Creepy and Weird (8/22/2024)

Two new words that entered our political lexicon. As most of you know, I occasionally write about politics, sometimes about what is going on at the local level here in Yorktown. Conversely, I write nationally and internationally. Note that I did not hyperlink the national in this post, but I have 102 posts (not including this one) on the subject in one form or fashion and 15 on racism. You can probably find many more posts where I forgot to add the tag. The words I want to write about are weird and creepy. I have used the word weird a total of six times and actually three of them occurred in posts where I have politics as a keyword. I used creepy once; however, it had to do with aging.

Creepy and aging that is an interesting jump. Do older men get creepier as they age? I would hope not, as I am older. However, I can think of at least one old person who is getting creepier and creepier with age; even weirder. As you know I am a liberal and was happy that at least our side of the presidential race bowed out. This was not because he became creepier, but he was just plainly getting too old. However, the candidate from the other side who is two or three years younger than the guy that was considered too old is staying in the race. You all know I am writing about tRump. That guy was already creepy years ago. He slept around while married, associated himself with abusers of minors, slept with porn stars while his wife was pregnant, and even raped women. He is a convicted felon, a criminal. His followers and he himself consider him the second coming. I learned today that he obsessed with crowd size and claims that one of the pictures of his opponent’s crowd was AI generated. Now that is creepy, and it is definitely plain weird that almost half the country would want him to become the president of this country. It has all the flavors of a cult.

Even weirder is the choice by this candidate in selecting his wing man or candidate for vice president: a self-proclaimed slum dog millionaire who went to Yale, writes a book about his humble upbringing but does not give a crap about the poor and middle class, and rages against the educated elite. He comes from an area where healthcare is lacking, where women’s healthcare and maternity support is poor, but he does not care. He seems to dislike unmarried women and calls them “cat ladies.” In addition, he is against invitro fertilization, but believes that all women should at least have three children, and all women should stay at home. Together they are for installing the government in your bedroom and in your home, but God forbid if the government tells you anything about your right to own a gun. Plain weird, if not creepy.

I was happy when Biden decided not to continue. I am happy and energized by the new candidate, Vice President Harris and her running mate Tim Walz. It was Governor Walz who described some of the actions by the opposition and even the ticket as “Creepy and weird.” I admit, I am not original here, but I would like to enforce the idea. tRump, Vance and their followers are plain weird and a lot of them are creepy as well.

Sorry, no deep message here, except the reinforcement Tim Walz’s observation about the Republican candidates and my commitment never to vote for these creepy weirdos. I hope you do the same!

Embraced (7/18/2024)

In the more recent posts, I have mentioned that we had a contractor install a fence around our backyard. It was finished a little more than a month ago and we are really enjoying it. I have always been somewhat against fencing the backyard; however, now I am a convert. Our dogs Jasper and Radar enjoy the freedom of being able to roam our albeit small back yard chasing squirrels, howling at the trees that the squirrels escape into, as any good treeing coonhound should, and at deer outside the fence. Radar dapperly joins in, although he does not howl. In addition, the dogs have rip-roaring wrestle matches. I think at least three or four per day.

Since part of the backyard is in the shade we had a lovely cover of moss instead of grass. Well, that was completely torn up and destroyed by our canines and their wrestling matches. Oh well, as they say; we all enjoy a good fight. Us watching it and the dogs performing it.

We built an additional fence with sticks that fell out of all the trees in our backyard. It serves somewhat as a divider in the yard and a place for birds to hide and hang out. We planted pollinator plants along a path that I put in along the stick fence in the hope that one day it might resemble something like an English cottage garden. The area is being overtaken by a gourd of some kind. It was in our compost and based on our dietary habit, I expect that it will be acorn squash. Our green tunnel is being colonized by tomatoes and green beans. We have been eating grape tomatoes and snacking on the miscellaneous green been. It is an experiment that we will repeat next year.

I have noticed that we spend a lot more time in our backyard, now that we have a fence. The major reason is that the dogs can be with us. Jasper the hound is a runner and hunter. Radar cannot be completely trusted, and we were afraid that would attack people and other dogs that wander by. Before the fence we would either put them on a running leash or leave them inside when we went out. Inside, they would be barking to let us know that they wanted to join us. Outside on the long leash they would constantly wrap themselves around our seats, shrubs or trees. Now they are free to roam and wrestle.

The other night I had decided to go outside to urinate and was struck by an epiphany. Like every other full-blooded man, there is nothing better than pee against a tree and ruminate at the same time. Yes, I announced recently that we had a powder room again and my forays into the backyard to micturate were over. However, I still enjoy going wee-wee in the natural environs. One evening while taking a leak against a tree I had a flying squirrel scamper down the tree to see what all the rustling noise was all about or maybe it was protesting my use of its tree as a urinal. We met eye-to-eye and after further inspection the squirrel climbed back up the oak.

