Amy's Kindergarten Narration

When it comes to "writing" in our homeschool work, Gemma and Joshua give "narrations."

That is, we separate the physical act of putting words onto a page from the mental and verbal work of composing thoughts and sharing them with an audience.

That is, I say, "What happened?" and they tell me what happened.

Or I say, "What did you learn?" and they tell me what they learned. 

There's a lot more to be said about this method, but this post isn't about pedagogy.

It is about an excerpt my Mother just sent me from a journal she kept as her kids were growing up.  The excerpt, it turns out, is my narration from the first day of Kindergarten:

SEPTEMBER 3

Amy’s first day of school – only one hour in the morning – 10:30 to 11:30 – she talked for three hours after! 

“Well, we didn’t do any work – just listened to Mrs. Fordyce – she doesn’t like being called Teacher” –she wants us to call her Mrs. Fordyce.

We went out to recess on the playground – a girl got stung by a bee –Andrea asked which was worse, to be stung by a bee or be cut by a mirror –there’s a girl in class cut by a mirror – we decided being cut by a mirror was worse.”

        

Later – “You know, I don’t know where I’m going to sit yet – Mrs. Fordyce didn’t assign us a desk – we have our locker – we can use one box for our gym shoes and paint smock and one for our rest towel – we can put only three things in our box (?) 

But I wish I knew where I was going to sit, I want to know who’s going to sit with me – do you think I should remind Mrs. Fordyce to assign our desks?

        

Later – Mrs. Meyers had the nicest hair, it was soft and wavy. Mrs. Kesbe had nice hair but she had to go work at another preschool. Mrs. Penland had the really curly hair. I remember Mrs. Fordyce last year had white hair, but now it’s grey

(Janice interposes,“Amy, you get gray hair before you get white hair.”) 

Well, anyway, Mrs. Fordyce was the nicest.

When kids play on the climbing tower, they can’t raise their hands (to touch ceiling) or Mrs. Fordyce will get upset – she says that gets her upset – she forgets, too, she says sometimes we have to remind her when it’s time for something because she forgets.

All of this relating for one hour of school – tomorrow she goes all afternoon, 12:30 – 3:20– it will take her until bedtime to tell me everything, I’m sure.

The Surgery Part II

I was tired as I sat in the waiting room.  Sad.  Filled with dread.  But not at all thinking of walking out, or even wanting to.  It had to be done. 

***

They called me back and gave Bryan, Helen and David each a hug, not knowing that they'd be permitted back to see me soon.

The first stop was the pre-pre-op room.  Blood pressure.  Temperature.  They asked for my weight, which I assumed would affect the anesthesiologist's work, so I didn't lie. 

***

The creepy part of the pre-op room is that it is full of bays, separated by curtains hanging from the ceiling. One bed per bay, each bed with a person in it and we were all there for one reason:  someone was going to cut us open soon. 

By the nurse's station hung a giant white board with the day's line-up of surgeries. 
There I was:  Ponce - Mayfield - mastectomy.
I hate that word.

And they left of "sub-clavian port installation," we were doing that, too.  All in one shot.

***

I've since been asked by medical people why we were not removing the left breast as well.  It's fairly standard procedure to take both when it's this type of cancer in a woman so young. 

Believe me: it is not as though I had any plans to hang on to my other one.  I could see the medical road stretch out before me in the best case scenario--conquer this cancer, and then do a mammogram every year for the next 50 years with the hope that nothing shows up?  Whatever.

The answer is that this was not to be a simple breast removal.
This was to be a radical removal. 

Like back in the old days when surgeons didn't catch the cancer early, and didn't know much about margins and wanted to be on the safe side.  They'd carve out the whole pectoralis--the muscle below the breast--too.

That would be enough trauma for one body.  The other breast could wait.

***

In my case, we weren't being "old school."  The MRI showed the cancer already in the muscle wall. 

My oncologist, whom we'd been to see right after the first surgical consult with Mayfield, pleaded with me not to do this surgery.

It was on my cell phone.  We were driving South on Powers when he called, and he was emphatic.

"I'm looking at the pathology report and we have an excellent medicine for this particular cancer.  We can shrink it back from the muscle.  One of my colleagues was just telling me that she hasn't even seen a radical mastectomy in the last ten years, they're so uncommon.  Don't do this.   It's a morbid, morbid surgery and you don't need to do this."

So why was I sitting in the pre-op bay, ready to do this?  Long story.  For a different post.

Suffice it to say: I was going to do this.

***

I dressed in a hospital gown.  All my personal items in a bag.  (Another heavy-duty plastic one with handles. Nice.)

Bryan came back to join me.  Helen and her service dog, too.  I was crying.  A weepy sort of cry.  A my-heart-is-being-pressed-through-a-grist-mill.

I don't think I knew this about faith before that moment.  That even 100% faith cannot protect you from grief. 

I kept thinking of Jesus in the Garden before one of His friends betray Him, before the rest deserted Him, as He thought of the torture about to befall Him.  He knew grief. 

***

Mayfield appeared, Helen and the dog left.

He did something I never thought I would experience from another human being. 
He signed my breast.

"Weird, I know," he said.  "It's a requirement.  You wouldn't believe how many things can go wrong if we don't take the most basic precautions."

Fine.  It's just that I expected to look up and see a NASCAR track in front of me.

***

Mayfield asked if we wanted to pray.

Bryan did the speaking.

I did the crying as I watched Mayfield, sitting down my be feet, his head bowed to the bed, his arms outstretched.  A humble man.

***

The surgical nurse came by after he left. 

She told me Mayfield had briefed her on the surgery.  She told me he had teared up telling her how important it was that "we get this one right."  She told me that Mayfield was her "favorite person in the whole hospital." 

***

Then the anesthetist came and I don't even remember what we were talking about before I suddenly felt very relaxed.  And then suddenly woke up with an oxygen mask on my face and my throat so, so, so dry.

I heard Mayfield's voice, close to my ear, "How are you doing, Amy?"

I groaned.

He said, "Don't worry, I got the license plate of the truck that hit you."

Seconds later, I was more awake, and you know what was really hurting me?  My ankle.

He confirmed this later, that I had indeed issued, as my first complaint, "My ankle hurts."

It felt exactly like the times when I sit cross-legged and the plate on my ankle is resting on the ground.  As soon as I move, that little area burns.  It was that pain.  Exactly.

By the time I was wheeled to the recovery room, it was my neck that hurt.  I sleep with a cervical support pillow and now cannot sleep without it.  Yet I'd just spent 7 hours in a bed without one.

***

I learned things soon, as I sat up just a bit in my hospital room.

The port installation had not gone well.  A port is a small chunk of titanium with a soft "belly" that is inserted into the body.  It has a plastic tube that goes from below the "belly" of the chunk out into the body.  The tube is threaded into one of my blood vessels and the body--amazingly--doesn't bleed around this tube, it just kind of. . .seals up around it quickly.

When the time for chemotherapy arrived, I did not roll up my sleeves and take intravenous needles.  I pulled down my shirt collar and the nurse poked a needle through my shoulder, into the "belly" of the port. 

This is easier on one's arm vessels. 

But I didn't get one that day.  Mayfield couldn't get the tube to thread into the vessel.

