Wednesday
Pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the weather this week. It actually got hotter after I took this picture; it was 114 degrees later in the afternoon.
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• 30 Words written by Steve @ 23:14 | 11-Jul-08 in Weather • Share a Thought
Rarin' to Go
Gavin Newsom, the man who presided over our first civil union ceremony when he was still a San Francisco supervisor, wants to get a jump on gay marriages «the evening of 16 June», instead of waiting for the next morning:
‘San Francisco officials have asked the state for permission to begin marrying same-sex couples a little earlier than scheduled, on the evening of June 16 instead of the morning of June 17. Mayor Gavin Newsom and other city officials are wondering when the state Supreme Court ruling allowing same-sex nuptials actually takes effect. The state has told county clerks the ruling kicks in the morning of June 17. But city officials want to know whether they can legally begin to issue the marriage licenses at 5:01 p.m. June 16 – right after the end of the state’s workday.
“Unquestionably, we hope to extend beyond 5 o’clock. Why wouldn’t we?” Newsom said Wednesday. “People have longed for this for 30 and 40 years. I don’t think we should deny that just on the basis of a bureaucratic timeline.” Such a change would require permission from the state Office of Vital Records, which oversees the issuance of marriage licenses for all of California’s 58 counties.’
—SFGate.com
Exactly. We’ve been waiting 30-40 years for this. Time to get on with it.
And about the ballot measure in November? Time to mobilize a big ol’ no vote. ★
• 227 Words written by Steve @ 15:31 | 05-Jun-08 in Civil-Liberties • Comment
We Can. And We Do.
Every once in awhile, every great once in awhile, I … sort of like the «state of California»:
‘The California Supreme Court struck a historic but possibly short-lived blow for gay rights Thursday, overturning a state law that allowed only opposite-sex couples to marry. In a 4-3 ruling that elicited passionate responses on both sides of the debate and touched off celebrations at San Francisco City Hall – the scene of nearly 4,000 same-sex weddings four years ago that were invalidated months later – the court said the right to marry in California extends equally to all, gay and straight alike.
The state Constitution’s guarantees of personal privacy and autonomy protect “the right of an individual to establish a legally recognized family with the person of one’s choice,” said Chief Justice Ronald George, who wrote the 121-page majority opinion. He said the Constitution “properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as opposite-sex couples.”
—SFGate.com
Glory-osky. We’ll see if this holds in November. Gonna be a big ol’ fight against the fascist fundumbmentalist ballot prop. that seeks to destroy our marriage. Gonna be a tense election season in the Golden State. At least for us. ★
• 215 Words written by Steve @ 10:00 | 15-May-08 in Civil-Liberties • Comment
Happy New Year
As the sun sets on what was a truly nasty year for us, we wish you a much more wonderful 2008!
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• 20 Words written by Steve @ 17:46 | 31-Dec-07 in Brentwood • Comment
Merry Christmas 2007
Merry Christmas from our house to yours!
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• 7 Words written by Steve @ 00:00 | 25-Dec-07 in Brentwood • Comment
Done. Finally. Done.
Well, the big day finally went off without a hitch. My ‘diseased’ gall bladder (as the surgeon termed it) was removed in a quick, relatively painless, and easy operation this afternoon. I’m already back home and in my own bed and ready to get on with life.
What’s really amazing is how quick and smooth and easy a cholocystectomy is today with laparoscopic techniques, compared with, say, 30 years ago. My aunt had her gall bladder removed at the now-defunct Physicians and Surgeons Hospital in Duncan, OK, in the 70s. It was long, painful, and resulted in a two-week hospital stay. Compare that to my experience today:
• 09:30 — I leave home for the hospital.
• 10:18 — Arrive at hospital, park near the ER entrance because the front lot is full.
• 10:20 — Check-in at the admitting department.
• 10:37 — Begin the admitting process.
• 10:45 — Arrive at the third-floor Short Stay Unit; assigned room 3311-1; change into hospital gown; vitals are taken; blood pressure is a surprising 127/83.
• 11:00 — In bed, covered with pre-warmed blankets.
• 11:30 — Questionnaire and paperwork completed.
• 11:55 — IV line is started; nurse Kathleen uses lidocaine prior to venipuncture, which is the first time this has been a painless procedure.
• 12:30 — One last bathroom visit, then a surgical nurse takes me down to the pre-op room.
• 13:30 — Surgeon, stuck in traffic, finally arrives. In the interim, surgical staff start the IV drip, an antibiotic drip, put on anti-embolism bags on my lower legs, have me sign paperwork, and put a paper hat on my head. Anesthesiologist also comes in to explain his part of the proceedings during the wait for the surgeon; he will start with Versed, then Fentanyl, then hit me with the big stuff.
• 13:45 — I’m taken to OR #5 after being given the shot of Versed. After I’m on the table, I’m given the Fentanyl. Then it’s lights out buddy as the anesthesiologist hits me with the good stuff.
• 14:50 — I wake up to a rather, shall we say, eclectic mix of 80s and Christmas music on an iPod in the recovery room. The room is festive. A 99-year-old woman is brought in next to me, having just had heart surgery. Recovery staff and discuss the storage capacity of iPods and various other sundry things.
• 15:50 — I’m taken back upstairs to the Short Stay unit and my room. The male nurse in charge tells me there are three criteria to be met before I go home; I have to walk a bit, make sure my pain is manageable, and I have to potty. I accomplish the first one by walking from the gurney in the hall to my bed. The second is already fine, since it feels kind of like a bad case of indigestion; and the third one I take care of about 30 minutes later. I am given a coke and crushed ice; oh, joy and bliss.
• 16:40 — The nurse comes in to being the discharge process, removes my IV, gives me my post-op discharge instructions, etc.
• 17:00 — Frank comes back from grabbing a quick dinner, the nurses provide a wheelchair and we go downstairs to the Jeep and are on our way home.
• 18:15 — I’m home in bed, Dr. Pepper in hand, chicken broth in a bowl, and two Darvocet taking care of business.
• 18:45 — I blog the experience.
Total elapsed time, from leaving my garage to leaving my diseased organ at the hospital to getting back in bed: About nine-and-a-half hours. Compared to over two weeks 30 years ago.
Not. Flippin’. Bad.
We’ll see how tomorrow is with pain. I can shower tomorrow evening and remove the main bandaid on my navel. The bandages themselves on my four incision sites will dissolve naturally. I can have more solid food tomorrow night and get back to my beloved Jacuzzi baths on Tuesday.
Awesome. ★
• 650 Words written by Steve @ 18:43 | 07-Dec-07 in Anxiety • Comment
Countdown to the Carving
A couple of hours from now, I head to the «hospital», where the «surgeon» will perform a «laparoscopic cholocystectomy« and thereby rid me of one of my internal problems.
The worst part pre-operatively speaking is going without food and water after midnight. Since the procedure isn’t until 1 p.m., that’ s a long, long time for me to be without Dr. Pepper or breakfast. And I can only have a liquid diet afterwards. Yuck.
I’m not too concerned about it. Twenty years ago I would have been freaking out. At the time, the mere thought of being cut on or losing a body part would have made me pass out cold. Now, after years of tests and procedures to find the source of my joint pain/hypertension, I’m pretty inured to it all. And not afraid of not waking up. Life is what it is. It can end suddenly. And probably will (as opposed to peacefully overnight in the middle of sleep) for many of us, including me. So, it is what it is … human life. I’m sure I’ll wake up and get a Dr. Pepper and be bitchy about the pain and come home and go to bed and shut up. And life will go on.
The curious thing about this four-month-long process has been that with the fat-free diet, I now find any hint of fat really, really unpleasant tasting. Frank accidentally bought me some low-fat cream cheese for my bagels and I couldn’t stand the taste. It was weird. Especially since my whole life has been all about the burgers and barbecue and other fatty things. So, the ‘lap choli” isn’t likely to end my fat-free diet. I like the taste better and it’s better for me.
The next battle will be to get the sugar intake under control. And to resolve, somehow, the adrenal issue.
Y’all have a great day and great weekend. I’m off to get some serious drugging and to be carved up like a turkey. ★
• 338 Words written by Steve @ 07:41 | 07-Dec-07 in Anxiety • Comment
My Tale of Medical Woe (Along With Some Weird Metaphorical Stuff)
About that previous entry … well, cancel that.
My surgery was cancelled by the anesthesiologist, who is concerned that my high blood pressue could cause me to stroke out or have a heart attack on the table. He cancelled the surgery a mere 12 hours before it was supposed to start.
Chalk up yet another reason to hate California (I know, I know!).
Anyway. I added two more hypertension meds (I’m now on five) and went to the hospital where someone massaged my chest for 45 minutes. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the good kind of massage; it was done by a very nice lady in order to get an echocardiogram of my heart to find out if there has been any damage from four years of this mess. The next day, I saw the surgeon again and rescheduled the surgery. I’m now on for Friday, 7-Dec, at 13:00 at John Muir/Mount Diablo-Concord. So the countdown starts again.
Speaking of four years, I’m not sure I’ve ever committed to the ether the long saga of what’s happened to me medically. Prepare to be bored out of your mind. It is, however, a typical illustration of how the (dysfuncitonal) American medical system works (or doesn’t).
Fall 2003 — After moving to Ann Arbor, I notice I’m gaining weight and my blood pressure is going up. I attribute it to turning 40.
April 2004 — Forced by the evil No Child Left Untested law, I have to take four undergrad social studies courses to qualify for my master’s degree program at UMich, courses which have been added to social studies minor requirements since I was in college. I take the easy way on advice of my UMich professor and sign up for three months of online study through Brigham Young University. While taking notes and tests for these, I notice that my hands and other joints are very painful. I attribute it to being 40 and in a cold northern climate.
June 2004 — While taking a grad-level math content course which requires three straight hours of note-taking and writing, the hand/wrist pain gets worse. While driving home after class one day on I-94, the pain is so bad, I almost pass out behind the wheel. I start the endless succession of testing and doctor visits at this point.
July 2004 — Before my master’s program is due to start, I see my regular doc, who refers me to an occupational therapist, who suspects carpal tunnel syndrome and makes plaster casts for my hands. Looking back from three-and-a-half years later, this is akin to the officer of the deck directing a cabin boy to repair fabric on deck chairs on the Titanic as she hits the iceberg. The therapist ends up referring me to a hand surgeon. I make the regretful decision to postpone my master’s program a year so I can figure out what’s wrong, since the pain is getting worse.
October 2004 — After three months of electro-nerve conduction tests, an MRI of my wrists, numerous painful injections of pain killer and steroids directly into the nerves of my wrist, the hand surgeon refers me to a rheumatologist with a verdict of no carpal tunnel/must be arthritis. The cabin boy on the Titanic has now been replaced by an electrician, who begins to rewire the ship as she starts to settle at the bow, then decides to summon a welder.
