Today would have been my dad's 74th birthday.
My strategy for getting through the process of laying him to rest was largely to not deal with the matter on an emotional level, but rather to avoid dealing with it as much as possible, and just get through the process. I process things primarily over time, in story form, and so this post will be my way of processing through the experience.
Consequently, I issue the following warning: this post may well be unreadable.
Now, I *never* guarantee readability in my posts; this blog serves as my written memory, and hence is really organized only for me. LJ mocked me a few days ago, saying she could quote precisely how long I napped for on the Cabo trip. OK, fair point, I may have gone a little overboard on the petty details in those posts, and probably do in my posts in general, but again- this is my memory, and you plumb it at your own peril.
Still, I feel compelled in this case to warn you that this post in particular may be unreadable, even in comparison to whatever its baseline level of unreadability is. So, you really should stop reading. Now. Seriously, stop. Quit reading. This instant.
Okay, fine.
Have it your way.
You were warned.
You brought this on yourself.
Don't blame me.
It is odd to think that, at age 37, I will shortly be the age that my father was at the point of my earliest memory of him. Parents always seem godlike when you're a little kid, and it weird to try and reconcile that image of godlike power with how totally clueless about life I feel right now.
Because my father was raised in India, he carried with him a certain set of expectations for how his oldest son would behave. My mom noted in her eulogy that my dad tried to live out his failed dreams through his children. I think I can credibly claim that this burden fell most heavily on me, due to an Indian cultural expectation of filial piety, especially from the oldest son.
Consequently, since his dream had always been to be a doctor, my childhood was sprinkled with things like Fisher Price doctor sets, with toy stethoscopes, etc., and trips to the hospital where he worked. He was never a chatty guy, but he did drop hints about medical school. Bear in mind that these memories are occurring when I was in the 4-8 year old range.
When I was approximately 7, my dad decided to give me a leg up on medical school by teaching me chemistry. He had an office in the house, and I would study the periodic table while he worked there, and he would quiz me on it. By the end of 2nd grade, I had memorized most of the table, including names, symbols, and atomic numbers. Later, I discovered that all the other boys had spent time with their dads doing things like learning to throw a ball, but at the time I assumed that everyone was learning the periodic table.
It was also during this time, hanging out in my dad's home office, listening to Haydn all day, that I began one of my most ambitious projects: writing down all the numbers. In order. In neat little columns, page after page.
If I had to boil my entire life down to one observation, it's that I was somewhere in the 12 thousands before I concluded that it might be time to abandon this project.
When I got a little older, it was time for science fairs. Since my parents were both in medical roles, they had lots of ideas for projects. One year I did a project that had something to do with growing bacteria in cultures, although I've long since forgotten what that one was specifically. Another year, I did one called "Salivary Amylase and Aging." That one probably came from my dad, who did geriatric biochemistry research.
That project featured my wandering around asking people to spit into test tubes, recording their ages, and then taking the samples back and running them through a spectrophotometer to analyze the amount of amylase present. Less amylase makes it harder to digest food, and then hypothesis was that older people produced less amylase, making it harder for them to properly break down food, adversely impacting digestion.
Note that while all we had in the house was one 3000 year old TV that was the size of a refrigerator and was crammed with about a billion vacuum tubes, one or another of which was blowing out approximately every 90 seconds, forcing weekly trips to the Radio Shack to replace them, we had things like functioning spectrophotometers just lying around the house.
All this, of course- the chemistry lessons, the medical research science projects, the doctor sets, the trips to the hospital, was designed to produce a son committed to medicine as a profession. So the most fundamental way in which I disappointed my father was that I never got excited about medicine. I learned the chemistry, but never particularly enjoyed the subject. I played with the doctor sets, but much preferred playing with cars, trucks, and blocks. I did the science projects, but never got particularly excited about them. And I hated being in hospitals. I still do. I hate the look of them, I hate the smell of them, and I especially hate the feel of them. I knew medicine was off the table by the time I was ten, and that really disappointed him.
My dad also had a very specific idea about his role in the family. He seemed to see his role as twofold: being the provider, and being the discipliner. Everything else he left to my mom. Included, therefore, in "everything else" was pretty much all of the housework, and pretty much all of the child-raising. Given that there were 4 of us, that was a fair amount of housework and a fair amount of child-raising. Both I and my sister did a lot of babysitting and childcare while still children ourselves as a result.
One day when I was about ten, while I was watching Saturday morning cartoons and quietly minding my own business, my mom came thundering into the room. Now, mom is usually pretty mellow, so I was caught off guard by her intensity. She reached down, grabbed me by the collar, dragged me to my feet, wagged her finger in my face, and said:
"YOU... are NOT going to be a helpless male like your father!!"
And with that, she dragged me down to the basement and taught me to do laundry. I also learned cooking and cleaning. And, I'm proud to say, I'm not a helpless male like my father apparently was. Although, to this day laundry is by far my least favorite house chore.
In his role as disciplinarian, my father saw justice as something swift, corporal, and not subject to any negotiation or explanation. Once, when I was nine or ten, I was sitting on the front porch as two dudes walked by. Our neighborhood was not particularly good, but we had a fire station on our block and that mitigated some of the effects of the broader area. Still, drugs were fairly rampant, and it turns out that these two dudes were smoking a joint, passing it back and forth between them.
Now, I was still too young to know that's what was going on; it's just obvious in retrospect that that's what was happening. What I observed that day was one of the dudes dropping the joint, and then the other calling him a "bitch" as he stooped to get it, and then both of them guffawing and heading on their way.
What my nine-or-ten year old brain took away from that scene was that "bitch" was a funny thing to call someone. So the next day, at dinner, when my sister was annoying me, I called her a bitch, expecting this to be quite funny. So I was very surprised when an instant later I was decked across the face. My dad played a lot of tennis in his life, and he had a pretty good forehand. Or so I infer, based on how incidents like this one felt.
This is the kind of thing that has, I think, forever saddled me with a certain antipathy toward authority. A simple request not to use the word "bitch", coupled with a short explanation, would have sufficed, but instead I got decked without warning. Authority in our family was heavily concentrated in my dad, and this was how justice was typically meted out. Consequently, I have a very strong reaction to people who exercise authority in ways that seem unjust or arbitrary.
Dinner in our house tended to be relatively early; 6 or 630 typically. I was allowed to play on the block relatively unsupervised, with the expectation that when my mom called out the window that dinner was ready, I'd be close enough to here and come in. And once we finished dinner, I was not allowed to go back outside.
In the summertime, because we ate dinner so early, there was often substantial daylight left after dinner. And JD and Dustin, the two boys on the block that I played with, were both allowed to be out basically until dark. So one day, in the summer before 7th grade, I hit upon the idea of slinking out the back door after dinner was over, thinking I would just play with JD for an hour or so and then come back in. It would still be well before dark, and who would notice?
So, an hour later, when I tried to get back in the back door, I discovered it was locked. We never actually locked the interior door, so I was totally surprised. I tried coming around the front, and that was locked too (which was not surprising). I started to panic a little. I went around back, and was forced to start knocking and yelling. No one came. I stood there pounding on the door and yelling for a while. Our house was not that big, so I knew they could hear me.
Finally, the door opened, and my father stood there, holding a piece of molding that you use when two pieces of paneling meet in the corner. It was fairly thick, yet fairly flexible. I knew I was in big trouble.
Prior to that point, I'd never gotten punished with anything more serious than a belt, but I have to tell you: molding is extremely effective, if causing pain is your goal. It hurt like hell. All the while as he took it to my backside, he yelled at me for violating his rule about not going back outside. Again, no discussion, no opportunity to explain that I had stayed very close to the house, that I was aware they were concerned about my safety and had therefore taken pains to make sure I was back well in advance of dark, etc.
When it was over, he sent me to my room. Not long after that, mom came up to the room. I was quite upset, and she held me and said she wanted me to know that no matter what happened, I could always come home.
I didn't say much at the time, but I often thought about that over the ensuing years, and I remember thinking even that day that I was being given something of a mixed message. I mean, I'd been deliberately locked out, preventing me from coming home even if I wanted to, and then I'd been pretty thoroughly switched, which didn't exactly make coming home seem like the most attractive option in the world.
In his role as a provider, my father was much more successful. He came to this country essentially with nothing, and managed to eventually earn a comfortably middle-class living for his family. But it was a long climb up, and my parents often stressed out a lot about money. But my father was pretty careful to make sure that we kids never saw any of that; they had most of their money talks in the kitchen with the door closed after we had gone to bed. But there was only one bathroom in the house, and it was right next to the kitchen, so over time I learned that if I came downstairs at night and saw the kitchen door closed and the light on, mom and dad were having a Money Talk.
From 6th through 8th grade, I participated in an after-school math program run by an independent group called MEGSSS (Math Enrichment for Gifted Secondary School Students), which was math for super, super geeky kids. It was a 6 year program, and by the time I was in the 3rd year, I was easily the dumbest kid in the class. It was hard, but I loved it, and a lot of the math we did in that class I didn't see again until I was an junior/senior yr math major.
Unfortunately, the program cost money, and it was way the hell out in the county. We only had one car, which my dad let my mom use while he took buses to work every day, and with my sister also getting involved in after school activities, plus my two little brothers, the logistics of keeping me in the program started to look grim.
Plus, year 4 coincided with my beginning high school at SLUH. I had spent the last 2 years at a public magnet school, which obviously helped on the economic front, but the St. Louis public high school system is among the worst in the country, and so I was headed to a private school, which meant significant tuition costs.
One day, as I came down to use the bathroom, I heard my mom and dad having a Money Talk. The subject concerned my continued participation in MEGSSS, how we could possibly afford to keep me in it and high school at the same time, and how, even if we did somehow find the money, we could possibly get me to and from it. I sat outside the door listening for quite some time, and finally heard my dad say, “Well, if he wants to do it, education is important and we’ll just have to find a way.”
A few days after that, my mom approached me to ask me what I thought about MEGSSS, and whether I wanted to sign up again for the 4th year. I loved the program, and knew it was special, but I also knew, from my father’s (as always, totally unspoken) example, that a man provides for his family. Period. To the best of my knowledge, he never once hesitated to make any sacrifice he felt was necessary to provide for us. And so I knew what I had to say:
Me: “Enh, I don’t really care one way or the other. It’s kinda a lot of work, and I don’t know if I’ll have time this year since I’m going to be in high school, and SLUH is supposed to be good.”
Mom: “WHAT? I thought you *liked* MEGSSS!”
Me: “Sure, it’s OK. I mean, I’ve enjoyed it OK. But it’s kinda boring and a lot of work, so it’s OK with me if I don’t attend it.”
With a little more reassurance, my mom was convinced. I still remember how visibly relieved she was at my words. And so I knew I’d done the right thing. It’s the first time I can remember thinking in my head that I needed to be a man.
The second time occurred a little more than a year later.
In my neighborhood, which was relatively poor, I was part of a small group of street urchins that roamed around on our bikes, mostly bored and doing nothing in particular. None of us came from families of any meaningful economic wealth, and so none of us ever carried money around. Nevertheless, we often got hungry during the day, and one thing I learned from the gang was that you could walk into any small convenience store, plunk down 5 cents to buy a piece of gum or something, and walk out with a couple other small items tucked away in your pocket for consumption later. It was something we all did, and none of us referred to it as “stealing.” It was simply “taking.” And it was The Way Things Are.
At the time, if you had asked me if I thought stealing was wrong, I would have looked at you as though you were crazy and said “duh.” But in my 11, 12, 13, 14 year old brain, “taking” was something different. It was The Way Things Are. Our lives went on, the convenience stores’ lives went on, and no one seemed harmed. So I just picked up along the way a bit of a minor shoplifting habit.
When I got to high school, where there weren’t going to be any more subsidized school lunches, I was given an allowance of $10 a week to fund buying any food not originating in the house. Even in 1987, $10 a week was tricky to get 5 lunches a week out of, and I was often hungry by the time I left school. There was a National supermarket just a block away from home, and so I would stop there on the way and often nick something to tide me over until dinner.
Again, if you had asked me if what I was doing was right, I would have shifted around uncomfortably and eventually said “no.” I mean, I knew I would get in trouble if I got caught. But no one ever got caught, and the National was so giant that it would never miss a pack of Starburst, or a Hostess Cinnamon Roll. No one got hurt. Life seemed to just keep on keeping on. It was The Way Things Are.
Plus, by employing this strategy, I got access to much yummier stuff than I could possibly have ever found around the house, where we weren’t even allowed sugared cereal, and even better, this way I never had to ask for any more money. I felt very deeply that asking for any more money represented failure on my part, an unforgivable weakness and inability to sacrifice. So I found a way to replicate the results of sacrifice, without actually doing the sacrificing. Remember, I was using 14-year-old logic: don’t have to ask for more money, get free candy, this is The Way Things Are. That was about the extent of my reflection on the issue. (There’s a good reason 14-year-olds should not be tried as adults.) Anyway, it seemed like a win-win at the time.
Until the day I finally got caught.
I still remember standing there in the baking aisle of the National, surreptitiously sticking a pack of starburst AND a cinnamon roll down my pants while pretending to examine bags of sugar (oh, the irony). As I turned to go, I saw a woman’s head peering around the end of the aisle suddenly vanish. If I had been a smart criminal, I would have immediately divested myself of the stash. But it never occurred to me that there might be plainclothes detectives guarding the store against urchins like me, and I chose to just try hightailing it out of there. I made it halfway out the door before feeling two hands grab me by the collar and yank me back in.
She dragged me into the back office of the National, where there was a uniformed security guard, a giant black man, waiting. They proceeded to do a whole good cop-bad cop routine on me. The woman said she wanted to call the cops and have me sent down to the station, charged with theft, and sent to jail. The security guard said, “You want to send him to jail for trying to steal a piece of candy and a doughnut?” Meanwhile, I was shaking, and so terrified I couldn’t even cry. Jail actually didn’t sound half bad, I remember actually thinking that, because I couldn’t bear to think what would happen when he found out. And very, very deep down, I was ashamed, and couldn’t bear to think what my parents would think of me.
In the end, they just called my house and made my mom come up to the store and get me. She was mortified. As we walked home, she said “I can’t not tell your father about this.” I couldn’t say anything. I was still too ashamed and terrified to say much of anything.
When we got home, she sent me to my room. I waited in there for what seemed like a week, but was probably only an hour or so. I eventually heard my dad come home, walk up the front steps like he always did, hang his coat on the coat rack downstairs, and then open the door to the hallway and head toward the kitchen.
Silence followed.
I started sweating.
Suddenly, I heard the hallway door explode open, slamming into the wall, and I heard my dad hit the steps at a dead run. His feet were hitting the steps hard, and in the couple seconds it took for him to make it up the flight, I thought to myself, “Stand up and take it like a man.” So I stood up from my bed (I had been sitting on the edge), and turned to face the door as it blew open and my dad came running in.
“Dad, I…” I started to say.
And then he gave me a full forehand right across the face. With full forward momentum. It knocked me over onto the bed. Then he set upon me, and for the first few blows I tried to parry a little, but then I just went fetal and absorbed the blows. While he was hitting me, he was yelling at me about how I’d disgraced the family name, and showed no appreciation for the sacrifices he had made.
It’s true what they say, that when something like that is happening, your mind just disengages and goes somewhere else. It’s like it was happening to someone else, and meanwhile I wondered in my mind why he wasn’t asking me *why* I’d done it. It didn’t seem to occur to him at all to inquire as to what I had been thinking. I mean, I knew I’d done something stupid. I was totally ashamed of myself. But even as I’d done something retarded, part of my thought process had actually been to try and be less of a burden on the family. And I wanted to tell him that. But I never got the chance that day.
Eventually, he just tired himself out, I guess. He got up and stalked out, saying only that I’d better not come downstairs, because he didn’t want to see my face. For a long time, I just lay there on the bed, still in the fetal position. I don’t remember anymore how long it was until I started crying.
When that part was over, what remained was anger. I was really pissed off. I was especially pissed that he seemed most concerned about the family name, and not at all about what I might have been thinking. I remember as I lay there vowing never again to do something so foolish- not because he’d told me not to, but rather because I knew that I might have gone to jail, and going to jail would mean jeopardizing my ability to get out of that neighborhood. The other kids in our little group of street urchins, none of them ever graduated high school, and I don’t know if any of them ever made it out of the neighborhood. But my dad had also instilled deep within me the idea that education was the way you bettered yourself, and made a better life for yourself and for your family. And I was determined to get out of that crazy house, out of that crazy neighborhood, and on to some place where no one knew I’d once been a common petty thief. And so I never shoplifted again.
