Heaven

My travel plans have been waylaid because I have found heaven in Northern Thailand.

                                                The terrace and dining room at Cave Lodge

I am at Cave Lodge near Soppong.  It is truly incredible.  From crazy partying Bangkok and Chaing Mai

to rivers and caves and he sound of frogs and gibbons and birds.

                                        An evening stroll to work out the kinks from the little moto

You will have to look it up.  It is between Pai and Mae Hong Son in Northwest Thailand.

                                                           Hamming it up for the fa-rang

I am staying here at least another day.

                                                                This does not suck

Riding motos is Thailand ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                       Sleeping in Style in my little bungalow

Heading North

Tomorrow morning the moto journey begins. I am very reluctantly leaving Chang Mai, comforted that I am looping back here in five days. I guess it is a sign of a trip well traveled if one is sad to leave each place one has been.

I will be looping north and west put of CM upwards Mae Hong Sung and then south and east back to CM. It is about a 1200 km loop.

Gentleman start your engine.

Today was a church day with much merit making on many Buddhist temples which are, of course Wats.
A good day. A very good day

                                                  The ancient City Stupa at Chiang Mai

                                                      Morning at the Wat, one of many

                                                  The monk's alms bowls, ready for their rounds

Blogging may get pretty spotty for the next few but I am sure the little moto and I will be fine.
Sent from my iPod

Chaing Mai

What a change from Bangkok An easy flight to the Capitol of all things cool and laid back.

                                                            The Saturday Night Market

I just walked one of the most amazing markets of my life which relived me of excess baht. Here there were more Thais shopping than fa-lang which was very refreshing. I started my evening walk by stumbling onto the shop where I am renting my little moto on Monday so I got to meet my trusty steed for a week of exploring in the Golden Triangle. I am so excited!!!!!

Now I am smoking an excellent cigar and watching the incredible scene of people and motos and tuk-tuks. Life is very, very good my friends. Be well!

                                                              Early morning at the Wat

                                                                   Its not just a tree
Sent from my iPod

Bangkok China Town

Holy Cripes are my feet sore!  Hours and hours of wandering through the maze of Bangkok's China Town.

I am absolutely at tired to my bones and at peace with everything.

The day started out with coffee and fresh fruit and a walk down to the river for the Chao Praya Express boat, the only way to get around the Big Mango.  We're heading for the maze of Chinatown!

                                        The Chao Praya Express Boat.  Forget your personal space.

                                             The Big Mango from the water.  No Traffic!!

Off of the boat and into Chinatown.  The first thing I learned is that you have to read the directions very, very carefully and be ready to do a lot of back-tracking.  But everything is so much fun to gawk at, smell and sample that who cares.  You are definitely going to get lost.  Get used to the idea.  Its the best thing that can happen to you.

                                                           A quiet Soi in Chinatown

                                             This is a lightly traveled Soi.  They get lots tighter

Chinatown is about commerce.  Its a busy place.  As I wandered this way and that, trying to find the landmarks that the Lonely Planet was extolling the virtues of, I was amazed at the sheer volume of trade that was shoe-horned into every available square foot of real estate.  And almost everything that comes in or out of Chinatown comes in on a scooter, tuk-tuk, or very small truck.  Once it gets that far, it is unloaded by hand.

                                                     Unloaded and stacked by hand Baby!

Do you like shoes?  Do you like cool-ass shoes for $ 3.33?  This is your kinda place.  Not only can you get a great pair of shoes for 100 baht, the fake Prada label comes with the deal at no extra charge.  The fake stuff from Bangkok is so ubiquitous that some of the more outrageous fakes are becoming cool in and off themselves.  The oft-quoted example is Louis Vitton fanny packs.  Of course LV makes no such thing but that doesn't mean you can't buy them in Chinatown.  The more fake and more kitsch the better.

                                                               If it goes on a foot, its here

I wandered down smaller lanes or "Soi" to the quieter parts along the river.  There are alleys that are all devoted to the same business, just like in Mexico City.  Since addresses are so hard to find, like businesses tend to group together in the same area.  So you have old engine row, down on Soi.  Each shop seems to have a slightly different specialty, whether is disassembly or crankshafts.

                                                  Where your engine goes to be reincarnated

Of course, while all this commerce is going on, folks are getting hungry.  The possibilities for food are almost endless as long as you aren't needing a sandwich.  There is so much food available, either on the fin or cooked up at a stall and ready to eat, that it is truly mind-boggling.

                                                                   Its gotta be fresh

I almost walked my feet right off of my legs.  Finally, it was back to the river and homeward bound.

                                       If you read the little stenciled sign, it says "Space for Monks"

OK, so I know that people talk about fleeing Bangkok as soon as the plane lands.  I have heard a lot of horror tales and was given the advice to get out of town as soon as possible.  This was not my experience.  While I readily acknowledge that Bangkok can be maddening, at the same time it is rewarding and magnificent.  As the Chao Praya Express slipped past Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn, I was ready for another evening of Bangkok dining and exploring.  I will miss this huge and crazed city.

                                              Wat Arun, a Khmer Style Stupa, the Dawn Temple

That's all the blog that there is folks.  Travelling to Chang Mai tomorrow and I will blog from there.

Thailand had already stolen my travelling heart.

