Carmel

We will be vacationing in Carmel and environs through this coming week, and then traveling down Hwy 1 to
Cambria and Moonstone Beach for a few days. It is our first real vacation for quite a while. I will attempt to post messages in the coming week using Sue's laptop.

SRH

Call Me Ishmael....

This opening line from Moby Dick has always riveted my imagination. There is expectation and foreboding wrapped in these three words. I don't know why this has been with me for the past days. The words keep coming to the forefront of my mind and I sometimes say them aloud when no one is in earshot. Were I to have the opportunity now, I would name a son "Ishmael", and maybe even get away with naming a daughter "Ishmaela". I'd have a little explaining to do later, but I think once the literary distinction was explained that understanding daughter would be proud to have the moniker.

Seriously....."Call me Ishmael" opens the door to a life-chamging series of adventures and harrowing events for a young man who signed on to a Nantucket whaling ship in search of something new. He is a pilgrim in a way....one not quite sure about what is to come...a pilgrim on a voyage of discovery.

I would think at some point in our lives that we all would want to be called Ishmael.

Call me Ismael

SRH

Trauma

A fellow "pilgrim" had recommended I search out internet message boards and blogs that featured commentary by "survivors" of coronary by-pass surgery. Perhap I could find comfort, if not inspiration, in the narratives of others like me who were coping with the emotional and physical impact of the surgery. Yesterday, I followed through and located two message boards...one being more popular than the other and therefore carrying more traffic.

Frankly, I consider myself fortunate to be where I am in mind, body and spirit some thirteen weeks after the triple by-pass. I called this "coming to terms". Others have not come to terms, as evidenced by many of the despairing messages I read. Often a spouse was writing about the pall of darkness and depression that settled over the relationship and the family. Other messages were posted by the patients...and only a few were positive and vainly tried to reassure the traumatized that life could be good.

I was truly disturbed and wondered if there was something I was missing. The predominant attitude was that life was over and death had been put off for a short time. Was the end going to be within six months....or next year....maybe two or three years? So, what's the use in the lifestyle change required for ongoing health?
Many were experiencing renewed symptoms of angina, shooting pains, shortness of breath...and fear.

Perhaps my surgeon was the best compared to some less-than-best surgeons that did their job inside of the chest walls of these people. Perhaps my heart, though at risk, had not suffered any damage and theirs had.
Perhaps I am naive and should be harboring some fear for the future. But I am not where many of these people are in recovery.

I think that we travel our life path taking so much for granted. When some event shatters our assumptions about how things should be, we are tested to our core. If our spirit is not strong, if it is not founded upon solid ground, if its values are undefined, then recovery from that trying event is difficult, if even possible.

I'll continue looking for other blogs and message boards and keep you in touch.

SRH

Looking out a Window...

I visited my cardiologist this afternoon. The waiting room was full. The other patients looked like they wanted to be somewhere else. Or maybe their appointments were falling behind; I know mine did...by about 45 minutes. I had the latest Los Angeles magazine to keep me busy. I wonder how many people are out there who need a $20,000.00 watch encrusted with jewels. But then when did cars start costing $45,000.00 and more? Cheap cars cost around $20,000.00...the same as the aforementioned watch. Something is out of balance. I bought a hot little Fiat Sport Coupe for $3500.00 in the early seventies. Now Fiat is back in the market. I saw an ad in the L.A. Magazine for a tiny little "pop-top" convertible car Fiat is introducing to  American carbuyers. Cost was not quoted, but I expect a price tag of close to $20,000.00 with tax and license. The same price as the aforementioned watch. I would rather have the car, even if it isn't encrusted with jewels.

Frankly, I tired of the L.A. Magazine with its ads for outrageously expensive everything, and its coverage of very chic restaurants and fashions. So I picked up a year-old People magazine. Actually, the oldest magazine I found in the waiting room was over two years old. There were magazines piled up everywhere now that I think of it.

Try reading a year-old People magazine. Serious dis-orientation is the result. The same crap going on today was going on a year ago. The only giveaway that you are reading "history" is that some celebrity-mom-to-be back then was sighted just yesterday carrying her toddler on her hip. Bikini-bodies, tanning, celebrity break-ups, Prince William, diet-plans....nothing changes. One has to ask who or what is defining our interests and lives.