Back to the subject at hand, the epiphany. So, what was that realization that I had? Sitting on the concrete garden bench in the dark in front of our Buddha statue, for the first time I felt like the garden was embracing me. While I could not even see the statue in the dark, I felt one with nature, the world, with the yard and everything in it. I suddenly realized that without a fence our backyard had no limits; there was no cohesion to it all. Somehow that night, the fence gave me a feeling of a hug, of keeping me in her bosom and not letting my mind and spirit wander all over the place.

Now you all know that I am a strong believer in and practitioner of “Forest Bathing.” I have given a sermon on the practice and written 54 posts on the subject. I love wandering in the woods behind our home and absorbing nature. In other words, this feeling of being embraced by the fence came as a surprise and I have not been able to shake it. Three of four times per day I enjoy walking a circle through the yard, inspecting things; pulling a weed or just sit on a bench or a chair to take it all in, fantasizing bout what to do next in the yard or just meditating. It is an amazing feeling and I guess it is still forest bathing since the yard has many trees and we still border the woods. I am enjoying it; let’s hope those feeling does not go away.

Our volunteer gourds

Night in the yard, it was at that time I had the feeling of being embraced!

Black-eyed suzan and the stick fence on the left.

Bonsai update (7/8/2024)

I realize that I have been teasing a lot of you about my hobby of growing bonsai trees; at least that is what I try to do. Most of my trees are in the pre-bonsai stage, but that is the fun of it. Recently, I had to move things around a bit because of the fence we put in, I briefly mentioned it <here>. In this post I want to discuss my hobby a little more by answering some basic questions.

How long have you been doing this?

I fell in love with bonsai the first time I saw them. This was in Longwood Gardens (PA) in 1977. I was fascinated by them ever since; however, because of our travel I was unable to pursue the hobby. A few years later we visited the National Arboretum in Washington DC where I saw some more examples of the art of miniaturizing trees. Finally, in the late 1980s when studying in New Mexico could I start playing with them. Our friend and colleague Daniel owned a plant nursery and at one time he gave me at least 7 seedings for me to work on. Later I bought another tree, and when we moved to the Four Corners region, I took a class by John Naka and purchased two more trees for his course. So, you could say that I have been doing something with bonsai for 36 years or so.

That long! Do you have any of your starter trees?

All seven trees that I got from Daniel are still alive. This includes three Siberian elms, three New Mexico privets (aka NM olive) and a Japanese black pine. The hackberry that I bought died some 20 years ago. I did not do much with the trees for a period of 10 years (1994 to 2004) they were terribly pot bound and barely hanging on. The two Naka trees also survived. One of them (an azalea) died two years ago.

What are some of your strangest or more interesting trees?

It seems that a lot of people who are into bonsai concentrate on one type: junipers, pines, maples, or deciduous trees. I never had that luxury and tried the techniques on anything I could get my hands on. The craziest tree that I have is a mimosa. It is what is called a yamadori or a plant collected in the wild. I collected in my yard, so technically they call it a gardendori. I had cut the darn mimosa and it kept growing back. Eventually I had enough of it, and I stuck a shovel into the soil and yanked out a foot and a half (40 cm) of root. Thinking what the heck, I stuck it in a pot with soil and that spring it started growing. The root was too long, so I planted it sideways in a pot and it is thriving (five or six years later).

The general answer to the question would be that I like them all. As any proud parent should, I have no particular favorites. I have over 100 trees in various stages of development, and I need to slow down and reduce the numbers a little. It is a lot of work, and I am sure that this is why none of my trees are show worthy. I once heard that having 25 trees or so is a comfortable number.

Do you have any mentors of people who you learn from?

I have always felt terribly inadequate in my bonsai knowledge. I have a lot of books and I used to prescribe to the magazine. Again, I really did not know what I was doing, even after an afternoon of Naka. It really was YouTube where I eventually gained the confidence to experiment and have some fun with my trees. I became a member of our local club three years ago and I became a member of Mirai, a training school. This finally gave me some more design prowess.

I have a few favorites on YouTube. These include Mirai, the Bonsai Zone by Nigel, Dave’s Bonsai, Bonsai Heirloom, Bonsaify, and Growing Bonsai by Jelle. I watch others as well, but these are my go-to at the moment. I think I now feel much more comfortable growing bonsai, shaping them and even advising on the craft, thanks to these channels.

If you have more questions for me about bonsai feel free to contact me and I will address them somehow. Also look in the label section on the right side of my post. With this post it seems I have 64 posts with the keyword bonsai, or posts where I at least mention the art of bonsai. Good luck browsing through them.

Photos from the top to bottom.  My crazy mimosa, the back of my table, the new layout, the cherry and privet, one of the benches in a new location.

In the Zone and other Mediations (06/24/2024)

The fence is in; while I have no illusion that it will keep the deer out of our yard, it should keep the dogs in. Now, a few days later I already notice that we spend more time outside than before. Part of the reason is that the dogs can finally spend more time with us in the yard. Before fence we felt guilty being out there without them, the dogs were either whining at the door wanting to join us, or we had them out with us on the long leash and then they would wrap themselves around out seats, our legs or a plant, prompting us to get up and save them. Now they can just roam and play. They play like crazy and pass out in the evenings.