November 2004 — The rheumatologist diagnoses my situation as reactive arthritis; my immune system was knocked out of whack by a particularly nasty round of bronchitis I had the previous January and said immune system is now attacking my joints. He prescribes a strong dose of sulfa drugs and steroids to suppress said immune system. The Titanic musicians begin to play on a tilting deck while a plumber sends a bottle of drano into the ship’s septic system, hoping to stop the sinking.
Thanksgiving weekend 2004 — Running a high fever and delirious, I spend eight hours in the University of Michigan Hospital emergency room, muttering incomprehensibly and occasionally insulting passers-by. Eventually, a verdict of sorts is reached: I am allergic to sulfa drugs. The plumber on the Titanic is hit in the face with water and drano and the ship’s lights begin to go out.
June 2005 — While on pain medications, I start my master’s program and bust through the year, whining all the way. The rheumatologist is mystified, my regular doctor says, and I quote, “Medical science doesn’t have all the answers. Or even most of them.” Did I mention my regular doctor is a med school professor and the director of internal medicine for University Hospital and UM’s medical school? Back on the Titanic, the plumber wanders off to find a wrench and never returns. The officer of the deck disappears as well.
April-July 2006 — I get pneumonia and spend two days in Saline’s hospital, but I graduate with a 4.0 average and Frank gets a job offer back in the Bay Area. We pack up and leave Ann Arbor. Hey, let’s wander over to the other side of the Titanic, shall we? There are other, better crewmembers over there …
August 2006 — In a humiliating repeat of my postponement of grad school, I am forced to resign my first teaching job after only four weeks due to the increasing pain in my joints and increasing hypertension. By now, I’ve gained 30 pounds and have zero energy. Getting out of bed and downstairs is a struggle. Keeping up with 180 seventh- and eighth-graders is a nightmare. I resign the position and my new regular doctor refers me to a new rheumatologist, who plies me with the blessed Vicodin. I start substitute teaching in Brentwood. The Titanic‘s deck angle grows sharper, the orchestra strikes up Nearer My God to Thee and the officer of the deck on the other side assigns another plumber to try to right the ship. The plumber dumps drano overboard and gets everyone nearby riotously drunk.
January 2007 — One night as they go to bed, my rheumatologist mentions my case to her husband, a nephrologist. He suggests a referral and kidney workup. I can have an appointment in two months. The Titanic‘s plumber tosses me some more vodka, introduces me to one of the ship’s engineers and prepares to abandon ship.
March 2007 — A complete kidney workup which mainly features collecting all of my pee for 48 hours in two jugs shows nothing abnormal, but there is a high concentration of a hormone called Aldosterone in my blood. Aldosterone is produced by the adrenal glands and regulates potassium and sodium levels (and therefore blood pressure, energy, stamina, etc.) in the body. The nephrologist refers me to an endocrinologist, since my grandmother lost a kidney to cancer and then died of renal failure and my father has a nonfunctioning adenoma on one of his adrenal glands. Pain is still high and Vicodin is still flowing; there’s now a handicapped placard hanging from the Jeep’s rearview mirror. As the Titanic‘s bow begins to rise from the water, the ship’s engineer introduces me to one of the ship’s officers, then heads overboard after the plumber. The engineer, educated at the finest schools in the world, suspects that there is a hole in the ship. The orchestra is finding it more difficult to play Nearer My God to Thee.
April 2007 — After more extensive testing, including several more 48-hour pee collections, volumes of blood, x-rays, an ultrasound and two anti-hypertensive medications, the endocrinologist brings in a verdict: Primary hyperaldosteronism and a microadenoma mass on the left adrenal gland. The prescription: I must undergo three more tests to find out if the mass is producing all the aldosterone or if it’s both adrenal glands together doing it. If it’s the mass, we do an adrenalectomy. If it’s the glands (bilateral hyperplasia), then we treat it with drugs. A CT scan and two saline load tests ensue, in which my body is flooded with high concentrations of sodium and then my aldosterone levels are measured. If the aldosterone stays high, then the diagnosis is confirmed. If it drops, then something else is wrong. The test is first tried with me eating all the salt and sodium foods I can find. It doesn’t increase the sodium level enough, even after I feel like a walking Great Salt Lake. The test is repeated intravenously at the hospital over four hours. There is a risk of heart attack or stroke. That which does not kill us makes us stronger is mentioned. The intravenous saline load test confirms the hyperaldosteronism diagnosis. The CT scan confirms the left adrenal microadenoma, which is less than five millimeters. The endocrinologist promises one last test and then surgery and relief. A month, tops. Much Vicodin is being consumed, as well as occasional vodka martinis. Meanwhile, on the Titanic, the ship’s officer leans over, spots the gash in the side and yells, “Eureka! I think that’s our problem!” But he orders his crew to conduct five different tests in order to confirm the hole in the side. The deck tilts higher up, the orchestra begins to slide down the deck. The officer shrugs and says, “Oh, we’ll know something in a month and then be able to procede with repairs.”
July 2007 — Two months passes before all tests and insurance approvals and scheduling can be completed for the final hurdle before surgery and relief: a diabolical procedure called an Adrenal Vein Sampling (AVS) test, performed in an operating room under local anesthetic. A radiologist shaves and numbs your crotch, then passes a long thin catheter up your femoral vein into the left adrenal gland. The procedure is long and difficult since it is akin to attempting to obtain a drop of water from a specific spot in a sewer system while working from a manhole cover 10 miles away. The procedure is ostensibly successful; it takes three hours, but the radiologist has samples and it looks like we’re on our way. Then the lab informs the endocrinologist that not enough blood was drawn in order to measure what must be measured. AVS#1 is a failure. Back on the Titanic, the ship’s officer reports the failure of his crew to snake a line down the side of the ship to measure the hole. “Without knowing how big the hole is and whether the water is really coming in the hole, we can’t repair it, now can we?” The orchestra is no longer playing, and is, in fact, no longer on deck; they’ve hit the water and are drowning. There’s no vodka on board and the only relief is to beat my head against the wall. The ship’s officer remains upbeat.
Two weeks later, a second AVS is attempted. This time, it too is successful. A week later, the lab reports the numbers to the endocrinologist. ‘What does “greater than 50’ mean when it comes to the right aldosterone level?’ How much greater than 50?’ The lab doesn’t know and has discarded the sample. AVS#2 is deemed a failure. My crotch, bearing two deep puncture marks, and I pass out. More of the VV, Vicodin and Vodka. AVS#3 is scheduled for the end of August at UCSF Medical Center, a teaching hospital with radiologists and a lab more familiar with the procedure’s requirements. Back on the Titanic, two crew members die trying to measure the hole. The ship’s officer is hanging on to the railing with his feet dangling. ‘It would be malpractice to repair that hole without knowing for sure,’ he cries. I am knocked out temporarily by a falling railing, but manage to barely hang on.
August 2007 — Things get seriously higgledy-piggledy. I accept a job offer to teach sixth grade math/science at a tough junior high in Pittsburg, a 15-mile, 45-minute commute. AVS#3 can be done on a day the week before school starts and shouldn’t be a problem. I am very, very wrong about this. AVS#3 at UCSF is performed by a resident with an experienced attending nearby. He successfully samples the left adrenal, then starts the hunt for the right. He punctures my inferior vena cavae. The attending knocks me out, ends the procedure, whisks me away for a CT scan, which shows internal bleeding, an inflamed pancreas and an inflamed right adrenal gland. I am admitted to the hospital overnight and given the mother of all painkillers, Dilaudid, which I discover later is a derivative of morphine eight times more powerful than morphine. Nurses pump it into me overnight every four hours and it is bliss. As it enters the IV, it spreads warmth, happiness, goodwill, charm, and love for mankind all over the flippin’ place. It is damn good stuff. I am instantly hooked. I am sent home the next morning and the day after that I get my classroom ready for school. By the end of the afternoon, I’m a mess, doubled over in pain, feverish, shaking, irritable, paranoid, panicky.
At home that evening, the freak-out is turned up as the Dilaudid cravings get worse. The pain also gets worse in my abdomen. I decide a trip to the Walnut Creek ER is in order. Frank sighs in an apparently inappropriate manner. It provokes an astonishingly vicious tirade — hulk gets mad. I leave the house by myself and drive to Walnut Creek on the back winding mountain road. Frank is calling me to come back home so he can drive, and he gets earfuls of venom. This is perhaps one my ugliest moments as a human, certainly the ugliest on my part in our marriage.
Miraculously, I reach John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek without wrecking the Jeep. I am taken back to the ER where I listen to an 18-year-old on the other side of the curtain describe in glorious detail how she completely O.D.‘ed on Ecstasy at a rock concert at Concord Pavilion and how she ‘squirts’ when she’s poked with a needle (don’t ask). My own drama continues as a CT scan shows pancreatitis, internal bleeding, the inflamed right adrenal gland, and, a new wrinkle, a new adenoma on the right gland. I’m admitted to the sixth floor of the hospital, plied with more Dilaudid in higher dosages, and spend three days getting the pancreatitis under control. It does subside with massive antibiotics, but now my gall bladder is screwed up and needs removal.
Meanwhile, the Dilaudid is pumping … at least until Saturday night, when a new shift change nurse ignores me for six hours. I begin to come off the Dilaudid. The result is not pretty. Hulk mad. Hulk take vengeance on world. I confront the nursing staff for their inattention and then demand to be released on my own power. I speak with the oncall physician who reluctantly agrees. I sit in the ER waiting room while Frank drives over to pick me up. The hospital’s supervisor apologizes. Hulk still angry, but able to be civil. I go home.
I start school on Monday and Tuesday, but by Tuesday night, I’m seriously crashing due to low potassium and no Dilaudid. David and I set out for the ER again, but there is a huge wait in Walnut Creek. I get the screaming mimi’s on the way home. Frank takes me to the Concord ER, where for six hours I lie twitching and gibbering and getting pumped full of potassium and other drugs to counteract the Dilaudid reaction. I will miss the rest of the first week of school. The Titanic slips beneath the waves and heads for the bottom. The ship’s officer and I are clinging to debris. “I know we can fix her if we can just find out how big the hole is!” he says.
September 2007 — I now need a gall bladder surgery and AVS#4. A referral to a surgeon results in stalemate; she’s unwilling to operate until my blood pressure is down; endocrinologist can’t get my blood pressue down until an AVS is successful. We take a breather. Gallbladder surgery is put off ‘til November and AVS#4 is scheduled for late October, at Walnut Creek, the third facility/radiologist to attempt it. The ship’s officer gathers a crew to attempt a dive down to the Titanic to measure the hole. “Then we’ll bring her right up again, you’ll see!”
