Um, "Royalty"

The other day, for no good reason, I was thinking about my visit to the King Tut exhibit at the De Young in San Francisco some time in the mid '70s. I went with "the wife" (Ms. Ché) and her mother, "Gramma." I was very excited to get tickets as it seemed to be sold out. We drove from the Central Valley, at least 2 hours, and parked, I think, on Fulton St. It was whatever the street was behind the museum. And we only had to walk a little way.

Almost as soon as we entered the exhibit, I began to experience an abdominal cramp. Ultimately, I only saw the famous gold funerary mask and a few of the pretty things left in the tomb before I was in such severe pain that I had to leave. I sat on a bench just outside the doors, then lay down on the lawn in front of the museum, groaning. Maybe an hour or so later, Ms. Ché and her mother emerged from the museum and found me outside. I was still in a lot of pain, but slowly managed to get up and hobble back to the car. Thank goodness it was close. We had planned a number of other stops in San Francisco to eat and to shop, but we decided it would be best to drive home instead. I don't remember whether I drove or she did, but more than likely Ms. Ché did while I groaned in the backseat.

I considered this little aborted adventure one of my few brushes with Royalty, in this case the long dead King Tut -- Tutankhamun. I had a book that was published about that time -- still have it somewhere I'm pretty sure -- that detailed the search for and discovery of the tomb and pictured nearly everything that was found in it most thoroughly and in many cases beautifully. I haven't seen anything like it published since. I wasn't able to enjoy or much appreciate the exhibit at the De Young, but the book filled in most of what I missed. The experience wasn't the same, however.

The abdominal pain was nearly gone by the time we got home, and I didn't have another pain like it for many years. I don't remember ever having a pain like it previously, either. So I still ascribe it to the Curse.

Later that year, or perhaps the year previously or the year after, but still in the mid seventies, I remember lining up on a blacktop driveway with about 20 others working where I was in a little town named Solvang in the Santa Ynez Valley awaiting the arrival of Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik who were touring the area and were planning on spending a few minutes visiting and having lunch with local dignitaries. I don't know how long we waited, joking about tugging our forelocks and whatnot, being lectured on protocol, etc.

Shortly, the motorcade arrived, led by two motorcycle policemen. The Queen and her consort were being driven in what I recall was a white Cadillac 4 door sedan, but it may have been a Mercedes. What it wasn't was a limousine. There were flags of Denmark and the US on the fenders. The car pulled up to the driveway, and the Queen got out. She was wearing a camel colored coat over a blush pink silk dress, though it may have been sky blue. She had a wide brim camel colored hat on at a jaunty angle, wore white gloves, pearls, and simple beige pumps. She carried a matching purse. As she got out of the car, the small crowd cheered, and she waved. The Prince got out of the other side of the car and came around to meet her. He was dressed in a plain suit, gray I think, and he was very handsome in a Scandinavian sort of way. The Queen, for her part, appeared very young and pretty. She waved and waited a moment while a couple of functionaries appeared from somewhere to lead them to the reception line. 

The Queen said "How do you do?" to everyone as she passed by and shook hands with perhaps five or six of those in the line. I don't recall whether I was one of them, though I can recall the feel of a gloved hand on my own. More likely, she shook hands with the missus who was standing next to me. I think she might have attempted a curtsy, but if she did, it was more in jest than not. 

Prince Henrik for his part followed the Queen at several paces behind, said "How do you do" and shook hands with everyone, thanked people for coming, and seemed quite jolly. The Queen stopped and spoke with the half dozen or so dignitaries and then waved to the rest of us and went inside. We didn't see her again.

For an encounter with royalty, this one was very brief, somewhat surprising, and pleasant. I remember we went to have lunch and chatter about it, then went back to work. 

In October, 2021, I revisited that driveway in Solvang. It was cracked and worn and lined with porta-potties and construction materials. It seemed so much smaller, shorter and narrower than I remembered. Had the Danish royal family really walked this path? I guess they must have, as we stood there in a line, tugging our forelocks and being asked/not asked "How do you do?"

Maybe a decade later, Queen Elizabeth paid a call on George Deukmejian, then Governor of California, in Sacramento. I don't recall whether Prince Philip was with her or not. We'd invited her to visit our workplace a few blocks away from the Capitol, but the Palace politely declined. We walked over to the Capitol to see the Queen, and all I recall is a white gloved hand waving a Royal Wave in the backseat of a black Cadillac limousine as it sped by and then the sight of the same gloved hand waving from the balcony of the Capitol behind thick bullet-proof glass. We didn't actually see Herself at all or if we did, it was only the briefest of glimpses.

I think she was wearing a blue dress and hat.

There was a lesson about these monarchs and their manifestations that we could learn from. They present a very carefully, indeed artfully conceived and prepared facade, rather like the stunning gold mask of King Tut, and they may -- or may not -- be pleasant enough when in the presence of the peasantry, but they don't deal with us rabble at all. No, they have People for that. The ones they deal with more or less directly are the "Dignitaries," the Important People, Those In Charge. Or, contrariwise, those with obscene wealth.

No one else except their staff.

It's been this way for as long as there has been royalty, monarchs and such.We the Rabble sometimes get to look on as They pass by, even now and then see them greet the lowly, but they are not really dealing with us at an official or human level. We are at best useful props, but mostly we're not even there.

This sense of "notness" when dealing with the lower orders is commonplace among many categories of the Upper Crust. The rejection of any contact with People Who Don't Matter is not unheard of. But usually it's a matter of separating and isolating oneself as much as possible while being... um, "polite" when contact can't be avoided. Always maintaining one's distance, keeping the lowly at bay.

Though Tut's tomb was raided and looted by Carter and Carnarvon back in the day, there's a kind of democratization in the presentation of the loot to the public. Anyone who could get a ticket could see the exhibits that have traveled much of the world, and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo showed much of the tomb contents for many, many years. 

While he was alive and at his funeral, his person and tomb contents were not for the view of the People. They were a Mystery.

And that is ultimately what all of those who rule us wish to be. Monarchs must have a public presence, but it's a mask. They hide behind the gloved hands and the "How do you do's". What else can they do? What should or could we do about it?

After a while, we might begin to understand how much they loathe us.

Then what?

My mother liked to tell a tale that she was "a direct descendant of Marie Antoinette." I never knew where she got this notion, but when she said it, she adopted a very aristocratic bearing, head high, nose up, chin forward, and spoke in a nasal pitch that was her imitation of posh. No, she wasn't an aristocrat, far from it, though she tried to marry into what she thought were aristocratic families -- well, for America -- and largely failed. But she said her mother's mother was independently wealthy and her mother inherited a fair chunk of money when her mother died. My mother's stepfather, may he rot in hell, then spent it on hairbrained schemes: a motor court and filling station on the Redwood Highway in Willits and then on a very bogus gold mine in Nevada that went belly up when the two "partners" took off with the cash leaving her stepfather to hold the bag, and he just barely escaped going to jail for fraud --- even though he was the main one defrauded. So he lost all the money, his and his wife's inheritance, and moved back to California where he went to work at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, while his wife, my mother's mother, wasted away from untreated stomach cancer -- they were Christian Scientists -- and died in agony a few months later. My mother never forgave her stepfather whom she blamed for her mother's death and for losing her inheritance.'

Much later through Ancestry.com, I learned what may have been part of the source of her claim of Royal descent. My mother's biological father was from a semi-prominent Indiana family that claimed descent from noble Huguenot refugees who settled in Scotland in the 17th century. That was their claim -- passed on to me through a cousin I never knew about who got it from a descendant of my mother's uncle still in Indiana.

I never found a shred of evidence that the story of descent from Huguenot refugees was true, but there was plenty of evidence of rebel Scottish blood coursing through the veins of that family.

Scots and English. Natural enemies united in the United States, raising six sons, maybe not so happily, but surviving and only losing one son to an accidental gunshot wound, and then, of course, losing their black-sheep son -- my mother's father -- to an accident (or maybe not an accident) that cut him in half in a St. Louis railyard when my mother was five years old. 

So it went. My mother was not raised in poverty by any means, but she never had the social status she believed she deserved. She didn't know poverty until she married for the first time. He was a gas station attendant working for her step father -- who always ensured she had "enough" and even gave her a new car in the middle of the Depression. Later her husband became an oil jobber -- selling petroleum products to stations up and down California -- and later still, he claimed to be a vice president for sales at Chevron oil. Was it true? I don't know. But it hardly mattered. He and my mother divorced in 1941, and she struggled for years until she got work at the air base and met my father, scion of what she thought was a rich family in Iowa. Well, that saga will have to wait. 

But this story is already too long. And I'm happy to say the only "royalty" I've found in my ancestry is the possibly bogus story of a Native American "Princess Snowflower" ancestress on my mother's side (she knew nothing of her) and deep in the past, complicated relationships with the Drake family in England. Sir Francis Drake's uncle Sir John was apparently an ancestor, and then there were threads through the British royals through him and his ancestors so deep in the mists of time, Camelot may just reappear in mystery and majesty. 

So it goes....

The Wedding

Friends of ours are getting married -- after nine years together -- in Colorado in October. There is much excitement over it, and much family togetherness being developed during the interim. The bride and groom are both "half" -- one parent Hispanic, one Anglo -- but both were raised by the Hispanic parent. 

Both are artistic. She's a crack fiction writer, specializing in young adult-ish, fantasy, horror, and humor. She's a terrific storyteller. He's a visual artist focusing on graphics, illustration, and -- on his own -- contemporary fine art painting and portraiture.

They're working on a joint project, a fantasy screenplay they hope to sell to Disney. 

They're young... well, under thirty, barely. They figure they better get married now, cause they aren't getting any younger, and if they intend to have children, they better get to work on it. 

Both, interestingly, were only-children, so they didn't have brothers and sisters to contend and compete with. Both were spoiled rotten in my view, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing in their case. One of their parents in both cases worked for decades in public service and they are about to retire with fairly fat pensions. That's a blessing, one that is increasingly rare in the hardscrabble existence laid out for our collective future by Our Betters.

