In honor of guitar legend Jeff Beck, who died this week at age 78, let’s have Beck joining Stevie Wonder at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 25th Anniversary concert. They’re performing “Superstition”, which Wonder wrote for Beck in 1972.
Crank up the volume.
Last week I shared my dining experiences in Lyon with you. Let’s move on to Arles, along the mouth of the Rhône. Three nights, two restaurants. These were the most neighborly experiences (except for one restaurant in Paris), I think. All three meals were like comfort food.
The weather was warm enough for my first evening meal to be on
the terrasse, which in the case of Le Criquet was between two buildings. It was
like eating on someone’s patio.
I also liked my server’s kicks.
I started with a kir, because the restaurant doesn’t have
sparkling wine.
Then to fish soup, which you eat by rubbing garlic cloves onto a
crouton, dropping it into the soup and spooning it up. All over the patio I
heard people crunching their soup.
The main was fish and vegetables.
And dessert was citron meringue—basically, lemon pie. Really, really good lemon pie.
This is how they deliver the bill:
Next night I walked around the block to Bistrot Populaire, which
faces the Roman arena.
The interior of the restaurant has about 14 tables, so I was
glad I’d reserved. It was definitely too cold for me to deal with the terrasse,
although there were some hardy souls who did.
Do you remember this guy? Yeah, this is where I encountered him and his shirt.
The starters on the menu did not interest me, so I went with the
daurade, which turned out to be a whole fish. My server asked if I wanted her to
deal with it, but I decided I should take on the challenge, which I hoped to do
without embarrassing myself.
Dessert was fondant au chocolat, which we would call lava cake.
Stellar.
Back at Le Criquet the last night it was too cold for outside,
so this is the cozy interior. Again—glad the hotel booked for me.
Had a glass of rosé, since I was, after all, in Provence.
A huge surprise for me was the Jerusalem artichoke salad. This was so amazing, I sent pix of it to colleagues.
I have to say that as I sit here eating my yoghurt and granola
and writing this, I miss these wonderful restaurants that gave me wonderful
meals and absolutely no attitude. It was like dropping in on your friends—your friends
who cook really, really well.
I do not know whether this is a local tradition, or something of recent origin. I mean—every culture (even micro ones) has its way of ushering in the New Year.
This being several traffic cones that were incinerated on the
W&OD Trail sometime in the night or early morning hours of 1 January.
I saw the little pile from a distance and was afraid that it
might be an animal that died—what a way to welcome 2023, right? So I was
relieved when I got closer to realize it was just charred plastic.
I did, however, wonder what kind of fire you have to have to
melt down plastic like that—I sort of feel that matches or even your normal Bic
lighter wouldn’t be enough. Flamethrower? I dunno.
Something different, I guess.
I mentioned yesterday that Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has its limitations that are distinct from ours here in the US.
Partly it’s because whenever my English friend needs medical
care outside of the most basic services from her General Practitioner, there’s
no calling up to schedule appointments at times convenient to her. She waits for
a snailmail letter from the specialist org, which dictates when they’ll deign
to see her. The appointment could be weeks or months out and there’s no
negotiating that at that particular date/time she needs to attend the wedding
of a child, defend her dissertation or be on a cruise ship off the coast of
Antarctica. She just writes down the appointment and shows up.
But what was in my mind foremost was this Twitter thread over
the weekend from someone I follow:
This man was betrayed by the NHS; he had to take things into his own hands and still died. The NHS is collapsing under the weight of an aging population
and decades of underinvestment by successive governments, particularly under
the Tories. And this is the result.
My knees first became problematic in 2009. Physical therapy and running shoes with a greater stability factor took care of them. Two years later I had arthroscopy to clean the arthritic debris out, which helped. Until I needed cortisone shots and then hyaluronic acid, which took me through to 2020; at that point, the injections stopped helping.
But it was a flare up last June that got my attention, because
the pain was unremitting for the two weeks it took to get an appointment with
an orthopedist. Cortisone and physical therapy got me through Singapore,
and I got a top-up of cortisone before France,
but it was clear within a week that its therapeutic effects had worn off.
I actually made some decisions about where to go while in France
by asking myself, “Self, do you want to go up/down those stairs? Or that hill?”
I do not fancy living like that, and I was literally limping when I got off the
return flight.
So on 26 January, I’m scheduled for total knee replacement
surgery. The surgeon won’t do both knees at once, which is a bummer, because
both need replacing, so I’m starting with the right one; accelerator leg over
clutch. It’s out-patient—isn’t that amazing? The technology and treatment for
joint replacement has advanced exponentially since they started doing it, so
this ought to last the rest of my life.
There will be post-op pain, which I hope will be manageable. And
physical therapy—the Rx is for three months of that at twice a week. Plus, you
know, doing the exercises at home. The expectation is that you get up and about
right away—surgery is on a Thursday; first PT appointment is the following
Monday.
You need a lot of prep work for this kind of surgery—labs,
medical clearance from my PCP, dental clearance, CT scan, viewing a “you and
your joint replacement” video, registering on a gazillion sites. I created a
spreadsheet to keep track of it all.
(A British friend of mine thought it disgraceful that I had to
do this, but this is the difference between a single healthcare supplier that
dictates—literally—all your appointments and the fact that I have choices among
multiple providers, and schedule appointments at, mostly, my convenience. She
has to trust that all the NHS components will line everything up for her when
she needs a procedure—even though it’s quite clear that many parts of the NHS
do not tick along like clockwork. I am responsible for lining up all the ducks
for my care myself. Because we have a for-profit medical system, this also
means I have my Flexible Spending Account card out for every service. My co-pay
for the CT scan was more than $300.)
Because I made the mistake of including my mobile phone number
on all the forms, I’ve also had to fend off attempts by the hospital and other
providers to get me to access their portals via mobile. I do not fill out forms
on a tiny screen; a 14” laptop monitor is bad enough. They keep trying; I keep
telling them to stop.
(They make mobile phone number a required field. What are people
without mobiles supposed to do? Not have surgery?)
I know I’ve made the right decision, because every single day
the pain becomes a little worse. By the time I’m done with a mere 7k steps on
my morning walk, I’m gritting my teeth. It’s time to take action.
And something I find encouraging is that every single person I
speak with who has had the procedure done, or knows someone who has, says, “I’m
only sorry I didn’t get it done sooner.” I’m looking forward to that kind of
relief.
Well, it’s Gratitude Monday, so here’s the deal. I’m grateful
that there is treatment to alleviate this pain. That I have an excellent
surgeon (he cleared up my rotator cuff a couple of decades ago). That this is
an out-patient procedure and—barring unexpected things—I’ll be home that
evening. That I have a great physical therapist who is helping me prepare for
the surgery and will take me through rehab. That I have reasonably good
healthcare insurance, so I can afford all of this. That I have (for the moment)
a job that ensures I can pay for all the co-pays. That I have friends who can help me through all the rough bits. That I can look forward to a
future of not having to make touring decisions based on avoiding hills and
stairs.
That’s a lot.