Blogiversary

Home on the Range is 4 years old.  Just a bit shy of 7 million readers, it's certainly been a journey. It started with a recipe for scones and just went from there.  I have a lot of posts which were read by many, and some that were read by few.  Sometimes the thoughts I like best probably won't be widely read.  Perhaps a post like this.  Yet, it's been a wonderful journey in which I've made many new friends, and some that have become my family.  Wherever I go, I run into bloggers and with a "Brigid!"  I'm enfolded in a group of people I am honored to know.  Even if I only know them by a simple blog name.

Sometimes just a name is enough.

The Old Norse had a word - "landnam": land naming. It meant claiming the land so named. I suspect that this concept is behind the naming of well beloved firearms, or before them, swords. I'm half Norse so I do as well ,on occassion, only naming one firearm, Vera. I did come close to having one for my Ruger Mark III the first time I took it apart to clean it but that one can't be repeated. But I have named other inanimate things "Otis" my old Piper Cub (named after the drunk on Mayberry RFD). "Fenry" a Honda scooter I used to have and Mr. Stubbs (do NOT ask). The small boat I owned before I moved to this state was Irish Wake. So I guess, I am one of those folks that do name things.

For people who know and appreciate firearms, just the name makes a statement. The nearest city to where I live had a museum that had a firearm exhibit. Their billboard along the highway said "Colt Fan?" Most would think of a certain local football team, but the rest of us immediately went. "aha" as we knew they were speaking of the legendary Colt. There are other names, those of the firearm, those of the men and women that mastered them, that are scribed on history.
The sciences were my subjects in school, and walking through an excavation, through a field, I can name things: trees, plants, animals. Acer diabolicum, canas lantrans, Mephitis mephitis (run guys run!), chrysomya rufifacies. Latin (quite often a mixture of Latin and Greek) was the language used by educated people and by the church in older times, so Latin was used to give scientific names to animals and plants. The names though weren't just given randomly. They meant something.

The knights of yore, oft were known by just one name. In all their deeds, honor renounced with honor, courage renounced with courage, they rode with the name that was worn with fealty. Bravery was something that was not shown for the deed, but for the sake of the doing, putting their name to the ultimate test even if it meant only proving that death is but final and some battles are all but vanity. Just a name can take us back to furious shadow, where sometimes all that is left of the battle is threads of metal twisted into living bark, annealing into that which it drove head on into, a path swift and narrow as glory itself, until glory is gone, and the wood only weeps.


I'm currently reading Undaunted Courage, a story about the Lewis and Clark expedition. Lewis and Clark did more than chart, they named. Their party named everything they ran across that didn't already have one, spots of land, trees, like the lodge pole pine, Piinus contorta, trees twisted and stunted by Pacific coast storms. They named birds, the Lewis woodpecker, the Clark's nutcracker. They named the waters they traveled down. They named camping sites after game taken there or the birthday of someone born the day they encountered it for the first time.

Simple acts, simple words for things that have a breadth of meaning felt deep inside. What did they think when they saw the mighty Pacific ocean for the first time, that large expanse of water that existed only in their eyes, as a giant wave broke with thunderous fury at their feet. As the waters receded, they too gave that a name, that moment that broke in an instant, vanishing at the at the end of a long journey yet not gone, for the word would hold on to the moment as long as there are those to listen to its sound.


In some religions it is believed that people can not be granted eternal life until they have been baptized, until they have been given a name. In the Bible all things are drawn out by name. In Genesis it says that "God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas". To exist is to have a name.

Yet we do not know God's name. In all the world's religions that I have read of, there is no revelation or rationalization of God as clear and powerful to me as the Name that He spoke to Moses. "I AM WHO I AM". Also written of as Yhwh. I believe "Yhwh" was "Yahweh" ( minus the vowels), likely a Greek transliteration, a name considered so holy that it was rarely spoken out of fear of misuse. Yhwh, four ancient letters, a word without vowels, a name that does not name. The power to name is the power to create, and the power to create is the power to destroy.
People have birth names and nicknames. Brigid was the name on my adoption papers, and retained, but not as my first name. I have the name I use in work. I have a title. The doc title is not just a nickname but I'm a Ph.D. not a medical doctor, for whom I have the highest respect for what they do to earn that title. It's a title I only use when I have to, but in the courtroom testifying about evidence, it wields some power. I have the name that only my brother can get away calling me. They are all part of me, they all in their forms, describe me. As little girls we give our dolls names to bring them to life. My favorite childhood doll is still in my room at home, where I see her from my bed at night when I'm visiting, sitting quietly below twisting stars, an oblivious playmate, now silenced by adulthood.

