I Stand, Corrected

Your Faithful Correspondent

I haven't given up the scooter entirely. The cane works well, but I'm really slow trying to walk with it. Therefore when I need to get anywhere outside the house the scooter is still the weapon of choice.

For the first time in a month I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In the mean time it's Opening Day when every team is in first place, every player a potential MVP, and every executive measures space in the office for the World Series trophy. It's the best day of the year.

In so many ways.

Walk Like A Man

I took a step today.

That's not a metaphor; I took a step. As in one step. As in right leg out, left leg out. It damn near killed me.

We take walking for granted. Well, I take walking for granted, I've been doing it nearly all my life. Be honest, when was the last time you really THOUGHT about walking? I don't mean going out for a walk through the wonders of nature, I mean when was the last time you thought about the way you walk? I doubt, unless you have been in my situation or a similar one, you ever have. It's only natural. We just get up and start walking.

Now I'm forced to think about walking. How does one walk? One thing I've discovered is that without being aware of it, I naturally want to start walking by pushing off with my left leg, which currently resides inside a fiberglass cast. I wonder if that has anything to do with all the hours I have spent driving, getting in and out of the left hand side of a car? Man I'd be in serious trouble driving in England. Come to think of it, when I've gone to Great Britain I'm in trouble just trying to cross the street.

But I digress.

On top of having to think about the act of walking, I'm having to get used to newly modified equipment down there. No more ankle dragging on the ground, no more listing to one side, no more limp. Muscles that haven't been used in years are being asked to wake from their dormancy and they rebel against that idea. There is my own native determination to get things done quickly, so yes I'm admitting to having the thought in my head of why can't I just get this over with. Some would call it patience, a quality I lack a quantity of.

We just take it as natural that you swing one leg forward then the other and that's how we get from point A to point B. But in reality there is a millisecond when we balance on one leg before the other one hits the ground. That's where I'm having some difficulty. I can throw my left leg out, but my mind will not allow me to balance on it for even that millisecond in order to swing forward my right leg. Is it a matter of not feeling secure because of the cast, or is it the voice in the back of my head saying what if putting all your weight on that foot will do damage so don't do it because I don't want to have to go through this all over again? Jesus that voice in the back of my head is a nag.

 There is nothing more basic for self determination than being able to transport one's self. Nearly all of man's inventions ultimately come back to being a system allowing us to get somewhere. We talk about civilization beginning with the wheel. Our natural progression is to go from crawling to walking to demanding the keys to the family station wagon. The ancients sang heroic ballads to those men who could run the fastest and most revered the gods who were blessed with speed of foot. Just look at poor Achilles, felled by being vulnerable in the body location currently under repair on myself. I feel your pain big guy.

So it all comes down to being able to put one foot in front of the other. I was able to quell the apprehension long enough to do it once, if putting my left leg out and kinda sorta dragging, slightly lifting my right leg to come up parallel counts as taking a step. I'm counting it as such.

As the poet said, it's all a process. Meanwhile we'll let Frankie and the boys sing us out.

3rd to 1st

Aside from my family and my friends there are fewer things I love in life more than baseball and music.

On occasion the two will converge. "Damn Yankees", "Centerfield", "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request", "Meet the Mets", "Jake, Jake the Yiddisha Ball Player" (yeah that's a real song written by Irving Berlin),  hell even Danny Kaye doing "The D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song", all of them are great.

I would even advocate for a constitutional amendment making Take Me Out To The Ball Game the national anthem. Yes, I'm that fanatical when it comes to the intersection of the national pastime and syncopated rhyme.

For the start of the 2014 season, I'd like you to take a listen to the newest addition to the genre, an album by the alternative rock band known as The Baseball Project.

By way of introduction, the players in TBP (Steve Wynn, Linda Pitmon, Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills) started this as a side project to the bands they were in, a tribute to the game they love or maybe a goof, your choice. Their first two albums, "High and Inside" and  "Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails" were a collection of anthems and ballads, quiet love songs and rousing rockers to subjects as diverse as Ted Williams ("Ted Fucking Williams"), The Minnesota Twins ("Don't Call Them Twinkies")  and their greatest achievement, at least to this SF Giants fan, "Panda and The Freak".

The have now released their third album, appropriately called "3rd". As with so many  rock bands the third album is where they have gotten it all together. Musically tight, lyrics that bite, amuse, or break your heart all while experimenting brilliantly with various forms of music. Consider:

Hola America a salsa inflected cancion that tells the story of Orlando (El Duque) Hernandez and his fairy tale journey from Cuban boat refugee to World Series pitcher in a matter of only a few months.

13 is a Tejano revenge song out of a Tarantino movie recounting the saga of Alex Rodriquez.

Monument Park is a power pop tune that imagines Bernie Williams patrolling Yankee Stadium's centerfield magnificently for years, only to be forgotten when the greats are spoken of. Oh wait, that is the reality.

To the Veteran's Committee is a plea to allow in  a certain Atlanta Braves two time National League MVP outfielder who nevertheless is not in the Hall Of Fame

Box Scores is a love song to the joy of an early morning cup of coffee and the sports page.

They Don't know Henry imagines all the things Mr. Aaron was thinking as he took the epithets and the insults of growing up in the deep South, becoming the greatest home run hitter of all time while never getting the admiration or love attained by certain other players, and then having to see his record fall to a somewhat dubious new champion.

The Day Dock Went Head Hunting--no not another retelling of Dock Ellis pitching a no-hitter when high on LSD. Instead it focuses on Ellis' second most famous outing, the day in 1974 he started a game against the Cincinnati Reds by hitting Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Dan Driessen, then walking Tony Perez (after throwing pitches at his head) then throwing two more pitches at Johnny Bench before being relieved.

The Oakland A's -- who are these guys in the other city by the bay (and do they know the way to San Jose) who beyond all reason every year make it to the post season? Even a shout out to Dallas Braden's Mother's Day perfect game.

Pascual on the Perimeter -- the ballad of Pascual Perez, a middle level pitcher who most famously missed a start in 1982 because he got lost on Hwy 285 looking for the exit for the stadium

The Baseball Card Song is a confession of sorts, an admission that when the guitar got put down at the end of rehearsal our hero went off to his hidden collection of Topps and Fleer. Thank god my parents didn't throw them away he says and the end of the song will show you why.

Nails to Thumbtacks tells of the ballplayer known as Nails, Lenny Dykstra and his fall from the heights of million dollars homes to living in his car.

Larry Yount is where we learn of Larry Yount's tale of promise curtailed by an injury while warming up in the bullpen before his major league debut, never to play again, then having to deal with his younger brother Robin becoming a Hall of Famer. Oh what might have been.

A Boy Named Cy never won the award named for him. And Lou Gehrig got the disease with his name. And Tommy John had the surgery known by his name.,

Stats is an emo tune consisting only of famous numbers from baseball history. A true fan understands it's deeper meaning.

