In the variety of Buddhism that I am interested in, there is a belief that after we die, there is a period of 49 days during which a lot takes place before our rebirth in the endless cycle of birth, death, and suffering that marks the lot of the unenlightened. There are opportunities to make choices during this period, as various phenomena are encountered, that might influence the nature of one's rebirth.



Today was the 49th day after Dad's death in Reno, and as a multiple of 7 was the same day of the week - a particularly significant day. Mona and I (and perhaps my other sister and brother) did our best to remember him in our thoughts and meditation, and tonight before I made dinner I lit a few candles for him, and enjoyed seeing his little shrine while we ate. It is said that to send one positive thoughts and do a little exercise for them while they are in this state can help them find their way to a good rebirth.

Good luck Dad.

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The days with snow on the ground continue, and the continual minor daytime thawing and evening re-freezing make walking the Mdog treacherous. This morning, after several close calls, I completely lost it and have a good bruise on my hip and a sore shoulder to show for it. Made me think afterward about my Dad's fear of falling in his final weeks at home.



After I recovered my footing and dignity from the morning slipping and sliding, I headed over to the Fort Collins Shambhala Center, where I had signed up for a day-long Level I training. I attended the introductory session the evening before, and was a little concerned at the seeming triviality of it, and also concerned about my ability to make it through the prolonged sitting meditation to come, but today everything worked out well, and the talks and practices were interesting and well-paced. The fact that they provided us with a nice breakfast, lunch, and post-day reception was also welcome. Lunch was catered by a Tibetan restaurant in town, and was fantastic. The other participants represented quite a cross-section of very agreeable people.

One of the leaders of the days' activities was a guy who designed and supervised the development of the gardens and natural settings at the Shambhala Mountain Center, where the Great Stupa is located. He actually lived there at the site for five years. A very thoughful and soft-spoken guy, who gave a pleasant talk during the day.

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Pat made it back home after 1am Sunday morning from his last work trip to Oakland - it was good to see him after three weeks of schedules that didn't match up. I arrived home from Reno the evening after he left on that trip, so we didn't cross paths. We celebrated with a pot-roast dinner Sunday evening, after which we caught up with three hours of recorded episodes of Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, and Brothers and Sisters.

Now that we are focused on a trial long-term stay in Jalisco, we need to figure out what to do about our presence in Northern Colorado before our lease runs out at the end of June. The simplest solution is probably to thin our our posessions and put what's left in storage here, pending a choice about future direction after living for a while in one of the Chapala communities. We could return here and rent again, ship our stuff to Mexico, or even resume the hunt for a house to own here in Fort Collins. It's a little hard for me to accept the dismantling of a stable household here, but that's probably the most practical approach. I'd like to figure out how to live seasonally between Chapala and Fort Collins, so we could spend time with Mona and Clark at the ranch and enjoy what Stateside living and Fort Collins have to offer in the spring, summer, and fall, but trade the dreary Siberian dead of winter here for the balmy colorful experience of life in Mexico.



One of the things I look forward to living Lakeside in Jalisco is the opportunity to garden year-round. Looking through a copy of El Ojo del Lago we picked up last month, I found an article about a group that supports sustainable agriculture and organic growing methods that has its operations right next store to Jocotepec. It looks like something I will want to check out, and perhaps become a contributor (of labor) to.

For now, I am mostly focused on the preparation for my taxes and my Dad's estate taxes, and moving his other estate matters toward resolution. Today was planned to be the first day of my attendance at a Cisco certification boot camp, to prepare my re-entry back into the job market as a network engineer. I knew I would have to cancel this week-long effort when Dad's situation began to deteriorate back around Thanksgiving. Now it's uncertain if I will ever go back to that career path. I have mixed feelings about this uncertainty, but given the circumstances, there really isn't much choice - it's just about adapting to circumstances as they unfold, and the universe lays out opportunities and challenges...

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I just returned from a noon-time dog walk in the nearby neighborhood park, and it was a full flannel-shirt, sweatshirt, winter-coat, scarf, gloves, knit-hat-and-hood production, despite the cheery sunshine. Looks like all the snow will be sticking around for some time to come, with a little dirty slush in the roads to soften things up during mid-day. Slush that becomes dirty slick ice after sunset.



The forecast for the weekend offers more snow, with highs for the next five days in the mid-twenties, and single-digit lows.

I chatted a bit with the mailman as I collected the mail on returning home post-walk. "Kinda glad I didn't buy a house yet", I said. "Waddya mean?", he asked. "Well, I really didn't bargain for all this", I gestured toward the nearest massive pile of shoveled snow. He shook his head, "Well, I'm from Minnesota..", he said, "..everybody complaining...this isn't the normal winter here, but I don't know what the big deal is..".

