It’s been almost a year since I’ve been more than a mile or two away from my car. This week I fixed that. Brendan, Chris and I parked at the Chisos Basin and hiked for 40 miles over hill and dale and through the desert and four days later we clambered up on to Regan’s front porch in Terlingua Ghost Town where his son handed us cold beers. Best Miller Lites ever. There were plants and birds and rocks and things. And the sky with no clouds. The heat was hot and the ground was dry. But the air was full of sound.
I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name It felt good to be out of the rain
Alas I was walking through the desert with a couple of musicians and there was whiskey involved.
On the long drive back to Austin, I spotted a sign outside a real estate development near Alpine. “We sell tranquility by the acre”. If you want it by the hundreds of square miles instead, head for Big Bend. It was a great trip and a lot of fun. And thank you to the Reeds for putting up with us and putting us up. And for the stuffed jalapenos and balls. And thank you to the virus for the negative rapid test on Monday morning.
My fellow hikers were discussing that it was a bit discombobulating to be away from their families after having spent the last 12 months within spitting distance of one another. As I dropped them off, their wives and kids ran out of their homes and there was much kissing and hugging and a general appreciation for having returned home alive. I dryly note that my family didn’t get off the couch when I got home. Literally. Ouiser was beside herself but that was it. I am definitely going to talk up the dangers of whatever I do next in the hopes of getting a warmer reception. Mountain lions. Bears. Starvation. Death by dehydration. Lost in the desert. I’ll report back how that works out for me.
Ouiser had friends. About 20 other neighborhood dogs. Some of them were named Fargo, Quigley, Daisy, Boss, Birdie, Jessie, Rex, Kody, Daphne, Oliver, Loui, Nala, and Scoop. The dogs met and played and socialized at school. Human children went to the same school during the day. But that was okay because Ouiser and her friends only came to school after the human school kids finished their school day. The best part of this school was that it was fenced which meant that neither the human children nor the dog parents could get lost.
The dogs ran around, chased each other, smelled their private parts, tried to pee on each other’s pee, ran after tennis balls, and occasionally humped each other – just another day at school. When they pooped their parents ran up and collected their feces in colorful doggie poop bags decorated with paw prints and dropped off the bags in the garbage bins. Parents used the school hose to fill a big five gallon plastic bucket with water that the dogs drank from when they got thirsty chasing each other. Ouiser loved going to school. She’d get ready and wait at the front door, pawing the door to remind Vivian that it was time. Vivian and her friends met on the street outside with their dogs and walked them all to the school every evening. After school Ouiser came back home tired but with a huge grin on her face. She ate dinner and then passed out on her bed with an enormous happy sigh. Good times.
Then one day human parents whose kids played on the swings on the other side of Ouiser’s school complained that Ouiser and her friends were running around without a leash. The school district sent their police who sheepishly told the dog parents that they needed to put their dogs on a leash. They sent the dog catcher from the city who looked even sheepisher and stayed outside on the street and spoke to the parents about taking their dogs to other city designated dog parks.
Now Ouiser doesn’t see her friends any more. But in a few years Vivian will be old enough to drive and then she and her friends can get together just like before with their dogs and drive just a few miles away to another neighborhood and Ouiser will be able to play with the dogs in a dog park there. Meanwhile, Ouiser thinks humans are fucking stupid. Not her parents, though.
We’re watching a cute impala fawn frolic on the savanna. A lioness leaps out from the long grass and grabs it by the throat. Blood splatters on the brown dry dirt as the children cringe. The grown-ups say “it’s the circle of life”, almost expecting the accompanying deep zulu notes from the Lion King to play in the background. The phrase has rightfully or otherwise become one of the Great Cliches.
In a very different way, our family experienced this last month. Ouiser turned one year old and that same day Tori died. Here’s Tori from over three years ago.
You never had to look for Tori or call her. She was always close to Carol’s feet. If you distilled loyalty and poured it into a living being, that was Tori.
