Sylvia's Journal

Tessa had her new job orientation yesterday and left the house at an early hour to return late and tired, just like her mom. It was nice for a change to be mom-waiting-at-home-with-dinner-ready at the end of the day.

Axel also went to Boston, later in the day, to see the head injury doctor who was pleased with the progress but suggested that less caffeine and more herbal stuff (the doc is of Chinese descent) to relax and sleep through the night would be a good thing. He also prescribed him a drug (norepinephrine) that is one of the chemical ‘messengers’ in the brain. Axel used to take this in a higher dose before the accident when he was diagnosed with ADD. Now everyone agrees that the second trauma amplified the, unsuspected, earlier brain trauma from a car accident some 20 years ago. In my more simplified conception of how the brain works, the norepinephrine lubricates the frontal lobe so that information can slide easier across the 6 lanes that, according to this same doc, were ‘closed for traffic’ after the accident. Attention and memory for learning are still not where they need to be.

During my lunch break I searched for a nearby female orthopedic surgeon on the Internet, preferably even an entire practice devoted to women. I had heard an advertisement on the radio and, with the help of a nice lady at NE Baptist I was directed to this unusual combination of women and orthopedic surgeons. Making an appointment stood in sharp contrast to the rushed and impatient (and often taped) voices that greet you at the clinics of the male surgeons who are at the top of the Boston orthopedic pecking order. I was actually having contact with a real human being who listened and was friendly and was even able to get me an appointment next week. Unfortunately, the woman doctor/surgeon is a shoulder specialist; ankles she refers to others; no, not a woman as far as she knew. I suspected that I would be referred to the same names I already have on my list and had to let go of that fantasy. It was nice while it lasted.

I prepared dinner while listening to the radio reporting on our national financial crisis, which was then augmented by a call from my brother in Holland where banks are also toppling over and stocks dropped even more than they did here. Everyone over there is pointing angry fingers at the US, but I don’t think European financiers are entirely blameless either. Finger pointing is a bit like peeing in your pants, it feels good the first few seconds but when you are outside and the cold wind is blowing it is not fun anymore. My sister’s advice, also from Europe is, sit still, and don’t make any moves. I can’t imagine what else to do other than stuffing my money in a sock under my mattrass.

Sita left China yesterday and should have landed in San Diego by now for another piece of work, the last one on her round-the-world trip that included 4 events on 3 continents. She probably doesn’t want anyone to talk about anything important for several weeks when she gets back. I think she knows too much now.

I woke up with ‘hen-of-the-woods’ on my mind and body, after a restless night, no doubt induced by this mushroom the size of a cauliflower that grows at the bottom of oak and beech trees. We ate one last night and now I am wondering whether that was a good idea. Tessa and Steve had invited Dave who rents a room in Val’s house to have dinner at ours on the eve of the start of his chemotherapy treatment. He has a medical device implanted into his throat so that his speaking is slow and the sound of his breathing magnified. Sometimes it sounds like a fan. He’s Axel’s age, we think, and has children and ex-wives living elsewhere. Dave is a sort of Renaissance man. Trained as a marine biologist he also is a mycologist, lab technician, geologist, gemologist, miner, quartz crystal collector, high school science teacher and science entrepreneur, oh, and he meditates and hardly ever sleeps. He is the one that focused the powers of the universe so that Steve got a ‘sorry, you did not get the job’ from one place that made room for a ‘yes, we’d love to have you’ from another. Steve starts his new job tomorrow at a lab that is part of the BU medical center, thanks to Dave.

Dave missed the left turn into our drive way, it was dark already. This is how he found the mushroom. He can spot mushrooms (and probably gems) when no one else can see them; much like the African wildlife park guide can see animals where we, ordinary creatures, only see grass and trees. He showed us the tests he does to make sure the mushroom is good and fresh. With the wet weather we are having laterly, mushrooms thrive and this one was not even a day old. He brought his mushroom bible, a well used out-of-print book, translated from the original Italian with exquisite drawings and short entries of where and when he found a mushroom like that and how he prepared it (if it was of the edible type). Our adventure last night will no doubt be entered in the book.

He sliced, washed and fried it in butter, oil and some garlic, sprinkled later with flour. Then we sat down for dinner, chicken cordon-blue that Steve had already prepared served with home grown French fries and string beans. It was a total leap of faith on our part to add the mushroom to the menu. How often do you eat a mushroom offered by a stranger?