When my turn came I was ushered into a room....in the corner was a treadmill. It was the same room I had undergone the stress test back in March. This room was where it all started, in a sense, though the reality is that "it" had all started years ago because of my lifestyle.

I stood there looking out the third story window. Cars and trucks sped by below. The Whittier Hills, the same that rise behind our house, stood out brown and sunburned in the near-distance. A shuttered car agency across the street was a reminder of our economic mess and lost jobs. A few kids peddled furiously by on bikes as if pursued. Life was passing...Time was passing.

SRH

On the Death of a Shrew

No.....this is not about a mother-in-law, or a toxic wife, or a high maintenance girl-friend.  It is about a shrew, unfortunately deceased, I recovered from a black and white cat lurking in our backyard. The fact that there was a cat in our backyard was singular enough because that form of life is standard fare for the coyotes that regularly course through our yard and the neighborhood.

But this cat had sat back on her haunches on the lawn in plain view from the window over my desk where I had sat back on my haunches to review the morning's news on my computer. Sure enough, the cat was toying with some very small "gray thing"....batting it around with her paws, snapping it up in her jaws and then dropping it back down for more alternating swipes of her paws. Cats don't sit down on a lawn to relax. They usually are tending to some cat-business....like toying with some unfortunate critter they have snatched up in a hunting foray. Actually, I don't think cats ever "relax" when coyotes may be near. Though focused on her little game, this cat was wary.

Curious to see what the cat had captured I went to the sliding door and opened it, knowing that the noise would frighten the cat and expecting that she would leave the "gray thing" behind. I hoped it wasn't one of my lizard buddies I had befriended on my Bataan-like "death walks" around the house during recovery. As expected the cat dashed off and left its prey behind.......a dead shrew. Aside from being dead, the shrew was in near perfect condition. I picked it up and examined it and then took it inside the house where it now lays on my desk about six inches from my keyboard as I peck out these words. It hasn't moved one little bit, so it isn't playing "dead". The early sunlight is slanting in through the door and highlighting the shrew's fine gray hair, or is it fur. The most remarkable things about this little mammal are the feet and the small face with its mini-snout and tiny eyes. It is not a male, or at least I can see no "male-like" equipment. There is no sign that it is nursing a brood, so there are no shrew-orphans nestled somewhere dark and secluded. That is a relief.
The shrew is probably full-grown. Its body is no more than two inches long from snout to rear-end and the tail is just under two inches long.

This little animal is one of the smallest mammals in creation. Its heart beats hundreds of times a minute. Its
appetite is voracious. Its attitude is big. Its lifespan is short. And this one lies dead on my desk. I find that sad. The cat did what cats do. Nature is merciless, really. There is no sentiment. That exists only in human beings......but not always.

Finding this animal reminds me of the jet-black shrew I found floating in our pool months ago. Its hair/fur was so dense it floated atop the surface of the water. It was dead. I guess it couldn't keep its snout above the surface and it drowned. That little shrew is in a plastic zip-lok bag stowed away in the freezer. I don't think Sue knows it is there, so I will take this opportunity to bury it with this morning's find.

Life.....

Stephen

BTW......to keep a balance here, I will allow that the male human equivalent to the aforementioned female types would be a "RAT".


                         
                       

Carmeggedon......

OK.....I have to keep up this blog.

Early Saturday morning I dragged Sue into the Explorer and we set out across town to catch a glimpse of the chaos that was to result from the closing of "The 405". Likened to the impact of a nuclear bomb with its associated shock waves emanating out in all directions, the shutdown has captured national attention as the inhabitants of that overcrowded section of the city have wrung their hands in despair and fear over the dreaded perception that life as they know it will end this weekend.

Carmaggedon....the shutdown of a city, the loss of millions of dollars in retail sales, the impossibilty of driving
over the Sepulveda Pass, the probable outbreak of roadrage shootings, the likelihood of becoming stuck in unmoving traffic jams and dying of Carbon Monoxide poison.

