Zoom, zoom. Zoom. From the land of First Light to the top of Shadow Mountain, two in the land of sky blue waters. Friends. Bytes and pixels. Sight and sound. Remember when video phones were still a thing of the future, the distant future? We knew somebody from Bell Labs would create them, but when?
Still no flying cars, but there are multiple instances of the video phone. Zoom and Skype, for sure. Kakao, which allows full on video calling. I know there are others I haven’t used.
These forms resolve one of my problems with the old, voice only phone. No facial expressions. No interaction of a bodily nature except for vocal cords and the ear. Too thin for me.
We spoke of gum and sealing wax and other fancy things. Laughed. Nodded when we gave our ideas about patriotism. Complicated, as Mark said. Mostly we reaffirmed our friendship, saw each other in body and soul. A fine thing to do on a Sunday morning. The church of friendship.
In trying to get back to full bowel readiness for the 4th chapter of the Radiation Tales I went too far. Body rebelled. Nausea. (OMG! Is this a side effect? God I hope not.) Finding the balance for preparations is not easy. Pretty sure I brought this one on myself. In bed early with no supper. Stomach still ouchy this morning. Insulted.
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Expect to hear Mr. Roger’s, “Won’t you be my neighbor!” Toot, toot of the train.
The Radiation Moon will take me all the way to August 1st, within 5 days of the finish. The Algonquin’s called it the Thunder Moon. In the traditional Chinese calendar the July moon is the Ghost Moon. The Hungry Ghost festival follows in August, now the month of the Ghost Moon. Thundering ghosts radiating from the heavens. Or, hells.
Last radiation day this week. July 4th long weekend ahead. Breakfast with Alan at Dandelion.
Not sure what we’re going to do for the 4th although we have never gone to fireworks. Crowds and up too late. In Andover we could see the fireworks the city put on from our house. Later, we could hear the fireworks loving neighbors displaying what they’d found. Meanwhile the dogs would cower in their crates or up against our legs.
Monsoon rains
In the fire prone foothills fireworks displays are often called off. This would be the year for them, since the fire danger is much less than usual. The monsoon season is here already with afternoon storms. You’d think the added water would get the fire danger back down to low, but it’s been stuck at moderate for the last week.
Trump’s very big, biggest ever, best ever fourth of July celebration. With tanks! You can see his mind turning over television news clips of military parades in Hitler’s Germany, North Korea, Russia, even some European countries. Oh, boy. Look at us. Big missiles! Big tanks! Lots of soldiers! Flags. We’re patriotic. We love America. Enough to put on a big fancy beautiful wonderful moment. When will it ever end?
And, summer. A warm week ahead. Of course. Mountain weather. Great sleeping.
My first weekend respite from the radiation is over. It’s off to Lone Tree and Anova around 11:10 or so. Have to get gas. Burn through a lot of the fossil fuel with an hour commute. But, it is in a nice car. Back on the Beano, only drinking tap water. No seltzer. Bubbles.
The Gleaners, Jean-Francois Millet
Sunday is my rest day from working out. I read. An essay on charity and justice in the Torah parshah for Kate and mine’s bagel table on September 14th. These suckers are long. In this instance Deuteronomy 21:10–25:19. It contains the most laws of any parshah in the Torah. The charity and justice essay is a reflection on the laws concerning gleaning.
Then, some art criticism in a book Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light. Peter Schjeldahl. This guy is a genius. Wonderful, short essays on contemporary artists and their work.
Finally, a couple of articles on what conservatives are up to intellectually right now. It seems Trump has unveiled cracks in a conservative consensus begun around the time of William Buckley: a corporate oriented focus on the economy, a robust military with a kickass foreign policy, and conservative social values. Simpler times, man. Simpler times.
A CBE friend brought over a blueberry lemon pound cake and a large plastic container of serious vanilla ice cream. She’s in cancer treatment right now, too. We talked for an hour or so until Jon, Ruth, and Gabe came up to take another run at the serious clog in our bathroom sink.
