Animal Gospel

What should move our very hearts and sicken us,… is the realization that animals are morally innocent, that they have done no harm. Next they have no power whatever of resisting; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are victims which makes their suffering so especially touching... there is something so very dreadful, something so dreadful, so satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power …” (Andrew Linzey, Animal Gospel 65).

Tenement Life - Part 2

I'd just like to back-track a bit about what I thought about our "stay" at the President Hotel after the fire at 31 Oliver Street...

The lobby of the President Hotel, in my 8-year old mind, was the fanciest, most beautiful place I had ever seen.  The sprawling, red floral carpet was vast and I loved the squishy way it felt when I walked on it.  They sold New York City souvenirs there in the lobby and I fell in love with the snow globes featuring the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty.  I asked my grandmother to buy me one and she did.  My troubles seemed to fade with every shake of the globe, as I watched the snow gently float around.  I wished I could shrink and fit inside of it and hide away.  If only.

I have no recollection of my grandmother's personality while my dad was alive.  I was too young.  But I do know that she never got over her son's death.  He was her only child..."a saint", she would refer to him as.  In her effort to protect me at all costs, she suffocated me and ruled with an iron fist.  She walked me to school, even in High School!  I never went on a class-trip, after-school activities, or the beach.  I was 18 the first time I actually felt sand between my toes.

After I rebelled against my grandmother's over-protectiveness and achieved some freedom, venturing out on the lower east side was a teen's paradise - for me anyway.  Down the street at P.S. 1 Park, my friends and I would gather to play basketball, ride our bikes, roller-skate, socialize and of course, talk about boys.  We called our friends to "come out", by shouting up to their windows, or by pay phone.

Two blocks over to Henry Street or Chatham Square was Chinatown.  A crowded, heavily-scented part of the lower east side that I came to absolutely love.  Pork buns we ate as we walked, noodle soups, dumplings and warm soy-milk sold on the street on cold winter days were all a part of my young life.  The formation of a foodie?  Even my first real boyfriend was Chinese, and, in my need for a father figure, he happened to be eleven years older than me.

The Lower East Side, NYC

I moved out of the tenement and lower east side when I turned 19 and met my then-future husband - the father of my son Angelo.  We got married in a little church atop a hill, in a village in Ioannina, Greece, which almost seemed like a different planet altogether.  We traveled to various cities and islands in Greece during the marriage.  I had never seen places more beautiful in my life, but still, even now, I have the urge every now and then to take a couple of trains and head down to the lower east side, walk around, and reminisce about my tenement life.

Visit the Tenement Museum

Ioannina, Greece

Tatiana

I'm putting the final touches on "Tenement Life, Part 2".  


In the meantime, please feel free to read this Poem I wrote about Tatiana the Tiger, the tiger who escaped from her enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo on December 25, 2007 and killed young Carlos Sousa, Jr.  This is for both Tatiana, and Carlos...


Beautiful and majestic Tatiana,
what have they done to you...
the creatures, said to be the most
civilized on the planet.
You longed to run, longed to roam,
they lust to gawk and confer.
Your gold and black fur glistened
in the blazing sun, you panted and
could not figure out why it all
seemed so strange to you.

You were so young when the creatures
brought you here.
Memories and flashbacks, confusing
to you.
Nature's beauty and unlimited miles
of freedom you did know.
Now you are here and all you did
was leap.
Yet you leaped too far, leaped too
long.
You found yourself amongst the creatures,
the creatures who ran about, shouting
in fear.
Flashbacks again, confusing to you.
You took hold of one's warm neck, the
creature, not your prey, but a boy.

You tasted the strange blood, yet it was
too late when you realized what you had
done.
In a split second, their lead riddled
your shivering fur.
Magenta pool forming under your body.
The boy's soul and yours, simultaneously
soaring,
Yours running and roaming, free at last,
free from the creatures, said to be the
most civilized on the planet.

Tenement Life - Part 1

Me, age 10

93 Madison Street, New York, NY

I was rescued by a fireman when I was 8.  He carried me, my brother, grandmother and Lucy the dog out of our living room window and onto the extended ladder.  It was the fire of February 3, 1971 at 31 Oliver Street, lower Manhattan.  I don't remember fright.  I only remember wrapping my little arms around that fireman and thinking...thank you, hero.  It was a bone-chilling night and the place downstairs, a bookie joint, let us stay a while and kept us warm.  It was the first time I saw shows on a color-t.v. and I was in awe.  This was the original "shock and awe"...lol. 

Eight months before this, my father had passed away at age 37 from heart-related issues.  Three years before the fire, my mother had disappeared.  To this day, I don't know if she is alive or dead, and I honestly would have the same numb feeling either way.

