Two Poems written at 30,000 ft

 I flew to my sister's wedding, after not flying for about 7 years. I don't know if it was being refilled with kind stranger's blood ten times 2023, or if it is approaching middle age, but people feel so much more...precious. 

The people all around me, strangers, moving along. Sometimes it hits me just how vulnerable we are, our lives suspended over death by miracles we are not aware of. A few pumps of a heart muscle, a mis-timed squirt of air or oxygen...we can be broken so easily. 

Bustling about with our big plans and our daily worries, unaware, so fragile, precious, and human.

[Leaving]

I fly above the world

in a tube of tin

fragile wings outstretched,

caught in the wind

Silent humanity,

crushed within

A life-time of memories---hopes won or lost

Written in a kilogram of greymatter, 

packaged in wrinkled flesh and textiles.

An aging lady reads a romance

its crisp pages never to be turned again.

A middle aged man, potentials collapsed into a suit

 curly hair thinning, tinged with grey, 

with eager eyes consumes the free flight training

meticulously takes the quiz---how to bank, turn, landing, takeoff---

bound back to earth.

All yearnings of our souls, inchoate

Mute children, yearning for words [within]

each of us, elbows carefully at our sides

avoiding each-other's eyes.

My deep apologies for the bad metallurgy that I reduced my aircraft to, in an attempt to rhyme.

The man on my left felt like a Jewish businessman, carefully wearing a nice suit, probably on his way to some business meeting, probably. In boredom he fired up the screen, eschewed movies, and was taking a free pilot course complete with multiple choice-quizzes on piloting terminology and techniques. Banking and turning, when to put the flaps down, etc. He was going through the quizzes, with the eagerness of a preteen who has just discovered they can become a pilot. He had very curly hair, tinted with grey, thinning out. He looked about 40 or 45, when paths have long been chosen, careers have been baked in, and there isn't enough time to re-orient. But it was so easy to see the child in him...what he must have once looked like----a mop of curly hair over bright curious eyes, studying the world. But now middle aged, and all bound up in the respectable suit... it didn't seem to fit his true soul. As if he wore it almost like an ill-fitting uniform, that a good child donned to do the job required of him.

The woman's romance novel was some strange exploration into a possible ghost story or a widow or something, but falling in love with some poor guy who went by they/them. It wasn't your typical harlequin, I think, but it also was all about experiencing a romance, kiss, etc, that wasn't your own. It was odd. It felt like the sort of book one would never re-read. The sort of thing a moody writer writes in desperation trying to squeeze wind and kisses and sunsets out of a computer word-document. There's a sort of pathos to it, the graphic description of kisses, the attempt to summon up hypothetical beach sunsets that you haven't actually experienced enough of. As if your mind was a computer generator, hashing out fuzzy images of Microsoft back-drop screens, with ourselves crudely photoshopped into...longing for life. For wind. Hunched in a air-conditioned room, staring into an LCD monitor that is attempting to reconstitute the photons of a foreign sunset, looking for filling the hunger in our souls.

[Returning]

In a tube of hammered steel,

Frantically riding the wind

Rushing forward, jolting in its turbulence

Packed in, we neatly keep

Our elbows tucked, our heads forward, 

Furtive glances to catch

Bits of souls of the others, glinting though---

A ring, luggage patch, phone screen backdrop, half of a tattoo

What signs of loves, quirks, ideologies and selfhood chosen?

We collect in odd assortment in our pockets, during this mad race toward eternity

The tired middle-aged Indian man [strong, grey-frosted]

beside pulls down the shutter

closing his eyes.

We sit in darkness, lit by light-shadows of sudden brightness,

the few young window-dwellers who 

still sit by unshuttered portholes,

hungry eyes drinking in the sight.

Older ones outnumber them

Lean back weary arms crossed,

Seeking sleep

The attendant comes,

like good children we wait quietly,

sitting in our seats, eager anticipation,

hoping not to be passed over.

I nod off, coming to, afraid I have

missed the awaited treat

The tattooed curly haired beauty next to me,

handing the precious pretzel packets to me in shy solidarity.

I pass it to the Indian man beside me.

In silent fellowship we eat our pretzel packets,

Together

Ginger ale, tomato juice, and a whiskey

In silent communion we consume.

And then wait together.

Jolting again

Through the rough wind, invisible

Trusting that the darkened tube is still

sailing toward the earth

Towards that place

Where familiar faces and voices await us,

Home

There was something that almost made me cry, how we suddenly all became little children. The glamorous well-dressed curly-haired tattooed girl next to me, who probably doesn't agree with me on politics or religion or anything, waking me up so I didn't miss the snack. We may have all been in kindergarten, looking out for each other. I feel like I love her so much. With the love of a 6 year old who just was saved from snack-less-ness by the other 6 year old. Words may have ruined it, we would have disagreed about everything. But there was something about that silence, as if our souls were all lined up, silence stripping away our self-created identities, and just children inside. May God bless her abundantly.

Combatting Insomnia Round 2---breathing allergies cured by sardines [macrocytic anemia]---- Now onto glucose management!

I wrote about this earlier in my troubleshooting breathing issues with inflamed sinuses, and  combatting insomnia round 1

Breathing Issues Neutralized or Solved?

The breathing issues are gone---none whatsoever. Which may be why I'm getting a solid 6 hours now, instead of 3-4 hour chunks. [I used to wake up and then need to sneeze 3x and drink a hot cup of tea to calm down my sinuses to lie down again]

1.  Dust Free Sleep environment. Deep Cleaning my room!
1. I got all the exposed fabrics out of the room, clothes only in the closet or in a dresser. 
2. Washed curtains once a month. 
3. Washed my sheets every 7 days. BUT washed my pillowcases every 3 days. I picked up a bunch of 100% cotton pillowcases at the thrift store, and now throw pillowcases in with the other laundry constantly, to have a steady stream of clean pillowcases.
4. I washed my blankets & quilts and ran them through the dryer ever 2 weeks
5.  Mopped the hard surfaces
6. Was vigilant about not letting kids climb over my bed as a couch during the day. They track in pollens etc. Was vigilant about not sitting on my bed as a couch during the day as well.
7. Also, maybe the summer pollen count not being as bad as the fall/spring...
8. Ironically...getting more sleep. This is recursive. Interesting how my twin says her breathing issues get worse on sleep deprivation. That poor sleep actually increases allergies. [a destructive positive feedback loop here]
9. Air filter running (but I had this all along. I think with a dusty room it didn't help)
2. Fish Fix Also my twin got diagnosed with macrocytic (sp?) anemia, which is an anemia caused by some people with this gene needing stuff in sea-weed and sardines and daenjang....so Korean blood needs Korean food, I suppose. As my Korean mom always said "If I don't eat Korean food for 2 weeks, I get sick". So more sardines, more kimchi, more Miyeok Guk AND---macrocytic anemia causes worse respiratory symptoms, and exacerbates respiratory allergies. When my twin (with horrible dust-mite allergies) at a strictly Korean diet, all of her allergic symptoms went away.

Getting 6 hours, and able to fall back asleep afterwards, but struggling with tiredness....Glucose?

 I am now getting 6 hours a night, zero breathing issues. I don't even wake up sneezing, like I used to for months.

So now, when I wake up after 6 hours, I sometimes doze back for small trippy dream chunks. (Which I didn't used to be able to do). So that's a plus. BUT.....I will crawl out of bed, 8 hours after I went in, very tired still, despite being in bed 8 hours and having (I think) a solid 6 hours.

I will often mispell words (for me, a sign of sleep deprivation). Lately I have been spelling things like "King Arther" and "whent to the store". This is a sign I've had for 10 years, that I'm not sleeping well. But right now, its when I appear to be sleeping, but still wake up tired and can't spell.

I have trouble remembering, and generally feel overall crappy & tired.

From my research, excessive cortisol makes it hard to sleep long. AND having too much glucose in your blood at night also messes with sleep.

Glucose is my old enemy. I remember when I was taking my blood-sugars for my pregnancy with Irene, whenever I woke up so tired, waking blood sugar was over 85. When I woke up feeling extremely tire, more tired than when I went to bed, it was 95-100.

When I woke up feeling ok, it was usually in the 80-85 range. When I woke up feeling awesome, my waking blood sugar was 75. 

So sleeping with highish blood sugar (note, still within range for doctors saying its ok) but I could literally FEEL the difference between a waking blood sugar of 80 and a blood sugar of 95.

