Dateline – Rio de Janeiro
The last few days have been a tale of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I shall relate and let y’all make up y’alls minds as to which event belongs in which category as there is a certain amount of subjective categorization that comes along with the vagaries of my life. I’ve written enough about myself in recent years to have come to the conclusion that as much as I would like to think I try to live life with a certainly orderly pattern, the universe generally has other ideas. I assume this is true for others as well and that I can’t be the only one – or maybe I’m some sort of lodestone of my own making that attracts strange and unusual.
I entered the work week on Monday knowing that I would have to get everything settled in such a way that I could depart on Thursday and that things would run smoothly in my absence. I try to be a good colleague and not leave messes or undone tasks for my few remaining comrades in arms. We are all stretched so thin that anyone not pulling their weight can create issues for everyone else. The joys of being a cog in the rickety American healthcare system machine, especially one devoted to the aged as their numbers are skyrocketing due to demographic changes identified sixty years ago but about which no one has created a viable plan.
With all that deadline pressure, I did what I do best, and scheduled something in my performing life, being part of the pick up choir for the Alabama Holocaust Education Center event which had an endless four plus hour tech on Monday evening and a performance on Tuesday evening (which was mercifully not four plus hours or the audience would have either entered a coma or rioted). The choir were on for the opening and for the finale. Being mainly musical theater performers, we knew how to bring it with minimal rehearsal and I thought we sounded pretty good. The finale was ‘We Are The World’ in which I had the Daryl Hall solo. What’s that? You don’t recall the Daryl Hall solo? That’s because it’s seven words and two measures long in the refrain just before Cyndi Lauper starts wailing. The evening was only marred by some very interested curtainography. The drape was raised for the reveal, then would ascend and descend several times to various heights. It happened during both numbers and, if we weren’t in a Baptist performing arts venue, I would have asked just what the fly crew had been drinking.
Wednesday was a light work day so I had everything scheduled down to the minute. Clinic in the morning complete with cleaning everything up in the various boxes – mail, fax and electronic. Lunch appointment (which ended up being delayed an hour). Race around for a few last minute errands to pick up things on my packing list that I had run low on (insect repellent, sun screen, a new toiletries kit), get home, do the preliminary packing, then off to the opening show at the theater where I do most of my musical work as this final dress was my only chance to see a bevy of friends in Kander and Ebb’s ‘And the World Goes Round’. I race into the condo with my packages, drop one on the floor, bend over to pick it up, and the back goes into full spasm.
I’ve had muscle spasms in my back since my early adulthood. They usually come about every three to five years, get set off by nothing in particular, and take a few days to resolve, leaving me with a certain amount of incapacity and great pain while it does its thing. I usually have to take a day or two off work as I can barely move while it works itself out. In earlier times, I had a husband who could pick up the slack while I would lay stretched out on a heating pad, one who could bodily haul me around if I lost my ability to transfer unassisted, but I know longer have that luxury and I was under a huge time crunch. It was two hours to curtain and every move that bent my back was agony and, while I had hauled a few things out, I was not yet packed. The balletic moves I accomplished fetching things from low cupboards and shelves so as not to bend my back in any direction would have been a comic delight to an outside observer, especially as accompanied with a constant stream of curses at various pitches and tempi. I hadn’t realized I was quite so adept at picking so many things up off the floor by kicking them up with my feet.
I made the show (moving very very slowly and needing to constantly brace myself with my arms so as not to jar the back) and it was a delight. If you’re in Birmingham this weekend or next, head over to Virginia Samford Theatre and watch people I’m proud to call friends and colleagues in that other career strut their stuff. Came back, wrote progress notes for a couple of hours while standing at the dining room table, and then went to bed on a heating pad.
Things were better with the back Thursday morning. I was able to finish the packing, finish the progress notes, leave the condo in a semblance of order and head off to the airport. Fortunately it was a late flight and the torrential rainfall predicted from the outer bands of hurricane Francine never did appear. The back issues kept me from overpacking so my suitcase was well under weight. And I could kiss the inventor of the roller bag. In Atlanta, I boarded my overnight to Rio and had a bit of luck, alone in a pair of seats allowing me to stretch. Stretch or not, a nine hour redeye flight did nothing to improve the condition of the musculoskeletal system – neither did two nights of minimal sleep due to pain. So, when I hit Rio de Janeiro at 7:30 this morning local time, I was not really in condition to thoroughly enjoy it.
In the past, when I would travel somewhere, I would read all the guidebooks and bone up on everything well in advance. Now, I don’t. I just show up and immerse myself and read up on things that strike me as worth further study as I go along. It’s not like I don’t have a research library in my pocket these days. So, my impressions of Rio as we approached by air were its sprawl (I later looked up that it’s 6 million in the city proper and about 15 million in the metro area – so a bit similar in size to New York). Acre after acre of buildings stretch over the rolling foothills leading up from the beaches to the impossibly steep and green mountains that come marching down towards the sea. The wealth and popular image is concentrated in the beach areas of Copacabana, Ipanema and Flamengo but there are crowded favelas hanging off hillsides, secure middle class neighborhoods with tree lined boulevards, churches perched on the peaks of the lower hills, and various civic buildings which I have to guess at purpose from design.
The airport, while in the middle of urbanized area, is about 45 minutes from the beach, not far off a large semi-industrialized lagoon. The shuttle ride in was scenic due to the views of the sea on the one side and the mountains on the other. There was a very large police presence (I presume due to the presence of a large music festival – Rio Rocks – in town, preparations for the G-20 coming up, and left over political instability as the left and right wings are battling here as they are in the US) and a lot of walls along the highway hiding the favelas that creep up against the roadway. Whether that is to keep the inhabitants in or to hide substandard housing from visiting tourists and dignitaries is unclear. As I am still hobbling around like I’m ninety due to my back, exploring the local favelas is not on my list. I can’t run from trouble fast enough.
I arrived at The Copacabana Palace hotel a 1920s Art Deco fantasy with a banyan tree in front, to find I had been assigned perhaps the most decadent hotel suite I have ever had. Two large rooms, king bed, terrace overlooking the pool with ocean view, walk in closet large enough to be another bedroom. I could fit a half dozen friends in here comfortably so if you happen to be in the neighborhood. The back precludes any serious exploring so I spent the day in an exploring of the Copacabana area, admiring the eye candy on the beach, having a lovely risotto for lunch, drinking a bit too much beer. I did not go in the water. An urban area of fifteen million with an indifferent sewage treatment system made me decide that might not be wise. Besides, the divot on my thigh where dermatology took their over aggressive biopsy of my skin cancer is still healing and Vibrio vulcifinus is something I’d rather not deal with. I’ll stick to the pool. It being the tropics, night fell suddenly around 6 PM so I have withdrawn back to my suite of luxury and plan on a very long sleep and see how my back is doing in the morning. That is if the very loud concert on the beach which is going on outside my windows will allow.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 