He knows a lot about houses and their inner workings. I don’t. With Ruth and Gabe’s help the three of them spent a lot of time in our crawl space first with a snake, then with Drano, then with the snake again. It was a stubborn clog, mostly hair, I think. They persevered and got it. Yeah!
I made mashed potatoes with cut up steak from yesterday’s left overs. Broccoli florets. Ice cream, as you might imagine, for dessert.
Getting a plumber up here to come by for such a small task is difficult. Only a few good ones up here and they spend most of their time on remodels and new construction. They work in small jobs when they can. Good thing Jon could help.
Ruth decided to stay all night so she can help us today. I hope she and Kate can get back to sewing.
Black Mountain has a wispy cloud draping over its peak, moving slowly toward the northwest. The greens this summer, with so much water, are intense, Hawaiian. The lodgepoles are a deep dark green, the aspen groves a yellow green spotlighted by the sun. The grasses are lush, the dandelions abundant, cheery dots of yellow.
The white cloud dances with the blue sky, revealing it now, obscuring it. It’s another cool morning, 43. Perfect for sleep. The mountain streams continue to flow fast, white where they hit the rocks, still not full with the snow melt proceeding slowly. On the way to CBE yesterday Kate saw a cardboard sign, hand lettered, Slow: Fawns.
And, snow is in the forecast for this weekend. Yes, on the day of the summer solstice, weather5280 predicts snow that might hit us. Snow. The fire hazard signs are still on low, have been since March. Never this far into the summer. I’m grateful for the wet, for the dampening of wildfire probabilities. One less thing.
Patsy Cline
Day 5, fraction 5, of the 7000 cGy prescription. After today’s isotopic rain, only 30 to go. The weekends are off. Time for the body to rest, they say, though I imagine not running a seven day a week practice has something to do with it, too. Pandora so far: The Band, Baroque, Coltrane, Patsy Cline. Haven’t decided about today. Maybe Izzy.
No side effects so far. Early days for both the radiation and the Lupron. Feels like I have a job. Get in the car at a certain time each day, navigate four lane highways to Lone Tree. Same exit, same turns. Same office. But in this case I don’t have a job, I am the job.
The Beano seems to work, suppressing the gas which screws up the Cyber Knife’s navigation of the volume created by Dr. Gilroy. The Miralax helps as well. The calcium/d3 pills are horse pills, almost as long as a finger joint.
Mussar Vaad Practice group, MVP, last night. Rich Levine led a wonderful session on simplicity. Kate and I went for the second time in a row. Still wears us out. Finished at 9:30 pm, way past both our bed times. Here’s an interesting statistic, of the 10 of us in the MVP group, two of us have active cancer right now and one is in remission from breast cancer. 30%.
It seems we are all becoming wabi sabi humans. Or Velveteen rabbits. The same perhaps. Deepening the love for ourselves and others, wearing the roadmaps of our lives for others to see while we sort through the inner souvenirs, not so visible.
I agree. Third phase life, done well, could also be called the
Velveteen Rabbit phase. When we become real to ourselves. The cracks in
our lives mended with gold, their existence treasured. Even the
impermanence of life becomes beautiful, a frame for the whole. Our
imperfections, flaws, mistakes as crucial and necessary as our
achievements. We see that now.
Kate, BJ, Ruth, solar eclipse 2017 at BJs Idaho house
Kate’s sister BJ comes tomorrow for the weekend. She and her s.o. Schecky were out here in September, a planned visit to see our house, but they came the day Kate went into the hospital. They took me to a Japanese restaurant for sushi the night Kate had her hemicolectomy. It was a kind thing to do. I needed the break. Look forward to seeing her.
