NEVER DID...GET TO WRITE MORE ABOUT CANBERRA

Actually, after my return to Corning...

I FELL INTO SOMEWHAT OF A SLUMP!!!
A despondence being perhaps the nicer term

Slumps can be hard to figure out, as one can be in a slump for a while without perceiving that 'in a slump' is where you are.

Slumps can be hard to figure out due to that they are at the convergence of several factors. Or the  the slide into the 'slough of despond'  (taken from Pilgrim's Progress), is so gradual as to be almost imperceptible.  Anyway, there I was for several months.

I put it down, in part, to seasonal mismatch.  I did this to myself once before...going to Australia at the end of  Winter (here) to the early Autumn (there).  Winter really hung on here and was very cold. To give all due credit. Spring 'Down Under' was wonderful.  Lots of fine days with only one day of rain.  The problem seems to be that the days (there) are getting shorter when my constitution, at Winter's end, is expecting them to get longer.  Once back here, it was lots of rain and Spring still struggling to get going.  Perhaps a case of 'Not enough production of that happiness messenger molecule, Serotonin'.

But then too there was the signs that my dearest friend's breast cancer might have reappeared.  Uma had begun to experience pain in the hip.  It was thought that this may have been a feature of ageing. However, since this type of cancer is most likely to metastasize to the bone of the pelvic region, dark clouds of dread began to gather. And so it has proven to be.  So we are into a new round chemotherapy and tomorrow is the day when a PET scan tomorrow morning will determine whether the new treatment regime has been effective.

I suppose that I will write more about this sometime, but not yet.  Being the support for a person so situated is a difficult role and one hard to learn.  Along the way I have learned a lot about cancer; fortunately, reading journal articles is something I have done most of my life, so it has been not so difficult to turn over many in this area.  Always one is searching for the next stepping stone.  Most important of all is to surround the one you love with the best and strongest affection.

So I suppose these two streams, converging, have swept me to a place I would prefer not to be.  I am amazed at how the threads of life can so quickly come to disarray here and there.  However, I am glad to report that they are coming together and am accepting of the reality that they will do so in their own good time, so long as I keep pegging away, usually in no particular order.

Uma being no longer to rider her scooter, I have taken it over.  I thought this picture might brighten this narrative for you.

It is a 2008 Yamaha and very swish.  Just 50 cc, liquid cooled, and fuel injection.  Does 100 mpg but is strictly an 'around town' vehicle,  I had it inspected (for registration) at the local Harley Davidson shop.  They asked me how fast it would go.  They though it very funny when I told them this depended on wind direction and slope of the road!

It had been sitting around doing nothing much and seems to like being around and about.  It gets lots of attention, I can attest!

Now at the end of November. the days are really drawing in. Some are fine and relatively warm in the middle (40 to 50 deg F today), and the mornings, especially after a clear night sky, quite' brisk'




This is what my outside (outsize) thermometer showed this morning!  It got down to 10 deg F.

I think I am picking up.  It has been good to write this little piece.  I find myself looking forward to the snow, a little of which we have already seen.

Thanksgiving was fun.  The church I attend from time to time does a TG dinner for any who have no place to go.  About 100 attend.  This year I served the squash.  Late afternoon, I joined Uma and Tara (her daughter) for drinks and something TGish to eat.  A pleasant day indeed.

78 AND IN CANBERRA

Canberra is the National Capitol of Australia.  I am sitting in the reading room of the splendid National Library.  Today is my true birthday and not a day later were I in the US.

Already this has been a special day for me, my second day staying with my second daughter (my youngest child), Elizabeth, and her family.  I have just come from morning coffer with her, in the cafe at the original Federal  Parliament House, a low-slung, white painted, and stately building and now the National Museum.  A little eerie, conversing with her about her soon-to-be-written essay in her study program on librarianship, as if surrounded by a cloud of long gone politicians!
The new Parliament Building is much more splendorous and cost a great deal more.  I plan to tour it with Elizabeth next week.

The day is fine, somewhat cloudy and, despite the nearness of Winter, comfortably warm (about 60 deg F or 12 deg C).  So here I am, starting out on a new posting for my blog (LifeAccording...this time).  When my net book battery wanes, I will 'do' the newspaper room and then the latest exhibition (the Prayer Books of the House of Rothschild)  After that, a walk beside Lake Burley Griffin and then lunch.  How very pleasant!

