Category Archives: Life

A Prairie Home Companion at Ravinia

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Ravinia — A Prairie Home Companion

It could not have been a more perfect day.

The last few times I’ve gone to Ravinia with J., we’ve brought a few things, but we didn’t plan ahead. This time I decided to overcome my work-related aversion to planning and to try to have a real picnic, taking into account our mutual desire — and need — to watch what we eat more closely. After a stop at Caffe RoM (Hyatt Center) and three trips to Walgreens and Treasure Island (four blocks away), I packed the following:

Picnic gear
  • 2 blankets (1 has never been enough, I finally realized)
  • citronella candle bucket and matches
  • insect repellent
  • UVA/UVB 85 SPF sunscreen
  • plates
  • utensils
  • cups
  • napkins
  • wet wipes
  • cheese slicer
  • cutting board
Starters
  • sunflower oil crackers
  • goat cheese (garlic and chive, plain)
  • port wine sharp cheddar
  • Irish red Leicester
  • lemon humus
  • spinach dip
Main

Caffe RoM JoJo sandwich (mozzarella, prosciutto, artichoke, plum tomato, basil, olive oil)

Dessert
  • shortbread (Lorna Doone, Walker’s)
  • strawberry yogurt
Beverages
  • sugar-free sparkling pink lemonade
  • blueberry coffee
  • coffee from Caribou

J. brought film, digital, and disposable cameras; the Caribou coffee in an enormous vacuum bottle, an extra shirt, green tea from Italy, gifts, etc.

I had told him that, to make the 2:35 p.m. train, we had to be on a bus by 1 p.m. When I talked to him at 12 noon, I thought he was on his way from Homewood. When he hadn’t shown up by 1 p.m., I decided a cab to the train station was the only way left, so I called to tell him — to find out he was at home. He’d run errands and gone shopping after his dentist’s appointment and was just now ready to leave. Even if he drove off immediately (which he did), and even if we flagged a taxi right away, it would be close, and I tried to manage my anxiety and to resign myself to taking the later train, which wouldn’t give us much time to set up, relax a bit, and hear the show’s off-air preliminaries.

J. appeared at about 1:45 p.m. and had me bring up a gift that needed refrigeration, so we lost a few more minutes. I met him at the back gate, assigned him the heavy cold goods bag, then raced ahead of him toward 55th Street and Hyde Park Boulevard. A cab passed us as I was halfway down the second block — unfortunate timing. As I was looking anxiously down Hyde Park Boulevard, J. labored up and asked from 20 feet away, “What time is the train?” “I told you — 2:35,” “Oh!” he said in the tone of a man who has had an epiphany. “We need to catch a cab in the next five seconds to make it! I thought it was at 3!” Researchers: Take note of a classic case of male homo sapiens selective hearing syndrome. He really has no memory of what I’d said, and I have no idea where the 3 came from.

Before I could get myself too upset, I spotted a taxi, which was piloted by the only cab driver in Chicago who doesn’t drive at breakneck speeds like an FBI fugitive with the agency behind him. He took us down Lake Shore Drive, Roosevelt Road, and Canal Street like a Sunday driver, which feels very strange when you’ve become used to breakneck speeds.

I bypassed the women’s room (long line, no time) and bought tickets. As J. longingly eyed a pretzel counter and mentioned how hungry he was, I reminded him that, if he hadn’t noticed, we were carrying 20 pounds of food. He had to settle for one of the bottles of green tea with dextrose and sugar, which he drank on the train.

We settled on the train with eight or nine minutes to spare. This sound like an ample margin, but the train was already nearly full; it would become standing room only after the north side stops.

This brings me to Metra, which doesn’t offer a Ravinia Park stop for the 2:35 Saturday train. Normally, this would make sense because most Ravinia performances are in the evening. A Prairie Home Companion is an exception, broadcast live from 5 to 7 p.m. CT. As a bureaucracy, Metra is unable to conceive of or adapt to exceptions. The conductor informed those going to Ravinia Park that they would need to get off at Braeside, walk through a parking lot, and take the bike path for “about a block” to the park. So, instead of making the unscheduled stop the occasion would seem to call for, Metra representatives helpfully tell the hundreds (or more) people crammed into the train with their lawn chairs and picnic gear to take a hike. It’s worked this way for years, as far as I can tell, and it makes no more sense now than it did when I first noticed it. Surely somebody besides me thinks this is mindless and inflexible bureaucracy at its best.

