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.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning, 6am
I woke up this morning thinking about toys. When I was a kid, my favorite toys were my stick and my rock. You could use these 2 items to simulate all kinds of war, and they were great for use in target practice, becoming spears and bullets and bombs. I grew up on Narragansett Bay, about 1/8 mile from the bay, and there was a park at the end of my street that was loaded with sticks and rocks, Salter Park. I would play down there at the water’s edge for days, throwing skimmers and drillers or kerplunkers as we called them.

My neighborhood was suburban middle class and under construction, and this gave my friends and me our Normandies and Dresdens, our Iraqs and Somalias. Houses in New England have basements, and those are built first. For some reason, lack of funding or permit stupidity or maybe to cure, there were some basements that were left for years with no additional work. Billy, Jeff, and other kids would come over and we’d play all sorts of war, armed with our sticks and our rocks, and have small wars with other street’s kids.

When I was about 8 or 9, I was down at Salter Park, and there were these rock outcroppings that were 25’ tall and that had tunnels and crevices in them. These rocks made for great forts. A band of girls was up in the fort rocks, and they started bombing me with marble-sized rocks from 30 or 40 yards. I grabbed some ammo, and promptly pegged one of my assailants in the forehead. Her forehead started to bleed pretty good, and I high-tailed it out of there.

When I got home, word of my accuracy had already reached my Mom. She had come to an agreement with the girl’s mom that I would apologize. The girl and her mom would be there in a moment. I was furious and mortified that I had to apologize for being a better shot, and I don’t remember how I worded the apology but I gave it. It’s funny that I can clearly see in my memory me throwing the rock and drilling her in the head, but I cannot remember the apology except that it happened and I was red with embarrassment and rage.

Now, at 50 years old, I am coming back to sticks and rocks. I was trying to come up with a gift idea for my doctor’s office that would be therapeutic for the patients. I’ve always liked the look of bonsai, so I worked out this idea of a care chart and sign-up sheet for a bonsai for the doc’s office. I went to the Muranaka Bosai nursery in Nipomo, and Muranaka-san straightened me out. Bonsai are outside mostly, even the ones that are advertised as inside like Ficus do better outside. Mr. Muranaka told me all about bonsai for a good hour. His dad had started the nursery, and they had awesome stuff. He had one 400 year old fores grouping of cypress, only $7000. I picked a Chinese Elm, Ulmus parviflora, that we thought would work if patients took it home for a month at a time. $65.

I took the elm home and stared at it and thought about the plan, and realized it wasn’t much of a gift for the doctor’s office. I went and bought 6 bottles of wine and will give that to the doc and nurses, and I exchanged the bonsai for the makings for a forest grouping, 5 Trident maples, Acer berguerianum, and a special bonsai forest grouping ceramic dish, and some bonsai potting mix. Muranaka-san told me this size dish could hold 11+ trees, always in an odd number of plants until you go past 20.

I have to wait until the trees start to bud in Feb/March to prune the roots and transplant these into the dish, but they will harden to the climate in this yard in the meantime. I will probably stick a small jade boulder in the forest glen. The idea of a forest grouping is that it looks as it does in nature, with different size trees that have created a canopy.

So it occurs to me, I have come full circle. I am back to my sticks and my rocks. It is very primal. Handling sticks and rocks is somehow therapeutic. Not like petting a cat or dog, but at a more cellular level. I have gone back to my roots, crawled back under my rock.

Christmas morning, 10 am
I had to take a break to open all the Christmas presents. No sticks, no rocks, but I am sitting in a nice new leather desk chair. Comfy. Here's hoping you all get the sticks and rocks you were wishing for, however metaphoric that may be. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Rock On!

Mike's on the left
So far the final phase is all I could hope for. I just finished the first week of the second month, and the steroids keep me awake and jumpy and I have to keep up the water and Metamucil intake, but that is only 1 week a month, no steroids again until Jan 10 or so. My stomach is kinda wrecked, very gassy (burpy), but nothing Tums can’t handle. If that’s all there is, great. Doc told me it’s time for another bone marrow biopsy, just to be sure, and I say drill away. Probably next month. I am still at 157, but haven’t been working out much.

