0830

August 30, 2022

In bed at 10, awake at 4, 4 pss, no vino.  Day 10? of nighttime back pain, waking with back pain.  Lily was asleep in the tv room, let her out at 4:15.  Woke up thinking about the finale of Season 1 of The Morning Show and the rarely sung lyrics of the Anglican hymn All Creatures Great and Small: 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, He made them high or lowly, and ordered their estate.'  That idea of the "He" again, the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving Creator, making some of us rich, some poor.

    Took a trip this morning to Sendik's to pick up some all-purpose flour Geri needed to make her pie crust for tonight's peach pie and a 6 pack of Beck's NA for Tom and Caela's dinner visit.  Then went up to Meijer's to pick up some CBH, Lilly's toppings, Geri's distilled water, a cereal bowl to replace the one I broke yesterday, some orange pop, and a small bottle of Maker's Mark for the next time Geri wants a manhattan.

    Felt a little unsteady as I walked from the car into Sendik's, causing me to wonder whether the day is at hand or approaching when I'll be keeping Judy, my first Rollator, in the back of the Volvo.  All downhill from here.  Vision, hearing, memory, and executive function are all declining.

    Did some work on my knockoff Calder, removed the painter's tape only to see that the red paint (probably the glaze) seeped under the tape onto the white border and the cad yellow adjacent.  Not sure I can salvage anything from this experiment/exercise.  May need to sleep on it for a couple of days.

    Geri was stung on the hand by a bee when she went to the local farmer's market to pick up sweet corn for tonight.  I'm not sure but I think I may never have been stung by a bee or wasp or hornet, not that I can recall.  Geri literally seems to attract bee stings.  Hard to figure.  The reaction to today's sting doesn't seem too bad, unlike some former stings.

    Thinking more about the storyline in The Morning Show, about how my mother experienced the shabby predation in her waitress work, how my sister experienced it working at a supermarket, how Geri experienced it in an early workplace - how all women, especially attractive women, experience it.  Too easy to dismiss men 'hitting on' women in workplaces as 'boys will be boys', and all you have to do is say 'no,', etc.  Too easy to refuse to accept the reality of 'male privilege,' especially white male privilege.    The evidence is all around us, much of it hidden by vulnerable victims stuck between treacherous rocks and very hard places.

0829

August 29, 2022

In bed around 10:20(?), awake at 4:45, up at 5, 3 pss, 2 glasses of red. Day 9 of waking up with pain in the middle of my back, right side.

    Finished reading the long feature piece on Samuel Alito in the 9/5 edition of the New Yorker.  I have this impression that I have some understanding of his personality.  Most of his life a soft-spoken, unobtrusive, deeply conservative, traditionalist living in a rapidly changing world that eschewed his religious, political, and social values and considers him something of a kook, an oddball, a smart but harmless reactionary. tolerated but not really respected or powerful.  Then the world changes when he finds himself with status and power, and in Alito's case, semi-permanent status and power by virtue of his lifetime appointment and the 6-3 supermajority on the Court.  The anger and resentment he has harbored much of his adult life comes out in his judicial opinions, contemptuous of opposing views, nasty and almost sneering.  His attitude was especially evident in the Dobbs decision since the Supreme Court justices onto whom he heaped scorn, indeed vitriol, because of their decisions in Roe and Casey were mostly 'fellow' Republican appointees.  He writes of them as if they were at best dim-witted and at worst knowingly unprincipled.  His majority opinion had what Norm Crosby might have described as 'a reek of getting even'  with all those jurists and others who declined to accept his intellectual, religious, political, and social values and superiority.

    I baited and placed the mouse traps in the basement this morning, but I found one of the 2 mice I saw yesterday dying next to my big easel.  I tried to load him into a box to bring him outside and release him but he seemed to die right in front of me - on his feet one moment, on his side the next.  I hate trapping mice.  I'm not into killing animals (or humans) though I make exceptions for insects in the house. Geri thinks I need to 'get real' when it comes to rodents in the house and I suppose she's right but it does kind of sicken me.  Robert Burns:

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,

O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

          Wi’ bickerin brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee

          Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

. . . . . 

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

          Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

          For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But Och! I backward cast my e’e,

          On prospects drear!

An’ forward tho’ I canna see,

          I guess an’ fear!

. . . . . 

    Geri and I have both gotten hooked on the AppleTV+ series The Morning Show with Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Mark Duplass, Billy Crudup, and Steve Carell.  Terrific acting, often powerful, especially by Jennifer Aniston.  Three dimensional characters. The story line is unabashedly based on the Today Show scandal involving Matt Lauer.

    Tried to work on an ersatz Alexander Calder painting this afternoon.  MUCH more difficult than I had anticipated.  May end up giving up on this endeavor.

0828

August 28, 2022

 In bed @ 10:14, up at 4:15, yecch, 3/4 pss, 2 glasses of red.  Woke up thinking The Second Coming and 'what rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem,' published in 1921, could have been published in 2021.  One of the op-ed pieces in this morning's WaPo: "Is The United States Headed for Civil War?" "It’s easy and logical to conclude that the United States today stands as close to the edge of civil war as it has since 1861. A broad variety of voices — including Republican and Democratic politicians, academics who study civil strife, and extremists on both ends of the spectrum — now accept the idea that civil war is either imminent or necessary."

    I've been trying to imagine how it is that so many Americans can loathe their government and I'm finding it's not too hard.  I think of the CFR, Code of Federal Regulations, 50 subject-area titles, each in one or more volumes, each divided into chapters naming the issuing agencies, each chapter divided into parts and subparts, each further divided into sections and subsections.  The last page count I could find for the CFR was 175,268 in 236 total volumes.  The Federal Register is issued daily with new proposed regulations, executive orders, notices, etc.  Then we have state-level regulations and local municipal regulations.  The Internal Revenue Code alone, as sold by the GPO, fills two volumes totaling 2,652 pages.  IRS regulations, 'revenue rulings,' and various 'clarifying' issuances add tens of thousands of pages, all part of federal tax law.  Commerce Clearing House publishes its Standard Federal Tax Reporter at about 70,000 pages.  Every so often there is a futile move to simplify the tax code, never successful, in part because finance and the economy are so complex now and in part because the tax law is the 'stock in trade' of legislators.  Lobbyists work ceaselessly for their clients to get legislators to slip favorable tax legislation into bills.  Steve Bannon rails about the 'deconstruction of the administrative State.'  This is but a small part of what he rails against.  

