Flowers from a friend
Category Archives: Life
Poet and computer geek
Deep freeze
This has been one of those weeks in which I work hard, accomplish little due to factors beyond my control, and do not experience the human warmth that even a small amount of appreciation would provide.
To make life even colder, the temperature this morning was -17 degrees Fahrenheit. That was the actual temperature without wind chill factored in. That said, a little winter chill like that doesn’t faze me nearly as much as the lack of acknowledgment of the value that I struggle to remember I have.
To top it off, once again I experienced PMS-like symptoms that caused a lot of physical and emotional discomfort. Since the UFE, I’ve had no recognizable periods, although there have been occasional signs. This week one seemed to try to get started, but went nowhere. I feel all I of the misery and none of the relief.
Thanks to a cancellation, I got in two weeks early at the dentist’s, where I learned that, unbeknownst to me, I’ve had pockets and gum recession for a while. The former haven’t been a topic of discussion because they’re stabilized, while I’m told (but am not convinced) the latter is the result of the teeth clenching I did before I started to wear a night guard. Although I can’t say for sure, I suspect all these problems are attributable to midlife orthodontia, which fixed my bite so that my teeth meet, and I am now able to clench effectively. To give you an idea of how forcefully I bite down involuntarily, I’ve bitten through the night guard and broke off a piece of enamel. (Imagine waking up to a gritty sensation between your molars and slowly realizing that it’s part of one of them.) The dentist and hygienist suggested I take a tropical vacation and work on reducing my stress level. Unfortunately, I’m not in a financial position to make either bit of well-intentioned advice happen, so I am stuck with my cracked bed partner and its future replacements for life.
Speaking of bed, this morning I was in so little pain and was so comfortable that I had a difficult time getting out of mine. Earlier in the wee hours I had had a dream that has come to me before, in one form or another. I am within an area crisscrossed by train tracks, with trains constantly coming from different directions so that I am afraid to move for fear of being hit. Despite the terrifying aspect of the scenario, there was something pleasant or interesting about it that made me reluctant to leave the dream behind.
When I finally woke up a little after 6 o’clock, to the temperature reading of -17 degrees Fahrenheit mentioned earlier, I looked out the window. Below, a figure strode in a determined way toward the lakefront — without a dog, the only reason other than work or an immediate need for a commodity that would get me out the door so early on such a morning. Perhaps he was like me one Saturday morning in college, when I walked over to campus and back and noted that it had seemed a little colder than usual. I found out only later that the wind chill had been a negative number so low that even now I am not sure I believe it.
I no longer have that marvelous and sometimes useful sense of obliviousness to the world around me.
The saga of Sunday
1. Get dressed.
2. Get stuff together for bakery/grocery trip/letter writing.
3. Walk around building because back door locked.
4. Trudge through unshoveled ice/snow in front of stores.
5. At the 1/4-mile mark, contemplate how much you’re going to buy and how you may need to take a bus back.
6. Wonder if you brought CTA pass.
7. Realize you didn’t bring CTA pass.
8. Remember that CTA pass is in purse. So is wallet with money and credit/debit card.
9. Purse is in hallway at home.
10. Trudge 1/4 mile back through ice and snow. Note that feet are pleasantly wet and frozen.
11. Retrieve purse with purchasing power.
12. Walk 1/4 mile you’ve just walked to and from, finish the other 1/4 mile, and actually get to destination.
Time wasted? Priceless.
In the mood for chores now? Noooooo.
Eyes on the prize
My two weeks and one day of vacation are over, so I have to adjust myself from expectant to adaptive mode. My time is no longer my own, and the rest of a long, cold, gloomy winter looms.
At Bonjour the day of New Year’s Eve, I heard a man who was sharing his table with two older women explain what he was doing. Every year, he writes his list of goals for the new year and mails it to himself on December 31. Although he always has access to it on his computer and to the mailed printout, something about the formality of receiving mail, opening it at the end of the year, and assessing his success works for him. I may try this. If I don’t formalize what I want, the odds are excellent that I will never achieve it.
