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| Beth Israel: almost a hospital. |
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| Hatzaloh: the Jewish cavalry. |
I just got home. As usual, I was at Chayie's house for Shabbos. This time, the Lench family was there, too. That's seven people. Also in attendance were Babby, Avi, Shanna and Chana, Mendy, Rivky, and Blimi and Dovid for Lunch. Oh yeah...Dave was there, too. Feige and Ester walked over after lunch. As you can imagine, the place was on wheels. It was noisy, messy and occasionally stinky. In other words, it was great. Everybody (with the possible exception of poor Chana, who didn't feel well) had a good time. When a Lakewoodian contingent such as the Lenches comes for the weekend, they take over the basement, my usual stomping ground. Since the Bienenstocks next door were away, I stayed in their basement instead. In the past, however, I have usually become upwardly mobile under these circimstances: I have either kicked Rivky out of her room on the second floor or gone all the way up to the attic.
THE ATTIC! Omigosh! It all came storming back to me. The last time (I think ) the Lenches and I were at the Fisch House for Shabbos together was exactly one year ago. The last Saturday in January in 2010 fell on the 30th, and this year it's on the 29th...close enough. Well, a year ago today is when my journey began. That was the Shabbos when I was so short of breath, I landed in Beth Israel that Saturday night (see "The Calm Before the Storm", post of August 1st). I was walking up and down the stairs all weekend and becoming sicker as the day went on. I had brought my baby lovebird, Pumpkin, with me because I was still hand feeding him, and Blimi and Dovid's lovebird Blueberry (the one I called Sunshine) was there too, for reasons that escape me. Saturday night we let the birds out and they were merrily flying around. One of them landed on top of the drapes and wouldn't come down, so I climbed up to get him. When I sat back down on the couch with the bird perched happily on my finger, I kissed him. Right on the beak. Babby was appalled. So was Chayie. So were the Lench kids, who all said "uchhhhhh" in unison. I was just being my usual contrary, head-in-the-sand self. So what if I couldn't breathe? Is that any reason not to show some affection to a teensy little birdy who never did nothing to no one? Well, is it?? I know that Chayie thought that I should call Hatzolah, but she didn't say anything and I didn't want to. It wasn't till much later, after I had gone home to my dirty, mousey, roach-y apartment that I finally gave in and called. The guys took one look at me and then at my SATs and had me strapped to the gurney; I was too weak to argue, and to tell the truth, I knew it was the right thing to do. Maybe I was just scared. Maybe I somehow knew unconsciously that this would be the beginning of a truly hellish experience, and I wanted to put it off as long as possible. But the bottom line is, I apparently wasn't stubborn enough or self destructive enough to stay home that night. I guess when the chips (and the SATs) are down, the will to live really does kick in. En route in the ambulance, I told the guys that I since my pulmonologist was associated there, I wanted to go to Beth Israel on Kings Highway. After they finished looking at me like I had two heads, that's exactly where they took me. Verrrry reluctantly. It probably would have made sense for me to listen to two volunteers with absolutely no axe to grind, whose only reason for being in a speeding ambulance at 2:00 in the morning when they could just as well have been home with their respective families, was to save my life. Maybe I wasn't thinking clearly or maybe I was just being me. In retrospect, I wasn't doing myself a favor by being me. I should have tried being someone else for a change. Anyway, as usual, I've gotten way off the main point I wanted to make, which was that it's hard to believe a whole year has gone by since that fateful night. Obviously, much has changed. The main thing I've learned is never to take anything for granted: at 59, I figured I was good for another 30 years. At 60, I wonder if I'll get hit by a bus tomorrow.
