Inhale DEEPLY

Just got my new eco-friendly yoga mat from Barefoot. It's natural rubber and jute. Did a few down dogs, pigeon stretching. Noticed my hands smelled like weed. You know, that weed! This might surprise some but I've never used weed. But this never stopped me from being able to smell weed from miles away. Weird. Maybe I can't tell weed from jute. Interestingly strange.

I just realized I come across as the biggest hippie eco-nut. I'm worse than Ed Bagley posting kambucha notes followed by a earth-friendly yoga mat high. Must go eat some red meat to balance the scales. Where'd I put my bottled water and fur coat? Nope, can't go that far without crumpling in hemp-loving heaves.

sticky fingers

I guess asthmatics who frequent public libraries are also kleptomaniacs. This was from an email I got from NYPL:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
01-13-10

Riverside Branch
127 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10023-6447
(212) 870-1810

LIBRARY HOLD REQUEST CANCELLED
The request that you placed for this item has been
cancelled since all copies appear to be missing &
are no longer available.

AUTHOR: Stalmatski, Alexander.
Freedom from asthma : the revolutionar
CALL NO: 616.238 S
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Did the NYPL also spell canceled wrong, twice?

Doctor, Doctor

Yep, I've done my yearly, obligatory appointments. My gyn is nice and didn't dally too long down under. I hate when they're under the makeshift tent drapped over your knees and legs talking to you while mining for god-know-what. Dr. K is in and out without like an expert. And she looks at me, at my face, while pushing around on my tummy checking the ovaries and such. It feels like kneading dough. Lucky for me she can do this quickly, too, she says because I'm so thin, it's super easy to find all the parts. TMI? Probably. She asked if I had my yearly boob squish. I told her I'd skip it this year. Sorry, but I don't have a family history and I think the false positives in the early 40s age range are not worth me doing that every year. Next year, I promise. Right below that other fun thing I've avoided, the colonoscopy. Getting old is sooooooo much fun.

My primary, another Dr. K, is in the same building, different floor. I told her about my chronic problems - night sweats, joint pain, sinus pain, lung congestion and muscle tightness. She asked if I'd seen the pulmonolgist - nope. I think Dr. I's replacement sucked and I didn't want to go back and see her; she never returned a couple of phone calls and an email I sent back in Jan. 2009; I was freaking out over a lung thing and didn't have insurance. Instead I just went to a doc clinic and got cheapo Amoxicillin and it worked just fine. Lesson learned, some doctors don't return your calls when you don't have insurance. Bleck. But Dr. K was sympathetic and gave me a perscription for Amox. in case I got sick again. She could hear my wheeze. She also ordered a blood workup to see if anything changed since two years ago. Other than that, not much she's able to do since my symptoms are so weird and I'm in general good health otherwise. Ah well, we all just keep going 'cause the other option just isn't for me. Bloodwork came back normal for most everything.

Got in all my doctor's visits now while I have health insurance. Lucky me 'cause our country sucks when you don't have a job with those benefits. When you're unemployed, how can we afford it? Most are better off just buying care as needed versus $400-$1000 per month. We who do that just hope we don't get hit by a bus or contract some wacky contagious disease that sends us to teh hospital for an extended stay. Can't afford the nightgown charge.

Sickie Comfort

I am feeling better but overslept. I called into work at 8:30 am, which is usually the time I start work! I just woke up so wanted them to know I was coming in late, maybe do only a half day. But my boss told me to just stay home and rest. He also got a fax with my temporary insurance card! Yeah. And they faxed it to my doctor so maybe now I can get in for an appointment and not worry about getting a crazy bill .... too much to hope for?

So the cough still persists. I did enjoy about 10 blissful hours of sleep. It was heaven. Now I have a comfy cup of hot tea, yummy yogurt from Thistle, the world's best dairy. I cut up some crisp apples from NYS to add a little sweetness. I'm all tucked in to watch P&P, one of my favorite sick day comforts. I'm watching the A&E version which should never be confused with the horrid movie version with Keira Knightly.

So it's more rest and relaxation for me. Still coughing a bit but I'm mending. What a relief. You forget how good it is to be healthy until it isn't there. I'm so lucky to have good friends and coworkers helping me out.

Health Insurance Companies SUCK!