At one point I lost J., and vice versa (I stopped mid-trail to look for him in the sea of humanity, but didn’t spot him because he’d stopped at the beginning because he hadn’t noticed me right in front of him). His feet hurt, so he walks slowly; I walk fast to keep my lower back from seizing up, so separation was bound to happen. After I picked up the tickets at Will Call, I found him by the gate, so that too worked out. I had to laugh when one of the employees handed him a plastic trash bag, and J. said, “Thanks, sweet — er, thanks.” (He’s so used to calling me “sweetie” that it’s become a habit.) He’s lucky the man didn’t say, “No problem, darlin’.”

Although a swathe of the lawn was “extremely wet” and off limits, we found a spot in the shade close to the path (my preferences). After an obligatory rest stop, I unpacked, and the feasting began.

Of course, we didn’t eat most of what I’d brought. My intention had been to offer some choices. We didn’t touch the goat cheese, red Leicester, second sandwich (we split the first), yogurt, or Walker’s. Speaking for myself, I was well sated.

Before the show started, I noticed an elderly couple nearby, each with his/her nose buried in a book. It looked as though they hadn’t brought anything else with them, and their reading was intense. I should have checked on them later to see if they’d put the books down after the performance began.

As usual, the off-air warm up began with the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which was complemented on air by renditions of “America, the Beautiful” and “My Country, ’tis of Thee.” As the countdown segued into the intro, I was amazed by how seamless this always seems to be, given the nature of a live broadcast. Even for radio veterans like the A Prairie Home Companion crew and some of the guests, this must be an anxious moment — fraught not only with the jitters before any performance but worries about the technical and other issues that could derail a live broadcast. I imagine that it’s hard to forget the possibilities.

After noting that the country seems to be headed in a better direction, Keillor stayed away from political humor and references, talking and singing about the “working class” in the pavilion and the “elite” on the lawn. He’s not far off — I spent a lot on food, but it’s not only that — on the lawn you can eat, drink, and be merry. The reward for the holders of the cheap seats is freedom.

You can also wander around. As soon as the show began, J. took off with his camera collection, reappearing just before the intermission. Later, I went up to look at the stage. On the lawn, you do miss some of the humor in the body language, but mostly I’d trade that for the liberty of the lawn experience.

I hope Da Mare does not hear about the “Guy Noir” episode, in which an ad agency tries to change Chicago’s image from the city of the broad shoulders to something a little more Parisian. Da Mare has enough ideas already, some of which we could do without. It was funny, as was the skit about the bewildered groom and the dialogue between the controlling mother and her hapless adult son. Keillor and Jearlyn Steele also paid tribute to Mahalia Jackson.

All through this, the weather was perfect, like the best summer days in western New York that I remember — comfortable and sunny, idyllic in every way.

When we got back, we walked over to Promontory Point. I was irked to see a boy breaking branches (at least two) off a tree while his family ignored him and tried to regale J. with my views about empathy, but the few stars visible in Chicago were out, and so were the fireflies against a backdrop of dark Lake Michigan water, so we sat on the rocks and watched the fireworks at Navy Pier.

And so back to the necessary insanity tomorrow . . .

Hyde Park’s weak hippie

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The sign on an empty storefront announces that “In a few weeks there will be a fruit and vegetable store here.” Below are sheets of paper with an invitation to make your desires and preferences known.

Someone requested varieties of that comfort fruit/vegetable, cheesecake. To clarify, “vegan” is penciled in nearby.

Another soul would like “bears, coyotes” to be sold. Someone helpfully noted that these items are “not vegan!”

One person would like to buy “ORGANIC — LOCAL!” Someone pointed to this request with an arrow and editorialized, one imagines somewhat sadly, “You’re a weak hippie.” Is this because the first writer is not fortified with pesticides and growth hormones?

Wacky weather and dragonflies

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After I picked up Hodge, who, I am told, was well behaved (I assume this is relative to his typical behavior versus relative to that of a normal cat), I went to Bonjour for coffee and sat inside. I noticed some cloud buildup in the west, and the temperature seemed a bit cooler when I came out.