I remember the night Brigid Jr, was born, after 34 hours in labor, her head crowning, her body bursting forth onto the sweat and blood soaked sheet. I remember only getting to hold her once, for just a moment before I handed her over to her adoptive parents, incredulous of her her soft hair, perfect fingers., smelling of the womb, of warmth, of love. She looked at me with a peripheral glance, while I uttered the name I would give her and the words I was not able to say again for years, for in fear of their utterance, the object of my words would be lost to me. I love you.

As adults we name our pets to make them members of the family. God called life from the fluid chaos of creation by calling its name. We call home our own loved ones with a name, yelled across the back porch into seeping twilight. Time to come in, time to come home.

There are names within cultures that with one telling word have deep significance. The Inuit Indians use ilara, to bring to perceivable life, the utmost respect and fear they feel when they see a polar bear crossing the ice towards them. They also have the single word Inukshuk -in the image of man, which has meanings that pull together all the forces of their world, the sky, the snow, their creator.

There are some living things that define classification, and thus defy being named."Protists", groups of living things comprising those eukaryotes which are neither animal, plant or fungi. Protists - the scientists way of saying "none of the above". One of them is algae. Bones are affected under the earth by algae, fungi and bacteria. The traces of damage due to fungi or algae appear in thin ground sections as horizontal or vertical channels which sometimes converge on one another to form large flat or tufted like forms, causing the entire bone to disintegrate. In some rare cases, destroying all we might have left to identify someone by name.Sometimes all that is left to be buried is a few teeth, a piece of bone. But it is at least something to be placed in the ground with a name. Something for remembrance, for closure. On my long drive into the city I see the occasional cross by the road, with simply a name and perhaps a few flowers. How important these undistinguished little memorials. Every death is a memory that ends here, yet continues on. Enduring, for there is not one of us who can affirm that there must be a web of muscle and bone to hold the conformation of love. It's there, in dust and sky and new life. It''s there in the shadow of a half moon, quivering in the sky like a heel print in wet sand, a large piece of rock that man has named but few would walk. It's there deep within us, waiting.

So what is in a name? It is memory, something that is not simply particular, it is also tutelary, foretelling. It is, in the end, as reliable as we are, as strong as our word. The names and facts of my life by themselves are insignificant. But what our names represent is history, a life. When I look at the name of someone I loved on a gravestone, I do not see stone, I do not see letters. I see remembrance, and that is what we live on for. A simple name brings back memories, as a plunge underwater in a swift stream, as an airplane baffled and bounced in a fierce Spring wind as we labored to get home, as a Southwest night pouring into our heads every star, as smells of kitchens and gunpowder and black earth and lilacs and coffee and warm need, as a hatred of loss, as a discarding of painful past, as stillness and persistence going forward alone. I trace the outline of a name, and I know how that name made me feel. And that is not insignificant. I hear my name across hundreds of electronic miles of science, breathed into a phone late at night, and I know the warm rush that comes with that one word.

For earth without form is void, but heaven without names is only blackness

Quote of the Week

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things.

It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe. 

―   Robert W. Service

Redheads and Grills - Playing with Fire

There are a fair number of things in life I'm good at. But there are also a VERY good number of things I'm NOT good at.  That includes singing (cats gather on the porch), ceramics (seriously, it was supposed to look like a vase?), golf, and lighting a grill using traditional briquettes and lighter fluid. (Though if one has access to liquid oxygen and a welding shield that matches your outfit  you can get your grill going REAL quick, but. . . oh, never mind :-)


The thing is, I LOVE to grill. What's not to like about a "kitchen appliance" you can clean with a hose and a leaf blower. You've got the outdoors. You've got your best friends over. You've got meat. You've got lighter fluid and giant pointy instruments that come in a shiny case that just says "Beef Inquisitor".

