This just makes me so sad. It is exactly what I didn’t expect from this president. Killing American citizens without a trial – or a trail, for that matter – justified by a secret memo sounds like Bush/Cheney 2.0.
Happy Birthday Michele Part II
Michele’s birthday, this year, turned into a season that – sort of – bled into Super Sunday (not so super here on the left coast, however). On the day after Michele’s actual birthday, we went on the Napa WineTrain with Michele’s sister, Claudia, her stepdad, Jim, and her Mom. Like any train ride that doesn’t actually go anywhere, it is more of an amusement park activity than a ride. In this case, the train runs the mid-Napa Valley from the City of Napa to somewhere near St. Helena at about 15 miles per hour. And then returns at 15 miles per hour. Inside, we tasted wine on the way out and had a very nice lunch on the way back.
From the time we arrive at the departure station, done in a sort of old-timey brothel station temporary-building-decorated-for-New Years style, every effort is made to make sure we are having a memorable experience.
And, by and large, they succeed.
The train goes up the center of the valley and it is a nice way to get a general lay of the land.
For me it was a way to stake out some buildings that I would like to come back and photograph. The Opus One Winery, for example, which seems to be half buried in an artificial hill and the original Mondavi Winery building designed by Cliff May in 1966 (Cliff May is the designer credited with designing the California Ranch House). For all of us, it was a chance to watch the valley pass by.
This being Napa – the same Napa that is becoming as much about food as wine – we finished the Napa part of the day at the nearby Fatted Calf. The Fatted Calf is an ordinary looking suburban butcher shop – well, maybe not ordinary any more because most butcher shops are in supermarkets and, then, only ordinary looking from the outside – that sells way upscale, organic, pasture raised, meat.
The cost is very high, but Michele sort of works around that by getting stew meat or pork scraps for stir fry. In this case she bought a marinaded pork shoulder for phase III of her birthday season. Then it was home, watching the sunset as we headed south.
Happy Birthday, Michele!
Michele suggested that we go to Ramen Dojo for her birthday dinner. Ramen Dojo is, reputedly, the best ramen joint in San Mateo – if that seems strange, you don ‘t know San Mateo – and the ramen was great (chewy noodles with spice garlic and pork sauce).
Happy Birthday, Michele!
An amazing comparison (atleast to me)
A picture – taken by me – of the main drag of Nam Yang Korea in 1964
A picture – from about the same place of Namyang, Korea now (lifted from Google Maps).
It turns out that a Korean who was stationed at the same place in 1979 ran into my post and was able to send me the Google map – uh? I guess that is really any map – coordinates which allowed me to find Namyang (I have been spelling it wrong, but I did have the name right). Then it was a matter of opening the picture gizmos and there was Namyang as it is today. To me, the change is staggering.
Near our old Compound, is a new hotel, The Hotel Rolling Hills which seems much more deluxe than my old digs.
Even the local Buddhist Temple has been updated, from this
to this
I am sure that there are places in the United States that have changed this much but none where I have lived.
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner
A funny thing thing happened to me last night, I lost sight in my right eye for about five minutes. I think that it was about five minutes, it is hard to tell exactly in the middle of a panic. I was sitting at my pseudo desk watching the computer monitor when I got a little light headed and everything got dark and grey. After a couple of minutes of panicked fiddling around, I figured out that I could see out of my left eye just fine but I could only see grey with my right eye. After five minutes, the grey was only the bottom two thirds, then one third, and then it was gone and I could see fine with only an emotional hangover.
I went through all of five of the Kübler-Ross’ stages, starting with denial – this can’t be happening – and five minutes later, as it disappeared, ending where I started with this must have been my imagination. Except I knew it wasn’t.
When Michele got home, I told her about the funny thing that happened and she went into mama bear mode insisting that I go to Emergency at Sequoia. On was pretty reluctant on the theory that there was nothing that could be done. We were both right. At the ER, I was photographed by Michele on her iPhone, tested, CAT scanned, checked out by an Opthamologist – who, as luck would have it is my regular eye doctor and lives close to us – and, eventually sent home because I could now see and there was nothing they could do. But the ER visit has now triggered a series of doctor appointments including an carotid arteries ultra sound scan appointment tomorrow.
I seem to be fine now, but everybody – especially me – wants to find out what caused it. The current theory is that a tiny particle from my atrial fibrillation ablation that I had on January 4th broke off and went up an artery into my eye where it was trapped until it melted in my heavily thinned and treated blood. I hope so because that means that, eventually, when everything is thoroughly rinsed, it will stop happening.
In turn, the thinking is that the atrial fibrillation was caused by a thickening of my heart muscle because it had to work so hard before I had my aorta valve replaced by a cow valve in 2002.
