Cosmos Ups the Ante

Gabe's academic year started anew, with Friday pickup soccer separating a week of study from a week-end of study. I am there to enforce the separation.

Smarting from a close call in Man vs. Cosmos, I have summoned the muscle stretch to get me through play until dusk. Goodbye cramps.

Cosmos also came ready for the fight: Artificial Lights threaten an endless game. Yet man does not need to outrun the tiger, just outlast some youngsters.

Man lives to play another day, or maybe plays to live another day.

Acutely aware that Cosmos only needs to win once.

Field Jacket M65

Click picture to enlarge

My M65 field jacket started its third life in 1980 when Gonzalo came to the airport to se me off. He took off his olive green jacket and told me it was mine. Never washed it to preserve Gonzalo's inscription under the lining. It was to be read only after I was gone. And gone I was.

It is not exactly my size, and it has the Army surplus patina, yet I resisted my family's attempts to purge the field jacket from my wardrobe. In it I look like a homeless person to my wife. Vietnam vet reintegration kind of homelessness, reason enough to defy the stigma and wear it. Wear it I did.

I picked up Gabriel once after a party at a fancy Palo Alto hotel. The hosts came out to size up the odd green M65 silhouette roaming outside the ball room...

And wear it Gonzalo did, for he is not a slave to fashion either.

With our house full of friends, stories, and a round bread denoting the full circle of a new year, we learn that Luis had been a student of Gonzalo's father, Guaymiran, well esteemed Forensic Medicine Professor. Luis now invents molecules, compounds or something like that here in the US, but is not known for inventing stories.

Upon Luis trip to the states in the late 70's, the good professor asked him to bring something, one of those American military jackets Gonzalo always wanted. An XL if possible, Gonzalo already had a large frame. As Luis narrates his purchase of a military jacket in Utah, I walk to the closet and pull my M65 field jacket, the olive green looks familiar to Luis. Yet only when I ask him to remove the lining and read Gonzalo's inscription our full circle closes. That very jacket just trumped anything a round bread can evoke.

Of the jacket's original owner all I have is that red paint inscription. A tall order to go close that circle, but if I keep wearing it who knows...

Before and After

Trips and meals have Before, During, and After epochs. Before is the anticipation phase enjoyed before a vacation or a good meal. Sandra's table here covers both. A great dinner on a vacation trip.

The During part evaporates as fast as the food on her table. The Before and After are longer and seem to bracket the present forever it seems.

The objective benefits of a meal or a vacation take place after, certainly not before the event. Nutrition does not start by thinking about food. Burned out workers have to take actual vacations, not only book them on the web. The cognitive and experiential value of a trip does not kick in until the trip.

But paradoxically we enjoy the Before phase so much more than the After. The picture of Sandra's table is more enticing than after us locust were done eating.

I for one can't enjoy a great meal or vacation if I know it is the last one.

Da Vinci's Jesus seems to enjoy the Last Supper, knowing though it was his last. But then again Jesus had his deity tickets confirmed, an exclusive vacation spot, especially exclusive for monotheistic faiths (triple occupancy rooms max). The last smoke in death row is known to be the last, but folks seldom come back to tell us if they enjoyed it.

An inconclusive trip it was, as I think that we can either double clutch through life by putting things to look forward to behind each other, or learn to live by Vinicius De Moraes lyrics:

E a coisa mais divina Que há no mundo É viver cada segundo Como nunca mais...

The Underdog

Where were you when Uruguay got to the World Cup semifinals?

Well last time, as a child, I was on the apartment balcony in Montevideo. Not sure if the game was broadcast live on TV, but I listened to the game on a transistor radio I just built. A city balcony immerses you in a popular experience. Now it is me and the TV in American suburbia, plus I have become less of a balcony bonding person anyway.

The more things change the more they stay the same. In 1970 Uruguay was the underdog against Russia/USSR, a team from a continent pretty much. This time Uruguay went up against Ghana, the whole continent of Africa behind it.

The common wisdom that Everybody Loves an Underdog rings as false as Newton's physics did to Einstein. The Revised Theory should read:

In the Absence of Bias Everybody Loves an Underdog.

Now, you find me an unbiased person and I will find Einstein's Unified Field Theory.

She has been wearing that #10 celeste way before this World Cup, and far from futility, as the underdog she will always remember where she was that July 2010 when they went to PKs.

Father's Day

As the poster boy of the "all days are the same" movement, this Father's Day forces me to nuance my position. OK, maybe there should be a distinction between days, but I will not let the holiday or commercial calendar rule my emotional life.

