Fleece Explosion

The planets aligned a week ago Sunday, and all six of the Favorite Female Friends gathered at the Boathouse to celebrate Carol’s and Beth’s birthdays. You know the world is too complex when it takes half a dozen emails followed by as many phone calls just to set up a lunch with friends – but we did it.

Everyone looked great, and we admired one another as we sat at the table by the fireplace. Carol had on a magenta fleece jacket, a color that looks great on her. I said so. “I don’t wear sweaters anymore,” she said. “I wear fleece jackets instead. You can easily adjust when you are too warm or when you feel chilly.”

I replied that I used to have two fleece jackets, but when I got smaller, they went to the resale shop, and I have not replaced them. Carol continued to praise all things fleece. Judy mentioned everything was on sale at Eddie Bauer, including fleece. I said maybe I would get myself a new fleece jacket. Carol jumped up and urged me to try on hers. It fit – and she said I should keep it.

Keep it? “Are you sure?” I asked. “It’s wonderful!” Carol hugged me and laughed, and that was that. The six of us have been friends for 35 years, and that is how are with one another – but what a delightful surprise.

Tally: One fleece jacket.

On the way home from lunch, I stopped at Eddie Bauer. I bought a long-sleeved tee shirt marked down to $9. The next day, I popped back into the store to buy another shirt in a different color. I know from experience that you can pay twice that for a quality shirt at a resale shop. There, hanging next to the shirt I planned to buy, was a red fleece jacket marked half off and then discounted even further as per the sale of the day. I bought it.

Tally: Two fleece jackets.

I own a fleece vest. I bought it for $10 at the Alpine Shop at an end-of-winter sale half a dozen years ago. After I bought the red jacket, I looked on the Eddie Bauer web site to see what fleece vests were selling for, as I had not seen any I liked at the store. I browsed L.L.Bean’s web site. Then I looked on ebay. There I found several fleece vests, but the deal I liked best was two from Land’s End for $25 – with free shipping. I bought them. They arrived, and they are wonderful, in perfect condition.

Tally: Two fleece jackets, three fleece vests (counting the one I already owned.)

“Can I sleep in my fleece jackets?” I wondered one night as I crawled into my new bed. I love my new bed – see the previous post – but the sheets are COLD when I first crawl in. Before I bought the new bed, I had slept on a heated waterbed for at least 25 years. I miss that heater! When I whined to friends, everyone suggested flannel sheets.

I did the research, and discovered that women of a certain age who experience sudden temperature fluctuations at night don’t do all that well with flannel sheets. I also discovered that fleece sheets are now available, and that fleece wicks away perspiration. Fleece sheets, one web site claimed, are perfect year ‘round – not too cold and not too hot.

As I lay in bed pondering the idea of fleece sheets, I reached over to pet Maggie, who sleeps on a small fleece blanket I bought to keep the cat off the comforter. (Sometimes, it even works.) “That feels good,” I thought. The next day, I bought some fleece sheets on line.

I washed them. I dried them. I put them on the bed. I was skeptical. That night, I crawled into bed. My bed was warm! My bed was fuzzy! My bed, which previously had been cold and crisp and not at all welcoming, was warm and fuzzy -- and I was immensely happy. I slept well – so well that when morning came, I did not want to get out from under the warm, fuzzy sheets. When I did get up, I went on line and found the same sheets for half price on an end-of-season sale, and I bought a second set.

Tally: Two fleece jackets, three fleece vests, two sets of fleece sheets.

I’m set, I said to myself. I am prepared for any occasion that calls for fleece. The very day after I swore off purchasing another single thing, fleece or otherwise, I found a reversible fleece vest in my size at a resale shop. It cost $9. I bought it. You do the math for the final tally.

And I do mean final.

A Bedtime Story

Out with the old, in with the new. Okay, the used.

In my continuing quest to have in the condo only furniture and goods that will move to San Francisco with me, I sold my old bed and bought a new-to-me bed. When I moved here over 11 years ago, I bought a grown-up bed, real furniture, with a headboard and footboard. Previously, I had slept in a free-flow waterbed nestled in a custom-built, low-lying frame. As a more mature individual, when I moved here I bought a free-flow water mattress wrapped in a standard king mattress.

LOVE waterbeds!

However, once the move to California was afoot (okay, pending), I knew I could not move a king-size bed (with or without a water mattress) to a small apartment. The dresser was huge. The two nightstands were generously sized. The whole set was just too big.

