When all else fails I photograph rocks!

what to write?

A blog is a commitment.

It can be as binding or as non binding as one might wish, but it is there. I have written about a lot of things in this blog in the last few years. If a subject came to mind, I usually wrote about it.

My life is not one of continued adventure. Most of the time it is long periods of quite boring time between bits of interesting events. Little of that is worth writing about.

It does not make sense to talk endlessly about Miriam's AD, even though it is the underlying topic of the blog. Her changes are so slow that a sentence of two every few months would suffice. Besides, if I complain too much my daughters likely will come to overblown conclusions, and I'll get it trouble!

Miriam is a putterer of the highest order. Tonight she finally made it to bed. It rarely takes less than an hour to get her between the covers, and tonight it was an hour and a half. But time we have.

Tomorrow we are loading up and returning to Idaho for the week. I have to see my doctor, and I suppose I should get a haircut, but I don't want to rush that one!

But there is lumber to mill into several kinds of trim for door and window trim and there is glass stops to cut. I'd like to get the wood shop moved, but I don't really have a place to put it yet.

The church needs some oak trim for some interior windows. I did not offer to install the trim, just make it.

Then there is carpenter work to do in the house, then a lot of inside painting.

I may have internet and I may not. And this time I will have Miriam. That is mostly good.

I met a young physician this weekend and we began to talk about photography. I shoot with a two bit camera (or my iPhone) now, and sometimes I am compelled to say that in the old film world, I worked with top quality gear.

This portrait of daughter two, was taken with a Hasselblad 500c. It was a fabulous camera for portraits.

Unfortunately, I'll never afford digital equipment that can hold a candle to my old Hassy or my Leicas or my Nikons. Those cameras exist, but they are totally out of my budget.

Oh well!

must the show go on?

At church this week there was a LOT of big music.

The church I attend is connected with a bible college. The college has a very fine music department creating a lot of great musicians. The wind ensemble performed along with 2 different choirs. The performance was fabulous and lended so much to the service.

In total there were 150 to 175 people on the stage at the same time (about capacity!). A lot of musicians.

The choir was made up of a small choir in the center with the large choir divided on both sides.

There is a young lady who sings in the large choir. She arrives at the front of the building riding, standing, on an electric scooter device. She wears braces on both legs and walks with two canes.

When she needs to go up the stairs to the choir seating, she cannot navigate the stairs, so a man picks her up and carries her up the steps. She is not very big, which helps.

This time, just as the combined choir was ready to sing, there was a crash. The lady with the crutches had fallen.

The conductor had his baton raised to start. He lowered the baton and waited until the young lady was steadily on her feet, then he raised the baton and began.

I have known a lot of musicians in my life, photographed a bale of them. Not all of them would have waited so kindly for something like this. Many would have “the show must go on” attitude.

So I commend the director, who patiently waited until all was ready to go, and I commend the young lady for persevering in her desire to sing in the choir.

Thank you each.

I am humbled to remember my visits to Ketchikan Alaska.

The sun hardly ever shines and it rains for weeks at a time.

I am waiting!

We may have some idea of when this AD thing began.

Not the day, but the year maybe. At least the year when it was diagnosed.

But no one knows when it will end. The disease forces the whole family to accept the disease time table, and we don’t get to know that table.

Someone asked if there was a life after AD, and of course no one knows that one either. I met a man who is always wanting to know where his wife is on this trajectory. He wants to know how long it is till the end of the movie.

Most of the time I deal with this unknown part on an OK basis. Sometimes no so OK.

As I wait for spring, I get antsy. This area has a lot of deep inversions in the late winter, so there are weeks when it is cold and foggy. The growing season is a full 2 months longer than where we lived in Idaho, but right now it is hard to visualize.

The weather people seem confused too. “Partly cloudy. High about 48 to 52.” Then the day is totally cloudy and the high is in the middle 30’s.

