Dear everyone,
I have a planned day off today (and tomorrow). I need it - - I switched my weekend call (I
was supposed to be on last weekend) with Aimee Kwak, my junior colleague. More on why down below, but while she had a
relatively problem free weekend, I signed out about 90 cases on Saturday, and was
called into the hospital on Sunday (where I had to wait for about two hours
before the transplant team had tissue for me to examine).
Yesterday was Fathers’ Day, and Cindy decided we would have
a dinner at our home for Andy, Gail, Barbara, and Roger. The menu was halal spicy lamb sausage (about
as close to merguez as I
have found in Chicago [not that I have been looking too hard]), grilled peppers
and eggplant, the later seasoned with a cumin-rich mixture of spices, and a
pearl couscous salad with feta, mint, cucumbers, and lemon. Roger had a large glass of vodka, but there
was beer and soda also available. For
desert Cindy had prepared a baked coconut custard and fruit (pineapple and
strawberries). We ate outside - - it has
been super hot, and it must have been in the high 80s for dinner, but we were
in the shade, and there was a bit of a breeze, although perhaps a little too
humid. I got some Australian black
licorice and a fantasy book as presents, as well as phone calls from all three
of my children - - if only they would keep a weekly journal to pass around in
an epistolary fashion!
Anyway, I switched weekend calls to go to an aikido
seminar. It is the 10th
anniversary of our little organization
that was created when Bob Garza (our head) broke away from the Aikido Association of America. The AAA had been started by my first teacher,
Fumio Toyoda, but there were a lot of schisms after he died in 2001. Bob stayed put for seven years, but eventually
the politics got a bit too much for him and he broke out. A couple of other teachers with their own
dojos came with him, although eventually one went completely independent. The history of martial arts organizations is
like dating in junior high.
Anyway, we had a shortened seminar, Saturday only, because
Bob wanted to open the seminar to a special session on Sunday for all of the
other martial art practitioners who use our space (mostly jujitsu and kenpo karate),
as well as other aikido players from the Chicago area. We also had a guest, Sensei Tajiri from North
Carolina. He is the man who made the sumi-e paintings of
Meeko and Daisy. As well as teaching some
of the seminar, he brought a collection of some his paintings for sale. Now he is doing some in color; he had some
nice drawings of hummingbirds and koi.
For the anniversary of the dojo, Joan (the office manager) and I had commissioned
a surprise present for Bob, a painting with herons (‘Garza’ is ‘heron’ in
Spanish with an appropriate haiku I found on line see below).
Saturday night Cindy and I went to see Solo, the
latest Star Wars film. It is far from
the worst film in the franchise. A
couple of plot holes, but none too large to be covered up by gun battles and
explosions. The music and sound effects
were quite loud, and occasionally a bit predictable. Cindy did not think Alden Ehrenreich (the
young Han Solo) held a candle to Harrison Ford (well, who can), but she liked
Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian.
Love,
H.
The Haiku reads:
Soundlessly they go
The herons passing by
Arrows of snow filling the sky
- - Yamazaki Sokan
Cake
More Sumi-e
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