After dinner Dave showed us a quartz crystal that looked like a small skull. It was about the size of Axel’s hand, one of the smaller ones in his collection. I know something about crystal skulls because of my accidental viewing of the latest Indiana Jones movie, but Dave assured us this one was natural, not made by extraterrestrial intelligence, like Professor Jones’ skull. There were more amazing stories about competing for mushrooms with a large moose along the Kangamangus Highway and the abandoned mines that are hidden in New Hampshire public woods and where he finds his treasures when no one is looking.

You couldn’t have orchestrated a dinner like that if you’d tried. Before we went to bed Axel looked up the mushroom we had just consumed – maybe something I should have done earlier – it is edible alright, but has been known to cause diarrhea. Indeed, and, I would add, lots of confused dreams, none of which I can remember.

My flying hobby continues to be an expensive one and it is not clear how long I can hang in there, as the pot of money out of which the flying is financed, is beginning to show its bottom. We decided to continue to stock the airplane account with extra money for the next 6 to 7 month so that when the engine overhaul is needed, we are ready. It’s a good prudent financial strategy, better than that of our country, but a little painful each month.

After our meeting I hang around the flight center for awhile watching the fog stay close to the ground. I went home and decided it was a baking kind of day, as the rain was pouring outside, filling our septic tanks with rainwater from higher up neighbors. This means no washing, no flushing and no showers. Baking, indeed.

My neighbor Ellen from across the cove, who has struggled with an ankle injury for the last 20 or so years, and knows a lot about orthopedic surgeons, gave me some telephone advice. It is advice from a master, or mistress rather, and sums up what’s not working about orthopedic practice at least in the Boston area. She is flying to Chicago for advice and help, as the Boston top docs are too busy with celebrities, sports and other. She lent me the book ‘How Doctors Think’ and advised me to read the section on surgery and satisfaction, which I did right away. It is sobering and a little frightening, but also showed me that I did right to get more opinions about what to do with my ankle; it also made me realize that I should not expect as much closure and/or clarity as I had from the November appointments at MGH and Faulkner and prepared me to expect a very (VERY) brief appearance of the big doctor himself and a tendency to say ‘cut.’

In the evening we went to Edith and Hugh for a pre-concert meal of paella, salad, followed by the Tiramisu I had made that was rich in everything that is bad for you. The brandy-soaked lady fingers (one and a third cup!!) nearly went to my head. The brandy was antique Christian Brothers that we inherited from Penny, so at least 15 years old, if not older. We don’t know how long she had it, but it had not lost any of its zing or punch.

The concert was put on as a fundraiser by the Ipswich Music, Art and Drama Association and opened by a boy band whose high school music teachers where in the audience; a local affair. The main attraction was a wonderful Big Band/Blues ensemble, called Roomful of Blues. I have never listened to a band like that sitting in a theatre chair. No one was sitting still though. The only people who did not stay in their chairs, apart from Chuck and Edith and a few older boomers, were the 13 and 14 year old girls who jumped around like balls of mercury in front of the stage, their ponytails bobbing up and down, holding hands and giggling, one clique on each side of the stage. When I was that age I was told you could only dance if a boy asked you, which of course is the last thing a boy that age would do. They few little boys that did dare to move close to the band were playing air drum or air guitar. You could see how badly they wanted to be like the guys on the stage. Maybe some will, one day, like the boy band.

We ended the day watching Saturday Night Life which opened with an interview between Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as Sarah Palin and Katy Couric. It was priceless. I think I will get that Sarah Palin action doll.

I can’t see the Cove this morning; in fact I can’t even see beyond the hedge that separates our yard from the Hooper’s. So much for being the safety pilot Bill asked me to be as he keeps his instrument skills current. This was supposed to happen later this morning after we have our plane owners meeting, where we will talk about money.

Sita sent us the link of the talks about money that she scribed in Vienna with the financial experts of the world. It’s an amazing slideshow [click here] that shows very confident scribes, facilitators and conference organizers and much more anxious looking participants. It’s probably all about how much you know. You don’t want to look too much at the text on the scribed panels though.

Last night we watched the first Obama-McCain debate to find out how much they know. The best part is actually not the debate but what the partisans say about their candidate winning, afterwards (both usually win unless one really stumbles), in the endless rehashing of who said what and what does that mean. Next debate is between the vice presidents. I can’t wait.

All this came after a productive day at work, interrupted by another pre-op visit to the day surgery center where the nerve that passes through my hand’s carpal tunnel will be set free next Wednesday. Standard procedure, they did an EKG, checked blood pressure and then asked the same questions the nurse asked last Monday. There is a lot of redundancy in the pre-op process but it’s probably there for a reason.

