Capers With Carroll

I noticed today that I have traffic coming to this blog from a link posted by CNN at the end of their current article on yesterday’s Colombian marches against kidnapping. CNN has a nice feature at the end of their stories, called From the Blogs: Controversy, commentary, and debate, which offers a survey of blogs that mention the topic at hand. Once before (May 16-17), when I commented on the Sichuan earthquake, CNN listed me in its queue, thereby introducing my thoughts to two readers in Hong Kong, one in the UK, and one in the USA. Four readers may not seem like much, but it indicates that someone out there believes that as you, the reader, search for free access to content, and I freely provide it, the go-between can sell advertizing and turn a profit.

I knew that.

And maybe for young people this is so du jour that it’s no cause for rumination, but for a guy like me who took my first journalism class while JFK was president, I can marvel at both the news (like the amazing upturn of events in Colombia) and the way that news is delivered.

Simply as a case in point: Last night, in a few minutes before going to bed, I wrote a quick couple of paragraphs and added links to an AFP newswire story and two You-Tube videos, one a week-old interview of Ingrid Betancourt by Al Jazeera and the other a Colombian TV report from a concert earlier yesterday. Then, while I slept, CNN found my quick paragraphs and made them available to the world. The Internet has both enabled a million people, world wide, to organize themselves into a demonstration—a remarkable feat of mass democracy—and then allowed individuals to sort through the chattering-class reactions of thousands, and for one single comment to be read by anyone who is looking. In part two of the Al Jazeera interview Betancourt talks about how the Internet reduces national boundaries. But she does not speak as if a Rip Van Winkle, returned to see the Internet’s growth over six-and-a-half years. It seems obvious that even as a hostage in the jungle, she was able to look over some guard’s shoulder and see the world.

I’m still processing that, both the good and the bad. I won’t get to the bottom of it tonight, especially with an essay that is trying to run in three different directions. I will see which direction it’s looking for tomorrow, and maybe continue.

During the day that just ended, in a thousand cities and towns across Colombia, citizens celebrated their national day of independence by marching and shouting, "No More Kidnappings!"

Colombians living in major cities throughout Europe and the Americas had similar marches, or attended concerts like the one in Paris, where recently-freed hostage Ingrid Betancourt led the chants. In Leticia, the presidents of Colombia, Brazil, and Peru stood beside Colombian pop star Shakira as she opened a concert with the Colombian national anthem.

Next month will mark thirteen years since I left Colombia, after living there for nine of the most satisfying years of my life. We left largely because of the kidnapping and hostage status of a friend. He was eventually released, after over twenty-six months chained to a succession of trees in the jungle. Yet each of five other hostages I was praying for were killed. In addition, I have been concerned, throughout these thirteen years, for friends whose homes were deep in the territory controlled by the FARC, and who did not have the freedom that I had to leave.

So today, unable to march in Colombia, and far away from any major world city, I can only show my solidarity by praying, "No more hostages!" And then, thinking of those who have been cut down by the FARC, both people I knew and the thousands I did not, I add, "and no more killings."

Oh, Lord, let your peace reign in Colombia.

Two years ago, a family of foxes made my back yard their home for six weeks (from the end of June to the beginning of August). I read then that foxes often return to the same places to have their litters, so I've been watching. On Mother's Day weekend, I heard baby animals crying from underneith my wood pile, which stoked my interest. Then on the morning of June 20, I got up to find a fox standing guard from the fence while her kits played at the edge of the shrubbery. (Click picture to view an enlargement.)

For a brief moment, I saw three kits, but I could only get two in the picture at once.

Two days later, I saw the kits playing in the same spot, though mother was back somewhere out of sight.
I think she's a single mom. Two years ago, I saw Dad coming and going as he hunted, while Mom rested in the shade and kept an eye on things. The kits didn't come out until they were bigger. This year, I saw less of her, and saw no male at all. Now it has been two weeks since I saw her, and three weeks since I saw the kits. I have been standing ready with a video camera (and a freshly scrubbed dining room window to shoot through), but perhaps the show is over. Maybe I spooked her and she moved them to a new location. But I will be watching again next year.

Ever since Vicki had to work the day I took the newly-weds to see the General Grant Tree in the snow, she has yearned for her own trip to Kings Canyon. We went today, hoping to get above smoke from the 800 lightening-sparked fires that have been burning in California. Although we got above most of it, there was still enough to obscure the tops of the tall Sequoias.

With the grand vistas muddied, I turned my attention to the small delights, like Bumble Bees in the Ceanosis. . .and wild Iris, hiding in the shade. This section of Redwood bark had the Filistatid web around the knot hole, and Agelenid webs in the rift.Great bouquets of Western Azalea dotted the hillside.