I started working at Margert back in September. They go through the Brooklyn Diocese for their health insurance and benefits. I've been bugging them for my health insurance card for months. I decided to pay out of pocket for my flu shot since luckily that was only $25. Of course Mt. Sinai sent me an additional bill for $70 for some mythical 'vaccine' which I contested and they said they would remove from my account. We'll see if that happens. Are the hospitals and insurance companies always trying to out-fuck each other with billing and denial claims? I wonder.

So I've been calling the Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield number for weeks. Back in October they claimed I wasn't in their system; to talk to my HR person. She called the Diocese and their insurance broker said they didn't accept the fax she sent in, they only took mailed forms - ARGH! Why hadn't anyone called about this change in policy. So my co-worker mailed in in back in mid to late October. I was in training for about three weeks and didn't get sick. Then I felt sick last Thursday and called; still no record of me in their system. WTF! Monday I returned to the office and talked with my co-worker who called her person, the insurance broker, who said she had me in her system, MetLife I believe, but Empire just must be slow in putting me into their system.

I've been sick since Thursday, taking illegal amoxicillan I got in Mexico as a backup. I think the drugs help a little by stopping the fever and muscle aches I had back on Friday and Saturday but the lung congestion and phlegm are all still there and I'm suffering BADLY.

So I call Empire again and all they have me down for is dental! WTF? I need medical NOW! They tell me to contact the insurance broker. My coworker calls her person and connects me. The woman is a ball of excuses! First it was her claiming it was our fault for getting the forms to her late. WTF? I told her we faxed the forms and wasn't told that their policy had changed to not accept faxed materials; that she really should not use that as an excuse for bad processing on their part. I told her I found it unprofessional for her to be putting this back on us as if it were our fault. It was their responsibility to tell us proper procedure to apply for a new addition to the health benefits and someone, ANYONE, should have called to tell out staff that when the received the faxed application and decided to ignore the application on procedural grounds; why wait for us to figure out they weren't processing anything, have us call, and then they tell us, "Oh, we don't take faxed applications." Money! Why tell someone they aren't in the system if not telling them gives them another month or more where they don't have to cover someone. ARGH! She was not going to bend or even recognize the anomaly where she had my information, Empire had me down for dental, so what happened to the medical coverage? Two other employees had to wait three months to get their Empire health coverage cards. I find this unacceptable and rather fishy. They get away with three months of not having to pay any health coverage while taking premiums. It's all to conveniently lined up to help them and their pocketbooks while I have a chest full of congested mucus, coughing fits, and a whole host of related health problems that I should really see a doctor for!!! The US health care system is sooooooo fucked up.

So I go to work. Can't afford to take vacation. Trying not the make my coworkers sick. I want to nap under my desk. This is a great fucking system we have and I don't even have to worry about a sick kid.

Sickie Blues

My frickin' lungs. I really need them and sometimes they consipre against me and create mahem, and joint pain, and night sweats, and congestion. Or maybe the congestion is causing the lung gunk. Whatever, I'm sick and metally drained and an emotional mess. Stayed home sick. As a new blue collar worker who clocks in with an electronic timecard not too different than Fred Flintstone, I need to call in and worry about if I accrued enough sick time hours for this. So stressful and demeaning. Slept almost all day. Popped in my sickie favorite, Sense and Sensibility 2008 tape. Slept through most of it. Made a Fariway run around 9pm for juice and grapefruit. Now I hate citrus; reminds me of being sick. Stupid insurance company still is fucking around and hasn't getten me my card. I need to see a doctor but can't afford going while not 'covered' even though I've been working since September. ARGH. It really sucks living like the majority of American's, worried about timecards, insurance, sick days, time clocks. Oh how I long to be back in the professional ranks where you may work 60-80 hr work weeks but you're paid better and never have to play the ask-the-priciple game about your time, your vacations, sick leave, hours, etc.. I am a responsible and dependable person and it is so demeaning to always have to ask permission for most everything. I'm just so drained. At least a day of sleep and cat cuddle therapy helped.

What the &^%*?

I've been struggling with a sore throat for awhile. It started with a few pin-sized red dots and two or three white fuzzy spots on my soft palate. Mostly the white spots like to hang out on the left side of my uvula - the answer to the Far Side cartoon's "final page of the medical exam". But today the dots high up on my palate turned into full fledged red blotches. Ewww! No fever so I gargle with salt water and hope for the best. Ah, to be uninsured and sick in the U.S.. I feel like 46 million other Americans now hoping they won't get hit by a car. Another reason to kick back and relax, as if my lazy butt needed another reason.