I have to report that all of the above is not going to happen. I have never seen lighter traffic in the streets of Westwood and on Wilshire Blvd. I don't think most people are stupid....they won't be like lemmings and
go out as they would regularly do and confront a situation they know will be a headache..

We did see traffic police stationed on intersections for several miles out from the epicenter. Detour signs were everywhere. There was nothing to do.

Steve

EDITORIAL CORRECTION:  Ms Hamrock was NOT dragged into the Explorer. She climbed in willingly for what she initially thought was a fool's lark. She had fun.

Tonite....Full Moon

I knew tonight was Full Moon night. I drove the car to the gas station and saw it rising.....a luminous golden orb...and stopped at the local park to get a better view. This is the fourth New Moon of the blog, and the first I have been able to view. I was in the hospital or the overcast obscured it on the other nights.

I like the idea that two people can view the New Moon at the same time and be in two different places.

SRH

The Oak.....

This past Saturday we traveled back to the Santa Ynez Valley to attend a wine tasting event at the Roblar Winery located just south of Los Olivos within sight of Hwy 154, the road that descends out of the San Marcos pass and sweeps into the Santa Ynez Valley in a wide arc before staightening out and disappearing into the distant oak-studded hills and valleys. It is a singularly beautiful scene that unfolds before one's eyes, even if summer has withered much of the life from the grasses and wildflowers, though there are still golden poppies showing color in clusters along the side of the road.

The Roblar Winery parking lot was the location of my "afterthought" described in the "Plein Air Wrap-up"
blog. Out the back end of the tasting room is a beautiful sitting area covered by a roughly-constructed log pergola overgrown with sweet-scented wisteria vines and flowers . Not more than forty yards farther was the first row of vines...one of thousands on the property. After a time, I excused myself and walked back to that row to see just how things were done with the vines....I am always curious about how things are done.

Fortunately, it seems that winery managers and owners are reluctant to remove the oak trees that dot the fields and hills upon which the vines have been planted. I found myself standing under one of these trees after following the course of  that first row of vines for thirty yards or so. The shade of the oak and the cool breezes blowing across the vineyard were soothing, so I decided to enjoy the moment . I was struck by the massiveness of the trunk and as I raised my eyes to follow its line upward where it branched out I was awed by the sinuous strength and the girth of the main limbs. Gnarled and twisted, they supported a canopy of leaves that must have been forty or more yards across. Altogether, I was reminded of some giant Medusa's head... the branches seeming to writhe and coil into the sky like so many serpents.

That oak had been growing long before I was born and will probably be there long after I pass. It predates the vineyard and most of the monuments to human activity in the valley. It is a living thing....but it is not sentient: it does not feel or sense. It is indifferent, if one can ascribe a human attitude to a tree. It has stood by as a sentinel, so to speak, to the passing of many seasons and to the circle of life. Today it shelters a man from the sun while that man looks up to its highest branches and wonders how such dark and rugged beauty can come about naturally. Understanding the oak could live to be several hundred years old, the man wonders at the brief amount of time allotted to him and others. Like the grasses and wildflowers withered by the summer sun, so is his life force withered by time.

The man cools himself for a few minutes, thinking thoughts, and then goes back to his life and to his loves.

He will remember that oak and those few minutes of solitude and wonder, perhaps for the rest of his life.

SRH

Progress

I walked a total of five miles today......three miles on the walk-way, one mile around the "block" in Santa Fe Springs, and the equivalent of one or more miles in re-hab on the treadmill and the exercycle. I feel fine, though the legs are a bit fatigued.

All is well.

SRH

Walk Around the Block

Today, I walked that aforementioned square block in 17 minutes....just about back to form.  It feels very good.

SRH

Milestones.....

Prior to my surgeries, and ignorant of my heart's condition, I would regularly walk the mile that defines the square block in Santa Fe Springs upon which the business is located. Later in the day I might choose to walk additional miles on the walking path that runs through Whittier along an old railroad right-of-way.

