Big Relief followed by Small Joys

Yesterday, I awoke to the unwelcome news that a strong earthquake had hit Santiago, Chile. The rest of the day I worried about my oldest child, since that is where she has been living the past couple years. But my feeling was that she was okay, and after a fitful sleep last night, this morning's email brought welcome news, in the form of her voice.

She slept through it. (The above photo captures a sense of her magnificent energy, even at age 17 months.)



Fighting my mid-day sleepiness, I walked for a while, appreciating the pink and yellow blooms on the ice plant, now that spring seems to be gaining the upper hand over the rains and fogs and bitter winds that continue to cut through this city.



Sunset is a peaceful time, and I continue to experiment with colors in small bottles, savoring how they catch the fading light.

Given that the Presidential election is still 1.5 years away, it seems rash to draw this conclusion, but increasingly, I sense that it will be Obama vs. Giuliani. What an odd couple to compete for what is reputably the most powerful job in the world.

Boris Yeltsin has died. My only visit to Moscow was less than a year after his famous gesture, standing atop a tank and refusing to let a half-hearted Communist coup undermine his decision to help his country to transform into a free-market democracy.

David Halberstam also has died, just a couple years after lending his celebrity to the Center for Investigative Reporting's annual fundraising event. That makes two such losses in the past year -- Molly Ivins being the other keynote speaker who recently passed on.

In the world that is baseball, Barry Bonds leads the National League in homeruns at age 42. But his feats, while spectacular, are overshadowed so far by "A-Rod," the controversial Yankee who has 14 homers in 16 games!

Even if Bonds, who now has a career total of 740, breaks Hank Aaron's record (755) later this season, he will have to be aware of the footsteps of A-Rod, who may well blow away all of these big numbers.

Since both of them are presumably sugar-free (i.e., without steroids) now MLB is testing for performance-enhancing drugs, and neither man would risk his place in baseball history to slip up now -- right -- this promises to be potentially an extremely memorable HR race. The younger guy in New York and the old guy in San Francisco, each pursuing legends and the closest thing to immortality that sports can provide...

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