All Models are Wrong But Some Models are Useful

With the title quotation from George Box ringing in our heads, a round up of useful articles:

Da Mail: Coronavirus peak death rate will strike U.S. in 11 days when 2,644 people will die in 24 hours as shocking graphs reveal grim state-by-state breakdown of when hospitals will be overwhelmed and how many will die

Many more graphs at the link. But don't just see the central trend. See the ranges too.  From the Peacock, Bill Gates calls coronavirus pandemic a ‘nightmare scenario,’ but predicts lower death toll than Trump. Well, my cynical political guess is that Fauci, Brix and Trump are all overstating the predicted deaths to claim victory when they come in lower. Based on that alone, I'm going to predict 50k. If it comes in lower than 50k, it probably wasn't worth killing the economy over.

Stacy McCain, Coronavirus ‘Myths’ and Real Numbers

There has been a lot of noise in the media about Republican governors in some states being reluctant to impose statewide stay-at-home orders, and people in rural America failing to follow “social distancing” guidelines. Supposedly, this is a result of their believing “myths” that they are somehow safe from coronavirus, but because I’m not a mindreader, I can’t presume to know what people believe. Certainly there have been outbreaks in rural communities, as in the case of Dougherty County, Georgia, were two large funerals Feb. 29 and March 7 acted as “super-spreading” events, infecting dozens of people, 90% of whom were black.
. . .
It must be understood that risk is a matter of statistical probability. Your infection risk is lower in rural Minnesota than it is in Detroit or in New York City, but being “low risk” is not the same thing as being “safe.” In a pandemic, nobody is at zero risk. But even the most drastic governmental restrictions will not lower the risk to zero. Italy has been under a nationwide lockdown order since March 11. Friday, they reported 4,585 new COVID-19 cases — and that’s good news, because the daily number of new cases has declined 30% since March 21, when Italy reported 6,557 new cases. So, after three weeks of lockdown, Italy has already “flattened the curve” (i.e., the number of new cases has already peaked), but they’re still reporting thousands of new cases daily and people continue to die. That’s simply the reality, and nothing we can do in the United States will prevent our outbreak from following the same trajectory. Once we have passed the crisis point — once the outbreaks in New York, in Detroit and other “danger zones” have passed their peak, straining available medical resources — it’s not as if we will then return to a condition of “safety.”

The pandemic will run its course, and a certain number of people will die, because the death toll for May is pretty much already baked into the pie, so to speak. Once you have imposed the most drastic lockdown measures, there is really nothing more you can do, in terms of “flattening the curve,” but at some point the pandemic will peak — reaching the “apex,” as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says repeatedly in his daily briefings — and then you should be prepared to begin a return to normal. Italy has already passed its “apex,” but their hospital system is still overwhelmed and they are still recording more than 700 COVID-19 deaths daily.

 From Maggies Farm, Covid-19: What to do when you have no meaningful data yet



Five Thirty Eight, Coronavirus Case Counts Are Meaningless*

If you’re a regular reader of FiveThirtyEight, you’re probably used to looking at data in sports — where basically everything that happens on a basketball court or a baseball diamond is recorded — or in electoral politics, when polls (in theory, anyway) survey a random sample of the population. COVID-19 statistics, especially the number of reported cases, are not at all like that. The data, at best, is highly incomplete, and often the tip of the iceberg for much larger problems. And data on tests and the number of reported cases is highly nonrandom. In many parts of the world today, health authorities are still trying to triage the situation with a limited number of tests available. Their goal in testing is often to allocate scarce medical care to the patients who most need it — rather than to create a comprehensive dataset for epidemiologists and statisticians to study.

But if you’re not accounting for testing patterns, it can throw your conclusions entirely out of whack. You don’t just run the risk of being a little bit wrong: Your analysis could be off by an order of magnitude. Or even worse, you might be led in the opposite direction of what is actually happening. A country where the case count is increasing because it’s doing more testing, for instance, might actually be getting its epidemic under control. Alternatively, in a country where the reported number of new cases is declining, the situation could actually be getting worse, either because its system is too overwhelmed to do adequate testing or because it’s ramping down on testing for PR reasons.

