Wherein I Defy My Actual MD

Me in the waiting room, holding a Bakugan. Photo by Bob Rosenberg

This is part two of this story.

The morning after our return to California, my injured foot was blue-ish, yellow-ish, swollen and grouchy. I was much the same. I couldn't ignore the pain anymore. Bob and I made the drive to the office of my real, non-internet doctor.

Dr. H is a brilliant man and I have been a patient of his for the past 19 years. I adore going to his office not just to see him but because the waiting room will surely offer an array of stars rivaling an episode of the Love Boat. Was that the cast of American Gladiators in the hallway? Yes it was. Was that Mr. T holding the elevator door for you? Indeed. Jeff Conaway coming out of the bathroom? You bet. Who needs to read People magazine while you wait for the nurse? Not me. People comes to life on the couch next to me and makes loud calls on an iphone. I love Hollywood.

Dr. H sums up my situation, “So you did this six days ago on a salon chair and are just coming in now. In that time, you have been doing a lot of walking and standing in high heels and you also went dancing?”

My son adds, "And it looks so much wuhrse."

“All correct.”

“Was there alcohol involved at least?”

“No, I still don’t drink, I just have poor judgment. But look at the great hair. Am I right?”

“Terrific.”

As I headed into the x-ray room a tiny, elderly man headed me off at the door and edged me back into the hall. The technician said, “Mr. De Laurentiis, Ms. Rosenberg is first. It will only take a moment. Please have a seat.”

“Meh,” said Mr. De Laurentiis as his beautiful wife laughed and led him away.

The x-ray showed that the bone was not broken. Dr. H guessed a stress fracture but did not want to put me through the experience of an MRI to confirm it, bless him. I was told to stay off my feet, elevate, ice and Ibuprofin. And wear a more supportive (ugly) shoe. And no high heels. And no dancing. I agreed, of course.

The next day I took Bob to the beach. We ran around in the sand. We chased waves and played Frisbee. My foot hurt but my hair? Still perfect. Dr. H called to check on me and I let the call go to voicemail.

I will ice and elevate my foot tomorrow. Really. And I will keep the dancing to a minimum. Probably.

The Van, Man


In 2004, I bought a minivan for a dollar from the man who would become my husband. If you have not yet read the details of that transaction, you can catch up here.

As promised, following is Jeff’s account of his experience with The Mystic Mechanic:

In 2002, I was living in Los Angeles. The band I was in at that time, Young People, had a green Plymouth Voyager minivan as our touring machine. As the only person in the band with a credit history, I was the one who bought the used van. We had put many miles on it over a period of two years and six U.S. tours. Money was nonexistent as was our maintenance record for the van. Except for gasoline and the white bobble head horse doll that we super-glued to the dashboard, we put no money into The Voyager.


It was the middle of summer and we were leaving in two days for another North American tour. The engine began overheating every time we drove it more than a few blocks. The band was extremely screwed and extremely broke.
 
Our neighbor Becky, suggested we call a guy she referred to as "The Mystic Mechanic.” She insisted that the mystic mechanic was "the real thing,” although according to her the guy was homeless and she didn't really know if he had ever really fixed anyone's car "for real". She had met him at a donut shop in Silver Lake and he had given her his card. On the card was printed, “John – Mystic Mechanic.” His phone number was scribbled along the bottom in pencil.

Desperation won out over good judgment and I called The Mystic. He told me he would meet me in 20 minutes in the parking lot by the Astro Diner because as he put it, he spent hours every day "holding court" at the place next door.

When I arrived, a man who looked like a hobo-y Crocodile Dundee made of chicken leather, appeared like an apparition from behind the Winchell's Donuts. He veered toward me and asked for my keys and told me not to worry. He had "picked up a vibe" that I was “really stressed out” about the minivan. I tried not to get irritated that this guy was trying to mellow me out. As I explained the car's problems, he opened the hood and gunned the gas and turned knobs and played with switches. He told me not to worry because he had a "few tricks up his sleeve" even though he was wearing a ripped tank top. He would need a little time to brainstorm and he would call me when it was time to come back.

My phone rang just two hours later. When I returned, he showed me that he had rigged a separate wire to the fuse system with one of those booster clamps that you see connected to the end of jumper cables.

