After nearly 46 years of marriage to a lovely forbearing wife who sings opera, I’ve finally begun to appreciate opera, so I sometimes listen to CDs while driving to and from work. One day last week I went through the complete Wagner ring cycle (for those who may not know opera as I now do, trust me, that is a very long time). Dress in Southern California and on the USC campus is incredibly casual, far more so than even I would dress, and I’m pretty informal. Here, I’m usually the only one wearing a tie, let alone not in scrubs; I can’t tell faculty from residents from students from orderlies. I’m trying to learn Spanish, but so far haven’t gotten much past “No hablo Español.” I’m determined to do better.
Cuisine and dining are very different too; I’m learning to differentiate Sumatran from Ethiopian coffee. My wife, Rena, knows which restaurants have the freshest arugula, whatever that is. My five-year-old grandson, Etan, calls his teachers by their first name; my eight-year-old granddaughter, Lia, had a teacher who wore flip-flops and sunglasses to school each morning; we think her next teacher will have purple hair, a nose ring, and will moonlight as a spiritualist named Breeze.
We haven’t had an earthquake yet, but we’re ready. Our daughter was watching—not helping—while we unpacked and set up our new home; she exclaimed with horror when we put a picture with a heavy frame over our bed. Here, that’s potentially lethal. Unlike New Jersey, I don’t pay attention to weather reports and forecasts, as it’s the same every day.
I haven’t gone to a meeting since September 2010 when I left Saint Barnabas. I’m quite content with my new roles (clinical, educational, scholarly, and advisory) in rheumatology and medicine here at USC. I still savor walking across campus on warm, sunny days and sometimes stopping for coffee. Mornings I often run on the beach with my dogs. Weekends, if I don’t run, I cycle with my daughter on bike paths along the nearby creek with the ocean and surrounding mountains in the background. Rena can have, and prepare, our traditional Friday night Sabbath dinners to include family each week, which is just wonderful. Lia came over for dinner the other night—they’re five blocks away—for the only food I know how to prepare: Cookie Crisp cereal. Last Saturday I woke up to find Etan asleep in our bed.
