Notes - spring / cold or flu /

         Mid-morning. You are out of sorts this morning and although the rains are gone and the sun out full it feels weather related arthritic physical funk. – Amorella

         Earlier you completed your forty minutes of exercises then mowed the front lawn for the first time. Carol worked sorting fall leaves from growing flowers, then you took a Potbelly picnic – taking your drinks from home and buying one large chicken salad on multigrain and a pack of chips, drove over to the usual place, Rahe’s livery and picnic grounds on the west bank of the Little Miami for lunch. The muddy and fast current river is up. Carol has begun a new book Mad River by John Sandford after deciding she didn’t want to read the one she began yesterday. You are both physically tired from the outside work. – Amorella

         1510 hours. Lots of yellow buttercups are up and the honeysuckles are popping more buds giving the bottoms of the woods a lime green hue. A few small patches of purple violets are coming up too. Carol just decided she doesn’t wan to read this book too. Time to head for home.

         Carol made scrambled eggs for supper. You do not feel well what with chills, aching muscles and a headache. You both watched this week’s “Bones” and are calling it a night. Carol is sitting on the bed reading and you are in the chair with a blanket over you. Post. – Amorella

         2051 hours. The chills were back after supper. I had a nap this afternoon and a hot bath for about forty minutes. It felt quite good. One bit of tingle in the throat, not a good sign either, then supper. Maybe I can sleep this off. 

Notes - morning / experience

        Late morning. You awoke with arthritic aches and pains, had breakfast, read the paper, (Carol thought you were coming down with a cold or flu), comforted Jadah, took a short nap, then did your forty minutes of exercises and you feel somewhat better. – Amorella

         1121 hours. I am. Partly cloudy skies help. I went to sleep late because I was playing ‘chase the laser light with Jadah then awoke later because of the somewhat short but loud thunderstorm with some hail and pelting rain. More green buds of all kinds are popping, very nice. Kim called to say her cousin, Sharon (divorced last year) is engaged to Guille, a medical doctor in Las Vegas she has been dating. She works for a national pharmaceutical company but lives in Vegas with her two children. We met him at Thanksgiving. He is a good fellow, born and raised in Buenos Aires. We like him and wish them the best of course. Another niece, Jean, was remarried last December. It is always fun when people are added to the fairly immediate family.

         Carol is downstairs on the Mac; you are listening to Calm Radio – solo piano and guitar on Tune In. Later you will probably drive in to Macy’s so Carol can buy some clothes for walking on the indoor track at the community center. You both have Silver Slipper free memberships provided by Aetna/Medicare so tomorrow you will see how that is. – Amorella

         1144 hours. Carol didn’t ask me to go along so I’ll go at least once to see how it is. She is supposed to walk on flat surfaces. Walking is something I always enjoyed but arthritis really slows me down.

         Post. - Amorella

         You had a late lunch at Penn Station and now Carol is at Kroger’s on Mason-Montgomery Road. A pleasant April day, eh, orndorff? – Amorella

         1508 hours. April reminds me of two authors and two works. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Melville’s Moby Dick. Both focus on the basic human condition as all good pieces of world literature do. Every time I write ‘the basic human condition’ I think of my favorite professor of English, Dr. John Coulter at Otterbein. I had some 67semester hours of English at Otterbein and about half were taught by Dr. John Coulter. In most every class he taught at least once or twice during the semester he would write ‘the basic human condition’ on the board. ‘This is what literature is all about,’ he would say. I love the man, John Coulter, the teacher, still. Heart and soul and mind are about as human as one can be.

         Later afternoon. You and Carol are at the north end of Pine Hill Lakes Park. Carol is on page twelve of The Target by David Baldacci after finishing The Confession last night. You are wondering about the ‘clear as air’ in terms of the color of an imaginary Angel’s eyes and why you thought that rather out of the blue. First, nothing that has words is ‘out of the blue’. Doug sent you ‘an inspirational quotation’ as he does every so often this morning and today’s is: “The only source of knowledge is experience,” by Albert Einstein. Second, so following, this ‘knowledge that the color of an Angel’s eyes’ is not fully imagination it is based on your experience. – Amorella

         1641 hours. This is based on what I once thought was an Angel’s eye because I saw it in my head. But seeing it in my head during a transcendental experience does not mean it was real.