“When the car starts overheating," he said, "just do this," and with the car running he grabbed the cable and connected it to the live battery. The fans turned on and the temperature gauge went down, however the duct tape and fuse box rig that he had set up appeared, shall we say, non-standard. He charged me $30.00 total for “expenses and lunch.”

 Despite the bizarre and dangerous nature of this fix, we drove the van just like this for thousands of miles. I used the van to move cross-country to New York, and then back again a few years later to California. Even once I could afford it, I still did not consider actually taking the van to a real mechanic for a more permanent solution, until it broke down again and I had to recount this story to my future wife. She was not surprised and not impressed.




The lore of the van is in the air. Go to Extreme Craft to enjoy a story about our friend Garth's band van.

What Not to Do: Buffet

You did this:
You and your husband broke out of your regular evening of sweatpants, kettle corn, and viral videos put on grown up clothes and attend a charity fund-raiser. This cocktail hour event was held in the penthouse of a swanky Beverly Hills hotel. In the last four hours before leaving the house you had eaten half of a gluten free toaster waffle and some warm Dr. Pepper that you found in the car from yesterday. Upon arrival at the event, you exchanged cordial greetings with the hosts and then quietly sprinted to the appetizer buffet area.

You were recently diagnosed with celiac disease, a wheat gluten allergy that messes with the digestive system. The basic treatment for celiac is - do not eat wheat products or those made with wheat gluten. You did not have a problem finding appropriate food at this event. The caterers had provided an antipasto table that would make Giada de Laurentiis proud. Nearby, were platters of fresh melon and figs, and chafing dishes heaped with chicken and fish. As you balanced a Jenga-like pile of food onto your child sized hors d'œuvre plate, you avoided eye contact with the small man with a mustache and toque standing behind the carving station because carving stations freak you the hell out.

Do not do this:
Next to the shrimp, was another chafing dish filled with what appeared to be beef satay. It called to you. As you laid the skewers across your plate, you hoped that it had not been marinated in soy sauce or other wheat gluten heavy ingredient. Nearby you noticed a small stack of business cards for a local vegan and organic caterer. It crossed your mind for just an instant that this might not be beef on your plate but rather something else entirely. You promptly ignored this thought because you really wanted beef satay. You moved on.

Once you and your husband had made room for yourselves on one of the plush couches near the bar, you started in on your tower of snacks. You started with the beef satay. As you swallowed the first mouthful it become clear that this was not beef. It was seitan, a meat-like substitute made from pressed wheat gluten. Wheat gluten. That you are allergic to. Allergic in an exploding colon kind of way.

You made a mental note that wanting it to be beef doesn’t make it beef.

What Not To Do: Dropped Call

You did this:
After her dermatologist appointment, your wife calls you at work from her cell phone and mentions that she has been diagnosed with a little bit of vitiligo. (Patchy pigmentless skin spots.) As she drives through Eagle Rock, the call breaks up and cell service is lost.

Don’t do this:
Due to the bad phone connection, you do not hear “vitiligo” but rather “impetigo.” Instead of calling your wife back, you do immediate "medical research" on the internet, limited to looking at hundreds of photos of lesions, open sores, and horrific pustules. You panic, certain that your wife will now have to move to a modern day leper colony.

What Not to Do: Bags

You did this:
When you finally break out of your Facebook trance long enough to glance up at the time displayed in the top right corner of your MacBook, you will notice that it is 4:52 PM, a startling eight minutes before your in-laws are due to arrive. You will run, frenzied, through the house and “clean up” by jamming all visible stray objects into two Hefty Steel Sacks, one for dirty dishes, one for everything else. You will not have time to take the bags to the garage so you will hide them by shoving the bags into the mostly empty dryer. As the car pulls into the driveway you will adjust your awkward ponytail and pat yourself on the back for leaving enough time to put on a bra under your pajama top.

Do not do this:
The next morning, in a haze of too little caffeine and too many Wiggles singing, “Miss Polly Had a Dolly,” you remember that the shirt you would like to wear today was part of yesterday’s laundry. Because it is still sitting in the dryer, you turn the dryer on to spin out the inevitable wrinkles. It takes you just one slow motion, fraction of an instant to register the miserable crashing sound coming from inside the dryer as the discordant swan song of three juice glasses, one Pyrex lid, one bucket arm of a Tonka remote control front loader, two cereal bowls, and one Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Learning Phone.

It is impossible to replace the bucket arm.