Here we go a'Compassing

Took the phone off hook last nite and worked on the Compass for a couple hours.

My wonderful trusty boyfriend carried my new laptop upstairs so I could work on it in bed, with a little soft music on the rad.

You know, when I used to suffer from manic-depression, I couldn't appreciate music when I'd get depressed. Anhedonia. (Loss of pleasure.) However, with sciatic pain, one is in a constant state of anhedonia.

Pleasure is returning however.

My eyes are delighted by the fall colors.

My ears are delighted by music on the classical station.

My palate is delighted by the taste of breakfast - scrambled eggs, toasted Anadama bread, and sliced green apple.

I require huge hugs from Scott. The power of touch.

Haven't seen Grace Catherine in over a week. O my heart!

Okay, it's upstairs now for me, gotta go a'Compassing.

Ethiopian man finishes first, wife roots for him back home / Poem: Sciatica

By the time I came limping home with my new Acer laptop, the race was finished! The female winner was also an African, a woman from Kenya, who'd taken a five-year-break from running.

Only problem with my new laptop is I don't have Internet access. Scott and I can't figger out how to set it up. Dan will be over next week. He and his family went to a Farmer's Market in Elkins Park - I think the Weinsteins go there, right Stephen? - and they bought lots of meat - pork, beef and lamb.

Did you know that when man began eating meat hundreds of thousands of years ago their brains soared in size. Don't forget, animal-hunting was also a cooperative endeavor with plenty of planning involved.

Similar to the Marathon. It finished up in Central Park.

A very long time ago, then-boyfriend Paul and I went to a free concert in Central Park...Leonard Bernstein performed Rite of Spring. I think. Don't quote me. I haven't eaten meat since Saturday when I forgot I wasn't sposed to eat meat and after buying the Acer, Scott and I stopped into Slack's Hoagies and I ordered a mealball hoagie.

It was delicious. I finished all but two bites so Scott fed it to the backyard fox.



Although my leg is still killing me - no. 7 on the 10 scale - I decided I was up for making a bread. This is called an Anadama and is from my old Joy of Cooking.

This kidney-healthy bread is made with white flour, cornmeal, an egg, and honey. It's rising in the oven now with a wet towel across the top.

Two loaves of Anadama Bread

Nothing like bread and butter. Because of the egg I added, the bread has a soft cakelike texture. Delicious!

While abed with sciatica I watched loads of cooking shows. I particularly like Mary Ann Esposito and will order her autographed book online. Lydia is also good but a bit too pompous and bossy for me. Lead them gently, Lydia.

Hmm, wonder whatever happened to Lydia Lewis former head of the DBSA. I did a phone interview with her for the Compass but never published it b/c she'd been fired.

Ya know what she said to me on the phone? "I'm not used to answering personal questions."

Ask me anything? Bra size? I don't wear one. Took it off at age 19.



I love this photo of my messy kitchen table. Note the Starbucks cup which holds my hot chocolate.



Took this picture of my backyard just for you. Took it from my backporch. Still have a full maple of green leaves.

Wrote this poem several years ago about another attack of sciatica. Remind me to do my exercises later on.

And to read the instructions on how to use this laptop.

SCIATICA

Everything is shut down,
A purple curtain has been drawn
across the place I lie.
Books stacked on the floor
cannot be opened or even
acknowledged as friends.

The ring of the phone goes unanswered
The tump of the mailbox
is merely a sound,
a cqll to which I cannot reply.

For I am lying on the couch,
my new home,
The covers are puylled up to my eyes,
as if peace and softness
can vanquish the misery inside.

One day the leg is mine,
bending, obeying,
the next day it's a freak,
not leg so much as
folded-up ironing board,
hot with pain,
begging to be carried
or laid down to rest,
its sizzling miles of track
crackling at unexpected moments.

Just the two of us,
Pain and I,
lying side by side
under the covers,
an indecent pair,
A tireless lover
who won't leave my side.

I'm following the NYC Marathon, are you?

Perhaps it's b/c I can barely walk, perhaps it's b/c running feels so great on one's legs and feet with the wind flowing toward your face, I shall be watching New York's Marathon via the NY Times tomorrow.

And what, Dear Reader, will you be doing?

Look how organized they. This is the ING-New York Marathon's website.

