Notes From A Bear's Journey

    Its an odd time of year for me, perhaps because of the delayed but approaching winter, it being that twilight season.  Tomorrow is schedule to be 72F, all at a time when our mountains usually brace for snow.  And the trees are only now beginning to drop their leaves, cocky as if feeling that snow will take even longer to arrive.  This is when large branches break under the one-off early storm that surprises with heavy, wet snow which melts slowly, a sticky weight that clings until it takes the branches with it to the ground.   Eugene O'Neill wrote the title play  above, one often hailed as one of the great age-old --or is that old age-- stories in the world of theater, that of tired muscles and crisp skin that add to those thoughts of being washed up, the free-flowing but cheap booze bringing what no plastic surgery can, a morphine cloud to blur what your eyes and brain so starkly show you.  Look at us, they cry like ghosts.  Look at...

                            Photo:  Kevin Lemarque/Reuters     The World Series has finished, although using the term "world" is a bit of a stretch since Major League Baseball is limited to the US and Canada.  And with all that is happening with the tariffs and tensions, Canadians and other fans may have thought twice about heading to the US, wondering if ICE or the National Guard might be waiting outside Customs upon their entry or return (not counting the new procedures to Canadians for being fingerprinted and photographed, AND paying a mandatory $60 processing fee, wrote Money Canada ).  But the Series was a welcome and needed release for many, including me, a chance to watch outstanding talent and plays rarely seen elsewhere, the multiple cameras showing evidence that the high-price of the tickets did little to deter people from packing the stadiums.  Besides, when a single baseball ...

     Have you seen the price of gold, or silver (or groceries)?  Metals are considered a "safe" haven for investors, those people with loads of money who want two things...more of it and to keep what they have.  And while I've written about this before, that of digging through childhood collections of whatever --coins, stamps, comic books, Pokeman cards-- it is worth repeating that now might be a good time to reevaluate your life and possessions ...and life's meanings.  You may discover that much of what you held onto in the hopes that "this will be valuable one day" probably isn't, or won't be.  I found this out when I would buy an art print in my working years, a realistic painting of a wild animal, usually a tiger or a mountain lion or a pod of killer whales.  Artists whom I "collected" (in the sense of buying limited editions which were signed and numbered) decorated our walls, the framing often costing more than the art.  But m...

    This starts out with a pie, a delicious looking one based on the cover, one whose filling is basicially a shortbread cookie: sugar, eggs, and butter (okay, shortbread has flour instead of eggs, but you get the idea).  My friends wanted a chocolate cake so this seemed rather easy: thaw for a bit then serve.  It was a rather small "pie," typical of what you'd see in a store or in one of those pre-made pie forms.  But then, I cut the thing into six pieces --pieces which turn out to be nowhere near the size of the picture on the box-- and saw what my stomach might be in for: 510 calories and a whopping 14 teaspoons of sugar!  And check out what's in that pastry: margarine, palm oil, "natural" flavors, and need I add, 30 grams of fat...no wonder it was so delicious.  I make gist of this because so much of what triggers our dopamine pleasure centers are things we maybe should check out a bit more carefully.  Not always is this a negativ...