18 years

Summer is not perfect. Nobody is. Until recently, she was mediocre at estimating volumes. Sounds trivial but you wouldn’t like spaghetti sauce spilling over their containers or a large bowl with just a little salad taking up space in your fridge. Furthermore, I can tell she’s ready to flee from her ever present parents. Today, she got irritated with my camping trip ideas and  evicted me from her bedroom when I was still addressing invitations to her graduation party.

Summer loves to run as much as Coach Brad Bradquist and her dad like to coach. This means practices are a lot like important track  meets. Times, work outs and mileage are monitored closely by  Summer and dutifully reported to Coach and father.  She doesn’t fall over or puke after running but effort level is just shy of that every day.  When Summer’s national rank in the 800m fell from 58th to 69th, we all grumbled around the dinner table. We talk about track nearly all the time. Chatter about classes and friends fits into small gaps.

So when Summer won the Washington 2A state championship in the 800m for the second time Saturday, we were happy but definitely not surprised. The biggest excitement was actually her 400 m run against Cherish Morrison in the preliminary. Summer was in lane 5. When Cherish, who’s won 10 individual state championships started to pass Summer from lane 4, Summer just stayed with her. They looked joined at the hip from the stands.  After Cherish just barely beat her, Summer thanked Cherish for her help: Summer had just broken her second school record with a time of 57.8 seconds. Summer also takes partial credit for getting Cherish to beat her own record with a 56.09.

Sorry about that. Now you see what our dinner conversation looks like. Anyway…I guess I’m also used to Summer’s academic performance. I know nothing about it except she takes all the hardest classes and gets nearly all A’s.  I can’t help liking her boyfriends and she’s very considerate. She thanks us for her meals, helps us clean up,  gives me tips on make up, loans me clothes, notices if I wear something new. Just now, she remembered to give me a head count for tomorrow’s brunch. I had forgotten all about it! Some of my best friends are her friends’ parents. And last February, I was wondering for weeks what sporting event I could take Eric to for Valentine’s Day. A few minutes with Summer and I found out she was running in a university meet at the UW.  Problem solved. She is going to Princeton, just to cinch the whole parental proudness thing.

But none of the above inspired me to write. Tonight’s birthday party was the thing. I just witnessed 10 beautiful high school/college girls in mini dresses and high heels going out to PF Changs and then coming home to change immediately into shorts and flip flops and play spoons laughing loud enough to scare the cat across the creek. Candy became our newest carpeting. They loudly cheered Summer’s success at blowing out 18 blue candles on chocolate cake. Eric said he wished he had 10 friends who would come over for his birthday. A lot of us do. Summer left a quote on the desk one day…something like, you can’t really understand someone without loving him or her. I’m guessing her wonderful friends are no more an accident than her running speed.

It would have been enough…

Dayenu is a traditional Passover song that lists all the blessings that would have been sufficient. The celebrators chant it faster and faster as they list many  blessings piled up on one another.

The Great Disruption and The Spirit Level are 2 books I’ve read recently that help me make sense of the financial crises, looming ecologic crisis, and large protests in the US and Europe. It all makes sense if you consider that infinite growth of anything is impossible in a finite world. Exponentially growing riches for the top 1% can’t be good for a growing 99%. And propelling a 2 ton truck or SUV in order to carry  a lightweight person (relative to the vehicle) can’t be an intelligent use of precious energy. But these enraging facts of life are spelling their own demise.  Water shortages, climate refugees and tropical diseases like Dengue Fever and Cholera in the US will be among the crises that will eventually change our ways. And when we finally realize that Adam Smith was right and the economay can’t grow forever, then we’ll get on with living life instead of spending decades chasing money.

So, as depressed as you may be from reading my inadequate summaries of these prescient books, they’ve lightened my outlook considerably. And that would have been enough.

But there’s more. The Spirit Level brought my brother-in-law Greg so clearly into my understanding that I asked my dear sister if I couldn’t please speak to him.  She said NO. She was initiating her very own divorce from her husband of 13 years and I could just butt out. But telepathically, he must have heard my pleas and we spoke and spoke the very next day. I told Judy that I only wish my fictional characters could be half as convincing about their love as he was. She was uncharacteristically silent long enough for me to clip my nails.

