Facing The Barrier
The evening temperatures descend into the thirties now, with the promise of twenties next week. The gardens have fallen to the cool temperatures with only the bright red Cardinal flowers holding forth. Many of our trees keep their leaves over the winter but many are bare now. The grass is yellowing in spots so the horses depend more on their hay. The exuberance of Christmas has faded and the last days of December march to their doom. The New Year can be sensed in the distance, with its promise and its forebodings. What great celebrations will we have, who else will be lost?
2011 was a rough year for departures. On the horse front, we said a far too early goodbye to our two-year-old filly, Elf. On the human front, it was worse. My sister, Alice, lost her husband, Bob. The racing world lost Dominic Imprescia, our beloved old trainer who made it into his nineties despite a lifetime of smoking. The blog readers, his daughter, Katherine, a small army of friends and I lost Stuart Bentler, architect, world-traveler, bon vivant and hale-fellow-well-met. We were pals for over forty years so we won’t be finding any replacements soon. Stuart’s death, however, led to Fairfield’s biggest party of the year, The Event, a combination ashes-interment, family reunion and block party for the ages. Stuart would have been pleased.
We almost lost Irana. She called one day after she had been in an automobile accident (giving us the usual phony story about how the other person hit the accelerator instead of the brake). She had been to the hospital for X-rays and the radiologist had called to advise that she had lesions around her spine “that look like multiple myeloma.” Oh oh. Irana’s doctor called her in for blood work and an MRI. I sent her medical advice and Siobhan forwarded steeling poems of encouragement. Then everybody sat around and waited to get the bad news.
“Well, the doctor called,” Irana told us next day, “and he couldn’t find anything consistent with multiple myeloma. Or anything else horrible. I’m jumping up and down.” Us too, Irana.
“With a hip and two knees replaced plus an assortment of other nagging problems, I generally feel like crap,” she said. “I feel GREAT now!” It’s all in your perspective, right? Irana felt so good she marched right on over to Gulfstream Park and watched Cosmic Crown run a nice second as longest shot on the board (17-1). She’s convinced that Cosmic Crown only runs well when she’s there, which could be right. In Irana’s presence, the filly has a first and two seconds. In the Killeen/Ellison-attended race, she finished eighth. Irana promises to miss no more races. We’re thinking of getting her a driver.
Remnants Of 2011
Siobhan’s EPM drug, Oroquin-10, was a big success, with significant improvement found in over 93% of horses using it. This generated a trip to Washington for an appearance before an FDA panel to begin the long process of getting the drug FDA-approved. Siobhan had never been to Washington before so we did the chilly bustop tour of the monuments and significant buildings, with a few of the insignificant buildings thrown in. I used to have a store in Georgetown forty years ago when the place was filled with inventive little shops and boutiques operated by hippies and local seamstresses and budding restaurateurs. Now, except for the wonderful bakery, the whole place has transmogrified into a giant chain store. A giant very expensive chain store, at that.
My sister, Alice (the Republican), went over to Ireland to annoy our kinsmen. She brought me back a family tree, printed on parchment and framed. I figured she probably bought another one for my sister, Kathy, and one for herself. I thought this might be a heavy load to be carting around for the balance of her trip but she advised me that what clever people do is buy the parchment, return home and then have it framed. Oh. That still doesn’t mean Republicans are so smart about other things.
Last week, we were faced with The Ellison Overload. This consists of an invasion by all of Siobhan’s living relatives (4) and two boyfriends, all of them returning from a Christmas cruise to the Bahamas. Remember that our house is a little over 1200 square feet, not including a small laboratory. The principals in this sordid affair are Siobhan’s brother, Stuart, sister-in-law Mary, nieces Ashleigh and Kathleen and boyfriends Flo and Yaniv. Stuart and Mary live in Chattanooga, Ashleigh works for Nokia in Berlin, Flo is a student in Ulm some 600 miles away, Kathleen is in medical school at East Tennessee State and Yaniv is at Johns Hopkins. Stuart and Mary financed the cruise and all the plane fares to pull their disparate family together for the holidays. They invited us, too, but we’re too grumpy to be on a boat for three days unless it’s going to Paris. Anyway, the whole thing worked out great, although we were a little disappointed that Flo didn’t seem to know what “Ach du lieber!” meant. What kind of a German is he, anyway? Doesn’t he watch the Oscar Meyer ads? (It means “Oh, heavens!” if you really have to know.) We’re all dying to see what Stuart dreams up for next year.
New Year’s Resolutions
Yeah, we know. You don’t want to hear it. Every year, we browbeat you about exercise because we’re sick of everybody dying around us and we're pretty sure exercise keeps people around longer. It kept me around longer, no doubt about that. You should go to a gym, of course, and on a regular schedule. It’s not as if you have anything else to do. And no, the other people at the gym will not think you are a fat toad even if you are. They’ve got more important things to worry about—like their being fat toads, for instance. We’ve heard all that stuff about how you can work in the garden or do housecleaning or walk around the block and that will take care of the exercising just fine but I am here to tell you it will not. You are probably not moving fast enough to achieve any real cardio value and you are not lifting enough weight to improve bone density. Not that we’re not happy you are doing something, Jenny and Hal and Siobhan. We are not going to harp on this any longer. You have your annual encouragement and you may do with it what you will. If you DO happen to die from inactivity, however, don’t blame us.