I’ve been selling all the stuff laying around here and never used or done being used - 2 guitars, a brand-new Dooney & Bourke purse, $200 surf goggles. Sold $1000 worth of stuff in the last 2 weeks on eBay. Only paid about $1200 for it originally, so that’s pretty good. Gotta clear out room for this Christmas’s wretched excess. I think the less stuff I have the better I feel, until there’s something I want and then I get it, and then I fell better but worse.

Johnny wouldn’t get the flu shot, and spent 5 days in bed last week with the flu. I had to nursemaid the poor kid. It’s great when teens are trying to separate from their parents and use techniques like giving them the bird for some perceived offense. And then, their damn sense of self-righteousness can’t allow them to see the error and apologize for it, for over a week. So, Dana and John are not speaking and I had to nursemaid flu-boy. Seems like my flu shot took hold after all.

Mikey is switching over to bass guitar so he can start a band. Here are some photos from his last Lead guitar lab, he’s learned a lot and can rip AC/DC Back In Black, which he is doing here. One of our neighbors pays him exorbitantly to wash and walk their dog, so he bought a Peavey Forum bass off eBay, which we are waiting for. My garage will become the jamming center, I imagine. We need something to offset this kind of crap - http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1231684&page=1; http://www.prussianblue.net/ Since Lennon and Zappa died, nobody has filled the void in my brain.

Anyways, oh-bla-di, Happy Birthdays to my sister Joanna and my brother Frank. Everyone have a great Christmas or Happy Hannukah or whatever holiday you like. I like Boxer day where you can bite someone’s ear, Canada is too cool!

Oh yes Master!

From Jade Cove to Las Vegas, that’s a crazy transition. We got into LV on Monday morning, got to the Venetian at noon and into our room, a nice suite with a good view. We got settled in and went down to the casino. I can’t play blackjack or craps in any of the strip casinos any more, as they have changed the limits and rules enough to make it a losing proposition. You need to go to the older casinos downtown to find the one- and two-deck games with rules that make it profitable to try and count cards. Dana likes to play the low-limit slots, so we hung in the Venetian for a while.

Everything is going electronic, so you don’t have to pump in nickels or quarters. Put in a bill, and when you cash out, take a voucher. Put the voucher in the next machine you want to play. Much more sanitary, which I appreciate as I become Howard Hughes. Penny slots are really more like quarter slots, because you play 20 lines at a penny per line. Nickel slots are dollar slots for the same reason.

We didn’t expect to win; the average machine has about a 92% payout rate, meaning play $100, lose $8. All machines are not created equal, and I figure the casino has some machines they use as draws into the casino, near the lobby and entries. Machines near restaurants and elevators are bigger losers, as that’s where people wait for someone and play while waiting. So we went looking for loud machines near the lobby. The other part of low-limit slots theory is that they pay off more often to keep the spouse happy; the other spouse is losing hundreds at a table game, don’t let the nickel player get bored and tear him away. So, if you hit 5 losing spins in a row, up the bet. Keep upping it until you win. Risky.

We killed it for low-limit slots, up about $350 overall. The Wheel of Fortune loves me, Mr. Cashman loves me, and I Dream of Jeannie loves me. ‘Did that please you master? I can do so much more for you master. Yes, yes, yes!’ Jeannie is the only sexual machine I know, and that is surprising.

I entered a Texas Hold em tournament on Tuesday, $90 to enter, and had the gorilla of the table on my left. Bad bad. Nice guy and very aggressive player. I didn’t see an ace in the hole for the first hour, and I needed to bluff my way into a couple pots to stay alive, but the run of bad cards continued and I didn’t play well enough (aggressive) and got knocked out about 30th of 60, out of the money. Good education from the guy next to me, though, and I didn’t expect to win.

