Assessment, And Best And Highest Use

 The assessment of The Ranch is in.

(This - and all pictures today - are taken from around the house. I will try to get out on the property tomorrow for a walk around.)

I have to start the assessment with a story:

The assessor that we were finally able to secure was the third assessor I had talked to.  The first - a recommendation via our Realtor in New Home - did not do rural land.  He recommended someone else in turn, who was full up at the moment (from the fires in the area, as it turned out).  He in turn recommended a third assessor, who was able to take the job.

At the assessment, she drove up and we started both talking about the property as well as its history.  She asked me where I was from.  "New Home" I said, "although originally from around here".  What school did I graduate from?  "The local high school in my hometown" I replied.  What year, she asked, looking me over more.  I gave the year.  "That is the year I graduated" she shouted.

Yup.  Turns out we were classmates in high school and had not seen each other in 30 years.  Small towns and all.

"How is Uisdean Ruadh doing?  I went to to elementary and high school with him."

"Ask him yourself.  We are about to see him in 5 minutes when we go through The Cabin"

I start out with that story because - as unexpected as the encounter was (although not unexpected to God, I imagine) - this made a difference in the assessment.  No, not in the actual valuation - she is bound by law and all - but in the purpose of the assessment, why we were asking for it, and what we hoped to accomplish from it.  I was able to talk openly in a way that I might not have been able to with someone to whom I had no other connection.

A couple of things we learned during the course of the assessment:

- The land is a little over 88 acres (so my "90 acres" is not really all that off).

- The land consists of two parcels (this, we knew).  What we not know is currently they are "conjoined" by the county.  In order to sell the second, we would need deeded access across the first property as the second property is "landlocked" (as silly a term as that seems).

- There is literally nothing in the area that could be used as a truly comparable property

Her reaction was the reaction of everyone that comes up here:  "This is amazing.  This is unique.  Dear God, do not develop this".

As those that may be in the real estate business may know, land is assessed at its "best and highest use", which is "the reasonably probable and legal use of vacant land, or an improved property that is physically possible, appropriately supported, and that results in the highest use". (The Appraisal Institute).  To most vacant land, that (lamentably) means that its best and highest use is development.  In this case - somewhat surprisingly - it was not the "front 40", where the pastures and Cabin and House are, but rather the "back 40", which is the most forested part.  This, the assessment suggested, could be subdivided into a number of smaller lots for development (with the deeded access).

I confess I did not see that part coming.  It had the most significant impact on the assessment.

At the conclusion of the process and again in issuing the report, she thanked us profusely for the opportunity to do the assessment (I suspect that is not a common event).  She said she had to work hard to find the properties, but she enjoyed the challenge - and loved the property.

How did the assessment come out?

It was about 25% more than I had figured it at just by guessing and some looking at home values in the area, but was well below what I had feared: something so far out of reach that there would never be a way to reach parity in the eventual division of the estate.

Why any of this matters, of course, is that this was a key finding to discussing actually relocating here.  There was no sense in moving if, as it turned out, some time in the future there would be a need to move out because the estate could not be reasonably divided - and that is just the economics of it; the potential irritation and issues it could create with my sister is not something that I would ever want to do.

There is more discussion to be had of course, and a visit to the lawyer and additional planning to do.  But in at least one sense, a huge obstacle just rolled to the side as if it had never been there.

Of Small Places And Agrarianism

Friend to this blog Leigh Tate made a comment in the post Of Small Towns and Small Cities that made me think a great deal more than perhaps is wise in the early morning upon reading it: 

"It was the connectedness of today's reading list post that reminded me to comment. I sometimes mention agrarianism as a lifestyle, and it is interesting to me that the response is usually a variation of "yes but, not everybody wants to be a farmer." This post reminds me of what I am consistently unsuccessful at explaining, i.e. that agrarianism isn't farming, rather, it's a social and economic structure based on community and the land. The small town is the heart of such a structure because it's there that the community has the potential to to meet its needs. I would like to say that it has the potential to be self-reliant, but I get scolded for that term too, because it tends to be interpreted as isolationist.

