Serious Stuff

Fiorella has looked death in the face twice so far, and to save her life, she had to have a pacemaker, then an artifical heart valve, installed in her chest. Her scrapes with eternity made her acutely aware that her visit to earth is limited, and she decided she'd better make good use of every minute of every day remaining.After all, third time is the charm.
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Personal Stuff

Fiorella is the filet mignon of the mosquito world, which means that when she sprays her arms and legs, they go after her less protected flesh, and since Fio sleeps with covers drawn up to her chin to defend herself while she's asleep, they feast on her face, which is now decorated with five new bites. Fio is not happy
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It turns out that Fio has been usimg the wrong term for her driveway guardians. Instead of rocas, they are piedras. Rocas are more boulder size, and Fio can't lift over thirty-five pounds. Mea cultpa.
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Fiorella doesn't see much future for Young Sheldon. It was cute idea with a cute cast of kids, but what is ithe show's targeted audience?  The main character is a kid, but children aren't going to warm to a weird, totally non-empathetic know-it-all. And if Sheldon develops empathy every week as quickly as he responded to his father in the pilot, he's going to be as considerate as Leonard when he reaches his twenties. Also, Fio doesn't think a precocious child can carry the show as the main character. It would have been better if Sheldon's mother had been the main character, like Leonard is in BBT. An outrageous character like Sheldon isn't interesting unless he plays off of a more stable character.
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The vet prescribed the same ointment for Sonia Dog's pussy eyes that Fio's ophthamalagist told her to put on her healing eyelids. Wonder which prescription costs less?
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The young actress who plays Linda, the sister who teases her sister and is mean to her brother's wife on Mi Marido Tiene Familia, is destined for a great career as a telenovela villainess, if she'd just enlarge that mole to the left side of her lip. A prominent facial mole is a sure mark of female villainy in Spanish-language soap operas.

Three Confessions

When you spot errors or misspellings in her blog, it's because Fiorella wrote the it during the evening hours, when her brain is half-asleep. Or because she wrote it during the day, when her mind is preoccupied with daily living. Or the dog was disreacting her. Or the sun was in her eyes. Or she just plain made a mistake. Sorry.
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Fio's Spanish-language soap opera is really heating up, and she loves every dram-filled moment of it. Robert is beginning to remember his childhood as Juan Pablo, the goods and the bads of it, the latter of which is that his Aunt Ana, who never did like him, was the one who shoved him through the orphanage door and slammed it shut. Meanwhile his new-found mother and grandmother are driving his live-in-fiance, Julieta, nuts with their efforts to bring her into the family. And then there's Linda, one of Robert's new-found sisters, who's determined to break up his relationship with Julieta. And that's just for starters.
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Fio does not have a good reputation with some of her more eco-concious friends. Not only does she
favor the trapping and elimination of armadillos, but she's planted invasive, non-native trees and bushes in her garden area. Sorry, ladies, but armadillos are nasty creatures that ravage gardens and lawns, and the only decorative flora that can thrive in the hill country are tough cookies like fontinias, nandenas, boxwoods, bayberries, and palmettos.

Solutions and Declarations

Sonia Dog started out sleeping on the floor beside Fiorella's bed in a puppy-size crate, then moved on to a mastiff-size one, then insisted the crate wasn't big enough and its door needed to be left open, then hopped into bed with Fio and slept at her feet, then pushed Fio out of bed so she could have more room. Now Fio is thinking of getting herself a crate. With a lock.
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 Axovant's new Alzheimer's drug doesn't work any better than anyone else's. Obviously, something is going on in the Alzheimer brain that no one can quite put a finger on. Time to think outside the box.
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Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) who "took a knee" in Congress: "I KNEEL because I am going to STAND gainst racism."💓
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Fio is in sorrow over everything that is happening in DC now, but a tiny part of her rejoices over the material she's getting for her Trump opera. Just think--a chorus of dancing footballers, a Trump-Kim Jung Un duet ("Anything you can bomb, I can bomb better..."), with a background Mueller padding around in the background.
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But Fio, you say, WHAT ABOUT PHILLIPA? Well, she's on her way again. Fio's getting her life back in order (translation: Baby Car rejoined the family yesterday afternoon) and is about to start her revision of chapter sixteen. This is just the fourth revision, which means there are at least three more to come, but there's light at the end of the tunnel.

