Hello from Paris. I took a lovely family photo in front of the entrance sign to the Department of Nuclear Medicine at University College Hospital before Scott's appointment on Friday, and then promptly lost my camera. Apparently, I was a little distracted that day, and not just because we managed to walk to the hospital through Regents Park as the Queen's Guards rode by on horseback. So:
VISUALIZE INSERTED PHOTO OF STRESSED OUT FAMILY HERE
The results from Scott's scans are all good. No signs of tumors were found and better yet, his radiologist in London insists we return in a year. He discussed the pros and cons of beginning a course of chemo that is thought to prolong the period of remission, and concluded that annual scanning would be sufficient for now. Scott was slightly radioactive as a result of the radioactive dye he was injected with, so we flew to Paris armed with a letter of explanation in the event he set off the security scanner at Heathrow. He wasn't allowed to sit next to Maya or give her too many hugs. Other than that, he is no worse for the wear.
While Scott was working his way through the insanely overburdened, but more advanced and surprisingly efficient medical system, Maya and I spent the afternoon in the nearby but universe away, very chic Notting Hill neighborhood, had an elegant lunch and met up with Scott in the afternoon in time for our first French dinner with our friends, Shirin and David. Shirin has known me since I was a year old and David since I was just a little older than Maya, so it was wonderful that they could see Maya for the second time.
There were several fancy people in the restaurant I thought we should recognize just because they seemed like they were only taking a night off from appearing in the society pages of Tattler. But, David finally identified one frumpy man sitting behind us, Margaret Thatcher's son (more infamous than famous), but wasn't able to identify the very elegant woman in the 4 inch Louboutin heals in the couture gown that had to be somebody, because a nobody wouldn't endure the excruciating pain and expense of that outfit without knowing she would be getting some serious attention or a wedding proposal (not likely since the other 4 people she was accompanied by seemed to be older couples).
Our apartment is in an 18th century building just across the street from the Cluny Museum, in a neighborhood much more lively by night than by day. Today, because most museums were closed, we joined the unwashed masses trolling the streets of the Marais. Maya got a ride on a double-decker merry-go-round and Scott and I began our mission of beginning a heart-healthy diet in earnest with our first of what we hope to be many glasses of wine at lunch.
If "The Doll's House" Took Place In London and Was Furnished By Ikea
Today is our first full day in London, having arrived sometime in the middle of the afternoon yesterday. We made the most of our half day by visiting the Starbucks in our "apartment" building (more on that below), where we fueled up for a trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum followed by dinner at Yalla Yalla, a terrific Lebanese restaurant, with Scott's former colleague Michelle McEttrick and her husband Mike Eggers. Michelle and Mike, who live in Notting Hill and together have 10 nieces and nephews, instantly amused Maya, giving us a chance to drink a glass of Lebanese wine (lovely), and catch our breath (lovelier). We enjoyed hearing about their lives in Notting Hill. In fact, one of our guilty pleasures since it came out has been re-watching (and re-watching) the eponymous movie with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. (And our secret embarrassment, after having let Maya watch it with us when she was in pre-school, having her share with her class that her parents let her watch "an adult movie,"; i.e., a grown-up movie, and receiving a scolding call from her teacher, who was quite skeptical about our explanation that anything not Dora the Explorer qualified as an "adult" movie in our home.)
Anyway, we are staying in a lovely old building, on the outside, remodeled on the inside into studio apartments, which look exactly like Maya's doll house purchased at Ikea. And, the interior seems to be furnished, like the dollhouse, from Ikea, or some moral equivalent. If Scott and I were only recent immigrants from some third world country, we would be so much less embarrassed about stay so far. Whatever medical humiliations he may experience in London later today, it won't be as bad as what we subjected ourselves to before midnight and then repeatedly thereafter. First, the electricity to the room is activated by putting the room key into a slot - easy enough except it is impossible to find the slot in the dark, but we did, so we didn't have to call the front desk for help -- yet.
The foldout bed comes with laminated instructions in German that made sleeping on the floor very tempting. The coffee pot plugs in, but after searching high and low for an outlet Scott gave in and called the front desk, the first time. A very nice Bulgarian immigrant told him that it was behind the microwave, or at least that is what Scott thought he heard. While Scott was in the process of actually removing the microwave I noticed two quite accessible outlets BELOW the shelf the microwave was resting on. The microwave has been returned to its upright and locked position. But then we decided it was too warm - really, who would expect it to be too warm in London in April. Next we attempted to open the dollhouse window installed over the original window, every which way, including a precarious attempt while standing on the Ikea doll house chair that could have easily collapsed under a heavier person, but we figured that since Scott had a hospital appointment anyway we would take the risk. This precipitated another call to the front desk where a recent Mongolian immigrant told us to push the button, which made me laugh so hard that the fruits of our microwave removal escapade, Nescafe, launched out my nose.
After a fervent attempt to find a button, any button, Scott abandoned his Bob-the-Builder dignity entirely and called the front desk. This time a recent African immigrant came to our rescue, puzzled by how we could need an open window when in his estimation we should have had the heat on, and indeed, pushed the button, releasing what seem to be quadruple hung windows. God help us if it does get cold, because we will never figure out how to close them and will just need to crank up the Ikea space heaters that don't come with laminated instructions and don't seem to have any intuitive explanation for how they function.
Scott is looking forward to his appointment at the hospital later today with excitement and a small dose of trepidation. He is excited because London has bicycle stands on seemingly every street corner, and he plans on using one to get to his appointment. I have been remiss in my updates, but for the last couple of weeks there has been concerned that he had spots on his kidneys or alternatively kidney damage from chemo. To make matters scarier, his doctors wanted to wait for his scans in London before making any firm conclusions. The morning before leaving Seattle Scott went through a battery of tests and visited his oncologist who thinks that, in spite of the prior wonky lab results, his kidneys are OK. So, we are still a little nervous about what they might find, but less so than before. For now, our anxiety is focussed on how to operate the doll house shower which seems to be mounted precariously so that the slightest movement causes it to dislodge, launch and cause bodily injury, and at what point we call someone to show us where the "on" button is located--dressed, or undressed.
Thank God Maya is still asleep and hasn't been forced to witness the total ineptitude of her parents, which could cause any sane and logical person to wonder just what the hell we are going to do in France.
As a side note, I am now a fervid Mac convert, my Vaio laptop having crashed and died while on a business trip in San Francisco last week, and pronounced DOA after 90 minutes of diagnostics by a nice man in India. The good news was that I was 4 blocks from an Apple store and got there just as it was opening. The bad news was that it was the day that store got its first shipment of IPad 2's and a zillion previous converts had already been in line for hours. Somehow I managed to convince the man handing out numbers to let me in ahead of the masses so that I could undergo my conversion. Before even opening the box I received an email that I was on one of the 156 Alaska Airlines flights that were cancelled because they managed to blow up their entire computer system in the process of an "upgrade" - they really need a Mac. So, I found myself with ample time to actually read the manual, before being rerouted, a day later, on 3 different airlines, from San Francisco, south to LA, and then north again to Seattle with a stop and plane change in Santa Rosa, all told, taking longer than our flight to London. It's amazing what you can learn when you read the manual - and even more amazing that I found it easier to get a new Mac up and running than it was to open a foldout bed.
