oh dear

8:40 pm  I decided to ask Chat about the relationship between The Cat and our narrator.  Poking around after a decent enough answer, I popped open a review on LARB.  Only at the last paragraph did I find that it is written by Josh Billings in Farmington, ME.  I had run across him before and liked his reviews and essays a lot. He loved Schattenfroh a year ago.   He has his own lit mag now too.  Rustica.  He is living off the grid, sort of, in Farmington, going for the Wendell Berry award for his generation.  His comments about Moresco are ringing awfully true and direct.  And look at how even as I did read many pages of it today with something like pleasure, in my other hearts I can't wait for Disappearers to arrive even as I dread it will be too violent and angry, as previews suggest.  Here is Billings and he is very astute and convincing through his whole piece:  July 20, this year, "Doing It Wrong:"  "

(Max really got there, you’ll feel the language laugh at you in English as well.)

Reader, you will not. Again, I admit this without relish, through gritted teeth—as someone who embarked on The Beginnings in good faith, in the hope of gaining some sort of aesthetic experience out of it. But in order to have an experience, we have to feel something—to believe that we are submitting ourselves to a singular vision, even if it is a frustrating, negative, or outright perverse one. Of all the mysteries that The Beginnings leaves us with at the end of its 500 pages, the one that really holds our attention is its failure to convince. Moresco is a legend of underground Italian fiction; Lawton is a genius supertranslator who has already performed at least one miracle, and will no doubt perform more. But the proof is on the page. There, despite all our best wishes, a legible toggle of translatorial self-assertion and self-effacement has not been achieved, and The Beginnings has been stranded in the dead middle ground with all the other “masterpieces.” The water has stayed water and the loaves refused to replicate. Our feast is a fiasco. And this really is a pity.

so have I stopped with the book where the bookmark is tonight?  in the convent of the celestine father where the organ is booming ?   253 paragraph opens "The autumn wind had arrived."   That was indeed true today, beautiful wind when I walked a bit while Bela was in PT.  Should I allow one strong hearted fellow like Billings bully me into stopping?  Or is he not bullying but lamenting, sadly, truly, deeply?   

uh oh

 what if Moresco is basically a cerebral writer, a T?  Colder Monday but super bright in that great autumnal way.  Scale must need batteries; is my weight really down to 185? floor slopes too.  Hard to believe.  Test it out again.  Today in Abq TLC may call about the electrical panel install.   

neither happened.  Bela sleeping a lot after the pt session and lunch.  Photo from Lou of her new great granddaughter in Denver

getting worried about Bela but not certain what to do;  texted the cardio office but no reply from them 

no word from TLC workers and no show from Overhead doors  --  Monday  Should I go ahead with my day off tomorrow?  Yes, of course.  Rachel will be here and provide lunch.  I can get two shots at MidState and go to Owls Nest for exploration.  Then buy meals at Market Basket frozen aisle; see if can find some odd ones.  

in Moresco The Cat has just offered his first solemn mass after having been tonsured and ordained 

pipe organ at the celestine father's convent  ---  "the growing veil of tears that was coming forth from some infinitely secret point within my body"  252

luminescence  every where  all over  

Sebastian Romero with TLC just called.  his phone number  505-382-4539  went to MAS high school at Yale school campus  1718 Yale SE  and Old Coors

Sunday 13

 Dear Dave, After listening to you yesterday, these are some of my thoughts:

Get Cécile to see a grief therapist and maybe go to their first meeting yourself(might give you some ideas on a way forward...

Ask one of your buddies if you can stay at their home for a few days.  Offer to cook in place of paying rent??  You might be able to make a little cash by hiring yourself as a " concierge cook"(you could make a menu of your top dishes)

All my wisdom for now...

bela

I asked google about the stenosis and the results were very helpful to hear---You should pause swimming immediately until you speak with your cardiologist. While swimming is a wonderful, low-impact exercise, severe aortic stenosis means your heart valve has narrowed significantly, forcing your heart to work much harder to pump blood. Because you also manage hemiplegia and a seizure disorder, the combined risk of a seizure, sudden lightheadedness, or fainting while in the water presents an immediate safety hazard

there was much more information and advice, drawn from heart.org and other such reliable sites so we're both glad we looked it up and read what is said.  Main help, Bela has no clear symptoms like shortness of breath or dizziness or fatigue.  

already after noon, slow rainy, gray morning of goofing off 

at the end of chapter 13 our seminarian merges the night singing of the passion on good friday with his own circumcision.   Is that practiced in Italy in adolescence?  Has Moresco imagined the whole thing to dramatize what being in the seminary does to one?  More likely that; most likely that, and it goes so well with the whole holy week passion play mythos-vibe.  

