Life of Wry

Happiness is sitting in the backseat, cruising quietly in an electric vehicle looking at the gorgeous sunset over the San Francisco bay.  Some shots:

There were more, but they’re blurry and have bug spots on them.  They make better paintings than photos. Check them out on my Flickr site. 

What’s not to love about the American Himalayan Foundation’s mission statement:

The Himalaya is a magic place where the magnificence of the world’s highest mountains is mirrored in the rugged beauty and unique culture of the people who live in their shadow. But these people often live without basic health care and education. Economic pressures have forced environmental degradation. And traditional ways of life are disappearing.

AHF was founded to respond to these pressing problems. What we do is basic: we make change – positive, tangible change – happen. We build and support schools and students; train doctors and fund hospitals; care for children and elders; plant trees and restore sacred sites. We help Tibetans rebuild and sustain their culture both in exile and in Tibet.

AHF supports projects that are on a human scale and directly benefit people. We deeply respect our local partners. Our work responds to their priorities and concerns, and AHF projects always involve local commitment and community participation. 

I admit to becoming consumed with all things Himalayan, Nepalese since returning from my trek last April.  Why I love travel. Passion, curiosity and interest for the places you go and the people you meet is the only response to being in different places.  Of course.

AHF’s annual dinner was tonight and it was thrilling to be there–to hear about the organization, and to be among other people who had experienced the Himalaya in some way and care about its people, the culture, and environment.  Plus it was cool because the program included a heavy dose of Everest mountaineering history, traditions and superstars.  Both aspects of the night gave me a huge rush.

The dinner was good, the wine was surprisingly good and flowed freely, I was with two amazing, inspiring friends..

..and we got neato and useful-in-a-backpacking-way thank you gifts.

Most of the program was about the good work of AHF–highlighted this year was its work with the Hospital and Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Children in Kathmandu.  And another too-short part of the program was a conversation with eight guys who’d climbed Everest at one time or another… or multiple times.  Or first, or the most, or with the least, or whatever.  A pretty impressive bunch.

It was moderated by Jon Krakauer, who wrote Into Thin Air, Into the Wild (and others), and recently Three Cups of Deceit..

and featured these guys:

From left to right, top to bottom: Apa Sherpa, Ed Viesters, Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, Pete Athans, Tom Hornbein and Jim Whittaker.

There is just too, too much to say about each one of these guys; they’re amazingly accomplished, each and every one of them, with harrowing and fascinating stories to tell of a life time of experiences at ridiculous altitudes.  Go here to get short bios and links to longer bios, or just Google them.

The pictures are all pretty horrible because I’m taking them from the back of a huge, cavernous room in low light on full zoom with no tripod.  The one of Krakauer that looks like he’s a wax figure is actually a shot of the screen on which his image was projected.  So.. don’t give me a hard time about these. ‘k thanks.

Top of the thrill list was meeting Apa Sherpa:

He is a Nepalese man, a sherpa, who’s climbed Mt. Everest 21 times, to date, the world record.  He was actually in Nepal, on the trail at the same time we were last April.  In fact, we passed him on the trail and our guide Homnath introduced him to Karen.  I, and I think the others, were scattered about the trail at that particular moment, and missed the meeting… unfortunately.  He went on to base camp, acclimated and summited a month later.  I think he goes pretty much annually.  Kind of amazing.  The wiki page on him says he’s around 40 years old and ascended Everest the first time in 1990 with Peter Hillary (son of Edmond, who was the world’s first successful summiter).  I read somewhere else that he is related to Tenzing Norgay, who was with Hillary on the first ascent back in 1953. Apa lives now in Utah.

Anyway, ’twas a fun and worthwhile way to spend an evening, a good organization to support, and I’m sure I’ll go again.

… I’m so very happy to see you.

Right? Typical response of a thirteen year old boy in the company of thirteen year old girls?

This is actually a birthday party to which he is not an invitee.  Rather, he is on hand, hired by the birthday girl’s parents, to look after two younger siblings… his first ever babysitting gig.  For several hours, ten teenage girls partied and ate and watched movies and opened presents and shrieked a lot, while Peter and his charges had their own fun outside. A handful of parents were in yet another room hanging out doing grownup things (that involved wine and Balderdash…).

When the cake came out, so too did Peter and the little ones, and they lingered long enough to get their pictures taken with the official party goers.

I believe that even though his eyes are rolling away, he’s having a fine time. Hard to know for sure, but it may have crossed his mind that he was in a pretty good situation here. I do detect the slightest of smiles on those lips.