    The much bigger reason, I have long thought, is simple racism. 

    Two little mice in the basement. A dilemma for me.  Maybe more tomorrow on civil war, racism, and the mice. 

0827

August 27, 2022

 In bed around 10, up around 4:45, 3 pss, 2 glasses of red, day 7? of waking up with a backache, inevitably wondering about lung cancer or some other dread malady.  Life at 81😱  What do I need to be doing now to be 'getting my affairs in order' for Geri?  VA social worker?  Schmidt & Bartelt?  Forest Home?  Get on the ball, buddy.   Thinking about how dependent I am on her, how lost, adrift, alone, forlorn I would be without her anchoring my life.

    All the news sources remain heavily focused on the release of the redacted 37-page affidavit in support of the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago.  Among the most significant unredacted statements: "The FBI has not yet identified all potential criminal confederates."  The situation is what used to be callously called 'a fight in the leper colony' in my old law firm, people affected/infected by a common threat fighting one another to save themselves and throw others under the bus, to mix metaphors.  Who among those around True do we suppose NOT to be lawyered up?  Who can he trust?  Who can trust him?  I wonder about Ivanka and Jerrod, Stephen Miller, servants.  Such a powerful term "criminal confederates."

    Another piece in this morning's WaPo is about the likelihood of another Oklahoma City bombing, the hardening of the violent far right.    January 6th, the plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, GOP political ads featuring candidates brandishing guns and hunting or targeting enemies.  Brings to mind all my direful predictions to Kitty over the last few years about a fascist takeover, me hoping I was wrong, her dreading that I might be right.  Not the 1860 War Between the States, but Northern Ireland 'Troubles' civil war.  Bombings, assassinations, sabotage.

    More in the intro to Moral Man & Immoral Society:

        "As Niebuhr once remarked, it was only an unusual individual who could feel his own power or his wisdom to be such that they could claim to be the center of the world.  As a consequence, most of us make this claim together,  through the community of which we are a part: a tribe, family, religion, nation, race, gender, profession, or church.  Serious sins are mostly communal sins. . . . We make the interests of our relevant group central to our thought and action, and so we give ourselves with all our loyalty and power to our group, to its security and success, and to its conquest and domination of competing groups.  Thus results the social group sins of historical life: sins of class, race, religion, nation, and gender.  These communities support, defend, and secure the individuals within them   - as the social power of men over women aids each man in his domination of women....  "

    Niebuhr wrote MM&IS in 1932, before WWII and Hiroshima, Dresden, Tokyo, and Nagasaki.  It was reissued in 1960, and in a preface to the 1960 publication, he reaffirmed his belief in the main points of the work.  He was a member of the faculty of Union Theological Seminary throughout most of his career.  I find myself wondering about what his thoughts about "God" were in 1932 and in 1960, what would they be today.

    Jimmy was here for dinner and a visit, linguini con vongole.  In a week, Steve will be here to take him away from us.

0826

August 26, 2022

Down at 9:30, up at 4:15, 3? pss, no vino, day 6 waking up with back pain, high middle.  Brain a squirrel cage.  Looks like a perfect weather day ahead of us.

    Listless morning.  Had to work up enough energy to shower.

    Picked up 2 Kees van Dongen art books at the library in the afternoon, and one weighty book on the Fauves.  Van Dongen remains a favorite of mine.  I did a graphite and colored pencil knockoff of his young woman with long red fingernails half-hidden behind a door many, many years ago [20? 40?], one of my favorite pieces of my own stuff.

    Read some more of the introduction to Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society briefly referencing personal 'altruism' in support of immoral group interests and the problem of inescapable ambiguity of "reason."  The intro makes me want to read the whole book but wondering if my eyes will permit it.

    Picked up Peter to drive to Nicolet for next-day practice after beating Waterford (Watertown?) last night.  Review game films and some indoor stretching, etc., exercises.  

    Spent some time in the basement messing around with paint and glazes on a canvas board.  Thinking I should pick up some more boards at Blick or Michael's.  

    Hong Anh fried rice combination with vegetables for dinner.  Geri continues to watch "Defending Jacob" on AppleTV+.  She got 2 episodes ahead of me last night.

    

0825

August 25, 2022

 In bed at 9:30, awake at 3 and up at 3:30, 3? pss., the fifth morning of aching back, high middle.  Streets slick with rain, reflecting garage and house lights, winds blowing.  Thoughts flitting like minnows in a bait bucket.  Iwo Jima, Robert Hartman, PTSD on PTSD, 2nd generation, 'a little peace and quiet.'  'Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.'  The birthday seemed one of those Yatesian (spellcheck says Yeltsin) days, not depressed but low,  despite much to be thankful for, Geri so sustaining, maintaining, caring, so living each moment and each day, Sarah, Andy, Steve, David, grandchildren, Ralph, Ruby, Blanche and Lilly, friends, so many birds, chipmunks, white-tails, so many trees, farm fields,  . . . 

    Read JSonline and WaPo but my eyes are not cooperating.  Can't deal with Wordle yet but WaPo MiniPuzzle.  Rembert Weakland's funeral at the cathedral on 8/30 and I'm tempted to go, if not to the funeral mass (starring Jerome Listecki)😡 maybe to the 'viewing'.  His coverup and shuffling of the pedophiles reminds me of Niebuhr's statement about the morality of groups, circling the wagons, Deutschland Uber Alles.

    Back to bed at 5:30, up at 7:15.  Put the coffee on.  Geri was up at 7:30.

    A smaller headline in NYT: "Marijuana and Psychedelics Use Is Soaring Among Young Adults, Study Says."  Surprise?

    I read the entire feature piece "Louise Brooks Tells All" in the current New Yorker.  Very long.  I've seen Pandora's Box twice and each time was struck by her beauty and her sexual magnetism.  Stunning.  Unforgettable.  Surprised to learn she lived the last decades of her life as a virtual recluse in New York City and Rochester, N.Y.

