Remembering Papa

 In the last couple of days, I’ve been thinking about Bob’s dad, affectionately called “Papa” by his grandsons.  It started when Erik told us that he and his brother Paul, when playing a game of Boggle, started reminiscing about Papa.  I don’t know if it was a Boggle word or just brotherly companionship.  Whatever it was, they spoke about Papa’s sense of humor and jokes he used to tell with such amazing relish that even if you didn’t think the joke was funny, you laughed and laughed, enjoying his pleasure.  The joke they remembered was one about a Barefoot Boy with Cheeks of Tan (from some 19 century poem) becoming through the telling of the joke, a Boyfoot Bear with Teaks of Chan.  I can still hear Papa laughing in my head and it pleases me no end, our sons remember it too.  Walking yesterday on the Cal campus, where Papa taught and did research for the last 25 years of his career,  on one of our daily walks, I spotted a couple of bronze Cal bears lounging with their feet showing.  I took a photo as it reminded me of the Boyfoot Bear.....   So today, as I cut up the fresh pineapple I had, I decided in Papa’s honor to make his favorite cake, a Pineapple Upside Down cake.  As we ate it,  it was such pleasure to remember the lovely man Papa was.  He was so very smart and hardworking, but he also was gentle and loving.  He never said a bad thing about anyone.  He was always there to help whenever help was needed.  He so loved his grandsons and told stories about them to anyone who would listen with such amazing delight.  I will never forget the first time I met he and Edith on a visit Bob and I made to see them after a ski trip.  As we were leaving, Papa went over a cut the most beautiful long stemmed rose in his garden and gave it to me.  He was a romantic too.

A New Day

  Last Wednesday, January 20, 2021, at 11:50 am ET, Joseph R. Biden Jr. was inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States and Kamala D. Harris was inaugurated as Vice President.  It was a cold day with snow flurries, but immediately upon their saying the oaths,  I felt a huge relief and a lightness in my being.  Thank goodness, we turn a page.  It is a new day and a new direction for our country.  The Inauguration had gone as planned, no disturbances, no interrruptions and most thankfully no trump.  I loved watching all the people arrive.  The women were wearing beautiful bright designer coats of blue, purple, red, and yellow.  I loved the symbolism of the flags in the Mall (though I was sad the American people couldn’t be there in person to cheer on Biden and Harris).  I loved the pagentry of the moment and the simplicity of it, the peaceful transfer of power.  I thought how much we need Biden’s wisdom born of his vast experience in government and his own suffering.  How much we need his honesty.  He said in his speech “There is truth and there are lies.  I will tell you only truth.”  YES!!!!!   I celebrated Kamala Harris who represents so many firsts: first woman, first woman of color, first E. Asian woman.  Hooray,  she broke the glass ceiling for us all (well not white men).   I cheered Lady Gaga’s amazing voice when she sang the National Anthem and thought she can wear anything she wants when she has such a voice as that.  I thought of all the men I ministered to in the San Francisco County Jail singing Amazing Grace when I heard Garth Brooks sing it.  The theme of the day was Unity, Coming Together.  Biden spoke to all Americans, but I fear those pesky Republicans who voted for trump knowing what he is like, aren’t listening.   At the end of the ceremony, the beautiful young poet, Amanda Gorman, stole the show.  Watching her hands gracefully dance as she powerfully recited the poem she had written, I recognized the power of poetry.  To me her voice sounded like Maya Angelou and I marveled how one so young could sound like that.  She is definitely an old soul.  The words of the poem were hopeful yet very honest and perfectly fit with the theme President Biden and VicePresident Harris chose.  A couple of lines stood out for me:

       “ Somehow we weathered and witnessed

       Our nation isn’t broken but simply unfinished”   And

        “There is always light

        If only we’re brave enough to see it,

        If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

It’s a New Day in America for which I am very grateful.  One of my strongest feelings from this Inauguration is that we must pray every day for President Biden and Vice President Harris.  We must pray for their strength and wisdom and safety.  

