Giant Dwarf vs Big Daddy

I don't often talk about my work.  One reason is that I'm a little worried about crossing the confidential line.  A better reason is that I see so many patients in a single day, I usually forget everything about them by the next day.  And better still....sometimes there is just no punchline, just a funny moment or two.

But I'm going to talk about one tonight because this patient made me laugh so hard that the two us sat in the lobby of the hospital having a good ol' time while I called a bar in the state of Louisiana.  A bar I fully intend to visit when I go to New Orleans. 

It didn't start well.  I work in a big fucking hospital with several patient care towers.  The emergency room is in one tower; the scene of this crime is in another.  So it starts with a call from a very earnest and caring transporter letting me know that a taxi brought a patient back from his discharge destination because "he doesn't live in Los Angeles and all the buildings look the same to him so he couldn't figure out which apartment was his." 

(I'm going to pause here and tell you that this is not an unusual call.  When I'm there after-hours, I get calls that defy logic.  I feel like this is further proof that I was murderer in my past life.)

I look up the patient's record and see that the discharge plan was for him to go to (and, yes, this is a fake address to protect the patient but why I should fake an address, I don't know, because you'll see that there is no real address I'm working with here) 411 S. Myrtle Street.  There is no apartment number in the note.  There is no contact telephone number in the note (despite the writer indicating that the address was given by the patient's brother).  That is all there is for the details.  The story goes that the gentleman (we'll call him Mr. Heureux) is visiting Los Angeles and is staying with his niece.  He was admitted to the hospital a few days ago after he fell walking around the neighborhood...after consuming an alcoholic beverage or four.  He was intoxicated and couldn't remember where he was staying, so they brought him in, admitted him, ostensibly detoxed him....but he still didn't know where he lived.  So, apparently, today he got in touch with his brother who gave him the address.

My colleague on the inpatient floor then left a taxi voucher for him to go back there.  Mr. Heureux went to the building, put his key in the door but was unable to gain entry.  Another tenant down the hall, an old lady, popped out of her front door and started yelling at him.  So our hero retreated.  Back to the taxi and back to the hospital.  I called his former nurse on the floor and asked her if she had any more information about this mysterious address.  She said she only got the address:  461 S. Myrtle Street.

Wait.  What?  There are two different house numbers here.  What's going on?

Also, Myrtle Street is not Myrtle Street.  It is only Myrtle Drive or Myrtle Avenue.  Which is it?, I ask the nurse.  She says it's the one only a two blocks from the hospital.  There is no Myrtle anything that close to the hospital. 

I tried calling the Mr. Heureux's brother several times, but no one answered the phone and it never went to voicemail.  Then I went to talk to Mr. Heureux himself.  And that's where the fun began.

Mr. Heureux was pleasant and jovial and a great sport.  He had a southern drawl and I could tell he liked to talk to people.  He told me the above story and I told him that we have two different addresses for him.  I showed him photos on Google maps of the two buildings, but he said he wasn't sure because he doesn't have his glasses and can't see all that well.

I told him I was already trying to contact his brother but there was no answer. 

H:  "Aw, he does that sometimes.  He just turns off his phone."

(Sure enough, I try calling the brother again and this time the phone is disconnected.)

H:  "You should try calling him at Big Daddy's Bar.  He's there every day.  He's 76 years old but he goes out late and parties till 4 am."

GD:  "And they know who he is there?"

H:  "Of course.  They'll give him the phone if you need to talk to him."

Mr. Heureux doesn't know the telephone number of Big Daddy's Bar and asks me to look it up. 

H:  "I think it's on Royal...or Franklin.  One of those."

I use my rapidly-dying-battery phone to look up the bar on the interweb.  Sure enough, there's Big Daddy's Bar on Royal.  The yelp review says it's a gay bar.  I call and there is no answer.

GD:  "This review says it's a gay bar.  Are you sure you're brother is there?"

H:  "Yep.  He goes there every day............and it's a lesbian bar."

Yep, that was it.  That's what got me laughing. 

I called again and got a very nice staff member (for lack of a better term) named Z. who told me that Mr. Heureux's brother wasn't there.  I asked him to give him a message if he comes in and, to my surprise, Z. took the message with my phone number and everything.

H:  "Who'd you talk to?"

GD:  "I talked to Z."

H:  "Aw, I know Z.  He's a big ol' queen!"

GD:  "Well, if nothing else, at least I have a bar to go to when I visit New Orleans."

H:  "And that's a good bar.  They don't serve those pre-mixed drinks there.  They pour them out real good.  They know how to get good tips!"

GD:  "Then I'll definitely go......and I'll bring my lesbian husband."

We both laughed.

Look, if someone is going to leave me a clusterfuck situation to deal with after-hours, it should at least be a little fun.  So I have to thank Mr. Heureux for making me smile and for laughing with me.

P.S.  Mr. Heureux told me his niece is out of town and that he is taking care of her cats.  I pointed out that he has been in the hospital for a couple of days and asked him if he thought the cats would be okay.  "Aw, yeah," he said.  "I left them a lot of food.  They should be fine."

P.P.S.  I asked him to wait for a bit while I sorted out his plan.  He said "I'm okay sitting here.  I'm patient...I'm a contractor, I have to be."

Giant Dwarf vs Poland, Part V: The Chisme

Or, as they say in Poland (or at least on GoogleTranslate):  the plotka.

The gossip.  The shade.

My one family reader complained heartily that Part IV was bereft of juice, ie., shit-talk about the Golden Child, so I’ll endeavor to pander to my minuscule fan base.