And in his efforts, he thought he may have poked too far with the tube and collapsed my left lung. 

At which point he said, "That it, sew up this side.  We're here to cure cancer," and he moved to the more pressing task at hand. 

***

(Turns out the lung wasn't collapsed.  Didn't feel like it, anyway.  But he inserted a chest catheter anyway--which hurt--and ordered me into an ICU room which was, therefore, private and under the watch of a nurse devoted to my care.  So that was nice.)

***

Something else happened in the surgery.

After he removed my breast, he prepared to carve into the muscle, but noticed that. . .it seemed to be healthy tissue. 

He sent a tiny slice off to pathology and heard back that there was no cancer there. 

So I'm not caved in, as I'd expected to be. 

What of the discrepancy between the MRI images that showed a glowing chest wall and the actual health of that tissue?  There's no medical explanation.

***

Something else happened in the surgery.

As I've noted before, scans also showed my lymph nodes on the upper right side aglow and full of cancer.  He removed all those in my armpit that he could get to.

But, as he'd told us earlier, the one cancerous node that was higher up in the shoulder, "surgery cannot address."  It would still be in my body even after a surgery as radical as this.

I'm going to quote him:

"Right before sewing up, I thought, 'I wonder if I could get to that,' so I stuck my hand up under your collar bone and was able to pluck it out?'"

"Pluck it out?"

"Kind of like a grape."

"But you said you wouldn't be able to get to it. . ."

"I've got to give glory to God for that one, Amy.  This is not something that's supposed to happen." 

***
During this whole time, updates came out to Bryan and Helen and David.  I asked Bryan what they did as they waited and he didn't know.

He really didn't know. 

He said he thought they ate lunch at some point in the hospital, they must have. 

This is just weeks afterwards that I asked him, not yesterday, 2 1/2 years later. . .  I was--am!--very touched that he had no idea.

***

But he did call Mom with updates.  She called my family.  Sister #1 sent out e-mails.  My friend Laurie picked up the torch post-surgery and all through that ICU weekend and gave a play-by-play. 

I didn't know all that was going on.  But it was a beautiful, beautiful thing to learn about when I got home a few days later. 

That's the thing to know, really, when you are the one trying to be helpful for someone else who is walking a valley. 

You feel helpless.  You feel like an e-mail, or a card, or a phone call, or a prayer, or a blog-page-view couldn't possibly help at all.


And yet all those little things are thunderous voices in the valley shouting:

You are not alone. 
We are in your corner.

They are the wind one spreads her wings upon.

***

(And, hey, "In your corner" belongs on our List of boxing phrases. . . )

Those Who Head for the Moon Find Me

Last week's riddle:

I am largest when closed
Smallest when drawn
Lovely when pooled
Helpful from dark till dawn

Answer: drapery; another shout-out to Leslie.

Though I liked "eyelids" and am ever-open to alternative answers.




And now, this week's: 

Those who head for the moon find me,
But are always quick to leave.
I am stinky, dirty, holey
Yet once vital for reprieve.

El Paso County Assembly

This past Saturday, Bryan and I were delegates to the El Paso County Republican Assembly. 

***

There is a simple explanation for why we wanted to be delegates to the County assembly:  we wanted to be delegates to the State Assembly.  And you cannot be a delegate to the State if you are not at least an alternate to the County. 

At our precinct caucus back in February--the first we'd ever attended, the first most people there that night had ever attended--we nominated each other to be County delegates.

9 people ran.  8 people were chosen. 

The woman who lost did so unanimously.  Her 1 minute campaign speech was about how Republicans are the "Party of war" and how she wanted our platform to call for an investigation of our air quality, for she had suspicions that planes flying overhead were dropping chemicals on us.

We 50 or so Republicans in the room (for both parties run closed caucuses) stared at her with mouths agape.  You're wondering if she'd shown up to the wrong caucus, right?  But she was one of our precinct captains!

We re-elected her to that position, too.  Because that part of the evening happened before her speech.

***

Our presidential straw poll was conducted first. And from there, the caucus dragged on so that by 8:30, 80% of the people had left and we still needed to pick people to send to this congressional assembly, or that judicial assembly. . .  No one wanted these jobs. 

So I volunteered.  What the heck.  I was free those days.  I wanted to set a good example for our kids, who were with us the whole night. 

By the end of the meeting, those remaining were cheering me on:  Go Amy!  They found my enthusiasm. . .bemusing.  I think.

***

When we got home, Bryan said, "By the end of April, you will know whether you want anything to do with politics."

This was part of it, too, though I hadn't said it out loud.  Is there a candidate inside of me?  A politician?  A campaign aid?  A speech writer?

***

We marked the calendar and thought, "We better remember to attend that county thing."

Then the campaign literature started coming.

And the phone calls.

The post cards.

The invitations to meet n' greets.  To the candidate's houses.  To new Facebook friendships.

We realized that we'd become delegates who would decide which Republicans would run on the November ticket in all sorts of local races.  Two of those were contested.  Sheesh.

Not what we bargained for, people.

***

There was one race in particular.  For a State Senate seat.  It was open, due to redistricting, and it was vied for by a super-experienced establishment guy and a new-comer grass-roots guy who has under his belt exactly one more caucus than I do. 

I wanted to tell them both as we talked on the phone, "Look.  I'm a total fraud.  I have practically no idea what is going on this State because I didn't even know until 2 years ago that I would be living here long term." 

But instead, I put on my big-girl panties and waded into the weeds with them. Time to learn about all the issues they were talking about.

***

So, then, the Assembly.  Held at Liberty High School, which was not a perfect venue, but it was inexpensive and there are better ways to spend money this year than on the pricey World Arena. 

It was crowded.  But so pleasant.  Everyone seemed in a good mood.  I imagine the Democrat's assembly felt the same for this reason:  It is relieving to be around people who share your politics.

All strangers to one another.  Yet we all had something in common.

It was a very civil, polite, generous, warm crowd. 

***

All the candidates had a table set up with various items you can take to make yourself a walking billboard.  Some people really bought into this.  Their torsos were covered front and back with candidate stickers. 

And so alliances became obvious.  A guy might only be voting in HD 15, but he was still wearing stickers for the guy running in HD 16. 

I was a no-sticker kind of person, because I only knew about the races I'd be voting in.  For one of them, "my" candidate didn't really need any show of support from me.  She had the thing locked up.

For the other, the SD 10 seat, I'd finally concluded that both candidates would do a great job and though I'd be voting for just one, I didn't necessarily support him above the other.

I did wear a sticker for my presidential choice.  I'd promised my precinct at the caucus that I'd fight for him if chosen, so the least I could do was sticker-up.

***

I felt comfortable saying, "No thanks" when offered a sticker.

Others used the line, "Sorry, not in my district."

I was behind a guy who used this line to say "no" to the candidate for County Commissioner 2 as we headed into the vote for. . .County Commissioner 2.  Oops.

***

This vote, CC 2, happened in the school auditorium.  It got started late because credentialing took so long.  Photo ID required for every ballot given out.

Then the meeting started and Amy Lathen, the current CC 2 came to the stage.  Some soft-spoken man dressed in bib overalls with a huge grey beard nominated her.  We could barely here what he said.

