Suzy Says

Breakfast of champions this morning: cramp bark, multi-vitamin, flax seed oil, black coffee. Follow with a run down the logging road (to get there, take the little path past the garden and slip under the barbed wire fence). Optional accessories: one or two dogs. This morning, there were two dogs, and we ran in age order: the 3 year old, the 10 year old, the 30-11 year old.

The morning run is the best part of the day for me. It gets me out of the house and gives me 40 or so precious minutes to myself. I miss the gym, but this will have to do for now. It feels good to be running among the ancient redwoods in the foggy morning, the air smelling like the forest and the ocean and the flowers. I can almost feel like I’m running away from everything. For a little while.

Thanks to everyone for the outpouring of love and caring. Wow. I can’t tell how much I appreciate it, and what a difference it makes.

We’re just about ready to leave on the next stage of this strange journey. I realize that I have never before packed to go on a trip for an indefinite period of time. I could be gone for a few days, or a few weeks. So I’m bringing a lot of stuff. I’m beginning to wonder if we can lug it all to the bus stop. Where’s Hack when you need him? I bet he’d drive us the 30 miles to Petaluma, where we’re meeting my sisters.

It took me a long time to get myself to pack. I think it’s because packing meant it was real. I finally packed at 2 am last night. As I was packing, I picked up a pretty grey hand-knit sweater. At first I rejected it as too nice to be worn up there (no-one dresses up) but then, almost before I realized I was thinking it, if you follow me, I thought, “It will do to go the funeral home” and put it in the bag.

I was vividly reminded of helping my friend Mary-Lou pack to go home to see her father, who was dying of cancer. She matter-of-factly packed a black dress for his funeral Mass, saying simply, “I know I’ll need it this time.” If I were an actress and needed to cry in a scene, I’d remember the look on my dear friend’s face as she followed her father’s coffin into the church on a winter afternoon, knowing that there was nothing I could do to help her. And I was sitting beside my own beloved father at the time.

Years later, I too have lost my father. And I’m about to lose my mother. But the love and support of my family and friends will get me through it. Thanks again, everyone, for your thoughts and prayers. Keep ’em coming.

Do you think everything happens for a reason? Or that it’s all random? I don’t know – it’s one of those questions like the existence of God that I don’t know the answer to but wish I did – but sometimes things just seem to come together.

Earlier this week, after more than seven years at my job, I was laid off, along with a dozen or so other people. Clearly, it was a decision made by Corporate and not by my own team, who are hugely inconvenienced by my sudden departure. It’s all about getting rid of the most expensive people following the end of the fiscal year and the beginning of the budget process.

My boss was much more upset than I was as she told me. Her hands were shaking and she was almost in tears. I really wasn’t upset. The first thing I thought of was that now I had time to go and take care of my mother.

I haven’t told you, faithful readers, that my mother is dying.

Earlier this month, my sister Megan brought Mom to her place to nurse her through a lung infection. Meg figured it was better to take care of Mom in her own home instead of at Mom’s. She brought Mom in to the hospital where she works, and Mom was diagnosed with pneumonia. In the course of diagnosing the pneumonia, the doctors discovered that Mom’s breast cancer, which had spread throughout her bones last year, is now in her lungs.

There is nothing more they can do. It’s just a matter of time, and not much of that. So on Saturday, John and I are heading up there. He’ll come back on Monday, but I’ll stay until it’s over. It will be good to be with my brother and sisters – Beth is here from England indefinitely – and Mom, to do what I can and to say good-bye.

I’m so glad I now have the time to do that. It’s an incredible gift. And I’m so glad to have the family I have.

Usually, it’s nice having the cats sleep with us. Assuming, that is, that they aren’t right on our feet, pinning down the covers, or taking up the entire pillow with their tiny, furry bodies. You would think that something that small couldn’t take up a whole pillow, but you’d be wrong. Mostly, we feel like our own little tribe, settled in for the night together.

And it’s so cute seeing them snuggled up together. Jack, the Siamese in the picture, is our worst cat (conversely, Sophie, the orange cat in the picture, is the nicest). Jack is loud and obnoxious, yet always has someone to cuddle and play with. No wonder we gave her a boy’s name, since this seems to be true of most men as well.