Failure to account for testing strategies can also render comparisons between states and countries meaningless. According to two recent epidemiological studies, which tried to infer the true number of infected people from the reported number of deaths, there is roughly a 20-fold difference in case detection rates between the countries that are doing the best job of it, such as Norway and the worst job, such as the United Kingdom. (The United States is probably somewhere in the middle of the pack by this standard.) That means, for example, that in one country that reports 1,000 COVID-19 cases, there could actually be 5,000 infected people, and in another country that reports 1,000 cases, there might be 100,000!

There is also a lot of uncertainty about the true numbers of infections within a given country. According to an expert survey published by FiveThirtyEight, the number of detected cases in the United States could underestimate the true number of infected people by anywhere from a multiple of two times to 100 times. The same holds in other countries. A recent paper published by Imperial College London estimated that the true number of people who had been infected with the coronavirus in the U.K. as of March 30 was somewhere between 800,000 and 3.7 million — as compared to a reported case count through that date of just 22,141.

Locomotive Breath, Morning Coffee

Almost 287% Wuhan Corona Virus-free. Because without a hard numerator/denominator, it's all just academic chicken scratch.
Analyst Discovers a Major Flaw in IHME Model Used by White House; Actual Numbers Are a Fraction of Expected

"Davis writes that if we’re going to shut down the entire nation’s economy to “flatten the curve” based on the projections of a single model, it shouldn’t be too much to ask that the model approximate reality when it comes to hospitalizations."

Models are notoriously inaccurate. IE: economic forecasts (unexpectedly!), global warming, etc. Yet, gross over-reactions are often the result. And people frequently prefer tribalism to rational debate about these numbers. I get called everything but a child of God when I simply ask, "How is it every year tens of millions of flu infections, hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations for flu, and tens of thousands of flu deaths, do not overwhelm our medical system, or our economy, but this mysterious Wuhan Corona Virus with far fewer numbers has plunged the entire world into medieval darkness?"

"Shut up!," they yell.

And Anthony Watts from WUWT, #coronavirus How to analyze and not analyze #COVID-19 deaths

Don’t look just at deaths from coronavirus, look at cumulative deaths from comorbidities. Since most people dying from coronavirus also exhibit comorbidities,[1] and it is unclear how deaths are assigned to the former rather than one of the co-morbidities and whether there is a uniform accepted methodology from one doctor to another (or one hospital to another or one country to another) in the assignments, it is not clear how much credence can be given to coronavirus death estimates at this time.

This also means that we shouldn’t attempt cross-country and cross-jurisdictional comparisons because they could mislead. It is best to look at (and compare) aggregate excess deaths from all co-morbidities rather than just one or another co-morbidity. I would suggest looking at excess deaths against an average over the last 5-10 years for both all-cause deaths and deaths from all coronavirus-plus- comorbidities to get an idea about how devastating coronavirus has been versus an average year.

To compare deaths between jurisdictions, don’t look at absolute deaths, look at death rates, based on population sizes. It makes no sense to compare absolute numbers of deaths in Italy, UK, San Marino, and Sweden against those in the U.S.

Each area is different. From where I sit — in Northern Virginia — New York is another country. And from upstate New York, New York City is also another country. Risk factors such as population density, use of mass transit, presence of people who have recently travelled elsewhere, norms regarding appropriate social distance, household size, age composition of households, and all the other coronavirus risk factors are likely to be different in each area. One should, therefore, expect each location would have its own curve that would have to be flattened. Some areas may literally be “ahead of the curve” since these areas have had some advance warning before the virus was brought into their communities and may not need to take drastic measures to flatten the curve. Aggregating data across urban and rural areas does not make much sense.

When Mom died at 93 years old, from complications from a fall that caused her leg to become anoxic, the death certificate listed diabetes, COPD and congenital heart failure as contributing to her death. Does that mean they get to count those for government statistics, and use them in political propaganda? My guess is yes.

So bottom line? We still don't know how serious this is, but don't worry, we're about to find out.

A Time to Weep

Dad’s service was today.

Some Mother's Day Music

I sure miss her.

