Delora's Communicative Family

 coutesy of: This isn't Happiness blog

Delora has a very large and complicated immediate family.  First, there was Delora, her sister and her brother.  Then Delora's mother pulled a Brady Bunch move and Delora instantly acquired four additional brothers.  Then, Delora's father had two more children with his second wife.  Then many of the siblings got married to great people who became sibling-ish.  Now, Delora can barely swing a cat without hitting one of them.  But because Delora's many, many parents and siblings have very busy lives and are spread across the globe, they frequently have trouble keeping up to date with accurate news of one another.

Even when Delora tries to communicate en masse with these siblings and parents via a blog, her life is like a game of TELEPHONE. Below is an actual conversation that Delora had yesterday:

Delora's Mother:  How is your hernia?

Delora(patiently): Mom, why do you think I have a hernia?

Delora's Mother: I read it on your blog.

Delora: You must not have read the actual blog.

Delora's Mother: No, really, I did!  I read that you had a hernia! How is it?

Delora:  Mom, if you'd read the actual blog, you would have known that that was a joke.  It was a lead into another issue...

Delora's Mother: -silence-

Delora: I don't have a hernia, Mom.

Delora's Mother:  Oh, that's right!  Your brother told me that you had a hernia!  He says he's going to call you about it...

Here's the story of Delora's hernia, Delora's BLOOD BROTHER and Delora's BLOOD MOTHER...
  Delora's Hernia

Delora's Brain Malfunction

Multiple Shadow House photo by Olafur Eliasson

Delora discovers a seriously, serious problem with her brain function while driving with friends to a cute little village north of Madrid called Patones.

Delora is having a discussion about travel advisories in foreign countries and how one little incident can trigger a warning from the U.S. State Department.  Delora decides to delight her friends with an example of this by telling a story about a guy she knows who ran a travel business in Africa. Delora recounts the story of how one day this friend was traveling with his clients in this African country when they came upon a group of poachers. (All true.) They stopped the bus, and the men with guns fired a warning shot outside the window of the bus and it inadvertently hit a woman inside the bus and killed her.

Like in Babylon, Delora's friend asks?

Delora continues telling her riveting story, while at the same time thinking, Babylon, Africa? She refuses to embarrass her friend regarding her faulty geography, because she is concentrating so hard that she can see the story while she's telling it!  She recreates the dusty bus in her mind's eye and sees the woman who's been shot and the man next to her, who looks alot like -- wait a minute -- Brad Pitt! Sitting right next to the woman from Southport, Connecticut?

Sensing Delora's confusion, the friend gently utters the word, Babylon, and Delora's realizes that her brain is now mixing reality with scenes from movies!

Delora and her friends laugh uproariously until the windows fog on the car. But when Delora is awake playing Sudoku in the middle of the night, she wonders about the tiny brain tumor that may be forming and causing her to break from reality.  Maybe that Jamon isn't as full of Omega three fatty acids as those farmers claim it to be!  What if there's a miniature fat-ball restricting blood flow to the region of the brain that distinguishes between film clips and reality?  Delora decides that she must be very careful about which movies she chooses to view from now on.  Nothing funky from the science fiction or horror genres.  After all, Delora must keep her wits about her.  Tomorrow, she has to stand on a balcony in Buenos Aires and sing, "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", while looking good for her husband, Antonio Banderas.

Delora's Medical Condition

Delora is deciding whether to use the best Spanish surgeon or the best English-speaking Spanish surgeon for her abdominal hernia. She looks in the mirror one more time to confirm her diagnosis and, as she runs her finger over the pink bump, she wonders what in the world she's been lifting to cause such muscle strain.  She carries a 14 pound dog up the stairs when she refuses to walk, but that shouldn't bust a gut.

Delora decides to show the hernia to her daughter, who had one repaired when she was 6 months old.  She says look, this is what a hernia feels like!  This is what you had fixed when you were a baby!  Delora's spawn wipes a finger over the lump and offers a different opinion: what you have, she says with a smirk, is a blister from the button on your jeans.  Then, like Matlock, she re-zips her mother's partially unzipped jeans and shows how the button matches where the hernia is located.  While Delora is relieved at not having to speak to a surgeon in Spanish while undergoing anesthesia, she is a bit chagrined.  It's true, Delora's skinny jeans have been tight lately, but Delora believes that jeans fit best after a second wearing when the shrinking effects of the dryer have been reversed. Then Delora detects a bit of faulty logic: Delora doesn't even own a dryer in Spain.