Yet Jack is not the cause of the striking facial accessories I have been sporting for the past couple of days. Cleo is to blame. She got spooked in the night (and she calls herself a black cat?!) and used my face for a launching pad to escape from whatever monster was after her. I have claw marks across my cheek, beside my nose, and slicing my lower lip both inside and out. I have tried to conceal the damage with make-up, but it’s as futile as if I had gone five rounds with someone and lost. I’m just hoping it will clear up in time for an important meeting I have on Wednesday.

Maybe litter boxes aren’t the worst thing about having cats after all.

Completed the final phase of the annual check-up marathon yesterday. The whole thing is such a production, it’s no wonder I hadn’t been for such a long time. Before I could even make an appointment, I had to fax them the front and back of my insurance card and wait for them to get it approved. Then, and only then, would they dare to set up the appointment.

After the check-up, the doctor gave me orders for tests to be done, which I didn’t have time to do until I came back from Canada. I duly did the walk-in blood testing, etc. a month ago and called to make an appointment for a mammogram. The first available appointment was yesterday (happy Bastille Day!), and off I went after work, to swim through an ocean of paperwork before getting topless and down to business.

It was the first mammogram I had had since Mom was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Now that I’m old and high risk, it is something I can look forward to on an annual basis. The technician doing the screening was really nice, but squashing one’s poitrine into a pancake is not fun, and one of the times a girl feels that symmetry is highly overrated.

You have to endure four squashings before they release you. By the time they got to Squash Three, I very nearly passed out, I don’t know why. I asked them to complete Squash Four anyway, because I just wanted it over with, and afterwards, the technician helped me to a cot to lie down. I didn’t actually lose consciousness, but I felt pretty bad. She went to fetch a nurse, who took my blood pressure (110/80) and said, “Even for a white girl, you’re really white.” I confessed that I hadn’t eaten lunch that day (though I didn’t admit that: 1. I hardly ever do; and b. I routinely go and work out when I haven’t eaten for 12 hours, fearing that their heads would fly off).

They brought me graham crackers and orange juice, making me feel like I was back in kindergarten. It was like nap time, only naked. They checked my blood pressure again and then sent me on my way with an extra packet of crackers. I felt really old and really young all at once.

I’m finally catching up on the New Yorkers that piled up in my absence while I was off being Vacation Suzy. Always instructive yet entertaining, I learned in the combined June 16/23 issue that valium, my drug of choice when faced with the rigors of flying, just turned 40, much like me. It can’t be a coincidence that it was invented when I was a year old; I imagine my advent sent Dr. Leo Sternbach scuttling to his laboratory.

Whether it was my appearance on the scene butt first, or other factors, my mother routinely took valium when I was a child. Many people did. It was the 1960’s and that sort of thing was quite usual, as was my parents’ habit of loading us kids into the car in our PJ’s and taking us to cocktail parties. In their defense, it should be noted that this only happpened when we were in Maine for the summer, and there was very little, if any traffic, in those days. Certainly nothing untoward ever occurred.

Several of our baby pictures feature our parents with a cocktail in one hand and baby bottle in the other; and in my mother’s case, a cigarette is never far away. Now they would probably be charged with child endangerment. These were the 1960’s, the halcyon days of the Rat Pack, and such behavior was the norm, though now it seems almost as remote and antiquated as customs in the 1860’s. I wonder if the enlightened children of today look back at the children who grew up in the Valium Years and feel pity and horror for us.

Dr. Sternbach himself recently turned 95. He confided to the New Yorker that his wife doesn’t let him indulge in his own invention, but that he prefers Scotch anyway.

I got these questions from the always adorable Amber of Lively Lexis. To keep the game going, it’s my turn to ask one of you questions. Volunteers, email me at suzy @ suzysays.net. The questions I ask you won’t be the same as the ones Amber asked me – you’re supposed to think up your own. This may be tough for me, considering my lack of creativity. So while I’m trying to think up questions, you can read my answers:

1. Tell us about a defining moment in your life where the decision you made brought you joy and happiness. A defining moment where you wouldn’t change a single thing.

Considering that my life has been mostly of a Salinger (the Party of Five kind, not the JD kind) or Baudelaire orphan nature, the moments of joy and happiness are few and far between, and the defining moments tend to be horrible, like my father’s death. I think my life needs a serious re-write, actually.