After a short stay at the President Hotel, right smack in the middle of Times Square (thanks to the American Red Cross), we were placed in a two-bedroom apartment at 93 Madison Street - 2 blocks from 31 Oliver Street.  The photo above is the actual building, present-day.  Our apartment faced the back and was on the third floor.  It was a run-down, six -story, walk-up tenement, although I didn't know at the time what a tenement was, and didn't realize it was run-down.

My brother and I were raised by our paternal grandmother, Anna.  She did the best with the knowledge and resources she had, which wasn't very much for sure.  We each got to pick out colors of paint for our bedrooms.  I shared the "big bedroom" with my grandmother, and my brother, Joe had his own tiny bedroom.  I chose a bright orange paint.  I was on an orange kick back then.  The landlord was a slumlord and heat and hot water was scarce.  My grandmother made sure to start up the small electrical heater in my room, about 20 minutes before I had to wake up for school so I wouldn't wake up to the cold.

Fun and adventure was still aplenty, even though we were basically poor.  My grandmother was severely over-protective of me and I felt lucky and happy if I was even allowed to stay a while in the hallway outside the apartment and sit on the steps with a friend of mine who lived upstairs - Maria Migliorini.  She was about 5 years older than me and always had Marlboros on her...lol.  She would light up and puff away, all awhile frantically waving her arms about in an attempt to move the smoke away.  She also suggested I try a puff, and I did.  I was 9, she was 14.  To say I started coughing would be an understatement.

In the summer, my brother and I would play a game where he would throw something down to the fire-escape below and I would have to run down the ladder and get it.  (unbeknownst to our grandmother) Then he would run down and we timed each other.  He taught me how to catch and throw a football right there in the living room.  We ate home-cooked veal cutlets, meatballs with sauce and sweet sausages from the Italian sausage man down the block.  If grandma didn't have the energy to cook, we were fine with t.v. dinners.  They came in aluminum containers back then and had to be heated in the oven for 3o or more minutes.  Of course we ate the tiny dessert first.  

There was a little old Italian man from the "old country" who lived upstairs who spoke no English, but knew how to approach me to try to get a kiss when I was around 13 or 14...hahaha.  I remember we would pass each other on the stairs.  Me going down and him coming up and straight towards me.  I was petite and nimble and would easily duck my head and shoot down the stairs in avoidance.

I had all the toys I wanted, pets, was nicely dressed (according to my grandmother's taste), was a great student, and won two awards at 6th grade graduation.  One for Art and one for Reading.  One material thing my brother and I were never allowed to have was a Christmas tree.  My grandmother thought it insensitive to my dead dad to display a "festive" tree.  My dad was her only son and she never really got over his death.  

To Be Continued...

Taking These Morning, and Night = Life! Where Do I Sign Up?

Oh...wait, I'm already signed up!  Yes!  If anyone reading my posts has already had a kidney transplant, or any other kind of transplant, then you know that you will take medications for the rest of your life.  Take them, on schedule, every day and you greatly improve your chance of living!  Not a bad trade-off, I'd say.  This also holds true for anyone living with a chronic condition and taking daily medications.


Meet my cast of characters (pills) that keep me healthy and alive (see pic)...right eye, left eye and brown pupil are blood pressure meds...my docs like to keep my pressure especially low as not to damage my one and only functioning transplanted kidney;  upper and lower lips are the immunosuppressants.  My immune system has to be slightly suppressed because if it stayed at a normal level, it would consider my transplanted kidney a "foreign object" and  attack it;  the nose is a cholesterol lowering pill...one of the side-effects of the immunosuppressants is that they can increase cholesterol.  


Sure, each and every pill has its own side-effect.  Your doctor may have explained them to you, or you may have been reading those 3-page inserts your pharmacist, by law, must throw into the bag when you pick up your meds, or, WORSE yet...you may have looked up each pill you take, on-line.  If you're like me, and looked them up on line, you've probably scrolled down to the "Side Effects" section and checked off each one while you took mental notes that...that headache and nausea you had two nights ago MUST have been caused by the Prograf (immunosuppressant).  Of course, the Whopper washed down with the m.s.g.- laden hot & sour soup, couldn't have had anything to do with it!  Ha! 


Fact is, I experienced some moderate temple pain from time to time during the first couple of years after my transplant in January, 2006, which fell under the category of "neurological".  Nowadays I'm basically side-effect free, except for the occasional dizziness and tiredness.  Heck, I know people, younger than me, without medical problems who complain about being tired and dizzy!  


If you're having side-effects from your meds that are interfereing with your life, by all means tell your doc so that he/she can possibly change the dosage or substitute that particular med with another. 


