Category Archives: Life

The return of the non-native

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More than ever I am convinced that the older I get, the more quickly time passes. I suppose this means I am getting older more quickly, which means time goes even faster, and so on. Even Einstein could not have figured this out.

I’m on the return trip to Chicago, although it feels like only hours since I arrived in Altoona. Was it really a week ago already that I was leaving work for the train station? Have I slept in a different bed for six nights, plus last Friday night on the train? Didn’t JCVC and just enjoy my arrival breakfast?

And is it already time to return to toil?

It was a full week, with visits to family combined with shopping for a front door — I never knew there were so many options (wood grain or smooth; stained or painted; full, three-quarters, or half glass, arched or squared, transparency of glass, patterns, etc, etc.). We spent a lot of time in the van.

On Thursday we headed for the Amish country around Lancaster, via the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We passed through tunnels under three mountains — Tuscarora, Kittatinny, and Blue. The latter are right up against one another, so when you emerge from Kittatinny you’re in daylight for only a few moments before plunging under Blue. These lighted, tiled tunnels have just enough room for two cars on each side, with nowhere to walk. A narrow ledge might have offered some room on which to stand if absolutely necessary, but it looked as though it would be wise to suck in one’s gut and hold on tight, especially as tractor-trailers passed by within inches. In case of breakdown, I’d recommend staying inside the car, although getting a signal to call AAA might prove an insurmountable challenge. Between the two traffic tunnels was a garage-style door, which JC thought might lead to a service area. I wondered about emergency equipment after I recalled the catastrophic Mont Blanc tunnel fire between France and Italy.

I don’t love man’s ongoing alterations of the landscape, but since it’s too late I do love the approach to the massive green mountain as it looms over the road and the plunge into its heart. Those who drive through Tuscarora, Kittatinny, and Blue Mountains often most likely think no more of it than I do of passing over the Chicago River, yet I don’t think I would cease to marvel at both the loveliness and the novelty.

Speaking of rivers, we passed over the Susquehanna, which makes the Chicago River look like an ugly, choked canal. Long ago, my mother’s sister and brother-in-law owned a house somewhere on the banks of the Susquehanna, at a place where you could walk up to the water’s edge from their nearby picnic table. We found frogs, and I fell in love with the misty Susquehanna. When I see it in my imagination, because my visual memory is unreliable, I see a wide expanse of river with a house, picnic table, and trees silhouetted against it. It’s like a movie scene, but one that can never be enjoyed again. Of course, here in its industrial center the Susquehanna is not so bucolic looking, and I suppose it’s been polluted for decades. At any point in Pennsylvania, I’m apt to reflect on the land that was, the land that is, and the land that will be.

In Intercourse, we stopped at Dienner’s Country Restaurant. After thinking I had done well not to eat too much, my brain caught up with my stomach, and I realized I had eaten too much probably 20 minutes earlier. I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. It looked like I wasn’t the only one. The patrons were an eclectic mix of Mennonites and mostly elderly tourists.

We looked at furniture and into a series of bric-a-brac shops, where I settled for towels from India (for J.), T shirts, magnets, a bookmark, and tote bags. I thought about getting J. an Amish barn star, but didn’t quite know how to transport one of a suitable size, and then for some reason gave up on any of any size. I’ll look into this closer to birthday time.

Separately, VC and I spotted a pony pulling two Amish boys in a red wagon with a fluorescent orange flag fluttering on a pole. We saw the same pony, wagon, and boys several times throughout the afternoon. They didn’t appear to be headed anywhere or doing anything in particular, and I wondered if that were their version of joy riding. It looked like lots of fun, although perhaps not for the pony.

While there was an odd blend of Amish wares, including furniture and quilts, and country-style kitsch manufactured in China, at least one place we saw was pure Amish — strictly authentic. This harness shop advertised horse liniment near a sign awkwardly lettered with something to the effect of, “NO TOURIST EXCEPT FOR DRIVING AND RIDING NEEDS.” At Lapp’s Coach Shop, taking photos was prohibited. Not for the first (or last) time I thought how strange it must be to be treated like a curiosity in your own home, but then I suppose the Amish and Mennonites are accustomed to it.

I hadn’t seen that many tourists, and the shops we went into weren’t bustling. At one we returned to, the cashier told us that the owner, a wholesaler by trade, wasn’t replenishing the stock. She mentioned the shop closings and changeovers due to the decline in traffic. JC and VC noted that the furniture, which used to be made primarily from oak, now is dominated by the less pricey pine. Not surprisingly, the recession has struck the Amish and their neighbors like everyone else.

After JC and VC bought a bench for their family room, we headed toward the countryside around Bird-in-Hand. In an adjacent field, a man drove a horse that was pulling a machine that seemed to poke holes into the soil. A young man and woman sat on the machine below, dropping plants into the holes, while further up a row three little ones sat and watched the world go by. There are worse ways to live.

Fire vehicles had been blocking the road in front of us, but they pulled out within a few minutes. We were more than half afraid that we’d see the aftermath of a collision between car and carriage, but there was nothing there when we passed by. When we returned, a small line of firemen dressed in their gear was sitting on lawn chairs in a yard, watching the road in much the same way the Amish children were. Waiting for Godot?

The day had been overcast, but mostly dry. On the way back, however, we saw black clouds gather and the skies darken ominously, then the thunder and lightning began, and the downpour followed. One storm began before we reached the tunnels, I think, while a second started closer to home. These storms must have covered a large expanse, and I was reminded of flying above and over from a massive evening storm. I could see the lightning sparking in one enormous cloud for at least 15-20 minutes of flight time. I imagined what it would be like to experience the pure fire of this storm from above, away from the constant staccato of the rain on the windshield.

We made it back a little after 9 p.m. and, after taking care of a few things, were in tacit agreement that an earlier-than-typical bedtime was in order. Half asleep, I stayed up until after 11 p.m.

