Commander Lisa personally wheeled me down from Walter Reed’s Ward 5C to the post-op recovery room as part of the final insertion into The Process. It was an honor. The silver band with the sanscrit inscription had been bent off my wrist for the first time since it went on in Delhi a decade ago. […]

  (Wounded Warriors. Photo Washington Post). On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam, In […]

I have been plotting how to get out of bed this morning since about three. I had to get up and pee, of court, a big deal, and that is the toughest part of the drill. I probably came home too soon, but dammit, I wasn’t ready to have surgery, not the day it went […]

(Thanks to Dr. Anderson, I get to keep use of mine. This one is for a Wounded Warrior who wants a competitive alternative to his utility/walking prosthetic.)   I can hear the merriment down at poolside- for the first time in a decade, the pool opened without without a plunge by yours truly.   “Marco!” […]

(US Airways Boeing 767ER en route the Continental United States.) The warm air mass seems to have prevailed against the chill wind from the North: the rain has been banished but now we feel- dare I say it? Summery? It is muggy in the bright sun. Time for the pool am considering the flight next […]

(Liz-S and Old Jim at the Amen Corner. Liz-S is in white and Jim is not commenting on what happened in Vegas. Photo Socotra.)   I stopped by Willow on the way home- duh, you know? The crew was reassembled. I can’t tell you what Old Jim and Mary did in Vegas- I wouldn’t ask […]

(USS Vincennes (CG-49) launches an SM-1 guided missile on sea trials. She was scrapped in 2006. Photo MSHennessee.)   They would have been playing Bee Gees tunes at La Belle, the nightclub in the former West Berlin that night in 1986. A lot of troopers from the Berlin Brigade were in the crowd, America’s overt […]

(Refuge Farm viewed from the lower pasture. Photo Socotra.) The Internet is always a bit of a crap shoot down at Refuge Farm. But it is OK.  The sun is shining and the temperature is good on the skin and the critters are happy in the fields below the little house. I managed to get […]

I looked at Liz-S across the bar. “Hey, is this the last day you are the bar manager?” She smiled broadly, tossing her chestnut ponytail. “I will stay, part time, but as of Monday I am an official grown up.” “Awesome. It is about time. You are on your way.” Friday’s at Willow are transitional […]

(Zaytinya Restaurant in Washington’s hip Penn Quarter neighborhood. Photo Zaytinya.) Things are better, though slowly. Knees apparently are easy to break and hard to heal. I stopped wearing the leg brace a couple weeks ago- and have felt marginally better with each day. The chaos and travel of closing out the house in Michigan put […]