Solstice 2006
Dear Ones,
Hard to know where to start to tell you about this year. Perhaps you’d be better off laboring under the social illusion that all is well. Or perhaps not. No comedy in that.
We have had a year of anxiety and sadness for the state of the world, but with a little ray of light let in by our retraction from the hard right-ward course we have caromed into of late. Perhaps a little moderation will be a good thing. Perhaps the Dems won’t blow the opportunity. But they have that unique way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, so I remain in an unsettled and uncertain state. But as long as we are a two blue-star family, any trend toward peace and away from hard-headed bellicosity is a good trend.
Anyway, just after our last edition, THINGS CHANGED for me. I fell ice skating, and slid over my outstretched right wrist, which caught on a gouge in the ice and was carried under my oncoming weight, and I levered over it, oh-so-slowly, and broke it. No big deal, we all say. A broken wrist...what can that amount to, but a painful inconvenience? I felt it go, and knew immediately what had happened, and what it meant... I would have to take a rain check on that scheduled quail hunting trip with Dick Cheney. My arm looked like a bayonet, so I pulled it into line without much thought, and dropped it into a shin-guard for a splint. Never mind that I nearly fainted twice after that, and had to fend off a host of do-gooders who wanted to call an ambulance, from flat on my back. A month in a cast was pure torture to no useful end, and when it came off and the damn thing was still as floppy as on day one, so I went to the OR for a plate and screw job. That was fine, but because the nerve was damaged by the fracture, I developed the dreaded Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. Which is a long way of saying pain. Inconceivable, inexplicable pain. A month of rehabilitation led to another operation, for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and then more rehab. And more pain. My hand swelled up like a catcher’s mitt, and my mobility was nil. Then it fibrosed in that position. I was “The Craw”. The muscles in my arm shriveled up until it became a bent stick with a blob of sweaty gray dough hanging off the end. I looked and felt like Huey the Cripple-Boy I staggered through work on no sleep, elevating my bloated hand over my head constantly, and deferring pain meds ‘til the end of the shift, with helpful colleagues doing all the procedural work, while I saw the colds and sore throats. They were pretty decent about it, because I was pretty useless, except as comic relief. The patients felt sorry for me for a change, and a couple of patients actually looked at me, considered their troubles and decided to leave without treatment. I missed a couple of weeks of work only, if you count the showing up I did in between surgeries and after as work. But the overwhelming nature of this RSD pain removed any illusion I formerly had that I was a healthy, durable fellow. So as busy and full as my previous year was, this one has been the diametric opposite. It was busy and full, I guess, but busy just trying to get back to minimal competence at my job, and trying to get a useable hand back. I toyed with the notion of selling everything and going back to residency in Radiology, and that was an exciting notion, but as events have turned out, I am slowly getting better, and can again do my job, with some minor adaptations, and so the trauma of shedding all worldly goods to be a poor resident again has been avoided.
The rehab/PT people were very helpful. Barb, my Certified Hand Therapist, looked at my concrete hand and just dove in head first, starting with heating and beating, wrapping, twisting, bending and stretching in the many dimensions a hand can ordinarily move. I might mention as a side bar that all that shit HURTS. She knows that. It is part of the job. Maybe even a perk. We had a few good laughs about it, but she did most of the laughing. I learned quickly that you don’t piss off your therapist, and you don’t wear cotton underwear to PT. After the first couple of thrice weekly sessions, I came staggering out of there drenched in sweat, with my Hanes® in a wet knot wedged all the way in, armpit circles meeting in the middle of my chest like a Venn diagram, and cold prickles on my back, where my t-shirt was clinging. Black UnderArmor® is the stuff. The other patients joked we were seeing so much of each other, and always holding hands, so we must be having an affair. They didn’t have a clue. I came out of there every day looking like a Ken Doll®, and reproduction was not even physically possible. I know now that I could endure torture by Iranian agents. No, Barb isn’t Iranian, as far as I could tell. What she did to me with my consent would clearly have violated the Geneva Convention, at least until the recent reinterpretation by the Commander-in-Chief. So if the PT thing ever fell through, the CIA could use her, as long as she could fly to Romania on short notice. After weeks of effort, I got to where I could briefly make a circle with my thumb and index finger, but I still couldn’t touch my thumb to my third finger, or close my hand at all. I dropped a lot of change at cash registers, just forgetting that I couldn’t rotate my palm up, or close on the coins. Toileting left-handed under pressure is an acquired skill. It ain’t easy getting the old soldier out of his tent on the double with only the left hand to assist and salute. Sitting on the pot like a toddler and hollering “Come wipe me!” is not an option in a public rest room. Neither can you count on a stranger to help you get your fly up. I caused a couple of restroom-clearing stampedes before I figured that one out. I became the sultan of stretch pants, the king of the cord-lock, the suleiman of slip-on shoes. I considered mounting a couple of eye-bolts in the bathroom, and using them to string up a loofah on a rope, so I could just throw a leg over, but I got vetoed on that one. So I have learned to be a lot more left handed these days. I still can’t touch thumb to fifth finger, or extend my wrist at all, and it takes twenty minutes each morning to make my fingers reach my palm to make a fist. I can’t rotate the hand to flat, so I type like a Pimp driving his Pimpmobile, bent way over to the left to get my hand flat enough to type. I be Stylin’! And I still can’t wipe right handed. That remains a distant future therapeutic goal.
The experience of pain is an interesting one. Not that I recommend it, but if it falls to you, there is learning to be had. First was the idea that you can imagine pain, and ‘scale’ it from not too bad to worse. You can’t. Fuggeddaboudit. I am here to tell you that despite a way-better than average imagination, my ability to imagine this pain was somewhere between zippedy do-dah and doodley squat. I had searing, lancinating crescendos of pain where it just kept getting worse, like an endless roller coaster at Six Flags Over Hell, where you can’t see the top, and don’t even know if there is one. I was gabbling, crying, sweating, slobbering, keening, pacing about in aimless quick random loops, elevating, massaging, squeezing, supporting, warming, cooling, wrapping and unwrapping my arm. I took drug doses which would stun (and terminally constipate) a Sumatran Rhinoceros, and was never out of pain, except when unconscious. I would wake up gasping, almost forgetting to breathe, and my next sensation after suffocation, was grinding, grunting miserable, unquantifiable pain. I slept only 15-20 minutes at a time at first, and startled awake as white hot bolts sent by tiny devils with electric pitchforks ran through my arm intermittently. That frequency declined slowly, over months, to where I got an hour or two at a time. The lightning bolt tweaks finally stopped about 3 months ago, and this month, I finally slept six hours uninterrupted. Once. Mostly I still sleep in two hour segments. Sleep is absolutely essential to rational life. I didn’t have any real sleep for months, and nothing is more disorienting debilitating and depressing. I had always slept well, and never knew what a gift that was, until it was lost. But I was not a rational creature for 6 months. How my poor wife remained married to me is a mystery to this day. I reckon the only benefit was that Percocet removes all interest in sex, so she got a vacation from “the chore” out of it, anyway. I am now taking no drugs at all, and having only stiffness with attempts to expand the very limited ranges of motion I now have. So I cannot complain. I have translated this experience to work, where I am now very aggressive with pain meds, when the decision is that there is an acute injury and pain relief is required. I have scared the hell out of the nurses giving escalating doses in short periods of time, but when you come to the hospital with bone sticking out of your leg, you need some relief. I ‘get it’. Some of them don’t ‘get it’ yet, but I am working on them.
Well enough about me. Things on the home front revolve around Quilts of Valor®, and the Quilts of Valor Foundation. Catherine is working full time, running her foundation as a certified 503-c charity, running a website, and distributing quilts to the wounded. She has caused over 7,500 quilts to be awarded, and is expanding into the PTSD sufferers as well. Most estimates place the wounded at above 48,000, even without counting the PTSD sufferers, so there is a lot left to do. Check her out at www.qovf.org . She is still making occasional quilts, but mostly is going to hospitals to secure contacts with chaplains and to make presentations. She also does a good bit of fund raising, traveling the circuit of Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs, Quilt shows, and so on. You might have caught her national TV News appearance on CBS in a brief human interest filler feature aired last spring. We are kidless at the moment with everyone either launched or in college, so all available horizontal space in the house is being taken over for the cause. I have been beaten back to a few square feet which are unequivocally mine. After all the over-hyped anticipation of an empty nest and adult freedom, I do miss having the kids around, just for their companionship. (so I guess that means they came out ok.)
Michele (30!) is in Columbus with Eric, who is Hawker Assistant Chief Pilot with NetJets. She is great with child, due in January, with a girl-child, tentatively named Lily. We can only smile knowingly at the fact that she has a girl coming at her. Karma is a grinning bitch sometimes. She is enjoying being mommy to Jack, who is now 18 months old, and lots of fun to I-chat with. His little world is about to change...
Nat (28) is almost done with the Army, currently at Ft. Detrick, in MD, and close enough to visit on an occasional weekend. His plans after are not clear. The three year inactive reserve requirement looms over him, but some sanity seems to be dawning over Washington, now that we have some division of power between the parties, and perhaps we will be out of Iraq (and not into Korea, via Iran) before long. He has made great progress sorting through his feelings on his return, and may get into helping other soldiers do the same. He has some contacts in the VA system, and would be great at that.
Hannah (20) is in year two at the Naval Academy, learning Arabic, and Oceanography. It seems a little less grinding this year than last, and she seems happy enough with it. Passing swimming test requirements seems to loom excessively large in her life. She rated her first passing test as on par with graduating college and the birth of her first child. She gets a lot out of helping her plebes get by in one piece, and in minor acts of resistance. She has designed a t-shirt which reads “Fight the Man—Pee in the Pool!” Apparently it is all the rage there.
Everett (18) is in year one at St. John’s College, in Annapolis, right across the street from the Academy. He gets to visit with his sis a good bit. Meanwhile, they are whipping him through ancient Greek, Euclidian math, and all the classics, read from original sources. Johnnies don’t use text books, only original sources, so they get through over 400 books before it is all over. He has discovered that there is a REASON ancient Greek is a dead language. The courses are all seminars, and you have to turn up and actually say something sensible. Very 19th C. Our first report was a hoot. “We are pleased to tell you that your son is at least satisfactory in all his subjects.” So now I can introduce him as my ‘at least satisfactory son’ without fear of contradiction. He likes it there, at least. Meanwhile I am discovering you can actually finance an entire college education on credit cards, and get some dandy frequent flyer miles in the bargain. I am looking for non-stops to the poorhouse on line today.
My parental units are hanging in, each having lost a sibling over this past year. I was in Baton Rouge LA for a funeral for Mary Lou, Dad’s only sib and big sis. A month later I was in Buffalo for farewells to Aunt B.A., Mom’s middle sis. We probably should throw those gatherings BEFORE the person dies, so they can enjoy them also. The parents continue to commute between the Canadian shore of Lake Erie and South Buffalo, and go to scads of plays, movies, concerts and the like with a lively social set of retired professors. The only big news in my nuclear family is the adoption of a little newborn Guatemalan boy named Rafael by Elizabeth and Craig. He is the sweetest little cholito you ever want to see. Liz is 50, bless her heart, and they are at long last rearin’ a young-un’, after years of searching. She really looks 10 years younger, all of a sudden—it is great to see. But myst-a-crighty, I couldn’t do that at this stage of my life, not even for a new trophy wife.
Work grinds on more or less the same. A few of my standout patients mentioned in previous letters have died, but they are like shark’s teeth...one falls out and another rotates into place in no time, and it is all the same. People still crash after “two drinks”, with alcohol levels of .300, unrestrained and uninjured, while all around them are laid waste, simultaneously violating all known laws of chemistry, physics, and the Delaware State Code. My fave quote from a drunk who rear-ended a line of traffic--”They was all stopped, but the light said ‘Go’, so I went!” People still alternate between their home oxygen hose and their Camel no-filters, until we can’t jump-start them anymore, try as we might. And girls who have never had sex and never missed a period still deliver babies with surprising regularity. Then the grandmas who raised the new mommies have their second shot at screwing up a whole new generation, bless their hearts. People who have never done drugs show up seizing their brains out, with gads of cocaine in their urine, and maintain forever we mixed up the sample, or the lab made an error, or it must have been sidestream smoke. And bad boys keep believing they can run faster than a police dog, and try to prove it. (They can’t.) They all hate needles though. The badder the boy, the more phobic of needles, without exception.
Well another year has passed, thankfully. I could have wished this one gone from the start, but you need to be careful, wishing your life away. What lessons can I take from my halting and crooked path on this whirling orb? Just the glimpse of mortality I had this year was worth the pain and work. Just the humbling that a moment’s gravity lesson laid on me was a worthy part of my journey. I am back on a path a little more of my own choosing, trying to rehab my hand, trying to return to running and some modicum of physical fitness. It will be a long road back to being the sleek greyhound I once was. But I am even more insecure about the future, and yet worry less, because worrying doesn’t matter. Shit will happen if it does, and though Fortune favors the prepared mind, she doesn’t give any money back guarantees.
I pause, as usual to note the passing of a few notables. We mourn 748 sons and daughters lost to the war so far this year, including two from Seaford, and 2928 thus far in total. So long and farewell to Coretta Scott King, Al Lewis (Grandpa on The Munsters), Dana Reeve (wife of Christopher Reeve), Wilson Pickett, Lou Rawls, Don Knotts (Deputy Barney Fife), Ed Bradley, Jack Palance, Glenn Ford, and Robert Altman. And a hearty Crikey and G’Day Mate to Steve Irwin. Good bye and good riddance to Slobodan Milosevic, Augusto Pinochet, and Kenneth Lay.
And so, faithful readers, let not another notch in the ratchet toward doom, nor another season of South Park daunt us. Let us regroup and reform our lines against the madness, secure in the trust we must place in those fellow soldiers of the Army of Reason, standing with us at each of our shoulders and our back. “This I will defend.” I wish for each of you a patch of ground you can stand on unmolested, and for a moment’s acknowledgement of the many great things you have done and continue to do. Take a moment to acknowledge another’s moments of glory, and particularly your kids’ moments, for they remember and cherish those acknowledgements long after you are gone. Watch less TV, or turn the damn thing off altogether, stay fit and frisky, lively and interested in whatever life throws at us. I will continue to struggle back from my nadir, and I thank everyone for their kind words and forbearance, and all the help and encouragement sent my way in this past year.
Warmest regards, hearty handshakes, hugs, wet kisses, cheers, best, love, peace and WHATEVER...
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Solstice 2005
Solstice 2005
Dear Ones,
I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours...You first................... OK, OK, I started this. I’ll go, but you are still on the hook. Off we go again into the little-read and less-remembered latest episode of “Year of Our Lives”. For starters, the good stuff—we are most happy and relieved to have Nathanael back from Iraq, in one piece and more mature than anyone should ever be in their 20s. Meanwhile Michele gave birth to Jack Antonio McCarty, our first grandbaby. He is a big beautiful happy baby, and subject of complete obsession to his grandmom. He really is a good natured little guy, a credit to incredibly patient full-time hands-on rearing by Michele. He has the adorable habit of barfing on anyone he especially likes, so many of us now bear the mark of his favor. Nat treasures this most especially.
I don’t even know how to start to grapple with this year of fear and loathing. We know of so many who have suffered the loss of a child in The War on Terror®. We see the postures and spins and layers of deceit and measured disclosure, and know as always that this is, was, and ever shall be about oil. Our greed inflames the bastards, and our money finances them, and we can’t step away to let them thrash out their hatreds unmolested. So we send our best, our treasure, to be spilled in the sand and wasted. We stoop to torture, but claim moral superiority. And still we drive our planet-killing SUV’s, and squeal when gas goes over $2.50 a gallon. Are we as crazy as they are? Or just blind piglets on the teat, too young to have our eyes open yet? I don’t know anything for sure anymore, except I am weary of lying politicians, and heartsick for grieving families. Now the rest...
Life in Delaware is fine...hard to believe we have been here twelve years and more. I can’t use the word “routine” with any accuracy to describe our lives, but there is at least a rhythm to it that works in lulling us into staying year in year out. We are the proverbial frog in the cooking pot, enjoying the warming water, and too inert to leap out. What is changing is that our kids are growing up and out, and I am having a hard time seeing over the horizon to being here without kids, and with adults we raised calling us from afar for advice and money.
Hannah is in her Plebe year at the Naval Academy. She is 19, harder than woodpecker lips, and yet all about adolescent doubts and idealistic goals and inner battles, bundled into a very disciplined and determined young woman. She is playing Rugby for Navy, working out some well earned frustrations by delivering massive tackles. We have had her home a couple of times, the benefit she has over her shipmates whose parents live far away, and we are able to get over there pretty readily for rugby games and the like. But I miss having her home for ice skating, shooting the breeze, and all the rest. Her goal is “EOD”, the only Special Forces billet available to women. That involves jumping out of planes, swimming with trained dolphins, and blowing things up. Just what every parent desires...She is exploring for a major at the moment, battling with Calculus and Professional Knowledge, and of course with nasty rank-glorying upperclassmen, and doing well.
Everett is a senior, back in little Seaford after a year abroad in Beijing. He had a little premature exposure to college life living away as a H.S. Junior, and is now predictably a little rammy being back home, under the watchful eye of his mom. He refers to us as Warden and Doc. He is a wry little fellow. The school, unfortunately neither cares to challenge him, nor even occupy his time, so he is out the door for a class three mornings a week, and back home in an hour, with a day to kill doing whatever the hell he does at the computer. He might have a one hour interruption in his afternoon, or might not. His only real hurdles are the courses he takes in the evening at the local community college. He has been working at the local pharmacy chain, Euphoric Harold’s, (Happy Harry’s) learning a love of the general public, and customer service above all else. We compare notes constantly. His year in Beijing was spectacular. He enjoyed the food, including a most excellent fried dog in black bean sauce. (They broke it to him during dessert.) His Mandarin is excellent, or so we are told, and he is certainly a more mature and accomplished young man than the fuzzy little squib we sent off so anxiously a year and a half ago. And we get really generous portions from the local Chinese restaurant, with his intercession.
Michele, as noted, has added one to the ledger on the side of the well-adjusted, responsible and productive. She and Eric are in Columbus, OH, where Eric is now Assistant Chief Pilot with NetJets, a fractional jet company. He is living a more regular schedule and traveling less, so that is good. M. is thinking of going back to school, thinking of having another child, thinking of world peace and all the rest. She thinks a lot.
Nat is in his last year with the Army, just staying low profile at Ft. Detrick in order to finish his commitment where he is right now. That basically involves not getting all up in his sergeant’s grill, a Herculean task of self-control on Nat’s part, apparently. But the stakes are high, since a stateside billet is a desirable thing, and never guaranteed, under the circumstances. Don’t annoy the bears, and don’t piss off the Sergeant. Nat is stylin’ in his black Nissan Maxima with blackout windows and grill bra we bought together the next day after he got back, and burning up a good bit of the oil our government risked his life for. He deserves to. He has stuck with some of the same buddies the whole 5 years in, and has made some good friends. They are some very nice, very mature young men, burdened with the horrifying memories of war they didn’t deserve and shouldn’t have endured. But they did their duty, and we love them and thank them.
Catherine is fully retired from midwifery, and fully immersed instead in making quilts for wounded service members. She has arranged the making and distribution of nearly 4000 Quilts of Valor® to wounded soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen. And even a few Coasties. You can check out her website at www.quiltsforsoldiers.com She has arranged for a §501(c)(3) charity status for Quilts of Valor Foundation, Inc., with donated lawyer and accountant time. She is most intrepid and amazing in getting things done. She has a whole network of little old ladies (and a few little old men) quilting quilts, and chaplains at all the military hospitals in America, and some in Europe and elsewhere doing the presentations.
