My weekend in Philly was really GREAT!

No. Seriously. GRRRRRRRRRRRRREAT!!!!

My old friend the Good Doctor picked me up at the airport and said "OMG! YOU LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME! YOU HAVEN'T CHANGED ONE BIT IN TEN YEARS!"

"I've put on forty pounds since we last saw each other. Of course I've changed!"

"OH, WHO CARES? YOU LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME! YOUR FACE HAS GROWN INTO YOUR AGE AND YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL! THIS GIVES ME HOPE. IT MAKES ME FEEL GOOD ABOUT AGING."

And that set the tone for the weekend.

The first thing we did was drive to the South side where she grew up, walked a few city blocks as she described the changes her old neighborhood has been through in her lifetime, and then sauntered up to her favorite cheesesteak counter and ordered two with provolone. The Good Doctor told the guy behind the counter "ZIPPY CAME ALL THE WAY HERE FROM THE SOUTH!" The guy behind the counter took pity and presented me with two souvenir pens from his establishment (GENO'S STEAKS 1219 S. 9TH ST, PHILLY, if you're wondering). It was cool out, so we sat in the car to eat, the juices of the sandwich running down the front of my new sweater (a souvenir stain of my trip north).

The entire weekend was much the same, no matter where we went or what we did. History, lessons, and good eats.

She toured me through her city with a mix of pride and irreverence. Her 19th c stone house, bought as a derelict building and renovated personally by her husband, is in a neighborhood long in decline but due to people like themselves - those who choose to clean up rather than flee - it's coming around again. She loves it for its diversity. "I have gay neighbors, lesbian neighors and naked neighbors," she said.

"Naked neighbors?"

Apparently, the (straight) middle aged couple next door don't like to wear clothes. After much pleading, they put up half curtains on the first floor. "That helps. A LOT."

She has four springer spaniels that demand her attention and a red rubber ball tossed for hours.

She also has three young adults living with her, a fourth on weekends when home from Penn State Uni. She's taken them in as follows:

One met her husband on line as a fellow student entering the same program he was entering for a Masters in Science degree (Physician's Assistant). She was crossing the country from where the Good Doctor and hubby had moved from, didn't know where she was going to live or what sort of job she'd have to take to pay the rent, but she was excited none-the-less. The Good Doctor had the entire third floor (the old servants quarters) as yet untouched, so they turned it into an apartment and offered it up to the girl and her boyfriend moving with her. He works full-time and she goes to school full-time.

The one at Penn State is Hubby's niece. When my friend met her, she'd been abandoned by her father at conception, and had only ever been told by her mother that she couldn't do anything - anything she'd ever hoped to do. So at the ripe old age of 19, she was living in a trailer with a 44 yr old man and had essentially given up on life. She had only a basic education, very poor grammar and teetering social skills.

The Good Doctor said to her, "You can be more."

She introduced her to new words every day, and over time, the niece improved her grammar, became socially aware, started reading the New York Times and working its crossword puzzle, and entered Penn State where she's on the honor roll. She became a political activist, motivating some 3,000 people to register to vote for the very first time. She now wants to go on to law school.

The fourth is the niece's brother, just out of the Navy, not sure what he was going to do, but receiving the exact same treatment from their mother as his sister had. "You can't do... you can't do... you're too stupid... you'll never achieve..."

The Good Doctor said to him, "You can be more."

The niece said to him, "Move in with the Uncle and the Good Doctor."

And so he did. He's now working the same crossword puzzle and going to PA school like his uncle.

His uncle, btw, had been a general contractor when he met the Good Doctor. he'd never finished college, and was crippling himself every day to make a blue collar living. She said to him... you get the picture.

She cooks a big meal every night and they all sit down and eat together. If one isn't going to be home, they call in advance. They spend time together (all of us touring the Mall in Washington, D.C. my Saturday with them), doing things "normal" families do. She said she hadn't really considered it that way before but, yes, they really are a "family."

It was a beautiful thing.

