My house is a mess now, but that’s because I’m downsizing in anticipation of second retirement in September. I pulled a bunch of stuff out from under the basement steps and began sorting through it a couple weeks ago, giving some to recycling, some to Goodwill, and some to the Greensburg Historical Society. I’m still going through it, and I’ll be distributing stuff around again and again over the coming weeks. But it left me with a lot of empty space…enough that today I was able to move stuff out of the storage room and close it. That’s a monthly rent off my back now.

I told the lady at the storage place why I was downsizing and with a smile she told me to enjoy my retirement “this time.”

This is a process I expect to take several months…I’ll be able to work on it more energetically when I don’t have days at the office…but at the end of it I want the house to be a lot lighter in weight than it’s been. Because I want my life to be lighter in weight going forward.

This is good, but let me add some detail specific to me at this point.

#1: Yes…all this. I thought it was just about having tremors. But no…there are entire subsystems that are affected by not having enough dopamine. I actually don’t have much trouble at all with tremors, and that almost exclusively on my left hand. Which is good because my right hand is my drawing hand and I’m not ready to lose that yet. It can be a challenge now though, when I need to steady something with Both hands. Like (sigh) a camera.

#2: The feedback I get now and then is mostly about random, slight, but noticeable speech difficulties. Sometimes brain and mouth don’t want to cooperate. As to the face, I think it’s mostly just resting grumpy old man face. When I’m talking to you it’s pretty lively.

#3: This is the big one. People I’ve only socialized with online don’t see any of this. Anyone who’s had my physical presence probably doesn’t notice much of this at all. Living with it is all this. Except for pain. I am in no pain. Thankfully. A little muscle stiffness is all, and so far that isn’t bad.

As far as anxiety and depression…I’m a gay man who came out to himself in 1971, but to be brutally honest I knew when I was 14, I just lived in denial until that moment in December 1971. Anxiety is something a gay guy just lives with. Also any kid, gay or straight, who was raised in a very religious household, or one with a lot of family drama. I grew up with a bunch of that too. Anxiety is an old friend.

I’ve no digestive issues except I notice lately I’m losing a little more of my appetite, which has always been slight anyway, as anyone who’s ever dined out with me and seen me not touch half of what’s on my plate can verify. But I could use losing a few inches off the waistline.

But the rest of that…yeah. Fatigue. It’s the worst. So far. Brain fog comes and goes, but focus, concentration, is harder to accomplish now. Which I need at work, and my drafting table…

…and for photography. I have taken a pretty well stocked camera kit with me on various road trips and not touched any of it, over and over and Over again. I did get something out of me on my recent trips to Sunbury, but I was hoping to get more out when I went to Greensburg last week and my cameras remained untouched the entire time. I had to apologize to them when I unpacked the car. It’s really starting to distress me.

I’ve had insomnia for decades, I’ve learned to work around it, so I really can’t say Parkinson’s is making it any worse. I don’t consider vivid dreams a problem. I have very few nightmares. Mostly they’re just strange and kinda fun. Sometimes they give me story ideas.

#4: Yes. Yes. Yes.

#5: My friends and co-workers are all good people who don’t need telling. I have wonderful neighbors on my little Baltimore rowhouse street. I feel at ease with all of you. As for the rest of humanity…I think Sartre was mostly right, but the exceptions make dealing with it worthwhile. I try to be patient and remember that I can be pretty annoying too.

I am not asking for understanding, but curiosity. Stay curious. If you have that mindset then you know how I’m dealing with this. It’s an interesting puzzle. I’m learning more about human neurology probably than I otherwise would have.

#6: Yeah…

…fatigue, brain fog, balance problems. But all that didn’t start until a few hours after I got up. In that little window of time I got some stuff done around the house, working off a long term project of downsizing, sorting, filing. I’m really not seeing the benefit from the new medication the neurologist was telling me I’d see. There is some, but it’s disappointing. I have a follow-up appointment with him first week in August. We’ll talk.

I dropped off a bunch of stuff with the Greensburg Historical Society last Thursday, but there is more I need to uncover here. Plus, I am gathering stuff to donate to Goodwill. The sad truth is selling, or even giving away stuff is difficult. There is a “Buy Nothing Hampden” page here I’ve had some success with in the past, but lately no bites. I took a bunch of things to recycling knowing that at least some of it can become something new and not just end up in a landfill. The stuff I take to Goodwill can find another home. But I need energy to do all this and Parkinson’s, plus old age too I’m sure, leaves me with very little.

