Diary of a French Facelift

Sleepless in scarsville

2009-04-07T05:08:00.000-07:00

5 am: I’ll take an ineffectual codeine-laced suppository and try to go back to sleep.

It’s not pain in the sense of sharp jabs or undulating waves. It’s being the Wife of Frankenstein whose face has been stitched onto her skull one stitch at a time. It pulls. All the nurses warned me that it would pull and were they ever right.

There is numbness around my mouth. Yesterday Nando said, "Don’t try to talk to me. All you can do is mumble and I don’t understand you."

Under my neck it pulls. Around my jowls (which are supposed to disappear anyway but who knows, as the bottom of my face is covered from cheek to neck) it pulls some more. Around my ears it pulls and also aches, as if the ears had been punched. My lower eyelids feel sore, but not much. My upper eyelids don’t feel as if they have been touched. But Dr. Delos had talked about doing a lot of cutting on them, so why don’t they hurt? And where are the scars for that?

Blood lines

2009-03-29T13:07:00.000-07:00

My two thick wrinkle lines that had stretched from nose to mouth had been replaced by two red lines. My eyes had red streaks beneath them, some crumbles of (I supposed) dried blood and they were pulled. I thought, "I don’t want them to look so pulled when I get better." Blue bruises above the eyes but I still saw the traces of all that overhanging flesh Dr. Delos had called attention to, that he had intended to eliminate. If it is still there now, where is it going to go a month from now?

Snow White . . . NOT

2009-03-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

So naturally I went into the bathroom to check. Nothing to pass out about. Nothing as upsetting as the sight of a needle. But no Miss America contender either. Yes, ET was a good description. A fluffy cotton snow cap that trundled down from the top of my head and over my ears and down bordering the left and right sides of my mouth (unsmiling, because I still couldn’t smile due to the numbing effect of the anesthesia). It extended below my chin and covered more than half of my neck. The ends were tucked away at the back of my head somewhere.

I don’t know where most of my hair was but part of it stuck out of an opening in the top of my head at the back.

ET, pee, and me

2009-03-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

4:10 am. I have to get up to pee again and now I can’t get back to sleep. It’s not the pain exactly because I can’t say precisely what the "pain" is. I do feel like my head has gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson and Nando says he feels the same. My surgery was only 3.5 hours, not 4 as originally anticipated, and that’s good. The anesthesiologist, arrogant as he is, must know his stuff. Whatever he had given Nando to make him feel like a jolly pepperone, it’s like the scene in "When Harry met Sally": I want whatever he ordered!

That evening and the next morning, Nando asked me several times how he looked. Like a raccoon. Dark half moons under his eyes and dark above them. A thin line of what had to be blood along his lower eyelids. Stitches? I couldn’t see them. The rest of his face unchanged. Actually quite lovely; his skin relaxed and firm, his forehead unwrinkled.

"And how do I look?"

"Oh, you don’t want to know." He had inspected himself in the mirror but didn’t think I’d be inclined to do the same. Blonde young nurse also advised against it.

"You look like ET right now. You should wait a few days."

Let it pee

2009-03-20T04:22:00.001-07:00

Same day: 8:20 pm: I realize I am conscious. I get up, wanting to pee. I want to make it to the bathroom unassisted so I hold onto the salmon walls as I go along, and I succeed in making the long trip on my own. Nando is awake and asking, "What time is it? Is it 4:30 pm or 8:30 pm?"

The importance of his diabetic condition cuts through my confusion and I ask him, "Do you need to take your shot?" I call the nurse. It is now 8:30 pm. Nando has salmon (to match the walls?) and spinach. I am given orange juice but am allowed only one glass. A second glass might make me throw up, advises the nurse.

The operation

2009-03-15T05:43:00.000-07:00

At about noon Blondie came in and said, "Now it’s your turn." It felt very unhospital-like to trot after her in my bare feet and my little white babydoll nightgown. Shouldn’t I be on a stretcher or at least a wheelchair? We walked the few steps across the hall to the operating block and I obediently lay down on the operating table. That was already a gas; how often do you get to WALK to your own operation?

I don’t recall Dr. Delos being in the room, though he may have been. The anesthesiologist was on my right and he asked me to hold out my arm. I knew what was coming; I welcomed the anesthesia (considering the alternative), but felt obliged to tell them about my psychological aversion to needles. "You should know I have a problem with needles. I faint when I see them. So I will look the other way." He gave me a piqueur. The nurse said, "Now really that didn’t hurt so much." I agreed but pointed out that psychological reactions are beyond our direct control and have little to do with "pain". That’s all I remember.

Tension and trauma

2009-03-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

From then on, the car ride, the interlude in Monaco, the arrival in Marseille, we had both been calm. Except I noticed Nando had been acting more harshly to me, more critical, more impatient than he had been for several months. I asked him if he had been advised not to take his anti-depressant these final pre-op days. Oh no, he had continued to take them, he said.

So I figured this hostility was his way of releasing his tension. "Why do the traumas of the people nearest you always bring out the worst in you? It’s supposed to be the opposite: when the worst happens, it often brings out the best in people. Not you though."

The calm before the surgery

2009-03-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

Blondie had asked me if I wanted something to sleep this morning since I wouldn’t be operated on till about noon. I had declined. "I guess I’ll be sleeping all afternoon. So it’s better to take advantage of the time now while I still feel okay." I’d rather feel like myself as long as possible before the operation. Besides, I wasn’t scared, more anxious and curious than else. I was actually feeling calm about the whole thing. Was it the pill under my tongue? My worst bout of tension so far had been leaving Homer in the kennel, wondering whether HE might need plastic surgery upon my return.

Dog dry afternoon

2009-03-09T07:59:00.000-07:00

Nando was complaining about his mouth being very dry. I had a flash of waiting in a recovery room somewhere (after the dog attack in France? when my wrist was broken and reset in Monaco?) and having the same sensation. Dry block for a tongue. What I had craved was a Coke or lemonade. But there had been no one to respond to my cries. I was not going to ignore my husband's. I brought him a glass of water from the bathroom and guided it to his mouth. He took a few sips, giggling about his pepperone trip in between small gulps.

The nurse kept telling me that Nando had to sleep. He would see better, feel better, be able to eat a meal, if he would just stop talking and take a rest. Eventually he did, but it took almost half an hour.

Bloody business

2009-03-08T06:21:00.000-07:00

I asked the doctor why he wasn’t familiar with the insulin equipment we’d used and his response was textbook French: "Madame, I am a doctor, not a nurse. If I need to know a patient’s blood sugar, I ask the nurse to do it. Also, I am an anesthesiologist. A specialization in diabetes is not within my purview. Chaq’un a son competence."

Murderously I thought to myself, "YOU are a doctor, asshole, which is more than I am. YOU knew or should have known that my husband is a diabetic. You BET it is your business."

Sugar shot

2009-03-06T16:28:00.000-08:00

The doctor had brought a needle for the insulin but I didn’t want him to administer anything before knowing how much/what strength Nando needed. My husband was coherent enough to insist that I fetch his testing instrument from the toiletry bag in the bathroom. The doctor and nurse hadn’t a clue how to use it. So he explained to me in English and I did it (except for the blood prick itself) and gave the results to the doctor. His sugar was 264.

That’s high, said Nando, concerned in spite of his buzz. When the others asked what was normal, he told them "120 or so." Meanwhile, I dug the grey insulin pen out of my husband's medicine bag, and the doctor set it on 8 as per Nando’s instructions, and administered the dose. Then they left, with the nurse promising to bring him some food immediately.

Pepperone nose

2009-03-05T09:08:00.000-08:00

Nando, meanwhile, was laughing. "What a trip!" he kept saying. "Boy am I stoned. I am a pepperone. I want to scratch my nose but I can’t find my nose. Hahaha."

He wanted to know where he was and where I was and what time it was -- the latter question he repeated often. He also kept insisting that his nose itched but he couldn’t find it. So I scratched it for him while he laughed delightedly.

As stoned as he was -- and he DID realize he was stoned -- he had the wherewithal to insist that his blood sugar be tested with his portable tester. So the anesthesiologist was rounded up, along with a nurse, to help Nando figure out the correct insulin dose and administer it.

Raccoon man

2009-03-04T12:52:00.000-08:00

When I was led back to our room, five steps away, Nando was lying in the bed. Without my contact lenses or glasses, I had a hard time figuring out what, if any, had changed. His eyes looked darker, as if he had two black eyes. When he insisted on closer inspection, I put on my glasses and saw that his eyes were in fact blackened, lightly swollen, with little flecks of blood along the rims of the eyes. I wasn’t sickened by the sight so much as frustrated by my inability to comprehend what had happened.

Fat harvest

2009-02-14T13:17:00.000-08:00

The fat harvesting would be from one leg only. So I asked Dr. Delos to remove it from my left side, as my right knee has been giving me problems for some time. He obligingly drew a large black circle on the inside of my left leg just above the knee. "If there are scars," I thought, "let’s keep them all on the same side." The scars from my dog attack were on the back of my left leg below the knee. (As it turned out, there were no permanent scars from the grand cru distillation).

