Gobble gobble
Happy Thanksgiving Eve!
It’s been quite a while since EDOM issue 3—four months! So today’s news buffet is heartier than usual and includes the following dishes for you to chew on:
Council 7: Now scheduled for Wednesday, 6 Dec 2023.
Mom down!: Momma Kranz suffers a fall and ends up in the hospital. SJ flies out to help.
Birthday in Yosemite: SJ takes a train to Yosemite Valley and backpacks solo for four nights.
Cal & Cra’s first client: SJ concludes his part-time contract as a process engineer
Other news: News about other things: website updates and newly processed paperwork
Council 7
You are all invited to join me for Council 7! We will discuss a new branding idea for a tie-dye clothing line to help fund the Magical Office of Peace (and in turn W4VP). Your feedback will be greatly appreciated :)
Council 7
Wednesday, 6 December 2023
15:00 PST / 18:00 EST
As always, meeting is hosted on Discord
Mom down!
In the late morning of Tuesday, 10 October, I was at the GaeaStar office (see “Cal & Cra’s first client” below) when I got a call from my sister. Mom had fallen in the bathroom and was on the ground for three days (!!!) before the cleaning staff found her. She was being taken to the hospital. I let my colleagues know about my family emergency, dashed off to home, scheduled cat care for Hubert, and bought a ticket to Oahu where my mother and sister live.
I flew out the next morning and arrived on the island in the afternoon. A cab brought me to the home of my sister, brother-in-law and nephew in Kaneohe. Quite inconveniently, they were away in Disneyland when mom went down, but I encouraged them to enjoy their final few days of vacation. I drove my sister’s car to the hospital and found my mom banged up and bruised pretty bad—that is, from the fall and not from me driving into the hospital—but she was conscious and aware. She was recovering from severe dehydration and suffering from a lot of pain in her back and left side. Over the next couple of days after an MRI and other tests, the doctors were confident that she hadn’t broken bones. They ordered her a week of in-patient physical therapy. However, that therapy has yet to happen.
According to her case worker, her insurance (Aetna) is notoriously difficult to work with. Also, my mother can be a notoriously difficult patient which gave reason for therapists to reject her. After six days in the hospital she was discharged. But with no PT providers to take her, I brought her back to her apartment. On our way home, she was adamant that I get her three things: two bottles of extra-strength tylenol, ZzzQuil, and diapers.
The first night was rough. Getting Mom to bed was ok: with my assistance she stood up from her wheelchair, took a few steps and sat on the bed. But that relatively small movement caused her a large amount of pain. After she settled in, I made a bed on the floor of the living room with a surprisingly comfortable futon mattress borrowed from my sister. After a few hours of sleep I awoke to my mom’s cries. Laying on her back was now agonizing, and she lacked the strength to roll onto her side. Even these ordinary reconfigurations made her shake in pain. At that moment, my first thought was “I need to get Mom to the hospital.” Then I remembered that we were just their twelve hours ago and they told us to go home. Clearly we needed some help.
My mom’s retirement community has an in-house nursing provider, and when I spoke with them in the morning, they were able to staff twenty-four hour care starting that afternoon. The nurses took my mom to the bathroom, changed her diaper and tried (and occasionally succeeded) to get my mom to eat and drink. We did that for three days. By then it was clear that it was not necessary to have a nurse sit and watch my mom watch her iPad before falling asleep. So now a nurse checked in every couple hours, and I would take care of Mom’s necessities when I was around, which was most of the time. Things were running smoothly enough, but we needed a longer term solution for her care.
When my sister was back from the mainland, we looked into “care homes” which are residential homes staffed by nurses that serve up to five patients. More economical than a private nurse, and more personal than a large facility, it seemed like a good option for Mom. With the help of a placement agency we found a home that felt caring, was easy to visit and most importantly, allowed my mother to smoke.
My mom enjoys a cigarette. And by “a” cigarette I mean two or three. Immediately after returning to her apartment from the hospital, we grabbed a box of smokes and lighter and rolled out onto the lanai (Hawaiian patio) for the first of many cigarette breaks over the next couple of weeks. It was usually three or four breaks a day.