Nature Notes

Fio had decided not to deal with las rocas yet, but as she walked up the driveway, they called out to her, so what choice did she have?
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After a brief late-summer break, the cardinal is hammering away at the dining room window again. Maybe he's hungry. Sorry, Red, the armadillo has eaten all the grubs and worms.
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As Fiorella got out of the car at H-E-B, she noticed that not only was the parking area littered with acorns, but the front of the store was piled high with pumpkins. Despite the temperatures being in the 90s, it looks like October is waiting in the wings.
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Speaking of wings, will the mosquitoes ever depart? Trying to plant a new bush out front, Fio was kissed up and down her left arm, and the stings still hurt. Her only consolation is that obviously she's the belle of the ball. .

Learning Spanish the Friendly Way

Fiorella is quite satisfied with the language-learning set-up she's put together. She watches a Spanish language soap opera five hours a week and thus observes the language in context. It also helps her pick up rhythm, accent, and cultural behaviors. Her telenovelas are backed up with a Spanish textbook, a "Spanish in Ten Minutes A Day" book, Google's "Translator," and crib notes in Spanish taped on everything in the house.  Most important, though, are friends and relatives who speak Spanish: Rachel Sonntag, Raquel Luna, Jane Perrine, Fernando Barriga, Patricia Carando, Anne Marie Valerio, and the many kind waiters, sales people, and strangers whom Fio has imposed on.

Linguistic training and a good ear have also helped. When one has learned bits and pieces of German, French, Russian, and Spanish as a child, then studied Latin for five years, then added a semester of German, two semesters of Hindi, two of Sanskrit, three years of Telugu, and passed a French reading exam after only six weeks of study, you can bet the mind involved has figured out how to learn languages.

Looking back, Fio doesn't think the standard classroom would have worked for her. On line programs certainly didn't--she found them repetitive, boring, and not at all related to her life--but the combination of telenovelas, textbooks, Translator, crib notes, and friends and relatives seems to be doing the trick.

Wish Fio well.

Behind the Scenes

Oops. Fiorella accidentally set yesterday's post to pop up in the evening rather than in the morning. That can happen if she isn't careful.

The life of a blogger is fraught with peril. Fio has also been known to double post, cut off the edges of pictures, and have to come back post-publication and rewrite.   She confesses that some days she has to wrack her brain to come up with a good topic, but other times, her cerebral cortex seethes with activity and she produces four or five posts and lines them up for the week. Yes, the date and time on her posts is when she wants them to be published rather than when she actually wrote them, and--keep this a secret--by pre-dating a couple of years, she is able to use her blog as a storage unit for whatever she wants to remember--story ideas, dialogue, Spanish words, experiences, poetry, whatever.

Crap. This this blog has been rewritten four times, but it still doesn't sound right. Oh well. Maybe Fio will revise it this afternoon.

5:07pm. AND SHE DID.

Fiorella's Life (La Vida de Fiorella)

Phillipa is having a great time with her Spanish (espanol) now (ahora). Basically, she (ella) is teaching herself, which (que) means she (ella) has no one to practice with, and thus isn't moving as fast as she would in a classroom.  But, even though she just works (trabaja) on it about fifteen minutes a day (quince minutos por dia), she's not only understanding the Spanish (el espanol) better, but is able to construct simple sentences (frases).
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Fiorella is back in the saddle again writing-wise. Yesterday (ayer), for the first time since her surgery (cirugia), she took up pen and paper (pluma y papel) and revised one more chapter (uno mas capitulo) of Phillipa's story (la historia de Phillipa). Tomorrow (manana), she'll take on another chapter (un otro capitulo).
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Beware (cuidado)! Fio is feeling restless regarding (sobre) her art ( su art). Maybe it's time to get out the old paints and palette againe (nueveo).
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Did she tell you about her latest outdoor project? Fio's been pulling fallen branches out of the woods and piling them along the driveway (entrada de coche) for the yardman to take to the dump next month (el proximo mes). She's got her eye (su ojo) on some biggies too (tambien), now (ahora) that she's almost totally recovered from her surgery (cirugia). And yes (si), you guessed it--she's started throwing her rocks (sus rocas) around again too (de nueveo tambien).
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Fiorella also (tambien) has to squeeze a little detective work in tomorrow (manana). She suspects that her wonderful neighbor (vecino), Michael Brown, has mowed the lengthy strip of grass (hierba) on her side of the fence again (de nueveo), which is very kind of him. Fio likes to walk (quiere andar) the line.

