If I were on top of things, I’d remember that I’ve signed up to teach three cooking classes in the fall. Apparently, I’m decidedly not on top of things. So, I guess it’s a good thing that I at least look at my mail. I got my catalogue and found out about my cooking classes when I saw my name printed in it. One is The Complete Pasta Course. The other two are Some Like It Hot and Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain. Great. Now all I have to do is figure out what I’m teaching and I’ll be all set. (Of course, the classes have to meet minimum registration requirements and they haven’t been since the economy went into hibernation. Don’t think these will fly either. Time will tell.)

I often think about how I learned to cook. I know I’m pretty good at it, but I have to admit that I’ve never been to school.  I learned to cook from watching three people: My grandmother, my dad and my mom. That pretty much sums up my education in this arena. I also have a lot of memories surrounding food and smells. One of the things I used to love to do was congregate at my grandmother’s in Everett after Sunday Mass. My grandmother would have a pot of gravy and meatballs on the stove. Now, let me clarify this “gravy-sauce” thing. My family doesn’t call red sauce “spaghetti sauce.” We call it gravy.

It wouldn’t take long for us to start mucking up the works. Before you knew it, someone would grab some Italian bread and start dunking it into the gravy. Then, we’d start eating the meatballs. My grandmother would have to run out to the kitchen to protect Sunday dinner and, boy, did it annoy her that we were depositing breadcrumbs into the gravy. You thought she’d never shut up. When she started speaking Italian, we all knew we were in real trouble.

Another memory I have about my family involves ravioli. We’ve been eating homemade ravioli at all major holidays for years. It was my dad who used to make the raviolis. We’re talking no machine here, not even a crank.  All the dough was made by hand, rolled out by hand with a rolling pin, cut into neat circles with these great aluminum drinking glasses we used to have, and then stuffed and assembled by hand. I have a very vivid memory of my dad laying a large sheet over my grandmother’s bed, and my dad would neatly lay out all the ravioli on the bed as he made them. Invariably, he would make “The Papa,” a giant ravioli that we got to cook and eat on the spot. It’s a funny thing about this memory. It’s like I’m in my grandmother’s room right next to her bed. I remember exactly how her room was set up.  There are ravioli on the bed, and I can look right out her door and see my dad in the kitchen making more.

It’s a very vivid memory, and I have it at the weirdest times. I lost my dad at an early age, but the memories I have of him are very much alive. At any rate, when my dad died, my mom took over making the ravioli. Now that my mom’s gone too, both of my older sisters have picked up the holiday ravioli making.

My sister’s Christmas eve bash

Now here’s a family tradition. My sister Mamie hosts a Christmas eve open house every year, and has been doing this for more than twenty years. The evening starts about 6 p.m. and people keep coming and going right up until the early morning hours. In keeping with Italian tradition, the emphasis on Christmas eve from a food perspective is seafood, so my sister serves things like octopus salad and smelts. When my mother was alive, my cousin Richie would always ask, “Hey, Auntie Frannie, you making calamari pie this year or what?” She always did, and she always made extra so people could take some home. Now that my mom’s gone, my sister carries on the tradition using her recipe. Of course, logic will tell you that not everyone wants to sit around eating octopus and smelts — particularly small children — so there’s always the traditional meat balls, roast beef and ham for the less adventurous eaters in the family.

Most of the people coming to the open house are on my mom’s side of the family, not my dad’s. My dad’s sister Phyllis used to come every year before she passed away. I’ve recently met a lot of Della Piana’s on Facebook. We know we’re related, but we’re not sure how. Regardless, my mom’s side of the family is huge. I have a lot of cousins. My mother’s brother, my Uncle Tony, had fourteen children. He used to joke that he had sex with his wife only fourteen times, but she got pregnant every time. And his children now have their own children and grandchildren. It’s a great way for us all to catch up with each other.

The little kids love it because there have to be fifteen or twenty kinds of cookies for them to gorge themselves on. There’s a small cookie tree that gives them access to cookies and candy canes. Eye leve. No permission required. No waiting. Hey, it’s Christmas.

The inevitable Ying-Yang

Of course, food can evoke some ugly memories as well. I’ve had my share of both. Some of the uglies have been doozies. Let’s start with what I like to call the granddaddy of bacterial contamination: Tofu. Yeah. I will eat it as soon as the package is open. If it isn’t used all in one foodie event, it’s trash. I never save it. If it comes in hot and sour soup, I eat around it because only Buddha knows how long the restaurant has saved it for. (Of course, there’s so much vinegar in that soup that it probably wouldn’t matter much anyway.)

On this particular night, I ordered Chinese food for Beth, Thalia and myself. We went to a place called China Wok in Beverly. We’d lived there for about seven years, so we were familiar with the place. I was the only one who didn’t eat tofu that night. I was also the only one who didn’t get sick. So picture it: Two bathrooms. Two yakkers. Ugly. Okay, I’ve got this thing about vomit. Know what I mean? To have two people yakking at the same time in two bathrooms didn’t leave me much of an option for going to the bathroom myself. Of course, Thalia was done after several hours, but Beth is never that simple. No sir.

Beth got so sick that she nearly dehydrated. She ended up in Beverly Hospital for a freakin’ week. It was amazing. They ran blood cultures and all kinds of other tests. She couldn’t even eat for the first few days she was there. As a joke, I managed to get some yellow tape that said “Toxic Waste” at work. I snuck into the hospital room while she was sleeping and taped up her bathroom door. The nurses were laughing like hell when I returned a few hours later. It was no joke. She couldn’t leave until she could eat, and she couldn’t eat until the end of the week. Then, they released her with anti-nausea medication. Exactly one week later, the exact same thing happened again and Beth ended up in Beverly Hospital for another week. They never actually came up with any reason for this bad health event other than the tofu. Thankfully, it didn’t happen a third time.

Ah, but we’re not done yet! One other messed up food event happened with the charming and delightful Miss Headcase. You remember her! Turner’s Falls? Photography? Yeah, that headcase. Not this one. Her sister Janet visited from California once and we drove down to Newport, Rhode Island for the day. We decided to eat at a place called La Forge Casino.

Miss Headcase ordered steak. I cannot for the life of me remember what Janet and I ordered.  So anyway, we’re eating when all of a sudden, I look up and Miss Headcase is seriously choking on a piece of steak. I mean, this is no joke. Everything I learned in my CPR class was coming true. She finally pushed herself away from the table and started moving around the restaurant holding her throat. Janet, I have to tell you, just kept eating.

I finally caught up with Miss Headcase right near the kitchen door. Thinking wasn’t an option at that point. I grabbed her as best I could, pulled her back, and did the heimlich. I figured I had one shot. It worked. Just as the executive chef was walking out the kitchen door, Miss Headcase chucked a piece of steak right onto his freakin’ shoe. It was absolutely the perfect ending. It looked like a comedy act, frankly.

I swore that politics would never creep into this blog, but this isn’t just about politics for me. The passing of Senator Ted Kennedy affects me not only on a political level, but also on a personal level.

I wrapped my head around ‘politics’ at a young age. Don’t really know where attraction came from, but I can tell you I come from a pretty liberal family as politics go. Many years ago (I can’t remember the exact year, but I was in my twenties) my Uncle Joe was in a VA home in South Boston. I should give you some background. My uncle was a WWII vet, thrown into that conflict at the absurdly young age of seventeen. He was never the same after he came home. I’m not quite sure how the story ends, and it seems crazy to me that I haven’t inquired more about it, but rumor has it that my Uncle Joe couldn’t face killing ‘the enemy’ after he saw his eyes. What I don’t know is if he actually pulled the trigger or if he didn’t have the stomach for it. There aren’t many people left for me to close the loop with here. My sisters may know a little, but I’m sure it would be my Aunt Buddy (oh, yeah) who has the answer. I suppose I always knew some day that I’d have to break down and pay her a visit to get to the end of the story.

Regardless, the VA had decided to move my uncle to a facility in Springfield, Massachusetts. This would be 90 miles one way, and a tremendous haul for two older women. It would be impossible to advocate for him as well, something they’d become particularly adept at. I remember telling my mother that she should contact Senator Kennedy about this problem. People thought I was crazy suggesting that national figure like Ted Kennedy would care about such a trivial issue. But they were wrong.

While another Boston public servant, Tip O’Neill, would coin the phrase, “All politics is local,” the sentiment wasn’t lost on Ted Kennedy. Not only did he meet with and listen to my family, but he stopped the move to Springfield from happening. When my uncle was moved further down the road, it was to the VA Hospital in Jamaica Plain, where he eventually passed away.

