2020 Hindsight

Badda Bing

A couple named Bing have donated a lot of art that lives on the walls of Stanford Medical Center. There's a Bing Auditorium at the L.A. County Museum of Art; I assume it's named after the same Bings as the donors of the art on the walls here.

The first day I was here (day before The Surgery), I vaguely noticed the presence of the art--framed images each with a business-card sized placque with Title/Artist/Media/Year/Donor. The Day of Surgery I have no idea. Sometime in the last couple of days I began to take in a few of them. Before I got to really noticing the art, I noticed the gardens. Nice flowers. Very soothing. Right now I like soothing things. Today I noticed the art even more, since the patient (who is now in the StepDown unit, aka Intermediate Intensive Care, has been since yesterday afternoon) is taking a few walks per day. There's some cool stuff on the walls.

We wandered into the adjoining Lucille Packard Children's Hospital. The art there is better. Well, maybe not better. We just like it more. Original prints or paintings that go in children's books next to the book opened to the same page.

There's an atrium area that's open to all four floors of the hospital. (lovely view of another garden just outside through tall set of windows) On the ground level is a baby grand piano. There are concerts a couple of days per week (a concert series sponsored by--you guessed it--that same Bing couple). But today a woman brought her sheet music to just practice. Soothing. I heard it on my way in to visit the patient, said, "There's some music playing right now if you want to go for a walk." A nice thing to walk out to.

We got a baby boomlet on!

Well, I now have comfirmation. There's a little baby boomlet on. While discussing bed shortages with one of the doctors (the patient, who's doing very well, is due to be transferred out of ICU to a lesser-ICU, as soon as a bed opens up there), I said, Hey, where is the maternity section? I want to go find out if there's a baby boom right now from all the terror sex immediatly after 9-11. The doctor said yes, lotsa births right now, a friend who's an anesthesiologist just told me that he'd done 9 C-sections in a 24 hour period (normal rate is mebbe 1 in 24 hrs). Friends, take comfort in the fact that our species is continuing, that after the horrible cataclysm 9 months ago, some of us made sure that homo sapiens would continue (of course, given what some members of our species are up to, that may not be comforting news.) Sometime today I'm gonna pay a visit to the new little earthlings whose parents were so kind to keep homo sapiens from dying out.

Things continue to go well

Volunteers who wear pink vest-like tunics, hand out jolly rancher hard candies, and answer questions are an angelic breed.

So are the nurses in constant attendance of just-operated-on patients.

Happy are the visitors who observe notable progress with each visit (every 2 hours). (I count myself among this group)

Relieved are certain Californians who thank God that there was no major earthquake yesterday in Northern California while a certain patient was in on the operating table. (yeah, I'm in this group, too)

Stanford Medical Center rocks. They take good care of family/friends of patients. Yeah, and they take good care of patients, of course! Not only that, but they have net access on very fat pipes in the cafeteria and in the medical library.

Happy is (will be) the patient when the printouts of the comments in the private blog (so far so good with Movable Type) are printed out from the terminal in the medical library and greetings from well-wishers are (will be) read aloud during the next visit to bedside.

And a big public hug to Al and Jason who are in the noble health-care profession, seeking to deliver excellent care despite all the wacked-out circumstances that make their jobs a pain in the you-know-what.

Relief

I'm blogging from the cafeteria of Stanford Medical Center. Someone has graciously supplied two computer terminals here with net connections.

The patient I'm here to accompany is doing well. The surgery went as it should have gone, and immediate post-operative conditions are good. I'm very relieved.

I've discovered that shuffling a deck of cards and playing solitaire is a great way to mindlessly pass time during a lengthy and intricate surgery.

Slingshot gravity

Home again. My itinerary was: Phoenix, Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, Kingman, Hoover Dam, Las Vegas (where I met up with family and helped to see off a contingent of cousins and cousinlings from the East Coast begin a trip to Zion, Bryce and the Grand Canyon. What an adventure for them. I mroe or less previewed the last leg of their trip with my Grand Canyon - Kingman - Hoover Dam - Las Vegas leg. I also got to see Hal briefly last night. :D Some pix (not mine, but you can get the idea) of Grand Canyon are posted on the BryceCamp weblog.

on the road, caught in the act of self portraiture, Susan and friend Renato dusky dusty grand canyon, people who watch solstice sunset at Hopi Point, and a bunch of images of the sunset and the golden twilight.