We actually listened to the kelly corrigan wonders radio show this morning.  Talk with two musicians about the science of music and all that music does to and for humans.  

I'm 82, hemiplegic woman with seizure disorder, in excellent health. My cardiogram says I now have severe bioprosthetic aortic stenosis. Should I keep swimming once a week? What needs to be done? How dire is this situation?

11:57 AM

You should pause swimming immediately until you speak with your cardiologist. While swimming is a wonderful, low-impact exercise, severe aortic stenosis means your heart valve has narrowed significantly, forcing your heart to work much harder to pump blood. Because you also manage hemiplegia and a seizure disorder, the combined risk of a seizure, sudden lightheadedness, or fainting while in the water presents an immediate safety hazard. [1]

How Dire is This Situation?

While the word "severe" sounds frightening, this is a manageable situation, not an immediate catastrophe. Your excellent overall health works heavily in your favor.

• If you have NO symptoms (no chest tightness, shortness of breath, or dizziness): The situation is stable but requires prompt medical evaluation to plan next steps before symptoms develop. [1]
• If you DO have symptoms: The situation is more urgent. Severe aortic stenosis cannot be cured with medication, and waiting too long once symptoms start can strain the heart muscle. [1, 2]

What Needs to Be Done?

You need a formal evaluation by your cardiologist or a structural heart specialist. They will guide you through the following steps:

1. Symptom Review: Your doctor will ask if you have noticed subtle fatigue, shortness of breath during daily activities, or lightheadedness. [1]
2. Review of the Echocardiogram: They will look at the specific measurements of your bioprosthetic valve to confirm the degree of narrowing. [1]
3. Discussing Valve Replacement: Because your current valve is bioprosthetic (biological), it has naturally worn down over time. For an active 82-year-old, the standard, highly successful approach is often TAVR (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement). This is a minimally invasive procedure where a new valve is guided through a small tube in your leg, avoiding open-heart surgery entirely. [1, 2]

Safe Alternatives for Right Now

Until you see your doctor, swap the pool for safe, land-based movement. A gentle walking routine or a stationary recumbent bicycle are excellent ways to preserve your mobility and strength without overexerting your heart. Always stop immediately if you feel winded, dizzy, or uncomfortable. [1, 2]

When is your next appointment with your cardiologist, and have you noticed any recent shortness of breath or dizziness?

----

a cross-eyed girl playing a harmonium on the other side of the courtyard in the seminary!!

my goodness, I'm old enough and from an Italian Catholic parish that I know what a harmonium is, what it sounded like and how well Moresco talks about it, uses it, in his dreamy narrative flow 211

headache most of the morning, low pressure, rain, water, worry, all of the above?  doomscrolling plus, ? 

journalist Karen Ho popularized "doomscrolling" in 2020 after the word appeared somewhere around 2018  on Twitter !!!!

Saturday

The mistaken Garvee chair happens to work quite well.  Rick Evans called yesterday afternoon; good to talk with him and I think we will go with him to his new set-up.  Apparently lots of former tiaa people who want a leaner operation and return to the personal approach they were trained in years ago.  Very happy he seems to want to continue with us as clients (friends!).  Over the last year or two he has been assigned between 400-700 families to look after!  Co says they have trouble finding qualified people especially in this upper NE location.  Wonder if he will say any more about that.  He is a little guarded in what he says because of the regulations in the industry about moving around and client and company security restrictions.  Hope it will work for us to join him and this new venture.  And that it will be safe!  As safe as tiaa has always been?  How can they guarantee that??  

Short video chat with PT yesterday evening.  Had forgotten they came up to be with us when Bela had her first valve procedure seven years ago.  She added that Chris has moved back into the house with Astrid and her mother, Danni, for financial reasons.  Too much to pay for two households, even on Chris's tech income.  He works from home; she works at the beauty salon.  Astrid in school.  

Message from Dave, he wants a face visit today.  Anxious to hear how it is all going for him.  What the family is doing.  

Those book booster nerds on X never hinted, that I recall, that Moresco's first volume features a seminarian as our hero-observer-narrator.  I enjoy that much because the details every now and then do remind me powerfully of the three brotherly years I spent--away from the world.  In fact our roller skating narrator is much more free, able to come and go it seems between seminary and home villa.  

