My name is Jim and I have sleep apnea.

The internet has made us all stupid. Nobody knows anything anymore because they assume they can take out their smart phone and google whatever it is.

I have a C-path machine for my apnea. I love it. It makes my life much better than it would otherwise be. I take it wherever I go.

When I'm in Ireland, the Conference Center where we meet has a DC/AC machine. It weighs about 15 pounds and is about the size of a breadbox (for those who can remember what size a breadbox was--or even 'what' a breadbox was). You plug it into Direct Current and plug your machine into the other side and DC miraculously becomes AC and your C-Path works!

Before we left for Italy I tried to buy one of those machines (the DC/AC converter) but really couldn't find one that I thought was similar to the one in Ireland. So I surfed the internet for days, trying to find out what exactly I needed to use my C-path in Italy. There was entirely too much information and not anything specific enough to respond to googling "How to use an American C-Path in Italy".

I called my supplier for the machine and nobody really knew but all told me to google it.

I called the manufacturer of my machine and spoke to an engineer who gave me the details on a plug that he was reasonably sure would work. Beware of engineer's who are 'reasonably sure' and use the internet!

I ordered the plug and didn't believe it would work. So, I took it to my Tuesday group where the two smartest people I know attend. I showed them the plug and the information that came with it and they were 'reasonably sure' it would work.

It worked one night in Italy and then burned my machine to a crisp.

Now, trying to get a new machine has turned into a nightmare since no knows anything anymore and the internet has 1,345,856 hits, none of which say: "Do this to replace your C-Path machine".

My supplier's fax number refused to receive my GP's Rx. So I had him refer me to the sleep center where I went 10 years or more ago, which was Gaylord then and Yale-New Haven Hospital now. So, I have to wait to see them before I get my machine. If, that is, they can locate the Gaylord records!!!

I wake up congested--which I never do with the machine. I seem about to doze off from time to time (which I never do with the machine). And I'm snoring, Bern tells me (which I never do with the machine.)

I just want a new machine. That's all.

But, beyond that I want people to 'know' stuff again and the internet to die a painful, horrible, exhausting death.

Just that. That's all.

 

Siena food

In a city the size of Siena, Italy (80,000 or so souls) there is surely some 'not so good food'. But in the week we were there I didn't find any.

I actually ate pasta with wild boar. I would have told you a week ago I would never, ever, not in a million years, eat wild boar. But I did. And it was magnificent (though I hate to admit it)!

I ate lots of pasta and lots of cured meat and lots of cheese in Siena. And all of it was wondrous. The last night, in Rome, I had swordfish in a remarkable onion sauce as well.

Once for lunch at the Palio in Siena, I had procuttia (sp--my spell check is being difficult), the best half a cantalope I've ever had and a motzarella ball the size of a baseball. Incredible.

There was this one rustic, local place a short walk from the villa where we ate two dinners, where only the chef really spoke English. She came out each time to translate our orders to the waiter. After the second night (she was delighted--folks in Italy really want to use their English skills) I went back to the kitchen and thanked her for her translation and more, much more, for her food.

Even the few meals we cooked in the villa were seemingly better than they would have been at home. Eggs and butter are much better Italian style. I did a dinner of Pica (the ultra fat spaghetti of Siena) with oil, creamy butter, red onion, arrugla and lots of cheese that I couldn't reproduce here on a bet.

Siena is simply a place for food.

And we ate it and ate it and ate it. World without End. Amen.

Thank you Italy for the food. And did I mention the wine????

Solstice (a day early)

It's 8:39 p.m. and I just came in from the deck where I was reading a book. I could probably have stayed a few more minutes before it was too dark to read.

I love the Solstice. I don't paint myself blue and dance around like my ancient ancestors did in the British Isles, but I do love the longest day of the year. I was looking forward to the 'Strawberry Moon'--what a full moon on June 21 is called. There are decades between on Strawberry Moon and the next, but it's cloudy in Connecticut so I'll have to live another 20 years or so to see the next one. Though by then I probably won't know what the moon is!

I wish all days were this long and this mild. I am a fan of the light, though I usually sleep well into it most mornings.

