Fork you too

12/24 Looks like we had another Jade Cove trip, a couple of them actually. Mike B. and I went up Thursday, since we have had giant surf and now minus tides. I found this 12 lb. chunk of Jade and Serpentine mix, but the waves were too big to really get after it. Then it rained on us Thursday night, and Friday I fell in a stream carrying Woody (dog) across. I managed to put him down on a rock as I was falling, but then I got the full dunk, smashed my hand and got lots of little cuts. When we finally got down into the cove in the afternoon, I got drenched again when an extra large wave caught me napping. By the time I got home I was still wet and out of dry clothes. A successful trip.

Every time I am heading out for Jade Cove, Dana asks if I don't have enough jade. This is of course rhetorical, unanswerable in fact. The jade I do not have is always greener and larger than the jade I do have, and it must be sought and never found. It is sisyphean, a moonbeam.

One morning recently we woke and found out WE WERE FORKED!

I thought this was pretty funny, much better than getting TPed, since it rained and wet TP is a pain. There musta been 100 forks, and a few spoons and knives as well. It was some of the kids in the last play with Mike (Little Women of Orchard House).

It's Christmas eve. All the presents are wrapped, the stockings are hung by the chimney, the lights are all lit, Santa will be here soon. My health is good, the remodel is essentially done, work is fine, the family is all here and healthy, the Patriots won today and the weather's nice. Thank God for our government, so we have something to crab about.

Here is a picture of the new dining area, and the kitchen through the arch


I went to see the orthopedic doc 2 weeks ago, and he said my hip was definitely arthritic and bursitic, and he could treat the bursitis with prednisone, but the arthritis was untreatable, eceppt for aspirin and all those other salicylate derivatives I am allergic to (Advil, Ibuprofen, etc.). That allergy turned up when I was 21, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is gone, but I cannot get a doctor to test for it because they are worried about anaphylactic shock and death. Wusses. So the net result is how soon do I want a hip replacement?

12/31 Never did finish this post, so I will now. We had a lousy Christmas, mostly my fault for treating John like he was a kid, and then he escalated it and it all spun out of control. He left early for Santa Cruz, grabbing at his independence. I am sure he is very torn, so independent and still so dependent moneywise. Then again, he didn't work all summer so WTF. I talked to him today and he is getting over it. Funny thing happened, Dana was cleaning his room for Rita nad Robert's non-visit and found the iPod that went missing some 2 years ago, stuck on the inside of the bed frame. I bet Mike's nano will show up too someday.

I won the season football pool - I won four of the weekly pools, and went into today with a 3 pick lead, and ended the day with a 3 pick lead. Hooah. Didn't even know I was a peerless pigskin prognosticator. Hit ~70%, no spreads. Netted about $250 I think. I suppose now I should throw the Superbowl party here. Net $0. Easy come easy go.

Landscaping in the backyard is almost done, a few more hundred paver bricks. Armando is taking his time, very meticulous, I would've had it done a month ago, but I'm not paying by the hour. I did help him a little today because I feel bad for him, and my back is letting me know that I am stupid. Life has lots of ways to remind you that you're stupid - bakc, hips, knees, hair, kids, spouses, cops, bosses, employees, mirrors. Dogs are cool though, they hardly ever say anything negative. Our dog Woody is awesome. I think this is partly because he is gelded, snipped, ballsless. We should do this to all world leaders too, then our war budget wouldn't be 200 times the UN peace budget. Happy New Year and belated Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Boxer Day too.

boo

That's right, not boo hoo, just boo. We had 450 trick or treaters last night, yumpin yiminy. They bus them in from all over town. Nice safe neighborhood, good treats, close houses. Just the kind of place we targeted as kids.

This blog is winding down, I just don't have much to say about my health, since it is fine. I had my next to last bone marrow biopsy last Friday, and I was a little nervous since I have had this lingering cold for about 4 weeks. Thought maybe those white blood cells weren't getting it done. Not to fear, the doc called today and said I am clean, at least my bone marrow is clean of leukemia. So, 3 more months of chemo and we are done with this. I still take my daily, weekly and monthly doses, and still have minimal impact from them.

The daughter of a guy I work with is 6 months ahead of me with the same treatment from my doc, ALL = same disease, and she had a rough go right from the start, into dialysis as soon as she got to Stanford, and didn't get out of there for 7 weeks, and then had to stay near the hospital for some more time to keep her treatments going. She is fine now. Some months before her treatment ended she got the OK from the doc to have a few drinks now and then, with no problems.

So Beauch and I were going up to the Jade Festival and camping for a couple of nights back in mid-Oct, and I asked the doc if I could have some beers, and he said OK. I had 2 beers a night. And I had taken some Nyquil the week before. The next blood test my liver function tests high abnormal, and the doc says 'Well, I guess no alcohol'. Sheesh. Can't argue with that, the beers weren't that great anyway.

The freaking house remodel continues to go haywire at every opportunity. Nothing goes right unless it is done by someone that doesn't speak English. Figure that one out. Kitchen floor installed with the vapor barrier upside down, and had to be redone twice. Bathroom sinks lost in transit. Kitchen countertops cut too small, then the wrong color. New microwave needed microcircuit board replaced 3 times. Kitchen cabinet drawer fronts were wrong, as were the replacements, 3 times, and we finally gave up on that and kept the first ones. Bathroom tile job kinda sketchy. Found the big distressed look dining table on EBay 3 days after the new one we ordered was delivered, for less than half the price. Ouch.

The really amazing thing is the gall they have when they screw up. 'We're really busy now, why don't you install the new drawer fronts yourself?' Guess my answer. 'Do you mind if we take out a chunk of your countertop to match the color? We lost the piece that was cut too small. You will have to take out the stove and move back to the garage.' Guess my answer. The funny thing is I don't yell anymore, not for years now. I have learned how to tell them how far they are from reality without raising my voice. I love to summarize for these people, it helps them to see the light. Basically it ends up as 'So, you have screwed me 3 times, I didn't have an orgasm, you're not attractive and didn't use lubricant, I am not drunk, you have AIDS and herpes and don't wear a condom, and you want to know if I want to go again?'

