Too stupid to die…

Lots of 19th century “innovations” are gone for good reason: horse-drawn wagons, the Saturday bath, walking across continents, surgery without anesthesia… novelties like these are lamented by no one except history buffs and masochists.

But one 19th century institution missing from our world is a true loss: the health retreat. Back in the day they were called sanatoriums: resorts set up for the “improvement or maintenance of health, especially for convalescents.” Today the  idea of withdrawing from life to recover a bit health is so odd that most people, hearing the word “sanatorium” translate it as “nut house.”

My oh-so-slow recovery from my latest medical travail makes me long for this old tradition.

I ache to check out of my life for a time and into another, one where meals are prepared and laundry is done and my duties consist of napping, reading, and taking long walks through woods and meadows. (more…)

–noun

1. Pathology. a quantitative deficiency of the hemoglobin, often accompanied by a reduced number of red blood cells and causing pallor, weakness, and breathlessness.

2. a lack of power, vigor, vitality, or colorfulness: His writing suffers from anemia…

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrroad trip!!!

The car is tuned. It’s got new tires and is loaded down with jackets and maps and food for doggie and me and of course my camera and the tripod I always take and hardly ever use. The back seat’s converted into Otto’s Command Center so da pooch can survey the world from the comfort of his traveling bed. And we are driving down Highway 101 through the ridiculously green hills of an El Nino winter California listening to Roseanne Cash and Michelle Shocked on our way south to visit family and friends…

That’s what was supposed to happen. (more…)

I’ve got this deal going – in my head anyway – with the Three Fates. The Greeks called them Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, and they spin out, measure, and in the end cut the thread of our lives. We are literally in their hands.

My deal is, I get to stay alive for some unspecified number of moments after the liver cancer and transplant. I get to be conscious, occasionally functional, and once in a while I even get to thrive. I also get to experience each and every sensation of a body running down its weave.

I’ve started and not finished a dozen posts on my health trials of the past year. One did refer to my struggle last summer just to learn that I’ve comedown two impossible–for-a-transplantee autoimmune diseases, but that’s it. I feel guilt for not having posted more. (more…)

I just posted this picture on Flickr. I took it yesterday in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park after a visit to UCSF Medical Center. The morning was misty and cold, the grass and trees a delightful winter green.

Winter green?

Many other flickr photographers (from the Northern Hemisphere anyway) are posting pictures of ice storms, whiteouts, buried snow plows, and barren windswept fields. And here come the Californians showing snapshots of green.

California’s coastal winterscapes can drive the ice-bound crazy. Once again we’re seen as Violating All The Rules and Just Not Making Any Sense. But there is a logic to our seasons, even if it’s obscure. It helps to remember that the planet’s largest heat-sink (aka the Pacific Ocean) is just to our left.

So as a service for those who just don’t get all this green, here’s a short guide to our seasons.

Winter

Every hillside is green. A ridiculous, Irish/New Zealand green. So green your eyes hurt looking at it, especially when the sun shines. Green? In the land of perpetual drought? (more…)

I saw the movie 2012 Sunday. No better way to get your mind off your own problems than to watch a big, messy Hollywood disaster flick where pretty much everybody’s fate is worse than yours.

2012 is exactly like every movie catastrophe you’ve ever seen: an estranged family fights for survival and the meaning of “family”; do-gooders shriek justice and compassion while everybody else panics and stabs each other in the back; heroic rescues give the audience – and the characters stuck in the mess – something to cheer. Bad guys get called-for comeuppance and sacred institutions (religious and secular) are reduced to richly deserved rubble.

Oh, and of course L.A. is destroyed. Again. Poor L.A.; no other city comes close to suffering as much cinematically as the womb of the entertainment industry. Kinda makes you wonder about the folks who run it…

There’s a lie in 2012’s marketing though, and I’m not talking about the bogus science. The movie isn’t really about the end of the world. It’s about the earth – more to the point us, humans – getting a chance at a makeover.

Sure, a good three-fourths of us are knocked off. “Civilization As We Know It” ends. Continents realign, the poles shift (to Wisconsin?), tsunamis scour half the land mass, and on. But by film’s end Things Stabilize and A New Dawn arrives – literally.

In other words, the earth – remaining humans included – gets an upgrade: a chance at a reboot to version 2.0.

And isn’t that exactly what all of us really want?

Our planet’s a mess. We’ve overpopulated it like rats on a sinking ship. We’re running out of resources, we’re only still eating because of hideous meat factories and genetic tricks made to our crops. To keep folks from thinking about all this education’s been turned into pop-culture quizzes and we’ve made a religion out of shopping.

But way down in our limbic brains we all know we’ve fucked up and hell’s to pay. Doesn’t matter who we blame – ourselves, our neighbors, those people over there, the rich, our gods or saints or sinners or politicians or just the roll of the dice – we know we all contributed and we’re all screwed.

