Suzy Says

Once again, Thanksgiving seemed to sneak up on me, even though I knew it was coming. I found myself lying awake at night “fretting” about it, as my ex used to say*. I later realized that this was partly due to having to plan and execute parties and huge catered meetings at work this month and next, in addition to having the family gathering at my house, and partly due to the fact that for the last several years, when I hostessed with the leastest, I wasn’t working in the Big Town for 5 or 6 days and/or 50 hours a week. So making Thanksgiving is more challenging than usual this time.

As usual, I’m not sure how many people will show up or where I will put them, but somehow we always figure that out. I have commissioned Rob to repo chairs from the family property, where they migrate during the summer party season, and bring them to my house for the winter season. He is also in charge of finding wood to put in the outdoor fireplace for the smoking/outdoor partiers. Despite the drought, I am hoping it doesn’t rain until after Thanksgiving. I need all the seating I can get.

Megan ordered the organic turkey from the Gro, excavated the roasting pan (which was our mother’s, and like everything Mom, it is the Cadillac of roasting pans) and lent me one of her big glass baking dishes for what my Southern friends call dressing. I have apparently learned nothing from previous years, because I assigned myself chestnuts to roast and peel for said dressing, although I know perfectly well that the torture the process inflicts is totally against the Geneva Conventions. As usual, the lure of deliciousness temporarily overcame my inherent laziness.

I also tried to fit in shopping here and there. I stopped in at Safeway before work one morning, and bought a six pack of wine, a bottle of Cointreau (for Megan and me after the guests leave), and cookies for 45 people for a work meeting. Yes, it was 7 am and I was buying nothing but booze and sugar. Of course, the clerk was the best friend of the person who does payroll at work, and ahead of me in line was the head of our IT department, buying virtuous yogurt and a banana. I can explain…

Megan and I met Erica in the beautiful Valley and handed over a Hubbard squash from the garden for her to Erica-ize into a pie (Jonathan is making a pie from apples grown on the property). I’m hoping she and Jessica can come early to hang out with me before everyone else gets there.

As for me, I’m hoping/planning/dreaming of getting out of work early on Wednesday to superficially clean the house (only things that show!), make my famous cranberry-bourbon relish (how surprised are you that I still have Jack Daniel’s left over from last year?) and roast those damn chestnuts with a minimum of swearing. Stay tuned…

*Him: Are you lying there fretting about something?

Me (Reluctantly): Yeeess…

Him (Reasonably): Well, what can you do about it now?

Me (Sadly): Nothing…

Him (Patiently): Then go to sleep.

He would go to sleep and I’d lie there, fretting.

I left work early to go to the physiotherapist, whose office is conveniently located a couple of blocks away. They had a cancellation, so I didn’t have to wait until December as originally planned. After filling out the requisite paperwork in the very Zen looking office, I went into the consultation room.

I explained what happened to the therapist, and she explained what was wrong with my inner ear and its alarming sounding problem of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. For the daughter of scientist (and someone who had a fairly successful career in finance for a couple of decades), my science and math brain is sadly lacking, so I will just say that the treatment is called an Epley Maneuver, and you can read about it here.

I will also say that the treatment was pretty unpleasant. I sat on a padded bench/exam table thing and the therapist took a firm grip on me before swooping me backwards and to one side with my head off the table. I had to keep my eyes open so she could see the fluttering in my pupils called nystagmus*. She held me there for about a minute as the vertigo jangled and spun its way out, and it was a very long minute. We then repeated this from the middle of the table and then to the other side, before sitting up and leaning over the floor.

You can imagine my enthusiasm for repeating this process a second time, but it was much better the second time, and I was hardly dizzy at all. For the first time in weeks, I was able to put my head on the pillows when I went to bed, and turn over to pet Clyde without suffering attacks of vertigo, though I still had to sit on the side of the bed for a minute before getting up in the morning the day after, but all in all, it was an improvement.

There may have been relief from vertigo, but there was no relief from the bill. Unlike Canada, where everyone sensibly pays a flat tax which rich people can’t get out of to fund healthcare, so things like this are covered, here I had to pay for the whole thing, even though I have insurance. I thought it would be like the dentist, where a certain percentage is covered, but instead, I have to spend $1,500 before the insurance starts paying for anything. So there went the money I had set aside for getting my hair reprettied for the holidays. So I may not be (completely) blonde, but I’m not (completely) dizzy, either.

*My sister told me that drunk people’s pupils also do this. Just another interesting piece of information from years of working on an ambulance!

A YEAR AGO: Back home from the city, with Thanksgiving looming.