If you're looking to get your 2014 season off to a great start, take a listen to "3rd". It's available from all the usual outlets as well as being streamed on Spotify. It's as satisfying as spending an afternoon in the sun watching your favorite team take a close one with a ninth inning rally and a walk off homer.

Updates Both Physical and Domestic

Back to the Dr. Knee today to remove cast #3 and wrap me in cast #4.

The main reason for today's visit was to check the progress, or rather the hope-fored lack of progress, of the infection she diagnosed last week. Sure enough the infection was in check, but the incision points were still pretty far apart. She is of the mind that they will close fast upon my getting permanently out of a cast. I certainly hope so or they'll be no open toed sandals for me this summer season. Come to think of it, I doubt there would be open toed sandals for me ever, so it really doesn't matter.

No x-ray today, I've had my maximum exposure to radiation for the month. It's an old joke, but how come the x-ray tech takes great pains to get behind the three foot thick wall before shooting the picture (like he's the great and powerful Oz), but gives you that little bit of lead lined cover up that only covers up the part of you that you most want covered up from radiation? X-Ray techs have no sense of humor though, they are the Captain Bringdowns of the medical profession. Either they act like you're not even there or they express frustration when your foot isn't EXACTLY on the right spot (like I have great control over a body part recently operated on). Said expression of frustration usually takes the form of a hissy fit while stomping around the great giant machine only they have been granted the secrets with which to operate.

X-Ray Tech humor

Anyway, I didn't have to see them today.

Before cast #4 was wrapped around me, I took the opportunity to stand with both feet on the ground. First I wanted to show Dr. Knee that I had been doing my exercises (I'm an approval whore, what can I say) and second I wanted to see how flat I could get my foot. As it turns out, pretty darn flat. Were it not for the extreme puffiness, the gross open wounds, and the scars from the other incisions you might think it was looking pretty normal. Well, next to normal.

So cast #4 went on and out the door we went, a new record for shortest time spent in Dr.Knee's office. I'm being promised this is the last cast. Hopefully next week I'll lose twenty pounds of fiberglass from my diet.

On the apartment flooding front, things are almost back to normal. The fans are gone, the carpet is dry, the padding has been replaced, one of the walls is patched, and the furniture is approximately where it belongs. Betsey was out of the house when the maintenance guy came in to put the furniture back, leaving me to try and remember where everything went. I only had him move the couch and the etajere a couple of times. I think I got it right the second time. Betsey is at least taking pity on her poor dumb husband and not telling me I got it wrong.

This is an etajere. Just in case you didn't know what I was referring to.

On a final note for today, I'd like to take a moment to thank our friends Tina and Mike who willingly put up with us for two dinners in a row, going out with us to a restaurant on Sunday and hosting us on Monday. I hope the scooter didn't get your carpet dirty. You guys are getting the Jacuzzi in heaven. Or your choice of other lovely parting gifts.

What's Sauce For The Goose...

Recently two news articles caught my attention.

The first was how AirBnB, the do it yourself hotel company, had raised enough venture capital to make it's market valuation $10 Billion dollars.

The second article was from the San Francisco Chronicle about how landlords in The City are evicting tenants who use AirBnB to make extra cash on the side by renting rooms for a day or more to people passing through.

A first precept of story telling is that there should be a hero and a villain. This story, however, defies that axiom. Everyone is a good guy and everyone is a villain.

On the face of it, AirBnB should be viewed as an exemplar of the new "sharing economy". They use the internet to connect those who need a product or service with those who have a product or service. They take a cut of the price for doing this. Hey, an internet company that actually makes money! All the venture capitalists want in on something like that, so the value of the company soars. Stock and stock options will make the founders and employees wealthy people. Teslas for everyone!

Those who rent out their rooms and apartments get help with the exorbitant rents they must pay to live in the Bay Area. Rents, I'll be quick to point out, that are so high because of the stocks and stock options Web 2.0 has brought to the housing market. What's the harm, they will say, after all it's we who are incurring the liabilities of the possible harm done to our living spaces. We clean up the place afterwards. We  put up with people who maybe aren't as advertised in their online profiles.

Then there are the people who actually own the dwellings the folks above are renting out. We call them landlords. They are the ones who pay the property taxes and the insurance and the money to keep up the building. In return, in many communities, they are prevented from raising rents to market rates by Rent Control laws. Before we go any further let me say I own residential properties that I rent out. It's because of that that I can say there are plenty of other ways of getting a return on your real estate investment besides the rent you collect. I believe in rent control because it's good for the community.

I also believe in something called a contract. In fact I sometimes find myself wondering if contracts are the only thing keeping civilization alive.

The contract in this case is a lease, the document that lies at the heart of the landlord/tenant relationship. It defines what is expected of both parties. I have yet to see a lease that didn't have a boilerplate clause about the tenant not being allowed to sublet the space without the approval of the landlord. Subletting is the act of allowing a third party to occupy the space in return for money.

In other words, exactly what these folks on AirBnB are doing.

It doesn't matter if you're talking about subletting for years or months or days or even hours (actually the last brings up a whole other set of laws having to do with the oldest profession), if you take money to allow someone who is not on the lease to stay in the property, you've broken the lease. Under the terms of the lease you can be evicted. And in an irony that only could come about in our modern society, the tenant who is willfully breaking the lease can charge whatever he wants while the person who actually owns the property can not.

But I said there were no good guys in this tale, so the landlords must be looked down upon for going directly to a nuclear option over what amounts to a small infraction. OK, you find out your tenant has the place up on AirBnB. I think a strongly worded warning amounting to a cease and desist is called for before you send the marshals with an eviction notice. The bottom line is that you have the contract on your side. Maybe that letter could lead to the tenant cutting you in on the profits. But those who are using the listing just as an excuse to evict someone so the rent can be raised have a special place in hell waiting for them.

Which brings us to the question of AirBnB as a company. Are they encouraging a person to violate their lease, or "interfering in a contractual obligation" as the lawyers are wont to say? And if so aren't they guilty of the same skulduggery Napster in the early days of downloadable music or The Pirate Bay with bit torrents were found to have been? Sure there are folks listing on the site who own the property listed and can do with it what they want, but I'd be willing to bet it's a small number in comparison to the renters.  AirBnB should not be allowed to hide behind the flimsy curtain of "we're just a marketplace". eBay takes illegal software listings down, bit torrent sites routinely scrub themselves of child pornography, and Twitter can edit out offensive tweets. AirBnB should not be granted a clemency from contract interference illegalities.

Especially once your valuation goes north of $10B.

