Life Savor!

We went to a marvelous home-grown burlesque show last night and cheered ten courageous women. By day they’re ordinary folks: maybe a paralegal or a CEO. But for this night their alter egos went onstage with terrific costumes and great moves. They really worked it, and it was a hootin hollerin blast. Were they scared? Of course! but you’d never have known it by their acts. If a prop fell over, the dancer just retrieved it and went right on. Ditto a bra that wouldn’t unhook properly. You’d have thought they were pros, with just the right touch of twinkle and whimsey. Just such delightful fun.

I wore a long white satin nightgown that I cheerfully believed made me look like a 30s movie queen, or at least Jean Harlow’s elegant aunt. Oh, and white velvet bedroom slippers and a huge mabe pearl pendant. I was a vision, one way or another. I was a little nervous, but when we arrived at the venue and saw all the corsets and fishnet stockings in the support audience, I realized I needn’t have dithered about wearing it. Still, I got a little buzz of naughtiness knowing that under my white gown I was NUDE. Yes! Nothing on under my clothes. Then I realized, Hey, everybody’s nude under their clothes. BFD. Even so, I was awfully glad to have lost those eighteen-and-counting pounds.

Two other dear-friend couples went with us. I tried to talk my female buddies into taking the next how-to-burlesque class, but I think I was unsuccessful. One grinned and said, “You’re just trying to have a vicarious experience.” Bingo! I haven’t the knees or the nerve for it, but really really really wish I did. My stage persona would be named something like Solange LeRouge, and I’d have a fabulous back story. Oh, I do live such a rich fantasy life!

(signed) Solange

To finish the tale of my Near Death Experience (pretty dramatic even for me), there’s the part where I went crazy. This is not a euphemism … I literally experienced what they call Hospital Psychosis. I guess it was my first full day in the ER. I grabbed Robert’s arm and whispered, “You’ve got to get me out of here. They’re trying to kill me!”

Him: Sweetheart, you’re very sick. You’re on oxygen, you’ve got tubes everywhere, and they’re taking care of you while you recover.

Me: If you won’t take me home right now, you’re in on it! YOU’RE PART OF THE PLOT! (This to the tenderest man in the world, my lifelove for 30 years.)

Earlier I had been looking at what was in reality a blank wall, watched it become transparent and reveal the villains as they walked back and forth in the hallway, gathering the stuff to finish me off. And there I was, helpless, with lines going in and out of my body, knowing they had me trussed like a turkey while they readied the coup de grace. How diabolical!

When my wonderful sis-in-law Nora left to fly home for the funeral of her best friend, I’m told I grabbed her arm, and with the mask of a crazy person I hissed, “Are you the enemy?”

“No, honey, I’m Nora. I’m part of Team Roz, and we’re all working to get you well.”

Did I believe her? I doubt it, but then, I wasn’t there most of the time. The Me I’ve always known was gone. I was completely delusional.

I have since been told that this is not an uncommon occurrence. One source says:

Since the hallucinations appear to be based in reality, the patient may not even realize the television is not a fire-breathing dragon or the wallpaper is not alive. Conversations may be perfectly lucid but also perfectly wrong.

Fortunately, no dragons appeared, and in a day or so I was back to what passes for normal around here.

Thus endeth, finally, the saga of my Near Death Experience. From now on it’s full speed ahead with LIFE.

Hoping you are the same!

I did indeed get my new right knee, and all went well with the surgery. I got home on the third day, was boogieing around on the walker, felt terrific as I fell asleep that night. BUT apparently I threw up in my sleep, breathed in some of it, and got “aspiration pneumonia.” Bottom line: I very nearly died. Truly. Several doctors told me that. Blood pressure cratered, organs couldn’t get blood, liver started to crash — but after the firefighters slammed me into the ER and the great Presbyterian Hospital got my innards back to life, I was home a week later! One of the docs said, “You have no idea how far you’ve come.” Meaning, of course, how far down I’d been.

Outcome:  I made it through just fine. Am walking pretty darn well now. Also, I lost that sixteen pounds I’d been annoyed with since right after the earth cooled. People have complimented me on my (comparative) slimness and asked me what diet I used to get such excellent results. When they learn it was a Near Death Experience, the South Beach Diet approach starts looking good.