Then the Sheriff seconded the nomination, and I'd expected a better performance out of someone who himself had to be elected from time to time.

Then the introduction came from the DA, Dan May, who electrified the whole room with a simple, "Good Morning El Paso County!" and 20 more seconds of an energetic endorsement and I thought, "That guy is a good politician."

***

Amy's stage was full of supporters, most of them in her campaign t-shirts, most of them holding huge signs, many of those topped with smaller signs that read, "We want Amy!" and "Amy is down home!"  I do not know what they meant by that. 

Bryan noted, "Look at that. . .she's got a service dog up there, a guy with a walker, a guy with crutches, young people, old people. . ."  and it was funny because it was a little bit true.  Certainly no one thought it would hurt her appearance to have an old guy with a walker up there.

***

Amy's speech was well-delivered.  Kind of well-written. 

She shared a lot of detail about what she'd accomplished in her first term, including a story of leaving her family on 4th of July to go help a resident who was flooding and she herself was waste deep in the water but that's what being a public servant is all about.

And I thought, "How on earth was it helpful for a County Commissioner to be wading the flood waters?"  Moral support, maybe. 

Her biggest applause lines were the very few that mentioned national issues like, "Boo to federal debt!" and "Boo to federal interference!" and "Boo to Obamacare!"

Rightly so that these lines were few because County Commissioner has practically nothing to do with federal issues. 

But that was the pulse of the day.  That's what had brought me and Bryan to that Assembly.  That's why so many of the other delegates I met were also first-timers.  National issues.

She got huge applause.

***

Her opponent came out to the stage with less than half the people, with a nomination and endorsement not from the Sheriff or DA, but from his father.  And his speech was negative.  In that he made serious allegations against Amy, as he'd been doing in his campaign literature.

What of these allegations?  I didn't buy them.

But I wanted to pull him aside and say, "Are you blind?  This woman is practically revered as a saint among us.  Of all elected positions, why on earth are you going for this one?"

He didn't get as much applause.

And she beat him with 75% of the vote.

***

There was one candidate I wanted to track down that day.  A guy who's going for the 5th Congressional seat.

It's currently held by Doug Lamborn who has not once, but twice!, been identified as "Congress' Most Conservative Member."

You know those organizations who rate legislators by using some scorecard and then boil it down to a percentage to describe their voting records?  Well, every one of them has scored Lamborn "100% conservative."

100%, friends.  One hundred.  Percent.  This is our incumbent.  His constituents have been electing him to some sort of office since 1995.

Two guys are contesting the R-nomination.  One of them has been sending me campaign literature because I am a delegate to the 5th congressional assembly.  (One of those positions no one wanted the night of the caucus.) 

On the literature, he describes himself as "Freedom of Choice," and I looked that up on his web site to see what it meant and so I wanted to see him in person to make sure I hadn't misunderstood. 

I found him, and I asked him, "To be clear:  you're pro-choice?"

He said, "Yes," and then started into whatever argument he had for that.

I politely interrupted and said, "I'm not here to change your mind.  I just wanted to hear this for myself.  You are running for the 5th congressional district.  And you're pro-choice."

He nodded his head.  Kind of like: Yep!  That's me!

I wanted to give him campaign advice:  Dude.  Pick any other congressional district in Colorado and run as a pro-choice candidate and go out of your way to call attention to it.  But 5th Congressional?  You can't be serious.

***

Speaking of this race, we heard from all 3 candidates.  The one I have not mentioned is named Blaha.  Which sounds like the first 2 syllables of a maniacal laugh. 

His whole point was, "Sure, Lamborn is a strong conservative.  But what has he accomplished?  He's been there 6 years and what has he gotten done for us?" 

He used the metaphor of a quarterback who completes a lot of plays but doesn't actually score.  "Time to change quarterbacks.  Put me in the game."

It was a good speech.  Well-delivered.  Well-written. 

I thought, "We cannot have it both ways.  The guys who scores 100% on the scorecard is not the guy who will move and shake and 'get things done.'  That's not what legislation is.  The guy who scores 100% is a guy who doesn't compromise.  And if you don't have a super-majority in the House and Senate with a President of your party as well, you aren't going to be writing and passing legislation."

Seems to me this is the point Blaha should be making.

But the 5th Congressional isn't going to want to hear it.

Another guy who has picked the wrong race to run.

***

This dynamic, I realized that afternoon, is kind of what the SD 10 race is.

We have a State Rep, Larry Liston, running for the Senate District seat.  Larry doesn't have a to-the-moon conservative voting record.  He does have a few votes that no doubt came of the wheeling and dealing nature of legislation.

But small businesses love him.  He's voted the right way for them every time. 

And he voted for a health care exchange called "200."  The opposition made a millstone out of this bill and hung it around his neck and the neck of the majority leader, Amy Stephens.  (Who lost to Marsha Looper by just 1 percentage point.) 

It's an excellent piece of work, though, that 200.  It was the right thing to do for our State.  It was, indeed, a compromise with the Democrats.  But it was a good-looking compromise. It's what good governance should look like. 

It also threatens to sink the Republicans who voted for it.

***

The challenger, Owen Hill, has a completely different appeal. 

He's young.  (Bryan: "He's got babies up on stage!") 
He's hip to social media.  (We're "friends" on Facebook.) 
He advertises himself as one who will be a "principled conservative" in office, and I have every reason to believe he'll be true to that.

He did a good job delivering his speech.  I could have written a better one.  I could tell he has done time in academia (indeed, he's got his PhD) because he wrote for the page, and not the ear.

Got to write for the ear.  Especially if what you're writing is a speech.

His stage was full of supporters, many of them my age or younger, and that appeal is not to be underestimated, either. 

He did a lot in his campaign to run to Larry's right by painting him as a liberal.  (I'm avoiding the term "negative campaign" because it wasn't a personally negative campaign.) 

Owen said early in his speech, after a campaign like this, "Thank you for your service" to Larry Liston and I thought, "Boy is that rich."

And so, what to do?  One guy has experience getting things done, can be counted on to get more done if sent to the Senate.  But this guy is not going to have a perfect scorecard. 

The other guy has no experience, and might well become a 100%-er. 
If he'd been in office when 200 came about, he'd have voted the wrong way. 
But I also think we need some 100%-ers around. 
And he's so young.  So talented.  This State Senate seat might be the first step in a career I'd be glad to help launch.


And so, what to do. . .  


***

The part I really liked about the day was the speech-making.  I enjoyed critiquing them.  Internally, of course. 

The highlight was probably when I stood in line to place my ballot in the box and found myself in a conversation with a young man about the arguments coming before the Supreme Court regarding the AHC Act. 

20 years old, maybe.  A delegate already! 

He was Hispanic, and I point that out because the other woman in our conversation was African American.  And he was spouting forth with great optimism what this argument would have to be, what that argument would mean.  The other woman was unfamiliar with the legalities of the case and was taking notes.  I was saying--cynically!  I admit it!--the political cost is too high for this to be decided by legal reasoning.  It should be, of course.  But it won't be.

The 3 of us there, with little in common.  She, a professional woman (a mother--so there was that).  He,  a young student.  We all of a different ethnic background.  We all of a different mind regarding one of the most important legal decisions of our lifetime.