    Andy called to say that Anne's plan to take Peter to Nicolet to be bused to a JV football game against Watertown wouldn't work because her car wouldn't start.  I picked him up and had a nice conversation with him.  Then drove up to Grafton to gas up and buy a big tube of mixable transparent white acrylic paint at Michael's.  Been thinking of trying a face of Jesus a la Roualt and found myself wondering whether Jesus wore a ponytail.  If his hair was worn long, I suspect he and many others did, to keep hair from falling over his face and eyes.  Never painted with a ponytail and would probably cause some shock if not outrage.  The Savior in a ponytail!!!

0824

August 24, 2022 

In bed at 10:15, up at 5:00, 5 pss, and one glass of red.  Day 4 of waking up with an aching back.  81 years behind me, what's ahead?  Grilled steaks, baked potato, and fresh Wisconsin sweet corn tonight.  And Sarah said to expect a package delivery today.

    Yesterday's buzz on all the news shows, perhaps excepting Fox et al., was about the May letter from the Acting National Archivist to Trump's lawyer revealing that Trump had more than 700 pages of classified documents, some highly sensitive, compartmented, special access stuff, at Mar a Lago. The letter, extremely damaging to Trump, was published by a guy surnamed Solomon, a big Trump supporter. but Not Too Bright.  A NYT article also revealed that a number of witnesses told the FBI that Trump personally reviewed the documents in the Mar a Lago boxes, which would prove knowledge, agency, and personal responsibility on his part.  The pressure on the AG to indict seems to be relentless.  Will he?  Consequences?  What is going on with the Trump lawyers, one of whom drafted the letter saying all classified material had been returned to the government and the other of whom signed and delivered it?  Lying to the FBI on an important, material fact in a major investigation is hugely consequential, personally, professionally, and financially. How can they not blame Trump?

    Rembert Weakling died yesterday.  He was caught up in the pedophilia scandal, like most other bishops, and is unquestionably culpable for shuffling abusive priests around and concealing their crimes, and he paid a hefty bribe to a former male lover to conceal their relationship, using money the archdiocese received from the sale of Harry John's De Rance Foundation building on Bluemound Road. That said, and my general disdain for Catholic hierarchs notwithstanding, I liked Rembert Weakling.  He was, I suppose, my favorite bishop, the most relatable of a nasty lot.  He was always in trouble in Rome for his too-liberal thoughts which I took as a badge of honor.  I remember sitting next to him and sharing some sort of meal at some sort of gathering and schmoozing with him.  He was a sinner, especially in terms of the pedophile scandal, but he was an amiable sinner unlike so many of the stiffs Rome enfeoffs with lucrative bishoprics, including Rembert's Mr. Joyboy successor and would-be first American pontiff. Timmy Dolan, and now Jerome Listecki.

    Sarah and Christian called on FaceTime this afternoon for a nice long chat and visit with new Siamese cat Max.  We started out with everyone appearing in negative but then Sarah pushed some button or worked some magic in Germany and voila! everything switched to positives.

.. . . . .  

    I picked up a copy of Niebuhr's Moral Man in Immoral Society at the library, hoping to pick up some art books I had ordered as well, but not to be.  They arrived this afternoon.  It's not likely that I will read the book.  My eyesight is growing increasingly worse, in large part because of dry eyes for which eye drops provide only partial and temporary relief.  I found myself wondering as I drove to the library whether the dry eye problem will be what eventually leads me to stop driving - shudder.  It was that problem that led me to accept the fact that it would be impossible for me to drive out to visit Kitty, even if I allowed myself many days to make the trip.  In addition to the eye problem, it has become almost impossible to me to read for any extended period of time.  Loss of focus, both of my vision and of my attention.  Going downhill.  In any event, I'm reading the introduction to the book, in small batches, which is interesting in its own right.

1.  No group will ever be dislodged from power solely by persuasion, by arguments, however academically or legally elegant those arguments are.

2. There's a notable difference between the moral behavior of individuals, where there is some possibility of self-sacrifice for others, rare as that may be, and the behavior of groups - families, clans, classes, races, genders, states, or nations.  With communities, the self-interest of the group is inevitably the predominant factor.  . . . There can be without contradiction, the pious slave-owner, the respectable member of a ruling class or aggressive nation, the "moral" member of an oppressive race.  In all these cases, while these persons may appear to be moral as individuals, nonetheless they join with others of their group and act with exceeding self-concern, with oppressive ruthlessness, and with devastating destruction. 

. . . . . 

    Applied a burnt sienna glaze on the knockoff Munch Madonna, covered some unintended glazing on her hair from yesterday's work, applied black paint to the knockoff Modigliani nude's hair and some burnt sienna glaze to skin areas.  

    Geri got a New York strip steak for me for my birthday, huge, and a ribeye for herself.  Eating al fresco on the patio.  Breaking my normal habit of avoiding alcohol early in the evening, seems sinful not to have some red wine with a steak like that.

    I received a nice birthday wish from cousin Christine Klaer in Chicago and a FB HB wish from old pal Caren Goldberg.  Andy stopped over with some Mint M&Ms for my birthday (tried to get Spearmint Leaves but all out) and birthday cards.

    Subscribed to Apple TV to watch Sharon Horgan's newswires, Bad Sisters.  Watched first 2 episodes, falling asleep while watching the second.

0823

August 23, 2033

 In bed at 9, up at 4:20, 3 pss, no vino.  My back is still sore, mostly way down low but also some higher.  Sunrise at 6:06, sunny day expected.

        I read Michael Gerson's op-ed in WaPo this morning, writing about the novelist Frederick Buechner.  Struck by: " “Pay attention to moments,” he said, when “unexpected tears come to your eyes and what may trigger them.” He was talking about those sudden upwellings of emotion we get from the sublimity of nature or art when we see a whale breaching or are emotionally ambushed by a line in a film or poem. We are led toward truth and beauty by a lump in the throat."  It made me think of the times, all in my old age, when I've had my eyes well up by some sublime piece of music.  When it would happen I would wonder if I was 'losing it.'  Mostly it's music that brings on the physical reaction, the tearing up, but so many times I've been 'emotionally ambushed by a line in a movie or poem.'  Actually, I can't think of that kind of reaction to a film, but I need to give that some thought.  Poems, on the other hand, can grip me by the throat.  "For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand." "Responsibility so weighs me down  . . . and not a day but something is recalled, my conscience or my vanity appalled." "Come up from the fields, Father, here's a letter from our Pete." "But one day I know it will be otherwise." "I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular." "When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose."  "The old lie: dulce et decorum west pro patria mori."  And Maggie Smth's "Good Bones:"

 " , , , , Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right?  You could make this place beautiful."

