Month: June 2016

Sirens of Fear

9:30, sirens erupted. First thought: speeders. More sirens. Second thought: ambulance. Or firetrucks. Both. More sirens. Worries…something big is happening. A shooting? Not been a shooting in our town in the eleven years of my residency time…which means nothing.

Some places are so acclimated to wailing sirens that people exhibit minimal reactions. We react, and wonder. Didn’t help that I’d just been reading a post about mass shootings in America. The cycle between mass shootings is down to about 64 days. How long has it been since Orlando?

Sirens go on, so I worry about fire. Wildfires are our constant threat, unless it’s soaking wet in the winter. Friends are already out there battling blazes up north in Oregon and down in SoCal.

We’re a four mile walk from one end of town to the other. Our television and radio news is provided by the big city down the Interstate. The paper is local but doesn’t always report what prompted sirens. Sometimes all that we get are the police log entries and then depend upon the grapevine for explanations. The grapevine’s not dependable.

We went down to the Saturday Growers’ Market for produce. Nothing out there was burning. No bodies, no crashes, no smoke on the horizon, all good. Probably not for someone, and not for everyone. I can wish them the best, but sometimes that response seems so frail, empty and shallow.

Something was behind all those sirens.

 

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Be Bad

The wave came over me as I got up and walked around. I’ll have gluten free pancakes with Omega 3 butter and organic maple syrup.

The wave struck.

Have a donut.

I didn’t even hear it coming.

No, not a donut, I told myself, not thinking about a Krispy Kreme maple log. I didn’t remember the times when I was young and I would dart out to a Dunkin’ Donuts for a dozen. Being a child and reading the comics while eating a donut wasn’t thought of. Nor did I recall wolfing down a cruller or cinnamon rich glazed sinker, or walking to the bakerie down the cobblestone street in Germany and gazing at the pastries and pointing out, “That one.” Fritters never crossed my mind or walking into the office on a casual Friday morning (we could wear jeans or shorts) and discovering a big pink box full of frosted cake donuts with sprinkles, glazed and filled donuts, and cinnamon twists.

Nope, never thought of them at all. I just ate my stupid healthy pancakes.

 

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Garbage Time

“Escapists.”

Her Lady was amused.

One man held center stage in a corner of like men. He seemed like a natural actor, with a voice that traveled the room like a machine gun firing.

“They’re living on the ship, what is it called again, the Stellar Queen? Which is made to be like a small world inside.” He waved a canape. “How is that different from living on a planet?”

A fellow industrialist, he was a large, trim man who could have been a professional athlete, from his looks and mannerisms, and not a venture capitalist. He didn’t know Her Lady was the agent behind the Stellar Queen. She’d taken pains to hide her early involvement, a simple matter if one had the means and resources to create the required fronts.

“Okay, sure, they’re traveling through the galaxies,” the man, an Australian whose name she didn’t recall, began again, “but again, so are planets. They’re all up there because they can’t cope with real life. You might as well call it a cocoon or a coffin. That’s what it really is, isn’t it? A huge coffin for a hundred thousand people, masquerading as a bio ship. Tell you what, it’s ridiculous. But they’re doing us a favor. We’re better off without people so weak willed and fearful that they’re attracted to abandoning real life and living on that thing.”

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Doctor Pollux suggested while leveling an impartial wide gaze on Her Lady.

Her Lady didn’t care, so she agreed. Privately, Her Lady scoffed at the Australian’s loud pronouncement, although, she agreed with a few points he gave, except he sketched with hard edges. She would soften and blend the points because matters were broader than that. “Are you afraid that I’ll be upset?” she asked Pollux.

“I know you better,” Pollux answered. “It’s for me. I prefer a more comfortable and less noisy environment.”

Her Lady nodded. “I was tempted to engage him and ask what he’s doing with his life, and how it was so different from those going onto the Stellar Queen.” She, who had spent a natural lifetime plus the time awarded the wealthy through medical technology, thought that many on the ‘natural worlds’ as such places as Earth and the other worlds were termed, spent most of their days in garbage time.

Garbage time was the concrete expression given when a sports game must continue to progress until time is reached even though the results are clear. Garbage also refers to a team playing out its schedule even though it has no chance of advancing into any play-offs. To Her Lady, however, garbage time was also assigned to those living with purpose, passing the day via tedious routines, usually because they wanted or needed money, but failed to do anything with the monies they accrued except stay alive.