As Susie Bright points out, the goal is not what we think it is. For example, my real goal is not to lose weight. It’s to experience the health, well being, enhanced physical ability, and perhaps improved confidence that weight loss would bring. Weight loss is a step toward that objective, and understanding that may make it easier to reach. It’s not about cutting fats and carbohydrates. It’s about the freedom of feeling healthy and energized. If, to use the jargon of business borrowed in part from war, we focus on strategies and outcomes, not on tasks, how much more we might accomplish.
Beating yourself up over a failed or missed task, a slice of cake eaten, or a pound or two gained doesn’t do any good. Perhaps great people know this instinctively, and that is part of what makes them great. They “don’t sweat the small stuff.”
I don’t profess to be great, but I can stop being stubborn and refusing to set goals because I feel disappointed by setbacks and doomed to fail. Taking the weight-loss example (one of myriad possibilities), I don’t have to set a goal of losing 20 pounds and then fret when the scale is disagreeable or my clothes are uncooperative. Instead, I’ll try to think about how I feel, why I feel that way, and, most important, how I can feel better. And I can feel better by doing, not just by wishing, much as I love to dream. Dreaming is important, but so too is living.
I am not a time lord
When I talked to J. on the phone, I attributed his raspy voice and half-coughs to the dust he must have kicked up while he’s been cleaning his apartment. Wrong again. It seems he has a half cold — the condition that feels like the beginnings of a cold but that never quite advances to full-fledged, stuffed-up misery. Now I’ve started sneezing and feeling that tell-tale tingling in the sinuses — a happy way to start the year. I’ll keep reminding myself that calendars and dates are human fabrications.
J. met me at Bonjour New Year’s eve, ordered sandwiches and treats to go, then trotted off to HomeMade Pizza for a menu, trotted back to discuss, then trotted back to order a large spinach pie and cookie. I stood corrected. Their pizzas are not frozen or ready made. When I joined him after he’d returned to check on our order, there were a half dozen people watching as three employees scrambled to put all their orders together, from rolling out the crust to sprinkling on the spices. We had not been the only ones to think of pizza at home for New Year’s eve dinner.
After a detour to Treasure Island and Walgreens, we came here to confront the question of what to do with ourselves. I picked an uplifting movie on demand, Journey Into Fear (Orson Welles), then puttered around so much with tea, pizza, cookie, sparkling cider, wine, and coffee that I missed most of it. Why it doesn’t occur to me to relinquish control of the remote I will never understand.
For the big moment, the two primary choices seemed to be a party at a casino in Hammond, Indiana, with an awful band, or the scene at Times Square. Times Square it was, then. Ten seconds before the ball dropped, suddenly I recalled the bag of noisemakers and toys in my closet, where they remained. With that kind of lapse in my cognitive ability, I don’t think I’m ready to return to work.
At least I thought (after I heard them) to look for the fireworks at Navy Pier. They remind me of a Fourth of July party I went to many years ago in Washington, D.C., hosted by a friend of my aunt’s. A retired government accountant, the friend lived in a comfortable condo on a hill overlooking the capital’s big fireworks display. It was an amazing opportunity and a tantalizing taste of the gregarious urban life I’m too reclusive and too foreign to Chicago to experience every day for myself. As the youngest person with only one connection present (my aunt), I also felt strange and more out of place than usual, but not unwelcome.
On New Year’s morn, while most people were recovering from hangovers or rolling in from the night’s festivities (debauch), we took it into our heads, around 9 a.m., to put together a magazine rack I’d received a few months ago as a birthday gift. J. wanted to do it for me, but — I’m not proud of this — I couldn’t just let him. After a little warm discussion about which side out and which side up, we got the rack together and forgave each other’s impatience.
I puttered around some more — I’ve developed an incapacitating inability to get up and go in the morning — and started a Silly String fight, then we took off for Mellow Yellow a little before noon. We’ve gone there before on New Year’s day and found it comfortably busy but uncrowded. This day, however, it was jammed. And jamming with the sounds of a excellent jazz quartet. We enjoyed them, and the little girl next to J. whose crayons kept flying at him somehow. When she rejected her French toast out of hand and it ended up next to me, I said, “Oh, is that for me?” Her dad sighed. “At least someone would eat it.”
