WELL, HELLO ISLA!

Our first grandchild!

Welcome Isla Michal (Scottish, pronounced EYE’lah)

DOB:  December 4, 2013

Weight:  10 lbs 8 oz !!!!!

And she’s beautiful!

ROASTING AND FREEZING

Roasting, as in turkey!  As with most all our family gatherings these days, it’s easier for the old folk to travel north to the Bay Area than it is for the kids et al to come south.  John and Meghan were hosting this year, despite Meghan being nine months pregnant!  With her being due any day, they wanted to stay in the City to be close to the hospital.  We took over the cooking duties, which Loni loves to do, especially for Thanksgiving.  We dry-brined a 22 pound bird here at home, then crammed it and a load of ice bricks into a cooler for the 400 mile trip, along with virtually all of our kitchen paraphernalia for “just in case.”  We looked like the Joads traveling with their life’s possessions.

We were joined by Meghan’s dad, Barry, and Alia’s parents, Bill and Lynn.  Cooking chores were divvied up and everyone pitched in.

The roasting went beautifully, and the bird came out, as they say, moist and tender.  Everyone contributed a favorite side dish.  The table was colorful, sporting J&M’s plates from their honeymoon trip to Turkey.  About 5,000 calories were consumed – per person.  I’m sure the baby was groaning as well.

As with all the best family get-togethers, we did a lot of sitting around and talking and just enjoying each other’s company. 

I think we all were kind of hoping that, now that Meghan had “made it” through the holiday, that the baby would decide to come in the next few days before we had to head back south.  No such luck.  She was being stubborn, or simply really enjoying hanging out right where she was.  We left early Sunday morning for the long, holiday-traffic drive back to L.A.  Actually, it wasn’t as bad as we feared, and we made decent time with only one major slowdown for about half an hour. 

We got home Sunday evening, and had to get up bright and early Monday morning to go get the rig out of storage, drive it to Home Depot to buy a Christmas tree, strap that to the scooter rack, bring it home, wash (ugh) it, load it with food and clothing and gear, and get ready for our trip to the Live Oak Camp in the Santa Ynez mountains near Solvang, CA.  This is another of our Lazy Daze Caravan Club meetings, and is one of the largest of the year.  Our sub-group within the Club – the “Past Tents,” was the host group for this meeting, thus responsible for setting up and manning the host tent (that’s us doing that, with our, um, elf hats), decorating the pavilion with holiday stuff, and generally running the show.  I had been deputized to bring the tree to set up in the pavilion, hence the hauling from L.A.

We had a good turnout, with 102 rigs taking part.  This pic shows only a fraction.  Live Oak is a “dry” camp without any water or electric hookups, thus everyone had to get through the five day meeting on solar, generator, battery, and propane.  That’s normally not a problem, but the weather wasn’t cooperating.  It ended up being the coldest weather that we have ever camped in.  The overnight low was 18 degrees!  Yikes.  In central, coastal California?  While Lazy Daze’s are probably better insulated than most, you really can’t keep the heat in very long without keeping a source going.  The first night we tried leaving the main furnace on, but that wasn’t a great solution.  First, the blower runs off the batteries, and consumes a lot of power.  Propane usage didn’t seem to be too bad.  But the worst part was that, to maintain a temperature, it would cycle on every 20 minutes or so, with a substantial “whoosh” noise that made sleep, at least for me, almost impossible that first night.  For the subsequent nights we went with our catalytic heater, the Wave 3.  This uses propane, but does not emit any dangerous gases in the process.  However, it does consume oxygen, and requires that you leave two windows open a crack to allow replenishment.  Otherwise, you don’t wake up the next morning.  We had never before used our cat at night, but other campers told us they did it regularly and that it was safe as long as you left the required ventilation.  It worked pretty well; despite the sub-freezing outdoor temps and the open windows, we kept the interior at about 56 degrees over night, which was plenty warm for sleeping.  And we woke up.  :)

One of the activities at this particular caravan is the brown-bag gift exchange.  Everyone sits at the pavilion tables with his/her bag in front.  Master story-teller Barbara B then launches into an elaborate and lengthy shaggy dog story about “Mr. and Mrs. Right.”  Whenever in the course of the story she says either the word “right” or the word “left,” each person passes the bag then in front of him to the person to the right or left, as appropriate.  The bags thus move randomly around the tables, depending on the tale.  At the end of the story “shuffle,” you presumably are left with a gift bag not your own.  This is pure cornpone, but generates a lot of laughs. 

As in the past when the Past Tents is the caravan host group, I did the morning announcements over the CB system.  To shake things up in what is an otherwise dry exercise, I hammed it up by putting on a spoof of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast that terrorized much of the country back on October 30, 1938 (almost 75 years to the day).  My effort was played for laughs, not terror, and (ahem) went quite well, thank you.

We did the usual washer toss tournament, this one being the last of the year and limited to prior winners and runners-up.  That put both Loni and I in the game.  I lasted until the quarters, and she into the semis, but that’s it.

Another event of this end-of-year caravan is the craft sale.  There are some pretty talented folks among the campers, including fine wood turning, jewelry, knitted items, and a lot of knicknacks.  We usually find something to add to our Christmas pile and this year was no exception.  We even got some of Mom’s pumpkin thingies sold!

Last, but certainly not least, is the food.  We had a great potluck with only the Past Tents, several of whom are vegetarians or gluten-free types, so we had a lot of interesting dishes, certainly a cut above the usual parade of casseroles.  It’s really a treat to eat with this bunch.  Saturday night was the all-camp dessert buffet.  Ah, well.  Butterfat and calories are de rigueur between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.  Even I can put on a few pounds at these do’s. 

