A vintage selfie
So I asked Google’s Gemini whether anything could be gleaned about the context from the photo itself.
Here’s Gemini’s answer.
This is a fascinating, layered black-and-white image. The “infinity mirror” or nested reflection effect adds a lot of depth, giving us multiple clues about both the setting and the era.
Here is what can be gleaned from the visual details: Continue reading
My first pet was a parakeet. I named him “Jimmy” after my favorite uncle, my mother’s brother.
I don’t remember how old I was when my mother brought Jimmy home. My mother’s dog died not long after my 5th birthday, so I’m guessing my first parakeet appeared not long afterwards, when I was in the first grade. Initially Jimmy was quite scared and stayed in safety of the cage. But I spent a lot of time and, before too long, he was happy to hop onto my finger. Then he was able to come out of the bird cage and hang out on a parakeet play pen, shown in this photo with a second parakeet added later to the mix. She was blue. Her name was “Ipo.”
Looking back, the parakeets were obviously part of a broader lesson in responsibility. They depended on me to make sure they had food, water, and cuttle bone to chew on, and to clean their cage regularly and sweep up around it. This marked a different kind of task, different from being told to take out the trash. That was just a job I was assigned. But with the birds, if I didn’t do take care of them, they would suffer, directly and immediately. I can recall it sometimes feeling like a burden, but then Jimmy and Ipo would be there to interact with me, and the burden would quickly lift. It was an important lesson, although I’m sure my mother hovered in the background ready to step in if I neglected my responsibilities more than occasionally.
My first Jimmy died, and was buried in a shoebox filled with soft tissue paper just outside my parent’s bedroom on the side of our house. I recall that being a very solemn occasion, a lesson about death and dying.
That was some 70 years ago. But now, likely in a total coincidence, there is a small ti plant growing in about that same spot. But it’s no longer outside my parents’ bedroom, because it’s now our bedroom.
And after the parakeet “funeral”, he was replaced by Jimmy 2, another green male.
I remember that at some point my mother attached a nesting box to their cage, and I have vague memories of peeking into the box and seeing a few eggs. But I don’t remember baby parakeets emerging. Certainly that would have been a lasting memory.
And, what’s worse, I don’t recall when or how my parakeet period ended. Did they die? Were they given away? Why can’t I remember any of the circumstances? Is the lack of memory because it was somewhat traumatic for me? I just don’t know. Or, more properly, I don’t recall.
It seems so simple.
“Hey, how are you doing?”
It’s a very common greeting when running into someone on the street, as happened several times early this morning.
But for me such a greeting poses an immediate challenge, requiring me to quickly decide how to respond.
Do I treat it as a rhetorical question? Respond with a shrug, “not bad,” and then direct it back. “And you?”
Or how about an honest reply? “Well, I’ve been diagnosed with biliary tract cancer, potentially curative surgery failed, and I expect to begin a battle for my life within a couple of weeks when chemo and immunotherapy begin.” Probably a conversation stopper.
I usually choose something in between. “Well,” I say, “I’ve been better.” It gives me a second or two to consider the degree of self disclosure warranted by the circumstances and my relationship to the person I’m responding to.
If it’s someone I know, I try to provide the basics. “Meda and I have been in California for much of the past two months as I’ve gone through diagnosis and initial treatment of a small cancer in my gut.” It’s all there in one sentence and, without lots of details, it doesn’t hit too heavily. “Now that we’re back home, I expect to start chemotherapy and immunotherapy soon.” Normalizing the whole thing.
It’s not that I’m avoiding disclosure, as you already know if you’re reading this.
But it can quickly turn into a long, complicated and muli-layered tale, more than I want to inflict on all but the most eager listeners.
Making it more complicated is the fact that I don’t really know how I’m doing.
I have not asked for or received a prognosis, but am trying to just keep moving forward a step at a time with a positive attitude.
This does complicate practical matters, as some of the questions we face, such as what to do when our car lease runs out in September, would be easier to deal with if I knew more how much future I can reasonably expect to enjoy.
But, for now, I’ll accept that tradeoff and keep moving.
Here’s another practical problem we’re facing.
Background: For decades, Meda and I had a division of labor. She had the secure full-time job with benefits that we could rely on. I had a number of short term or part-time jobs, and did freelance writing along the way. But I was the primary cook, travel planner, and cat litter box monitor. Keeping our personal finances in order (bill payments, investment decisions, tax preparation, etc) was also part of my job.
As we recently prepared to fly to California for treatment at UCSF, I was scrambling to finish our federal and state tax returns. I made it, but the experience made me realize how quickly I could find myself unable to attend to those financial matters if my medical condition took a rapid and unexpected turn for the worse.
We established a living trust in 2018 that holds almost all of our assets–bank accounts, savings, investments, title to our home, etc., although it didn’t change management of our day to day finances.
So what should we do now?
It seems to me the question is how to go about selecting a third party to take over bill paying and tax preparation, or be ready to do so on short notice if I am suddenly unable to do the job. And how to do it with maximum legal protections for ourselves.
I know this must be a common transition for those with assets to manage, but before we reached that certain age, it never seemed like something we needed to be worried about. Now it is!
Before calling our bank to see what they can do, I thought that I would again solicit advice from readers, especially from those who have already managed such a transition. Please email me at ian@ilind.net, or text at 808-955-1819.
And I thank you in advance for sharing your experience.