"So you see pioneer life is not all sunshine. It has a great many black clouds."

Those are the words of an old woman remembering her early life as a pioneer. She begins:

I was born in Wilkes County, North Carolina, February 26, 1825. When I was about six years old my father emigrated to Richmond, Indiana.

Her family continually move to stay on the frontier, despite its hardships and dangers. She never explains why so we never learn why they left Wilkes, which could hardly have been overcrowded at that time. Eventually she ends up in Iowa. It's an account worth reading. Here is a taste of it:

On the following April the Black Hawk War broke out, and some of our neighbors were killed near us, but we were providentially spared. While the war was raging at its hottest my mother urged my father to go to Jacksonville, the county seat of Morgan County, Illinois, and get his brother, which is old Uncle Johnny Welch of this place, to come and take us down to Jacksonville where he lived.

I've started back to school....

... and I can't tell you how excited I am. Somehow I will just have to manage to contain myself.

I am making an effort this semester to get up early and get to school before 9 and stay until about 6. If I actually work in my office, instead of cruising through the Web or running off to the library or the coffee shop, I should be able to depart at the end of the day with no work hanging over my head.

I have also promised myself to get back into the habit of going over to the Y. Once I get my bike fixed, or buy one from my colleague El Mariachi himself, I will try to ride three or four times a week.

The Beast with Four Paws...

... aka "Mad Dog" Leo, sometimes called "Buddy," "the boy." or "that damned dog," hereby makes his official web debut. That is Clemens' leg to the left, and Carmen's foot just behind us.



Remember: this is the beast that scared off an entire pack of dogs by charging straight at them.

Further advice from the Face Doctor ...

... about my sleep habits. I usually stay up until 2 or 3 a.m. and sleep as late as I can. Those are no longer productive hours for me though - I am awake and not sleepy but I can't concentrate much after 11 pm.

He advised me to try to go to bed earlier and to get up earlier. I told him that I was aiming at getting to bed at 11 and getting up at 7.

He said that was an improvement, but the ideal schedule would be to go to bed at 9:15 and get up at 6 am. I almost screamed "Nurse! Someone has kidnapped the doctor and replaced him with a lunatic!"

But he was serious. It's the timeless farmers' schedule. As Ben Franklin said, "early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." He was probably a lunatic too. As for the healthy, wealthy and wise, two out of three would be great.

The Incurable Sleep Apnea ...

... or whatever it really is. Carmen laughs at me for blaming any and all failings and shortcomings I display on my "incurable sleep apnea."

Well why not? We don't know what the problem is, so we aren't sure what it is doing to me. So if I am late, or forgetful, or cranky, or spacey, it's "incurable sleep apnea." So there.

What was I saying? Oh, yes. Incurable sleep apnea. Actually something of a misnomer, but since the doctor can't tell me what the real problem is I might as well give it a name. The problem has been that after getting the special little machine and hooking it up to my nostrils, learning to tolerate it and use it every night, none of the wonderful things I had been sold on happened. Very frustrating.

I went to see the face doctor in Boone. (I've been to see him before: the first time he cut a piece of my ear off, the second he stuck a long flexible tube down my nostril til it touched my tonsils). He looked over the computer readout of the results (something the sleep doctor had never done - a Romanian btw - I think he graduated from Carpathia U). The face doctor told me that I do have apnea but that it was mild enough that using the CPAP machine to treat it was a judgment call. It showed I was only waking up 7.5 times an hour because of the apnea and some cases reach up to 50 times an hour or more.

But I definitely have a sleep problem. Of the six stages of sleep, with REM sleep being no. 6, I am missing the last three stages. In other words, no REM at all and it is the last three stages that provide you with the deep rest that everyone needs.

So where does that leave us? He doesn't know so he gave me a pill to take every morning. I think its speed. He said it wouldn't cure me but it might help deal with the symptoms. If that doesn't work (and I don't think it does) then in two months we will try something else.

In the meantime, the minor part of the sleep disturbance caused by the actual apnea seems to be taken care of by the machine. At least, enough so that I don't fall asleep at the wheel of the car anymore. But I still feel groggy for the first two hours of every morning and have trouble concentrating on work late in the evenings, which used to be my most productive hours of the day.

Finally, the last and long overdue post on the San Francisco trip...

