Apopheniac

Four Weddings and a Funeral

This evening "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was on commercial television and I just happened to surf across it during the first wedding and watched the rest. I enjoyed the youth and humor and cleverness but was particularly touched by the central premise of the importance of not settling for less than the person you love with all of your heart. It put me even more in touch with how much I am grateful to the core of my being to share my life with Jean and how that central fact imparts so much more meaning to all the other aspects of my life, large and small. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Here come the Lillies and the Cannas.

The first of the cannas were knocked over by grackles but now others are opening. Thanks again to Bernadette for the gift of the cannas. Get well soon.
We also just saw the first of the cucumbers and the cantalope.

A day after Farenheit 9/11

Yesterday Jean and I went to see Michael Moore's "Farenheit 9/11". The film is well done. It has all the objectivity of a Rush Lembaugh broadcast but raises important points and issues. I gave myself a day to digest the film before posting my reactions.
First, a little bit of background. My politics tend more to the fiscally conservative but I have always been extremely reticent about putting American troops into combat in foreign countries. I was opposed to the war in Vietnam, though I served in the navy from '68 through '72. I was an avid fan of Ronald Reagan though I did not support US operations in El Salvador, Panama or Grenada.
During the ramp up to invading Iraq, I did not feel that the US had sufficient legal or moral justification to invade. Because Colin Powell said so, I thought Iraq might be striving for WMDs but I felt that without UN sanction we were trashing our international standing and relationships and forfeiting the moral high-ground. I also felt that the invasion of a heavily armed nation of 28 million people, which was the size of Texas and had no history of democracy, was probably like handcuffing one's self to jackhammer and a hornet's nest: they were going to stir up something truly unpleasant that they couldn't get out of.
Seeing Farenheit 9/11 has come at the end of a month of news including
1. humiliation, torture and even death of prisoners in the custody of Americans.
2. the release of memos repudiating our obligations under the Geneva convention, debating what level of prisoner abuse was permissible and the Secretary of Defense authorizing the humiliation and abuse of prisoners.
3. Prisoners who were determined by the administration to have no legal rights were being kept in off-shore camps and the administration argued before the supreme court that it was none of the court's business.
4. Insurrection and terrorism in Iraq was growing and even evidencing coordination among rival groups.
The combination of this news and watching this film has brought to the fore a few of my beliefs.
1. The best way to support our troops is to not put them in dangerous places where they don't belong.
2. Congress should be required to make a formal declaration of war with a roll-call vote before a president can exercise his "war powers" or invade and occupy another country.
3. It is extremely important that we choose as president a man who is large enough for the job. In the past, we have elected presidents who were carried to office not by leadership but by political organizations built by others and the financial support of people hoping to plunder the benefits of administering the nation. This has never been wise but in the past we were not the world's only superpower and could only cause so big a mess. The stakes have truly grown too large.

Egad, its been a week since my last entry!

I have been been wrestling with research and writers' block on a brochure I'm designing and apparently it spilled over to constipate my blogging too.

Let's see what has happened this week. Jean has been harvesting great baby squash from the garden every day or so and the grapes are plumping up. We finished off the last of the apricots and peaches. Friday night we got almost an inch and a half of needed rain.

We went to see "The Terminal" on Friday. The acting was superb. Tom Hanks was great and Catherine Zeta Jones was the most believable I have ever seen her, less a goddess and more a person. It was very comical but when I was at home I found myself with an odd aftertaste. Spielberg is so accomplished and so polished but sometimes his films are like a very classy French restaurant where the presentation makes the food seem a little better than it really is.

Jean has been having some exciting insights in her metaphysical work and has been doing some fun stuff in her web and graphic arts. Saturday night we attended the Lubbock Seekers Society which is an eclectic band ranging from Christian mystics to druids and neo-pagans who have been meeting monthly for going on nine years. Seemed a nice group of people.

Juicy flavor explosion!

I pulled the first peach from the ripening bowl today and took a bite. It burst forth in an explosion of flavor and juice which ran down my chin. I gave half to Jean and we raved for several minutes fantasizing future seasons of flavor as the orchard grows.

All the trees are doing well except one of the pawpaws which seems not to have made the transplant. That means we must get another this fall so that they will pollenate. We will also have to add another peach for the same reason.

Hot Hot Hot

Both thermometers show 100 degrees today. This is a good bit hotter than the airport shows but just to check them I put the cappucino thermometer out and it reads 99. I'm not sure what the reason is for the difference.

On our tour of the garden this morning we got to sample the first of the strawberries - delicious. The birds had pecked one of the peaches so I pulled it off. It was almost ripe but not quite. I can hardly wait.

Garden Update

Here's the latest from the edible side of our efforts.

The squash and the apricots.

Here come the grapes and the pecans.

Peaches and blueberries

The first of the strawberries . . .

and a bowl of ripening apricots.

First Fruit

The first fruit of the season that we got to taste were the blueberries, but it was just a taste. So far the four bushes we have with fruit have been offering up only one or two deep blue berries every few days. Just enough for a sampling of the promised bounty to come.

The apricots are another matter entirely. The tree is mature and has been waiting only for someone to water it sufficiently. We complied and it is covered with fruit which have begun to turn the telltale golden orange. Today I picked the first of the crop. We have five ripening in the in the ripening bowl and I sliced up about ten others which we three divided. . . Fabulous!

Vaya con Dios, Mr. Reagan

Ronald Reagan has passed on and this morning I was listening on public radio to the testimonials. In addition to the statements from the well known, I was impacted by all of the everyday people who were moved to go to the funeral home or the Reagan library and pay respects. Reagan inspired and was cared for by so many.
May God grant us more leaders of his caliber and vision.