2008: The Year In Review

It was the best of years and the worst of years. But then aren’t they all?

The kids are doing well, and that’s the best.

The family is getting by OK despite health problems of my siblings, and Mom is doing well.

The dogs and cats are good; the dogs are wonderful, actually, as always, though they’re showing their ages. Charlie’s snoring and wheezing is unreal.

It was the (second) best year for love (2006 was better, or was it 2005?), but ended up being the worst. All the king's horses...

It was the best year ever for Double R Brand, way beyond expectations. So I’m closing it down. Makes sense, right?

It was the best year for travel. Utah is the memory of a lifetime. I hope soon it will stop being so painful.

Good old friends are still around, and that’s the best, a blessing. To quote one, “It's easy to have good friends...but much harder to have old friends.”

It was an excellent year for new friends and neighbors.

It was the best year in the garden for peppers, but not so great for tomatoes. The figs pulled through in the end, sweet jewels.

It was an OK year for dancing — at least a start. Hoping this year, starting with Salsa again, will be better. Not ready to give up yet.

It was the best year ever for gas mileage, and 2008 will be better still.

It was the best year ever for company in Uniontown; there were more people at Brambly Hedge over the holidays than in the entire two years prior. (It’s nice to have the quiet back, though.)

It was nearly the best year for hunting. The freezer is full, and the wealth is spread around.

It was a lousy year for writing. Nothing significant accomplished, other than these feeble missives on the Daily.

So here's to the year about to begin: May it be the best ever for you, gentle Reader! May your life be blessed with health and love and contentment and prosperity enough.

Happy New Year!

Tragic Ending...

It would be disrespectful not to salute and bid adieu to Benazir Bhutto. I don't know what kind of leader she was — it looks like mixed reviews to me — but she certainly inspired the love and admiration of many people. And her beauty, the dark hair, the dark eyes, the heavy make-up typical of the elite classes of central/southwestern Asian Muslim women, was just breathtaking.

The Pakistani leadership has certainly learned something from the Bush playbook. If they repeat "Al Qaeda" enough, they can count on the media mindlessly parroting it, and it will become de facto truth. Shame the media can't figure out for itself and repeat, "Musharraf, Musharraf..."

May she rest in peace. And may God help the people of Pakistan, and all of us.

Photo: T. Mughal/European Pressphoto Agency, as published by The New York Times.

"Choosing A Dog"

by William Stafford, from The Way It Is. © Graywolf Press, 1998. Reprinted without permission, stolen from The Writer's Almanac.

"It's love," they say. You touch
the right one and a whole half of the universe
wakes up, a new half.

Some people never find
that half, or they neglect it or trade it
for money or success and it dies.

The faces of big dogs tell, over the years,
that size is a burden: you enjoy it for awhile
but then maintenance gets to you.

When I get old I think I'll keep, not a little
dog, but a serious dog,
for the casual, drop-in criminal —

My kind of dog, unimpressed by
dress or manner, just knowing
what's really there by the smell.

Your good dogs, some things that they hear
they don't really want you to know —
it's too grim or ethereal.

And sometimes when they look in the fire
they see time going on and someone alone,
but they don't say anything.

Solstice!

See you bright and early tomorrow, 12/22, at 1:08 a.m.

Interesting...And Oh, So Timely!

Today's Scorpio Horoscope
October 23 - November 21

The thing about new beginnings is that they can be kind of scary sometimes! If you are entering into any new relationships, new business ventures or new journeys today, you can expect a bumpy (but very interesting) ride. Do not let this dissuade your from moving forward, however. You are entering a phase where challenges will enrich you like never before. Remember that forewarned is forearmed and take comfort in the fact that you can handle any curveball that is thrown your way!

RIP, Dear Rumi

It was on this night in 1273 that Rumi died.

A Voice through the Door

Sometimes you hear a voice through the door
calling you, as fish out of water
hear the waves, or a hunting falcon
hears the drum's Come back. Come back.

This turning toward what you deeply love
saves you. Read the book of your life,
which has been given you.

A voice comes to your soul saying
Lift your foot. Cross over.

Move into the emptiness
of question and answer and question.

— Rumi

Of Figs And Frost

Sometimes I actually do learn my lessons. The fig I planted in 2006 barely survived the winter, but rebounded to produce a late, sweet crop of luscious fruit. I almost learned the hard way that Ficus Celeste is not cold-hardy in this zone. So today, I wrapped her up in landscape cloth, wrapped the tallest branches in bubble wrap, then made a square cage of landscape cloth about a foot out, and filled in between with leaves. Added a tall spike as a tent post, then draped the whole thing in a tarp anchored with rocks at the bottom. Hopefully, that will keep her warm enough.

