I only took a carry-on with me to LAX yesterday because going to BlogHer was a last minute decision. The health of my father-in-law, Vartan, was still shaky. He had just started with hospice.  I got my boarding pass from the Virgin America machine and went through security. I was about to put my shoes back on, post security, when Sophia called me on the phone. She was crying. Vartan had passed away.  Sophia, who had dropped me off at the airport no longer than ten minutes ago, returned to pick me up. We drove to her parents’ home.  The hospice nurse came to pronounce Vartan dead.  The nurse was a very caring Filipino who hugged everyone he met.  Soon after, the same sober-looking, deep-voiced guy from the funeral home who came to pick up Sophia’s mother just a month and a half ago, now came for Vartan.
The caregiver, who only knew him a short time, was in tears.
Vartan was an uber-impressive man. A cancer surgeon in Russia, a chess player, a cook, a cabinet maker; a devoted and patient husband to Fanya. I bonded with Vartan in ways I didn’t with Fanya — we both had to deal with “dramatic women,” as wives, and we frequently gave each other knowing glances.
The last seven months have been a slow and painful decline for Vartan. He and Fanya aged 20 years each in less than a year. It was so very sad to watch. I’ve seen and done things I would not have expected to encounter just a year ago. In some ways, I think it is better now that Vartan is in a happier place, with his beloved Fanya.  Today is the funeral. Vartan and Fanya will be buried in the same plot of land.
Sophia has now lost both parents in a short amount of time. The hospice MD sent Sophia this SMS: Tried to call you. I’m sorry and my condolences. God’s peace & comfort w u. You are truly a wonderful person and one of the most caring I ever met.”
This has been one hard year for Sophia. If you want her address or email, contact me at neilochka at yahoo dot com or @neilochka on Twitter.
Vartan, my father-in-law, was taken to the hospital last week. The Cedars-Sinai Hospital emergency room was too busy at the time, so he was taken to a nearby hospital which is nowhere near the caliber of Cedars Sinai. Sophia was nursing a cold, so I drove down by myself to the hospital to see what was going on. It was 1AM.
By 3Am, Vartan had a room, but the nurses wanted to move him to ICU. The hospital was understaffed and lethargic. I excused it to the early hours. The patients seemed to come from lower income backgrounds. Was this my first taste of socialized medicine? I made a sarcastic joke on Twitter, saying that I was learning the health care hierarchy of LA: Cedars-Sinai for the movie stars, UCLA for the movie producers, and THIS hospital for the grips. (I was later told that the grips are unionized and have excellent health care) Maybe I should have said this hospital is for entertainment bloggers.
Two slight nurses came into the room to wheel Vartan to ICU. It took them ten minutes to unhook all the tubes and prepare his bed to be wheeled out. One of the nurses was having trouble managing the bed and the attached IV, so she asked me to help wheel the IV to the other wing. I was beginning to wonder if this woman was a nurse, or a receptionist doing double duty. It was an obstacle course to ICU, with wheelchairs in the hallway and humps that we had to maneuver over.
We finally reached the locked door of the ICU and pressed the intercom. A male nurse, the head of the ICU came to the door.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“We’re bringing that patient.”
“We don’t have a room ready. Or an available nurse.”
“Oops. So, what are we going to do?” asked the nurse standing to my side.
The ICU nurse started to laugh, spurring the others to crack up as well. I’m sure they were all tired, and the situation was absurd. Vartan was lying there, equipment sitting on top of him.
There was only one big problem with this funny scenario. I was there, helping with the move. And I wasn’t laughing, despite my reputation as a “humor writer.” I was wearing a blue sweatshirt, so perhaps the ICU nurse figured I was some orderly helping, and not the son-in-law of the patient.
“What the fuck is going on?” I said.
If you know me, that is not something I usually say.
“I don’t see this as particularly funny,” I continued.
“Who is he?” the ICU nurse asked the others, pointing at me.
“I’m HIS fucking SON!” I said. I know I lied a bit, but sue me.
The nurses suddenly became very serious.
“And is this the usual procedure –” I said, my voice getting louder, “– to have family members helping move the patient to the new room? Does anyone know what they are doing here?”
“Perhaps you would like to wait in the visitor waiting room.” said the male nurse, pointing at a room down the hall.
