Decisions, Dominoes, & Idiots

Hey Mom,

I should have jotted this down the other day when I had this thought.  I'll probably mangle it now, but I'll give it a try.  In a realization that seemed to fit more with a contrived TV or book plot than real life, I could see how one decision lead to a number of incidences that lead to an abysmal outcome.  It really seemed like life's decisions were a series of dominoes stacked up to be knocked over coming eventually to their conclusion.   I have never had that perspective before.  Don't know if that is from a lack of self-reflection or a lack of incidences that would lead to that. In the end, my conclusion was that I am an idiot and the decisions I made cost the life of my sweet Louie. That realization just crushed what was left of my broken heart.

I was ruminating on my problem with Charlie.  It was stupid of me to go rescue him when he called from El Centro.  I should have left him there - or told him to go to the hospital there to get some help for whatever his intestinal issue was.  Instead, I stupidly drove out there and back to bring him to the ER here.  I had no plans to have him come back and live at the house, in fact, I dropped him at a hospital 40-ish miles away thinking that they (or a behavioral health facility) would house him for a few days so he could dry out and sober up a little.  The ER doctor thought they would admit him, so off I went only to have them street him 5 hours later.

He, of course, had no place to go and no plans for finding a place (and, I would say, no desire to either).  He made no contact with his mental health providers.  And I was not smart enough to lock the garage door before leaving that morning.  He called to say he wanted to pick up a few things and with only a few hours of sleep, maybe that accounts for me saying okay, but by the time I got home from work, he was camped out on the couch and drunk.  I could not get him to leave, to stop drinking, or to stop smoking in the house - he actually burnt the couch and melted part of the TV remote.  He continued to moan and groan about how sick he felt, but everyday, would go out and get more booze while I was away at work.  Every night, I had to get up several times to make sure doors were closed.  He took over your room and made it a mess. When the kids finally came down for Comic Con, all they wanted to see your room as it should have been, to see the house as you would have kept it, and all I had was a drunk slob messing up everything.  I asked him to leave. He refused - he felt he had some kind of right to stay because "his kids were coming".  I considered calling the Sheriffs - I probably should have- it would have been so much better for me if I had.

It was the first night the kids were there.  Charlie was drunk, and as he has so many times in the past, left the shutters open on the screen door.  Louie just opened the screen and went out.  I was in my room with the kids, noticed Louie wasn't around about 9 pm and went to look for him.  I found the screen door open and Louie gone.  He was no where in the back yard.  I heard all sorts of excuses from Charlie like: it was only a couple of minutes to I came in just 10 minutes ago to trying to blame one of the boys.  I looked and called every couple of hours - I never saw him again.

The key dominoes were: a decision to go to El Centro and bring him back to the ER, a yes to letting him "pick up" a few things, and a decision not to call the Sheriffs.  A short domino chain, but an awful one.

I miss you always, but especially through all that.

The UC and the future of its master plan

Attended a lecture the other day that you would have loved to hear -- the Future of the California Model of Higher Education.  I debated not going, but it only seemed right that I should go.  Not too many folks attended.  I saw a few librarians and the university registrar (he's a “train friend”) - I'm guessing that most of the others are faculty.  It is one talk in a series (the Clark Kerr lectures) that happens every couple of years – most of them done at Berkeley.  However, this one is here at UCSD.

Is it ageism to say that one of the introductory speakers looks like he might have been a colleague of Clark Kerr?  The speaker for today was Simon Marginson.  He has done a lot of research into higher ed and had some interesting ideas for where it might go in the future.  He seems to really be impressed with the plans that Kerr laid out and sees it as not only a plan for California but also internationally.  One thing he said that surprised me, but made sense, is that UCSD was designed as an experimental campus.  I’ve always wondered about why the campus has 6 distinct colleges, and this might just explain that.  If you were still here, I think you would have liked to read a book he mentioned that Kerr wrote – Uses of the University.  Maybe I’ll buy it anyway and add to your books on the california master plan.  I think you would have enjoyed hearing this talk.