The boy can't get a sugar high to last

The boy has been having some episodes of low blood sugar the last few nights. He seems to be really sensitive to insulin and we can't seem to load him up with enough fats and carbohydrates to last him through the night.

It's bad. I will usually wake up at 1, 2, or 3 am on my own, and I will have the brief thought of going back to sleep. But conscience wins the morning and hauls my ass out of bed. It's a good thing too - he's usually bonking and in need of sugar. We tried the glucose gel the other night and it was very thick and viscous. This morning, it was juice, goldfish, and raisins.

I'm still grateful that we haven't had to inject him with glucagon to rouse him from a coma.

We're just rolling with the punches. Tonight, we'll feed him up with something starchy and fatty and see how that goes. If it doesn't work, it will be time for a call down to Childrens Hospital's hotline.

Instant Nostalgia

Wyatt, Mommy, and Gung Gung at Mammoth Mountain yesterday. The snow on Discovery was good for the boy and the dad who hadn't been on skis in 20 years. The top of One was bulletproof.

Matty took this snap through the lens of his goggles.

Massive damping off

In my 8 years of starting tomatoes, I've never had the amount of damping off as I've had this year.

The seedlings, suffering from too much water, nitrogen, and/or shade, just flop over and there is necrosis at the soil line.

I definitely noticed it with seeds from one supplier. My own stock of Snow White Cherry have not suffered in the least. It seems quite random.

Fingers crossed the tomato pogrom has stopped.

Still, I reckon there will be over 200 healthy ones to give away. Yay!

The soundtrack of my life - live in LA

Don McGlashan, the man whose songs played on endless loop in my head for over a decade, is opening for Crowded House on their American tour. McGlashan was behind the bands Blam Blam Blam, the Front Lawn, the Mutton Birds, and his own solo efforts. My Mutton Bird and NZ music partner in crime Bibi is flying out to Los Angeles from Atlanta, and I am trying to convince fellow Mutton Bird forum listees Steve C. in St. Louis and Marc H. in San P that now would be a lovely, lovely time to meet. Matty will be there for one of the two nights and watching Wyatt the other.

There will be the stress of trying to have nimble and accurate fingers on the computer the morning of the presale. There will be the excitement of seeing McGlashan perform the songs that have been the soundtrack to my adult life live. There will be the sober grown up things that Matt and I have to address in the days after the shows, when we take Wyatt to his diabetes and now, Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) consultations (the Prevacid only works so well).

Ever the Pollyannaistic opportunist, I have fired off an earnest letter to McGlashan's Manager Roger King pitching Bishop as a wonderful decompression spot for singer songwriters who like playing in front of enthusiastic crowds. Luckily, Sam Scott put in a good word for our efforts when he was on tour with King last year.

Nothing ventured....

*and I might ask for my first autograph ever if Harry Sinclair, one half of the brilliant brilliant Front Lawn, should be there.

Strengthening Owens Valley-Kiwi relations since 2007

We're on for Over the Atlantic
Monday, April 21st.
House concert. Our house.
Get your overbites out, y'all.

Fancy a ski?

Again, Monday was rad. The left leg, even with the angled plate in the femur, was still the stronger one.

The first couple of runs were terribly ungraceful, but fun.

I dropped knee into a telemark stance when nobody was looking, and it will be a while before I get that floaty surfy feeling back. I can't seem to set my edges in tele. I can feel the spooky loading of my weight onto the metal plate, but it's bomber, and I'm grateful.

Monday reminded me of how much I loved skiing. Between my aversion to crowds and sensation that I should be doing something else more "productive," I haven't had that feeling in years. Thanks Matt Birch for being the impetus.

Birch is leaving

My tea drinking partner in crime and friend, Matt Birch, is packing up the trailer and getting ready to head to other points south and west.

It's been a fun month and some hanging out with him.

Matty, Birch, Ray, Lesley, Brian, and I got away for a ski at Mammoth Mountain yesterday in honor of Birch's penultimate day in the area. It was bluebird. It was glorious. Even Stevie Wonder was reportedly at the Mountain enjoying a ski.

I once had a crazy mad crush on Birch, and I am glad that it's mutated to something very different. I am glad because he is such a lovely old soul, and I can see that now.

Birch didn't finish his crazy hard bouldering project (the sit start to Rastaman Vibration in the Buttermilk), but we all reckon he'll be back for it. Cheeseburgers on the grill in that honor, Darlin'.

This was the month the boy turned three

Matt and I are not normal parents. We have yet to have a "proper" birthday party for the boy. No, all his birthdays have meant a month of cakes, surrounded by adults [see hand holding pint] who [mostly] love him.

One day, I will get my act together and put together a party for Wyatt that features children! games! party favors!

Wyatt did love his Cars (registered trademark goes here) cake topper. When you are a diabetic, who needs the cake?

Thanks Birch for the really lovely photo.

Houston, we have contact

with Ian Blink Jorgenson, New Zealand's own fly by the seat of his pants music impresario. I've been sending him annoying "Ooh, please put in a good word for Bishop when bands you know come to Americker" notes for going on two years now.

Looks like we might be on for a house concert featuring Over the Atlantic at the Spruce Hoose sometime around Earth Day. Awesome! It won't be as big of a production as was for the Phoenix Foundation, but I am fairly confident that it will be worth everyone's while.

The Bishop operatives are ready. Derik "Bless 'im" Olson has already volunteered his PA system.

Let's do this thing.

vestiges of a girlie girl

Naomi treated me to my first mani and pedicure the other weekend. I still kind of freak out when I catch glimpses of my shiny toes. Thanks, Easter Bunny!

Pino Pie redux

The Pinos are moving back to New Zillund, but not before I have the chance to buy the last of their frozen backstock of steak and guinness and steak and cheese and chicken meatpies!

Bought 48 of 'em yesterday. I'm so grateful that Dulcie gave me a ring.

Got to hang out with the Pinos for a bit, and that young Solomon made me pine for a cooing, sweet, endearing six month old baby. Scary. THAT has NEVER happened before.

But, luckily, Matty and I are still happily smug with our one child-selves.

Proof positive that my potty mouth needs to stop

A few weeks back, Wyatt and I cycled home from the doctor's, and we went by some horse pastures that were flooded.

Wyatt: Holy ships Mommy, water!
Mommy: what?
Wyatt: Holy ships! Water! Holy ships!

Holy schmoly. It is the end of innocence. I tried to teach him that "schmoly" would be okay, but maybe not "ships." Only problem is, "holy ships" has entered the grown ups' vernacular, and we seem to use it every day.

he loves his trucks, too

Thanks Paul and Sheila in France for the new trucks!

The boy dug my Dragon Lady shoes

The night we snuck away for Michelle's birthday party down at Rossi's, I let the boy traipse around in my Chinese Dragon Lady heels.

He's wearing his cool and sad threadless.com tee of a bear watching tv in the woods.

We call this picture "Portrait of a Wallace in Drag."

All roads leading to Bishop this weekend

I keep telling Matty we need another trailer.

Doreen, whom all of us had a crush on in Hong Kong, will be here this weekend. It will be good to see her again, and if she has a good enough time with us rednecks, she'll drag her lovely easy going funny Patrick out on their next trip West. They are our glamorous friends who live in Manhattan. I've missed geeking out about film and pop music with them.

Michelle, sans motorbike, will be here, bearing samosas from the big city. Bless. She and Davey will do some climbing. Michelle is getting ready to make her move up to Bishop for a serious climbing summer. I am hoping that Michelle and Doreen find that they are somewhat kindred spirits. They are aficionados of slightly twisted documentaries and feature films.

Davey and Naomi will be enjoying the few quiet months before Sproglette Hansen makes her (that's my guess, a girl) appearance. I'm so excited for them. They will be great parents, and Wyatt will have a "cousin!"