I did have to venture outdoors to 1) use the pay phone, and 2) shop. I keep a good eye open for crazy taxi drivers now. About the pay phone, I'm cheap, almost out of cell minutes, and needed to ring my 503b folks. I need the forms to ask for roll-over. If only they were as helpful as most dogs with that trick. Yikes. Had to stand in the cold for over 15 minutes while on hold. Lincoln sucks. Still haven't gotten my forms; they guaranteed they'd email them to me within 24 hours. Still waiting. Frickin' economy is killing my savings. Oh well, I'm young and hopefully will soon be back at work bringing in dollars instead of spending 'em. Just need to watch that crazy cab driver at 77th looking to hog the bus lane I'm standing near. 

The supermarket run was much needed as I'd been running short on t.p. and had to use a paper towel this morning (TMI?). I ventured out to the über-busy Fairway on Broadway and 74th thinking that it wouldn't be crowded just after the lunch grazers cleared. Why would anyone eat something from a community food space where sneeze guards are required? The name alone should scare the bejeezers out of your immune system. As for the crowds, I was soooooooo wrong. This was the most crowded I've ever seen it. Lines snaked back past the Ceres juices boxes almost to the olive oil section. Total chaos with the lines. And people were downright mean. It was shopping cart wars. Banging, herding, ugliness all around. Using baby strollers AND their babies and weapons. Aisles so tight packed that even on a good day you feel like a salmon swimming upstream. Today they fish ladders 'cause gridlock at some intersections was creating some serious thrashing. I got my t.p., my lemon soda, eggs, tortillas, cottage cheese, and a bag of oranges and made a beeline to the upstairs checkout line. Even if the line is long, I'm happily in a little shut protected from the swarms of roving shoppers. It's only upstream in this line and that makes me happy. 

Surly checkout folks apathetically and very slowly rang up my items. The bagger just sits there idle when folks like me bag their own groceries in their cloth bags> Is it a union thing? Can they only do bags? Waste of human power, opposable thumbs, and floor space. They use BOTH plastic AND paper for ONE combo-bag. Fairway has an insane policy of putting the paper bags INSIDE the plastic as the default method for bagging. This isn't done by request; it's done by default. Dumb and really, really wasteful. WTF? Why would someone need the paper INSIDE the plastic? Is this some screwed up way to give plastic structure and form? Don't think the customer could handle just the paper bag without the plastic handles? Did some evil little old lady harass the staff so much that THIS was the proper way to bag that EVERY customer now has to have their groceries bagged this way? 

I would love to find a better store with friendlier service but this tends to be the approach every store uses to train staff with the exception of Trader Joe's. Love TJ's - not just the staff but the products, with the exception of those nasty ones still using trans fats. Just wish TJ's was closer and the lines not so long. Next shopping adventure, I'll wear my combat boots and channel my little-old-lady personality. And DON'T put my items in that insane bag combo or I'll just have to leave my cart in the aisle.

Allergy test

arm test
Originally uploaded by peffs

How fun! The doctor pretends to be interested in your NYC story but really it is a distraction while she jabs you a dozen or more times with a whole host of funky allergy test scraping, jabbing things - dust mites, cat dander, molds, pollen, but nothing for Republicans, huh? Turns out I'm not allergic to anything - at least none of the things they tested.

GP Time

Getting Somewhere

So after 3 months and two rescheduled appointments, I had my first appointment with my General Practitioner. She was very nice and we're going through a series of test to figure out my course of action. I'm the kind of gal who needs a course of action. Now I'm also a gal who looks like a heroin user .... all the arm bruises from taking blood.

Pineapple Joy

Friend Power!
I'm so lucky to have my New York pseudo-family.

I was feeling a bit better today and took a walk to Pioneer, my retro grocery store know in the UWS neighborhood for cheap beer. Since I'm not a regular beer drinker, I go for the cheap specials. This week, Florida's Natural for $2.99, five boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix for $2, and three cans of chicken broth for $2. What-a-deal! Add my ultra-pasteurized milk and I was good to go. I think the check-out gals are all from Niger and they speak French which is fun. Sunshine and wind felt good on my walk.