There is another contract that I quibble with AirBnB about. This is the social contract that exists between a citizen and his/her community. Yes, I'm talking about taxes. The occupancy taxes, the business taxes, probably the income taxes, and dozens of other fees go uncollected or paid by these part time hoteliers. Like  it or not that money is going to have to be made up, whether through raising other tax rates or curtailing services. Hey, like that nice smooth pavement of the street your house is on? Pay up. It's estimated that AirBnB owes San Francisco alone $1.8 million dollars in unpaid occupancy tax. That's 0.0018% of their valuation, or the corporate equivalent of spare change. What's particularly galling about this is that they claim they don't have the technology to add individual community's occupancy tax rates to their booking engine. You must be joking! Then they go on to add that at any rate it is not their responsibility to collect all these individual taxes, but rather the lister's, because, wait for it, "we're just a marketplace".

I am a great proponent of small business. I think we'd all be a lot better off with more small businesses and fewer giant multi-nationals. If you want to go into the business of renting out rooms to travelers then I don't believe anyone should stop you from doing it, in fact I would encourage you to do it. But you need to accept the fact that your community has enacted laws and taxes that you need to abide by. Don't like them? Work to have them repealed, but until they are repealed, abide by them. Because people who truly are in the business of renting rooms to travelers, aka hotel and motel owners, don't have the option to ignore those rules and regulations. If they do, they lose their business.

AirBnB is far from the only member of the "sharing economy". Please feel free to substitute the following as the company in question: Lyft, Uber, eBay, Etsey, SnapGoods, RelayRides, TaskRabbit, Liquid, Zaarly, Lending Club, Fon, PoshMark, You want to be a taxi driver, go be a taxi driver. You want to sell furniture, go sell furniture. You want to be a personal assistant, go do it. You want to sell handmade arts and crafts go do it. But in any of these cases make sure you abide by the rules that everyone has to abide by. There is a name for someone who doesn't abide by the rules.

We call them villains.

We're each worth a billion dollars based on the work YOU did. Thanks!

Water Water Everywhere

No good ever came from being woken up by your wife at 4AM with anything but a gentle nudge or a sexy whisper.

It's especially bad when you are hobbled and unable to respond to whatever her emergency is. In this case, the news that our apartment was flooding.

Living on the water's edge as we do, I always have in the back of my mind the possibility of flooding. Images of being ankle deep in the remains of what was once my home have been an occasional snapshot in my dreams. So when she said flooding, I threw the blankets off me and was all set to jump out of bed, start grabbing our most precious possessions, and head for the high ground. That is till I felt the weight of my left leg and stumbled into conscientiousness with the reality of my inability to walk unaided.

Betsey came to my rescue by quickly adding the information that it was just certain parts of the apartment, specifically the hallway and the living room, where water had drenched the carpeting. And drench is being kind. Water was pushing up the wheels of my scooter as I examined the damage. There was a huge bubble in the paint on one wall and evidence of water damage on other walls.  I couldn't figure out where the water was coming from. Initially I thought the water table had risen under the house, but it made no sense that only limited areas were wet. That's when I heard the splashing of what sounded like a strong rainstorm outside the window.

In fact it wasn't rain outside the window, it was water coming down from our upstairs neighbor's apartment. At that point, awake enough to have had the cobwebs swept away, I realized what had happened. The upstairs hot water heater had exploded. My going up there to wake my neighbor was out of the question so Betsey telephoned her. Then she telephoned the emergency number we had for the property managers. This number was supposedly for the security force that patrols our complex, but we found out from the answering service that between 2AM and 6AM, the security patrol goes home. Really Schooner Bay? You couldn't pay for the extra four hours out of twenty-four in a day? Let me just say here that if they want to have four hours off a day, why not take, oh, the hours between noon and 4PM? I'm really not worried about break-ins in the middle of the day and any emergency could be handled by the on sight property managers. I'm just saying.

At that point I called the Foster City Fire Department. Because of a previous experience with a neighbor's water problems, I knew the FCFD was trained in water shutoff  and flooding procedures. As we waited for their arrival, the security company called us back, informing us that someone would be up there in 45 minutes since they are located down in San Jose. He also told us we should call the fire department. Thanks Sherlock.

I don't want to say that the FCFD is starved for something to do, but I never expected SEVEN firemen to show up. They hopped right to it, cutting off the water in our neighbor's apartment to stop the flow, bringing in the uber-industrial shop vac to start sucking up some of the water from the carpeting, and moving furniture out of the way to save it from getting wet and to make room for the vacuuming. The fireman on the vac was the obvious rookie so I asked one of the other guys if that was part of the rookie hazing, to have to do the hardest work in this particular situation.

"No, he's got to learn how to do it", he said. Then he grinned and added "Besides, the hazing is a LOT worse."

Within a remarkably short time, the excess water had been vacuumed away and the guys were on their way out the door. It was then that the security guy showed up, wrote some notes down, and said the maintenance guy would be by shortly. Fortunately, shortly was just as the security guy was about to leave. Fred, the maintenance guy, was someone I had dealt with before which I was grateful for. Very soon a water damage specialist was here, vacuuming up more water, pulling up the wet carpet and hauling off the now worthless padding beneath, spraying disinfectant to (hopefully) prevent any mold from setting in and setting up three industrial strength fans to dry everything out. Conspiratorially he told me they should be left on for 24 hours, but as long as we turn them back on the next morning it would be okay to turn them off when we went to sleep. Fred surveyed the work and signed off on it. He also told me they would have to wait on everything drying out before being able to decide what to do with wall damage.

By now though, our household was taking on the look of a hoarders paradise. Since the largest pieces of furniture  moved were the china cabinets; our tables, counters, and any other flat surface had been pressed into service as a holding area. Books, glasses, dishes, all of our "stuff", were strewn everywhere. I think if someone had walked in at that moment and asked if we were having a garage sale I would have said "Fifty bucks and it's all yours".

So now we head into the blame and pay-up period the inevitably follows any calamity. Our insurance company has taken a report, the property managers have taken a report, I've given my report (to you, you're reading it right now), all parties have reported in and on. But meanwhile our house is still in an uproar and the fans are still running. But here's what is most disturbing me. I could do very little to help. My foot kept me from doing much more than moving a few of the lighter items out of the way. That made me frustrated and feel, well, old. That really sucks. "Stuff" can be repaired or replaced; my dignity is something else all together.

It's going to take a while for that to be restored.

Stand in the Place Where You Live

I'm now on Day 3 of my new exercise regimen which consists of standing straight up and still for ten minutes three times a day.

Easy you say? Did I just hear you snicker to yourself? Was that a guffaw?

I got news for you all. This is a big step on the road to recovery from major foot surgery. Putting weight on the foot is what it's all about. Yeah, that's right, that's what I'm talkin' about.

OK, I know, this is crazy. I can't stand still for ten minutes watching the NCAA tournament and call if exercise. No one should. I kinda feel like a fool just admitting I do it. But what makes me feel even more foolish is the production I have to go through in order to get to the point where I can stand up for ten minutes. Chair, scooter, balance, solid surface to push up with my arms, okay we set, stand. On top of that there is this vague feeling that I should be doing something, anything, but just standing still. I'm far from a Type A personality, but this is ridiculous.

