BRAVE, BEAUTIFUL AND COURAGEOUS KATIE

I’m writing this from the apartment we rented in London while waiting for Grove, Cris and the two boys to arrive from the States. I will tell you more about London later but have something much more important to share with you today in this posting.

I have mentioned Katie Ferraris before in my Blog. Because I am so emotional, it has been hard for me to write about her battle. But here is a little background and some of her story.

In early July, Harvey Sigelbaum called me and told me that a couple he has known for 30 plus years had just received some horrible news. They (Garry and Ginny) live in Knoxville. Their 28 year old daughter, Katie, who had just graduated from Wake Forest Law School and was in Atlanta studying for her bar exam, had been diagnosed with Leukemia-not one type, but two types. She was in the hospital at Emory with her Mom Ginny at her side. He said they did not know anyone in Atlanta and could I just call Ginny on her cell phone and reach out to her to see if there was anything we could do.

I called Ginny who was distraught as they had only learned of the Leukemia in the last day or two. I offered to help in any way but there was nothing they really needed. She did mention that it looked like they might need help finding an apartment because after Katie had her initial 14 days or so of treatment, she would have to do outpatient. I pledged our support to help them find an apartment.

After talking to her, Cathy and I talked it over and we called Andrea and explained the situation. Andrea insisted we give them her house, which was for sale. She was paying the mortgage, utilities and all those things anyway so it wouldn’t matter to her. We agreed we would not try to accelerate the sale of it for a few weeks so they could stay there.

I called Ginny back who of course, since she had never met us, was reluctant to say yes. We refused to say no. I convinced her to meet us a little later that day and we took her to the house and gave her the keys. I told her that with all they had on their minds, we wanted to at least take off her mind the financial worry of where they were going to stay while Katie was going through this.

That meeting began what I know will be a lifelong friendship.

As so often happens, Katie was not out in a couple of weeks. She was in for a few months as her battle raged on. We learned a lot about Katie and met her Dad and her boyfriend Keith Taylor who also had just taken the Bar exam. We followed Katie’s progress through her Blog at Caring Bridge.

She did a stem cell transplant of bone marrow from a donor, her brother Tim. She started doing better and three weeks ago when Andrea was in Atlanta for the weekend we had a wonderful dinner at their (and Andrea’s) home that was cooked by Garry, a lawyer by profession but a chef by avocation. Katie and Keith were there and Katie laughed and ate with us and even had some great wine over a four and a half hour dinner. It looked like she was winning the battle.

A week later, this was Ginny’s posting in her Blog:

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2006 11:37 PM, CST
Dear Family and Friends,
It has taken me so long to begin this because I knew that if I wrote it then it would be real and not just an awful nightmare from which I would awaken. On Friday afternoon, the doctors told us that the transplant did not work. The cancer was too powerful and is now filling Katie's bone marrow. The biopsy results showed that 80% of the marrow was cancerous. Her white blood cell count has skyrocketed but half of those are cancer cells. They have not found any infection so the fever and other symptoms are a result of the surging leukemia. It was hellish to hear the doctor describe the two choices she presented to Katie. She could stop fighting the cancer and receive medications and blood products to help her be somewhat comfortable and have some quality of life for the remainder of her life which could be as short as a few weeks or they could give her more chemo. Her body is in such a weakened condition from the fight thus far that the chemo itself might kill her, the terrible chemo side effects would impact the quality of her life and the chances of it bringing about a remission are very, very small. I cannot adequately describe to you what we were going through upon hearing this news... After crying, yelling, pounding, screaming, and hugging each other so tightly for a long time, we were still reeling trying to figure out how to tell Garry, Tim and Katie and Keith. I kept shaking my head saying this can't be real, this can't be happening.
Katie was moved up to a room on 7E and we were among old friends again. Keith was with us now and Garry and Tim and Katie arrived a short time later. Denise and Phil were there to offer tender care also. Katie received blood, antibiotics, other medications, and fluids throughout the night. Her fever went up and with the help of Tylenol came down again. The doctor came in again in the morning and explained everything again this time so Garry could hear it. Katie began taking a drug called Hydrea which will help reduce the white cells in her blood. She had a good day on Saturday. Throughout the day, Katie was so courageous and cheerful. We are all determined to have lots of smiles, giggles, and yes, even joyful moments. This is who we are and will continue to be. Keith's parents were with us and several dear friends from Knoxville came bringing Grandma Flo to be with us also. They are all such a comfort to us. Between naps, visiting with friends, talking to the wonderful nursing staff, calling family and friends, and eating pizza, we played Trivial Pursuit and watched college football just as we always do on Saturdays. We have decisions to make, so please continue to keep us in your prayers so that God will guide us in the days ahead. We continue to pray for a miracle and we place ourselves totally in God's grace. He will see us through this. Love, Ginny
Thank you Denise, Phil, Melanie, Dale, Patty, LeeAnn, Elaine, Ed, Becky, Ed, Janice, Suzanne, Gary, Flo and Melissa (Hsieh) for being with us today.