Well, I guess it's not a big deal, exactly. An interesting experience - one I will enjoy remembering - after I make sure it doesn't happen again.

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We left Reno at 9am on Tuesday morning - 10am on my watch, which I never set back an hour to reflect local Nevada time the whole 15 days we were there. It was a bright sunny - and frigid day. The entire trip home I don't think it ever got above about 20deg, and at times was below zero.

It was a time to reflect on the half of January we spent dismantling Dad and Susan's material life, and the things we learned about them in the process - and about ourselves. It was a time to grapple with perceptions of time and distance, as the eighteen hours and thousand miles ahead of us rolled by.



Like everyday life, we would focus on little things that appeared and dominated our vision, then occasionally broaden our awareness to take in broad vistas that suggested the true scale of our journey.



Mdog took it all in stride. She slept a lot, enjoyed a drink and a leak at each stop, and whenever we snacked up front, she poked her head up and pawed at our shoulders to let us know that we might grab the bag of biscuits and include her.



We reached Wendover, the half-way point at the Utah border around sunset.



It seemed like an entire day had passed, and it had, but another ten hours of driving lay ahead. Each stop after that seemed more frigid than the one before - ice formed on the inside of windows, and even with the heat cranked up we had blankets over our laps. Getting out of the car to refuel and walk the dog became increasingly traumatic.

I listen to Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, the New World in it's entirety around 11pm as we passed through siberia-like Western Wyoming and Mona tried to sleep in the right seat. Mesmerized but unsure of what I was listening to, I grew tense as we drove farther from the station and bouts of static came and went. Approaching a fuel stop in Rock Springs, I rolled down the offramp just as the final notes were heard, and they back announced what I had just experienced. Mona stirred, and I said "I thought it would never end!". "Neither did I", she mumbled groggily, and not too pleased.

When we finally reached Fort Collins a few hours before sunrise, we were exhausted. There was even more snow on the ground than before I left at the end of December, and we stepped clumsily into the piles of it alongside the car in the driveway as we struggled to get a few things out to carry into the cold and empty house.

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We're ready to leave tomorrow morning (Tuesday). The house is empty. Everything that made life here what it was for Dad and Susan for the past five or six years has been sold, given away to charity or family, or discarded.

Now it's time for the realtors and their team of tradespeople and cleaners to prepare it for the next occupants.

I should be back online some time Wednesday.

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Today I finished sorting out everything in the garage, creating in the process an enormous pile of stuff heading for the dump on Saturday , and a dozen more boxes for the thrift store. When all that is gone, another round with the broom and I will be ready to lock it up for the last time. Sad to see all Dad's train and radio stuff sold off or discarded, and sadder still to see the pathos of accumulating and retaining too many things in one's life.


Ten cubic yards of life's detritus.

One odd thing occured while I was in the early stages of tackling the big mess left after the auction people scavenged everything in the garage - I notice a couple of boxes stacked under the edge of a growing pile of discarded items. When I open the flaps of the top box I saw the blue folios coins are collected in. When I took the box into the house I found numerous sets of proof coins from the late 20th century, and in the second box a massive collection of early US coins of various denominations. Nothing of tremendous value, but it was sort of a treasure-chest discovery moment. I think we got equal pleasure from finding several caches of old photos and personal papers.


Note the 1943 steel pennies in the lower right corner, minted to preserve copper for wartime munitions.

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After ten days here, I feel like I am getting to know my Dad in a way I never did while he was alive. Finding so many photos he had stashed away in various places, going through all his work papers, and disposing of all his personal effects and hobby trappings have revealed facets of his life that were never known to me.


We found an autograph book with some old photos Dad started when he was around ten years old, and maintained through high school. Here is a page his father Joe completed - "May you grow to manhood on the mere strength of your dad's fond hope, and live it through to the end."

The pictures of him at work, and having fun hunting or hanging out with friends show so much vitality, it startled me after I had come to associate him with the frail old guy I had been seeing the past couple of years.



I thought I had seen all the interesting entries in his autograph book, when Mona flipped through a bunch of blank pages and found one completed by our mom, who was in Dad's graduating class from high school. He was the class president. They were seventeen.

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I guess we are ready for the auction house pickup Tuesday morning. Mona and Becky stayed late as we finished another pass through the house, picking up the few things we wanted to hang onto and stashing them in places we can flag as off-limits.


The command center for the final few days here in Reno.