Had lunch with Alan Rubin yesterday. He’s auditioning for a part in Cabaret, another Ovation West production. You might recall he was in “Funny Girl” which Kate and I saw last fall. He’s taken to retirement by becoming a performer. Taking voice lessons, learning music theory, and this year becoming President of the Ovation West board. He and I were teaching the religious school class until I had to quit due to too much stuff going on at home. A good friend.
John came by and fixed my john. Apparently I blew the seal plunging out a clog. Geez. Water under pressure is powerful. Just ask all those folks in Nebraska. Interesting article about the one guy who manages all the Army Corps of Engineers dams on the Missouri River. He chooses whether to let dams fail or send more water downstream to already flooded farms and towns. Another one the next day wrote about the 25 states under risk for extreme flooding as this winter’s cold begins to loosen, melt snow and ice. When a severe winter like this last one thaws, if it comes too soon, the water hits frozen land. No buffer in the land, just like flooding a parking lot.
Walking and Hiking in Bear Country Your neighborhood is bear country, too!
Up here getting a tradesperson out to the house, really tradesmen since I’ve not yet encountered a female plumber, electrician, handyman (though I’m sure they exist somewhere), often depends on a personal relationship. Herb, of H2O plumbing, ignored my phone message. He didn’t remember that I was the guy who lived in Andover when he lived in Nowthen. When I got him on the phone, he remembered and got a guy over here in two hours. Like living in a small town.
The mountain way. Had to take the garbage and recycling bins back inside the garage. The bears are awake. Bears can smell food, the Colorado Dept. of Natural Resources says, from five miles away. I still don’t let the dogs out at dawn or dusk because of mountain lion predation. All the critters are hungry as the snow melts, food’s been a scarce resource for a while now, just like every winter.
Toward Evergreen
Another interesting part of the mountain way, driving up here. Roads in the mountains, except for I-70 are neither straight nor multiple lanes. Hwy 285, a divided four lane now past Conifer, devolves into a curvy up and down two lane (with the occasional passing lane) as it heads toward Bailey and Park County. The rest are two lane, no passing, winding. No sight lines beyond the next curve up and down.
It took a while to learn, but there is a code. Leave the person in front of you a healthy distance since deer or elk might be standing in the road around the next bend. Don’t go too fast or too slow. Stay alert. If somethings ahead, either wildlife or Jeffco sheriff’s deputies, blink your lights at oncoming traffic. This confused me at first since it was the signal you had left your lights on back in the old days before car lights turned off by themselves.
Two sorts of drivers violate this unspoken code. The first, most of us grant license, are tourists. We have two spots on Black Mountain Drive/Brook Forest Drive (same road), Upper and Lower Maxwell Creek, that draw crowds from the Denver area each nice day. There are also folks staying in Evergreen in one of the many cabins or motels who wander out of town for a drive in the mountains. Many of these drivers brake at every curve, even going uphill, which is silly since the mountain will brake for you if you let up on the gas.
Guanella Pass, 2015
The second type are residents who have to get down the mountain thirty seconds faster than you do. They’re the ones who’ll put you in danger. I haven’t seen it, but others write of people who pass them. Passing on these roads is like spinning a roulette wheel with your life and somebody else’s. Others will crowd up on your bumper. As if that changes the physical reality we both face. Flick their lights in your mirror. You know.
Mostly driving here is sedate since the roads don’t really offer a safe alternative. I like that since it gives me a chance to savor the rocks, the trees, the peaks and valleys while moving at a speed safe enough even if I encounter a bouncy young fawn or calf or a whole herd of elk.
We hit 58 yesterday, predicted 60 today. Snow piles melting, but plenty of snow remains in our north facing backyard. I took a chance on the ice dams, hoping they’d disappear before any damage was done. Not my brightest move ever, but while I was sick dealing with the company who would have had to clean them off and while we were contemplating moving overwhelmed me, and I went into stasis on them. So far, it’s ok. Sometimes you get lucky.