Exactly at 5 PM I closed my computer and started to work on an elaborate sub continent meal: slow-cooking onion and meat stew from Bangladesh with Indian cauliflower dum, recipes from a wonderful coffee table/travelogue/cookbook Mangoes and Curry Leaves that Axel gave me one Christmas long ago. At the start of the cooking I threw a fit because I couldn’t find the many spices I needed from our overpopulated spice jar cabinet. At some point I had organized by type (seeds & grains, hot & peppery, green & dried, with a non-classifiable leftover category of ‘misc.’). No one but me understood the classification scheme and it had entirely disintegrated. Axel came to the rescue and now the 100 or so small jars of various sizes and shapes are organized alphabetically. Everyone has been instructed about the new scheme. Now that Axel actually did the rearrangement I hope he ‘owns’ the new presentation of spices and abide by its ‘put-away’ rules.

With every meal we are expanding Steve’s food horizon, which started off quite limited when he met Tessa. We are still trying to get him to eat things that are round and squishy inside (you have no idea how many foods fall in that category) but under pressure from his girlfriend and in-laws he is making some progress. I predict that one day he will be cooking us something round and squishy. That will be reason to celebrate, maybe with things square and hard.

I started the day with a long conversation with Dr. Ali who is my counterpart in Kabul’s MSH office. Trying to find out what happens in far flung areas, after a training is done, takes a lot of patience and time; email helps, without it I would be entirely in the dark. Every few months I put together a newsletter to connect all these rookie and master leadership trainers with one another and highlight the many accomplishments. It is a lot of work but one of my favorite tasks. After sending out emails to teams to tell me what is happening in their neck of the wood, the daily checking of emails is exciting. Now I don’t mind getting floods of emails. As I pull all these disparate stories together and weave them into the newsletter I see the same thing, over and over again: I don’t know exactly what they do but the results that are reported by each person or team are so consistent that it seems not to matter much. There is a core piece that everyone gets and that produces the transformations we hope for.

After the phone call it was nonstop meetings until it was time to go home. The last ‘meeting’ was a celebration, or rather a farewell to a colleague who is moving to another department. He is going into another orbit, even though it is only one flight of stairs up. By attending that party I ensured myself a place in a traffic jam home, because by that time everyone else in Boston was also going home. Halfway through the stop-and-go ride I pulled over and wandered around a store to wait out the jam and give my right ankle a rest from the repetitious movements between brake and accelerator. Although I walk and look like a person with two healthy ankles, this experience shows that the right one is not OK.

All this made for a very long day that started at 5:30 AM and saw me home at 7 PM. Tessa came home even later and with both our men gone we slumped over the kitchen counter, punched in a few numbers in the microwave and converted two mismatched frozen meals into dinner.

I surfed Facebook for a couple of hours so see how my colleague Michael is faring in Afghanistan, check out his pictures and those of others who went on trips and discovered that one of our students from the BU summer course already got a job managing a clinic in Uganda. With a great sense of satisfaction I went to bed. In many small ways, things are rippling softly in the right direction.

Sita has arrived in China. I wrote on her Facebook wall to please not drink the milk. I don’t think she is much of a milk drinker despite her parents’ exhortations early in life. But now that seems like a good thing.

She is on the road with a crew of visual facilitators for the world economic forum. By drawing pictures of what the wise and powerful think she makes explicit what’s in their heads. Whether correct or flawed, once out in the open it can be connected to other thoughts, questioned and studied, then synthesized. This is the only way that we can address our increasingly intractable, complex and systemic problems without creating more winners and losers in the usual places, generating more problems, requiring more conferences, more Sitas. I suspect she will always have work, a good thing, while at the same time serving all of us, also a good thing.

As a result of all this exposure Sita gets, repeatedly and from different angles, a 30,000 or maybe 60,000 feet view of the state of the world. Last week she was surrounded by global financial experts in Vienna just when the shit hit the fan. She may well know more than is good for a 28-year old. Here, in Manchester we remain in blissful ignorance, as long as it lasts. Our retirement funds are tied up in stocks that are falling, but then again, our retirement is far beyond the horizon; Axel hasn’t even started his career and mine is good for at least another 20 years. Hopefully we are wiser stewards of our collective savings by then.

Instead of meeting Axel on the rocks with a fishing rod and a beer, I encountered him yesterday as we crossed each other on 128; he stuck in a traffic jam behind an accident heading southbound on his way to his branding class. We waved at each other while we talked on the phone. Fishing would have been better, but the class was great as I discovered this morning by the enthusiastic display of school work – the winning design – that I found on the kitchen counter this morning amidst other notes; a critical method of communication when we are all on different schedules.

