Back on Track

I've been at least mentally derailed from my Peace Corps pursuit the past six weeks since my cardiologist detected my cardiac arrythmia. More tests, nervous that this could exclude me from service. But I got word yesterday that all the tests have come back conclusive that I am cardiologically A-OK. So while this is not the final word, I will submit all of my medical and dental records to the Peace Corps and await patiently their decision which I am now confident will be acceptance.

The next and final step in the process will be their letter with an offer. I don't expect this until probably September as the medical evaluation takes quite a long time. This letter will have a date to enter service (expected to be in November), a country of service (expected to be West Africa), and presumably a list of what to pack and get innoculated against. I have already been told that I will be doing environmental education, which is along the lines of what I requested. Not sure at this point what that entails and I don't care. I'm trying to be open. I do know that I will be doing many other things like AIDS education.

I don't know yet if the park service will grant me a leave of absence, but I'm not much caring about that either. I've found out that I don't have to cash out my government retirement and that is the only thing I was really worried about.

So back to plan A of spending the summer finishing my thesis, working on my French, and spending time in the mountains with Tule. Oh yeah, and finding her a home.


Getting ready for the jungle with cousin Judy's corn snake. You could say we bonded.

Heavy Boots

“Summer comes marching in, with his heavy boots on” sings Patty Griffin in her song Florida. Oskar says he has heavy boots when he is sad, in Jonathan Safran Foer’s luminous and heartbreaking 9/11 novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. There are heavy boots this week in Florida, as my Uncle Jim, Short-Stack to the gals at IHOP, passed away after what seems to be a well-lived life. I’ve been reading Buddhist meditations on impermanence and death. I have a long way to go to emotionally accept what I intellectually see so easily. This is common which is why so much has been written on the subject. Listening to a small story, trying to understand the contents of a life, witnessing the search for meaning. Mary Oliver gets it pretty right, in The Leaf and the Cloud:

Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves.

A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.

Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.

Oskar gets it pretty right too.

Canoe Regatta

Yesterday some visitors were sharing stories of the Strawberry Festival on Vachon Island where they used to live. Small town good times. I told them about our Fourth of July parade here in Independence that goes up the street and turns around and comes back again. Yeah, that's the idea. Where I grew up the big annual party is the Canoe Regatta over Memorial Day weekend. An actual 70 mile canoe race down the Susquehanna with international entrants that culminates in my hometown with a weekend carnival and fireworks.

I had my own canoe regatta this week. Well, I fell out of a canoe, anyway. Does that count? With the Owens River being rewatered, there are vast stretches that are navigable by small craft like kayaks and canoes. B. owns two small kayaks and a canoe so we went out one afternoon with his neighbors. They took the kayaks and we took the canoe. The plan was solid except for the dog factor. Tule was not down with sitting still. Could be all the derogatory Tule comments directed at the streamside vegetation. The river gets extremely clogged with tule reeds, although the stretch we were on was pretty clear.

Anyway, predictably, I suppose, she swamped us. Everything got soaked and we lost a beer - an offering to the river gods, our company agreed. My cell phone dried out successfully, but in anticipation for such an eventuality I did not bring my camera. Either way there would be no pictures. After a few more attempts at bringing the dog into the fold, she and I were banished from the canoe and we waded down river and walked along the bank. It all made for a lovely afternoon.

Red-winged blackbirds, great blues, and mallards were the birds of the day. Not many trees on that stretch of the river, but the hope is that willows and such will return as the years go by, enticing more fish, birds, and other critters.

Because B. is the utter picture of patience, we can try introducing the dog to the canoe again. And perhaps I can enlist friends and coworkers into staging some sort of race down our lazy little Owens River. Especially if we end at the burrito place.

Crazy? Nah, just 40

Playing with the new camera. That's Hayduke. Took about a hundred pictures of the cats and dog trying to figure out settings. Then pictures of me on the occasion of my birthday. Quite a week: the annual Manzanar pilgrimage with something like 1100 people in attendance; turned 40 and ate cake; gum surgery; heart tests; more cake, now with ice cream; more Warren Oates movies (my current obsession) and more Leni Riefenstahl 30s alpine adventure movies (B's current obsession); an extention on my thesis deadline; and finally a glorious afternoon nap.

Nasturtiums are starting to bloom in the pots out front. Lots of flowers around the valley. Datura are starting to bloom down south. We are full up of Mojave asters and the globemallow are starting.

Here are some results of playing with the new camera. I promise to be disciplined and toss out two thirds or more of what I take!