The trip back started out uneventfully, but in Pittsburgh we learned that the Capitol Limited wasn’t expected until 1:30 a.m. (which, as time passed, became later in 15-minute increments until finally the last arrival time posted was 2:30 a.m.). We boarded at 2:45 a.m. — three hours late.

After checking my suitcase, to kill time I walked around for a couple of blocks, wandered into the nearby Westin, and ultimately settled on a bar and grill that shall remain unnamed. The hostess and servers were polite, but somehow conveyed that they were doing me a tremendous favor by speaking to me. As I sat at an outdoor table, a man lifted the barrier, seated himself, rejected the offer of a menu, asked only for water, smoked, and left the way he had come. I wondered if they knew him; he certainly received a warmer welcome than I did.

Satisfied with an appetizer and a screwdriver, I meandered back to the train station, where I took over a bench in a park area near a Mennonite couple, who, after a discreet period, moved a little further away. I started to wonder what I looked like.

I called VC, but it was difficult to hear. The normal traffic noise wasn’t notable, but often — too frequently, it seemed, to be random — a souped-up car or group of cars, or motorcycles, roared by. I wondered if this area were known for this — there was so much of it. Between the bright hues of the Greyhound terminal across the way and the roar of vehicles, even I had a hard time picturing Pittsburgh as once the westernmost urban outpost of the United States. Then again, Manhattan was once a verdant forest.

Sitting bolt upright in the station, with earplugs in and clutching my purse, I fell sound asleep for three hours — the very thing to make up for the train’s tardiness. By the time it came, I felt better and ready to lie down.

And so l left behind the lovely little green mountains for the big shoulders . . .

On the rails again

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It’s 6:15 a.m., and I’m in the Pittsburgh train station waiting for the Pennsylvanian to Altoona. So far this has been an uneventful trip. No one has talked to me; I wonder if meeting Chicago Tribune employees, amateur historians, and Mennonite farmers was a phenomenon limited to my youth, when perhaps I looked more interesting. The friendliest person I’ve encountered was the young man at ROM yesterday who walked me through all the choices and told me how coffee doesn’t keep him awake anymore, and that he can drink it right before bedtime. If I were 20 years younger (which I remember well), I would have hoped he was flirting with me while knowing that he wasn’t.

I discovered the Capitol Limited has an observation car. Unfortunately for me, all that was visible in the waning light of twilight was a blur of houses and buildings in northern Indiana, perhaps one of the least scenic of the 50 states.

In my car, there were some musical chairs so a woman could sit with her friends across from me. I warned her that I would be up and down several times during the night. She indicated that she didn’t mind, and I indicated that she might feel differently in the middle of the night.

She did. I had to crawl over her at 11:30 p.m. and again at 2 a.m. And again at 2:15 a.m.

After the uterine fibroid embolization (UFE) in August, I didn’t have a period until January, when I experienced a little spotting — not quite the real deal. Regularly spaced, lighter periods resumed in February and March (two, because of how they fell in the month!), but after what seemed like a prolonged bout of PMS that culminated in nothing in April, I stopped planning around my periods. After February and March, I’d hoped they’d returned to regularity, but my body wasn’t cooperating.

So I was completely unprepared mentally or logistically when I went to the bathroom at 2 a.m. and discovered that my period had arrived out of nowhere.

I said, “Now is a great time for you to make a return appearance.”

The only response I received was the twinge of cramps.

There I was, on the train without protection or painkillers. Typical.

I climbed over my grumpy seat mate to contemplate my options, which came down to hoping that the women’s room in Pittsburgh had something. Meanwhile, the cramps were competing with an upset stomach.

After a bit, a memory penetrated my sleep-deprived fog — that I still had a couple of emergency tampons in my purse. I’d meant to take them out a long time ago, but had decided not to, and was now glad I hadn’t. Once this dawned on me, I contemplated for five or ten minutes how I was going to get past my seat mate, who had my means of egress blocked off with the leg rest, without her openly questioning what was wrong with me. Instead, she groaned discreetly, swerved her legs, saw that didn’t help as I loomed over her with nowhere to put my feet, and, instead of getting up, lowered the leg rest, ceding me an inch or two more ground on which to plant my feet. She sighed.

Hadn’t I warned her?

As the train was pulling out of Pittsburgh at about 7:20 a.m., I was still awake enough to look out the window, spotting two wild turkeys strolling on a walkway below the grade of the track. I did a mental double-take, thinking they must be pheasants even though they looked just like turkeys, but the children behind me had seen them, too. They told their dad, who said, “Turkeys in downtown Pittsburgh!” in a bemused tone of voice. I’ve seen a turkey only in the woods, just in time to watch it fly off.

Who knew the better place to see turkeys would be along the rails in downtown Pittsburgh?

I went to the café car so I could get a good look at Horseshoe Curve from the port side of the train. The conductors on the late Broadway Limited used to point it out passengers and talk about its history and at one point even had brochures about historic places along the rails in Pennsylvania, but on the Pennsylvanian they rarely do. Perhaps it’s because they assume no one on what is essentially a “local” train cares anymore. The couple who sat across from me, retired farmers from Minnesota, didn’t know anything about it, nor did the man across from me, the one feasting on the breakfast of champions — beer and pretzels. Someone pointed out the highway below us, which he found marvelous, even as he commented, “It’s so green here!”

The woman from Minnesota was a talker, speaking in a flat monotone that I suppose is characteristic of parts or most of the Plains. She told me about their children and trips to visit them, including one to California. I asked how that trip was.

“The train left seven hours late and was delayed another couple of hours,” so they’d missed their connection and had to take alternate transportation to get closer to their final destination.