“I’ll wait in the visitor waiting room, after my father gets a fucking room and I see that you know what the hell you are doing.”
Within two minutes, they found a room, a nurse, and Vartan was hooked up.
Of course, the next day at the hospital, Sophia and I noticed that Vartan’s feeding tube wasn’t turned on. We went to look for the nurse, who was apparently busy absorbed in watching the finals of the World Cup… in the visitor waiting room.
I don’t enjoy being pushy. In fact I hate when circumstances force me to do that. It makes me reflect on other parts of my life, as if you are alone in this world, and no one really gives a shit, so you have to force your way into getting what you want. I don’t want to live my life that way.
On the way home, Sophia and I stopped at Ralph’s Supermarket to pick up some groceries. One of the items we bought was a package of cabbage. Sophia likes to make stuffed cabbage. After we paid, and before we wheeled the groceries out of the store, Sophia checked over the receipt. She always does this, and I never do. She is not as trusting as I am. I even get a little irritated at times in supermarkets, waiting for her to go down the list, making sure all the prices match.
“Aha,” she said. “She charged us twice for the same package of cabbage.”
Sophia showed the recipt to the checkout woman.
“I’ll fix it in a second,” she replied.
There were three more customers on the line for this checkout woman, waiting to be helped. The checkout woman helped the first customer and then started taking care of the next customer, a burly Samoan guy.
“Hey, what about our refund?” asked Sophia.
“After I finish with everyone on line. They were here first.”
“What do you mean? We were here first. You charged us for an extra cabbage!”
“I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Who’s the manager?” asked Sophia, getting angry.
“Calm down, lady!” said the Samoan guy. “And don’t be so impatient.”
Now, normally, I’m not the type of protective husband who defends his wife no matter what, especially when the opposition has broad shoulders. Usually, I am the one calling Sophia impatient. But this time, she was right. I’m sure the Samoan thought he was right, too, and I realize that people can see the same situation in different, Rashomon-like ways. But, the hospital experience hardened my heart. I didn’t care about the other guy’s rightness. We were right. We were tired. We bought a package of cabbage. The checkout woman made a mistake. She should fix it FIRST.
I told this to the Samoan guy.
“Ralph’s Supermarket made a mistake,” I said. “They should fix it.”
“Big deal,” said the deep-voiced Samoan. “Haven’t you ever made a mistake?”
“I’ve made many mistakes. And when I make a mistake, I take care of it. Immediately. Especially if it is a business situation.”
“And why should I get punished. I’m the next on line.”
“This is not about you. This is between us and Ralph’s. Ralph’s is not my friend. They fucked up. They need to fix it. You should be siding with us, so when this happens to you, you will get prompt service.”
“You’re just being selfish.”
“No, sir, YOU’RE the selfish one.”
Whatever. Not exactly fighting words. I said a lot more nonsense, even quoting the Constitution. At the end, they returned our money, and the Samoan called us assholes under his breathe.
When we stepped outside, Sophia was so in shock at my bravado that she was speechless. If she wasn’t so tired from the hospital, and we didn’t have ice cream that could melt, I bet I could have gotten laid in the backseat of the car.
Later, that night, I decided to book my ticket to New York for BlogHer. I had been going back and forth, thinking about taking two different flights. One was on Virgin America, and was a non-stop. The other was on American Airlines, with an hour stop-over in Salt Lake City. The second flight would save me $70. Normally, I would go for the savings. But I hate stopping over on a flight. Was it really worth the savings of $70.
If you don’t speak up, you get lousy service in the hospital. If you don’t speak your mind, you wait in line in the supermarket, charged for an extra package of cabbage.
This is what I was doing when Sophia’s mother passed away a few weeks ago.
I was waiting for my yearly exam at the eye doctor on Robertson Blvd. I was hoping I didn’t need another prescription, because my last pair of “progressive lenses” cost me something like $600 bucks.  My eyesight is THAT bad. Nearsighted and Farsighted.
I was reading an old Vanity Fair in Doctor Ko’s waiting room when the phone rang. It was Sophia, hysterical, saying that “something is going wrong” at her mother’s house. The ambulance was there. I needed to go there immediately. I was closer than Sophia, who was still in Redondo Beach.
Just then, the receptionist called me for my appointment. I told her that I had to leave. A family emergency. She grumbled unsympathetically, as if she had heard this excuse a hundred times before.
