Mid-September news

Monday is the one-year anniversary (by days of the week) of that fateful Heine Brothers family meeting in which Vincent and his friend negotiated the terms of his return to our house. That was also Day 1 of the aftermath of Ike - at its start part of the first of five days during which we were out of electricity and mainly had no school (but I had work), Ike having arrived at mid-day Sunday.

Good and bad work news for me: Turned a piece I'd been trying to write for something else - working with our PR and press people - into a press release that Presbyterian News Service put out this evening - and that the "Church Executive" Web site had already picked up this evening - http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/pressreleases/gamc09033.htm

On the other hand, our manager announced today that the whole building is shifting a little towards billable hours - meaning, we have to keep track of how much time we're spending on various projects - which ultimately means I'll have to spend even less time on things like personal and family business and various extracurricular activities (Toastmasters, church, mid-Kentucky presbytery multicultural ministries team), and . . .

As one might expect, Vincent having a job and a bank account with a check book and paying for some of his own stuff has suddenly made him a penny-pincher. I notice he quit buying big sodas as part of his lunch when he was paying for his own lunch at the mall. It took a lot to persuade him to go to the doctor's for his cold - finally, on Saturday - because - thanks to him smoking - we said he had to pay his own doctor co-payments (including the $150 co-pay when he went to the ER after the knife incident). Taking responsibility also means sometimes not making wise choices. He and I went to say the live-action version of the Japanese manga Death Note II last night at the only time available: 9:30 p.m. - and got out at 12 midnight. I managed to get out of bed and walk the dog and get to work close to on-time. But he inadvertently slept him and was late to work for the first time. He had a kind of medical excuse and they've asked him to stay late periodically and it seems they like his work and so it seems like it was OK. A bird defecated on his pants on his way to work.

Stephanie got a clean bill of health from her mammogram and now has baseline information for future mammograms.

My Mother is still working with her insurance company, the pharmaceutical company, and her health care providers to get the anti-osteoporosis medication and get started on it (complicated, you'll recall - with daily self-administration by shot into her abdomen - plus transit of the medication to her is complicated). Wednesday - after trying other strategies - Mom heads to her first physical therapy appointment in almost a year (except going to a different place) - for her mobility, strength, agility, and balance - after getting a new test Tuesday on the genetic angioma on her liver that makes her more prone to internal bleeding (and blood clots?). Hopefully it is what they thought and not something worse and has not grown. Mom will continue to try to go to tai chi classes on Saturday morning and one or two weekday evenings, to do some short exercises at work, and to do short bursts of yard work or house work - hopefully without wearing down too much. Good luck with your appointments, Mom.

-- Perry

Fiesta Latina 2009

You might recall that at least twice a year we're in or around New Albany's St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, scene of one of Southern IN's few Latino Catholic ministries. In the spring we're there for mass with first communion for many of Stephanie's students. In the fall we're there for the Fiesta Latina - sometimes with Stephanie's colleagues and sometimes with our own church members. A year ago Saturday by days of the week Vincent had run away from home hours earlier and so he was not there. Stephanie has started having students not only graduate - by leaving intensive English as a new language instruction - but also going onto middle school. Above is a favorite student of Stephanie - Maria - who's done both. She's no longer in intensive ENL instruction, and she's in middle school now (she was in Stephanie's first class of students at Mt. Tabor elementary). Below is a 5th grade student whose work I'm told is improving. We like Benji - all the more so when he's doing his homework. He gave us some food suggestions. The scene was slightly different from usual - more tables - less space for dancing, maybe cooler weather, no Father Thomas in charge (instead he was taking pictures)- but lots of people and lots of food to choose from as usual - and good dancing!



Father Tom (below) - the priest to the ministry (and a parallel ministry in Louisville) - was still there of course - just not MC-ing.



Stephanie had gone out with her colleagues the night before - to Fourth Street Live - and none of them appeared - maybe still sleeping - but her principal and most of her family (more than usual were there) (not great picture). Susie hinted that she might have liked to have gone the previous evening.

Stephanie talked with another former student, Karen (below). She talked with some younger kids too (and a few parents).

Pictured below is one of the good dances - this one with little kids. Stephanie saw none of her students among any of the dancers.

Maria and her familiy - including her Mom - were selling fruit, corn, and tamales. We tried some of these. We tried to buy things we want and things most of her students' families were selling - although we missed some. The authentic Mexican tacos (very different from Taco Bell) were good. We checked in briefly twice with the extended family of Saul, who we visited after the May 2009 first communion. Below was the woman who helped persuade me to drink tequila back in May who sold me some sweet tamales and some pistachio pudding. I was a little shy about talking in Spanish with these folks we had talked with at great length in their houses in May.