As for me, I am done, done, done with Law School! Just this week I sent the last of my assignments in and closed out the last module. The Bar looms ahead in February, just prior to graduation in LA, but the degree is done. I ordered new business cards, with more letters after my name, just to celebrate. I am actually numb just contemplating it. No pressure for papers, readings, cramming for finals. I put up all my piles of books onto a shelf, and cleared my desk for the first time in four years. Spooky. The Bar Exam will be rough, a three-day pounding which is passed by only 40% of attempters—the lowest percentage of any state. I will git er done, one way or another. I may be throwing smoke from both engines, with ailerons hanging by a hinge, and more daylight than paint showing on my fuselage, but I will land the bitch somehow. I got a little panicked this year that I could hardly get out of my own slime-pool at my desk, and at Hannah’s suggestion, I started to jog again. She wanted to run the Marine Corps Marathon with me, and I always wanted to run a marathon, so I started training and we signed up together. The first runs were pathetic, limited to a mile or so. The weather in January chased me indoors and to the treadmill, and I actually wound up doing the whole thing on the treadmill. I was able to build up eventually to 6 miles every other day, at a 9.5 minute per mile pace. My projected long run ended in a knee cartilage injury, which was a setback, but with my commitment to Hannah and the goal in mind, I built back to the prior pace with only a few weeks to go. Just prior to race day, Hannah sprained both ankles in a rugby game, and could only watch from the sidelines. So I put on my sneaks and stepped to the line, alone in a crowd of 20,000 runners. I ran with the 4:30 pacing team until after the halfway point, and then some amazingly painful cramps took hold of my legs. I tried to stop and stretch, but it was immediately obvious that stopping was going to make me ball up like a pill-bug, and require evacuation by stretcher. So I shuffled onward through the last 10 miles, at little old lady pace. I actually passed a 77 year old lady, bent over with osteoporosis, still running at the 24 mile mark. She had a beatific smile on her face I will never forget. She gave me enough gumption to finish, and I did, in 5:41:45, about an hour slower than I expected. But I did it, anyway. Most impressive to me were the people on the sidelines doing the “WooHoo!” marathon. How long can you keep saying WooHoo without your lips cramping and losing your voice? Do you hit a “WooHoo Wall”? I also loved the guys running while talking on cell phones the whole time. Is anybody actually where they are? Fully half of the people I saw were lost in IPod land, or yakking on their Bluetooth® equipped cell phones at the top of their lungs. I was just trying NOT to yak. If nothing else, the marathon is off my life list, which still includes such unlikelies as “summit Mt. Everest”, and “sex with Japanese twins”. Hannah wants to run it again next year, and perhaps I will run it with her...I still have a 4:30 marathon in me, I am sure...
Work leaves me ever more dubious that we deserve to survive as a species, but I work a lot less, so the alternative viewpoint has at least equal time. We struggle now with “customer service” as our mantra and “performance metrics” as our scourge. Which means only that the satisfaction survey of every disappointed drug addict now drags us down in our average score, and administrators can stop visiting the department to see what’s really going on, and just crunch the numbers. Many departments have responded to this by going with the flow, and just handing out Percocet® like Skittles®. Boy do they have good numbers. And you see so many more interesting tattoos when you deal with that slice of Demographia. We do see some amazing tats...worst so far was the fifteen year old girl with pseudo-latin script, all caps, across the top of the pubic hair, rendering the heartwarming sentiment “FUCK ME”. And right up there was another independent minded little lass of 16 with “Ghetto Bitch” tattooed above her butt cheeks. Her mom was there, and just gave me a gap-toothed grin when I could only say, “How nice, how very nice...” I have to remind myself I can’t fix that problem, and stick to what I CAN fix, which ain’t much. People who check in stupid generally remain stupid on discharge. And we can’t raise the dead. We only do resuscitation, not resurrection. But otherwise we are all things to all people in the ED... Dr. Spock to the young mother in need of advice: “Generally, Ma’m, we recommend that when the kid starts smoking, it is time to wean her.”... Dr. Feelgood to the chronically pained and anxious: “Sure, I totally understand that your dog ate your narcotic prescription, while leaving undisturbed the piece of meat you were using to keep it from blowing away—I’ll just write you another prescription for a thousand Oxycontin® right away!”...Dr. Ruth to the sexually hyperactive: “No, as far as we understand it, you can’t get gonorrhea, herpes, chlamydia, warts and pregnant all at the same time without actually having sex.”...Dr. Phil to the self-justifying self-destructive idiot who is our stock in trade: “How’s that working for you?”...Dr. Marcus Welby to the chronically useless: “Let me just remove that brain tumor, and get your social services, free prescriptions and lifetime work excuse arranged in this office visit. Is there anything else at all I have overlooked?”...Dr. Scholls for the footsore: “Dude, those are some evil-smelling dogs you got there...You might want to wash them this week.”...Dr. Seuss for the under 8 crowd: “This shot of Pen, this shot of Pen, you will not like this shot of Pen.”...Dr. Leonard McCoy for the “DRT” (dead right there): “He’s dead, Jim!”...Dr. Laura Schlesinger for the ones who know what’s right but don’t want to do it: “What are you?? Stupid?? Listen to yourself lying to yourself and get a life!!”...Dr. Dre for the disadvantaged youth: “Yo, yo, ‘Suup, Yo, you know wumsayin, know wumsayin?”...And Diet Dr. Pepper to just about everybody: “So cool, so light so refreshing, so available.”...Too bad we just can’t be Dr. Kevorkian...
We pause each year to note the passing of various fellow travelers on our orb, including our beautiful, sweet boxer dog, Rudy. He was just 3, and our loving, obedient companion, when a lymphoma overtook him in a very few sad weeks. We are still heartbroken over it. His pawprints aren’t even gone from the yard yet, and I can’t speak of him without a catch in my voice. I guess that is part of the bargain you take on with a dog—a short, intense relationship, and a certainty of sadness and loss in exchange for the unconditional love they give. More generally notable, we bid farewell to Don Adams and Bob Denver, of my TV childhood and Scotty (James Doohan) beamed up when I wasn’t looking. Ann Bancroft graduated, and Johnnie Cochran was forever estopped from making frivolous motions, while August Wilson and Arthur Miller made their exits, stage left. R.I.P. to poor Terry Schiavo, free at last; Good night, Folks, to Johnny Carson, and a very fond farewell to Saul Bellow, whose novel Herzog caught me at that life-stage of just noticing the infinity of possibilities. Hunter Thompson wrote his own ending. We will miss Peter Rodino, Jr. from Watergate hearing days, and I am sad to say we may soon miss Mr. Chief Justice Rehnquist more than we knew possible, once the new boys come to town. Arrivederci and do widzenia to Pope J2P2, and a special goodbye to Shelby Foote, whose rendering of The Civil War introduced me to a love of history and made me understand America for the first time ever. And by the way, a glad welcome back to the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.
And so, dear friends, we pause again at the year’s longest night to take in a cold breath of winter’s blast, and turn our backs and huddle against the darkness, holding fast to the certainty of the return of edible fruit and daylight in non-working hours. Let our friends become legion, our deeds become legend, and our enemies forget where they left their cheaters. May each of you find time and inclination to renew acquaintance with an old friend, keep close to present ones through good times and bad, and welcome new ones into our widening circle of fellowship and reason. Be firm in the raising of young’uns, for the easy path only leads to madness. Be stout in resistance to easy lies and seductively simple solutions, offered by politicians with no heart and no care, but for power. I wish for each of you a year of peace, and progress toward a worthy goal, and satisfaction with your own best efforts, even if the goal remains distant. And mostly I wish for peace.
Yours, like it or not, truly
Dear Ones,
I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours...You first................... OK, OK, I started this. I’ll go, but you are still on the hook. Off we go again into the little-read and less-remembered latest episode of “Year of Our Lives”. For starters, the good stuff—we are most happy and relieved to have Nathanael back from Iraq, in one piece and more mature than anyone should ever be in their 20s. Meanwhile Michele gave birth to Jack Antonio McCarty, our first grandbaby. He is a big beautiful happy baby, and subject of complete obsession to his grandmom. He really is a good natured little guy, a credit to incredibly patient full-time hands-on rearing by Michele. He has the adorable habit of barfing on anyone he especially likes, so many of us now bear the mark of his favor. Nat treasures this most especially.
I don’t even know how to start to grapple with this year of fear and loathing. We know of so many who have suffered the loss of a child in The War on Terror®. We see the postures and spins and layers of deceit and measured disclosure, and know as always that this is, was, and ever shall be about oil. Our greed inflames the bastards, and our money finances them, and we can’t step away to let them thrash out their hatreds unmolested. So we send our best, our treasure, to be spilled in the sand and wasted. We stoop to torture, but claim moral superiority. And still we drive our planet-killing SUV’s, and squeal when gas goes over $2.50 a gallon. Are we as crazy as they are? Or just blind piglets on the teat, too young to have our eyes open yet? I don’t know anything for sure anymore, except I am weary of lying politicians, and heartsick for grieving families. Now the rest...
Life in Delaware is fine...hard to believe we have been here twelve years and more. I can’t use the word “routine” with any accuracy to describe our lives, but there is at least a rhythm to it that works in lulling us into staying year in year out. We are the proverbial frog in the cooking pot, enjoying the warming water, and too inert to leap out. What is changing is that our kids are growing up and out, and I am having a hard time seeing over the horizon to being here without kids, and with adults we raised calling us from afar for advice and money.
Hannah is in her Plebe year at the Naval Academy. She is 19, harder than woodpecker lips, and yet all about adolescent doubts and idealistic goals and inner battles, bundled into a very disciplined and determined young woman. She is playing Rugby for Navy, working out some well earned frustrations by delivering massive tackles. We have had her home a couple of times, the benefit she has over her shipmates whose parents live far away, and we are able to get over there pretty readily for rugby games and the like. But I miss having her home for ice skating, shooting the breeze, and all the rest. Her goal is “EOD”, the only Special Forces billet available to women. That involves jumping out of planes, swimming with trained dolphins, and blowing things up. Just what every parent desires...She is exploring for a major at the moment, battling with Calculus and Professional Knowledge, and of course with nasty rank-glorying upperclassmen, and doing well.
Everett is a senior, back in little Seaford after a year abroad in Beijing. He had a little premature exposure to college life living away as a H.S. Junior, and is now predictably a little rammy being back home, under the watchful eye of his mom. He refers to us as Warden and Doc. He is a wry little fellow. The school, unfortunately neither cares to challenge him, nor even occupy his time, so he is out the door for a class three mornings a week, and back home in an hour, with a day to kill doing whatever the hell he does at the computer. He might have a one hour interruption in his afternoon, or might not. His only real hurdles are the courses he takes in the evening at the local community college. He has been working at the local pharmacy chain, Euphoric Harold’s, (Happy Harry’s) learning a love of the general public, and customer service above all else. We compare notes constantly. His year in Beijing was spectacular. He enjoyed the food, including a most excellent fried dog in black bean sauce. (They broke it to him during dessert.) His Mandarin is excellent, or so we are told, and he is certainly a more mature and accomplished young man than the fuzzy little squib we sent off so anxiously a year and a half ago. And we get really generous portions from the local Chinese restaurant, with his intercession.
Michele, as noted, has added one to the ledger on the side of the well-adjusted, responsible and productive. She and Eric are in Columbus, OH, where Eric is now Assistant Chief Pilot with NetJets, a fractional jet company. He is living a more regular schedule and traveling less, so that is good. M. is thinking of going back to school, thinking of having another child, thinking of world peace and all the rest. She thinks a lot.
Nat is in his last year with the Army, just staying low profile at Ft. Detrick in order to finish his commitment where he is right now. That basically involves not getting all up in his sergeant’s grill, a Herculean task of self-control on Nat’s part, apparently. But the stakes are high, since a stateside billet is a desirable thing, and never guaranteed, under the circumstances. Don’t annoy the bears, and don’t piss off the Sergeant. Nat is stylin’ in his black Nissan Maxima with blackout windows and grill bra we bought together the next day after he got back, and burning up a good bit of the oil our government risked his life for. He deserves to. He has stuck with some of the same buddies the whole 5 years in, and has made some good friends. They are some very nice, very mature young men, burdened with the horrifying memories of war they didn’t deserve and shouldn’t have endured. But they did their duty, and we love them and thank them.
Catherine is fully retired from midwifery, and fully immersed instead in making quilts for wounded service members. She has arranged the making and distribution of nearly 4000 Quilts of Valor® to wounded soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen. And even a few Coasties. You can check out her website at www.quiltsforsoldiers.com She has arranged for a §501(c)(3) charity status for Quilts of Valor Foundation, Inc., with donated lawyer and accountant time. She is most intrepid and amazing in getting things done. She has a whole network of little old ladies (and a few little old men) quilting quilts, and chaplains at all the military hospitals in America, and some in Europe and elsewhere doing the presentations.
As for me, I am done, done, done with Law School! Just this week I sent the last of my assignments in and closed out the last module. The Bar looms ahead in February, just prior to graduation in LA, but the degree is done. I ordered new business cards, with more letters after my name, just to celebrate. I am actually numb just contemplating it. No pressure for papers, readings, cramming for finals. I put up all my piles of books onto a shelf, and cleared my desk for the first time in four years. Spooky. The Bar Exam will be rough, a three-day pounding which is passed by only 40% of attempters—the lowest percentage of any state. I will git er done, one way or another. I may be throwing smoke from both engines, with ailerons hanging by a hinge, and more daylight than paint showing on my fuselage, but I will land the bitch somehow. I got a little panicked this year that I could hardly get out of my own slime-pool at my desk, and at Hannah’s suggestion, I started to jog again. She wanted to run the Marine Corps Marathon with me, and I always wanted to run a marathon, so I started training and we signed up together. The first runs were pathetic, limited to a mile or so. The weather in January chased me indoors and to the treadmill, and I actually wound up doing the whole thing on the treadmill. I was able to build up eventually to 6 miles every other day, at a 9.5 minute per mile pace. My projected long run ended in a knee cartilage injury, which was a setback, but with my commitment to Hannah and the goal in mind, I built back to the prior pace with only a few weeks to go. Just prior to race day, Hannah sprained both ankles in a rugby game, and could only watch from the sidelines. So I put on my sneaks and stepped to the line, alone in a crowd of 20,000 runners. I ran with the 4:30 pacing team until after the halfway point, and then some amazingly painful cramps took hold of my legs. I tried to stop and stretch, but it was immediately obvious that stopping was going to make me ball up like a pill-bug, and require evacuation by stretcher. So I shuffled onward through the last 10 miles, at little old lady pace. I actually passed a 77 year old lady, bent over with osteoporosis, still running at the 24 mile mark. She had a beatific smile on her face I will never forget. She gave me enough gumption to finish, and I did, in 5:41:45, about an hour slower than I expected. But I did it, anyway. Most impressive to me were the people on the sidelines doing the “WooHoo!” marathon. How long can you keep saying WooHoo without your lips cramping and losing your voice? Do you hit a “WooHoo Wall”? I also loved the guys running while talking on cell phones the whole time. Is anybody actually where they are? Fully half of the people I saw were lost in IPod land, or yakking on their Bluetooth® equipped cell phones at the top of their lungs. I was just trying NOT to yak. If nothing else, the marathon is off my life list, which still includes such unlikelies as “summit Mt. Everest”, and “sex with Japanese twins”. Hannah wants to run it again next year, and perhaps I will run it with her...I still have a 4:30 marathon in me, I am sure...
Work leaves me ever more dubious that we deserve to survive as a species, but I work a lot less, so the alternative viewpoint has at least equal time. We struggle now with “customer service” as our mantra and “performance metrics” as our scourge. Which means only that the satisfaction survey of every disappointed drug addict now drags us down in our average score, and administrators can stop visiting the department to see what’s really going on, and just crunch the numbers. Many departments have responded to this by going with the flow, and just handing out Percocet® like Skittles®. Boy do they have good numbers. And you see so many more interesting tattoos when you deal with that slice of Demographia. We do see some amazing tats...worst so far was the fifteen year old girl with pseudo-latin script, all caps, across the top of the pubic hair, rendering the heartwarming sentiment “FUCK ME”. And right up there was another independent minded little lass of 16 with “Ghetto Bitch” tattooed above her butt cheeks. Her mom was there, and just gave me a gap-toothed grin when I could only say, “How nice, how very nice...” I have to remind myself I can’t fix that problem, and stick to what I CAN fix, which ain’t much. People who check in stupid generally remain stupid on discharge. And we can’t raise the dead. We only do resuscitation, not resurrection. But otherwise we are all things to all people in the ED... Dr. Spock to the young mother in need of advice: “Generally, Ma’m, we recommend that when the kid starts smoking, it is time to wean her.”... Dr. Feelgood to the chronically pained and anxious: “Sure, I totally understand that your dog ate your narcotic prescription, while leaving undisturbed the piece of meat you were using to keep it from blowing away—I’ll just write you another prescription for a thousand Oxycontin® right away!”...Dr. Ruth to the sexually hyperactive: “No, as far as we understand it, you can’t get gonorrhea, herpes, chlamydia, warts and pregnant all at the same time without actually having sex.”...Dr. Phil to the self-justifying self-destructive idiot who is our stock in trade: “How’s that working for you?”...Dr. Marcus Welby to the chronically useless: “Let me just remove that brain tumor, and get your social services, free prescriptions and lifetime work excuse arranged in this office visit. Is there anything else at all I have overlooked?”...Dr. Scholls for the footsore: “Dude, those are some evil-smelling dogs you got there...You might want to wash them this week.”...Dr. Seuss for the under 8 crowd: “This shot of Pen, this shot of Pen, you will not like this shot of Pen.”...Dr. Leonard McCoy for the “DRT” (dead right there): “He’s dead, Jim!”...Dr. Laura Schlesinger for the ones who know what’s right but don’t want to do it: “What are you?? Stupid?? Listen to yourself lying to yourself and get a life!!”...Dr. Dre for the disadvantaged youth: “Yo, yo, ‘Suup, Yo, you know wumsayin, know wumsayin?”...And Diet Dr. Pepper to just about everybody: “So cool, so light so refreshing, so available.”...Too bad we just can’t be Dr. Kevorkian...
We pause each year to note the passing of various fellow travelers on our orb, including our beautiful, sweet boxer dog, Rudy. He was just 3, and our loving, obedient companion, when a lymphoma overtook him in a very few sad weeks. We are still heartbroken over it. His pawprints aren’t even gone from the yard yet, and I can’t speak of him without a catch in my voice. I guess that is part of the bargain you take on with a dog—a short, intense relationship, and a certainty of sadness and loss in exchange for the unconditional love they give. More generally notable, we bid farewell to Don Adams and Bob Denver, of my TV childhood and Scotty (James Doohan) beamed up when I wasn’t looking. Ann Bancroft graduated, and Johnnie Cochran was forever estopped from making frivolous motions, while August Wilson and Arthur Miller made their exits, stage left. R.I.P. to poor Terry Schiavo, free at last; Good night, Folks, to Johnny Carson, and a very fond farewell to Saul Bellow, whose novel Herzog caught me at that life-stage of just noticing the infinity of possibilities. Hunter Thompson wrote his own ending. We will miss Peter Rodino, Jr. from Watergate hearing days, and I am sad to say we may soon miss Mr. Chief Justice Rehnquist more than we knew possible, once the new boys come to town. Arrivederci and do widzenia to Pope J2P2, and a special goodbye to Shelby Foote, whose rendering of The Civil War introduced me to a love of history and made me understand America for the first time ever. And by the way, a glad welcome back to the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.
And so, dear friends, we pause again at the year’s longest night to take in a cold breath of winter’s blast, and turn our backs and huddle against the darkness, holding fast to the certainty of the return of edible fruit and daylight in non-working hours. Let our friends become legion, our deeds become legend, and our enemies forget where they left their cheaters. May each of you find time and inclination to renew acquaintance with an old friend, keep close to present ones through good times and bad, and welcome new ones into our widening circle of fellowship and reason. Be firm in the raising of young’uns, for the easy path only leads to madness. Be stout in resistance to easy lies and seductively simple solutions, offered by politicians with no heart and no care, but for power. I wish for each of you a year of peace, and progress toward a worthy goal, and satisfaction with your own best efforts, even if the goal remains distant. And mostly I wish for peace.
Yours, like it or not, truly
Solstice 2004
Solstice 2004
Dear Ones,
I am starting to believe that instead of 49 years of experience, I have one year of experience relived 49 times. Am I a victim of an early, pleasant dementia, or a selective hippocampal lesion causing short term amnesia, so that I forget that I am reliving the same thing over and over, and do nothing to change the script? Star of “Groundhog Year”? I must be hoping that you are also all pleasantly demented, so at least you don’t realize you have heard this one already. My kind of crowd. Don’t stop me...you HAVE heard this one... Now hear ye, hear ye, all rise for the 13th Annual unsolicited unexpurgated and wholly inexplicable Solstice Rant.