You may or may not recall that my entire dining room set (antique table with two leaves, six chairs, buffet and a china cabinet that resembles an old Philco radio) has been moved to a terrific resale shop and my Empress-style chandelier now hangs in an antique gallery, all waiting for a buyer. Though a person can get by without a chandelier or a massive dining room set, it’s difficult to make do without a bed.

Late one night, prowling around on Craig’s List, I found a queen-size bed for sale with two nightstands. From the description, it sounded like a Techline product. I love Techline, a Danish modern style several notches above Ikea products in quality. My current desk and office table are Techline. For that matter, my next desk and office cabinet are Techline – I found them on Craig’s List in San Francisco, and my son and daughter-in-law kindly picked them up and carted them to their home to wait for my arrival.

Anyway, I talked myself out of calling about the bed -- for a few days, anyway. Finally I caved and shot off an email. Yes, the furniture was still available. It had been used in a guest room, so it was in great shape. And the headboard had a big space for storage, which I suspect I will need in a small apartment.

So on a night when the temperature dropped to 8 degrees, I drove to Festus – south of Festus, actually – and looked at the bed, which was stored in a trailer. I liked what I saw. I liked the price. I also liked the people selling the bedroom furniture. I bought it, and a few days later my friend Scott followed me to south of Festus and we loaded up his truck and my station wagon and brought it all back to my condo.

Now I had two beds, four nightstands and a chest of drawers. I also had my grandmother’s dresser, which has four deep drawers that are on the small side. “I can do it,” I thought one night, lying in the four-poster waterbed. “I can get by with the smaller nightstands, the storage headboard and my grandma’s dresser. I just need to get rid of some more socks.”

LOVE socks!

Fancy socks, plain socks, wooly socks, cotton socks – I love them all. I gave up pantyhose two decades or more ago, and tights have ceased to impress me. I wear socks. And apparently, I buy socks whenever I see a pair I like. As it happened, I visited a friend after Christmas who was wearing shoes, but no socks. She was in the process of moving, and somehow she had lost her box marked “Socks.” Thrilled to come to the rescue, I drove home, sorted socks and drove a bag full over to her new house. Problem solved!

For two years, I’ve been looking at a particular mattress. “Don’t believe the hype,” said my son when he heard it about it. I didn’t need to believe the hype. I believed Carol and Nick, Judy and Scott, Donna and Doug, Beth and Rick, my neighbor Will and my friend Carl, a high school classmate. They all endlessly praised this mattress, and boasted to one another about how well they sleep. So I bought the mattress.

All that remained was to sell the king-size bedroom set. I sent out an email to friends and a few friends of friends. I found a buyer who liked what she saw, liked the price and was even willing to take some nearly new bed linens. Today, two young men who do this sort of thing arrived to take away the four-poster bed, the chest and the two big nightstands.

Last Monday morning, Doug came over with a pump, a hose and a tool box. He pumped the water out of my waterbed mattress. He took apart the four-poster. His friend Jerry arrived in time to help Doug carry the old bed frame out of the bedroom and the new bed frame in. Doug and Jerry left.

Monday afternoon, Nick showed up with his tool box. Soon after, Scott arrived to help. They figured out the puzzle that was the new (used) bed frame – all I had for them was a plastic bag full of hardware – and then they put together my new mattress. Scott even helped me make the bed. By 4 p.m., the room was transformed.

After Nick and Scott left, I stretched out on the new bed to test it. Ten minutes later, I was asleep. I slept well that night, too, and every night since then. Yesterday I drove around delivering Starbucks gift cards to Nick and Scott. I promised Doug I would buy him a pizza at our favorite place later this month. So that’s done, and I now live mostly with the furniture that will accompany me to San Francisco.

LOVE my new bed!

So what’s your Sleep Number?

Three Beats Two, Right?

What’s new in 2010?

I have three new breasts! I don’t wear them all at once, of course – I just need one, to replace the one that went bad on me.

I keep two of my new breasts in a box on a shelf in my closet. One is a big hollow silicone number, see-through to boot. I wear it swimming and to work out, and wash it off afterward. One is solid silicone, and looks like a small baked ham. It is for dress-up wear. I even have two new black bras to cart it around in, so I am ready for fancy occasions.

My two silicone breasts rest in a contoured plastic container, where they nest together, one on top of the other. As it happens, silicone breast forms – whether hollow or solid – wear little outfits, soft little buntings, and that keeps them from sticking together.

My third breast is a doozy!

A 19-year-old friend found a website called Tit Bits, with knitted breast forms for sale. The site also offered a pattern and showed various designs. When Jenny came home for Christmas from Oberlin -- where she is majoring in organ and geology – she presented me with two new knitted breasts.

