Posted inHumor Living with a catheter

New life goal: be a humorous mindful Taoist stay-at-home

I find many things weird. Most of them reside within my own cranium. After all, that's really the only place weirdness resides -- in a human mind. Like, mine. One of my weirdnesses is that even though I'm an avid blogger, for the past year I've largely avoided writing about the Central Fact of my life since May 2017. Namely, my 68 year-old bladder deciding to call it quits during a visit to central Oregon, which led through a series of increasingly disturbing events to my current state of being an Old Man Who Has to Pee Via a Catheter. …
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Posted inCurrent affairs Health Living with a catheter

Between the black and white of suicide, there’s a gray area

The recent suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade have gotten people talking about the problem of taking one's own life. That's good.  But I don't feel like we're talking about an important issue that is almost a taboo topic: the gray area between (1) the black badness of people killing themselves when there are better options available to them, and (2) the white goodness of people taking control of their death when they are suffering and only have a few months or less to live. What I see as a gray in-between area is when a person considers that…
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Posted inSalem Strange Up Salem

Universe to Salem: “When in doubt, let it out!”

I rarely channel the Universe, because I'm usually dubious that it has a message for me, or anyone else. But the recent toxic algae water crisis here in Salem must have caused my cosmic connection to become more finely-tuned, since I'm picking up a communication for our city from the Universe that's coming in loud and clear. When in doubt, let it out! After all, the numero uno problem with how the folks at City Hall handled the cyanotoxin water tests was their mistaken decision to keep the initial positive test results to themselves, instead of immediately telling the public,…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Trump passed 3,000 lies this month. That’s horrific.

Everybody lies. Sometimes. A little bit. But Donald Trump lies to a degree that far surpasses any other president, and indeed most human beings in general, aside from pathological liars such as psychopaths.  I have to give the Washington Post credit for having staff with the fortitude to chronicle Trump's lies since he took the oath of office. On May 1 the Post reported "President Trump has made 3,001 false or misleading claims so far." In the 466 days since he took the oath of office, President Trump has made 3,001 false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker’s…
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Posted inEntertainment Sports

U of O softball way more entertaining today than OSU baseball

I'm an end of season softball and baseball fan, because we have DirecTV and they still don't carry the Pac 12 Network after so many years, I've stopped counting.  But today ESPN showed important games for both the University of Oregon softball team, which needed a win over Kentucky to advance to the Women's College World Series, and the Oregon State baseball team, which needed a win over UCLA to have a chance of winning the Pac 12 championship, plus get a better seeding in the NCAA playoffs. My conclusion: women's softball is way more entertaining than men's baseball. Now,…
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Posted inEntertainment Salem

Shout! is a hugely enjoyable Enlightened Theatrics musical

Whether or not you were there in the 60's and early 70's (I was) to groove to tunes such as "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" and "Son of a Preacher Man," you'll love Enlightened Theatrics' Shout! The Mod Musical at the Grand Theatre in downtown Salem.  I saw Shout! last night at a preview performance where the five women who sing, dance, and act with marvelous professionalism came back on stage after the show in street clothes to respond to questions from the audience, along with other members of the production. What blew my mind further, which was already…
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Posted inHome life Humor

Fred Meyer, free those organic bananas!

Having been a vegetarian for 48 of my 69 years, I'm attuned to the suffering of sentient animals. But of late my compassion has been expanding to insentient fruits and vegetables, perhaps due to the intense 10 minutes of daily morning meditation I do via listening to the Daily Calm on my iPhone (some of which I actually stay awake for). So the sight of these organic bananas I bought today at the South Salem Fred Meyer filled me with such sorrow, I could hardly wait to get home and pour out my feelings via a blog post. Now, Fred…
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Posted inHome life Recreation

We say hello to Paulina Springs, and sort of goodbye to the Metolius

One of the great things about living in Salem, Oregon is how close it is to Portland (north), Eugene (south), the Coast (west), and the Cascades/Central Oregon (east). My wife and I hugely enjoyed the 20 years we were 1/4 owners of a Forest Service cabin on the banks of the Metolius in Camp Sherman, near Sisters in central Oregon. After selling our cabin share, we bought a 1/4 share in a Black Butte Ranch house not far away. We're finding it easier to say goodbye to the cabin on the Metolius by the house being close to beautiful Paulina…
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Posted inHealth Home life

Regence MedAdvantage planning to ditch Salem Health doctors

Irritated. Pissed-off. Disturbed.  That's how I feel after getting an un-cheery letter from Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon letting me know that as of July 1, 2018, Salem Health Professional Services will be leaving their provider network. So if this happens, I'd have to pay out-of-network rates for (1) the primary care doctor I've had for 13 years, Michelle Rasmussen; (2) a mental health nurse practitioner in Rasmussen's office, Melody Klug, who has been overseeing medication for depression that hit me after I acquired a chronic bladder condition, and (3) Thye Schuyler, a doctor at the Salem Health Sleep Center…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Police need to give up the “21-foot rule” and other dangerous myths

It was great to see a recent story in the Portland Oregonian, Officers get new de-escalation training, which de-bunked the myth that police officers need to keep someone with a knife at least 21 feet away from them, because supposedly "a person with a knife within that distance can stab you before you can shoot." This never made sense to me, as I noted in a 2010 post, "Why I'm bothered by another Portland police killing."  The transient, Jack "Jackie" Collins, was intoxicated and threatening people at Hoyt Aboretum. After Walters knocked on the restroom door, Collins came out. Pretty…
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Posted inHome life