Instead, I think I'll say, an agrarian community is more resilient, and able to weather whatever ups and downs happen in life. Of course, this will never happen because human nature strives against it. But I sincerely think it's the way things were designed to be.”

Well, that is a lot for 0500 wake call and cup of coffee, to be sure.

I believe I was originally introduced to the term of Agrarianism by Herrick Kimball (Formerly of The Deliberate Agrarian, now of HeavenStretch), although I really believe I came tor understand it earlier through the writing of the sadly now departed Gene Logsdon in The Contrary Farmer.  Logsdon's book was in principle about farming and self-sufficiency, but really what it was about was way of life that both valued the land that enabled it and the small environments that it created and thrived in - the social and economic structure based on community and land that Leigh refers to.  In a way, it was a call back to the small place that I had grown up - but really a call back to the small environment that I had grown up in, the place where I felt (and continue to feel) most connected to.

Small communities can be (but are not always) interdependent and resilient.  It is not just in the sort of Hallmark-ish concept of "taking care of each other"; it is in the real human connections that come from living and doing business with people that live in the same community that you do.  One comes to value that community because in a way, through its success comes one's own success - not measured necessarily in the wealth one possesses, but in the way one feels when one is finished with the day.  One has done business - be it a retail enterprise, a farm, or some other interactive contribution - instead of just "commuting to a job".

Interdependence.  Resilience.  These are phrases we - or at least I - have heard a great deal in recent years.  The surprising thing - or perhaps not so surprising - is what this terms have come to mean.

"Interdependence", in the modern parlance, has come to mean relying on the largest administrative body possible. Communities should not be interdependent, states should be.  Interdependence is always facing up and outward, not down and inward.  Not needing "The System" is seen as rebellious and a bit;ignorant:  States need each other because that is the best and highest use of the individual, communities should not to the exclusion of the state but subservient to it.

Resilience is the same.  States should be resilient, but not communities.  Communities need to look to the state for their resilience and show there dependency on those outside, not generate their resilience internally.

Why is the concept of agrarianism - interdependent, strong communities generally (but not exclusively) practicing agriculture and the basics of living not embraced by those that mouth such words?  Because such places are not reliant on the the state that exists above them, are not "plugged in" to the much larger urban units that they are expected somehow to support and defer to.   Small communities in the modern world - agrarian communities - are places that should be dying or kitschy places where large urban entity dwellers can go to shop and stay and eat and be catered to, not communities which are not reliant on the larger whole for survival.

I perhaps sound a bit out of sorts by this disconnect between what the modern world says it wants - for example, interdependence and resilience - and what the modern world is willing to accept.  My thought is that it is - again - based on the concept that there can be only one "right" answer, the one that is authorized by Our Political And Social Betters (OPASB).  Interdependence and resilience must be exercised in the approved fashion, as specified by the experts and accepted by the social masses, not run willy-nilly by people who think they know what is best for themselves.

There is one thing I will say for state-sanctioned or state enforced interdependence and resilience:  it is a fragile thing, a tropical flower sustained in an arctic environment only by the greenhouse of the state.  Remove that greenhouse - remove the official requirement to make people be interdependent and resilient via laws - and much of those things, I posited, would blow away with the wind of reality.  These sorts of things, to last, must come to fruition organically, not enforced.

We live today in a bifurcated world:  those that are interdependent and resilient (and this is not always in the "classic" way) and those that believe they are because the state says they are. Let the requirements fall away, and I suspect that true agrarians among us will shine like stars in the sky. 

Nexus, Thinking And Writing, Chess

 In my trip out to The Ranch this month, I picked up a series of books, originally in a sort of random fashion but now, as I realized by unconscious choice:

A Christian Manifesto, Pollution and The Death of Man, The Great Evangelical Disaster, How Should We Then Live? - Francis Schaeffer

The One Straw Revolution - Masanobu Fukuoka

Micro-Eco Farming - Barbara Berst Adams

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

I am pretty sure my unconscious is done with my conscious and is moving on to resoultion

Clever readers (and frankly, those seem to be the ones that I have) will note a host of themes here:  farming and agriculture, the environment, social decay and dissolution, the Christian World View, and effectively how one should live one's life.   All things I have written about for years.