Anyway, we are nearing the end of the remodel, our kitchen is functional if not finished, we have moved out of the garage, I bought the big screen TV Monday in time for the Patriots dominating performance! Landscaping is chugging along, and the whirlpool tub was set in its place today and can be used in a couple of days. I don't know where the glass wall and door are for the shower, and there is a lot of trim and tilework yet to be done in the kitchen, and we need a big honking buffet table, and if Dana has anything to say about it (she does), lots of other furniture.

Mikey played a gig tonight with the HS jazz band at a restaurant downtown. He was playing bass, which was a surprise as he usually plays guitar, but that's what they needed. Sure could use Earl and Mikey Greco to school him. Come on out, bring your axes. Johnny came home for the weekend, first time back from Sonoma, he needed supplies. I took him to Costco and stocked him up. He is having a great time at college, the kid was made for academia and babes. We all went to the HS football game to see Mike play with the marching band (he and the guitar are in the pit with the other non-marchers). First HS football game in a long time for Dana and I, first ever for Johnny.

The biggest miracle of late is that our marriage has survived the remodel. It was pretty close at times, but we are seeing the light at the end. I thought this would be done by Sept. 1, but now I will be happy to be final by Dec. 1. We are sick of the GC and his crew, and they are sick of us.

All of you that have sent me emails wondering if I was OK, thanks for your concern. When I am quiet all is well, and I hope to fall completely silent this coming Feb. Shhh. Make noise by voting.

grrrr

where am I?

Carp in my tunnel

8/12
I am still here, although it seems like I must be somewhere else too. There isn't that much here here anymore, and using the garage as living room/kitchen/dining room/garage is getting reeeaaallllyyy old. My health is fine, but this getting old is getting old. I started getting this numbness in my right forearm and hand, wild tingling sensation running down my arm, and I figured it was due to too much keyboard action at work and paintbrush action at home. But, I thought I should mention it to my doc, and he figured there was this off chance the leukemia had settled into my skull, where it likes to hide. He ordered up all kinds of tests, neuropathies, bone marrow biopsies, trigonometries, funky blood tests, CBCs, met panels and 8x10 glossy photos with circles and arrows on the back explaining what I might have.

So I went to see the nerve people. You all know I have plenty of nerve, but they had to check. They hooked me up to this Abu Ghraib castoff machine, put a bunch of electrodes on me, and started zapping and ramping the juice until I was jumping, shouting 'Kill, Kill', and my muscles were twitching and fingers flailing and arms a flapping, and I asked for more so they hooked up the other side and did it again. Man, what a rush! They said I had a lot of nerve.

So then they took this long needle with a wire on it, to test my conductivity in case the lights went out, and they stuck it in the back of my neck. I love how they always say 'Little bee sting here', and it is never like a little bee sting. If you've been stung by a bee, you know those suckers last a while, throbbing so you can take your pulse off it even after an hour. The needle sticks last about 3 seconds and then they don't hurt. This was like that too, more like acupuncture, and it turns out I am conductive because I shorted the breaker on their panel. They got it fixed up and stuck the needle in a bunch of other places, in my arms and hands, and then the doc said 'Well, I know what you have', and she handed me this handout, and it said 'Carpal tunnel'. I said 'Wow, doc, that's great news!', because it was really, since I didn't have any little leukemia bastards hiding in my skull or spine or eyeballs and probably didn't have to get all those other tests and I hated trigonometry. It was a sine, but don't get me off on a tangent.

So now I can look forward to these crazy tingly shooting buzzes going down my arm into my hand every now and then, and I get to wear one of those cool braces on my hand, and it is very fun painting and trying not to drop the brush when the whole thing starts in to humming, but I am going lefty more.

The freaking remodel is going through some real slow phases, but things are looking up. The plastic that was draped all over the place is gone, but the fine layer of dust remains, and it will remain, because now the texture guys have to come back and fix some areas they didn't texture well. The kitchen cabinets are going in, the countertop guys have taken their measurements, the stucco guys are lost in outer space, the tile guy quit cause he didn't like the tile we chose, too complicated, see ya loser. I am trying to get ahead of them and paint, but I've passed them and I may have to repaint. After I painted the kitchen Dana decided she didn't like the color, so I repainted that, luckily it was an easy job with all the cabinets covering most of the walls, and this was before the cabinets were there.

8/20 I went off looking for a photo, and started trying to post it about 3 days ago, but freaking blogger couldn't get it up. Photo erectile dysfunction. Maybe I'll try again. Dana and I took John off to college Friday, to Sonoma State, the end of an era and beginning of an era. He would have been happy if we could have just dumped him and his stuff at the curb, he was in such a rush to get rid of us. Dana was ready to buy him a new Ipod, cell phone, laptop, anything to ensure he won't forget us, but I held her back. He is cooked and done, let's hope he is smarter than I was at 18 (or 28 or 38 or now, for that matter). Dana was sure she would get all teary, and was sure I would too, but something about the way John was literally pushing us out of his dorm kept us from lamenting too much.

It's now Sunday and that means I have to get more paint and do more painting. Mikey is coming back from a week in Big Sur camping with friends, and Dana has gone off to get him. I wonder if I have reached some blogger size limit, as I can't get any photos on the site. I will post now so you can see I am still alive, doing fine. Tomorrow starts steroid week, so I have to go get a blood test.

School of hard knocks

Steroid week and that means it's time for an update. 6:22, ate my breakfast, read the paper, perused the internet and heading for a pill party. I met with the doc yesterday for the first time in a few months, and he reaffirmed that I am essentially cured, or as I paraphrased him, "I am free to die of something else." Blood counts are all fine, chemo is having no ill effects, pass Go, go to the next doctor for some other pain.