Fat farming

2009-02-07T08:54:00.000-08:00

I knew from Helene that he would be taking fat from one of my legs and injecting it into the lines running from my nostrils to the ends of my mouth. The fat above the knees is the best for this, she had explained briskly. I immediately thought of my plump expanse and decided it was DOC quality. The fat they’d be taking, in a process identical to liposuction, is grand cru fat, I mused. Why can’t they take a LOT of it? The deal is, they stick a needle into the leg and siphon off the fat. Then they run it through a machine to harvest the grand cru and they throw away the rest. They process the fat to make it right, and then they inject it into my mouth from the inside.

Silence through salivation

2009-02-04T02:11:00.000-08:00

“You have a lot of loose flesh above your eyes. But you don’t have much of a pouche (bags under your eyes), none, really. But we may have to pull some of that skin up anyway, to keep everything in proportion.”

“Aren’t you going to take a picture of my face now? I look like Halloween. It’s neat.”

He thought I was joking and ignored me. But I was serious and asked the same question of the blonde nurse. She too ignored my request and gave me a pill to dissolve under my tongue. Not to be swallowed with water, but to dissolve in my saliva. Maybe they wanted to shut me up.

Small mark-up

2009-02-03T03:55:00.000-08:00

Dr. Delos greeted me. He was now dressed in green. He had a camera and took pictures of me front, side, angled, looking up and down. He then took a magic marker and began marking up my face, making comments as he stroked.

"You have a small face."

"Does that make it harder?"

“No, just different.” I had a quick flashback to my conversation with Fabrizio Giugiaro of the famous car-designing dynasty, when he was explaining the difficulty of designing a small car as opposed to a large luxury vehicle. It’s easy to design luxury when you have a lot of space, he’d said, and more of a challenge to make a small area look elegant. Delos has the same challenge, I thought to myself, only he isn’t going to admit that to me. Maybe he doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. But I know the limitations of a small face: how many models are famous for their small eyes and pixie features?

Hello, baby dolly

2009-02-01T10:39:00.000-08:00

While Helene had me sign the same form as Nando, she explained that he would be taken first. That had already been established (in my mind) because of his insulin problem. We had discussed it with the anesthesiologist in October.

Then there would be a young person who had a quick intervention. Then me. Best for last?

A few minutes after they had breezed off, a blonde nurse came in and led me to the room outside the block, the operating room catty-corner across the hall from our bedroom. I was wearing my little white lace-trimmed nightgown, baby-doll style. “Is this okay for my operation?” I asked her. I figured the white might not be practical -- blood drips and all -- but it did look hygenic. Plus the neck was scooped and there were two buttons as well, so it wouldn’t pose problems if I had to pull it over my head and my head were . . . sensitive. “Ça c’est parfait,” announced the nurse.

Wrong line(s)

2009-01-31T12:55:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile, I tried to tease them. "It’s late. I thought you would be operating by now!"

Teasing a Frenchie. By now the lesson should have sunk in. “Oh, M. Delos has already done his rounds at the clinic,” Helene protested seriously.

“You mean down below at le Centre du Santé?”

“Oh no, rien a voir avec le clinique. That is a centre for thalassotherapy."

I hadn’t figured out what the connection was between the two facilities but this was not the moment to pursue that line of inquiry.

Tout va bien?

2009-01-30T05:38:00.000-08:00

We both slept some more. At 7 am a nurse opened the door. “Tout va bien?” "Oui," I said. Nando was sleeping. Okay, she said, you can sleep some more, and she closed the door. Hmm, why bother to wake us up just to tell us to go back to sleep? I wondered. This isn’t exactly a hospital where they have to wake you up to take your temperature and blood pressure.

At 8:30 am Helene and Dr. Delos came in. She was in nurse’s green attire. He was dressed as I recalled from our previous visit: navy blazer, ivory pants, white shirt, dark tie. The very essence of Celebrity Surgeon.

“Tout va bien?”

"Yes," I said. Nando was struggling to wake up. Helene had one of the documents we’d signed and mailed to them last month, and she was waving it under his nose. “There is something you forgot to sign,” she said, and he signed it.

D-Day (Demolition Day)

2009-01-29T04:16:00.000-08:00

I awoke at 3:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep for awhile. The traffic noise was constant but it only interrupted my thoughts when I let it. That is a difference between Nando and me. He focuses on such things as traffic noises, obsesses about them, identifies whether a motorcycle is one cylinder or two, how big is the truck, how many tires does it have. I tune it all out. It’s only the outside world of ambient noise; it doesn’t intrude on the real world inside my head. Or so it seems.

I could hear my husband tossing and turning. I was too. I tried to sleep lying on my side -- classic fetal curl -- because, I figured, my face would be so bruised that the fetal position wouldn’t be possible for quite a while. I was right about that, but not because of the bruises.

The unexamined face . . . ?

2009-01-28T03:39:00.000-08:00

One thing I did mention was that I had had a headache the day before and had tried one of the suppositories, both as a dry run and as an alternative to Prontalgine (my mainstay for such attacks, but I wasn’t sure it would be acceptable under present circumstances). "The pain killer doesn’t seem to work for me," I reported. But she brushed that off. After all, a headache was hardly the same as the kind of pain awaiting me (little did I know!).

When she was leaving, the paella arrived. It was basic stuff, not very good. I’d asked for a Coke but that request was ignored. The caffeine maybe? Or the French resistance to Yankee globalization? Nando had requested unfizzy mineral water and that’s what both of us got. Plus a fruit for dessert. I ate in spite of myself. I was hungry. Also, I figured, I wouldn’t be in condition to eat the next day.

After the paella and before we turned out the lights, I asked my husband, "Why are you doing this for me? Because you love me or because you are ashamed of the way I look?"

"Oh, Cipo. why do you ask me these academic questions? You know I hate questions that are too deep, that I have to think about."

Sizing us up

2009-01-27T05:33:00.000-08:00

It was supposed to be a little joke but oh boy! these French. It took her a few moments to catch on. Then she forced a little laugh. Her job, it seemed, was to size up how nervous we were and to calm us down so we’d feel better and sleep better. So far, so good. But it did not appear that her job was to explain WHAT would happen the next day.

Later Nando remarked that Helene was "very well trained". She was kindly (in a French way), reassuring (idem), alert to OUR respective states of anxiety; in short, on a reconnaissance mission the night before the assault.

I asked her if she was Annick, the woman to whom I had spoken several times by phone, also brisk, confident, reassuring. No. She seemed surprised.

Hungry for humor

2009-01-25T06:45:00.000-08:00

Of the other two single bedrooms, one was occupied by a woman who had been "lifted" that day. I never saw her, only the bed with the covers undone and a light on. The third bedroom was unoccupied.

Eight pm. On the early side for a normal dinner but wasn’t it a bit late for people who were supposed to stay light the night before an operation? At five minutes to eight, a knock on the outer door. Dinner? No, a bristling blonde French woman whose hair was tied back in a chignon. "Bonjour. Comment allez-vous?" (Hello. How are you?)

"Bon soir. Je pensais que vous etiez le diner. J’ai faim." (Good evening. I thought you were our dinner. I'm hungry).

Dumb or dinner?

2009-01-24T04:49:00.000-08:00

"I’d suggest something light," said Shorthair. "You’ll be having surgery tomorrow and you don’t want anything too heavy on your stomach."

As if the thought hadn’t occurred to me too. I wasn’t tempted by the page with the salad and crudites she suggested, and flipped through the pages aimlessly. Nando picked up the booklet. "How about paella? It comes in orders for two people." Done.

We placed the order at about 6:35 pm. I was already hungry. Nando said he wasn’t but without half an hour he announced that he was down in sugar and when was dinner going to arrive? I went looking for one of the nurses. "It will arrive at 8 pm." I went back to give my husband the bad news but in the meantime he had fallen asleep. I tried to read in bed, but the light was on my left, so when I picked up the book, the shadow fell directly across the page and I couldn’t see well. It was too late to ask Nando to change beds so I tried sitting cross-legged at an angle to compensate for my left-handedness. That wasn’t comfortable. Every time I reached for the light switch, by accident I wound up hitting the nurse’s button instead. Dumb or dumber would dutifully show up a few minutes later, and I would feel even dumber explaining what had happened.

In or out?

2009-01-23T06:27:00.000-08:00

What to do about dinner? Were we supposed to go out to eat? Eat by a certain hour? Not eat? What were our options? For dinner, we were told, it was best to order something from outside and eat in our room. The gates of Chateaux Sylvaine close at 8:30 pm and no decent French restaurant would open its doors before 8:00 pm. So what should we do? Nando was inclined to go out. He gets claustrophobic in enclosed spaces. And we both knew we’d wind up becoming very acquainted with this room over the next 36 hours.

Shorthair disappeared for a few moments, then announced that Dr. Delos said it would be okay if we wanted to go out for dinner. Just be back by 10:30 pm. They would delay locking the gate and activating the downstairs alarm system on our behalf. We weren’t excited about that prospect either. Nando was tired and neither of us knows Marseille. The two nurses hadn’t been able to suggest any decent nearby restaurants. So we opted for "dining at home". Shorthair brought a little booklet of the kind distributed in hotels and tourist offices with takeout menus from a variety of Marseille restaurants.

Comparison shopping

2009-01-22T13:37:00.000-08:00

"I can see why Nicole prefers to have her interventions done in Paris," Nando said dryly.

