Diapers

 I hate wearing diapers.

I know from a caretaker’s perspective, whether we’re talking about taking care of babies or incontinent geezers like me, disposable diapers are a godsend. Arguably, a sign of advanced civilization maybe even.

But I challenge you to try and salvage even an ounce of dignity after pissing yourself and having somebody take off the wet and put on the  dry, Especially if this is all happening in one of America’s elder care institutions where they tell you to go ahead and piss your diaper in the night so they don’t have to  come and change you. 

Not much better (OK a little better) is having to Train Percy to point himself into a plastic bottle instead of at the porcelain. My nights recently have been a duel between my chronic cough and a bad case of dry mouth which require me to drink tons of water. Which require me to then pee into a diaper or a bottle (much preferred, as I said. You have more than gotten the picture I’m sure.

For those of you who have not followed this gripping tale from the start, I slipped getting out of the car at home on Christmas Eve, fell flat on my ass and broke my hip. Two fire engines and an ambulance later, I was in Kaiser Hospital, having a rod placed down the marrow of my left tibia from hip to knee and three days after that I was sent to purgatory to recover from the operation. Purgatory left me with such memories as lying on the floor after falling out of the bed in a soaking wet diaper for three hours in the middle of the night because nobody responded to the calls for help. And a face rash from hell due to the application of the wrong medicine that took me to the ER. Anybody want me to testify in Congress on the wretched state of healthcare in America? My calendar is free. 

OK, enough time on the dark side. I got out of that place and ended up in a much better place with much better people and much better care so it’s not entirely a tale of woe. I’m now focused on getting out of here and getting home, which has been transformed from top to bottom, with every square inch covered by a grab bar or a chairlift or some other accommodation to the new reality by my beloved better half.

Taku has earned triple credits toward his sainthood degree in taking care of me. Between him and my “other beloved,” my chosen niece Amy, I have been bathed in love and affection. I wish everybody could enjoy such care and affection (without having to break a hip, I mean).  And it goes beyond that.  

 Also earning credits towards sainthood are my friends, Takashi and Chiha, my friends Sandy and Norm, my friends Arvind and Ashok and Kei Matsuda, all of whom have stopped by.  And my sister and my dearest of old friends, Sally, and my extended family in Argentina and all the other kind souls who have sent best wishes. I’m feeling super grateful. 

Now to get the hell out of here.

Queen of the Night - Mozart Staccato and Upside Down

 I have a weakness for the razz-matazz.  Much as I'd like to think of myself as a sophisticated listener of classical music, lyrical pieces like Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words or Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, I'm more often drawn to pieces that require technical virtuosity - fingers that "fly across the keyboard."

My go-to music is instrumental, chiefly piano, and also violin.  But I have no trouble defining the human voice as an instrument, as well, and this especially holds true, it seems to me, for singers with exceptional talent and well harnessed raw powers - singers like Pavarotti or Joan Sutherland, to name just a couple of my favorites.

When it comes to showing off at the piano, Liszt comes first to my mind.  But there are many others: Chopin, Prokofiev, Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit.  

But I want to focus here on what I think must be the most difficult piece ever writtten for a coloratura  soprano, credit going for Mr. Mozart himself.  I'm talking about that challenge not only to the voice box but to the lips and tongue and cheeks as well: "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen (The Vengeance of Hell boils in my heart)" from The Magic Flute. It's kind of a rite of passage for coloratura sopranos to attempt it, so there is no shortage of performances to listen to.  For me, the leader of the pack has got to be Diana Damrau.  Here she is all gussied up on a costume that does justice to her magical vocal skills, a gown suggestive of a bonfire and a wig that looks like she's wearing a Victorian sofa nestled in an electric fan.  Pure theatricality to give form to what's going on here on stage: a mother, known as "The Queen of the Night" telling her daughter, Pamina, that she has to put a dagger in the heart of Sarastro. Not because he has been holding Pamina hostage, but because he has robbed her, the queen, of her powers.  "Do it," says the queen, or "you will be my daughter nevermore!"  A heavy trip to lay on an innocent kid.

Opera is by nature histrionic, but nowhere more excessively dramatic than in this aria, which is part of opera lore, and not just in German-speaking countries, where they call German operas like The Magic Flute not by their Italian name, but by a German name, a "Singspiel" - a song play.