Burley Griffin was the architect who won the world competition for the design of this city.  What an excellent job he did of it!  During the struggles leading up to Federation in 1901, the national capital was at times in Sydney and at other times in Melbourne, the capitals of the two earliest and more prominent States (New South Wales and Victoria).  Finally, after very nearly the two states coming to blows, the site of the capital was settled between the two, a little out of the way.

In the 19th Century, the states (formed independently of each other) had little to do with each other, the distance between settlements being quite vast compared with the New England towns in the US.  To go from my home city, Adelaide, to Sydney necessitated a risky sea voyage of more than a week or two.  I did this, together with four other crew, in a 33 foot sailing boat in the early 1980s, taking 11 days of continuous sailing, including one very impressive storm, lasting two days.  The southern coastline, being the Southern Ocean and at the edge of the Roaring Forties (winds), is littered with very many shipwrecks.
I very likely will write more about my time here over the next week or so.

Until then, au revoir!

ABSURDITY AT O'HARE

THEATRE OF THE ABSURD?
Blame it on the French.   Seems this approach to typifying life began with them.  On stage every thing is more than a little weird (clocks run backward and other strange effects come and go).  It all looks and sounds as of a species of insanity.

Sometimes this sense of the absurd  forces into the 'normal', when it really does assume a sense of the insane.  Perhaps to doubt the 'normal' is upsetting...'Am I loosing my mind?'

Here I am in Chicago Airport, waiting for a plane to take me to las Vegas so that once there and half a night to run, another will take me to San Francisco.  Does seem a little odd but, at times, airlines must suspend the simple approach in order to get everyone where they want to go, more of less.
After a day or so, I will board a flight to get to Sydney.  Three days later, I will catch another flight to get to Adelaide.  A week later, another flight will take me to Canberra.  Bliss, oh bliss, I shall catch a train to return to Sydney...how normal that will be.  Then it will all run backwards and, a month away, I will be back in Corning.
As Bill Clinton once confessed, I am doing this because I can.  Does seem a profligate use of energy, not to mention many other resources.  Is it not amazing that i can do such a thing?  The rationale?  I get to see family and friends I have not seen for more than two years.  Hey...I am coming up to 78 years. who is to say that I will be able to do such in a year or two more?
According to its magazine, this one airline completes almost 6000 flights a day, to places all around the globe. Perhaps as many as six million people are in the air at any one time!

Wait for it...When I was a young fellow, this was not 'the normal'.  Very few traveled internationally,  Most who did went by sea (six weeks from Australia to England); only the very rich flew (big old flying boats, seats on which cost a mint).  For most, the best chance to travel was to go off to war.  The odd friend to two who sailed away would only do this once, on their return they would settle down, get married, have children, resuming the mundane.

Amazingly, since 1985, I must have flown across the Pacific thirty or so times, not to mention other trips. So, is this not absolute absurd?

In my grandfather's time, a person who emigrated rarely returned to the land of their birth.  One said a final goodbye, shedding copious tears, then necessarily content to send and received letters to maintain contact with family and friends 'back home'

The absurdity to descends on me, sitting here in the airport, has a greater dimension; I wonder how to express it.

At base, flying is a wonderful thing.  I should know, a thousand hours or so in gliders and small planes...I have been so fortunate and had experiences, some a little hair raising, that beggar description.  There is a core of self-indulgence in this, but I would have it no other way.

But this business of huge airports, hordes crammed into tens of thousands of flying cylinders, the security rigmaroles, the noise, the inconvenience,  the sheer in humanity of it...is certainly absurd.
Not the only absurdity by any means.  We could continue onto motor cars...

How much more pleasant in the very fast train (of course (a long air trip if one lives in the US, or Australia). One buys the ticket, the train glides in on time, we find our seats, the train departs smoothly and noiselessly.  Outside, the beautiful country side, or occasional picturesque town, flashes by.
Or even the noisy, smelly, steam trains of my childhood.  Such panache, such wonder, such excitement, such wondrous noise!!!

Five overnight hours await me in Las Vegas; how about that for an absurd place?
With the wonders of the Internet, I sense the day may come when I will forgo all this and be content to see and hear loved ones.

But I will still travel...it forms the mind.

As the French have it, Les voyages forment la jeuness.

My take on this, travels keep one young.

PLASTIC AND WHAT TO DO WITH IT?

