And long post hangover ramble . . .

When Nog, Pablo and I finally left the hospital on Thursday, after receiving my unhappy updated prognosis, it was well past lunch time. So we decided to look for somewhere to eat and ended up near Pipocas’s house. There were quite a few options but I opted for Manolo León because it looked quite special and I decided – hang the expense! – because I felt like a party. . .

First thing ordered was a lovely bottle of cava. Pablo asked what we were celebrating and I said “my upcoming  extremely intense life”, but the toast was made to friends.  Sitting there with my once sorta kinda boyfriend and my best friend in the whole world, and thinking about all my other wonderful friends, I felt very lucky indeed. And so we had a wonderful lunch. It was my first visit to Manolo León … I hope to get back again. Maybe for my birthday? Anyhow, this is what we had …

complementary starter of spinach & garbanzos

fabulous revuelto with spicy chorizo & potatoes, which we shared

Nog’s lamb kidneys and chips

Pablo’s vegetable lasagna

my scrumptious sea bass with cheese sause and little raviolis

Nog and me

the restaurant – very pretty

After the cava we ordered another bottle of wine, so we were quite happily tipsy by the time we finished. Then Pablo suggested that we find somewhere to go for an after-lunch cocktail. We ended up going across the street to a place called Momentos, which happens to be just downstairs from where Pipocas lives. It’s quite modern and has a great ambientation, as well as very pleasant & friendly staff.

Pipocas lives just above this patio.

Inside the bar … will have to try the tapas sometime

fabulous bathroom with chalk provided for graffiti

Our very charming waiter – Carlos from Argentina – asked us where we were from and when I told him I was from Canada he said that every day an elderly Canadian woman came into the bar for a glass of shandy. And sure enough, after about half an hour she turned up. By this time I’d heard from Pipocas. She’d just got back from her business trip to a nearby village (which was why she wasn’t at the hospital with us) and I told her we were getting drunk downstairs, so she came to join us. By the time she arrived, we’d gone over to introduce ourselves to Jo (short for Josephine) and ended up moving over to her table with our drinks.

Jo is from Vancouver and is a very young 82-year-old.  She’s lived abroad for a lot of her life and finally settled in Sevilla, presently living in a residence for the elderly.  Anyhow, we all had a great time talking and swapping stories until Pablo finally had to leave, closely followed by Nog who had two classes at home.  So us three girls kept on yakking away. I ended up giving my phone number to Jo. I hope she gets in touch – if not, I know where to find her every day around 5 o’clock. It’s a shame I didn’t take any photos of them, or get Carlos to take one of all of us.

Weirdly, both of Nog’s students ended up cancelling last minute while he was en route, so he turned around and came back to the bar again. Just in time to walk me home after Pipocas and Jo headed out. Lurching home through the park we held hands – we haven’t done that in a very long time. And we’ve been holding on to each other ever since, like we don’t want to miss even one minute of being together.

Meanwhile, we both woke up with quite outrageous hangovers yesterday morning. And I had to go to the dentist! Way back in April I lost a filling and had it replaced, but ever since then I’ve had trouble chewing on that side of my mouth and at almost every meal something would get stuck and my tooth and gums would start aching. This was just a couple of weeks before all the cancer stuff started so I had other things to attend to, but this week I finally decided I couldn’t put up with the constant tooth pain anymore. I felt quite sorry for my dentist because I’m sure that, in spite of several brushings before leaving the house and chewing gum on the way over, my breath must have still smelled like a distillery. But it’s all fixed now (free of charge) and it’s wonderful to have pain-free meals again.

And as if waking up with a hangover wasn’t bad enough, I discovered that my usual morning hour of Sex and the City has been replaced with Betty. Okay, this was about the fifth time they’d shown the entire series since I first started watching it in May, but it felt weird not to have it to turn to yesterday morning. Yet another post prognosis change …

I’ve been kind of all over the map emotionally. I don’t know if I’m in denial or not (what are those five stages?), but everything feels almost too intense. It’s quite exhausting. The tears only come when I think about leaving Nog and the cats, because I’m worried about how they’ll be without me. Then I tell myself that this may not happen for quite awhile … then I get scared that the next prognosis might take away even my one year.  I had this fantasy of just maxing my credit card and Nog & I going off to New York and London and taking a cruise of the Greek islands. Of course, if I did that I’d probably end up living another ten years with massive credit card debt.

When Ricardo (from The Team) heard about the latest prognosis he told me not to worry so much and that  statistics are only data.  He also said he’d arrange a trip so Nog & I can visit his country house in the mountains – something else to look forward to. I’d really like to sit down and talk to him about all this stuff. I think it would help a lot.

So, this has turned into a very rambly post. It was quite bittersweet looking at that post I linked to (about my last visit to the dentist) because it was almost like I saw all this coming, yet I was still blissfully unaware of it.  Anyhow . . .

I shall leave you with this ‘blackmail’ photo taken at Momentos with our after-lunch cocktails, that I promised Pablo I wouldn’t post on my blog.   😛