The thrill of the old

I love my car.
We all know this, but it must be reiterated.
I REALLY love my car.
It's not the most practical, namely because it has the little boost gauge measuring how far from straight thinking I'm getting as the turbo scream intensifies, and the turbo scream that can itself completely disconnect my rationality, and then I'm shifting out of 3rd gear and doing 80.
Or I'm driving home from the south, around the hairpins and switchbacks, and suddenly the turbo scream modulates to tire scream and the thunk of groceries-turned-projectiles placed unsecured with the heartfelt resolution to not, in any way, allow the boost gauge to flip on the mentally-disengaging fun switch.
But it always seems to fail. It's like asking a mother to ignore the screaming of her newborn--she might be able to put it off for long enough to take an embarrassing picture of a screaming face, but it just can't be ignored.
Even when I was fresh back from Thailand, driving Hwy 20 in the first downpour of the season, and scared the b'jeezes out of myself coming around a turn in a cloud of hydroplaning spray and smack into the stare of a deer in the other lane. It was a terrible moment, realizing that even if I'm staying in bounds while pushing myself, the road, and my car to the brink, what'll do me in is another driver or a deer in my lane, and if I'm already right on the brink, I would turn into the yahoo who T-boned me. It scared me enough to relax and enjoy the rain and fog in the redwoods, right up until the fog lifted and I had enough visibility and space for the turbo scream to flip the fun switch and then it was back to the first step of hell-for-leather.

Here lies the true thrill of the MG TD.
From miles away, it looks spindly with the narrow tyres separated from the long, narrow bonnet by half-melon lights, low-slung suicide doors, exposed radiator cap, and chrome bumpers too low to do much good against anything harder than the aged-wood frame.
From a greater proximity, "rattletrap" is a likely sensation--the doors are probably held closed by a jerry-rigged contraption (or just bungees) that also holds on the dash, from which dangle wires that can be contacted or disconnected by hand because the buttons/switches in the dash no longer work, and the levers and linkages and rods and rails are visible through the carpeting.
Once you've climbed in, secured the doors, climbed back out to track down a pillow to keep your backside above speedbumps, back in, re-secured the doors, negotiated the pedals designed for an early-tweenie's feet, deciphered which knob is the starter, pulled off the dashboard, secured the dashboard, had the starter knob come off in your hand, determined which wires it's supposed to connect, figured out how to simultaneously get contact in the ignition and starter wires, and the engine actually starts, you feel pretty damn good.
Then, to get your feet disengaged from the pedals and eventually engage the transmission, by the time you're moving it feels like a victory.
By the time you're in top gear and screaming along at 40, the steering wheel jumping almost as wildly as your insides, wind battering your ears, the road racing visibly past inches from your bum, the transmission screaming in protest with your left shoe wedged around the steering column to keep the dash intact, your right shoe melting in the blast from the engine compartment, your knuckles are white and your fingers are numb despite the weather, and that 40 MPH is a helluva lot more hell-for-leather adrenaline than anything you can find in a new car.
Even the time I tried to floor out my car and scream through the top of 4th into 5th and got too scared to keep accelerating into 5th--there are some things that are stupid enough to flip off the fun switch--even that adrenaline pales at the prospect of getting the TD into third.
How refreshing, how empowering to drive like hell and feel relief when the speed limit drops back to 25, to drive flat-out without the paranoia of avoiding a ticket.
And that's the key, the contrast between the wonder of modern technology, the magic of a vehicle that floats happily along at 120, and the grounding reality of how fast you're really going WITHOUT having to meet the asphalt. But that's another story.

Sent from Candid Brutus the iPad

On medicines

Here's a good one:
I need a chest CT scan.
Local hospital: $7500
Sutter Roseville:$3500
Reno Diagnostic Imaging: $785
Open System Imaging (Chico): $320+$50 booking fee

On the one hand, how screwed is the system when the local place is 20 times more expensive than a place three hours away?
How screwed are we that we pay it?

Then, how would it be possible to sidestep the insurance/profitability end of things? As long as insurance companies are willing to pay for it, why would the hospitals charge less? And as long as we're too scared to go without insurance, why would the insurance companies not pay?

Scary stuff.

On homecomings

I've been looking forward to the flight back home to write and reflect, erm, on home.
How fantastic to come home on vacation, and know I have my life and job to go back to at my other home. Even better, I've done the things I hoped to: visit family, drive my car, drive my car, sleep under the stars (REAL STARS! YOU CAN SEE THEM!), see family, and go to an American doctor for a checkup.
SCREEEEECH!

I gave the doc my list of questions. He went into triage mode: "What do you want to talk about first, because this list will take all day and I can't do that." (God bless American efficiency)
It turned out to be moot because as soon as he put his stethoscope on my back his eyebrows went up and he started speaking much more quickly: How long have you had this wheeze? Are you out of breath? What happens when you exercise? What do you cough up?

My cough has improved considerably since coming home, and the phlegm has gone from dark brown to white, so I didn't think much of it--this is what happens when you walk in a cloud of unfiltered exhaust and breathe smoke from burning trash piles of primarily plastic and styrofoam.
The doc didn't see it quite that way.

How nice to understand instructions from the X-ray tech!
And then to understand what the doc is talking about while interpreting the films is, well, nice but without carrying relief.
It could be something scary, terrifying, or terrible, so I should come back in a couple of days after the doc consults with a radiologist and pulmonary specialist.

This is not a comfortable anticipation.

"probably not tuberculosis, but it could be a fungus or parasite. Or cancer, but that's not likely at your age.
"after consulting with the radiologist and pulmonary specialist, we are all in agreement that you should postpone your return until we know what this is. You'll need to get a CT scan and then probably a bronchoscope, and then we should have an idea of how to move on."

