Child Rearing History

Katrinka and I were just talking about how free we were as parents and how free our kids were back in the hippy days and into the eighties. I told her how Dianne (now Daya) and I and Ed and Meg Brown let our six year old kids, Kelly and Lichen, walk from the ZC Page Street City Center to Market Street in the morning to take a trolly to school. That's in a fairly high crime SF neighborhood. We did until one afternoon Lichen said that a man tried to take her away but people there wouldn't let him. After that they got the proper parental escort. Years later she revealed that she'd made that up so they wouldn't have to walk there by themselves anymore. 

Texas Kin in the Gov Mansion

Texas governor Greg Abbot softens his approach toward immigrants etc a little. He's the only remaining relative I know of in Texas. We're second cousins, have the same great-grandmother. I knew his parents, especially his mother Doris, better when I was a kid. We'd go to visit them in Whita Falls or they'd come to Fort Worth. Greg was born when I was twelve years old. I remember him mainly as a baby and tiny tot. Later I'll get the details down here. Mother would go to Austin for special dinners etc for Greg and at the last one, she told him I said congratulations on being maybe it was attorney general then or on the supreme court. And he said to her, "Isn't he a democrat?" She never mentioned how she voted. Not for his side.

Cheetas

Saw a CNN post that the Ultra Rich are buying young Cheetas as pets threatening them with extinction. When I was in Monterrey, Mexico in early 1965 I visited with a guy I'd known in a summer camp in Colorado  nine or ten years previously. Turned out his family was the richest in town. They had a pet cheeta. I went into its sizable pen to visit it and before long it had me penned down. What the heck was I doing in there. Finally it let me go. I made a mental note to never mess with a cheeta again. 

Back Home from the Hospital

Enjoyed the whole thing. Top rate care and thoughtful sweet efficient staff. Was back at work from hospital bed right after the operation but then Katrinka found a film we watched on the wide screen in my room and there were news shows. We hardly ever watch TV. My hernia never was painful but it needed to go back inside. I didn't experience much discomfort at the hospital where I didn't get out of bed for 24 hours, but walking as I checked out etc was a little woozy and achy. Not bad. Doctor told me to walk but had told Katrinka to get me briefs to help keep things in and tight. He said no stairs, tennis, or lifting for three months. Swimming okay in a while. In bed now catching up and - think it's time for a nap.

Travel Rules

I call these travel rules but I'm not traveling and they apply at home as well as away, but when you're away, it can be more crucial.

1 - Don't put anything down or away thinking you'll pick it up before you leave. I've seen so many people loose important stuff this way and it's not just space case forgetful types. It's all types. It is painful for me to remember Clay traveling in India with an expensive camera and recorder he bought for the trip - threw his bag in the back storage area of a tuk tuk and remembered it as he watched it drive out of sight. Spent three days trying to find that driver and tuk tuk and get back his treasure. Ouch. So many stories like that. Bag of money to deliver from a drug deal left in a phone booth that was right in front of the person - had to skip town. Yvonne left her purse in the pocket in front of her seat on the Shinkansen train in Japan. She had to take a train to the next stop an hour away to get it back.

More later.  

Off to Bali Mandara

Bali Mandara is the new hospital that I walk to in 18 minutes from home. Tomorrow, Sunday, I go there at 3pm and check into a private room for a few days. Monday morning I'll have an operation for an inguinal hernia. I've had a bunch of tests there recently in preparation for that and to determine why I had a tightness or burning in my upper abdomen - blood tests, chest X-ray (digital X-ray - all the latest equipment), ultrasound, endoscopy, colonoscopy. The results were that my stomach wall is irritated with redness and an ulcer. The biopsies were negative and bacteria was ruled out as a cause. The doctor prescribed no medication. Told me to eat lots of fibre which I already do. I've also stopped eating anything with hot spice which I'd gotten into. It's not been shown to be a cause of ulcers but it sure makes it hurt. Rich foods are no good either. We were almost vegan to begin with and have simplified. I weighed 180 last week. The least I've weighed since Kelly was born 45 years ago. I like that. The abdominal discomfort is not always and not if I'm sitting or lying down or swimming. No one can explain that. The hernia doesn't hurt at all and I was willing to live with it but the doctors are all worried about complications later and they are pretty sharp. I'm impressed with everyone there. The place is run smoothly and efficiently. Makes me feel like I'm in Singapore, not Bali. Check you later.

Canine Fate

Here's bemo driver Nyoman ready to take dogette Bandi off to 
Pick One:
A: the neat, clean, loving, cheap (Swiss owned) Bali Kennel for a play date
B: to be sold as RW (pronounced airway) which is dogmeat. There are people here from other islands who like to eat dogs. We have to be careful so she's not stolen or poisoned for that..