2016 In Review

It seems like everyone is calling 2016 the worst year ever, for various reasons, so I'd like to present my view.

Starting at the beginning, at the end of the year previous, on Halloween day, we broke down and adopted a new dog. Suspiciously similar to our last one, Skye, she was a Siberian Husky, of the black and white "felty" furred variety, also named Skye. The only physical difference is two blue eyes instead of one, and about 5 lbs greater in size and strength. In personality, she has similarities, friendly with both people and other dogs, a stubborn streak, a desire to walk and run, but some major differences. She is much "mouthier" barking to get things, like food, walks, and attention both from people and dogs. She is a runner and can't be left off the leash in an unfenced area, most particularly the beach. As dogs will, she has made a big change in our life. Leaving the house is sometimes problematic; you have to plan more. But most of all, she demands (and I do mean demands) a big exercise event each day, either a long walk, or a visit to the dog park. Our choice. One result is that I have unexpectedly lost about 10 lbs this years, despite no better attention to my diet.

For 65, I think I'm in reasonable health. Sure, I have some achy joints, but nothing life altering. I can walk, fish, garden, and get out as much as I would like. Between gym exercise 3 days a week, and walking Skye, I'm probably as strong and fit as I have ever been, but that's never been an especially high bar. My eyes continue to be a problem; the "leaky" left eye (vitreous hemorrhage) remains unsettled. I think it still leaks a little once in a while; I see more little spots that are the shadows of blood cells on the retina, but nothing like the torrent from earlier in the year. The retina Dr. thinks I'm wrong, but can't find a source. The other eye is now ready, as defined by insurance, for cataract surgery, but I just got new glasses to keep that at bay a little longer. Maybe another year, maybe not.

Georgia continues her long battle with what can only be described as chronic fatigue syndrome, only because nothing striking can be found physically. There have been a lot of hints, many conflicting, but little actual progress. She still tires early in the day, but can't sleep. Many treatments have been tried, but none have produce more than a hint of success. We keep hoping to find the magic bullet, but it continues to elude us. It's extremely frustrating.

Of course, there's the family story. Our first grandson, Graham Robert, was born to our son Alex his wife Kelly on Jan. 24, 2016. We've been able to see him several times, but not as often we'd like. We hear he started walking a few hours after we left on our last visit. We should see him again on his birthday later in Jan.

2016 will also be memorable as the year my mother, Mary Elizabeth passed on. But first, the whole family, my parents, my brothers and their while families, and both my sons and their families, got together for a family reunion. There was never one as complete before, and cannot be again.


It was less than a month afterwards that mother suffered a fall, a blood clot, and the decline which lead to her death. We had to travel back to California to help with the arrangements. Father, almost as old, continues on without her, still living in their house in Murphys with the help of my brother Ted and his family, and a housekeeper.

Alex and Kelly seem to be doing well in their work; Alex at his studio/music store. U Rock Music Center in McMurry, PA, and Kelly at her corporate job.

The year is also also notable for the late return of our prodigal (for more reasons than one) son, Corwin, who asked if he could come home from his years of wandering in the wilderness this Christmas. We said yes, and picked him up from the bus station just before Christmas, even though we were fresh out of fatted calf. He is home now, and working at job and trying to put his life back together again. We're holding our breathes.

So, did you hear there was an election in the United States this year?  A Republican with a libertarian streak, my preferred candidates did not win the nomination. Well, with 14 candidates, it was unlikely all along. I was not pro-Trump, but I was never never-Trump. At least now Hillary will never be President. For better or worst, next year should be interesting politically.

And I hear a few celebrities died. Well, that's the way it goes. Celebrities are just people. They may be better known than the rest of us, but for the most part they are not better people, do not have better lives or live healthier lives. They arise from the populace slowly, by dint of newsworthy activities in music, politics, entertainment or sports, like trees growing in the forest. They are only notable in when they fall, and only because there are people there to hear and pay attention. A new crop is growing all the time.

Back on the Trail at Clinton.com

Not the best way to be forced to take a holiday from the continuing saga at Clinton.com, but the time has come to pick up the trail again. Mom reviled Hillary Clinton.