Dave is back. Woo hoo! Good luck with the nicotine addiction (heh. I first typed that as 'caffeine addiction' .. shows you where *I'm* at).

Slingshot gravity Though I can't tell you the physics or the equations to it, I feel as though I'm developing momentum with each swing home... as I go on a new trajectory elsewhere. One trip home turns into a quick outbound journey on the next leg. These are no interplanetary orbits, but something else entirely.

The next leg will take me to Stanford Medical Center, where I'll be accompanying someone who is undergoing major surgery on Thursday. At the patient's request, the details shared here will be minimal.

On the drive south from Las Vegas today I began to make a list of all the things I am grateful for. (the ijjit who rode my bumper did not make it onto my list, but that fact that neither of us came to harm did) I know I'll be adding to it on the drive north.

Meanwhile ....Looking elsewhere....

Doc has a bunch of stuff on the death of internet radio. Wish I had time to absorb it all.

New "bloggish" term? I coined it a while back, and will repeat it again here. What do you call the dear friend/family member/associate/love interest/y'know...(circular hand gestures)...that-person-you-know who does not want to be mentioned in your weblog? Someone who wishes to remain ablogymous.

Solstice

Ouch, what a game! That missed goal hurt. Caught most of the 2nd half of the World Cup semi-final. I'm back in Arizona for a quick trip to pick up my car (oil leak problem and tight AZ to FL travel schedule). The early start from Phoenix to Flagstaff —and the Grand Canyon—has been delayed a bit by the game.

Last night I learned to love cauliflower. What had been a ho-hum vegetable was transformed last night in a recipe from a great cookbook Mamma, Si Mangia?. I'm visiting my friend Renato in Phoenix; this cookbook is a set of recipes from his grandmother's kitchen, written by his uncle, Giampaolo Fallai, and illustrated by his aunt, Anna Jurinich. The 'Mamma' in this Italian cookbook is Mafalda, a 90-year old woman from Firenze (Florence). This past year Mafalda won a cooking contest with her ravioli ignudi (naked ravioli).

Last night we cooked drunken cauliflower (cauliflower sauteed in olive oil with garlic and rosemary; after cauliflower is browned, add dry red wine and simmer until the cauliflower soaks it all up. Yummmmm! It's a whole new food group) and Scaloppini alla Livornese (chops Livornese style).

In addition to recipes, Mamma, Si Mangia? has stories, illustrations and little cooking hints. Here is one story:

Another episode from my teenage years gave me a whole new appreciation for my mother's wonderful ways with food—even if it foiled one of her own little schemes to rule my life. At one point (probably when she saw me drifting aimlessly through another summer), Mafalda decided I should to to restaurant school.

In keeping with her newly hatched plan to turn me into a professional cook, she sent me away to a resort—not to lie in the warm, relaxing sun, but to be on my feet in a hot, steamy kitchen.

What Mafalda didn't know was that all her years of feeding me good food would be her downfall.

Every day when I got hungry, I went across the street to a little pizza place and ate their food. My boss, who was the chef of the resort, wondered why his new kitchen helper was eating elsewhere. Politely, he inquired why. Politely, I told him the food in his kitchen was indeible. He came thundering after me. I never saw anyone so angry! He said later that if he had caught me he would have put me in one of the big, hot bubbling pots on the stove.

Landed!

Well, as my brother just emailed me, turns out I was right after all. Endeavor (Space Shuttle) landed in California at Edwards Air Force Base. In fact, a little while ago, I heard two loud bangs, and watched the dining room curtains pulse inward in response to the bangs. "What could that be?" I wondered. Sounded like someone was banging on my garage door. Now that I read about the landing, 1:58 eastern puts it at about 10:58 pacific, more or less when the double-bangs happened. Well, I guess that Space Shuttle was messin' with the sound barrier around here. Good to know that they're down safe and (ahem) sound. Too, seeing as how I saw the launch; it's a little treat to be close to the vicinity of landing.

Belated I missed yesterday to wish a happy birthday to Andrea, Sheila. I was too busy with preparations putting together a birthday feast for another someone whose birthday was yesterday. Got to try out some recipes from the gardening/cooking class I attended this spring. Yuuuuummmmmmmmm.

