I am back! Lots of stuff to say - parse at your own pace and pleasure!
I just wanted to put up a short post to celebrate Peak Early Sunset. In Kingston, today marks the last day of the week in which the sunset is at its earliest for the year at 4:17PM. Tomorrow it sets a minute later at 4:18PM and slightly later and later every day. I am not a morning person these days and if we remained on the illusion of Daylight Time, the sun would set at 5:18PM tomorrow. It almost makes going to that system worth it. The sun in the evening is important to me.
The sunrises continue to be later for some time however and doesn’t turn around until January 8th. The sun will rise tomorrow at 7:52AM. For the entire first week of January it rises 6 minutes later at 7:58AM. On the 8th it will rise at 7:57AM. We will be gaining day length on both ends of the day! Given that I have been in increasingly bed rotting - essentially living in hibernation mode - it would actually be better for me if on some days the sun rises around noon or later.
Of course how much light one sees depends upon the weather. Yesterday (Thursday) was hideously dark under a kilometer of dense fog. If you are thinking of moving from sunny and politically hideous Florida or Texas to the liberal Pacific Northwest (especially Seattle) read this first: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-darkness.html
Today was gloriously sunny. My daughter Lila was visiting for the afternoon and we left the doors open to air out the house, keeping the radiant floor going and then firing up the woodstove to remove the chill out of the house.
Our primary activity today was to gather some filbert tree saplings from the volunteer root mass just outside my workshop door. These get cut down every 4-5 years and need to be entirely removed along with the root mass as there is a 50 amp coil of wire buried underneath. I need to access this when I rewire the workshop this spring so that I can finally use a few glass kilns.
Most of my filbert trees here died from Eastern Filbert Blight and this one by my shop door just got infected. If I get ambitious I might plant a small grove of blight-resistent varieties. For many reasons Filberts are good trees to have.
So we selected three saplings from the ones we cut, and bundled them together and secured the bottoms with wrapping tape. The bundle then got inserted into a 2 gallon bucket backfilled with some beach cobbles. Voila! This is our Solstice Holiday Tree! My wife Nancy and Lila dressed it up with lights and ornaments. At night with all other lights turned off it looks and photographs like an image from the James Webb Space Telescope, especially with some editing of the photography.
Sometimes we get the usual permit from the US Forest Service and collect a tree growing in some ditch in the Olympic National Forest. The commercial trees apparently have experienced both inflation and shrink-flation. I saw one puny and misshapen 3’ tree for $59, making the artificial ones on Amazon look more attractive. The usual sized ones were near $100. Earlier this week I thought about how we have 2.5 acres with several species of trees here - many of which are inconvenient that we hope to or need to remove eventually. So after some timber cruising Nancy suggested the filberts by my workshop door and we three had a great time putting this ornament together! Its actually one of the prettiest ever!
If anyone locally wants to do the same, just call me and we’ll sort your “tree” out.
I myself have been mostly unsorted-out since summer. These recurring fatigue episodes that begin every 8 weeks continue and sometimes the fatigue part has been lasting for 3+ weeks. I had one during Lark Camp which was a struggle. Another in late September and I just got over the most recent one. Formerly we were calling this cycle a clinical diagnosis of Cyclothymia, a condition similar to Bipolar II Disorder. In between the peak fatigue I sometimes have an active and easily distracted bout of mania which is usually when I drive my friends nuts with excessive verbiage or channel that energy into posts on this substack. Or if I really focus I use the energy to make some progress on my flute queue. Lately I have been barely able to gather any kind of momentum, and then I lose it again! Its most frustrating!
I haven’t written anything here since September. I’ve been really trying to level out the manic periods. So the fall has included flute production, an overnight trip to Portland that included a reunion with friends from my Youth Conservation Corps hiking trail crew in 1973 (we built a portion of the trail to the top of Table Rock east of Salem), another trip to collect chestnuts, a train trip to Berkeley for the Magosto and a quick zip up to Mendocino and visiting dear friends. The next time I travely by train I am getting a sleeper car and skipping the car rentals, especially in the car breaking in -prone vicinity of the Bay Area (my car was unscathed).
During the last energy peak, Nancy was off on the east coast helping her cousin move so I was able to allow myself to run feral. I am doing the same for this current energy peak which is helping me make progress on several fronts. I can’t decide if I am enjoying the insomnia however!
