"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
Today won't be my most focused effort; there's simply not enough time to organize my thoughts, which are all over the place.
The situation at Wyldswood reached a crescendo yesterday when George up and quit.
The first hint of trouble came when he sent us a photo of a cow gone walkabout.
My first thought was that he wanted us to see how well he'd built that suspension bridge out to Snake Island, seeing as how a huge bovine pedestrian crossed without collapsing it. But no, that apparently wasn't it at all. This was evidence of the farm falling into chaos, and somehow related to the growing tiff between him and the person who recently started as general manager, helping us get open and make a little money, finally.
Apparently there was a little sharp cross-talk between them, George being a little ornery and set in his ways, and the next thing we knew he'd resigned. I understand why it happened, and maybe why it was inevitable as we move from building and fixing Wyldswood to operating it as a business, but it still feels a little like a loss of family. George has been a part of that farm for over twenty years now. I reckon he just didn't see himself in what is to come. We, or at least I (I never presume to speak for P), mourn the loss and wish him all the best.
A couple interesting pieces this week in the newspapers I've supposedly sworn off, both containing a common thread. In the NYT, Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky, wrote on how the Democratic Party can find its way back to winning elections after last week's debacle:
The essay doesn't appear to be behind a firewall, but if you have trouble opening it I'll tell you he argues that the average person cares less about exhibitionist politicians and more about how they'll pay for that dental filling or slog through traffic to get to a job they hope will earn them enough to cover rent and groceries. The Dems need to worry a little less about being politically correct culture warriors, while affirming the dignity of every human being, and deliver the goods with decent roads, expanded access to health care, and a little more robust safety net. It's the economy, stupid.
Meanwhile in Russia, they're seeing a boom in Siberia based on payouts from the Kremlin in salary and survivor benefits for the tens of thousands of dead soldiers who haled from there.
The economy in rural Russia has been so bad, for so long, that a young man is actually worth far more in rubles getting killed in Ukraine in his 20s than working the rest of his life. This appears to have created a strange ambivalence about the war, as widows and mothers of dead soldiers buy their first apartment or car with the pile of money Putin is shoveling their way in exchange for their men, at a rate of 45,000 killed or wounded per month. Except for the fact that Ivan is six feet underground out in the cemetery, things have never been better in their lifetimes.
The whole exercise costs eight percent of the Kremlin budget. A lot of money, perhaps. But what if they'd just invested that money in these people in the first place, rather than using it to buy grist for the war mill? We saw the same thing during Covid--the government has always had the option to invest in the people it governs, to make sure there's food and work and a roof over people's heads. Human civilization, particularly in this hemisphere, has never been wealthier. Why don't we use that wealth for the good of the people who generate it, rather than paying for stealth fighters and billionaire space missions?
I sound like a Marxist. Probably best to stop there.
At 4 this morning I found myself lying in bed, wondering how P puts up with me. I've been a grousing, childish pouter since the election, displaying the worst of myself that's usually reserved for the golf course. And how did she put up with that immature spectacle for all those years, before I made my peace with my athletic mediocrity?
This morning I have spent some time thinking on how to be the sort of person she'd really want to be around. I've sort of lost my religion, and people tend not to thrive without it, particularly if it was an important part of their life before. So I'm reading a little Joseph Campbell every morning, trying to construct my own mythology and set myself in it, an exercise that bears an onanistic risk if it's not tethered to anything external. So the myths of my childhood, from scripture and literature and history, have to form the skeleton for what comes next, as Campbell himself observes. I figure that, and a return to the discipline of a regular examen (if you're not familiar with Jesuit tradition, look it up) will help me to be less of a jackass.
A couple weeks ago I bought the most virtuous, and expensive, breakfast cereal at Wegman's: Ezekiel 4: 9. It's so virtuous, in fact, as to be almost inedible, like chewing on grass clippings and nail clippings and maybe the chaff left over from milling wheat, with a couple sticks thrown in for good measure.
Which led me to look up the Bible verse, and see if it provided a clue to the recipe:
“Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.”
No way I'm making it over a year, but I'll tough my way through the rest of this pricey box of plant stuff.
I think the real clue to the recipe lies in a later verse in Ezekiel, providing guidance regarding how to cook it:
“And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.”
I have to hand it to whoever mass produces the cereal--you can barely taste the shit.
Time for a quick corporate tax lesson, then maybe a Wegman's run to grab something to cook for P tonight, then a mediation in a case about which I haven't read a thing yet. Here we go.
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