The major theme of the year, from our perspective, has been the events in the Middle East, and the incomprehensible public ratification of our involvement there. It got personal when stepson Nathanael was deployed for a year to Baghdad with the 759th MP Battalion. He has been guarding convoys and such, generally occupying the gun turret of a Humvee, where he gets a great view of skinny little fellows in colorful headgear, bearing AK-47s and RPG launchers, who have not heard the news that we came to help them, and who, inexplicably, want to kill us. Poor ignorant bastards. He has four more months in hell. Despite his perspective, he has no more clue than you about why we are over there in hell. I know why, and I will tell you--Only ask yourself this question—If those people had no oil, do you think anyone in the West would know or care if one medieval tribe slaughtered another medieval tribe by the hundreds of thousands? Let me answer that for you—NO—That would get a byline on page 11, and a half a column-inch of print, along with the rest of the “Bus Plunge Kills 38” stories from the stringers in South America or wherever. They could, and would stay mired in the Dark Ages, and we would not give a rip, except for the unhappy accident of their sitting on the bulk of the world’s oil reserves. And since we continue to burn mega-tanker loads of the stuff in our down-armored Humvees and SUVs, all of a sudden “we care,” and we “want to do the right thing.” My suggestion is we should all go out tomorrow and buy a hybrid vehicle and a bicycle, and ship all the Suburbans and Expeditions to Saudi, and then let them all fight it out to the last Hadji standing.
Meanwhile, the more we fight with them the more we come to resemble them. Our country is now dominated by mullahs in business suits instead of turbans, misquoting Bibles instead of Korans, and we the people have acquiesced to that fact. We have meekly given over our civil rights, and even our ability to express a modest doubt, lest we be branded traitors and hounded out of our tract houses. I saw a survey today that half of the good citizens surveyed believed that all Muslims living in America should have to register, and report their movements to the government. Did somebody replace my fellow citizens with Right Wing Ken and Barbie Dolls while I slept? This was not what they taught me in 3rd grade. We pledged allegiance and we hid under our desks on command for nuclear attack drill, but we didn’t register Muslims. Anyway, we in our teensy tiny Blue State, perched on the edge of the Red Wave down the middle of the country, remain amazed, appalled, perplexed and overwhelmed by recent events, and while I know there is a division of opinion on the subject of the election even among my friends, I am still dumbfounded beyond words.
Catherine has responded to all this anxiety by pouring her considerable energies into organizing people into quilting beautiful quilts for wounded soldiers. She has made, or caused to be made and delivered 181 “Quilts of Valor” to date, distributed by Army and Navy Chaplains at various military hospitals around the country. You can see her in action at www.quiltsforsoldiers.com where she also runs the website from home. She has made a TV appearance, and has had radio and newspaper interviews. This is hard for us to process, when she normally won’t call for pizza, out of shyness. Her other passion lately has been boating, and therein lies another tale. We have, as past readers will recall, a trawler, on which we tour the Chesapeake and its tributaries. This summer I arranged all my work in a three-week straight work-like-a-dog, one week off schedule, and we managed 4 week-long trips here and there, including Washington DC via the beautiful Potomac. On the last one of the season, we stopped in Annapolis, and met up by chance with the broker who sold the boat to us originally. Well the wily villain a had bigger, better boat for us, and one day later a buyer for our boat at about our original price paid, so next thing we knew, we were selling Chance, and negotiating for an older Grand Banks 49. “Black Swan” was the best-maintained and beauteous GB49 one could imagine, and we bit. So we went from boat to boat in a week, with no more intention or forethought than a mayfly on a breezy afternoon. I took our only trip to date across the Bay to lay the boat up for the winter, and we have otherwise been boaters in name and expense only. But it is a nice daydream for those days when it is colder than the gleam in Scott Peterson’s eye. Like today, for instance.
Michele meanwhile has moved off to Chicago with Eric, but has been growing a grandchild, due to see daylight in April. “It’s a boy!” according to the ultrasound gal, who saw his little tallywhacker right there in grey and white. They sent a cool pic of the little guy waving at us in an e-mail. (No, not the tallywhacker one.) Awwwww-- our first baby picture. Eric’s little boy Kagan (8) was out to visit with us for a boat ride this summer, just to break me in gently to the Grandpa thing.
Nat’s world is detailed above. He had a 3 week R and R visit around Thanksgiving, and was remarkably well and serious and mature. It was amazing to see him, and I am so proud of him. How he got on that plane and went back is hard to imagine, but he wouldn’t let his buddies down. He talks about very little except looking forward to having a dog and a wife and a peaceable life on his return.
Hannah is at the Naval Academy Prep School (NAPS) in Newport, RI. It is
basically math, physics and chemistry boot camp for her, since she was already harder than woodpecker lips on the physical fitness side. We have visited there a couple of times for mandatory football games-- “mando fun” for the Candidates. She is doing well, but chafing at the inevitable grind of a regimented military life. She noted with regret that she had some liberty time, and felt uncertain what to do, since no one was telling her. Her Mom continues to refer to the place as “school”, and her living quarters as a “dorm”. “It is not a school, Mom, it’s a BASE. It’s not a dorm, it’s a BARRACKS. We screw up, and people DIE.” Her cussing proficiency is now in the top 1%.
Everett is in China all year, on his Junior Year Abroad, with Youth For Understanding. A slacker in four languages. He is with a family in Beijing, doing very well, getting not terribly much out of math, physics and chemistry boot camp done entirely in Mandarin, but getting along famously in English class. He is reading Mandarin and understanding most of what is going on these days. We get him back in July, when the plan is to go and pick him up, and tour around a bit, with him as tour guide and translator. He has been writing excruciatingly funny letters home, detailing his Ebonics lessons to his Chinese colleagues, among other adventures. (Ebonics being his fourth language) I expect his senior year at home will be, uh, interesting. He should be pretty rammy under house discipline again, but we will see. I suppose Catherine and I will have to stop doing the wild thing just anywhere the mood strikes us, and get back into the routine of wearing clothing and locking the bedroom door again, but I suspect we can adjust. The dogs will surely miss the entertainment.
As for me, I just finished my exams at Concord Law for my third year, and am awaiting grades. My fourth and final year and the Bar Exam a year from February are the last major hurdles. It seems impossible, but it will soon be over. I can’t imagine what I was thinking when I started this...work is work, cramped, busy, and impossible, now the more so in the midst of a year-long construction project leading to a new ER. My patients remain the constant source of amusement you’ve come to expect. I had a visit from “Moondoggy”, a local drunk and crackhead of some regional fame. He arrived by ambulance with his eyes squinched up against the glare of our bare fluorescent lights. “I cain’t see.” was the complaint. “What happened, Moondoggy?” says I. “I got up to pee, and I couldn’t see.” “Did you turn on the light?” I asked, helpfully. “A’course, Motherfucker, an’ I still couldn’t see.” “Have you been drinking?” I asked. “You always ask me dat, Motherfucker.” “That’s only because you seem to be drunk all the time.” “ Yeah, Motherfucker, I been drinkin’, so what?” “How long have you had this problem—just tonight?” “No,” says he, “I done had it a year.” “A Year!” I exclaim. “Did you see a doctor about it ever in that time?” “Yeah. I seen Dr. Smith” (local Ophthalmologist) “And what did she say?” “She say come back in a year.” With that he looked straight at me and vaulted the bedrail like Jackie Joyner-Kersee enroute to gold, and strode out into the night. “I’m going to a real hospital.” I’m not sure, but I think he could see. I meant to correct my name for him for when he wrote to our patient advocate about his unsatisfactory experience in our ER with Dr. Motherfucker, but I never got the chance. Maybe next time. Anyway, nothing else is constant, except that I am no nearer to retiring than last year. The people next door to me won the Lotto for a part of that $210 Million pot you might have seen in the news. So they are all set, but the lightning hasn’t struck here. It struck so close I could smell the ozone, but not here. We send the dogs out each morning with the admonition “Go wake up the millionaires!” (Good Dogs!) I am stuck dealing with the chronically anxious and addicted, for whom “Nothing works but Percocet, Doc.” And, unfortunately, even that doesn’t work. Actually I bless the chronically anxious, because without them, I would have very little to do. As long as that segment of the population is sure that this bump means CERTAIN DEATH if they don’t rush in, there will be work for me. If they ever figure out a cure for anxiety that really works, I am screwed. Speaking of that, I am looking forward, or more accurately backward to my first colonoscopy, a present to myself for turning fifty. That will NOT be on Good Morning America, fear not. Just another notch in the ratchet on the way to oblivion. Can’t wait.
Our one bright spot this year was a cruise on Royal Caribbean. We decided to have a last hoo-hah with the kids before they scattered, and so Hannah, Everett, Shu-Ting Cheung, our exchange student, and Cath and I boarded an enormous floating smorgasbord, rolled up our collective sleeves and commenced to inhaling vast quantities of high calorie food from Miami to Haiti, Jamaica , Caymans, and Mexico and back to Miami. We swam (after waiting an hour after eating, which limited the swimming to one ten-minute session on day 3, after the post breakfast buffet snack and before the pre-lunch appetizer browse), parasailed, dove to 800 feet in a Beebe submersible, rode horses in the surf, scuba-ed and shopped, and generally contributed to the world’s economic recovery for a solid week. That was the first time we ever did anything fun, in the kids’ estimation, so at least we got to mark that in their memory bank on the good side of the ledger, not that it makes up for the lifetime of boredom to which we have otherwise subjected them. Poor ignorant bastards.
And so, dear friends, another spin and another “click” in the wheel has passed, and I find us again struggling to make sense of it all, and to reach out for reassurance that you are just as lost as I am. But the shadows grow darker and the lights more distant and flickering, so we must draw together the forces of reason and decency, though the circle be smaller, and defend what we know is right and true. History tells us that the Dark Ages could descend upon us again, unless we rise from our complacency and resist the barbarians. Who can but thrill at Tennessee National Guard Specialist Thomas Wilson asking Rumsfeld when they could stop scavenging dumps for discarded steel to armor their Humvees, a question for which the only answer may be the resignation of the Secretary of Defense? What cheer can we take from serious consideration by Jerry Springer of a run for Senate? Is that not the Senate we deserve? But hey, at least we have Arnold Schwartzenegger to show us the way in California, a little Austrian discipline for those unruly Left Coasters. (Isn’t Austrian Discipline a little like Yugoslavian Engineering?) And yet the unruly Boston Red Sox have finally triumphed over the so-called curse of the pinstripes—is that a sign from God? Is God a baseball fan? Is she not a hockey fan?? And what can we make of William Hung being spit into the limelight by American Idol? Only that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public? Fortunately we have Lance Armstrong, carrying the hopes of Americans in general and cancer patients in particular, powering his way past the sneering French into cycling history and major endorsements. Perhaps jiggling our yellow plastic bracelets in unison will allow us to purge from our nightmares at last the terrible sight of Janet Jackson’s skewered right nipple. And we cheer the ascent into space of Spaceship One, burning computer money by the boxcar load. Meanwhile we wait in faithful vigil to Free Martha! I pause for farewells to Spaulding Gray, whose monologues made me cry with laughter, and Iris Chang, whose history of Nanking under the Japanese occupation just made me cry, both victims of the “black dog” of depression. So long, and a heartfelt salute to Pat Tillman, who gave up the American Dream of Dreams to give his life in Afghanistan. Hasta la vista to President Ronnie Reagan, and also Yasser Arafat, who each changed our world, for better and worse. Respect, finally, to Rodney Dangerfield, and a big cheery wave to Fay Wray (get your hands off me, you big gorilla!), and to Rick James, ultimate funkster and drug abuse spokesmodel. Congrats on a smooth transit through the five stages to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, and “all systems go” to Gordon “Gordo” Cooper, who had the “right stuff” indeed. And farewell and peace to the 1,306 soldiers killed thus far in Iraq.
So let us gather again, at least in spirit, in the darkest days of winter, confident in the return to light and common sense, happy in memories of great people who touched us in one way or another, and moved on. Let us not allow our paths diverge too far, and for gosh sake, write, call, e, visit, or something. (dammit!)
Love, regards, blasé, blasé, blasé, as the homegirls say--
Dear Ones,
I am starting to believe that instead of 49 years of experience, I have one year of experience relived 49 times. Am I a victim of an early, pleasant dementia, or a selective hippocampal lesion causing short term amnesia, so that I forget that I am reliving the same thing over and over, and do nothing to change the script? Star of “Groundhog Year”? I must be hoping that you are also all pleasantly demented, so at least you don’t realize you have heard this one already. My kind of crowd. Don’t stop me...you HAVE heard this one... Now hear ye, hear ye, all rise for the 13th Annual unsolicited unexpurgated and wholly inexplicable Solstice Rant.
The major theme of the year, from our perspective, has been the events in the Middle East, and the incomprehensible public ratification of our involvement there. It got personal when stepson Nathanael was deployed for a year to Baghdad with the 759th MP Battalion. He has been guarding convoys and such, generally occupying the gun turret of a Humvee, where he gets a great view of skinny little fellows in colorful headgear, bearing AK-47s and RPG launchers, who have not heard the news that we came to help them, and who, inexplicably, want to kill us. Poor ignorant bastards. He has four more months in hell. Despite his perspective, he has no more clue than you about why we are over there in hell. I know why, and I will tell you--Only ask yourself this question—If those people had no oil, do you think anyone in the West would know or care if one medieval tribe slaughtered another medieval tribe by the hundreds of thousands? Let me answer that for you—NO—That would get a byline on page 11, and a half a column-inch of print, along with the rest of the “Bus Plunge Kills 38” stories from the stringers in South America or wherever. They could, and would stay mired in the Dark Ages, and we would not give a rip, except for the unhappy accident of their sitting on the bulk of the world’s oil reserves. And since we continue to burn mega-tanker loads of the stuff in our down-armored Humvees and SUVs, all of a sudden “we care,” and we “want to do the right thing.” My suggestion is we should all go out tomorrow and buy a hybrid vehicle and a bicycle, and ship all the Suburbans and Expeditions to Saudi, and then let them all fight it out to the last Hadji standing.
Meanwhile, the more we fight with them the more we come to resemble them. Our country is now dominated by mullahs in business suits instead of turbans, misquoting Bibles instead of Korans, and we the people have acquiesced to that fact. We have meekly given over our civil rights, and even our ability to express a modest doubt, lest we be branded traitors and hounded out of our tract houses. I saw a survey today that half of the good citizens surveyed believed that all Muslims living in America should have to register, and report their movements to the government. Did somebody replace my fellow citizens with Right Wing Ken and Barbie Dolls while I slept? This was not what they taught me in 3rd grade. We pledged allegiance and we hid under our desks on command for nuclear attack drill, but we didn’t register Muslims. Anyway, we in our teensy tiny Blue State, perched on the edge of the Red Wave down the middle of the country, remain amazed, appalled, perplexed and overwhelmed by recent events, and while I know there is a division of opinion on the subject of the election even among my friends, I am still dumbfounded beyond words.
Catherine has responded to all this anxiety by pouring her considerable energies into organizing people into quilting beautiful quilts for wounded soldiers. She has made, or caused to be made and delivered 181 “Quilts of Valor” to date, distributed by Army and Navy Chaplains at various military hospitals around the country. You can see her in action at www.quiltsforsoldiers.com where she also runs the website from home. She has made a TV appearance, and has had radio and newspaper interviews. This is hard for us to process, when she normally won’t call for pizza, out of shyness. Her other passion lately has been boating, and therein lies another tale. We have, as past readers will recall, a trawler, on which we tour the Chesapeake and its tributaries. This summer I arranged all my work in a three-week straight work-like-a-dog, one week off schedule, and we managed 4 week-long trips here and there, including Washington DC via the beautiful Potomac. On the last one of the season, we stopped in Annapolis, and met up by chance with the broker who sold the boat to us originally. Well the wily villain a had bigger, better boat for us, and one day later a buyer for our boat at about our original price paid, so next thing we knew, we were selling Chance, and negotiating for an older Grand Banks 49. “Black Swan” was the best-maintained and beauteous GB49 one could imagine, and we bit. So we went from boat to boat in a week, with no more intention or forethought than a mayfly on a breezy afternoon. I took our only trip to date across the Bay to lay the boat up for the winter, and we have otherwise been boaters in name and expense only. But it is a nice daydream for those days when it is colder than the gleam in Scott Peterson’s eye. Like today, for instance.
Michele meanwhile has moved off to Chicago with Eric, but has been growing a grandchild, due to see daylight in April. “It’s a boy!” according to the ultrasound gal, who saw his little tallywhacker right there in grey and white. They sent a cool pic of the little guy waving at us in an e-mail. (No, not the tallywhacker one.) Awwwww-- our first baby picture. Eric’s little boy Kagan (8) was out to visit with us for a boat ride this summer, just to break me in gently to the Grandpa thing.
Nat’s world is detailed above. He had a 3 week R and R visit around Thanksgiving, and was remarkably well and serious and mature. It was amazing to see him, and I am so proud of him. How he got on that plane and went back is hard to imagine, but he wouldn’t let his buddies down. He talks about very little except looking forward to having a dog and a wife and a peaceable life on his return.
Hannah is at the Naval Academy Prep School (NAPS) in Newport, RI. It is
basically math, physics and chemistry boot camp for her, since she was already harder than woodpecker lips on the physical fitness side. We have visited there a couple of times for mandatory football games-- “mando fun” for the Candidates. She is doing well, but chafing at the inevitable grind of a regimented military life. She noted with regret that she had some liberty time, and felt uncertain what to do, since no one was telling her. Her Mom continues to refer to the place as “school”, and her living quarters as a “dorm”. “It is not a school, Mom, it’s a BASE. It’s not a dorm, it’s a BARRACKS. We screw up, and people DIE.” Her cussing proficiency is now in the top 1%.
Everett is in China all year, on his Junior Year Abroad, with Youth For Understanding. A slacker in four languages. He is with a family in Beijing, doing very well, getting not terribly much out of math, physics and chemistry boot camp done entirely in Mandarin, but getting along famously in English class. He is reading Mandarin and understanding most of what is going on these days. We get him back in July, when the plan is to go and pick him up, and tour around a bit, with him as tour guide and translator. He has been writing excruciatingly funny letters home, detailing his Ebonics lessons to his Chinese colleagues, among other adventures. (Ebonics being his fourth language) I expect his senior year at home will be, uh, interesting. He should be pretty rammy under house discipline again, but we will see. I suppose Catherine and I will have to stop doing the wild thing just anywhere the mood strikes us, and get back into the routine of wearing clothing and locking the bedroom door again, but I suspect we can adjust. The dogs will surely miss the entertainment.
As for me, I just finished my exams at Concord Law for my third year, and am awaiting grades. My fourth and final year and the Bar Exam a year from February are the last major hurdles. It seems impossible, but it will soon be over. I can’t imagine what I was thinking when I started this...work is work, cramped, busy, and impossible, now the more so in the midst of a year-long construction project leading to a new ER. My patients remain the constant source of amusement you’ve come to expect. I had a visit from “Moondoggy”, a local drunk and crackhead of some regional fame. He arrived by ambulance with his eyes squinched up against the glare of our bare fluorescent lights. “I cain’t see.” was the complaint. “What happened, Moondoggy?” says I. “I got up to pee, and I couldn’t see.” “Did you turn on the light?” I asked, helpfully. “A’course, Motherfucker, an’ I still couldn’t see.” “Have you been drinking?” I asked. “You always ask me dat, Motherfucker.” “That’s only because you seem to be drunk all the time.” “ Yeah, Motherfucker, I been drinkin’, so what?” “How long have you had this problem—just tonight?” “No,” says he, “I done had it a year.” “A Year!” I exclaim. “Did you see a doctor about it ever in that time?” “Yeah. I seen Dr. Smith” (local Ophthalmologist) “And what did she say?” “She say come back in a year.” With that he looked straight at me and vaulted the bedrail like Jackie Joyner-Kersee enroute to gold, and strode out into the night. “I’m going to a real hospital.” I’m not sure, but I think he could see. I meant to correct my name for him for when he wrote to our patient advocate about his unsatisfactory experience in our ER with Dr. Motherfucker, but I never got the chance. Maybe next time. Anyway, nothing else is constant, except that I am no nearer to retiring than last year. The people next door to me won the Lotto for a part of that $210 Million pot you might have seen in the news. So they are all set, but the lightning hasn’t struck here. It struck so close I could smell the ozone, but not here. We send the dogs out each morning with the admonition “Go wake up the millionaires!” (Good Dogs!) I am stuck dealing with the chronically anxious and addicted, for whom “Nothing works but Percocet, Doc.” And, unfortunately, even that doesn’t work. Actually I bless the chronically anxious, because without them, I would have very little to do. As long as that segment of the population is sure that this bump means CERTAIN DEATH if they don’t rush in, there will be work for me. If they ever figure out a cure for anxiety that really works, I am screwed. Speaking of that, I am looking forward, or more accurately backward to my first colonoscopy, a present to myself for turning fifty. That will NOT be on Good Morning America, fear not. Just another notch in the ratchet on the way to oblivion. Can’t wait.
