A potato peeler’s tale.
(This is the short, concrete version. If someone cares to know more details, they could refer to the long and boring explanations that will follow this one, some day, when I write them down).
The plastic blue potato peeler followed me most of my life. It was a loyal, intransigent and irreplaceable friend. Considering that every few years I need to change countries, careers, and husbands, the story of the potato peeler has been a beacon in my life (and yes, a common place like no other).
It started its life as my potato peeler in 1964, in Montevideo, when I found it in a small bazaar in San José and Convención. It came with me to Buenos Aires, to spend my 1st marriage together. I can’t explain the reasons for that marriage. I was 19 years old.
In 1969 I suddenly realized I had to leave Buenos Aires, my marriage, my career and my few material possessions, and go back to Montevideo, potato peeler in hand, to a new relationship that was developing with an old friend from my childhood and teenage years.
The three of us lived together, the potato peeler in a kitchen drawer and the two of us in a series of small apartments, for 7 years. I was studying Architecture and wasn’t too far from graduating. Then, came the dictatorship. Around 1976, I started to feel that what looked like it was going to last forever, might not; that we may be afraid; that we may want to change. Hard to describe, for it was very intimate and even a little bit sad. A piece of the chaos had entered each and every one of us. The feelings were getting erased, and then … I had to leave the country. One day, my father came into my apartment, clapping his hands and saying “boino, afoira” (well, out!). I was so distracted, I thought this was because my parents had found out my future husband number three had already appeared somewhere in the sky. And then it hit me. I couldn’t believe my father was serious, that I really had to leave the country, otherwise … I reacted, grabbed two pair of panties, a toothbrush, and my potato peeler, and announced “I’m ready”. My father, scared, but with a cool head, managed to get all his paternal feelings together and said, “Don’t be an idiot”. He continued: “Get a normal suitcase, put normal clothes inside and go to the airport, like a normal person”. My father, as usual, with his years of Bolshevik experience, knew what to do better than I did.
I managed to do everything he had told me to, with a short 24-hour delay just to make sure things were really as bad as they looked. They were. It was March, but already very cold. I wore a gamulán with deep pockets. It was interesting going to the airport wearing a tourist face, approaching the counter, and asking for a round-trip ticket. The girl behind the counter took my ID, went into a small office, came out, and said “‘Round trip? Are you sure?” I put my faith in all the saints that I didn’t believe existed, squished the plastic blue potato peeler in my pocket, and answered ‘yes’ with total calmness… Have you ever felt you were going to shit your pants? This would have been the perfect moment for it. I thought I wouldn’t be able to get too far, but I walked onto the airplane, and then crawled out again without anyone noticing me, down to the runway, to push it from behind and make it go up as soon as possible.
My heart felt like an old 78RPM record, the kind that got scratches all over it. Finally, when the airplane started to taxi up the runway, I slithered back in thru a little hole, and reappeared in the bathroom, wet and smelly, and breathing heavily.
I landed in Buenos Aires, which might have been at that time the only place in the world even more dangerous than Montevideo, but I couldn’t go any further for simple lack of money. While I was in this process of leaving my country I, kind of absent-mindedly, separated from my husband No. 2 as well. He became my favorite ex-husband, which is no small feat.
During my first week in Buenos Aires I was the poor imitation of a zombie. How it feels to lose everything, absolutely everything, from one moment to the next, is not easy to explain. I felt like I was walking on cotton clouds, with nowhere to go, and nowhere to sleep. I couldn’t go downtown, because the Uruguayan police was there, along with the Argentinian police -the guys helped each other out.
I couldn’t call home because the phones were tapped. I wasn’t allowed to know anything about my family, my friends, my job, my studies, my city or my country. You survive, but then you shouldn’t complain later in life when it hits you back. You have to keep your sense of humor. It’s as simple as that. Walk down the unknown streets smiling, so no one will guess that …
My current husband came to Buenos Aires not too long after that – just by sheer coincidence, the night before one of the bloodiest Argentinian coups in history – and together we stepped into the craziest adventure I could ever have imagined. In the middle of all that fear, I started a new life with an unknown goy who had no job, no career, two recently adopted daughters who remained with his ex-wife, and a life in a country at a time that wasn’t too promising. We moved into a delirious long term cheap little boarding house, “Don Julio’s Pensión”.
The potato peeler did its job well. Potatoes were the only food we could afford. That is a lie. We ate almost only noodles and liver, which provided the most proteins and calories for the lowest possible price. Later, never again did I eat that combination. The atmosphere was one of real terror and the only thing we could do was to keep our sense of dark, really dark, totally dark, humor. “Don Julio’s” boarding house, recommended to us just because it was far away from downtown, was full of Uruguayans, too well known to everybody. But there was no other option.
Through nothing short of a miracle, I found a job as an architect. Manuel applied for a fellowship that required a degree in Medicine, and decided to do whatever he needed to get that degree. He managed to study in the freezing ‘pensión’ while I was working. He earned the degree by practicing in different hospitals around Buenos Aires – the mess was such that he was not only allowed to enter the hospitals, but could also follow professors around and even perform rectal exams on the poor patients in order to practice. He would travel back to Montevideo to take the three exams he still needed to finish – he was able to go, not too calmly, but he could.
