Thanksgiving Book Report

Last night I finished reading Dave Eggers's What is the What, a wise, beautiful, heartbreaking, and funny book, a novel that is really the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the lost boys of the Sudan who eventually made it to the United States. I was awed not just by the story but the telling of it. Somehow the two men, Deng and Eggers, collaborated to create something that is true but also truly a novel, with an elegant structure and shape.

So my advice to you today is not just to read it, but to buy the book if you can, since all the proceeds go to help the Sudanese people.

At the end of the preface to the book, Deng wishes his readers "a blessed day." I will let those words convey my wish as well, for all of us.

More Exciting Details

Jo(e) claims she is dying to hear about my visit to the periodontist, but I have a feeling she is pulling my leg. Besides, it's all about pain, and I don't want to revisit it. The only good part is when, after the hygienist has finished torturing me, the periodontist himself comes in to kibbitz with me. The periodontist has an exuberant and outgoing personality. He is one of the great characters in my life, and the force of his personality is undoubtedly why I keep coming back for more torture. He is about my age, and has a great enthusiasm for jazz, food, travel (which, when he happens to be the one cleaning my teeth, he regales me with stories about, stopping occasionally to ask me a question--have you ever seen Abbey Lincoln live?--which I can't answer, since there are instruments in my mouth). He makes up nicknames for me, which happen to be the same nicknames my high school friends used to use. He is warm, and I like that. On Tuesday, he came in to survey the, uh, oral situation after the hygienist was done. He saw some scary areas, but then he said, "Your strong point is that you keep coming back to the office for treatment. If you hadn't been coming in all these years, we would have lost four or five teeth by now."

Which I strongly doubt. But undoubtedly it's better for me to come in than not, so I'll take the pat on the back and keep coming back.

Today, I saw yet another doctor, the hand surgeon who treated my injured left pinky two years ago. I showed him my latest volleyball injury, the two fingers on my right hand that got hit a couple of months ago and slammed backward, and that are still stiff and painful. He said they looked like they were getting better by themselves, and that they would be okay. I said, "That's what I thought, but I wanted to hear you say so."

He also explained why, when you go back out to play or whatever and the injury has not fully healed, you are likely to injure it again. Something about how your brain can't get the message to your hand fast enough to get out of the way. I'm not sure I understood why, though. I had this experience when I saw him the last time, too--he was giving me scientific chitchat and I just couldn't take it in. But I understood, both times, that it was his way of being reassuring.

I also made another exciting stop on the way home, to get my glasses adjusted, but I really will spare you that story. It did have some poignant moments, though.

Tomorrow I am going away for a few days, to another state (a warm state!), to visit my close friend from high school and her family. I am excited to see my friend, because it's been a long time, and I am also excited to be on vacation, starting . . . . now!

Just Tell Me to Go to Bed, Wouldja?

I'm feeling like keeping up my (so-far) three-day record of posting every day and making it four. Problem is, not all that much to report. You probably don't want to hear about my visit to the periodontist, where I almost swooned with pain, and how, brave soul that I am, I took the subway home afterwards.

I thought not.

Okay, I'm going to go to bed. It's way before midnight--hurray for me!

In Which I Turn on the Oven

Folks, as we speak, there is a butternut squash (yes, the same one from the farmer's market on Saturday) baking in the oven, carefully halved and placed with the insides facing down, as per the instructions in my basic Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

As I was sawing into said squash, undoubtedly using the wrong knife, I thought, how is it that I am going to be, well, pretty old, on my next birthday, and I have not, in all these years, cooked a butternut squash? Then I thought, well, never mind, better now than never. Cooking butternut squash is making me feel connected to my mother, who liked to cook and eat those kinds of vegetables, and to the fact that we are in a specific season, and that season is autumn. And scooping out the seeds connected me to some long-ago memory of carving a pumpkin. I must have done that with my mother, although I don't really remember.

Although I haven't officially joined the blog-every-day-in-November crowd, I am inspired by them, I think, and feel like blogging more frequently would be a good thing. So we'll see.

