Lasset das Zagen, verbannet die Klage
Filed in Being ill - December 15, 2007Not too hard at the moment, since I am feeling a lot more lively after a week of mostly sitting around like a ham sandwich* staring vacantly into space, occasionally dozing off, and pretending to read RF Delderfield. And coughing. I am now off chemo and on another sort of hormone treatment (Faslodex) and probably running out of road. I twisted a doctor’s arm up her back (not my usual one, doctor not back I mean, whatever) and asked her to make an estimate and she, reluctantly (it was a very unfair question) said, perhaps 6 months. So obviously it crossed my mind that the total and utter fatigue unrelieved by sleep, was the Next Stage; but it doesn’t seem to be, or at any rate it’s not a ratchet. (I should probably point out that last time a doctor gave me any sort of prognosis, it turned out to be radically wrong).
The flat purchase has gone through, and Colin has been twice to Aberdeen for furniture deliveries and cleaning (and I may decide I’m well enough to go with him next week). We have bought me a great big electric recliner chair. It is in fact a La-Z-Boy, which for some reason makes me happy. I think it’s because I associate La-Z-Boys with a certain sort of American novel. Anne Tyler. I’m sure La-Z-Boys come into Anne Tyler. That makes them sort of quintessentially American things, which we don’t understand in the UK, like Oreos and Neiman Marcus. In fact, La-Z-Boys are romantic to me the way Aberdeen is mythic to Ophelia (in the comments to the previous post).
I suppose that’s because, although I have one way or another imbibed a lot of American culture, I have only been there three times. Places what I have been in America:-
Chicago, twice. Once for a boring business course at Northwestern (but there was a total eclipse of the sun, and we went on the El), and once much more recently to our office, to discuss the legal and technical issues surrounding the launch of a daily-priced open-ended US-domiciled collective investment fund invested in property securities with the lead fund manager in London (looking after various European markets) and others in the US and Sydney (and Singapore? I forget), to be marketed to Japanese retail investors. So there. I can probably still bore for Britain on this sort of subject.
Denver (airport) and Phoenix (airport) and a whole lot of very sexy national parks in between, like Bryce Canyon and Canyonlands, in a crimson Chevy (another American Brand) which beeped at you whatever you did and handed you your seatbelt.
Hartford, on business, in January, with flu. I can still remember gazing out of the window of a limo on the Mass Pike at the snow, as it got dark, having been cowed by an immigration official at O’Hare (and this was before 9/11). Luckily I was travelling with several of my staff, who piloted me to the hotel, where I slept for 14 hours and was fine next day. Which was just as well, because it was the middle of a business trip in which I flew right around the world east to west in a week.
LAX, in the middle of the night, see above (actually, now I think of it, on the way to Chicago as well; the immigration officials were much more friendly and that was in 2002).
Lots of play-power left in America, then, even just in the United States of, before getting on to South and Central and the Canadian bit of North. Possibly if I was well, we would be buying round-the-world tickets. On the other hand, we might have decided that we have done enough of being like a tea-tray in the sky.
* I dunno, it just came into my head. After all, ham sandwiches, of their own volition, do just sit around, don’t they.
Lest anybody be tempted to use Google Translate to look up Lasset das Zagen, verbannet die Klage you can save your keyboard because…..drumroll….it’ll tell you that it means:
Let the Zagen, verbannet the action
which you will agree is about as useless as a translation can get.
Babelfish does slightly less badly:
leave the Zagen, banish the complaint
Which just requires a little help from Wiktionary (the German, not the Dutch). Really, decades of development and the auto translators still can’t make sense of a short phrase in an easy language.
BWV 248:
December 15, 2007 @ 9:25 pm
ham sandwiches are not as ubiquitous as cheese and onion slices from the co op, deceptively warm and always a mistake
December 16, 2007 @ 7:14 pm
Very happy for you about the Lazy Boy. A Lazy Boy is a very good thing, and I agree, very Anne Tyler-ish. Southern Utah–Ahh! Great place. Chicago is good too. The rest of the news…well. Crap. Thinkin’ of you a lot (that’s Texan…very American).
December 16, 2007 @ 10:39 pm
Ham sandwiches don’t lie around anywhere I am, because I chomp them up!
La-Z-Boy (I didn’t know they were called that), good. In this weather, though, a heated La-Z-Boy would be best..
The US stuff in your post made me think of the Fonz, bizarrely enough.
(And what Jean K said about thinking of you.)
December 20, 2007 @ 3:39 pm
For me, La-Z-Boys are associated with my cuddly Grandpa (as opposed to my slightly scary Grandpa). After he had a stroke my parents got one for him, and dad stuck a trolley wheel arrangement on the bottom of it and made a ramp next to the steps so Grandma could wheel him outside on nice days and he could see what havoc we had wreaked on his beloved garden.
It was a huge chair, and ugly as sin, but perfect for the situation. It was comfortable and practical, and that was the main thing. There was also something cuddly about it, a bit like Grandpa. It wasn’t electric, though. (That’s an interesting present to tell people about. “I was given an electric chair for Christmas.”)
I didn’t know they still existed.
December 25, 2007 @ 12:06 am
Potentilla: I don’t mean to be invasive or morbid, so tell me to fuck off if I am. I read above that a doctor tells you that you have 6 months left. Doctors make a lot of mistakes, as you well know. First of all, let me tell you once again that I admire your courage in facing your situation and writing about it in a blog. You seem to separate your philosophical interests from your personal situation. If that is your option, fine. However, first of all, lots of people who only know you through the TPM blog are probably concerned about you. I can see that you have your own personal support group of friends as well as your mate and you don’t need and possibly don’t want our cyber support. Nevertheless, if you wish, I think that we, who post regularly in the TPM blog, could accompany in some sort of way. I’m sure that Jean would have no problems with that. I never know if I’m invading someone’s personal space or being supportive. Take care of yourself, Amos
December 25, 2007 @ 9:18 pm
amos – not at all invasive or morbid – you’re welcome here. Cyber support is very welcome. Many, even most, of the people who comment here are in fact cyber-friends, apart from my mother (see Good King Wenceslas fantasy in the next post!) and sister-in-law. I have lots of people who I know in real life who read the blog but don’t comment, or send me emails instead.
I don’t “talk” very much about being ill on TPM because it seems rather impolite on someone else’s blog, and I’m just a reticent Brit at heart. Here is different because it’s my own space and anyone who doesn’t like it doesn’t have to read it. I do sometimes do some philosophising here, but increasingly little as I get more tired. Responding to someone else’s lead on TPM seems to take less cognitive effort.
December 26, 2007 @ 4:37 pm
Belatedly catching up -
I like the idea of the La-Z Boy being mythic in the same way Aberdeen is. Aberdeen is mythic like Chicago or Dallas, so La-Z Boy is mythic like…oh…a wardrobe made out of plywood.
January 6, 2008 @ 7:58 pm