MORE SCOOTER MADNESS

In addition to our RV groups, we belong to two scooter clubs here in LA.  One is the larger Los Angeles Scooter Group and the other is a smaller offshoot, devoted to more demanding rides, called (sigh) the Adventurists.  Well, you gotta call it something.

Last weekend the Adventurists undertook a beaut, a 210-mile jaunt through canyons and high desert.  On the map, locate Frazier Park at top center.  Drop down 1/2 inch from the “F” and that was our destination.  The ride went from sea level to about 4500 feet a couple of times, alternating between bright sunshine and dark, black clouds that were so thick it was like driving through rain, and ended with a pitch black night return down US 101 and Pacific Coast Highway.  Nutso.  Loni begged off, saying it’s not much fun riding pillion for that distance.  Can’t say as I blame her.

Four of us Westsiders met up on PCH, then crossed the Santa Monica Mountains on Los Virgenes  Road, recently paved to delightful smoothness,  and made our way west to the group meetup just before Thousand Oaks.  There were 15 scoots by the time we were ready to roll.  As usual, we were late getting started, but made our way north to Santa Paula via Balcom Canyon Road.  From there we continued north to Ojai, which was the jumping off point for the good part:  the Maricopa Highway, SR33.  This goes north through the Los Padres National Forest, including a couple of wilderness areas, and is a motorcycle/scooter delight.  Tons of curves, hills, switchbacks, and precious few signs of civilization for 50 miles.  Scoot, don’t fail me now!  The below pick was taken in nicer weather. 

As it turns out, one of our number did suffer a breakdown, apparently a cracked fuel tank that started leaking copiously.  Fortunately, there was a ranger station where we could leave him to phone for assistance.  (We made sure he had contact before, ahem, abandoning him.) One of our members made a 4 minute video of parts of our ride. I’m in the yellow jacket on the black scoot in just a couple of shots.  It doesn’t have the scariest parts, because those were on our way back when the weather really turned bad.  Our stopping point, before turning around, was an iconic dive bar/café called the Reyes Creek Bar & Grill.  Located in the middle of nowhere, it looked like a biker bar movie set, and, to be sure, there were plenty of Harleys parked outside.  But it served great burgers and other fried delicacies, and we less-than-macho scooterists were welcome.  It was pretty mellow in mid-afternoon, but I suspect it could get a lot wilder after dark.  I had a heart-stopping patty melt with grilled onion, and fried onion rings for bad measure.  Hmm, heart don’t fail me now!  One of our riders was my fraternity brother, Dave , who has downsized from decades of Harley and BMW riding to a Vespa 300.  On the wall and ceiling behind him are pasted thousands of dollar bills stuck there by patrons who write their names and visit dates.  We didn’t indulge.  Outside the bar, the Fall color was pretty nice.  Too bad the tree we parked around was mostly dead (these are cellphone shots).  My scoot is second from right.

The ride home was something else.  We retraced our route over the Maricopa Highway (curious designation for a barely 2-lane road with no shoulders), but this time into some of the blackest clouds I’ve ever seen.  At 3:00 it was so dark I had to stop to shed my sunglasses as I simply couldn’t see with them on.  Although it didn’t really rain, the low clouds were so thick that we were getting soaked, and my windshield was covered with drops that pretty much obscured all vision.  I took to looking around the thing, but then my visor misted over.  All this and blind hairpin turns with several-hundred foot dropoffs.  We gradually got separated according to riding speed.  No way to get lost, as there weren’t any cross roads, but it was a little eerie to be barreling through the blackness with no one in sight for tens of miles.  When I finally descended to about 2,000 feet the clouds broke and it was setting sunshine in my face.  We regrouped somewhere just north of Ojai, and then headed west towards Ventura.  There, we gassed up and, in full darkness, group-rode down US 101 to Oxnard.  There, Dave, I and one other split off and took CA1, Pacific Coast Highway, all the way home.  No lighting along that road, so we were constantly playing hi-beam/low-beam with oncoming traffic for 40-odd miles.  Woof.  I was mighty ready for a beer after all that.  So I did.

REUNION, HEALDSBURG, AND BABY

OCTOBER 16-27, 2013.   It’s been a while since I posted anything.  Sheer sloth.  The latter half of October was pretty busy for us, even without any RVing.  We started things by attending Loni’s 45th (!) reunion at Stanford. 

We've been going to these every five years for the last couple of decades (as well as mine, which falls a year prior each cycle).  It's much the same each time, only more expensive, natch.  Frankly, the price of the Dinner On The Quad (“DOTQ”), which is quite lovely by candlelight, is just getting a little ridiculous.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The reunion ran from Thursday the 17th through Sunday.  As there are morning and early afternoon events on Thursday, we decided to drive up from L.A. on Wednesday.  I thought we'd try something different, so I looked for a B&B in the Gilroy area to stay at Wednesday night, and we'd then leisurely hop up to Palo Alto Thursday morning.  I found a likely prospect, and they had an open room, so we snatched it up.  It turned out to be a great place, the Fitzgerald House.  Now, don't stampede to make reservations -- it's no longer operating.  The owners have decided to focus more on their publishing business, and found it too much to handle running the inn at the same time.  We managed to get into its penultimate week after a decade or so under the current owners.  Too bad, because the house was lovely, the breakfast scrumptious, and the hosts charming.  Plus, it was within easy walking distance of the old-town area, with half-a-dozen choices for dinner.  After settling in and getting some dinner recommendations, we wandered the two blocks or so to the commercial area and did a walkabout, checking out menus posted at the doors.  We found several that would be interesting, but settled on the Old City Hall because it included a number of lighter offerings.  We had pigged out at Harris Ranch along I-5 in the Central Valley for lunch on the way up, so we couldn’t handle another big meat meal. The Old City Hall is lodged in just that -- the former municipal center, with high ceilings, pillars, and nifty turn-of-(last) century details. The menu was California-World-fresh, appealingly varied without being overwhelming. What stood out for us was the seared Ahi salad, loaded with accessory goodies. It was cooked perfectly, and everything on the plate was delicious. All for $14! At dinner! I think they should be charging more, but who am I to tell them how to do it? The night we were there (Wednesday), the crowd seemed to be entirely locals, so they're cooking for repeat business, not just passers-through. 