When Ouiser first met Tori, one was a pup and the other a grande dame. Tori tolerated Ouiser. But till the very end Ouiser never stopped hoping that Tori would shrug off her slow stiff old dog walk and come run with her. That never happened. Tori grew stiffer and in the end lost use of her hind legs. So she dragged herself to stay close to Carol. Loyal to the very last breath.
Ouiser meanwhile celebrated her first birthday with a parade of toys that she joyfully destroyed. Young dogs and children are the quintessential snapshot of a family, holding back Father Time for an instant. She enjoyed all the extra attention she got, and wondered why she didn’t get as many treats or toys the day after her birthday. Two days later when we went to visit Carol, Ouiser sniffed around for Tori. I wonder if she missed her or will come to realize that Tori is gone or if that is an anthropomorphism. Or maybe animals innately know the circle of life.
One morning late in 2020 ( ’tis strange to speak of 2020 in the past tense) Jo and I woke up thinking about Juan in a Million. We hadn’t been there in years, hadn’t spoken about it, and here were our separate thoughts returning to this place on exactly the same morning. So we gathered the kids and went over for breakfast.
The Don Juan breakfast taco is a culinary masterpiece. I had my first taste of it in the late 80’s. Robert introduced me to the place and we’d drive up in his art car, a massive 70’s behemoth hand-painted all over in what could have been scenes from Dead’s Terrapin Station. It was my dad’s favorite breakfast joint when he was in Austin. And Arjun’s too. Jo and I ate here almost weekly before her childbirth induced egg allergy. Vivian nibbled her first Don Juan on the hip of a waitress in the kitchen. Michelle almost got her photo on the Wall for putting away one and half Don Juan tacos a couple of decades ago.
Juan was a young man with a hearty handshake when I first met him. I tried to convince him to run for Mayor. His kids were teenagers when they started behind the counter, greeting guests shyly in the shadow of their dad. Juan walked around every table and asked if the everything came out okay. He enquired about family and how everyone was doing. For two bucks you got the biggest baddest breakfast taco along with the firmest handshake in town and a heaping of friendly chatter.
Juan wasn’t behind the counter when we went there last month. He owns most of the block now so he’s hopefully enjoying life somewhere. One of his sons was running the cash machine, his own man now. He asks why we haven’t been by in a decade. The waitress is our waitress from 20 years ago. She remembers Vivian as a baby. Nothing has changed in 20 years.
Except everything has.
Jo and I aren’t holding hands and kissing between bites of breakfast tacos anymore : – ). There isn’t a line of hungry gringos snaking around the one story nondescript building waiting to get in. Everyone inside who isn’t eating is wearing a mask. Oh, and the country is presided over by a pyschopath. It’s been a few days since the Capitol coup. And Trump isn’t behind bars. He was asked to freely swear to do one fucking thing, just one fucking thing. Defend the constitution. He scorched the earth that the constitution was written on. He pissed on the graves of the founding fathers. He really really fucked up. And he did it without any consequences (a second impeachment is a badge of honor for the moron).
His cult of zombies follow his every word looking for a deeper grander message. Wake the fuck up. He’s lying to you. You have been radicalized. Get some perspective. Get out of the hell where you’ve locked yourself for the last five years. Outside, you’ll find a more joyful, truthful, caring, and diverse world of opinions and people. And facts. We need you. Unless the country is split up and we never have to see each other again, we have to live together. You and I mostly want the same things. There isn’t a socialist pedophile elitist election-fraudifying pandemic-peddling conspiracy out there. Just others like you and me.
As for the other Republicans who aren’t programmed zombies, you got your deal. The Supreme Court is conservative for the imaginable future and in return the devil has your soul for eternity. You’re hell is looking at yourself in the mirror every morning. Remember when you asked American muslims after 9/11 to denounce the crazy Islamists loudly and publicly? Unless they did that, you said they were traitors and jihadists. You are them now. Get out and distance yourself from the madman. May be they will forgive you even if you didn’t forgive them.
The Don Juan is everything I remember. I guess some things stayed the same.
