Faux Pas?

I just listened to the late news. Much to my surprise, the teaser was the faux pas committed by Michelle Obama when she visited the queen of England at Buckingham Palace. Of course, you had to listen to the entire news program before the nature of the faux pas was revealed. What was this grievous act? It seems that while they were visiting the Queen slipped her arm around Mrs. Obama’s back in a gesture of affection. Mrs. Obama returned the gesture. This has supposedly distressed the British people. One is not supposed to touch the Queen, even if she touches you first. Personally, I think it would be more offensive to ignore an obvious gesture of affection from the Queen but I do not know the first thing about royal rules of etiquette. From the perspective of someone who thinks about life and death on a daily basis, the news flash was the symbolism of an affectionate exchange of touch between the leaders of two world powers. I read into that gesture the hope of cooperation and collaboration between those world powers in solving the economic crisis, resolving world conflicts, preventing any future world conflicts, reducing global warming, and attempting to bring about peace and prosperity for all nations. I know I am a hopeless optimist. I prefer looking at the positive implications of any scenario. I was also encouraged by reports of President Obama meeting the leaders of Russia and
China. I prefer open and honest dialogue to threats of weapons of mass destruction. In the sixties, the popular slogan against the Vietnam War was “Make love not war.” Forty years later, it is time to live that slogan. The UK is our ally, despite the thousands of protesters who smashed windows in the financial district today while carrying signs declaring the ineffectiveness of capitalism. It would be nice to be able to say that all of the major world powers enjoyed a positive relationship and agreed to work together to make the planet one where we could all live together, sharing its resources and ensuring a positive quality of life for all its inhabitants.

Mrs. Obama did not commit a faux pas, in my opinion. She and Queen Elizabeth took a step toward showing the world how its leaders should behave toward each other.

Earthqake!!

I had an exciting weekend with unexpected company and nice weather. Friends Dotty and Mike Sanford were in the area visiting his children and stopped by after not being able to reach me on the phone. I met Dotty when I was being treated for Hodgkin’s disease in 1980. Her husband Alan was in my support group and he was the one who convinced me that it was okay to fire my first oncologist. This was the doctor who told us, “Do this or die” when we asked if there was an alternative to the treatment plan he outlined. As it turned out, Doug was correct in his assessment that the amount of radiation I was to receive was too much radiation. I had nearly 6,000 rads of mediastinal radiation. That is radiation to the center of my chest, which 25 years later caused my breast cancer. Of course, who knows whether I would have survived 25 years after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease without this radiation? Today’s treatment protocol for Hodgkin’s disease includes only about 2400 rads of radiation along with chemotherapy. I have kept in touch with Dotty over the years. She became active in the Sierra Club after Alan died and met Mike while she was climbing mountains. It was good to see her and spend some time catching up.

I also had a nice long letter from another old friend this week. Mary and Wayne Saddler are friends we met when Josh was a baby. Josh and their daughter Michaele went to Gymboree together, were in play groups in Las Madres and we were also in a babysitting coop. We were sad when they moved away, first to Santa Rosa and then to Ventura, California when our children were still young. We have stayed in touch and they attended one of Gabrielle’s performances at USC when I was too ill to attend. I think that is the only performance (of opera scenes) I ever missed. Mary gave me a full report and they were there to support Gabrielle in person. Mary was also there for the operas and graduation at USC. It was great to have a nice long letter to savor. Friends make such excellent medicine on days when you are down. I have been waiting for my “boost” from the blood transfusion to kick in, but have been in bed much of the time since chemo. Friends make the day better in all ways.

Patrice is back from St Louis and her Jubilee celebration of her vows. She said the liturgy was wonderful and she was able to see her family and have a nice dinner with them. I wish I could have seen the celebration and heard her give the homily. She did let me read it before she left and I thought it was great with a nice surprise ending. I missed her while she was away. Today she is going to come by and take me out for a short while.

This morning my cousin Pam called from the East Coast and while we were on the phone, we had a 4.6 earthquake. The house was rolling for quite a while and now I am watching the news accounts as we wait to see if there will be aftershocks. Josh slept through the whole thing. My bed was moving as well but as I looked outside, I could see the sun shining on the lemon tree and a slight breeze blowing in the backyard. I guessed the magnitude would be at least a four and I was right. They just announced the epicenter as Morgan Hill, which is the next town south of San Jose as you drive down the 101 freeway. Fortunately, nothing fell off the shelves so I do not think there was any damage. They just announced the quake was off the Calaveras Fault on a new fault line and was a 4.3 quake located 11 miles north of Morgan Hill. This is quite close to the house.

The government released its report on the health reform summit today. It is 56 pages long. You can download it from the web at www.whitehouse.gov. Go to the White House Blog and look at Nancy-Ann DeParle’s March 30 blog entry. The report is White House Forum on Health Reform Report. Another shorter report is available on www.HealthReform.Gov and is The Cost of Inaction. It is a compilation of statistics on the cost of doing nothing with respect to health reform, including the impact on the economy in general. It seems the location of the California summit on health care reform was changed from May to April and from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I was hoping to attend this summit but it will be much harder to get to LA than to just drive up to San Francisco. I guess I will have to rely on my frequent emails to the President to try to make my opinion heard.