Probably the biggest laugh in all the buzz around 2012 is the guilt some critics mention of rooting for John Cuzak et al while 6 billion other earthlings are being offed. Get real, critics! No one laments those people. Too bad about them, we tell ourselves, but when the apocalypse comes we know we’re with the elect. We will survive. This certainty isn’t just in our religions; it’s in our DNA.

What are movies like 2012 really about? What do we really want?

Another chance. And that’s what we want.

What we want is to toss away everything we’ve screwed up – in this case the whole damn world and everybody (else) in it – toss it all out like last year’s iPod and upgrade to the next version. Something newer, something trendier. More intelligent. Something like Earth, 2.0.

And we want more: we want something to force us to act, to do the right thing. Something like the realignment of the earth’s crust in 2012, say. Heaven knows we can’t do it on our own initiative: we can’t even agree whether Arctic ice is melting or if we should choose paper over plastic. Somebody – mommy? Are you there, mommy? – has to make us.

What a movie like 2012 offers is something to force us to act.

There’s another post-disaster movie out right now, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I haven’t seen it yet but I’ve read the book. Bleak, gray, filled with cannibals and hopelessness, strewn with wreckage, it offers no beginning to the catastrophe and no end. There are no shiny arks of salvation, no secret cooperation among nations. Just forage, disease and death.

The Road’s apocalypse is much more likely than 2012’s.

Which is why 2012 is packing the theatres and The Road will disappear in a week.

Who wants to fix problems when you can just upgrade and reboot?

I’ve been working on a few thoughts re: the healthcare “debate” we’re having in the U.S. from my perspective as a “professional consumer” of same. I didn’t plan to write this, though.

I have been seething at the treatment President Obama received addressing Congress about healthcare last Wednesday. The disrespect shown him – not just by Addison Graves Wilson of South Carolina, aka. “Joe the Heckler” but by the entire Republican caucus – was nauseating. Almost to a person, these “statesmen and women” of the opposition heckled the President waving sheafs of paper, petulantly pouted, booed and catcalled, and shot him endless hate-filled sneers worthy of a pissed-off 8 year old. One congressman even walked out for benefit of the cameras. It was disgusting.

Their venom has nothing to do with healthcare. It has everything to do with race.

Like the birth certificate flap that entertained us through the Summer, Spring’s anti-stimulus “tea parties” and pretty much every other pseudo-conflict stirred up since Obama’s election, the racial subtext of the health care “debate” is blatant.

Some people cannot abide having an intelligent, thoughtful black man in the Oval Office.

Finally someone with a pulpit has put the obvious out front and center. Maureen Dowd titled her column in yesterday’s New York Times Boy Oh, Boy, putting the missing word back into Wilson’s shout out, as in “You lie, boy!” Think about it for a nanosecond and you know she’s right. The old racist code word for black men was loud and clear.

Now, read carefully: no, not everyone who disagrees with Obama’s health care plans is a racist. Reasonable people have fiscal objections to government-run health care, philosophical objections, objections about his approach, and there are all sorts of worries about what change might do to our precarious status quo.

Are you hearing those people? No.

You’re hearing a U.S. senator boast how he’ll destroy Obama’s presidency by destroying his health care bill. You hear Master Wilson’s “liar liar” and how it’s netted him over 700 grand for re-election. You’re hearing Lindsey Graham – the so-called “reasonable” South Carolina senator – and a gaggle of other legislators calling the President a disaster.

And as always when politicians blow hard at the bottom of the barrel, they stir up muck.

Look at pictures from last week’s “tea parties”. Read the signs. You don’t need a psychic to see the real point of the protests. Obama is a “Fascist Muslim Communist!” (Will someone please tell me how anybody can be all those things at once?) Another shows Bin Laden passing the terrorist baton to Obama. Some of these fine patriots even put Obama’s picture in a pile of horse manure and took each other’s pictures standing in it. That’s a debate?

Death panels, granny-killers, black-on-white racism, a senator (Inhofe of Oklahoma this time) grandly proclaiming “I refuse to read the [healthcare] bill and I’m proud to vote against it!” Guns at town halls. Radio talk – serious – of killing the President. And anybody who has any kind of rational argument for, against, or middling on the actual issue of health care is a terrorist supporting a terrorist.

Don’t agree? Don’t think it’s racism, just strong opinions about a contentious issue? Take a look these photos from the first “tea parties” in April, set up to protest the stimulus package: “Obama’s plan: White slavery.” “The American taxpayers are the Jews for Obama’s ovens.” You look at the rest. I don’t have the stomach. The racial subtext has been front and center for the opposition from the moment Obama was elected.