Our one bright spot this year was a cruise on Royal Caribbean. We decided to have a last hoo-hah with the kids before they scattered, and so Hannah, Everett, Shu-Ting Cheung, our exchange student, and Cath and I boarded an enormous floating smorgasbord, rolled up our collective sleeves and commenced to inhaling vast quantities of high calorie food from Miami to Haiti, Jamaica , Caymans, and Mexico and back to Miami. We swam (after waiting an hour after eating, which limited the swimming to one ten-minute session on day 3, after the post breakfast buffet snack and before the pre-lunch appetizer browse), parasailed, dove to 800 feet in a Beebe submersible, rode horses in the surf, scuba-ed and shopped, and generally contributed to the world’s economic recovery for a solid week. That was the first time we ever did anything fun, in the kids’ estimation, so at least we got to mark that in their memory bank on the good side of the ledger, not that it makes up for the lifetime of boredom to which we have otherwise subjected them. Poor ignorant bastards.
And so, dear friends, another spin and another “click” in the wheel has passed, and I find us again struggling to make sense of it all, and to reach out for reassurance that you are just as lost as I am. But the shadows grow darker and the lights more distant and flickering, so we must draw together the forces of reason and decency, though the circle be smaller, and defend what we know is right and true. History tells us that the Dark Ages could descend upon us again, unless we rise from our complacency and resist the barbarians. Who can but thrill at Tennessee National Guard Specialist Thomas Wilson asking Rumsfeld when they could stop scavenging dumps for discarded steel to armor their Humvees, a question for which the only answer may be the resignation of the Secretary of Defense? What cheer can we take from serious consideration by Jerry Springer of a run for Senate? Is that not the Senate we deserve? But hey, at least we have Arnold Schwartzenegger to show us the way in California, a little Austrian discipline for those unruly Left Coasters. (Isn’t Austrian Discipline a little like Yugoslavian Engineering?) And yet the unruly Boston Red Sox have finally triumphed over the so-called curse of the pinstripes—is that a sign from God? Is God a baseball fan? Is she not a hockey fan?? And what can we make of William Hung being spit into the limelight by American Idol? Only that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public? Fortunately we have Lance Armstrong, carrying the hopes of Americans in general and cancer patients in particular, powering his way past the sneering French into cycling history and major endorsements. Perhaps jiggling our yellow plastic bracelets in unison will allow us to purge from our nightmares at last the terrible sight of Janet Jackson’s skewered right nipple. And we cheer the ascent into space of Spaceship One, burning computer money by the boxcar load. Meanwhile we wait in faithful vigil to Free Martha! I pause for farewells to Spaulding Gray, whose monologues made me cry with laughter, and Iris Chang, whose history of Nanking under the Japanese occupation just made me cry, both victims of the “black dog” of depression. So long, and a heartfelt salute to Pat Tillman, who gave up the American Dream of Dreams to give his life in Afghanistan. Hasta la vista to President Ronnie Reagan, and also Yasser Arafat, who each changed our world, for better and worse. Respect, finally, to Rodney Dangerfield, and a big cheery wave to Fay Wray (get your hands off me, you big gorilla!), and to Rick James, ultimate funkster and drug abuse spokesmodel. Congrats on a smooth transit through the five stages to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, and “all systems go” to Gordon “Gordo” Cooper, who had the “right stuff” indeed. And farewell and peace to the 1,306 soldiers killed thus far in Iraq.
So let us gather again, at least in spirit, in the darkest days of winter, confident in the return to light and common sense, happy in memories of great people who touched us in one way or another, and moved on. Let us not allow our paths diverge too far, and for gosh sake, write, call, e, visit, or something. (dammit!)
Love, regards, blasé, blasé, blasé, as the homegirls say--
Solstice 2003
Solstice, 2003
Dear Ones,
Alright already! I haven’t forgotten, I am just a little behind. I’m getting to it, just hold on, there. OK, here goes the 12th annual Not-Really-a-Holiday-Letter Holiday Letter. The motivation for me, I will tell you up front, is to inspire guilt in old friends, that I wrote and they didn’t, so you owe us one…call, write, or something. There is also a certain inertia after 11 years—can’t stop now. That said, I will now launch into the usual discussion of our year, the world in general, throw in a few warm-and-fuzzies at the end, and call it a wrap.
We are carrying on carrying on in Delaware, living in pleasant squalor in our ranch house by the Nanticoke. Nevermind that we can’t have guests over anymore, since all the bathrooms have crumbled into broken-tiled ruins, now covered (temporarily) with Plexiglas and caulk, just to tide us over til we win the lottery. Nevermind that the spare bedroom is taken over with sewing machines, and the dining room with computers, and both are metastasizing to all the surrounding rooms. Nevermind the junk in the front yard overgrown with “native flora”. It’s home. You just can’t be allowed to see it, lest you realize we have “gone native”, and are more red of neck than the reddest redneck who ever necked. The kids are good. We got a new one this year, on our usual whim. Everett already has his Ph.D. in Ebonics, but has been studying Chinese at our local Chinese restaurant, spurred on by a love of Chinese movies, as best we can figure. He also spent a month in an immersion Chinese language camp in northern Minnesota this summer. (he minored in Minnesowta Accent) His principal knew this, so when a Chinese exchange student arrived to her host family, and it immediately became apparent that it wasn’t going to work out, Everett was asked if we couldn’t pinch hit. Well the conversation here at home went something like:
Catherine (from the next room, while watching the news): “Honey, what would you think about having an exchange student here for the school year?”
Me (in the kitchen, reading): “I dunno, it would be OK I guess.”
Catherine: “I was just wondering.”
Me: “Oh. OK.”
Next day, the meaning of this innocent-sounding interchange became clear. When I arrived home from work, I found that Shu-Ting Cheung, a Hong-Kong teenager here for her senior year, was already ensconsed in Hannah’s bedroom, and Hannah had moved into the basement, now known as “her lair”. Shu-Ting is a funny, sweet kid, and a great role model of hard studying for our kids, and doesn’t eat much, so I can’t complain. She has broadened our horizons considerably, as I hope we have hers, also. Everett’s Chinese is coming along most amazingly, and he is off to Beijing next year for his junior year in a public high school. He wants to be Ambassador to China. Nice work, if he can get it. I advised him that the path to that career goal usually involves becoming filthy rich first, but he seems undaunted. Hannah, meanwhile has had a great year of softball, going as starting shortstop and second baseman to both to the Eastern Regional Tournament in Little league, and to the State Tournament on her High School team. She has college all figured out, having been accepted to NAPS, the Naval Academy Prep School, which will get her math and such up to speed for starting the Naval Academy in 2005. Success at NAPS guarantees her a spot at the Academy. She is pumped up! She wants to be a Marine, and kill bad guys. Go figure. But I’m hoping more for an Aegis Destroyer Captain. It will save us a cool hundred-K in college tuition, true enough. But we are proud of her and her determination to get accepted and go. This was her gig from the get-go.
Nat, meanwhile, is in an Army M.P. in Germany, after a year in Kosovo. They are being posted to Baghdad in April or May for a year or more. He seems resigned to soldiering through and getting out of the Army when his time is up. He is doing OK, doing a lot of growing up a long way from home.
Michele is finishing her degree in Philosophy as we speak, and graduates summa cum laude this week. Part of her practicum was to teach ethics and philo to prisoners at the local state prison. She got an eyeful of reality (not) TV there. We are so proud of her. She did marry her pilot boyfriend this summer, and is settled briefly in Salisbury. Eric, my new son-in-law, is training up on the regional jet CRJ 200 for Air Wisconsin/United Express. They are off to Chicago to live in February. We will miss having them close. He’s a real sweetheart.
Catherine has been (mostly) retired, sewing quilts for wounded soldiers, and generally doing what she wants. She is immersed and in love with the Patrick O’Brian series of sea novels, forging through the audio books, while sewing. (Addictive stuff, but worth it. Catch Master and Commander, for that fatal first taste) Being retired agrees with her, as I suspect it would me, too. She dotes on (spoils) the dogs, Tory and Rudy, keeps the kids in line, and saves a little energy for me, since I am home more. She is going to Montana in February (yikes!) to be a locum tenens midwife on an Indian reservation. We here on the home front will be living on canned stew the whole time, but we can hack it. Catherine and I are both trying to get our minds around being empty nesters this year, as we will very soon be. We actually have some diversions planned. Cath began to have a hankering for a boat again, and over my strenuous objections, we found ourselves boat shopping. A few sailboat tours later, she declared her desire for a motor boat, and the shopping became more serious. We wound up buying an Eagle 40 trawler, a slow, sturdy, workboaty kind of boat. We named her Chance, after our favorite force of nature. They had just finished a cute little marina in by our river not 3 miles from here, so it is the height of convenience to get down there, and we have spent many a night down there, reveling in the lapping of waves and the slapping of halyards. Our trip across the Chesapeake to put her up for the winter was a daymare of 30-knot winds, steep 8-10 foot waves and green water over the rails, but we were proud to have made it, and quite sure after all, that the boat is tougher than the people inside. I do like being a skipper again.
As for me, I am working away, more during the day, and more administratively, less clinically, so life is better, apart from the odd SARS scare. We are building a new department, and have a new clinical computer system, so all is chaos, which is after all our specialty. I have been riding my recumbent bike a good bit, to the amazement of the local rednecks, who have a hard time with adults who still ride bicycles, let alone racing lawn chairs. I just finished my second year of online law school, with exam grades pending and 3rd year starting mid January. I also passed the big hurdle in June, the 1st year California Bar Exam. But I got way behind after studying for that test, and then with Michele and Eric’s wedding, Hannah’s softball, Elizabeth Roberts’ wedding to Craig Gordon all competing for time in August, I got put on academic probation, ‘til I caught up. I was sweating it out at double speed these last three months, but I guess I squeaked by with the most superficial of readings in my subjects. My new mantra is Ellen DeGeneres’s voice from Finding Nemo—Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.
My patients continue to amaze. The pathos I see played out daily removes any desire to watch Judge Judy or Jerry Springer. I live that stuff every day at work. I had a 5-person motor vehicle accident come in, all the victims on long boards and neck collars, complaining mightily of pain, and of course all non-English speakers. The ambulance crews report 5 “Hispanic” patients, but they all turn out to be Creole-speaking Haitians. (The crews just knew they were some kind of furriner.) We get them undone, examined and x-rayed, and the cop comes in later with eyewitnesses telling us that three of the ‘victims’ were not even in the car. They had been waiting on the side of the road for the wreck to happen, and jumped in afterwards. I was furious to find out after all that. I would have cheerfully cut their clothes off them into useless ribbons, (standard Trauma procedure) and given them foley catheters, had I known, but silly me. I thought when you came in on a long board, you were hurt. It is a bitch when you can’t believe anybody. Another guy called up in a snowstorm from a local crack hotel. Apparently his “fiancée” was pregnant, and they were out of food. He wondered if we could deliver some bread and milk to his hotel room, and was outraged that we wouldn’t get right on that problem. We all speak French, of course. “Fiancée” is defined as “the bitch/motherfucker I been sleepin’ wit lately”. That becomes “my baby-momma/ baby-daddy” with the passage of time. (and a 10 centimeter head through the birth canal.) Ouch, that’s gonna leave stretch marks. I have entire conversations with baby-mommas about their feverin’ babies, during which the mom never takes her thumb out of her own mouth, not even to talk to me. And, I have experts galore directing care from afar. I had a baby brought in with nothing apparently wrong, except he had been fussy, and had been banging his head against the bars of his crib. The opening complaint was “He been bangin his head on the crib and won’t sleep. Mom-mom say he need a CAT scan.” I couldn’t even speak. I did inquire as to whether mom-mom was a retired neuroradiologist, just to be sure I wasn’t missing something vital, but no, mom-mom was just an average Ja-náe. So I grabbed a stuffed cat that was in the nursing station by purest coincidence, brought it back to the bedside, waved it solemnly over the child while making a low, wavering whistle, and pronounced the CAT scan normal. That really put me over the edge, I am afraid.
And so, fellow travelers, as we wind our way through another year’s cycle of senseless violence, and mark the passage of our brief lives with our own minor triumphs over stupidity, let us ponder our good fortune at having crossed paths at all, and draw together to push back the darkness and fear. The darkness has loomed large this year, with another war, nuclear threats from the ever more petulant Kim Jong Il, another election year of lies and damned lies, and SARS lurking in every cough in my waiting room. But in the darkness are a few shining examples, a few points of light. Who can but thrill at our brave Commander in Chief flying to Baghdad for the most expensive turkey dinner ever served? And who could contemplate without shuddering, the prospect of a stunt like that giving us President Dick Cheney? Even with a personal look around, Dubya still can’t find those pesky weapons of mass destruction. Peace is Hell! Who will ever forget the chutzpah of “Baghdad Bob”, reporting live from the battle front? At least we caught that rat-bastard Saddam in the mother of all rat-holes. Let the Iranians have him. And who could imagine that Oxycontin would turn out to be addictive? (Oxy? What a Rush!) I know I worry daily about whether or not Michael will be exonerated, and get back to his transition from black boy to white woman. So brave! So twisted! And what of Ahhnold? Large, in charge…forget his tag line, “I’ll be back.” Now it is “You have a great ass!” I pause to note the passing of some notables from our midst. Fond farewell to Steven Ambrose, who gave us accessible, readable stories of our fathers’ and grandfathers’ war, and filled me with love and admiration for what a noble and spectacular thing they did. (See Band of Brothers!!) Bon voyage to Johnny Cash, Senators Paul Simon and Paul Wellstone, David Brinkley, Buddy Ebsen, Katherine Hepburn, Art Carney, Dr. Robert Atkins, and Dolly the Cloned Sheep. And a special farewell to Fred Rogers, who helped raise our kids and lots of others. And so, dear friends, as this year draws to a whimpering end, be of good cheer. Be faithful to what is right, foursquare against the forces of evil. And don’ be hatin’, yo. If you are charged with raising young’uns, find the strength to resist the easy path, and to hold them to standards your grandparents would have been proud of. My generation might have got off easy, but we have to draw the line in the sand here and now. May your enterprises be fruitful, and your circle of acquaintances ever larger and warmer. And may you keep a warm spot in the corner of your heart for us, as we do you. Cheers!
Dear Ones,
Alright already! I haven’t forgotten, I am just a little behind. I’m getting to it, just hold on, there. OK, here goes the 12th annual Not-Really-a-Holiday-Letter Holiday Letter. The motivation for me, I will tell you up front, is to inspire guilt in old friends, that I wrote and they didn’t, so you owe us one…call, write, or something. There is also a certain inertia after 11 years—can’t stop now. That said, I will now launch into the usual discussion of our year, the world in general, throw in a few warm-and-fuzzies at the end, and call it a wrap.
We are carrying on carrying on in Delaware, living in pleasant squalor in our ranch house by the Nanticoke. Nevermind that we can’t have guests over anymore, since all the bathrooms have crumbled into broken-tiled ruins, now covered (temporarily) with Plexiglas and caulk, just to tide us over til we win the lottery. Nevermind that the spare bedroom is taken over with sewing machines, and the dining room with computers, and both are metastasizing to all the surrounding rooms. Nevermind the junk in the front yard overgrown with “native flora”. It’s home. You just can’t be allowed to see it, lest you realize we have “gone native”, and are more red of neck than the reddest redneck who ever necked. The kids are good. We got a new one this year, on our usual whim. Everett already has his Ph.D. in Ebonics, but has been studying Chinese at our local Chinese restaurant, spurred on by a love of Chinese movies, as best we can figure. He also spent a month in an immersion Chinese language camp in northern Minnesota this summer. (he minored in Minnesowta Accent) His principal knew this, so when a Chinese exchange student arrived to her host family, and it immediately became apparent that it wasn’t going to work out, Everett was asked if we couldn’t pinch hit. Well the conversation here at home went something like:
Catherine (from the next room, while watching the news): “Honey, what would you think about having an exchange student here for the school year?”
Me (in the kitchen, reading): “I dunno, it would be OK I guess.”
Catherine: “I was just wondering.”
Me: “Oh. OK.”
Next day, the meaning of this innocent-sounding interchange became clear. When I arrived home from work, I found that Shu-Ting Cheung, a Hong-Kong teenager here for her senior year, was already ensconsed in Hannah’s bedroom, and Hannah had moved into the basement, now known as “her lair”. Shu-Ting is a funny, sweet kid, and a great role model of hard studying for our kids, and doesn’t eat much, so I can’t complain. She has broadened our horizons considerably, as I hope we have hers, also. Everett’s Chinese is coming along most amazingly, and he is off to Beijing next year for his junior year in a public high school. He wants to be Ambassador to China. Nice work, if he can get it. I advised him that the path to that career goal usually involves becoming filthy rich first, but he seems undaunted. Hannah, meanwhile has had a great year of softball, going as starting shortstop and second baseman to both to the Eastern Regional Tournament in Little league, and to the State Tournament on her High School team. She has college all figured out, having been accepted to NAPS, the Naval Academy Prep School, which will get her math and such up to speed for starting the Naval Academy in 2005. Success at NAPS guarantees her a spot at the Academy. She is pumped up! She wants to be a Marine, and kill bad guys. Go figure. But I’m hoping more for an Aegis Destroyer Captain. It will save us a cool hundred-K in college tuition, true enough. But we are proud of her and her determination to get accepted and go. This was her gig from the get-go.
Nat, meanwhile, is in an Army M.P. in Germany, after a year in Kosovo. They are being posted to Baghdad in April or May for a year or more. He seems resigned to soldiering through and getting out of the Army when his time is up. He is doing OK, doing a lot of growing up a long way from home.
Michele is finishing her degree in Philosophy as we speak, and graduates summa cum laude this week. Part of her practicum was to teach ethics and philo to prisoners at the local state prison. She got an eyeful of reality (not) TV there. We are so proud of her. She did marry her pilot boyfriend this summer, and is settled briefly in Salisbury. Eric, my new son-in-law, is training up on the regional jet CRJ 200 for Air Wisconsin/United Express. They are off to Chicago to live in February. We will miss having them close. He’s a real sweetheart.
Catherine has been (mostly) retired, sewing quilts for wounded soldiers, and generally doing what she wants. She is immersed and in love with the Patrick O’Brian series of sea novels, forging through the audio books, while sewing. (Addictive stuff, but worth it. Catch Master and Commander, for that fatal first taste) Being retired agrees with her, as I suspect it would me, too. She dotes on (spoils) the dogs, Tory and Rudy, keeps the kids in line, and saves a little energy for me, since I am home more. She is going to Montana in February (yikes!) to be a locum tenens midwife on an Indian reservation. We here on the home front will be living on canned stew the whole time, but we can hack it. Catherine and I are both trying to get our minds around being empty nesters this year, as we will very soon be. We actually have some diversions planned. Cath began to have a hankering for a boat again, and over my strenuous objections, we found ourselves boat shopping. A few sailboat tours later, she declared her desire for a motor boat, and the shopping became more serious. We wound up buying an Eagle 40 trawler, a slow, sturdy, workboaty kind of boat. We named her Chance, after our favorite force of nature. They had just finished a cute little marina in by our river not 3 miles from here, so it is the height of convenience to get down there, and we have spent many a night down there, reveling in the lapping of waves and the slapping of halyards. Our trip across the Chesapeake to put her up for the winter was a daymare of 30-knot winds, steep 8-10 foot waves and green water over the rails, but we were proud to have made it, and quite sure after all, that the boat is tougher than the people inside. I do like being a skipper again.
As for me, I am working away, more during the day, and more administratively, less clinically, so life is better, apart from the odd SARS scare. We are building a new department, and have a new clinical computer system, so all is chaos, which is after all our specialty. I have been riding my recumbent bike a good bit, to the amazement of the local rednecks, who have a hard time with adults who still ride bicycles, let alone racing lawn chairs. I just finished my second year of online law school, with exam grades pending and 3rd year starting mid January. I also passed the big hurdle in June, the 1st year California Bar Exam. But I got way behind after studying for that test, and then with Michele and Eric’s wedding, Hannah’s softball, Elizabeth Roberts’ wedding to Craig Gordon all competing for time in August, I got put on academic probation, ‘til I caught up. I was sweating it out at double speed these last three months, but I guess I squeaked by with the most superficial of readings in my subjects. My new mantra is Ellen DeGeneres’s voice from Finding Nemo—Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.