Oh, and Rodney in Wellington saw the Phoenix Foundation play the Newtown Festival the other day and reported that Luke Buda mentioned that the band just finished recording a song with a Bishop reference in it. Holy hell. Wow and all that. The sun shines bright on my high desert, alright. (Unless, of course, the song goes, "There's a town in the desert/and it's such a mighty s*&^hole....")

A moment of gratitude and acknowledgement for modern medicine

• I still have pain in both hips, but the operated hip hurts a lot less than it did before and hurts a lot less than the unoperated hip.

• Insulin. Even though the 3/4 doses of short acting insulin have been a bit much these past few days, it keeps our wee boy alive, healthy, and mostly happy. How awesome is that? [post script: the boy is fighting off the cold and now needs 1 1/4 doses to start addressing the high sugars. Like I said, though, I'm grateful we have something at hand and we are learning how to use it to keep him happy and alive].

• Statins. Matty and I are fat bastards. Even when we are in our thinner summer incarnations and exercising like the devil, we have high cholesterol. It runs in both families, and I don't see us taking up vegetarianism to address it. So, we are now on statins (Vytorin for him and Lipitor for me). Dr. Beck, who was Matty's pediatrician and now allergist, prescribed the Vytorin to Matt after ordering up his lipid panel. (Matty doesn't use a GP). Beck's own father died from a heart attack in his early 30s. Yes, there is controversy surrounding the use of statins and whether cholesterol even contributes to heart disease, but with the cards genetically stacked against us, we figured it was time to
  try to stick around a bit longer in this mortal coil.
  

• Hormones. I am using Yaz, the same birth control pill I was on BC (before child). Yes, yes, I am a bit on the old side to be using birth control pills, but I was at the end of my tether. After only a few days, I feel that many of the things that have plagued me (namely, perimenopause - all the things you went through as a teenage girl, but even worse), are being addressed. It's not a long term solution, but it will help me get over this hump of being in nowoman's land.
  

2008 tomato bachelors and bachelorettes joining the party

Yellow Plum - why not?
Rosalita - a pink w/ white speckled grape
Mule Team - for the name
Mortgage Lifter - Matty chose for the name
Paul Robeson - A big black tomato tribute to a remarkable man.

the other, other Matt; Michelle; and stuff

English Matt Birch has been living in the trailer and climbing the hard boulders in Bishop, and Matty and Wyatt and I are enjoying his easy-going company. I especially enjoy his tea making abilities.

Last night was Michelle's (tall blonde Michelle, not motorcycle Michelle) birthday. She had her fun dinner down at Rossi's Steak and Spaghetti Western-Redneck-Wild West restaurant down in Big Pine. The Manhattans were cheap and strong, and the company was fun. Thanks to Kate (for babysitting Wyatt) and Birch (for designated driving).

Yes, the picture of the hung (as in by their necks) white dudes next to the Victorian woodstove with the reminder that rudeness would not be tolerated in the banquet room was disconcerting, but hey, it is the Owens Valley.

Introducing the 2008 Tomato Lineup

Snow White Cherry*
Black Cherry
Black Russian
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Green Grape
Kosovo*
Kellogg's Breakfast*
Earl of Edgecombe*
Mystery Pink spawned from last year's Crnkovic Yugoslavian
Jaune Flammee
Principe Borghese
Riesentraube

There will be a few others, for sure. These were sown last Saturday and will start appearing by next Monday. I cannot read or hear the word Kosovo without thinking of my dear Glenn Parker, who introduced the variety commercially...and Kosovo has been in the news a lot lately!

All, except the Principe Borghese, were from saved seed going back to 2002-2007.

*perennial MVPs

Floating free

Dr. Mast cut me loose from the follow up visits. I won't be seeing the folks at the clinic again until the next surgery.

Mike, the physical therapist, also cut me loose.

So, I can do whatever I want, within reason. My leg will be the guide.

We've booked our flights for and rooms at Portillo for September. Because scheming for frequent flier miles is my passion, we are all flying on $3,000 tickets for $50 each. It's an open jaw into Santiago, Chile, and out of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Anybody up for a ski on the bunny slopes this weekend?

Thanks for the great idea, Diane

We still use the sauna a lot. It helps that Janet is so good about firing it up at least once a week. I marvel that it still works as well as it does after five years.

Glad I didn't divorce Matty over how hard he worked me when we were building it.

The internet makes the world very small

RRR Breakfaster's coverage of Sorry Day in Australia was incredibly moving. The Aborigine activist Kura (?) Cooper they spoke to in Canberra was so excited about the meaning of the day. She spoke of Aunties there hoping to reunite with their stolen siblings from a lifetime ago, and the thought made me cry.

I reckon the momentous nature of the occasion coupled with the positive change that seems to be afoot here in the U.S., with people having dialogue about the election without rancor, gives me heaps of humandkind hope for the first time in years. I could laugh at the radio when I heard Bush this morning. That' s not happened before.

I dropped DJ Fee B-Squared a note to thank her for the interview with Ms Cooper. In her note back, she mentioned that she'd JUST gotten the Phoenix Foundation's Happy Ending and thought of me. I missed it, but she did a shout out and played "Bright Grey."

The internet for me serves as a blender of good will connections and makes the world a less daunting place.

My liability for the hip surgery

came to $840. This is out of the $63,000+ billed.

I met my $250 deductible and most of my $3,000 copay, and the $840 was what was left.

I am GRATEFUL that the insurance mostly worked as it was advertised. For nonAmerican friends, bear in mind that Matty's employer and we cobbled together something like $850 a month in premiums for the privilege.

We switched policies a few weeks ago. We went with a Health Savings Account (the Bush Administration's way of saying, "here's a really dumb way for you to put money in a bad 'investment' vehicle") that is coupled with a high deductible health insurance policy. We went with it because theoretically, once we hit the $3,000 family deductible, we will get 100 percent coverage....we'll see. Matty's employers were really pushing the HSA because it's cheaper for them. It will cost something like $550 a month to insure us.

Between Matty's asthma, Wyatt's diabetes, and my hips, we're pretty sure we'll meet our deductible early each year.

Welcome to being middle aged and middle class.

Reforms are definitely needed so that the lower middle class and working poor, like most of our self employed or younger or alternative livin' friends, don't get screwed.

Just add hormones

This would explain the rage and despair and humorlessness of last week.
On the plus side, a fair few of us enjoyed the Korean barbecue we put on. I guess I needed the iron.

Matty away to testify at a planning commission in some very posh neighborhood S. of San Francisco tonight. Poor bastard. I don't care how well he does. I just like it when he (and all my friends and family) come home safely.

Cycled to and from Wyatt's daycare to administer his lunchtime insulin. It worked out well.

Cycled three blocks to the bank today

Cause to celebrate.

this be the hardware

Matty says we should turn what's keeping my hip together into a bottle opener when all is said and done.

Just add sunshine...and beer

I have been riding a low of late. Maybe the end of 2007, with the diabetes and the whole leg thing, was a bit much. I get rather crabby on the days that Matty goes for a ski, and I wander around the house trying to keep one eye on the boy and the other on the "to do" list in my head that always reads Greek to me.

I go back to work tomorrow. Parts of the last three months had been bliss and other good things, but perhaps, most of all, I need discipline in my life again. I need to focus four full hours on the work in front of my face. (I still will only work part time for the wonderful ANRF. I will seek an apprenticeship to help Peter roast his coffee beans as soon as I can haul my butt up the Black Sheep's rickety wooden staircase).

In short, lately I have been scattered in the extreme, and I think that this has contributed to the crabbiness. There are many, many loose ends - laundry, a disorganized house, a leg that sort of works, appointments to be made, taxes, a rental that needs showing, a child that needs chasing, blah blah blah, and all this has been driving me crazy.

BUT, the best thing that happened in many months, happened today:

We went for a play in the snow.

Wyatt put on his downhill gear and skied down a wee slope with all the glee and joy a nearly 3 year old could muster. He was a star. We were a happy family. Mood improved.

I snowshoed for nearly half an hour. It was the most physical thing I've done since the surgery back in November. Mood more improved.

