Well, what a difference a phone call makes. Only a few minutes ago, I was musing that this is the summer of my discontent, and winter promises to be even worse…. But then I remembered a dream. It was something about getting involved in political/polemical matters again, particularly at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav (Hebrew for Golden Gate) here in San Francisco.

And let me digress to explain what I can about the discontent. These days I can get very caught up in my own orthopedic infirmities. And with age, I do have a few, complicated, of course, by the ever-moving glacier of neuromuscular decline. And don’t let the glacial pace fool you, for movement is movement, I always say. Anyway, the whole thing seems to be going downhill, vis-à-vis life, and then I remembered one tangible thing I could do to get myself reconnected with Sha’ar Zahav’s Climate Action Committee. Which simply meant calling my cousin Gregg in Oakland.

He is consultant in renewable energy. And he seemed the perfect person to give a short presentation about redesigning electrical utilities for the era of solar panels. And damned if my mood didn’t brighten immediately. Clearly what I needed to do. And, no, nothing changed about the underlying conditions. My lifespan is shortening, physical condition is deteriorating, but damned if I didn’t feel a lot better for making a positive move. We are social beings, it turns out, and there’s no sense in taking it lying down. Unless you want to. Meanwhile, I don’t want to.

We are recently returned from a trip to the glorious Olympic National Park. One fact of urban life is that even though I cannot see Interstate 280, the roaring conduit of thousands of cars cutting a diagonal swath through the southern part of San Francisco, I can hear the fucker. Constantly. Whereas on the shores of Lake Crescent, Just a few miles south of the Canadian border, all I can hear is my thoughts. And I can’t even hear them most of the time. Ruminations being drowned out by the splash of a canoe paddle or the fall of a foot. It’s quiet. It’s nature. Things were designed that way.

In short, a wonderful trip. Which being in the Northwest, happens to involve a ferry ride. This one crossing Puget Sound to and from Seattle. The downside, if there was one, involved the airline trip. I am still counting the days since we were last possibly exposed to any nasty COVID-19 viruses. I think one needs to wait for something like five days before the all clear signal can be sounded. And I am counting, because Jane and I went through two airports. Being on the actual airplane didn’t bother me. The ventilation system blows hard and constant. It’s the security areas in the airport that rather alarmed me. They were crowded. In fact, they were as crowded as I have ever seen them. No apparent modification made for the dreaded virus. So we wore our N-95 masks and hoped for the best. So far so good.