We stopped at Borders for coffee and found that, as is not unusual there, timed chess games had broken out. This gave J. not only an opportunity to watch something that he enjoys (compared to, say, Journey Into Fear), but the chance to comment to on the style of play of each participant. Who doesn’t like to be the expert?
When we returned, I landed on “Unforgettable Elephants,” a Nature episode featuring the work of Martyn Colbeck. I can’t explain why, but I’ve gotten away from watching the type of wildlife programs that my parents and I used to love. It’s unfortunate because this one was amazing. Spoilers follow.
- Echo, the matriarch of a family in Ambolesi, gave birth to a calf who couldn’t straighten his front legs to stand. I didn’t think I could watch this, as I thought I could guess the outcome. At some point, Echo’s daughter, the calf’s aunt, was clearly torn between helping with the calf and joining the rest of the family to head for food and water. When the calf issued a distress cry, the wavering aunt thundered back to him at a run. By day 2, he was sunburnt and dehydrated and was gamely trying to walk on his bent knees, risking injury, infection, and a painful death. On day 3, Colbeck was there to record an inspiring moment — the calf straightened his front legs and began to walk normally. Apparently he’s been too large for Echo’s womb and unable to straight or stretch his legs. By somehow surviving his first couple of days, with the encouragement of his mother, aunt, and family, he was able to resolve the problem. Years later, he was left behind by Echo’s family to fend for himself, as is the fate of young elephant bulls. It was an incredible survival story.
- Another elephant gave birth prematurely and managed to lift the tiny white calf between her one tusk and her trunk. At one point, she dropped it accidentally, but, as I told J., that didn’t kill it — like any premature infant, it was too undeveloped and frail to live without intensive care. The mother’s anguish at not being able to provide it seemed palpable.
- Echo gave birth to another calf that amused Colbeck with its goofy looks and antics. One day, however, she was kidnapped by another family. Echo rallied hers, and Colbeck captured the moment when they formed an unbroken line of outraged elephant flesh and bulldozed their way in, extracting Echo’s little clown.
- An adult daughter of Echo was seen to be in pain, struggling to walk. Suspecting human culpability, the Kenya Wildlife Service tranquilized and treated her for two deep, septic spear wounds. It was too little too late. She died, leaving a calf too young to take care of itself. Echo and family were there at the end, When they returned from their migratory travels, they visited her bones, gently feeling them with their trunks as though, as Colbeck said, to try to understand what had happened.
- Colbeck also filmed and photographed forest and desert elephants, noting that the latter do not have the chance to play because of the demands of their harsh environment.
Think of the variety of life, miracles, and tragedies going on all around us, with most of us oblivious to almost all of it.
When J. left, the same feeling came over me that has hit me the evening of every New Year’s day of late, when I am left alone — a sense of anxiety about odd things, alienation, strangeness, and sadness. I can’t describe it, nor can I explain its source. It could be partly post-holiday blues, but it seems to be something deeper, as though the variation in routine has stripped naked a part of my soul that I need to keep covered at all costs. Within a few days, I will feel better, and within a week or so, normal.
Or as close to normal as I can feel.
Lessons and Carols for Christmas Eve
I waited at Bonjour for J. And waited. And waited. Left to buy additional treats at Treasure Island. Returned to Bonjour. And waited.
At last he arrived and, after a bit, we set off on the bus for the last day of the Christkindlmarket, with a brief pit stop at Argo Tea. At the market we ate pretzels (he: traditional Bavarian, me: pumpkin) and wandered a bit, then he disappeared for a while. For the next hour, I’d find him, and he’d disappear. I should take a hint. I bought a scarf, and he bought (among other things, like a kingly nutcracker) mismatched socks for both of us and, as I found out later, finger puppets for me.
He’d been disappointed that we had so little time to spend at the market, but the wind was piercing at times, and both of us had soaked feet from walking around in the slush and ice. Even he admitted that, after the allotted time, he’d reached his limit (for cold and for spending, I think). We took a cab to the Flamingo, I changed clothes, and we thawed out our feet just in time to head to “Lessons and Carols for Christmas Eve” at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel — that is, once we had safely navigated the ice rink of a sidewalk around it.
