Clean-up aisle 1!

Yeah, enough of that “poetry.” Christ almighty. Can’t we get back to sports metaphors? Well here’s the live report from Dr. S., Karine Sandy Koufax, the Mitzvah Queen herself:

Happy to report from the dugout that Zora is doing great. The doctor checked her out this morning and said that all was well. Expect for some over-exertion and a lot of anemia. In a nutshell, she needs a crapload of iron and she needs to temporarily stop climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and doing all that bungee jumping. But the doctor did say that even if she does do too much activity, there is no chance of her heart “falling out onto the street” as a result. So that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about.

We packed up all the mountains of stuff in Emily’s apartment. We got Jim’s car from Daphne, and refilled Zora’s pain prescription. Tamara successfully squashed three car’s-worth of luggage into a single trunk and the only thing we forgot was the kosher salt [ed note: Oy]. We got to Santa Cruz fast and installed Zora and Beverly into a really nice house that is some older couple’s vacation place.

We found a supermarket and Tamara made a great iron-heavy dinner (I picked the chicken livers out of my salad though). Patrick came over afterwards and we all ate ice cream. When we realized that the hot water heater wasn’t on, Zora independently nipped down to the basement, turned it on, and came back up again before anyone noticed. Nice one, Zor. There’s no keeping her down. And when Tamara and I got back to our hotel tonight, the nice manager (an NYC retiree—go NY!) stopped us and said, “Care for a nightcap of a sugar cookie?” Fresh baked sugar cookies! It was cute [ed note: cookie nightcap cute? My ass! Where’s the booze?!].

In some ways, though, the best part of the day was the part I missed. Tamara was in the schmancy Santa Cruz supermarket when she saw an icky tableau in the dairy aisle: a homeless man had opened up a can of ReddiWip and had the nozzle stuffed up his nose, doing whippets off the aerosol gas. The manager had to come and confiscate the ReddiWip [ed note: and then the friggin’ Santa Cruz check-out girl had the gumption to say to Tamara, “Oh, you’re from New York, you must see that a lot!”]

Assuming Zora is still feeling okay tomorrow, I might try to go in the hotel’s heated pool for a few minutes. Zora lent me her bathing suit. This morning the coffee shop guy on Diversidero laughed at me because I was wearing my NYC winter coat in the 55 degree S.F. drizzle. “You look cozy,” he said.

You know, as I lie here in our Santa Cruz hotel on the synthetic bedspread with the trompe l’oeil cacti [ed note: trompe l'what??], I can’t help but review the events of the day with a twinge of pride. By the end of the day Tamara and I had upgraded our staff motto from the low-key, “hey, everybody’s still alive,” to the more ambitious “another mission accomplished!”

Thanks Karine. Great job. After seven innings, the good guys are still winning!