On the Responsibility of Doctors

There is a story getting a lot of attention in the media these days about a woman in California who gave birth to octuplets earlier this year. That in itself would be newsworthy enough, but the fact that the mother already had six children, two of whom are disabled and require special care, is unemployed, unmarried and living with her mother in a house that is about to be repossessed has made the story the subject of numerous dinner conversations, ours included.

In thinking about it more I have come to wonder not so much what the mother "was thinking," for I believe that the mother's right to choose means that the mother may choose to have her children. No, what I'm wondering is: what in fact were the doctors thinking? Now, this is not to say that I think the doctors should have counseled the mother to remove some of the embryos nor that they should have done so against her will as many have suggested.

What I do find hard to understand is what the doctors thought would happen after they delivered all eight babies. Naturally, they spent a great deal of time thinking about and planning for the deliveries, since that required so many coordinated efforts from so many professionals to actually accomplish safely. For them, it was a very 'cool' assignment; a challenge to their skills.

But I have to wonder, did any one of those skilled professional stop to consider--and therefore, plan for--the circumstances into which these eight babies would be delivered? I mean, did anyone give any thought to what would happen to them after they were released from the hospital?

Well, now the doctors are thinking about it. They say that they cannot in good conscience release the infants to the mother's care because they--rightly, alas--fear for the babies health and safety. Well, ok, why didn't we--erm, they, the docotrs--think of this before? Whose responsibility is it to think of such matters?

The mother, of course, had--and still does, by the way--a very key responsibility here. Not just to take care of her children, but to inform her caregivers of the environment into which she was obliged to take them. Perhaps she did this. However, even if she didn't, I still think it is incumbent on the doctors to do more than arrange for the safe delivery of the children.

Now it can be argued, that this--what happens when the patient goes home--is not the responsibility of doctors. Doctors cannot be held accountable for what their patients do after they leave their immediate presence and care.

Or can they? If, say, a patient who has received a heart transplant is not monitored closely after he leaves the hospital, he's very likely to have complications and die. So, the physician naturally takes responsibility to inform the patient of the special needs that the operation will impose on him and even help him to meet those needs. Things like medical equipment, nursing care and medicines are all administered at home or in a rehabilitation setting under the doctor's supervision.

Why has this multiple pregnancy failed to rise to the same level of attention as, say, the heart transplant patient? I suppose that it can be argued that both measures are extraordinary, but by the same token, it can be argued that those measures are justified as necessary; required by extraordinary circumstances.

This is my key point. Of all the people involved with this case, the doctors knew just how extraordinary this situation was. They were not only the best informed participants in the process, but they were also in the best position to make decisions that would have been the the patients best interest. They could have, and should have done this long before it became front page news and they had to announce measures that will effectively punish the mother instead of help her.

After all, with some planning and coordination, money could have been raised to pay the mother's mortgage, sponsors could have been lined up to renovate the house and provide the equipment and supplies necessary to raise eight--or right, fourteen--children at once, and caregivers could have been arranged; all this long ago, certainly well before the proverbial diaper hit the fan. Now the doctors are trapped--hoisted by their own petard, as it were--protecting the children at the expense of the mother, whom they previously 'helped'.

Makes me wonder what the doctors have in mind this time. Oh wait, I know. Nothing.

Pride and Shame

It was a mixed bag today.

As I walked to work this morning, I thought about President's Obama's speech to the joint session of Congress that I watched on television last night. I recalled with a slight smile how he had once again moved me to tears with the power of his words and the skill with which he delivers them, wondering how long it would be before I could listen to him speak without becoming emotional. Perhaps never, but that would be no loss, certainly for I felt the power of his optimism and strength in my own stride across campus in the cool early morning sunlight. I was proud of him and of the people who call themselves Americans, because I believe, even as Gov. Jindal (author of the Republican response to the President's speech) does in his 'loyal' opposition, that we "Americans can do anything".

Then I turned the corner.

Down the street, no closer than a thousand feet away, I saw it. I couldn't help but see it. it was a graphic color image of a bloodied aborted fetus, at least four to six feet tall and two feet wide, not to be missed nor mistaken for anything else. Even though I've seen this before and I knew how hard it is to deal with it, I found myself stunned, blindsided and taken advantage of, all in the instant that I perceived that first, most painfully obvious image.

The photograph was mounted on a large framework, which towered over the street and was visible from two blocks away between the innocent and benevolent trees. It is part of a display that some anti-abortion group has brought to the campus for the past several years. The first time they came, they set up on the West Mall, and the event was marred by protests and a lot of angry shouting across a hastily constructed barrier. Subsequently, the display (though threatened with being banned, it was deemed protected speech) was moved to the street (Speedway) in front of Gregory Gym, surrounded by fence and given police protection. Today, they were back, this time still on Speedway, but now dominating the intersection with the East Mall.

I have two basic problems with the display. First of all, I find the graphic imagery to be unnecessarily offensive and insensitive to the people who were forced to see it. Make no mistake, these images were meant to ambush viewers with an inescapable presence. The very size and color of the pictures meant they were impossible to avoid seeing from as far as two blocks away. In response to past protests to this issue, they had put up tiny little signs that read "Warning! Graphic Images Ahead", but predictably, they came far too late for any passerby to avoid the sight of violence. Plus, the fact that the display (with barricades) took up the entire intersection meant that some of us were literally forced to pass by it in order to get to work or class.

I doubt that these same individuals would put up massive pictures of genitalia or graphic images of dead U.S. soldiers in Iraq, but somehow they feel that the impact of the images (which they readily acknowledge is drastic) is justified, and that the rules of common decency and respect for others therefore do not apply this bit of 'protected speech'.

Or, it would seem, these simple rules (do unto others; love thy neighbor) must be set aside in this admittedly extreme case. Either way, the unsuspecting sensibilities of good and decent people--even those, who, like me, are personally opposed abortion but respect the right to choose--were callously disregarded by the people who erected this egregiously offensive display.

Secondly, I find this type of behavior to be shameful. There is no other word for it. All day I thought about it and this is the best I can come up with for now. I believe it is shameful because the act of displaying disturbing imagery in this way is so very divisive.

I realize that this--abortion--may be one of those issues that people on either side feel so very deeply about that there may be no way nor, for that matter, no real need to agree upon it. Nevertheless, I am still optimistic enough to believe that even if we cannot agree on anything, we can at least agree to stop arguing about the things on which we know we will never agree. Oh! There it is, another one of those rules that are so simple they are now simply cliche: we must agree to disagree.

We must do more than that, though. We must agree to stop hurting and insulting each other unnecessarily. I mean really. This display made me feel as if I can't and shouldn't say anything, for fear of an irrational confrontation (likely on my part, unfortunately). I don't want to feel this way, but I am forced to, having been unexpectedly confronted by this display. It has me feeling bad even now, with no way to express it.

I couldn't bring myself to approach the display, let alone talk to the people who put it up. I guess that were I to have words with someone who felt it necessary to insult me in so brazen a manner without warning, I feel I would be only further legitimizing their position with a response. Simply said, I truly believe that there is no civilized response to this type of behavior other than shame.

So, as I walked away, I was ashamed for them, ashamed for people in general, ashamed of myself. After all, I did nothing, said nothing. Instead, I turned my head and sucked in my breath. I don't feel too good about that, for sure. Coming so close on the heels of my own personal re-examination, I guess still find it hard to bring myself to confront those whose behavior I think has crossed the line of decency and respect for others. Yet, why didn't I speak up?

This is something I need to change. I must not only find my voice, but I must use it. Somehow, some way, I need to find an outlet--a real outlet--for these feelings of pride and find work--real work--for my hands to erase these feelings of shame from my heart.

On the Day

It's odd. I've been thinking about Pierre a lot this week, of course, as it has finally--or should it be already--been a year since he died. In a previous post I wondered how this would play out; what we would do; how to mark the day without being morose about it. After all, this moment really marks a sense of accomplishment in my life, having made it back to the world after being laid low.

The answer, it seems, is not to choose between the sorrow of our loss and the joy of our recovery, but to do a little of both. It is fitting, I think, that we actually get out of the house, not because it's where 'it' happened, so to speak, but because we want to think of him in a way that is more universal, connected to the larger whole and not the particular place.

So, we are off to spend a couple of days at Enchanted Rock. To those who have been there, I need say little more, but to those who do not know of the place and have not felt the intense spiritual energy that is focused there, I need to explain that this is one of the places--perhaps even the last--where we went, as a family when we felt the need to re-connect to the earth. Physically, Enchanted Rock is an enormous dome-shaped granite outcrop about an hour from Austin. Spiritually, it has been a place of healing and regeneration for people from the very earliest times till today. It is hard to describe the calming energy that this place resonates. You simply have to go there and feel it.

So we will. At the top of the warm granite dome on a late February morning, we will raise our eyes to the open sky and allow its free expanse to lift our hearts as we remember Pierre. I have, in a year, come to this conclusion: He is gone but not lost; I have him here in my hands and heart forever.

