1. I'm almost at the end of the fourth week since the kidney transplant. I'm settling into what is becoming normal for me: documenting my liquid intake and output, taking medicine at 8:00 in the morning and evening, being careful not to lift over five pounds, being careful not to twist, make jerky moves, or make other movements that might offend the surgery site. I'm remembering, in addition to the 8:00 pills, to take magnesium supplements at noon and to mix and drink a soluble powder at 2:00 p.m. whose purpose is to lower my potassium.
Now, believe me, I'm not going to go nuts about what I'm about to say and start doing yoga or go to the gym and lift weights or even change the sheets on my bed (!), but today, for the first time, I could feel that the occasional tugs, jabs, sharp jolts, and tightness in the surgical areas having eased up a bit. I swear I could feel hints of what it will feel like when this area completely heals.
Feeling this today did not make me want to pick up my activity. It motivated me to be even more obedient to the restrictions I currently live with, knowing that the caution I'm exercising and my obedience is definitely paying off.
I really do not want any setbacks.
2. During Greta Gerwig's discussion, in The Criterion Channel's Adventures in Moviegoing, of Max Ophuls's 1953 masterpiece, The Earrings of Madame de . . ., one of the clips from the movie features Madame de speaking a line that I wrote down and that I've been stewing over for the last couple of days. She says, "It's when we have the most to say that we can't speak."
I had to watch this movie today and find out where in the story Madame de says this and what leads her to utter it.
Now I know, but I have decided that to say more about it would constitute writing a spoiler, so I'll leave it to you to find the movie, watch it, and discover the importance of this utterance.
Countless lovers of movies consider The Earrings of Madame de . . . to be a nearly perfect movie, especially because of its cinematography, its visual style. In their Criterion discussion, Greta Gerwig and Peter Becker agree that the camera is dancing in this movie, best illustrated by a sequence of dance scenes at a series of Parisian balls.
The movie centers on a pair of diamond heart earrings that Madame de's husband gave her as a wedding gift. We learn at the outset of the movie that Madame de is in debt and she decides to sell the earrings, but hides this fact from her husband. The movie then follows the earrings of Madame de as they are purchased and sold again several times, as they change hands, and as they become inextricably connected with the love affairs of both Madame de and her husband.
As one might expect, with each change of ownership, with each time a character gives the earrings to another as a gift, the earrings come to carry more and more of the weight of the emotional complications of infidelity, humiliation, and jealousy, all while Max Olphus presents a lush world of luxury, almost claustrophobic material wealth, and intoxicating movement as this story dances to its fateful conclusion.
3. The movie ended.
I retired to the kitchen.
I steamed cauliflower. I sautéed white onion, zucchini, and mushrooms and added leftover jasmine rice to these vegetables. I then fried filets of tilapia, seasoned with Old Bay Seasoning, and topped the fish with roasted panko. I created a bed of the rice and vegetable mixture, put the fish atop the bed of rice, and served the cauliflower alongside the fish.
It worked.
For my dietary needs, it was a dinner rich in protein and fresh vegetables and low in potassium.
As a bonus, it was delicious.
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