Below was soem of the extended family - including Susanna, our hostess in May - and the playground where one of Susie's daughters eventually played with Benji.

These are two of the dancers we saw dancing - informally, with others - to the music of the Mexican band at World Fest last weekend.

The four-person dancing group danced as we left. Alas, we didn't get to talk with Susanna and Saul or see any of Stephanie's colleagues but Susie or see Stephanie's former colleague Annabell - here or at World Fest - with her husband and their new baby. Maybe next time.

-- Perry

Figure 8 racing

During the past week we've seen some publicity about a special event at the Sportsdrome speedway in Clarksville, IN, near the freeways we sometimes take to the mall, movie theater, or Target in Southern IN (and near another short freeway Stephanie takes to work). Weeks ago my co-worker Gail had mentioned she was interested in taking her son to the speedway. Somewhat like at the old Columbus (OH) motor speedway (and like the straightaway National Trails raceway where Stephanie used to race), cars race here all summer (essentially through baseball season). But this track is unusual - we learned - in that it has an optional Figure 8 part of the track. Many races involve cars racing around a short oval track. But other make use of the Figure 8 and go around the turns but also through the Figure 8 portion. This is much more dangerous and - as it turns out - entertaining but as cars become stragglers it's hard for them not to hit each other in the middle of the Figure 8. The special event Friday was not only eight school buses racing - but eight buses painted pink - with some of the proceeds going to fight breast cancer. Pictured above was the Speedrome speedway as I walked up from my camera. The image is kind of deceptive - it wasn't really that dark yet, at 7:20 (I missed the 7 p.m. race). The place was packed, with the corporate sponsors promoting the fund-raiser and people excited about the Figure 8 school bus races. Below is the black "pace bus" - with insignia from the Hooters restaurant chain, one of the corporate sponsors. At that point it was in the parking lot - later it was the real pace bus.

The place was packed - apparently even more so than usual - The food lines were terribly long - reminded me about what I'd heard about the beer lines at the first Churchill Downs night racing night. The souvenir and beer lines, ironically, were not too long. It looked like a third of the people had bought the cool black "Stop Cancer" and "Sportsdrome Blackout" on the back T-shirts (which raised more money). This was definitely a white working class crowd - that reminded me of the non-ESL families at Stephanie's school and of Hamas. Some of this Vincent would have loved when he was a kid. Lots of smokers (since it was basically all outdoors - although people smoked in the men's room with the one long latrine also - Clarksville has no smoking ban and it probably woudn't have been enforce here anyway). Except for the fact that it's private property: I wonder how I would have done trying to get pro-Obama health care reform signatures here. Pictured below are some Hooters staff members selling fund-raising raffle tickets.

I had gotten my colleague's cell phone number, but apparently written it down wrong (and got someone else twice - apparently in NYC - since she has a NYC cell phone number). So I looked for her and her son Tugi for a while. Meanwhile, the racing continued - conventional, stock-car oval racing - only there were a lot of wrecks - Lots of the cars were all beat up and there were lots of red and yellow flags. The announcer was omnipresent, and his trademark message when full-speed racing returned: "We go green! We go green! We go green!"

I was still hungry. There was a VIP area - corporate sponsors? where there was a wider selection of food and no lines, but it didn't look accessible. This was one side bleachers. There were two main sets of bleachers, one on each side.

With my poorly functioning camera and the sun starting to set, one can barely make out the racing cars below.

I was really missing the video feature on my lost camera, partly since much of the thrill of this is in the motion and the noise. The crowd loved the crashes - but not the clean-up wait in between crashes and full-speed racing resuming.

I took this picture below of the west bleachers while looking for Gail and Tugi. I was starting to lose faith that I would find them after I'd been through all of the bleachers two times.

But they yelled out at me - they were sitting in the front row of the east side bleachers. I crawled up there, taking a slightly better picture of the cars racing on my way up.

Even though I had not seen them on my own, Tugi did kind of stick out - He and I were the only Asians in the crowd of some 10,000? - there were a smatteirng of Latinos (any of Stephanie's ESL students?) and African Americans. He's also very outgoing. He appeared to bother an Anglo kid sitting behind us for an hour - talking, jabbing - until the kid finally relented and talked with him and let him sit next to him. He sat in Gail's lap part of the time before that. But still this wouldn't have been half as fun to watch without a family there to watch it with. Stephanie was out with her colleagues on a largely girls night out (partly - it turns out - at a bachelor's party with guys from Ohio!) evening at Fourth Street Live. I had dropped Vincent and Jessi off to see a movie at the Baxter Avenue movie theater. Otherwise, I might have persuaded one or more of them to go. Again, I still hadn't figured out how to get the flash on the camera not to work.