“I will have to charge you a $35 co-payment because you need to cancel three days before blah blah.”
“Fine,” I said.
The next hurdle was the underground parking garage. I handed my parking stub to the attendant in her cubicle.
“Eight dollars,” she announced. A Spanish soap opera was playing on a 13″ TV next to the cash register.
I handed her my Visa.
“Cash only,” she said, unimpressed. I looked inside my wallet. I only had three dollars cash.
“Can I come back later?”
“No. There’s an ATM machine in the lobby.”
“I need to go.  It’s an emergency.”
I was getting desperate.
“Sure. Sure. Emergency. I hear that ALL the time.”
It was like the story of the boy who cried wolf, but I was stuck paying for the sins of others. I never lie about emergencies.
“It IS an emergency. My mother-in-law is sick.”
The phone rang. Sophia was sobbing. The attendant let me go.
It was surreal when I arrived at the home of Sophia’s parents. My FIL was sick in the bedroom, unaware of what was going on.  My MIL was in the living room, a white sheet covering her body. The aide was running back and forth between the two rooms, screaming. Emergency workers and the police were on walkie-talkies. Noisy Russian neighbors were pacing in the hallway of the apartment building.
Sophia arrived, lifted the sheet, and broke down. Her mother’s eyes were still open.
I closed Fanya’s eyes. There was nothing else for her to see in this world. She had gone to another place.
I was scared of touching her eyes, of the gaze of someone who had just passed, as if it was dangerous to me in some ancient superstitious manner, even though I was just sitting at the kitchen table with this exact same person the day earlier, eating borscht, and taking the finished bowl from her warm hands.
Today I received the bill for the eye exam that I never had. But I don’t need an optometrist to tell me that, since that tragic day, I somehow see things differently.
I’ve been anxious and unproductive lately. I looked up my symptoms — back tension, worry, sleepiness — and apparently I have now overcome my old ailments of codependency, people-pleasing, and OCD to catch something new from that sneezy cashier at the pizza place — Generalized Anxiety Disorder, or as the hipsters call it, GAD. Why pay for a therapist when you can do it all yourself?
I’d like to blame BlogHer for all this tension. Buying a ticket to New York for this year’s conference for women (yeah, I know) has opened a whole box of muscle tension. How long should I go? Do I live in NY or LA?  What’s going on with Vartan? What will happen with Sophia when events change?
In order to prevent a total breakdown, I needed to take quick action.
What action?
It didn’t matter.  I have noticed that when you are doing something pro-active, it takes your mind off of worry.  Isn’t that what I learned in that meditation class? I’ve already vastly improved my life by changing my blog template for the first time in five years and creating a new ATM password after using the first name of a schoolmate for decades.
What next?
The red shirt.
This is my favorite shirt. I bought it in college. Here I am wearing it on MY HONEYMOON!
The sands of time have not treated this shirt well. The sleeves are ripped and there are stains in the front from the time I spilled a basket of french fries slathered in ketchup on myself in Portland 2006. Oh, and it is missing a button.
Has there ever been a man who has NOT heard a woman say to him, “I am NOT LEAVING the house if you are wearing that shirt. The invitation said the party is FORMAL!”
Action. Enough with the red shirt from college. I’ve moved on!
P.S. — For the sake of authenticity, let me admit that I created that last line — “I’ve moved on!” — for dramatic effect. In reality, after I took the final photo, I removed the shirt from the garbage bin in the kitchen.  It seemed a cruel way to treat an old friend, like tossing your recently passed-away cat out of the window while driving on the 405 Freeway.
Aha moment! Why not keep the shirt, and use it to dust the house?
Just like I would do with the dead cat.
P.S.S. –Â For the sake of authenticity, I would never do that with a dead cat.
P.S.S.S. — Also, for the sake of authenticity, I have no intention of ever dusting with this shirt.
Sophia asked me to speak at her mother’s funeral instead of her. It was intimidating because most of the attendees at the service only spoke Russian, so as I spoke my eulogy, it was as if I was speaking to Sophia directly. I compared Sophia to her late mother, Fanya. I said that they both showed the same passion for life — for singing, for dancing,for loving, for family, and even for fighting. In the past, telling Sophia that she was acting “like her mother,” would have put me sleeping on the living room couch, but I think this time, it pleased Sophia to hear her being called her mother’s daughter. Sophia misses her mother. Their relationship was very intense. They spoke several times a day.
