Stir fried sour pork and green tea

When I find a good recipe for dinner in the internet, I won't print it out but would write it down on a paper. Writing lets me understand the content of that overall. It helps me to cook it. The hand written recipes have been cumulated to 4 or 5 files for now. Late in the afternoon, I always open one of them and decide what to cook. It is not what I expected to do several years ago. That is still my life.

It was this stir fried sour and sweet pork with vegetables today. I have made it twice and knew it was not an easy menu. I don't know why but wanted to try it out again. The result? ....So so. But it would take me some time to try this one again for sure.

We often have had coffee with meals almost every day. It is indispensable for breakfast. However, I was getting a bit bored with the monotonous bitterness of coffee for the daytime beverage. I tried green tea. It has more variable bitterness. Not straight like coffee. I still like this one. On a common pottery cup of Mashiko ware. Mashiko is a town next to ours here. I won't blame coffee but still love this profound taste of green tea. It is refreshing.

Well Tempered Clavier

It's the famous piano works by Bach. Glen Gould, who plays piano in quite different style from him, used to evaluate Richter playing Bach. Richter plays Bach as only his work would be in the world with himself receding in the background. An interesting evaluation.

I used to have the LP record of this performance in my med student days. A lot of fond memories with it. I still often listen to it before going to bed. It sure soothes my mind.

Medical service should be out of the target of the market fundamentalism

The ultimate form of medical services based on market fundamentalism will be introduced in the US very soon. Here.

It is not "a fire on the opposite shore" for us. Our government always follows what the US is doing. It is always a theme for them how to help the businesses involved in medical service.

As already told in this blog, I am sure medical service belongs to social common capital. It should never be handled as one of the markets where big capitals would pursue only profit.

Let's see what will happen in the US.

Kniazev and Bach Suite Nr2

A famous Russian cellist, A. Kniazev, used to play the concerto by Dvorak at a concert of NHK Symphony Orchestra 6 years ago. A friend of mine has come to listen to him at that time. In a few days, he has taken the seat very close to Kniazev at another concert. Kniazev was one of the audience then. My friend has talked to Kniazev asking for his signature. Praising him for his performance with NHK S.O., my friend heard an unexpected story from him.

Kniazev wanted to get a DVD of his performance but was denied for that request by NHK due to the right of authorship or something. My friend has asked for any record of that concert for him in a SNS. I have been eagerly recording the classical concerts on TV at that time. His Dvorak was one of my DVD collection. I told him I would be pleased to give it to Kniazev. The DVD was successfully delivered to Kniazev through my friend later.

Kniazev has given me a set of unaccompanied suites by Bach of his performance with his signature as a token of his gratitude to my gift. Needless to say I was most thankful for such a gift.

Last night, coming into the livingdining room, on TV, I happened to hear him playing the very last part of Saraband of the 2nd Suite by Bach. It was an encore for a concert of Dvorak concerto with NHK S.O. held in last Oct. Fortunately, it was again recorded in HDD, so that I could listen to the concerto and the encore. His performance was a passionate song through dim background. His cello might be taken as a bit dark in tone. However, his will to express himself with passion was so remarkable. What deep vibrato! I have enjoyed it very much. Here is a video clip of his performance of Suite Nr2 and Nr4.

This Nr2 Suite is covered with the emotion of lamento and melancholy. In an interesting book titled the Cello Suites, Eric Siblin has speculated that this piece might be composed by Bach when he lost his 1st wife. Whether it is historically true or not, this music sure moves us with that tone of sorrow. Kniazev used to lose his wife in an airplane crash years ago, which he was also severely injured. While he was playing this Saraband, I wonder, what has come in his mind.

Anyway, I was glad to encounter him again last night.

A small but good story

I have been joining a BBS for medical doctors for years. The participants make post anonymously. Most posts are craps as those in the other anonymous sites are.

In such a BBS, however, a guy, who suffered from myocardial infarction at young age and are still with heart failure despite of stent therapy, has asked there about any possible therapy he could be benefited. A number of specialists have answered earnestly to him with most advanced knowledge of myocardial infarction management, which were mostly new to me. I was quietly as well as profoundly moved by their willingness to help a colleague doctor, anonymous and unknown to them.

