Saturday, May 7, 2011

The Movies


I celebrated Alec’s return this morning by going to the market to stock the kitchen, dropping C.C. at a birthday party, leaving Milo with Alec, and going to the movies.  Alone.  I was really in the mood for an entertaining but not too heavy Hollywood flick.  I have actually been called (I won’t name names) a “movie slut” because of my willingness to see almost anything.  Once the lights go down, I have what I consider a great talent for being sucked right into the story.  As long as it’s not my story, I’m good.

I also really wanted to see a movie in English—I took the kids to see Rio in Spanish after school yesterday, and that was about as much as I could handle.  Given my time constraints and what was available, I ended up seeing the polar opposite of the Hollywood studio film.  I saw Inside Job.  Not exactly light entertainment, but worth seeing.  Even though I had already read or heard most of what the film reveals, it is a powerful thing to have it all brought together, in living color, in under two hours’ time.  I left feeling sad for all of the people who have lost so much, bewildered by those whose sense of entitlement and blamelessness allows them to continue much as they did before, and scratching my head about how to move past outrage to action, instead of the resignation that seems so prevalent.

And then I picked C.C. up from the party, cooked up some bravas, roasted broccoli and chicken burgers for dinner, and soaked in the tub while Alec managed bedtime.

Friday, May 6, 2011

You Say Arthritis, and I Say Arthrosis


A couple of weeks ago, as I was drying off after a shower, I heard a funny noise.  Not a very loud noise, and it seemed to be coming from somewhere below my ears.  So I bent down.  As I got lower, so did the noise.  It sounded like what I imagine it would sound like to scrunch up saran wrap underneath a down comforter—kind of crinkly and muffled at the same time.  It was coming from my right knee.  I bent and straightened, bent and straightened, and there it was, again and again.  Surely it could not be a good thing to have such a sound coming out of one’s body.

Since this very right knee had been “talking to me” for a couple of months(see Sister Age Meets the Pencil Test entry) and since we would be leaving Barcelona in less than two months, I decided it was time to take action.  It seemed best not to ignore it like I did the left one and find myself unable to climb stairs while traveling in some remote part of Croatia in July.

Alec has just finished a few months of rehabbing his hamstring.  First of all, when I made him kneel on the floor and listen to my knee, he didn’t think it was any big deal.  But having watched me wince and struggle stubbornly a year ago, he encouraged me to see his orthopedist, Dr Mora.  Mora nodded when I told him my whole history, as if he knew the story well.  He pinched and squeezed and stretched me, and then wrote a prescription for physical therapy.

Enter Iñaki.  Alec thinks the world of Iñaki, the guy who he worked with at the PT center that is a two minute walk from our apartment.  Iñaki—I have no idea if this is his first or last name—is an extremely energentic, athletic young man from Pamplona who was a world class skier until he succumbed to a career-ending injury.  Now he rehabilitates common folk like me.  Iñaki believes I suffer from arthrosis rather than arthritis.  What’s the difference? Arthritis is an inflammation of the joints, whereas arthrosis (also known as osteoarthritis) is a non-inflammatory condition of the joint in which the cartilage of the joint breaks down.  Whereas arthritis is caused by any number of things including including injury, infection, metabolic disorders, an overactive immune system, and weight issues, arthrosis is the result of injury, aging, and long-term wear and tear of cartilage in the joints. It causes pain and stiffness.  I can vouch for that.

At any hour, the PT place buzzes with activity, every table littered with the wounded bodies of young athletes, brittle-boned grandmothers, and middle-aged women like me whose joints are wearing out.  All are tended to be cheery, white clad handlers.

I’ve been to see Iñaki four times this week—he believes in a quick, intensive start—and I must admit that, unlike my US experience, so far it has been more pleasure than pain.  I do a series of leg extensions on a machine to strengthen the muscles around the knees, and then spend nearly an hour getting electrical stimulation (which is neither particularly painful nor particularly pleasurable) and then a fantastic, deep leg and lower back massage.  It’s so good I told my friend Isabel today that she should consider developing a minor joint problem.  But I have a feeling the fun won’t last.  It’s only a matter of time before they’re strapping those horrible ankle weights on and putting me to work.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Going it Alone


It’s late, and I am raising my mug of tea in solidarity to all of the parents out there whose partners travel for work, who don’t have partners and who don’t have outside help. Alec left for a conference in Montreal on Monday and, while the kids and I have been having a great week (we are all recovered from whatever it is that grabbed hold of us), it’s all I can do to keep everyone pointed in the right direction, much less tend to my blog.

In our household, when one parent is gone, the other tends to play to his or her strengths and make like the kids are getting a good deal, doing things that the other parent would never do.  In my case that means reading stories at the table, eating chocolate chip pancakes for dinner, and going straight from school to the movies.

On Tuesday, C.C. got to wear her nightgown with dragons on it to play Ming Lo’s wife in her class production of “Ming Lo Moves the Mountain.”  The “wife” does not have a name, but she did have a lot of lines.  Thrilled that she could essentially wear her pajamas to school, C.C. informed me on our way into school that morning that she planned to shout her lines.  I had my misgivings, but she did the right thing.  They performed the play in the cafeteria, and with the hum of refrigerators and other equipment, her shouting ended up being pitch perfect.

This has also been “green week” at BFIS, and the kindergarten classes have been tending the school garden all year.  Milo joined his colleagues after school today to sell the harvest of lettuce, escarole, herbs and lima beans.  My evening tea is a bunch of mint leaves on which I’ve poured boiling water and added some honey.  Delicious.

