FEB-A-2

 

 

Takeoff for London, Addis Ababa Ethiopia and Somaliland

 

FOLLOWING THE DEPARTURE SCRAMBLE, THAT INCLUDES

NEWS FROM GAINESVILLE THROUGH DONALD’S CARD

 

Feb. 1, 2004

 

I have the essentials for the initiation of our trip—passport with visa, tickets, and as much medicine and surgical gear as we can cram into duffel bags for this purpose, which have been specially purchased to come up to 70 pounds per checked bag—and a lot more besides that I should like to have carried but is simply irretrievable in the stored and now randomly unsorted trash locked up in Derwood.  Much of what I should be taking including the clothing I cannot access, which would all make a one-way trip to Africa is inaccessible, but more importantly, the slides that I had set out for the special lectures to be given to a group of people who would be dependent upon them since they are not users of English as anything like a first language, are missing.  I had separated them out carefully, knowing that they would be needed before the housing renovation would be completed, and the further smershing of the stored stuff as all doors had come off and drywall dust covered everything toppled over from the previously organized stacks has made it irretrievable, particularly in a dusty darkened room with no electrical connections to the new circuit breaker panel box after the fuse box had been ripped out.  I had made many excursions holding a flashlight under my chin and had the frustration of being unable to reach what I was after despite having put it out especially for such a mission.  Oh, well, we are going to “nation states” that suffer chronic shortages of everything, so I am fitting right in, but, it is different when you already have it, prepared it, and can’t get to it because of a surfeit of stuff.  All of my earlier sorting out and preservation has made for selected trash that will now go directly to the dumpsters before they are removed from the premises.

 

A GENUINE “FIRST!”

A BIRTHDFAY CARD FROM DONALD,

ARRIVING TWO WEEKS LATE, BUT STILL HERE,

AND ANNOUNCING NEWS THAT IS PART OF HIS INCREASING

REQUIREMENT FOR MORE OVERTIME IN LESSER REWARDING

 

Donald wrote me a card.  That is big news right there.  But he writes to me about frustrations at home and at work, as the sole bread-earner, and the reasons therefore.   He announces that “Kathy is pregnant, and your fifth grandchild should be arriving in May or early June.”  This did not come as a triumphant and hopeful note, but of an increasing trapping in a situation from which he sees only increasing obligations and further indebtedness.  I had forwarded to him the name and address of a fellow from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glencoe, whom I had met on Cumberland and talked about Donald, and the fellow was eager to talk to Donald about a position.  But Donald is already too far beyond the applicant age, he thinks, and is already over the mid-career hump in the GPD, where everyone mostly talks about putting in time until they can retire after twenty years to a real life.  This is a tragic use of any vital time in marking it as loss of calendar pages.  But, that is the process of being painted into a corner that Donald feels—in distinct contrast to Michael’s new faculty position which opened up a new world to him as of the first of the year, with educational benefits and advancement as a central piece of the package.  Donald and I had talked about a retreat, perhaps into the wilderness on a hunt, when we cold talk about this process of being funneled into fewer, rather than an unlimited number of opportunity choices, but he ends sadly with the inevitable reality --“So this rules out any hunting trips for me…”   The kind we had just enjoyed in the Cumberland wilderness would have been ideal, and he had been invited, as before.  Alas!

 

I had dinner with my neighbors, the Fantas, and we enjoyed an Ethiopian feast of special items including the home-made cheese she makes.  They are a very industrious family.  Ed Lubers reports that at the 5:20 AM time he gets up to walk the dog up the hill into my woods to pray at the top of the drive before my ghostly uninhabited  house outline (not the first, nor the last to be engaged in that activity at that site!)  The Fanta family is already on its way to work and school at that pre-traffic hour.  We talked about the different languages of the 78 in Ethiopia besides the official Amharic, and many points of interest in the upcountry highlands to which I will be going at Gondar.

 

NEIGHBORS, PRO AND CON

 

I have several interesting and neighborly nearby neighbors, and one other.  As I had written, I have paid the Shifflett Tree Service without knowing that one third of a major payment was for the removal of their tree, which fell from their lot onto their property and they seemed determined that I should be the one liable for this.  I disagree.   So, my attorney Dan Kennedy has initiated the process whereby they shall learn that I will not be taken advantage of, and the letters are going out this week with the limit of the resolution before they are sued being the length of time I am gone on this trip.

 

RESOLVING OTHER IMPASSES

WITH MY PROPERTY BEING HELD HOSTAGE

 

Since I had also recorded herein that one other blustering vendor had decided that he could charge whatever he would like and get doubly paid for outrageously shoddy service, Charlie at North American Taxidermy is about to find himself at cross purposes to the law and his demands for me to “just fork over the money I would have to be paying a lawyer, since you are supposed to be some kind of doctor and you can afford it, and it should be coming to me anyway, and get your ass over here quickly before I throw your prize trophy in the trash, and it won’t be here when you come around looking for it.”  He is getting his lawyer letter from Dan Kennedy this week in my absence as well, and when I return, I believe I should b e reclaiming my property.  After having been pushed around enough by events that I cannot control, like Hurricanes, I have had more than enough from those who contrive to take advantage of me.  Charlie may not learn much charm, but he may recognize the force of some law other than his plan for redistribution of resources holding the “Phantom of the Derwood Deer Woods” hostage for twelve years.