Matt and I had a beer in the snow. Mood most improved.

Just add insulin...or sugar

We went down to Childrens (there is no apostrophe) Hospital LA to meet Wyatt's diabetes doctor, nurse, and nutritionist. The team were wonderful. They kept asking if we had any questions and gave us the assurances that we were going down the right road to good diabetes control. The new protocol will just involve more finger sticks to check blood glucose levels and a few more insulin shots to "cover" the carbohydrates eaten during snacks.

The boy cheerfully gave two vials of blood for a thyroid antibody and Celiac Disease test. Fingers crossed he is fine in those departments.

CHLA is a behemoth of a facility and is like a well oiled machine. Matty, ever the engineer, appreciated that.

Seeing all the families and kids with varying degrees of conditions and difficulties made us grateful that we can do easy things to make the boy's life a healthy and full one.

My own LA Chinese food trifecta

• Mandarin Deli in Northridge for Shanghai dumplings, cold stewed tripe, and moo shoo. Believe it or not, real Chinese will occasionally stoop to eat moo shoo.

• Empress in Chinatown for dim sum and no crowds. It's fun to watch Mr. Empress, an old Chinese man in pretty simple clothes, survey his domain.

• Sam Woo's Van Nuys for hot greasy chowmein (Hong Kong "stylo") and roast meats over wonton noodles. They have a Chinese American guy working and the nicety level has shot through the roof.

Oh yeah, Naomi and Dave Chan Hansen's for Chinese New Year feasting over sticky rice, oyster lettuce wraps, shrimp chips, roast pork, etc. They have been putting back the Chi in Chinese since 2006. Bless.

Pop single of the week - Mansard Roof

Active had been thrashing this single and I kept missing the back announce. Just finally made a quick call to Wellington to find out who it was.

Vampire Weekend. They are out of New York.

I am a sucker for speedy pop hooks. This single is up there with "80's Celebration" (by the Reduction Agents, whom I first heard on Active, too.)

Babbo, Pedal King of Bishop

and if he ends up a poor musician, you can blame the family.

And now for something completely different

a spate of good news:

My other surgeon (I was double teamed. I think this is why my stitches were so long, they needed room to get two sets of hands in there) Dr. Perry gave me the go ahead to weight bear as much as I could stand (oh, the pun!). I can begin strengthening physical therapy exercises in a month and skiing beginner slopes in two months! He seemed dead chuffed about how the bone was healing (the Xray looks like a bit like an ice cream sandwich, with the vanilla being the new bone) and how the hip now looks like a classic textbook hip, especially when juxtaposed next to the old school wonky one.

It's as if the news took out some of the wobble from my hobble. I was getting concerned that I would walk like an Igor for the rest of my life.

I celebrated with my first cycle around the block.

We got a date with Children's Hospital LA at the end of the month with Dr. Debra Jeandron. She was part of the country's best doctors list for 2007. This appointment will be just in time as it seems as though Wyatt has entered ANOTHER honeymoon phase. This means easing off the insulin doses to almost nil. He still needs some insulin to keep the remaining insulin-producing bits in his pancreas alive for as long as possible. I underdosed him this morning, and he still got hypoglycemic by lunchtime. We are watching him like a hawk, though, and he likes the attention.

Our lovely renters over at our "retirement house" (we bought Matt's Mom's property last year in lieu of doing IRAs for a few years) will be staying on another month. This gives us another month to look for a replacement. It was looking grim and possibly eating into our vacation budget.

Dividends from a misspent youth

We saw Paris Je T'aime over the weekend and the Ben Gazzara/Gena Rowlands' Latin Quarter segment touched me. It was only because when I was at Cal, Tyler and I would sneak off to see John Cassavetes' films, many of which starred Gazzara and/or Rowlands. It was a joy to see them again, delivering their lines wickedly and credibly (they play a divorcing couple).

So many times I stumbled out of the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley pretty much with the sensation that I totally didn't get the Cassavetes film I'd just seen. I have seen The Killing of a Chinese Bookie twice, and I still don't get it. It was almost as if I willed myself to see the films knowing it would one day be good for me.

(The other Paris Je T'aime segments I was fond of were the Nigerian stab victim, the American woman abroad, and the boy who follows the Muslim girl to her mosque.)

Wyatt's Bits and Bobs

He might have had the shortest Honeymoon Period ever - all two days of it. He then caught a cold and his blood glucose levels shot up, and we seemed to always be a day or two behind figuring out what was going on.

I am happy to report, though, that we seem to have reached equilibrium with his insulin needs and for the first time since his diagnosis, his levels are where they should be. As the Kids in the Hall zombie sketch punchline goes, "Yes, but for how long?" One growth spurt or virus will send it off kilter. Perhaps this disease teaches us, more than anything, to learn to roll with the wee punches.

I have lately revisited that funny habit that all mothers of newborns have and taken to waking him right before I go to sleep to make sure that he is still alive and not unconscious. Usually this means just smooching on him and tickling him until he rolls over in disinterest or starts to laugh.

I have started to take part in the 3:00 am glucose readings. Rare is the night that the parent who stays in bed stays asleep. The reading is like a magic number and there is intense curiosity surrounding what it could be.

Newest nickname for the boy: Comb-over Larry. He so looks like a very small middle aged man, potbelly, thinning hair, saggy bummed trousers and all.

Wyatt is the owner of a pair of bitchin' Rossignol downhill skis and Nordica boots thanks to the Griffiths, one of the other laissez-faire, liberal, parents in town.

Passings

Our dear Mayumi lost her mom, Harue, on New Year's Eve. Mrs. Stroy, as I knew her, was a beautiful, beautiful woman. Together with her husband Albert, they always made sure that Mayumi's friends were well fed and taken care of.

Mrs. Stroy was born in Japan and still made a lot of Japanese dishes. She used to harvest roe in the waters off Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. She told me that she felt like such a "Mahr-maid" standing there in over waist deep water, with the Bay flowing around her. I had not seen Mrs. Stroy in years, but we always hoped that she would get the chance to come over the mountains and to go for a swim in the various hot springs we have here. The opportunity has passed, but I will think of her when the water at the springs pulls this way and that.


I have also been moved by Sir Edmund Hillary's passing. I was struck by pictures of his Everest ascent as a little kid and really struck by the Himalayan Trust school we passed through in Pangboche on our Everest Base Camp trek in 1996. These sentiments gave away to a stint about 8 years ago of reading as many books as I could about him. He was remarkable for his spare words and honesty about his abilities, his drinking, and the loss of his first wife and youngest daughter. His modesty was not for show, and I reckon that they just don't make many men like him anymore.

the Weakerthans

Digging on this Canadian quartet's release "Reunion Tour" thanks to Mary and Mark, who made sure we got our fill of Can-Con (government mandated Canadian Content in the arts) for Christmas.

The Weakerthans are from Winnipeg and are unabashedly North American. Considering that a lot of popular bands these days sound like they are from somewherelse (the Decemberists with their sea shanties and over articulation come to mind), it's neat that a band can just crank out pure pop with unforced references.

(Actually, I like sea shanties and over-articulation heaps).

Sundry things in the new year

• We got about 4 inches of rain, over 3/4 of our annual average, over a 15 hour period last week.
  
• The Schoberlews have a bad case of gas.
• Wyatt told his daycare provider that he had nipples and that she had nipples, all while he was sitting on the potty.
• He does not do number twos at school. Ever.
  
• I probably have Attention Deficit Disorder. It makes sense and explains so very many things.
  
• Wyatt's diabetic honeymoon period might have only lasted two days.
• The boy thinks he's Sleeping Beauty and needs a lie in until 9 am. I think it's a growth spurt.
  