When I had asked, I thought to get an account of the beauty of the journey, but I notice that most people dwell on the inconveniences and discomforts. I suppose it’s one way to make an instant connection with like-minded peers and gain their sympathy. This must be why good poetry can move us — most of us have little or no poetry in our souls, and/or no ability to express it. To most, a spider is a pest or a terror; to a poet, it’s a timeless symbol of perseverance, and its web an expression of combined beauty and functionality. A trip through the glorious West is an adventure, but not in the poetic sense.

I tried a different tack.

“I bet it was beautiful,” I observed.

“Oh, yes, it was quite beautiful.”

Specifics about the grandeur of the mountains, the loveliness of the streams, and the awesome power of the desert clearly were not to follow. Questions about family or delays were answered more volubly, although I have forgotten the questions and the replies. Such is small talk for me.

They listened to my half-remembered story of Horseshoe Curve with no more than polite interest, although I think the husband might have liked to have heard more. Possibly they wondered why I didn’t have something more engaging to talk about, like family.

I arrived in Altoona on time, somewhat worn, but little worse for the wear, and perhaps ready to forget about work and to relax just a wee bit.

Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head (part 4 or 5)

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I’ve lost count now.

At some point during the wee hours, I awoke to the pleasant sound of rain. I listened to it for a few moments while trying to ignore the pleas of my tortured bladder.

It occurred to me that the weather had been fine, with no rain in the forecast.

I flew out of bed to the bathroom, where water was pouring from the light.

I nabbed Hodge and put him into his crate. I tried to remember the phone number for the front desk. I tried to go online to find it but couldn’t focus. I pawed through shirts on the back of a chair to find something to put over my nightshirt.

Finally I was calm and alert enough to remember how to call.

After several long minutes, I called back, and the desk attendant called the maintenance man again to see where he was. She told me he was on my floor, working on another problem and being difficult. In effect, she said he was telling her she is not the boss of him. Saying that my problem seemed worse than the other on 12 (a power outage), she said she’d call the manager, who is the boss of him.

In the meantime, I’d had to use the bathroom downstairs, so she’d witnessed my anxiety personally.

When I returned after a trip or two, there was a ladder propped up outside the door — that seemed like a start. He appeared soon after and set it up in the bathroom even as I was helpfully saying, “Wait — isn’t it coming from above?” “No, no,” he disagreed as he knocked out part of the wall and revealed a pipe with a hole through which hot water was spraying out. By now the back half of the apartment felt like a sauna, and the dining room and the bedroom’s east windows were obscured by condensation.

After all that, he couldn’t get the clamp to stay around the hole. As a temporary measure, he wrapped a towel around it, which was like stanching a severed jugular or a cetacean’s blowhole with a tissue, then took off to get another one and some more bolts.

Not really in the mood to laugh at the obvious comedy of errors, at some point I contemplated the crescent moon, at about 41 percent illumination. To the south a planet hung in the subtly brightening sky, while a second planet — Venus? — was rising to the north. I’d decided to find a positive in every negative event, and this predawn spectacle was it.

The maintenance man returned, clamped off the hole, and vacuumed up the water and bits of wet wall that he’d knocked down. After he unplugged the wet/dry vac, I asked him to vacuum the bit of hallway carpet that was wet. When he plugged it in again, into the other half of the outlet, the circuit breaker tripped.

Yes, it was going to be one of those days.

I’ve thrown a few things out, cleaned up as best I could, and acquired a new bathroom set to replace the old one, which fell part in the wash because, unthinking, I turned the water temperature to hot.

Of course, now I’m nervous that the clamp won’t hold, for example, when I shower, and/or that something like this will happen next week while I’m gone. Actually, I’m nervous that it will happen again, period.

According to the tenets of astrology I was born under a water sign, but must it be so literal?

Scattershot

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Having missed the 171 bus from the Shoreland, a young man was tearing at top speed after it for a block or two until a red light at 55th and Hyde Park Boulevard cut him off. He had to settle for watching from the opposite side of the intersection as the bus, which runs only on the hour and half hour on weekends, pulled away from the stop. I’m sure he slumped. I wondered why a healthy young man with the energy to race two blocks to catch a bus can’t find the reserves to walk the mile and a half or so to campus, especially since he was not trying to make a class. John Adams and son John Quincy Adams used to walk five or six miles every day after breakfast at Auteuil. Walking, once a pleasure, is now something to be avoided.

After pushing to get all the major weekend chores done last Friday night, I realized I didn’t feel up to much. Every day drains me of life and saps my imagination. I want to hide. It turned out, however, another cause added to my inherent angst — someone from my doctor’s office called to let me know my strep test was positive. I’m taking an antibiotic (875 mg amoxicillin) and, just for a little balance, a probiotic. I just thought I felt lethargic before. Now when I’m writing at lunch, I fall asleep mid-word. I’ve been using lots of correction fluid.

Overnight last Friday I’d left the window cracked open to let in some air, and the sound of the blind tapping rhythmically against the frame in the wind woke me (the second time) at 7 a.m. It’s too bad I didn’t dream about the bat tapping at the window in Dracula. That sound, which I never heard as a child because we had curtains over windows that wound open or closed, yet there is something about that rhythmic tapping that my primal brain associates with gloom and storms. And vampires.

When I returned from my second of three trips to the stores last Saturday, the couple who bring their white-and-ginger tabby out on a harness was there. The beast seemed intent on eating some grass. Again I had a feeling that something else was there, so I turned to spot the rabbit to my left. The cat looked up periodically at the rabbit, but both predator and prey pretended they weren’t within 15-20 feet of one another. Hodge would have ripped the harness to shreds in his eagerness, and the rabbit might not have been so complacent.

Sunday afternoon, even as weak sunlight fell through the unfurling leaves and reflected off the dirty bottom of the pool, sheets of rain descended from a passing cloud. I could see no rainbow, but the lake was a changing canvas of deep blue and pale sea green — blue where the clouds overshadowed the water and green where the sun illuminated it. I watched through the rain as the wind blew the clouds about and the lake’s color patterns shifted with them. I wished to be an artist so I could capture the odd and changing juxtaposition of color and mood. Nature and art became one.