This is nexus in which I currently find myself.  Or perhaps better to say, this is the nexus I perceive the world around me to be leading to.

-----

One of the things about traveling out to The Ranch once a month is the fact that it disrupts my schedule.  On the one hand, it it ensures that I do not make progress in some areas that I regularly practice at New Home -  my workouts are all bodyweight, and my iaijustu training is different.  On the other hand, it does force my hand to do some things - like reading and thinking - that I somehow have convinced myself I do not have time for when I am back home.

It bothers me somewhat, as I do not read and ponder things nearly as much as I should - not that taking action is not important (it is, and I do not do enough of that either) as it is that without the raw material of thought and words and the time to process them back out into thoughts and words there are no actions.  Just a frenzied busy-ness of the moment as I ricochet from one activity to another.

Being at The Ranch - with an almost enforced period of quiet and separation - makes excuses for these activities less acceptable.  It is almost as if I have to give myself permission to do the hard work of reading and thinking - and the sort of thinking I need to do is, for me, hard work, the hard work of synthesizing, understanding, and then acting.  And it certainly is rate limiting in my quest to understand things - myself, the world, my place in it - more deeply.

-----

I have recently taken up playing chess on-line.

I learned chess years ago - from now, I cannot remember from whom - but left it off not so much from a lack of playing partners as a lack of interest in the game (my interest at the time led far more to role playing and video games).  One thing that this left me with was a dearth in being able to understand strategy and plan for the future - simply put, I played chess like I played a video game, thinking maybe one move ahead instead of five or ten, and thinking in terms of tactical instead of the strategic.

That is a problem that has cost me time and again in the real world.

Randomly in one of the advertisements that presented itself on Brave was a chess site.  You can play against the computer or against real players.  So far I am playing against the least challenging computer construct possible, with all the hints - and still not winning 100% of the time.  

Part of the challenge is realizing that I need to see the board as a whole and understand things moves out into the future, not just "do" whatever the hint suggests.  I have to understand for myself.  As with sword training, the moves in chess are like kata in iaijutsu:  the building blocks of which we construct true action.

-----

There is a sense - and I cannot define it fully in myself - that I am "holding back" for some reason.  I have no idea why.  I have written before of this sense that somehow I need "permission" from someone to take action, perhaps the outcome of many years of being in places where permission from others was required.  

Perhaps this - all of this - is simply the unconscious forcing me into a position to give myself permission to act.

"The feeling of the steering wheel under his (Hank Rearden's) hands and of the smooth highway streaming past, as he sped to New York, had an oddly bracing quality.  It was a sense of extreme precision and of relaxation together, a sense of action without strain, which seemed inexplicably youthful - until he realized that this was the way he had acted and had always expected to act in his youth - and what he now felt like was the simple question:  Why should one have to act in any other manner?" -Atlas Shrugged  (Ayn Rand)

December Rain

 The rainy season has finally come.

I am grateful of course; we really need rain this year and a great deal of it, and we need it in manageable quantities that will not flood anything but allow it to soak in.  The bushes and trees have been showing the stress of the lack of rain.  

The rain matches my mood.

There are moments in life - and this is one of them - that life feels like it is on one big "pause", waiting for something, the way that the earth now waits for the rain.  A quiet sort of waiting - the way the earth always waits, as the earth is patient in a way nothing else is.  

It is not so much a waiting "for direction" or a sign - would that it were - as much as it is the simple sense of existing, of being between two states - the past and the future - with no indicator of when the switch flips and things move forward.  The seasons I can see and understand from the calendar; this moment in my life, not so much.

If the rain has a message for the earth, it is silent in giving it.

