Livin' La Vida L.A.

A couple months ago, this restaurant caught my eye and then startled me as I drove by on the way to the hospital.  I realized how far away from Spain I was (and how deeply I missed it):

 Only in Los Angeles could you find “Spanish” so intricately connected to California’s neighbor to the South and so distant from its origin.  Authentic Mexican??

Beautiful Sprawl

I have been living as an Angeleno for four months now, having helped transfer my mom’s care to Cedars-Sinai hospital here.  It has been a struggle—nausea and weakness from chemotherapy, a stent placed in her duodenum to hold it open from the pressure of the surrounding tumor, anemia, and then the sinking dread when we recognized, again, the intense side effects of a full dose of 5-FU, oxaliplatin, and leucovorin.  Then a recovery, only to be sent home from the 21-day hospital stay without enough hydration information, and a return rush to the ER and re-admission for near kidney failure. Then a Whipple operation, the biggest abdominal surgery there is, and the pain and fear that goes with it.  And finally, a respite, with incredible healing and amazing scars, and again an attempt at chemotherapy, this time with a different set of drugs, and the return of constant nausea and the challenge to get my mom to eat enough.

I make a good nurse.  Really.

This experience has been one of rapid learning for me: not only am I up to speed on CBCs and metabolic panels, endoscopic procedures and Whipples, stents and NG tubes, wound dressings and taking blood pressure, but I have read eight books thus far (and counting) on cancer and its effects.  In addition, my sisters and I learned how to do reiki, a meditative spiritual practice from Japan that helps my mom relax and which eases her distress somewhat.

My mom's guest house--a great place to do Reiki

Despite missing Spain, and despite the envy I feel as I hear about Todd tapas-hopping, sherry-tasting, and joining a band to amuse himself while we are gone, I am where I want to be, and we have adjusted smoothly to our life here.  Communal living has always appealed to me; in fact, before my mom’s illness we had discussed my sister Suzanne’s possible move to Spain with her family and how we could all live in a palace somewhere in downtown Puerto.  Now we all live together, but in a beautifully remodeled Colonial in Toluca Lake.  My other sister, Simone, and her husband Chris also come to stay periodically and have set up camp in the now-furnished hacienda that guards my mom’s guest house, where we just celebrated Thanksgiving—inviting 16 guests to join the 11 of us!

Some of the fun things we do together:  a lemonade stand for the American Cancer Society!

We enrolled Tia and Sasha in their cousins’ school, Franklin Elementary.  Sasha is in the 4th grade immersion program, while Tia had to join a regular English-speaking 5th grade, as their relatively new program did not extend to that grade yet.  Both girls are thrilled to be with their cousins, and have adjusted very well to all of the moving, even though they miss their lovely little Spanish school, La Merced.  Sasha’s new 4th grade class in particular was the first dual-immersion class at Franklin, and so the kids there have bonded in a very special way, so special that they immediately engulfed both Tia and Sasha in friendship with such caring that I continue to be amazed and grateful.

Running a 5K for weSpark, an organization that provides support for cancer patients

 Despite my laser-like focus on cancer research, we try to have fun: We went to my aunt’s 80^th birthday celebration at our cabin in the Sierras, a wonderful reunion with all my relatives.  We also had a friend’s beach house in Malibu to visit during the summer, so we didn’t miss out on the surf scene much.

Beachtime fun this summer

We tried indoor skydiving: it was FUN! 

Goofy suits, big excitement

We also recently spent the day at Universal Studios, a mere 5-minute drive from my sister’s house, splashing on the Jurassic Park ride and being transported to Animation-Central in the Transformers ride.  The kids loved it; Ethan and I were mildly nauseated each time. And of course there was Halloween, which is a HUGE deal in our neighborhood:

The Flapper and her Energizer Bunnies

Sasha turned nine years old here, inviting her whole class over for a pool party (2 hours in the pool in November!  Gotta love Southern California…) and then inviting all the girls to a sleepover, complete with marshmallows around the outdoor fireplace, a dance-off, and finally a movie with popcorn.