Later, we walked in the meadow at Grant's Grove Village. I found this Misumena on wild strawberry.Great patches of Shooting Stars carpeted the field, but each is a jewel in itself.On higher ground, there were Columbine . . .And Leopard Lilies to take your breath away.Not bad for a day that was too smoky for sightseeing.

Spiders in the family Uloboridae make some of the most delicate of all spider webs, so delicate in fact that an automatic camera usually looks past the spider, through the web, and focuses on something unimportant in the background. Today, however, cutting plywood left a dusting of fine particles on this female's (probably Uloborus diversus) artwork. That is her, just above and to the right of center, hanging upside down, long front legs bent at the joints but held together to make her look like a sliver of bark. She is among the most harmless of all spiders, a finely-crafted work of art, obvious only in those moments when dust has just fallen and the light finds her from a perfect angle.

There are times in life when one must put down whatever may be the task at hand and help a neighbor in need. For example, when an elderly neighbor laments that her apricot crop has become a burden; she doesn’t eat them any more; they fall to the ground and become buggy; how could any caring person go on about regular business and not help out?

I suppose the sweet apricot nectar dripping down my chin is just part of the call of duty.

Well, there he is, two weeks after his birth, but still a few days shy of his due date. At least in my presence, he's been pretty mild mannered. One of his first accomplishments, of course, is making Natu look much older than he was even a few days ago. At twenty-one months, Natu is mostly interested in cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, and bicycles, but the word this evening is that Natu has added 'Nilo' to his vocabulary.



An update on Monday’s post: I also have word this evening on Angel, my five-year-old friend in the Pediatric ICU. Doctors have now kept him stable since Sunday, with his temperature and swelling less than they had feared. There has been none of the organ failure they had anticipated. He's still a very ill little boy, but at least the news is encouraging.

These past two weeks I have been following the progress of two different children, in separate ICU’s, and with opposite prognoses.

Since his birth twelve days ago, my grandson Danilo has been in the Neonate ICU at a hospital about three hours south of us. Every day he’s gotten stronger. For several days he has been breathing on his own, without supplemental oxygen, and his parents were able to take him home today.

Over the same period, Angel, the five-year-old son of friends, has been in first our local hospital, and now the Pediatric ICU of a hospital about an hour north of us. Some of what I’ve heard came from his father, in a Spanish I couldn’t completely understand, but for some reason, Angel’s was not a routine appendectomy. As we watched him, it was obviously not a routine recovery. After twelve days, they moved him to the second hospital, for a second surgery and care under a team of specialists. Not only is he on oxygen, but there is a tube for each of the other substances that need to enter or leave his body, and electrodes monitoring at least seventeen separate conditions. After seventeen, I lost count. I was with the mother yesterday when the doctor explained that—for the moment—they had Angel stabilized. However, they fully anticipated that as 24, 48, or 72 hours passed, a series of crises would come. After Angel’s second surgery, the toxins are so widespread in his body that the doctors expect his blood vessels to begin leaking and his organs to begin failing. When that happens, they will do everything in their power to get him through it, but they can only promise skill and effort, not outcome.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made, says the Psalmist (139:14). Perhaps the best demonstration of both the fear and the wonder comes simply from the list of things that can go wrong. I am sitting here with a swollen jaw from an abscessed tooth. By weight, it is a very small amount of infection, but it makes it too painful to chew even soft banana. Fighting the infection has caused swelling in the glands in my neck, so much so that I don’t feel like doing much besides writing this post and wondering how the human race survived the millennia it took to stumble upon antibiotics. It misses the point to argue over whether life could begin without God’s intervention. In a world prone to accident, earthquake, and infection, I do not believe that life could have continued without God’s constant benevolence. In the natural world, there are simply too many things to go wrong, and too many ways to snuff out life.

Yet life in these circumstances goes on more-or-less smoothly and moves from generation to generation with such ease that as humans we are prone to take that for granted, and to consider such survival an immutable law of nature. It is therefore the purpose of the accidents, earthquakes, and infections to remind us how flimsy is our hold on life, and where our dependence lies.

Selah.

PS. Angel’s mother reports he has made it past the 24 hour mark without any crisis. He is sedated, and on a respirator, but there has been no organ failure. We covet your prayers.

Yesterday, I did exactly what the bees are doing. I stuck my nose right down unto the center of the blossom and took away everything I could gather.

Bo Diddley died yesterday, at 79.

These days, I think of Bo Diddley most often because at church we occasionally sing a worship chorus that starts with a classic Bo Diddley rhythm. BUM-pa BUM-pa…pa-pa-pa-pa-pa BUMP. I'm not sure our young drummer even knows the riff's source.