Abstain

 

Redneck Raised Bed: Post-Game Edition

 As some readers may recall from earlier this year, one experiment I tried was taking the area that I keep the used rabbit litter in and essentially setting it up as a planting bed as it was already container - The "Redneck Raised Bed":

It seemed like a logical use:  good soil substitute, shaded, easy to water with a little ingenuity.  I planted sweet potatoes - and they grew, luxuriously all Summer and into the Autumn.

Yesterday - as the cold is finally here - I finally went to dig them up:

The final verdict:  Nothing.  Not a single sweet potato.  Perhaps one or two small fingerlings that could be used as seed potatoes for next year.

I believe the technical gardening term for this is "bupkis".  

I am more than a little disappointed - not that anything did not grow as that has happened many times, but that what seemed - and looked - like a logical plan yielded precisely nothing.

That said, taking my wounded pride in hand, I did learn a couple of things:

1)  Things would in fact grow there (I had a lot of vegetative growth);

2)  I could keep things sufficiently wet to grow things.

So maybe the failure is not total - not sweet potatoes, but something else.

Still, I hate it when a plan does not work out as I had imagined.

A New Knife

As part of recent vacation, we stopped at a number of smaller "tourist" sites - the sorts of places that have an attraction and a store attached with things to procure.  99% of the time I am immune to such places, perhaps at best buying a postcard or a magnet for The Ravishing Mrs. TB (who collects the things).  But on this trip, something different happened:  My eye was caught by a knife.

I can count on one hand the number of times in my adult life where, walking into a store, an item called out to me with an intensity that was too loud to ignore. This was one of those times.

I am a sword guy.  Knives for me are simply things that I need as tools to perform specific tasks and thus have largely a utilitarian function.  That said, something about the color and work on the hilt stuck with me.

The manufacturer is Ken Richardson - which, as it turns, out is a real person and a real company.  Mind you, his knives are also available in Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's, so the chances he personally worked on this one are rather remote.

The blade itself measures about 5" and it has a fine weight to it (one thing I have come to appreciate from Iaijutsu is balance and overall weight).

The best part?  The knife was 40% off the "offer price" of a little over $110.  If I did my calculations from the website correctly, I got a $160-$180 style knife (full price) for about $70.  That is a deal indeed.

Of course (me being me), the first thing I did when I got home was cleaned it. It was not in terrible shape, but benefitted from a bit of Noxin to remove one or two tarnished spots and cleaning it with uchiko powder and choji oil.  

It is not often that I walk away from a purchase feeling like I got both a deal and something I wanted, but for once both occurred.

December 2022

 And just like that, we lurch into December.

December has come all too fast this year, helped not only by the fact that having a project at work that is consistently driven by "end of the year" dates (so one is always looking to the end of the year) as well as the fact that with an unplanned vacation last week and the expected post vacation catch up, the month suddenly shows up.

And it is already turning out to be busy.

I always think "This December feels busier than most", but I coming to believe that this is more of my memory slipping than anything else.  They are all busy, now - perhaps with the different sorts of things than in previous years, but none the less busy.

I am largely convinced that any memories I have of Christmas being a time to slow down and and appreciate the season were somehow much earlier in my childhood and really just reflected a somewhat flawed view of how the world was actually functioning versus how it was functioning.  With high school and college it became the season of finals, with work it became the season of completing projects for goals and year end reviews.  Add to this our modern penchant of "24 hours a day/7 days a week/365 days a year", and it becomes much less of a season and much more of mad dash to December 25th for a brief rest - before trying to close out everything that was to be done by the end of the year.

I find myself poorer for it.

It is all to easy for me to make or write up a resolve for this year - "I will take it more slowly" or "I will listen to more Christmas music" or something like that, something with good intentions that will go precisely nowhere (even as I write this, vision of e-mails of December yet to come crowd out the sugarplums that should be dancing in my head).  So perhaps this year I will try a slightly different tack and simply spend 5 minutes every day doing something related to the season, if it is just listening to a song (without doing anything else) or reading a short story or even looking at an ornament from the past.

