J’s Star Turn . . . UPDATED
As “elderly man in wheelchair rescued from apartment blaze.” Even in this brief clip he looks too robust for the role. But he is definitely upstaged by the blaze. (Very sorry to upstage Whitey, a much happier sight. And sorry for the clunky, patience-trying video. That’s “NO sprinkler system” at the bottom.)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
UPDATE: This newspaper photo explains a lot. It explains why the news video confusingly showed you a building swathed in flames, and then a relatively intact façade with a ruined roof: these were back and front views, of course. It explains why, after we were awakened by the pounding and yelling, I looked out our bedroom window and saw the trees and grass bathed in a horrific Halloween-orange light. It explains why I looked over our back porch railing and saw a dark window directly to the left of us and then a burning railing beyond that. And it explains why we had time to get out. The white arrow points to our bedroom window.
The intact window between ours and the devastation is that of our neighbors directly across the entryway, whose apartment, probably the mirror image of ours, was almost gutted — except for the bedroom. Our back porch, leading off our living room, was to the left of our bedroom from this perspective and is out of the frame of this picture; theirs — the one I saw burning — would have been to the right of their bedroom, and is gone. The indentation between the two upper stories above our respective bedrooms corresponds to the entryway and stairwell in front, which acted as a firebreak. The fire had leapt it and was going to work on the top floor directly above us when it was put out.
Meet Whitey
This stray cat heard me filling my cats’ bowl at 5:00 AM one morning about 5 weeks ago and came rushing up the back hill meowing. When I brought a handful of food out to him, he wanted attention as much as the food, alternately purring up a storm as he was petted and scarfing down the food. Two cups later, he was full but had not had enough attention.
Thoughts on Fire
(To be added to as time and sanity permit)
Fire is the ultimate home invader.
If you ever hear the intent, grinding crackle of fire coming for you, you’ll never forget it. It sounds like a giant, unstoppable rotary saw or wood chipper chewing through matter and shelter. Pure appetite, stupid as a shark.
The reeling, glass-shattering barroom brawl between the bad guys and the good guys — fire and water — does almost as much damage as fire, unchecked. There’s something left, but there might as well not be. Collateral damage.
Fire is like a skunk: its musk clings to everything long after your encounter with it.
When your house is on fire, is one of the first things you think of your cellphone charger? Me neither. Yet it is one of the first things you’re going to need.
The only thing that seems like even more of an unnatural affront than the shortness of human (canine, feline) life is the shortness of battery life. Whoever lets lets the human race off that short leash is going to be a culture hero in the league of Prometheus.
A writer will write about anything, like fire will eat anything.
YAY.
If you’ve been worrying about us, you can stop. The hospice doctor came this morning (the only nonpsychotic person I’ve ever met besides us, once upon a time, who has 14, count ’em, 14 indoor cats!!) and she feels fine about recommending that J continue to be on hospice. She sees that we need the help, but more importantly from a bureaucratic, cost-saving standpoint, based mostly on her questions to me and my uncontrived answers, I think he met the central criterion, which is (sadly) decline over time — almost a “goes without saying” with his illness.
It’s an enormous relief. I really feared the re-isolation most. And being love-bombed with free Depends ain’t bad, either.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocadebt
I devoted today to seminars connected with the annual meeting of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, a group designed to bring the bankruptcy bar and judges together. The first panel discussion of the morning was entitled “Obamanomics.” Guest Panelist , former Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, discussed America’s current financial dilemma (including the coming Medicare/Social Security crises) with two bankruptcy professors, a judge, and an economics professor. What struck me were Smith’s remarks. From our current debt situation, he suggested there were four possible responses: (1) continue to solve troubled industries with GM and Chrysler-like infusions of cash, tilting the potential bailouts away from secured creditors, towards favored constituencies; (2) continue bailouts without raising taxes, thereby debasing the currency; (3) raise taxes sharply to cover the cost of entitlements; or (4) renege on the generational social compact which formed the underpinnings of Social Security and Medicare.
Smith made the point that option 1 will quickly erode foreign confidence in US investments. Note, as a matter of policy, the traditional legal expectations of secured investors are thwarted for the benefit of a favored political constituency. Foreign investors favor the US because the rule of law operates here. If political considerations trump the expectations of secured investors, the US will become just another banana republic in the eyes of foreign investors, and our current economic difficulties will be a fond memory.
Option 2 reaches the same result through inflation. The investor gets his money back, but he is paid in devalued dollars because of our profligacy, so foreign investment shuts down.
Option 3 is politically challenging. Moreover, seriously raising taxes would dampen economic activity in an already compromised market.
Option 4 is probably politically impossible, but some measure of repositioning benefits might occur.
Get Over Yourself
This rant is not aimed at anyone who posts or comments on Ambiance. This is the place where I feel comfortable ranting about those who read my site, but probably don’t click links on my blogroll.
