les visitants

Peter and Jamie (yes, the first wife of my ex-husband) visited me in New York for a fab week that required my not even getting dressed. They took in a Broadway play, were disappointed by a cancelled Carnegie Hall concert on Cristmas Eve, and took in the Jasper Johns show at the Whitney and the Kandinsky show at the Guggenheim. But most of the time was about eating: Chinese takeout on the nonChristmas. And MamaDonna (above) showed up to cook us dinner for Jamie's birthday. I don't usually post pictures of food—but

 Prawns with grits. Mmmmm. 

Jamie made one-dish pasta. And arranged flowers.

 

She would kill me for posting this picture. But here's one just as dorky of me, wearing the ring-toss reindeer Hannah sent us.

 

notes from the lotus eater

                                                        Photo by Donna Ferrato  

Sorry. I’ve been in an opiate haze of nausea and pain for the last three weeks and haven’t been able to respond to the many wonderful get-well and happy birthday cards (yes, Linda Gomez, I talkin' to you!), happy birthdays, worried update-needing friends who have sent gifts, text messages and made many a phone call I haven’t answered. I think I've heard from everyone I've ever known. It’s like attending your own funeral before you’re dead. 

     Also thanks to the steady stream of visitors who amused, massaged, doctored, cooked, shopped, entertained, encouraged self-torture and just plain encouraged. I’m sorry, but some of my only memories of people and occasions are only recorded on my camera, and not in my brain. I don’t even remember all of my visitors! (Paula? I think you were here!) BTW, I don't recollect writing the previous blog entry, which I guess proves that I can write in my sleep.I am now one week detoxed and resuming function. The kitchen table office is open. I hope to get back to you all individually as it wears on, but meanwhile have a great time over the holidays. Happy solstice! Happy full moon! Don’t forget to love everybody. And love from me to all of y’all. I felt it so much.

 Herewith a recap in mostly bad pictures (mine) and some good ones (others’), starting with Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

 

 My wonderful daughter Hannah (almost 40!) stayed after Thanksgiving here and took me to the Hospital for Special Surgery, and waited with me in the waiting room and then the antechamber of the OR, where she became the Designated Relative for patients who had none there. Oddly, another patient by the name of Chris Dowling was there too, but they did not get us confused.

 

Hannah brought me home and got my meds and fed my meds and ran the leg-icing machine, all the while dealing with her Christmas rush at Wear Your Music. My sister Erin took over from her, kindly taking the train down from Rhode Island after just being here for Thanksgiving. But I remember very little of that sororal visit, alas. I do know she learned how to operate and maintain the ice machine, which had to be done many times a day.

Donna took over the ice machine from Erin and cooked Italian food and other things that I can't remember, and asked me if I was doing my physical therapy (um) and, of course, took pictures. She also brought a watermelon.

 She entertained writer/editor Allison Adato and writer/photographer David Van Biema, who were kind enough to pay a call. I hope they can come back when I'm more with the program.

Then came a party for Ed, which I provided the venue for but you could hardly say hosted. Karen Emmons, another former LIFEer, from Thailand, brought the caviar and food, as did writer/editor Hope Hamashige and I guess others. Tommy V, also LIFE, brought the music and the mozzerella. Ed's son brought Ed, which was all anyone really cared about, fortunately. I was descending into La-La Land and took to my bed, missing the party almost entirely. 

I was virtually nonfunctional by the time Katie and Mike arrived on the train from the Berkshires for my birthday, filling the house with flowers and song and hootenanies and a 71st birthday cupcake. There was almost nothing they could do for me as I wallowed in misery. They tried everything, though! 

 

As they left, I went off the opiates, which left Changping to deal with Claudia in detox and terminal nausea. As she arrived bearing giant bags filled with my favorite foods—edamame, boiled peanuts with star anise, tofu, congee, mushrooms and Chinese cabbage, this was an enormous disappointment to her. But she concealed it well and sat by my bedside and gave me massages and talked with her friends in Taiwan. She was delighted to serve me Chinese food and herself eat a Zabar's pastrami sandwich. 

 

My neighbors did errands and brought food. Debby made me chopped liver and picked up my drugs (which BTW I have stopped taking entirely—I prefer pain). Toby bought me the apples which seem to form the bulk of my diet at this point). I had my first out of house (if not out of body) experience today, going to physical therapy, where I am meant to learn to walk without a limp for the first time in 15 years. I also bought milk at a store. The world seems very scary at first. I will never again try to use a cane, which seems to be more of a danger than an aid to me. 

  And finally (TMI?), is this what it's like to be old?

 

 

But who brought the canteloupe, I have no idea.

 

Simon meets the Christmas Dragon

preview

I kind of feel like I have been able to attend my own funeral: Practically (and virtually) everyone I have ever known has sent me good wishes re my knee replacement recovery. Thank you! So this is a response to the outpouring of love I have gotten. Word: I am not dead yet! However, during physical therapy I sometimes wish I was. 