THE HOTEL CRISTAL:
I do feel that I am owed at least some acknowledgement for booking the hotel in Bialystok....not so much for the sleeping accommodations (though they were perfectly fine....I’m the one who had the pre-war era fold-up cot) but more for the FREAKIN’ AMAZE-BALLS breakfast that we enjoyed our two mornings at the hotel.  I’ve had breakfast buffets at European hotels before (all of us except the Golden Child had) but this was singularly excellent.  It’s possible that the real reason I would have extended the stay in Bialystok would have been to try every single item offered at that breakfast buffet.  It would have taken at least a week.  They mixed Polish favorites with American and European dishes and I could have eaten every meal there.  The Golden Child did marvel over the multiple offerings and the deliciousness, but never once did he say:  “Giant Dwarf, thank you for booking this most excellent hotel.”

A modern samovar!  Loved it.

THE VAN:
As I've mentioned in one of the previous posts, I was against having the van.  I know we were a larger group and all, but even the Golden Child admitted that the van was difficult to drive and park on some of those narrow old world streets.  This was a van that could fit 9 people (we were 7 at our largest size) and it was clearly meant for industrial purposes.  It was actually not uncomfortable at all. But the planning was a mess, since any driver had to be present at the rental agency to be registered to drive.  My parents and I did not want to drive and The Prince was at the Chopin Museum (having arrived a few hours earlier than we did), so the Golden Child was the only driver present at the rental agreement signing...thus he became the only driver.  For the entire trip.  Wherever we went.  He tried so hard not to complain about it, but it would slip every now and then and I am proud to say that I was able to contain my “I told you so”s and just thanked him for driving.

WHO NEEDS A FANCY HIKE WHEN YOU CAN JUST CLIMB STAIRS ALL DAY?:
Because of my ambivalence about the trip and even more because of my general procrastination state, the Golden Child booked all of the airbandbs in the other cities.  Our first apartment in Krakow was 96 steps up.  That’s right.  96.  My father counted them.  (This is not an unusual behavior for my father, and I have now adopted it on some staircases....however, I usually lose count after 20 and then make up a number and go from there.  I also count in other languages.  Sometimes a recite Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” poem.)  96 steps is a lot for my middle-aged ass.  It’s ridiculous for my senior parents.  I was seriously frightened that something bad would happen.  Everything was fine, but let’s just say we had to make sure we had everything we needed and all used the potty before we left the apartment.  Also, the sign over the door of the entrance indicated “Sex Shop”....which was just through the hallway in the back of the building (and would have been a preferred apartment location based on lack of steps alone).  When we took an Uber home from the soccer game (the Uber cost $2, by the way), the location finder indicated “Sex Shop” so when the driver picked us up, you can imagine how surprised he was to see a senior couple and their middle-aged daughter.

ZAKOPANE VINDICATION:
Our next apartment in Krakow was sans the Golden Child and his White People Excursion crew, and the Prince already went home.  So it was a tiny apartment in the Kazimierz district (fantastic location, thank you Golden Child) that was only 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom.  There was no common room.  It was perfect for my parents and I and we enjoyed hanging out in the Kazimierz area, once a separate city from Krakow, now a magnet for Jewish tourism and hipster foodies.  We met our cousin Barry, now living in an eco-village in southern Poland, for dinner.  He is apparently a devout practitioner of Agnihotra, or Ayurvedic fire therapy.  He performs the ceremony twice a day and has a travel case so that he can do the ceremony in his car or wherever he is at the exact right time it needs to be done.  We invited him to perform the ceremony in our apartment.  That may have been a bad choice.

Yeah, that flame got higher.  Good thing there was no smoke detector to let us know when things were getting out of hand.

While our apartment filled with smoke and we were opening windows to air it out (my father is asthmatic, by the way), the Golden Child calls.  Turns out that part of the via ferrata was closed off and they had nothing else to do in Zakopane (HAHA!  VINDICATED!  See Part II), so they were planning to return to Krakow one night early and wanted to know if there was room for the three of them.  I wanted to say no right off the bat because there really wasn’t any room, but I deferred to my parents.  Before my mother could say anything, my father blurted out:

“NO!  There's no room!”

(Don't worry...they were able to find a place a couple of blocks away from our place that night.)

OTHER THINGS IN POLAND WORTH A MENTION 

(AND WHICH HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE GOLDEN CHILD)

MY KINGDOM FOR A PAPER TOWEL:

See that paper towel dispenser?  That is the only one I saw during the entire trip and that was on our first full day there in the tiny town of Tykocin.  I thought the blue paper towels were cute so I took a picture.  Glad I have proof of the one paper towel dispenser in Poland because this is what I had to contend with for the rest of the trip:

I am convinced that behind the wall of every one of these hand dryers was an old Pole who was just exhaling.

COFFEE BLUES:
I could not get a good cup of coffee anywhere.  Here is how every place I went in Poland made their coffee:

Push-button coffee machines EVERYWHERE!  (And I refused to go to Starbucks.)  Halfway into the trip, I gave up and just started using the Bustelo instant single-serve packs I brought with me; this was literally my "in case of emergency" coffee supply.  I managed to have enough for both me and my dad for the rest of the trip.

LOST IN TRANSLATION.....OR, MAYBE NOT:
I'm not even sure how to process this level of drama:

"Unable to live in a lie, he died for the truth."

I appreciate the poetic license, but, given the Poles' overall stoicism, this seems a tad overdramatic.