Back when I was battling gestational diabetes, I would eat nothing carb-y at dinner (I still ate green beans etc, with my lentil curry, so some carbs---but no grains, no wheat, no pasta, etc), and I would sleep better. Also, I had to eat early dinners, and no snacks afterwards---not even cheese or vegetables. I suppose this was a 'time restricted feeding' sorta thing, though I didn't realize it. I just knew that not eating for a good stretch before trying to go to sleep helped me wake up rested.

Breathing issues solved. Next up: Blood Sugar

1. Keep evening glucose LOW
1. Build muscle mass to help with glucose management----Lift 2x/week. GOAL: Gain 7 lb of muscle by Christmas 
2. Early (5/5:30pm) Low-Carb/Keto-ish Dinners? [make sure you eat more food earlier] 
3. ?Running machine to soak up glucose---but it must be a good bit before bed, so as not to spike your cortisol before sleep----you are all done by 7pm [so like 1 mile, resistance 5-10, right after dinner]
2. LIGHT and Circadian Rhythms
1. SUNLIGHT---20 min walk in the morning, in the early morning sunlight together. 6am
2. Make sure all the blue light filters are on on the computers
3. Meditate/give our worries to God/Pray together before bed by candlelight.
4. Find and set aside a Josh-Hannah talking time. And make it illegal for Hannah to talk after 10pm??? [then must go to our room by 9:30pm]
3. CLEAN AIR---Keep bedroom clean 
4. Fish Fish---eat Meukguk every Wednesday, Kimchi, Daenjang, and Sardines a few times a week to cure Macrocytic Anemia, and help with the Respiratory system.

To know God....

This morning I awoke early, was thinking, half asleep. Had a dream in which I wanted a baby so badly, I was afraid I would steal my sisters' new baby.

I thought about life. About how lately I've been empty inside, struggling with something. Tup tup pe, is how the Koreans call it. All the emotions jammed up inside, you're not even sure what's in there.

Computer games have these images in them. No wonder people play them. That makes me feel like I can almost feel the thing I am missing but forgot what it was, till I forget the feeling of missing it. And then a cool trailer, a sunrise to music and a purpose....then For one second, suddenly realizing that I am not alive, but used to be....Why does it take stories to make me feel this way? Epic trailers with epic music, and epic tragedies or triumphs...I start to feel like I can feel again for a moment....but why do I not see it in my real life all around  me? Why is it this pixelated image from a virtual world, not the sunsets I see with my own eyes? Why this numbness only stories can cut through? 

I've been struggling with a sense of missing something. Perhaps mid-life crisis. Perhaps a missing uterus. Perhaps missing my two little boys. And knowing a chapter of my life is over.

I've been missing that something a lot. 

Sometimes it felt like I was missing feelings. Or feeling alive. Like I was watching my own life distantly, through glass. Not really feeling. Not really seeing. The little ones are growing up all around me, I'm surrounded by life....and yet somehow I've felt so checked out this last year. As if I'm not really living my own life. It is my own fault too. I have avoided doing real things, interacting with my real children, to spend many hours on the internet, browsing youtube. Or immersed in my own fiction,  writing a star wars story. Why is it like I am chasing filling, or feelings, in an alternate world. Or really, inside my own head. Hours talking to my own brain. 

Am I processing life? Or escaping it, in concentrically smaller circles of insanity?

I know I process when I write. I partly write to think. But I know I also write looking for something. Is this the definition of insanity? Endlessly talking to my own self, for hours and hours of my life...when there are other humans all around me, who would love my attention? Often they are in their own little worlds and stories, interacting with eachother. But they would want me to be with them. They often ask for it.

How long have I been stuck in my own head? Searching for something, feeling empty, like I had swallowed so much air my throat hurt.

And it made sense, somehow, half asleep in the dawn light, that I was trying to fill the God-shaped emptiness inside of myself, with other things. Cramming in other shaped things. It didn't fit. 

I need to focus on reaching outside of myself....to the Creator who made me. Get out of these concentric circles in my own mind. And look at Him.

Perhaps that is what worship means.

To just look at Him. And see Him. Really see Him.

*****************************************8

Practical steps:

1. Actually go outside at 6 when I wake up, and pray at the prayergarden where my little boys are buried. And pray. And see what He says.....Ask Him who He is. I can show up. And see what He does.
2. Read the Bible. In as many different translations as I can. This year, perhaps NASB. Next year, KJV. The year after that ESV. Mix it up with reading it and listening to it. Somehow different hings jump out at me then.
3. Do devotion time with the kids. 5-5-5
1. Five minutes of listening to NKJV dramatized audioBible on youtube
2. Five minutes of silent journaling, silent prayer
3. Five minutes of Korean Style Prayer [Everyone outloud and praying]

Protein for Breakfast: Adventures in Ninja Blender Egg Puddings

The key to delicious blender egg-puddings is 

1. the eggs MUST be soft-boiled [whites cooked, yolks a bit runny in the centers]

2. you must refrigerate it for 6 hours to get rid of the sulfur taste, and to thicken it up.

Courtesy of this excellent high-protein recipe blog, she also has really cool birth stories.

 Josh has a very narrow list of things he will eat for breakfast. Even more narrow of a list than what he will eat for the rest of his life.

He sadly gave up breakfast cereal when I presented him with the scientific evidence it hastens the onset of diabetes, and may have contributed to insulin resistence-->diabetes-->obesity epidemic of the west. Because slamming your empty stomach with 45gr of carbs, and only 4 grams of protein and 4 grams of fat, will yield a glucose spike. As surely as sparks fly upward. Alas, farewell, ye fad of breakfast cereal.

But Josh just can't get behind the ancient traditions of Asian soup, meat, and vegetable breakfast. Sweet breakfasts remain dear to his heart.

GOAL: Get 30g of protein into him at breakfast, with no more than 30g of carbohydrate. And lots of animal based fats.

Sweet Breakfasts with Balanced Macros  

(Balanced Macros = about equal numbers each of grams of protein and fat and carbs) This recipe has about 24-28g protein [depending on the size of your eggs], 24 g carb, 50-68ish grams fat depending on the heaviness of your cream. If this has too many calories, or if you have a sensitivity to one of the preservatives sometimes used in heavy cream [check the box, 0000 in my case, alas], then use sour cream. 

For few calories, use sour cream OR half-n-half in place of the cream.

Sour cream only only 20g of fat instead of 40-48g of fat like the heavy cream, adds 4g of carbs, and 4g of protein. Making the macros for the pudding 28-32g protein, 28g carb, 40g fat]

Note: if you want the texture thicker, use a little less cream. If you want it thinner, use 1/4 c. each water and cream [instead of 1/2 c. cream]

• Chocolate Egg Pudding (Ninja Blender)
• NOTES: You *must* not overcook the eggs. You must make it the night before, and refrigerate overnight. This mitigates the sulfur taste to negligible.
• 2 T. cocoa powder
• 4 soft boiled eggs [whites cooked, yolk still a little wet in the middle, 'smush boiled']
• 2 t. vanilla extract
• 2 T. sugar
•  1/2 c. heavy cream
• Vanilla Egg Pudding (Ninja blender)
• NOTES: You *must* not overcook the eggs. You must make it the night before, and refrigerate overnight. This mitigates the sulfur taste to negligible.
• 4 soft boiled eggs [whites cooked, yolk still a little wet in the middle, 'smush boiled']
• 2 t. vanilla extract
• 2 T. sugar
• scant 1/2 c. heavy cream
• Reeses Pieces Peanut Butter pudding [FAVORITE]
• This tastes like the soul of Reeses Pieces!!!
• NOTES: You *must* not overcook the eggs. You must make it the night before, and refrigerate overnight. This mitigates the sulfur taste to negligible.
• 4 soft boiled [just not quite hard boiled] eggs  
• [2 t. vanilla extract]
• 2 T. sugar
• 1 T. cocoa
• 2-3 T. PB fit peanutbutter powder// OR natural peanutbutter?
• 1 scoop whey protein
• ? 1/2 c. heavy cream

• Lemon Egg Pudding
• NOTES: You *must* not overcook the eggs. You must make it the night before, and refrigerate overnight. This mitigates the sulfur taste to negligible.
• 4 soft boiled eggs [whites cooked, yolk still a little wet in the middle, 'smush boiled']
• 2 T. sugar
• 1/2 t. lemon extract [1 t. tastes fake. Josh likes it though]
• 1 T. lemon juice
• scant 1/2 c. heavy cream
• 
  