One day, he called me at work to tell me he was an MD. That same day was the deadline for the fellowship, so I shook my ankles, opened up my little wings, took flight, and glided above the gorgeous city up to the Central Post Office, to mail an envelope to the Guggenheim Foundation. They normally receive thousand of requests every year, and some common sense people would know that the fellowships are practically impossible to get. We immediately forgot all about it, and decided to take care of some details we had been neglecting, so we decided to get pregnant. We, of course, weren’t about to put our lives on hold for the simple reason that we had nowhere to live, or anything to live off of.
Contrary to my expectations, Manuel’s innate optimism worked its magic. A few months later we found out he had gotten the fellowship. I was very pregnant by then, and we asked for a deferment so by the time we travelled, the little baby could at least hold his head up on his own. We were leaving for the United States, to Yale University in New Haven, which we really didn’t know anything about. We were planning on staying there for a year, perhaps two, if there was no other possibility. I was in charge of the suitcases. All of our worldly belongings fit into two suitcases, plus a little collapsible baby bed/bath.
Holding my plastic blue potato peeler, I managed to shove in those suitcases what I could. All the rest, consisting of weird stuff like tools – an old hammer, some screwdrivers … because one could never know if it would be possible to find such valuable items in the US – plus a small vase, and my big woolen poncho – a present from my mother-in-law – went into a trunk belonging to a friend’s grandmother, which she had brought with her 50 years earlier, when she moved from Poland to Argentina. That trunk had a longer history than ours. We still have it. The potato peeler didn’t go in the trunk, but rather with me, in my purse. Strangely enough, that was 35 years ago… and I still feel I have to ask for forgiveness, when I explain that we just started to stay in the States, simply staying.
About 10 years ago, my plastic blue potato peeler started, reflexively, to peel itself. It turned almost white, with a new scaly texture. I immediately dedicated my life to find a substitute.
Clearly, it’s way easier to find a husband than a good potato peeler. I managed to get about ten (potato peelers, I mean, not husbands) but none could match that endearing original. Finally I found an acceptable one, red, Made in Germany, good, but not perfect. At that moment, I stopped peeling fruits, vegetables, and elephants, and started cooking everything with the peel still on. Even bananas. The plastic blue potato peeler is now in a kitchen drawer, and every once in a while I stare at it, realizing I can be faithful to at least one thing for many, many years.
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Monday, October 31, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Abortions - in English
Abortion Guilt is a Social Construct
(ES Original: Oct 09; Revised Dec 10; JLH Review June 11, GD June 2011)
I have been always intrigued by the difficulties surrounding abortion issues in our times. My parents faced them without anguish, fear, or discussions. In the Zhitlovsky organization, according to my mother, everybody knew when a woman had one. It was as open as talking about salaries earned.
I vividly remember my mother’s explanations about sexual relationships. Her doctor had told her that it was ‘psychologically bad’ (sic) to be preoccupied about pregnancies, and if they happened, you got an abortion, and that was that. No existential terrors, regrets, or doubts of any kind. The only necessary condition in order to have an abortion was, naturally, to be pregnant.
I asked her once if there weren’t any, a little bit less radical, forms of contraception, and she told me there was a pill called “L’amour de Paris” (suggestive name, isn’t it?) which needed to be dissolved in lukewarm water, and then shoved inside with a rubber syringe, within 15 minutes of the deed. This was impossible, -she said. I remember looking at her with a doubting face, asking why something that sounded so easy, was so impossible. She gave me the look of “don’t be stupid” and explained the logistics: leave the rented single room where they lived, pass through the open patios, go to the back of the tenement house where the bathroom was, get water, come back, start the ‘Primus’ (a cooking device that uses kerosene), pump as needed… and by the time it was all ready, the 15 minutes were long gone. That’s when I realized how ignorant I was about such poverty. I couldn’t even imagine a time when getting warm water was so difficult.
This means that my mother, who could have been a great Rabbi’s wife, in which case instead of just one sister I would have had at least 15 siblings, paid heed to her doctor’s advice. My sister was born in 1930, and from then on, an abortion every couple of months, until 1944.
So what about the theater? Uh, that’s a side story. Once, a female director from Buenos Aires – I don’t remember her name - came to direct the Zhitlovsky theater group. She was bossy and intransigent. And my mother, recalling that time (and still upset about it), told me about how disgusting she thought the woman was. “She made me go up and down a table about 20 times, and when I started singing my revolutionary song, she would tell me I was doing it all wrong. And the bitch knew that very same morning I had had an abortion!” Needless to say, not only the director, but also the whole cast knew about it, and everybody else too. It was just natural. And no one thought it strange my mother would go to the rehearsal that night, as if it were any other day.
The theater group and the fans in their audience were like a large family. I can’t forget the evening when in one of the plays, rehearsed night after night for about 6 months - in order to perform it a single time-, my mother had to place her hands on her hips and scream ‘Ha!’ Regrettably, that time, her dentures flew out of her mouth, landing in the third row. Oh, the horror! But it wasn’t a problem. A kind spectator picked them up, stood up, and gave them to my mother, who quickly put them back in her mouth, without even cleaning them, and the play kept on going with no troubles.