And yet, we all had something in common.

***

Oh?  About Owen and Larry?

I won't tell you what I did.  I'll tell you that I gave one man my word that I'd vote for him, and even though I debated all the way to the ballot box, I kept my word.

Owen beat Larry with 64% of the vote.

But it doesn't matter.

What's that?  What doesn't matter?

These votes.  Any candidate getting at least 30% at the Assembly gets his or her name on the ballot in June's primary. 

(What primary?  I thought this was a caucus state!)

Colorado is a caucus and a primary state.  What the caucus is for--besides the presidential straw poll and election of un-bound delegates to a state convention that will elect more un-bound delegates to go to the National--I'm not even sure.

What is the Assembly is for?  I don't even know.  Glad they didn't spend 8000 bucks on the venue, though.

Amy Stephens, who lost to Marsha Looper by 1%?  Doesn't matter.  They'll face of in the primary.

Owen and Larry?  Doesn't matter.  Primary.

Amy Lathen and the guy she beat with 75% of the vote?  He's not automatically on the primary ballot, but if he gets 2000 signatures, he can petition his way onto it. 

***

I still have the 4th Judicial, 5th Congressional and State assemblies to attend.

But I know already:  This stuff is not really in me.

The Games We Play

A lot of parents look upon their babies with ambition.

He'll play some sport.
She'll go to some school. 

This is all natural enough.  It gets weird when the parents hang on too tightly to that as the kids grow, though, doesn't it? 

My Mom once knew a woman who wanted her child to be a famous actress and so this woman, Mrs. Clear, named her daughter, "Crystal."  I'm not sure how the fame thing tur--oh, wait.  We do know how that turned out. . .

I confess to having an ambition for my kids that I have pursued relentlessly:  that they would love to play games.  Board games.  Card games.  Party games.  Strategy games.  Any of them.  All of them.

***

This is something I had failed to vet in Bryan before marrying him.  Come to find out a few months after the wedding that he believes in a final word to the world of gaming:

The Platonic form of 'Game' is already known fully in these shadowlands.  And it is called RISK.


(Those aren't my capital letters. The game has always fancied its own title this way.  And Bryan has two original boxed editions from 50 years ago to prove it.)


I played a lot of RISK in my youth because my brother--6 years my senior-- used to get stuck babysitting me and sister #4 and this is how he chose to pass his time. 

Invariably, this:  Janice would back up into Australia.  I would get holed up in South America.  Brother would amass his hoards at our gates, and then he would swarm.

Now, I hate RISK.  Dumb game.  World domination?  Puh-lease.  

The last time I played, it was against Sister #4, her now-husband, then boyfriend, and our then brother-in-law. 

Sister and I made a pact to work against the men.  They did not make such a pact and so we wiped them out.  Then, with the map shared roughly half and half, we declared world peace and the end to atrocities such as forced famines and FGM. 

There is no reason for me ever to play RISK again. 

***

I found myself married to a not-so-much-gamer and resolved to bring up our children--however many came our way--to want to play with me. 

And now they do.  One 8, one 5.  Challenged early and often to play above the recommended ages.  We play.  After dinner, as a family, many nights a week.  During the day, as a break from homeschool work, almost every day.

My master plan is coming together.

***

About the games we play:

Josh's current favorite--KerPlunk!

You take plastic straws out, one player at a time, trying not to dislodge the marbles that are resting one them. 

Bryan and I are glad to play it on the nights when we're tired because it is practically brainless and yet 99% pure thrill for the kids.

***

Gemma's favorite--Zooleretto

You get to collect animals to build your own zoo.  I'm currently hooked on it because I haven't figured out the best strategy for it, yet.

That is, Joshua keeps winning. . . 

***

Candy Land.  

Hate this game.  So stupid.  By the time your kids are developmentally ready to sit still and wait to take their turn, they already know their colors. 

I won't play it and I mention it here only to give you permission not to play it either.

***

Sorry!

Love this classic.  We've developed "Sorry Fantastic" which is the same rules, only you start with one piece in each of the home bases.  Great twist.

And this is what really annoys Bryan.  My predilection to change the rules of games to make them better.  He thinks there should be no adjustments.  None! 

My brother does this, too.  It might even be what we like best about gaming.  The tweaking.

This is why Bryan will not play games with me and my brother when we get together.

***

Clarification:  Bryan is willing to play games after dinner with me and the kids because it's what a good Daddy does.

***

Scotland Yard's Mr. X

A new game for us.   One player is a criminal.  The others work together as detectives chasing him around a map of London using various modes of transportation.  The catch is that Mr. X moves in secrecy and only reveals his location now and then.

The rules are a little complicated to read and then put into action.

The first time we played, the kids and I were trying to catch Bryan and he heard us make a very obvious mis-calculation based on a mis-understanding of a rule. 

And he didn't correct us.  Or clarify.  Or demonstrate any charity whatsoever.

I asked, "What is wrong with you?"

Is anyone with me on this?  I get wanting to win.  But in this case, how could he not say, "Such and such doesn't necessarily mean such and such. . ."

He won that game soon after.  And was ready to move on with his evening when the kids asked to play again and I said, "Sure!  Let's play again!"

That'll teach him to be uncharitable.

And then, of course, we tweaked some of the rules. 

***

Dominoes.

Bryan's choice, if he can't play RISK.  (And, hey, if he wants to teach the kids, thereby raising up his own minions to pay with him, he totally can.)

I really like Dominoes, too.  Great example of a game that G and J can play 100% with no help, and have a good chance at winning, and that we find very engaging as well.   Hard to find games like that.

***

And many others.  Maybe I'll get to them in future posts.  Maybe you'll mention the games you like best.

Speaking of games, though, here's a preview of Wednesday's post:  Bryan and I were delegates to the El Paso County Republican Assembly this past weekend.

As I said, speaking of games. . . .

A New Favorite Story

In graduate school, I learned that the American South has it's own. . .breed of writers.  Not in an identity-politics sort of way. 

But in a perfectly-understandable-once-you've-gotten-to-know-a-few-Southern-story-tellers sort of way. 

They use the term school.  The Southern school of writing.   But it's not anything like school.  These writers don't learn to write as Southerners.  They're just Southerners who write. 

And there is something about the way they use language and the way they tell stories that I just love.

***

I was once talking with my fellow grad students and a visiting writer and the subject turned to names.  This person had known someone with that unique name.  This other person had another. 

I offered up my best name story:  in high school, there was a guy who was an only child, and his parents named him after themselves.  The mother was Martha and the father was Juan and they named him Marijaun. 

I am not making that up.  Even the teachers called him "Weed." 

This visiting writer then said, after my story, "I'm from the South, so I've got this conversation won." 

I loved that sentence.  And I loved his writing from that point forward.  Yes.  Conversations can be
won.  When there are a bunch of story-tellers in the room, anyway.

He won it, too.  Claimed to know of a fellow named "Here Come Jesus in a Long White Robe."

"What did they call him for short?"

"Junior." 

This had been my favorite Southern story for the past 14 years.

***

I had the pleasure of driving a ways with a friend this past week.  Dawn is from North Carolina and she sounds like a peach. 

luuuuhv yew!

and

he showed his tayl. . .


