The Blog: Spellbound by our own imperfect lives...

Regis took this photo of Gus and me on the patio and then he artified it somehow. I like the effect. It looks like we were painted by Monet or one of those famous dudes. When I was at the cancer center the other day, an older couple joined me at my table. The woman, wearing a wig, looked at my scarf and asked if I had brain cancer. No, I said, breast cancer. She said, oh, you're lucky, I have lung and brain cancer. Oh, my. There's a perspective for me. If you're going to get some bad shit, might as well be some bad shit they can be optimistic about. Today is radiation treatment #18. I grouse a bit every morning and say I'm going to call in sick but of course, I don't. I trundle over there, wait with my beeper, and wander the halls in a blue gown. They give me a warm blanket and I close my eyes for the ten minutes or so that it takes to beam me up. Not so bad, all things considered. The weather looks stormy again today. Betty and I stopped at the MV

We recognized Memorial Day yesterday and celebrated Gus's birthday. I made the dog bone layer cake with the help of Alex and Ella. Monday morning, I cried because I can't even make a decent looking cake anymore. Regis delivered comfort and encouraged me to get another can of frosting and to warm it in the microwave a little bit so it would flow better. That worked. The art work on the cake is courtesy of Peter. Elliot shows Betty some of the finer points of an iPad game. Nice to have April join us with Peter again! Ace and Gus enjoying a moment of peace. Or maybe I should say the rest of us enjoy a moment of peace while Ace and Gus are still for a minute. Uncle Tom enjoys a low-carb beer. Tiffany and Peter- probably bickering. Action in the kitchen with Ella and Emily. Back to radiation today. I had three days to forget about it so I sort of sunk into a stew of sleep, games, and reading. Today is back to reality with that mor

I loved your chocolate story (in the comments), Karen! I have a couple good stories about that myself. My cousin once got up in the night and made peanut butter toast. She woke up in the morning with it stuck to her pillow. She hadn't taken a bite. My own experience is not as dramatic as yours or Deb's, but just the other day I went in to take a nap with a graham cracker, one of those weird flat marshmallows, and a square of chocolate. I read for a while and munched on my uncooked smore. When I wandered back to the living room after a nap, I had chocolate dribbled all down my left arm but none on the sheets or anywhere else. How did I accomplish that? One of the dangers of nap-time eating! More later. Must get busy and prepare for company today!

I'm awake early while Regis sleeps in for a while. We had such a lazy day yesterday, I'm surprised either of us could sleep last night. Regis did the dishes and made hoagies for dinner. I took naps, read my book, and played iPad games. Seriously, that is about it. It's cold outside this morning. Cold and damp. I turned on our little faux fireplace to take the chill out of the air. I went out to the patio to fill the jelly dishes again. If the orioles weren't so beautiful I would be grouchy about filling them three times a day. (I had to get down on my knees to fish out the last two jars of grape jelly at the grocery store the other day. A lot of folks are feeding orioles...or the orioles are shopping at HyVee.) A few grackles and robins sip at the jelly, too, but mostly it's orioles of both kinds, two at each feeder and several waiting in the trees. One year we had so many gold finches it was like a bright yellow cloud around the feeder. It has eight little

I can't believe I haven't written on my blog since Wednesday. Jill wrote this afternoon to see if I had slipped into the abyss. Nope, but I did spend the last few days doing a lot of sleeping and escaping via novels and iPad games. Arrghghgh. I can't even count the number of games I've played. It's nauseating. I'm over the hump with radiation. Fifteen down and thirteen to go. I know it isn't so bad but I feel like I'm on the white-knuckle express. I want it to be over but I'm afraid to have it actually be over. On Friday, we took Gus to the Paw to play. They like to take pictures and publish them on their Facebook page. They meaning the people not the dogs. I know it looks like a dog melee but they are very well behaved. We bought our groceries for the week and I did a little thrift store shopping. I found these fancy men's shirts on the vintage rack. There were about eight of them in different wild plaids. If they had been cheap

Tomorrow is my 14th radiation treatment. I'm not sure that's cause for celebration so I decided not to go with fireworks. It means I can start counting down. As I told a friend in the coffee shop yesterday, this is not something a guy would sign up for but it's gone alright for something to be dreaded. Friday I start counting down. I'm ambivalent about finishing radiation because I'm ambivalent about cancer. I still have moments when I realize this is me we're talking about and not someone else. Wait, wait...what? I feel like I have done pretty well through this, even with my mental phase in the winter, but it's been a long ass haul. Can I ever go back to my normal self? Do the fears go away? This looks like the radiation machine I hook up with every day. It might be called a linear accelerator...I'm not sure. It works like this: the blue thing shoots out a ray of particles and the rectangular thing shoots out a ray of particles and then t

I made a mental list of things to do yesterday. I decided if I only had two things on it, the chances were better at getting them done. One of the things was to move the rhubarb from its shady spot on the north side of the house to the south side. I took my rhubarb for a walk in the Radio Flyer to the sunny side of the yard. Hahaha! Since I was out there, gloved and holding a shovel, I transplanted some hosta, moved some chives closer to the bunny, and had Young Regis dig out a couple of giant Autumn Joy sedum. I put them in the wagon and walked it down to my friend, Cheryl's, house. She recognized the wagon and the bag on a FB post and knew it was me and not the sedum fairies. After all of that, I had to take a nap. Here we are at Suzette's. Wonder of the internet, Jack sent these pictures via email after they disappeared from our phones. This is my first time out in public with very little hair. Kathy and I have been friends since we were in junior

A quote from his email: I concur; ND wines suck!  Rhubarb, chokecherry, and jalapeno?  Gack!