Cool day again but gloriously sunny.  Black flies in the house going crazy.  One approach I just ordered from amazon places sticky panels in the corners of windows so I look forward to seeing if that will work since the flies do stay on the big windows, most of them.  Just pulled the big drape to keep them there.  

Pausing to see if my cortisol levels are good.  Have to look up the chat about the vargas nerve.  Not the right spelling.  

ok sympathetic is fight or flight system (heard about that in college psych); parasympathetic is rest and digest!  

Bela said earlier she was planning lots of things.  Mind racing ahead just as mine has been--all week?  David will come here and live with us; kids will go to college here and Dave will teach here!  Ha!  well, about as realistic as my racings are too.  

Vagus nerver not vargas, but close.  Vagus and sciatic, two largest nerve stems in us.  

Biggest question facing me now is whether on Tuesday I should go up to Owl's Nest for lunch and scope out the set up for the massage scheduled there in three weeks for Bela.  Why not?  Other options are pretty usual and not pressing.  At the moment.  You never know.  Still have not found the fly swatter!

Next pressing item is to put the new green plastic table cloth on this table!  Found the flyswatter; under the pile of papers on the table!

We have two Aho catalogs, or rather, books.  Rizzoli.  Peak of his career.  Certified and collected.  Looks like he has had about ten serious collectors buying his works.  Pretty darn good.  Aho moved to Hudson, NH in 1974.  He was born in 1966 in Melrose, MA.  His father worked for the Boston and Maine RR; first generation in US, he parents moved to MA from Finland.  Must have moved here in 1940ish.  So Aho himself is first generation son of immigrants.  Same generation as Catherine Taylor??  "Catherine Taylor (born 1964) received a BA from the College Scholar Program at Cornell University, studied Classics at Somerville College at the University of Oxford, and earned a PhD in English from Duke University. The author of You, Me, and the Violence, Apart, and Giving Birth, she is also a founding editor of Essay Press, and associate professor in writing and co-director of the Image Text MFA at Ithaca College and of ITI Press."

So Aho is two years younger than Catherine!!

The new table cloth is a wee short but looks so fresh and lovely.  Now to smooth out the folds and wrinkles over the next two years.  Will we eventually sell Casa Alegre?  Will we even go there this winter?  When will the valve procedure take place?  Can we get it done at Hanover?  

Dave called and talked for a good forty minutes.  While he was walking home I kept noticing beautiful details on the buildings behind him and the bright sunny sky.  His birthday is coming up.  He and C have not told the kids yet about the separation.  He sleeps in the living room sofa "because of his snoring."  They are negotiating point by point how to do the next steps.  He realized she had been looking through his phone the other night while he was asleep.  C thought it could be moved along quickly by having him start to live at some other location.  He wants to do things more slowly.  So, he is a musician and one note after the other would make sense.  Realize how different we are and how little I really know him.  He sees C as overly emotional about everything.  She has been talking with a counselor for years, not a professional therapist, it seems.  When C's mother died this counselor said, Oh, grief, I do not do grief.  Big help there! C's problems with her mother go way back, don't know the details.  Is Dave an alcoholic?  On our side of the discussions, no one has raised that question, that I know of.  Is he the Golden Boy?  According to his song he is.  He surveyed his past year's behavior and asked ChatgPT how long he had been away from the house on late night gigs and job duties (rock u etc) and Chat said pretty much average, not excessive at all.  

We chatted with the kids too.  They already look three months older more than one month older.  Both liking school and teachers.  Eliot the only one in his Spanish class to give correct answers and earned some green points for it.  Emma very keen on her roles in drama class, both this year and projected into next year.  

David did consult some free legal clinic help and I think that did help him think about things in that regard.  They want to avoid going before a judge at all cost, so they have to try to agree and work things out.  

I can't see how he will manage to stay in the apartment for much longer, really.  But perhaps money will insist that they do, that and the concern about avoiding legal process.  They have their marriage therapist and D his private therapist.  I was tempted to text him and suggest he find a way to insist that C get a real therapist to replace her long-time confidante counselor.  But I think I should stay out.  

