Thank you all for your good wishes. Lulu is now in a rehab hospital, chugging up and down the corridor with her government-issued walker which she complains is not as good as her ''Cadillac'' back home, the one with the seat and the basket. She is getting great care from the friendly nursing staff to whom I have been passing on the cookies and candies and treats that I try to politely accept from the visitors. (Me screaming silently inside: WHAT?? Do either of us look like we can afford to eat two pounds of baklava followed by a lemon pound cake chaser???)
The place is not air conditioned. But that's not the worst of it. There is no cable, let alone digital cable. I only have dial-up -- which is painfully slow -- and if I use it then I cut my Mom off from all her little old lady pals.
Last week, or was it two weeks ago, I have so lost track of time, when that Air France jet crashed, I heard about it from a nurse. I was totally crazed. Not a pretty sight. I ended up calling friends in Toronto to read to me the stories being posted on the Star's web site.
But it's not all bad.
Just after dawn, my cousin Eirini, with whom I am bunking in, drags my sorry butt out of bed and marches me up and around the mountain. Montreal is beautiful. The architecture so much more interesting that uptight Toronto. I find art deco flourishes in the most humble fire stations and on modest low-rise apartment buildings. I can stand staring for hours at some neighbourhood banks. They're almost sexy.
In Toronto all the lines are straight and all the angles right.
Eirini's apartment is mostly media free. There's a TV, somewhere, which I have yet to turn on. No radios that I can find. She has this complicated B&O stereo with speakers in the walls of every room but I can't figure out the remote control. (She listens to chick music anyway; I saw a Michael Bolton CD in her stack.) Weird not to get out of bed and walk around with Newsworld or CNN or Fox blasting at me from every room like they do back home.
I know back home it looks like CBC workers are going to be on the picket line. I missed Bob Novak's meltdown. I have been catching snippets of news about Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside George W. Bush's ranch. There was V-mail from various news organizations asking me to talk about Peter Jennings and the future of network news. It all kind of washes over me.
I like the silence: In it, I can hear what's really important to me right now.
I should be back early next week.
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