October 2007 — AVS#4 isn’t a disaster, but the radiologist is unable to snake the catheter into the right adrenal gland. AVS#4 is a failure. My only options: The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or Stanford Medical Center, an unknown quantity. I schedule the gallbladder for 20-Nov, throwing up my arms. The Titanic‘s officer is consulting with the ship’s designer, who clings to debris nearby. The designer is certain the ship’s plumbing can be fixed before the hole is repaired and the ship raised. Listening to them, I begin to go insane.
November 2007 — Blue Shield denies my request that AVS#5 be performed by the Mayo Clinic. That leaves Stanford. Each AVS has cost the insurance over $30,000. If they want to refuse to allow the best to get it done, then we’ll just keep repeating it here in the Bay Area at $30,000 a pop out of their pocket. Idiots. Meanwhile, the 20-Nov surgery date is cancelled by the anesthesiologist, who senses some major lawsuit action if I croak on the table due to my high blood pressure. He insists on more meds and a detailed echocardiogram. The five antihypertensives I subsequently take turn me into a drugged, whacked-out zombie, barely able to move. They dehydrate me and rob me of the little potassium I have left. But the anesthesiologist is satisfied because my systolic has dropped 10 points and he no longer is panicked about a lawsuit. The gallbladder surgery is rescheduled for the 66th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
And that’s where we stand. Crews are working on the Titanic‘s plumbing and the Arizona is about to blow up. It’s gonna be a hell of a weekend. ★
• 2984 Words written by Steve @ 03:26 | 03-Dec-07 in Anxiety • Comment
36 Hours
36 hours from now, my cholocystectomy should be finished and I should be floating on a cloud of anesthetic and pain killer. Can’t happen soon enough for me. There’s a 10-mm stone in there and I’ve been on a fat-free diet for two months. I’ll keep most of the diet, but hopefully lose all the nausea and occasional pain I’ve been experiencing.
Laparascopic surgery is a wonderful invention. I remember my aunt having this surgery back in the 1970s; she was in the hospital for two weeks. I should be back home by nightfall, as long as the good folks at «John Muir Concord» and my surgeon, «Dr. Mary Cardoza», do things up right.
Usually, this kind of thing would bother me, but I’m ready to get going. No real anxieties or concerns.
We’re still waiting on insurance approval for my trip to the Mayo Clinic. More on that later. ★
• 153 Words written by Steve @ 00:22 | 19-Nov-07 in Anxiety • Comment
Commonality
Not sure why I’m even noting this, but it did catch my eye. Among the «5,000 most common names according to the 2000 US Census», Frank has a more common surname than I do.
Our names: Lester (his) is 709th, down 111 places, 16 occurrences per 100,000 names. Mine, Pollock, is 1,420th, up 20 places, 9 occurrences per 100,000 names.
Maiden names: My mother’s (Booth) is 635th, down 45, 18 occurrences per 100,000. Frank’s mother’s (Celis) doesn’t show up in the top 5000.
Other names in my family tree:
• Nelson: 40th, down 1, 153 per 100,000.
• Cook: 56th, down 4, 109 per 100,000.
• Gregory: 312th, down 28, 33 per 100,000.
• Norton: 485th, down 19, 23 per 100,000.
• Short: 536th, up 14, 21 per 100,000.
• Starr: 1,135th, down 19, 10 per 100,000.
• Teague: 1,371st, down 99, 9 per 100,000.
• Ketchum: 4,334th, up 374, 3 per 100,000.
Common. Dead common. Ha! ★
• 123 Words written by Steve @ 00:01 | 17-Nov-07 in Family • Comment
Snorg!
Frank and I can relate (he’s the dog heading for the floor to get away from his snoring husband).
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• 19 Words written by Steve @ 22:07 | 14-Nov-07 in Health • Comment
Big, Dirty Bathtub
What was originally described on local radio as a spill amounting to just “140 gallons of bunker oil” following the ramming of the Bay Bridge by a container ship last week rapidly turned into 58,000 gallons of oil spilled into San Francisco Bay, which will have «long-lasting effects»:
‘A major oil spill is making San Francisco Bay look like a dirty bathtub, and the ring of black that soils the shoreline is likely to pose dire consequences for birds, mice, ducks, fish and the smallest of aquatic creatures for years to come, scientists say. Hidden under rocks or lying deep in the sediment and soil in wetlands and the bottom of the bay, the residue from 58,000 gallons of ship oil could remain for years, daubing creatures with a fatal blob or contaminating the food chain. “It’s pretty awful,” said John McCosker, a senior scientist at the California Academy of Sciences.’
—SFGate.com
Meanwhile, the Coast Guard is «admitting some errors», including the whole 140 or 58,000 thing:
‘High-ranking California politicians and Bay Area residents angry about their oil-splattered beaches demanded answers Friday to why the Coast Guard took so long to notify the public of this week’s huge ship-fuel spill and how the sludgy mess was allowed to spread so far. Coast Guard officials acknowledged they had erred in waiting more than four hours on Wednesday to issue an advisory that 58,000 gallons – not just 140 – had spewed into the water after a ship rammed the base of a Bay Bridge tower, but they insisted their response was appropriate.
‘California’s two U.S. senators, San Francisco’s congresswoman, a host of state legislators and residents up and down the damaged coastline were not buying it. “Something went terribly wrong,” Sen. Barbara Boxer told The Chronicle when asked what she thought of the disaster response. “It was not handled the way it has to be handled. “You are talking about the most pristine part of the country here. We value this ecosystem. This is what makes the Bay Area special. It’s just unacceptable,” said Boxer, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.’
—SFGate.com
Unacceptable. But what’s done is done. We have to accept it. Like everything else in the last seven years. ★
• 372 Words written by Steve @ 11:23 | 11-Nov-07 in California • Comment
Rock and Roll
Just felt my … fourth (? yeah, fourth) … California earthquake. «A 5.6 which was reportedly on the Calaveras Fault five miles from Alum Rock, near San Jose» (Link no longer active. —Ed.).
Frank and I were sitting on the couch with Fergus, who was … well, cleaning himself in a delicate spot, shall we say … and we felt the couch move back and forth for awhile. We thought it was the dog, but David came down the stairs and asked if we felt it. It shook things upstairs. That’s when we realized the couch is pretty steady and can’t be shaken by the little beagle that is Fergus.
As for wondering what the beagle boys’ reaction to an earthquake would be, well, we no longer have to wonder. Nothing. Nada. No reaction of any kind. So, for the record, not even an earthquake can make Fergus stop licking his balls. Fredrik just sat looking dignified, and Feargal was too busy sniffing the floor for signs that the cat had visited his domain.
Yeesh. ★
• 171 Words written by Steve @ 19:35 | 30-Oct-07 in Earthquakes • Comment
Fresh Start
The principal called this morning as I was getting ready for yet another doctor’s appointment and asked if I were still available. We arranged an interview for 13:00. The interview last about 30 minutes or so and then he went and called a couple of my references, which were very positive (he said). He offered the job to me on the spot. We then went over and he let me pick out a classroom. I then found myself driving to the district office and going over all the necessary paperwork with a very nice HR lady.
The district is much friendlier and less closed off than my last one. I am cautiously optimistic about it. The assignment itself won’t be easy; but for various reasons I won’t go into, I think it will be much easier than my sixth grade long-term sub stint this spring, which was a real blow to my self-image and self-confidence.
So, the horse is back in the gate, and I’m about to get back in the saddle. Wish me luck. ★
• 177 Words written by Steve @ 20:46 | 07-Aug-07 in Anxiety • Share a Thought
About My Disgust …
Since we moved to Brentwood just last 24-Jul (was it just 10 short months ago?!), the following has happened, in no particular chronological order:
•My dog has been poisoned and died;
•My partner has been viciously attacked by a police dog while standing lawfully in the middle of our living room (eight stitches, by the way; more on this later … much more);
•My career has been derailed by an illness which has been made much more frustrating by the lack of doctors and hospitals and sane healthcare practices in the area;
•My career ambitions have been further frustrated by an employer which is described (and these are not my words) as having “incestuous hiring practices”; which is filled with homophobics, their enablers, and some reasonably decent people, who, while sympathetic to my plight, are too concerned about lawsuits and appearances to fight the good fight against the former;
•I have been called (numerous times) a “faggot” and had 12-year-olds write “f—- you, Mr. P.” notes to me in textbooks;
•I have had three rounds of bronchitis, two emergency room visits, and four urgent care visits … should I just stop there before I get more depressed?
And people wonder why I’ve been disgusted?
Granted, not all of this is Brentwood’s fault. Call it the cosmic misalignment of the stars, horrible coincidences, what-have-you. It’s not all Brentwood’s fault. Not all California’s fault.
Oh, hell, yes it is. It’s Brentwood’s fault that they can’t control their police dogs or keep out wanted felons from living in otherwise good neighborhoods.
It’s Brentwood’s fault that their police officers can’t arrest said felons who are weak 49-year-old grandfathers, yet still manage to elude 12 officers, a helicopter, and a K-9 unit for 30 minutes while said K-9 unit is in our living room attacking my family and threatening our puppies.
It’s Brentwood’s fault that the aforementioned employer will only hire blonde white women who are related to or have known district employees for 30 years.
It’s Brentwood’s fault that it’s full of homophobic, yakkity women who have nothing better to do than pass around vicious and nasty lies all day.
It’s Brentwood’s fault that they built houses for 40,000 people and didn’t plan any healthcare infrastructure of any kind to take care of them, preferring to rely instead on crappy ER services 10 and 25 miles away. Hell, even Duncan, Oklahoma, a town of 23,000 has a better hospital and healthcare system than this pathetic garbage dump.
It’s Brentwood’s fault. But mostly … it’s mine. It’s my fault for answering the damn job ad that brought us here in the first place. I thought it might be a reasonably decent place to spend a couple of years while waiting to move to a more sane place elsewhere in the country (meaning away from California). Little did I know just how devastating and expensive this decision would be.
And that is why I am disgusted. I can’t wait to see Brentwood in my rearview mirror (and I’m pretty sure Brentwood can’t wait to see my backside disappearing eastbound).
I can’t help it, it’s just the way I feel. ★
• 518 Words written by Steve @ 12:33 | 14-May-07 in Anxiety • Comments
Disgust
There comes, in pretty much every town I’ve lived in, an extended moment, usually early on, where I truly detest the people in the town.
I’m currently in the midst of one of those moments with Brentwood.
