Wheat! I Have A Rye Expression On My Face...

Well, actually all I have is a terrible pun.  More importantly, I also have Rye and Wheat sprouting:

Gazelle Rye (119 days to maturity)

Dylan Hard Red Spring Wheat (112-140 days to maturity)

I am excited for two reasons.  The first is simply that something is growing (in my book that is always exciting).  The second is that this is the first time I have tried to plant Spring Grains. I am hopeful that it will work, as it will open up the possibility of having both fall and spring plantings going at the same time without fully eating up available space.

(As always, great thanks to the good folks at Bountiful Gardens  (www.bountifulgardens.org).  Their order came as always: quickly, completely, and inexpensively.  I cannot recommend them enough.

Gone

Clicking of nails
on the floor no more, as the
house becomes empty.

Syrah The Mighty Is Gone

Syrah the Mighty is gone.

She was diagnosed with  Hemangiosarcoma - cancer of liver/spleen, something that apparently can come to terminal stage rather quickly.  She had been acting a bit out of sorts - lots of getting up and having to go out at night recently, and then today when The Ravishing Mrs. TB got home, she was simply laying in the hallways, her breakfast uneaten.  Something was obviously up.

She was a good dog.

She lived with us for almost 8 years, from July of 2008.  She was a rescue and initially much bigger (and more powerful) of a dog than any of us expected.  But she was perfect with Na Clann - never in all the years we had her did she ever growl or bite them, no matter how much they loved her or rolled on her head.  If it got too much, she simply got up and moved to be somewhere else.

A devourer of all things food, she was relentless in her pursuit of it, constantly lurking about waiting for something to drop  (who will I share my apples with now?).  Her ability to hear the sound of the refrigerator opening - from any room of the house - was almost psychic.  She was a great defender of the home as well, barking if anyone walked by or up to the door (and probably moving more than one solicitor on to the next house).

She delighted in chasing squirrels in the yard although she never caught one, developing a technique whereby she would walk up to the back door as if she wanted to be let in, then suddenly turning and running back to chase the squirrel which had foolishly decided to come down as she was (apparently) going it.

I will miss her.  She was my constant companion around the house during the day, always interested in what you were doing (especially hoping you had food).  Sometimes I had to stop doing Iai because she would walk right into the line of my draw, looking for a pet.  She loved her walks at night, constantly driving me to distraction when she had to stop and sniff virtually everything destroying any chance I had of actually getting an aerobic workout.

I keep turning to my left even now to the dog bed by the desk, where I keep expecting to see her curled up in a ball.

Nighean Dhonn made an observation as we waiting there after she had fallen asleep, noting "It is lucky that it is Easter weekend so that we can remember about death and resurrection."  Would that I could think of such a profound statement in a moment of sorrow.

Godspeed Syrah. We will meet again someday.

Caring For What You Do

Yesterday as I was driving to work, it occurred to me that I do not really care about what I do.

Oh, I care about doing a good job.  Fair enough.  But the underlying passion for what I do is simply not there as it used to be.

I like to do good.  It is funny, so many people look askance at you when you verbalize this at an interview (or at least you can hear them raising their eyebrows over the phone).  It sounds so much like a canned response that a fresh-out-of-college student would give, so eager to land that first job that they will say almost anything to get in the door.

But it is true.  At least for me.  In what I do, I have had (and continue to have but on a much diminished scale) the opportunity to impact people's lives for the good.  And that is an important part of what I do.

So what do you do when you have lost that feeling?  That is where I seem to be now.

There are really only two options of course.  The first is to simply find something else within the industry that I work in and do that.  And that is a possibility, of course - the difficulty is that for what I do, there is not much around here to go to.

The second is to figure out what I really care about and find a job doing that.

So I sat as I drove and started to make a list of the things that I care about.  Responsible land use and good farming practices, for example.  The preservation of skills and techniques from the past, such as Iai.  Writing that changes things.  Homes for all the rabbits.  That sort of thing.

Does any of this look like a job?  Not really.  But does this all reflect things I actually care about?  Absolutely.   And when I do these things, do I put attention and care into how I do them?  Yes, because I care deeply about them.

So perhaps my overall search needs to take a slightly different tack.  One will never successfully execute on that which one does not really care about.  Important, then, to find opportunities in the things one does care about - and do those.

Moonlight Garlic

The green garlic leaves
caressed softly by moonlight
sway in the gray breeze.

Spring Cleaning 2016

This weekend we actually had a 3 day weekend.  What to do? Work in the yard as it is practically Spring!

First off, mulch.  We need lots of it here as we have hot summers.

 My mint has come up in the strangest places...

I like the dark compost.  It works well with the lavender.

 Hey - Look what survived!  Pepper Plants:

View of the pepper plant and the garlic, which has overwintered nicely:

Back part of the garden, now planted with Rye and Spring Wheat:

And here's a view of the back, mowed, weed-whacked, and debranched:

Strangely enough, this work - along with mowing and weed-whacking the rest of the yard - has me looking forward to improvements this year.  Beyond the main garden (the one with the garlic and pepper plant) and the summer bean garden (just to the left of the bushes above) I am planning on a heavy planting of lavender, hopefully in preparation for bees.

Happy Spring!

On Sparta

I have found myself of late consumed by an incessant need to read about Sparta.
I have devoured (again)  Thermopylae:  The Battle for the West.  I have paged through (again) portions of A War Like No Other and The Spartans: The World of the Warrior Class in Ancient Greece.  I am reading through Plutarch's On Sparta and have just about finished Sparta's Kings.

Why, you might sensibly ask, have I been consumed with an ancient state in a province of Greece that is so dissimilar from anything that we experience in the modern world?

I am not sure.  Perhaps it is a longing for a simpler time.  Or perhaps a longing for nobility in leadership (Reading about the Battle of Thermopylae will do that for you).  Or perhaps, especially as I get towards the end of Sparta's Kings, it is the melancholy of seeing the dissolution and decline of a society - in so many ways, it seems like looking into a mirror of the state of the world as it is.

Is there a lesson in all of the things I have been reading?  Perhaps not any I can immediately take away but must meditate on to make sense of them.  But the one that truly seems to stick out at me is that once the fabric of a society is torn, it is never true mended back together.

And it is only fools that otherwise feel this to be so.

Confusedly Depressed

So I think I figured out today that I have been a little (or a little more) depressed.

I have just not had the interest for anything that I am usually interested in.  All I have wanted to do is read.  I practice Iai because I must and weight lifting because it has become a habit - but everything else suddenly seems to have ground to a halt.

This surprises me a little bit because I have been making an honest effort to be more positive.  And I think, at least internally within myself and with my outward speech, I have overall been making progress. This flummoxes me as it seems to be precisely the opposite of what I was trying for.

Honestly, I believe a lot of it to be environmental.  The political and world environment in toto has me completely distressed and while not paying attention to it alleviates some of the immediate concern it is always on the back of my mind, a slope careening into dissolution and chaos.  Work has not been helpful in this regard either:  I am essentially doing tasks that I started doing 17 years ago when I entered this line of work, hardly the sort of thing to raise one's level of enthusiasm.

But the shutting down of all interests, all motivation, has me confused.  I do not understand where this is coming from.  And equally as important, I do not understand how to lift myself out of this and get back on course.

Mountain Laurel

Purple Blossoms dance
in the sunlight, as the bees
sip the blush of Spring.

Spring Break Morning

It is Spring Break here.  The house is eerily quiet at this hour of the morning.

Usually it would be filled with the sounds of preparation for school and work:  coffee would be brewing, breakfast would be cooking, semi-conscious child would be stumbling around getting ready as the alarm was going off in another's room as she slept through it.

Instead, nothing.