Unsuccessful at finding a fly bait trap at walmart.  That section emptied out completely so looks like everyone is having pest troubles.  Chat says close all window shades and open one bright window and the flies will go outside, they are drawn to light.  I've opened the front and back doors!!

cortisol

 cortisol became a thing around 2023-2025 through social media hype

Opt for a small piece of dark chocolate

Colin caught up with us, had lunch, and then they played the piano.  He gave us his variant on cortisol obsession, talking about his stress patterns, the vagus nerve, some other terms.  Made me recall all my readings in diet and health over the years---Ayervedic food theory, etc.  

Advisor from TIAA in Hanover called to tell us Rick Evans has left and joined a "boutique" financial service called TenuredAdvisors.  Looked them up.  One guy is from Bates, Rick is UVa, other advisors from TIAA.  Their whole world shifting because higher ed not what it once was even among the elites but with office in Portsmouth and Essex, VT you can see they are poised to help the tenured private elite, oh, and physicians.  I liked him and now I realize what his phone call was about a few weeks ago---he was bidding us hail and farewell as much as he could, legally, without saying so directly.  He said tiaa could not find enough staff and he was loaded down with way too many clients.  Suspect AI doing things to all these worlds too.  Fill out the questionnaire, we run the numbers and manage with AI your account as does now some huge percentage of the market.  With all of our other changes it feels like all the tectonic plates are shifting at once.  Everywhere in our western world.  

Managed long "fast" night and morning.  Bela got a short walk in at Walmart in spite of my hovering.  Doug and Patsy are getting married!  They guess they've been together now about 17-18 years.   His wife died in 2006 or 2007 

Phillips sent great letter about cruise and valve dangers.  Filed a claim with Allianz.  See what we get back.   The new Garvee rolling chair is much better than I'd expected, fits into the bathroom, sturdier and better quality.  Whew.  

Cortisol is a stress hormone.  Discovered in 1937. Tadeus Reichstein, Polish-Swiss.  Nobel prize for it in 1950 with two other scientists.  

Aho's catalog arrived.  Not opened yet.  Novel by Priestly, guess Nicholas mentioned it, favorite novel of Jung's!!  Not intrigued enough, at the moment.  But it is here.  Waiting more for the Disappearers.  Jamaican-American writer.  Black and queer, teaching now in Minneapolis.  When did that city become a hot magnet for excitement?  Should I subscribe to the Washington Sun?  Founder of Politico started it.  Journos who got fired from the Post.  Shift just "like" advisors leaving TIAA.  

Friday morning 

onward through Moresco 

Rick would work out of the Queechee office.  I sent in a query to see what response I might get.  

bonfire birth

In Moresco they light the huge bonfire, cats drag flaming bits of entrail away into the woods, Turquoise goes into labor beside the fire, they take her into the villa

Doug McLane outside about an hour ago taking photos of a new crop of mushrooms sprouted on the front lawn, opposite the driveway across the way and I wonder if they arrived in the hood amidst the logs that Ian has in front of his house every year where I cuts and splits them into firewood.  

Bela having a good time on the piano.  A pt session with Joel today; four more booked over the next two weeks.  He's suggesting she get a hemi-walker for use in the house for more stability on her feet. She wants to walk with the cart at walmart.  

Carry away mind-imagination tries to picture the valve procedure taking place once again at cmc or at dhmc.  Pros and cons with each place; why should I care.  Judith gave her testimonial about going nowhere but dhmc.  Think she survived breast cancer under their care.  She and Jim explained that they both get full coverage for all medical there under the public assistance program of the hospital.  I had no idea such existed and very glad for them that it does.  They have to show all of their financial records.  Oh, it operates through state medicare coverage.  

one ranking includes dhmc in 100 great hospitals in the country   cmc ranked 2 in NH but not ranked nationally  

bought the baby bean stannah on the back stairs

chatted with Seamus; they go to Hawaii for two months on Oct 7 

our seminarian rides a bike with rollerskates strapped to his feet 

turning on one's axis, turning on their axes, rooms turn on axes--spinning, rolling, turning  

5 pm

 5:16 exactly.  Bela dozing again.  New episodes of Sommerdahl not gripping us.  Today's early medical visit upset us in lots of ways.  Our lives are so quiet we are more fragile to changes and disconcerting disruptions.  All of which seem to go along with, be exacerbated by, events at the upper, larger scale of things.  Mid-term elections, family divorce rumblings.  And now this valve procedure seven years after the first one.  Grateful we are as we should be for the seven years after the first.  Why not as grateful for the prospect of having to do it once more with the hope of another good seven years?  The lifelong sense that doctors know what they are doing and know what to do becomes shakier.  They clearly are under great stress as well.  Big signs in every Speare location now about how anger and disruptive behavior will not be tolerated.  Do they use that phrase?  Not exactly, have to look again.  But it seems misguided to have such a big mini-billboard.  Perhaps it constitutes legal covering of issues.  Psychologically, though, does it do the good meant to do?  Does it help?  How to know.  