I’ll get over it. Maybe. ★
• 42 Words written by Steve @ 14:42 | 18-Apr-07 in Anxiety • Comments
Poison
It’s looking like Bayley was the victim of «rat poison»:
‘Rat poison was found in the pet food suspected of causing kidney failure that killed at least 16 cats and dogs, but scientists still don’t know how it got there, state officials said Friday. The toxin was identified as aminopterin, which is used to kill rats in some countries, state Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker said.
‘Aminopterin is not registered for killing rodents in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, though it is used as a cancer drug. State officials wouldn’t speculate on how the toxin got into Menu Foods’ now-recalled pet food but said no criminal investigations had been launched. Scientists at the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell and at the New York State Food Laboratory tested three cat food samples provided by Menu Foods and found Aminopterin in two of them. Hooker said they would test individual components of the pet food, as well. The early test results were released to give veterinarians a better idea of how to treat sick animals.
‘“Any amount of this product is too much in food,” Hooker said.’
—Associated Press
I think I’ll go be sick now. ★
• 202 Words written by Steve @ 03:42 | 23-Mar-07 in Beagle • Comments
Bayley Beagle Comes Home
Sad moments today: Bayley Murphey Beagle came home for the last time. I picked up his cremains at 11:30 this morning. Whoever did the work did a very nice job (except that they spelled his name, “Bailey” as usual). There is a paw print in plaster, and the cremains are in a very nice cedar box. I put it in the living room with a photo.
It was a very tough time. Along with picking him up and bringing him home, there is more and more news about the recall and how widespread and deadly it is. I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Channel 2 news was showing a very sick beagle in Fremont, who got sick after eating the food. It’s a tragedy and a crime. Every time we look on the Menu Foods website, they’ve added additional UPC codes of Authority food that was affected. It’s nasty and disgusting and heartbreaking.
Frank and David had rough moments over seeing the box which holds what’s left of Bayley. Frank couldn’t look inside. David and I unlocked it and looked. There are small bone fragments and dust. David had a very hard time for awhile and didn’t eat dinner. Frank had his moment a little later.
I guess I’m still numb. I’m also really angry. I miss him terribly. It was probably unnecessary and caused by the food we were feeding him. As one lady on the evening news said as she held up a packet of tainted food, “I killed my cat by feeding her this.” I feel the same way. I feel like I killed Bayley by feeding him. And I didn’t even know it.
I hate this. But I’m glad he’s home. I wish he were snoring here on the couch with me. But at least he’s here and not lying on a cold slab somewhere.
We plan to prepare and cook our own food menus for the «Beagle Boys». May Menu Foods rot in hell. Bastards.
Can we agree that I must be in the anger stage of grief? ★
• 346 Words written by Steve @ 14:33 | 19-Mar-07 in Beagle • Comments
Ouch
While cleaning up and pruning the dead hedges that we lost to hard freezes this winter, a piece of branch flew off and hit me right in the eyeball. My vision got cloudy and I’ve got a very red eye.
David ran me to the «eye doctor», which is just a couple of blocks away, and Dr. Ong was able to see me quickly (and for $30). He checked my eyeball out and fortunately it’s just a bad bruise, no tears or other damage. I have to wear my glasses for a week and use some eyedrops to make sure I don’t get an infection, but I’m none the worse for wear.
I will be buying, however, eye protection goggles at Ace Hardware tomorrow.
Yeesh. ★
• 126 Words written by Steve @ 14:28 | 19-Mar-07 in Anxiety • Comments
A Sad Goodbye, A Joyful Hello
Not only was Bayley’s passing painful, but I was also in the middle of the last two weeks of the quarter, getting ready for and in the middle of finals, as well as the evaluations for our school becoming a California Distinguished School (which we did accomplish), a very intense time.
And now comes this weekend’s news that a massive pet food recall is underway. As tragic as it is, it may have finally provided a clue to Bayley’s final illness and why he went from doing very well to very sick over a couple of months. We purchased Authority canned food from PetsMart on Jan. 2, and he began to get sick in February after we began feeding the new stuff to him. We had no clue it was food-related; we just knew that he was “off his feed” and we felt it was that he was slowing down due to age. Unfortunately, he was exhibiting the exact symptoms, followed by kidney failure and death, that dogs and cats affected by the recall were exhibiting. We’ll be further investigating what happened and I’ll be trying again to call the company tomorrow (the 800 number has been busy all weekend).
Tomorrow, I go to the vet to pick up his ashes, a difficult moment. And late last week, I was finally able to post Bayley’s final photos on Flickr. It brought some sense of finality to it, although I’m not quite ready for that yet. The pics are difficult to see, because they show him going from healthy and serene, then feeling sick and sleepy, and finally his last moments, including one taken immediately after he left us. Please don’t click on the link if you’d find them disturbing. For us, they’re also difficult to view because we miss him so much; and for me personally because, looking back now, how could I have been so oblivious to his illness? Yes, he was only a dog; but a dog that was an integral part of the family and a dog that left a huge hole in our lives. If you care to see the pics and say goodbye by leaving a comment, click on this link:
Moving on to a brighter and happier note: In one of life’s great and mysterious coincidences/miracles, the beagle of a student of mine brought five beagle puppies into the world exactly a week after Bayley left us. It seems fitting somehow, like it was known that Bayley was crossing the Rainbow Bridge and we’d need wiggly puppies to help comfort us after he was gone. While no other dog could ever take Bayley’s place, nor would we even try, we do know that not having a dog in our lives is not something we want. If we can’t have Bayley, we need a new beagle. We’re dog people, dog lovers, and we need a beagle in our life.
Or … maybe … three beagles. I always regretted that we didn’t bring Bayley’s two brothers home when we had the chance. He was always somewhat lonely and never very well socialized with other dogs. I was determined to not repeat that mistake. As they say, more dogs = less trouble because they have each other. They get into less mischief and chewing of bad things.
So, we were able to go over to the Allens’ house here in Brentwood this evening, where we were graciously met by my student Ashley, her brothers, and her mom and dad, and also graciously accepted by the very sweet Ginger the Beagle, who made no fuss at all as we handled her puppies. Buddy the Beagle, who is their dad, was resting at his own home, so we weren’t able to meet him. But he’s supposedly just as sweet as Ginger. The Allens have spent the last two weeks praying over the puppies, hoping they ended up in a good home. So, it’s working out well for all concerned.
The puppies’ eyes are just beginning to open and we bonded with them immediately. There are two girls (who will end up in other homes) and … «drumroll please» … three boys, who will be coming to live with us here on Wexford in early May.
Yes, you read correctly. Three beagles. Here in May. Yes, I’m insane. But you already knew that, right?
We therefore proudly introduce to you Feargal, Fergus, and Fredrik, the Beagle Boys, who pose along with their mom and two sisters, Isabel and Jasmine on Flickr:
«Feargal, Fergus, and Fredrik: First Photos».
To explain the names: In keeping with St. Patrick’s Day and my Irish heritage, we decided to be a bit goofy. Officially, they are Feargal Bayley O’Dougal, Fergus Bayley O’Dougal, and Fredrik Bayley O’Dougal – the middle name is in honor of Bayley Murphey, of course, and O’Dougal is in honor of Kit and Erin’s beloved black Labrador, the late and fierce fetching warrior, Rudy Dougal.
Feargal and Fergus are good old Irish names meaning “Strong Warrior” and “Fierce Warrior.” Fredrik plays on Frank’s Swedish heritage and means “Peaceful Warrior.” And of course, “Warrior” is Beagle-ese for “Let’s see how much chaos we can create before Dad gets home.” Plus, Feargal, Fergus, and Fred are alliterative, not to mention doofus-y and silly and goofy, just like beagles. The Allen kids named them Cinnamon, Sabre, and Rocky, as kids are wont to do, but we’re probably going with our Triple F Threat names. Frank came up with Feargal and Fergus after an internet search; Fred occurred to me because Little Ricky’s dog on I Love Lucy was named Fred. It’s probably all moot; they’ll most likely respond to just about anything, except when they don’t want to, which will be often. Such is life with beagles.
The Bayley chapter in our lives is closing, albeit very reluctantly. The new chapter is opening. Life, as they say, has a way of going on, even when those we love are no longer part of it.
The boys’ lives will be chronicled at a new website I’ve set up. Note the s in the domain name. Can’t just be singular AirBeagle anymore when there will be three of them running around:
Gonna be an interesting summer! ★
• 1045 Words written by Steve @ 13:21 | 18-Mar-07 in Endings • Comments
Future Beagles
It’s been just over a week since Bayley left us. My heart still aches, but I’m pretty resigned. Dogs get old. And when they get old, their parts wear out. His kidneys were gone. I wish it weren’t true and that he was lying here on the couch next to me as usual, but he’s not. I’ve been through the stages of grief as usual: first was denial; I kept hearing his sniffing/snorking and on more than one occasions, when Frank poked his head or foot around a corner, for a split second, I thought it was the beagle. I’ve also been royally angry, mostly at his kidneys.
Coming home from work is the worst; David is now back at work in San Francisco. He doesn’t get home until 6 p.m., and Frank doesn’t come home until 7 p.m. So, from pretty much 3:30 or so when I get home until 6, the house is empty and quiet and it’s a weird, sort of creepy feeling to come home to after 12 years. I don’t like it at all.
There are always two schools of thoughts about what happens after a beloved pet dies. One school says there’s only one Rover and he can’t be replaced so we won’t try. Another school says get a new puppy immediately. I lean more towards the latter. The emptiness of the house, the couch, the bed, etc., is just too big of a hole for me. I’d far rather Bayley still be here and he can’t be replaced, but I have to be in the next phase of grief, acceptance, and then move on.
So, a student of mine, a very sweet girl, told me while Bayley was in the hospital that her female beagle was about to have puppies and that I was welcome to the puppies if I wanted one. Or two. Or three. Well, her beagle delivered Friday five new beagle puppies. They’ll be about ready to leave mommy about when we’d be ready for them here, towards the end of school on June 7. I personally want three beagles. One is too lonely and unsocialized. Two would be good, three is better. I need to e-mail the student’s mother and find out more about them.
I wasn’t sure if I could raise puppies from scratch again. But since this situation came up and these puppies will need good homes/rescuing, it’s an option. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll be looking to go through the rescue adoption process. The problem with that is it’s expensive. Two rescue beagles could be around $500 in adoption fees. Ouch. I know the expenses of foster care are great, but if these rescue groups are looking to find owners, it looks like they’d make it more affordable.
At any rate, we’ll have beagles back in the house by the summer. Have to. The hole left by Bayley Murphy is just WAY too big. ★
• 486 Words written by Steve @ 06:39 | 10-Mar-07 in Beagle • Comments
Postscript
I received a call this evening from a nurse at the emergency hospital where we took Bayley when he had his seizure last week, the start of our horrifying ordeal. Seems his blood work revealed no evidence of bacterial infection.