________________________________________
Needless to say, like her family and her wide circle of friends, we felt like we had been kicked in the stomach and we just ached for Katie, Keith and her family.

Two days later Keith, who is the kind of man every parent wants for their daughter, gave Katie a beautiful engagement ring. Because, as you read above, it looked like there was no hope, they decided to get married a couple of days later, this last Friday. Here is the post on Monday of last week.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2006 01:40 PM, EST
Katie and Keith
will unite in marriage
on Friday, the seventeenth of November
Two Thousand and Six
at two o'clock in the afternoon
Cannon Chapel
on the campus of Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia
Our joy will be more complete
if you can share
this celebration with us
*We are not accepting traditional wedding gifts, but if you'd like to, please make a donation to The Emory Winship Cancer Institute, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, or CaringBridge.
More information to follow regarding directions, parking, etc.


On Wednesday, as I hugged Garry and Ginny close for a long time while we all cried, Ginny said to me that she wished Andrea could be at the wedding because she had done so much for them with the home. She knew it wasn’t possible since she was in London but just wanted us to know she wished Andrea could be there.

Wednesday night I called Andrea and told her and she caught a flight out the next morning, arriving Thursday evening. Cathy, Andrea and I went to the wedding on Friday at the hospital chapel and despite the fact we thought it would be sad, while there was not a dry eye in the place at times, it was a wonderfully happy and uplifting time that so vividly demonstrated the enduring power of the human spirit. We all had to wear masks during the service to prevent germs from being contracted to Katie and the I have a wonderful photo that shows Harvey and Barbara Sigelbaum and on her mask she had written the words "Keith Loves Katie". I was going to post it and others from the wedding on my Blog but for some reason there is a technical glitch and I was only able to post the photo at the end of this posting.

Katie was radiant and beautiful and she never stopped smiling. She was able to dance with Keith and her Dad and they greeted every single guest. Hundreds of friends from Tennessee and their colleges were there along with many of Keith’s co-workers and a large contingent of Doctors and Nurses from the hospital. The nurses had thrown Katie a bachelorette party in the hospital on Thursday night. Harvey and Barbara Sigelbaum were there and her Matron of Honor, Keith’s sister, had flown direct from Vietnam where she was with the Condoleeza Rice/George Bush delegation as a state department employee.

I urge you to go to Alice’s Blog to read her take on all of this as she just lost her best friend to Leukemia a couple of months ago. Read her posts titled “Fighting All Over Again”and the one titled “This is Love”.

I also urge you to read on Andrea’s Blog “A Request” and also her post “A Boy and a Girl”. Both deal with Katie’s story and wedding.

In the last few days, after Katie had made peace with the reality of what was going to happen, through Harvey an connection was made with a doctor at Johns Hopkins who knew Katie’s Doctor at Emory. There is a high risk, experimental chemo treatment that is accompanied by a 15% to 20% risk of the treatment itself being terminal. But there is a small chance it can drive the cancer into remission long enough to try another stem cell transplant or other procedures. Katie made the difficult decision to take that risk, as hard as it is going to be, since if she did not, she would not make it. Her first treatment was Saturday night, the day after her wedding, the day after her night with Keith at the Four Seasons, treated to champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, with a look the other way but the medical people at Emory who chose, appropriately in my opinion, to give her a “overnight pass” for her wedding night, despite the risk.

There was a 24 hour prayer vigil for Katie yesterday (Sunday) and I encourage you to follow her progress through the Caring Bridge site as she will receive this chemo daily for the next five days or so.