I had an Xray of my left hip that showed osteo-arthritis, and then an MRI to see if there was any necrosis, and there is not, which is good because that sometimes happens with chemo and cancer. Now I want to get a nice big shot of prednisone in the hip and give me 3 months of walking pain-free.

Good thing too, because this job is killing me. Nah, just kidding, I am having fun and love a job that is challenging and diverse. The good thing about the old turds I find is, they don't smell, but the bad thing is, they don't smell. Manitoubou, an old bookkeeping turd is something such as a misapplied payment or a missing invoice copy from a year ago that the customer has not paid, and now you are them to pay, and of course the first thing they want is a copy of the invoice. Not unsolvable, but time consuming. I am wading through these turds and sending them to the compost heap, but want to get through this phase and on to my core competency of telling other people what to do.


Live Oak was great as usual, but seemed too thick with Zydeco and Mardi Gras music, not as eclectic as in years past, not much bluegrass. I didn't think it really got going until Sunday night, when the African band Baaba Mal got everyone jumping, followed by Arlo Guthrie, who brought down the house. He remarked, and it is true, how the old protest songs seem to have relevance again. He was very funny, my kids loved him, and it was like old times. I ran spotlight at a concert of his at URI in '79 I think, or '78, and he was sick of doing his old stuff then, but not now, and we all had a great time playing with the pencils and filling in the boxes on the Group W bench.

Young John has graduated, yippee, and I will delay this posting until tonight so I can add his graduating picture. Dana and he and I went to Sonoma State (40 miles north of San Francisco, Pat) last Thursday night for 1 1/2 days of orientation Friday and Saturday. We all stayed in the dorms, which are 6 person suites, 4 bedrooms (2 double 2 single) that share a kitchen and living room, each bedroom with it's own bath. Not like Butterfield at URI. I thought I might finally get lucky in a college dorm, but it was not to be. Maybe when Mikey goes to college.


Anyway, about ten guys and ninety girls attended the orientation. Yikes, John is going to be busy! Seriously, it was the teenage girl babe-o-rama. The ratio at Sonoma is 2:1, but orientation was 8:1 or more. Each guy there had to sit at a table of girls, and I give them credit for not being terrified and huddling up. I guess the other guys don't need to orient, they can get lost on their own, we know that. The campus is great, small college feel, and it is with about 5000 students, 1/3 the size of URI or Cal Poly, in the suburbs of Rohnert Park. Brand new gym just for the non-athletes, new library, new music building, new science building, it smelled like money. Should be great.


The level of poemerizing has really moved up, I have to seriously consider the Poems of the HolyCow Blog as an anthology that needs publishing to the masses. It just needs a little funding.


Speaking of funding, my neighbors Janice and Carolyn have a Team in Training team that will run in the half-marathon in October and raise donations to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I will include their letter here so you can read it for yourself.

Dear Family & Friends,

We have exciting news! My daughter Carolyn and I have joined forces to raise money for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! For the next five months, we will be training with other Team in Training participants to complete the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in San Francisco, on Sunday, October 22, 2006! We have never done anything like this before and are excited to share the adventure together.

So why are we doing this? We want to take advantage of this opportunity to share precious mother-daughter time together before Carolyn goes off to college in the not too distant future. We look forward to the physical challenge of running a half-marathon. And most importantly, we want to contribute to finding a cure for blood-related cancers. Our next door neighbor, John, is currently fighting Leukemia. While we have not been very involved in his battle, we feel that participating in Team in Training might be a way to show solidarity for him.

And where do YOU come in? We have made a commitment to raise
$5,200 by August. You can help us achieve this goal by making a tax-deductible donation to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Your contribution is needed and WILL make a difference! Act now! Your donation will bring us one step closer to a cure.

Along with your donation, please send us names of cancer victims or survivors you would like us to include on our pace bands. Each of our 13.1 miles will be dedicated to these honorable people. Their names will become a meditation at the start of each mile to give each step purpose and meaning. Along with the names you share with us, we will be running in honor of our neighbor John Fiore, and in memory of Ray, a family friend who died of Lymphoma.

THANK YOU for your consideration and support,

Janice and Carolyn Campbell
______________________________________________________________________
Mail donor form (below) with check to:
Janice Campbell, 4384 Wavertree
Street, San Luis Obispo, CA, 93401
I will make a tax deductible donation in support of Janice & Carolyn Campbell’s participation in the Nike Women’s Half Marathon
Make Checks payable to: The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Amount:
______________________________________________________
Name:
______________________________________________________
Address: ______________________________________________________
City, State,Zip_____________________________________________________
Email:
______________________________________________________

To make an easy on line credit card donation, go to the following web address: http://www.active.com/donate/tntgla/tntglaCCampbe OR http://www.active.com/donate/tntgla/tntglaJCampbe

I know I tapped you all for white blood cells last March, and that worked great, but without the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society funding research on these diseases I may not be here, so if there is any way you can make a donation please do so.

The house is going ever soooo slooooow, delays on windows are costing us money faster than I can make it. It's 7 am Wednesday and I have to go to work.

The Barry Bonds of Chemo

4am, day 2 of steroid/vincristine/slam week. I could get a lot more done if I could get a shower without waking everyone up. Let me say rht now, beoe I fogt, don ev buy a Micosof wreles keybord and mose, thy suck@! OK. I'll pay attention now. As I was saying, Barry Bonds week. I feel great, a little stomach ache but that's OK, throw some Tums into the pit and all is well. I'll go see the doc today for my monthly checkup and smack of vincristine. The numb fingertips and toes have never progressed beyond the tips, and I have compensated so that I hardly think about that unless I think about that.

All that poemerizing was awesome, felt like I was back at URI, or maybe a nice advanced care facility. Here is mine
Think that I am Barry Bonds
or maybe just a hopped up Fonz
give me yoga and tai chi
eight glasses of water
and then laugh and pee
4 am and nowhere to go
no wine no pot and no spiced ho
Cindy's kidney is now a pie
they got the cancer
stabbed it in the eye
threw it down and Abu Ghraibed it
now she don't have no more of that shit
Raise a glass of whatever you got
to Cindy's now departed part.