One is blue, with whales swimming around it. One is black, for formal wear. The blue one fit perfectly and looks 99 percent as good on as the $300 baked ham. As instructed by the web site, Jenny weighted down the breast form with a metal charm (this one is from Tibet) tucked inside the fiberfill stuffing, so the breast doesn’t try to travel up and out of my bra.

Speaking of traveling, probably I need to wear one of the silicone breasts on planes. Imagine going through security and being asked about that metal object you are trying to smuggle through in your bra…

I wear the blue breast when I’m hanging out at home. Okay, I went to Walgreen’s in it one day, too. I also wear it to Weight Watchers, because unlike my store-bought breasts – which go about 1 ½ pounds each -- the blue one adds no weight at all. Also, it is soft and warm.

The black knitted breast was a tad too small, so Jenny took it back to Oberlin to make it bigger. For spring, she is knitting me a festive breast that looks like a slice of watermelon.

A man I know just got a new shoulder. This is his second one. That’s terrific – but don't three breasts beat two shoulders?

Happy New Year!

A Warm Winter's Night

Baby, it’s cold outside – 7 degrees, to be exact.

Seven degrees – that’s hardly even trying! In spite of wearing plenty of clothes, I feel chilly. The floor-to-ceiling windows in the condo seem to have adopted a “share the air” policy, even with the shades closed. Apparently Maggie the Cat is cold too. She has expressed her displeasure by refusing to watch television with me, and has headed off to bed.

I reject a rerun of a Chris Rock special, surf for a bit and come up with the film version of “Carousel.” Starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, the movie was made in 1956, when I was 8. I may not have appreciated it at the time, but in later years I came to love “Carousel.” What’s not to like about “If I Loved You?”

I grab a blanket and settle in. The movie is almost over – Louise has just started her ballet on the beach. The beach! As the waves roll in, young Susan Luckey dances with great exhilaration and delight, expressing everything I feel for the Pacific Ocean. I imagine it’s me, dancing my “Hello, I Finally Moved Here” dance on Ocean Beach when I finally get to San Francisco.

Okay, my ballet is not what it used to be -- especially my tour jetés. And that’s the nice thing about dancing vicariously, isn’t it? So Luckey is dancing away, having a grand old time, and she encounters a young carnival barker with his troupe. This part is a fantasy, of course, but this carnival barker can really dance! Who IS this guy?

I hit “pause,” run down the hall and look him up in the Internet Movie Database. In the old days, I would have looked up the dancer’s name in one of my many books on dance or movies, but the books are long gone, and I know the Internet will know.

It’s Jacques d’Amboise!

Jacques d’Amboise is a man from Massachusetts who took a French name. He danced with the New York City Ballet, and later choreographed for the company. He was 22 when he danced in “Carousel.” Just 20 years later, d’Amboise founded the National Dance Institute in New York City, where he dedicated his life to teaching children to dance. His daughter, Charlotte d’Amboise, is also a dancer. Maybe you saw her in “Every Little Step,” the film about the Broadway revival of “A Chorus Line” – or maybe you saw her play Cassie in that revival.

I zip back to the living room (hey, it’s cold…) and resume watching the movie. Of course, I know exactly what happens, so my mind drifts. I think about how much I love dance, and of course that brings to mind Ross Winter, my dear friend and surrogate family member who died in March of 1994.

Then I remember Hope Wurdack’s production of “Carousel” in her years with Theater Factory. Hope’s Mr. Snow – Kevin Chamberlin -- went on to play Charlie on Broadway in “Dirty Blonde” and Horton on Broadway in “Seussical.”

Then, plain as day, in my mind I hear Edward. He’s saying, “The overture to ‘Carousel’ goes on and on – it must be the longest overture in show business!” The day he actually said that was in 1995, when we were in Arrow Rock, seeing the Lyceum Theatre’s production of “Carousel” and seeing Philip, Edward’s twin brother.

Philip died four years ago today.

At this point in the movie, everyone is at the high school graduation, and they are singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” a teary song if ever there was one, especially as Billy kneels next to Julie’s chair and tells her he did love her – and she smiles and starts to sing along.

Suddenly I’m not cold anymore.

All Decked Out

Have I found an apartment in San Francisco?

No – but I have found a deck, a big multi-level wooden deck, a deck perched on the edge of the continent, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I found this deck at Fort Funston, a stretch of craggy cliffs and dunes along Skyline Boulevard, south of Ocean Beach.