On my way back, the sky to the east was mostly sunny, but a dark cloud loomed directly overhead, and when I reached Hyde Park Boulevard at 55th Street, the westerly wind began driving large, scattered drops of rain into my back and backside. A couple across the street held their umbrella straight in front in a defensive posture, but when it’s this windy, you’re simply going to end up wet with a torn-up umbrella.

The light changed, and I continued on. East of Everett Avenue, the sidewalks were dry — they weren’t even blotchy from the large, erratic raindrops. I looked back to the west and saw that the sky was clear in the same spot where the black rain cloud had hovered just minutes before. I wondered if it had moved over the lake that quickly and had stopped spitting rain as it moved.

This evening the wind has picked up, knocking over the pool and lawn furniture with abandon. Now the temperature is comfortably cool, and I would like to sit outdoors a while longer even as I batten down tea glass, notebook, and everything else that seems weightless to the gusts.

When I first came out, I spotted an enormous dull green dragonfly with a purplish “tail.” It tried to settle on one of the evergreens, but at that moment the wind kicked up and thrashed the bush around so much that I thought the dragonfly had had to let go or had been beaten to death by the flailing limbs.

During a brief lull, I was startled to see it take off and fly straight toward me, just a foot or two away. I thought it would dart past me, but it latched onto me, right in the middle of my left chest area, if you can picture that. “Great,” I thought, “if anyone sees me they’ll wonder why and how I’m nursing this giant dragonfly. ‘Do you often walk around with a huge dragonfly attached to your chest?’ they’ll think, and perhaps even ask.” How could I answer that, asked or unasked? Fortunately, my dragonfly friend and I were quite alone.

I love dragonflies and normally would enjoy the opportunity to see one so close at rest, but this seemed a little too intimate. With an unconscious, indiscernible movement, I persuaded the dragonfly to seek shelter somewhere more stable.

Nonetheless, perhaps it will bring me better luck.

Time and relativity

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I’m on the train returning to Chicago after what feels like the shortest vacation I’ve ever had. I slept more than I meant to and didn’t do some things I intended to , but I don’t regret that as I have before. I did what I could and enjoyed it without feeling bored, at a loss, or disappointed. Now the weather has turned hot and humid, so perhaps it’s best that I’ve gotten all that walking out of my system. When I get home, unpack, clean up a bit, and return to work, time, or my perception of it, will slow down to its normal, boring speed.

After eating at Casey’s Tavern last night, we visited Ann Arbor Too, which, like its sister bed and breakfast, is charming, albeit in a different way. The contemporary and discreet range successfully share the kitchen with a vintage pot-bellied stove that dominates the scene. A deck overlooks a lush green park, and a south sun room serves as the breakfast room. As my friend said, this house would be lovely in winter, too.

Yesterday we drove to Tantre Farm, where she has a share. I tried the Seascape strawberries — sweet, and the peas — crisp. We visited the chickens, which were enjoying the shade, along with turnips and strawberry tops. We also stopped to look at the cows. On the way back, I spotted a turkey vulture flapping around someone’s yard and several goldfinches flitting back and forth across the road with their characteristic up-and-down movement.

The next time I find myself succumbing to the inane concerns of small, controlling minds focused on the insignificant and oblivious to what matters, I must remember the goldfinches and the relativity of time.

Post-birthday blues

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I don’t feel blue, but for the first time since Sunday the sky is wholly overcast and the rain more than intermittent if not constant. I don’t mind rain and clouds, and sun causes me all kinds of problems, but at this time of year I prefer the partly sunny or cloudy of the past few days to complete gray. One damp woman, carrying a plant purchased at the farmers’ market through the rain, saw me, laughed wryly and said, “My umbrella’s is in the car — right where it belongs!”

Yesterday afternoon I celebrated my natal day by contacting the gynecologist, who told me Ignatius is 10 cm, one of his friends is 9.5 cm, and the third is large. She said that they’re about the size of a small medicine ball, although I’m not sure if she meant individually or combined. While my weight, which makes me a poor candidate for surgery, could be causing my lower back pain (a relatively recent development), she said that common sense would indicate that all that crowding could be affecting my bladder. Both back and bladder are interfering with my ability to walk as much as I would like, alas.