Reminder to self.  Chill.  Ignore your desire to have a say in what will happen next.  Can you help by seeking advice from others about where to go for this procedure?  Are you sure you want, or "want", DHMC?  Thought that place gave you the creeps?  More or less than CMC?  If the medical teams have set things up this way, who are you to demur or second-guess, or assume a so-called consumer reports stance from which to make a "more informed" judgment?  TV news spots like "Cost of Denial" does not help either.  Sarah says Dr K would favor DHMC over Concord, but would he also do so against CMC?  Should I call him and ask?  Would it be ethical for him to give me his opinion?  And why would I take his opinion over the doctors we work with now?  I might as well get involved in advising D and C's therapists over in Paris.  

I have this wonderful, huge Italian novel to bury my cares deep within.  Focus on those words, those clouds and wisps of meaning and non-meaning.  Clouds rolling over the landscape.  The gentle roll of the dryer tumbling the sheets and towels.  

back from Avery place

 Early morning visit to cardio office of Speare on Avery Street.  The doctor saw us two years ago.  The office was in total chaos because their wifi and computers were not functioning properly.  He asked if Va was ok and she said yes and he said ok great.  We had to point out to him that there was a recent cardiogram that he had not seen.  

now all a fluxmoxed about where to go and what to do --- 

The Type of Valve Disease: If you need a mitral valve repair and are looking for a robotic, minimally invasive option that avoids opening the breastbone, DHMC is currently the primary provider of this specific technology north of Boston. If you are a candidate for a catheter-based aortic replacement (TAVR), CMC's New England Heart & Vascular Institute is one of the busiest and most experienced programs in the region. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Second Opinions: Because your surgical eligibility depends entirely on your unique anatomy and overall health, getting a consultation at both clinics is highly recommended. You can coordinate a consultation through the CSofNE Valve Procedures Team or schedule an appointment with the DHMC Heart and Vascular Center. [1, 2, 3, 4]   

now all a fluxmoxed about where to go and what to do --- can see how it comes down to hunches about "cultural behaviors" as much as anything---

grasping for quotations

 Labor Day

"The land seeks deep inside each person so as to gather together all their dreams.  Yes, we could say that life is the seamstress of dreams."  190 in Sleepwalking Land

a link there, the land, the earth, back to Handke's geologies and walking.  

miraginations   mirages  

Darlene stopped, bringing a small pot of yellow mums to cheer us up over the vanishing of our cruise dreams.  She also told of Joan Berstrom's terrible fall on her steps in the blueberry hill apartments a few days or weeks ago.  Broken bones; now in a rehab center in Milford.  Her son looking in, perhaps will care for her further.  

"Giddified, existentially retarded, she went on turning and twirling, moaning  all the while."  201

the notebooks  "Blown by a wind born not from the air but from the ground itself, the sheets scatter along the road.  Then, one by one, the letters turn into grains of sand, and little by little, all my writings are transformed into pages of earth."   

last passage, the end, beautiful image, incredible sadness  12:35 pm  

653 "it's strangely relaxing, isn't it?"   Max Lawton discussing The Beginnings  on page 653 of the book

back to it   out of Africa Mozambique   

Catholic vs Protestant schools of Translation!!  who knew??? 

booking the cruise expanded mind and imagination across the map, at the same time our daily lives contracted more and more over the past few weeks and months, even while the kids were here, working through their routines and dramas,  Ours were contracting and now with diagnosis hinted and about to arrive tomorrow morning we can even wonder of the contricted aorta, its valve, has brought the constriction, if our daily routines respond to it as to weather movements.  The air outside this evening, right now and all day, has been that splendid dry forest mountain cold air from the north, early September tasting already of early October.  

Going back to Moresco from Couto feels a similar expansion after contraction.  Couto packed enormous desperation into a slim line of anecdotes, tales, short scenes, compressed allusions, symbols, mythic echos.  The wars he was surviving so horrendous as to be beyond words of any kind.  Moresco has all the time in the world, all the space, vast canvas upon which to slowly trace figures and letters.  strangely relaxing is indeed correct, strangely so.  Trauma tightens, Couto, binds; ecstasy releases in preparation for song, endless song.