Some highlights I gleaned for you:

Breakfast will be offered until it runs out:

tea

Poland Spring Brand 100% Natural Spring Water (yes, I'll have that but in a glass bottle if you still make em, I think the formula has something to do with sand)

Gatorade Prime and Endurance Formula - mmmm, I like lemon

bagels - I get mine at Manhattan Bagel, just cream cheese and scallion, please, Ilya

PowerBars - too dry

Dunkin' Donuts - my favorite coffee tho I stopped drinkin it

WAVE STARTS:

To alleviate congestion of releasing 45,000 runners all at once, runners will be released in "waves" of 15,000 each, depending on their recorded times.

Disabled racers will run first.

Start-up times for Racers are:

9:40 a.m. - 10:10 a.m. - and 10:40 a.m.

DISCARDING CLOTHES:

They advise you wear extra layers of "disposable clothing" which you discard at the start of the race into the marked bins. These clothes will be distributed to the needy.

My friend Rich Fleisher ran the marathon for several years with his son Aaron. Rich stills runs daily but he and Ada are visiting Aaron, wife Anissa and their year-old son Alec Reid in DC this weekend to celebrate Alec's first birthday!

When I was first diagnosed with manic-depression back in 1984, I was a runner. After I was put on lithium my anxiety levels soared so I would run to alleviate the anxiety. Now the only time I'm anxious is right now - I've gotta finish this blog by 9 o'clock so I can watch a GREAT MOVIE on Channel 12: Howards' End, a Merchant-Ivory film.

I have no idea what time it is cuz half my clocks are set for Fall Time.

Guess what?

I'VE EMBRACED FACEBOOK!

Never say never.

I've taken a Leadership Role. And, guess what? I don't care if anyone follows me. I've just gotta play my conscience.

Saw this outstanding video on Edison Pena, the Chilean miner who ran in the mines during his forced captivity, attaching extra leg weights onto himself. Go Edison!

His name reminds me of my transplant surgeon's - Stalin Campos. They name you after your heroes.

I also favorited my new computer - the Acer, made in Taiwan. The billionaire who started the company in 1976 Stan Shih, born in 1944, retired in 2004 and does charity work.

Unfortunately the computer wasn't ready until an hour ago and Scott had already left to be with some friends. He went to pick up four pizzas at Grant and the Boulevard, a famous place, can't remember the name, and he'll bring it to his friend Mike's in Abington where he'll meet Paul Bongart, a friend from childhood. Bongart is active on Facebook but I don't spy on anybody othan Grace Catherine Deming, my grandbaby.

Did I tell you I got rid of Comcast cuz the price kept spiraling just like my age. Scott will install an antenna in my attic so I can get reception. When I used to get manic, I thought dead babies were up in the attic. That's pretty gruesome. I never was no nun.

So all those marathoners are psyching themselves up tonight. And you know what? It's snowing in Cleveland.

Called Aunt Selma who said, You're a nice girl, Ruthie.

You, too, Selma, I said. Her daughter Linda is in Buffalo at the engagement party of her son Adam and his girl Molly.

I call Selma every day that Linda is gone.

Can't wait till I can walk again!

View Edison Pena, the Chilean runner here.

And now....I'm outa here. I forgot I'm wearing my watch. I've got 13 minutes to make it to Scott's including my snacks of grapes and hard-boiled egg w/mayo.

Pain abating, I buy a new laptop at Staples

Sad to say I just read one of the best articles ever on Barack Obama, written by the son of the famed Keynesian economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Read what fils has to say. Read it and weep.

You sure you wanna go? asked Scott.

I was sitting on the couch panting in pain.

Gimme my goddamn cane, I said.

Off we went to Staples with me on my belly in the back seat.

Scott opened the car door and I crawled out. Right in front of me entering the doors was a man on permanent crutches.

I stopped off at a display of tiny computers. I had examined them all online in the dark of the nite. Some people do porn online, some people gamble, some do speed dating unbeknowst to their partners, but I tingle my neurotransmitters by viewing laptops and dreaming they're mine.

What kind of a goddamn person am I anyway? A person who loves things more than people?

Earlier I'd called Staples and spoken to Fallon. Asked her some questions. Ah, here she was now...beautiful Fallon, named after a character in Dallas.