But if I had to pick one thing along these lines, I would have to say taking care of my sister Megan for her last two years of high school following my parents’ scandalous divorce and my father’s retirement to his native England. I am glad that I was able to give her a happy and solid home base for those years, when she needed it the most. I even dare to think that she is the remarkable person she is today in part because of that. And the love I have for her is like no other.

2. I know that you’re well traveled. In your opinion, out of all the places you’ve had the pleasure of visiting, what locale had the most effect on you
and why?

Believe it or not, San Francisco. My brother moved here following our parents’ divorce (you can see it pretty much shook us all up), and the first time I came to visit him, I arrived here at night and he took me up to Mt. Davidson. The city was spread out before us in all its glittery glory and I fell in love with it that minute. I have never recovered. I don’t think I ever will.

Runners-up:

1. The first time I went to Paris. I was 17, it was summer, it was the first time I had travelled alone that didn’t involve any form of family members, it was the late 1970’s, I was staying with friends in their apartment in the Quartier Latin. Did I mention Paris?!

2. The first time I went to Venice. Late spring. As my vaporetto cruised up the Grand Canal, the pink lights along the canal all lit up at once, echoing the pink of the setting sun. Magic.

3. Since we’re quickly approaching Independence Day let’s talk about your
country! What aspect about your country makes you so damn proud to be an American? And if you had the power to change one aspect to make your home an even better place for you to live, what would that be?

Get Bush out of the White House! He shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Either that, or some kind of socialized medicine. It’s appalling that only the wealthy or relatively wealthy can afford medical care. It’s the true class system in this country: those with medical insurance and those without.

I think you can love a country as you love a person: despite all their flaws and shortcomings, and sometimes even because of them. I know we have problems as a country, but we also have great qualities. The fact that we won our freedom from England and created an entirely new form of government is an incredible achievement. Our success as a nation, when we started with nothing, is another. We’ve come an amazingly long way in 220 years. And I think it’s remarkable that our founding principles include the pursuit of happiness. Isn’t that what life is all about?

I love it that within one country there are palm trees, deserts, oceans, mountains, prairies. That it contains natural beauties like the snows of Alaska, the sun of Hawaii, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Salt Lake. That it contains unnatural beauties like the glorious excess of Las Vegas, the brash glamor of New York, the energy and architecture of Chicago, the beauty and tolerance of San Francisco. These places could exist nowhere else on earth.

4. When you were a little girl, what did you think you’d be doing today? Are you generally happy with the outcome or are you still working to achieve the dreams of that little girl?

Whenever I say this, people think I’m fishing for compliments or something, but the truth is that I have no particular talents at all. I never wanted to be, say, an actress or a fireman or anything in particular. I am not particularly ambitious, either. So I didn’t have dreams in that manner at all, and still don’t.

We had a Career Day at school when I was about 12 and I got in a lot of trouble for writing down “idle rich” as a career goal. They thought I was mocking them when in fact I was just being truthful. That’s still about the only thing I’d be any damn good at, but I don’t think I’ll ever get the chance to try.

5. Assuming money isn’t an issue, what would be your dream retirement plan?

I can’t believe it won’t be. Many experts think that Social Security will either be non-existent or dramatically underfunded by the time I’m due to retire. My firm has stopped matching our 401(k) contributions until the economy improves, and what’s in there has been bleeding out so quickly I can’t bear to read my statements. But on the bright side, our apartment should finally be paid off by then!

I wonder if I will actually be able to afford to retire when I’m 65!

NOTE: To see my questions, keep watching Amy’s site!

Happy birthday, America!

Did you know that this is the date the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress, but the actual signing of the document didn’t start until August and wasn’t complete until the following January?

The first informal celebrations took place almost immediately following the public reading of the Declaration, and interestingly, they are still pretty much the same more than 200 years later: parades, fireworks, feasting. However, the first official (mandated by legislature) celebration wasn’t held until 1781, in Massachusetts.

In the “some things never change” category, a Mrs. Hammond of Chicago declared that she would fly the Confederate flag in front of her house on the 4th of July in 1894. According to the New York Times, this caused an angry crowd to assemble in front of the Hammond house, until Mrs. Hammond admitted that she had ordered the flag, but it hadn’t arrived yet. The crowd disbanded, and Mrs. H. promptly displayed a British flag, which was torn down and destroyed by a young boy who was passing by.