Washington Update According to Fio

Fiorella is gleeful that her prediction about Sean Spicer has come true, that no matter how much he laughs at himself and admits he was lying the whole time he was Trump's mouthpiece, he can't get a broadcasting job.  Does he really expect kiss-and-make-up from a news world he berated and betrayed?

Meanwhile John Kelly looks like a man about to throw up every time Trump speaks on camera, and the other Kelly, Kellyanne Conway, is still in the White House basement, where most of us hope she stays.

Interesting that those anti-Hillary ads on Facebook are being traced back to Russia. During the election, Fiorella kept inquiring about where the heck the pcture-posts were coming from, but she opined they were being run off in some Trumpster's basement. Never guessed the source was a Kremlin boiler room.

But meanwhile, Trump sails on. 😨😨😨

Writing, Looks, Spicer, Miata, Mother, Spanish

Fiction imitates life and life imitates fiction. Writers strive for realism, no matter how fantastic, and readers absorb and act out the people they read about, hero or villain.
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Fio's theory is that a woman can  get away with anything if she smiles and her hair looks good.
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Maybe Sean Spicer will write a tell-all book and save Mueller the trouble of supoenaing him.
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Fiorella is an antique driving an antique. Her Miata is fifteen years old now, and Fiorella loves Baby Car dearly. Thank you to all the good guys at Mazda who have been taking care of Baby--and Fio--through the years. People like Richard.
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Mother was horrified when Fiorella suggested keeping a Kleenex box on the back shelf of the family car like Mrs. Kochman did. A car, to Mom, should not have anything in it but people and (in the trunk) groceries.
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Want to learn how to tell time in Spanish? Go to StudySpanish.com/grammar/lessons/time#. Want to learn how to type Spanish accent marks and tildes? Go to any one of several how-to lists on the web. Fio's INR nurse, Marie Valerio put her onto the latter, but the former, Fio happened onto by herself.

Bad Day

As if it weren't enough that Fio spent a couple of hours at Mazda on Monday, only to learn that her engine light wouldn't go off because she hadn't tightened down the gas tank lid. As if it weren't enough that her brake light wouldn't go off on Tuesday, and she'll have to take the car in again this morning, hoping to get it back in time to meet with Evelyn, then Paula, in Austin. As if it weren't enough that her computadora has been pinging off at random times for two days, although when she left it at Click Computer Repair yesterday afternoon, it behaved like an angel. As if all these things weren't enough, Fiorella, who watches very little television, had to choose between Mi Marido Tiene Familia and The Little Couple last night. She chose the former, of course, because Little Couple will be rebroadcast at some point, but her teeth are gRRRRRRRRRRRRinding.

OFF THE ROAD

This is an oil Fiorella painted years ago when she was in an outdoorsy phase. The little house was off Dessau Roadand the road was wet from the rain. Husband parked the car off to the side and Fio unloaded her easel, paint, and brushes, then prayed no one came out of the house with a rifle in hand.

Art and Fiorella

 As usual, Fio is the dissenter, the odd man out, altough she likes to think of herself as the voice in the wilderness, the child who cries "the emperor has no clothes" because she sees the "art world" is a fake, a giant con. "Modern art" is nonsense. Do you realy think a giant tennis ball is worth three million?
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Fiorelle wanted to major in art when she went to college, but her mother discouraged her, saying it wouldn't pay, and Mom was right. Not per se, and not because Fio didn't have the talent,  but because she couldn't have handled the BS that goes along with a BFA. Fio is an intense realist, and she would have stomped through the flutter and nonsense of art  college like a bull in a china shop. Oh, another reason it wouldn't have worked out, as she discovered when she took a couple of classes, is that women were second class citizens in art school.
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"Art" and "creativity" are not synonymous. "Creativity" is a blanket term that covers not only art, but composition, writing, design, invention, and saving the world.
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Some people talk art. Fio IS art, and it's not always that comfortable. She sees too much and wants to rearrange everything, including herself.
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One thing Fio is not is technological, but if she were, she would seal this blog with one of her paiintings or drawings. Next time, maybe.