Light at the End of the Tunnel

 Yesterday morning Bob and I headed out before 9am to go south to Fremont Kaiser where we were scheduled to get our first COVID shots.  We weren’t sure we’d really get them as there’s been news of the Moderna vaccine being pulled from the vaccination centers due to allergic reactions to it.  We got to the Kaiser hospital complex early, found a parking place and immediately saw the big sign that told us where to go to get our shots.  Our friend, Gladys from the call-center, gave Bob very precise directions because, as she said, “sometimes old people have trouble finding the site, no insult intended.”  There was no line.  We went right inside where a nurse checked us in and gave us a form to fill out.  Then we were ushered into to the far end of a big conference room where there were three injection sites.  I got tears in my eyes as I sat down and Jane, my injector, introduced herself.  She had me fill out a questionnaire and told me I was getting the Pfizer vaccine.  I asked Jane if other people got tears when they got their shot and she said, “No.”  I didn’t even feel the shot.  Jane was good.  Then we sat in appropriately distanced chairs to be observed for any reaction we might have to the vaccine.  The room wasn’t crowded and I was surprised to see that we were the only ones with gray hair.  Clearly, the over 75 set weren’t rushing into this vaccination site.  Immediately, a young woman wheeled over a table with a computer and made me an appointment for the 2nd shot in 3 weeks.  I felt  a mild dizziness right away but didn’t tell them.  It was probably lightness due to relief at getting my shot.  As we left, I felt sooooo very grateful and thankful.  Thankful to the scientists who created the vaccine in record time, grateful to Kaiser for being organized to give vaccinations and even grateful for Operation Warp Speed.  Now, I feel almost a little guilty for being among the first to get the shot because I remember how I felt when we couldn’t get an appointment.  I hope everyone gets their shots soon and that this pandemic will be over.  We are all so very tired of it—-numb from the unthinkable number of deaths and sickness and tired of the restrictions.  Bob and I have had it easy.  We are not alone, we have each other.  We have a nice place to hunker down with special places to soothe our spirits.  Bob has his workshop and I have the gardens.  We and our family have been safe.  We have no economic worries.  And now we’ve gotten our shots in the early wave and I now see a bit of light ahead, a light at the end of the tunnel. 

Living in Interesting Times

 There is a Chinese curse that one may live in interesting times.  These are the most interesting and stressful and scary times I’ve experienced in my lifetime.  One big thing upon another until I’m just shaking.  The chaos in Washington in the aftermath of the insurrection last week has left everyone tense and stressed.  The House voted to impeach  trump for a second time on Wednesday with 10 Republicans joining the Democrats.  With more threats of violence in Washington around the Inauguration, there are now more than 22,000 armed National Guard troops in Washington.  This is the first time since the Civil War military type troops are occupying the Capitol Building.  Washington is an armed camp.  Reporters say the National Mall resembles the Green Zone in Baghdad more than any place in America.  There are threats of violence on all the State Capitols for over the weekend.  Congress members are buying body armor as they fear for their lives.  

And then there is Covid.  This week in California there have been around 40,000 new cases every day.  The virus is surging, raging through our state and it’s only going to get worse, experts say  Thursday I got an email from a propagator friend when I got home from the dentist after 4 pm telling me the Kaiser (our healthcare provider) is now making appointments for Covid vaccinations.   She sent it at 3 pm.  Promptly I went to the shop to get Bob’s Kaiser card and tell him.  He volunteered to make the call right away.  The wait time was 3-5 hours and, bless his heart, he joined the line, listening to the insipid announcement about “All our operators are busy, please wait, your call is important to us...” over and over while he worked away in his shop.  When he came upstairs to visit with Arne who’d come by for a welding lesson after work, Bob had been waiting  3 hours and 16 minutes.  We know the time exactly because at that moment he accidentally dropped the call, pushing a red button up against his ear.  With that he lost his place in line and we lost our best chance of getting vaccinations any time soon.  Right away he called back and now  the wait time was 10 hours.  It seemed hopeless.  He called the next morning and after 2 hours of waiting got an operator who took all his and my information, had us answer questions and then looked for a slot and told us, “There are none available.  My computer says none for the next 24 weeks.  Call back in a week.”  The possibility of getting a vaccination seemed even more hopeless and I was surprised how upset and anxious it made me.  I didn’t want to wait another minute longer than I had to.  But there was little for me to do,  so I went to my garden where pruning and planting soothed me some.  Bob went to his shop for his soothing.

This morning he set his alarm for 5:30 am to call the Kaiser number again.  I heard him talking upstairs for quite a long time and eventually I went back to sleep.  When I got up, Bob was up reading the paper and muttered something about there being no vaccine available.  I fell into my morning routine—-getting a cup of coffee, reading the paper, doing my Sudoku.  It was a hard one this morning.  Eventually I made breakfast and got dressed.   Bob went downstairs to call his old aunt.  I looked at my morning emails and was I surprised to see one from Kaiser—-an appointment confirmation for a vaccination at 10:05 am next Tuesday in Fremont (a town 15 or so miles south of us).  I was shocked and didn’t know how this could have happened.  I remember standing at the kitchen sink looking out thinking “This is pure unadulterated grace. Thank you.”  When Bob got off his call, I went down and told him and he grinned the biggest grin ever, saying “I thought you’d never look at your email.  I got us both appointments this morning.  The operator I got, Gladys, was very chatty, full of information and very helpful, looking at Kaiser Medical Centers beyond Oakland.  (Oakland still had no appointments).  She found the two appointments in Fremont for us.”  What a surprise!  What a time we live in such that getting a vaccination appointment totally makes me overjoyed!!!!  Persistence won.  Hooray for Bob!!!!

