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Death by Waiting
Thanks to those who have written words of encouragement and kept me in your thoughts and prayers. Yes, even as an atheist I can appreciate prayers – if you care enough to intercede with your god for me, I take it as a sign of affection, and affection never hurts. Besides, I have so many different denominations praying for me that one of them’s bound to take, right? <wry grin>
I also had a bunch of phone calls yesterday wanting to know the news. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any yet. Some people have said this may be a good sign: if there was bad news, the hospital would be in more of a hurry to inform me about it!
All this helps, but basically I’m going through hell. I cope better with unhappy certainties – god knows I’ve had enough practice at that – than I deal with any kind of uncertainty. I’ve slept very poorly for a week (staying at a noisy campground at the beach last weekend didn’t help), and there aren’t enough distractions in the world to keep my mind off this. (Though Ross is certainly providing a full repertoire of teenage moments – I begin to suspect she’s trying to make me glad that she’s going away to boarding school!)
The fear and anxiety I’m experiencing are very normal – even the American Cancer Society says so. I now know that a number of my friends and relatives have already been here and done this. So why didn’t I hear about it before? It seems that people have different reactions: some keep it to themselves; some share, but only with their closest. And I suspect that, when the results come back negative, many feel a bit foolish for having put themselves through so much misery: “What right do I have to complain? I’m one of the lucky ones: turns out I don’t have cancer.” And they put it out of their minds until the next time.
Make no mistake, there will be a next time – after all, I have difficult breasts. And I have heard from and about other women who have gone through this multiple times for various reasons. There’s got to be some way to make this waiting period less horrible for all of us.
update at 10:30 am: Finally got hold of the doctor (“But she called you yesterday!” – oh?) – all is well, nothing to worry about.
Papa Fan: A Satirist for the Modern Papacy
| Thanks to a tip from Ross, I have for some time been following a very funny fotolog by Francesco Rabaglia, aka Papa Fan (papa is Italian for pope, differentiated from papà – dad – by the stress). It’s hard to see the humor unless you understand Italian well: basically the writer is putting funny captions in heavily “Germanized” Italian on photos of Pope Benedict (also known in Italy as Papa Ratzi).
A few days ago he published an original poem, translated here with permission. Keep in mind that this is not quite normal Italian – there are no Ks in Italian, but they are often used in humor and comics to denote a German accent.
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Italian Restaurant: La Quercia di Rosa
On our way down to Abruzzo for my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday, we stopped for lunch near Modena, the home of balsamic vinegar. Quite by accident (although this kind of accident is not unusual in Italy), we found an excellent restaurant, La Quercia di Rosa (the Rose Oak – ?).
They make their own balsamic vinegar, and, as the proprietress said, it’s so good that you can put it on everything or even drink it by itself as a digestivo (after-dinner digestive drink). The thin industrial balsamic vinegar that you can buy at the supermarket is only a very distant relation to this syrupy, sweet-sour nectar.
For starters, we had it sprinkled on aged parmigiano (parmesan cheese). The combination of flavors somehow reminded me of walnuts, though there was not a single nut in sight.
For my first course, I had pockets of lasagna dough baked with a zucchine filling, with a creamy basil sauce. Light, flavorful, and not too filling – perfect for the season.
Enrico had tagliatelle with fresh porcini (wild mushrooms) – also in season now and absolutely yummy.
My second course was zucchine flowers, dipped in a light batter and deep fried. These were very good just as you see them above, and even better with a few drops of the house balsamic.
Enrico had tagliata di manzo (sliced steak) – very good meat, well flavored with rosemary and pepper. Ross had sole cooked with… balsamic vinegar!
As a side dish, Enrico and I shared radicchio di campo (field greens) with a dressing of crispy pancetta (bacon – unusually for Italy, sliced thin) – we put some balsamic on that, too.
We were not surprised to notice a flask of balsamic vinegar on the dessert cart. I asked what it was used for in desserts, and here’s what I had:
Fresh strawberries with gelato di panna (cream-flavored ice cream) and balsamic vinegar. Heaven!
Total cost of the meal for three of us (two primi, three secondi, three desserts, half-bottle of wine, lots of water) was just over 100 euros.
La Quercia di Rosa
via Scartazza 22
localita’ Fossalta
41100 Modena
phone 059 280 730
email querciadirosa@libero.it
closed Tuesdays
more information about real, traditional balsamic vinegar
Italian Garden 2007: July
Unintended Consequences
Here’s what happens when I leave my garden unattended: I get beautiful wild grains like the above – otherwise known as weeds.
A weed I had been assiduously removing (but, obviously, missed one) turns out to have charming puffy purple blossoms.
The insalata riccia (curly lettuce) bolted into meter-high stalks with delicate blossoms. Wasn’t very edible at this point, however, so I took some pictures, tore it all up, and planted onions, herbs, and more lettuce in that space.
The wild fig that I never even planted, in the lower wall, came out with a promising crop of fruit.
And the vegetables just kept on producing – I picked our first tomatoes this morning.