Since it is November, with Thanksgiving just a bit more than a week away, here is what I am grateful for today:

*health--mine and my family's

*the fact that I can still talk to my brother, tell him what is going on with me, and he understands and responds

*the ability to earn my living

*good friends

*crisp fall days and the ability to enjoy them

*nice, supportive colleagues in both of the places where I work

*the eighteenth century

*whatever it was that I was thinking to myself that had me laughing as I was coming off the subway this morning

Full Circle

I have two siblings, both of whom are substantially older than me: My sister is 11 years older, and my brother 16 years older. My brother was pretty much out of the house by the time I was born, and my sister by the time I was six or seven. I have always felt close to both of them, but I don't have many memories of us all together when I was young. When I was around thirteen both of them moved away from New York. My sister moved back about ten years later, so we have had a lot of time together as adults (okay, in case anyone does not know how old I am, that would be about 27 years ago that she moved back), but my brother was living on the West Coast until around three years ago. He came back here--well, we brought him back here--because he had had a stroke and could not live independently afterwards and there was no one to take care of him where he was living. I have written about my brother a lot here, starting with my very first post, which you can jump to from the link on my sidebar.

Today I spent the afternoon with my brother, as I do about once a month. We did exactly what we did on the afternoon I described in my first post--went to Blockbuster to pick out movies for him to watch on the little TV in his room at the nursing home where he lives. The nursing home is very near where both my sister and my eighty-five-year-old father live (my mother died nearly 20 years ago), and about a half-hour by subway from where I live.

My brother is paralyzed on his right side and cannot walk, so I push him the few blocks to the video store in his wheelchair. He also cannot talk, but he is cognizant of his surroundings and understands whatever is said to him, and communicates with gestures and a few sounds. With those few sounds and also with his facial expressions, he still manages to have attitude, to be a wise guy. He likes a good joke, a funny story, a good meal, a beer.

At Blockbuster, we go up and down the aisles. He points to movies that look appealing, and I read him the descriptions. He tends to go for action movies, spy movies, and anything with Jennifer Lopez.

Today, after we've picked out some movies, I take him back outside into the cool fall day. I ask him if he wants to go to the movies (another thing we sometimes do) or just walk a little bit. He indicates that he wants to walk. We go as far as the corner. I cross us over to the other side so we can be in the sun, and then he indicates that he doesn't want to go any further, that he wants to go back toward the nursing home, and most likely the diner that is across the street from the nursing home, where we can have some lunch. I am relieved that he doesn't want to go for a long walk, because I am feeling tired and also it is a little cold out.

As we near the end of the first long block in our walk back toward the nursing home, we pass the donut shop where my father goes pretty much every day. I peer in, and sure enough, he is there at his usual table, talking earnestly to a woman. "Let's go in and say hello," I say to my brother. Then I say, "Hmmm, maybe he's with his girlfriend." (My sister and I have been hearing about a woman that he sometimes talks to at the donut shop.) Then, as I look closely, I see that the woman is actually my sister. "No, it's his other girlfriend," I tell my brother, making him roll his eyes.

We go in and join them. My father is delighted. He shows this by making a joke about how they'll let anyone into Dunkin Donuts these days. I continue the joking around, saying to my sister, "Don't think you guys can hide from us."

I go up to the counter to get coffee and two glazed donuts for my brother and me. While I'm waiting, I look back at the little group, the three of them, my brother and father and sister. I'm a little worried that my brother might be uncomfortable or in pain or sulky, but then I see that he looks happy, that he is laughing at something that my father or my sister is saying. He almost seems like himself, the way he used to be. And then I feel at ease, like I can stop worrying for a minute, and I also have this other feeling that I sometimes have when we are all together, that it's such a gift that we're reunited, that I can be with my brother and my sister and we can be with our father. And the fact that this gift comes from the circumstance that my brother has had this terrible, limiting thing happen to him is hard to make sense of, but there it is, one doesn't cancel out the other.

A Peaceful Saturday

Today I walked in the beautiful, big park that I live half a block away from. I thought it might be just chilly enough for the hat and gloves, and it was, but I was also fine with just a couple of layers and then a fleece on top, no jacket. There's something satisfying about picking exactly the right articles of clothing for a three-mile walk.... Also, I guess I am thinking about knowing what to wear in the winter because I joined a hiking club. Just in time for winter, I know--but I feel a great need to be outside on the weekends and also to get away from the city, occasionally. I haven't yet gone on a hike with the group but I am very preoccupied with having the right clothing (!).