Racism

 Documentary film-maker, Ken Burns, interviewed on PBS, was asked what he learned making all his many documentaries.  He answered that all his stories from the Civil War to VietNam to Country Music had racism at their core.  In the events of last week, I saw racism so very clearly at their core.  

Watching the horrible insurrection on last Wednesday when the white mob entered and desecrated the Capitol on trump’s instructions, I saw white mobsters who were not restrained by the outnumbered Capitol police.  All the news commentators noticed and spoke about the double standard.  Blacks would have been stopped, like they were in the peaceable demonstrations for Black Lives Matter last summer.  The white supremacists were almost without restraint able to go into the Capitol and they were organized and had help from high places.

Since their arrival in our country, Blacks have been continuously enslaved, limited and put down in our country. They have suffered under voter repression, discrimination, unfair mortgage and loan restrictions, all to keeping them down.  That they are subjected to more police brutality is now clear for all to see.  In all the current traumas and difficulties in our country, one good thing is to raise this to the awareness of the majority of people in our country.  It has never been fair.  It must stop.  Justice must be served.  Racism must be named and confronted wherever it raises its ugly head.  We owe a great deal to the Black people of this country.  

A Day of Infamy

 Our day yesterday started out brightly enough with the news of Warnock and Ossoff winning the Georgia runoff election.  Their wins give the Democrats control of the Senate by the narrowest of margins but control none the less. At 10,  Bob started watching the Congressional ceremonial counting the electoral college votes to affirm the election of Joe Biden.   After an hour he got frustrated with the poor news coverage and turned it off.  We went about our morning activities.  As I was putting soup on the table for lunch, I got a text from my sister: “The news is making me sick.”  “What news?” I texted back.  “Protestors storming the Capitol.  Shots fired inside.  It’s on every channel.”   That is how I learned of the surreal, shocking, dark events that happened yesterday afternoon in Washington D.C.  With horror and dismay, we watched the shaken TV commentators trying to keep up with the events as they were happening.  Something big and profound has been lost in our country.  The extremist right wing mostly white mob of trumpers that stormed the Capitol building was incited to violence by trump saying “go to the Capitol and fight.”  He invited his supporters to come to Washington for January 6 where he said something big was going to happen.  Ugly images of the out of control mob breaking down the doors and crashing through windows to gain access to the Capitol are now permanently embedded in our brains—a Confederate flag in the Capitol, people in weird costumes, guns drawn, Trump hats and flags everywhere outside and inside the Capitol building.   Nobody thought such a thing could happen here in the USA.  We look like a banana republic to the world and are truly humbled.  And yet, we should have anticipated this happening.  It has been fomenting since the election on right wing platforms, encouraged on Fox News and trump and by the Republican enablers who agreed or kept silent.   I was impressed by Biden’s speech, telling us we are better than this ugly assault on our democracy.  I want to believe him.  I feel strongly trump must be held accountable.  He has gotten by with way too many illegal actions.  Inciting a mob to violence is a criminal offense.  He is no longer fit to be President and needs to be removed from office, somehow—by the 25th Amendment or Impeachment or resignation.  At the very least, he needs to be censured.   It is not right that he squeak by with no consequences to his infinitely repeated lies and inflammatory rhetoric.  The soul of America and the viability of our fragile democracy are at stake.  When the Senate and the House reconvened last night to complete their work of counting the electoral votes from the States,  there were patriotic speeches from many about how nothing can keep them from the work of the day, some inspiring, others not so much.  In the end the results of the election were affirmed and Joe Biden was declared our President-elect.  But the Inaguration is 13 days from now.  I am terrified of what might happen in the meantime.  With so many Republicans in Congress voting against  the election results (8 Republican Senators and 139 House Republicans), I fear they represent just the tip of the iceberg of trumpers who accept his lies about the election “being stolen.”  I fear this angry mob’s insurrection is not one aberrant event, but there is much more to come.  Yesterday was indeed a dark day, a day of infamy,  for our country.  Ironic that it was Epiphany, the day the church celebrates the coming of Light.  We desperately need the Light to come.  Maybe it has, in Georgia!