I gladly take my meds every day, twice a day because I love life and have a lot to live for.  Remember, all meds are definitely best taken - with a positive outlook.  


Soon to be posted about...why my kidneys failed in the first place, and the horror that was "dialysis" a/k/a 7+ years in hell...so stay tuned...lol


Feel free to comment on your experience or ask a question.

My Bra Contains NO Metal, but My Shorts Do...

One thing I learned a long time ago...If (and when) you become a patient, whether it be for a yearly exam, or test, or for a chronic condition, become proactive, educate yourself on your condition, pay attention to your body's signals, and use COMMON SENSE!  


I went for a bone-density exam this morning.  My appointment was for 9:00 A.M. and I arrived 8:45.  Unfortunately for me, the heavy-framed woman who marched into the office at 9:2o, coffee in hand and huffing and puffing, was the technician who was going to perform my test...lol...if it were just her tardiness combined with my arriving 15 minutes early and resulting in a 45-minute wait, I wouldn't even be writing this post, but luckily for me and YOU, I can elaborate further on why you're even reading this!


Upon my entering the test room at her request at 9:30, she hurried into a corner of the room where she had to enter my data first before she could begin the test.  From her blocked-off corner, she instructed me to..."strip from the waist up and put on a gown".  "from the waist up?"  I asked.


"Yes, from waist up...bras have metal in them"  she emphatically explained.  So her first mistake...instead of ASKING me if I was wearing any metal jewelry or if my "bra" had metal closures, etc...she just assumed.  I told her that I was wearing an all-fabric, stretch sports bra (now you all know, too), and that it had NO metal in it.  


"Fine", she said.  "Leave everything on and wear the gown on top".  Second mistake...I, the patient, had to inform her, the technician, that - my khaki shorts have a metal zipper.  At that point, instead of asking her any other questions, I just used my common sense.  "I'm taking off the shorts...they have a metal zipper", I told her. 


"Fine, yes...no metal", she said.  Once the test began, we got along swimmingly.

Taking the Train to MaryJane

For the last few weeks I've been taking the 7 train to Grand Central Station, then the 6 train to 103rd Street in Manhattan to visit my dear friend, MaryJane, who is still in Mount Sinai Hospital.

MaryJane is my 85 year old next-door neighbor and a transplanted mid-westerner.  We have been neighbors since 1997, when I moved into the building I live in presently.  She was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.  I never knew there even was a Grand Rapids, MN until I met her.  She has short, wavy salt and pepper hair, fair skin, and the clearest, blue eyes I've ever seen on anyone in person.  She's smart...an avid reader, poet, author, animal lover.

She always seemed to me out of place in New York City.  Although she has resided in New York City for many years, her kindness and pure, good-hearted nature always stood out.  She would literally give someone in need, the shirt off her back, the food out of her mouth, or anything else they needed, and has done so, for me on many occasions.

She and I shared conversations and laughs over juicy burgers, sushi, or the occasional fish and chips washed down with a Guinness.  MaryJane is the type of person who can find joy in several dried leaves on the ground swirling in a circle on a windy day, or a fluffy white cloud that is bunny-shaped.  

That's why it's been so sad and hard to see her in the condition she's been in since she had her surgery around 2 weeks ago.  She had a "whipple procedure" which her doctors all seemed to tell her she needed in order to live longer and have a good quality of life...I haven't seen the improved quality yet.  The incision site is not healing the way it should be and she was in pain today.  Although she was on a liquid diet by mouth last week, she is now receiving nutrition intravenously.  She is sometimes confused and asks what has happened to her.

She never had any children, but she does have a team of friends, and we're doing our best to support her, visit her and show her our love.  

Please Bear With Me...

This Blogging stuff is new to me...I'm still learning to add widgets, gadgets, pages, etc...Feel free to scroll down to the bottom and play with my pet fish! 

Quinoa Plant

I enjoy growing something every spring/summer.  It makes me feel a part of the whole "spring meaning new life" thing.  So I threw some Quinoa in some soil about a month ago, after finding out online that Quinoa is not a grain...it's a seed.  They must really be seeds because tiny plants are growing now...lol.  Sometimes I pluck them out and feed them to Too-Too, my cockatiel.  He seems to love them.

Shadow

So this is my first official post...if you're reading it, I thank you very much for taking the time.  Well, I mentioned a dog I have...lol.  Shadow is her name - a pitbull, but a kind, funny and wonderful dog because that's how she was raised.  I have a cockatiel too, named Too-Too.  Too many "Too's".  But I'll get to him later.  Here is a pic of Shadow taken today.  We had the a.c. on because it went up to the 90's today in NYC and she was taking her nap with her blankie.