Friday, October 17, 2025
1933 Albert Einstein arrived in the US as a refugee from Nazi Germany
1973 OPEC oil ministers used oil as an economic weapon in the Arab-Israeli War, mandating a cut in exports and recommending an embargo against unfriendly states
1979 Mother Teresa of Calcutta was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
1979 US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the Department of Education
2024 Israel claims to have killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, one of the masterminds of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, during a battle in Rafah, Gaza
In bed by 9, up at 6:20, feeling lousy, miserable, pain in right kidney area, worrying about the return of bright redness around left ankle last night, but it's better this morning. I brought a 5% Lidocaine patch out with me. 56°, high of 70°, cloudy all day.
Meds, etc. Morning meds at 9:10 a.m. Trulicity injection at 9:30 a.m.
Pain, pain, pain. I'm in a lot of it today, mid back, right side, as usual. From my journal two years ago today:
Gratefulness. As I woke up this morning, I was aware of unwanted itchiness and slight pains and stiffness, but I had the realization, too seldom experienced, that I am - right now - in Heaven, alive, able to walk and talk and think and read and write and hear and taste and see and living with Geri and Lilly in a magnificent home, so much more fortunate, more favored, more blessed than most of mankind that lives or has ever lived on this wondrous rock speeding through space. It doesn't last but it IS now. I think of my mother and my father and my sister, of Uncle Jim and Aunt Monica, of Moses and Brother Coogan and Wally Halperin, and of Sarah and Andy, and I am reminded again of the 4th and 5th stanzas of Vacillation:
IV
My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.
V
Although the summer Sunlight gild
Cloudy leafage of the sky,
Or wintry moonlight sink the field
In storm-scattered intricacy,
I cannot look thereon,
Responsibility so weighs me down.
Things said or done long years ago,
Or things I did not do or say
But thought that I might say or do,
Weigh me down, and not a day
But something is recalled,
My conscience or my vanity appalled.
I move between the two extremes, too often Mickey the Mope, like Ronny Cammareri needing Loretta Castorini to smack him and tell him to "Snap out of it!." Or my dear sister.
Comment to JJA's FB post this morning of Col. Doug Krugman's WaPo op-ed yesterday.
I read it yesterday and, of course, and agree with him. As a 24-year Marine veteran, I take it he joined up in 2001. I joined in 1963 and served only 4 years on active duty, RVN in 65-66. I find it hard to imagine that any American man or woman who served in the nation's armed forces, especially those who have served in wars in foreign lands, is not appalled by what has happened and is continuing to happen in our country. Those of us old enough to remember will remember all the hopeful talk of "light at the end of the tunnel" in Vietnam. We on the ground called it "happy horseshit." My friend Ron Kendall, a Marine warrant officer from Iowa, used to repeat to me what his high school football coach used to say to his team: "You can fool the spectators, but you can't fool the players." With more than 3 years remaining in this administration, is anyone seeing light at the end of this tunnel? This old Marine doesn't. I fear that I will go to my grave with the America I grew up in mortally wounded by a self-inflicted wound. Semper Fi, Col Krugman. I salute you.
The Pond at Dusk
BY JANE KENYON
A fly wounds the water but the wound
soon heals. Swallows tilt and twitter
overhead, dropping now and then toward
the outward-radiating evidence of food.
The green haze on the trees changes
into leaves, and what looks like smoke
floating over the neighbor’s barn
is only apple blossoms.
But sometimes what looks like disaster
is disaster: the day comes at last,
and the men struggle with the casket
just clearing the pews.
Text exchange with CBG this morning:
Caren Goldberg: Good morning! I hope all is well with you and Geri. I have read parts and skimmed parts of your incredible autobiography and am wondering if we can make a date for me to return it to you. Are you free for breakfast on Thursday Oct. 23 or lunch on Friday Oct 24?
Charles Clausen: Life’s been a bit complicated over here. I was hospitalized in the VA hospital for a week between 9/27 and 10/4 with cellulitis in my left leg. It’s not completely gone yet but I’m on the mend. I’d love to visit with you and to hear news of your family but here’s my problem on the dates you suggest. On Thursday, I have a video conference with my ‘personal pharmacist’ at the VA at 9:30 a.m. It will take about 20 minutes. On Friday, I have an appointment at the VA for an EMG on the ulnar nerve in my right arm at 11 a.m. That should take between an hour and an hour and a half. While I am increasingly ferkrimpter, Jew-ish Geri has been doing well, getting in at least a couple of hours of gardening each day when the weather permits, knitting hats every day for a volunteer program at Temple Emanuel, and caring for her aged husband. Her niece, Katherine, who also was one of my students at MULS in years past and used to be a bigwig at DHS until DJT’s reelection, is flying in from Washington to visit us for the weekend late on the 24th. Lastly, a BTW: I looked up “ferkrimpter” many times on the internet, always unsuccessfully and had concluded the word must be a local or perhaps Friebert family Yiddishism, but I asked ChatGPT and found it wasn’t, though the proper spelling appears to be “ferkrampter.” FYI❤️
Caren Goldberg: I’m sorry to hear about your cellulitis. My mom has had it a couple of times and it was just awful so I’m happy to hear you are on the mend. We are all a bit more ferkrampter with each passing day but keep on chugging along! Would you want to meet on Thursday the 23rd at 10:15 or 10:30? Or what about breakfast on Tuesday Oct. 28th?
Charles Clausen: On the 28th, I have a midmorning appointment with a VA psychiatrist and another with a psychologist. I got scheduled because of my “subdued mood,” VA talk for a suicide risk. They are super vigilant for suicides there and my primary care doc deemed me to be one because of my ‘weltschmerz’. You can see why I think of the VA as my second home. Thursday the 23rd at 10:15 would be fine with me, brunch. BTW, our basement got flooded during the Big Rain on 8/9 and 9/10. We’ve been dealing with the clean-up ever since. A real pain in the ass. It didn’t help my ‘weltschmerz.’🙃❤️
Caren Goldberg: So much to clean from the flooding. You didn’t need that. Let’s plan on the 23rd at 10:15. Maxfields?
Charles Clausen: Great. I look forward to seeing you.
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