Enjoying the evening and the whole scene with Tugi and Gail was fun - although the whole scene was kind of incongruous - the only two Asians in this white working-class racing crowd with the woman who still has a NYC cell phone number.

The other folks behind us - perhaps after some beers - became impatieht with all of the crashes and long yellow and red (yes - they really came to a complete stop - though I couldn't always understand how the jockeying for places during yellow flags - or whatever color they were - was allowed) flags with no racing - and became rather profance in expressing their dipleasure. Still, none of the three of us could have predicted the thrill when the car Figure 8 racing began - with a really incredible driver who - after the first few of 30 laps - continually daringly threaded the needle so that he got way ahead (with just one other driver, car near him - conceptually - in actuality, they were always "lapping" other cars - so there were cars - and, sometimes, conventional crashes everywhere - amazingly, while I was there, there were no figure 8 crashes - but plenty of very close calls. From this YouTube video, it's clear that there are sometimes such crashes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9v8bYXqlGI

This more like what I saw - plus without the distracting music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbXbPr6D94

And, then, finally, the pink school buses emerged. There was a lot of excitment and hoopla - but I needed to go pick up Vincent from Jessie's - and - while it was cool - frankly, ti was a little anticlimatic because it was very hard to beat the cars Figure 8 racing and that daring lead driver. The buses did not go as fast, there were no wrecks of any kind while I was still there, and that daring driver's bus conked out after not very long. Clearly, there are sometimes wrecks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv8nqzqlZPs

I continued to watch some as I walked towards my car and headed out into the night, past Slugger Field where the Louisville Bats had just lost a Game 3 International League playoff game to the Durham Bulls, and ontowards the Highlands.

-- Perry

Deam Lake 2009

Last year Stephanie and I spent much of Labor Day weekend at Deam Lake in Southern Indiana helping - among others - Carlos and Nora cook - as our son engaged in his last church youth group activity before running away - and also stayed up late - when we weren't there - and then got sick - beginning his run of lots of excused absences at school before getting kicked out. This year I just drove kids there Saturday AM, hung out and helped out a little with lunch - before returning - unscheduled to pick kids up late Sunday afternoon. Vincent was originally scheduled to go this time - but Jessi got sick and Vincent ended up staying home. Mom's digital camera did better than usual - but with enthusiastic kids and natural environs it's not hard - remember all the kid pictures we got last year? - I'm still missing our regular digital camera, which I may hae to replace. Pictured above youth team member and parent Marcus and parent (like me - with her kid - Jessi - home instead of there - and now parent Carlos - before we embark from the Crescent Hill parking lot. Below Ana's friend Pam, Ana, and I think Emily's friend Erin await departure.


Below children's and youth ministries coordinators Ian and Kate - who camped with daugther Isabel, grandparent Marcia, and youth team member Mary Friday night to set up - greeted Debbie.

Luis, below, was one of the people who asked about Vincent.

Marcia was there to cook and care for granddaughter Isabel and to enjoy and contribute to the weekend.

Participants gathered, below, in a circle in the middle of the campsite.

I've got a block on the kid sitting to Luis' right. You'll recall the two of them and two other kids sitting on our Taurus in the penultimate picture from last year's Deam Lake photo array.

Marcus and Mary relaxed, below.

Ian cared for Isabel (now 15 months old - instead of 3 months old - like last year).

Marcus brought a game that resembled cornhole (below).

Isabel - below - slept through lunch.

The girls - below - served themselves lunch - which included cold cuts and great chicken salad - for sandwiches. I understand the meals got a little more adventurous as they went along - but I missed this - and unfortunately swimming in the lake (where some of Stephanie's students go with their families to swin during the summer).

Luis, Ana, and Pam took their turn washing dishes.

Shortly after lunch, I drove home, missing the swimming. But I got a call Sunday afternoon to come back. Kate and Ian had brought most of the tents and camping and cooking gear, and so it turns out they needed help. I drove Pam, Ana, and Jubilee back to church, where their parents awaited them. Maybe next year I'll get to swim.

-- Perry

World Fest 2009

On the way to our annual pilgrimage to World Fest - downtown Louisville's Labor Day weekend international event - we stopped at the "Fireside Gallery' at church for an openin gof paintings by Lalitha, a church member (left above). Ada (right) curated. Arriving at the festival some 20 minutes later - sans our friend Sarah - our out-of-town friend who usually goes with us - we immeidately ran into several friends, including Laura from church (below right) and a horse character who hung out with us for several minutes.

We also ran into Andrew from church - and - later - brother Stephen and Ada. Then Gail (below and below below) from work (with her kid, originally from Mongolia, somewhere else at the festival). Later we ran into someone who had volunteered for the Peace Corps in Mongolia. Stephanie has one Mongolian American student. Gail told us she's taking her kid to the speedway in Clarksville (IN) next weekend.

