4 down and 12 to go. Last AC cycle is done in 2 weeks I switch to weekly Taxol. More about this later. Chemo music today was brought to me by one of my favorite bands, the Throwing Muses. Here is the song Ruthie's Knocking. In the video, Kristin Hirsh reminds me of Liza, Sonia C's sis.
NEW LOOK for Gardening @ Night
Ok, ok, alright already. I did it so now are you happy? After so many of you commented these updates should be a blog I still resisted, because essentially it is just for us still. However, the designer in me found it very appealing to make the message more beautiful, and in fact, once I got it in my head I became appalled that someone who cares so much about design could continue sending out such a tacky product. So I could not resist any longer. Still, I just took the easy blogger way out and was up and running with a template in 5 minutes. I have always liked the rounded corners of this template and the colors, though I might tweak things later so don't be surprised to return and find other colors. Also, since my medicine is changing to smaller doses, I hope I will also write in similarly smaller doses in the future. These things are too long and besides, I'm also entering back into the "time of homework" so smaller posts should be better for me. I hope all of this pleases you.
btw, I don't understand why you people keep coming back for more of my blather, but being a Leo means that if you praise me I will comply. In fact I'm more than delighted that you guys like my ponderings. Its a funky little creative outlet but I don't think it will be so interesting to people after the fact, like watching a tennis match you already know the outcome of. So for now we will continue. And today I need to tell you all about some pretty exciting news about yourselves (and others).
TEAM BUILDING - Get your running shoes on
My buddies, Sonia Chessen and Melanie Folstad, and sister Monica Medina each came up with the same idea. They are offering to be the captain coordinators of not one not two, but three you heard me threeeeee walking/jogging teams to raise a bit of doe for breast cancer screening and research. I hope some of you can be our teammates. You will have plenty of time to train and we're trying to make it little pressure to raise money, mostly I want you to have fun. All three races will have the same beneficiary - Susan G. Komen Fund. You just have to pick your speed. I will try to do at least a little of all of them. We might even get some T-shirts out of it.
SAVE THE DATES
Sat June 7
1. Monica will lead the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K walk on the National Mall
TEAM NAME: to come
Building on 25 years of funding research to find the causes and cures of breast cancer, Komen announces four new research funding opportunities, an important focus on speeding the translation of research discoveries to reduce breast cancer incidence and mortality within the next decade, and a completely redesigned system for application and peer review.
October 3-5,
2. Sonia Chessen will be leading the Susan G. Komen National Race for the Cure Team 3 day walk
TEAM NAME: Tough Alliance
THE POWER OF ONE Our story began with ONE promise. ONE promise between TWO sisters. ONE promise to find a CURE. What started with two, GREW...Sonia and her sister, Liza, will help us get our team organized for this 3 day walk from DC to I don't know where yet.
October 11
3. Baltimore Half Marathon team leader is Melanie Folstad
TEAM NAME: Night Gardeners
I am planning to do the Baltimore half marathon and our fundraising will go to the local chapter of Susan G. Komen. I HAVE to do this one since I found out about my fate only a few days after I ran it last year. I hope some of you out of towners might join Kyle, Melanie and me, too.
So please channel your energy to help me do this this right. But don't sign up yet. Watch this blog for updates on team sign up.
HEALTH MATTERS
I bet you knew that walking stairs is rather boring. While once my heart fluttered to be able to climb, climb, climb now I can't wait for winter to be over so I can go outside. But still I trudge onward and upward, my only company is my exceedingly featureless and shadowy twin who alights effortlessly. But who's complaining, what? I can't go outside because my temperature can't make up it's mind these days. Maybe it's just that my temperature regulating hair is gone. Actually I do go outside but I don't look forward to it. I don't know if this is the big one - menopause. If it is, it isn't so bad for me, but it is confusing. I suspect that it isn't and that I just ache for spring, which I always do anyway.
