Straigue Stone Fort 1700 years later

For years I stuck to a timeline, ever running to keep up with the present but that is changing. Perhaps traveling has helped move me off the stuck point. The past is ever with us, not only in memory and dream but effect and also quite physically. But enough rhapsodizing.

Me, Swami, and Juan Carlos
Staigue, Kerry, Ireland

Straigue stone fort in Co. Kerry Ireland was built during the late Iron Age making it about 1,700 years old. No adhesive of any kind has held it together for the last almost 2000 years. It still stands because it was built right and no hotshot developer has come in with a bulldozer to clear the land for yet another soulless shopping center, condo project, freeway etc.

Trump shutting down government

Shutting down government hoping to force America to pay for his wall be the first thing Donald Trump has ever claimed credit for that, in fact, he actually did.

As my world dissolves around me . . .

The family, dogs included, came over tonight for lasagna and a movie.Very nice evening. Thea is spending the night. M. Lee and I leave Wednesday for southern Oregon, a couple of weeks there and then back to Nevada to begin dismantling our world. Not exactly sure where this road is leading. What I do know is that it's time shed another layer along the way.

Winter Solstice 2018

It's the Winter Solstice toady and the full moon and there's a meteor shower. Much afoot in the heavens and here on earth. For me, it's a time to pause and reflect where I've been, where I am, and where I'm going. Happy new year and first day of winter.

Greta Thunberg addressing UN plenary session

You Are Stealing Our Future:
Fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg Condemns the World’s Inaction on Climate Change

Here and gone

Our time in Europe is again coming to an end. I'm not complaining. August to mid-December is a good a run but other than family, which I am very much looking forward to seeing, there just isn't much else drawing me back to the U.S. these days. When Bush was President, I wrote a lot about him here but with Trump? What can I say? America has been hijacked by fascists. I love that the Dems took 40 seats in the mid-terms but it's just a start. This rot is deep but we will cut it out. That I trust.

“There are only a few notes. Just variations on a theme.” ― John Lennon   RIP 38 years

Why midnight?

Naples, Italy

Every night at midnight assholes in our neighborhood let off with a barrage of fireworks. Why? WTF? The first night I joked that it must be a cover for the Camorra but it's not funny anymore. Is it some religious celebration? What?! Come on. Fireworks are bullshit. Even the seagulls complain about them. OK. Finally they're done. G'night.

Blue bucket

Naples, Italy

Why take the stairs when you have a blue bucket? Daily life in an old world.

The old man in Évora

Évora, Portugal

"Where are you going
in such a hurry traveler"
Capela dos Ossos

One of the last things we did before leaving Portugal was visit Évora, a city that's been continuously occupied for more than 5,000 years. Neolithic tribes, Celts, Romans, Visigoths, and Moors all passed through Évora, some staying centuries before being swept away by war or the changing of the age. You might think with all the different rulers, cultures, identities, and religions that have come and gone, and Évora's 15th century Golden Age being long past, it would be an empty husk but no. Évora today is considered one of the most livable places in Portugal and, because it maintains the integrity of the past within its historic center, it is also listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Swami & Juan Carlos
Évora town square
under the waxing moon

We got there early and spent the day doing our usual slow crawl, me photographing everything—medieval byways, the cathedral, paintings, gargoyles, bell towers, most of the 5000 skeletons in the Capela dos Ossos (Bone Chapel), Roman ruins, and random other details along the way. We found a friendly vegetarian restaurant for lunch and at twilight, under a waxing moon, sat on a bench in the town square to people watch while waiting for our train. Just after dark, an elderly gentleman wearing a dark topcoat and carrying an umbrella hooked over his arm emerged from a covered walkway along the square's edge. At our bench, he stopped, turned and, with a pleasant smile, bowed slightly looking back and forth into our eyes then slowly, and very deliberately, wished us boa noite and smiled when we wished him boa noite in return. Then, still smiling, he nodded, turned and slowly moved on. This, above all, is what I will remember of Évora.