And now... something completely different July 20 - August 11, 2001 about our getting better, and culturally elevated.

	A plane just like this one was captured in China

Each vacation is an attack on an individual's endurance. Just as we unpacked, Sid went down with a re-emerged kidney infection. It was necessary to make a doctor's appointment and this second time, such nerve-wrecking deal fell on me.

	The platypus-like snout of the plane contains a radiolocator. A hangar in the background is so large you can fly a hot air balloon inside.

It goes approximately like this -- you dial a number of the medical facility, where a machine tells you that operators are answering calls of those who got through ahead of you. After about twenty minutes, during which you swear never to listen to Eine Kleine Nachtmusik voluntarily again, even if invited to a private concert by Rotschild cross-bred with Belmondo, you get to talk to a receptionist. You explain to her thoroughly, who you are, stressing three times that your name starts with a "P" and no, your name is not Barrel, but Paral; then she asks for a Social Security Number. If the call is about me, the dialogue takes the path where I explain at length that my official documents include the suffix -ova; in Sid's case I hear a confused "... but, but, I have ... a different ... name here ... like ... Zednik???" Let me point out that only very experienced clerks get all the way through the whole word -- most of them give up at exclaiming that the name starts with a Zee. Nobody ever managed to say a clean Zdenek. Being through with naming issues, a cross-check follows -- date(s) of birth, or mailing address -- which is another hassle, as Americans cannot say "Arastradero". I sometimes feel quite sorry for these operators, not only has Sid an unpronounceable name, but we live on an unpronounceable street!

	Where is up, and where is down??

	MiGs 17 in missionary position and later aligned side by side (allegedly separated by three feet or so)

That all is only a prelude to being switched to the appropriate department, where I may enjoy listening to another serving of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. The routine with a receptionist and the names repeats, enhanced by my insisting on sharing my medical problem with them. The receptionist won't waste time and makes an appointment right away - for about three months later. I gently remind her that I am (Sid is) in terrible pain and should this be an appendicitis, I (he) would be probably dead three months from now, and would not require a visit at the doctor's then. The receptionist would then groan that she'd switch me over to a nurse, and puts me on hold with -- you guessed right!!! -- Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Eventually, the nurse would pick it up, talk to me, determine that an examination after three months would not be very sensible, and switch me back to the receptionist #2.

At that moment, simplicity prevails -- an overwhelming cooperation ensues. They even accepted Sid at the very end of their regular hours.

	Ef sixteener in a turn

I'm not quite convinced that it was from my sitting around the phone and listening to Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, but I contracted an acute back ache (perhaps to compensate for Sid's suffering). Given our family disposition, I elected to cure it myself -- if I remember correctly, my mom at her age of thirty six was prescribed ibuprofen, rehabilitation exercise, and received a jolly rationalization that humans were designed to last up to thirty years, thus she was past her service time and should not complain. So I did not complain and put my mind of a challenge instead, whether I really wanted to have coffee that badly, now that I had to snap in half to reach down into a dishwasher for a cup. Once I bent down, I realized I could not grab a kettle -- with my torso at a right angle, the only way to straighten up meant to lay down on my side, roll over to my back, stretch my legs slowly, turn to my other side, get up on my knees and finally stand up straight (try to do all this while clutching to a cup). I became so tired of this system that I started separating activities that I could manage in a "kiwi" position (putting on shoes, collecting morsels, fishing things from the dishwasher, dragging a laundry basket), and those I could do standing up (cooking, shopping, talking to my husband, retrieving mail).

	Looking through a hangar

Being "a kiwi" for approximately three days, Tuesday came and with it my regular climbing in a gym. As exercise and stretching always made me better than worse, I packed my gear and went. I wonder what people there could have thought -- pulling on my harness, I presented with something like a St.Vitus Dance (unable to bend forward nor lift my leg up more than a right angle), but then I apparently effortlessly climbed relatively difficult routes (no bending forward required there).

At home, I bragged to Sid about my sporting success, and I did not forget to add that still better was sitting in my hot car -- Cecilia has no air conditioning and this time was the first occasion that I truly appreciated a WARM seat. My spouse is a true action hero -- despite a late hour, he jumped into his car and returned with a water bottle. He was all beaming with pride, as he scored yet another super buy -- instead of a plain water bottle, he purchased a whole set with various adaptors -- besides a camping shower, we also got an enema extension. Would you say no to that?!?

Our health kept slowly improving and as our domestic consumption of ibuprofens and of warm water for the bottle began to decline (haven't tried the enema yet, though), a time has come to get out into the world again. A gracious Providence pushed an attraction right under our noses this time -- an air show at Moffett Field.

	F/A18 and F8F - and modern, and a veteran fighter

Moffett Federal Airfield is a nearby airport with huge hangars (hot air balloons with crew can fly inside the largest one), neighboring an air tunnel. Part of it belongs to the army, part of it to NASA, and under regular circumstances is out of limits for us non-citizens. It was built before WW2 when the Valley had no idea of "Silicon"; and mountain lions were a common sight. Now it occupies one of possibly most expensive lands in USA.