. . . . 

And many of William Blake's, especially

Every morn and every night

Some are born to sweet delight,

Every night and every morn 

Some to misery are born.

Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.

It was the question that Monika asked Harry on their blissful island-hopping in "Summer with Monika:" Why do some people have all the luck and some are miserable?

 . . . . 

Even "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy." Will it scan?

They were careless people,

Tom and Daisy.

They smashed up things and creatures

And then retreated back

Into their money or their vast carelessness

Or whatever it was that kept them together

And let other people clean up

The mess they had made.

Different enjambment, different feels:

They smashed up things

And creatures

and then retreated

back into their money , , ,

[I haven't figured out how to format these notes.  Rats.]

 . . . . . 

Even words from scripture:

'vanitas vanitatem et omnia vanitas'

'mene mene tekel upharsin'

'if it be possible, let this cup pass from me'

'my god, my god, why have you forsaken me'

 . . . . . 

    I spent some time messing around with glazes again this afternoon.  On the Modigliani nude, a thin patio blue glaze followed by a burnt sienna glaze softened the bright, dazzling alizarin crimson underpainting.  Then I tried the burnt sienna glaze over the terrible blue hue I created on the Munch Madonna and also on the Jeanne Hebuterne which seemed too red or pink and on the Young Woman with Black Tie, too yellow.  I think the glazes helped but I need to withhold judgment for a while.  

   [ I have looked up and read the difference between "awhile", the adverb, and "a while", the noun.  I still don't get it.😡]

    Made an appointment at Field Volvo for a 'regular maintenance' visit, on September 7.  10,000 miles put on the car since the last maintenance, about 8,000 by Andy this year in the months between the theft of their Kia minivan and their vacation trip to Canada last week.  The last 'regular maintenance' was in January at @ 31,000 miles, odometer now in excess of 41,000.  This will be the first time I bring the car in for 'regular maintenance' based on mileage rather than simply the passage of one year since the last maintenance.

    Two years ago today Jacob Blake was shot in the back 7 times at extremely close range by a Kenosha police officer.  Riots followed, leading to the famous/infamou Kyle Rittenhouse double murder trial.

0822

August 22, 2022

 In bed at 9, up at 3, 2 or 3 pss, no vino.  My back pain is better during the night, not gone but better, but still pretty bad getting out of bed.  Slow moving, relying on my cane.  Two Tylenol, which I should have taken yesterday but didn't think of.  Never took painkillers for many years, no headaches, etc.  I don't regularly think of painkillers in response to pain.  Not smart.  Took another 2 Tylenol at 9, able to empty and refill the dishwasher.

    On FB this morning:

"Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human. It is always the same words telling the same lies. And the fact that men accept this, that the people’s anger has not destroyed these hollow clowns, strikes me as proof that men attribute no importance to the way they are governed; that they gamble – yes, gamble – with a whole part of their life and their so-called 'vital interests'. ~Albert Camus (Book: Notebooks 1935-1942 

Try to imagine how Camus would react to modern American television political ads - repeated over and over again daily for months leading up to our elections, breeding contempt and hatred.  I'm reacting now two and a half months before the election, knowing that the closer we draw to November, the more outrageous and vicious the ads will become.

    I've been re-reading an old favorite novel, Sean O'Faolain's Bird Alone.  I read it at a snail's pace, as Throne Room reading.  I love the way he writes, in that great Irish lyricism that sounds so familiar, but of course, not every Irish speaker is a Sean O'Faolain.  I have a volume of some of his short stories which I mean to read but it's tucked away in a bookcase instead of in the rat's nest I keep around my recliner and I never think to get up and get it.  Part of the reason I like the book is because it describes the young Irish protagonist's drift away from Holy Mother Church.  And because the Irish Church he describes in this book published in 1936 is so very like the Irish Church I was raised in, ('raised in the bosom of the Church') in Chicago in the 1940s and 50s.  Yesterday I read of Corney's (Cornelius, the given name of my Uncle Jim, a/k/a Seamus) attending Benediction with his grandfather:

    "And when, later, the chant of the rosary done, the incense broke blue against windows as leaden now as the leads that bound them, and the humpbacked monk brought candles (butt-ends amongst them) all blowing in arrow-shape for the benediction and the voices rose to the line of triumph:

                "Et antiquum documentum

                  Novo cedat ritui . . ."

- even then, the beginning and the end of the power of the Church, all seemed blanched and bleak.  It was as if the worshippers were too few, and became mindful of the fewness, became mindful, too, of the sorrow that always in Ireland fills into the plain-chant at that point as if the ancient glory of the Word were to us become, in time, as was as the glory it displaced."

    I can't read that passage without smelling the incense, seeing the dirty stained glass windows,  and humming to myself the Tantum Ergo that I must have heard and sung at a couple hundred Benediction services in my youth.  All that changed with the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, 1962-1965, requiring the use of vernacular in Catholic liturgy (and so many other major changes).  But to those of us born and raised into adulthood 'in the bosom of the [Latin] Church', the old forms of worship - antiquum documentum - die hard.  We didn't have a clue what the words meant, but like dutiful sheep following the shepherd, we did as we were told.

    Andy and I switched cars around dinner time.  He starts his new job on Thursday.

    Geri made a pasta pesto with fresh basil from her vegetable garden.  Quite a bit of work, but it's just not a taste I much enjoy.  Never have.

    I started work on a copy of another one of Modigliani's (semi)nudes.  It's the subject's lush skin tones I'm hoping to get close to.  And hoping to practice some more glazing.

0821

August 21, 2022

 In bed at 9:30 (?), up at 6:30, 6 (?) pss, 2 glasses of red, nasty backache during the night and on awakening.  Must be sleeping in a wrong position, but how?

    Got up to discover we left the Mr. Coffee on all night, heating what must by now be a bowl of tar.

    We watched a lot of John Prine yesterday on the Austin  City Limits video I saved on our hard drive while Jimmy was with us and later on the tribute show ACL ran a year or so ago after his death at 73 in 2020.  The tribute show ran clips of JP from his 20s up to his last ACL show, which is the one I've saved on the hard drive.  I noted his Chicago/Maywood roots in songs referring to shooting "pop cans" and to a "forest preserve."