Which means that his kidneys failed from old age, most likely, according to the nurse and the vet. I feel somewhat better knowing that it wasn’t anything we could prevent and that he didn’t ingest anything in the back yard. Still, this huge hole in my heart won’t go away and the house echoes with emptiness and silence.
I keep expecting to hear a snort or see a nose poked around the corner of a room or beautiful brown eyes peeking over the edge of the bed waiting for a lift up. When Frank comes home, there is no rapturous joy and frenzied howling. When I come home at 4, since Unca David is now back at work, there is no one here.
And it’s truly horrible. It sucks and I don’t like it.
I’m sorry Bayley Beagle, but we weren’t ready for you to go yet. You had a great run and gave us much joy and happiness, but … it still seems too fleeting.
We miss you Pookie. Sleep well. ★
• 210 Words written by Steve @ 15:53 | 06-Mar-07 in Beagle • Comments
Farewell, Pookus.
Bayley Murphey Beagle
20-Aug-1994 — 2-Mar-2007
Dear Bayley Murphey,
Thank you for being such a wonderful and good dog, a loving companion, for keeping us sane, for loving us unconditionally, for being such an incredibly important part of our lives for 12-and-a-half years. Thank you for putting up with all the picture-taking, ear rubbing, nail clipping, bathing, teefs-brushing and hugs and kisses. Thank you for curling up against us on cold, winter nights. Thank you being the touchstone of our lives. Thank you for being you.
We tried hard to give you a good life, full of all the things that good dogs such as you deserve. From the time of your puppyhood until today, you tried so hard to be good and please us, and you always did. We are richer for having had you in our lives, much, much poorer for your passing. Your suffering is over, now it’s time to run baying through the fields, chasing rabbits, rolling in squirrel pee, and lying under a tree gnawing a never-ending supply of beagle bagels.
Rest and sleep well, pookus. You leave a very large hole in our hearts and our lives.
Love,
Dad, Unca Frankie, and Unca David. ★
• 199 Words written by Steve @ 09:36 | 02-Mar-07 in Beagle • Comments
R.I.P.
It is with tremendous sorrow that Frank and I (and Unca David) must tell you that our beloved beagle, Bayley Murphey, passed away this evening, at 5:35 p.m. PST, Friday, 2-March-07, age 12 years and 6 months.
Bayley had been slowing down considerably in the last six months, but we chalked that up to advancing age and didn’t think much more of it, because he still seemed to be his same old familiar self. But he started getting seriously ill — and being seriously and observably not himself — about three weeks ago. He started drinking way more water than usual, shivering and shaking a lot, losing his appetite and also losing weight, becoming listless and lethargic, and eventually spending most of the day asleep and having to be carried up and down the stairs even to do his business.
Before we went to sleep on the morning of February 28, we had put him to bed in his usual spot between us as usual — intending to take him to a vet this weekend to see what was wrong — and at 2:30 a.m., he started having a frightening and intense seizure, unlike anything either of us had ever seen before. We rushed him to the emergency care facility in Antioch and were told that he had acute renal failure, cause unknown, and was blind from the seizure. The blindness would clear up in a couple of hours, but more seizures were possible. Acute renal failure is usually seen in dogs who have consumed anti-freeze, but if he had ingested something like that, it would have happened very quickly, not spread over three weeks. We will never know the exact cause, but other than the possibility of a toxic plant or chemical in the back yard, it was most likely due to his age. We had known that something was strange with him but had no way of knowing that it was anything this bad.
The emergency hospital took care of him for five hours, and then we took him to a regular vet in Brentwood when they opened. That vet was not optimistic and put him on a course of IV fluids and antibiotics for 48 hours, and we took him home during the evenings. I stayed up through the night with him while he continued fluid infusions on an IV line. Unfortunately, Bayley’s blood counts, though they did improve, didn’t bounce back enough to justify continuing to put him through all of this. He didn’t get any stronger and couldn’t/wouldn’t eat anything. By the end of this week he had already lost 15 pounds and was quite weak. The poisons were building in his body again.
After work on Friday night, with the vet telling us that Bayley had “hit the wall,” we concluded that putting him to sleep was the only realistic alternative to letting him die a slow and agonizing death, probably from starvation. Before this illness, we had hoped that he would eventually just get older and die in his sleep one day, sparing all of us this kind of situation, but unfortunately, it was not to be. I signed the euthanasia order, a very painful moment.
We were able to spend a final hour or so with him, saying goodbye. Finally, I told the vet we were ready, and Unca Frankie, Unca David, and I gathered around him holding him. I held his head and talked to him as the vet slid the injection syringe into the IV line. It was over in less than 10 seconds. He died very peacefully, sliding away into sleep as I held his head.
Because I don’t want to leave him behind in California if (when!) we get to leave, Bayley will be cremated and his ashes returned to us within two weeks.
Thanks for bearing with me through this long and difficult e-mail. And to those of you who welcomed Bayley into your homes from time-to-time, or befriended him during visits to our home, thank you for taking him into your heart. We miss him terribly. It’s amazing the impact a little dog can have on your life, and the hole that results from his passing.
Give your animals (or kids, or spouses, or even a stranger on the street) a hug. Life is all too fleeting and short.
Frank wrote the following to our friends in LA, and it’s a nice coda: “Lord Byron once described a deceased dog as “one who possessed beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices.” Those words better describe Bayley than any I could come up with.” ★
• 769 Words written by Steve @ 09:35 | 02-Mar-07 in Beagle • Comments
Life in Brentwood. Yes, Indeedy.
I started a new teaching assignment last week: 60 sixth graders in two classes. They’re an energetic, fun, and talented group and I like them all very much. I’m happy to have the job and finally feel up to being an actual teacher in charge.
It’s had its rough moments, of course, behavior-wise; this is a talky group and they are also pretty snarky with each other. It’s stuff we’re working on. But all-in-all, I’m enjoying it and making the transition pretty well (from an emotional perspective).
There was one moment, however, this morning that took the wind out of my sails. While signing the weekly attendance verification forms in the office, one of the assistant principals asked to speak with me. The upshot was that a parent had called to complain that I had told the kids about having a partner. The offending phrase was uttered during the day last week when I took time out to introduce myself and have them introduce themselves to me. The phrase was, “My partner F——- and I have been together seven years and we have a 12-year-old beagle.” No other information related to this was given; I didn’t use any other words than “partner;” certainly not “gay” or anything like that. There was no advertorial/recruitment for the impressionable little 12-year-olds to come over to the dark side.
Nonetheless, this single phrase generated a hot call to the assistant principal, who was then put in the difficult position of having to promise to talk to me and then having to talk to me. She is very good at what she does and we had a good conversation, agreed on several things, and left it at that. Beyond that, I won’t say anything else about the conversation, except that it was pleasant and not a problem.
But.
It still takes the wind out of my sails. Our relationship is recognized by the state (mostly) and we’ll file a joint state tax return in 2008. Yet here comes the harassment. I’m glad there was no demand for my head or resignation or firing or “get my daughter out of his class” or any of that. But parents talk to each other. As do the kids. I know that at least two of my students now know what a “partner” is, and I know there is the potential that the parents do as well. By this one phone call about a single, honest, two-second statement, there is now a sword of Damocles over my head. While the administrators would back me up, well, when parents get angry and then say the magic word, “lawsuit,” well, let’s just say school districts don’t go to bat for their homos. I’m not paranoid, but I don’t like this.
Still, I told the truth to my students when asked an honest question. It’s a principle that I teach and expect my students to uphold; I can’t be bullied or scared into abandoning when things get unpleasant. We’ll see how this shakes out. Most probably, nothing will happen. But my wind is up, as the Brits say.
(Cross-posted in the Teach and Love blogs.)
• 540 Words written by Steve @ 14:42 | 18-Jan-07 in Brentwood • Comments
Contrails in the Moonlight
While soaking my weary joints in the hot tub tonight, there was a beautiful, round full moon directly overhead. As I lay steeping in the 103-degree heat, clouds of steam swirled up into the sky and the last leaves on the tree in the front yard fingered out the light from the streetlamp; it was very movie-esque.
Looking back up at the moon, a passing jet, high up on a jetway (perhaps a Delta flight from KHNL to KSLC?) passed by just below the moon. The moonlight was trapped in the contrail left by the jet. It was a gorgeous scene. I managed a picture of the moon, but had to Photoshop-in the contrail and jet … but at least you get an idea of what a beautiful night it was:
Jet contrail in the moonlight | Brentwood, CA | 22:33 1-Jan-07
Pleasant dreams. ★
• 140 Words written by Steve @ 15:40 | 01-Jan-07 in Travel • Comments
2006 Dying
The last dying rays of 2006 in Brentwood. Happy new year, everyone! ★
• 11 Words written by Steve @ 09:06 | 31-Dec-06 in Miscellany • Comments
Birthdays: Another Chalked Up
How I felt on my 43rd birthday last week:
Credit: «PBF Comics». Fabulous, really twisted stuff there. ★
• 19 Words written by Steve @ 07:29 | 19-Dec-06 in Anxiety • Comments
Number 236
«Happy» «Beethoven’s Birthday!»
★
• 7 Words written by Steve @ 04:14 | 16-Dec-06 in Culture • Comments
Good News
My sister’s biopsy was benign. Thank god. ★
• 7 Words written by Steve @ 15:39 | 09-Dec-06 in Anxiety • Comments
Orion, Warrior of the Night
The clear, cold night sky above, a hot tub sending clouds of steam up into it, warrior Orion guarding all below. A late fall night in California.
The hot tub is one of about only three places where I get relief these days (the other two being the jacuzzi tub in the bathroom and the bed while I sleep). I try to get into it 3-4 nights a week.
I will always associate Orion with California winters. Every time I’m out at night, giving Bayley his nighty-night walkies or, like tonight, hot-tubbing it, Orion is always there.
Tonight, his side is pierced by a long shaft of light from a searchlight a couple of miles to the southeast of us on Brentwood Boulevard. I don’t know why anyone down there is advertising anything at this time of night; the town seems to shut down at 9 p.m. and about the only thing along that stretch of road is the new police station. But it’s been there the last few nights, always piercing Orion’s side. It’s hacking me off.
But thank god for hot tubs. And winter skies. And guardian Orion. ★
• 190 Words written by Steve @ 14:51 | 25-Nov-06 in Miscellany • Comments
A Phone Call
My sister may have breast cancer.
I don’t know how to respond to her news.
This is not supposed to be happening. Surreal. I don’t want to think about it.