I could listen to Dawn all day.  She is a funny story-teller, even when talking about serious things. 

And so she came to the topic of her grandmother who was a chain-smoker, though Dawn never knew it, she just knew they'd be out for dinner and Granny would go the bathroom for 45 minutes and come back stinking like a granny.

"Then one day, Granny was playing bridge.  I don't know what that's called when you get all 13 tricks--"

"A grand slam."

"So she got her grand slam, had her little cigarette, went to bed and never woke up."



I've got to say, this is my new favorite story from a Southern writer.

A Humdinger of a Lead

Oh, what a first line! 

Someone more clever than I observed that it is a line that has never before been written, and will never be written again:

(AP) In this photo taken Wednesday, March 14, 2012, a two-week old earless bunny sits on the hands of a... Full Image

BERLIN (AP) - An earless baby bunny that was a rising star on Germany's celebrity animal scene had his 15 minutes of fame brought to an abrupt end when he was accidentally stepped on by a television cameraman.

The article is here.

Pull My Finger

I took the kids to Jimmy John's the other day.

Don't you love the signs there?

• The baggier pants, the more resentful the kid.

And:

• Turns out pigs can fly, you just need to turn them into sandwiches first. 

Some of them are wise:

If you do what you need to do when you need to do it,

then someday,

You'll be able to do what you want to do when you want to do it.

and

• The gap between 'more' and 'enough' never closes.

Then I got to this one:

Don't  chew with your mouth full.
Don't have bad manners.
Don't use foul language (unless you are telling a foul joke).
Don't whistle annoying songs that will get stuck in people's head.
Don't carve your initials into things that do not belong to you.
Don't ask kids to pull your finger.

And I stopped reading to laugh.

Gemma asked, "Why are you laughing?" 

So I tried to explain why the command, "Don't ask kids to pull your finger," was so funny, but this made me laugh more.

Joshua asked, "Why are you laughing?" 


You don't believe me about this moment.  You don't believe that it was so funny, I'd laugh until my stomach cramped.  But it was. 

And the only way you'll believe me is if you try to explain to your children--to any child--what the "pull my finger" gag is. 

I mean, what comic genius thought of it?


I flashed back to some college friends, a nice couple who are now happily married.  Shannon told me once that, "Ryan is the KING of 'pull my finger.'" 


King?

After he got her the first time, she was wary of ever pulling his finger again.  So he resorted to trickery, and playing on her emotions, as in, "Ouch-ouch-ouch!  I just totally jammed my thumb!  Can you come here and pull it out for me?"

So, laughing, laughing, laughing.  At this point, the kids laughing with me just because they're so thrilled to see their Mom in such a state.

Then Gemma said, "Hey, Mom, pull my finger!"

And I did.  And nothing happened. 


Try explaining this, people!  That it's not a cause-effect thing. . .  That it's a joke.  That's why I'm laughing.


Joshua said, "Pull my finger!"

And I did.  Nothing. 

Then they started pulling each other's finger, at first with delighted expectancy--maybe they couldn't believe that the body had a trigger mechanism for this function?--that grew into a small frustration.


It was time to go.  The subject was dropped.

That evening, Bryan came home and we were talking as we sat on the couch before dinner.  Joshua charged in and I whispered to Bryan, "I told the kids about Pull My Finger.  Do it to Josh."

Silence.

"You want me to do Pull My Finger?"

Yes.

"With Josh?"

Confirmed.

"Right now?"

Well. . .I don't know. . .is it a guy thing to do this on demand? 

"Hey, Joshua!  Come pull my finger!"

He ran over, en route to the front door, which he was just about to head through.   He looked at me with a small, hopeful smile and he transferred one of his light sabers to be held under his other arm.

He pulled Daddy's finger.

Daddy ripped one.

Joshua's eyes grew wide, his grin spread like a dawning sun and he exclaimed, "Oh, Wow!  The trick worked!"

Surgery Part I

This is a new post, written about a day I have so far managed not to write about.  These are memories I have and am glad to have.  I don't try to push them away when they surface.  Some of them are kind of funny, even. 

I think I haven't written them down yet because that day, that event, was so big.  I felt as though I couldn't do a competent job of it. 

I've decided just to go for it, incompetently. 

***

The day before the surgery was dreadful.  Both hard in itself and full of dread for what was coming. 

I was still recovering from the sugar reaction the night before.  I was so dehydrated and my stomach was a knot that didn't want to re-hydrate.

We went to the hospital for the pre-op appointment that included talking to doctors and nurses at 4 different desks (or so) and answer health questions, one of which was, "How would you rate your health today?" 

Well, aside from the 8cm tumor in my chest. . . 

***

One was a male nurse who gave the pre-op instructions.  No eating or drinking after midnight, and so forth.  He gave me a heavy-duty plastic bag with built-in handles pre-loaded with supplies I'd need.

Specifically, it included 2 sponges and 2 iodine packets, which I was to use that night and the morning of to "wash the surgical area." 

I showered twice, just hours apart, and did my home-bound duty.

Boy, did that feel like a creepy ceremony.

***

Those bags, by the way, are still in use, as liners in two of our waste baskets.

What?  It's hard to come by a nice, heavy, small plastic bag like that.

***

There was a lady there for her own pre-op appointment who came over to talk with me.  Maybe she guessed--woman as young as I, no apparent broken bones, could be breast cancer.  Maybe she'd been eavesdropping.

She was in her 40's, and she launched into her story about being diagnosed and then under-going double-breast-removal at age 18. 

And "There's life after mastectomy"--I hate that word--and "I married my best friend who helped me through it all" and "my brother shaved his head to be bald along with me" and on and on, including comments on her reconstruction and current physique.

She was grotesque.  She was haggard, and her teeth were bad, and her hair was long and stringy, and she was very overweight and she sounded like a chain-smoker with a constant hackle in the back of her throat. 

I just smiled the whole time she was talking and then thanked her when she was done.

It was all I could do not to start crying, thereby incurring more of her comfort.

***

David and Helen arrived into town by the early evening.  They had been through their own harrowing surgery a few months before as Helen's life was saved by a double-organ transfer.

They came to be here for me.  They came to sit with Bryan in the hospital.  I can imagine that theirs was a crappy drive across Kansas.

***

They told me to call Dr. Mayfield and ask for "something to help me sleep." 

You can do that?  Ask your surgeon for drugs?

They saw how agitated I was, and having had experience with drugs themselves. . .  

Mayfield obliged, of course.  I fell asleep by midnight with the Ambien.  And woke at 3:00.  Guess it helped a little.

***

I talked to my family that night on the phone, as I'm fairly certain my Dad had kind of sent out a, "Call Amy, this is a hard moment after all" kind of siren. 

I was glad to talk with them.

But they knew and I knew that it didn't help.  Some valleys are just lonesome.  Some things just can't be helped and that's why they suck.  They just suck, and that's that.

***

A certain person I shall not name called at 5:30 AM, having not calculated the time change. 

Bryan ended up talking with this person, who had called mainly to give the council, "Don't do this surgery."

So.  While I don't think it would have been possible to be helpful, I realized that it is possible to be unhelpful.

***

I was so thirsty.  So thirsty.  Hungry, too. 