We spent a quiet night at the B&B, with nary a sound from the other two couples who were there, and only the occasional train whistle wafting faintly in through the open window.  Breakfast was excellent in the beautiful dining room.  I loved this house and would buy it in a heartbeat.  Those are home-made cranberry scones sitting there, as a side to the eggs/sausage/other goodies hash.  It’s really too bad they have shut down, but I can understand that doing this year after year would wear one out.

 

After lazing through breakfast, we repacked the car and took off for the 50 mile drive up to Stanford.  I again bitched and moaned about having to park in the Eucalyptus groves, as the dirt is fine and dry and the car gets absolutely filthy from the dust churned up by later cars passing by to park.  I always keep a jug of water to pour over the windshield in order to leave at the end of the day.  The stream from the wiper nozzles would just make a mud bath.  Anyway, we checked in, got our tickets to the DOTQ and the event calendar, and would have been on our way had Loni not gotten derailed by the baby section of the school gear emporium.  She kept it to one item, and we headed off for our first function, a tour of the new Bing Concert Hall (I cribbed this photo from the internet)and a performance by a string-and-piano quartet.  Both were stunning.  We’ve been to and marveled at the Disney Center here in L.A., and I can say that, on a smaller scale, the Bing is every bit the acoustical stunner.  Not surprising, since Yasuhisa Toyota was the acoustical designer for both.  The clarity and richness of the instruments was ear popping.  I would love to live in the area and be able to take in concerts at this venue.    Full disclosure:  the “critics” are all over the map on whether the Bing is good or not.  I can only report that our ears were very happy indeed. 

Thursday evening was the big event, the DOTQ. 

This starts out with hors-d’oeuvres and drinks in the Rodin Sculpture courtyard adjacent to the quad.  Class-year tentpoles are thrown up so those of similar age and decrepitude can locate each other and mingle discretely.  We found a number of souls whom we remembered, although didn’t necessarily recognize at first blush.  Thank goodness for name badges which most everyone had on.  After sufficient lubrication and knoshing, darkness fell and it was time to find our class tables on the quad and settle in under the heat lamps.  They almost weren’t needed, as the weather was unseasonably warm.  This event is a visual feast and, unlike my reunion last year, the food was served hot, was cooked properly, and we had no complaints.  Maybe they changed caterers?  Also unlike last year, one didn’t have to tackle a server in order to get another round of wine.  They kept it flowing.  Of course, in my present mostly-teetotaler status these days, it was only an observed boon.  We did have a good time, despite the price, and had a lively table. 

Thursday we took in an exhibition and lecture about the five organs found in Memorial Church.  This was a fascinating look behind the curtain at just what all an organist has to do to get that magnificent sound pumped out.  The mystery of all those stops and pedals was revealed, and the blood definitely was pumping along with with the sound when the organist played something or other that showed off the full effect. The organ shown in my photo is the Harris Organ, built in 1901, sporting 3,702 pipes.  The jewel of the five, however is the more recent Fisk-Nanney Baroque organ.  Using a combination of elements from historic East German, North German, and French organs, this organ is the first instrument in the history of organ building that is capable of reproducing nearly all organ music written from the 16th through the 18th centuries with the proper sounds.  It’s action is fully mechanical – no electricity – and the 4422 pipes emit directly into the chamber.  It’s located in a loft above this one, so we couldn’t photograph it, but the organist climbed up and gave us a demonstration.  The sound is brighter and harder than the Harris, which is of the more traditional Romantic style.  This was fascinating stuff, even for musical dolts like me.

We also attended some “classes without quizzes,” which are dozens of one-hour-plus lectures by various current and former faculty.  I chose “How To Live The Good Life:  Lessons From The Greeks.”  It sounded a little weighty in the description:   “Participants will learn about and discuss the core ethical beliefs of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans and the Stoics, and consider how those schools confront fundamental human issues of justice, absolute versus relative morality, fear of death, fate versus free will, and the relationship between humans and the divine.”  Okayyyy.  It’s summaries like that which kept me away from the classics when I was an undergrad, but I really wanted the chance to hear one of Stanford’s teaching legends, Prof. Marsh McCall.  He arrived in 1976, well after I graduated, so I never had the opportunity.  He didn’t disappoint.  He’s now a professor emeritus, having won just about every teaching award they have, but he hasn’t lost a whit of enthusiasm or showmanship.  I was riveted, when I wasn’t laughing.  I actually learned some things!  Just goes to show what a difference a great teacher can make.  I only wish Loni hadn’t abandoned me for some biology presentation, but she said hers was excellent as well.

Friday night was the class party, held this year at a country club just up the road adjacent to the campus.  Very nice venue, not at all snooty, and the organizers took to heart the complaints from previous years about excessive amplification of the “background” music.  This year you could actually have conversations and not have to cringe in aural pain.  Food was Mexican themed and gringo produced, but was OK.  Lots of opportunity for gabbing with long-lost classmates, and Loni had a ball.

