Category: Me

I’ve managed to compress my stuff down to a few boxes. Add in a couple of desks, a computer, a tv and a mattress, and you have my life in a nut sack.

Piper is my cat, my friend, and my boss. How I keep her healthy and happy thru the next two weeks will dictate whether or not I’m ultimately fired from the evil and liberal Pet Owners Association.

Recall the phrase: fading into oblivion? I realize that I’m on the verge of doing so, in a cool and structured manner. I’m still not sure of the specific location of the landing after the raft sets sail, but east is on my horizon. Way east… But it will be the land of oblivion and my family count will sadly be significantly reduced. All I can do is rock on.

July 30, 2018, Colorado Belle, Laughlin, NV. A week after my 72nd birthday…

Our deadlines rapidly approach. The landlady want’s us out of the house by August 28 which gives me three days to wander around the West Coast with all of my possessions, and my cat, jammed into my truck until I can move into my new place, which I haven’t found yet.

This is after I drive a U-Haul truck to the deep south with all of Steph’s stuff, and then take the Greyhound back through the heartland of America. Yea, let that one sink in…

I have only two constants left in my life now: My words on this computer, and the feel of my beard on the soft underbelly of my sweet cat Piper.

Sometimes we find ourselves wallowing around within the confines of self-inflicted boxes. All we can see are the limits imposed by the box. I was sitting on the deck the other day playing some Lukas Nelson on my Echo, feeling really sorry for myself and I wrote a poem: I’m a sad old man, without a plan, throwing it all away again. Pretending to not give a damn, not knowing if I’ll lose or win.

Well, I thought, that’s pretty bleak as I consumed some Oregon fruit from my recent trip, I need to start thinking out of the box. I was trying to figure out how to get Steph and her stuff to the South towards the end of August while towing her truck behind the U-Haul and then getting my own ass back here to get my life moving and what about Piper while I was gone.

As I went to bed my brain was on fire and around midnight I got it. Leave early in August, pull my truck behind the U-Haul, unload in the South and drive back here. Steph can put new tires on her Tundra and drive east on our last day, I’ll then grab my stuff and Piper and drive to… Oh wait, I haven’t worked that part out yet, better go visit the deck one more time…

I’ve been eating a breakfast of red cabbage, beets and garlic for years now and it’s one of the things I attribute my great health to. I also started adding kale for the calcium but the store was out today. I usually dice everything up together in my Cuisinart and store it in a container in the fridge but lately it’s begun to ferment before I finish it.

My normal procedure is to heat a third cup of water in a sauce pan, add 3/4 cup of the mixture, heat and boil for a couple minutes and then thicken it up with ground flax-seed meal. It has the texture of oatmeal and when topped with a sliced banana it’s great!

I’m going to be traveling for a bit shortly so I came up with an idea: Dice each vegetable separately, store one serving amounts in small individual baggies, and then freeze them. I’ll transport them in my cooler and all I have to do is power up my portable hotplate, heat water, add the frozen mix and cook.

One average sized cabbage, three beets, and one jar of peeled garlic made 16 meals. Of course, I had to bag up some flax-seed also:

I’ve been asked lately how retirement is going? Well, it’s great, thank you. I’m doing all the things I like to do like weight-lifting on the deck semi-naked under a warm sun, driveway dancing to a Seattle radio station blasting from my Echo, driving to town for my fruit, watching Netflix, evening ab-workouts and playing with my cat. All without the complications of working at an 0700 to 1600 job!

I’m really kinda amazed at how easily I’ve adapted. My time is now mine, not somebody else’s. I make my own schedule, not follow the one dictated by a stupid tablet in that rolling office called a bus.

Moving sale coming up in a couple of weeks and then hopping back in the river for the next float. Glad to be alive!

Ever have one of those days?

Life is a river that we float down until we drown. Occasionally we pull off into a new spot, set up our tent, explore, learn, and discover new things about ourselves. Hopefully when we pack up the tent and take off down to the next stop, we’re a better person than we were before.

My last two landings have been good ones. Two decades in the Seattle area taught me humility, how to lead, and how to be a dad. As I prepare to jump back in the river after thirteen years in Teton Valley I’m stone cold sober and in the best shape of my life.

Wow, I can’t wait to see what happens next!

The vibrations inside my body persist, and grow louder. My ability to see people for who they really are as they drop their guard when they think you look away, grows stronger. My role here in the Valley is becoming that of chopped liver. My heart is strong, and heavy. My brain is clear and confused. I need the sun to heal me…

As I was preping supplies for this upcoming trip, Steph asked me what my favorite powder was. Since I consume a lot of powder daily, I asked if she was referring to one of my spice powders: Cayenne, Turmeric, Garlic, Ginger and Pepper, or one of my exotic powders: Hawthorne Berry, Ashwagandha Root, Gotu Kola, Soy Lecithin or Amla?

She said she was talking about my protein powders, Vanilla or Strawberry. Oh, Vanilla.

Anyway, more power to get here:

It’s funny how one can have a debilitating disease and yet be in the best shape of their lives. I think my body literally slaps modern medical crap up side it’s collective bullshit head. I have Parkinson’s. It runs strong in my family on my dad’s side and my brother is suffering from it full on.

A few years back I felt it coming on in weird ways but my diet and exercise program has pushed it back to only one symptom, I can feel it rushing through my body. It’s like a freight train pounding through my blood vessels and in the quiet of night as I lie in bed, it’s really loud.

I’ve come to embrace it as a form of energy, as opposed to a disease. It no longer worries me, it just pushes me forward now…

Many years ago, late one night, I was sitting in a rundown one room apartment in Renton, WA, writing some C++ code. It was my first C program (I usually programmed in Assembly or RPG on the minis), and I was pretty stoned and getting down on it. It was an astrology app that a Bay Area friend of mine commissioned me to write for a few bucks. I had a crushed ankle from a fall and money was scarce, so I took it.

It was a pretty cool app, using all of the tricks of the astrology trade to come up with a series of numbers based on your name and birthdate. The numbers could then be compared to a database of famous people and you could see who comes close to yours. My birth name is Leigh James Riza so that’s what I plugged in and when I scrolled the screen down to see who was close, I literally fell out of my chair when I saw the results.

I’ve always had an affinity for Vincent Van Gogh and I had read everything about him I could get my hands on. I related to him as the tortured artist who was never recognized for his work. I still relate to that…

So, my mind was blown. I ran across this printout the other day and I’ve named it Carma as a union of Coincidence and Karma.

Billy Graham died today. I met him once in Reno, NV around 1965. I was a punk kid working as a bellman at the Holiday Inn and the place was buzzing one night about some special guests that wanted to remain anonymous. I got picked to serve them dinner so I delivered four meals to Mr Graham and his wife, both in their pajamas, and the other two were going to the adjoining room where their daughters (I believe) were hanging out.

I was pretty star-struck and I was babbling on about some relative of mine that worked with Billy once and he was gracious and extended his hand, which I shook. I kept on babbling and he extended his hand again, which I shook again.

At that point he smiled and said “Could I have my check please?” The poor guy just wanted to eat his dinner…

I was sitting off Bates Road today at 1105 getting ready to pick up the little old lady down the road, and I was thinking about the past. How many moments in my life have I looked around and wondered how the hell did I arrive here. All of those moments were very real and very now, and now they mean nothing. Soon, so will this…