Trivial Pursuits

Damn Hurricanes

Enough already.  Between 1979 and 1992, no major hurricanes struck the southern Florida peninsula, where TP primarily grew up.  Then, there was Andrew.  Now, there is Wilma, one of 8 hurricanes to have struck Florida in the last 30 months. 

There is no power, no water, and only intermittent phone service at best on Miami Beach, where Ma TP lives.  She says the city is an absolute ghost town, and that, even with a flashlight, walking her beloved bulldog Petunia at 8 pm was quite a frightening experience -- debris and palm fronds and limbs everywhere, glass from blown in windows, pitch blackness, the streets deserted.  Sounds kinda post-apocalyptic to me.

Phone service was down all day yesterday, though Ma TP did get some cell phone activity this morning, and was able to telephone TP and Dr. Brother TP, though talking was rushed because she wanted to conserve cell phone juice.  TP users know as well as TP that cell phone batteries don't last very long under the best of circumstances, so TP is not sure how much longer he will be able to communicate with Ma TP, nor how long it will take phone service to return.

When Hurricane Andrew ripped through TP's home in 1992, it took about 4 weeks for power to be restored, and phone service was not restored until mid-November, if memory serves.  It's hard to compare that experience to Wilma, however, because Andrew was a raging, compact monster, whose path of destruction was relatively narrow, in contrast to Wilma, whose eye touched 5 counties at one point.  The damage from Andrew was more severe, but the damage from Wilda covers a much wider swath. 

3.2 million people in SoFlo are without power.  That's most of Palm Beach County, Broward County, Miami-Dade County, Collier (Naples), Glades (mostly rural, home to some high school football powerhouses closer to Lake Okeechobee) and Monroe County (the Keys).

Though Ma TP and Younger Brother TP are both fine, living without power and water in a kind of ghost town has got to be seriously depressing.

Dr. Pa TP lives in Broward County, relatively close to the Dade County border, inland a bit, off of the Florida Turnpike.  TP has not heard from him since Monday morning.  Last either I or Dr. Brother TP heard, Dr. Pa TP was doing fine, and we are fairly certain his home suffered no structural damage.  However, Dr. Pa TP is paraplegic, and does not have functional sweat glands, so lack of power and A/C can generally be a problem for someone who cannot regulate their body temperature through internal mechanisms.

Fortunately, the weather in SoFlo is beautiful right now, cool, bright, and breezy, so he's probably alright.  Still, not knowing if everything is alright, knowing that Dr. Pa TP is, in some sense, vulnerable, and does not have a link to the outside world, including emergency services by telephone, is definitely chafing TP, and the Charmin isn't soothing the flare-up right now, either.

Grandfather Rabbi TP is in a hospital in Miami, admitted as a precautionary measure ahead of time.  His aide has informed Ma TP that he is ok.

Damn hurricanes.  There has been some talk that the last 30 months have simply been the beginning of what is termed a long cycle of increased hurricane activity, which often lasts several decades minimum.  This has happened just this century, where hurricanes were prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s, but were fewer (relatively speaking --this is not meant to ignore the consequences of those who did experience major storms during these time periods) during the 1970s, 1980s, and even parts of the 1990s (excluding Andrew, of course).

If that's true, perhaps the TP clan should start to consider moving from SoFlo. 

Finally, TP himself was headed down to South Beach for the weekend, and was even going to catch a Hurricanes' football game.  Very likely, this trip will be scratched, which is unfortunate.

Frankly, this isn't very much fun.

UPDATE:  Spoken with everyone.  All family is fine.  Ma TP received power Wed. evening.  Most of South Beach is alive and well, with power, including the two most important places on the beach for TP: David's Cafe, the home to the finest coffee in the Western world (the Cuban coffee known as cortadito), and Epicure, the greatest delicatessen not in NYC. 

