Hi everyone,
How’s my condition
I finally came back to California. On September 11, my sister drove Mom and myself down. They returned on Thursday this week. I’ll be here thru October 3. Then I’ll return to Portland for my mother’s birthday on October 5. It’s the big 1-0-0.
Lots of projects in California need to get done. They got skipped while I’d been less than conscious for those six months in Oregon. And a plethora of friends deserve thanks for watching out for me while I was absent, and for keeping in communication while I was indisposed. How lucky I am to have such friends. As one example, this week I received a long letter from Liang Juan, my enthusiastic former ping pong partner from Hunan.
My body continues to heal from the chemotherapy. I’ll take more tests next month and the month after that to see if the tumors are growing again (quite possible) and how slowly they’re growing (likely slowly, but we’ll have to wait and see.)
My hair is beginning to grow again, though l still look a lot like Nosferatu. I should have taken up Kaiser’s offer of a wig, even though I’ve never worn one before. Surprisingly, the numbness in my toes has faded quite a bit! Maybe it will eventually fade away, despite the doctor’s prognosis!! My memory is improving, though it’s still nowhere near as strong as it was a year ago. I maintain hope, however. I can balance on one foot again, at least briefly. I feel mostly confident driving my beloved Civic and my Prius. And today I walked a mile around the high school (too much puffing, though)
But don’t anyone do what I did — leave a Prius garaged for six months. The twelve-volt battery was dead and it was really complex to get everything started again. I’m still working on getting the timer working on the charger. One of my neighbors has volunteered to take the car out for a spin the next time I’m out of town for awhile.
I was so preoccupied with the debilitated Prius that, when I descended the stairs from the bedrooms to the living room, I forgot to keep track of which step I was on. Skipping the lowest step, I launched myself into the air, and seemed to float there for a moment. Then I lost altitude, and slammed onto the floor along my right side, sounding a housing “boom.” I was thrilled – no pain and only a small sore spot that only lasted a day. It’s nice that something about my body is still sturdy.
Craziness
We in America are entering the political season again, which means a crescendo of nonsense, which used to end on election day, which is November 8 this year, but who knows.
Political season in Portland featured lots of TV commercials, endlessly repeated, not only for Oregon candidates and issues, but for Washington State as well. It’s a double whammy. In California, the deluge of adverts is not as overwhelming. Everybody already knows which party will likely win, so they don’t waste money on TV ads that try to persuade the unpersuadables.
Meanwhile, it’s a relief to have a President (Biden)who acts like one, who gets things done for ordinary people. (I don’t mean to sound like a political ad, but it’s so often on my mind.)
Yeah, Biden’s initially good poll numbers sank while we were evacuating Afghanistan, which was a tragic mess. It still is. But the question, to me, is whether it could realistically have been done with any less mayhem. I suspect not. Three previous administrations had avoided withdrawing, each knowing that they’d be blamed for the resulting tragedy. Biden was willing to shoulder that inevitable mess as well as the blame. That took guts, I think. Of course there wasn’t much of an alternative except for staying in Afghanistan literally forever. And people here did not want to stay forever. In the end, it was one of the largest air-evacuation operations in history — 122,000 people evacuated in just a short time.
I’m also happy to see our country taking a leadership role in NATO again, after the former guy did everything he could to split it apart. We (and the other members) cannot operate in this world alone. We need friends and allies. The present President understands that. while the authoritarians of the world, including the former guy, only understand how to “divide and conquer” and that chaos and dissension are the pathways to authoritarian rule.
Meanwhile, after only two years, we have already had one of the most legislatively consequential administrations in generations. Most of the new laws were passed with only Democratic support, but some passed with some Republican support. I didn’t think Biden and the Democrats would be able to pull that off. It goes to show the value of experience, and of having been a part of government for so long. Legislative high points include:
- The American Rescue Plan, which spent lots of money on both individuals and organizations to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. It lifted millions of kids out of poverty. So we exited the pandemic in better shape than most countries.
- The bipartisan infrastructure bill, which funds repairs and extensions to roads and other infrastructure. It’s the largest construction bill since the Eisenhower administration’s Interstate highway system.
- The bipartisan CHIPS act boosts domestic semiconductor production, making us less dependent on foreign sources for vital chips.
- The modest, bipartisan gun reform law. It was all that they could get passed because of Republican obstruction, but it’s still the most significant measure in decades.
- The Inflation Reduction Act will control some prescription drug costs, fix Obamacare’s subsidy cliff, and make healthcare more affordable for seniors, and for military veterans, in addition to being the most extensive measures ever for fixing the environmental problems that are the threat to human existence.
- Minimum tax on billionaires and large corporations that coordinates with similar measures in most other countries. The idea is to reduce the number of tax havens around the world by not pitting countries against each other in granting tax breaks to attract businesses.