• We are addicted to HBO's The Wire. It is teaching us to swear creatively.
• Bishop is in need of another rock and roll show.
• Still angling for a way to go to Portillo, Chile, for a ski at a self-contained resort (free daycare included and medical staff on hand) this August.
• Matt and I are handling the new stresses of life quite differently. Sometimes we communicate effectively, sometimes not. My skills and sense of humor improve remarkably when I've had my evening glass of beer. His, when he has had a ski.
  

The Lives of Others

We saw this incredible German film two nights ago, and I have been thinking about it ever since.

Ultimately, it was a film with a kind of redemption that I could live with - the kind that didn't make me throw my hands up in the air and run screaming from the room. The other work that makes me feel this way is the BBC production of the Singing Detective.

I found the film's pitting of restraint versus desire, morality versus immorality, comfort versus loneliness, and power versus powerlessness in a backdrop of total fear and paranoia, arresting.

I knew I had to see the film when I read Anthony Lane's ecstatic review in the New Yorker.

The late Ulrich Muhe's work in this film breaks my heart.

Matt noticed that no one ever raises their voice in the film.

Grouse Mountain - thanks Michelle!

Igor at your service

The lovely sun was out on New Year's Day and those of us at Camp Spruce Hoose buggered off to the desert to enjoy it. I hadn't been literally outside in ages and hobbling around the sage and sand on Jon's borrowed cane was pure joy.

The Vancouverites and everyone else went home and the house felt a bit empty. Christmas and New Year were great, with everyone pitching in, like we were cast members of a production of "Stone Soup." It was wonderful to still feel a connectedness to friends made what now seems like so many years ago.

When I can't find the cane or crutch, I hobble around the house like Igor. I am even of some use in that state because for the first time in months, both hands are free!

Honeymoon Phase, here we are

Wyatt's blood glucose levels were high last week. They are below normal to normal now. He is getting very little insulin, but still getting some. We appear to have entered what is called the honeymoon phase.

Matty sick with stomach crud, as is the boy.

Bhutto's assassination in Rawalpindi

I was shocked but in the end not really surprised to read that Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated in Rawalpindi yesterday. When we were in Pakistan in 1998, we met two 17 year old boys in Mansehra who bore scars from school rally shootings. They'd been shot because they were supporters of Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

Yes, Bhutto and her husband were probably corrupt, but these moderate, generous, forward thinking, and articulate boys seemed to be the backbone of her party. They explained what the PPP meant to them and explained how Bhutto became prime minister because she was the head of a winning party. Being from the States, party politics was a hard concept to grasp. Harder still was the concept that a woman could be the head of a Muslim state, one in which we'd seen only a handful of women in nearly a month and a half of travel.

I'll always remember how these boys begged us to get into a cab to go 2oo yards up the road because it would be safer for us and them not to be seen by their cousins. When we asked what would happen if we were seen, they said matter of factly that they would be killed. Responsible hosts that they were, they insisted on paying for the ride.

I wonder how much has changed for them in the last 10 years. I hope they still wish for a future for Pakistan that is moderate and open, despite all that the United States has tried to do to make fundamentalist Islam a viable choice.

Chugging along

The lovely Mark, Mary, and Masa are down from Vancouver and taking such fine care of us. Michelle P. making special guest appearances (like a biker angel bearing beautiful boxes of samosas!). Tom and Marky Messenger will be here later in the week.

Matty has gotten out for a few skis and hikes, some with the boy, and this is a blessing. They are learning about blood glucose testing in the field and insulin injections on the tailgate. Matty just missed being in an avalanche at Mammoth Mountain last Friday. The run he and our friends Ray and Lesley were on gave away few minutes after they skied it. Luckily, nobody was buried in the slide. There are blessings.

We still have some fine tuning of the blood sugars and our pediatrician is doing her best to work with Children's Hospital LA and to get us in their program. The boy had a motor, language, and cognitive skills test last week and did very well. This means he doesn't qualify for some of the special programs Inyo County has to offer, but it was lovely of the agencies to try to help. We will get to see a developmental pediatrician who comes through the area once a quarter. Every little bit of education and monitoring will help.

Wyatt gets frustrated some mornings, especially after breakfast. Those are the hardest insulin shots to give. We just try to explain that the shots will help him grow up to be a big boy. He is learning about anger and we are learning about patience. He is still our happy healthy active wee boy 99 percent of the time. The funniest thing he does these days is to sing "and called it macaroni and cheese" to the last line of "Yankle Doodle."

He is eating a boatload of food. Newly diagnosed people tend to do this.

I officially get off the crutches after New Year and am looking forward to just being on the cane. Bone is very slow to grow back, but I am right on schedule. I am driving on the days that I haven't had a Percocet.

We are still having a poker potluck tonight (with kim chee pancakes and veggie stir fry) and still putting our kegerator through its paces. It is still life as we mostly know it, but only more so.

He's still our boy

Heard just this evening - Wyatt, in a very hopeful voice: "Daddy, did you bring that piece of wood home from the dump for me?"

Remember, it's just an alternate route

Our wee Babbo got diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes on Monday afternoon. It only being Wednesday night, it's all been a blur.

He is fine. We caught it early, thankfully. The only clue we had was about two weeks of incessant drinking and peeing.

We are blessed to live in Bishop. The social and institutional support have been stunning. He was at his nurse practitioner's for an appointment at 11, in the hospital lab by noon, and in the hospital by 4. His new pediatrician and hospital staff spent two days trying to stabilize him and to teach Matt and me how to check the glucose levels and to administer the insulin. We will be referred to LA Children's Hospital for specialized treatment.

Wyatt's blood sugar levels have been very very high. He was admitted with a high 800s and we can't seem to get it below 200. 80 is normal for an adult and our target is between 100-200. This is normal in the early days. At some point, we'll probably enter what's called the Honeymoon Period, where the pancreas seemingly returns to producing normal levels of insulin on its own. It can last from a few weeks to a few years. The name sounds cruelly ironic if you ask me.

Wyatt hates all the poking, but is taking some ownership of the procedures. He drew his own blood at lunchtime and didn't cry when he got his subsequent shot. He's not even 3. He faces at least some of the 5 daily blood draws and 5 injections with a mixture of curiosity and bravery. When he's particularly brave, he reckons he's a big and bad enough dude to warrant a ride on his grandpa's quad motorbike.

It's hard because his body is undergoing changes and his food staples (cheerios, pretzels, goldfish, macaroni and cheese, juice, milk, kefir, etc.) are all now severely rationed while we heavily push the meat and cheese and eggs. Luckily, he never had much of a sweet tooth.

I have mostly stopped crying for the time being. I'm sure it will start up again. Matt amazing. He's up at 3 every morning to check that the boy's sugars don't bottom out. Matt has taught me to be pragmatic and to hit the ground running - so to speak. I'm still on two crutches. Our friends and family have come out to show their love and support for the boy. Strangers have come to bolster us. Matt points out that this has to happen to somebody in the scheme of things, and we both reckon that we as a family will be OKAY.

Time just stops

The baby is in my lap napping. He spent the morning at his nurse practitioner's and then at the hospital lab. We are normally laissez-faire parents, but Wyatt's shocking and sudden drinking and peeing has got us concerned. It could be diabetes, it could be anything, it could be nothing.

Thankfully, our nurse practitioner was able to write a lab script for a battery of blood based tests, and Matt was able to walk the baby into the hospital a few minutes later. The boy was a champ and even the lab techs were amazed that he didn't squirm, cry, or fuss. We think the child was born to please strangers. Scary, but true.

We'll know more tomorrow morning when the lab results are back. In the meantime, time just sort of stops.

Hello, please let me rot your teeth

Made batch number four of sel gris caramels with the crunchy chunky Guerande salt we brought back from France. The process was a bit like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Batch one was too incongruent, with the chocolate refusing to stick to the caramel. Batch two was too salty (but the salt freaks in the bunch didn't complain), without any chocolate in sight. Batch three was too ugly (it was a no-nut job for Matty), with the chocolate (Michel Cluizel single origin Sao Tome) making the pieces look like incarnations of the Elephant Man. Batch four, with just one tsp. of salt and the chocolate drizzled back and forth in a mad grid, was just right.