Lately my nose is a bloody wreck and also driving me to distraction. I conveniently forgot that chemo is supposed to be like having the flu or in my case, maybe a sinus infection for months on end, until Lisa the insurance nurse called again to remind me. Nose bleeds flood my tissues. On some advice from Dana and a whim from me, Kyle ran out and bought me a "neti pot", a yoga device for cleansing the sinuses. You pour water into one nostril and it comes out the other. Magic. The pot looks like the kind of a pot that a Genie would live inside of. I worry that the little Genie is taking horrific roller coaster rides through my sinus canals. But Kyle also dutifully cleaned and restored our defunct cold water vaporizer just for me. Isn't he dreamy? He did it because I tell him how night holds a special kind of torture. I can feel the canker sores rising up on my tongue like some kind of ugly suburban development built on the site of a freshly clear cut forest.
I worry that the fine line between irreversible lymphodema and the rebirth of sleeping nerves takes a more experienced hand to distinguish. But I'm working with 3 lb weights now and proud of it. Will this battered woman find the way to 5 lb weights? Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion, somewhere around next year. Oy vey! It may be time to name our heroine. If you can think up a name for the cancergirl super hero you get a prize - really. I don't know what it will be, though. Kyle suggested the name "Rediculosa". Lucy didn't have one, but Lily suggested "Sexatron". If I have to be Sexatron, then I'm going to call Lil, my faithful girl ward, "PrepuBetty". I think we need other suggestions, please.
HAIR REPORT
Now that my hair is gone, I spend my time in the shower making up things to do just to feel the hot water for a bit longer. They told me I would still need to shave my legs but that is hardly true. I might feel some soft stubble every once in a while but mostly I shave just for kicks. Also I wash my ghost hair on my head to find solace somewhere in aromatherapy around my head. I slather myself in it, actually. It's kinda fun. Outside the shower, I find my wayfaring strands of lost long hair are marooned here and there on islands of clothing like sinewy men without countries. But I still got eyebrows, knock on wood.
I CAME OUT
No longer am I hiding in the shadow of winter hats. Just so you know, I sent out an email to everyone I could think of that might give a shit and got it over with. If there is anyone on the East or West Coast who doesn't know, I won't believe it. But thank you all for keeping my secret for so long. You are now free to talk amongst yourselves and others.
COMEDY CENTRAL
Now for some funny stuff ... upon my request, many of you and some other friends who just found out rose to the occasion and actually sent me the jokes I longed for.
Here's a couple from my buddy Michael Levy: Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
Also: There was theme party in Brooklyn (think accents) and the theme was "emotions." Some showed up in a green bikini and told the hostess loudly she was "green with envy". A bit later two guys show up, the first had his penis burried in the custard and the second guy had his penis all the way inside a teddy bear. The hostess wisks them inside and says "you could get arrested. Wht are these costumes?" The first guy with a sour look on his face says in an angry tone, "well I'm fuckin dis-custad! My friend has come deep in dis-bear."
Here's one from Ellen Globokar: A man is walking down a country road and comes to a fork in the road. He doesn't know which way to go when he hears a voice," Hey, mister, are you lost?" He looks up and sees no one but a horse. "Yeah, it's me talking to you" says the horse. The man walks up to the horse and says"Why you're quite a horse!" The horse replies "Why yes I am. In fact, in my day, I even won the Derby." The man asks who owns the horse and the horse leads him to the house of his owner. The man knocks on the door and a farmer answers. "That's quite a horse you have there," says the man."Yep," says the farmer. " What would you sell him for?" The farmer gives him a price and the man buys the horse. As he is walking away from the house with his new horse, the farmer shouts at him," He didn't give you any of that shit about winning the Derby did he?"
Here's a one from the book I read, the curious Incident of the dog in the night-time: 'There are three men on a train. One of them is an economist and one of them is a logician and one of them is a mathematician. And they have just crossed the border to Scotland and they see a brown cow standing in a field from the window of the train (and the cow is standing parralel to the train). And the economist says, 'Look, the cows in Scotland are brown'. And the mathematician says, 'No, There are cows in Scotland of which at least one is brown'. And the mathematician says, 'No, there is at least one cow in Scotland, of which one side appears to be brown'.