There are so many troubles or evil things in the world. They say it is the days of the post truth. But this correspondence in the BBS showed a real good will to help the others by a number of doctors. I feel satisfied to have spent my life with this profession, even though I am now a professional house husband.

A sketch of my father by myself in teenage days

There was a framed drawing in my parent's home. It is a sketch of my father I used to draw in low teen days. Not an excellent one at all. It seems my father liked it and displayed it in his home. 

I still remember when I drew this one. It was a cold winter day. He was reading a book close to a stove. I don't know why I would draw him in this way. I still remember time was flowing quietly for each of us.

Reading was one of his hobbies. He has bought a lot of books and has read some of them. Not all. It was a reason of quarrel with my mother that he had spent so much money to purchase books despite of poverty. It might be one of his intentions to leave those books to his children. Actually, I have inherited some of them on literature, history and religion. My younger son, a psychiatrist, has done the same way and has taken over the hobby to collect books. In our property, there is a storage house with thousands of his books in it. Having no children himself, I wonder how he would do with those numerous books when he passes away.

While he was alive, I had been pretty critical to him as for his character and his way of living. But, getting so old as I am now, I believe I could be a better son for him. Of course, he is not living any longer.    

A whispering in a morning

Having CW fix before starting daily routine is an indispensable ritual every morning for me. It is like having tea to activate our brain. Actually, I feel CW would work in the working memory which bridges between the long term memory and the short term memory. As already repeatedly written, I think communicating on this mode is comparable to writing/reading. Highly intellectual process. The symbol system of Morse code which exists in working memory also could not help stimulating our brain. The symbol system itself doesn't have any meaning or grammar, so that it only lies between memories, short or long. It is to be elucidated how this symbol system activates our brain.

As complained again and again, I find less and less chances to get good CW fix in the morning here. If I could run across with a guy who work on this mode, he could be a hit and run pattern operator. Yes, more than 70 or 80% are such operators. And, sadly enough, this percentage is increasing more.

Every morning, I still call CQ despite of that desperate situation. It is to get that CW fix. On the other hand, I feel I should get the same morning ritual with the other things. Like playing cello. One or two tunes from the unaccompanied suites by Bach may substitute to it. It won't, however, do as well as CW fix itself. We always need to do with someone else even though Bach or other things are blessing things in the world. Another myself is, however, still telling me I should find something other than CW fix.

I am more and more convinced that we are living in the era when CW is fading away as a communication tool.  

An Osprey fell off coast in Okinawa

An Osprey, a tiltrotor military aircraft, has fallen on shallow water in the ocean only 80 meters away from the beach in Okinawa. Two crews out of 5 were injured. Pentagon says it was "a mishap". But the photo shows it was a complete crash. Here is the news with photo.

If it fell in the city or Uruma where the accident occurred close by, there could have been many people killed. They say, since it started flying in 1991, there have been 7 major crashes and 30 fatalities due to the accidents of Osprey. I am curious to know if this numbers are in the expected range compared with the other helicopters. Osprey is known to make big noise. This fallen one has made a night time training very near to the residential area. I am sorry for the people in Okinawa who are forced to be jeopardized by the risk of accident and to suffer from its terrible noise at night.

I hope the US government will realize there won't be any military base and military presence working well unless the people in the area would approve them. Okinawa has been agonized during the WWII and ever since.

Memory of Fukushima

The 8th symphony of Dvorak has been one of my favorite pieces for a long time since I played it at the university orchestra over 40 years ago. I wanted to play it again somewhere before quitting playing cello. I knew the orchestra of Fukushima University would perform it in this month and had been looking for some extra cellists. Even though they had seemingly intended to gather cellists of university students, on my application, I got a quick response from a student member of the orchestra to be willing to accept me for an extra member.

I have already posted about this music and how I was involved with the Fukushima university orchestra in this post.