A couple of weeks before Christmas we went to see the holiday lights at the Wildflower Center. We walked down a beautiful path lined with carefully spaced and elegantly lit luminaria, the kids running ahead holding their hot chocolates while the adults ambled with our beers. It was a pleasant warmer-than-usual Texas fall night, and we were with friends which is a special treat these days. But by the time we arrived to where the kids were eerily dangling from swings in a grove of ancient live oaks bathed in a piercing blue light, we were distinctly uneasy. Social distancing and staggered entry times designed to spread the groups out meant that we were all alone. Hidden speakers played spooky disjoint music that sounded distant and intrusive at the same time. We made some weak jokes about accidentally stumbling on to a Halloween set-up.
But after a few dozen more steps and around a turn in the path we came up to a “WILDFLOWER” sign bathed in warm yellow light. Swing and jazz played from hidden speakers. We breathed more easily. Further down the path we came across a grassy circle of glowing six foot neon rings suspended a couple of feet off the ground, inviting us to lay in/on them uncomfortably till we found ourselves in surprisingly relaxed positions, soothed by quiet acoustic guitar sounds. We realize that we are experiencing Art. Each of these vignettes are individual art installations with their own curated illumination and music, meant to create certain ambiances. We end the evening on a high note.
The courtyard in the Wildflower Center was where we got married. Now here we are, back in the same courtyard sixteen years later. With masks.
Funny year, this 2020.
That was me writing two weeks ago. I never did finish the post. Then came the new year, new beginnings, a fresh hope, blah blah, blah. Today is the afternoon of the 6th of January. More people are now dying of Covid than before. The virus, the vaccine, and the disinformation about each of them are spreading through our communities, trying to outrun each other. So far the vaccine isn’t winning, but that is understandable. The virus and the disinformation are designed to spread efficiently. The vaccine on the other hand is work – like pushing a boulder uphill. Is 2021 already off to a bad start? Wait. I’m still willing to be hopeful.
Now it is the evening of the 6th of January. Earlier today Trump egged his mob to attempt a coup. Yesterday we could have thought of his supporters as mere misguided assholes or gullible jerks of low intelligence and lower morals putting their selfish fears and desires ahead of their country. But not anymore. Anyone who is still in the Trump mob is a criminal. It’s time to fess up. Otherwise We The People Do Establish that We Are Fucked.
So we did get a Christmas photo! On a beautiful Christmas day brunch between waffles and tacos, and everyone except Sadie is laughing. Best wishes, merry everything and happy always.
Evan and Vivian were sprawled out on the lawns of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Jo and I had just finished our last bottle of wine. The smoke from thousands of fireworks was still rising up slowly over the Harbor Bridge into the midnight sky. We joined a river of a million spectators leaving the Sydney waterfront, each of us wondering what this new year held. I bet not one of our combined 100 million billion neurons on that first smokey early morning of 2020 imagined how the year was going to turn out.
A few days later we left for the Land of the Long White Cloud. After New Zealand we traveled to Bangkok, Angkor Wat, and Vietnam. On January 31st, they handed us free masks at Da Nang airport when we board our flight for Tokyo. The virus was just beginning to cast its long shadow across our path and over the world. But these were the early days and in Tokyo we wantonly wandered the city of thirty five million people, eating street food and hopping on packed subways without a care. Three weeks later we left Asia and flew to our final destination, South America.
Looking back, the first two and a half months of 2020 were close to perfect. We finally hit our stride in New Zealand with her scenic lakes and craggy mountains and cottages by the sea and in Hoi An during the Lunar New Year celebrations over steaming bowls of pho and in Japan at the start of the cherry blossom season in Tokyo and the ramen houses and the temples and bamboo forests of Kyoto and at the towering snow capped volcanoes and the black sand trimmed lakes of Chile. The chaos of travel had settled into a nice rhythm. Vivian and Evan were like pros on our travel days, deftly managing checkouts and airplanes and immigration and checkins. And we loved the easy days in between, exploring and eating our way through places. Vivian’s and Evan’s schooling was mostly on auto pilot, which is to say that Jo was taking care of it and they seemed to be learning stuff. We toyed with the idea of doing this for another year. Or five.
