First Monday with Characters

Painting by
Susan C. Price
[Click to enlarge]

Edited by Morris Dean

André Duvall almost ABD
    André is in a doctoral program in music at UNC Greensboro. "ABD" stands for the limbo a doctoral student is in when he has done "all but dissertation."

I felt quite overwhelmed one week recently, since I was preparing to take, and then did take, my doctoral comprehensive exams. For three days, I wrote for 7-8 hours each day in an isolation booth, cancelling all of my classes/teaching duties; the two weeks leading up to those exams involves quite a large amount of studying, followed by a lot of catching up just this last week, after the exams were over. I feel I did well on them; it will be a couple of weeks before I hear the results from my committee. Glad to have that behind me!

James Knudsen
on the other side of the lights
    Three of Fresno City College's eight performances of Jesse Lynch Williams's 1918 play directed by James Knudsen happened over the past three days. In an interview with The Fresno Bee, the director was asked, "Some plays don't stand the test of time. Why do you think Why Marry? still works today?" James replied:

Marriage is still front-page news. Divorce rates, same-sex marriage, the declining numbers of couples getting married are all things we're still discussing. The subject matter is still relevant. Some aspects, particularly the opportunities available to women, have seen tremendous change. But the main question, what makes a relationship valid—love or its legal standing—that's still with us.

Jack Cover faring well
    The excerpt below comes from Jack's full health status report coming in tomorrow's "Tuesday Voice" column:

My oncologist is happy. While I've had no CT scan recently, my blood tests continue to show that I continue tolerating my cancer medicine, Inlyta, in good shape. My doctor assures me that we have the tumors under control and will in the foreseeable future.
    A weekend ago we had a Kidney Cancer Conference at UNC. Doctors and nurses from UNC, Duke, and Levine Cancer Center in Charlotte made presentations. It was eye-opening. One of the things that had not really hit me is that on the medication I am on the doctor and the patient need to set goals: Is shrinking the tumors the main goal? Is having a better quality of life the main goal? Apparently it’s a trade-off. So it seems that the worse I feel from the medicine, the more the medicine is attacking the tumors. I am in the middle of cognitive dissonance on this one. If only it were as easy as Mae West’s rule: “Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I haven’t tried before.”

James T. Carney
in the Grand Canyon
    Yes, he descended yesterday and will spend all of today and tonight there! His friend Jack Cover comments:

As someone who has climbed out of the Grand Canyon, I can honestly say that you won't believe how tough it is. There are Anasazi ruins at the bottom.
    We camped/hiked the trail. My brilliant wife had us camp at Indian Springs, half way down. We took only a day pack to the bottom. The last day, we had to hike out with our packs. The weather was about as bad as I have ever seen and the hike was brutal. With the snow/sleet/rain, we were both soaked when we got out (Southern Rim). My brilliant wife bought us both sweatshirts and we were able to shed the bulk of our wet clothes.

motomynd back
from California's Central Coast

I had a fairly busy February with two funerals in the family, a niece who spent a month in intensive care and nearly died from an attack by flesh-eating bacteria, and a whirlwind long-weekend tour of California's Central Coast with my wife as we begin research for our planned move to the region. Due to needing a car to drive in funerals, I was unable to experiment with more motorcycle riding in ice or snow during my Virginia-North Carolina commute, but March still holds promise....

The Neumanns back on the boat

Last update we were in NOLA for the Super Bowl. We cannot say enough good things about that experience. NOLA is definitely open for business after Katrina and, despite the power outage, they know how to put on an event at the Superdome!!
    Since then we have had two great weekends on the boat, plus Matt had a third project weekend while Jennifer was on a business trip.