It said that Scrooge ended up keeping Christmas in his heart of every day of the year.  I could at least try to do for a few minutes in the season of Christmas and go from there.

Of Small Towns And Small Cities

 The trip The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I took over the Thanksgiving holiday was somewhat atypical to the usual vacations we have often taken as 1)  It involved no children; and 2) It largely involved small towns and cities and scenery.

To be fair, I far more identify with small towns and small cities than I ever have with larger urban centers as I grew up in a small town.  At some point of course as one become older it becomes a choice of course, especially as many people either by design or chance spend some time in a large urban center.  But urban centers - at least to me - remain largely sterile of desirability.  Certainly you have every convenience under the modern sun, but you also have everything that comes with packing people in densely (or as our friend Hobo says, "Human Feedlots").  So even when I am in our current large urban center, I still prefer the sights and appearances of small towns and cities.

During out trip, the largest urban center we got to was around 50,000.  Most were at least have that in population if not less, some 6 or 8 traffic lights length of street to drive on, others just a slowing of speed before it picked back up and the town was gone in a blur.

There is a certain desolation, an inconsolable sadness to me as we drove through such places.  On the one hand, these are the small towns I remember of my youth, where each place was in some extent a self contained unit, back before the days of malls and mail order and home delivery of everything.  But most of these towns have not made the conversion that some towns have made to essentially being destinations for dwellers of the large urban centers with their cute knick-knacks and classy restaurants (and thus, now dependent on those same large urban centers). As one drives through them, faded signs suggest what used to be there even as the covered windows and doors indicate they are that no longer.  In some cases the town has a theme, which is then propagated throughout the town, sometimes in awkward ways.  In other cases the original stores are gone but other stores have migrated into their place.

Development, where it happens, almost only and ever takes place on the outskirts of town (which, of course, multiplies the economic problem as people no longer go "into town", as all the new and cool things are outside it).  And so the buildings with their call of yesteryear and odd curious shops and eateries which might be fascinating (but one never knows) sit staring outward onto far different streets than when they were built.

It may sound like an overly nostalgic view - and I freely admit that in some ways it is.  I grew up in a small town; I remember the sense of feeling trapped by the limitations of what was there and the thrill that going to a larger city provided at the time.  And yet, now that I have spent more time in a large urban centers than small town and cities, I wonder what, if anything, we have truly gained.

An interesting sub-note to me is in the great social discussion of - call it what you will, "tiny dwellings" or "back to things we used to know" or "being universally unconscious" - the idea of re-energizing and re-invigorating small towns is almost never discussed.  It is not as if there is not real opportunity in some of these places or that in some ways things are a less expense (housing, for example, is a tremendous difference).  It is as if there remains this sort of urban arrogance, that (once again) the only acceptable solution is the one that is "common knowledge" - and that common knowledge only extends to the large urban area limits.

In my happiest of worlds, I would see the great urban areas depopulated and small towns much more prevalent and thriving.  But, as is commonly acknowledged, I tend to see the world a bit in reverse anyway.

Back From Out There (And Little Soaps)

 Apologies for the lateness of responses (and the generic post) - The Ravishing Mrs. TB and myself got back from a 5 day vacation.

(In fairness, three of the nights were in an Air BNB.  The last night was in a hotel and yes, I took the soaps.  Waste not, want not.)

I (by and large) tried to stay away from the outer world and partially succeeded.  I tried to relax - and of course, had more thoughts that I will have to sort through.  And of course today (Tuesday) I have to go back to work (Sigh.  Digging out of my e-mail will take at least an hour).

But it was nice just to have a vacation to enjoy - sans children - without any greater agenda than just going.

Doing As Process

 A year ago for Christmas, Nighean Gheal bought me some 3-D printed fantasy figures (rabbits with weapons and their opponent, a skeleton) for painting.

Once upon a time I painted this figures for fun, back in the day when they were all cast of lead and the small flakes that floated around were just additional mineral supplements (before we found out that licking lead paint was bad).  But that was long ago and the figures are long gone.  