While I was off doing other things, Hillary had a great fall, and in in the aftermath, apparently decided that the best way to distract from her health concerns was to attack Donald Trump for his former "birther" statements, which he quickly backed down from, and then, in classic style, blamed on Hillary for starting the rumors. Unfortunately for her, the rumors are well founded as a few honest journalists remember Hillary henchperson Sid "the shiv" Blumenthal pushing the rumors during her 2008 campaign against Hussein Obama. Meanwhile, the health issue continues to fulminate, with Hillary having to be helped up a few steps to podium to talk to a nearly empty room at Temple University.

On the email front, new evidence strongly suggests that Platt River tech Paul Corbetta (since immunized by the FBI), sought out ways to eliminate traces of VIP (Hillary, Huma, Cheryl?) email addresses from an email archive on Reddit, in the weeks before "Bleachbit" was used to delete the archive "where even God can't find it". More curiously, the same tech is apparently trying to eliminate the evidence in Reddit, deleting those posts. Ongoing obstruction of justice? You'd think a computer tech would know you can't really delete anything off the internet.

This is an ongoing act of obstruction. Tech from Platte River deleted all remaining evidence on Reddit *TODAY* pic.twitter.com/Td4s6wkRZJ

— Morgen (@morgenr) September 19, 2016

Ace wonders again about Comey's finding of "no criminal intent". Now the House Republicans will be looking into it, which will, no doubt,  draw the usual cries of partisanship from the usual suspects.

In an amusing incident regarding the bombing in the Chelsea district in New York, Clinton slammed the Donald for calling it a "bomb", after she called it a bombing.

#chelseanyc
Trump: "It's a bomb".
Hillary: "It's a bomb".
Liberals: "Trump is a fear-mongering reactionary! Vote for Hillary!"

— andieiam (@andieiamwhoiam) September 18, 2016

It was reported that Hillary looked a bit ill as she made the announcement. SHE’S DRUGGED!? Hillary Can’t Hold It Together During Response To NYC Bombing. Ambien haze, hangover? An old lady needs her zzzzs. And, of course, in hindsight, Trump was right, it was an Islamic terrorist's pressure cooker bomb. From a guy who traveled to Afghanistan to be radicalized. A few more of these, and she might even lose New York. Hillary's health is even starting to depress the value of the Mexican Peso, if not Donald Trump's supporters.

The Mexican currency reached the psychological barrier of 20 pesos per dollar, and analysts and commentators cited the role of the U.S. presidential campaign.
. . .
Newspaper columnist Carlos Loret de Mola said Clinton's health problems are key.

"Speculation broke out against the Mexican currency last week due to the poor health of the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton," Loret de Mola wrote in the newspaper El Universal.

WaPo op-ed ponders, ‘when did we start wondering if the candidates were healthy?’ Back when you were speculating about John McCain's cancer and injuries, and Sarah Palin's uterus?

Is this the change you wanted? Hillary demands that you change your religious beliefs to meet her political expectations:

Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.

But I'll bet she doesn't demand that of Muslims. ANALYSIS: TRUE. Trump: Clinton has harsher words for Trump supporters than Islamic terrorists. And then, there's her will to shape our kid's minds:

As @FLOTUS said, the choice in this election is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four years of their lives.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 15, 2016

The Observer observes (nope, not yet) The Election’s Core Issue Since Clinton Declared Candidacy in 1808 is dishonesty. Secrecy, dishonesty, corruption. It's all the core issue: “WATCHDOG” Names Hillary Clinton Most Corrupt Politician. It's a high bar, but I think she's got it.

Democratic activists, er, I mean the Washington Post (more or less the same thing) are concerned that Hillary is losing ground with Hispanics. Among Democrats, deep concern about Clinton’s Hispanic strategy. You mean a few of them have figured out she doesn't really have their best interests at heart? Democrats Losing Control Of Black Americans?

