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In which I pretend to keep my dignity

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Culvers’ battered cod offerings. Credit: culvers.com

The tale of my weekend and Monday is not a cheery one, but I can’t think of another topic. I’ll try to keep it PG rated.

My two-day Waffle Festival was all I hoped it would be. I do a pretty fair Bisquick waffle, if I do say so myself. No doubt there are ways to improve my waffles, but these will do. Sunday, the Great Preparatory Fast, could have been worse. The preparation process that evening… the less said about that the better. It’s over; I’ll say that much. The old friend who served as my driver on Monday is very cheerful and patient, which was necessary because the procedure got delayed a full hour. When it was all over, I bought him lunch. Oh, the joys of solid food! Have you ever had the batter-fried cod dinner at Culvers’? Why does a hamburger place have the best cod in town? That’s one of the great cosmic mysteries. Or paradoxes, or something.

During the Sunday Fast, I searched for the movie “Sunburn” on YouTube, and discovered that it was available there. I was thinking of it, because I’d reviewed The Bind, the book it was based on, the other day. The studio, in its genius, took a hard-boiled, tragic yarn and tried to make it a light action comedy. I remember enjoying it when it came out, but that must have been mostly because of my massive crush on Farrah Fawcett. The movie follows the story’s plot more closely than I expected (though they moved the action from Miami Beach to Acapulco), merely changing the tone of things. But the dark ending had to go, so they substituted a conventional, improbable Hollywood gambit and ended the story on a (very false) light note. One of the worst final sequences I’ve ever seen in a movie.

Watching Farrah, the picture of youthful health and beauty, I couldn’t help thinking of her early death some years ago, the victim of a cancer which (I expect) could have been prevented by the very procedure I was just then dreading.

My great comfort, as I now contemplate the completed ordeal (the results were acceptable), is that at my age I’m unlikely to have to endure many more of these once-every-five-year procedures.

And the moral of the story is – waffles are good, and so is Culvers’ batter-fried cod. I wonder if cod is any good with waffles, the way people now rave about chicken and waffles. Someone should try it. Authentic Norwegian cuisine.

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I know you’re dying to have an old man tell you about his health…

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What does one do on a book blog when one hasn’t finished a book to review?

Oh yes. One talks about one’s day. That’s why they call it a web log.

It was a mixed weekend for me. I got one piece of good news and one piece of bad news. The bad news I’ll probably never tell you about (though I can be bribed, if it’s that important to you), but the good I’ll trumpet to the skies – if it works out. Watch this space.

Today was a big one, because I had a doctor’s appointment, which meant actually leaving the house and interacting with other sentient organisms. I once knew a man who refused to ever see a doctor. He was retired, living in Florida, and he spent his days by his pool, drinking beer and netting away any stray leaf or insect that happened to land on the water surface. He had skin the color and texture of fine Corinthian leather. I seem to recall he died suddenly one day, but I don’t know whether he passed the actuarial average or not. With that skin it was hard to guess his age.

Today’s was one of those appointments where you have to fast before you go in, so they can judge your blood impartially. Not that big a sacrifice, really. The doctor and I had the usual conversation, in which he reaffirmed the miraculous current state of prostate testing – you can either take a flawed test which is likely to give you a false positive and result in them carving out your bagel for no good reason, or you can wait and see. I chose to wait and see, rather than buying a chance in the prostatectomy lottery.

I told him what I do for a living now, and he thought it was pretty cool. I love talking about that.

The nurse stuck me twice, trying to draw blood, and failed to extract any. Which is slightly unnerving, though I knew my heart was beating, so I was pretty sure there was blood in there somewhere. She referred me to a technician who got it done in a minute. I acquired a flu shot and the second pneumonia shot, too.

I also got two things accomplished today that I’d been putting off – one of them being taking the Christmas tree down. And in the afternoon my forebodings of job disaster, roused by several idle days, were eased by a new translation assignment.

Which I’ve got to post this and get to now.