FRICK AND FRACK

Last night we had our friends, Diane and Rick, over for dinner. Diane and Rick Frick. I know...the name cracks us up, too. Don't know what his parents were thinking. But you know what's even more remarkable? Rick and Diane named their only child, a son, Rick! Go figure. Anyway, I digress...

Together they are another Ricky and Lucy Ricardo. She is wacky and he is her straight-man. Diane says whatever comes to her mind. To say she is uninhibited is an understatement. Whether she ever embarrasses her husband is hard to say. I think because they've been together so long (around 35 years) he's just used to her. When I first met her I didn't know quite what to make of her. Now I find her delightful. She never stops talking, and with full-color animation. The stories she tells of their travels and adventures are so bizarre as to be unbelievable, but Rick verifies that she is not exaggerating in the least. I choked three times laughing during dinner -- talk about dinner and a show! My stomach hurt from laughing and swallowing too much air.

A year ago Rick suffered a terrible accident and fell off the roof of his own home (no worker's comp for that). He shattered his hip, fractured his pelvis, injured his back and arm. It has been a long, difficult, and life-changing year for them. Two surgeries: one to put him back together with screws and plates, and the other to remove said hardware and try (unsuccessfully) to remove a surgical drillbit which broke off imbedded in bone during the first surgery(!). Never one to sit around, Rick always was working on something...on the job, at home, or for friends. Now he can't work. Between that realization and the constant pain he endures, I think he came near a breaking point. But, that's where his little spitfire wife, Diane, comes in. She cajoles, prods, encourages, berates, defends, scolds, torments, champions, and loves her husband. She has been at his side, in spite of her own fears and fatigue, caring for him, up at all hours when he can't sleep for the pain, wiping his butt (as she unabashedly tells us), feeding him, listening to him, intervening for him...this little 4'10" wildcat has put more than one high-powered, highly degreed surgeon into tail-tuck and back-up mode.

I tell Diane she ought to write a book and she waves me off. I tell her I'll write the book because it would be a best-seller and the money will help take care of their insurmountable medical bills. She just laughs. Problem is, I don't think the written word can do Diane justice; it would be difficult to capture her in a book. Maybe the Big Screen...but Lucy's gone; who could ever play the part of Diane Frick?