On a more national level, but no less a personal level for me, was Ted Kennedy’s tireless and unflagging support of the LGBT community, of which I am a proud and vocal member. We consider him a hero. Today, our greatest friend in the U.S. Senate has passed away, and the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), the roll back of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DA/DT)  just became exponentially tougher without Ted Kennedy’s support.

Was Ted Kennedy a flawed human being? Absolutely. We all are. I learned long ago through Buddhism that perfection is not a human option. Above all, Ted Kennedy made the game of politics an honorable profession. He dedicated his life to liberal issues such as civil rights for all, education, women’s issues, voting rights, health care, and the blight of poverty. He was the voice of those who had no voice in government.

Today is a sad day for America and its people. While the ignorant, like Sarah Palin, celebrate his death on her Facebook page, those of us who depended upon his support so much know we have truly lost a leader and an ally.

One of my blog readers recently sent me a private email suggesting that maybe I write about myself, since this is my blog. I really haven’t been much into writing recently. There have been some personal circumstances that have led to a great struggle with writer’s block. I’ve been trying to work my way through it, but it’s just not resolving as quickly as I’d like. I will give this my best effort, but every word comes with a struggle. Maybe it will post before the end of my night. Maybe it won’t. I don’t make many promises these days.

As basics go, I’m the third daughter (referred to by everybody as ‘the baby’ of the family even at the advanced age of 55 years) of Julius Francis Della Piana and Frances Louise Catanzano. As one of my best friends once said to me,  “Can’t get much more Italian than that.” My sister Mamie is 11 years older and my sister Jo-Ann is 9 years older. I was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and spent my first six months on Prospect Avenue. After that, I grew up mostly in three towns, Revere, Everett and Medford. I attended Catholic schools for nearly 14 years (no post-education therapy or pills required; how does that happen?). One time I went to a fortune teller in New Orleans. She told me I’d live to be 76 years old after having a major health crisis. I figure that happened last September 6 when I almost died from pneumonia and septicemia. Apparently, I was pretty sick in this photo but was completely unaware of that fact. Then again, maybe that wasn’t it yet. With my luck, there’ll be something else ugly in store. Only time will tell.

I confess I really don’t know how to do this. I’m not particularly good at self narratives and never have been. I’m going to try this in a different way.

Things that piss me off

So many things fit here, and a lot of them political. I promised I’d keep politics to a minimum on this site and focus on them on Turn-Left, and I will. I will generalize here.

- The two-party system is dead in America. The GOP is owned by special interests and the Christian right nutcases who want the government guidebook to be the Bible. And the Democrats have become the new Republicans. Neither works for the condition our country is in, and neither party will shape up until there is a serious threat from a legitimate third party. In fact, I’m considering switching to the Green Party and donating my advertising and public relations skills to putting them on the map.

- The POTUS is a sham. That’s particularly galling. He was groomed for this position and his whole road to the White House vs. his performance in the White House is classic bait-and-switch advertising. Yeah, yeah, I voted for him but that’s because I’d never in a million years vote GOP. I read the platforms. Their positions on the GLBT community in that platform are all negative, so why would I? On this topic, I am a one-issue voter. And, while I’m at it, let me tee off on the Log Cabin Republicans. What’s the point? Gay + GOP = Oxymoron. Period.

- Hypocrisy in all forms, regardless of where the politics lie. Making yourself out to be something you’re not is total dishonesty. It almost goes to character for me. Let’s use the GLBT issue again here. I’m proud to be a lesbian. I don’t try to hide it anywhere. I don’t ride around with a bullhorn, but I do not deny it. I know people who still do. Things don’t get better that way. Society doesn’t change. The world doesn’t become a more accepting place. If you take care of business in your own world, and everyone else takes care of business in their own worlds, then tolerance almost becomes viral. The more people see who really are, that we are not so different from everyone else, the more perceptions change. That’s a good thing.

- Religion in politics. This could be my number one piss off. Religion is private. Commentary from the church members should come from the pulpit, not on a prime time stage with members of the White House and Congress at their sides. If we’re so damned advanced as a nation, why the hell is the rest of the planet moving away from marrying politics and religion while we are going in the exact opposite direction? Now, let’s get into the issue of the C Street Church (The Family) for a minute. The church’s tax-exempt status should be immediately revoked. Then, it should be shut down. The members of Congress who have lived there should be made to resign. They have been brainwashed. And the nutcase who was their spiritual leader, Douglas Coe, should be tried for treason for invoking the names of Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden. That’s never going to happen. We’ve got a government in place that won’t even deal with torture (and don’t start me on that), so it’ll never take up this issue. Cowards.

- A stagnant American public that sits by and allows all of this to happen. What are we waiting for? The right politician to rise to power who will just do the right thing? I feel like that’s what everyone’s doing with Obama. Wake up! It doesn’t work that way and never has. I don’t even know where that belief came from?

- I hate that the majority of my spam mail is about male enhancement medication. It’s unbelievable. We are fixated on that crap. I wish there was a lesbian filter on my email that would keep that stuff out. In the meantime, I have an idea for a product of my own. It’s called the Pudmaster 5000. It consists of a male enhancement pill (take your pick; there are literally hundreds available) and my Electrolux.  Use your imagination on that one.

Things that make me happy

- My kids. Yeah, they’re very different and I honestly didn’t bring them up to be that way. I truly believe they are just wired that way. They’re pretty cool kids. They are very independent (Thalia in particular) and form their own opinions, which I especially like.

Thalia is a gamer and she’s good at it. She prefers the Korean/Japanese sites and the whole language thing doesn’t seem to hinder her. Frankly, I don’t know how she even gets on to some of these sites, and I really don’t want to know. (Although, last week I watched her somehow fake a Korean I.D. and get into a site, and was completely amazed.) I have watched her play and she seems to have instincts for the games themselves. It’s extremely weird to watch because I don’t think I could do that without the language. I’m wired differently. She’s also a History Channel watcher and is particularly interested in the psychology of war. She’s about to be 13, and I think that’s incredible. She told me the other day she’s working on the whole ‘God’ thing. Not sure he exists. I suppose I should be trying to direct her, but I just can’t. I check where she goes on the web and she appears to be checking out a lot of different spiritual paths. Thalia, however, does have a healthy respect for The Dalai Lama, which is okay with me. So do I. In fact,when Thalia was in the second grade, she was convinced that the Dalai Lama was her grandfather.

And then, there’s Aaron. He doesn’t have time for such things yet. He’s busy becoming a Poke Master right now. My right ear is always the conduit for Pokeman information, the name of the character and what he/she is the evolved form of…the details never stop. It’s like having a constant buzzing in your ear. Thalia swears he’s destroying brain cells with his Nintendo. She said, “You know, boob (that’s her name for him), that might be good for your hand-eye coordination but your brain must be fried.” He ignores her. Either that, or he’s in the Poke Zone.

The thing that about Aaron is that, just when you think he’s not paying attention, he says something that indicates otherwise. Beth and I had one of our usual donnybrooks the other night. I didn’t want it to become one, but I couldn’t keep myself from engaging because I was overtired and suddenly the the target of a pile of unwarranted insults.  Later when I went up to see Aaron, he said to me “You know, if you didn’t sleep with her you wouldn’t fight.” No shit, but how did he know?

- Writing. I have not been prolific lately. I have been struggling through, and I have certainly learned something about myself. I’m the most prolific when I’m happy. Writing is not a refuge for me. I can translate my pain, but only into painful words. I can write directly about the issue, but I cannot clear my head of the issue/pain for a period of time  by writing about something else. At least I haven’t been able to so far. I’m going to continue trying. It is at times like these that I am glad I’m not writing for a living. I couldn’t do it right now.

- Music, on the other hand, is indeed a refuge. It’s where I hide when things are unbearable. By the time the CD took over the music industry, I had over 1,000 albums. I kept the albums because I think album art is amazing. Art is lost on CDs. I always worried if I’d have enough space to keep these albums as I moved around, but then homelessness took care of that for me. Don’t know where they are, but it doesn’t much matter. I’m a Buddhist and long ago lost my attachment to mere things. I’ve managed to replace most of my albums via downloading, and add to my collection as well. Here’s an annoying statistic for you: As of this very moment, I have 2,691 songs which translates into 7.7 days or 12.70 gigs of music in my iTunes. I carry another 8 gigs of music on a SanDisc Cruzer.  The music is from all over the place (no disco, no opera and very little heavy metal). Oh, yeah, there’s no rap either, but there’s plenty of R & B and Motown. I have an iPod as well. Can’t say that I use it all that much, but it’s there. I just read a pretty funny article about revealing the contents of your iPod to people. I don’t use my iPod much because I listen mostly while I write or in my car because I always seem to be on the road to somewhere. If I do that, then I just open up iTunes, click on shuffle, and put on my podcasting headphones.