The Day Elvis Died, or How I Learned to Speak French: Part I

I remember the day that Elvis died. Although I have nothing against his music, I am not now, nor was I then a fan of the King, but I remember that day--August 16, 1977--very well indeed.

That summer, I was working in Toulon, in the south of France, at the S.T.E.F.--the Societe de Transports et Entrepots Frigoriques--as a manual laborer, trying to learn how to speak French and earn a little money for the fall when I returned to school in Paris. I was attending the American College in Paris during the years 1976 and 1977, and this was the summer between the two years.

During my first year in Paris, I lived in an American ghetto. My girlfriend was American, as was my roommate and were all of my friends. This narrow cultural affiliation was considered to be acceptable by me despite the fact that I was living with a French family ostensibly to increase my contact with French people and culture, but even as I made excuses for it I knew this state of affairs had to change if I was ever going to learn French.

Now, when I came to France, and Paris specifically, I didn't come with the intent of learning the language or even, to be honest, with a desire to become a francophile, even though that was the outcome. I came for more mundane reasons, though to give my Mother credit, those were but excuses for me to take advantage of being twenty years old and living in Paris.

It is safe to say that this is something she would have done herself, given the chance, and it was, in a way, a vicariously lived dream for her to send me to school in Paris. I thought I was getting away from home and starting to get the college degree I'd abandoned just two years earlier, but in fact I was setting out on one of those sea-changes I was to shortly read about in my freshman literature class with Dr. Pelen.

My desire to become more integrated with French culture, started, ironically enough, in Pelen's class, which was, appropriately enough, "Expatriate Writers in Paris". This meant that I was reading "The Sun Also Rises" in the Cafe Select, which was just down the street from where I lived. Of course, it was no accident that I should be reading that book in that place, since it was Dr. Pelen's intent to impress upon us the long tradition to which were just being introduced in our early youth. Impressed I was, not just with being an ex-pat, but gradually, slowly, with the French language and culture.

If it was to Pelen that I owed gaining a sense of my time in this place, it was to another professor at ACP--now called, quite pretentiously, the American University in Paris--that I owed my interest in French culture and in learning the language: M. Delagis. We called him the Dancing Bear, because he reminded some of us Baby Boomers of that character on Captain Kangaroo. Mr Delagis would come literally dancing into the room each day, singing a song and trying from the very first moment of class to engage us in learning to speak French.

For some of us, this technique had some positive effect. I for one had so little ability to speak or understand that I was in the very category of student he preferred most. Like a baby, I did what he did, said what he said, and moved my mouth the way he told us to, all without shame or embarrassment.

Not so for the students who had been French majors at home in high school. They came with the preconception that they already knew how to speak French, even though when it came down to it, they were the ones who froze up when asked a question by the produce vendor or a waiter in the cafe. They were the ones who cried in class when Mr. Delagis refused, on point of principle, to speak English even for a moment just to explain something that they were not understanding in French.

This gave rise to the rumor that he couldn't actually speak English, a rumor which I found to be untrue when I met him once on a ferry from England to France. While in England he told me in perfect English, he preferred to speak the language of the land. It was his principle at home as well as away, and it served me well in the classroom.

I learned to speak with a very good accent--something confirmed when I went south to live in Toulon--and I developed a habit of asking for help when I didn't understand or couldn't express myself fully.

Neither of these behaviors were of much use, it turned out, however, when I found myself in an environment where everyone spoke only French all the time. True, I could fool some people for a minute with a well practiced speech and my passable accent, and I could and would ask for clarification when the words came too fast, but the chances to use a pre-planned speech were few and far between, and asking for a repetition just meant that I didn't understand twice in a row. Fortunately for me, people are very generous when you are trying to learn their language, and I had plenty of opportunities to reverse my first-year tendency to speak French only under duress.

I didn't have much choice really. In a place where, when an Irish truck driver broke down outside the S.T.E.F., no one could communicate with him so the fetched me, asking only if I could also speak Irlandaise (Irish), every day daily conversation was by its very nature forced upon me. I couldn't back away or mumble. I had to speak up to do my job and get along with my co-workers.

It was very stressful at first, especially because even the forced -full French' environment was requiring me to speak the language, I just wasn't fluent. I still had to translate every word, every sentence to and from English every time in my head. If you've ever done this, you know it is very exhausting and a little frightening, since each encounter is a new one in a way, and the chance of screwing it up and embarrassing myself were very high at every turn.

All that changed the day that Elvis died.

Next: Part II: August 16, 1977

I Don't Have the Strength

It was just a year ago today
When I first heard someone say
'I'm sorry for your loss.'
Then I didn't realize the cost
That I'd still have to pay.

I have the strength
To bear the load
To feel the pain
To tread the road
Of life again.

I have the strength to hold my ground.
I just don't have the strength to break down.

When he died I just lost my way
Till in a dream I heard him say
I want to come back now
I just don't know how
Until you say I may.

I have the strength
To stay the rage
To now forgive
And act my age
while I still live.

I have the strength to dig six feet down
I just don't have the strength to break down.

It was just a month ago today
When I first heard someone say
We no longer have to choose
No Freedom will we lose
When we lead the way.

I have the strength
To serve the cause
To save our house
And this because

I have the strength to turn my life around
I just don't have the strength to break down.

I See Dead People

Well, from my previous post you may have discerned that I am--for the time being anyway--a still-inquisitive 'newbie' in the world of Facebook. I am still too new to it to have formulated anything like a comprehensive review, but I have had mixed feelings that I will here attempt to explore.

First of all, here is the positive part. I like the fact that it allows for another level--at another speed, if you will--of communication. It is on another level because it allows connections that were otherwise rather weak, like with my friends at work and old school friends and friends of the family to flourish without an elaborate 're-connection' process. I find that I like the way that the flow of communication moves at what might be described as a languid pace, quite a bit slower than the phone, texting or IM but not so slow as email or a blog. I like the fact that I can tell everyone what I'm doing without having to tell them; I can find out what they are doing without having to ask. It's paradoxically personal and impersonal all at the same time.

This brings me to the downside. In what I assume to be an attempt to make the experience more personal, in the same way that Amazon will recommend books that I 'might like', Facebook helpfully suggests 'friends' that I might like to make. Ok, so that might work except that one of the first suggestions that it made was, in fact, Pierre.

Bang! There was his picture and a link to his page. Ironically, because I've just joined, Pierre and I are not officially 'friends', and because he is dead, although I can send him a 'Friend Request', he is not likely to approve it any time soon.

So in this place, we find ourselves in an electronic purgatory, where the dead are not quite gone and we--the living--cannot be sure if the people we see still alive. Perhaps they are yet shades or just our overactive imaginations and the incarnation of our secret desire to have them with us forever?

Thus it is that I wonder: How many dead people are there in this place? And how can you tell? Who takes down the sites for the dead, and at whose request? Like the county whose ballot box set LBJ on the path to the Presidency, Facebook may not be as populated as it seems.

Almost a Year

In a Facebook group that Dan set up last year to share thoughts about Pierre, Sonja started a thread to observe that it has been almost a year since Pierre died. In response to that, Valery then posed the question: What to do on the day of?

Here is what I posted in reply:

It's safe to say that no day has passed since last February 20th when I have not thought of Pierre, but at least as that anniversary approaches, I know that the pain of losing him has lessened and the joy of living has returned.

So, how indeed to mark the day? Do we mark it at all? I have to work that night, so it's not like we can leave town and I don't think we even desire to. There's no sense that we need to escape the house on that day, even though we know that the time is coming that we will leave this place behind.

There is, on my part anyway, a desire to remember what was good and joyful about Pierre. It is my resolution to enjoy the memory of our son. He was a good person and I am glad to have had him in my life.

Although I must perforce acknowledge that the rest of my life is now shaped by his death, it is not to my detriment, but quite the opposite. Because of his life and death, I am who I am, now stronger, wiser and hopefully more compassionate. I am resolved because I wish to recover, to forgive and hopefully be forgiven.

In this way I know I will forever think of Pierre as my beautiful and radiant son, one whose flame perhaps burned brighter than my own, and from whom certainly my own flame now burns more intensely. I lost him in one sense; but in another, most real way, I still have him with me always. His essence is in my hands, my visage, my voice.

So, a year has mattered, but how to say so?

St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Part II: They Start Coming!

It is not often-this is the first time actually-that the other reader of this journal will request, let alone demand I write even more words. Given the rarity of this event and my eager ego, it should not surprise either one of you that I would accede to the other's earnest request. Should it prove too lengthy I suggest simply reading every other word. ed.

I've said it many times before: There is no easier way to crush a budding romance than to go out to a restaurant for a romantic meal on Valentine's Day. There are two reasons for this, neither of which is directly related to my personal distaste for the Day as a function of my profession.

The first way that a Valentine's Day date can extinguish an emerging love affair is if it goes well. This is because, if it does indeed go well, then there will now be an expectation on both parties to forever after have a romantic Valentine's Day. Of course, this is no accident. This is precisely the evil plan upon which Hallmark and it's spawn have loosed upon the world. It is like a virus. It's not alive, but it replicates. It invades the host and infects it, bending it physically to submit to it's will. And a 'good' Valentine's Day is like the Vampire's Bite. Once Bitten you cannot go back. At least most people know better than to invite them in!

