
Another Week: Number 54
The trip was weighing on both of our brains. At dawn on New Year’s Day, I heard Amy mumbling in her sleep about a port in her abdomen, and I heard the word “scared.”
The biggest impediment was the three or four concrete stairs, but Amy was losing stamina daily for even walking a few feet on a flat floor. I started calling around to find out whether any transport services might have a couple of professionals with a stretcher or some other device to get her out to a car. Once in the car, we could manage.
My sister Karen and her husband Kevin provided the miraculous solution to our problem. They rented a Mobile Stairlift from a medical equipment company in Illinois, unfolded it in our living room, strapped Amy in, and moved her out the door, down the steps, and over to Karen’s car. This thing is basically a self-contained, battery-powered wheelchair and portable ramp in one. A week’s worth of mental anguish evaporated instantly. I could not thank them enough.
The procedure was performed without a hitch. The surgeon had some qualms about Amy’s borderline platelet count and suggested that she could be drained first, and come back at a later date for the device. She told him she was not returning and needed the device now.
She got it.
On Friday, we had our second visit from a Hospice Alliance nurse, and Amy signed in to enter their program. A hospital bed was delivered on Saturday and set up in our living room.
Our next mission is to get her vomiting and constipation back in check.
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song (2021)
The same person can be seen very differently depending on who is telling the story. A year or two ago, Amy and I watched Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love from 2019. That documentary was centered on singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen‘s callous infidelity.
On the first evening of the new year, Amy and I watched Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song on Netflix. This documentary is centered on Cohen’s most famous song, from its extended inception over roughly five years to its eventual ubiquity and canonization. Along the way, we get a general Cohen biography, but the main story here is the slow blossoming of “Hallelujah,” culminating in Cohen’s triumphant final tour.
The film is based on a book by Alan Light, The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah,” which has sat on my Amazon wish list for a few years now.
It’s quite a winding tale, especially interesting to music history nerds like me, but Amy enjoyed it as well.
Lessons in Chemistry
We have finally found something worth watching on Apple TV+.
It’s Lessons in Chemistry, based on the Bonnie Garmus novel of the same name, and it stars Brie Larson as a midcentury chemist who later hosts a TV cooking show.
The costumes, sets, and soundtrack are all excellent, and the story takes some surprising turns. We’ve only seen four of the eight episodes so far, so I can’t tell you how it will all connect, but Larson is quite watchable — as is Aja Naomi King as her neighbor.
This show has several similarities with Julia, based on Julia Child’s life, currently streaming on Max. Both are retro comfort food, allowing us to escape for an hour to an idealized earlier time.
Fargo, Season 5
We have also been watching the new season of Fargo on Hulu, and it’s my current favorite thing on TV. Each season of this series stands by itself, so you don’t have to start with the first season, but they’re all pretty good — and all loosely inspired by the vibe of the 1996 Coen brothers movie, with most characters speaking in a stereotypical Minnesota accent.
Season 5 stars Juno Temple as an abuse victim with an ingenious capacity for fighting back, and Jon Hamm as her abuser, a North Dakota sheriff who enforces his own brand of law, as justified by his personal interpretation of the Bible.
This season is dark and brutal, and it reflects America in the Trump era — where sheriffs have become regional warlords and Judeo-Christian values somehow rationalize all sorts of cruelty.
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