Falling at the Fish Fry

Three years ago, after increasing hip pain on my right side, I procured the services of a devastatingly handsome orthopedic surgeon with the soft brown eyes of a seal pup. He did a nifty hip replacement and everything went swimmingly. Two days after surgery I moved into The Woodlands, a nursing home re-hab center right by the hospital. The food was vile, but the rehab services were outstanding. I left there in two weeks, needing only a cane for getting around. Since friends and family had brought me food, I was well and healthy.

On March 12, after polishing off a meal at a Lenten fish fry down in the little town of St. Joseph, I managed to trip on something on my way out and fell like a redwood tree onto the hardwood floor, right on my left, or then unrestored, hip. Since I was in the basement of a Catholic school, words I longed to shout froze on my twisted lips. I have never experienced that kind of pain. 911 was summoned and I was borne out of the place by a group of EMTs and taken to the hospital over rough roads (it having been a tough winter here in Northeastern Ohio.) There it was determined that I had a broken hip (duh!) and I was drugged for a while.

It so happened that all of my children were here in Kent for various reasons, so they were all able to be with me. I had surgery from an equally good, but not so handsome, orthopedic surgeon whom I had my brother vet for me. He did a superb job with a partial hip replacement. Being on morphine for a good part of the time, I think I had a few visitors and actually chatted with them. Who were those people?

After two days I was trucked over to the Woodlands, where a couple of the ladies from my last time there greeted me at the front door, which I thought was a nice touch. I lucked out again and got a nice private room. I settled in, prepared for therapy and healing. The food was, once again vile, perhaps even viler. For some reason I was in a constant state of nausea and couldn't have eaten anything anyway. My family kept asking me if I would like them to bring food, friends offered goodies, but nothing appealed. I didn't find out until the day before I left that Vicodan was causing my nausea, but it was too late by that time.

The people who work there were mystified that I didn't want that lovely bright pink pie, or that great glob of macaroni with some sort of brown stuff on the side. There was one dish actually called "cheese poo." Becky, who looks like a photo by Dorothea Lange, assured me that it was quite delicious. The decor in the public rooms - the lobby and lounges - leaned to Emmett Kelly figurines and fancily dressed dolls.

The therapy was slow to start and really inadequate. At first I did get around well with the walker, - trips to the bathroom became my most strenuous exercise. The PTs were not spending much time on my hip stuff, as they had the last time. They kept giving me hand weights and telling me to do reps while they spent a lot of time with comatose patients and very little with those of us who were hoping to leave eventually. They were very different from the last time - a whole new organization. When they weren't holding mirrors up to the mouths of the comatose, they were discussing their lunch plans. I passed my feelings about this to some imp0rtant person and two days before I left, they started doing what they should have been doing. Unfortunately, by this time the nausea and not eating had made me pretty weak, but I did climb a flight of stairs twice.

When I got home, I diagnosed myself as dehydrated. The visiting nurse didn't' like the look of things and faxed my doctor, who saw me that afternoon and sent me back to the real hospital where I was hydrated for two days until I was as good as new.

All this time, my hip was doing fine, healing on its own with very little pain. While I was being hydrated, I had a room mate who was on about 25 different drugs and introduced herself to me by saying, "I have Stage IV cancer but I'm blessed." She then listed all the other conditions she had, but was blessed all the same. There were a few dubious items on her list of conditions, and she left the same day I did.

One thing about having a hip surgery is that it does slow one down. I have learned to do preemptive peeing, since it is not always easy to rush to the bathroom, especially with a walker. If I happen to walk by the bathroom, I just go in and have a seat. Saves on laundry. I have lost all dignity anyway. A woman comes by twice a week to give me a shower. She is a very large woman and she and the walker were rather a tight fit in my small bathroom. A PT lady comes and makes me do exercises and walk around and around the house (inside, of course), and a nurse comes to check my blood pressure twice a week. All this is courtesy of Medicare, that evil government health care system that interferes with my right to go broke paying for these services on my own. I am now using a cane and feeling very vulnerable - only my two feet and it to hold me up.

I have been the beneficiary of such kindness from family and friends that I will be thanking people for months to come. My two daughters who were here and cleaned the heck out of house when I was in the rehab place are coming back to help some more. My son and Kent daughter have been with me all along. John has done just about everything one could do, including cooking Easter dinner, laundry, tidying up the place, etc. Cynthia has been on hand, too. Sally took me to a store to buy a few necessities and I had the scary experience of riding in one of these courtesy carts. Not so easy as it looks, friends.