And finally: the Fourth is one of only, well, four holidays that are still celebrated in this country on a certain date, regardless of convenience: New Year’s Day, Christmas Day, Independence Day, and Halloween.

OK, all you fashion mavens out there, I need your advice. What does a girl wear to a baseball game? Having never attended one in my life – or any other kind of sporting event – I have no idea.

My first thought was to bring a hat, even though I seem to have a cartoonishly large head, since they rarely, if ever, fit me. Rather, they perch on top of my head quite uselessly, where they can be borne away by the lightest breeze or slightest breath of scandal, which you will agree is a problem. I have been assured that our seats are in the shade, but have a perfectly reasonable fear of sitting in the sun for four hours or more. Yes, it’s San Francisco, but the game starts around 12:30 p.m., when the fog is gone, and it won’t be back by the end of the game.

So I’m pretty much out of ideas, other than sunglasses.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself when I metamorphosized into Sports Suzy, or if I am in fact the real Suzy and not some Pod Suzy or John playing a practical joke. I assure that I am the one and only Suzy, and the only reason I am breaking my life-long record of not going to any form of sporting event is simple: it’s a work thing, and I have to go. If I don’t look out, I’ll end up setting foot in Florida next, or going to Disney World/Land/Universe and all my records will start dropping like dominoes. This better not be the thin edge of the wedge.

It’s my gorgeous niece Cat’s birthday today!

She’s 21, and I am now going to embarrass her by saying it seems like yesterday that she was a baby, and by posting these pictures of her, as a babyand more recently in a family portrait

(left to right: Harry, Cat’s Dad; Beth, Cat’s Mom; Cat herself, and Ben, Cat’s brother). The thing is, she can’t get mad at me because I gave her jewelry for her birthday, and this year I even refrained from posting about it, complete with picture, so it would be a surprise. One of us might actually be a grown-up.

In honor of Cat’s birthday, I will share with you a couple of my fave quotes from her:

1. I’m mad at yesterday.

2. I often say to myself in the morning “Why did yesterday Cat tell today Cat to do that? Yesterday Cat should have done it. Tomorrow Cat, she can deal
with it.”

Words to live by.

Love you, baby! (Or grown-up!)

Woke up on Saturday to a Bay-full of blissful, silver fog. The foghorns joyfully announced the end of the heat wave in their deep, authoritative voices (they are very convincing). In the distance, I could hear the sea lions at Pier 39 barking their happiness at the alleviation of the heat, with the wild parrots’ wild, harsh voices and clatter of wings providing the top note in this San Francisco symphony of hometown noises. The only thing missing was the bright jangle of the cable car bells, since none dare approach our neighborhood. Note to fans: the 40th annual cable car bell ringing contest is coming up in the middle of July. It’s held on or around our friend Mike C.’s birthday, just for him, even if he isn’t here. If you are, check it out!

On the way to work today, I found an origami crane, made of patterned, dark blue paper. It was abandoned on the sidewalk, so I picked it up and brought it to work, where it is currently gracing my computer monitor. Probably good office feng shui, and it ain’t like I don’t need it, what with another quarterly reporting time just around the corner. The good thing is that we finally have another analyst (sadly, not Colin, who decided not relocate to San Francisco and ditch all his summer plans to take the job)*, starting around the time of the cable car bell ringing contest. The bad news is that we’ll be too busy to train him, but will have to find the time.

As I picked up the crane, a guy passed me with an inflatable doll carried on his shoulders, the way your parents may have done when you were a kid, if that’s not too horrifying a conjunction of images. I’m afraid it gets worse, because the doll was wearing vinyl, flame-patterned boots and nothing else, including its head, which was completely missing. The guy was whistling.

*Because then I’d find out once and for all if he’s really a professor at Yale, as I suspect, instead of the high school student he claims to be!

Before we went on vacation, we had one of those delightful condo owner meetings which are always planned for the most inconvenient time possible (for us, anyway), and which always seem to end up costing money. I realize that this is one of the cons of living in a 6 unit building instead of a 60 unit building, since there are fewer of us to pay for things, but being hit with a 25% increase in monthly maintenance dues plus a “one time” fee of $1,000 to repair the building’s roof pretty much ruined my day. Everyone else seemed to take this news with equanimity, since they are all inexplicably wealthy, whereas we were horrified, being the poor white trash of the building and all. At least we have a couple of months to come up with the $1,000. God.