An example of how much fun German speakers can get out of this over-the-top piece of music can be seen in the jazz takedown by Bodo Wartke, Germany's cabaret artist and musical satirist par excellence.   To help you follow along (and why wouldn't you?), here are the lyrics in English translation and in the original German:

[I hope I haven't crossed the copyright lines here.  If so, I will take this down immediately, of course.  But just so you can follow Bodo's performance... 

Hell's Vengeance Boils in My Heart,
Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen,

death and despair,
Tod und Verzweiflung,

Death and despair flames around me!
Tod und Verzweiflung flammet um mich her!

Doesn't Sarastro feel the pain of death because of you,
Fühlt nicht durch dich Sarastro Todesschmerzen,

Sarastro's death pains,
Sarastro Todesschmerzen,

Don't you, my daughter, ever again.
Sot du meine Tochter nimmermehr.

You never do that to me, my daughter.
Sot du mei, meine Tochter nimmermehr.

Aaaaaah...
Aaaaah...

my daughter never again.
meine Tochter nimmermehr.

Aaaaaah...
Aaaaah...

My daughter will never do that again.
Sot meine Tochter nimmermehr.

Be cast out forever and forsaken forever,
Verstossen sei auf ewig und verlassen sei auf ewig,

May all bonds of nature be shattered forever,
Zertrümmert sei auf ewig alle Bande der Natur,

Abandoned, abandoned, and shattered
Verstossen, verlassen, und zertrümmert

all the bonds of nature, all the Baaaa...
alle Bande der Natur, alle Baaaa...

Aaaaah..., gang, all the bonds of nature,
Aaaaah..., Bande, alle Bande der Natur,

If not for you Sarastro will turn pale!
Wenn nicht durch dich Sarastro wird erblassen!

Hear, hear, hear revenge, - gods!
Hört, hört, hört Rache, - Götter!

And lest you think he's the only one making silly of this Queen of the Night aria, here's a lady doing it upside down.

So much for attending the opera in a black suit and a starched collar.

Bounce's Yahrzeit

Bounce and Miki

 Sometime in the early 1950s I found myself in Temple Beth Israel, the synagogue in my home town of Winsted, Connecticut.  I can't remember how or why I got there; possibly it was the time our youth group at the First Church, which was directly across the street from the synagogue, got invited to services in a move to bridge the space between our religious faiths - my home town was good that way.

What I do remember is that at some point in the service a man got up to speak of his father.  It was his father's "yahrzeit" I learned, the anniversary of his death. It was the moment, if I were to pick one, when my lifelong respect, not just for things Jewish but for the Jewish religion in particular, began.  A profoundly human community thing to do, to stop for a moment and give an individual a chance to speak publicly of the grief they felt over the loss of a loved one.

I know there are people who see my assertion that one can love an animal as fiercely as one can a fellow human being as disrespectful, somehow.  Even folly.  But I have lived these last 365 days in sadness since we took the life of my beloved canine daughter, Bounce, because she had a growth in her belly and, at age fourteen, the pain and confusion of an operation, I decided, would take her too far below the quality of life line to justify keeping her alive. 

It's one thing to define dilemma as a philosophical concept. It's quite another to feel it in your bones. I had long since recognized that the capacity to love and care for another was actually more important to the soul than the gift of being loved, so it didn't surprise me that I was facing some serious grief.  In no small part because Miki had died just a short year and a half earlier. But I wasn't ready for what it would do to me to be the one to pull the plug, to give the order for the vet to put Bounce to sleep and then administer a second medication to stop her heart.  As I watched this beautiful little creature close her eyes and relax into a face at peace, I had what it takes to convince myself I was doing the right thing.  I wanted selfishly to keep her alive at all costs, but chose to put her comfort and freedom from pain ahead of my own desires. Why then, was I feeling like I had failed at one of life's greatest challenges, to love and care for another, to be the guardian and protector of another life.  

It has been a year today. The ache is not as acute, but it won't go away. I can speak of it, and I spend a great deal of time dealing with death and dying now that I've lived beyond the normal lifespan of an American male.  I trust I will process this grief eventually. 

Just not yet.