I had an agenda for today and I accomplished all the action items. (Yuck, yuck...) I took my rhubarb for a walk to the sunny side of the yard as it did not like living in the shadow of the garbage dumpster. I transplanted hosta and I dragged a couple Autumn Joy sedum down to my friend, Cheryl's house in the red wagon. I've discovered the internet's cure for short term memory problems. Maybe cure is not the right word. I lost a bag full of oranges. I bought them a week ago for the orioles. I've changed the oranges two to three times and now they are gone. Regis calls it CUI...changing under the influence. I'm not denying. That could be true. The orioles love the cara cara oranges that are $2.99 a pound. Holy crap. We have had wonderful birds this spring. Over the past weekend, we saw this bird... a ruby crowned kinglet. They only migrate through this part of the state on their way to northern Minnesota. They probably heard there is still ice on the lakes up

We've had a lot of rain in the past few days and today, we're in a flash flood watch. Our trees and grass and flowers are thankful. It was so dry last summer and we can't even remember the last time we had a thunderstorm. We woke early to thunder this morning so I may feel the need to return to bed for a while. It's dark and rumbley...perfect weather for sleeping late. We met good friends, Jack and Kathy, for dinner at Suzette's last night. It's a funky old Bridgeman's building but the food and the service are fabulous. I had halibut with a creamy dill sauce and garlic mashed potatoes. Regis and I shared a piece of tiramisu for dessert that was so good I'm pretty sure we both purred. There were other pictures but they have disappeared into cyber space for now. We're trying to resurrect them. Check out the link to Suzette's and read the chef's story. It's amazing. I forgot to mention the squash soup that I think was flavored with

My friend, Karen, calls what I went through one evening and morning this week slugging rats in the gutter. I love that. It's pretty descriptive of the crap that hits the fan but it also hints that it doesn't last forever and...mine didn't. If you are slugging rats in the gutter today, I hope they're few and slow. We're doing our usual coffee drinking this morning, watching the birds and the sky. An ominous thunderstorm appeared on the horizon but seems to have wandered onto some other unsuspecting county. We're thankful for all the rain we got yesterday. Maybe now I can stop worrying about wildfires. I haven't seen such a downpour in several years. We had more rain during the night, with thunder and lightening. I was going to work in the garden today but it's too muddy. Oh, darn. The grass is making a glorious comeback after the past year's drought. I know this because there is a gas powered machine going every waking moment in our neighborhood

I knew I would be fine later and I am. I saw my oncologist this morning and he was, as usual, uplifting. He talked about things I could do to help prevent recurrence...limit wine, exercise my body and my brain, eat healthy. All good things to do. I'll see him again in a month to talk about removing my port and about the hormone I'll take for five years. I hope I didn't alarm anyone (Sorry, Mom.) with my dismal attitude this morning. All is well. Here's my list of reasons to be happy: I'm getting some of the best medical care in the world. I have a sweet husband who takes me to so many appointments. I have a cozy bedroom where I can curl up with a book and take a nap. My garden is springing forth! Elliot is coming to see us this evening and we're going to pay a visit to Tom and Betty. My prognosis is very good. I have good friends and family sending me light and love. We have beautiful birds in our yard. My cousin, Deb, made a visit this week. She

Cocooning Cécile Veilhan Yesterday I had my first follow-up meeting with my research nurse. I've gotten very attached to her. I know I'll see her many times in the future but for some reason this last visit made me sad and took me back to an emotional place I thought I had left long ago. Even though the weather was beautiful, the crab apple and the redbud are blooming, and even though I had a lovely visit with my cousin the last two days, I felt like shit last night. I felt like I did in January. I was so tired I took several naps and went to bed at 7 o'clock. I felt sad and lonely and discouraged and...flat. I'm not going to try to analyze this too much. It just is what it is and I know it will pass. I'm not feeling sorry for myself either. I know everybody has crap to deal with. Every day, people have much worse crap than this to deal with. Something could come along and clothesline a guy at any time. Fact of life. I am not alone in this.

Dear Bruce, After I made disparaging remarks about the North Dakotans ability to make good pasta, you sent me this wonderful assortment of pasta and dumplings. I will be happy to prepare and sample each one and I can tell by the packaging and the marketing that this is a high quality product. (Dreamfields pasta is made from the finest durum wheat semolina  to give you delicious old-world taste and al dente texture for your special pasta dishes. With Dreamfields you get the healthy advantage, making Dreamfields the perfect pasta for health conscious pasta lovers.) I certainly appreciate your sensitivity to my remarks and your willingness to represent your state by changing my mind about Dreamfields pasta. I don't claim to hold much sway with the average pasta consumer but I do have a fairly far-reaching audience of readers and I'm sure they will take my endorsements to heart. One more thing, Bruce. I'm pretty sure last time I was in your fair state, I had a gl

Betty took me to radiation yesterday. She came in and waited with a cup of coffee. I forgot to return my beeper, forgot to take the key out of the dressing room door, and forgot to grab a towel. I think they should provide an attendant as there a lot of addled folks wandering unsupervised around that place. The other day, an old pantsless gentleman forgot to close his blue robe. Ah, well. We're all sort of anonymous in there anyway. If he's having radiation on a part beneath his underwear, he probably doesn't give a damn who he flashes. Betty and I went to Encore and scored some great bargains, then went to Pappageorge to celebrate.   Betty's had cancer, too, and we talked about what scares us and what doesn't. Mostly, we have decided to forge ahead, come what may. Nobody gets out alive and nobody knows how they're going until they're gone. So why be afraid? Why worry? I came home to take a long nap and when I woke up, Regis and I relaxed on the patio