As if that weren’t enough building-related bad news, the neighbor in the apartment above ours announced that she had bought a house (how?! how?!) and would be renting out her place for the princely sum of $2,600 a month. I immediately began to fear the new neighbors being from hell, in the way so many neighbors are. God.

Came back from vacation to find that she had actually sold the place for more than half a million dollars, which suggests that the new owner(s) will have no problem with the $1,000 fee or the monthly fee and that we remain the undisputed PWT of the building.

It’s so weird when you think about owning an apartment. I mean, what do you actually own? We don’t own the building, or the land it stands on. I guess we own air. How surreal is that?

I seem to developed a bad habit – well, I should be allowed one or two, right? – of barely getting to art exhibits before they close. It’s just like madly doing your homework on a Sunday night, even if you had two weeks to do it, because you were too busy having fun and all of a sudden, the deadline looms with frightening proximity.

I have apparently learned nothing from those long-ago school days, since I’m still procrastinating, but in a mirror image or Alice Through the Looking Glass way: I’m putting off the things I want to do because I’m so busy doing the things I have to do. And there you have it: the horrible truth about being a grown-up, even one as faux as I am, the one that they don’t tell you when you’re a kid*. And PS, that permanent record they’re always threatening you with at school doesn’t exist.

Anyway, I finally got to see the Treasures of Modern Art exhibit at MOMA – on the day it closed. Talk about pushing it! I went over at lunch and wondered why I don’t do that more often. If I lived in London and worked in the City, I’d pop into the National Gallery at lunch. Though come to think of it, when you actually live somewhere, you never do things like that.

The exhibit was great and I was amazed as always by what one person can collect and how very wonderful it would be to be a private collector. Standouts for me included Warhol’s stunning Red Liz (I’ve been an Andy fan since high school) and two Mondrians, particularly one which was still in progress when he died, showing how the artist worked. There was an entire room of Rauschenberg, among them the legendary but seldom exhibited “Erased De Kooning Drawing” and “Tire Tracks”, both made in the early 1950’s. Rauschenberg made “Tire Tracks” by taping together 20 feet of paper and placing it on the street in New York City outside his studio. He then painted one tire of composer John Cage’s Model A Ford with black paint as Cage slowly drove over the paper. But my favorite of the Rauschenbergs was the “Hiccups”, 97 pieces of fabric all silk screened with different images and in some cases collages, zippered together and displayed in a long piece across two walls.

While in Toronto, I stopped by the Art Gallery of Ontario, where I spent several happy hours. I loved the “In Light” exhibit, where the artwork included video, film, or light of one kind or another. My favorite piece was one that looked like a textured bronze wall with a flapping (and apparently real) bird wing on each side, highlighted by red laser lights. It was both disturbing and moving, as was the “Pop Photographica” exhibit.

This exhibit was an incredible collection of objects including photographs from the 1800’s to the present. Along with the usual Victorian memento moris (hair bracelets with photos of the deceased; photos of dead children with locks of their hair; one really elaborate shadow box with photo of dead man along with heavy silver coffin fittings), there were some truly remarkable objects:

1. A woman’s sewing case from the 1880’s with elaborate wood inlays and secret drawers, featuring photos of herself in the lid as she aged.

2. A sterling silver purse from around the same period with a photo of the owner’s dog on it. This was very unusual indeed – most had a photo of a loved one on them – and shows that the young lady in question had a mind of her own. I’m sure Kelly would approve!

3. A chess set with the faces of Union and Confederate generals along with Abraham Lincoln on the board’s squares. Apparently this was a huge seller during the Civil War.

4. The creepiest item to my mind: a rag doll from about 1900, beautifully preserved and dressed, but with its owner’s face. Someone had photographed the child and transferred the photo to cloth and then made it into a doll, so doll and owner had the same face. It’s a very weird effect.

If you live in or near Toronto, you should definitely check it out. Quick, before it’s too late!

*Even if they did, you wouldn’t believe it.