During my junior year, I dated for a while a girl named Dawn. The drama that was my story with Dawn will have to wait for another day, but one Friday night her parents were not coming home, and she invited me to spend the night at her place, presumably as a major tactical move in what was ultimately her failed quest to take my virginity. I did enjoy her attempts, though, and so I agreed. I figured it would be easy; I often spent weekend nights at Plaid’s, and I knew he would cover for me.
Thing is, this was the age before cell phones, and when I got the invitation early that evening, I tried calling over to Plaid’s house. He wasn’t home, so I talked to him mother. I told her to tell Plaid NOT to call my house that night. I even made her repeat exactly the message to give to him, so that I could verify that she had it right.
You can probably see where this is headed.
The next day, when I got home, my dad asked me where I’d been the night before. Which was odd, since I’d told him I was spending the night at Plaid’s, and he’d never asked a follow-up question before. So I repeated my cover story. That’s when he said:
“Well, then why did Plaid call here last night, and then say you weren’t with him? Where the hell were you?”
(pause)
“Uh, I was at Dawn’s.”
I expected at that point that I would have the shit kicked out of me. I braced myself for it. So I was totally caught off guard when all he did was sadly put his face in his hand and mutter:
”I can’t believe you would just lie to me, right to my face. Get out of here- I can’t even look at you.”
I’ll never forget how… disappointed… he looked. He didn’t seem angry at all- just sad. And that made me feel worse than I ever did any of the other times I was ever in trouble. If I had to define a moment in time as the lowest my relationship with him ever was, it would be that moment.
Of course, little more than a year later I graduated from SLUH, and headed off to Pomona College. In part because of the academic performance expectations he and my mom had always set, I did well enough to go to a very good school. I went to Pomona intending to double major in physics and psychology. I enjoyed physics, and my father, grudgingly accepting that I wasn’t going to do pre-med, was willing to compromise and accept the only real second-place career option: a Ph.D. in a hard science. Psychology seemed fairly useless to him, but as long as it didn’t distract from physics he could ignore it.
At Pomona, I was happy in school for the first time since maybe 4th grade. I loved it there. I got involved in a million different things, and slept on average maybe 4 hours a night most of the time, with the occasional crash that caused me to sleep through a morning of classes. There were so many different things I got involved in that I was pretty overextended, and as a result my grades were not especially great- I graduated with a 3.06. So for four years, my dad and I had the same discussion of my college career: he argued that I should stop doing “all that other stuff” and just focus on physics and my grades in that. That conversation was pretty much the only one we had.
As college drew to a close, I applied half-heartedly to physics Ph.D. programs Univ of Washington, UC Davis, Univ of Illinois, and… … one other place that I can’t even remember anymore. Illinois rejected me, then UW rejected me, then UW rejected me a 2nd time a week later with a different letter, as if I hadn’t gotten the message the first time. JOC and I threw a party at our room every time I got rejected, so the upside was that we got 2 parties out of it. Whatever the other place was also rejected me. But then UC Davis accepted me, and even gave me a fellowship. But I decided to defer for a year because I wasn’t actually sure I wanted to do it. Once I actually had an acceptance, I realized that I’d really only applied for a Ph.D. because it was my dad’s expectation.
I wound up selling TV advertising time at Katz in Los Angeles, where I managed to put together a successful sales career, despite having been that kid who was supposed to go out selling candy bars to raise money for my school, and after knocking on 100 doors in the neighborhood, ended up selling exactly 1 candy bar, to my mom, because she felt sorry for me. Integrity and honesty in negotiations turned out to be a primary competitive advantage of mine, and I learned those things from both my parents.
Although he didn’t especially approve of my decision not to go to graduate school, my dad never stopped providing for me. I graduated from college with nothing- no money, no particularly marketable skills, no car, etc. As a graduation present, he gave me the 2nd car, which he had gotten while I was in school. And though I tried hard not to ask for money, and mostly succeeded, I knew he would have given me money without hesitation if I needed it.
It was while I was working at Katz, selling TV advertising time, that my dad had his stroke. It was the week before my birthday, and I had a pretty somber birthday party. I made dinner, and people hung out with me until it was time for me to go to the airport and head to St. Louis.
Everything about my relationship with my dad changed with the stroke. Like many people, I knew intellectually that everyone dies, and consequently, eventually my parents would die, but I was not prepared for this reminder of his mortality. I felt particularly ashamed that our relationship at that point had been virtually nonexistent; I saw him when I came home, and we had the usual conversation that implied that I was wasting my time on the path I was on, but other than that there wasn’t much. And that was really more my fault than his.
In reflecting on the 37-year-long relationship that I had with my father, I don’t know if I will ever stop being disappointed in myself that it took his nearly dying to make me start to truly appreciate him, and to tell him that I loved him. For all his limitations, he loved me honestly, and within the scope of parenting as he understood it, did a good job raising us. Many of my most fundamental qualities, both good (a deep desire to provide for the people I love, virtually irrespective of sacrifice), and bad (a deep-seated inability to articulate the feelings that cause me to want to provide for the people I love), I get from him.
So thank you, dad, for helping make me the person I am today. I will miss you in the years ahead.
I love you.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
HMB Videos
Guest post from Joel:
The last weekend in July produced very nice cloud movement over Half Moon Bay. The beachcam dubs randomly selected tunes over each day's video; sometimes this works well, and sometimes it doesn't. For these three days, it worked very well indeed.
Friday:
Saturday:
Sunday:
The last weekend in July produced very nice cloud movement over Half Moon Bay. The beachcam dubs randomly selected tunes over each day's video; sometimes this works well, and sometimes it doesn't. For these three days, it worked very well indeed.
Friday:
Saturday:
Sunday:
Monday, August 3, 2009
Saying goodbye...
The rest of the story of my father's funeral:
Thursday Mikie arrived in the morning, and Laszlo arrived in the evening. Aside from picking them up, it was a quiet day. A couple family meals together.
Friday morning Keiko arrived, and after checking in at the hotel (because I couldn't ask her to stay with me in the cat-shit-smelling basement, or on the air mattress in Anne's study), we headed to the wake.
I've been to a few wakes, including my grandma's, but I've never had to attend one from start to finish before. 2-3pm was family only, and although it was just an hour, it felt like approximately 3 weeks. At precisely 2:04pm, I turned to Laszlo and said:
"You're in charge of this assuming, God willing, that I go before you. I want cremation. No wake. I will not have anyone going through this on my account. Just put up a picture of me. People get half an hour to be sad, and then start up the dance music, bring out some good food, and then everyone should laugh and tell jokes, and maybe share their favorite story about how I almost got them killed. I'm trusting you on this."
By 2:08, I wanted to run out of the room at full speed. I mean, it's weird to just be there nearly alone in the room with your father's dead body.
Not long after 3, people started to show up. That at least provided distraction. Although I had told few of my StL friends about the wake, because I wasn't thrilled about folks seeing me the way I expected to be at the wake, many people ended up coming, and in retrospect, I'm very glad they did. Talking to people kept me from dwelling on the situation, and I needed that.
The wake lasted until 9, and then we had to help pack things up, so we didn't leave until 930. That's 7.5 hours in the creepy funeral home. Again, NO FUCKING WAY do I want anyone to ever endure that on my account.
From there, we had dinner out at the Drunken Fish in the Central West End. It was pretty good. Mostly sushi, but they had teriyaki chicken for me. Teriyaki chicken is how I survive sushi places.
Saturday morning was the service. We had to be at the church early to help set up for the luncheon afterward, and from there we went across the street to the funeral home (at least it's convenient, even if it is creepy) for the funeral home prayer service. The deacon corralled me into doing one of the readings, which I didn't mind per se, but he asked me right before, which means I didn't have time to read it beforehand. As a result, I didn't feel my cadence properly captured the significance of the passage (the Love is Patient, Love is Kind passage), but people seemed to think it was OK, and between no prep and being something of a wreck, I'm giving myself a pass on that one. But I would have liked to have done a better job of it.
From there, Mikie, Willie, Laszlo, Mikie's best friend Nanna, and I carried the casket out to the car, and drove with it for the 30 seconds it took to get it in front of the church. We carried it into the church, and the service began.
It was a nice service. My mom is extremely active in the church, and so the entire priestly brass turned out, as well as many members of the parish. At the end, my mom stood up to give the eulogy. On some level, I think you had to be there to really feel how amazing the eulogy was, but I will transcribe here her copy of it:
"Mike was born in southern India in 1935 into what would be analogous to a middle class family in the United States. They were neither very rich nor extremely poor. Mike's father worked very hard on plantations to provide a comfortable life for his family.
One of nine children, Mike came from a very devout family rooted in our Catholic tradition. Walking to Mass was part of their daily routine. I don't know much about Mike's childhood except that he was a typical kid: he used to cut classes to go play soccer, and he and his brothers used to sneak out to see movies that their father didn't want them to see.
Although not highly educated himself, Mike's father believed in educating his children, including his daughters. Mike's parents were especially proud of him, since he was the first one from his village to graduate from college. Mike was especially close to his mother, who used to give him privileges that she didn't give to the others.
After receiving his BS in Chemistry, Mike worked in a chemical factory for a couple of years while he tried to figure out a way to come to the United States to go to medical school. In 1963, upon obtaining a student visa and a two-year scholarship from St. Benedict's College in Kansas, Mike came to the United States to take pre-med courses. His dream was to become a physician, return to India, and start a free clinic for the very poor.
After two years at St. Benedict's, his scholarship expired, and no one counseled him on how he could possibly fund medical school. At that point he had two choices: go back to India, or go into a different field of study that would offer him a scholarship. He didn't want to go back to India without a degree; his fear was that everyone would think of him as a failure. Consequently, he got into the master's degree program in organic chemistry at Creighton University with the arrangement that he would teach a lab in exchange for free tuition plus a stipend.
In 1968 he graduated with his master's, and again was faced with going back to India or continuing to go to school. He applied, and was accepted into St. Louis University's Ph.D. program in organic chemistry with financial arrangement similar to Creighton's. In 1970, in order to supplement his stipend, he got a part-time job at St. Louis University Hospital in the chemistry lab where I was working. His job was to set up new procedures. I taught him how to use some of the equipment, and hung around a lot. I wasn't interested in him; I was interested in what he was doing.
Occsionally throughout our marriage, Mike recalled the first time he really noticed me: we were in the elevator together at the hospital and I was wearing black jeans, a red shirt, no make-up, and my hair was in pigtails. Mike didn't like make-up because he thought it was phony. One day, he invited me to shoot a game of pool in the student center. He was rather stunned when I beat him badly, and since Mike didn't like failure, he had to ask me out again to try to beat me. And so our relationship started out as a competitive one.
In 1971, when we decided to get married, Mike wrote to his father informing him that he was marrying an American girl. His father wrote back and said, "You realize that you are breaking 500 years of family tradition." Mike didn't care, but it put the fear of God into me, especially since we were gonig to be married in India. However, I was very grateful and relieved when his parents and siblings accepted me with their characteristically warm Indian hospitality. The thing that really saved me was that I was Catholic.
Mike wanted to show me the beauty of his country, and so we traveled around, starting with Kashmir, where there were gardens and lakes at the base of the Himalayan mountains, then to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, and to Bombay where his sister, who is a Carmelite nun, lived. On the way home, we spend a few wonderful days in Rome. When we got back to the United States, Mike initiated the process of becoming a US citizen. I told him that I was willing to go back to India with him if he wanted to try and start a clinic, but Mike, in his wisdom, said that I wouldn't survive.
Soon after finishing his Ph.D. in 1975, Mike obtained a postdoctoral position at SLU. Subsequently, in 1977, after receiving his citizenship, Mike began working at the VA Medical Center in geriatric research, where he stayed for almost twenty years.
We have been blessed with five loving, beautiful, intelligent children. The reason I say five is that our goddaughter, Anne, has become an integral part of our family, and she has never failed to be tehre when I needed her. Mike tried to live out his broken dream of becoming a physician through our children; however, much to his frustration, none of them wanted to become a doctor.
At some point, I began to go through some personally difficult times that Mike didn't understand, and we began to drift apart, increasingly straining our marriage to the point where we were on the edge of divorce. I wanted with all my heart to be able to role model for our children what it means to be faithful, and I wanted the opportunity to prove to Mike that I would take care of him when he got old because he doubted that I would. I think we both knew that something disabling would happen to him. I remember feeling so disappointed with I thought we would split up and my desires could never be fulfilled. But we both believed very strongly in commitment, and one day, I could feel the power of the Holy Spirit orchestrate a series of events that would begin the process of healing our relationship. Never underestimate the power of God.
Even through the most difficult times, Mike never failed to show his love for me. He would do things like warm up the car in the winter before I drove to work, or stop on his way home from work to pick up a banana split for me. I have often said that no one else on the planet would have put up with me. God has a way of fulfilling our deepest desires that is often beyond our imagining. I always thought that something would happen to Mike, but not when he was so young, and not before the kids were grown.
As most of you know, on May 31st 1996, Mike had a severe stroke leaving him with right side paralysis as well as unable to read, write, or talk. Willie was thirteen, Mikie was fifteen, and Maria had one more year of college to finish. Gus had already graduated from college. I learned in an instant that control is an illusion; we don't have control over our lives.
It has been my privilege to have taken care of Mike during these last 13 years. It is what has given me an underlying peace and joy even during the bumps in the road, and perhaps it has been the most formative time in my spiritual life.
And so Gus, Maria, Dan, Mikie, Nini, Willie, Anne, Laszlo, and Keiko... especially all you young people who have yet to go throught the twists and turns of married life, know that marriage may at times be difficult, but marriage is for keeps, and nothing will give you more peace and joy than being faithful to your commitment: for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.
And Mike, I know that you are here with the angels celebrating life with us. Save me a spot next to you. I love you."
Again, I'm not sure that reading it conveys how powerful it was when my mom delivered it. And I also want to point out that she never once wavered or faltered in any way in delivering it. I always knew my mom was tough; she had to have been to have gotten through the last 13 years, or for that matter, through many of the other things she's experienced in life. And there have been many times when I was impressed by her, or proud of her, etc. But at the end of the eulogy, for the first time ever, I think I was actually in awe of her.
At the conclusion of the service, we again carried the casket, this time down the church steps and into the hearse. Then we went to the graveyard, where there was another short service at the grave. At this one, we were caught off guard by the deacon inviting any of the kids to say anything. Willie got up and gave a nice contrasting eulogy, entirely extemporaneous, which we all wish had somehow been recorded. My brother is, well, a unique character, and whatever else you may think of him, he always lets you know *exactly* what he thinks.
He spoke about not knowing my dad real well, and how he'd learned things about him listening to the eulogy (as had I). He mentioned that my dad kind of kept to himself, hanging out upstairs in his study a lot watching kung fu movies. But he also was always willing to help with homework, and then my brother said we kids were all thankful, and that my mom and dad had done a good job raising us. Then he said -and this is the part I remember well- "My brother Mike is the bravest person I know, my brother Gus is the smartest person I know, my sister Sweetpea is the wisest person I know... and I like to think that I'm the funniest person I know." That got a good laugh, and was really just what was needed at the time.
After that, we all headed back to the church for the luncheon. We were all emotionally exhausted, and hungry, so it was a somewhat subdued lunch, but it was nice to be done with the process. Here are a few pics from the luncheon:
Anne, Willie, mom, me, Mikie. And my sister, in pregnant absentia.
With Laszlo and Nanna...
Me and Keiko
Laszlo, introducing some levity into the mood. And reprising one of our iconic college-era photos.
With grandpa (center) and cousin Joe. We are simple folk, plain and true. And are clearly all exhausted and sick of picture-taking.
After helping break down the luncheon, we headed back to the hotel to change, and while Keiko and Anne did girl errands (beauty store, baby registry shopping for my brother), Laszlo and I got ready to tear down The Dwarf House.
The Dwarf House was a project that Willie had done in carpentry class in high school. It was a one room house just big enough for a small family of dwarves. It had at one point had a functioning electrical system, windows, etc., but over the years had had its windows broken, and was no longer plugged into the main house so lacked any actual electricity. Effectively, it was like a little dwarf meth house, a blight on the property and an eyesore for all the neighbors.
I had been plotting its destruction for a very long time. It took up half the parking pad in the back. And it had been there TEN YEARS. Willie showed no signs of ever doing anything with it, and I was in need of venting some pent-up energy, so I recuited Laszlo, Mikie, and Nanna to systemically destroy The Dwarf House. It took several hours, because it turns out that Willie was very good at carpentry and built the house very, very sturdily. But we did succeed in destroying it completely.
