A further sign of the times

My sister called yesterday early in the morning (for her) and I answered and we had a 50-minute chat; I hadn't spoken with her since Christmas.  Her daughter's family has moved in with her and it's going pretty well, these are times when we all have to do what we can to take care of each other.

Her whole household was pretty sick last month but no one was able to get a test for the Coronavirus no matter how symptomatic they were--they all ran implacably up against the impenetrable barrier of answering negatively to the qualifying question of, "Have you traveled to China recently?"  Hence No Test (hence no containment or mitigation)--only here in Trump's America; it's like in three short years we have become a third world banana republic bereft of the acumen and advantages of the industrialized world.

My niece has a two-year old who my sister watches while the baby's parents are at work on shortened hours, money is tight everywhere and that might be our new forever-normal in Trump's Amerika.  Shelves are bare in the supermarkets in her town, even canned goods have been picked clean, and there are no baby wipes to be bought anywhere in her locale so the three adults are frantically trying to toilet train the resisting toddler, and turning to using paper towels and other such articles of necessity.

When I went on yesterday's supermarket run here in the DC area, I had the misfortune of losing another ten percent of my 401K even while I shopped but I had the good fortune to find a 10-pack of hand soap bars in the CVS (the supermarket didn't have a single soap bar for sale), ten rolls of TP and several packets of 72-count gentle (no alcohol) baby wipes, and I bought two packs of wipes and boxed them up in a small book mailer for shipment to my sister's house in the west.  I was shocked to find the post office cost to ship the small, thin cardboard box of about two pounds would be $30, so I settled on the nearby UPS store cost of $15 to ship the $4 worth of baby wipes, to get there on Monday.

I was later talking to another sister who set me straight on how backwards I am, how twentieth century I have remained, when she asked if I'd looked on-line for the wipes, which I hadn't.  She has Amazon Prime, she said, and I could have found them on-line and told her and she would have ordered them and had them shipped for free to my western sister's address and I could have paid back my sister later.

The nineteen dollar cost for 144 baby wipes could have been reduced to their natural cost of four dollars, delivered, if only I would crawl into the 21st century.  I hope my niece and her husband, being smart millennials, don't tell my sister how stupid I am when the aid package arrives and they intuit its cost, which otherwise I am happy to bear if the wipes prove to be helpful.

Images from Columbus

Here are some last images from my visit in the summer to Columbus:

A pedaling bar vehicle downtown.  I think the cyclists are pedaling away their inebriation.  I hope the driver is the designated non-drinker.

The Orthodox Christian Church downtown.

A bridge over the Scioto.

Hangin' with my nephews.

Sundown downtown.

The Confederate Cemetery at Camp Chase.

The food truck festival downtown one evening.

St. James Episcopal Church in Upper Arlington, my sister's church.

A Somber Thanksgiving in Columbus 2018, Part One

I went to visit family for Thanksgiving this year, traveling to Columbus to spend the holiday with my sister and her husband and two of their three sons.  Coincidentally, my college freshman roommate was there visiting his uncle who had taken ill and was recovering in a nursing home in Upper Arlington.

The nine hour drive there on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving was uneventful except for the disturbing call I received midway through it that my sister's mother-in-law was in the hospital after suddenly collapsing and was being considered for hospice due to her unresponsive state.  Once I got to Columbus I dropped off my stuff at my sister's house, which was deserted because everyone was at the hospital except for one of her sons who had been sleeping and was unaware of his grandmother's condition, and I went to visit my friend Jimmy at his uncle's institution.

We visited for awhile with Jimmy's uncle and then I spent the night with Jimmy where he was staying and we caught up as I hadn't seen him since shortly before the Trump disaster in 2016.  We had a pleasant time discussing how the midterm elections was a good harbinger for America being restored to greatness again in the next election and I checked in by phone with my sister who indicated that the prognosis for her mother-in-law was not good.

The next morning I took a walk around the neighborhood where Jimmy's uncle's assisted living place was which was a vibrant neighborhood full of shops and restaurants and parks.  Then we went to visit his mother's gravesite in Dublin and afterwards stopped in to see Jimmy's daughter-in-law who was staying in Dublin with her parents while her husband was away at sea, and I met Jimmy's grandson, a fine baby of four months.  We spent a pleasant hour there while I arranged to visit my sister's mother-in-law's hospital room where the stricken person's children were keeping vigil.

The National Gallery of Art

My sister came to DC to attend a charitable event and we had a couple of enjoyable dinners in Chinatown.  We also spent time at the National Gallery of Art after her conference was over.

She studied art in college so she was able to inform me as to what I was looking at.  The museum has a prodigious collection of world-renowned art, like this Rembrandt self-portrait.

My favorite piece, however, is on the roof.  My sister also liked this refugee from The Food of the Gods.

We did a lot of walking, also visiting the Portrait Gallery, the Hotel Monaco, the Archives, the Navy Memorial,the Statue Garden, the National Botanical Gardens and the Library of Congress.  There is so much to see in the District that you could spend a month here without visiting a site twice.

Hilary

I have a sister named Hilary.  Not Hillary.  Sir Edmund Hilary ascended the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest, with his Sherpa porter Tensing, around the time she was born so perhaps she was named after him.

