A Queer Mobile

John in the Chinese Furniture Room

At the beginning of December John had the opportunity to show two of his pieces as part of an art faire held in the Cherry Building, a beautifully restored old manufacturing building that now hosts a large number of artist's studios. It's right next door to where his studio is, and the Chadima family owns both buildings. They invited John to show two of his pieces in a room that contains antique Chinese furniture that the family has collected over many years. Here's a quick tour of the room and of John's recent work.

Our 2007: Work

Big changes work-wise this year for me: I’ve been working since 2002 for a major private foundation in California. I decided it was time to cut the cord at the end of this year. That marks the first time since 1975 that I’ve not had a full-time gig in California.

Several things went into my decision. I’ve been telecommuting for California companies since March 1997. Basically that means that I’ve been on the road one week each month since that time. I figure that I’ve spent a total of almost three years away from home over the last eleven that I’ve lived here in Iowa. It’s been great money and a lot of fun, but...

When I first moved to Cedar Rapids in 1997 we were remodeling this house. Stuff was torn up constantly. Traveling back to my condo in those days was a treat: it was a chance to rest from unending construction. Those days are long since over, and I’m very happily writing this from the music room filled with plants growing and the piano just at my side.

When my last company died in 2001 I decided to sell my condo. Had I realized that I’d continue working in California for another five years, I might have made another choice... No matter. When I started with the foundation I also started staying with some very close friends who were incredibly generous to open their home to me for a week each month. We’ve all had a great time .

I’ve noticed one thing, though. When I first started my travels in 1997, I relished being in California. So much has changed out there - not all for the better - that I don’t have the same emotional attachment to the San Francisco Bay Area. And I’ve not been technically challenged by the work any more.

I thought I’d stick around one more year when I got a call back in October from some old friends who run a software engineering consultancy around here. We’d talked for some time about possible things to do together, but their specialties aren’t what I’ve wanted to do. All that changed when they started to have prospective clients appear who want exactly what I do. So I got an offer to join them - and I accepted on Hallowe’en.

I start the new gig on 2 January 2008. I have a week off between now and the New Year. I’ve just finished wrapping up work at the foundation, and I’m finally starting to decompress a bit.

Our 2007: Around the house

This was the year that The Shop became The Annex.

John moved his shop from here at the house in October 2006. Not only did that create a super new workspace for him, but our goal was to restore the old shop space and turn it into a multi-purpose space: gym, media room, library, music room, and a spot for him to store finished goods. If that sounds like quite a bit for one building, consider this: the old shop space is over 1200 square feet, in two rooms. The old side of the shop was the original garage. The new side is much larger - almost a great room - with skylights and picture windows overlooking the vegetable garden.

I started doing some cleanup work around there early in the year, but John got cranking on the place in August. By then he’d done his two shows and we’d gotten back from our annual trip to see my family in North Carolina. So right around the time things started getting hot and sticky, John finishes the cleanup phase and plows into painting. After watching a special on the Golden Gate Bridge one evening he had the idea to paint the exposed beams and roof struts brilliant orange. Sounds weird? It really works! Around the same time we brought in electricians to rewire the joint, and we had our heating contractor install central air conditioning.

The tough stuff was redoing the floor. He completely resurfaced the concrete slab. We ordered tile made of recycled rubber - perfect for athletic use. He had a devil of a time getting the stuff down: the tile weren’t precisely square and they’d flex as he laid them.

I can’t tell you how happy I am with the result. We brought our treadmill up from the basement, set up free weights, and had gobs of space left. John installed a small shelf so we could put a TV and DVD player near the treadmill. I’m probably out there at least once each day. I’ve been pretty regular on the treadmill, and the extra space means I have a place to practice taijiquan. I learned the Yang short form years ago, but I’ve not had a great place to practice. Now I’m learning it again and loving it.

A little memorial for Ki

Here's a short video I made of pictures from Ki's time with me.

Ki has passed

12 December 2007

Ki passed last night. It was one of the most difficult, most fulfilling moments that I’ve had. And I feel terribly alone without him. He was my most honest, most direct companion for the past sixteen years. I loved him unreservedly. He more than returned the favor.

As I reported in an earlier post, John and I had been in California for a week. When we got back Ki had clearly taken a sharp turn for the worse. Neither John nor I were clear on what to do, but I wanted to see if we could nurse him along. By the following Monday he'd started eating pretty well, and I thought perhaps he had turned a corner and might stick around with us for a while. On Tuesday, though,  he picked at his food in the morning. What I didn’t notice was that he completely stopped drinking. I tried tempting him with food throughout the morning, but to no avail.

