With pandemic raging through the new Omicron variant of Covid, we wanted this year to travel somewhere close, sunny, and rural. We chose Costa Rica for a jungle and beach adventure. Ruben prefers cities to high-flying treetops, but Ray and I did go with stalwart traveler Adriene, her entomologist beau …
2021 may have fared even worse than the miserable 2020 as the pandemic dragged on for an unexpected further year. We got vaccinated, but still many venues remained shuttered. How much longer do we wait? 2021 brought too much illness. In February, my Mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Before …
On the first day of January, the omicron variant of coronavirus spikes cases in the United States to new daily highs, cancelling flights, clogging airports, and closing New Years Eve festivals. Along with the rest of the country, I’m languishing. We’re two months away from the two year anniversary of …
In two days, on April 1, I receive my second vaccination shot at the massive and efficiently run Moscone Convention Center in downtown San Francisco to which I take my afternoon walk down decrepit Market Street. My company joined the rest of Bay Area biotech to call me a lab …
For most of March, I budget thirty minutes each day to organize and clean another section of my little apartment. I tackled a bedroom closet yesterday and today move on to the entrance hallway and its floor. Wrestling a bulky mattress off the frame, I pulled out a gray dirt …
Stephanie wonders whether I have a degenerative neuromuscular disease. Coming from a practicing neurologist, her prognosis spirals me into days of reflection. I’ve never had a body similar to anyone else. So scrawny as a kid, my elbows and knees were oddly double-joined. My toes are not independently flexible, more …
My poor Mom has Alzheimer’s. I have not been home in over a year due to Covid and growing distance from my aging parents. At the end of February, during my weekly weekend calls home, I could tell that Mom was getting both increasingly confused and delusional. She mixed up …
March lingers with a cold spring, signifying a year now of pandemic So many Marches indoors, alone, surviving, but existentially bored. My social proclivities have diminished even further. Going outside seems a struggle. I fear crossing the street to shop at Whole Foods. I’m grateful when friends cancel plans and …
Friend AJ departs California in May to move with his wife and son back to Massachusetts and away from Silicon Valley craziness. I will miss our weekly lunches, occasional San Francisco jaunts, and winter skiing. For decades, he and I would try to ski together around Lake Tahoe. If I …
Ages ago, after two post-doctoral stints—one in Austin and the following in The Netherlands—I needed to make a choice between a science career as an academic or head into industrial chemistry at a company. For better work-life balance and a shyness in my thirties to lead, I choose the company …