Saturday brought the football game against UCLA.  I had tried to get tickets through the alumni/athletics site, but they were all sold out well before the reunion.  Not particularly good planning on the Alumni Association’s part.  They clearly needed to reserve more.  So, I went on to the Stubhub site and cruised for something reasonable.  There were plenty of choices at all price ranges, but I found two that looked like a bargain.  Stubhub emails your ticket to you for printing out, which I did.  Of course, less than two hours before the game, we’re yucking it up in the class tent when a cold hand gripped my stomach.  Yup, I suddenly realized I’d left the tickets in the motel room.  There was no going back to get them.  Traffic was at a gridlock throughout the area.  It would be halftime before I could get back, and I’d be in heart attack mode if I tried to navigate.  I resigned us to missing the game and instead going to another class-without-quiz.  But, aha!  I admit to being technologically impaired, but not hopeless.  I went on to Stubhub and found that Stanford also allows scanning the ticket barcode on your phone at the gate as an alternative to paper.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember my password, which I had only recently created to buy the tickets in the first place, and it took me nearly an hour of trying to figure out how to re-access my tickets, input a new password (twice), and then try to locate where I had “saved” them on my phone.  I never could find them.  What happens when you hit save on an iPhone?  The last resort was to simply take the phone to the gate, use it there via Verizon to access my Stubhub account, display my ticket in real time(had to do this twice for both) , and get the gatetenders reader machines to scan and acknowledge each.  You think this is easy with thousands of fans trying to get through the same gate?  The first three readers wouldn’t recognize the bar code, but they got a supervisor with a super-reader, which finally worked.  I have to figure out how to save such things on my phone and then be able to retrieve them.  Anyway, the game was a success with the proper team winning, and the Band was better than usual (well, bigger anyway, as it was the 50th anniversary of its re-formation as a student-run operation, and there were a lot of alums squeezed into old uniforms that joined the current members on the field).  Still couldn’t fathom their formations, but what the hey.  My pic above is a pre-game shot;  the place was sold out for the game.  We sat in a mixed section of Stanford and UCLA fans and the latter were surprisingly mellow, even when things didn’t go well.  Not like attending a Stanford-USC game, where civility is a foreign language.

Reunion over, we headed on Sunday over to Mike & Alia’s house in Oakland for the day and night, and had a nice family day with good eats and talk.  Poor Alia had to jet off to L.A. and Chicago for work that afternoon.  Life in the fast lane! 

SONOMA.  We left Monday morning for three days in Healdsburg, up in Sonoma County, one of the three big wine areas north of San Francisco.  We had never stopped over in Napa or Sonoma, always driving through on our way north or south, so we were looking forward to getting a taste of the wine country.  I had booked us for the duration at the Irish Rose B&B, and it turned out again to be a great call.  It’s located in an externally nondescript farm house about 3 miles north of downtown Healdsburg, and situated in the middle of vineyards which, in late October, were beginning to blaze with Fall color. We were greeted first by the two horses corralled along the driveway, then by one of the resident chickens (there are 15 or so) scratching in the front yard grass for bugs. On the porch was the house cat lounging in one of the chairs, who loved to be chuckled under the chin (and just about everywhere else for that matter). The downstairs was comfortable and homey, with lots of mementos of Chris & Lanny's family and their prior lives as active horse folk (Morgans, I believe). This was not your Martha Stewart, antique-filled cutsey parlor, but a room where folks actually lived.  The interior architecture is craftsmany, with a great dining-room table that held all eight of us guests quite nicely for Lanny's excellent (and filling) breakfasts, something different each morning. We especially liked his superb bread pudding with maple syrup. Oh, yes.  Our room’s bathroom was big enough to be a locker room for a fair-sized team, complete with a jetted soaking tub and separate shower stall, big enough to actually wash without banging your elbows on the walls, or for two to share.  But that's another story. This is a G-rated blog.  Our room had a canopied bed (above), and was dead quiet all night, so we enjoyed a good sleep. Our evening view was of the sun setting over the vineyard, and the morning sight was of fog crouching over everything. Peace.

    

The drive into town took only minutes, and is beautiful. There are other B&B's right in town, and we passed by one we recognized that was booked up when we tried to make reservations. I'm glad it was. It was right on the main road, and still a fair walk to the town square. We so much more enjoyed being a short drive from the village, out in the vineyards, walking distance to several wineries, as well as to the "famed" country store just up the road.  I wouldn’t go out of my way to peruse this place, but being so close, we had to drop in.  Mostly kitschy stuff, but Loni found a cookbook with a “farmers’ market” theme that has some great recipes that she’s been trying out since we got home.  Well, OK to the General Store!