It's been a wretched experience, but I have survived. The handsome dude who did my first hip told me that eventually I would have to have the other one done. I guess I took care of that.

Aftermath

So I watched the Academy Awards show and everything was pretty predictable and boring mostly. Apparently the people who voted missed Helen Mirren's movie "The Last Station," or the brilliant performance of Gabourey Sidibe in "Precious." That's the only explanation for the misguided choice of Sandra Bullock as best actress.

I have nothing against her, but that movie, which I went to see for no good reason, is one of those feel-good Lifetime TV movies of the week sort of things. She was okay, playing the kind of woman I have never much cared for - a Southern, gun-totin' blond version of Sarah Palin. It was another movie in which the great white do-gooder rescues the poor, Black kid and gives him a white,middle class life. This character would have taken Precious in hand, and put her in Weight Watchers.

It was good to see "Avatar" get almost nothing. I think James Cameron was all ready to make another "King of the World" speech. I wonder if there is anybody out there who still thinks "Titanic" was a great movie, or even a good movie. If "Avatar" had won for best movie, God only knows what sort of bloated, over the top flick Cameron would have tried to foist off next.

I liked Mo'Nique's speech when she stated that it was good to see that the academy counted on the importance of performance over politics. She was so very good in that difficult role of an abusive mother. Sometimes they so tings right.

But Sandra Bullock?

My Oscar Choices

Since I'm not a member of the academy, and no one really cares what I think, I am free to make choices based on my own preferences. I have not seen all of the nominated pictures (wild horses couldn't drag me to "Avatar;" I'm still astounded that "Titanic" was even nominated, much less the winner of best picture. ), but I have seen most of them. I haven't seen any movie this year that I would want to go to see again (except "Up."); in fact I can hardly remember most of them.

Two of the nominated pictures which I found worth an award are "A Serious Man," by one of the Coens, and "Precious." I'm not sure either one has a chance, but they were both films that had something to say beyond mere entertainment."Up in the Air" was very good and is the sort of movie which would have won easily in the past. Actually, I think most of the films this year were pretty blah. Yesterday I saw "The Last Station," which was not nominated but was a hell of a lot better than "The Blind Side." I hope that either "Precious" or "A Serious Man" wins, but I think it will be "The Hurt Locker." which I haven't seen and don't want to see.

The best Best Actress award should go to Helen Mirren or Gabourey Sidibe (I'm sure she's had as much trouble with her name as I have had with mine.) Both of these performances were just so good, really good, that I can't think of anyone else who could have been better. I didn't see "An Education," because the premise rather creeped me out, so I can't judge that actress' performance. I'm going to give my Oscar to Helen Mirren.

The very best actor this year was Jeff Bridges in "Crazy Heart," Although I have loved Colin Firth since his two Mr. Darcy roles, Jeff Bridges is so incredibly good that if he doesn't get the Oscar, there;'s something terribly wrong with the voting system. George Clooney was good in "Up in the Air," too. But but not this good.

Best Supporting Actress will go to Mo'Nique. I'd never heard of her before "Precious" and couldn't believe she is a comedienne. She is simply amazing. The only actress I didn't see was Penelope Cruz in "Nine," but I did see the others and they can't compare with Mo'Nique. (I wonder where this love affair with the apostrophe came from?)

I only saw one of the actors in the supporting actor category, but I have heard that the German actor in "Inglorious Bastards" is amazingly good. Christopher Plummer plays Leo Tolstoy in "The Last Station," and he was good, but I doubt that he will win the award. If I could get over disliking Quentin Tarantino, I'd go see that movie, but it sounds uber violent.

So tonight I shall try to stay awake as all those overdressed, over bejeweled, over made up, and over coiffed (and I'm talking about the guys) player ts strut their stuff and make teary speeches and wonder why I'm doing this.

A Welcome Visitor

I had the pleasure of a visit from my baby brother, Ed, who was making a friends and family tour. I was third on the list. We had such a good time. We usually see each other at large gatherings and this time we were able to just talk and listen and have some wine and catch up on news of family. He is the father of the late Terry, and of course we talked about him and his family, too. He had visited the other younger brother Mike, in Dayton and brought news of him and his family.