From today on, the light begins to fade seconds a day until the dark of New England winter returns.

Ah, well, seasons are what they are.

(This year on the Solstice there were three muskrats in our yard eating clover. I'm not sure where they live. There used to be a couple of acres of woods behind our back yard but a McMansion ate up a lot of it. It was good to see them in any event. Later this summer when the mulberries on the bush behind our yard fall off and ferment, we'll be treated to drunk muskrats for a week or so. Something not to be missed. Muskrats are not the most agile of creatures to begin with, but in their cups they are amazingly clumsy. Seeing them took away some of the sting of missing a strawberry moon.)

Happy Solstice! Lean into the Light!

What's up with this?

My blog tells me over 80 people have viewed this post in the last day or so. What's up with that?

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Toradh caithimh tobac--ba`s

That's what it says on the Malboro Gold Originals I've been smoking for two weeks. I bought a carton at the Duty Free Shop at the Dublin Airport. If I'm doing the Euro-Dollar exchange anywhere near right, the ten packs of cigarettes cost about $4 a pack, less than half what they cost in Cheshire.

That I still have a pack plus some others after two weeks tells me I don't smoke nearly as much as I feared. Most smokers, when they count, are horrified that they smoke more than they thought. So, give me a break on that, OK?

Yes, I KNOW I shouldn't smoke. And I do. OK? Leave me alone. I'm a priest, I stand with the oppressed and the most oppressed people in the Western world are smokers. I'm just standing with my people....

But since absolutely everything in Ireland has both Irish and English on signs, notices, directions, etc., 'whatever', each pack of cigarettes has the warning "Toradh caithimh tobac--ba`s" on it. The English translation is below: "Smoking kills". You have to admire a language that requires 22 letters to say what 12 say in English. And such wondrous words! When I try to pronounce them (which I can't for the life of me) they sound like Klingon. But if an Irish speaker said them they would sound like a bird song, really. I've listened to Irish a lot and it is a language to be sung, not spoken. English is so mundane in comparison.

No wonder the Irish love song and poetry and story so much--it sounds like birds.

I'm listening as I write this to Maggie, our parakeet sing along with the classical music station we always have on beside her cage.

With a little practice, I believe, Maggie could speak Irish. All birds, it seems to me, are Gaelic in their bird souls.....

Orlando

It is late and I don't have much to say that makes much sense about Orlando.

We were in Italy and got the news in drips and drabs from devices the Josh and Cathy and Dan and Bern had.

Would it be awful to admit I'm glad we weren't here to be washed over by it 24 hours a day? It was awful to hear about, but it came--as I said--in drips and drabs rather than in MSNBC pillar to post coverage.

I preached about Orlando today. How many times have I had to preach about a mass shooting? More than a dozen times, for sure. And this one so horrible in so many ways: LGBTQ folks and most of this Hispanic.

What makes life so frightening and difficult is the false notion of The Other.

LGBTQ folks are "the other" to many. Trump wants to 'build a wall' to keep 'the other'--Hispanics out. Muslims are 'the other'. Blacks and Asians are 'the other'. Everyone has an 'other' they fear and fret about. And it's not just white folks. Everyone has the other. And 'the other' is a lie.

There is no 'other'.

Here's a story I told in my sermon about Orlando: A wise and godly rabbi is sitting with his disciples by a river as dawn is breaking.

The rabbi asks, "How much light is enough light to see?"

One of his disciples answers: "There is enough light to see when you can tell the goats from the sheep across the river."

The rabbi thinks and then says, "No, that is not enough light to see."

Another student says, "There is enough light to see when we can tell the myrtle trees from the olive trees across the river."

After a long silence, the rabbi says, "No, that is not enough light to see."

His disciples grow silent and wait as dawn comes. Finally the rabbi says, "There is enough light to see when you can look into the face of any human being and see the face of God."


We sit in darkness when we fear the Other.

We need enough light to see....

 

The trip over

On Friday, June 10, we dropped Bela off at the puppy motel (a really wonderful place called Holiday Pet Lodge in Wallingford--the only place that would put up with him!) and drove to Newark Airport.