• Dark Chocolate Egg Pudding the only one that really masks slightly overcooked* hardcooked eggs. (*Slightly overcooked = Tinged green yolks, not full grey-green yolks. Full grey green just chug down and drink water afterwards)
• NOTES: You *must* not overcook the eggs. You must make it the night before, and refrigerate overnight. This mitigates the sulfur taste to negligible.
• 3 T. cocoa powder [2 T. normal cocoa, 1 T. black cocoa]
• 4 soft boiled eggs [whites cooked, yolk still a little wet in the middle, 'smush boiled']
• 2 t. vanilla extract
• 1/2 t. almond extract
• 2 T. sugar
•  1/2 c. heavy cream

•  Coffee pudding
• NOTES: You *must* not overcook the eggs. You must make it the night before, and refrigerate overnight. This mitigates the sulfur taste to negligible.
• 1-2 t. instant coffee [decaf or real, depending on the time of day]
• 4 soft boiled eggs [whites cooked, yolk still a little wet in the middle, 'smush boiled']
• [1/2 t. vanilla extract optional]
• 1 1/2 T. sugar
• 1/2 c. heavy cream
• [untested] Hannah's Cheesecake pudding
• NOTES: You *must* not overcook the eggs. You must make it the night before, and refrigerate overnight. This mitigates the sulfur taste to negligible.
• 3 soft boiled eggs
• 1 T. gelatin in 1/4 c. water
• 2 T. sugar
• 1 t. almond extract
• 1 t. vanilla extract 
• 1 t. lemon juice
• 1/4 c. heavy cream  [OR 2/3 c. sour cream?]
• 2 scoops cream cheese [1/2 c.?]
• Serve with a dollop of Sweet Cream [recipe] and a graham cracker
•  SWEET CREAM RECIPE
• 1.5 lb tub of sour cream
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 2 t. almond extract [or 1 t. each vanilla, and almond extract]

• [untested] Reeses Peanut Butter Cup pudding 
• NOTES: You *must* not overcook the eggs. You must make it the night before, and refrigerate overnight. This mitigates the sulfur taste to negligible.
• 4 soft boiled [just not quite hard boiled] eggs  
• 2 t. vanilla extract
• 2 T. sugar
• 2 T. cocoa
• 1/2 c. heavy cream
• [untested] Mocha pudding
• NOTES: You *must* not overcook the eggs. You must make it the night before, and refrigerate overnight. This mitigates the sulfur taste to negligible.
• 2 T. cocoa powder
• 1 T. instant coffee [decaf or real, depending on the time of day]
• 4 soft boiled eggs [whites cooked, yolk still a little wet in the middle, 'smush boiled']
• 2 t. vanilla extract
• 2 T. sugar
•  1/2 c. heavy cream
• [not perfected] Matcha pudding 
• Somehow is just meh. I think the egg+matcha combination somehow doesn't work as well as I thought it would. Maybe try this with gelatin to replace some of the eggs?
• NOTES: You *must* not overcook the eggs. You must make it the night before, and refrigerate overnight. This mitigates the sulfur taste to negligible.
• 2 t. matcha mixed into...
• 1/4 c. water in tiny increments
• 4 soft boiled eggs [whites cooked, yolk still a little wet in the middle, 'smush boiled']
• 2 T. sugar
•  1/4 c. heavy cream

Variations: 

1. For health, try to cut the sugar to 1.5 T, or even 1 T.
2. For health, replace the 1/2 c. heavy cream with 1/4 c. heavy cream and 1/4 c. water with 1 T. gelatin dissolved into it.
3. Try this with whey protein mixed in, to up the protein content.

Savory Breakfasts

• Breakfast Sandwiches (Egg & Cheese, Sausage, English Muffin) here
• The best part about this one is I can make a batch of 10, and wrap and freeze in a gallon ziploc for reheating.
• Melted butter brushed on, broil toast, the English Muffins
• Egg and cheese casserole, baked 2" thick, cut into circles
• Sausage patties---make them myself, to be big enough
• 3 Fried Eggs & Hash Browns/Butter fried Toast
• Fry the hash browns in beef fat. Fry the eggs in butter.

Getting outside in the Desert Dawn: Surviving Summers in Phoenix Arizona while raising little Rangers

Little Rangers need to go a'ranging...

But in the desert that means being a Dawn Ranger. Waking to stars and chasing the twilights.

Phoenix in the summer is unbearable. Unless you chase the twilights. Live in the dawn and the dusks. Hide from the sun from 8am to 6pm. This handy reference helps, showing dawn times in the year.

HO WE WE ARE GOING TO DO IT:

1. Adventures from 5am to 8am....it starts to look beautiful 20 min after nautical twilight (40 min before sunrise) so  from 4:40 when sunrise is technically 5:20. 
2. Kids must learn to speak in whispers and travel quietly like real rangers when around Birdwatchers and Fishermen.
3. Load up to go home by 8am,  
4. Siesta/Quiet Book Time at 11-2pm
5. Got the America the Beautiful Pass. So we need to use it at least 12 times to make it retroactively worth it.
6. If staying outside after 8am---Hats, sunscreen, water-bottles 

Dawn Adventures---Weekday

• Granite Reef Recreation area, wild horses at dawn. Go on a weekday, once a week. 
• ?Pebble Beach
• ?Hidden Valley/Fat Man's pass/South Mouuntain? [no water, just desert. Only right at dawn]
• ?Sears-Kay Ruin (Hohokam)
• Check out more on Alltrails....

Day Trips with Daddy. [Early Saturday mornings]

• Water Wheel Falls Park. Aim to be there from 6-10. [starts filling up at 9] So need to get up at 4am and start driving. Then come home at 9:30/10 when its getting really hot and crowded, and the UV index soars. Come home, eat, and have a siesta
• ?Canyon Lake @ 5am [ 1 hr away. Acacia Recreation Site]
• ?Lake Saguaro @ 5am [42 min away]
• ?Granite Reef @ 5am [fishers?  23 min, L202 at dawn]

Evenings in the Twilights

6-8pm you can go outside, if you are wet.... The sun is down, but it has exhausted itself in pumping its heat into the earth. Here we are constrained by Daddy having a day job. So either we frolic off without him, or we drag an exhausted man out into the heat for adventures after a long day at work.... 

-I think maybe the best option here is enjoy dusk together as a family, in the backyard, in some sort of water games. And save the family adventures with Daddy, on weekend camping trips. 

Weekend Camping Trips ---once a month

June

• last chance at Mingus---EARLY june, Prescott, 
• Payson--Christopher Creek
• Payson-ish Houston Mesa Campground NEAR Water Wheel Falls (Payson) NEAR Flowing Springs
• Maybe Sedona & Oak Creek Canyon Too Hot

July--Mountains or Creeks, 

• CHRISTOPHER CREEK IN PAYSON 
• Payson-ish Houston Mesa Campground NEAR Water Wheel Falls (Payson) NEAR Flowing Springs
• Maybe Oak Creek Canyon/Sedona [bc of Oak creek. Also Manzanita is COOLER they say, Pine Flats, Bootlegger, Cave Spring], 
• Maybe Mogollon Campground is 2mi from a lake....  Too Hot
• OR THE ROCKIES

Aug--Mountains or Creeks, PAYSON,OR THE ROCKIES Oak Creek Canyon/Sedona... Too Hot

CHRISTOPHER CREEK IN PAYSON 

Payson-ish Houston Mesa Campground NEAR Water Wheel Falls (Payson) NEAR Flowing Springs

Sept--Mountains or Creeks, PAYSON, OR Oak Creek Canyon/Sedona [Finally Cool Enough!...]

• CHRISTOPHER CREEK IN PAYSON 
• Payson-ish Houston Mesa Campground NEAR Water Wheel Falls (Payson) NEAR Flowing Springs

Oct -- AZ Rim-country, Prescott, Mingus [may-oct] OR Oak Creek Canyon/Sedona...

• Last chance for Mingus !!!!

For reference, for the rest of the year

Nov--AZ Desert 

• AZ desert dawn hikes,  
• Hidden Valley, 
• Fat Man's pass
• Sears-Kay Ruin (Hohok am)
• Check out Alltrails
• ??Montezuma's well [3 hr drive]
• Pioneer Museum? 
• Lost Dutchman campsite

Dec & Jan--AZ Desert dawn hikes [Hidden Valley, Pioneer Museum? Fat Man's pass, Sears-Kay Ruin (Hohokam)] Have back-yard fires and toast marshmallows.

Feb --AZ Desert dawn hikes, Lost Dutchman campsite. 