My day was so hectic that I could not step out of it to go rowing – a shame again, the weather was exceedingly beautiful; blue sky, sun and calm. It is proposal season at MSH, so it seems, and I was called in on one just when my dance card was already entirely filled in for the day. I found myself sliding occasionally into a panic mode and had to concentrate on staying in the here and now and do, whatever I was doing, well without looking at the next task on the desk. I always thought that multi-tasking was a good thing, a capacity to be proud off but I am finally figuring out that it is a liability with much potential for mistakes and forgetfulness.

I stopped at trader Joe’s on the way home and stocked up on frozen foods. With Tessa now being away at work all day, Steve about to get a job, and Axel with his two courses, it is clear that the cooked meal I’d like to see when I come home is getting to be an entirely unrealistic expectation. But this week Steve is still home and so I found a dinner waiting for me and Tessa, cooked by Steve, all by himself. It was an unusual stir fry that was a cross between Chinese and Italian cuisine. Steve had been a bit worried when Axel, rushing out of the house, had tossed him the task of getting a meal ready before the women came home. This is not something Steve is very experienced in, but he did well. Not only did the meal include most food groups, it was also tasty.

The left hand knows it is not going to be fixed next week; its symptoms were not as bad as my right hand’s. But now, when I wake up the fingers on my left hand are tingling badly. Something is pinching. But it will have to wait. I don’t want to come out of the hospital with two hands bandaged. I am told that the pre-op nurse visit and the pre-op EKG are valid for respectively 1 and 6 months, so I can schedule another operation as soon as my right hand is OK again.

Our retreat finished on a high note that got even higher when a cell phone rang with the news that we had just won a big proposal. There was much clapping, high fiving and relief for those who had sacrificed their vacation, weekends, evening and family life to get the proposal written, staffed and out of the door on time. I played no role in all this, yet our livelihoods depend on such wins, so I am grateful for the good work of others.

We ended our retreat in the middle of the afternoon and I decided to go straight home rather than making an appearance at the office across the Charles River. Because of the early hour the ride home was smooth and fast, a sharp contrast to the one and a half hour ride in even though I left the house at 6 AM. I am not sure why. Is everyone getting up earlier? It should take me only 45 minutes door to door at that hour. Luckily I have a wonderful book to listen to during the commute and the extra time gives me more book-time. I am listening to Kabul Beauty School and am so totally engrossed in the story that I have taken a few wrong turns on my very familiar route. The book resonates with me because it is essentially about endless small and big acts of leadership by women whose circumstances make them unlikely leaders. They are smart, funny and resourceful in the face of a constant barrage of obstacles put in the way by a society that relegates women to complete subservience and appears to be afraid of them. It is at once hopeful because it shows that the human spirit cannot be oppressed at its core, as well as thoroughly depressing in its heartbreaking descriptions of the suffering that men inflict on women. My interactions in Kabul the last few years have been primarily with those who know that no nation can pull itself out of misery and dependence without the active involvement of all its citizens, men and women.

At home I cooked an italian dinner that took advantage of the bounty of fresh vegetables on the (farmer’s) market. While waiting for Tessa to arrive back from her part-time job in Boston we headed for the rocks again to go fishing, too nice to sit inside waiting. This time I had the camera ready to capture the next catch. The sea was churning with high waves. Fish like this, according to Axel. Tessa, Steve and Chicha showed up just in time to see the nibble, the bite, Axel bracing himself for reeling the big fish in when the line went slack and both lure and fish were gone. His disappointment and surprise was captured on camera. The lure was bitten off clean, so we think he had a bluefish on the line, a big one with big sharp teeth. We were imagining this big fish swimming away with the glittering lure now attached to its mouth, attracting other fish, biting too, getting all hooked together. It is too painful to imagine this cluster of hapless fish caught by an unattached lure.

After dinner Axel and I descended into the moldy basement and set out to create a workspace for his school projects. This required much cleaning and sorting and opening boxes that contained stuff we had not seen in years as well as things put away last summer when our downstairs was re-arranged to accommodate a bed and a wheelchair. We also threw away some things that, only a few years ago, we did not think we could live without, quite an accomplishment in our house. This is the good thing about getting older: perspective, distance and common sense.