I don’t like all this getting older. ★
• 37 Words written by Steve @ 13:44 | 22-Nov-06 in Anxiety • Comments
Sidelined
So, about that first week … yeah.
First three days of school were good. Besides one little incident, things went well. My students did great on a reading assessment I did on Wednesday. We’re going to be fine, just have to adjust to the school, city and grade level. Will take some time.
But.
Increasingly through Wednesday (2-Aug), I had been having more and more arthritis pain, all over. By Wednesday morning, I was waking up bawling my eyes out and barely moving. After consultation with my principal that morning, we talked about ways to ease up and not kill myself keeping up with 179 kids and he told me to take Thursday and Friday off so I could find a doctor/rheumatologist and get things under control.
It has totally trashed my emotional health at the same time and I was simply losing it. Thought I was gonna lose my mind. Not in front of the kids, but it was only a matter of time. So, I went to local urgent care, got some percoset and xanax and a referral to a rheumatologist. On Friday, I saw the rheumatologist in Walnut Creek and she was great, much better than the one I was using in Ann Arbor, and she ordered tests and x-rays and gave me vicodin and increased anti-depressants. She suspects that I have spondylosis, which is basically spinal osteoarthritis, which involves deteriorating discs and vertebrae in my back, which are causing nerve problems in the rest of me. My sister and mother have the same thing. Mom’s is especially bad. So, the x-rays will be read and next week we’ll figure out where to go from there.
She also insisted that I take next week off of work. Since I have 11 days of sick leave, it’s not a problem, but hugely embarrassing and frustrating and I’m feeling failure and anger and all that. Just when I needed to be on the game the most, my body failed me. But the principal is great, they have a sub that the kids love and knows what to do, I had lesson plans ready to go, and I’m going to stay home, keep immobilized and let the swelling go down. Doc also is pumping me full of steroids. I’m a walking pharmacy.
In other words, out of the first two weeks of school, I will have been there only three days. Not exactly a sterling start to the year. It is a huge job I’ve undertaken (much bigger than I realized or was told) and I question if I can do it physically. I have to discuss that angle with the central office tomorrow. I also have to attend open house night Thursday evening and deal with parents while higher than a kite on percoset, steroids, anti-depressants and vicodin. Fun, fun, fun.
To top it all off, I was awakened this morning by a nurse at the medical center, who told me my potassium was dangerously low and I should be preparing to head for the ER. She was trying to get in touch with my rheumatologist to find out what she wanted me to do. After several phone calls, the doc called a big ol’ potassium prescription in to the pharmacy and I had to go out again and deal with all that. It might explain the exhaustion, though, and I do feel better for an hour or two after I take the pills and they get absorbed into my system. Now I’ve got that problem.
Getting old sucks.
If that weren’t enough, my brother-in-law had an emergency appendectomy on Wednesday night in Oklahoma, and my aunt in New Mexico had an emergency abdominal surgery Friday night in New Mexico. Whatta week.
There have been good things. Don’t get me wrong. Love the class room, love most of the kids, we’ll be fine. But this is a real kick in the pants. Reminds me of what happened when ELMAC 7b began in the summer of ’04, and that’s quite scary. But this time, it’s worse. Pain is the worst I’ve had ever and it came out of the blue without warning.
In other news, the weather has cooled down and is back to California nice. Brentwood is a weird combination of redneck Delta town and edge of the hip Bay Area colliding, with the dividing line being the railroad tracks behind our house. Quite fascinating. The most Hummer SUVs I’ve ever seen in one place are all around here, mostly driven by teenagers or small women who can barely see over the steering wheel.
Frank’s commute is hell, but he’s adjusting; he’s just very, very tired, plus his boss has been on vacation and he was placed in charge of the entire IGS library. David is providing all my chauffeuring needs, since I can’t drive. He also helped me grade reading assessments this weekend and is taking care of kitchen/cooking duties, as well as keeping up with Bayley’s demands.
And that’s the news from Brentwood. ★
• 834 Words written by Steve @ 22:29 | 07-Aug-06 in Anxiety • Comment
Hot
Currently in Brentwood:
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• 3 Words written by Steve @ 15:17 | 23-Jul-06 in Brentwood • Comment
About the Banner
That photo in the previous banner was of the temperature reading on the Jeep as we entered Brentwood. It was 114 degrees Fahrenheit when we got here …
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• 26 Words written by Steve @ 21:56 | 20-Jul-06 in Brentwood • Comment
It's Hell Being Offline
Posting and pictures have been temporarily disrupted because internet service hasn’t started at the new house. I’ll have things to post, especially pictures, hopefully later today as our service provider gets its act together.
Things are good, but we’re very tired and sore. We are in Brentwood, the dog has his backyard, the stuff arrived safely from Ann Arbor (except for some minor damage on the big screen) and I’m posting this from my spiffy new classroom, which is truly fabulous.
More later! ★
• 83 Words written by Steve @ 12:04 | 20-Jul-06 in Moving • Comment
Heading West — Day Five
Last Long Leg
Written @ 08:35 MST | Saturday 15-Jul-06 | Salt Lake City, UT
This morning after the usual breakfast and loading of the car and checking out and making the dog mad that we’re back in the car for another long day, we went to the Beehive Sinclair station, where gas was $2.77. As I was filling up, a car drove up behind me. The man got out and said, “Wow, you’re a long way from home! Where in Michigan are you from?”
I said, “Ann Arbor.”
He said, “We’re from Tecumseh.”
We talked about what a long way it was and how he didn’t like to drive it now that they had small kids. He was Michigan real friendly, not Michigan standoffish friendly. And friends, there IS a difference.
We’re now on I-80 skirting the south end of the Great Salt Lake and the north end of Deseret Peak and the Oquirrh Mountains. The part we’ve been dreading is coming up: 500 miles of nothing all the way to Reno. It’s 100 miles to the border, then 400 to Reno. A very long day. But we gain an hour at the border. We left the hotel at 08:17, or 07:17 Pacific time, and it’s nine hours, so we should be in the hotel around 16:30 or 17:00.
We did this route eastbound to Denver in February of 1998. The desert and lake were frozen white and it was beautiful. After we arrived at the Days Inn in Salt Lake and got the dog settled, a huge snowfall came and buried us under 17 inches of the white stuff. Today, we’re doing everything opposite; it’s July, it’ll be 100+ degrees today, the desert is baking and yellow, Salt Lake has fires and green trees and we’re westbound back to the East Bay instead of eastbound out of it.
The landscape is gorgeous and I still admit that I’m a southwestern desert boy. Utah is a beautiful state, in spite of the religious insanity here. If it weren’t for said insanity, I could probably live here happily. Maybe even happier in the southeastern corner of the state, around Moab, towards Colorado and New Mexico and Arizona. That is truly gorgeous country.
We just entered Skull Valley west of Salt Lake, 70 miles from the border. The temperature was 84 when we entered it and Jeepy says it jumped up to 92 as we started crossing the valley floor. When we went over the Cedar Mountains pass and into the Salt Lake Desert, the temp fell back to 89.
Next up: Bonneville Salt Flats and the Nevada border and Pacific time.
Worn Out
Written @ 13:46 PST | Saturday 15-Jul-06 | Humboldt, NV
We’re getting pretty tired of this road and this endless drive. We’re still about 125 miles from the hotel, so in about two hours, we should be done with all of the nastiness of the drive. But we’re pretty road weary and this last hundred miles will drag on.
We stopped at a rest area south of Winnemucca and walked the dog. He wasn’t all that thrilled about getting out in the 99-degree heat, but he did it anyway. He’s had some Arby’s curly fries and a nice long walk in a nice grassy park at Elko and he’s pretty road-weary and worn out too. But the good news is that he gets to see Unca Frankie finally tomorrow afternoon.
I dropped the key in the rest area while walking to the restroom, and Unca David said a nice Mexican man picked up and gave it to him, but not before hitting the panic button and causing the Jeep horn and lights to go off. I didn’t even know it had fallen out of my pocket.
We’re going to make another pit stop at Lovelock. We just saw the first mileage sign for Sacramento: 258 miles away, which means we’re about 300 miles from Brentwood. Yay.
But we’re stopping in Reno, because 518 miles is far enough for us and the dog. We’ll get some rest, then it’s off to Sacramento tomorrow morning. We have to pick up a small U-Haul trailer in East Sacramento so we can take Unca Frankie and our Ikea shopping trip haul back to Brentwood. Unca Frankie arrives at the Sacramento station on Amtrak at 17:47 tomorrow. We can’t wait to see him. The dog will be very surprised and happy.
I’ve done lots of planning, getting some procedures and discipline plans and the syllabus and homework policies, etc., down on paper, ready to go. I imagine I’ll need the two teacher work days to organize, clean and decorate the classroom, so the more of this other stuff as I can do in the next week, the better. So, I’ll get back to it.
Almost Done
Written @ 20:35 PST | Saturday 15-Jul-06 | Reno, NV
We’re in Reno. Which is not a garden spot, let me tell you. It seems crowded and slightly ridiculous and scruffy. But it’s home for the night and we’re very happy to get off the road.
After our pitstop in Lovelock, there was some frustration with a long stretch of construction. The last 80 miles or so was kind of agony. But it was finally over.
As a matter of fact, most of the trip is over; there’s only about 194 miles left, about three hours of driving time.
Tomorrow, we go to Sacramento and meet Unca Frankie. Monday, we shop at Ikea and go home to Brentwood to the new house. Can’t wait.
For now, I’m going to Flickr today’s pictures and go to bed.
Night, y’all. ★
• 914 Words written by Steve @ 19:59 | 15-Jul-06 in Moving • Comment
Heading West — Day Four
Wyoming is Almost Done
Written @ 12:00 MST | Friday 14-Jul-06 | Little America, WY
Last night, we went through downtown Cheyenne to get some pizza. Downtown itself is kinda cute, but a few blocks east is rather scruffy. The pizza was good though, and I also found a gas station, “Smoker Friendly Gasmart,” that had gas for a cheap-sounding $2.64 a gallon. It was a very redneck-type of place. We scurried back to the hotel with the pizza.
The dog had some pizza crusts and finally ate some kibble after three days. We then got some rest. I took a short swim, which was marred by swarms of mosquitoes and other unidentified insects and by a blond California woman in a straw cowboy hat who trotted into the pool area (which I had to myself before her arrival) with a Target shopping bag and plopped down onto a lounger and proceeded to have a loud and long cell phone conversation, complaining to the person on the other end about an encounter with some woman in Montana. The water felt good, however, and I did enjoy the swim.
After a nice night’s sleep, we got up at 06:30 and left the hotel at 07:56. Next stop: Salt Lake City, 433 miles away.