My patients continue to amaze. The pathos I see played out daily removes any desire to watch Judge Judy or Jerry Springer. I live that stuff every day at work. I had a 5-person motor vehicle accident come in, all the victims on long boards and neck collars, complaining mightily of pain, and of course all non-English speakers. The ambulance crews report 5 “Hispanic” patients, but they all turn out to be Creole-speaking Haitians. (The crews just knew they were some kind of furriner.) We get them undone, examined and x-rayed, and the cop comes in later with eyewitnesses telling us that three of the ‘victims’ were not even in the car. They had been waiting on the side of the road for the wreck to happen, and jumped in afterwards. I was furious to find out after all that. I would have cheerfully cut their clothes off them into useless ribbons, (standard Trauma procedure) and given them foley catheters, had I known, but silly me. I thought when you came in on a long board, you were hurt. It is a bitch when you can’t believe anybody. Another guy called up in a snowstorm from a local crack hotel. Apparently his “fiancée” was pregnant, and they were out of food. He wondered if we could deliver some bread and milk to his hotel room, and was outraged that we wouldn’t get right on that problem. We all speak French, of course. “Fiancée” is defined as “the bitch/motherfucker I been sleepin’ wit lately”. That becomes “my baby-momma/ baby-daddy” with the passage of time. (and a 10 centimeter head through the birth canal.) Ouch, that’s gonna leave stretch marks. I have entire conversations with baby-mommas about their feverin’ babies, during which the mom never takes her thumb out of her own mouth, not even to talk to me. And, I have experts galore directing care from afar. I had a baby brought in with nothing apparently wrong, except he had been fussy, and had been banging his head against the bars of his crib. The opening complaint was “He been bangin his head on the crib and won’t sleep. Mom-mom say he need a CAT scan.” I couldn’t even speak. I did inquire as to whether mom-mom was a retired neuroradiologist, just to be sure I wasn’t missing something vital, but no, mom-mom was just an average Ja-náe. So I grabbed a stuffed cat that was in the nursing station by purest coincidence, brought it back to the bedside, waved it solemnly over the child while making a low, wavering whistle, and pronounced the CAT scan normal. That really put me over the edge, I am afraid.
And so, fellow travelers, as we wind our way through another year’s cycle of senseless violence, and mark the passage of our brief lives with our own minor triumphs over stupidity, let us ponder our good fortune at having crossed paths at all, and draw together to push back the darkness and fear. The darkness has loomed large this year, with another war, nuclear threats from the ever more petulant Kim Jong Il, another election year of lies and damned lies, and SARS lurking in every cough in my waiting room. But in the darkness are a few shining examples, a few points of light. Who can but thrill at our brave Commander in Chief flying to Baghdad for the most expensive turkey dinner ever served? And who could contemplate without shuddering, the prospect of a stunt like that giving us President Dick Cheney? Even with a personal look around, Dubya still can’t find those pesky weapons of mass destruction. Peace is Hell! Who will ever forget the chutzpah of “Baghdad Bob”, reporting live from the battle front? At least we caught that rat-bastard Saddam in the mother of all rat-holes. Let the Iranians have him. And who could imagine that Oxycontin would turn out to be addictive? (Oxy? What a Rush!) I know I worry daily about whether or not Michael will be exonerated, and get back to his transition from black boy to white woman. So brave! So twisted! And what of Ahhnold? Large, in charge…forget his tag line, “I’ll be back.” Now it is “You have a great ass!” I pause to note the passing of some notables from our midst. Fond farewell to Steven Ambrose, who gave us accessible, readable stories of our fathers’ and grandfathers’ war, and filled me with love and admiration for what a noble and spectacular thing they did. (See Band of Brothers!!) Bon voyage to Johnny Cash, Senators Paul Simon and Paul Wellstone, David Brinkley, Buddy Ebsen, Katherine Hepburn, Art Carney, Dr. Robert Atkins, and Dolly the Cloned Sheep. And a special farewell to Fred Rogers, who helped raise our kids and lots of others. And so, dear friends, as this year draws to a whimpering end, be of good cheer. Be faithful to what is right, foursquare against the forces of evil. And don’ be hatin’, yo. If you are charged with raising young’uns, find the strength to resist the easy path, and to hold them to standards your grandparents would have been proud of. My generation might have got off easy, but we have to draw the line in the sand here and now. May your enterprises be fruitful, and your circle of acquaintances ever larger and warmer. And may you keep a warm spot in the corner of your heart for us, as we do you. Cheers!
Solstice 2002
Solstice 2002
Dear Ones,
I find myself here again, staring in fear at a blank page, a year later, a year older, a year grayer, and no wiser. It has occurred to me this year, that it is well and good that we SHOULD age and die as we do. There is no way in hell I could keep this up until age 120. I can barely imagine five more years of pulling at the harness, let alone another 50. So perhaps I am achieving some philosophic peace with the inevitable click of the ratchet, the spin of the globe, and the waning of my pre-spent youth. This is, as many of you know from long, rueful experience, the eleventh of a series of letters to my world in which I try to summarize our year, and invite nostalgic contact with old acquaintances. This year’s theme has proved elusive. Much has happened to challenge and vex us, and even to make us laugh, but too much of the former, I fear, and precious little of the latter. But onward ho. We remain in southern Delaware, I working away as an ER doc and fearless leader, managing our little Department mostly by throwing my body into each crisis as it comes along. (Crisis being defined “daybreak.”) But I have a fairly jolly crew of good docs, and except for schedule crunches due to military service, and other unscheduled departures, things go along fairly well with minimal stoking. Of course we get our daily compensation not from our pay, but from the many daily instances of snatching unfortunates from the jaws, (nay, flossing them from the very teeth) of death. At the beginning of the year, before it was determined in advance that we would be the new rulers of Iraq, I had an excess of staff, and was bold enough to embark on an online law school program. Well, all planned free time quickly evaporated as “things changed” and I have been struggling to find a spare minute to urinate ever since. I have fought hard to keep up, and as I write this, (while urinating, to save time) I have just finished my finals, at the end of my first year. I really did bite off more than I could chew, but am too polite to spit it out at the table, so I have carried on chewing. Next year will be easier, they say… I have learned lots, but in my current state of panic, pre and post exams, I cannot remember a thing. The real test will come in June, when I must pass a two-day test given by the California State Bar or, discontinue my program. You get three consecutive cracks at it, six months apart, but I hope to get it over with at the first go. I just keep reminding myself I can do it. For god’s sake, Dan Quayle is a lawyer. Meanwhile, my physical exercise program is ranked far behind sleeping and urinating in my Mazlovian needs hierarchy. So I feel I have aged shockingly in just one year. I try to ride my bike, but not as often as I should. I have a nifty recumbent (lying down) bike, which doesn’t hurt my butt or hands, and draws quizzical looks from the local rednecks. But even a new toy hasn’t dragged me out that much. I really feel the lack of physical conditioning when I am called upon to assist patients from chair to stretcher. We had a little 3-year old girl come in with asthma, unable to breathe at all. In our rush to get her from the wheelchair to the stretcher, I hadn’t the time to figure out much more than the urgency of the situation, except that I vaguely realized something wasn’t right. I grabbed her dress and made motions to pick her up out of the wheelchair, but nearly shot my intestines into my scrotum with the effort, and she didn’t budge. I looked again, and saw that my 3 year old weighed over a hundred pounds, and her elbows were the start of where her arms emerged from her sides, so that she looked like a giant thalidomide baby. A little more knee bending and a burst blood vessel or two, and we had her up on the stretcher, but I was regretting that lift for weeks afterwards, upon finding all my intestines in my scrotum. Opening her mouth to examine her, I saw that all her teeth were black circles, rotted off at the gum line, resembling more a wooden fence burned over in a prairie fire. We got her breathing again, fortunately, and two weeks later, I saw her walking around a local playground with a tootsie pop in her mouth, none the worse for wear. And so it goes. We also enjoy the “Name that Baby” competition at the registration window. It goes something like this—A young male “Playuh” appears in the registration window…
“My daughter in there. Can I see her?”
“Sure, what’s her name?”
“Shakeshia Collins?”
“No, we don’t have a Shakeshia Collins here.”
“How ‘bout Shakeshia Davis?”
“Nope, we don’t have one of those, either.”
“Well, her momma name Mofique.”
“What’s her mother’s last name?”
“I dunno…Bailey?”
“Sorry, sir, no luck there either.”
“Mofique Johnson?”
“No, sorry”
“You got any babies in there?”
“Yes, quite a few.”
“Can’t I go look?”
“Uh, no, sorry, that is not allowed. You will have to give us a name to be allowed back. But thanks for Playing!”
Catherine has retired this year, the lucky dog. She is happy as happy can be, quilting, baking, and just doing what she wants to do. But mostly, her focus is being home for the kids and me, and supporting my crazy, brutal schedule. She has had much time on her hands, actually, and has fallen in with thieves and highwaymen- the ruffians of conservative talk radio. After a daily brainwashing at the hands of Dr. Laura (I’ve seen you naked.) Schlessinger, Rush (Do you know any black people?) Limbaugh and Michael (Don’t call me savage.) Savage, she is not fit for dinner conversations on any subject more touchy than the weather. But we love her still, and when this phase passes, I’ll be there to support her next one…
Michele is finishing her philosophy degree at Salisbury University and will be wed this August to Eric, her pilot-fiancée and all around nice guy. She is “nesting” in a nice little house in Salisbury, and working at Pier One.
Nat is in the Army deployed as an MP to Kosovo of all places, protecting Muslims from savage Christians. He is adjusting to his new life, but is suddenly aware of just how long five years can be. I am proud of him, though. He has hunkered down to a tough job he took of his own accord, and he is doing well. He will come out of it a tough and resourceful fellow, I believe.
Hannah is a junior, a probationary driver (YIKES!), playing softball all over the east coast and starting to think about college. We are inviting her to think about ones we can actually afford, but she keeps sending away for brochures from fine, small, personalized-experience kinds of places I never heard of, which makes their claim for 24 thousand dollars yearly in tuition all the more ludicrous. How do people who do not play professional sports ever educate their children? I guess I need to find out.
Everett has taken a sudden interest in Taekwon Do (“It’s NOT karate, Dad!”) and has earned his blue belt already, aiming next for his red belt. He goes four nights a week, and practices forms out in the yard, shouting things in Korean which translate to “Slinking imperialist dog-bastard!”, and “Devious thieving rat-scum!” He needs all that and more at his new high school where there is a bitch-slappin’ chick fight daily, and a full-time state trooper on site to pat them down for weapons and saleable quantities of drugs. Ev worried me one week when he come home in a necklace with his name molded into it in large gold letters and a gold playboy outline on his front tooth. And We are beginning to figure out who he means when he addresses us collectively as “YO”. I did get his attention when I held a hand-mirror up to his face and said, “Bad news, Dude, you’re White!” Hey, I figure it is just a phase. He’ll get over it.
We also have a new Boxer pup at home after Darwin caught some gawdawful cancer and faded away. Catherine swore we would never again have another puppy, but that lasted about as long as “Read my lips, NO NEW TAXES!” Rudy was born on 9-11-2002, named for Hizzoner Rudy Giuliani. I won’t bore you with tales of chewed up valuables and excrement booby traps except to note that he did get Catherine’s 2 favorite credit cards out of her purse, and destroyed them. He got nothing else but the cards. I had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with that.
And what of the world? We have already taken the platinum tiara in the World’s Most Despised Countries Competition, handily defeating Yemen, North Korea, Russia, Israel, and Zimbabwe for the title. Israel got Miss Congeniality. The brief, sorry honeymoon after 9-11 hasn’t even kept us in the hearts of Europeans, and now the South Koreans want us out. Only the Somalis want us back. (“All is forgiven…please come back, and bring money!”) On the home front, we have beaten and smothered all political dissent into a fine, flavorless paste. Only the “race card” generates any excitement anymore. Imagine that… Trent Lott a bigot?? Who could have known?
And so, fellow strugglers, and stragglers, as we careen at 19 miles a second around our star, and respond blindly to the celestial rhythm that has shaped us and our culture since the beginning of time, let us gather to ourselves the ones we love, and cling to the “better angels of our nature”, which will make us better individuals of a savage species. Let us pause to salute the passage of a few bright lights from among their midst, including Steven Jay Gould, Ann Landers, Milton Berle, Justice Byron “Whizzer” White and Linda Lovelace. Let us struggle with our own demons and at least get a good kick in sometimes. May we refuse to accept the proposition that you must be a liar and panderer to hold political office. May we be successful in simplifying our lives, downsizing our consumer needs, refinancing while the rates are low, and reducing our impact on the fragile bubble we inhabit. I wish each of you a year of hope, freedom from fear and anxiety, and many instances of individually doing the right thing just because it is the right thing. Call, write, heckle, or visit. Until I burden you again next year-
Peace out, my dawgs
Dear Ones,
I find myself here again, staring in fear at a blank page, a year later, a year older, a year grayer, and no wiser. It has occurred to me this year, that it is well and good that we SHOULD age and die as we do. There is no way in hell I could keep this up until age 120. I can barely imagine five more years of pulling at the harness, let alone another 50. So perhaps I am achieving some philosophic peace with the inevitable click of the ratchet, the spin of the globe, and the waning of my pre-spent youth. This is, as many of you know from long, rueful experience, the eleventh of a series of letters to my world in which I try to summarize our year, and invite nostalgic contact with old acquaintances. This year’s theme has proved elusive. Much has happened to challenge and vex us, and even to make us laugh, but too much of the former, I fear, and precious little of the latter. But onward ho. We remain in southern Delaware, I working away as an ER doc and fearless leader, managing our little Department mostly by throwing my body into each crisis as it comes along. (Crisis being defined “daybreak.”) But I have a fairly jolly crew of good docs, and except for schedule crunches due to military service, and other unscheduled departures, things go along fairly well with minimal stoking. Of course we get our daily compensation not from our pay, but from the many daily instances of snatching unfortunates from the jaws, (nay, flossing them from the very teeth) of death. At the beginning of the year, before it was determined in advance that we would be the new rulers of Iraq, I had an excess of staff, and was bold enough to embark on an online law school program. Well, all planned free time quickly evaporated as “things changed” and I have been struggling to find a spare minute to urinate ever since. I have fought hard to keep up, and as I write this, (while urinating, to save time) I have just finished my finals, at the end of my first year. I really did bite off more than I could chew, but am too polite to spit it out at the table, so I have carried on chewing. Next year will be easier, they say… I have learned lots, but in my current state of panic, pre and post exams, I cannot remember a thing. The real test will come in June, when I must pass a two-day test given by the California State Bar or, discontinue my program. You get three consecutive cracks at it, six months apart, but I hope to get it over with at the first go. I just keep reminding myself I can do it. For god’s sake, Dan Quayle is a lawyer. Meanwhile, my physical exercise program is ranked far behind sleeping and urinating in my Mazlovian needs hierarchy. So I feel I have aged shockingly in just one year. I try to ride my bike, but not as often as I should. I have a nifty recumbent (lying down) bike, which doesn’t hurt my butt or hands, and draws quizzical looks from the local rednecks. But even a new toy hasn’t dragged me out that much. I really feel the lack of physical conditioning when I am called upon to assist patients from chair to stretcher. We had a little 3-year old girl come in with asthma, unable to breathe at all. In our rush to get her from the wheelchair to the stretcher, I hadn’t the time to figure out much more than the urgency of the situation, except that I vaguely realized something wasn’t right. I grabbed her dress and made motions to pick her up out of the wheelchair, but nearly shot my intestines into my scrotum with the effort, and she didn’t budge. I looked again, and saw that my 3 year old weighed over a hundred pounds, and her elbows were the start of where her arms emerged from her sides, so that she looked like a giant thalidomide baby. A little more knee bending and a burst blood vessel or two, and we had her up on the stretcher, but I was regretting that lift for weeks afterwards, upon finding all my intestines in my scrotum. Opening her mouth to examine her, I saw that all her teeth were black circles, rotted off at the gum line, resembling more a wooden fence burned over in a prairie fire. We got her breathing again, fortunately, and two weeks later, I saw her walking around a local playground with a tootsie pop in her mouth, none the worse for wear. And so it goes. We also enjoy the “Name that Baby” competition at the registration window. It goes something like this—A young male “Playuh” appears in the registration window…
“My daughter in there. Can I see her?”
“Sure, what’s her name?”
“Shakeshia Collins?”
“No, we don’t have a Shakeshia Collins here.”
“How ‘bout Shakeshia Davis?”
“Nope, we don’t have one of those, either.”
“Well, her momma name Mofique.”
“What’s her mother’s last name?”
“I dunno…Bailey?”
“Sorry, sir, no luck there either.”
“Mofique Johnson?”
“No, sorry”
“You got any babies in there?”
“Yes, quite a few.”
“Can’t I go look?”
“Uh, no, sorry, that is not allowed. You will have to give us a name to be allowed back. But thanks for Playing!”
Catherine has retired this year, the lucky dog. She is happy as happy can be, quilting, baking, and just doing what she wants to do. But mostly, her focus is being home for the kids and me, and supporting my crazy, brutal schedule. She has had much time on her hands, actually, and has fallen in with thieves and highwaymen- the ruffians of conservative talk radio. After a daily brainwashing at the hands of Dr. Laura (I’ve seen you naked.) Schlessinger, Rush (Do you know any black people?) Limbaugh and Michael (Don’t call me savage.) Savage, she is not fit for dinner conversations on any subject more touchy than the weather. But we love her still, and when this phase passes, I’ll be there to support her next one…
Michele is finishing her philosophy degree at Salisbury University and will be wed this August to Eric, her pilot-fiancée and all around nice guy. She is “nesting” in a nice little house in Salisbury, and working at Pier One.
Nat is in the Army deployed as an MP to Kosovo of all places, protecting Muslims from savage Christians. He is adjusting to his new life, but is suddenly aware of just how long five years can be. I am proud of him, though. He has hunkered down to a tough job he took of his own accord, and he is doing well. He will come out of it a tough and resourceful fellow, I believe.
Hannah is a junior, a probationary driver (YIKES!), playing softball all over the east coast and starting to think about college. We are inviting her to think about ones we can actually afford, but she keeps sending away for brochures from fine, small, personalized-experience kinds of places I never heard of, which makes their claim for 24 thousand dollars yearly in tuition all the more ludicrous. How do people who do not play professional sports ever educate their children? I guess I need to find out.
Everett has taken a sudden interest in Taekwon Do (“It’s NOT karate, Dad!”) and has earned his blue belt already, aiming next for his red belt. He goes four nights a week, and practices forms out in the yard, shouting things in Korean which translate to “Slinking imperialist dog-bastard!”, and “Devious thieving rat-scum!” He needs all that and more at his new high school where there is a bitch-slappin’ chick fight daily, and a full-time state trooper on site to pat them down for weapons and saleable quantities of drugs. Ev worried me one week when he come home in a necklace with his name molded into it in large gold letters and a gold playboy outline on his front tooth. And We are beginning to figure out who he means when he addresses us collectively as “YO”. I did get his attention when I held a hand-mirror up to his face and said, “Bad news, Dude, you’re White!” Hey, I figure it is just a phase. He’ll get over it.
We also have a new Boxer pup at home after Darwin caught some gawdawful cancer and faded away. Catherine swore we would never again have another puppy, but that lasted about as long as “Read my lips, NO NEW TAXES!” Rudy was born on 9-11-2002, named for Hizzoner Rudy Giuliani. I won’t bore you with tales of chewed up valuables and excrement booby traps except to note that he did get Catherine’s 2 favorite credit cards out of her purse, and destroyed them. He got nothing else but the cards. I had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with that.
And what of the world? We have already taken the platinum tiara in the World’s Most Despised Countries Competition, handily defeating Yemen, North Korea, Russia, Israel, and Zimbabwe for the title. Israel got Miss Congeniality. The brief, sorry honeymoon after 9-11 hasn’t even kept us in the hearts of Europeans, and now the South Koreans want us out. Only the Somalis want us back. (“All is forgiven…please come back, and bring money!”) On the home front, we have beaten and smothered all political dissent into a fine, flavorless paste. Only the “race card” generates any excitement anymore. Imagine that… Trent Lott a bigot?? Who could have known?
