But He's Just a Great Big Pussycat!

A couple of days ago, the UPS man delivered a package that turned out to be a book sent to Jerry from a publisher. 

The author, who's written for the New York Times magazine among other publications,  had interviewed Jerry extensively a few years ago about the endangered butterfly, Lange's Metalmark, which is/was found at Antioch Dunes.

I flipped to the index to see if  Jerry's name was listed.

Oh, boy was it!

I flipped to the first set of pages and read this to Jerry..

"Jerry Powell is still a professor emeritus at Berkeley.  He is a stand-offish man of seventy-seven with a full head of white hair."

"It's gray!" Jerry protested.


I took issue with "stand-offish."

Then this, a quote from Jerry's pal Liam O'Brien, a San Francisco lepidopterist:

"He's got antifreeze in his blood in a curmudgeonly,  really fun way."

By now I was getting a bit hot under the collar, but Jerry just grinned and continued to grouse minorly about the white hair,

Then the author recounted an encounter he witnessed.

"One afternoon, I was working at Antioch Dunes with a group of high-ranking Fish and Wildlife Service employees when an old man suddenly appeared over a small ridge, walking briskly.  He wore a striped dress shirt and a fishing hat, with a pair of binoculars clipped to his belt.  Blood was running down his forearm--it look as though he'd opened up a network of scabs--but he didn't seem troubled by this.

Everyone in our party turned and stared:  people don't just walk around the Antioch Dunes; the refuge is usually closed to the public.  Then the refuge biologist, Susan Euing, said, 'That's Dr. Powell.'"

Old man!  Fishing hat (it's a field hat)!  The blood part is true--beat-up arms from poking around in scrub.  There's always blood on his field pants and shirt.  It's part of his field look.

Here's the cutie-pie they're talking about:

Even while dealing with the London Underground and a cranky wife.

Fine!

Remind me not to be interviewed by anyone.

Quintessentially English

Photos from our recent trip to England:

Outstanding window boxes of flowers...(London, and below)



...and non-flowering plants

A castle...

...in a moat  (Leeds Castle)

Having to pay to pee (Victoria Station, London)

Red things...

 

Fields of bluebells (Kew Gardens)

Old plumbing, with flowers.  Fenton House, Hampstead Heath

Weird money

Pub lunch with Yorkshire pudding

Pin cone on a seat they don't want you to sit on (Fenton House, Hampstead Heath, and below)

Pinking shear detail on curtain to look like petals

Punts on a river (Oxford)

Undergraduates in strange get-ups hurrying to class (Oxford)

Homey barge on a river, (Oxford)

Kippers for breakfast (yes, Jerry did this)

Real Estate-ese

So, yesterday Jerry and I went to an open house a few blocks away.  Here's what the real estate brochure said:

"While away those super summer days working in the garden, selecting veggies for today's lunch.  The creek [behind the house] is a perfect place for kids to play.  Start with the built in cabinets and large bonus space downstairs.Create a playroom or A/V room with french doors out to the sunny backyard.  Have the entire family over for get-togethers.  There is room to spare!"

Here's what we saw:

One of three bedrooms

Kitchen

Living room

The price?  $599,000.

Off Swiss Trains and Back on the Bus at the Food Pantry

And there were many rides on the London Underground

On my first day back at the Food Pantry after a month-long vacation, a man came in wearing a hospital bracelet (not unusual), and told me his trials of the last 24 hours. His chronically injured back seized up in church on Sunday, and he collapsed.  A friend drove him to the hospital. He got a shot for the pain and a prescription for painkillers.  He took a bus to Walgreen's to fill the prescription, but it turned out he'd been switched to new health insurance plan and his claim wouldn't go through.

He left Walgreen's and managed to get home on the bus.  Then Walgreen's called and said his prescription was ready, but the store closed in ten minutes.  He had no way to get there in time to get his med.  He had a very bad night.  When I talked to him, he was still wearing his hospital bracelet.

Transportation is a major problem for a lot of Pantry clients.

I'm always amazed to see how elderly ladies manage two heavy bags of groceries on foot with a cart or on a bus.  I'm always fighting the urge to leave my post at the check-in table and just DRIVE them home (and have done it). This wasn't the first time someone has taken a bus directly from the hospital to the Pantry so they'd have some groceries at home.

The problem of transporation  is so big, that it'd be like putting an octopus to bed to try to help them all.  I know this, but it still drives me crazy how some poor Americans have to try to cope.

Train station in Lucerne, where things started to go wrong--a gold-plated problem.

 So, I spent some time beating myself up about my recent whinging over having to ride six trains across Switzerland to get to an airport where an air traffic controllers' strike in another country meant our plane had to be delayed an hour at the gate, and I was hungry.  Oh, poor me!

Very hungry on a no-snack plane

I don't know where to go with all this.  Give up my lifestyle (travel) to help the poor?  Take no more trips (right now, that'd be no sacrifice).  Get more micro about it?   See about a program of volunteers at the Pantry who would transportation to sick or disabled people who don't drive?  Donate some grocery carts or roller bags for people who don't have a car and have to walk home?

A different role:  My suitcase in the flat we rented in London.  Some Pantry clients find these are a godsend getting groceries home.

But I'm still ashamed of my whining.   As a lady at the pool told me today, "You have the money, the time, and a companion, so you can travel."  She's been widowed for years.  And looking at that fork in the road is a major motivator for hassling around on Swiss trains, the London Underground, and the TSA.

Jerry in England, two days after his 80th birthday