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So now let us tell the whole story of Ann’s eye surgery, for those who may want a full account, and I’m not sure why you would except that I hope to make the journey amusing and I have nothing else to write about at the moment (I’m not ready to pick up where we left off in Brooklyn Heights last June).
We set out then, Mr. Landi and I, on a fine early October morning around 10 a.m. from my house in Taos. The first third of this drive, through the canyon carved by the Rio Grande, is stunning, especially in its early-autumn splendor; the rest is mostly dreary. There’s the endless road construction between Velarde and Espanola, which has been going on since I moved here 12 years ago, and then an unremarkable stretch between Santa Fe and I-25, and then the 50 or so miles to Albuquerque through a dun-colored landscape pocked with scrubby shrubbery of which I’ve never bothered to learn the name (maybe it’s sagebrush). So I don’t know the names of every plant and flower in New Mexico, so sue me. As Woody Allen once remarked, I am at two with Nature, and I never expected to be living this far from Central Park anyway.
Mr. Landi is surprised that I have a number of favorite pit stops along this route, but I make the drive between Taos and Santa Fe about once a month, and so I know the best places for a pee and a bag of potato chips; Albuquerque is a less frequent destination, though there was a time when I was flying back to New York quite regularly, and the Sunport, the ABQ international airport, was often my destination.
Rummaging around his car, I’m surprised to find that Mr. Landi has a dried banana peel in the compartment between our seats. “Did you know Japanese women rub their faces with banana skins. That’s why they have so few wrinkles.” No, he did not know this, and I neglect to ask why he has not yet dumped the desiccated skin.
“Did you use this for a condom?” I ask suspiciously.
He barks.
After a certain number of years, you can predict how your spouse will behave in a car. I once calculated that a 50-year marriage means about 12,000 hours of shared drive time, if you start with a baseline of about 10 hours per week. That sounds like a lot, but it’s really only about 72.5 weeks, or roughly a year and a half in the union of our hypothetical long-married couple. Still, that’s way longer than most honeymoons and undoubtedly more time than is spent engaging in sex.
Even after three decades as a divorced couple (is that an oxymoron?), I know that Mr. Landi will engage in unnecessary taps of the horn and indulge in nonstop news broadcasts. I’m half deaf, so this doesn’t bother me much.
We’re agreed on fast food joints because we both prefer the fries at Burger King to MacDonald’s, and I’ve given up on my gluten-free, additives-free, sugar-free Covid diet for the moment because it doesn’t seem to do a damn bit of good. As we wait for our order, I remark wistfully to my former husband, “Remember when we used to eat at places like the Four Seasons and Aquavit?” (That’s all part of the story of us; you’ll have to hang in with “Eat My Memoir” to learn the details.)
It falls to me to navigate and I do a pretty good job of it, right up to guiding us to our hotel near the retina center. I had hoped this might be a cut above the usual off-highway hostelry, because it has an indoor pool, but, no, it’s the generic chain-motel décor, this one with a tacky New Mexican theme to the visuals. We scarcely have time to check in to our “deluxe” suite (with two queen beds—there will be no hanky-panky when your combined age equals 150 years) before heading over to Eye Associates, which is the ginormous chain catering to the orbs of the Southwest.
After a short wait, we meet our surgeon, Dr. G. I am guessing from his name that he is of Eastern European descent, or possibly Russian, and he has a delicious Dr. Zhivago accent, even if, with his reddish hair and beard, he bears more of a resemblance to Vincent van Gogh. He’s also about six foot four (the same height as my long-lost love in Seattle, Jeff, whom some of you may recall from Rotten Romance). I am immediately smitten.
“Wow! You must have been a helluva basketball player,” says Mr. Landi, and I glare at him. It’s the kind of stupid comment he probably hears constantly, as did my brother, who was also extremely tall but never played basketball.
Dr. G peers into my eyeball through his arsenal of high-tech devices and explains what’s going on, but to be honest, I scarcely register nor remember the precise reason why my retina is misbehaving, so mesmerized am I by the nearness of Dr. G.
And then it is over and we are back in our hotel room, with a couple of hours to kill before dinner. Mr. Landi takes a nap and I tune into reruns of old “Law & Order,” which always enchant me because I love trying to pinpoint the New York neighborhoods where the series is filmed.