Couldn't do anything about that. 

(I learned from a later surgery that, actually, it is OK to drink a glass of plain water, but that they declare a ban on everything because they can't trust patients to take only plain water.

Sheesh.

Again: unhelpful.)

***

Mom was staying with us then, to help with the kids, to be my Mommy. 

She was up early, too.  I told her I just hated thinking about it. 

It was so much dread. 

She said, "Well, let's not think about it, then.  Let's watch an episode of Seinfeld!"

(Bryan had bought be the complete box set a week earlier.)

So that's what we did.  A few episodes, in fact.  Very helpful.

***

And then it was time to leave for the hospital.  David and Helen came to our house first so they could come through the gate with us on base. 

And we left. 

By the time I was in the car, I felt an odd sense of relief.  In less than 12 hours, the deed will be done.  And the only thing I know for certain is that God has brought me to these next 12 hours.

***

I didn't have any kind of concern that I wouldn't survive the surgery.  I wasn't at all nervous about that. 

But I did have a sinus infection at that time.  I had forgotten tissue and so resorted to blowing my nose into a spare diaper we had in the glove compartment.

The infection had been around for a week or so.  I had asked Mayfield about it a few days earlier--e.g. should we delay the surgery because of this infection?

"Because of a sinus infection?  No, Amy, we're curing cancer here. . ."

But they pumped me full of antibiotics--standard course for serious surgery--and I woke up with clear sinuses!

***

David, Helen, her service dog, BroJean and I got to the drab waiting room and found the TV's on, blaring about the death of Michael Jackson. 

This news overshadowed the other national story of the cap n' trade vote, which, at the time, felt like a big deal to a lot of people who had not just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Bryan pulled out some reading material, his summer issue of Backyard Poultry.  David thought this was hysterical. 

It hadn't occurred to me until he started laughing that Bryan reading a chicken husbandry magazine as he sat in the waiting room during his wife's breast removal surgery was kind of funny.

***

I think this is about half of the story.  I'm calling a time out.  Maybe you need it, too.

Thursday's Thinker -- I Am Largest When Closed

And the winner from last week's Thursday's Thinker is. . .no one even ventured a guess?

Sheesh.

I'm having a lot of fun writing these, though, so I shall continue with the feature.



Last Week's Riddle:


With one breath I circle
the world, and have arms
But no legs. In ages past
It was a charge that could harm.

The answer: a submarine

(The "charge" refers to a "depth charge" that surface ships used to roll off the their decks with the hope that it would explode somewhere in the sub's vicinity.

I had to run this one by Bryan to confirm that depth charges were from "past" times, and not now. Indeed, "Now, we'd get 'em with a missile.")


This week's:

I am largest when closed
Smallest when drawn
Lovely when pooled
Helpful from dark till dawn.

Joshua's Song

He first sang it at the dinner table a few weeks ago.  Something like:


Da circle (click click)

Decision (click click)

He rocked his shoulders, repeated the couplet a few times, clicked his tongue rhythmically.


"Josh, what song is that?"

"My own song."


"Where it did it come from?"

"I made it up!"


The circle?  Decision?   It seemed. . .ominous, but the rhythm of it, his confidence in chanting it. . .it seemed somehow professional.


"Wait, sing it again?  What is it?"

Da circle (click click)

Decision (click click)


I cycled through recent memory.  In data collection of material related to what is on your 5-year-old's radar, it is best to set the search parameters for about 2 weeks.

What has been going on in the last two weeks?
Oh.

Uh. . .yeah. . .Gemma has been working hard to memorize a passage out of Ephesians.  It's not one that I'd have chosen for an 8-year-old.  Though it does have that key verse about being saved through faith and not through good works. . .  it also features some fairly. . .adult content.


"Hey, Josh, sing it one more time."

Da circle (click click)

Decision (click click)


Laughter.  The kind I should have stifled.  The kind that felt victorious, because I had figured out the puzzle. 

Bryan hadn't yet.  "What?  What is it?"  He was laughing a little already in anticipation.


And it's not that I want to build it up.  Maybe I've already ruined it for you. . .  

He was singing:
The circum (click click)
The cision (click click)

The circum (click click)
The cision (click click)

Squares

A lot of buzz about a movie called The Hunger Games.

For a few days,  I thought the movie was a satire of Hollywood body image.

***

My dog finally irritated me.  6 1/2 months of thrilled bliss. . .and then came some kind of bug in his system and middle-of-the-night relief on our rug.

So we penned him up at night, lest he choose a worse place.  He woke me up several times with a bark and I got out of bed to let him out. 

The bright side: no mess to clean in the morning. 

The dark side: it was worse than feeding a newborn all night in that he woke more times than my babies ever had. 

This dark side led to the unpleasant discoveries that

1) without a good night's sleep, I am in poor shape the next day and
2) one night of poor sleep takes be a good 4-5 days to recover from.

I'm kind of thinking that next time, I'd rather just clean up the mess, wherever I may find it.

***

4-square has made a big comeback.  The game, not the house plan. 

I see the squares taped and painted out all over now--in our cul-de-sac, at the park, in our church lobby for youth night, in parking lots.

4-square dominated our recess time in 3rd through 5th grade.  We divided--of our own accord--into a boys' game and girls' game.  We had names for all our serves--The Skyscraper, The Whippit, The Pinball, The Grasshopper. . .

We called it 'being Captain' when you got to the highest square.  Now, the kids call it 'being King.'

***

The supplies for Cubbies craft, snack and story time used to occupy about 2 cubic yards in our family room, stacked unattractively behind our sofa in a space where we normally don't put anything.

There's an American phenomena, a pretty recent one, too, Shakers notwithstanding: space in a home that holds nothing.

7 months of this arrangement and I finally could no longer live with it. 

Bryan had just finished a clever project of building shelves into a space of our basement staircase to hold DVD's etc.

This triggered a reorganizational shift of this stuff here, that stuff there, this other stuff moving downstairs. . . 

And somehow, we ended up with an empty closet in our office.

I hired Gemma, Joshua and the two friends they were playing with outside to carry all the Cubbie stuff upstairs to this closet.

This has left the space behind our couch in our family room empty again.

All that work--beginning with Bryan's project--to achieve empty space in our home.

It's so strangely beautiful to look at.

***

Speaking of Shakers, I fantasize sometimes about having nothing in a home beyond the necessities. 

Possessions cost us something to own, even after we're done paying for them.

Oh, to cut and cut and cut and give away and sell right down to the bone.  But the trick, I suppose, would be defining "necessity."

***

Josh and his next door friend, Josh, are playing Legos as I write.  I love eavesdropping.  Right now, they are debating whose father would win a fight, because both Dads are "so strong." 

So boy.

Gemma has never had this debate--or one like it--ever. 

***

The thing about his age--Gemma's, too, still--is that the basic questions are very clear. 

Dog?  Awesome.

4-Square?  Great to be King.

Daddy?   Strong.

Legos?  Necessary.




 

Your Laundry Day

You must fold laundry today. You must. You. Must.

***

Your laundry is a train. It starts when your hampers fill up.

You set your kids to one of their few chores: "Toss the laundry overboard!"