... which I neglected to finish here. After leaving Green's Restaurant Carmen and I continued walking along the shore through the Marina Green along the Golden Gate Promenade. We kept seeing a big dome in the distance that I wanted to investigate and eventually would. We passed by the Yacht Club and entered Crissy Field. All along our walk we could look out across the water to this thing: Alcatraz Island and Prison.

We were getting tired since we had been walking, with breaks, for hours. This picture represents about as far as we got in heading towards the great Golden Gate Bridge. We started back towards the point where we could hop a bus which happened to be in the direction of the big dome I had seen. Along the way we stopped for coffee at the Crissy Field Center. Nice place - there was an interesting little shop where I bought a book about historical San Francisco and Carmen bought a T-Shirt for her sister.

Then we found the dome - the Palace of Fine Arts and Exploratorium. A grand name for a remarkable complex of Roman ruins built for the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915. It could have been a great piece of kitsch, but the effect is stunning. It was intended to be temporary but the architect, Bernard Maybeck, was so effective in interpreting Greco-Roman architecture that it has been carefully remodelled with permanent materials. I loved it, as you can tell from the number of pics I have linked to. I kept imagining all the cheapo sword and sandal epics we could film there for World Civ class.

We walked a few more blocks through an expensive and architecturally eclectic neighborhood and caught an electric bus back to our hotel. I suppose I should have added it to my weird little vehicles post, but it was not little. While we passed through Fort Mason though we saw one of these little things. Oddly enough, we have seen one in North Wilkesboro! Always on the cutting edge here in the land of 'Wilkes.

Effectively it was the end of our trip to San Francisco. Now you know almost everything we saw and did.

One good thing about this steaming hellhole that I call the ...

... unnamed port city. It's this.



No, I have no idea how an authentic Irish thatched cottage got built in the middle of a bustling unnamed port city in the deep South. But I do know that it was built by authentic Irish thatchers*. And that it has specially trained real live Irish draught pullers working the taps. At least they sure sound authentic**.

Oh yes. It's a great place to go and have an Irish pint and salmon dip too, at any hour after 10 am. Also, it's the last place I ever took my dad to have a beer. He got a Harp, since he was not an ale man, and only a half pint at that. When I was working on my book during the summers that I stayed in the port city I would go there in the afternoon when it was almost deserted have a few pints and write.

When Carmen left the Social Security office to marry me (an unusually fortunate occurrence for me***), her coworkers threw us a party there. It is also the place where I almost proposed (ie I thought I was proposing, but I was unusually vague that day****). Still, it was an important link on the way to the altar. And I owe it all to the Irish. James Aloysius not least.

Addendum: Here are some of the other watering holes in the port city*****.

* Don't know about their work status.
** Ibid.
*** as any and all of my friends frequently remind me
**** must have been the Guinness
***** how many of these have you been to Mr Sobrino?

We are now down in the steaming hot muggy hellhole...

... I refer to as the unnamed port city to our south. The sun hits you over the head like a shovel when you walk out and presses you down to the pavement that seems to be softening under the ferocious heat. The air envelopes you like an old wet glove left on the back seat of your car for a week and a half.

But I'm not complaining. I'm too big a man for that.

And it is fun to see our family again. We got in on Sunday just in time for Mother's birthday get together. It was just the immediate family but that still fills up her little condo. It was good to see everyone. My niece and nephew where there together which is unusual now that Jen is going to school in St Louis. Now she is going to spend a semester in Finland and Spain, and then later in Argentina. We have decided to try and visit her.

Heard lots of old family tales that I didn't know about. Had fun. The little lummox was a big hit. Mainly because my Mother spoils him and my youngest niece likes him, which is unusual since she had always been afraid of dogs.

So we are having a good time tonight. I even tried to learn a few words of Irish tonight. We will be back next Sunday so blogging might be a little thin until then.

Slan.

Our last full day in San Francisco ....

... which I'd better write about before I forget. It's been over two weeks. We started that Monday by walking down to the Broadmore to see Aunt Louise. Our cousin had already returned to her little community way to the north.