I’ve been thinking it over and I suppose this diagnosis of Parkinson’s seems sudden to most of my friends. Pretty sure not to my brother in California, who has seen me struggling at his house with fatigue and balance and memory. My co-workers and project leads have seen me struggle to get words out when I suddenly can’t put a sentence together, because brain and mouth momentarily stop cooperating. More distressingly is a loss of mental focus that I was hoping the meds would improve. But since most of my socializing these days is online, most of my friends and classmates wouldn’t have seen any of this building for the past couple years. And it’s been a gradual thing, punctuated by a few sudden episodes of fail.

I’m really not in a bad way now, and probably won’t be for quite some time; just not the fully functional me I used to be, even accounting for age. It’s mostly subtle…until for a brief few moments it isn’t. If the diagnosis seems sudden to you, rest assured it is not to me, or to anyone who has had my physical presence for more then a day or two; something is a bit off with Bruce.

I am grateful for the diagnosis because it gave me clarity, Finally, as to what was happening to me, and something to take the measure of, and try to manage.

But there is so much more I need to do. I have artwork I want to get out. It’s going to be harder than I’d anticipated, and I’m not going to get everything done I want to.

Please Stand By…

The smoke from those Canadian wildfires is reaching down here to Greensburg, and so I’m told, back home in Baltimore. If anything it’s worse today than yesterday. Oh and I’m going home now to temperatures in a high 90s. It was like this a few years ago, during first retirement, when I bopped out to California and the heat past the Rockies was brutal. I don’t remember it being like this when I was a kid. Hot during the summer, yes, and disgustingly humid. But not like this.

I’m such a bundle of stress lately it’s really making it hard to live my days. If I could just get some of it out of me in my art room or with my cameras I would feel a lot better. But I can’t concentrate on anything, even just mindless housework, enough to do any of it.

The best I can manage is write some stories and work on my ghost-ish novel, but that’s only because how I write. I don’t start at the beginning, I start in the middle, and write pieces of it from the inside out, then try to connect everything together and make it flow. It’s hard, but doable even in my present state.

The only time in my life I ever started at the beginning of a story and wrote through to its end was my first ever erotic short story I finished a couple days ago. It riffs on something that was bothering me and I had it practically all written out in my head even before I sat down to it (which is kinda how I do my cartoons and art drawings) and I just blasted through it in one sitting and that’s never happened to me before. I remember reading that when James HIlton got the idea for Goodbye Mr. Chips he finished it in one sitting and I could not imagine how anyone could do that, even one as short as that one was (it’s more of a novella). But I did it and I’m pretty happy with it and no one will ever see it. Connoisseurs of pronography can laugh but I’m the kid who was shocked to discover there would be group showers in Jr. High School gym. I’m the gay adult who wouldn’t take his clothes off while staying in clothing optional gay resorts at Key West and Puerto Vallarta. Normally I write my fiction on Google Docs and my essays on my blog, so I can have them to work on no matter which computer I’m sitting at. I’ve got that story locked away in one of my IronKeys. I think Google Docs censors stuff like that anyway.

I have an MRI scheduled for Monday morning at Union Memorial, and a session with a neurologist later this month. Hopefully I get some answers as to why I can’t concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes, why I’m getting more and more forgetful, and why I’m slightly dizzy all the time. I keep wanting to sit down at my drafting table and I don’t because I can’t concentrate.

If you’ve read my previous blog post about my switch back from K-Cups to the drip coffee maker, then you know I’m using whole beans that I grind in a Krups burr grinder right before I make a pot. I get my beans from Baltimore Coffee and Tea, which has a store in Timonium next to the light rail stop.

They roast their own beans and that store is in front of their roasting facility, so what you buy there has come directly from that. The bean I’ve settled on is one they call Brazilian Fancy Santos. It brews a very low acid, smooth and light coffee that is surprisingly (to me anyway) loaded with caffeine for how nice it tastes. This much better taste is something I’m rediscovering.

When you make coffee this way you are a lot more in control of the process than when you simply pop a K-Cup into a Keurig and press the button. There’s the matter of your grinder settings and how much water you add for how much coffee grinds. The drip machine I use that I bought on the recommendation of Consumer Reports controls its own water temperature and gets it exactly right to my taste, but there are others that let you adjust the brewing temperature. Over time I’ve hit my sweet spot on the grinder setting and amount of water I use. But it’s still more coffee grind than is packed in a K-Cup I’m sure. It also has to be a Lot fresher, which may have something to do with the caffeine effects I’m suddenly feeling now.