She sets me straight rightaway. These are 'notebooks,' she says, ascertaining that I wanna do real work on them. Notebooks, she says, are like cellphones. WTF! EEK! HELP! Smelling salts please! More lithium. Knock me out.

Fallon escorts Scott and me around the corner where a long row of computers are set up for test drives. My favorite is an expensive white Sony, beautiful design. "We just started carrying the Sony," she says. "I personally haven't sold any."

We move to the Acer computer. "People are afraid of them," she says, "b/c they've never heard of them. I like them. They're a good value and are fast and have good memories."

The price is better than the HP and the Toshiba.

I ask if I can use the phone to call my son.

"Dial 9," she says.

He has no idea who's calling him at work.

"Dan," I say. "This is mom. I'm at Staples buying a new computer."

"Mom, I gotta go," he says.

"Okay," I say and hang up. I'll call him later to check and make sure I'm doing the right thing. Indeed he gives me the go-ahead and says maybe he and his family will stop in on Sunday. BOY is he ever busy!



Fallon asks if I want a chair.

I'll stand, I say. My leg has become a separate creature. A wild out of control animal that follows me wherever I go.

Go away, I wanna shout. Get the hell out of here.

It doesn't work like that.

I'll tell you what I'd like to do. I'd like to lower myself into a foaming hot tub and have the jets massage that wild animal and give him some peace.

Instead, I'll drink some fabulous hot chocolate. Did I tell you I'm drinking again? Hold on, lemme go downstairs and boil some water. It'll just take a sec.

Yum! Hits the spot. I know, I know. You're running into the kitchen to fix your own hot chocolate. OR, stop on by. I'll be happy to limp on downstairs, I'm wearing my fave tie-die pants I bought for $5 the last time we were at Ocean City. Am also wearing one of my wonderful warm woolen sweaters I bought at Impact Thrift in Hatboro, the old Santerian's Department Store that my kids HATED. Wonder if there's a Wiki article on that. Remind me to check later.

I got this horrible email earlier today I wanna share with you as the leader of your bipolar/depression support group. It was so awful I BCC'd it to Ada and Margie.

Hello Ms.Deming,
Goodmorning, my name is XXX and I am a PsyD student at Immaculata University. I am also a psychotherapist at Central Montgomery Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center in Norristown. I am presently working on my dissertation and the study is on suicide. I am seeking participants for my interview and soliciting your help.

I was given your name by Tony Salvatore. I am requesting that I place a flyer in your building to recruit individuals. Please let me know if this is a possibility. I can be reached at XXXXX I will be able to give you more information and answer any other questions you might have. Thank you most kindly. Have a good day XXXX

My reply:
XXXX, this is a very serious and sensitive subject.
Placing an anonymous brochure about suicide at our support group is, to me,
an amazingly insensitive thing to do.
Please find someone else to help you

The real reason I bought a new laptop is simple.

We're got a Compass magazine coming out. A real good issue. My old Dell laptop, which I'm on right now, is impossibly slow. In three years it's seemed to have aged 50 years.

Scott will get this computer and I'll get the Acer. Click here and you'll see the new one. See the low low price? It's like buying a new car. All the important parts are optional. From the low low price I wound up paying something like $800. Scott and I brought a 10 percent coupon in.

I knew w/o even looking at it the coupon would be no good. Sure enuf, when Fallon studied it she read the important words. "excluding computer purchases."

Does anybody ever win?

I'm talking to you!

Does anybody ever come out ahead?

Answer me, if you know the answer.

As for me, I'm finishing my hot chocolate, then taking a quick dip in the hot tub and afterward, going to Scott's for some movie-watching in bed. Today we watched Destry Rides Again with Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich, an excellent shoot-em-up. Her English was quite good.

Iris, so glad you liked Wade in the Water Dry. We've both gotta continue to write more poems.

Loneliest Man Alive meet Ruth Deming / Poem: Wade in the Water Dry

O my poor Obama. How hard we all fought in 2008. What hopes we had. Health care for all. Wall Street reform. Saving the economy. A return to the good ole Middle Class. He done good. We're proud of him.


He told the Times, some elections are more fun than others.



I spent a lonesome Tuesday nite in bed with my aching leg. It's sort of like a whole new organism, an offshoot from my body that grew outa there like a tail or a third leg. I hunkered under the covers all nite listening to the jazz station and hugging my leg.

