September 21, 2021
Our lives have changed! December 31, 2019 reports from Wuhan, China heralded COVID-19. So one and three quarter years later we continue to live in this changed world in which infections continue to seriously disable and kill us. So mask wearing, vaccine prevention, and avoiding crowds and enclosed spaces with many people remain. Daily reminders of the danger of the virus abound. Ruth, my sister living in assisted living environment and vaccinated, was in the hospital for COVID for over one week near death, on oxygen. Luckily she rallied and now is back in her safe assisted living complex. We noticed paint peeling from our home and contacted our handiman who was ready to start but he was not vaccinated. He was not objecting to the vaccine but this was low on his priority list. Rebecca contacted him and was ready to assist him in getting his vaccine if he permitted but he told her he had his first shot a few days before so he is now on the second week of repairs here. Rebecca and I were at the trailhead of a hike when a tourist couple approached us without masks wanting to get information about the trail. I asked if they were vaccinated. "no, but we tested negative before our flight" was their reply. I blurted out "get away from her (Rebecca)!". Hawaii was seeing a tremendous upsurge of infections and our hospital beds were getting almost full of new cases. So rarely do we go in a restaurant. Our last time was sort of surreal since we had to wait outside the closed doors of the Mexican restaurant. Then we were questioned by the waitress and our temperature was taken. We were then instructed that we needed to wear masks to walk to our table and if we got out of our chair we needed to replace the mask. There were four tables available in very large room. Our daily routines keeps us close to home. Rebecca does some gardening and her art work. I play various pieces of sheet music on the piano. A nap is usual for me in the early afternoon. I read some novels, various books on history, science, and human behavior research. Lately, I've attempted to digest the newest research and controversies in quantum, gravity, space, time, and relativity. I've become a GEEK. Twice per week we go hiking into the valleys, gorges, mountains, and wilderness of Oahu. I work on the photographs I take. Two or three times per week I do some body strengthening exercises. My routine includes bands and light weights while I turn on my bluetooth enabled hearing aids to the TV watching and listening to my dystopian movies and series which keeps Rebecca away except to briefly visit and shake her head. I do like to go out shopping for our staples at various places to the sometimes consternation of Rebecca. My last foray I brought home some arugula while we had a big batch already so I began looking up recipes for arugula while Rebecca sighed about our joint living differences. But last evening Daniel her son came over for dinner (we had tuna salad sandwiches and beets) and Rebecca made an apple crumb pie! Thursday evening we have some family over for dinner and again on Sunday sometimes with a couple of friends. So besides hiking Rebecca walks on the beach a few times per week. She has many good conversations with her friends during the week. I call friends and family to check in and catch up. We have been very pleased to be somewhat helpful with Sarah and Drew's (daughter and grandson) move back from Germany to live here. They stayed with us for a number of weeks, now live in a rented apartment at Red Hill and just put in an offer on a condominium nearer Punahou school where Drew now goes. Being in our lives again here has been a gift to us. One friends from the early 1970's now lives with his partner in the island of Hawaii. Over this year and three quarters our conversations have gotten more difficult since his hearing problems have increased, he is much more forgetful, and I'm never sure that he captured any of the conversation. So I've taken to talking more with his partner who is sharp as a tack but struggles with her congestive heart problems and balance problems. I wrote about her in my last blog. A few weeks ago she was emergency airlifted to Oahu where doctors evacuated a subdural hematoma suffered due to a head injury when she fell cleaning part of the almost empty hotel she jointly owns. She seems back to her normal now. Along the same theme lately, after our joint birthday party in July our ninety year old friends who is not in the best of health has been struggling with the merry go round of hospitalizations and rehabilitation stays of his ailing wife. Nicely situated in a beautiful home with a great garden displaying his favorite flowers, plants, and his art works he's ready to give all of his wealth including his house to a retirement foundation so he go live his life with his wife in a small studio apartment hoping that if she requires more intensive care (24 hour monitoring and care) they will provide it. UGG! "There for the grace of God go I" a saying attributed to John