March--AZ Desert dawn hikes, Lost Dutchman campsite...or THE MINE

[I need to reserve the Spring reservations by Nov/Dec, and Summer reservations by Feb/March]

April -- AZ Rim-country/Sedona Oak Creek--- AZ desert Dawn Hikes 

• [too hot to camp in AZ desert]
• [Mingus Mountain and Mogollan Campground and Aspen AZ not open till May], 
• THE MINE Morenci, AZ
• Yavapai, White Spar (Prescott) is open [but terrible bathrooms] not alot of trees
• Sedona/Oak Creek stuff is Open
• Maybe....Payson IS ALL FF IN APRIL [Christopher Creek] and Ponderosea (AZ)
•  Houston Mesa [Payson near Water Wheel, Flowing Springs] are FF in April 

May -- AZ Rim-country, Prescott, ----Sedona/Oak Creek stuff is Open  (Payson is open)

• Mingus Mountain! 
• Mogollon Campground on Rim ??
• ASPEN AZ ??
• Ponderosa AZ ??
• Sedona/Oak Creek stuff is Open(Pine Flatts) [We had a great time at Cave Spring Sedona in May]
• Christopher creek, 
• Houston Mesa Campground NEAR Water Wheel Falls (Payson)  Time for this the next 3 months

And how to homestead...when we are in a little quarter-acre lot in a desert, and may move in the near-ish future?

Homestead, but not as the homestead being the goal---as we may need to sell, and later owners destroy it. Plant fruit trees, for the future if owners keep it. And always garden with the kids. Involve my little rangers as much as possible...because its about the memories being forged WITH them, and the skills being forged IN them, and not about the physical garden or home so much. We are traveling, but we can make these way-stations along the way as beautiful as we can. As green as we can. As productive as we can. 

But it should always be about the little Rangers, and not the way-station.

Combatting Insomnia: Round One

UPDATE: These things helped, but most of all, what is helping is wearing earplugs (30 db, the orange foam ones you can twist in with the little blue handle, from walmart, a big pack for $5). It helps me sleep much better, getting 7 hrs, roughly 11pm to 6am.  And *always keeping the same schedule*, getting ready for bed when the sleepiness starts {10:30}, never pushing through to the "2nd wind", that really messes me up. And getting some exercise in.

UPDATE: Round Two here

 Struggling with Insomnia since fall 2023.

Underlying conditions...trauma? hormones? sublimated grief? perimemopause after uterine loss?

Things to try

Routine is everything. Build in the circadian rhythm. Work with your natural rhythm.

• Non-negotiable bedtime. Must be 8 hours in bed. (So working backwards from my inevitable 6am wake up, I need to be in bed at 10pm.)
• I need to go out in the morning sunlight. Melatonin levels

Build in the wind-down time. There are things you want to do. Find a time for it and work it in, so you are not tempted to stay up at night to do them.

• Downtime, to write
• Downtime, to pray, Bible, Journal
• Time to have that happy rocking and chatting time with the girls
• Time to talk to Josh (!) or I end up doing soliliquies at 11pm....

Prepare ahead of time, so you aren't dog-tired pushing yourself to get things done and then you realize you need to do these things before bed, and then kick off another wake cycle and climb into bed awake, having sacrificed the sleepy wave to try to rush to do them all.

• AHEAD OF TIME do these things
• Jammies Brush Teeth
• Check the washing machine, 
• putaway food, brush my teeth, EARLIER so I don't suddenly realize

Sleep Conducive environment---Clean Quiet Dark Room.

• Socks
• Warm blankets. Cool head.
• White noise
• Earplugs
• Black out curtains
• Make the kids be quiet before 7am.

When you do wake up, salt lamp light. Prayer.

• No screens during insomnia night. No bright lights.
•  If you have ideas, write them down in a journal by salt-lamp. 
• Read the Bible by salt lamp. 
• Have a prayer-journal by salt-lamp.

Exercise. My ancestors got a ton more exercise than I do. [drawing water from teh well, kids on their backs, farming with hand tools, etc] If that was the norm for millenia, it is highly unlikely that there's no connection between the sudden rise in insomnia and the sudden lack of physical exercise.

• 20 min of cardio, every day, on the treadmill, breathing through my nose
• Strength training
• Try to work outside [gardening etc] at dawn, a little every day

Genius Aliens using social engineering to teach humans the One Thing

 If I awoke with my mind wiped of all memories, to sit and watch humanity on a million secret CCTV's, I think I would conclude that the human race had been either modified or created by aliens running a vast social experiment, with a single goal.

We start out, excited about life, wanting warmth and sustenance and our mothers to cuddle and sustain us as our mammalian biology dictates. We scream demanding sweet calories from our mothers carbohydrate rich milk. And we get it. And we grunt in satisfaction, guzzling the deliciousness as fast as we can.

We grow, mature, and are suddenly really really good-looking. Beautiful, infact. Like the best looking we'll ever be in our lives, though we don't realize that yet..... 

And raging full of hormones. And we are suddenly very attracted to the opposite sex, and want to do this thing that gives us a huge hormonal high. A literal drug trip in our brains. But free. And not bad for us. 

And when we engage in this activity with someone, our brain dopes us up on oxytocin, which we have receptors for, which makes us 'bond' to that specific person. [monogamous voles have these oxytocin receptors. When they disabled them in their brains, the voles then behaved polyamorously like other species. Humans have these oxytocin receptors]

A person we have picked out for a various handful of perhaps subconscious but logical reasons that makes them stand out to us. Beauty or wit or making those hilarious jokes or geeking out about our favorite books together. Some personal infatuation algorithm we have that tries to calculate how to maximize our future happiness.

And then, the sexual-desire hormone, testosterone, which is super abundant in males, spikes precipitously in females...once a month...right on that little window of fertility. So when she suddenly when its the hardest to resist.....now....

BAM.

Now there is a baby.

And the baby comes out screaming for sustenance, and a womans breasts suddenly fill up PAINFULLY like they're going to burst, and the little desperate creature is the best at relieving this. And while she is doing this, then that oxytocin is released in her brain, as she holds this little mammal to her....the bonding chemical kicks in again.

And then, as the sleep deprivation subside, her hormones resume....and then even if she is trying to avoid this whole thing happening again (labor transition pain is after all not easily forgotten) well, the the testosterone spikes again at a critical moment, and her man is suddenly irresistible....

Source: https://xkcd.com/674/

And then there are more little people. And more. And more. And they are so darn cute, as we have been mentally programmed to find our offspring. 

And they grow and grow.

And then....they turn into obnoxious teenagers who point out all our problems and our hypocrisy, with a nice dash of ungrateful and cutting insight into our psyches.

But at this point, we've sunk way too many sleepless nights and free housing and emotional energy into these obnoxious little punks, so we still want them to come home for holidays and blow out candles together.

And all the while our beauty fades and fades away....we sadly see some of those things that attracted us when we were young, to that person we have oxytocin-bonded too, fade away. It fades away in both of us.

And our health, our strength, our taste, our vigor, our ability to climb mountains and taste maple-syrup, all the things that made life fun, fade away....

And finally, even our mental capabilities fade away....

And we are a shell of our former gifts, old, wrinkled, bent, fat, and finally, stupid.....

And all that's left, is the soul. 

The choice to love, that all began, for very calculated and logical reasons, to maximize our happiness..... in the end, remains when all the reasons are taken away. Illogical, but there. 

....and we realize....as everything fades away......

                                           .........that we have finally learned to love. 

*************

This song says it better than I ever could

Combatting Allergies: my thoughts at 4 am with inflamed sinuses....

 UPDATE: Cure found here?

Root Causes: Immune system is funky. Off kilter. Over-reacting. Jumpy. Touchy. Just plain weird.

Symptoms: 

• nasal congestion at night. It feels like my body is actually producing more mucous as soon as I lie down,
• The "swelling feeling" in my sinuses when I lie down to sleep [sometimes with the 'popping' sound like a creaking wood ship, can feel it many successive pop pops. Sometimes squeaks.[hear inside my head, like that awful poprock candy]
• Vicious [cycle?] of only being able to sleep 3 hr chunks, often up for 1 hr between chunks. Getting only 6ish hours total of sleep a night. 
•  Itchy eyes. Tired all the time.