Fiorella Staggers On

Austin son, wfe and child visited yesterday and Fiorella was thrilled. Baby is wiggling around, making noises, and responding to everything now. Fio got to hold her a lot, and she didn't even wince at her grandmother's Halloween face. The same can't be said of Son. He kept telling Fiorella how awful she looked.
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Later in the afternoon, after they had left, Fiorella grabbed the pruners and went outside, but her limited  vision, the heavy heat, and a determined mosquito drove her back inside again.Then, in the evening, she ran her hand across the remains of the dried blood butterfly gauze and accidentally hooked her finger in it, pulling enough of the bandage loose than her wound started to bleed again. Pressure and a Hello Kitty bandaid took care of the situation, but Fio is doing her best to move around as little as possible.
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It's twenty days now since Fio has been able to work on her novel, and she is not happy about the time loss. Each day that passes, she's losing touch with Phillipa and Bram. Wish her well.

Anagrams, Dog Training, Stored-Up Notes

It's interesting how the mind will train itself if given half a chance. When Fio starting working newspaper anagrams a couple of years ago, she had to write out the jumbled letters on individual slips of paper and move them aroundinto various configurations to figure out each word. This morning, she looked at the anagrams one by one and nailed them. It's a matter of separating the vowels from the consonants and identifying morphemes. (Not to say that Fio still doesn't get whomped every now and then.)
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Two years ago, Fio and Husband stopped requiring Sonia Dog to "sit" because she had a lame leg and the posture was painful for her, but Fio's started it up again. Sonia's ankle problem is healed, and she needs to remember how to sit and be nice when Fiorella is talking over the fence to the neghbors, whose dogs, by the way are perfectly trained and polite.
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Fio finished transfering all her notes (including the ones she wrote in the ophthamalagist's office on the backs of the Starbucks napkins she found wadded up in her purse) onto a safe place on her computer. Okay, she'll admit it--she put them on her blog, then set their publishing date for five years from now, hoping that, by then, she'll have used them all up on the blog, on Facebook, or in her books and poems.

Out in the Woods

The leaves crackled with sounds of escape as Fiorella walked into the west woods, which sort of hurt her feeelings. Whatever creatures were there should have known by now that she is harmless.  Fio loves the woods and everything in it, and it delights her heart to discover something she never lnew was in there before--like the fallen oak with its branches smashed beneath itself that she saw yesterday. (More firewood for winter, and Fio does like to be self sufficient.)

But Fiorella. you say, what are you doing dodging your way around a strange woods? Aren't you supposed to be taking it easy until your surgery heals? Well, Fio is bored, tired of sitting inside all day and trying to think of things to do that don't strain her eyesight, which is still a bit compromised. Working on her novel is out, and copying notes from stray sheets of paper onto her safety place has its time limits. TV is hard for her to watch because of its vibrant colors, but she has to gather news off broadcasts rather than reading the paper, whichis difficult. On the other hand, she read the funnies with no problem today and nailed the anagrams. Things are looking up.

The Infinitives Have It!

Remember back when Fiorella decided she had enough Spanish nouns in her quiver to start on the verbs (los verbos)? That list she set out to learn at the time is in the waste basket now, but she's got a new list of more regular verbs nailed down.

The infinitives, the base forms, always end in ar, -er, or -ir. First person singular, of course (claro que si) always ends in -o, while second and thrd persons singular just drop the final -r. The first person plural always ends in -mos, and the second and third person plural ends in -n. Then there are the irregulars, but Fio's saving them for dessert.