Syrah the Mighty sighs and rolls over to one side.  The rabbits gently crunch away at their pellets.  My clicking of the keyboard, of course.  But other than that, nothing.

I do not quite know why I am so attuned to the silence this morning - maybe simply because I have become so used to such sounds of late that their absence is completely jarring.  Or perhaps there is something in my soul that is craving the silence that it hears at the moment.

All will be back to normal soon enough, of course:  Spring Break will pass and we will lurch into the last part of the school year.  But there is a hint here of a future which is coming all to soon, a future in which the silent morning will become every morning, not just the one's around Spring Break.

On Falling Out of The Current

I should consider myself fortunate - become disengaged from the political landscape is becoming easier and easier.

The secret?  I am just allowing my natural tendencies to avoid confrontation and the fact that I really dislike yelling and arguments to take over.  Suddenly the need to keep endlessly tracking on things of no import seemed to fall away.

The silence is surprisingly deafening inside after the constant input is removed.

I know what some will say - "You are avoiding a process that you need to be involved in".  And to some extent that is true - it is  a process that certainly impacts me and something that I will need to participate in - at the proper time.  Until then, all I seem to hear is yelling and counter yelling with any attempt to discuss actual issues being buried beneath layers of rage on all sides.  This is hardly the sort of thing that makes my life better.

And it is driving us apart, not together.  Herein lies the biggest worry - we will get through this cycle and find that we will no longer be able to talk to friends because too much rhetoric got in the way:  we called each other terrible things, imputed actions and attitudes based on outward appearances rather than on the inward person we knew.  We burned bridges and destroyed common landmarks of interest to make our point - and once they were gone, we found that we had nothing left to come back to, no point of reference to meet at or a place to begin to rebuild the relationships.

In our haste to be right, we destroyed our ability to communicate.  And without communication, things like societies and civilizations no longer exist.

Do Not Be Alarmed.....

Your eyes are not deceiving you.  I have updated the blog template.

I know, right?  It has been 11 years since I started this and no updates but to add additional things.  So boom.  New background (Books.  I love books).  And one of those handy blog feed thingies that so many of my friends online use to keep you updated as to when they update their blogs and the name of the update.

Who knows, I may someday get altogether crazy and start one of those dynamic picture things....

Less Social Media, Not More

I have to keep reminding myself:  less social media, not more.
I let myself get soft and comfortable.  I like to post things that people like.  I like to be involved in conversations.  I like to post things that influence people's lives.

And then something happens and suddenly  I remind myself why I do not do it more often.

I have managed to cull down my presence on-line to a smaller and smaller circle of notice.  I should remind myself to make it smaller.  Not because I am afraid that I am going to be singled out by the vast government conspiracy - no, I should think that they already have whatever they would need.  Instead, I need to do it because I need less aggravation in my life, not more.

And every time I post and something gets misinterpreted or goes awry, I feel my anxiety level rise. And remind myself again I really need to do something about it.

More Rain

So it is raining tonight.  Rain heavily last night (1.5" in about 4 hours), then off and on again today, then started again around 7:30 this evening.

It is odd that we have been here as long has we have (7 years this year) and I still have not completely figured out the weather patterns here. It is a bit of a problem, of course, because Spring seems to only here something like 2 weeks (you laugh, but it is really true - essentially we have two seasons only, Summer and Winter, with brief intermissions we call Spring and Autumn) and planting becomes a bit dicey if we go too far into the not Spring season.

I was going to plant this last weekend  but am glad that I did not - I am afraid the rains (we have the potential of "Severe Weather") would have washed away what I had planted (which would have been my grain seeds - trying again this year).  We are supposed to be back up near 90 next Monday so perhaps planting will be more congenial then (plus, with Daylight Savings, I actually am back to having evenings I can work with).

We need the rain badly of course, and I am hardly the one to complain about another rain day (on the whole, I love them).  And hopefully a week one way or the other will not harm anything.

But I sure would feel better if everything was in the ground and growing where it should be.

The Bats of Spring

Storm clouds dull the stars:

the first insects of Springtime
engage the bats more.

A Little Broken

I broke today, I think.

I cannot define the specific moment for you but I can define the time.  It was relatively early in the workday, when I was consulting industry literature to see companies in my space are doing.  There was an article about a leader in industry and his opinion on where the industry was going (in his case, the wrong way).

I read the article and thought "Wow, there is something pretty neat.  Cutting edge stuff, people doing good."  And then got sucked right back in to the mediocrity of my work existence:  broken work flows, documents that need fixing, things that I am supposed to do and have not gotten to because of other things.

And then it hit me:  there are great things going on in my industry.  Really great things.  Life saving things, life enhancing things.  They are just not happening here. And they are just not happening through what I am doing.

It was at that moment I broke.

All of a sudden all of my tasks were laid out before as they really are: administrative exercises in paperwork, minor walk on roles in a play where the action and main characters have long ago passed me by.  I do the work that needs to be done but even in that it is work that is ultimately just plugging holes and filling gaps.  The great work goes on elsewhere.

Not here.  Never here.

What to do?  I am not sure, except I have now discovered a huge hole where my "I care" button used to hang.  I will do the work that needs doing because it needs to be completed and systems need to be maintained, but I no longer have any illusion that this means anything other than nothing.  More effort will not results in greater impact or recognition.  My efforts to go higher will only result in more of the same rather than something different.

All I know is that I broke something today.  And I fear it can never be repaired.

Political Season: A Fine And Pleasant Idiocy

So this political cycle, perhaps for the first time ever, I actually followed a candidate.

It was driven by some vestigial sense of caring, of believing that somehow my involvement might matter.  I signed up for the the mailing list - which one?  I do not know that it really matters as I suspect they are all the same - and waited.

If I had believed the political discourse of this nation was done before, I am convinced now.

The e-mails have only one of two themes:

1)  Give money.

2)  Help us beat the other person because our candidate is the only one that can unite America (oh, and give money).

That is about it.

I receive breathless updates about how the candidate has done this or that, how this candidate took it to the others in the debate, how this candidate showed they were "the one"  (Shades of Highlander) to win.  All (apparently) in the vain hopes to get me to give more money, for which a link is helpful provided every time.

No discussion of the issues.  No plans.  No engagement.  Just

1)  Give money.

2)  Help us beat the other person because our candidate is the only one that can unite America (oh, and give money).

I am done now, convinced that no matter who takes the office of President in November little will change.  Because I do not matter, really, and neither do you.  The point of citizens, apparently, is to simply give money at the appropriate time, vote, and then quietly trust that the folks we elected will do what they say.  Mind you, most of their attention has already moved to the next election:

1)  Give money.

2)  Help us beat the other person because our candidate is the only one that can unite America (oh, and give money).

I sincerely question that I will ever see national politicians worthy of the title "Leader" again in my lifetime.

Harping It Up

So today for the first time in twenty years I played the harp in public.

It was a company talent show for which volunteers were eagerly "solicited". For a good cause and all of course, and with fabulous prizes,  so I signed up.

I have not been playing the harp as much as I should be.  Just got busy, I suppose.  But making myself perform put me in a position where I had to do something.  So for two weeks, I practiced.

It was harder than I initially thought.  I started with three O'Carolan songs that I remembered and was rather diligent to practice them.  The three slowly whittled its way down to two, which then became one about ten minutes before I performed.

How did I do?  Not terribly by even my own rather critical estimation.  There were a couple of moments of blank to be sure, but  this was a slow song (Blind Mary) and so I had plenty of time to correct.  Applause all around when I was done, and a gift card to boot.

The most important part of the exercise, though, was the fact that I did it.  And remembered how much I enjoyed doing it.  And how even carving out 30 minutes a day can make a real difference - perhaps not learning songs as fast as I did when I was without children and this was my other hobby, but progress can still be made.