Took all my meals upstairs in bed. Went rhru my Phone Book and called everyone in there including Barbara Postel and husband Carlos Guerrero who live in Point Pleasant PA. Barb has a number of YouTube Channels. Very creative woman. She'll come to my 65th birthday party.

Took all my nerve to call some folks up. Former boyfriend Simon died in February of 2008. I called up his sister Dot and spoke to husband Ron. They have a huge brilliant but distant family. I'd wrin a poem about Ron and Dot and was basing my phone conversation on what I remembered from my poem, the day Simon and I finally went to visit them.

Simon was a first-class procrastinator. I told Ron that the last time I drove by Si's house the plumbing supply company next door had utilized it for their own purposes. Where are all his trees? He loved those trees. And the 'flags' he planted in memory of his mother, Genevieve.

Before I print the poem, here's who else I called: Jim Berry used to be our accountant. He's my age. Mid-60s. His wife Donna suffered four aneurysms. They froze her body or something while they did surgery. Finally she's doing okay. Was in rehab a long while but is now returning home.

How's business, Jimbo? I asked.

It's slow this time of year, he said.

One day I drove down to his Warrington home. He made me a ham sandwich and we ate it on the kitchen table. Ham on rye. Delicious.

Jim, I said, this is the closest we're gonna get to having sex.

WADE IN THE WATER DRY

The fenced-in yard
was black with birches
and pines that
whisked the sky.
Birdfeeders
zoomed up stilts
waiting for the quiver
of arrival.

All this from the kitchen window,
my first visit with Simon’s kin,
postponed as long as I dared.
Then one day we dressed
and went.

His sister Dot
welcomed me,
the woman who saved her brother
from the shudder of divorce.
I moved around the kitchen
with great familiarity,
spotting in the corner
a plastic bowl
stuck with the last bits
of untasted meat.
Oh, laughed Dot, untying her apron,
Old Suze never finished her lunch,
and told me in high-pitched trills
where to find her,
the cat they rescued from a
turnpike rest stop
the year Ron put in
the elms.

I walked across the
living room
the sofa and chairs
curved like motionless dolphins
waiting for something to happen
and parted the gauzy curtains.
There she was,
Miss Suze,
reclining in the sun,
poised as a woman in furs.
She quivered at my arrival.

Back in the den,
the room where they lived,
bowls of pretzels
and salted nuts had been
set out on the coffee table,
my ginger ale
freshened and
replaced on its coaster.

Ron, the planter of trees,
lay sunk in the blue shine
of his recliner,
an architectural wonder
supporting the man
and his white newsboy shorts.
The company he worked for,
going on forty-one years,
had forgotten how to make money.
Ron was calm, telling us how
nothing worked anymore.
The bankers hovered like crows.

Ron was a fisherman,
visiting rocky shores and
sand-filled slopes, walking
alone in cold misty waters
where fingers froze,
cramped shut like claws.
And wore those waders.

I asked Ron what waders were.
Like overalls, he said.
You pull them up past your waist, then
wade through the water dry.

Ah!
I imagined Ron
pulling on his extra-large
waterproof trousers,
soft as deerskin leggings,
carrying him,
and his legs, dry as fishbones,
into the
sweet
dimly lit
waters of
night become morning.

I conducted the meeting from the yoga mat

I put on the front lite and Ada picked me up to drive me to our support group meeting.

She stuffed everything in the trunk while I clumb in the back seat with my aching body. Scott had taken me to vote that morning. My precinct lady Elaine said, You don't seem to have your usual joie de vive Ruth.

Back pain, I mumbled.

I'm down to 3 prednisones a day - 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3

Told my group that years ago I got super-angry on the Pred but now have no side effex possibly meaning my brain has healed from the bipolar. When I get a kidney transplant I'll need the Pred to reduce swelling. Of what? If worse came to worse they'd have to give me a bipolar drug if I got manic.

Please forgive me readers but YUCK YUCK YUCK!Enuf of those meds for one lifetime.

We had a fnatastic group tonite. I lay on my pallette and we went round the circle. Huge group. Lotsa newscomers. These people come from afr. Don't tell them I don't go more than 10 minutes away from home.

