Monday, June 29, 2020

Here’s one of my top feminist issues: There’s a continuous lack of decently-deep pockets in ladies wear, specifically in slacks, jeans, sweats, and just about all clothing designed to cover legs.

It’s no joking matter for one who routinely carries several items in pockets hopefully deep enough to hold their contents securely. I usually take along my cell phone, wallet, keys, a small notebook and writing instrument, and a little auxiliary camera. A ladies wear with too-shallow pockets forces me to strap on a fanny pack. It soon starts hanging heavily from my waist, and is heavy even if I pare the contents to three essentials, my cell phone, wallet, and keys.

This always has bugged me. I usually wear men’s jeans because of their nice deep pockets that hold items securely. Last year I lost weight and the smallest men’s sizes were too big. That forced me into ladies jeans. I’m happy enough with their fit, but unhappily, I now need that fanny pack or other unwanted external carrier.

It’s puzzling how in these days of slacks and jeans women don’t gather and demand deeper pockets. I’ve been one also who’s not spoken of this. But recently while listening to an interview with a woman film-maker, I heard her complain about women’s shallow pockets. She commented that it’s because there’s a long-time convention of preventing women from keeping secrets.

That caught my attention. It was time for a little research.

Why do designers put shallow, fake, or non-existent pockets in women’s jeans? A woman designer says that making garments without pockets is cheaper, plus items carried in pockets interfere with a woman’s all-important slender silhouette, and eventually, fabrics will stretch, so oft-used pockets become wrinkly and unsightly. What!

According to some, pocket-size may equate to power. Women are less powerful than men so have pockets for decoration only. There also are the huge fashion industry’s goals, its serious business of designing and successfully marketing auxiliary accessories, like handbags, belts, briefcases, and backpacks.

Okay, there are many explanations for tradition, but usually there are underlying attitudes also that harken back through time. Always the historical status of women has been secondary to men. Perhaps there’s a deep truth in the female movie-maker’s comment that, “shallow pockets prevent us from keeping secrets”.

By the way, I discovered online at least one women’s jeans maker that builds-in deep pockets. Unfortunately, those pockets make that brand of jeans way too pricey for my casual wear budget.

Dear Friends: Like many women, I’ve tended to pocket this major personal issue. Diana

Sunday, June 28, 2020

I’m staring at YouTube videos, to learn how to cinch a Western saddle. You’re familiar with Western saddles, they’re large, have a horn, and a hanging latigo (strap that buckles to a girth). I’ve not ridden Western for years, I prefer lightweight English saddles. Western saddles typically are heavy, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty pounds, lots to heft up and onto a horse.

My interest in being reacquainted with heavy saddles is driven by Sunni, the horse I often “pony” (leading her alongside or slightly behind my riding horse). Sunni dips her head to grab grass and makes it seem she could pull me out of my English saddle. The horn of a Western saddle could help me hold her rope more effectively.

My long unused Western saddle built on a fiberglass tree is slightly lighter than if it had a wooden tree. I managed to toss it onto Rosie who immediately knew it was “the wrong saddle”. “Too bad, Rosie, you’re returning to your roots,” I muttered. Cinching took awhile but my effort resulted in a hold decent enough to keep the saddle in place for mounting.

After years of not sitting Western, now I seemed way too high on Rosie. The seat felt weird, uncomfortable, and hard. I missed my English saddle (and good to know for I’ll love it more in the future). Long story short, a saddle horn did help to control Sunni, not enough to keep her from figuring out anyway how to grab grass, but enough to keep me feeling secure in the saddle.

All was well until Rosie’s onset of bad behavior when she spotted a helium balloon waving about ten feet above a log that captured its string. Getting Rosie past that awful object while I held Sunni’s rope was a feat needing a more competent rider. Although Rosie may get prancie, threatening to bolt, she’s well trained and doesn’t, but as she intends is a little scary. My choices were to slip to the ground and lead Rosie, or just ride it out. Somehow I rode through her resistance, one hand working Rosie’s reins and the other hanging onto Sunni’s lead rope.

I rescued and brought home that balloon, tied it to a gate and watched Rosie run from it. “Get used to this, Rosie, it’ll become your best friend!” The afternoon was very windy and shortly afterward a great object casting a huge shadow flew high overhead and sailing away into the eastern sky. There went Rosie’s balloon!