  I can walk around. I took a shower. I walked up to Broadway and around the block yesterday. I have had good helpers to measure my pain meds and refill my ice machine. Daughter Hannah saw me through the surgery a week ago today, and sister Erin subbed in as handmaiden when Hannah had to go home. Mama Donna comes in this afternoon to make sure I am not moaning on the floor. They have been better sports than me. I am so lame.

Lame. Yes, I am lame. And, oddly, that's what Claudia means. Lame, after the emperor Claudius, who was lame—club foot. I just have a fake knee. Trigger warning: took the bandage off today.

Those black lines are sharpie. Also the surgeon's initials. She told me that the computer assist used by the Hospital for Special Surgery basically just helps to draw a straight line, which she is accustomed to doing by eye. Also she said she did not play football like every other orthopedic surgeon I talked to, but softball. And when I asked her whether the cure was worse than the disease, she said that was an interesting way of putting it. She said it was my call. At the moment, I feel like it was the wrong call, but everyone says to wait until the pain has lessened to decide. So I will. 

   I neva shoulda climbed Mt. Everest.

   Meanwhile, the apartment looks like an old person lives here. I guess an old person does. Is this a preview of the rest of my life?  Ice, ice, baby.

 

 

 

 

 

 

new knee tk

 

As if to say, "I've done yeoman's work for almost 71 years now and you are replacing me??"  yesterday my knee refused to function. So I will limp, stagger, to the Hospital for Special Surgery around 11:30 and get a new one around 3. I will spend the night, presumably out of it, and get out late tomorrow afternoon. With my new knee. What happens to my old one, I dunno. But Bill Dugan wants to know. He should have asked what happened to his own old knee. After all the showers, you can barely see the arrows the kids drew on me to indicate the proper knee. 

 

same as he ever was

After the tnxgvng hoopdedoo, on Friday, Erin and Flip took me to see David Byrne on Broadway with his American Utopia extravaganza. His musicians are all dancers and singers as well as playing their instruments, so it's a pretty great show. The packed, masked audience at the St. James Theater (yes, we had to show ID and proof of vaccination) got up on their feet ad danced a couple times. I was impressed by how faithfully David Byrne did David Byrne, and remembered the old days when Jed took me to Talking Heads' apartment after a CBGB's gig, as well as, hazily, a visit to their loft in Providence when they were still RISD-centric.

  

pie for breakfast

 

great american eating ceremony

Yes, after a year's hitatus, the Great American Eating Ceremony is back with many of the same characters. Missing a few from the festive board through absence and, yes, death, but memories of them abound. Their recipes, art works—and place cards. Eva had a long run at the place cards, but Milla has taken over the spot. Not sure who's next up.

 I will soon be yelling about the turkey, the gravy and freaking out about the number of chairs, and then we sit sit down and be grateful for one another. In a last minute reprieve, Camilla, who had a classmate with The Covid, and the rest of the family were able to come in for it. They all tested negative yesterday at 9:45, loaded up the car and came down in a lovely six-hour drive of parking lot traffic. I guess a lot of other people are celebrating the Great American Eating Ceremony this year.

   Wait ahold it, I didn't say Great American Reading Ceremony!

 

 

the vassar years

With Rosy Woo on the steps of the Observatory at Vassar

 

The lines in the gym for class signup were intimidatingly long. English, drama, sociology—the desks were slammed with wannabe students. I was a freshman, and I had no idea what to take. Then I saw Mrs. Chin sitting alone at a desk, and said, “Chinese!” I was probably interested in Asia because of my father, who was stationed in Okinawa in WWII. One of his great regrets was that when Marine intelligence wanted him to join a trek to Chang Kai Shek’s HQ in Chongqing, probably because of his expertise in poisonous snakes, his commanding officers would not give him permission to go.

Chinese language became the only through-line of my studies, which were all over the map.  I loved going to the old observatory every day. The mice didn’t worry me. I thought it was one of the coolest places on campus. 

    As a rising senior, I went to live with a friend of Mrs. Chin and family in Taipei, beginning a lifelong friendship with Changping. (Which reminds me, she called me yesterday and I better call her back!) And en route home, I stopped in Hawaii, where East meets West and vowed to return after graduation. Which I did. Over and over. I was supposed to go with Changping to Taiwan, too, last year, but The Covid intervened.

   I tried to track down Mrs. Chin to send her a letter thanking her for the effect she had had on my life—I even owe her my journalism career, because my boss said, “Well if you can speak Chinese I figure you can speak English”— but I was too late. I read in the Vassar Quarterly that she had died.

    Thank you to Rosie Woo, from Mrs. Chin’s class, for these photos, the only ones I know of me at Vassar, and for sparking this reminiscence.  

With Mrs. Chin's class, dressed in her qipao.

chien-chi award

So Chien-Chi was presented with an award (and grant) I think  called the Taiwan Excellence Award. Not really clear on why or what, but I assume for his whole body of work, judging by his lecture. Here is a link to the slide show on Vimeo. You have to enter a password:

!GRAZ1213

 And now he can go back to his kids in Graz, Austria, where the far right is marching against lockdown measures for the unvaccinated hoards.