They live in Santa Fe, have lived their whole lives there, but are eager to move somewhere "better". They consider Santa Fe dull and insular and unable to provide them with the kind of creative lives they want to live. Where would they go? Denver. Los Angeles. San Francisco. Seattle. Somewhere "out of here."

Somewhere where people ("who matter") appreciate what young people have to offer and bring forth from their imaginations and creativity.

That's not, they say, Santa Fe.

I'm in no position to argue. While us old fogies see Santa Fe as a brilliant hotbed of arts and creativity, we don't live there, and likely wouldn't under nearly any circumstance. It is tight and insular and often backward looking. Instead, we live way out in the wilderness, where we don't have to conform to anyone's "idea" of happy retirement and we feel we have the freedom/liberty to do and be whatever moves us. In Santa Fe, we know there is a code of conformity to one's status, wealth (or lack thereof) and position in life that cannot move even a millimeter from where you've been, though you may have moved thousands of miles from wherever you lived before to settle in Santa Fe.

Out here in the wilderness, there is the liberty to do and be whatever you want and live in any fashion that appeals to you, limited only by the absence of an infrastructure to support certain objectives and ways of life. Well, if we didn't have an income to get by with as retired old fogies, our lives here would be rough, maybe impossible. If we didn't have decent health care insurance, one or the other of us, if not both, would have been dead long ago. If we weren't able to find and stay in a home of our own out here, it's hard to imagine we'd live as well in a rental -- if there were one. 

So in many ways, we're lucky and grateful.

Our young friends planning to get married in Colorado in the fall reject Santa Fe -- where they've lived all their lives -- as an appropriate long term home for them and their children (if they have any) because it's too hidebound and insular. It's very difficult for creative efforts to get out of Santa Fe.

From our perspective, that's true anywhere, but they have a far more intimate understanding of the difficulty than we ever could.

But then I think of Meow Wolf, which we've never quite figured out, that began in Santa Fe and has become a multi-million dollar arts/curiosity enterprise that has expanded to a number of other cities in the West and appears to be rock solid financially and artistically remarkable if not high-end brilliant. It doesn't represent High Art, but it is filled with New Art, experimental whatevers, and immersive arts experiences. I'm told, though I'm not quite sure, that it provides a handsome living to dozens of creatives throughout the West, something that is difficult to achieve anywhere. 

It's one way Santa Fe has tried to reinvent itself from a rather staid -- and let's face it, segregated -- traditional Art Market -- selling high end High Art by nationally and internationally "known" artists in expensive galleries along Canyon Road and scattered throughout the city, but creating not much at all and largely ignoring much of what is locally created -- to a potential hotbed of cutting/leading edge contemporary creativity.

Our friends could stay and be part of what's emerging, but they say they'd rather not. There's "something better" out there, and they'd rather join that. We don't necessarily agree, having had a good deal of experience in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle (not Denver, though, only a superficial long-ago taste of what might be coming). 

The wedding is in Golden, Colorado, in October, and we've been told to "wear autumn colors." Forbidden is black on black which has been my "going to events" outfit for a while now -- not that I've been able to go to Events for quite some time. 

So now I have to think about and plan a whole new outfit. That'll be fun and a change of pace. I get some of my clothes direct from India. I think I'll start looking there. Heh.

The Art Market

Over the years, we've bought a lot of art: paintings, prints, photos, posters, sculpture, etc. We're overloaded with it because we hardly ever get rid of anything. And of course being the kind of folks we are, both of us create art. I'm looking around our living room as I type, just to get an idea of what's here on view right now, and it's kind of overwhelming, starting with some art photographs under the Art Deco mirror over the sofa. There's one of Half Dome in Yosemite, one that I took in the early 2000s of the Aztec Motel on Central in Albuquerque (since demolished), and one of the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers at Harper's Ferry. Each has meaning to us, places we've been, places where the spirits of the place seemed very alive and stayed with us to the present day. The Aztec was especially notable in this regard, for when it stood, the buildings and grounds were literally covered with art. Anything and everything was put on view, and the result was what I thought was a folk art masterpiece. The city apparently ordered it to be demolished, and its loss is still keenly felt by many. But of course, many more don't even remember its existence. 

There's a small tray with an arrangement of tropical butterflies, and on the other side of the photos is a framed crocheted piece featuring my last name which was done by a friend in Wisconsin and gifted to us for an anniversary (not sure which). Above that part of the wall are three large prints by Native American artists, a raven, a wolf and a bison. 

That doesn't cover all the art on that wall, but it samples some of what's here.

The Native prints were bought directly from the artists. I'm looking around to see if there's anything we bought from a gallery or at auction, but I would say not in here. There are several pieces in the entry hall, photos, prints, paintings and sculpture that came either from galleries or auction purchases, and there are more in the bedrooms, and even in the bathroom. 

Since I've been home recovering from my illness, I've taken to watching art auctions by Christie's and Sotheby's on the UTubesTV, and while we've sat in on and bid on similar events from time to time, they have really not been anything like what I'm seeing the big auction houses do. We haven't been to auctions featuring high end "name" artists like Van Gough and Rodin and Picasso and such; we haven't been to auctions where we have to prove our wealth to get in; we haven't ever witnessed an auction bid over $1,000,000. I'm not sure we've seen one even that high.

Christie's and Sotheby's focus on the Names, and they sell and resell collections with values almost beyond belief. There was one auction I saw where a collection brought in over $300,000,000. Mmm. Part of a collection of a very wealthy man (now married to one of our former Congressional representatives) was auctioned and brought over $20,000,000 to benefit his "good works" foundation. Warhols have brought $60-70,000,000 at auction or more. I thought about that and how friends of a friend's collection in California included a number of Warhols (the Elizabeth Taylor I remember most of all) that they said they bought in New York directly from the artist when they lived there. I think they said they spent a couple of hundred dollars each and they had at least a half dozen hanging on their hallway walls. They had many other prints and paintings by "name" artists which they'd bought, mostly in New York, before the artists became famous. They died, at least 20 years go, and I recall reading their collection was to be sold and was expected to bring $2-3 million but I didn't follow what happened. I can only imagine what their collection would bring today. $2-3 million per piece is more likely.

But why?

The art market is a fickle and funny thing. What you see on the surface obscures what's really going on. Kind of like life, eh?

The works of a certain number of "name" artists are assured of increasing value almost in perpetuity, but recently, those artists' works have exponentially increased in value, from low millions to stratospheric levels, never seen or imagined before.

What's happened?

One thing I know has happened is that enormous amounts of money have flooded the higher classes, most not "earned" through hard work as it were but just given to them by governments and central banks, particularly the US government, in what seemed like endless QE* efforts to overcome the effects of the GFC** on the best off among us. This money, trillions and trillions of dollars, had to go somewhere, and a percentage of it went to buy art.

The inflation in the high end art, jewelry, precious objects and real estate markets should not be underestimated. This inflation has been going on for years and years and yet it was never noticed by our crack economists who only became aware of inflation when the lower orders started having to pay more for groceries, gasoline and rent, and they decided the best way to stop that inflation was to give the upper classes more while curbing or eliminating the ability of the rabble to acquire or pay for debt.

Interesting tactic. 

Whatever else happens, the upper classes must be protected from economic harm at all costs.

So they spend what appears to us to be astronomical sums on the works of mostly dead artists, assuring that the artists themselves, even if living, get nothing. Not a red cent.

One of our Taos friends has been having a Moment in art. He's technically proficient, very handsome and charming, and he has basically stormed the Western art market with his evocative "old fashioned" tributes to art of the past. He's seen the value of his works increase substantially. Now his large scale paintings may bring as much as $200,000, about double what they would bring a few years ago. But this is nothing compared to a Warhol, say. 

After he's dead, of course, he knows his originals will probably bring millions. And millions. And he and possibly his descendants will never see a penny of it.

That's one of the many cruelties of the art market. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat  did well while he was alive and the protege of Andy Warhol. His works are unique to say the least. Instantly identifiable. But once he was dead, the prices of his works skyrocketed in the market to the point where they now sell at auction for tens of millions. And their appearance in an auction is eagerly anticipated. 

Yet it wasn't that long ago that his rough-street style was rejected. If he hadn't been Warhol's protege, it's highly unlikely that the People Who Matter would pay any attention to his work at all. But while he could sell his works for tens or hundreds of thousands while he was alive thanks to his association with Andy Warhol (a few hundred dollars if that before then). But now, the sky's the limit, assuming there is one.

What's happening, I believe, is that a small number -- maybe 20 -- of absurdly wealthy people are competing with one another to possess something that nobody else has or can have. Back in the day, collections could be formed from available works by living and dead artists, and having art in that way could be seen as ostentatious display, or contrariwise as public service. A public service when the collection was put on view by the public at little or no cost as an educational effort. 

Then, when the collector died, the collection could be/would be donated to a museum which in turn would open it to more or less permanent public view.

In some cases, collections still go to museums, but often it can't be done. There's no room. Museums won't take them. Collectors can open their own museums, or they can trade the works among themselves. Back and forth between those 20 or so. With dealers, agents and auction houses taking an ever larger cut. 

What could go wrong?

In a way, it's funny. In another way it's very sad -- and a model of our economic failures -- because artists are the losers. 

*QE=Quantative Easing (ie: Giving more money to the rich)

**GFC=Great Financial Crash/Crisis (The meltdown of 2008 which led to a decade of economic blah)

Wash Day

We've had a Maytag Centennial "Featuring Commercial Technology" washing machine for a number of years -- probably 8. It has a big tub but no agitator. An impeller at the bottom of the tub takes its place. The washer is modern in that most of its settings use minimal amounts of water to sort of clean clothes. There is one setting that will nearly fill the tub with water, but it doesn't work very well any more. Sometimes you can get it to fill, other times -- most times -- it won't. After a partial fill, it just stops. Most of the settings are just as chancy. It's been frustrating to use since we got it, but lately it's taken on what seems like a mind of its own, rarely following instructions, and cleaning clothes worse and worse with every use.