Via Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox: 09.19.16", Decades Of Deplorables – Hillary And Sid Blumenthal’s Birther, Muslim Smears Against Obama, Hillary’s IT Guy Wouldn’t Talk To Congress, But Is This Suspicious Reddit Post Talking?, Bob Ross Paints Hillary Clinton, Projecting Hillary, Amazon Reviews Of Hillary’s New Book, What’s Wrong With Hillary? and from the usually sensible Megan McArdle: “Deplorables” And The Myth Of The Single-Issue Voter.

Home Again

Mom's service was Saturday morning, at a small Lutheran church in Valley Springs, quite a ways a way from their home in Murphys. After a luncheon at the church, Mark, Ted and I assembled at Dad's for a final consultation.

We stayed overnight with Dad for the last time, loaded the rental car, made our goodbyes and left by 8:15 AM for a 12:30 PM flight out of Sacramento where TSA precheck got us through the line with minimal consternation . The flights went as planned, and we arrived at BWI on time at 10:38. The baggage came out remarkably fast for Baltimore, and the shuttle to the parking was waiting when we got out. Although we were caught briefly behind an MARC train boom barrier, traffic was minimal, and we made 23 of 25 lights on the way home (we've done better). We were home by 12:30 AM.

We'll get the dog out of the doggy spa after breakfast.



Normal blogging should resume shortly

Big Trees

The day we arrived in Murphy's (9/10), Corwin, Kate and Taj arrived from down Grover City to pay their respects to Mom and Dad. there was no room in the house for us all, so Georgia and I, Corwin, Kate and Taj went up to Arnold, as there were no available rooms left in Murphys. We stayed the night in a nice, rustic motel. Up is an important word, since Arnold is much higher in elevation than Murphys, even though it is only 10 miles farther up State Highway 4.

The next morning, we decided to visit Big Tree State Park, 4 more miles up the road. It's the site of the original discovery of Giant Sequoias by white men. While there is quite a bit more there, there is a 1.7 mile walking loop in the park that is suitable for two seniors, and a mother with a toddler.

Corwin, Kate and Taj dance on the tree that was cut flat to make a dance floor out of, many years ago.

 They aren't the tallest trees in the world; that honor goes to their nearby relative, the Coast Redwood, but they are by far the most massive.

Corwin and Taj explore the root system of an old fallen tree.

 The base of a big one.

 And the top of the same tree. It's hard to grasp how large they actually are from a photo.

 Taj explores a hollowed out trunk of a small one.

Walking among giants.













A clear view of a really big one from a distance. For reference, the other trees around it are really huge pines, firs and cedars.

To Die in Modesto

She was born Mary Elizabeth Ray, in Baltimore, Maryland on Aug. 13, 1923. We always called her Libby, and she was my mother.

What little I know of her childhood suggests that it was a happy one. She was the only child of Charles, a banker, and Mary, a homemaker, and though she grew up in Baltimore, she had numerous relatives she called cousins (although I think her use of the term was expansive) in Frederick, which she considered a second home city. She was outgoing and quick to make friends, and kept in touch with many of them for life, and very sentimental.

She was working for Baltimore Gas and Electric Company in World War II, when she met Dad, a 2nd Lieutenant, fresh off the boat in the Merchant Marine at a Lutheran church function. After the war, which ended late for Dad, having been stuck on a ship in the Pacific, whose Captain was reluctant to return, they were married in Baltimore, and shortly after started a near legendary journey across the United States in an old leaky Hudson Terraplane, to meet Dad's family, and ultimately complete his education in music at UCLA.



The details of their movements between then my earliest recollections are obscured; dad may know, but they're not important today. I was their first child, born in the summer of 1951, and my earliest recollections are from our house in Culver City, where we lived until I was 12 or so (we moved between my 5th and 6th grade). While she did not work while I was young, I am aware that she had a job as a buyer in the UCLA Purchasing Dept. before I was born, and which she went back to after we kids (she had two more, Ted and Mark, born 5 and 7 years after me) were old enough to trust to babysitters. She kept working there, rising steadily in rank and authority, until retirement at an early, but respectful age. We just located a 20 year pin from UCLA while inventorying her jewelry.

After Culver City, they bought a magnificent old fixer upper house in very nice neighborhood nearby, Cheviot Hills in Rancho Park, Los Angeles. I remember Mom carefully stripping and re-varnishing what seemed like 100 windows, while dad and I demoed a wall to make the new kitchen/family room.