TIME WHEN I FELT THAT WE MIGHT BE OUT OF OUR ELEMENT BUT IT WAS ACTUALLY FUN:

Krakow's home team, Wisla.  If I didn't know it was a soccer game, I would have been scared for my life with the constant chanting and the echoes of an angry mob rally.  Other than the drunk man who wanted to be my father's BFF, nobody bothered with us.  They didn't play that well, but it was a fun experience.  I almost bought a toy of their mascot, a dragon that looked more like a fat alligator.

MOST UNEXPECTED EVENT:

These firefighters trying to rescue a pigeon that got stuck between the wall/window and the giant mesh whatsit that covered the entire upper floor facade of that building.  This was in the old town section of Krakow and the residents and tourists alike all stopped to watch this heroic rescue.  The pigeon was freed and we all applauded the brave firefighters for a job well done.

HOW THEY SELL HOT DOGS IN POLAND:

They look like this IRL too.  But I just couldn't bring myself to actually try one.  I do regret that.

AND MY FAVORITE NON-SPECIFIC PHOTO ON THE TRIP:

This nun in full habit walking briskly down the road in Krakow, carrying a giant IKEA bag with a stereo receiver in it.  My very own nun on the run.

Giant Dwarf vs Poland, Part IV: The Trip

And we're off.....

I'm not even sure how to write this.  Was this a life-changing trip?  I'm still not sure.  Was it worth it?  Yes, but that wasn't clear at first and my agreement with the trip's worth has been taking shape over the last few months since our return.  Poland is indeed full of ghosts, and, by extension, a bit creepy wherever you go.

When you visit Poland (if you are not there just for cheap tourism, and by cheap, I mean, WTF how can something cost this little?) you cannot not learn the history.  Poles are proud, but they've had a tumultuous history.  In the last few centuries, they've rarely had extensive periods of independence from neighboring countries, and when they have had it, it didn't go that well.  (Disclaimer:  In no way am I an accurate historian; if you want to learn more about Polish history, please do your own research.  Much of this is my take-home from touring the eastern part of the country and from the bits of history I gleaned along the way.)  In recent history, they went from being occupied by the Nazis, with large cities being razed by the Nazis, only to be replaced by Soviet occupation and the Soviet-designed buildings replacing the razed old world charm of their cities.  They had the largest number of concentration and death camps during the Holocaust, with Polish citizens practically living next door to them.  There were many Poles who helped save Jews and there were many Poles who perished at the hands of the Nazis; but the history of Jews in Poland was complicated.  You can feel that.

I don't want to completely appropriate the idea of The Trail of Tears, but I don't have a better description at this point.  By the 16th century, Poland was home to 3/4 of the world's Jews.  For those first several centuries, Jews were welcomed and sometimes invited to cities or villages to boost the economic prospects for those areas.  The town of Tykocin, where my family lived prior to moving to Bialystok, had boasted a large Jewish population.  This synagogue was built in 1642:

Tykocin Synagogue

We went to Treblinka, Auschwitz, saw remnants of the Bialystok and Warsaw ghetto uprisings, Schindler's Factory, saw plazas and train depots where Jews were rounded up and deported to camps, saw Jewish cemeteries trashed and desecrated, with new houses built over some of the gravesites, saw Jewish headstones used as paving by the Nazis, saw the site of a synagogue where 2,000 Jews were trapped inside while it was set afire and burned to the ground:  everyone inside perished.  This cannot be described as "fun" sightseeing.

Treblinka Memorial

Memorial to the synagogue in Bialystok where the Nazis trapped 2,000 people inside and burned them alive, 1941. 

Auschwitz

Jewish Cemetery in Bialystok; in disrepair and valiantly but slowly being tended to by a small group of volunteers.

After being forced into a ghetto in Krakow, this was the plaza from which thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps.

Remah Cemetery in Krakow; these were the stones that the Nazis used to pave their roads.  The fragments that were found were built into this wall circling the cemetery after the war.

But we had moments of hope and retribution throughout the trip:  Bialystok, whose Jewish population is now a whopping 10 people, commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Bialystok Ghetto Uprising, the second largest ghetto uprising in Poland after Warsaw.  The main square of this small town had a large display, with photos taken by those meticulous Nazis as proof of the occurrence.

Then there were museums dedicated to Polish Jewry and the atrocities of the Holocaust, visited by people from all over the world.  Revivals of Jewish culture in Krakow and Warsaw were apparent, and we had the good fortune of being in Warsaw during their yearly Jewish cultural festival, the Singera Festival.

Polin Museum (History of the Jewish People in Poland), Warsaw.

See....everybody thinks it's cold in Eastern Europe (from an exhibit in the Polin Museum)

Wonderful festival of music, art and letters.....we missed the Japanese klezmer band, though....

For a more comprehensive photo journal, please see my edited photos of the trip:  https://www.instagram.com/greensweater27/?hl=en

I at first thought I wouldn’t go back.  And I’m still not sure I will, but I would if I had the chance.  I want to see Bialystok again and go to the Bialowieza Forest to see the bison.  I want to learn more about Zamenhof, who created Esperanto and was born in Bialystok.  (Esperanto is a universal language, created in the utopian hope of bringing the world together.  It is still spoken all over the world today but clearly never took root as a universal language.)  I would visit Krakow again and spend some more time just hanging out there instead of chasing down tourist spots.  I’d like to see Gdańsk.  And I’d like to bring home more Zubrowka Wodka (the Zubrowka sold in the U.S. are different, given that the coumarin in the Polish-made vodka is verboten in the good ol' U.S. of A.).