Well. Repairs -- if they were possible -- would probably cost about $500. A new washer would run well more than that and we're told they are very hard to get due to something something. Be prepared to wait six months to a year, mKay? So what to do? There are some used machines available, but they are relatively costly and their functioning isn't necessarily any better than the Maytag in our laundry room. 

I thought, "Well why not try something?" For years, I've been seeing glowing reviews of twin tub portable washers, relatively small and surprisingly inexpensive. $150-200 range back in the day, somewhat more now, but still in a reasonable range. 

I ordered one, and in a few days it was delivered. It looked great, blue and white with see through tops on the wash side and spin side. It was light weight. Mostly plastic. Three knobs; a timer for washing, a function knob for gentle or normal wash, or drain function; a motorized drain pump was supposed to make that process easier. There was also a timer up to five minutes for the spinner.

There were two water inlets and a hookup hose to take water from your sink to the washer. Everyone who has these machines complains that the hookup hose doesn't fit on any normal faucet so hacks are necessary to fill the washer. Most use buckets. Well, I found the hookup hose fit perfectly on the kitchen sink sprayer, and it was an easy thing to use a small clamp to keep the sprayer open and to fill the wash tub with water. Hot water, something impossible on the Maytag. You may select hot water wash, but the machine mixes hot water with cold and the result is hot-ish. Barely above warm. And this hot-ish wash does not necessarily result in hot-water clean clothes.

We're told that the compact portable machine will wash 18 lbs of dry laundry in the wash tub, but I'm dubious. That's quite a lot of laundry, and as the tub was filled for the first time, it seemed that maximum capacity was reached at about 12-14 lbs. That's still a fair amount of laundry. 

Adjusting the amount of laundry detergent to suit the smaller machine was something of a challenge, but it seemed like two tablespoons was more than adequate. In other words, a small percentage of the amount used in the full sized machine. With hot water, that was plenty.

Turned it on, and the wash action was amazing. Like the Maytag, there was only an impeller at the bottom of the tub, but boy it worked to agitate the laundry and turn it over and over in the water. Nothing like the Maytag impeller that barely moved the laundry at all. We could see the dirt being released from the laundry as well. The water kept turning browner and browner. Wow.

So we gave it an initial ten minute wash, drained the wash tub and refilled for a rinse. The rinse water was kind of brownish at the end of the 5 minute cycle, so we rinsed again. However, on the second rinse, though we could hear the drain pump working, nothing came out of the drain hose. Hm. After repeatedly trying to drain the tub, we resorted to positioning the drain hose in a tub on the floor, and the water drained. Though the drain pump was working, or sounded like it was, the operation was of a gravity drain. And this was not what we paid for, so I contacted the seller who said there was something not allowing the the pump to form a vacuum to drain properly. Could I use the machine with a gravity drain? Well, yes. But that isn't what we paid for, and keeping an eye on it was quite an inconvenience. Seller said to check for clogs along the length of the hose and in the pump. That took some doing, but I didn't find a clog anywhere. What I did find, however, were tiny pinholes in the drain hose, and water was fountaining out of them. These holes were not visible, but I suspected they were the problem that didn't allow the drain pump to pump the water up to the sink.

I told the seller that if this problem couldn't be resolved, I'd have to return the washer. The seller suggested I install a new drain hose which he would supply, and he offered a $70 credit. 

On another test, I found out the wash tub filter would fall out of its housing. It seemed to be too small for the housing. I told the seller this was getting ridiculous. After a bit of back and forth, the seller offered to send a new machine, and I could keep or dispose of the one I had as I saw fit Just don't send it back.

I said OK. Give it a try. Why not?

The new machine arrived in a few days, and we tried it out. Everything went fine until it came time to use the spinner. The spinner worked but it drained into the washer tub rather than into the sink. The suggestion was to start the spinner drain in the tub on the floor, then raise it to sink level. I thought that was too much work, so we just let the spinner drain into the tub. It was annoying, but not a deal-breaker.

The washing action was and is startling. The results are 100% better than the full-sized Maytag, and the full wash/rinse/spin process is quicker. You do have to keep your eye on it and be prepared to do some work to fill, wash, rinse, drain and spin the laundry. This is not unlike what you had to do before fully automatic washers became standard in the early 1950s. I remember a neighbor woman who did her wash in a wringer washer on the back porch. She had to stand over it and keep track of it and run the laundry through the wringer because there wasn't a spinner. It took her a long time and was a lot of work, I thought.

Then there was another neighbor who had an Easy spinner washing machine. Even though there was no wringer, it was still quite a lot of work to do the laundry in it. Washing and multiple rinsing and spinning required her to stay with the machine for most of the time -- she could leave during the wash and rinse cycles only. The whole process from filling the tub to final spin took 45 minutes to an hour. Then of course she still had to hang the laundry on the line. 

A fully automatic washer -- something my mother bought in the early '50s -- could be left to do its thing and wouldn't have to be watched. No attention was required until the laundry was done, 25 to 40 minutes after the machine was started.

It was almost magical.

Then thanks to energy and water saving regulations, complex computer controlled washing machines that used very little water or energy became mandatory. Our Maytag is one of those.

However, complaints about them not cleaning clothes properly, not washing, not rinsing the way they should began immediately and haven't ceased. Complaints about them breaking down way too soon -- 3-5 years in many cases, compared to washers of the past that would last 20-30 years or more with only minor adjustments -- were filed constantly. I don't know anyone who had an old washer who is satisfied with their new washing machine. 

The twin tub portable washers have sought to fill that void. They are old fashioned, and they work like old fashioned Easy twin tub machines which requires you to stay with it and juggle things -- washing, rinsing, draining, spinning, and such -- throughout the process. It seems to me it becomes a Zen practice. It's not automatic. You have to think about it, think about where the laundry is in the process, and think about what you have to do in the Now to ensure the process goes right.

Is this progress? Not on the surface. And yet, as we struggle toward a common future, bits of regression, such as on wash day, may become more common. By necessity. 

[The first twin tub washer is going in the greenhouse to use for all the washing that needs to be done of the outside fabrics. It can drain on the ground without making puddles in the house. So far as we know, it washes and spins just fine. It's the leaky drain hose that's the problem.]

Julia Child's TV Kitchen c. 1964

 Fascinating.

Later in her TeeVee career, she used her own kitchen in her Cambridge, Massachusetts, home rather than a television set, but early on, she worked in a number of somewhat different studio kitchens that strongly resembled what an average middle class housewife would have. It's interesting to see them now and compare and contrast with today's "insane" kitchen renovation ideas.

The first thing you notice in her "Chicken Dinner in Half an Hour" video is... the island. Islands were not common in real kitchens in those days -- except on TeeVee. And why? Well, in order to demonstrate her cooking on screen, she -- and the food -- needed to face the camera. Prep and cooking in a real kitchen would almost always be done with the housewive's back to the room. And in her Chicken Dinner video we see her using a GE push button electric cooktop on the island while there is another similar cooktop on the counter to her right. She never uses it on the screen. Electric wall ovens -- which we don't see in the Chicken Dinner video, but they're there -- are to the left of the countertop cooktop, and a bottom freezer refrigerator is to the left of that. Uh no. The refrigerator is a top freezer model and it is way to the right of the sink, barely seen most of the time. Behind her is a double bowl porcelain on iron or steel sink with a pull out sprayer. Bench tops/counters form an L-shape. The kitchen set is compact, and if it were real, the island would probably be a counter (without the cooktop) against a wall.

What is a GE push button electric cook top? Indeed, you don't see those any more. We had one in our house built in 1957. It was considered ultramodern at the time. A built in cook top with push button control was very Space Age, though GE had been producing push button freestanding ranges since the '40s. The burners were Calrod open coils, and the push buttons allowed for several levels of heat from Lo-simmer to High-sear. The burners heated up pretty fast but not as fast as a gas burner, and they cooled much more slowly than a gas burner, meaning that pans had to be taken off the burner altogether to lower their temperature quickly and prevent burning the food. OK, you had four burners on the cook top, rarely used more than three at a time, so there was one open burner where you could put a pan to cool. 

Julia wound up facing something of a dilemma as she cooked her Chicken Dinner as she was using all four burners at a time, and she didn't have any place to put a pan to cool. So she turned the burner off under the pan that needed cooling and hoped for the best. It seemed to work out ok. Whew.

She had three saute pans going at once and a huge boiling kettle. Each of her saute pans was different. The first was a Farberware stainless steel (with aluminum core) frying pan. I know because we had one just like it. In this she sauted her cut up chicken. The first thing I noticed was that the chicken didn't stick. I never had a problem with sticking on Farberware stainless steel saute/fry pans either, but they say newer stainless steel pans -- like Allclad and so on -- are notorious for sticking. Everything. There are supposedly work-arounds to make them nonstick, but experience says it's hit or miss at best.

Julia also used a Teflon coated fry/saute pan to cook her diced potatoes. She often said how much she loved the non-stick pans that were just being introduced at that time. Very Space Age. She never mentioned the obvious problems with them - the fact that the Teflon would peel off all by itself or when the surface was scratched in normal use. Interestingly, Teflon coated pans still have that problem. 

Her third saute pan appeared to be a professional kitchen aluminum pan that was not widely available for civilians at the time. Much later, we had one and we loved it. Even heat, excellent cooking, easy clean up. As long as it wasn't used for acid foods like tomatoes, it was a joy to use. 

Her boiling pot was an enormous aluminum job, which once it was filled with water was practically unmovable even by someone as sturdy as Julia. She boiled her eight zucchinis and three tomatoes in it. These days such a pot would be used for pasta, spaghetti especially, and not much else. Because they are so heavy and awkward when filled with water, renovators have taken to installing "pot filler" faucets at the cooktop/range, but there is still the little problem of disposing of the water once the boiling is done. An alternative method of cooking pasta has become fashionable: boil it in just enough water to cover, let the pasta absorb most of the water, and then have very little to drain and wrestle around. 