Dad and Mom were a great couple. He was the dreamer, and she the realist. He had high flying plans for business deals, and she was the worrier. He was the accelerator pedal and she was the brake. He was the entrepreneur, and she was the accountant. They fought some, but never seriously, and while many of his ventures were not great successes, enough were that they contributed significantly to their financial success.



I left home for college at 18 and, except for summers, usually split between Oregon and Los Angeles, never really came home again. Ted sold all my old books and kept the money, and I think he might have sold some of my fish tanks too.  Still, we were all close.

When Mark went off to college at Cal Poly, Dad, ever looking for the land investment opportunity, bought a sea side apartment complex in Pismo Beach, which Mark managed while at school. After he finished, and they retired, they sold the apartments, and used the proceeds to buy their dream house in Shell Beach, up on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, with a gorgeous, well kept garden. Without doing any math, I think this must have taken place in the early 80's. At some point, they also kept a condo in Los Angeles, but I only visited there once.

Upon sensing old age approach, they began to search for a place to settle, preferably near a child to help. The East Coast was out of the question, so we were eliminated, and they didn't want LA either, so Mark was out, leaving Ted, who was married and settled and starting a family in Murphys, California with his wife, Monika. Initially, Mom and Dad bought a double wide trailer in a park there, but after a few years had a nice, but not luxurious house built in the same development as Ted and Monika. Ted and Monica had three children, Karl, Bethanni and Katarina, and Mom and and Dad, but mostly Mom, became the babysitters of first resort. They grew up splitting their time between the two houses, and the bond between grand parents and grandchildren is very strong. In latter years, the children repaid with love and attention to their needs.

At the approach of her 80th birthday, she wanted a special celebration, and started the tradition of family reunions in August in Pismo Beach, first at a series of motels but in all recent years at the Sea Crest.

90th birthday in Pismo Beach

Mom had her up and downs with health. She survived uterine cancer, skin cancers, and colon cancer. Just 3 or so years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer that had spread to lymph nodes, but after lumpectomy and pathology, it was decided that it was a slow growing variety, to treat with low impact chemo and no radiation, because something else would kill her first.

That something was to be heart and lungs problems. The first sign was atrial fibrillation, which was treated with a pacemaker and Coumadin, which, when Camp Hillary tells you is an innocuous drug, don't believe them. Used to thin the blood and help prevent clots, the amount needed is variable, and requires close monitoring of clotting times, and makes subsequent surgeries trickier. She also developed type II diabetes, which she controlled very well with diet, although she loved her sweet things.

About 3 years ago, she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, a long-term, chronic progressive deterioration of the heat which often leads to edema, fluid build up around the heart and lungs. Two years ago it became so severe she needed 24 hr oxygen, which she hated, but learned to manage. Last year, pulmonary hypertension was added to the list, and the doctors basically told her the end was somewhere around the corner, but nothing was foreordained. At that point she made the statement to anyone who asked that her goal was to live to see Katarina graduate from high school.

The end started a week ago yesterday, when she fell in the bathroom, and grandpa couldn't pick her up. The fire department was called, and they picked her up and set her in a chair while Ted drove home from Strawberry Music Festival. She was apparently OK, but shaken, However, the next day one of the granddaughters noticed that one of her feet was blue, and cold, and apparently lifeless. She was taken to the hospital in Sonora, where a blood clot in the leg was diagnosed. She then transferred to Doctor's Hospital in Modesto, accompanied by Mark, who had arrived that day from Los Angeles where, it was hoped a vascular surgeon would be able to restore blood flow. We rapidly found it wasn't that easy. By Tuesday, we were told there were basically three options, a clot busting drug called TPA, amputation of the leg above the damaged area, or "comfort care", making sure she was treated for pain while allowing the damaged tissue to slowly kill her.