… As I read this, I realize that once again I’m using smart-assery to minimize a Very Big Deal. I almost died. Wow. I was healthy at bedtime and could not be roused eight hours later. And I could feel I was dying. I said so as soon as I was awake, but of course everybody soothed me and assured me I wasn’t. But I was, and I could feel it. And now I’m completely back. Wow.

OK, I’ve gotten that out of my system now. And as you might guess, an old life-lover like me is over-the-moon joyous every single day. LIFE! WHAT A CONCEPT!

I hope you’re celebrating yours on this Fourth of July weekend. We are all so dumbfoundingly lucky.

Next time I’ll tell you about how I got “hospital psychosis” and went bat-shit crazy. But for now I’m picking Buddy Bear up from the doggie daycare center and starting the weekend celebration. Robert will be home in six hours to join whatever festivities we whomp up.

Cheers!

My new right knee will be installed on April 21. Waiting for it is like the ninth month of pregnancy … time moves slowly but inexorably. Robert’s gloriously wonderful sister Nora will come to nurse me for a couple of weeks, thereby freeing RoBear to go make us a living, which he’s excelling at lately.

I, of course, will indeed be the Queen, milking the gig for all it’s worth. After the first couple of weeks, though, I’m inviting clients to come to the house for sessions, since I’m not allowed to leave it for a month. That should be fun, stumping down the hall on my walker with a bike basket aboard. I’m only inviting long-term clients with whom I already have a tight relationship.

I’m a bit defensive about our neighborhood of modest tract houses, though we’ve gussied up ours pretty thoroughly. I have a momentary pang to think of a wealthy client pulling up and thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding!” Then he’ll step into our living room, spot the far dining room wall, bright red with a huge vase of flowers against a five-foot round mirror, with a spotlight on it. Then he’ll notice the painting over the sofa, six feet tall, of Krishna besporting himself with the cowherd maidens, with lotuses and elephants and peacocks here and there. But it’ll be too late … his session is about to begin, and it’ll be a doozy, considering the therapist will have a modest amount of painkillers aboard, and our Unconsciouses will open doors of enlightenment and fun.

At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Wish me luck. Send me love.

Roz

Tags: home, home decor, humour blog, knee replacement, pride, style

I have no excuse for playing hooky these several (gasp, six!) months. I do have kind of a half-assed explanation, though. In brief, it’s simply that from time to time I get, as we’d be likely to say in west Texas, all wrote out. Nothing else to add. Nothin’ shakin’.

No new uninvited animal guests. Only Buddy Bear the Yorkie-Poo, totally invited. I’m looking at him right now, curled up in his little bed, looking way more innocent that he has a right to. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and he’s been visiting Aunt Mary for the past five days, so we welcomed him back home today. When he starts his yappy squirrel alerts tomorrow, we’ll probably let Aunt Mary keep him again. Soon. She adores him, says he’s a Little Gentleman. She’s not in robust health and is on the bed some, and he’s always right there to keep her company. Truth to tell, he’s a sack hound, but since I am too, I presume it’s genetic.

Thanksgiving was terrific. So was Christmas. So was the record ice-and-snow we had a few weeks ago. Dallas gets somewhat hysterical about icy streets, but this year there was good reason. (Funny, we had a similar one last winter. There really is some weird climate change going on.) We even got some national TV  coverage, as it occurred the week of the Super Bowl. Actually, Robert and Buddy and I just snugged in and watched it snow, happy that our respective offices were closed. All snowed in … a nice mini-vacation.

But WAIT! Good grief, I forgot to tell you about our VOWS RENEWAL! I had a lovely new long wedding dress, Robert wore beachish ivory silk pants and lovely shirt, I was barefoot but with foot jewelry. There were about 20 guests; we were in the home of some dear friends. We even had a wedding cake and commendable quantities of champagne in actual champagne glasses which Robert managed to score. He got such a good deal on them that he bought 50 glasses, which means some good times must be coming.

Before they do, though, I have to have my right leg dismantled in a few weeks and reassembled with a bionic knee. Yuck. I had the left one done five years ago, and it’s no fun. Good drugs, though.

More later. Honest. At least, eventually.

Roz

Tags: dallas tx, Family, humor, love