Day # 60 whatever -- Bangkok

If I were to be struck blind for my sins, I would live in Bangkok.  It could happen and I might.  Sins there are, whether or not they warrant blindness.

A blind man would still have the amazing input of Bangkok's olfactory overload.  Garbage and Incense at the same time, dog shit and the most sublime food smells I have ever been lucky enough to inhale.  River smells and canal smells and two-stroke smoke from the Tuk-tuks and moto taxis.  It is an experience to close your eyes and try to sort through all of the wonders that the air is wafting ones way.

And hell hath no fury like a Bangkok traffic jam, which can happen for any reason or none at any time.  Traffic simply stops.  On the way to my bicycle tour location, the event of the day, I had to abandon my tuk-tuk driver when the entire road just stopped.  And stayed stopped.  I out walked the morass and caught a metered taxi to the other side of Bangkok, the high-rent super chic shopping district.

On a back street was the bicycle tour.  I thought the moto taxi was insane.  Riding a bicycle in Bangkok is like a slow motion ballet with a fast motion salsa all going on at once.  It should be a complete disaster but somehow most everyone lives.

                                                            Joy tells us "Try not to die"

Big wide roads

                                                       Canals are all over, know as Klangs

Five hours on a bicycle in intense urban traffic, tiny lanes, through markets, across the river on a dragon-tail boat and then into the rural oasis just across the river.

                                      Shopping Thai Style.  The guys in blue vest will tote your stuff

                                                      Thai people love to get their picture taken

                                                       Dragon Tail boat across the river

We road throught the flood plains on elevated concrete walkways three feet wide with a three or four foot drop on both sides into the swamps and palms.  No railings and sharp turns.  Kilometers of paths.  The idea of liability alone would make this an impossibility in the USA but here it is simply done.  Try not to fall, OK.

                                                           Look Ma, no rails.  Don't fall!

The tour ended, I set out to cross Bangkok again, this time by foot, by sky train and then canal boat.  The commuter boats sweep up to the dock, motor blaring.  You

leap onto the boat with the Thais and if you dally, you are unceremoniously left behind.  Controlled chaos like all means of transportation here.

                                    A Klang Boat.  The visqueen is to keep the water off of you.  Icky!!

The day ended with a foot massage, a good cigar and possibly the finest meal I have ever had in a tiny hole in the wall.  My new favorite food are Roti, savory pancakes filled

with meats or fish curries or sweet things like pumpkin or bannanas for dessert.

                                                                      Roti!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just the second day and the reality of Bangkok is kicking my expectations to the curb.

It is also maddening.  I have an inate sense of direction that the streets of Bangkok laugh at.  I have been lost twice and turned around numerous times.  Since I have walked the labyrinth of Lisbon without a hitch, I pride myself on knowing where I am.  Bangkok has made a mincemeat of that and I keep heading out for more.  Tomorrow its up early for the river express boat to China Town and a walking and eating tour, guided by me.  From what I have heard about China Town, I may never return.

Day # 68-ish Lost in Bangkok

First of all, I thought I had seen and done a thing or two in my life.  Let me tell you Brothers and Sisters, I ain't

done doodly.   Until today that is.  Today I had a graphic demonstration of the transient nature of life.  I also looked at a whole bunch of Buddhas, but that is not where the transient bit came in, although that is part of the teachings.

                                                              Many, many Buddhas

                                                                        Wat Pho

No.  The fleeting and temporal thing that is life was clearly illustrated to me via a motorcycle taxi ride through Bangkok at rush hour.  I lived, I am glad I did it and life is sweet right now.

I walked the city of Bangkok hours and hours today.  After the amulet market and Wat Pho and a traditional Thai massage and climbing the Golden Mount, I thought I had a lock on my guesthouse location.  No such
luck.

                                                   The stupa atop the Golden Mount

                                        Well, the guest house is out there somewhere:  Bangkok

Bangkok is a labyrinth.  In fact, it reminds me of Lisbon in that and address is only a theoretical starting point for finding something.  Even with the address a whole bunch of cops, cabbies and even a retired diplomat have to agree that such a place actually exists in the collective consciousness before it will exist as a place someone will take you to.  Even on a tiny moto weaving through spaces that aren't physically possible.  

Here's a tip:  keep your knees tight to the bike.

Amazing day, amazing city.  Noisy frantic, laid back and beautiful all at the same time.

Tomorrow is a bicycle tour!!  Damn.  

No time to edit this as the meter is running.  Ciao.  

Day # 68 Now is the time...

OK, OK I am officially excited now and allowing myself to be so.  This morning was the last time I will awaken in my bed at home for a full month

Tonight, well, tonight is basically sleeping upright on a plane but eventually "tonight" will be sleeping in Bangkok.
20 hours of flight time, two sleeping pills and melatonin, one probably crazy taxi ride and I will be there.

I've got two books on my I-touch and two books in my bag, tunes, snacks and an International Driver's license. Time to learn to moto of the wrong side of the road.  Yee Haw!!

Next Blog post will be on Thai time.

Day # 66 There it is

As David Bromberg once warbled, "I got someone else's blues, in the midst of.....an almost perfect day"

The day started without rain.  Hallelujah.  This was followed by a lovely walk through the neighborhood to get my last acupuncture treatment before I get on the plane.  I love acupuncture and what a good thing to do on a Saturday.  Can I get a witness?

