I’ve always loved canoeing.  We spent our summers at Bear Lake paddling around in a black and yellow striped canoe my grandpa pulled out of the Garden City dump and resurrected for our entertainment.  We called it the tippy canoe because, no matter how careful we were and how balanced we became, that craft capsized at the smallest hint of a wave.  Still, getting wet was the point of getting in the canoe.

Recently I was invited on a canoe trip to the Wind Rivers.  Since we retired the tippy canoe years (OK, decades) ago, I price checked canoe rentals in Salt Lake and Pinedale and discovered that the U’s Outdoor Recreation Program had the best deal in the Intermountain West. 

The day arrived to pick up the canoe and head north.  I consider myself a somewhat tough chick, but I have to admit relief when I learned that part of the package of renting from Outdoor Rec included the staff there heaving the canoe onto my truck and securing it with straps.  Phew.  I could still look tough and not have to make a fool of myself. 

Another part of the package is life vests and not two, but three paddles (you never know what could happen and you don’t want to be caught up the creek with only one paddle).  They sized our jackets, I signed my initials, and we were off after only twenty minutes.  I learned that the Outdoor Rec program would be replacing their canoes with new ones and would be having a sale next April.  Nostalgic images of me and my brothers in the tippy canoe floated through my mind while I envisioned us grown, in a new canoe, paddling happily through the silky waters of a Uinta lake.  I’d have to get me one when they go on sale. 

Six hours and much dinking around later we arrived at the boat ramp.  My best friend had flown in from California to join in the adventure and being the tough chicks we considered ourselves, we were also relieved that my brother had come at the last minute and he could haul the canoe off the truck for us. 

Does it matter how you pack the canoe we asked?  Probably not.  Just throw it all in there and let’s shove off.  Once we got our gear, dog and ourselves in the boat, we floated happily in the bay, waiting for my brother.  Ah, serenity.  The sun slanted along our faces, tickling the ripples on the water.  The only sound was the lake lapping against the canoe. 

Our two red dry bags swelled from the middle of the boat like festering blisters or a hump-backed banana.  We started to paddle.  I remembered how we would glide through the waters at Bear Lake in the tippy canoe and anticipated the familiar sensation.  Yet, we paddled right, then left, then right, zigzagging our way over the first half-mile of the four-mile lake.  Why aren’t we going straight?  Stop back paddling!  Paddle harder, don’t paddle so hard, you’re doing it wrong, just be Zen about it, who on EARTH would think paddling four miles into a camp is a good idea?  What if we tip over?  I have to go to the bathroom!  The dog is whining.  The dog is drinking the lake water.  We’re going to tip.  Why did we think this was a fun idea?

On and on we cross-stitched the lake, paddling probably twelve miles in indirect distance, until finally, finally, after two bladder-filled, sweat-soaked hours, we were greeting by our friends who had arrived early to set up camp.  They escorted us to shore and helped us with our gear.

Wow, you really packed the canoe wrong, our friend said.  And why’d you put the dog in the front?  No wonder it took you so long to get here.

We were exonerated.  Tough chicks that we were, it wasn’t our paddling, but our packing that held us back. 

Two days later, we consulted our friend on packing the canoe and set forth into the lake.  Our return trip was smooth.  We slid through the water, this time talking about things other than the pain of paddling, and before we knew it, we were back at the boat ramp where my brother helped heave the canoe back onto the truck and strap it down.

Fun?  Yes.  Will I be purchasing one of those canoes?  Well, with the Outdoor Rec so close and affordable, why sacrifice my own storage space at home when I can have soon-to-be new canoes at my access?  And anyway, who would help me get the canoe on the truck, tough chick that I am?

(KAH-feeklach): noun (fr. German Kaffee = coffee + Klatsch = gossip): a casual gathering for coffee and conversation.

“Coffee. C-O-F-F-E.” I waited a moment for my mom to finish with the final “e,” but the conversation took a turn from spelling the beverage to drinking it. “They have the best coffee here,” she said.

We were at our favorite spot for Kaffee, Kuchen and food in general. Red Butte Café is only five minutes from both the U and my mother’s house and makes a great lunch stop—or my favorite—a dessert and coffee pause in the afternoon. Mom and I come here regularly, savoring their brew and every once in a while a slice of their Am azon chocolate tort.

“I’m doing better, don’t you think?” she asked me again. “I can say everything. Cal-if-orn-ia. See, I couldn’t say that before. And tel-e-vi-sion. Boun-ti-ful. Rabbit.”

Mom was diagnosed with a meningioma two years ago. As my two brothers and I stood in the University Hospital emergency room, staring at the CT scan of her brain, I was suspended outside myself, tracing the contour of the left and right hemispheres in confusion. The mass had imposed itself into the left side, squishing it into an uncomfortable C-shape. It was the size of a grapefruit (I always found it amusing the way neurologists refer to tumors by fruit size…grape, orange, papaya.). But a grapefruit is a mighty large object to be carrying around in the left ventricle of your brain, which is the size of a walnut.

I was sure that was the end of the story, that in that CT scan I was staring at my mother’s farewell. Neurology was called in, followed by Neurosurgery, and soon Mom was booked into the 6th floor of the hospital where we would wait three days for the surgeons to study her MRIs and map their way to the tumor.

The good news was that the tumor was benign and slow growing—it had likely been there for fifteen years or more. The other good news was that meningiomas are typically operable. The bad news was that most people discover they have a meningioma far earlier than my mother. Her remarkable stubbornness had kept her in denial and allowed the thing to grow to a size rarely seen in neurosurgery. The good news was that because of this, her case was a rarity and hence the best neurosurgeons at the U would be operating on her. The bad news was that the tumor was embedded in her left ventricle, deeply surrounded by brain tissue responsible for speech and motor function as well as vision and comprehension. It was likely, we were told, that by invading that tissue to remove the tumor, she would lose control of her right side, her vision, and be unable to speak or comprehend again. What a gamble.