One morning in mid March we drove halfway up Volcan Osorno and enjoyed the striking beauty of the Lake District from up there while snow crunched under our boots. Then we hiked around Saltos del Rio Petrohue. This was our last photo on the road. We drove back to the cottage on the shores of Lake Llanquihue, packed our bags, and set off next morning for Austin. International flights were being cancelled. Countries were starting to shut their borders. It was now or not for a long while, and overnight we made the decision to leave Chile and end our traveling. Months later Jo and I still wonder what this year would have been like had we picked not-for-a-long-while instead.
We enjoyed our travels. We didn’t have a lot of glitches, never got ripped off, and rarely ran into assholes. People everywhere were mostly nice and helpful. We barely scratched the surface of the places we visited, and left thousands of places just around the corner unexplored. It takes years of staying somewhere to understand and appreciate a place, its people, and their culture. We can’t lay claim to that. But the places we visited, even briefly, have become a part of our neighborhood. When I tell Vivian and Evan about the pro democracy riots outside the royal palace in Bangkok, or the flooding on the Gold Coast of Australia, they relate to it more personally. Vivian wrote an essay for school a couple of weeks ago in which she recounts an experience from Hiroshima. Evan did a project on migration last month and added his first person account of the migrating wildebeest crossing the Mara river in Serengeti. To them the world feels a bit smaller and bit more wondrous. Their moral circles are a bit bigger.
When we returned to the US, we set up camp at Carol’s old residence because our White Wooden House was rented out. The house on Lariat Ridge is miles from anywhere and was exactly the sanctuary we needed for Covid quarantining. Jo and I worked outside where there was endless trimming and chopping and mowing and raking. The kids continued with their math and writing. We learned to do quarantine things by the bucketload. We baked, swam, drew, played monopoly and chess, bicycled, walked, cooked, and binge day-drank or maybe that was just me. Our outdoor and socially distanced visits to Carol and Nicolle and her family were our only non-virtual interactions with other humans. We went into town only to grocery shop. And occasionally to the drive-through boba tea place. Masks and distancing became a part of our regimen. We tried to enjoy the little things. Then we got the animals.
People say having kids changes your life. That is true. But getting a puppy and two kittens will do that all over again and in a much nicer way while costing you less. When we were traveling, Evan fantasized about cats. And Vivian would imagine what breed of dog she’d get. In a moment of weakness I promised them both that when we got back to Austin they would get their pets. Jo wasn’t fully on board, but she was the one that made it happen. On a Monday afternoon late in April and then the next morning, we picked up a rescue dog and two tiny kittens and now eight months later they are as essential to us as the air we breathe and a good deal more enjoyable. As I type this, Ouiser is fast asleep on my feet, farting gently and lethally. Skittles is rubbing her face on the side of my computer and trying to type with her tiny paws. Zeus is delicately licking bacon grease from the bowl by the stove. I haven’t a clue where Evan or Vivian are.
Spring changed to summer. And summer reluctantly gave way to fall. We came back to the White Wooden House after a series of slow and long (both of which are synonyms for “expensive”) repairs. Evan and Vivian went to sleep-away camp and then returned to school after a year long break, though school had changed drastically. Evan rejoined his soccer club. Vivian colored her hair flaming red. We had missed Austin. While traveling, Evan had created a schedule of the order in which we would eat at our favorite Austin restaurants. And Jo and I had planned to grill with neighbors and friends every weekend. All that will have to wait. We are back in Austin but we rarely socialize. When we do, it is always outdoors. So far we seem to have dodged it.
We watched the rise of social justice awareness, paid in advance by needless murder. Then came a vicious election season that left everything politicized and everyone deeply divided. Around us, the world witnessed death and pain on a massive scale. If you are looking for a silver lining, it took the dumpster fire of 2020 to muster the few extra tens of thousands of votes in places where it counted for what’s that guy’s name to beat the ass. If you are a Trumpie, cry into your beer because fate dealt him and you a bad year (and then let it go). Any other year and the National Parks Service would already be busy doctoring photos of the crowds at Trump’s second inauguration.