Jake helped me for the last few parts, which was nice because it took four hands. Afterwards, he convinced me to get my bow out, and he ran and got his. I had not shot in a year, and I have never shot with Jake. I shot three rounds of six arrows each at 20 yards, and all but two or three were bull's eyes. Whew! Preserved my status.

While we were shooting, neighbor Bob offered one of his pumpkins that was headed for the compost heap as a target. So we killed it good.

(Sigh.)

...Alas,
some goodbyes are like death;
they bring the heart to earth
and teach it how to die.

— George Johnston

I Want One of Those Shirts...Any One!

Murdani Usman/Reuters

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia at the talks in Bali.

Yes, This Is The Challenge...

"It is so easy to chatter about the Beautiful. But it takes more genius to say, in proper style, 'close the door,' or 'he wanted to sleep,' than to give all the literature courses in the world."

— Gustave Flaubert

And on another note, he wrote:

"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost."

Ah, for the sweet bliss of ignorance!

Listening

Listen, and feel the beauty of your separation,
the unsayable absence.

There is a moon inside of every human being.
Learn to be companions with it.

Give more of your life to this listening.

As brightness is to time,
so you are to the one who talks
to the deep ear in your chest.

I should sell my tongue and buy a thousand ears
when that one steps near and begins to speak.

— Rumi

What the EPA?!?

Wow!

The way the instrumentation is set up on the Hybrid, you can see what kind of mileage you're getting on any given trip via the "Eco-Meter," but it pegs at 42 MPG. (You get real-time feedback via an analog gauge, but that's not terribly helpful.) So you never know how well you're doing if you're doing better than 42...except when you fill up — which I did for the first time this morning — because then you can check the "tank average," which is one and the same as the trip average for the very first trip you take after gassing up. So...

This morning I filled up and drove down to Baltimore and got:

48.4 MPG!

Wow.

Happy B-Day, KG!

You shall be free indeed
when your days are not
without a care nor your nights
without a want and a grief,
but rather when these things
girdle your life and
yet you rise above them
naked and unbound.

— Kahlil Gibran, born 1883

Doing the Right Thing

I guess sometimes the right thing involves a car payment, but I have no regrets. Seems like the payback will be real, and maybe happen even faster than I calculated. It’s a Camry Hybrid, and it is one fantastic car, for the same money as a similarly equipped Camry SE. I’m able to routinely peg the “eco-meter” at 42MPG (getting rewarded with a flashing “Excellent!” when I turn the…I mean push the button to stop the engine). I intentionally drove it harder today to make sure I’m not babying it too much during the break-in, and still pegged a 42 this morning, and got solidly in the mid-30s driving aggressively back from Baltimore tonight. I was a bit skeptical, since I never logged below 31MPG in the 02 gas-engine Camry. But I am a believer now!

And the car is just beautiful. It rides so smoothly and sooooo quiet! Coming home tonight, on electric power through the 25MPH section of Uniontown Road, I could actually hear my watch ticking while my hand was on the steering wheel. It's not much noiser when the gas powerplant is operating. And it does so much thinking for me. It unlocks the door. It turns the heater on at the right time when the engine has warmed. It turns the lights on when it's dark. It dims the mirror when headlights are shining in. The built-in Bluetooth is a real luxury and safety essential, with clarity that beats the handset and earpiece by a mile, with push-button operation on the steering wheel. Of course, it turns the stereo off automatically whenever I make or receive a call.

And the icing on the cake is it qualifies as a Super-Ultra-Low Emission Vehicle — emitting less than 10% of the pollutants of similar vehicles — and earns the EPA’s SmartWay Elite designation.

It's the ideal vehicle for anyone doing serious commuting; high MPG and you still feel like you have a substantial vehicle around you.

So humor me this bit of gloating. Seems like win-win-win-win to me. Except for that dang payment!

The Sweet Taste of Grief

I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow
and called out.
It tastes sweet, does it not?

You have caught me, grief answered,
and you have ruined my business.

How can I sell sorrow,
when you know it's a blessing?

— Rumi

Happy Birthday, Woody!

"Life [is] full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly."

— Woody Allen (appropriated from The Writer's Almanac, as usual)