Healdsburg itself was a delight, and we spent a couple of days just walking about the many shops and restaurants arrayed around the square, which was just beginning to come out in Fall color. I won’t give a blow-by-blow of the eateries, but we were so happy we’d saved the best for last.  Bistro Ralph is an institution here, having been in business for over ten years. They are NOT on auto-pilot, and this was right up there with the best of meals we've had anywhere. The menu, while not extensive, certainly had something for everyone, and perhaps its reasonable length contributes to the quality they pour into the dishes. Having had multiple meat/fish nights already on this trip, we were looking for something more vegetarian. We started with a Caesar salad for Loni, which I nibbled on. Whole spears of heart-of romaine that I swear had been pulled from a local garden that afternoon. I've never tasted lettuce that fresh. The dressing was superb. I opted for the heirloom tomato soup. Wow! Again, the local gardens must be working overtime, assisted by the chef's addition of herbs and spices. This was a memorable soup and perfect for a crisp Fall evening. For mains, we both opted for the fricassee of chanterelle mushrooms over house-made wide noodle pasta. This had such an earthy, rich flavor that you'd swear it was meat-based, but it was a masterful reduction of wine and fungus that was heavenly. We sopped up every last drop with the excellent sourdough bread. I had the classic creme brulee (noted on the menu as "the best") while Loni wisely chose the chocolate marquise taillevent with hazelnut creme anglaise. Now, that latter is a mouthful to pronounce, but it was the star. Not to cast aspersions on the creme brulee -- it was indeed delicious ("the best" is a little over-the-top), but that taillevent was to purr for. The wine list was reasonably priced by anyone's standards, with loads of local wineries to choose from. We (yes, me too) killed a bottle of sauvignon blanc without busting the budget. At the end of the meal, we told our server that this was a "giggle meal." She was puzzled until we explained that was a meal where we kept looking at each other and giggling with delight throughout.

We also drove around to the Armida winery so Loni could indulge in a bit of tasting.  She had one of their Chards at dinner the night before and liked it.  Felt odd being the designated driver while she boozed it up, but it was a beautiful setting, just south of Healdsburg, and perched on a hill with a lovely view.  We ended up buying a Chard and a Pinot Noir which we’ll haul up north for Thanksgiving with the kids.

Thursday we drove back to Mike and Alia’s in Oakland, but rather than retracing our steps we went over the hill to the Napa Valley and drove down SR29 to Yountville.  We stopped there to take in the only thing of Thomas Keller’s that we’re able to afford, his Bouchon Bakery, adjacent to his fancy restaurant of the same name.  It was easy to spot the bakery from the line extending out the door and down the pavement.  I first had Keller’s food before he became famous and was cooking at a restaurant in a boutique hotel across from the Main Library in downtown L.A.  It was eye-opening back then (early 90’s).  I’ve long wanted to try the French Laundry, but (a) it’s w-a-a-y too expensive and (b) he doesn’t cook there any more.  Why pay those prices for sous-chefs working from a formula?  Current tasting menu runs $270 per person, without wine.  Yikes!  Anyway, we bought a couple of pastries, which were quite good but not extraordinary, and went on our way.

Baby Shower      John and Meghan are expecting in early December with our first grandchild, a girl.  Not at liberty yet to divulge the beautiful name, but it’s not one I’ve ever heard before.  Loni, of course, has been going nutso the last few months, knitting and crocheting up a storm.  Blankets, booties, caps, sweaters, snugglies, a farm!  Here’s but a few:

 

The shower was set for Saturday, at John & Meghan’s, so we spent Friday just helping out with the preparations or staying out of the way.  The cats (M&A have two) have finally gotten used to us, and I am now merely a warm lap.

The weather continued to cooperate, and the day was warm and sunny – in San Francisco, in October!  Mom-to-be was glowing, the gifts were flowing, the food (mostly by Meghan’s mom, Janet) was abundant and delicious, and a lot of newer and old (even high school) friends showed up.  A good time had by all.  Welcome, baby name (oops).

 

MOM AT 90

This past May, we flew to Indianapolis to join my sibs and extended family in celebrating Mom’s 90th birthday.  Actually, her birthday was in April, but some of the family couldn’t make it then, so we settled on Mother’s Day as a suitable alternative.  I won’t repeat here my health woes that cropped up, covered in my previous post, other than to relate a funny episode.  When Loni called the paramedics for me, it was about 5:00 am.  Mom was asleep in her room with the door closed, and my nephew and his wife were asleep in another room, also with the door closed.  My niece was on the downstairs couch.  The paramedics made a bit of noise when they tromped in;  there were four of them, and they were there at least twenty minutes before hauling me out.  During that time, only my niece woke up.  We asked her to tell everyone what had happened when they woke up.  She went back to bed.

Fast forward to the hospital, and it’s now about 9:00 am, and they’ve finished with their tests and are mostly observing me in preparation for discharge.  We call the house to let them know what’s happening, and Mom answers.  I told her that everything was OK, and that we’d be home when my sister was able to pick us up.  There’s a long silence, and she says, “Who is this speaking?”  Mom, it’s me, your #1 son.  She got a little confused and asked where I was.  At the hospital, Mom.  Then she said that she thought we were upstairs in our room still asleep.  Apparently my niece was still sleeping and hadn’t told anyone.  Mom had gotten up, fetched and read her newspaper, and wanted to get breakfast underway and was wondering why no one was up.  Amazing that they all slept through the paramedic ruckus.

Anyway, it’s Mom’s 90th, and we were all to gather at a nearby restaurant where they had a separate room for us.  Mom looked great!  We had a small centerpiece cake (in the background, with the “90” candles on top) surrounded by a several dozen cupcakes of assorted flavors.  I thought that was a great idea, as everyone could choose his/her own flavor and it eliminated the cutting routine.  I can only vouch for mine, but it was delicious.

Mom got to blow out the candles on the mini-cake, then take it home for the next day.  I made sure I got a bite.

Presents were brought up in party bags and Mom had a ball going through them and reading the cards that went with.

I took some video, but can’t figure out how to reduce the file size so that I can upload it to uTube.  It’s almost a gigabyte, so would take forever on my lousy connection.  I might post it later.

