1/20/23

 Friday, January 20, 2023

In bed at 10:20, awake at 6:20, up at6:30, thinking of TSJ, camping & fishing at Bagley Rapids on my 30th birthday, carded when buying a 6 pack of beer, trip up to Wautoma to look at cottage on Bean's Lake with Bill Rausch (WSR), now long gone.  WBG gone, RHF gone, now TSJ. 29 degrees, cloudy, high of 32, wind chill  18  with wind NW at 14, gusts to 25 mph.  Sunrise at 7:17, sunset at 4:47, 9+30

Micaela returns today, a widow.  Left a married woman, returns a widow, life turning on a dime.  Big house near the big lake, big house on the small lake, vehicles, tools, equipmen, so mucht to deal with. Family coming in from NY, OR, IL, Madison, where else?  Shiva arrangements to be honchoed by Madeleine and Keri.  Her 'dream team' of Jessie, Ben, Saul, Jake, Keri.  Funeral arrangements with Goodman-Bensman in Whitefish Bay.  Burial plot(s) to be purchased.  Timing, Shabbat.  Me wondering about final arrangements at Schmidt & Bartelt.  What else to pre-plan, pre-arrange?  For every thing there is a season, a time to live, a time to die.  NZ's Jacinda Ardern: “With such a privileged role comes responsibility — the responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead, and also when you are not.  I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice.” Great metaphor - not enough in the tank.

Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Tree hugging.  “​​In their highest boughs the world rustles,” Hermann Hesse wrote, “their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.”

Gorgeous crabapple tree in Lake Park shot at daybreak in fog lying on my stomach on wet ground 

Brain fog:    impaired attention, concentration, memory and processing speed; haze, slow, drunk, lost.

Amitriptyline.  Last night the first night not ingesting 25 mg.  This morning, no dry mouth, less dizziness, less brain fog.  Post hoc?  OTOH, I nodded off between 10:15 & 10:40.

America's Biggest Threat:  In November 2022, celebrating his reelection, Oklahoma’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, offered up his state to Christianity. “Father, we just claim Oklahoma for you.  Every square inch, we claim it for you in the name of Jesus. Father, we can do nothing apart from you…. We just thank you, we claim Oklahoma for you, as the authority that I have as governor, and the spiritual authority and the physical authority that you give me. I claim Oklahoma for you, that we will be a light to our country and to the world right here in our state."

Ellis staying overnight with Nona.  Always a delight.  Happy Meal dinner and a movie, Always interesting commentary by our guest film and social critic.