The Newlyweds-Katie and Keith Taylor

THE GOOD OMEN??


Last week was quite a week.

Sunday-flew from Freedom From Hunger Board meeting in Davis, California to Atlanta after being gone for seven days. I got to stay home for 15 hours.

Monday-went to Board luncheon at Georgia State University, having to leave early to catch my flight to New York for USHealth Group Board dinner at Tabla, a restaurant I ate at twice before and enjoyed both times.

Tuesday-attended USHealth Group Board meeting in Manhattan and flew that night to Chicago on something called Shuttle America a subsidiary of Republic Airlines, neither of which I have ever heard of. The woman at the counter, a Russian named Olga, told me that she didn’t want to wait list me for their First Class (five seats) because I was already in Row 4 and so I would be happy.

Wednesday-woke up to find, as expected, the Democratic landslide. Not my preference but the voters have voted. I attended The Actuarial Foundation Trustee’s meeting at O’Hare and caught Shuttle America back to New York, where I was supposed to present a special award to my good friend Harvey Sigelbaum upon his retirement from the AHIP Board of Directors of which I am Chairman of the Board. This is when my gnawing feeling the day was going to get worse began to become reality.

Sitting in the airport I heard that Nancy Pelosi would likely be elected Speaker of the House. She would not be my choice but I was happy a woman was going into such an important role and I am sure she is a dedicated and committed professional. I just hope she will be thoughtful with some of her reforms since her record is very far to the left.

My assistant, Andrea Currie, is one of the most caring, responsible and professional people I have ever worked with. She is just a dream to work with and she is always so positive and upbeat. So right after I hear about Nancy Pelosi she sends me a voice mail (Andrea Currie, not Nancy) saying she had resolved an issue I was having with a hotel chain and that they were giving me what I wanted. She said to me “I know this is a good omen for the day. You should go buy a lottery ticket! This is definitely your lucky day”!

As it turned out, this was the only good thing to happen that day.

My plane took off an hour and a half late due to severe rainstorms in New York City. I landed at LaGuardia’s shuttle airport, which is the old airport they used until the 70’s. The only commercial flights that fly in and out of there now are the shuttles going to Boston, Washington, DC and Chicago.

Andrea had arranged for a car to pick me up as I was going to have a hard time making it to the dinner in time to give Harvey his recognition. The dinner was at Le Bernadin, the 2nd highest rated restaurant in New York City. While I have not been that impressed with it when I’ve been there before, I was looking forward to being there for Harvey and my other colleagues on the Board. Andrea told them to make sure they picked me up at the shuttle airport and not the main LaGuardia airport since they are both part of LaGuardia but in two different locations.

There was supposed to be a man inside the terminal waiting for me holding a card with my name on it. There wasn’t. I walked outside-it was pouring. There was a line of 74 people waiting for taxis. Having nothing better to do, I counted them while waiting for my car. There were lots of cars from car services there to meet people, but not my driver.

I called the car company. They said he should be there and put me on hold for five minutes, came back and said they called him and he was five minutes away. I said I would wait outside under the canopy so I could just jump in. I did that for the next 20 minutes, during which time one (1) taxi came for the 74 people in line.

I went back in and called the car service and talked to another dispatcher. She put me on hold for another five minutes, called the driver and came back and said he was walking in right now. I told her I didn’t see anyone walking in and she said she had him on the phone and he was just walking in. I told her he must be at the wrong airport and she assured me by repeating my flight number and saying that he was at the airport shuttle terminal so he was at the correct one.

I went back inside. I waited 20 minutes and called again. I talked to a 3rd dispatcher. He put on hold for five minutes also while he called the driver. He comes back to the phone and tells me the guy must be right in front of me as he is standing by the #3 baggage claim carousel. I explain to him there are only 3 people in the terminal (see photo) and there is only one baggage carousel so if he is at number 3, he is at the wrong airport. I take the photo below. As you can see, it would not be hard for me to recognize a driver-he would be one of the few people there besides me.


The LaGuardia Shuttle Terminal at Rush Hour


He puts me on hold for ten minutes. At least it seemed that long. He came back and said the guy went to the wrong airport and he will be there in 15 minutes. I send text message to the people at the dinner and apologize but tell them someone else will have to thank Harvey publicly as I am stuck at LaGuardia.

