More Zumba in the club
Thursday, February 17, 2011
This is a slap in the face of self-esteem, an act of self-flagellation, but it was fun, so here’s more Zumba:
Zumba in the club
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
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Zumba in the club
~ sent from my phone ~
(915 KB)
Watch on posterous
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Watch on posterous
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Watch on posterous
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My take on the big snow day (after seeing everybody else's)
Sunday, January 30, 2011
My family's medical history would make a great horror movie
Friday, December 31, 2010
My little sister had meningitis at age 3 and spent 40 days in a coma. That explains a lot, or so the family story goes.
At that same age, but years and years earlier, I had had polio and although you can’t really tell by looking at me, I have every spine curvature known to man. Then, in my early 20s, I had not 1, not 2, not 3, but 6 spontaneous pneumothoraxes, a couple of them perfectly timed with the holiday season, so I could spend Christmas in the hospital (with my mother staying in an adjacent room, for her own reasons, keep reading).
On the subject of my mother … well, she has had health issues all her life, mostly with both her legs, courtesy of a doctor who, back in the days, was very well renowned and a complete crook. After spending as much as a year in a body cast on several occasions, undergoing tons of operations and in constant pain, my mother developed a life-threatening infection and had to have her left leg amputated. Just to give you a graphic idea, when we were flying from Brasilia to Montevideo for her amputation I had to hold her leg on take off cause it was coming off … not joking. No bone left to hold it together. And I’ll spare you the details of the bit by bit amputation, going higher and higher on her leg. I'll also spare you the details of me cleaning the hole on her leg from where you could see the bone. I am lucky, or maybe just trained by circumstances, but I can take a good amount of gore without flinching. I actually find it interesting.On top of the reality of my mother's health problems, with time she has also assumed a professional sick individual persona. Sickness is what she does, who she is. And I will never get used to that.
As for my father, who was mostly healthy all his life, except for your run-of-the-mill ulcer (though he got to spend so much time in hospitals with my mother that he got discounted meals at the doctor’s cafeteria and was called “Doctor” by the staff), as he got older he seemed extremely dedicated to finding a way out (I am absolutely convinced there was a part of him that had just lived enough and dreaded the future that was coming at him): in two years he went from perfect health to heart problems, then he tried lung cancer and not happy with that he got pancreatic cancer. Mercifully, he died from a heart attack way before that sucker could get nasty.
On my in-laws side: my ex-husband had a heart attack and got quintuple bypass coronary surgery at age 35, 5 years after we married. One bypass per year of marriage, or so he put it. Since then he has got stents and another bypass surgery he barely made it out of. Oh, and the anesthesia did not work that time, so if you want a blow by blow of a thoracic surgery from the patient's perspective, he’s the guy to talk to.
My mother in law was okay until she developed a bad case of Chron’s disease. To top it off she is at this very moment in the hospital, recovering from a triple bypass and a new valve. To make the most out of the occasion she had a stroke while under. She's right handed so, obviously, is her right side that's paralyzed.
My sister in law spent most of her life with kidney infections that made it necessary for her to receive a kidney transplant. She also has heart problems. Now she has developed a tumor on her one and only transplanted kidney and needs surgery. That’s why I am at JFK now, waiting to my flight to Madrid
Oh, and one of my nieces has quite an extreme celiac disease … and it goes on and on … we do have other health issues besides those mentioned and I am not expanding this medical history to friends and extended family.
Well, this post started in my mind as an explanation of why I am going to Madrid again, but then I thought it would be more fun to unload the whole picture.
Also, I was going to end it with a “I am fine, thanks!” but then my back spasmed and I fainted and I busted my face, you know, yada yada yada … happy New Year!
Xmas getup
Sunday, December 26, 2010
I cropped, I removed wrinkles, I brightened teeth, I airbrushed turkey necks, I corrected colors, I did it all and what I got was straight out creepy. So here are the originals, in all their lack of glory.
My makeshift fascinator
The holidays, my way
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
This year nothing is the way is supposed to be, so on Christmas Eve I decided to follow the long established Jewish tradition and have an early Chinese dinner with friends (non-Jewish and non-Chinese, like myself), followed by a movie.
On Christmas Day I´ll have lunch with another set of friends with a non-traditional menu of potato pie followed by another movie.
As for NYE, I will celebrate it on the 30th with a party at Julien's, and yet another set of friends. On the actual 31st I will be flying to Madrid and, hopefully, toasting on the plane.
I now need to come up with something incongruous for the Reyes Magos day, on January 6th.
