Today, like every Wednesday morning, I worked at the food bank checking in and registering clients for the 'retail' operation called Food Share. In this program, we provide a sort of grocery store where clients can shop a couple of times a week, and receive a monthly commodities bag with such items as peanut butter, pasta or rice, and canned fruits and vegetables.

I enjoy the opportunity to work with the many Latino clients, and staff (many of whom speak Spanish).


My Peruana (girl from Peru) friend and staff member at the food bank.
When the lines are long we are both busy checking in or signing up clients.

Besides a notable increase in the number of clients, there are a few other signs at the food bank that the economy is not in very good shape. While I was registering one client a few weeks ago, he volunteered that he needed the no-cost food source after being laid off by a...mortgage lender!

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We got to spend Thanksgiving day at the ranch with Mona and her kids (and a grandkid) this year. The first snow of the season was still on the ground, but it was an easy drive in my car, and we were able to leave the 4WD SUV at home and save some gas.


Mona and Serena work their magic in the kitchen



The plate-(and stomach) filling begins...this follows a whole afternoon of snack-scarfing.




Cole appears to be a contortionist...I was puzzled enought to get up and have a look. Serena was laying upside down on his lap with her feet over the back.


There was ice-skating on the frozen pond. Only minor injuries resulted.

Poor Mdog had cold feet whenever we ventured outside - it got down to the single digits at times.

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The first snow of the season fell last night, and when we awoke this morning there was a pretty thick blanket covering everything - maybe four or five inches. Pat thought it nice, but I had to grit my teeth and try not to remember my pledge during last year's 'Worst Winter Ever in Fort Collins' that I would never be subjected to those kind of conditions again. A little awkward since last year I decided that dirty slush, falling on your ass several times while walking on icy paths, sloppy messes around the house entry, scary driving, numb fingers and ears, horrific heating bills, and various other quaint seasonal artifacts were for people who didn't have sense enough to live in decent climates.



Mdog had a big day today, as I dropped her off at the vet for an all-day visit that included cleaning all the placque off her teeth and a little gum surgery under general anesthesia. Last week I finally decided to take her in and see if we really needed to do this for her general health and longevity, and I was convinced that we did. Expensive, and stressful for both of us. They seemed to be great with handling her though, and very professional, which helped.

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Tomorrow morning we will be headed up to the Wyoming ranch, where various combinations of relatives will be gathered for a nice Thanksgiving mostly thanks to Mona's efforts. Should be a nice break from everything else that's been happening (or not happening). We'll be staying the night, and most if not all of Friday.

One place you will never find us the day after Thanksgiving is in a place where shopping is underway. I shudder to imagine the orgy of debt-generation and resource destruction that is the 'Black Friday' tradition for so many hapless overconsumption zombies. The pledge Pat and I adopted some years ago never to spend an additional cent in subjugation to the Xmas shopping wringer was a very liberating act. I recommend it. Help people with things they need, when it will do them some good, but NEVER buy useless crap for the sake of propping up the sickness of our consumer excess economy. Let China find another place to dump their shoddy sweatshop pre-landfill.


photo by Joel Friesen

Uhhhhn...plasma...LCD...iThing...salad shooter...UhhhnUhhhn...jetski...PS3...more clothes...jewelry...MmmhMmmh...decorations...fruitcake...MaoMart...drive to next mall...UngUng...credit cards good...

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Another example of how looking for things online can have unintended consequences...

I have a Mexican friend who sometimes refers to me during an IM session as 'Pedorro'. I thought this was a harmless little latin term of endearment, but didn't know the precise meaning, so I Googled it. In addition to a Spanish/English dictionary translation (it means "farter", thank you very much...), the YouTube link below popped up. Naturally, I was compelled to investigate.

If you click the Play button you must be one of those people who couldn't resist pulling your dad's finger when it was offered.



I'm not sure what this says about YouTube, the Internet, me and my attitude about the horrifying onslaught of the Holidays, or you for being a hapless bystander here, but there you go.

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If you ever have the option of choosing where to live with retirement approaching, pay attention to what people say about college towns. There is a pervasive youthful energy, and the entertainment and educational opportunities are plentiful and inexpensive.

Fort Collins is such a place, and I often find that I have to choose between several competing events or activities as the appointment book pages fill up from week to week.



Last Friday, Pat and I went to a university production of Bent, a play introduced with vignettes of gay life in Nazi-dominated Berlin, and evolving into a love story within the confines of a concentration camp. There were many tears shed among the audience in the little intimate theatre as the lights came up at the end.

Tonight, I went to a University student chamber music showcase with some lesser and well known works. The familiar pieces were unconventional in their instrumentation - the moving Adagio from Samuel Barber's String Quartet No. 1 with euphoniums and tubas, and Rimsky-Korsakoff's Flight of the Bumblebee with four bassoons! Fun. Free too. The Bent performance set me back $13 for both tickets.

Last night, I went to the university for a public forum on a number of local and national issues. I chose to participate in a discussion on energy policy, and I was alarmed at the naivete of the published discussion guidelines, but encouraged that at least one other participant was aware of the Peak Oil factor and how it is beginning to manifest with a vengeance.

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From the mouths of babes...

Sister Becky sent me a nice little story today that reminded me of another with a similar funny hook...

A teacher is explaining biology to her 4th grade students.

"Human beings are the only animals that stutter.", she says. A little girl raises her hand. "I had a kitty-cat who stuttered!", she volunteered.