"I can see why too, but I don’t think it's the room. The one night most people are here, they are recovering from surgery and I don’t think they are much concerned with what the room looks like. It’s afterwards, when you are hanging around in between the medical checks. You can’t compare shopping in Marseille to shopping in Paris."

The staff this night consisted of the young overweight stupid nurse (or attendant) and a young, short-haired nurse who spoke some English. Their standard answer to every question I fired at them was "You have to ask Dr. Delos." Great. "And when do I see Dr. Delos?"

"Tomorrow, before and after the intervention."

Room with a view (noisy)

2009-01-21T08:21:00.000-08:00

She motioned us to turn right, down three small steps to the patients’ bedrooms. There are three bedrooms, two very small with single beds (I caught only a quick glimpse as we went by) and the third the double we were to occupy. It is the one with an ocean view, a square room with salmon-colored walls, about 12 square meters with two separate beds made with white sheets and covers and rolled-up pillows in the French fashion.

A bathroom with a large mirror and shower but only one small towel and no tiles, plus the inimitable separate toilet room with cheap bronze wallpaper, poorly applied. At one corner of the bedroom a cupola with small windows where we deposited our bags. A white cabinet for surgical instruments, two white wicker chairs, each with one throw pillow, double French doors looking out to the sea. A great view but at the price of great noise down on Corniche Kennedy.

Facing the unknown

2009-01-19T04:58:00.000-08:00

When he returned, he nodded that I was to pick up the suitcase from the car and follow him inside. Inside the double doors to the left there was a conference room with a long table, boardroom-style. To the right a metal sign saying, "Dr. Delos’s office upstairs". Through a second set of opened doors, I saw a room with a small bar on the left, a small bathroom on the right, and three rooms with dark, nondescript chairs and tables. If this were a hotel, I’d call them sitting rooms or lounges. But they weren’t done up in any particular style; they were dark and uninviting. No celebrity decorator at this chateau.

No elevator so we had to carry our suitcases up the one flight of stairs to what Europeans call the first floor (Americans would call it the second floor). At the reception area we were greeted by a dumpy young woman who seemed to think we were retarded because we couldn't understand her Mediterranean-accented French. We thought she was retarded because she couldn't understand us in any language we tried.

Cutting through the fog

2009-01-18T03:58:00.000-08:00

We stopped at a roadside Autogrill just after Savona, and Nando had a light lunch. Another brief stop to see friends in Monte Carlo. Then on and on and on to Marseille. At least there was no fog once we hit the coast. Many tunnels, twists and turns, and, as we approached Marseille proper, the clog of holiday shopper traffic clocked in late-afternoon dusk.

However, there was no other car in sight when we pulled up in front of Chateau Sylvaine at 5:30 pm. "Maybe we should be at the Institut du Santè?”, wondered my husband. I wondered the same. There were lights on in two of the five upstairs windows at the Chateau, though, so he rang the bell to ask, disappeared behind the thick wooden double doors, and was gone for several minutes.

Twists and turns

2009-01-16T04:44:00.000-08:00

Dr. Mariani, who owns the kennel where Homer will be staying, is a veterinarian by profession. He was in a white surgeon's jacket when we arrived. A coincidence or an omen? He was "attending to" a dog, he said. An autopsy, Nando guessed. As usual Homer got the pole position box, the one with greatest visibility to humans who might be on the grounds. It's small consolation but it's something. As we drove away, he had realized what was happening and was throwing himself against the wire bars, crying plaintively.

It's a long drive from Busto to Marseille, and it feels longer in fog. A thick winter fog covered most of the autostrada from Milan to Genova, and I did something that never happened to me before in YEARS of driving from Milan to the South of France. I -- unbelievably! -- missed the turnoff after Tortona for Alessandria-Ventimiglia. We wound up obliged to traverse the Milan-Genova route: fewer tunnels but narrower with many twists and turns. Not pleasant for me, with a headache descending and me driving at that point, to endure an extra half hour of road time.

Shivers of anticipation

2009-01-15T03:04:00.000-08:00

Awake at 6:30 am, up to wash my hair comfortably for the last time in who-knows-how-long, feed Homer the last of the dry bread. I finished the carton of milk so now there’s nothing perishable left behind in the fridge.

Errands: Nando went to the hospital for the umpteenth blood test, I to pay our gas bill and car insurance, plus deposit my most recent client check. Then we were off in the car with Homer, who was initially joyous to be traveling with us. But he began shaking after five minutes. I could feel the shivers beneath his taut silver skin. He knew.

Christmas canaries

2009-01-14T16:34:00.000-08:00

Nando had spoken with John, who said that Nicole had been basically a mess for three weeks. First week red, second week blue, third week yellow. "Well," I said brightly, "I’ll be a veritable Christmas tree, changing lights and all. Right in the spirit of the season. Doesn't matter as long as I am more or less okay for the cruise in January."

The cruise had been my idea. Our 20-something sons were coming to visit us after New Year's, and it had been up to me to plan a vacation that would be suitable for them and us. I figured that bright sunshine was not a great idea in the first months after a facelift, so I had booked us on a cruise to the Canary Islands. Sun and swimming for those who wanted it, namely the three males in the family; sightseeing and cultural excursions -- and lots of time to read books on a comfortable deck chair with sunscreen and a wide-brimmed hat -- for me.

What becomes a Martian most?

2009-01-13T12:51:00.000-08:00

In packing for our post-operation mini-tour of Provence, I considered the fact that my head might be sensitive after the operation. An understatement, but what did I know! So I tried to pack blouses and sweaters that buttoned from the front rather than pulled down from the top. I did include one grey jersey pullover because it had a large opening, and that I used almost every day. It is the very antithesis of a fashion statement, but is warm, comfortable, and practical. In retrospect, the little green sweater was the major space waster because it has a small opening for the head and no buttons. It's a bit of a tug to pull on under normal circumstances. Under the circumstances in which I found myself, I never touched it.

Thinking that we might wind up in a nice restaurant one night or two, I included one long black skirt, stockings and dress shoes. These were useless items. We did eat in some nice places, but nothing that couldn't be handled with a pair of pants and my cashmere hounds-tooth jacket. Anyway, who cares what a Martian wears?

Paws for packing

2009-01-12T02:40:00.000-08:00

My dog Homer knows that something is up because he sees the suitcase being prepared. He has been agitated these last few days because of some females in heat in the neighborhood, and the sensation at home that something is amiss is adding to his turmoil. I wish I didn’t have to be away so long. I also hope I won’t have a problem with his jumping on me during my first days back. He is tall enough to reach my face with his paws when he leaps up, and his nails scratch without his being aware of it, although he is a big, gentle gangly guy.

Pain . . . in the neck

2009-01-11T15:37:00.000-08:00

Medicine is not recommended while driving. Well, that’s cute. How are we supposed to get from Busto to Marseille? Okay, there will be two of us in the car, we can pinch each other awake. Among the goodies prescribed for me is a box of suppositories for "doleur". Oh the French, they do love anal ingestion! The good thing is that this stuff has codeine, meaning they are serious about the prospect of pain. I woke up today wondering what I would do if I got a headache, and sure enough I got a headache. It's worsened over the course of the day but "rien a faire" I don't know if I can take my beloved Prontalgin today. So I’ll have to suffer with it. Maybe Nando will take pity and rub my neck. But he has been in an unpleasant mood all day. Perhaps he is nervous too?

Medi-sins

2008-12-17T00:31:00.000-08:00

Nando came back from France with the medications that both of us are supposed to take. He has one to take, I have three. Since the information is in French medicalese, I haven’t a clue what they actually DO, but they all appear to be for allergies, strangely enough. One of them is supposed to be taken for five days before the intervention. But Nando got back three days before, so I will be missing two days prior to the operation. Is this a bad start or what? All the medication is not to be taken with alcohol. No problem. I have lived in France and Italy for 15 years and still, if I drink a glass of wine a WEEK, that’s a lot. I do like to accompany great food with good wine, but if I had to choose between wine and mineral water at the table, I invariably opt for the latter.

Learner and lower

2008-12-16T07:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon when I was ironing, the song "I've grown accustomed to her face" popped into my head. Not by chance, since we leave for Marseille tomorrow.
I've grown accustomed to my face.
It always makes my day begin.
I've grown accustomed to each line,
Each wrinkle, thick or fine,
The sagging cheek,
The jawline weak.
They’re second nature to me now,
Like breathing out or breathing in.
I'm disadvantaged as a woman
If I don’t rejuvenate,
But the thing that most concerns me
Is if what I buy I’ll hate.
I've grown accustomed to the me that I am used to see,
Accustomed to my face.

Any room at the auberge?

2008-12-15T03:40:00.000-08:00

My big regret, comme d’habitude, is having to leave Homer in a kennel. He HATES staying in a kennel. For me, that's the worst part about traveling.

I called a couple of auberges in Provence today and there is no problem for space. Americans are staying away from Europe in droves, and other international travelers aren’t any more enthusiastic about flying. So I won't reserve till we get to Marseille. We are in the clinic Monday and Tuesday nights anyway, and Wednesday night the clinic has booked a nearby hotel for us, nothing fancy or charming but convenient for my Thursday am visit. We can walk from one to the other if we feel ambitious. After Thursday morning we are free till the following Wednesday.