In the meantime I keep busy eating, reflecting about how I should really be starting a meditation practice, shuffling from one laptop to the next thinking how I need to turn them all off, regain a resemblance of an attention span and read the gazillion books and articles that I want to read, taking truly long and non ecofriendly baths, playing with polymer clay, pondering all the things I could be doing if I wasn't doing whatever I happen to be doing, etc. I also make plans for things I will never do and I shake my tremulous derrière in zumba classes. It´s a good life so far.
Me? Judgmental? Nah!
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Today I was walking behind a woman, tearing her to pieces in my head. Thought she had to be French, who else would wear tight corduroy dark green jeans and a short jacket over a less than stellar ass? Her wispy hair was a giveaway too. No make-up and a tight, abrasive walk. Then I stopped and realized I was the middle aged broad with the fried orange/yellow mess that passes as hair and one of those outfits my ex used to call my Viet Namese costumes. Time to shut up. But yes, she was French.
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Building character
Friday, September 10, 2010
Day Three: exhausted
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Remember I chose Miami because of the beach? Have yet to set a foot in it. But I’ve been to the pool. Does that count? It is certainly a very entertaining/irritating place. Today we were blessed by the appearance of a woman in a one strapped silver swimsuit with a beret-like sequined silver swim cap. Normally I would recoil in horror at such a sight but the wearer was a tiny woman with very bad posture and two kids in tow which was a pleasant diversion from the fake boobs, deep tan, long yellow hair and pink toenail polish that seem to be the norm poolside. In another unusual development, she was yelling at the kids, not into a cell phone. A true original.
Managed another longish leisurely swim, finally did some reading and met Jonny and Jorge for a movie (“Machete” – a magnificent source of one liners) and dinner at the Big Pink. Exhausted.
Day Two: even less accomplished
Went to the pool, it started raining. Everybody ran away like it was raining acid, even the ones that were in the pool and, by definition, already wet. I waited it out and then had the pool to myself for a long, leisurely swim before it was time to come back to bed for a siesta followed by a full night sleep.
Day One: nothing accomplished
Tried to get out of bed by 7.30 before remembering my clearly stated goals for the week. Went back to sleep. Slept until 2.30 PM.
Gingerly walked to Whole Foods less than 10 blocks away. Bought good stuff. Felt completely idiotic at being one of those people who were reading labels and buying raw food dessert. We take ourselves way too seriously. It’s just food, for chrissake.
Lunch by 5 PM.
Attempt to check out the pool by 8 PM. Attempt coincides exactly with the start of a major storm.
Came back to the apartment through what appeared to be a convention of gang members and pimps in the hall.
Keeping the apartment at the deep freeze temperature my body loves.
Congruity's never been my thing
It all started months ago when I checked the holydays for the year and realized there were two this week. I immediately put in a vacation request. My idea was to go to Spain for a couple of weeks, to see my family or, as I like to tease them, my ex-family, in Madrid, and then go to see M.A. at the beach. But then M.A. was not going to be at the beach, and I did not feel like spending two weeks in Madrid, desperate as I am for some beach and, preferably, warm waters. So I changed plans and decided to go to Miami, by myself. This does not make any sense. I hate Miami. I like the beach all right and I like that it is an easy commute from NYC but other than that, and not to be judgmental about it, I think it’s a wannabe place populated by just about the worst of South America and visited by the worst of Europe.
So I chose it because it’s so near, and cheap (remember these operative words, you will need them to make fun of me). Then a friend mentioned the train and got me thinking. I absolutely hate the flying experience nowadays. Fifteen years ago I did not fly because I feared it. But then I took a course and got over it. For a while I even enjoyed turbulences. Those days are long gone but the flight itself is not why I hate flying now. What I really hate is being treated like cattle, I hate the hours waiting in line, the whole security hoopla which, unfortunately, does nothing to make me feel safer, I hate being squished in tiny seats, being ignored, mistreated and dehumanized. I guess I hate everything about air travel now. On the other hand, I love trains. I love that you have space, I love that you have a view, I love that the staff is generally smiley and nice, I love that passengers are not as uptight and stressed as on planes, I love that train stations are right smack in the middle of cities. So then I proceeded to buy a one way ride on the train, thinking that I would decide what to do for my way back after. Then Pamen warned me that I might not be able to flight back if I did not use the leg from NY to Miami, so I called JetBlue and Orbitz and cancelled the whole non-refundable trip.
Bear in mind that I chose Miami because it was close and now I am riding a train for 27 hours. I chose Miami because it was cheap and now I am not using non refundable tickets and paying for the train ride which, by the way, is much more expensive.