As I write, Greg has a job, he’s reconciled with my mother, and Judy, has updated her facebook status to MARRIED to Greg!  I still haven ‘t heard a word from Judy but hopefully, she’s enjoying the fact that Greg has become a laundry master,  masseur,  chef, and income earner in addition to his usual role as Excellent Father to Zachary and Sierra.

So, who could want anything more?  Yet…. I had the privilege of treating a 75 year old Mongolian fighting to grab the best American medicine has to offer before returning home. ( I explained that he’s safer at home where there are no cars or urologists). Then I diagnosed pneumonia in my exciting European friend who speaks fluent Chinese, and address multiple issues with French teenagers and their mom while we were laughing and talking so much that  my VERY FAVORITE PATIENT, waiting in the waiting room thought it was a party.

But that’s not even all! A swim partner took to land long enough to play the Brahms cello sonata with me. (It actually DOES sound better with both parts!), I enjoyed SUPER FAST pickleballs with James, Vince, Noel, and David, had a great time talking to Chris and Adrian,  and celebrated Kurt’s 85th birthday with everyone else.

But even that isn’t nearly all. Summer’s been invited to go to Princeton for an official visit by their track coach. Iris will meet me, Eric, and Summer at Newark Airport Dec 8th.

Happily it goes on and on and on…I love my new book club, Thanksgiving was the best ever (Carol, Mer, Andy, Emily, Lauren, Summer, Eric and me) and we had recent visits from Dick and Karen and before that, RINOOOOOOSH, AND we’re all meeting in Arizona for Xmas.

…And progress with Greg unleashed a beautiful loving email from Rafi to Greg…

…and after hiking 8 miles with the oldest woman ever to summit Mt. Rainier (Bronka Sendstrom) a bunch of us crashed in her house. Then she sends ME a thank you for washing dishes and leaving her some fresh beets!  She’s 86 years old.

…and I’ve played TONS of scrabble lately.

Summer sang Xmas carols with me and the piano…

Day dayenu…daydayenu….daydayenu …dayenu dayenU!

tomorrow….I’ll probably mope around all day but that’s OK.

State Champion

When Summer dropped her 800m time from 2:22 to 2:17, one of the track dads (Tom Lucas) quipped that we’d just saved ourselves 40K in tuition. When she dropped it to 2:15 and won the state championship, she received a letter from the Yale track coach and we figured out that her time put her squarely in the middle of nearly all the Ivy League track teams. She’d be the best at MIT and not quite the middle at Stanford but not the bottom either.

She wanted her name to hang in the Interlake Gym in perpetuity and that will now happen. Most girls get really tired by the end of the 800m race. She must also! But she continues to pass girls, even those with a last minute surge. She visualizes her goal clearly and doesn’t let anything mar the image. Her coach Brad described the extreme fatigue you have to push past. Summer minimized this. “ I just keep accelerating.”  I think about her when  I swim 4 50’s in a row, time increasing from 48 sec to almost 60 and I can’t “push” past it and stay “fast.” I can’t imagine how Summer does it.

Tyler’s Grandma said she watched Summer’s race with skepticism. A Newport girl with longer legs was far ahead. Tyler told her not to worry.  Before long the girl looked over her shoulder stunned to see Summer approaching quickly.  Summer powered past Miss Newport with ease, impressing Grandma.

Today, she pulled an Eric. Decided it was homework day. She was never rude but she ignored the chatter around her and powered through physics and French homework til it was done. She had nothing but homework and water for hours on end, interrupting once to offer support for her parents over Emily which she rarely does-Emily felt a quarter’s tuition was too high a price to pay for getting a new dog against our wishes. Summer pointed out that if she’s really worried about $ she could forgo the dog saving the $500 it costs to buy her plus the tuition we’re unloading on her.