My friend thinks most doctors are stupid. "They perpetuate this myth that they're god-like because it makes their lives that much easier - people tend not to question gods." Which, of course, often leads to more harm than good. It infuriates her that my current physician doesn't return my calls. When I told her she's only one of two physicians I've ever had that did she said, "Every doctor should. It's just common decency."

After working her way through school and residency in kitchens - where she picked up most of her excellent culinary skills by watching the chefs she worked for - she spent three years with the Peace Corps in Malaysia. "Anyone who's spent time in a Muslim country could have told the American government this [uprising of Muslim terrorists against the US] was going to happen."

She took me through the Mutter Museum which, if ever you get the chance, DO THIS TOUR. And, if at all possible, do it with a doctor. It's a museum of medical aberrations, from dwarves to giants, skulls of suicides compared with skulls of natural deaths, small pox, a cadaver (after 123 years) turned into soap, conjoined twins, miscarried fetuses of varying ages, fetuses and babies born with varying defects, a human head sliced into segments (like an MRI does, only this is the real deal), every disease known to man and MORE!

"I can't believe you're interested in this stuff!" she exclaimed.

"It's FASCINATING!" said me.

While looking at the babies born with spina bifida and other defects that killed them (or prevented their natural birth), she said, "You rarely see this anymore."

"How come?"

"Abortion."

Not the answer I was expecting. I was expecting a marvel of medical science.

"At least until the recent ban on trimester abortions. Now OBs will do it the way they did it for years: instead of aborting the fetus, the mother will have to go through the delivery and they'll let it die."

She said it happens a lot, too. In the past, it was usually because mothers weren't prepared to have an abortion, but they knew the baby they were carrying was so deformed it wouldn't survive. So the OBs would dope them up for delivery, so the mother would really be completely out of it, deliver the baby and let it die. "And now it will be the norm, again, to do this barbaric thing rather than abort."

And it only now occurs to me that I know someone who went through this exact thing last year, before the ban. She knew the child she was carrying was good as dead. But she had tried so long to be pregnant that she did not want to abort. So she carried that dead baby for two months, and when she delivered, it was a hideously deformed corpse.

. . .

We toured the foundations of this great nation - Independence Hall and the original buildings that housed the first Continental Congress and various debates that wrangled together our national consciousness. The Liberty Bell is a disappointment - much smaller than I expected. You know how we're inundated with huge images of such things. Much like the White House is just another house, which wasn't so much as a surprise until seeing how it is positively dwarfed by the more modern buildings surrounding it.

It was fun seeing some of my ancestor, John Hanson's, belongings in the Smithsonian. John Hanson was the president of the First Continental Congress. He was a founder of this nation that only historians really know about, as he didn't sign on the Constitution and isn't remembered by the rest of us as a result (not unlike, I must say, most of those who did sign on).

The Good Doctor fed me so much delicious food, I gained five pounds in four days! Whenever I'd say "I can't eat that!" She'd say, "Just take some extra insulin! EAT THIS!" and I would, and I was glad for it. Italian desserts from Termini's, excellent wine from a Mafia liquor store in New Jersey:

"How do you know it's Mafia?"

"Because they never have the same thing twice and nothing's more than $3."

"Oooooooh..."

Meals she made largely from scratch:

"Cooking is the one thing that relaxes me anymore. I go to the gym every day after work to get out aggression, but I cook to unwind."

Frank, practical talk about my various ailments.

"You're the healthiest Type 1 I've ever known."

"I've not been so healthy these last couple of years."

"How come?"

"All my family drama hit at the same time that I found out more than I ever wanted to know about diabetes. I've been struggling with depression for about three years now."

"It's in your genes."

"At one point I just gave up and started grazing."

"Everybody has a point where they just say 'fuck it.' Come on. Try this...."

And she'd feed me canoli or cognac or bagel with lox.

I lived a very full life in the four days I spent in Philly and what I learned was this: that's all it takes. Forget about the limitations. Enjoy the rest.

"I may die tomorrow," she said. "You never know. So enjoy what you can."