And our third noteworthy event of the week is that we’ve had a houseguest, September, who is Milo’s class pet. September is a very sweet stuffed monkey.  He travels in a backpack, along with his notebook and crayons, and the children take turns taking him home and hosting him for a couple of days.  September came home with us yesterday.  Each child is supposed to teach September some manners and then draw a picture of himself with the new and improved September in the notebook, along with an explanation of what the monkey learned.  Other children have taught September how to use a fork, how to water the plants, and how to say, “thank you.” 

Milo decided to teach September not to burp and fart at the table.  In the picture Milo drew, he and September are sitting at the table, smiling.  A big green cloud emanates from September’s butt, and a speech bubble says “imscuse” which, Milo says, reads as “Excuse me.”  This morning, after only one night, Milo announced that he would be bringing September back to school a day early because he had learned his lesson and would no longer be burping and farting at meals.  But I convinced him that it might be nice to take care of September for one more day, and so the two of them are soundly snoozing.

Photos of the Day




Monday, May 2, 2011

Afflicted


Some local friends invited us to a barbecue in Sitges on Saturday.  It was a bit brisk for the beach, but perfect for sitting outside with a glass of wine and sausages cooking on the grill.  I had continued to experience lingering symptoms of whatever it was that knocked me flat at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.  For the whole next week I would wake up feeling fine and then, at some point during the afternoon, I would be completely out of gas.  My joints hurt when I walked, I was nauseous, and my head hurt when I moved it too quickly.  I napped nearly every day.

But Saturday I felt better.  I got up, made a tortilla, and off we went. Shortly after we arrived, it became clear that all was not well with C.C.  She curled her long limbs into a ball on my lap and slept most of the afternoon.  When she woke up, she felt a little warm and her cheeks were bright red.  Not surprisingly, she threw up on the way home.

By the time we made it back to our apartment, Alec and I both felt lousy also.  It was all we could do to get the kids to bed and then lie on the couch.  Wisely, Rich left to seek some Saturday night fun of his own.

Then I checked my email.  A note from the school nurse at the kids’ school informed us that a virus called Fifth’s Disease has been going around.  The symptoms?  In children, something called “slapped cheek syndrome,” or very red cheeks; a low fever; tiredness.  In adults, nausea, headache, body ache, exhaustion.  It all sounded a lot like what we had.  Fortunately, Fifth’s Disease is not serious and has no lasting effects (unless you are pregnant).  But if it is what I’ve got, let me go on record as saying I’ve had enough.

We all felt much better on Saturday, but C.C. and elected to take it easy while Alec, Richard, and Milo went to Tibidabo.  The girls read Nancy Drew, had tea and toast, and watched movies.  For better or worse, I had left the tortilla I had made on our kitchen counter on Saturday—it never made it to Sitges, so we got to feast on it on Sunday night, along with canned peas and the last of the carrots.  Somebody needs to get to the market.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Cal Pep


I first ate at Cal Pep nearly four years ago, when Alec and I came to Barcelona for the first time.  We had left the kids in Galicia with Myron and Raquel and had escaped for a few days of grown up time.  In Portugal the week before, I had read Bill Buford’s Heat—a terrific book—and learned about Cal Pep.  I had to go.

Having heard that it would be crowded, we showed up a bit before opening time to queue up along with everyone else—the restaurant was not exactly unknown.  Cal Pep consists of a long counter behind which most of the fried and grilled food is prepared, so you can watch the cooks at work.  There is also a large dining room, but you need to make a reservation for that, and the counter is really where the action is anyway.  We put ourselves entirely in the hands of the counterman and had a fabulous meal, the details of which I no longer recall.  I remember that it was really good, and that we had lots of little plates of delicious things, some good wine, and tiny glasses of some kind of special digestif just before we left.

We had gotten a sitter for Friday night, and decided to go back to Cal Pep—for the first time since the first time—with Alec’s brother, Rich.  I worried that I had built it up in my memory over time to such a high level that it could not possibly live up to what I recalled.  Remembering the lines, we arrived shortly after the restaurant opened and, indeed, had to wait in the narrow space behind the counter stools for about a half hour for seats to open up.  I worried a little more when I heard so many people in the restaurant speaking English, their guidebooks peeking into bags and pockets.  Had Cal Pep begun to trade on its reputation, experiencing the decline in quality that so often results?

I had no reason to worry—the food was as good as ever.  The staff at Cal Pep is all male, mostly young, with Pep himself, hovering over all of the activity.  Dressed in a regular shirt and slacks, he no longer works the counter or the kitchen, but he is clearly in charge.  At one point, I asked the waiter if he had some lemon to squeeze over the fried artichokes.  He wagged his finger at me and said,

 “No.”  Which seemed to me a bold-faced lie, as the seafood cases included mounds of lemons. 

The waiter returned a couple of minutes later and explained, “We don’t recommend that you use lemon on the artichokes.” 

“Okay,” I said.  “You’re the boss.”

“No, no,” he corrected me, gesturing toward Pep.  “He’s the boss.”

We ate razor clams and pimientos de padron,  lovely little clams presented on a shallow pate of chorizo-flecked broth (you use the clam shell to scoop up the broth and then slurp the whole thing into your mouth), tender tortilla española, and monkfish with tomatoes and sautéed potatoes.

The food at Cal Pep is as good as I remembered.  But I think another reason why I remembered our first meal so fondly is that it’s the kind of place where you feel as though the staff is truly happy to have you there.  Which is not an easy feat to pull off, given the constant stream of people who turn up every day, many of whom will never be back.

We ended the meal with a terrific crema catalana—rich and smooth, with a perfect crackle of a crust.  Add it to your long list of places to eat if you find yourself in Barcelona.

Photo of the Day