Saturday J. spent $117 at the garden fair followed by another small fortune at Bonjour. After we had sated ourselves and I had reached my saturation point, I went to Treasure Island. The two unisex rooms, one with urinal, were re-labeled Men’s and Women’s a couple of months ago. When I arrived, four men were in line for theirs. One of them was telling me that the women’s room was empty when another man in line darted into it. The man talking to me said something to him about, “There’s a . . .,” but the darter was so quick he missed it. After my turn, the line had disappeared, but the moment I opened the door to come out, a man dashed passed me to get in. Old habits die hard. Perhaps if a feminine products dispenser were installed, the male of the species would find he could hold it just a bit longer.

J. suggested a walk, so I dragged him over to Wooded Island, where the leaves are thick enough now for the birds to elude me. Except, of course, the ubiquitous Canada geese. I did spot some yellow birds and what I think was a female red-winged blackbird carrying nesting materials in her bill. Nearby, a male trilled our ears off. We also saw some dodgy people. I told J. that, if we were mugged, we should start coughing and comment how we’re almost over swine flu. He said that we could point out, “At least there’s no blood in the phlegm,” and I added that we could say, “Yep, no blood, so the tuberculosis must be under control.” Hack hack.

I need to bring a pedometer on that walk. It’s not that long, but as a measure of my winter torpor, my legs and lower back protested mightily all evening. And that was on flat land. On the positive side, J’s blood glucose reading, post-rustic sandwich and lemon tart, was 102. He knows what that means — should he suggest walking again, I will drag him far no matter how much it hurts me.

Only a few more days until I will be on my way to Pennsylvania, my first vacation since Christmas. This may not sound like a long time to go without, but I need it — now if only I could relax and enjoy it.

The lusty month of May, 2009 edition

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It’s that time of year when suddenly I notice the signs of spring, or perhaps suddenly they appear.

I spotted one of the first dandelions last week from on board a CTA bus — there was just a scraggly handful of them. Today the lake at 53rd Street is sporting a thick pelt of them Like last year when I first noticed those patches, I wondered why entire swaths of grass were yellow before I realized what they were. I may be mistaken, but I associate dandelions with late March in western New York. Spring’s harbingers seemed to appear a month earlier there. But that could be distance and nostalgia speaking.

Earlier, I’d noticed the bushes at the Flamingo sprouting leaves. Last weekend, finally they appeared on some of my favorite trees, including the horse chestnut across the way. Now some of the trees along 55th Street are in full white flower.

Last weekend, twice I flushed a male cardinal, once by the back gate and once by the back door. While the cardinal is a snowbird, a favorite of Christmas card producers, he’s in nesting mode now, less shy and more protective of his territory.

When I came home the other evening, I stepped off the sidewalk to look at what appeared to be a patch of dead white grass surrounded by healthy green grass. As I was prodding it with my foot and realizing that the clods had been loosened from the earth, something made me look to my left. There, a few feet away under the bushes, the mama rabbit I’d been worried about all the long, cold, snowy winter was peering placidly at me, her nose twitching. Oh, I can’t be 100 percent certain it’s her, but this one had a similar silver coat and a similar alert but unafraid demeanor. I’ve seen two rabbits together, so I am hoping there will be babies this year just like the last couple of years. I miss my two companions of a few summers ago, who sat under my table while I wrote, more like favorite pets than wild animals.

Today dawned sunny and so clear that the deep green of the watered grass (April showers) and the deep blue of the lake are almost painful under the cloudless sky. The anticipation of such agonizing beauty is what keeps me going through March, when even I have had enough of pewter skies and leaden waters.

If I could burst into song, I would.

Afterthought: While I was at Bonjour for little more than one hour, clouds appeared in the west. By the time I got home (where the maintenance people had removed the pool cover and were painting the patio furniture, more indications of spring), clouds were intermittently blocking the sun. From clear to cloudy — or springtime in Chicago.

Snuffed but not forgotten: Ignatius, the large, dead fibroid

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After an MRI and a couple of weeks of indecision (fear), I scheduled a uterine fibroid embolization (UFE) for August 18, 2008. The target: an 11.7 cm by 16.2 cm by 13.9 cm fibroid dubbed Ignatius, perched like an conquering emperor atop my uterus — incidentally flattening my bladder into a pancake with a slight bulb at one end. If I seem to disappear into the ladies’ room excessively, Ignatius is the cause. There isn’t much bladder to my bladder.

The UFE went according to plan, although my system is still a little confused. I had spotting in January, light periods in February and March, and, to date, a delayed one in April — a delay which has made me feel lousy and in perpetual PMS mode, achy, tense, and cranky. Crankier than usual.

I’ve felt a little better since the UFE, but not dramatically so. I’m not surprised Ignatius didn’t strike me as the type who would “go gentle into that good night.” I was supposed to have a follow-up MRI in three months, but put it off until it was past eight months later, that is, until Tuesday, April 21, 2009. The question: How much had Ignatius shrunk without its blood supply?

I went to a different place at Northwestern Memorial Hospital than I had for the first MRI, and there was virtually no wait. The moment I’d completed the forms, I was called and shown where to disrobe by a no-nonsense, humor-impaired nurse. I’d barely touched the seat of a chair when I was called by the technician.

Before we could begin, she had to check my fit in the MRI equipment. I arranged my arms, the left one not too bent because of the IV, in the traditional pose of a corpse, she pushed the button, and in I slid.

Partway in the slab’s movement stopped, leaving me nose to ceiling with the machine and nowhere to go.