Sort of stream of conscience maybe, if I had one, or consciousness if I wasn't so often. Stream of consent? Stream of nonsense? Stream? Out of steam? So it would seem.

I worked about 15 hours this long weekend, digging up the turds of old bookkeepers. I hope to get through the archaeology phase of this job soon and move into new territory. Dana and Mike and I went to see the new XMen movie, it rocked. If you go, make sure to stay through the credits, there is a quick tickler at the end.

The house is not progressing much, I think they nailed up five boards last week. Hmmmmm. Dana keeps doing a circular dance with the windows/doors/rough openings/contractor/kitchen designer/dishwasher left or right. She is losing patience, but she has one of the most bitchingest second grade classrooms you ever did see, ask anyone. For a half-time teacher, she sure puts in some hours, like 40/week, and I don't think they are all just to get away from me and this house.

OK, gonna go get coffee now, then shave the weakass hair nubs off my head, take a cold shower in the backyard, pick splinters and nails out of my feet, put on California casual wear by some designer type that Dana bought me so I don't look too much like my father at 75, and go to work, driving the gals that work for me crazy by tearing up their old job descriptions which they never had and giving them new ones. All that by 8:45 am. We're gonna need lots more poemry, because all I do now is work, and I can't blog about that too much.

I had leukemia but now it's gone
with Cindy's kidney to the great beyond
I now have chemo
like Barry Bonds
'cept I have a conscience
and he has a pond
This job and house are now killing me
but this too shall pass, just wait and see

Reality is for those that can't handle drugs

This reality thing is not all it's cracked up to be. My house is a shambles, kitchen gone, dining room gone, computer room gone. It rained about an inch today, and I had to squeegee water off the slab so it didn't get under the hardwood flooring that remains. We are eating off plastic plates and bowls, and doing any dishes in the bathroom sink.

My health is fine, same old same old, take the pills, drink the water, pee pee pee. I spent last week in Reno, at the main office of my new job. We decided to call me Director of Operations for TEC SLO. TEC Reno is about 18 years old, an engineering firm that does land and water resource planning, engineering consulting, design and planning, surveying, and some other stuff. TEC SLO is only about 15 months old and does the consulting, design and planning, and survey stuff for now. TEC had picked up a big job here and decided to open the SLO office, and now has grown to the point where they need someone like me to bring order to the chaos. Kind of a harmonics/resonance thing, know what I'm saying? Check us out at http://www.thiel-engineering.com/.

We still can't nail the windows and doors guys down, and this is getting critical. Dana has rearranged the kitchen plan so much I am thinking of just doing it out of Legos, couldn't be that much more expensive. We had the big yard sale and made about $750 bucks selling what I originally paid $10,000 for, but hey, now I have room for plastic spoons in my garage/kitchen!

Tomorrow will be my first full day in the new office, so it should be interesting meeting the people. My boss, the CFO, is coming down from Reno with another of the owners tomorrow, so we'll have some meetings and lunches and grind out some decisions. Mike B. wanted me to watch the office to prep for going back to office life, but I am always ready to tell people what they should be doing, ask any Republican! Where the heck is Osama bin Laden, anyway?

My friend Cindy just had a kidney taken out, seems there was a little malignancy in there, so please everyone send her some positive thougths of whatever type you have, some chi, some reiki, some oon yellymon. She will be fine, they got it all and it was very early, and they threw in the liposuction and butt tuck at no extra charge! She's ten pounds lighter already! I shoulda got the blepharoplasty when I was in, I had a coupon 2 eyes for the price of 1, I could've gotten rid of the baggage terminals under my eyes. Oh well, better to grow older than to not grow older, I think. Isn't it? I found this poem by Ogden Nash, one of my favorites for a humorous poem, but I didn't find this one all that funny.

Old Men
People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when ...
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.

This from the same Ogden Nash, more typical

Lines on Facing Forty
I have a bone to pick with fate,
Come here and tell me girly,
Do you think my mind is maturing late,
Or simply rotting early.

Back to reality

Man oh man, life can really throw some curveballs at you. Healthwise I am fine except for losing my mind thanks to this remodel. First, the quote for the doors we want came in this morning, almost double what we expected. Ouch. Then our general contractor showed up and told us we really needed to move out of the house for 3 ½ months, ASAP. It seems nobody anticipated shifting the bearing of a shear wall (CA earthquake code) from the North wall to the East wall, and that means demolishing our bedroom wall and kitchen NOW. I suppose we could all move into the boys bedrooms and cook in the microwave in the bathroom, but ……..

The timing couldn’t be worse, either, as I start a job with an engineering company this Friday, and have to spend next week at the main office in Reno. That means finding a house and moving into it this week, on top of Saturday's yard sale. So if anyone reading this knows a rental or housesitting situation, call me NOW.

Yes Mac, you hear right, no more golf for me, at least until I get a new bionic hip. I am trying to finish off this osteo-arthritic left hip by playing racquetball, and I need to do that to save Mikey from a life in a chair playing computer games. I can actually win a game a month, during steroid week, but he and uncle Barry are pretty good and Mike likes the game. Golf is just too damn painful, and I can't drink the necessary painkillers needed to play and not care, so it will have to wait.

I was anticipating a relaxing last 4 days of retirement – not to be. I will be Director of Operations for the SLO office of this company, which they opened over a year ago and now need some help running. Should be interesting. Friday will also be Johnny’s 18th birthday, holy smokes.