Dear Friends: Horses are enormous work, but a joyous experience of time-warp and freedom. Diana

Saturday, June 27, 2020

Joe Biden is keeping hanging all of America, and the world, as everybody anticipates who might become his vice-president. For sure, we can bet that the savvy politician who’s held that VP job has settled on his choice. Thanks to among other things the #metoo movement, he’s promised to choose a woman and won’t likely depart from that decision. Meanwhile, another swelling movement, Black Lives Matter, has the watching world betting that Biden’s female choice will be an African American.

It’s all effective, the anticipation, lists of probable candidates, and a mystery that has maintained as newsworthy Biden’s campaign. The furor also keeps us aware of several capable, prominent women.

We’re being taught that the founding fathers, while writing the Constitution in 1877, were wary of anything resembling a monarchy. They worried that a president may become too powerful if a vice president had any Senate role greater than serving as tiebreaker. Until 1940, vice presidents weren’t chosen by presidential candidates, but instead by Electoral College voting. This changed in 1940 when President Roosevelt agreed to run again only if he pre-selected the vice president, wanting as his running mate Henry Wallace.

Now we’re hearing how greatly Mrs. Trump influenced her husband’s decision to select as his VP Mike Pence. She recognized that Pence, the controlled opposite of President Trump, has a tight hold on the very conservative religious base that supports Trump’s Presidency. About Melania Trump, there more to learn and maybe admire. She hesitated to step into the First Lady’s role unless her prenuptial agreement with Trump were renegotiated to provide more advantage to herself.

Another event that forever altered the choosing of vice presidents was McCain’s quick and unfortunate decision to select Sarah Palin. He’d met with her only briefly before deciding she’d energize his campaign, and so she did. But her political inexperience and childlike answers to tough questions turned her into a laughingstock. The negative national response to Palin brought failure to McCain’s campaign. That experience altered the care in which potential vice presidents since have been vetted.

While we wait, anticipate, and perhaps root for our favs while Biden’s campaign takes slowly and carefully every step before announcing his choice. Concurrently, we’re identifying much more about politics, watching close-up the astonishing power-jostlings and largely inadequate leaders. Worst, all this is playing out during a time of great need nationally and internationally for leadership that’s educated, capable, and seriously able to earn public appreciation.

Dear Friends: In this horse race we place our bets, hoping for best-able winners. Diana

Friday, June 26, 2020

While thumbing through the June 29 “New Yorker Magazine”, I ran across a retro-fiction short piece written by Franz Kafka. Remember him? His story, “The Rescue Will Begin In Its Own Time, written sometime between 1917 and 1924 (previously unpublished), feels strikingly-current. Even in today’s very complex terms it’s compelling and thought provoking.

There’s also an essay by a 70-something-year-old journalist who describes offsetting his “self-isolation blahs” by enrolling in a Zoom-based literature course. That required re-reading and discussing “Crime and Punishment”, which re-awakening him to that great work. What a timely and interesting course during these long months of indoors–time to focus on interpreting Dostoevsky’s character, Raskolnikov, one of the most brilliant mental-sufferers in literary history.

As a young reader, I frightened easily. Kafka’s reputation for fusing realism and the fantastic made me avoid his work. An example, this quote from his story “Metamorphosis” scared me terribly: As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. I couldn’t handle it. In fact, the common literary term, Kafkaesque, was inspired by his nightmarishly complex, bizarre, absurd, and impersonal stories. For me now, after reading his “New Yorker” story is intrigue and a desire for more. A new book about to become available, The Lost Writings,will carry some of Kafka’s previously unpublished fragments and stories.

As for Raskolnikov, I could never get enough, and in fact, the entire of Crime and Punishment enthralled me for years. It does even today. I’d love to participate in a course that re-reads and weighs the elements in this huge, complex philosophical-psychological novel. Thinking through this has me thinking that attempts to interpret elements of sociology-politics-cultures is easier with ideas set against historical settings rather than our contemporary world.

All this is to say, thank you, “New Yorker Magazine”, for reawakening me. I’ll get my hands on some Kafka and will search for a reading group that’ll work on Dostoevsky.

Dear Friends: More of how we evolve, finally and full-circle, toward our beginnings. Diana

Thursday, June 25, 2020

I plan to ride again on the beautiful trail my horses crossed yesterday, a path clear and easy to follow but seemingly little used. It took us over a huge and impressive rocky ridge, a bit scary for one concerned about a lurking cougar, or a coyote angry at dogs wandering near its den. All else was good, tall grasses for horses to nibble, bunches of wildflowers colorful and in full bloom, and feelings of sheer joy in riding high!

The main trail has side-trails that go higher and toward the ridge-top. I didn’t explore by taking them. It seemed wise on this first trip to stay on the main trail, managing my three equines and three dogs (Osix earlier disappeared and returned to the trailhead). This first pass would reveal any trail interferences or touchy spots.