In the middle of the afternoon yesterday he would get restless, circle for a moment, and then arch his back and cry just a bit. I couldn’t figure out if it was frustration at not being able to move better than he could, or if he was in pain. I had tons of calls that afternoon, and I fielded them as best I could between comforting him. He was here in my office for a good bit of the afternoon; I sensed that he wanted to be close to me. I wondered how well - or if - he could still see.

As the evening began he seemed fine. I did my meditation upstairs while Ki stayed with John in the back room. I came downstairs and did a little computing. John called me urgently. I found him on the floor with Ki in the back room. Ki had had another spell, only this one was much stronger and more painful. I sat down with him and I realized that this was the moment. Much earlier I’d prayed for a shaft of Artemis to dispel his pain and transport him if he fell into pain. I - and John - were to be that agent.

I hesitated a bit, wanting John to tell me what to do. Finally I picked up the phone and called our emergency vet hospital. I went over what had been happening with Ki, and I said I wanted to bring him out to be seen. The receptionist asked me how soon I might get there, and I told her we’d be there within half an hour.

I bundled Ki up in an old pink blanket against the cold. Just as he had done almost exactly two years ago when Ki had been badly bitten and almost died, John drove us to Wright Brothers Boulevard. Ki huddled in my arms, motionless. At a point I wondered if he might have passed silently, without warning. As we rolled up to the parking lot, Ki had another intensely painful episode. I muttered to John how glad I was that we were doing this now.

John grabbed Ki as I struggled with the ice that covered the parking lot like a skating rink. We got inside, and the receptionist showed us to an exam room. She did a history, took his temperature, and rushed to get a heating pad because he was so cold. Clearly he wasn’t able to regulate his body temperature any longer. She took the history to the vet on duty, Sarah Hansen. In the ten minutes or so before she came in we held Ki as he had another painful spasm. Dr. Hansen rushed in the room, and all my fears melted. She was incredibly gentle, kind, and deeply compassionate to Ki and to John and me.

We talked through everything that had gone on. She said that rapid weight loss is usually end-stage kidney disease or cancer. I said in either case we weren’t going to do anything dramatic. She nodded. I sensed that she was relieved that we had already understood what was happening. She said even if we admitted him they might be able to keep him going for at most a day or two - if we wanted that time. I shook my head.

“We’re on the same path, I think,” she said. John and I nodded, and she brought out a form to authorize euthanizing Ki. I signed it, checking off that I wanted a private cremation with the ashes returned to us.

“You can have as much time as you want,” she said.

“Let’s do it,” I said. I was worried about him having another spell.

She left to assemble the meds and to bring an assistant into the room. Tears were streaming down John’s face, dripping off his nose. I buried my head in Ki’s fur, and felt him leaving us. “You’ll be on your Buddha pillow,” I told him thickly. I kissed John, and we waited for Dr. Hansen to return.

She came back but she wasn’t able to find a patent vein. “He has old dog veins,” she said. We allowed her to take him and insert a IV line. After a few moments she came back, carrying him in blankets. “He was perfect,” she said.

“He’s always been a wonderful dog,” I said to her. “We’ve been together sixteen years.”

She prepared to give the injection, then hesitated as if she wanted a signal from me. I held Ki. Suddenly he became agitated again, and started to arch back in pain.

“Go, go, go!” I said. I held him tight against the pain as she injected the serum. His body was tightly clenched, then suddenly relaxed. I felt him slip away. “Go straight ahead,” I said to him under my breath.

For a moment - a very long moment - I held his soft warm body against my face. I let him gently fall back against the table and wrapped him in the blanket. He was utterly peaceful, almost as if he’d just fallen asleep and that he might awaken with my soft step in the room, ready to go for a walk with me.

“You’ve had him the entire sixteen years?” Dr. Hansen asked.

“Since he was two months old. We’ve walked together at least twice a day almost every day for all that time,” I said. “He was a wonderful companion. I wanted to do the best for him. That’s why we brought him tonight.” Her chin was shaking as tears streamed down my face. “Thank you so much,” I said.

“Was that what was happening earlier tonight?” she asked.

I nodded mutely.