On a second front, remember—especially at this time of year—that a lot of people are alone. And the older they get, the aloner they often are. John Prine, one of our favorite singers/songwriters, years ago penned a wonderful song titled ‘Hello In There’ containing the following chorus:
So if you’re walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow, ancient eyes,
Please don’t just pass ‘em by and stare
As if you didn’t care, say “Hello in there, hello.”
We’re Off To The Coxville Zoo
How about these Republican primaries? First you’re up, then you’re down. Then you disintegrate. Like good old Herman Caine. Herman’s problem, according to him, was that he was just too doggone friendly! How could that be wrong?
And Rick Perry. Nice looking guy, affable enough. Looked the part. Just one problem. If you want to be nominated for President, sometimes you have to actually speak. And, when you do, it’s best not to be revealed as a total clodhopper. It’s okay to be the latter if you’re only running for Governor of Texas, we know what kind of guys they elect there. But being President requires a smidge more conversational awareness. Best not to use George Bush as your model. Yeah, we know he won, but still….
One thing we’ll say for George, though, when he left, he left. He moved back to Texas, found something else to do and stayed out of everybody’s business. Unlike his buddy, Dick Cheney, who feels it necessary to throw his two cents worth in on The Subject Of The Day. Every day. Dick, go home. Plant some sorghum. Nobody cares what you think.
Remember when you were a kid and you went to the circus? The clown car would come out and screech to a stop and, one by one, all the clowns would debark, an impossible number, from the tiny car. Well, that’s what the Republican primaries look like. One clown after another, paddling out of the clown car. The latest bozo is Newt Gingrich, remember him? We all thought the public wrote Newt off centuries ago after another embarrassing wife-dumping but here he is again, a testament to the inability of the GOP to present realistic candidates. Anyway, Newt was the flavor of the month for about a week and then the extreme right-wingers and the other candidates backed the dumptruck up to his door and let loose. Straight down the elevator shaft for Newt. Who’s next, Peewee Herman?
Watch This Program
People are always asking us questions about horse racing. It’s hard for the average person to find out anything about the sport. Then they go and make movies like Secretariat, which has so many preposterous aspects to it that it’s hard to know where to begin. Now comes HBO with a new drama called Luck, which stars Dustin Hoffman and a great cast, beginning January 29 at nine. It’s getting raves from the critics who have seen the advances. We’ve got our fingers crossed.
Look, Up In The Sky….!
This is an excerpt from an article by Kirk Johnson in the New York Times:
SALT LAKE CITY—Red Voltage and two of his masked crime-fighting colleagues were approaching an intersection here in Utah’s capital on a recent evening, walking night patrol on foot, when a car suddenly slowed next to them. The night was bitterly cold, laced with a wispy stew of fog that might or might not conceal a thousand dangers. The car’s window rolled down.
“Hi, superheroes!” a woman shouted from within. “I’m in love with you guys!”
Eat your heart out, Batman. In a niche of urban life that has evolved in recent years somewhere between comic-book fantasy and the Boy Scout oath, a cadre of self-cast crusaders—some with capes, some without, all with something to prove—are on the march.
They prowl the night in Boston, in San Francisco, in Milwaukee, in Minneapolis, even as far away as Australia. Whether they are making the world safer, or just weirder, remains an open question.
Some go out armed with gear like mace, pepper spray or police batons; others say they carry only cellphones, aiming to be eyes and ears for the police, who in most cities, including Salt Lake, are keeping a wary distance.
“We’re not endorsing them, supporting them, condemning them or anything else—we’re staying neutral and out of it,” said Detective Joshua Ashdown, a spokesman for the Salt Lake City police. “The ones we endorse are the ones we have trained.”
Red Voltage, who in mild-mannered daytime life is a 23-year-old residential leasing manager named Roman Daniels, casually waved a gloved hand to his female drive-by fan. Clad head to toe in a red and black leather suit, his face covered by spandex, he is, he said, a different man when the mask comes on—a better man.
“But there are times when I’m putting the suit on, and I’m just like, ‘How crazy am I to do this?’ I do feel odd and out of the box,” said Daniels, who took over leadership of the group here, called the Black Monday Society, about six months ago, after two years of patrols. “But it’s good,” he added. “It feels really good. For the most part.”
Siobhan and I like this story so much we have decided to be crime-fighters ourselves. We plan on patrolling the streets of Fairfield on a nightly basis, looking for evildoers—her in her exotic Wizard outfit and me in my Scarface garb. We’re not expecting real fireworks—maybe just a shoplifting incident at the V-Mart every so often or a stinkbomb at the Post office. But whatever it is, we’ll be ready. We just hope there’s no running involved.
That’s all, folks….