+++
The rabbi, a Russian-speaking Orthodox Jewish rabbi, knew Fanya from the senior center. He spoke about Fanya before I did, telling everyone how she single-handedly started up an on-site library at the center. I’m surprised that he didn’t immediately understand that Sophia and Fanya were cut from the same strong-willed cloth, because it wasn’t long before Sophia and the rabbi were butting heads. It is a tradition for a close family member to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish memorial prayer, during the burial. To the Orthodox, the most conservative branch of Judaism, this means the closest MALE family member.
“I want to do the Kaddish,” said Sophia. Not only did Sophia know the prayer, she understood the Hebrew, having spent years living in Israel.
“Only men can say the Kaddish at the cemetery,” said the bearded rabbi with the black hat.
“That’s because you’re Orthodox. I’m not.”
“But I’M THE RABBI!”
“That’s true. But this is MY MOTHER.”
That ended the conversation. Sophia read the Kaddish. The rabbi bit his lip. That said, he was a cool guy who had a beautiful singing voice, and said very nice things about Fanya.
+++
The day before the funeral was painful. Although Vartan was in the bedroom when the ambulance arrived for Fanya two days earlier, he still did not know that his wife had passed away. It was time to tell him. Sophia entered the room and pulled a chair next to the bed. Vartan was going in and out of reality, so Sophia had to repeat his name several times before he snapped to attention. Once he heard and understood the news about his wife, the woman who was his everything, who had cared for him day and night for the last six months, he wailed with sorrow, like his soul was stabbed. He was very distraught that he couldn’t attend the funeral. Sophia asked a friend to videotape the funeral for Vartan. I thought it was a bad idea to have him watch the video, but Sophia thought it might give him closure.
After the funeral, we all met in the senior center’s recreation room for food, since no Jewish event is complete without bagels and lox, even during death. Then we went upstairs to see Vartan, thinking of showing him the video. But it was clear that he had returned to daydreaming. He asked her where Fanya was, as if he didn’t remember the earlier conversation, and Sophia didn’t have the heart to tell him again. Sophia told Vartan that she was out shopping.
+++
Sophia has more supernatural leanings than I do. l believe it was a total coincidence that my mother had a flight to visit Los Angeles on the day of the funeral, even though she made the reservations two months ago. Sophia thinks it was fated that she would come to Los Angeles, where her presence was needed. That is difficult for me to accept. Did I attend that zen meditation retreat two weeks ago in order to learn to breath mindfully during stressful situations in preparation for a stressful situation? Did I go on Twitter immediately after learning about Sophia’s mother passing to just happen to find @redneckmommy online, the ideal person to give me advice about keeping a cool head, having dealt with her own family dramas? Does it mean anything that the birthday of my late father was yesterday, reminding me of everything Sophia did for me when my father passed away in 2005? Are Sophia and I supposed to be learning something about the grieving process?
“Do you believe in heaven?” I asked Sophia.
“Not sure,” she answered.
“If there is a heaven, do you think your mother and my father are meeting today?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe they’ll hit it off and make out. It is heaven after all. Free love.”
“My mother would never make out with your father.”
+++
Fanya and I had the perfect son-in-law/mother-in-law relationship. Why? Because we could hardly speak with each other. Her English and my Russian were rudimentary at best. That said, I spent A LOT of time with her, and we learned to communicate in different ways. We pointed, we gestured, we mimed, we faked words that we both agreed upon, a hodgepodge of English, Russian, and Yiddish. Much of our interaction revolved around food — buying food, cooking food, and eating food. The only time I was able to get into serious conversations with Fanya was when Sophia was present to translate. That doesn’t mean I don’t know a lot about her life. I heard many stories about Fanya from Sophia, some I will need to get permission to retell. Let’s just say Sophia’s mother was not afraid of telling her daughter about her sex life. As Vartan got older and sicker, he told his wife to take lovers because he knew how important sex was to her, and was sad that he couldn’t please her anymore. We’re talking about a woman over 75!
I felt a true bond with Fanya, because we had to work so hard to connect, like two deaf or blind people overcompensating with one sense over another. I know this will sound strange, considering we couldn’t speak, but we knew how to make each other laugh. She especially enjoyed my jumbling, mispronunciation of Russian words, such as when I mistakenly asked for “a pair of tits” rather than “two sausages.”