This hobbling around the kitchen in a zimmer frame takes my mind off what insurance is or isn't covering of the $63,661.60 hospital bill for the time being.

Poor Matt needs a break. He made a mad dash to the Bay Area for work Monday and came straight home before Tuesday night. He *was* greeted by all his lovely girlfriends bearing various parts of dinner (thanks, mujeres!), but he's been at work or hauling the boy or me around ever since. Maybe he'll get lucky, there'll be some nice snow in the first storm of the season, and he can go for a ski Sunday.

Sundry Schmundry II

Wyatt is either having intermittent leg and foot pain or having issues about my post-operative state. Last night, he pulled up lame and complained of ankle and/or knee pain, but he was fine once I sat with him for a while. Matt and I are wondering if he thinks that I will be on crutches or in a walker forever.

Wyatt peed into his training potty on his own last night, but not before nailing the wool carpet a bit. He is drinking wayyyyy toooooo much before bedtime and wetting every surface in sight. Ah, the joys of parenthood.

I am starting to feel the hardware in my leg now. The right angle in the plate is poking through the hip, and I think I feel the screw ends in the back of my leg. Nothing painful, though.

I am down to one 10 mg. dose of Oxycontin and one to two doses of Percocet a day. I tried to tough it out cold turkey last night, but that was really dumb.

The last batch of sel gris caramels came out too salty. Still, it's a thrill to hit a chunky grain of that minerally Guerande salt in the midst of all that toothache inducing goo.

Tony Wilson is retiring from Melbourne's RRR Breakfasters radio show. He, Fee B-Squared, and Sam Pang are such an intelligent and passionate bunch. I will miss their special dynamic. Turns out, I wasn't the only married girl I know to have had a crush on Tony.

I have been queasy for a long time now. The curse of it is having to eat all the time to keep the stomach steadied.

I can read the New Yorker cover to cover in a night or two. It is one of my few tangible accomplishments these days. I stay up late because I am afraid of the dark.

Janet and I are ripping through DVDs of Reilly, Ace of Spies a few evenings a week. Good grief, Sam Neill!

Matt and I are ripping through DVDs of The Wire, a Baltimore based cop show. It would help if there were subtitles sometimes. We throw the first season of Lost (cringe goes here) in when we're feeling terribly escapist.

Sitting on my ass all day, working out the scar tissue with emu oil, chatting with long lost ghosts on Facebook, zoning out, is still a rather splendid mindless bliss. I am grateful to have had the opportunity.

Skyrock

Wyatt's Thanksgiving Weekend

Janet showed Matty and Wyatt the way to Skyrock, the Paiute petroglyphs on the nearby Tablelands.

Parental advisory goes here

Yeah, sorry, it's a bit of a skin flick these days.

So strange that I don't feel any of this....yet

Matty reckons I'm not that big of a whinger in the scheme of things now.

While the surgeons were in there, they decided to try to get the neck of my femur into the correct position, too. So they changed its high orientation by pulling it down 10 degrees. This explains the offset gap in the middle picture. I should be filling the gap with bone in the next few months. The gap is actually even a bit larger in different Xrays. By the way, the top of the "7" shaped plate is actually anchored INTO the femur.

Meat pie hiatus

Pino Pies is on [hopefully temporary] hiatus while it regroups in a new configuration (the Pinos just had a wonderful baby boy). I have a few dozen pies in my freezer and eagerly await Pino Pies' return.

I will gladly pay a higher price for such a high quality product. Let's hope the Gods of Small Businesses smiles upon them in the new year!

Left leg new school, right leg old school

The left leg underwent a 20 degree inward correction. Freakshow.

Cheesecake, not painkillers

 

Yeah, goofy expression indeed. I reckon they had to make the incision big enough so that two surgeons could get their hands in there at the same time.

Matty being studly

The new water heater works like a champ. All hail Matty.

Luckily, the boy is not too fond of sweets in real life.

Sundry schmundry

Matt still a goddamned amazing partner. Serving breakfast in bed, doing laundry, changing diapers, feeding the family wholesome things, you name it, he does it.

Mom and stepdad Dan were here over the weekend. They were easy going about the fact that I wasn't in any shape to be going out to a restaurant. Mom is like a nervous, flitting, and wobbly bird, who likes to do dishes. I know I take after her a lot, so I worry.

Wyatt happy that his Karen and TT are back.

AT's grandmother Mary passed away peacefully yesterday. The girls made it back in time to be with her while she was still here. There are blessings.

Autumn will slide away into winter this week, apparently. Ripening tomatoes on the vine in the yard in November was wrong, anyway.

Leg feeling v. strong. Got warned not to put more than 30-40 lbs. weight on it yet. Surgery has changed the shape of the leg. The knee isn't so hyperextended and the quadricep isn't so blocky. I'm taking into account a bit of atrophying, too. Wow, maybe the wonky femurs gave me the daikonashi (Japanese for "fat thick radish leg").

Michelle and Jon Becknell well after their surgeries. Again, there are blessings.

Looking forward to our Christmas visitors from Vancouver, Mary, Mark, and Masa.

Wyatt taking two craps at home each evening. Not enough privacy at daycare, I reckon.

A bit queasy bo-beasy

Didn't get a blood transfusion, and they were able to recycle some of what I lost in surgery. Lost a bit more blood in the surgical site drainage. The iron supplements I'm on to rebuild my hemoglobin seem to make me a bit queasy in the morning.

Never really got sick when I was preggars, so now I understand what all the fuss is about. Ugh.

So, I woke up Wednesday afternoon, and everything was and has been good.

Spent Tuesday in this blissfully strange state of wonder. I stopped and made time for people and they stopped and made time for me. Most folks didn't know about the impending surgery, and it was nice to keep it that way. Matty and I snuck out for lunch and I walked home from the Post Office. It was a gorgeous, warm day.

Tuesday night, Matty and I saw the amazing Marc Atkinson Trio (vintage oriented swing jazz guitar) at the Inyo Council for the Arts across the street. Dr. Beck gave me a CD of the band for the hospital trip. It was lovely to see him smile. He was Matty's pediatrician and is still the family allergist.

I got up at 5 Wednesday morning and made the drive up in the truck, just in time for the beautiful sunrise over Sherwin Summit.

The Mammoth Hospital staff were outstanding and the facilities, especially the operating theater, with its window to the pines outside, snazzy. I got spinal and intravenous anesthesia, which wore off by Thursday morning. Never needed any additional morphine and have been on two 10 mg doses of Oxycontin and around three single doses of Percocet on a daily basis. Morphine. Ugh. It reduced me to a drooling, dry heaving, lump of mashed potatoes. Matt reckons I'm such a control freak that I can't enjoy letting go. Mom on my case for the oxycontin, but as I pointed out, "Mom, they just went in and broke my leg and pinned it back together with a steel plate and screws, they have to give me something." While I have an addiction to things that are bad for me (Spanish chorizo and ham, triple cream cheeses, alcohol, double cappucinos), painkillers aren't going to join the list.

The Foley catheter was FANTASTIC for the two days I was attached to it. I was a good girl and stayed hydrated and won the best peeing patient award. Would have been a bear if I had to get up and use the toilet each time. I have been lucky in the number two department, too. (There is a local septic company with the slogan "Number One in the Number Two" painted on its truck.) Painkillers are notorious for making bowels sluggish.

Dr. Mast was headed off to NZ Friday, the day before I was discharged, and we got to talking about the stalking style fly fishing there, spicy food, and about our travels. He was in the Peace Corps in Nepal in the early days, knew all the expats, and traveled the country extensively. He knew the couple who started the Yak and Yeti bar. I reported that as of 1996, the Yak and Yeti was still there. We talked a bit about Edmund Hillary. Dr. Mast once was invited to the Hillarys' Rana Palace home. There was drinking, and at one point, Hillary climbed the chimney upside down. Ah, sweet drunken blissful and relative youth. Mast asked why we never got to talking about these things before, and I answered that I needed to get on his good side first. I think I am on it now, and he'll be around for the second procedure. Everyone thought I was one of the faster healing patients he's had. So, my relative old age (I am one of his older patients) be damned.