TP's beloved Hurricanes -- the football team -- will also be playing tomorrow at noon eastern, and TP will be rooting his little head off.  Dr. Pa TP still does not have power, and probably will not have power for at least several days.  Still, I'm relieved, and feel fortunate that my trip did not have to be canceled.

UPDATE II: Not 30 seconds after I posted, Dr. Pa TP called to tell me the power just snapped on.  Fabulous.

Tuesday Dog-Blogging

Yes, that's two dog-blogging days in a row.  There's nothing I can blog about that's any better than this.

"Can'ttalksleeping."

One of the most amazing things about Dulci is that as she sleeps, her tongue advances farther and farther out of her mouth.  This is about 25-35% as far as it will go.

"So what if I often look scruffy? I'm 9.5 years old, dude." 

"What? Is someone throwing my ball??!"

"Gots to make sure I'm packing enough saliva to really rattle off some smooches."

(Cadbury's always packing, so be warned).

Monday Dog-Blogging & Denver Wrap-Up

Forgive the camera phone pics, but these are photos of Dr. Brother TP's two doggies, one, the beloved bulldog George, or, as I call him, His Gorgeousness.  George rocks.  He's a much quieter bullie than Ma TP's beloved Petunia, but he's extremely loving and friendly.  He's also extremely wrinkly for a bullie, more like a Shar-Pei, and he's got the best doleful bulldog eyes I've ever seen.

The black dog George is resting his massive head upon is a recent acquisition -- Meisie (pronounced like the store "Macy's") the Great Dane puppy.  She's 3 months old, and quite the treasure, complete with puppy smell and all.  The name is a joke -- 'Meisie' means 'little girl' in Afrikaans, and seeing as how Meisie's dad weighed 180 lbs and her mom weighed 160 lbs, well, you get it, I'm sure.

Denver was great.  Went for a drive in the mountains on Saturday; visited the Continental Divide, went to Keystone and had a drink at the World Music Festival, and ended up, exhausted, at this amazing little mountain bar called the BuckSnort.  You had to travel about 5 miles on a dirt road to get there.  It was cool.  I just love the mountains.  One day, I'll either live near them or have a place near them.  Don't know why, but they call to me.

Still planning to write up that incredible wine I had -- Garry Farrell 2001 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, if you're curious.  Will do so shortly.

Batman Begins sucked.  DVD, if at all. 

Those of you waiting for interview questions, you'll get them when TP is darn good and ready.

Yeah.

Thursday Dog-Blogging

Where's the love, dammit?

Can'tTalkSleeping.

But guys, I'm comfy!!!

Sugihara-san

Today is Yom Ha'Shoah.  If you're feeling brave, head on over to Professor Eric Muller's blog, where he has some powerful pictures taken by a liberator of Dachau, and his own powerful words.

Tonight, at 9 pm, PBS is airing a remarkable documentary on a truly remarkable man, a Japanese man named Chinue Sugihara.

Sugihara and his second wife, Yukiko, literally were the Japanese consulate assigned to Kaunus, Lithuania in 1940.

On a summer morning in late July 1940, Consul Sempo Sugihara and his family awakened to a crowd of Polish Jewish refugees gathered outside the consulate. Desperate to flee the approaching Nazis, the refugees knew that their only path lay to the east. If Consul Sugihara would grant them Japanese transit visas, they could obtain Soviet exit visas and race to possible freedom. Sempo Sugihara was moved by their plight, but he did not have the authority to issue hundreds of visas without permission from the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo.

[ . . . ]

After repeatedly requesting permission from Tokyo to sign the visas, and being rebuffed each time, Sugihara and his wife nevertheless signed the visas:

For 29 days, from July 31 to August 28, 1940, Mr. and Mrs. Sugihara sat for endless hours writing and signing visas by hand. Hour after hour, day after day, for these three weeks, they wrote and signed visas. They wrote over 300 visas a day, which would normally be one month's worth of work for the consul. Yukiko also helped him register these visas. At the end of the day, she would massage his fatigued hands. He did not even stop to eat. His wife supplied him with sandwiches. Sugihara chose not to lose a minute because people were standing in line in front of his consulate day and night for these visas. When some began climbing the compound wall, he came out to calm them down and assure them that he would do is best to help them all.