While I played poker, Dana shopped for clothes for me so I look more hip. I was wearing my Dad's old Irish hat, his alpaca sweater, and with my reading glasses I have become my Dad, and this is disturbing. So I have some new clothes, but I won't wear the stupid beret, at least not until I can grow a chinga te.

Monday night we went to see Penn and Teller, a comical satirical magic act. It was not as good as expected, but we did get to meet Penn and Teller after the show. Teller actually spoke – I didn’t think he ever did. Lance Burton does more impressive magic at half the price, but without the comedy and social commentary of Penn.

Tuesday night we went to a Cirque de Soleil show, Zumanity, which is the burlesque version of their show. We had seats right next to the stage, so it was up close and personal. Do not go to this show with your mom or your kids. The acts in this show were not nearly as spectacular as those in O or Mystere, not as gymnastic and not as risky. It was worth the money if you like the bizarre and bawdy, though, so we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Before the show we had our anniversary dinner (20 years) at the new Wynn casino, a restaurant called Bartolotto’s, Italian seafood. We had made a reservation and asked for a romantic table, and they apparently ignored that, as we were seated outside the kitchen entry. It wasn’t bad, nice views into the gardens, very elegant restaurant. After our appetizer was underway we noticed these great tables in the garden, each under it’s own canopy, and wished that was where we were.

I knew it would be $200+ without wine, and it was, but they still surprised us how they did it. The fish was sold for $12/100 grams, and they bake the fish whole and serve it to both of you. All the seafood is imported from Italy, but in my mind a sea bream is a sea bream. Our waiter recommended the sea bream, and in retrospect we think he did that because it was the biggest fish. $120. The food was great, best vegetable sides you ever had, and the fish was OK, because of the sauce, but it was bream in the end. Dana had an $18 glass of wine (she is so cheap) to wash down the fish, and we left about $50 of fish on the plate for the cats.

Seems like every time we’re in Vegas, as we approach a roulette wheel the number 23 comes up. We always say we need to play it, and this time we did. $20 on 23, $700 if it hits. 4 came up. Fer cryin’ out loud.

After Zumanity we got to bed about 1:30 Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning, 5:30 am, the hotel decided to greet our anniversary by having engineering try to open our door, banging into the security latch while saying ‘Engineering, we’re here to fix the bulb.’ At that moment the phone rings, and it is the front desk telling me engineering is on the way to fix the bulb in the lamp by the sofa. I said ‘It’s 5:30 and you have the wrong room you idiots.’ Well, now we’re awake, and so I dress and go get a coffee and sit outside to cool off before I start ripping into the front desk.

I go to the desk telling myself ‘I am not mad at this person.’ I went up to the desk, they say good morning, and I reply ‘I wish it were. I am not mad at you, but I am mad. Doesn’t your board show what room calls?’ It does. ‘Wouldn’t you make extra sure you had the right room at 5:30 in the morning?’ They were all apologetic, but insisting that we called, which pisses me right off. My guess is it was 24-120 in the Venizia Tower, and we were 24-120 in the Venetian Tower. They comped us a room service breakfast, and let us keep the room until 5pm, but they’re getting a nastygram from me anyway. If we didn’t keep killing their penny slots I’d be more pissed.

Vegas was dead on Monday but filling up as we were leaving. Never book the last flight into SLO, as the damn fog almost got us again. I think the only reason we landed was because the flight was SLO-based and wanted to be home. Pretty foggy landing. As we waited in San Fran for this flight, I used a courtesy phone to page Dana Sagoombah to gate 87. ‘Dana’s a goombah, Dana’s a goombah, go to gate 87.’ My thanks to Tom and Brian for showing me how to do this many years ago. They would page Art Vandelay, then George Costanza, eventually the whole Seinfeld cast until everyone in the airport except the guy making the pages knew something was up.