Came home. Did some work via the web connection - gotta love telecommuting. Around 6pm my doorman delivered a surprise. A friend from work lives on the UWS and her son is having his Bar Mitzvah this Saturday and she dropped off an invitation. So nice! A lovely triple-matted gold, bronze and dark blue card with embossed modern lettering on a cream cotton paper - so regal and beautiful. But to my surprise, she also dropped a fabulous pineapple! Makes me think of the song from Cabaret:

If you brought me diamonds,
If you brought me pearls,
If you brought me roses
Like some other gents
Might bring to other girls,
It couldn't please me more
Than the gift I see;
A pineapple for me.

I'm so happy!

Not My Day

Poked and Prodded
NYC kicks my ass today

So, I thought my appointment with Dr. I was at 8:30 am. I head over via bus only to find that Shirley, his nurse, actually scheduled me for 3:30 pm! I swear I repeated the time to her. This has been the most frustrating series of communication glitches with my doctor's office. I could never connect on Tuesday with them and Shirley's voicemail was full. Wednesday I left a message, she said she called in a prescription yet nothing was at the pharmacy. Blah, blah, blah.

Now I'm over at Mt. Sinai with no appointment until the afternoon. I decided to go the the ER and try to track down my lost health insurance card. They sent be back to the main building where the security guards looked at the log but couldn't tell what had been turned in. They sent me to the security building at 13 E 101st where a guard looked but thought it might be better to check with the cashier's office ... back at the same building I was in. So I head back but the cashier's office doesn't open until 9am and I was feeling less than healthy and wanted to be home in a hot shower.

I'm heading home and notice the crosstown M96 heading down to the stop near 5th Ave. so I have to run to catch it. Great gasps, I can't really catch my breath! This thing makes me feel like I'm a pack-a-day smoker! Thank goodness I never did smoke or this could be worse. I get off on Columbus and search my pocket for my Metrocard ... not where I thought it was ... here comes the bus ... not in that pocket ... not in my purse ... DAMN, it must have fallen out of my pocket on the M96. $9.50 lost but worse, now I have to walk home, 17 short blocks - just under a mile. I don't have cab fare, it's cold and grey, hope it doesn't rain. Now I'm emotional. I call my sister and start crying. I'm such a baby when I'm sick. And obviously I can't think clearly because cabs now take credit cards - didn't think about that until I got home. But boy did my hot shower and warm bed feel super comfy after such a crappy morning.

For my afternoon appointment, I decided to take a cab. Of course the cabbie pulled a bone-headed move and turned east on 93rd during school-let-out so we spent a good 8 minutes going two blocks. Why th %^&* do parents drive to pick up their kids in Manhattan? Lazy, spoiled rich kids and their limos and parents sitting there idling thus gassing their own kids - pathetic! Another reason I love my friend who walks or bikes her kids from the UES to the UWS through beautiful Central Park to get her kids to school when her more snooty neighbors use chauffeurs to shuttle their kids a mere few blocks! Crazy.

Got to my appointment and didn't have to wait too long. Dr. I said the diagnosis wasn't pneumonia but allergic bronchial aspergillus or ABPA. I need to be on a longer course of Avelox along with some prednisone to try to reduce the inflammation. So now I have some new thing to look up on the web and freak out about. Anytime I start digging around the web, I find myself reading up on the craziest and worst things. A tumor, sarcoidosis, freaky genetic disorders, something that was sure to give me palsy or facial ticks - it is a hypochondriacs nightmare out there.

I must be one weird patient. I'm sure the ER staff was trying to figure all my symptoms out. Still more testing for conditions so they drew more blood. Amazing stuff, blood, and all the information it carries around. Unfortunately sometimes my veins don't cooperate and it takes awhile to get one that works, thus the collection of band-aids above. She actually decided to use a child's needle so it took awhile to fill all those vials. Starting to have junkie arms.

Back home. Hope napping will take me someplace happy.