Hundreds of applicants became thousands as he worked to grant as many visas as possible before being forced to close the consulate and leave Lithuania. Consul Sugihara continued issuing documents from his train window until the moment the train departed Kovno for Berlin on September 1, 1940. And as the train pulled out of the station, Sugihara gave the consul visa stamp to a refugee who was able use it to save even more Jews.

Demographers estimate that there are approximately 40,000 people alive today because of the Sugiharas.  Sugihara was dismissed from his position in the Japanese Foreign Service when he returned to Japan.

After one of the "Sugihara Survivors" tracked him down living a bare existence in a tiny Moscow apartment, the Israeli government investigated and ultimately declared him one of the Righteous Gentiles.

The story of Sugihara strikes a deeply personal note for me.  Not a day goes by that I do not marvel at my fortune in being married to Ms. TP. At the same time, we are obviously aware of how different our backgrounds are.  But Sugihara's story is a most amazing convergence.

My grandfather, you see, is a Lithuanian Jew.  He was born in a tiny shtetl-town named Swislocz, which was on the Polish-Lithuanian border (Sidenote: whether Swislocz is properly considered part of Poland or Lithuania is very difficult to pinpoint, as the borders at that time were very ill-defined.  My grandfather was raised speaking Polish, but considers himself a part of Lithuanian Jewry.  In any case, it matters nothing for the narrative, because Sugihara saved primarily Lithuanian and Polish Jewish refugees).  This town was wiped off the face of the earth by the Nazis during the Shoah.

My grandfather, a rabbi for his entire adult life, and driven by a perspicacity that too few possessed or were willing to follow, left Eastern Europe for England in 1935, when he was 18.  He told me that it was not a place he wanted to be anymore.   He has told me several times that he is fairly certain that he made it onto the very last, or one of the very last ship(s) that was allowed to leave the Baltic Sea port of Gdansk carrying Jews.  Would that I could find the name of this ship.

He managed to book passage from Liverpool to Johannesburg, South Africa.  He soon sent for his immediate family, and they all got out in time.  Other relatives and friends of his, however, did not.

The point is this: how easily it could be me.  How easily could I be alive today because of Sugihara.  If my grandfather had not left when he did, perhaps he would have been murdered along with the entire community at Swislocz.  Or perhaps he would have fled as a refugee to Kaunas, accompanied by hundreds of other Polish/Lithuanian refugees, only to find salvation at the hands of a Japanese man.

Because I have not yet begun the vast genealogical search I have felt impelled to undertake since I was a child, it remains possible that a distant relative of mine was among the Jews Sugihara saved.  And it remains possible that somewhere in this world, a distant relative of mine lives because of the conscience of a Japanese man.

How different my ancestry and ethnicity is from my beloved wife, and yet, 60 years ago, an incredible convergence of our ancestries occurred.

Needless to say, I will be watching the documentary tonight.   

Tuesday Dog-Blogging

Dr. Brother TP has a new addition to the family.  He purchased a 15-month old male English Bulldog.  This is the second bullie for the TP family, as Ma TP's beloved Petunia has been keeping her company for the last 2 years.  Brother TP's bullie needs a name, however.  Pictures below.  Leave suggestions in the comments.

Sleeping is a full-time job.

Rip Van Winkle.

Gravity + jowls = Bulldog.

Cadbury does this, too.  I fold my thumbs into my fists about 50 times a day.  Comforting, I guess.

Damn he's working hard.

What, Daddy?

All that standing upright is exhausting.  Better lie down.  Again.

I know I'm scrumptiously hideous, thank you very much.

