Sidetracked Charley

The Once Great Hoop House I read just today that the Taos Pueblo has not reopened since it closed at the beginning of the pandemic. I believe I fully understand. The Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak Fire and dozen day evacuation has me radically re-examining my life too. I am thrilled my home was not burned down. And no doubt the residents of Taos Pueblo are thrilled their community and its lifestyle survives the two year pandemic. They may even be very glad to not have to cater to the visitors. Living in the home of a friend for 12 days gave me a chance to see how others live. And living in another town as not a visitor but not a resident allowed me another view of that town and my neighborhood. Initially I just became overly involved with my house now that I was back in it. I had left it in a horrid mess. Running from room to room finding everything you wanted or needed to take aways from the fire with you leaves the house a total mess. I was shocked. Putting it right seemed so overwhelm...

I do not have a clock beside my bed. Retired from a corporate life I do not have to be up and going at any certain time. But even then I so hated the sound of the alarm I would set a time inside my head to be awake. That time was ten minutes before the alarm was set to go off. And most days I made that. These days in retirement or self-employment (is there a difference) I do not need to rise at any give time but I play this game of guessing what time it is when something wakes me up. These days it can be needing to pee - yet again. Or my shoulder aching because I slept on it wrong. Or a dream I cannot remember. What keeps me awake are random thoughts I do not seem to be able to consign to the slot of tomorrow. But if left unattended they can become hamster wheel thinking. They spring from something unsettled in the course of a day or days. Lately those thoughts in the dark have been about my camera. There was this lens which seemed to have self-destructed for no reason. And the...

I have discovered through past events I am the person who goes on automatic pilot and does what needs to be done until the immediate crisis is over. That is the good news. The bad news is when the crisis is over I will then go off screen and toss my cookies or stand at the edge of a crowd and just shiver. I am not good at pacing myself. Or staying focused for the long haul. At least not at first. I have to have my time to go off stage and scream. Or run though all those I should have said or done things.Then to consider exactly what it is I am up against. But you cannot take too long because things get worse fast. And if they don't, those things you have ignored, do. Or something totally off in the wings flies into center stage. Something least expected like the Mayor of a town I don't live in hearing something I didn't say about her in a meeting which was suppose to be private per the bylaws.  I have dedicated today to cleaning up the flat surfaces in my life. Liter...

I have been thinking a lot of cascade failure of late. A cascading failure is a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of a part can trigger the failure of successive parts . It is currently demonstrated in Japan with their desperate attempt to get the nuclear reactors under control. But I always think of that children's rhyme:  For Want of a Nail For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. This winter when a firm in Texas decided to ship natural gas intended for New Mexico to Oklahoma where it could get more money we all faced a cascade failure of the electrical grid here because of the over usage of electric space heaters to avoid freezing in -43F temps.  Yes, all dire situations but yesterday I found myself thinking in terms of cascade failu...