A half hour later the driver shows up. In that half hour, NOT A SINGLE TAXI has appeared, due to the rain, to help the now 90 or so people waiting for a taxi. I had been there for an hour and a half and the line had barely moved. Yet it had grown as other flights arrived.

The driver shows up. He knew I was not happy. I asked him if he knew where to take me. He said yes, he had the address of the Sheraton which is where I knew the meeting would be the next day.

He took me to the Sheraton. He dropped me off and I walked into the hotel and gave them my name. They couldn’t find the reservation. I said I was with AHIP and we had a large number of rooms reserved. She gave me a blank stare. Yes, you guessed it, my crack driver not only couldn’t find the right airport, he also couldn’t find the right hotel. He had taken me to the wrong Sheraton. The one I needed was a block and half away. That would not normally be a problem (I know how to walk) except the heaviest rainstorm since Noah was coming down and I was in a suit and tie sans umbrella, naively having believed earlier in the day that I would be having a wonderful meal at Le Bernadin and saying nice things about Harvey.

Off I go. I walk, splashing and soaked to the correct Sheraton. She also cannot find my reservation for ten minutes or so as I drip all over their counter. It turns out they thought I was arriving Monday, not Wednesday. She gives me the key to the room and I slosh over to the elevator. I arrive in the room. Here is a photo of it below. Notice anything odd?


The room without a bed

That’s right. It didn’t have a bed. Normally hotel rooms come equipped with beds. I knew that AHIP usually gives me a nice room since I am the Chairman so I looked for a connecting door. There was one but it was locked. I pounded on it. No answer. I called Reception and they told me to go out in the hall and knock on the outside door to the room that I believe is my connecting room since they say I have a connecting room. A short bald guy in his underwear and a sleeveless undershirt with holes all over it opened the door. I told him never mind. He must have been a moth researcher.

I went back into the non-bed room and called Reception again. It rang and rang but no one answered. I hung up and went back down to the lobby and got in line again. I explained the problem. They told me I must be mistaken and that I must have knocked on the wrong connecting door as it connects to two rooms. They assured me the other connecting door was open.

I went back up. They were right that there wa another connecting door on the other side of the living room. I tried it. They were wrong about it being unlocked. I went back down and asked for a supervisor. Out trotted a guy named Sojan who asked me if it was raining hard outside as he looked at my clothes. I considered slapping him.

I explained the problem and he seemed perplexed as well as a little skeptical. I showed him the photo above on the camera screen and asked him if it looked like there was a bed. He acknowledged there was no bed but said it was in the connecting room. He accompanied me back up there. He verified my truthfulness as he could not open it either. He went in the hall to the outside door and knocked. Someone answered. They had rented someone else the sleeping portion of my room. I did not see who answered so I do not know if it was another moth researcher.

Back we went downstairs and this time I was dragging my bags with me. He found me another room and I finally get checked in. It was now after 10pm. I was starving since I didn’t get to Le Bernadin.

I went to the Stage Deli across the street and ordered a small (note that word) Roast Beef Sandwich with a can of Dr. Browns. The bill was $23.45. I felt like I should be eating with Lee and Andrea in London.


A small New York Roast Beef Sandwich

I took the sandwich back to the hotel and ate half of it and I was stuffed. I turned on the TV while eating (something I normally don’t do) and they announced it looked like the Democrats won the Senate also. I contemplated how much it would hurt if I jump out of the window from the 27th floor. I weighed my alternatives and chose going to bed instead. As I was lying there, I was wondering what my day would have been like if I hadn’t had that Good Omen Andrea told me about.

Thursday morning I woke up, ready to put the previous day behind me. I went to work out at the health club and started out irritated that when AHIP was paying what was probably $500 or more a night for my room, the hotel should not charge me an additional $10 to use their fitness center. But I figured if I don’t work out, my blood pressure will be 220 over 150. So I worked out hard and finished by walking down a few blocks to Starbucks to get a coffee. I was soaking wet from sweat and I marveled at how 7 hours earlier I was walking down the same street soaking wet from rain.