Matty being a domestic goddess. He is cooking, cleaning, and tending. He is taking good care of me and Wyatt. My Dad came for three nights and helped, too. There was a lot of male energy there. I just tried to catch up on more sleep and less leg pain.

First physical therapy session tomorrow.

One more visit with the freakshow legs

Dr. Mast called me up to Mammoth this morning to have a last good look at my legs. When he started to diagram my Xrays, my hips seemed to be calling out for an acetabular osteotomy (where they cut the hip socket open to make it bigger, because my sockets are somewhat shallow.) But, when he saw my legs and feet flop out when I got onto my back during the examination, it was clearer to him that his notes were right and the intertrochanteric osteotomy should be the first thing to try.

I guess my great range of motion one way (knees flopping out) and total lack of range the other way (knees coming in) are quite unusual.

No guarantees about any of this. But I still appreciate that I have one of the country's best orthopedic specialists (who specializes in preservation of the hip) and one of the U.S. Ski and Snowboarding Teams' surgeons (Jack Perry) spending some brain time before going in with their saws. Buzzzzzz!

"She came on like November, pretending to be summer"

It's been a late, long Indian Summer here in the Valley.

The Schoberlews did a little impromptu burrito eating and 4-wheeling Sunday afternoon. We caught "the Girls" trying to leave town for their two week trip Back East without saying goodbye. So, we pulled up along side them at the Big Pine Chevron gas pumps and bid our hasty goodbyes. Karen started to sing THAT line from the Phoenix Foundation's song "Gandalf." AT, Karen, and I agreed that it was a fine song, a fine cd.

"She came on like November/pretending to be summer/and I could not remember to/shelter from the last of winter/stay hidden from the cold/Until the cold steals your bones."

Speaking of colds, Wyatt has one. Yep, he's all snotty and gubby and pukey. I am trying not to get it. I have been downing Oscillococcinum (homeopathic stuff from France. Secret ingredients: duck heart and liver. Whoops, should have told Janet before I plied her with a box).

This week, I am mostly less maudlin and mostly more pragmatic. Moved the furniture around the TV room/library so that my hospital bed would fit.

Matty has finished his part of the bitchin, rather involved, tankless water heater installation. Unfortunately, the thing, which a cross between a CPU and a Toyota engine, is coming up with a fuel error code. Hopefully all will be solved by tomorrow morning, when the heater techs are at their desks in Georgia. 199,000 BTUs of heat, here we come.

Maudlin post goes here

It's weird to be nearly 40, to have a young child, and to have trepidation about not waking up after the surgery.

I have been put under three times before. It has always been a piece of piss. I NEVER thought twice about it. Now, with my boy waiting for me, I think about the remote possibility that I won't be coming back.

Actually, lately when I think about Wyatt, I burst into tears.

I'm not the world's most natural mother. It's taken me over two years to finally feel TOTALLY at ease. That boychild has taught me so much. He has so much grace and humor and wisdom for a little kid. Even in the drama of not knowing what the hell I was doing being a mother, he was (and still is) my pride and joy.

I have been honest about my fear of not waking up. I reckon I am paying the Gods their tribute by acknowledging that everything is a gift and can be taken away. I am grateful for what I have had and would very much like a chance for a bit more, please.

In reality, besides my slightly high blood pressure and slightly high cholesterol, I'm quite healthy. I was told by the internal medicine dude (who dug the fine gauge of my Icebreaker Merino shirt) that my 15 minutes of daily cycling and intermittent hiking and skiing made me part of the fit crowd. I laughed. I am one of the lazy bastards of Bishop.

Meanwhile, in these days before the surgery, I sneak an extra hug, smooch, and cuddle with the boy when I can.

"We have a new weiner"

New record poker pot. $80 to Michelle on 3 card Guts aka "Dropsies." This is particularly amazing considering that we open all games with a 5 cent ante.

What I like about Bishop

(just ripping off Helen Newman's post riffing about life in Copenhagen)

The friends who will give you the shirts off their backs, esp. the ones who are always game for impromptu potlucks and who come bearing goodness in a dish.

The Black Sheep, the brilliant coffee bar that is less than a minute's walk away, and the attached Spellbinder Books.

The 340 days of relentless sunshine.

The White Mountains.

The Sierras.

The very tiny, but very much loved and supported arts community.

The Millpond Music Festival, where all the kids run wild and free and the musicians come from so very far away to entertain.

The Tri County Fair at Labor Day Weekend.

The Mule Days Parade.

Living downtown with my big tomato garden.

Cycling to do almost all my errands.

The fact that nobody locks their doors.

Hospital bed for one

Dr. Mast leaves no stone unturned.
I have a rent-a-hospital-bed coming to the house. I found out yesterday when the local rent a bed place gave me a ring.
The kindly LVN at the Clinic said that Dr. Mast's patients, because they have already had their battery of preoperative tests by the time they come for the preoperative consultation, are the best prepared.
Yeah, I suppose I am.

No shaving, no herbal supplements, no nicks, scratches, etc. in my hind and lower quarters.
No colds. No dental work (whoops, the cleaning from 3-4 weeks ago was a no-no).
No milk in my coffee the morning of.
No narcotics on an empty stomach, no matter how much in pain I might be at 3am.
Lots of good laxatives.

I think of my lovely, greatly missed Tommy Ryan and think about how much grace and generosity he had when Wyatt and I would visit him in his hospital bed. I am lucky, because unlike him, I will have the ability to walk away - eventually.

God bless The New Yorker

When we became parents, we really found out what it was like to have very little free time. Nighttime now means falling into bed, wee worn down nubbins.

I usually read one to two articles out of the New Yorker before turning out the lights. It would be hard to devote just 15-30 minutes to a novel each night. It would be too disjointed and life is like that already. No, in 15-30 minutes, I've read my article(s). Some days, that is my only sense of accomplishment.

I recently read about a fasting spa for the Hollywood set in the food issue. Skandar was down there last week auditioning his crystal, bowl, gong, etc. healing "modality." He is hoping he got the traveling healer gig. We hope so, too. He'd be based in Bishop, but have clients with, gasp, money.

We'll soon be adding The Economist to the stacks of half read magazines in our lives.

Quick listens

Midlake - Trials of Van Occupanther. Fairly sleepy. Young Bride def. the stand out single. Fits nicely in that Decemberists, Grizzly Bear part of the collection.

Surf City - Surf City EP. (Arch Hill Label, NZ). Vintage Dunedin sounds (from Auckland) meets no wave. Wait, isn't that rather redundant? I like 'em, though.

Signs of autumn in the Valley

Skin like a pebbled leather handbag.

Adhesion bogies inside the nose -the kind that really hurt.

Backyard dips in the kiddie pool for lunch.

Woodfires for dinner.

Civilized and really lovely potlucks - the kind where nobody gets too shitfaced and tries to cop a kiss on somebody. That will come at Christmas and again after Summer Solstice.

The great international dirtbag climber migration into Bishop - dudes and dudettes in puffy down jackets and knit caps wandering around town after dark wondering what there is to do and trying to get warm before going back to their crappy, cold, campsites in the dirt.

Absence of dumbass drivers from LA with their skis and snowboards mounted on their SUV roofs going wayyyyy tooooo fast up 395.

Jeans and longsleeved shirts, not much else.

Sally Field extended disco remix moment

Was going to post the latest NZ Musician cover story on the Phoenix Foundation forum (thanks Rodney and Carla, my operatives in Newtown!), but skimmed over it first (which is unusual) and saw that Luke Buda really sang Bishop's praises and mine, too. I reckon that as exciting as it is to see one's name in print, it's a weird feeling, too. It was such a community effort that got them here, fed, loved, paid, etc. Really, if one piece of the pie (the venue, the sound, the gear, the audience) failed, none of it would have been a reality.