Moishe wasn’t as lucky (that’s not his real name, but perhaps he was a relative of someone reading this lines, and I don’t want family problems on my head). The scene was a Nazi attacking a Jew with Moishe as the Nazi. The Nazi had to jump on top of the other guy, and as a result of his effort to strangle the Jew, a big explosive fart came out of the Nazi’s ass. The theater had good acoustics, so from that day on, the poor guy came to be known as ‘Moishe der forts’ (Moishe the fart), and that name stuck with him till his death.
But let’s go back to my mother’s abortions. They went on and on, until she was 43 years old. When she didn’t get pregnant for a whole year, she felt relieved, thinking her eggs were long gone, as well as her problems. When at the age of 45 she stopped menstruating, she thought ‘OK, that’s the menopause’, and didn’t pay any more attention to the issue. Four months later, “the menopause” started kicking. Big shit. She ran to the doctor, but he only said: “Lady, congratulations and good luck. You know I don’t do abortions in advanced pregnancies”. She yelled at him, but got no answer.
And then, -she told me-, when she got back home, she filled a container with the wash (remember those large, round, metal containers?) and went up to the roof using a little ladder. When almost up there, she let herself fell backwards, firmly holding the heavy container, in order to really hurt herself badly enough for a hemorrhage to occur. If she ended up in a hospital, she knew they would do a proper abortion, no questions asked. And maybe she could even miscarry without any added help needed. She never thought, even for a second, that she could be seriously injured, and that she was putting her own life in danger. And of course she didn’t think I was too young to hear that story and properly understand it. I was, clearly, not old enough.
Years later, I realized each of my friends had a single sibling, many years older than themselves. I believe they all went down the same road. Their immigrant parents had a child as soon as they got married, because they wanted to. Then, after many years of abortions, they had a late offspring before they could get rid of it. Of course, the economy helped dictate that result. During the 40s, our parents were already in a better economic situation than when they were newcomers to Uruguay, so a second child wasn’t so dramatically difficult at that time.
Yet, I’m still interested in what I said at the beginning. So, why are abortions considered so traumatic today? If the social group accepts them with no remorse, there are no interior dramas. I don’t believe any of our parents had suffered at all for those lost fetuses. The “traumas” of abortion are clearly social.
(ES Original: Oct 09; Revised Dec 10; JLH Review June 11, GD June 2011)
I have been always intrigued by the difficulties surrounding abortion issues in our times. My parents faced them without anguish, fear, or discussions. In the Zhitlovsky organization, according to my mother, everybody knew when a woman had one. It was as open as talking about salaries earned.
I vividly remember my mother’s explanations about sexual relationships. Her doctor had told her that it was ‘psychologically bad’ (sic) to be preoccupied about pregnancies, and if they happened, you got an abortion, and that was that. No existential terrors, regrets, or doubts of any kind. The only necessary condition in order to have an abortion was, naturally, to be pregnant.
I asked her once if there weren’t any, a little bit less radical, forms of contraception, and she told me there was a pill called “L’amour de Paris” (suggestive name, isn’t it?) which needed to be dissolved in lukewarm water, and then shoved inside with a rubber syringe, within 15 minutes of the deed. This was impossible, -she said. I remember looking at her with a doubting face, asking why something that sounded so easy, was so impossible. She gave me the look of “don’t be stupid” and explained the logistics: leave the rented single room where they lived, pass through the open patios, go to the back of the tenement house where the bathroom was, get water, come back, start the ‘Primus’ (a cooking device that uses kerosene), pump as needed… and by the time it was all ready, the 15 minutes were long gone. That’s when I realized how ignorant I was about such poverty. I couldn’t even imagine a time when getting warm water was so difficult.
This means that my mother, who could have been a great Rabbi’s wife, in which case instead of just one sister I would have had at least 15 siblings, paid heed to her doctor’s advice. My sister was born in 1930, and from then on, an abortion every couple of months, until 1944.
So what about the theater? Uh, that’s a side story. Once, a female director from Buenos Aires – I don’t remember her name - came to direct the Zhitlovsky theater group. She was bossy and intransigent. And my mother, recalling that time (and still upset about it), told me about how disgusting she thought the woman was. “She made me go up and down a table about 20 times, and when I started singing my revolutionary song, she would tell me I was doing it all wrong. And the bitch knew that very same morning I had had an abortion!” Needless to say, not only the director, but also the whole cast knew about it, and everybody else too. It was just natural. And no one thought it strange my mother would go to the rehearsal that night, as if it were any other day.
The theater group and the fans in their audience were like a large family. I can’t forget the evening when in one of the plays, rehearsed night after night for about 6 months - in order to perform it a single time-, my mother had to place her hands on her hips and scream ‘Ha!’ Regrettably, that time, her dentures flew out of her mouth, landing in the third row. Oh, the horror! But it wasn’t a problem. A kind spectator picked them up, stood up, and gave them to my mother, who quickly put them back in her mouth, without even cleaning them, and the play kept on going with no troubles.
Moishe wasn’t as lucky (that’s not his real name, but perhaps he was a relative of someone reading this lines, and I don’t want family problems on my head). The scene was a Nazi attacking a Jew with Moishe as the Nazi. The Nazi had to jump on top of the other guy, and as a result of his effort to strangle the Jew, a big explosive fart came out of the Nazi’s ass. The theater had good acoustics, so from that day on, the poor guy came to be known as ‘Moishe der forts’ (Moishe the fart), and that name stuck with him till his death.