He went to the prom Saturday night, and he and his girl looked like movie stars. He says he had a great time, so that’s good since it cost him a pretty penny including dinner at Café Roma. The prom evening started out as classic Johnny. We started to drive him out to his girl's house in Varian Ranch (that's right, still no license) to get some pictures for us and for her parents, and realized we forgot the corsage and her phone number (just in case). Soon we are driving through Varian Ranch and realize John does not know where the house is. Of course, we cannot get a signal in the hills and valleys of Varian Ranch, and they have a dinner reservation at 6:00. I can see Dana getting a little anxious in the rearview mirror, and John is trying to remain cool, so I knew I had to remain cool. John finally gets through on the phone, but it cuts out twice before he can get street and number. We find their house, which happened to be Dana's dream house, Tuscan with arched doors and windows, great gardens, just beautiful. We are greeted by Jessica and her mom Susan and find they are having a shoe crisis - the strap on the brand new shoes has broken, and there is not enough material at one end to resew it. I ask Susan if they have any duct tape, and we effect a repair that looks like it might hold and doesn't look too bad if you don't look. It lasted half the night. Cafe Roma was happy to move the reservation to 6:30. Then as Dana is pinning John's boutonniere, the pinhead (not me) breaks off and Dana is stabbed. So, bad luck comes in threes - lost in Varian Ranch, broken shoe, stabbed by pin - and the rest of the night was a great success!

Randy and Donald came out last Thursday, and Mike B. and I picked them up at the SLO airport at 3pm. We were pitching tents at Limekiln State Park at 6pm. We hiked up to the falls and the kilns the next day, but then had to break camp and move to Plaskett Creek campground ten miles south. We were lucky to get a site as it filled up. I probably should’ve brought bigger steaks and a grandiose salad, because I think Randy left hungry on the fruit and nut CA diet. We fixed that on Saturday when we came back and had lunch at the Hofbrau and then dinner at the Big Sky Café.

Randy and Donald were troopers, dealing with jet lag while we ran them through the paces of poker and bocce. Donald wiped us all out in 8 hands, winning seven of them by obviously cheating, though we didn’t catch him. Randy and I dominated in bocce. It was steroid week (Mon-Fri) for me, so I was last to bed and first up at 5am, but I flat out ran out of gas Saturday night and was pretty wiped out all day Sunday, steroid withdrawal. Donald and Randy left at 6:30 am Sunday, a whirlwind trip. It was great that they could come at all, and it was like old times instantly. We filled in all the blanks quickly and got down to ranting and raving. I remembered the tent poles this time!

When we tromped down to the beach at Willow Creek I noticed a car that had a license plate frame that read 'One Gallon Club - Blood Donor', and I saw these people walking to it and asked if it was their car. They said yes, and I asked who the donor was and went over and hugged her. I would have hugged her even if she wasn't good-looking, and I told her I may have some of her blood and thanks for helping to save my life. She was B+, but if that meant some B+ took her blood and left some O+ for me, she helped save my life. It was cool.

Demotherapy, as in demolition

Dang, we’ve been busy around here. I have to apologize to all of you that have been supporting me through this ordeal for taking a month off. I know you pull up this blog every couple of weeks to see how things are going. I guess they are going so well that l don’t have much to say about leukemia. Now that we’re almost done remodeling my body (until the left hip finishes its degrading remarks about my life), we are in the beginning phases of remodeling the house.

Before I go on about that, let me just say that my health is the same, blood counts are fine although my red blood cells are slightly enlarged. My doc doesn’t seem worried about that, and I have been in the gym a lot so maybe they are just more muscular. My weight is steady at about 160, and I eat everything and often, it drives the wife nuts. Still sucking down the chemo, only ten more months. I have thrown in glucosamine and chondroitin to stave off the hip and back pain. The four racquetball sessions every week with Uncle Barry and Mikey aren’t helping my hip or my ego, but it’s still fun.

We just finished emptying out our old computer room, and they will tear off the roof and walls of that room tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain. This will be the new dining room once it is expanded, flowing into the kitchen and living room. This is what the hobbit architect that originally designed these houses intended, but he made all the rooms too small for their purpose. The stupid rain started four weeks ago, just after they dug the trenches for the new footings, and didn’t really let up until the end of last week, but finally we have begun.

Dana and I have been appliance shopping, window and door shopping, floor shopping, revamping kitchen layout, and figuring out what to do with the stuff that is here, like the giant computer armoire I am typing this at, which is now in the old dining area, and which you can have for only $1500. We will live in a Chinese puzzle house for the next 3-5 months. I am trying to throw a yard sale together for this weekend and clear out all the stuff we haven’t used in the last 5 years – boogie boards, wetsuits, garage couch, entertainment centers, tech stuff, games, clothes, and on and on.

I am back on the job market, and was given an offer today, good job and potential for money, but I have some others I am waiting to hear from so I have to hold them off and see what happens. Plus Randy and Donald are coming out May 4-7, short trip but we’ll have some fun. Beauch and I will take them up to Plaskett Creek or Limekiln Park and camp, hit Jade Cove, go to Farmer’s Market, maybe golf although I am not so hot on that.

The Blood Bank called me a few weeks back to see if young John could come in and donate – they were critically short of blood. He started donating when I went in the hospital. I had to tell them that he had come down with mononucleosis in January and couldn’t donate for a while, and I would but I have leukemia. I asked them if they wanted me to write a letter to the Tribune as a recipient to say how blood donations had saved my life, and they loved the idea, so I did. The Tribune did not print my letter; I didn’t call anybody stupid, and didn’t mention the sewer controversy, so ………. They kind of ticked me off, so I forwarded the letter to the marketing people at the blood bank. They called me up and wanted to know if they could come interview me, as they were doing some celebration of a donor that had made his 300th donation, and I said I would be happy to do what I could.

This morning they came out and interviewed Dana and I, and took our pictures, and we may get to meet the 300-donation donor at some celebration. He donates platelets, which you can do every couple of weeks. It takes about 2 hours to donate platelets, so his is a heroic effort. If he’s light enough I will carry him around the celebration on my shoulders.