The teacher, knowing how precious some of these stories could become, asked the girl to describe the incident. "Well", she began, "I was in the back yard with my kitty and the rottweiler that lives next door got a running start and before we knew it, he jumped over the fence into our yard!

"That must've been scary", said the teacher. "It sure was", said the Little girl. "My kitty raised his back, and went 'fffff, fffff, fffff', and before he could say "Fuck!," the rottweiler ate him!"

And here is the one I recalled from a few years ago - this one has been floating around for a decade or so, often attributed to a Quantas Airlines flight during which a note was delivered to the flight crew from a little girl in the cabin...

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Yesterday, Pat and I rode our bicycles to Old Town to observe the dedication of a new sculpture that has been created in place over the past several months at the edge of Old Town Square. The project started with a gigantic block of marble being depoited at the site during the summer, and the artist hammered and chiseled away while the public watched and tried to guess what the end result might be (he didn't reveal his intentions).



There was music and press coverage, and the Mayor cut a ribbon in a ceremony to accept the piece from the family that commissioned it.


There is a bit of contrast between the traditional style of Old Town (which served as a model for Disneyland's Main Street) and the new piece.

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When Mona visited here from Wyoming last week, she brought me a couple of geraniums that were brought in from the porch at the ranch for the winter. I found a sunny spot for them on my kitchen counter, where we can enjoy seeing a few flowers during the dreary winter months.

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Friday was one of those times when I appreciate what a special place Fort Collins is. First Fridays are always interesting, with all the art and photography galleries open late and many artists showing new work.



Tonight was especially interesting and fun, because an edgy new gallery opened, with great art and photography, live music, and beer and and wine. Saw a lot of interesting people there, and talked to a few of them. This is the place I would like to show my own work one of these days.

Another treat tonight was the lighting of all the trees in old town with tiny white lights for the holidays. I had just arived at the Museum of Contemporary Art, next to a nice plaza with a jazz combo playing, when I heard them countdown and light up everything for blocks around me. Very nice.

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Yesterday I went to a local community college to hear a lecture on Dia de los Muertos, and see some altars that students had assembled to honor their deceased loved ones. It is always a touching and poignant experience looking these altars over, with their little revealing artifacts and various food and drink that were favored by the departed one. There are usually photos that give a face to the spirit.



Here is an article about celebrating Day of the Dead in Merida, Yucatan. Wish I could have been there last night and this morning...



The lecture with some slides was interesting - I learned a few new things, like the significance of the Aztec Calendar and the Mayan Calendar, with its ominous references to events occuring in 2012...

I unexpectedly found myself re-examining our choices over the past few years after I returned to the house, with all the obligations of owning an older house, and the approaching cold weather. I found myself looking at various blog entries from Merida, where others are pursuing the life we backed away from three years ago.

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Wednesday night (Halloween) I went to an 11pm organ concert in a performance hall at Colorado State, our wonderful local university here in Fort Collins. It was a hoot - all the performers were in costume, and there were a few skits and audience participation schtiks. The instrument they all played occupied an entire wall of the auditorium - I plan to go back for another recital Sunday and will try to remember to take my camera for a photo to post here.

Some of the pieces were quite ordinary (but fun), but a couple were extra-ordinary. The closing piece was the iconic Bach Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor, masterfully performed by the department head under whom the student performers study. There was also a fascinating and unusual Capriccio for violin and organ piece scored by French composer Naji Hakim, and superbly performed by a most expressive and precise young man on violin and an athletic coed organist. This piece will be performed again in a more serious recital Sunday, so I am hoping Pat can go with me to hear it for the first time, while I savor it again.

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Tonight I was washing some lettuce over the sink, and I noticed a few bugs (a bonus from buying organic produce) on the leaves as I removed them from the bag. I flicked a few into the compost basket nearby, then as I rinsed I saw a few more and absent-mindedly rinsed them down the drain. As soon as I did that, I regretted not stopping to give them an opportunity to join their kin awaiting a trip to the big bin in the back yard.

As I paused for a moment to consider this small drama I reflected back a few hours to a piece on the radio about the passing at age 92 today of Paul Tippets, the captain of the B-29 Enola Gay (named after his mother, I believe). When asked about his feelings about the 100,000 or so folks immediately incinerated by the device his aircraft dropped on the port city of Hiroshima, he was not known to express remorse. I do not mean to criticise him or question his morality, or imagine that I am a better person. The circumstances were quite different in many respects.



But it just struck me as odd - that I was standing over my sink remorseful about needlessly rinsing a very small bug or two down my drain, while he had to deal with the sight and knowledge of what he and his crew (and his fellow humans) had done to the inhabitants of that city five miles beneath him that morning in August - and he was able to justify the event and by all accounts sleep well in the years and decades that followed.

It is worth remembering what we can be capable of when we get caught up in warfare. Here is what Wikipedia says about one of the major causes of the onset of hostilities between Japan and the United States:

To...ensure a safe supply of oil and other critical resources, Japan would have to challenge the European colonial powers over the control of oil rich areas such as the Dutch East Indies. Such a move against the colonial powers was however expected to lead to open conflict also with the United States. On August 1941, the crisis came to a head as the United States, which at the time supplied 80% of Japanese oil imports, initiated a complete oil embargo. This threatened to cripple both the Japanese economy and military strength once the strategic reserves would run dry. Faced with the choice of either trying to appease the U.S., negotiate a compromise, find other sources of supply or go to war over resources, Japan chose the latter.



"We were at war. ... You use anything at your disposal," Tippet was quoted as saying in 1975, "I sleep clearly every night."

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