We eventually got a rhythm going: sit up from bed, stand up, turn, sit down in wheelchair, roll to the bathroom, roll to the lanai, come back in, sit on comfy chair and watch Star Trek (TNG, DS9, VOY), another bathroom break, back to bed. There were a few days where we felt good enough to take excursions up and down the halls and around the grounds of the facility. We had fun, well, at least I did. From time to time, I was able to get her to give up a smile and even some laughs. Already clown classes have paid off.
The move to the care home was easy—physically. Emotionally, it was trying for my mom. Momma Kranz was still feeling unsettled from the last move eight years ago. After her stroke in 2015, we did what we thought was best: my sister and I sold her house in Akron, Ohio and moved her to Hawaii to live near my sister. When we got her into Mom’s new apartment, she let us know that she “will be moving out soon.” That plan never materialized, but it founded the notion that there was no point to settling in. It was sad to watch over the years: Her walls were bare, while a box of photos still in the packaging from the last move sat untouched in the closet. But on the bright side, she was already packed.
Mom sat beside me on the drive over to her new home. Before we left the parking lot we had our first panic: we forgot her iPad in her apartment. An iPad-less life was unfathomable, but fortunately my sister was able to launch a rescue operation immediately. About half way into the 30 minute drive, another concern erupts: will they have a bed in her room? I convinced Mom that the manager with 30 years of experience has indeed got that covered. Because they had two rooms open, we made a last minute room-switch. Then disaster struck. The new room had a problem: there was no bed in it. Which, as you will remember, I had assured Mom that there would be. Demonstrating excellent problem solving capabilities, the nurses were able to devise and execute a plan to wheel the bed from the other room into this room. It was a harrowing 45 or more seconds before we were blessed with resolution. If you think that this day couldn’t have gotten more exciting, you better think again, my friend. Imagine this: Mom’s in her new room, on a bed that exists, and with her iPad in hand when a monstrous obstacle appears: the wifi isn’t working. I type in the password multiple times. It just spins, never connects. Internet search results are not relevant. I can’t find other settings to adjust. It’s been ten agonizing minutes and we are nowhere closer to streaming Stargate SG-1 on Netflix. Then, when the light of hope was fast fading, a divine inspiration strikes: turn it off and then on again. So I reset the router… and it worked. And at that moment, a very small portion of the world was saved.
Two days after the move and three weeks after I arrived, I flew back home. It had been a wild enough ride, and I appreciated how I had been able to surf my emotional waves with hints of grace. Sure, I got wet, but I managed to not wipeout. Also I took note of this role reversal of my mom and I after thirty-six years. Now I answered her cries in the night, I convinced her to eat another bite of veggies, and I changed her diaper. This reverse maturity of old age felt poetic. Also, I saw in myself a capability and willingness to give her the love she needed, even though it was the kind of love she did not often show me (or anyone else).
While my mom is still having a tough time at least her health is stable for now.. There were many people instrumental in achieving that stability so I’m glad to say thank you: doctors & nurses at Straub Hospital for helping my mom at her weakest; Mary for fighting the insurance battle; Eugene and Miki for the all-hours check ins and care; Brent for helping us find Eva; Eva for taking in my mom; the Ivy Hawaii Kai staff for kind assistance; Cindy for short term cat care; very deeply Lauren & Normal for sharing in the Mom-care journey by carrying her on when I’m not around (which is most of the time), and of course Caleb for the chess matches and letting me crash in his room. thanks :)
Birthday in Yosemitay
My thirty-sixth August 30 birthday was two weeks away and I realized I did not have a plan. But I made one: a solo backpacking trip in Yosemite National Park. I successfully acquired a camping stove, bear canister, and a sundry collection of dried foods. I unsuccessfully tried to acquire a new camera. Then—this should be no surprise to you—I created a spreadsheet to track the mass of every item in my backpack (about 20 kg total). Lastly, I got train tickets from BART to Merced, Cal., and bus tickets on YARTS (Yosemite’s bus system) to take me into Yosemite Valley. With the backpack and gear I already had (including an older, but perfectly functional camera), it came together pretty good.