After finishing my coffee, I was thinking about how sweaty I was am as I went in to take a shower. I looked for my new deodorant and saw it was called Mitchum Cool Dry. Why would I mention my Deodorant? Because I noticed the weirdest thing-look at its advertising slogan in the next photo and if anyone can tell me what exactly they are trying to do with it from a marketing perspective, let me know.



Mitchum Cool Dry Deodorant



You thought I was kidding you about a weird advertising slogan

What does lighting a barbecue grill have to do with deodorant? I have no earthly idea.

I then heard on the TV that Harry Reid will likely now be in charge of the Senate. I pondered that for a while and realize that although I don’t know Mr. Reid we sort of have some commonality, albeit not in politics. He is from Searchlight, Nevada, a small town near my home town of Kingman and our high school teams used to play each other in football and basketball.

But my real memory of Searchlight was from early in my career. I was working at a finance company, and among other fun duties, I spent most of my time out collecting money from people or repossessing the collateral. I remember the time Cathy was not happy because we had duck feathers all over the back seat of our car when I came home one day after work. As an aside to this aside, it was in the car I had won playing pool with Bonanza Jim that I mentioned in one of my recent posts.

The duck feathers were all over the car because I had been out on the Salt River-Pima Indian Reservation trying to get a guy to pay us and he told me he didn’t have any money so I talked him into letting me take him and some ducks he owned to town to sell the ducks and he could keep half the money and I got the other half to put on his furniture loan.

But I digressed. Back to Searchlight. We had a customer who had financed a pickup truck with us and he was behind on his payments. The interesting thing was that he was the Mayor of Searchlight. So my branch manager said something to me like “You get in your car and you go up there and you tell Mr. Mayor that he has to give you, today, all of his back payments or you are going to repo the truck. And don’t come back without one or the other.”

This was an interesting job. Given that I had no college at the time, it was amazing that I had any job, let alone one that required me (this is very strange) to wear a coat and tie to go repossess things. The boss in this business was always someone who ate nails for breakfast, although this particular boss was a major alcoholic so he only talked tough in the morning when he felt bad because after drinking his lunch, he could hardly talk in the afternoon. But this was in the morning so I knew I had to go get the money or the truck.

It’s about an hour drive now between Searchlight and Kingman but back then it was an hour and a half. Unlike a lot of my collection calls, it was easy to find the borrower-first because it was a town of only a few hundred people (I guess Harry Reid was one of them) and second, he was the Mayor. Even a blind water buffalo could locate the Mayor in a small town. And I was no exception.

Time has dimmed my recollection of how this incident went down although I can still see him-he was the opposite of Reid, a thin and diminutive man who holds a lot of power. This guy was a big huge guy, both tall and heavy, with a huge cowboy hat who acted as if he had power. He said he was not going to pay or let me have the truck and I said he was. The next thing I know, he has a shotgun and I am running as fast as I can. He shot two times, both I am sure way over my head just to scare me and he certainly did that. Fortunately, when I arrived back at the office empty-handed it was in the afternoon so the manager was in a jovial mood and let me know we would get the guy next time.

During the day last Thursday I conducted the Board meeting at AHIP. I met and introduced a guest speaker named Michael Barone, a senior political writer for the US News & World Report and a principal co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. He gave us an excellent presentation and shared some "after the polls" polling results that said the voters did not vote for ideology. Rather they voted for competency and clearly the Republicans have come up pretty short on competency with Iraq, Guantanamo and Katrina. What I took away from that was if the Republicans hadn't made such a mess of things, they would still be in power because a lot of Americans that agree with Republican ideals voted for the Democrats, or just didn't vote, because they felt the Republicans had screwed things up so bad (my words, not his). He was an excellent speaker and very informative.

After Mike’s presentation we had another several hours of the Board meeting and we are so blessed to have Karen Ignagni as the CEO of AHIP. She is incredibly talented and professional and is one of the most powerful lobbyists in DC.

As for how I feel about the election, in the end, it is what it is. This is our system and it is better than any other system so we need to all get behind the new leaders and help them fix some of the things that are broken in our society.