Aside from college graduation and a friend’s wedding ceremony, I don’t think I’ve ever attended anything at Rockefeller — despite living across the street from it for three years. I suppose my excuse was too much academic work and too little time, although the time I had wasn’t spent improving my mind. I didn’t know what to expect.
It was lovely. We were given candles and a program with the lessons and carols, then found our way to row 72. There were more people than I would have anticipated, including children. In fact, children played key roles in the reading of the lessons, portraying the voices for Gabriel, shepherds, and others quoted directly.
The mix of verse with carols sung by choir or congregation and choir and prayer seemed perfect to me — more spiritually moving than lectures and exhortations. Even a few fussy toddlers and gentle laughter at some flubbed lines by the child performers didn’t quite break the spell as day darkened to evening.
A climactic candle lighting and processional accompanied by caroling “brings the light of Christ to bless every corner of the Sanctuary.”
As we made our way up to the altar during the offertory to benefit the Friend Family Health Center, J. whispered that sometimes it’s good not to have his camera (because he wasn’t distracted by a desire to take photos). A few moments later I turned around to say something and found his phone thrust forward, taking photos. Apparently, I gave him “that look.”
Up front we found a receiving line — the dean and associate dean of the chapel, the choirmaster, and others. It was like a wedding, after all, complete with strangers. Even though it had been a two-hour service, which normally would try my endurance, I was a little sad when it was over. For the first time, I felt a sense of community, and it had been the most moving service I’d been to since our former pastor created chalk drawings at Easter time, long ago and far away.
I overheard someone say that it had gotten cold — indeed! The temperature had dropped from about 35 degrees Fahrenheit to 17 degrees, and it was still falling. We returned to Bonjour for dinner and so J. could stock up on sandwiches and “treats.” Our feet had another chance to thaw out.
Here, we watched In the Good Old Summertime with Judy Garland and Van Johnson (and Buster Keaton). If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a Christmas movie despite the title — a variation on The Shop around the Corner, with Garland performing a handful of songs.
We opened gifts (including a Swarovski brooch that J. couldn’t resist); drank blood orange tea; ate chocolate Santas, raspberry mousse, and chocolate espresso tart; and drank Peru fair trade coffee from Caribou Coffee (another gift from J. — there were many). Although I’m sure he loved the service at Rockefeller and appreciated the film, the highlight of the day for him had to have been a program I found on WGN — a retrospective on shows such as Ray Rayner, Garfield Goose, and Bozo. He’s 40something going on 7.
And to all a good-night.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
I woke up at 4 a.m. to the sight of big snowflakes wafting down gently and thickly. There was little traffic, and the streets were unplowed, so everything was coated in pure white. This is one of the few times that even the city radiates peace and magic.
A movement caught my eye. It was a rabbit, probably the silvery old mama, hopping toward the east fence. It looked like something had startled her, possibly one of the maintenance men coming out to clear the sidewalks. I was glad to see she’d survived the bitter cold and wind of the weekend, and I wonder if I can sneak her some spinach later.
What a perfect scene — a snowscape complete with furry proof that life goes on. It reminded me of home.
My vacation has not been restful or productive. First, there was the Friday trip downtown for lumbar spine x rays. Monday I was able to get a 2 p.m. appointment at a dental practice I’m not familiar with. I couldn’t have an anxiety-free Christmas with the swelling in my gums and pain in my teeth. Fortunately, the wind had died down and the temperature had warmed up — to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. It took about 45 minutes to get to the practice by bus and al (Red Line). The worst part was navigating the untamed, single-lane sidewalks covered with packed snow and treacherous ice.
The staff were very good, from the receptionists and assistants to the dentists (a second came in to look at the x ray). All were so young and attractive that I imagined a hotbed of sex and mentally began writing the nighttime drama. Doctors and hospitals have received their due — why not dentists?
