Category Archives: Photo

Why Can’t We Have Nice Things?

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In a previous game, U.S. soccer star Folarin Balogun earned a red card, disqualifying him from last night’s match against Belgium. Trump intervened and Balogun was reinstated. This triggered worldwide outrage, not the least from Belgium. Last night, Belgium came out gunning and handily beat America 4-1. All of his meddling was for naught. This scenario is a perfect illustration of the Trump effect, everything that he touches dies. Like our country is doing.

This morning, I dropped Anne off at the hospital and went off to do laundry. When I returned Jane and all of the doctors had come and gone. Harry was a lot more lucid today than yesterday. He recognized us without prompting for one. I’m glad that yesterday was just a bad day, after an even worse weekend. But these events serve to illustrate the fragility of his health. The process to move him to a rehab center moved a step forward. Jane picked three from the list and none of them were any of the ones accused of senior abuse or neglect. Sorry David, no 60 Minutes exposé nursing homes for your grandfather. Save those for your parents. No idea yet on the availability of beds at any of these places. I suspect though that the exposé ones have greater availability. Meanwhile, the care at St. Joe/Trinity is great.

100-Year-Old Man Disappears

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Tick-Tac-Toe

Mister Bill is seen here holding this season’s tick collection. They are floating in 190 proof Everclear. He pulled all of these arachnids off of his body. Bill uses a new tick repellent that has picaridin in it and swears by it. He might have been pulling my leg, but he claimed that at the end of the summer he plans on drinking this concoction, “Why let good booze go to waste.”

Today, we are on a mission of mercy. Jane took her 98-year-old father to the hospital on the 4th. Harry had really low BP, 103/38. It being a holiday the ER was slammed and since Harry was not actively dying, or at least not quickly enough, he was a low priority. Harry was not a patient patient. A long day ended with Harry finally being admitted. Either that day or the next, after a battery of tests the doctors determined that he had internal bleeding, in his upper digestive system. He was scoped and got a transfusion and some meds. Having treated him, now they want to evict him. Gotta flip that bed. But they don’t want to send him home. He needs to build his strength up first. They are talking rehab.

Anne gave Harry a book to read, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. The story is basically that of a Swedish Forest Gump. In addition to the novel there is also a movie, but like in the American Forest Gump, the movie leaves much of the book’s story out. In this story the old man escapes from a nursing home. Harry definitely does not want to be in the hospital. Making this story a bit seditious. They have Harry on the eighth floor. Climbing out the window is not an option.

2025 Clayton Art Fair

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Anne’s Entourage

On Saturday, we attended the Clayton art fair. It was a beautiful day, sunny, not to hot and not too cold. This is a relatively small art fair, about five blocks of booths. It is juried and the art is expensive. The few artists that we discussed this with, thought highly of this fair. For them it is a money maker. We got there early and had a jump on the crowds for a while. This allowed us to command the attention of the pictured balloon festooned minstrels and get a photo with them. How does she get that blue dress on? At the far end of the fair, we grabbed lunch at Herbie’s, an eatery that is usually too slammed to even get a table at.

For years, we missed this art fair, because it always coincided with the Bike MS charity ride. In the past, we committed to that event instead. We are older now and this year, we have travelled too much to participate in that ride. Last week, we attended a Team Kaldis dinner party, where we got together again with some old bike buddies. At that dinner, for remembrances sake, we played a video that was produced for the 2011 ride. It is a very well-done movie. Although the team still persists, looking back that year was probably its high point.

Is it a Vase or a Vaze?

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Kokopelli Vase, N. Vallo, Acoma, NM

Kokopelli is a mythical figure in Native American culture who is often depicted as a humpbacked flute player with feathers on his head. The name Kokopelli is thought to come from the Zuni and Hopi word koko, which means God. This artwork was acquired at Indian Market in Santa Fe. This festival was a big draw that drew my parents all the way from Dallas. This work’s intricate design is more beautiful in real life than this photo can possibly show. 