If you want to know what I'm talking about then I challenge you  just stand in one position for ten minutes. No moving, no fair even taking a step up or back. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Not so simple is it?

Now imagine it with a 30 pound (all right I'm exaggerating) cast on your left foot. And your back muscles aching from a month of not being used. Add in forgetting that you left your cell phone just out of reach and it's starting to ring. Or someone walks by the window and stares at the guy just standing there. I'd wave, but I'm afraid bringing my arm up would make me lose my balance.

And if I've learned anything from this experience it's that you've got to keep yourself balanced.

The World At My Fingertips

So a day after spending one of the longest periods out in the world since the operation, I got to spend the entire day inside the house.

But the world could still come to me.

On a mundane level, we needed a light bulb changed in the bedroom, so Betsey placed a work order, via the computer, to the management group. A few hours later, here came Hector with a new bulb and a ladder. We had a great conversation about the jazz radio I was listening to (Accuradio Jazz 1940s). He asked if I knew who was playing this one song when he walked in. Without even looking up I said "Lionel Hampton", like who else could it be. He told me how he had all these records (real records on vinyl, not records as a euphemism) dating back to the forties. It was a bond.

Then I got on my computer and ordered dinner from Munchery.com. They bring high end gourmet dinners prepared by some of the Bay Area's best chefs directly to your door. Fish Tacos and beet salad for Betsey, Short Ribs and lentil, feta, and chickpea salad for myself. Since Betsey won't be home till 6PM today I set the delivery for between 5 and 6 and happily sent the order in.

Lastly, we needed a few essentials so I called upon Google Shopping Express. If you haven't heard of this I'm not surprised. Unless you live between San Francisco and San Jose you are not eligible for it. Don't worry though, I'm sure it will be in your area very soon. Basically, Google goes shopping for you, then delivers your purchases directly to your house. They go to Target, Walgreens, Costco, Nob Hill Foods, American Eagle Outfitters, Toys R Us, Whole Foods, REI, Staples, and a few other stores. You can have them get you one item from one store, three from another, six from another, it doesn't matter. You can shop for the best price (though honestly most of the prices are the same for the same products) or just tell them to find you the best deal. After they put it all together they deliver it to your door (right now it's free delivery).

I will admit it's a little disconcerting to order something online and have it show up a few hours later. Add to that I found myself feeling a sudden need to defend my purchases ("Hey I know the Costco toilet paper is cheaper but I don't need five dozen rolls") even though the delivery person made no comment on it. As a matter of fact the girl who delivered for Munchery complimented me on my choice of the Fish Tacos. It's almost as if the computer took human form and showed up at my door.

So here I am, modern man. I have my house kept in order, my food delivered to my door, as well as my toilet paper, all courtesy of my computer. I watch a soccer match from England at noon, download a new book from Amazon at 2, catch a movie from Netflix at 3. If I didn't want to interact with anyone except delivery men I probably could.

On the one hand I could go on about how dehumanizing all of this is and how the future will be filled with non-social people incapable of interaction other than with the person at the door. You might be right about that. I prefer to think that I just contributed to the economy even though house bound. Somebody is eating dinner tonight because of the job they have because I got online this morning and did some shopping.

I just hope they're getting it from Munchery.

Once More Unto the Breech!

It was back to the doctor's office today to have my cast removed and the foot evaluated. There was a slight chance that I might not be returning home with a new cast, enough so that I dropped the other shoe and brought it with me to the appointment.

Hope springs eternal.

Now knowing what to expect when a cast comes off one's leg, I was less apprehensive about the saw as Dr. Knee drew three lines with it and pried the fiberglass off my leg. I was not expecting to see the gauze underneath bloody and sticky or the large gap between the two sides of the incision on the top of my foot or the way my foot looked bloated and inflamed. Though I couldn't see the other incision on my heel, it also had a gap large enough that when Dr. Knee swabbed it to get a culture I was able to see the cotton head of the Q-Tip completely disappear into it.

This was not going the way I had hoped.

Nevertheless, Dr. Knee was very pleased. The problems with the incisions didn't bother her (well it's not her foot), nothing that a regimen of antibiotics couldn't take care of and she was happy to see that, though bloated, my foot was closer to being in the proper alignment with the rest of my leg. She was so much encouraged that she asked me to stand up on my own. I looked at her askance. Really? Put weight on this foot that hasn't had any on it in over a month? While it looks like something Frankenstein might say "whoa, go find another one will ya?"?

"Come on, give it a shot", she goaded me.

Tentatively I came off the exam table. Balance was definitely going to be a problem, so I grabbed hold of the counter. Slowly I put my leg down. Inch by inch, afraid of pain and set back but egged on by needing to know how far I had come, till finally my foot found the floor. I allowed my center of gravity to shift from favoring the right side to being more balanced. I peered downwards. My foot was flat on the floor. I can't remember the last time it was like that.

Ten seconds was about all I could take, but it was what Dr. Knee was looking for. I hopped back up on the table where she wrapped an ace bandage around and sent me off for x-rays. The pictures showed that the bones were healing well, but not final, so a new cast was put on. The add on though was a black boot so that I will be able to accede to the instructions that I stand upright three times a day for ten minutes in each session. No walking, just standing.

As the old professor said, you gotta stand before you can walk.

SDI or Someone's Dipping In

What allows a person to be able to take three months off in order to recuperate from an operation is a government program called State Disability Insurance (SDI).

Now if I was a conservative I'd be decrying how the government is paying someone to not work, giving away YOUR money to some malingerer.

And if I was a liberal I'd be saying how the government is helping out someone who's in need of some temporary aid.

I'm a realist. When they ask if the glass is half empty or half full, I ask if that's water or vodka. When it comes to SDI I look upon it as what that last word of the name says, insurance. You know, like when you pay into an insurance policy so you can get it back when you need it? The way I see it, I'm getting back the money I've spent 40 odd years giving to the government to hold in trust for just this occasion. It's not the government's money, it's not anyone else's money, it's MY money.

Just like any insurance policy, if I had never needed it, yeah I would have been paying into it for all these years to get nothing back., Just like I have paid home owners insurance for 25 years and have never had to put in a claim. Price of doing business.

Here's where I have a gripe. With my car insurance, after I make a claim I get a check and I might use it to fix or buy a new car or use it for some other purpose, it doesn't matter and the insurance company really doesn't care. The state of California sometime in the past few years stopped issuing checks for disability claims. Instead you get a gift card. That's right, a gift card like the ones you get from relatives who can't think of anything to buy you at Christmas. Now I can use the card to buy anything I want (so long as that store takes credit cards), but I know my banker won't take this card for this month's mortgage payment. And PG&E, Comcast, the gardener I have to mow, blow, and go also won't take it.

The Employment Development Department (EDD) which administers the SDI payment system, says they send the gift cards to make it easier to replenish accounts in a timely fashion. No waiting for the mail to come in order to get your money. Once the card is issued all they have to do is add money to the account the same way I added money to my kids' cards when they were in high school. And if I really and truly want to get the cash, I can go to one specific bank and get the cash from them so I can pay the mortgage, PG&E, Comcast, the gardener, etc.