I know the band know it was a community effort.

So, instead of posting the article, I used the occasion to send a love note to everyone who was involved. Let's hope for more opportunities in 2008!

Two extra days of living with the old setup

Surgery has been moved out to the 7th. I was one of the lucky ones who didn't have to change plane tickets or get my date shifted by a week. I reckon that if one wants an audience with the Pope of Hip Surgeons.....

Lovely pizza potluck at Marsha and Cal's last night to celebrate some birthdays. There was a lovely wee puppy Cal rescued from the Res(ervation). There are folks putting dibs on it, including AT.

Sally Field moment

Matty and I apparently got listed in the shout outs in the liner notes to the Phoenix Foundation's New Zealand release of Happy Ending. All I could think was, "bloody hell" and be really touched. Our copy still hasn't arrived in the mail. The transpacific postal faeries must be held up in Customs and Immigration.

In other news, we had the largest poker pot last night. Zach won $34.60 (most of it his) on an epic round of Between the Sheets/Acey Deucey. Karen dealt. This beats the $11.40 Matty won in Two Card Dropsies (guts) hands down.

Working on a medical "to do" list. This morning, zipped into the old (circa 1950-1960s) Northern Inyo Hospital for an EKG and Chest X-Ray. This afternoon, got the boy and myself flu shots. Wyatt was lovely and gave the nurse a heartfelt "thank you," even though he wasn't too pleased about the jab.

I have a date with some stirrups Wednesday, full bloodwork Thursday, pre-operative physical therapy assessment Saturday, pre-op consult the following Monday, pre-op clearance Thursday, and a type and cross blooddraw Saturday.

I am grateful that I have time to prepare and that this surgery isn't the result of some nasty accident on the highway. It will be a clean cut, Sir. No mushy bag of shards and hamburger for me this time.

Winter potluck season

Ray and Lesley kicked off the winter potluck season last night. Yay!

Fat bastard

Whoa, Nelly!

I guess I couldn't just pound down those Hoegaardens and deviled eggs (they are easy and so cheerful) and Belgian chocolates and meatpies and French cheese and Spanish chorizo and white trash novelty ice cream bars (Schwan's orange push 'ems and vanilla ice cream sandwiches), not exercise, and not expect to put on 5 lbs in a little over a week.

So, been riding the bike rig with the baby trailer for errands and trying to build up some massive thighs and butt before the surgery. The sun is still shining, there is no wind, and the nearby fields are all a gold and glorious.

I'm still going to drink the beer and eat the bad food, but cut back on the excesses and add kale and malt o'meal (for the iron).

I still have my wonderful and supportive friends and folks, my tasty snow white cherry tomatoes, and my sense of wonder.

Countdown

Surgery scheduled for Monday, 5 November. One week after Jon Becknell's second total hip replacement and a week and a half before Michelle's procedure. Bishop will be convalescent city.

Right now, I'm a little less flippant and a little more scared.

Lots to do before it all happens. Wyatt will start full-time daycare on the 1st.

Leaps and Bounds

In the midst of the screeching (Poor Wyatt *does* seem to be getting his last molars in), there are thrilling moments in which the boy's abilities are taking off before our eyes.

At 2 and a half, he is singing his own songs about "he runs away" and accompanying himself on the ukulele.
He is telling us long, involved tales about "eyebrows jumping over the fence" and the like before bedtime.
He is asking "do you remember that?" to things that might have happened months ago.
He is greeting his allergist with a hearty "Hello Dr. Beck!"

We're pretty sure he's pretty normal on the achievements scale, but to us, it's all pretty neat.

Phoenix Foundation in GR with a mention of Bishop, to boot!

Yes, the Bishop reference might have been a pisstake at us and the band, but the proof was in the pudding. Recently, folks have been asking when the next gig might be.

The band's third CD, Happy Ending, is out in NZ now! It is faneffingtastic and you can get yours here.

(Click on the pages to enlarge.)

"Carrie Ku Mei, I have found you!"

After 20 some odd years, I finally found "But Liu Ching" [or "Bu Liao Qing" in Mandarin] and other songs from the 1960s Shaw Brothers' Hong Kong film "The Lark." They, along with the single for "Kung Fu Fighting," The Carpenters' "brown album," The Chopstick Sisters' LP, and a Jackson Five LP, were the soundtrack of my childhood as an only spoiled child with my own turntable and a microphone (Sanyo suitcase model, silver and black).

When Matt and I lived in Hong Kong, I used to search out cd shops in Kowloon with the name of the song scribbled on a piece of paper (I got my coworker William to write it down in Chinese). Shop keepers used to laugh because the song, as popular as it was, was very old fashioned and not available on cd. There was the brief stint backpacking in Melacca, Malaysia, where I found the song on cassette, but lost it in the hostel when the thieving Algerians made off with Matty's pack and passport.

I have been going through an Asian "Roots" thing ever since I found out about The Phoenix Foundation in the last issue of "Giant Robot." GR is a very neat publication and store celebrating culture and Asian American culture. I've been thinking about what it means to be born Chinese Californian and to be livin' in a little redneck town, what that expat stint in Hong Kong was all about (Thanks Kay, who was here last week, for helping me remember a lot of the details), and why a song in a language I don't understand should mean so much to me?

Postscript: Patrick and Doreen just sent me an MP3 of "But Liu Ching" also known as "Love Without End" in English. It is on Shanghai Divas Vol. 2. I have Shanghai Divas Vol. 1 and wasn't so impressed with the remixes, so never bothered to look further into them. Silly me. When it rains, it pours.

More along the line of selfish indulging

There is a gorgeous 13.5 gallon keg of Hoegaarden beer at Manor Market with our names on it. (Thank you Markie and Karl!!!!) The obscure A type "German Slider" keg coupler is on its way up via Fedex, and we should be in business by tomorrow evening.

I will need to stop drinking while I am on the combination of morphine, warfarin (yes, the ratpoison. It also is a blood thinner), and laxatives in little more than a month, I'm sure. So, while the sun still shines on this fair Valley and while I still have the wonky femurs I was born with, let me at that damn keg!

As far as I understand the surgery, it goes like this: cut slit in upper thigh; pull away abductor muscle, saw femur in half just below the trochanter, the bit that flares below the ball; rotate lower portion of leg in 20 degrees, check how the ball of the femur sits in the hip socket, band the two cut halves of the femur under incredible pressure, something like thousands of pounds per square inch; pin a rod to the length and exterior of the femur to give it a plane to work with (and to give me hip where there were no hip before); put muscle back, stitch the skin back up.

The days that try parents' patience

We hit the so-called "terrible twos" with a vengeance. The past two weeks were one long fuss fest. Wyatt whinged where he used to be helpful. He was stroppy where he used to be obedient. Besides a cold and allergies, it was hard to figure out where the fuss was coming from.

Kay Wong, from my NBC Asia days in Hong Kong, Kay's husband Andy, and Matty's de facto cousin Greg all had liberal doses of "birth control" by hanging around us this past week. Hope they didn't want any kids anyway.

On the plus side, my child is slowly returning to me. Maybe there is a God.

It feels like a headache in the hips

I was a bit concerned in the past few weeks because my hips were pain free. I wondered, is all this cutting through bone really going to be necessary? Then, like clockwork, the season changed, autumn came*, and my hips started aching again.

This makes me rather glad in a strange way. It makes the decision to go ahead with the surgery all the more appropriate.

* Autumn in the Owens Valley means a few days of winter followed by an Indian Summer. Went for a quick hike up to Grass Lake with Kay Wong (we worked together at NBC Asia in Hong Kong) and her husband Andy last Sunday. There was up to 3 inches of snow on the ground at the top.