Two points here:  the one is that it represents (potentially) another source of income.  Not a large one by any stretch of the imagination but something that I am in complete control of and I enjoy doing.

The second, of course, is that it involves entertaining one's self rather than relying on others to entertain you.  And that is yet another point of self sufficiency and ichiryo gusoku.

A Subtle Atmospheric Work Change

I have noticed a trend over the last few weeks at my job.  There is a certain tilt to the tasks that are coming my way, a certain change in what I am being asked to do.

Essentially I - and my group - are being moved to the shadows.

Oh, we still have plenty to do, never fear you about that.  But what we have to do is increasing sinking beneath the level of visibility to the bulk of the company:  where before we managed, now we administer as well.  Where before we verified the work of others, now we are doing their work because they have more important tasks.  Where before management came to our meetings, now virtually none of them show up.

If I look around I realize that I am in a declining department, as least declining in relationship to the rest of the company structure.  Parts of the business are increasing in size and scope, but not us.  The problem, of course, is that we will be the recipient of that increased work force's output.  We should be growing now - and of course, we will not.

There are days when I enjoy what I do, that I feel it makes a difference.  But what I am finding now is different - it is not that I am doing my job function, but rather that I - and my department - are picking up the work to support us that others no longer view as important.

If you think the work we do is not important enough for you to do, imagine how you will feel when we are not there to do that work either.

Overslept

The mind is willing,
but the exhausted body
will win every time.

Leap Year Night

Cold Front moves over
my bokuto as oak leaves
cascade from above.

Basket From The Past: A Cautionary Tale

Longaberger is moving from their Big Basket Building.

Longaberger, in case you have never heard of them, was a company that made baskets.  It was started in 1973 by Dave Longaberger, whose father J.W. had made baskets in Dresden, OH in the 1920s and 1930s.  Dave began making baskets and then began having others make baskets; in 1978 he went with a direct home sales route.  The baskets were handmade, signed by the individual making them.  They branched out into iron working and ceramics.  By 1999-2000, the year of his death and the passing of his company to his daughters, the company had over 8000 employees and $1 Billion in sales.  They had numerous plants, a sort of retail shopping theme area (The Homestead), an annual gathering where the Columbus Convention Center was filled with screaming consultants and hangers on, and a regional business model built on the industry and the people that bought the products and came and visited.

In 2003, it began to fall apart.  I am not in the know why specifically, although (see below) my guess is in a tougher economic market handmade baskets (not cheap, by any stretch of the imagination) had less of an appeal.  The company was bought by an investment firm, CSVL, in 2013.  Currently (according to the news article) they have 340 full and part time employees now, only 70 of whom make baskets.

I have more than a tangential knowledge of these things.  Once upon a time, The Ravishing Mrs. TB sold Longaberger Baskets. In 2004, she and I went back to the convention (called the Bee).   We just looked - we had a basket we made when we were there.

The thing that strikes me most about the article as I read it was the memories I had of a thriving business and community.  It was not just the two or three plants that we visited, it was the regional economy that existed because of the baskets.  Restaurants, shops - all drew their life from the baskets that were made and the people that flocked like crazed groupies to buy and shop them.

I have not really thought about them in a long time other than the fact that we have their product in every room of our house (and several boxes in our garage) as well as the flatware that we use.  They are well made products and will probably last more than our lifetimes - but there are only so many that you can use.  The Ravishing Mrs. TB mentioned them going out of business and all of a sudden I had to go look.

The thing that makes me sad is that I can imagine the economic impact without even being there - one does not lay off 96% of their employees without it having a drastic impact on the regional economy.   Doing a quick Ixquick search reveals a series of news articles like mile markers on a descending path - Apparently with 3 years of our visit they were already down 65% of their employees.  The ripple effects of such a thing are staggering:  businesses and families are impacted at every level.

 I note (with a little investigation) that the Bee, their annual convention, has relocated back to Dresden, the town where the company started in the local high school - and they only expected about a 1000 attendees.

This story should serve as a grim reminder to all of the risks and costs of having economies based on single sources, especially single sources which are not really critical to any industry or any one's lifestyle.  And it should also serve as a sad warning to all about being willing to see over the horizon unflinchingly and preparing for it.

Prayer of the Day - 28 February 2016

"Lord, make possible for me by grace what is impossible for me by nature.  You know how little I can bear and quickly I become discouraged by a little adversity. I pray You, make every trial lovely and desirable to me for Your Name's sake, since suffering and affliction for Your sake is so profitable to the health of my soul."

- Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

If You Are Not Excited...

This resonates very deeply with me at the present time.  Everything I am excited about is on the fringes of my life and the main part of it merely fills me with a mediocre feeling of something I have to do.

That needs to change.

(Hat Tip: American Viking)

Quail Spring

"Spring" say the Quail,

ignoring the wind and rain;

Sunlight tells them all.

A Discouraging Day

Yesterday was a discouraging day.
It was discouraging on two fronts.  The first was the realization that, in order to bring documents into compliance, I would have to go through 105 documents, figure out their status, and get them revised.  This involves, on a simple move, working through 5 different computer screens and three different folders.  To give you a scope of the time involved - because our system is really not all that efficient - it took me 3 hours to figure out the status of 8 documents and get them moving appropriately.  By that math, I only have 37 hours left of working with the system to get the documents moving - and that is just moving.  All of them will still have to be reviewed, formatted, and signed off on.

The second was the realization that a Key Performance Indicator, one that has trended within specification for well over a year, has suddenly fallen off during the last quarter.  This is not a good thing.  Not only will I have to conduct an investigation to figure out what it is up, it will mean additional meetings and follow up  (my guess - going to two meetings a week on this subject instead of one).  Yes, the system is processing more - which means we are catching more, which is a good thing -but it appears that the system is also failing.

These are not the droids I was looking for.

I left feeling discouraged and defeated - discouraged because the work that people and systems are supposed to do has fallen upon me (and it may be assumed, is thought that it will be done by me), defeated because it feels as if any attempts at progress are ultimately futile; in the event of a failure, the work simples rolls back to me.

I will go in of course tomorrow and start over - I have blocked out large portions of the next three days to complete my tasks to ensure that the work will get done.  What bothers me, in my heart of hearts, is the simple and inescapable fact that even if this all gets done and moved forward, in the end it simple will be rolled up and disappear into the atmosphere as if it had never existed.

I long for more meaning from my employment.

Cold Wind Over My Career

I had the cold touch of reality caress the back of my neck today.

It was a chance thing:  a conversation that got me thinking, and in thinking got me to realize that in some ways while I am incredibly blessed at the moment, this all could disappear much quicker than I could possibly envision.

That gets the mind working, of course:  How much are we paying now?  If we got rid of debt, how much would we owe then?  What do I have to have and what are really luxuries in my life?  (Hint:  Like most people, they are a lot less than I tend to think that they are.)

It was a needed reminder, of course.  I got sloppy and happy over the last couple of weeks - a bonus and a retroactive pay adjustment will do that to you.  Suddenly you feel flush and in control of things.  Your plans tend to change a bit, the purse strings get loosened up.

And then the wind hits.

And then you get back on track to what you intended to accomplish this year in the first place.  Because in this environment, banking on a career to carry you forward for the foreseeable future is a rather high stakes bet indeed. And one that I would rather face prepared than surprised.

The Relentless Pursuit of the Unattainable

This weekend was the Kickoff of the 2016 Highland Games Season.  In some ways it probably functions just as the old Games 700 years ago did:  coming out from the Winter, seeing friends you have not seen in four to five months, brushing the dust off and trying to throw again.