As turns out, I have some vacation time now - and approximately a month ago, on a whim I purchased a complete "Figure in a Box with Paint and Brushes and Instructions" - it was an Oni, or Japanese Ogre with a Naginata.  How could I say no to that?

    (Source)

So last week, as part of my "vacation", I started painting after a 35 year hiatus.

I started with rabbits' opponent, the skeleton, because after 35 years I thought I might need to "brush up" as it were, and as skeletons can be a mono color (white), that seemed easy enough.  The plastic paints as well as the lead ever did (although back in the day, we only had model paints, not paints specifically designed for these kinds of things) and using a brush was the same as it ever was.  I painted all but one leg (the one I was holding it with), allowed it to dry a bit, and then painted the other.  Then, I was "done"

Except that I was not.

There were still bits and pieces that needed painting, small cracks that had not been reached in my first pass or two.  I was going to press into them and "finish up" so I could move on and get something of my "relaxing list".  But then, I stopped myself.

This, I suddenly realized, was not an event.  This was an activity.

As I sat looking at the plastic figure that had pulled off its own arm and was using it as a weapon,  I suddenly became aware that I was treating this as I often treat many things:  a project or event that I needed to complete so I could move on to the next thing.   

But in point of fact, this was not meant to be an "event".  This was meant to be an activity. 

This has been a constant struggle in my life, if I think about it.  I am very "project" oriented at least in that sense, that things are there to be completed and the next thing moved on to.  It is what made me very good at education and reading books:  there was a set course, there was a timeline, there was a point of completion.

But an activity is far different.  

An activity is something that, while it may have milestones, is never really complete.  Iaijustsu is very much like this.  Weightlifting is like this.  Even things like gardening and cheese making are like this - yes, there are points where the kata  is complete or the session finished or the vegetables and cheese harvested made, but we are not "done". We move on the the same thing, done in a different way perhaps, or even the same way.  Because the goal is the process itself, not necessarily the outcome.

This, to my mind, suddenly explained a great deal of my own issues.  How I often try to rush through something to finish it (and do it poorly) - because I think I have to get on to the next thing.  Or perhaps why there is always this nagging sense of not doing enough - it is not that I am not doing enough, it is that I am thinking of things in discrete tasks instead of totality of the activity.

I put aside the skeleton that day with the promise I would get back to it later, take another single pass at it, and then (again) put it aside.  Because, as I sat and thought about it, one of the differences between activities and projects is that activities are meant, like journeys, to be savored.  Rushing to get it done more quickly does not make it any more pleasant, it just denies the joy of the activity and having something to look forward to.

Also, it mars the final paint of your figures.

With Tears And Struggle

 "Amma Syncletica said 'Great endeavors and hard struggles await those who are converted, but afterwards inexpressible joy.  If you want to light a fire, you are troubled at first by smoke, and your eyes water.  But in the end you achieve your aim.  Now it is written "Our God is a consuming fire".  So we must light the divine fire in us with tears and struggle.'"

- Sayings of The Desert Fathers, as quoted in The Roots Of Christian Mysticism (Olivier Clement)

The Longest Johns - Beer Is Good

 Nighean Gheal  and Nighean Dhonn recently introduced me to the vocal group The Longest Johns.  originally from Bristol, England, they perform traditional sea shanties and original music, all done in "the English Tradition". 

For your entertainment and amusement, presented below from the their album "Smoke & Oakum" is there original song "Beer is Great" (with lyrics).  Run time is 1:48.

Enjoy!

"I Thought Turkeys Could Fly"

 There are two must watch items for me during the Thanksgiving season.  The first, of course, is  "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving", which remains one of the greatest commentaries on Thanksgiving and the true meaning of it, much as "A Charlie Brown Christmas" offers the same for Christmas.