Day 1: The bus arrived in the Valley in the mid afternoon. At the Wilderness Center I picked up a permit and map, and received a Park Ranger’s advice on where to camp on the first night (advice review: 5/5 I would have spent the first night searching wearily and blindly on a steep mountain side. Instead I slept on flat, soft ground near a creek). To describe the first day’s hike in a word: up. There were tiny bits of down, even some sideways, but most of it was up. After what felt like 1000 miles of climbing (the map says it’s closer to 2), I made it to the top of Yosemite Falls with very little, but non-zero amount of energy. After an extremely anticlimactic encounter with a bear, I drew inspiration and made myself barefoot so I could ford a shallow creek to find the aforementioned soft-ground campsite.
Day 2: After an oatmeal breakfast and a photoshoot with a lizard, I doubled back and headed the way I would have gone if I had ignored Ranger wisdom. I made my way to North Dome which was more in the up direction, but considerably less up than yesterday’s hike. Then in the hot afternoon sun I made it up, over and then past (but not to) Indian Rock (I was tired) and down to a gorgeous, hidden campsite by the turn in Snow Creek. I camped here for two nights.
Day 3: R&R day. Leaving most of my pack weight at camp, I leisured to Porcupine Flat. I ventured off trail to check out huge boulders dappled in the midday shadows. They are a great spot for lunches and meditations. Back at camp, the uneasy peace with the dozen or so yellow jackets held for a second night. They did not attack but they were extremely curious about my food and the interior of my tent.
Day 4: I packed up and kept on along Snow Creek on the way to Mirror Lake. I stopped for a photoshoot to take a selfie at a creek waterfall. Just past the bridge over the creek, I set up camp at the first site I could find. I packed for another day hike and went away from the lake to Olmsted Point. Unlike Days 1, 2 & 3, today was cool and mostly cloudy. The trail meandered through grassy meadows, mulchy forests, stacks of rock and lots of leafy greens. I found very few people and one jaw-dropping view (I think it was of Cloud’s Rest). After making my way back from (almost) Olmstead Pt., I found my tent blown over (no stakes). A kind neighbor did weigh down my bag that could have fled in the wind. For my last night’s dinner, I made chili a second time (dinners for Days 1,2 and 3 were polenta and butter, chili pt 1, and couscous.)
Day 5: My last day in Yosemitay was quite the opposite of Day 1: cloudy, light rain, cool, and almost entirely downhill. Like all the other days, it was filled with plenty of gratitude and reflection. After hopping down rock after rock after rock, I made it into the valley at Mirror Lake as rain drizzled over and past, over and past. The human-dense valley floor was a little shocking for my recently wild self. I sat down at the YARTS bus stop and at the very last of my sardines, almonds and whatever other snack I had left. I was surprised, but proud of having packed just enough food. After an hour of watching many valley visitors come and go, the bus came and I went.
I’m so grateful to have made the trek and I’m looking forward to being back soon. See the email attachment for photos!
Cal & Cra’s first client
Earlier in 2023, I established Caliper & Crayon as a “creative scientific consulting” company as a way to combine my varied skills and to grant me the flexibility (and, of course, the funds) to support the missions of the Magical Office of Peace and Walking for Vice President. On the “caliper” side, I was marketing my skills in designing experiments, establishing protocols and writing documentation. On the “crayon” side I emphasized visual design and cultivating an empathic workplace. Well, I wasn’t even half way through building a business website when a former colleague reached out to me asking if I was available for hire.
Bill was working with a startup called GaeaStar that was looking to fill a ceramics process engineer role. GaeaStar aims to replace disposable paper and plastic cups with a ceramic alternative (see EDOM 3: “Personal updates” for more). While I could not commit to a full time role, I did join the team for 2-3 days a week. And in early November, my fourth-month contract concluded.
I’m happy to report I was able to help set up a workshop and lab for processing sustainable ceramic drinking vessels. I got to research and play with spray glazing, firing kilns, and measuring the rheology of non-flowing fluids. My final contribution to the team was to create a safety training course for the kilns and workshop. On my last day, I gave a presentation, administered two 10-question quizzes, and collected the signatures of the trainees. I’m even happier to report that I expect to stay friends with several of my fellow team members.
Other news
The Magical Office of Peace is now, as of 14 September 2023, officially registered as a business in Alameda County, California. Next step: a bank account!
W4VP.com is in the process of getting a more robust redesign of its overall structure. See www.w4vp.com/fortune to see how other pages will look. Let me know what you think!
Thank you for reading EDOM 4
- SJK