Improving Good news from John Robb about Dave Winer; he sounds hoarse but good, upbeat. Back online this weekend.

Naked Passwords Wired: Earthlink's passwords are naked. Yeeow. Any customer service rep can see your password on his or her screen. I've had the same thing happen with my long distance provider, who offsets their otherwise excellent rates with a web-site-from-hell and bad password policy. The trouble is, how is the normal Joe or Jane supposed to know these things?

House Design by Pierre Koenig This LA Times article on architect Pierre Koenig also notes that his wife, Gloria, has written a book about LA's iconic buildings. I saw her speak at one of the seminars at the Festival of Books a while back. Worth noting on yet another warm day in L.A.: none of the houses he's designed have (or need) air conditioning.

Thirty Years Ago Today....

What a surprise! (not) STS-111 Endeavor is due to land today at Kennedy Space Center, but bad weather's postponing the landing.

Right after the successful launch of Endeavor, we were being bussed back to the Visitor's Center at Kennedy Space Center. By now, the 10 busloads of people in the Space Flight Awareness Award program had dwindled down to 1 - 1/3 busloads, mostly locals from Florida with a few stalwart souls who managed to stay in the area. The coordinator for Kennedy's group mentioned being present for the landing and said, "you folks from California are welcome to come back for the landing." I piped up, "We'll be at Edwards! [Air Force Base, the secondary landing site]" A busload of boos and groans. From the person talking into the microphone up front: "Where's the person who said that? We'll let them out of the bus right now and feed 'em to the alligators!" Uh oh. I guess that wasn't the thing to say. Oops. Since the turnaround time for processing the shuttle is lengthened if there's a California landing, no one wants it to be that way. Despite the weather predictions and the landing delay, I'm still not gonna head out to Edwards to see it land!

30 Years Ago was the Watergate break-in. Lotsa retrospectives, but things are focusing on Deep Throat, the anonymous source of Bob Woodward's on the whole Watergate matter. John Dean has an e-book on Salon.com ($8; $5.95 for Salon's premium members), an interview there as well, and an article on FindLaw (he's a regular contributor there). Though earlier he promised to reveal the name of an individual, instead he's got a short list.

University of Illinois Journalism students look into Deep Throat as an exercise in investigative journalism; from 72 they narrowed it down to 7. Pat Buchanan's name is being widely circulated; he was a speechwriter in the Nixon White House.

Chicago Tribune: Gaines, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter, cautioned that the class had not proved Deep Throat's identity but made a logical inference based on its research. Working from an original list of 72 suspects, the students finally narrowed it to seven, then voted.

In addition to Buchanan, other likely candidates are speechwriter David Gergen, now a prominent journalist; White House attorney Jonathan Rose; head speechwriter Raymond Price; Stephen Bull, administrative assistant to President Richard Nixon; Fred Fielding, assistant to White House counsel John Dean; and Gerald Warren, deputy press secretary.

Get well soon, Dave! Scripting News hasn't been updated for a few days. I skip days all the time. Dave W. does not. John Robb reveals that he's in the hospital and will be for a week.

Fifty Years Ago Today....

.....a young man and a young woman (early 20s and not-quite-20, respectively) were married on this day, 1952. That couple -- those infants -- later became parents.... That man and that woman *are* my parents. Happy 50th, Mom n Dad!

As for celebrations, we all figure that if the Queen and the Queen Mum can do jubilee years, we don't need to confine our family celebrations to this single day. A good thing, too. My schedule's been rather packed of late, and promises to be the same for a little while more.

Epcot Snaps

Shuttle Mission STS-111 Update Space.com: Third Spacewalk to repair Space Station robot arm's wrist-roll joint— a success!

Epcot Snaps Here are some shots of Epcot (the first of the Disney parks I visited, before photo burnout set in)

And what, among other things, might cause a case of photo burn out?

Perhaps it was being among the crowd that was snapping, snapping, snapping, eh?

Yes, I did snap away, and did manage to capture this one

There are some cool tiles near the entrance (by this time, exit) that glow and then dim.

My companion, upon seeing these images, said, "Oh so *that's* what you were doing... *that's* what you were trying to capture!" I guess it looked different from elsewhere, a solitary stationary person shooting the backs of people's legs as they all walk by.

But wait! there's more photo shenanigans just around the corner, under that sphere and among some stone blocks!