On Thursday night I walked the mile down to AMMA where I met our good friends Raúl and Lizzette Perez for dinner. Raúl is from Guatemala and Lizzette is from Honduras. I met and worked with both of them when we lived in New York and they are great people I would do anything for (and vice versa I know). We had some great Indian chow and I decided to walk back when we were done as it was a gorgeous November night in Manhattan-a temperature of 60 degrees. I came upon two strange sights on my way back. The first one was very typical New York and I have shown you the photo below:



Typical New York. At this rate it would cost $405.60 plus tax for a 24 hour park


The second thing I noticed, after the outrageous parking price. I came upon a line of 59 people (yes, I counted) waiting to buy big plates of Chicken Shawarma from a street vendor. This was at 930 at night. It must have been really good Shawarma and the only reason I didn’t get in line was I had just pigged out at Amma. So I took a photo instead.


59 people in line at 9:30 pm for Chicken Shawarma

I went back to the hotel and fell asleep after this exciting week. Friday I flew back to Atlanta uneventfully. It was a weird week.

FUN WITH MY MOM

Those of you that read Andrea’s Blog know how she loves to take photos of herself or with others by holding the camera out away from her. My Mom and I tried it this week and we think it is a good photo of us!


The two of us using the Andrea technique of photo taking

Monday I had to fly to Chicago for a meeting and dinner at Trustmark. It was nice to be in the office and see many of my old colleagues again. We had a good and productive Executive Committee and dinner that night and Tuesday morning I flew to Salt Lake, connected to Las Vegas and then drove down to Kingman to spend Halloween with my Mom.

We had so much fun. But as I was driving down I was constantly reminded of how different life is out there compared to where I now live. It always feels like I lived there in some other life because it is so different, yet my memory basket is overflowing with all the wonderful times I had growing up there.

As I approached Boulder Dam (now called Hoover but always Boulder to me), I had to stop, as all cars do, for security. Since 9/11 they stop cars in both directions to make sure we are not filled with explosives to blow a hole in the dam. But this worry is much older than the five years since 9/11. One of my favorite sites at the dam is the one below-it is a machine gun nest that has sat at the entrance to the dam since World War Two. I remember as a kid hearing stories of how it was there because there was a real worry the Japanese would somehow get a submarine into the Colorado River and shoot a torpedo into the Dam, wiping out most of Southern California in the ensuing flood. It seems a little far fetched but then so does the risk of someone flying a plane into the WTC. Since obviously the machine gun nest is of no threat to a submarine, they must have also been worried about a Japanese Kamikaze diving a plane into the dam, although I am skeptical that this would knock down a dam that is 728 feet high.


A machine gun nest (I think they are called pillboxes) from WW2 overlooking the Dam


Boulder (or Hoover) Dam

They started building this incredibly high bridge in 2003 or so to eventually allow the highway to bypass the Dam by going across the Colorado River Canyon on this incredibly high bridge. My two favorite highway signs on the drive to Kingman are the signs that have a Big Horn Sheep on them as they can wander at random across the road and the sign below. You will notice the 8 has been changed. It used to be a 7 and then they had some major accident during the construction and had to push the finish time to a year later. My guess is it will open in 09 or so. Isn’t this a funny sign to come on to all of a sudden if you have no idea what it is about? It is about 5 miles before the construction so you can’t see the work being done when you see the sign.


Should you just sit there and wait?

Mom looked great-see below:


Mom on her patio-91 soon and still laughing all the time

We visited at her apartment for a couple of hours, drove over and saw two childhood friends and then went to the Brunswick Hotel for dinner. In this article from the NY Times about two weeks ago they wrote about restaurants in places like New York and San Francisco that have broken the $40 per entrée barrier. Well, that was interesting because at the Brunswick Hotel in Kingman, Arizona, a town where the per capita income is a little over $16,000 a year, some evacuees from Katrina have opened up this restaurant, which serves great food, but the entrees can be in the $40 plus range with one being $65. This restaurant will not last more than a couple of months as there is not the wealth in this low-income town to support it. But we loved it-great Halloween dinner. And to top it all off, it is right next to the seedy Sportsman’s Club, in the seediest part of town, where I spent a good part of my youth hustling pool. Everything around it is gone, but the Sportsman’s Club is still there. I remember the time I beat a guy named “Bonanza Jim” out of so much money he couldn’t pay so he gave me his 1959 Ford convertible as payment!