Ed and his wife Joan are super volunteers, spending time at their local hospital where they live in Oklahoma. They also are docents at what used to be called the Cowboy Hall of Fame, which is now a museum of Western art and "stuff." They have a lot of visitors from Europe who are fascinated by the Old West and the myths of the cowboys.

We had lunch at the famous Ray's Place, our local pub, and I directed him on a drive around to see some of John's masonry work. We just had a good time. He left here headed for Corning for a visit with another older sister. It was a loverly time.

Those Wacky Greeks

For no particular reason, I have taken a break from modern books and have dived into Homer. I've had these books sitting around for years and decided it was high time I improved my cultural literacy by actually reading this stuff. It's a rather old translation (1907) and I am sure that scholars have come up with something more accurate since then, but they read like a fast-paced adventure novel. Oh, the language is archaic, in the biblical sense, but I am really enjoying it.

First I read "The Odyssey," and now I am going through "The Iliad," which is bass ackwards in chronology. Ulysses' story is much more interesting, because it involves travel and all sorts of different characters, monsters and ordeals. He goes through so many trials and somehow, with the help of a god or two, eventually manages to get back to his faithful wife and son, who have a few adventures of their own. Poor Penelope is besieged by the Suitors and somehow can just tell them to take a hike (after all, Ulysses may be alive after twenty years, but then again, maybe he isn't), so when Ulysses gets back he has to deal with them, too. (I had a great-great-uncle whose middle name was the French version of Ulysses - John Ulysse Guenveur. He died young and didn't have any adventures that I know of.)

"The Iliad," on the other hand , is just one battle after another, with armor clanging about the losers. There are a zillion brave men who are always challenging one one another during the battle of Troy, on account of Paris took off with Helen, the wife of Menelaus. It's very bloody, with spears piercing armor and flesh and the odd beheading on every page. And there's a rather hilarious episode about this sea goddess pleading with Zeus to intervene for her son, Achilles, who has been dissed by Agamemnon over some babe that he (Achilles) had brought back as spoils from invasion he had led. Well, Hera, Zeus' wife, gets royally ticked off when she sees Thetis, the sea goddess, clasping the knees of Zeus and there's a very modern sounding spat between the god husband and his goddess wife in which he asserts male superiority. I guess it's a really old story and no wonder men have had such a hard time letting go of that archaic idea, if they ever have.

I like how chatty the gods are with mortals, rather like the Bible stories of God chatting it up with Moses and Noah. And I like how the people in power are always offering golden chairs, barrels of wine and chariot horses as rewards to strong, brave MEN (of course) who do them favors. And there is much wine drinking, ox roasting and chine eating being done. Story telling, a la the parables, is a favorite device for teaching the recalcitrant warrior why he should face the more heavily armed enemy. I am over half way through it and the armor clanging is ringing in my ears. Apparently it didn't do much good anyway.

When I was a kid I had read "The Aeneid" and loved it. I remember the illustrations included bare breasted Harpies, and in these books are some great illustrations similar to the sort of things you see on Greek vases, and many of the men are stark nekkid. I mean there will be a bunch of guys wearing robes, and the main hero will be absolutely nekkid. Why is that? I must admit that my knowledge of ancient Greek clothing or lack thereof is pretty much zero, but I have to assume that there was a reason for the nekkidness. I guess things could get pretty hot in those islands, temperature wise. Or maybe they were just a bunch of exhibitionists.

By the way, that illustration is of Ulysses offing the Suitors.

Green Hills I Love

This is Doughty Valley. It's down in Amish country, where Doughty Creek runs through a long valley in southern Homes County. I discovered it many years ago and it's a place I take people who think Ohio is a nowhere place. It's only one of many beautiful places I long to see in the winter when the roads are bad. This is a pretty isolated spot, difficult to find, along a lot of twisty, hilly roads. I have taken many photographs of it in all seasons, even in snow one year when the roads had been well cleared, but the hills still white-blanketed. I took this particular picture some years ago when Polly was home for a visit. Everyone I've ever taken to this place has loved it. They just stand and look at it and sigh. Peace.

It is almost completely quiet, except for the whirring of a windmill and the tinkle of cow bees. Once when I was there in late afternoon, in about the center of this picture, I saw a young Amish boy leading a long line of cows from the hills in back to the red barn you can see behind the white house. I've been there when a farmer in a horse drawn mower was cutting hay. There's a meadow close to the road, which you can't see in this picture, and there are usually a couple of horses which occasionally break into a gallop. There are no telephone poles or wries to obstruct the view. I'd love to be there on a night when there's a full moon.