After the party, we all repaired to my sister, Susy’s place, and had a good gabfest into the evening.  The collage below is of some of my nieces, nephews, their spouses, and children.  I didn’t get the camera on all of them, so it’s not the complete set.

OK, Mom.  Keep ‘em coming.  100 should be no sweat!

THE LONG ROAD BACK

Yeah, this is mostly a travel blog, but also a life account as well.  The title refers not to any trip we made, but rather to my extended, rocky, and still-unfinished journey back to health.  So, bail out now if you were expecting a travelogue.

Sometime during our trip back to California from D.C. in June of last year, my nose started running almost constantly.  I never felt congested, but boy was I going through boxes of tissue.  Otherwise, I felt fine.  In the early Fall, I started a dry cough as well, and by Winter I was having head congestion, lots of mucous, and more coughing.  In January, both head and chest congestion, and now wet coughing, so I started a ten day course of antibiotics, which had no effect.  In February, I tried some Clariton-D, which greatly helped the chest congestion, but had some side effects.  In March, I switched to the generic antihistamine, Ceterizine Hydrochoride, which initially was effective in controlling nighttime congestion, and also allowed the Clariton side effects to fade out.  But the CH was a short-lived remedy, and night nasal congestion became severe, waking and keeping me up.  The wet cough worsened.  I was a mess!  But the worst was yet to come.

On March 8, Loni and I set out on our usual morning constitutional.  I didn’t get far.  I started having difficulty breathing and began gasping.  We made it home, but sitting for a while didn’t help any.  Off to my G.P., who’s right here in town, thank goodness.  I looked and sounded sufficiently bad that they rushed me right in.  He promptly put me on a nebulizer  and that started opening things up and I was breathing o.k. in about ten minutes.  Tentative diagnosis was some sort of adult sudden-onset allergic reaction.  He prescribed a rescue inhaler to use several times a day (Xopenex), which I started using that afternoon. 

The inhaler seemed to be working fine.  I met with a pulmonary specialist and went through the pulmonary function tests, which showed things mostly within normal ranges, even though I still didn’t feel normal.  Cue the ominous music.

On April 3, just before midnight, I began having severe breathing difficulty despite taking two doses of the Xopenex in quick succession.  I woke Loni, and managed to get out that we needed to get to the E.R. right away.  I’m barely sucking air despite great laboring.  We threw on clothes and took off to Santa Monica Hospital, which is now part of the UCLA system, and is the nearest E.R.  All I could do was collapse in a chair while Loni urged the intake clerk into action.  As with most E.R.’s, the place had plenty of patients, but none were making quite the death rattle sounds that were coming out of me.  Even so, it was another ten minutes before I saw anyone.  First thing the nurse did was to take my pulse ox level.  That shot her out of her chair and off to find the chief attending.

A little background.  Normal pulse ox is about 98% or better.  Impaired breathing begins at about 95%.  Respiratory failure is below 90%.

I was at 77% and falling.  Not good.

The doc immediately put me on a course of nebulizer; no effect; then a second course along with a steroid drip.  In the background I could hear him alerting a team to prepare for intubation.  Oh, crap.  Hey, I’ve seen enough ER on t.v. to know that’s not a good thing.  At this point, however, I didn’t care.  Fortunately, the second round of nebulizer and the steroids starting to reverse the numbers, and my ox levels began to rise, albeit slowly over the next two hours. 

Unfortunately, one of the dangers of these symptoms is that I might have thrown a clot, so CT scans are necessary to rule it out.  Now, I had more than my lifetime’s share of radiation back in the cancer days, so I wasn’t too happy about this, but they were insistent.  The scans came back all clear, and I was discharged in the morning with prescriptions for more inhalers and a nebulizer solution for if/when I felt things closing down.  The discharge diagnosis was chronic asthmatic bronchitis.  Okayyy, if you say so.

A follow-up the next week with my GP and he prescribed a twice-daily powder inhaler, Advair 250/50.  Anyone who watches the evening national news undoubtedly has seen ads for this stuff.  So, I begin taking it.  Yee gods is it expensive.  The “list price” that allegedly is charged to my insurance is about $300 per month, but I doubt they pay that much.  Once I started using this stuff, I could lay off the rescue inhalers unless needed for a crisis.  Not sure what crisis dictates the inhaler and which calls for the nebulizer.  So far, I haven’t had to use either since starting the Advair.  Out of the woods?  Not by a long shot.

Unfortunately, despite all these drugs, the nose continued to run, and the night congestion got progressively worse until both sides began to stop up again, preventing sleep.  In late April the pulmonary doc prescribed some HCl nasal spray, but it didn’t seem to have any beneficial effect, and I quit using it after a few days.  I was getting exhausted from sleep deprivation.

Timing is everything.  It’s now May, and on the 7th we boarded Southwest to fly to Indianapolis for Mom’s 90th birthday, which already has happened, but to celebrate it with my sibs and other family on Mother’s Day.  Flying with a congested head is not the brightest thing in the world, but whattya gonna do?  Well, hurt, for one thing.  The pressure in my head was horrible, especially on descent.  I couldn’t clear my head for two hours after landing, and couldn’t hear virtually a thing that whole time.  Totally plugged.  Sleeping wasn’t any better, maybe 2 hours a night at best.  Still, on Saturday the 11th, we held Mom’s party at a local restaurant and everyone had a great time, so I’m glad we went.  I’ll blog about that separately.  That night, I actually fell asleep for several hours, waking at 3:00.  I wasn’t able to fall back to sleep, as I couldn’t breathe properly.

