1 July 2014: Tuesday ... Email on the iPad ... Andrea & dialectical behavior therapy ... Belgium beats US, 2-1, in OT (great game) ... Mom recalling boat trip home

She's learning and yes, I forced her to write a few short e-mails this morning on the iPad, return posts to Mary Picking, Norma Clara Nyhoff, and Lori Jones. It's slow going but she's getting the hang of it and learning the position of the letters on the keyboard. What it does do is take her mind off her symptoms and focus on another activity. When she was writing and composing the short responses, her physical complaints vanished. Now, I'm sure she's still feeling the pain but she didn't mention them. I think that's good. I also entered the cell number of Mary P. and made the phone call before I left for the Y and she had, I believe, a nice conversation with her longtime friend, not an unlikely outcome as Mom 2 is always endearing and connected on the phone.
She asked to sit at my table (the only one by the coffee station in the Y hallway between the youth center and toddler care rooms) to read her book, Doing Dialectical Behavior Therapy: A Practical Guide by Kelly Koerner, one about a form of psychotherapy that uses the word dialectical behavior therapy. Her name, Andrea, is from her French (she knows some but has worked to be fluent and has gained it in Spanish with trips to Barcelona and Costa Rica) mother and it comes with an accent aigu on the "e" and stress on the second syllable "dray" and not the first "Ahn" (phonetic spellings). She is a decade divorced with three kids and is now looking toward graduate school to expand her psychology degree from university. She is also a longtime practitioner of yoga and took the class with Christine, who sang to us beautifully, acapella, at its conclusion, just prior to three chimes. It was rewarding to meet her, she never got to read her book, but I have that effect on people. I'm a talker and am interested in people. I don't give them a break.

Well, the U.S. run in the World Cup is over in a thrilling game where a more talented Belgian team beat the U.S. team in overtime, 2-1. Goalie for the US, Tim Howard, made the most saves ever in a World Cup game. He was extraordinary but he couldn't keep them all out.

Goalkeeper Tim Howard played the match of his life, but in the end the U.S. 

couldn't win against Belgium.Belgium won 2-1 in today's World Cup match in Salvador, Brazil, 

eliminating the U.S. from the tournament. But it could have been worse had Howard not been 

the team's savior in the goal -- recording a spectacular 16 saves. (Just learned in an ABC News
feature that Howard suffered from Tourette's Syndrome as a child and soccer was a refuge, 
raised by a single mom.) 

Mom got to talking today while I watched a segment on the NewsHour, something I wanted to watch but I also listened to her talk about Holland and Doug turning two on the boat and Uncle Dick passing away soon after our boat left Holland for New York, a trip, she thought 4-5 days, but there was a play area which I was hesitant and unsure of and said no to, but they dropped me off there with my walking brother (he started at 9 months) and we were having a great time. Well, as Jeffrey Brown interviewed Evan Osnos of The New Yorker magazine, who has written a book on China, about the 17th anniversary of the turning over of Hong Kong to China (a period of time that I worked as a fill-in photojournalist at The Chronicle, before digital but where I scanned negatives and did not print photos, when the photo-j I replaced went to Hong Kong to cover the turnover). 

Certainly not the boat we took but it may have been Holland Lines. 

But it's good to listen when she talks and recalls, especially when I hurt my ankle in dad's bike, just a few days before the return trip. The wound was open and had to be changed regularly. I still have scar on my lower left ankle. 

22 February 2014: Saturday ... I found Maude Carey or she found me at the Y at the coffee station ("Rudy Nyhoff?") ... dinner at the Farmhouse with Gail tonight ... bowtie bought for annual event starting tomorrow (courtesy Gordon Roth) ...

FROM THE ANNALS OF ADVERSITY: I saw it coming and could do nothing to stop the spillage of many of the pills from mom's 7-day, 4-chamber pill case, all over the floor of my bedroom closet. Oh, the feelings of anger and the words but it was cleaned up easily, especially when the small flashlight, held in my mouth, illuminated corners where a few Vicodin hid, but from this adversity, this pain-in-the-butt accident in the morning led to me finding a nice sweater, something lacking in my wardrobe. From an irritant to a delight, one must see through the anger of the moment and see what light might be revealed by moving forward and taking care of business. 

I was accosted, not really, by a woman, who I did not recognize initially, who queried ... "Rudy Nyhoff?" ... at the coffee/tea station in the main hallway of the Western "Y". When I took a closer look, she said her name, ***MAUDE CAREY***. What a revelation this morning and such a joy. 

She has been married since just after graduation from U of D to another graduate, Buddy Niedzielski (5 years her senior), and they have lived in the same home in Montclare, just behind Dickinson High School, ever since. The have one daughter, Anastasia, who is a 3rd year med student at the University of Michigan. Her husband is recently retired attorney from the Justice Department, a graduate of Widener, before the era of Professor Hayman. Maude is also a law graduate but did not pursue it. She is in the insurance industry.
                        WHAT A JOY TO SEE HER AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!!!!

I hold within me hatreds that can come to the surface and it is so difficult to look within and evaluate oneself honestly. I cannot separate from myself, stand away and look back at my actions and determine whether my path is correct. Judgmental is a state that is common in my being and tonight at dinner I displayed it in earnest. Our dear friend spoke of her experience in Australia in a godforsaken town (Oodnadatta, in the Australian state of South Australia) far out in the Outback with a couple hundred residents, far from civilization. I felt she disrespected the Aborigines by calling them "Abos" (sic). What right did I have to play the role of judge and jury. They say you should stand up to injustice and racism, but what do I know of her true intentions. Why do I have to judge? 

On the drive home it is so easy to say things that are hurtful but at the time of their utterance, feel so right. Why do we have to feel as though we are so in the right that our own declarations salve our needs but pour lemon on the open wound we have created in our loved one. It is passing fast this life of ours and like the African-American woman minister spoke, so eloquently, last Sunday -- compassion is love's companion, it's most critical and vital one. May it be so.