Plus, you've a big open flame near alcohol.

Just the danger factor alone gets my juices going. But frankly, I just struggle with getting the darn thing lit sometimes. Most people simply spray the briquettes with lighter fluid until the fumes alone would render the place uninhabitable, only to throw a match on it with the result being  the charcoal just laying there, as cold, lifeless and boring as one of the characters in Twilight.  Seriously, if I ever have a raging kitchen fire, I'm going to forget the baking soda or the extinguisher and just smother the flames with briquettes.

Even if, with the right amount of cursing, you DO get it lit without mushroom clouds or the removal of eyebrows, the resultant meal tastes like Sterno on a Stick.  That's not good.

I was relaying this fact to one of the IND blog gang a summer or two ago and they brought THIS device over to a cook out for me to try.

The chimney generates a strong updraft that quickly turns briquettes into hot coals.  It was pretty simple. Put 3 pieces of newspaper in the bottom, pile the coals on top, light the paper, wait 15 minutes. Look down in there, they should be JUST about ready. At 18- 20 minutes, dump them out and you've got hot coals. I think this ready made chimney came from the local Big Box Mart.

But that was some time ago and that chimney said goodbye after the get together. That brings us to a day off in Spring of 2012.  After a couple of great days with Midwest Chick and Mr. B,. it was time to head out  for a couple of days off before heading back to the city  for work again. A few days off and friends I hadn't seen in a while makes a perfect opportunity for a cookout.

Sure, there's sweeping and mowing and chores to do, but for now there was good company and a hot, perfect evening, too hot to heat up the kitchen.  On the porch, contemplating IPA, physics and the recalcitrant nature of charcoal, we came up with the idea  to use one of those chimney things to start the grill.

Except, I don't have one.

Why not MAKE one?  What materials are on hand.  Hmmm.  Cardboard box?  That would be a no?  Styrofoam?  Also a no.  Fruitcake?  The fruitcake itself would never burn, but I'm afraid of a chemical reaction between brandy infused cherries and Coleman fuel. (likely the source of the original  "cherry bomb") So no.

How about some 16 inch duct work?  To the Bat Shop! To speed up combustion, you can use a hammer and a large to punch vent holes in the bottom 2 to 3 inches of the pipe. (You may need to brace the inside of the pipe with a chunk of wood as you punch these holes.)

Even without vent holes, it will still work  Crumple 2-3  of sheets of clean newspaper in the bottom, leaving a few edges sticking up where you can get a match to them.  Fill almost to the top with charcoal.  Add just a dash of lighter fluid to a few of the briquettes (or in this case, Coleman fuel).  Do not soak them with it, the newspaper and the chimney will do the work.

Now step back and wait several minutes.  Fire Marshall Bill says so.  You don't want vapors on you or in the immediate area when you light it off. 

After a few minutes have gone by, light the paper, stepping immediately away, and wait for combustion..

 Yes!!

When you see white ash on the coals near the top.  It's ready to pour out onto the grill

Wait, there's no handle on this thing! 

 Fortunately for us, we have the HOTR Universal Pot Handle Tool ™

Set the chimney on something non combustible, and away from children, stupid friends or relatives or pets as, it will stay HOT for a while. 

Now that the coals are  hot and spread around, it's time to cook. 

First up on the grill, some fresh corn, still in the husks (if there is a  lot of husk remove just the other layers, you want the husk to trap the steam inside).  Grill 15-20 minutes (the husks will blacken), then move off to one side away from the coals or remove and keep warm. When you husk it to serve, there will be some silk strands in there, but after cooking they come off VERY easily.

Now it's time for the steaks. We got got some very nice big, thick steaks at the local butcher for a little less than $4 a piece on manager's special. After poking the steaks with a fork, these were marinated in a mixture of 1 cup soy sauce, 1 cup water, and 1 cup sugar to which was added 2 heaping Tablespoons grated  fresh ginger, 3 cloves of chopped garlic and a splash of olive oil for a few hours (up to 8 hours).  Discard the marinade and grill until the internal temperature is 126 - 130 F. for medium. (Don't click to enlarge the picture below if you're hungry.)