But let’s go back to my mother’s abortions. They went on and on, until she was 43 years old. When she didn’t get pregnant for a whole year, she felt relieved, thinking her eggs were long gone, as well as her problems. When at the age of 45 she stopped menstruating, she thought ‘OK, that’s the menopause’, and didn’t pay any more attention to the issue. Four months later, “the menopause” started kicking. Big shit. She ran to the doctor, but he only said: “Lady, congratulations and good luck. You know I don’t do abortions in advanced pregnancies”. She yelled at him, but got no answer.
And then, -she told me-, when she got back home, she filled a container with the wash (remember those large, round, metal containers?) and went up to the roof using a little ladder. When almost up there, she let herself fell backwards, firmly holding the heavy container, in order to really hurt herself badly enough for a hemorrhage to occur. If she ended up in a hospital, she knew they would do a proper abortion, no questions asked. And maybe she could even miscarry without any added help needed. She never thought, even for a second, that she could be seriously injured, and that she was putting her own life in danger. And of course she didn’t think I was too young to hear that story and properly understand it. I was, clearly, not old enough.
Years later, I realized each of my friends had a single sibling, many years older than themselves. I believe they all went down the same road. Their immigrant parents had a child as soon as they got married, because they wanted to. Then, after many years of abortions, they had a late offspring before they could get rid of it. Of course, the economy helped dictate that result. During the 40s, our parents were already in a better economic situation than when they were newcomers to Uruguay, so a second child wasn’t so dramatically difficult at that time.
Yet, I’m still interested in what I said at the beginning. So, why are abortions considered so traumatic today? If the social group accepts them with no remorse, there are no interior dramas. I don’t believe any of our parents had suffered at all for those lost fetuses. The “traumas” of abortion are clearly social.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
En inglés (de otro color)
Feb 2011. En una tienda de ropa, hace unas horas.
Una empleada estaba vociferando acerca de la mala actitud de la clienta previa.
Empleada, (acerca de una clienta a quien no le había gustado el color de unas bombachas que estaban en liquidación): “She says, this ghetto”. (Espera la reacción de la otra empleada, que quedó callada)
Entonces sigue: “She don’t know ghetto!!”, "so I says: Sista, this ain’t no ghetto, this ghetto”…
Ahí vi en un gran espejo el reflejo de toda la tienda. La única blanca era yo, como de costumbre.
Lo que es interesante es el uso de la palabra 'ghetto'. Ahí va lo de Wiki en inglés:
Recently the word "ghetto" has been used in slang as an adjective rather than a noun. It is used to indicate an object's relation to the inner city or black culture, and also more broadly, and somewhat offensively, to denote something that is shabby or of low quality. While "ghetto" as an adjective can be used derogatorily, the African American community, particularly the hip hop scene, has taken the word for themselves and begun using it in a more positive sense that transcends its derogatory origins.
Creo que en el caso de la empleada diciendo 'this ghetto', indicaba simplemente 'mal gusto'. No me parece que la calidad sea pertinente.
Una empleada estaba vociferando acerca de la mala actitud de la clienta previa.
Empleada, (acerca de una clienta a quien no le había gustado el color de unas bombachas que estaban en liquidación): “She says, this ghetto”. (Espera la reacción de la otra empleada, que quedó callada)
Entonces sigue: “She don’t know ghetto!!”, "so I says: Sista, this ain’t no ghetto, this ghetto”…
Ahí vi en un gran espejo el reflejo de toda la tienda. La única blanca era yo, como de costumbre.
Lo que es interesante es el uso de la palabra 'ghetto'. Ahí va lo de Wiki en inglés:
Recently the word "ghetto" has been used in slang as an adjective rather than a noun. It is used to indicate an object's relation to the inner city or black culture, and also more broadly, and somewhat offensively, to denote something that is shabby or of low quality. While "ghetto" as an adjective can be used derogatorily, the African American community, particularly the hip hop scene, has taken the word for themselves and begun using it in a more positive sense that transcends its derogatory origins.
Creo que en el caso de la empleada diciendo 'this ghetto', indicaba simplemente 'mal gusto'. No me parece que la calidad sea pertinente.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
2011 - Lo del 2001, demasiado privado, de modo que va chiste (en inglés)
No hay caso. Tengo todos los correos de Jorge, de Federico Ferber, de nuestra mudanza al South Loop, de Flora y la caída de las torres en N.York y de Gastón y sus problemas. Nada de esto se debe contar públicamente. La cosa es respetar y no tengo derecho a contar algo que pueda molestarle a alguien. Así que ahí va un chiste.
At 12/07/2001 02:53, you wrote:
Grandma takes her 5 year old grand daughter to the shopping Mall.
Somehow they become separated and the little girl starts to cry. A sales clerk asks her what is wrong and she says she is lost and cannot find her grandmother. The clerk takes the crying child to the security office and says they will page her grandmother. They ask the little girl what her name is.
The child replies "Shayna Punim, kinahora, poo poo poo. "
The security officer and the sales clerk repeat the question and are amazed when the child repeats, "My name is Shayna Punim, kinahora, poo poo poo. "
So they make an announcement on the P.A. system that a little girl has been found and that she says her name is Shayna Punim, kinahora, poo poo poo.
Five grandmothers rush to the security office.
At 12/07/2001 02:53, you wrote:
Grandma takes her 5 year old grand daughter to the shopping Mall.