I definitely have to limit my intake of this coffee, and when, if I want to get any sleep at night, whereas I could have several mugs made from K-Cups of Kirkland Summit Roast, or Peet’s Major Dickenson’s Blend, and as long as I stopped by 3PM I had no trouble sleeping. I’m finding out I can only have one mug of Brazilian Fancy Santos a morning, and just pour out what I haven’t finished by noon if I want to sleep at night. It’s surprising me because that coffee is so smooth and sweet and lovely compared to any other coffee I’ve had.

I guess all the early years I drank coffee from a percolator made me think that if it isn’t bitter it isn’t strong. Maybe the kick is coming from the fact that the way I’m doing it now (again), with freshly ground beans, so that it’s got to be a lot fresher than anything in a K-Cup, and possibly a lot more potent.

That Keurig machine really lured me in with its shear convenience. But this isn’t really all that much more work for something that’s a lot more enjoyable.

This is Costco’s doing. Somewhat.

I went to the Costco in Reisterstown to buy another box of Kirkland Summit Roast K-Cups and forgot I needed to either pack a Visa card, of which I only have one, or my ATM card which I don’t keep in my wallet all the time for obvious reasons. I got to the self checkout and suddenly realized I didn’t have the correct plastic with me. Now I’m thinking do I have enough cash in my wallet? Yes I Do! So then I’m thinking I can just hand over some cash and I stay in line…wait in the Costco line…wait in the Costco line…wait in the Costco line…wait in the Costco line…, only to finally get to the self checkout and discover their self checkouts don’t take cash. So I had to just walk away from the purchase.

Why does Costco make it so difficult to pay for your purchases? It wasn’t a problem for me when they were taking American Express because I had one of their charge cards in my wallet all the time. That was my grocery and miscellaneous purchases card which, unlike a revolving credit card, you pay it off every month. Taking out a loan to pay for food seems kinda bad. But then Costco switched to Visa and only Visa or your ATM card and I’m still fuzzy about why, if they went to Visa, they couldn’t also go to Master Card too since my understanding is both charge stores the same percentage on purchases. But no…

So there was a BJ’s nearby, and they take all the cards including American Express. I would really rather buy things from Costco because they treat their staff right, but they could treat their customers a little better at the register. So I went over to the BJ’s and bought some of their Wellsley Farms coffee, and it was okay but not okay enough. I’d previously found that I like Peet’s Major Dickenson’s Blend, so I bought a box of their K-Cups to tide me over until the next time I was at a Costco and the wallet is loaded with the correct plastic.

The whole thing made me start rethinking how I was making my morning mug of coffee (I’m well beyond just a cup now).

There’s a New Yorker cartoon about how people make their coffee that is peak New Yorker (I’m a subscriber)…

So why was I using K-Cups? Nobody hurt me, I just got snookered into the convenience of it. 

Back when I was a teenager my morning jolt of energy was built-in and I was all bright eyed and bushy tailed the instant I got out of bed. How I wish it was still that. Back then grocery stores had coffee bean grinding machines with bags of whole beans stacked around it. You would empty one of the bags into the top of the grinder, select the grind you wanted, place the now empty bag under the chute (the bag had the price on it), and the machine would give you back freshly ground coffee you could take home. 

Years later I started drinking coffee in the mornings when I had my own apartment, a job writing computer software, and all the stress that comes with it. This was also when I started smoking cigars in the evenings. Grocery stores still had those grinder machines and I may have tried that a time or two, but soon I’d moved on to getting it in cans pre-ground. I gravitated somehow to Chock full o’ Nuts which I drank for years out of a percolator I inherited from mom that I never saw her use. I was reaching back to a childhood TV memory…

I will go to my grave still remembering some of those old TV ad jingles. So I’m told, this one was created by a gentleman named Wilbur England, who would tell the story of how he was asked to come up with musical jingle for Maxwell House coffee, and on a marimba he came up with the percolator theme. It sticks in your mind, which is what those jingles are supposed to do. I don’t think there’s a 50s/60s kid that doesn’t instantly know this tune the moment they hear it.