Exactly What Happened

On August 31, the eighth day of Fio replacing coumadin with lovenox, Dr. Dawn Buckingham lifted Fiorella's drooping eyelids.  Fio had her stitches out on Tuesday, then started bleeding the next day because she had gotten the area wet, which she wasn't supposed to do. Husband drove Fio back to Austin, and Dr. Buckingham stitched her up again, this time with self-dissoving sutures. However, that evening Fio started bleeding yet again, and Husband had to wrap a pressure bandage around her head to stop the steady drip, then droveher to the local ER when she went into a half faint from blood loss. The ER washed a day's worth of blood off her, and wound a tight, painful wrap around her head that covered both her eyes, inciting her ever-preset claustrophobia so she was panting heavy and drumming her hands on it toward the end of her thirty minutes. But when the bleeding stopped, the ER sent Fio home. In Austin the next day, Dr. Buckingham okayed Fior, but gave her strict instructions to take in easy, which is hard for Fio to do.

Fiorella had her final visit with Dr. Buckingham yesterday, Tuesday, the 12th, and is happy to report that she is recovering quickly, although her facial bruising will get worse before it gets better. Of course, Fio befing Fio, she has taken selfies of herself along the way and posted them all over Facebook. Hope you've enjoyed them.

Notes, Trump, Spanish, Vision

Fio spent a couple of hours yesterday labeling several pages of notes she'd jotted down to use in her books, poems, and future blogs. Today she'll devote another couple of hours to labeling the rest of the pages. Yes, Fiorella has enough material to last her forever. YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE FROM HER CLUTCHES.
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The storms and wildfires seem to be mostly hitting the red states. Hmmm...is God trying to send a message to Trump?
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Fio is still enjoying Mi Marido Tiene Familia. An interesting side romance is the one between Daniela and Gabriel. She's standoffish and antagonistic, and he's handsome, sexy, and determined. Actually their antics are more fun than the main story.
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Fio's eyes are still bothering her, and she's heading off to the doctor today to make sure it's okay for her to begin dislodging the wad of gauze shadowing her right eye that which makes it hard for her to read and write. Sorry about the typos that got through.

Ceremonies

Sonia Dog's head peeks over that back of the couch as soon as Fiorella finishes her Shredded Wheat. She knows what's coming, that Mommy will place the bowl on the floor, call her to "come," then tell her to "stop," then invite her to lick up the milk remaining in the breakfast bowl, which doggie does with relish. Next, Mommy approaches her with a paper towl in one hand to wipe up the splashes on the floor and two Milkbones in the other hand as Baby's reward for being a good dog and drinking her milk.

Sonia likes ceremonies. Patterned activities reassure us all. We like to know what is going on, what our role is, and what the outcome will be--that if we plug in the computer, it will open up, that if we are nice to people, theywill be nice to us. But there are always exceptions, deviations from our expectancies that we have to handle on our own. And we can. Fight the good fight.

Onward and Upward!

Fio never realized how much she relied on good vision until now, when it is blurred because of her eye surgery. She can't drive, of course, and her newspaper reading is restricted to the headlines. She can't read her lista amarilla either, or study her Spanish, and she finds it very hard to write a blog or make a post on Facebook. Working on the novel is out of the question for now.

But give her a while, and Fiorella will recover. She's been improving a little every day, despite the bloody set-back over the weekend, and she'll come out a winner.

Appointment, Telenovela, Confession

Fio has an 8:30 appointment with Dr. Buckingham this morning for her post-surgery check so she and Husband are getting up at 6:30, then taking off for Austin at 7:00. Yes, the early morning traffic is that bad. Please, somebody build that vaccum tube transportation connection to Austin that Fiorella's been talking about for the past fifteen years.
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Fio's back to watching her telenovela agin. Mi Marido Tiene Familia is a welcome change from the other telenovelas she's watched. Nobody is packing heat or pushing people off balconies. Instead, it's more of a situation omedy.
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Fio's vision has been too impaired ever since the surgery to work on her book, but she hopes to get back to it after her apppintment with Dr.B. Confession time: Fio doesn't touch type, which has made it very hard to write her blogs for the past week and explains her typos. Thank you for sticking arounnd.

Thank You For Your Concern

Fiorella had some complications
Because of blood-thinning medications
The story
Is gory
But now she's planning celebrations
All is well, appreciations

WAIT FOR ME

I will  not write
a blog today.
Recovering
is all I'll say






















































































I will tell you tomorr
What happened t9daI'n  recovering
Is a;; I'll say

























i

Three Eyes

I admit I'm having a blast
My eyes are in full bloom
I know it will not last
But I look like a raccoon

You might think I look gross
But I think I look cute
I've never had a shiner before
And this one is a beaut!