An apres-poking fish taco was next on the agenda to fuel my walk down to the beach, where I would meet the TBG.  By the time the taco had encountered my gastric juices, the sun, yes the actual warm orb itself, had decided to grace us with its presence.  I warmed my bones on the walk down to the beach, reveling in the solar rays.

Once at the beach, the sun streaming down, I claimed my usual bench and pulled out a nice Cuban puro with which to heap scorn and smoke on the State Department.  As I was trimming said puro, a guy sat down at the next bench and politely asked me if I minded a little Ukulele music?  I informed him, quite the contrary and please play on.  We had a nice chat as he played and I smoked, awaiting the TBGs arrival, which came soon enough.

Americano at hand and puro at the ready, she talked and I smoked whilst he strummed and the cute kids and hounds promenaded to and fro.  Eventually our conversation wandered to current events, yes news, and the TBG informed me that the INS agents in Ellensburg had, in their infinite wisdom, dragged some thirty latinos from their homes, arresting many of them in front of their children, separating children from parents.

OK, here it is:  "What the hell?"  I am solidly with Steve Earle on this one.  We ARE all immigrants.  Not only that, the big societal "We" have created an economic need for farm and service labor that depends on our brothers and sisters from the South.  Ask any orchard owner in Wenatchee.  Take a peak in any restaurant kitchen in the US.


 "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"


As for the xenophobic nut-cases (yeah, ad hominem, you bet) who want to seal our borders, kick all of the "illegals" out, blah-blah-blah...... yeah right.


First, you cannot and never will be able to seal the land borders between the US and Canada or the US and Mexico.  As for the walls and fences, who in the hell are you going to hire to build the damn things?  Yes, you guessed it.


Second, if you don't want the migrant workers and cheap labor in kitchens, pony up for the extra costs of apples and prepared meals.  While you are at it, stop creating the economic system that draws the labor from the South.  I could go on about Monsanto bankrupting Mexican corn farmers, but that's a rant for another day.


Third:  if you really think you are all that "American" whatever that means, let me have a few minutes to review your family tree.  I can guarantee you that without going too far back there will be a boat ride in your family's history.  And brothers and sisters, that boat, she came from somewhere else.


Finally, round up twelve million people?  Have you taken complete leave of your senses you right wing loonies?  You Homeland Security War on Terrorism folks can't even catch Osama Bin Laden and he's on dialysis.  Do you really think you can round up twelve million people, seal off the borders and stem the tide of economic migration and at the same time fund all of the wars you want to fight against the other brown peoples?  It don't pencil Bubba!  Or as my good pal used to say, "That dog ain't gonna hunt".


So actually, I'm doing well, thanks for asking.  I did have someone else's blues, but this rant has helped even things out.  Even though I am not doing the news, just hearing about this from word-of-mouth makes me cringe with embarrassment at some of the stupid crap my country does.


I hope all of us immigrants can squeeze out a good day, even in the face of this kind of miss-guided and hurtful  policy.

Day # 65 Flat

I should be giddy or giggling.  I have finished my last day at the office for the next thirty-plus days.  No working for over a month.  Exotic travel to distant lands.  And yet it just feels like Friday.

I had a lovely americano on the way home by means of celebration  The house is quiet and that is good as well.  I suppose everything is exactly as it should be.  Surprise!  Maybe I am becoming more Taoist in my old age, or maybe the reality of the moment can't live up to the expectation.  I think I will have to go with some degree of the former.  I don't feel let down, I just feel here.

And yes, this is a purely personal post tonight so if you need a larger, more encompassing message, I suggest that today is not the day.  I will try to work up a good rant for tomorrow.

In preparation for the long flight out, I downloaded two books to my I-touch in addition to the travel guides.  The first book is Patti Smith's "Just Kids" and the second is Jamie Ford's "The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet".  I am ready to start the electronic reading experiment.  I have a real paper book as well, which I am going to tag and abandon when I am done with it.  That should be around the Bangkok airport, but maybe by Seoul.  I will right my first name, starting and ending points and the date and abandon the book to its fate with other readers.  Hopefully if will fall into the grasp of someone needing a good read and not wanting to suffer the fate of the airport news stand collection.

I am ready to cast myself onto the whims of the travel gods as well.

Day # 65 Predictable

Why is is that no matter what, the work thing planned to occur just before a vacation will inevitably push into the time when I will be gone?  Is this some sort of test?  Did the Universal Tool Shed (UTS) think that there is some smallish thing, like anything work related, that is going to keep me off of that plane on Monday?

Not bloody likely.  Let's see, what could keep me from going?  Jobby-job-job stuff?  Nope.  Impending relationship doom?  Nope, I can be broken-hearted in Asia just as easily as here.  The dead or dying are going to have to do their finalizing without me this time.  The TBG and the Kid are as healthy as the proverbial equine so they will be just ducky without me.

So really, the UTS knows all, so it knows that come Friday afternoon, yeah, like tomorrow, work will cease to exist for thirty days.  The one truly valuable lesson I learned from my worst boss ever was that when it comes to vacations, you schedule that puppy well in advance and them when the date rolls around, you go.  Simple.  End of story.  If the company can't get along without you then you must be really, really important and you need to ask for a huge raise.  Otherwise, get on the plane.