In homage to this crazy year we don’t have a Christmas picture. Instead, I am using our Christmas picture from December 2019. Here’s to peace and joy in the new year. Here’s to fewer zoom happy hours and drive-by birthdays. Above all, here’s to hope. Here’s to 2021. Warm wishes and love from Evan, Vivian, Jo, and me.
Sometimes the kids sneak into the frame when I am taking pictures of the animals. Like this one where Ouiser was giving Zeus’ undercarriage a good sniff while Evan is holding him up to show how tall she is (we call her “Long Kitty”). Or when Ouiser pretends she is a lap dog. The kittens are no longer tiny. They roam the outside at will and mostly come in for the night. They don’t usually stay still long enough for photos unless they are sleeping – which they do a lot of.
Summer changed to Fall. Ouiser went for two weeks to sleep away training camp and came back amazingly trained. Jo went to Hawaii for a birthday and returned Covid-free but with no other obvious improvements unlike Ouiser. We got Jo a new set of wheels (to replace her Land Rover) and two kayaks and we went camping a couple of times. We carved pumpkins for Halloween and the kids did a bit of trick-or-treating while the parents socially distanced and imbibed Johnathan’s special cocktails. Evan dressed as a jawa and I was a tusken raider, and we made our own costumes. School is coming along. Vivian had in-person school till Thanksgiving and then her school shifted to online in anticipation of people behaving badly. Evan’s school is still one week on and one week off, alternating between in-person and online. They aren’t doing amazing shit, but they are keeping it together which is enough for Jo and me this year.
Vivian joined Gilbert’s Youth Gazelles – a running group at Town Lake headed by a runner and coach from Burundi. Sometimes I drop her off and walk the loop around the lake before picking her up. That means I take lots of photos of downtown and the lake. Yes – I am easily distracted.
Today a 90 year old lady in Coventry, England, became the first person in the UK to get a production version of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine. Meanwhile, earlier this week, a Wyoming state health official, Igor Shepherd, who works on the state’s covid response, said that the “so-called pandemic” and efforts to develop a vaccine are plots by Russia and China to spread communism worldwide. He is apparently not alone by a long shot.
Here’s my two cent understanding of how an mRNA vaccine works (Michelle – could you please run it by Alu and see if it is somewhat correct).
photo by Getty Images
The corona virus consists of a genome of RNA enclosed in a protein envelope with spike proteins on its surface, giving it that special sucker-ball look. These spike proteins are what allows a virus to stick to a corresponding receptor protein on a human cell surface, and then poke through the cell wall and transfer its genome to the host cell. Once inside the host cell, the genomic RNA replicates itself and it hijacks cellular organelles called ribosomes within the infected host cell to make viral proteins including new copies of the spike protein. It can do both because it is a strand of RNA which is both a genome and a messenger RNA. The proteins and the replicated RNA self assemble into new virus which infect more cells in our bodies. But it isn’t all one-sided. Our adaptive immune system marks the spike protein that is causing all the fuss as an antigen. In a series of amazing molecular orchestrations via different immune cells, our body produces yet another very specific matching protein called an antibody. The antibody can latch on to the antigen like one puzzle piece fits into another. If all the spike proteins in the invading virus are locked by antibodies in this way, the virus can’t use its spike proteins to invade cells. Additionally, the antibodies, once latched to antigens, mark those virus for destruction by other immune cells. This is how the body fights the virus. The adaptive immune system has a memory. If your body encounters the antigen in the future, it quickly recognizes the antigen and produce lots of antibodies to bring to the battle, thereby preventing future infections. Incidentally, antigen tests for covid work by looking for the corona virus antigens in your tissue sample instead of the virus genetic material itself. Because it is easier to test for a protein, these tests are faster, but they are also less accurate – you may be infected but you may not yet have sufficient antigens to produce a positive covid test.