As for birthdays and anniversaries, it would be great if all our days were a celebration. Sounds immature? Yes, but consistent, and a good excuse for us who don't excel at remembering dates, and don't even remember to check.

Now seasons are not all the same. One boy and his suitcases drove back from college, the younger boy sleeps late and works on his juggling instead of some homework. 'Tis the season for our gypsy girl to go travel a bit. June days are long and there is the World Cup on HDTV, which is almost like being there, only better.

Spare me this Father's Day nonsense, I'll take the NorCal summer as "Father's Season", any day.

Man vs. Cosmos

The daily and weekly grind. Life's chores and duties. That is not life, that is just living. Life is the soccer we play, the pickup games we squeeze along the way.

We went back to soccer at UCSD last Friday, pickup games with Gabriel and other students.

After more than 2 hours an imminent face-off between dusk and the right leg cramping. Man vs. Cosmos, an unfair fight for sure. Cosmos wins. Except for soccer, for I can play through pain, but the sun will not stop going down. Or hasn't since the biblical days of Joshua.

Asking how's life risks getting a polite and ambiguous reply. Our calves don't lie and will show the answer.

Ori

Human traits are bundled in blocks I am convinced. We know that people that walk a particular way, have a particular look, end up having many other things in common.

Maybe that is a genetic overload to save space, or maybe it is nature's way of helping us. We can extrapolate character and trust without having to re-discover it for every person we meet.

At work I got to spend some time lately with Ori, including a work trip. Ori shared traits with a friend from elementary school, specially his smiling eyes. We clicked as if he were that childhood friend, and I was looking forward to a lot more.

On Friday I learned that was not meant to be. The only thing I can think of posting for you Ori is Lhasa's cover of Who By Fire.

Done

The week was perfect and Sunday night we are home for good.

The room was larger this time, facing the Fillmore side, where the walks and the good foods were.

The view had St. Dominics and almost on the same line behind it, Sherith Israel. Beautiful buildings both. Like those who use two different phone carriers, just in case, or enterprises connected to the internet through two providers, just in case, a line of sight to a church and a temple would be another just-in-case. Whatever it was it worked. Time to go back to planning the future.

Back in the UCSF

Been away so long I hardly knew the place

Gee, it's good to be back home
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey disconnect the phone
I'm back in the UCSF
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the UC
Back in the UC
Back in the UCSF

A parody of the Beatles song which is in itself a parody of Beach Boys songs. A parody of a parody is a parody. We are back in the UCSF Mount Zion Hospital.

Yesterday was Day 1 and it went great. Gabriel was walking less than five hours after waking up. Familiar nurses compete to be in charge of him. Igal is here, he was at a conference in Stanford and is staying in San Francisco for a few days. Gabriel and Igal are walking a lot, two tall figures walking and talking about Economics is a first on the 5th floor.

On Day 1 a belly dancer came in to cheer patients up, Gabriel missed her by an hour, but I took a picture. Don't know what language songs she danced to, but ventral motions are a lingua franca, and ventral motions is what it is all about on the 5th floor.

Gabriel pulled-in his second surgery, so we are ahead of other patients we befriended back in December. By now we know some names, one is due in two weeks for his second round. There are though two names from before, probably and sadly still here since December, but these are speculations one makes in the hospital, a bastion of don't ask don't tell.

The best outcome would be to be discharged in 5 days. Why not. If the universe was created in 6 days, we could be done in 5 days. With insurance folks breathing down his neck God would have finished All Creation in 3 days. Not including two weeks of paperwork to get reimbursed. God's insurance covers only his days of creation, nights were a pre-existing condition.

As we close the books on Day 2 it was another great day at UCSF. An assistant surgeon stopped by, a new face for Gabriel who was under anesthesia the first time they "met". All in all the top surgeon and the nurses are the only invariants here. All other doctors changed in these two months. We get to gauge their game all over again. A fresh start can be good, because without anesthesia even doctors only have one chance to make a first impression.

Seeing the light on 2/22

Things are falling into place for the second planned UCSF work. We can see the light at the end of this saga. A smaller one, just shutting the engine hood and getting Gabriel back on the highway.

Elegant numbers a good omen. This 2nd step will be on 2/22. 2 months after the 12/22 surgery.

We will be at UCSF Mount Sinai for a few days. We'll try to be home faster than in December, but a longer stay means more stories. Feel free to stop by UCSF for a cameo appearance, or who knows, maybe a lead character role in one of the stories.