Listics

Suddenly Wondermark appeared on the horizon!

Madame Levy shares a brilliant cat blogging cartoon by David Malki.  Wait, not just any random David Malki.  Rather, THIS David Malki.  No.  No.  That’s not right.  THIS David Malki, I think.

I hadn’t read Mme. Levy for several days, but here in my deepening procrastinative frenzy, I’ve discovered a happy synchronousity, a topicality, that requires me to burrow my face in her literary lap and enjoy her recent postings.

We’re all in the same boat.

Bruce at The River links to  Joy Harjo, "A traveler  in the last days of an American  dream."   The cadence and the thoughts reminded me of Ishmael Reed’s "I am a Cowboy in the Boat of Ra."   Just a trivial linkage, nothing profound… just enough to get the motor running.

I’m having coffee this afternoon with Liz Ditz and I snapped a photo of a Deborah Butterfield horse at the Cantor museum this morning. 

Oh… I finished Whitney Terrell’s "The Huntsman" this morning too.  When I leave will they all be asking "Who was that dog faced man?"

I visited Joan Kanwisher at her home in Woods Hole near the Bell Tower this week.   Joan was cleaning out her closets, bundling up sketches and prints for the Community Center.  She let me paw through what she had uncovered and pick out a few for gifts. 

We have, in our dining room, three drawings she did of Eel Pond Bridge, Nobska Light, and the Marine Biological Laboratory.  They are signed but not dated.  The first two were gifts in the late sixties, the last we received some time in the last five or ten years.  Joan was very generous to let us expand our little collection of her prints and drawings.

The negotiation was funny.  She was ready to give the pictures away.  I wanted to give her a material value.  We ended up closer to my end of the scale.  I felt like I had gotten a steal of a deal.  She felt glad to have some cash to contribute to her community cause.

Joan is in her eighties and faces heart valve surgery next week.  She is the kind of woman I just want  to hug.  She’s diminutive and pretty, with beautiful eyes.  We are holding her in the light of our love and concern as she faces her surgery.

In 1965 Joan would have been about 42. That year, when the last train departed from Woods Hole, Joan wrote to the railroad company and the Falmouth Conservation Commission to propose that the right of way be converted to a bike path.  Ten years later that bike path was finally dedicated after more than a few legal battles and administrative hassles.

Meeting with Joan today around 1pm.  She has a few boxes of old drawings for me to go through.

A light breeze stirs the flags at Black Rock City.  The sun rises over the Playa.  Hundreds of campers and camperettes wish they had packed more kleenex and zinc ointment.  And aspirin.

(Thanks to Brian Moffatt for turning me on to PRX…)
***
Monday afternoon they said if I wanted to see him alive I’d better get over to the hospital because he wasn’t expected to last through the night.  I knew he had family to stand a death watch.  I thought at best I’d be in the way.

On Tuesday I left early for lunch and went to the hospital.  His wife was glad to see me.  His mom.  His dad.  His brother.  Some in-laws.  His mom told me that on Thanksgiving when the family gets together they have about 85 people gathered.  A lot of them were in the waiting room Tuesday when the surgeon came in and laid out the situation.

He was in critical condition in the cardiac intensive care unit, dying.  He’d need surgery, an LVAD, then probably a transplant.  Both surgeries are high risk.  We went in to see him, and there wasn’t much to see.  He was unconscious.  She spoke in his ear.  I waited a bit then excused myself and went back to work.  He had the pump implanted that afternoon.

On Wednesday I stopped in at noon and we scrubbed up and went in to see him.   His eyes were open half-mast.  He asked me if I’d enjoyed the cigars.  He doesn’t smoke.  Neither do I.  Still he was talking.  He held my index finger like a baby does.

Thursday after work he was coherent and focusing on his animals.  He has sheep and poultry, including a rowdy and messy bunch of turkeys.  As he talked he would start to gasp, the need for air exceeding his ability to express himself.  We talked a little about good reading, about Asimov and Heinlein.

Tonight when I got there he seemed as recovered as a guy with a heavy battery powered pump implant could be.  He complained a little about the low volume of fluids they’re allowing him.  His beard was gone.

The beard is an annual event.  He plays a role in the William Tell Festival in New Glarus every September and he has to grow the beard for that.  This year the show goes on without him.  Still, less than seventy-two hours after surgery he’s sitting up, walking a little, conversing, grumbling, well on his way to recovery.  They think it’s possible the heart will heal and he won’t need the transplant.

I left him a copy of Scalzi’s recent "Old Man’s War."  I think he’ll like it.  Heinlein could have written it.