 

SNOW DAYS AND AUDI A-4 TRACTION

 

          I have gone to work every day, though the federal government, and nearly all schools in the area have not.  On Sunday night of the day when I had made the McDonnell’s Breakfast Run with Joe in the 6 * F cold, it began snowing steadily and by morning, the one foot of fresh show stopped all activities in the DC area—even Metro was closed for reasons of snow and ice on the tracks and inability to get operators to work on the Metro.  But, I have been moving around freely in the all-time all-wheel drive Quattro.  At one point, Monday morning, I passed onto Montgomery Village Avenue and saw a DG Liu truck that looked familiar—especially since I had driven it several hundred miles.  At a stop light on 355 and Montgomery Village Avenue, Dale Kramer and I passed a pack of Cumberland Island pictures and a check through the window in the snowed over vehicles, and we each went on our way going about our business in the remarkably sparse traffic due to the snow days and off-work commuters staying home. Now, I am parking the A-4 in the GW parking structure and it will have the luxury of a covered warmer garage—a several hundred dollar item for the month whether used or not.

 

THE COSTS OF LIVING—

EVEN WHEN I AM NOT LIVING THERE

 

            When I am living in Derwood, I turn the heat down whenever I go out, and keep it at modest levels of heat when I am at home.  Now, I am not living there, and the Petra fuel delivery folk have just called in response to a call from the house saying that the tank was empty and a full fuel load was needed pronto.  This is the THIRD fuel fill this month!  I have never had fuel deliveries twice in a year during my stay there.  Since fuel prices follow the gasoline prices that have been crawling up past $1.85 per gallon, this is not an inconsiderable expense.  That is why I always turn down the heat when I go to pick up the mail, and also turn out the lights.  The electricity bill is higher than when I am living there—and the irony is that I must crawl around in the dark with a flashlight since all the lights are disconnected from the new wiring that is now hooked to a not-yet-functional circuit breaker control panel.  It seems that the Great Room and library are open to the outside without the heat pump being turned on.  Also, the attic and bedroom doors have all been taken off, and the heat funnels up into the attic.  Finally a plastic sheet has been taped over the staircase door, but not before a third full load of fuel oil has been delivered and the heat pumps are not yet turned on, giving the furnace a lot of exercise in my long-term absence.

 

CUTTING THROUGH GRANITE

FOR THE KITCHEN APPLIANCES

 

            The all-new Viking Stainless Steel appliances would be ready for delivery, but Glenn Murrell has been holding up on that since they would just be parked in the living room along with all the plumbing fixtures under plastic sheets.   But the latter are all encased in boxes and somewhat protected from the permeating drywall dust.  So, he was going to have the granite counter tops put in and a cut out made for the cook stove top.  It is a very big six burner plus griddle 48 inch deep affair, and that would make it hang over the front with the control knobs sticking out into the kitchen.  The better part would be to have a less deep stove top and cut the granite to drop it into the recess.  Glenn went over to the Great Indoors and at first they were going to get a 42 inch deep same stove top in number of burners and accessories.  But, they no longer carried this one.  When he went back, the change would have to be for a 36 inch deep stove top a full foot shorter than the original one planned.  But after a bit more searching, they found that they carried a 45 inch, which would fit well in the cut out granite, so the signal is sent to proceed with the new plan for the stove top of this side to be built in.  There will have to be a later addition of a bottled gas feed line from under the deck to supply the cook stove top, since it is the only gas appliance and all other items are electric.  The double ovens are inset into the cheery wood cabinets nearest the dining room adjacent to the refrigerator freezer to their right with the 120 V electric line already awaiting it.

 

COSMOS CLUB LUNCHEON

FOR THE FIRST MEETINGOF THE NEW YEAR FOR THE ISP

 

            We have had little activity for the ISP with no immediate plans for the annual meeting and the speaker for it.  The web site would have been the virtual meeting site, but it needs continuing care and a guru to manage it.  So we met at the Cosmos Club, and discussed this over lunch.  I had written to Robert Croskery describing the last time I was there with a picture taken of the descendant of Alexander Graham Bell under his portrait in which he is depicted founding the National Geographic Society at the Cosmos Club.  He responded that two of his close friends were Cosmos Club members including Tibi, his closest friend at whose 90th birthday celebration they had just been.  Beverley Croskery had slipped on a patch of ice and injured her leg, which was treated symptomatically by the ER doctor they had consulted, but when it did not get better, they saw an orthopedist who scheduled an immediate operation on Saturday for a ruptured patellar tendon.  So, a month in plaster will have them sitting through much of the winter.

 

I AM TYPING AT AN OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE OF 11* F,

TWENTY FOUR HOURS BEFORE TAKEOFF TO THE TROPICS,

THEREFORE, DESPITE THE FRIGID MARYLAND CONDITIONS,

I HAVE JUST STARTED MY MEFLOQUIN (LARIAM) ANTI-MALARIALS;

HENCE, I AM NO LONGER ACCOUNTABLE FOR ANY HALLUCINATIONS!

 

            Even though this is the dry season, the very large scale killer in the Horn of Africa to which I am going now is malaria, a leading edge of the Big Five, probably second only to diarrhea as a killer in the litany of DAMMM.  Because of this risk, I have begun the Lariam, although it sometimes makes people a little bit spooky.  I would not advise it unless the risk were high, since quite apart from its neuropsychiatric side effects, it is expensive at about ten dollars a pill.  I would prefer Mallarone, but for the fact that it is even more expensive, and the Lariam is taken once per week, and the Mallarone daily, so that is one decision,  for my medical students and me, driven mainly by the out-of-pocket cost considerations.  Pleasant dreams!

 

 Return to February Index
Return to Journal Index