Et tu, Brute?

They say that one's destiny is etched in stone. In the case of Julius Caesar, it appears as if more than that was forever encased in stone. French divers trained in archeology came across an incredible find; a life size bust of Julius Caesar, dated to about 46 B.C, found in Arles - the French city that he founded.






You can see from the picture the power that sculpture can have, even more so than painting or photography, in my opinion. You can look into his eyes, and as the article points out, it is the first to show him at a later stage in his life. His face seems to reflect the wars, politics, and other experiences of his lifetime. His life has been etched out in the marble that was used to carve his likeness. This man ruled over the civilized world over 2000 years ago. You can just about see the toll it took on him.

In London, there is a remnant of the stone fortification that used to encircle the city of Londinium, as the Romans called it. I remember seeing it for the first time, looking in awe at something that we as Americans have trouble fathoming. We simply don't have anything that old here. Here is the man that ruled over that city.

One is simply left to wonder what he was thinking at the time this was made, and what he would think of the world today.

My Kingdom for romance.

A very interesting piece from the NY Times, that was posted through the International Herald Tribune regarding the youth of Saudi Arabia that I read about here.

The article followed two cousins, Enad and Nader, and is a fascinating look into a closed society, highly religious and patriarchal, and one in which women, by Western standards, are highly oppressed.

I would also suggest heading over to Saudi Jeans, a blog that originates from Saudi Arabia, and that has some interesting takes on this subject, and others related to life in this very wealthy, very enigmatic world. Yes, one could go on all day about oil, the US - Saudi relationship, etc., but that is best saved for another day.

18

18. This number represents certain milestones. For someone my age, it represented being able to drink alcohol legally. It meant that I could sign (most) legal documents as an adult. It meant graduating high school and starting college.

For this woman, 18 represents quite a different milestone. She has 17 kids, and number 18 is in development.

She is 41 years old.

I have read certain things in history regarding women who would bear this many children. The results were often not pretty. Now granted, medical care has advanced greatly, and women can be closely monitored and cared for in such a way that reduces (but does not eliminate) their chances for a successful and healthy pregnancy. Still, being pregnant 18 times does give one pause for thought. Having one child can be hard. I can't imagine what having 17, and soon to be 18, can do to a woman physically. I helped deliver enough babies as a paramedic to see firsthand what women go through. However, as Robin Williams once said, if men want to experience childbirth firsthand, they should try passing a bowling ball through their ass.

Perhaps as A) I am not a woman, and B) My wife and I do not have kids, I am ill prepared to comment on this. However, it does pose an interesting question: Do women (and by in turn, couples) who chose to bear this many children face the same kind of stignma as couples that chose to have no children? I ask this as, for a great while, we would face a certain degree of scrutiny, my wife and I, over the fact that we made a conscious, well thought out decision not to have kids.

I would suspect that the same kind of decision making goes in the opposite way, with folks like Mrs. Duggar. At least I think it would. Reading the article however, I am not quite sure. There is a sense of them playing "roulette" in a way.

"She and her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, said they'll keep having children as long as God wills it."

I wonder when the time comes to stop wondering what God wills, and to start exercising that free will that we were supposedly endowed with. I don't fault them, or chastise them for their belief in God. I do wonder if they take into account the physical toll all this is having on her.

In the end I suppose it all comes down to their own personal choice, just as it was our own personal choice. I just wish how people would stop saying how life and marriage is not as fulfilled without having kids. We still hear that from time-to-time. Life and marriage is what you make of it, kids or no kids.

Then again, my wife is just happy she can keep the plants alive...........

In through the out door........

Today is the day for my yearly trip to the GI clinic where I get my innermost innards scoped, cleaned, and given a good once over. One of the other things that afflicted me in addition to the liver disease was a case of ulcerative colitis, requiring a yearly visit to have my pipes inspected.

Anyone that has ever been through this knows that the procedure itself is not bad, especially with the fun sedation that they give you. It is the best legal high I have ever had, especially as they give you Fentanyl as part of the cocktail. I first encountered this wonder of modern medicine while in the ICU after my transplant. Simply put, you can get hit by a truck while on this stuff and just not care.

The not so fun part is that you have to practically starve yourself the day prior, save for stuff like broth, tea, etc. You also clean yourself out......thoroughly. This involves something akin to flushing a car radiator. You drink this concoction that winds its way through you, causing a war inside your large intestine, resulting in multiple trips to the porcelain god.

I always prepare well for this by having large stacks of reading material in the john at the ready.

So, please think good thoughts for me as I go off to be given the yearly seal of approval......and what I wouldn't give for a corned beef on rye about now........

Creature feature.....

(Today's scribbling has been inspired by the ever so loverly Anna Pickard, (no relation to Jean-Luc) who recently played Pied Piper on the streets of Boston.)