But in the late 1960's, while I was in high school and community college, Bo Diddley’s music was a staple on the L.A. Top 40 station I listened to. Diddley himself lived about half-way between my house and Granada Hills High School. It was only about a block off the route I walked every day to classes. In late ’68 or early ‘69, a girl I knew told me she was taking guitar lessons from Diddley, and invited me to go with her to one of his concerts.

At the time, Bo Diddley was one of the most famous people (see also: Rockefeller) this eighteen-year-old had ever chatted up. (A year-or-so earlier, I had been within a few feet of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, when he spoke at UCLA. However, the Emperor didn't exactly exude approachability.) My friend and I knocked on Diddley’s door, and he opened it, dressed only in his underwear. It didn’t seem to faze the young lady, so I figured I could play along. Diddley welcomed us and invited us in. Now THAT’s approachability.

We made small talk while he finished dressing and fixed himself a sandwich. Then we rode in his limousine, through an incredibly foggy night, to the concert hall. I remember being told it was in Torrance, but in that fog, it could have been anywhere on the North American continent. It was a cavernous building, with no furniture. In a previous life, it might have been a warehouse. The crowd was mostly seated on the floor, with just a few people dancing in the far corners.

We sat back stage and chatted during the opening acts. Then we went out to watch during Diddley’s set. The crowd loved every song. I loved every song. It was probably a 45 minute performance. Afterwards, we were back in his limo, and home. The young lady and I never dated again. She’d given me a peek into the world she longed to conquer, and though it was a marvelous peek, it wasn’t the world in which I wanted to live my life.

But sometimes, even today, I catch myself singing BUM-pa BUM-pa…pa-pa-pa-pa-pa BUMP. Bo Diddley may be dead, but his riff lives on.

I have just come from an introductory meeting with my second grandson. We didn't actually speak much. I shared a few soft whispers with his grandmother, while I held one hand against the top of his head, and the other against his little feet. He's still having a little trouble breathing, which explains all the tubes.

We expect him to grow out of the breathing problem, and he looks good in every other way.

Mother and grandmother are doing well.Father is trying to keep all the bases covered. Big brother is entertaining his grandparents.

Welcome to the family, Danilo.

From six thousand miles away, Vera asked for pictures of my garden. Vera is majoring in Quality and Safety of Food, at Shandong Normal University, in Jinan. We have been IM’ing about fruits and vegetables. Fortunately, my grandson was visiting to help me give the tour.

We started in my sun room. The tank holds Piume, the water turtle. The white pots have sweet granadilla seedlings. The black pot has a young Yellow Pitaya (Hylocereus megalanthus). Its close cousin, the Red Pitaya (dragonfruit Hylocereus undatus), can be seen at the very back of the room. Neither the pitaya nor the dragonfruit has ever blossomed or fruited for me.Avocados are not common in China. Vera once saw some in a supermarket. “They said they came from the USA, so the price was extremely high.” I have two small avocado trees. This year, for the first time, I have about 15 small fruit, which will probably ripen in late fall.The big tree at the left is a Fuyu persimmon. It gives me a large crop every year. I love to eat them fresh, and dried, they are like candy. The little tree is a Babcock peach, new this year. Behind it is a prickly pear cactus. At my feet are potato plants. In the next week or two, Nathanael will graduate from being a baby to being a big brother. That’s his mother in the center.The tree is a tangerine. I get a heavy crop every year. What I can’t eat fresh, I peel and freeze, to eat like popsicles the rest of the year. The red flowers are roses, and the light green leaves are melons I call dinya, which is the generic name for melon in Russian. I found these in Uzbekistan, but they are similar if not identical to the Hami melon I saw in China (哈蜜瓜, but more oblong, and whiter flesh than a canteloup).These grapes are Thompson seedless, and will be ripe in July. My bilingual grandson calls them uvas, which is the Portuguese word. I also have two varieties of red seedless grapes. Behind Nathanael are Italian Honey Figs (Lattarula). They give a short crop in June, and then, after a few weeks, a longer, second crop that lasts until the cold weather hits. I dry them, freeze them, and eat them fresh.The red flowers are pomegranates, and will be ripe in November. The purple flowers are artichokes. By the time they bloom, it is too late to eat them. We ate some, but the flower is so beautiful we like to leave some to feast our eyes on.Ooh, the apricots should be ready to harvest in a couple of weeks.Vera tells me the most Vitamin-C rich fruit is the kiwi. My kiwi vines are two years old. I hope to have fruit next year.I enjoy keeping my garden full of growing things.