Clues: 

1. Mold in my twin's AC, and that time 3 yrs ago, my AC.
2. Start sneezing a lot around Bermuda grass and cats. But when one allergy worse, all worse. Bc its an immune thing. Allergies seem to piggyback. When one is bad, then everything else gets worse.
3. Josh had bad allergies for 10 yrs. Took cetirizine and levo-cetirizine. Then finally gave up allergy meds, and 70% if his symptoms went away. The pills will help with the flare out, but consistent long term use overall made the problem worse. So in this case, drugging his immune system gave short term relief at the cost of long term symptoms. As if the immune system was 'rebelling' to being drugged, and then net, overcompensating. ?Like moving around in a canoe?
4. When I take allergy medicine [tried 3 kinds] I just feel exhausted and tired when I wake up, despite having supposedly more sleep.
5. ??Always allergies in the Spring, like March, April. When the heat really hits, it recedes. Then comes back in the fall, Oct, Nov?? I remember it being REALLY BAD March and April 2023. Got air filters, felt like I was jsut falling apart. But the allergies weren't even the cause, it felt like even when it went away, I slept poorly. Then it was bad again, in March/April 2024, wasn't sleeping well, so I got all social and invited people over bc I was sorta sleep deprived uninhibited all the time. Fall 2022, we had found mold in the AC unit. [Spring of 2022 I really started noticing my allergies getting worse]. Something to do with AZ wildflower weeds? Am I just allergic to my own house? What is going on?
6. ?Twin in 2020 went on a mostly korean diet, dust mite allergies went away
7. ?Identical twin sister always had mmuch worse allergies than me. Same genetics, same environment, but as if the switch "flipped" earlier. Cat allergies from teenhood. My cat allergies didn't start till 28 yrs old. Used to be able to share a pillow with a cat. Hah.
8. ?I have been sleeping poorly since March 2024, what would have been Anthony's due date. Good nights I get 7 hrs. Maybe 30% of the time. Reverse insomnia, inability to sleep longer than 3.5 hrs. Up middle of the night, alergies, etc. 70% of the time. Inability to 'sleep in'. Last few months, 6 almost solid hrs on a good night. more like 3 + 2/3 hr chunks. Tired throughout the day. Now in Spring of 2025, allergies flaring in April again. Not as bad as last year, but really bad the last week, despite no rain. 

Things that help my allergies: 

• sitting up. 
• Hot tea.  
• ???helps or is just a result? SLEEPING WELL.
• Not being near cats or bermuda grass

Things to try: 

1. Exercise, cardio, every day, while forcing myself to breath through my nose. Need to make my brain get used to that.
2. Boost Immune system with Fruits and Vegs and sunlight. Vitamin C, magnesium etc. Eat lots of fruits and Veg and meat and sauerkraut. Get 20 min of vitamin D sunlight on my skin in the winter. Sit on a bench with my back to the sun during the winter. [wear a hat]
3. KIMCHI every day 
1. We found a significant inverse association between kimchi consumption and the asthma. We believe that this is the first study showing an inverse relationship between kimchi consumption and asthma in adults. Source
4. Yogurt every day
1. A study in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy found that people with allergies who consumed Lactobacillus casei, a probiotic found in yogurt, had lower levels of antibodies that respond to allergic reactions
5. Sauerkraut every day. Home-made [live] Sauerkraut every day [why not?] Its white people's kimchi and they've been doing it thousands of years.
6. Try to get good sleep to boost immunse system [hah]. So good sleep schedule. e.g. in bed by 10:15 pm, every night, no matter what. Start the same nightly routine, every night, at 9:45 pm, no matter what. Date night with Josh every week [or 2x/week?], where we talk, so I don't end up doing random talking times late at night. Not Youtube in the evenings. 
7. Go on an evening walk/outside during the golden hour. Be exposed to pollens in a calm relaxed setting. Try to make my warhawk immune system realize the pollen isn't an invader. e.g. "See immune system? These are friends..."
8. Don't use my bed as a couch during the day. [or let kids into my room during the day] Introduces allergens. Get a shorter pew bench in my room, before the bed, to sit on. ?cut off access to the bed with furniture, so kids less likely to play hide n seek on it? Lock up my room during the day as much as possible. Keep it as allergen free as possible. Spend the rest of the day desensitizing  myself to allergens, but make my bedroom as allergen free as possible.
9. Air filter in bedrooms [already doing it, doesn't seem to be doing much] 
10. Clean out my bedroom until its all hard surfaces. No soft surfaces except the bed. 
11. Wash sheets&blankets every WEEK on hot. USE THE HIGH cycle on the dryer for sheets & blankets [kills dust mites]. In the winter, you can just run the blanket on high heat once a week for 10 min, to kill dust mites.  

 Basically its a 3 pronged approach

1. Boost the Immune system by giving it what it needs, vitamins, gut health, and sleep [strict sleep schedule and exercise]
2. Exposure therapy in a calm setting. [Go outside in the golden evening hour]
3. Cleanroom approach to my bedroom. [not the rest of my life. Just here]

Thoughts on Beauty and Clothing as I become an Old Lady

 On the eve of my 37th birthday, I'm thinking about this. 

Hopefully, a little early.*

When we age we are still beautiful. But the beauty changes. Not in the attractive/possibility-of-bearing-life/sexual being sort of way. But still beautiful--but transmuted.

No longer-----a princess, ready for her adventure story--full of possibility, desire, and potential, an unlined face, fresh with newness. Facing a life. Springtime.

But instead----a queen-----who has lived, seen, suffered, and is still doing her part to uphold good in the world. The Autumn of her life, facing the Winter, awaiting the eternal Spring that will come.

Shift from-----unstained beauty. Possibility. Potential. Future. Alluring. Begetting. Flowering

Shift to--->weathered beauty. History. A face lined with testament of the light of a thousand worlds, in struggles fought, lost or won. Standing. Still standing. Doing her part, standing at the pass. And awaiting the final ending of the world.

"Ideals to Strive For" e.g. "Fashion Icons"

1. Tangle, the girl in the Golden Key, at the end, when she is waiting for the boy Mossy at the gate at the end, and has long silver hair and a face covered in wrinkles, waiting by the door, in hope.
2. Kanaan's Jedi mentor Depa Billaba from Greg Weisman's comic. If she had gotten to be as old as the Jedi Librarian [name]. How I imagine she would have been. Sitting up tall, silver hair, flowing robes, stately. Kind to children.
3. Irene's grandma in the Princess and the Goblin. [although this is slightly cheating since she didn't have wrinkles, just fabulous silver hair and immortality...] OK, so Irene's grandma IF SHE had been more mortal. 
4. Old medieval queen, who has been though a lot. [wars, grief, etc], standing tall, waiting in hope for the return of the Hero, bringing back her lost husband and sons. St Margaret in her old age.
5. Old Ma Ingalls.
6. Old Ranger in Arnor, who knows the paths, tracking a trail, listening for signals, knows the coming of the dawn---but the female version. Going to have to find a story with this---or write one myself---or flesh it out in reality.
7. Candy Grandma at church. White haired old woman wheel-chair-bound, handing out gummi worms to all the children. Always smiling, emanating joy. Very cheerful. She put evangelistic bumper stickers on the back of her wheelchair. She always seems to be overflowing with joy. Kids line up and she gives them 2 gummi worms each. I've seen her give them to awkward but still sugar-desiring teenagers. She doesn't make anyone feel guilty, or sorry for her. Radiantly smiling. Overflowing with kindness and happiness, and love for the little mercenary young ones seeing her as a sugar-dispenser. She just loves everyone. After you leave her presence you remember a smiling face with bright eyes and curly white hair.
8. Mother Teresa. She was so beautiful. Bright eyes in a dear wrinkled face. Smiling in joy at the children, she refracted their beauty to what we could see---like a crystal splitting the light to many colors.

Try to be beautiful as long as possible, wear my hair down, as it things, probably armpit/shoulder-length, curled/permed, and pin it on the sides for side-volume. Or just in the elven-style. Then when I have enough wrinkles I want to go grey/silver, and wear my hair long, in two long silvery braids. If my hair gets too thin for this, I shall have to keep it armpit/shoulderlength in a half-up. 

Stand and sit up like a queen. Straight as I can. Work out as much as I can, to keep posture, and my ability to be strong as I can, to walk.

Wear classically beautiful sillhouette, still feminine, but stately. Womanly, old, queenly. 

Long Fit-flared dresses, now with high mandarin collars. If the dress has a scoop neck, wear a white-mandarin collar beneath it. Still wear Dirndls with white blouses, my grey-white hair wrapped in a crown braid. Prairie school-marm fit and flared dresses. Something Ma Ingalls would have worn. And medieval gothic fitted dresses, with a white under-blouse, or a high neck.

Wear make-up, not overdone. Eyebrows are a must on me. Probably blush will be too, as I age. 

And always smile. Encourage the young people, that life is worth it. That despite all the disappointments and pain in life, it is worth it.

 There is Joy on the other side.