The three-mile plus walk that I did today is one I have been doing, on and off, for the 27 years I have lived in my neighborhood, so I know it very well. It's a road that encircles the park, close to the perimeter. It starts off pretty level, then dips as you pass the ball fields on the left (not much going on there in this season), then head around towards the lake, passing the bridle path on the way. It's always fun to see the horses cantering along, their riders so serious and focused. Then you pass the lake, and the people feeding the ducks and the swans, and the road begins to rise. This always feels like a long stretch, but then there's another part of the lake that becomes visible, and it's so lovely, you can see across the shimmering water to the trees on the other side. Today was an absolutely perfect fall day--started out cloudy, and then the sun broke through. Because it had rained hard over the last couple of days, there were puddles forming little rivers alongside the road, filled with floating leaves that reflected the sun. There were still a few trees with lots of colors, and one spot where the red and yellow leaves (maple?)were so thick on the grass and so bright in the sun's light that they seemed to be generating light themselves. Three young men--tourists, it seemed--were taking pictures of the tree and of the leaves and I wandered over and just stood in the leaves, in the sunlight.

As I left the park, I stopped at the farmer's market that is there, just outside one of the main entrances, every Saturday. I was thinking about hot apple cider but I got distracted by produce: broccoli, butternut squash, apples, Jersey tomatoes, baking potatoes. I felt somewhat dazed from my walk and the sun and it seemed hard to get those slippery plastic bags to open (especially with gloves on and only one hand, since I had my keys in my other hand). But I managed to buy and bag my produce (I am hoping the beautiful vegetables will inspire me to cook, a rare occurrence) and then rewarded myself with the longed-for hot apple cider.

I would go on -- but it's late, too late for blogging! It's time for sleeping. More another time.

News of Various Sorts

* The cinnamon sofa is in residence. Yes, I know, it's almost too exciting. The delivery was almost a rerun of the episode of the Couch That Didn't Fit. First, one of the two guys, the one in charge, was the same one who came the other time, the time they had to take the couch away. He seemed to have absolutely no recollection of the whole episode, which seemed odd to me. When I said, "Don't you remember me?" he looked at me somewhat blankly and said, "You look a little familiar." I guess it's like when you see your doctor out of context--he or she has so many patients, and you have just one doctor.

They got the sofa past the tricky first-floor landing, and I was sure it would a breeze after that. Then came the part that was almost a rerun. They got the sofa up to my floor, and then the guy who was in charge looked at the doorway to my apartment and said, dolefully, "It might not fit." I thought he was just being needlessly pessimistic (and somewhat dramatic) but they did have a really hard time getting it through the narrow doorway. I thought, please, not again. I really had not anticipated any problem getting through the doorway because I knew it was high enough, but I guess this sofa is deeper than the ones I've had before, and the width of the door became a problem.

But they did manage, to my immense relief, and now I have a sofa again.

I'll take a picture so you can all see how pretty it is. I have to say I'm still getting used to it--it's kind of like having a new roommate.

* On another topic, I impulsively decided to go to the theater this afternoon, and got myself a ticket for Cymbeline, Shakespeare's rarely performed late romance, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center. I love going to Lincoln Center--my parents took me to things there fairly often when I was a child, so I have that association of an exciting day out with my parents. And I like the feeling of being around all that culture--ballet, symphony, opera--it's reassuring somehow. I had a great time--it was really fun seeing a play by Shakespeare that I had never read, let alone seen. And the play is magical--lots of pagan stuff, ancient Romans and ancient Britons, beautiful costumes, beautiful music, ghosts, and even Jupiter coming down from the heavens on his eagle. As the little write-up in Playbill points out, it has a lot of familiar elements from previous Shakespeare plays: a Lear-like king who fails to see the merits of his daughter, an Iago-like villain who plants suspicion in the mind of a husband, lovers in cross-dressing or other kinds of disguise. And I got to hear the "Fear no more the heat o' the sun" poem that I only knew as a reference in Mrs. Dalloway, read over the seemingly dead body of the heroine by her two brothers, who do not know either that she is a woman (she is disguised as a boy) or that she is their sister (they were kidnapped as children and have grown up living in the forest). That was a haunting moment, one among many.