The second, of course, is the timeless Turkey Drop of WKRP:

Thanksgiving Day 2022

 Friends - As I have for several years, I post today George Washington's original declaration of a Thanksgiving proclamation.  As I post it, I reminded that in the midst of so much to be thankful for, I am equally thankful of all of you that spend your time here.  Whether reading, commenting, or even occasionally stopping by, your contribution makes my life and hopefully by extension this blog a better place (and a larger extension, the Social Internet as whole).  

A wonderful Thanksgiving to you and yours.

George Washington's 1789

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.

- http://www.wilstar.com/holidays/wash_thanks.htm

Not Productive Enough

 One of the things that somewhat amazes me, now that I have some time off, is how difficult it is to actually turn myself down.  Largely, I blame work - or more specifically, post March 2020 (e.g., The Plague) and changed during that period.

One of the things we have discussed here before, and often is lamented out on the InterWeb, is the growth of the idea of "multi-tasking".  Study after study pretty much demonstrates that this as a practice does not actually accomplish things more quickly or better, yet it remains a sort of unspoken work code in the sense that even though it is not "expected", projects and work loads are set up in such a fashion that one cannot succeed except that one multi-task.

The Plague made it worse.

Suddenly, due to the fact that all meetings were virtual, another outlet for effort was available:  working during meetings.  Easy enough to do of course if you work somewhere where "cameras on" is not a requirement due to company policy or bandwidth (my issue).  E-mails zip out during meetings that individuals are "in".  One can usually tell if people are double-working as, when they are asked a question, the response more often than not is "I am sorry - what was the question?"  Meetings have now become another opportunity to "catch up" on things.

The difficulty, of course, is that this seeps over into the rest of one's life.

Focusing on one thing - or even worse, just "relaxing" - becomes a very uncomfortable feeling.  After all, I should be doing more things!  I should be accomplishing this rather long list of things I was supposed to be doing, because if I am not, I am not "being productive".

You may laugh.  But the sensation is very real.

I am working on changing this of course, both in the work life and real life. Work life is more difficult of course, as the work is still there and explaining how only so much can really get done is a bit, well, "difficult".  Personally it is a little easier (although I still seem to need a lot of convincing) that if I only do "some" things - and complete them - I am doing "enough.

When we have built a society and economic system that anticipates over-work as a minimum, it may be many things, but it is surely not a sustainable one.

Moral Virtue For Its Own Sake

 "To bring this whole discourse of mine to an end - the conclusion is obvious from what has been said, namely that one should strive after justice and every moral virtue for their own sake.  All good men love what is fair in itself and what it is right in itself.  It is not in character for a good man to make the mistake of loving what is not intrinsically lovable; therefore what is right should be sought and cultivated for itself.  If this applies to what is right, it also applies to justice; and if it applies to justice, then the other virtues, too, should be cultivated for themselves.  What about generosity?  Is it free or for profit?  When a person is open-handed without reward, it's free; when he's looking for profit, it's an investment.  There is no doubt that a person who is called generous and open handed has duty  (officum, kindly duty and obligation) in mind, not gain.  So likewise justice looks for no prize and no price; it is sought for itself, and is at once the cause and meaning of all the virtues." 

- Marcus Tullius Cicero, The Law 

Foolish Are Those Who Would Set The World Right...

 

A Visit With Mom - November 2022

 While it appears I have not updated here my visits with my mother since July of this year, they have been going on.

The visits post-July remain much as they ever have.  There is a routine to them almost now:  I call ahead around 1030 on a Sunday or the following Saturday (depending on flight times) to get there after 11 AM, which is post lunch for them.  I punch myself in through the gate and open to door to get someone's attention.  They will respond - they know I am coming and a number of the "regular" aides recognize me - and I will go out and pull a chair into the shade or sun, depending on the weather, and wait.  

They will help Mom on out and get her into the chair, let us know to have a nice visit and "take all the time you need", and leave us to our conversations.

Sometimes it is just myself and sometimes my sister meets me there.  We will comment on the weather, what holiday is coming up, and then I will start to run down the list of family events.  I have to remind myself to give context - names and relationships to me and her make more sense than just names.  She listens, nods, expresses surprise when things like how close someone is to graduation is and things like that.  After a while the conversation lags a bit - even with a monthly visit, we are done in about 20 minutes.  Sometimes my sister and I will just start talking about something tangential and Mom will just sit and listen.