And these are just the legislative highlights – most of these are bundles of various measures. In comparison, the previous guy’s most important (and I think the only major) legislative accomplishment was permanent tax cuts for the rich and temporary tax cuts for the middle class (which will expire over the next few years.)
Besides the legislative accomplishments, Biden fixed the vaccine rollout and got us to a post-COVID normal. Job creation went booming. (Unemployment is 3.5 percent, and job creation is at record levels) Inflation, especially in some key areas like gasoline, is still a problem, like it is around the world. My own opinion is that it will disappear over the next couple of years. It was a risk taken by passing the Rescue plan, as well as engaging with Russia over Ukraine.
Biden also started a process of providing more access to higher education, first by forgiving a lot of student debt, mainly to middle class and working class students, and not just for STEM students, but also for those getting job training, technical or otherwise. This is something I very much believe in, if only because I want to be fair. After all, I attended the University at Davis for many years, and for the last few I was easily able to support myself with summer jobs and working in the campus library and a pomology lab. The younger generation should have the same opportunity, the same breaks, as me. It’s only fair. And I’m happy to extend the benefits to jobs training. Those who eschew the academic track should benefit, too.
Oh,and then there’s this:
Biden got Mexico to build a virtual electronic wall along the border. Yes, Mexico paid for it.
Problems still exist, but Biden’s and the Democratic Congress’s accomplishments are many, and I don’t understand why he and they aren’t given more credit for them in the media.
Non-craziness
I once had a therapist from Kaiser, with whom I met weekly, starting a little before Covid was unleashed, and continuing until she finally departed Kaiser last January. On more than one occasion, she looked me in the eye and said, “You’re a good man. A good man. So it’s okay to be open with people to tell them how you really feel about them. You’re not going to hurt them.” Okay. So I practiced being more open with the therapist and later with my friend in Tokyo, as well. Well, the friend in Tokyo seems to have fled. Oh, well. But I have to say I enjoyed somebody besides my mother emphatically calling me a “good man.”
Nowadays I’m practicing being more open with my former church colleague and friend Doug in Berkeley and my former high school bandmate Eileen. When I told her that I tended to compartmentalize my life and make the compartments separately private, she declared, “You keep them under lock and key.” Eileen knows me better than almost anybody, so of course she was right. On the other hand, there are reasons why I grew to be like that. This picture of me, from 1981, seems to capture all the different aspects that I carry around all the time. Flinging them off might be intensely liberating.
Still, I could hardly believe that Eileen and Mark had never met Jim and Karen. These two couples are four of the most significant people in my life, yet I had kept them lock and key apart from each other, even though they live just a few miles from each other. I often say that I have lots of friends, but they are located on different continents. Maybe it’s also that I have made little effort to bring them together, and instead let a separate part of me go along with each one, and keeping them all private.
I’d like to work on somehow bringing disparate friends together. Yeah, maybe they’re on separate continents but they are truly remarkable people, each and every one. And maybe the effort will help me reintegrate my own self, as well.
Anyway, recently, with Doug and Eileen’s help I’m rediscovering how much I love and miss Ireland, particularly my friend Moira, but also Noel, and Steve and Ger, and Jean, and of course Bernie and Eamonn, who no longer live together or in Ireland, but in Sacramento. Reflecting about Ireland has stirred up a deep but sweet pool of mourning and regret, as it didn’t work out for me to remain there. Well, I’m hoping that the pain is actually a healing process, which Doug and Eileen can help me work out.
YouTube
Meanwhile, I tear up every time I hear the Irish singers Paul Brady and Maura O’Connell, whose music I associate so thoroughly with those 40 shades of green.
Here’s Paul Brady, with two pieces in his older traditional Irish style and four in his later more contemporary style. He’s still the voice of Ireland.
It’s a love song set in Louisiana with an Irish accent
It’s the story of two young Irishmen meeting British army recruiters one day on the beach.
Life is wonderful. Reach out and eat the peach.
A wistful tune about the unanswered questions of life.
Get away from it all with a trip to Havana, Cuba.
“The Island” is especially deep, with complex lyrics, a song set in Paul Brady’s native Northern Ireland during the “troubles.”
I once saw Maura O’Connell in concert in a small venue in Cork, where she was brilliant. Not long after that she headed to Nashville.
It cheerfully reminds me of those many “Irish Blessings”
This one is one the most luscious romantic ballads that you’ll ever hear. And the way she sings it is powerful. It brings me to tears every time.
So I tear up and wonder sometimes if Moira and my other friends are also still listening to Paul Brady and Maura O’Connell these days.
The de rigueur elephant video from South Africa.
This time it’s a compendium of previously shown emotional moments in the baby Khanyisa’s life.
Be well, everyone. I’m so glad to say that you are my friends. Know that when I talk about you to other people, they invariably comment that I’m so lucky.