IN THE MOVIE, THE GRADUATE, the young hero, at this graduation party, is drawn aside and given advice what would be a good future....
"Plastic," he learns, "the future is plastic."
At least for the residents of the oceans, this seems to be the case.
According to EcoWatch, a joint US-Australian study estimates that 8 to 12 million tons of plastic waste enter the oceans each year.  I suppose that, over two decades,  this adds to maybe 240 million tons, forming vast gyres.

Much of this is plastic bags like the ones I see blowing around the supermarket parking area,sometimes retrieve, and put in the rubbish bins.
Here in the US, 13% of the 4.5 pounds of trash we throw away each day consists of plastic. A good deal of this ends up buried in municipal tips.
Most of the stuff in the oceans comes from China and other Asian countries, according to the study.

Although plastic bags and the like could as well be made from plant material, petroleum and natural gas are the basic constituents of the plastics we encounter.  That is a lot of fossil material...according to the US Energy Information Administration, it is about 4.4% of fossil fuel produced.  Wow!!!

The plastic gets thrown away, washes into drains when it rains, enters the rivers and, eventually, the ocean.  There some gets into fish, usually killing them.  As the plastic breaks down into molecular sized bits, it enters plankton and rises through the food chain.  At this point, lots of fish are caught by us and we eat them, thus recycling plastic in ways we never dream of.

One wonders what could be done about this.  One might be tempted to think that, if just this is perhaps the one thing that, if fixed, would make a great difference...well worth attempting.

'Dream on, Robert', do I hear you say?

A Popular Science article (The Garbage Man) tells the amazing story of Mike Biddle who unearthed how recover plastic constituents from waste plastic so that these can be recycled as new plastic material for 10% of the cost of making the stuff from fossil fuel stock. He still has a research plant here in the US but had to give up recycling due to not being able to get enough raw waste materials.  Seems we only recycle 13% of plastic over here.  Now he has operations in China, the UK, and Austria.

What blows my mind is the possibility that plastic material can be recycled at a 90% saving in manufacturing costs while, at the same time, providing a powerful economic incentive to get on with crude recycling operations that would prevent plastic ever getting into the oceans.  AMAZING!!!

Here is George Biddle where he loves to be,

SAN JOSE CR: SECOND TIME AROUND

NEARBY PARK

LOOK!!! I am starting with a photo.  I love this park, which is just ten minutes walk from where I am staying, on the way to downtown San Jose.  Parks dot the way to downtown and the central area abounds with them.

They say, 'Man proposes and God disposes.'  Before I came down (nice trip, local airport to Chicago, then direct to SJ, arriving early afternoon), my expectation was that I would have a first appointment with Costa Rica Dental Team last Monday for a new impression and a tooth cleaning and that, maybe Thursday, I would have the crowns fitted (the 'teeth' you can see).  In between, I hoped to be the regular tourist and venture forth to see more to the country.

This was not to be.  Jessica, the dentist who supervises all that happens to me, wanted to be sure the molar next to the implants was free of caries.  Capped by a metal crown,  it was the survivor of the original bridge.  I agreed to have the crown removed.  Alas and alack, what did she find, do you think?  I will spare you the details (do I hear huge sighs of relief?), suffice to say that two other specialist dentists became involved so that I managed to enjoy the chair for five days instead of two!  What fun (actually bummer)!

On the other hand, I was once more impressed at how appropriate the name of this practice that displays its emphasis on 'team'.  Especially how, when another specialist was attending to me, Jessica would appear to all was going to plan.  Again, when we ran into a problem with one of the crowns, not only did Jessica have the technician doing the work in the Lab across the passageway come in for a consult but the Lab boss (part of the practice) later came by to make sure that the necessary adjustments would ensure a proper result.  How good is that?  Especially being picked up by Paul and later returned returned to my BnB...not something that your local dentist does for you!

On the principle that 'the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know', I have once more stayed at Casa 69, run by Donna, a native of Toronto.  Her pets all seemed to have remembered me, and it was great to be greeted by (more or less) the same old gang.

Despite the daily spell in the dental chair, I have managed to get to know SJ better, by dint of considerable peripatetics.  I have met folk from far and wide, either at Casa 69 or at the practice.  My pick would be Ray, a long time client of CRDT.

Ray is from Alaska, where he is a gold miner somewhere near the little town of Nenana (about three quarters along the road from Anchorage to Fairbanks), but up in the back country, well off the grid. Back in 1992, I spent a week near Nenana on the only tree farm in Alaska, owned by a retired teacher who came up from Pennsylvania years before to do two years teaching.  Such is the charm of Alaska that he stayed on, married a lovely Inuit lady (also a teacher) and spent the rest of his life flying to remote communities to conduct class!  That was quite an experience, of which I may write another time.

