Notes From A Bear's Journey

  For many people, the effort to recycle is somewhat engrained, even as we walk by full trashcans in stores and watch our trash trucks become so full that they have to make two or more trips to the dump just to pick up that week's trash.  Each week my wife and I dutifully come close to filling our large 60-gallon recycling bin, which is a sad commentary on just how much packaging is simply excessive and quickly tossed away (thank heavens the dreaded CD jewel box and its resulting packaging steps is slowly fading into the sunset).  My veggie burgers now come loose in a simple plastic wrap vs. being individually wrapped and then encased in a paper box; but think of how many paperboard boxes (cereal, crackers, cookies, and on and on) are simply heaved out once you're home, if only to make space in your pantry.  And even with the best of intentions, the awareness of just how to recycle and what can be recycled has a far way to go (waxed meat paper? pizza containers? wet ...

  It seemed a bit odd, even to me, that just over a month after my mother's death that I would be seen walking out of the library with a book largely titled "Obituary."  First off, that wasn't the entire title and secondly, I didn't care since I so thoroughly enjoy the library and visit there often, finding it a treasure trove of new discoveries both old and new (my library system orders a minimum of 25 new items in the fields of books, audio books, ebooks, DVDs, and audio recordings each month...their DVD collection alone numbers well over 6,000).  Of course, I could choose to peruse their periodical and newspaper collection, their daily and weekly and monthly subscriptions all beyond the scope of my finances.  But as with anything, buying items at such a pace soon leads to quite the overflow and what isn't being read or viewed or listened to goes into their sale pile (most libraries, including those in Hawaii, have them) and for ridiculously low prices one c...

  There's a classic phrase, simpler is better.  You've likely heard it, especially as today's world grows more and more detailed and complicated.  Long ago I gave up the task of peeking under the hood of a car (I actually used to do my own oil changes in the day, but that was when you could actually see and reach the oil filter) or tearing apart a piece of electronics (inside the old hard drives, that is in the days of computers having optical drives, was a spinning disc of beauty).  Funny how such different thoughts emerge when one is ill.  It began with my wife feeling a bit odd, then succumbing to the flu that appears to be migrating across the globe (there are even articles on how to protect yourself on a flight --board late, keep the airvent on, etc.-- except that the air on a plane on most planes today is recirculated with fresh air coming in only every eight minutes or so).  I was fortunate, watching as friend after friend became sick and added to th...

   Try to picture this, you're given a couple of cases of water and asked to pull out what you think is that number of bottles the average American uses in a day; now this would include not only what they drink and shower and flush with, but what they wash and water their lawns and (here's the tricky part) what it takes to bring their food to the table.  I bring this up partly because Popular Science devoted most of an issue to the topic of water and its results though much of it was quite shocking; yes, you've likely heard it all before but this year the snowpack in our state (read: our drinking water in summer) is the lowest its been since 1903...uh wait, that's over 100 years.  And the latest weather projections show no major snow storms in sight.  Couple this with several guests who recently stayed at our place and were polite enough to clean up after dinner, dutifully washing and rinsing each dish with more water than the dishwasher would use (my old mantr...

   This morning saw the lunar eclipse, my wife reminding me at 4:30 AM (I was already awake) that the event was appearing now and not tomorrow as I had thought.  At that time, the moon was already 7/8 covered, a sliver of light at the bottom, one which moved over slowly and steadily into darkness...only that didn't happen.  Twenty minutes later the light was gone but a tint began to show...the blood moon.  It was as if an old-time camera man was sliding a disc over the moon and was now reversing the process with a maroon reddish filter slowly coming up from the bottom.  There it is, I told my wife, totality.  She peeked out from her bed, then sat up and came to the window; it looks like Mars, she said.  The moon showed a sliver of red, then more, then more until it was halfway up, and then it stopped.  It was time for darkness to take over.     This was an exercise in patience, not the quick solar event that stretched out to ...

   Last night I got a drubbing.  In the U.S. that's sort of slang for a lickin' or a bawling out or any of a dozen other terms that mean a "talking to."  Another art print had arrived and despite my defense that I donate most of them to charity fundraisers (and get them at heavily discounted prices since art just doesn't seem to be much of a market these days), even I had to admit that these prints were piling up.  Just what are you going to do with them, she asked.  Things keep coming into this house and never leave, she said.  You're a collector, a hoarder, a good person but what exactly is this thing about getting more and more stuff, she asked (from her eyes, this was a serious talk).  You can't take it with you!  And here's what I got out of it...I had become my mother.  I used to wonder and chuckle a bit as my mom would gather whatever she could, even with her dementia; but we're talking things such as bananas (which would just rip...

   Without belaboring the point, the quick return to "normal" is a bit odd to me; the news continues to arrive as scheduled, as do the bills, the stores continue to stock their shelves, the people still smile and chat as if nothing has happened.  But wait, I am now a motherless child.  A friend I spoke with had it much worse, her parents perishing in their 50s from a car accident, similar to what another friend told me about her parents.  So no complaints on my part, really.  Everyone should be so lucky to have a parent live well into their 90s.  But life ending...and continuing...and ending.  Real, but mildly so even when it is right there in my face for as terrible as it might seem to me, I am not faced with the difficult and horrific images of war or famine or tragedy where the unexpected end of life does nothing but surround you.  The new Philip K. Dick series Electric Dreams presented a glimpse of two such worlds, one well into the futu...