I'm always worried that one day when I go down there, I'll discover a housing development right in the middle of those lovely hills, the road widened, and a strip mall in place of the horse meadow. Heaven forfend!!

Snow Days

Since I am retired, I don't get snow days, but I take them anyway by not going out unless I absolutely have to, e.g., I need bread, milk or chocolate. I have been reading a lot. For some reason I have been stuck in mid 19th century America and most books have been concerned with the Civil war or the lead-up to it.

This has not been by design. It began with "March,:" which I mentioned a few posts ago, followed by "The March,"also previously noted. Then I read "The Known World," about black slave owners before the war. It is such a good book that I did not want it to end. Since it won the Pulitzer Prize and a few other book awards, I figured it must be good, but it was simply splendid and so wonderfully written. I had read a number of short stories in the New Yorker over the years by the author (I think it's Edward P. Jones) and had always liked his writing. It ends before the Civil War and I want to know what happened to the people (the ones still alive, that is) and wonder if he's considered a sequel.

After I finished that one, I read Toni Morrison's "A Mercy," another stellar work by America's best writer. It takes place in the late 17th century and involves a young slave girl whose mother hopes to save her by urging a buyer to take her daughter, seeing that even though he is a slave owner, he appears to be kind (a relative term.) Morrison doesn't hit you over the head with the evils of slavery, but in her almost poetic prose, you absorb the lives of the people involved on all aspects of it. It's told in a number of voices and she demonstrates her understanding of what kinds of feelings and rationalizations were experienced by these early Americans. Since we know the effects on all of us and our history, this is an important story. Morrison is a genius.

Now I have Barbara Kingsolver's latest, "Lacunae," which I'm looking forward to. The magazines are piling up, though, and I have no idea when I'll get to them. If ever. I mean, spring is inevitable, innit? And I shall have to throw off the shackles of winter and snow and hit the road on one of my trips to someplace that isn't Kent. A person can get pretty tired of the same scenery all the time. Books can take you away, but I'm looking forward to seeing real live green hills and blue water.

Another snow day activity, which I haven't done too much of since the end of the pastel class I took last fall, is getting back to some painting. I had these pears last fall and was planning to paint them. but it was a beautiful fall and the road called, so I just made some sketches and then took a few photos, figuring I'd get around to them soon. But I had to eat them, so the photos came in handy. I'm still experimenting with acrylic and avoiding oil. I think oil would be easier because it stays workable longer than acrylic, even when I used a medium which is supposed to keep it wet. Damn stuff dries too fast no matter. Maybe if I worked faster? It's fun anyway and since I do it for my own amazement, I'll keep trying. Until spring.

It's a Sad, S.A.D. Month

February - hard to spell and hard to live through. Fortunately, I am not one to suffer from S.A.D., but I can empathize with those who do. Up here in the northern hemisphere, we suffer from sun deprivation, blue sky deprivation and warmth deprivation. It's gray and it's damp and everything is dead: the trees, the grass, people's faces. The traces of dirty snow make everything look desolate, trashy, forlorn.

Another depressing aspect of this month is that Lent starts, which brings back dreary memories of marching around the church to the Stations of the Cross while the priest droned on about how our terrible sins (like sassing our mother) drove the nails even deeper into the hands of Jesus, along with the mournful strains of "Stabat Mater," accompanied by the occasional bonk on the head of a disrespectful (i.e., yawning) student by one of the bead-rattling nuns. Even Easter candy couldn't make up for the dismal effects of those deadly six weeks. Even though I was living in Georgia at the time, it was still gray all the time in February during Lent.

On my computer desk top is a picture I took in August of a gleaming white farm house under a blue, blue sky beyond an elephant's eye high corn field. It was on the way home from the New Baltimore ice cream stand. It's great to look at and think about.

I know one should live in the moment, but it's hard not to look ahead. A local Catholic church has the best fish fries every Friday during Lent and you don't even have to sing "Stabat Mater" while you're waiting in line. Pretty soon the pancake breakfasts will start up in the maple syrup country north of here. And having been so deprived, we appreciate more the coming of springtime, when all the ugliness disappears and we can bask in all the beauty we have longed for during February.

And we don't live in Haiti and shouldn't be complaining anyway.