Brief political note: we have a President who’s proud he wasn’t found smoking gun guilty of collusion with a foreign power. Any other president, ever, would have been sunk by the very implication of a treasonous act. How he can be so puffed up about this escapes me. Life in Trumpworld is life down the rabbit hole. The Red King says off with his head!
After my third cancellation due to illness I’m going in Thursday for my new workout. My o2 sats have been low, but not dangerous, then middling, but ok. I think working out over the last four years has kept them in safe territory and I’d like to put that concern to rest. I’ll check them over the next month or so as I return to a more active life. BTW: Kate says my reasoning about a 93% sat in a 75% reduced o2 environment is not sound. “It’s not a linear process,” she says. Makes sense. Still, life in thin air has an effect and not a positive one on 02 saturation.
Just back from my monthly THC run to Bailey’s Happy Camper. Great views of the continental divide, many peaks covered in snow. Their inventory is always in flux and though we prefer Love’s Oven, I had to settle for a couple of brands I don’t know, Green Hornet and Wanna. It still feels a little strange to get in the car to go buy marijuana. No baggies on street corners. No phone calls to your buddy’s dealer. Just walk in, say I’d like this and this and some of that. Pay. Walk out.
Lunch with Alan today at the Lakeshore Cafe in Evergreen. Looking forward to it.
I’m ready for my third recovery in a month and a half. Looking forward to it. Not yet. Buddy Tom Crane should be on the road to recovery under the recovery moon, too. Kate’s gaining weight. Maybe a trifecta here.
Today is chicken soup day. I have a simple truth organic chicken thawed in the refrigerator. It comes out to warm up to room temp. All the ingredients are here. I had to go buy some peas yesterday since I used the original pack in the fried rice I made. Friend Bill Schmidt looked up the Gold’n Plump Chicken soup recipe. It was there, floating out in the internet’s wide reach. It’s simple. Much as I do it now though I’ve added a tweek or two. Some garlic. Deglazing with white wine. Paul Prudhomme’s Chicken Magic. Kate had the bright idea of making our matzo balls green since the CBE competition is on St. Patrick’s Day. I’ll offer green matzo balls and egg noodles as additives.
A great day to make soup. Gonna be a big storm, already underway. Maybe 6-12 inches. Record low barometer readings. One reading in Kansas is lower than any data point in 140 years. Bombogenesis* may happen here. It’s been a good year for the snow pack with all watersheds reporting at least 127% of median years. The all important Colorado River basin is at 136%. Hoping this storm adds to those percentages.
Still generally demotivated except for home, Kate, and dogs. This will lift.
Mary, she persevered. Sister Mary. When my father died, she insisted that he had a portion of an oil well that should come down to herself, Mark, and me. It took her some time and some legal work, but I got in the mail this week three letters from Roan Resources detailing how we make our claim legitimate.
This oil well is in Canadian County, Oklahoma and I have no idea how Dad became a part owner. He and his siblings were all on it. I remember very well our first check, it folded out seven times, was from Sinclair Oil, and was for fifteen cents. Dad cashed it and gave the money to us kids for bubble gum. Of course, we’re now dividing his share into three, leaving us each with what Roan say is a 0.00015625 percent interest in the well. Probably not gonna get rich.
This means we own land in Texas and have oil well shares. I’m not heading over to the Cadillac dealer quite yet.
*”Bombogenesis, a popular term used by meteorologists, occurs when a midlatitude cyclone rapidly intensifies, dropping at least 24 millibars over 24 hours. A millibar measures atmospheric pressure. This can happen when a cold air mass collides with a warm air mass, such as air over warm ocean waters. The formation of this rapidly strengthening weather system is a process called bombogenesis, which creates what is known as a bomb cyclone.” NOAA
My recovery is going well. Scheduled two sessions with my personal trainers for next week. Gotta get back to working out. Important for both Kate and me. Still need to improve my stamina and these workouts will do that.
