Seen this weekend near our beach house. One might suppose this fella was frolicking (do Jellyfish frolic?) a bit too long in the surf, joyriding onto the rocks and back into water, over and over again — Whee! — blissfully unaware of the looming tide change. He wasn’t alone; we saw dozens more scattered about the beach. Bad genes? I doubt that explanation. Given the prolific nature of Jellyfish reproduction there are certainly thousands more genetically identical to this guy who were not so careless.

Did you know some species of Jellyfish reproduce asexually? In others, sexual reproduction occurs when the males ejaculate into the water and the sperm swim into the mouths of the female (no snickering guys) in search of her eggs.

Mystery picture, also taken during Thanksgiving at the beach house. And no, the rings of Saturn is incorrect.

 

Norton Malbec Reserva — 2009

winemaker’s notes:Deep red color with hints of purple. Expressive on the nose with notes of ripe black fruits, violets, and tobacco. This wine has round and sweet tannins, ripe red fruit and figs followed by a long finish.

I agree. Yummy. $13.99/bottle @ Costco.

I knew I was in California when…

 Bigger.

… leaving my hotel room one bright, sunny morning to walk to Starbucks and then to the conference, I passed by some California girls who were, well, just sorta hangin’.

During the week I was in Redwood City I must’ve walked over twelve miles. When I attend conferences, if I don’t stay in a room at the conference venue I like to stay about a mile or so away so I can walk to and from each day. This past week was perfect, I stayed in a mid-line hotel about 0.8 miles from the conference, with a Starbucks located conveniently in between. Every morning was clear, sunny, and windless; perfect for a walk along a serpentine path lined with pines and the occasional eucalyptus tree. Twice for dinner I walked to the nearby city of San Carlos, about 2 miles each way, ending up on Laurel street which is packed with restaurants, bars, and shops. No evidence of a bad economy here — the bars and restaurants were filled with well quaffed patrons buzzing about this and that, blissfully unaware, it seemed to me, of any looming fiscal cliff.

My last day there I connected with my friend Kevin. He’s gainfully employed as a scientist with Big (more like Medium) Pharma. We went for a nice 30-miler starting at his house, through the Stanford campus, out to the Portola Valley, back through Stanford, a stop at Philz Coffee, where they make it one cup at a time, a loop around Googleplex and then back to his house. I rode my old Merlin which now belongs to Kevin. It felt good to be in the company of friends.

A little shout out to the cute Stanford coed who took our picture.

Bigger.

In the dead of winter in Alaska, when I close my eyes and imagine road biking in California, this is what I envision. Kevin leads the way.

Just me, or is there not something decidedly amusing about the title of Broadwell’s book:

So Philip Roth is done writing books. Finished. Outta here. While I have yet to have my first short story published.

It’s like getting out of the water and transitioning to the bike when suddenly you hear, over the loudspeaker, the names of the top finishers of the triathlon.

In a day after lament Lileks opines:

[…] I thought about a friend who’s pro-small business, pro-military, pro-religious freedom – of course! This is America! – and she will vote for Obama. She believes that the state should take more property from people who die with X amount of money in the bank and give it to other people, and while she’s not exactly sure about what X should be, this is necessary because of Fairness.

That does seem to be the dominant idea in the land these days, no? The State shall have the power to do X if the objective is Fairness. The details – and the actual result – are less important. If you believe the State should do these things, why, it stands to reason that it can, and and hence any limitation of the powers of the State is a mulish obstruction of a better world.

Good people do not vote against such things.

Later in the piece Mr. Lileks nicely captures the core of my lament:

But. I see the world through skewed eyes, I know. It strikes me from time to time that this is an exceptional nation, as flawed as any human endeavor, but unique in human history: a society whose foundational concepts are not rooted in blood or clan, or impossibly airy proclamations of transnational brotherhood and human rights granted by, and subject to revision by, a council of our betters who regard the governance of man as a blade that scrapes everyone level. Rather, we were devoted to something rare in human history: liberty. (I use the past tense because the word’s been replaced by Freedom, which has come to mean The Fun Things, and also means freedom from being judged for any reason.)

I disagree only insofar as I believe Fairness has replaced Liberty in this country. It has become the highest virtue according to those who would turn up their noses at the quixotic few who still cling to their silly notions of idealism, such as “Liberty.” We should, these nose-turners insist, cast our favor instead toward the directives of Fairness dictated by the State. You want to ask these people, “Now who’s being quixotic?”

It is tempting to think a Romney presidency might have championed the goals of the quixotic few, those of us like Mr. Lileks who see the world through “skewed” eyes,  but I really don’t think it would have. Knowing there was never really a choice is truly something to lament about.

