nacken

It is so cute to see how the kittens just find the person who is sleeping and join the nap.

We recently had Julius over at Daniela’ s[his current flame] place for a play date (when I was a kid there was no such thing as a play date) and today we combined the return invitation with a trip to our favourite Asian restaurant.

Having enjoyed a nice lunch and seeing the kids in half nap / half movie mode, I just extended the play date invite to Daniela’s sister .. and the 3 kids were happily watching a Disney movie while munching on apple slices and pieces of banana while Ritsu was taking her well deserved nap.

After that it was the storm of the bastille re-enacted in Julius’ room, gladly mainly with bubbles, hardly any bajionettes.

There is even some video.

And yes, Julius got a new haircut. The drying time had just become too much.

It is tricky to continue with the blog after such a big event. Many things happened, I have a bunch of pictures, there are stories to share … and somehow I just have to get back into the blog-driver’s seat and keep writing.

I have been been home for a bit over a week now and things are fairly good so far: I am taking a lot of happy pills, you get dizzy just by reading about their side effects on wikipedia (Fenobarbitale, Rivotril), then there are standard painkillers and a syringe I have to stab my tummy with once a day. I showed that once to Julius, so that he would not be afraid of syringes, and he was fascinated.

I keep being amazed and grateful at what a great job Ritsu has done from the moment of the incident (getting me into a hospital right away), then taking care of me, spending many days at the 40 km away hospital with me, while taking care of Julius all by herself. Calling in all kinds of favors so that Julius could stay after school with friends, going with me to the MRI (too bad she could not be in the actual room, nobody told me it would take 25 mins, it felt like 3 hours. On House MD it always looks so short and simple) and all these kinds of things. And a lot of this in Italian.

To put this into perspective … since his birth, I have always been around. That’s 1992 days (5 years, 5 months and 13 days) Monday January 18th 2010 was the first full day without papa for him. And all of a sudden Ritsu had to take over, while keeping focus on her high demand job, PLUS taking care of an injured husband.

It still has not gotten much easier for her, as I am still on bed rest (which includes my reclined office chair) and I cannot bring J to school or pick him up and I am not allowed to drive for a while, which also leaves the groceries to Ritsu. Basically I am useless … ok, I am doing a lot of phone calls to get our small car fixed. (Since Ritsu is rekindling her interest in driving, which I think is great)

The other big help we received was from my dad, who came down for a week, and he was great at bringing J to school and pick him up, doing driving duties (so we could stock up on heavy things like water) and last Saturday he and Chris (the father of Daniela, Julius’ latest flame in his class) were able to get our broken, small car from the mountains to Turin, since ACI (the Italian AAA) had no helpful options on that which would not include paying a lot of money. And it was great that Julius had a chance to hang out with his Opa again.

Over the next few days I will catch up with some long overdue posts (keep and eye out for ‘hospital food porn‘), so it might be a good idea to scroll down from time to time.

Too bad I don’t have a good photo of Ritsu while she was visiting … I do have one … but she would kill me if I posted it

This is what kept me entertained most of the time while enjoying 27/4 bed rest

I know that I owe you readers and all you many well wishers a much broader explanation as to what got me into experiencing the wonders of the Italian hospital system. But besides 10 loaned minutes on a windows computer with a wifi-USB stick, which I used for the last update, I had no internet connection. (I actually had my dad read some of the comments over the phone)

So, anyways, semi-chronological (and looooong):

Last Saturday started already as a mixed bag as Julius had been puking that night and Ritsu was not feeling that well either, so we cancelled Japanese school. But as usual with these things, they pass quickly and we made plans to make the best out of the weekend, especially since we had promised Julius to go sledding for a while now.

I had found a place for fancy dinner and overnight stay (they will get their own blog post later) and next morning it was me who had been revisited by the tummy bug and I had been sleeping like crap. The weather was cold and wet and Julius was coughing pretty much. All good indicators to go home, right? Wrong! We toughened up and headed towards the mountains.

The higher we climbed, the bluer the sky actually got and the more snow we found. It got very pretty. Finally we reached Pragelato (which was recommended as a sledding place) when suddenly I hear a funky noise from the engine and the power steering does not really have power anymore (note, we took the small car, because the tank was full, our ‘just-repaired’ bigger car was pretty empty).

Gladly I had noticed a sign for a garage and followed that. The reason they were actually open on a Sunday was that there was some ice racing going on, which was kinda cool to look at. The friendly people at the garage quickly figured out that the belt was torn, which meant the battery does not get juice back and all power appliances are without power … And sure enough, they did not have that part.

I called ACI, but their best offer on a Sunday was to have us (and the car) moved to the next bigger city, which is even further away from Turin. So, the chances for us to get back home that day looked grim.

We weighed our options and the best was to stay right where we are and make the best out of it. The garage promised to have the car done first thing Monday and they got us a nice deal at a local hotel. They even offered us a ride to that hotel.

