04-AUG-A-2
THE RE-ENTRY MODE, UNPACKING,
SORTING THE MAIL AND EMAIL, FILM PROCESSING,
TO PAY BILLS, DO LAUNDRY, CATCH UP
ON THE CALLS AND CHORES POSTPONED,
AS TWO NEW INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
BECKON FOR TRAVEL LATER THIS YEAR,
WHILE THE TERRORISM TEMPERATURE IN DC
AND GW RISES FROM YELLOW TO
August 2--7, 2004
A full photo album (Album X of 2004) has been created of the complete photojournalism of the recent mission to the DR/Haiti expedition, and the week was filled with completing the journal, adding the case presentations and didactic sessions into the description for the enlightenment of the students planning to go in the future so that they might have a better idea what to expect. I sorted all the pictures and downloaded the two rolls off line and forwarded the complete report under the cover note seen in Aug-A-3 to those who had requested it. I also had to start the longer process of paying big bills, getting the re-scheduling of the Derwood photo shoot, now planned for September 1, because the house will be featured in the D G Liu 2005 calendar, giving a deadline before the big gaps where missing furniture pieces will have to be filled in later.
I have
reviewed the questionnaires filled out by each participant on the trip filled
in before and after this trip’s experience, and it is amazing to see what an
effect it had upon each of them. They
went from anxious to overwhelmed to transformed by the experience, and
expressed their summary feelings about the trip at its conclusion as
“phenomenal”, “awesome,” “inspiring,”
“life-changing,” and ‘the most rewarding thing I had ever done.” Their only reservations were expressed as
challenges that were overcome, and they detailed the BRA personnel and
arrangements with communication errors in the Dominican side. A few were clearly “over my head at the
start” and had hop[ed that this trip might be a round of meetings with the
Health Ministers to discuss global health issues” by a population not capable
of taking care of individual patients let alone whole populations of them. Almost all saw the value in treating directly
in “hands on” immediacy a very poor population of many patients, almost all of
whom smiled and were grateful for a quite satisfying therapeutic response we
could offer. I will have to find a way
to tabulate their reactions into the “research paper” for the ELDP which will
be meeting in two weeks. The urgency of
completing these reports had kept me from running all but Tuesday of this week
when I made a run around the DC Mall and Capital in the heavy heat and
humidity, now coupled with a higher security alert, with the code ranged from
yellow to orange because of GWU’s tenants, the IMF and World Bank. Simultaneous with the re-opening of the Ross
Hall parking garage, we had to sign in on all comings and goings in the Ross
Hall. This has to do with the two
targets of terrorism’s intelligence information from Pakistani captives—
A VERY BIG, ALL-DAY DERWOOD PROJECT:
I STAIN BOTH DECKS WITH CLEAR CEDAR
STAIN
I had been
told that the pressure treated wood of the decks should age for about six
months before it was covered with a weather proofing stain. I selected the clear Cedar #501 stain, and
bought a Behr five gallon pail of it at Home Depot, on Wednesday on my way to
carry out the cardboard boxes that had been emptied in my assembling many of
the new Derwood furnishings. I had assembled the Tiffany Dragonfly lamp and
placed it in the Den. I put up the
curtain rod from which all my
I noticed on returning from work, that the cardboard boxes were all still there. It has been raining a lot, so I picked them up, all but the big box for the powder room mirror, and carried them to various disposal sites when I went to drop the recyclable plastic at Giant when I got groceries there. I did not want the large collection to get scattered and soaked in the daily rains. Apparently the neighbors, who may have been somewhat sensitized in their rather recluse-like isolation by arrival of a suit for their tree which they had gladly had me pay for in its entirety from the Hurricane Isabel damage, noticed the cardboard too, since when I returned, after the heavy rain, the whole mess was thrown on my driveway with a few clothing discards and other things added to insult. I took a photo since it will add to the exhibits I have collected for their day in court.