Of course, the other way that Valentine's Day can and will most often wreck a romance before it can even get messy is when it doesn't go well. Now, notice that the fist way was an 'if' and the second was a 'when'. This means that although you may or may not get the first--a nice romantic evening--but if you persist--as Hallmark so desires--you will surely get the second, which is, quite naturally going to be a disaster.

Now, it won't make a bit of difference if the disaster is of your making or your partner's. It also won't make any difference at all if the disaster is created by the restaurant. It certainly didn't that night, for those romance-seeking couples whose first Valentine's Day Date was ruined that fateful February eve in 1999.

Now, in part one of this cautionary tale, I observed that it, given the date, Valentine's Day is often cold, but to observe the attire of the couple in attendance that day--may I say, particularly, the ladies--you might never have know that they were expecting to walk about in what, for Texas anyway, were fairly low temperatures: the 50's. Wearing strapless gowns and short dresses, high heels and in the absence of coats or wraps to hide their finery, these ladies no doubt expected to be whisked from their warm chariots into the equally warm and cozy restaurant--how about that table in front of the fire?

They were not expecting to wait in line, and most certainly not planning on queuing up outside, but that is exactly what happened. In order to seat as many two-tops in the restaurant as possible, we had converted all four-tops to twos and re-arranged the tables to accommodate as many more tables as would fit into the space. We had also converted the lobby and the patio, with it's plastic drop-down walls meant to ameliorate but not prevent the cold, converted into a dining room, and had consequently moved the hostess stand just outside the patio door.

This meant that we are able to seat the first wave of diners, but alas, the overbooking rendered this first little 'victory' moot. As soon as the restaurant was filled to capacity, there was still a line of couples out the door and into the garden and parking lot. It reminded me of one of those children's Bible illustrations of Noah's Ark, with the line of animals, two-by-two, snaking off into the distance for miles. Except that these pairs were shivering and getting progressively angrier by the minute.

Sadly, even those who were seated, immediately or after a long wait, were in for a(nother) rude surprise. The effect of adding tables without increasing the number of waiters leads to the very situation that waiters dread so much that they have nightmares about it. This was no nightmare, unfortunately, as we pinched ourselves repeatedly to no avail and kept on living it.

I personally was assigned to a section in the back of the restaurant. It has since been walled in, but at the time, it was like the front patio, with drop-down plastic walls and a flagstone floor. In this section, where normally at most six table would be placed--one of them a large, 6-12 top--there were now fewer than ten tables, all of them two-tops. Now, that would be ok, except for how they were seated. Recall that we were able to 'absorb' most of the first wave in our first seating, but note that they were all seated pretty much at once.

That single fact, more than any other, is what made the nightmare for me. It was, "Excuse me," and "O waiter!" over and over and over again as I literally ran between tables and winced each time another one was sat. It's a simple math problem, really, and there is no disputing the numbers. Ten tables times a two-minute greeting/order taking session adds up to twenty minutes, and that turns out to be just beyond the physical capacity of even the best waiter, which I naturally consider myself to be.

I just could not get the job done, and believe me, the patrons knew it. Those customers who did not leave waited for what seemed like hours. They waited for a table, then they waited for their food. There was not enough alcohol in the world to cover the bad feelings that evening, and, unfortunately, I had none to at least mellow me out until much later, much too late.

I was certainly not alone in this. Each player in this macabre little drama had his or her own personal nightmare. The hostess, for example, could hardly stand at podium without being attacked by impatient, and justifiably angry and cold customers. The kitchen was inundated by a flood of orders as each waiter struggled to turn in multiple tickets before running back to get more. The bartender was flooded with drink orders not just from the tables, but from all the people waiting in line.

In short, on this night, everyone waited for everything and no one was happy. It was a complex, interlocking and devastatingly difficult few hours for us all, and I'm not forgetting the patrons, either. Some of them actually came back, some of them even for Valentine's Day. One couple who was there even got married and came back to show me the ring one night. Go figure.

To this day, those of us who were there cannot recall it without a shudder. We take a definite pleasure in recounting it to the 'new' staff, those who were not there, but believe me, none of us would ever want to repeat it in real life.

After all, we still have the 'waiter dream'.

Inauguration: The Video

Well, I had to do something with all those photos I took during our trip to D.C. to see David & David and attend the Inauguration that I did not include in the photo gallery, so here is a little video that I hope sums up what we saw and did!

He's Not the Change: We Are

From D.C. The Inauguration

It's been a while since I've written here, but not for lack of desire.  I've actually managed to curb my compulsion, mostly because I've simply been too busy to indulge myself as I have so often in the past weeks.  Both Gentle Readers will appreciate the silence, I am sure, knowing that a flood of words is to follow any extended--more than a day--absence from this journal.

I have been thinking a lot about the experience of being in Washington D.C., of being with my brother, and most of all, of the personal consequences of the changes we are seeing in the government on an almost daily basis, it seems.

Being in the Nation's Capital, with all the museums, monuments and memorials literally overflowing with unique and precious objects around us had a significant influence on me, though I didn't realize it at first.  Touring the Air & Space Museum, it hit me, though.  I came to regard this place and these things as part of my inheritance.  In the National Gallery, I was surprised to see someone take a photograph of a painting, so I asked if it was all right and sure enough, not only is the entrance to the museum--almost all D.C. museums, in fact--free, but we are also allowed to take as many photographs as we like.  Not that I have any desire to actually take pictures of the art itself, but it was interesting to photograph the people and the art together.  If you haven't already seen the photo gallery, here is the link.

Being with my brother, David, added another unexpected dimension to our experience.  I've already written about his performance in the play and how I saw therein another side to his personality, but what I haven't mentioned is how well he took care of us during our visit.  It's the unfortunate duty of people who live in big cities to act as tour guides to their guests.  This obligation is compounded by the fact that a free place to stay in a popular destination is an understandably big factor in the way those guests make their plans.  Consequently, those 'big-city' folks who can and do pull off being tour guides time and time again make it look easy, as if this was a natural part of their daily lives.  And, in a way, it is.  For some folks, anyway, and I am pleased and proud to count David and David among them.  They really, genuinely enjoyed touring us around, explaining the Metro, turning the map right side up (again) and giving us good advice on everything from where to eat, what to see and what to save till next time.  Ironically, they were such good hosts, there will definitely be a next time!

It was, however, the experience of being on the street as President Obama took his Oath, being with all the people from all over the country at the very moment when we were reborn, called out to commit again to the promises and ideals that made this country great and have for so long been suppressed in the name of 'National Security'.  Hey, we Americans are big kids now.  We can have both security and ideals.  Neither will be perfect, but please, let's promise each other not to let this choice be presented to us again.  Now that we have again acknowledged that we can be free and fair at the same time, let us here commit ourselves to keeping it this way.

One of the most frequent things I've heard said since the Inauguration is something like, "Well, I just hope he can do X% of what he's promising."  To a certain extent, I agree with this sentiment.  I too hope he can accomplish a lot, and I too hope it will happen sooner, rather than later.  However, even though it is simply common sense to acknowledge that he, Mr. Obama, cannot "do it alone", I think it here worth saying that we--as a collective people--have yet to understand what he is and has been saying to us all along.  

He is not the change.  We are.  It is up to each one of us, as individuals, to look around us, find something that needs doing, something that needs fixing, someone who needs help, and do it.  The burden is not only not exclusively on Mr. Obama, it is not even exclusively any single one of our burdens.  How easy it is to lift a heavy load when many hands are present is something we need to recall in a moment when a great deal of heavy lifting is called for.

To all readers of this journal, therefore, I issue the challenge personally.  In this new year, this year of change, find something you can help with, find someone who needs your help and do it.  In the restaurant business, when something happens that requires the staff to make a big change (see Dinner for Fifty, Please) this is eaxctly what we do. Each person looks around, see what needs doing, and if no one else is doing it, then that is what they do. In this way, everything gets done and no one has to do it all. In fact, we can't do it any other way.

So here what I propose: Commit a certain part of each week--perhaps the same day, perhaps just a certain number of hours per week, no matter--to a cause, hopefully one that benefits someone, somewhere as directly as possible.  If each one of us finds a place and time to volunteer even a small part of our time and energy in this year, and the next and every year after, we will see change.

Let's commit to each other, to a new year, a new life: You there!  Be the change.

Where We Were: 1.20.2009

Well, it is very hard to tell from this little photo, but if you click on it, you'll see it full size.  Those are not coffee grounds, mind you, but people!  

Now, if you find us, you get a prize!

Two million people were there.  

Inauguration Notes

Well, we are off early this morning to see some more monuments and memorials, but I wanted to make a few notes about yesterday, Inauguration Day.