Yer Birthday Blues

Friday 3/10
I hope you all are enjoying the winter weather. Summer is gone here now, we’re back to rainy season. I am feeling fine, same old same old. It’s 6am Friday morning of big dose week, first week of the monthly cycle, so today is the last day of the month for steroids. I’ve been getting up at 4am, 5am, no matter when I go to sleep. That will work to my advantage tomorrow, when the boys and I will drive to Yosemite in a snowstorm, leaving at 6am! Why? Dana is turning 50, so we rented a big house in Wawona. It’s supposed to snow there today through Sunday, so getting there could be tricky. Dana and her sisters are leaving tonight, but Johnny has to go to the big birthday bash for babacious babes, so we boys will head out tomorrow and Johno can sleep in the car. I hope to God he doesn’t do half of what we did at parties in senior year, but that is naïve.

I was pretty stuck on what to get Dana for the big 50, and was working on a big party with a band, but she didn’t want that, and didn’t really want a big party, so I saved a bunch of money there. I was standing in the hospital corridor waiting to take a blood test when I noticed this painting of Islay Hill by a renowned local artist, and it was perfect, so I called her and now it’s Dana’s. We are trying to get originals of the Seven Sisters, volcanic peaks starting behind my house and ending with Morro Rock in Morro Bay. There are actually ten peaks, and one is in Estero Bay past Morro Rock. So far we have Islay, Hollister and Morro Rock, four to go. This view of Islay Hill is about 130 degrees from my view of Islay Hill, so in the painting my neighborhood is below the clump of trees on the left side of the hill.



I am in the destruction phase of the house remodel. We are pushing out the walls of our dining room and family room and redoing the kitchen to open it to the dining area. The contractor will start with some deep footings as soon as the weather looks clear, maybe a week, maybe two. They think they will remove 20 cu. yds of material! Anyway, before they come I have to remove everything in the way, and transplant all the plant material. I have to remove half of the brick patio, and since we decided to brick the whole yard I may as well not move these bricks twice, so I’ve been working at getting the base ready. Now I will let the rain settle it some more and move the pavers after it dries, just before the excavator shows up. Gotta sell the spa and brick that area too.

The boys needed to churn up the physical activity level and find alternatives to PC gaming, so we joined Kennedy Club Fitness, this mega complex 2 miles up the road. I figure I better get them hooked on one thing first, so we have taken up racquetball, and it’s working. We go again today at 1. Both of them ran into babes they knew at the gym last time we went, and that is certainly a big lure of the gym scene (for them, not me). I will be in the 50 meter heated pool doing aquarobics with the other geriatric members! This place has lots of classes, equipment galore, a deli, squash and racquetball and a hot tub. It is quite the beautiful muscley people scene starting around 6pm, and Mike and John were too intimidated by the biceps to use the weights. I need to show them that the scrawny and fat use the Nautilus circuit training and get them going on that. I will lure Mikey into the pool by asking him to teach me to swim better.

Johno is a kind of campus radical at SLO High, I think. He has lots of friends, mostly girls it seems, and I think he is a lot like I was in class only nicer and present more often. But argumentative, lawyerly, wiseassing he has down. Because he was in Spain his freshman year he didn’t get dragged into a particular clique, so he hangs with other creative types, the theater crowd and people that like the music he likes (crashing ska type mosh pit madness). Johno will be the crazed singer. He said all the emo poetry in Creative Writing was driving him nuts, so he wrote his ‘Miasma’ poem and then started the ‘Miasma’ Club, which is ‘emover’ the top. (We are always having bad pun competitions).

John and some college friends started a band, ExSkalibur, and Mikey is in as the guitarist. Only one other band member besides Mike really has any musical training, Angelo, and he is good, he is a music major at UC Santa Cruz. They only get to practice about once a month when the Santa Cruz boys come home, but it is pretty fun to watch the interaction across the age groups.

Tuesday 7pm
We are back from Wawona/Yosemite, luckily, as it was snowing pretty good when we left at 10 this morning. The boys came back yesterday with their aunts so that they would only miss one day of school. Dana and her sisters couldn’t get to Wawona Friday night and had to spend a night in Fresno, so I was up until 12:30 trying to find them a hotel room. We finally got lucky, and they somehow hit a window when CalTrans had cleared rte 41 and they made it. By the time the boys and I got in the vicinity, about 11:30 Saturday am, the road was closed again. I was kicking myself for not leaving early, but I thought it made more sense to delay and let them clear the road. It wasn’t snowing and the road looked good, but somehow they didn’t have plow drivers. We sat there and waited until after 2 when they finally let us through. Although we had a house for 12 people, there were just 6 of us. Great house, and we had a great time.

We made a sledding run in the back of the house, and built Forest Lump, the biggest snowman I ever made, I think. We had a number of snowball fights, ate a lot and sledded a lot. We all drove into Yosemite Valley, 22 miles but an hour drive with chains. Dana, Mike and I were in one car and I was driving, and the aunts were following with Johno. It was getting hot in the car, and I wanted to get my jacket off but there were no plowed pullouts. So I decided to use the pullover method, where you get the jacket all pulled up and ready in the back, and when you have a good straightaway you grab it in the back and pull it over your head. Well, I had just shaved my head the day before, and I had velcro head. The outer part of the jacket came off, but the liner was stuck on my head, over my face. In that blind moment of terror, I was deciding to take the mountain and not the cliff. I hit the brakes, veered right, and tugged the liner hard enough to wrench my neck, cut my knuckles on the shifter, and get the liner off. Needless to say, Dana was a little miffed.

Bridalveil Falls was a mystical winter wonderland.

















