Li vivas! He lives!

Hello, all!  Saluton al ĉiuj!

Yes, I'm alive!

First of all I must apologize AGAIN for taking (gulp) 6 YEARS (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!) to come back and update my blog.  There truly is no excuse!

So, developments since last time.......well, the most important is I'm now retired.  I had very nasty fungal infection in my lungs back in early 2012, which left a lot of damage.  Damage to the tune of I only have the equivalent of one lung left, hence being on disability.  Other than making it nearly impossible to find work, (I have a LOT of work restrictions, and those combined with modern technology making clerical jobs that are still done by actual warm bodies a thing of the past means there isn't a lot out there I can do) the worst thing about my disability, I suppose, is that I can no longer hold notes nearly as long as I used to when singing.  Now to some this may not seem like such a big deal but music, and particularly singing, has always been a very big part of my life.  I've been in some sort of choral group since 8th grade (cough1974cough) and am currently one half of the bass section in church choir most weeks.....and once in a while the whole bass section!  So, yes, when I have to breathe basically twice as often, most of the time in the middle of phrases I used to be able to sail right through, it's a little depressing.  That and the 50% pay cut makes for a very home-bound life!

Esperanto:  Due to the above-mentioned pay cut (ouch), my Esperanto activities have not been what I would wish them to be.  I never did make it to a Landa Kongreso (not even when it was just down in St. Louis!) and also never made it to Finland.  Sadly, the Finland situation may be no longer an option (even if I did have the money).  This year there was no week-long course listed and enquiries have returned nothing.  Sigh.

I have, however, had great luck with the local Esperanto club!  There are now four of us who meet on a weekly basis to chat (I plan a screening of Incubus very soon) and there are more than us four listed on the Meet-up page.  Sadly one of those "more than four" is going away to university this fall, 90 miles to the north, so won't be able to join us  during most of the year.  Another of the "more than four" has disappeared.  Ric, where is thee??

Ah, yes.  That last sentence brings me to the other big, new thing in my life.  I've been doing genealogical research the past couple years (I found some cousins right here in Iowa City!) and one of my discoveries was that one of my great-great-great-great grandfathers (in the Mosier line) and his family were Quakers.  Now, I used to belong to a small Protestant sect where the members adopted Quaker-style "Plain Speech"  mainly out of scruples about "truthfulness in speaking" and "avoiding heathen ways."  This translated to, for us, using the Quaker-style "thee as a subject pronoun" to one person with what is modern English is the 3rd person singular form of the verb ("thee is" instead of "thou art"), as well as avoiding the names of the days (felt to be honoring pagan gods, all) and the months (either honoring pagan gods or else pagan rulers).  I have decided (out of 1.  a cognitive dissonance that has lately developed in my language-addled brain about using plural pronouns to refer to singular persons, and 2.  as a way to honor my forbears) to take up Plain Speech once again.  At first I didn't feel any need to go back to saying "first month" for January, and "second day" for Monday,  etc. but lately I've "felt a leading" (as the Quakers would say) to do that as well.  Please note, all you who speak languages with a T-V distinction, that my use of this form does not carry any particular nuance of familiarity or contempt (unless, of course, my voice is dripping with scorn, lol)

I guess that's about enough for today.  I promise you all!  I will be updating this at least once weekly (usually on Tuesday night after our local Esperanto club meet-up).  Till then, 

Cheers

Dimo