First of all, it was cold.  I think I've mentioned this a few times, but yesterday it was especially relevant, as, by the time we were done, we were very very nearly frozen solid.  At the very very least, I know that our collective forty toes and some of the same number of fingers were absent any warmth.  This is mostly because we had such a very long time to wait, on the street, with little else to do but pace back and forth, stamp the ground and kick our feet together in hopes of staying alive long enough to see the new President pass by our spot.

The day began at 6:45 when we got up.  We left the house at 7:30 and when we boarded the train here in Forest Glen, it was already about half full.  Four stops later and it was so packed that no one was getting on or off till we reached Union Station.  This is where we entered the city, and by this time, which was only 8:30, the throngs were massive.  We were swept up into the flow of people out onto the street, where the crowds could open up.  Cars of course, were at a minimum, so people were simply walking everywhere.  There was a wonderful sense of enthusiasm and camaraderie as we made our way toward the Mall.  People were laughing and smiling, carrying signs and of course everyone had a camera of some kind.

It's hard to judge these things, but I have no hesitation in observing that many, if not actually most of the people were black.  There was a pervasive, underlying joy in everyone's demeanor as we thronged together, funneled by pedestrian barriers and the unseen will of the crowd toward the tent that was the primary security checkpoint.  We had each taken a bottle of water, but were forced to abandon it at the checkpoint for reasons I did not understand.  The guard who removed my bottle insisted that I "return to the end of the line" but I was in no mood to try that after being forced through the gauntlet once, so I simply threw it into the massive pile that was accumulating at that spot and moved on.  They checked my coat, patted me down, inspected my little bag-o-goodies that David had so thoughtfully provided and bang, I was in!

Now, that would have been wonderful, and in some ways it certainly was, but in fact this simply signified the beginning, not the end, of our ordeal.  We quickly walked up Constitution Avenue and found a spot hear the rail next to some people huddled on a blanket on the ground.  It turns out they had been there since 3am!  Needless to say, it was obviously not necessary to have subjected themselves to all that for such a spot, but it did appear to be an ideal place to see the parade go by.

From this spot, we could see the Capitol, though no details of the ceremony were visible, even had we had binoculars, I believe, but we could hear the ceremony from loudspeakers placed on the light poles all down the street.  It was cold, of course, but sunny, so it made the three hours till the ceremony began more tolerable than you might expect.  We chatted with those around us, speculated about the timing and generally expressed the relief and excitement that so possessed us all while slowly and inexorably getting colder and colder.

When the ceremony began, it was blissfully short, as seemed Mr. Obama's speech.  Doubtless it was longer than it seemed, for as we huddled around a radio to catch every word, each word, each phrase caught up in our ears and hearts.  Many around us, including me, cried.  There were high fives and cheers and more than a few "Amens".  I said a few myself.  It felt like a fabulous preacher was at the pulpit, and instead of empty promises about the Kingdom of Heaven, we were instead offered solid assurances that Mr. Obama had indeed come to Washington to make a difference in the way we live our lives henceforth.

His speech was justly critical of the past yet focused on the optimism for the future.  I certainly felt it and I know many others did, here, on the Mall, where more than a million had gathered, and in may other places around the world.  That includes China, where Jeff and Sara could see the speech on the internet in English even as their hosts were censoring the speech in Chinese for their own people.  And, almost as soon as it was over, we were treated to the wonderful and long time coming sight of Mr. Bush departing in his Air Force helicopter for the last time.  I've read that the people on the Mall chanted "Hey hey hey, goodbye" but we simply cheered and thanked the powers that be that we'd lived to see the day.

I don't want to focus too much on the negative, but it is clear that we have endured too much for too long, those of us who stand for both peace and safety, for whom, as Mr. Obama said, the choice between security and ideals is a false one.  I am thrilled to know that my friends in other countries will no longer ask me what the hell we think we are doing over here, to know that in a very short time, relations between our nations will recover, and we can again go out without fear and with pride in our nation and the way it upholds its principles and ideals.

Alas, after this wonderful moment came a long and very cold interlude.  We moved further down the street to get a better spot for viewing the parade and hunkered down while the President ate lunch and Ted Kennedy--bless his 'Lion' heart and soul--collapsed and thus delayed the start of the parade for more than an hour.  The expectation had been that we would see the President and his wife begin walking up the parade route a few blocks from us around 2pm, but it wasn't until nearly 3:30 that the event actually got underway and by that time, the cold had rendered us numb.  We were even prepared to call it off and head out in another 15 minutes but fortunately it began before we gave up.  At that moment, David and I climbed up on a large iron gate behind us to get a better view and angle for photographs.  I watched and took pictures of the motorcycle police, the color guard, the Army band and the Fife and Drum Corps before the Presidential motorcade finally appeared.

That's right, the motorcade.  It turns out that he and Michelle got out to walk but not until they'd passed by our spot by several blocks!  David managed to get a photograph of him smiling through the darkened window of his limousine, but it wasn't till it had passed and he said, "Well, that's it!" that I realized I'd missed the very thing I'd hoped to see after enduring the numbing cold for eight hours.  O well.

I did say from the outset that I did not come to see Mr. Obama but to see the people who had put him there, and this is exactly what I got.  I felt the emotion, I saw the faces and I lived the moment.  This and nothing more did I hope for and, as I expect it will be in the coming years, hope will lift and carry us to a new level of freedom and prosperity.

We did it!

Frozen but happy. Bush just left town and we are waiting for the parade. Spirits are high. Toes are cold!

Citronelle

Tonite we ate at Michel Richard's Citronelle. Because it is late and we have a big day tomorrow, I will have to save my review for another post. But because it was so good, I have to let those readers who care about such things know that it was highly anticipated and did not disappoint. the word superlative comes easily to mind, along with many others.

For now, though, in spite of my tendency to use too many of them, that will have to be the only word. You can wait. We did!

Memorials Monuments and Markers

Today was an especially delightful day here in D.C.  Each day so far has brought us a different pleasure, in forms that I would never have expected. 

For example, the monuments and memorials.  Of course here there is a memorial  or monument or stautue of, to and for just about everyone and everything that has been even remotely associated with U.S. history, and many hundreds of plaques, markers and signs that are not so related, but which serve to illustrate the vital function that a place like this serves. It is in fact a very complex and many facted testament to the  American achievement.  I have no shame in saying that I have great pride in this country and the progress that Americans have brought to the world.  It is a better place for our little social experiment, despite the wounds our culture has inflicted on other cultures,  peoples--often it's own-- and the planet. 

The foregoing, then, is evidence of my fundamental belief that progress--social, intellectual, yes, even political--is not only possible, but is a innate function of humanity.  That assertion I will defend in another esaay, but here I present it as defense for the pride I feel so deeply in this place and the people here assembling with such open joy and goodwill it's hard not to believe that this is indeed the beginning of something new and the continuation of something old.  The newness may in fact be one of the oldest traditions in this still growing Republic. Each generation brings something new and invigorating to the place and the process of practicing human liberty.

I actually wept today in the Jefferson Memorial, reading the words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." for on this day it is made evident, manifest in the world that even if the ideal has yet to be reached, the principle upon which this Republic was founded, that all men are equal and possessed of basic, inaliable rights is not out of sight nor has it been rendered false because we have yet failed to achieve it for our own citizens and the people of the world.  

This new President, like so many other great leaders, has that vision clearly before him.  His gift has been to help us catch sight of it again at last.  I can see it.  Can you?

Photos!

Well, I posted up at length yesterday but failed to include a link to the photo gallery that will serve to illustrate some of the account. I have taken many hundreds of pictures, but fortunately, I'll not subject you, gentle readers to them all.  Here is, then, a couple dozen of the beast so far:

http://picasaweb.google.com/phillip.dubov/DCTheInauguration#

Today we have the Lincoln Memorial and its environs. I'll have the camera with me of course and like every other tourist, I'll be blazing away on the shutter button!  Stay tuned, kids!

Inauguration Stage is Set

So, today we ventured out into D.C. again to see a museum or two and get a feel for where we might best go and stand for the Inaugural parade on Tuesday.

Of course, nothing is 'normal' right now here in the Capitol.  It is most interesting for me to see how the security for the event is being put in place.  In a city where high security has been the norm since 2001, there is the sense that they really know what they are doing.  In spite of the massive re-arrangment of streets and sidewalks; in spite of the thousands of feet of fences and people-railings; in spite of the police, who seem to be everywhere at once, standing, driving, watching us as we and they go by, there is no sense of fear or oppression.  Cold though it was, there was a lively crowd out on the Mall even on a Sunday.

We had planned to visit the Spy Museum, but it was closed due to a water leak (?) so, taking advantage of Washington's cultural abundance, we simply crossed the street and went to the National Portrait Gallery.  Here we saw, among other things, the famous 'unfinished' Gilbert Stuart paintings of GW (the original, thank you very much) and his wife; plus the portraits of all the Presidents up through GW (yes, the second one).  This was a delightful and in many ways an unexpected exercise in patriotism, for I found proud to consider the accomplishments and to take in the images of all the most famous and even the not-so-famous men and women who have helped make this country what it is today.