The most important initiative this fall concerns this so-called Cyclothymia. I am no longer calling it that after I realized that this term is simply another label for what ails me, instead of describing an underlying cause such as ill-humour of the loins or Calenture which was formerly treated, I supoose by application of leeches and draining the blood. Or trepanning. I must admit that this last “cure” is sounding increasingly attractive as this condition remains undiagnosed and untreated. This has been going on for 18 years.
We’ve long suspected that there may be some sort of hormonal basis. This has been occasionally investigated in the past - yet the usual pee-in-the-bucket hormone tests have shown normal levels, frustrating both patient and doctors. However, one one sleepless and active feral night during the last peak I loaded up that oracle called Doctor ChatGPT. I’ve heard these reports in the gnus about some real doctors using it to successfully diagnose some difficult to isolate conditions.
I thought, if they can do it, so can I. So I pretended to be a doctor myself and gave a long and detailed and brutally honest description and history of my troubles and had a long discussion with The Oracle that lasted until sunrise. The biggest problem was dealing with some of the rampant patronizing in the responses. Yes I know my patient should discuss this with his physician and take better care of his health.
But out of this task came a new term to consider: “Subclinical Cushing’s Disease”. This was brilliant and gave me an excuse to contact my PCP. She had no problem with my consultation with the Oracle and seemed delighted by the process.
Cushing’s is an imbalance of the pituitary hormones, primarily Cortisol caused by benign cyst-like tumors on the pituitary glands or elsewhere in the body. These can be isolated by MRI or CT scans (my magnetic knees only allow CT). The “subclinical” part refers to hormone levels that remain within the allowable (reference) ranges. Thus doing the usual single PITB 24 hour urine hormone tests is useless, especially since it doesn’t show any dynamic changes in these hormones during good vs. bad parts of any cycle regardless of duration. One needs an endocrinologist who can do a deep dive and measure the levels daily or even at different times of the day to spot any anomalies and mild excesses or deficiancies. Imagery might reveal a rogue tumor causing the anomalies but the levels are such that simply boosting this or that hormone may provide relief.
The main thing at this point is to get that referral. My PCP tried unsuccessfully in the spring after a “normal” test result. After our discussion we did a few additional tests including another 24 hour urine test. These did point to cortisol on the low end of the scale during peak fatigue, compared with when I am feeling neither fatigued or manic (this was the status during the previous test. Out of this my PCP also considered Addison’s - and again a subclinical version.
From these data and these terms we now have enough ammo to pursue a referral. This is huge! My PCP is moving on at the end of the year however - but her replacement is into these concepts and will continue the fight with me. Virginia Mason (hospital and clinics) is the best!
My PCP will be working in a weight loss program down in Silverdale at the now VM-affiliated hospital. I could use some help with that - so she sent me a referral: to herself!
Other matters. This weekend before my usual Holiday break I need to send a note out to my waiting flute clients with a progress report and scheduling estimate for their flutes. All of my clients are being wonderful by giving me the space to work at my molluscan pace. Working in the cold workshop in winter is hard - even with space heaters on full blast. I am picking up my pace and during the winter break I will be building momentum out there by working on a few projects for friends and myself.
These include some Biniou chanters in the keys of F and G. I also want to start building the drones and stocks for a half-set of Uilleann Pipes in the key of C that will feature a lovely newish chanter in Mountain mahogany, brass and synthetic ivory by Michael Hubbert. The reed blades are made from Redwood or Alaskan Yellow Cedar. This set will pair well with Nancy’s accordions regardless of the musical genre, instead of blasting her with volume on my French or Galician pipes. I will have to make a set of bellows and get used to playing with them.
Before any of that, I will be finishing all the flute body turning for the latest batch of Folk Flutes, as well as 6 or 7 keyed flutes in my queue. In January I will take up the metal work as well as tuning and voicing. And before this turning I need to replace the main drive belt on my lathe which is an arduous task that I will tackle this weekend. The original 37 year old belt finally gave out on me. The Link Belt that I tried (this doesn’t require any disassembly of the headstock) rides too high in the pully so I have to go with the A29.5 v-belt that it requires, and disassemble both axi in the headstock to insert, and put it all back together and adjust.
Finally the next biggest thing is to reduce my hibernational lifestyle and get walking again. I cannot tolerate getting my feet wet and cold and unfortunately my stiff-soled Brook’s Addictions are far from waterproof. Today I spent the day breaking in some new Merrills and I have some rain gear on my wish list.
I will briefly edit this for typos, post it, and then go outside to see if there are any more of the Geminid meteors and then perhaps try to get some sleep. Last night I got about 4 hours and none the night before.
Fortunately, Summer is coming….