While preparing for the rehearsal there, I noticed it would take me over 3 hours to drive door to door to the university. It would seem to be too adventurous for me to drive that long way back home on the high way after hectic practice for hours. In addition, the other program, Czech Suit by the same composer, turned out to be a tough one for cellists. Sadly enough, I had to cancel joining the orchestra. I was sorry for that to the students who prepared things for me.

Dvorak's music generally won't hit me in my mind. But this symphony is exceptional for me as stated in the previous post quoted above. It is full of nostalgic tunes in pretty simple structure. It also brings me back to the days when I played at the med school orchestra.  

While there were other orchestras with this symphony in their programs, why have I chosen the Fukushima University among them? I should return to the days when I decided to change my major from mechanical engineering to medicine. I was studying at a college in Tokyo those days. While having progressed to specialized subjects of mechanical engineering, I felt I would study not mechanical engineering but the other subjects doing directly with human being. A teacher or a medical doctor was in my mind. I was reading those of Jaspers, Frankle or Kamiya, mainly regarding psychiatry. I have known of a girl with a family member of schizophrenia, who was a school teacher and eagerly told me to major in medicine. She also told me that school teachers had been too busy with paper works to do with children directly. It was a reason why i have chosen medicine for my future profession. It was also a challenge for every applicant to university to get through the entrance exam for faculty of medicine those days. That might kick me to turn to medicine also. Finally, I decided to though my parents were not wealthy enough to let me go to another school, they haven't complained of my changing mind at all.

I should had started preparing for the entrance exam for medical school then. It was, however, the political days, probably, the last time for students to have protested against the authority. It has started from a faculty of medicine of Tokyo University. Our college was involved in that policital movements also. Our college had been established by the authority, as the activists insisted, when they needed engineers without any political will or intention after they had experienced the most political year in 1960. The students has moved against the revision of Japan US Security Treaty those days.

In the first half of the my last year at the college, the political movement has reached its peak there. Even though I was not belonging to any sect, I was busy at a lot of political meetings. The class rooms were blocked with barricades in the building. Having felt sympathetic to the political activists, I was aiming to remove the barricades and to normalize the school. When it was settled down, the graduation research has kept me busy again. Anyway, such activities have prevented me from preparing for the entrance exam.

I have taken the entrance exam of medical university without having done any preparation for that. It was the Fukushima Med University which I had applied for. Early in March, I stepped out the station building of Kanayagawa in Fukushima to take the exam. Cold wind was blowing at a pretty pretty large concourse surrounded with a few buildings and vast farms in countryside. With much anxiety for my future as well as a bit of expectation for that, I was standing there for a while.

This is a photo of that railway station in the past taken from the internet. I am not sure if this was from the time when I was there. Not so far if it was not identical to the building I took off the train.

Of course, I failed in the exam that time. Later, I have started medical student at another university in Tokyo. Anyway, this was an unforgettable place for me. Fukushima university is located in this town near to this railway station of Kanayagawa. I wanted to stand at the same place where I had started the 1st step of my life to the career of medical doctor. It was a reason why I wanted to play at the orchestra of Fukushima University.

The other reason was that I had been concerned about the situation of Fukushima after the tragedy of the devastated nuclear power plants. It is located 30 or 40km east of this place. But I was still anxious to know how the things had been going on there. I might write about this story in another post.

I wish the orchestra of Fukushima University will perform this piece successfully at the concert. I would give applaud from here. 

Jim W7ZQ passed away

Through N6XI, John N2NEP let me know of Jim W7ZQ having passed away on Nov 26th. Here is his orbituary.

I used to know Jim as W0HTH in Colorado back in '60s. He was always loud from his 2 element quad on 40m. Later he has changed his call to W0HJ. When he got a position as a professor at Wyoming University, his call has become W7ZQ. I have had numerous enjoyable chats with him in his W0HJ and then W7ZQ days.

His orbituaru told he had made much effort to get Ph D in electrical engineering after having served in the army for a few years. I have never heard of his this service in QSOs with him. It also told he wanted to join Navy in WWII interrupting his study at high school. He was a WWII veteran.

