Notes From A Bear's Journey

      There come those moments of clarity when you find aspects of your life entering another stage, when you find that your life has reached a point where what you have is far more than what you need.  This can be not only how comfortable you feel with what surrounds you on the outside but how you feel inside.   For some of the wealthier folk such contentment may come from having homes in various parts of the world or another antique car to add to their collection; or perhaps wealth doesn't matter and you are simply content living in the simple home you've always had (aka Warren Buffet).  Either way, I'll never know what others feel, rich or poor, since everyone is on his or her own journey.  But for me, to reach that feeling of perhaps having too much is as simple as opening one of my closet doors or dresser drawers and asking myself: just how many jackets or winter coats or socks do I really need?  I'm getting up there in age and at some point, it --and me-- will all

      Getting away is often a good idea, be it a girls-only day out, a weekend without the kids, or just a quick jaunt up the trail.  Sometimes that getting away will be something a bit longer, a vacation of some sort, a date to mark on your calendar.  It breaks routines, shatters your rhythm in a good way, and gives you a chance to basically think about nothing, at least nothing at home.  It's a chance to finally relax both physically and mentally, which is something many of us do far less than we should.  And so it was that we found ourselves sitting at the malecón in Ajijic, the concrete walkway at the edge of a smallish town outside of Guadalajara, Mexico (the word "malecón" generally means a stone embankment), people-watching locals and ex-pats on their lazy Saturday stroll.  The open-air market vendors were hawking their wares, the luckier ones having already locked a booth inside the gardened-grounds of the non-profit Lake Chapala Society .  The jewelry, clothes, a

      Things are breaking down, my microwave for one.  Granted, it's a 1996 Sharp model that had been repaired a few times before this (not that much to a microwave other than the magnetron, said our repair guy).  But this time the transformer gave up the ghost and made a stink.  Really.  If you've never experienced that burnt electrical wiring smell, it's one that you don't readily forget (the possibly of fire inside your walls), a smell that lingers for days and days.  We were lucky to have seen the smoke coming through the microwave's vent and quickly shutting off the power; but then came me trying to remember how to take the dang microwave off of the bracket between our cabinets (it seemed that we had last replaced the magnetron in 2017 so it had been awhile) all in order to heave it down to our repairman's shop (same guy in a tiny shed who first advised me NOT try to replace a magnetron by myself because of the electrical charge the capacitor can retain, ev