Hello everyone, and here we are still in Cincinnati awaiting our return to our other place in San Francisco, for my husband and I are trading;  "Who can be hospitalized next?"  Right now he is winning, for having stepped off the curb  at Findlay Market, Cincinnati's inner city place where goods are brought from the farm, the dell, the backyard garden, and places near and far, and the inside cubicles have the scent of newly spiced sausages, cheeses, wonderful preserved food of all kinds, and sweets that would make  our grandmother's weep that they could not live to see, "A Cupcake Tree."  You have the picture now, great eats, the beloved German lagers, and every year through April and May flowers spill over the bins in every color under the sun, for the winter is over, and the season of nature's ever changing colors has turned to a bowl full of whipped up rainbow colors apologizing for the winter of brown and grey which just passed.  This year, the white snow did not even color the hills much more than in San Francisco, but Findlay market was the scene of my husband's dance step, if one wants what happened to sound so pretty.

He was in such joy and bouncing around with our children when a voice inside said, "Fool, you are about to bust your ass," but he did not hear the warning, and off fell the man I married into a heap, and 100 cell phones became poised to dial 911.  He would get up though, but he has managed to rupture his Achilles tendon twice begining with that fateful day at Findlay market when spring, like Frank was out of step with nature, but he would keep going in his need to get back out to San Francisco for the Bohemian Club Spring Jinx where he was playing his bassoon in great pain, so the Dr. there fixed him, a sweet, charming Dr. who hails from Pakistan who warned my husband it was a less than perfect repair, so Easter was coming.  I was back here in tears, for I was lonely for life to be alright, still recovering from my own pathetic body which forgot my order to, "Keep yourself in shape," so Frank came to Cincinnati for Easter, and he was limping badly.

I keep telling folks that if an old nurse tells you to get to the physician, then go, for we have seen it all, and we know these things, but to be dramatic, to evoke his Easter suffering, for some dumb reason;   He just goofed off dragging his leg, sometimes on crutches which are too hard for him to pick himself up on and do the -- Swing through movement.  "Frank, you need to see the Dr.," and weeks later he finally did, so now he had a ruptured Achilles tendon with less to work with than the first time, so he would get a graft and two cast before we can go out to the coast for summertime, June gloom, The GLBT fest in Delores Park below our house there, where the cries of mad women draw cheers of the, "We're not going to take middle America's idealistic family crap anymore, for we are GLBT, and the clapping echoes on every hill.  Meanwhile, we do not admit to our connection with the midwest or the south;  even much of the North is off limits, so it is a better thing to answer when asked where you have been;  Just say Ann Arbor or Madison, and you will not have the GLBT contingent throwing paint balls at your California home.  Practice saying this now;  "Oh, we're back home  from Ann Arbor with a little Chicago accent, for it may save your life.

June gloom, that was another reason to get out to San Francisco, for all the way up and down the coast, the fog rolls in to cool down all the coastal cities;  Otherwise we might be more like Florida, but we have gloom, so feeling gloomy makes one want to join marches, energizes us to talk about those Right Wings even louder than before, but we need this variety in our life.  Frank would not go to the physician immediately though after his Easter sacrifice, so when he finally went, he now hd a newly ruptured Achilles tendon, with even less tendon to fix the foot to the leg, so this time he would have a graft and the new flesh would heal around that, and the sutures Dr. from SF had put in were to come out, for they were old tech, tended to eat through flesh, and were really not write for this procedure, and my voice floated on the springtime air, "You're just making that worse," so Frank just kept feeling angry and sorrier for himself.

He would be intubated this time, reminded that he needed to have his affairs in order because of a 1994 CABG, but on a lighter note, he had a Dr. who was part Alsatian like him.  The Dr. was also an Elvis Impersonator, so my symphonic husband would get knocked out by a voice singing ddply;  "Wise men say only fools go free," and it would be poetic justice, for this damned fool had caused so much of his own problems that God would send me an Elvis impersonator personality type who would be the miracle worker this past week in April who would show my husband that real men like Elvis, not any of this panty waist symphonic and operatic hogwash.  Now I am a house winch, and it does me no good to share that my back was aching, and I had need of my naps, not when my husband has to get around on a scooter that keeps all weight off of his leg and foot.

I am at your service filled my heart with remembrance of the wedding we had almost a half century earlier, and that the kids want me to care for Dad through those pathetic hours between surgery, a man who would crawl on the floor to void rather than to disturb me when I fell asleep in my watch chair.  He now had the foot connected to the leg, and all seemed like an up until I began to hear the words, "Bowel Blockage yielding Prostate Problems yielding the need to void every five minutes, pain, anguish, a Dr. who would not get back to us so I was willing to give him a grenade if that was what it took to remvoe the bowel blockage.  Back to the ER; "Your right, it's a bowel blockage," and the reason I could not help him was it was too high.

"Now shut your smirky little criticisms, for one day you may have a bowel blockage too, and since it is smooth muscle in the abdomen, the pain is like labor, only instead of a baby, A man gives birth to a swollen prostate gland and feels like they need to void them about every five minutes"  I do not want any osmirk or attitude out of any one of you, for men are not used to L&D kind of pain, and they never would have had the foot fixed had they know it would end up affecting their abdominal functions, for how much worse can having your foot reconnected to your leg really be?  I give my husband the prize of being the least among the too of us in this house, so I go back on duty -- Nurse Heintz on duty, and I made certain that man got some comfort before day three had ended;  "Yep, it's way up there said the ER Dr.: and do you want us to give him a soap suds enema," said the ER nurse, as I help my teeth grinding each other down thinking, "You lazy assed little freak;  That is the least you could do for the thousands of dollars this three hour stay for an abdomen which is not working;  "Yes, give him the soap suds, as my husband pointed his fingers longingly at me,"  like the child calling, "Mama, Mama, you  can fix anything."  And thus I took him home.

With the help of fiber which becomes clear when stirred, my husband dancing around with his, Spare the knee scooter," and prayers, the obtunded bowel began to sound like a really bady bass section of a symphonic passage from Mozart, this man fianlly found relief, and I am like a nervous cat ready to pounce on a Pit Bull, for I have gotten the news, the very good news that The San Francisco Book Festival hares canceled the outside portion of May 19th, but the awards services for that night will go on at, The St. Francis Hotel in the evening, so there goes my line of people lined around the corner to purchase my book, "Pinkhoneysuckle,"  and I do not have to worry about apologizing for having such a long line at my book space, the TV cameras flashing, and all of San Francisco on notice that I have returned.  My worries are gone, for the winners will be announced before, and I will know whether to endeavor to return with my husband pre second cast removal or to stay behind until June gloom welcomes us.

But the news will have traveled all over that if you have swallowed a wrench and cannot get the plumbing going;  theroe is a retired nurse who can cause an eruption of Mt. Vesuvious, and her name is:  Barbara Everett Heintz, and she really needs an up day, so all of my Xanga friends are going to my sale's site on Amazon, and they are going to order my book with the beautiful name of, "Pinkhoneysuckle," for all whom they know.  Next will come great reviews, for Xanga friends are like no others, and you will tell the world, that I can do anything, even turn organic matter in to gold, and send it flying in to the sewer processing plant of Cincinnati with all that never helped my poor man attached to it and fixed to it like diamonds.  You really need my book, and I need an award to raise this spirit which strives to stay above water even when the plumbing goes out.

Blessings My Friends, Barbara Everett Heintz -- "Pinkhoneysuckle," on Amazon, Create Space, and in the hands of some person being considered for the awards night at The St. Francis, and I will bow and say;  I owe it all to my faithful friends at Xanga.  Love, Barb

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