They will cook a bit more as they are plated, so once the temperature is in that range, remove them from the heat promptly.

Tender, juicy and cooked to medium, pink in the middle and juicy, perfection.  Paired with corn and salad with some freshly made dressing, we had a steak dinner for a price per serving you could pay for a fast food meal.  Plus we got to play with fire and pointy things and no one blew anything up.

AND there was chocolate stout cake for dessert  Dinner at the range might be fraught with danger, but it comes with dessert.

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It's Not About a Day Off from Work - The Last Thing I Saw

That last thing I saw was the a sliver of winter sky through a haze of gunpowder.

The last thing I heard was the report of fire, one last wild spurring of colors made sound, then silence.

The last thing I felt was an intake of breath, air drawing deep into me. I don't remember the exhale. I thought nothing could reach me. I never knew what hit me.

I'll be all right in a minute, I said, but nothing came out.

I'm looking down on my still form, thinking I must have a concussion, for the vision could not be real. I close my eyes and recite the steps to field strip my AR in the field. "bolt fully forward", "remove the bolt carrier and the charging handle", open my eyes.

But the vision didn't change.

They sent me home in a box, draped with a flag, in a suit I had never worn. It was hot, the corn in fervent zeal, bowing before the behemoth combines that would pull it into an oblivious end. There was a line of cars as long as main street, headlights on yet diminished by the suns uncaring heat. They rolled slowly along until the cemetery was reached, the sound of taps drifting up to the heavens where they were only an echo.

But sometimes an echo is heard.

My name was spoken reverently, a soft word that drowned out the protestors that know not what faith and duty really mean.

The cemetery is vacant, the community at home. My wife sits with a letter, the paper , worn from touch, her last contact, the writing ashen and fine and almost intelligible. She reads it with restless tension and with every last memory, taking what comfort she can out of the words, so that she will know that my love was true, my sacrifice worthy. She reads and reads, my words to her gathering around her. The more she reads, the less she sees, as the writing becomes fainter, words wet with tears, until the paper itself crumbles away, and nothing is left to her but dust and the future she carries within her.

The cemetery is old now, my grave now surrounded by others, so many years, so many funerals. My eyes live on in a child I never met. My name lives on, on a piece of granite in a place forever solemn, in a picture, in a flag.

I am everywhere, in memorial. In a tombstone, in the sound of fire, in the flag I hope you salute more than once a year. We are all a memory that begins and ends with what is left, stakes in the hard ground on which to peg our history.

When the last thing you see is that small sliver of freedom still there in the sky, remember me. I am a soldier, I am everywhere, in the trees, in the wind, under your feet in a land that's still free.

I am a soldier. I am unknown but remembered always.

-Brigid  May 28, 2012

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

The Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. 

The phrase, penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and written 11 years before the U.S. Constitution was adopted, is said to have been influenced by the writings of John Locke, who expressed a similar concept of life, liberty and estate (property) in his work.

What is a Right? It's a principal that defines and sanctions a man's freedom of action within a social framework. There are many rights, but the one true right is the right to life, not in the context of the right to be born, but a man's right to his own life.

What is liberty? Again, I think Jefferson was somewhat influenced by the words of John Locke, who said in The Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690) - "This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together: for a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one..."

 He also says: "The NATURAL liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule."

As to the "Pursuit of Happiness". No where in the words of our founding fathers did it say the "right to happiness". Only that we have the right to pursue our own happiness, to engage in self sustaining activities, to build up a sweat chasing whatever it is that is our dream. We have the freedoms to do what is necessary to support, further, and daily savor our own life; freedom to do so by our own voluntary, uncompelled choice.

As to our neighbors, a right means that our actions should impose no harm or obligation on them, they are our actions for our lives. If your dream is to stay home and watch a brand new TV all day that is fine, but that that doesn't mean that I am obligated to buy it for you.