Which is what I will be doing on Monday.

Day # 64 Morphing

The basic premise of this blog is going to be changing for a bit.  While I am still very challenged by my news obsession and my steadfast aim to stick to the year-long boycott, the next five weeks will be much more about travel and much less about whether I am reading the news.

I will still be following the same rules, no reading, listening or surfing for news of current events.  In the immediate future, the newspapers available to me are going to be easy since they will be in either Thai or Laotian and I don't speak or read either.

For the next month or so I am going to be using the blog to talk about my travels in SE Asia.  I am sure other stuff will come up, but wrestling with news obsessions will be a lesser part of the content for awhile.

Day # 63 Jitters

Today, everything has been prefaced with "this is the last..... before I go".  I need to get a haircut "before I go".  I need to see my acupuncturist "B.I.G.".  I need to make sure the Skype phone number works "B.I.G."  This has shot a hole in my living for the moment while experiencing what is now theory.  I am so ready to be gone.

This week is all about tiding up the last details of work responsibilities, making sure the home front is taken care of and getting money out of the bank.  Ah, the actual withdrawing of the travel loot.

One of my "to-do" items was bringing my cigar humidor to the office so I could use the postal scale to weigh out 250 grams of cigars, which is what I am allowed to bring into Thailand without declaration.   In case you are curious, that is about a dozen full sized cigars.

I suppose one of the distinct differences between being categorized as a "backpacker", which I used be, and a "flashpacker" which I am now, is backpackers don't carry a full supply of good cigars.  Well, so be it.  I love having my own room as opposed to a hostel room full of noisy twenty-somethings.  Harrumph, harrumph.  Not going to share my good cigars with those whipper-snappers anyway.

Day # 62 The Living

Today my exposure to news, while not sought out, was that the Seahawks were badly beaten by Chicago and are out of the playoffs.  I don't follow football, and never have, so missing out on this was not anything earth-shattering.  Sorry to any 12th Man or Woman fans that this might offend.

My lovely Sunday started out with a personal e-mail from someone concerning a research site that I had requested information from.  The e-mail was along the lines of "Yes, I knew him in college, he lives in Hootville and I just saw him a few years ago.  What is your interest in Jimmy John?"

In my research to date, I deal with dead people.  Sometimes I deal with the memories of live people about dead people but that is very unusual.  To have a living person contact me to answer a question about another living person is a new experience.  I was very grateful, which I expressed, and somewhat stunned.  I have been filling in the gaps of this man's life, his parents, his birth, school years, marriage and in so doing he has become another of the people in my collection of data.  But in this case, he is more than that.  He is a living person and I have to remember that.

After a career in finance, the subject of this particular inquiry listed his occupation as "professional actor".  This would have been at the age of 67 or so.  I just loved that piece of data.  On a whim, I went to one of my favorite sites, Internet Movie Data Base (these folks seriously rock if you are into film) and looked up my subject.  Sure enough, he is listed as acting in two films, a comedy and a romantic short.  Better yet, there is a picture of him and his wife from one of the movies and both of their names match my data which is a lock on the identity match.  In the picture he looks like a man with a great sense of humour.

With this newest information, this gentleman is no longer a series of documents and verifiable events.  He is a person with a real life and enough of a sense of fun and creativity to become an actor in his 60's.  I have so much more connection with, and respect for, this man whom I have not even spoken to much less met.  If I get the opportunity to do either, I will be on my best behavior to try and explain why I am researching his family and to respect his privacy should he not wish to answer any questions about the past.

In the meantime the story I am researching just gets richer and more interesting, drawing me further and further into its thrall.  There are so many things to know more about.  I have to research the European trading community in Shanghai from the late 1800's to the take-over by the Japanese in the 1930's.  I will need to have a practical understanding of the methods of overseas trading that United States companies engaged in.  The story requires a detailed grasp of steamship travel from the late 1800's through the 1950's and also what travelers experienced on the early Trans-Atlantic commercial airliner flights.

I need to know Manhattan from 1900 to 1965, the Berkshires and what summer places were like for the wealthy and how people were either included or excluded from the New York Social Register.  It is bloody endless and interesting.

There may even be the chance to talk to the occasional living person or two along the way.

Day # 60 Folding Money

Yesterday I attended one of a series of ongoing meetings of a Government-Industry task force that I am a part of.  One of the other members, a former employer and associate of mine, just returned from Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.  He had some travel pointers for me on my upcoming trip.  Some of the things he told me I knew already and some were new information.  I logged it all away in the memory banks and then we got ready for the meeting.

Just before we sat down, my former boss handed me three small stacks of folded bills.  One was a batch of Cambodian Reals, wall paper money outside of the country as no bank will take them or exchange them.  He also gave me 80,000 Laotian Kip, which sounds impressive until you realize its less than ten dollars.  He topped the gift with a few hundred Thai Baht.  I offered to give him some US dollars in exchange but of course he wouldn't take it.

I will admit that I like money, or more specifically, what money will buy.  Still, I would have to think long and hard to remember when a small wad of folded bills made me so happy.  I've got foreign cash in my pocket, ready for the trip!!  I can get off the plane in Bangkok and feel that in some tiny way I am a part of the place because I have the means of exchange.  Of course I am going to buy more Baht before I get to Bangkok, but for some reason, just having those few bills was like the last tumbler on the lock clicking into place and the door swinging open.

