An observant writer's take on relationships, health, living in Chicago, unusual experiences, the news, retirement, books, hobbies, volunteering, smart shopping, and anything else that's on my mind
When you’re facing major surgery, your surgeon will load you down with information. At the first meeting with the Midwest Orthopedics surgeon who would replace my right knee, she gave me a folder with two dozen pages about the procedure, medication, exercises, frequently asked questions, a preparation checklist, and a postoperation guide. I went home from surgery with another folder. But all the information still didn’t forestall surprises, including these.
In a recent letter to the Asking Eric advice column in the Chicago Tribune, a homeowner wrote that her walls and ceiling had been painted the wrong colors. The store gave the wrong paints to the painter, who didn’t check the cans.
“Who’s at fault here?,” she asked. “Is this just a live and learn situation?”
While saying the store may have gotten the paint codes wrong, Eric blamed the painter: “He should have checked the product he was receiving before he left the store. . . . He should have offered to fix his mistake, if not for free, then for a discount.”
Eric added, however, that “sometimes mistakes can’t be painted over.” I’ve lived with those kinds of mistakes.
An estimated one in five Americans is expected to have a knee or a hip replaced at some point. I’ll be one of them as of December 4.
Recovery time varies; I hope to meet or better the average of three months for knee replacement. For the first three weeks after surgery, when a physical therapist will come to me, I probably won’t go out and may not stand for more than 10 minutes. After that I will go for orthopedic follow-up and physical therapy but don’t yet know what else I’ll be able to do.
The orthopedic surgeon provided a list of every medical to-do before knee surgery. I’m making another list of what I’ll need at home afterward. Here’s what I’ve thought of so far. If you’ve had a joint replaced, please tell me what else to take care of.
Note to Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones:
Hi, Chris.
I was surprised by all of the reviews highly recommending Mr. Wolf.
[Deleted my thoughts about the play, which most readers of this blog probably haven’t seen.]
What I'm really writing about is that my reactions so often don't converge with the critics' that it makes me feel I'm not bright or perceptive, despite evidence to the contrary in other aspects of my life. Or maybe I'm not sophisticated enough for a cutting-edge theater like Steppenwolf. But isn't theater for ordinary folks, too?
Thanks for listening.
Marianne Goss
Megan, a friend who retired more recently than I, said that a couple of people had advised her to plan what to do post work. “Did people tell you that?,” she asked.
It’s not advice I would have given to Megan, as active as she is. As I thought about whether retirees need an activity plan, my mind roamed over how various friends approached that new phase.
Political commentators are offering their insights after yesterday’s killing of Donald Trump ally Charlie Kirk. Trump blamed the rhetoric of “the radical left” for political violence, saying, “[I]t is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”
Is he forgetting his own words?
The late August cool spell has been a welcome reprieve from Chicago’s oppressively hot, humid summer.
Multiple heat waves dogged us in June, July, and early August, and the heat index — the temperature-humidity combination indicating how hot it actually feels to us — neared 110 degrees some days. It was so hot the record overnight low temperature was broken four times in late June. Canada sent us smoke from wildfires, temporarily making our air quality the worst in the world.
We were advised to stay inside so often it might as well have been winter. As of mid-August, I had not gone to one outdoor concert. Most summers, I enjoy my balcony a lot. This year I’d step out and immediately return to air conditioning.
It wasn’t just the weather that kept me indoors, however. It was also a knee constrained by arthritis. Maybe I should be grateful for their simultaneous occurrence. It might have felt worse to be kept in by my knee in fine weather, or by the heat when I was primed to be out.
While training for a volunteer tutoring role, I came across a quiz that seemed like a fun break from sight words and writing prompts. Language learning site Babbel identifies where you’re from based on answers to 15 questions about pronunciation and word choices.
It told me I’m from the Pacific Northwest. I’ve spent no more than a week there and all but four years in Illinois and Wisconsin.
Before the blank dark screen appeared, while the laptop had thin horizontal lines across its lower half but was still usable, I searched for ways to fix it. None worked, but I learned that MacBook Airs with Apple’s M1 chip are prone to mysterious screen cracks. Thousands of people have reported on Reddit and Apple Communities that their M1 MacBook screens have cracked for no apparent reason. Like them, I hadn’t dropped the laptop or banged down the lid.
When a housecleaner I recently hired took six hours to clean just the kitchen and the bathroom, I was surprised that two small rooms required so much time. Also chagrined about how much dirt I must not have noticed.
My condo had not looked so messy to me. I clean weekly — dusting, vacuuming, mopping, and wiping appliances, fixtures, and countertops.