Taking her expressed wishes to see Kat's graduation in mind, we opted for the TPA treatment, which was administered on Tuesday. After one day, it was observed that while the TPA appeared to have dissolved the clots, the tissue was not re-perfusing with blood, and was continuing to die.  After another long discussion, we decided on the amputation and she concurred. As Georgia and I scrambled for airline tickets both Mark and Ted's whole families assembled in Modesto. The amputation was performed while we were in the air. Upon our arrival in Sacramento on Thursday at 4 PM Mark called and informed us that while the surgery had gone OK, afterwards she had developed breathing and heart problems and that it was urgent we arrive quickly if we wanted see her alive. We made it to the hospital by 6 to find Dad, Ted and Mark and all of their families assembled at her bedside in ICU.

I barely recognized her, all shrunken and gasping for air. She was not really conscious but able to react to voices in her ear, and stirred when we announced our presence. She was heavily medicated with a fentanyl drip to kill the pain, and epinephrine to keep her heart rate up. At last we agreed that it was time to let her go, and the epi was stopped. The doctors expected her to pass then in a few hours.



After staying at her side until late in the evening, the boys left to go back to college, we went to a nearby hotel to get a room, while Ted and the girls stayed to sit vigil. The next morning we found her in much the state, in a new room under "comfort care",but obviously fading.  We stayed there on and off through the rest of the day, and by evening, Georgia and I were all but exhausted, and we left to get a hotel room again. When I kissed her good night/bye, I noticed she was barely breathing. While we were checking into the motel, we got a call from Ted saying that Kat had noticed she had stopped breathing. We came back to the hospital in time to be there for the official pronunciation, and help with the paperwork. In America, even dying takes proper paperwork. We took Dad back to our hotel room for a night's sleep.

I haven't seen many, but as deaths go, it seemed pretty good. She was surrounded by those who loved her most, the pain was relatively short and heavily treated. At 93, she had outlived most of her friends and relatives.



We're now dealing with the aftermath, making burial, service, and financial arrangements, and trying to set Dad up for life without Mom. While he's a little fuzzy around the edges, he knows what's happened, and that we need to make new arrangements. We'll be here several more days.



Apologies for light blogging.

Break on Through to the Other Side

We left Baltimore this morning around 7 AM to cross the country, with a 3 hr stop in San Francisco, before the final stop in San Luis Obispo for a very special family reunion. The whole family; my parents, my bothers and their families, my sons and their families all met in Pismo Beach for the annual get together on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The first time we've all been together like this.

Mark, Ted, Prince, Fritz!

The list my mother used to go through when preparing to yell at me about whatever it was  I was doing wrong. Mark and Ted are my younger brothers, while Prince was not a rock star but a black and tan German Shepherdish dog that we adopted when I was 12. 

So what? From Duke University: Why we mix up the names of people in our family (and why we include dogs, and not cats)

“It’s a cognitive mistake we make, which reveals something about who we consider to be in our group,” says Duke University psychology and neuroscience professor David Rubin, one of the study authors. “It’s not just random.”

The new paper, based on five separate surveys of more than 1,700 respondents, appears online in the journal Memory and Cognition.

Many of the patterns didn’t surprise lead author and PhD student Samantha Deffler. One did, though. In addition to mixing up sibling for sibling and daughter for son, study participants frequently called other family members by the name of the family pet—but only when the pet was a dog. Owners of cats or other pets didn’t commit such slips of the tongue.

Deffler says she was surprised how consistent that finding was, and how often it happened. “I’ll preface this by saying I have cats and I love them,” Deffler says. “But our study does seem to add to evidence about the special relationship between people and dogs.

“Also, dogs will respond to their names much more than cats, so those names are used more often. Perhaps because of that, the dog’s name seems to become more integrated with people’s conceptions of their families.”

As long as Georgia doesn't mix me up with Skye.

Parents, Brothers Family Evacuated in California

We just heard that my parents, and my brother Ted's family, are evacuating from their homes in Murphy's California because the Butte Fire in Calaveras County is getting too close for comfort:

BUTTE FIRE UPDATE: San Andreas ordered to evacuate

The Calaveras County Sheriff’s office just before 2:30 p.m. ordered the mandatory evacuation of San Andreas. The short announcement told residents to “leave immediately.”