 We have the right to liberty, to freedom. I do not personally believe that means that we are free from helping to reasonably support or maintain that which we use, our roads, our parks, our libraries, our schools. That does not mean we are free to shrug off responsibility for elderly parents or those children we bring into the world. But we have the right to expect that our efforts won't be wasted. We have the right not be forced by threat or law to give up our possessions or income or hand over our Second Amendment rights which protects the safety of that family or personal community we do provide for. We should not be forced to take the food off of our table, there from our own toil, to give to people who do not have the desire to produce, only to consume. Given with no measure of accountability that they will not come back to rob our table again.

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Or as John Locke defined it first, the right to property. Not the right to an object, but to the action and reward of producing and earning a product. Our founding fathers did not intend the issue of property to be a guarantee that all will have all they want, but only that if a man will own it if he earns it. It will be his to use, to keep or if he chooses, to give to another to help them in time of need. 

We are at the end of an administration, one who had stated that we need to change our country to be one where the rich will be made to provide for the poor. "Share the wealth" was not just words in a campaign, but what I perceived as being the culture of the party. What appears to be our future unless we speak out strongly with our vote, is the adumbration of our future, the ant-like, socialized destruction of the America that people bled and died for.

No matter what your political party affiliation we would agree that there are many things that this country can improve on. But improvement is not, as it has been in the past, having elected officials with blind power to spend the taxpayers money without accountability to where it's gone. Accountability to dispel the concerns that it merely promoted many businesses that promoted said politicians.

We need to return to healthy businesses through competition, where those who use sound operating principals, offering quality goods and services that are wanted, thrive and make more jobs and those that don't fail. We don't need handouts to those without plans to do business differently or lifelines to companies by whose greed or ineptitude the whole mess started. 

There are many of ways the country could be improved. But it can NOT be improved by changing the principals on which our country was founded. For no matter what bitter forfeit a change in government may bring, the loss of our fundamental rights, affirmed by our Constitution, should not be part of it. 

The American Revolution was a revolution of greater note than the battles fought and the words penned. One of the most revolutionary outcomes of the formation of the United States was the subordination of government to moral law, moving away from societies in which the citizens life belonged to those that ruled, and the freedoms he had were only that which the rulers decided by whim he might have that day, or that week. The recognition of man's individual rights by the Constitution limited the force of the power and greed of the states, protecting its citizens from an unwanted collective. 

The United States was one of the first moral societies in history, all previous governments viewing their citizens as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end to itself. Our founding fathers had taken note. They recognized two threats to a man's possessions, to his rights. One threat is a criminal. The other is a government. The most laudable accomplishment of our government when it was formed was its ability to draw a distinction between those two, thereby not allowing the second to become a sanctioned version of the activities of the first. 

We the People is I. And I support the constitution and ALL its amendments, not just the ones you pick and choose. When the elected President takes the oath of office, I hope that he truly hears those words as he speaks them from Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution:

 "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Support those words that gave us a country that worked, that thrived. Preserve. . . Because our founding fathers were smarter than we have been 

- Brigid

Why?

Because I'm neither morally or socially obligated to be a victim.

- Brigid

The Weekend Begins

I am back from my journeys, loaded up Barkley and headed out to Midwest Chick  and Mr. B.'s homestead. I don't live in Indianapolis but close enough the traffic is still wicked during race week.  I usually head way out of Dodge.  

Right now, I'm surrounded on the large couch  by tactical kitties Tank and Bob Cat while two black labs (Barkley and the Amazing Schmoo) are on the floor waiting for Mr. B. to cook the bacon and sausage. The backyard squirrels have made their early morning run on the bird food but were fended off  :-)

We're still pretty full from the blue cheese and bacon plus the mushroom and cheddar stuffed burgers grilled last night) but. . .

 It IS bacon and sausage.  . . and waffles.

 EJ is far away saving the world, to return soon, but the Og family is going to stop by, so much of the usual gang will be here.  I have four days off, there's a couple large bags in the freezer from Beef Mart and some steam engine bits in the barn.  Let the weekend begin!

Barkley Presents - Snoozing vs. Surfing

Top Ten Reasons Snoozing on the Couch is Better than Surfing the Web.