Then again, I am in the mood for a vacation and the flight/airport part does not contribute to it. I don’t mind the 27 hours, I am in no hurry. I will arrive the same day, at the same time I would have if I had flown; only I will be leaving one day earlier.
So here I am now, on the Silver Meteor, on my way to Florida. We left NY Penn Station at 3.15 PM (actually it was more like 3.20) and we will be arriving to Miami at 7 PM, if there are no delays, which I am sort of expecting, after having researched the subject on line a bit. I will be doing some work (plenty of space), then I will have a proper dinner (I have a reservation for 7.30 PM, which was the latest available), then I'll come to my seat and watch a movie on my laptop.
So far it’s been interesting, most people seem to have done this before, I feel like the only rookie here. I am very excited about dinner at a proper table, as opposed to the ridiculous trays on plane. Oh, I have just been offered a pillow. Nice. And the bar car is just a few feet away. This is a very civilized way of travelling.
Back from my dinner with my former seat mate and a couple staying in one of the rooms. She is Asian, works for NASA and travels all over the world; he's older and basically smiles.
I am now in the café/bar car, people playing cards and drinking beer and me trying to connect to the web trough my cell. I have to work a bit after all and then I have to watch a movie. This is a must.
A minor complaint regarding the dinner car and the bar car: they have no restroom! Are you supposed to drink and not pee? Or maybe I you should leave/schlep all your stuff to get to the restroom at the end of your car.
Relocating
I am considering moving to an Amtrak train. Tons of positively huge people, both tall and wide. I am feeling like a cross between a tiny delicate flower and an elite athlete.
The characters
Before dinner, while we were in D.C. having the engine changed this woman was on the phone with her live-in boyfriend, who had spent two years in jails, who did not care about her child, who would not pay his part of the rent and the bills and she has to text him because he does not answer the phone, even though they live together. People in the car were snickering, rolling their eyes, telling her to shut up. I don't think she ever noticed though.
Then there’s the elderly black gentleman that looks like a minister, in a suit with a big hat. He’s a piece of work and on his way to the bar he has announced to everybody “I am going to relapse”. Great line, I can’t wait to use it.
Dinner companions: a couple travelling to Savannah. She’s Asian, works for NASA, has been all over the world and back. He was in the Navy back in the 60s in Naples, Italy. She talks, he smiles. They are staying in a roomette. She finds everything so cheap.
There’s a huge restaurant owner from Rochester, NY that knows everybody, talks to everybody and has recently had back surgery.
I am spending most of my alert time chatting with a Cuban lady, retired from a lifetime of union work. She’s a riot.
Then there are the announcements: after a particular long announcement we are asked to clap for the announcer, Jackie, the lady in charge of the bar. We do.
We are also told it’s a little boy’s birthday, seems he has distributed cupcakes and gotten money in return. A guy noted that if he did a second pass he would probably have enough money for college.
A crack-whore looking old woman, bright yellow hair, no teeth that I can discern, entertains an old men with a fascinating talk about nail polish. They guy just takes it, in silence and with a bewildered look on his face.
The huge, and I mean humongous, guy with suspenders and a gut so big he has to step off the train backwards, with help, so as to not topple over.
People are very friendly, lots of elderly people (it’s cheaper for them), lots of huge people (I don’t think they could fit in a plane seat), people with babies, kids, a woman on a wheelchair, in general people that would have a hard time on a plane, a few Southern belles and tons of African American.
James Taylor and Carole King at the Madison Square Garden
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Great concert but a bit of a geriatric suburban crowd.
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Absolutely no street cred
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
I have always liked bikes. As a teenager in Paris, when everybody else wanted a Vespa, I rode a bicycle. As an adult I rode my bike in Geneva and Montevideo, though probably not as often as I could have. So now, after 11 years in NY and several friend who assure me it's perfectly possible to bike in the city and not get killed, I decided to give it a try. I wanted something cheap, basically, something that I will not regret having stolen from me. I also wanted gears as I thought it would be difficult to only ride downhill. So I checked the bikes at Costco and I checked bikes on line and then yesterday I walked over to K-Mart, the epicenter of coolness, and got me an old-lady bike. And now, and only now, I am reading all about fixies. Gears are tragically out, brakes are for wussies. They sell them at Urban Outfitters, for chrissake! Shouldn't somebody have alerted me to this??? How will I ever summon the courage to walk into a bike shop to have my poor excuse for a bike repaired? It was daunting enough when I thought all I had to face was serious-riders-in-lycra attitude, and now this. Please, if you know of any repair shop that will not smirk at a middle-aged big-assed tragic figure with a K-Mart bike, let me know. Sooner or later I will need one.
