Monday, June 25, 2007
Jetta & Jim
So this evening I took possession of my new VW Jetta. Solid as a rock. Steady as she goes. With just a faint hint of sportiness. At noon I had my first acupuncture treatment. When the acupuncturista asked into my presenting problem, I said, "I'm taking delivery on my first new car that isn't bottom of the line and I fear I'll faint and strike my head against the pavement." Okay .... not really. It was all about trying to avoid the post chemo week three regression into fatigue.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
A verbal toast!
A verbal toast of appreciation for herself The Bookworm!
As my primary caretaker in these weird days of trying to ward off the onslaught of cancer, she has been extra attentive and extra patient and extra thoughtful. From the get-go, she has dogged the doctors for prompter appointment dates. She moved her business back home to be closer at hand. And now she's gone and lined me up with a series of appointments for acupuncture.
I guess that would be payback time for my recommending and hounding her to try acupuncture for her pain problem. She tried it. It surprised her by working. And now she wants to see if it will alleviate the gunkiness I fall back into the third week after a chemo treatment. I would be most happy if it did.
Also In the News: All those bells and whistles (computer buttons) on the new Bosch washer and drier are pretty intimidating to both Bookworm and myself. At first blush, it's like a couple of gigantic robot parents have moved into the house and you have no idea as to their disposition. While Bookworm and her three cousins were having a little time on the deck yesterday afternoon, I studied the multi-language manuals for operation of the W & D. What I came to was that only a genius super-mom with high levels of skill/knowledge re computers, fabrics and stains need be concerned with the bells and whistles of self-programing for individual loads of laundry. For the rest of us, a simple twist of the dial to 'cold', 'warm', or 'hot' and a poke at the 'Start' button will do the trick. From there, the machine takes over and makes all the right decisions about load size, balance, etc.,. We have successfully done two loads of laundry this morning. I did one. Bookworm did one.
Such a far cry from my mother's old wringer washer that would get activated one day a week. It sat on the back porch and was powered by a small gas(?) engine beneath the 'tub'. The water was heated on the stove and carried to the washer in buckets. At the end, the dirty wash water went out a drain hose to the back yard. And it all seemed like a wonderful leap forward from the washboard and hand wringer!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Deck Days - Part II
David (above) headed home for Oak Harbor around noon on Monday and Kelly (below) and I motored over to Lowe's Hardware, Etc., and bought a washer and drier. Lowe's advertises "next day installation, old machines hauled away", so it seemed like a safe place to quickly get what we wanted.
The world has been proving to me [lately] that there is no quick way to get what you want. What I wanted being a set of high-end Bosch front-loading machines that sit on elevated pedestals.
About 80% of the way through the purchasing process, the clerk says "Hmmmm .... that washer is about two weeks out." [I hate it when they use that 'blank blank out' phrase. It sounds like the object of your desire is crawling across a wasteland at a constant measureable speed and the clerk can give you an estimated time of arrival. About two weeks out.] We counter with, "Okay, the drier is the one that is threatening to go extinct ... can you deliver the drier tomorrow?" She assures us they can and the sale proceeds to its slightly amended conclusion.
Tuesday morning the Lowe's truck pulls up and two gentlemen unload the crated drier and wheel it into the garage. Then one of them speaks. And the words that come out of his mouth are: "We won't be able to install it today .... they didn't have the pedestal for it." Oh, the Mother of all Surprises! He goes on, "It'll be a day or two. We'll give you a call." A day and two passes. No call from Lowe's.
So we instigate the call and the person on the other end of the line says, "We're very sorry, sir, but we have no pedestals for it and we don't have any on order, so I can't say when we'll be able to install it." [None on order! They didn't even bother to order me one when they found out they had none?] I countered with "Give me the floor models. Truck them over here and take back the crated drier." That worked for them and this fine Saturday morning two different gentlemen arrived and brought in and almost completely installed the Bosch twins.
But at a certain point, I overheard one of the men say to the other, "There's no hose clamp here for this." And they start poking around as though someone might have hidden it inside the equipment. My counter this time was: "No problem! One of you get in my car and I'll zip you over to the store and you can get a hose clamp." That worked for them.