The Obama presidency has brought out the best and the worst in America. So many of us have a quiet pride in our nation taking such a significant step last November, including many who disagree with him and didn’t vote for him. But at the other bottom of that barrel are those so incensed by his election they welcome him as termites welcome an exterminator. They cannot abide – abide! This! New! World!

Racism is the venom in the veins of America. It’s time to get it out – to call it out – before it kills us.

This “debate” disgusts me. And it has nothing to do with health care.

Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time. –Georgia O’keeffe

I saw a man on a street corner staring up with such intent he seemed to be studying for an important exam. I think he was.

In his hand was a camera, a Canon EOS, and the objects of his analysis were the powerlines overhead. Or he was noting the angles and shadows of the rooftops on the buildings nearby. Or perhaps it was the textures of the gray clouds left by our last small storm that fascinated. If his exam was an advanced one, he was considering all three.

The man was in the midst of what I’ve come to call the seeing – the act of poring over something, point by point, detail by detail, trying to figure out what is there. What is really there, not the small and disconnected bits we register in our day-to-day and then claim – foolishly – we’ve actually seen something.

(more…)

Ok, I’m getting sentimental here. But I’ve opened yet another door of the Medical Winchester Mystery House – an autoimmune condition this time – and I’m in need a bit of sentiment. I’ll write the gloomy stuff later, but right now…

I’ve posted (and posted and posted) about Otto, my dog. I’ve said less about my ex-cat (ex-mine that is, not ex-feline), Orion. Orion now lives with a dear friend, partially due to my medical adventures, but he’s still a frequent visitor.

More important, Orion and Otto are… well, it’s kind of hard to say what they are to each other: lets just call it a really really strong bond. Orion was here first, and when Otto arrived as a 7 week old puppy they fast became inseprable. Breaking them up was one of the sadder things I’ve ever had to do. It’s been sadder yet for the two critters.

During Orion’s last couple of stay-overs, I started taking notes on life with a cat and dog. Anyone who lives with both knows that the usual cat rules and dog rules – and your life – change erratically.

So here are the notes. And please: send along your own observations. No doubt we can come up with a book. (more…)

When I left for the mountains two weeks after the hummingbird chicks hatched in my back yard, I knew I’d likely miss the ending of the nesting drama with Patience and her twins. Unfortunately I was right: I came home to an empty nest. The last picture of the chicks I posted before the trip showed two growing but still very young and pin-feathered baby hummers, baby-bird beaks pointing to the sky, waiting for mom to come feed me! Feed Me! FEEEED MEEE!

And this is what I found on return:

Fortunately for  all who’ve followed this tiny saga, a neighbor was kind enough to tend the garden and keep me posted on the chicks via eMail. Just five days after I left, she sent the latest pictures of the twins. And I was astonished. The scraggly little pinballs had turned into actual birds!  Here are two of her pictures:

Photos by M.C., May 14, 2009

Five days to from pinballs with gaping mouths to recognizable birds – astonishing. No wonder Patience looked so thin the last time I saw her.

The very next day…  best to quote my neighbor’s eMail directly:

I took this [picture below] at about 7:45pm.  Then I stepped back towards the door and stood for a couple of minutes watching from a distance.  Suddenly there was a little buzz – I couldn’t see clearly but I THINK it was mom – then a whirr and a ripple and all three were gone, up to the right and over the wire above the fence.

I’ll keep watch in case they come back for a rest in the next day or two, but I suspect they’re on their way, fledged and capable of feeding themselves.  Certainly they were just as fast as mom!

I’m glad I went down this evening – at least now we know they FLEW away, and weren’t snatched by predators.  –M.C.

Here is M.C.’s last photo of the chicks.

Photo by M.C., 15 May 2009.

Today, a good handful of days back from the mountains, I watch the nest deteriorate – a feather comes undone from Patience’s careful weave, a small twig falls out of place, the once solid structure appears more and more fragile. A friend commented that one rainstorm now and it’ll be gone.

Hope of another tenancy by Patience or another hummingbird seems remote now that summer is here, which in San Francisco means icy cold fogs blowing off the Pacific intermixed with a few hours of cold sunshine and sharp winds. The growth of the cherry tree Patience built her nest in is robust enough that it whipsaws even more jarringly in the winds.

Still, the hummingbird saga isn’t over completely. I hear them in the back yard all the time and see them flitting among the trees during calmer moments. A couple of days ago during a sunny interlude, one came down to get water from the hose as I was spraying the plants. It wasn’t an Anna’s though, like Patience and her brood. This one was bigger and I could actually see the wings move. Maybe another species will take up nesting in the yard next year. I hope so.

What I got out of this small drama, even more than the wonder of experiencing it first hand, is how this minor scene of nature touched so many people as it unfolded. Are we really so removed from the world that the raising of two baby birds from eggs is seen as a small miracle? What does it say about the place we’ve made for ourselves in the world that we view such events not only with fascination but relief?