So, yes, despite my misgivings, I did enjoy this trip.  There were emotional and spiritual challenges, as well as physical ones (95 steps up to our apartment in Krakow!....my parents, you may remember, are in their 70s), but Poland's rich history and our rich history in Poland gave me a better understanding of our roots and our place in this world.  Also, there was chlodnik and sledz, so I survived the cuisine as well:

Chlodnik, aka borscht.  This was delicious, though my favorite version is still at Zeidler's Cafe at the Skirball Museum.

Sledz, aka pickled herring.  Yes, I love this stuff.  Traditionally served with a shot of wodka, which is all right by me.

Giant Dwarf vs Poland, Part III: Mental Preparation

Let’s start way back, a little more than a century ago when my great-grandparents fled persecution and pogroms, and left their native countries of what is now Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, and Austria and headed to the United States for promises of what would literally become a better - and safer - life.

My mother’s grandmother Florence moved here in the early part of the 20th century, with her siblings to follow.  One of her brothers returned to Bialystok and joined his parents and another sibling who had not emigrated.  They all perished in the Holocaust.

My maternal grandmother was born in 1919 and her aunt Gertrude, who was maybe only a few years older than she (we never knew her exact age) arrived in the US several years later.  Because Aunt Gertrude was the youngest of my great-grandmother’s siblings, we all grew up knowing her quite well and spending a lot of time with her.

Gertrude lived in New York City her entire adult life and never married.  She was a garment worker from an early age and was a life-long member of the ILGWU.  She lived in union co-op housing, in a tiny apartment on 28th Street and Broadway, and most of my generation remember trips to the City where we all slept in her studio apartment on the sofa bed or the floor, while Gertrude slept on her day bed.

Gertrude retained her thick Polish accent,  but, as far as I know, she never actually spoke Polish in the United States.  She was fluent and literate in Polish, Yiddish and English and wrote to mysterious relatives in the Hebrew lettering of Yiddish.  

Gertrude remained afraid of Poles her entire life, even in the melting pot of New York City.  She had a basic (and likely self-protective) mistrust and fear of non-Jews.  When I lived in the City for a few months in 1988, I initially stayed with her for a couple of weeks until I found my own housing.  When my rather obvious WASP-y friend came to meet me so I could spend the night with her and her family on the upper Westside, my aunt profusely thanked them for “taking me in” and showed undue deference to my college friend in what later seemed a proactive gesture to both protect my safety and to compliment them on being open to accepting an “other.”

So with this history, you can only imagine how NOT excited I was to go to Poland.  In my frame of reference, this is the country that drove my people out and whomever was left was murdered.  I never felt any national alliance with Poland, never felt that Poles would consider me Polish.  Only once did I think about going to Poland, during my senior year in college when I was learning about contemporary Polish theatre and thought that this was the most exciting theatre at that time.  I talked to my grandmother about this and her response was a crisp, determined "you'll go to Poland over my dead body."  (By the way, she was right....she died almost 3 years ago.)

But my mom really wanted to go and for wont of a less expensive and more appropriate birthday gift, her children were willing to indulge her.  And, to our surprise, my father agreed to go as well.

For months I would tell people that I was going to Poland and their response was always either a hesitant "ooookay....." or an outright "why?"  Hence, the first two parts of this blog post. 

I honestly didn't know how to prepare for this trip.  I thought that it would be brutally hot, but it wasn't, actually.  Maybe we got lucky, maybe I just assumed that the weather would be like the East Coast in August.  I thought we'd experience outright anti-Semitism, but we didn't.  The only hate speech we heard was from some douchebag British guy on our last night, drunkenly trying to tell us how awful America was but not quite getting to the actual reasons (which we already know anyway). 

I did expect, however, to feel haunted.  And that was definitely the case.  This was a country teeming with ghosts.

Giant Dwarf vs Poland, Part II: The Planning Stage

My brother, my mother and I are control freaks.  My mom may know that, I definitely know that, but my brother, the Golden Child, has no insight into this at all.  Which makes it so much worse.  My control issues often manifest in procrastination, which opens the door for the Queen Mother of Control Freaks, the Golden Child, to completely take over any planning for any family activity.  The worst part:  we all let him do it.

So a month or two after our birthdays, and BEFORE my vacation request gets approved, my brother calls me to tell me that there is an unbelievably cheap airfare being offered on the Polish Airlines, LOT (What?  You haven't heard of them?  Neither had we.) and that we needed to act on it now.  My brother books the flights and only then do I notice that we are going to Poland for TWO WEEKS!  Two weeks?!?  What the hell?  I thought we were only going to go to Bialystok, look for our roots and go home.  What are we going to do there for two weeks?!?

Giant Dwarf:  "Why is this trip scheduled for 2 weeks?"

Golden Child:  "Mom said she wanted to go for no less than 2 weeks."

(I know how my mom travels; rarely does she go anywhere for that length of time.  This reasoning is suspect from the beginning.)

My brothers decide that renting a van would be the best way to get around Poland.  I don't like driving in foreign countries and I told them this from the outset:  if they want to rent a van, fine, but I won't be driving.  They were good with that.....at first.

Now, at this point, it is only my parents and my brothers and I who are going on this trip.  Just 5 of us.  The Spazz has school and cannot go; my brothers' wives are busy with work (though it turns out that the Prince's wife is going to Sicily while we go to Poland).

And then I get an email from my brother telling me that his wife and his wife's brother, an airman stationed at Rammstein, are coming in a few days into our trip and that the three of them are going on a via ferrata in the Tatras.  Wait.....What?!?

