How about a short miscellaneous blog entry to stay on
schedule? I fell off there for a
while. In my mind I have the idea I
should write you more or less once a week, and the longer I’m retired I lose
track of the days. But here’s a rare Saturday
account of this and that just to stay in touch.
Last night my wife took me for a car ride in the belief it
is good for me to get out. I’m not sure
that’s the case but I went anyway. I sit
in the back with my foot on the console while she drives. It’s like a scene out of “Driving Miss Daisy.”
Both our Dads farmed so we find comfort driving on country
roads. We took the blacktops north into
Wallace Township and wandered around from there, cruising quiet roads between
the empty fields of Waltham and Dimmick before finding ourselves near Mendota.
“Well since we’re here, and it’s Cinco de Mayo, we might as
well stop at El Zarape,” I said.You don’t have to twist my wife’s arm too hard to get her to go out to eat. We got there just after 5:00 and the parking lot was half full. By the time we left it was jammed. We had the May 5 special, which was fajitas for two with two margaritas included for a pretty good price. My wife loves fajitas and was keen for the deal so I went along. I think dependency may breed compliance.
At El Zarape I usually order Dave’s Special, chunks of beef
in a dark and spicy chile de arbol red sauce.
Nice and hot. But the fajitas
were good as well. In addition to grilled
steak, chicken, and shrimp the vegetables were good. In there were freshly grilled onions, green
with the tops still on and a fair sized bulb at the end. They split them in two, added peppers, both
bells and jalapenos, with tomatoes, and strips of nopales, which is
cactus. You won’t find nopales
everywhere, and certainly not at Taco Bell.
Joe, the Mexican man who owns El Zarape, keeps it pretty authentic. Special last night was a woman up front at
los comale, the grill, dipping into a big bowl of masa and making homemade corn
tortillas. Both the sound of her patting
the balls of dough flat with her hands and the smell of them cooking reminded
me of being in Mexico in the 70’s. It’s
pretty hard to beat freshly grilled tortillas.
While I haven’t done an exhaustive survey of Mexican restaurants in
LaSalle County (a great idea though don’t you think?) El Zarape has to be up
there among the best.
I had the margarita included with my half of the dinner and
two more which was a mistake. Joe’s
margaritas aren’t as weak as the gringo margaritas you get elsewhere. It made for a short evening and a long
night. I conked out in the recliner, was
in bed by 9:00, and slept like a log. I
woke up early and got out here in the shack by 7:30, with assistance from my
wife who was leaving early for some deal downtown. I’m still on one leg after my ankle surgery,
with orders to keep the other leg up in the air most of the time, and I need
help carrying my scooter up and down stairs while I navigate with
crutches. It’s been a month since
surgery and I have a month to go of that routine. Halfway done. Here’s a tidbit of information you could probably do without but I’ll tell you anyway. I’ve been giving myself injections of something my surgeon prescribed to prevent blood clots, what with me being so sedentary in my recovery. He tells me blood clots are a risk I should be careful about, so I am. I started giving myself these shots in the hospital and continue every day. It’s not bad. The needle is short and thin, and I hardly feel it. It’s a subcutaneous injection, which means under the skin. I do them in my abdomen, alternating places in a circle around my navel like a clock. I pinch a piece of fat, no problem in my case, scrub it with alcohol on a cotton ball, pop in the syringe, and it’s over. Everything is disposable. Piece of cake.
The doc referred to this anti-coagulant drug I’m putting
into myself every morning by its catchy brand name not on my generic box, Lovanox. The boxes of syringes I have are marked
Enoxaparin Sodium 40 mg syringes. A
couple of days ago I looked closer at the box to see if I could find out what exactly
was entering my body and here’s what I found.
Each 0.4 mL contains
40 mg of enoxaparin sodium derived from porcine intestinal mucosa in Water for
injection.
“One never really knows, do one?”
To tell you the truth, an ideal to which I always strive, I’m
glad I’m taking a daily dose of mucus from a pig’s gut in plain ass water
rather than some complicated chemical concoction dreamed up by a drug company
chemist. Seems more natural, though
unexpected. It might also explain my
recent intense craving for sausage.
I’ll close with news from my small world in the shack. On my laptop here I have a word file of
77,782 words divided into 35 stories, a table of contents, a somewhat logical
progression beginning with early memories and ending with the day I left the
farm to go to college. Those 35 pieces
of writing are either a collection of stories or a book. I’ve taken enough liberties with the truth
that it can’t be called a memoir, but my family and friends, particularly
Danvers people, will find things in there they also remember. I don’t know what will come of this big file,
but I may be within weeks of sending it out to Alpha readers to see if they
think it’s any good. I need their
input. I’m afraid I lost all perspective
months ago.
So while convalescing, keeping my foot elevated, moving
about with the help of equipment for the handicapped, and shooting hog gut slime
into my body each morning may not sound like fun, it has markedly helped my
literary ambitions. There’s good in
everything I guess. I may come out of
this with not only an improved ankle but also the draft of my first book. Stay tuned.
And read the labels on your drugs.
You may be surprised.
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