In the evening, we went to dinner at Cunetto's, which is awesome family-style Italian served in ginormous portions. Then we headed back to the hotel, because we were all wiped out. Poor Laszlo had an early morning flight. Keiko left Sunday afternoon. I left Monday morning, emotionally exhausted, but glad to be on the other side of the whole experience.
In the end, it was the support of friends that made the whole experience bearable. Losing a parent is tough, but it was a powerful reminder of how blessed I am to have so many people in my life that care. For that I will always be grateful.
Thursday Mikie arrived in the morning, and Laszlo arrived in the evening. Aside from picking them up, it was a quiet day. A couple family meals together.
Friday morning Keiko arrived, and after checking in at the hotel (because I couldn't ask her to stay with me in the cat-shit-smelling basement, or on the air mattress in Anne's study), we headed to the wake.
I've been to a few wakes, including my grandma's, but I've never had to attend one from start to finish before. 2-3pm was family only, and although it was just an hour, it felt like approximately 3 weeks. At precisely 2:04pm, I turned to Laszlo and said:
"You're in charge of this assuming, God willing, that I go before you. I want cremation. No wake. I will not have anyone going through this on my account. Just put up a picture of me. People get half an hour to be sad, and then start up the dance music, bring out some good food, and then everyone should laugh and tell jokes, and maybe share their favorite story about how I almost got them killed. I'm trusting you on this."
By 2:08, I wanted to run out of the room at full speed. I mean, it's weird to just be there nearly alone in the room with your father's dead body.
Not long after 3, people started to show up. That at least provided distraction. Although I had told few of my StL friends about the wake, because I wasn't thrilled about folks seeing me the way I expected to be at the wake, many people ended up coming, and in retrospect, I'm very glad they did. Talking to people kept me from dwelling on the situation, and I needed that.
The wake lasted until 9, and then we had to help pack things up, so we didn't leave until 930. That's 7.5 hours in the creepy funeral home. Again, NO FUCKING WAY do I want anyone to ever endure that on my account.
From there, we had dinner out at the Drunken Fish in the Central West End. It was pretty good. Mostly sushi, but they had teriyaki chicken for me. Teriyaki chicken is how I survive sushi places.
Saturday morning was the service. We had to be at the church early to help set up for the luncheon afterward, and from there we went across the street to the funeral home (at least it's convenient, even if it is creepy) for the funeral home prayer service. The deacon corralled me into doing one of the readings, which I didn't mind per se, but he asked me right before, which means I didn't have time to read it beforehand. As a result, I didn't feel my cadence properly captured the significance of the passage (the Love is Patient, Love is Kind passage), but people seemed to think it was OK, and between no prep and being something of a wreck, I'm giving myself a pass on that one. But I would have liked to have done a better job of it.
From there, Mikie, Willie, Laszlo, Mikie's best friend Nanna, and I carried the casket out to the car, and drove with it for the 30 seconds it took to get it in front of the church. We carried it into the church, and the service began.
It was a nice service. My mom is extremely active in the church, and so the entire priestly brass turned out, as well as many members of the parish. At the end, my mom stood up to give the eulogy. On some level, I think you had to be there to really feel how amazing the eulogy was, but I will transcribe here her copy of it:
"Mike was born in southern India in 1935 into what would be analogous to a middle class family in the United States. They were neither very rich nor extremely poor. Mike's father worked very hard on plantations to provide a comfortable life for his family.
One of nine children, Mike came from a very devout family rooted in our Catholic tradition. Walking to Mass was part of their daily routine. I don't know much about Mike's childhood except that he was a typical kid: he used to cut classes to go play soccer, and he and his brothers used to sneak out to see movies that their father didn't want them to see.
Although not highly educated himself, Mike's father believed in educating his children, including his daughters. Mike's parents were especially proud of him, since he was the first one from his village to graduate from college. Mike was especially close to his mother, who used to give him privileges that she didn't give to the others.
After receiving his BS in Chemistry, Mike worked in a chemical factory for a couple of years while he tried to figure out a way to come to the United States to go to medical school. In 1963, upon obtaining a student visa and a two-year scholarship from St. Benedict's College in Kansas, Mike came to the United States to take pre-med courses. His dream was to become a physician, return to India, and start a free clinic for the very poor.
After two years at St. Benedict's, his scholarship expired, and no one counseled him on how he could possibly fund medical school. At that point he had two choices: go back to India, or go into a different field of study that would offer him a scholarship. He didn't want to go back to India without a degree; his fear was that everyone would think of him as a failure. Consequently, he got into the master's degree program in organic chemistry at Creighton University with the arrangement that he would teach a lab in exchange for free tuition plus a stipend.
In 1968 he graduated with his master's, and again was faced with going back to India or continuing to go to school. He applied, and was accepted into St. Louis University's Ph.D. program in organic chemistry with financial arrangement similar to Creighton's. In 1970, in order to supplement his stipend, he got a part-time job at St. Louis University Hospital in the chemistry lab where I was working. His job was to set up new procedures. I taught him how to use some of the equipment, and hung around a lot. I wasn't interested in him; I was interested in what he was doing.
Occsionally throughout our marriage, Mike recalled the first time he really noticed me: we were in the elevator together at the hospital and I was wearing black jeans, a red shirt, no make-up, and my hair was in pigtails. Mike didn't like make-up because he thought it was phony. One day, he invited me to shoot a game of pool in the student center. He was rather stunned when I beat him badly, and since Mike didn't like failure, he had to ask me out again to try to beat me. And so our relationship started out as a competitive one.
In 1971, when we decided to get married, Mike wrote to his father informing him that he was marrying an American girl. His father wrote back and said, "You realize that you are breaking 500 years of family tradition." Mike didn't care, but it put the fear of God into me, especially since we were gonig to be married in India. However, I was very grateful and relieved when his parents and siblings accepted me with their characteristically warm Indian hospitality. The thing that really saved me was that I was Catholic.
Mike wanted to show me the beauty of his country, and so we traveled around, starting with Kashmir, where there were gardens and lakes at the base of the Himalayan mountains, then to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, and to Bombay where his sister, who is a Carmelite nun, lived. On the way home, we spend a few wonderful days in Rome. When we got back to the United States, Mike initiated the process of becoming a US citizen. I told him that I was willing to go back to India with him if he wanted to try and start a clinic, but Mike, in his wisdom, said that I wouldn't survive.
Soon after finishing his Ph.D. in 1975, Mike obtained a postdoctoral position at SLU. Subsequently, in 1977, after receiving his citizenship, Mike began working at the VA Medical Center in geriatric research, where he stayed for almost twenty years.
We have been blessed with five loving, beautiful, intelligent children. The reason I say five is that our goddaughter, Anne, has become an integral part of our family, and she has never failed to be tehre when I needed her. Mike tried to live out his broken dream of becoming a physician through our children; however, much to his frustration, none of them wanted to become a doctor.
At some point, I began to go through some personally difficult times that Mike didn't understand, and we began to drift apart, increasingly straining our marriage to the point where we were on the edge of divorce. I wanted with all my heart to be able to role model for our children what it means to be faithful, and I wanted the opportunity to prove to Mike that I would take care of him when he got old because he doubted that I would. I think we both knew that something disabling would happen to him. I remember feeling so disappointed with I thought we would split up and my desires could never be fulfilled. But we both believed very strongly in commitment, and one day, I could feel the power of the Holy Spirit orchestrate a series of events that would begin the process of healing our relationship. Never underestimate the power of God.
Even through the most difficult times, Mike never failed to show his love for me. He would do things like warm up the car in the winter before I drove to work, or stop on his way home from work to pick up a banana split for me. I have often said that no one else on the planet would have put up with me. God has a way of fulfilling our deepest desires that is often beyond our imagining. I always thought that something would happen to Mike, but not when he was so young, and not before the kids were grown.
As most of you know, on May 31st 1996, Mike had a severe stroke leaving him with right side paralysis as well as unable to read, write, or talk. Willie was thirteen, Mikie was fifteen, and Maria had one more year of college to finish. Gus had already graduated from college. I learned in an instant that control is an illusion; we don't have control over our lives.
It has been my privilege to have taken care of Mike during these last 13 years. It is what has given me an underlying peace and joy even during the bumps in the road, and perhaps it has been the most formative time in my spiritual life.
And so Gus, Maria, Dan, Mikie, Nini, Willie, Anne, Laszlo, and Keiko... especially all you young people who have yet to go throught the twists and turns of married life, know that marriage may at times be difficult, but marriage is for keeps, and nothing will give you more peace and joy than being faithful to your commitment: for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.
And Mike, I know that you are here with the angels celebrating life with us. Save me a spot next to you. I love you."
Again, I'm not sure that reading it conveys how powerful it was when my mom delivered it. And I also want to point out that she never once wavered or faltered in any way in delivering it. I always knew my mom was tough; she had to have been to have gotten through the last 13 years, or for that matter, through many of the other things she's experienced in life. And there have been many times when I was impressed by her, or proud of her, etc. But at the end of the eulogy, for the first time ever, I think I was actually in awe of her.
At the conclusion of the service, we again carried the casket, this time down the church steps and into the hearse. Then we went to the graveyard, where there was another short service at the grave. At this one, we were caught off guard by the deacon inviting any of the kids to say anything. Willie got up and gave a nice contrasting eulogy, entirely extemporaneous, which we all wish had somehow been recorded. My brother is, well, a unique character, and whatever else you may think of him, he always lets you know *exactly* what he thinks.
He spoke about not knowing my dad real well, and how he'd learned things about him listening to the eulogy (as had I). He mentioned that my dad kind of kept to himself, hanging out upstairs in his study a lot watching kung fu movies. But he also was always willing to help with homework, and then my brother said we kids were all thankful, and that my mom and dad had done a good job raising us. Then he said -and this is the part I remember well- "My brother Mike is the bravest person I know, my brother Gus is the smartest person I know, my sister Sweetpea is the wisest person I know... and I like to think that I'm the funniest person I know." That got a good laugh, and was really just what was needed at the time.
After that, we all headed back to the church for the luncheon. We were all emotionally exhausted, and hungry, so it was a somewhat subdued lunch, but it was nice to be done with the process. Here are a few pics from the luncheon:
Anne, Willie, mom, me, Mikie. And my sister, in pregnant absentia.
With Laszlo and Nanna...
Me and Keiko
Laszlo, introducing some levity into the mood. And reprising one of our iconic college-era photos.
With grandpa (center) and cousin Joe. We are simple folk, plain and true. And are clearly all exhausted and sick of picture-taking.
After helping break down the luncheon, we headed back to the hotel to change, and while Keiko and Anne did girl errands (beauty store, baby registry shopping for my brother), Laszlo and I got ready to tear down The Dwarf House.
The Dwarf House was a project that Willie had done in carpentry class in high school. It was a one room house just big enough for a small family of dwarves. It had at one point had a functioning electrical system, windows, etc., but over the years had had its windows broken, and was no longer plugged into the main house so lacked any actual electricity. Effectively, it was like a little dwarf meth house, a blight on the property and an eyesore for all the neighbors.
I had been plotting its destruction for a very long time. It took up half the parking pad in the back. And it had been there TEN YEARS. Willie showed no signs of ever doing anything with it, and I was in need of venting some pent-up energy, so I recuited Laszlo, Mikie, and Nanna to systemically destroy The Dwarf House. It took several hours, because it turns out that Willie was very good at carpentry and built the house very, very sturdily. But we did succeed in destroying it completely.
In the evening, we went to dinner at Cunetto's, which is awesome family-style Italian served in ginormous portions. Then we headed back to the hotel, because we were all wiped out. Poor Laszlo had an early morning flight. Keiko left Sunday afternoon. I left Monday morning, emotionally exhausted, but glad to be on the other side of the whole experience.
In the end, it was the support of friends that made the whole experience bearable. Losing a parent is tough, but it was a powerful reminder of how blessed I am to have so many people in my life that care. For that I will always be grateful.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
StL Day 2
Death, it turns out, is surprisingly complicated.
Yesterday we were at the funeral home by 830am to make the arrangements for my dad's funeral. The funeral home is, well, creepy. The people who work there are nice enough, but the affected tone of sympathetic seriousness was annoying me by 10 minutes into the process. I understand why this tone is employed, and I'm sure it's the right one for the vast majority of people, but I personally would have preferred a pragmatic, businesslike approach. But I'm sure most people would perceive that as callous.
Anyway, it turns out that there are a million decisions that have to be made in this process. My mom, who is still somewhat numb/in shock, was not in a place to want to be making lots of decisions about things. So, my cousin and I helped with that as much as we could. A partial list of decisions you have to make is:
- what services do you need the funeral home to provide?
- is there going to be a wake (now apparently referred to as a "visitation")?
- If so, for how long?
- In which room in the funeral home?
- What will the deceased be wearing?
- what flowers (if any) will you have?
- what will happen at the visitation? Do you need any ancillary equipment?
- Is there going to be a church service?
- When will that service be?
- Will there be an obituary?
- If so, what will it say?
- When will it run?
- Who will be pallbearers?
- Should we be picked up at the house or at the church?
- What should the prayer cards look like?
- What should they say?
And then, when you've gotten through a bunch of stuff like that, you get taken down into the basement. For the casket tour.
Ew.
So there you are, in a room full of caskets. In fairness, the guy was good about not pressuring us in any perceptible way, at least not until it came time to decide about a vault. But first, we wandered around the room looking at all these different caskets, and by the end of the tour I was convinced I wanted cremation. Because you wander around the room going "OK, dad isn't going to give a shit which box he's in. But he's my dad. We can't dump him in the ground in any old thing." It can drive you crazy, and I don't want anyone doing a casket tour for me.
In the end, we went with a metal casket, toward the lower end of the price range, but not at the bottom.
Then, The Undertaker starts asking us which kind of vault we want. Not that we have to buy one, of course, but here are all the different types, and why you might want to choose this particular one, or that particular one, or maybe this othe-
"Wait," I said, "Why exactly do we need a vault?"
"Well," says The Undertaker, "technically you don't need one since Michael is going to be buried in a Catholic cemetary, and the Catholics don't require one. But there are a lot of reasons to consider it."
And so he begins with Line of Reasoning #1: the casket will be under 6-8 feet of earth, which is going to put pressure on it. Also, water will slowly eat away at it, until 50 years from now it may be more or less gone completely. I mean, if you think about a car, if you left it outside for 50 years, it'd be pretty much rusted away. A vault will protect the casket from that kind of pressure and slow degradation.
Well, I thought, that's a pretty compelling argument- if my intention is to dig my dad up 50 years from now to say hi, and maybe play a round or two of pinochle. Otherwise, I don't get it. Clearly, the skepticism shows on my face.
So, he goes into Line of Reasoning #2: the dirt that the casket is in will have a tendency to shift over time, especially once it's been dug up and put back in, and the casket may drift. Sealing the casket in a vault will help provide weight and stability that will ensure Michael doesn't end up running into the next grave over.
Hmm. My problems with this line of reasoning include the following: (1) IT'S THE FUCKING GROUND! It's not like the coffins are sloshing around down there like rubber fucking ducks in a bathtub. (2) Even if dad does end up sidling up to Jane Doe in the next grave over, seriously, what the hell else does he have to do down there other than make friends with the neighbors? (3), let's say he does shift 2 feet to the left over the next 50 years. Going back to Line of Reasoning #1, unless we plan to dig him up 50 years from now, WHO THE FUCK IS GOING TO KNOW THAT???
"I'm sorry," I say to The Undertaker, "I'm just having a lot of difficulty understanding what the value is."
So The Undertaker, in a last desperate gambit, reaches for Line of Reasoning #3: well, the movement of the casket over time will disturb the earth at the surface, which will make it harder for the cemetary staff to maintain the grounds. The vault helps the cemetary keep maintenance costs down.
Ah, well gee, that's really persuasive. Why don't we spend a couple thousand dollar's of my mom's fixed income in order to lower the cemetary's cost of operations by $1 a year. At a 10% discount rate, assuming my dad is in the ground from now to infinity, that means the net present value of the additional costs the cemetary will incur because I'm a stubborn, cheap bastard is $10. So I apologize on behalf of my family to all the hundreds of other future people who will someday be buying plots in Resurrection cemetary, since they will be bearing their individual fraction of the $10 in the cost of their plots.
"I don't think we'll be needing a vault, thank you," I say to The Undetaker, "but thanks for explaining the issue."
Trying hard not to show disappointment, he leads us back upstairs, to where it now seems less creepy, thanks to the Casket Room. We finish making all our decisions, and then The Undertaker draws up our invoice. Fortunately, they will take a life insurance policy as collateral, and they file all the necessary paperwork with the life insurance company, which will then pay the funeral home's invoice and send the balance of the policy to my mom.