This afternoon I walked that square block without stopping. It was the first time I had done so in three months. I didn't think much about it when I started.....it was just a walk. But half-way through I was struck with the thought that I was passing some personal milestone. I became a bit emotional with the realization that I was seeing territory that I had not seen for weeks. Nothing had changed, yet I saw it with different eyes.
A few tears filled them...just briefly, for they were wiped away quickly, and I went on, not wanting to break the stride I had set. I walked that mile in twenty minutes....my best prior time was sixteen and one-half minutes.

As I said...it was a personal milestone.


SRH

Re-Hab Morning..........

I started my heart surgery re-hab a little over a week ago. For those of you interested in the mundane, here is how it goes:

Show up at 7:00 am and weigh yourself.
Relax a few minutes and then have your blood pressure recorded.
Open your shirt and have three monitor leads attached to your torso.
Get modest with the shirt and step onto the treadmill for a mild "walk"
Have blood pressure checked while on the treadmill
End treadmill session and rest for five minutes
Hop onto the exercycle and peddle for twenty minutes
Get off exercycle and have bloodpressure checked
Have monitor leads removed and say goodbye.

I actually enjoy the experience, but the therapists are so by-the-book that I am embarrassed for them at times. I mean I can understand how to turn a treadmill off....you hit the "off" button...right. This is explained over and over again. I started to adjust the seat height on the exercycle and was gently reminded that only staff can do that.....uh...OK!..... that's fine with me.

I imagine a big concern might be having a patient collapse on the treadmill and having his corpse rocket off the thing into the wall. So they have to be careful about the speed of the belt. Who wants to clean up that kind of mess, let alone make the report.

I do feel a bond with the other "re-hab'ers. Some are in exrtraordinary shape and go through the routine with a grim look of determination. Others are mystified, it seems, about why they are there. All have that "look" to one degree or another. The "look" being the expression of the reluctant passenger facing the alternative of climbing into a rundown railroad freight car if he doesn't make good with the task at hand. You know the kind of freight car I am talking about. The kind that goes where you don't want to be....Perhaps I exaggerate a bit, but not much.

I don't compare myself to others. I guess I am somewhere in the middle of the pack. There are some definite
Sad Sacks (does this expression date me?) and then there are those that excel...but they have been at it for awhile longer than I.

The staff is professional and sincerely cares about the quality of the care they give. I will continue to try and loosen them up.

That reminds me. I met with the Registered Dietitian this morning after re-hab. She takes her job seriously and soon had me hem-hawing and babbling about how many times I eat this, or that, and how much of each, every day or week....Heck, I don't remember what I ate for breakfast three days ago. Did I eat lunch yesterday....was it buyout or homemade? What did you eat? Was it healthy or unhealthy?  Do you drink diet or sugared sodas? How many times a week? And what about eggs....how many a week? Do you salt the eggs?

And all this from a tiny little Philipina woman earnestly taking notes as I confessed to one gustatory backslide after another.

I decided to fight back when she asked if I ate fish regularly. I said no, because I was particular as to how it was prepared. She immediately asked how I liked my fish cooked......I answered "Battered, and deep fried."
It was as if she had been turned into stone. I had mercy and said...."Nahhh, just kidding."
Then she turned to the subject of red meat....which I don't eat often.... and pulled out a deck of cards and grandly announced that the size of that deck of cards was the maximum size of my future portions of red meat. I countered that the decks of cards in Vegas were much larger. A slight chuckle escaped her throat.

And my ideal body weight is 175 lbs. That is what some chart indicated. I haven't weighed 175 lbs. since I was in high school. I would have to lose another 25 lbs.....and my hip bones already grate against a wood bench. I'd have to have a pillow tied to my rear end.

I told the dietitian I would settle for 190...maybe 185

That's it for now.

Still trying to figure out "What's Next".

SRH

Simple Gifts.....

I thought I would copy the first lines of the song..."Simple Gifts":

'Tis the gift to be simple, its a gift to be free.
"Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
Will be in the valley of love and delight.

                 Old Shaker Song...1848

..."where you ought to be".....that is the key.