My charm quotient for hotels is limited by Nando's lack of interest in enriching the coffers of Relais et Chateaux, Chateaux et Hotels Independents and Relais du Silence. We'll have to play it by ear.

Petit tour de Provence

2008-12-14T06:35:00.000-08:00

We'll stop off in Monte Carlo to see friends and stretch our legs, then drive on to Marseille. Two days later, bandaged and blue, we will set out for a petit tour de Provence, visiting, not necessarily in this order, Aix-en-Provence, A rles, Nimes, and Orange. Unless we or the weather is not up to it, we’ll conclude by driving from Aigues Mortes to St. Maries de la Mer, the two cities book-ending the Camargue. The winter is the only time to visit the Camargue because otherwise it is knee-deep in mosquitoes. Then we'll stop again in Marseille for my final check and to remove the stitches (arggh), and then in Monaco or a Carrefours (my favorite French superkmarket chain) somewhere to buy bread, smoked salmon, creme fraiche, Dijon mustard, Armagnac and champagne before heading back to Busto. So much for the weight loss dimension of the trip.

French Camelot

2008-12-13T06:35:00.000-08:00

Having just come back from Southern France, Nando assures me that the weather is great. Although the trip from Milan to the Italy’s Riviera Ponente (the Italian Riviera north of Genoa to the French border) is only 75 minutes, the weather changes dramatically in winter. It’s day and night. You can be driving through snow, fog and cold en route to Genoa and you pass through a series of tunnels to the Liguria region and suddenly you are in the land of eternal spring -- blue skies, clear air, birds chirping, expanses of green vegetation framing the blue of the Mediterranean. And the weather seems to improve the closer you get to France. Then you cross the border, with Monaco less than 10 miles away, and it’s as if Prince Rainier had ordained gorgeous weather for his little principality and its surroundings. I have made that drive hundreds of times and I always think of the lyrics from Camelot:
A law was made a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot.
The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot.

Facelift, flashes, fear

2008-12-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

The last month of this wretched year of death and fear. Yesterday I had an appointment for my monthly leg waxing at my local beautician's, and I told the young woman proprietor and her assistant that I was getting a facelift, and that they were the only ones to know outside of my husband and the doctor. They reacted positively, encouragingly. As soon as I mentioned the fact, their eyes flashed to my face and I could just HEAR them thinking, "Brava. Good move. You need it, signora." They insisted that I stop back to show them the results as soon as I returned to Busto.

Pros, cons and calories

2008-12-11T11:36:00.000-08:00

It’s true, there are plenty of lovely places to visit in Provence, but it's hard to make a decision:
1. We haven’t nailed down a budget so I am uncertain where to book price-wise. Hotels in France are generally less expensive than their counterparts in Italy, so one is tempted to trade up to a nicer place: flowers on a sunny balcony, fluttering lace curtains in the room, fresh croissants and steaming cafe au lait served in a breakfast garden. That is the image the tourist board wants to promulgate anyway.
2. But I don't know how I will feel. What's the point of an inn near the Camargue if I don't feel like walking? What's the point of an in-town relais if I look gasp-awful and don't want to be seen?
3. I don't know about the driving. Since my eyes are part of my intervention and ALL of Nando’s, we may not want to drive at all, and that would mean staying in Marseille the whole time.
4. I don't know about the eating. Nando is trying to lose weight (he needs to, for the diabetes) and me, well, the aftermath of an operation, ANY operation, is an ideal time to take off a few pounds. So is the hiatus before the holidays. Therefore, why pick a place known for divine food if we won't want to be tempted?

Considering the falloff in tourism just now, with everyone traumatized in the wake of 9/11, and given that early December is low season anyway, I may just bring a guidebook or two and wait till we get there -- then decide day by day.

S Day approaches

2008-12-10T04:28:00.000-08:00

Between now and S-day (Scalpel Day), I could dedicate myself to straightening my study. Or ironing. Or trying to make progress on some long-term work projects. Or working up some alternatives for a summer vacation.

OR I could have fun figuring out how Nando and I will spend our time between post-op and follow-up appointment. As Angela pointed out by email, there are many wonderful inns in the south of France where we can stay.

The Big D

2008-12-09T15:26:00.001-08:00

This morning Homer wandered into the bedroom restlessly at 5:30 or 6 am. Uh-oh! Diarrhea. Diarrhea. This happens almost every year after Thanksgiving. I tried to pretend that this was not his problem but I knew it was, so by 6:30 I was dressed and we were out in the park. A quick tool around, a squat and two squirts, and then back home. I figured this was only round one so I didn’t get back into bed nor did I take a shower. I lay down fully clothed on the living room sofa and sure enough, less than two hours later, Homer was nosing at me again.

Here we go. We almost bumped into the 30-something, shy young lawyer who lives on the 3rd floor as we made our way downstairs in a big hurry. "Oh excuse me," he said pleasantly, seemingly open to engage in a bit of conversation given the early hour on a Sunday morning. "Sorry my dog has a big emergency we gotta go," I mumbled over my shoulder as Homer tore down the steps, out and across the street and let fly on the first patch of green he hit on Via Foscolo, a few steps from our entrance.

Post-prandial Duracell

2008-12-08T06:46:00.000-08:00

The problem is that the show is over, the curtain is down, Nando has left for a week on the Cote d'Azur, I don’t have any work assignments pending and no new business on the horizon, I’m housebound with el doggo (who has conjunctivitis in one eye and had a bout of diarrhea this morning . . . early) and don’t know what to do with myself.

When in doubt, when self-doubting, stuff yourself. Right? That is unfortunately easy to do in a post-Thanksgiving household with only one person. Sweets, chocolates, turkey, snackies, everything to pull me to the fridge. I feel sick.

Friday I was tired all day. "You are like Duracell, you keep going," Nando had said the day before. "No wonder your battery is low."

Inner and outer

2008-12-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

Among our guests were two Italian men, both 62 years old. Both still had their hair, neither was fully grey, neither wore glasses, both were physically active men who had little apparent extra weight. But the difference between the two! One was bouncy, active, energetic, almost falling over himself to be noticed. Nando had described him to me as a cross between Mickey Rourke and Al Pacino, and that was an uncannily accurate description. The other man radiated grey -- not his hair, not the pallor of his skin, but the way he moved, sat, conversed. He was withdrawn, hunched over, internalized. In the photos, the one seemed closer to 40, the other to 70.

"It’s all the way you feel," I insisted to Nando. "It’s what’s inside, how you project. That’s more important than the facelift." But I looked at the faux "before and after" of myself and wasn’t entirely convinced.

Talking turkey

2008-12-03T05:15:00.000-08:00

We developed the Thanksgiving pictures today, shortly after the event. I looked fine in one of them, not gorgeous or sexy, but me -- with an unbroken chin line and nice cheekbones. That was one picture. But the others: in the one of me eying the turkey head, it’s hard to tell whose appearance is more scraggly. And the one of me gesturing proudly to the half-cooked bird, well, put that one next to the "great shot" of me after dinner and it’s almost like a before and after facelift contrast. I am halfway minded to bring both photos with me to show Dr. Delos and challenge him to better the "after" image. "And my before and after didn’t cost me anything and didn’t require surgery," I’d like to point out to him.

Through glasses darkly

2008-12-02T04:03:00.000-08:00

I picked up my glasses today; the first glasses (other than reading glasses and sunglasses) I have owned in 38 (ouch) years. Among the instructions from Marseille was the admonition that contact-lens wearers should expect to wear glasses for the first week or so after the operation. Because I didn't own a pair of glasses I had to find a local optician who would make me a pair quickly. I figured I’d better get used to them BEFORE the surgery, because I didn't know how long it would be before my eyes could wear them afterward.

Oh the first time I put on the glasses, they felt so STRONG. Blinding, almost. Could the fact that I haven’t owned a pair of prescription glasses since the age of 16 have something to do with vanity? I had stubbornly refused to buy them all these years because it seemed like a betrayal of my faith in contacts, but now I wonder if egotism also had something to do with it.

Euphemistically nuts

2008-11-30T13:48:00.000-08:00

Angela asked me today by email, "When do you go to the beauty clinic in France? Are you nervous about that?"

I replied, "It's a euphemism to call it a beauty clinic. It's a scalpel slash skin shop. The surgery is Dec. 4. Nando has suggested that we rest and sightsee around Provence until my checkup on Dec. 13, because, according to the doctor, "you probably don't want any business appointments before then".

She is the only one who knows so far. It's not that I am embarrassed; it’s that I don't want to worry my dad. I haven't told my sons because when I broached the subject in an abstract way a month ago:
- From Boston, Max's reaction was "You're nuts. You're not going to do THAT."
- From Los Angeles, Sacha's reaction was "You're nuts. If you do that, you have to do it in California."

The telltale . . . crow

2008-11-29T10:53:00.000-08:00

Nando showed me the photograph we had taken with John and Nicole six weeks ago. "Look at this,” he said. "You are the only one in this picture who doesn’t need a facelift." It was true; in the photo, at least, my laugh lines had curled around to frame my smile, so you couldn’t see the sagging skin. The camera -- or was it the lighting? -- tempered my crow’s feet, and the angle was such that I was the only one without a telltale roll under my chin.

"Ah, if only I looked like that in real life," I said, "I’d be nuts to bother with surgery."