The new washer and drier are installed. Completely installed. They sit there like a couple of hunky battle droids out of Star Wars .... waiting to save us from soiled clothes.
The DSL technician did show up as promised on Thursday morning and [under the watchful eyes of Kelly and myself] did make the DSL installation and all necessary adjustments to the computer. Now we are operable at high speed. The only drawback was that we lost our old Silverlink e-mail address because now we are not linked to them. And when I established an e-mail account with Yahoo, Yahoo reached out and automatically grabbed my username from Yahoo Flickr and used it for the e-mail address. It's long and ungainly. It's now JamesK7Smyrna@yahoo.com . For both of us or either of us.
Friday Kelly and Morgan left to go back to California and I waltzed over crosstown to Parr Imports to buy a new VW vehicle [Jetta], intending to pay cash and thinking, as I am wont to do, that cash sales are quick sales. Wrong! I guess only bad things happen quickly. It took three bleeding hours! First the test drive (Loved it!) .... then my requirements 1) red exterior, 2) sun roof, & 3) tan leatherette interior. Not on the lot! Not on any lot in the State of Washington! Or so they said. But they estimated it would have 173 miles on it when I got it and that seems sort of Washington to me. But what the Hell, at least they found one. Then we get to the part that I thought would be quick. Payment. Wrong, wrong, wrong. First the salesman brings me back a form that I partially filled out earlier and says they want me to fill in the amount of my mortgage payment. I object that that info has no bearing on a cash sale that I could see, but I gave him the figure anyway. Then he flips the form around and (pointing at the appropriate spot) says 'they' wanted me to fill in the names of three people, with addresses, who know me, but do not live with me. "Oh, bullshit!" I said. "You take that back to 'them' and tell them I strongly object." He did and 'they' backed down. Then it went into the hands of the 'financial lady'. I could see her sitting in her office. I kept expecting a quick summons. It didn't come. I began to get very shakey and asked my salesman where the candy machine was as I was in need of a sugar adjustment. He put me in a Beattle and drove me a block away to another building that had a candy machine. Sugar salvation!
Forty-five minutes later she came and retrieved my faltering body. It took another twenty minutes to wade through and sign, in multiplicity, the stack of papers she'd prepared. At the end I asked, "How many more would there have been if I'd not been paying cash?"
"One," she says.
One! Bet it was a doozy though. Come Monday (optomistic outlook) I'll be in my new VW and I can run the 2005 Ford Focus through the carwash and JiffyLube and prepare it for giving to my granddaughter Rachel when she moves back to WA State in a couple of weeks.
All this writing has dried my throat out and I need to go have a liesurely beer with Bookworm and three of her cousins who are out lolling about on OUR DECK!
Deck Days
There's been a nice stretch of 'deck days' this past week ... where the temps have played hide and seek with 70 degrees. Some sissy-poo early morning coffee drinkers have to cower under a blanket -- but I'm not naming names here. Again, that first week after Chemo #3 was a bugger, but by the following Sunday morning I was chugging back to (what I now call) normal. Found son David (Oak Harbor) sleeping in his truck out on the edge of the lawn. Around mid-day, daughter Kelly and grandson Morgan (Woodland, CA) arrived to cook me a Father's Day dinner.
Then the shit began to fly! Mostly Kelly's fault. The high-pitched squealing noise from the drier offended her California sensibilities and she issued a verbal papal bull regarding its next day replacement. Then, when she tried to check her e-mail on our dial-up modem computer, papal bull #2 came down regarding our getting a high speed internet connection -- pronto plus. So she gets on the phone to Qwest and orders up a DSL connection and a technical-guy to get it going (by Thursday).
Meanwhile, David has taken on the project of placing the flag stones (or flag bricks) under the little set of steps leading off the deck .... creating a stable grassless landing area. He done good. It looks just as fine as I imagined it.
Then I drag reality onto the scene and remark that should we wander off to Lowe's on Monday morning and buy a new washer and drier (because they advertise next-day delivery and installation), there might be some access issues due to the fact that the 'laundry room' is a repository of squirreled-away things, second only to the chaos of my office (called the Bone Room). Kelly and Dave set about to create a new reality in the laundry room. When they were done, you coulda parked a motorcycle in there and nine big, green garbage bags were lurking on our front porch .... soon to become sixteen when Kelly's enthusiasm led her and I to tackle the BONE ROOM along about Tuesday morning. And I thank Jim Chapin for coming by on Wednesday and trucking it all off to the dump.
