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THE STICKER ON THE SIDE OF THE CHEST WAS PUT THERE DURING IRAQ WAR DAYS WHEN I LIVED IN SAN FRANCISCO. It was 60° in Narsarsuaq, Greenland today, our home away from home for almost a week starting July 7th. And it was sunny. Which is not what I want to hear—I am longing for a modest amount of weather drama. But I cannot hope for clouds because they would surely block… Read More
“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain “Join the army, travel the world, meet interesting people and kill them.” —anti-war slogan from Vietnam war era. Those quotes pretty much describe my state of mind today which might best be labeled as confused and melancholy—even though in just one week I’m off for… Read More
It’s four weeks and three days until granddaughter Teresa and I leave Albuquerque for Copenhagen and, three days later, Narsarsuaq, Greenland. There are many painfully mundane (paying) and some moderately-thrilling (trips to REI) tasks to complete—one of which is to record it all for posterity…and this blog. You know from the last post how this idea of going to Greenland came into being. I’m afraid I may not have been completely accurate;… Read More
Merry and bright takes a bit of extra effort with a Very Bad Cold but it’s somewhat possible…especially if the weather is my favorite kind of clouds and rain and fog and warmth…week-long Christmas heat wave. Time with Robert and Marsha has become treasured over the years…who knew when we were younger and spent much of our time together arguing this would turn out to be true. Okay…holidays are over. New Year’s… Read More
Rain has re-entered my life. First the unusual cloudy days, many including at least a few raindrops, before I left New Mexico for Minnesota a week ago. Since then more days than not with fairly steady rainfall. I imagined under these conditions I would be paying serious attention to writing both in my blogs and in massive note taking for everything I want to say about ‘time and place’ prior to and… Read More
The Trans-Siberian Express covers half of what we think we know about Russian history. The other half is Catherine the Great and Imperial Russia and Dr. Zhivago, followed by Stalin and friends’ scary Communist Russia. And last, but never tell him least, there’s Putin and of course Pussy Riot and, oh yeah, that little scuffle in the Crimea/Ukraine. Russian history in a typical American nutshell. I’ll come back to all of that… Read More