Mom seems to be doing better. It’s hard to know how much of her symptoms are because of the TIA and how much can be attributed to age, fighting the cancer, and radiation. But her condition seemed improve each day over the weekend, so maybe she really just needs rest and company while she gets her strength back. She is seeing her own doctor today, so hopefully we’ll know more after that. My brother is with her now and might take her back home with him to the country for a week if the doctor says it’s OK.

Can you tell I’m proud of my sis? Here’s Megan at work, with the ambulance she drives.

It’s the longest day of the year, and even if it weren’t, it would feel like it, ’cause I’m Mom-sitting.

John’s quick trip to Petaluma earlier this week may have suggested to the alert reader that there is something going on with my Mom, and indeed there is.

Mom had a TIA (transient ischemic attack) or mini stroke to the non-medically educated, last Sunday while visiting my brother and sister. She seems to have recovered, but we feel that isn’t safe to leave her on her own for now, so we’re taking it in shifts to Mom-sit.

My sister Megan brought Mom home on Thursday to keep an appointment with the local hospice to discuss the services available when Mom’s cancer gets more critical and to keep her doctor’s appointment on Friday. Megan has to work over the weekend – such being the life of an EMT – so John and I are taking turns and then my brother Jonathan is taking over on Sunday. The bigger question at this point is whether she can continue to live on her own. Megan thinks Mom will live longer if she’s independent, and her apartment does have pull cords to call 911, but it’s so hard to know what to do.

I got here yesterday afternoon, and so far, so good. She kind of leans to the left, but seems otherwise OK. I kept asking her if she was all right every five minutes, which probably drove her crazy, but she fell asleep last night holding my hand.

Vacation Suzy has definitely left the building. I’m no longer staying up late, sleeping in, drinking and eating with abandon, and getting exercise only from shopping and opening bottles of wine. I’m back to the every day or Puritan Suzy, who gets up unspeakably early and goes to bed &agrave la fermi&egravere (this early to bed, early to rise routine has yet to make me wealthy or wise, although it might have contributed to my general health). I have one wicked cup of black coffee a day, and otherwise drink spring water and green tea. Wine bottles gather dust on my wine rack.

I am amazed by how quickly a couple of weeks of self-indulgence can lower one’s fitness level, and also by how much I missed the gym while I was Vacation Suzy. I really should have brought my workout wear. I would barely give myself a passing grade on packing for the trip to Canada. I totally overestimated how much sunny and warm weather there would be, and hardly got to wear half of the cute things I brought. It would have been much better if I’d brought exercise clothes’n’shoes instead, but who knew? I will be better prepared next time, assuming they’ll let me back in the country, that is.

Anyway, I was back at the gym on Monday. I was surprised by how hard it was to do some things, though thankfully, not all of them. It’s not like I’m right back at square one or anything, but it is a little frustrating, especially to the patience-free. I can definitely feel it, too, but it’s good to be back. Who knew, indeed. I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who’d pack sneakers instead of kitten heeled mules.

We were so glad to be home, where it looks like this (no rain, no clouds, no thunderstorms and temperatures in the 70’s, where they belong), that we had to go outside immediately on Saturday morning and re-acquaint ourselves with the beautiful city we love. We had a new-found appreciation for the clean sea breezes, the lack of humidity and mosquitoes, the beauty of the buildings, the ability to buy booze at the corner store the way nature intended (I was still Vestigial Vacation Suzy last weekend, though as of yesterday I’m back at the gym and my boring, water-drinking non-vacation Self).

We headed to the North Beach Festival. North Beach is the Italian neighborhood and home to countless great restaurants, Molinari’s deli, where you go in, grab your bread, and hand it to one of the guys behind the counter, who will make you one of the best sandwiches you have ever had, and of course, Caffe Trieste, one of the oldest coffeehouses in San Francisco and supplier of caffeine to Me, making it possible for me to get out of bed as early as I do when I’m not being Vacation Suzy. Oh, yeah, and the oldest bar in the city, the functionally named The Saloon, which is small, well-used, and unpretentious – everything a bar should be.

However, we chose to do our drinking outside in the bright sunlight instead. We drank Margaritas which were being sold from a booth along with great street food (I love street food) to the strains of a fantastic band from Santa Cruz called SambaD?, a wonderful and unclassifiable mix of Brazilian dance music blended with reggae, funk, hip-hop, and who knows what else. They had no fewer than three percussionists and it was a blast (check out the MP3’s on their site). You have to love being able to drink and dance in the street.