-Painting is another of my favorite things to do, although I don’t do nearly as much as I’d like and there are usually huge gaps of time between efforts. I actually think it’s been a couple of years now since I’ve done anything. Pretty sure. When we were homeless in Lynn, there were always tons of old house windows sitting on curbs throughout the city waiting for the trash pick-up.  One day I decided to pick a bunch of them up and start painting on them. I’ve done maybe 45-50 windows since 2003, and maybe 30 are trashed or still sitting in the basement of that nasty house in Lynn. Others were gifts or donated. I never sold any. I was pretty much painting for my sanity at the time. There are five paintings still here hanging along the stairway to the second floor. As it turns out, they are my five favorites. Acrylics work best on the windows, but I also paint conventionally (paper, canvas) in water colors and oils.

Personal philosophies

I don’t know about this. Somebody asked me to reveal my personal philosophies, but this is pretty open-ended. I would have felt more comfortable had they specified areas of interest. I’m not sure my personal philosophies really amount to anything, but what the hell.

- One of my very best friends on the planet had this philosophy: “Life is too short to be small.” I like that one and have adopted it myself. What does it mean? Well, the word “small” could be switched with the word “judgmental.” I think people who spent their time judging others are basically small-minded people. I don’t believe we were put here to judge because I don’t think anybody on this planet is in a position to judge. I do whatever I can to beat this stuff into my kids’  heads: I don’t want them passing judgment on anybody. I want them to be open-minded and accepting of everyone and their differences. That’s what makes this life interesting.

- Life is too short to spend it with the wrong person. I’m there now, and I’ve been there out of sheer responsibility and guilt. But I have to confess that I look at things very differently since my near-death experience and am moving forward on changing this.

- Love is never easy, but it’s always worth it if it’s the real thing.

- War is a waste of time, money and — most importantly — human lives. I just don’t get why politicians can’t use their words. Know what I mean? If kids can do it, grown men and women should be able to do it. The United States claims to be a “peace loving” nation, but the statistics prove otherwise. The majority of this nation’s lifetime has been spent in wars, a few legitimate, but most not (especially the two useless, evil, life-wasting, money-sucking wars we are involved in right now).

- If you have kids in school, stay involved with their education. American schools are great for trying to homogenize the student population. They just love squeezing round pegs into square holes so that their lives are nice, tidy and easy. On a personal note, I’m trying to eliminate the MCAS in Massachusetts schools. This foolish test was nothing but a political ploy, just like the whole Massachusetts health care coverage debacle. I think the MCAS is an unfair detriment to both the teacher and the student. Whose measuring the performance of the administrators and those doling out government funding? Standardized testing is a joke. Again, square peg, round hole. Anyone in Massachusetts who wants to do the same should contact me at political.junkie2754@gmail.com. Thanks.

- If you’re waiting for the POTUS and his minions to just do the right thing, you are living in a dream world. Frankly, American politics is systemically corrupt now. It’s not just a “few bad apples.” We have allowed Wall Street high rollers, Corporate lobbyists, and the radical Christian right such access to our government that it’s hopeless unless the American people accept their responsibility and take the government back. I’m not convinced the Americans have it in them. Every public servant in both parties are owned in some way, with the absolute exception of Dennis Kucinich and the possible exception of Russ Feingold. Take a look at campaign donors on both sides of the aisles. It’s disgusting.

So, the first thing that has to happen is complete election reform. No corporate donations, thank you very much. Everyone runs on public money. No exceptions. And millionaire politicians (read: Mitt Romney, John Kerry, et al.) should not be allowed to pour personal dollars into their own campaigns. Clean it up at the root. The next thing that must happen is serious challenge from a third (progressive) political party. The GOP has become a wing of the radical right, the Dems are now the new GOP, and the progressives are all sitting there wondering WTF to do. Know what?  There’s something out there called “The Green Party.” Either go legitimize it or rebuild it over the next four years to try to mount some kind of real challenge. That’s the only way the GOP and the Dems tow the line.

- Remember to always have a healthy disrespect for authority. I even tell my kids that (and they use it on me all the time).

- Be careful when you hang around me. You could end up in my novel.

Well, my work is done here. Hope you all have a nice day, and I plan to offer a much more interesting post the next time around. Hopefully, the writer’s block is abating, but I really won’t know until I try this again.

Okay, so I’ve been missing for a few days. Just a load of painful personal drama. Everybody’s got it. I’m trying to keep my shit together through mine after running my heart over a jagged little edge. And that’s all you’re ever going to know on this subject because I happen to love very deeply the other party in the equation. No bitterness here. And absolutely no regret. Just sadness and quite a bit of emptiness.

Anyway, you can consider this a rant. I’m considering this a rant.  Now, I know my name isn’t the simplest of names but you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work it out.

Several days ago I received five pieces of mail addressed to someone at 25 Pamela Lane. Here is what I got:

D Della pinia

F. Piana

F Deborah Piana

Mr. Francis DellaPiana (this was especially charming, as they managed to change my gender as well)

Now, I don’t know any of the above-named people. None of these letters were mailed to me. Therefore, I kindly marked each of these envelopes with the appropriate “Addressee Unknown” statement in bright orange marker and handed them back to the mailman. I mean, if these people want money, they’re going to have to do better than that. My name is simple: Deb Della Piana. Spell it just the way it sounds. Nothing complicated here. It’s even more adventurous when the phone rings.

“Hello.”

“Hello, is this Miss Della Pinia?”

“Who?”

“Miss Della Pinia?”

“Nope. Sorry. Nobody by that name here. Bye.”I get these calls all the time. Usually, they are bill collectors (or the Electric Company, in my case). Now, I have already spent money with these people, so you’d think they would at least get it right. But, noooooooo. Not even the clowns I’ve already spent money with can get it right.

The very least we should expect in this economy is that those chasing us for payment will get our names right. I mean, it’s the decent thing to do. But it doesn’t seem that decency is much in vogue these days.

I guess if I were giving these flashback posts titles, I’d call this one “Oh, to be  young and just plain fucking dumb.” That would be the title. I have been in the workforce for a long time. In fact, I lied about my age so that I could work at Woolworth’s in Medford Square. I was fifteen and I told the manager I was 16. My mother was working there too, and she was pissed I did it, but as we found out when she died, she was in no position to give me shit about the age thing. It took us forever to figure out how old she really was after she died in 1992 because she had lied about it in so many places it wasn’t funny. Know why? She just plain didn’t want to be forced into retirement.

Anyway, the manager, a guy named Mr. Clark, wasn’t much for detail. Neither was his assistant, Mr. Benson. Neither of them asked me for a birth certificate, probably because they figured my mother was working there and wouldn’t let me work if I wasn’t 16. They loved my mother, but they didn’t know my mother. I did. What I knew about her was that she knew that, once I had something in my head, I was going to figure out a way to do it one way or another. If it wasn’t Woolworth’s, I would simply try it in as many places as I could until it worked. There were plenty of retail establishments around at that time. In fact, Strawberries was right near my house. I had applied there too.

Anyway, I’m not beyond living on the edge even now. (But I have to tell you that I’m just good at doing it. I think it through first. Plan. I have to. I’m married to a real crazy.) But back then, I really loved living on the edge. Totally. The whole gay thing was a head rush to me. I mean I knew I was gay by this time, but it was like some surreal thing floating around out there. I wasn’t sure how to connect it with real life. It was an alternative universe. When I look back at that now, it’s because things were so different then than they are today. From a societal perspective, it’s much easier today. Back then, it was tough. So, you tended to compartmentalize your life: (a) The normal part; (b) The gay part.

And this is how I would discern who would and would not have problems with part (b). Did they make crass gay jokes? Did they use the word ‘faggot’ or ‘dyke’ in a derogatory way. (Those terms are loaded, even though some gay people use them. They don’t mean the same when we use them as when ‘they’ use them.) Did they use the word ‘homo’? I have always hated that word. If any of those symptoms were present, I did not tell those motherfuckers about part (b). But I digress.

