What happens in White River Junction, stays in White River Junction.

Little Joey and 'Auntie Eva'.
Originally uploaded by littlee.

After performing some complex calculations on my TI-82 graphing calculator, I have determined that it has been only (and exactly) three weeks since I took Etta the Jetta for a quick trip up I-91 to see no-longer-at-all-little cousin Joey play his heart out (and his shoulder off) to win the national rugby championship.

Three weeks? That’s it? Granted, given my vivid recollection of most of that weekend’s hijinx, it makes sense that only a short period of time had passed. But otherwise, I cannot make sense of it. Three weeks doesn’t seem nearly long enough to contain all the madness that has ensued…

Computer hard drives have spontaneously combusted and have been rebuilt, intracellular growth deficiency phenotypes – four years in the making – have finally been quantified and graphed in Excel. Jenn has married her fantastic girlfriend, Megan, graduated from the University of Massachusetts Medical School to become Jennifer E. Cyrkler, MD and movied to Oakland. Jon’s new Weber grill has been christened at a Memorial Day BBQ on the front steps of 79 Mansfield Street and the first official ‘Shira and Uri’s Porch’ of the season has been held at 73 Livingston last Friday evening despite the unrelenting rain. Half marathons have been run.

And somewhere in there, there was time for moths to take over my apartment, for my cell phone to go completely missing and for my advisor to strongly recommend that I use a protocol for EM staining that requires the use of depleted uranium derivative.

Now I recognized that many of these events can easily overlap – the moths, for example, had been staging a preliminary offensive for most of the period that I trained for the half marathon. And losing ones cell phone takes no time at all. But regardless, I now find myself sitting in lab on another grey Friday afternoon, staring sans comprehension at my notes from this morning’s meeting with Craig and wondering what the hell just hit me. And why all of it had to hit me all at once.

One thing that hit me for sure was about 48 hours spent in White River Junction, VT and Hanover, NH with a menagerie of parents, siblings and friends associated with to the Jesuit High School rugby team. I will not bother to try to describe what it is like to witness the convergence of rugby moms and dads from the California central valley with the quiet, reserved citizens of rural Vermont and New Hampshire. But it was fascinating and it made me deeply homesick for Vermont and California in a confusing, simultaneous way.

In addition to the tall order of capturing the moment in prose, I also did promise Auntie Lisa that I wouldn’t tell anyone what went on that weekend. But without really saying much, I will suggest that the folks at that steakhouse will not soon forget the women who took over the open mike piano and then stole a patron’s crutches. And the general manager at the Comfort Inn may type up a new policy about guests holding cocktail hour in the front lobby.

I’m hoping for karma’s sake, that all the naughtiness of the parents was redeemed by the astounding effort put in by their sons. When we weren’t terrorizing quiet dining establishments, we were watching the Jesuit High School Marauders ruck, scrum and line-out their way to victory over Highland on some of the muddiest, sloppiest fields I’ve seen in the New England. Go Jesuit! Congratulations Joey!

My own small feat of athletic prowess was accomplished this past Sunday during a brief two hour pause in the endless rain of April, May and now June. For months now, I have glanced nervously at the note on my iCal calendar, ‘Iron Horse Half, Simsbury, 8 a.m.’ and during my long training runs, I have had plenty of time to contemplate why for the love of Pete I decided to run 13.1 miles all at once. The endorphins that kick in at mile 8 are nice. Then there’s the self-righteous zeal with which I consume giant meals. The trails I run are very picturesque, sometimes there are pretty birds and a few weeks ago I saw bunnies. I suppose I could rationalize 13.1 if I get to see bunnies.

In the end, all the long Sunday afternoons of endorphin production, overeating and bunny gazing paid off. My race went very well. My time was far speedier than I had thought it would be. So speedy, in fact, that my inner Eor is already convinced that the freakish confluence of just-right training, flat course, cool cloudy weather and naïvete will never occur again. My inner Eor has drooped his head: I have set my personal record on the first go and I’ll never better it.


Time to stop all this recounting and get back to work. I suspect that these three week blitzes are only just getting started as I head into my sixth and final (*gulp*) year of graduate academic bliss. After all, now that my computer is fixed, I can get back to writing that cover letter e-mail to the labs at UC Berkeley and UCSF where I want to do my post-doc. Then there’ll be the interviewing and the thesis writing and at some point I need to figure out what to do with 1% uranyl acetate waste - that’s the depleted uranium stuff.

I’ll keep you posted.