Cosmic versus cosmetic

2008-11-28T13:53:00.000-08:00

“Do I really look that awful? I always kinda liked my smile."

"This facelift is not a moment too soon,” he assured me.

Next day, reading about the situation in Afghanistan, I was reminded of the way life has of putting things in context. A little over a week ago I was fretting about a banal blood test. The seemingly inexhaustible supply of horrors on the nightly news is a reminder that it hardly seems worthwhile to waste one’s energies thinking about a stupid medical procedure -- and a voluntary one at that.

Cat's claw

2008-11-26T15:05:00.000-08:00

We were clearing the table in the kitchen this evening. Nando watched me as I leaned over to pick up the dishes. "What happened to your face?” he demanded.

“What do you mean?”

"You look like you’ve been burned there, on the left side."

“Oh, you mean HERE.” I touched my left cheek below the cheekbone. That’s where the skin has buckled, sort of, and in the unflattering kitchen light it looks ugly. "Hey, this is the bad side of my face,” and I smiled in a half-grimace.

"Oh don’t do THAT,” he groaned. “Wait, hold that smile. Let me get a camera.”

“No camera!”

"Okay, let me draw what I see.”

His design showed a face that looked like a cat had clawed its way across.

Dog-docs

2008-11-22T04:35:00.000-08:00

The nurse admonished me to stay lying down for five minutes until she came back to approve of my departure. Otherwise, she said, I’d faint anyway and undo all the good done by lying down in the first place. She must have seen how white I’d gotten during the procedure.

I then raced out to change places with Nando. He got the documents, I got the dog.

The test results -- having to do with how fast our blood clots, yuck I don’t want to think about it -- will be ready Thursday.

Drawing blood

2008-11-18T06:18:00.000-08:00

We had our blood test this morning. This was a big ordeal for me. We decided to walk to the hospital, about 2.5 km away, perhaps less. Because we were bringing the dog, I woke up at 7 to feed him so we’d be ready to go by 7:30. We were at the hospital by about 8:10. Nando waited outside with Homer so I could go first. The first line had seven persons ahead of me, the second line had 23, but it moved faster. When it was my turn, I looked the nurse boldly in the eye and said, "I faint with shots. I need to lie down when you draw the blood."

"Lie down all the way?"

"All the way."

So there was another five minute wait between the time they led me to the bed & blood room, and the time two nurses appeared to do the job. They were good, I have to admit, and it was fast. And no, it didn’t hurt. But that’s besides the point in terms of my psychological reaction.

Regal versus wrinkled

2008-11-17T13:18:00.000-08:00

Joan’s regal English beauty is worlds apart from my smaller, livelier facial alignment. Her face is almost ironed over in its smooth alabaster perfection, but she was animated as she repeated for the umpteenth time that the facelift was the best thing she had ever done and she was sorry she hadn't done it sooner and if she had to decide again, she'd do it yesterday.

"You'll see," she predicted, as we stood side by side looking at the mirror in her office. What I saw was a tall, handsome, fashionably-dressed woman with chestnut hair sleekly pulled back -- a woman perhaps in her 40s -- standing next to a short woman whose dark brown hair went off in all directions, whose pointed features were set in the context of wrinkled, tired skin. This second woman might be smaller but she was definitely older. I am technically two years older than Joan but the mirror screamed more.

Crinkles on the Cote

2008-11-16T12:48:00.000-08:00

As long as we were on the Côte d’Azur, we stopped to see Joan in Monaco. Yes she looks great, but her forehead is so . . . serene. It doesn’t crinkle. She shrugged. "That’s a small price to pay for the rest of it. Who needs forehead wrinkles anyway?"

"Me," I thought. The expressivity of my face is -- has always been -- important to me. That and my smile. Oh! What if I can’t smile as before? What if my smile isn’t framed by dimples anymore? It’s true that those dimples have turned deeper over the years and now run halfway up my cheeks -- sometimes when I’m not smiling. But they are part of ME.

Cabbage in Cannes

2008-11-15T15:05:00.000-08:00

Delos brightened. "Yes, a woman in Cannes. She might be available. I don't know what her hours are but this is her phone number. If you are able to see her this week and tout va bien, I could schedule your surgery the first week of December. Say, Tuesday, December 4. Would that be all right?"

I started to say, "We will discuss this and get back to you" at the same time Nando was saying, "That sounds good for me. Doesn't that work for you, Cipo?" ("Cipo" is short for "cipollina", or "little onion," my husband’s public term of endearment for me. It may sound strange in English, but it’s not so different from "ma petite choux", or little cabbage, in French).

Gulp. I withdrew my objection because, after all, we might not get in touch with the anesthesiologist. Or we might get in touch and something would prevent our going ahead. Or we might be okay for anesthesia but not okay for the surgery. That is, I might not be okay for the surgery.

So I smiled grimly and we ended the visit with an exchange of email addresses, a flurry of salutations in French and Italian, and a shaking of hands all round.

Cann-es-thesiologist

2008-11-14T11:28:00.000-08:00

I had stumbled over the mention of "removing staples" and was circling round that phrase in my mind, not paying a lot of attention to the rest. But Nando DID want to go ahead. He was chafing at the bit. He couldn't wait. "This anesthesiologist -- can we choose someone in Milan? Do you work with someone in Northern Italy?"

Dr. Delos shook his head. "No. My anesthesiologist is here in Marseille, and accepts appointments only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays."

Today was Wednesday. We would be driving back to Cannes after our appointment, and I was tied up there the rest of the week, after which we'd be driving back to Milan. I wanted to arrive early enough Friday evening to pick up Homer from the kennel.

But Nando wasn't one to give up easily. "Do you work with any other anesthesiologists? In Cannes, perhaps? Nice? Monte Carlo?"

Surgical shopping list

2008-11-09T09:36:00.000-08:00

"If you decide to do it, you will be given all this information. Ne vous derangez pas. Don’t worry. But to answer your questions: yes, the stay at the clinic is included in the price, and I do the procedures right here. This is my clinic. Your wife must come the day before the surgery and stay overnight. In your case, I would not charge you for staying here the night with her. She must also stay the night after the surgery. Because of your diabetes and blood pressure, you might also want to stay here the second night with her. I would not charge you extra for that either."

"Meals are included {I am sure he smiled to himself when he said that. No one in their right mind wants to eat after this ordeal}. I check you here two days after the surgery and then a week later, when the staples are removed from your wife. All your costs here are included. The only extras are the medicines I ask you to bring with you when you come for the surgery, and the cost of a consultation with an anesthesiologist once you decide you want to go ahead."

Speaking franc-ly

2008-11-07T12:20:00.000-08:00

"If we both decide to do this, how much will it cost?" My husband wanted to get to the bottom line at this point.

Delos jotted some numbers down on a notepad. "Eye bags alone are FF 18,000. A facelift for your wife is between FF 50,000-60,000. For the two of you together I charge FF 60,000. I can do both of you the same day and you would share the same recovery room."

My husband likes things spelled out clearly. "Does that include the hospital stay? WHERE do you do the surgery? Do we have to come the day before? How many days do we have to stay? Are meals included? Do we have to return for a checkup after the surgery? Is anesthesia included? What costs are NOT included?"

Facing leather

2008-11-05T12:27:00.000-08:00

There were a couple of leather albums on Delos' desk, along with his computer, phone, electronic gadgets and neat stacks of papers. The doctor opened one of these albums to a page where men and women looked out at us with heavy eye bags on the left, and almost nothing on the right. I say "almost nothing" because the places where the bags had been looked like something had been there. But they didn't look unaesthetic, and they certainly all looked natural.

"How come I don't get to see before and after pictures of facelift patients?" I thought to myself. "Probably because monsieur le docteur figures I don't need convincing. Joan and Nicole did all that work for him."

Extra baggage

2008-11-03T14:52:00.000-08:00

I returned to my seat and Delos to his place behind his desk. I looked at my husband. Nando cleared his throat. "As long as I am here with my wife, umm, I wonder what you think about the bags under my eyes. Is there something you can do? You should know that I am a diabetic and I have high blood pressure, so I don't want a major operation."

"Hmm," said Delos. Now it was Nando's turn to get up from his chair and be inspected in the sunlight.

The verdict: "There are two ways to handle this problem. One is to cut and pull up the skin; the other is to scrape away the fat. The first solution won't work well with you because of the structure of your face and eyes. You will wind up with white permanently beneath your irises and you will look strange. I advise the second solution, because it is simpler and does not require general anesthesia. The whole thing takes 20 minutes and you can walk out the same day."

An old bag

2008-11-02T10:16:00.000-08:00

"Hmm, you don’t have any 'borses' (bags under your eyes)."

"I have a small face, though. I don't want to do anything that will interfere with my smile. My smile is my best feature (I smiled to emphasize my point) and I don't want to be pulled so tight that it's hard to smile. And my eyes are already small and a little slanted. I don't want them pulled tight either."

"I don't share the same philosophy of my American colleagues. They believe in pulling the skin tight. I don't pull the skin. I work with the muscles under the skin. The result is more natural."

Up in smoke

2008-11-01T07:27:00.000-07:00

"Yes, hmm, the skin above the eyes, the wrinkles here (touching my dinosaur tracks), the neck. How old are you?"