         The point is that seeing the Angel’s eye was an experience. – Amorella

         1644 hours. It was a select aspect of a transcendental experience. In this sense, indeed, it is not imaginary in the broadest sense of the word.

         You distort your sense of reality by not giving experience its due. – Amorella

         1648 hours. The experience is intuitive knowledge at most (and less intuitive as least), not knowledge as we normally use the word. [Time to head home.]

         1706 hours. Relating to my intuitive experience, my initial description of you, Amorella, has an eye and distinguishing scar not an eye as clear as air yet you told me that the time I thought ‘I danced with an Angel of G---D’ (another transcendental experience) that it was you that I was dancing with not an Angel of G---D. Speaking of such ‘experience’ then I would have to say that I discovered that when I asked an Angel a question I would first have to find an answer for myself.

         This is not correct. First, you had to find the right question to ask. Finding the right question is what you had to find for yourself first. That was the experience. – Amorella

         1715 hours. I do not have the memory because the experience was/is timeless, or it appears to be so. This is confusing because memory is by definition related to a particular time setting.

         Now you show an example of your ‘intuitive spiritual’ knowledge in experience. – Amorella

         1724 hours. I have run out of words.

         Would you, here and now, deny any of this particular discussion to an Angel of G---D? – Amorella

         1727 hours. It is after the fact. How could I deny something after the fact?

         The meaning here is “I know better than to deny something that I feel in heartansoulanmind as true to any Angel because any Angel may be an Angel of G---D.” Do you agree? – Amorella

         1729 hours. I do, based on my intuitive spiritual experience, as you say, in dealing with Angels. (Whether or not they are real is beyond my ability to claim, thus I have doubts. This is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of reason and self-perceived experience.) – rho

         I accept these stated words of yours. No hand on the Bible needed here, boy. Post. – Amorella

         1735 hours. I feel neither here or there. Does any of this post have anything to do with Dead 9?

         What do you think? – Amorella

         1737 hours. Based on past experience (witnessed in years of this blog) I say, yes, it does.

        Later, boy. - Amorella

Notes - clearer than air / family

         Shortly after noon local time. You are listening to classical guitar on Calm Radio; this is after completing your forty minutes of exercises. Carol is on the phone with one of her sisters and Jadah just dropped from your lap to do some preliminary fur cleaning before her afternoon nap. – Amorella

         1209 hours. These thundershowers have been rough on Jadah. She becomes afraid and heads under whatever bed is at hand. Spooky could care less about heavy rain or thunder. Carol is feeling better after the cortisone shots yesterday. She talked to one of her retired teacher friends who had a knee replacement in December and just returned from a two-week hiking trip up into the Himalayas. She is back to walking about ten miles every day she can. The woman is the same age as Carol, 68, and obviously a bit more athletic. Carol just wants to be able to walk a mile or two over in the woodsy park with its fifty-foot highs hills and fifty foot lows into valleys – eighty-foot height variations. She needs to get a walking stick, that’s what the doctor said. I am talking to myself too much and writing it out of habit. I like to see my thoughts even if there is not much there. I need to watch talking too much – repeating myself. It is not polite, not even to myself.

         This is what you were thinking last night when you stopped writing – too much repeating yourself, like the older man you are. Why? You remember how it was talking to some older family members, people you love dearly, but the stories became much repeated over time. Now, for some stories, you didn’t care, but others got to you. – Amorella

         1231 hours. You remind me that some stories I could have heard for a lifetime and not been bored. I forgot that.

         You had quite an unusual afternoon. After lunch at Chipotle/Panera you drove to the DXL - Casual Male shop at the Tri-Country Mall area and bought a belt, two pair of pants, a shirt and a pack of underwear and T-shirts then on the way home after a Graeter’s you and Carol went to Famous Footwear at the VOA. Carol bought two pair of sandals and you bought a pair of Tava sandals and a pair of Margaretville loafers. 