Nobody can get mad at Summer but Emily and I didn’t have to hash out that topic after Summer’s clear analysis.

I finished the first draft of my book on Mother’s Day.It’s printed on the backs of Summer’s old homework sheets-helpful in case I need examples of hard work during my edits.  I don’t really want to be finished because it’s my favorite hobby at the moment and I want it to be much better.(I’m trying to ignore the great abyss into which it’s likely to fall when finally complete).  I did scene triage in which I was supposed to mercilessly delete chapters without action advancing character’s goals. I deleted at least 2. Now, I need to do 7 edits. THe first is the character edit. There my protagonist is being outshined by side characters so he needs a makeover. Also, my setting needs more depth. This is my favorite part. Just like Eric nixed pot in college, he  nixed my impassioned conversations on how to re-invent healthcare, transportaion, and city design. So now, I just make it even more radical (cars in my conversation were stuck underground- in my books, they’re deprived of roads and power so they’re basically gone.)

Eric was bitten by a stray dog in Athens. But it’s healing well and he was able to follow my advice for Augmentin and a tetanus shot for $20 from a pharmacist. He also hired 4 people for Microsoft, lifting them out of the soured Greek economy. He thought he’d be immune to the allure of Greece but he was wrong. He compared Athens with Tel Aviv (solar water heaters on the rooves and 4 story buildings everywhere) and Madrid!  Better still, he promised to take me there. He loved his uphill run into a forested park in spite of the irritable dog.

Lauren and Emily are moving out August 1st into an apartment close to campus and on the same level so they don’t have to trudge up any big hills to get to class. (Is that good or bad? ). I’m so happy that they’ll live together. Emily even thought about friends- the apartment is full of UW students with pets and Emily feels totally comfortable talking with another dog owner. Her future dog is now the size of a guinea pig apparently. I’ve promised to spoil Summer rotten as soon as the her sisters leave. They’ve tempered our enthusiasm by  muttering disapproval when we hash out track or college admission statistics too energetically. Next goals for the kids: admission to the majors of their choices: informatics for Lauren and Psychology for Emily. 

I wanted to call my Iris, Rafi, Judy, and Solly today but I biked to UW to hear Tom Gibb’s commencement address to the graduating Civil Engineers then went to Tyler’s graduation party with Summer and Kat’s graduation party alone.  and LIsa left today for Provence and Spain.

Summer found a simple gray dress for under $30 at a Thrift shop in Seattle. Last night she wore it to prom. Tyler’s mother and grandmother thought it was elegant and beautiful- sort of like Marilyn Monroe. About 25 couples and their parents all crowded into the Margolis yard for pictures- I feel like I enjoyed the beauty with Rina since I was on the phone with her and texting her photos all the while. Plus she reminded me how wonderful baths are. I took a bath in my huge tub after biking to UW today. Aaaaaahhhh.

Is this normal?

Lauren’s Krav Maga teacher demonstrated to this class: if you do this move and dislocate your attacker’s jaw, they’ll be recovering for a long time but I prefer to just do THIS and quickly break their noses as if he goes around injurying people as a hobby.

I had a cold followed by a minor stomach ache recently. I thought my energy and motivation were gone forever. But instead, with incredibly good luck I’m back to health.

Today, I decided  I want to talk to my mom every day! Whenever, I call, she sounds like she’s laughing and in the middle of some adventure I could have never imagined.  Also, today, she decided we’d either play a word on facebook scrabble  or talk everyday. I’m lucky my mother is young, imaginative, and telepathically connected to me. As a happy side effect, half the time, I reach Rafi. Today, he and I  had fun deciding all the solid  reasons we don’t want to live in Upper Walthamstow and where we’ll vacation when we’re”stationed” in London.

Today, I went straight from doing great work on my novel (and spotting 2 racoons in the creek) to discovering that Summer was locked in her bedroom with Tyler. My hysteria was in check and she assured me she would not become a teen mom and agreed to leave the door open in the future. Lucky again, we went on to have a really fun night studying strange French words (“vair” means squirrel fur and Cinderella’s slippers were originally “vair” instead of “verre” (glass). ). Who would’ve known. We also found out that if she ran the 400 m for Columbia, she’d be the 5th fastest.