I could feel my heart and breathing rates accelerating, as though gearing up for a full-blown panic attack. Once, many years ago, I’d had a closed MRI scan on my head (the problem: a persistent sun-induced migraine) and at first had thought it was not so bad. About 20–25 minutes into it, however, I realized how completely immobilized and trapped I was. It, too, was a tight fit, and it occurred to me that if an atomic bomb fell, I did not have enough leverage to get myself out without help. Suddenly, it wasn’t so easy to breathe deeply.

You must admit that, despite the irrationality of the idea I’d survive a nuclear weapon attack only to die trapped in an MRI scanner, at least I was practical about my lack of means of escape.

At this point in my reminiscence, the technician, as though reading my mind, assured me that my head would be out (partly, as it turned out — I was still nose to ceiling with the tube, but if I rolled my eyes up I could see the room behind me. She backed me out, fitted me with hip pads, fussed some more, and put me back in.

Previously, I’d been given orders not to breathe/to breathe through noise-blocking headphones, which worked well. This time, however, I was given earplugs to block the noise. I didn’t breathe or not breathe on command, however, although I thought I was following her muffled instructions pretty well. Surprised that she hadn’t noticed how many times I had asked her to repeat herself (which she may be used to, as English is not her first language), I told her that I’m hard of hearing. At that, she left the earplugs hanging uselessly and most uncomfortably out of my ears; still, they didn’t cause nearly the discomfort that the wedgie I’d managed to give myself just before I had come into the room.

And so I spent approximately 30 minutes trying to ignore the wedgie and to breathe in and out on demand. At one point the technician backed me out again to have me center myself better, but on the whole I thought it went well.

She had a different opinion, which I soon heard about.

The moment she retrieved me, she began to berate me for not requesting the larger MRI scanner. (Honest, I don’t not do these things on purpose.) With the smaller scanner, it took longer, she said, and it was harder on me and on her. She told me the name of the machine to ask for. As if I had not gotten the point the first time, she told me a dozen more. When she returned me to the no-nonsense nurse, she said the same thing to her a half dozen times (the nurse: “Oh . . . hmmm.”), then she wrote the name of the machine on my paperwork, lest I forget.

I had a distinct sense of, “I don’t ever want to see you at my machine again [until you’ve lost 100 pounds].”

Of course, I’d like not to have any more MRI scans, which would solve her problem and mine.

After getting dressed (an important step given the that the next stop was at another building), I wandered over to Doctor Atomic’s area, where I picked up a pager and sat in an area where I was the only woman among the middle-aged men. One flipped his way through a selection of reading materials from his briefcase — the Financial Times, Fortune, Money. I wanted to ask, “Say, you don’t happen to have Scientific American, National Geographic, or the Utne Reader in there, do you?”

Soon an elderly woman came along and asked a more casually dressed man if she could sit next to him. He agreed warmly, but returned to his own reading even as she tried to strike up a conversation. She asked him how long he’d been waiting and mentioned that she lives nearby. After she finished a cup of coffee, she asked him where she could throw it out, and he gallantly took care of it for her just before he was called in. After that, whenever she heard a pager, or a staff person came to the door, she thought it must be her turn. When they called a nonfunctional pager number, she struggled to read hers. just in case And, wouldn’t you know it, she did have one of the nonfunctional pagers. A number was called, and she had to ask if it was hers. She reminded me a little of my dad in his old age, when he thought always that he must be next. I used to think it was a form of self-centeredness peculiar to the very young and very old, but now, especially since I’ve lost some hearing ability, I wonder if some of it is simply compensation for sensory deficits — you can’t hear and can’t see well, so you worry that they called you or buzzed or lit up your pager and you missed it. That, combined with heightened respect for time, can make elders seem impatient. We all have to be mindful of how we interpret and judge the actions of others.

My pager buzzed next, and I left [soldier of] Fortune to his capitalist dreams (there I go, interpreting and judging). I talked to the nurse for a bit, then waited for Doctor Atomic. I’d met him twice before, the day we discussed my previous MRI images and the day after the UFE, when he came in with a resident to make sure I was still breathing and resting uncomfortably. When he arrived this day, he shook my hand and methodically went through my symptoms, some of which I didn’t remember. Frequent urination — mildly improved. Bulk feeling — mildly improved. Lower back pain — mildly improved. Bloating and gas — wait, had I said that? I must have. By now, I was feeling badly that the procedure didn’t appear to have been a resounding success, so I assured him that the symptoms I couldn’t remember were much improved.

We turned to the before/after images. Seen at a comparable angle, Ignatius has shrunk from 13 centimeters to 12 centimeters, or just one centimeter. It’s still large. It’s still making a pancake of my bladder. But, as Doctor Atomic noted, we’d done what we wanted to do — we’d killed it. It’s just a solid gray mass on the screen, with no blood supply. It’s dead, Jim.

Now I have two alternatives, which means I have only one as a hysterectomy short of malignancy is not an option for me. The other, Doctor Atomic suggested, is a laparoscopic myomectomy, in which Ignatius’s remains would be cut up and removed laparoscopically. Because of my weight, an abdominal myomectomy isn’t a good option. Doctor Atomic said he would consult with Dr. M, a gynecologist, and let me know if he thought the laparoscopic approach might work for me.

And so on Monday, the 27th, Doctor Atomic called to tell me that Dr. M had seen my images (now there are two men who have been exposed to the more elusive bits of my reproductive system), and he thinks a laparoscopic myomectomy would do the trick for me. Yesterday I called Dr. M’s office and made an appointment for June 16.

Truth to tell, I’m less nervous now about another procedure than I am about taking another two-week medical leave in this unforgiving economy and environment. You might think that, in troubled times, people would be more supportive — after all, we’re under the same pressures in the same leaky boat. Difficulty can bring out the best in people, but I’m also seeing how it can bring out some undesirable qualities, too — including defensiveness and inappropriate competitiveness. Two weeks of leave may open the door further to attack, and who knows what I will find when I return?