Cold Water

Katrinka, Dogette Bandi, and I took a walk to the Sanur beach today. She'd just returned from a meeting, had some time before another one, so she fit that in between. I wanted to take a break to walk and swim, and going there is Bandi's favorite thing to do. As soon as we're in the alley to the beach, we unhook her leash and she's free to sniff and trot and when we get to the sand she's running, zipping into the water to wade some (not a swimming type mutt), and then chase fast little crabs. Katrinka walks down to the jetty and back and swim down to her and usually she'll take a dip but not today - water too cold and she had to get back. I never felt it so cold. This is the coldest time of the year but the water had never before felt cold once I was in for a minute. Pockets of warm water would come and go, sometimes warm on top and cold on the bottom. The current was so strong sideways I couldn't make any headway and was in the same place when she got back. On the way back I wondered if the cold water was from all the melting ice coming from Anarctica. 

Reason to Reject Doctor

Years ago I had a heart doctor who saved my life with a daring angioplasty busting through 100% blockage which left him guessing where to punch through. I was awake watching it on the monitor. He told me he was afraid of going through the vessel wall but we agreed he should go for it. Later in his office he told me about another patient, a woman whose life he said he'd saved much more dramatically. Afterward she was in his office talking to him and started looking around. "Do you have a Bible here?" she asked. "No." he said. "Are you a Christian?" "No. I'm Hindu." "What about your partner?" "He's Jewish." "Oh - you can't be my doctor. Neither can he. You're both going to Hell."

Skit Night

I get skit ideas and it's not just from having watched a lot of Saturday Night Live. I was doing skits with friends in Lilly B. Clayton elementary school onstiage with an audience filled with parents. Not always skits. In the fifth grade I sang Bebopalulu while Johnny McConnell and Judy Phips did the bop and they got pretty raunchy for the fifth grade. She was the first girl I thought of as sexy, especially when she wore purple.

America’s hot spots:

 Where extreme climate change has already arrived - Washington Post

Conspiracy Theories

"Conspiracie theory" is a term that's mainly used to dismiss a theory, belief, idea, etc - as in "oh that's just a conspiracy theory." In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future (Wikipedia). Zillions of people are daily charged by authorities with conspiracy all over the world. If it turns out that my friend Moneyya and I are secretly plotting to overthrow a small country's government and establish ourselves as the surpreme leaders, and that we get caught doing so, I don't think that when we're charged and the evidence is presented, that we'd be able to defend ourselves with, "Ah - that's just a conspiracy theory."

Results

The results from the tests yesterday.

I'll be under for a while today

Prepared for today's endoscopy and colonoscopy. I prepared for the prep by being on just juice for two days except for yesterday morning's banana and four prunes.
I felt fine. Not really hungry. Went swimming yesterday afternoon and had the last juice at the beach - fresh coconut water. That's what I almost always get there. Writing this the night before, working near the lavatory. Up and down. Feeling cleaned out.

d

Zoo Sounds

Just saw a friend's comment on a Fort Worth memories site post about the zoo. He said he remembers going there as a kid when it was free. I commented that we lived so close I would walk over there. I used to wake up in the morning with the sounds of elephants trumpeting and lions roaring. But I've come to not like zoos and not want to visit them.

Must Change

How food is produced to reduce greenhouse gasses

Scientists Warn

Stop abousing the earth - As we recycle every tiny piece of paper and try to use earth friendly products, the big guys, governments and corporations, continue the scorched earth policies.

Amazing Factoid - to me anyway

Katrinka was just in Australia, Adelaide area, for three weeks. She just told me that she didn't see anyone rinse dishes there. They just washed in regular commercial dish soap and then towl dried. Katrinka assumed that practice had to do with water conservation which is of great importance there. She asked the friend she was traveling with about this and she said that she'd never seen dishes rinsed until she came to Bali almost forty years ago. I remember my sister's first husband just quickly passed the soap dishes under hot waterr and put them in a rack. He said the soap will evaporate. I said that the water will but the soap will still be there as a residue. Back in the early days at Tassajara, I became a Basic H salesman to get whole prices on their products, mainly the dish soap which we bought in 55 gallon drums. It was edible. If I were in Australia with a family that didn't rinse, I think I'd fork out the loot for some organic soap like that.

Reviews of The Great Hack

Yesterday's post was a DC review of The Great Hack. Here are two reviews.

The Great Hack

Just saw The Great Hack on Netflix. Puts the whole Russian meddling in the election into a much bigger picture. It only mentions the Russians a couple of times at the end. It's about Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. Now I see it all quite differently. It won't help in the long run to try to stop the Russians from doing what they're doing. They weren't necessarily even the major player in the 2016 election - CA was sure in there heavy. Steve Bannon was a VP and thought up the name.

Today is the day US and Russia pull out of nuclear arms treaty

AP - A landmark arms control treaty that President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed three decades ago is dead, prompting fears of a new global arms race.

A great day for the World Suicide Club. Party on!