Look at the size
Of my koala eyes
They're big as pies
I WIN THE PRIZE

Post Surgery

Fio is having a blast
Her eyes are in full bloom
She knows it will not last
But she looks like a racoon

Medical Frustration

Early in the week, Fio's cardiologist prepared her for eye surgery by having her hold her coumadin pills and inject herself with lovenox instead. Fio called him on Friday, the day after surgery, and asked if she could discontinue the lovenox because the shots were unexpectedly painful, so Dr. H worked out a new regimen that would take her off lovenox by Monday, although she would have to go to the ER of her local hospital on Sunday to be sure her INR was 2.0 or above.

Fio followed directions, giving herself what she hoped would be a final shot of lovenox Sunday morning, then driving off to St. D's Hospital for the INR check. However, no one knew what to do with her because Dr. H hadn't given them any "orders." The nurses finally got another doctor to write the "orders" and, about an hour later, Fio was ushered into a room where a phlebotomist took a vial of her blood. Fio protested, saying that the procedure should be a simple finger-prick, but the phlebotomist said she'd never heard of INR and that that Fio could get the results from Dr. H on Monday. Fio explained that she was supposed to get the results immediately so she would know whether or not to use lovenox in the evening, so the phlebotomist said the lab would report to Dr. H within an hour and he himself would call Fio.

Five hours later, Fiorella got hold of Dr. H on her own. Bad news--her INR is too low to discontinue the lovenox so she'll have to shoot herself up for three more days.

Fiorella is not happy on several accounts.

Geekery, Telenovela, Michael Jackson, Friendship, Trump Opera

Fiorella was a geek before geeks were cool. Socially awkward, she never cut classes, always did her homework, and was a top-notch student. She wrote poetry and short stories, edited her high school Latin magazine, and the state Latin rag, took classes like physics and Russian in college, graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna cum Laude, never smoked pot, and never even thought of getting pierced or tattooed.
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What is going on with you, Julieta?  Why are you listening to Ana? For heaven's sake, can't you see that she's leading you down the garden path? After all, she's a BLONDE, and blondes and redheads are always bad, bad girls en telenovelas. Remember Rebeca in El Color dela Pasion and Gaciela in Vino El Amor?
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Fio would like someone to haul out that old Michael Jackson song about teaching the world to sing. We could use some harmony right about now.
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To be Fiorella's friend means that sooner or later, she will learn your birthday and celebrate it. She's fixated that way.
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Yes, Fio is seriously considering turning out at least a few Trump jingles set to music. The tragi-comedy opera she's been proposing may yet come into being.

Como Esta Su Espanol, Fiorella?

The Spanish is coming along. Although she still doesn't have all the family relationships sorted out, Fiorella can follow her new telenovela, Mi Marido Tiene Familia, fairly well.  It's helped that callate! (be quiet!) and tranquila! (calm down!) are now part of her vocabulary. The acting also helps. Everything is over-the-top dramatic.

As a linguist, Fiorella knew that immersion was her best way to learn a new language, and as a realist, she knew that Spanish was her best bet because, living in Texas, she heard a fair amount of it around her. From previous language accquisition experiences, she knew she needed to start by developing Spanish ears, which meant augmenting her strolls down the aisles of HEB with telenovelas an hour every weekday evening. First came El Color del Pasion, then El Celular de la Piloto, then La Doble Vida de Estela Carrillo, and now she's watching Mi Marido. 

Telenovela actors are really good, and, interestingy enough, like British actors, they act their own ages and thus have long careers.. Sylvia Pinal, a glamor girl fifty years ago, now plays the family matriarch in Mi Marido.

Of course, the commercials also add to Fio's vocabulary--she's learned all about precios (prices), ventas (sales), dinero (money), choques (car accidents), and segura (insurance).  And along the way, she's picking up verb conjugations. Poco a poco, as they say.

Yesterday's News

Fiorella had her eyelids lifted yesterday and already she can see so much better. Turns out those shadows that had been getting in her way were her eyelashes. Wish her happy healing!