Next, we walked up to the Capitol, where I was thrilled to see all the people smiling, laughing and taking pictures of each other in front of the Inauguration stand.  We did our share of the same.  They've set up perimeters so that we will not be able to pass through the same area two days hence, but for now it was possible to get up close and explore.  They must have ten thousand chairs set up in front of the stand itself, and if you looked back you could see where the other 230,000 ticket holders will get to stand.  They will have a good view, but come Tuesday, if you are at the back, you might as well watch on one of the 'jumbotrons' they are setting up all down the Mall.

It is obvious that they are familiar with how to deal with large crowds securely here in D.C, for there is no shortage of evidence that this is going to be a special week.  The first thing you'll notice is an army of port-o-potties lining almost every street leading up to the Mall, and many more thousands on the Mall itself.  Concrete barriers are ubitquitous as well, on every corner near a Federal building, so you have to walk around them.  The police are everywhere as well, in key positions and in what seems like every other car on the street.  Every ten minutes or so, sirens erupt and lights flash as another VIP is escorted to his oh-so-very-important event, and those citizens follish enough to bring in their cars are slowly being pushed out of the city center, an action which will leave naught but the police and taxis on the streets come Tuesday.

The souvenir stands, which no doubt are present in even the slowest of times here, are also everywhere, and there are even more storefronts that have opened up just to sell as many mugs, keychains, t-shirts, caps, plates, shoes, shot glasses and many more products that I can't even recall.  I haven't bought my Obama stuff yet, but I certainly plan to.  I mean, why not?  Is there ever a better time to buy a souvenir than when you are a tourist?  We found a comic shop in Union Station that will have some of the new Spiderman comicbook on Wednesday, so that may be the souvenir I get.  A shirt or hat wouldn't be out of the question either.

Now,  we don't plan to go to the ceremony but hope to get a good view to see the new President anyway.  If we play our cards right, we might get to see him as he joins the Inaugural parade up Pennsylvania Avenue.  It's a little hard to tell, right now, just where we will stand and what we will see.  One thing seems certain, though.  The people at home will defintely get the best view and remain the warmest, but the people here will share and excitement and energy that none of us will soon forget.  Already I can feel it building, I can see it on every face and hear it in our voices.  It's like Graduation.   Everyone in attendance is proud and happy to be there in celebration of a shared accomplishment.

He's Not Heavy...

Yes, indeed, he is my brother.  In spite of the close resemblance, it is David, not me, here on this poster.  Not coincidentally, either, as he has the lead in this delightful, if slightly bloody pre-Elizabethan tragedy, called appropriately enough, The Spanish Tragedy.  Without mincing words or delaying my review, I will say that David's performance was excellent to say the least, and if you are to believe a reviewer who also happens to be his brother, he was inspired.

Now, that may not be the hyperbole you think it to be, for it happens that the subject of the play is one that struck me deeply and for good reason: It is about a father who seek revenge for his son's death.  Thus it is that there is a scene where David's character, Heironimo, grieves over the body of his freshly deceased son.

Now, though the son has been murdered, the emotion that surged through me as David bent down to caress his 'son's' face was the selfsame grief I felt on seeing Pierre lifeless in the hospital bed.  In spite of myself, in spite of the knowledge that it was 'only a play', I cried.  Lest you think that this is simply 'normal' consider the fact that I have not yet really wept openly since Pierre's death.  It is, I believe, through artifices such as drama that I may eventually come to resolve this tangle of emotion and grief, and I have my brother David to thank for this 'revelation.'

Knowing that actors must find a personal emotion to draw upon if they are to make that emotion felt to the audience allows me some satisfaction because it means that there is some use to the grief so long harbored in my heart.  In short, if others can derive some meaning from his death, even if they are not conscious that it is he for whom the grief is spent, then there is meaning in my loss.  The pain, though still great, is dispersed by such actions as may be seen in a stage play, which is thus placed into the stream of emotion felt by the human as a whole.

In a way wholly unexpected, yet perfectly natural as I here contemplate it, I find that I am healed--in part--by David's creative strength and the power of his performance.  I say natural because it seems that way when you watch him perform, yet it was unexpected because I did not realize till I saw and felt it on the stage last night, that David's gift has allowed for a return of my own angst to the collective consciousness we all share.

Still Cold!

Well, it is out of focus, but here you can see proof that we are indeed in the Nations Capital and, I suspect, that it is still cold!  This is as bundled up as you will ver see me and Valery, and we were still cold.  Fortunately it was a bright sunny day, so but for the wind, we wouldn't have really noticed it.  As it was, we barely froze our fingers and toes before going into the National Gallery, which is a mere six blocks or so from the Metro.

There is so much to see and do here that we will of course have to come back for some of the more popular sights.  We won't, for eample, be going to the Air & Space Museum, but we do plan to go--in no particular order, mind you--to the National Portrait Gallery, the Spy Museum and the Lincoln Memorial tomorrow and Monday.  The hope is to do a fair bit of walking around the city center, soaking up the excitement and thinking about where, exactly, we plan to be come Tuesday.  David says he has a plan, which involves visiting a frined of theirs who has an apartment in Dupont Circle, so we can warm up after the event and prepare for the crush that will be heading out as they came in, via the Metro.

One thing that is really special about the town right now, judging by their sheers numbers, are the lines and lines of port-o-potties along every street and at every corner.  Though personally I have a strategy that involves restraint, it may not be possible to avoid an encounter with one of the lovely green and blue boxes.  Should this happen, dear readers, you will hear about it here first.

Tonight we are headed out again to see my brother David in a play, the Spanish Tragedy, so I'll post a review here tomorrow.

Cold!

Well, we made it to D.C. The trip was absolutely uneventful, which these days is something of an accomplishment, to say the least. David met us at the airport in spite of the traffic and the trip back to their house was simple enough, thank goodness.

David and David have a wonderful home. Warm and cozy, beautifully decorated, it reminds me of Lynda with all of the wonderful and interesting objects and art all round. Images of my youth and recollections of Bill abound here in so many ways. I felt comfortable here from the first moment; as if this had been someplace I've been many times before.

It is, in fact, my first visit to this area, if you don't count the trip we made with Lynda and Bill o so many years ago. The one thing I can say today, for certain is that it is cold.

And I do mean cold!! The temperature when we arrived yesterday was a mere 18 degrees, and it dropped to zero overnight! Right now it is just 17 degrees and we are headed out in about five minutes to go into D.C.

The national Gallery is on our agenda, in spite of the cold and potential crowds, I am looking forward to it. It has been a while since we had a 'big city' vacation, so we are quite delighted to be here.

We are off now, so I'll post up again later.

Signs of the Time

Change is Coming; I'll be There

The Inauguration is less than a week away, and I predict that this will be a change unlike any other in my lifetime.

I have had the good fortune, historically speaking, to be present for some very dramatic and even Earth-changing events. When I was seven, President Kennedy's assassination changed the political course of our nation in a most direct way, as did the killings of his brother Bobby and Martin Luther King. I was present for the beginning of the human adventure into space and sitting in front of a television when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon. I waited in line for and attended a session of the Watergate hearings and watched on television when Nixon resigned on my brother's birthday a year later. I had a similar seat--in front of the tube--when the Berlin Wall was torn down and there again like so many millions when the towers of the World trade Center in New York were destroyed. I was also here for the creation of the Internet which, whether or not it was created by Al Gore, neatly coincided with his two terms as Vice-President. Not so coincidentally, since I believe that there was a direct connection between the two phenomena, I was here for the greatest peacetime expansion of the U.S. economy during President Clinton's two terms in office.

Not all of the items on that little laundry list of world/life-changing events are of equal value, of course. Certain events have more weight because of when they happened to me, so to speak, even though none of them really happened to me directly. Though it is indeed a suspiciously self-aggrandizing and conveniently synchronistic in that I am going, claiming that Barak Obama's Inauguration is the most significant event--not merely political--of my lifetime is not hyperbole.

It can be argued that this is merely a political transition, and as such it is no more important than any other, in any nation; that being precisely its limiting factor. If this were any other nation, at any other time it history, it would be no more than any other televised ritual. But this is not just any nation, and this is not just any other inauguration in my lifetime.

I had hopes, when Mr. Clinton left us--so prosperous but embarrassed--that his successor, Mr. Gore, would lead us into the new century with an enlightened vision not unlike that of the intellectuals and philosophers who help create this this most magnificent political and social experiment in the first place. I believe that Mr. Gore won the election and that it was only his sense of honor that kept him from scrapping and screaming the way I would have, and the nation is in some ways better for that sense of honor and commitment to do right by the country even at great personal cost. It is telling that the paths of the two men, Gore and Bush, diverged in the way that they did. I feel certain that in spite of winning the Nobel Prize and satisfying his lifelong desire to make a difference in the world by drawing attention to global warming, Mr. Gore would rather have been President, such has been the deep disappointment in the path we have been forced to follow. My hopes were put on hold.

I had hopes again, a mere four years later, when the American people were beginning to change their collective minds after relentless tiny constrictions to the basic rights we had come to treasure in the name of a 'War on Terror'. Then, the clear signs of failure--despite banners declaring the 'Mission Accomplished'--of the first war of aggression ever to be fought by the U.S. made it seem like a simple choice between Kerry and Bush, but again, I had hopes deferred.

