My Mom

Jon11 Comments

My mother is dying. Although I try to be very personal and open on my blog, this is something I haven’t wanted to put out there till now. She’s been very sick for the better part of a year now, often in great pain, and in and out of the hospital several times. She’s made her wishes known that she wants to die naturally without artificial life support, and we’re respecting that. She’s coming home tomorrow.

I had the good fortune to visit her a week ago during her last, short recovery. We had some good times together and I am so grateful I had the chance to say goodbye while she was conscious and lucid. But just four days later, things changed dramatically. The doctors today said she probably has less than a week.

If this request resonates with you, please pray for my mom, Corrinne, that her transition may be painless. And also please pray for my dad, Lloyd, and my brother, Bob, and myself. This is a difficult time. Thank you.

My Vegan Trial

Jon10 Comments

Today is the last day of a 21-day trial of a vegan diet.  Overall, it was far easier and more satisfying than I expected it to be.  In fact, there was only one day in which I was really disapponited I couldn’t eat something non-vegan; that was my boss brought in some delicious muffins his fiancée made.

Why did I do this? I needed to change some things in my life desperately.  I began the year with a diagnosis of high blood pressure, high triglycerides, and high LDL cholesterol. I’ve been obese for many years now.  I need to change and obviously, everything that I’d tried before wasn’t working.

I can verify that I’ve lost six pounds, and that my blood pressure has gone down significantly, and I expect that the other numbers have as well. My energy has been higher, my thinking clearer, and I’ve had less a tendency to “crash” when I get home after work.

Besides health, another thing that interested me in a vegan diet are the environmental benefits.   The overwhelming amount of grain grown in the world (not just the US) is fed to livestock.  If you think that beef cows graze grass on farmer Jone’s ranch, the reality has been quite different for a long time. I’ve known that the deforestation of the Amazon has been caused by farmers burning trees to create more farmland, but I didn’t know until recently that that great rainforest is being burned mostly to grow grain for beef cows.

In 2006 a United Nations study affirmed that raising livestock for food contributes to massive deforestation and climate change. If the existing farmland of the world were re-purposed to feed humans instead of cows, pigs, and poultry, not only would be there far more food than we need, but we’d soon be converting vast quantities of it back to its natural state.

So, am I going to stay vegan from now on? Probably not in the strictest sense.  I’m not an absolutist.  I might have some dairy now and then, fish from time to time,  and meat occasionally. But I’ve no doubt that my daily meat and dairy habit is over, and good riddance.  I feel better than I have in a long time.

Buddy

Jon16 Comments

 Last Monday, I lost Buddy. Apparently he was jumping from a tall wooden fence, caught his paw on a shorter, chain-link fence, lost his balance and broke his neck. I’m certain I found him only a few minutes after he fell.

Other than a instant of having a cut paw, I don’t think he felt any pain. I, on the other hand, felt quite a bit.

Simply put, it tore my heart out to lose him.  I cried a river the night I found him, and when I buried him the next day. But even though he’d be alive still if I hadn’t start letting him out six weeks earlier, I know I made the right decision. The last six weeks of his short life were simply packed with joy.

Buddy

Remember when you came to me,
Barely more than a kitten?

Remember when you were at first frightened
of the big black cat in your new home?
And how soon you became friends and brothers?

Remember your aikido matches on the living room rug?
Your daily lessons with Talbot,
Throwing you as you’d try to lunge at him unseen?
You a white blur, him, a black,
together a yin and yang of fun and fight.

Remember how you enjoyed sleeping next to me
And telling me that when the sun comes up,
I should too?

Remember the massages I gave you when I came home?
Kneading the loose skin between your shoulders,
putting my hand on your back
and beaming all the love in the world to you?

Remember discovering how wonderfully warm a seat
my monitor was,
with the benefit of putting you in petting reach
while I surfed the Web?

Remember rocketing and ricocheting from room to room,
inviting Talbot and me to the chase?

Remember watching the great outdoors on the windowsill with Talbot?