[Photo credit: Bill]

Ya know, this is why I don’t watch much TV.  We’ve never been a big TV household, but, I have to say, a lot of that is because the TV watching experience is fraught with challenge, frustration and, as you can see, poor line of sight.

Here’s what’s going on in this picture:

This is my office.  The only TV we own (20-something inch, old fashioned) is here in my office, recently relocated to the top of the file cabinet (there are actually three 4-drawer file cabinets, and a 2-drawer, in this corner).

When I decided to move the TV to this corner, it freed up a lot of space on the other side of the room, especially since we eliminated the large 1970s-vintage cabinet on which the TV previously sat.  Now my office is a lot more spacious and attractive.  Really, it is; above, poorly-lit picture notwithstanding.

But the problem with the move is that now the broadcast antenna doesn’t pick up a clean signal. Turns out, the only place the antenna works–and we’ve tried every possible configuration–is in that very spot right in front of the TV and about five feet in the air.  Not an inch away from this spot in any direction.  The antenna works right exactly there and nowhere else. Thus, the ladder.

Which is mighty inconvenient and makes seeing the screen somewhat difficult.

Also… antenna, you wonder.  Yeah, we’re receiving local channels over-the-air, since we discontinued 1) cable about five years ago (with great satisfaction) and 2) Dish satellite service about six months ago (with frustration).  Now, we’re using a combination of over-the-air and ROKU.  And we still have a DVD player for Netflix.

And at the present time, none of this works for shit.

The corner is a tangle of cables and power supplies, extension cords, receivers, a switcher, a basket full of remotes and some other stuff I’m a little unclear about. Everything’s inaccessible and unlabeled, and just a big, dysfunctional mess.

I’ve made a spread sheet that, once we finish figuring out how it’s all supposed to work, I’ll laminate and place in a convenient place for easy access.  The spreadsheet will detail which power unit to turn on, which remote to use, where to dial the switcher unit, what input to select, and so forth for each of the three TV-watching options. Because each option has a whole different thing going on, and none of it is intuitive. And we’ll label stuff and tidy everything up, and maybe then I won’t break into a sweat at the mere thought of watching something on TV.

Gone–long gone–are the days when I could just say, think I’m gonna chill and watch a little TV. It’s just way too hard.  TV is such a flippin hassle.  Like talking on the phone or listening to music.  It’s all just so, so complicated these days, unstandardized, ever changing, unstable, un-straightforward.  I mean, it’s great, there are so many more things we can do, but it’s all just so goddamn inelegant.

[Where’s Steve Jobs when you really need him?  This is what he was so masterful at.. creating simple and elegant user interfaces for the most clunky of technical operations. In other words, exactly this mess. And in an interview just prior to his death, he indicated TV was on his short list of upcoming projects.  RIP, Mr. Jobs; wish you were still with us.]

But we did manage to get a clear picture for tonight’s World Series, which was nice, despite my now tweaked neck.

I know, who takes a picture of their food on the conveyor belt at the grocery store?  Me, I guess. You never know when you’re going to need a desperation picture for picture of the day.

This was tonight’s contribution to a potluck birthday party in its raw stage.  Most of this would become a zucchini casserole-y thing.

The chips were my concession to Peter’s request that I bring home some junk food.

Happy Saturday wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.

An airport story.

Letsee, it starts with my arrival at LAX this sunny mid-afternoon in time to catch my flight back to Davis. Been in LA for 5 days; it will be nice to be home.

Typical Friday afternoon: LAX is a pulsing swarm of people all trying to get someplace else.

I had time for a cup of coffee and a little reading.  I’d decided to forgo computer time, since it was twenty minutes to boarding and that didn’t seem to justify T-Mobile’s $8 day-pass charge.  (Grateful for Sacramento International–my favorite airport–because they provide free wi-fi.)

Our flight was overbooked and when they asked for volunteers who might want to give up their seats, I thought, sure, this is a good time to do that because 1) I’m not in a great hurry, 2) the next flight was to leave just an hour later, and 3) the compensation for giving up my seat on this flight was worth it: a voucher for a future ticket of equal value ($180.70), and $100.  Why not?

So I did that.

But, once my seat had been given away and the jetway doors were closed, the ticket agent realized she’d made a mistake and, in fact, the next flight to Sacramento was also, actually, overbooked.  She put me, and the other two seat giver-uppers, on priority standby status but didn’t guarantee anything.  She offered us $200 for her complete incompetence our being such good sports, plus the equal value flight voucher and a seat on the next flight.