From there, we picked up my brother Willie and went to Uncle Bill's for some greasy spoon breakfast with mom. That was a nice respite, because from there we had to go to the cemetary.
At the cemetary, you also sit down with someone, in this case an Irish Catholic identical twin with a slightly off-color sense of humor, and he walks you through the million decisions you have to make at the cemetary, which include the following:
- one plot, which coffins eventually stacked, or two plots side-by-side? Or more, if others want to be buried nearby?
- lawn-level stone, or upright monument?
- graveside service, or in a chapel?
- if graveside, tent/chairs or no tent/chairs?
- where in the cemetary? Buying a plot, Mike Finnegan informs us, is like buying a house. Location matters, and significantly impacts pricing.
"Can we buy some plots and flip them? Or has the market for that tanked too?" Fortunately, I say this only inside my own head. By the way, is how I survive situations like this.
So we pile into "the company van" and get a tour of the cemetary, to see where single plots are available (we decided a single plot with my mom eventually going in on top). The first place looks decent enough, though it's the cheapest area since the road and the railroad tracks are right there. We keep moving.
The second place is also close to the railroad tracks. It's slightly more expensive since the road isn't right there. Mike tells us not to worry about the wooden temporary road thingy just to our left; the railroad accident that dumped toxic chemicals was right over there a couple weeks ago, and that wooden road is for the workers to get in and out of the area as they continue their cleanup.
A lot of this whole dying process seems silly, but I do draw the line at agreeing to bury my father (and eventually mother) in a Superfund site. Suddenly, being anywhere near the tracks is not attractive. We keep moving.
Eventually, we've made a circuit of the whole grounds, and we decide to go for a plot in the interior near a bunch of cops, former military, and local small businesspeople. A very middle-class neighborhood, not obviously near the site of any future hazardous chemical spills. We go back to the office, draw up all the paperwork, and pay. We leave the cemetary, and realize that we forgot to deal with the flowers at the funeral home, and head back there.
I am not thrilled to be back at the creepy funeral home, and am not looking forward to spending 7 hours there on Friday (family visitation 2-3, public visitation 3-9). The Undertaker brings us a book of flower arrangements to have at the visitation, and that's kind of where I shut down.
"OK," I say to Mom and Anne, "I just want to set expectations here by saying that I do not expect to have anything useful to add in the way of choosing flowers, and I'm looking to you guys to take the lead on this one."
In retrospect, I suppose I should have manned up a little more there, but I was tired of making decisions, and so were they, and so we ended up pretty much going with what was on the first page, which was a bunch of white roses and stuff. I know dad wouldn't care less, and I think all of us were headed that way quickly.
Flowers chosen, we headed out of there. All of us were in need of a nap. I hoped to take one, but ended up answering work emails and stuff online until it was time to take mom to dinner. We had great Vietnamese back in the neighborhood I grew up in, and then dropped mom off at home. Plaid came by and picked me up, and we went to Ted Drewes for the best frozen custard on earth. Our friend Janet met us, and we ended up trading stories in the parking lot of Ted Drewes until 2am. A long day, but a good way to finish it.
Now, we're off to go pick up my brother Mikie from the airport. Always an adventure with him, so the family fun will begin in earnest soon...
Yesterday we were at the funeral home by 830am to make the arrangements for my dad's funeral. The funeral home is, well, creepy. The people who work there are nice enough, but the affected tone of sympathetic seriousness was annoying me by 10 minutes into the process. I understand why this tone is employed, and I'm sure it's the right one for the vast majority of people, but I personally would have preferred a pragmatic, businesslike approach. But I'm sure most people would perceive that as callous.
Anyway, it turns out that there are a million decisions that have to be made in this process. My mom, who is still somewhat numb/in shock, was not in a place to want to be making lots of decisions about things. So, my cousin and I helped with that as much as we could. A partial list of decisions you have to make is:
- what services do you need the funeral home to provide?
- is there going to be a wake (now apparently referred to as a "visitation")?
- If so, for how long?
- In which room in the funeral home?
- What will the deceased be wearing?
- what flowers (if any) will you have?
- what will happen at the visitation? Do you need any ancillary equipment?
- Is there going to be a church service?
- When will that service be?
- Will there be an obituary?
- If so, what will it say?
- When will it run?
- Who will be pallbearers?
- Should we be picked up at the house or at the church?
- What should the prayer cards look like?
- What should they say?
And then, when you've gotten through a bunch of stuff like that, you get taken down into the basement. For the casket tour.
Ew.
So there you are, in a room full of caskets. In fairness, the guy was good about not pressuring us in any perceptible way, at least not until it came time to decide about a vault. But first, we wandered around the room looking at all these different caskets, and by the end of the tour I was convinced I wanted cremation. Because you wander around the room going "OK, dad isn't going to give a shit which box he's in. But he's my dad. We can't dump him in the ground in any old thing." It can drive you crazy, and I don't want anyone doing a casket tour for me.
In the end, we went with a metal casket, toward the lower end of the price range, but not at the bottom.
Then, The Undertaker starts asking us which kind of vault we want. Not that we have to buy one, of course, but here are all the different types, and why you might want to choose this particular one, or that particular one, or maybe this othe-
"Wait," I said, "Why exactly do we need a vault?"
"Well," says The Undertaker, "technically you don't need one since Michael is going to be buried in a Catholic cemetary, and the Catholics don't require one. But there are a lot of reasons to consider it."
And so he begins with Line of Reasoning #1: the casket will be under 6-8 feet of earth, which is going to put pressure on it. Also, water will slowly eat away at it, until 50 years from now it may be more or less gone completely. I mean, if you think about a car, if you left it outside for 50 years, it'd be pretty much rusted away. A vault will protect the casket from that kind of pressure and slow degradation.
Well, I thought, that's a pretty compelling argument- if my intention is to dig my dad up 50 years from now to say hi, and maybe play a round or two of pinochle. Otherwise, I don't get it. Clearly, the skepticism shows on my face.
So, he goes into Line of Reasoning #2: the dirt that the casket is in will have a tendency to shift over time, especially once it's been dug up and put back in, and the casket may drift. Sealing the casket in a vault will help provide weight and stability that will ensure Michael doesn't end up running into the next grave over.
Hmm. My problems with this line of reasoning include the following: (1) IT'S THE FUCKING GROUND! It's not like the coffins are sloshing around down there like rubber fucking ducks in a bathtub. (2) Even if dad does end up sidling up to Jane Doe in the next grave over, seriously, what the hell else does he have to do down there other than make friends with the neighbors? (3), let's say he does shift 2 feet to the left over the next 50 years. Going back to Line of Reasoning #1, unless we plan to dig him up 50 years from now, WHO THE FUCK IS GOING TO KNOW THAT???
"I'm sorry," I say to The Undertaker, "I'm just having a lot of difficulty understanding what the value is."
So The Undertaker, in a last desperate gambit, reaches for Line of Reasoning #3: well, the movement of the casket over time will disturb the earth at the surface, which will make it harder for the cemetary staff to maintain the grounds. The vault helps the cemetary keep maintenance costs down.
Ah, well gee, that's really persuasive. Why don't we spend a couple thousand dollar's of my mom's fixed income in order to lower the cemetary's cost of operations by $1 a year. At a 10% discount rate, assuming my dad is in the ground from now to infinity, that means the net present value of the additional costs the cemetary will incur because I'm a stubborn, cheap bastard is $10. So I apologize on behalf of my family to all the hundreds of other future people who will someday be buying plots in Resurrection cemetary, since they will be bearing their individual fraction of the $10 in the cost of their plots.
"I don't think we'll be needing a vault, thank you," I say to The Undetaker, "but thanks for explaining the issue."
Trying hard not to show disappointment, he leads us back upstairs, to where it now seems less creepy, thanks to the Casket Room. We finish making all our decisions, and then The Undertaker draws up our invoice. Fortunately, they will take a life insurance policy as collateral, and they file all the necessary paperwork with the life insurance company, which will then pay the funeral home's invoice and send the balance of the policy to my mom.
From there, we picked up my brother Willie and went to Uncle Bill's for some greasy spoon breakfast with mom. That was a nice respite, because from there we had to go to the cemetary.
At the cemetary, you also sit down with someone, in this case an Irish Catholic identical twin with a slightly off-color sense of humor, and he walks you through the million decisions you have to make at the cemetary, which include the following:
- one plot, which coffins eventually stacked, or two plots side-by-side? Or more, if others want to be buried nearby?
- lawn-level stone, or upright monument?
- graveside service, or in a chapel?
- if graveside, tent/chairs or no tent/chairs?
- where in the cemetary? Buying a plot, Mike Finnegan informs us, is like buying a house. Location matters, and significantly impacts pricing.
"Can we buy some plots and flip them? Or has the market for that tanked too?" Fortunately, I say this only inside my own head. By the way, is how I survive situations like this.
So we pile into "the company van" and get a tour of the cemetary, to see where single plots are available (we decided a single plot with my mom eventually going in on top). The first place looks decent enough, though it's the cheapest area since the road and the railroad tracks are right there. We keep moving.
The second place is also close to the railroad tracks. It's slightly more expensive since the road isn't right there. Mike tells us not to worry about the wooden temporary road thingy just to our left; the railroad accident that dumped toxic chemicals was right over there a couple weeks ago, and that wooden road is for the workers to get in and out of the area as they continue their cleanup.
A lot of this whole dying process seems silly, but I do draw the line at agreeing to bury my father (and eventually mother) in a Superfund site. Suddenly, being anywhere near the tracks is not attractive. We keep moving.
Eventually, we've made a circuit of the whole grounds, and we decide to go for a plot in the interior near a bunch of cops, former military, and local small businesspeople. A very middle-class neighborhood, not obviously near the site of any future hazardous chemical spills. We go back to the office, draw up all the paperwork, and pay. We leave the cemetary, and realize that we forgot to deal with the flowers at the funeral home, and head back there.
I am not thrilled to be back at the creepy funeral home, and am not looking forward to spending 7 hours there on Friday (family visitation 2-3, public visitation 3-9). The Undertaker brings us a book of flower arrangements to have at the visitation, and that's kind of where I shut down.
"OK," I say to Mom and Anne, "I just want to set expectations here by saying that I do not expect to have anything useful to add in the way of choosing flowers, and I'm looking to you guys to take the lead on this one."
In retrospect, I suppose I should have manned up a little more there, but I was tired of making decisions, and so were they, and so we ended up pretty much going with what was on the first page, which was a bunch of white roses and stuff. I know dad wouldn't care less, and I think all of us were headed that way quickly.
Flowers chosen, we headed out of there. All of us were in need of a nap. I hoped to take one, but ended up answering work emails and stuff online until it was time to take mom to dinner. We had great Vietnamese back in the neighborhood I grew up in, and then dropped mom off at home. Plaid came by and picked me up, and we went to Ted Drewes for the best frozen custard on earth. Our friend Janet met us, and we ended up trading stories in the parking lot of Ted Drewes until 2am. A long day, but a good way to finish it.
Now, we're off to go pick up my brother Mikie from the airport. Always an adventure with him, so the family fun will begin in earnest soon...
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Sometimes, you're just having a day...
Yesterday, about 5 minutes before I was to walk out of my office to drive down to Mountain View to teach my pro bono GMAT class, I got a call from my sister.
"Dad just died," she said. She was as upset as I've ever heard her.
Me, I went instantly numb. That's my reflexive response to anything like that. We hung up, and I listened to my voicemails. Sure enough, mom had called 15 minutes prior, while I'd been on the phone with a new family we're going to be working with. The message was nearly two minutes of my mom sounding really freaked out while talking to what I presume were the 911 paramedics, before finally realizing that she'd been talking into my voicemail and telling me to call her right away.
That's a great message to listen to.
Without a way to get in touch with the students in my class, I just went down there and taught. On the way, I spoke briefly with mom, who had left the house for a couple of hours and come back to find my dad on the floor without a pulse. She called 911 and they tried to resuscitate him, but couldn't.
I told Joel the news, and he volunteered to do the research and buy my plane ticket to StL while I taught the class. I pushed them extra hard, since I knew that at the end I'd be canceling our Wed class. I opted not to tell them anything until the end because I didn't want it to distract from our focus. They're good kids, and they need all the help they can get on this test. They're the kids in Google's minority intern program.
After class, I headed back to the office to get everything put together to leave for the students that I'd now have to cancel lessons with for the rest of the week. I left the office around 11, and picked up Joel. He volunteered to drive while I was on the phone with Laszlo.
On the drive home, the power steering went out on the car.
That's a bit of a problem, since we live on the other side of a coastal mountain range, whose one road over is super windy. Steering a 2.5-ton vehicle with no hydraulic assist is a real pain. The car was scheduled to go in Wed morning anyway, since at least one of the bearings is failing, but Joel and I switched and I got us home while negotiating the turns as best I could.
Joel had gotten me a ticket out of Oakland at 6am. While the original plan had been for him to drive me to Oakland, in light of the failing steering we decided to drop me at the Daly City BART. The plan to get to the Oakland airport via public transportation involved the following:
1) leave the house at 330am
2) catch the 409am Bay point train at Daly city
3) catch the 438am Fremont train at Oakland city center
4) catch the 5am shuttle from Oakland coliseum to the airport
Since we got home around midnight, for the next 3.5 hours I sent the remaining emails I needed in order to be able to keep everything with work running for 5 days, and also cleaned the house and my room. Shara and her band of HS Latin phenoms is coming out to CA this weekend for her birthday and a Latin conference. They're all staying at the beachhouse. We've been planning this for months. Unfortunately, now I won't be there when they come. And I had scheduled all the cleaning for Thursday night. But I had to get it all done, and have the place in shape for her to stay there without my being there.
Then it was time to head to the airport. I drove us to Daly City, and got there at 408am. Fortunately, I managed to scamper onto the train just before the doors shut. I got to Oakland city center just as scheduled, but the 438 train was 10 minutes late. That meant not making the 5am shuttle, but we'd anticipated that, and the 520am shuttle would still get me there at 535am, which should be enough time to get to the gate, since Oakland is a small airport and Joel had checked me in.
But then, somewhere along the line, the train just stopped. The operator came on and said there was a maintenance crew on the tracks and we wouldn't be able to move until they were out of the way. However, he assured us, that would only be 2-3 minutes.
20 minutes later, the train started moving again. I missed the 520am shuttle.
That meant catching the 540am shuttle, which got me to the airport at 555am. For a 605am flight. I ran through the airport, flew through security, ran down the hall, and got to the gate at 603am. And saw a line of people at the gate. "Yes!", I thought, "The plane is delayed!"
Turns out, it was delayed because something was wrong with the landing gear. Not a good sign. And sure enough, about an hour later they announced that the flight was canceled. And what's more, the 730 and 10am flights were all full. Since this was Delta, everything routed through Salt Lake City, and for some reason it was a busy day flying from Oakland.
So, they sent us all back out to the ticket counter. Eventually I worked my way up to the head of the line, and the woman there got me booked on a 1210pm flight out of San Jose airport, routing through Minneapolis, and arriving in StL at 9pm, rather than 130pm. I was not happy.
What's more, San Jose airport is nowhere close to Oakland, so they gave me a voucher for a shuttle to San Jose. I went outside, where it was foggy and cold as shit, and shivered waiting for my shuttle. 3 came and went, but all were going to SFO, not San Jose. After an hour of shivering, I was ready to bully my way onto the next SFO shuttle and take the CalTrain from there to San Jose. But then the San Jose shuttle finally arrived.
I got to San Jose in plenty of time, but then that flight ended up delayed. The flight itself was uneventful, but because of the delay I ended up in Minneapolis with 10 minutes to get from G concourse to C concourse to make my connection to StL. Once again I was running through an airport. Halfway across the airport, I glanced up at the departure screen as I was rushing by and saw that *that* flight was also delayed. Now that Delta and Northwest airlines are the same, it appears we can safely assume that Delta will be following Northwest's operational strategy of never actually having a flight depart on time, ever. Though, to be fair, in this case it benefited me.
I walked the rest of the way to the gate, and discovered that the inbound plane was delayed because of weather en route, and we didn't know when it would arrive. It ended up being about an hour and a half late, and we made up a little of that en route to StL.
Departure time, my house in HMB: 330am PST
Arrival time, Cousin Anne's in StL: 11pm CST
Total door-to-door trip time to get across 2 lousy time zones: 17.5 hours.
If you think about it, the problem was that I let Joel plan the trip to Oakland airport, which means he planned for plenty of time (2.5 hours), and even tried to bake in something going wrong. Regular readers of this blog know what happens when I attempt to arrive at the airport in a responsible, early fashion: unmitigated disaster. This trip was certainly no exception.