Bedbug

I'm alive!
Seriously, apologies for not posting for awhile. I'll backfill. Came back from Phoenix and knew I caught some bug. Through a series of frustrating events, I got worse and decided to head over the Mt. Sinai's emergency room. I must say they are very nice there and quickly diagnosed that the sharp pain in my left chest was pneumonia, so I wasn't pulling a Woody Allen. Two lovely bags of IV antibiotics and three big bags of fluids later, I was feeling a lot better. So I'm home, trying not to cough myself silly, which has happened on occasion, drinking lots of fluids and feeling a bit better. More funny stories later. Yes, pneumonia does come with some funny stories, for example:

When you've been basically living out of your bed for a week, it gets rather close to the ant patterns made from the main entrance to the ant hill. I trek from bed to bathroom, back to bed, to kitchen for some cereal, which I drag back to my anthill bed to eat while watching Frontline. I'm sure ants love Frontline while they munch on picnic crumbs, too. Unfortunately there are times where leaving bed seems too much so I've strategically placed key items around my space for convenience - like my computer which now sits on my tummy serving the double purpose of a heating pad - nice! Remote - check. Ginger Ale - check. Thermometer - check. Comfy socks - check. Soduko - check. Tissues - damn, I'm out (actually I'm using a roll of t.p.). Well the sock will have to do; I'll do laundry later anyway. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Many hours later, what is that thing on my comforter? That better be a dried up GrapeNut from breakfast. Time to do the laundry. Damn, the t.p. roll was right there under the comforter the whole time :(

Tag and Release

Now where did that come from?

Yep, a day after leaving the ER, and I still found one of those EKG stickies on me. Yes, it was embarrassing finding the two BIG 3m red-and-white heart monitor thingies on my upper chest after I got home. I could feel the lower one at the hospital and took that one off before I left ... had no clue the other two were there. And DANG, those things are not stuck on with the easy-to-remove 3m post-it-note sticky stuff but some industrial stuff that leave that weird adhesive mark around the edges like to old fashion Band-Aids from kid days. OUCH. Took a long, hot shower. Struggled to sleep through the night. I'm changing again due to the night sweat soaking and see this smaller tab still stuck over and around, almost to the backside of my left flank. Huh! That was from the early morning EKG testing from the day before! This thing had been on me for over 24 hours! And it wasn't even doing anything; at least a leech or tick is sucking some blood. I had showered, slept, changed a few times, never noticed it. Now I sort of know what those tag-and-release animals feel like .... stupid.

I'm Special :)

Trip to the ER

At 4am I couldn't stand the pain any longer and took a cab to Mt. Sinai's emergency room. No waiting, they just took my symptoms, found me a bed, and started lining up the tests.

The beds are lined up one after another with only a curtain dividing each little stall - like animals in their stalls. I could hear the poor girl next to me whimpering and crying as the nurse tried to take her blood. I felt horrible for her as I could almost feel her tension as the nurse just kept telling her 'tranquile' and to relax, as if that is something a young, scared girl could do in such circumstances. The most entertaining patient was this one woman determined to talk her doctor into giving her morphine; she didn't 'want' it, she 'needed' it. Later I heard her cussing up a storm when the nurse told her the doctor wouldn't be back until 9am.

So after the pee-cup, some chest x-rays, drawing blood, and an EKG, I was trying to nap. The nurse had just plugged me into the heart monitoring and blood pressure machines when they decided to roll me into another, private room. How nice! Everyone was so nice and attentive in the ER, I just figured that they felt I needed some privacy, away from F-bomb druggies and people puking in the trash cans. No less than four resident doctors came to see me during the course of me absorbing two bags of IV antibiotics and three bags of fluids. All had lots of questions about my bronchiectasis, if I'd been tested for TB, HIV, Chrohn's disease, Kartagener syndrome, on and on. One of the residents came in to explain there was pneumonia showing on the x-ray, specifically a blob on my upper left chest. So that was the sharp pain I felt! He then said they were waiting for a bed to admit me :( Yikes! I didn't expect that. I was just hoping to get some good antibiotics and be on my way. Then, after the second male resident came in wearing a tight blue mask to talk and ask a lot of the same questions I already answered with the first two residents, did it dawn on me - they think I'm contagious! And here I thought I was just getting special service because I was so nice; turns out they just thought I was infectious.

To finally at around 11:30 am another resident came in and said they talked with my pumonologist, Dr. I, and they'd release me. Yeah. I was feeling much better after the IV drugs - no joint pain and I could breathe better. He told me to continue with my antibiotics, gave me a new prescription for the nausea (puke up my meds the night before), and said the doctor wanted me to come in on Monday. So I caught a cab home and it feels great to be comfy in my clean sheets with no joint pain or fever. Good health is sooooo under appreciated until you get sick.