We had a couple of wins yesterday. We managed to reclaim the majority of dad’s savings from its estate limbo. Work continues to reclaim it all, but we are slowly making progress. Once his money is in our hands, I can distribute it to my bros. Our other big victory was more ephemeral. Frankly, we were left reeling after the realtor’s aesthetics coordinator visit, and it was for the silliest of reasons. She wanted to see a king-size bed in the primary bedroom, where Anne and I are currently sleeping. Even though we could buy a new bed and have it delivered for just a few hundred dollars, the waste involved with this strategy kind of stuck in our collective craw. That sleepless night we were lying awake in bed devising alternative plans. We figured that we could move the two twins from downstairs, shove them together to make a faux king and then haul the upstairs’ queen downstairs in their place. Easy-peasy. The next morning, we were pleasantly surprised when the realtor called and proposed the exact same plan. I know that it is silly to be niggling about such small stuff as the price of a cheap bed, but as I told our realtor that’s just us. However, now we have to move two beds.

Dan is overjoyed with the results from yesterday’s NYC mayoral election that all but installed Zohran Mamdani as its next mayor. He was crowing this morning about the almost autocratic levels of support that he had garnered in Dan’s own precinct. Gone are the days when New York can no longer have nice mayors.

Rituxan

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Rituxan—IDEC-C2B8 Project Team (rituximab)

Pictured is a coffee cup with a story. Last year, my brother Chris was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He believes that he caught this cancer from his exposure to the herbicide Roundup. After this was diagnosed, his oncologist prescribed Rituxan the first monoclonal antibody drug developed for cancer. So last year, in addition to caring for our already ailing father, he had to contend with his own illness. He was prescribed roughly half-a-dozen monthly infusions of the drug. Even after his first dose, there was a marked improvement. By the end of his regimen, he was pronounced cured. But this story began long before.

Rituxan was developed by IDEC Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego pharmaceutical company that focused on developing and commercializing targeted immuno-therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases. In the early nineties, Kathy, Frank’s wife, was a director there. More particularly she was the project manager for the development of Rituxan. It made a big news splash at rollout and not in a good way as the $2,000 a dose cancer drug, which back then was deemed exorbitant. Times change. For Chris, Rituxan’s cure for cancer would have cost twelve-grand, but Medicare paid for everything. Such a deal! Anyway, in 2003, IDEC merged with Biogen, where Frank was working, to form Biogen-IDEC, which later became just Biogen. Kathy and Frank both retired shortly after the merger, sold their stock options and have been living the good life ever since. Later this week, Anne and I are planning on taking a break from “flinging” to stay as guests at their vacation rental, on the coast of Mendicino. 

The Flying Indian Girl

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Wilber Wright Circling the Statue of Liberty in 1909, Dean Mosher, 2013

Yesterday, was a day of rest. We unpacked our bags, did some laundry, and paid the bills that had been waiting for our return. This morning, our house is wrapped in fog, an outside fog that matches my interior mental fog that hopefully enough coffee will dispel. There are more things to do today, as we pick up the pieces of our homelife. This day we will do some chores, make some phone calls, and then dive headfirst into the onrushing Christmas season, but first let us revel a little bit here in our recently concluded journeys.

This painting, in the newly reopened Air and Space Museum commemorates Wilbur Wright’s 1909 flight in NYC. Celebrating the achievements of Henry Hudson and Robert Fulton, Wright had agreed that he would make a flight. In exchange, the city would pay him $15K. What worried Wilbur was that his flights would be over water. On the morning of the flight, he had made a modification to the Flyer: Beneath the lower wing, he had slung a bright red canoe, a top-of-the-line Indian Girl canoe made by the Rushton Canoe Company, it featured a sturdy 16′ frame made of northern white cedar, which Rushton claimed was nearly a third lighter than other cedars. In essence, the canoe turned the Flyer into the world’s first floatplane.

Taking off, he arose and flew east. A man in the crowd exclaimed, “I believe he’s off for Philadelphia!” Charlie Taylor, Wright’s crew chief, corrected him: “No, he will round the Statue of Liberty.” And so, he did. Crossing between Ellis and Liberty islands, Wilbur steadily gained altitude, then began a turn to the left, closing the distance to Lady Liberty. At an altitude of 200′, he passed in front of the statue, his wingtips only a few hundred feet from her waist. He then flew back to Governors Island and landed, completing a flight of 20 miles.