There appears to be no dishwasher on her kitchen set, actually there is one to the left of the sink, I just didn't see it initially, but not having  dishwasher would actually be the situation in most homes at the time. Our 1957 kitchen had a space that could be used for a built in dishwasher but none was installed, and that was fairly typical of all but the fanciest middle class homes at the time. They save you the trouble of washing dishes, but they don't really save you at all since the dishes and pots and pans need to be washed by hand first before they are put in the dishwasher. Hopefully they will come out cleaner. We had a portable dishwasher rather than a built in, and we used it now and then. The point was to "disinfect" which the hot water and soap was supposed to do. You still had to wash the dishes and pots and pans by hand first.

Julia had a lot of counter space in her TeeVee kitchen, and that was pretty typical of home kitchens at the time, too. Her counters appeared to be surfaced with Formica. Now of course Formica has fallen out of favor, and no renovator with any sense of pride or dignity would use it. That's too bad. Formica and its variations were excellent counter top materials and they still are. The issue these days is that Formica is "cheap," and "cheap looking." Whether or not it wears well and serves the purpose is irrelevant.

Counter tops must look and be expensive, which stone and its many synthetic imitations are. So stone and quartz and whatever actually is expensive are mandatory in new renovations -- or you may as well disappear.

Formica was good enough for Julia Child, though. Even in Cambridge. At least that's what her counter tops appeared to be. Most of the time. (Actually, according to the Smithsonian which proudly displays her Cambridge kitchen, her home counter tops were wood, butcher block. Hm.)

On her TeeVee set she also had a large wooden cutting board that sat on the counter top beside the island cook top/range. There she chopped and chopped and chopped and chopped. Later, I think she had a marble pastry board installed on the other side of the cook top. But as far as I remember, at no time did she replace her work surfaces with granite, all marble, or quartz.

Julia also had a large number of built-in cabinets on her TeeVee set -- but not, as I recall, at her home. These cabinets, uppers and lowers, stored everything. There were no open shelves. The idea of open shelves was appalling. Dust, grime, the mess, endless cleaning. Every upper cabinet had doors, as did every lower storage cabinet. Drawers held miscellaneous tools and equipment, but she also had a magnetized knife rack on the wall beside the sink and what looked like a plastic fishing tackle box with many little drawers screwed to the wall on the other side of the sink for spices and other condiments.  I imagine that was her idea, or possibly her husband Paul's. 

Julia's TeeVee kitchens changed and changed over time, and finally, she used her home kitchen -- with an island installed so she and her guests could face the cameras. It was... cramped. 

But the kitchen set where she prepared her half hour chicken dinner was perhaps the best of the lot, the closest to what many middle class housewives had in their post-war houses -- well, except for the island.

And there is some nostalgia for recreating that among us old folks. 

One thing nostalgic kitchens feature is the built in range and oven, the oven(s) at a convenient height so you don't have to bend down, and a broiler at eye level and not on the floor. It is possible -- but very expensive -- to do that these days. But I guess it's not as expensive as one of those monster French or Italian ranges that are so fashionable! 😄

So a nod to Julia Child for never being afraid and never being a victim of kitchen fashion. You go girl!

Kitchens

 I started a post a long time ago about kitchen renovations and remodeling but I haven't finished it and don't think it really gets to the point.

Our house was renovated fifteen years ago or so to make it habitable after five to ten years of abandonment. It took ten months, and everything that was done was... so so. Job came in under budget, so there was that, but many things that should have been done weren't. Now, fifteen years later, those undone things have caught up with us.

One of them being the kitchen. It's fine and yet, no. The cabinetry is original. The vinyl sheet flooring is wearing through in places. We had to replace the ceiling fan a few years ago because the one put in by the contractor died. I've replaced the sink and faucet a couple of times now -- hard water. There's no dishwasher. The refrigerator came with the house and is at least 25 years old -- horror stories about new ones though are rampant, and maybe we should consider ourselves lucky that we have an old one that works. The gas range was put in by the contractor, and though there's a hood over it, it doesn't vent to the outside. I think we need to do something about that. 

Perhaps the worst part though is that the kitchen floor has a definite slope toward the sink and south wall. Here's the problem: the kitchen, laundry room and entry hall were built within an enclosed front porch/portal. Part of the porch was built over an underground cellar that we found out about when we had a proper drain line installed for the washing machine. Part of the foundation for the kitchen is sinking into that cellar and critters have made their way into it as well. There is no access to the cellar unless you dig --- as the plumbers did as did the critters.

The entry hall is very small and the laundry room still shows evidence of work done to improve the drainage -- by putting in an actual drain line that connects with the sewer line -- and to replace the water heater. The washing machine is 8 years old, and is showing signs of age. So...

Here was my thought before I got sick and Chairman Powell decided that low interest rates were the cause of inflation: We would refinance the house with an inclusive mortgage/renovation loan, move out for the duration, and have the kitchen redone from the roof down. Relatively minor work needs doing in the rest of the house -- new flooring, remodel the bath, paint and paneling, maybe adding a bath on the west side along with a proper garage. Re-roof the whole house.

I figured it would cost $60-70,000 and the total financed would come in well under the valuation of the house after renovations, and our income would be more than sufficient to cover the extra mortgage cost.

Well, that went out the window when I got sick and we came under so many expenses that followed. Most of that extra income is now being spent to cover the cost of dental work and co pays for medical attention.

In other words, there's no extra right now for renovations, even if we could find a contractor to do it. One of the problems is that we live in the country, and many contractors don't like to work out here or outright refuse to. And our budget would not be big enough to make it worth their while. 

The other thing is that interest rates have gone up so much that even if we had the income, the amount we could borrow for renovation might be no more than half what is needed to do a good job. The Universe seems to conspiring to say "No!"

But then I've spent years looking at possible kitchen renovation designs online and in magazines.  and I'm sorry, the whole field is insane. Totally.

There are certain absolute requirements for a modern kitchen renovations starting with: one or more islands. I've seen as many as four islands in one kitchen remodel. One for prep, one for gathering, one for home schooling, one for misc. tasks.  Each island must have two or more (I've seen up to 16) "statement pendants" over them. These are preferably enormous but put out very little light. The next requirement is a "statement range". These are almost always gas, monster-sized, with multiple ovens, sous-vide, griddles and ten or so burners. They must be made in France or Italy. They usually cost between $35,000 and $100,000, but I'm sure there are models that cost way more, and installation must be as difficult as possible. 

"Smart" refrigerators are a necessity so you can check on supplies remotely with your phone. Or contrary-wise, you can get refrigerators and freezers in under counter drawers. Then there are the dishwashers. You need more than one. Two at a minimum, but up to four is gooder. Your dishes must be stored on open shelves, and because of dust and grease and such that the extractor fan in the overstove hood doesn't remove, they have to be washed every day. Well, that's assuming the kitchen is actually used for cooking and not solely for display.

I'm convinced many of these insane kitchens are really just for looks -- and "statements." There's probably a small kitchen in the back somewhere (I've seen them called pantries and whatnot) where actual cooking is done -- when it's done at all. The residents either have take-out, delivery or catering at home, but they probably eat out as frequently as possible and never use their statement kitchens for anything but display.

"Lookit what I have!" 

And the costs for one of these statement kitchens is upwards of $300,000. Far more than we can afford.

And unless we expand the kitchen, essentially doubling its size, we can't do an island at all, let alone multiple ones. Our current kitchen is essentially a corridor from the side door in the laundry room to the door to the living room. It's wide enough so that someone can work in the kitchen while others pass between doors, but it's not nearly wide enough for an island, too. Because of the adobe construction of the house, there's not a lot we can do to expand the kitchen or "open it up." I've thought about incorporating the current laundry room into the kitchen and building another laundry room and bathroom in part of a new garage. But adding the laundry room space to the current kitchen doesn't do anything about the width of the room, only the length. 

The whole process requires rebuilding the parts of the house that were once a porch and doing something about the cellar. Filling it in would probably be good.

I've thought about expanding the entry hall by eliminating the closet and moving the front door to the end of the tiny porch that's there now, then adding a 7' wide porch/portal across the front, about 32' long, that would provide shade and protection from the sun and rain and a place to sit and watch the world go by.

It would change the look of the house, but not radically. There was a porch across the front at one time after all.

What would really change the look of the house is removing the siding, repairing and restoring the stucco over adobe exterior, replacing the current black-framed windows with white ones with muntiins for a much more historic look.

That and a new metal roof would be an enormous change in the look of the house, and while it wouldn't be cheap, it wouldn't be all that expensive. Probably less than one of those "statement" ranges from Italy or France, no?

But all this and more of what we wanted to do depended on: availability of contractors (ify these days), low or moderate refinancing interest rates (nope!), and relatively inexpensive move out/alternate residence for the duration (we had one in mind, but it's no longer available.)

My ideas for the kitchen are more along historic lines, either mid-century (when the current kitchen was built) or going back to 1900 when the first part of the house was built. Either one would appeal to me. But we can't do it right now and will have to putter along with what we've got.

The more things change, the more they stay the same....😉

Not Taken For Granted

I've recently focused some thoughts on the fact that I can walk but not very well these days -- very unsteady on my feet and must use a walker outside the house or I'll fall down -- and I can't and don't take simple things like walking or sitting or standing on my own for granted. No, not much. In some ways, it's a reversion to infancy, come to think of it, when I was just learning to walk on my own, except I can't be sure that this time, I'll be able to.

It's a fascinating -- and scary -- situation to be in. I don't know that I'll get better... 

One of my Zen teachers, Kaz Tanahashi, is fond of pointing out that each moment is full and complete and miraculous. 

We don't know what the next moment holds, but it, too is full and complete and a miracle. So it goes throughout one's days and life. 

Not taking anything for granted is a key to open many doors.

Or...

Not...

More on this later.