Kate’s pleased. She’s gained a bit of weight, up to 81.6 and these new nutrition bags have about a third more calories in them. Hopefully they’ll bump her up some more. So far medicare has relented and agreed to pay. We’ve got seven more days of the tpn for sure. Hope they agree to keep it up until she can have her j-tube placement.
When we see Gupta next Thursday, he will review the pulmonary function test she had yesterday and the ct scan from her pneumothorax incident a couple of weeks ago. He’ll make a determination then about her surgery risks.
Minnesota has had and is having a brutal winter from both a cold and snow perspective. I feel ya, guys.
Third grocery delivery today. Won’t keep this up forever, but for right now, with my recovery still young and home chores, medical visits, it’s an errand I don’t need. Glad the option exists.
Asked Gupta about moving. He said it’s not urgent and not necessary if using oxygen is ok with Kate, and me. I suspected that was the case. He did say, too, that we’d feel better if we moved down the hill and even better if we moved to sea level. So, a judgment call. Kate’s to make. I’m all right here though by definition I would benefit, too.
Alan and Tara
We’ve been absent for a little over a month from CBE. Feels weird. Lots of social support there, e-mails, phone calls. But seeing folks in person, being part of the regular ebb and flow is important. Missing it. Next week is the chicken soup cookoff. I’ve entered. Kate loves my chicken soup. The recipe is straight off a Golden Plump chicken. Golden Plump was formerly owned by the Helgeson’s, including my friend Stefan. Lost the recipe a long time ago, but I’ve got it down now. I like the frisson of entering my Minnesota chicken soup in a contest with the folks who talk about CNS as the Jewish penicillin. Gonna have Kate make the matzo balls.
Today is a travel day here. R&R. Get the groceries put away. Cook something. Read. Relax.
I’m kicking the Valentine Moon off the header at 1% waning. Just want it off my page. No more Valentine Moons. Bad February. Bad. I hope, with Recovery, to initiate a month in which both Kate and I head towards healthy. I’m already well on the road and Kate looks like she’s taking the first tentative steps.
Here’s some irony. Good buddy Tom Crane wrote me a note. Guess what it said. “I have pneumonia, too.” WTF! Paul Strickland, who was on the Zoom call on Sunday as well, had the plague. As his doctor called it. I mentioned that earlier. I had the plague plus pneumonia. That’s 3 of the 5 guys, all over 70, who had or have serious respiratory illnesses. Again, I say, no more Valentine Moon. Bad February. Bad.
Kate and I are off to a pulmonologist today. Haven’t seen one of those yet. She may get a full pulmonary function workup because part of the visit is to assess her fitness for surgery to place the j-tube. It’s also to follow-up on x-ray findings of possible interstitial lung disease. Afterward we plan to go to Maria’s Empanadas and pick up a dozen of Kate’s favorite midnight snack.
The solar snow shovel has melted most of the snow from the “monster” storm we had over the weekend.
Got out the Instant Pot and made chuck roast last night. Tasty. Also, got all of the spices and herbs out of the cabinet. They’re currently all over the kitchen counter. I’m going to rearrange them in hopes of being able to find easily what I need. Where’s Maria Kondo? I might need her. Do I love the second can of cumin? Does it bring me joy?
Today is chicken soup day. I have a simple truth organic chicken thawed in the refrigerator. It comes out to warm up to room temp. All the ingredients are here. I had to go buy some peas yesterday since I used the original pack in the fried rice I made. Friend Bill Schmidt looked up the Gold’n Plump Chicken 
Mary, she persevered. Sister Mary. When my father died, she insisted that he had a portion of an oil well that should come down to herself, Mark, and me. It took her some time and some legal work, but I got in the mail this week three letters from Roan Resources detailing how we make our claim legitimate.
Third grocery delivery today. Won’t keep this up forever, but for right now, with my recovery still young and home chores, medical visits, it’s an errand I don’t need. Glad the option exists.