“I’m sure he lives to make money,” she said to Doctor Pollux, “and acquire power and influence to better his life.”

The conversation varied along points made in previous discussions. Priding herself as seeing a broader rainbow of existence and thinking Her Lady was being simplistic, Doctor Pollux pointed out, “As I have said before, many people would not be living like that, were they not caught up in the machines’ gears. The comfort and confidence provided by a secure and healthy home life can’t be overstated.”

“Many people do not need to exist like that, if they had greater courage and self-confidence.” Her Lady’s eyes sparkled with the engagement of one of her favorite subjects. “Most people live lives of fear and desperation, ruing their lot while never attempting to change it.”

“I don’t think it’s so easily changed,” Pollux answered. “It’s such a complex issue of nature and circumstances.”

“What, money?”

“Besides money, besides willpower and courage, or fortitude. It’s a more deeply seated personal and unique issue that must really be addressed on an individual level.”

They were sufficiently away from others that they had private space. Sipping her wine, Her Lady said, “That is why I’m building the Stellar Queen.”

Attempting to breach the other’s secretive manner, Pollux considered Her Lady more carefully. The other seemed happy, even relieved that she was making a great revelation. She’d been working with Her Lady for some time and thought she’d developed an intelligent composite of the other. Both had been inspired by the old space adventure television shows, books, movies, and computer games when they were children. Thanks to Pollux’s great-grandmother, humanity was exploring the galaxy and completing the first wave of colonization on other worlds. Pollux had always assumed that this was why Her Lady was building the Stellar Queen.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Turning away, Her Lady smiled and replied, “Yes, I know,” quickening her step and drinking her wine before Pollux could ask for more explanation.

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Meet the BoBs

I met with the BoBs last night. It’s a weekly meeting. Nothing is called to order. There is no roll call. There is beer and conversation.

BoB – Brains on Beer – is an informal group of retired engineers, scientists, professors and doctors. We meet every Wednesday at 5:00 PM at Northwest Pizza & Pasta in Ashland. Most arrive five or ten till so we can get right to the business of drinking beer. I’ve been a member for about five years, having met the founder at an annual gala to support SOU’s Schneider Art Museum. At 59, I’m the youngest by ten years.

The beer is divided into the dark side and the light side. Pitchers for each side are purchased. The light side will buy an ale or IPA while the dark side (including me) go for stouts. It’s all good, though, we throw money in the pot, and it’s all paid for from there, regardless of how much or which you drank. To highlight special times, a member usually buys the beer for the night, and sometimes pizza. I’ll buy next month to celebrate my birthday.

Everyone needs a BoB group for release. We encourage one another as health issues are encountered and losses are mourned, and discuss technology, art and politics. Several were NASA engineers and scientists. Those projects are very long term, like one just reached the edge of the solar system last year, so we toasted that. Another vented that Space X crashed during its latest landing attempt. He’s a contractor on the project, so he takes it personally.

We’ve been trying to encourage children to embrace STEM. Several members volunteer at Science Works but we also invite science and math teachers and organizations in to tell us their needs and problems, and donate money, and sometimes time, to help. Last night, we decided to donate $1,000 to provide Science Works memberships to needy families, more or less an annual thing with us. That will permit fifteen families to come to Science Works who otherwise may not have made it. We also donated $500 to sponsor two children taking Science Works Academy courses.

Books and politics occupy us. We’re all left leaning people, although some are only about five degrees to the left. All are vocally anti-Trump. We’re surprised and dismayed he’s the apparent Republican nominee. Meanwhile, a few are Bernie supporters. Most of the others support Hillary. Local politics and plays going on with the local Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Cabaret are debated, but very few movies are brought up, unless it’s the Oscar season.

We only meet an hour because we don’t want to overdo it, but an hour is a good time length to meet with friends, have a beer, and do a little venting and commiserating. We’re always open to new members, so come on by, if you come to town.

Your first visit is on us.

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Thursday Thirteen

I stand on the _____ of writers like Ron.

Ron.'s avatarScrambled, Not Fried

(When I was much younger and I said, “Jeez, I could really use a joint right about now,” it had a totally different meaning. Most of my joints are problematic these days, but guess which one I just had about a dozen X-Rays of, in preparation for the referral to the rheumatologist.)