10.  I can't stick my head out of Windows 7.
9.    "You've got mail" less fun to bark at than actual mailman.
8.    I thought it was PEThouse.com.  What a disappointment!
7.    A butt sniff is more honest than most online dating sites.
6.    I can't mark where I've visited without getting yelled at.
5.    Bruised nose trying to catch MPEG ball.
4.    No Microsoft Opposable Thumb
3.    Mouse doesn't come with cat app
2.    Carpal Paw Syndrome

And the #1 reason?

SPAM's not food ? !

Give Us This Day

I could never manage the whole "low carb" thing.  I tried it and within 24 hours I was ready to take hostages at a Dunkin Donuts. I'll  never be skinny, I just want to be strong and healthy.  Besides, there are men in the world that do not want to spend their time with a woman who looks like a bag of antlers.

So bread is still my friend.  Brot, pan, brød, le pain, Хлеб in Russian, Khoubz in Arabic. Sliced, torn, blessed, kissed, eaten fresh from the oven or broken, slightly stale and sweetened into milky coffee. There are as many variations as there are languages.  In some cultures it's eaten with every meal, in many parts of the world it IS the meal. But since it's something I have at least once a day, I want only the best. 

As  little kids in the late 60's, we had "Wonder" bread, with the trademark plastic white wrapper with brightly colored balloons on it.  It  made up most every kids lunchbox PB and J sandwich in those days, but it also made for great fun rolling  it up into little balls of dough the size of grapes and bouncing them on the floor.  When pressed, it had the texture of library paste and, if you removed the crust, you could use it to get an imprint of the Sunday funny papers. It wasn't food as much as fun.

But Mom didn't give us store bought bread all the time and she and Grandma knew how to make the best sweet breads and yeast rolls.  My favorite was a yeast roll, fragrant with butter and buttermilk that was baked in a muffin cup and spread out like fans, to be peeled apart and consumed ever so carefully.

Mom and Grandma Gullikson worked in the kitchen together, not really needing to talk except the occasional little quip or pun. Grandma lived with us.  Widowed not long past her 40th birthday, (my grandfather was a lumberjack), she was in good health, but Dad didn't want her to be alone when she was in her senior years.  Dad and my Mom met in grade school. Dad came  from an extremely disfunctional family. Grandma  G. recognized a kid who needed some support and love and welcomed Dad and his siblings into her home as childhood  friends of her own children.  As he grew up to love my Mom, he grew to love her family as his own.

So for me, it just seemed natural to have her in in the house as they baked. Mom would  lift the pans into the oven, Grandma laughing as she spilled salt and then threw a pinch over her shoulder, all the misfortune, worry and hunger that is the world, only so many grains on a finger that could be flung back in a gesture that was as much defiance as superstition.
 

Dad would join us, softly kissing the soft spot of flour, there on Mom's neck, brushing back a strand of auburn hair, sprinkled with more flour. Then we'd eat, the bread a benediction, a blessing, confirmation of the love that was in that house.

When I am home from my travels I will bake bread again.  Flour will swirl in a shaft of light, small smudges on my face and neck, salting my hair.  The oven heats up as I knead carefully, lift and weigh the smoothness and density in my hand, watching the bread rise up, the aroma filling the kitchen.  On the table is simply fresh butter, to spread on the top, lick out of the crevasse of layers, nibbling on the tender edges as the warmth fills our nostrils.

Yes, it's time to bake some bread.

Low Flight

Oh! I've slipped through swirling clouds of dust,

a few feet from the dirt.

I've flown my Intruder low enough to make my bottom hurt.

I've SRTC'd the desert, hills and valley, mountains, too.

Frolicked in the trees, where only flying squirrels flew.

Chased the frightened cows along, disturbed the ram and ewe,

and done a hundred other things, that you'd only care to do.

I've smacked the tiny sparrow, bluebird, robin, all the rest.

I've ingested baby eagles, simply sucked them from their nest.

I've streaked through total darkness,

just the other guy and me,

and spent the night in terror of things I could not see.

I turned my eyes to heaven,

as I sweated through the flight,

put out my tired hand

and touched The Master Caution Light

One of the luxuries of youth is a sense of immortality, of freedom from responsibility. But for most people that illusion begin to fade when the responsibilities of adulthood loom; a spouse, a mortgage, family, work. As the years go by, caution can replace carefree abandon.