         I spent 350 dollars on clothes. I offered to pay for my shoes out of my own money but Carol still considers the money ours. I don’t. It’s hers and she can do what she wants with it. Without her I wouldn’t have any money, that’s the way I look at it. I hate money on principle. (1737)

         Use your imagination, orndorff. Look into an Angel’s eyes and say you hate money on principle. – Amorella

         1743 hours. I can’t do it. I don’t know if ‘hate’ is the right word but that’s what comes to mind almost every time. Too much personal security is based on how much money one has. It is a lion’s roar of security not a human being’s roar of security – I am having trouble finding the words. I am too practical of a man to know where to look for the words. I know better, but I do not like it. So, my imagination backs away from this Angel. I do not hate money on principle.

         What is the color of these imaginary Angelic eyes of you see? – Amorella

         1801 hours. The color is clearer than the freshest of air.

         Title this ‘clearer than air’ and post. - Amorella

         You had cereal for supper, Carol had salmon and plus leftovers from last night. You watched episode five of “Broadchurch” and NBC News. - Amorella

         2319 hours. I just put this on my Facebook page and opened it to the public. I think it is very cool that we are all related.

** **

“I recently received my DNA Geno 2.0 test results from the National Geographic Genographic Project. My designated Branch DNA haplogroup markers are: L0 to L3: descendents of our mitochondrial ‘Eve’ of about 180,000 years ago, N, R, T, T2, T2b, P305: the direct African paternal ancestor of 99.9% of us from more than 100,000 years ago, M42, M45, P143, M89, M168, M206, M207, P128, P231, M343, M526, M578, M269, P310 and U106.

My Regional Ancestry (5,000 to 10,000 years ago) is 42% Northern European; 39% Mediterranean and 18% Southwest Asian, (also including 2.2% Neanderthal and 3.1% Denisovan hominin).”

You are on some these same branches of ­Our Family Tree. So, here I officially say, “Hello!” And, “My best to my many family cousins!”   ;-)  rho" 
** **

Notes - working the day /

         1234 hours. We had a big thunderstorm this morning, the first biggie of the season. It ought to bring the earthworms up and out onto the ground.

         You and Carol were up early for her mid-morning doctor’s appointment. She had a cortisone shot in each knee for the upcoming trip to Chicago the first week in May and the trip to Florida midway through the month. Both knees are open for knee replacement but Dr. T. only does one knee at a time, the right is most always first because of its major use in driving. – Amorella

         1252 hours. I hope the pain killer works for the trips. We did find out that after surgery she would spend two days in the hospital then after a day or two at home she could go up to Kim and Paul’s and stay for a month and do her physical therapy up there. For most after two month the patient is living a more normal pain free life, at least as far as your knee is concerned. They don’t use a machine to work your leg and knee anymore.

         You are in front of Bethesda North Hospital waiting on Carol to pick up past knee X-rays for Dr. T. after stopping at Montgomery Family Medicine for other records also for Dr. T. Sunny skies this afternoon. You had leftovers for lunch and are going to Outback for dinner, as it is a good special tonight – three items plus dessert. – Amorella

         1436 hours. Carol just called; she has to wait about twenty minutes for the X-rays. I will work on Dead 9.

         You are home after working on an opening paragraph for Dead Nine. 

** **

            Returned to his sanctuary, Merlyn reconsiders a few times then comes to the conclusion that mathematics does not rule in equations of the heart . . .. The Marsupial humanoid Dead are more experienced at being dead than we are. Surely their intuition ought to be stronger than our own. It would seem though, in terms of fairness the heart and soul and mind ought to be equal. Then again perhaps self-consciousness plays more part in this. Consciousness is certainly not equal among the individual Dead or Living.

** **

         Not only self-consciousness and world consciousness you also have passion. Now we have the makings of fruit on the vine, so to speak. – Amorella

         1533 hours. The driver is passion, foot on the pedal. Consciousness – the interior and the windows; heart – the motor; mind – electrical power; soul – the exterior and frame.

         You and Carol have been chatting off and on for about an hour and a half. How is that? – Amorella

         1633 hours. We talk pretty regularly – family, health, weather, friends and greater family, politics, finances, past family life, future family life, society and the news of the day – whatever comes up.