My game has not wholly failed me - I got two minor PRs, one in Heavy Weight for Distance and one in Heavy Hammer (both of which are super sweet because the heavy events are the most adverse to people with my weight) and came super close to 18' Sheaf above bar, smacking off the bottom of the bar three times (which will be mine next year).  Other throws were, for the most part, where they probably needed to be (except for Braemar Stone, which was a heavy nasty 24 lb lumpy mess that had no handle and did not fly so much as waddled through the air).  It was a rather satisfactory beginning to the season.

But that was not the important thing.

The thought struck me, as I was standing under the bar for Weight Above Bar preparing to swing the weight, that really Highland Games was no different from Iaijustsu or Weight Lifting:  a series of prescribed motions that we repeat over and over, attempt to get them better.  Progress is occasionally measured in large bumps but more often in the small forward motions of inches or slightly improved form:  the sword held at the correct height, the back that is where it should be on a deadlift, the drop after going down but before up on Weight Above Bar right after the weight becomes weightless (yes, it is a thing).

We are chasing the Unattainable.

We are chasing perfection of form and execution.  In a sense, there is never an ending place to where one can be with these things - or almost anything, actually.  There is only the continued to work to make one's self adhere closer to the standard, of seeing things become more and more elegant and beautiful and appear as if no effort is expended when in fact the effort has been channeled into perfect motions and movement.  We may never reach it, but we are always trying.

My Weight Above Bar only hit 9 feet.  My PR is 10 feet.  My goal is 12 feet.  But that is okay.

I have all season to pursue it.

40 Days of Positive: An Update

How do you return to the positive from the negative?

This is the greatest challenge I am finding as I go through my 40 day challenge of positive thinking.  I am very accomplished at bringing myself down - how can I be at bringing myself up?

I am not going to lie - for me, it is a lot harder than it originally sounded.  I all too easily get myself into a dark funk where one negative thought takes root and before you know it all that it bouncing around inside my head are thoughts that go nowhere but down.  I am sure it has always happened this way, just that I was not aware of it.

How am I combating it?  One is simply by becoming conscious that such a thing is happening.  It takes a certain stepping outside of one's self to get the perspective, an acknowledgement of what is going on - almost as if I am outside of my head looking in on it, an active watcher to my own thoughts.

The second is then to consciously redirect my thoughts to something else.  If I am driving, doing some sort of language learning seems excellent for this - it forces my brain to actively engage on learning instead of theorizing and hypothesizing.  Another thing that seems to work well is to focus not on my  current situation but on the goals that I have set for the year.  This gets my focus off of whatever is going on in my head and onto the future and the things that I can control to get there.

(It probably goes without saying that Iai and Exercise will drive the thoughts out of my head as well - focus on form leaves room for little else).

Is this what I imagined it would be?  Not entirely, no.  But am I making progress?

Undoubtedly, yes.

Spring in February?

Second week of warm
while others are under snow:
Guilty Clear Blue Skies.

A Simple Decision

Yesterday was a good day.

I cannot fully tell you why it was a good day.  Certainly my outer circumstances did not significantly modify themselves from the day before:  my house was the same, my job was the same, even the drive home was the same.  Nothing changed outwardly.

But something changed inwardly.

The moment it changed, I think, was the moment that I made a decision to act independently.

It was certainly not some kind of great action or sudden revelation that caused me to perform some great and noble deed.  It was the simple action of getting up and away to get something done, work that needed to get accomplished and I was unable to focus on accomplishing it.

But it was the decision to do it that made the breakthrough.  Rather than get angry or frustrated or not get anything done, I simply went somewhere to get it done.  And everything changed - because I had made a decision.  Beyond just getting the immediate work done - I started making and doing all kinds of things for the rest of the day, things that actually would move me forward in my life instead of just staying in the same place.

It gives credence to what Gary Ryan Blair, The Goals Guy (http://www.100daychallenge.com) says:  Everything Counts.

Even the simple decision to get up and move.

Morning Naginata

Every Tuesday and Thursday I practice Naginata in the morning.

The original purpose of doing this was both to break up my running a bit (5 days a week is somewhat hard on my body) and to practice Naginata on a more regular basis.  The practical application of this has become practicing a polearm in the dawn.

The sidewalk in front of my neighbor's house (our Oak trees still hang too low) has become the track over which I practice.  Back and forth practicing cuts - the overhead takane and the side cutting tomoe and forward thrusting tsuki - in the pre-dawn darkness.  I finish with kata, connecting the cuts together with movements to make one continuous flow of spinning and cutting across the gray concrete.

The splendid part of doing this early in the morning, of course, is that you get the early morning encounters:  the neighbor across the street coming out for a cigarette, the commuters driving by on their way to work, Crazy Running Guy who moves off of the sidewalk onto the street as he runs past and then gets back onto the sidewalk to continue on.

I always wonder what they think as they come by and see me out there.  No one has ever slowed down or stopped to look and so perhaps I am merely another fleeting wisp in the morning, the deer that is just out of sight or the cat tail disappearing behind the tire.  Perhaps I am not any more worthy of attention than any other athlete out in the morning doing their athletic thing.

Which is fine, of course.  I do not perform for themselves but for me, the (somewhat ungraceful) dance of the naginata done largely to the audience of oak trees and night birds and starts.  If the birds and trees have comments, they carefully keep them to themselves.

The stars, of course, just silently shine on.

What If?

What if we all simply tried to mind our business?

What if, instead of continually looking at what others can do for me or give to me, we simply just started asking "What can I do for myself?"

What if we exercised the fiscal responsibility to fix our own finances rather than hoping someone else would do it for us?

What if we agreed that sometimes our differences are just to big to be bridged and parting amicably is infinitely better than arguing incessantly?

What if we valued personal responsibility higher than we valued anything else?

What if we sought to live to the edges of our personal possibilities instead of living far beneath them?

What if we simply tried more?

What if?

Valentine Day's Summer

Eighty two outside
as hearts are placed in windows:
can it be Winter?

Positive in a Negative Environment

One of the great challenges of trying to be positive is the environment that surrounds you.

Yes, I know, be a thermostat, not a thermometer.  Intellectually I understand that but practically it becomes somewhat challenging.  Even if I can manage my own thoughts about myself (which requires an iron grip on my consciousness and the willingness to drag the least little excursis back from the brink) it is multiplied by an environment which does not encourage positive energy.

It came from two places: the first was the world in large (and that "I am going to have to avoid current events" is going to have to become a real thing.  The primaries on both sides are going to completely destroy my composure) and the second was the world in which I work.

The world in which I work was not so much a single thing that encouraged me to be negative but a series of small and annoying events which slowly settled my mood to the floor.  Mediocre systems that resulted in repetitive tasks to be completed.  The ever growing list of things that must be done, buried beneath the list of things that I should be doing.  And the frustration that while there are things I can do to impact my own direct world, there is little I can do to impact the way that world impacts on me (except leave, I suppose, of course).

My secret for getting through the day?  I wish I had a profound one - instead, I muscled my way through clinging to the thought "No negativity today.  No negativity today."  And was it successful?  I did not go completely negative when I left but there was a high level of anxiety when I got home, as if my frustrations were seeking a way to vent themselves as they could not do it in the usual fashion (I fought them of course - we took ourselves for a walk tonight).

So completely positive today?  No.  But did I manage to stave off the bottom?  Absolutely.  And that is a form of victory in itself.

40 Days of Positive

Yesterday this came as part of a message from The Viking:

"I say this with love, you need to change your inner monologue to focus on positivity.  You're a smart, talented and kind hearted man.  I place a high value on you, we all do."


It came from completely out of nowhere.  It was something that was neither mentioned in conversation nor prompted by anything I am aware of.

But there it is "You need to change your inner monologue to focus on positivity."

