"No child should die in the dawn of life."—Danny Thomas

Years ago Mombert and I both set up charitable gift annuities with  St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, and every year St. Jude invites us and other donors to the annual Donor Appreciation Event. This year we went! (And our flights were uneventful. We did not weep.)

Our regional representative, Marianna, was on the flight from Atlanta to Memphis, and she was our constant companion during our short time in Memphis. On Tuesday evening we went to a reception, where we met two other donors from the Southwest region, and to dinner. The CEO of the fundraising arm of St. Jude, Richard C. Shadyac, jr., was our host at the dinner. (All the photos are from my phone, so the quality is not as good as with the Nikon. Click on an image to enlarge it.)

He interviewed Katelyn, who had had acute lymphoblastic leukemia. After almost three years of mostly outpatient treatment at St. Jude, she is now kickin' butt and takin' names in third grade. When the hospital opened in 1962, the survival rate for  acute lymphoblastic leukemia was 4%; today it is 96%. Her sister Amanda also spoke about her experiences visiting Katelyn at the hospital. They both said they liked going there. One of the donors told them afterward, "You two look like Barbie dolls." Amanda replied, "Yeah, we get that a lot."

Wednesday was devoted to a tour of the hospital and Target House, which is set up for the families of the patients. Walk along with us.

Everything in the hospital is geared toward kids. Here, for example, is the first reception desk the kids see; the counter is at kid height. The kids aren't wheeled around in wheelchairs;their kickin' wheels are Radio Flyers (to respect the privacy of the patients and their families, we weren't allowed to take pictures of them).

Artwork and writing by the patients are featured on the walls.

The researchers at St. Jude have saved tissue from every patient. Their work includes mapping and studying the genome. A sculpture in one of the gardens commemorates the work.

The researchers work in the Research Tower, which has six floors, each the area of a football field, for all the laboratories. The flags represent the home countries of the scientists. St. Jude researchers and physicians share their work free of charge with other hospitals.

A bust of Danny Thomas, the founder of St. Jude, has pride of place in the center of the tower. He has a shiny nose, because it's good luck for you and for the patients to rub it.

We're going to have good luck!

The Kay (as in jewelers) Kafe is the only place to eat at St. Jude, so the patients, their families, the doctors, and the scientists eat together. The chef prepares nutritious meals for the kids, which is tricky because many of those tummies are wombly from chemotherapy or radiation therapy. One little kid couldn't eat anything in the Kay Kafe and wanted only the mac-n-cheese his grandmother made for him. So the chef called the grammie, got the recipe, and made the kid his favorite dish.

At Target House, a long-term housing facility and home-away from home, families can stay in comfy apartments free of charge. They get vouchers for groceries, also free. The complex has game rooms, a playground, a teens-only room, playrooms, an arts-and-crafts center, and many other amenities to keep the kids and families happy. Members of the Memphis Grizzlies basketball team support St. Jude and often come to play with the kids.

Here is Mombert in the play kitchen, which, as you can see, is kid-sized. The refrigerator is stocked with plenty of play food, too.

The playground is colorful and inviting. Rubberized material helps prevent injuries.

Karaoke, anyone? How about a talent show? St. Jude makes any kid a star.

St. Jude provides care at no cost to the patient or family. Although many large organizations (Target, Chili's, Kmart, among others) and celebrities (Tiger Woods, Brad Paisley, the Jonas Brothers, the Grizzlies) provide amazing financial support to St. Jude, Marianna said that Danny Thomas wanted everyone to be able to make a difference, so the donations from thousands and thousands of regular folks average about $29. 

Needless to say, the event had a profound effect on me. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital rules all!

So what if the Higgs Boson endows everything with mass. My cellphone makes me invisible!

(First, Family o' Mine, we upgraded our cellphones to Droid Razr M, so you can stop laughing.)

First cellphone

Second cellphone

Current cellphone

From working in the store, walking on the streets, and generally being in the world, I know that lots of people think being on a cellphone somehow makes them invisible and unhearable, and nowhere was that brought home more than yesterday.

I was working in the library at one of the tables. A woman was set up at the table in front of me, her back to me. Then she made the call. The conversation started off softly enough, but it grew increasingly louder. She was calling a man named Chris, who may have been her lawyer, and, from the one-sided conversation I heard, I pieced together the following information (hey, I was writing; it's my job to snoop; however, I am not writing the names of the principals):

• she is a massage therapist;
• the case involves botched surgery on her hand in the late 1990s by a practice in the southern part of the state;
• she had surgery again in 2004, and there were post-surgical problems;
• fraud is involved in her case;
• she has no physical evidence of an injury;
• everyone at the courthouse knows about her case because it's so high-profile;
• she has reported the case to the FBI;
• a person who was going to testify on her behalf at a trial was paid off and did not testify;
• the judge is in "her own psychotic world";
• the judge has ruled that the caller presented no admissible evidence; 
• the female judge has a female lover [her partner of 30 years], whose name she spelled out to Chris;
• her lawyer is not willing to go into the bank account of the surgical practice and take money from them;
• every judgment by a Santa Fe judge has been against her; the judge's law firm has had a bias against her from the beginning;
• she spends her time at the law library in Santa Fe, where an intern paralegal told her to watch her back.