My hopes were set aside but not abandoned because, as corny as it sounds, I am a patriot. The United States is a unique human endeavor, a two-hundred plus year experiment that has been carried out by some of the most intelligent, industrious and, it turns out, dangerous people the planet has ever borne upon it.

This, as it turns out, is alright. Despite the ravages to the environment engendered by its highly successful market economy and the self-centered sense of entitlement that its citizens consequently possess, the U.S. has been such a clearly dominant physical and political force for so long that it now seems evident that despite those negative forces, the advantages that are naturally accrued from harnessing the collective self-interest of seemingly diverse individuals in a liberal social environment and conservative market economy are both historically significant and, fortunately for us all, cumulative. In spite of the alternating ridicule and adulation to which the American political system is subjected by its citizens and those of other nations, I believe that the culture from which those advantages have emerged has brought substantial change upon the human condition.

Because I share this belief with the man who is about to become our next President, and because Mr. Obama's ascendancy will return to me personally the sense of high honor and lawful dignity I have come to enjoy as my human right, I believe that this will indeed be one of those great turning points in the course of human events.

Inauguration Day

They came today
To take it away.
The bronze of the Leader
Came down in the fray.

They came in blue trucks
With a winch and a chain
A half life later
They had their claim.

The Glorious Leader
Though ne'er Fault ascribed,
Fell thus from the Steed
He'd ne'er been astride.

Down! To the ground.
To the Circle you are bound.
Though your shoulder bear the Yoke
Or your head the Crown.

How easy is the cannon bronze
In statues found.

Apartment H2

I've been unfairly focusing on Abilene here as I assemble these little memoirs, bit by bit, piece by piece, so I think it's time to move on a bit and write about my--our--time in San Antonio. Just as there was an address associated with the time and space spent in Abilene, so too was there a center to the San Antonio experience: Apartment H2, in the Seven Pines Apartments on Zarzamora Street.

My brother David has been back to the place and sent the photo that will son accompany this post, and it is safe to say that it hasn't changed at all since we lived there. In fact it would be hard to tell that we are not residents still of this place, so little sign is there from the outside of the personality of those within. This is no accident. The time we spent in this apartment specifically and in San Antonio in general was the most frightening and insecure time of my life no question at all.

Part of this feeling had to do with the fact that this was, of course,the first move in my life. I have since learned of families in the military who moved every year, but I also suspect that even in those families, the first move for each child is the most difficult. How could it not be? Leaving the familiar is one thing, but in my case, it was from a familiar mode of existing to another, less secure and in many ways the opposite of what I had learned about the world and how to act in it. In short, it was a move from the country to the city.

Inauguration Day

They came today
To take it away.
The bronze of the Leader
Came down in the fray.

They came in blue trucks
With a winch and a chain
A half life later
They had their claim.

The Glorious Leader
Though ne'er Fault ascribed,
Fell thus from the Steed
He'd ne'er been astride.

Down! To the ground.
To the Circle you are bound.
Though your shoulder bear the Yoke
Or your head the Crown.

How easy is the cannon bronze
In statues found.

Tongue Sandwiches

Pierre once remarked that I had had a 'semi-traumatic' childhood after I told a story about one of Lynda's more eccentric moments when I was growing up.

It's safe to say that this is an exaggeration, for as I've said, Lynda's denial notwithstanding, I had what I considered to be a good childhood. However, like most legends and myths, in fact there is but a kernel of truth to it, and proof of this hidden seed was brought to light by a recent conversation with a long lost friend.

Thanks to the miracle of the internet, someone I haven't seen for more than forty years looked me up and made a comment on this very journal last week. A classmate of mine in elementary school found and read the entry on 304 Grape, and it brought him to recall our time together and make even make a comment. Interestingly, one of the things that he remembered about me--other than my name--had to do not with my personality but the content of my sack lunches. Specifically, tongue sandwiches.

Now I had not fully erased the childhood memory of seeing the gruesome sight of a severed cow's tongue resting on a plate front and center in the refrigerator, but I had managed to repress the image until reminded of it. It's not as if the sight made me sick, since if anything was going to do that it would be eating it, and in fact I ate it on more than one occasion not only without getting sick, but finishing what I'd been served, which as all children in our household learned, was the key to getting along with Lynda in general and being excused from the table in particular.

Fortunately tongue was not often served in our house, at least not as a dinner item. It was always served cold, thinly sliced on bread with either mustard or mayonnaise, and thus it made it into my lunch sack and into the memory of at least one other grossed out ten year old at my lunch table. After all, it was the pity he had for me, being forced to consume this unthinkable substance in a sandwich at school. No one would trade for that!

To be honest, I really don't recall the taste, but I can never forget the texture of cow's tongue. I suppose that if ever I am forced to eat a piece of wet leather that has been roughed up, boiled and sliced no thinner than a potpourri wood chip, I will again know the pleasure of eating cow's tongue--at least the way my Mother prepared it. To say the least, it was tough and rough, literally.

You know those bumps you have on your tongue that help you taste? Well, cow's have them too, of course. But when the tongue is dead and cut out of the head for our dining pleasure, all those little taste buds get all hard and almost bony, making for some interesting and challenging mastication, to say the least. Now, if for some reason the taste of this wonder meat was in some way out of proportion with the rather unpleasant texture, that is, if it tasted good, why I could defend not only the presence of cow's tongue in our refrigerator and in the sandwich in my sack lunch. Alas, there was no such trade-off. In fact, there was only the inedible and untradable main course that I would jettison without regret other than having had endure the jibes and gags of my fellow diners.

The fact that I was also required to take my lunch in a sack, as opposed to a lunchbox only added to the humility of the lunchtime experience, and if it seems that I am making more of this than sense requires, recall that it I did say that my childhood was only 'semi-traumatic'. It is indeed silly for me to complain about something so trivial as being forced to take tongue sandwiches to school in my sack lunch, especially these days when there is so much abuse and neglect and real strife for children to overcome when growing up. Yet lives are built round little more than the trivial, and when inserted into our own little drama, lost or hidden details manage to emerge and take on a significance that we could never have imagined while living them.

Such is the power of memory and the desire to have overcome adversity, even if it is imagined. Fortunately I didn't live through the Great Depression, but thanks to Lynda, I have my own memories of sack-lunch suffering and have even perhaps benefited from a bit of moderate culinary experimentation.

Getting Dressed

I have a lot to look forward to in the coming year, not the least of which is coming just next week: the Inauguration of President Barak Obama.

Of course, the event itself will be something to be seen, heard, smelled and tasted. It will be a carnival of the American Animals, for the menagerie that lines the street will be as much a part of the parade as those who walk up the middle of of it. It will be a cold day, no doubt, but the warmth of so many bodies with so much hope for the new year will be a symbolic, if not literal, source of energy for our nation. I can feel it already.

I won't, however, be relying solely on the goodwill of my fellow man to provide for the physical protection from the cold temperatures and the possibility of freezing precipitation. As a true Texan living south of the Wacky--sorry, Waco--line that naturally inhibits my purchases of cold weather gear, it's safe to say that I have no garment that will actually keep all parts of me in a permanent Texas-toasty state. For example, I have jeans, but no heavy slacks. I don't own any 'sweats' and though I must have ten burnt orange t-shirts, I have only a single Texas-USC showdown sweatshirt in my drawer.

Shoes? I have a pair of cowboy boots given to me by my father-in-law nearly ten years ago, and though I love them, they are neither comfortable enough to wear for more than an hour or a two block walk nor are they warm enough to keep my bony feet from freezing in the late summer. I have tennis shoes, and though they are comfortable for walking and standing, they are useless if it's wet or even moderately cold.

Hats? I have a couple, but the warmest of them is simply a knit cap, and it doesn't even double over to add a second layer of protection for my ears which is a serious problem. I often feel like one of those big-eared dogs that live in the Australian desert and have ears at least twice the size of the rest of their heads to radiate heat. Problem is, though, that I have no need to get rid of heat most of the time, and in a cold--ie less than 98 degree--environment, my ears simply hurt from the rapid and irreversible energy transfer. But I have no ear muffs or Russian fur hat, or even a cheap hunters hat with plaid and canvas ear flaps. I do have a couple of baseball-style caps, but they are predictably thin and useful only for blocking the sun.

Coats? I have a couple, but nothing that extends below my hips. The last time I wore a heavy coat would have been when I lived in Paris, now twenty-five years ago. I probably carted the old 'P-coat' that Lynda and Bill gave me on my arrival in England in 1976 and which I wore for three years straight back to Austin, but obviously I haven't worn it or even seen it since 1980.

Sweaters? No, I gave them up last year, and have only this fall acquired two 'fleeces' for cool weather inhibition, shall we say, though I am inclined to wear them even on days like today, when we'll get into the high sixties. Somehow, I missed the sweater buying season, which must have been in the middle of the summer, because I never saw a sweater for sale last year at all. Of course, I wasn't exactly looking, but that's not the point.