         Post. - Amorella

         You had an excellent dinner at Outback. Carol had salmon and you a six-ounce sirloin; each had a salad and a potato with Carol having a piece of cheesecake and you a piece of carrot cake – quite satisfying. – Amorella

         2203 hours. Once home we watched NBC News, “Person of Interest” and Miss Marble’s “Body in the Library, Part I” from last Saturday night on PBS.

         All for tonight, boy. – Amorella

        2239 hours. All in all it has been a very good relaxing day. 

Notes - how good

         Close to noon, orndorff. You did your forty minutes but only fifteen yesterday to keep the record straight. – Amorella

         1200 hours. I was going to make up the minutes but we had things to do. We watched “Wolf Hall” last night. It is very well done. The acting and the set are wonderfully put – quite realistic to me from what I know of the history – which is mostly through books. We met several characters seen before – Cromwell, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, King Henry, Anne and Mary, a good line, “I spent last night in Spain” – Prince Arthur referring to his wedding night with Catherine of Aragon. (the line heard by guards the next morning supposedly).

         In the late eighties and early nineties you had a Renaissance Festival at Mason during school hours. You put yourself in costume. Students and faculty wanted you to be Henry VIII. A couple of other teachers of English represented two of your wives. A fun time was had. You had to sign Henry’s name for autographs. You studied up on it and attempted to make the signature look authentic. – Amorella

         2212 hours.  We had the left over Easter dinner for supper; still excellent. We also watched last Sunday’s “Battle Creek” and tonight’s “NCIS”. Thanks for bringing the Renaissance Festival up. I had forgotten about that. It was a good time. Everyone seemed to enjoy having a different sort of morning. Later, in the nineties Laney organized a Halloween parade and the seniors in our classes dressed up as did Laney, myself and other English faculty. I forget who we dressed as, but they were literary characters. I think I was a Dane a couple of times, representing the time of Beowulf (sixth century). Laney was Queen Elizabeth once and she kept asking for her lover “Robert”. Robert Dudley was his full name. I just now had to look up Dudley. I used to know all these people in my lectures by heart. I lived British history/literature for most of those 37 years teaching. When I gave the lectures I was there in my head. I would like to have met Chaucer, Edward DeVere, Milton, Swift, Blake, and Coleridge in real life. I don’t know what I would have actually said to them, but I admire their character and their works. I am assuming DeVere was the writer of Shakespeare.

         You are in heart’s memory, boy. Post. – Amorella

         2238 hours. I actually earned money by showing and telling about some of the greatest writers (and their works) in the English language. How good a life is that. 

Notes - trust and potential

         Mid-morning. Cloudy morning with sprinkles to begin the day. Carol slept in, which is unusual. The cats were up early but are now into naptime. Cat hunting habits are hard to fall away, and these habits haven’t much done so in the last twenty thousand years. Twilight hunters still are up for food even if it is nuggets out of a bowl. Nothing much for a house cat to do but eat, drink, sleep, play hunt and do one’s business. - Amorella       

 

         Late afternoon. You had take out lunches from a fairly new restaurant in uptown Mason, the Troy Cafe. Enjoyable and tasty fare. You watched “Selfridge” and “Madam Secretary” and are upstairs where Carol has interrupted her reading to feed the cats. You have some errands to run later. You have been thinking about one of Doug’s comments last week where he asked for a definition of intelligent life. Doug says:

** **

Dick, What is a short but handy definition of intelligent life? I believe Intelligence is to take input from the universe and to decide what needs to be done, if anything. This requires knowledge of cause and effect. But this does not cover what thought is. How is such thought created?

Doug and Nancy

** **

         1748 hours. How is such thought created?

         Look at your story for example you observing the marsupial humanoids twenty thousand years in the future and they have adapted to survive by using machinery (tools) and a humane community elected to run their society. Tools to stabilized the greater culture economically and people to reinforce this stabilization for the greater good as well as the individual. And, part of this stabilization is the people forgiving their debt for the sake of their humanity. – Amorella

         1800 hours. This would never work for real. The older I become the more ludicrous it sounds.

         Evening. You are a realist, orndorff who insists on writing fiction. – Amorella

         2200 hours. I thought I was a dreamer.