Even SPF 45 wasn’t enough to stop me from getting a slight sunburn on my face and arms – to go along with all those Canadian mosquito bites – but it was worth it. It’s good to be home.

If you have a permanent record at airports, the way they threaten you with having one at school, I definitely have it at Pearson International in Toronto. Something always seems to happen when I go there. Here you have it, in chronological order:

1. In 1994, John and I went to visit his family (and that was the first time since we moved to San Francisco and the last time I visited them before the visit this month). The 1994 visit to his family was a pit stop on the way to the real destination, Maine, but it meant that we had to fly back through Toronto on our way home, too.

Our arrival coincided with the arrival of two huge jets disgorging hundreds of would-be Canadian citizens, who all had to be processed through Immigration. Most could not speak English and did not seem to have the necessary paperwork. The powers that be felt that John and I, although simply changing planes in Canada, had to go through Immigration with everyone else.

There was no way we could have gotten through in time to catch our plane to San Francisco, which was my only desire in the world at that point. So I threw a great big noisy fuss in Ramona the Pest style until someone in charge came over and asked if he could help me. John was mortified and stayed out of it while I loudly explained the stupidity of our position and my lust for the San Francisco bound plane. He was a wise man not to tangle with an enraged Suzymonster, and took us to the head of the line without comment. At Immigration, the guy asked how long we were staying in Canada. I looked at my watch and said, “Oh, about 15 minutes” with the greatest sarcasm I could muster. He stamped our passports and we ran to the Promised Land of the SF bound plane (and made it). As soon as I could speak again I told John I was never going back there again. Never turned out to be 9 years.

2. Made a brief visit to Toronto in October 2002. On arrival (at almost 9:00 p.m. after travelling all day), I got sent to Immigration, where they informed me that the law had changed in June and if you have or had the right to work in Canada and you move away for good, you have to give it up. They asked if I had done that when I moved, a dozen years earlier. I said I couldn’t remember. They said I had to answer yes or no or they’d deport me, so I said I would have to say no because I couldn’t say that I had. They said I either had to fill out a report that took an hour or go back to San Francisco, and though Option B was looking pretty good, I agreed to the report thing.

They kept making me drag things out of my wallet and bag and asked the same questions three different ways, and really, if I hadn’t had the requisite v’n’v, there probably would have been a repeat of the 1994 incident and they really would have deported my ass. About 50 minutes into this bureaucratic Theater of the Absurd, one of the other officers read the report and said I didn’t have to fill out the report or be deported because I am married to a Canadian. I pointed out that I am in fact married to a reformed Canadian who is now an American citizen, but as far as they are concerned, if you’re born in Canada, you’re Canadian for the rest of your natural-born life (and possibly beyond). So they let me go.

Before fleeing, I told them that we were planning to come back in June and would I have to go through this again. He assured me I wouldn’t, and it was all in the computer.

3. It wasn’t. Same crap when I arrived there a few days before John. I was definitely less nice this time, v’n’v notwithstanding, and told them that I had specifically asked just a few months earlier about this and had been told it was all in the computer. Got called “young lady” which didn’t help. I was so close to saying, “If you really think that someone who was not only born in the US but owns property in San Francisco is going to move here, you’re even more retarded than you look”, but held back. Maybe I really am a grown-up. Honest to GOD though. It’s like they think my one wish is to move back there, when in reality, they couldn’t pay me to.

This time, they stapled a certificate in the back of my passport saying that I promise not to move there. The bad news is that the certificate is only good until the end of the year, so if we go back again next year I may have to go through this again and there may be an international incident.

There you have it: why you may well see Me on a Wanted poster (or, more likely, an Unwanted poster: “Don’t Move Here, Suzy! We’re Begging You!”) if you dare to go there. You have been warned.

Remember how I said I was going to have a Birthday Week? Well, it’s turned out to be more like a Birthday Fortnight, if you’ll excuse the anglicism. I came home to tons of cards and presents, and you know I opened them before I unpacked. I may not be Birthday Suzy anymore, but I am still Suzy, after all.

I decided to display all the cards at once, since the ones I acquired on the road had mostly been packed and dragged along hither and yon instead of being admired as they should be, and I know how much I hate that. They also create a nice game of dominoes for the cats, who knock them over and run away, knowing that I’ll rack ’em up again in no time and they can play again.