I got a haircut,
and returned home on a very hot and muggy day, but with a full day that I was
supposed to be home to let in the electrician and Mike McKeeson to do some last
repairs. He brought a dryer outlet
booster which needs a new outlet, and the electrician was supposed to bring in
the parts to switch the light switches so that I can come and go from either
end of the garage and stair steps and still use the lights with a long dark
winter coming without having to make three trips back and forth and up and down
to turn out lights in sequence. Mike
looked over
Wit the day
committed, and despite the heat and humidity, at least a brief respite from
rain, I decided to go to it, with nine hours committed to the front and back
decks. I broomed them off of all the
cicada-killed branch ends, and then started on the west side deck. I began with the most painstaking part, the
spindles and railing and under structure, and then got to do the relatively
easy part, the deck platform last. It
took almost two hours to do the smaller of the decks. So, I went directly to the long and arduous
process of painting the stain on all the spindles and railings of the bigger
deck along the Northeast side of the addition which took about three more
hours. As I started to do the straightforward
part of the deck platform, it got dark and there were rumbles in the sky. I finished about
It is a lot like washing the car—you know it is going to rain hard and soon. I was pleased to see that the water seemed to bead up on top of the treated decks, but it also puddled in the corners causing some of the still wet stain to run down. I even had put a little of the last in the bucket on the long-suffering picnic table which has stood with three to four feet of snow piled on it for a number of decades in untreated splendor, and it soaked in the stain avidly, before having puddles accumulate on it.
On Tuesday
night, I had been sorting out the
Now, the electric power was restored on schedule and before al the freezers packed with venison melted, and the hot water switch is on, and the plumbing awaits the arrival of “Serenity Plumbing” to excavate this time where the well is. Mark Naylor is packed up and is leaving this weekend after having lived in Derwood all summer from early April to present, much more “in-residence time” than I have had. The decks look and smell good, and do not seem to have had lethal harm done to them from the heavy rain immediately after their stating, thought the power of the rainwater caused waterfalls to travel down the steps outside, loosening stone work and eroding out the bank in back beyond the drive and its newly embellished 62 tons of crush and run gravel cover. Sandy Shelar came here in my absence and replaced the “Silhouette window treatment” by HunterDouglas which had sent a convertible Venetian blind three inches short because of a smudge on the original custom order—the replacement was another of the boxes I had to transport to the recycling from all the “home improvements” packaging. Sandy had suggested a big Indian hand made rug in beige, which I held off since I don’t want to buy to many big ticket items all at once, and a rug such as the one I had seen in her sample sent to me might be the kind of time I could buy through hard bargaining in my Kashmiri merchants’ shops. I have put on hold the big ticket item replacements, but have made plans when Mark leaves to at least emerge from my subterranean basement cot to move up to sleep in one of the guest rooms which I will now begin working on along with the empty Master Bedroom.
BEFORE ANY UNPACKING, OR LABELING OF THE
LAST TRIP’S PHOTOS AND COLLATION OF THE REPORTS,
OF COURSE, THE NEXT TRIP PLANS ARE ALREADY
IN PROGRESS
I may be decimating the ranks of
Operation Smile’s office staff in
At the same
time, Saad Noor had come back from a three month stay in
AWKWARD COMPLEXITIES IN THE CELEBRATION
OF BIRTHDAYS AND WHAT SHOULD OTHERWISE
BE JOYOUS EVENTS
One event
occurred this week which was not celebrated,
and another was indirectly celebrated under constraints of unusual sort. They were both birthdays. The latter is the fourth birthday of Kacie
Elizabeth Geelhoed, my only granddaughter.
It is ironic that this is not a joyous celebration, coincident with a
visit, which was planned on my return from
The former birthday was an event for which I had a present and a package including other photos and a few sentimental items packaged, when I had received a spurning of the prior gift of a few little romantic baubles, so, as my birthday this January had taken place during a funk in which she had withdrawn and was not in communication, I elected to do the same for Virginia’s 44th on August 5, disposed of the package and note, and sent her a letter advising that I would not be celebrating it (unless sweating a whole day stooped over in the hot sun is an analogous celebration in working on deck-staining project in which she might have had an interest is to be considered.)
Much to my
surprise, in the welter of activities on Friday morning, I received a phone
call—