    Came across the following on FB this morning, reminding me of the polarities in American politics today:

January 21, 1962

Dear Sir Oswald [Mosley],

Thank you for your letters and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one’s own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterized the philosophy and practice of fascism.

I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.

I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement.

Yours sincerely,

Bertrand Russell

This a lovely description of the contemporary Republican Party led by Dear Leader Donald J. Trump.  71 days until the November general election, 71 days of revolting, disgusting, political ads demonstrating every day what politicians and their PR people think of the intelligence of American voters, and then on Election Day, the American voters in large numbers demonstrate to the politicians and their PR people that they were right.  By Election Day, those of us who watch any television will have seen endless repetitions of each ad that tests in opinion polls or focus groups as pumping up each candidate's bases and demonizing the opposition, further increasing polarization and fomenting hatred.  Oh beautiful, for spacious skies,  . . . and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

    The backache I woke up with has been with me all day.  I wish I could figure out how I've been sleeping causes the development of backache while sleeping on my new, expensive mattress.  Rats.

    I drove to Andy's to bring in his mail this afternoon and then up to Michael's in Grafton to pick up some transparent acrylics to try in my glazing experiments.  Geri spent the afternoon gardening.

    We 'grazed' for dinner last night.  I had two big bowls of the cauliflower-bacon 'stoup' I made a few days ago.  Put a couple slices of American cheese on it, heated in the microwave for 2 minutes.  Loved it.  It stays in my recipe binder.

0820

August 20, 2022

 In Bed at 10:30, up at 6:30, 3 or 4 pss., 1 and 1/2 glass of red.

    On pit stop #2, I put my foot down on the floor only to feel Lily sleeping right next to my bed, not down at the foot of the bed,  but up next to me.  I'm quite sure that the older she gets, the more time she spends near me, accompanying me every time I repair to the bathroom and waiting patiently for me near the bathroom door.  She has even come down into the basement while I'm painting to lie down near me.  She is still very much Geri's dog, attached, bonded, always was, and always will be, but it pleases me to know I'm important to her too.

    

    I found myself thinking of Jimmy again as I warmed up my first cup of coffee.  In 2 weeks, Jordan arrives to shepherd him to Alexandria on Labor Day and I won't see him again.

    Yesterday's Facebook post from Mike: 

"Happy Birthday to one of the most wonderful people that has ever graced this Earth, Kitty Reck!! I miss you, Mom!! I know she is no longer suffering and is at peace, but I would love to have one more conversation with her. Her heart was one of the biggest I have ever seen. She gave so much to people she didn't even know. She did so much charity work in her lifetime, and I witnessed it more than once, the times when the organization she worked with couldn't help someone she reached in to her pockets and helped. She didn't do it for recognition or accolades. She did it because she had a love for everyone. No biases, no judgment, just love. She was an inspiration and drives me to be the human I am today. In her honor today, do one selfless act of love and kindness. Or do 20. Or just keep doing them. She will love that!! Happy Birthday, Mom!!!"

    My comment:

"Thank you, Mike, for your beautifully expressed and oh, so true, tribute to your Mom. You are a gifted writer and, more importantly, both you and your sister have inherited so much of your mother's profound kindness and compassion. In an age of increasing tribalism and division, it's comforting to me to remember her so often referring to "our fellow man," as if all were her brothers and sisters. I vividly remember visiting your house in Glendale some years ago during the holiday season and watching and listening to your Mom on the phone with generous donors to her Adopt a Family work, and, more importantly, with the (usually) mothers who needed clothing, school supplies, toys, etc., for Christmas. She left nothing to chance, getting the names and ages of each child, what size shoe or dress or pants or shirt they wore, what games they enjoyed, and passing all the personal information onto the adopting family so each child's presents would have the child's name on it and be personalized, nothing generic. And of course there were the years and years of work at the St. Vincent de Paul Society getting food and cash assistance to her "fellow man" who happened to be in need of some help. I can hardly think of her without my tear glands acting up. She made the world - and our worlds - a better place. She taught all of us the best meaning of the words "human" and "humane."❤❤❤"

And, a little later:

"Mike, I had no sooner finished commenting on your beautiful reflection on your mother's goodness, that I got to thinking my comment was a bit misleading, concentrating on your Mom's "charitable" work over so many years. Her goodness and compassion and integrity were at work in her every single day of her life, with her family of course but also with those with whom and for whom she worked. She would sometimes kind of disparage herself as "just the cleaning lady" but all of the elderly people for whom she worked quickly became her friends and more. They came to depend on her and when some increasingly lost cognitive ability to Alzheimer's or some other dementia, their children out-of-state came to rely on your Mom -"just the cleaning lady" - as their always reliable connection to their parents. And I needn't tell you how she took in and cared for Aunt Mary, your aunt Gerri, dear, dear Mary and Danny, and our Dad, all in the last years of their lives. I just want the 'record to be complete' that her goodness and love and compassion weren't reflected only in her 'charity work,' but rather every single day of her life and in the most intimate, caring, and sometimes demanding ways, at home, at work, everywhere."

    By 2 o'clock, heavy rain started falling.  Much thunder.  Expected to continue off and on throughout the day.

    I watched Ingmar Bergman's Summer with Monika, filmed in black and white in 1953 and starring Bergman's then paramour Harriet Anderson.  When it was originally released in the U.S., it was as a sexploitation film because of some brief nudity.  It's a bleak film, like so much of Bergman's work.  His father was a Lutheran minister and I find myself wondering how much, if any, of his father's worldview is reflected in Bergman's films.  And how much was affected by the Second World War and Sweden's traditional, self-serving but Nazi-favoring neutrality.  The most telling line in the script seemed to be Monika's: "Harry, why do some people have all the luck and others are miserable?" and the repeated: "I don't want to go back."  Monica is the protagonist of the film: young, healthy, strong, beautiful but not glamorous, gum-chewing, cigarette smoking, greedy, frivolous, self-directed, selfish, amoral, and almost feral. 

    Jimmy is here for dinner and visiting.  Confusion, confusion, confusion, all exacerbated by hearing loss.