So now, I've been up almost 40 hours with just 2 crappy hours of sleep on the flight from San Jose. In the morning we go to the funeral home to make all the arrangements for the service and such. But now, I must pass out. Thus far, my strategy of not processing the actual event is working. We'll see how long I can keep it up.
"Dad just died," she said. She was as upset as I've ever heard her.
Me, I went instantly numb. That's my reflexive response to anything like that. We hung up, and I listened to my voicemails. Sure enough, mom had called 15 minutes prior, while I'd been on the phone with a new family we're going to be working with. The message was nearly two minutes of my mom sounding really freaked out while talking to what I presume were the 911 paramedics, before finally realizing that she'd been talking into my voicemail and telling me to call her right away.
That's a great message to listen to.
Without a way to get in touch with the students in my class, I just went down there and taught. On the way, I spoke briefly with mom, who had left the house for a couple of hours and come back to find my dad on the floor without a pulse. She called 911 and they tried to resuscitate him, but couldn't.
I told Joel the news, and he volunteered to do the research and buy my plane ticket to StL while I taught the class. I pushed them extra hard, since I knew that at the end I'd be canceling our Wed class. I opted not to tell them anything until the end because I didn't want it to distract from our focus. They're good kids, and they need all the help they can get on this test. They're the kids in Google's minority intern program.
After class, I headed back to the office to get everything put together to leave for the students that I'd now have to cancel lessons with for the rest of the week. I left the office around 11, and picked up Joel. He volunteered to drive while I was on the phone with Laszlo.
On the drive home, the power steering went out on the car.
That's a bit of a problem, since we live on the other side of a coastal mountain range, whose one road over is super windy. Steering a 2.5-ton vehicle with no hydraulic assist is a real pain. The car was scheduled to go in Wed morning anyway, since at least one of the bearings is failing, but Joel and I switched and I got us home while negotiating the turns as best I could.
Joel had gotten me a ticket out of Oakland at 6am. While the original plan had been for him to drive me to Oakland, in light of the failing steering we decided to drop me at the Daly City BART. The plan to get to the Oakland airport via public transportation involved the following:
1) leave the house at 330am
2) catch the 409am Bay point train at Daly city
3) catch the 438am Fremont train at Oakland city center
4) catch the 5am shuttle from Oakland coliseum to the airport
Since we got home around midnight, for the next 3.5 hours I sent the remaining emails I needed in order to be able to keep everything with work running for 5 days, and also cleaned the house and my room. Shara and her band of HS Latin phenoms is coming out to CA this weekend for her birthday and a Latin conference. They're all staying at the beachhouse. We've been planning this for months. Unfortunately, now I won't be there when they come. And I had scheduled all the cleaning for Thursday night. But I had to get it all done, and have the place in shape for her to stay there without my being there.
Then it was time to head to the airport. I drove us to Daly City, and got there at 408am. Fortunately, I managed to scamper onto the train just before the doors shut. I got to Oakland city center just as scheduled, but the 438 train was 10 minutes late. That meant not making the 5am shuttle, but we'd anticipated that, and the 520am shuttle would still get me there at 535am, which should be enough time to get to the gate, since Oakland is a small airport and Joel had checked me in.
But then, somewhere along the line, the train just stopped. The operator came on and said there was a maintenance crew on the tracks and we wouldn't be able to move until they were out of the way. However, he assured us, that would only be 2-3 minutes.
20 minutes later, the train started moving again. I missed the 520am shuttle.
That meant catching the 540am shuttle, which got me to the airport at 555am. For a 605am flight. I ran through the airport, flew through security, ran down the hall, and got to the gate at 603am. And saw a line of people at the gate. "Yes!", I thought, "The plane is delayed!"
Turns out, it was delayed because something was wrong with the landing gear. Not a good sign. And sure enough, about an hour later they announced that the flight was canceled. And what's more, the 730 and 10am flights were all full. Since this was Delta, everything routed through Salt Lake City, and for some reason it was a busy day flying from Oakland.
So, they sent us all back out to the ticket counter. Eventually I worked my way up to the head of the line, and the woman there got me booked on a 1210pm flight out of San Jose airport, routing through Minneapolis, and arriving in StL at 9pm, rather than 130pm. I was not happy.
What's more, San Jose airport is nowhere close to Oakland, so they gave me a voucher for a shuttle to San Jose. I went outside, where it was foggy and cold as shit, and shivered waiting for my shuttle. 3 came and went, but all were going to SFO, not San Jose. After an hour of shivering, I was ready to bully my way onto the next SFO shuttle and take the CalTrain from there to San Jose. But then the San Jose shuttle finally arrived.
I got to San Jose in plenty of time, but then that flight ended up delayed. The flight itself was uneventful, but because of the delay I ended up in Minneapolis with 10 minutes to get from G concourse to C concourse to make my connection to StL. Once again I was running through an airport. Halfway across the airport, I glanced up at the departure screen as I was rushing by and saw that *that* flight was also delayed. Now that Delta and Northwest airlines are the same, it appears we can safely assume that Delta will be following Northwest's operational strategy of never actually having a flight depart on time, ever. Though, to be fair, in this case it benefited me.
I walked the rest of the way to the gate, and discovered that the inbound plane was delayed because of weather en route, and we didn't know when it would arrive. It ended up being about an hour and a half late, and we made up a little of that en route to StL.
Departure time, my house in HMB: 330am PST
Arrival time, Cousin Anne's in StL: 11pm CST
Total door-to-door trip time to get across 2 lousy time zones: 17.5 hours.
If you think about it, the problem was that I let Joel plan the trip to Oakland airport, which means he planned for plenty of time (2.5 hours), and even tried to bake in something going wrong. Regular readers of this blog know what happens when I attempt to arrive at the airport in a responsible, early fashion: unmitigated disaster. This trip was certainly no exception.
So now, I've been up almost 40 hours with just 2 crappy hours of sleep on the flight from San Jose. In the morning we go to the funeral home to make all the arrangements for the service and such. But now, I must pass out. Thus far, my strategy of not processing the actual event is working. We'll see how long I can keep it up.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Cabo, Day 4
Sadly, on Monday we had to say goodbye to the Palmilla, and shift down to the Westin.
We got up and got ourselves to the wedding day-after breakfast, which was predictably awesome. Custom-made omelettes, pastries, fruit, juice- everything I'd ever eat for breakfast anyway. Alex looked like he'd gone to by by 10pm, while Rose looked like she'd gone to bed last week. Ed & Alison never made it at all. Typical Ed.
Thus, we found ourselves back at the room by 1030 already packed when Greg mentioned that he'd asked for a late checkout, and been given 2pm. Immediately, I was on the phone with the front desk getting a similar deal for us. And that gave us another 3 hours to lay on the awesome futon thingy on the balcony, listen to waves, read, and watch bright yellow tropical birds hanging out in the tree. Pure bliss.
Finally, in the mid-afternoon we said goodbye to palace life and went to go stay at a normal hotel, which had the advantage of being basically 1/4th the cost. Here are a few pics of the Westin, which when it was built was the premier resort in Cabo:
The architecture is interesting, if a little weird. This is the building we stayed in.
This pic is from the orange building in the 1st pic.
No crazy-comfy futon, and the glass doors have "Westin" printed on them, which is weird, but the view is still pretty good.
Getting ready to head down to the pool. Shifting hotels has interfered with the afternoon sunbathing routine we'd established.
The thing about staying in a place like the Palmilla is that your baseline for what constitutes "nice" gets all messed up. The Westin felt shabby, but really was fine, except for the part about no free internet access. The internet was like a million dollars a second, which is why I'm updating this blog now, instead of the next day like I did at the Palmilla. But everything else was as nice as it could be without luxury-suite-like rooms and an army of attendants.
In the evening, we headed up to San Jose del Cabo. It took me a while to figure out the many different things the word "Cabo" can refer to. Basically, Baja California is an 800-mile long strip of scrub desert, at the bottom of which are gray whale mating areas, and 2 tourist cities: San Jose del Cabo, and Cabo San Lucas. Collectively they are referred to as Los Cabos. All the fancy resorts are pretty much located along the beach in between the 2 cities, which are maybe 20 miles apart. The Palmilla and the Westin are located almost in the middle. When people say they're going to "Cabo", probably they mean they're flying into Los Cabos airport, and then staying at some resort between the 2 cities.
The journey to San Jose del Cabo represented our first real foray into the local area. At the Palmilla, there was just no incentive to ever leave. So it was nice to actually get out and see stuff. We wandered around the town square, poking into shops with typical tourist crap in them, and then eventually had a very nice dinner at a local restaurant, whose name is already long lost to my memory...
The church in the town square. Charming Spanish colonial architecture- a great place to spend a couple hrs in quiet contemplation after a long day of spreading pestilence & death among the native population.
Keiko caught on camera publicly groping me at dinner.
After a few hours of wandering around town, we retreated to the Westin to rest up before another long day of sunbathing...
We got up and got ourselves to the wedding day-after breakfast, which was predictably awesome. Custom-made omelettes, pastries, fruit, juice- everything I'd ever eat for breakfast anyway. Alex looked like he'd gone to by by 10pm, while Rose looked like she'd gone to bed last week. Ed & Alison never made it at all. Typical Ed.
Thus, we found ourselves back at the room by 1030 already packed when Greg mentioned that he'd asked for a late checkout, and been given 2pm. Immediately, I was on the phone with the front desk getting a similar deal for us. And that gave us another 3 hours to lay on the awesome futon thingy on the balcony, listen to waves, read, and watch bright yellow tropical birds hanging out in the tree. Pure bliss.
Finally, in the mid-afternoon we said goodbye to palace life and went to go stay at a normal hotel, which had the advantage of being basically 1/4th the cost. Here are a few pics of the Westin, which when it was built was the premier resort in Cabo:
The architecture is interesting, if a little weird. This is the building we stayed in.
This pic is from the orange building in the 1st pic.
No crazy-comfy futon, and the glass doors have "Westin" printed on them, which is weird, but the view is still pretty good.
Getting ready to head down to the pool. Shifting hotels has interfered with the afternoon sunbathing routine we'd established.
The thing about staying in a place like the Palmilla is that your baseline for what constitutes "nice" gets all messed up. The Westin felt shabby, but really was fine, except for the part about no free internet access. The internet was like a million dollars a second, which is why I'm updating this blog now, instead of the next day like I did at the Palmilla. But everything else was as nice as it could be without luxury-suite-like rooms and an army of attendants.
In the evening, we headed up to San Jose del Cabo. It took me a while to figure out the many different things the word "Cabo" can refer to. Basically, Baja California is an 800-mile long strip of scrub desert, at the bottom of which are gray whale mating areas, and 2 tourist cities: San Jose del Cabo, and Cabo San Lucas. Collectively they are referred to as Los Cabos. All the fancy resorts are pretty much located along the beach in between the 2 cities, which are maybe 20 miles apart. The Palmilla and the Westin are located almost in the middle. When people say they're going to "Cabo", probably they mean they're flying into Los Cabos airport, and then staying at some resort between the 2 cities.
The journey to San Jose del Cabo represented our first real foray into the local area. At the Palmilla, there was just no incentive to ever leave. So it was nice to actually get out and see stuff. We wandered around the town square, poking into shops with typical tourist crap in them, and then eventually had a very nice dinner at a local restaurant, whose name is already long lost to my memory...
The church in the town square. Charming Spanish colonial architecture- a great place to spend a couple hrs in quiet contemplation after a long day of spreading pestilence & death among the native population.
Keiko caught on camera publicly groping me at dinner.
After a few hours of wandering around town, we retreated to the Westin to rest up before another long day of sunbathing...
Monday, June 29, 2009
Cabo, Day 3
So, the batteries in my camera died. I'll have to post pics later, after I get them from Keiko, Greg, et al.
A quick recap of the day:
1) reading on the balcony listening to the waves
2) reading in a hammock down on the beach (finished Sundiver)
3) 90 second swim in the super-cold ocean water
4) lunch, including margaritas
5) reading by the infinity pool (started the 2nd book in the series: Startide Rising. It's even better!)
6) swimming in the infinity pool
7) napping at the infinity pool
8) get ready for wedding ceremony
9) attend wedding ceremony
10) reception cocktail-margaritas for an hour or so
11) dinner, screwed up my part of group speech (never did play well in groups)
12) danced from 930pm-230am without stopping except for 5 min while they cut the cake
All in all, a pretty good day.
Here are a few observations about doing your vacation in a super-fancy resort:
1) Whatever outrageous price you happen to be paying for the room ($625/night in this case), you should plan to rack up about 50% of that in daily incidentals. EVERYTHING costs something, and what that something is, is roughly 3-10 times what you would pay for it elsewhere.
2) Being at a resort like this means you will have to work pretty hard to get out of it; indeed, we're only leaving the resort because we're shifting to the Westin (which is 1/3 the cost) for our last 2 days. It's a combination of the resort being pleasantly awesome, and the ever-present undercurrent of holy-shit-for-what-I'm-paying-I'm-going-to-squeeze-every-last-drop-of-fun-out-of-this.
The implication is, if you actually want to see the country you're in, this is not the way to do it. As it happens, there's not much country to see other than this resort; we're at the bottom of the Baja peninsula and pretty much everything here exists because white people decided to build something, and needed other people to do all the work (starting with the Spanish, who founded the place).
3) Because of the cost of labor here, the ratio of random serving people to guests is at least 1-1, maybe even higher. The resort is organized in small buildings, and each building has its own butler, maid, etc. If you don't put on the privacy sign, there is someone coming in and out of your room like every 10 minutes in an effort to be servile. Turn down your bed, make sure there's fresh fruit in the bowl, give you more towels, whatever.
We quickly put on the privacy sign and have left it on constantly since, since neither one of us needs any of the shit they're wanting to give us, and neither of us particularly cares for people to be wandering in and out. But it's really caused our poor butler a lot of consternation; he even came up to us yesterday afternoon and somewhat plaintively asked if we were *really* sure we didn't need our beds turned down. I think he's worried he and his buddy the dayshift butler are not going to get tipped.
Now we're off to the day-after breakfast, and then we shift over to the Westin, where I think there is also a very nice pool. More reading! I haven't done this much nothing in decades, and while I don't think this is really the way I most like to vacation, I *am* enjoying this very much. And we're very proud of Alex & Rose, who are, in some really weird, ineffable way, perfect for each other...
A quick recap of the day:
1) reading on the balcony listening to the waves
2) reading in a hammock down on the beach (finished Sundiver)
3) 90 second swim in the super-cold ocean water
4) lunch, including margaritas
5) reading by the infinity pool (started the 2nd book in the series: Startide Rising. It's even better!)
6) swimming in the infinity pool
7) napping at the infinity pool
8) get ready for wedding ceremony
9) attend wedding ceremony
10) reception cocktail-margaritas for an hour or so
11) dinner, screwed up my part of group speech (never did play well in groups)
12) danced from 930pm-230am without stopping except for 5 min while they cut the cake
All in all, a pretty good day.
Here are a few observations about doing your vacation in a super-fancy resort:
1) Whatever outrageous price you happen to be paying for the room ($625/night in this case), you should plan to rack up about 50% of that in daily incidentals. EVERYTHING costs something, and what that something is, is roughly 3-10 times what you would pay for it elsewhere.
2) Being at a resort like this means you will have to work pretty hard to get out of it; indeed, we're only leaving the resort because we're shifting to the Westin (which is 1/3 the cost) for our last 2 days. It's a combination of the resort being pleasantly awesome, and the ever-present undercurrent of holy-shit-for-what-I'm-paying-I'm-going-to-squeeze-every-last-drop-of-fun-out-of-this.
The implication is, if you actually want to see the country you're in, this is not the way to do it. As it happens, there's not much country to see other than this resort; we're at the bottom of the Baja peninsula and pretty much everything here exists because white people decided to build something, and needed other people to do all the work (starting with the Spanish, who founded the place).
3) Because of the cost of labor here, the ratio of random serving people to guests is at least 1-1, maybe even higher. The resort is organized in small buildings, and each building has its own butler, maid, etc. If you don't put on the privacy sign, there is someone coming in and out of your room like every 10 minutes in an effort to be servile. Turn down your bed, make sure there's fresh fruit in the bowl, give you more towels, whatever.
We quickly put on the privacy sign and have left it on constantly since, since neither one of us needs any of the shit they're wanting to give us, and neither of us particularly cares for people to be wandering in and out. But it's really caused our poor butler a lot of consternation; he even came up to us yesterday afternoon and somewhat plaintively asked if we were *really* sure we didn't need our beds turned down. I think he's worried he and his buddy the dayshift butler are not going to get tipped.