Remember when you decided to seize your freedom
by breaking the window screens?

Remember the first time I let you run and play outside?
How I told you to be careful? How worried I was?

Remember jumping and landing vertical on tree trunks?

Remember the food you killed and brought home to me?
Four squirrels and a pigeon, Buddy, mighty hunter.

Remember how the neighbors laughed
to see you come running at my call?

Remember when you were kidnapped by a do-gooder
who thought you were lost?

Remember how you left, jumping off a fence, and onto a cloud?

I will never forget.

Bonan nokton, mia kara katetĉjo.

Freedom!

Jon4 Comments

After about 25 years of caffeine addiction (and the last 20 of those specifically Diet Pepsi addiction), I’m finally free.  Free from caffeine, free from artificial sweeteners.

Hallelujah!

I’ve tried many times over the years to quit, but this time I succeeded.  I used Newton Homeopathic’s Caffeine Addiction tablets, and have only had one episode of the dreaded withdrawal headache.  More may come, but I’m ready for it if they do.

I imagine that I used to spend more than $1000 a year on Diet Pepsi, not to mention other caffeine sources, like chocolate.  It’ll be great to have that extra money in my pocket, and the extra chemicals NOT in my brain.

Pride

Jon3 Comments

I’ve often written about the illusoriness of the thing called country.  Be that as it may, this morning I feel more proud of my country, and more proud to be an American, than I have in decades.

RockOm, Part Deux

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This is another shameless plug for RockOm.net, a site that my partners and I are continuing to develop. I’m writing this, because if you like what you read at frimmin.com, I’m certain that you’ll love what you can read (and listen to!) at RockOm.net. RockOm is not a mere blog, but a developing social network, focused on exploring the whole realm where spirituality and music intersect, with all musics and all spiritualities, questings and questionings included.

If that sounds like big territory, it is. Our premier issue included interviews with musical personalities as diverse as Grammy-winning Christian bluegrass artist Ricky Skaggs, to Hindu kirtan performer Krishna Das.
Trevor Harden and Tommy Crenshaw recently finished a coast-to-coast trip to gather more interviews with amazing performers with penetrating insights into the human condition. But, course, we don’t let national borders stop us either. We’ve Skyped across the ocean to interview Joseph Rowe, translator of dozens of books (including The Gospel of Thomas) and an exceptional musician with an emphasis on Sufi music, and we’ll do more to bring together musicians from around the world.

Some of RO’s features current features:

  • RockOm blog: Near-daily new content ranging from music and artists, to questions and musings
  • RockOm podcast: a weekly in-depth interview with some of the most interesting and insightful musicians alive
  • Featured Track of the Week: An exciting new track every week available to listen to from one of our guest artists
  • Featured Articles: Transcriptions and photographs from our interviews,
  • RockOm Forum: The heart of the RockOm community, where we discuss anything and everything.

Following RockOm is easy. Subscribe to our RSS feed to have our blog posts come right into your feed reader. And it’s easy to add the RO podcast feed to your iTunes or any other MP3 player, by following the links on RockOm’s home page. You can also follow RockOm on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Very soon we’ll be adding the RockOm store, offering compilation disks of music from our guest artists, and later on, group pages and other features that will further develop the social network aspects of RockOm.

Now another reason I’m writing: We need your help to continue to grow RockOm and realize our vision. Not money, but support. If you like RO, please help us get the word out.

Do you have friends who are interested in music with a message? Tell them about RockOm. Do you have a blog or site of your own? Please consider adding a link to http://rockom.net. Also, we’d love for you to submit a post for the RockOm blog.

Do any of the songs, podcasts or posts strike a chord? Or not? Agree? Disagree? Tell us about it in the RockOm forums.

Finally, we appreciate your prayers, intentions and wishes for our continued growth and success. Thanks, and RockOm!

Do we value life too much?