Everything is NOT about YOU. Your “sensitivity” is driving me nuts. There are so many topics where “comments are off. This isn’t up for discussion” with you that I’m almost afraid to discuss laundry soap preferences.
(scented v. unscented can get ugly.)
What has happened is that someone I love dearly has become over the last ten years a moonbat leftist unwilling to listen to any idea not already incorporated in her worldview. This worldview has become more and more restricted over the years.
While the comment that set off this rant is rather mild, it is just the latest among many that I have felt I must “swallow” while trying to explain myself in an unoffensive way to someone who finds almost everything offensive.
What can I do? And don’t worry about offending me, because most of the time that fairly hard to do. I’m open to hearing all advice even if I don’t take it.
Creative Destruction
It’s all very well to approve of it, to cheer it on in principle, but the thing is, you can’t pick and choose what it’s going to destroy.
There’s a fairy-tale quality to it — turning loose the baby dragon, then having to live with the unintended consequences.
Print media, for instance (one of which I work for, a lot like being a deckhand on the Titanic). Natural History is a good thing. A physically beautiful little magazine that keeps science mindful of its roots, that maintains a bridge across time, with constant traffic back and forth, between the 18th-century cabinet of curiosities and the postmodern particle accelerator and PCR machine, and between science and the arts. It has a venerable tradition: counting its first 18 years as The American Museum Journal, it’s been publishing since 1900. And it has one of the most fiercely loyal subscriber bases I’ve ever heard of: even now, when everyone’s online, the renewal rate is around 85 percent. You get the feeling that a lot of its subscribers have been reading it since childhood.
But it’s a print medium — an endangered species. (You knew Gourmet is folding, right?) Like the newspaper, that’s one of the things creative destruction is destroying. Never mind your childhood, your history, your tradition, your comfortable habit of anticipating some beautifully wrapped mind candy in the mail every month. That’s all dispensable. It’s all paper in fire.
Conservatism is a curious and contradictory thing. To love tradition and also celebrate unfettered capitalism seems like a recipe for heartbreak. You can try to let God rule your moral life and Darwin rule your economic life, but really, how can you separate them? How can you tout values when creative destruction is value-free? Creative destruction has a mind of its own. It’s driven by appetite and effectiveness, not by sentiment or principle. It’s sort of like a hurricane of Buddhism. Attach at your own grief. Evolve beyond natural affections. Become as ruthless as that which created you and will destroy you. Learn to love nothing but the twisting dragon of change. Or be destroyed on the lathe of heaven.
Sure Enough . . .
. . . I got the distant early warning from the nurse today that they may not be able to keep us on hospice.
J just isn’t sick enough. He communicates. He has a good appetite. He still gets out of the house (albeit not under his own power). He doesn’t have pain.
(And I’m not broken down enough. Not all used up yet, not by a long shot. I could take care of him alone again if I had to. After all, I was doing it just a month ago.)
They want to keep us. They’re going to try. They think we need and deserve the help. But they have legal guidelines they have to follow, and we’re in a gray area at best. Or should I say, at worst.
This is one of those silly situations where good news is bad news and bad news is good news.
Of course, the irony is that the hospice people usually see him at his best — because he’s so happy to see someone other than me. He comes to life. He puts on his “company face.” He flirts, he kisses hands (I swear to God), he makes ’em laugh. He loves the sociality and attention. He comes from a village where there are people, neighbors and family members, around all the time. This is a tiny step closer to that.
I’ve been prepared for this possibility; I was the one who never thought he’d qualify for hospice in the first place (especially since starting Namenda, the drug that has made him more present and calm if no less confused). I swore that I would make the most of it while it lasted, and store some reserves. It hasn’t been a huge change, anyway. I’m still taking care of him alone most of the time. There are just three things I will miss if we get kicked out:
- Having someone else do some of the heavy lifting just three times a week. It has reduced the repetitive stress to my shoulders, in particular, and I’ve felt the difference.
- Free incontinence supplies. This I will mourn.
- Hardest of all will be returning to isolation.
Of course, we may see a bit more of our busy friends again, whom we’re now seeing somewhat less of because they assume we’re all right, they don’t have to worry about us, we’re being taken care of! And maybe we’ll make more of an effort to get out and see them if the alternative is hours and hours of four walls and each other. Plus, the nurse said she’ll come visit us as a friend. The volunteer might, too.
But I’m getting ahead of myself; it ain’t over till it’s over.
A Shakespeare Challenge
A recent thread touched on the question of the Obama Presidency as an opera. If the election and Presidency of Mr. Obama was a Shakespeare play, we would probably be at the end of the First Act. Which Shakespeare character would Mr. Obama be?
He doesn’t have to be the protagonist (although it is hard to imagine him in any other role.)
A hint about my tentative choice. He rises to power based on an eloquent speech in one play, then is brought to ruin by a disastrous foreign war in another.
Ambiance 