Greek medical care, gardens and saying good bye to beaches

June 26th, 2012

First a comment about Greek medical care. M needed some sort of drug for his knee pain and I needed antibiotics for this wretched eye infection, (I look like a red eyed monster from hell) and you just walk into a pharmacy and buy what you need for 3-4 Euros. The drugs he got were some wicked anti-inflammatory which he had to be careful with. And the eye drops proved to not be enough, so I went back.

I was still lousy with whatever crazy infection was making loopy and falling over and not able to go out in sunlight. And here’s where Greek medical care gets tricky. I researched on the internet and self prescribed Augmentin. I had no idea there were so many kinds of antiobioitics. I wanted Cippro which is my antibiotic drug of choice, but it didn’t seem right, so I went in and asked for Augmentin. The pharmacist said I should see a doctor, I paid my 4 Euros and bought the medicine and lo and behold, I seem to be on the road to recovery. With any luck, I can swim tomorrow.

Try that in the States even if you have insurance. At home, this would take half a day and we have medical care. Well, we have Kaiser. Don’t get me started.

Leaving soon to go back to Los Angeles home of freeways, traffic snarls and our own house. We never planned to stay in our neighborhood, but real estate shifts made us decide to hang in and fix the place up. Besides, I don’t think we’re quite sure where we would move.

We like Pasadena where the press is and especially Altadena which is a little more laid back, but one never knows. We have friends in the Valley, in Santa Monica and in Pasadena. But, in LA, everyone’s friends have to drive an hour to see you. M wishes we could live somewhere cooler. Like maybe the Bay Area or Portland, but I don’t want to have to start my life/the press over in a new city. Make all new friends.

But it’s hot, no doubt where we live. It’s supposed to be 90 all week there. Everywhere is cooler than the San Fernando Valley. Well, except the Mojave Desert or even the Antelope Valley. The Gobi Desert ranges from 95 degrees F to -53 degrees F. That is out of control. So, where we live isn’t that bad.

Our house has a lot of space and light; it’s your basic sprawling house to which everybody who ever owned it added a room or two. It was big enough when we had four children living at home and we can certainly make guests comfortable when they want to stay over. M wouldn’t mind living in a smaller house, and maybe eventually when the market improves we’ll move.

In the meantime, we are thinking about working on the house but mostly just improving the garden. I want to see how the tomatoes and peppers are doing. And of course how the chicks are growing up. And how many of them look like roosters. You start to be able to tell long before they make those silly crowing noises that the males of the species make, you can tell by their little top hats and their extra feathers and the way they like to stomp around.

This is supposed to be the easy time with kids, but getting them through college and on their way is a process. Some people skip this stage and just send their kids on their way. We believe in education and in making sure your kids get one. Hoping that’s what happens.

We have a lot of friends with kids under the age of ten, and I do remember that part and it’s a lot of work. Driving them back and forth to school and all their little lessons and to see their friends for the endless play dates. The driving alone kills you.

We have a few more days in Greece. We have a couple more days swimming at Lambi. My favorite Greek foods: Greek salad, eggplant salad (similar to baba ganoush which I also love,) baked feta, flaming feta, I like feta, marithes—they are fried tiny fish that you can get as an appetizer. Picarel or smelts. I love them. I like all the fish I have had here. Oh, and the stuffed zucchini flowers. I might be able to make them at home. I better get the zucchinis planted first. It looks pretty easy. But I don’t think our grocery store carries fresh smelt for making the marithes, so we may just need to come back to Greece. So here’s to a few more days and then home sweet home where I can’t wait to see the new Ridley Scott film, Prometheus.

Lambi Beach and Greek Medical Care

 July 28, 2009

Greek Medical Care looks like this.  We get up and go to the free clinic.  We have to wait about twenty minutes, and we see a lovely medic who speaks English.  She asks if we are Greek, we say that we’re from the U.S. She says, Okay.  She seems surprised that 19 hours after a wasp sting Mark looks like something out of Night of the Living Dead.  She writes a prescription and minutes later, Mark is taking a pill, putting on a gel and starting to feel better.  The medicine costs about $20 American dollars.  That’s Greek medical care.  Do not try that in California. 

One more time to Lambi Beach for a long swim, this time to the other point.  The sea was very rough today and at one point I didn’t think I was going to make it.  The waves were huge and sometimes if swells kept following each other they would come in over my head, and I was taking in a lot of salt water.  There was a time when I was way out in the ocean and huge waves were all around me and I knew no one would rescue would me if I drowned that I couldn’t remember why I was swimming an hour out into the Mediterranean.  By the time I turned around, I couldn’t see the beach at all I was so far out.  It was a two hour swim, but I was working very hard against waves and current.  No wonder these Greeks are in such good shape.

 Although… when we get to the beach in the morning, nobody is there.  By the last part of this trip, we had our routine down.  We got up around 7 and had coffee, took off on the motorbike to the beach.  I would go for a long swim while Mark read and then we would come back and write the rest of the day.  Greeks must sleep in the morning and get up later in the day because when we leave the beach at noon there is still hardly anyone there, but people assure us that it gets crowded in the late afternoon.  We like the morning.  Sitting by the water this morning in the clear air eating the cheese pie of Patmos, watching the waves roar in, having Mark warn me that it was going to be a hard swim, thinking maybe so but this may be my last swim in Greece this summer I am going for it. It’s worth getting up for.  Mark buys coffee, the rocks are beautiful; Lambi in the morning has own private magic.  That swim whipped me, and tomorrow night we get on the 7 hour boat ride back to Athens.  Patmos has been a perfect vacation:  winding streets, quiet time to write, beautiful girls and guys whipping by on motorbikes, endless swimming, free medical care, salt, wind, water, love.