So, back to Woolworths and living on the edge (and the gay thing, in fact). I got hired at Woolworth’s. No problem. I was now working with my mother. And boy, did I give her a hard time. I used to piss her off on Saturday mornings because I had balloon duty. I used to have to fill the helium balloons. Pretty soon, it got to be some for the balloon, some for me. And it wasn’t that I got high on it. Hell no, it just made me sound like something out of the fucking Wizard of Oz. It was a blast talking to customers sounding like a munchkin.

What invariably would happen is that my mother would find a good product display (preferably a clothes rack) close to where I was, and then she’d get my attention and mouth to me, “I’m going to kill you when I get you home.”  See. That’s what happens after your dad dies. “Wait until I tell your dad” magically morphs into “I’m going to kill you when I get you home.”  Then, she’d try to appeal to my chickenshit side. “Don’t you know doing that can kill you?” I was not worried about such things at that time.

Just ever so absurdly pushing the envelope

Almost three years later my mother and I were still working at Woolworth’s. By then, I was pretty much ‘out.’ When my girlfriend turned sixteen, I told her to come in and apply for a job. The thing was, she really was my girlfriend. It’s just that nobody knew it except she and I. (Definitely not my mother.)  As messed up as this might sound (even to me all these years later), she and I were together for almost two years. Anyway, she got the job. Talking about complicating your life just a bit.

You know, this post is a testament to the stupidity of youth. For all intents and purposes, this girl (her name was Linda) and I were in a real relationship. It was emotional and it was physical. And there were definitely times when we were arguing or disagreeing. Trying to work those days with both she and my mother around were merciless. I almost immediately began to ask myself, “WTF were you thinking, Deborah?????” On the flip side, when things were going well and we could find ways to flirt with each other, it was exhilarating. You know, like everything else in life. Yin and Yan.

Ah, but as all things go when you’re young, my first relationship was about to crash and burn. Luckily, I had moved on to other things before it did, and she would move on soon after, leaving my mother at peace once again. Poor thing.

On Sunday, before flying out to Strasbourg, Louise and I hooked up with another co-worker, the vice president of the Intertech Division. We’ll call him Allen. He was just a down to earth guy. He got along with Louise and I, so we expected to have a great time. He had wheels and we had ideas. We started by heading off to the Arch de Triomphe. Now, picture this. Allen and Louise in front in this little Renault. I’m in the back. So, Allen says, “Louise, hang out the window with this video camera when I enter the traffic circle.” (By the way, the photo is an aerial view of the traffic circle.)  There’s no entering the circle slowly, so Allen just floored it and blew in, with Louise hanging out the window filming traffic in the circle, waving wildly including a few waves at the police. She was laughing so hard, she almost lost the camera.

We found a place to park, and visited the Tuileries and the Louvre. The Louvre is a very weird place. It’s almost quiet, even though it’s full of visitors and you can hear the faint buzz of conversation. But everybody’s talking quietly and respectfully. We walk into this room and stop in front of Venus de Milo and Louise blurts out, “They call this art? It doesn’t have any arms!” Allen and I had a buzz on and we just burst out laughing.  He leaned over to Louise very slowly and said, “Louise, shut up.” And then we started laughing again. It was just unbelievable. Eventually Louise settled down and we made it through the museum successfully.

Louise, Allen and I ate at the Hard Rock Cafe in Paris, then we headed out to the airport for our hour flight to Strasbourg and short drive to Molsheim where our meetings would begin the next morning. We’d have more adventures there!

Assault on Strasbourg

We arrived in Strasbourg and Louise rented a car, another mutant little Renault like the one Allen had rented in Paris. We immediately drove to the Hotel Diana. We had to get to sleep before the morning meetings and we were both wiped out. There’s a story behind the Hotel Diana. It was owned by the family of Dominique Baly, who just happened to be a vice president of Millipore. To say that the company got great rates was an understatement. In return, the Hotel Diana received repeat and regular business. During the 80s, we were sending a lot of people back and forth from the Molsheim plant. The Hotel Diana was getting a lot of business. We were continually running into people we knew in the lobby. the ride there was uneventful. We parked the car, took our luggage and headed up to our rooms where we promptly fell asleep.

We had meetings all day Monday, then we returned to the hotel for a nap. We would be going out with the European communications director that evening. Here’s where Louise’s excellent driving adventure began. We went back to the plant to pick up Dieter about seven. Louise was driving too fast as she came into the parking lot and immediately drove the car into a ditch. Of course, right in front of the very large glass windows for everyone to see. It required a very large tow truck to get the car back out of the ditch and, mercifully, Dieter drove that evening.

We were in the French countryside now. There were small villages and we spent the first few hours driving through some of the more interesting villages and sampling different wines. The food was also completely different than the food we had in Paris. Here, the food was not as sophisticated. There were more hearty offerings, like stews and coq au vin. And dogs could eat at the table in restaurants here in Oz. That would be Louise’s next flash point. We walked into a dark restaurant and sat down. It would take a few minutes for Louise to see the small family with the dog right next to us. The dog was sitting at the table and eating with everyone else. She finally saw it.  Here’s how the conversation went:

L: Are you kidding me?

D: What?

L: There’s a dog over there. That’s totally unsanitary. I’m out of here. There’s no way I’m eating here.

D: I beg to differ with you. You are indeed eating here. Cut the shit, Louise. When in Rome…

L: I’m not in Rome. I’m in France and these people are disgusting.

This went on for several minutes, and then she finally settled down. She even ate there and enjoyed her meal.

The meetings ended on Wednesday and we were scheduled to fly back on Friday. We had Thursday as a personal day, so Louise and I decided to head into Strasbourg to do a little touring. We parked the car in a lot and headed out on foot. The first sign that this would not be a normal day was the moment that Louise got trapped inside a port-a-potty. The ones in France were incredible. They were like little roadside toilets. Well, Louise locked herself in but couldn’t get herself out. First she was upset, then she started laughing hysterically. When this started, the whole thing started rocking and the two of us were in the middle of Strasbourg laughing. I finally got her to calm down and she managed to figure out how to use the inside lock. She got out, thankfully.

We spent the rest of the day just hanging out in this very interesting town. We decided to catch an late afternoon dinner so that we could get back to the hotel early and get some sleep before flying out on Friday. To say that Strasbourg was beautiful would be an understatement. It really was. The atmosphere was very different from Paris. We were in the French countryside fairly close to Germany. The prices in the shops were much more reasonable and the people a hell of a lot friendlier.

Unfortunately, may of the parking lots and your access to them look the same. When it was finally time to go back to the car, neither one of us could figure out where the hell we parked it. We spent an hour on foot before giving up and deciding to head to the police station. These guys were great. They volunteered to drive us to each parking lot until we found the car. We got into an old Renault with the policiers. Louise sat in the front and I ended up in the back seat sitting on a milk crate. And they drove like fucking maniacs. We were bouncing all over the place. About an hour later, we found the right parking lot and they dropped us off at the car.

We got back to the Hotel Diana just fine and Louise managed to park the car without falling into a ditch. We slept well and headed out the next morning. I had a blast, but it was good to be going home again.

Ah, yes. There’s business travel, then there’s business travel. I have made several business trips to Paris in my lifetime (all for Millipore) and some of the experiences have been more outrageous than others. One one trip, I went with Louise. She had been the department secretary, but had recently been promoted to International Promotions Coordinator and was now working for me.  The trip would be in two parts, first we’d spend a few days in Paris at meetings then we were scheduled to fly to Strasbourg and drive out to our offices in Molsheim for the rest of the week before flying home. Instead of flying out on a Sunday, Louise and I decided to leave on Friday night and spend the weekend in Paris. To say that I have a bad taste in my mouth for the French would be accurate, but I know that’s because I had great misfortune in my career at the hands of some of the biggest assholes on the planet. They just happened to be French assholes. I have to say that Paris is one beautiful city and, for the most part, the people are charming. (Except the waiter in that outdoor cafe on one trip who didn’t get a freakin’ tip because he was just plain rude.)

I’m not going to lie to you. When you traveled for Millipore, you traveled well. They always put you up in the best places. On this trip, we were staying at the Trianon Palace Hotel at Versailles. It was a beautiful place, there’s no question about it. There’s also no question that Louise was a whack job to travel with and her first point of excitement was the bidet in the room.  Originally, I told her that you were supposed to wash your clothes in it. At first she took me seriously. Then she looked at me and said, “No sir. Right?” It was then that I explained what it was to her in my own peculiar fashion. “It’s something used by cultures who don’t belive in showering every day. And it’s not for your feet.” She finally ‘got it’ and then you couldn’t get her off the stupid thing. It was like a three-year-old with a new toy and, after a while, you just had to wonder.