    

0812

August 12, 2022 

In bed at 10, up at five, 3 or so pss, one glass of cognac before bed. Strange dream of attending some veterans affair with Geri somewhere in northern Illinois and of being requested to deliver closing or wrapping up comments.  No pen or paper to take or make notes, made some sort of incoherent comments to the few people still present at the end.  Then had great trouble finding car to get back to Wisconsin. Weird.

    We watched Lawrence O'Donnell's program last night with all the buzz being about the most important document sought in the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago being some sort of highly classified, 'compartmented' document relating to nuclear weapons or nuclear warfare.  Made a point of recording this morning's  Fox & Friends as well as my normal Morning Joe and CNN German/Keiller programs.

    Fox and Friends did a lot of 'howabouting' as expected.  How about Hillary Clinton's emails, how many documents Obama took with him (sounding like a reference to his presidential library material), how would the FBI treat documents in Michelle Obama's closet, etc.  Smarmy, prissy, mommy boy teacher's pet Jonathan Turley on, talking about how confusing, how contradictory some of the government's actions have been.

    Trump made no objection to unsealing the search warrant and inventory of seized documents/stuff.  One set of docs was labeled "TS/SCI documents" i.e., top secret/sensitive compartmented information."  There were 3 other sets of top secret docs, another 3 sets of 'secret' docs, and yet another 3 sets of 'confidential' docs.  My experience in the Marines with a 'top secret/cryto' clearance and assignment as Classified Materials Control Officer' in 2 of the units I served in persuaded me early on that people in the military at least, and probably throughout the government, are classification-happy, classifying and over-classifying information/documents way beyond any reasonable need to do so, at least with respect to 'secret' and 'confidential' docs.  I'm guessing we'll never know what documents Trump decided to take with him when he left government service, much less WHY he wanted to keep them in his possession and NOT in the National Archives.  Not mere 'souvenirs, I'm sure.

    I switched cars with Andy this afternoon, opting to take the 2005 Lexus instead of their Suburu.  I found out it was Anh's Dad's car, not John and Truc's as I had thought.  Very smooth and comfortable ride though it's impossible to see either the front or the rear of the vehicle while driving, seeming a bit like riding in a space capsule.

      I spent maybe an hour or 1 and 1/2 hours playing with acrylic paints and glazing liquid and a 2 inch foam roller.

    

    

0819

August 19, 2022

 In bed at 10, up at 5, 5 pss, 2 Jim Beams.

Kitty's birthday.  Celebration of her life in Surprise, AZ.  Will send a text to Chrissie this morning.

    Texted Chrissie that she and Mikey and her Dad were in our thoughts today.  Got a nice text from Christine Klaer remembering Kitty and what Kitty meant to her, especially in moments of need.  It made me just start to tear up, thinking about what a hole her death has left in my and so many other lives.  Writing each day in this blog is a sorry substitution for the daily morning exchanges Kitty that I had for so many years.  The blog can't talk back but Kitty did.   I feel the loss of her life-friendship with me every time I see something or do something or learn something that would have prompted me to send her a text or a photo, a smart-ass comment or a gripe.  Tried this new soup, take a picture and send it to Kitty.  Soup comes out OK?  Tell Kitty.  Receive photos from Andy on their vacation in Canada?  Forward them to Kitty.  My daily, frequent interlocutor.  My mirror, my sounding board.

    Had some of the cauliflower-bacon soup, or porridge/gruel for lunch.  Actually pretty good, at least for this guy who likes both cauliflower and bacon a lot.

    Spent a bit of time in the basement glazing the Modigliani copies (Young Woman with Black Tie), Munck's Madonna, and a very old Modigliani portrait of Jean Hebuterne I did.  I am starting to get the hang of it, seeing how a thin glaze softens everything under it, including contrast lines.  Blue glaze over the Madonna is a mistake, but live and learn.

    Tried again (how many times?) to use the "Lucy" drawing aid without success.  Covered some old goofy small canvases with gesso to make them maybe usable.

    Ellis was sick last night and so was kept home today.  Geri spent a couple hours with her while David and Sharon tended to work obligations.  

    Whoops!  Just trying to learn how to insert photos in the blog.  Got the faux Modigliani but a couple of VERY old self-portraits, a painting of Micaela, one of Vietnamese women at a market (all hats), and a mocking depiction of a Catholic bishop in miter, chasuble, and bling, with crozier.  I think I may be able to delete the ones other than Woman with Black Tie, but I'll keep them here,  Why not?

    We watched several episodes of Schitt's Creek around dinner time.  I can't help it: I love the series.  The actors are SO over the top, David, Moira, and especially Alexis.

0801

August 1, 2022 

In bed around 9, up around 5, 5 pit stops overnight.

    Woke up thinking of "American Graffiti" which we watched last night for the first time, thinking back to its setting in 1962, 1963 when the characters were leaving high school and moving on to college (or not), background music of big hits from my high school and college years, thinking of how different life was for 'public school kids' who went to school with kids of the opposite sex, and Catholic school kids in our segregated (in all ways) schools named after various saints and deities and smothered in America's Irish Catholic sexually-repressed culture. Thinking of how Pat Boone, the avatar of wholesome Protestant clean sexuality (an oxymoron to Catholic kids) did 'covers' of all those great early rock tunes by Little Richard, Fats Domino, and others.

    Opened my laptop to go through my morning routine but saw Richard Hofstadter's 1964 essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" still residing in an open window.  How accurate his assessment was, how predictive of Donald Trump, the Republican Party, Qanon,  the January 6th insurrection and today.

    

0818

August 18, 2022 

In bed at 9, up at 6:40, a few pss, no vino.

    We watched Alex Wagner's show again last night, hoping she would get through it with no snafu, as happened on her premier program the night before.  It went off without a hitch though we were both distracted by her décolletage on the black silk blouse she wore.  It was amplified a bit by the tiny microphone clipped onto it.  She's small-breasted and perhaps there was a strategically placed tape involved, but I'm pretty sure we weren't the only viewers who were really distracted by it.

    Midafternoon.  Went to Sendik's to get the makings for a cauliflower-bacon soup experiment.  It's on the stove in my favorite blue enamel soup Dutch oven.  Thought we surely had one or more carrots at home: wrong.  Trying the recipe without any carrots.😅  Having my usual challenge getting and maintaining a proper simmer.  Listening to an old favorite Pandora station: French Cooking Music Radio.