Holiday Moments in Dorkdom

Being rather moved by seeing Jarvis Cocker who was pushing his Velib bicycle up the sidewalk in Paris in front of Lavinia*, the three story retail booze palace. The experience has made me listen to A Different Class again a lot lately. This is funny because I was listening to it a lot before the trip.**

Speaking very poor French everywhere we went.

Doing my "Please have your artists come to Bishop" pitch to Mikee Tucker, label owner of Loop Recordings at the Black Seeds concert at La Bellevilloise. The Black Seeds put on a great show before a fairly packed audience of at least 250.

Fishing out a slightly used (only urine) diaper to replace a very used (poo) diaper at La Bellevilloise because we underestimated how many diapers to bring for the evening.

Not recognizing Sofia Coppola for being Sofia Coppola but being a face I'd seen before and staring a bit too long while she ate lunch at a quiet sidewalk cafe with her sleeping child in tow.

Telling Gueze/Lambic brewers/blenders Jean Van Roy and Armand Debelder HOW excited we were to have finally made it to Cantillon and Drei Fonteinen.

* Lavinia was the only place we could find the liqueur Creme de Violette, a missing ingredient to Michelle's Aviation cocktail. Creme de Violette smells a bit like grandmas' perfumes.

** Favorite lines from the album include, "When we woke up that morning/we had no way of knowing/that in a matter of hours/we'd change the way we were going/Where would I be now?/Where would I be now?/If we never met?" and "I'd give my whole life to see it/just you stood there/only in your (use your best Sheffield accent now) oonderwear." and "watching roaches climb the wall/if you called your dad/he could stop it all!"

It was silly to think that we would get any reading done on holiday

Gone are the days of lazing about an Asian beach in a hammock with a giant book. Here are the days of intensive sightseeing with a two year old. Didn't do a lick of reading while we were away. So, William Boyd's Restless still keeps me bedside company at night.

Finally figured out that I could only read Joe Boyd's White Bicycles by looking up bands and people in the index. There were far too many names and people popping in an out; so, I made my beelines for anecdotes about Sandy Denny (insecure but endearing genius), Richard Thompson (teenage genius), Nick Drake (stoned, stage frightened genius), Fairport Convention (geniuses), and Jimi Hendrix (well, you know).

Got the booty home

 

Matt and Tricia: geeking out since 1992. Saw that a bottle of Fou Foune in the States was going for $32. Cantillon Brewer and heir apparent Jean Van Roy had to go into the back and label two bottles for us to takeaway. I think we paid 6 euros a bottle ($8). I have paid as much as $24. Fou Foune is the nickname of the apricot grower the brewery sources its fruit from and also the nickname of a woman's body part, apparently.

Endless summer - Banyuls-sur-Mer, France

 

Early evening on "Mimi's Beach." We were spoiled.

"AAAAA" Andouillette - another offal in the yes column

 

Le Tambour, 2nd Arondissement, Paris. It's a bar that doesn't close until 6 am.

Yes, I realize that this looks rather pornographic. You should have seen the inside of the sausage - wavy layered intestines all crammed into that casing. Maybe I liked the dish because it reminded me that I am indeed Chinese and can handle "variety" cuts of meat. Jean-Michel says that good andouillette is hard to do because, poorly prepared, it makes a whole restaurant stink of poo.

Cantillon's stroppy kitty

 

Quite a few visitors to the brewery got a little souvenir from this kitty - scratches and bites around the ankle. It was cool! Cantillon did not participate in the Belgian Beer Weekend Festival.

One happy mother - Belgian Beer Weekend Festival

The strap-on baby was asleep, and we had a bagful of beer tokens. Need I say more?

It was a shame about the full-sized servings. I decided in the end that of the several hundreds of beer on offer, only Drei Fonteinen's Oude Lambic was worth my tokens. It must have been the mood I was in and my attempt to get on grumpy Brewer Armand Debelder's good side. Fresh Oude Kriek in Brussels tasted of the Scharbeek cherries - tart cherry pie, very little sugar. At home, just a few weeks later, the other Belgian flavors of bandaids and a bit of horseblanket, are coming through.

Home sweet

Glad to be home, but enveloped in the funk of having to go back to work and to our regular lives.

Tried out being a family unit, without our support network of friends and family for the first time. Despite my extreme paranoia and stress that the boy was going to pitch himself off tall structures or in front of moving trains or that he was being a very loud North American male (we taught him to say "I am not an American pig" in French), we survived. We also had some lovely catch up time with folks from our past - Helen and Dyon, Melbournites who are working in Copenhagen, and Paul and Sheila, who have lived in France as long as we've known them.

Towards the end, Matty and I nevertheless missed our Rancilio espresso machine and our beer drinkin' cohorts. Dear God, can one find a half way decent Northern Italian Style espresso in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France? We two fisted countless double shot espresso drinks at the Black Sheep the first morning back (thanks Konrad!).

The trip was fun. Exhausting. I DO seriously need to chill and kill the Type A, high strung tendencies I have. Laduree macarons were nice, but not as fun as Drei Fonteinen Oude Kriek fresh out of the bottle, the Cantillon Brewery tour (thank you Jean Van Roy for recognizing beer geeks when you see them and comping them their drinks at the bar), and "AAAAA" Andouilette (yes, an intestine sausage) at Le Tambour in Paris.

The boy grew so much because of the experience, and he was a trooper. He still talks about Guignol, the Punch and Judy-like Marionette show at the Luxembourg Gardens, and the Eiffel Tower. He is calmer, gentler, and even more engaged in the world around him. So, Chile and Argentina 2008, here we come.

Iraq, Afghanistan....

On the Bush Administration: What hell hath these fuckers wrought? Bastards.

Okay, enough Tourette's-like outbursts for the day.

Cool beans, our Summer Holiday is just around the corner

Starting to get excited about Laduree macarons in Paris, coffeeshop snooping in Amsterdam, and guezes and lambics in Brussels.

Loading up on DVDs and bribes for the long flights for the boy. Going to see Colin on our three hour layover in DC. We'll have a wander around the Smithsonian's storage hangar near Dulles and raise a pint or six.

Have fallen into the abyss that is Facebook. It is a bit like taking care of a tomogochi virtual self. The Ghost of Hong Kong 1997 is extremely well represented there. Actually, it's been fun to catch up with these friends and to have my virtual self play with their virtual selves.

Pino Pies

Took our third delivery of pies from our local Pino Pies. They are still amazing. Steak and Guinness, Bacon and Egg, and Veg are our favorites. They even do mail order now, too.

2007 Camp

 
It was fun. Lovely. I stressed out over dumb things. I got the chance to go on a few walks, one by myself, and it was awesome. Michelle made some fantastic gin fizzes (I can still hear the sound of ice in the shaker) the first night. Matt picked out a lovely spot by Cottonwood Creek to pitch the tent. We drank and ate and slept well.

McLeod Camp - Cottonwood Creek

There is a group camp in the White Mountains this weekend. I have had some dread about it. Getting to camp involves a 2 mile hike in or a few technical moves in a high clearance 4 wheel drive vehicle.

Matt and Mark are going in today, and folks are going to stream in over the weekend. If one car gets caught in a rut or breaks an axle, all cars kind of get stuck where they are until the disabled car gets winched out. I keep thinking it's going to be me who gets stuck or worst, one of our friends with a more expensive truck with a carload of wains. Not fatal, but a real bummer for everyone.

My lovely in-laws have offered to caravan with me and the boy. We'll park up at the start of the hard 4 wheel drive bit and have a look at the two moves we have to make and decide whether to leg it or to drive it. (I'm actually looking forward to some hiking. The hips feel good. Did some goofy dancing at the brewsapalooza (Mammoth's own beer/blues festival) last weekend.

I got crabby at Matt because I felt that he was leaving me and the boy to our own devices in the backcountry. I guess it's just a matter of comfort level and mine is mighty small when it comes to driving down a one track, severely rutted, steep, and slippy road, with only a 2 year old as another set of eyes. To his credit, Matt said he intended to meet us at the technical bit and get us down.

To be continued.