Jon13 Comments

My cat Buddy, always an indoor cat, recently discovered the wonder of his own feline power:  He can break through window screens and escape to enjoy the great outdoors. He did it twice this week. My response (thus far) has been to make sure any window is open just a crack. His response in turn, has been to let me know he regards me as a jailer, or at the very least, as a bad parent, meowing and clawing at the window panes intermittently throughout the day.

Not that I’d ever anthropomorphize, but our conversation the last few days has been something like this:

Buddy: Hey Dad, I want to go out, OK?

Me: No, it’s not okay.  You’re an indoor cat. You’re staying here with me.

Buddy: C’mon, Dad! I’ve already shown you I’m responsible. I don’t go too far away, and I always come back home.

Me: I understand and appreciate that. But it’s because I love you. You’re my little Buddy-cat, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.

Buddy: You should talk! You leave home every day!  Sometimes several times!

Me: That’s different. I’m a human being. I have to go to work to make the money to pay for things like our apartment and your cat food. But you’re a cat. Outdoor cats generally die much younger than indoor cats. And they’re more likely to get hurt in fights with dogs and other cats, and to have problems with fleas, parasites, and illnesses.

Buddy: But I can take care of myself!  Remember when I ate the cockroach? I didn’t get sick at all! And I practice martial arts every day with Talbot.  Sometimes I even beat him and he’s almost twice my size!

Me: Are your claws going to save you from the 18-wheelers on Hampton Blvd.?

Buddy: Do you think I’m stupid? There’s nothing on the other side of Hampton worth checking out anyway.

Me: So you’re not missing much if you stay here with Talbot and me.

Buddy: Yes I am! Freedom! Walking in the grass, on the sidewalk! Chasing birds, and hearing their songs so much clearer! Scratching trees instead of your mattress! Breathing fresh air! Sunbathing on the lawn! It feels so good! And I don’t have to worry about missing the stupid tiny litterbox that you always forget to clean!

Me: No.

Buddy: But the cat next door goes out!

Me: If the cat next door jumped off a cliff, would you?

Buddy: I’m not stupid! Why don’t you trust me?

Me: It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that it’s a mean world out there.

Buddy: Look, I can take care of myself.  I know what streets to cross and how to avoid traffic.  I can win or escape any fight. And that birth-control talk you gave me when you took me to the vet that time…

Me: I remember.

Buddy: Yeah, I remember, too, thanks for nothing!  Let’s just say the effects are still with me, and I won’t be getting any she-cats in trouble.  I’m old enough, I’ve got my shots, and my tags are RIGHT here!  C’mon, let me go out! Please!

Me: Buddy, I love you, but my answer’s still “no.”  C’mon, who wants a belly rub?

Buddy: I want to go out! I hate you!  You never care about what’s important to ME!

Actually that was the translation … we usually talk in Esperanto. But seriously, the reason I’m posting this is I’m beginning to see his POV. I was raised by over-protective parents, and I’m fully aware that over-parenting can be just as destructive as under-parenting. Is it better for a cat to live 15 -18 years pampered, fat and cramped, or maybe a few years less, but fully enjoying everything the world has to offer in the few blocks of his territory?

I wonder how this relates to other aspects of my life, and the world in general… I haven’t been skydiving yet. Maybe it’s time.  And maybe when I’m old and doctors are pressuring me for an iffy operation that might give me a “few more years” of a lesser quality, maybe I should say, “F-k you! I think I’d rather die in my own bed.” Everywhere, understandably humans try to extend life, and increase “security” as much as possible.  But nothing in the world guarantees or can guarantee long life or security. Does our drive for them stem partly, maybe even largely, from our insecurity?

I’m almost at the point of opening the door and telling him the feline Esperanto equivalent of “Okay, son, here are the keys… Don’t stay out too late.” What are your thoughts?

A note to a friend

JonLeave a comment

This, too, will pass.
Markets go up and down, emotions go up and down.
But in the center, all is still.
It’s like the eye of a hurricane.
All that power and energy, emanates from stillness.
You have that center… and that is your true being and the source of your strength.