Growing up in the Bronx, (pardon, da Bronx) the idea of "wildlife" usually takes on a vastly different idea than if one grows up in the country. A pigeon becomes a city boy's idea of a falcon, while squirrels and rats will often be big enough to challenge you to squatter's rights upon the ground which you might be standing. Of course, they have a serious attitude problem, and on more than one occasion, I could have sworn I saw some of them scurrying about with a Mohawk, mouthing the words, "You tawkin' to me?"

Pigeons, on the other hand, are simply rats with wings.......

So, it will come as no surprise that it took some adjusting on my part after moving here to the wilds of upstate NY, (yes, the real upstate, unlike most NYC folk who think that as soon as you step across the Bronx line, you are in upstate) to get acclimated to the far greater variety of fauna that populate these parts. Up here, I have been privy to animals that heretofore were simply pictures in a tourist pamphlet, or a page of National Geographic. (Yes, the same issue that would make you go blind, with naked pygmies on it......)

My first experience with what I only could describe at the time as a "rat on steroids," was not long after moving here in 1999.

The apartment we were renting had a laundry room at ground level, so one fine day I take my load of laundry to perform my spousal obligation, lest I feel the sting of the lash. There was a window that faced out into the courtyard of the apartment complex, and whilst I was loading my wife's unmentionables into the washer, something in the window caught my attention. I turned to my left, and saw something that, quite simply put, made me feel as though I stepped into the Fire Swamp. This was indeed a Rodent Of Unusual Size.

Struggling to keep my eyeballs from popping out of my head like a Warner Brothers Merrie Melody cartoon, I immediately looked for something with which to defend myself against this vile creature, though admittedly, I was fascinated by it. It was, to my estimation, the biggest rat I had ever seen.

The creature just looked at me, sniffed the air, and then ambled away. I was still standing there, terrified at the apparition from hell that I just witnessed, thanking the Buddha, Allah, Gilgamesh, Baal, and whatever appropriate deity I could call upon for saving me from what would surely have been a fate worse than death. Feeling my legs again, I ambled upstairs to the apartment. My wife saw the pasty look on my face, and with the caring, loving display of emotion she is famous for, inquired sweetly; "You did put fabric softener in, didn't you?"

All I could muster was a stuttering, drooling response. "Rat.....big.......really big......."

I was able to provide a description of the creature, hoping to regale her with a proud display of my manly bravery in driving off the beast. Her response was brief, and to the point. "That was no rat." she intoned. " That was a woodchuck."

"A what?" I said. (No clue what it was.)

"A woodchuck. You know, a groundhog."

"Wait," I said 'You mean those things that see their own shadow and forecast the seasons at the beginning of February?"

"Yep, same things." she said. (Unlike me, my wife did grow up in the wilds of upstate, and was infinitely more familiar with these woodland creatures.)

It was then and there that I knew I was no longer in Kansas. Well, or at least not the Grand Concourse.

This was the first of many a new experience in creature features. Not long before we moved to our house, I spotted a fox in the same courtyard, this time from the safety of our apartment window. I knew it was a fox, as I looked it up in the Boy Scout field manual I stole from the neighbor's kid. He didn't need it. The little bastard grew up here. He should know what a fox looks like anyway.........

My backyard now abounds with woodchuck, and as I came to find out, they are actually the largest member of the squirrel family. They like to dig holes. Big holes. In my backyard.

Oh, and looking at them headfirst, they also look as though they are saying, "You tawkin to me?"

Nice to know there are constants in the universe.

Burn baby, burn

“We don’t do that! It’s a sin!”

If there is ever a sure fire way to piss off your mother, just bring up the topic of religion, or rather one’s own lack of it. (As in mine.) Of course, if you really want to get her knickers in a twist, (Is it even proper to say that about one’s mother?) try telling her that you are going to do something upon your death that goes completely against your religious upbringing, and hers for that matter.

My mother is not the most religious individual in the world either, but she does have a belief in God, and I do respect it. When it comes to the concept of cultural Judaism, well, that runs very deep in her. So, some time ago we stumbled on to the subject of burial customs, as in what to do with our bodies when the mortal coil has shuffled off to Buffalo. I think the only reason we were discussing it in the first place was because I had been hounding her about making some badly needed, long delayed changes in her will. Aside from the fact that if anything happened to her I would be doomed to living with an Aunt I am less than fond of, there are no provisions in it for what she wants to have gifted to her granddaughter. (my niece.) Besides, at my age I think going to live with my Aunt is not something she (meaning my Aunt) would want either.

As an offshoot of this conversation on probate, the subject of funerals came up, and I stupidly informed her that I did not plan to be buried in the ground, as is mandated by Jewish law, but that I plan on being cremated. It is a personal choice on my part, and one that reflects my own personal belief that I do not want anyone coming to my grave, year after year, (also a Jewish custom) and feeling depressed. I would rather that people have a big party, scatter my ashes over a yet to be determined place, and then remember me without the need to come to a depressing place.

Needless to say this did not sit well with her.