She is still herself, however.  She is always happy to see us, even if she seems to have no idea who we are.  And she will not ever say she is uncomfortable: for example, last month was a bit coolish and while she did not say she was cold, she did say "Why do we not go inside?" - which was her way of saying she was cold.  We laughed, told her it was fine - we were on our way out anyway.

This month's visit (this last Friday) saw a sunny but cold November morning and so the owners very kindly offered to let us visit inside.  I sat across from Mom as they helped her into her chair and put a blanket over her lap. 

As she settled in I talked with R the owner of the facility.  Mom's hair was much shorter; apparently she had been playing with it a great deal. Other than that, her health was fine and she was eating well (they take such good care of her there).   With that, she left us to talk,

I asked Mom how she was doing and she said fine.  Then she looked at me and said "You look like and sound like my son.  I think he is around here somewhere".

This is the first time she has indicated she remembered me - at least - at all in a long time.

I laughed, told her "he must be an outstanding fellow then", and carried on with the update.  She responded as she always did as I shared that Thanksgiving was coming up, what the grandchildren were up to, and that I was taking some time off and a trip soon.  The conversation moved right along with pictures on my phone until, about the usual length of time, it was done.

I said goodbye as I helped her up and the caregiver came and assisted her back to the main living area.  On my way out, R let me know that Mom had developed the trait of walking around a lot, which was new - but there is another woman, also with Alzheimer's, who does the same thing, so they walked around together.   It was a new behavior.  

I got back in the truck and teared up.  It is one thing to visit someone you loved and they have no memory of you at all.  It is another to suddenly find they remember you, even if it is not the you right in front of them.

End Of My Crypto Experiment

 As some readers may recall, in 2020 (November, to be precise)  I took a very small plunge into the heady and exciting world of Cryptocurrency.

You may have heard a bit about Cryptocurrency at the moment, with the complete and utter failure of the FTX exchange where somehow - magically - it went from a value of $32 Billion (yes, Billion with a B) to effectively $0.  If you have not read about this, I would (for once) urge you to do some reading.  This will become the Enron story that a new round of market survivors tell to each other around the digital campfire.

The story spooked yours truly - spooked him to the point that I sold whatever little bit I had in my very small Crypto account.  As this had started two years ago in November, it seemed fitting to end it in November as well.

The specifics:

As you can see, I had wild fluctuations in my account.  At it's height - in January of this year - it was worth a trifle over $400.  At its nadir, it was worth about $76.

The drop off right at the end is, of course my sales.  By the time I was done, I ended up with $136 in my electronic pocket in cash.  As my initial investment was $35, that is still a 388% return.  Not terrible for a little coffee money (although, I suppose, not nearly as well as I could have done).  

You will notice that remaining $0.09.  This is because Coinbase will not do a "complete" transfer from one "currency" to another; there are always scraps remaining and they have lower limits to it.  I have two choices:  keep the scraps, wait to "earn" more cryptocurrency through a small quiz (we will see how soon that happens again) and then sweep it all up for sale, or just donate the rest and close the account.  Me being me, I will try and scrape out that last little bit - after all, it costs me nothing.

One note:  As I had mentioned before as well, I do continue to "earn" the Brave token through the use of the Brave Browser and looking at advertisements and occasional quizzes and that I have successfully converted it into actual gift cards for Amazon.  This continues to go on - after all, why not as it does not cost me money - but the value of the BAT has dropped from around $1.00 to $0.22.  Not a great deal of foreseeable gift cards there in my future.

Fundamentally, I still very much like the idea of a currency and medium exchange that is universally applicable and not subject to government interference and manipulation.  It seems very apparent, however, that cryptocurrency is not that medium.

And thus I end up with a little money in my pocket and a story that starts out "Let me tell you about the time I was in the crypto market..."