         You were a dreamer when the concept hit you while writing the first Merlyn series. Now you are a realist and know it might work in fiction but that’s the end of it. – Amorella

         2205 hours. It works for the marsupial humanoids because they had no choice, or at least they thought they had none in which people could survive well. I thought human beings might reach this goal or one similar when history allows them no real civilized choice. That time will come. The planet will need a Seldon Crisis (Asimov's Foundation) in real life. Machinery is the key. People basically don’t trust other people (mostly for very good reasons) and they don’t trust machinery – computers, etc either.

         People trust their automobiles, trains and planes when they have had safety checks. People mostly trust their personal weaponry and their ability to handle it safely. Training is the key. Think what computers and safety equipment will be like in even a thousand years. Safety checks will be built in. If computers had any self consciousness at all it would be safety first and to do no harm . You have gone over Asimov’s Laws for Robotics. You have hope that machines will be an asset for human beings to allows them to live more comfortably and individually freer within the confines of social responsibility within the greater world community. You have hope that computers will aid humans much as pets as far as comfort is concerned. Think about it. Post. – Amorella

         2220 hours. Human beings have a potential they do not realize. This is what I think. I do not know what this potential is, but we have to mature into it one way or another if it is to happen. We have to grow in heartansoulanmind. I do not know how to do this but it seems to me it is something more basic then religion and philosophy. We must shovel deeper into ourselves as a species, find out what we can and make our lives more realistically humane so we can better live that way in a kind of polite honesty and with a forgiving nature where possible.

Notes - mid-afternoon / Easter dinner

         Mid-afternoon. You have run errands and had a late lunch at Panera. (Chipotle is closed for Easter.) You are at the northern parking lot at Pine Hill Lakes Park. The honeysuckle bush leaves are out on the hillside. Spring beauties are out on my left side window. It is a very pleasant though windy afternoon from your perspective. No memories stem forth though although a couple tulips out the right window. Carol is on page one hundred and eighty nine of The Confession by Grisham. Earlier today and yesterday you both stopped over at King’s next door and played with their cat Fluffy as the family is spending the weekend in a cabin in the woods in either Kentucky or Tennessee. – Amorella

         1542 hours. I think they are in Kentucky or Tennessee; they could be in southeast Ohio. I don’t know where they are.

         You feel it is dishonest to omit Ohio? – Amorella

         1544 hours. I don’t know if it is technically dishonest but it makes me uncomfortable nevertheless. – Amorella

         You have never adjusted well to the Earth environment, boy. – Amorella

         1546 hours. That is untrue. I’m well adjusted. I just don’t like it. This in ‘internalized’ thinking on a wall, so to speak. I’m sure people debate on how living in this environment is. I like the seasons and the variety of life that this weather brings annually. But in terms of bringing forth honesty, this world is not so much for it if one wants to survive. Compromise is everywhere and morality is one of the compromises. Nothing can be done about this – it is a fact of living as a human being. The easiest thing to do is keep your mouth shut except where you cannot.

         Post when plausible. Take a break. Relax. – Amorella

         Carol made Easter dinner, which you actually ate at the dining room table – two pieces of pork, veggies and half a baked potato. The pork (like a pork roast but for two) on a plate was topped with a cherry sauce that you thought quite delicious. Later you watched ABC News and the latest episode of “The This Old House Hour” from KET.

         2042 hours. The meal was quite excellent. I hope we have it again. Who would have thought a cherry sauce topping a piece of pork would taste good, surprising good. And, we have another piece of cooked pork to eat later with left over cherry sauce. We had talked about going to Outback for lunch today but realized it (and most other open better restaurants) would be crowded and we would have to wait.

         You are thinking about religions. But being older and seemingly wiser you are keeping these thoughts to yourself. – Amorella

         2054 hours. In real life if it is true that we have hearts and souls and minds and self-consciousness and voice, etc. to communicate with it would seem impossible that we would not develop religions and philosophies. The point is, we had to feel we have hearts and souls and minds in order to develop religions and philosophies. So, from my perspective hearts and souls and minds and self-consciousness are more important than religion and philosophies. They are more important because they are the base on which most all religions and philosophies exist.

         You needed to see this in print to better know your mind at present. All for tonight, boy. A few minutes ago you told Carol you were going to watch last week’s “Dig” before coming to bed. Post. - Amorella