I want Hillary for president now, not because she's so great but because she's not The Donald.  I have no idea who Hilary prefers.

I have been working for Hillary's candidacy during this presidential campaign; the last presidential campaign I worked for was George McGovern's campaign against Tricky Dick.  You might know how that came out, an absolute debacle at the polls for the Democrats, so although I always vote, I don't work for candidates anymore.

The choice seemed so clear back then, and the stakes so high, just like now 44 years later.  But the lesson I learned back then, when I was young and hopeful and confident that if I worked hard I could make a difference, is that the American electorate is often its own worst enemy, and I always defer to that era's cartoon philosopher, Pogo, who famously said (a slight misquote), "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Still Running

Last week I logged 21 miles, with a long run of 10K (6.2 miles).  On that run I went on a big loop that took me past some quiet, reflective spots, reminding me why I like the serenity of running.

The next two days I ran 4.5 miles each day, slowly trying to pick up the pace a little.  I ran by the nearby party store which is already ramping up for Halloween, it's biggest season.  Fall has arrived.

My sister who lives in the midwest visited and we went out to dinner in the district, followed by an evening walk on the Mall.  We traversed the Tidal Basin and enjoyed the quiet, reflective beauty of the Jefferson Memorial with the moon hanging over it.

I finished out my running week with two runs of 3 miles on consecutive days, giving me 21 miles for the week.  One month after surgery, I'm happy with my progress in coming back, although I still have some discomfort as I heal fully.  I was able to spend a day with my sister before she returned home and we walked around DC for awhile, saw the USAF Missing Man Memorial by the Pentagon, had lunch in Falls Church and went out to the Air and Space Museum at Dulles for the afternoon.

Happy Birthday Kate

It's my sister's birthday.  Happy happy!

Huntington Park, Columbus Ohio, August 2010

Montana

Next week I am visiting the site of the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana. On June 25, 1876, on the bluffs leading down to the Little Big Horn River, General George Armstrong Custer and all 210 troopers under his command from the Seventh Cavalry were annihilated by an overwhelming number of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors from a huge Indian encampment they were trying to attack.

Custer split his forces four ways in the face of a superior enemy, a fatal mistake. The other three parts of the Seventh, about 450 men, eventually coalesced around his second in command, Major Marcus Reno, on a hilltop about four miles away in a separate fight and survived after two days of battle.

There is no good way to get to the battlefield as it is about 800 miles from Denver, Seattle or Minneapolis, so I am flying to Minneapolis and driving across the northern plains in a rented car to the national monument. Along the way there and back, I plan to visit my sister's yarn store, travel through two states I have never been in (North Dakota and Montana), attend a baseball game at the Minnesota Twins new ballpark, see minor league baseball games in St. Paul and Sioux Falls, go to Wall Drug Store, determine whether the 5-8 Club or Matt's Bar makes a better Jucy Lucy (Juicy Lucy), visit my best friend from freshman year in high school whom I haven't seen in four decades (he contacted me this month on Facebook), see many cousins, attend my Uncle's memorial service and visit my parents' graves.

I have been boning up on Custer history in preparation for the trip and I recommend these half-dozen books on the subject in the order I enjoyed them or found them informative: The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick (Custer came close to winning); A Terrible Glory by James Donovan (a good portrayal of the last chaotic hour of the "massacre," relying on often-ignored Native American sources); Son of the Morning Star by Evan Connell (outstanding literature, pure and simple); The Battle of the Little Bighorn by Mari Sandoz (despite having read it decades ago, I still remember her description of Reno becoming unnerved by being spattered with the blood and brain matter of the Indian scout he was talking to at the instant the scout was shot dead early in Reno's fight); Troopers With Custer by E.A. Brininstool (a terrific series of Indian-fighting accounts from participants of the battle); and Custer by Jay Monaghan (an excellent biography of this vainglorious soldier who got all of his men killed).

Uh, whatever

I got in a little family hot water last fall when I received an email from one of my sisters saying that my nephew had become engaged to some woman he'd met on some trip he'd taken. I didn't know the woman but that sounded nice. When they set a wedding date, I supposed I'd focus on it and see if I could go.

My sister was outraged. None of her siblings sent her son a congratulatory email. She definitely had a check list going. I asked when the wedding was taking place so that I could circle the date on my calendar.

She said that it was going to be sometime during the summer. Of 2009. In Canada.

Ahh! I don't have a 2009 calendar yet, but I sure do have plenty of time to get a passport.

More recently I received a call from my sister inquiring whether I was likely to attend. For a week. In Canada. On some indeterminate date in the summer of 2009. And would I be bringing a S.O?

I'm not even dating currently. But at least my sister didn't ask if any of my three estranged sons, who haven't spoken to anybody on my side of the family for five years, would be coming.

It sounded like some list was being created. Some talk was evidently underfoot about renting a family compound so that all of the future in-laws from the states could gather together to bond or commune on the celebrated union or something. For a week. In Canada. On some indeterminate date in the summer of 2009.

Without hesitation I said to put me down as a yes on all counts.

What would you have done?