Life Sitrep

The reason I've been silent for a while is that life has been pretty chaotic here, not entirely in a good way—but not all bad, either.  In the last few weeks, life in the Carver household has included:

• A serious crisis for one of our daughters, which I can't say much about for privacy reasons, but it involved numerous health-care professionals, many difficult hours, and serious rethinking of educational plans.
• Hospitalization for a third heart attack for my father-in-law—and much soul-searching over what's best for this 87-year-old guy whom everyone loves, and who was once full of energy and activity and life. My wife's in Puerto Rico with him now. I may be heading there soon. Except for:
• Extensive and risky surgery for a good friend, who had his abdomen opened up and his aorta replaced with a Dacron tube. He lives alone and doesn't have much of a support system: grown kids who live far away, and a sister who's here for him, but has some physical disability of her own. That puts me on point for a lot of it. One step at a time, right now trying to get him into a decent rehab place that will take his minimal state-funded health insurance.
• Less dramatic hospital visits for two other friends, just to keep up the medical theme of the month.
• The arrival home of our other daughter from North Carolina, in a car that was threatening to kack on her at any moment. She celebrated her return home with a root canal, then almost immediately headed off for the Utah desert with four friends in two other cars of questionable reliability. ("Don't worry, Dad! We're packing a spare clutch for each car!") Thank God one of the chief park rangers out there is my cousin-in-law. ("Please don't get arrested for drunkenness in the national park. Please." Not that I thought she would.)
• The passing of Calvin, my brother's beloved dog, the world's one and only shag terrier. We miss you, Calvin!

I've probably forgotten a few things. But you get the idea. I'm a little tired. I haven't been getting a lot of other work done.

For some reason, I really like this quote:

"Microbes are a lot like teenagers. They work on their own time, at their own scale. They do what they want when they want." —scientist Christopher Reddy, on oil-eating bacteria somewhere in the BP oil plume, who don't seem to be doing their job