Bradford in the mid sixteenth century who witnessed a group of prisoners being led to their execution. Our fate is not entirely in our hands. So part of our daily living routine includes these changes in our health. Our doctors have mushroomed. I have a urologist for my enlarged prostate. A cardiologist for my post bypass cardiac artery surgery and recent stent treatments. A renal specialist for some aging kidney slowdown requiring now no interventions. A retinologist for my macular degeneration and post biretinal detachments. An audiologist for my high tech hearing aids. A gerontologist for coordination and referrals. The latest just last week for a sleep apnea study showing mild sleep apnea requiring a device by my bed to improve my oxygen saturation. I wear a brace on my left lower leg and foot while hiking since I have a torn achilles. My neurologist has diagnosed me with peripheral neuropathy which is quite evident since I cannot hike without poles and when I'm with Rebecca my hand on her shoulder is very reassuring. The latest was my diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. I thank Daniel for getting me an Iwatch so my atrial fibrillation come on mostly when I'm hiking and was diagnosed through the Iwatch. So with all of that I have taken up one shelf in our medicine cabinet of pills with three of the nine pills twice per day (yes I do miss some doses even though I have a pill weekly case for the downstairs pills).
What a change from a few years ago before the pandemic. Then we did enjoy traveling and visiting family and friends. At home we socialized more and enjoyed the culture and entertainment venues of Hawaii. Going out and about was natural and enjoyable. We were more connected with the world around us and felt we participated more. Now I have this blog to vent, cogitate, explore, and hopefully communicate with myself and those others who may be interested. Our small hiking group is a good outlet since we do have some time while eating our lunch to talk and share.
So what's up with the geeky interest in quantum, cosmology, and elementary physics. Do I really care about loop gravity theory? Is reading about how the expansion of the universe now approaching the speed of light due to dark matter and dark energy going anywhere? I am fascinated with the discovery of entanglement, decoherence, black hole, wormholes, wave forms, prions, bosons, the creation of vacuum, time, etc. There is a spookiness to entanglement. Matter and energy are related (E=MC squared) so if you are looking at the very small (quanta or qbit) you can determine the position of the particle or the momentum but not both and your observation actually causes the particle to appear out of the wave form it was in. It's as if you cause the particle to appear. Einstein in his theory of general relativity showed us that space, time, and matter included gravity are all related using a mathematical formula so that we have space time and gravity is due to the bending of space around large objects. Black hole presents an enigma since the gravity well is so strong that photons cannot escape its grasp yet at the event horizon there is leakage of radiation so eventually black holes will explode. Well we knew this with the second law of thermodynamics entropy. But how does information from a black hole get out, How is there entanglement and how does it decohere? Wormholes! Here's the reference.(https://interestingengineering.com/a-simple-equation-indicates-wormholes-may-be-the-key-to-quantum-gravity). What is remarkable about these hypothesis is that no one has gotten near a black hole (nor will they ever be able to). The understanding and theories developed are all thought experiments related to current observations.
My grandson second article is much more problematic to describe and digest. Dana Cloud wrote a book Reality Bites which gets to the issues that dominate our times and creates such angst and polarization. I wrote to him "Wow! I'm into the rhetorical and trying to mediate but just starting. The introduction to her book is concentrated reading but I read some reviews of the book and her exposition seems worth reading the rest to me. Dialectic reasoning is worth studying. Her points that the groups that may be exploited and terribly misrepresented may understand their position but require avenues of like minded with social tools in groups and organizations to affect change is right on! I looked up Beyonce's video Formation (https://www.
This brings me back to my introduction for this blog. Our world news feed do emphasize the controversial and conflict ridden world views being played out by the participants of groups very distrustful of each other and having beliefs that seem to empower them against those they oppose. Reading and attempting to digest and understand this current dystopian world can be detrimental to your health. Quantum and physics of the large, reading about the big bang and space expansion, etc. less taxing on my system.
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