I know that I have issues with, I guess, negativity?  Not quite depression, but never quite happiness either.

Tomorrow, as you might know, is the beginning of the season of Lent.  We are counseled to deny ourselves things as a outward sign of denial and mourning.  I will do the one or two things I typically do for denial, such as giving up sugar (a standby) or fasting from internet news (a necessity).  But this year I think I will add one more thing, an adding to rather than denial of:  for 40 days I will not allow (or will try to not allow) myself to fall into negativity.  If I find myself falling there, I will simply have to come up with to think about instead - a list of 10 things to be positive for, or simply a self pep talk.  But for 40 days, I will try to not allow anything negative into my thought life.

It will be hard - far more challenging than simply giving up chocolate.  But if The Viking says something like that, it is something I need to pay attention to.

Taking Myself For A Walk

Tonight was another journey around the block, this time with Syrah in hand.

As I wandered around the neighborhood - again as last night, sheathed in darkness although not nearly so many groups of cars and flickering ghostly lights - I laughed to myself as Syrah was sniffing yet another spot where obviously someone had stopped visit.  "Taking myself for a walk" I said and chuckled.

And then thought about the statement for a little while.

Taking myself for a walk.  Implies a few things, does it not?  Like I need to be taken for a walk - or rather, I need to allow that I should be taken for a walk.

And to be taken for a walk is not a one time thing.  It is a daily thing, something I have let slip to the side in the last few months as other things came up.  Justifiable things in my mind, but nothing so justifiable that it should prevent me from doing this.

The investment?  Time of course, that most precious of commodities.  But just like walking Syrah, the benefits of a walk - 30 minutes out of a day - far outweighs the simple use of the time.  It is not just the practice of exercising - indeed, it is the practice of getting away from all and being able to be alone with one's self with purpose and yet relaxing.

I certainly have not been taking myself for a walk as I should have been.  But there is no reason to believe that it carries no less criticality for myself than for Syrah.

Besides, only one of us has to wear a leash.

On A Super Bowl Night's Walk

Realizing that I have let my aerobic activity drop off during the winter months (I use the excuse of the cold when it is just a much lazy) I decided to take a walk tonight.
Tonight is an unusual night.  This night, or rather whatever night this falls on, is the night of the Super Bowl.  There is no other U.S. sporting event that has a single focal point (all the other big ones are the best of 7).  For one night, even I can make a predication about where millions of Americans will be:  at home, watching the Super Bowl.

So I went for a walk (we do not have cable and have not actually watched the Super Bowl since perhaps 2008, so there is no sense that I am missing anything).

The odd thing was how quiet the neighborhood was.

Our weather has lurched back towards unseasonably warm so I would not have been surprised even at 2000 to find people walking their dogs or even just enjoying the respite from winter.  Instead, nothing.  Literally just myself walking along (except for one group of rogue children with Nerf guns, either bored with the game or conveniently moved outside by the adults) amidst darkened houses with the ghostly flickering of lights denoting a TV set in so many of them, small clusters of cars around some indicating a party.

It actually saddened me as I walked between the pools of light formed by the streetlights.  I cannot fully tell you why, although the thought of millions of people being excited by a game had something to do with it, I suspect.  It is one of the sad parts of this society and (perhaps) this civilization, that we have raised passively watching games to a level of almost worship.

No, I think the thing that saddened me the most as I walked is that we have come to be this:  cocooned in our little homes, bands of light from entertainment devices bouncing off the walls as the silent world goes on around us.  Someday the end may come but most will scarcely be aware of it, unless it happens to enter the screen they happen to be watching.

We have become a civilization of the passive.  And passive civilizations are never the ones that endure.

Otsuchi

Today my Otsuchi came in the mail.

An Otsuchi, in case you have not been keeping track of your traditional Japanese weapons, is a wooden maul or mallet used by Japanese warriors, primarily for bursting through doors or gates or even walls.

Mine is a 10 lb head mounted on a 3 foot shaft (apparently they could go up to 6' shaft, which would be handy for breaking into things.  Not so much as a weapon).  I have taken some practice swings with it and it is amazing how heavy 10 lbs can be when you are moving it through the air.

In a way, the Otsuchi describes my life:  an obscure weapon with no practical purpose to be trained with simply because it can be done and I want to do it.  Really true of so many of the interests and activities that I pursue.

Which is okay.  Because in the end, Thor does not really exist - but I and my Otsuchi do...

Frustration in Weightlifting

Today was a back to back lifting day:  bench press and deadlifts.
My bench press has proven to be the most disappointing part of my weight routine.  I simply feel like I am making no progress in it - or if I am, it is very slow progress indeed.  It frustrates me because progress in my other lifts - deadlifts, squats, push press - has been steady and demonstrable.  But bench has been almost impreceptible - my best single was 1 x 160 lb in November; I just managed 2 x 160 lb last week.  That is close to my body weight but hardly the sort of the thing I was hoping.

My deadlift was frustrating today as well. Deadlifts have shown a much steadier improvement over time but today was not as good as I would have liked - max of 5 x 220 lb and a downgrade of 3 x 175 lb.  My form was terrible - my stance is (I think) too narrow and my knees are going askew in ways that are not all that grand for me.  I have gotten 5 x 240 lb in the past, but today was not the day - the  5 x 220 lb barely recognizable as a finished set.

This whole thing is something which I have not yet fully come to grips with yet in lifting:  the fact that it does not seem to be that linear of a process.

I want Personal Records.  Everyone, I think, does.  But as sometimes these get knocked down almost week by week, in other cases they linger for weeks at a time.  And other cases (like today) things take a backwards step in ways that I do not fully understand.  I would think that the ability to lift would increase in a linear fashion:  more weight over time would equal heavier lifts.

Apparently I think wrong.

I will be back in the gym on Friday for another back to back - Push Press and Squats - and will probably hit some of the same frustrations.  But it is at moments like these that I have to go back to my workout book (yes, I have become enough of a meathead to keep one of those now) that I can look and see that while I may not feel like I am making process, I have in fact made a great deal of progress since I started in July.

Eyes to the sunrise, keeping them on the prize.

The Review

So like it or not, today was review day.  How did it go?

Surprisingly well.  In fact, the best review I have ever had here.

A promotion (for the first time to a new level in 14 years).  And a pretty decent raise.  And 101% of the possible bonus.

Only negative in the review?  Not really a negative, but it is desired that I take more of a leadership role (which has already been added to my list of goals for myself anyway). Other than that, well done, good job, keep it up.

As I said, best review I have had in seven years.  Strangely gratifying after all these years.  14 years is a long drought, a very long drought indeed.

Sure, the bar is set high.  Sure, I will have to really push if I want to get close to this next year.  But for one moment, there was a brief sense that after a really long while, someone finally noticed.

And that is the best feeling in the world.

Just Sad

Last night I was inexplicably sad when I got home.

I do not know that I have a formal reason why.  Yes, the day was not the best it could have been and yes, I little sarcasm (meant in fun, no doubt) was directed my way later, but it certainly did not explain the fact for the feelings I had.

I am not sure.  There was just no energy at all for doing anything when I got home at night except for the bare minimum of what was required.  And underlying it all,  a great sadness.  Not depression - depression, I know all too well.  Just sadness.

And I do not know what to do with sadness. Not really.  Depression I know what steps to take, as I have had to take them many times.  But sadness I have no idea what to do with.

I just want to hide - shut myself off from the greater Internet and interpersonal world and just hide among my rabbits and books, my iai and the very small kingdom of Ichiryo Gusoku.   Cut off communication.  Just go silent and emerge for interaction when I have to.