We called it a night early on Tuesday but on Wednesday we met at 730 and after taking Mom to church (Holy Day of Obligation) we went to IHOP. My Mom, who will be 91 in two weeks, struggled with not ordering too much and finally opted for this huge plate of pumpkin pancakes with a gallon or so of whipped cream. Hey, if I make it to 91 I am going to eat what I darn well please also.

We spent a couple of hours looking at photos from her album and photos I had of the kids’ recent visit to Atlanta. My Mom knows, beyond any doubt, that Landon is the smartest child in the entire solar system.

We drove around to see the town for a while and then I surprised her and took her up into the Hualapai Mountains for lunch at the Hualapai Mountain Lodge. This is up near Camp Leve Leve, the boy scout camp opened in 1956 where I used to go every summer. I never will forget the time Vincent Blauvelt and I were constructing a bridge (can you imagine me working on building something?) and I watched, in what felt like slow motion, as Vincent missed the log and managed to buy the hatchet solidly and directly into his knee. He yelled for me to go get help and I almost fainted from all the blood.

Mom was happy to go there since I took her there two years ago and she loved it. She talked all the way up the mountain about the great ½ pound hamburger she had last time and said it was way too much food. Of course, she had another one this time.

As we sat visiting at a table with a window facing the outside, I took this photo of the Mule Deer who at times were watching us eat just as we were watching them eat.


Can you find the six Mule Deer in this photo?

After lunch we drove back to her place and I showed her how to do a couple of things on her car (the one we gave her) that she had gotten confused on.

I hugged her goodbye and stopped at the cemetery on the way out to say hi to my
Dad. Mom had left some flowers on top of his niche and of course, as always, I was sad but pleased to report that Mom is doing well. I snapped the photo below because I liked the juxtaposition of the flags and the flowers with his spot.


My Dads eternal resting place. I love this photo with the Arizona and US Flags flying in the wind.

I stayed at the Hyatt Resort at Lake Las Vegas that night where I have stayed many times since Hyatt takes such good care of me. They gave me this massive four room suite (one of the rooms below)


Man the Hyatt treats me well!

I worked out in their fitness center and then went to the Casino. I lost 20 bucks playing Blackjack on the machine and came to the realization that I do not enjoy gambling the way I used to. I would play real (not machine) Blackjack for 5 and 6 hours years ago but for some reason, I don’t enjoy it any more.

The next morning I worked out and snapped this photo out of the window my room of the resort pools and all the construction going on here. We considered buying a second home here in 1999 and would have made a kabillion dollars if we had done it, but such is life.


Lake Las Vegas Resort at 6am-Lake Mead Shoreline on the right

Thursday morning I flew to Sacramento but due to a series of gaffes that are typical of my traveling, I ended up not getting there until 6pm instead of 2 when I was supposed to. I rented a car and drove to Davis and checked in to The Hallmark Inn, clearly a place built to cater to the college students. I wandered around for about an hour as I love this town-it is where most of the hippies moved from the 60’s I think. I ate at a Nepalese restaurant appropriately named Katmandu and crashed for the night.

Friday I spent the day at Freedom From Hunger where they were training our Board of Trustees on how to raise money. My favorite part was when we role-played it since I am a ham at heart. We had a good dinner that night with all the Trustees and the staff and I was once again amazed to hear the stories our staff tell about the wonderful women we are helping to get out of poverty. I may write about that on this Blog sometime.

Saturday was our Board of Trustees meeting and somehow or other (I am not good at saying no) I was appointed the Chair of the Development Committee and elected to the Executive Committee. I’m happy to help as this is my favorite non-profit organization but I probably don’t need more to do in my life.

Saturday night we had a great dinner in a hall with some awards for employees and retiring Trustees. I drove back to the Sacramento airport and crashed in the Hilton Garden Inn at midnight and had to get up at 4 to get gas, turn in the rental car and still make my 7am flight to Atlanta. I wrote much of this on that flight and arrived home about 4pm. It was nice to have a home cooked meal since I had been gone since Monday morning. Of course this week it is starting all over again.

I finish this up after a GSU Board meeting in Atlanta at noon today and now I am on the way to New York for a Board dinner tonight at Tabla, a great Indian restaurant that the famous Danny Meyer opened a couple of years ago. Having eaten there before, I am excited about tonight’s dinner.