I remember vividly that Louise woke me up pretty early on Saturday morning. I can remember the conversation pretty vividly too, and I was still more than half asleep.

L: Hey, are you awake?

D: Sort of.

L: What’s that noise?

D: Sheep.

L: Here?

D: They have sheep in France. Where do you think they got the phrase, “Tete de mouton?”

L: But here?

D: What do you mean, here?

L: At a hotel?

D: This is France. They do things differently here. Hell, they could be staying here. Who knows.

L: Well, I don’t think they should have barnyard animals on hotel grounds. It’s disturbing to wake up to that sound.

Louise was funny that way. Animals were, of course, subhuman and, therefore, not allowed in certain places. Louise’s animal rule no. 1: No barnyard animals on hotel grounds. Unfortunately, the Trianon Palace didn’t see it that way and sent the sheep out to graze directly under our window. We would have Louise’s animal rule no. 2 later in the trip.

Once people talk me awake, there’s no hope of my returning to sleep. As it is, I require very little even at my advanced age. I’ve been like that all my life. The sun was just coming up, so I decided to sit up and read. I remember I had brought this great Rita Mae Brown book with me, “Six of One.” A lot of people think of “Rubyfruit Jungle” when they think of Rita Mae, but “Six of One” was my absolute favorite book by her. But I digress. Adult ADHD.

Anyway, I read and then I ordered breakfast. I’m not much of a breakfast eater, but the continental breakfast at Parisian hotels is right up my alley. Simple. Really strong coffee (Louise called it Mud in a Cup) and hard rolls with butter. Simple. I have to be in the mood for eggs (and the wacky thing about that is that I never seem to be in the mood for eggs in the morning), and cereal is boring. Louise smelled the coffee and decided to wake up and then she ordered breakfast. Then, it was time to shower and head out to see what we could see.

First stop, Versailles itself. All I can say is, “Wow!” I mean, this place was immense and ornate and incredible. You know, I have a limited memory of the inside of this place, but the gardens were just beautiful. It was pretty warm when we took this trip, even though I can’t remember for the life of me what month it took place.  I think it might have been late Spring or early summer because the gardens were in full bloom.  I’m glad we saw the inside first because had we started in the gardens, I may never have made it to see the inside. We walked around the gardens in the sun for what had to be at least an hour just talking. Then, we decided to hit Paris.

We knew other Millipore people would be arriving in the evening, so we decided to skip car rentals for now. We opted for the Metro, and what an adventure. We were two obviously American tourists without a command of the French language on the Paris Metro. Now, mind you that I took seven years of French. Seven. I could understand it when spoken to, but do not ask me to speak it back with any kind of proficiency. Louise, of course, had her phrase book which would prove to be totally ineffective. We were clearly winging it and going for broke, but we finally made it. The first thing Louise wanted to do was the Eiffel Tower. I had been to the tower twice before, but Louise had never been. Can’t do Paris without doing the Eiffel Tower. We went all the way to the top and, man, was it windy. It’s always windy up there, but it was incredibly windy on this day and, while it was warm on the ground, we were freezing up there.

We spent the rest of the day there walking the Champs Elysee, going in and out of stores. That’s not my idea of how to explore a great city like Paris, but some people just can’t stop shopping. In all fairness, shopping was what the Champs Elysee was all about; I’m just not interested in fashion and junk like that. I can do that at home. I wasn’t going to argue on this count because I had plans for after lunch and I was just going to take Louise where I wanted to go without asking her. We at lunch at a restaurant on the Champs Elysee called Hippopotamus. Then, it was my turn.

I paid the tab, hailed a cab and grabbed Louise. “Come on. Let’s go. I have a plan.”

Spending the afternoon in Montmartre

We jumped in a cab and I told the driver to take us to Montmartre. The French cabbies are radical. We somehow got stuck in nasty Saturday traffic in Paris, so the guy just drove over the median strip in the middle of the road and went a different way. He did it right in front of a policeman and the guy didn’t even blink. One thing’s for certain, we got there quickly and didn’t waste any time hanging out in traffic.

If somebody told me I was going to Paris and the only place I could visit was Montmartre, that would be just fine with me. It’s the one part of Paris I might even consider living in. If you go to Paris and do not visit Montmartre, then shame on you. It’s wonderful. It’s loaded with artists and scuptors, galleries, restaurants and shops that have all kinds of offbeat stuff. I’ve always been into places like that — Provincetown and The French Quarter in New Orleans come to mind. They are two of my favorite places. And Quebec City — but the old Quebec City behind the walls — not the other side.

I told Louise the best way to take in Montmartre was to forget the maps they give you at the souvenir shops. Just walk around. You’ll find everything. The first place I took her was to the famous steps. They are on every postcard and poster in the city. In fact, I bought a poster of it myself on my last trip to Paris. I had it framed when I got home and it was at home hanging in my apartment in Melrose. Yeah, I was working in the corporate world and I was doing great, but I really am not a corporate type. I was successful at Millipore at the time I was there because it was a pretty cool company at the time. I did things my way. They didn’t give a damn because I just got it done. I really still wanted to be an artist, and I know that’s why places like Montmartre turn me on. Still do.

Louise was pretty hooked from the get-go as well. We spent hours there just walking around and taking things in. We talked to a few artists and shop keepers. These folks were pretty down-to-earth. They had no problem conversing with you in English if need be, which is very different from the downtown Parisians. I find there’s great disdain for Americans there, and I’m not sure it’s unfounded. We do tend to have that swaggering American attitude even though the European culture has been around a lot longer. I’m told it’s worse now since France refused to help in Iraq. No doubt you remember those nasty bumperstickers “Iraq first. Then France.” Sometimes American humor is decidedly not funny. And France was right, by the way.

We ate dinner in Montmartre. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant for the life of me, but I know I grossed Louise out by eating snails for an appetizer. Hey, I like snails. What can I say? I grew up eating Perriwinkles (anybody but me remember those?). Perhaps the most famous structure in Montmartre is the Sacre Coeur Cathedral. I told Louise we couldn’t leave for the hotel until we saw it. It is just beautiful, as I’m sure you’ll agree. After we toured the inside, we decided it was time to get back since we were taking the Metro. Didn’t want to travel around like fools in the dark. Besides, tomorrow, more people were arriving and we had plans to finish off Paris before heading to Strasbourg and Molsheim.

Unfortunately, you will have to wait for Deuxieme partie. Ha!

On September 15, I was moved from ICU to the step-down unit. I was eating solid foods again and I had been sitting up for several days. Still no walking. While I’m on the subject of the ICU, I cannot say enough about the care that Anna Jaques provides. The nurses are spectacular. They’ve got everything down and there’s no messing around. Besides all that, they are a lot of fun. Because I’m at the hospital a lot with Beth to care for her various chronic illnesses, I never fail to visit the ICU and say hi to everyone there. I felt like they were my family when my family couldn’t be there.That was important to me. I’m not used to being sick and I’m resistant to being an invalid. They were great.

I had one unexpected visit before I left ICU. A doctor I hadn’t seen before walked in and introduced himself as Dr. Tarkan. He looked at my chart and IV and then said, “You’ll probably never have to see me again. My specialty is nephrology and they called me in on the case because your kidneys were close to failing. You were lucky.” I felt like saying, “No shit, Sherlock.” I decided at the last minute that I didn’t know him well enough to joke like that. Besides, he looked a little less loose than some of the other doctors that visited me. I mean, let’s face it. Nephrology? How exciting can it be?

On the road back

It wasn’t much different in the step-down unit. The care there was equally spectacular and Beth and I got friendly with a whole bunch of new nurses. The nurses and aides still came in at the same time at night, woke me up, took my vitals and gave me medicine. I still had the central and arterial lines. But I was going to the bathroom on my own. The best thing was that I was now going to get physical therapy and be allowed to walk again (with a heart monitor, of course). I’ve got to say that I cannot believe how much I lost while I was sick. I was just so weak. It took me forever to do anything, and the first day I was allowed to walk,  making it down the hall and back simply exhausted me. A lot of my meds were now in pill form, and I was on a ton of stuff. I was also getting shots in my stomach every day, but I cannot remember what it was for. My inhaler had been switched to Atrovent. (Later, my primary care doctor would add a long-acting inhaler as well, Flovent.)