All in all a good trip. I was religious about washing my hands, and I carried around alcohol swipes you get from the change cage. We had a great Thanksgiving dinner at Stacy’s. Dana woke up Friday at 5:30 and spent the next 6 hours vomiting violently. We hoped it wasn’t the crab dip we made, which the boys and I didn’t eat. I called Stacy later, and Barry said everyone was fine, so Dana caught something on the Vegas trip. It continues to amaze me how hard those little WBCs I got from all of you are working. Dana’s had 4 colds and this flu, and I get nothing but a perpetually runny nose.

Jade Cove again

Hey, it's site 33 at Plaskett Creek Campground. All the conditions were ideal - minus tide in late afternoon, small surf, recent churn of big surf, so we surfed Wed am and went camping Wed. aft. Found a bunch of mediocre jade. It's the journey, not the result, in this case.

I feel pretty damn good, only taking mercaptopurine daily, nothing else until Dec. 15 or so. My weight is pretty steady at 158, so I need to get some muscle back. I think I am retiring from golf until I get a new hip, this one is too painful. I don't think they'll let me get a new hip until chemo is done in 2007, so ... I need a new thing, maybe go Zen, become an ascetic. I have the hair for it.

Eric V. sent me this website, this could be the answer. I'll have to talk to the doc about getting my 'green' card, I guess. http://www.affymetrix.com/community/wayahead/thc_leukemia.affx

Dana and I are leaving for Las Vegas in the am, celebrating 20 years of marriage! The woman must be a saint or dense. Staying at the Venetian, going to see Zumanity, expensive dinner somewhere, a poker tournament, some dice and blackjack but man am I rusty. I will go downtown and hang with the lowlifes, play really low stakes like $1 craps. It's more passionate when the guy next to you is playing for his rent.

No wonder I was ambushed, Eddie was with me. If I know him, he probably set me up. When the fire captain's hat showed up in our house, who was it? Eddie. Beer missing? Eddie. Bad directions for the poor tourists? Eddie. Pat taught him everything he knows, and then he learned more.

Corbie or knight?

I was laying so low I was below myself, and couldn’t reach the keyboard! Now I am just beside myself, a figment of my imagination, a will o’ the wisp, ephemera, a shimmering. I reconstitute myself in the morning light, and condense in the evening whispers, a shadow without repose. Tomorrow is garbage pickup, so I have to scoop the dog poop from the yard. That's a day job; too hard to do as a shadow.

I think I will start the last phase tomorrow; I am just waiting to hear from the doc. We delayed a couple of weeks because my blood counts were so low, and except for an overnighter to Jade Cove I haven’t done much of anything. I did dishes, laundry, watched the sad and depleted Patriots lose to the evil Indianapolis team led by the warlock Manning. Johnny finished up his play Dracula, and was overly mortified when he almost dropped one victim.

Any and all of you that ever wanted to kick my butt at anything, now is the time. I am ripe for the picking. Elbow fights Donald? Bball Randy? Golf everyone? Snowballs for the old neighborhood (man I was a killer in a snowball fight)? But I ain’t coming to you, and you have to bring your own snow.

Since I don’t have much to say, I will include a poem I am reminded of by Mac. Every time I golf with Mac, we end up using Irish or English or Scottish accents, we don’t what they are. There we were at La Cala in Spain, Irishing all over the place with no clue what we were saying. Stuff like ‘Och, you really laid the heather to that one, Johnny boy’, or ‘It’s half tree and we’re needin’ the blather.’ One of my all-time favorite war poems, by the legendary and prolific Anonymous, who must have been a vampire as he wrote in almost every century:

The Twa Corbies, Scottish version, 17th century

As I was walking all alane
I heard twa corbies making a mane:
The tane unto the tither did say,
'Whar sall we gang and dine the day?'

'—In behint yon auld fail dyke
I wot there lies a new-slain knight;
And naebody kens that he lies there
But his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair.

'His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady 's ta'en anither mate,
So we may mak our dinner sweet.

'Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pike out his bonny blue e'en:
Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare.

'Mony a one for him maks mane,
But nane sall ken whar he is gane:
O'er his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.'