The point, as I add up all these lovely deficiencies, is that I am woefully under-prepared for anything colder than today--remember, high sixties--and have but a week to make the change. I am not going to go buy a whole wardrobe, however. Following David's advice and the common sense it's based on, I'll manage with a lot of layers, and the addition of a few select items, like some fancy long-johns and a new pair of warm and comfy boots. Time to get dressed.

Making More

Because it is my best hope and most intense desire to write every day for the rest of my life, an absence of words for more than two consecutive days here may rightly be interpreted as a faltering or inability. Ironically it comes when there is simply too much to say and too much time to say it in. I am paralyzed by excess.

I am also in the grip of a serious evaluation of my motivation for writing and the role it currently plays in my life. As I sit here, I am ostensibly 'at work' but the experience, in terms of my stated desire is a waste of time. Every minute that I pretend to do something else can only be a minute that I cannot spend writing. Of course, it might be fair to say this about any time, but given that there are qualitative differences between time spent, say, at table versus at the desk, I can't escape the feeling that I should really be using this time--of my day as well as of my life--to write.

As ridiculous as it sounds for a man my age, I have been looking into retirement from this institution, but it isn't because I am weary of work in the conventional sense. If anything, as my life record of consistent employment shows, I actually thrive on work. I really do love my work at the restaurant because no matter how low I feel when I go in, I always feel better when I leave. It's more than a job; it's a life, and one that I love. But it doesn't pay all the bills, alas, nor does it really satisfy my desire for all the types of work I crave. I also need and seek out intellectual work, if you will like writing, because it is in many ways as satisfying as the physical work I so love at the restaurant.

On the other hand, this institutional job, though it be difficult to reconcile with my real desires, does pay most of the bills, and it does offer the tempting, though uncertain promise of 'retirement'. It is tempting because the deal, as it stands now, would give us a small fixed income in addition to 'lifetime' medical insurance. The uncertain part is actually embedded in both of the two premises that tempt me in the first place.

Why? Well, there is no guarantee that either the fixed income will actually be fixed or that the medical insurance will last a lifetime. In fact, as we have seen with many major corporations like GM, these kinds of deals are being changed as economic conditions dictate. What was a set income is either reduced by a half or two-thirds, and what was meant for a lifetime, is now defined as a 'shared responsibility'. So, if I take the deal they offer me in three years, there is really no way to guarantee it will last even decade, let alone the rest of my life. The Texas legislature meets every two years, so that gives them at least twenty opportunities between now and the time I'm dead to renege on their promises.

Ok, so it makes no sense to to count on the potentially mythical 'benefits', yet if I don't serve for at least another three years, I won't even get that chance. So I will wait, but something has to give. This brings me back to that serious evaluation of where writing fits in my life.

I am resolved this year to do more with my writing. If I could in some way couple this desire with my need to make money here at the institution, what a delight that would be! I have to open myslef to the possibility of writing for at least a part of my living, and there are certainly any number of opportunites which can arise from that openness. I have the common sense, however, to know that one of the best ways to dampen my newly kindled creative spirit would be to subject it to the pressures of making money from it.

In keeping with the advice, therefore, that I have given to every artist I've ever met who has expressed to me the difficulty of supporting themselves on their art, I tell myself this day: Don't worry about selling it. You can always make more.

Fine Food Folly

This is a cautionary tale for those not in the restaurant business. Those who share my profession will understand; those who do not will do well to learn from the following story with accompanying screed. The lesson is simple. Do not order food "to go" from a fine dining restaurant.

While this does indeed require a bit of discrimination on the part of the diner, it ought not be difficult to tell the difference. Really. Wingstop and Domino's are definitely on the list of acceptable places from which one may legitimately expect food of a certain caliber--can you say fresh and hot?--whereas some place--a 'real' restaurant'--that serves food that relies not simply on the hot sauce that the wings are dipped in for flavor, but which instead calls on a whole host of sensory inputs--eye, nose, tongue and even ear--to produce the finished product; the food from these places should simply never be consumed out of an aluminum 'to-go' tin. This seems almost obvious, but in fact, people still do not get it.

Last night, at 8 o'clock--in other words during the rush--I took a 'to-go' order over the phone and had a waiter turn it in to the kitchen. Normally I am not happy to take these orders, even on a slow night, for the reasons I've outlined above, but it s always annoying to turn in a to go order at the peak of a rush on a busy night. The chefs don't like it and we have to pack it all up and label it as it comes off the line, so it takes up time and room in the crowded tray area. Nonetheless, we did it, and had it ready to go as promised, by 8:30.

They didn't show up till 8:50, at least, and it was only at about 9:15 or so that I got the follow-up call. She asked to speak to the manager. Not a good sign. Then she began to complain. The food, for which--I had to agree--they had indeed just paid nearly three hundred dollars, was "crammed into the to-go tins with no care", she began. "The steak was on top of the potatoes, and the sauce had run everywhere. This", she said, was "not acceptable". She wanted to know what I would do about it.

Before I could even begin, I really had no choice, of course, but I countered at least with some defense. In fact, I pointed out, the steak she was referring to is actually served on top of the potatoes, and the sauce goes on top of that. Though I didn't say this, it is also served on a proper Bernadaud china plate, mind you, with a linen napkin, Cristoffle cutlery and fine wine glasses that are hopefully partially full. For the to-go order in question, however, some sauces, which are served separately at the table, were placed in special side containers. I don't like it especially, but in general, it's fair to say that the presentation we are used to offering at table simply is not possible in the confines of a ten-inch round metal tin. What I don't like about it is that we do it at all, but I would never say that, even to the owner, alas. My weak defense notwithstanding, she was adamant that we should have done a better job, so there was no point in arguing.

The bottom line was that I was obliged to 'comp'--that is gave away--the entire meal. Note that they complained only about the entrees; the desserts were just free, apparently not unpleasant even to look at let alone taste. I daresay, the steak and potatoes probably tasted pretty good once they were free of the bitter taste of the expense.

So what I wanted to say, but didn't was: Well what did you expect? Ironically, this applies to me too.

Dreamstruck

I had a particularly dark day yesterday, the result of a snippet of a dream that lingered in my mind on awaking.

It was a vision of Pierre, dressed in simple t-shirt and jeans, hands shoved into his pockets as he leaned toward me in the manner of affection that he practiced as an adolescent. His hair was full and tousled, as though he just woken and emerged from his room and there was a gentle aura around his head. He stood there as I approached and he said, with such a simple sincere tone that I knew it was truly him, "I made a mistake, Papa. Can I come back now?"

I don't know if I weep when I dream, but I am unable to hold back the tears as I write this, now a whole day after the dream. Yesterday I could not even tease out the details of it; knowing only that it made me deeply saddened merely paralyzed me. Had I not been obliged to work at the restaurant, I would likely have stayed in bed the whole day. As it was I had a migraine and but for the miracle of my medicine I would not have been able to work.

I do not know how many more months and or years of this that I will have to manage, but it is particularly unsettling that my conscious demeanor can be so drastically upset by an unconscious thought. In this manner I am not able to control my grief, and find I am only responding to it, which as yesterday proved, can be unhealthy, both metnally as well as physically.

Really my best hope is to here write about these feelings, purging them and yet leaving a trace to follow for those who would someday wish to know. It's not much but it's the best I can do for now.

Hey Big Spender!

The holidays at the restaurant were fairly uneventful, given the fact that the stupid economy has everyone 'economizing' in some way and consequentially, the numbers--reservations, ticket-prices and tips--were down in every way. There was but one exception to this new rule this year, for the Big Spender was back.

There are other namers for these types of guys--yes, always guys--like 'high roller', 'baller', 'fat cat' or the simple and utilitarian, 'big tipper', but the bottom line is just that. It's about the money, honey. Usually, it is fair to say that this money comes at a price, which I have for some time found too terrible to pay, in spite of the apparent nature of our business.

I say this because in fact, while it may seem obvious in the situation that waiters find themselves in--being paid only after their work is deemed satisfactory by the client--they would go after every single penny they can wrest from the hapless diner, sometimes it's just not worth it. Techniques for running up the check and hanging around obsequiously angling for cash are legendary among waiters (and even more so among the public who think these are common occurrences) but often as not, we would rather get modestly tipped and generously treated than the other way round.

Indeed, waiters are good at angling for more money, but if they are really any good, they are also good judges of character. Consequently, they know that simply 'running up the check' is a) not easily done, because b) buying more stuff is something that the client, not the waiter will ultimately decide. If the patrons don't want another bottle of wine, they aren't going to get it, no matter how artfully and well timed the waiter's pour of the last drop is.

Then again, there are patrons who invite the very kind of ridiculous fawning and greed for which waiters are often justly caricatured, because they themselves are such foolish posers.

On Christmas Eve, we had one such fellow, a real Big Spender. He was with a group of six, and they sat at a large round table at one end of the small dining room. They arrived late and loud. The room was still full as they bulled their way to the table and loudly proclaimed that they had come to enjoy themselves. No one, least of all the other diners, would wish them otherwise, but at least the other patrons were allowed to leave shortly thereafter, while the staff was obliged to stay and take care of them.