Here's a funny homework joke from Johan Becker:
Lily's joke: So. a guy walks into a bar on a 10 story building, drinks a huge tub if beer and jumps out the window. He walks in a second time completely unscratched and does it again. He comes back up completely unscratched and this guy who is watching him from the sidelines says, "Dude, how are you doing that?!!?!! I mean seriously, you drank a huge tub beer and it's 10 stories. Get real!" The first guys says, "Well the hot beer bubbles in my stomach and since hot air floats I can float safely to the ground." So the second guy says, "Gimme some beer." He drinks it and jumps out the window. The bartender says, "You know Superman, you're a real jerk when you're drunk!"
Lucy's joke: What's a bird, an auto, and a dog put together - a flying car-pet
HOW ARE WE DOING?
Speaking of Lu, many of you have asked how the kids are doing. Here's how Lucy is doing...Lucy said to me, Sometimes I think about other people in their lives, like my friends in their classrooms." Then she jumped of and shook her boody to the music of the "Music Man" we happened to be watching.
We're waiting patiently for Lu's first tooth to come out long after her compatriots have lost as many as four or five. It and we are now hanging by a thread. Kyle thinks she actually might grow to be a 40 year old mom with a wide spread babytoothy grin. Wouldn't that be cute? Oh my gosh, she lots her first tooth just now, tonight.
The other day, Kyle had taken her to her dance class and was anonymously plugged into his ipod, when disturbed by a tap on the shoulder, "Are you Lucy's dad?" Oh no what, did she shit her pants in class, ran through his head. It was the director of the dance programs at Strathmore who awakened Kyle. She was surprisingly very complimentary about Lucy's natural kinetic skills and had been watching the students in her class, taking an interest in Lucy. She had been trying to re-adjust the kids to appropriate classes and though Lucy is one of the youngest, she's also apparently one of the best (no doubt). The lady told Kyle that Lucy had put on a special flirty dance for the lady just because she was paying attention.
Today Lucy brought home a book about vampire bats becauswe she knows that bats are my favorite animal and she wanted to please me. We read it as a family tonight. That's how Lucy is doing.
MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
*** the curious Incident of the dog in the night-time, by mark haddon
The thing about this book that kinda bummed me out was that the characters were so realistic and this made me forget that the author is clever. Although I enjoyed the perspective of the main character, I got a little bogged down in his life and started to feel really sorry for him and that doesn’t fit my mindset just now. I was expecting comedy and this is not it. Still, I liked the fact that the mystery became a small scale adventure and the graphics won me over. I might have liked reading this book at another time in my life and so you may like it now.
Favorite parts: his interaction and yes, assault of policemen.
Coming Soon...
Notes from a Small Island
and, Confederacy of Dunces
MUSIC YOU SHOULD USE
This past Sunday night, Kyle and I went to see the Super Furry Animals play. Their super polished pop sounds came to us all the way from Wales. Try them, you’ll like them:
Also, we watched a documentary about the quasi punk/jazz band called the Minutemen. It was terrific, with funny characters, great art and dynamic music
For Dana, and all you other covert country music lovers - go ahead and admit it. Here’s one of my favorites indie crossovers, Blitzen Trapper. The video to this is unbelievable feast for the eyes.
SHOUT OUTS My buddy, Iona told me that the Star Trek expression was adopted by Leonard Nemoy almost directly from a historic Jewish one, which included the had gesture, you know it, as well. Thanks, Iona. Also, Lundin, I got your card today. You are almost as sweet as my own husband. Please keep the family updates coming. I love them.
And last but not least, GARDENER’S NOTEBOOK
last year at this time I was having the time of my life stomping around the very, very, very cold rare conifer collection at the National Arboretum. If it’s warm enough for you to go out (or me, for that matter), you really should consider taking a trip there. You will see for yourself how wonderful the huge white pine is there. You can take a short walk and be amazed by the colors and textures. I got a note from my teacher recently. He asked if he could show his current students some pics I took. Of course I was honored and agreed. Then he even proposed that I come to his class sometime to have a chat with the students and show them my site. Can you believe it? I can’t.
So from me to you - Live Long and Prosper.
a
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