At this point, I email my parents and they are as surprised as I am to hear about this.  I offer to do a side trip with them during this time to Denmark.  I've never been and one of my coworkers talked up the Tivoli Gardens, so I felt like I had to go.  My parents were not interested, though.

My mom's response:  "Well, why don't we join them on the via ferrata?"

I had to explain to her what a via ferrata was and how she and Dad and I were not in any shape to do that (by this time in our travel plan, the Prince will have already returned back to the States).  Then Mom got mad.  She emailed the Golden Child about how this is a family trip so why is he planning something we all can't participate in?

The Golden Child responds with this:  We can all stay in Zakopane and we'll be together at night.  He instructed me to look up the town, thinking that I would find it charming.

When you look up Zakopane on TripAdvisor, the majority of the photos posted are those of the creepiest wax museum I have ever seen. 

(I think you can see how this was a hard no.  If not, look it up yourself and you'll find a wax figure of Hitler and another of a woman with breasts the size of a small dwarf.  I refuse to post those photos.)

Admittedly, I was already creeped out about going to Poland at all, a place where the remainder of my European family was murdered because they were Jewish, so taking one look at Zakopane and it's rural charm made me fly into a fit of fear and I vetoed the idea on the spot (vindication side note:  my brother and his crew cut Zakopane short by one day when they got there because, after their hike, there was nothing to do).  I talked with my parents and we decided to stay in Krakow while the Golden Child and his crew split off for the White People Excursion.

I tell this to the Golden Child and he seems perturbed.  He threatens me:  "Well, then, you can't have the van in Krakow, because we'll need it."

That's a threat?  No, that's a blessing.  Take the fucking van.

The next controversy (oh, you thought that was the end?  you haven't met my family):  Bialystok.  The Prince, who had been there 20 years ago (yes, you read that right...TWENTY) told us there is nothing there so we shouldn't spend any time there.  The Golden Child schedules us for only one night in Bialystok with that reasoning.  I'll just say this again:  Bialystok is where our family is from.

I remember calling my brother to lobby for more days in Bialystok; the guidebooks talked about the town making strides to be more tourist-friendly and not only was it the birthplace of the founder of Esperanto but it was the BIRTHPLACE AND HOME OF OUR GREAT-GRANDMOTHER AND OUR BELOVED AUNT GERTRUDE.  My brother finally relented, but tried to punish me by telling me I had to book accommodations for all of us there.  Fine.  I can do that.

Do you know how much hotels cost in Bialystok?  $70 a night.  And that was a fancy hotel....with a full breakfast that was off. the. hook.

So by the beginning of summer, we had fully booked and planned the trip:  Fly in to Warsaw, go to Bialystok the next day and stay there 2 nights, go back to Warsaw to pick up the Golden Child's wife and brother-in-law, go all the way down to Krakow, then the Prince leaves us from Krakow to return to the U.S. while the Golden Child's crew goes to Zakopane, we meet back in Krakow, then we go up to Warsaw.  No guide, no tour, all us.

Now the biggest challenge for me would be to check my control freakdom at the door and try not to argue with my brother for two whole weeks.

Giant Dwarf vs Poland, Part I: How It All Began

Preface:

My family worships birthdays.  We fall lock step under my mother's command and we all try to celebrate our birthdays as a family.  As we have gotten older, we don't celebrate every birthday together (however, my parents do visit each of us on our birthdays) but milestone birthdays merit required family attendance.  Until almost a decade ago, this was easier to do, with none of us married and our group being somewhat manageable in size.  Now, through marriage and procreation, we have nearly doubled our group size so this does get to be hairy at times.  Suffice it to say, we have found myriad ways to stay together in one place, if only for a few days.

So here's how this all begins:

My mother's and my birthdays are 4 days apart and my mother is almost exactly 25 years older than I am.  This means our milestone birthdays happen together, often.  And so, a couple of years ago, I get a call from my brother, the Golden Child, with his grand plan for our double-milestone birthday.  It went something like this:

Golden Child:  "Okay, so here's what I think we should do:  you find a place where you'd like to celebrate your birthday, find an airbandb and we'll all stay there and then we'll all fly out together to Philadelphia, so Mom can celebrate her birthday there.

Giant Dwarf:  (thinking to myself how fucking miserable and cold it is in Philly at that time of year)  "Are you sure Mom wants do that?"

Golden Child:  "Yeah, she'll love it!  We can take her to the Mummer's Parade too!"

Giant Dwarf:  "Dude, it's cold there.  And the Mummer's Parade is kind of racist.  Are you sure everyone is going to be okay with this?" (Here I am fervently hoping my sister-in-law has run interference on this terrible idea.)

Golden Child:  "Nah, everyone's on board.  Let me know where you are thinking of celebrating your birthday.....maybe we can stay at that place in the Palisades where we stayed during your wedding."  (Yeesh, who made HIM the boss of me?...this causes me to think about Hawai'i as a birthday destination.)

Great.  Now we have to plan some elaborate double trip that I'm not even sure I want to do.  I know these birthdays are big deals for me and my mom, but now I'm feeling pressured.

Fast-forward to:

Milestone Birthdays: T minus 8 months

We're all together in Phoenix, sitting around a table waiting for my parents to arrive.  The Golden Child makes this announcement:  "Okay, we're going to scrap the Philly idea for Mom's birthday."

I am overjoyed.  I love Philly, but not in the dead of winter, when most of the people we know there are in Florida or the Caribbean.

Golden Child:  "We're going to Poland instead.  Mom really wants to go to Poland and trace our roots."

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?  Can we put the Philly idea back on the table?

Giant Dwarf:  "So, wait.....you'd rather go to Poland in December?"