Emily and Andy are well focused on their schoolwork and doggies. And Eric is down to 171 lbs and lifting weights. His biceps are actually bigger than Summer’s!

But back to Krav Maga girl, AN AGENT REQUESTED Lauren’s FULL MANUSCRIPT. No wonder, she’s starting to feel capable of elbowing, kneeing and kicking off random offenders. She’s en route to being a published author! 

Minus one for nukes, plus one for emotions

Thomas D’Agostino says highly enriched plutonium has been removed from 19 countries where it wasn’t secured since Obama proclaimed this a priority in April 2010. There are 16 countries to go. They transferred the material from the Ukraine into safekeeping during a top secret midnight operation over the Xmas vacation involving 4 countries and over 40 different organizations. I passed this good news to Rafi carefully deleting Obama’s (good) name and the exclusive source (Rachel Maddow).

Steven Johnson apparently wrote a book that was discussed on a Nov 2008 edition of radiolab.org that was re-aired today. The psychologists seem to have pretty convincing evidence that the  “stress” of having to memorize 7 numbers is enough to make study participants choose cake when offered a choice of 2 snacks. People that only had to keep 2 numbers in their head overwhelmingly chose fruit. More interesting, they found that people who rely on their  gut feeling  make better decisions than those who overanalyze.  Apparently, the conscious mind gets misled when it attempts to process the excess of available information. In contrast, the subconcious brain is able to synthesize a quick accurate answer by stirring hundreds of tiny personal experiences into one emphatic answer.

Lauren’s rational mind recognizes that it’s tough to maintain a relationship with a boyfriend who is and will be in a different country for the foreseeable future but she KNOWS she wants to marry Carlos. By contrast, she said it was over analysis that yielded her decision to go to Eckerd College. The proximity to family turned out even better than anticipated but the lackadaisical academic environment didn’t work.

Rina was a cheerful, insightful addition to our New Year reunion in Scottsdale this year. Bethany has always been pretty but she stunned everyone with her beauty after Emily made her up. Iris and Rafi acted like sweet lovebirds, to their offspring’s great relief. And Loaded Questions was the perfect game choice. Rafi, Iris, Derek, Bethany, Summer, Emily and I all played, laughing the whole time and actually learning things we didn’t know about each other… Iris would have liked to play TENNIS and the GUITAR. Summer has never cleaned a toilet. Emily has (apparently) done EVERY HOUSEHOLD JOB that exists while Iris freely admitted that she had never cleaned a computer keyboard. Lynelle brought her friends over so they could spend one more middle of the night with Summer after I reinstated Summer’s curfew. And she was kind enough to drive me, Emily, Derek and Bethany to AZ on the Rocks climbing gym. She also drove everyone to coffee plantation. Luckily, I beat the rest by an hour or two and the time to work on my book cheered my up so I was able to enjoy the company of Emily, Bethany, Summer and Lynelle. The plantation people were nice enough to accomadate us even though we only bought 3 cold drinks.

The lame duck congress came through ratifying the nuclear arms agreement with Russia. Rachel Maddow’s greatest fear is nuclear destruction. She’s brilliant so hopefully I’m wrong thinking shortages of fresh water will do us in. (Encouraging that Mike Whitehead also thinks water will remain plentiful).  Solange bought a $4400 mountain bike (will cost $6600 after upgrades) and I kept up with her when she turned the corner from Thompson Peak Road to 100th St. Emily, Lauren, and Andy are all on the Dean’s List at the Univ. of Washington AND my favorite 84 year old pickle ball friend Kurt,  said that whereever I go there should be a piano. The first thing I did on returning home was play Brahms which I love.