Then, all weirdness broke loose.  At about 5 AM, I felt like my chest and abdomen were roiling, churning.  My body temperature seemed to fluctuate from hot to cold.  I was alternately throwing covers off and on, and felt I had to constantly keep moving around.  I got a welling sensation, like rising blood pressure, in my chest and head and started thrashing about.  I tried to stand but was disoriented and collapsed back on the bed. My legs and arms started trembling and shaking, and a muscle just below my left clavicle started pulsing rapidly and was startlingly visible to Loni.  Then all my chest muscles started quivering like I was freezing.  Loni went to call the paramedics.  In about ten minutes, the EMT’s arrive in two large trucks, lay me out in the living room and hook me up to monitors, taking vitals.  Blood pressure was way up there.  The shaking begins to diminish, but they haul me off to the ER for bloodwork and observation.  Loni took this shot with the iPhone of me in the back of the ambulance while she rode up front.

Once we got there I was pretty much settled down, but feeling exhausted.  Again, they wanted to do CT scans for clots, but I explained my history and the recent scans.  The ER doc wasn’t happy, ran some more tests, and said that an elevated D-dimer (say what?) reading indicated the need for a scan for clots.  I agreed on one condition:  that in addition to the chest scan that they also do one of my head to find out what might be going on with the congestion.  He agreed.

Well, the chest scan, of course, was negative, but the head scan had the doc shaking his head.  He was in his mid-forties, not a rookie, and he said he’d never seen a worse case of sinusitis in his career.  Apparently mine was massive, in every possible cavity through out.  His discharge diagnosis was acute sinusitis, and he prescribed a ten-day dose of a broad-spectrum “super” antibiotic, Augmentin, and use of the nasal spray, Nasonex.

I started the antibiotics, and tried the Nasonex, but the latter didn’t seem to do anything, so I discontinued after a couple of days.  What I didn’t know then, and not until recently, and which nobody bothered to tell me, was that these nasal sprays were not intended for quick-acting relief, but took one to three weeks (!) or so to kick in.  What we have here is a failure to communicate.

I still wasn’t sleeping, and indeed had a return of the shaking symptoms the next couple of nights, although much more subdued.  I’m feeling generally lousy, fatigued, and slightly nauseous.  This will be a fun flight back home.  Arriving back in L.A., I had the same severe head congestion upon landing and went deaf again for an hour or so.  I went off to my doc and got a prescription for sleeping pills, Lunestra for a few days (not covered by insurance), then Ambien.  These both do a fine job of knocking me out, but I feel lousy the following day.  My doc decided to double the original ten-day course of Augmentin, so that continued, much to my distress.  He did opine that my travails in Indy sounded like the classic symptoms of a panic attack.  Oh, swell.  The good news is, an attack won’t kill you.  The bad news is that, while one is going on, you feel you’re gonna die.

The Augmentin, being a broad-spectrum antibiotic, doesn’t discriminate between the bad bugs and the good.  The end result was that it destroyed all the flora in my gut, and made digestion a very painful process.  I felt terrible pressure in my stomach almost constantly.  I ended up on the floor, curled into a ball, many times over the 20-day course of these pills, and for several weeks thereafter.  On June 1, I took my last one, and went back to see my GP.  He asked how long I had lasted on the Augmentin.  I was puzzled, but said I did the whole 20 days.  He was surprised, and said I was his only patient who had ever stayed the course.  I wish I hadn’t.

Because, guess what?  They had absolutely no effect on my sinusitis. They only made me more miserable. Time for surgery.

I contacted my ENT who took out half my thyroid several years ago, and he managed to book me in fairly quickly for a July 12 operation.  However, this would be a computer-aided surgery that would require another CAT scan to “map things out.”  That would have to be preceded by a round of steroids to reduce inflammation and allow the CAT to get a good view.  All this took up the rest of June.  In early July, I had to go another five days of steroids leading up to the operation, again to reduce swelling.

The big day arrives and we get up at 0-dark:thirty and schlep on over to the new outpatient surgical center across from Santa Monica Hospital.  A very nice, modern facility for operations not expected to require an overnight stay.  Fine by me.  My last hospital stay with the screaming roommate was enough for a lifetime. 

I did the usual prep nonsense, donning the impossible-to-close paper gown, getting fitted with a lunchroom-lady hair cap, and meeting a host of nurses and docs taking vitals and getting me to sign my life away on various forms.  The most interesting of these folks was my gas-passer, who’s nametag, I kid you not, bore the moniker “Ace.”  Now, are you gonna trust a doc who calls himself “Ace?”  I made sure he’d gotten plenty of sleep, knew how thin I was for his dosage calculations, and generally tried to make sure he was focused.  My ENT popped in just as they were giving me something to calm down (a bit of panic setting in?), smiling that “not a care in the world” grin of his, and pretty soon we were wheeling off to the O.R.  There we encountered half a dozen personnel, some of whom were trying to fix a piece of equipment.  Say, what?  I didn’t have long to worry, as someone turned a valve and I faded away to the longest sleep I’d had in many months.  Intubated at last.

So, what did they do?  Glad you asked.  Image guided endoscopic:

Left and right total ethmoidectomy;  right middle meatal  and left maxillary antrostomies with removal of soft tissue;  left and right sphenoid sinusotomy;  left and right frontal sinusotomy; and bilateral inferior turbinate reduction.

Whew!  Basically, they roto-rootered the impacted material in every sinus cavity, vacuumed out the debris, and enlarged the drainage passages.  After that, I should have been truly hollow-headed.  Alas, the surgical process itself causes bleeding and swelling which quickly puts one back in the “stuffed head” situation all over again.  And, it can take eight weeks for the swelling to subside.  Fortunately, I didn’t incur any facial swelling or bruising, so not much was visible from outside.  The sinus contents were reviewed by the pathologist and the final diagnosis was “chronic sinusitis, allergic type.”  Not quite sure what to make of the “allergic” designation.  To what??