But the problem with percolators, as coffee purists will tell you, is it runs the brewed coffee back over the grind over and over again, and that makes it bitter. I can tell you for a fact it does but that was how I thought coffee was supposed to taste. Then in an issue of Consumer Reports I saw a review of drip coffee makers and there was a 15 dollar Black and Decker one that rose to the top over a bunch of way more expensive models. I bought one, and tried it out and was an instant convert. For 15 bucks I bought a second one I took to my office at Space Telescope, where by then I was working, and a can of Chock full o’ Nuts and some filters to keep by my desk.

I kept buying Chock full o’ Nuts, but I was also buying loose tea at Baltimore Coffee and Tea, which greeted me every time I went inside with a lovely scent of coffee beans from around the world. They roast their own beans and sell them from burlap sacks placed around the counter on one side of the store. I decided to give grinding my own beans a try, and sniffed around until I found some beans I liked the smell of. Which was a trick since my nose doesn’t work very well. I settled on a Mexican bean, and then later on a Brazilian one. I bought a Krups burr grinder and some whole beans. I ground some beans, put the grind in a filter, brewed it in the drip machine, took a taste, and decided that was The Way.

That worked for me for almost a decade. Then some years ago on a visit to California I saw that my brother was using one of those Keurig K-Cup coffee makers (he uses a press now), and I gave it a try. He had a K-Cup carousel with some Starbucks Pike Place Roast in it and I tried one. It was seductively easy to make coffee with it. You just popped in a K-Cup, set the machine for how big your cup or mug is, and presto…a cup or a mug of fresh coffee. And it tasted pretty good. Not as good as my freshly ground coffee at home, but a tad more than good enough.

The efficiency of it was attractive. You never used more coffee than you needed, whereas I was pretty sure my little drip coffee maker process was using a lot of beans for not so much coffee. What I maybe did not appreciate was you end up spending a Lot more per unit coffee when it’s in a K-cup. But once I figured out how to work the device I came to like using it. When I got back home I bought one exactly like his.

For a while the Keurig and my Black and Decker coffee maker sat side by side in my kitchen. I would use the drip machine when I wanted to make a pot for the day, and the Keurig for when I only wanted just a mug for my morning walk. Eventually it was exclusively the Keurig because it was just so damn easy to use. One of my co-workers at the Institute had a Keurig machine out in a common area we could all use, so I started bringing in some K-Cups. Eventually I cleaned and stored my two Black and Deckers. 

I never really thought about what I was missing for so long. I got used to the taste of what came out of the Keurig and forgot how lovely the coffee I made from freshly ground beans I bought at Baltimore Coffee and Tea was.

Costco’s policy of making it hard to pay for your purchases made me start rethinking it. I’d come to like the taste of their Kirkland Summit Roast which I could only buy at Costco, and since they switched to Visa Or Debit Only I had to make sure I had one or the other in my wallet before I got the idea to swing by Costco. BJ’s had the Starbucks Pike Place Roast but I don’t buy from them anymore since I learned how badly they treat their staff. What to do what to do…?

I still had my Black and Decker coffee makers, some filters and the Krups grinder. Baltimore Coffee and Tea is still where it always was. So bought some more whole beans from them and got out my coffee makers and the bean grinder, and gave the old process another try. I brewed up a pot this morning. Which is why I’m writing this blog post.

Wow… 

I don’t think I’m ever going back to the K-Cups. At least not at Casa del Garrett.

Now I have to figure out what I’m going to do when I’m road tripping and need my morning cup of coffee. Once upon a time hotels put drip machines in the rooms and I could brings some filters and a small tupperware container of beans I’d ground myself and make some coffee. Now it’s either a small K-cup machine or some weird device that only takes the hotel’s proprietary expensive coffee cartridge. I’d actually bought a small Keurig machine because of this to take with me on the road for my morning mug of coffee, and one to keep at my brother’s house. But Pilot/Flying J truck stop Columbian coffee is actually pretty good, so maybe I just stick with that on the road.

Growing up, we didn’t have a car in our household until I was fifteen. So how did we get our groceries home from the store? Mom had a two wheeled foldable grocery cart.

These were pretty common back in the day, at least among our economic class, but also the timeframe. Back in the 50s/60s most households only had one car and that was dads for going to and from work. Seeing mothers with small children tagging along in the grocery store was nothing remarkable, nor is it today really. But nowadays you tend to only see older shoppers with these grocery carts, who live in nearby senior housing.

At the store this cart would be folded up and fit under the shopping cart while mom enacted the ancient rite of hunting and gathering among the isles. She (or I usually) would slide it out at the checkout counter, unfold it, and the baggage clerk would helpfully put the bags into it as they came from the register clerk (grocery stores used to have one clerk to work the cash register and another to bag groceries).