During the week I was in the step-down unit, the kids came up for dinner several times. The food was great. The menu was like a restaurant menu.  One of the nurses we’d gotten friendly with came down from ICU on her break and ate dinner with us one night so that she could meet Thalia and Aaron. It was a fun time. Beth was great. She would get the kids to school and come up to the hospital for a visit. Thalia had a key and would let herself in, then get Aaron off the bus. Beth would go home and feed them, then come back with both in tow. My sisters and my niece cooked a bunch of food for Beth so she wouldn’t have to worry about that portion of the program.

I had received permission to use my laptop. The hospital had free wireless Internet, so I got back to my political blogging on Turn-Left. I also began to divide up Beth’s photos into categories so that I could begin her photo blog when I returned home. I had plenty of time to work on this stuff now. Jim, the guy who runs hypocrisy.com (which Turn-Left is a part of) called to say that he didn’t want returning to political blogging to be a detriment to my health. I told him it was adversely affecting my health to keep my mouth shut, so it was better to go back to blogging. By the middle of the week, I was working on the stairs with the physical therapist, and with the assistance of a cane. At the end of the week, I lost the heart monitor.

Dr. Pourati had come to see me before I moved to the step-down unit.  He told me that he would be on vacation the week I moved, and that I’d probably be getting out at the end of the week. He gave me a card with his cell phone number written on it, and told me to call him if I had any questions or if problems came up while he was away. Dr. Pourati also told me that someone would come in and set up the visiting nurse program with me. Before he left, he set up a follow-up echo for me on the 23rd of September, and a follow up appointment with him on September 26. I finally had to break down and choose a primary care doctor. I had scheduled an appointment with her in October. Dr. Pourati wasn’t happy with that timing, so he had taken the liberty of  calling and changing the appointment for me, making it much sooner.

Getting sprung!

On Monday morning, September 22, Dr. Harris came into my room and told me he was surprised to see me still here. My last chest x-ray was clear, and they were ready to send me home. He said he would take care of all the paperwork and I would be able to leave after lunch. Dr. Harris told me to order breakfast, and then went off to take care of the details. I had just ordered breakfast and hung up the phone when this tall skinny doctor with white hair walked into my room. He stuck out his hand, “Miss Della Piana, I’m sure you don’t remember me.” I shook back. “I don’t remember a lot of things,” I replied. He told me that it was probably just as well I didn’t.

He then proceeded to tell me that he had been a doctor for a long time and a handful of patients made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. I was now added to his list. He said it was a miracle that I was walking out of the hospital at all, let alone as quickly as I was. He also said he wanted to come in and wish me the best of luck. I was honestly trying to downplay this miracle crap. I’m not comfortable with that. I think it’s because I don’t want to believe I came that close and I essentially was taken completely by surprise; I couldn’t see it coming. That it could happen again is scary. But I don’t let it rule me. I did change some stuff. Now, as soon as I catch anything, I go to my primary care doctor whether or not I have a temperature or am coughing. All of the doctors got together and decided that would be the best bet since I had none of the outward symptoms of pneumonia. I’ll go along with that one.

We had one last thing left to do before I left, and that was to remove the central line. I’ll tell you what. After going through the removal of that small line, I was certainly glad that I’d been out of it for being put on and removed from the vent. The nurse bandaged the open wound on my neck and then came in and gave me instructions for showering because she was absolutely sure that was the first thing I was going to do when I got home. (She was right, of course. I had been there since September 6.)

I walked out of Anna Jaques at about 3:15 p.m. on Monday, September 22. It was warm and sunny out. We had to stop and get some prescriptions, and I was definitely exhausted when I got home, but I was happy to be out. I showered right off the top, then I hung out with the kids for a while. There were lots of naps thrown in there.

Getting back to normal…whatever that is

The very next day, I went to Pentucket Medical Center for my first follow-up echocardiogram. I had gotten a pep talk from Dr. Pourati before I left the hospital. He told me that he waited to give me the echo until after I left the hospital so that I would not become depressed that my heart had not made much of a gain. He repeated again that it would be a three-month process, but that he did expect to see improvement with this echo. Finally, it was my turn. The very first thing that happened was that I recognized the technician as a Starbucks Walkers Brook customer. She told me that I frequently made her grande extra-hot chai. She worked at Pentucket and also at the Lahey Clinic. That’s why she was in the Reading area.

After we talked for a bit, she started the examination. I was just laying there looking at the screen and, let me tell you, I had no freakin’ idea what I was looking at. After a few minutes, she said to me, “Did you actually have a heart problem?” I was kind of shocked at the question, so I told her what had happened. Then, it was her turn to be shocked, so I asked her why she was shocked. She told me that my heart looked great, perfectly normal, and that my ejection fraction was a perfectly normal 65%. No heart abnormalities. No thickness. Nothing. She said, “You’d never even know you were sick.” It was unusual for a tech to talk to somebody like that, so I had no intention of saying anything to the doctor about our conversation when I finally saw him at the end of the week. I did tell Beth. All she said to me was, “You crazy son of a bitch. Figures.”

I saw Dr. Pourati  on Friday, September 26 and he basically told me the same thing the tecnician did. He then told me that I could return to work without hesitation. When I asked him if I had to start at fewer hours, he said, “No. You can go back to what you were doing before.” The last thing he asked me to do was go downstairs on the way out and have my blood drawn. They had never checked my cholesterol or run a lipid panel while I was in the hospital. He was sure that my heart attack was related to the septicemia and not a result of heart disease, but he wanted to close the loop on the information. I thought that would be a great idea since I hadn’t had routine blood work in about fifteen years. (Hell, I still can’t tell you what my blood type is.) I was concerned that it wasn’t a fasting test, but he wasn’t. I had not yet had lunch. It was after noon, and I had breakfast really early. He thought it would be fine the way it was.

He asked if the visiting nurses had been coming and I assured them they were. I told him they told me not to take my blood pressure and heart pills together because my blood pressure was pretty low when I did. He asked me how I felt when I took them together. Did I get dizzy or disoriented? I didn’t. He told me to go back to taking them together. There was no problem with that. He also told me that he would keep the visiting nurses coming for one more week, then cancel them. I would not need to be monitored any further.

I wanted to get back on the schedule at work as soon as possible, so I called Joy — my boss — as soon as I got in the car. The schedule for the week of September 29 was already done, so she put me on the schedule for the following week. I worked for the first time on Friday, October 10, just a little over a month after the whole disaster took place. That was about two months earlier than anyone had predicted. I also began cardiac rehab, so I managed my schedule around that.

There are a few lasting effects surrounding my near-death experience. Like, oh, if Beth can’t hear me snoring in the middle of the night she shakes me awake to see if I’m still alive. You know, stuff like that. And Aaron finally said that he doesn’t want me to get too tired because when “you got sick before you really freaked me out.” He had never said anything like that until about a week ago. I’ve pretty much put it behind me. It’s not that it doesn’t creep into my mind every once in a while. I’d be a liar if I said it doesn’t. I have to say, however, that I’m handling this much better than I ever believed I could. Now I just have to get past September 6.

A few people have asked me to write this post now. I’ve been avoiding it, but I cannot avoid it forever. It’s still a relatively new event in my life, but I feel like I’ve gotten past it to be quite honest. That’s not to say that there aren’t times of anxiety. There certainly are. However, I choose not to have it rule my life.

The term “one step from the slab” was coined by my niece’s husband Sergei. We used to use the term when we were younger to describe the old people in our family who were having birthdays. I’d ask something like, “Hey, how old is he going to be Sergei?” And Sergei would say, “I don’t know but he’s like one step from the slab.” Of course, now that I’m in my fifties and now that Sergei is about to be fifty, we no longer talk like that. Last year, at almost this time, I was one step from the slab.

Let me tell you something about myself: I am an insurance company’s dream. I’ve been paying health insurance premiums for years and have cost the companies virtually nothing.  Up until last year, I’ve had a total of 11 prescriptions over an entire adult lifetime. In essence, I had no real medical history until last year. Sure. I have allergies. I’ve had them for a long time. Usually Benadryl does the trick, but I cannot use it when I drive. I swear it induces coma. When it really bothers me, I usually get Allegra. It works and it doesn’t make me sleepy. A couple of years ago, my primary care doctor thought my allergies were becoming more respiratory and I began using an inhaler. Other than that, nothing new on the health front. I get a cold a year and it’s usually gone in a few days. I haven’t had the flu for a long time, and I’m pretty resistant to the stuff my kids bring home. It’s just the way it is. So, I went from no medical history to the edge of the earth in what seems to me to be one night.