After the aunts and boys left, Dana and I went back to the Ahwahnee Hotel for dinner, even though I was wearing jeans and white socks, not the suit required. They didn’t care a bit and let us hang with the wealthy, and we had a great dinner. Dana was getting all these mystical moon signs – the full moon was rising over Half Dome as we drove in. When we told the hostess at the Ahwahnee that we were celebrating Dana’s birthday, she gave her a present of two cards, art that she does, and they were Cosmic Moon over Half Dome and Cosmic Moon over El Capitan. Cosmic. While we ate, the pianist played Moondance and Happy Birthday. I was going to ask for As Time Goes By, but Dana thought she had such a cosmic connection going that he would play it without a request. He didn’t, but as we drove back to Wawona, she put in an old Prairie Home Companion tape, and as Garrison Keillor was going through the birthdays As Time Goes By was playing on a piano in the background.


So, check out the photos. Forest Lump was getting much more lumpy in this morning’s storm. I was thinking how much a snowman is like us, all shiny and new at the start, then kinda lumpy, and then he just fades away.

Arrrgggh matey

Chugging along health wise, same old same old. Slightly anemic, sleep pattern all screwy, otherwise 50 going on 60. I am renaming my chemos salsa picante, as they have the same effect. My nose runs, my eyes tear, and my stomach aches. That is what they should tell chemo patients to expect – a trip to Old Mexico.

Amazing, the weather here stayed warm, hot even, long enough for me to finish the canoe, then temps dropped 30 degrees. Just in time, as Beauch was being driven nuttier by the sound of the flapping tarps in his yard. Frost in the yard yesterday morning, and it actually snowed in the county at higher elevations. Every few years this happens. I am very pleased I didn’t get caught up in the nice weather so much that I started pruning – my inborn procrastinator told me not to do the bonsai transplant yet. Good thing, because that pruning would have inspired some bud push, and those suckers might have been frozen.

Dana and Chrissie and Mike and a friend, and Stacy and Lia all went to Disneyland a week ago, Sunday and Monday, and had a great if crowded time there. I got to finish the canoe, as I am agoraphobic when it comes to Disney crowds. When they got back, Chrissie did not get her canoe ride. We tried, but the weather had already turned by Wed. last week. We loaded the canoe on the car and looked around for a spot in the back bay that was calm enough for canoeing, but it was not to be. The rains came Friday morning and lasted all weekend.

We did go to Mardi Gras parties though. The first, 2 Saturdays back, was a Shanghai Moon theme, meaning come as adventurers or smugglers or Chinamen or hot scantily clad femmes. The second party was last Saturday, the annual Pirate Party at the Avila Yacht Club, my favorite, yearrrgghh! I make a fearsome pirate, even with eyeliner. The Mardi Gras Ball is next weekend, and the theme is the Fire Within. Volcanoes? Hemorrhoids? Salsa picante? I think we are working on flame costumes. My input is too bizarre so I just show up when told and put on what they hand me.




I checked eBay and there were over 2600 completed auctions for walking sticks, US only. There were ongoing auctions for another 4000+ walking sticks. There was one auction that included the word ‘rock’, and that was a reference to rock and roll on some skull-head stick. So Mo, that’s the way to go. You get a huge marketplace and a niche in the walking stick market. Post 9/11, I would market to fear, same as most products in this country. Not just a walking stick but a weapon!

dX+1

Well, here we are a year later, diagnosis date plus one year, dX+1! I suppose I should be partying, and we are going to see Flamenco at the Performing Arts Center tonight. I may have an extra water, maybe flavored! It’s 5:30 am, I have been getting up every day about 4:15, it’s steroid week! My steroid week coincides with Dana’s, uh, concurrent hormonal swing week, or Cheswick as we call it, as in One Flew! It becomes very unclear during this time who exactly is Chief Bull-Goose Looney! Dr. Spillane has given me the all-clear, even for going back to work, and I am on the open market, looking around. There is a good job out there, stay posted.











One side effect of cyclophosphamide they don’t warn you about is the longer-term effect on your nails. I noticed this valley growing out on every toenail,and finger nail about a month ago. Then I started getting hangnails, 3 so far, and I can see that as this valley grows out it’s going to be trouble, broken nails. I asked the doc, and he said ‘Well, we don’t usually pull the nails out.” Yikes! He told me to keep them well-groomed and lots of lotion, and maybe to paint them!

Lots of comments on the last blog. Mac, Mac, who would want to edit you or have you tone down your mustard? You said ‘screw slow’, referring to golf swings. I made a joke, asking if that was sex advice. I love you man, and your sick and twisted sense of humor, sometimes over the top but my clutch doesn’t work that well either.

I have a picture here of Maurice’s present of a walking stick. This is now the primary weapon in the house. Mikey loves it, shaped like a light saber. Watching him wield it reminded me I need to do some earthquake-proofing.


















Nice to hear from the Berger’s too, I keep expecting to see Heather on American Idol or Dog Eat Dog or Survivor or something. Bill M. showed he is not a true Luddite and actually touched a keyboard, way to go Bill, good to hear from you. Pats coulda won it, one bad game.

Sue Beauch is having her very first Art Show with an exhibition at New Frontiers Market in SLO. I think she sold three paintings the first day. Go check it out, she's a great artist.

The canoe is killing me. The weather warmed up a lot, but the wind is making it difficult to get a clean final coat of paint and varnish on the canoe. I am driving Beauch nuts trying to rig up a dust-free zone on the side of his house. I’ll be heading out to check the surf in an hour, then on to Beauch’s and see what I can get done. I hope to have this thing in the water in a week. Chrissie is coming to stay with us for a week, and we want to take her for a paddle. Relax Mac, just in the canoe, as long as she is good.



Next project is new toilets in the house, and new tile floor in the boy’s bath, now that their aim has finally settled down. It is amazing how often a penis can get away from you while you’re using it, and what a mess it can make. And I am just talking about peeing. We are looking into Gerber dual-action toilets, flush your pee with 1 liter and your poops with 6 liters. We saw this everywhere in Yugoslavia in ’87, and it’s a great idea.

Deliverance and Restoration

Just a quick post to clarify a few things. I had already restored this dang canoe, 11 years ago, and it is in pretty good shape. Looking at the different canoes at Old Town's site, many look similar to this, but this is the Otca 16'. The Deliverance canoe was definitely an Old Town, but probably not the Otca as the layout of seats looks different than the canoe in this picture from the movie.