    Geri left to take Jimmy for a cath replacement at about 12:40 for his 1:30 appointment at  CSMO.  It's near 4:30 as I type this.  No word from her yet.  She/we never know(s) on these missions of mercy what may come up.

    I accidentally opened the moonroof on the Lexus with the ignition key yesterday and couldn't figure out how to close it.  Texted Andy this afternoon and he gave what should be helpful instructions but I haven't tried yet.

0817

August 17, 2023 

Down around 11, up at 6:15, trop de vin hier soir.  Foggy, listless, wasted morning.  Wasted day.  😡

0816

August 16, 2022

In bed at 9, awake at 5, 3 pss, chocolate sundae, no vino. 

    Woke up thinking about how many television news people are minorities of one sort or another.  Gianna Golodryga, Bessarabia Jew emigrated from Moldova as a child.  Ali Velshi, Ismaili Muslim of Gujarati Indian descent.  Rachel Maddow, lesbian.  Shep Smith,  Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, Robin Roberts, Jonathan Capehart,  Steve Kornacki, gay.  Lester Holt, mixed race Jamaican ancestry, Manu Raju, what?.  Many, many minority reporters and local anchors: Stephanie Gost, Lindsey Rieser, et al.  Blacks? Asians? Jews? Where to begin???  I can see how this would be irritating (at best) for America First, replacement theory types

    Finished reading a book review in WSJ about the new Collected Poems of W. H. Auden.  Remembered my early days of teaching and gatherings with freshmen law students at the Forst Keller, and the wife of one student who attended a small college where Auden was resident one semester, telling me of schmoozing with him at gatherings like my Forst Keller ones.  Flashing memory of my first engagement with binge drinking at the same place in my freshman year of college, and of my group being chased out of the place for some unknown reason by a bartender, hiding under a car, lurching back to the dormitory, and a 3-day hangover.  It should have been a lesson for me, alas.

    Last night Chris Nolan asked me, via text to Geri, whether it was in her interest to sign a hold-harmless, indemnification, arbitration, etc., agreement tendered to all the volunteers at the charitable Ridgefield Thrift Shop by the new manager  I suggested she wrap it around a flagpole and invite the new manager to sit on it.  Unbelievable to ask volunteer workers at a local charity to sign an agreement putting themselves at financial risk for the 'privilege' of offering volunteer labor.  What is that manager thinking?

    Took Andy's trash cart out this morning, and brought his mail in.  Texted a prosaic photo of the cart at the curbside.  Received many photos from him of Canadian scenery, fishing, and boating. 

    Read a story in this morning's NYT about American Jesuits failing to deliver on their commitment to raise $100,000,000 for the descendants of Africans whom the Jesuits had enslaved.  It reminded me of course of endemic, enduring ecclesiastic hypocrisy, but also of how excruciatingly hard it is, in any circumstances, to follow Jesus' teachings and his precepts, the hardest being 'love your neighbor as yourself' with 'your neighbor' being identified as Everyman, the Samaritan, all others, the lowest and the highest.  Feed them, clothe them, shelter them, care for them in jail and on sickbeds, and so on.  I read Reinhold Niebuhr's book on it years ago, "An Interpretation of Christian Ethics," and still have the book, with abundant underlining, highlighting, and little checkmarks and squiggly stars in the margins.  I remember reading the book and marking it up and its bottom line - Jesus' ethics is/are impossible to live up to, but nonetheless worthwhile - but little else of his reasoning.

    Geri stopped in to visit Jimmy and brought him home to get him a change of scenery.  We all (including Lilly) went for a ride to Port Washington, via the elk farm off CTH C.  We stopped at Rotary Park on the lakefront to give Lilly(and Jimmy) a walk.  Jimmy seemed to very much enjoy the ride, as we did.  Before we left for our ride, Jimmy asked us if he had ever lived in Keokuk because he was perseverating of sorts on Keokuk but he didn't know what or where it was or why he kept thinking about it.  I told him it is a city in Iowa on the Mississippi River north of Canton, MO, where he went to Culver-Stockton College.  Before we entered the house, he asked about Andy's Lexus that I had been driving.  I told him it was a 2005 Lexus and he said he doesn't know what year it is so he doesn't know how old that is.  He is always genuinely surprised to learn things like what year it is, and what month it is.  The world he lives in is a mystery to him.        

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you

Woo, woo, woo

What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?

Jolting Joe has left and gone away

Hey, hey, hey

Hey, hey, hey

    Had Hong Anh's fried rice combo w/ veggies for dinner then went to Andy's to take the trash cart and mail in and put the recycling cart out.

0815

August 15, 2022

Down at 10, up at 5, 3? pss, no vino.  Woke with flitting half-formed thoughts.

    

    For some unknown reason, this morning I got to remembering my "Asshole Epiphany."  It was a moment 40 or maybe 50 years ago while driving to work at the law school, turning off Lake Drive onto Lincoln Memorial Drive, while I was thinking of some issue coming up before that day's faculty meeting on which I knew my view would not be a popular one.  I thought to myself something like "I'm going to look like an asshole" and then immediately thinking that, on that contentious issue "Maybe I am an asshole.  So what?"  I don't know why but it did seem like something like an epiphany or sudden insight into myself, that it was certainly possible that on some issues, some matters of judgment or opinion or values or conviction(s), I was so out of step with many of those around me and that, if my position made me look like an 'asshole', or if I was an 'asshole,' so be it.  I certainly didn't fit in with the prevailing political views of the senior members of the law faculty, all Republicans, all conservatives (in the 1970s sense of the word, not Trumpistic.)

    More news popping from Trumpworld.  Rudy Giuliani has been named as a "target" of the Georgia grand jury election fraud proceeding going on for the last few months.  And the WaPo reports that Trump's lawyers on the 'crazies' team, including Sydney Powell, got access to voting machines in 3 swing states which apparently is illegal.  AND, Trump reports on his 'Truth Social' platform, that among the items seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago were his 3 passports, one expired.  True???  Significant???