 

 

at the hospital for special surgery

 I guess this is why people travel from all over the world and pay the big bucks to come here. Plenty of time to enjoy the view between pre-op appointments. My head is spinning, what with the questions about my personal life, the drug instructions, the x-rays, the predictions about physical therapy etc. Not to mention the never-ending medical portals/passwords. Good news: apparently all doctors and hospitals now believe we are entitled to the results of all these tests we've paid for. So. 

 
 

the garage

 It's not even two years old, but the garage has already led multiple lives. When they ripped down the old garage, the new one was built specifically for Hannah's mother-in-law. She loved her tiny studio on the ground floor and having the family nearby. Chris has a light filled photo studio upstairs. When Sara died, as no other aging parents were ready to move in, Hannah and Chris made the place into an air bnb, which has already housed several happy visitors. And now Hannah is using Chris's studio as an office for her counseling business. 

 

The doctor is in; the photographer is on location.

out with the old part 2

 

Listening to my refrigerator continually grinding away, and watching my electric bill go up by a third week to week, I have been trying to get a new one for a while. While I bought the old one —very old, I think more than 35 years old—myself, the building is obliged to supply me with one, and given that the "supply chain" is not what it should be, I thought it best to accept a slightly used refrigerator from another apartment. It's the right size, which it to say all Mammadou and Danny had to do was remove the stove knobs and handles and the refrigerator doors to get through the galley kitchen. I did not tell them that the building-supplied refrigerator from the 60s is still in the living room. And still functioning.

And—tada!—four hours later I have a freezer that's not continually defrosting to put my ice packs in. And Thanksgiving will happen (alla you folk with big ole suburban kitchens and lots of counter space just understand that it's not really necessary, though having two refrigerators is a great help!) And it's so quiet. I can stop worrying about it. Phew. 

 

 

 

out with the old

Anybody remember what those things are? The things kids used to sit on top of when they were too little to reach the table? I have kept them for nostalgia's sake, but they have long since become useless to look anything up in. Not to mention all the stores advertised are likely no more, since retail, like phone books and plastic bags, is no more. Except Amazon and Instacart. So where the phone books used to be, there will now be the Instacart shopping bags (brand new) you can't return. Mama's got a brand new bag! Well, lots of them. How can this be good for the waste stream? I refuse to throw them away. Some day when food is manufactured in your kitchen instead of grown or killed, someone can throw out these shopping bags as well.

family news

My first cousin Tom, who I have seen a handful of times in our lives, stopped by on the way back to the hotel from The Museum of Natural History. I remember his father, my uncle Ed, well. He worked for AMP and was the first person I ever heard talk about computers. He was a mad scientist inventor, and he told us that one day cars would drive themselves. This was in the 1950s, and no one believed him at the time. Ahem. So Tom also is some kind of systems engineer, having to do with running large buildings. He has been teaching others how to do it at Penn State and around the country and fully expected to run into people he taught at the World Trade center today.

   His wife Dee, meanwhile, is a hero. While fighting recurrent (for 15 years) and metastatic breast cancer, she fell down the cellar stairs and broke wrist and foot. They have been hauling in from Pennsylvania to Sloan Kettering this year. But this time it was a tourist visit, and Dee was walking all over NYC like a boss, casts and all.

    Their son Nathan showed me pix of his two pet Axolotls. I can't say that. They are high maintenance Mexican salamanders which are having a moment. Very cute,  check them out here. I want one, but I can't see adding aquaria to What's In the Truck. 

   And, yes, that is Donna in the mirror taking Dee's picture.  She behaved herself very well. Donna, I mean.

 

more ed!

 

It was great to hang with the gang. Bill Dowell, formerly Time bureau chief who worked with Ed from Cairo to Paris to Hong Kong (may be the wrong order, and many more places) drove up from the City of Brotherly Love for lunch in Brooklyn with Ed. Barb came down from the Bronx, and neighborhood friends dropped by. All of us have had lunch with Ed roughly ten thousand times over the last 40 years, and we are expert at it. We talk about the old times and the new times. Which are not, frankly, as exciting, except for Ed, who has more excitement than he bargained for and not the kind he likes. Cancer has stripped many of his pleasures away, but old friends are an abiding one.

Another pleasure is favorite restaurants, even though he can't eat or drink much—chemo fucks with your taste buds. The owner/chef was delighted to see him, and buzzed around, allowing us to change tables three times without fussing.

You have to schedule out lunches with Ed, because radiation makes him tired. So does chemo, but it also makes him poisonous—he can't touch his dog Sammy in case the dog licks his skin. So the optimum time for a visit is when he is on hiatus from both procedures. He never does get a vacation from his special electromagnetic hat with accompanying battery pack. Ed ate dates wrapped in bacon. So did I, and they were very good. (I mean, bacon!)

   Anyway, you know it was a good lunch because we wrapped it up around 8 pm, eight hours after we'd started. And Dowell drove Dowling home and stayed over at the Dowling Intercontinental.

It was a perfect day. And just for fun, here are Pavoratti and Lou Reed singing Reed's "Perfect Day," surely one of the oddest duets ever.