I wrote Old Town 11 years ago with the serial number and they sent me the shipping info where they sold it to Pt. Jude Boats in June 1968. It was originally canvassed, but I think Roger's gramps pretty quickly fiberglassed it, probably the first time he had to recover it. They do come in fiberglass now, but I don't think they did then. From Old Town's price list they sent me in 1994, you could buy one from them for $2925. I imagine they keep that price high because they have a strong dealer network and want you to buy from a dealer. Mac, you are right, canoes like this in mint condition are going for big bucks, I've seen them as high as $7K for a canoe from 1920.

This is a pic of the Otca 16, not mine but the same, pretty similar condition. Jeanne is clearly sending me Reiki about the canoe because I am boat whispering it myself. Thanks Jeanne.



As for the peeing thing, I have always had pretty good bladder control and the trip to the rope swing in Scituate was only about 40 minutes. I think there was another trip to Maine or New Hampshire where I tried to enforce the no stops rule, and Pat (was it Pat?) started to hang her ass out the window. I relented.

For marriage preservation I want to clarify that the girls at work wanted to work for me because I was the most hands-off manager (figuratively and literally), and most people had a good time working for me. I think.

Ossification

Had my ~1 year bone marrow biopsy on Monday, and passed with no sign of leukemia. I probably have had this for a year now, but we'll celebrate when we get to Feb. 9th, Dx plus one year. Only have to swallow another 2,155 pills or so, 54 more blood tests, and 12 more injections of vincristine. And one more bone marrow biopsy. And we're done!

I pulled the cover off the Old Town canoe the other day (I keep it stored at Beauchemin's) and was dismayed to see that it needs some patch-up work, sanding and varnish and paint, and a new seat. I bought this a long time ago from Roger's grandfather. He had replaced the original canvas exterior with fiberglass, but otherwise it is the same one that cracks in half in the movie Deliverance, nice wood interior, teak rails, cane seats. So I started that project today and I probably need to put in about 50 hours to get it back in shape. It is really a waste of time because we never use it, but if I don't do it the rot sets in. It has been in the water maybe once every 2 years, when we atke it into the back bay of Morro Bay and over to the sandspit. It's a 16' fishing canoe, designed for calm lakes and ponds, and I hate fishing. Kayaks are more suited to conditions here, and the canoe is a bear for one person to move around. Roger, are you out there? Does this canoe have emotional value for you?

Young John is finally getting healthy but way behind on schoolwork. Everyone else is OK, chugging along. There was an article in the paper the other day about a local 2-year old with ALL, same as me, so I called and left a message for the parents offering to tell them how some of these drugs make me feel, figuring a 2-year old may not be able to verbalize how she feels. The mom called me back and we talked for a half-hour. The kid is 6 months into treatment with many of the same drugs but no cranial irradiation and more steroids, which give her the most trouble. They first thought something was wrong when their daughter complained that her bones hurt, and she stopped walking. Her bones were so full of leukemic cells they were clogged! I am trying to remember if my bones hurt, but I don't think so. My guess is at 2 years your bones are growing rapidly, and that might explain the pain and not needing cranial irradiation. Me, I am ossified.

And as GWB said, "We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country." Go get 'em docs!

Drifting

What a world, what a world! Had a long weekend at home with Johnny, who now has mononucleosis. I brought him into the doctor on Friday, who tested for strep and was pretty sure that was what he had. Got some antibiotics going, and by Sunday he was sicker and could barely breathe. The odor coming out of his mouth let you know he was pretty sick, like someone had crammed a hundred mushrooms in his throat. He crawled out of his bed at 7 last night and said he was afraid to go to sleep because he thought he might stop breathing. I asked if he thought we should go to the ER, and he said yes. I adopted the wait-and-see attitude I have toward ER, since we theoretically had this covered with Friday’s Dr. visit.

Dana was off with her sisters for their annual pilgrimage to the spa at Ojai, doing pilates and wearing mud masks and eating right. When she got back Sunday night, she carted John into ER right away, and they fixed him up with steroids and tested for mono, which it was, meaning the antibiotics were useless. I guess I could’ve killed him with inaction, and I am having some bad feelings about my abilities to parent any more. It’s a good thing Johnny is almost baked, 5 months and he’s 18. If I can just keep him alive for 5 more months!

I do much better with inanimate objects, and I don’t do well with them. Remember the hard drives I killed last year? Anyway, I was on my way up to Jade Cove last week, in spite of 15’ surf, and I stopped at Beauchemin’s to borrow his camp coffee maker. Some of my best beachcombing happens in his yard, and sure enough I noticed this giant piece of driftwood in his driveway, must’ve been there ten years. It was rotting in some places, but right away I could see that this piece would be perfect for a bonsai display. Sue didn’t care about it, and Mike said I could have it. He found it years ago at Arroyo Laguna, just north of Hearst Castle, and gave it to Bruce Mundt, and then Bruce gave it back some years later.

So now I have a new project, and like bonsai this could take a long time. First I have to decide how to handle the rot – either cut it out or chemically treat it. I have decided to experiment with the bottom side first, trying a chemical treatment like Liquid Wood. The thing about this piece is that it resembles a sea lion or seal, and has these large burls that would hold bonsai perfectly. I envision a piece I would call Seaside Dream, with swept-form Junipers or Cypress like you see at a windy coast. The trick is to not overwork the driftwood at the same time you make it into art, otherwise it is not befitting bonsai. It could just be a sculpture on its own, I suppose, and if I mess it up that’s what I’ll say, sorta like war with Iraq.

Today is megadose day, so I went to the docs and got shot up with vincristine, then came home and swallowed masses of pills. Johnny mono-boy was amazed that I can take all 23 pills at once, but they’re not big and line right up in the throat. All is as planned according to the doc, chugging along, bone marrow biopsy next week.