She referred me to the brochure she’d given me, so now it’s up to me. I’m still undecided, but I sent an e-mail inquiry via Ask4UFE to the radiologist. Now I suppose I should make a list of questions with my own spin.

We walked through a dense, young woods last evening, the kinds of woods that birds don’t favor — not enough open spaces. The lack of clearings didn’t faze the mosquitoes, which usually leave me alone. When they do bite, generally I don’t suffer much effect. This evening, however, I was a mosquito magnet, and now I have enormous red welts on my thighs and calves. It was a great excuse to sink into a comforting bubble bath with my current reading material and relax.

This morning, I headed for Falling Water, walked quickly through the farmers’ market lest I be tempted, and ended up at Café Verde, still my favorite place here. A man next to me told his friend that all he knows personally of the woman who will be his new boss is that she is “very smart and very competent.”

I don’t know who he is or what he does, but I envy him.

“I’ll cry if I want to”

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Mr. Wolf is correct — it’s my birthday, a date I hide from my day-to-day acquaintances and highlight on my Web site. Thank you to those who sent greetings.

I am celebrating by experiencing one of the pains of middle age — perhaps a rite of passage of sorts. For a while my lower back has been expressing unhappiness, and my abdominal region has been feeling tense and full of pressure. Both seem to have become worse recently, while my need for handy facilities has grown. It all makes being a pedestrian tourist somewhat difficult and painful, and my body seems to be telling my stubborn brain the same thing my friends have: “Get the UFE done already!” I hope my discomfort isn’t merely psychological because my awareness of increased within a couple of weeks of my conversation with the gynecologist. I would like to think I’m not that susceptible to a little suggestion.

In my planned rambles today, I found Hollander’s and spent too much there, then bought J. a T-shirt at Peaceable Kingdom. The “Dog Person” version was unavailable in his size, but “Cat Person” was. Heh heh heh. “Message, Spock?”

I finally came to Sweetwaters Café on Washington and thought I should have gone into the one in Kerrytown. For some indescribable reason, which could be familiarity, I think I prefer Café Verde. It could be because it feels less polished and more subversive than Sweetwaters, and it’s a little more tucked away.

Bob and Pat mentioned their second bed and breakfast, Ann Arbor Too,1 which also looks wonderful. Bob said that a bus stops there, frequently during the university’s year, so it wouldn’t be impossible for me to stay there without a car. It sounds delightful — an 1842 farmhouse adjacent to Miller Nature Area. Perfect for me.

I’d better start saving for my next birthday. Fortunately, it comes only once a year.

Aside: As I was leaving, I found the fairy door at Sweetwaters, then backtracked and saw Peaceable Kingdom’s.

1 Since sold.

Dream: Lost pencils and a “good tired”

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Both yesterday and today I’ve been unusually tired. I didn’t get much sleep Saturday night. I wanted to do some writing and reading on the train, but after I had settled in I couldn’t stay awake. Even sitting up in an uncomfortable position, I fell soundly asleep. This morning after breakfast I fell asleep, and then again this afternoon after I had gone for a walk and eaten a portobello mushroom and mozzarella sandwich at Café Verde. Even Love Buzz coffee and Earl Grey tea couldn’t keep me conscious. I hope I don’t sleep away my time here. The room, The Maine Woods, is comfortable, and the weather has been what my Pennsylvanian parents called “good sleeping weather.” My stressed body has noticed.

At Borders, of all places, I found four-color Camel pencils from Japan, as well as “Be Goody” lead pencils, also from Japan. The latter have an eraser end, but no ferrule. It’s an interesting and sleek design, and they write fairly smoothly and darkly, too.

At Motte and Bailey, I found The Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw published in 1970, clearly never cracked open and therefore read; a similarly pristine copy of Gondal’s Queen: A Novel in Verse by Emily Jane Brontë published in 1977 by the University of Texas Press; and an unloved library edition of The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse published in 1973, complete with the stamped name, address, and phone number of a previous owner.