I am really going!  I am in the process of bringing my replacement up to speed on the jobs that I have going, tiding up the last details at work and then asking my office person to water my plants, please, while I am away.

Wow!  I hope I survive the next week without having my head blow right off of my shoulders.

Day # 59 Abstract

I am entering what seems to be a dangerous time.  My straight job is kicking the hell out of my work ethic.  I have begun to move through my work day in the abstract, without any part of it seeming to enter into reality.

It is not as if my work doesn't get done or that I hate my job.  My job just doesn't stick to me anymore.  (I really hope my boss is not one of the few people who read this blog)  I go through my day and I accomplish my tasks. I am just as organized, if not more so, than I ever was.  It is not like moving through a dream or just killing time while I am at the office.  Tuesday evening I was working late, getting out two bids, and not even minding the passage of time.  The problem with my job is a lot more insidious than simply disliking it.

The work that I do for money has become an abstract.  I go to the office and the meetings, I get out my bids and manage my projects.  I do my job and I try to do it well, including getting into trouble for saying things that need saying and that no one wants to hear.  The issue is that at the end of the day, all of that has passed through me seemingly without making the slightest impact.  If it were not for the money involved, I would just shake it off like a passing whim.  I know many people would say the same thing and many people go to their work only for the paycheck.  I understand that but for me, this is almost like a movie that I am watching myself act a part in.  I am in it, but I am not in it, even while I am there.

The weird thing is that I am not being unaware while I am at work.  I am trying to be just as mindful during my work day as any other time, but the work time itself is elusive.  I know that I am leaving for a month, a dangerous thing in and of itself, and that this may be impacting my perceptions.  Also, other options are presenting themselves and I am at an age (argh!) where I can actually look ahead to retirement as an option, albeit distant.  I am allowing myself the idea that I could mine a book from the research that I am doing and that writing may be an option for making money instead of making fat men wealthier.

My son turns eighteen in less than two and a half years.  After that, I suddenly have a lot more of my money to keep in my pocket, officially at least.  I don't need to spend it on anything else so it just means I need less money from working.

All of these things are contributing to some serious reconsideration of my work life.  I don't want any part of my life to be an abstract.  I also don't want to sound whiny or to allow myself to think that I am alone in this predicament.  I empathize with the millions of others who are in the same predicament.  Having expiated my selfishness, I will now return to it.

Given the events of late, nothing has illustrated the futility of continuing in my present employment more than starting the book research and buying back a month of my life to devote to travel.  The sneaking truth of both of these things is that neither of them are going to reinforce my need to go to my present employ every day.  Quite the opposite.  Travel makes me want to travel more and research makes me want to write  Perhaps setting out on both of these endeavors is my subconscious minds' way of dealing with what my conscious mind refuses to deal with.

I am worried about returning from a month away.  I am worried that this may be the end of my ability to deal with the abstract and that I will wind up broke and homeless and eating kibbles on the street.  Wait did I really write that?  Have my internal filters failed that badly already.  Uh Oh.

Day # 58

New Flash: Panic in the streets of Seattle, its snowing again.

Let the reindeer games begin.  Guess I'm working from home tomorrow as the prerequisite bumper car semi-finals will commence at the beginning of rush hour tomorrow.  What would be a laughable amount of snow in the Midwest is cataclysmic here in the GreyNorWet.

Its been snowing for less than two hours and yet.... its like instant replay.  Buses are jack-knifed on the hills, the one snow plow is headed to Mayor McGinn's house so he can bicycle around the city.  From the seat of his snowy cycle he will encourage those stranded by the latest bllizzard which has dumped at least a full inch of snow on the ground.

People of Seattle!!  Where is your dignity?  This is pathetic.

Without watching the news, I can tell you that each channel has some poor schmuck or schmuck-ette standing near the freeway or a bridge and "Broadcasting Live To Stormwatch 2011".  Poor sick almost snowy bastards.

It's like some crazed retelling of the Chicken Little story:  "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!" which, in Seattle, is true if someone even whispers that four letter word:  snow.  Two flakes of snow and the buses spin out of control, tip over and burst into flames.  The freeways all become parking lots.  Schools for a four country area lock their doors.

The only positive thing is that friends and neighbors go out and frolic in the snow, trying to build snowmen when there isn't enough accumulation for a mini-me.  I tell you its unseemly to anyone that lives more than a few miles from the equator.

Oh well, if the city wants to give everyone a de facto snow day by allowing the entire infrastructure to come to a complete stop, who am I to bitch too loudly.   Ahem, "let it snow, let it snow, let it snow..."

Day # 56 Anticipation

One of the things I try not to do is to forget to live now because I am busy waiting to live in the future.  Lots of great teachers have warned us that this is not a great thing to do.  Being mindful of today is good.  Forgetting today in anticipation of tomorrow is not so good, not so aware.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote about the people who live for another day, missing the days they have.  Some examples that he uses are soldiers waiting to become civilians again (yuppers, done that one) and students waiting to graduate (check).  Yoda scolds Luke Skywalker for always looking towards the future, never being in the moment and emphasizes his point by repeatedly poking Luke with his ridiculously small cane.  Even the Buddha mentions this idea of the past and future both being illusory.