The verdict? A tooth problem or a gum problem — not exactly a surprise (or definitive), but all I cared about was getting it diagnosed (more or less) and treated before too much permanent damage had been done.
After numbing my mouth like it has never been numbed before, not even for my 1998 root canal, the dentist performed scaling in the affected area and finished off by popping in antibiotics. He said his explorer drew no blood — presumably a good sign. If the area hasn’t improved by Christmas, I’m to e-mail him so we can look into a root canal and crown. My dentist had warned me that this was coming sooner or later — coin toss — sooner, apparently.
When I rinsed, I couldn’t feel the water in the left half of my mouth. What a strange sensation, to have no sensation of any kind on one side. The assistant told me not to eat or drink anything until the anesthetic wore off as I might bite my cheek or tongue. I understood this, as I had seen J. bite through his lip while eating a bagel after a dental procedure. He didn’t know it until I pointed out he was bleeding. Profusely.
The assistant also told me, “Don’t smile.” Clearly this wasn’t a matter of health, so I said, “Am I going to scare people?” She answered, “Don’t smile.”
In their bathroom, I saw that my lips were slightly offset, and the right side curled into a snarl while the left remained frozen. I smiled — and the result was worthy of any horror film makeup artist. I looked like a stroke victim — a mad stroke victim. Even without a smile, the effect was impressive. I scared myself.
On the Jackson Park Express bus, I recognized a man I sometimes see on it in the morning, and I’d guess he recognized me. I think he did a double-take.
Perhaps he found my new look scary.
Or dangerous.
Parrot Cage
Thursday (December 18), J. and I were supposed to meet friends at Parrot Cage for dinner. The reservations were made weeks ago, and all was green for a good time — until meteorologists helpfully predicted a major sleet/snowstorm to start around 3 p.m. that very day. It was like the plot of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, only without music or Burl Ives. As one co-worker described it, “They’re predicting Armageddon.” Who would want to drive during Armageddon?
Let it be known that J. wasn’t about to be deterred by a little ice, snow, and a wintry Armageddon.
The time for the fun to begin was pushed back to 7 p.m., so my friends canceled. Not J. After some phone calls, one during the hour I waited for my doctor, he made a 6:45 reservation, and we agreed to meet at Bonjour (or, as it turned out, Walgreens, because neither of us had money). Because there wasn’t time for him to come into the bakery, I was pressed into service to order him a croque monsieur poulet, the ideal sandwich for a man with high blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose (“That’s what medication is for!”).
We found the gateway to the South Shore Cultural Center, which in the dark looked closed to me, so we parked on Coles. Yes, thanks to my impeccable judgment, we walked several blocks in the cold on treacherously icy sidewalks when we could have parked a hop, skip, and jump from the front door. I have my moments. My excuse is that it’s exercise, and exercise before a meal is good.
Indoors it felt like springtime in an old-fashioned parlor, with flowered curtains and a giant parrot cage with decorative parrot that dominate the comfortable room. There was one table of two and one of four, so there was plenty of room. My tomato soup warmed me up, the wild mushroom fettuccine filled me up, and the sundae on a giant chocolate chip cookie filled me out. I’m not sure about J.’s starter, but he ordered maple-glazed pork chops and, I think, pecan pie as they were out of sweet potato. All in all, it was a very pleasant option that’s convenient to me (and has parking, I must add). A 10 percent gratuity is added automatically; it goes into a scholarship fund.
Friday was my first day off, with a return date of January 5. Naturally, I would find something to do that wasn’t relaxing — namely, getting lumbar spine x rays. Although my doctor thinks my current back issue is muscular (yes, even I have muscles), she wants to check for possible underlying arthritis. I’ve no idea what I do in my sleep (except dream odd dreams), but that seems to be when the trouble begins. Once I even pulled a hip muscle in my sleep.
As I was downtown, I made a few stops — Staples, Argo Tea, and Utrecht. At Argo Tea, I overheard a young woman enlighten a young man about the ins and outs of the theatre and her career in an amazingly mundane way — she was no Tallulah Bankhead, and if pressed I could probably make writing sound more exciting.