And so, fellow strugglers, and stragglers, as we careen at 19 miles a second around our star, and respond blindly to the celestial rhythm that has shaped us and our culture since the beginning of time, let us gather to ourselves the ones we love, and cling to the “better angels of our nature”, which will make us better individuals of a savage species. Let us pause to salute the passage of a few bright lights from among their midst, including Steven Jay Gould, Ann Landers, Milton Berle, Justice Byron “Whizzer” White and Linda Lovelace. Let us struggle with our own demons and at least get a good kick in sometimes. May we refuse to accept the proposition that you must be a liar and panderer to hold political office. May we be successful in simplifying our lives, downsizing our consumer needs, refinancing while the rates are low, and reducing our impact on the fragile bubble we inhabit. I wish each of you a year of hope, freedom from fear and anxiety, and many instances of individually doing the right thing just because it is the right thing. Call, write, heckle, or visit. Until I burden you again next year-
Peace out, my dawgs
Solstice 2001
Solstice 2001
Dear Ones,
It is very hard to be funny, all of a sudden. Agents of the Political Correctness Division of the Home Defense Office are everywhere, and one can’t be too careful. But mindful of our duty as Americans and Citizens of the so-called Free World, we will press on. Many of you have found yourselves in a hard-to-define blue funk since 9/11. I know we have, but feel not alone in your depressed state. Most everyone I know, both personally and professionally, has been in that same fog, and it is only now starting to lift. Thankfully Eli Lilly and Co. has ramped up production of Prozac, (aka Yuppie Sacrament, Mental Floss) even faster than Bayer is making Cipro, so progress is being made. We can all sit back on our therapeutic blood levels and realize, yeah, it sucks, but there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it, so the hell with it. Ah, the joys of Serotonin. I am so mellow now, I hardly even get upset seeing Ashcroft in charge of the entire country, when he couldn’t beat a dead man in the last election he ever entered, or ever will, I bet. Next will be the Supreme Court, and we’ll never be rid of him. At least Afghanistan has an end point, at which time we can leave them in the capable hands of tribal warlords and robber barons, to continue cheerfully slaughtering each other for another 500 years. I must say, those rascally al Qaeda guys are being real sports about it all, insisting on suicide. It would be a pity to have to feed ‘em. I understand that there is now real concern in Paradise about the large number of virgins suddenly required. Allah has run flat out, at 72 per martyr, and has had to resort to recycling virgins. Which, fortunately, only He can do, since He is Allah. Some of the faithful are said to be a bit disgruntled, but dare not complain. When it gets out that the martyrs henceforth will only get two recycled virgins each, there is bound to be some disappointment. I don’t envy Allah His problems.
Meanwhile, on the Home Front, things are moving along, just not as planned. Let’s see, Catherine is still toying with website design, but not yet bringing home a seven figure salary as originally projected. She has responded to the current crisis by tuning in religiously to Dr. Laura Schlesinger and quilting. That seems a better response than sleeping til noon, and then watching Jerry Springer all afternoon, while crushing a bag of Cheese Doodles. She has taken over yet another room for quilting alone, with the dining room already given over to Computers. The next big obsession will require a room addition. Her midwifery job is in transition, and may end soon, so she is casting about for another gig. She hasn’t yet answered my internet personal ad for a pampered homebound sex-kitten. My parents, meanwhile, are busy spending every cent they have left after the market free-fall, on their dream house in Canada, by Lake Erie. I know, dream house in Canada is an oxymoron, but get over it. The house is a wonder, and Dad says he never imagined going broke could be this much fun. Mom is recovering from knee replacement, and still not back to figure skating, but any time soon, I am sure. Catherine’s parents continue to travel the west in their 5th wheel, with another Alaskan tour behind them. Intrepid souls. Hannah is a big Soph, playing basketball now, and softball in the spring and summer. She is taking Driver’s Ed, and is full of helpful advice on how to improve my driving, all delivered in real time from the right hand seat. I am truly blessed. The braces are ready to come off next month. Everett is in the local middle school, in 8th grade, being introduced to a different slice of American Culture. He had a little shock, after transferring from Whitebread Elementary, where he used to go, and where he rarely heard teachers addressed as “Yo”, and “Woman”. But he is catching on, and can play a fairly credible game of “the Dozens”, stopping just short of “yo momma”, with casual grace. He has discovered he actually has to turn in his homework to get above an “F”. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Shel is almost done with her B.A. in philosophy, still dating Eric, her Very Nice Airline Pilot Boyfriend, and still cussing like a Marine gunney sergeant. Both still have their airline jobs, to everyone’s surprise. Nat is Homesick in Hawaii, having discovered that being an oppressed minority, even in Paradise, ain’t all is cracked up to be. But he has a job, and has broadened his horizons from little Rhode Island, and is doing well, for a dumb Haolee .
As for me, I am living crisis to crisis, as always. Staffing was briefly better, but that was just a cruel tease. I fear I will soon be back to 25 shifts a month, just to keep above water. Ugh. I do have some really good docs working with me now, so that part is vastly better. Just not enough of ‘em. What else? I have been accepted to Concord University Law School, “the nation’s premier (read ONLY) online law school”. It is four years of the usual curriculum, with professors on streaming video for the discussion groups. I start in January, and my first-year books have already arrived. Pretty exciting, but don’t ask me why, or what I plan to do with it afterwards. I haven’t a clue. I have just wanted to go to law school for forever, and maybe I can transition in midlife to a job where people don’t vomit on me and cuss me. I traded in my 500cc Virago motorcycle of last year for a 1520cc Honda Valkyrie, an impressive black and chrome beast. Catherine understood I would be getting a new bike, but a different one, and so when she saw it, she ran around in circles screaming and slobbering like she had been pepper-maced. She eventually got over it, after all her friends saw it, and said, in unison, “SWEET!” The construction guys at the hospital are most envious, and tell me so constantly. Alas, I have to confess I have been a bit of a slug regarding exercise lately, but I plan to get back on the wagon. Ah, the insecurities of aging…I cannot face myself in the mirror anymore, but my loving wife assures me I am still OK. I am not so sure… “Honey, does this condom make me look fat?”
As for work, we are in the front lines of America’s New War, (Copyright 2001, CNN) seeing the multitudes who are sure they have been exposed to “Amtrack”. (No kidding. I have had no less than six with that complaint, verbatim.) I had one lady tender a request for 60 days’ worth of Cipro, (“never mind the expense, I have insurance”) and by the way, could I also write a second prescription out for her dog? (No; and No, Dumb-ass.) America’s New War has not reduced our usual stock-in-trade, unfortunately. People still manage to pry the lid off the large economy size can of Whup-Ass, and then can’t get the lid back on. We have determined a remedy, though. After hundreds of interviews, we have identified the two most dangerous men in America, responsible for 80% of all violent assaults. The Dude Brothers, Dis and Sum, are the suspects, and if we can catch them by Friday, I might just have a decent shift. And if only the victims would avoid the most dangerous activity in America—minding their own business. That apparently pisses the Dude brothers off something awful. My favorite patient this year came in after a dust-up with one or the other of the brothers, I don’t recall which. Anyway, he needed a CAT Scan, and a bunch of other stuff, but was fighting us every step of the way. His last comment, before being rendered chemically inert, was “You motherfuckers ain’t doin’ nothin’ to me til you get my motherfucking mother.” Parse THAT, ghetto grammarians. I also had a divorced couple, who turned up repeatedly with their FLK (funny looking kid) in the night. I asked them why they always came in together, even though they were divorced, and they said, “We may no longer be married, but we are still cousins.” Gotta admit, their answer made perfect sense. You do have to wonder how the patients struggle through, after all. They just flock in with complaints trivial and profound, each certain that THIS IS IT, something terrible is about to happen, and each without a clue. I try to give them a clue, multiple clues in fact, (it was Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the lead pipe) but to no avail. So let’s see who is…the Weakest Link!
Anyhow, dear friends, I must pause to note the passing of my wonderful Uncle Donald Brown, European Theatre WWII vet and all-around great guy. I spent some time with him and the family this spring, hearing some of his war experiences, and am ever glad I took the time. Also gone is my dog Darwin, who took ill this summer and had to be put down. I was just getting him to the stage of being a good dog. Tory, the Jack Russell terrorist, misses him, too. Fare well, also, to Douglas Adams, of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” fame, who gave me many a belly-laugh, and to Patrick O’Brian, author of the highly addictive Aubrey-Maturin series of historical sea novels. I am halfway through my second reading of the 19 books. You can curse me later, if you should also become addicted. And you should.
And so, dear friends, and fellow infidels, as the world recoils from eternal darkness, let us all pull together, let us resist the storm of religious extremism, (foreign and domestic) and claw off the lee shore of complacency. Let us pierce the fog of our collective post-traumatic stress syndrome, rally round the flag, boys, and keep the powder dry. Let us endure with good humor the collective embarrassment of public whole-body searches and long lines at airports. “Can you invert your belt buckle, please, sir?” Can I even find my belt buckle? Can I borrow your scanning wand? Let us pause to reflect how lucky we truly are, and be thankful we do not face the problems of the generation just gone by. We should hope to be that strong and resilient. Sure, all is fleeting, tenuous, and the future is uncertain. It was always so, but we have lived these past 30 years in a pleasant dream world, and have been roused from our slumber. Sure, I prefer being awakened gently, by someone with soft hands and magnificent breasts, but a cold bucket of water is all you get, so get over it. Seize the day, for tomorrow is too hard to plan for. Let your solace be found in your friends and family, and not in demagogues, comforting lies, and mind-altering substances. (chocolate and fresh Starbucks coffee, in moderation, excepted.) May the market return to levels reflecting our true strength, may we all refinance at the precise bottom of the interest curve, and may we never again become bored enough to wonder about Gary Condit, or J. Lo’s latest fashion statement. I will go through my smoking, irradiated mail daily for a word of reply from each of you, and hope for each of you that all is as well as well can be. We will struggle on here, and prevail, inshallah. You can rely on it.
Fondling yours
Dear Ones,
It is very hard to be funny, all of a sudden. Agents of the Political Correctness Division of the Home Defense Office are everywhere, and one can’t be too careful. But mindful of our duty as Americans and Citizens of the so-called Free World, we will press on. Many of you have found yourselves in a hard-to-define blue funk since 9/11. I know we have, but feel not alone in your depressed state. Most everyone I know, both personally and professionally, has been in that same fog, and it is only now starting to lift. Thankfully Eli Lilly and Co. has ramped up production of Prozac, (aka Yuppie Sacrament, Mental Floss) even faster than Bayer is making Cipro, so progress is being made. We can all sit back on our therapeutic blood levels and realize, yeah, it sucks, but there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it, so the hell with it. Ah, the joys of Serotonin. I am so mellow now, I hardly even get upset seeing Ashcroft in charge of the entire country, when he couldn’t beat a dead man in the last election he ever entered, or ever will, I bet. Next will be the Supreme Court, and we’ll never be rid of him. At least Afghanistan has an end point, at which time we can leave them in the capable hands of tribal warlords and robber barons, to continue cheerfully slaughtering each other for another 500 years. I must say, those rascally al Qaeda guys are being real sports about it all, insisting on suicide. It would be a pity to have to feed ‘em. I understand that there is now real concern in Paradise about the large number of virgins suddenly required. Allah has run flat out, at 72 per martyr, and has had to resort to recycling virgins. Which, fortunately, only He can do, since He is Allah. Some of the faithful are said to be a bit disgruntled, but dare not complain. When it gets out that the martyrs henceforth will only get two recycled virgins each, there is bound to be some disappointment. I don’t envy Allah His problems.
Meanwhile, on the Home Front, things are moving along, just not as planned. Let’s see, Catherine is still toying with website design, but not yet bringing home a seven figure salary as originally projected. She has responded to the current crisis by tuning in religiously to Dr. Laura Schlesinger and quilting. That seems a better response than sleeping til noon, and then watching Jerry Springer all afternoon, while crushing a bag of Cheese Doodles. She has taken over yet another room for quilting alone, with the dining room already given over to Computers. The next big obsession will require a room addition. Her midwifery job is in transition, and may end soon, so she is casting about for another gig. She hasn’t yet answered my internet personal ad for a pampered homebound sex-kitten. My parents, meanwhile, are busy spending every cent they have left after the market free-fall, on their dream house in Canada, by Lake Erie. I know, dream house in Canada is an oxymoron, but get over it. The house is a wonder, and Dad says he never imagined going broke could be this much fun. Mom is recovering from knee replacement, and still not back to figure skating, but any time soon, I am sure. Catherine’s parents continue to travel the west in their 5th wheel, with another Alaskan tour behind them. Intrepid souls. Hannah is a big Soph, playing basketball now, and softball in the spring and summer. She is taking Driver’s Ed, and is full of helpful advice on how to improve my driving, all delivered in real time from the right hand seat. I am truly blessed. The braces are ready to come off next month. Everett is in the local middle school, in 8th grade, being introduced to a different slice of American Culture. He had a little shock, after transferring from Whitebread Elementary, where he used to go, and where he rarely heard teachers addressed as “Yo”, and “Woman”. But he is catching on, and can play a fairly credible game of “the Dozens”, stopping just short of “yo momma”, with casual grace. He has discovered he actually has to turn in his homework to get above an “F”. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Shel is almost done with her B.A. in philosophy, still dating Eric, her Very Nice Airline Pilot Boyfriend, and still cussing like a Marine gunney sergeant. Both still have their airline jobs, to everyone’s surprise. Nat is Homesick in Hawaii, having discovered that being an oppressed minority, even in Paradise, ain’t all is cracked up to be. But he has a job, and has broadened his horizons from little Rhode Island, and is doing well, for a dumb Haolee .
As for me, I am living crisis to crisis, as always. Staffing was briefly better, but that was just a cruel tease. I fear I will soon be back to 25 shifts a month, just to keep above water. Ugh. I do have some really good docs working with me now, so that part is vastly better. Just not enough of ‘em. What else? I have been accepted to Concord University Law School, “the nation’s premier (read ONLY) online law school”. It is four years of the usual curriculum, with professors on streaming video for the discussion groups. I start in January, and my first-year books have already arrived. Pretty exciting, but don’t ask me why, or what I plan to do with it afterwards. I haven’t a clue. I have just wanted to go to law school for forever, and maybe I can transition in midlife to a job where people don’t vomit on me and cuss me. I traded in my 500cc Virago motorcycle of last year for a 1520cc Honda Valkyrie, an impressive black and chrome beast. Catherine understood I would be getting a new bike, but a different one, and so when she saw it, she ran around in circles screaming and slobbering like she had been pepper-maced. She eventually got over it, after all her friends saw it, and said, in unison, “SWEET!” The construction guys at the hospital are most envious, and tell me so constantly. Alas, I have to confess I have been a bit of a slug regarding exercise lately, but I plan to get back on the wagon. Ah, the insecurities of aging…I cannot face myself in the mirror anymore, but my loving wife assures me I am still OK. I am not so sure… “Honey, does this condom make me look fat?”
As for work, we are in the front lines of America’s New War, (Copyright 2001, CNN) seeing the multitudes who are sure they have been exposed to “Amtrack”. (No kidding. I have had no less than six with that complaint, verbatim.) I had one lady tender a request for 60 days’ worth of Cipro, (“never mind the expense, I have insurance”) and by the way, could I also write a second prescription out for her dog? (No; and No, Dumb-ass.) America’s New War has not reduced our usual stock-in-trade, unfortunately. People still manage to pry the lid off the large economy size can of Whup-Ass, and then can’t get the lid back on. We have determined a remedy, though. After hundreds of interviews, we have identified the two most dangerous men in America, responsible for 80% of all violent assaults. The Dude Brothers, Dis and Sum, are the suspects, and if we can catch them by Friday, I might just have a decent shift. And if only the victims would avoid the most dangerous activity in America—minding their own business. That apparently pisses the Dude brothers off something awful. My favorite patient this year came in after a dust-up with one or the other of the brothers, I don’t recall which. Anyway, he needed a CAT Scan, and a bunch of other stuff, but was fighting us every step of the way. His last comment, before being rendered chemically inert, was “You motherfuckers ain’t doin’ nothin’ to me til you get my motherfucking mother.” Parse THAT, ghetto grammarians. I also had a divorced couple, who turned up repeatedly with their FLK (funny looking kid) in the night. I asked them why they always came in together, even though they were divorced, and they said, “We may no longer be married, but we are still cousins.” Gotta admit, their answer made perfect sense. You do have to wonder how the patients struggle through, after all. They just flock in with complaints trivial and profound, each certain that THIS IS IT, something terrible is about to happen, and each without a clue. I try to give them a clue, multiple clues in fact, (it was Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the lead pipe) but to no avail. So let’s see who is…the Weakest Link!
Anyhow, dear friends, I must pause to note the passing of my wonderful Uncle Donald Brown, European Theatre WWII vet and all-around great guy. I spent some time with him and the family this spring, hearing some of his war experiences, and am ever glad I took the time. Also gone is my dog Darwin, who took ill this summer and had to be put down. I was just getting him to the stage of being a good dog. Tory, the Jack Russell terrorist, misses him, too. Fare well, also, to Douglas Adams, of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” fame, who gave me many a belly-laugh, and to Patrick O’Brian, author of the highly addictive Aubrey-Maturin series of historical sea novels. I am halfway through my second reading of the 19 books. You can curse me later, if you should also become addicted. And you should.
And so, dear friends, and fellow infidels, as the world recoils from eternal darkness, let us all pull together, let us resist the storm of religious extremism, (foreign and domestic) and claw off the lee shore of complacency. Let us pierce the fog of our collective post-traumatic stress syndrome, rally round the flag, boys, and keep the powder dry. Let us endure with good humor the collective embarrassment of public whole-body searches and long lines at airports. “Can you invert your belt buckle, please, sir?” Can I even find my belt buckle? Can I borrow your scanning wand? Let us pause to reflect how lucky we truly are, and be thankful we do not face the problems of the generation just gone by. We should hope to be that strong and resilient. Sure, all is fleeting, tenuous, and the future is uncertain. It was always so, but we have lived these past 30 years in a pleasant dream world, and have been roused from our slumber. Sure, I prefer being awakened gently, by someone with soft hands and magnificent breasts, but a cold bucket of water is all you get, so get over it. Seize the day, for tomorrow is too hard to plan for. Let your solace be found in your friends and family, and not in demagogues, comforting lies, and mind-altering substances. (chocolate and fresh Starbucks coffee, in moderation, excepted.) May the market return to levels reflecting our true strength, may we all refinance at the precise bottom of the interest curve, and may we never again become bored enough to wonder about Gary Condit, or J. Lo’s latest fashion statement. I will go through my smoking, irradiated mail daily for a word of reply from each of you, and hope for each of you that all is as well as well can be. We will struggle on here, and prevail, inshallah. You can rely on it.
Fondling yours
Solstice 2000
Solstice, 2000
Dear Ones:
What a whirl, what a whirl this year has been. First of all, none of you was fooled, I am sure, into thinking that 1-1-00 was the start of the new Millennium. In that we don’t begin to number things with zero, the true millennial change will of course be this January 1st. All the computers of the world know this, and are waiting till this year to screw up. Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the keyboard…(soundtrack of Jaws rises…dahhh dunt. Dahhhdunt-dunt.) I hope all those army surplus MREs and flashlight batteries you have stashed in the basement are still good. The ammo will be fine for years, as long as you keep it dry.
Anyway, as I write this, we still have no official result of our presidential election. Amazing. It was great fun to see the networks get it wrong, and then wrong again. But still the talking heads kept talking, long after there was nothing left to say. That validated completely my decision last year to cut the cable TV off. If you missed Dan Rather being pompous, then wrong, then more pompous, then wrong again, and even then turning it up yet another notch, you missed a virtuoso at work. What a hose-head. Now is anybody really surprised that they can’t count in Florida? I was born there, and as a result, have terrific math anxiety to this day, so I can feel their pain. And what about this poor bastard Chad? The way they are tearing him apart in the press, he will never be able to show his face in Palm Beach again. But I am certain they will duke it out one way or another, and we will have one or another minor variation on the bottom-feeding creature Prevaricator slimissimus, the common bald-faced politician. Which will it be, the wooden head or the wooden personality? Does it matter all that much? Probably not. To keep it amusing, we elected a dead Democrat over a live Republican, (good call, Missouri) and a scorned woman in NY State. (Heck hath no fury…) Now, let the Games begin.