    We learned today that plans have changed re Jimmy's trip to Washington.  Jordan will be arriving here on Saturday of Labor Day weekend to accompany Jimmy on a Labor Day late afternoon flight to D.C. where Jimmy will stay overnight with Katherine and Jordan before checking into Silverado on Tuesday and being examined by their doctor on Wednesday.  Thank goodness Jimmy and Jordan are very close.  Jordan is wonderful with him and I am hopeful it will be good for the three of them to be living in the same town.  I'm still a bit apprehensive about the effect of such a major change of residence  on Jimmy but we keep our fingers crossed.

    I played around with the flesh tones on my cheesy Modigliani piece.  Results not very good.

0814

August 14, 2022 

Down at 10ish, up at 5ish, 4(?) pss, 2 glasses of red.

    I watched Geri walking Lilly from County Line Road onto Wakefield Court, thinking what a beautiful sight they were, how much they give meaning to my life, and how mortal, how impermanent, we all are.  I'm getting a bit Buddhist, focusing on our impermanence, how everything and everyone we love will disappear, dust to dust . . .

    All the Sunday morning talk shows are focused on the execution of the search warrant on Trump's home in Florida.   So much remains unknown, especially with the affidavit supporting the application for the search warrant still sealed, but nonetheless most Republican guests on the programs focus on questioning the DOJ's actions rather than Trump's.  'Why did they wait 18 months if this stuff was so important?  Why did they spend 9 hours in the building?  Did what they seized match up with what they were looking for?  Why wasn't Trump treated the same as Hillary Clinton and the materials on her server in her home?  . . ."  All the major news outlets have filed FOI requests for the supporting affidavit, as have the House & Senate Intelligence Committees.  Overnight, the DHS issued a formal warning or alert about serious threats to the lives of law enforcement personnel, especially FBI agents, including a warning of a threat to detonate a "dirty bomb" in front of FBI headquarters in Washington.  For the last several years I predicted this kind of social and political disintegration to Kitty, always hoping I was wrong.  It seems increasingly clear that we are on the way and already in a civil war, not like the War Between the States, but like 'the Troubles' in Ulster.  Timothy McVeigh/Oklahoma City type Troubles.

    When my father was living with us outside Saukville, he and I took delight in taking rides in the countryside of northern Ozaukee County.  We drove the miles of country roads through lush farmlands which, once summer was well underway, nourished what seemed like thousands of acres of corn, soybeans, alfalfa, oats, and wheat.   Since he died, I continue to take drives in the country, though less frequently than I did with him.  We have moved away from surrounding farmlands and into 'civilization' so a ride in the country takes some traveling.  Also, I know no one who is interested in something as 'boring' as a ride in the country, so my rides are all solo adventures, one of which I took again for a couple hours this afternoon.  I-43 to Hwy 57 to Jay Road to the Lake Michigan shore then reversing course but staying on Jay Road to Cedar Valley Road to Evergreen Road to CTH H to CTH A through Little Kohler and Waubeka and Fredonia and back home on I-43.  Corn stalks have grown high with tassels, soybean plants full and fully green, wheat fields freshly harvested, alfalfa appearing newly planted after the first harvest, no sign of any oat fields with their delicate green color.  Saw what appeared to be 3 sandhill cranes at a distance, feeding on leftovers from an early harvest of something.  Saw a group of bird hunters on another harvested field, working (training?) their dogs.  The sun broke through the clouds about halfway through my drive, brightening everything I saw.  I passed by the horse barns and pastures where I used to help to do 'hippotherapy' for disabled kids with an occupational therapist - back when I was more mobile.  I wonder what it is with me that I take such delight in seeing farmhouses, barns, silos, farm equipment, and lush fields.  Whatever it is, I'm grateful for it.

    While on my drive I thought about how natural it seems for people who live away from urban/suburban areas to be Republicans, maybe even to despise Democrats.  Not all, but the vast majority of those living in the country are White, Euro-Americans.  A great many own the house they live in and many own hundreds of acres of farmland and perhaps a herd of dairy cows and maybe other farm animals.  Most live on at least semi-isolated parcels of land, no one bunched up cheek-by-jowl with many neighbors.  The land they own is largely unregulated in terms of land use.  No Homeowners or condo associations, no significant zoning regulations, and no landlords.  If they want to burn their trash in a fire pit in their yard, they do it.  They don't bump into one another in the country the way city and suburban dwellers do so they don't feel the need for a lot of social, political, or other regulation, nor are they accustomed to it.  Indeed they can easily come to hate the whole idea of it, and to hate those who support it, 'socialists, enemies of personal freedom.'

    Dinner at McDonald's and Culver's tonight.

0813

August 13, 2022 

Down around 10, awake at 4, up at 4:30, a few pts, 1 and 1/2 glasses of red.

    2:45, Geri is on her way to pick up Jim.  We have only 2 more Saturdays after today with him, kind of hard to believe.  I'm thinking the flight to Virginia will not be easy for him or for Steve.  He is so conscious of his catheter, at least when he's away from his apartment that I suspect all the hustle and bustle of airports and on board an air carrier will create some bladder/catheter issues for him.  It's so personal and so private for the person experiencing the issues, especially if there is a lot of discomfort or, God forbid, pain or leaking, I don't like thinking about it.

    I put some of the official language from the Trump search warrant in my Chronicle today.  Will probably fill in some of his absurd rants from his  TRUTH SOCIAL platform, perhaps some headlines, and tweets.

    "Interstate Tree Specialist" showed up at the door asking if they could trim some trees.  $500 for trimming pine trees on front corner.  Mistake.  Too much for what they did.  Agreed because they had been working at Russian neighbor Michael's house (9524)

    Watched "Charade" on Criterion at night,  Released in 1963, theme song by Henry Mancini a pretty big hit.  A really silly movie that seemed to be mostly about beautiful  Audrey Hepburn moving around beautiful Paris in beautiful Givenchy clothes with her beautifully coifed hair falling in love with beautiful Cary Grant who may or may not be about to kill her.  Or will it be Walter Matthau or James Coburn or Arthur Kenndy.?

    

0811

August 11, 2022

Down near 11, watching Brandi Carlile performances with John Price, Dolly Parton, et al.  1 glass of red, 1 cognac.  

    Intense dream of meeting with Dr. C at VA with me in tears, PTSD?  Depression?   'Come away, O human child, to the waters and the wild, with a faery hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.'

    Approaching the beginning of my 82nd year on earth, how many days remain?  Today a throwaway.  Shameful.