	F 16, P51 and A10 in formation

Sid hurried to buy tickets on his way to work -- a brilliant tactical move mostly because we got free VIP parking. On the evening before, we gave each other moral support in anticipation of early morning rising and heavy pushing in crowds (especially after a few warnings from the side of Sid's colleagues), but it was all unnecessary.

A superbly organized transportation (with the assistance of local police, army, and volunteers) was easy to understand and we followed signs and got directed all the way to our parking. We drove the last stretch in a line of cars, and "flaggers" playfully arranged us in parking rows -- one next to another -- as there were no markings of this huge flat blacktop. A continuous line of buses was taking people around the runway to the opposite side, where the actual show took place. It was not far away, we could se open aircraft and seating arrangements. One of a few less patient visitors asked if he really had to wait for a bus, saying that he was willing to walk the short distance. An usher smiled nicely and said rather bluntly that he was sure free to try, but he should count on being arrested on the runway and miss the show. It would be pointless anyway, as a little bus took us all there really quickly.

	F/A 18 belly

In a short moment, we were strolling among aircraft on display -- besides jet fighters and helicopters, there were other treats: military cargo planes, mine-sweeping copters, rescue aircraft, a flying gas station, a jumbo jet that was used to test-fly a space shuttle when they needed to know if it could fly at all, and even a reconnaissance plane of the same type they captured recently in China. Most craft were open for access including the cockpits, but for that people queued in incredibly long lines, and we gave up.

	Oracle really flew through this ribbon gate

The only single hiccup took place before starting the actual flying performance -- everybody was ready for many people coming to Moffett Field, but nobody counted on the same people, who purchased their seat tickets, to want to go sit on them all at once, just as the program commenced. There were only four organizers at a small gate, who were putting green plastic bands around every box-seat customer's wrist -- it took over an hour to push several thousands of people through this bottleneck. So we watched the first aerobatic number while standing in a line. I confess my stomach was turning while I gazed at spins and upside down flying a few feet above ground despite I was firmly standing on it.

There were other stunts -- a plane (F/A-18), "standing" on its tail over the runway, MiGs 17 in missionary position (less than three feet apart), condensation bubble around F/A-18 jet fighter as it was flying on the edge of the speed of sound, "feeding" of a helicopter from a flying tanker, a biplane flying through a hand-held ribbon gate, a simulated ground attack of a A-10 jet bomber (the audience got kicks out of fiery blasts right in front of us on the field), a short take-off of cargo plane C-130, troop-drop from a helicopter, legacy formations of fighters and bombers (e.g. F/A-18, A-10, and P-51) -- it is quite impressive to see aircraft that are separated by fifty years of history flying side by side.

	"dirty" A-10 - in landing configuration

The show ended at five in the afternoon, we only dropped our cameras off at our home and headed for Fremont, being expected by friends of Sid's boss Don. We were scheduled to go to see (instead of Don and his wife) a concert of Eric Clapton at Oakland Coliseum. A BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) terminal is in Fremont -- trains go all the way to San Francisco, which helps to avoid permanent traffic jam and hassle with parking. It was our first time riding a train here, though BART resembles more a (underground) metro. In twenty minutes, we found ourselves in Oakland, the station being right across from the stadium. Or rather, two stadiums -- besides a concert, the open air oval was busy and sold out with an ongoing baseball match. We encountered several "scalpers" on a bridge between the station and the stadium -- these creatures buy ticket wholesale and then try to re-sell them, appropriately overpriced, to desperate fans who are willing to pay up.

	Speed of sound, demonstrated...

I found myself mildly shocked when the elderly professor-looking character in jeans and sneakers, whom I tagged as a stagehand or some sort of bell hop, grabbed a guitar and began to play. More "daddies" kept arriving onstage, and soon the concert was in full swing. We got seats all the way up and behind, with a great sound, though, but if we wanted to see something, we had to use a 10x binoculars. I was quite startled at the sight of a keyboard-playing grandfather with a transparent hose tucked in a corner of his mouth -- I hesitated whether he was sucking on some hidden bottle, or needed an auxiliary oxygen supply. A saxophone solo made it obvious. Don't ask me how, but this hose transformed keyboard chords into a sexy sax. It was overall impressive, how these aging gentlemen could get carried away. The hall smelling with hamburgers and marijuana, an easy atmosphere settled in. That was my biggest surprise, I guess -- it was sold out, everybody pressed to their neighbors like sardines in a can, but the audience sang along, clapped, yelled, danced and had a jolly good time, yet never got hysterical.

I expected things to get ugly at least after the concert, especially as the baseball game ended practically in the same moment next door -- the pedestrian bridge held at that time at least ten thousand people, many of them under the influence. I awaited some stampede and certain death for weak individuals; I had no clue why Holly and Barry were running for it. Yet the crowds advanced steadily and with caution, people did not even push enough to touch each other. Trains were arriving to the station one after another from both directions, and platforms were kept half empty that way. On a train, we even sat down. I believe I experienced through an Eighth Marvel of the World.

Copyright © 2001-2004 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.