Somehow they become separated and the little girl starts to cry. A sales clerk asks her what is wrong and she says she is lost and cannot find her grandmother. The clerk takes the crying child to the security office and says they will page her grandmother. They ask the little girl what her name is.
The child replies "Shayna Punim, kinahora, poo poo poo. "
The security officer and the sales clerk repeat the question and are amazed when the child repeats, "My name is Shayna Punim, kinahora, poo poo poo. "
So they make an announcement on the P.A. system that a little girl has been found and that she says her name is Shayna Punim, kinahora, poo poo poo.
Five grandmothers rush to the security office.
Monday, December 27, 2010
2008 - Halloween by e-mail -nostalgia trip (in English)
In the middle of a nostalgia trip. E-mail sent to my kids, in 2008
Halloween. I got an enormous bag of 'the good ones' - remember what you used to do? We all got dressed up, got together with the neighbors, with Sarah and her four kids, the Indian people from the apt. above Sarah's, Kahleen, and some assorted kids also from the building.
Mostly freezing, even raining, we went down thru Sarah's approved path, that included Kimbark, and even Harper (the whole block. I should have gone today to look at it).
When we got home you would dump all the candy on the dining room floor, and start separating 'the Bad ones' (corn candy, lollipops) from the Good ones (Reeses Pieces, Snickers, and I don't remember the rest). Then you would start checking each other’s pile, and start trading. You wouldn't eat before trading. Don't know what you traded, but you did. And then ate 4 or 5 each, and that was that.
I just called for Thai take-out, and when the guy rang the bell, very distracted, I got a pile of candy and tried to shove it in his bags (the ones he was delivering, I mean).
I wish I could have one more Halloween night with the 2 of you, and our old neighbors.
elisa
------
Reply |from Flora Diaz to me, Gaston show details 7:52 PM (3 hours ago)
This email made me cry!
Yeah, I totally remember!
One year Dave Wilson went as a mummy (Sarah wrapped him from head to toe in toilet paper).
Who is Kahleen?
I think it was usually our family, the Wilson's, Taznim and Anand (the Indian neighbors you mentioned whose parents' names I never knew!) and sometime Khary and Chris Friel?
And Harper was always the best street. They really got into it on that street for some reason.
And you're right, we hated the candy corn (I still do).
I think our favorite candy, Gaston correct me if I'm wrong, was actually that pink gum that was rock hard at first.
I liked the nestle Crunch bars, but Gaston didn't.
The truth is, I never really liked the candy all that much.
The fun was in acquiring it, and then trading it.
As soon as that part was over, the candy lost pretty much all of its value to me.
That's funny about the take-out guy. I wonder if restaurant delivery guys love or hate working on Halloween? I bet a lot of them get candy instead of actual tips. I also bet they hate that.
: )
Love you!
Beso grande,
flora
-------
Reply |from Gaston Diaz to Flora, me - show details 8:37 PM (2 hours ago)
You lie! You loved candy. You ate it all the time. Remember we kept all the candy in a basket on the dryer in the pantry and you would always eat it? I didn't really like candy that much, except chocolate, but with no nuts.
------
Reply |Flora Diaz to Gaston, me - show details 8:44 PM (2 hours ago)
I did not love candy!
I was a sweet tooth, admittedly, but I liked Pepperidge farm cookies and black forest cake and those Rondos bite size ice cream things in the freezer, candy was never my thing.
Most of the basket-on-the-dryer candy would sit there and get stale until the next year, or until Mom threw it out. Maybe the cockroaches ate it. I don't know, but it wasn't me.
And you did like some candy, you liked sweettarts and those jelly fruit-things.
That, and french fries. Nothing else.
------
from Flora Diaz Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 9:02 PM
To: Gaston
Cc: Elisa Steinberg
Incidentally, that does not explain why I had so many more cavities than you.
You loved Coca Cola and drank it more than me, that is the worst thing for teeth cause it's acidic and the sugar sticks and stays there, so you should have had more cavities!
But you didn't have ANY.
EVER.
So it must've been genetic.
: )
[Quoted text hidden]
Halloween. I got an enormous bag of 'the good ones' - remember what you used to do? We all got dressed up, got together with the neighbors, with Sarah and her four kids, the Indian people from the apt. above Sarah's, Kahleen, and some assorted kids also from the building.
Mostly freezing, even raining, we went down thru Sarah's approved path, that included Kimbark, and even Harper (the whole block. I should have gone today to look at it).
When we got home you would dump all the candy on the dining room floor, and start separating 'the Bad ones' (corn candy, lollipops) from the Good ones (Reeses Pieces, Snickers, and I don't remember the rest). Then you would start checking each other’s pile, and start trading. You wouldn't eat before trading. Don't know what you traded, but you did. And then ate 4 or 5 each, and that was that.
I just called for Thai take-out, and when the guy rang the bell, very distracted, I got a pile of candy and tried to shove it in his bags (the ones he was delivering, I mean).
I wish I could have one more Halloween night with the 2 of you, and our old neighbors.
elisa
------
Reply |from Flora Diaz to me, Gaston show details 7:52 PM (3 hours ago)
This email made me cry!
Yeah, I totally remember!
One year Dave Wilson went as a mummy (Sarah wrapped him from head to toe in toilet paper).
Who is Kahleen?