Probably the main reason I was in such a good mood today is my run with Levi. This was our first run together since he became completely blind. He nearly fell off the bridge and he bumped into a few branches while sniffing out the perfect toileting spot but he made up for it. Out on the icy sidewalk, he easily stayed right behind me. Off leash at Highland Middle School,  he really took off running  fast on the snowy grass and followed me just fine through the woods. We were both happy to sit in the sun at Ivar’s and take a leisurely walk enjoying the smells of Donuts, Petco, coffee and ethnic foods at Crossroads.  Fully rejuvenated, we happily ran all the way home. When I sat down at the piano, he took his loyal listener spot on the couch. Cherish your blind dog. Emotional trumps  rational.

Not Rick Scott

Floridians chose the man responsible for the largest scam against Medicare to be their governor?  I burst into tears while cutting carrots. I thought the transfer of taxes into Wall Street was as blatant as it could get  with the direct Treasury to Goldman Sachs TARP funnel  but now we might as well sell  Floridians to the   “healthcare” companies. Just like the Alfred Hitchcock episode Eric and I watched last night where a rich, highly esteemed medical professor routinely had his fellow citizens murdered to maintain  a steady supply of cadavers. Bill Clinton tried to stop it by asking the Democrat to step down and allow Charlie Christ to win. Obama is trying to save our country but hatred, greed, ignorance and propaganda are teamed up against him We blue people have  let our sense of helplessness flatten us into inactivity.

I called my uncle before moving from carrots to onions in dinner prep. He’s going to cut news out of his TV viewing habits and hang on to his condo in Buenos Aires. We discussed University of Oregon footbal team’s  no huddle offense to avoid total despair.

Even Jon Stewart can’t take the intense idiocy. He’s targeting the media instead of the corporate puppets who pretend to represent the American people. Rachel Maddow will hold onto what’s right, hopefully without getting so emotional that she loses half her audience.

Had sauteed veggies over couscous with egg sauce along with chili casserole for dinner. Summer, Emily, Lauren, Andy, Eric and I were all there with 2 dogs waiting patiently for leftovers. Played piano, worked on book. Newspaper and NPR will have to wait.

True

Be true to yourself. Even if it takes your whole life.

In one of his books Obama said your actions must reflect your thoughts and feelings.  In The Audacity of Hope, he discusses his inner conflict. Should he take public transportation, opening a door to encounters with everyday people? Or accept flight on a private jet along with a financial boost to  his campaign ? What if your sense of self was irreparably corrupted?  Say someone who’s all powerful  committed actions that permanently made you a bad person. Would you then reaffirm this self identity by abusing yourself?

Today, my patient I’ll call Nadia said that for each pound she’s overweight, she’ll assign and write about one stressful life event. She’ll then address each item in turn. She proposed a big bonfire at the end to get rid of them all…I suggested she publish her work instead. (The delusions of a lonely blogger).

In The Family That Preys, Tyler Perry writes in  a minor character who wants to start his own business even though his best friend, wife, and multiple bankers try to pound his dreams and ego into the floorboard. His “blindness” to the “truths” around him lead to….his own business. According to Hollywood expert Emily June Hanson, Tyler Perry was abused by 3 different people.  He seems to be searching for his self identity by playing multiple roles in his own movies….movies which portray right and wrong in bright lights.

Emily and Andy had to rank order the severity of 13 crimes in their sociology class at the University of Washington…crimes including murder, rape, suicide, embezzelment, treason and adultery. Our instructors in med school would have never assigned such an  exercise. If they did, I’m absolutely sure, the class would have protested strenuously. I know this because a simple deviation from the multiple choice test format created an uprising. (We’re  training to be doctors, not writers!). 

My friend, Tom, started off as an accountant in his father’s business. His inner voice suggested an entirely different path. When he followed his own instincts, his family disowned him but he  earned a long, gratifying career of his own. As a psychoanalyst, he now helps others discern their true images from the mutilated distorted collages that cruelty previously cemented  onto their canvasses.

“That was true,” I said to myself   today when I hit the pickleball fast, just over the net, and far into my opponents backhand yet within the boundaries. Can you believe, I posted this whole long blog just so I could immortalize that shot? The blog has nothing to do with the fact that my mother is  partying  in South Beach for Halloween.