Ray's year looks like this:  eight months of working at the mine, drive down to Washington state, fly to SJ to have any necessary dental attention, then fly to Jackson Hole to ski four months, pick up his car and, finally, drive back to his log cabin to recommence the cycle once more.  A lovely man but somewhat taciturn.  Maybe because I know a little of his home territory, he was willing to talk awhile about what he loves to do...extreme back country skiing!  For the first time I got to hear from such a 'crazy' exponent of what seems sheer madness; what it is like to descend precipitous slopes, fall off slope edges to the next descent, having to hold one's breath (to avert drowning in snow) as one sinks into deep powder,  ski blindly through deep powder for several seconds, then burst forth to instantaneous assessment of the line to pick byond, and continue the mad course down to the bottom. Imagine all that!  A skier since his boyhood, Ray sort of fell (forgive the phrase, if you can) into this madness when very young.  I suspect that this is what he lives to do.

Good and all as it might be to come here for cost effective dental work, where else might I have heard an expert skier disclose the absolute joy of his passion?

Today it is rain showers but I may venture forth with my 'pop up' brolly.  Early to bed this evening as the taxi comes at 4:30 AM to take me to the airport.  A long day's travel with five hours of stopover at Houston before continuing to Chicago.  At last, around midnight, Elmira regional airport where Uma will pick me up for home.  Quite a week!

LITTLE SNOW HERE!

AUTUMN/FALL HAS RUN IT COURSE.

Luckily, I do not live in Buffalo.  The good folk there are having a hard time.  A Winter's worth of snow in two days...unimaginable!  And now all that snow ( seven to ten feet of it) threatens flooding as it melts.

My daughter called me to ask if I was OK.  When she called I had no idea of what was going on to the NorthEast of me.  About an inch of snow overnight but the sun was out and the snow mostly melted when she called.  Up around the Lakes they get 'lake effect snow'.  This happens when there is a steady cold wind blowing from the NE across the relatively warmer water of the lakes.  As it does so, it picks up water vapour.  If it traverses at least 50 miles the moving air picks up enough such that, as it rises on reaching the shore and the higher ground beyond, given sufficiently cold conditions,  it dumps the moisture as snow.

If you draw a line on the map from the NE through Corning you will see that it will cross over the lakes region at the narrowest point (less than 50 miles across).  In this narrow band little snow falls. The result is that, despite getting very cold here, we get little snow.

How cold does it get in Corning?  Most mornings this last week or so the temperature outside on my rear deck is between 7 and 15 degrees F (-10  to -5 deg Cel), rising to about freezing or just above during the day but some sunny days sends it higher.

Usually, we do not get snow until after Thanksgiving, into December.  I suppose we can expect another long, bitter Winter.  This Fall I had snow stoppers fixed to my shiny, slippery steel roof.  Last Winter I go a little tired of shovelling wet-concrete-like snow that had avalanched from off the roof. Now the snow will remain on the roof and act like a blanket, helping to keep the house snug; and the snow shoveling work will be significantly less.

Last Winter's bitter cold and wind prevented my new trees from waking up in the belated Spring. Arbor Day foundation guarantees its trees for Fall planting.  They come through the mail and I was expecting the replacements any day.  This year I determined to plant them all in a more sheltered location.  Along my neighbor's fence, on the west side is quite protected from wind and gets the early sun.  In the Spring, they could be replanted to their proper places.

Most of you know that I make compost out of leaves and lawn cuttings.  Not having any mature trees as yet, I have to beg leaves from my neighbors.  They very kindly obliged me with bags of leaves.  This year I got ten or so bags...but what to do with them?  As I was digging the soil in preparation for the arrival of the new trees, a bright idea struck me.  Why not line up the bags of leaves along the trench running parallel to the fence.  This would make a cosy place for the young trees, protecting them from any wind from the East, would it not?  As you can see, this seems to have worked out very well.  I planted them the day after their arrival; it was warm and sunny.

The next day it snowed!

Since I have mentioned the composting, here is this year's pile (still in the frame) with remaining pile from last year just in front, nicely
surrounded by dark red leaves from my neighbor's Japanese maple.