As for us, the year has been, uh, interesting. We did complete the deal on the beach house, (New address: 2829 rue d’Awakening, Broadkill Beach.) We spent the next many weeks stripping off totally twee wallpaper, and repainting. Those cathedral ceilings are a bitch, I can tell you. I would have to be an alcoholic to be a painter…unbelievably boring work. Then we had a porch built over the second storey deck. It all began innocently enough, with a query to a designer/builder about replacing some rotted wood railings. Well replacing them would only be a waste, if we ultimately decided to do a screen porch later, so better do it now. And screens fare poorly in the wind and salt, so why not put in real walls and glass patio sliders instead? And why not tile the floor, since the crews are here, and what the heck, wire it up, put some insulation and a heater, and we now have a three-season room. And that is how 2,000 bucks turns into 27,000 in a heartbeat. The architect didn’t look strong enough to hold me upside down by one ankle and shake out that last nickel, but never judge a book by its cover, I now say. The porch is bee-you-tee-full, after all’s said and done. We are doing well renting it out, though it is not self-supporting. So we be livin’ in subsidized housing, yo. And thanks for your taxpayer support. Lemme know if you want to rent…Catherine had a hard time after we had just repainted and furnished the place with letting go and renting. She became known as the “Cleaning Nazi”, though I am sure that was meant in the best possible sense. She has since seen the error in her ways, (she was only following orders) but I am afraid a couple of the early tenants may be making other plans this year, rather than a repeat of having to scrub the entire house out on their hands and knees with a toothbrush, or face summary confiscation of their damage deposit, and the hourly execution of one of their loved ones.
Catherine has been learning web design, playing at being a home network administrator, and buying mo’ better computers for fun. I am writing you on a very nice hand-me-down, in fact. She approached me a few months back with an article from “Modern Maturity”, about a couple strangely like ourselves. They began the article as dumpy middle aged yuppies, and through an exercise plan, finished up as hardbodied middle aged yuppies, with all kinds of energy for work and sex. So far, so good. I had literally just finished reading the article, when a delivery van pulled up, and a couple of buffed hotties in their 20s hopped out and began unloading a mountain of exercise equipment. Apparently some non-committal grunt on my part, quite possibly associated with the simple passage of gas, was taken as the go-ahead, and my enthusiastic wife and reason-for-living went full speed ahead, as usual. She is now in week 8 of 12 in Bill Phillips’ “Body for Life” program, along with Michele, pumping iron 6 days a week, and they are really sticking to it. And Bill really appreciates their contributions to his retirement fund, with their book purchase, and daily consumption of 3 of his personally endorsed protein shakes. I never did sign on, so I am serving as the control rat in the experiment. They are doing great, growing muscles and losing weight. I am still doing some running 2-3 times a week, so I am not a complete slug, but I am not building a hard body or losing weight. Only height. If I have anything to say about it, my biography will not be titled The Waistband, by T.S.Eliot. More like Sled Dog, by Preston MacKenzie, RCMP.
The Kiddos are great. Hannah lobbied for a change to a bigger high school, (well, carried on an Intifada, to be honest) and so she is at Sussex Tech, learning environmental science and auto mechanics. They have a basketball and a softball team, and she is happy and doing well. She is now 14, sheathed in braces, denim hip-huggers and Oxy 10, and in her rebellious phase. (at least I hope this is her rebellious phase) But at least she still likes Dad so far.
Everett volunteered for baseball this year, and looked very “fly” in his Braves blue and gray. I worked hard with him in all my spare time on his hitting, and got his mechanics pretty well tuned up. He began the season as a walk or an easy out, but ended up a surprise hitter, surprising mostly himself. A big, imposing pitcher from their nemesis opposing team sneered at Evie as he stepped into the box. Perhaps Evie’s confidence was excessively Ruthian as he indicated the left field fence with his bat and stepped in. But he ripped the first pitch into left field, in what became known locally as “the shot heard round the world.” The Cheshire Cat never grinned so large. He remains at Salisbury School, preferring the small classes and personal attention to adolescent anonymity and anomie. Which is fine with me. He was already elected the class Valetudinarian, which, according to the Oxford Dictionary, means hypochondriac. Unfortunately, I looked it up too late to prevent the little press release I sent, announcing the fact of his election, from going into the local paper. Is my face red or what?
Michele, aka Miso Wong, is now home again, working out of Salisbury for USAir Express. She has a hate-hate thing going with her work as a “Skywaitress”, (aka Cabin Safety Specialist, or Sky-Muffin) as she calls it, but she does fly all over in her free time, and knows all kinds of cool stuff like how to identify planes at a glance, and all the three letter codes for airports. Her co-workers tell us she really was cut out to be the pilot, since she pretty much tells everyone what to do, and when to do it. She would prefer the leap to CEO, without that petty intermediate stuff. She’s really doing great, gathering herself for school and long term plans. She and her mom are working out all kinds of past misunderstandings at the top of their lungs, so great progress is being made. If volume equals progress, we are nearly at world peace.
Nat is finishing up a two-year degree, and starting a T-shirt business, doing remarkably well selling his own designs, based on graffiti. His artistic talent is finally coming to the fore. In the old days, his art, applied to local walls in the dark of night, under technically very challenging conditions, was never appreciated for the finely focused expression of adolescent fin-de-grand-siecle angst that it truly was. Well all that is about to change. He has really benefited from electronic banking, also, because he could never sign such a small thing as a check with spray paint. He is still in RI, and makes a stealth visit from time to time. I am proud of him going back to school on his own initiative, and hanging in there.
The Big Dog, Darwin, has a new friend, Tory, the Jack Russell Terrier. (Terrorist) We got her at a discount, since she was an accidental consanguineous mating, originally named “Oops”. But she fits in around here just fine. The local bias is that being inbred is a plus, actually. She is very personable, well behaved, but loves to chew things up. Many, many things. I lobbied for the name “Jihad”, but was overruled. Both dogs went to obedience school with “Sergeant Jeannette”, and now Darwin will heel, sit, lie down, and miracle of miracles, come when called. All we have to do is imitate the Sergeant, and he begins to quiver and quake. It is damn fine being the alpha wolf again.
My year has been a blur of work and sleep, unfortunately. I lost a full timer, and have sucked up most of those shifts, just to keep things going at all. I worked 35 consecutive 12 hour night shifts in July-August-September, a record I hope no one ever even attempts again. When a whole month goes by where the high point of each day is a dump and a shower, you are doing something wrong. The light is at the end of the tunnel, I think. Despite all that, I did pass my board exam in Emergency Medicine this year. The Oral Exam felt more like a Newfoundland seal-clubbing party, with me as the baby seal, but somehow I wriggled through a hole in the ice, and survived. I was also elected to Fellowship in the American College of Physicians, so I get to use more letters after my name. I am trying a new strategy of doing one thing at a time before tackling another, and it seems to be working. Next is the Great American Novel, and then my Pilot’s license, for a reward. And after that, Catherine promises to resume marital relations.
I did get a very-used motorcycle this summer, for cheap thrills. Cheaper than a divorce, for sure. The model name is a “Virago”, which in the Oxford Dictionary, is defined as “a fierce or abusive woman.” But don’t tell Catherine. I have really enjoyed riding again, weaving along to miss the woolly bears crawling like mad across the road, and feeling the wind and smelling the smells. (Was that chicken shit, or sun-broiled road kill?) On a still fall morning, riding through the shadows across the road, the tongues of shaded air hit like a cold slap, followed by the warm kiss of sunlit air. It really is a physical world you lose track of in a car. The kids think it is cool to have dad pick them up from the bus on the bike. I mostly dig the black leather jacket with all the zippers and belts. I look pretty tuff until I take the helmet off, and then everybody realizes it is just me.
The patients continue to amuse and provide perspective. I had an old farmer come dragging in at the end of my shift, just when I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge. He hadn’t taken the time to remove his barn boots before running in to see me with his belly pain he had had for 24 hours, and he tracked animal manure all the way to the exam table. He was the sort who would come only when near death, so I knew he was hurting. His problem was quickly tracked down to an incarcerated hernia, requiring a trip to the operating room, and part of my exam necessarily included a rectal exam. He lay on his side with his jeans hiked down, caked in shit from head to toe, and reeking to high heaven. I was mouth breathing for all I am worth, just to keep from being driven from the room. Just as I get my gloved finger up his butt, he looks over his shoulder at me and says, “Doc, I wouldn’t have your job!” I gotta tell you, that meant a lot to me, coming from him. Maybe I could paint houses…I also had a girl come in repeatedly with claims of being pregnant and bleeding. Repetitive exams and tests for pregnancy were negative, but still she persisted in insisting she was pregnant, and returning at each menstrual period for another evaluation, complaining quite dramatically that she was miscarrying. She would push her belly out to look pregnant, and move her abdominal muscles as she was being examined, and exclaim “There, didn’t you feel the baby move?” After the third go-round, I tried gently to bring her to reality, by telling her she was not pregnant, no matter how much she might wish it, and that perhaps she might be in need of some counseling help. There was no possibility of a mistake, I explained; our tests were quite accurate. “They’s something wrong wid yo testes!” was her reply, and she stomped out. I checked myself quickly, and they were both right where I had left them. I swear, it was never me who tried and failed to get her pregnant, but she had me scared there, for a minute.
And so dear friends and confidants, as our weary world spins through another cycle of human stupidity and greed, and we brace ourselves for more of the same, be of good cheer, and of certain knowledge, that we will do better. Never mind the evidence of History. We have to do better. In fact, considering the past, how could we do worse? Any worse, and the cockroaches are standing by to inherit the Earth. May we all find affirmation in the small things that matter, in friendships renewed, in giving and receiving praise for work well done, in forgiveness for the past, and in commitment to better times ahead. May our portfolios at least remain flat during the coming “reset”, and our teeth not grind excessively enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous “customers”. May our aluminum levels remain low, our chondroitin levels high, and our endorphins remain ever ready to ease our pain. (Naturally) May Mad Cow Disease stay away from our shores, and a cure be found for Mad Conservative Disease. And may we come to know, finally, who let the dogs out? Stay well; wear seat belts and sunscreen; and condoms, if you find yourself back into the free market economy. Do all things in moderation except being immoderately happy at being what you are, where you are. And write me back, goddammit.
Excellent Xmas, Merry Millennium, Cheery Chanukah, Kwazy Kwanzaa, Salubrious Solstice, Rip-Roaring Ramadan, Cheers, Warm Regards, All the Best, Love, Peace, or Whatever.
Dear Ones:
What a whirl, what a whirl this year has been. First of all, none of you was fooled, I am sure, into thinking that 1-1-00 was the start of the new Millennium. In that we don’t begin to number things with zero, the true millennial change will of course be this January 1st. All the computers of the world know this, and are waiting till this year to screw up. Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the keyboard…(soundtrack of Jaws rises…dahhh dunt. Dahhhdunt-dunt.) I hope all those army surplus MREs and flashlight batteries you have stashed in the basement are still good. The ammo will be fine for years, as long as you keep it dry.
Anyway, as I write this, we still have no official result of our presidential election. Amazing. It was great fun to see the networks get it wrong, and then wrong again. But still the talking heads kept talking, long after there was nothing left to say. That validated completely my decision last year to cut the cable TV off. If you missed Dan Rather being pompous, then wrong, then more pompous, then wrong again, and even then turning it up yet another notch, you missed a virtuoso at work. What a hose-head. Now is anybody really surprised that they can’t count in Florida? I was born there, and as a result, have terrific math anxiety to this day, so I can feel their pain. And what about this poor bastard Chad? The way they are tearing him apart in the press, he will never be able to show his face in Palm Beach again. But I am certain they will duke it out one way or another, and we will have one or another minor variation on the bottom-feeding creature Prevaricator slimissimus, the common bald-faced politician. Which will it be, the wooden head or the wooden personality? Does it matter all that much? Probably not. To keep it amusing, we elected a dead Democrat over a live Republican, (good call, Missouri) and a scorned woman in NY State. (Heck hath no fury…) Now, let the Games begin.
As for us, the year has been, uh, interesting. We did complete the deal on the beach house, (New address: 2829 rue d’Awakening, Broadkill Beach.) We spent the next many weeks stripping off totally twee wallpaper, and repainting. Those cathedral ceilings are a bitch, I can tell you. I would have to be an alcoholic to be a painter…unbelievably boring work. Then we had a porch built over the second storey deck. It all began innocently enough, with a query to a designer/builder about replacing some rotted wood railings. Well replacing them would only be a waste, if we ultimately decided to do a screen porch later, so better do it now. And screens fare poorly in the wind and salt, so why not put in real walls and glass patio sliders instead? And why not tile the floor, since the crews are here, and what the heck, wire it up, put some insulation and a heater, and we now have a three-season room. And that is how 2,000 bucks turns into 27,000 in a heartbeat. The architect didn’t look strong enough to hold me upside down by one ankle and shake out that last nickel, but never judge a book by its cover, I now say. The porch is bee-you-tee-full, after all’s said and done. We are doing well renting it out, though it is not self-supporting. So we be livin’ in subsidized housing, yo. And thanks for your taxpayer support. Lemme know if you want to rent…Catherine had a hard time after we had just repainted and furnished the place with letting go and renting. She became known as the “Cleaning Nazi”, though I am sure that was meant in the best possible sense. She has since seen the error in her ways, (she was only following orders) but I am afraid a couple of the early tenants may be making other plans this year, rather than a repeat of having to scrub the entire house out on their hands and knees with a toothbrush, or face summary confiscation of their damage deposit, and the hourly execution of one of their loved ones.
Catherine has been learning web design, playing at being a home network administrator, and buying mo’ better computers for fun. I am writing you on a very nice hand-me-down, in fact. She approached me a few months back with an article from “Modern Maturity”, about a couple strangely like ourselves. They began the article as dumpy middle aged yuppies, and through an exercise plan, finished up as hardbodied middle aged yuppies, with all kinds of energy for work and sex. So far, so good. I had literally just finished reading the article, when a delivery van pulled up, and a couple of buffed hotties in their 20s hopped out and began unloading a mountain of exercise equipment. Apparently some non-committal grunt on my part, quite possibly associated with the simple passage of gas, was taken as the go-ahead, and my enthusiastic wife and reason-for-living went full speed ahead, as usual. She is now in week 8 of 12 in Bill Phillips’ “Body for Life” program, along with Michele, pumping iron 6 days a week, and they are really sticking to it. And Bill really appreciates their contributions to his retirement fund, with their book purchase, and daily consumption of 3 of his personally endorsed protein shakes. I never did sign on, so I am serving as the control rat in the experiment. They are doing great, growing muscles and losing weight. I am still doing some running 2-3 times a week, so I am not a complete slug, but I am not building a hard body or losing weight. Only height. If I have anything to say about it, my biography will not be titled The Waistband, by T.S.Eliot. More like Sled Dog, by Preston MacKenzie, RCMP.
The Kiddos are great. Hannah lobbied for a change to a bigger high school, (well, carried on an Intifada, to be honest) and so she is at Sussex Tech, learning environmental science and auto mechanics. They have a basketball and a softball team, and she is happy and doing well. She is now 14, sheathed in braces, denim hip-huggers and Oxy 10, and in her rebellious phase. (at least I hope this is her rebellious phase) But at least she still likes Dad so far.
Everett volunteered for baseball this year, and looked very “fly” in his Braves blue and gray. I worked hard with him in all my spare time on his hitting, and got his mechanics pretty well tuned up. He began the season as a walk or an easy out, but ended up a surprise hitter, surprising mostly himself. A big, imposing pitcher from their nemesis opposing team sneered at Evie as he stepped into the box. Perhaps Evie’s confidence was excessively Ruthian as he indicated the left field fence with his bat and stepped in. But he ripped the first pitch into left field, in what became known locally as “the shot heard round the world.” The Cheshire Cat never grinned so large. He remains at Salisbury School, preferring the small classes and personal attention to adolescent anonymity and anomie. Which is fine with me. He was already elected the class Valetudinarian, which, according to the Oxford Dictionary, means hypochondriac. Unfortunately, I looked it up too late to prevent the little press release I sent, announcing the fact of his election, from going into the local paper. Is my face red or what?
Michele, aka Miso Wong, is now home again, working out of Salisbury for USAir Express. She has a hate-hate thing going with her work as a “Skywaitress”, (aka Cabin Safety Specialist, or Sky-Muffin) as she calls it, but she does fly all over in her free time, and knows all kinds of cool stuff like how to identify planes at a glance, and all the three letter codes for airports. Her co-workers tell us she really was cut out to be the pilot, since she pretty much tells everyone what to do, and when to do it. She would prefer the leap to CEO, without that petty intermediate stuff. She’s really doing great, gathering herself for school and long term plans. She and her mom are working out all kinds of past misunderstandings at the top of their lungs, so great progress is being made. If volume equals progress, we are nearly at world peace.
Nat is finishing up a two-year degree, and starting a T-shirt business, doing remarkably well selling his own designs, based on graffiti. His artistic talent is finally coming to the fore. In the old days, his art, applied to local walls in the dark of night, under technically very challenging conditions, was never appreciated for the finely focused expression of adolescent fin-de-grand-siecle angst that it truly was. Well all that is about to change. He has really benefited from electronic banking, also, because he could never sign such a small thing as a check with spray paint. He is still in RI, and makes a stealth visit from time to time. I am proud of him going back to school on his own initiative, and hanging in there.
The Big Dog, Darwin, has a new friend, Tory, the Jack Russell Terrier. (Terrorist) We got her at a discount, since she was an accidental consanguineous mating, originally named “Oops”. But she fits in around here just fine. The local bias is that being inbred is a plus, actually. She is very personable, well behaved, but loves to chew things up. Many, many things. I lobbied for the name “Jihad”, but was overruled. Both dogs went to obedience school with “Sergeant Jeannette”, and now Darwin will heel, sit, lie down, and miracle of miracles, come when called. All we have to do is imitate the Sergeant, and he begins to quiver and quake. It is damn fine being the alpha wolf again.
My year has been a blur of work and sleep, unfortunately. I lost a full timer, and have sucked up most of those shifts, just to keep things going at all. I worked 35 consecutive 12 hour night shifts in July-August-September, a record I hope no one ever even attempts again. When a whole month goes by where the high point of each day is a dump and a shower, you are doing something wrong. The light is at the end of the tunnel, I think. Despite all that, I did pass my board exam in Emergency Medicine this year. The Oral Exam felt more like a Newfoundland seal-clubbing party, with me as the baby seal, but somehow I wriggled through a hole in the ice, and survived. I was also elected to Fellowship in the American College of Physicians, so I get to use more letters after my name. I am trying a new strategy of doing one thing at a time before tackling another, and it seems to be working. Next is the Great American Novel, and then my Pilot’s license, for a reward. And after that, Catherine promises to resume marital relations.
I did get a very-used motorcycle this summer, for cheap thrills. Cheaper than a divorce, for sure. The model name is a “Virago”, which in the Oxford Dictionary, is defined as “a fierce or abusive woman.” But don’t tell Catherine. I have really enjoyed riding again, weaving along to miss the woolly bears crawling like mad across the road, and feeling the wind and smelling the smells. (Was that chicken shit, or sun-broiled road kill?) On a still fall morning, riding through the shadows across the road, the tongues of shaded air hit like a cold slap, followed by the warm kiss of sunlit air. It really is a physical world you lose track of in a car. The kids think it is cool to have dad pick them up from the bus on the bike. I mostly dig the black leather jacket with all the zippers and belts. I look pretty tuff until I take the helmet off, and then everybody realizes it is just me.
The patients continue to amuse and provide perspective. I had an old farmer come dragging in at the end of my shift, just when I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge. He hadn’t taken the time to remove his barn boots before running in to see me with his belly pain he had had for 24 hours, and he tracked animal manure all the way to the exam table. He was the sort who would come only when near death, so I knew he was hurting. His problem was quickly tracked down to an incarcerated hernia, requiring a trip to the operating room, and part of my exam necessarily included a rectal exam. He lay on his side with his jeans hiked down, caked in shit from head to toe, and reeking to high heaven. I was mouth breathing for all I am worth, just to keep from being driven from the room. Just as I get my gloved finger up his butt, he looks over his shoulder at me and says, “Doc, I wouldn’t have your job!” I gotta tell you, that meant a lot to me, coming from him. Maybe I could paint houses…I also had a girl come in repeatedly with claims of being pregnant and bleeding. Repetitive exams and tests for pregnancy were negative, but still she persisted in insisting she was pregnant, and returning at each menstrual period for another evaluation, complaining quite dramatically that she was miscarrying. She would push her belly out to look pregnant, and move her abdominal muscles as she was being examined, and exclaim “There, didn’t you feel the baby move?” After the third go-round, I tried gently to bring her to reality, by telling her she was not pregnant, no matter how much she might wish it, and that perhaps she might be in need of some counseling help. There was no possibility of a mistake, I explained; our tests were quite accurate. “They’s something wrong wid yo testes!” was her reply, and she stomped out. I checked myself quickly, and they were both right where I had left them. I swear, it was never me who tried and failed to get her pregnant, but she had me scared there, for a minute.