We consented to the surgery. We spent the day before pampering her—bringing her her favorite food, coffee, rubbing scented lotion into her feet, and those wonderful nurses even allowed us to bring in our Siberian husky, Ivan, to wish her well.

The day of her surgery was the longest of my life. Three of the U’s best neurosurgeons were to perform the procedure. We were instructed to sit in the waiting room. The nurse would call us every few hours from the operating room to give us updates. Every time they called our name, we lifted the phone with dread. But every time we were told all was well. Finally, after 10 hours in the waiting room, the doctors joined us with good news—they’d removed the entire tumor, bit by bit, and they did so, they believed, with little or no damage to the brain tissue. They expected a full recovery. We were elated.

We entered the NCC—neuro critical care—on the third floor of the hospital. Much darker, quieter and more somber than the sixth floor, there were no dogs to wish the patients well, no flowers or balloons, just the concentrated hum of healing. Each patient had a tragedy to tell. I couldn’t get past what Mom had just gone through.

Half her head was shaved and the incision traced a crescent from her temple to her neck’s nape, stapled in a cliché of Frankenstein. How could this be my mom? Her eyes opened and wildly scanned the ceiling. She was far away. And pinned to the bed to keep her from rolling onto her incision. Her pain was palpable. I could taste it, smell it, delve my fingers into it.

The next week passed in NCC with rigid routine. No visitors during shift change from 7:30-8:30 a.m. or p.m. Only two visitors at a time. Mom begging for her morning coffee. Mom being denied her morning coffee. Mom sitting up. Mom walking around the NCC. Mom walking down the hall and back. And finally, Mom talking.

She spent three weeks in the University Hospital’s rehab and came out better than she’d been in years. We were filled with hope of retrieving a mother whose deterioration had left us baffled and helpless. The surgeons had ordered a full recovery.

While I love optimism, I’ve learned how delicate a thing the brain is. You can’t shove something as big as her tumor into the brain tissue, leave it there for that long, and expect that when you remove it, everything will go back to normal.

The seizures started three months after her surgery and stalk her silently. Cocktails of anti-seizure meds are ordered, remixed, dosages increased, decreased, and we all keep plugging along hoping this month will leave her seizure-free.

“I’m doing better,” she says, her right hand shaking as she brings the coffee mug to her lips. And she is. We’re having our Kaffe Klatsch on stolen time—time our neurosurgeons served us—time I was sure we’d lost when I spied that first CT scan.

So yes, Mom, keep spelling coffee. And sipping it. At least you’re no longer begging for it in the dim light of NCC.

It’s easy to discredit a miracle for its shortcoming in perfection. My mom being alive, sitting with me today at Red Butte, is a miracle. The perfection of a full recovery may never be realized, but every sip of coffee together is perfect.

Some big dog bikers around here call us bees, but Vespa riders know the real buzz. Sure, we’re less robust, lacking a manual clutch, and often come in pastels and flowers, but we’re nothing to trifle with.

Vespa is Italian for wasp. I found that very humorous the first time I encountered Vespas in Italy. They seemed to me like something a Barbie doll would ride—hardly aggressive enough to warrant “wasp” as its namesake, and then I experienced them in motion.

In Italy, scooters outnumber vehicles and swarm about you at stop lights, hovering in flight just beyond the cross signal and ready for the charge even before it turns green. Pedestrians beware. These seemingly innocuous machines dart through traffic, onto sidewalks and around unsuspecting strollers like hornets after meat. Miraculously, their fluid movement seeps between cars and flows unobstructed through the streets.

Upon relocating to Utah from Europe, I found myself missing that chaos. I needed to have a little slice of Italy here in Salt Lake, so I purchased a Vespa for my summer commute to the U. Mine is sea foam green, 200 cc, and heavy enough that if I drop it, I can’t pick it up. No little honey bee here…this machine lives up to its name, yet still seems soft enough even for Barbie to drive.

I muse at my commute every morning, as do I am sure, many drivers. Me, in my high heel sandals, skirts and blonde hair flowing out my helmet, I feel like Vespa Barbie, and maybe a little like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. 

The day I went for my motorcycle driving exam reinforced my newfound identity. It was July, nearly 100 degrees, and I floated down North Temple in my turquoise skirt, floral tank top and high heel sandals. When it came time to take the exam, I zigzagged through the orange cones (only nipping one of them), accelerated to a sudden stop, and flat out failed the L-turn. The air undulated off the asphalt hosting the obstacle course and my Vespa went into cooling mode for the first time ever. I was sure I’d broken it. I also looked down and noticed I’d taken the entire test with my left blinker going.

Sure that I’d failed, I took the slip from the examiner and prepared for my defeated return to work. He handed me the slip and told me I could get my license renewed to show the endorsement. What? I was dismayed, delighted. I only failed one section of the driving test, which still was a pass. I was legal. I had a motorcycle endorsement. Maybe the examiner felt sorry for me. Maybe he was amused by me. Either way, I was legal.

That winter my husband and I went to visit his family in Germany and I was giddy with the gift I’d found for my 8 year-old niece. I’d found a Barbie who rode a sea foam green Vespa. When I gave her the doll, she promptly named it “Taunya Zwei,” or Taunya Two, after me. It was official, I was Vespa Barbie, and she was me.