Once long ago, while riding near a massive rocky rise, a riding companion and I experienced an almost-cougar event. Our horses were moseying toward the ridge when suddenly both went into full alarm mode. Their heads shot up, necks shifting and wide-eye staring. Against the reins, my mare’s dancing body turned, every tense muscle.”Maybe a cougar!” said the other rider. Our horses started to spring away. No alternative, horses and riders turned and took off.

I’ll never know if a cat had been present. Since then, I’m wary when riding near big rocky conformations. One thing I’m certain of is that my horse will let me know if anything seems seriously amiss.

I once had a situation while on horseback between my dog and a coyote. My elderly Cattle Dog was following when the coyote appeared from nowhere. It gave a gap and went after my dog. She dodged and managed to keep away from the aggressive pursuer. I helped by turning my horse toward the coyote to interrupt its lunges. This continued for awhile until finally the coyote gave up. What stays in my mind are memories of its relentless focus and determination.

Someone later explained that coyotes can be aggressive around a nearby den with pups. That long ago episode with my Cattle Dog occurred somewhere in an area near where yesterday my dogs followed the horses.

We did cross that ridge safely, and happily, and we’ll return to try some of its offshooting trails.

Dear Friends: The photo is of our very protective donkey following us on horse trails. Diana

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Central Oregon’s outdoor temperature yesterday shot up and created heat that became nearly unbearable. I loaded the horses early and saddled to ride ‘neath a threatened sun. While on the trail, we felt that ball become more blistering. Once home and after caring for the horses, my dogs and I crashed a couple of hours.

I awoke to see slouching dogs, limp sacks of grain beside or partially hanging from furniture. The scene might have been funny had I not felt confused on awakening, seeing myself fully dressed in riding clothes and uncertain whether the clock indicated a morning or evening hour. In these longest days of the year, estimating time is difficult. While outside making a final check on my large animals, it’s odd to experience broad daylight at nine p.m. But that’s a staying memory, it pops-up on the calendar’s opposite side, a memory at winter equinox’s short days, cold darkness, miserable nine p.m.’s.

After rousing, showering, donning clothing not infused with trail dust, I forced myself to trudge outside, did a little cleaning and organizing. This whole week will match yesterday’s heat. I must become better at tolerating the weather and accomplishing normal stuff. To this end, I’ll continue to load horses and dogs early and travel quickly to nearby trails. This process always consumes three to four hours, so we’ll be coming home in heat.

Meeting this intense weather challenge has much relationship to conditions of mind over matter.

Having been confronted and just about whipped by intense heat, I’m preparing to combat this while exercising animals and working on the property. That’ll mean setting goals to accomplish much as possible between 6 and 8 a.m., before loading animals in the rig. Achieving efficiency means thinking clearly, moving with purpose. In hot weather, it includes having handy cooling drinks and snacks.

I’ll think of how to rearrange routine objectives and tasks into time slots that may offset intense heat. For sure, accomplishing is a product of planning. A friend of mine once had an employee who enjoyed saying, “Plan your work and work your plan!” His oft-repeated words made my eyes roll, “Okay, enough already!” So many years later, in my head he’s a prophet and his phrase my mantra.

Dear Friends: Adapting to change arises from careful planning, in a cool head. Diana

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

I hiked with friends, my surrogate family, Dave and Julie Gilbert. We met over on the east side of town, early, before the day warmed much with our combined seven dogs, plus cameras and iPhones. The Gilberts were about to introduce me to one of their favorite, little-known BLM areas for good hiking and horseback riding.

That place turned out to be as beautiful and inviting as the Gilberts had promised.

We hiked slowly, frequently pausing to admire and discuss the area’s many features. My guides are lifelong hikers who’ve lived and trekked through Europe, Alaska, Colorado, and more places. Years ago they relocated to Bend, and being great explorers became familiar with most of Bend’s nooks and crannies. They are fellow horseback riders and kindly have introduced me to some of their favorite places.

Before yesterday, Dave has been introducing me to the exciting world of hunting wild mushrooms. His wealth of knowledge comes from having experienced and survived many adventures in the great outdoors. He’s currently a volunteer with Bend’s High Desert Museum, writes for its newsletter and lectures on (among other topics) Central Oregon’s moths and butterflies. He and Julie are lifelong partners. They’ve shared many of those adventures and are generous with their knowledge. Julie and I share a love for riding horseback and experiencing fine literature.