I think it was usually our family, the Wilson's, Taznim and Anand (the Indian neighbors you mentioned whose parents' names I never knew!) and sometime Khary and Chris Friel?
And Harper was always the best street. They really got into it on that street for some reason.
And you're right, we hated the candy corn (I still do).
I think our favorite candy, Gaston correct me if I'm wrong, was actually that pink gum that was rock hard at first.
I liked the nestle Crunch bars, but Gaston didn't.
The truth is, I never really liked the candy all that much.
The fun was in acquiring it, and then trading it.
As soon as that part was over, the candy lost pretty much all of its value to me.
That's funny about the take-out guy. I wonder if restaurant delivery guys love or hate working on Halloween? I bet a lot of them get candy instead of actual tips. I also bet they hate that.
: )
Love you!
Beso grande,
flora
-------
Reply |from Gaston Diaz to Flora, me - show details 8:37 PM (2 hours ago)
You lie! You loved candy. You ate it all the time. Remember we kept all the candy in a basket on the dryer in the pantry and you would always eat it? I didn't really like candy that much, except chocolate, but with no nuts.
------
Reply |Flora Diaz to Gaston, me - show details 8:44 PM (2 hours ago)
I did not love candy!
I was a sweet tooth, admittedly, but I liked Pepperidge farm cookies and black forest cake and those Rondos bite size ice cream things in the freezer, candy was never my thing.
Most of the basket-on-the-dryer candy would sit there and get stale until the next year, or until Mom threw it out. Maybe the cockroaches ate it. I don't know, but it wasn't me.
And you did like some candy, you liked sweettarts and those jelly fruit-things.
That, and french fries. Nothing else.
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from Flora Diaz Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 9:02 PM
To: Gaston
Cc: Elisa Steinberg
Incidentally, that does not explain why I had so many more cavities than you.
You loved Coca Cola and drank it more than me, that is the worst thing for teeth cause it's acidic and the sugar sticks and stays there, so you should have had more cavities!
But you didn't have ANY.
EVER.
So it must've been genetic.
: )
[Quoted text hidden]
2009 - The brotherhood of the maimed (English)
The Brotherhood of the Maimed
Elisa Steinberg (Jan 09) (English edited by G.Diaz and Jan Huttner)
My right eye is still swollen, but not too blue. I have a big ball of gauze packing underneath, inside of which, just in case, there is a frog whose stomach has been opened in cross shape by a Maya shaman, under a full moon night. Otherwise, I had to trust science, and I'm not so stupid.
Soon I’ll be able to remove the frog, and start caring for the wound. Manuel just went to buy Vaseline (yep, I also thought it was a bad sexual joke, but it’s not), cuz that’s what I have to use so that nothing will stick to the butterfly stitches.
In 5 days, the stitches will be removed and I’ll see whether I look like Frankenstein or Scarface. Either, or.
But after my last round in the torture chamber, they said the last slice they removed was clean, so no more cancer.
The doctors, with their sharp little knives, remove the affected area little by little, as if they are slicing cold cuts one slice at a time. But they stop after each slice, so the new sample can be dyed, frozen, and checked under a microscope in the Pathology Department. It takes about an hour before the surgeon gets the results, and if they see anything “funny” in Pathology, then the surgeon calls you in to remove yet another slice.
Before they send you to the waiting room, though, they cauterize the wound, which gives off a lovely roasted pig smell. But it stops being lovely when you realize that the smell is coming from your own burnt flesh. Then they apply more gauze packing, and they send you into a little room filled with other patients to wait for the verdict. This system allows the surgeon to treat 3 to 4 people per session (one at a time, of course, but in rotation) while the rest wait for results.
Once inside the waiting room, we were 8 souls - the 4 maimed, plus 4 mandatory companions- trying to act as if nothing bad was going on. They shoved us into a tiny room with 7 chairs and we played musical chairs. (The room is actually a Janitor’s closet. The architect didn’t see the need for a special area for transients.) The one who loses each round is the one going back into the surgical suite for more slicing.
I was the last one in. They had overbooked us by mistake, but the surgeon is a friend, and I told him I would cut his balls off if he made me reschedule for another day.
I looked inside the room and saw three people with huge balls of gauze stuck to different parts of their faces. It was an eerie sight. Once Manuel and I arrived, we were one Ear, one Temple, one Nose, and one Cheek (me), plus our four family members (easy to identify because they weren’t wearing any gauze). And all of us were white, which is really strange at the University of Chicago Hospitals.
We had an immediate human connection. I wouldn’t use the word “happy” exactly, but knowing that by the end of the day our cancers were going to be history allowed camaraderie to flourish with little effort. I felt like we were in the kind of Sociology experiment where a group of total strangers bonds together in order to fight a common enemy. And one more thing: we all had solid health insurance. Aha! You are treated very nicely when you come fully insured!
The surgeon came into the room every once in a while to convince us everything was going to be all right. Nice guy. I had sent an e-mail to Gastón, telling him I was happy I was able to get this particular doctor, because a) he’s an old friend, b) he had removed some of Flora’s moles over 15 years ago, and c) ‘he has good “bed manners.” Gastón cracked up laughing; he basically told me I was an idiot unable to learn proper English. He’s right. I knew I had written something that sounded wrong even to me, but couldn’t figure out what it was. Now I know. It’s ‘good bedside manners’. So sue me.