"I'm 54."

"Her neck is terrible," my husband chimed in. "Especially at night, when she is tired, the skin hangs down. Her whole face looks haggard."

"Hmm," said the doctor. "Do you smoke?"

"Never put a cigarette in my mouth. Barely drink. No drugs. And up until three years ago I was running six to eight kilometers a day."

"Good, good, you don’t smoke. Smoking is bad because it slows down the circulation of blood that supplies oxygen to the skin. It impedes healing and encourages the formation of scars. The result is disastrous for healing wounds of any kind. It also cuts the time a facelift lasts in half.”

That was kind, I thought. He makes a recommendation that affects his business negatively.

Sun streaming on wrinkles

2008-10-31T15:23:00.000-07:00

Now the preliminary chitchat was over, and the serious session could begin. The next question was who had recommended him? I mentioned Joan’s name. "Ah, Joan, the English woman." He smiled at the memory. Good, so he had considered her a success.

Third question: "What do you want to DO?"

My husband and I looked at each other. "My face?" I said. It was more a question than a statement. The doctor asked me to stand near the window where the sunlight was streaming in. He looked at my face intently and pulled a little this way and that.

Small world, isn't it?

2008-10-30T05:41:00.000-07:00

How is it that he spoke Italian? He explained that his father-in-law, also a doctor, was from Corsica and many Corsicans speak Italian. Delos had learned the language through working with patients and working with his father-in-law.

"Whose name was . . . ?" Nando asked.

The answer made my husband smile. He had heard about the father-in-law because he had met the son, Delos' brother-in-law, years ago in the United States, when the latter was pursuing graduate studies in an American medical school.

Small world! Small world! We all beamed at each other like old friends.

Language lovers

2008-10-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

Dr. Delos entered. It had not been a long wait. He was an attractive, charismatic man in his late 40s or perhaps early 50s -- possibly my age, I thought with a start. He had a thick shock of dark hair, barely lined with gray, and a handsome craggy face. He sat at his desk facing us, while we faced him and the sea.

The first thing to be discussed was what language to converse in. We started in French but explained that we were coming from Italy. "I speak Italian and love to practice your language," he volunteered. "Parliamo in italiano."

Sea, view

2008-10-27T16:00:00.000-07:00

We were ushered into a simple office lined by bookshelves on one wall, and by windows on the others -- windows that looked out onto breathtaking views of the sea. We sat before a polished wooden desk piled with papers. "Not a bad view," said my husband. I knew he was calculating how many faces it took to pay for a view like this.

"This reminds me of Renzo Piano’s office," I said. I had interviewed the famous architect a few years ago in his studio outside Genoa. He too had a sunlit view over the Mediterranean and a desk dripping with documents, but the feel of the place was different. It was modern, more exuberant, more in-your-face aggressive. The last thing a cosmetic surgeon wants to be is "in your face", I thought, at least until you’ve signed on the dotted line.

RSVP

2008-10-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

I gave my name again and the sitting nurse checked a list in front of her. "Are you sure you are supposed to be here today?" she asked in French. I thought of the time I had made a reservation for my family at Alain Ducasse/Louis XV in Monaco, then ranked one of THE best restaurants in the world by the International Herald Tribune, and when we arrived, the maitre d’ had observed the inadequacy of our attire, the absence of headline value in our faces, and inspected the reservations for that evening, before announcing with haughty disdain that our names were not on the guest list. Desolé.

This time we were not to be put off so easily. "Yes, our reservation is for today," insisted my husband, and said our name slowly, in the French way. The second nurse scanned the list again and found us. We were official. A few questions for a file; these were done by computer. Another few questions answered by pen on paper. Then a nod, you may go in now.

Through the gate

2008-10-18T01:57:00.000-07:00

Although the property was fenced, the wrought iron gate was open and we drove in without buzzing. Just inside there were two signs, one pointing to the Institut de Beauté and the other to visites medicales. "I guess that’s us," I said, pointing to the second sign. We followed its arrow up through the trees to the chateau that had been so evident from the road. Now it seemed almost invisible, tucked away beneath a green canopy.

Here we had to stop and buzz. When the large wooden door opened after we’d given our name, we found ourselves stepping into a marble hallway with a hallway running straight through to a door in the back, and, on the right, marble steps circling up to another floor. There didn’t seem to be anyone or anything moving down the corridor, so we followed the staircase up and to an anteroom with the doctor’s name on a brass plaque. There were two receptionists (nurses?) at a desk, one sitting down and the other leaning behind her.

Chateau compound

2008-10-15T09:39:00.000-07:00

Not knowing where on Corniche Kennedy the Chateau was located, we stopped to ask a gasoline station attendant, and were told, "Oh you can’t miss it. It is an imposing building."

An accurate observation. The chateau -- or more correctly, Dr. Delos’s compound -- was visible from the road. A belle epoque maison dominated the property; below it were trees and vegetation tucked around what seemed to be other buildings and parking areas. A sign said "Institut de Soin et Beauté", large in size but discreet in wording. It could have been a thalassotherapy centre or a health spa for all anyone knew.

Corniche

2008-10-13T05:10:00.000-07:00

Nando and I passed part of that impressive project as we searched for Corniche Kennedy, found after a couple of wrong turns. Just as I had imagined, the Corniche is a wide boulevard overlooking the sea. When we had lived in the South of France, we traveled a corniche every time we got in the car; the Basse, Moyenne, and Grande Corniches are the connecting wires of the Côte d’Azur, and they all overlook the Mediterranean. The French word "corniche" comes from the Italian "cornice", or frame, and the three corniches brilliantly frame the splendid sea view beneath them.

An "S" in Marseille?

2008-10-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

Another dimension of Marseille is flagged by the fact that Anglo-Saxons spell it with an "s" -- Marseilles. According to a local businessman I had once interviewed, the reason is because there are so many aspects to Marseille(s). It is a port city, a city of history and culture, an industrial power, and its port area and surroundings encompass the largest urban redevelopment project in Europe.

About Marseille

2008-10-08T04:25:00.000-07:00

Marseille is a two-hour drive from Cannes under normal circumstances. Our appointment at Chateau Sylvaine was set for 12:30 pm. but because we didn’t know exactly WHERE in Marseille it was, we left our hotel at 9:30 am. The autoroute is not twisty and turny because it doesn’t follow the coastline, as does much of the autostrada from Genoa to the Italian-French border, so we arrived in Marseille more than an hour early.

We had both visited Marseille before. It is the second largest city in France, boasts the country’s largest port, and celebrated 2,600 years of history in 2000. An American consulate used to be located here and it was the nearest place to notarize documents and the fastest place to renew passports. The classic joke about Marseille is, "What is the second language spoken in Marseille?" The answer: "French", in recognition of the large Arab-speaking population of the city.

Tunneling through

2008-10-07T05:26:00.000-07:00

It is a four-hour drive from Busto to Cannes, driving aggressively on the autostrada, the toll highway that runs from the Swiss border down to Genoa, then twists and winds through 115 tunnels between Genoa and the French border. Speed limits may exist but they are rarely controlled, unless you are in a Ferrari or Porsche going 120 miles or more an hour. Nando doesn’t drive THAT fast, but he is, shall we say, an assertive driver. So we shared the driving responsibility.

We didn’t talk much about the pending medical appointment en route. I was thinking about the trade show and the many appointments that awaited me Monday and Tuesday. Nando was planning to visit friends on those days, since the trade show itself was no longer of interest to him. We would worry about Chateau Sylvaine (the name of Dr. Delos’ facility in Marseille) and whatever decisions might have to be made there when the time came and not before.

Coming to Cannes

2008-10-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

I packed carefully for the luxury goods trade show in Cannes . . . and for the visit with M. le docteur. The jewelry had to be just right -- tastefully conspicuous for the former, not TOO opulent for the latter (otherwise the price goes up, Nando warned me). Clothes had to be smart but not too flashy. As a fashion statement, I can’t compete with the French and Italians who attend this show en masse, so it is best to dress down a bit, not call attention to the fact that my outfits have never seen a runway, much less THIS year’s runway.

Fear and furniture

2008-10-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

I had a dream about Mom and Dad and furniture from the house of my childhood last night. The furniture was the most meaningful part, though (as often happens in my dreams), I reminded myself while dreaming that there was something amiss, that Mom was dead and it didn’t make sense for her to be IN the dream.

I figure the meaning has something to do with my desire for a home, for sanctuary. But there is no sanctuary these days. A terrorist cell was discovered in BUSTO this past week. And the fear of anthrax is apparently palpable everywhere in the US, especially urban areas.

Fear on a macro level is one thing; fear on a micro-let’s-talk-about-me level is another. We watched part of a television show about facelifts this week. After five minutes my head was light and I wanted to puke. Maybe I will wind up doing one but I definitely do NOT want to know what is being done.

The full monty

2008-10-04T05:40:00.000-07:00

The rest of the evening, while my husband and John talked puts and calls in the forex market, Nicole described in detail every cosmetic intervention she has had in the last eight years. Dr. Delos’ artistry had been such a success, it seems, that she had gone on for breast reduction surgery, a tummy tuck, blepharoplasty on her eyelids, further work on her forehead, liposuction on her hips, and within the next year or so, bien sûr, she would be doing another full facelift.