Golden Child:  "Of course not.  It'll probably be in the summer, when we can all get time off."

Giant Dwarf:  "I remember Mommom saying that we should never set foot in Poland.  Are you sure Mom really wants to go?"

(I'd like to add here that our youngest brother, The Prince, has not expressed any opinion.  And he is the only one at the table who has actually been to Poland before.)

Golden Child:  "Yeah, Mom wants to go.  She'll love this trip."

Now, since The Prince is saying nothing, I can't say anything because anything I say will be used against me in any family squabble in the future so I keep my mouth shut and hope that the Golden Child is experiencing a complete lapse in sanity and will come to his senses as soon as possible.

I was wrong.

At my mom's birthday party, we present her with a giant airline ticket to Poland.  She is beside herself with joy, actually weeping, which is a total rarity in my family.

We're fucking going to Poland.

Giant Dwarf vs Beverly Hills

So there was a time, not that long ago, when I lived in an area called "Beverly Hills Adjacent."  It was actually Los Angeles, but my apartment was about a block and half from the border of of Beverly Hills.  Benefit?  I lived a mile from the Beverly Hills Public Library and being "adjacent" to the city allowed me to have a BHPL library card.  I really liked that library, despite the fact that they falsely accused me of stealing (okay, not "returning") a Buena Vista Social Club CD and I had to buy them a new one.

I moved out of the area six years ago.  I still work nearby, but it's rare that I go into the shopping area in Beverly Hills for which the city is so famous.  However, in an effort to lure my friend Shannon to LA to watch "Phantom of the Paradise" with me (borrowed from....wait for it....the LIBRARY!), I agreed to take her to the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills, a well-known establishment on Beverly Drive.  This being my old "backyard," I didn't think today would be much of a challenge.

I was wrong.

Good news:  Beverly Hills has parking garages with 2 hours of free parking.  Of course, we picked the one where we had to drive all the way down to the Ninth Circle of Hell to find a spot.  It's all good.  We're now off on our adventure.

We walk up Beverly Drive and notice a few other places we might want to stop.  But we were steadfast on our journey and walked into the revered cheese shop only to be met with......silence.  No greeting, no "how can I help you?", no acknowledgement whatsoever.  I'd been there before and I remembered how much the place stank like cheese.  It still does.  But that's not a problem.  It IS a cheese store after all.....but customer service is also expected.

There were two other customers (possibly) in the store and they were together and just chatting amongst themselves.  We started shopping.  There were three people behind the counter.  Not once did any of them address us.  We browsed, noticing that none of the cheeses were labeled, but you could see the names on some of the wheels.  Just no descriptions, no prices, nothing.  So I pick up a wedge and ask about it; the man behind the counter (who I'm pretty sure was the owner, Norbert) tells me the name of the cheese (which I can clearly read by myself).  I try to start the conversation again by asking where it's from; "France," he responds.  Then.....nothing more.  From no one.  Not one single person behind that counter offered to help us....ever.

Cheese Store of Beverly Hills, you are fired.  We are not returning. 

So we walked out of there profoundly annoyed, but I then I thought it might be a corrective consumer experience to go to the Nespresso boutique bar down the street.  My husband and I are Nespresso holy rollers......we discovered the machine during our honeymoon in Paris and bought one less than a year later.  I drink Nespresso almost every day.  We know the flavors (though I truly believe they don't vary that much) and I am an online club member.  I might as well be working there, which, after this experience, I can tell they would benefit by my presence.

Now, no one was rude or snobby there; everyone was friendly and when we bypassed the cafe and headed to the retail area in the back, a very nice young man (yes, I'm old enough to say that now) approached us and started talking about the coffee options.  The problem was, he knew nothing about the product.  Nothing.  He, in fact, knew nothing about coffee and even admitted to not being a coffee drinker.  He tried to sell us products he couldn't explain, but he was so sweet and sincere, we listened and actually helped his sale pitch.  I taught him what "crema" meant in the espresso world.

Then on to Crate & Barrel for a nice neutral experience.  I spent the 6 months before my wedding there, playing laser tag with the items that we were adding to our registry and everyone there has always been nice, which, apparently, is a novel idea in Beverly Hills.

Now we're hungry.....so we head to a place I used to go to back when I lived in the area:  M Cafe de Chaya on Brighton Way.  On the way, we are ordered to walk on one side of the sidewalk by two tall douchebags on Bird scooters.....riding them on the sidewalk.

Once we arrive at M Cafe, we both ordered their Curry Udon Bowls and I got my daily iced tea.  I love iced tea and prefer it unsweetened.  So when I took a sip of their black iced tea and tasted literally nothing, I returned to the counter where the cashier condescendingly told me that "it's unsweetened."  Yeah, duh, I know that......but there is no taste whatsoever.  "May I exchange it for the green tea?" I ask.  He allows me to do so and I think I'm okay from here on out, but I was wrong.

After a pretty long wait, the curry udon bowls arrive and after I give all my red peppers to Shannon and she gives me all her mushrooms, we dig in.  They are delicious and just as I'm thinking I want to order these for lunch when I'm at work, I find a piece of plastic in my bowl.  It looks like a wrapper for the udon noodles, and when I call over the waiter, he says that's likely what it is.  I ask him to let the kitchen know and then I never see him again.

No corrective action offered.  No manager, no offer of money back or comped item, nothing.

What the fuck?