Now we're off to the day-after breakfast, and then we shift over to the Westin, where I think there is also a very nice pool. More reading! I haven't done this much nothing in decades, and while I don't think this is really the way I most like to vacation, I *am* enjoying this very much. And we're very proud of Alex & Rose, who are, in some really weird, ineffable way, perfect for each other...
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Cabo, Day 2
After 2 days here, I think the dominant strategy is this:
1) be poolside by 9-ish. Lay out/swim until around 11.
2) eat lunch.
3) nap on the enormous, super-comfortable deck furniture at the room, listening to the waves crash in.
4) be back poolside by 3-ish. Lay out/swim until 5 or 6.
5) shower, change, have dinner, socialize until 1-3am. Because yes, we're great big pussies who throw in the towel around then in part so that we can cycle back to (1) above the next day.
Also, all steps except (3) include drinking margaritas. From the menu over at the Agua restaurant, I've now downed 3 of 17 margarita types in their entirety, and sampled an additional 3 from others. I think we need to spend more time at the pool that's closer to that restaurant, because I'm pacing behind on my goal of drinking all their margaritas before I leave.
Keiko is starting to look really pink in places. I'm perilously close to burning myself, though I don't exactly turn pink. We're going to have to be more aggressive with the sunblock. Also, we're going to go to the actual beach this morning, and try laying around there. The beach here is mostly wild beach, with craggy rocks and such, but there's a supposedly swimmable beach at the north end of the resort. We'll check it out. Also, there's talk of zip-lining today. We'll see if that happens- I'm fine with laying around and reading.
Here are some pics from yesterday- most of our pics we're taking with Keiko's camera, including basically all the pics of other people, but here's a taste of the pool area:
Morning at the room. That futon thingy is so-o-o-o comfortable...
The adults-only pool, with the island bar that you can literally belly up to.
The pool. The trees. My legs.
Keiko, unconsciously making a very nice ad for the Kindle.
Reading "Sundiver" by David Brin. Finally getting some color back. Ironically, I never have time to sunbathe in CA.
On our way to lunch. This is all hard work, let me tell you.
With Greg & Claudia for lunch. That's the "Blue" margarita- #3 of 17 from the drink menu.
Off to go get some wild beach pics, and read my book out on the sand. Very much liking "Sundiver"... all of y'all who read sci-fi should check it out.
1) be poolside by 9-ish. Lay out/swim until around 11.
2) eat lunch.
3) nap on the enormous, super-comfortable deck furniture at the room, listening to the waves crash in.
4) be back poolside by 3-ish. Lay out/swim until 5 or 6.
5) shower, change, have dinner, socialize until 1-3am. Because yes, we're great big pussies who throw in the towel around then in part so that we can cycle back to (1) above the next day.
Also, all steps except (3) include drinking margaritas. From the menu over at the Agua restaurant, I've now downed 3 of 17 margarita types in their entirety, and sampled an additional 3 from others. I think we need to spend more time at the pool that's closer to that restaurant, because I'm pacing behind on my goal of drinking all their margaritas before I leave.
Keiko is starting to look really pink in places. I'm perilously close to burning myself, though I don't exactly turn pink. We're going to have to be more aggressive with the sunblock. Also, we're going to go to the actual beach this morning, and try laying around there. The beach here is mostly wild beach, with craggy rocks and such, but there's a supposedly swimmable beach at the north end of the resort. We'll check it out. Also, there's talk of zip-lining today. We'll see if that happens- I'm fine with laying around and reading.
Here are some pics from yesterday- most of our pics we're taking with Keiko's camera, including basically all the pics of other people, but here's a taste of the pool area:
Morning at the room. That futon thingy is so-o-o-o comfortable...
The adults-only pool, with the island bar that you can literally belly up to.
The pool. The trees. My legs.
Keiko, unconsciously making a very nice ad for the Kindle.
Reading "Sundiver" by David Brin. Finally getting some color back. Ironically, I never have time to sunbathe in CA.
On our way to lunch. This is all hard work, let me tell you.
With Greg & Claudia for lunch. That's the "Blue" margarita- #3 of 17 from the drink menu.
Off to go get some wild beach pics, and read my book out on the sand. Very much liking "Sundiver"... all of y'all who read sci-fi should check it out.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Cabo, Day 1
Yesterday I left HMB for 6 days in Cabo, to see Alex and Rose get married...
I was worried that my arriving at the airport 90 min early would doom me to some kind of mishap, but in a strange twist of fate, nothing went wrong and I arrived in Cabo exactly as scheduled. Keiko and her BFF Claudia, and her husband Greg, had gotten there an hour earlier but waited for me at the airport so we could head into town together.
We got a taxi into town ($50), and went straight to our hotel: The One & Only Palmilla. Now, those of you who have followed my travel stories over the years know that I usually stay in places like the Happy Land Hotel, in Luxor Egypt, where $1.10/night includes breakfast. However, Alex & Rose are the exact opposite of that, and they picked the Palmilla as the place to get married. Now, there are other places to stay in town, but knowing that hanging out with A&R means you're a great big pussy if you throw in the towel at 3am, I decided we should stay at the Palmilla, since that's where the events are and that way we wouldn't have to try to get to some other place at weird hours of the morning.
To view the One & Only Palmilla, follow this link:
http://www.oneandonlyresorts.com/flash.html
So, the discounted rate for wedding guests, including all taxes and fees, came to $625/night, nonrefundable, the first 2 nights of which they charged in advance when I booked back in March. So once you book, you're committed. For $625/night, I decided that it was reasonable to expect that I would be greeted by a unicorn. A talking unicorn. A talking unicorn that pulled up on a magic flying carpet. A talking unicorn on a magic flying carpet that would escort us to our rooms, pooping little rainbows the whole way.
Sadly, no rainbow-pooping talking flying unicorn. But, we do have a giant room. With a gorgeous view of the ocean. And a butler. Here are a couple pics from the room, which we took on arrival:
The view from our balcony, to the north
Greg & Claudia are our next-door neighbors. There's a little wall that separates our balconies.
Sunset, from standing on the balcony railing.
Greg, who is a golf teacher, decided to head straight for the course, with Alex. Claudia, Keiko and I decided to head straight for the infinity pool that has the bar in the middle of it. That's right- the pool surrounds a bar. No man is an island, except the bartender in the infinity pool. Soon we got hungry though, and that meant having to go to the *other*, larger infinity pool, which has a landside bar that serves food. And margaritas. 17 different kinds of margaritas. I decided that I'm drinking pretty much nothing but margaritas on this trip, including, if possible, all 17 kinds on the drink menu there.
As I formed that noble goal, I had no idea of the size of those margaritas- they come in glasses that are huge, and they're very strong. That makes my goal that much harder, but what is life if not an opportunity to achieve audacious goals?
After some food, and a huge margarita, we swam in the infinity pool for quite some time, before heading back for a short nap, and then cocktails with the whole wedding group on the central plaza of the resort. That meant more margaritas, and at 130am when Alex & Rose decided to organize a trip into downtown San Jose del Cabo, Keiko and I decided that we are indeed great big pussies, and we went back to the room to order room service dinner and go to bed.
Now it's 9am, and we're headed back to the beach for a day of aggressive sunbathing and margarita drinking. I could get used to this life...
I was worried that my arriving at the airport 90 min early would doom me to some kind of mishap, but in a strange twist of fate, nothing went wrong and I arrived in Cabo exactly as scheduled. Keiko and her BFF Claudia, and her husband Greg, had gotten there an hour earlier but waited for me at the airport so we could head into town together.
We got a taxi into town ($50), and went straight to our hotel: The One & Only Palmilla. Now, those of you who have followed my travel stories over the years know that I usually stay in places like the Happy Land Hotel, in Luxor Egypt, where $1.10/night includes breakfast. However, Alex & Rose are the exact opposite of that, and they picked the Palmilla as the place to get married. Now, there are other places to stay in town, but knowing that hanging out with A&R means you're a great big pussy if you throw in the towel at 3am, I decided we should stay at the Palmilla, since that's where the events are and that way we wouldn't have to try to get to some other place at weird hours of the morning.
To view the One & Only Palmilla, follow this link:
http://www.oneandonlyresorts.com/flash.html
So, the discounted rate for wedding guests, including all taxes and fees, came to $625/night, nonrefundable, the first 2 nights of which they charged in advance when I booked back in March. So once you book, you're committed. For $625/night, I decided that it was reasonable to expect that I would be greeted by a unicorn. A talking unicorn. A talking unicorn that pulled up on a magic flying carpet. A talking unicorn on a magic flying carpet that would escort us to our rooms, pooping little rainbows the whole way.
Sadly, no rainbow-pooping talking flying unicorn. But, we do have a giant room. With a gorgeous view of the ocean. And a butler. Here are a couple pics from the room, which we took on arrival:
The view from our balcony, to the north
Greg & Claudia are our next-door neighbors. There's a little wall that separates our balconies.
Sunset, from standing on the balcony railing.
Greg, who is a golf teacher, decided to head straight for the course, with Alex. Claudia, Keiko and I decided to head straight for the infinity pool that has the bar in the middle of it. That's right- the pool surrounds a bar. No man is an island, except the bartender in the infinity pool. Soon we got hungry though, and that meant having to go to the *other*, larger infinity pool, which has a landside bar that serves food. And margaritas. 17 different kinds of margaritas. I decided that I'm drinking pretty much nothing but margaritas on this trip, including, if possible, all 17 kinds on the drink menu there.
As I formed that noble goal, I had no idea of the size of those margaritas- they come in glasses that are huge, and they're very strong. That makes my goal that much harder, but what is life if not an opportunity to achieve audacious goals?
After some food, and a huge margarita, we swam in the infinity pool for quite some time, before heading back for a short nap, and then cocktails with the whole wedding group on the central plaza of the resort. That meant more margaritas, and at 130am when Alex & Rose decided to organize a trip into downtown San Jose del Cabo, Keiko and I decided that we are indeed great big pussies, and we went back to the room to order room service dinner and go to bed.
Now it's 9am, and we're headed back to the beach for a day of aggressive sunbathing and margarita drinking. I could get used to this life...
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Adventures in American Healthcare Part 2
So, my mom went into the hospital a couple weeks ago. She had been experiencing chest pains and dizziness for several days, with increasing severity and frequency, to the point where the doctor wanted her to go to the ER on a Monday, and she refused to go on the grounds that there was no one to take care of my dad. Of course, none of the rest of us in the family knew that.
By Friday, she wound up in the ER anyway. Fortunately, my cousin volunteered to take over caretaking for my dad for a couple days, even though she was putting on her biggest fundraising event of the year that weekend (she works for the National Kidney Foundation in StL). But after a couple days of dealing with giving him shots, cleaning up after him, feeding him, etc., plus not getting any sleep since he wakes up every hour during the night and has a non-trivial risk of falling, which requires a 9-1-1 call since he's too heavy for either my mom or my cousin to pick up (he can't help since half is body is basically non-functional), she called my sister for help.
So, my sister, 7 months pregnant, flew up to Stl Sunday morning to take care of my dad for a few days. I was scheduled to head to NYC on Wed night, but I changed the ticket to go to StL instead, and flew in to relieve my sister. Fortunately, by that time my mom had been released from the hospital.
Now, here's how it went down with the hospital: they admitted her on Thursday, did a first round of tests, determined that her ventricles were not working in sync with each other due to some issue with the nerves in her heart or something, and then decided that they needed to run a second round of tests, including an echocardiogram and a cardiac catheter, in order to determine the cause of the nerve issue. Trouble is, by the time they'd worked that out as the best course of action, it was late Friday, and they couldn't get on the Friday schedule, and the people who run those tests "don't work weekends".
Nice.
Apparently, the doctors felt my mom was at enough risk of something bad happening that they definitely wanted to keep her in the hospital over the weekend, but not at enough risk that it was urgent to get someone to FUCKING COME TO WORK and run the tests. The insurance won't pay someone overtime or whatever to come in unless there's an imminent risk of something life-threatening happening.
I looooooove healthcare in this country.
So my mom sat in the hospital twiddling her thumbs over the weekend while my cousin and sister took care of my dad, and then on Monday people came back to work and they ran their tests. They expected that they would find arterial blockages, which are apparently the typical cause of issues like the one my mom has, but both tests came up empty. At which point, the doctors admitted that "we don't really know why her heart is doing that", and decided that the best thing to do would be to send her home with medicine for her blood pressure, which was high, and have her start seeing a cardiologist on a regular basis.
Of course, they ended up having to keep her one extra day because she started bleeding from the site of her cardiac cath, but hey, she didn't contract a staph infection while in the hospital so I guess we should all just be glad it wasn't worse.
So, with all this fancy technology, all they were able to do was rule out arterial blockage as a cause. Granted, that's good to know, and is decisively good news. Still, to have been in the hospital for 6 days and have only that and a $10 trillion dollar bill to show for it, I question how much medicine has really advanced since the 1800's.
I mean, would the results have really been that different if they had just slapped some leeches on her and given her some heroin? I'm not so sure...
By Friday, she wound up in the ER anyway. Fortunately, my cousin volunteered to take over caretaking for my dad for a couple days, even though she was putting on her biggest fundraising event of the year that weekend (she works for the National Kidney Foundation in StL). But after a couple days of dealing with giving him shots, cleaning up after him, feeding him, etc., plus not getting any sleep since he wakes up every hour during the night and has a non-trivial risk of falling, which requires a 9-1-1 call since he's too heavy for either my mom or my cousin to pick up (he can't help since half is body is basically non-functional), she called my sister for help.
So, my sister, 7 months pregnant, flew up to Stl Sunday morning to take care of my dad for a few days. I was scheduled to head to NYC on Wed night, but I changed the ticket to go to StL instead, and flew in to relieve my sister. Fortunately, by that time my mom had been released from the hospital.
Now, here's how it went down with the hospital: they admitted her on Thursday, did a first round of tests, determined that her ventricles were not working in sync with each other due to some issue with the nerves in her heart or something, and then decided that they needed to run a second round of tests, including an echocardiogram and a cardiac catheter, in order to determine the cause of the nerve issue. Trouble is, by the time they'd worked that out as the best course of action, it was late Friday, and they couldn't get on the Friday schedule, and the people who run those tests "don't work weekends".
Nice.
Apparently, the doctors felt my mom was at enough risk of something bad happening that they definitely wanted to keep her in the hospital over the weekend, but not at enough risk that it was urgent to get someone to FUCKING COME TO WORK and run the tests. The insurance won't pay someone overtime or whatever to come in unless there's an imminent risk of something life-threatening happening.
I looooooove healthcare in this country.
So my mom sat in the hospital twiddling her thumbs over the weekend while my cousin and sister took care of my dad, and then on Monday people came back to work and they ran their tests. They expected that they would find arterial blockages, which are apparently the typical cause of issues like the one my mom has, but both tests came up empty. At which point, the doctors admitted that "we don't really know why her heart is doing that", and decided that the best thing to do would be to send her home with medicine for her blood pressure, which was high, and have her start seeing a cardiologist on a regular basis.
Of course, they ended up having to keep her one extra day because she started bleeding from the site of her cardiac cath, but hey, she didn't contract a staph infection while in the hospital so I guess we should all just be glad it wasn't worse.
So, with all this fancy technology, all they were able to do was rule out arterial blockage as a cause. Granted, that's good to know, and is decisively good news. Still, to have been in the hospital for 6 days and have only that and a $10 trillion dollar bill to show for it, I question how much medicine has really advanced since the 1800's.
I mean, would the results have really been that different if they had just slapped some leeches on her and given her some heroin? I'm not so sure...
Friday, June 12, 2009
I dream in puns...
This is the dream I had 2 nights ago:
I was in a large office with my parents, looking as I did when I was a teenager. It turns out to be a doctor's office, and I am there for some kind of medical exam. The doctor pulls out a tricorder, like straight from Star Trek, and proceeds to wave it over me like they do, finally tilting my head forward and waving it around the back of my skull. Finally, she speaks:
Doctor: "Hmm..."
Mom: "What is it??"
Doctor: "He seems to have too much of this amino acid in his brain."
Mom: "Which amino acid??"
Doctor: "Asinine"
(pause)
Me: "Is it serious?"
And then I woke up. Feeling extremely pleased with myself, I might add. I almost called JOC, except it was 5am StL time, meaning 3am for him, so I didn't. I can't wait to tell him though.
I was in a large office with my parents, looking as I did when I was a teenager. It turns out to be a doctor's office, and I am there for some kind of medical exam. The doctor pulls out a tricorder, like straight from Star Trek, and proceeds to wave it over me like they do, finally tilting my head forward and waving it around the back of my skull. Finally, she speaks:
Doctor: "Hmm..."