A mini-cake for Sasha's actual birthday, which fell on Thanksgiving this year

And so the days flow by, each one merging into a rhythm of caring for my mom, trips to the hospital, school, research, consultations, reading, and of course fighting with the famous L.A traffic (I have learned many back-street navigation routes, although I still lack the technology to maneuver with an iPhone in real time).  My life has been immersed in research and an often desperate search for SOMETHING that I can find that will help even the immense odds my mom faces each day.  While chemo, surgery, and radiation are the old standards that we must face, I have learned a great deal about nutrition, supplementation, and mind-body therapy that I have worked to integrate into my mom’s care.  (It is the only realm that I have any degree of control over!)  She is an incredible sport, downing 30+ pills every morning and evening, as I explain to her what each one does and what the research says.  Her hair may be gone, but she is as beautiful as ever, and such a great sport and role model for us as we move through this adventure together.

Bald and Beautiful

As for me, I feel a bit like a hermit.  My focus is so intense on what I am doing, I am reluctant to slow down and take time for myself.  I have thought about my friends, here in L.A., down in San Diego, up in the Bay Area, across the country, and in Spain.  So many of you have reached out to me, and I have been a poor correspondent, immersed as I am in the fascinating and mostly horror-filled story that is cancer.  And so this Thanksgiving, in acknowledgement of all that I have to be thankful for, I donned my black skirt and sheer top, put on my best flamenco-sounding boots, and danced every buleria that I knew (all five of them!) for my mom and the rest of the crowd of 27 people.   Dancing and twirling and stomping in the kitchen, accompanied by the kids who couldn’t resist joining in, I realized that Spain wasn’t so far away after all.

 

OLE!

Land of the Midnight Sun

True Scandinavians

Todd has always maintained that he comes from Viking stock.  To prove it, he would point to the painted wooden horses and Dip-In-The-Pan (a traditional Swedish stew with pig knuckles, sausage, and other unidentifiable pork parts) that his family brought out every Christmas.  The Peterson name is apparently up for grabs between Norway and Sweden, as his family purportedly came from some fishing village on the Norwegian/Swedish border.   "Peterson" is the Swedish spelling; however, some Norwegian immigrants apparently changed the Norwegian spelling of "Petersen" to "Peterson" in order to appear highbrow.  (What Todd seems to forget, when he teases me about my Germanic heritage, is that his mother's maiden name is a very Teutonic "Schneider.")  Our children, however, have clearly inherited the Viking genes.

Crazy Vikings

Whatever the case may be, we ended our summer vacationing in the Far North, traveling vast distances in very few days in order to explore Todd's homeland.  This lesson about packing too much in should have already been learned, but alas! If you don’t learn from history, you are destined to repeat it.

Learn this: Horns In Battle = Getting Stuck In The Eye

We flew into Göteborg from Paris, a stopover destination due to cheap Ryanair prices.  As a first introduction, Göteborg was modern, industrial, clean, cool, and rainy.  Water and pines forests surrounded the city, and we rode the ferry everywhere despite the rain.  A quick walk and dinner, a night at our lovely dockside hotel with delicious licorice treats, and off we went the next day to Stockholm.

Modern Sculpture With Viking

Hanging out enjoying the short-lived summer

Stockholm’s skyline is one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen.  The city’s water-bound location, spread out over 14 islands in this northern archipelago, reflects and magnifies its mix of 19th-century and modern beauty.  

Glorious Skyline

Water, water everywhere

We stayed on a boat-hostel called the Gustav Klimt, with tiny, bohemian cabins and a shared bathroom.  The girls were thrilled by these exotic accommodations complete with porthole; Todd was barely able to squish his six-foot-two frame into the narrow bottom bunk.  The following day we spent at Skansen, Stockholm’s famous outdoor historical museum, where you can see how life used to be in the northern wilds.  This park is part zoo, part old-town, part historic village, part playground, with examples of living quarters including docents in historic dress practicing domestic arts from 100 or more years ago. 

Old-Time Swedish Hut

We even found a Swedish horse, along with a squirrel.  The set-up for kids was incredible, inviting Tia and Sasha to run from one thing to another with glee. 

Look, Gram, what we can ride!!!

Acting Nutsy

From there we spent the afternoon at the Vasa Museum, an incredible building crafted around the ill-fated ship the Vasa, which sank on her maiden voyage in 1628.  It is a story of human pride and hubris; King Gustav insisted on completing it despite boatbuilders’ doubts.  No one had the courage to tell King Gustav that thirty men running from one side of the boat to the other could set it rocking enough to capsize. Sure enough, as soon at the Vasa set sail, a light breeze sprang up and knocked it over, killing at least 15 people and stunning the thousands who had come to watch.  In 1961, the Vasa was raised from its bed of mud and cleaned; the remains of 8 of the dead were salvaged and their lives reconstructed.  We were all fascinated.