September 6, 2008

The anniversary is coming up. I was working on Saturday, September 6, 2008. I remember that I felt okay, but I had been using my inhaler (Albuterol) more often than usual in the course of a day. That was about it. I felt like I had a sinus infection or sinus headache the day before. That’s not unusual if I have a bit of a cold. That’s where I usually feel it. However, it had cleared up. I certainly didn’t feel as though there was anything seriously wrong with me while I was at work. I was closing at Starbucks in Reading that night. I was supposed to be out at 9:30 p.m., then I had to turn around and be back at 6:30 a.m. the next morning for an opening. As it turns out, it slowed down during the course of the evening and I had the opportunity to leave early. I was grateful for that because I had a long ride  to Amesbury (about 32 miles one way). I noticed when I got to the car that I was winded.  I didn’t think much of it. I used my inhaler and headed home. The ride home was pretty uneventful.

I knew for the first time that something was wrong when I got home. I had a short walk from the car to the house, and I was having difficulty breathing when I got in the door. I used the inhaler again. By now, I had used the inhaler far more often that the recommended two puffs every four hours. I remember sitting down at the table and turning to Beth. “Is it possible I’m having a panic attack? I’m having a real tough time breathing.” It was after this that all hell broke loose, and my memory is spotty from here through the 9th of September. I will relate what I can remember.

At one point, I felt like the inhaler was working. I decided to go upstairs to the bedroom and watch television with my son, Aaron. We were laying on the bed together when my breathing became a problem again. I remember saying to Aaron, “A, go down and get your other mom. Tell her I can’t breathe.” I could not lay down. I got up. I was gasping for air. I walked out onto the landing and looked over the railing. Beth was there and I remember saying, “Beth dial 911.” Now, anybody  who knows me knows I do not ask anyone to dial 911. Ever. Beth knows it. She called 911 immediately, then she came upstairs. When she got up to our bedroom, I was apparently standing in front of the air conditioner trying to suck in air. I do not remember that. Memories get even spottier here.

I remember hearing the ambulance. I do not remember the EMTs or how they treated me. I remember being carried down the stairs in a chair, and I remember seeing a policeman walk into my house. And, oddly, I remember thinking, “What the fuck is he doing in my house. Cops do not come in unless they are permitted.” That’s it. I do not remember the ride to Anna Jaques Hospital at all. I do not remember the emergency room at all. I only know what Beth has told me.

My oldest sister, Mamie, and her husband apparently arrived in record time from Medford, also more than thirty miles away. My sister Joanne had a shorter trip from Andover. I seriously do not remember the ER. I do not recall speaking to doctors. I do not recall doctors examining me. I don’t recall not being able to breathe, but apparently I asked to be put on a vent. Beth tells me that I threw her out of the ER repeatedly. I don’t doubt this. Beth tells me that she was in the middle of a panic attack and was apparenty vomiting in the other room. I know this vomit thing is a recurring phobia and we’ll get to that, but not tonight. Suffice it to say it doesn’t surprise me that I was tossing her out if she was in the yak mode.

I am also told that the two doctors taking care of me in the ER were promising Beth nothing. They told her they were literally taking it minute-by-minute, then hour-by-hour, and they’d go from there. They said I was very sick. They told her that, if I survived, I would probably be on the vent until at least Friday. So, what exactly did I have? Wouldn’t you like to know! (Just kidding.)

I apparently had pneumonia for a long period of time. However, I ran no fever and I was not coughing up anything. The only symptom I had was the need to use the inhaler more frequently over time. I didn’t make that connection. What really caused the problem was septicemia. I didn’t know much about this before it happened to me. There were two other things that happened as a result of the septicemia. I had a heart attack, and I now had stress cardiomyopathy. It was also determined that I have moderate to severe asthma. I was transferred to the ICU.

Pulling a Lazarus

When I woke up on Tuesday (yes, Tuesday) I had no idea where I was. I looked to the left and saw three pictures up on the wall. One was a picture of Medicine Buddha. On either side of him were pictures of Thalia and Aaron. There were two nurses there taking care of me.  I was no longer on the vent, but I still had an IV running with antibiotics being pumped in. I was not on solid foods and would not be for several days yet. I had a central catheter and an arterial catheter.

It was only then that I learned how close I had come. I didn’t even realize that it was Tuesday. I was being followed by two cardiologists (one was the ‘house’ cardiologist who worked with the actual cardiologist on my case), as well as a nephrologist and an infectious disease specialist. When I woke up, they told me that I had cardiomyopathy and that my ejection fraction was only 15%. However, Dr. Harris and Dr. Pourati believed that would remit over time. I do not remember them telling me that I had a heart attack. I found that out for the first time when I was released and went to the follow up appointment. I am sure they told me and I do not remember. It never came up in conversation between Beth and I, probably because she thought I knew. The prognosis was that I’d recover, but I would be out of work for at least three months. That was Dr. Pourati’s best estimate.

Beth called on Tuesday to ask if she could bring the kids up even though I was on a vent. They really wanted to visit. The nurse told her that she had a surprise, so she should bring the kids. She told Beth to call her from the waiting room and she’d meet them. When she walked in and saw me off the vent, she was ecstatic. We were talking and she pointed two things out to me. On the wall were two containers. One held a black liquid and it was three quarters full, the other a green liquid (there was significantly less here). She pointed to the green and told me that came out of my stomach. It was probably the remains of what I’d eaten that evening on my half. The other, the black liquid, had come from my lungs. Not only did I have pneumonia, but I had also harmed my lungs using the inhaler so much.

After Beth and the kids left, I couldn’t sleep. I had been out for so long there was no way I was sleeping right away. The nurse told me not to worry about that. I remember being up all night. I watched “The Omen.” Then came “Anaconda,” a movie I had never seen but one that was better than I ever thought it would be. After that, I was served a steady diet of WB 56 sitcoms until morning. Luckily, they had pretty good old movies on all day.

The one thing about ICU is that you never really sleep anyway. They were waking me up for medicine, then to check my vitals, and then to do chest x-rays. While I was in ICU, they brought the portable machine into my room. By the end of the week, I was sitting up for Beth’s visits. While I was up there, everything going on around me was very unnerving. I was stuck there, however, so there was no getting away from it. The woman in the very next room passed away. They could not save her. That was really difficult to watch. I caught glimpses of her family breaking down outside in the hall. I imagined what would have happened had I not been so lucky. By the time I moved to the step-down unit, three people had died in ICU.

I apologize for breaking here, but this definitely needs to be told in two parts.

Vacation? Well, let’s just say that vacations are a thing of the past these days. Okay, so there are the yearly visits to the evil mother-in-law, but that stops this year. Our August 24 foray into hell will be cancelled, at the suggestion of Beth’s therapist. Frankly, I’m relieved. The thought of having to deal with the mess left behind after that trip was not pleasing me. We went there about four months ago for several days and almost had to check Beth into the local looney bin to recover. It was tough at home, I’ll tell you. But that’s another post for a different day. Today, it’s all about our RV adventures!

Now, I’ve been camping. (I’ll tell you about the moose incident some day.) RVing is not camping as most people would define camping. The first time we went on an RV trip, it was just me, Beth and Thalia. We got a small Winnebago. The photo here is an accurate representation of the size. It was an easy drive, sort of like driving a U-Haul. It was great for the three of us, and Thalia got the thrill of sleeping in the bedroom above the cab with her own little television set. There’s plenty of storage space, so we managed to bring all of Miss T’s favorite tapes to play. You know, the standard fare of the day: Bear in the Big Blue House (one of my favorites, actually), Rollie Polie Olie (ever watched this one?), and of course –Scooby Doo (I happen to love “Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost). She was, well, a happy camper so to speak.

Aside from the storage space that allows you to bring as much stuff as you want to provide all the comforts of home, there are other things about  RV travel that are cool. Having a fridge and a stove is awesome. You know, I have “roughed it” in Vermont with my friends and had greenheads land in my frying pan. They are disgusting. I love to cook, and I’m always elected to be the cook, but cooking is never fun when you’re fending off a swarm of fucking locusts at the same time. And greenheads do not taste good either. So, on those days when the sky is falling, it’s always great to be able to have an alternative. RV travel is also great in the bad weather. Where would you rather be when it’s pouring, inside a tent worrying about touching the sides and letting the sky in or in an RV where you can pull out toys, games and videos? That’s a no-brainer for the normal. But aside from all that fun stuff, there is one dicey little responsibility that is a bit ugly. (Naturally, it was a responsibility that fell in my column.)