She knows full well that I am, in the strictest definition of the word, an atheist, though I do have a spiritual side. I just don’t believe in a personal God in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word. I would take it a step further; I do not believe in the idea that one is born Jewish, or born into any religion, for that matter. One might be raised in the tradition of one’s parent’s religious beliefs, but to me, the idea that parentage determines a child’s religious nature is ridiculous. In Jewish tradition, if the mother is Jewish, so is the child, no matter what religion (or lack thereof) the father is.

This has been a sore point of discussion over the last year or so, and it is something we generally avoid talking about. It got brought up again today, as she finally made these long overdue changes to the will, and she needed to tell me what was done, and whose responsibilities are whose, with regards to my brother and me. During the course of the conversation, funerals and burials came up again, and this time the cremation conversation really heated up a notch. I finally had to make it clear that as this was my body, I will decide what will, and will not be done to it upon my death. She finally realized that this was a fruitless discussion, and fell back on her safety net of “Well, I’ll probably be dead long before you anyway.”

I don’t expect her to understand, and I hope that it never comes to the point that she would need to actually see it happen, but my wife knows full well what my wishes are. At the end of the day, I know she will fulfill them, and I take comfort in that.

My only hope is that the urn doesn’t get spilled, and I avoid being Hoovered…………

Juxtaposition........

The father stood up and spoke to the college health class about his son. He told them how he was a child born later in his marriage, how when the boy was starting kindergarten, the eldest child was starting college, on the same day no less. He spoke at times with his voice nearly breaking, of how his son had been a curious child, always getting into things and running off. He recounted the story of how the boy had wandered off after mom turned away from him for 30 seconds. The whole neighborhood was out in force looking for this missing child. He was found after a short search, asleep in a cardboard box in their garage. He just crawled into it and took a nap.

As the boy got older, he became more involved in sports, with soccer and basketball being his favorite. His father spoke with a glean in his eye about how the boy was not one to take the glory, although he had the talent to do so. In soccer, he was the one who passed the ball to the one who would eventually score. The same held true for basketball. Dad recounted the story of how in one basketball game, the boy kept passing the ball to another kid who kept missing lay-ups, even though he himself could have easily scored. It was an example of the kind of giving person he was on and off the court.

The boy had his wild side too, which made its appearance at puberty. Not all that unusual. He started hanging around with other boys that did not necessarily make the best choices. Dad caught him smoking weed on one occasion. Underage drinking reared its head. His son then made a choice that would cost him his life. He chose to get into a car with a drunk friend, drive down a stretch of road at 70 mph, and they hit a curve that would hit them back. The boy was dealt a severe blow to the head from a stereo speaker, and ended up with a skull fracture, in the ICU and on a ventilator.

It was every parent's nightmare, to see your child helpless on a hospital bed, multiple tubes in just about every body orifice, machines keeping him alive. His head was swollen as a balloon is from the devastating injury. Mom is a nurse, with too much knowledge. She knows what is happening, and is powerless to do anything about it. Knowledge may be power, but in this case it was merely overpowering.

It may have been a parental instinct, it may have been from the mother's long years of experience in nursing, it may have been both, but they both knew that they were not going to get their son back. The injury was far too devastating. They approached the ICU neurologist, and told them that if they were not able to save him that they wanted to donate his organs. The doctor was a bit stunned. "Wait a minute," he stopped them. "We need to think about getting him through this." he said. They reassured him that they indeed wanted him to do everything possible, but that they wanted to make it clear that if all failed, they wanted his organs donated.

It would not be long before the boy was declared brain dead. The call was made to the organ procurement organization, the agency that determines whether or not brain dead individuals are suitable candidates for organ donation. (They work with the organ transplant teams - doctors taking care of the patient do NOT make that determination!)

I was sitting on the side of the classroom listening to this story. I had accompanied the father as an organ recipient to tell of my experience to this class. My own experience happened 3 years prior to his. As I was listening, the bells, lights and whistles started exploding in my head. Why was this story familiar? I never met this man before, but I could not shake the feeling that I knew his son. Once he told the class when the accident was, only then did things fall into place.

I was one of the two organ procurement coordinators that worked on his son' s case. I was in the operating room, working the placement of his organs, and my partner at the time was working in the ICU, and evaluating his case. This was my first job here in Rochester, as an organ procurement coordinator. I did that for a year.

I am a rarity; a transplant recipient that has seen both sides of the coin. It is a bit like being the President of the Hair Club for men; I'm the president and a client. There are not too many of us around.

When his story slipped into place for me, and after he had finished speaking, I got up to address the class. At the right moment, I stopped, and told him that I think I was the other coordinator on his son's case. We both were kinda stunned for a minute, but we exchanged thanks, and I continued on.

I thought of my own donor, a 17 year-old boy that was shot to death in the same Brooklyn neighborhood that I worked in for so many years. I have never been contacted by his family, though I have written letters. This is of course, that family's choice. It can be a little disheartening at times.

As I was listening to this father's story, it made me hope that the father, mother, or whoever cared for that 17 year-old child was passing on their story, somewhere.