This process isn't necessarily the case for some people. One of my friends on the phone the other night said I was "an adrenalin junkie", though when he told me that I was parked on the couch in my robe watching an old movie, eating a bowl of Grape Nuts for dinner - not exactly the picture of the adventuress I'm supposed to be. Yet I probably shouldn't think about some of the corners I mop myself into. I don't have a will any more, because it's as if I were to have one, I'm admitting that I might die doing what I do and then I should have to stop. Like that will work.

Mountaineer Jim Wickwire once said "I had this notion, that if I was outthere on the edge willing to push the edge, then I was somehow pushing back the limits of mortality. That by looking at death and then coming back to life I have made that mortality recede". As a climber, he wrote in Addicted to Danger, " I had remained in a kind of perpetual adolescence". Perpetual adolescence, a term I've heard several partners of friends or colleagues  utter, and not in a kind way.

Most of my closest friends now are either in law enforcement, intelligence, science or engineering. They all have this infinite way of looking at the world, like mine, and the acceptance into their fold falls on me with the warmth of a summer rain. As is said in an old Quaker expression  "they speak to my condition".  They understand what drives me, and I them. We all live life out of an open suitcase, never knowing what any one day will bring, looming disaster, a simple challenge or making ramen noodles in a hotel coffee pot in Hong Kong.

Yet, despite the differences in our jobs, my friends seem to be all cut from the same mold, charming, unconventional, full of interesting ideas and always in pursuit of that missing piece. We have difficulty sitting still for very long with nothing to do, get bored easily and always have to have a new plan. We are horrified by the thought of a normal life in a a cubicle and yet are able to work 14 hours at a stretch completely and intently focused.

There's nothing like it, almost touching the answer, teetering there in the solitude between smoke and noise; pieces and parts, aware of that giant puzzle of integers, lurking rhythmically just beyond your reach, unrecognizable, yet not.  Then, after hours and hours of sweat and introspection, it falls into place, revealing itself to you like a flash of night sky erupting out of darkness and all the hours you've stared at it, paced it, mapped it out, fall away.  In that moment you realize you can catch time if you stare at it long enough.

.

It's not an easy life for those who love you, and those you leave behind, especially when you have a family. You leave for those adventures and come home with your little bag of life's knowledge fuller than when you left, it's form but a shell for all you have gained.  What you bring back with you may well compensate for what you missed, but there is a tangible price tag. You may miss that family fathering, that celebration of holiday, that party, that event and you realize that what is absolutely integral to your soul has another price tag in addition to the danger. You're not home. You're not home a lot.

It's long nights away, it's whispered conversations on the phone, thoughts running hot and loud through veins untraced by the touch of another for weeks.   It's expectations from people that won't ever be met.  But we can't seem to give it up, not entirely. Despite it's costs, despite it's losses, it is as much a part of you as the one you love. If you're truly lucky, the ones you love recognize this life as much as you, cherishing the time you do have, for they live a form of it themselves.

For there is nothing like it, those times when all is going to hell in a hand basket around you, and there's a sense of this huge elemental power and you think "what the (#*@ are we doing, this is insane!, and you get out of it either alive or not blowing something up and you go "well that wasn't so bad was it?" As you're going home, you're already thinking about going out and doing it again. It's a sense of communion with the infinite, when you've stretched yourself to the absolute limits of your skill, senses cranked up to red line with the knowledge that if you screw up, you or others could die, or at least cost someone an incredible boatload of money. But if you don't, then the world will, for that instant anyway, have one moment of equilibrium, of order, of reason.

Those moments, narrow moments of perfection. Moments almost worthy of the price.

G'Nite - Brigid

Notes from the Red Eye

Well,, after perusing one of the in flight shopping magazines, I realize that I really need to spend $499 on a personal foot and body sauna.

We hear back in steerage, that ALL the Cool Kids in First Class are doing it.

Besides, it gives me a costume for Halloween if I don't have a thing to wear.

Forget Little Bo Peep or Naughty Witch.  I can go as Captain Pike from Star Trek.

I'll be back in a day or two, there's a Sig review below AND a couple of recipes.  Cheers!