Yesterday and today we are ‘retreating’ with our center for leadership and management. It is a retreat in order to advance, much like taking a few steps back to get more speed for a big jump. The big jump is about figuring out how to stay sane while taking on an ever increasing workload especially for the aging baby boomers like some of us are, the grey hairs as Alison calls us (even though hers aren’t really showing and the guys have less and less of it). We pretend to have the same stamina but we don’t. It is about working smarter rather than harder and better use all the young energy and talent that is around us.

I rushed out of the session I was facilitating, hastily handing the wrap up to a colleague, to show up in time for my pre-op appointment with the carpal tunnel nurse only to be parked in a waiting room for an hour. It is the same nurse I saw over a year ago and she asked me the same questions and we had exactly the same conversation. It must get tedious doing this over and over again but if it was, she didn’t let on.

When I got home the clouds that had hovered all day over Boston and the north shore had lifted and Lobster Cove was at its best. Axel was anxious to get out of the house. The clutter, dust bunnies and mold that is growing in the basement had gotten to him; he was having an allergic reaction that had made him grumpy; all this came on top of having spent the day doing his least favorite things, paying bills and doing homework. My arrival gave him someone to complain to; going outdoors seemed like a good idea for everyone. Armed with a pumpkin beer I followed Axel to the rocks at the mouth of the cove for a brief fishing expedition before sunset. I usually don’t come along on these outings because I find fishing boring when nothing happens and way too exciting when a fish is caught. I cannot stand to see the poor thing with the nasty hook in its fragile mouth struggling against the hard rocks to get it out.

To everyone’s surprise Axel caught an 18 inch striper. He couldn’t believe it himself, shouting omigod, omigod, as he reeled the fish in; and then I had to sit there and witness exactly the part I don’t like. I kept asking to be sent on an errand to the house for something so I didn’t have to sit there and sympathize with the frantic fish that was hitting itself on the jagged rocks and losing scales left and right. I stayed occupied as the official event photographer, since otherwise no one would believe that he actually caught a fish. It was too small to be a keeper.

The agony did not last long and soon the fish was back in the water, probably sending out SOS signals to all fish a mile around to stay away from Lobster Cove. Axel casted a few more times hoping for a repeat but the sun was setting. Besides, Tessa was serving dinner, chicken pie, no fish this time.

I am waking up in the dark again, not cold yet, just dark, but winter is coming. I calculated we are about halfway between the longest and the shortest night of the year. When I woke up Axel was just about getting to sleep again. He is reading a good book it seems and when he wakes up he turns the light on and reads. We are on two very different wake/sleep systems.

Yesterday morning I rode on my bike while watching the sky the entire ride to Quaker meeting, whishing I was up there. I had reserved a plane to go for a fly with my friend Nuha, as we conspired to do last July but she is in the middle of Ramadan and had Iftar cooking duty yesterday, so we will wait until October. I then offered the seat to Axel but he was finishing his class in Boston and besides, he is not sure he is ready. The thought alone created some ‘eng’ as he calls it (scary in Dutch).

We held our meeting for worship outside in a big circle on the lawn. The silence was enhanced by the twittering of birds and occasionally ripped apart by B17s and B24s lumbering overhead while we communed with the universe and someone or another talked about how everything is connected to everything. Somehow we are connected to these planes, their purpose, our tax dollars that commissioned and fed them in their early years and the material we and they are made of (stardust!).

The WWII planes are on their bi-annual fundraising visit to Beverly airport, offering rides to people who have a lot of money (cheapest ride is 400 dollars) to offset their astronomical costs. All weekend noisy and unusual planes circled overhead, flying rather low. They are one of the few things that bring out our neighbors Ted and Charles who otherwise would be caught dead being outside on a gorgeous fall day. Charles was a gunner in WWII and the sound of the planes brings up all sorts of memories. The planes brought me out as well if I happened to be inside, they are quite a sight. The Steerman biplane with its giant motor up front was noisy but beautiful to watch as it circled lazily above Manchester Harbor. I wouldn’t mind a ride in that one.

With Axel in Boston, Tessa selling leather goods in Rockport and Steve mowing the lawn when not gaming, I had the day to myself and spent most of it outside. I cleaned out the window boxes with the dead flowers and worked in the garden. I harvested about 10 pounds of potatoes, encouraged the little stray cantaloupe that is running a race against time and exhorted the broccoli and kale that are taking much too long to get settled to get on with the growing. The asparagus box is like a feathery forest, producing more and more shoots that look as if you could cut them off right now and eat them but we are told not to and wait till next year.

Our dinner was entirely home-grown, except for the chicken and the habanera pepper that I hid in the mashed potatoes. Everyone noticed, and will probably notice again today.