But…..and maybe you expected this, only two out of the three of us made that next flight (and one of us didn’t).  So, I was then booked onto the next flight.  I was again given my equal value future flight voucher, and this time $300. 

Sweet.

So I took off for my new gate with my new boarding pass.  I had a few more hours before the 7:55 to Sacramento.

By this time, the sun was starting to go down and it was feeling very cold in the terminal. I’m wearing like this little skirt and light shirt and sandals, so I had to buy a “Life is Good” sweatshirt at the “Life is Good” store, which is, indeed, good because I only have about 27 million sweatshirts at home, and can always use another.  This one’s fuzzy on the inside and very warm. Better be for the price I paid.

I finally settled down, but realized I was also totally starving so decided to hunt down something worth eating..hmm.. Starbucks or Starbucks?  (Grateful again for Sac’s airport that has Dos Coyotes, Saladworks, Burgers and Brew, Vino Volo..and more.) It turned out to be a good time to vacate my seat because somebody had left an unattended bag (the dreaded unattended bag) next to me and a security officer had called for some sniffer dogs to come and investigate its contents. He recommended I find someplace else to sit.

Settled again with lots of time to kill, I decided to get that T-Mobile day pass after all. First time ever: it didn’t work!  So.. had to call T-Mobile tech support. Fifteen minutes later, I was online with a special courtesy guest pass for my troubles and a credit, hopefully, on my credit card.  Nice.

And that’s the story so far.

I have to write fast because the battery power on my laptop is ratcheting down with every keystroke.  I’d opted to pack away my AC power supply in my checked baggage (along with my warm clothes) since I didn’t anticipate having much computer time in the airport today.  Battery level at this moment: 46%. Typing fast, here!

Not counting on anything, but I hope to be on the flight to Sac in another hour or so.  Should be home by 10pm.

$480.70 ahead.

Five hundred things made me want to write today.  Spending time with one’s 82-year old mom will do that to you.. no end to rich, emotion-laden material.

But holding those thoughts for now. They need some tilling first.

On the lighter side: went to the movies today, LA style.  George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti… nothing complicated about that.

Here, now, early, silent, foggy, grey, drippy, eucky, familiar.

I tell you, I am so entirely out of sorts, I don’t know where to begin, or what to write.

So, starting with this: I’m in LA.  See above.  I’m not in downtown, but took a picture of this very nice graphic depiction of LA that hangs in Southwest’s baggage claim area at LAX.  It feels like an appropriate representation of this moment: out of alignment.

Speaking of that. The whole world sucks when you’ve thrown out your back. You’re immobilized, you hurt, you wonder if you’ll ever be able to put your pants on normally again. Everything hurts from hurting non-stop for 4 days. Because you’re always afraid of setting off that big giant spasm, you don’t want to move at all, but if you do, you do it gingerly. Then you hurt from being so sedentary. You can’t bear to sit for one more second. You’re favoring the part of your back that’s on the verge of a spasm, so the rest of you aches from all the compensation.

So, that.

Then, there was last night’s icky drama.  Had a pleasant enough dinner out, but as we were leaving the restaurant, my mom started to feel lightheaded. I won’t go into the details, but: collapse, lying on the floor, bar towels, chaos, 911, sirens, emergency response vehicles, an army of EMTs. The vision I can’t get out of my head, though, was my mom’s face as her eyes rolled back into her head and she completely folded over as I tried to hold her up..and it gets worse, but I don’t even want to write about it.  Not the way you want to see your mom, is all I can say. She recovered quickly, thankfully, and things seemed fine again.  She opted for home over hospital and we were on our way. She seemed to handle it all in stride, but it took me a couple hours to stop shaking.

Quiet day today, which was welcome, but tonight we watched the republican presidential debate.  Bad enough, but nothing more heartbreaking than listening to the best candidates the republican party can come up with one-upping each other on how, when they’re president, they’re going to build a longer, stronger, higher, more electrically-charged wall than the next guy in order to keep illegal aliens out of the United States. Bachmann boasted she’d build a double wall. I think it was Santorum who vowed to defund the United Nations.  They were rude and yelled and talked over one another.  Just good lord.

At this moment, my mom’s wondering aloud why the security lights have come on outside–you know those lights that are motion sensitive? Then she says, oh, it’s probably just an animal, and goes off to bed. And now I’m sitting here alone in the family room scared shitless, wondering how I’m going to fend off axe murderers with my back so messed up.

Really hoping for a better day tomorrow.