So what's the problem?

First of all, not to brag mind you, but I'd feel uncomfortable carrying that much cash out of the bank each week. Second, why do I have to go to one specific bank in order to do this? Why not any bank in the state, like maybe, oh I don't know, my bank? Third, if you really are doing this in order to make it easy to replenish the funds, why don't you just do an automatic deposit into my checking account --- like my employer does? Fourth, aren't you pretty much telling me how I can spend my money, or at least who I can spend it with?

How did this system come into being? Allow me to make this as simple as possible.

Once upon a time there was this man called Mr. Lobbyist who was working for a company, oh let's call them Lisa, that processes gift card payments. One day that company thought, "gee, wouldn't it be great if we could get the state to use our gift card payment system instead of sending checks to make SDI payments to people?". And why did they think that boys and girls? Because every time you or I use that card they get to skim 1 to 3 percent right off the top. That's off the total, including the sales tax and the tip for the waiter. So Lisa got Mr. Lobbyist to do his magic with the state legislature and the state senate and the governor. Then they called in Mr. PR Rep to make sure that either the people of the state were told how wonderful and cost saving this system would be or, better yet, make sure they never heard about it at all. Then he'd drum into everyone's head that the private sector can handle this issue better than any "government bureaucracy". Mr. PR Rep is able to accomplish this because lazy Mr. Media would rather do stories about what celebrity is making whoopee with what other celebrity than do the hard work of reporting on things that actually effect the lives of real people. And besides, Lisa would just tell Mr. Media that if he ran that story, well they just might not advertise with him anymore. And Lisa would make sure to get Mr. PR Rep to tell everyone that Mr. Media has a disease called Liberal Media Bias that all good people should be afraid of.

The bottom line is some of the money I am duly owed goes to a company that I don't want it to go to. They get to make money off my recuperation. I haven't noticed any of their employees coming over to try to make my life a bit more comfortable (even though they all work just down the street -- ooh did I give away too much?). No one's come in to make me lunch or do my laundry or clean my house or wipe my ass, but they're sticking their hands in the pie, which they can do because they didn't have to wipe my ass.

I gave the state of California this money to hold until such time as I needed it. I'm the only one who is entitled to say who gets a cut. And yes, I do understand that if I were to use my credit card at Safeway then the credit card company would be making money off of the transaction. The difference is I willingly gave them the opportunity to make the money by using the card instead of paying in cash or with a check. In this case, I'm not given the option.

This is another case of our public services being co-opted by the private sector.Too much of our public policy is being determined by private companies wanting to dip their hands in the till. It's the same whether we're talking about SDI or Social Security or the Defense Department. There is no concern given to what's good for the country, the only concern is what's good for one specific company. The only ones who are bettered by this are those who control these companies. We the people is becoming we the corporation.

Ain't a Jail Tough Enough to Keep Me Warden

I escaped yesterday.

I got out of the house and took a nice long car ride up to Marin County. It was glorious. Even the weather cooperated, bright sunny skies with nary a cloud to be found. Just feeling the sun on my face was a wonder.

Betsey took me up there to map out a new tour she was going to be giving to a group in a couple of weeks. Actually it's not so much a new tour since she's taken loads of people to Muir Woods, Stinson Beach, Mount Tamalpais, and Sausalito but not in the order or routing she's being requested to do. Timing being of the essence, she needed to see just how long it would take to get from one point to another and thus be certain not to go over the time allotted to this group. Or in other words, the time they paid for.

So there we were, two slap happy middle aged kids with only each other and the open road ahead of them. The road to Muir woods, once you cross the Golden Gate and exit off the highway, takes you through the small town of Tamalpais, home to the annual Dipsea race and a few of the less hippier left over hippies of Marin. Now the road thins and you must share it with bicyclists decked out in all their speed uninhibiting gear. Not a problem, we've got plenty of time and the speed limit puts them on an equal par with auto traffic.

Once through you climb up and over the mountains till you end up at Muir Woods National Monument, a forest grove of towering redwoods, yet strangely enough one of the most handicap accessible national parks in the country. That is once you can get the lady with the group of ten teenagers to move her van from the handicap parking area. Irony, she's letting perfectly healthy teens off near the entrance to the park instead of making them walk the thousand feet from the regular parking lot -- all so they can spend the day hiking in the park! Unclear on the concept!

We strolled around the entrance area of the park, but with no intention of going deeper. It might be very handicap accessible,  but I still have difficulty negotiating even paved or planked roads. So back into the car we went and off to Stinson Beach. Now we got into the real winding roads, climbing up higher and higher till at last we began to catch glimpses of the blue Pacific. And it was truly blue yesterday, accented with whitecaps breaking toward the beach yet calm as I've ever seen it. Where the ocean met the sky was but a thin line of white, a horizon that stretched into infinity. I thought how could anyone not want to live here? We are supremely lucky to be able to call this our backyard.

From the heights of the mountains we descended into the small coastal town of Stinson Beach. Were it not for knowing that another town, Bolinas, was in fact THE last refuge of hippiedom, Stinson would be what you would imagine such a place to be. Main street, as it were, is filled with storefronts owned by those whose beliefs edge towards the idea that work is an elective duty.  Why not though? If I lived here and the day was as beautiful as that day was I'd put up the "Gone Surfing" sign and head out to the beach as well.

But we had work, such as it was, to do and so back up the winding roads we went. Winding roads. Very winding. Maybe it was the headiness of being outdoors after so long cooped up. Maybe it was the crappy cup of coffee I had before leaving Muir Woods. Whatever, for the first time I can remember I was getting car sick. I actually had to go into the mantra of "it's only a few minutes more". Happy was I when the speed limit signs began to click upwards from 15 MPH to 30 MPH and finally we entered back into Tamalpais with it's gloriously straight roads. 

From there we drove over to Sausalito, home of some of the priciest homes in California but with a view of San Francisco unparalleled in the Bay Area. The best place to view the view is from the deck of the Trident Restaurant and so we headed there. The Trident was the hangout of Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, and many of the other San Francisco rock icons of the Sixties and today it wears that history with pride. A chicken sandwich for me, a beet salad for Betsey and some down time sitting, yes, on the dock of the bay. 

Okay, so I've got a cast on my foot. I'm not tramping through snow, it's not raining cats and dogs, I can feel confident drinking the tap water. Life could be worse. 

What's the Score?