As drives to Newark Airport go, it wasn't awful. We were there with four hours to spare but Dan and Josh and Cathy and the girls were already through security when we arrived! For reasons I don't understand, we got to go through 'fast security', which actually was. Sitting around an airport and then flying overnight was no fun--but we got through it.

Groggy and disoriented in the Italian sun (though it never was 'hot' while we were there) Enrico picked us up in a Mercedes 9 seat car to drive us to Siena. On the way through Tuscany we climbed an endless hill up to a remarkable little village called Pienza where we bought some wine and sausage and enough cheese for the whole trip before winding our way to the 'villa'.

Dan made all the arrangements for the trip, including Enrico, and I had no idea what a 'villa' might look like. Turns out it was a modern, 5 bedroom unit next to the unit where the owners lived. Spacious and air-conditioned, with a pool for us and us alone and a 15' by 10' room with no roof, so you could be 'outside'/inside. Remarkably comfortable and well appointed. A great place to live for 6 days.

Siena is the most beautiful place I've ever been. Built on hills, as most cities in that part of Italy are (probably for defensive purposes back in the 11th and 12th centuries) it is almost totally the color of sand with red roofs. (Here we tend to build in valleys beside rivers--but not in Tuscany! Getting all that stone up on top of hills to build villages boggles the mind.)

We found a grocery store in walking distance--not a Stop and Shop or Kroger's for sure--but really well provided with cheese and meat and fish and pasta and wonderful vegetables and fruit and, to my astonishment, when I converted the Euros into dollars in my head, considerably cheaper than US stores.

Bern and I went to the store and we had an extended anti-pasta with salad and good, good bread (I don't think the concept of  'ok bread' or 'ordinary bread' exists in Italy) and butter so creamy I was tempted to eat it with a spoon. Morgan, Emma and Tegan went to the pool while we assembled dinner--they are all water sprites.

Then blessed sleep.

More later about the adventure in Italy.

No way to run an airport

We're back from Italy after a week's trip with Josh and Cathy and our three granddaughters and Bern's brother Dan. We spent all but the last day in Sienna, which is beyond a doubt the most beautiful and one of the most livable places I've ever been (besides Cheshire, of course). I made notes and will be blogging for a week or so about the trip.  The last day and night we spent in Rome since we had a 9:50 a.m. flight to Newark and Sienna is over two hours from Rome and making the flight would not have worked. More about Rome later.

First, Rome's airport.

Rome is a city of over 2 million people--not New York or Chicago or LA--but a major European capital. And they have no idea how to run an airport. The airport is pristine and new and yet it is a nightmare.

You arrive at a building after a half-hour or more cab ride from the city (50 Euros--about $60). In that building, you stand in line to have someone look at your passport and give you a huge plastic bag for all the carry on tooth paste, shampoo, etc. etc. you have, even though you already have it in plastic bags.

Then you march through to a door to buses that take you to the actual terminal. Buses that are packed full of standing up people with luggage and take 10 minutes or so for the trip to the terminal. In the terminal, you pass through security and then wander around for quite a while trying to find your gate. Your gate will be in the midst of several places to eat something and dozens of high end stores. Since you're there two hours before takeoff you shop and spend money and eat in places that have no logic understood in North America.

Bern and I had a pastry, coffee and orange juice. But here was the trick. You had to order and pay at a place far to the side of the place where the food was and then present your receipt to the servers. Well, 3/4 of the people were not Italian and stood in line to order food before being told by the servers to cross the room and pay first. How do you order food at a place where you can't see the menu?

Then you check in for the flight--boarding as usual in the US in groups (1-5). The catch was, you checked in and rode escalators down two stories to be herded into buses again to ride 5 miles or so to the plane and go up outside steps to board. A Boeing 777 needed half a dozen buses to get everyone to the plane.

So, you stand in line to get a plastic bag you don't need. Ride a bus. Buy expensive stuff and eat in illogical ways. Then stand in line to board and ride another bus and stand in line to climb outdoor steps to the plane.

Not a way to run an airport, far as I can see. The terminal actually had walkways to board planes but the planes were all five miles out on the runway. Go figure.

Much more to come about Italy. Most of it much better than the seemingly random and illogical way Rome airport works.