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Buenos Aires May 30, 2008

Dear People who come to my web site and read these letters,

For me, inactivity is torture. One day's confinement anywhere is too much. Three weeks is Guantanamo.

On April 30, I tripped in the street. I started to fall forward and whilst tipping perilously face first toward the stony sidewalk, a miracle appeared before me.

No. It was not Evita.

It was a skinny tree trunk smiling up ahead. But the tree trunk was a lot further away from the original arc that my nose-dive had in mind. "What to do?" Said my fear.

"Jump stupid!" replied my brain.

I jumped. Yes. I leapt at that tree. And I literally flew forward through the air, catching myself against this unsuspecting tree trunk that I gripped ferociously with both hands. The tree shook. I held on and shook with it. But I did not fall face first to the ground. Instead, I popped the hamstring on my left leg. The pain was rapid, piercing and intense.

When I detached myself from my savior tree, I realized that I had attained such velocity in flight that the tree's bark had penetrated under all my broken fingernails. But bless her heart, that tree saved me from falling flat on my kisser.

This spectacular attempt at defying gravity rent my hamstring. I limped to the nearby traumatology clinic where a young doctor instructed me to stay in the house, leg raised, knee bent - either on the couch or in bed - with frequent icepacks for three long weeks! "Don't do anything you can't postpone." He said in remarkably competent English.

Was I annoyed? I was furious. I live in writerly solitude. I cherish my trips to the store to chat with Susana, the veggie merchant. I love to practice my Castellano Spanish on Jonny the grocery guy and hoof it to the supermarket with my little red two-wheeled carry-on bag bouncing noisily along behind, all zippers flapping.

Suddenly, I was looking at three weeks of no budging beyond my apartment. So there I sat reading, writing, in excruciating pain and feeling very sorry for myself.

How did I manage for food? I suppose that if I could speak Spanish well enough I might have dared ring up a local shop two blocks away. It's called "Tu Cocina" or Your Kitchen. They make good food and they deliver it. But as my Spanish remains embarrassingly approximate, I opted to ask my neighbor and close friend, Peter Winterble, if he would do some shopping for me. Peter is American. He is also retired and hardy and very kindly. He of course said yes and went off with a list as long as 3 weeks.

An hour and some later, Peter was back, carrying six gigantic plastic bags full of everything from 10 tomatoes to 6 t-bone steaks and 12 (count 'em) bottles of wine! He looked a sight. Sweat pouring off him. Huffing and puffing. I sat him down and offered him a drink. "Peter, they deliver." I said. "You just have to ask. They know me in that store."

Peter replied, "I can still carry goddamn groceries."

The cry of the retired male who worries about doing nothing and still does nothing because he is retired. That's not fair. Peter plays tennis twice a week, plays a mean jazz piano, reads voraciously and drives his exquisite wife Maria del Carmen (and often myself) to our favorite restaurant which is appropriately (for cattle rich Argentina) named La Vaca (The Cow).

Of course I had suggested that Peter take along the little red carry-on cart on his shopping trip. But Peter maintains a certain pride in appearance and did not fancy being seen, a grown man, dragging a bright red airplane carry-on bag behind him in the street.

I am not self conscious. It's all the same to me if that tiny, nervous woman in the furniture store laughs and calls me "la hormiga" (the ant) because I am seen daily, hauling this heavy load of food in a fat red bag red down her street back to my nest. I don't care if it looks absurd and clangs along the bumpy sidewalks. My "changito" is my friend, my mascot, my trademark in the streets of my beloved village of Martinez.

The fact that I did not take the cart with me the day I tripped and flew into the tree trunk and popped that muscle is proof enough. I should NEVER go anywhere again in the tipsy streets of Buenos Aires without my trusty Changito.

Anyway...the three weeks went by fairly uneventfully. I did some consultations. I scribbled some more chapters of my autobiography. I talked to all the friends I own all over the world who would listen to my sob story about tripping over a crooked sidewalk paver and landing in a tree. And because, little by little, I could shuffle around my house, I cooked. Yes. I made chili. I made eggplant parmesan. I made lemon chicken. I made baked apples with raspberry jam and I made steaks on the grill and baked potatoes in my searingly hot oven. Each day I removed something else from my freezer and tormented it into a dish. I combed the pages of Epicurious and Skyped Paula, begging for recipes for her exotic salad dressings with ginger and soy sauce and coriander and a dash of gin.

So in my forced incarceration, I learned how to cook some dandy new dishes. I gained ten pounds and managed not to finish the dozen bottles of wine Peter had lugged all the way back from the superette.

What other big news? Oh yes. The house in France. Remember that old adage about when you renovate a house it always takes twice as long and costs twice as much?

We are currently in the "twice as long and oodles more" stage. My banker kindly extending extra credit. My friends waiting patiently for me to pay back loans. My publishers offering me advances they forget to pay. My savings account shrinking. My nights a tiny bit less tranquil.

But never mind. Nobody's sick (so far) and I am looking forward to traveling all around the east coast of the United States north of Washington D.C. visiting old friends, eating lobster and shrimp and fish (We don't have any in beefy Argentina.) and enjoying the scenery.

I will be traveling with my good friend, the ubiquitous Jerry Littlefield. We plan to stop to see the Browers in New Jersey, Kathryn in Manhattan, Val and Pete in the Hudson Valley and Janet Birnkrant in Westchester. Then, when Jerry takes off for Montreal to his glaucoma conference, ( He's an eye Dr.) I am (credit cards permitting) renting a car and driving way out to East Hampton, Long Island where I will visit with Oscar Weinberger who turns 99 this year.

Oscar not only has all his marbles and most of his health, he is the king of financial advice to wanton astrologers who buy ancient beat up houses in the south of France and can't pay for the renovations. If I think up a problem. Oscar thinks up a solution. I will also see my hilarious author friend, Consuelo Baehr and my good pal Scott Weiss at whose house I will sleep before I set out for Buffalo, New York where I intend to eat the food of my youth: Buffalo chicken wings, roast beef on Kimmelwick, a Ted's hot dog or two and some bocce Club Pizza.

Most delightful is that I will spend ten days with my adorable niece Pamela and her fiancé who live in Orlando. Pam and her cousins have cottages at Crystal Beach on the Canadian side of Lake Erie and are holding a giant party for Fourth of July. I can't wait.

In Buffalo, where I was born, I will also have the pleasure of seeing Maria, a painter and my best girlfriend from college, my nephew David and his family and two of my very own brothers and their wives whom I miss a lot when I don't see them for awhile. I also intend to drive north to Toronto, Canada where Fran (my web site crony) and Steve (my Facebook crony) live.

And on the way back I will be stopping in the lovely old village of Niagara-on-The-Lake where I hope to meet up with another very old friend named Kenny whom I know from Ibiza in the sixties.

I did not keep count of all those people I mentioned. But there are, in fact, at least twice as many on my itinerary. Forgive me.

If I left you out, it could be because I owe you money.

Happy June. Don't get married or divorced until after the 20th. Mercury is retrograde till the 19th.

Ciao for niao. Suzanne

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