Today was hard.  In the past I have driven people crazy by not getting excited about upcoming events.  I tell them that I am pleased that such-and-so is drawing near, but that I am trying to be more aware about what is happening right now.  In truth, sometimes I do this because I am truly trying to be a better, more aware person and sometimes because I know it will drive certain people crazy.  Driving people crazy while appearing to take the high road is one of the truly wonderful passive-aggressive pleasures in life and one which I am loath to deny myself, so deal with it.  Oh, yes, today was hard.  Today was hard because I have bought my tickets, chosen my gear and clothes, test-packed my little bag and today purchased my travel books.  I have mis-timed my preparations.  I am ready to leave for SE Asia, tonight if necessary, and still have two weeks before it is time to do so.

Hoisted on my own petard. I hate it when I do that to myself.  Today was crappy, cold and damp in Seattle, with rain and snow and 31 degrees.  Just perfect for destroying my resolve to live in the moment when I could be in Bangkok or Chang Mai where is is 90 degrees (I checked) and sunny.  I could be wishing for a slightly shadier place to sit and smoke a good cigar instead of wishing I had another layer of fleece to put on.  Speaking of not being in the here and now, I am within a hair's breadth of blurting out, in my next business meeting, that I don't give a glorious crap what anyone is saying or thinking, I just want to get on the plane.  so far I have restrained myself but the next two weeks may be a different story.

So my reality check is thus:  Yes, I am leaving for a month and it will be wonderful and I am ready to go.  Meanwhile, back at Rancho Awareness, life is going on as usual.  Business to attend to, life to experience, relationships to maintain.  So even though I am not fooling anyone, I have to try and draw myself back into the moment, remember that anything other than the right now is a tenuous projection of hope and get on with living out the real deal.

Sometimes I hate being a grownup.

Day # 55 Chills and Rewards

Signing on for research of dead people is like inviting new relatives into your life.  They carry all the baggage that your real, living relatives carry, but you can't smack them around or tell them you never want to see them again.  Nor can you talk to them and ask them the questions you want to ask.  Instead of a nice in-person answer to a question from a living, breathing relative, you end up with hours and days of chasing one wisp of a document up dead ends and blind alleys until you realize that this scrap of answer may be the only one you will ever get.

I like my living relatives just fine, but if I had my druthers, I would opt for a few conversations with William Perry Knight or, Caleb Etheridge, ancestors of mine who have brought on sleepless nights and pleading letters to librarians in small towns.  I had to bring in a hired gun to help with William Knight, my Great-great-great-grandfather.  And I owe a debt of gratitude far more than the donation I made to a library in North Carolina for the amazing help of the local librarian there while trying to research land deeds of an Etheridge.

The people keeping me up nights these days are not even kin.  There is no blood connection at all.  Hours slip by as I plot out birth dates, rejoice at a small NY Times obit or birth announcement.  A marriage announcement tells me where someone went to University or what their rank was in the US Army.  Bit by bit, the dead give up the details of their lives through the documentation left behind of isolated moments in time.  Read carefully, an engagement announcement will tell you that the mother father of the groom are separated, but not divorced.

So you may be able to imagine my deepening sense of connection when the passport application photo of my main research subject slowly resolved itself on my computer screen.  There he is, in 1917, looking like a young man ready to take on the world in his high starched collar.  He is heading from New York City to Calcutta, India to become an important player in an overseas trading company, one with which he will remain connected for over fifty years.

Hours and hours of work and suddenly, there he is.  Even though I have a chart of his travels, know when he was born and died and where, the picture is a huge reward.  Its a down payment on the year of research that lies ahead.

Day # 53 New Lessons

In the past, a song would resonate with me for one reason or another.  Something about a lyric or a melody would be pertinent to my life experience at a given time.  Sometimes the connection with a particular song would etch itself into my memory and stay there.

This still happens to me, but in the last few years, instead of wanting to remember a certain song, I want to learn to play it.  I have been playing guitar for some years now.  I used to play as a teenager, but never seriously and never more than strumming chords or doing barre chord progressions.  Just enough guitar to try to impress a girl or two.

These days I take guitar seriously despite a distinct lack of talent.  I can play guitar, but the only way I learn anything is by endless repetition.  For me, there is no such thing as inspiration as a direct result of the intervention of a muse.  There is sometimes perspiration after going over and over some bit that a real player would glide through, but we do what we can.

It is ever so slightly rewarding then, when I only have to play a piece a hundred times rather than a thousand times to have it sound like a song.  Such was the case today, when in an evening I was able to get the basic chord pattern down for my latest ear worm.  The song, "The Weight of Lies" by the Avett Brothers, is a great duet of guitar and banjo.  Being only one player and not as skilled as either of the Avetts, I have to slim it down a bit, but it still sounds pretty good.  I can see the possibility that I am dragging a musical cart with rather more oval wheels these day than the square wheels I started with.

I am in no danger of quitting my day job, at least not to pursue my music career, but it is good to think that playing the same piece over and over again just to get the basic rhythmic sequence has paid off in some way.