Next week (first in December) I will be off to Costa Rica to have the work on my three new dental implants completed.  This entails removing the healing caps and attaching the abutments to which the crowns will be fixed.  This will be done on the Monday and the Friday, so I will at least two days midweek when I can go on some tours to see other places in Costa Rica, like the rain forests, jungle and volcanoes.  Also, I am looking forward to the wonderful fruit and the amazingly delicious food. There is virtually no 'factory food' in Costa Rica so everything tastes 'soo good'.  No wonder the Costa Ricans are among the happiest and long-lived people in the world.

So I am glad to report that I am safe and well.  And getting on with it!

THE YEAR SO FAR...

SUMMER HAS HAD ITS DAY; although it did try to hang on for a bit.  Now I am listing all the Autumn/Fall jobs that have to be in hand before the really cold weather sets in.  Feels like a good time to review the year.

Without doubt the weather has been a little weird.  I thought it would be a good idea to see out the entire Winter here in Corning. NOT a good idea, as it turned out.  Seems I took no notice of my forecast that it would be a long, severe Winter.  If I had really thought that I maybe would have headed off for warmer climes for a week or so.  As it was, for those of us who stayed here the whole season, Winter was very depressing, even a little crushing.  A new experience for me.

The really good thing about Winter, so to say, is the coming of Spring.  Suddenly, everything speeds up.  One's energy returns with a rush and the spirit soars.  This year, all that was just plain delayed too long.   Of course Summer did not languish in the queue, further shortening Spring.  But...lots of rain this Summer and not many really nice, hot days.  So here we are, the beginning of Fall.

Why all this going on about the seasons?  Perhaps I am really thinking how everything interacts and it is not just the seasonal changes.  With the Winter hanging on, I discovered a strange sinusitis; not the sort that has you thinking all your upper teeth are in danger of falling out...just one upper molar sensitive to sideways pressure.  This along with a persistent cough.  This seemed just like a condition I had in the middle of last year (same time, around my birthday).  Off to the clinic I went, returning with a prescription for antibiotics, eventually twice repeated.  Sort of worked.  Being a little obsessive about the causes of conditions, I had developed a theory that these two were connected.  My Doc disagreed, referring me to an Allergist (last Spring was a killer for allergies).  To my surprise, it turns out I have more than one or two.  The Allergist started me on a nasal spray and that seemed to help a bit.  Not much progress with the tooth. My dentist referred me to an Endodontist who was of the view that I had an incipient infection at the molar root (ergo: root canal needed).

The last thing one wants when one is ageing is a persistent low level inflammation somewhere in the body, especially to do with teeth, (bad consequences for vascular disease), so by now I was a little worried.  Enter 'dental tourism ', brought on by the need for implants to replace the collapsed bridge.  Down in Costa Rica, I had the root canal done.  The result has been quite wonderful...almost like the coming of Spring.  The tooth/sinusitis feels much improved, my lethargy has gone away and I am finally 'getting on with things' (aided, of course, by better weather).

The other complicating factor was that, early in Spring, my belle amie (Uma) was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer.  My first real brush with this cancer thing.  Until now I had never really understood or appreciated how fearful this can be.  I have been supporting her every way I can, including going  with her for the surgery and subsequent chemotherapy, which has the most dreary effect on the sufferer.  It has been hard on me too.  I am a 'fix it' person and cancer is not something easily fixed. However wearing, it is nevertheless a precious thing to be included in all that is going on for her.

So the lesson for me thus far is that life is complicated and not always easy or pleasant.

What else I have learned is the importance of  the company and support of friends, maintaining fitness and health, and getting out into the outdoors.

Another surprising finding this year has been the importance of our musculature for health.  From midlife on we begin to loose muscle mass, men more so than women. After age 70, this loss accelerates.  As well, in age, the more muscle one has the less one gets sick.  Until recently, I had not realized that the musculature also functions as an important part of our immune system, so better muscle mass could be a factor in preserving wellness in later age.  Just over three years back, my friend Richard introduced me to the concept of 'slow burn'.  When visiting with him he showed me the series of exercises he does once a week.  This is indeed a minimalist approach and I was excited to follow it up.  Last year, I discovered that one of the trainers at the gym was actually involved in the original research in this approach, so I now have someone to keep me in the groove.

It seems a little exercise often is the way to go.  As well, I have discovered the High Intensity Interval approach to exercise.  This takes care of the aerobic side and, wonder of wonders, does not take long.  With these two approaches, I have reduced my time at the gym to about 25 minutes each visit.  It seems to be working well.

Sorry...no photos this time.