I went out for a jog tonight because we are midway through a 19 week training program for an upcoming half marathon and I am determined not to miss any run days even if I am not at home. About nine minutes and I was wheezing like an old man. I thought, what the heck is wrong with me. It was then I realized I usually run at 400 feet above sea level and that is not the case today.

Today is pretty memorable for the United States. I saw The police at the airport in Seattle this morning in their dress uniforms. Complete with white gloves and cap, they all looked so very splendid and I knew just why they were wearing those uniforms today.

I watched an episode of Reading Rainbow the other day, a really old program. It was about a school located near Ground Zero. The children had to be evacuated quickly after the airplanes hit the twin towers. It’s a story about those kids and everyone from around the world reaching out to them, to help them heal. Purely wonderful.

it’s been kind of a tough week at work. You know when you have to go eat lunch alone how your popularity ranks. There is really no comfort other than that of your family.

i’m reading a couple of books right now, avidly writing down plot lines to understand them better. I am also writing like a fiend to bring our friend though his story.

Here’s the current list:

​1) The Novice by Thich Nhat Hanh and Elevation by Stephen King have a very similar construction as stories go, even as their genres are about as far apart as they get

2) The Secret History by Donna Tartt - never realized how much of the plot i missed under i listened to the audiobook version. Notes and book still in progress

​3) Heavier than Heaven by Charles Cross - about Kurt Cobain, possibly one of the most narcissistic people to have lived. Also an athlete, artist and musician. A whole lot of talent.

When I stepped off the plane this morning I was struck by a pang of absence; I really wished my wife was here. My son wouldn’t care for it but Oregon is beautiful. Mountainous and chilly at night, low fog along the river in the morning. It’s something to see. It’s something to share.

Noticed the entire wall at lunch. Miami.

The garden is in full bloom.  I have been busy out there, relocating plants and putting in new flowers.  The beekeeper mix pots are finally punching out some beautiful colors - magenta, cornflower blue, pink, purple.  The petals open and close when the sunlight gets to be too much - a self-regulating kind of bloom.  The tomatoes bloomed as well and I knew it would not be too long before they sprouted, and they have - so many of them!  I cannot wait to see their colors.  The beets survived round 1 of the killer caterpillars after I picked the little bastards out by hand (more gross than picking a worm up when it has gotten onto a hot sidewalk, but you must throw them back onto the grass) and zapped the leaves with the organic 3-in-1 eucalyptus and peppermint "kill things" spray.  And so the beets are thriving as well.

The basil and lemon verbena plants are alive because of my wife as I was ready to write them off after wintering in the basement.  Everything down there looked skeletal.  I threw away some of the herbs and now I know they come back.  Lesson learned and I won't make that mistake twice.  The basil is looking good.  I don't know what to do with the lemon verbena, but I'm glad it is confined to a pot as it is pretty invasive. 

There is a bird on the deck looking at me as I type and I know I am here, surrounded by life and it is a good feeling to be a part of the world this morning.  

I was in Colorado last week and saw from high up the flooding across the region.  It was pretty terrible.  Many houses under water, or island-ed.  I was in Memphis the week before and that river has jumped its banks by 10 miles in either direction.  We need to stop making more levees and let the river flow.  Someone is going to get the water we restrict, and that someone is Louisiana.  

It's Pride weekend, and I am another year older.  The two are not related, but I am usually having a birthday around the same time.  This year, we went south and celebrated.  On the drive home, we stopped at Johnny Cash's childhood home in a little place called Dyess, Arkansas.  The GPS took us down 3 gravel roads.  We declined to turn right when the road went to dirt.  We eventually found our way into town and paid the $10 each to get a tour of the historical buildings and then a ride, courtesy of the University of Arkansas, and it's pre-doctoral student of Heritage Studies, who drove us out another gravel road to the little house, standing on its own now, but once part of a settlement of 500 houses, built on swamps.  

Back after the Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt, hereafter known as FDR, decided The New Deal would put everyone back to work, instead of having them all stand in line for food and go the way of welfare.  For Dyess, AR, this meant parceling out 20 or 40 acres of land, giving each family a house, a barn, a smokehouse, an outhouse, a pump, a cow and a mule, and giving them 2 years to turn it into profit to pay it back.

They built a cannery on site to can the fruit of the labor, taking 1 can for every so many they canned on their behalf as payment.  A lot of people made it work.  Johnny's parents stayed on until the 1950's when he made it big and moved them to Memphis.  A flood or two came through and washed away a lot of people's hard work, right around the time they were to start making repayments.  They didn't return, the houses were easily moved, and so move them they did.  I don't understand why the government chose a giant swamp to build upon, but, let's face it, that's Florida and some parts of Lake Ponchartrain in Louisiana are below sea level. (just the parts where the cities popped up)

There is a lot off the beaten-path to see, so take the road less traveled, and pick up that same book sometime, by M. Scott Peck, it's a keeper.

The church bells are ringing 8 o'clock and so it's time to get on with the day.  

The book on the left is the oldest book I own, the book on the right I found again 10 years ago; I regularly read both as a child. I am in search of My Side of the Mountain to complete the trio of most-read childhood books. They have a lot in common. I’ll get back to that sometime.