After lunch, a brief stop at People’s Food Co-op, the haul back, and some reading and writing on the balcony, I slept and dreamed that, as I was trying to get up and get off a bus, I noticed some of my favorite pencils missing from my case. I’m under the impression that I held the bus and made a fool of myself by getting down awkwardly to look under the seats, which I sensed didn’t endear me to my seat mate or other passengers. Then I finally got off the bus and found myself isolated on a quiet country road. The next thing I remember, someone had asked about the long-delayed development brochure, and the responsible person had a shouting fit and nervous breakdown over it.

After eating A.’s pizza, we watched Sweet Land, which, aside from being a love story, represents the foibles and the strengths of a small community, and how one can overcome the other. The scenes in set in 1968 were very evocative for me; Inge’s hair and glasses reminded me very much of a friend of my mother’s who happened to be not of German ancestry, but Norwegian. I do not know if her coffee was “too black.”

After I came back, I couldn’t sleep for a long time, but I also couldn’t stay quite awake, either. I am what my parents would call a “good tired.” Perhaps I should simply give into it and enjoy it when I can, even if it is during the day.

Dream: The royal wedding, and all aboard

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This morning I dreamed that I was looking at paintings that appeared to depict a Russian royal wedding and that it was vital that I put them into the correct order. I did not know whether they should be arranged chronologically or in some other order. In the middle of the stack I came to a magnificent full-length portrait of a woman in an ornate costume (the bride or her mother?) and thought perhaps she was meant to be the culmination of the series. I had a feeling that, if I didn’t get the order precisely right, something very bad would happen to me. Then a light started flashing beyond my closed eyelids — my alarm — and I woke up thinking some catastrophe was about to occur.

The early Sunday morning alarm was to get me up in time for a trip to Ann Arbor. I’m on the train now, passing through a cross section of countryside that probably represents a good portion of the eastern and midwestern United States — family farms, small towns, and industries of various sizes. In minutes you can pass everything from fields, trees, taverns, decaying houses, and bland new subdivisions to massive concrete smokestacks that put food on the table and a blight on the landscape and the soul.

As industry grew and promised a higher quality of life for more people, did anyone question whether this was any way to live? I remember a story about a place in Brazil where the air quality was so poor that the writer’s lungs began burning within minutes of getting off the plane. The lungs burn; the soul sickens; the animals die or disappear. Is this the fit legacy of general prosperity?

Unbeknownst to me, my dad lived a double life. Early every morning for 26 years, or nearly 30 percent of his life, he went to work at the Ford Stamping Plant in Lackawanna, New York, an industrial city south of Buffalo dominated then by Ford, Bethlehem Steel, and the rails that carried their shipments. The few times I went to or through that part of Lackawanna I must have felt like I had entered an alien world where all the beauty of nature had been completely supplanted by the ugly dreariness of steel, concrete, and pavement.

And every night he came home to a trailer facing an open field and backed by woods in which deer, rabbits, woodpeckers, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, cardinals, blue jays, and other animals thrived. He saw owls a few times; occasionally I heard whippoorwills. When we went to the butcher’s, they’d give us suet for the snowbirds, and we’d buy enormous bags of birdseed at the feed store or grocery. Watching the antics of the chickadees or cursing the aggressiveness of the blue jays gave both my parents great joy — a joy they could not have found in Lackawanna.

I have to remind myself that I can’t completely disparage industry, although I can lament some of its lasting effects. Without it, and unions like the UAW, men like my father might not have earned a living wage, been able to provide their wives and children with health and dental care, and had enough to live on during retirement (for my father, 23 years). In areas where industry has come and gone, the blight is felt the most — the negatives without the benefits.

It’s easy to forget about or ignore industrial blight when it doesn’t surround you — out of sight, out of mind — or when it blends into the urban landscape. From the vantage point of a train, as it travels through different human settings like a bit through layers of sedimentary rock, it is impossible not to compare and contrast the smokestacks of Hammond, Indiana, with the forest, fields, and farms of south central Michigan. Life on a farm is hard and uncertain, but there is a natural rhythm to it combined with an indefinable emotional satisfaction. Life in the shadow of the factory is also hard and uncertain, and the reward is to be able to provide for the family. In that shadow, however, how many wither and die inside?

As I see decaying or abandoned mills, plants, and other remnants of the age of industry in my train travels, I wish that we could reclaim the land — tear down the concrete and steel and let nature rebuild. But there is neither the money nor the will to restore the land, and so the Rust Belt grows ever rustier — part of our legacy to our future.

