This time last year there were at least a two feet of snow on the ground. Donna shoveled while I recovered from a surgery that prevented me lifting more than 10 lbs. The deep freeze lasted a couple weeks but it took about six months for me to get back to form in the gym with deadlifts, squats and bench. I don't know why I love power lifting, but I do. Now, ready and waiting on the snow, but there is none to shovel. Sad, as I enjoy it. Almost freezing out though.
Christmas Day dinner is planned and the execution begun with cranberry sauce made with apples, orange-lemon juice and lemon-orange zest. The 4lb pork loin prepared by the butcher for a porchetta marinated overnight in a paste of sage, thyme, rosemary, garlic, parsley blended into a base of pancetta. In between working on the porchetta, I prepared the Fagioli all'uccelletto, aka Italian baked beans, to be warmed up Christmas Day. And as usual at the holidays, in a nod to the American South I made a couple of chess pies. Roasted yams and risotto with wild mushroom gravy will accompany the porchetta. Christmas Day will kick off with a frittata and Christmas Eve with biscuits, which I haven't made since coming to BC, but I recall my paternal Grandmother making them daily.
caprese frittata for breakfast
hors d'oeuvre of toast with pate and pesto
Donna's deviled eggs
cranberry sauce
dressing with pork gravy
roasted yams
risotto via sous vide
porchetta with pancetta and herbs (0.7 of 4 lbs went to meatloaf with 2 of beef))
chess pie for desert
Cava and Cote d'Rhone
For the first time ever I didn't make it to MSBM.ORG. During our week-long mass spectrometry school held annually in Dubrovnik, Croatia the first week of July students are instructed in the fundamentals and applications of mass spectrometry, mostly in the life sciences. Some sort of GI ailment struck just as I was preparing to depart. I made it as far as Seattle, but there was no way to sit on an airplane in such a condition. So, I returned to Victoria to recuperate. During the Summer months afterward Donna and I explored city restaurants all close enough to walk the 30 minutes to the harbor. In fact, I recuperated so well that by Fall I was up to my typical January weight. I know this because I have weighed myself for the last dozen years on a near daily basis using a Withings wireless scale. Surprisingly, on average I gain and lose 10 lbs each year between January and September. Time to start losing again, which means counting calories.
I did though make it to the farm twice this year to see my folks in May and June. Mom is busier than ever trying to keep track of my Dad who has struggled to recover from his fall two years ago December. He ended up in the hospital for his 90th birthday after a fall while burning brush. While his cracked hip recovered, as did his strength, his ability to speak was affected most probably from the pain medication in hospital. As we age our ability to metabolize drugs declines. Often old folk seem to take a mental turn for the worse after a surgery involving anesthesia. This is an effect similar to chemo-brain suffered by cancer therapy patients. The younger you are the easier it is to recover. Dad didn't have surgery. So it must have been the pain medications in hospital, which Mom said he reacted badly to, that precipitated this speech impediment. Somehow Mom maintains a positive attitude even though this is the third person in a row she has had to be care taker for at least part time. First it was her Mom Reba Robinson and then her Uncle Hubert Robinson. Both have passed now but she only had a few years of normalcy before Dad's problem arose.
I finally paid for 23&me to tell me that my parents are in fact my genetic parents as they had both already had their genes sequenced. What is interesting is that while the Goodlett family has been in the US since the early 1700s, as have the Robinsons, my genome is still about 88% "British". My parent's % of British is of course a bit higher. What this must mean is that the "Goodlett families" that settled in Greenville South Carolina pre-Revolutionary War and then moved to Moulton Alabama when the Cherokees were removed in the early 1800s, have consistently married within the same ethnic and I would guess protestant religious circles. I say this knowing our Scottish ancestors in South Carolina were Presbyterians. My Mom's side of the family seems to have gone through the same restricted passage of marriage into like ethnic clans for the last two hundred years ending up in Northeast Mississippi and Northwest Alabama. Remarkable.
Notably, our boys have often accused Donna and me of being too close genetically, a common joke in the rural South. However, 23&me put an end to that. We share almost no common genes with me being closer to my myriad 4th and 5th African American cousins genetically than I am to Donna. Not even any interesting genetic predispositions revealed, but then if you really are interested in your genetic susceptibility to disease then a site like Invitae is a better place to start. I was surprised though to find out that I have about 0.3% indigenous American genes and 0.4% Western African genes. The latter wasn't really a surprise as the Goodletts in Moulton and Greenville had slaves. In fact some of their descendants have already reached out to me on 23&me and Ancestry.com.
I also finally made an Instagram page for the lab that is mostly a collection of photos that didn't belong any where else. Some of these are a look back at the people who inspired and trained me. This was driven in part by a desire to get away from Twitter and Elon Musk's overt racist leanings. With the new Instagram account comes a Threads account that I can use instead. At least I don't know Mark Zuckerberg's political leanings or I might be out of luck there too. The lab continues to investigate the relationship between microbial membrane lipid structures that contribute to an organism being pathogenic or commensal. Small changes in the structures of these organic molecules in Gram-negative microbes can result in an organism being recognized or not by the host. Those that are recognized are often cleared, but those that aren't may be commensals or simply lead to chronic infections. And this year, thanks to funding from the Terry Fox Foundation, we added examination of the tumor microenvironment in ovarian cancer to our todo list. Not part of the program, my interest is the connection between microbes in our tissues and how they may be turned against us or even drive cancers. Microbes are literally everywhere in and around us. All those COVID masks really did reduce transmission.