Why do I get the feeling the late, unlamented Ignatius is laughing at me even as its remains weigh heavily upon my mind — and my bladder?

The Abduction from the Seraglio

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The week began badly when overnight Sunday I felt restless and unwell and woke up Monday unarguably sick. How or why cooked fresh spinach sometimes but not always seems to have that effect is a mystery. I meant to get to work around noon, but as time passed the symptoms did not. i even considered giving up my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Of course, that would have been insane, and I couldn’t let JT down, so after an internal pep talk I dragged myself to Trattoria No. 10, where I’d intended to eat only a little sorbet, but was tempted by squash-filled ravioli. Good food. Bad timing.

I thought I felt better after dinner, but as the opera progressed my head started to swim, and pain set in among my various innards. I wanted to outlast it, but by the end of the second act, around 9:30 p.m., I had to leave. My sensitivity to light and the pain had overbalanced the novelty and enjoyment of a night out and the experience.

It’s really unfortunate. Last January JT had taken me to my first opera, Doctor Atomic, also at Lyric, and was eager to show me something more traditional but not overwhelming (like Wagner). The Abduction from the Seraglio, with its somewhat campy, comic plot and serious overtones, seemed like a good candidate. And, despite the distraction of my sensitive eyeballs and roiling guts, I did like it — or at least the first two acts.

I had read some reviews that alluded to the political indelicacies of staging Abduction in today’s climate. Most people are savvy enough to understand that Mozart wrote in a particular context at a particular time, and that both are part of western cultural history. Isn’t it a sign of the success of democratic principles that we don’t choose to repress knowledge and expression of the past or its unpleasantnesses? Banning Huckleberry Finn won’t eliminate hundreds of years of slavery or their legacy; reading Huckleberry Finn keeps alive the idea of where we have been and how much we have changed. If we don’t stage Abduction, we may as well not stage most of the Shakespeare canon, or indeed much of anything before, say, 1960. There is something to offend someone in almost everything.

So I begin near the beginning, perhaps my favorite part of the two acts I saw — a number in which a captive of the harem goes missing, and harem overseer Osmin (Italian bass Andrea Silvestrelli) and his eunuchs enthusiastically stuff their pretty young charges into covered baskets as though they were annoying animate objects. It’s sexist. It’s slapstick. And it’s funny. JT and I later agreed that this was one of our favorite scenes. In another that we both liked, the spunky English maid Blonde (soprano Aleksandra Kurzak) preferring the company of the eunuchs to that of the domineering, lust-struck Osmin, tells the would-be master what works for women like her — and it doesn’t include threats or bullying demands.

There are only six characters in Abduction: Pasha Selim (David Steiger, who doesn’t sing), Osmin, Belmonte (tenor Matthew Polenzani) and his Konstanze (soprano Erin Wall), and Pedrillo (tenor Steve Davislim) and his Blonde. To me, the standout character is Osmin, with Blonde a close second. Perhaps the Belmonte role is too stiff for my taste, but he and Konstanze were not that interesting to me. Part of this may be that the comic bits overshadowed the serious, and I never felt (during the first two acts) a genuine threat to the women. Perhaps that was stronger in the third, as was foreshadowed by the darkening of the set as the second act progressed. The tone throughout swung back and forth between comic cultural disconnects and the more serious theme of cultural, social, and sexual gulfs.

Director Chas Rader-Shieber tacked on two bits that didn’t add anything. One is the periodic appearance of the pasha as an old man, watching his scenes as though looking back on a memory. Perhaps it was in the execution, but it was more of a distraction than an enhancement. Perhaps the idea was to make him seem sad or wistful as he looks back on what he has learned or missed. In another scene with Konstanze and Blonde, several women in burqas watch their performance. This seemed to be nothing more than a provocative non sequitur. Abduction would have been better without the additions.

As for the costumes and staging, I’m on the fence. One critic thought the costumes awful (with Osmin and the eunuchs dressed like samurai, according to him), while JT thought they were fabulous. Although perhaps not true to Mozart, I would have liked to have seen less campy, more authentic costumes. The sets weren’t anything special, and the second act took place on one that JT described as like a surreal Rene Magritte painting — nearly solid, almost flat colors, with saturated green grass and blue sky. Its simplicity (and the turning of it mid-act) were almost distracting. If the idea were to evoke an artist and style, perhaps I’d have considered emulating Maxfield Parrish — exotic, erotic, and illustrative. To me, it may have suited the setting and the tone better. But perhaps I’m being too literal.

The singing performances were good if not notable (which is possibly a function of the opera). I felt that the orchestra, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, overwhelmed the singers in a few places, but JT, who had seen a dress rehearsal a while ago, didn’t notice that. As for Mozart’s composition, in my condition it was difficult enough to focus on the characters, plot, and translation (especially since I had to close my eyes several times against what to me was painful brightness), but I didn’t note his “too many notes” embellishments, although I’m told they were there. Subconsciously, I did keep an ear out for eastern influences, but didn’t hear them. JT said there were some but that they were not of the traditional style I may have been expecting. It was a different time.

Am I a convert to opera now? Hard to say. Doctor Atomic, which was modern, arrhythmic and unmelodious, brooding, and laced with dark humor, embraced enormous themes of life, love, and mass destruction, while The Abduction from the Seraglio seemed almost frivolous in contrast. I need to see more, I suppose.

If I do go again — no spinach, please.

March miscellany

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For the past few weeks, I’ve been too busy, too tired, or too lazy to keep up. It’s true that time is relative, and the less you have remaining the faster it passes. To me, time seems to be approaching the speed of light — or, more precisely, free time.

I spent several hours writing a review of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson, then realized that I didn’t like my approach or what I had written. This weekend I went back to the drawing (or writing) board and started a new version.

