Sylvia's Journal

It’s Axel again, posting for Sylvia who is still locked down at the City Hospital. The doctor saw her this morning, just before I arrived with coffee, and decided to keep her immobilized for another night. She opined that she was still very groggy, and certainly not very mobile, and that it was probably a good thing. Indeed her knee is not very flexible yet, although she has been trying to do the prescribed therapy while incarcerated; walking around, flexing her toes and bending her knee. I had, on going to jailbreak her this morning, fantasized about taking her to some fancy waterhole on the beach and let her veg out under a palm date tree, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Chuck’s brother Tim has recommended the Russian Beach – so named because the Russian tour bus drops the Russians off there to turn pink – and the Aquaventure Park where you can swim with dolphins in the shadow of the totally weird Atlantis Hotel, a giant pink, pseudo Taj Mahal place on the giant palm-shaped island off the coast. Not thinking that Sylvia will be up for much swimming, I have a date palm tree with full time beer service in mind. I think that would be perfect for finishing off the last 30% – you Kindle readers know what I’m talking about here – of Anna Karenina which I fear will end up in the Russian winter being very depressing and therefore requiring an atmospheric antidote to balance things out. Dubai certainly provides the opportunities to move, even if temporarily, into la-la land.
And speaking of la-la land, I find it pleasantly ironic to be reading Tolstoy here in this land of wealth built on what Tolstoy would label something other than work. Tolstoy uses his writing to rail against the idle rich, those who make obscene amounts of money without any physical toil, patriarchal authority and those who don’t think much about what’s happening around them. He’d have much to rail against here I’m afraid. We in the United States have increasing income inequality, but to see it really manifested in physical form you have to go a bit out of your way. Here in Dubai the excess is palpable in the buildings, the shops and the news. Even a whole floor of the hospital is assigned to VIPs. I do wonder what Dubai’s peasants – the Bangla, the Pakistanis, the Sri Lankans – feel about it all.
Pushing aside my Tolstoyan reactions to Dubai, I look forward to springing Sylvia from the joint tomorrow and getting out into the holiday atmosphere of Dubai as Big Eid approaches. I’ll be at the hospital bright and early – 7:30 – for my first session of physical therapy for my shoulder. Then we’ll see what happens.