When Delora takes a mental inventory of her last few weeks, she can point to several culprits for the hernia weight gain. Delora has always been a card carrying believer in the old adage, When in Rome, do as the Romans.  Adapting this personal motto to her time in Spain has meant that Delora has emulated the Spanish and allowed herself to eat several more meals per day than she does in the United States!   Here's a typical day: For breakfast, pastry and coffee (or -- for Spaniards only -- chocolate and churros,  before going to sleep -- at 6 AM.)  The next meal is served at around 11:30 AM when the Spanish enjoy a light sandwich or tortilla.  Lunch is from 2 PM until 4 PM where there is bread (no butter), a first course, and a second course, followed by dessert.  At 7 or 8 in the evening one enjoys a merienda, a mini meal, before heading out for a late night dinner at 10 PM. Delora has noticed that the Spanish love potato chips, and while she has denied herself this pleasure for years, she now feels that eating chips is a cultural experience and must be indulged.  As Delora's friend, Taylor, will tell you, Delora is now often heard furtively piling sour cream and onion chips into her mouth while speaking on her Vonage phone.

Part of Delora's recuperation from her non-operation involves an adjustment in wardrobe to looser clothing  to avoid irritating the stitches from the hernia non-operation blister.  Another part of the healing involves figuring out which diet strategy can work with the heavy-on-the-jamon-and-chips, five-meal-per-day plan.

Why Can´t Delora Be Tranquila?

As she stands in the lift line in the Sierra Nevadas on the best ski day of the season, Delora can´t help but feel dissatisfied that she hasn´t learned the secret to Spanish tranquility.  She sees the baby blue sky and the packed power and knows that she should feel joy at the prospect of skiing this magnificent mountain 11,400 feet above sea level.  Instead, Delora wants to know the answer to a secret.  She want to know how the Spanish remain so carefree, joyful even, while being jostled in a crowd.  She wants to unleash her inner zen so that when someone blows smoke in her face in the "line", she will accept the Buddhist mantra that we are all one.  Instead, Delora looks at the inefficiencies of thousands of skiers in a funnel formation pushing each other towards a small entrance to the chair lift.  Delora notes that if she managed the world, she would install a system of alleys that would force people to queue into a line. But this is only in Delora´s perfect world.  Inspira, expira, she says to herself as she practices breathing exercises and her Spanish all at the same time.

The breathing doesn´t help and Delora feels her inner hostilities being released when the man behind her puts both of his skis on top of hers and pushes her forward.  She recalls reading in the book, Spain is Different, that Spaniards have a different sense of personal space than Americans do.  She reminds herself to embace this cultural difference!  Delora should be a gracious and kind Ambassadoress for Americans everywhere.  She should not be an ugly American.  But Delora is from New Jersey, where people are killed for lesser offenses than riding on the back of someone's skis. Delora turns to give a warning glare to the offender, but as she turns, she sees her husband and children watching her closely, so she decides to take one for the team.  After all, she is testing out rental skis.  Who cares if there´s a 200 pound man on-board scratching them up?

Can you see the smoke in this picture???

She puts up with this annoyance for several more minutes seconds and then she snaps.  She says the only thing she can think of in Spanish that might be appropriate and that she knows she can pronounce correctly, "Hombre, en serio?"  Man, are you serious?  Managing to free her skis from under his,  she then places both of her skis right on top of his tips.   He looks at her with a puzzled look. Delora immediately feels much better, then much worse. Delora's family looks like they are not at all surprised at her outburst.

Later, Delora has an introspective session with herself where she admits that she is unable to let the little things go.  She has recently read an article that says that this very quality is the secret to happiness. She wonders whether her failures are due to her birth order, some German DNA, or what. Then Delora admits to herself that she is happy in other ways.  She regrets that she is not always a great spirit guide to her children and that she cannot always be a gracious Ambassadoress for America.  She is not naturally tranquil -- at all.  She hopes that another few months in Spain will help, or at the very least, that she can summon a tranquility super power.