Having all the time in the world gives me plenty of time to do some of my favorite things. Books, movies, and most of all music have been my constant companions these nearly four weeks now. When you combine all of those together, you get film scores. I thought I'd talk about some of my favorite ones. Please note I'm limiting myself to only scores that were directly written for the movie, so for instance though it's one of my favorite films, I'm pretty sure Herr Strauss didn't take a meeting with Mr. Kubrick on 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Lawrence of Arabia by Maurice Jarre
Close your eyes. Hear the distant rumbling of the drums. Closer they come, closer, closer. The swirling winds catch the notes and send them soaring till at last they emerge from the desert clear and majestic, tamed yet still tribal. The bows sweeping across the strings giving grandeur to this world. And then....here come the fife and drums, British military precision cutting into the desert winds, clashing, battling, the two opposing forces becoming a single storm of movement till the drums demand the two forces remember they are merely the pawns controlled by nature. Then back to the clean, clear desert.

The Man Who Would Be King by Maurice Jarre
Military precision swept up into grand story telling. Again the strings saying "listen, feel the call of far away places and marvelous sights". And yet, a sadness, an elegantly constructed elegy to a time and place and a way of story telling confined to the past.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Elmer Bernstein
The soundtrack of childhood. A single piano plucking out individual notes, a student learning a lesson. Then the flute, an ethereal mother comforting her charges. And then the sweep of the entire orchestra, the father, solid, sure, the rock on which to build your character. Music that says he would be there in the morning.

The Magnificent Seven by Elmer Bernstein
The rhythm of the saddle and the horse, lone riders cutting across the vast panorama of the American west, singularly vulnerable, together a force. The brass adding emphasis to the adventure, the horns paying tribute to the righteous, now the strings becoming the wind underneath, pushing forward and morphing into the landscape upon which they ride.

The Right Stuff by Bill Conti
A quiet morning sunrise, the birds in the sky fluttering by. Slowly the orchestra builds louder and louder till the grandness of man and his invention fill the ears taking us upwards, always upwards where adventure and achievement hang on the stars. Themes from classical music ("The Planets") mixed with prosaic ("The Wild Blue Yonder"). The brass reminding us that there are still heroes in the world. And then the strings lifting them and us into the heavens.

The Natural by Randy Newman
The vast wheat fields of the Midwest meet the tingling power of the swing of a bat. But then there is mystery. Horns, sharp as knives, drums beating us downward. We must fail, we must fall, for we are merely men. But then Wonder (boy). We are guided up, up, into a clear night crazily daggered by a lightening bolt. Salvation, the strings giving us wings and supported by the brass so we can fly past time and space and become part of a spinning spheroid taking us....home.

Taxi Driver by Bernard Hermann
The music of the night. Something crawling out from the shadows. Cymbals crashing around us. Our brains unable to distinguish the instruments, just sound, the depths pulling us in. Plucked strings giving depth. But then a sultry saxaphone, or is it a woman's languid form, inviting, soothing. No, back into the shadows we must go, the woman calls out to us, but she is now sullied, a victim, the cymbals pushing us past her and back into the night. Someone must die for the night to end.

The Godfather by Nino Rota
A single trumpet. Mournful, haunting, a waltz deconstructed. Now a piano, but the deep end of that pool, foreboding. The piano now replaced by a single violin, what might have been as we remember back to the beginning. The orchestra now coming in, filling the sketches laid out by the single clarinet, flute, and again the trumpet. Power, richness, tradition, violence, what makes us human.

The Adventures of Robin Hood by Eric Korngold
Romance of knights and honor. What a classic Hollywood movie should sound like. A giant orchestra playing romantic classical music. Each movement of the characters accompanied by his or her own unique theme. Music that can make you taste the Technicolor.

The Third Man by Anton Karas
What is that sound? What kind of instrument makes that? A zither? Where are we, a place we know or a place we think we know? False gaiety plastered onto the rubble of a once great romantic city. Everything moves so fast, and yet nothing moves at all. At the climax, only beautiful silence, the score given over to the music of water rushing, the clip clop of feet running,voices rendered incomprehensible by the echo chamber beneath the street, and after an achingly long pause, one unseen gunshot.

Now I Am A Stranger In A Strange New Land

I'm a tourist in the land of the disabled and like so much of the traveling I've done, I'm coming away with a new appreciation for the indigenous population.

Last night our friends Lisa and Jim came over for drinks followed by dinner out at one of our favorite ramen restaurants.  The only reason I was okay with going to this restaurant, on a busy downtown street with limited parking that makes accessibility an issue, was that there were going to be three people to help me navigate getting out of the car, getting up on the sidewalk, and walking/rolling to the restaurant. Fortunately every street corner in San Mateo is ramped to allow for wheelchairs, knee scooters, et. al. to use. Nevertheless it still took three people to help me. I found myself confronted with obstacles that previously were at best minor irritations. Curbs, doors, tables and more posed impediments that could only be overcome with the help of others. Once inside the restaurant my scooter necessitated us waiting for a table rather than a booth to occupy (the scooter would have been in the aisle way had we taken a booth) so we had to wait a few extra minutes.

Now I want to make this really clear. People on the street, the employees of the restaurant, everyone we encountered in this little excursion, was unfailingly kind to me. Even the family ahead of us in the lobby waiting for a table who stood up to allow me to sit down or the other motorists on the street who refrained from honking and yelling at us as I got back into the car, everyone.

Still, I now have a greater appreciation for the situation of those who are permanently in a situation I am just visiting.

As much help as I was getting, I so wanted to be able to do the most basic things for myself. While it's great to have help and great to be the recipient of someone's courtesy, it's better to be able to say 'I did that myself'. I'm sure anyone who is in a wheelchair or uses a service dog or whatever their particular handicap might require feels the same way. It's a frustration for me, it's a way of life for them. This is literally a situation of my walking a mile in the other guy's shoes.

So if it means building a ramp to a building, or having handrails in a bathroom, or having Braille markings in an elevator, or any of the other things mandated by the Americans With Disabilities Act so be it. Call it drinking from the well of human kindness, call it mandated courtesy, call it whatever you want to call it, but understand it's done so fellow human beings can accomplish the simple things that you or I take for granted.

And I will slash the tires of the next car I see parked in a handicapped space and not displaying at least this placard.

Life in the Scooter Lane

Say hello to my little friend.

The one basic rule of my post operative care is to never let my left foot touch the ground. No pressure can be applied, lest the healing bones shatter and I return to where I started. Years ago this would have meant not getting out of bed for six months. New surgical treatments (those screws you've seen in the X-Ray) have made it so I can get up and around, but I still have to keep my leg from touching the ground. There are two ways to accomplish this, crutches or the knee scooter. I will be the first to admit that my upper body strength is not what it used to be, if it ever was at all, so crutches were out of the question. That left the knee scooter. 

Betsey, being the half of our marriage who is actually capable of thinking ahead, rented a scooter a couple of days before the surgery. Now we could have bought one, in fact we could have bought one pretty cheap on Craigslist, but our feeling was that it was going to be better to just turn in the damn thing when it was no longer needed than to have it taking up space in our small garage till we finally had the time and inclination to go on Craigslist ourselves and sell it. Besides, the ones on Craigslist all came with admissions like "steering doesn't work well"  or "our six year old decided to decorate it for daddy".  Renting the scooter also gave us the option to return it for another one should something go wrong or I decided I really needed the schoolgirl's bike basket accessory to hang off the handles. This is embarrassing enough. And all talk of a bike horn or bell was quickly sent to the dead letter office by the scowl on my face when it was brought up. 