I found this deck on Christmas Day, when it was sunny and almost warm, close to 60 degrees in San Francisco. “Let’s go for a hike on the beach,” said my son, Joel. His bride was all for it. I was excited, too. We put on our layers and off we went.

Our first stop at Fort Funston was this wooden deck. When Joel and Patricia were ready to head out on the hike, I decided I needed to sit in the sun, stare at the water and listen to the sounds of the sea instead of scrambling down 200 feet to the beach. Off they went. I hiked to the car to retrieve the baseball cap Patricia had loaned me for the day, and returned to the big deck.

A woman was seated on one of the lower levels, a pregnant woman who had rolled up her shirt to expose her belly to the warm sun. Respecting her privacy, I moved to the other side, on another level, and we sat together/apart in silence, listening to the sounds of the sea.

As time passed, other people came to the deck. Two young men and a young woman arrived. They sat down on the level below me and opened sandwiches. After they ate, the young woman started taking photos of the ocean through a half-full bottle of water. One of the young men lightly mocked her; the other defended her, applauding her creativity.

Two couples showed up with a teen-age daughter and a big woolly dog named Bonnie. Fort Funston allows dogs to romp free of leashes, so many people there had dogs with them. Bonnie was interested in the three young people – probably she smelled the remains of their lunch on the paper wrappings in their backpack.

The sun was so warm, the sounds of the sea so soothing, that I fell asleep for a while. When I woke up, the pregnant woman was gone and one of the couples with Bonnie was showing the other couple how to swing dance, right there on the big wooden deck. The teenager laughed in delight.

More people came and went. Some stopped on the top level for a quick look at the view. One man chased after his dog, which suddenly slipped through the rails of the deck and started bounding down the cliff. When the runaway dog heard another dog barking above the deck, it bounded back up and was reunited with its owner. The barking dog, a little black Yorkie mix by the look of it, raced around the deck drooling on everyone, but in a dog-friendly way. No one seemed to mind.

Out in the ocean, a seal – or maybe it was a sea lion -- popped its head out of the water to stare up at those of us on the deck. A couple of pelicans flew low over the water. A cormorant soared overhead. The sun shone on and the waves just kept rolling in on this peaceful Christmas afternoon.

On another day, I did look at some apartments in San Francisco, scattered throughout several neighborhoods. The one I liked the best, in the Outer Richmond, offered two views of the sea. When I told the fellow from the real estate management office that I am a writer, he said another writer lives in the building. “His home is in Sonoma,” he said, “but he comes here for inspiration.”

No matter where I end up living, I now have a deck where I will find inspiration -- a big multi-level wooden deck, a deck perched on the edge of the continent, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

On the Road Again

Good news – Highway 40 is open once again, which means now you can get from here to there without making a plan in advance.

More good news – My detour on the road to San Francisco (a new bout of breast cancer) is under control. Surgery was six weeks ago and the side effects from that surgery are responding to treatments I can live with, in contrast to treatments that were driving me crazy.

Okay, crazier.

Something else to rejoice about: I’ve revised my ideal deadline for moving. When I put the condo on the market last May, I wanted to move NOW. Once I had made the decision, I took steps to make that move happen. It didn’t, even after I spent money to neuter (um…neutralize) the place, carted out 46 boxes of books and displayed folded towels in the master bath that resembled folded towels you might see in a spa.

Over the months that followed, more than 40 people toured the condo. Some were neuter (er…neutral) about it. Some disliked it; some loved it. One woman wanted to buy the condo and all the art on my walls, as is, but had to sell her place first. (That hasn’t happened.) One man stood a long time in the dining room, imagining hardwood floors here – a lovely vision. Then he left and never called back.

“Frenzied.” That’s how one friend described my state of mind as summer turned to fall and I realized that somehow, in spite of my specific intention and superlative force of will, I still lived here. Okay, I admit to frenzied. Also frustrated and annoyed and yes, startled.

“I’ve started to think maybe I have a loser condo,” I confided to another friend. She didn’t buy that, and suggested I consider making condo affirmations. “Pretty condo, good condo, nice condo,” I crooned as I walked through the rooms. (That always works on the cat.)

Nothing changed.

People came, people went – and it’s likely that these same people were tromping through the other 32 condos for sale in Creve Coeur. No one made an offer on mine. Then along came cancer, dropping into my life like a huge red stop sign. I stopped, but I immediately started mapping out an efficient detour, much as we all do when confronted with an unexpected traffic jam on a favored route.