What’s done weekly, however, is so-called regular cleaning. What Jenni, the housecleaner, did was deep cleaning from a list I made. She washed cabinet doors, wiped the refrigerator shelves, and painstakingly scrubbed the stovetop grates, bathtub, tile, grout, and bathroom and kitchen floors.
“That is an issue for another day,” I ended my July 7 post about giving up fish. When I looked into the issue — the treatment of dairy cows and laying hens — I was horrified.
After a half-century of not eating meat, I’m giving up fish as well. Two things happened to nudge me toward that decision.
I was delighted to buy a pair of Dolce Vita sneakers at TJ Maxx for $24, discounted 84%. I didn’t know the brand but figured that for the original price they should be first-rate.
“You’ve got nothing on me,” I crowed to myself when walking by people in Hokas.
At home, I asked Google whether Dolce Vita shoes were good for being on one’s feet for hours. I want supportive shoes for Chicago Greeter tours and volunteer shifts at the Anti-Cruelty Society, especially now that I’m having knee problems. “Dolce Vita shoes generally receive mixed reviews regarding their quality,” came the AI-generated reply. “They are better known for style than performance.” I returned the shoes.
For Northerners who garden with annuals, May is always a fraught month. When is it safe for us to plant?
The usual answer is around May 15 or Mother’s Day, when frosts are no longer expected. But even if a frost isn’t in the forecast, temperatures in the 40s can stunt warm-weather annuals. As the Chicago Botanic Garden says on its website, “In May, it pays to be patient and flexible.”
My book group recently read The Sea by Irish novelist John Banville. All seven of us were disappointed.
Its first-person narrator is an unlikable, self-absorbed misanthrope who recently lost his wife but is more focused on a 50-years-ago loss. He spends his days ruminating about the past but not learning from it. I felt indifferent to his fate.
Especially frustrating for me was the excess of multisyllabic unfamiliar words. I asked our group, “Why do you suppose he always chose a big word instead of a small one?” “To show off,” someone said, and nobody disagreed.
I don’t like novels that seem to have no point except to flaunt how well the author can write.
This coming Sunday evening, May 4, Miss Austen, a four-part series highlighting the bond between the novelist Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra, will premiere on public television.
Being a huge Janeite, I’m thrilled. After the first episode, those of us who have PBS Passport — which comes with a $60 annual contribution to WTTW or your local PBS station — will be able to stream the other three episodes at our leisure.
Passport is the only streaming service I pay for. I’m out of the loop during conversations about programs on other platforms, but Passport is enough for me.
If you are an AARP member, you received its March/April Bulletin with FRAUD in three-inch red letters on the cover. Inside, five articles discussed the increasing problem of scams.
I didn’t read them, thinking I was too savvy to be scammed.
The week after putting the issue into the recycle bin, I fell for a scam. I’m embarrassing myself by telling about it in the hope that my story will warn others.
A few months ago I wrote about trying to avoid “a state of constant agitation over the news from Washington.” The plan involved differentiating between essential and nonessential stories.
Skipping over a lot of news hasn’t make me calmer. I’ve felt similar to the Germans who ignored Hitler’s villainy.
I’d not thought that the strip of six uncovered lightbulbs above my bathroom vanity is ugly and outdated until I read that it is.
Known as Hollywood lighting, it’s “just ugly and out of fashion,” proclaimed House Digest. “The bulbs stick out like a sore thumb and completely ruin the room’s aesthetic.”
Then I kept thinking that I should replace the vanity lighting.
Caring about my home’s showiness was so not me when I lived in a vintage three-story building of modest condos valued at under $200,000. Now living in a downtown high-rise, I see how neighbors whose condos are worth two and three times more than mine are remodeling. I try to resist comparing.
Decluttering advice like döstädning (Swedish “death cleaning”) and KonMari tidying can leave us feeling that we’ve failed if we don’t strip our homes to the bare bones.
As I attempted döstädning — clearing out unnecessary belongings so that others don’t have to do it when we’re gone — it became apparent that I was not disposing of everything unused.
New York Times headline: “Your cat may actually like you”
Vox headline: “What research says about cats: they’re selfish, unfeeling, environmentally harmful creatures”
Two articles with widely different conclusions. Both cite research studies.
My memory of breast biopsies in 2001 and 2006 is foggy. Any anxiety must have been wiped out by hearing “benign.”
This time I tried to tamp down anxiety with knowledge. When a screening mammogram results in a callback for which you have to wait three weeks, and then the diagnostic mammogram results in a biopsy appointment for which you have to wait another four weeks, there’s plenty of time to research the situation.
Sharing what I learned may reduce the stress of women headed for biopsies because they, like me, have suspicious-looking microcalcifications. It calmed me somewhat beforehand to know that whatever the biopsy finding (it was benign), microcalcifications are not going to kill me.