Dec. 10th, 2013 04:14 pm
In the can
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muckefuckEveryone talks about the claustrophobia of being inside of an MRI scanner; no one talks about the noise. So when the tech warned me to "expects some bangs and clunks", I was not at all prepared for the first blast of heavy thumps. You can feel them, at first they sound like they're coming from all around. The earphones they give seem to be doing little or nothing until you accidentally knock them loose and get a brief taste of the undampened aural assault.
If the sound was way louder than I expected, it was also more rhythmic. There was a familiar quality to it. When he pulled me out for a moment to attach the IV, I asked the tech, "Do you ever listen to any Krautrock?" I rattled off some names, but he still had no idea what I meant. "You mean like Frank Zappa?" Um, not exactly. I became eager to get home and listen to some Can or Cabaret Voltaire.
Once I began to treat the experience as some kind of avant-garde immersive noise composition performance, the only difficult part became controlling my breathing. I was looking forward to forty minutes of taking deep relaxing breaths. But I had a pad with cameras draped halfway over my midsection and if I inhaled too deeply if moved out of alignment. "Just keep it nice and shallow," he told me. For some scans, I had to hold my breath, generally on inadequate notice. I eventually learned that when the tech said, "Take a breath" it really meant "Exhale NOW!" because the command to hold was coming only two seconds later.
I'm still not convinced all this was medically necessary but I guess the clinics need to make a profit off the clients with the good insurance while they can. (And I guess it makes sense for me to make full use of the good insurance while I can.) And however much MRI technology has dropped in price over the years, it's still clearly bloody expensive. All I needed to confirm that was to step into the lobby, nicer than most hotel lobbies I've been in. And that's before they take you back to the private waiting rooms. From mine, I could gaze out the window to the street corner below where the Old Man was ensconced in a Starbucks waiting for me.
Coco Pazzo, which he remembered fondly from his days at Northwestern Law, was just across the street so I talked him into taking me there. I was still a bit dizzy and disoriented and dehydrated and wanted a sit-down meal where my water glass would never run dry. (It never came close.) It wasn't cheap, but it was one of the more reasonable eateries around, and, I think, good value for the money. It felt like everything Piccolo Sogno had been trying to do, Coco Pazzo was actually doing right.
The mushrooms in my starter were well cooked and well seasoned. They had a Ferrarese pasta dish (cappellaci di zucca[*]) that I'd seen and been intrigued by at the other place but was glad I hadn't ordered. (Given how overcooked my gnocchi were, it would've been a disaster.) Here the ravioli-like wrappings were perfectly al dente. It's a sweet dish, even without the garnish of crumbled amaretti, but not too sweet. The only thing that didn't wow was the apple pie, though the dollop of fresh whipped cream was quite lovely.
At the next table were a couple from Prince Edward Island. Before you think this is a credit to my Higginsesque gifts, let me say that the way I knew this was that when the waiter said the piatto del giorno included P.E.I. mussels, the one said, "We're from Prince Edward Island!" Well, at least she was; his vowels were as Aussie as they come. I was entertained by their accents and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu was amused by the content (at least to judge from his eyerolling). Sadly, though, we left before hearing their verdict on the mussels.
[*] Or, in "frarese", caplaz ad zuca.
If the sound was way louder than I expected, it was also more rhythmic. There was a familiar quality to it. When he pulled me out for a moment to attach the IV, I asked the tech, "Do you ever listen to any Krautrock?" I rattled off some names, but he still had no idea what I meant. "You mean like Frank Zappa?" Um, not exactly. I became eager to get home and listen to some Can or Cabaret Voltaire.
Once I began to treat the experience as some kind of avant-garde immersive noise composition performance, the only difficult part became controlling my breathing. I was looking forward to forty minutes of taking deep relaxing breaths. But I had a pad with cameras draped halfway over my midsection and if I inhaled too deeply if moved out of alignment. "Just keep it nice and shallow," he told me. For some scans, I had to hold my breath, generally on inadequate notice. I eventually learned that when the tech said, "Take a breath" it really meant "Exhale NOW!" because the command to hold was coming only two seconds later.
I'm still not convinced all this was medically necessary but I guess the clinics need to make a profit off the clients with the good insurance while they can. (And I guess it makes sense for me to make full use of the good insurance while I can.) And however much MRI technology has dropped in price over the years, it's still clearly bloody expensive. All I needed to confirm that was to step into the lobby, nicer than most hotel lobbies I've been in. And that's before they take you back to the private waiting rooms. From mine, I could gaze out the window to the street corner below where the Old Man was ensconced in a Starbucks waiting for me.
Coco Pazzo, which he remembered fondly from his days at Northwestern Law, was just across the street so I talked him into taking me there. I was still a bit dizzy and disoriented and dehydrated and wanted a sit-down meal where my water glass would never run dry. (It never came close.) It wasn't cheap, but it was one of the more reasonable eateries around, and, I think, good value for the money. It felt like everything Piccolo Sogno had been trying to do, Coco Pazzo was actually doing right.
The mushrooms in my starter were well cooked and well seasoned. They had a Ferrarese pasta dish (cappellaci di zucca[*]) that I'd seen and been intrigued by at the other place but was glad I hadn't ordered. (Given how overcooked my gnocchi were, it would've been a disaster.) Here the ravioli-like wrappings were perfectly al dente. It's a sweet dish, even without the garnish of crumbled amaretti, but not too sweet. The only thing that didn't wow was the apple pie, though the dollop of fresh whipped cream was quite lovely.
At the next table were a couple from Prince Edward Island. Before you think this is a credit to my Higginsesque gifts, let me say that the way I knew this was that when the waiter said the piatto del giorno included P.E.I. mussels, the one said, "We're from Prince Edward Island!" Well, at least she was; his vowels were as Aussie as they come. I was entertained by their accents and
monshu was amused by the content (at least to judge from his eyerolling). Sadly, though, we left before hearing their verdict on the mussels.[*] Or, in "frarese", caplaz ad zuca.
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