After all the medical adjustments of last month, I am pleased to announce I am much improved. Norma took a picture:
It is not, unfortunately, a "before" picture but an "after" one. However, the results are encouraging. I am much healthier than I was ten years ago. I remember having to go to the hospital for heart catheterization, which is a diagnostic procedure involving big needles and my femoral artery. A pleasant little Portuguese lady entered the room ahead of that to shave off my pubic hair --until hospital security burst in and ran her off. To this day, nobody knows who she was. I am Portuguese too and am perhaps less troubled by such things.
Nor am I troubled by Norma's enigmatic encouragement over the past decade: "I plan to fix you up a bit more before I sell you." I consider this on a level of affection consistent with my grandmother's gentle voice from childhood, "
Eu te amo. Não fique piolhos (I love you. Don't get lice)."
I may have a crazy cross-eyed Houdini head now but am much improved. Or perhaps this is the "before" picture. Let's see, Corbis/Bettmann, 1918...Yes, it is. And clearly, there are many incentives for improvement. There is much yet to be done in this electronic age. Someone must invent personal drones to airlift us out of unfortunate locations, sensors to open our front and back gates to let low-flying aircraft through our yards and, of course, edible batteries to keep pollution from our landfills. So many reasons to stay healthy, and I intend to do just that.
Geo., I am becoming convinced that you are 95% genius and 10% comedian. Approximately :)
ReplyDeleteKind Jenny, this is the sort of comment I call a keeper. I believe you got the ratio backward but decidedly in my favor. Thanks.
DeleteI love that your pleasant little Portugese lady was not only taking her fun where she found it, but making it too. Security personnel are such spoil sports.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am very, very pleased to hear that you are healthy, and intend to stake a permanent claim on the status.
Obrigado, minha querida.
DeleteGeo, I am absolutely delighted to hear that you are "much improved" and the photo is certainly tangible proof. I have no doubt that your unfailing sense of humor had a lot to do with aiding your improvement. And perhaps a beer or two.
ReplyDeleteIs there a moral to this story?
Beware of little Portuguese ladies bearing razors.
Or is it "baring"?
Thanks Jon. I guess the moral is if somebody's down there with a razor and you're doped to gills, it's best not to alarm them.
DeleteSo glad you are doing better, Geo. I have been through some medical issues myself and I have been assured that with the help of the pharma industry, I could live be be 112. 100 is good enough for me, so I give you those extra 12.
ReplyDeleteTake care, good friend, and be a good patient.
That's a wonderful offer, Arleen, and a kind one. I accept half, so we may both look forward to being 106 and sharing a good cackle in the chimney corner.
DeleteI see from Norma's picture of you that you have gained a couple of hands. Perhaps you will now be able to play the piano.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately those hands are attached only to each other and twice as many glasses than I now need. However I may seek a second medical opinion.
DeleteIsn't there a saying, "Many hands make light work"? So life should start getting a little easier for you, a richly deserved consequence of all your efforts. May I join with all those other friends of yours who comment here, and express my happiness that health matters are improving. Long may it continue.
ReplyDeleteA local stonemason friend once said that I would live until I was 106. If that pans out successfully, I'll let you and Arleen know how it feels ahead of time.
Thank you Tom. Working as they do with the mineral foundations of the planet, I feel intuitively that stonemasons are reliable predictors of age.
DeleteTwo hands and a slightly unfocused gaze....have you been into the elderberry wine again? I'm so glad you are 'improved'. It's important in this day and age to constantly renew yourself. Come to think of it, I'm well overdo for a renewal. Must get at it.
ReplyDeleteII too must get at it. So far I've got Spackle, caulking, plumbing parts and roofing items on my list, and that's just for me. I'll get to the house later.
DeleteFirst: it is good to hear that you feel better, and I send many - convinced - wishes that it will remain so! !
ReplyDeleteAs to the Little Portuguese Lady: if Security took her away in hand-cuffs, maybe she used her Houdini-trick. (Never knew that Houdini was such a good-lloking guy). She seems to have smuggled her razor-less hands under yours in the first photo.
Yes, Brigitta, I am fit again. And yes, Houdini was quite handsome as well as clever. As to the photo, I don't know how Norma reassembled me to have a head broader than Houdini's --some photo application she was playing with, I guess.
DeleteI believe the image in Norma's fine photo is the result of you being 'ineffaceable'; that is you cannot be given a face because you mirror back in physical form that which the human condition must repress, it's own divided, ambivalent, inorganic status.
ReplyDeleteAnd alas, you are correct it is an 'after' photo, the result of the medical communities attachment to making the solution fit not the condition treated, but the schadenfreude of it's own making.
If I'm incorrect in this highfalutin' analysis, you can make a ton of money on the vaudeville circuit.
Odd that you mention the cath lab, I'm going back for a return engagement in a couple weeks, they just can't get enough of my humor.
And, after once spending two weeks in Campinas, a large city north of Sao Paulo consulting for big pharma, the only word in Portuguese I know is 'abrigado'.......
Mike, the operation those cath-lab diagnostics led up to occurred precisely 9 years ago. However, when I was reassembled, it was obvious the job was not done by my original builder. Took forever to get used to modified innards. My skeleton tried to climb out and run away --another job for hospital security.
DeleteIn this, International Happiness Day, I'm VERY happy to hear your health has improved. Keep it up, dude!
ReplyDeleteDudes are happy today, Susan, but we try to be very cool about it.
DeleteGood to know you are feeling better. Maybe it is due in part to those extra hands.
ReplyDeleteI'm still trying to figure out that one.
I hope Norma has got over using that photo application. I prefer my parts to be less puzzling.
DeleteHi Geo - glad your sense of humour is still with us - and that Norma is determined that you should be around a while longer, as you obviously feel able to face a few more decades ... Spring is coming and you'll be fine - cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteThis 1st day of spring was quite encouraging!
DeleteI don't care what kind of Portuguese sonnet-citing beauty she may have been, I would have been the one chasing her away when she whipped open a straight edge! Another funny post!
ReplyDeleteThanks Sage. Any resemblance to Elizabeth Browning was purely coincidental.
Delete