And we will get through the night, and make it through to the Other Side.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*[I hope to be able to pull off my current fashion sense of DunedainMom/Ranger-woman, and feminine/pretty/dirndl/medieval for another decade, or decade and a half. I hope. Really hoping my body doesn't hit menopause till 54, like my mommy, despite having lost my uterus. Alas. Imma get it back on the day of Resurrection. I asked Jesus to find it, and give it back to me. I know I won't be using it in the New Heavens and the New Earth...but it was part of me my whole life, and I want it back, in whatever glorified state it may be. If medieval paintings have the various body parts of hapless sailors being coughed up by sea-monsteres, and coming back together again, to stand at the last judgment----it stands to reason I get my uterus back from whatever biohazard dump it was lost in.]

Epic Choreographed Star Wars Fights....

 ....having fun with the kids, doing these epic choreographed fights.

The keys are 

1. Master the basics
2. No T-rex arms---keep your arms out wide from you, swinging in great sweeping motions. As you would if you were wielding a death laser
3. Keep your blocks vertical, and out from your body. As you would if you were blocking yourself with a death laser that could burn you.
4. Keep your attacks with big forward steps. 
5. Keep your defense with big backwards steps.
6. Work in as many spins as possible. (right after a 9 parry is a good place for both people to spin)
7. 8-1-2-1, 8-4-3-4-8, triangle attacks, look pretty epic. Change up the defense with inverted 1's and 2's to keep things interesting.

Going to put up some videos of me and the kids doing these.

We also put an epic sticker on our van.

 Grand Admiral Josh asked why we are desecrating the Chimera with rebel stickers.

I love the symbolism of it. That the rebellion at its heart, has to carry something bigger than just rebellion. A rebellion whose only definition is what it opposes is empty as a house of cards. But holding the old stamped-out religion, in its heart....it makes sense.

A fairy tale retold. A book review for Rapunzel Let Down by Regina Doman

It's been a while since a book has moved me this much.

After my recent realization that sent Rapunzel from being my most hated fairy tale, to my most favorite fairytale, I was intrigued when I saw this novel retelling of it.

Rapunzel Let Down by Regina Doman. 

What happens to the fairy tale when the Prince fails?

It's a modern retelling of the fairy tale of Rapunzel. 

Not the cute Disney version. The Grimm's version. With a 15 yr old getting knocked up by a Prince (or in this case, a politicians son) who wants to keep his secret. 

It is on my "top 50 books to save if the world burns down" list. 

The only caveat, is parents should pre-read it before giving it to their young teenagers. The story is about a 15 year old getting knocked up (Rapunzel, after all), and a statutory-rape trial. So it is a book on sexual themes. But not in an escapist voyueristic way, but a very thought-provoking and deeply moving way...

.....us human beings struggling with our biology and our ideals of love and our theories of reality and trying to figure out who we really are. 

Parents, read it first and see if it's what you want your kids reading. But I think I would let my own sorta-sheltered homeschooled kids read this, perhaps when they're about 15. Maybe black out a couple sentences. Not sure yet. If kids are already reading the sort of YA novels popular these days, it probably won't be too new to them.

It is a deeply moving story. About clashing ideals of the world, of what the world is, about what we are. Failing at our various religions. Struggling with the nature of reality. About feminism and misogyny. A coming of age story, about women's choices in the face of so much that is wrong in the world---with men, with themselves, with the justice system. And about men's choices, sometimes in a system that feels stacked against them. It was about the prison system, and undocumented/illegal immigrants...the terrifying twisted humanity of inmates, realizing it is ourselves....it was a very very thought-provoking book, but so full of twists and turns that I was turning the pages in an adrenaline fueled-frenzy till 4am, knowing I would have to be up in a few hours with the kids. 

I haven't done that in a few years. This book got me to.

It touched my soul. And made me think. Alot. 

Despite some of the more fantastical things that happened at the end (and it got pretty fantastic) the book felt.....so incredibly real. 

Because the people in it, the characters were so real. The people, their choices, their snap decisions and their failures and their broken dreams and forced to face their own failure....trying to figure out reality, trying to figure out who we are in the world.

I highly recommend it. It goes on my list of "Top 50 books I would save" if I could only take 50 books with me. I never thought I would say that about a YA novel fairy-tale rewrite. (I would urge you not to read the reviews that give spoilers. There are some 'turn' moments in it that work best if you experience it with the characters.)

It was good. Perhaps fantastical, perhaps clumsy in parts, but so real. The inner-monologue of our characters, their bitterness, their thoughts, their prayers....it felt all real to me. So real.

Because its very much about humans, the hypocritical believers, the bitter inmates, the unhinged theater major, the Aspie scientist, the smooth politician, the undocumented immigrants, the vying theories of reality, and a girl having to make her own choices in the middle of all of it.

The Wrath was the Mercy

A few months ago it suddenly hit me, at 36 years old, what the fairy tale of Rapunzel was actually about. 30 years after hearing the story.

I had always hated the story. I thought the Prince was a real jerk. He didn't rescue her from the tower, but rather, kept her there, and visited her many times, and got her pregnant. She was a peasant. He was a prince. He had more power than her.  The Prince in Rapunzel seemed like he wasn't all that interested in getting her out. (Unless he was abysmally stupid, and didn't know about the invention of the rope.) She didn't even seem to know what a man was, let alone sex, let alone pregnancy, by her asking the Witch why her belly was growing. I thought he sounded like a Uppity boy taking advantage of a naive girl. I found the story icky, because of the Prince. I even thought darkly that the ending was suspicously 'too happy' with the blinded beggar prince finding Rapunzel in the end in the wilderness and seeing again. When I read kiddie version trying to sanitize the unwed-pregnancy part of the tale I saw through them as the weak attempts at retconning honor for a disappointing prince ('they sorta had a secret wedding in the tower before she got pregnant...but no, he didn't take her home'  and "she said to the witch 'you are heavier than the prince' so it wasn't that the witch found out she was pregnant....but then she had babies so um, yeah, she was pregnant....")

When Tangled came out when I was 22 or so, I said "Ahh, they fixed it" when Eugene turns out to be a nice gentlemanly peasant-thief who doesn't trick her or climb her hair. She is the princess, she holds the power, Eugene never takes advantage of her, physically or any other way. He climbs the tower with his own strength, not tricking her into using hair, and she's the one always trying to kiss him. I said with relief that it was "uncreepified" from the original tale.

And then, at 36 years old, out of the blue, slightly sick and in my jammies, I started crying one morning at breakfast, when I realized the whole point of the fairy tale.

The point was that the Prince wasn't being above board. And he also makes an infinite amount of sense. After learning a lot more about both politics and history, in blood-monarchies it was of infinite importance whom a prince married and procreated with. Even in the pagan times. Constantius left both his peasant wife Helena and his son Constantine, for a chance to marry the noble woman and be Emperor of Rome. Alexander the Great had a kid with a political nobody, at 16 before heading off to conquer the world and pick his royal bride(s) at 30. This list could easily fill pages.

Then, in the Christian era, when annulments weren't as easy to procure as Roman divorces, there always was the common-law wife on the side. The "wives the Danish [pagan] way" as the Saxons would say. Henry II did it. Many many princes did it. (even dear Harold Godwinson had his 'danish-style' common-law wife before he got engaged to the Northern Lady/Princess at being made king at 40) Noble men resigned themselves to often having to wait over a decade before the official noble wife was found, at the right moment when they ascended to their full power, and saw the most pressing alliance that their country required. Telling a passionate 17 yr old that he has to wait, perhaps till he's 35, to have sex when he marries the right princess...they tried to find ways to have what they wanted but still keep their future political options open.

And so the prince in Rapunzel, was in fact, acting like a prince---historically, realistically, pragmatically anyways. He knew that there would be political complications to anything he did. After all, bastard sons can figure-head factions for the throne. Civil War and differing claimants to succession was an always a looming threat. And then, suddenly, out hunting, alone, here's his chance. He meets a peasant girl in the woods in a tower, completely unconnected to politics, that no one else knows is even there...and now he can kiss and all, with no political repercussions whatsoever. Perhaps he meant to abandon her when he got his political marriage in the vague future. Perhaps he intended to keep her as his 'danish wife' indefinitely, not abandon her, just have both at once (and hide his secret tower family from his eventual noble bride). Perhaps he told himself he would take her away from the tower and bring her home, when he had the courage to do so. But whatever he intended, in the fairy tale, he kept her secret for some time, while visiting her in a conjugal fashion, which is how he got caught by the witch. Rapunzel asks the witch to help her get her dress on, and asks her why her belly is growing, and the whole thing comes down like a house of cards. 