Mom: "What is it??"
Doctor: "He seems to have too much of this amino acid in his brain."
Mom: "Which amino acid??"
Doctor: "Asinine"
(pause)
Me: "Is it serious?"
And then I woke up. Feeling extremely pleased with myself, I might add. I almost called JOC, except it was 5am StL time, meaning 3am for him, so I didn't. I can't wait to tell him though.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Adventures in American Healthcare Part 1, or I Always Knew Chocolate Was Bad for You
This story begins on Memorial Day, when Joel suggested that we bike up the Mountain of Death...
The ride up was typically brutal, but the view from the top was typically amazing. And, there's always the reward of the fun part, which is riding *down* the mountain at breakneck speed. We got back to the house around 3, where I decided to reward myself with ice cream and a shower, in that order. I decided to fire up back episodes of Colbert and just chill out while I ate the ice cream.
Joel, not satisfied with having done that much biking, and possessed of a love for chocolate greater than anyone I've ever known who is not actually female, decided to bike into town and get a giant bar of fancy chocolate from the hippie grocery store (in which everything is organic and overpriced). Normally I would mock him incessantly, but having done that severak times in a row, and being somewhat tired, I simply waved as he headed out.
3 Colbert episodes later, I decided to take that shower, vaguely noting that Joel seemed to be gone a lot longer than he normally is when he goes on a chocolate run.
After a long leisurely shower, I got dressed and eventually wandered over to check the phone. There was a message from a random 650 number, which I assumed would be something work-related, a new family needing tutoring perhaps. So I decided I would listen to the message and call back shortly.
When I did finally listen to the message, it was from Stanford Hospital. It said: "Joel was in an accident. He is fine, but you should call in when you get this."
Uh oh.
So I call Stanford Hospital. Joel has been hit by a car and is in the emergency room. I can come down to see him at any time. So I get things together quickly, and drive over the hill into Palo Alto to the hospital.
When I arrive, Joel is surrounded by a couple of nurses, who are cleaning his wounds with Q-tips and tiny squirt guns. He is heavily bandaged, and everything not bandaged is basically a giant road rash. They're cleaning out the dirt and tiny pebbles from all the open road rash. It's pretty gruesome. So, I'll share a couple pics I took...
Joel when I arrived.
Joel immediately after the nurses finished cleaning him. Note that he failed to use this god-given opportunity to get some digits.
Joel with the bar of chocolate that he almost died trying to procure. It also survived the crash, though it didn't ultimately survive Joel.
Joel, finally leaving the hospital.
Joel's clavicle. Ultimately, they had to do surgery & put a titanium plate in there, & tie the bones to it. Although painful, it moves Joel a tiny step toward his goal of becoming a cyborg.
The final tally of the damage: 4 broken ribs, 1 broken clavicle, 1 mildly sprained ankle, one actual chunk of flesh missing from his arm near his elbow (every time Joel raised that arm I had to look away- it was the most gruesome by far), and road rash over basically everything else. Glasses destroyed. The helmet did its job though- no head trauma at all. The helmet was cracked completely.
I leave the hospital around 11pm, and walk out to the garage. I get in my car, drive to the gate, and see the sign that says "After hours, pay at the self-service station in the garage." So I turn around, park again, and find the self-service station. I stick my ticket into the machine: $6. I get out my credit card, and look for the credit card slot.
Which has a metal plate bolted over it. Cash only, apparently. A quick examination of my wallet shows $2. OK, no problem, I keep spare change in little baggies in the car (organized by coin type- the first time Keiko saw me filing my change away we had the following exchange:
Keiko: "You organize your spare change??"
Me: "Uh, yes."
Keiko: "Wow, baby."
Me: "Admit it- you're a little turned on right now."
Keiko: "Yes babe, I have never been more hot for you."
Anyway, I go back to the car and discover that the big bag of quarters is not there, because I used it for the BART to go up to SF during the week, and left it in my backpack, which is at home. So all I've got is some dimes and nickels. Adding up all those, plus a couple coins on the floor, takes me up to $5.65. The annoying thing is, I've got enough with the bag of pennies, but the machine won't take pennies. I double-check this and then kick the machine.
So I go back into the largely deserted hospital, and after wandering around awhile, find someone who can direct me to the ATM. The ATM, of course, charges me $3 for cash, since it's rather predictably not a Chase/WaMu/Consolidated Barely Solvent Megabank atm, which means that my Chase/WaMu/Consolidated Barely Solvent Megabank is now also going to charge me $3 for the sin of using another crappy bank's ATM. Thus, my parking cost will literally double b/c the parking folks haven't figured out that ONLY DRUG DEALERS STILL USE CASH.
Dammit.
Joel comes home late the next day, and is pretty loopy from all the meds. Plus, the only way he can sleep is on our Sofa of Death (once you lay down on it, you will basically keep laying on it until you starve- it's weirdly comfortable), wedged up against it on his side so that there's no pressure on his various broken bones.
The next day, Joel's mom came down to stay a few days, which was nice. I was crazed at work and couldn't do all the helping he needed. But after she went to bed that night, Joel had trouble sleeping, and asked me to help him put new bandages on the giant open wound that was the left half of his back. That involved the following steps:
1) peeling off the existing bandage, which had been placed on while the wound was still actively oozing/lightly bleeding, and hence had become congealed. That's a LOT of surface area to peel congealed bandage off of, and poor Joel sang songs to himself while I slowly peeled away and tried not to cause too much fresh bleeding, which I was reasonably successful at. I offered to get him a towel to bite down on, but he muttered something about manhood blah blah blah, so I didn't press the issue.
2) once the old system of bandages was peeled off, the wound was freshly oozing/bleeding a little, and I said: "I can't put a new bandage on this without wiping it down a little." So I got a washcloth, put cold water on it, and lightly cleaned the wound. This process confirmed my long-held belief that I am in no way, shape, or form cut out for a career in medicine. I used a skill acquired in traveling in 3rd-world countries, which is: find the part of your mind that is really grossed out by what's happening right now, and pull the plug.
3) I had a box of 3" x 3" bandages, a roll of tape, and a single contiguous wound constituting 1/3 of the total surface area of Joel's back to bandage. An additional complicating factor was that Joel is basically a lowland mountain gorilla that's evolved a capacity for speech and baseball fandom. So I said: "I'm not going to be able to securely bandage this without trimming some of this hair."
So, we trooped into the bathroom, and I got out Joel's shears. We stood in the bathtub, and I proceeded to shave his hairy-ass back.
Joel: "So, you've finally gotten me bent over in the shower like you always wanted."
Me: "Hahaha. Remind me again exactly which ribs are broken?"
Joel: "Don't make me laugh... it hurts."
4) After the shaving, I proceeded to carefully assemble a patchwork of bandage over the entire wound, and it did serve the purpose of covering the wound and allowing him to sleep. The entire process took over an hour. But I figure it helps the balance in my karma account, which empirically speaking, seems to not be particularly good. Either that, or I've inadvertently stored all my karma in a Consolidated Barely Solvent Megakarmabank.
The real lessons of this story are:
1) Chocolate can kill you. It almost killed Joel.
2) Had I simply mocked Joel as I was tempted to do, it would have delayed him a few precious seconds as his lowland mountain gorilla mind formed a comeback, thus putting him not quite in the right place at the right time to get hit by the car. (A zipcar, with a dude, his GF, and his GF's mom. That's gonna make a good impression on mom.) So I told Joel that I will never again willfully pass up an opportunity to mock him. It's for his own safety.
For more details of Joel's saga, check out his blog: http://aufrecht.org/
The ride up was typically brutal, but the view from the top was typically amazing. And, there's always the reward of the fun part, which is riding *down* the mountain at breakneck speed. We got back to the house around 3, where I decided to reward myself with ice cream and a shower, in that order. I decided to fire up back episodes of Colbert and just chill out while I ate the ice cream.
Joel, not satisfied with having done that much biking, and possessed of a love for chocolate greater than anyone I've ever known who is not actually female, decided to bike into town and get a giant bar of fancy chocolate from the hippie grocery store (in which everything is organic and overpriced). Normally I would mock him incessantly, but having done that severak times in a row, and being somewhat tired, I simply waved as he headed out.
3 Colbert episodes later, I decided to take that shower, vaguely noting that Joel seemed to be gone a lot longer than he normally is when he goes on a chocolate run.
After a long leisurely shower, I got dressed and eventually wandered over to check the phone. There was a message from a random 650 number, which I assumed would be something work-related, a new family needing tutoring perhaps. So I decided I would listen to the message and call back shortly.
When I did finally listen to the message, it was from Stanford Hospital. It said: "Joel was in an accident. He is fine, but you should call in when you get this."
Uh oh.
So I call Stanford Hospital. Joel has been hit by a car and is in the emergency room. I can come down to see him at any time. So I get things together quickly, and drive over the hill into Palo Alto to the hospital.
When I arrive, Joel is surrounded by a couple of nurses, who are cleaning his wounds with Q-tips and tiny squirt guns. He is heavily bandaged, and everything not bandaged is basically a giant road rash. They're cleaning out the dirt and tiny pebbles from all the open road rash. It's pretty gruesome. So, I'll share a couple pics I took...
Joel when I arrived.
Joel immediately after the nurses finished cleaning him. Note that he failed to use this god-given opportunity to get some digits.
Joel with the bar of chocolate that he almost died trying to procure. It also survived the crash, though it didn't ultimately survive Joel.
Joel, finally leaving the hospital.
Joel's clavicle. Ultimately, they had to do surgery & put a titanium plate in there, & tie the bones to it. Although painful, it moves Joel a tiny step toward his goal of becoming a cyborg.
The final tally of the damage: 4 broken ribs, 1 broken clavicle, 1 mildly sprained ankle, one actual chunk of flesh missing from his arm near his elbow (every time Joel raised that arm I had to look away- it was the most gruesome by far), and road rash over basically everything else. Glasses destroyed. The helmet did its job though- no head trauma at all. The helmet was cracked completely.
I leave the hospital around 11pm, and walk out to the garage. I get in my car, drive to the gate, and see the sign that says "After hours, pay at the self-service station in the garage." So I turn around, park again, and find the self-service station. I stick my ticket into the machine: $6. I get out my credit card, and look for the credit card slot.
Which has a metal plate bolted over it. Cash only, apparently. A quick examination of my wallet shows $2. OK, no problem, I keep spare change in little baggies in the car (organized by coin type- the first time Keiko saw me filing my change away we had the following exchange:
Keiko: "You organize your spare change??"
Me: "Uh, yes."
Keiko: "Wow, baby."
Me: "Admit it- you're a little turned on right now."
Keiko: "Yes babe, I have never been more hot for you."
Anyway, I go back to the car and discover that the big bag of quarters is not there, because I used it for the BART to go up to SF during the week, and left it in my backpack, which is at home. So all I've got is some dimes and nickels. Adding up all those, plus a couple coins on the floor, takes me up to $5.65. The annoying thing is, I've got enough with the bag of pennies, but the machine won't take pennies. I double-check this and then kick the machine.
So I go back into the largely deserted hospital, and after wandering around awhile, find someone who can direct me to the ATM. The ATM, of course, charges me $3 for cash, since it's rather predictably not a Chase/WaMu/Consolidated Barely Solvent Megabank atm, which means that my Chase/WaMu/Consolidated Barely Solvent Megabank is now also going to charge me $3 for the sin of using another crappy bank's ATM. Thus, my parking cost will literally double b/c the parking folks haven't figured out that ONLY DRUG DEALERS STILL USE CASH.
Dammit.
Joel comes home late the next day, and is pretty loopy from all the meds. Plus, the only way he can sleep is on our Sofa of Death (once you lay down on it, you will basically keep laying on it until you starve- it's weirdly comfortable), wedged up against it on his side so that there's no pressure on his various broken bones.
The next day, Joel's mom came down to stay a few days, which was nice. I was crazed at work and couldn't do all the helping he needed. But after she went to bed that night, Joel had trouble sleeping, and asked me to help him put new bandages on the giant open wound that was the left half of his back. That involved the following steps:
1) peeling off the existing bandage, which had been placed on while the wound was still actively oozing/lightly bleeding, and hence had become congealed. That's a LOT of surface area to peel congealed bandage off of, and poor Joel sang songs to himself while I slowly peeled away and tried not to cause too much fresh bleeding, which I was reasonably successful at. I offered to get him a towel to bite down on, but he muttered something about manhood blah blah blah, so I didn't press the issue.
2) once the old system of bandages was peeled off, the wound was freshly oozing/bleeding a little, and I said: "I can't put a new bandage on this without wiping it down a little." So I got a washcloth, put cold water on it, and lightly cleaned the wound. This process confirmed my long-held belief that I am in no way, shape, or form cut out for a career in medicine. I used a skill acquired in traveling in 3rd-world countries, which is: find the part of your mind that is really grossed out by what's happening right now, and pull the plug.
3) I had a box of 3" x 3" bandages, a roll of tape, and a single contiguous wound constituting 1/3 of the total surface area of Joel's back to bandage. An additional complicating factor was that Joel is basically a lowland mountain gorilla that's evolved a capacity for speech and baseball fandom. So I said: "I'm not going to be able to securely bandage this without trimming some of this hair."
So, we trooped into the bathroom, and I got out Joel's shears. We stood in the bathtub, and I proceeded to shave his hairy-ass back.
Joel: "So, you've finally gotten me bent over in the shower like you always wanted."
Me: "Hahaha. Remind me again exactly which ribs are broken?"
Joel: "Don't make me laugh... it hurts."
4) After the shaving, I proceeded to carefully assemble a patchwork of bandage over the entire wound, and it did serve the purpose of covering the wound and allowing him to sleep. The entire process took over an hour. But I figure it helps the balance in my karma account, which empirically speaking, seems to not be particularly good. Either that, or I've inadvertently stored all my karma in a Consolidated Barely Solvent Megakarmabank.
The real lessons of this story are:
1) Chocolate can kill you. It almost killed Joel.
2) Had I simply mocked Joel as I was tempted to do, it would have delayed him a few precious seconds as his lowland mountain gorilla mind formed a comeback, thus putting him not quite in the right place at the right time to get hit by the car. (A zipcar, with a dude, his GF, and his GF's mom. That's gonna make a good impression on mom.) So I told Joel that I will never again willfully pass up an opportunity to mock him. It's for his own safety.
For more details of Joel's saga, check out his blog: http://aufrecht.org/
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Why I love HMB, Part 6
Because, on a clear night, for instance, tonight, you can stand in the doorway of the deck and listen to waves crash into the shore while you wait for the International Space Station to rise above the waves and go zipping across the night sky until it disappears over the coastal hills.
Vaya con dios, intrepid spacefarers...
Vaya con dios, intrepid spacefarers...
Sunday, May 10, 2009
The HMB beachcam
Joel set up a beachcam. It takes a picture every 60 seconds. You can check it out at any time of day by following this link:
http://24.6.149.194:4780/top.htm
He also set up a nifty program to take the day's images and make an approximately 90 second movie out of them. Also, the program randomly selects a song from the house jukebox to use as a soundtrack. The first few days results are posted below:
5/8:
5/7:
5/6:
It's a fun new toy!
http://24.6.149.194:4780/top.htm
He also set up a nifty program to take the day's images and make an approximately 90 second movie out of them. Also, the program randomly selects a song from the house jukebox to use as a soundtrack. The first few days results are posted below:
5/8:
5/7:
5/6:
It's a fun new toy!
Saturday, April 11, 2009
A good day for a bike ride
It was a good day for a bike ride yesterday.
Joel likes to bike up hills, as you can see from the pics he posted below. I hate biking up hills, but Keiko and I are attending a wedding in Cabo in June, and the problem with dating a former swimsuit model is that she looks really, really good in a swimsuit. That's a problem because when we're on the beach together, one of three things will happen:
1) [best case scenario] People will say: "Hey, what a nice looking couple."
2) [mediocre scenario] People will say: "Wow, that guy must be really rich."
3) [worst case scenario] People will say: "How pathetic that the pudgy balding guy felt he had to rent a date. I wonder how much she's costing him?"
As of today, Scenario 3 is the highest probability, so if I don't find a way to close the hotness gap at least somewhat in the next 2.5 months, I'm going to suffer undue scorn. Hence, agreeing to bike up a really fucking steep hill that goes on for like 500 miles. I nearly died going up it. The view from the top is nice though.
It's so miserably unfair that it's so easy to accumulate calories, and so goddamned hard to shed them.
Joel likes to bike up hills, as you can see from the pics he posted below. I hate biking up hills, but Keiko and I are attending a wedding in Cabo in June, and the problem with dating a former swimsuit model is that she looks really, really good in a swimsuit. That's a problem because when we're on the beach together, one of three things will happen:
1) [best case scenario] People will say: "Hey, what a nice looking couple."