I’m not letting myself off the hook here; the trip to the mountains was essential for me precisely for the same reason. I spent most my time up there off-road, walking and hiking and driving dirt tracks, trying to get as close to the world – and as far away from what we humans have created – as I could.

What does this say about us? When do we face it?

Photo by M.C., 14 May 2009

More on the hummingbird saga unfolding in my back yard Regular posts will resume soon! (Written Sunday/Monday May 3/4.)

Over the last week Patience the hummingbird has worked dawn to dusk feeding her two chicks. They’re thriving, growing from pea-sized bits of gelatinous gray to wiggly lumps spiked with the beginnings of feathers and an orange beak, all of which still can’t quite fill a teaspoon. Back and forth she went hunting nectar and bugs, feeding the two several times an hour. Often, when I used the hose nearby, she repeated her “request” for water and I obliged by spraying the nearby plants. Her absences allowed me better views of the two little things though I always backed away when I heard her returning buzz. The weather at last cooperated too, with cool days and little wind.

As days went by she seemed less concerned about visitors to the yard, human or otherwise. She expressed no worry at all about Otto or me and ignored the robins, finches and doves. She still wasn’t too pleased with the European starlings bug-hunting below her tree however, and I can’t say I blame her. The starlings are the obnoxious tourists of the bird world, squawking and squabbling, hogging and fouling the bird dish and even bathing in Otto’s drinking bowl. Otto dispatches them whenever he sees them.

I noticed that the chicks don’t peep and squabble or do anything at all while mom’s gone, unlike most other young birds. The nest is not even 5 feet/1.5m off the ground yet you’d never know they were there if you didn’t know where to look. This seemed to me to be just too quiet for any little critter and I wondered if everything was going all right. I found the answer – and many other bits of useful information – from the amazing and exhaustive World of Hummingbirds website. The silence is a safety measure, to ensure that nothing gives their presence away while mom is off foraging. The chicks hunker down deep in their nest and wait until they feel/hear mom’s wings, then perk up for a feeding. Considering how often and long she was gone, this made sense.

By Saturday the 2nd, Patience was almost never around. I saw her feeding the chicks only once during the day. I didn’t think too much about it; I hadn’t been out back much and figured I’d just missed her. Besides, her absences allowed for lots of nest views for myself and others. The chicks had grown to the point that their beaks had lost the baby orange (already!) and were growing into a point. Their bodies were bigger too, taking up over half of the little nest’s depth.

Saturday night when I took Otto down for his pre-bedtime pee, I checked the nest. Still no Patience! I freaked. Yes, the chicks were bigger and it probably wasn’t that comfortable to be sitting on them, but still: they were only as big as a small strawberry. How could they stay warm? I looked around the cherry tree to see if she was sitting nearby, but it was dark and she’d never shown much interest in sitting in it before. I violated a rule I’d set when this back yard episode of  ”Nature” began and went upstairs for a flashlight. Careful not to shine the light directly on the nest, I could see both chicks were quite alive, their metabolisms racing like they’d just run a race. Was this right? Where is mom?

Back upstairs, this time to the computer and the hummingbird website where I found the following:

After one week, the baby hummingbirds will be covered in tiny little fuzzy feathers making them look like a miniature prickly balls. Baby hummingbirds will usually have enough feathers to regulate their own body heat by about nine (9) days after hatching. The mother hummingbird will no longer need to sit on the nest all the time, and the baby hummingbirds are too big for the mother hummingbird to fit.

I checked the calendar. I’d noted the day the eggs were laid and the day they hatched. Saturday was day 10 post-hatch. The next morning the little guys were fine, beaks pointed out of the nest, waiting for their next nectar-and-bug smoothie. And so it goes, even through a gentle rain that has been around for the last couple days. I’ve seen Patience only once more, but her kids are growing fast. Fast. According to the website, she may actually be building another nest nearby so she can do it all over again before the season ends. Amazing. Maybe Patience isn’t that patient after all.

One last bit: according to the website, “toilet training comes built in… baby hummingbirds will do everything they can to dispose of waste over the side of the nest.” I read that after seeing it happen in the flesh, so to speak. I was looking at the pair when one suddenly made a move and raised itself up to the top of the nest. This was more effort I’d seen either of them expend. Once in position – hard to tell what the position was as they still look like spiky lumps with a beak – a tiny squirt ensued then the little bird collapsed back into the nest.  If only we mammals were similarly pre-programmed!

Update: I wrote the above Sunday/Monday. Today, Tuesday, the chicks almost fill the nest and their beaks can’t even remotely fit inside. Like I said, they’re growing fast. Patience couldn’t sit on them any more even if she wanted to. All they do is wait, metabolisms racing, for the next feeding. Oh, and grow. This is the most recent picture. They barely fit in their nest anymore!