I'm coming, Poppa.  I got a lot of ballast here, you know? Takes awhile.

He works hard for the money, so hard for the money . . .

Saturday Dog-Blogging

I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is . . .

I'm the King.  I own this hizzy.

Ms. TP Has Some Questions That Need Answerin'--What're Ya, Yella?

I imagine some of the 2 or 3 readers of TP are curious about Ms. TP. She makes her debut in the comments to this post. Good stuff.

Hurricanes--Not the Football Team

For TP, the most important hurricane this weekend may not, in fact, be the 'U' emblazoned on the University of Miami's helmets (they are scheduled to defeat--err, play--the Florida State Seminoles in the Orange Bowl in Miami on Monday, September 6th). Instead, Hurricane Frances, a Category 4 monster seems to be making a beeline straight for the Southeast coast of Florida.

TP has experience with hurricanes (both the weather phenomenon and the football team, but I'm talking about the former, here). Hurricane Andrew, recently upgraded to a Category 5 hurricane, ripped the roof off of TP's home on Aug. 24, 1992, and basically ruined almost everything inside TP's home. Power was not restored for weeks. TP had no telephone until November. TP's high school yearbook for that year featured a radar shot of Andrew moving across the southern peninsula of Florida emblazoned (twice in one post!) on the cover.

I can't really describe to you what it's like to have no power (in Miami in August mind you), no telephone, no car (they were severely damaged in the storm). Even if you did have a car, you couldn't go much of anywhere. Traffic lights were ripped off or useless because of the lack of power, and downed trees made countless areas completely impassable.

One article describes the situation:

Overnight, more than 50,000 people had been hurtled back in time by Andrew`s fury -- left to struggle like their ancestors in the 17th century with little shelter and no power to cool, or to cook their food.

Some public telephones were in service in Homestead, and lines were 20 deep to use them. One phone was lying on the ground, but people stood in line to lie on the ground and use it.

Ice was going for $20/bag, and TP's dog Meicie was lost, lost, lost, only to be found and returned, wounded and changed, more than three full months later.

If you drive down into Homestead and Florida City today, you can still see areas of blight where the trees are stunted and dead, areas never recovered from the hurricane.

All of this, combined with the more painful aspects of being 15, comes flooding back into my mind as I ponder the possibility of another monstrous hurricane again threatening my family in S. Florida. Scary stuff. Ma TP reports that Miami is bedlam; people running around like chickens with their heads cut off, lines forming outside hardware stores hours before they open.

Of course, it is far too early to have any good idea where Hurricane Frances is headed. And hurricane prediction is a notoriously inexact science. Forecasters had been predicting that the eye of Hurricane Andrew would strike Fort Lauderdale, and less than one hour before the storm made landfall, the forecasters realized that the storm had veered slightly, and the eye actually passed over Homestead/Florida City, in extreme South Dade county (indeed, Florida City is the last stop on the mainland before the first of the Florida Keys, Key Largo), more than 40 miles to the south of Fort Lauderdale.

This is not the meterologists' fault, of course, but I'm just pointing out that the computer models are, almost up to the point of landfall itself, relatively crude estimates of precisely where the hurricane will strike. Here, a full 3-4 days before Hurricane Frances is expected to strike Florida, if indeed it does strike Florida, it is impossible to have any good idea of where and when the storm will strike.

Nevertheless, rational or not, the projected storm track makes TP verrrryyyyy nervous, very nervous indeed.

Oh, and the football game might be postponed, too.

Wednesday Dog-Blogging

Added some pictures to the Best In Show album down there on the right. Sugarmama likes to post pictures of her Boston Terrier, Ruby, and I promised I'd get some more up of ours, whose name is Cadbury. I generally prefer more chill dogs to the hyper ones, but Cadbury is nothing less than joy personified. I universally love dogs, but I'm crazy insane for Cadbury.

Here's one picture, to whet the appetite. More below.