And so dear friends and confidants, as our weary world spins through another cycle of human stupidity and greed, and we brace ourselves for more of the same, be of good cheer, and of certain knowledge, that we will do better. Never mind the evidence of History. We have to do better. In fact, considering the past, how could we do worse? Any worse, and the cockroaches are standing by to inherit the Earth. May we all find affirmation in the small things that matter, in friendships renewed, in giving and receiving praise for work well done, in forgiveness for the past, and in commitment to better times ahead. May our portfolios at least remain flat during the coming “reset”, and our teeth not grind excessively enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous “customers”. May our aluminum levels remain low, our chondroitin levels high, and our endorphins remain ever ready to ease our pain. (Naturally) May Mad Cow Disease stay away from our shores, and a cure be found for Mad Conservative Disease. And may we come to know, finally, who let the dogs out? Stay well; wear seat belts and sunscreen; and condoms, if you find yourself back into the free market economy. Do all things in moderation except being immoderately happy at being what you are, where you are. And write me back, goddammit.
Excellent Xmas, Merry Millennium, Cheery Chanukah, Kwazy Kwanzaa, Salubrious Solstice, Rip-Roaring Ramadan, Cheers, Warm Regards, All the Best, Love, Peace, or Whatever.
Solstice 1999
Solstice 1999
Dear Ones:
Well the end of the Millennium is nearly here, sadly lacking though it is in
sufficient pressure and hype. What words to say to lend meaning to the past,
and look forward to the future? What cheer have we to expect? What is the
weapon of choice in home defense in a Millennium riot? Will it be a12-gauge
pump shotgun with magnum-loaded double-ought buckshot, or a high-capacity 9mm
semiautomatic pistol with hollow points? The popular press is full of
justification of either, but it is all too deep for me. We have at least
verified that our bills will still arrive on time, and our e-mail is Y2K
compliant, so we will still be in touch with the world. We have had a
generator since the last big ice storm, and we bought a few extra cans of
Dinty-Moore Stew, so we are ready for damn near anything. The review of the
past year at our house has a few things worth reporting, so with your
forbearance, I will commence...
We sold Kathmandu, my wonderful sailboat, so I am again a bedraggled, sorry
landlubber, no longer a captain. We just weren't using her enough to justify
the expense, so we sold out to lovely California couple, who will love her as
I did. On the brighter side, we had an offer accepted on a beach house in
Delaware. The Kids are ecstatic, the mortgage bankers are laughing, and I am
quivering at the possibility that they would actually lend us the money. The
theory is that we will rent it out, recoup about half of the annual mortgage
expenses, and pay it off in 15 years or less. Whereupon, we will retire
there. The practical reality may be more akin to Mr. R. Perot's "vast sucking
sound", of every spare nickel draining into a hole by the Delaware Bay. It is
a lovely site, if anyone wants a beach house to rent for a week or 2. There
is Beach across the street, wildlife refuge behind, and a creek connecting to
the ocean and a long canal system, ideal for kayaking, birding, and mucking
around in small boats. Our deliberations over this large investment were
gravely and carefully undertaken, as you can imagine...
ME: "Hey, there is a for sale sign in front of that cute house over there."
SHE: "Oh?"
ME: "Let's buy it!"
SHE: "Can we afford it?"
ME: "No way!"
SHE: "Well, OK then, let's do it."
ME: "God, I love ya, baby!"
Our first walk-through was more of the same probing, considered exploration.
ME: "I love it!"
SHE: "The decor sucks. What do they call this mess?"
ME: "High Country Twee. Never mind that, the location is to die for."
SHE: "I need to get out of here, I feel my blood sugar exceeding 500!"
ME: "OK, we will paint everything right away."
SHE: "And rip up all this fucking powder-blue carpet."
ME: "Tha's gonna be 'spensive, Lucy!"
SHE: "You can work extra shifts."
ME: "God, I love ya, Baby!"
So we wait for the rest of the story to spin out. Perhaps we will be
landlords all summer, and beachies all fall/winter/spring. And maybe we will
be rugged retired elder beachies someday. I get goosebumps all over just
thinking about it. But vomiting always gives me goosebumps.
Catherine and I have had a very good year together, benefiting from a weekend
retreat we did at my parents' suggestion and support. It is called IMAGO
therapy, and it teaches active listening, and communication as a method of
tackling the thorniest of disagreements. It is wonderful. It also examines
your childhood to see why you have the hot-buttons you have, and allows some
understanding and direction for getting out of the rut of the same old
set-piece arguments. We are enjoying each other much more than we ever did,
and have a lot to be thankful for. If you need a referral, let me know.
Seriously. This is Your Favorite Skeptic talking. It works. And Thanks, Joan
and Ed.
The kids are coming along nicely, thanks. Michele has been with us for a
year, both working and being a "House Shell". She has broadened our exposure
to Gen-X issues, popular girl-group rock, and bizarrely scented candles. She
is a great cook, and is madly using up obscure spices we bought, but never
knew what to do with. Unfortunately, our garlic budget has quintupled, and
people are starting to talk about our bad breath. She has just accepted a
position as a flight attendant with USAir Express, so she is in for exciting
changes, and we are back to boring grub. Nathanael is in RI, in school,
working, and struggling to keep his car going. He is really growing into
himself nicely, after all. His artistic talents have been noticed, and his
teacher has put his stuff in a show, though Nat refuses to believe it himself
Hannah provided most of the summer 5 excitement when her softball All-Star
team lost in the final game of the Eastern Regional Tournament by one run,
falling one game short of a trip to the World Series in Portland, OR. Whew.
It was exciting stuff watching her play 2B, and my nails have grown back
surprisingly fast. She had some dynamite defensive plays. Everett sticks out
of his pants legs as fast as we can buy them, so all the apples and popcorn
he eats must finally be doing him some good. He's still a giggly, funny
little guy, trying comic one-liners on for size, and missing utterly most of
the time. But he sure gets tickled, and he keeps trying. He is keeping his
day job, for now. He and I read the whole "Harry Potter" series avidly. They
are highly recommended, and kid-tested. Darwin the Dog has finally become a
"good dog", with the acquisition of a Hidden Fence. He wears an electronic
shock collar full time, and seems NOT to enjoy break-dancing when he hits the
perimeter, so he hangs out with us and actually pays attention. What a
change. It was worth it... Actually, just seeing him break dance was worth
it... the improved behavior was gravy.
Catherine just completed her 1st computer certification. She is now an MCP.
And proud of it. (Microsoft Certified Professional, for you '70s throwbacks.) She will
soon be an MCSE, (Systems Engineer) and allegedly worth some money. She wants
to be a consultant wizard when she grows up, and I am all for it. I will
gladly be a House Dad, when she can go out and "make the doughnuts.." But she
is amazing in her grasp and interest in the nerdy and arcane world of
computers. It is all beyond me. She has also remained very physically active,
running 3-4x per week, and pumping iron also. I am not there yet, but she is
an inspiration, and I have resumed running 2-3 times a week. Go ahead,
psychoanalyze me. I may be running from the Reaper, but I hear he runs 11
minute miles, so as long as I stay faster than that, I am OK. Growing old is
not for sissies...
As for me, I am working plenty, but less than in the bad old days, and
tolerating the ER for better or worse... 'til death do us part. We are ever
busier, but graduated to double coverage on weekends, so it is eminently more
do-able. The ER clientele occasionally makes me long for the days when we had
an effective predator. The herd must benefit from culling at the edges, but
we have only ourselves to prey upon ourselves. We could use a Saber-toothed
Tiger again. Maybe we should clone one. But there must be some logic in the
fact that they are extinct. Maybe we'd all pull together better with a good
predator out there, but the implacable logic of evolution has swept
away the Saber-toothed Tiger, and left us to our own mercies. Oh, well, I
digress. The one perquisite I do get with the job is that I do get to meet
the most interesting people... One lady came to us in cuffs, coked to the
max, and raving. She responded to questions about her current location and
the current date in a most oriented fashion. "Yeah, Motherfucker, I know
where I am… I am orientated. Let me orient you to the crack of my ass. You
are a broke-dick: Gumby Motherfucker, and I ain't talkin' to no broke-dick
Gumby Motherfuckers. Now get the fuck outta here." I couldn't argue... I
couldn't even respond. She's now on my Christmas list.
But none of the above keeps me from being the eternal cock-eyed optimist. I
have discovered online contests, and enter several daily, hoping for the
lightning to strike. Everyone laughs at me, but I have won a baseball cap and
a box of pencils so far, and the letter said "Dear Winner:" That's Me!! And,
I am even hoping to get a couple of things from my new favorite movie, "Toy
Story II", for Solstice... a Big Woody and a Little Buzz. Wish me luck.
The other highlight of the year is that we cut off the Cable TV. Really! It
was a great thing. The Kids hated it at first, of course, but they actually talk to us now, and
spend time reading, and very little time zoned out on the couch... it has exceeded my wildest
expectations. That I ever paid $480 per year to have that poison piped into my household is amazing in retrospect, but my joy at the double benefit of cutting it off, AND keeping the money, is beyond my capacity to tell you. It is a tough and bold step, but worth a try. Try.
And so, Dear Friends, Fellow Americans, and Ultimate Consumers, we find
ourselves poised, the only currently living creatures to experience a
millennial changeover, searching for meaning, fulfillment, and occasional
mucous membrane contact. I am actually so positive about the future that I am
looking forward to the coming thousand years, though glad I will have only 50
or so years, and perhaps 9 more lying sacks of President to deal with before
I croak. I have no confidence we will survive our own stupidity, but perhaps
reason and light will prevail, and we will be writing such letters as this to
each other a thousand years from now, free entirely of the fear of self
destruction. I cling to that hope, as silly as it sounds. My wish for you all
is that you, too, will find promise in the future, finish tasks which have
hung over you, find energy for new challenges, and finish those, too. May you
age gracefully, find things in common with your kids, and find time to
explore those things. May your knees, hips and ankles hold up to your new,
more active lifestyle. May your debt steadily decrease, may your savings
increase, and may the stock market carry us all to a comfortable and
unexpectedly premature retirement. May your intake of antioxidants keep up
with the recommendations of the Gurus, and may your hormone levels remain
sufficient to your needs, and may you never have an unexpected visit from
Mike Wallace. May you suffer fools gladly, or you will seldom be glad, may
you laugh as often as possible, mostly at yourself, and recall that if there
were still Saber-toothed Tigers, most of us would already be Tiger Poop. So
be of good cheer. Write, call, "e" or don't, but I wish you would each do one
of the above, besides "don't".
PEACE, LOVE, CHEER, WASSAIL, ETC.
Dear Ones:
Well the end of the Millennium is nearly here, sadly lacking though it is in
sufficient pressure and hype. What words to say to lend meaning to the past,
and look forward to the future? What cheer have we to expect? What is the
weapon of choice in home defense in a Millennium riot? Will it be a12-gauge
pump shotgun with magnum-loaded double-ought buckshot, or a high-capacity 9mm
semiautomatic pistol with hollow points? The popular press is full of
justification of either, but it is all too deep for me. We have at least
verified that our bills will still arrive on time, and our e-mail is Y2K
compliant, so we will still be in touch with the world. We have had a
generator since the last big ice storm, and we bought a few extra cans of
Dinty-Moore Stew, so we are ready for damn near anything. The review of the
past year at our house has a few things worth reporting, so with your
forbearance, I will commence...
We sold Kathmandu, my wonderful sailboat, so I am again a bedraggled, sorry
landlubber, no longer a captain. We just weren't using her enough to justify
the expense, so we sold out to lovely California couple, who will love her as
I did. On the brighter side, we had an offer accepted on a beach house in
Delaware. The Kids are ecstatic, the mortgage bankers are laughing, and I am
quivering at the possibility that they would actually lend us the money. The
theory is that we will rent it out, recoup about half of the annual mortgage
expenses, and pay it off in 15 years or less. Whereupon, we will retire
there. The practical reality may be more akin to Mr. R. Perot's "vast sucking
sound", of every spare nickel draining into a hole by the Delaware Bay. It is
a lovely site, if anyone wants a beach house to rent for a week or 2. There
is Beach across the street, wildlife refuge behind, and a creek connecting to
the ocean and a long canal system, ideal for kayaking, birding, and mucking
around in small boats. Our deliberations over this large investment were
gravely and carefully undertaken, as you can imagine...
ME: "Hey, there is a for sale sign in front of that cute house over there."
SHE: "Oh?"
ME: "Let's buy it!"
SHE: "Can we afford it?"
ME: "No way!"
SHE: "Well, OK then, let's do it."
ME: "God, I love ya, baby!"
Our first walk-through was more of the same probing, considered exploration.
ME: "I love it!"
SHE: "The decor sucks. What do they call this mess?"
ME: "High Country Twee. Never mind that, the location is to die for."
SHE: "I need to get out of here, I feel my blood sugar exceeding 500!"
ME: "OK, we will paint everything right away."
SHE: "And rip up all this fucking powder-blue carpet."
ME: "Tha's gonna be 'spensive, Lucy!"
SHE: "You can work extra shifts."
ME: "God, I love ya, Baby!"
So we wait for the rest of the story to spin out. Perhaps we will be
landlords all summer, and beachies all fall/winter/spring. And maybe we will
be rugged retired elder beachies someday. I get goosebumps all over just
thinking about it. But vomiting always gives me goosebumps.
Catherine and I have had a very good year together, benefiting from a weekend
retreat we did at my parents' suggestion and support. It is called IMAGO
therapy, and it teaches active listening, and communication as a method of
tackling the thorniest of disagreements. It is wonderful. It also examines
your childhood to see why you have the hot-buttons you have, and allows some
understanding and direction for getting out of the rut of the same old
set-piece arguments. We are enjoying each other much more than we ever did,
and have a lot to be thankful for. If you need a referral, let me know.
Seriously. This is Your Favorite Skeptic talking. It works. And Thanks, Joan
and Ed.
The kids are coming along nicely, thanks. Michele has been with us for a
year, both working and being a "House Shell". She has broadened our exposure
to Gen-X issues, popular girl-group rock, and bizarrely scented candles. She
is a great cook, and is madly using up obscure spices we bought, but never
knew what to do with. Unfortunately, our garlic budget has quintupled, and
people are starting to talk about our bad breath. She has just accepted a
position as a flight attendant with USAir Express, so she is in for exciting
changes, and we are back to boring grub. Nathanael is in RI, in school,
working, and struggling to keep his car going. He is really growing into
himself nicely, after all. His artistic talents have been noticed, and his
teacher has put his stuff in a show, though Nat refuses to believe it himself
Hannah provided most of the summer 5 excitement when her softball All-Star
team lost in the final game of the Eastern Regional Tournament by one run,
falling one game short of a trip to the World Series in Portland, OR. Whew.
It was exciting stuff watching her play 2B, and my nails have grown back
surprisingly fast. She had some dynamite defensive plays. Everett sticks out
of his pants legs as fast as we can buy them, so all the apples and popcorn
he eats must finally be doing him some good. He's still a giggly, funny
little guy, trying comic one-liners on for size, and missing utterly most of
the time. But he sure gets tickled, and he keeps trying. He is keeping his
day job, for now. He and I read the whole "Harry Potter" series avidly. They
are highly recommended, and kid-tested. Darwin the Dog has finally become a
"good dog", with the acquisition of a Hidden Fence. He wears an electronic
shock collar full time, and seems NOT to enjoy break-dancing when he hits the
perimeter, so he hangs out with us and actually pays attention. What a
change. It was worth it... Actually, just seeing him break dance was worth
it... the improved behavior was gravy.
Catherine just completed her 1st computer certification. She is now an MCP.
And proud of it. (Microsoft Certified Professional, for you '70s throwbacks.) She will
soon be an MCSE, (Systems Engineer) and allegedly worth some money. She wants
to be a consultant wizard when she grows up, and I am all for it. I will
gladly be a House Dad, when she can go out and "make the doughnuts.." But she
is amazing in her grasp and interest in the nerdy and arcane world of
computers. It is all beyond me. She has also remained very physically active,
running 3-4x per week, and pumping iron also. I am not there yet, but she is
an inspiration, and I have resumed running 2-3 times a week. Go ahead,
psychoanalyze me. I may be running from the Reaper, but I hear he runs 11
minute miles, so as long as I stay faster than that, I am OK. Growing old is
not for sissies...
As for me, I am working plenty, but less than in the bad old days, and
tolerating the ER for better or worse... 'til death do us part. We are ever
busier, but graduated to double coverage on weekends, so it is eminently more
do-able. The ER clientele occasionally makes me long for the days when we had
an effective predator. The herd must benefit from culling at the edges, but
we have only ourselves to prey upon ourselves. We could use a Saber-toothed
Tiger again. Maybe we should clone one. But there must be some logic in the
fact that they are extinct. Maybe we'd all pull together better with a good
predator out there, but the implacable logic of evolution has swept
away the Saber-toothed Tiger, and left us to our own mercies. Oh, well, I
digress. The one perquisite I do get with the job is that I do get to meet
the most interesting people... One lady came to us in cuffs, coked to the
max, and raving. She responded to questions about her current location and
the current date in a most oriented fashion. "Yeah, Motherfucker, I know
where I am… I am orientated. Let me orient you to the crack of my ass. You
are a broke-dick: Gumby Motherfucker, and I ain't talkin' to no broke-dick
Gumby Motherfuckers. Now get the fuck outta here." I couldn't argue... I
couldn't even respond. She's now on my Christmas list.
But none of the above keeps me from being the eternal cock-eyed optimist. I
have discovered online contests, and enter several daily, hoping for the
lightning to strike. Everyone laughs at me, but I have won a baseball cap and
a box of pencils so far, and the letter said "Dear Winner:" That's Me!! And,
I am even hoping to get a couple of things from my new favorite movie, "Toy
Story II", for Solstice... a Big Woody and a Little Buzz. Wish me luck.
The other highlight of the year is that we cut off the Cable TV. Really! It
was a great thing. The Kids hated it at first, of course, but they actually talk to us now, and
spend time reading, and very little time zoned out on the couch... it has exceeded my wildest
expectations. That I ever paid $480 per year to have that poison piped into my household is amazing in retrospect, but my joy at the double benefit of cutting it off, AND keeping the money, is beyond my capacity to tell you. It is a tough and bold step, but worth a try. Try.
And so, Dear Friends, Fellow Americans, and Ultimate Consumers, we find
ourselves poised, the only currently living creatures to experience a
millennial changeover, searching for meaning, fulfillment, and occasional
mucous membrane contact. I am actually so positive about the future that I am
looking forward to the coming thousand years, though glad I will have only 50
or so years, and perhaps 9 more lying sacks of President to deal with before
I croak. I have no confidence we will survive our own stupidity, but perhaps
reason and light will prevail, and we will be writing such letters as this to
each other a thousand years from now, free entirely of the fear of self
destruction. I cling to that hope, as silly as it sounds. My wish for you all
is that you, too, will find promise in the future, finish tasks which have
hung over you, find energy for new challenges, and finish those, too. May you
age gracefully, find things in common with your kids, and find time to
explore those things. May your knees, hips and ankles hold up to your new,
more active lifestyle. May your debt steadily decrease, may your savings
increase, and may the stock market carry us all to a comfortable and
unexpectedly premature retirement. May your intake of antioxidants keep up
with the recommendations of the Gurus, and may your hormone levels remain
sufficient to your needs, and may you never have an unexpected visit from
Mike Wallace. May you suffer fools gladly, or you will seldom be glad, may
you laugh as often as possible, mostly at yourself, and recall that if there
were still Saber-toothed Tigers, most of us would already be Tiger Poop. So
be of good cheer. Write, call, "e" or don't, but I wish you would each do one
of the above, besides "don't".
PEACE, LOVE, CHEER, WASSAIL, ETC.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)