“Your condo did not sell because you needed to be here, with friends and doctors you know, as you went through surgery,” said one person. Or maybe it was two. No – I think I heard that at least three times. Yet as far as I know, the condo does not now and never did know that I got cancer.

In any case, that’s all in the past now. I feel terrific, I look pretty good and I’ve decided to aim for moving to San Francisco by June – a much more forgiving deadline than NOW.

That said, if you know someone who would like a new condo for Christmas (with all appropriate tax breaks), send them to: www.soldinahurry.com/SOLDINAHURRY.COM_2/Coeur_de_Royale.html

Thanks!

What's Up Your Sleeve?

Does your left hand know what your right is doing?

For four days, my right hand was doing everything. My left hand – and forearm and elbow and upper arm – were all bundled up, wrapped to reduce lymphedema, a swelling that is common in women who have lymph nodes removed during surgery for breast cancer.

This bundling process, provided by an occupational therapist with special training in treating lymphedema, starts with a full-length gauze sleeve. More gauze is wrapped around each finger. Then comes a layer of cotton batting, followed by large pieces of foam rubber. Next is a wide band of stretchy gauze. Last comes not one, not two, not three, but four layers of stretchy bandages, all taped down.

Next? Me, whining.

Never mind that my left arm looked as though it had been ripped off the Michelin Man and transplanted onto me. I could barely bend my arm. It was heavy. And I had exactly three shirts in my closet that would fit over the thick bandages. Still, in order to combat the swelling and encourage my lymphatic system to start working correctly again, I was to go about wearing the tape, bandages, foam, batting and gauze wrappings for 23 hours a day. Staring in shock at my newly immobilized limb, I asked my therapist if I could type. She was sure I could.

I couldn’t.

The bandages on my left hand kept hitting all kinds of weird keys. My right hand was happy to go it alone for a while, but then that arm would start to burn and cramp. Meanwhile, my left arm alternated between itching, throbbing and feeling hot. Surgery, post-op annoyances, wrestling with the drain, dealing with extra fluid at the wound site and learning how to maneuver a breast form all were a cinch compared to living with this!

I was scheduled for two weeks of therapy appointments. Each week day, I was to unwrap my mummy arm in the morning, shower and then head -- unbound -- to my appointment. There, after a massage to stimulate lymph drainage, I was strapped back in. What about weekends? Well – I was told I could take off the bandages and shower on weekends if I could wrap my arm back up properly. Hah!

I couldn’t.

Lymphedema is not curable -- I learned this on my first day of therapy -- but it can be managed. If treated early enough, sometimes a mild condition will reverse spontaneously. If left untreated, symptoms may include severe fatigue, a swollen limb, fluid accumulation in other body areas, discoloration of the skin, infection and eventually, deformity. An extreme version of lymphedema (one that involves microscopic parasitic worms) is elephantiasis.

To reduce the risk of my wee bit of lymphedema running wild and out of control, my therapist said on the second day of therapy that the prescribed treatment would be to wear a compression sleeve every day and to bundle and bandage my arm every night -- for the rest of my life. I just looked at her and said, “No.”

I couldn’t.

I went home that day with my left arm immobilized and my mind and spirit pulverized to a fine powder. Since Oct. 7, people have been telling me things I do not want to hear. Since Oct. 7, I have been moving passively through the medical world, a patient expected to be compliant. Since Oct. 7, my sense of myself as a healthy, active individual has been under siege.

On the third day of therapy, the lovely young woman who truly wants the best possible outcome for me discussed an alternative to night bundling – specifically, an elaborate, expensive compression sleeve. She also showed me daytime sleeves that come in bright, crazy colors, as though making a fashion statement with a sleeve would make wearing it more appealing.

The fourth day was Thanksgiving. Time spent with friends and some delicious food pierced my gloom for a short time, but through the day, though people said, “Have a nice holiday,” I couldn’t.

At 3 a.m. on the fifth day of therapy, I woke up and could not get back to sleep – a rarity for me. At 5 a.m., I unwound every layer and freed my arm some four hours earlier than prescribed. At 10 a.m., I dragged in to therapy and announced that we needed a new plan, a plan that would allow me to take good care of my arm but that also would allow me to move through the world as myself.

The therapist hugged me. Next, she measured my arm and reported that the swelling was down by half. Then she told me that if I could find a medical supply store that stocked an off-the-rack compression sleeve that met her standards, I could buy it and try going bandage free, as long as I wore the sleeve during my waking hours.

I could. I did. I am. And it's just fine!