Author Archives: Maria Langer

Unnatural Causes

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An Adam Dalgliesh mystery by P.D. James.

Unnatural CausesI mentioned in a previous post that I’d taken two novels with me to the hospital for something to do while recovering from surgery. In that same post, I also mentioned that drugs kept me unable to read for the entire time I was there. I caught up yesterday by reading one of the two books I’d lugged down to Phoenix and back: Unnatural Causes by P.D. James.

I’m a big reader of mysteries, but for some reason I’ve always shied away from P.D. James. I think I must have had a bad P.D. James experience in my past. You know what I mean. You get a book from the library and have every intention of reading it, but when you open the book and begin to read, the book fails to grasp your attention. You put it aside, planning to pick it up later to read it, and wind up just returning it to the library — late, of course — with a new idea in the back of your mind: you don’t really care for that author’s work.

I don’t remember this happening to me with a P.D. James book, but it must have. There’s no other explanation for why I have avoided her work for so long.

The Great P.D. James Avoidance, however, ended last week when I picked up one of her books at Wickenburg’s local library. And yesterday’s reading of Unnatural Causes dissolved any preconceived notions I had about her work.

The book, which was originally published in 1967, concerns the discovery of a dinghy carrying the body of a dead man whose hands have been cut off. The dinghy washes ashore at the seaside town where it originated, which is also the same place the victim lived: Monksmere. The town has an unusually high percentage of full- and part-time residents who are either writers or crititcs. The dead man was a writer.

The book is nearly 40 years old now and it shows its age. Not in a bad way, mind you. More like a “look back” way. A part of the plot concerns the typing (on a typewriter) of the dead man’s manuscripts with and without carbon paper. If you’re old enough to remember typewriters, you’re likely to remember carbon paper, too. Not only did it give you the ability to make a copy of a document as you typed it, but it preserved that document on its shiny blue or black side — until you reused it so many times that you couldn’t read the carbon. Remember the days? Glad they’re gone? Me, too!

I won’t go into any more detail about the story line or suspects because I don’t want to spoil the book for any future reader who likes a good British “cosy” mystery. That’s what this is, through and through. P.D. James and Agatha Christie were cut from similar molds, although I think James has better use of the English language and much better descriptive skills. Her desciptions of the coastal town were so clear that they brought me there — from central Arizona! — and I was able to hear the waves and feel the dampness of the sea air. There’s something to be said for an author who can do that.

My final word? If you like mysteries and haven’t read any P.D. James, Unnatural Causes is a good place to start.

Breakwater at Rockland

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Another scenic view in Maine.

Breakwater at RocklandI couldn’t remember where this photo was taken, either. I knew it was in Maine and I knew I’d taken it on one of our outings with John and Lorna. So I e-mailed Lorna a copy of the image and asked her. The response came back almost immediately: Samoset Resort in Rockland, ME.

I remembered the drive to the parking area clearly — past the resort grounds to a shady lot with several dozen cars already parked. We walked from the lot to the water’s edge where this long, stone breakwater awaited us. There were people on the rock wall, walking in either direction. I managed to get a shot where you couldn’t see any of them.

The rocks were huge and placed precisely. It was an amazing feat of engineering — at least I think so. The surface was smooth enough for a vehicle to drive on it — maybe even a mountain bike with fat tires. But you did have to pay attention while walking on it. One wrong step could mean a badly twisted ankle.

Rockland Lighthouse, MaineYou also can’t see the building at the end of breakwater about a mile from where this photo was taken. Here it is. It was a lighthouse and apparently still functions as one. But it’s closed to the public, so you can just walk around it or onto its stone steps. We spent some time sitting out in the sun, watching the boats go by. It was a peaceful, relaxing place. There was some fog in the trees on the other side of the channel — the same fog we’d walked through earlier in the day when visiting the Owl’s Head Lighthouse. (Did I get that one right, Lorna?)

John and LornaI took this photo of John and Lorna on the way back to the car. John’s not an easy guy to get a picture of. It seem like every time you tell him to stand still and pose for a picture, he acts like he doesn’t believe someone’s really going to take his picture. So you have to take a few of them in a row for one of them to come out natural enough to use. This one gets them both.

Back from Surgery

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What a pain!

Most folks didn’t know I had surgery scheduled for last Wednesday. Although you might think I write in this blog about every aspect of my life as it unfolds, I don’t.

I didn’t want to write about it. There were too many unknowns. The huge lump in my abdomen could have been anything from a fibrous growth to a nasty bit of cancer. Surgery could have required removal of just the growth or removal of some important stuff it might have been attached to, with all kinds of reconstruction within. I could have come out of surgery and been back to normal in a week or two or the surgery might have been the first awful step in a slow spiral down to a painful death.