Now it is getting hairy. We hopped in the car, me at the front passenger seat, I buckled up, we started driving and I asked if this hotel is far away … “No, no, within walking distance”

The next thing I remember is that I come to, being moved out of this car into a wheelchair / on a gurney with my back on fire (in terms of pain, no actual flames) and then moved inside what looks like an emergency response station. Obviously I am very confused and one thing I recall is that I am telling Ritsu that I can’t remember what we had for dinner last night (apparently I am running some memory self-check) …

Then again, last night’s dinner was not THAT memorable … I can barely move, this station does not have the right equipment, so off we go with another ambulance to Pinerolo (Where our friends Patrizia & Malcolm were already waiting offering moral and language support), which has a fully equipped hospital and I undergo ECG, EEG, CT scans, several x-rays and the result is that I have fractures in vertebrae #10,11+12. Now, the big question: HOW did that happen?

I try to summarize what Ritsu told me: She says that all of a sudden I screamed, raised my arms, eyes wide open, arched into the buckled seatbelt as if someone gave me a hefty kick from the back (which might explain the fractures). Then my eyes rolled back and liquid stuff started coming out of my nose and mouth as I started to faint and tumble towards the driver, who at this time, naturally, was equally freaked out.

WHY did this happen is still a matter of debate. Many loaded, medical terms are thrown around like ’seizure’, ’stand-alone epileptic episode’, ’stress attack’ and ‘maybe it was that ONE bottle of Roero Arneîs that 2 adults shared over dinner together with 2 liters of water’. When doctors asked if I slept well that night and I tell them I slept like crap, there was always a big ‘Ahhhhhh’ kind of nod.

The cream de la test, the MRI, was done last Friday at a hospital in Turin and I am now waiting for the doctors here to interpret the results and at least let me go home.

I am under complete 100% bed rest, which might sound comfy at first, but I have to ask for help for every little thing, e.g. things like going to the bathroom.

The whole hospital experience probably deserves its own blog post as well. Needless to say that it has been an adventure (I am writing this in past tense, knowing I can only post this once I am back home, but I am typing from my hospital bed now)

Ritsu has been great and mobilized a friend or colleague pretty much every day to bring her out here (40 minutes from Moncalieri) and she must have missed a lot of work (and an important workshop in Liberia). For Julius it must have been quite strange as well, as last Monday was the first full day in his life without Papa (followed by a few more, until Sunday, when he came to visit.)

That should be enough for now, thanks for all the well wishing comments, emails, text messages, phone calls … And let’s see if I get an answer as to WHAT the heck happened there…

[update]: I have been released from prison hospital and am back home now. The big question remains as to WHAT happened and it seems that in cases like this, when there is gladly no dark cloud showing on any of the MRI results and none of the other tests show any conclusive (and potentially more scary) results, the MDs file it under one of the 40+ possible definitions of ‘epileptic fit’ that you can read up on on wikipedia.

One definition I found elsewhere: “Epilepsy is best regarded as the symptoms of some underlying brain dysfunction, which causes gross misbehaviour of brain cells, either at a specific place (focal epilepsy), or more widely (generalised epilepsy). This misbehaviour causes physical consequences, like the loss of consciousness, or loss of muscle control. These physical consequences are called epileptic fits (aka seizures or convulsions).”

I am still not ruling out voodoo. So, whoever is holding a grudge against me and kicked a Peter shaped doll in the back, please step forward.

Readers of this blog might have noticed that I have the tendency of taking pictures of what I am eating …

And hanging out all day in a hospital bed, only equipped with an iPhone … well, what better thing to do then checking what they are serving?

Overall, I was pretty impressed (or I expected far worse), but keep in mind that Italy has a free health care system, so all this was free, and there were daily choices. Chicken showed up a lot, either braised or oven roasted. There was always some Minestrone, there were typical Italian things like mozzarella cheese and prosciutto. But maybe my biggest surprise was when I heard ‘tuna’ .. and what I got was a nice scoop of canned tuna. Well, even that was kinda nice.

And while not the best thing for our planet, I can somehow understand that they used plastic dishes and cutlery.

Sorry I did not get that out earlier, but there is no internet in this hospital and I am somewhat tied to the bed anyways.

When I get a longer online chance, I might tell things in more detail. Just so much about what happened: while it happened in the mountains, it was no winter sports related accident & while it happened in a car (me being the passenger), it was no car accident (Rest of the family is ok)

The doctors are still puzzled how I managed to break the 3 lower dorsals of the vertebra, and so am I, as it appears I am missing those 5 minutes when it happened.

Let’s see how much longer I have to stay here … so, don’t expect many updates anytime soon.

Although we all were a bit off this morning (Julius coughing, me not having slept too well) we still decided to head for the mountains.