We waited for a while, then I saw someone who looked like a manager.  He wasn't out there to talk to me.  So I beckoned him over.  I told him about the plastic and this was news to him.  He apologized and excused it by saying that the cooks must have dropped the udon wrapper into the bowl.  Yeah, I got that.  He also didn't offer any compensation of any kind.  He walked away.

M Cafe de Chaya, I am also done with you.

At this point, Shannon and I were over the whole thing.  We already planned to go to two more cheese stores in West LA for a more enhanced corrective cheese consumer experience, but as we descended into the Ninth Circle of Hell to get back into my car, Shannon uttered the words that most appropriately summed up the afternoon:

"Beverly Hills is cancelled!"

And off we went....westward, on our cheese quest.

Giant Dwarf vs. Hot Buttered Pretzels

I grew up in Philadelphia.  Every Thursday at school was Pretzel Day.  At lunch and at the end of the day, a table was set up in our school cafeteria where we could buy pretzels for 10 cents each or three for a quarter.  My mom would give me a quarter every Thursday to buy three pretzels:  one for me, one for the Golden Child, and one for her and my father to "split."

For those of you not from Philly, let me explain what these pretzels were like:  They were not hard snack bowl pretzels.  They were not New York corner Super-Pretzels.  And there were NOT slathered in butter.  They looked like this:

They were perfect.  (Oh my god just posting this photo is making me crave them.)

These pretzels were ubiquitous throughout Philly.  School was only one place to get them.  You could buy them in brown bags outside of sports arenas (RIP Veterans Stadium and the Spectrum) and you could get them off a cart anywhere on the city streets.  You could even get them at a Wawa.  And why I'm using the past tense, I don't know.  They are still there.....(except at Veterans Stadium and the Spectrum).  And they are mother's milk to me.

But they are not anywhere else.  We moved out West when I was in high school and the Philly pretzel became a rare treat, either brought on the plane by family members coming to visit us, or chowed down on a daily basis during our annual visits back to the City of Brotherly Love.

So I learned to like the decidedly-NOT-Philly-pretzels offered out here.  Super-Pretzels are acceptable, if not perfect, alternatives.  When I moved to Los Angeles, I discovered Wetzel's Pretzels and in my graduate school fervor, I would double park just to pick up a cinnamon-and-sugar-covered large pretzel.  However, I would order these without butter, and they would usually have to make mine to order, since butter-slathering seems to be the thing for mall pretzels out here.

I tried Auntie Anne's, not asking for non-butter.  I hated them.  Even more slathered in butter than Wetzel's.  WHAT IS THIS FRESH HELL?  I practically fainted when I landed at the Philadelphia International Airport 10 years ago and saw an Auntie Anne's in the baggage claim.  Et tu, hometown?

(Side story:  Philly was our pit-stop both ways for a trip to Europe; our stopover on the way back was through Münich and when I saw pretzels hanging from hooks in a bar, I ran over and asked "Eine pretzel, bitte?"  They guy responded to me completely in German, at which point I had to admit those were the only words I knew in his language.  That pretzel was awesome, by the way.)

Fast forward to the holiday season of 2017.  My whole family is visiting for my big birthday and we are in Palm Springs.  What to do in Palm Springs?  Hit the outlet malls.  The Spazz and I join the Golden Child and his wife to do some post-Christmas shopping and, as we pull in to the parking lot, a conversation much like this ensued:

GC:  Oh, I love Auntie Anne's.  I think we'll have to get some of those.

Me:  Ew, I won't even DO Auntie Anne's.  They're disgusting.  Too much butter.

GC:  Wait, you eat Wetzel's Pretzels!

Me:  Yes, but they have less butter.  And most of the time, I request no butter and that makes them tastier.

GC:  There is no difference.  I don't understand why you eat one and not the other.

Me: There IS a difference and Auntie Anne's is gross.

(This actually goes on for quite some time because, as you will see if you stick with this story, neither the Golden Child nor I can let things go easily, especially when we are challenging only each other.)

So we split up and go shopping.  When we are near the meeting time, I grab some coffee while the Spazz runs out to get a snack.  He comes back with a bag of Auntie Anne's and, before I can say anything, the Spazz informs me that he requested "no butter" and they were special-made for us.  

So we ate them and they were good.  Not great.  Not Philly pretzel, but adequate and curbed the shopping hunger we built up.  Enter the Golden Child and his wife.  The look on the Golden Child's face would have been hilarious if it wasn't so accusatory.

GC:  I can't believe you're fucking eating Auntie Anne's!

Me & Spazz, in unison:  THESE HAVE NO BUTTER!

Fast forward a couple of days later.  The feud has been continuing all the way into the next portion of the family trip and now we have just finished a family portrait at a mall in Arizona and it turns out that this mall has BOTH a Wetzel's and an Auntie Anne's.  Since the argument is so well-known among the entire family, I agree to a taste test between the two brands, a la the Pepsi Challenge (in which I chose Coke).

Various family members run to each vendor and buy a bag of the pretzel nuggets from each.  Not doctored, not specially-made without butter, just the regular bags from each.  

I am blindfolded with a slightly oversized hat (and I squinch my eyes shut......I want this to be completely fair).  

I taste each sample....twice.  

And I choose........

Auntie Anne's.

I am mortified.  The Golden Child is vindicated.  I have to admit defeat.  

And then my mother says what we all know in our hearts:  "They're still not Philly pretzels."

Giant Dwarf vs. Mornings

About 10 years ago, my brother came to visit me but I had signed up for a weekend-long continuing education class before I knew he was coming.  We were making plans for the weekend and my brother asked what time the class started.

"8:00 am," I replied.

"8:00 am?!?  Do you even know what that looks like?" he exclaimed.