Dragonflies, catbirds, and dogs

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A couple of weeks ago in the garden at The Flamingo I saw a butterfly with muted orange, black-spotted fore wings and dark or gray hind wings clinging to the vines and soaking up the sun’s rays. I’ve seen this kind before, so I assumed it would be easy to find in my field guide book or online. I still haven’t found it, although it has to be a common species, nor have I seen it again.

When I’ve walked out here in the last couple of weeks I’ve sent a half dozen dragon- and damselflies darting to the left and right, back and forth. I seldom get to see them clearly, although I’ve caught a glimpse of metallic blue on one damselfly and metallic green on another. Sometimes I wonder if I am the only person who notices them as they fly about, and if the children appreciate these jewels on the wing as much as I do.

Last week I noticed a catbird trying to get a grip on a branching twig with its bill. The first time I recall seeing a catbird was in my cousin’s yard. I heard the mewling of what sounded like a desperate cat, but when I looked all I could see was a long-tailed gray bird. I should not be surprised to see one here; they were pretty common in the wooded areas at Lincoln Park Zoo.

Sunday morning a thunderstorm with high winds and heavy rain drove in a man who’d taken his little dog for a walk. The walk turned into a run as sheets of rain came down and the sky flashed, and the little dog could hardly keep up with the master. When you see the sky turn green and feel the wind pick up, take it as a sign that Fluffy can find relief at the nearest lamp post or tree, and real “walkies” can be put off a while longer.

Now, after a sweltering day that threatened storms for much of the afternoon, the air has cooled and the sun is setting here even as it rise somewhere else, and thus ends my weekly respite from the weird and not-so-wonderful alternative reality.

The plot to murder Ignatius, part two

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Before I left the gynecologist’s office, I made an appointment for an ultrasound for the next morning. Later it occurred to me that I hadn’t been told to drink lots of water beforehand. I was even more confused when the administrative assistant and the ultrasound technician both asked me if I needed to use the bathroom.

“Don’t you need the person to have a full bladder so you can see?” I asked the technician. I told her about my previous experiences.

“No, we don’t have to do it that way anymore,” she replied.

As she went about her preparations, the back of my mind mulled this. The technology hadn’t changed that much, so I was mystified by the change in direction. Hesitatingly, I asked what was different now that a full bladder is no longer required.

“With a vaginal ultrasound, a full bladder would just get in the way,” she explained.

A vaginal ultrasound? I’d never had one and wasn’t going to now, I thought, as I eyed a wand sticking up from the machine with suspicion.

I told her I wanted an abdominal ultrasound only.

“Well, that’s a problem because I won’t be able to see what I need,” she said, explaining why and adding a discreet reference to the size of my stomach.

“I won’t have it done.”

“I’m not comfortable doing an abdominal only because it’s not going to show what we need to see.”

“And I’m not comfortable with a vaginal ultrasound.”

After a few rounds, it became clear we had reached an impasse.

She paused in her preparations, and I could see her mentally weighing how to handle this. I couldn’t be talked or forced into a vaginal ultrasound, yet I wouldn’t there if the gynecologist hadn’t wanted a look. She sighed.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll look to see how much water you need to drink, and we’ll try it.”

So she looked. And looked again. And kept looking without stopping to have me drink water.

“Can you see anything?” I asked.

“Yes. I can see your left ovary, which is good. Your uterus is so large that this is going to work out fine. The only thing that the vaginal ultrasound would have picked up that this can’t is your cervix, which your doctor can see during an exam.” She paused and said brightly, “See, the patient knows best!”

“I don’t know anything,” I said, “except that I wouldn’t like a vaginal ultrasound.”

She laughed. “No one likes it!”

She told me there are two fibroids to the left and either a third large one or a large cluster of several smaller ones. She gave me the measurements, which I was not in a position to write down. I remember, I think, three inches by four inches and four inches by four inches for two of them. Cumulatively, the measurements would be about 10 inches each way. She confirmed my doctor’s estimation that the uterus is the size of a 20-week pregnancy. With ruler in hand, I can see why that would be considered “enormous” or “huge” and how it might cause bladder and other discomfort. Next week the gynecologist will tell me what she thinks.

A UFE is starting to look like a possibility . . .