Back to the vaccine. So the BioNTech and Pfizer scientists first synthesized the mRNA strand that encodes for the corona virus spike protein. This is a portion of the corona virus genome but it isn’t grown from the virus. Instead it is built from scratch. The mRNA strand is then wrapped in a tiny oily bubble made of lipid nanoparticles. When sufficient number of these are injected into your arm, some of these bubble wrapped mRNA packages bump up against your cells and fuse with them and release the mRNA into that cell. Once inside the cell the mRNA does what mRNA do – it instructs the cell’s ribosomes to make the protein encoded in its structure – which happens to be the corona virus spike protein. And once your vaccinated host cell produces the spike protein in sufficient quantities, your body’s immune system takes over and produces antibodies just as if you have a covid infection. Because this bit of mRNA knowns only how to make the spike protein, it does not know how to replicate itself or make the other proteins needed to assemble a virus. So you can’t get infected. But bam, you are protected against infection.
These vaccines are feats of modern science. They wouldn’t be here without the rigor and expertise that the anti-science crowd berates. Government organizations like the NIH, the CDC, and the FDA in the US and corresponding organizations in other countries, and private research and pharmaceutical companies from around the world, and billions of taxpayer dollars have funded the research and the build-up of the manufacturing capacity for this vaccine. Thousands of scientists have worked through the pandemic to get here. There are still unknowns. This is the first time that a vaccine using mRNA has been approved for human use. Are there long term side effects or problems? Can we afford to wait to find out?
The covid vaccine may be the defining scientific moment of my time. Unless it turns us all into controllable communists. Is the vaccine right for you? Here’s a simple test: if you agree that Trump won this election, don’t get the vaccine. Instead, gather in large numbers indoors without masks. If you are concerned about state or local laws the limit how many people can meet, don’t worry. Go meet at church and you’ll be fine. Really. The Supreme Court said so.
Evan plays soccer. It’s the only sport he’ll touch with a ten foot pole. And he’s not that into it. When we returned to Austin after traveling earlier this year, his old club called and asked if he was ready to rejoin. We were invited back by a parent of Evan’s old teammate who was putting a team together. Evan ended up with half a dozen of his old friends. The team would be a Select team in the club and play in the Super League of Austin along with other teams whose parents were too lazy to travel for weekend soccer games to neighboring towns which is a requisite to join the Elite league. We thought it would be a good and somewhat safe way for Evan to get some exercise and socialization during the pandemic. The club is pretty serious about its pandemic protocols, and in any case everything happens outdoors.
Evan’s coach quit after two weeks and was replaced by this famous soccer personality in Austin – the fields that Evan started playing soccer at are named after this guy. He’s a gruff old Argentine with little time for social graces. He put Evan in the central defender position and never substituted him out during games even though the rest of the players rotated in and out. This was our first indication that may be Evan was better than we had given him credit for. Evan of course thinks he’s the best. Here’s a clip of him saying why he should be admitted to St. Stephen’s school for middle school. No, we didn’t use this particular clip.
So yesterday the team finished its season without a single loss in the pre-season, regular season, and the tournament, ending up as champions. I think all the parents were surprised in the beginning when the wins started coming in, and then rather enjoyed the proxy glow of victories. Needless to say we are proud of our boys and how well they played. There were a couple of excellent players in the team (and they aren’t named Evan), but the whole team got together and did it while having loads of fun. In fact they had fun, and ended up winning.
The crusty coach mostly barked short stucco phrases at the kids during games and practice. Unforgiving comments, I thought, but always aimed at improving the player. And the kids didn’t mind being held accountable. Yesterday while handing out medals he spoke more words than we heard all season. The coach thanked Henry who had broken a foot during practice four weeks ago but continued to come to every game anyway. He hobbled to the sidelines on his crutches and supported his team. Then the coach thanked Vinny, who he said was always helpful and had a great heart. He thanked the whole team without singling out the better players. I thought this was a class act. I hope the kids learned something from it.
Evan started the season with six friends and ended up with the whole team of friends. Along the way, some players had the opportunity to jump ship to teams in the Elite league. But they said no and stayed with this team. They will be back in a month together again for the spring soccer season, and I hope their crusty coach stay too. Besides, he gave me a medal yesterday for my duties as a team manager. Class act all the way : -)
Notes from Dad 