Mental Breakdown

Crying ... Over Myself

Can't get my Doctor's office. Tried all day Tuesday only to get shuffled around, Shriley's (Dr. I's nurse) voicemail was full, put on hold for 20 minutes by the appointments person (she can't add to a full appointment list without Shirley's approval), and was told they were having problems with the phones. I even got transfer once to Dr. I's administrative office who said they couldn't help since they weren't connected with the medical office. I gave up and decided to try again the next day.

Today I called and left a message with Shirley. At least her voicemail box was working today. She left a message around 3:30 or 4 pm that she called in a 2 week supply of Avelox to the pharmacy number I left. I went to the Duane Reade but they had nothing on record. I called their number, nothing on record. I called the only other pharmacy, Walgreen's, but no record there. So I called the doctor's office but by this time it was three minutes past 5pm so the office had closed. I left an emergency message with the service and a female doctor called back. She reviewed my case and called in the Avelox. I picked it up that evening. Unfortunately it didn't stay down.

I'd been going through chills and sweating spells with fever, very painful joint pain, just feeling very, very uncomfortable. Add to that having to change pjs when I would wake up soaked, having to change sides of the bed, I was not a happy sickie. I just broke down sobbing at only point, hearing myself say, "It's going to be o.k." over and over, stroking my head in some sort of comforting move. Yep, I just turned into on big baby, but somehow I new it would be ok, I just neede to hear myself say it.

FEV1 and Friends

Testing ...
Every three months I visit my pulmonologist to keep my lungs as healthy as they can be. After the last walking pneumonia incident, the five days of the wrong antibiotic and then finally finding one that worked, it was good to breathe again without pain. But it still frustrates me that he can't explain much of the other symptoms like the night sweats and joint pain - sometimes I feel like a menopausal octogenarian. And my blood pressure hit a new low (although I had just eaten a two slice pizza lunch at Famiglia) - 80/51. Wow! The picture is the fun nose clamp and breathing tube I use for my lung tests. I sit in a chair while breathing normally, the nurse tells me to blow out as hard as possible and then tries to cheer me on until every molecule of air is forced out of my lungs - and this feels like forever. It is a surprise more people don't pass out. But after my inhaler, I improved 12% so I was advised to use it more frequently. Just another fun accessory in my science geek gear arsenal.

and Eating
For dinner I went to see my friends Clay, Tory and their son Scottie. I picked up three desserts from Zabar's - a chocolate cupcake, a small fruit tart, and a pear tart. All were good but I liked the fruit tart the best. Surprisingly the cupcake was wonderfully moist and the icing not too sweet so I'd go back there for such a yummy indulgence - much better than Crumbs. Dinner was a yummy selection from Trader Joe's - salad, egg rolls, and shrimp stir fry. Thank goodness TJs arrived in Manhattan not too long after my arrival. Sure, the lines are insanely long* but I just wait until it rains or right before closing and I've never waited longer than 15 minutes. But I will still never get used to the very small aisles and crowded conditions while shopping in NYC. The dancing and waiting and turning and swiveling involved are stuff that makes for WWE champions. I'm just to weak and nice for force my way though so I naturally take 20 minutes longer to shop just due to the right-of-way delays.

*NYTimes: grocery lines in New York City
... lines often snake around the entire perimeter of the store. The wait on a typical Sunday night is about 20 minutes (which might explain why a screaming match broke out one Sunday after a customer tried to sneak into the middle of the 75-person line).

“It is something that we recognize and would like to remedy,” said Mr. Basalone of Trader Joe’s.