Being the “man of the house” my job was to pilot the grocery cart back home. It wasn’t that much of a chore and I happily dove into it so I could pretend I was driving a car, making sound effects along the way, and thereby fulfilling the line item on a young boy’s job description that reads embarrass mom. Small as I was, the only way a lot of heavy groceries mattered was the inertia you had to overcome to start it rolling. Once you got it rolling it wasn’t much effort to pull or push it along. That said, obviously we didn’t live where there were a lot of steep hills,

Time passes, the universe expands, and now I have a car of my own, and also two Very Nice grocery stores in easy walking distance from my house. But I’ve often thought about that old grocery cart I used to pilot along when I was still in single digits, because I dislike having to use the car just to drive a couple blocks when I knew I was buying more than I could carry. It just seemed ridiculous. The advantage to city life, in a good neighborhood, is you can walk everywhere. I have a good backpack I often use to go grocery shopping with, but even that has its limits. Plus, and alas, some places here have signs on the door saying “No Backpacks”. This is why we can’t have nice things.

I would see folks from the senior housing in my neighborhood, piloting their own grocery carts along and it kept reminding me to look into getting one of my own. But most of the newer ones strangely have four wheels, like a lot of roller luggage now too, and I just don’t grok that. To push one of those along upright on all four little wheels just looks unstable to me, especially when navigating cracks in the sidewalk and curbs. And I suppose all those years piloting a grocery cart way back when probably gave me some muscle memory for the task of balancing things on two wheels. My good Briggs & Riley luggage is like that with wheels that are a tad oversized compared to other makes.

So a couple months ago I looked into it, thinking I might just try to find a “vintage” grocery cart like the one mom had. But it seems these little grocery carts have had some serious rethinking since I was a boy, and I ended up with what you see in this photo… 

This design might be very new since I’ve never seen it being used before on the sidewalks around my neighborhood, and I see the folks from the senior housing here using them lots. But it’s really Really nice. Well made, well thought out.

The bag is detachable, holds as much as I remember mom’s cart holding and folds into a small space, as does the frame which is Way more substantial than the one mom had, or any other ones I’ve ever seen. And that weird arrangement of wheels on it actually makes going up and down steps and curbs a snap.

I’ve used it a bunch since then, and just this morning when I brought back a bunch of stuff I would never have been able to carry otherwise. Now the car can sit peacefully until I need to go to Trader Joe’s because that’s too far to walk.

One semi pleasant side effect of the No Alcohol restriction I’ve been on since before the surgery (I should write some posts about the surgery I reckon) is I don’t go out to eat at my favorite places very much because they are where I do most of my drinking (margaritas usually). So this is saving me money by mostly eating from my own kitchen. Plus I have a fully stocked bar downstairs I can visit when the restriction is lifted. Restaurant and bar drinks are hella expensive.

I dine out half for food better than I can make myself, and half for company, which is why I always sit at the bar. I can chat with people at the bar. Table for one just reminds me how single I am. I won’t do table for one anymore. Staying home all the time reminds me of it too, but at least I have part-time work for now.

This is something else I like about train travel. I get to chat with my fellow passengers in the dining car and the lounge car. A certain someone once told me how good I was at getting a standoffish table talking to each other, but that’s because some situations have their own built-in ice breakers. Hi! Where y’all from? Where you headed? This your first train ride? I’ve had some amazing conversations on the train.

I have two thistle feeders I’ve been putting out since last winter, after I discovered the woodpeckers love the new feed mix of niger seed and ground up sunflower kernels. The American goldfinches have been hitting them all summer long too, which is a new thing. Previously they’ve stayed away once the trees got their spring leaves, and I would take them down. But if the woodpeckers and the American goldfinches keep coming I reckon I’ll keep putting them out. The woodpeckers (downy) brought a chick to the feeders back in spring.

The feeders are two different sizes: tall and short. And here’s the strange/funny thing…I have to hang them correctly or the birds won’t come. Tall feeder on the left, short one on the right. If I reverse them it’s like the birds don’t see them anymore. I’ve no idea…

Yesterday morning I was in a hurry and somewhat frazzled and when I refilled the feeders I hung them backwards. I realized my mistake a few hours later, but decided to dig in my heels and see if the birds would ignore the offence. But no. All afternoon the feeders remained vacant.

So I went back out and put them in the correct order. Not two minutes later the feeders were busy again.

Birds!

