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Forget about the fact that a good portion of our society cannot afford healthcare – let’s focus on the fact that healthcare is in a state of crisis. Yesterday, Moosey accused me of being a perfectionist – well perhaps I do have high expectations when it comes to certain things – specifically, healthcare. Mom went in for her MRI and the woman left her in the machine for 3 hours!

What? Did she go get lunch or something? Was she flirting with one of the residents?

Mom said she was moaning because she was in pain from the position she was in and that after a while she said, “is anyone out there?”

I’m meanwhile in San Francisco while this is going on. After what I saw happen to my mother five years ago when she got sepsis while having a routine operation and was pretty much left for dead – every family member needs to be a patient advocate – and it seems not just for surgery, but for outpatient procedures like MRIs!

La Vita is open finally in the neighborhood. I saw Moosey and Fatima and Suleman this morning all having coffee at CC’s and they said it had been a madhouse on Friday – they opened at 5:30 and left at 1 in the morning – Fatima was hoarse from yelling in the kitchen and Moosey had donned his apron to help out along with Fatima’s sister who flew in to be hostess. Starting Monday they are going to be open for lunch as well.

I started moving the dishes over to the LaLa and naturally I got there and found out that Pieri didn’t come on Friday, which means the plumber can’t come on Monday, in turn the floors can’t be refinished, then Christian didn’t fix the tile in the bathroom so I can’t clean it, and to top it all off, Giovanni didn’t show up today.

Everything is this — close.

As I unpacked glasses, I thought how insane it is how many glasses I have. Borders on glassware obsession disorder – (GOD). As I was unwrapping the fish glasses, and cobalt blue glasses that are reminders of my former life, Jewel was playing in the background and suddenly without warning I was holding back tears- self I said, 2007 is about dry eyes – even though the song, her voice, the fish glasses (my Madelines) all threatened to open old floodgates:

It’s morning time, wonder where you are
Wonder who you’re talking to
Wonder if the sun has risen where you are
It’s morning time, I miss your hands on my skin
This bed’s too big without you
Oh god, what do I do?
I’m a thousand miles away, and I’m lying next to you.

The sun shines golden, and I feel like my car
A little run down, a little beat up, maybe just a little green
Maybe it’s my battery, maybe it’s my starter,
Maybe my heart’s too weak
There’s just this feeling, thought I had to get going
Got too scary, got too big, got to get out of here
But now I don’t know how to get home.
Oh god, what do I do?
I’m a thousand miles away, and lying next to you.

Mama says take my vitamins,
Daddy says “girl, don’t stay out so late”
Sister says “there’s other fishes in the sea”
But love is not a rational thing, and my heart is beyond advice
No, love is not a rational thing
Oh god, what do I do?
I’m a thousand miles away, and lying next to you.

These fields stretch out like patchwork, on my granny’s quilt
She used to tell me that
“life is a series of strange and mysterious things
One minute you think you’re up, the next you find you’re down”
Your mind says “girl, you gotta stick around”
But your heart says “i’m too weak in the knees”
Oh god, what do I do?
I’m a thousand miles away, and lying next to you.

Well, during the downward spiral that mom went through – the reaction to new high blood pressure medicine that almost caused a stroke, then the flu, followed by the depression, leading to the reaction to Zoloft the doctor prescribed for her, ending in the grand fall down the stair – it turns out she cracked her tailbone and is now on bedrest. I forced her to get out of the bed today because she looked puffed up like a poisoned dog from lying in that bed with the heating pad for the last 72 hours.

She’s only 71 years old and she seems ancient – in such ill health – it makes me want to do Pilates twice a day. But the truth is it is the cigarettes, the drinking, and the stress that takes it toll on her. She carries the world on her shoulders as if Atlas told her to hold it for him for a minute. Her eyes that used to glisten with a wink and a smile now look hunted and rheumy.

I keep remembering that woman who passed me by years ago when Steve and I were a Cafe Puccini on Columbus in North Beach. We were sitting in the window and I was facing her as she walked passed the cafe. She was possibly in her 70s and maybe upward of that, but she was wearing jeans and white tennis shoes and she looked almost like Judi Dench and she had a twinkle in her eyes. Much like when I ran into Herb Cain and he had a twinkle in his eye.

I want to keep my twinkle till I die.

Why I love baseball is the player is an individual as well as a team player. The same holds true with Pilates. Everyone shows up for the class, but every one works in different ways. What is challenging about Pilates is that you have to best yourself and not your neighbor – there is no one to run faster than, swim harder than, bike longer than – there is also no sense in being there unless you are taking yourself to the next level each time – and believe me – the levels are tough and keep a coming.

D arrived to no rooms in SF and was able to procure a suite – which of course turned into our gathering place – he was appalled at my cat injuries and told me after a few Red Bulls and Vodka – “Rachel, cats don’t like us.”

The financial industry has always had its ups and downs, but the downs really weigh on everyone who was used to the ups. Even one of my most positive and optimistic colleagues was having a bad week. He quoted another in our company who said, every two years you need new best friends. But that’s true – I told him it is true for sources as well as clients – and hell it might be good for personal relations as well – every two years you have to cull the herd unless it has undergone its own natural attrition.

Meanwhile, looking blue, B turned to me in the limo in Texas this afternoon and said, “ever read Liar’s Poker?” and I nodded catatonically staring at the miles of highway ahead, he said, “Equities in Dallas. That’s me right now.”

I read that humans treat red with respect. Red is without exception the first color word to enter the vocabulary and in some languages the only color word apart from black and white. It’s the first color kids learn to name. The first color that comes to the mind of an adult.

It’s all good. It’s all red.

were devoured within two days.

The world, Chico, and everything in it.