Olympia SM5

Patience. Please be patient. Some people filled with worry have problems being patient. There is a whole big chunk of counting to do. In our times of Corovis, err Covid times there are more ballots to count. Oregon, and a few other states, had it easy. With our vote by mail with all (in Oregon) ballots due by 8:00 on Tuesday, the counting was business as usually done. We don’t have things like the North Carolina provision of allowing ballots to arrive before the 12th. So we have to wait for all the ballots to be counted.

What if you did not have the chance to wait? What if you knew you would have to wait for results? Like for five years? Warren Buffet advised investors to do just that, make your investment and ignore it for years. Or tax the short term gains at 100%.

Or consider a person with a cancer diagnosis. The rule of thumb is to call it “in remission” for the first five years. You just do not know if your cure is a cure or not. You will not know for those years or not. Yes, you can believe it or not but you do not know. You cannot know, You can only be patient.

-— MichaelRpdx :: osm5

On many mornings Jennifer takes some food out to feed the crows. She whistles to them. They flock down and enjoy what she brought. Leftover oatmeal, some chicken scratch, stale hardened bread are all on the menu for them. We both enjoy watching them eat. At times they, or rather one of them, takes some food up to the birdbath and soaks it for some time. On feisty days squirrels will arrive and we will watch them fight for the food. Even more entertainment.

Yesterday we took a walk, and on the way back ran into our neighbor Tom on a bicycle (Trek for the curious) and we stopped to chat with him. A bit of this, a bit of that. It was good to have some interaction. Then we heard a “crack” sound. We looked and saw a walnut in the middle of the street. On the power line above it was a crow. It seemed to be watching the nut. Another crow arrived and was walking around on the lawn nearby. It certainly looked like the crow was preparing something to eat. We were pretty close so the crow did not swoop down to eat the nut.

We talked about crows and how smart they were. Then a crunch. A car had run over the nut and smattered it on the road. We laughed at the crows and their smarts of dropping the nut on the road in a busy part. We kept looking up at the crow and over at the other crow, were we too close for them to come on down for the nut? Well, we had run out of things to say. Tom wheeled away. Jennifer and I started for home A dozen steps I stopped and turned to watch the crows again. “I want to see …” and soon enough the two Crows were pecking at the nut, Yep, a snack was ready to eat.

~~ MichaelRpdx ::osm5

I do not know what I am about to type about. Not a bit. Jennifer says that I have a nice haircut. My fountain pens arrived a day early, it is exciting especially given that they write so well. Perhaps better than I do. Ummm, what should I type about?

“He poured it down the middle as the great gods of hops intended.” That came from Robert B. Parker. I have not read any Parker in years. I may not even have a copy of any of his books. But he stays with me in the form of that quotation. What is it like to be famous for that bit of writing. I supposed it a better than being remembered for the guy who was playing the protagonist (sorry, I don’t recall

his name) this dim wit was all set for another season of playing him when Bam! he is arrested and convicted for cocaine possession. Spent a year or so in jail in the UK and the people that had worked on the series were all elsewhere, certainly not getting their living from the series. Gah, I don’t recall the name of the protagonist, or the name of the actor. Just the writer’s name and the quote. Oh sure, it was set in Boston, he cooked well, had a girlfriend who was a lawyer and a black friend, Hawk? and his distaste for Shoppes. He called them “shop-ees” because it seemed quaint to tourists and he really didn’t care for tourists either. Well, whatever. A toast to Robert B. Parker and the books he wrote and I enjoyed.

Not much today. But something. Again. Another half page.

— MichaelRpdx :: osm5

 

I have one thing to insist on today: VOTE!

I have. We received the ballots in yesterday’s mail. Filled them out, sealed up the envelopes, dropped them off this morning. We have been waiting for … months? to vote. And now we have. Remember: VOTE!

Oregon votes by mail with lots of ballot drop off locations. It is the local library for us. I guess that for many of you this is not the case. If you are asked, lobby for a system for your state. It is a fantastic way to go about it.

So much for my soapboxing today.

This book, NOIR, is the longest book I have read since I had a stroke. It takes me longer than it used to to read a book. I am plowing through it. Slowly. I did note a bit of irritation with it. Digressions! Long ambling tales!! Unnecessary characters! Wait! Hold on Michael! What is your rush? What do you need the end of the story to come so quickly? This is not a bit of non-fiction that gives several bits of stories to set a stage because you won’t get the point of the story without the examples.
(I am looking at the writer for a news outlet.)
Yes, the book is a fiction to be enjoyed. That is the point of it, isn’t it? If not what is the point. of it?

There is a beer waiting. Well, OK, two beers. Perhaps three of them. The Southwest Gentlemans Association meets on the third Thursday of the month. Not that we have for quite a while. We are doing it tonight  … tonight (wait, is that right? spelling wise?) I went out and bought some beer for tonight. I have known these guys since 1995 or 1996 or some tire back then. It was part of the Oregon Brew Crew. Since then OBC has changed and so have we. So we meet on our own. We are all certified judges and had some great palettes and it seems they have them still. I have fallen away from those refined taste buds. I have also lost 70+ pounds since then. I gave up the constant tasting to keep my palette trained. I am happier with less weight. There is plenty of beer to enjoy. And other things to enjoy also.

— MichaelRpdx :: osm5

In 1962 Doris Lessing published The Golden Notebook. In 2005 Time magazine listed the book as one of the best 100 English novels of, or rather, since 1923.