“You did a very commendable thing,” she said. She opened her arms, and we hugged each other. John stood by me, eyes brimming with tears.

“Would you like a paw print?” she asked.

I never had thought of such a thing. “Oh, please, yes,” I said. She swept up his frail body, still swaddled, and gently took him away.

John and I walked to the lobby. My breathing was already easier. We were done. Ki had made it. And we’d done everything right - I have no regrets. The receptionist brought out a small circle of clay with his paw print in it. “It will dry slowly over the next few days,” she said. “We’ll call you when his ashes are ready.”

I paid her for their service, and I told her how deeply I appreciated them being there for us. John and I walked out into the frozen air. I piled into the Escape and let him drive me home.

The ground and trees shimmered as we drove home. It wasn’t tears; everything in sight was covered with a crystal coat of ice that reflected each ray of light.

“It’s a beautiful night,” John finally said as we came to the bridge across the Cedar River. “It’s all sparkly.”

The Amazon Kindle arrived...

Of course you all knew that I'd plunk down my money to get an Amazon Kindle. I've held off buying a eBook reader for quite a while. The Sony reader looks nice, but it takes a PC (not a Mac) to use it, and Sony's eBook store isn't the thing of my dreams. So when my friend Jeffrey gave a thumbs-up to his new Kindle, I ordered one.

It's a much nicer package than I'd anticipated from looking at pictures of it. It fits the hand beautifully and is very easy to use. (A few nits: the page turning buttons are too easy to hit, and the scroll wheel button is too hard to press. Sigh...) It uses the same electronic paper technology that Sony's reader uses, which means it takes very little power to run. Under good lighting the page actually looks like paper, and it's extremely readable from any angle.

Amazon's Kindle store is a dream. They have over 90,000 books available, and with the built-in wireless receiver you don't need a computer to use it. You don't need a computer network, either, because it runs off of Sprint's wireless data network. I get very good reception here in Cedar Rapids, and the store is effortless to access. I've bought several books so far, and gotten wireless delivery in under two minutes.

Is this a first version? Certainly. But it's an extremely good first version - one that I've been enjoying in the middle of our on-going ice storm.

We're back...

We got back yesterday in the late afternoon after a pretty successful trip out west. This is my last trip as an employee of a California company. That last sentence has been eleven years in the making...

The bad news here at home is that Ki, my sixteen year old puppy, is failing rapidly. I figured he wouldn't do well with us gone. Even though our wonderful neighbor, Mike Taylor, took excellent care of everyone in our absence,  Ki just doesn't like eating when we're not around. He lost even more weight and didn't want to eat much when we got in the door. John and I took turns holding him. John thought his breathing was labored.

We hurried out to grab a sandwich - there was no food in the house - and we headed to the store to pick up stuff for us and for Ki. My last hope was to see if he'd eat some canned tuna mixed with steamed rice: that's my ace in the hole when he doesn't want to eat. He actually did pretty well last night, and he ate three small helpings today - and I think he's perked up just a bit. It's clear, though, that he's getting ready to pass on. I'm just grateful that I don't need to worry about week-long trips in the near term, at least.

I'll finish up my current gig at the end of the year. I'm doing documentation and some design work for a new system. We'll see if there's continuing consulting work to do out west...

On the move this last weekend

We’ve driven the wheels off our rental Ford Fungus (as John calls the blue Focus) so far this trip. We spent the night with our friends John Eaton and Diane Kaye in Aptos. About fifteen minutes after we arrived Diane whisked me to her amazing darkroom where we conferred on the best way to prepare special photographic chemistry. I’ve not done wet photography for years and my chemistry is awfully rusty, but I can still prep solutions more easily than someone who didn’t grow up in a lab. She’s been printing using a specialized technique called lith printing. Her results are astonishing: she gets bold color tones and unusual grain patterns that give her work a quality missing in conventional silver prints - even with toning.

We ate like mad, hung out and talked, and did very little. On Sunday morning I pawed through Diane’s German books - she’s a German scholar, too. Then we headed to a brunch place. She wanted to surprise us - and we ended up at Shadowbrook in Capitola. My ex and I frequented the place during the early 1980s, and I always loved the long, easy brunches in glass paneled rooms overlooking the river.

John and I headed to San Mateo where my good friend Kathleen Jacoby hosted us for a mid-afternoon coffee with friends. These are good times where we can talk metaphysical notions and play with ideas. A really great time!