But Flora was too worried to bother with vocabulary lessons. “Who? Dr. S? But he was already old 15 years ago when he did my surgery!” Well, not true. The doctor is about our age, but I guess Manuel and I were also amazingly old 15 years ago.
My doctor is Persian. (He doesn’t say “Iranian,” he says “Persian.” So be it. And he speaks Farsi. He has a Peruvian girlfriend, and we all we used to go out for dinner together.) He came into the little room and said, pointing to Manuel: “And this is Dr. Díaz, a pioneer in the USA on leukemia research.” There was a little pause, and I felt Manuel and I had both been forgiven for our lousy “Mexican” accents. Now we were “white” too.
We each took turns sharing something about ourselves, and we found out we were all nicely educated folks. The she-Nose sitting next to me, said in a low voice: “Well, are we surrounded by geniuses?” “Oh, big whoop! Fuck ‘em,” I said, with my usual tender tongue. “You’re right,” said the Nose. We all knew that what brought us together was cancer, and I started to feel all these people were actually three dimensional.
The Ear was an 88 year old retired doctor, with a weird sense of humor. He had seen it all, and was pretty philosophical about this new “episode.” His helper was his engineer son, whose hobby is flying remote control airplanes, as well as real Cessnas. The Ear was the first one to get a clean bill of health after 4 hours, and therefore was free to go after being properly sewn. But he has to come back soon, cuz there were two more pieces of something floating somewhere else on his face, and they will have to go. We applauded when he was allowed to leave. Hugs and kisses galore—carefully avoiding his bandaged ear.
The Temple was a slightly younger man (I mean, less than 60, let’s not get too excited)—an engineer with an Asian wife. (She never told us what she did.) He proudly showed us his right ear, so elegantly put together a while back in such a nice shape, he said, that he wanted a cancer on his other ear too, so it could be redone and look as pretty as the fabricated one. (Some gallows humor is encouraged in this situation). But his bad luck got him a piece of crap on his left temple, and of course the gauze packing was there. The Temple and his wife told us they liked to hike and climb mountains during the winter. Crazy! He was the second one to leave, totally cured, for now.
The Nose was a woman (a lawyer), and I immediate took a liking to her, although I’m not sure why. She had started with a tiny little red pimple, but she was called in 4times to remove more bits and pieces, deeper and deeper.
Finally they told me I could go in for my finishing stitches cuz my last slice was clean, but they told her she needed plastic surgery because half of her nose was now gone. The plastic surgeon was waiting for her; they wanted to do everything right there and then. (Remember? Did I mention we all had good insurance?)
In the meantime, Manuel and the Nose’s husband, a previously shy financial economist, were chatting more than I thought either of them could ever chat. The Nose’s husband works at UIC and IIT, and he said Gastón’s time in Uruguay will earn him a lot of points when he applies to graduate school (if he ever does), and that knowing a second language, especially Spanish, will earn him even more points. He said they really take strange stuff into account when reviewing student applications, and Gastón could come to talk to him about it if he wanted to. I wondered how Gastón would introduce himself. “Hi, I’m the son of The Cheek who was sitting next to The Nose at the…” Nope, it doesn’t sound quite polite enough.
And that was that. The four of us, “The Brotherhood of the Maimed” (as Manuel decided to call us) we are cancer-free, and already cursing the stitches on our faces as if that were really important.
Elisa Steinberg (Jan 09) (English edited by G.Diaz and Jan Huttner)
My right eye is still swollen, but not too blue. I have a big ball of gauze packing underneath, inside of which, just in case, there is a frog whose stomach has been opened in cross shape by a Maya shaman, under a full moon night. Otherwise, I had to trust science, and I'm not so stupid.
Soon I’ll be able to remove the frog, and start caring for the wound. Manuel just went to buy Vaseline (yep, I also thought it was a bad sexual joke, but it’s not), cuz that’s what I have to use so that nothing will stick to the butterfly stitches.
In 5 days, the stitches will be removed and I’ll see whether I look like Frankenstein or Scarface. Either, or.
But after my last round in the torture chamber, they said the last slice they removed was clean, so no more cancer.
The doctors, with their sharp little knives, remove the affected area little by little, as if they are slicing cold cuts one slice at a time. But they stop after each slice, so the new sample can be dyed, frozen, and checked under a microscope in the Pathology Department. It takes about an hour before the surgeon gets the results, and if they see anything “funny” in Pathology, then the surgeon calls you in to remove yet another slice.
Before they send you to the waiting room, though, they cauterize the wound, which gives off a lovely roasted pig smell. But it stops being lovely when you realize that the smell is coming from your own burnt flesh. Then they apply more gauze packing, and they send you into a little room filled with other patients to wait for the verdict. This system allows the surgeon to treat 3 to 4 people per session (one at a time, of course, but in rotation) while the rest wait for results.
Once inside the waiting room, we were 8 souls - the 4 maimed, plus 4 mandatory companions- trying to act as if nothing bad was going on. They shoved us into a tiny room with 7 chairs and we played musical chairs. (The room is actually a Janitor’s closet. The architect didn’t see the need for a special area for transients.) The one who loses each round is the one going back into the surgical suite for more slicing.
I was the last one in. They had overbooked us by mistake, but the surgeon is a friend, and I told him I would cut his balls off if he made me reschedule for another day.