Emptying the shit tank (or gray water) on one of these things isn’t for the squeamish. No sir. You know, you’ve got all these little controls and lights inside the unit and you monitor how much fresh drinking water you have and what the level of gray water is. The idea is to fill up the fresh water before you head out and keep in replenished on the road, and to find places to dump your gray water when the shit tank fills up. (The gray water also includes your shower run-off.) If you’re staying in one place for several days, you simply hook up the shit tank with the hose and leave it open so that it’s like a functioning home toilet. That’s the easy part, except the gases can sometimes smell bad and then you have to create a trap. It’s when you’re on the road and not connected that can sometimes be unpleasant because that means when you get to your destination, you have to hook up and dump what has collected in there. Just be sure the hose is connected properly, that’s all I’m saying. And gloves. Gloves are supremely important. Now, I’m not squeamish about this stuff (vomit is a bit different; it’s a phobia, I admit), but gloves are important. And make sure they fit you properly. If they are loose, it can cause all kinds of problems. Then they are just getting in the way of a problem-free connection. Campgrounds tend to look down on those who dump shit on the ground, folks. And it wouldn’t be an RV trip if you didn’t spring a leak in your hose. No sir. If you don’t have a spare (and you should), they usually sell them at the campground store. Here’s a hint: If you are renting an RV and there’s duct tape wrapped around the hose in several places, do yourself a favor and invest in one.

One of our first trips out in an RV was to Jellystone Park in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. We went there for Thalia because it’s totally geared to kids. It’s a pretty great take. I have fun with my kids, so it was fun for me too, especially since Yogi Bear was one of my favorite cartoon characters growing up! We also took a trip to Acadia National Park in Maine when Thalia must have been just a little more than three.

We spent the first two nights at Bayley’s campground in Scarborough, Maine. We would stay here several more times over the few years we spent RVing. It had lots of stuff for Thalia to do and that’s what was important. We felt it would be unfair to drag a child out on the road and expect them to sit around while we read or watched TV. We had to find a happy medium, so places like Jellystone and Bayley’s were perfect. This trip also harbors a memorable event.

We took Thalia to Pirate Cove mini-golf in Old Orchard Beach. We were making our way around the course and she was actually doing pretty well. At home we often took her to mini-golf on Route 114 (Danvers, I think) where Richardson’s Ice Cream is. She used to run around on the course stealing everybody’s golf balls. She was being remarkably reserved at Pirate’s Cove and we were happy with that. It was a weekday and the place was pretty empty. Beth and I were clowning around at one hole and Thalia kind of drifted off to the previous hole. When we turned around, she was peeing into the cup. All I remember is Beth saying, “Oh, fuck!” Then we started laughing hysterically while running after her. Thalia told us she didn’t want to pee on the grass, so she chose the cup instead.

Movin’ on up and livin’ large

All the while we were renting mini Winnies, we had been looking at Class A vehicles. They were impressive. We decided to rent one after Aaron was born. He was pretty young when we went on these RV trips. He couldn’t have been more than six months old. When you’re carrying stuff for a six-month old, you need more space. That was our logic. So we moved up to an Infinity the first time out. This was at least at 32-footer, and the cost to rent it for a two-week period varied between $1,800 to $2,000. (The cost isn’t for the squeamish either.) That’s a pretty good indication of how my business was going at the time because I was self-employed by then, happily running New Wave Marketing & Public Relations. We used to rent from a place up on Route 1 North, although I can’t remember the name of it. It was an independent operation and the owner’s name was Steve. The people who worked there were great. Then, he sold to Moturis and things went to shit. The prices went through the roof (as if a couple of thousand plus insurance wasn’t enough).

Class A’s are massive compared to something like a mini Winnie. Everything about driving them is different, but I was up for it (Beth didn’t want anything to do with these). I love to drive and I’m fearless in most instances, so it was fun for me. When you plan a trip with one of these, you do so differently. You have to worry about the height of overpasses, and you really want to stick to a 32-footer because some states forbid anything bigger on certain roads. (And yes, a bigger vehicle means…a bigger shit tank, folks.) Best of all, however, are the comforts. Let me tell you, in one of these you won’t care if it’s raining greenheads or if it’s a hundred degrees outside. The one we rented had two side-outs in the living room and master bedroom, make it huge inside. There were sofas and chairs, wall-to-wall carpeting, a big screen television above the driving area and a multi-speaker stereo system. We had central heat and central air. In short, it was like driving around in a house.

Maine was a popular destination during this time. That’s because Beth and I love the ocean. We’ve only lived in a land-locked town once, and that was Winchester. Other than that, we’ve been near water: Gloucester, Beverly, and Amesbury. Amesbury may not be near the ocean, but the Pow Wow River runs through the center of town and the back road ride to our next-door neighbor, Newburyport (which is right on the ocean), is a beautiful one along the Merrimack River.

We took a second trip to Maine in a 32-footer. This time the destination was the Bar Harbor area. On the way up, we made a stop in Camden because, first and foremost, it’s beautiful. It also has Planet Toys, one of my favorite toy stores. We used to stop and get Thalia and Aaron one present each for them to use in the RV. You know, nothing extravagant. We also stayed in a great campground called Hadley’s Point. (For some reason, I could not access its web site so I couldn’t put in a link. I’ll keep trying!). On the same trip we also stayed at Megunticook RV Resort in Rockport because we had told Thalia about Andre the Seal (he actually died in 1986) and wanted her to see his memorial statue.

More than just the sole proprietor of Grim Reaper Airways

Yes, on another trip Beth proved her versatility with vehicles of size. Thank Buddha that it’s just simulated with an airplane. It was not simulated with a 32-foot RV. No siree. Motorcycles. Fine. Honda Civics. Fine. Toyota Camrys. Fine. Things get a bit dicey after that. And let me give you immediate proof. We are sitting here at the kitchen table. I am writing while Beth is using flight simulator. I heard the alarm go off and then a crashing noise. Beth then announced that she landed too hard next to the runway in Lugano, Italy. Apparently, this was a good thing since Beth had messed up and was trying to land on an outgoing runway. She would have been creamed by a huge jet. Between the sound and our laughter, Aaron figured out what was going on. “What happened? Did ma just crash land again?” Just another day of sheer hair-raising adventure with Grim Reaper.

But Grim Reaper Airways isn’t her only claim to travel fame.  Her RV adventure was on a trip to Saco River Camping Area in New Hampshire. This time we were pretty much staying put once we parked the RV. I found a great car rental deal in the area and rented a mid-sized car for the long weekend so that side trips would be less taxing on the driver (read: Me). For the moment, however, we were done with driving. Aaron had just about had enough of being on the road, so he was in his chair in the wailing mode.

Beth was outside directing me into the spot. Now, I have no problem driving these things so I was just fine. I was ignoring Aaron. For some reason, Beth was distracted by his crying even though she was outside. She wanted to be inside where he was screaming just in case he was dying or something (not very rational, but that’s our Beth). Why she thought it would be better inside was beyond me, but I wasn’t about to argue. At that point, I wanted the RV parked and Aaron picked up. She decided that she was going to pull it in. I went out to direct her. Meanwhile, Aaron was still screaming. So, if she was distracted outside where the screaming was muted, imagine how distracted she must have been inside. (And yes, you may question my judgment in allowing her to back a 32-foot RV into a space. I question it myself.)

It went sour from the beginning. I was directing her one way, and she turned the RV in the opposite direction. Even though I was yelling “Stop!” she managed to hook the bumper onto the water spigot. Then, for some unexplained reason, she put the RV into drive and almost pulled the freakin’ water spigot out of the ground. I remember running up to her door and just banging on it to get her to stop. She did. I managed to disengage the bumper from the water spigot, got in and parked the RV. The good news was that the campground equipment was fine. The bumper, was pulled out from the RV, but it was relatively minor. Luckily, I had put Beth on the driving list and I had purchased additional insurance above my own private policy. Normally a great driver, Beth would never drive an RV again. She wanted no part of that.

It didn’t matter, though. Our RVing days were coming to a close. The economy was getting tighter, and my business was sliding a bit. Our very comfortable world was about to come crashing down on us. But I’m not ready to talk about that one yet.