Skipping a day

John Mosedale, friend, about 5 years ago


Dear family and friends,

I didn't write yesterday because the previous day I had encroached on yesterday's territory, starting it after 2 p.m., and the problem with skipping is that I cannot quite remember what I had thought about or done the day before yesterday that might be worth my while (and yours) to write about.

Work for the website hamletworks.org with Satyric, the grad student at Reno, is going well, except he is now teaching a class and of course has to give his major attention to his students. He seems very committed. We can talk on the phone, which we did the other evening, and both see the website. I can in this way show him what to do. The whole process is simple in a way, but with many steps to consider, and much thinking to do while working. When he can devote more time to hamletworks.org, much will get done. One section of the site needs a lot of work and may have to be re-done, at least in part—and this will be his work for the summer and perhaps beyond.

Talking to Satyaki, showing him the ropes at long distance, is something like teaching, but not quite. It's more like helping a colleague understand a lab process. But when my dear Dawn called with questions and thoughts about her 3-week summer classes, I really got into it, remembering what I used to do when I taught classes that lasted only three weeks. When we hung up, what I felt most like doing was to look at my old lesson plans and see what I might do with them. But I quickly realized I had other things I had to do! Like prepare an agenda for the summit meeting of the hamletworks.org editors and Pete from MIT.

I finished the obit piece on John Mosedale (see photo above), but I am going to let it sit for a few more days. His wife, Betty, has mailed me a packet, and perhaps material will be there I can use. I heard from the editors of the Shakespeare Newsletter that they would be delighted to get the obit. So I will have two items in the next issue.

Since I couldn't get into the City to interview Arin Arbus, the director, I proposed to the editors that I write a separate review not only about her work with Measure for Measure but also the other plays she has directed. This will be for a future issue.

Also, Laury's decision to go for a book rather than a section of a journal has given those of us included a clear direction. I have started looking at what I ahd done for the Shakespeare conference and see I have much to do before it is good enough to be a chapter in a book. Isn't it wonderful to be busy and active!

It's funny how things work out. Right now, work is being done by the building maintenance crew where we have our pied-à-terre, so we are not really missing days in the City. It would be impossible to use our apartment with plastic drapes over the open outside wall. Lucky, right? They could have done this job WHEN I was able to be there, and then I would have missed out.

Also, just as I become able to get into the City again, I will have an appointment with Mount Sinai. I am happy that they didn't call me to come sooner to take the preliminary tests for the drug trial. I don't have to go until June 10th, and by then I really should be in good shape. They don't even have to know I had a break in the pubis ramus—though I probably will tell them.

My ability to walk now, my orthopedist agrees, shows that the bone has healed. Merwin and I went to see him yesterday, and he was confused. Merwin and I had both gone to him about problems, me for my hip, which he diagnosed as a back problem, for which he told me to go to a physical therapist. This was about 2 weeks before the fall and broken bone. It was on the way into the therapist's office for my 3rd visit that the sidewalk in front of her office tripped me up, sending me crashing to the ground, breaking my bone, as the CT scan in the ER showed.

After the first phone call from him after the ER communicated the CT scan to him (it's all done elctronically). and he verified the ER doctor's diagnosis, I never heard from him again. It was my hematologist who arranged for the Visiting Nurse physical therapist and for the blood draw.

So when he came into the examining room yesterday, holding notes about the hip/back problem but utterly confused about the fall and the break, I said something like "You let me fall between the cracks—just as I fell because of the cracks!" I said this with a smile, teasingly. Anyway he called up the CT scan (isn't modern technology wonderful!), and we looked at it together. He showed me, as he rotated the image, the very clean break, fortunately with no torque: the pieces had stayed in place, putting me in a good position for healing. He suggested an x-ray now to verify the healing, but I demurred: hadn't I had enough x-rays? Isn't the fact that I can walk with a cane and even without it at times proof that it has healed? He agreed, and at the end gave me a prescription for physical therapy to strengthen my legs, which are very weak, and said, "I am sorry I let you fall through the cracks," using my very words in an apology. Apologies are a rare thing for a doctor, I think. he is a sweet young man.

The hour of waiting in the office gave me an opportunity to work on the agenda for our team's summit meeting; preparation is important because we have many things to settle.

On the way home, Merwin stopped at the Honda place to pick up his car, and I went on to North Shore Farms to pick up a few things. We seem to need to shop constantly. I suppose it's because we are rarely eating out now. I had intended to go to the cleaners and to CVS, but I opted for the supermarket instead. I used the bags I keep in the car, and kept each one very light. It helps to have a handicapped permit for parking. Mrwin was rather shocked that I did all that by myself. When I got home, we had a nice supper of halibut and red leaf lettuce salad.

I ended the evening with a martini glassful of the rabbi's cosmopolitans. Still good! a little more tangy than sweet, which I like, and Merwin and I watched a rather weird movie about a boy robot who wants love.

Don't we all!

Love,
Bernice