From the hotel we took a bus down to the Cannery at Del Monte Square. It's loaded with touristy shops so we didn't go in. Instead we walked out on the Hyde Street Pier and Fisherman's Wharf. There were a number of old ships including this one and these. We were more interested in walking around and not in doing the tour stuff so we didn't pay to go on board any of them, but the next time I am out there I might. Right next to the pier was Ghirardelli Square, the original chocolate factory for Ghirardelli. Unfortunately a lot of it was under reconstruction so most of the shops were closed. On second thought, that probably was not a bad thing. None of what was open looked that interesting to the two of us. Our idea of a good shopping trip is finding a quite corner where we can read. So we pushed on, hunting for what Carmen said was a nice little vegetarian restaurant. I could hardly wait.

To get to the restaurant we skirted the edge of the Aquatic Park and entered the grounds of Fort Mason. From above you can see the circle made by the Aquatic Park with the Fort's park off to the left. The park overlooking the buildings of the Fort is called the Great Meadow and we spent some time wandering around looking at the sculpture. This is where we saw the first Segway scooters and the first Blazing Saddles bikes (I'm fascinated by weird little vehicles). In this picture you can see the round Aquatic Park to the left, the red roofs of Fort Mason and its piers, and the large green space about the fort which is the Meadow.

The most intriguing sculpture in the Great Meadow was a Madonna by Benny Bufano. Bufano was an interesting fellow - he chopped off his trigger finger and sent it to President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. Here's his take on Saint Francis, which we didn't see.

We descended into the Fort and found Greens Restaurant. At night it is a very fancy place, but during the day it is just an excellent place to get a good sandwich and some bottled water. We sat by the great windows overlooking the bay. It was a wonderful way to relax and rest our feet. Carmen informed me that it was a famous place, the first of the trendy vegetarian places. From what I could tell of their lunch food, it is a reputation probably deserved.

The End of our Chinatown day...

... we were exhausted, so left Pam at Aunt Louise's hotel and went back to our own hotel. I was done in, partly because it had been a long day and partly, I think, because I hadn't brought my CPAP machine for the apnea. It makes more of a difference than I noticed. almost two hours later I woke up. Pam and Louise had gone to dinner so Carmen and I walked around Japantown until we found a sushi bar that was still open. It was excellent.

By this point I was insisting to Carmen that we needed to retire in San Francisco.

A Strange Lunch in Chinatown ...

.... after the Portsmouth Square we walked a bit more, passing the Bank of America building which in Chinatown looks very Chinese. Especially since the top floor is occupied by what a huge sign proclaims as "Gold Mountain Sagely Monastery." Now why can't Episcopalians have urban monasteries like that with catchy names?

By now we were getting hungry but it was a bit difficult to find a restaurant since Pam is a vegetarian. So Dim Sum was out since none of us can tell what is in any of the little platters. We finally find a place, this place, called The Pot Sticker. I should have wondered what was up when I noticed that the red faced demon of The Pot Sticker looks a lot like Strong-Bad.

We got settled, spent a few extra minutes looking over the menu so we all knew what we wanted, and a sober, middle-aged waiter comes over. Carmen said she wanted the Chicken soup and pointed at the picture of it in the menu. The waiter burst out "No! Too big! Very big!" Carmen looked non-plussed and he flipped to the menu page with the lunch specials and said "You order lunch special?" He taps one picture emphatically, "You like Chicken and String Beans. Very good! Here!!"

Carmen, overwhelmed, gives in but thinks he said "Chicken and broccoli" so when a waitress brings her food she sends it back, thinking it is the wrong order. The waitress leaves and soon we hear a burst of some rapid Chinese and the waiter comes back. Carmen insists she ordered Chicken and broccoli. He says "No! Chicken and string beans. String beans good for you! Fresh! Very good! You like." And that was that. Carmen settled back to eat what she had been given.

Well, when I checked the handy dandy guide book we'd bought the day before at Japantown it did say that service in China town could be "abrupt." Twice. Chinese dining is all about the quality of the food and community - it has nothing to do with service or atmosphere.

We then walked through Chinatown and arrived at The City Lights bookstore. It was founded in 1953 by that guy who wrote the poem about the Green Street Mortuary Band. We had to go in, just to say we'd been there, but when we got there it was so hot and stuffy that we didn't even stay long enough to find something we just had to buy. Fortunately.

Strange vehicles in San Francisco ...

... one of the unexpected delights (for me, not so sure about Carmen) of San Francisco was the number of strange little cars, bikes and scooters running around. In keeping with its image as a very 'green' enclave in a very fuelish country the San Franciscans seem willing to try almost anything. Here's my post about them from the other blog.