The Board meeting itself (for USHealth Group) will be tomorrow and then I fly tomorrow night to Chicago for a Board of Trustees meeting of the Actuarial Foundation on Wednesday and then that afternoon, fly back to New York for an AHIP Board dinner Wednesday night and their Board meeting on Thursday. I will fly home Friday and be there until Sunday morning.

It is a good think I am retired.


THE POSTSCRIPT AIRPLANE INCIDENT
About half way to New York there was a little incident on the plane I thought I would share. The background is that when I arrived at the Atlanta airport, I saw that I had not been upgraded and my name was second on the list but they showed only one open seat. So I just went back in Coach and sat in 25C as it was a nice wide exit row aisle. There was a guy in the Window seat but no one in between us. Everyone was on it seemed and they paged me so I pushed the flight attendant call button and she came back and told me I had been upgraded and gave me the boarding pass for seat 3C, an aisle.

I was comfortable and had almost fallen asleep and there was no one between us so I told her to give it to someone else. I didn’t want to get my coat and all the crap I had by now scattered all over my space. So she said okay.

A few minutes later a woman about 30 years old came in and said she had the seat between us. I got up and let her in and she immediately apologized for the sandwich she was going to eat that she said would smell horrible. She seemed like a very nice young professional woman.

The sandwich did smell bad, but mostly of onions. But no big deal-she seemed nice. I heard her tell the other guy she was Jewish married to an Irish guy but I do not know how that came up. She was headed back to her home in Manhattan.

I typed and finished the story of my trip out to see Mom that is above and fell asleep. When I woke up she very nicely asked me if I would mind getting up and letting her out to go to the bathroom. I said sure.

Now, under my seat was a blue travel bag that Cathy gave me that can hold more stuff in it than you can imagine. I had 4 folders full of files and reading stuff, an Ipod, a PC, a phone, a PDA, a digital camera, a stapler, all my crap we now have to carry in plastic bags (like deodorant, lotion, hair spray or gel, etc), post it notes, envelopes, passport, my wallet, a book and on and on. It weighs about 25 pounds. You carry it (this is key to the story) by two nylon black straps like you would a shopping bag.

Well, I get up and step forward so she can get out. She gets up, starts to get out and plunges-and I do mean plunges straight forward into the main aisle, does a little pirouette (as you know, these are not wide aisles) and falls to the floor on her knees as her head rockets forward like a missile toward the man and woman sitting across the aisle from me who happen to be all lovey-dovey as this was happening. In an attempt to save herself from having her head crushed into the side of his seat she jabs out her arms and misses his seat but does manage to make contact with his Coke which immediately spewed all over him, all over his girlfriend and all over the window by where she was sitting.

It is always amazing how a little glass of Coke can seem so much bigger when it is running down the side of two people’s face and the airplane window. But I was worried about her, and in fairness to the Coke soaked guy, he was too. She said she was fine and was embarrassed and said she thought she caught her foot in her purse strap. To which this guy decided to share with her his belief that her foot had gotten caught in my two black straps which he accusingly suggested I had “negligently” left in the aisle. She was so embarrassed she just wanted to get out of there and to the bathroom and so she left. I immediately, of course, jammed my bag and straps way under the seat in front of me. I guess because it weighs so much she went forward rather than the bag coming out from under the seat.

She comes back and is apologizing to everyone and we are telling her it was just an accident-nothing she should worry about. She sits down and tells me “I am so clumsy now that I am pregnant”. Great, as I stare at my PC screen with the photo of Landon and Wes staring at me she tells me she is pregnant. I tell her I am so sorry and is she sure she is okay-she says “Oh yes-no one ever had a problem when they were pregnant by landing on their knees”. So she then sees the photos of the boys and we talk about them and she tells me all about it being her first child, how excited they are and we talked the rest of the way there.


Landon and Wes with their "Tia" Andrea
We land and as she is getting off I ask her what she does. She laughs and says “I am a personal injury lawyer”. Let’s think about this-a pregnant New York personal injury lawyer who skyrocketed through the stale air of a long silver tube in the sky after tripping on my “negligent”straps.

She smiled and said “Well, it was nice to meet you. I hope you enjoy your time here. What do you do for a living?”

I only had a split second to think as I replied “I am the pastor of a large evangelical church in Boise”. She smiled and said “What a great calling. God bless you”. And I said “May God bless you and your growing family.”