"Death by Chocolate"

"Death by chocolate. Is that the one?" I asked Ms. Ché yesterday as we munched on the chocolate cake that I baked. She laughed and nodded "yes," and said, "Mmm. Mmm. Mmm." 

Every now and then, I bake a cake for a treat. Spice cake or carrot cake are my favorites, but Ms. Ché is fondest of chocolate by far and with the ganache frosting I put on it, she's just about in heaven. Makes me happy to see her so pleased.

She's been cooped up writing quite a bit since I've been home from the hospital, but she also does all the shopping, fetching water, feeding the cats, and so on. For the first couple of weeks I was back, she also did all the cooking and washing up. I could see her aging before my eyes and I felt terrible I couldn't do more to help myself. Physical therapy at least got me back on my feet and walking -- slowly and carefully -- but it took a while to get back into a useful routine. It's so frustrating when I can't do much even though I can get around (the house).  

So far, I haven't been doing so well outside the house. Even going outside at our own place has been infrequent. I've tried things. Cleaning up in the yard, moving various things around, thinking about planting veg and flowers once "winter" is over.

"Winter." Huh. We haven't really had one. Oh, there have been some cold days and overnights, hard freezes, and more to come. But there's been very little snow, maybe an inch total so far, most of which is gone by the next day. There's been rain instead, sometimes quite a lot, flooding the streets -- temporarily -- and making much mud. For the ten winters or so we've lived here permanently, this is very unusual, all but unheard of. Warm-ish days, close to or over 60 degrees, have come many times this "winter." I've remarked to friends that this has been much more like winter in California than what we're used to in New Mexico. Global warming, right? 

Well, I don't know. I suppose it could be. It might be just a wintery fluke, too. A one off. Usually, even in drought years, we have a fair amount of snow -- one to three feet -- over the course of a winter, no rain, and temps in the lowish double or single digits with occasional below zero readings that play havoc with the pipes. Yes, one or more frozen pipes is practically guaranteed every winter. 

This year, we had one overnight at close to zero (maybe 2 degrees?) and a drain pipe froze which has happened before due to a "dig" that the plumbers did to run a proper drain from the laundry room. The refill actually exposed a prior drain line from the kitchen and every time we've tried to bury it again, critters -- skunks and others -- dig it up. So, if the temp outside is low enough, it freezes, meaning we can't drain water from the kitchen or laundry except by bucket until it unfreezes, which is usually the next day, except once, it took a week. It took that long because temps never got above freezing outside. Despite much sunshine!

We can't fix it without spending around $4,000 -- which right now is not feasible. I'm still paying medical debt from treatments and hospitalization, although it's not nearly as much as I thought it would be. I expected something in the $3,000-$7,000 range but no. It so far is less than $2,000, not counting medications which can sometimes run to several hundred a month, though that's on the decline as I cut back on the number of drugs I'm taking. (Yay). No, the major expense right now is dental treatment which seems to be climbing into the stratosphere.

I've discovered my dental insurance is practically worthless. Of course, that's what many people discover when they need extensive dental repair and treatment. There are so many limitations, especially when a lot of work has to be done, and despite really high premiums -- I think mine is nearly doubling this year -- the coverage is actually declining. If all you need is cleaning and occasional filling, I guess it's OK, but I'm in late stage extraction and dentures and stuff, rebuilding jaw bones, all sorts of stuff, all of which costs a lot and is not fully covered or even partially in some cases. It's expensive. 

So that's the priority expense right now. 

Well, that and a new furnace. Oh, that. We figure it will cost about $2,500-$3,000 to replace the old one. Not that much, really, considering what people pay these days for new furnaces. Ours died a couple of days ago. It may be repairable, but it will fail again soon enough, so we may as well get a new one.

On the other hand, maybe we won't replace it but bite the bullet and do what I've thought of for years: get a mini-split system. 

Well, an update: I asked Ms. Ché to buy a new thermostat as a test. It seemed to me the problem was likely an old and bad thermostat, though the heater is pretty old too. She found one at the lumber store the next town over, and I installed it. Nothing happened. The furnace did not go on, and I thought the thermostat wasn't the problem. The next day I was about to re-install the old one when suddenly, the fire went on. Well, how about that?

The house heated to the set temperature and then the furnace went off. So it has been ever since. It works fine. Better than ever. I don't know why the new thermostat didn't seem to work at first. But if it now works and there's no need for a new furnace yet, so be it. As Ms Ché said, ¨We're blessed, you know?"

That's a much deeper sentiment than I want to go into in this post, but yes. 

So it was time to bake some gingerbread. Then chocolate. And not take it for granted. Or anything else.

On "Know Thyself"

IN Buddhism, the question of "knowing thyself" is fundamental because there is nothing knowable literally or figuratively outside oneself. Everything we think or think we know or perceive is purely a product of "ourself". And as we explore the Buddhist conception of "self" we come to realize there is no "self" or anything we consider real. It is all fundamentally illusion or delusion that we ourselves create out of... nothing. And the Buddhist insight -- which liberated Shakyamuni Buddha -- was that "nothing" was the ground of existence, that everything we perceive or think we know and everything beyond it arises from and ultimately is "nothing."Including we ourselves and Shakyamuni Buddha and all the Buddhas before him and all the Buddhas to come. And then, if this is true, and it is true, then everything, including oneself, is a unity, All arise from the same empty source; all partake of the same empty source. All is simultaneously the same empty source and the illusion/delusion of individuality and separateness. 

This is not actually a difficult concept to grasp and it has become a routine concept in scientific exploration. For example, the deeper scientists probe atomic structure, the less one finds; there is nothing there. No substance, no energy, nothing. And from this primal nothingness arises everything, which, on the deepest level, consists of... nothing. 

At the same time we perceive things as individually separate and distinct and we experience ourselves as not the same as the other. Buddhists will say this is an illusion created in our minds, but knowing as much does not in any way change the fact that this is how we perceive, and therefore understanding our perceptions of what "is" requires that we know ourselves as deeply and thoroughly as possible.

And that, as Shakyamuni Buddha in his time knew better than anyone, is difficult, almost impossible for most people. One tries practically any strategy not to know oneself fully. One recoils from that knowledge. 

One pretends that false knowledge, illusion/delusion, is real.

This happens over and over again throughout one's life and there is no easy way past it. It's simply a fact of being alive. 

One could ask, "Does a stone know itself?" Well, how can a stone not know itself? A stone, not being alive, has no illusion or delusion of "self." No pretense. A stone does not have to explore. A stone simply and fully is, which ultimately resolves to... nothing.

A living being like ourselves must let go of illusion/delusion in order to come to knowledge of oneself, and it is very hard, for most people, impossible to do.

And yet, we study and sit, and act in the world of illusion and some of us, over time, get to know ourselves deeply and fully. This was the World Honored One's insight and enlightenment. He got to know himself, and how his "self" created the "reality" of his experience in the world of illusion. He came to understand that he had a role in that world of illusion: to teach.

And this he did through the rest of his life, and this he continues to do through the sutras and practice of Buddhism and all its variations.

One of the first teachings I received was "Don't get caught up in the commentaries," of which there are many. In fact, most of the sutras are buried in commentary. Find the gem of the sutra, it's there, and follow its guidance. Don't worry about what anyone, even the ancient sage, has to say about it. 

I've stuck with this teaching ever since, generally ignoring the commentary. It's served me well, but as I get older, I'm more interested in what the sages and others have had to say about the sutras and the koans to compare and contrast with what I have learned from them.

Some of the commentary actually gets to the nub of things.

But most seems to be intellectualizing for its own sake, obscuring the point, hiding it. As if in fear of the consequences of knowledge.

For there are consequences.

The only knowledge one can truly gain is self-knowledge. And self-knowledge requires understanding our delusions of "self." Who we think we "are" is not who we are. The understanding is that we create an image of "self" that is not real. And our created image can be so far from what we truly are that there is little or nothing (ah, that word again!) that connects them.

Let go.

Oh, it takes time, so much time. Let it. Most of us won't have so much time, but don't fret. Our singular lives are not all there is. Our lives connect to all other lives, and if we have descendants, the connections are direct,  and time is ultimately infinite. So there is time enough to learn enough.

It just may not be your singular self that does it!

Self-knowledge often comes in a series of "moments." Satori in the Japanese terminology, "sudden enlightenment." Seeing ourselves momentarily from Outside ourselves. Sometimes seeing what others see but more often seeing more deeply into our own self, recognizing what others may or may not see.

So it goes. It takes as long as it does. It's unlikely that most of us will complete the task in a lifetime. 

Frustrating, yes?

Certainly. 

Yet we continue on.

In the Realm of the Planets

I haven't forgotten my long-time interest in the Planets and all things exploratory among them. I haven't followed as closely as I once did. in part because the field and the probes seem to have fossilized (maybe like I have...?) over the years, and the explorations seem to be off point and repetitive.

I could use what happened after the Viking landers (in 1976!) as an example. The Vikings couldn't move and could only explore what their cameras could see and their arms could reach. Nevertheless they did extraordinary explorations as the first landers on Mars and arguably they found evidence of active life on Mars as well as many discoveries about the surface and atmosphere of the Red Planet that overturned or could have overturned many of the prior conclusions of the planetary science community.

But what happened? There was no follow up, especially no follow up to the possible discovery of life on Mars, and no follow up to the conclusion that there was instead "exotic chemistry" that mimicked life signals. Nope. Nothing. Not for decades. And only recently have Mars landers and rovers begun to check up on some of the findings of the Vikings (such as potential surface ice/water sources, both historical and current) so very long ago.

Probe after probe was sent to Mars, but none of them actually tested for the supposed "superoxides" that were supposedly sterilizing the Martian surface, one of the conclusions derived from Viking experiments and one that was taught as fact for decades. None of the probes sent post-Vikings (until very recently) tested for the presence/absence of carbon compounds at the surface -- their absence being required for the Viking results conclusions. On and on. No follow up. Extraordinary conclusions with a paucity of evidence, and nothing done in the decades to follow to sustain or refute (or something in between) these conclusions.