No wonder I never have any fun!

At groups' end I shared. I told them it's really hard staying home and thinking about my whole life. Nearly 65 years gone by, all used up. I'll never have little kids again. Ill never see Sarah and Dan as small children. We'll never tramp thru the woods again at Village Green Apartments or go to Masons Mill Park to watch Dan twirling fast on the merry-go-round.

Ben said Get over it!

Validate me, Ben, I yelled!

Seiji Ozawa conductor of one of the big philharmonics had terible sciatica and was operated on. Finally made a comeback. When I read that a couple weeks ago I was fine.

After the meeting I asked Ada to drive me to the Giant and buy me some hot chocolate. Made it after I got home. My leg was killing! Made popcorn too. Brought it all up in bed where I stuffed it in my mouth while reading the election returns.

I have no idea who the new R governor of our state is? Never heard of him. Rendell was good. Big spender but good. Kept jobs here apparently.

Very important editorial in ysterday's Times about the inexorable rise of Big Business - Rich getting richer - poor getting poorer. Top emailed article. American salaries peaked in 1973! Conspiracy of the rich and backed by both parties. Loss of the middle class.

So I lay awake basically all nite long listening to WRTI, Temple University Radio, the jazz station after dark. Fantastic music! Around 4 a.m. they played Never Stop by the Bad Plus.

Wanted my daughter and Ethan to throw me a 65th b'day party but they'll be in Wisconsin visiting Ethan's developmentally disabled brother Spencer.

My friend Nancy Pollack said she'd give me a party.

No booze! She wants to bring booze. The one thing I do not want is my two alcoholilc sisters getting drunk at my party. They even bring their own booze.

I've gotta establish some goals in the two years before my transplant. Like, publish a poetry volume. Or, clean up middle bedroom and get all the crap out of there. Maybe even make some more nice chalk pastels.

Wanna invite my painting teacher to my party. I thought he was gay but he said over the phone, Believe it or not, I'm straight.

Harry Reid of Nevada just made his victory speech. Jeez, he really squeaked in, our great and helpful Majority Leader. Bye-bye majority.

Okay back to bed. Can't wait to get up an have some hot chocolate! It comes in a big can, Giant brand. Warms my whole body. Better than coffee which I gave up years ago.

The little pleasures that make life so worth living. Just sitting and having a good conversation with someone is one of the finest things in life.

I said to Russell: Being sick is sooo hard!

Got an email from Russell Eisenman, my first boyfriend after my divorce - he teaches in TX - and insteada emailing him back I simply called him. He had to go teach in 15 minutes. He teaches three Intro Psych classes, 90 students per class.

I met Russ at a singles' dance in Germantown and we've been friends ever since. Russell turned 70 last April. Despite being a great athlete in his youth, his physical health isn't great. Advised to get open-heart surgery years ago, he refused and told the doctor he would take pills instead.

His plan worked. Now Russ told me there's a new treatment for sluggish circulation in your legs, similar to the TMS stimulation mentioned in this blog. He's waiting for his doctor to call him and say, C'mon down for the 30-day treatment.

These neuromodular treatments are a thing of the present.

Went downstairs to make a salad for lunch. My leg was killing me. Had I overdone my sciatica exercises I found on YouTube?

Who could I call on the phone, I wondered, and then remembered...Marcy! In California. She used to live on Susan Drive in Philly until her house burned down. That's a good way of getting rid of all your old crap.

So Marce and I talked while I made my salad with olive oil and lemon dressing. Not so crazy about the dried cherries I added. I can always hear my mom's voice: They're saying now cherries are very healthy for you.

For chrissakes, Mom, they're a fruit, Of course they're healthy. And they're dark. You have some dark things, some light things. We don't need an expert to tell us.

I wanted an inspirational picture. I picked - what else! - the Alhambra. This goggle blogpost isn't working well and won't let me download it.

I have a lot of time to think. I lay here and realize I'm hooked up to the wider world. My laptop goes out roving. From my little perch here in Willow Grove it can send out signals.

And my phone. I could call London if I wished or Moscow. Or YOU. Gimme your number. I have a few free minutes.

Created a new blog today called Lady in Waiting: New Kidney Please. Why? It finally dawned on me this morning that I may after all get a new kidney. Check it out here.