I’ve read about two-thirds of A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson and about half of Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell. Both make me wish I had more time for reading. It’s turning into a stolen pleasure.

The past weekend J. and I attended the annual Puppet Bike party. Friday’s crowd, drawn by one of the bands, was a bit rowdy, but Saturday attracted more typical puppet people. Unfortunately, we had to leave at 11 o’clock because the life of a developer revolves around deployments, which invariably are timed inconveniently. If you want to enjoy life: (1) don’t become a developer or (2) rise through the ranks like wildfire so you can schedule deployments at odd hours for other people while you take your ease elsewhere. It’s unfortunate because neither of us has seen much of the puppets since they took their show to Andersonville. I did note on the map at the Peter Jones Gallery that the puppets would be welcomed in Hyde Park, at least by me.

Worn out and broke, this weekend we ate at Bonjour and watched competing entertainment — The Weakest Link on TV and Hodge in person trying to outsmart the Panic Mouse. The poor economy has returned many of us to a life of simple pleasures — which is what mine has mostly been anyway.

Not long after I had returned from my Sunday morning trip to Bonjour, I noticed emergency accumulating at the Shoreland, followed by an evacuation of the resident students. At about the same time, a thick fog rolled in, so I could see little but a few of the brighter lights flashing. The Chicago Breaking News site was worthless, and, as I told S., the whole thing made me unaccountably nervous and tense. No one was hurt, however, and I was able to get q quick nap in only after I learned 50 minutes later, just as the vehicles started to leave and, coincidentally, the fog to break up, that there had been raised levels of carbon monoxide in the basement. I didn’t make it back to Bonjour, and I didn’t finish the Benjamin Franklin review. Increasingly, I let my nerves get the better of me — a trait I may have picked up from my mother. And there is much to be nervous about these days.

For months I’ve been saying to myself that I need to back up my e-mail to my older computer, a 2001 Titanium PowerBook G4. On Sunday night I finally got around to it. I plugged the TiBook in and turned it on — and nothing happened. I played with a different power cord and with having the battery in and out — same results.

The next evening at the Apple Store my Genius had no better luck and apologized for being full of bad news: (1) she couldn’t find a spare battery to test, (2) she couldn’t diagnose the problem, and (3) even if she could, they no longer carry the parts with which to fix a hardware problem on such an old computer (at my age, my body is in a similar predicament — beyond repair). She offered to wipe the hard drive or, alternatively, I could take it out (“It’s really easy”), put it in a case, and connect it to a computer via USB cable as a second or backup hard drive. I could also follow the excellent recommendations from my fellow McEditors and have it looked at by a repair place that carries older parts. I may go that route, if I ever get the energy.

The news on Monday was not all bad, depending on my perspective. At noon I took my paperwork to H&R Block (“I got people”) and, after an hour or so, learned that I have more than $2,000 in refunds coming. While it’s good to have a chunk of change returned to me, on the flip side the reason for it is the loss on my investments. I’d rather have all that money back, if out of reach, and owe a bit. If wishes were horses, however, we’d all have a ride.

The Museum of Holography

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Sometimes, not often, I go through work-eat-sleep periods, where I feel like life is drudgery, and I have little time or energy for anything but to go through the motions. This is one of them.

By the time I get home, I’m good only for eating unhealthful food too fast, drinking a cup of tea, and reading perhaps a couple of pages in a book — on a better night. By Friday, I’m knackered. By Saturday morning, it’s a struggle not to keep going back to bed.

Yesterday morning I lost the struggle. After eating breakfast, I crawled back into bed until noon, when I woke up long enough to set the alarm for another hour. When it went off, the only thing that kept me out of bed was a phone call from J. As he’d mentioned before, he still wanted to visit the Museum of Holography, said to be the only one in the United States, the more so because the Chicago Reader ran a story about its owner, her financial plight, and the possibility that the museum may close permanently. We’d tried to go at least once before., but we’d arrived 15 to 20 minutes after closing. This time, he was determined to get an earlier start.

It didn’t look like the blowing snow was going to help, but we made it there surprisingly quickly and, even more wonderful from his perspective, we found a parking spot almost directly across the street. He’d been panicking, as he does, because he thought we’d have to drive around a while and then spend time walking. We had more than an hour to pay the $5 admission and to explore the museum’s four galleries — indeed, plenty of time, as it turned out.

I imagine many people think of holography as a bit of a 1970s fad, a technological wonder with seemingly few obvious practical applications and whose novelty soon wore off. In fact, Dennis Gabor won the 1971 Nobel Prize (Physics) for his 1947 invention of the technology, described here.

When you observe them from an optimum distance (two to three feet, you are told), holograms appear to be three dimensional images. In the first gallery, a pair of binoculars trained on a bird’s nest made both of us reach out to indicate with our hands how far the eyepieces appeared to protrude into the gallery space. Others show a different scenes depending on your viewing angle. Look at one hologram from your right and you see a pair of kittens posed winsomely for their moment of fame. From your left, one of the kittens has a paw raised in the familiar swat position. Some holograms morph into something different: for example, one dinosaur skeleton becomes fully fleshed as you pass it. Some appear to move, like large hologram of the miner panning for gold. He lowers and raises his pan as you move in relation to him. Finally, some approach you, including the shark whose toothy grin suddenly fills the frame as you stroll by. The brilliance of the colors vary, too; the enormous hairy tarantula’s rainbow hues seem to fade as you get closer.

Two galleries are devoted to random subjects and artists; a third is a tribute to holography artist Art Freund; a fourth showcases experimental medical holographic imaging technology called voxgrams. In this last, you can see a variety of body parts, including a single testicle, vocal chords, stomach and kidneys, a polyp-filled colon, a uterine fibroid (not Ignatius), tumorous breasts, and the skull of a fetus that will inspire your dreams of aliens. The Freund gallery was the least visually appealing to me, although his hard-to-read notes offer some insight into holographic art and technology.