I looked inside the room and saw three people with huge balls of gauze stuck to different parts of their faces. It was an eerie sight. Once Manuel and I arrived, we were one Ear, one Temple, one Nose, and one Cheek (me), plus our four family members (easy to identify because they weren’t wearing any gauze). And all of us were white, which is really strange at the University of Chicago Hospitals.
We had an immediate human connection. I wouldn’t use the word “happy” exactly, but knowing that by the end of the day our cancers were going to be history allowed camaraderie to flourish with little effort. I felt like we were in the kind of Sociology experiment where a group of total strangers bonds together in order to fight a common enemy. And one more thing: we all had solid health insurance. Aha! You are treated very nicely when you come fully insured!
The surgeon came into the room every once in a while to convince us everything was going to be all right. Nice guy. I had sent an e-mail to Gastón, telling him I was happy I was able to get this particular doctor, because a) he’s an old friend, b) he had removed some of Flora’s moles over 15 years ago, and c) ‘he has good “bed manners.” Gastón cracked up laughing; he basically told me I was an idiot unable to learn proper English. He’s right. I knew I had written something that sounded wrong even to me, but couldn’t figure out what it was. Now I know. It’s ‘good bedside manners’. So sue me.
But Flora was too worried to bother with vocabulary lessons. “Who? Dr. S? But he was already old 15 years ago when he did my surgery!” Well, not true. The doctor is about our age, but I guess Manuel and I were also amazingly old 15 years ago.
My doctor is Persian. (He doesn’t say “Iranian,” he says “Persian.” So be it. And he speaks Farsi. He has a Peruvian girlfriend, and we all we used to go out for dinner together.) He came into the little room and said, pointing to Manuel: “And this is Dr. Díaz, a pioneer in the USA on leukemia research.” There was a little pause, and I felt Manuel and I had both been forgiven for our lousy “Mexican” accents. Now we were “white” too.
We each took turns sharing something about ourselves, and we found out we were all nicely educated folks. The she-Nose sitting next to me, said in a low voice: “Well, are we surrounded by geniuses?” “Oh, big whoop! Fuck ‘em,” I said, with my usual tender tongue. “You’re right,” said the Nose. We all knew that what brought us together was cancer, and I started to feel all these people were actually three dimensional.
The Ear was an 88 year old retired doctor, with a weird sense of humor. He had seen it all, and was pretty philosophical about this new “episode.” His helper was his engineer son, whose hobby is flying remote control airplanes, as well as real Cessnas. The Ear was the first one to get a clean bill of health after 4 hours, and therefore was free to go after being properly sewn. But he has to come back soon, cuz there were two more pieces of something floating somewhere else on his face, and they will have to go. We applauded when he was allowed to leave. Hugs and kisses galore—carefully avoiding his bandaged ear.
The Temple was a slightly younger man (I mean, less than 60, let’s not get too excited)—an engineer with an Asian wife. (She never told us what she did.) He proudly showed us his right ear, so elegantly put together a while back in such a nice shape, he said, that he wanted a cancer on his other ear too, so it could be redone and look as pretty as the fabricated one. (Some gallows humor is encouraged in this situation). But his bad luck got him a piece of crap on his left temple, and of course the gauze packing was there. The Temple and his wife told us they liked to hike and climb mountains during the winter. Crazy! He was the second one to leave, totally cured, for now.
The Nose was a woman (a lawyer), and I immediate took a liking to her, although I’m not sure why. She had started with a tiny little red pimple, but she was called in 4times to remove more bits and pieces, deeper and deeper.
Finally they told me I could go in for my finishing stitches cuz my last slice was clean, but they told her she needed plastic surgery because half of her nose was now gone. The plastic surgeon was waiting for her; they wanted to do everything right there and then. (Remember? Did I mention we all had good insurance?)
In the meantime, Manuel and the Nose’s husband, a previously shy financial economist, were chatting more than I thought either of them could ever chat. The Nose’s husband works at UIC and IIT, and he said Gastón’s time in Uruguay will earn him a lot of points when he applies to graduate school (if he ever does), and that knowing a second language, especially Spanish, will earn him even more points. He said they really take strange stuff into account when reviewing student applications, and Gastón could come to talk to him about it if he wanted to. I wondered how Gastón would introduce himself. “Hi, I’m the son of The Cheek who was sitting next to The Nose at the…” Nope, it doesn’t sound quite polite enough.
And that was that. The four of us, “The Brotherhood of the Maimed” (as Manuel decided to call us) we are cancer-free, and already cursing the stitches on our faces as if that were really important.
1986? de casamientos y divorcios (Castellano e English)
Flora: Are people married forever?
Yo: Sí, pero te podés divorciar y eso.
F: Are you and Dad married now?
Yo: Yes
F: Now???? (con tono y gesto de incredulidad)
Yo: -Si - y entonces le expliqué cómo la gente se casa, que van a un lugar y les dan un papel que dice que están casados y otros detalles por el estilo.
F: Even if it rains?
Deduje que no entendió un carajo.
Yo: Sí, pero te podés divorciar y eso.
F: Are you and Dad married now?
Yo: Yes
F: Now???? (con tono y gesto de incredulidad)
Yo: -Si - y entonces le expliqué cómo la gente se casa, que van a un lugar y les dan un papel que dice que están casados y otros detalles por el estilo.
F: Even if it rains?
Deduje que no entendió un carajo.
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