Wins and Losses This Week

In the win column:

I toured the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in Los Angeles, a hidden gem I didn’t even know existed. Our friend Shawn arranged the tour and graciously included us. Clark was once the richest man in the U.S., right up there with Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Huntington. Unlike other private libraries that rigorously restrict who can access their collection, this library’s policy is quite liberal. You don’t have to be a scholar or student to see their collection of 17^th and 18^th century books and manuscripts, and the largest trove of Oscar Wilde material.

Allyn Cox, the artist who painted this ceiling in 1926, went on to paint murals in the Capitol in Washington.

Please do not touch indeed.  This 1695 globe is right out in the open, no glass, no rope.

Alabaster light fixture

Our passionate and knowledgeable tour guide, Ari, told us that in the 1920s the library’s phone system was even more sophisticated than the one in the White House.

In the loss column:

I don’t know why I buy lottery tickets only when the pool is bazillions and chances of winning are more infinitesimal than usual. David used to ask me why I just didn’t flush the money down the toilet and be done with it. 

Several friends celebrated birthdays in the last week, so I stuck MegaMillions tickets in their cards, assuring them that I had requested only winning tickets and that I was certain these were good.

Somehow none of these or any of my numbers came up – can’t imagine how that happened.

Could fit either column:

After 3.5 years of dodging Covid, my luck ran out Thursday. I thought I was coming down with a cold, a possible gift from a friend’s four-year-old daughter who was sneezing away. I tested to be sure and was stricken to see the positive result.

I could slot this as a win because:

1. My friend Laurie is coming to visit from Chicago in a couple of weeks and if I have to have Covid, better to get it out of the way before she gets here.
2. I’m fully vaccinated — even had the sixth booster shot in the spring — so while I do not feel well, my symptoms are considered mild.
3. A massive, potentially overwhelming project landed this week unexpectedly. Since I must isolate in my office until Tuesday, I suppose it’s a good thing to have lots of work. The project concerns immunoglobulin A nephropathy, another tough condition, but I’m glad to take a break from gout.
4. Maybe I’ll quit eating so many cookies since I can’t taste anything.

My greatest concern is that I was around a lot of people this week — the birthday celebrants to whom I gave dud lottery tickets, an elderly neighbor I visited to welcome back from a long stay in a rehab facility, my book club, and the group who toured the Andrews Library. I let everyone know about the ugly double line. Now I’m nervously waiting to hear if anyone falls ill. If no one does, and I’m praying they don’t, that will be the biggest, most important win of the week.