Here are 13 hints from the common vernacular:

1. Feel free to cry on my _____.
2. She’s got a good head on her _____.
3. That guy’s got some chip on his _____.
4. I’m giving Trump the cold _____.
5. My Beloved Sandra is head & _____ above the rest.
6. That’s a real weight off my _____.
7. I’m putting my _____ to the wheel.
8. You better keep looking over your _____.
9. All he could do was shrug his _____.
10. He always speaks straight from the _____.
11. I am a dwarf, standing…

View original post 23 more words

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Luminicious

Opened the blinds a little before six AM and then set about doing items and prepping for meditation. Without much thought, the angle, release, came to me for my meditation. Deciding what that meant and how to apply it, I headed back toward the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast while pondering what held me that I wanted release.

Sunshine billowed in from the east in a golden blast that filled the room. It looked so luminicious. Such a wonderful sight, I thought, yes, release. Release. Let it all go, don’t worry, trouble and struggle. Release. Breathe deep, take in the sunshine, join the moment and release.

Release. Just let myself not worry.

Release, and don’t let myself be anxious. Dismiss that ugly fuzzy energy within. Let it go.

Release. Just let myself feel good.

Release. Flow with the day, and it’ll carry me.

Release.

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One Leg

One problem with growing older (which some like to call aging, a disgusting term, makes me feel like cheese), is that the manuals regarding this are so poorly written.

For example, I’ve learned through my years of training, practice, and experience, to put my shorts and pants on one leg at a time. Been doing it that way so long, I don’t remember when I started.

But in the last year, I realized that I always put the same leg on first, left leg, right leg, left leg, right leg. And that was causing my left leg problems because it trained a limitation into its motion and strength through this unchanging and repetitive motion. Drawing the garment over the first leg is easier because it begins lower, requiring less combo of bending and stepping.

Discovering this wasn’t an accident. A right hander, I began using my left hand to do routine things a few years ago. It surprised me how challenging it was to use the other hand to do things. Brushing my teeth with my left hand, my right hand stood ready to leap in and save the left hand. Conscious effort was required to lower my right hand and disengage it from the activity. In weird ways, the right hand, normally used, shadowed the left hand’s motions.

Wiping my derriere after my business was amazingly strenuous. My body was built to pivot, angle and balance in certain ways with that act and bucked against the mirroring process I was trying to follow.

These efforts and observations made me more mindful about all my activities and behaviors. I quit taking it for granted how things were done and forced myself to do the opposite with everything I did.

Some were more easily accomplished. In the past few months, as I painted trim and walls in the house, I came to tell my body and mind, treat your left side like it’s your right side. Surprisingly, that’s very effective. It’s like the mind heard the words and somehow rewired itself.

There are exceptions, and putting my clothing on with my right leg first is one of those areas. My left leg, in conjunction with the bending required to offer the pants and shorts to the leg, is troubled by the activity. I definitely have reduced mobility, flexibility and strength in that knee. Thinking about it, I’m not surprised, as I played sports, particularly racquetball, baseball and football for years. Everything was geared toward being right handed. But being aware and mindful about it, I’m addressing it and I’m confident I can make changes.

One leg at a time.

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Her Lady

Five foot eight inches tall, rumored to be white with short dark hair and perpetually wearing sunglasses, the woman behind the Stellar Queen was mysterious.

She was at least eight hundred years old, well-established because she’d lived on the Stellar Queen for that long. Such a long life on one ship leads to rumors….

I lived for fifty years as a child and man on the Stellar Queen, enjoying my second childhood on the ship after I initiated my Do-over, so I was always watching out for her. I was never certain I saw her. There were rumors….

Her appearance was challenging not just because she was rarely seen but also because she practiced genetic designing to shape shift, leading her appearance to often change, even becoming an animal, such as the panther that was claimed to live on the Stellar Queen, or one of the unicorns in the forest. At least, those were were the rumors….

The Stellar Queen was her baby, along with Doctor Jharun Pollux, great-granddaughter of Doctor Jerol Pollux. Doctor Jerol Pollux was the famous discoverer of the dark elements. The elder Doctor Pollux, a funny point to write, was but twenty-four when she made her discoveries a hundred years before her great-granddaughter’s birth. Jharun Pollux and Her Lady were said to be contemporaries in their youth, and struck up a relationship from that era. ‘That era’ was when space exploration and colonization began blossoming, thanks to the dark elements of the elder doctor’s findings, but it was almost three hundred years later that the two women began collaborating on the Stellar Queen’s design and construction.

Most critically for the Stellar Queen, Doctor Pollux incorporated power generators using asteridium, chiridium, and lumenirium. Asteridium was the black element most commonly used in starships for propulsion but Pollux used it with a small lumenirium core to create the artificial sun that graced the Stellar Queen’s bio-dome, rising in the east, and setting in the west.