We just leased our third Chevy Volt, avoiding the games car salespeople play

My wife, Laurel, should be hired by General Motors as a Chevy Volt spokeswoman. She absolutely loves the car. Me, not so much, which is why I drive a VW GTI. So Laurel and I don't always agree on what makes a car lovable. But we do agree on this: it is super annoying when car salespeople give you the runaround, playing ridiculous sales-games rather than being up front and open with us.  This is why we've leased all three of our Chevy Volts through Kelly Stewart of Salem's Capitol Auto Group, even though Kelly is with the Toyota side…
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Posted inHome life Salem

Why it’s so tough for older folks like us to leave their beloved country home

My wife and I moved to our house on five non-easy-care acres in rural south Salem way back in 1990. We were about forty then. The couple we bought the house from were in their mid-60's.  When we asked them why they were selling, they said "It just has gotten to be too much for us to maintain." Well, we're now pushing 70. (I'm pushing harder than my wife, but she's not far behind.) And a while back we bought the empty lot next door, so now we have ten acres to maintain. So why aren't we moving to a…
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Posted inHome life Living with a catheter

In my final hypnosis session I meet the V.P. in charge of my goals

My sessions with Emily Cahal of Salem Hypnosis Solutions have been delightfully varied. Today, my fourth session, and the last for a while, featured me meeting the Vice-President of my psyche in charge of achieving goals.  (I've described the three previous sessions here, here, and here.) Per usual, before the actual hypnosis session Emily and I talked about how things have been going with me since we last met. Naturally the focus was on how I've been dealing with my chronic health problem, a bladder condition, since that was my motivation for giving hypnosis a try. I told her that…
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Posted inSustainability

Messiness of recycling talked about at Salem City Club today

Along with most people, I already was aware of the basic changes to the Marion County recycling program prior to today’s Salem City Club program, “What’s Up With Recycling?” But the expert speakers provided a lot of useful background information, plus some good tips for dealing with the changes.  So here’s some of what I remember from the talks by Peter Spendelow, a recycling specialist and materials management policy analyst for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality; Will Posegate, the chief operations officer for Garten Services; and Alan Pennington, the Waste Reduction Coordinator for Marion County Public Works and head…
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Posted inHome life Living with a catheter

My third time is a purple charm with Emily Cahal of Salem Hypnosis Solutions

Today I had my third hypnosis session with Emily Cahal. I've blogged about the first two sessions here and here. It left me feeling good. Not that the first sessions had me feeling bad. Quite the opposite. I simply felt like today we went a bit deeper into my psyche, which might be a result of me becoming more familiar with Cahal's style and with hypnosis in general.  I like how Cahal blends traditional counseling with hypnotherapy. First we talked for about fifteen minutes about what's been going on with me during the past week. My focus, of course, was…
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Posted inTai Chi

Tai Chi philosophy: Dissolve and try something different

I've been learning Tai Chi for fourteen years. One of the things I love about Tai Chi is that it is Taoism in motion. Meaning, Tai Chi embodies Taoist (or Daoist) philosophy.  I can't think of any other form of movement -- dance, sport, whatever -- that similarly has deep philosophical principles reflected in it. Yin and yang, of course, are central concepts in Tai Chi. Softness (yin) and hardness (yang) alternate in the flowing movements. Of course, what passes for "hard" in Tai Chi is much softer than in other martial arts, so the "soft" is really soft.  …
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Posted inHealth Living with a catheter

My second hypnosis session got me way small

As I said in my blog post about my first hypnosis session with Emily Cahal of Salem Hypnosis Solutions, we had to make a decision about which way to proceed. She told me that there were two basic ways we could go with hypnosis. Basically, one way would focus on my particular presenting problem, so to speak. The other way would be more general, delving into my habitual way of dealing with life's problems.  Interestingly, as we chatted before beginning the second session, Cahal indicated that though we went the more general way last week, she favored going the more…
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Posted inHome life

Black ice story in New Yorker brings back some slippery memories

I'm hoping that a story in the most recent issue of The New Yorker, "Black Ice, Near-Death, and Transcendence on I-91," will make people more aware of the dangers of black ice, and also reassure people like me who live in areas that don't get a lot of snow, but do regularly get black ice, that we aren't winter weenies. (The title of the story in the print edition is "Six Skittles: the danger of black ice.") First, the story makes clear something that it took me a while to realize after I moved to Oregon from California in 1971…
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Posted inHealth Living with a catheter

Here’s how my first hypnosis session went

Today I had my first real hypnosis experience with Emily Cahal of Salem Hypnosis Solutions. Back in college I'd dabbled in self-hypnosis as taught by a Yoga teacher I was studying with. And I'd seen a form of "show business" hypnosis during an assembly at a high school where I briefly was a teacher's aide following my college graduation. A hypnotist did his thing on stage with a female student, then told her to go find Paul Newman in the audience. She walked by me, looking into the bleachers, then leapt into the second row where I was sitting and…
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Posted inSalem

Photos of cherry blossoms on Salem’s capitol mall

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood... of the cherry blossoms on the Capitol mall. Lots of people were enjoying the blooming profusion this afternoon along with me, my wife Laurel, and our dog, ZuZu. Here's photos of our excursion, viewable by clicking on the image below. As I say in this Adobe Spark web page, ""This was the first time I'd photographed cherry blossoms. What I learned is that just when I began to think that one bunch of blossoms looks like all the rest, a change of perspective showed me that this wasn't true.
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