Surviving a necessary trip to town today --- freezing rain, wind, a sewer project that has engulfed Northwest Portland --- Mom and I returned home with a sense of relief. Mom's macular degeneration is on hold and she doesn't have to go back to the specialists for six months. We have a new tiny spider web crack on the windshield of the van, thanks to a gust flinging ice from a tree into a corner on the passenger side. We made it home, just as the ice pellets started piling up on the stairs.
While Mom was having her eyes dilated and delved into with all-seeing electronic instruments, I cruised the aisles at Trader Joe's just off 23rd, scoring many of my favorites, including low-sodium soy sauce, dried mushrooms, wild rice pilaf mix, dried figs, crackers and a package of heirloom cherry tomatoes. The latter I rinsed and sat out in a bowl, like grapes, as I made our simple repast, being much too tired for anything too complicated. I steamed a whole head of cauliflower and made a low-fat cheese sauce with fat free half and half, evaporated milk, smoked paprika, two kinds of low-fat cheddar, parmesan, onion powder, white wine and a little cornstarch. "Dessert" was a corner of a giant hunk of baked squash, donated to Mom at church last Sunday by my former neighbor, Mary Lee, grown from seeds I gave her nearly a decade ago.
It wasn't until we finished dinner that I realized that our meal was totally vegetarian, ridiculously healthy and actually delicious. I have been one of those people who thinks a protein product from a formerly living animal is necessary at nearly every meal, or I have been slacking and something is lacking.
Perhaps I should relax a little and enjoy our simple life. My doctor would agree.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
A new year. A new decade. With 2010 comes feelings of mortality having something to do with being 60, and having an entire decade slip by since Y2K. It has been awhile since I posted anything on this blog. I have had pneumonia in my right lung, and a cough lingers, keeping me awake sometimes at 3 a.m.
That can be a good thing. Last night, I was tuned in to the BBC on the little radio next to my pillow, and heard a half-hour segment on the layered meanings of "Hallelujah" on "Heart and Soul," a 'programme' that explores concepts of various faiths in a very British way, eschewing dogma.
It segued from the "Hallelujah Chorus," which always manages to cause a frisson, especially when I am singing it, to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." I looked up the rest of the lyrics after the verse about little David and his harp, and they were another thing entirely. It is actually a song about the failure of a relationship, and the imagery, while stunning as only Leonard Cohen can be, is celebratory of something other than religious ecstasy.
Cohen's song was covered by Jeff Buckley, released posthumously. Over Christmas, Phil and his new girlfriend, Erin, were here with my sister Lois, and we enjoyed some great musical interplay (he on my funky old classical guitar and me on conga) as well as musical discussions.
He likes to delve into my past musical associations, and was intrigued to learn that I once hung out all night with Tim Buckley, Jeff's dad, at Nancy's house in Eugene. I was living with William then, and we were on a holiday trip. It was not too long before Tim's death by heroin overdose, though that night we were indulging in a 'stimulus package' of another sort.
Jeff Buckley, who drowned in a river while quite young, was nearly as talented as his dad. Late in life, Tim was in a jazz phase influenced by Leon Thomas and other vocal improvisors. It made him unpopular with his hippie-folkie fans.
It was quite amazing that Phil and I once again connected musically, this time on an intuitive level I haven't experienced in some time. He has an interesting chordal sense, which ties back to the first verse of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."
I have been home more than usual due to the holidays and my illness (a CAT scan after the first worrisome x-rays did not show anything more sinister than bone spurs on my spine).
This sign of decrepitude seems to fit in with the lingering snow in the yard and aches in the night.
I have been using a program called Dynamic Auto Painter, which alters photos to resemble watercolors, chalk or pencil drawings, even Van Gogh's "Sunflowers." For Christmas, I assembled a Columbia Gorge DVD slideshow with music using the 'paintings,' offering to print and frame any favorites. (I've had no takers.)
Veering away from the scenic subject matter, I've been experimenting with a few old photos. One is of Alan, taken by Dad. It shows him seated on a woodsy wall somewhere here in the Gorge, probably around the time that Mom and Dad were building their house and we came up on occasional weekends to help.
It is hard to look at that photo --- he is revealed in all his casual but blinding beauty. The son of a Finnish sailor, he had impossibly beautiful bones, blonde hair and strong yet languid limbs. Morphing the photo through the filters of one of the program's settings created an image so startling I had to immediately delete it. One-half of his face turned into a luminescent skull, as though his death by hanging was foreshadowed.
Somewhere his beautiful bones are at rest, unless he was cremated.
I will post the best of the transformed photos. It is all I have left of him, other than a silk scarf he gave me.
That can be a good thing. Last night, I was tuned in to the BBC on the little radio next to my pillow, and heard a half-hour segment on the layered meanings of "Hallelujah" on "Heart and Soul," a 'programme' that explores concepts of various faiths in a very British way, eschewing dogma.
It segued from the "Hallelujah Chorus," which always manages to cause a frisson, especially when I am singing it, to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." I looked up the rest of the lyrics after the verse about little David and his harp, and they were another thing entirely. It is actually a song about the failure of a relationship, and the imagery, while stunning as only Leonard Cohen can be, is celebratory of something other than religious ecstasy.
Cohen's song was covered by Jeff Buckley, released posthumously. Over Christmas, Phil and his new girlfriend, Erin, were here with my sister Lois, and we enjoyed some great musical interplay (he on my funky old classical guitar and me on conga) as well as musical discussions.
He likes to delve into my past musical associations, and was intrigued to learn that I once hung out all night with Tim Buckley, Jeff's dad, at Nancy's house in Eugene. I was living with William then, and we were on a holiday trip. It was not too long before Tim's death by heroin overdose, though that night we were indulging in a 'stimulus package' of another sort.
Jeff Buckley, who drowned in a river while quite young, was nearly as talented as his dad. Late in life, Tim was in a jazz phase influenced by Leon Thomas and other vocal improvisors. It made him unpopular with his hippie-folkie fans.
It was quite amazing that Phil and I once again connected musically, this time on an intuitive level I haven't experienced in some time. He has an interesting chordal sense, which ties back to the first verse of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."
I have been home more than usual due to the holidays and my illness (a CAT scan after the first worrisome x-rays did not show anything more sinister than bone spurs on my spine).
This sign of decrepitude seems to fit in with the lingering snow in the yard and aches in the night.
I have been using a program called Dynamic Auto Painter, which alters photos to resemble watercolors, chalk or pencil drawings, even Van Gogh's "Sunflowers." For Christmas, I assembled a Columbia Gorge DVD slideshow with music using the 'paintings,' offering to print and frame any favorites. (I've had no takers.)
Veering away from the scenic subject matter, I've been experimenting with a few old photos. One is of Alan, taken by Dad. It shows him seated on a woodsy wall somewhere here in the Gorge, probably around the time that Mom and Dad were building their house and we came up on occasional weekends to help.
It is hard to look at that photo --- he is revealed in all his casual but blinding beauty. The son of a Finnish sailor, he had impossibly beautiful bones, blonde hair and strong yet languid limbs. Morphing the photo through the filters of one of the program's settings created an image so startling I had to immediately delete it. One-half of his face turned into a luminescent skull, as though his death by hanging was foreshadowed.
Somewhere his beautiful bones are at rest, unless he was cremated.
I will post the best of the transformed photos. It is all I have left of him, other than a silk scarf he gave me.
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Pause that refreshes
taken at Trout Lake Arts Fest
