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.'

Johnny the Wad Nicklaus

It was kind of a strange week. I could tell my blood counts were getting lower as the week wore on – felt weak, slight ear noise when I stood up, and I could not get warm. I expected low blood counts 7-10 days after the last cytarabine shot, and sure enough the doc called yesterday. Of course, I was at Morro Rock looking at the surf, and Johnny got the call, and immediately went back to whatever he was doing. Luckily I didn’t surf because I felt so tired and it was cold in Morro Bay. Johnny told me later the doc had called and said all my counts were low, I should lay low. I called the doc and he asked ‘Are you bleeding? Any fevers? How do you feel?’ No, no, OK.

I am now laying low. Dana and Johnny are off to tour Berkeley and Sonoma State, so Mike and I will have a TV/PC gaming fest this weekend, wow.

Pat, you should have started your own blog long ago, I am getting extra work here and I am so busy. Email me some pics from your trip and I will post them, then for crying out loud fill in some of the gory details, how many bodies were floating around, something about fear and loathing, we love fear stuff. Maybe naked people, that’s always big, especially if they are playing blackjack on a cruise ship. I always bring those disinfecting wipes to the naked blackjack tourneys, and you should too.

Mac, it’s back to the basics for my golf game. Watched Golf My Way by Nicklaus, and now I’m reading Dave Pelz’s Short Game Bible. This book is a must, I think. If only you could get your body to do what you watch and read. I’d be a porn star that golfs well!

Seemed like a good idea

Finishing up phase 4, no more cytarabine and what a finish I had with that poison. I got the last 4 shots this week, and the anti-nausea made it impossible to golf with the effects on vision. I tried anyway, and shot God knows what, I quit keeping score, but it was bad. So Friday I didn’t take the anti-nausea (Kytril) thinking I might like to try golfing, and I ended up puking for 3 hours instead. Smart. Didn’t that Doc way back there say the irradiation would make me stupider but I wouldn’t notice? I noticed yesterday. The dang cytarabine gave me a rash on my hips too, started last Sunday, itchy. Yesterday it turned into a red flush of my face, it looked like I was wearing rouge. I stayed in all day.

I am still at a mere 155 lbs, and puking didn’t help. I am actually sucking down weight gain supplements. Gotta call Balco, get the good stuff. And now I need to find some new gang to golf with; the low handicappers are tired of me hanging with them, searching for my ball(s). Subtle messages, like ‘You should golf with so-and-so’. Ah well, we should all have these problems.

Dana and I have found a contractor to do the kitchen redo, and we will start next spring when the rains stop, yeehaw. She lies abed with a new cold, making me ponder a flu shot.

The last phase is coming up, but lasts until 2 years after diagnosis so until Feb. ’07. Vincristine IV ofnumbing juice day 1 of each month, 5 days of steroid pills, methotrexate pills once a week, and mercaptopurine pills every day. Not too bad.

Where to go for the 20th anniversary? We were thinking Mexico, but Wilma is changing that idea. I think Dana will push for Paris, and I am wanting tropical, but tropical is getting relentlessly smacked with weather, so Paris is nice. And the dollar is sure strong against the euro. Uh, thanks George, gotta keep those SUV sales into Europe strong. Not and Not. The guys a real thinker. Forget Paris on second thought, 45% more expensive than in ’01 and it wasn’t cheap then.

Maurice and Pat, where are you? Hope you brought wetsuits and boards, gonna be good waves in FLA. Oh yeah, for any of you goombahs going to Las Vegas, look at a map. I can be there in 7 hours, and I have the time and the inclination. You can win money from me golfing. Yes, Bill, I am talking to you. Sheesh. this boring life is freaking boring, and pushing me closer to radical thought and action. I am going to have start my Big Book of Intelligent Designs. Are there unintelligent designs? If it was designed, there must have been intelligence applied, no? Great article in Esquire this month, Idiot America, check it out.

Limekiln Creek

Weighed in at 155 this morning, sheesh, where’s it going? That’s too light, I am thinking ice cream. Starting Phase 5 tomorrow, IV of cyclophosphamide ass-kicker, shot of cytarabine ass-kicker, pills of 6-thioguanine. Yeehaw. Feeling OK, my beard stopped growing almost completely, but the hair on my head keeps trying to come back. Go figure.

Johnny is home sick with a sore throat, Mikey has the fever/pukey/poopy flu, started Sunday, hope that’s a one-day grippe.

The Beauch and I went up to Limekiln Creek campground last Thursday, and it was Jade Festival weekend at Pacific Valley, our usual campground 5 minutes south. The campsite we had was awesome, right on the river, beautiful spot. The campground is also right on the beach, with some campsites 100 feet from the water. One of the best campgrounds I have seen, big sites, nice bathrooms, showers. Beauch got it for free as a state parks worker, which only happens occasionally. In this picture is our campsite; the bridge leads up the trail to the waterfalls and to the old lime kilns. Oh yeah, I forgot to bring my sleeping bag (doh!), but luckily Mike had some blankets, I wore everything I had, and used all the towels for more blankets. Brrrrrr. I am just now starting to reheat.

The downside of hanging with Mike is the guy hikes and repairs trails for a living, so humping straight up a 14% incline for a couple of miles is fun to him. The guy kills me. We humped all over the joint Friday, then Saturday he had to check this new acquisition of state land and make a recommendation on whether to keep the existing trail. Only a 45 minute hike, he said. Two hours! Beautiful territory, but give me oxygen. Look at how far up from the ocean we hiked!

The Jade Festival was a great hit, polka bands, mega jade, rock and roll; the hokiest little festival in CA. Check out the slab of jade in the pic. These guys all say they’re divers, but we all know they’re digging in the cliff. They aren’t getting this stuff diving in Jade Cove, because the law is you can take from below mean high tide what one person can carry. That puts the limit at 250 pounds for most of us; it’s 150 feet straight up the cliff you have to carry this rock, then ¼ mile to your car.