Battered old tree trunk. Beat up and shredded by ocean water.

Powerful stuff.

silly season

This is the silly season.

It is the time of the year when politicians are running around saying things they will regret later. Sometimes they do things that make you shake your head in amazement.

My own state senator was a rising star. He was a young lawyer (aren’t they all?) who was considered to be in training for a US Senate seat and/or Governor. He had been re-elected several times with little opposition. He held leadership positions in the state senate.

Then last year in a throughly drunk state, he stole a pickup that had a camper trailer attached, drove it a few blocks and was found asleep in the cab. Not good for anyone, much less a rising star.

This week one of his female staff members accused him of sexual harassment, and yesterday he resigned from the state senate. Even though he was on a different page on most issues from me, I really feel bad for him. His rising star just burned up, and he set the fire.

One of the national pols made a real big deal about how his opponent made promises he had not keep, then he took a deep breath (I think it was deep) and made promises that no one in this world could pull off. Oh well. He hopes the mics were turned off, but of course they weren't.

Through this I remember a point my pastor made in church a while back.

He said that all political speeches are the same. The speaker says that if you elect him, you cannot even begin to guess how good it is going to be. BUT, if you are stupid enough to elect the opponent, the worse you can imagine is not the beginning of how bad it is will be. Obviously you should elect the speaker. His opponent makes the same speech, by the way.

But, the pastor observed, things don’t change as much as any pol promises.

Somehow, I find some really bent and bruised logic in that comment. It does help me put this season in a degree of perspective.

Imperfect perfection!

ownership

We’ve been in our house in Idaho for a couple of days now.

It has warmed up enough to be quite comfortable. That is good.

I sold the garden and shop acre to a neighbor who dismembered the bridge to keep traffic from cutting through. That meant for me to get a stick of firewood I had to drive 6 or 7 blocks to get to the back of our property.

Yesterday I did a reversible repair. When I leave I can quickly return it to a unusable state.

The house seems strangely large. It is seriously under furnished right now, which makes it seem larger. There is space, almost an excess it seems, and this is not a large house.

As I do every morning, I made a cup of tea. I use a small electric teakettle. But the milk I add to the tea comes out of a full sized refer. There is a range with a real oven.

Such luxury.

I have always been almost Native American in my belief on ownership. I am not sure I own much of anything. I sure don’t own Miriam for instance. This house has been mine for several decades, but it is time to move on.

Someone came into my unlocked shop the other day and stole a bag of tools. I am not too sure what was in the bag yet. And, only when I can’t find a tool will I realize what is gone.

If a tools is really needed, I’ll replace it. If it is not, I’ll live without it. Either way it is really OK.

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.