Marseille wasn’t the most exciting place in the world for Nicole, so she had opted to do most of these successive operations in Paris. The shopping is better, there is more nightlife, restaurants are top-notch, and Paris is unquestionably one of the most beautiful cities in the world. "But I think I will go back to Dr. Delos for my next face leaf-t," Nicole concluded. "Perhaps John comes also to do surgery for the bags under his eyes."

Was this an omen?

By a nose

2008-10-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

When we met in the lobby of Milan’s swankiest hotel, Nicole eyed me up and down and said in her clear but rapid French, "But ClauDEEa, have you had a LEAF-T?"

She’s not used to seeing me with makeup, I thought. Thank goodness for the discreet lighting of expensive hotels, I thought. What I said was, "Funny you should mention that. I haven’t, but I have an appointment later this month with someone about that very subject. Dr. Delos in Marseille. Joan K, who lives in Monaco, had recommended him."

"Mais Dr. Delos,” gasped Nicole. "He is the one who did my nose and my first leaf-t. I was the one who recommended him to Joan."

It was my turn to be surprised. "Then you think he is good? That’s a relief. He did a wonderful job with your, um, nose. But tell me . . . does it hurt?"

Milan-Monaco-Marseille

2008-10-02T03:49:00.000-07:00

A return fax from the doctor. Oui, ça va. My appointment is set for 12:30 pm on the 24th. The address is on a well-known oceanfront boulevard so I don’t anticipate problems finding it. Nando will accompany me and he has a wonderful sense of direction so I am sure we won’t get lost.

Tonight we went to Milan to have dinner with John and Nicole, who were here on a shopping trip from Monaco where they live. John is an American in his 60s, a self-made millionaire who takes good care of his health and his appearance -- except for his non-stop smoking habit. Nicole, only a few years younger than he, has been his main squeeze for more than eight years. When I first met her, she had a fabulous figure but a slightly hooked nose. Within a year her nose had been straightened and her face was as fabulous as the rest of her.

At the time, John had explained that he (not she) had interviewed a series of plastic surgeons before awarding the golden scalpel. They had both been satisfied with the result.

Breathe after burning

2008-10-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

The nightmare is over and I am back safe at home. I was there for all of it: in DC when the Pentagon was attacked, across the river from Manhattan on September 12 with the still-burning remnants of the Twin Towers -- like ghost limbs after an amputation -- filling the air with smoke, at Logan Airport in Boston in a situation of utter panic and confusion in one of the first flights to take off from that unhappy terminal.

Right now, something as self-centered and frivolous as a facelift seems like a sugar-coated compensation pill. I tried calling Dr. Delos’s office several times today but the line was always busy. So I faxed them, proposing the date of Wednesday Oct. 24, as I expected to be on the Cote d’Azur for a trade fair the third week of October. You have to keep going. You have no choice.

da Bomb

2008-09-30T03:14:00.000-07:00

I was amazingly calm during the Logan bomb scare. That happened about 9 pm. I’d arrived at 5. We wound up with a 10:30 pm expected departure. That may turn out to be more airport time than I face at Heathrow
1. because we will be late boarding
2. because I have to change terminals -- from 4 to 1. If that is anything like CDG, it’s a banal nightmare all by itself.
3. because something new has been added. We have to claim our bags at Heathrow and go through customs before getting our boarding pass for Milan. It becomes two completely unrelated flight procedures in spite of being the same airline. Not a great prospect under normal circumstances, and thoroughly daunting given the weight and bulk of my bags. Oh well. Me and a thousand other folks.

Plastic people

2008-09-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

The magazines, we were told, contained articles "not tasteful" in the wake of 9/11. No more steak knives in 1st class. Plastic for everyone.

But a determined terrorist doesn’t need a knife. He can kill with his bare hands, I told the cabin hostess who was explaining these procedures to me. My judo-expert husband could, I thought to myself.

"I don’t make the rules," she shrugged. She didn’t appear to be comfortable discussing the issue.

She was as disoriented as the portly policeman at Logan, who confided, "I’ve been on my feet for 16 hours. I haven’t been home in a week. How many clean shirts can I pull out of my locker? Sometimes I amuse myself during down-times going through security check with knives on my person. It’s easy. In my opinion, a stadium will be next."

Body and class

2008-09-28T06:54:00.000-07:00

I asked the 1st class hostess who checked our seat assignments as we boarded if she by chance had any newspapers for a journalist in cattle class. "We’re not full up here; I can give you some. What would you like? But please be discreet."

However there were no BA magazines in any class, no Business Life to bring back home to study. No blankets. No choice of meal. One film instead of two. And so on.

We were body-searched before boarding. That reminded me of the precautions taken on the Egypt Air flight we had taken with J Walter Thompson in 1986. Nevertheless I saw that numbers of people had more than the permitted number of items of carry-on luggage. Why wasn’t anyone paying attention to that?

No blankets because most blankets, we were told, had been given to stranded travelers at Heathrow. Ater all, the entire US air system had ben shut down for two days (the first time in history). The US stock market had closed for four days, also the first time ever.

Flights of frenzy

2008-09-27T03:55:00.000-07:00

I don’t remember Logan very well; the last time I was here was to pick up Max on his flight back from Beijing in September 1998. A few days later I flew out from here on a Swissair flight -- the same day, hour and airline as another Swissair (an MD 11) had exploded an hour outside of New York. A happy memory (Max) and an horrendous one.

The lines, the palpable anxiety, the confusion, lack of organization, hasty new "security" procedures. All perfect for future terrorist targets. More people, more confusion, more time herded together in one place.

I was assigned an aisle seat, to my surprise -- the plane was supposedly full. What should have been a 3.5 hour wait was almost 5 hours; the flight was 2 hours late arriving in Boston and then there was the bomb scare while we were waiting . . .

Flying out of Boston (after THAT day)

2008-09-26T02:58:00.000-07:00

I am supposed to fly back to Italy tonight on the first date flights have been allowed since the attacks. We are in for a long night, just as the US is in for a long conflict. I’m at Logan Airport. I arrived dutifully three hours ahead of time, actually 3.5 hours ahead because traffic from Framingham to Logan was (unsurprisingly) light for almost rush-hour. The lines spilled out in all directions as I heaved and lugged my overheavy Samsonite plus my overloaded old red Ventura plus my brown carry-on from the express bus to the entrance. There I stopped, uncertain. My load was way too heavy to start off in the wrong line or the wrong end of the terminal. An Indian-looking woman stopped me. She was wearing a blue uniform (but it’s easy to have an official-looking uniform) and carrying a yellow card with a question mark on it.

"Where is BA?"

"The line starts against the wall over to the left, next to that long one for Aer Lingus."

"Do you have a luggage cart around? These bags are mighty heavy."

To my relief and gratitude, the woman nodded and disappeared for a moment or two, darting here and there as a policeman trying to flag down a motorist in heavy traffic, and returned from the melee pushing a luggage cart. I seized it gratefully, wondered if I should tip her, decided against it, and pushed my way to the end of my line.

That younger, thinner, better me

2008-09-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

I look at the pictures of me from Fort Lee, thinner than I think of myself as being, and read my accomplishments: wife (with an absentee husband), mother of two (often the father figure as well), presiding over a large home with a live-in, a working professional at blue-chip companies, an officer of IABC, member of the Consumer Affairs Board of Fort Lee (I never did anything with that job!), in charge of publicity for the Unitarian Church (never did anything with that either), freelance writer, dedicated runner (3 miles most mornings, 10 or 15 miles per day on the weekends) and the list goes on.

What do I do now? I wait for writing assignments to dribble in. I walk my dog. I cook once a day. I walk my dog. I write email to friends. I walk my dog. I am doing NOTHING.

Half meanies

2008-09-22T06:24:00.000-07:00

Max and I discussed a friend's job vulnerability when we were driving back from Boston. Joe offers an intellectual framework for technology strategy, a position that makes him vulnerable during an economic turndown, but he doesn’t seem worried. He was more concerned about a coming massive layoff decision at his company. Their financial consultants have been generating the least business for a while and were those earmarked for pink slips. But most of them are located in New York City. Can the company, in all conscience, lay THEM off within a week after 9/11? It isn’t humanitarian, and from a practical point of view, it sets a bad example to all employees in terms of morale.

Joe had toyed with poli sci at Duke. At some course in social behavior, he explained, he had badgered the teacher about why decisions were made. "This or that isn’t FAIR," he had said, and "that’s what I was mostly interested in."

I smiled to myself, thinking, "Slyness and unfairness the children hated above all," one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite childhood books, Half Magic. A similar theme, simplified for toddlers, was found in Sir Archibald and the Meanies.

Me too.

Bake-off

2008-09-21T04:47:00.000-07:00

Another incongruously gorgeous day. Going through boxes of my parents' stuff, talking, checking the Net. Let’s do the malls in the area, my son suggested, to take a break. There are lots of them. At Barnes and Noble, I stocked up on Wegmans calendars, in honor of my wonderful Weim Homer.

Max and I went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. The place, usually full, Max said, was almost empty. "It’s been slow all week," said the Chinese waiter, meaning ever since September 11.

During the day I had had this strong urge to BAKE something. It’s life-affirming, I suppose, the need to bake, produce fragrant odors, make the kitchen and the apartment alive with good smells. So I made brownies. Had to buy the pan and the eggs and more butter, but the result was a sense of homeyness and warmth in my son’s otherwise spartan, sterile box of an apartment.