But I know that when spring breaks it will all happen over a weekend (or less). I can argue with mother nature but it is a one way argument.

She also has her own schedule!

I built the thing, but I have trouble greasing the bearings in the wheels!

Go figure!

fix it time

“You don’t own it until you fix it.”

Some one once said that (I am sure), but it can’t always be true. My Dodge pickup has spark plugs somewhere. I cannot even find them much less replace them. Good thing they go a long ways any more.

Still, there are some things that I can fix. I can sew a button if necessary, and once I did a fair amount of sewing (on camping gear when I was a kid). I am enough of a cook that we won’t starve any time soon. That still does not make me a mechanic.

Yesterday I did open book surgery on my MacBook. The fan had been making a LOT of noise and it was running very hot. The fan was a $50 part, and I’d been inside my Book before, so I dived in.

A good technician could have done what I did in a tenth of the time, but it is winter and my schedule is hardly crowded.

And, it is good to fix something that is at last moderately challenging. Opening a MacBook is not rocket science, but there are a lot ways to get in trouble.

I am fairly fearless about working on my MacBook, butI still won’t be tearing into my Dodge any time soon, even though I might wish I could!

The list of toys I will never own has a big road bike close to the top.

But, if I could wish and it would happen, this is the one I would want. I think these old Indians were the most beautiful of road bikes.

But then they were the stuff of dreams even when I was a kid!

What?

I woke up this morning and my mind was racing.

Going like a motor that has no load, one that isn’t going anything but spin.

What is Now I asked myself.

Oops, that was then. Now is just a tiny fraction of time. I suppose now could be a day or a year but that kind of reduces the nowness of now!

So I pondered, what is now.

Now was the time it took me to stand up and empty my bladder. Then it was a different now as I got back in bed and none of them are now now.

Absurd.

One must be careful waking up early.

I'd like to pass this off as a new species of "red pine" from Idaho.

In reality it is my camera being "creative." I might have pushed a button somewhere or done something, but this is what happened.

We were on a trip last spring and the camera suddenly made all pictures red, no green, no blue, just monochrome red. Then as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

Crazy.

ug

Miriam has always had cold feet.

Not the kind that kept her from marrying me, but literally. Then UGGs came into our life. I had never heard of UGGs until just before christmas.

They loudly proclaim they are Australian, but they are made in China. Sounds logical I guess. They are lined warm shoes for women. For some reason they were considered fashionable a while back (I don't even figure the fashion thing out) and now they are cool.

The daughters gave Miriam a pair of them for Christmas. Lots of them are calf high, but hers are ankle high.

In the bus I have an old fashioned rubber hot water bottle. I take it with us when we go camping. Before UGGs, I filled that thing up every night with quite warm water, to keep Miriam's cold feet off me, when we went to bed.

At first she said she was impressed by my thoughtfulness, but I said it was pure selfishness. I wanted to avoid the ice cube on my calf thing.

Any way, since the UGGs, we have not used the water bottle very often. I don't mind heating the water and I don't mind the bother, but I am glad it is not as necessary now.

Thanks daughters!

More bread!

late winter

This is not spring, it is late winter.

But late winter is usually a bit warmer. This winter we have lived in an all aluminum motor home. It is not a bad place to live, but cold does conduct easily through all of that alum stuff.

But now it is getting a bit warmer. Not too cold last night, but the wind is up.

All of this means that winter will go away in due time and once again we will see spring. We have no idea of what kind of spring we will get, but it will be warmer than winter.

Not much rain/snow in these parts. Some ski resorts just opened recently. Maybe we will have a wet spring, but maybe not.

I am making progress on my building project, but I am not a hero, nor interested in becoming one. If the weather is too disagreeable, I do something else! What has to get done will get done, I think!

And here is Miriam two weeks later. With us was a dear old friend who was MC at the reception.

We married very young. Is that a good idea? It seems to have worked for us. I have never regretted very much of our life together.