2) [mediocre scenario] People will say: "Wow, that guy must be really rich."
3) [worst case scenario] People will say: "How pathetic that the pudgy balding guy felt he had to rent a date. I wonder how much she's costing him?"
As of today, Scenario 3 is the highest probability, so if I don't find a way to close the hotness gap at least somewhat in the next 2.5 months, I'm going to suffer undue scorn. Hence, agreeing to bike up a really fucking steep hill that goes on for like 500 miles. I nearly died going up it. The view from the top is nice though.
It's so miserably unfair that it's so easy to accumulate calories, and so goddamned hard to shed them.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
It doesn't pay to be cheap (or to be me)
Friday I had to go up to SF to check out an office there that we'll be using to see a client in the city. It's a pain to drive into the city and park, so I thought I'd take the handy BART system into town.
Normally I take the CalTrain if I need to go into SF, which means just leaving my car at the office and walking, but the BART station is much closer to the office building that was my final destination, so I thought I'd use that. But that necessitated driving to the Daly City BART station, which I'd never done before.
Upon arriving there, I was shocked to discover that it costs $3 to park for the BART. To me, this was offensive. I mean, the point of public transport is to make it easy for me to use it. Don't fucking charge me to park. So I saw a nearby side street, and thought I'd check it out. I mean, I refuse to pay that stupid fee in principle if I can possibly avoid it.
A quick glance at the side street showed that there was a patch of curb available, so I quickly backed into the space. Now, this is exactly the sort of story that can end badly- person tries to save $3 and ends up getting screwed, so the first thing I did upon parking was to get out, walk down the driver's side in the street until I was in front of the parking signs, and then read them 3 times to make sure I was allowed to park here (i.e, not a residential permit area, not a streetcleaning day, etc.)
The signs clearly indicated that I was golden. I then walked back up along the driver's side, and doublechecked to make sure I'd locked the car. Don't want ol' Betsy to get stolen.
With that, I took my stuff, turned around, and walked down to the BART station, all the while thinking "I was VERY careful. I checked all possibilities. You're not getting me this time, fate. In your FACE, universe!"
So I took the BART up to SF, where we had a good meeting. Then I took the BART back, arriving at the Daly City BART station around 8pm. I walked over to where I'd parked the car.
And, it wasn't there.
Later, Laszlo asked me: "Did you feel a moment of panic?" The answer is, maybe for a nanosecond. But the benefit of being me is that panic is quickly drowned out by a feeling of inevitability. OF COURSE something like this happened. I knew there was a risk. I taunted fate. I thought I'd thought of everything. I should know better by now.
So, I went into problem-solving mode. The car is not there. There are really only 2 cases:
1) It was stolen.
2) It was towed.
So, I decided to survey the area for possible reasons it might have been towed. The signs still indicated it should have been OK to park. But a more thorough inspection of the specific place I parked yielded an observation that the patch of curb I parked on looked, upon closer scrutiny, like it was shorter than ol' Betsy, who is a GMC envoy with a trailer hitch, and therefore has a long, wide ass. And, upon closer inspection, the house I parked in front of had one of those built-in garages, largely obscured by the large overhanging tree in front, and it became possible to envision that person coming home, and finding ol' Betsy blocking 1/4 to 1/3 of his/her driveway. And that would probably lead to towing.
So I went up to the door and knocked, to try to get confirmation of this hypothesis. No answer. And, I have no idea what towing company might have been called. So, I had little choice but to get back on the BART. I had been scheduled to stay the night at Laszlo's anyway, for some video-game playing, since I had to be back at the office Saturday morning at 815am.
So I got on the BART and went to Millbrae. Cost of the BART ticket: $3.25.
From Millbrae, I called Laszlo, and with GA in the background saying "Oh god, what now?", he volunteered to pick me up at the San Antonio CalTrain stop. So I got on the CalTrain and headed to San Antonio. Cost of the CalTrain ticket: $4.25.
Laszlo picked me up, and we went to In N Out, which soothed my nerves a little. By the time we got home, we were both really too tired for video games, so we went to bed. Saturday morning, Laszlo lent me his car, and I went to work.
At work, while my students were taking their tests, I called the Daly City police department and confirmed that they had towed my car. The process to get it back was: show up at the police station with exactly $204 in cash- no checks, no credit cards, no change given, and they would give me a slip of paper I could take to the towing company to get my car back.
Unfortunately, the office at the police station is only open until noon on Saturdays, and not at all on Sundays, so given that I wasn't done proctoring tests until 1pm, the earliest time I was going to be able to get my car was Monday morning. At 1pm, I headed back to Laszlo's.
GA, displaying the kind of practical genius that if I had just one tenth of one percent of, would absolutely change my life forever, devised a plan whereby I would borrow Laszlo's car for the evening so I could go home, and then come back and stay the night Sunday night. Monday morning I could get a ride to the train station and go get my car. It was imperative, though, that I have a vehicle, since GA is due to give birth tomorrow, and I'm the backup scheduled to take care of Li and Em if she has to suddenly go to the hospital.
So, after an afternoon of running errands with Li and Laszlo, I borrowed the car and went home. It was nice to be home. I went for a long bike ride, and it was wonderful. A beautiful day at the beach.
The next day, after a grueling bike ride with Joel up to the top of one of the hills that overlooks the harbor (the view is absolutely spectacular, but I wanted to die by the time I got up there), I drove back over the hill to Laszlo's. I put gas in the car just before I got there. Cost of the gas: $20.
After a late night fighting evil locust hordes (Gears of War 2), we went to bed. This morning, GA dropped me off at the train station at 830am. No CalTrain until 903am. Cost of the CalTrain ticket to Millbrae: $4.25.
From Millbrae, I took the BART to Colma, which was the nearest station to the Daly City police department. Cost of the BART ticket: $3.25.
From Colma, I walked to the Daly City police department. It was a fairly easy process there; I just forked over my $204 cash and got my slip of paper, which helpfully had directions on the back for how to get to the towing place. So, I took a nice walk through the local decaying industrial area until I found the towing place. I was curious to see what ethnic group was running the local towing scam. In New England, for instance, it's the Italians. Here, it's pretty clearly the Mexicans.
I handed over my slip of paper, and the guy walked over to the calendar and started counting days: "1,2,3...4" and then looked at the chart of costs, and then said: "That'll be 535 dollars."
Trying not to visibly wince, I handed over my credit card. He started to run it, and then said:
"Wait, no, that's not right. What's $340 plus $75?"
"$415", I answered.
"Thanks man! It's 415 dollars." (pause) "No, no, that's not right either. What's $390 plus $75?"
(sighing) "$465", I answered.
"That's it! $465. Thanks man!"
"Sure," I muttered.
This, folks, is why we'll all someday be nannies, housekeepers, and janitors for Chinese and Indian middle and upper class families. Because they can fucking add by the time they're in their 30's.
In fairness, it was clear that $465 was the correct amount as indicated by the chart of costs hanging above the desks, assuming the $75 labor charge was accurate ($190 flat impound fee + $50/day * 4 calendar days + labor charge). What is not clear is whether he would have known any better if I'd said: "That all adds up to $135."
So, after paying the $465, I went onto the lot and found my car. I unlocked it, put my stuff in, and got behind the wheel. At last, I thought, it's all done.
And then I noticed the parking citation stuck to the window. Cost of the citation: $30.
It's funny how we go through life and often make decisions in the moment that don't seem particularly significant at the time, but turn out to have enormous downstream effects later. The butterfly effect, as it were. Here's a summary of the downstream effects of one moment's decision not to just suck it up and park in the goddamned parking lot like normal people:
BART ticket: $3.25
CalTrain ticket: $4.25
Gas: $20.00
CalTrain ticket: $4.25
BART ticket: $3.25
Police fee: $204.00
Towing fee: $465.00
Citation: $30.00
Dollars saved not parking at BART: $3.00
Total cost of standing on principle: $714.00
Total benefit of standing on principle: $3.00
Total benefit (loss) of standing on principle: ($711.00)
Many people agonize over what the purpose of their lives is, about what it all means. I don't. I've known for a very long time what the purpose of my life is. It's to be an example to others.
And I, my friends, am a good example of a bad example.
Normally I take the CalTrain if I need to go into SF, which means just leaving my car at the office and walking, but the BART station is much closer to the office building that was my final destination, so I thought I'd use that. But that necessitated driving to the Daly City BART station, which I'd never done before.
Upon arriving there, I was shocked to discover that it costs $3 to park for the BART. To me, this was offensive. I mean, the point of public transport is to make it easy for me to use it. Don't fucking charge me to park. So I saw a nearby side street, and thought I'd check it out. I mean, I refuse to pay that stupid fee in principle if I can possibly avoid it.
A quick glance at the side street showed that there was a patch of curb available, so I quickly backed into the space. Now, this is exactly the sort of story that can end badly- person tries to save $3 and ends up getting screwed, so the first thing I did upon parking was to get out, walk down the driver's side in the street until I was in front of the parking signs, and then read them 3 times to make sure I was allowed to park here (i.e, not a residential permit area, not a streetcleaning day, etc.)
The signs clearly indicated that I was golden. I then walked back up along the driver's side, and doublechecked to make sure I'd locked the car. Don't want ol' Betsy to get stolen.
With that, I took my stuff, turned around, and walked down to the BART station, all the while thinking "I was VERY careful. I checked all possibilities. You're not getting me this time, fate. In your FACE, universe!"
So I took the BART up to SF, where we had a good meeting. Then I took the BART back, arriving at the Daly City BART station around 8pm. I walked over to where I'd parked the car.
And, it wasn't there.
Later, Laszlo asked me: "Did you feel a moment of panic?" The answer is, maybe for a nanosecond. But the benefit of being me is that panic is quickly drowned out by a feeling of inevitability. OF COURSE something like this happened. I knew there was a risk. I taunted fate. I thought I'd thought of everything. I should know better by now.
So, I went into problem-solving mode. The car is not there. There are really only 2 cases:
1) It was stolen.
2) It was towed.
So, I decided to survey the area for possible reasons it might have been towed. The signs still indicated it should have been OK to park. But a more thorough inspection of the specific place I parked yielded an observation that the patch of curb I parked on looked, upon closer scrutiny, like it was shorter than ol' Betsy, who is a GMC envoy with a trailer hitch, and therefore has a long, wide ass. And, upon closer inspection, the house I parked in front of had one of those built-in garages, largely obscured by the large overhanging tree in front, and it became possible to envision that person coming home, and finding ol' Betsy blocking 1/4 to 1/3 of his/her driveway. And that would probably lead to towing.
So I went up to the door and knocked, to try to get confirmation of this hypothesis. No answer. And, I have no idea what towing company might have been called. So, I had little choice but to get back on the BART. I had been scheduled to stay the night at Laszlo's anyway, for some video-game playing, since I had to be back at the office Saturday morning at 815am.
So I got on the BART and went to Millbrae. Cost of the BART ticket: $3.25.
From Millbrae, I called Laszlo, and with GA in the background saying "Oh god, what now?", he volunteered to pick me up at the San Antonio CalTrain stop. So I got on the CalTrain and headed to San Antonio. Cost of the CalTrain ticket: $4.25.
Laszlo picked me up, and we went to In N Out, which soothed my nerves a little. By the time we got home, we were both really too tired for video games, so we went to bed. Saturday morning, Laszlo lent me his car, and I went to work.
At work, while my students were taking their tests, I called the Daly City police department and confirmed that they had towed my car. The process to get it back was: show up at the police station with exactly $204 in cash- no checks, no credit cards, no change given, and they would give me a slip of paper I could take to the towing company to get my car back.
Unfortunately, the office at the police station is only open until noon on Saturdays, and not at all on Sundays, so given that I wasn't done proctoring tests until 1pm, the earliest time I was going to be able to get my car was Monday morning. At 1pm, I headed back to Laszlo's.
GA, displaying the kind of practical genius that if I had just one tenth of one percent of, would absolutely change my life forever, devised a plan whereby I would borrow Laszlo's car for the evening so I could go home, and then come back and stay the night Sunday night. Monday morning I could get a ride to the train station and go get my car. It was imperative, though, that I have a vehicle, since GA is due to give birth tomorrow, and I'm the backup scheduled to take care of Li and Em if she has to suddenly go to the hospital.
So, after an afternoon of running errands with Li and Laszlo, I borrowed the car and went home. It was nice to be home. I went for a long bike ride, and it was wonderful. A beautiful day at the beach.
The next day, after a grueling bike ride with Joel up to the top of one of the hills that overlooks the harbor (the view is absolutely spectacular, but I wanted to die by the time I got up there), I drove back over the hill to Laszlo's. I put gas in the car just before I got there. Cost of the gas: $20.
After a late night fighting evil locust hordes (Gears of War 2), we went to bed. This morning, GA dropped me off at the train station at 830am. No CalTrain until 903am. Cost of the CalTrain ticket to Millbrae: $4.25.
From Millbrae, I took the BART to Colma, which was the nearest station to the Daly City police department. Cost of the BART ticket: $3.25.
From Colma, I walked to the Daly City police department. It was a fairly easy process there; I just forked over my $204 cash and got my slip of paper, which helpfully had directions on the back for how to get to the towing place. So, I took a nice walk through the local decaying industrial area until I found the towing place. I was curious to see what ethnic group was running the local towing scam. In New England, for instance, it's the Italians. Here, it's pretty clearly the Mexicans.
I handed over my slip of paper, and the guy walked over to the calendar and started counting days: "1,2,3...4" and then looked at the chart of costs, and then said: "That'll be 535 dollars."
Trying not to visibly wince, I handed over my credit card. He started to run it, and then said:
"Wait, no, that's not right. What's $340 plus $75?"
"$415", I answered.
"Thanks man! It's 415 dollars." (pause) "No, no, that's not right either. What's $390 plus $75?"
(sighing) "$465", I answered.
"That's it! $465. Thanks man!"
"Sure," I muttered.
This, folks, is why we'll all someday be nannies, housekeepers, and janitors for Chinese and Indian middle and upper class families. Because they can fucking add by the time they're in their 30's.
In fairness, it was clear that $465 was the correct amount as indicated by the chart of costs hanging above the desks, assuming the $75 labor charge was accurate ($190 flat impound fee + $50/day * 4 calendar days + labor charge). What is not clear is whether he would have known any better if I'd said: "That all adds up to $135."
So, after paying the $465, I went onto the lot and found my car. I unlocked it, put my stuff in, and got behind the wheel. At last, I thought, it's all done.
And then I noticed the parking citation stuck to the window. Cost of the citation: $30.
It's funny how we go through life and often make decisions in the moment that don't seem particularly significant at the time, but turn out to have enormous downstream effects later. The butterfly effect, as it were. Here's a summary of the downstream effects of one moment's decision not to just suck it up and park in the goddamned parking lot like normal people:
BART ticket: $3.25
CalTrain ticket: $4.25
Gas: $20.00
CalTrain ticket: $4.25
BART ticket: $3.25
Police fee: $204.00
Towing fee: $465.00
Citation: $30.00
Dollars saved not parking at BART: $3.00
Total cost of standing on principle: $714.00
Total benefit of standing on principle: $3.00
Total benefit (loss) of standing on principle: ($711.00)
Many people agonize over what the purpose of their lives is, about what it all means. I don't. I've known for a very long time what the purpose of my life is. It's to be an example to others.
And I, my friends, am a good example of a bad example.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
White Trash (don't call me that...)
I recommend that song, by Southern Comfort on the Skids.
I read that Bristol Palin has split with her fiance. The minimal amount of generically feeling bad about that, that I feel because I reflexively dislike seeing people suffering, is totally, totally swamped by a feeling of righteous vindication, since I commented to all that would listen during the throes of the campaign that the only reason they were engaged was that they were forced to as a method of political damage control, since it was no doubt awkward for Ms. "family values" to have an unwed pregnant teenage daughter.
Seriously, that family is so-o-o-o dysfunctional white trash. I hope she and Rush are the face of the Republican party for as long as possible.
I read that Bristol Palin has split with her fiance. The minimal amount of generically feeling bad about that, that I feel because I reflexively dislike seeing people suffering, is totally, totally swamped by a feeling of righteous vindication, since I commented to all that would listen during the throes of the campaign that the only reason they were engaged was that they were forced to as a method of political damage control, since it was no doubt awkward for Ms. "family values" to have an unwed pregnant teenage daughter.
Seriously, that family is so-o-o-o dysfunctional white trash. I hope she and Rush are the face of the Republican party for as long as possible.
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