Simple Living and Simple Travel

Well, back in the dog days of summer. Know where that phrase came from? It’s the period between early July and early September when Sirius, aka the Dog Star, rises and falls with the sun. Unfortunately, so do the temperatures. Oh well, winter’s coming. A thought on preparing meals—keep it short and simple. I no longer like to cook, let alone spend half an hour or more preparing a meal. I also have my main meal of the day midmorning, after I’m done with giving thanks. Since I get up at 5:00 for most of the year, I’m definitely hungry by 9 or 10:00. The rest of the day I’ll generally just snack. Most of my meals are prepared in one pot. Since I’m generally off the grid, water conservation is always a factor (I still only use 2 gallons a day). I eat a lot of spaghetti, buying different kinds when I can: brown rice, spinach, whole wheat (Bionaturae is great), whatever. As the water heats to a boil and the spaghetti is cooking, I’m mincing one or two jalapenos, cloves of garlic or shreddin

One fall day a guy crashed his mountain bike up in the Wasatch Mountains outside of Park City, UT. A lower leg swelled up pretty bad from all the subsurface bleeding. He went to the doctor and was told to stay off the leg as much as possible and go to physical therapy to have all the dried blood worked out of the system. The following spring the same thing happened but the guy saw his regular doctor at the Park City clinic, who happened to be a friend, and told him that it was a pretty easy crash and the leg should not be lookin’ this bad. The doctor took a blood sample. Around 10:00 that night, the guy got a call from his doctor who apologized for calling so late but he knew his friend would likely be out the door at dawn. The doctor said, ‘It looks like you have leukemia.’ ‘What’s that mean?’ ‘Well, if you don’t do something about it, you’ll be dead within 3 years.’ The doctor knew he had to say something to get through to his friend or his friend would probably blow it off. The doc