    We spent the three-day President's Day weekend anchored out on Mildred Island. Yes ON an island. The island is about fifteen feet under water. The levee broke in the early 80s and the owners of the land did not try to rebuild the levee but instead left it inundated.It is a good-sized body of water and there were two sailboats enjoying the wide open space for sailing—sailing on the delta can be challenging as most of the waterways are quite narrow. We also were buzzed by a sea plane, which landed not far from us and motored all around us.
    Our other weekend adventure was to take the boat about an hour up the Georgiana Slough to Ox Bow Marina, home base of our "delta" yacht club (we belong to two, one on San Francisco Bay and one in the Delta). Ox Bow Yacht Club was putting on a "safety day." We learned some good info on the club's procedures for docking and rafting up on cruises and we also got a courtesy vessel examination where an examiner checked that we meet all coast guard requirements and gave us a sticker to display to show that we passed.
    In March we are looking forward to spending a chunk of change to fill up our fuel tanks so we can keep having fun on the boat this year. We are also cruising with Ox Bow over to the San Joaquin Yacht Club on Bethel Island for St. Patrick's Day. My calendar already has at least one boat trip a month scheduled! We have a few more projects (of course, they never end), but we are looking forward to putting a lot of miles under the keel this year.

Sharon Stoner on dry land
    We asked Sharon whether the ship that got stranded in the Gulf of Mexico for several days in February was owned by same company that owned the ship she cruised on at the end of January:

Yes, same cruise line, Carnival. You may remember the ship that cruised too close to shore in the Mediterranean was also a Carnival ship. I am wondering why Carnival did not arrange for several generators to be sent to the ship in the Gulf, and/or personnel capable of repairs.
    Silly me. That would cost money and eat into their profits. I was planning a trip to California, visit Sequoia National Park, then cruise to Hawaii. Still going to California, but the cruise is out. Knowing that the stabilizers could not function, I would probably be quite seasick.
    Bottom line, no matter how you travel, you take a gamble on arriving unharmed. Life is a gamble!

Tom Lowe on the mend
    Like so many of us, Tom has been sick with a bad cold. It was only confirmed last week for me that my lungs seem to have cleared up.

Feeling a little stronger, enough to at least mangle a metaphor or two...And to process the photos from last weekend's cat sit.

Ralph Earle in verse

Language Lesson on Skype

Half an hour expressed in her language and
half in mine. She spent twenty years teaching
Spanish in Berlin; now it’s German
in Madrid. She improves every other phrase

in my contentious Castilian while I feed
her the occasional pronunciation like “exiting”
or “beneficiary.” Her paper coffee cup
approaches in the breaking-up, reassembling

bitstream like a drunken satellite.
The electronic window between my study
and her living room reveals her short hair,
black glasses, and habit of touching her earlobe:

Isabella skyping Columbus as he
claims for her a new world.

Click to enjoy another performance

Geoffrey Dean
with the Pleven Philharmonic

February was a month of extensive writing by my standards. One of the deadlines I didn't meet was given to me as "February 30, 2013," and I felt somehow empowered to interpret it as liberally as my current level of busyness and procrastination dictated.
    I was also able to keep up my cello-playing form, and on the "real" last day of February I performed the Beethoven Triple Concerto with two excellent musicians from France (V. Choykova and E. Cassak) and the Pleven Philharmonic conducted by Maestro Tsanko Delibozov.

Chuck Smythe
with the Bach Festival

Nothing much to report. I am starting into a week of daily rehearsals and performances with the Bach Festival. Hence no time to write, little time to visit—no work on the second China piece. And a friend is in town with his wife, who we are probably seeing for the last time. Brain cancer.
    I hope to be more available next week. In the meantime, I quickly grabbed a pretty picture. “Sunset at Lefthand Canyon, Colorado,” photo by myself.

Dr. Jean Ramses Rouchon
available for work in public health

So far I still have not found a position. I keep looking for an opportunity, especially for something in Baltimore or the District of Columbia.

We interviewed Dr. Rouchon on November 14. If you know of a suitable position in Baltimore or D.C., please let us know.

Jonathan Price back from Barbados
    Shortly after I emailed Jon where he was with his sister's interview of him, so I could publish it and not have to write another sestina, his sister, whom I'd cc'd, replied: "Jon left for Barbados on 2/17, he should be home next weekend."

Barbados was great, perfect weather and very relaxed, not too much thinking. Enjoyed reading Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon, got back into Atlas Shrugged on the plane home...Well, I've been working on the interview and u will get it....