Why? 

Much the same -- without the issue of is there/isn't there Life -- took place with regard to all the planetary explorations that took place between the 1970s and the 2000s. WTF? Had the whole field fossilized into a routine of dismissing clear (or murky!) evidence that contradicted or even expanded on expectations? I don't know. 

Some time back I intervened in a controversy between Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy and a young man who had had an insight about how the Solar System actually rotates and makes its way through the Galaxy and had made an animation of it which had become a YouTube sensation. It was a lovely illustration and more accurately showed solar and planetary motions than the standard versions we're all taught. 

Phil went batshit over it and excoriated the young man for his Errors, and worse for not belonging to the Planetary Science Community and for daring to come up with something so... beautiful... without credentials, without approval, and without consulting his betters. Even worse, according to Phil, the young man had come to his insight after the reading false and unacceptable planetary "science" of an East Indian mystic whose bullshit theories were dangerous to any serious examination of the facts.

I felt I had to intervene. Phil's attack was simply wrong. Ethically, morally, and scientifically. 

The young man had done something no one in the planetary science field had publicly tried in all the history of the field. He had illustrated in a very compelling way what he could of the actual movements of the Solar System through the Galaxy would look like to an observer. And it was beautiful. Compelling. There were errors, yes, in his initial illustration and animation, but they weren't fatal, and they could be corrected fairly easily. 

The claim was made that "science" had long known what the actual movements of the planets and the Solar System looked like from outside the system, and that scientific papers were published from time to time to describe it. Therefore, it was "known" widely -- which was simply false. 

No, what "science" had done was utilize a several hundred year old illustration of the Solar System -- that I called the "dinner plate model" -- to show and explain planetary movements and the Solar System's place in the Galaxy which was simply,,, wrong. I said so. Over and over again.

The young man, for his part, corrected his animation to make it more accurate and compelling and the corrected version was even more popular which seemed to drive the field nuts.

Someone, I forget who, but someone with credentials attempted to animate some version that derived from a published paper and to say the least, it was an effort, more than the field had bothered with in hundreds of years, but it was weak. Close enough, though. 

The controversy over an Outsider doing such a thing continued for several years. Eventually, an actual planetary scientist got involved and agreed to work with the young man to both educate him in the field and help him create even better illustrations and animations. That was nice, but this is what happened: the young man's work to animate and illustrate the exquisite movements of the planetary bodies and the Solar System through space literally stopped. I've heard from him but haven't seen anything since the corrected animation he did as a follow up to the criticisms he was slammed with. Becoming part of the scientific community -- or at least its periphery -- effectively shut him up.

Since that time, quite a few years ago now, I've seen both progress and reversion in the field. Lay people are now routinely included in the science to do all kinds of observational and illustrative efforts that more widely disseminate the exploratory work of the field. Some of it is accepted by the field as good science, too. I remember Greg Orme's observations of "spiders" on Mars that he worked for years finding and attempting to explain only to be dismissed or ignored until... suddenly... the field not only accepted his observations but praised him for his discoveries. 

In my own modest way, I presented evidence of geysers on Mars that was essentially rejected as all but impossible for decades until -- suddenly again -- they became standard scientific knowledge. Wow. How did that happen?

It was complicated. The field is largely the product of Big Men whose conclusions -- and speculations, sometimes -- become standard models. Goes back to Copernicus. Their errors continue on indefinitely. Like the bizarre conception that the outer planets are "Ice Giants." I'm not going to go into the whole Ice controversy and enforced belief, but it is a very old way of looking at the planets in the outer Solar System, it's wrong, grossly so, and the field knows it but keeps repeating it no matter. It's one of the many self-contradictory things the field does largely because of the continuing influence of and deference to the Big Men of the past.

But in recent years, the field has reached out to lay observers and offered them a role to play within the field  and has actually included their findings and illustrations in the process of planetary science. Years ago, that would never happen, as the field was literally a closed society that had no contact with or respect for the efforts of lay observers to understand and appreciate the wonders of the Universe.

That has changed somewhat and I think it is a good thing worthy of praise. But I no longer spend the kind of time and effort I once did as a lay observer of planetary (particularly Mars) discoveries. That time passed in part because of other discoveries that made Mars quite a difficult and likely impossible planet for human colonization and ultimately due to my questioning of the whole "colonization" enterprise. 

Is this something we should contemplate and do? Is there really a compulsion to colonize outside the Earth? And so on. 

Leave Mars be.

But I still have an interest. Oh my yes. It's just that the upshot has... changed.

🙏

Survival

Ms Ché and I are well into our seventies. Neither of us really thought we'd be around this long, especially given our wild youth. But her mother lived to be 89, and she would have lived longer if she'd been diagnosed and treated correctly for a couple of serious ailments that somehow the doctors missed -- over and over. Makes you wonder, I guess... Her father died when he was 84, I believe, in a board and care home where he was not well looked-after, but that's how that goes, isn't it? There are so many horror stories of what happens to the elderly in our society. I think he was an early victim of the System. Nevertheless, after his stroke, he held on for quite a while despite the deplorable conditions of the care home. 

I'm now and then in cahoots with the Winter Practice sangha, a Buddhist practice community of several hundred participants around the world who come together mostly online to share experience and insight and just be together for a period of sitting and study. Many -- most by far -- of the participants are elderly women, some of whom are not in the best of health, some bed-bound, a few alone. Maybe more than a few. And my heart goes out to them. They know how easy it is for things to fall to pieces when your health gives out and you're by yourself and you can't take care of any more than the simplest of things. You know how easy it is for small failings to pile up and multiply like locusts and to bury you in their debris. This is how most of the elderly single women on the "Hoarders" TV program wind up in that condition. Their health goes haywire and they can't physically or sometimes mentally take care of their residence anymore. The debris of living piles up and they can't get rid of it. They don't have the kind of help they need -- and sometimes they reject it if offered -- and eventually they give up trying. There's no point, right?

No point. Well, no, there is "no point," but that doesn't mean that your life or mine has no meaning, usefulness, or direction. You may take a Bodhisattva Vow and your life becomes dedicated to service.That can take many forms whether publicly and prominently or on a modest personal level. Many of the elders in the sangha have lived a Bodhisattva life but now near the end of it, they are set adrift. So many things that they want to do and feel they need to do both for themselves and for others they can't do without help or at all, and they're left feeling they've failed. A feeling that compounds. So the sangha serves to relieve some of that feeling, for in community, we're not alone. 

But still, it must be tough for those who can't get around very well, or in some cases at all. Doing takes mobility. Other problems include chronic pain. Our practice and training says "Lean into the pain." Welcome it, even learn to enjoy it., Well, maybe that's too strong a term, but the upshot is to use the power of your mind to overcome the pain or at least to control it. This works for some people, not for everyone. Pain manifests differently in different people and it may be controlled or overcome by different means depending on the individual. I've had to deal with so much pain over the years. "Making it go away" by mind power alone doesn't work for me, but it may work for others. Certainly worth giving it a try.

What surprises both Ms Ché and me about still being around at our now-advanced age is that we don't feel "old" -- except when physical limitations intervene, and we can't do what we used to or think we should be able to. Physically our age has begun to catch up with us. There are times when we just can't "do." And it's frustrating. 

For me of course, I was caught unaware by the growing infection in my spine, and I was initially undiagnosed and misdiagnosed when I sought medical care. So the infection had at least another month to develop. 

For a time in the hospital, I couldn't sit up, stand or walk. Pain was so great I was in agony. I lost control of my bowels and bladder. I was a wreck. Useless, right? Well, no. For half the time I was hospitalized, I had a roommate whose condition was considerably worse than mine. He'd had surgery for a blown-out knee, and something had clearly not gone right. He was in extreme pain, could not stand or walk, and not even morphine made his condition tolerable. I had my own problems, but I offered what I could -- mainly friendly listening and modest advice -- to help him feel a little better. Encourage him not to give up. Give him some psychological tools to cope with the pain if not overcome it. And so on. I don't feel I did much, but he sure thought so.

Ms Ché visited every day and she did what she could, too. Between us, we were tag-teaming help for Mike, letting him know we were there and cared and would help.

Bodhisattvas? Sure, why not? It was little enough, but it was something. When called, we don't say no.

I'm so glad to be home, but since I've been home, it's been quite a struggle. A month of physical therapy got me up off my back and moving, but once I finished the 12 week antibiotic treatment pain returned, initially just like the pain I felt prior to being correctly diagnosed and hospitalized. Sometimes the pain has been severe. I need to adjust my meds, but from experimenting, I've been able to mostly control the pain, but the downside is I have very limited mobility because of the numbness in my left leg and foot. As Ms Ché pointed out yesterday, "You can barely get around in the house; you're not going out on your own." I was planning on going to the grocery store to save her a trip, and she said "no." And she went on her own so cheerfully!

We've come this far. There's no telling when our time will be up, and it's really not an issue. We carry on. 

Survival is a strange thing. That we're still around is allowing us time for more service. As little as it might be.

Recovery

 I completed a 12 week course of antibiotic treatment for osteomyelitis in early December and thought that with enough physical therapy, I'd be more or less OK, at least well enough to get around and do most of my tasks,

Well, it hasn't worked out that way. Not quite. I've had some serious problems with pain. I cannot get around very well, both because of pain and a surprising amount of numbness in my left leg and foot. I limp. I drag my left foot when I walk, and I often have little idea where it is in space. I'm very unsteady on my feet and have nearly fallen many times. I have actually fallen twice since returning home from the hospital, both times acquiring some interesting bruises and fierce pains in one or both knees. 

Yesterday I got a call to set up an assessment appointment with a neurosurgeon. I am pretty well convinced that the problems I continue to have are due to nerve damage from the infection but I don't know whether there is any reasonable solution. We'll see.

And then there are dental issues. But that's for another time and place.

"What a drag it is getting older..."

Is A Fascist Future Inevitable?