The dinosaurs, shark, tarantula, and snarling big cats are used to great effect, and revolving holograms highlight Michael Jordan’s moves and Irv Kupcinet’s Cheshire cat smile. In a few, a revolver juts disconcertingly out from the midst of a benign object, such as a rose bouquet (Guns N’ Roses?). The most frightening to me, however, were a couple of lifelike portraits of young women, complete with shining eyes, creased lips, and defined lashes. J. was quite taken with their realism, while the illumination, detail, and depth combined with the frozen appearance of the poses made them look like death masks to me. If I saw my own image like this, I would feel my life over and my soul stolen. They were creepier and more disturbing than any wax figure.

We even had time on the way out to check out the small display of merchandise. I bought some spinning disks, as did J.; he also picked up key chains, earrings, and a few other assorted trinkets. J. noticed an “FM” in the entryway’s floor tile (the rest was obscured by a rug) and asked the man at the desk (probably the owner’s son or nephew) about it. He said the building, dating back to 1907, had belonged to the Free Methodists.

The lowering skies were filled with snow, which was coming down at a respectable clip. J. had agreed to a stop at Whole Foods, then we dined at Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop on the four-course Mardi Gras special ($16.95). Our timing was perfect because we beat the crowd and the wait — and the snow had stopped by the time we left.

At the Flamingo, we watched Northanger Abbey and part of Out of Africa, then switched our attention to Hodge’s attempts to stalk and sneak up on the Panic Mouse I had finally dug out of the closet for him. It was one of those rare times that J. didn’t have his camera, which really is too bad because words cannot capture how silly he looked as he hid in the entrance from his mechanical nemesis, working himself up into a pounce. We must do this more often, meaning torment the cat with interactive toys, preferably before he eats, when he’s full of energy.

I sent J. home, and so to bed.

It was not such a lost day after all.

Valentine’s Day, college style

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2.14.2009 flowers

While at Regenstein Library, I noticed a Doc Films poster showing City Lights (Chaplin) as the night’s feature film. Until then, I had had no plans. I called J., who was discovering that, unlike farmland, bank accounts don’t lie fallow until the farmer returns. He agreed.

He arrived bearing gifts — an enormous mixed bouquet (pink roses, miniature roses, tulips, carnations, and snapdragons with white mums) in a red vase with pink ribbon and a red scented candle. This was added to the five cards, including one to Hodge from “Celeste the cat,” postmarked Gary, Indiana. I find “Celeste” suspect, as I told J. No self-respecting real cat would use the phrase, “your owner,” to another cat. He disagreed, but he doesn’t know cats like I do. It was a cat who first said, “You are not the boss of me,” I’m sure.

I thought of going to the Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop, in case it succumbs to the university’s new mission as urban planner and developer. The wait would be 40 minutes, which also seemed to be the time in line to pay the fancy new parking machines (one of which was broken). On the way to Medici on 57th (Plan B), we passed Salonica, which ended up being Plan C when I mentioned it to J. It’s the least romantic place on earth and therefore perfect for two friends on a budget (and he must have spent his on the flowers and candle). He came away $23 poorer (including tip), plus about $13 for a bottle of extra virgin olive oil. During dinner I regaled him with stories about Dr. Sadist. Isn’t that fun?

At Ida Noyes, City Lights was 2 for the price of 1, so $5 for both of us. I wondered who else would show up at a campus film society for a movie that’s almost 80 years old. Mostly couples, many young; several were like us — not so young. A few single young and middle-aged men and women were scattered about.

Of course, I can’t sit through even a 90-minute film without a couple of visits to the women’s room before and after. Much has changed at Ida Noyes Hall since I guarded the sports facilities and the towels — the Max Palevsky Cinema replaced the gym where I once watched Joey Ramone snorting and where the Hispanic Cultural Society held salsas. The pool is long gone, replaced, from what I could see, by underground offices, an elevator shaft, and many walls. But a certain strong mildewed odor of decay prevails — that hasn’t changed in 30 years. The strains of “Satisfaction” (Stones) from the Pub completed the scene. All I needed was a hint of chlorine.

Except for an access ramp, the women’s bathroom appears to be untouched by progress. The one new amenity I noticed was the condom dispenser (25 cents). The lubricated variety was sold out, while half of the non-lubricated awaited their moment of passion. I’m curious about how often it’s restocked. The third time I went downstairs, I met two girls but witnessed no purchases. I wonder how sales compare to those on the other side of the stairs.

Ever since I saw City Lights in a college silent films class, it’s been one of my favorites. Underneath all the absurdities of life are joy and sadness waiting to happen. Visually, it’s a brilliant film from the opening gag to the closing question. Why is a sword the most prominent feature of a statue dubbed “Peace and Prosperity”” — a sword that repeatedly sticks it to Charlie, so to speak?

I don’t belly laugh like I used — someday I must figure out why — but even just a few minutes in my face was wet. Each scrape is so perfectly framed and timed, from Charlie’s pantomimed critique of the nude statue that keeps sucking his attention and his flailing helplessly on the dance floor to his brief career as a boxer avoiding being hit. Laughter is contagious, and I was almost as charmed by the carefree giggles of the woman behind me as by the movie.

Of course, it’s the ending of City Lights that haunts the memory. The flower seller, once a few dollars from being both blind and homeless, yearns to hear every wealthy young man who walks into her flower shop speak with her unseen lover’s voice and afford to feel pity for her awkward, ragged “conquest.” As she recognizes his touch, they know that they have no future — not because she is a shallow, grasping ingrate, but because she has, thanks to him, moved to a different world, one that she aspired to and one that cannot trap his freer spirit. His expression reflects joy, hope, and recognition of the unmovable new barrier between them.

I think she will not see him at her corner again.