Ed Rogers on the runaround in Costa Rica

Let me start off by saying: Costa Rica is a wonderful place to live and I could not think of any other place I would want to be. As we age, I believe we come to know that everything has a price; with a little good there must be a little bad.
    When I first came to Costa Rica, non-citizens had 90 days or until their visa expired to get a Costa Rica drivers license or they would have to take a driving test (in Spanish). Then the law changed. A lot of people came to Cost Rica as tourists and just stayed. They make what is known as border runs every 90 days to renew their visa. In an attempt to stop these people from getting a drivers license, the new law required a person who applied for the license to have their visa expired. The gray area was what about those of us who were ‘residente’?
    I had many discussions on forums with other expats about getting a drivers license. However, I am not sure, at that time, whether there was anyone who had gone through the hell who came back with anything but a lack of information.
    Once my visa ran out, if I drove on my US drivers license after that date, I would be driving illegally. So I asked around but could find no one who believed I would have to show my passport, because I had my cedula (resident ID). With this ID I’m not required to carry my passport at all times.
    On Wednesday, February 27, I headed out to San Jose, from San Ramon, with what I thought was everything I needed, and just in case, I also brought my passport. First off, there is no longer a blood test, which Costa Rica had demanded in order to place your blood type on the license; but the price has not gone down. The guy asked four questions and had me read a line on the eye-chart, which if you could not read it you would be legally blind. The cost of the test and stamp came to $36.00. It took less than five minutes. I then went back into the compound and had three copies made of everything, which cost $5.00. Armed with what I thought was all the paperwork I would need to get my license, I headed back to the building with the long line out front and was told I needed to go speak to the guard, who would send me upstairs to have my papers and US license verified. Then that person would tell me how much it was going to cost. Knowing the amount due, I would then go to the bank (once more outside of the compound) and pay for my license. After that I could come back and stand in the line with the other people waiting to go inside, to sit in chairs and wait some more.
    I would have been happy to have reached that point. I spoke with the guard at the front door, who informed me that the person who handled, variation of US licenses was only there from 8 till 11 a.m.—it was 11:30. He handed me a piece of paper (in Spanish), which a friend read for me. It seems I would also need four blank pages with the government heading on them and five stamps. (All government documents have to carry a tax stamp. I had checked the website before going to San Jose; it did not speak of any of these things.) The paper the guard gave us said nothing about needing a passport, but the website had said nothing about the four papers and stamps. So before we left my friend asked the guard if I had to have my passport or would my cedula be all I would need. The guard said if I was a resident, I would not need my passport. This is what I had thought all along—nothing else made sense.
    Not all that happy, we drove back to San Ramon with plans to come early the next morning and be done with it.
    At 9:00 a.m. the next day, we were standing in front of the desk, but now, there was a different guard at the door. This one asked to see my passport, which I had brought, just in case. After going through each page, he handed it back and said “you have to come back tomorrow.”
    At which point my friend went a little nuts—they were speaking in Spanish, so I could only guess at what was being said. I was happy to get out of there without going to jail. It seems my visa, he said, would be up the next day and until it was up, no license.
    I had been told that laws can change, depending on the official, but this was my first experience. Not a pleasant one!
    I could go on and on about how stupid this law is—however, it’s their bat and ball, so they get to make the rules. After I got home and cooled down, it dawned on me that the guard was wrong; my visa would not be up until midnight of the 1st of March, and I’m sure whether, if I had showed up on the 1st, I would have been sent away once more. So I’ll be going back Monday. If you never hear from me again, it will because they tell me that they can’t give me a license because my visa has expired.
    Pura Vida?????

Allen Crowder defending King of Jacksonville
    This morning at the fitness center I use, I noticed that Allen's championship belt from the last King of Jacksonville MMA fight (on January 19) is on display in a glass case near the entrance. How had I missed it! Behind the belt is a photo of Allen and his father—looks to have been taken in the fitness center.
    A mutual friend at the center told me that Allen will be fighting in Jacksonville on March 16 to defend his title. (mixedmartialarts.com confirms it.)
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Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean

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