I can't finish this blog right now because I have not had my morning coffee. So I will have to come back later and do 'Deck Days, Part II'.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
A Bright Yellow Morning!
Yesterday's generous rain provided a free watering for my potted deck garden AND FOR Bookworm's baker's dozen of decorative grasses planted just beyond the deck edge. To say nothing of the lawn fertilizer that the lawn-guy spread back on Thursday. He warned me that I'd better get the sprinklers out or the fertilizer would not do its job. But I outfoxed him .... just waited forty-eight hours and let Mother Nature do the honors.
So this morning the sunshine has been out in all its glory and the rains are not due to show up till evening. I figured I was breathing good enough to take a little hike over to the development down the block and grab a few current shots for the 'set' I have posted on my photo site. I got over there and the second time I depressed the shutter all I got was a black screen and the message "charge the batteries". Very mystifying! I could swear (and I do) that I changed those batteries a week ago.
Is it possible that I rolled those four batteries out somewhere within reach of the four newly charged ones .... and then put the dead ones back in? A senior moment? So I put the dead ones in the recharger and put some live ones in the camera and trudged back to the worksite for a few pix for the 'Progress' set on my other site (which can be accessed at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10561585@N00/
So tomorrow I'm going for chemo treatment number 3 of 4. UGH!
I thank all my good friends out there who are giving me support ... both by hand and by heart.
And I'm so looking forward to having daughter Kelly and grandson Morgan turn up here for Father's Day. I'm hoping and hoping that I'm into the second week recovery phase by then. Otherwise I'll likely be a Dopey Daddy. We are also happy that granddaughter Rachel will be leaving South Dakota and moving to Kitsap County to work at the Poulsbo Walmart .... early in July. AND granddaughter Michal will be returning in August from her year's employment as an au pair in New Zealand. I think she plans to live with her mother (Erin) in Vancouver, WA.
Adieu, Adieu, kind friends, Adieu .... I can no longer stay with you .... the Mariners / Padres game starts on TV in ten minutes .... and I have to get seated and break out my lunch!
Saturday, June 09, 2007
How Those Years Slide By!
My starting point subject today will be gardening, BUT FIRST an almost brief enough report on my concition. I've been through two evolutions of the chemo so far (the third will start this coming Monday morning early) and there seems to be a pattern to the after-effects. Following the chemo, I feel good until around noon the next day. Then I topple over. Sideways on the couch. Occasionally I will struggle erect and blink owlishly at the TV or a visitor, or Bookworm, or Allie. Maybe grab a quick bite to eat ... then topple again. After five or six days of this I begin to rise rapidly from the ashes (according to Bookworm) and enter into a week of feeling quite good and able to do some minor work (i.e., creating the potted deck garden). THEN, during week three, I begin to slip backwards. Usually I can do some light work in the mornings, but by 1:00 pm, I'm fighting to stay awake and heading for the couch for a little keel-over time. The hint of nausea that I fight off with pills during week one, sneaks around, trying to make a comeback during week three.
What's with my best week being week two .... in the middle? I do not know. I await enlightenment.
My friend Mike (who's going through this also) called a couple days ago to report that his latest cat scan showed a 60% reduction in the size of his tumors and an increase in the available space in his lungs. I have faith that my treatment is following the same path. I know I am breathing more effectively and my doctor has confirmed that.
Daughter Kelly and grandson Morgan will arrive here early on Father's Day. She and I both like to cook AND we both like to garden ... so I am eager to show off my potted deck garden.
Since my ancestors acquired their first little land grant in the Colony of South Carolina (in 1767), none of my direct line have ever gotten their fingers too far from the soil. From G-G-G-G grandpa Evan down to grandpa Charlie, they chased the newly opening lands across the continent as farmers. [Okay, I know there was nothing "newly opening" about it. It was a shameful mix of genocide and theft.] My Dad was not a farmer. He escaped the mold and became a railroader. But he gardened. Mainly salad vegetables, with strawberries and raspberries. Tulips, poppies, lilies, snapdragons .... and his one great love - irises. Three score or more varieties of iris.