It is silly, of course, and I eventually will find my way through it.  But I am struck by the fact that something can still affect me deeply, an emotion which I have no meaningful way to combat.  It makes me fearful and hopeful at the same time - fearful that it will come again, hopeful that there remain emotions that I still have the privilege of working through.

Garden Fragrance

The Rosemary bush,
alone among the garden,
scents me as I work.

Tired of Standing By

Waiting for a word
can kill enthusiasm,
not encourage it.

Quote And Context

"What would you attempt if you knew you would not fail?"
If you have read success literature at all, you have heard this quote.  If you know of Robert Schuller and the Crystal Cathedral, you have heard this quote.  This quote (in at least one reference) is attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt.

But this week I think I found where it came from.

"There was once a man who was very anxious, and wavered between fear and hope.  One day, overcome with sadness, he lay prostrate in prayer before the altar in church, and pondering these matters in his mind, said 'Oh, if only I knew that I should always persevere!'  then he heard within his heart an answer from God:  'If you knew this, what would you do?  Do now what you would
 do then, and all will be well.'"

Originator?  Thomas A Kempis (1380-1471), The Imitation of Christ

Changes the context of the who quote, does it not?  Imagine if this was actually quoted in the context that it was delivered.  Would we still engage in our smug satisfaction of being the complete and utter masters of our own fate?  Or would we perhaps consider it the context of an Authority to who we are accountable?

Be told we are to have confidence versus convincing ourselves that we should have confidence are two entirely different things.

Test Results - JPLT

As you may remember, last December I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 5 .  This is a measure of a level of knowledge of Japanese.  This was something I had originally thought of taking two years ago and finally worked me myself up to do last year.

Well, the test results posted last night:

Wow!  I passed!

My test scores were not necessarily that great, but got me through the door:

A lot like college, passing is passing.  It is the certificate that matters.

Honestly, I am grateful (and more than a little surprised).  This is the second time in the period of a year that I have taken a certification test and passed - after The Firm and my failure at the Broker test in 2005, I had all but given up that I could do such things.

Will I go to Level 4?  I am not sure at this point. It would be good, but there is so much I do not yet know (see above scorecard).  

Still, it is a goal.  And it was met.  That is, in the end, what truly matters.

On Relevant Writing And Cage Bottoms

As I have mentioned in the past, one of my regular weekly activities is working at the local rabbit shelter.  I find it to be enjoyable work: it is the sort of manual labor that I can lose myself in, the folks are especially appreciative of the assistance - being the resident Highland Athlete, guess whose job it is to throw all the bags into the dumpster? - and, of course, the rabbits need me.

Part of the job is the changing of the rabbit cages.

 Besides litter boxes which are changed weekly, every cage has a tray in it with newsprint.  Every week in a cycle, 100 or so cages have their newsprint removed, their bottoms swept out, wiped down with vinegar, and then restocked with newsprint.

For the most part we use a local "free" sort of news magazine, the sort that almost every large city seems to have, incorporating a listing of local art events, columns, newsworthy items, and the occasional raunchy ad.  I have no idea how many they print, but we sure seem to end up with a lot of them.

As I finish wiping out the pan bottom I put them in (lengthwise or vertical, depending on the cage size) and look at the covers or the insides where I have determined the halfway split to be.  All of these local issues, so passionately and zealously written about.  All these words about art and food and entertainment, all these pictures about things of local interest taken with just the right angle and just the right light for a cover.

All to end up underneath rabbit poop and hay and (in some cases) washed out by urine, to be disposed of weekly.

It is a humbling thing, one I sometimes wonder (as I heave another bag over the edge of the dumpster or collect a mass of paper and poop into the trash bag) if the authors think about, even as I contemplate the outputs of my own life.  Do they know the end result of so much of their work?  Or are the consumed by the next big thing, constantly moving towards a horizon of imagined relevance without asking if what they are doing is actually making a difference?

It is making a difference in at least one sense.  The rabbits are quite appreciative.

Weighting for Change

So one of Toirdhealbheach Beucail's stupid little secrets (after all we are among friends here):  I struggle with my body image.

I have no idea why.  It is not like anyone has ever commented on it  And actually, I am reasonably good health.  But for some unknown reason, my weight - a simple number, for goodness sake - has always been a barrier for me. I have consistently 160-165 for almost 30 years.  But it still bothers me.

This month also represents the sixth month that I have been lifting as more than an activity.  How am I doing?  Here were my numbers in July, when I started:

Bench Press:  1 x 110 lbs
Push Press:     1 x 65 lbs
Deadlift:         1 x 130 lbs
Squat:             1 x 155 lbs

As of this last week, these were my numbers:

Bench Press:  8 x 130 lbs
Push Press:    8 x 75 lbs
Deadlift:        8 x 200 lbs
Squat:            8 x 220 lbs

Legitimate progress (which I assure you, is completely - and painfully - earned).

Here is the issue:  my weight has not changed at all.  Weighed myself this morning.  Right back at 165.

Immediately I ran back into my old scripts, all the old body things that I tell myself - including the fact that I do not look (or feel) a bit less fat (there, I've said it).

And then I looked at the numbers.

Iron does not lie. You cannot fake strong.  Your numbers are what your numbers are.

And I had trouble reconciling the two.  I should weigh less, right?  I am lifting a lot heavier than I used to.

And then the thought came to my mind:  It is not what you weight is, it is what your weight consists of.

I can lift a great deal more than I could before.   That means I have more muscle than I do before. It is replacing the other parts slowly.  So why do I need to worry about the number on the scale?  If it is lean muscle mass, it is eventually going to change anyway.

Change comes sometimes dropping slow and often in ways we cannot see.  But never doubt that it is coming.

Citrus of Cold

Sheltered from Winter,

fragrance of lemons remind

that Spring is coming.

Feeling A Little Less Small

So how did it go yesterday?

Well, of course not at all like I expected.  I went to the meeting of course, trying to take Kymber's advice and surround myself with a suit of armor that none could penetrate.  Sure enough, the discussion was cut short - mostly because the chart that has the magical numbers on it is not ready.

Figures, right?  All keyed up and nowhere to go.

The second meeting happened later in the day - again, one involving individuals whom I often feel like make me  small.  Again, not like I had expected - someone had taken ill and so was not able to attend the meeting.  Was any decision made - no, once again things were deferred.  The sense of feeling small remained as I left the room.

But here is the funny thing:  as I drove home, I suddenly found that my heart was light.

Why?  Nothing had changed.  The people are still there.  The situation has not resolved itself.  My power has in no wise returned.  And if I deal with some of the individuals involved, I will still (more than likely) feel some level of small in my life.

But here is the difference: for the first time, I could simply accept that I had no further power in the matter.  I can change nothing.  I certainly cannot change them.  But almost contrary to what I might think, by admitting that I have no power to change them or the situation I felt myself freer than ever.  Why?  Because I had let go of any expectations.  I can simply move on to deal with things of greater important and people of greater import and let the situation grind to its inevitable conclusion.  In a sense I found myself rejoicing in my powerlessness - through it, I can demonstrate that whatever occurs or most likely goes wrong was beyond my power to control because it was beyond my power to influence.

We will see how things go next week, when we have round two.  But for the moment, I feel better than I have all week.

Feeling Small

There are some people that make me feel small merely by speaking to them.

They just drain me of power and confidence every time I speak to them. I may be fired up or confident  or feeling organized and powerful when I walk if; I inevitably leave feeling powerless and cast adrift.

And small.  Always very small.

I do not know how to combat this.  It is not true of everyone.  It is not across every conversation that I have.  But when it happens, I find it devastating to my entire day and frame of mind.