I sort of did, but not really.  High school did start at 7:30 am.  I would wake up at 5:00 am every morning to shower and do my hair, which didn't work anyway.  My French class in college was at 8:00 am (even though I registered for the 9:30 am class...they bumped me!) and that was the demise of any possibility that I would master the language.

I had some dance classes in college at 8:00 am (that was really the only time they were offered), and I dislocated my knee in one of those classes.  Mornings were not kind to me.

In my professional career, I was able to avoid an early start time for many years.  First, I worked in theatre, and no respectable mid-size theatre in the 1990s opened their administrative offices before 10:00 in the morning.  When I changed my career to social work at the end of the millennium, I realized that I may have to start waking up earlier.  My internships and first jobs started at 8, or 8:30 or 9.  I dealt.  I worked 8 hour days back then, would come home, nap, and then have a regular evening like the evenings I had when I started work at 10.  I adopted a kind of mini-Spanish-siesta lifestyle.

And then I took a job in the Emergency Department.  As the only social worker there at the time, they required two unusual work changes:  work one weekend day a week, and don't start before 11:00 am.
Wait.  What?!?

Sign me up.  For 10 years, I worked this schedule, and for the last 6 years, my bosses have been chipping away at my lovely late morning lifestyle.

When we changed to 10-hour shifts, we initially had to work both day and night shifts.  Days started at 8:00 am and I was formally re-introduced to that early start time.  Then they moved me to 7:30 am.  I couldn't even figure out what a good time to leave my home was for that start time.  I hadn't started anything at the half-past since high school, and that didn't go well.

And then we changed to 12-hour shifts.  Twelve hours for a social worker in an emergency room is brutal....yes, most of the other disciplines do 12s as well, but they aren't listening/seeing/absorbing human misery for those 12 hours straight.  We are.  It's fucking exhausting.

To add insult to injury?  We start at 7:00 am now.  Remember the opening joke where my brother teased me for not knowing what 8:00 am looked like?  Yeah, not funny anymore.  Waking up when it's dark outside for a long work day is inhumane.  Leaving for work while it's still dark out (hello winter) is completely insane.  It's making me miss my theatre days.

We've now been doing this schedule for nine months and I have not gotten used to it.  One shitty day in the ED leaves me completely depleted the next day (if I'm off, it's a wasted day; if I'm working, watch out, people!).  7:00 am is officially the earliest start time I have ever had for work (excluding some production assistant days but that was super-temporary) and it's making me miserable.

The only saving grace?

At least I don't have to work the night shift.

(And big hugs and kisses to my colleagues who do work overnight.)

Giant Dwarf vs. Zombies

Well, I just fell down the internet rabbit hole again.  One hour wasting time reading Facebook posts when I should have been doing something - anything - more productive.  So, since I'm logged on anyway, here's a new blog post.

The Spazz will never forgive me for this one, so hopefully he won't read it.  Here's my latest spousal observation and reason #52 as to why I love my husband:  he scoffs at my TV shows then becomes utterly obsessed with the story lines. 

Allow me to explain:

It started with Sex and the City and having cable TV for the first time in 15 years.  When the Spazz and I moved in together, we got a full cable package and, at that time, one of the networks (maybe E!?) was airing mini-marathons of SATC.  How could I not watch?  These were my girls!  As I was watching it, the Spazz came into the living room and made many dismissive comments about the show.  As he piddled around in our tiny, tiny kitchen (with a direct view of the TV), he started making comments and observations about the characters (he really cannot wrap his head around Samantha's overt sexuality, he thinks Charlotte is too shallow and picky, and he rather likes Carrie and Miranda).  A few episodes went by and he was extremely involved in the various stories.  And a few episodes later?

"I'm really craving a Cosmopolitan right now."

As the Spazz would say himself, I shit you not.

We actually made some Cosmos and sat back down to enjoy some more episodes.

Then I got into RuPaul's Drag Race.  Okay, this is a tough one for the Spazz.  He is ardently heterosexual and a surfer, which, if you know both kinds of guys, makes him not want to admit that he watches a show about drag queens.  So, again, every time I put on the show, the Spazz waves his hand at the TV, saying "not this again!"

And then, by the end of the show, he is deeply invested in who is forced to "sashay away."  He marvels at RuPaul's costumes and wigs...and sheer height.  He even sometimes can't believe that some of the drag queens are really men (though most people would agree that Courtney Act could fool almost everyone).

I also fell victim to the awful SATC prequel show, The Carrie Diaries.  Again, the Spazz joined in at the beginning and then in the last episodes, totally asking me who was who and then commenting on the show's plot line, warning characters not to do "that" before they did it, and then asking when the next episode airs after he viewed the very last one.

I'm sorry to say that I do not reciprocate.  I enjoy some of his TV shows, but most of his movies are horrible, violence-filled action-adventures with silly scripts.  His ultimate failure in engaging my interest?  The Walking Dead.  I just could not get into it.

Here's why:  I hate zombies.  They are my least favorite monster.  They have no soul or inner lives, like vampires or Frankenstein's monster.  They have no good backstory, like a werewolf.  They're just stupid undead monsters with avulsions all over their bodies.

And I hate avulsions.  They make my skin crawl.  I work in an emergency department, and I've seen lots of things, but avulsions creep me out.  Ugh, I'm feeling nauseous just writing this.  And that image is disgusting.

So zombie shows are out.  Sorry Spazz.  There are just some parts of a relationship that cannot go both ways. 


Now, let's cuddle, make some tea, and watch our DVR'ed episode of Downton Abbey.