Playlist for a New Hampshire summer

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head
The Rain in Spain is Mainly on the Plain
I Saw the Rains Down in Africa
Soon It's Gonna Rain
Singin' in the Rain
Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain
Rain, Rain, Go Away
Stormy Weather

And, at this rate

Old Noah Built Himself an Ark
and
The Trout Quintet

Not to mention the song Jerry suggested,

When I Marry Sweet Lorraine

Any others?

Old dogs, new tricks department

When people ask what I do all day, I'm embarrassed to admit that I spend a lot of time with electronic stuff. Most of it is the various learning curves.

I got a Kindle for Christmas and an iphone for my birthday, and while both are supposed to be intuitive, neither exactly fits my kind of intuition, though I love playing with both. I now have something like 34 books on my active Kindle list and about 40 more in the back-up, otherwise known as "it would have to be a very small desert island for me to be desperate enough to read these."
You can get some really good free stuff for the kindle. And some real crap.

Then there's the iphone. I knew I was hooked yesterday when I was stuck waiting in the bank without my knitting and ended up playing Scrabble. The only other person waiting was in her early 20's, and she, too, was twiddling her thumbs over a small rectangular piece of equipment. I felt so part of the modern world.

Meanwhile, Jerry, driven mad by the three straight weeks of rainy weather which have dispirited the garden and made it impossible for him to do the painting jobs he'd planned on the house, suddenly joined Facebook. It's turned him into a seven-year-old. Wistfully, "Do you think anyone will want to be my friend?" or "Do you realize that I have a lot of friends, and they're all under 40?" or "Will I hurt so-and-so's feelings if I don't want to be his friend?" and now, "You know, some people post very inane messages."

So, to make him happy, become his friend and send him something philosophical.

CA19-9

My latest CA19-9 is 83, down from last month's 93, but still way above my best, 32 in January. I've done better, done worse, but at least the trend is in the right direction.
Today is chemofunk day, the day after treatment when I feel not so great. It isn't that I feel nausea or am in pain. I just have no energy and when I try to do anything I give up and lie back down on the couch. Jerry makes supper, and it's always so good that I consider claiming chemofunk for a couple more days. (Yes, Dr. Nickerson, my appetite is good.) However, by evening I know that tomorrow morning I'll have my energy back.

Thoughts from my book

I've spent the past two weeks working on a piece for the book I'm writing. I went back to the time when we first got the news, now sixteen months ago, trying to sort out how I felt then and write it down without being maudlin or, on the other hand, too Pollyanna-ish. At that time I didn't know that I'd have the wonderful gift of these sixteen months or how well I'd feel most of the time during them.

I once read that people with permanent handicaps call the rest of us the "TABs" -- the temporarily able-bodied. Everyone is vulnerable. Accident, disease, or old age happens to each of us, usually without warning. Most of us spend our lives as though good health will last forever. Which is the way it should be.

What amazes me is the strength and resilience people show when the inevitable trauma strikes. I think of a friend who is dealing simultaneously with a hip replacement and a husband in the early stages of Alzheimers. She does it in a delightfully crisp, no-nonsense, New England style. Other friends or family members deal with MS without making a fuss about it, at least in public.

People are wonderful.

Woody Allen made me think

Yesterday I heard Woody Allen say in an interview on NPR, "First of all, life is short. And it's dull."
Allen is 74 years old. He's already had nine years more than I've had. He can probably expect at least nine more than that.
If those eighteen years are so all-fired dull, I'd be willing to take them off his hands, just out of the kindness of my heart you understand. I'm sure I could find a few things to do with them.




I took this picture this morning on my walk. It's Arthur, a neighbor who happens to be around Woody Allen's age or a bit older, busy trying to destroy the beaver dam on the pond. Every night the beaver builds up the dam, and every morning Arthur mucks it out. They both have the attitude of "well, somebody's got to do it."

Maybe neither of them is doing Great Creative Work, and certainly neither of them is getting much fame or fortune for it. But neither of them is sitting around complaining that life is dull.

Regular oncologist visit

Once every month I have the big blood draw for liver function and CA19-9 as well as the usual red and white counts. Then I see the oncologist, and after that I have the first chemo of the new cycle.
That was yesterday. The appointments with Dr. Nickerson follow a routine, and while he's always friendly and ready to answer all Jerry's or my questions, it's obvious that most of the time this is not the most exciting case he deals with all day -- which is fine with us.
He asks how I'm doing, if there have been any changes, if my appetite is good, and then he checks my lymph nodes, looks down my throat, and listens to my breathing. Then he sends me off for the chemo. This time we talked about the new ulcer meds. The real side effects (aside from purple spots) have included some arthritic aches and fluid retention, but they seem to be getting better.
And we arranged the chemo schedule around our Utah trip, which makes the trip seem even closer.

We go out to the infusion room and play scrabble while I get the chemo.

Interesting people today: a young man who told J that he "liked the shirt with the vertical stripes," and then almost immediately told a nurse that he "liked her blouse with the flowers on it," in each case without any leadup or followup. Obviously he had something else going on besides cancer.

A prisoner plus guard was off to the right. The prisoner was wearing an orangejumpsuit and shackles. The poor guy was getting Lasix (?) which makes one have to pee, so at about five-minute intervals he'd head for the bathroom, encumbered by the shackles, the IV pole, and the bored guard.

A woman sitting between the prisoner and me looked scared and upset. The nurse explained to her that she needed a port, that it would make chemo and blood draws much simpler, and that look, this woman (me) had one and didn't mind it at all. She gestured me over to show off my port. I did and also did my best selling job on ports, especially after the poor woman showed me her bruised arms where the phlebotomists hadn't been able to find any more veins. Don't know if I persuaded her.

(I won the scrabble game, to the cheers of the nursing staff. They're all on my side.)

birthday celebrations

Max, Anya, Miles (and Stella the dog) came up between Max's and Anya's birthdays to celebrate. Wonderful day.