Sunday in the Park with George

Roundabout Theater presents a new version of Sunday in the Park with George. This import from London is truly a gem to experience - a wondrous melding of live theater with projected art. Steven Sondheim (Sweeny Todd, Gypsy) wrote the lyrics and music back in 1984 for this fictional interpretation of how George Seurat created his pointillism masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Act I focuses on the artist (Daniel Evans) and his lover, Dot (Jenna Russell), as he struggles with finding his art and she angsts about their relationship and her status. From 1884 to 1886 Seurat worked on his masterpiece playing with primary colors, light and the science of 'seeing'. To see his excitement at discovering that the mind will interpret spots of blue and red as violet is sheer pleasure to and art and science lover like myself. Through George and Dot's relationship arc, we also get to know around a dozen characters in the painting - two soldiers (although one is projected, literally), two soldier-loving young women, an elderly lady and her nurse, an influential art couple, a young girl, a boatman, a rotund American couple, and a few dogs. Through these people, we know a little more about the society of the times and the frustration and tension created between creating art for art's sake and creating art for markets. As one character expresses this dilemma, "Work is what you do for others, liebschen... Art is what you do for yourself." The songs in Act I were beautifully realized in all their Sondheim strangeness, bumpy cadence and whimsical lyrics. Sunday in the Park With George starts with Dot's attempts and struggles with concentrating as the artists model. By the end of Act I it becomes a more integrated song delivered by the Company. And by the conclusion of Act II is is a fully familiar and enjoyable piece made whole by the process. Act II takes place in 1984 and it is the weaker of the acts. Thematically the play moves more into the market vs. art tension and the songs seem to lack a little luster. But the entire production is saved and elevated to new heights by the superb direction of Sam Buntrock and projection design by Timothy Bird & The Knifedge Creative Network. Through their vision the audience sees the stage transform, through light and color, into the painting - back and forth from the island park to Seurat's studio. Like the best magic, this illusion was whimsical and entertaining while also being reflective of Seurat's own experimentation with visual perception and art. The story was better told with this guiding device and several transitions - an artists studio curtain turning into a tree, a blank canvas turning into a playful dog - had the audience mesmerized. The art direction should be guaranteed a Tony for this production. It is hard to think of a better, more enjoyable way to experience theater; I feel privileged to have seen such a stellar, innovative production.

Just for the gals

Yep, time for the ever-so-fun annual gynecology exam. Not too bad; better than the nasal scraping for cilia my pulmonologist performed in 2005. Ewww! Yes, I just wrote that. So everything looks good and hopefully I get the call back next week that everything is normal. BUT, since I am now 40, my doctor referred me to two labs for the dreaded mammogram :O Yikes! I'm trying to find a lab with digital imaging because recent research shows this type of image is better for younger patients or those with dense tissue. Why the hell can't someone invent a sort of ultrasound approach to testing instead of getting squished like a pancake in some waffle iron? Sidenote - new low bloodpressure = 86/60.

Ah, relief

City support

Struggled through the work morning. Had to take a little private time to try relaxing on my office floor after some woozy feeling post drug dose for the day. Oh, and long hair - not so fun combing out bed-head. On the way out of work, Ramon talked me into stopping by the Transportation Alternatives UWS meeting with reception. Loved the concepts for the traffic calming in my neighborhood. The men situation was slim. And the one cute guy I got to talk to was married, which is funny since he looked like he was in his early twenties. Walked home and found Manuel at the door and he had cough drops for me. Ah, this is the life. My little co-op family taking care of me :)

Sunday rest

"May cause dizziness"

Well, last nights sleep was so much better but wowzer, my head has been muddled today. Took my antibiotics at 9ish in the morning and went back to sleep. Heard my door buzzer around 11:oo or 11:30 and got up to get the intercom. Whoa, by the time I walked to five steps, I realized I was quickly loosing focus, things were spinning, and if I didn't sit on the floor I was going to hit the floor. Missed whomever rang me but I didn't faint :) A few times during the day I noticed I was rather dizzy then I remembered on of the side effects is that the med causes lower blood pressure and, thus, possibilities of dizziness. Well, I already have rather low bp (once I freaked a nurse out so; she ran out of the room to get the doctor - she'd never registered such a low reading). So I'm trying to drink more fluids and I'll pick up some sports drink to keep my bp up tomorrow. Boy, my place quickly became cluttered with my various meds and comfort nesting material for the week plus I've been medically confined to my 400 sq. ft. of NYC. Now where did I put the cat? Ah, she's been doubling as a wriggly heating pad :x

Chicken Soup with Rice

Saturday setback

Well, maybe going to work yesterday wasn't a good idea. Night sweats and some knee joint pain last night didn't make for a great morning. But I am truly lucky to have such great friends and a great building. Manuel, my doorman, stopped by on his day off to deliver a third neighborhood version of chicken soup (fourth if including my own purchase of matzo ball soup from Zabars). This version was a nice, spicy combo with rice and celantro undertones. I opened the foil package expecting bread and was pleasantly surprised with two delish tamales! I was so happy. I'm so lucky to have such wonderful folks looking after me.