Many of us have been losing hope for years that the slouch toward a Fascist future can be reversed or delayed. The West, as it were, has Fascism baked in in one form or another, and no amount of rebellion or resistance is enough to overcome it. We are on the path of descent and there's no way back.

And it may be true.

With the advent of Trump in the White House -- an existential mistake in my view -- we got a taste of what our Fascist future might look and feel like. Many of his defenders were ostensibly "progressive," but we found that their "progressivism" was limited to opposition to various individuals, personalities, and policies that were advocated, featured or implemented by The Government. There was and is no coherent ideology among these "progressives" except opposition a thing, person, or policy largely for the sake of opposition.

Trump upset a few apple carts, broke a few rice bowls, and introduced constant chaos into The System, and as such he was worthy of support and defense by people who should have known better -- and I believe did. But more important to them was shaking up The System, disrupting routines, and skewering ("pwning") institutional complacency.

Trump's behavior was one thing, but his intent was clearly to rule as an authoritarian, indeed Fascist, dictator, no less so than Nixon, and Bush I & II. They set the standard. Trump was too mentally deficient and chaotic to follow through very well, but he sure tried. And a good deal of what he set out to do is still in place, as are many of the people he put in office.

Our problem -- if we oppose Fascism -- is not so much Trump or his chaos as it is the sponsors who see their advantage in fostering this sort of thing. Their primary advantage is in keeping the masses (to the extent they are acknowledged at all) diverted and entertained. 

In other words, making it all but impossible for there to be an uprising against the corporate-fascist ruling clique, a ruling clique that intends to endure no matter which political party is ostensibly in power. Trump was great at keeping the hoi polloi outraged and entertained. So long as they were, they didn't have time or energy to do anything about their lot in life, and as it happened, in death as the COVID pandemic easily managed to eliminate something over a million "useless eaters" in the United States and God knows how many globally. That pandemic is ongoing, though the death rates have (temporarily?) declined. Other illnesses and wide-spread poverty exacerbate the problems of the masses.

Until recently, I was almost always optimistic about the future and about building a better future mostly via community. The individualism that was so heavily promoted by the libertarian right was in my view a passing phase not likely to outlast the numerous crises that seemed to be accumulating. It was only through community, I believed, that we as a society would be able to get through what was coming.

Well, I was wrong. 

The breaking point was the lawless interference of the Supreme Court in the presidential election of 2000. While I saw it then as a deeply erroneous ruling, almost worse was the acceptance of this monumental error by the Democratic Party and the electeds, including Al Gore who presided in the Senate over his own loss of the presidency. The only ones who objected were the Congressional Black Caucus. And they were promptly silenced -- by Al Gore. 

Something was very wrong at the very top of the governmental structure. It would lead -- inevitably? -- to the catastrophes of September 11, 2001, and the perpetual wars in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. All of a piece.

Yet I thought and believed that the American People, indeed the people of good will throughout the world, would be able to overcome the worst aspects of the ruling clique that included both political parties and seemed to be spreading internationally. 

The War Party seemed to be universal.

After a certain point there was no more Peace party. Code Pink seemed to be the only outspoken party for Peace in the United States and often it seemed its voice was faltering.

The horrors perpetrated by our rulers were atrocious and obvious, yet nothing was done. Obama was seen as the redemptive counterpoint to all that had been going wrong, particularly the economic meltdown of 2008, and yet he turned out to be part of the problem rather than the solution.

The fundamental problem was our reliance on a singular figure -- the President in the case of the United States -- to solve the problems that just kept building up. The President can't do it, and not only that, it's not appropriate to expect him (or her) to.

It takes a community, a community of communities, the society as a whole, to do it, and the society of 2000 and later was not capable. All the energy was going into fragmentation of society rather than cohesion. And it seemed to me that the internet and later social media was part of the problem.

We are now so far down that path, the only way back toward community is the fascist path.

 Yes, fascism is a rightist "community" strengthening ideology. There is nothing equivalent on the left any more. Socialism and communism once played that role, but no longer. 

There are a few leftish religious outfits that could-- maybe-- be the kind of counters to the slouch toward fascism that could slow or halt the current trends, but I don't see any of them becoming strong enough.

My former optimism for the future is pretty much gone.

The Trump experiment was bad, but it wasn't definitive or final. We'll face the elements of fascism again. 

And again and again until it becomes the default social organization for much of the West.

We've been on that path -- whether we want to be or not -- for a long time, and there may be no way back,

Is it inevitable? What is the upshot? I don't have an answer. 

We'll just have to see, won't we?

 

A Note or Two on The Election

I confess I did not vote this time around. Went to the MVD to get a handicapped parking permit -- finally; it's taken a month to do the paperwork -- and then across the street to the polling place at the community center. Well, I didn't see a line out the building, but once we got inside, it was packed and there was a long line snaking through the lobby. Man came in after we got in and said it was worse than when he tried to vote earlier. Election worker came out and said there would be a delay; they only had four booths, and there were so many in line, it would be a while... the line had stopped moving. I had to sit down on my walker -- as did a few other elders -- and so we waited.

Man who came in after me left. Others kept coming and the line didn't move. After a while, election worker came out and said that the lines were much shorter at other polling places, one about seven miles away, another about 20 miles.Some left to go to these other polling places. Most stayed and others arrived. 

After another 20 minutes or so with no movement in the line -- except it kept getting longer -- that was it. I said let's go. Not gonna vote this time.

I voted absentee last election, but didn't apply for an absentee ballot this time. Other things took priority. This is a heavily Republican county. I usually vote Democrat, but sometimes vote for alternative candidates if there are any on the ballot, and I'm still getting to know local candidates and will vote for Republicans if they're sane and competent. So far, that's been OK. 

This time around, the county results were interesting. They're usually about 70/30 Republican, but this time the results were closer to 74/22 with 4% going to the alternative candidate for governor, a Navajo woman who was running as an independent though she said she's Republican. I thought she'd take votes from the Republican candidate, but she didn't in this county. Nope. She took Democratic votes instead. Indeed, Republicans out performed their usual votes. Hmm. Makes me wonder. Is this county getting more Republican? Are Dems moving out? Possible I guess. I see people moving in all the time. Don't see people moving out.

One thing that bothers me. Trumpists have adopted displays of the US flag as their emblem after their displays of the Stars and Bars didn't go over so well. I don't consider the Trumpists patriotic. And their display of the flag is nothing if not hypocritical. That aside, the problem is that there is no counter to it. Nothing comparable on the so-called "left" that says "I'm a Patriot."

Patriotism exclusivity by one political faction is dangerous for it can easily lead to outrages like we have seen in our own history (genocide, lynchings, various "scares") and to horrors like the Nazi Holocaust during the mid 20th Century -- and has happened in other countries much closer to our own time.

What do we do about it? So far, nothing. It's as if this fragmentation, fracturing, is being allowed -- required? -- to happen as prelude to a "reset" or catastrophic failure of society.

Why? To whose benefit? We all need to think about these things, and I don't see much thought being applied to our broken political and institutional processes. I don't know where it leads in the end, but right now, it's not looking good.

Rohatsu 2022 -- The Day of the Buddha's Awakening

Kamakura Daibutsu from Wikimedia Commons

So I'll try to join a Rohatsu sesshin from December 1 through December 8 as a celebration of Shakyamuni's "awakening"under the Bodhi Tree oh so long ago. 

Our text for this sesshin is a translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra called "The Flower Ornament Scripture" that attempts to describe the Buddha's enlightenment. Oh well, good luck with that!

The initial descriptions actually parallel something I experienced -- was it Enlightenment? I don't know -- many years ago, nigh on fifty years back, I think. I may have mentioned it somewhere in these blog pages. I was sitting zazen in my apartment in San Francisco. Something happened. A Void opened up as it were and I was no longer a  sitter in a room in an apartment on Geary. I was no longer "I" but All. The Void was the ground of Being. Which encompassed Everything. The Void was not perception, could not be perceived, was not part of the Material World but spontaneously gave rise to it as well as many other Material Worlds simultaneously. The Void was Nothing -- No Thing -- but gave rise to Everything. All Things and much more besides.

Understanding, was this the Awakening that Buddhists yearn for? Oh, I don't know. No one can actually say, for when the Awakening comes, there are no words; it just Is. 

So this happened while I was sitting zazen in a semi-dark room in my apartment on Geary in San Francisco some fifty or so odd years ago -- I don't remember the year -- and when I ended the sit, my perceptions had changed in ways I had never encountered before. The semi-darkened room appeared to be glowing with crystalline light of many colors, not the drab gray I knew it to be. The main room to the apartment had a view to the garden behind the building where a jungle of plants and flowers flourished. I briefly glanced at the garden -- now glowing with an inner light as well --  as I passed by on the way to go outside.

As I went through the lobby, every step and wall and decoration including the wrought iron gate to the old building I lived in glowed with auras of many colors, and the sky outside was a color I'd never seen before, and the color changed as I walked down Geary toward Union Square a few blocks away. Every thing and every person on my way had multi-colored auras. 

I won't describe the whole experience because when I have tried to do so in the past, I've been accused of either "being on drugs" -- I wasn't and did not use drugs in those days (nor do I now) -- or reporting a dream, not something that actually happened.

"Not something that actually happened..." Well, wait. What does "actually happened" really mean?

What I experienced was an altered perception that grew out of Non-Perception, the Void as it were, and I saw it as a means to recognize the Illusion (or Delusion) of what our Minds tell us is Reality.

What we see and think we know in the Material World is all Illusion, a construct, we're told, of the Mind. And it has no real existence at all. 

Our thoughts and feelings and perceptions are all Mind-created, not Reality. By experiencing an altered perception I was able if only for a moment to recognize the Ground Truth both of the Mind and of the spontaneous arising from Nothing. 

And so it was. Is this what the Buddha experienced after sitting under the Bodhi Tree? I don't know, but it could be. Is it what the Avatamsaka Sutra is attempting to describe? I can't say for certain, but sure, why not?