Thought collage

2008-09-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

Angela and I went to the local Starbucks in the morning before I left to continue the drive to Boston. She had had a client meeting at 9 or so and was back by 10:30. I used the time for phone calls, the Internet and a shower. The day was warm and blinkingly beautiful. At first we sat outside and nursed our lattes, then moved inside when the heat become overpowering. Angela pointed out the signs on the door of the Starbucks offering counsel and support sessions to anyone.

The words that swirled around me as I drove north:
Fearless firemen.
The abominable media (no mind that I too am a journalist).
The wrong kind of war.
Not a case of good vs. evil but democracy vs. fanaticism.
Not a case of God prevailing because it depends on whose god you are talking about.
Bombing Afghanistan plays right into the hands of the fundamentalists, I fear. They are smart enough to have figured out our likely response, or don’t we realize that?
I fear a witchhunt against all brown-skinned people.
We have a president who is simplistic and linear in his thinking. That bodes ill for the future.

Bumpy ride

2008-09-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

Bob volunteered to drive my truck from their driveway to the Kings Supermarket parking lot at 7 am next morning. He explained that otherwise I might not be able to get it out of their driveway at all. The driveway is small and narrow and I would be backing it out onto an equally narrow street surprisingly busy in the morning. I accepted his offer and was grateful. I don’t know how he keeps going: he didn’t get to bed before 2 am and he was up at 7 or so.

Max too later insisted on driving the truck. Must be a macho thing: guys see a short thing like me pop out of a massive vehicle like that and they have to prove their virility by driving it as well. I admitted to Bob and Max both that I had bumped the truck at least three times in getting it out of the Uhaul lot and maneuvering it at the gas station.

Cookie comfort

2008-09-18T04:36:00.000-07:00

And the miracle was arriving and finding all of the above. Angela and Bob were out front to greet me (staggered by the size of the truck), the home still warm and comfortable, though a bit seedier than I’d last seen it, the tv going and the conversation likewise . . . and Angela had remembered about those cookies from – what? Five or six years ago? – and had a plate of them waiting for me.

We went out for Southern Indian vegetarian food and it was lovely. A wonderful evening in spite of the pallor cast over everything. Bob and I stayed up after Angela had gone to bed. I could tell that the tragedy had affected him more deeply than he realized. We were all distraught emotionally and intellectually, but he had a deep visceral response that was only half-hidden.

Heavy toll

2008-09-17T14:06:00.000-07:00

At the tollbooth on the New Jersey Turnpike when I came to pay, the large black woman in the booth said, "Don’t worry honey. No charge today." I started to cry, and so did she.

Near the end of the drive, when my jetlag, stress fatigue, tension about the truck and anguish about the OST were beginning to weigh heavily, I prodded myself with the thought of seeing my friends Angela and Bob, feeling safe in their comfortable colonial home, suggesting that we stop by her bakery for those buttery, chocolatey teardrop cookies, watching tv with them, HUGGING them.

After the fall

2008-09-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

My niece was rather cold when she let me into her apartment to pick up my belongings. Given the OST (Overall Scheme of Things), I was inclined to put my arm around her, hug her, offer her the bed, the bedroom set, as a thank-you for her kindness to Dad. But she was so distant, telling me that she didn’t have much time to waste because she hadn’t had lunch yet (so what? I didn’t have lunch at all that day, nor the day before, nor the day after, nor the day after that), that I kept my peace.

A 4/5 hour drive to my friend Angela’s in New Jersey. What seemed the simplest route was the longest. Around exit 16 you can see the NY skyline very well, a view I have seen many many times. On this magnificent sunny afternoon at 5 pm, the smoke from the lower end of Manhattan was billowing north like a locomotive at full throttle. The source of the smoke was black and reddish and blurred. My eyes squinted at the south side of the island, telling me there was something wrong with the landscape. Something was out of whack. Missing. Those two ugly towers had become part of my mental imprint of this area and their absence was disquieting.

The day "it" happened

2008-09-15T01:29:00.000-07:00

When it happened, I was scheduled to take my 93-year-old father to the dentist. The dentist is a family friend, born in Israel. So, we wondered, where was Israeli intelligence when we needed it? The US sure doesn’t have any. The dental office then closed. I took Dad back to the group house and prepared to call to find someone to help me move on Wednesday. My sister had suggested someone the day before and I had been so grateful. She proved her mettle, yes? Still, to be on the safe side, I had passed the word to the ladies in Dad’s group home. And one of them had come through with someone who was a dispatcher for United Van Lines. NOT United Airlines. I had called them and gotten the name of someone in Annapolis, and had a tentative commitment there. When my sister’s contact didn’t call back to reconfirm – so what else is new with someone my sister knows? – I finalized with United. Phew, that was done. Inconsequential in the Overall Scheme of Things, but done.

From the cosmic to the trivial: negotiations with my sister about one particular piece of furniture. I knew there would be a fight about that. She horse-traded ferociously and I, weakened by my sense of the OST, might have caved in completely, but why? I had thought out beforehand what kind of swapping I might be willing to do. A Martian might think that she got the best of it but I wound up with what I wanted: the Chinese cabinet. She got the marble-top side cabinet/telephone table that was already in my possession. I had been tempted to take it with me when packing, but valor got the better of me. As my sister herself grudgingly admits, I am an honorable person.

Keep on truckin'

2008-09-13T06:59:00.000-07:00

This trip would have been stressful even had it been free of international terrorism. I knew I’d have to move my parents' stuff out of my niece's place onto a truck, drive that truck to Framingham, unload everything, sort through everything, ship some back to Busto, leave some for Max, and authorize him to sell the rest. Many stress points there. And I’d have been more upset had I known what kind of a truck I’d wind up driving. It wasn’t the small vehicle I’d expected (and Max had ordered). It was significantly larger, a moderate-sized truck, not an oversized van. For me, it was HUGE. Yes, it had automatic, but it was almost as large as the camper we’d rented in Florida. I was terrified when I saw it. But that terror was nothing like “real” terror.

This is nothing, I reminded myself. This is inconsequential. Of course I can drive this. It is automatic, after all. I asked the obnoxious Uhaul agent if perchance there might be something, ahem, smaller? There was not.

Aftershocks

2008-09-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

In the aftermath, over the last two days of numbing nonstop television coverage, only a few comments rang clear. One was: "Our security procedures (at airports) have never been based on the supposition that the perpetrators were willing to be blown up with the plane. They have been based on the concept of bombs, not on planes as bombs."

A second: “If we overreact by threatening anyone with brown skin or Middle Eastern-sounding names or of Muslim religion, we are playing into terrorists’ hands by becoming like them." Unfortunately this comment was made late at night. I was up after midnight watching tv with a friend of mine and her husband. "Why don’t they play this over and over again during prime time, the way they are playing that (pathetically staged) ‘celebration’ of the assault by Palestinians?" I asked them. They agreed.

THAT day

2008-09-11T04:32:00.000-07:00

Forget the words. There are no words. When people grope for them, commentators and politicians and ministers, they come up short. The facts are stark and simple: I flew in to DC on Monday. I drove to Dad’s house on Tuesday morning at about 9 am to pick him up for a dental appointment. He met me all agitated: did you see what happened? Did you hear what happened? A plane flew into the World Trade Center!

What, I thought. Bad move by a pilot, I thought. He led me to the television, where an incomprehensible sight was being transmitted. By then, a little after 9 am, TWO planes had crashed into the WTC, one into each tower. There were flames and smoke and falling debris. People were screaming. Fire engines were roaring. I had just seen a few minutes of that awful movie, Mars Attacks!, on television Sunday evening, the day before I left. The WTC had been attacked in that movie too.

As had been the Pentagon. Incredulous, because a few minutes later the report flashed on that the Pentagon had also been attacked. A plane had flown into it as well. And – shortly after – reports of a fourth plane that had crashed somewhere near Pittsburgh. This last crash, I thought at first, might have nothing to do with the other three; the panic mentality sometimes creates linkages with completely unrelated occurrences.

But I was wrong. It did have to do with the others. Four planes, each aimed at a different US target: the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, the White House. Three of them made it. The fourth failed only because the passengers, alerted by a furtive cell phone call from one of them, learned what was about to happen (though not the target) and rushed the hijackers. Or maybe they were shot down by one of our fighters. Everyone died and everyone would have died no matter what so it is almost irrelevant what made that plane crash. Actually I’d like to think that our F-14s finally got their act together and stopped what would have been another bloodbath. The last plane crashed in an unpopulated area about 40 miles from Pittsburgh. No ground casualties.

Groping

2008-09-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

My husband and the woman chatted a bit about old friends and contacts, including the remarkable Rosetta, Nonna’s age but moving and talking 10 years younger at least. The woman introduced her daughter who was at the defile with high school friends. The daughter's name is Rachelle, but I don’t remember the mom’s name. I groped for a business card but, as usual, wasn’t carrying one in my marsupio.

"Never mind," she said. "I know where you live." When we had told her our address, she averred that she had been a good friend of the wife of the former tenant. So she knows not only the address, but the apartment (and all its problems -- leaky windows, noise, dust) very well.