A short drive saw us flying through Laramie. I can’t ever see or think of that name without thinking of Matthew Shephard. On a fence somewhere close by, Matthew was pistol whipped and tied up and left to die. Has anything much changed since that evil day in 1998? Not really. Hate to be pessimistic, but another Matthew will happen. In fact, other Matthews happen with depressing regularity in this country. Most of them are just not as dramatic. And most of the homophobes who commit the crimes will try to get off on “gay panic” defenses.
With apologies to all my straight male friends, I’ve always been curious; why do most straight men go around thinking that gay guys want them so bad? I’ll grant you that there is a subcommunity in the gay world that chases unavailable straight men, but that’s hardly a norm. I think they need to relax. If I’m in a foxhole in Iraq and mortars are dropping in, the last thing in the world I’ll be thinking about is touching my foxhole mate’s butt. One of the most un-sexy places I’ve ever been was a locker room after a football game. For many of us gay boys, the locker room fantasy only works if there are well-built Falcon models populating the scene.
Meanwhile, back in Laramie, I doubt anything much has changed in the last eight years, the Laramie Project notwithstanding. We pass on through without stopping.
Salt Lake City is about 150 miles away. Mormon land presents a whole new set of conundrums and questions. I won’t be able to drive through the place without hearing the famous South Park song in my head: “Joseph Smith Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum.”
We’re beginning to see the snow-covered peaks of the Uinta Mountains in Utah to the south. The border is 59 miles away. I’ve been looking forward to seeing mountains again.
Utah
Written @ 13:10 MST | Friday 14-Jul-06 | Utah State Line
We just hit Mormon Land, although it was hard to tell, since the area was under construction and all the signs have disappeared. The Utah side is greener and more mountainous and that’s about the only way to tell. Plus the mile markers went from 3 to 191. Salt Lake City is 70 miles away, so we’ll be in the hotel room inside two hours, thank goodness.
Unca David is still doing all the driving. I drive around the cities we stop in hunting for dinner, but he handles the long distance stuff, freeing me to plan and create stuff for school. I’ve got a newsletter started, a calendar, lesson plans, syllabus, and first- and second-day student surveys already to go, for the most part.
Over Air America, we’re hearing the news that King George was asked in Germany about the situations in Beirut and Iran, he replied, “I thought you were gonna ask me about the pig.”
Anyhoo.
Back in Rawlins, WY, I was asleep when suddenly I was poked in the side of the face by a moist beagle nose. Before I was fully awake, Bayley had come over the center console and plopped himself in my lap. Talk about a rude awakening. He then proceeded to arrange himself comfortably on top of me, and that’s where he stayed. For 108 miles until we got to Rock Springs, our gas stop for the day.
You haven’t lived until you’ve traveled the worst (to me) stretch of Wyoming I-80 for 108 miles with a 55-pound snoring beagle lying across your body.
After our stop in Rock Springs, there was much garrumphing about having to get back in his spot so that I could use the laptop and get some work done.
We still have 723 miles left after Salt Lake City, and I’ll be danged if I’m gonna ride the whole way with a huge ox in my lap.
I’m so cruel to dogs.
Frank asked me last night if I missed Michigan. I said, “Who-igan?” Truth is, I miss the great friends we met in Michigan, but not the state. I miss the intellectual workout I got in class, but not the university. I miss the kids I taught and had fun with last year at Burns Park, but not the school system. I miss the trees and river, but not the roads and drivers. In October, I will miss the flaming reds, oranges and yellows of the trees, but in November I will not miss the freezing gray cold.
We’re heading into the Wasatch above Salt Lake City. It reminds me that at heart I am a southwestern boy. I love canyons and skies and scrub brush and tumbleweeds and high mountain passes and snow-capped peaks and varied landscapes.
I want my Michigan friends to move southwest with me. I’m grateful for a quality Michigan education. But I don’t really miss Michigan itself. Sorry.
Swim
Written @ 16:13 MST | Friday 14-Jul-06 | Salt Lake City, UT
We arrived just fine at the hotel at 14:45 MST. Checkin was quick and we got a second floor room. The best thing is the pool; indoors, very warm, accompanied by a hot tub. And when we got here, it was empty. I swam for almost an hour and had the place to myself. It was very, very lovely. Helped the joints a great deal.
It’s hot and dry here; the temp is 101, although Jeepy claims it’s 105. It doesn’t feel as bad as Oklahoma or Michigan because there’s almost no humidity. It’s still hot, though.
This evening’s agenda is about finding some dinner and then getting plenty of rest. The longest day of the trip is ahead of us: 518 miles across the Great Salt Desert and the entire state of Nevada to Reno. We’ve done this drive once before and it’s not the most fun thing to do on the planet.
But after tomorrow, there’s only 132 miles to Sacramento and then 72 miles to Brentwood and we’re done with the cross-country odyssey. We can’t wait to be reunited with Unca Frankie. Dogs are very exhausted and need to get home to their nice, new, huge back yard. Yay!
Later, y’all! ★
• 1221 Words written by Steve @ 14:19 | 14-Jul-06 in Moving • Comment
Heading West — Day Three
Rainy Again
Written @ 11:42 CST | Thursday 13-Jul-06 | Gothenberg, NE
We hit a small spot of rain, but it’s nothing like day one. We’re 36 miles from North Platte, NE, which will be our first stop of the day. Jeepy needs gas and beagle needs walkies.
I’ve been sleeping since Lincoln. Nebraska is flat and it is green and has some trees and that’s about it. The road is flat and straight and goes on and on. We’re about halfway to Cheyenne.
I’ve started some lesson planning for the first week of school, but it’s a bit hard to do, since I don’t know my schedule of classes or the curriculum. I know I want the first week to be relaxed and all about getting to know each other and learning the procedures and my expectations. So I’ll leave it at that and plan for activities that do that. I’ll ease into the language arts stuff during week two, if I can.
Rest Stop
Written @ 13:00 CST/12:00 MST | Thursday 13-Jul-06 | Sutherland, NE
After stopping at a Mirastar gas station (which turns out to be some sort of weird partnership between Texaco and Wal-Mart) in North Platte, NE, we made a brief lunch stop at Sonic then drove 20 miles west to a rest area so that beagles could do beagle things. They had a designated pet area with “pooch plugs,” which were fake fire hydrants. Bayley added his own mark to the vicinity of the plug. When Unca David came out of the restroom, I went inside while he held the beagle. When I came out, Bayley was waiting and began wiggling and howling like I had been gone for three years. The whole rest area stopped and looked at the commotion.
We’re back on I-80, with about 195 miles left today. Nebraska is pretty much what I expected … flat, farms, scrubby trees, low barren hills, never-ending. We just passed into Keith County and the Mountain Time Zone, so we gained an hour, which will help. Cheyenne is about three-and-a-half hours away, so we should be at the hotel by 16:00 Wyoming time.
At the rest area, I picked up three out of the plethora of ubiquitous tourist brochures (rack cards) which are in piles in places up and down the interstate highway system. One was for Father Flanagan’s Boys Town, where it is noted that, in addition to Father Flanagan’s house, the museum, the Garden of the Bible, Father’s grave and the chapel, you can see the “World’s Largest Ball of Stamps” in the Leon Myers Stamp Center, which includes exhibits on the history of postage stamps, a collector’s corner and, of course, the four-cent Father Flanagan Stamp. Don’t forget the gift shop and cafe on your way out and admission is free.
Let’s be clear, I’m not disparaging Boys Town, but the touristy aspects thereof. Just hope the proceeds go to make things better for the boys.
Coming up is Bridgeport, NE, where you can exit I-80 and venture 34 miles north to Alliance. The claim to fame of Alliance is … Carhenge, a replica of Stonehenge created from vintage automobiles from the 50s and 60s. The cars are “planted trunk down and rise 15 to 17 feet … [and] are approximately 7 feet wide; the same size as the standings [sic] stones of Stonehenge … all 38 of the majors [sic] stones are cleverly represented at Carhenge.”
Carhenge is enthusiastically recommended by someone from Farmington, MN, who is quoted on the rack card as saying, “This place is incredible, I love it! We went 100 miles out of the way to see Carhenge and it was worth every mile and moan and groan from my children.”
We decided not to detour 68 miles out of our way to see it.
I went to sleep shortly after passing Lincoln, where I apparently missed the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The mission of said center is “to study, to collect, to preserve, and to exhibit quilts.” Pretty straightforward.
There are more than 1,650 quilts in the center, including the largest known collection of Amish and Mennonite quilts. Here’s some grad school language for ya: “… quilts are studied using an interdisciplinary approach in which the tradition is examined in its historical, social, artistic, technical, and spiritual environments. The … Department of Textiles, Clothing and Design, College of Education and Human Sciences, offers masters degree programs for students interested in analyzing the complex ways in which gender, class, ethnicity, aesthetics, politics, religion and technology find expression in the textile arts, especially quiltmaking traditions.”
Wow. Why doesn’t the University of Michigan School of Education have that? They suck.
Back to planning. I need to create a fun student information survey for the kids to work on in the first ten minutes of the first class.
Wyoming
Written @ 14:11 MST | Thursday 13-Jul-06 | Pinebluff, WY
We’ve reached the Wyoming border and are just a mere 36 miles from our stop. We’ll be at the hotel by 15:00 mountain time. Thank goodness. Also, we’re just passing the halfway point of the trip: 1,176 miles. Thank goodness, part II. We’re also out of Nebraska. Thank goodness, part III.
As we entered the panhandle of Nebraska and the I-76 split which heads for Denver, the land dramatically changed. No longer the rolling green farmland with trees, it has become the browner, flatter, wider open vistas of the true American west. You can see oil well pumping units dotting the landscape and the area is dotted with ranches, not farms. Union Pacific trains pass each other on double tracks, hauling cross-continent freight. It’s 93 degrees outside under a bright sun, with just a few high puffy clouds. Traffic has also thinned out; there aren’t as many cars on the road, leaving the interstate mostly to the long-haul truckers.
Watching the trucks and the trains makes you realize just how dependent on fossil fuels this country really is. Our entire lives are on those trains and trucks. 12,000 pounds of my own life is in a truck somewhere on this road. Everything we need (especially food) comes from far away. If that infrastructure of rail and road and train and truck is ever disrupted or destroyed, we’d be in deep doo-doo. We would see a retreat back to a civilization like it existed before the Civil War. Not that I’m an apocalyptic thinker, I’m just sayin’. We’re dependent on a thin thread that seems rather tenuous in the big picture of things.
I’ve been working up the first week’s lesson plans, creating two student surveys and an interview sheet, and working on the class syllabus. Yes, I plan to give seventh graders a syllabus. I want the expectations and what we’re doing clearly laid out. In the dim recesses of my age-addled memory, I seem to remember that a few of my junior high teachers gave them out and I know my high school teachers did. So, these kids should get used to them.