And judgment comes down hard. He's blinded. He loses everything. Because he was keeping it all a secret, his servants don't even know where he is. He's lost in the wilderness, a blinded prince, no ID cards, no servants, no credentials, nothing to prove who he is. The Politics he treasured, that kept him keeping the girl a secret, now have abandoned him.  Not even with the peasant-wife. He's alone. He's a nobody. He's a blind involuntarily-celibate nobody---less than a peasant. He can't even find work in a manual labor-culture & warrior culture, being blind was to be useless. He is wandering around homeless, perhaps begging, or scrounging, trying to find enough calories to survive another day.

And he gets that for years and years. 

But the story doesn't end there. 

Because in the wilderness...like something out of the book of Hosea...He finds his children and his woman, that he would have abandoned for fear of losing everything. Crying on him, hugging him, kissing him, and miraculously, he can see again. 

He loses everything....and gains everything in the end. Instead of a guilty secret on his wedding to a princess...he can hug his children and Rapunzel no longer abandoned.

So that morning in the kitchen, after decades of disliking this fairy tale, I now was sobbing to my confused kids (and my Jenny in characteristic epigenetic distaste of the prince) ---at breakfast three months ago....that was the whole point of the story. 

That the wrath was the mercy. 

Life comes in the in-betweens. Living while dying

 I woke up with a vivid dream that involved a nursing home. There were old people who were giving away free violins and violin lessons and food trying to get kids to come, to see kids. I was trying to help them. Harabojii and Halmoni were there. My mother's parents. My Harabojii (Korean for grandfather) died 14 years ago, and my Halmoni has traveled the long road of widow-hood and prayer these many years. In my dream, it was so good to see them together again. But I knew Harabojii was sick and we probably didn’t have long. I hugged him, then remembered I have a cold.

But I was trying to advise the old people to try giving away guitar lessons, broader appeal. Trying to help them find a way for their scheme to see children around to work. Then Badguys were chasing me at one point. There was drama. I don’t remember what happened.

But waking up with the conviction that---why on earth did we sort people like widgets? For energy efficiency, put all the old people in one room, so we can effectively change diapers and provide “care”. Care like lining them up to change their diapers, brush their teeth, and give them all the same nutritionally calculated puddings.

Why?

People aren’t widgets. That kind of life barely sounds like life. Its all the stuff that happens in the cracks that  makes life feel like life. The inconveniences, the people talking in line at the grocery store, the children, always uncontrollable, nuts, with their myriad ideas and fights and stories and sins, running into and out of our lives like tornado.

Life comes in the unexpected, the inconvenient, the in-betweens.

We manage life, by putting all the kids in a room together, so their crazy ideas can be dissuaded en-mass, not to climb the flagpole, or organize a table leaping-off contest. We make them copy down math and memorize mantras and things. Not that there isn’t a place for education.

But seriously, what are we doing????

We stuff the kids into rooms, and then when some boys inevitably won’t sit still, we drug them to make it more efficient for the vastly out-numbered teacher to keep the kids learning. It’s like a prison.

We manage life, by putting all the old people into a room together (or rather, many tiny rooms in one big building) and give them “care” to make sure they have the proper nutrition and diaper changes in time. It’s like a prison.

Prisons are massively efficient ways for society to stuff troublemakers into one building and hopefully try to keep them from killing each-other. (If there is a Purgatory, I hope it is very different than our model.)

I love efficiency. I love batch-sewing dresses, and batch-producing meals.

But boiling life down a life to nutrients ingested, mantras memorized, widgets produced, diapers changed….what happened to the wild morning wind cold and inconvenient, blowing the barely-opened morning-glories against the pale sky brightening in the dawn?

People aren’t widgets. We need the chaos of children, the inconvenience of human contact, the single woman telling you not to leave the top of the chip bag unsealed, the middle aged reflecting on their life and their drama having to pull it together to interact with a surly teenager….. all of it, all mixed up into life.

And what about the childless? Those who never got to have children and grandchildren? They should not be shunted off into an assembly-line style of senior care.

When I lay in the hospital after being gutted and stitched, hovering between life and death, unable to sit without assistance, the tube draining on my side sending spasms every time I had to sit up. Having to hit the nurse button to bring a bedpan…when it was a terrifying thing knowing I would have to sit up in 30 minutes… the fight to hold on to my walker, and make it across the room…they all felt like huge and terrifying obstacles. It was like being suddenly old. My youth---when things like eating, sitting up, walking about---felt far away and impossible. Part of me doubted I would ever be able to do those things again.

To want to live---was so hard. And I knew deep down somehow, that I had to want to live if I was going to live. Perhaps it was melodrama, but I felt that if I gave up, I would die. I was in grief over Anthony, and the pain was the worst in my life. Worse than the 7 unmedicated labors. It felt like transition when I tried to poop. But what got me though transition was yearning for my baby in my arms. And this time, I knew my baby was dead. And that there would never be another new baby from me. It was hard.

To be old, is so hard. To know that the days of possibility and birth are behind you…and before you lies pain to just to continue to exist.

Back to my point.

I yearned to see green things, and my children’s faces. The dawn sky. I strained to see that little flap of a green palm leaf in that courtyard, the window facing a stucco wall, and the bed facing the wrong way. Prison cell room. I tried to stare at the fake wood pattern on the door, thanking God for making woodgrain. I needed to see beauty so badly.

 When I was moved into the blue room with the big window, and could see the horizon lit wit the dawn and dusk glow…it was like I could breathe again. The art on the wall of the raindrops clinging to a leaf. I stared at every nature picture I could get. And children's faces. Seeing their faces was like a burst of color in a grey world. I'd stare at their faces...they almost felt like they were shining with LIFE.

When the ileas blocked my intestine, the pain was so intense....begging God not to listen to any prayers to die I might make, that my statement was I wanted to live, and I was tying myself to the mast....hearing that child cry out for his mommy, his daddy reassuring him that wasn't his mom....me getting there, the bowel scan....then coming back...the pain subsiding [had they started the Dilotted at that point?] looking up and thinking there was so much light afterwards...not sure if I was really aware of reality...and I saw this very goodlooking shape of a man's beautiful shoulders standing there in the brightness [If I remember...half of me wasn't sure if I was seeing Jesus in heaven or some person and I shouldn't be thinking this as a married woman....and especially if it were Jesus...it was very confusing]...and then realized it was Josh with the window behind him.....then afterwards, somehow, the pain meds taking enough edge off, the relief. But still having to fight to live. Telling Josh how we were going to have picnics with the kids in Europe. Imagining going to the park with a picnic with the kids. Imagining the children, and nature, out of that hospital prison. Hospital is a prison. I thought of Harabojii, talking about our trip to Korea, and to the beach, and the picnic, how we were going to have it…all those long months in the hospital, when he couldn’t even eat….I understood better. How he felt. So hard. You need to look forward to something. To children’s faces and green.

I thought about the nursing homes for the childless. We need to make every room have a big window, to see the dawn. No prison rooms. Force people to eat together at least once a day. Sing together. Chapel. And put it in an orchard. So families can come and pick the fruit, and hangout with the old people. They need to see children. They need to be part of a community.

Make it a community. Like Rivendell. Host craft nights, dances, etc. Things for children. Old ppl need to see new life. And new life needs the old. We need to be in it, together. Inconvenient and all. It’s life. Somehow, we have to un-divorce the care of the old from the rest of society. Never have we had this much voyeuristic living, distortions of reality, Instagram replacing long hours shelling beans with octogenarians. We watch dramas and cry our eyes out. And don’t know how to talk to our grandparents. [this is me]

We have lost so much. And we have skyrocketing rates of depression. We need to shell more beans. Have that awkward long walk with someone in a walker who needs to pause every 10 ft and have that rambling conversation that may repeat itself. Life is in the cracks. In the in betweens of leaves against a sky.

Because we are humans. We weren’t meant to die in prison cells of efficiency, alone. We were meant to struggle along, inconveniently, often painfully, together.

Even if they’re grumpy. Even if it hurts. Even if its hard. We need to do it together. Because its important. The children need to know how to live, how to reflect on the story of life---one day, their own life---and the children need to learn how to die, how to make peace. How to live while dying. All of it.

Because we're all living while dying. We're all in this strange riddle, put together, to get through it, together.

The old need to be around children. Around new life. We are the human race, the human family. We were made for each other.

****************

After writing this, I want to volunteer at a nursing home or something. I am not sure how. I know these organizations exist.

Or a prison. And make a garden.