They do so. With glee and abandon. There is an overlook from the second story where the hampers sit--an overlook just the width of a doorway--and they throw it all over the railing.

***

[This phrase--"overboard"--is from a library picture book you read with your kids 4 years ago, about a baby who threw toys "overboard!" out of his crib and you all loved the book and so now this phrase is for your family's laundry and no other family on earth has the same particular lexicon of language as your family does.]

***

The train has left the station. You certainly aren't going to leave the pile of dirty laundry lying on the tile a story below the overlook railing, in the path that leads from the garage door to the family room.

You start the first load by scooping up--oh, 2 or 3 arm-full heaps--and dumping them into the washer.

You don't sort. You've never sorted. Your brother wrote you a letter when he was a freshman in college and in that letter, he wrote out a little script of a moment he shared with his roommate as they did laundry in the dorm basement together.

Your brother was sorting.
His roommate said, "Just wash it all in cold and nothin' will shrink" and that moment in that letter was a revelation to you.

Your Mom always sorted. It was a huge extra step in the process. But as you read that letter in the seventh grade, you knew that you would not be like her.

You would be like your brother's college roommate.

In all the years you've simply crammed clothing into machines, you've never shrunk anything.

Very few problems with color bleeding either.

***

It was a standard amount of laundry, when the train first started.

Enough to fill two baskets clean, with a third sitting in the dryer. As you folded it into 4 piles plus bathroom towels, you would fill your empty two baskets with laundry ready to be carried upstairs, thereby emptying a basket to take in the load sitting in the dryer.

In all, a one-day evolution if you are on top of your game and willing to fold and carry a bit after the kids are in bed.

***

You saw an organizer-pro speak once, and she said that

a) a suitable laundry system was one that got all the laundry washed, dried, folded and put away in the same day and

b) she had learned not to tell women how to do their laundry because women tend to be picky about their laundry systems.

This seemed wise on both counts.

***

Well, anyway, what happened on that day the train left the station?

What distracted you? Because the laundry didn't get folded. . .

***

Before you knew it, it was time to toss more overboard, cram more into the machine, rotate more loads through until all four of your baskets were filled with the needs-folding stuff, and the big blue basket that can hold twice as much was holding twice as much.

With one load still in the dryer. . .

***
And then the weather turned warm.

A week of 65-70' temps. You were outside a ton, your kids were never inside.

Who is going to fold laundry in that kind of weather? Not you.

This weather also enabled your delay: Who needed any of the winter clothing sitting in those baskets now? Your whole family was in summer gear!

***

Your husband gently suggested as the week wore on that you could put a DVD in and fold together one evening.

Nice idea. But what he really wanted to do was work on the taxes  and you weren't going to distract him from this.

(Taxes: His version of laundry. Of course, it only comes around once a year, but it's way more important. Or maybe it's not. . .)

Besides. There was a lot of other stuff you'd rather have been doing, that you did do, in those evenings.

And most of all, it had gotten too overwhelming. 

You are not sure how laundry can defeat you, but it has.

***

You've had guests this past week as well. Guests have to walk through the laundry area to get to the restroom and it's not that you were ashamed of your unfolded masses, you just hated how messy it all looked.

No problem: you stuffed one basket on this big shelf, another basket on the shelf below, one basket on top of the washer, one on the dryer--all these baskets now double-full, and finally, there was one load left in the dryer.

***

Today, you had to find your uniform shirts for Cubbies. A glint of royal blue in one of the baskets. . .ah, that's your husband's.

You don't see a second glint where your shirt might be. You wear your old one from last year that doesn't fit as well.

***
Amy, you must fold this laundry.

If you stacked the baskets upon one another and then smooshed them down, the pile would still be taller than you.

Cold weather sweeps in tonight. The kids are going to want to wear pants.

And you are down to your last pair of underwear.

***

You drag a basket into the family room-kitchen table area after dinner and you fold as your husband does the dinner dishes and the kids set up the board game for the night.

You fold. You fold. Making piles strategically built--little boy pants folded long so that two stacks of little boy shirts can sit on them side-by-side. A pile built this way will not easily topple.

Your husband finishes the dishes and joins in the folding. He makes one pile of little boy pants, one pile of little boy short-sleeve shirts, one pile of little boy long-sleeve shirts, one pile of little girl skirts, one pile of little girl long sleeve shirts, one pile of little ---

It drives you crazy. So many piles. There's not enough room for all those piles. This is not the right system for laundry. 

But you don't say anything to him.  You don't even sigh.  You can't.

To his extensive credit, he has not said anything to you all this time.  Except tonight, with mischief in his grin, when he noted, "The kids are going to need two baskets each!"

***

The work you've put off until now will cost you in ironing. 

But you suspect that only the worst pieces will get that treatment.  Clothing has a way of shaking out as the day goes on. . . 

***

You play the game with your family--Zoolereto--it's a fun one.

The kids get ready for bed and you fold more. 

Only 5 more loads to go, if you've calculated correctly, and that might not include the one sitting in the dryer. . .

Your husband folds it as you read to the kids.  His piles span the kitchen table and blanket chest, he stacks it into your baskets--would buying more baskets help this process, or just enable you further?--until each holds a precariously balanced skyline of clothing piles. 

It does not feel like a victory snatched from the  jaws of defeat.

But your kids knew what Prince Albert's Crystal Palace was when it was mentioned in the book tonight, and they both fell asleep last night mid-activity because they were so exhausted from days and days of playing hard outside, and the thing they want to do most after dinner each night is play a board game with the whole family, and though the cubic yards of clothing accused you as it grew, your husband and kids were not at all bothered by it.

You lose some.  You win some.

Sunday's Somethin'

Love this play. I saw it and thought, "I hope that kid is a good kid, because right now, I am so happy for him."

A Routine

Went in for a blood draw today.  A routine thing.  They'll check it  for "tumor markers" and I'll meet with Dr. Science next Friday for the results.  I'm down to one such check-up every 4 months.  By summertime, it'll be 2 per year.

***

The draw happens at the same clinic that houses the "chemo-barn."  My doctor has since switched offices--though it's the same company.  We don't normally associate the word "company" to "cancer treatment."  But it's a business, sure enough. 

I think they call it a "practice" to help us all feel better about it.

The point, anyway, is that I go to the same place where I had many, many appointments that one year, where I did all my radiation, too.

And today--it's 70' out and sunny and gorgeous--I couldn't bear the thought of going the same route.

That route is always congested.  Always stressful.  And even though I don't go often, I'm tired of going.

So I went a different route and it was a lovely drive.  Why had I not thought to do it this way when in the midst of commuting 5 days a week for radiation and hating every second of it?

Huh. 

***

I had the kids with me, because it takes no time at all.  I have them bring something quiet to occupy themselves in the lobby, especially because I don't want them to bother the other patients. 

There's always someone new there.  Filling out paperwork.  Not knowing what will happen next and then next and then next. 

Most of the people are old.  Older than 70, easily.  A few in their 50's, if I could know by appearances.  I was the only young person waiting, as usually is the case. 

***

They've changed a few things.  Made both doors of both the inner and outer sets automatic.  Because almost everyone needs that function.  What genius failed to make this feature standard? 

***

Still have the basket of candy on the reception desk, including a sign that reads, "Please do not eat candy until after you have had your imaging done."