Sophia’s mother passed away on Tuesday. Today is the funeral. It was unexpected, since it was her husband who was bedridden.
Fanya had an interesting and adventurous life, which took her from the horrors of war-torn Soviet Union to present-day Los Angeles, in order to be close to her only child, Sophia. Fanya was so proud when she became an American citizen.
The love of her life was her husband, Vartan. She met him in Odessa, Ukraine, where he was her doctor. They had a long and passionate relationship. Fanya and Vartan were inseparable. When Vartan grew ill six months ago, everyone thought it best to put Vartan in a convalescence home. We told her that it would require too much work. She refused to discuss the issue. Despite having an aide, and the help of her family, Fanya was her husband’s primary caregiver, dealing with all the physical strain and lack of sleep. Even as we saw her weakening from the stress, she refused to leave her husband’s side.
Yesterday, Sophia told Vartan the news of his wife’s passing. He is very distraught, especially about being too ill to attend the funeral.
Out of a total coincidence, my mother had a flight coming to visit us today in LA, so she will be attending as well.
Fanya was a bigger-than-life woman. She was tough in spirit, but also extremely caring to others, and will be very very missed.
If you want to send a message to Sophia, you can do it here or send me an email.
I had a nice weekend with Sophia. Tonight we are sitting in separate rooms. She is in the bedroom, playing online poker on her laptop. I am in my office, writing this nonsense, in between stints on Twitter and Facebook.
There is no conflict between us, between man and woman. It is just a time for reflection, like Yom Kippur. We just want to be alone.
Last week, I vacuumed the house, and when I was done, I left the vacuum standing in the center of my office, still plugged into the wall. It was a passive-aggressive move against myself. I would finish the job, but not quite.
The vacuum is still standing there, in front of the bookcase, like a statue.
On Wednesday, I noticed in the newspaper that “Smuckers Stars on Ice” was playing at the Staples Center on Thursday, for one night.
“Hey, “Stars on Ice” is at Staples tomorrow,” I said to Sophia.
This comment was supposed to be a random piece of information, like “the weather is nice” or “Los Angeles has decided to ban the sale of Arizona brand iced-tea.”
But it was too late, and I was smacking myself in the head a second later.
“Oh yeah? We should go!”
Sophia is a big fan of figure-skating. Over the years, we have attended two National Championships and one World Championship. I immediately back-pedaled after mentioning the event.
“I didn’t mean we should actually go to it. You know how these Stars on Ice shows from TV. They’re like the Ice Capades.  For kids.”
“But Shen and Zhao are there!”
Shen and Zhao are the Gold Medal -winning Pairs team from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.  In 2003, we went to Washington D.C. and we saw them win their second World Championship. Although figure skating competitions can be very tedious, their performance at the World Championship was the single most exciting live sporting event that I had ever seen.   While practicing their quadruple salchow, Shen landed badly and injured her landing foot and ankle. She required several treatments to numb the foot entirely so that she should compete.  The pair performed a brilliant long program that earned them several perfect 6.0’s for both technical merits and presentation. The crowd was on their feet, giving a standing ovation for what seemed like two weeks.
Even with Shen and Zhao in attendance at Stars on Ice, I had no interest in going to see it. I convinced Sophia that we were too busy to go.
I had dodged the bullet.
The next day and a half passed without any mention of axles or Sasha Cohen. On Friday, At 4:30PM (and mind you, the show is at 7:30 in another county), Sophia came upstairs, as I was taking a shower, preparing for a quiet Twitter evening with my iPhone.
“”Stars on Ice” is in ANAHEIM tonight, and I found a ticket broker that can get us tenth row seats!”
I tried to come up with every excuse in the book, from it being too late to appealing to her snobbery:
“Do you really want to see Shen and Zhao in ORANGE COUNTY?”
It didn’t work. Soon, we were on our way to the Honda Arena on Katella Blvd. in Anaheim. Sophia was driving her Prius.
An hour later, we found ourselves parked outside a retirement home on Katella Blvd. in the city of Orange. The location had the exact same address as the Honda Arena, but it was in Orange, not Anaheim.
“Where are we?” asked Sophia.
