It Might Get Messy

Well, it’s been typical of the past couple of years. Saturday night I posted that chirpy, happy blog entry. Sunday night I was in the hospital with serious, dangerous pneumonia. This was a particularly difficult episode. Poor Cathy and the kids had just driven up from Atlanta after celebrating Colin’s graduation from Georgia Tech. The Emergency Room and hospital in general were backed up. We spent 14 hours in ER before getting a room. By that time I had thoroughly shit and pissed myself and had to be wiped down by morose technicians. 

It took several days of high-power antibiotics to get the infection of both lungs under control. Then, out of the blue, my blood pressure spiked at stroke levels and I had to spend another day in hospital. Thursday they let me out, but only because Cathy is trained to administer the intravenous antibiotics. Which admittedly come with awesome technology. A little pressurized ball of meds screws into the port access (the “port” is the permanent needle embedded in a blood vessel at my heart. It’s a dangerous bit of infrastructure to fuck with, as any infectious organisms introduced are mainlined into heart and lungs). It empties itself automatically in about half an hour. Very simple, robust, and ingenious. Hopefully the week’s worth of biocides (plus an additional oral antibiotic) will keep me relatively healthy for a while. In any case, I’m finally home and getting warmed up for Christmas.

This is my time of year. With the fabulous Thanksgiving as a massively wonderful gift from all involved (thank you SO MUCH again everybody), Christmas is next. Of course, not only am I unable to do brick and mortar shopping, I was too sick right through the critical online ordering time. Basically, my gift to family and friends this year is pretty much confined to still being alive. Beth and Maggie made the Italian holiday bread, panettone-pan dulce, including the fussy task of candying the orange peel by hand. They did a hell of a job. Everyone who’s tasted it declares it phenomenal. 

BTW, I use a grossly enriched version of the austere recipe my Mom recorded by following one of the Tanta’s (we called all the Aunties by the German descriptor, including the Italian ones responsible for the pannettone) around while she made it one year long ago. It goes something like this: mix 5 pounds of flour with 2 cups of sugar (preferably demerara, raw or if necessary light brown plus some white), salt, and yeast. Make a well. Break 10 eggs into the well. Heat about half a liter of milk and a pound of unsalted butter in the microwave. Being careful not to cook the eggs (maybe pour the milk and butter around the outside of the well), add the milk and butter. Mix and knead thoroughly. Note that this should be a soft but not sticky dough. You may need to add up to another half liter or so of milk. This can be warm, it doesn't need to be hot. Add the extra as early in the agglomeration process as possible to make its incorporation easier. The kneading is tedious and needs strong arms. Or you can do it 3 batches with a big-ass stand mixer. Let rise double in a warm spot covered with plastic wrap and towels. Cut home-candied orange peel (cook the peels of a couple of oranges, including the white pith, in a cup of water and a couple cups of sugar spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice until soft) and dried cherries into bits. Knead the fruit in THOROUGHLY. Apportion the bread among about 10 pans (or flowerpots, or pie tins, or whatever you like). Rise double. Bake at 350 F until internal temperature reaches 200 F. Cool upside down on racks to maintain top crust. Wrap tightly when cool in foil and seal in ziplocs. Serve toasted with a load of unsalted butter.

With that said, I’m gonna be brief this week. You’re all busy, and I’m still very tired and weak from the hospital. I will give you a bit of my usual gratuitous and unnecessary advice, in keeping with the fact that every week I survive I feel a little wiser and much older. So: 1) touch somebody every day. Just reach out. You’ve got email, a cell phone, texting ability, social media. Don’t worry that they might not want to hear from you. Maybe they don’t. You’ll never know until you try. And the odds are, they will. And for god's sake don't worry about the "security" of your email. You're not Sony. North Korea is not trying to hack your gmail account. 2) Live ‘em while you got ‘em. They are absolutely, unequivocally NOT forever!

I love you. I thank you. I wish you a merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and a joyful Channukah.