So I guess you can see why I didn’t want to write about it.

Surgery was Wednesday and it was the best case scenario all around. The growth was a hefty six pounds in weight, but it wasn’t attached to anything important. They took it out and, while they were in there, they took out a bunch of female parts a 44-year-old woman doesn’t really need anymore.

I was in the hospital for two nights and three days. I shared a room with a woman who was going through pretty much the same thing I was — but worse. I think she lost more parts.

The worse thing about the experience was the pain. We’re talking pain that just won’t go away. Pain when you move. Pain when you think about moving. I was screaming when I regained consciousness in post-op. They asked me, on a scale of one to ten with ten being the worse, what was my pain? Ten! I screamed at them. It was a question I’d hear over and over during my hospital stay. The answer ranged from four to eight after that initial ten.

They had me on three different pain killers. One was a device literally stitched into my wound area. It leaked out a novacaine-like substance to deaden the pain on contact. The other was morphine attached to an IV going into the inside of my elbow. I had a pain button and when I was in pain, I’d push the button. A bit of morphine would go into the drip. Of course, this was limited to one little bit every six minutes. If I pressed it every minute, I’d still get it just every six minutes. It made a reassuring beep-beep-beep sound every time I pushed the button, whether morphine went in or not. The third painkiller was oral and although it had a different name, it was based on morphine, too.

So it’s no wonder I couldn’t keep my eyes open in the hospital. I was doped up with morphine for three days straight. I felt pretty stupid bringing an overnight bag with two books and notebook in it. I couldn’t focus my eyes on anything long enough to see it, let alone read it. I listened to podcasts for a while, but even those put me to sleep.

Days and nights blended into each other. The clock on the wall showed five minutes later every time I looked at it, no matter what time I looked at it. The night nurse must have been bored the first night because she came in to do a survey at 2 AM and tried taking me for a walk at 4 AM. (I was too nauseous for the walk.) To make matters worse, the pre-op nurse had screwed up my IV by putting it in my elbow instead of my hand and the IV machine required a reset every 2 to 45 minutes. All day and all night. Every time it needed the reset, it would emit a loud beep-beeeep. I quickly learned how to reset it myself so I wouldn’t have to wait for the nurse. Not only did it keep me up, but it kept the woman on the other side of the curtain awake, too. When the nurses caught me resetting it, they weren’t happy. But I wasn’t happy listening to that thing beep for ten minutes while I was waiting for one of them to show up. Besides, the pain button didn’t work unless the IV machine was working.

Anyway, I’m home now. I dosed up with some morphine before leaving the hospital (I’m not an idiot, you know) and spent most of the ride from Banner Good Samaritan Hospital to Wickenburg in a state of semi-consciousness where my only thought was, are we there yet? I managed to throw up nothing — it’s when you go through the motions but nothing comes out — after a nice hot shower. Safeway brand Tums and Sea-bands (which I’m still wearing) helped out there. Yesterday afternoon was a drug-induced confusion of watching television through out-of-focus eyes and drifting off to sleep. Finally, I could stand it no longer. At 8 PM, I took the heavy-duty pain killers and went to sleep. I was up again when those wore off at midnight and managed to stick it out until 2 AM before taking another dose. Then slumber until 6 AM, our normal wake up time.

This morning, my coffee wasn’t very good so I switched to tea with some lightly toasted and buttered bread. It’s my first piece of really solid food since Tuesday night. Now my job is to get into some kind of ritual that’ll let me get on with my life while I recover.

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed

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A memoir by Alan Alda.

Never Have Your Dog StuffedLately I’ve been floundering around, looking for something new and interesting to read. I heard an interview with Alan Alda on NPR a few months back. He talked about his book, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed. It sounded like something I’d enjoy, so I picked up a copy.

The book was interesting, full of stories from his childhood and his attempts to get started as an actor. His mother was mentally ill and her illness worsened as she aged. His father, Robert Alda, was an actor with humble beginnings in Vaudeville. Alda discusses his relationships with his parents throughout the book.

In reading the book, I learned that M*A*S*H was Alda’s big acting break. Although he’d appeared in a number of theater productions all over the country and a few movies, none of them had given him the boost that he needed to become a well-established actor. M*A*S*H did that for him. It also apparently helped him hone his acting skills so he could perform better and portray his characters more realistically.

If I had to rate the book on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, I’d give the book a 3. While it was interesting, it wasn’t the “couldn’t put it down” kind of book I really like to read. In fact, I read it over the course of a few weeks, with 20 or so pages a night before going to sleep.

But if you like to read about actors and other celebrities and have an interest in Alda or his M*A*S*H character, pick up a copy and give it a try. You’re likely to enjoy it more than I did.