As I write this, I am seven weeks post-surgery.  I’d like to say I feel a lot better, but I don’t.  Still lots of thick discharge, and at night my nasal tissues swell up on one (good nights) or both (bad) sides, impairing breathing, and preventing sleep.  After several months of relying on Ambien, I’m trying to wean off the stuff as I feel lousy the day after, and the sleep never seems restorative, just being comatose.  But it’s tough to quit.  Without the pill I get very little sleep.  Twice-daily saline washes provide only temporary (an hour or so) relief. 

Where to from here?  Wish I knew.  If the Nasonex doesn’t come through, we’ll have to see about seeing an allergist to determine the root cause (if, indeed, it is allergy-based).  Maybe more (ugh) antibiotics.  It’s all pretty discouraging at this point.  I had envisioned the surgery as the cure-all; now it looks like it’s only a first step.  Looks like there are a few more curves in the road back.

AND THE FANS WENT WILD

January 1, 2013.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well, we’re three for three.  Explanation later.  For the first time in forty years we didn’t sit around in our pajamas and watch the Rose Parade on New Year’s morning.  We left Mom to do that while we took off just before it started to make our way to Pasadena to watch the Rose Bowl in person.  I can’t tell you what tickets cost to this thing.  Literally.  I choke violently every time I think about it. This meant we did get up early in order to bathe, eat, and get everything ready to go by 7:30.  We figured that the quietest time on the freeways and around the Rose Bowl would be while the parade was going on from 8 to 10 o’clock.  We were right.  It was clear sailing all the way across L.A. from the west side, and the anticipated jam-up at the Bowl was non-existent.  We cruised right in.  We probably could have slept in a while longer but, as you see, I got a few winks after we parked.  Tip:  secure camera from spouse before dozing off.  Although it has its faults, our new Prius V has an incredibly spacious back seat, with split reclining (goes a lot further than I had it in this pic).

We sat in the car and read most of the time while waiting for game time, but did wander about to take in the usual tailgating nonsense.  Then we joined the mob-queue at the gates, enduring the exhortations of the Jesus bunch trying to mass convert the great unwashed.  There were lots more than these two, some with bullhorns.  I sometimes envy the evangelicals.  It must be enormously comforting to be so confident that everyone who disagrees with you (a) is wrong and condemned to hell, and (b) should have to endure your ranting in public spaces.  But, I digress.

Once in, we were treated to the usual massed-milling-about of the Incomparable LSJU “marching” Band.  And, blow me down, they actually did get into some sort of formation;  just don’t ask me what it was. 

But, what about that dancing thing that vaguely resembles a “tree,” you say?  Well, listen up, fans.  Starting in 1891, when Stanford beat Cal in the first Big Game, as was only fitting, the local Bay Area scribes used one of Stanford’s colors to refer to the team as the Cardinal (“Cardinal Triumphs O’er Blue and Gold”).  For reasons that remain obscure, the informal use of “Indian” as a team identifier gradually crept in until it was officially adopted in 1930.  Over the years, the informal depiction of the Indian on sweatshirts, etc. became truly offensive, as shown here. 

In 1972, in response to a petition by a group of Native American students, the Indian mascot and name were banished.  General moniker confusion reigned, but the color cardinal was the designated “official” appellation.  There was a move to reinstate the Indian as the school mascot in 1975. The debate was put to vote along with new suggestions demonstrating the eclectic range of student views about the school’s questionable founder: Robber Barons, Sequoias, Trees, Cardinals, Railroaders, Spikes, and Huns. In 1978, the griffin was proposed.  None of the suggestions were accepted.  Finally, in 1981, President Donald Kennedy, an otherwise wise and charming fellow and one of Loni’s favorite bio profs, ended the sturm und drang by  proclaiming “Cardinal” henceforth to be the exclusive symbol:  "While various other mascots have been suggested and then allowed to wither, the color has continued to serve us well, as it has for 90 years. It is a rich and vivid metaphor for the very pulse of life."  Bosh.  It’s stupid and we all know it.  So what about that tree?

Officially, there is no Stanford mascot.  There’s only the color.  Unofficially?  Ah, enter the Band.  The "Tree," which underneath is a member of the Stanford Band, selected by the Band in fevered competition, is representative of El Palo Alto, the Redwood tree which is the logo of the city of Palo Alto, Stanford’s home.  The tree supposedly still exists by the railroad bridge beside San Francisquito Creek – it is the site where early explorers first camped when settling the area.  Every year, a new “Tree” student is chosen, and that student is responsible for designing and making his/her own version of the Tree, for better or worse.  I think the four above are particularly dreadful, but that’s just me.  What is undisputed is that the Tree is the coolest mascot in the country.  Ignore those nattering national polls whose voters every year vote it the worst.  Pedestrian, plebian, proles, all of them!

Oh, yeah, the game.  Stanford and Wisconsin were pretty evenly matched, and it wasn’t pretty, but the Cardinal pulled it out with a 20-14 win (that’s the final on the scoreboard below, although the clock shows 20 minutes.  And three for three?  Well, in the “modern era,” which is, of course, defined by my lifespan, Stanford has won the Rose Bowl only three times, and each time we’ve been there:  1971, 1972, and 2013.  I can cheerfully report that the 1971 ticket cost $8.00. 

And the fans did, indeed, go wild!