Speaking of microbes, we got a clue into the cause of Graham's chronic fatigue - now lingering six years. He had previously been diagnosed with a Lyme disease infection, the Gram-negative microbe Borellia is the causative agent, and treated unsuccessfully for this just as he began University. The symptoms worsened though leading him to drop out of engineering school at the University of Maryland by JAN 2018. Recently, he began to suspect a different organism was the root cause and sought testing from a new specialist, B. Robert Mozayeni. Bartonella, another Gram-negative microbe, and Babesia were detected by RNA-based assays. So now we wait on what the possible treatment options are. While Gram-negative bacteria are all related by having a second membrane that aids their causing numerous human maladies, they can respond to therapies in different ways. In fact, many microbes live in biofilms inside us that make targeting them very difficult. The same microbe that is killed in the lab by an antibiotic might not respond in vivo due to the protective barrier of the biofilm. So, we will see where this takes us. Any improvement would be welcomed as it would mean Donna is not a prisoner here to this situation like my Mom is with Dad in Moulton.
Back in Baltimore Mint took on a new role in traveling sales at Morris Tile. This puts him on the road a few days a week to visit customers. His partner, Jasmine Maghari, is working on a Masters degree in genetic counseling at my former employer the University of Maryland-Baltimore. Afterward I expect they will stay in the area where her family is but not sure if Mint will continue with tile sales. Not sure where that can take him but it is a solid job for now as people even in the pandemic continued to renovate and build new homes. As part of the sales job he bought a new vehicle which means my soon to be 20 year old Subaru Forester is sitting idle. Perhaps this year we will move it to the farm to have there when I visit and maybe even I'll eventually convert it to electric. More than a few companies offer this service now.
As we close on 2023 the political climate around the 2024 Presidential election in the States looms large. While some bemoan that Biden is 80, Trump is only a couple years younger. Would be better to have younger options, but for now this is it. The worst thing people seem to say about Biden is that he has lost a step due to age. Regardless, he has quietly accomplished more than most Presidents slowly turning the economy around from the pandemic induced economic downturn. Meanwhile, Trump seems unapologetic for his Fascist rhetoric saying immigrants are diluting the blood of Americans and that they are vermin. These Fascist phrases are outrageous but then that is how he rolls, shock factor out front to disorient. If he is elected again then it will be by a minority just like the first time, which can happen thanks to the electoral college process that allows minorities to rule. Sad to think that so many Americans follow a cult leader*, but in fact he is playing on their real fears driven by social and economy change which is exactly how notables like Hitler and Mussolini came to power. We should try to find compromise to alleviate their fears but what Trump is selling is a one sided option with no room for that. This rhetoric is accompanied by abortion and book bans running rampant in many states endangering lives and freedom. The former was brought on by the right wing US Supreme Court forcing their religious views on everyone. Shameful, but it has allowed states to move to extreme positions that now threaten the lives of Mothers. In Texas the Supreme Court has acted like a Taliban style Christian court in effect banning abortions even if the Mother's life is at risk. Despicable. This shift to minority rule will not stand, but there may be more pain for the US to endure before control is turned around to more moderate leadership.
With all that said we have begun to think about retirement in the US of course. The difficulty will be timing. For now I'm still taking students and given my ad hoc management style, which you can pull off with creative people, there can be a soft landing on that front. So, it will likely be a slow controlled retreat from here, but when is an open question. Not for a few more years. Meanwhile, the crew here at the Proteome Centre are first class scientists and pretty much manage themselves doing scientific work for customers from all over the world. This makes life easier for me than it ever was in Baltimore**. For Donna and Milo, who now walk about 4 miles a day morning, noon and night, not much would change in retirement, but the humidity of Alabama. Well, the cold too will be different as the Winters in North Alabama are much colder than here where we are surrounded by water.
From Moscow to Melbourne we wish you all the best in the New Year. Sending love and hugs from Victoria to whoever needs them. Dave, Donna, Graham and Milo
* I suppose that in fact it is not that Trump is a Cult Leader but that there is a cult that follows him. He is just playing on this. In her book "Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism" (2023) Rachel Maddow reminds us that the fascist populous picks the fascist leader, not the other way around.
** Over and over again people ask me how I like Victoria. My standard response is that it is pretty quiet almost boring here compared to Baltimore where there are 300 murders a year. I realized after some time here that what I missed about Baltimore, other than the much better food scene than here, is the adrenaline rush. It is similar to the solider who returns from several tours of duty to a quiet a home town only to re-enlist. It's like that here. No adrenaline rush like Baltimore where my 30 minute walk to work had me constantly on alert for danger. After awhile you don't notice this adrenaline but its complete absence here is obvious. Still, it is a wonderful quiet, lovely place here with nearly zero chance of being shot or mugged. And still we love Baltimore for all its quirkiness and lovely people.