The weather did not look to great either, but the further up we got, the better it became. After one long tunnel we found blue skies and lots of snow. Exactly what we were looking for. But I suddenly also noticed a new noise coming from the engine and that the power steering had lost its power …

After the just recent episode with our other car and being far away from home, I very quickly followed the sign for a garage, which, surprisingly was open on a Sunday (reason being that Pragelato has a car racing rink … on ice)

While the grown ups were doing grown up stuff, Julius immediately took to the snow, played with the resident dog and demanded that I’d took a picture of his snowman.

The very nice people at the garage looked at our car and found quickly that the main belt was torn and that there was no way of getting that done that day. Some calls with the Italian automobile club did not yield any further help, so we settled with staying one night there, thanks to the nice people there we got a cheap hotel room and even a free ride to get there …

and this is when the poo hit the ventilation system …

It is definitely rare to find a fancy restaurant WITH a sushi bar here in the middle of nowhere. But this is pretty much what Tenuta La Cascinetta is. (Warning, big flashy website with music and flying cutlery)

The setting is very nice and upscale, the service is impeccable, the atmosphere is nice … but we perceived the food and the overnight stay as only so so and on the pricy side.

I had found this place through THIS website, where you all could please still vote for Magorabin as “Miglior Ristorante Emergente 2009″ (scroll down, on the right, currently they are #3).

The two innkeepers who greeted us very nicely and were very fluent in English were later also very active on the restaurant floor.

We opted for the tasting menu with a few changes, which they accommodated without any hassle (or charging extra)

Menu degustazione

	It started with a free amuse bouche, 2 kinds of puree, served on a suspiciously light plastic platter (while very design-y in appearance). Nothing really special. The assortment of bread was more exciting.
	Polpo alla brace su Vellutata di Ceci profumata al Rosmarino Octopus pieces in a cream on chick-peas. This was kinda entertaining, the meat was pleasently tender, but nothing to write home about really.
	Gnocchi Piatti di Patate con Guanciale di Maiale e Porri Fritti We both don’t like Gnocchi that much, so Ritsu had a pasta dish and I went for the puree of Topinambur with black truffles. Too bad that they added some smokey flavour which instantly killed the truffle flavour, if there ever was one to begin with. It was a generous portion, though.
	Vitello Piemontese alle Prugne accompagnato da Insalata Belga brasata. Pieces of local beef with prunes and some kind of radicchio. I guess I had expected more from the yummy sounding combination of beef and prune. But there was only one prune on the plate and well … it missed that special something.
	Parfait al Torrone con Ganache di Cioccolato caldo Extrafondente 72% Venezuelano Now, this was my absolute favourite! This was super yummy! I could have had more of that. Dipping pieces of apple in that very dense chocolate smudge and eat it with that torrone ice cream … heaven.

While we were eating all this, Julius enjoyed his sushi roll tremendously, he also found a girl his age to play with..

It seems they also offer some very weird sushi concoctions, like roll with fois gras … which does somehow not really compute with me.

As for the hotel part of the whole experience … the place is in the middle of nowhere, which makes it nice and quiet, though it is adjacent to a really ugly factory.

The room was nice, clean, spacious but compared to what we usually experience in that area, 120€ was just way too much. (The lady who did the check out the next morning was not even aware of our 120€ deal and initially tried to charge us 150€) I totally understand that people who run a place like this need some time off, but they were sorely missed Sunday morning when we were looking for local advice. Breakfast buffet was kinda nice, but it always feels weird when you realize that you are the only guests and they just set up a lot of stuff so it does not look too empty. (including the cake that is already missing a piece)

Overall: Fancy place, maybe a bit too fancy in some areas (what’s with this projection thing of the 4 seasons? That’s a bit like watching TV while eating), some great ideas (not that projection thing), need to work on their room pricing, food pricing felt very ok. But they seem to be very popular with the locals, the place was packed, so, maybe they don’t really need week-enders who stay over night.

Would I come back? Honestly, I would rather spend a weekend at Cascina Vrona again.

Tenuta La cascinetta Hotel de charme Ristorante
Reg. Rena 10060 Buriasco (TO)
Via Pinerolo, 9
Tel. 0121.368040
Fax 0121.368039 (who still uses fax?)
Chiuso tutto il lunedì e il martedì a pranzo
N 44° 52.481′ E 7° 23.381′

Going to get groceries has become so much easier … I recall times when Julius would just want to touch / break anything or went pee-pee in the shopping cart …

Now he is pretty mellow, just wants to sit in the cart and does not mind getting buried under food items.

I was able to get Julius to drink tiny bits of freshly made veggie juice in a shot glass, but now I found a way to make him trink a 0.15l cup:

Recently he loves ‘races’ and being the ‘winner’ … so I challenge him with my 0.5l glass … and of course, he wins every time!

And this veggie juice is not based on apple or carrot (too much sugar). Ok, there is one carrot in there, but as you can see how green it is, the other ingredients are whatever is fresh and in season, this morning a big bulb of fennel, 7 strands of celery, 5 leaves of biate coste (kind of swiss chard), a zucchini … and I need to get some fresh ginger for the next load (natural antibiotic)