I dismantled my Dad's office, and set up a temporary office for myself on some card tables borrowed from a neighbor. When the nice office chairs go tomorrow, I have some folding chairs borrowed from another neighbor. When my bedroom stuff goes, I have my sleeping bag and some quilts to sleep on the floor.

I met with the attorney today to resolve a few issues and receive guidance for how I should proceed with the rest of the estate settlement, and went to the hospital business office with my trust documents to obtain medical billing records for Dad and his wife, to file some insurance claims and prepare taxes. They were cooperartive, and I left with part of what I needed, with a promise of the rest in a couple of weeks.

If the thrift store donations are not too big a prodution after the auction pick-up, and the discards are manageable after that, we could be out of here Saturday or Sunday. I noted the weather forecast for Fort Collins showed high temps of 6 and 7 degrees for the last couple of days of this week.

Lake Chapala was in the mid-70's.

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Back of the house yesterday afternoon.

Just after we arrived here, I received an interesting quote-of-the-day from a Buddhist mailing list I subscribe to...

Transient is this world; like phantoms and dreams,
Substance it has none. Grasp not the world nor your kin.


Reno skyline from the neighborhood where I am working.

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View out the front door here in Reno. Winter follwed me here.

I finally cleaned out the last of the file cabinet drawers today as we continue to ready the house for the auction pickup day on Tuesday. I managed to throw about more than half of all the paper that has accumulated over the past five years or so. It seems like a horrific accumulation of stuff, but I guess I should be grateful they relocated here from Hawaii five years ago, when it was terribly expensive to ship stuff here. Otherwise there would probably have been a truly overwhelming mass of paper and much more of everything else as well.

I try so hard to keep my own life simple, and dread dealing with things like insurance and taxes, paperwork and managing the stuff that collects and becomes burdonsome...and this is SO much worse. Think carefully before allowing yourself to become an executor or trustee for an estate. You don't deserve to be punished for someone else's neglect of their affairs or inability to control their uncontrolled impulses to accumulate stuff. It can feel like the theft of a lot of your time and energy.

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It certainly is an odd experience dismantling someone else's entire worldly existence. Exery single item in the home must be handled, examined, judged for relevence or value - some things produce nostalgia or sentimental appreciation, others dismay or worse. Often there is a sense of violated privacy - just as often it is more a shared intimacy that couldn't manifest in life.

In addition to the material trappings, all the hooks of officialdom and involvement in commerce and culture must be dissolved. People and organizations need to be contacted and informed of your recently achieved state of non-existence.

Room by room, closet and cabinet, drawer by drawer - it seems interminable. Stuff in boxes, stuff in piles, stuff in big black garbage bags that fill up and have to be heaved into a pile in a corner of the garage every hour or so, awaiting the delivery of a dumpster next week.


The garage. We're making progress in the house. In the garage, not yet.

The auction guy was here for about three hours this afternoon, doing the inventory and appraisal. The auction will be viewable online - I'll put up a link when it is ready. When the auction house comes with their big truck next Tuesday to take away all the 'good' stuff, we will be ready to move on to the thrift store phase, then the dumpster will begin to fill up. Finally, we will hand a set of keys over to the realtor, and drive back across the high desert and Rockies to Wyoming and Colorado. Then, for me, the project continues with bill paying and insurance wrangling for a few more weeks.

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We left Wyoming right on schedule Monday morning, January 1st. The night before, everyone was asleep before midnight, so no rituals for us.

We almost didn't make it out of the long driveway at the ranch; so much snow had drifted in that we had to jockey fore and aft with 4-wheel low engaged, and we finally plowed through just as Clark was headed for his tractor to pull us free.


A small town in mid-Wyoming we passed through in the morning.

It was a long drive to Reno, and we stopped every few hours to stretch, snack, or walk the Mdog. Passing through Wyoming, we had to stop several times as herds of antelope and deer crossed the road in front of us, or threatened to. We also saw a big mountain goat ram in the road - a rare sight according to Mona.


Mona cruises along as a big moon rises over the mountains on approach to Salt Lake City.

Wendover, Nevada is about at the mid-point of the trip, and after eight or so hours on the road, you feel like you should be about done for the day. But wait, there's more! About eight hours more! We took turns snoozing a little while underway, and eventually arrived in reno, about 1:30am (2:30am on our internal Mountain Time clocks). Becky's place was a welcome sight, and I wasted no time getting the sofabed folded out for Mdog and me. We fell asleep while Mona and Becky were still chatting away.


Wendover, Nevada, is on the state line with Utah at the edge of the salt flats. A big neon cowboy dominates the skyline there at night.