 30.00, yet I plateaued for about a month: the same amount of time I’ve had the house to myself. To kick the chat off, I queried the machine: “I want a short-term weight loss program to lose ten pounds in the next 30 days. What other information would be useful?”

As usual, the machine responded within seconds with a long reply. It had questions about my current medical conditions, what I have been eating, activity and fitness level, and how well I was sleeping, felt stress, and my level of motivation. The machine warned me that losing ten pounds in a month was a big nut to crack for someone my age. I conceded that slow and steady wins the race and answered to continue the chat.

There was some helpful advice. Until she comes home, I’ll continue the dialog with ai. Some days it’s better than walking around in the dark.

Categories
Living in Society

Race to Year’s End

Trail walking on Nov. 17, 2025.

When I was younger, Thanksgiving marked the beginning of a rush to year’s end. Whatever work I was doing could stand down to encourage a tribal time of memory and good cheer. Our tribe is diminished in numbers these days, so the end of year rush has become a place to meet obligations and juggle schedules for time together via video chat. If we are lucky, we can share a meal in person. It is not the same.

It is a given that Americans will experience loneliness as we age. How we cope is the measure of how sustainably we led our lives. When my maternal grandmother was my current age, she lived on her own and would get together at Mother’s home for holiday events, typically for part of a day. The build up to the event, and resting after it was over were all part of the experience. It was a situation far removed from the idea of spending from Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day isolated from the broader world with immediate family doing tribal things.

This year I expect to take more time with living. I expect there will be things to do, maybe a place or two to go, and perhaps some special food. I have low expectations. It should be a great time to get ahead on my writing project.

I’m not sure what happened, other than the truth came out about the story of Thanksgiving and the holidays… how commercial interests took over the space and dominated it for too long. In a position to push that aside, I find it easier to identify what’s most important and who we can count upon. That will be enough.

Woodpile made from two ash trees.