The little BLM area they showed me has hills and valleys that abound with desert plants. My phone app identified some plants as Sulphur flowers, Butterballs, and Common wooly sunflowers. The landscape is well-punctuated with impressive Rock formations beckoning viewers to climb and explore. In this area something Dave loves is “one” of his “very favorite” trees.

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The Gilberts typically are rapid walkers but yesterday moved slowly while pointing out and explaining the area’s features. We had fun just moseying along those couple of miles, sharing many experiences and ideas, and enjoying our happy dogs.

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Dear Friends: It doesn’t get better than absorbing the great outdoors with friends. Diana

Monday, June 22, 2020

I’m excited! My friend Stephanie is coming for a visit, and this time for sure as she has a ticket and arrival schedule. We’ve been “best friends” since high school, but have not for years sat together talking. We’ve shared through FB, messaging, and phone calls, but have lots more catching-up to do.

Her story is fascinating. After marrying a Native American, she spent her adult life on the Navajo Reservation, and at times in Arizona cities. Her husband and children, all high achievers, attained success in their chosen fields and gained prominence and respect. Her grandchildren, bright, creative, and energetic, are following in their parents’ footsteps. And her young great-grandchildren are of the same mold.

I’m eager for as many details of her story as she’s willing to share. I hope she’ll enjoy being with me and also will like this Central Oregon environment, to which I’ll introduce her. Stephanie won’t find that my having horses are a new experience. Her family are horse savvy–great riders and athletes. Most of her kids and grandkids are expert barrel racers and ropers, high-ranking and well-known in rodeo circuits.

I applaud her many successes. As a wife and mom she ingrained into her family, her own high focus, energy, and innate political savvy. Although a product of all-white Burbank (and part-time Florida), she integrated successfully into a very complex Native American culture. Today, still bright, savvy, enthusiastic, and a great encourager, she understands much about loving and collaborating.

Welcome soon, Steph! We’ve ahead much catching-up, exploring ideas, and laughing together.

Dear Friends: It takes nearly a lifetime to realize this, but living long has its rewards. Diana

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Sunday, June 21, 2020 Father’s Day

This will be short, for today I’ll going horseback riding with dear friends who seriously target early haul-outs to beat the heat. They’ve a right plan, for now, at 5 a.m. it’s very warm outside.

Yesterday, while tramping with my dogs in the forest, I spotted this beautiful caterpillar, a big, fat, very colorful variety. In this morning’s hurry and trying to identify its type, the closest I come is that it’s a Monarch butterfly or a Pandora moth. Not long ago, Central Oregon had a huge infestation of Pandoras, and maybe this is one. A Monarch would be likely, too, as now is their season and they’re plentiful.

This has pushed me to seek a resource for identifying caterpillars, butterflies, and moths. A book is on its way. What on earth or from among the stars is happening in my old lady’s brain? Why’s it taking on such as mushrooms, caterpillars, and King Philip’s War? Could anyone so much as venture a guess as to what’s maybe ahead?

I’ll keep you posted.

Dear Friends: Today’s horseback ride with mushroomer-friends will be brain-tickling. Diana

Saturday, June 20, 2020 Summer Solstice

The year’s longest day begins slightly murky, but soon summertime light and warmth will arrive. While nodding to this, I’ll add that the past months have seemed a lifetime. Unquestionably, 2020 is the strangest year. Locally, it’s about our weather and how to stay safe while out and about. Alternatively, we’re aware vividly that nationally, everything social, political, and economic seems on-the-edge. Like Mr. Wiley Fox, in air above a bottomless chasm about to fall and his legs hard-pumping.

Something representing this day that’s actually cool is Stonehenge, the 5,000-year-old stone circle perched on an otherwise barren English hill. It’s a site spiritually significant to Britain’s approximately 50K worshipping pagans. At summer solstice, thousands of them gather there to worship. The massive stones, set in a circle by ancient miracles of human labor, are arranged so that on each longest day, the sun will rise directly behind a “heel stone”. In that single day, the miracle of ancient engineering will channel sunlight into and through the stone circle’s center. This year, Stonehenge is closed against worries about public health concerns, and instead, new age technology will provide live-streaming. We who’ve visited Stonehenge know it’s unlikely that remote access will satisfy true believers.

As to the summer solstice, I love longer hours of natural daylight. Today as usual I’ll tramp with my dogs in a forest or horseback ride near to home. For sure, abundant light delights, but I’m forced into a new reality, there’s too little of me to hike and ride in a single day.

Dear Friends: Happy Summer! Wear a mask, go outside, celebrate and have fun. Diana