SRH

This Morning....Some Thoughts

I went to the back fence early this morning, cup of coffee in hand, to look out over the hills that roll back into the distance. They are covered with eucalyptus groves and native plants. In the slanting morning light they were serene and beautiful. Ravens called to one another in the distance with that odd grating sound they make when conversing with one another. It was possible to conceive that the scene was far away from Whittier and that I was where I wanted to be at the moment.

It struck me that I and all others are just a part of the thin veneer of life that is secured to the face of the earth by gravity. We may look up at the tallest trees and feel dwarfed by their majesty, but those forms of life are minuscule compared to the compressed bulk of the rock we live upon. We are very small but we perceive ourselves as the center of all that is around us. I accept that as only natural. It isn't literally true, but it is the way we cope with our position in the order of things. It is how we make sense of our lives. Many never make the effort, unfortunately. I went to a Jesuit university and we discussed issues like this to such a degree that I ended up with a minor in philosophy, whether I liked it or not. I wasn't really ready for most of it to be honest, but that experience left me with an open-minded perspective of our place in the world. But I didn't start this message with the purpose of passing on that Jesuit education. Lord forbid. I don't want to lose my way.

I think we are confronted endlessly by our search for meaning and the distractions of our man-made world of pleasures and created "needs". And life is so short. There is little time to gain the maturity to know what is important and what is not. I don't think this is a bleak view of our existence, but rather a realistic assessment of reality.

As I stood out at that back fence I thought of the present and the past. I thought of those who I loved and who I love. I remembered many of the people who have had a part in forming who and what I am today.
I saw how all that I carry in my memory is my life. I am the sum total of all that I have experienced.

We all are.

I think this message has something to do with "What's Next?"

I have come to terms with my recent experiences and have passed through that gauntlet not unscathed, but in good health and spiritually stronger.

SRH

Simple Things.....Simple Gifts

There is a certain self-imposed burden that one bears when starting and maintaining a blog such as this. It is the assumption that one must be "profound"....after all,  I am writing about serious stuff here. Then I remember my mother telling me not to take oneself seriously lest others don't..or something like that.
I have found that simply to start writing will "loosen" up the thoughts in my mind, allowing me to post something meaningful...to me, if not to anyone else.

I have been largely absent from the company for many weeks as I recovered from the surgeries. I never worried about the welfare of the business and its daily operations. Our people stepped up and met the demands of customers and production schedules in my abscence. That is what one would want, of course, but it happened, and it happened smoothly.

I must make it clear that the company does not sell a product. We don't make a line of devices or doo-dads and then sell them to customers. Sometimes I wish it were so. The reality, even though we ship trucks full of product, is that we sell our talents and capabilities. Our customers come to us with a need. We quote a price to fulfill that need. Sometimes we get the order and that is where what we do comes into play. But it isn't the turretpresses, the laser, the pressbrakes, the spotwelders, the arc welders and the powdercoating facilities that get the job done. Those are just the tools.

Today we gathered the employees together for a taco lunch...an informal affair, as most taco lunches are.
The tacos were "autentico" street tacos.....the kind I like. The kind that all the hip urbanite gringos are just now discovering on the taco trucks that are advertising on the social networks. It was the first time since returning that I had seen the "crew" in one place. Dressed in their work clothes, some wearing aprons, many wearing worn t-shirts with faded beer advertisements and witty, sometimes off-color, proclamations....all oil-stained to one degree or another....I thought they were a special group. Many have worked for ten, fifteen, twenty, and even thirty years or more for the company.

These men and women are the strength of the company. From the women in customer service, to the very talented men in the engineering and design department and to the men on the shop floor that fabricate the metal components and seal the cartons with made-at-Hamrock product.....these are the true assets of the company.

It was my great pleasure to announce to those people this afternoon that the company would restore the salary cuts made necessary by the recession.....necessary for the very survival of the company. My voice broke as I told them I knew it had hurt. The applause and cheers were the best thanks I could have asked for.

Nothing profound in this, it is a story about a simple thing. I thought it worth expressing my feelings about a group of fellow pilgrims.

There is a song..."Simple Gifts"... that I want to recommend to the readers of this blog.
Find it on youTube.....Yo Yo Ma and Allison Krause pair up for one of the best renditions.


SRH