So there's more waiting.
And how fortunate I am to wait in such a beautiful place as the fall colors erupt and the critters go crazy, and how wonderful to trust the medical community and be able to ask and answer, and how great to be making progress in identifying and resolving whatever it is that's set up such a roadblock to wellness.

Sent from Candid the iPad

On communications

Suffice it to say, home is glorious.

There's an odd bit, though: cellular communications.
My mom was kind enough to buy a temporary sim card for me, as I did in Nepal-in part safety, in part connectivity, and to a great extent, an unwillingness to revert to pre-cellular life.

In Nepal, a guesthouse guy took me to a friend who hooked me up and I had a sim card for my SIM 2 slot (Thai phones have one sim for the big wife and business, one for the little wife and pleasure), and I was set to go.
Had I gone to Cambodia, I would've been covered by 4G throughout the country. In Nepal, it's enough to get reception qt 20000 feet in places that regularly have power 2 hours per day.

First there was no way to buy a sim card. Then there was a sim card but it wouldn't work with my phone.
Recharge the phone I had before I left, and the sim card registers. Great.

But it only works in the middle of developed areas.
At home? Sort of.
In Fallon? Emergency only.
Fernley? Dayton?
Same.
Reno, Carson, S Tahoe, okay.
Anywhere in between? Fat chance.

In Thailand, I've found one place without cell reception: in a river raft, between the banks, deep in the jungle. But get up on the bank and it's back to full bars.
Amazing.

Sent from Candid the iPad

From Tokyo

In Tokyo, where the security snake lines run in oddly geometric patterns. But at least they're lines, right? And no screaming or durian. Although why I have to get off the airplane to go through security to get back on is beyond me.

Evidently, there's snow in my forecast. Be interesting--my lips and hands are chapped after 6 hours in an airplane.

Sent from Candid the iPad

On homecoming

It's happened. I'm in Bangkok. With my tuba and luggage intact.
It's still possible for a motorbike to knock me off before I get home, but it would take a three story flight and busting through a couple hundred feet of densely packed airport space.
It was a good moment when the low angle escalator, on which my tuba scraped at both sides, dumped me out without me being prepared enough to push out past the loading ramp and people got to stack up behind my bumping and scrabbling. One of the good things about Thais is that it doesn't mean anying as they laugh at you.
I reread one of the books about living in Thailand. It's funny that sme of the things that burn me most are what he loves. Farang are expected to pay for everything--out with the guys, out with a girl and her family, out to the family compound and there's a wedding/funeral/anniversary/reception/birthday requiring a generous cash envelope (labeled)-- and double charged for normal services and labeled a bad person if you say, "here's what the last guy paid" because it is a mark of esteem and honor to be asked to pay. They are not fleecing you but paying deference to your superior status.
Thais have spent a few hundred years isolating themselves from muddy cross-culturalism, so no matter what, you will never be a part of the culture--your best hope is a degree of tolerated novelty. The good part is that you can get away with doing absolutely nothing and not lose face. Or you can bust ass and take a ride out with the next tub of dishwater. It doesn't matter what you do or not because ultimately you don't matter.
For hundreds of years, Thailand has had a phenomenal literacy rate so people could read and memorize monastic doctrines. Not so they could think about them. Learn the words, leave the thinking to the great ones. Otherwise you'll get a headache.
And this is a good thing?
It seems it's easy to get laid or drugged or held in high esteem, even if not accepted or regarded, and that's what makes it a great place to live.

It's good to be getting out, getting a check on things.
In the airport bathroom, there was soap in the dispenser and I found myself reaching for my travel kit to top up my soap bottle. And when there were paper towels--REAL PAPER TOWELS!--without thinking about it at all, I grabbed a large handful to stuff into my bag. There are places where people would think that odd.
Or there was the last quarter of the term. For EV3 I had the students copy the final test questions and answers in their notebooks. We spent two weeks reading through. For the last week, I had them take the final test and we reviewed the answers.
40 questions, 15 to pass, and I still had dozens of kids getting below 10. And As i was fluffing 10 s and 7s up to 14 or 15' I was thinking, 'too bad one of the Thai teachers will have to stay to retest next week. I'd give more accurate marks if they just caned the kids.'
How much is wrong with this picture?

Very, very good to be going home.

Sent from Candid the iPad

On Packing

Tomorrow, I leave on a three-week visit home for the first time in well beyond a year.
After an exceedingly dramatic afternoon trying to track down a re-entry visa and dinner, I started to pack: a tuba, a duffel, a backpack (that I want to keep but not necessarily with me) and a briefcase sized shoulder bag. It took half an hour, although the room-keepup around it took an hour plus.
How fascinating to find the notebook I was using when coming here--pages and pages of notes on what to expect, what equipment would meet those expectations, checklists for interview (PAH!), for personal comfort (DOUBLE PAH!) and job security (here I just choke).
Only one bag, the shoulder bag, is intended for a return trip. It holds Candid the iPad, my passport, a journal that came from Assisi, and a tube of toothpaste I've become fond of. Note: tuba; duffel with backpack, tent, books, and some souvenir whatnots; backpack with some delicate/to-be-preserved insulation, a few presents, and medications, are not intended for a return.
Otherwise, I plan on bringing back new socks and boxers (each of which cost twice as much as they do stateside and last two months at best) and some scans of kids' books (think: Hand Hand Fingers Thumbs). And a harp.
It would be nice to buy some new pants, but they don't make pants my size, and if I bought a pair even close to fitting, my goal would be to outgrown them as soon as possible.
What's fascinating is to contrast the person who spent more time creating interrogative/dubious lists than it took me to pack, all told.
And what I wonder is which, if any, monkeys will find purchase .