It hasn't stopped snowing, it seems, since the Bush Administration. There are no more fire hydrants. There are no more curbs. There are no more trees. Everything is covered in gargantuan mountains of black and gray and white New York snow. There is civil unrest brewing; you can feel it. People are beginning to snarl at each other. Paths between the aforementioned mountains are narrow and erratic. Sometimes you have to yield your right-of-way. Sometimes you don't want to. Rumor has it that there's a movement afoot to assassinate all the local meteorologists, including Sam Champion, for goodness sake. Craig Allen I could maybe understand, but Sam Champion? By the way, do you think Sam Champion is his real name? And if so, shouldn't he have gotten himself a mask and a cape and some tights and gone on to a career as a superhero? Most folks understand that the weather guys are not actually in charge of the weather, but there is always the fringe element that's perfectly happy to shoot the messenger. The reason I bring all this up is to illustrate that it's become exceedingly rare to have a civil conversation with a stranger anywhere in Brooklyn. People are just fed up with all the snow and many have become downright ornery. So when I met Harvey the other day, he was a pleasant surprise. I had asked two of my landlord's sons to try and dig my car out for me. I hate to admit it, but I have become totally physically incapable of such arduous tasks. But I said that I'd only allow them to do it if they'd accept money from me. They adamantly refused. I now interrupt this post for a word about my landlord and family: I really lucked out this time. He's a really nice guy, his wife sends me warm potato kugel almost every Friday and his kids (seven boys and one girl, some married) are great. So the two boys, ages about seventeen and ten, are cleaning off my car when Harvey shows up. He's parked right across the street, and his car is even worse than mine; it's pretty much just one big mound of snow. Now the kids are splitting their time between my car and Harvey's. I really didn't mind; I had nowhere important to go. I just wanted the option to drive if there was an emergency, like if I suddenly needed to go to the movies. So now there was nothing left for me to do but crawl back into my apartment, which didn't feel right, or shmooze with Harvey. So I shmoozed with Harvey. Or, more accurately, he shmoozed with me. When I approached him, I noticed that there was something physically wrong with him, but I couldn't quite figure out what. He was just standing there in a slightly awkward, unnatural position. He told me he was sixty-six (obviously way older than I) and how very happy he was to meet me and how very happy he was to still be around. Ooookay. What have I gotten myself into, I thought. Then he launched into his story. Harvey had been in a horrific car accident some years ago and had almost died. That's when I let the conversation turn into a "can you top this?" Oh yeah, I thought, you think you've got problems? I proceeded to pull out my trusty "in-a-coma-and-almost-dead-at-Columbia Presbyterian" picture from my wallet, where I keep it handy for just such an occasion. Didn't even slow him down. He was about to give me all the gory details about the accident when I played my trump card: I showed him my trach scar. No good. He had the unmitigated gall to show me his. Uh-oh, I thought; I might actually have met my "please feel sorry for me" match. So I finally just shut up and let Harvey talk. The firemen had cut him out of the car with the "jaws of life", he said. The cops had mistakenly told his wife that he was dead, he said. And, just for good measure, he told me that as a result of the accident, he could no longer lift his arms, so his hands, although not paralyzed, were pretty much useless (I'm still trying to figure out how he drove his car). There was no doubt about it: Harvey was in worse shape than I. What a chutzpah! But seriously, I did learn a valuable lesson from our conversation: telling someone about your problems gets old really quickly. About halfway through Harvey's tale of woe, in spite of the fact that I was really, really trying to be a good person and listen, I started zoning out. When the subject was not my traumatic experience, I simply lost interest and lost it fast. So that left me with two heavy questions to ponder: 1. What does that say about me?, and 2. Am I guilty of the same offense, boring people to tears with my own problems? I'm still working on figuring out the answer to the first one. The second one is kind of rhetorical.
I woke up this morning not expecting more than a small, mushy accumulation. Riiight. Ah nechtiger tug**! We got another foot of the white stuff. And this being New York, it soon becomes the black stuff. There is actually a condition known as "Seasonal Affective Disorder", or S.A.D., which is a very convenient acronym. Basically, it's just a fancy name for the winter blues. Folks miss the sun's warmth and brightness. This time of year, the earth's orbit around the sun is in its apogee. Impressed? You should be. If you don't know what it means, look it up. If you're reading this blog, you obviously have a lot of time on your hands. Anyway, I think I'm getting S.A.D., too. it's just very disheartening when you start the day bright-eyed and bushy tailed, with a list of things you want to accomplish, and then you go outside and your car looks like Mt. Washington. That's bad enough if you're a regular 60 year old. It's worse if you're a pulmonarily challenged 60 year old (it was either "pulmonarily" or "respiratorily", which I think sounds worse, and considering that I made them both up, I figured I should go with the one that sounds better). I got short of breath just kicking down the snow that was blocking my outside door. So I'm starting to get depressed. My apartment is small and therefore precludes me from entertaining myself with many of my favorite pastimes, like bowling. So I'm limited to writing this gibberish, going to Amazon and wasting money, watching Judge Judy or, my old standby of course, going through Shas ba'al peh***. So in order to maintain some semblance of sanity, at around 4:00 I put on my Timberlands and ventured out. First I went to the bodega around the corner and bought the Post and the News, then I walked to Sunflower Cafe on Kings Highway. That's one short block and two long ones. If I walk slowly, I can actually breathe. I guess I shouldn't complain; remember when I thought I'd never be able to do everyday, mundane things like walk to the corner? Seeing as how I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, I had a French Onion soup and a lox-and-cheese panini sandwich and a Diet Coke. They call it a mozarella-and-salmon panini sandwich, which I guess sounds classier. Whatever you call it, it was delicious. The place was pretty much empty, so I just relaxed and read the paper while I ate, almost losing my appetite every time I passed a picture of the rectal orifice who currently occupies the White House. On my way home, I got a call telling me that a 30-something year old female cousin just got engaged. That's like 80 in gentile years. So tell me: they waited 30-some-odd years...couldn't they have waited till New York no longer looked like Anchorage? So guess what? The vort is tonight. Chayie's picking me up yet again and we're gonna go. I suppose I'll have to wait till tomorrow to stick my head in the oven.