For dinner we have agreed not to venture beyond the neo-Brutalist mall-like neighborhood of the medical center, for fear of getting lost, and so we end up at a place called Chez Mimi, where attempts at a New Orleans-style décor can’t do much to enhance a menu that is about as enticing as Denny’s. We each order salmon, which comes, overdone, with an ice-cream-scoop of mashed potatoes and a few spears of overcooked broccoli. I can’t even drink to numb the sorrows of mediocre cuisine, and so wash it down with a glass of Dr. Pepper—a big mistake because it keeps me awake all night. No matter. I’m sufficiently keyed up that sleep is not much of a possibility anyway.
Next morning Mr. Landi drops me off at the Lovelace Medical Center (which he has written down as “Loveless,” and I’m still wondering about that slip). The nurse makes me comfy-cozy in a narrow bed, where I amuse myself with my Kindle and cell phone for about an hour. The anesthesiologist stops by to say hi and shake hands. The nurses bustle around me. I tuck my hair into a blue snood and take a selfie, which you will never ever see because it makes me look like I’ve already gone to my heavenly rest. Speaking of which, I wondered if I should send a text to Mr. Landi to remind him of where my last will and testament is stowed, in the top pigeonholes of my desk..
I scarcely have time to say hello to the adorable Dr. G when they wheel me away to some mysterious O.R. and then for the next two hours all I’m conscious of is a little pinch here and there as I do my best not to imagine what the hell these people are doing with my eyeball.
And then it’s all over and the nurse slaps a patch on my eye with instructions to wear it for the rest of the day and to bed for the next week. I’ve posted this before but here it is again.
We have better luck with dinner that night at an upscale Chinese place, where the ribs and fried wontons and eggplant with garlic sauce surpass expectations. As I’ve recounted before, I tell the little boy who stares at me shamelessly from a nearby table that I’m celebrating early Halloween and poked my eye out with a broomstick.
In a festive mood, halfway through a Manhattan, I remind Mr. Landi of some of the fun moments from our marriage.
“Did you know I was once so irritated with you, when we were living on 92nd Street, that I stuck match sticks between your toes while you were sleeping? I didn’t light them, though.”
He doesn’t find that terribly amusing.
“And do you remember the time I taped you snoring and played it back for you because you didn’t believe you snored?”
This isn’t so funny either.
Our final night we watch more “Law & Order” from our separate beds, barely making it through one episode. It occurs to me, when I wake up around 1 a.m. to slip in behind him and give him a hug, but I resist the impulse. We are simply too far gone for that—too much time and distance, too much water under the bridge or over the dam (I never did understand the metaphor). Not to mention there’s his long-time girlfriend in Taos, of whom we shall speak no evil. For the moment. We are more like old war buddies, combat veterans of battles that happened so long ago only a few slivers of shrapnel remain.
We meet with Dr. G bright and early the next morning, by which time my crush has pretty much worn off. We’ve been far too intimate too fast, with him poking around while I’m nearly unconscious, and it’s hard to think about flirting when you’ve got this metal patch over your eye. He explains that the operation took longer than expected because of some scarring inside the eyeball, from what I don’t remember. But he checks me out with all his high-tech gear and seems satisfied with the repairs. We all shake hands merrily as though this has been just some routine jolly meet-up, like signing mortgage papers.
You know the rest. I operated face-down 90 percent of the time for the next two weeks, refrained from driving, counted on friends and neighbors to keep me amused and supplied with food. And I’m pleased to report that my vision is returning, bit by bit. I will meet with Dr. G on Tuesday and give you a fuller report. And we’ll see if he’s still all that cute. Meantime, here’s a recipe.
Chicken Meatloaf
Perhaps because winter is icumen in, I woke up around three one morning last week with a mysterious craving for chicken meatloaf, which I find far more delicate and far less greasy than the standard burger meat loaf. This recipe is cobbled together from a couple of websites, and as you can tell from the crappy photo, I really did make it myself. It’s great cold on crusty bread with lettuce and mayo.
1 lb. ground chicken
½ dry breadcrumbs, oatmeal, or panko
½ cup diced onion
½ cup grated parmesan
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ cup fresh parsley, finely copped
2 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons Worcesterside sauce
1 teaspoon garlic poweder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
If you think it needs a glaze, mix together 1/3 cup ketchup, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, and 1 teaspoon ground mustard and spread over the top. I prefer my loaves without the glaze.
Smash it all together and shape it into a loaf, or use a loaf pan and bake at 350 F for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the internal temperature reads 165 F.
As always, Ann, no better raconteur than thou.
Mending the Retina is very apt! I am GLAD your retina got mended. Important work!!! And it's always fun to read your tongue-in-cheek descriptions! (maybe that's too many facial references . . .
Anyhow, keep on mending, and thanks for the chicken meatloaf!