At a site devoted to the discussion of kidney stones (because you can find everything on the Internet), I came across the following remedy (for men) to hurry the passage of a kidney stone.

Drink at least one liter of water as rapidly as possible. Then drink a beer (strong diuretic). Resist peeing until you can’t anymore. Then go to the bathroom and lightly squeeze the tip of the penis to prevent going right away, allowing pressure to build in the urethra. Then release.

Worked like a charm! Pen point shown for scale. Kinda roundish and brown with a gnarly tooth-like projection in the center.

Whew.

Bigger (if you dare).

Last night I experienced something on the grand distribution of highly unlikely things. Like getting mauled by a polar bear and a regular bear in the same day.

Recall I left the doctor’s office yesterday morning reassured that the likely cause of my right quadrant pain was a torn oblique, or related musculature. I was relieved, even cheery. So later when I picked up the Happy Wife from work we stopped at one of our favorite watering holes to discuss the events of our day over a glass or three of wine. So far so good.

At home things changed. I’m standing by the kitchen sink after having playfully lifted the Happy Wife off the ground, then setting her down again, when all of a sudden I experience this wicked discomfort in my lower left quadrant. This time visceral, not muscular. Unrelated to lifting. Now what? Discomfort quickly transmogrifies into pain, maybe five on a scale of ten. Followed shortly by six, then seven, rapidly segueing to a buckled-over-on-all-fours eight.

Off to the ER, where there’s a line, but not a long one. Happy Wife champions my cause and suggests to the admitting nurse she perform triage — by now I’m expressing the kind of pain I’m told women experience during childbirth, ninety-nine on a scale of ten. On to a rolly bed I went, variably mumbling and screeching nonsense.

Have you guessed yet?

Then came the morphine. Ooooh the moorfeeen. At last I’ve found you! My nonsense increased measurably, I went logarithmic.

In the CT room I was asked again what my name and DOB was. “Surely you know by now,” I think I said, “this is the sixth time I’ve been asked that tonight!” Sir, your name and DOB please.

Drumbeat….

Yup, 3mm stone in my kidney. Right at the base of the ureter. Permission to enter bladder sir? Yes, pleaz. And more morphine please! Six milligrams in the IV and I’m back in the clouds, a most lovely place. A short nap, after midnight now, and when I awake I’m pain free. Out of the woods? So it seemed. Discharged and off to the all night Walgreens for take home drugs we went.

I figure the stone is still in my bladder today, as the pain comes and goes, but Percocet is a wonderful thing.

And now I pee into a strainer, like panning for gold.

Mom, do you see now why we asked for a chain saw for Christmas? The view (again) from the porch of what we hope will be our new getaway by week end. A little buzz buzz here, a zip zip there, and maybe we can transform the porch view into the beach view…

… if not for that pesky out building (the neighbor’s) we might. Oh well, as I always say, let not the perfect be the enemy of the pretty darn good.

I’ve been pestered by an upper right quadrant pain this past week. When I first mentioned this to the Happy Wife she went ashen in the face. Don’t misunderstand, as an advanced practitioner with years of experience delivering evidenced based health care to fortunate patients, she nevertheless tilts toward the zebra diagnosis where her husband is concerned. No honey, I tried to reassure her, I don’t think this is the symptom of late stage liver cancer. And yet, some nights she was haunted by nightmares, a chimera loping across an African Plain, a zebra with the head of a man. My head!

Sure enough, as the week passed the pain became more like a mild discomfort, and I became convinced it was caused by a minor tear in my oblique muscle, which happened, I’m quite certain, during a bout of playful wrestling with Happy Wife one carefree Sunday morning in bed. Still, it was a puzzling discomfort I’d not experienced before, so I kept the doctor’s appointment today. After her physical exam of my abdomen she agreed this was not a zebra. If new symptoms appear, the pain worsens, or eating fatty food causes acute pain (gall stone for sure), please call me right away she said.

I am off to a conference next week in San Francisco. Blogging will be light, if at all. Now now, don’t get all weepy, I’ll be back, promise.

My 6,128 Favorite Books — That’s a lot of reading, Mr. Queenan.

Personal effort thus far this year:

On Writing: A Memoir of Craft —  Stephen King
Outliers — Malcolm Gladwell
Of Human Bondage — Somerset Maugham (current)
Generosity — Richard Powers
Freedom — Jonathan Franzen
Talk Talk — T.C. Boyle
All The Pretty Horses — Cormac McCarthy
State of Wonder — Ann Patchett
Countless short stories, essays, poems, and assorted letters from the Internet’s vast oeuvre.