I keep threatening myself with the idea of doing another open mic.  Better yet is the idea of finding a couple of people to make music with.  I need some musical friends to collaborate with, both to challenge me and to encourage me.  Or maybe just to have some laughs with.

Day # 52 Proxy

I did not chase the news yesterday but the news did come knocking.

My office is on the edge of some very large industrial parks on the North side of Sumner, WA.  It is a flat river valley that was once some of the richest farmland hereabouts. Many of the farms around here were dedicated to growing turf or sod.  Over the years the land has been paved for parking lots and covered with tilt up warehouses for distribution of goods to Seattle and Tacoma.  It is a wasteland of huge one story building with facades painted in the same muted colours and surrounded by fake landscaping and sidewalks that almost no one uses for there is no where to walk to.

Since Monday, the area has around my office has been searched by helicopter, the local police, search and rescue and volunteers with blood hounds.  The subject of this search was a 21 year old man.  He had apparently been to a New Year's Eve party at one of the warehouses close around here.  Why a party at a warehouse, I don't know.  Lots of stuff goes on around here after hours.  The man never made it home.  First his friends searched the area, cruising around in their cars and trucks and then the search became more official.

Yesterday, as I was leaving the office, the road West was blocked with myriad flashing lights.  I usually go another way and I did, leaving what I thought were more searchers to do their work.  This morning we fwere told  that the police had found the young man's body in a ditch along the railroad tracks just West of my office.  So far the police do not have a cause of death but have tentatively ruled out trauma.  It seems that this poor person, for whatever reason, ended up in the watery ditch off of a small road in an almost deserted neighborhood and died there, alone.

I share the usual feelings that people have about tragic events like this.  I say things like "What a waste" when talking about it with my office mates.  What I feel, on only a slightly deeper level, is what a lucky bastard I am.  In my years of being an addict, there were so many, many times I could have ended up just like this poor guy, dead in a ditch.  I pushed the edge of the darkness so hard, so many times, I do not need to ask "How could he die like that?"  I know exactly how it could happen.  Leaving somewhere, blind on alcohol or whatever else, not knowing where I was going or why.  I do not know if that is the case with this event and I do not wish to speak ill of the dead but generally, sober people don't end up dead in ditches without the intervention of bad folks taking their stuff.

I am very, very sorry for a life lost in such a needless fashion.  It truly is tragic, especially for someone so young.  I watched this happen with some regularity when I was going to Twelve-Step meetings.  The old-timers, of whom I am now one (don't use and don't die), call the folks who "go back out" and drink the Rangers.  The Rangers go back out into the drinking and drugging world and try again to fight the good fight.  If they are lucky, they get their asses kicked, often literally as well as figuratively and then they come back to the meeting tables to tell the rest of us how bad it was.  They enlighten by negative example. If they aren't so lucky, they never come back.

I am very sorry that this young man is not coming back.  His stark and lonely death speaks to me on a gut level, re-informing me how precious and tentative this whole business of life is and how many times I could have ended up just like him.  But so far I have not, and for that luck and blessing I an thankful and I realize, again, that I have a debt to settle.  I never know when I get to pay back a little, but it happens and I hope that it continues to happen for a good long time.  Its a big debt and I need awhile to work it off.

Day # 51 Obsessed

I never said I wan't a bit obsessive.  Who else but an obsessive information gatherer would spend more than three hours a day gleaming news from the papers, airwaves and web.  So you take that away and something has to give, right?  Right.

The thing that has absorbed me now is the yawning maw of research.  I am living in the world of my new found companion, the man of the letter, he whom requested his young lover have an abortion in 1917.  So far I know this man's travels around the world, his home on Park Avenue, but more accurately his home on board some of the finest steamships afloat at the middle of the 20th Century.  The Queen Mary, the Aquitaine, The Empress of Russia.  This man must have had a steamer trunk that never rested because he certainly didn't.

I realized that I had missed a blog entry yesterday and almost this evening as well.  But I have mysteries to unlock and the dead only talk through the documents that they leave behind.  So this is all the energy I have to devote.

The news would take a back seat to research as well.  Most interesting to me right now, after sketching in the big milestones left in the trail of documents, is not the incredible globe trotting, the fortune made overseas and the relatives scattered around the world, but the two obituaries.  One obituary for himself, dead, as he lived, abroad, documented in a US Consular report of the death of a US citizen out of the country and the other obituary for his wife, in Manhattan, years later.  Neither obituary, both carried in the New York Times, mentions either spouse.  What happened?  Both survived by the same son and grandchildren, all duly noted, but a glaring lack of mention of "beloved husband of..." or "beloved wife of.....".

Mysteries call.  Gotta go.

Day # 49 Gift Horse

As is the case with most everyone, the Universe likes to teach me lessons.  I believe that my particular Universal Agent has come to the conclusion, and rightly so, that I learn lessons best when they are delivered along with a good solid whack to the noggin.  Not one for the subtle revelations of gentle meditation, I need the bald monk with a smile and the whacking stick.  Bow, thank you, whack, whack.  My own path to any sort of enlightenment, including wishful thinking, is a rocky, winding affair lined with big rocky bits, punctuated with bridges that have long since fallen into the chasms they span and hordes of polite, grinning monks armed with shovels, ax handles, peavey poles and the odd pulaski.  They, the monks that is, are always happy to see me.  I know this because they grin and nudge each other and then spit in their hands as they rub them together.  Vigorously.

