January 23th, 1937, Saint Mark's Place, Manhattan, Maggie's diary continues:

Ilya Ehrenburg and Gustav Regler with Hemingway, 1937, Spain:

To doctor who seems to think it won't be long now. Very jovial, had just delivered woman who was in labor only two hours.  He said my umbilicus ceasing to pout.  Took handbag into Bonwit Teller to be fixed.  Walked down to 42d and then but home.  Pat Clark came in about 5:30, wearing dress and dainty blue crepe de chine embroidered coat from her mother and a  lovely pink knitted blanket from Nicodeums Clark and Miss Judy Smith.  Then M. home and Lee Stowe and Rida and Fritz to dinner.  Kate expected but at last moment had to go out to Flushing because little Bobby had something wrong with his eyes.

Fine dinner produced by Grace.  It was all in honor of Dr. Fred Rodell, a very youthful law professor from Yale who wrote Fifty Five Men.  Fritz told practical jokes and played naming babies.  Lee told about flying to Buenos Aires and typing all the way very comfortably, and about how they roast and grind coffee just before using down there.  We talked about all the foreign correspondents: Linton Wells has not yet delivered a book for which he got a fabulous advance last spring; John Elliott, who doesn't drink a drop and has gone haywire on Spanish situation*, Minifree who travels on British passport and was almost killed when arrested by rebels in Spain because Italians he was with were mad at the British on account of Ethiopia*.  Rida, who used to be a dentist, told how she filled the kids' teeth last year when she borrowed equipment from a friend.

*The Spanish Civil War devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939.It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government, The Spanish Civil War has been called "the first media war". Foreign correspondents and writers covering it included Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, George Orwell and Robert Capa.

I remember Pat Clark from when I was a little girl. An elegant black-haired lady with a poodle who never got married and lived to be about 103. She always had candies on hand to give to me.

Isn't it funny?  Now we do just what they did in Argentina: ground the coffee before we eat it. How Latin of us!!! Loved to hear all about these foreign correspondents and the crazy situations in Italy and Spain because it reminds me that all through history we have been fighting wars and making up, having babies and talking about it all at dinner parties.

Oooh, I am late late late with this entry on account of the ear infection being viral and traveling down to my chest where the rib joints swelled up like balloons and caused blinding pain.

P and I spent all day in the emergency room before the doctor figured out what it was.  A criminal was in there with us. Five policemen hovered around his bed asking him if he'd had his beer in cans or bottles and making him do a drunk test right in the hallway. The man had gotten in a fight and from his slurring words, sounded like he was still drunk. Drunk is really the best way to deal with the ER. The boy next to me had also gotten in a fight.  But with two dogs. He was not manly at all about the stitches.

Afterword, a girl came in vomiting after hitting her head on the ski slopes.  I had gallons and gallons of blood drawn and little snaps put all over my chest and while there read The Glass Castle, which every last person except me has read.  A fascinating memoir that I left at the hospital by accident. Until tmw everyone, we'll catch up with my grandma yet!  And, if possible, stay out of medical trouble...