Because of my natural tendency to be easy-going and laid-back, the first week will be critical in terms of setting limits and expectations and procedures. It will make or break my entire first year as a teacher. Research indicates that there should be no more than 3-5 rules, and it’s also preferable if the students create and sign off on the rules themselves. I’ll think about that one. It worked well last year with 22 rather exceptional second graders; these 125 seventh graders I’m going to meet in less than three weeks are an unknown quantity. I like the three F’s: firm, fair, fun. The three KISses, too: Keep it simple, keep it safe, keep it sane.
I better get back to it. We’re 11 miles from the hotel.
Rest Stop
Written @ 15:55 MST | Thursday 13-Jul-06 | Cheyenne, WY
We arrived at the hotel an hour ago and unloaded the car. The dog had a long drink of water and a treat and watched the proceedings. He then had a scratch of the ear and settled down onto my bed. He is now loudly snoring away, a totally worn-out dog.
Cheyenne looks very small, smaller than Ann Arbor. I-80 skirts it on the south and looks down on it, so you get a pretty good view. I continue to be impressed by the speedy checkin/checkout and service at LaQuinta. The rooms have been good, the wireless internet connections great and there’s been no fuss at all about the dog or anything else.
The pool is inviting, since it’s over 90 degrees here, but it’s full of women and kids at the moment. I’ll have to wait, probably ‘til dinnertime to get some water therapy.
We’re not sure what we’ll do for dinner, but we need a nap first.
Later, y’all. ★
• 1445 Words written by Steve @ 13:59 | 13-Jul-06 in Moving • Comment
Heading West — Day Two
Field of Opportunity
Written @ 12:44 CST | Wednesday 12-Jul-06 | West Des Moines, IA
After getting up at 08:00 and having a little breakfast and loading the car, we left Davenport this morning at 09:55 and we’re now just west of Des Moines, which we didn’t really see because I-80 runs around the northern and western edges. What we did see reminded me of Kansas City and Oklahoma City.
Iowa is just gently rolling hills. It’s flat, but not West Texas flat. The best thing about is that the rest stops on I-80 have wireless internet access. Iowa rocks! We’re stopping at the next one to check it out.
Omaha is about 110 miles or so away and then we’ll stop and get rested up for tomorrow’s nastiness: 450 miles of Nebraska. Right now, David has driven the whole way again and says he’s fine, and the dog is sacked out once again in the back seat.
We’re just passing touristy stuff: signs announce DeSoto, John Wayne’s birthplace, and the covered bridges of Madison County. The road is reminding me of I-44, the Turner Turnpike, between Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
And that’s about as exciting as this day gets, folks. Go ahead and yawn, you won’t offend me. I’m pretty bored too. It’s time to pull out the books on those ever-important first weeks of school, since 125 seventh graders will be looking at me for instruction in a mere 18 days, 18 hours, 58 minutes and 14 seconds. Yow.
We just crossed into Madison County. No, I’ve never read the book. I don’t see any bridges, but I do see a heckuva lotta corn. Omaha is 108 miles away.
The wireless internet connections are FABULOUS! Sitting in a cornfield on the side of I-80, updating the blog. Technogeek heaven!
I love Iowa!
Later at the Hotel
Written @ 01:30 CST | Thursday 13-Jul-06 | Omaha, NE
We arrived safely in Omaha, checked into the hotel, then went in search of dinner. We gassed up the Jeep and spotted a Sonic, which made me very happy. A quick trip over to the drive in, then back to the hotel for dinner was followed by a five-hour nap. It was lovely. I was very tired.
The beagle is refusing his food, although he did accept a tater tot. After my nap, I took him out for walkies and a sniff at the night air. When we came back in, we followed the usual routine of getting a treat, making him wait and then saying, “Go!” He slowly got up, went to the treat and sniffed it and walked away.
It was earth-shaking. The beagle refusing a treat?? Holy cow, what’s next, frogs from the sky?
I went to get some ice and a Coke and when I came back, the beagle had tried to bury the treat under the desk before giving up and eating it. He is very pointedly refusing the food in his bowl.
After updating Flickr, I took my bath and am now in bed. Tomorrow will be the trying day, the one I’ve dreaded, 488 miles of Nebraska. We’ll end up in Cheyenne Thursday night; the hotel has an outdoor pool, which this one does not, so I can get in some more water therapy. But it’s a very long drive away and I’m off to bed.
Good night, y’all. ★
• 551 Words written by Steve @ 22:41 | 12-Jul-06 in Moving • Comment
Where's My Reference Librarian?
Frank usually handles these things and does a far, far better job of it. I’m pretty stream-of-consciousness on my trip writing, while he does the reference librarian thing and provides all the great writing and details that really make the blog great. But I’ll give it a slight shot, and he should feel free to chime in here as we pass through various places (hint, hint).
Iowa
According to the state’s website, “Iowa became the 29th State in 1846. It is known as the Hawkeye State, and Des Moines is the capital city. Iowa is bordered by two great American rivers (the Mississippi and the Missouri) on its east and west sides. It has a rich agricultural tradition and ranks first in the nation with corn and soybean production as well as in hog production from its 93,000 farms.”
Yeah, we’ve had a couple of whiffs of the hog production during our ride.
Iowa was home to John Wayne, Herbert Hoover, Glenn Miller and Grant Wood. The state website says it was part of the Lewis and Clark expedition “and many other historic events” but doesn’t bother to name them.
Davenport, IA
“The Quad Cities rests on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi River and share a population of 400,000. The region is made up of Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa and Moline/East Moline and Rock Island in Illinois, and surrounding communities.”—VisitQuadCities.com
This area is home to « John Deere » and there is lots of green and yellow here. There is the world headquarters, the John Deere Pavilion, the John Deere Store, the John Deere Historic Site, the Deere Run golf course, the John Deere Collectors Center and the John Deere Historic Homes and Gardens. There’s also a restored 620 LP Standard tractor on display and you can buy a toy replica of it. If that’s your thing.
Downtown Moline is getting the redevelopment fix with more than $40 million of new development around the Mississippi waterfront.
The River Music Experience boasts local and regional R&B, jazz, and other related music; the VisitQuadCities website boasts that visitors can interact with “larger-than-life video performances of icons like Tina Turner, B.B. King and Johnny Cash. Visitors can also take a ride on the Mississippi on the “Riversong,” a former New York canal tour boat. Which sort of all makes me go, “Huh.”
Middle America. What a country.
Des Moines, IA
According to the city’s website, the history of “Des Moines can be traced to 1834, when John Dougherty, an Indian Agent at Fort Leavenworth, Ks, recommended that a military post be established at the point where the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers merge. Nine years later, May 1843, Captain James Allen and a company of dragoons from Fort Sanford arrived on the site. Captain Allen proposed to name the
garrison Fort Raccoon but was directed by the War Department to use the name Fort Des Moines.”
Raccoon, IA. That would have been interesting.
The city continues, “Some people feel that ‘Des Moines’ is derived from the Indian word ‘moingona’ meaning
river of the mounds which referred to the burial mounds that were located near the banks of the river. Others are of the opinion that name applies to the Trappist Monks (Moines de la Trappe) who lived in huts at the mouth of the Des Moines river. French voyagers referred to the river as La Riviere
des Moines. The consensus seems to be that Des Moines is a variation of Moingona, Moingonan, Moingoun, Mohingona, or Moningounas, as shown on early maps.”
Okay, glad to have that cleared up.
There are now more than 200,000 people in Raccoon, er, I mean Des Moines, which bills itself as the third largest major insurance center in the world. The other claim to fame is the city’s climate-controlled skywalk system, which makes up more blocks per capita than in any other city of comparable size in the U.S.
Well, there ya go.
Nebraska
Nebraska is the home of the nation’s only unicameral legislature. The website « On Unicameralism » notes that the state was bicameral for 68 years until Nebraskans voted to get rid of half of their state legislature in 1934, in the depths of the Great Depression, ostensibly for class reasons: “… The constitutions of our various states are built upon the idea that there is but one class. If this be true, there is no sense or reason in having the same thing done twice, especially if it is to be done by two bodies of men elected in the same way and having the same jurisdiction.” The influence of New Deal Republican senator George Norris, who wore out two sets of tires while he drove around campaigning for the ballot measure, along with the Depression and two other ballot issues on local prohibition and pari-mutuel betting, resulted in a 286,086 to 193,152 vote in favor of unicameralism. The Senate was the body retained and legislators are referred to as senators.
Nebraska’s other Unicameral claim to fame is that it is the only nonpartisan legislature in the country. “… a candidate’s political party is not listed on the election ballot. The two candidates who obtain the most votes in the primary election face each other in the general election. Also unlike other states, Nebraska’s legislative leadership is not based on party affiliation.”
Nebraska has numerous official state symbols, including the “state motto, seal, flag, flower, bird, tree, fossil, gemstone, rock, grass, insect, soil, mammal, fish, American folk dance, ballad, baseball capitol, village of lights, river, soft drink, beverage, poet laureate, poet, [and] song.” Makes you wonder if Senator Norris was really right about a one-house legislature concentrating on the people’s business and being more efficient and cheaper to run.
Omaha, NE
Omaha’s claim to fame is Boys Town, Father Flanagan’s place immortalized by Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy. It’s also home to Offutt Field, the former SAC Air Force Base, which isn’t mentioned much on the convention bureau’s website, nor is the fact that Omaha is the rabbit hole where King George fled on 9/11.
Moving right along.
The « Strategic Air and Space Museum » is home to 300,000 square feet of WWII and Cold War aircraft and artifacts. The museum’s website is proud of SAC’s role in “keeping the peace,” but doesn’t mention nuclear weapons scattered in silos around the place or any of that kind of stuff.
And that’s Day Two’s travelogue. ★
• 1063 Words written by Steve @ 21:49 | 12-Jul-06 in Iowa • Comment
Heading West — Day One
The Very Rough Last Night in A2
Written @ 13:30 EST | Tuesday, 11-Jul-06 | Ann Arbor, MI
The beagle gave me a rough night. After the farewell party, I went and gassed up the Jeep and then back to Ann’s to spend the night. I was informed he had howled at the kitty several times and generally been a bit of a pain. We went up to bed at midnight, David taking the spare room and the beagle heading to Rachel’s. The drama began.
He paced and panted and whined at the door. I put him up on the bed twice to settle him down and twice he jumped down. Finally, I gave up, took a couple of pillows down the couch and prepared to settle in.
Bayley took a long drink of water and flopped on the kitchen tile. He then ate his breakfast from the previous morning at 01:30 and flopped back down again. My head was throbbing and I waited for the Alavert to ki