“Not the Honda Arena. It’s not my fault. You must have put it in the GPS wrong.”
“Don’t be so defensive. The Prius GPS always goes crazy in Orange County.”
“You must have put it in the GPS wrong.”
“OK then. Let’s do it right this time.”
Sophia put the correct address in her GPS again, and it told us we were seventeen miles away from the Honda Arena. Rush hour traffic, very little time left, but Sophia can drive fast, believe you me.
Seventeen miles later, we ended up exactly where we started.
“Well, maybe it’s listed as the Arrowhead Pond, the old name.”
“I’m not running around Orange County anymore. Call the Honda Arena.”
“The Honda Arena?”
“Yes, and ask them for directions.”
“It’s an ARENA. It’s not a Chinese restaurant. No one is ever going to answer and give us directions.”
“Sure they will. Call the box office.”
Stubborn Sophia. I took out my iPhone and instead of calling, found the Honda Arena in the Maps app.
“OK, I found it.”
“No. I don’t want to just go without knowing the exact intersection. I WANT you to call the Honda Arena.”
You see where this discussion was going? It was like 1995 all over again, in the era before Onstar and GPS, when men and women fought over asking directions.  I once wrote a post saying that GPS should win the Nobel Prize for creating peace with married couples driving in their cars all over the world.
Snickering, I called the Honda Arena. They answered immediately and gave me perfect directions. We were three miles away. Humble pie… We finally figured out our way to the arena. Sophia mumbled something about writing a nasty letter to Toyota about their crappy navigation in Orange County.
Because of our navigation mishap, we arrived at the Honda Arena with only ten minutes to spare.
(Three Orange County babes in front of the scary Anaheim Ducks sculpture)
Parking was twenty-five dollars.  I hate paying full price for anything, but not in this case. BUT, Sophia likes a challenge.
“Let’s drive around to see if we can find something cheaper.”
I didn’t want Sophia to miss the beginning of the show, because I knew that would upset her, and I like to play it safe, so I suggested we just park the car for twenty-five dollars.
“Just give me five minutes,” said Sophia.
I was about to call her stubborn, again, but within ten seconds, she came across an ATT installation plant parking lot. An attendant was standing near a huge sign reading “Arena Parking — $10.” We paid the attendant and laughed at our good luck.
Sophia shook her head, as if saying, “That’s exactly your problem. Always playing it safe.”  Or at least I interpreted it that way. Â
Stars on Ice was… above average. Not great, but not as terrible as how it was reviewed by my blogging friend Vicki when she saw it in Washington D.C.   Some of the stars performed at a competition level — Sasha Cohen, Michael Weiss, and Shen and Zhao — while others, most notably Evan Lysecek, seemed to phone it in, waving a lot to his new fans from “Dancing with the Stars.”
And where was Johnny Weir? I heard rumors that he might have been deemed too “different” for mainstream America. Is that true? (If I had known this about Johnny Weir, I wouldn’t have gone at all!)
The weirdest part of the evening was when Sophia convinced me to take a promotional photo in front of a cardboard cut-out of the figure-skaters, because she thought it would be hilarious.
As the crowds left the arena and headed to the overpriced parking lots, Sophia and I whistled happily and crossed the street, reveling in our fifteen dollars saved by smartly parking in the back of the ATT plant.   Upon our arrival at the lot, we were surprised at its relative emptiness. We were the only passenger car in the parking lot, now filled with huge ATT trucks. The attendant who took our money was nowhere to be seen, and the “Arena Parking – $10” sign was gone, revealing the message that was hidden on the sign behind it —
We figured it out. This was just some guy who covered the ATT parking lot sign with his — not related to the lot at all – and then disappeared after he made a few bucks from suckers like us.
“We were lucky we didn’t get towed. But then again, that would have been some blog post.” said Sophia.
Still, with fifteen dollars saved in parking, despite being scammed, it was time to spend our extra dough.
“Frozen yogurt!” said Sophia.
“We can go to Yogurtland when we get near home.”
But Sophia seemed disappointed. She wanted adventure. She wanted me to take out my iPhone and find an “interesting” frozen yogurt store on Yelp as we drove down the 405.
A few minutes later, it was Mission Accomplished. We found a unique frozen yogurt store.  Not only did the frozen yogurt store have nightly karaoke, they also sold CLAM CHOWDER!