Sparkling jewels figure heavily in the Sutra; fragrant flowers, multicolored silks, everything and more that an East Indian adept might treasure; all were revealed and made manifest after Enlightenment. Well, yes. Of course! But is that what Enlightenment is? Of course not!

No, I see it as a metaphor -- a long and beautiful metaphor -- for something ineffable that cannot be described in words written or spoken. Beyond the jewels and silks and fragrant flowers, beyond the multitude of universes which figure as prominently, there is... No Thing. Or...? What? No, the question is wrong. 

One of the principal tenets of Buddhism is that we are already Awakened. We are already Enlightened. It is our natural state of being. We don't have to go on a quest to find it -- as the Buddha did. We don't have to yearn for it. We already have it; we are already there. 

What we -- usually -- lack is recognition of the fact. Gaining recognition may take enormous effort and lead to many wrong turns along the way, or it may come in an instant with no effort at all. We all follow different paths. But once we gain the recognition, we're essentially unified on the same path, and in Zen and Mahayana Buddhism in general, it's a Bodhisattva path, then we're all chopping wood and carrying water together. Even as we go our own ways.

The translation I have of the Avatamsaka Sutra is over 1,600 pages long. Now that's absurd. 1100 pages is the Sutra itself, the rest is commentary.  

Buddhists love to speculate on Meaning and write commentary on the Sutras. Thus to possess and explain that which cannot be possessed or explained. 

Of course I'm doing it myself!

So Rohatsu is coming up shortly. I already have some scheduled events during that week, including doctors' appointments and possibly appearing at the trial of the man who assaulted me a year ago in July. I won't have any teeth, either, as all are scheduled to be pulled next week, and nothing is to replace them until January.

What fun. 

Since the Rohatsu is online, though, it will be possible to catch up. I suppose.

----------------------------------------------------------

Koan:

What did the Buddha perceive as he Awakened under the Bodhi Tree?

 

Time for an Update

 

I'm getting better! I think I'll go for a walk!

Welp, It's a little hard to describe what my recovery has been like. I am doing better. I can walk, usually without the assistance of a cane or a walker, but I'm pretty unsteady on my feet and weak on my right side. I've been doing physical therapy exercises, but it will be weeks/months before I get my strength back. Oh well!

Meanwhile, I'm having dental work done that will go into next year -- and cost me more out of pocket than hospitalization. This is kind of criminal of our health care System and I know it affects a lot of people and causes a lot of misery. We have dental insurance, too. As do many people. But the out of pocket costs for dental care with insurance can often be astronomical.

I checked the bill for the rehab hospital stay (10 days) and was surprised. It was over $92,000. All of it was paid by insurance. Wow. The initial hospitalization (13 days) was about $52,000 of which I owe about $1,500. Not too bad. There will be some follow up bills, maybe another $1,000 for ambulances and so on. But the dental work -- with what is considered "good" insurance -- will cost me almost $8,000 out of pocket. I can just about handle that, but what of people who can't? It's crazy.

Overall, I think I'm lucky in many ways and a fool in many ways. I neglect my health and dental care all the time, and yet so far I've been able to get through -- with a lot of help, including that of my wife for whom there is no comparison. It's a learning experience, an opportunity, here in my dottage, to still come to realization, "enlightenment" and greater compassion for those not so lucky -- or foolish as the case may be. 

Yes, I am getting better. But oh my goodness, this has been the toughest one yet. 

The Hospital 3

 So let's explore a little bit, okay? A tale to tell...

I started noticing back problems around the first week of July and went to the ER the first time on July 18 where I was treated primarily for constipation as I hadn't (at that time) had a bowel movement for 11 days. Too much information? Well, hang on, there's more. I listed lower back pain as part of the problem that brought me to the ER and I got an injection of some pain killer (torodol I think) that took care of it right away. But there was no effort to find out what was causing the back pain. Went home, cleared my bowel, got and got over Covid, continued to have back pain, went on about my business as best I could.

Come August, the pain was getting much worse and lasting much longer. I was self medicating with Tylenol and Motrin, each of which sort of worked some of the time and together proved to be a potent combination that pretty much utterly failed. I was on the phone periodically with advice nurses that didn't know what to do, and eventually called up for an appointment with my PCP which was essentially futile as his schedule was booked for weeks. I asked for someone sooner, and got someone via video visit much to my surprise, someone who prescribed what he said were the strongest non-narcotic pain killers he could. Well, much like Tylenol and Motrin, they sometimes worked but often didn't and I recognized that my condition was deteriorating rapidly. What to do?

Video doc said "go to the ER, stat." I hesitated, one because of cost, two because I was once again constipated -- this time for weeks -- and what if they only looked at that? Again?

Go anyway. So after waiting three more days, I called an ambulance as I couldn't sit in a car and I couldn't drive. Went to the nearest ER some 40 miles away where I've had bad experiences in the past. 

I was taken right to an exam room and seen by an NP (I think) within maybe 45 minutes. For some reason, he suspected something given the pain I was having and the duration of my condition (then for a month and a half and getting worse the whole time.) He sent me for an MRI and maybe an hour after the procedure, he came back with a diagnosis: osteomyelitis and discitis needing immediate hospitalization and treatment. There were more tests run in the ER, and then toward evening I was trundled by ambulance to the main hospital downtown (five miles or so) and put in a room on the 4th floor that resembled a nice hotel's "jr suite." It was large, private, quiet, had a comfortable seating area, a large bathroom, but sadly no view as the window looked onto an inner court that I couldn't see.

I was for all intents and purposes completely bedridden. I was given pain killers, laxatives, antibiotics, and who knows what other medications; I was taken for bone biopsies, xrays and other tests, and just before I was discharged from that hospital (after 13 or 14 days) a picc line was installed to make the IV medication at my new hospital easier to administer.

I was being transferred to a rehabilitation hospital nearby where I would continue to undergo treatment for osteomyelitis and discitis but also be subject to physical therapy and occupational therapy so I would be able to get around well enough to go home, likely in 10 days.

A non-emergency transport got me the few hundred yards to the rehab facility where I was put in a double room, not as nice, not as large and with less view than at the first hospital, but adequate for the needs of the moment. For the first few days, I didn't have a room mate.

Right away, the rigors of therapy began. They called it "evaluation."

I was very weak but very willing, and soon enough was at least partially ambulatory, though only with a walker. I was taken for exercise almost every day, usually twice a day, and gradually became able to get around though not without struggle and not without pain. In fact, despite the opiod pain medications, the pain was sometimes so bad I had to stop. The other issue was that my blood pressure would fall dangerously low during or just following exercise. It was a mystery and remains one, though medications and dehydration were/are the suspected culprits.

Many liters of normal saline were administered. I was admonished to drink more water. Still my BP would fluctuate wildly and sometimes reach dangerously low levels. Then it stabilized lower than my normal but not severely so. As long as it was relatively stable, it was considered good enough.

As it got closer to my discharge date, my progress seemed insufficient to release me. I could sit up, stand, walk, move my limbs with and without weights, could do simple tasks like getting in and out of a car, I could wash myself, dress myself, and so on, but I lacked stamina, and I frequently needed assistance. And if I went home, there was a question of how I would receive IV antibiotic treatments as it was suspected that we couldn't get a home health aide to come out to our place in the country.

Sure enough, that proved to be the case. For several days it wasn't clear whether I would be able to go home or would have to go to a skilled nursing facility. I continued working toward going home though, and had faith that the antibiotic problem would be resolved. It was. Ms. Ché would be trained to do it at home. 

Through all of this, I was boosted, cared for, helped, encouraged, "tortured," and inspired by an amazing staff wherever I was being treated, at both hospitals and the ER as well as another facility where I will have to go once a week to pick up IV supplies, have blood tests run, meet with the doctor, and be evaluated for progress.

I can't thank them enough. 

I'm still not well. Far from it. But bit by bit... getting there. Now to find something to eat...!

The Hospital 2

Just got home from three weeks+ in two hospitals being treated for osteomyelitis and discitis. I know there is a lot of chatter on the internet that heath care in the United States, especially since the advent of Covid 19, is a tragic joke. For some people, I know it is. I have seen or experienced some of the worst aspects of the industry -- shameful, tragic, and I'd go so far as to suggest evil. Something you can hardly imagine if you weren't witness.

And yet... welp, here I am after three weeks plus in two different hospitals being treated for serious bone infection and disc ruin in my lower spine, pain running wild, bedridden so long I could barely stand or walk when I was transferred to rehab, and truly I cannot thank the doctors and staffs at the ER and both hospitals enough for their kind and generous care, their quick admission to astonishingly nice room at the first hospital (quiet, too 😴) and extraordinary care at the second rehab hospital that got me back on my feet and able to get around, pain controlled, and set up to go home where antibiotic treatment continues with the lovely and talented Ms. Ché will be doing IV push daily. There's a lot more to the story, but I'm still processing it all. This experience is a counter to almost every single hospital experience I've had as a patient or advocate my whole life long. And counter, too, to so many horrid experiences we hear about so often. How? 

Astonishing.

The Hospital

I've been hospitalized since August 28 with a serious bone infection affecting my spine and hips. I've been essentially bedridden the entire time, although I can get up and out of bed for short periods with help. It's not so much getting up and about that's the problem as that my blood pressure plunges when I get up or do any exercise. Sometimes it's so low I practically pass out and would if I weren't able to lie down in bed promptly -- which so far, I've always been able to do.

I spent about a month at home attempting to wrangle with whatever was going on, but my condition kept worsening and it couldn't be accurately diagnosed without proper tests which could only be done at the hospital or ER. So finally I called an ambulance and made the 40 mile journey to the nearest ER where alarms started ringing right away. Something was wrong, bad wrong, and after the test results started coming in, they thought they knew what it was. An infection, possibly cancer, that would require extended treatment.

So, here I am, waiting for more tests scheduled for tomorrow, and eager to get out and be whole again. 

What a drag it is getting old.