So here they are, along with the absolutely gorgeous flowers from Candi which totally made my day. Though I give flowers fairly often, I rarely receive them, so it was especially thoughtful. But what else would I expect from someone who’s practically my sister?

However, my absolute favorite was in the long envelope in the front from Colin. It is an absolutely hysterical letter supposedly from Oprah herself, and with a gold lining in the envelope, no less. I laughed so hard I nearly cried.

I’m convinced that Colin is secretly an English professor from Yale.

We’re back, safe in body if not sound in mind (but were we ever?).

The series of planes, trains and automobiles required to get us from deeply rural Ontario to relatively* urban San Francisco were fraught with the usual annoyances and unpleasantnesses associated with any and all forms of public transit.

The train from Kingston to Toronto would have been great except for the guy sitting in front of me. He immediately jacked his seat back as far as it would go**, so I could admire the greasy lumps of what remained of his hair, and spent the entire time harassing the guy across the corridor from him. John figured the guy being harassed was some kind of minor Canadian sports-related celebrity (coach? reporter? actual player?) since John and the lunatic ahead of me had seen him on TV, and pretty much the only thing John won’t watch on TV is sports. We never did find out who Minor Celebrity was, but Lunatic was not only a lunatic but tanked and therefore far too voluble for normal human consumption. John said Lunatic also had a notebook full of bizarre writings with phrases of key weirdness highlighted, so we may have gotten off lucky with just boredom and annoyance.

The cab driver in Toronto who took us to the airport took us a very lengthy and stupid way, despite the fact that he was getting a flat fee. Surely he should have wanted to get rid of John, Bertha, and me as soon as possible to get another fare and make more money to help pay for the wear and tear Bertha caused on his shocks, but no. We meandered our way through the muggy grubby rush hour until getting to the airport hotel. Since I was still on my last few hours of being Vacation Suzy, I called Room Service on arrival and got some wine sent up to help banish the horrors du that particular jour. Oh, and food.

Our flight home was at the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m., which is why we stayed at the airport hotel that night. The airlines require you to be there two hours – in this case, that meant arriving at the even more ungodly hour of 4:30 a.m. – before the flight, and we were. But they weren’t. So we got to stand there, sleep-deprived and bored, until one lone employee showed up, sometime after 5:00 a.m. She showed a remarkable ability to mess around with really important things, like lining up the barriers, instead of dealing with minor issues, like checking in the passengers. I’m telling you, every time I have had anything to do with the Toronto airport in the past decade has been bad news. But that’s another story.

Finally, we got checked in and went through U.S. Customs and Immigration with the greatest of joy. When we got to Security, our bags were searched thoroughly, though thankfully not Bertha, because I don’t know how/if we could have got everything back in. We repaired to the lounge to recover our frayed nerves, where I made the horrifying discovery that there was no alcohol served until 5 hours after our departure. The horror! The horror! Took two valium instead.

When we were boarding, they pulled me aside and searched my bags again. I must look deeply suspicious, or maybe they have heard stories about my bad behavior at their airport before. John had gone ahead holding Bertha’s hand and had a vodka & tonic waiting for me on the plane, but we spilled it while stowing the bags in the overhead bins and had to get another one. I think the flight attendants are still laughing.

In Chicago, we discovered that our seats were not together as originally booked. Flight was oversold and they were begging people to give up their seats in return for a prize, but forget it. We got on anyway and John convinced the guy sitting next to him to trade places with me, incomprehensible though this apparently was to the guy. It was a good thing, because we were delayed in Chicago for over an hour while they dealt with mechanical problems (!). Apparently, it was just something wrong with the internal lighting system and was in no way life-threatening (but would they tell you if it was?!). I took another valium and dozed through the boredom. If I had been alone I probably would have been having a total anxiety attack, despite all that valium. Finally, all was fixed, and it was the usual mix of boredom and bumpiness until we got home.

Now Vacation Suzy has to return to wherever she goes when she’s not being me, and I have to detox from all that de-stressing.

*Relative, that is, to the big city sprawl of Toronto.

**This happens to me every single time I am on a public conveyance that allows seats to be pushed back. I’m not kidding.