Best List of Children's books a little older, first steps into reading and Graphic Novels [first reading etc]

Arnold Loebl's stuff 

•  Frog and Toad stories, (all of them)
• Owl at home                                                      by Arnold Loebl

Ling and Ting  by Grace Lin

•             Not Exactly the Same
•             Together in All Weather
•             Share a Birthday
•             Twice as Silly                                  

*************Graphic Novels and first very simple chapter books********************

American Girl Series

•             Felicity
•             Samantha
•             Addy
•             Molly
•             Kirsten
•             Kit
•             Kaya

Picture Bible  [illustrated by 000000

Sophia Institute Press  Graphic Novel Saints stories  000000

• Vol 1
• Vol 2
• Vol 3
• Vol 4
• Vol 5

Zita the Spacegirl series by   Ben Hatke  [graphic novels]

• Zita the Spacegirl, 
• Legends of Zita the Spacegirl, 
• Return of Zita the Spacegirl]                         

Mighty Jack Series by Ben Hatke [graphic novels]

• Mighty Jack, 
• Mighty Jack and the Goblin King, 
• Mighty Jack and Zita the Spacegirl*

Ninjago graphic novels    by Greg Farshtey

• Challenge of Samukai
• Mask of the Sensei
• Rise of the Serpentine
• Tomb of the Fangpyre
• Kingdom of Snakes
• Warriors of Stone
• Stone Cold*
• Destiny of Doom 
• Night of the Nindroids
• The Phantom Ninja
• Comet Crisis

TRAILBLAZER BOOKS------------- by Dave and Neta Jackson

Flight of the Fugitives

Bandit of Ashely Downs

Captured by the River Rats

Listen for the Whippoorwill

Never Say Die by Cyril Davey

Sundar Singh  by Cyril Davey    

Best list of children's picture books, The ones I would re-buy if there was a fire

Best children's picture books.

The ones I would rebuy if there was a fire. The ones I would keep to read to my grandchildren

CONTINUES TO BE UPDATED

Solo         by Paul Geraghty

The Three Trees     by Angela Elwell Hunt

The Bear that Heard Crying    by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock

Journey

Quest

Return    by Aaron Becker

The Christmas Story

The Easter Story        by Brian Wildsmith

Remy and Lulu       by K

Bernice Gets Carried Away

Extraordinary Jane                 by Hannah E Harrison

I am a Bunny

What do people do all day

Funniest Stories Ever

Cars and Trucks and Things that Go

The Bunny Book/When Bunny Grows Up

Richard Scarry's Nursery Rhymes

Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever [compilation]

Best Mistake Ever and other stories                                By Richard Scarry

Anything ACTUALLY by Richard Scarry and not his ghostwriters/ghostartists

I especially love his early works, in the realistic style [I am a Bunny]

Jesus-pictures---Illust. by Chris Molan [Chosen more for their pictures than their text]

Jesus and John the Baptist 

Jesus Begins His Work

Miracles by the Sea

The First Easter

DK  The Life of Jesus

Tattered Sails [rhyming verse] by

Saint Valentine by Robert Sabuda

It's not easy being a Bunny      by   Marilyn Sadler

Very Bad Bunny*                      by   Marilyn Sadler

Street Through Time   [DK]

The Thief who stole Heaven

The Spider who stole Christmas

The Magnificent Mischief of Tad Lincoln                    by  Raymond Arroyo

Our Lady of Guadalupe                           by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand and Tonya Engel

Bread and Jam for Frances

Best Friends for Frances

Bedtime for Frances

A New Sister for Frances 

A Bargain for Frances                                 by ??????

OLDER KIDS---HISTORY, PART PICTURE

Peter Connolly's 

The Roman Army, 

The Greek Armies, 

Hannibal and the enemies of Rome, 

History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus [Holy Land]

Greece and Rome at War

The Ancient City

Would you survive series

The Usborne Book of World History 

Little Rangers need to go a'ranging...

 Little Rangers need to get their kits out at least once a month. They need to explore outside, learn valuable skills like tracking, stamina, waking at dawn, building fires, watching the stars....they need SKILLS and they are only going to get said skills by going out and roughing it in the wilderness.

Alas, one skill for a ranger mom trapped in the valley of the Sun, is to reserve campsites far in advance. 6-5.5 months in advance....

If we were really cool, we'd figure out how to make camp in the site-less wilderness...preferably under bracken where the Crebain of Dunland cannot sight us....but we aren't at that awesome yet. So we'll stick with reserved sites, until our skills are much much better.

UPDATE: ????? IT seems that contrary to my impression, Payson is actually COOLER than Sedona in the summer....So next year we are going to check Payson first for June, July, Aug. Sedona is more for April, May, Sept

Nov--AZ Desert 

• AZ desert dawn hikes,  
• Hidden Valley, 
• Fat Man's pass
• Sears-Kay Ruin (Hohokam)
• Check out Alltrails
• ??Montezuma's well [3 hr drive]
• Pioneer Museum? 
• Lost Dutchman campsite

Dec & Jan--AZ Desert dawn hikes [Hidden Valley, Pioneer Museum? Fat Man's pass, Sears-Kay Ruin (Hohokam)] Have back-yard fires and toast marshmallows.

Feb --AZ Desert dawn hikes, Lost Dutchman campsite. 

March--AZ Desert dawn hikes, Lost Dutchman campsite...or THE MINE

[I need to reserve the Spring reservations by Nov/Dec, and Summer reservations by Feb/March]

April -- AZ Rim-country/Sedona Oak Creek--- AZ desert Dawn Hikes 

• [too hot to camp in AZ desert]
• [Mingus Mountain and Mogollan Campground and Aspen AZ not open till May], 
• THE MINE Morenci, AZ
• Yavapai, White Spar (Prescott) is open [but terrible bathrooms] not alot of trees
• Sedona/Oak Creek stuff is Open
• Maybe....Payson IS ALL FF IN APRIL [Christopher Creek] and Ponderosea (AZ)
•  Houston Mesa [Payson near Water Wheel, Flowing Springs] are FF in April 

May -- AZ Rim-country, Prescott, ----Sedona/Oak Creek stuff is Open  (Payson is open)

• Mingus Mountain! 
• Mogollon Campground on Rim ??
• ASPEN AZ ??
• Ponderosa AZ ??
• Sedona/Oak Creek stuff is Open(Pine Flatts) [We had a great time at Cave Spring Sedona in May]
• Christopher creek, 
• Houston Mesa Campground NEAR Water Wheel Falls (Payson)  Time for this the next 3 months

June

• last chance at Mingus---EARLY june, Prescott, 
• Payson--Christopher Creek
• Payson-ish Houston Mesa Campground NEAR Water Wheel Falls (Payson) NEAR Flowing Springs
• Maybe Sedona & Oak Creek Canyon Too Hot

July--Mountains or Creeks, 

• CHRISTOPHER CREEK IN PAYSON 
• Payson-ish Houston Mesa Campground NEAR Water Wheel Falls (Payson) NEAR Flowing Springs
• Maybe Oak Creek Canyon/Sedona [bc of Oak creek. Also Manzanita is COOLER they say, Pine Flats, Bootlegger, Cave Spring], 
• Maybe Mogollon Campground is 2mi from a lake....  Too Hot
• OR THE ROCKIES

Aug--Mountains or Creeks, PAYSON,OR THE ROCKIES Oak Creek Canyon/Sedona... Too Hot

CHRISTOPHER CREEK IN PAYSON 

Payson-ish Houston Mesa Campground NEAR Water Wheel Falls (Payson) NEAR Flowing Springs

Sept--Mountains or Creeks, PAYSON, OR Oak Creek Canyon/Sedona [Finally Cool Enough!...]

• CHRISTOPHER CREEK IN PAYSON 
• Payson-ish Houston Mesa Campground NEAR Water Wheel Falls (Payson) NEAR Flowing Springs

Oct -- AZ Rim-country, Prescott, Mingus [may-oct] OR Oak Creek Canyon/Sedona...

• Last chance for Mingus !!!!

And how to homestead...when we are in a little quarter-acre lot in a desert, and may move in the near-ish future?

Homestead, but not as the homestead being the goal---as we may need to sell, and later owners destroy it. Plant fruit trees, for the future if owners keep it. And always garden with the kids. Involve my little rangers as much as possible...because its about the memories being forged WITH them, and the skills being forged IN them, and not about the physical garden or home so much. We are traveling, but we can make these way-stations along the way as beautiful as we can. As green as we can. As productive as we can. 

But it should always be about the little Rangers, and not the way-station.