What's it like to perambulate with one leg on a scooter? Well imagine if every time you wanted to do anything, like  get a glass of water, you had to get into your car, back up out of your driveway, then made a three point turn before heading out straight. Once you arrive at your destination, which was only a few feet away, you now have to parallel park between two cars that, while you do have enough space, you don't really have a lot of space. Oh, and no cup holders here, so the return trip means you have to do all the same things only now with a glass of water in one hand. 

All this does mean that I need to be very specific about what the objective of the movement is. If I need to get from the living room to the bedroom I better remember to take everything I have in the living room that I want in the bedroom with me. Failure to do so means frustration and and a self inflicted dope slap to my forehead. It also means I have to bury my natural inclination to want to get things done quickly. Believe me, there is no quick on a knee scooter. Oh I just need to grab something off my desk, oops, don't put that left foot on the floor, get the scooter over here, swing the leg over, okay back up, make the turns, ah now I can get that pad of paper. 

But it's not the obtaining of objects where the greatest hurdles must be overcome. Surprisingly the toilet, while it does take some knowledge of advanced geometry to align oneself properly, is not the biggest problem. It's bathing where ingenuity must be employed. Remember, no pressure on the left leg of any kind and I can't get the cast wet. What it comes down to is I  put all my weight on the bad leg's knee, which is planted firmly on the scooter so my foot has no pressure on it and then I swing the good leg into the tub. From there I turn on the shower and get as much of my body wet as I can, soap it, and get as much of the soap off with the spray from the shower head as I can. What soap I can't get the spray to I simply dry off with a towel. 

Still there are limitations. Stairs? Forget it. Even the single step up from the driveway to the pathway leading to the front door I can't negotiate myself. In fact, any surface that's not perfectly even has me afraid of going head first over the handlebars. Activities outside the house have to be scrutinized for how I could deal with it. I am disheartened that I will not be able see my nephew in his high school play this weekend because sitting in an aisle seat (which it would have to be) with my leg straight out, unable to get up to allow others to pass, just isn't going to work. 

Yet I have to remind myself this is ultimately a temporary situation. Once healed I'll be able walk, run, chase frisbees (all right maybe not the latter). I won't be perpetually seven steps behind because of my limp or screaming in agony after being too long on my feet. 

And that's what this is all for. 

17 Days Later....

Traffic was a bear getting into San Francisco today. Who thought it was a good idea to schedule a follow-up appointment at 9 AM on a Tuesday morning? We're in the middle of commute traffic. Fortunately we were able to play a good game of "Spot the Techie Bus" along the way. Google still won, but Facebook, Yahoo, and Genentech all came pretty close. Passing a decrepit passenger van, I opined "that's the MySpace bus". 

Arrived at the CPMC campus just in time to make the appointment. Into an exam room we went, ushered in by David, Dr. Knee's new assistant. At least I think that was his name, he kinda mumbled an introduction. I would say I hopped up onto the table, but then again unless I'm one knee on the scooter, I have to hop in order to get anywhere. So in this rather small exam room there was Betsey, me, the assistant whose name I think is David, the knee scooter, the table, a chair for Betsey, a rolling chair and not much room for anything else.  David (let's call him that for the sake of brevity) took my vitals and brought out....the saw.

Having never had a cast before and therefore having never had a cast removed before, the saw was a bit intimidating. The fact that it came in a hard plastic case similar to what a jigsaw from Home Depot comes in and looked like the Dremel electric router I acquired somewhere along the line didn't help either. He placed it reverently on the floor next to the table. I swear it hissed at me, it's snake like tail plugged into an outlet and ready to rumble.

Dr. Knee poked her head in with a cheery "Hi kids, how we doin'?". Opening the door knocked David into the scooter which decided  to make a break for itself but was quickly grabbed and set back in place. David took a powder at that point and Dr. Knee got down to the business of removing the cast. I'm sure she thought of it as completely routine. I thought of it as this:

Do you expect me to talk Dr. Knee?

But moments later the cast was off. Strangely enough over the past two weeks I had thought that the first thing I'd do after getting the cast off was reach down and scratch away like a mad man. Instead, I had no desire to scratch at all. However looking down, what I saw concerned me. My foot was puffed up and swollen and in a distinct shade of orange which nicely set off the black of the stitches. So as to prevent young or sensitive eyes from having to get a close up view, you can take a look at a picture here. But Dr. Knee was oohing and ahhing about how good it looked, how the swelling was less than she expected and how well the stitches held up.

"Umm, but what about the orange tint?", I asked.

She laughed. "That's the sterilization liquid from the operation. You know, like iodine before we had to stop using iodine." 

And it was at that point that I realized I hadn't washed my foot in seventeen days; of course that stuff was still going to be on it. And that I didn't know they don't use iodine anymore.  I breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed. She wrapped my foot in an ace bandage and sent me off to X-Ray for pictures. Here's what they found:

This apparently is a good thing.

Back in the office again it was time to get the stitches out. While Dr. Knee was going over the x-rays, David came in and announced he was going to take out the stitches. Oh, I thought, so the doctor doesn't do that? The ambiguously hipster twenty-something does that? And why do I have a feeling mine might be the first time he's not practicing on his mom's Sunday roast beef? With a combination of  feeling "someone's got to be the first", wanting to get this over with, and knowing that the doctor was only steps away should it come to that, I let him loose. 

"So howya think the Giants will do this year?"

Other than his running out of the room to find out if it was normal for there to be as much blood as there was (it is), it all went fine. A snip, a tug, and soon the table was covered in little bits of black thread. For the after picture click here. Dr. Knee came back in and put a new cast on. Two weeks with this cast and we'll see if the bones are strong enough to actually be able to put weight on the foot. If so then I get a walking cast. Once that cast comes off, she'll send me to these guys for them to stretch and manipulate the ligaments, tendons, bones, and nerves:

"We're going to stretch your little girly-man foot"

Sigh. It's a process.

We Have a Winner

A few thoughts on last night's festivities in Los Angeles:

American Hustled: Hey Academy I thought you really really liked David O. Russell. Ten nominations and you couldn't come up with one statue for his movie? I'm not his biggest fan but sheesh you just put his movie up there with THE TURNING POINT and THE COLOR PURPLE in the category of Most Futility in Oscar History. Or are you all just jealous that he seems to have Jennifer Lawrence committed to any project he wants to do?

Worst Advertisement: Goldie Hawn and Kim Novak for the National Plastic Surgery Foundation. How many soon-to-be med school graduates started rethinking their career paths? How many Beverly Hills matrons starting thinking "ooh maybe not"? Oh who am I kidding, anyone who gets plastic surgery deserves to end up looking like that. But just for the record, Kim Novak would have looked just FINE at 81 with no work.