My time outside is divided between working on my bonsai (looking, watering, and shaping), weeding, odds and ends, and just sitting. First, I needed to reorganize my bonsai area or what we call our Bonsai Zone, a term that I stole from Nigel, who has a YouTube channel called the Bonsai Zone. It appeared that part of my “Zone” was actually going to be located outside the fence. I had temporarily moved my tables and now it was time for the final layout trying to maximize sun exposure on my benches.

It was never productive to put plants in our yard. Deer would go for them as soon as they were planted. We finally felt adventurous enough to do some landscaping now we have a fence. I have already shared some of the work we have done in a previous post. We have been trying to add native plants to our landscape, plant that usually get hit hard by deer. The fence may hopefully discourage them from entering and be somewhat protective. However, because of the past, non-maintenance, the garden is overrun with invasive plants. It is now my daily chore to pull out Japanese stilt grass, and ground ivy.

My favorite activity is just sitting somewhere in the yard and observing. As I mentioned earlier, the fence made it much easier since the dogs have free reign now. I already just sat on my behind with friends, with my wife and just alone. We have a screened-in gazebo, and even sitting in it has been great especially in the evenings when the mosquitoes are out. It is better now because the dogs can just roam.

But I enjoy just being on my own, observing and listening to the world around me. I look at the birds, skinks, and just the landscape around me. It seems that every time I sit out and just meditate, I discover something new or different. We just heard the call of the yellow-billed cuckoo. Going back in time we determined that we have at least seen or heard 53 different bird species in or near our yard. Our property is slightly less than half an acre (2000 square meter), and the back yard is half of that. But we try to leave it natural and do not use chemicals there. The rich birdlife is our reward. We want to keep it chemically free as much as possible.

All things considered, we are very happy with the fence and so are our dogs Japer and Radar. It is wrestling mania at least three times a day. They greatly enjoy being out, and so do we. Temperatures are going to approach 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 Celsius for the rest of the world) this weekend and we’ll haven’t see how it goes. The yard is shady; maybe it will be bearable, but only time will tell; I hope I can still sit out there, meditate and enjoy our garden.

One of the two Buddha statues we have in our yard

Sassafras in the sun

No more ambition? (6/14/2024)

Ambition is a curious word to me. The Oxford Dictionary gives the following definition: “a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.” Now that I am retired, I have put ambition to the wayside and just want to experience and hopefully enjoy life, however much of it that I have remaining. I am still reasonably healthy, at least I have not been told something different.

I am not sure if I had a lot of ambition when I was working. Maybe not like others, but I did have a desire to achieve things. I always believed in down time, to relax and recharge. My brother, who I have not interacted with for at least 10 or so years had an amazing drive or ambition. He wanted to become a pilot, and that is what he eventually achieved. He tried to instill the same ambition in his two kids. I know that he looked down on me for what and who I am. So much so that every time we visited with him, I had the hear him tell us how successful and rich he was, compared to me. My brother told me that when I visited and they invite guest over, that they told the other guest to dress down, because I was only a jeans guy, had no class, and would feel out of place when they would come dressed the way they regularly do when socializing. While the saying tells us that the clothes make the man, comfort and my disdain of status permitted me to dress as comfortable as possible and while we may not be able to match them and their rich friends, we are pretty darn well of. Moreover, my international work taught me that we all put on our pants one leg at the time, and fuck status, I often had to communicate with the folks in the village and could not dress like a fashion model, that would hurt my credibility. While visits to my brother upset me at times, it was really upsetting to my wife. I was able to accept him who he pretended to be. But when you treat my wife like shit and every time we visited she left crying because of their treatment of us, I hope you can imagine what led the eventual split between me and my brother.

I may have had very few true ambitions during my entire life, unless enjoying life and learning from it can be called an ambition. If so, I am one of the best. When we were working and living in Yemen, our work days were from 7 am. to 2 pm. Lunch was a 2 and then I usually took a nap. We would then often work in the yard around our home for the rest of the afternoon, or I would work on my 1964 Land Rover. But, we probably had the best landscaped area of the three homes on the compound. My colleagues had drive and would go back to the now empty office or work at home on project related items after hours. They resented me for keeping to the official work hours. I needed to recharge and spend time with my wife who wasn't working.

No, I am not perfectly balanced even after all the self-care I just detailed. I have had my depressive moods, but I have come out of those. I sometimes wonder if minor depressions were seasonal or tied to other life stages (I have been unemployed a few times in the past).

I think that I have been happier these past few years than any other time of my life. It has been nature, forest bathing, biking, being outside in the yard, with my bonsai, or on the water where my spirits were lifted. I just needed to fully experience life around me. I can really just sit around and stare into infinity and not do anything but think. It is my form of meditating. Do I feel guilty doing that? Not one bit, well maybe after ten or so minutes it sometimes feels like I need to do something. But my motto now is: No more ambition but experience and love life to the fullest since I have no idea how much of it is left!

A photograph I took sitting in the backyard doing nothing.  Just enjoying nature and our almost completed fence (it is done now and a report will follow soon).  I often site in the Adirondack chairs and either just stare at the trees or work on my bonsai.  Very relaxing!