Yesterday was obviously one of those days.  By the time I was done the with a simple 30 minute conversation about something I was left defeated.  That defeated feeling - that small feeling, of being powerless to do anything but what was essentially dictated to me - stuck with me all the way home.  The years of empty hopes, of Januaries that never resulted in anything but pats on the head and hollow words, came back to me.  My imagination - Defeatism?  Realism?  - drowned me throughout the evening, through class, and even to the end of the evening.  Cascading pictures of life moving on and myself stuck - or even falling behind - filled my head.

Why?  Because every time this happens it reminds me that the world does not work the way I believe it does.  Accomplishment is not rewarded.  People say they want leaders, but really what most want are followers who will be two steps ahead of their requests, who will take all of the responsibility and quietly follow orders, easing their passage through the day and working like automatic transmissions, quietly functioning so effectively that no-one thinks of them or realizes they are there.

Part of me hates this but says "This is simply what  you are called to do in life:  Be quiet.  Be humble.  Anticipate needs.  Do whatever they say even if you believe it to be against your own best interest - and trust now matter how it you feel all will come out well in the end."

Perhaps that is wise.  Perhaps fighting the battles that do not really matter is better in the longer run.

But this feeling - the feeling of disempowerment, of being regarded as merely a tool to execute policy while preserving the illusion of autonomy - pulls on my spirit like a spent balloon falling to the earth.

And feeling small.  Always, so small.

Cheese and Honey

This is cheese and honey:

It is a very simple dessert to make:

1)  Place a slice of cheese in a bowl.
2)  Drizzle honey over it.
3)  Eat.

In this case, made with some homemade cheese (English Farmhouse).

I love this dessert and everything that it promises.  It is simple.  It is something that can be made partially - or completely by one's self (my chances of getting a dairy producer are pretty low, but my chances of getting a bee hive are much higher). And being in the power to make, it is completely with my power to generate.

This is the sort of thing that warms my heart the most and makes me feel the most proud of doing things for myself:  small things that I can do and then benefit from.  It is the core of gardening or homesteading or indeed simply preparing for a disaster and then finding that one has prepared wisely.  Can there be any better feeling?

A Sadder Turn of Mind

It occurs to me that my writing may seem a bit different than usual.  I am less optimistic, more generally concerned or even "apocalyptic".

To be fair, I often have this bent of mind even if I do not always present it here.  I tend to believe the worst about most things instead of the best.  I learned long ago (the one thing I remember from Macroeconomics) how tenuous the modern economy is, and how easy it would be for a small event to rupture what we have come to expect as normal.  And I have lived through a failed business and a corporate layoff with the uncertainty that comes when suddenly what you expect as normal ends and where your next paycheck comes from is the sort of silence that does not provide comfort.

For some reason, this time feels different.

Maybe it is because I live smack dab in Oil Central and while I am not directly impacted I have heard the stories of the last crashes and the stories that are coming now as the industry is seemingly headed to the bottom.  Perhaps it is because I read of what seems to be a slow motion crash of markets everywhere and I understand that even a consumer society can reach the point of saturation, where there is no longer  need to buy anymore.

Perhaps it is because voices I value - rational voices, not the type to cry wolf - are saying the same thing and in some cases have gone silent.

I cannot see into the future.  I can only look through the lens of the past to see what has happened in the past and how it matches up with what is occurring.

Why is it that what I see alarms me?

A Proper Use of Anger

Sometimes there is a right use of anger.

Anger can be used to spur us to action.  Anger at a situation, anger at the treatment of another, anger at injustice or dishonesty properly channeled can lead to useful change.

To be clear:  I am talking about the anger of the individual, not the anger of the movement or the group.  The anger of these rapidly becomes the anger of the mob with usually destructive results and seldom results in something that is better.

Anger that spurs us to action drives us to accomplish things.  Angry at your situation?  Do not lash out at others, use it to change yourself.  Use it to drive to take that actions you need to make the changes you need or complete the things you need to complete.  Perhaps the situation will change, perhaps it will not.  Often we cannot control this.  But what we can do is change ourselves.

And sometimes the greatest forward momentum to change comes at the moment when we are so angry and fed up that we decide we will not longer take it but rather do what needs to be done to change it.

How To Watch The Dissolution of Things?

How does one correctly watch the slow dissolution of things?
I would not say that I am connoisseur of economic and preparation blogs but I do frequent a number of sites, some that I find useful and some that are not all that useful but are good for getting a sense of how others think.  As you can imagine they are (on the whole) fairly lit up right now with the state of the world.  You pick it - economic, political, international - there are a lot of people theorizing and watching and making predictions.

And on the whole, I am not sure how much off the mark they are.  While I am to some sense a sensationalist - I get easily excited and more often than not see the end the world everywhere.  That said, it is hard to look at the last two months and see anything but a slow slide into something, somewhere I suspect not many folks would want to be.

So how does one correctly watch this?

Do I fret?  Do I panic?  Do I sigh long sighs?  Do I say "I Told You So"?  None of these seem precisely the correct response (although they are representatives of all such views).

I feel sadness - on the one hand a sort of sighing resignation as the best laid hopes of mice and men are (once again) thrown by the waves of "How The World Works" onto the Rocks of Reality, on the other hand a genuine sense of loss as the world I knew and have lived in seems to be dwindling away on every front, replaced by a sort of dysfunctional national and international society that seems held together by threads too fragile to long bear the weight placed on them.    Or (to be trendy) it is like watching someone die, knowing that they will be returning soon as the Undead, an unthinking unreasoning thing seeking only to destroy us.

We scarcely do a good job of discussing and preparing ourselves for death.  How much less do we prepare and discuss the death of civilizations - or prepare ourselves to properly watch them.

No Does Not Mean No

Thought for the Day:

On A Quiet Evening

I sit here in my chair in our bedroom typing.  It is the chair we got from my parents before we moved - a little worn, but a fine soft recliner with faded spots on the arms from so much use.  It has hit below 40 F outside but the house is warm and quiet, the outside world passed away and the inside world quiet with reading and homework.

I sit here with iBun on my lap, quietly watching me type with his one good eye, ears back, relaxed.  Occasionally he will grind his teeth, a sign of contentment in rabbits - then with a flash he hops over the chair arm and behind the chair, seeking new worlds to conquer.

My tea, in the chipped blue cup with the flared top, has gone somewhat cold on me.  It is a lemon concoction, a type I am not usually fond of, but it serves the purpose for the evening of a hot non-caffeinated beverage.

I have spent the evening as they have typically come to be spent:  a walk with Syrah the Mighty, dinner with the Ravishing Mrs. TB and Na Clann, languages (Japanese, Korean and Old English this year), a little reading, iai practice, and now writing this blog post.

It strikes me, as I sit here in my quiet little spot of the universe - a spot which I am perfectly content with, surrounded by my things and simple pleasures, how truly fragile this all really is.  We are so highly connected and dependent on civilization - and civilization is so fragile in so many ways - that simple pleasures like these, which once upon a time were luxuries, may come to be seen as luxuries again.  Simple things like light and warmth and shelter, let alone books and comfortable chairs to sit in, bespeak utilities and houses and reliable food supply chains and manufacturing capacities and safe neighborhoods where one can read instead of worrying about one's safety.

All an intricate chain.  And all so fragile.

Unseasonal Peppers

Three Jalapeños:

Last peppers of the Winter

or first of the Spring?

Meet iBun

Meet iBun:

He came to live with us about three weeks ago from the Rabbit Shelter I volunteer at.  He is a Dutch (sort of similar to Belted Galloways or Dutch Belted).

Why is he called iBun?  Because he only has one eye (his left one).  The right one is gone - from what the veterinarian said, it happened because of a trauma when he was young.  He certainly gets around well enough without it.

In a lot of ways he seems more like a cat: he is quite content to sit on your lap and get attention or even sit above you on the top of the chair to get a bird's eye view of the situation.

