A Brief Hiatus: Events Postponed Plus, "Am I a CIA Agent?"

This was to be a busy week, starting with my upcoming digital slide lecture on Chile at the Los Altos Library, and I was also due for an appearance on Rudy Maxa’s World, successor to The Savvy Traveler, to talk about visiting Chilean Patagonia in the autumn. I was anticipating both events with relish when the unexpected put them on hold.

While bicycling on Wednesday, I somehow crashed while descending Claremont Canyon in the Berkeley/Oakland Hills, even though I had already passed the most difficult segments of this steep road, which has vertiginous curves. I don’t remember the crash, but only being wheeled into the Trauma Unit at Oakland’s Highland Hospital for a CT-scan where, fortunately, the machinery detected only minor internal bleeding and some small facial fractures, one of which may need surgery. Externally, there was a lot of superficial bleeding and scabbing, but somehow I managed to talk my way out of hospital on Thursday night, and slept comfortably at home.

By that time, though, it had become apparent that I was in no condition to speak on the radio today, nor to give a talk in person on Tuesday (now on heavy painkillers, I wouldn’t even consider driving to Los Altos).  I expect to spend most of the next few days recuperating while watching baseball on TV after which, hopefully, Rudy Maxa will be able to reschedule my radio appearance soon. The Los Altos library talk will take place in June or July and, in the interim, I’ll continue to be on this blog.

That’s not to say the week has been utterly uneventful. After my book review of Graham Bound’s Fortress Falklands in last Monday’s Buenos Aires Herald, one Ernesto Bernadet of Buenos Aires has accused me of being on the CIA payroll. For the next Spinal Tap tour, perhaps, Señor Benadet might be a suitable drummer, if he doesn’t spontaneously combust before then (Señor Benadet, I know who you are too!).