Chiridium was the more interesting choice for the ship’s power. Chiridium, named for chi, after the life force, is rarer, more difficult to mine and control. Myths related to its name and Doctor Jerol Pollux’s comments about it, can never be put down. As a dark element, some say it’s a dark life force. Both Doctors Pollux laughed about that, but with its AI ship overseer, many inhabitants and visitors thought the Stellar Queen was alive. Majorities of people recounted stories and gave interviews stating that something different was felt as soon as you boarded the ship.

Her Lady never made comments about it that anyone ever recorded. As odd and intriguing as her eight hundred year life aboard the Stellar Queen was, her disappearance without notice when she left was equally intriguing. She only told Rei the baker, famous for his goods from Trudy’s Valley, that she was leaving.

Being the only source, naturally, more rumors arose. One rumor was that one of her shapeshifting processes was disrupted, rendering her a monster that couldn’t be fixed, and that she still lived in secret on the Queen. Others claimed that she had never existed, that she had not created the Stellar Queen, but that it created her because the woman who had begun the project had died before it launched. More quietly, it was suggested that perhaps it wasn’t correct to think of the Stellar Queen as two separate entities, but that they were one, yet another project of the great Doctor Jerol Pollux, and her great-granddaughter.

Imagination can be a wild, untamed creature.

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Dragon’s Lair

If you’re into winter sports and visit the Stellar Queen, you’ll want to teleport to South Point. Located in the Southern Mountains, South Point is at ten thousand feet (“So close, you can almost touch the sun,” the inhabitants claim – not true) and offers the ship’s best skiing, snow boarding and snow mobile adventures. Painting itself as the Stellar Queen’s Aspen, after Earth’s famous resort, South Point even has an annual film festival, Stardance, to convince you of their bonafide intentions.

Three miles from South Point (seconds via ship teleport) is Trudy’s Valley. Trudy, one of the ship’s original settlers, is long departed from the ship. She re-married (her fifth, although just her second male husband, but her second marriage since becoming a woman again) and moved with her husband back to his home world, where they opened an art gallery that features the Stellar Queen’s artists.  Trudy’s grandson remains in Trudy’s Valley, though. Rei’s awesome baked goods are considered the ship’s best, and many establishments in the cities and towns around the Stellar Queen promote Baked Delights from Trudy’s Valley. Rei offers savory and sweet goods. I’d kill for one of his dark chocolate drizzled raspberry croissants right now.

Also within spitting distance of South Point and worth a visit is Dragon’s Lair. Located on the Stellar Queen’s second highest peak, Petyr McSweeney’s original intention was to introduce dragons to the Queen. Dragons were big as part of the genetic creations movement sweeping the galaxies back then. But in a rare move, Her Lady exercised her veto powers. With sharply unambiguous verbiage, she clarified that the Stellar Queen would not be home to dragons or other fantasy creatures, declaring, “This isn’t a fantasy ship.” She does, however, allow unicorns to wander Her Lady’s Forest on her estate (the ship’s largest private holding).

Undeterred by that setback, Petyr instead established a brewery. Dragon’s Lair Imperial Porter is chocolate and vanilla infused. Powerful, smooth and heady, I can attest its worth imbibing from a perch in the Stellar Queen’s high, snowy mountains. Visit after sundown and gaze upon the stars.

Tell them I sent you and say hello to Petyr for me, but beware. Petyr used to terraform planets for human settlement and has a million and one stories, and will not hesitate to tell them. Still, he’ll keep your cup filled, as long as you’re willing to listen.

 

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Drift

I’m drifting this morning, unable to meditate, unable to determine why.

Fidgeting through home worries (animals under the house, egads), the cats (what can I do to end these small wars) and my wife’s health, I drift.

Thinking about the weather and the wildfires down south in California, I drift.

Contemplating the economy, housing market and POTUS election, I drift.

Recalling the Stellar Queen, which returned to me after lo these many years (there’s a book, there, Return of the Stellar Queen!), I drift.

Wishing for the ocean and a shore of spray, longing to smell the sea and hear its thunder, I drift.

Listening to the jays and the crows calling and arguing, and the neighbors starting their cars and driving off, I drift.

Recalling enjoyable companions and amber moments of my life, I drift.

Giving up on meditation (for now) I drift into the kitchen and make coffee.

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