A friend of mine found a old letter in a book that she bought at a now defunct thrift store in Tacoma.  She bought  the book containing the letter almost thirty years ago.  The letter is dated July 9th, 1917 and it was mailed from Massachusetts to Calcutta, India on the same day.  In the letter a young woman is writing to her paramour to tell him that she is having doubts about his request that she have an abortion.  Remember, this is 1917.  It is a well crafted letter, written in a fine hand.  She is sending this to Calcutta because her lover is on his way there to take up a post at an overseas company.  Why my friend waited thirty years to mention this is a mystery in and of itself, but she did and eventually I asked if I could look into the matter a bit more, to do a bit of sleuthing.  All parties agreed, I set to work.

The envelope has a clear address and the name of the recipient.  There is a legible postmark from the town it was sent from.  Given the efforts I have made in genealogical research of my own family, I know a thing or two about finding people from the public record.  So I spent a good portion of yesterday searching through this and that site on the web, including my own account with Ancestry.com (yeah, its a plug I guess) and by the evening I had an amazing sketch of a life lived across at least four continents.  The young woman's sweetheart lived his life as a trader, based in New York, but living more on steamships and in the Orient and Europe than at home on Park Avenue.  He became wealthy, travelling first class on the Queen Mary, flying his  wife to Paris on TWA in an era when flying meant something, as well as sending her on her almost yearly jaunts to Habana.

His wife was not the young woman who was the author of the letter.  I know a fair bit about his wife as well.

While I know a great deal about the events of this man's life and will find out more, the young woman who penned the letter is a mystery.  Return addresses were not commonly used at that time and alas, such is the case with this letter.  She signed it only using her first name.  She may be destined to remain a mystery.

There is an amazing story here, the outline of which is laid out like a map, ready for a journey.  The only question is one of research and then writing.  I have always wanted the opportunity to write a novel.  There are so many possibilities for a fine tale here that even I may have a hard time being mulish enough to ignore it.

Besides, there is my own personal cadre of monks to keep in mind.  There they all are, grinning and warming up.  One does hate to disappoint.  In my heart I knew that if I bleated on about spending 230 minutes a day watching or listening to the news blah-blah-blah my own Universal Agent would eventually shake his (or her) head, wander over to the tool shed and heft one of the many blunt objects that resides within.  And then begin to spit in his (or her) hands, preparatory to the whacking.  

Day # 47 Dogless

Oh this, the first day of a new year, the sun gods decided to smile on Seattle.  Not needing the news to tell me that the show was on, I grabbed a cigar and headed for Alki Beach, my other living room.  Alki Beach is where Northwest flesh kept shadowed for entire epochs suddenly bares itself for the very occasional doses of free vitamin "D".  Unfortunately today, although sunny, was colder than hell so the only flesh visible was of a canine nature.  The rest of us were swathed in fleece and spanking new goretex gloves and fuzzy hats fresh from Christmas Stockings.  As a matter of fact, even some of the dogs were sporting new outdoor outfits.  We Seattleites are very proud of our outdoor chic.

Today the combination of sun, a New Years day and post-holiday gorging guilt produced a steady stream of promenaders.   Comfortably ensconced on my bench, aforementioned cigar well-lit, I ignored my book in favor of the ever entertaining human parade.  In accompaniment, a sub-parade of canine companions kept pace with their human counterparts.  I seemed to be the only human on the beach not in the company of a doggie pal.

I live in an apartment in a building that does not allow dogs.  Not only that, I am the manager of the building so smuggling a little furry friend into my abode would, at the very least, be setting a bad example.  So no dogs for me.  I really like dogs, more so now than at any other time in my life.  No matter that I want to travel more and more and that travelling abroad for a month is not conducive with pet ownership, I seem to want a pooch nonetheless.  So imagine my chagrin as the happy pet owners swaggered by with their furry companeros, observed  me in my state of canine denial, and gave me that sad, acknowledging nod of simultaneous superiority and sympathy.  "Ah, no dog.  That explains it.  Tsk tsk."


The Weimaraner (with trendy couple), the Corgi with the bad back legs and small rolling cart (complete with slow owners), the giant Chow for once comfortable with a huge fur coat and still the parade went on.  A few of the critters stopped for a little ear scritch "Hey, there's a human without a pal, what's up with that?" while others were busy pulling their humans along on any number of wheeled contrivances.  As if to add insult to injury, there were those bipedal walkers who sported multiple dogs, sometimes all pulling in different directions in need of a butt to sniff.  It was as if to say "Here I am, capable of walking a bevy of man's best friends and you can't even manage a single Jack Russell or a Pekingese?"  


Despite the temptation, I did finish my lovely cigar and I did not give into the temptation to scoop up someone else's pet and dash off.  I walked home, turning up the hill glad for the sunshine and the lack of pooches once away from the beach.  I guess I will continue to be responsible.   I will not project my feeling of loss at my son's impending adulthood onto some small cuddly puppy.  I will remain dogless for the right reasons or because of the wrong reasons.  I forget which.

But damn, how cute would it be to have a nice little West Highland Terrier with a wee coat cut from the auld Boyd Tartan?