I hadn’t read any of Fred Clark’s posts in a while, I suppose for some reason I can’t get his blog to work in Feedly. So just now on a lark I checked in.

WOW!

I also appreciate his telling how it feels to move into a new place in the center of town and you can walk to “a supermarket within walking distance, and a half-dozen coffee shops, four pizza places, and more restaurants and bars than I’d manage to visit over the next 15 years of living there.” Yes, urban life is Wonderful. Especially if you’re a walker. And especially so when it seems you are welcomed to it with a street fair right outside your front door.

I really need to figure out how to get his posts to show up in Feedly.

[Update…] This time I tried I got the link to Slacktivist added to My Websites easily. I have no idea what the problem was before. 

When I got up and checked the weather it looked like another stay inside day, but I thought I’d get out early and do a mile or two, so I got dressed quickly, made my coffee and opened the front door. Well…okay…today it really isn’t the heat, it really is the humidity.

It was brutal, but I stuck to the plan. Kind of. I did the zig-zag route around the new townhome development a couple blocks away and called it done.

My clothes were sticking to me by the time I got back inside, and I went to check my weather station display. Temperature was 80, the relative humidity was 98%, with a dew point of 79. Not all that hot compared to my Friday trip north, but still awful. You really appreciate the dehumidifying effect of air conditioning more on days like today.

A big storm front passed through last night and woke me up. Or maybe it was my usual insomnia. Weather station says we got almost half an inch of rain overnight, so at least I don’t have to go outside and water the plants.

I’ve suddenly started having hyper vivid dreams overnight, one after the other. And I’m wondering if this is a side effect of the new heart pill I’m taking for the afib. It’s a side effect I don’t mind…the dreams are pleasant if just a tad odd in the way dreams can be. Maybe it’s just I’m sleeping better, because my heart isn’t misbehaving.

The afib has not returned since I began taking this pill. Also my energy levels are noticeably better. I haven’t had the urge to nap in the afternoon. I was given a sheet about afib in the hospital that said among other things that it can cause fatigue. It makes sense. If that’s what’s been making me tired all the time, and very slightly dizzy, then getting past that would be a Big improvement.

Walking back from the grocery store yesterday morning, I chanced across a neighbor walking to their car and we started chatting. Being pretty much in the same age group the conversation took a turn toward the trials and tribulations of growing old. We compared notes. Yes, back in the day we could recover from small injuries pretty quickly. She mentioned her husband once played in a band and still had his drum set in the basement. I mentioned my Alembic bass that I’d mostly taken up because kids of my generation were supposed to learn a musical instrument and I still felt that even though I’m a graphic artist, it would help my mindset if I did.

I guess it was my usual way of making banter, but as she was getting into their car she mentioned that however old I am I still act like I’m young.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard that. After mom died I entered a period of therapy, and the shrink who worked with me told me that I “present young.”

I can tell you it’s not affected in any way. If anything I’ve had to work most of my adult life at allowing me to be me…my school years prior to Woodward were so stifling, plus the constant static I got from my maternal grandmother simply for being my father’s son. And…yes…having to deal with my sexual orientation when that became a thing. Who do I trust? Who can I be open with? Where can I just be me? Those moments when you have to suddenly decide whether to be true to yourself or duck never stop coming. But you learn to handle them…for better or worse.

All I can think is I was always a science kid, and us science kids never stop enjoying discovering things about nature and the world around us. Which means you never ‘grow up” because you never stop growing.

Sure you move into different stages of life…you get a job, you take on responsibilities you didn’t have to when you were a kid…but you stay curious. Life keeps on being an adventure, even in your old age. Yes it can be harrowing at times. Heartbreaking even. But still an adventure. There is always something more to be discovered.

So I present young. It’s just me. I reckon I won’t have that second childhood they talk about old people having, because I never got completely done with the first one.

I’m up early and step out onto my porch to check the weather and see if the neighborhood cat is out and about and wants to come in for a bit. I see that it’s rained, and there was some wind overnight because blossom petals from a tree nextdoor are scattered all over my porch. It is pleasantly warm.

Then one of the more impressive flashes of lightning I’ve ever seen streaks across the sky. Not sky to ground but cloud to cloud spreading out and covering half the sky above me. I’ve seen this sort of thing before but never that expansive and right over me. Seconds later a blast of thunder tears through the sky, then decays into a slow growling rumble that goes on and on.

I give it the applause it’s due, thinking maybe I wait a while before taking my morning walk.