Residents in most of Calaveras County east of Highway 49 are also being ordered to evacuate, the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office announced about 1 p.m.
The announcement comes as the fire continues to rage. It is already twice as large as the 1992 Old Gulch Fire and still growing.

The official acreage as of Friday afternoon was 50,000 acres burned since the fire began in Amador County on Wednesday afternoon. But the total is clearly headed much higher as the fire moves across ridges and through the Calaveras River drainage that is the heart of Calaveras County.

Communities from Mokelumne Hill to Mountain Ranch had already been evacuated when the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office issued an announcement a few minutes after noon that it is warning Arnold residents to evacuate. Just a few minutes later, fire dispatchers reported that the fire had jumped Fricot City Road south of San Andreas.

The dispatcher announced that “the fire is headed for Avery and Murphys.” Shortly after that, dispatchers and sheriff deputies began discussing the planned evacuation of Dogtown Road between Fricot City and Angels Camp.

And then, about 1 p.m, the Sheriff’s Office issued a mandatory evacuation for a huge region that includes portions of the county north of Murphys Grade Road in Angels Camp and east of Highway 49 all the way to the Fly In Acres neighborhood in Arnold.

Slideshow here

Hoping for the best.

Happy Mother's Day

I just wanted to say thanks for everything you did for us.

This one is from your Avilla Beach photoshoot in 2013:


















From the same photoshoot, with all the daughters-in-laws and grandaughters, from the left, Bethany, Georgia, Monica, Libby, Brigitte, and Katarina.

Blowing out the candle on your 90th birthday cake.

Standing in the California sunlight. The coin is a gift I gave you, a 1923 Mercury dime, to make up for all the ones I stole from you.

Blame Kat for this one. . .

With the West Coast grandsons.

Around the fire pit in 2014. From the left, Dad, Kat, Mom, Ted, Monica, Brigitte.

The adults are clearly plotting something.

Good News

A few weeks ago my mother, Mary Elizabeth (usually called Libby), 90 years old, and living at home with Dad in California, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She's spent a lot of time worried about it, of course, and doing her research. Today, she was operated on, and the tumor was removed.

We heard from her a couple of hours ago, and she's already home and recovering, still numb.

The preliminary pathology report appears to be good; the Drs. report taking it all out with clear margins and no lymph node involvement.  This of course, will need to be confirmed, but we're hoping that no follow up radiation treatments will be required.

Here's hoping that things continue to go well.

Still More Stuff Mom Sends

You'll definitely want to watch this full screen.

Mom's Prius Problem

When Mom got back to California after her trip out here to Alex's wedding, she found her Prius dead in the parking lot.  Apparently, the Prius uses a standard 12 V auxiliary battery to "start" (or at least operate many systems).  However, there is such a constant drain on the system that "starting" battery can be drained in a few days of being parked:

A call to Toyota Agency in Stockton revealed a STUPID FLAW in the Prius.

It has only a 12 volt auxiliary battery which starts the car, then the big battery takes over. It is not uncommon for people leaving a Prius at an airport to come back and find it dead! To me, the solution is do not take it to the Airport. But if you leave it home, you should have someone disconnect the battery, otherwise it will die at home...was the advice of the Service Manager. If not driven 3 - 5 days, it is not uncommon for this to happen...it can also be jump start by another car.

Bottom line is that I do feel much better...I do not have to be afraid of driving it around here.

That seems like a pretty important flaw.  If nothing else, they should provide a "cut-off" for the small battery so that you can easily leave it shut off over an extended period of inactivity and then easily reconnect it later.

Yet More Stuff My Mom Sends

Mom sent this collection of depression era photos. I assume it's an email that's circulating among the geriatric community. It comes with a message that says basically: "You think stuff is bad now?"

Her remark was: "Sadly, I remember these days"

Don't be sad Mom, you've lived through the greatest boom in the human condition that ever occurred. We'll likely never see progress a fast again and we'll be lucky not to backslide.

More Stuff My Mom Sends

The hidden tax that is inflation.  Comments are supposedly made in 1955 (I was 4).

"I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it's going to be impossible to buy a week's groceries for $10.00."

"Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long before $1, 000.00 will only buy a used one."