Him, I should say, for the other five diners were actually polite and quiet enough. I do not begrudge folks the right to be a bit boisterous because, after all, I have been know to be that way in a restaurant from time to time. There is a line, of course, between loud and rude, and these folks stayed right at it--not quite over--from the first moment they arrived. One guy, that guy, however, was over the line.

"I am an ass", he told me later in the lobby as I checked the reservation book and he waited for his wife to come out of the bathroom. I didn't disagree, though I know he didn't pick up on the disrespect because it was perceived as such. I agreed because prior to that I'd endured an hour and half of his loud, rude and obnoxious behavior, culminating in his swearing at me:

"What kind of fucking restaurant is this? You don't have another magnum of Duckhorn?"

Honestly, I don't have a ready response to this type of comment, at least not one that is witty, so I remained firm in my assertion that he had already had the two magnums I had in the rack, and I offered him one of the single bottles I had in the cooler. In spite of the rest of the group adamantly declining this offer, the big tipper accepted, so, obliged, I served it quickly and made what I thought would be my exit from his presence for the evening and hopefully forever.

Sadly, yet profitably for me, this was not to be. Moments later, I came out of the kitchen to find him standing by the door. I made an abrupt about-face, but to no avail, as he had spotted me and called out a drunken yet compelling "Hey!"

Never failing to respond to this polite appellation--which I have heard often, believe me--I turned around and went back into the lobby. There, in the dark corner under the wine rack I literally ran into him, or more accurately, a hand out with money in it. I shook the hand, took the money, put into my pocket and went back in the kitchen, where I discovered that it was not just a twenty but a hundred dollar bill I'd just been handed.

Well, it was nothing special for in fact, I had only gotten one bill, but the other waiters and busboys who chose to hang out with the guy in the lobby all got at least two hundred dollars. Shameless might be a good word to describe the frenzy that ensued in the lobby, but I don't know because I left. The descriptions afterward were enough to make me uncomfortable with this aspect of my chosen profession. Oddly, I felt a bit guilty about my tip until the big spender gracefully absolved me with his keen observation about his character.

Later, I found out that he also tipped the waiter and hostess five hundred dollars each.

T.H.E. Cat

We have an orange cat in our household for only the second time in my life, and it is about the first that I elect to write about today because my brother David made mention of him in the context of our 'old' house in Abilene and it brought back a series of memories that are worth at least appending to that recollection.

David sparked the memory with a reference to him by his first name only and for a moment was that name so unfamiliar as to fail to even stir it when connected to an incident that I clearly recalled. The name of the cat was Thomas, and the event David so vividly remembers and now I do too, was the day Thomas killed the white cat.

It was not especially odd that the name Thomas would fail to ring the proverbial bell in my brainpan since I have known but two men of that appelation in contrast with countless Toms, and as I bounced that about in my head I couldn't imagine any of them killing a cat back in Abilene. Then I remembered Thomas and the rest of his name, Hewitt Edward Cat.

T.H.E. Cat. That's what Lynda called him, so Bill gave him that 'official' name. It made for a great story to tell visitors for Bill thought it especially clever and witty. I did too.

Thomas was also a true Tomcat. I lured him in from the street, or the back alley to be exact, where he was king long before he came to include our home and hearth as part of his dominion, and whose brutal laws led to his coronation and required his enforcement. As I recall, I convinced him to approach and be touched, petted thence tamed with a bit of discarded melon rind, though this was doubted I took as a sign that he was a special cat. And he was. He was the first.

How exactly Thomas came to be adopted by us is not really clear after all these years. My recollection is that we had no animals until that time, and that it took some convincing to get my parents to allow him to stay. But the truth is, since he was essentially feral, it was his choice to stay with us, not the other way round, and from my parent's perspective, feeding it and absorbing the expense thereof was the equivalent to 'keeping' it. In any case, it was, or so I thought, my cat, and though I doubtless had less contact with him than I might have claimed, he was at the very least, always hanging around the back porch.

He was not allowed inside, as far as I can remember, but even if I don't recall him sitting inside on anyone's lap, I do know that Bill, as much or more than me, was a genuine 'cat' person, and it would have been his indulgence that outweighed Lynda's disdain to the benefit of Thomas should he have wished to stay inside.

But in fact, he was meant to stay outside and preferred it too, for that was his kingdom, as I have said. I didn't understand this in any real sense, however, till the day that I first saw him defend his territory with a primal ferocity that was unexpected, to say the least, and one of the most unsettling moments of my early youth. It turns out that David witnessed the event as well, and I think that he was similarly affected, for, despite being four years younger and therefore less likely to recall this time in Abilene, he is the one who brought this incident back to my mind.

It happened right next to our back porch. I don't know if I encouraged it or not, but I do remember a fluffy little white cat with gold eyes approaching me as I sat on the porch facing the street. Given my nature, I'd say it was likely that I was encouraging the white cat to come up to me, for I do remember getting up and standing in the yard, near the old mesquite tree by the driveway just before it happened.

What happened was a blur of white and orange, a ball of bouncing, rolling and twisting cat fur moving at what seemed like light-speed around the yard, accompanied by a terrible shrieking and hissing that made me believe that both cats were killing each other. In fact, it was Thomas who had the upper hand, instantly, by virtue of his weight and age, and it wasn't long before the ball broke up and the white cat fled into the side yard and turned down into the alley, with Thomas in hot pursuit. More screaming a shrieking ensured, though now out of sight. Then, silence.

In the yard in front of me was a mass of white fur, and the blood on it was likely the first animal blood I'd ever seen. It isn't fair to assign to this any more weight than a simple memory, but it was a moment of heightened awareness; a sudden shifting of gears, so to speak, that left me in a different place and moving at a different pace. My recollection is that Thomas actually killed the little white ragdoll cat, but how I know this I am not sure. I seem to recall finding the white cat's lifeless body in the alleyway later, but this could be an invention, quite honestly, of my story-teller's ambition. What I do remember is that I had a new appreciation for my 'tame' cat.

Cats are killers, even if they are raised by hand from birth. Odd then that I forgot not only this story, but also this simple lesson till recently, when Diablo reminded me just how narrow the line between me and meat really is.

An Open Mind

What does it mean to have an open mind?

Although it is a highly lauded state, I think that many remarkably intelligent and articulate individuals have yet to make the distinction between keeping an open mind and deciding from experience what, after all, is actually impossible. While being encouraged to keep an open mind about something we do not yet fully understand may indeed lead to knowledge, more often than not, this notion of seeking knowledge by remaining 'open' to every possibility is used as a smokescreen for those who wish to do the exact opposite: obfuscate the very knowledge we are seeking and keep us from separating the clearly impossible from the probable and possible.

This is because those who would keep an open mind often do so for the purpose of including 'facts'--for convenience's sake, they remain unsourced--that are not proven or do not even fall into the realm of the remotely factual, like 'astral planes' and 'alternate realities'. With no solid definition because these terms are examples of vapid inventions meant to look like fact, if we have no,knowledge with which to counter them, we are forced to accept these false 'facts' on face value, as presented.

Worse still are twisted versions of actual facts, like the attributing healing powers to magnetism and/or electrical currents. Why? Because this sort of mis-information can actually be harmful. By removing the safe restraints of doubt to these physical powers, a naive 'understanding' can actually lead to injury or an exacerbated condition due to the absence of logical care.

In other words, when someone who has cancer believes that wearing a copper bracelet will cure their cancer, they might say to a non-believer that the non-believer is not keeping an open mind. Further, when this fails, as it must, the disappointed believer might add that the reason for the failure of the 'cure' has to do with the wearer's failure to believe fully, rather than the absence of physical properties in the copper bracelet that have anything to do with, let alone cure, cancer.

Personally, I think that having an open mind bears a certain responsibility to seek the truth no matter how difficult it might be to hear the real answer. Having a genuinely open mind would cause the hopeful seeker and serious skeptic alike to ask, "So, just what is it about wearing a copper bracelet that cures cancer? Please explain what exactly happens between the copper bracelet and my cancer. How, exactly, does it work?" Our questioners should expect to have the phenomenon explained to their satisfaction, in a manner that is both logical and credible.

For some, those standards might be rather low, understandably, for most of us aren't really interested in the exact details, just the gist of it, but for me the standards of logic and credibility are quite high and certainly uncompromising. If I am told that science can't explain it, or that I wouldn't understand it anyway because it's just too complicated to make easy sense of it, then my open mind would be unrestrainedly racing, questioning, searching for something, anything more on which to base my understanding. I would, in fact, not be satisfied at all.

Even less satisfying, almost annoying to me anyway, is to be told that it is God's will, or simply a factor of the intersection of alternate forms of physics. It may be fashionable or sound serious, but in the end, this sort of facile and false reckoning is often masked as personal experience or worse, something which was revealed by a higher power. Either way, it is to me clear evidence that the teller has not yet learned the truth.