“Why do you sell clam chowder?” the ever-friendly Sophia asked the Korean woman behind the counter.
“In the winter, frozen yogurt was selling poorly because it was too cold outside, so we decided to also sell bowls of clam chowder.”
The year, 2010, started out promising, like the Goodyear blimp rising over the city, a whirring airship ascending slowly and elegantly, graceful in appearance, like a modern dancer.
“Happy New Year,” I screamed at midnight on December 31, drunk on champagne at the party at Joyce’s apartment on the Upper East Side. It would be a good year!
It is now May. Hmm… what happened?
I’ve always loved the Goodyear blimp. “The Spirit of America” is stationed near my home in Redondo Beach, and on weekends, it flies over our home as it heads for the beach or some sports event in Pasadena.  If you are in the bedroom at the right moment, and glance out the bedroom window, you can see the shadow of the blimp covering the outside patio, like a huge umbrella giving shade.
What a joy it must be to pilot such a majestic blimp!  What an aerial view it must be from inside — not cold and distant like the view from a run-of-the-mill commercial airliner, miles above the ground — but close and intimate, only a few helium bursts away, looking down at the houses below, like toys for the playing.
I started 2010 like a pilot in command of a Goodyear Blimp. Â It was going to be a very good year.
But even a good year can be darkened by murky clouds, few pinpoints of light cutting through the gray mist.
It’s been five months since I returned to Los Angeles. A broken hip of my father-in-law, Vartan, has morphed into one problem after another. Despite the advice his doctors, his wife, Fanya, refused to put Vartan into an assisted living home.  And who can blame her? She loves her husband. But it hasn’t been easy. Caring is a full time job.
Vartan is in the hospital again, with pneumonia and an infection.  Sophia and her mother are fighting with each other after Fanya fired the full-time aide.  Caring for my FIL has opened old wounds that can’t be fixed at a hospital.
And I’m… well, I’m still around.
Everyone is exhausted.
Today I took Sophia into bed. Actually, I grabbed her and told her to GET INTO BED.  I told her we both needed to shut up — not talk about anything — and hug. We hugged and slept for seven hours.
It was nice. But I could hear the Goodyear blimp flying overhead, still hidden in the clouds.
On Thursday, I was sleeping at my friend’s house (that is another story, one in which I will avoid discussing at the moment), when I received the Bat signal.
Literally.
I programmed Sophia’s ringtone as the 1960’s Batman song, because lately her calls mean someone is in trouble.
“Vartan is back in the hospital,” she said.
I wouldn’t say that I was surprised. Even though we hired an aide, caring for my father-in-law has been difficult, especially as his decline continues.  My mother-in-law, looking ragged from the stress, still refused to place her beloved husband into a nursing home, despite the advice of doctors.
By Saturday, my mother in law was so exhausted, she was unable to visit her husband in the hospital. I volunteered to watch over my father-in-law during the day.
It was freezing in the room. They keep these rooms cool to prevent infection. I wrapped an extra blanket around my shoulders. My father-in-law was completely out of it, drugged up many times over.
I sat there, bored with listening to the whoosh of oxygen in tubes.  I went on Twitter, chatting with whoever showed up at the time.
That’s when I received the bat signal.  I answered the phone.  It was Sophia.  An ambulance was whisking her mother to the hospital.  She was having trouble breathing.
Husband and wife, both at the same hospital.  This is not that uncommon; I later learned this from one of the nurses. For the next two hours on Saturday, I ran back and forth between the emergency room and my father-in-law’s room.
I think my mother-in-law will be OK after a few days in the hospital.  In fact, the first thing she said to Sophia when she arrived was to point at me and say something in Russian.  I assumed that she was touting me as a wonderful caretaker.
“What did she say?” I asked Sophia.
“She says you need to comb your hair. You look like a homeless person!”
That night, I went to sleep at 7PM.
Today is Monday. I’m currently in the Cedars Sinai Hospital cafeteria eating lunch. My father in law is on the fifth floor of the North Tower.  My mother-in-law is on the fifth floor of the South Tower.  My father-in-law does not know his wife is so close.   It is probably better that way.
Neil Kramer has been writing about his life online since 2005. He has worked for Disney and HBO. Neil lives in NYC. You can contact him at neilochka on yahoo.