All the woodcarving was another big mistake, adding to the Vasa's topheavy load

The next morning we explored the Viking Museum while Todd went off to visit his friend Tim.  Tia and Sasha showed yet again that they clearly have Scandinavian roots.

Viking Girls with Sacrificial Dog Skeleton

They also demonstrated their prowess at Viking weaponry:

and early Viking boxing:

We then joined Todd and Tim in Uppsala, where we toured the Protestant cathedral and the surrounding gardens, the old church (where an impromptu quartet sang haunting harmonies in the vestibule), and an outdoor dinner in magnificent evening sunshine. 

Uppsala Gardens

Reflected Beauties

We also lit a candle in the church for my mom, her presence always on our minds and in our hearts as we traveled onwards.

We Love You, Nana

And off we went to Oslo, again a stopover city, for a brief tour via the tram and a trip to Frogner Park, home of the artist Gustav Vigeland’s famous statues.  Despite the fact that it is the world’s largest statue park and Norway’s biggest tourist attraction, we were more impressed by the excellent children’s playground next door.

Somehow Vigeland's work reminds me of Dante's Inferno

Our trip to Bergen via railway is part of the “Norway in a Nutshell” experience, highly touted as the way to see the best of Norway.  And the trip was spectacular, the train winding its way through forests to the still-frozen spine of Norway’s Hardangervidda, the highest mountain plateau in Europe.  Each railway station along this route puzzled us with their scores of rental bikes; we laughed at foolish tourists pedaling along in the 30˚F weather on well-paved bike paths.  It wasn’t until we saw the glorious bike paths heading down past cascading waterfalls to the ice-blue fjords below that we understood why someone would brave such a forbidding outing; we wish we had.

Desolate and beautiful

Sod House and Wildflowers

Fun with Dad on the train

Bergen: another stopover city, another boat-hotel, this time more comfortable, but more expensive.  We had time for a walk through the botanical gardens and a absolutely delicious but outrageously expensive dinner of salmon, reindeer, and halibut.  We walked home in the twilight at midnight only to be scolded by rule-loving, early-rising Germans on the boat when we made too much noise. 

Amazing that this exists in the Northern hinterlands

Balestrand was our final stay in Scandinavia, a beautiful picturesque town marred only by the concrete multi-story box-like hotels built into the 19th-century Victorian neighborhoods.  The German phrase for such an disaster is a “Faust im Aug,” a fist in the eye. 

 Soviet-style Concrete Block does not belong here

We reached Balestrand by boat via the Sognefjord, a four-hour boat trip on one of Norway’s most famous and longest waterways, faintly reminiscent of Washington’s Puget Sound but ten times grander.

The scale of grandeur is spectacular

Fishing village with waterfall and glaciers

 While in Balestrand we hiked for hours up the mountain until we reached snow, a small crystallized dirty patch that nevertheless allowed us to throw snowballs at each other.  The following day we rented bikes and rode along the fjord in rain, mist, and slanting sunlight, pulling over each time a train of cars passed us after they disembarked from the ferry. 

Biking the Fjord

Our return trip took us back into the Sognefjord to the tiny town of Flam, dwarfed by huge cruise ships that plied the fjord and engulfed by the massive crowds emerging from the Flam Railway.  We joined these flocks of tourists for the final leg of our journey, a trip up the Flam Railway, dubbed “The World’s Steepest Railway”  and “Most Spectacular Tourist Attraction.”  Well, attract tourists it does: the train was packed, and the engineer obliged the shutterbugs with well-placed stops to admire the enormous waterfalls. 

Beware: siren-like Huldra lurk to lure unwary tourists to their death...

The remainder of the trip—a train ride to Oslo and then Moss, on the outskirts of RyanAir’s airport, with an early flight from “Oslo” (aka Rygge) to Malaga, and a car ride back to Puerto—was fraught with anxiety, as news from my sister about my mom became more and more frightening.  I literally dumped our two carryon suitcases as soon as we got into the house, repacked them with clean clothes for the girls and me, and left for the Rota terminal within a couple hours.  But Scandinavia has stayed on my mind every time I look at my blue-eyed, blonde-haired Swedes (or Norwegians?), so Nordic-looking that everyone on our trip spoke spontaneously to them in Swedish or Norwegian, much to their delight and embarrassment.  This is a place we are sure to revisit. 

My Scandinavian Family