When he was in Colorado, he used to operate mobile in his morning hours commuting from his home in a high land area down to the city of Denver. While driving that way, he often described some people dipping in hot bath tub in freezing morning he could see from his car. The road was slippery as he often told. In the end of such a QSO, I used to tell him not to slip out of the road on the way to the office. Later, when I started working at own practice in '90s, he was already retired and operated from his home in Wyo or in Idaho. In the QSOs with him before I go for work in our morning hours, he used to tell me not to slip into the watered rice paddy on the way. Of course, it was a paraphrase of my joke back in '80s. He has had a good sense of humor.

He has put up a couple of 160ft high towers in Idaho. On one of them, he got another 2 el quad and sent out a big signal into Japan. His signal from Collins linear amplifier was clean and beautiful. I was always admiring it. His CW itself sounded beautiful as well. Rather slow but accurate with ample spacing between words. It sure expressed his sense of beauty on CW, which I rarely hear of nowadays.

His orbituary told me he had lost his 1st wife and 5 chldren. However, I am sure he has spent a happy retirement with his 2nd wife in Idaho. I sure wanted to see him in person before I got this sad news. He will be missed so much. He has been not only one of my good friends but also a hero in ham radio for me.

Another visit to parents in law

I visited parents in law with my wife for the past couple of days. It has been warm and mostly fine throughout the trip. On the day of arrival there, we have had a nice dinner at a restaurant in the hotel we stayed.  Listening to jazz in the background, we have enjoyed nice full course dinner. Our daughter who had received my e mail with this kind of photo replied to me she wished she had been with us there.

At the sunrise there today, I have walked along the pier. When I first came there, there was no bridge between Shikoku Island and the main island. Those days, we had to take a ferry from here to a city near by across the Seto Inland Sea when going to the main island. I remembered, some 40 years ago, when I visited my wife's parents to ask for permit of marriage with her, I could not get a definite affirmative answer from her father. My wife used to say good by to me, being sad without his father's permit of marriage, at the pier the ferry departed to the main land. She looked quite pleasant to me. Later, it turned out that he and mother in law had decided to say yes to me at that time. Anyway, I had to come home with the answer in pending.  It was this place at that time. 

Father in law was doing pretty fine at his age 91 years. He still has some health issues but is able to go for walk for 30 minutes around the nursing home by himself. He plays game with his friends at the home. My wife's elder sister comes to see him once or twice a week bringing items necessary for him and mother in law. The staff seems very kind and helpful to him. His hearing was lost to some extent. It seemed the biggest problem for him. So far, at his age, his circumference seemed to be the best that he could desire. 

Mother in law has been suffering from Levy Body type dementia for years. She is bed ridden and is not able to communicate with the others in most occasions. In our previous visits when she was awake and saw my wife, she opened her eyes widely and looked to want say something to her. She was, however, in deep sleep this time and was not responsive to my wife's words. She is eating meal by herself and seems to be in good condition as well for her age and with the phase of the degenerative disease.　

Father in law, I and my wife were taken to a restaurant nearby by wife's sister. We have had nice lunch there. I could not thank enough to sister in law for her efforts for parents in law. 

It has been already 3 years since they were admitted into this facility. I was sorry I could not do more for them. But I was still pleased to know they were getting along in the most desirable way they could expect. On the way back home, I have read a news on a news paper telling that about 180 of aged people were killed or committed suicide due to care issues in our country for the past 4 years. It would be a problem for us how to spend our old age as well in the future. Wishing parents in law to continue this peaceful life, we left the facility.

Though things seem to go around in the same way

The zelkova tree in front of my parents' home is getting colorful. Some leaves are already fallen. It was planted to make shades on my parents' home in summer. In a few years, it has grown too big and my father used to complain of its size. Now, there is no one living in the home. This tree turns in the same way as if nothing has happened there.

Fallen leaves.

On the other hand, the ume trees already have tiny buds on branches. They are ready to bloom early in the spring.  

Things seem to go around. But no single same moment exists. It only passes fast.