After taking care of some household tasks on Saturday, I headed over to J.’s to help him with his. We took a long detour to Dracula Cafebar, and after getting some work done ended up at Chef Klaus’ Bier Stube in Frankfort. I ate some bread and salad, but I couldn’t eat any of the fettuccine primavera I ordered. I wasn’t full or nauseated; I simply couldn’t eat. It seemed to be an effect of my growing anxiety about my worsening gum problem. It looked bad and ached badly, and I couldn’t relax enough to enjoy anything.
From my windows we could see vehicles, one minivan in particular, struggling against the snow in the parking lot. It took more than an hour, and numerous nudges from a car, to get it out of the snow rut that had trapped it — and it almost got into another. The next day, Sunday, a pickup seemed to have the same trouble. I wonder if the drivers divide their curses between their vehicles and the Chicago Park District.
Yesterday I woke up to the sounds of a banging bathroom vent and howling winds. The temperature on my weather widget was -6 degrees Fahrenheit, and there was a layer of frost on the inside of my bedroom windows. After consuming coffee, steel-cut oats, and tea, I deemed it to be a good time for a long winter’s nap to help me escape my anxieties.
When I woke up, my gum hurt more than ever.
And now let us pause for a moment of panic
In the Silly Wizard video, Andy M. Stewart describes the feeling you have when you lean too far back in your chair and you don’t know if you’re going to plummet to your death through the window behind you or be able to catch yourself in time.
That’s exactly how I felt when I looked into my wallet at Treasure Island and discovered my VISA card had gone missing.
It hadn’t been turned in at Bonjour, where I thought it might have fallen out of my wallet.
Nuts.
I took the bus part of the way home — so much for much-needed exercise — and found one of my bills with the customer service phone number. Meanwhile, something had occurred to my smarter subconscious. Was it possible I had left the card at the last place I had used it — Argo Tea on Thursday night?
I called. I had. They had it.
Meanwhile, J. had sent a message about going to Starved Rock State Park as it wasn’t as far as he’d thought. I told him I wasn’t going anywhere until I’d retrieved my card. I was a lot more brusque to him than necessary.
As I was waiting for the bus, it was impossible not to notice how windy it was and how dark in the west. I left a message that it may not be a great day for a stroll in a park two hours away. He said later that he’d started to think the same thing when a branch torn off a tree just missed hitting his car.
After securing my card (whew) I called J. again. Somehow it occurred to me that it might good to go to Julius Meinl, and if we went there we may as well see a movie at the Music Box Theatre, a vintage neighborhood gem. We settled on the 5:30 movie, A Christmas Tale, not knowing anything about it. Sometimes just going to a jewel of a classic old theater is enough.
A Christmas Tale (Un Conte de Noël) is neither standard feel-good or cynical fare, Hollywood style. It’s the rambling, messy vignette of a family that is dysfunctional in whole and in parts. How the trouble began is told through narration and silhouettes, a technique that reminded me of the opening of Amélie.
Slowly we meet the whole family — Elizabeth, the control freak in control of little; Henri, the alcoholic ne’er-do-well banished at his sister’s behest; Ivan, the pathologically shy and optimistic family man; Simon, the painter languishing for love; Paul; Elizabeth’s schizophrenic teenage son; and assorted spouses and children entwined by a tangle of relationships and emotional connections. (Ivan idly wonders if his wife has slept with both Henri and Simon.) Into this seeming disaster waiting to happen Henri brings a young Jewish woman he has picked up, who serves as bemused observer and who, more overtly than anyone else, isn’t there for the Christian celebration.
With all the animosity, bickering, jealousies, and even cold detachment (for example, between Henri and his dying mother), A Christmas Tale is strangely uplifting. There is no plot — it’s not about whether a compatible bone marrow transplant will be found for matriarch Junon, Elizabeth and Henri will reconcile, Ivan’s marriage will survive, or Elizabeth and Paul will come to grips with his schizophrenia. It’s simply a lush look at family dynamics in a world where, as Norman Cousins said, “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”
I’m pretty sure J. didn’t like it. And I’m certain the meal and music at Julius Meinl helped make up for it.