Holy moly. Even though I know that being on a cellphone endows the caller with invisibility and inaudibility, if I were involved in a legal case, I wouldn't say nothin' to nobody nowhere, much less in a peaceful, public place like a library.

I'm going back this afternoon to find out more.

"On the roof, it's peaceful as can be / And there the world below can't bother me"

The title of this post is fraught with irony.

The sounds from the roof include

• metallic scraping,
• drilling,
• pneumatic hammering,
• raucous singing,
• pounding, and
• a radio favoring most of Western Area with hits from Mexico.

They're the sounds of progress.

The tongue and groove ceiling is also the decking for the roof in the living room and dining room. You could see daylight yesterday. Pumice sifting through and landing on everything sounds like a very gentle rain when it's falling, and when you walk on the grit, it sounds like you're crunching along in spilled sugar.

Here are the guys. Yesterday when it rained, they covered everything and, instead of calling it a day, hung out in the carport and ate Pringles and candy until it cleared up. Then they started working again and didn't quit until about 7:30 that evening.

I forgot to mention the sound of motorized equipment.

And I'm still not finished

Here are some images of the facelift of my home office. Fortunately, I don't have a "before" picture, because I would have sunk through the floor with embarrassment.

First I packed up everything in the office and staged it in the living room.

When the bookcases were empty, I cleaned them and staged them in the carport so that Fernando from Mountain School could come get them in his truck. Bookcases are a hot commodity in the public schools, and Fernando told me later that they disappeared immediately from his truck and then reappeared in the classrooms.

Here is the almost-empty room. The walls were off-white, and the ceiling was sort of beige.

I chose Valspar's "Ice Storm" for the ceiling and walls and "Capri Coast" for the accent walls. (I fixed the "holidays," so there's complete coverage.)

I think this is a more accurate representation of the colors.

I chose rustic Mexican iron for the closets and cupboards.

Here are two full bookcases. I put the inscribed books from various signings up on the top because I probably won't read them any time soon. Harry Potter is up there, too, because he takes up a lot of room, and I don't reread those frequently.

Years ago I picked up a cute iron bird in Madrid. It's made of pieces of farm implements. The rustic Mexican lamp has a "piña" design. The little cupboard is made from salvaged teak from the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

Here is my bespoke rustic desk.

I also have kinetic sculpture in the room.

R.I.P. Senator Kennedy

See Cartoons by Cartoon by R.J. Matson - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

A dignified and decorous commencement

I enjoyed the commencement ceremonies for the Dos Pueblos class of 2009. Here is Kevin marching into the stadium with his classmates.

After the music and inspirational speeches comes the moment we've all been waiting for.


Suddenly, a shot rings out!

But he sticks the dismount! It's a perfect 10!

A happy graduate and his happy parents.

Three happy generations.


Kevin and two aunties. Photos by Mikey.




Kevin and Mikey.

Congratulations, Kevin!

My first act after the election

I sent Senator Obama a copy of Power to Save the World: the Truth about Nuclear Energy and encouraged him to call for a new Manhattan Project to develop economical, sustainable, safe energy that will help combat global warming. (I also sent him a copy of The Shadow of the Wind, for those times when he's too tired to start a new project but not sleepy enough to go to bed.)

I also asked him to use independent bookstores when he and his staff need books and to let Otowi Station know when he needs scientific and technical books.

Let's get to work! We have a lot to do!

Crapture: the Musical

We're fine. Really.

Friday, Izzy, Bobbie, and I cleaned out the three crawlspaces under the house. Izzy pitched stuff out onto the lawn; I did a preliminary triage; and Bobbie drove the truck to the dump, where Izzy and I had the satisfaction off-loading everything. We took 1000 pounds of crap to the dump on Friday. 

We also went through several dust masks and many pairs of latex gloves. With all the dust, mouse droppings, and a hunk of asbestos, the project was just made for respiratory distress, hantavirus, asbestosis, and general malaise. 

Mei and Xin came home from school while we were in the middle of things. Mei wanted to hug me, and I told her not to because I was so dirty. She said, "Okay. Good-bye, Stinky." After I got home I felt I should have taken a garden rake and a box of matches and burned my clothes in the driveway.

Foreman Izzy, who has been On Task since the day she started to walk, was thorough and merciless. The key to working with her is to keep moving, because if you don't, you'll find yourself deep in a carton next to a half a salami and an opened jar of mayonnaise, and Izzy writing "perishable" on your forehead with her Magic Marker.

We found a couple treasures, including the box of Magic Lantern glass slides of penitentes and a Japanese rifle from WWII. The trash included a bald tire, two garbage bags of styrofoam meat trays, strips of curled linoleum, carpet scraps, gallons upon gallons of homemade wine-now-vinegar, and boards. Izzy left the desiccated squirrel under the house.

On Saturday Izzy and I went through the triage pile and separated out items that would be of interest to the family and sorted through some boxes. Bobbie drove us to the dump with a small load.

Today Izzy and I tackled the storage shed and went through some of Dad's stuff. We have a pile of stuff that will go to Casa Mesita, recyclable cardboard, and several bags of trash that we can take to the curb.

Izzy and P-doobie carried baskets of crap to Bobbie's truck.