We were sorry to have Bella leave; we are grateful that iBun was able to come live with us.

On Giblets

Tonight, as I walked in to the house to the smell of Carolina style BBQ chicken in the oven, The Ravishing Mrs. TB asks me "What should I do with the parts?"

This is typically not a question I get coming home.

Looking at the sink, I see the pad on which the chicken had come - sure enough, there was the neck, heart, liver, and gizzard.  Where did this come from?  Apparently when she got the chicken, which was cut up, they gave us the whole chicken.

What the heck were we going to do with giblets?  Indeed, when was the last time I even saw giblets?

I hate to waste food (especially now with the general malaise of economic uncertainty I always feel just over my neck) but had no idea what to do with them.  Literally.  Not a clue, except for use in making gravy (which was not going to happen - not a gravy fan and what would I put it on anyway).  What to do? Go Internet, Young Man.

Turns out there are several things you can do.  After a little research, I am saving mine (via freezing) for this weekend where I am going to try a little experiment based on something I saw:  fry them in a little butter and eat them warm.

I write all of that to think of this:  I am lucky in that I have actually eaten giblets in the past and know there is something you can do with them and I am willing not to waste.  It saddens me - perhaps frightens is a better word - that there is probably a large part of the population that has no idea what to do with such things and even if they do, would rather throw them away than figure out a way to use them.

Someday we may very well be in a place where optional is really need to.  How we will fare as a civilization then?

We Are Not Serious About Succeeding

Most of us are not that serious about succeeding most of the time.

Oh, we say we are.  We put effort into it, forgetting that effort spent in the wrong direction is just like making no effort at all.  We put emotion into it, forgetting that emotion seldom accomplishes anything more than making us feel a certain way.  We put it to purity of thought and belief, forgetting that these things alone may make us feel intellectually superior but often will not accomplish the goals that we seek.

Success is not an accident.  It is not a mysterious thing that lies veiled on the other side of a mystic curtain that only a few can interpret for the rest of us.  It is, in most things, a series of facts and numbers which - when combined with effort in the right direction and emotion that empowers and purity of thought and belief that inspires - will get us where we need to go.  But it is always based on those facts and numbers.

If we were truly interested in succeeding - at anything - we would not start from the other things but we would start with three things:

1)  What do we want to succeed in doing?
2)  What are the steps to accomplish this thing?
3)  What do I have to do to do those steps?

We usual get the first one correct.  And once we know what to do, we can usual get the third item right as well (that is the one fueled by self-discipline and hard work and effort, emotion, and purity of thought and belief).  It is the second that we usually fail to grasp (which means, of course, we typically do not get the third item correct either).

Why?  Because we have our view of how that success should be achieved rather than looking at the actual facts and numbers and tracks of those that have gone on before.  By now in the history of the world there is very little that has not already been accomplished by someone, somewhere.  But somehow we believe that we can do it differently because our effort/emotion/purity of belief is stronger than the facts and numbers.  We are wrong most of the time, of course, but only realize this on the other side of the issue, when we are left with the defeat or failure and trying to analyze what went wrong (usually incorrectly analyzed as well, as we do not like to look at the thing right in front of our face).

Do we want to succeed at anything?  Then we need to to the things that lead to success, not the things we think lead to success.  Otherwise, we are simply pandering to ourselves and our feelings or intellect in the worst way.

Glorious defeats may be remembered, but they are not the thing that successful changes are made of.

2016 Garden Catalog Is Here

My Bountiful Gardens catalog showed up today (https://www.bountifulgardens.org).  Just like that, planting is back in season.

Not that  I can run right out and do it. We are still in the "Depths" of Winter here in New Home, which we will be for another two months or so.  I cannot really start much before then because the weather is too variable and the sun is not going to warm up the soil the way it needs to.

This is the best part of the year for me, the part before I actually start planting (and things start dying), when I can just look through the catalog of names and pictures and think "Oh, that looks nice" and "Would that not be a wonderful thing to grow?"   It is the realm of possibility removed from the reality of the experience.

What am I growing this year?  I am no 100% sure.  I am going to expand my grain growing efforts this year to the entire back fence as the areas has proved relatively nonproductive as a garden per se (due to neighbor's overhanging tree).  I will need to get quick growing grains as we go to "hot" within two months of winter breaking.

The perennial pursuit of a tomato plant that will grow will be there, as will undoubtedly peppers (they grow so well here) and the onions that in theory should grow as we get so much sunlight but never really seem to.  Other than that?  Not sure at this point; I have a number of seeds billed as "hot weather and drought resistant" greens I will probably try.

Mandarins for sure (the citrus plant most resistant to cold) will be there as well as working more with my potted lemons and limes, which are not doing so well as I would have liked in my garage (although they are blooming and have not died yet).  A last plan, hopefully in preparation for bees, is a planting of lavender in my crab grass that needs to die.  It will not do anything now, but my hope is that in 4 years I will see progress.

I love this time of the year - when dreams are real and the pictures in the catalog make me remember why I love the possibility of gardening so much.  It is promise of tomorrow wrapped up in green leaves and something I can eat.

A Break From Social Media

One of the unlooked for advantages of taking a long vacation is that it bleeds over into your social life - and online social life as well.  My use of social media has fallen to an all time low, at least in the 6 years since I started using it.   And I have to be honest, it seems to be the greatest thing ever.

It is not just the time sink of the activity - no, it remains the fact that all of sudden I do not have the ongoing lives of others pressing into my own.  There is a certain amount of stress and care that simply falls away when others no longer play such a significant role.

The odd thing is that for a couple of years I was a consistent poster; every day, I would seek to post quotes to inspire every one.  People seemed to appreciate it of course, but it reached the point in my life that I was freaking out over finding quotes to post every day (2 in most cases).  It got to the point that I could not longer keep up.  So I stopped.

And found out that it was hardly missed at all.  Not one person - one - asked about why the quotes no longer appeared.  My great gift to the online social world, it seemed, was little more than something else to fill up the feeds of others and to occasionally be responded to.

The same thing happened this time around.  Suddenly my day became less and less controlled by what was going on in the lives others.  I filled the time, to be sure - I read.  I followed up on actual events in the actual world.  I wrote.  I planned.  I held rabbits.

And felt the weight of that world slip away.

Will I abandon social media?  Not at all - like an automobile, it has its uses and pitfalls.  I have found a new level for the uses.  I understand more fully the pitfalls.

And I need to remember - I have actual people here in my life, far more close than the feeds of others crawling across my day.  My attention should also be appropriately focused.

2016: The Year of Toirdhealbheach Beucail

So I decided that I was going to make this year my year when I woke up this morning.

2015 was good.  Did I do everything that I intended to do in the year?  Not hardly.  Did I do a lot to move me forward?  Absolutely.

- Got professional certification
- Participated in Highland Athletics, including my first out of state game (which I performed credibly at).
- Took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test
- Opened up a new garden plot
- Continued to engage in Iai, including buying a nagniata
- Competed in an endurance race and successfully completed it
- Made the decision to change churches
- Published one book, wrote and published another (that makes seven total)
- Found a fantastic sensei for weight training
- For perhaps the first time in a long time, came up with a clear vision of what needs to happen for me to move to the next level
- And, as almost the last thing I did this year, found my old mission statement for my life which, upon looking at it, continues to be the mission.

So Huzzah indeed and well done.  But I see this only as a launching pad for this year.  I know what I have to do, I merely have to do it.  I have a plan.  I have the qualities I want to develop.  I have the skills I need to prepare myself to move the next level or job or career.

And so as the final act of commitment - the proverbial "burning of the ships" - I claim this year for me.  No turning back now.

The way is only forward.