It explored mental and societal breakdowns. What fascinated me about it was its use of four journals to tell the story.

Black – of the years leading up to and through WW11;
Red – experiences as a Communist party member;
Yellow – of her painful ending of her love affair(s?) ;
Blue – a personal journal journal memories, dreams …

I was enthralled with the book when I first read it in the 1970s. A recent re-reading did not go well. I grew
sick of, it quickly.

However, the idea of keeping different journals for different parts of life stayed with me. I now have several journals. Rather than having them set apart by colors, I have them marked by gaffer tape. Gaffer tape, a far superior thing to duct tape. It comes in a wide variety of colors. I have black, yellow, and orange. I use them to mark my books in a different manner. My Morning Pages have a two inch stripe along the top of the book. My sketch journal has a vertical stripe along the left side. A book on cooking has a horizontal stripe two inches down from the top. My newest journal is Languages. I keep notes on the ones I am studying (Spanish, Latin, French, and Norwegian) with, perhaps, some bits about English.

In the dark I can identify which book I have in hand. This is handy, as I keep the current ones stacked by my chair. All of this thanks to Doris Lessing. There was a movie, with Jason Robards and Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave called Julia. Oh, wait, that was based on Pentimento. From Lillian Hellman. Ooops. Well, that was a fine movie. HooRay for One Typed Page – bringing back memories and having me look things up.

More later, wear your mask, get into the world.

— MichaelRpdx :: osm5

When I first stopped in here, I wrote about starting on something. I quoted Austin Kleon and Kent Peterson, I had written to Austin Kleon asking if he had originated the bit about things needing to be. And then expressed no expectation of hearing from him. He had had a tough week. But Lo! Behold! he did respond. Google but his reply in Social or Promotions or Updates or some damn place that I typically ignore. Why today I didn’t do that is just a bit of luck. He had replied, Four Days Ago. Crickey.

He wrote,

As far as I know, it’s an original
phrase, though not really an original
idea…. : )

Austin

So much for my pessimism. And as stated then, it doesn’t need to be good, it just needs to be. Each day I get to get more stuff to exist.

In truth, this is my third piece of expression. I start each day with Morning Pages, ala Julia Camerson. It is handwritten. No rules to it, just write. Well, and don’t read it for at least a week? a month? Whatever, I don’t read it. Then I take to my computer and add another post to my blog. (I hate the word “blog”. But I didn’t get to choose the term so I’m stuck with it. It’s about things I find in my curiosities. And then there is this, an OTP (a name that is ok.) And all of you know more about it than I do.

Handwriting, computer bits, and typed pages. Morning pages go back to April of 20L5 more or less consistently. Blogging goes in fits and starts for, well the current one, goes back to 2013. Though the early days were pretty sporadic. Well & sure there are written journals, especially in the early 80s but what is my point here? I just keep on trying. And I do have pair of things to quote, and to make so something exists.

And another page exists.

— MichaelRpdx :: osm5

Banned Books, it is almost time for the annual observation of our shame. This year it runs from September 27 to October 3. It is a great time to (re)read a banned book.

Suggestions? Consider The Grapes of Wrath from John Steinbeck. For something older, The Canterbury Tales, From the venerable Geoffrey Chaucer. It was considered obscene. And to think we read it in High School. Perhaps a bit more topical is Uncle Tom’s Cabin from Harriet Beecher Stowe. Candide, Voltaire, and Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis (the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature) which I have not read. Nor have I read Forever Amber, Kathleen Winsow, banned for its “bawdiness”. Americans are fond of banning sexual books. Howl, Allen Ginsberg; Naked Lunch, William S. Burroghs; Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller; Catch-22, Joseph Heller; the list goes on. And on and nn. Consider Alice’s Aventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll it was banned in China; Or the French, thought to be so open (well, in the circles I run in) Banned Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert, and Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov.

Well, that is a quick listing you can hit up Wikipedia. That also includes pages for book burning, “Challenge” which talks about “the removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of (different works)” and banned files, movies, and other media.

It is time to read, before you can’t anymore,

—- MichaelRpdx :: osm5

What a lazy day. Jennifer had sore arms. From vaccinations. I stayed with her, we didn’t “do”: anything. Binge watching Korean soap operas. I reviewed our spending for the year to date and planned our taxes for the year. Wheee!

This typewriter is from, well I don’t remember. Wow though, pica with a nice clean type. Why have I not used it more? Perhaps more in the future. Perhaps not, it has not grabbed my attention yet. Are you a fan of the SM5 line? Tell me why.

      Are there poems here
      lurking in favorite twilight
      Waiting for it’s use

Perhaps there. Perhaps in rewritings Well, there is a lot in the rewriting. Or even in the re-thinking: Like …

Where are the crickets? This time of year they were through the evening sounds. Especially last year. No longer now.

Jupiter and Saturn are back again. In our southern night sky. And I know I have not woken too early in the morning, thanks to Venus rising. Even above the trees. She is there until the sky is brightened by the sun. All of these make for the skies through the washout of the haze of the lights of human beings. The lights that prevent people from seeing the Milky Way. Much less Andromeda.

Garrrgh.

Well, YAY! for my One Typed Page. I’ve written again. Tomorrow is another day and I’ll need to come up with more.

-~ MichaelRpdx :: osm5