Although there was plenty of overlap across some places, there were a lot more places to get food around the festival than I had remembered before.

And the bands were great - a Mexican band with a great fiddler and a NYC Celtic rock band with a great fiddler. Below were a folk Anglican pastor couple whose adopted African American son danced with other (white, female) Irish dancers to a couple of the latter band's tunes.

Below you can almost make out the fiddler on the left.

And, below, the Irish dancers.

On our way back to the car we caught the last couple of minutes of a funk band too (including Ada from the gallery opening and spouse Stephen dancing) - three good bands, lots of people and lots of great food - Friday night - World Fest 2009 (sans Vincent - who later regretted he'd stayed home)

-- Perry

More news

Stephanie survived her first mammogram, Vincent got his second paycheck (and gave us only another $50), Larry sounded better to Stephanie (as his latest big landlord-tenant conflict recedes into the horizon post-settlement) and may come visit us for Thanksgiving, and Mom and I talked about November and December and various visit possibilities, some potentially involving other family members. I had a meeting late Wednesday with potential new Panel clients and a meeting Thursday morning with a man from church who is also a top manager at work and is a client (see “Shifting Assignments”) which went not great, but OK.

-- Perry

Another town hall

Once again I got to a town hall public meeting on health care reform when it was about to start and wound up in the overflow area – this one inside with Congressperson Yarmuth (D-Lousiville) and a local radio personality helping MC – at Central High School – about six blocks into the predominantly working-class, majority African American West Side. Because of my Florida driver’s license, I’m not sure I would have been able to get into the auditorium anyway.

There were more people here, but the crowd – even with plenty of opponents, including a bus – was more heavily tilted toward pro-health care reform people, including plenty of single-payer people. Yarmuth said he’s a co-sponsor of the singler-payer bill but he seems prepared to vote for whatever comes out although he said we’d probably someday wind up with single-payer. Yarmuth started out by setting out a range of health insurance reform regulations – no pre-existing condition exclusions, no lifetime caps, no kicking people off insurance for getting sick, portability – that, when he asked, most people there agreed with.

I couldn’t see Congressperson Baron Hill Monday – and I could see Yarmuth on the big screen – and I’m not sure how Yarmuth would have done with a more hostile crowd – but Yarmuth was a little more goofy, smiling nervously, and – noticeable on the big screen – moving around a lot. He raised some more complicated issues than Hill perhaps, and we had 1 ½ hours and so the questioners had more time to raise complex issues. Eventually he showed one concerned person that what they were complaining about in the proposal was a consequence of the reglations most people had agreed to (which suggested how radical some of them were). People brought up abortion, end-of-life decisions, and of course the budget deficit, the constitutuion, and government power. Many seemed skeptical about Keynesian countercyclical policies, though he tried to explain them. I was proud of both Hill and Yarmuth, who – before at least mixed crowds – sticking to their guns. They both laid out principles they were seeking and Yarmuth – when asked – said although he is a single-payer supporter – said he was not doctrinaire and would listen to suggestions from anyone. Like Hill, in response to a question about tort reform, Yarmuth said some of these Indiana-style lawsuit merit review boards were in the bill, but Yarmuth went into more detail, saying there were grants in there to encourage states to adopt these. He also conceded that – with all of the existing law the 1,000-page bill amends – you’d really have to read something like 10,000 pages to take it all in.

Health care reform advocates had gathered as early as 4 p.m. and were to have a vigil afterwards at 8 p.m. I got there just before the meeting was to start – at about 6:30 p.m. – and – after some delay – got waved into the overflow area without the heavy airport-style security (and ID-ing) that those going into the main auditorium went through. I saw Carloa and Jamie from church and a few others I recognized – though not the Organizing for America organizer whom I had met Saturday and not come back to make calls for Sunday. On the way there I called Bruce’s voice-mail to say I would not make it to canvassing Thursday – three nights out in a row, with two of them to health care – plus I don’t feel great. In my e-mail Wednesday night was a notice that national GOP chief Michael Steele was to be speaking Thursday AM in Floyds Knobs, IN, against health care reform, but I won’t make it to that. I saw the same ex-WLKY reporter, now with Fox, there was who was there Monday night in New Albany. Yarmuth pointed to President Obama’s speech to Congress – next Wednesday night – just scheduled today – as an important event in which the president may finally say more specifically what he wants, including possibly accepting state coops instead of a national public option (though Yarmuth hinted such a coop would have trouble developing in Kentucky with the sickest population and with a wide swath of rural areas without enough doctors and nurses). We’ll see what happens then and see if I volunteer or go to any more events before then.

-- Perry