I've been even less of a gardener than my Dad. I've not grown anything edible. The efforts that I have made, have all been bent towards flowers. Daughter Kelly, on the other hand, has embraced both vegetables and flowers. And like my Dad, she can often make her dinner salads from produce growing in her backyard. In celebration of her green thumb, I've included two pictures of her in this post. In the one above (ca 1960) she's posing as daddy's helper in front of one of my wimpy floral plantings. In the shot below (ca 2002), she and grandson Morgan are working in a part of her definitely-not-wimpy flower garden.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
The Living 'Handrail'
Whadaya gonna do when the contractor that built your deck walks away without putting the handrail on it? There's a four foot drop-off on this eastern side! Well .... not much you can whine on about when he built it as a favor to Dr. Bookworm and did not charge us for his or his son's labor. So this past week I have 'punted' and constructed a living handrail to signal the edges to those who are sober and have operative vision. I suspect that Bookworm would rather I'd spent my 'punting' energies on clearing my decades of debris out of the 'Boneroom' (as a step towards getting the insides of the house painted). Howsomeever that may be, I was seized by the Green-thumbed hand of that ancient god Horto and blew the week getting potting soil imbedded in the creases of my fingers. Bookworm accused me of behaving obsessively as regards the pots and plants. And Bookworm should know .... that being her area of expertise. However, she did encourage and compliment my efforts as I went along.
Friday, June 01, 2007
The Adventures of ....
Yesterday was my strongest day yet! In the morning, I went to CAPRI and did my exercise 'program'. Forty minutes on the treadmill, stationary bike, rowing/peddling machine, and a routine with hand weights. I was 'working' hard enough to break a sweat after five minutes and was able to keeping going for the full time. I coiuldn't have come close to that six weeks ago.
And there's something about exercise in the morning that seems to spur me on through the rest of the day. On the way home from CAPRI, I stopped at Cooleen Gardens and bought two more big pots and four bags of potting soil. After lunch, I drove up to the big nursery at Poulsbo and bought two more pots and a carload of plants. Then I spent the afternoon potting all my purchases and creating my 'container garden' out on the deck (using pots of vegetation in lieu of the missing handrail). Okay, I admit to there being a long sit-down break between assembling each potful.
During one of these breaks, Allie and I were being entertained by this squirrel. I finally slipped into the house and got my camera and got off thirteen shots. Only three were in good focus and the one above is the best of those. A couple evenings back, Kay and I were sitting out on the deck and a crow was raising holy hell (i.e., taking high umbrage) up in the trees. Shortly this squirrel came dashing down a tree trunk and the crow did its best to dive bomb him .... looked like he was trying to knock the squirrel off the tree.
Which reminds me of when I was a little boy listening to my Dad read stories out of a scrapbook he had assembled when he was a little boy. If memory serves me right, the stories were Thornton W. Burgess animal tales cut out of newspapers (probably the Spokesman Review of Spokane, WA) and glued in a scrapbook -- along with some very vintage comic strips from the 'funny papers'. Dad also had two or three tattered old hardbound Burgess books that he read to us. The one I recall most distinctly was 'The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel'.
There was not then, nor is there now, a bookstore in Othello, WA. Dad always said he "bought books off the train", but I'm not clear on what he meant by that. As a kid, I assumed he meant that he bought books from book peddlers who passed through selling books out the passenger car windows.
My folks were both readers and we always had a personal library of sorts in the railroad's 'company house' at Smyrna. I devoured it all, not that it was very heavy reading, but it did set reading habits that have seved me well over the decades ... and decades. That Smyrna library contained a few Boy Scouts and Hardy Boys books from my Dad's youth. The complete Nancy Drew books (Mom's). The complete Zane Grey novels. All the Tarzan novels. Oliver Curwood's books of the North country. That was the 'flavor' of literature at our house.
As I was entering my teen years, my mother joined a books-by-mail club. She received a copy of Boccacio's Decameron (not having any idea what it was) and shelved it without looking inside. It was somewhat illustrated! Racy illustrations! And I beat her to it. By the time she discovered what she had there, I'd already given it a very thorough reading so as not to miss any of the sexy parts.
