Back from Grand Junction....

I am finally catching up after my five-day Thanksgiving trip to Grand Junction. I spent two nights with my brother Jacob and his wife Lisa with their two great daughters Aura and Emie. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Sue's, Lisa's mother. My father with brothers Jesse and Jarrett, also came to dinner. My father, a recovering Jehovah Witness, rarely attends these sorts of events but he had a good time. My brother Judd, along with his girlfriend Devon, and their son Keegan, also showed up for dinner.

Friday I babysat Keegan while Judd ran some errands. Keegan is still on oxygen but he is growing quickly and really interacts well with everyone. I haven't babysat in a while and while I am happy that I don't have children, growing older with a large family means that I can enjoy my nephews and nieces without needed to add to the gene pool.

On Saturday I went clothes shopping, mainly work clothes, and then in the afternoon I drove out to visit my mother and sister Angie. We went on a drive in my new Rodeo, and drove over East Orchard Mesa. Mom showed one of the houses she cleans for and we stopped at a new (to me) Colorado State Wildlife Area named after Tilman Bishop. I meet Bishop once at a concert when I stayed summers during college with my grandparents. My grandfather Bob, knew Bishop and introduced me. That was a while ago. The new wildlife area drops down to South side of the Colorado river and while it was cold, I feel good that this area is now protected.

Saturday night I went shopping at the Barnes and Noble and I ran into an old friend, Ross. Ross is a manager there and next time I'm Grand Junction, we will try to get together. I purchased two books; a richly illustrated hardback edition of Miyamoto Musashi's A Book of Five Rings and a paperback of Neal Stephenson The King of Vagabonds. I didn't realize until I got home that it was already included in Quicksilver so I'll just donate the paperback and order The Confusion through Marmot.

My brother Jarrett will be here tomorrow afternoon so we can go snowboarding at Crested Butte this weekend. Jesse and Jake are planning to come up this weekend. I need to look for a cheap snowboard and bindings. Jarrett has an extra pair of boots. My old snowboard was one of the many things that were stolen in my years in Salt Lake City.

Next posts I will write about possible plans to start teaching Aikido in the Gunnison Valley and some thoughts about Knox College.

Finished Cahill's "How the Irish Saved Civilization"

I enjoyed Thomas Cahill's "How the Irish Saved Civilization". This work was popular history and provided a factual and lyrically overview of the time period from the fall of Rome to the Middle Ages. The two major historical figures of Christine and Irish histories highlighted in the book were Augustine of Hippo to Saint Patrick. Cahill's description of Augustine's Confessions, as the first time emergence of the self-conscious "I" in human literature and philosophy I did not know.

I also enjoyed much of the early Irish poetry Cahill included in his book. Here are a couple of stanzas from "The Hermit's Song":

Grant me sweet Christ the grace to find-
Son of the living God!-
A small hut in a lonesome spot
To make it my adobe.

A little pool but very clear
To stand beside the place
Where all men's sins are washed away
By sanctifying grace.

A pleasant woodland all about
To shield it from the wind,
And to make a home for singing birds
Before it and behind.

A southern aspect for the heat
A stream along its foot,
A smooth green lawn with rich top soil
Propitious to all fruit.
(pg. 151-152)

The poem goes on to describe the establishment of a small abbot of monks. This opening really speaks to my desire to create a simple life for myself, that really I don't need more than this monk needed over a thousand years ago.

Chicken-Pumpkin Curry Soup...

This past weekend I baked a small pumpkin I purchased before Halloween. I didn't know what to do with the resulting squash. Yesterday, I did a Google search for pumpkin soup and didn't find anything I wanted to follow exactly but I was given the idea to make a curry-based soup.

Last night I as at one of the two grocery stores in Gunnison (Safeway on Tomichi) and purchased an onion, cumin, chicken-broth, a package of drumsticks, and a quart of half-and-half. I first browned the chicken with the onion and then added all of the chopped pumpkin (I don't have a food processor, otherwise I would have creamed the pumpkin), the cumin, curry powder, and chicken-broth. I cooked the soup down for about an half-hour before adding about half of the cream. After cooking for another forty-five minutes with some instant rice, the soup tasted nice and creamy. The pumpkin and cream provided a rich base to the cream, although I wish I had better curry than the canned variety.

I also have enough left-over that I'm going to have nice dinner tonight as well.

Status

Last night I woke up numerous times with intestinal difficulties that continue today. I ate a bowl of City Market's generic cereal this morning but I am amazed that I still have any material left in my intestines. My stomach has gotten a great work-out but I'm not worried that I'll lose my beer belly, although stomach flu and no food make for a thin man.

Another Friday movie night...

My anti-social life continued this past Friday night with a robot romp, a made-up autobiography, and crime among drug dealers in Southern California. I rented from Redbox, "The Hoax" with Richard Gere; "Alpha Dog" with Justin Timberlake, Sharon Stone, and Bruce Willis; and "Transformers". While The Hoax and Alpha Dog are based on true events (whatever that means), Transformers is clearly fiction.

During the 1980's when the Transformer cartoon showed on Saturday mornings, I never saw the show. My parents did not have a television and the only opportunity I had for watching television, in particular Saturday morning cartoons, was at my grandmother's house when she would have my brother Jake and I stay overnight. Some of my best memories growing up was watching television those rare mornings while eating multiple bowls of cold cereal.

Richard Gere plays Clifford Irving, failing writer needing some recognition of his writing skill and talent, becomes a literary con artist in the Hoax. Irving fabricates an autobiography of Howard Huges. I enjoyed this film and I learned that Irving's book contributed to Richard Nixon's paranoia leading to Watergate. Nixon trivia always interests me, being a child of the 70's and all. Nixon was born exactly 60 years before I was (January 9th, 1913) and he was a Quaker (like me).

Alpha Dog showed that Justin Timberlake can somewhat act, but I wasn't wowed by his performance as some of the reviewers of this movie were (see Salon's review). One problem I have is that I don't know what is a "real" event and what is dramatic fiction especially when the characters are not real matches with their real-world counterparts.