Son of a Preacher Man: So they gave the Right Reverend McConaughey a chance to preach and he took advantage of the moment. Apparently his father was an adherent of The Redneck Book of How to Parent (which must have a strongly worded section about how you can never go wrong wearing a white tuxedo -- NOT). I'd like to think if I had the chance to meet the me from ten years from now I'd be saying "all right, all right, all right". Another example of why you don't let actors speak without a script. And speaking of that...

The Prettiest Kate in Christendom: Really Ms. Blanchett, you didn't think you were going to win? Yours was the only category that everyone got right in my Oscar pool. Hell, the whole world knew you were going to win. Couldn't you have prepared some remarks ahead of time? But thanks for giving the shout out to your theater company, that was kinda cool.

Best Advertisement: Pepsi is the winner for that wonderful commercial using all the famous movie lines. I think it was the most enjoyable part of the entire three hour show. Maybe next year you can get whoever directed it to do the Oscar telecast?

Huh?: So GRAVITY had the best director, the best cinematography, the best film editing, the best score, and a few other bests, but the Best Picture was 12 YEARS A SLAVE. Yeah I know, this is how the Academy says in effect it was really a tie, but come on Oscar voters. If you think a movie called GRAVITY doesn't have enough gravitas to be named Best Picture just because it's in that broad genre of Science Fiction then I would simply point to your own ceremonies of 45 years ago when you thought OLIVER! was a greater cinematic achievement than 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.

Calling Ms. Adele Dazim: They play you on to the music from PULP FICTION, your great "comeback" movie (and definitely NOT a musical), but the teleprompter has you talking about how you love musicals because before that comeback you were the star of one musical and one sorta kinda musical. I can understand why you might have been nonplussed.  Nevertheless, you had ONE thing to do last night and you mangled the name of the person you were introducing, who just happens to be a legitimate star of musicals. And this in a year with nominees like Chiwetel Ejiofor, Barkhad Abdi, Lupita Nyong'o, and Alfonso Cuarón. Okay Barbarino, it's time to go back to the planet Zerkon.

Real Life vs. Reel Life: In the category of Best Documentary there were movies about the transcendent nature of art, the secret wars our country is perpetrating, the bravery of those who would stand up to a dictator, and the very nature of good and evil. But the Academy thought they needed to reward a movie about how unfair it is that backup singers don't get the fame the musicians who they backup get. Yeah, you guys really have your priorities straight. And I say that having seen all five nominated films. 

Hold the Anchovies: Oscar telecast host is becoming a thankless task. Other than the monologue, whatever you do half of the billion or so people who are watching are going to think it's just stupid. The other half went to the bathroom. Ordering pizza must have seemed like a funny idea, but I bet all those designers who loaned those front row actresses their dresses had heart attacks. And I'd like to know what they did with the money she collected to "pay" for the pizza. Hey Ellen, I sure hope Twitter going down because of your selfie didn't prevent some guy in Kiev from letting his people know he was alive. 

The Needle and The Damage Done: The film industry lost a giant number of, well, giants in the past year. The biggest of the big is always the last picture in the In Memoriam segment. I had a private bet with myself as to who would be last this year. The little girl who kept the nations spirits up during the Great Depression? The film critic who made film criticism accessible to a greater number of people? I was betting on the guy who came riding out of the desert to become the greatest film star to have never won an Oscar. Nope, they gave it to the guy who couldn't deal with his demons and wasted a life filled with an enormous wealth of talent. P.S. This even though I was a big fan of PSH. P.P.S. What the hell was Bette Midler doing there?

Coming Attractions: More often then not, if someone is nominated for the same film in two different categories it's a director who also had a writing credit or a producer credit. This year Alfonso Cuaron was nominated, and won, in the directing and film editing categories. Is that signaling a shift in the focus of films, away from the person who can articulate their vision on the written page as well as the screen over to someone who can only give you stunning visual statements? That's a time will tell question. Oh and for the record, Cuaron wasn't the only duel winner. Catherine Martin won the award for costume design as well as production design. Of course she had the advantage of sleeping with the director (oh quiet, she's Baz Lurhman's wife). 


I got 21 out of 24 in the pool and lost by one to the guy who picked GRAVITY in every category. But a great time was had by all. Nancie you can make me red velvet cupcakes any time!

Feeling Farm Fresh

This so far has been major achievement weekend.

Yesterday for the first time in over two weeks, I wore real clothes. Pair of Dockers, button down shirt, socks (well, a sock) and shoes (again, one). No sweatpants, no pajamas, real clothes. These were clothes I was going to have to get out of before going to bed that night, as opposed to clothes I put on in the morning with the full knowledge that I will be wearing them until the next morning.  I didn't even care that the pants had a hole in the seat and the shirt had a stain on it. Both were chosen on the basis that should I take a tumble I wouldn't care if the paramedics had to cut them away.

And why would I be worried that I could take a tumble?

Because I actually left the house. Yes, Betsey got me into the car and we ran errands. Well, she ran errands and for the most part I stayed in the car, but it was a welcome change from the landscape of the house I had come to memorize. Best of all, we drove down to Sigona's Farmers Market for produce.

If you've never been to Sigona's I highly recommend it. It's a delight for the senses. Every locally available fruit or vegetable is displayed with the skill of a designer rendering colors. Real food, not processed sorta kinda food from a supermarket. Tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes, lettuce that is crisp and green and not in a bag. Then they top it off by having a cheese selection that rivals any in the world. I am a fool for their Cheshire White Cheddar with it's nutty, tangy flavor that gives a distinctive taste in each section of your mouth and throat. I don't know how they do that. Plus they have the largest assortment of dried fruits I have ever seen. They dry everything. They have dried cantaloupe. Who would dry cantaloupe? Why? But they do it. 

And then there is the marinara sauce.

This is actually something we had never tried before, but several people had told us how good their signature bottled marinara sauce is. Frankly we had always passed it by because we figured, what the hell it's marinara sauce that's twice as expensive as what you could get at a Safeway. Oh how wrong we were. I don't know what they put in it, I'm thinking opium, but it is phenomenal. Italian restaurants I've gone to, expensive Italian restaurants I've gone to, don't have as good a sauce as this. Some fresh pasta (free when you buy a bottle) and some hearty red wine and dinner was a treat.

Toddling around on my scooter wasn't too bad. Other shoppers were nice enough to give me a wide berth. I did get some stares from the kids who were everywhere (hey, it was Saturday). One four or five year old boy was really giving me the wide eyed treatment. I couldn't resist. "This is what happens if you don't eat your vegetables", I said to him. His lower jaw dropped. I scooted away.

I was amazed to realize when we got home that it had only been a little over an hour that we had been gone. It seemed like it had been much longer because I had to lay down and take a nap. I guess I'm getting better, but it's still a ways to go.