***

The lobby still has the display case full of big, intricate marionette puppets that were designed and made by a woman who then died of cancer.  The puppets are cool.  The whole display creeps me out.  Makes me sad.  "Hey folks--in case you are on the dying side of the statistics, be inspired to do something remarkable to be remembered by!"

Of course that's not how they mean it.  But I was once the new person filling out paperwork and then looking around as we waited for my name to be called.  And that's how I took it.

***

Their check-in system is different.  Again.  It changes often.  Guess they haven't figured out one that works well for every service in the building.

***

The tech who drew my blood is the same guy who has drawn my blood for the last 8 check-ups.  At least.  Every time, he seems surprised to learn that I home school, and he asks how I like it, and that he and his wife are considering it.

I don't ever say, "Yes, I know, we had this conversation 4 months ago (or 3 months, or 3 weeks. . .)"  Now, I'm trying to see how many consecutive, identical conversations we can have.  Likely more because I'll be seeing him less.

***

The blood draw room still has a funny little illustration posted on the wall, the one that was there when I visited for my very first appointment:  It is an egret or crane, or some long-legged water bird, trying to swallow a frog.

The frog's head is well-enveloped already, but it's arms are outside the mouth, squeezing the neck of the bird to prevent swallowing.

The bird looks irritated.

The caption reads, "Never Give Up!" 

Great, great drawing.  I came across it in grad school and put it on my office wall.  Hmm.  Back then, was there even any perseverance required?

***

Did I ever mention that drawing on the Big "C" blog?  I feel like there's a handful of things I'd always meant to write about. . . 

***

The tech asked me what color medical tape I'd like to strap the gauze to my arm. 

This used to matter, because I used to save the tape when I got home.  It was exactly the kind I used to wrap my fingers when I still experienced lymphedema in them.  One piece from a blood draw was enough to wrap all 4 fingers for a whole day.

Now, it doesn't matter.  But I requested light blue anyway.

The thing about the colors of this tape:  they're never good colors on me. 

Royal blue (or light blue) instead of Navy.

Orange-based-bright red instead of burgundy.

Bright green instead of hunter. 

Never black.  Always ugly.  And yet so many choices of ugly.

***

The results--I completely expect them to be normal--come next Friday. 

Well.  I'm hoping that they'll be slightly improved.  There is one level that has been off for a little over a year now, and we figured out that its increased number was due to advanced osteoporosis. 

We adjusted some things, and asked for much prayer.  It would be so wonderful if I learned that the level has come down at least a little.  This would mean (probably) that my bones are building up again.

Would you pray about this?  Whenever you see a pink ribbon--so ubiquitous!--would you please pray, "God, please make Amy's bones dense again." 

***

The blood draw finished.  I stepped from the little room in to the hallway and again was disoriented.  How many times had I made my way around that building but I still am not completely sure where to go.  It's a maze in there.

But the exits are clearly marked. 

I didn't swing by the chemo-barn to say "hello" to the nurses.  Each time, I think maybe I'd like to.  But I just don't want to see the patients there.  Not yet. 

This company re-modeled their downtown "infusion suite"--the one along side Dr. Science's new office--and the new decor is very cozy.  Each patient now has a full-body massage chair.  But there didn't seem to be room for friends of the patients.

Maybe next time I will swing by to see the nurses and see whether "my" old chemo-barn has been re-furbished as well.  It sure needed it. . .  But at least there was always room for the chemo-friend I'd brought along.

***

That was that, back into the van.  Back home.  By the same old route.

We are in the middle of listening to the Radio Family Theater production of the Narnia books.

Wonderfully done.  All of them.  I'm not a fan of the books because I generally don't care for fantasy nor allegory and these are allegorical fantasy.

The audio productions are a palatable way to enjoy them.  The kids are not tiring of them, though each book is a new adventure with as many sad and joyful moments as the one before it.  A constant cycle through Narnia.

We're now in the middle of The Last Battle, which is a dark story.  Much wickedness and deception and peril throughout.  But we know that Aslan will come through by the end.  Always a happy end awaiting. 

I've kept the first story of the series--The Magician's Nephew--for the last, because it was published last.  It's that same question of which order we should choose in watching the Star Wars movies. 

In this case, it wasn't a puritanism for the published order I most cared about.  I think I just didn't want the Narnia stories to end with The Last Battle, as though there would ever be a time when there weren't another story to begin.

PET Scan Results

(On Fridays, I am re-posting the core entries I wrote for the blog of our cancer journey.  I don't know if this is interesting for anyone else, but I am amazed and fascinated to re-read them.  I am cutting and pasting with no other edits, except as marked.)


25 June 09

My surgery is tomorrow.

The good news from yesterday is that the PET scan came back negative. That is, the cancer is not elsewhere in my body at a size bigger than 1/2 a centimeter. (It might be somewhere smaller than that, I suppose. . .)

It is "locally spread," meaning the tumor in my right breast, the lymph nodes in the right arm pit, and a few lymph nodes up under the collar bone that the surgeon will not be able to remove. [AP: This is what the surgeon himself told us after reading the PET scan.  Stay tuned next week to learn what happened to those lymph nodes.]

I am thankful for this. The reality of the surgery--a radical mastectomy, which means a big portion of my pectoral muscle too--is kind of hanging over my head and overshadowing the sense of relief I should be feeling. But it's OK for all of you to feel relieved.

The PET scan began with an injection of radioactive glucose. Many of you know that I have a bizarre allergy to refined sugar--even a little bit of it gives me the effects of severe food poisoning. About 6 hours after the injection, I had a "sugar reaction" and spent the entire night in the bathroom with vomitting and toilet problems. It is very hard to recover from a night like that under normal circumstances, but with the added stress of the surgery, today has been a very, very difficult day indeed.

I'll have to ask next time if they can use organic radioactive glucose.

I keep thinking of the part of Christ's passion where He prayed in the garden. Knowing what was coming ahead of Him. Not really wanting to go there. And yet He did, and He did it for love.

I feel like I'm tasting a small sip of that cup--there is so much sadness and grief in this. And yet I will do this for my children and for Bryan.

Romans 8 has also been a real comfort to me. It happens sometimes that you read a verse that you've read before many times only this time it shines in a different way. This is what has ministered to me:

"Those who live in the Spirit set their minds on things of the Spirit. Those who live in the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh."

I live in the Spirit. And what is true about the spiritual world is that my Redeemer lives, and He reigns, and He walks ahead of me in this. So, grief. . .yes. But there is comfort for those who mourn.

And His joy comes in the morning.

I Circle the World With One Breath

Last week's riddle and answer:

 I am protected by masked men
Yet stolen all the time
I am anchored on a diamond
And stepped upon by nine


Answer: Home plate

Amy B was first to guess "Baseball plate," but judges have ruled that the victory goes to Leslie who wrote in with the more specific "Home plate" answer.

Tough loss, Amy.  Better luck with this week's:




With one breath I circle
the world, and have arms
But no legs. In ages past
It was a charge that could harm.



What am I?

(On Fridays, I am re-posting the core of the blog I wrote during our cancer journey.  I am copying and pasting, with no edits unless I've marked them as such.)



25 June 09

My surgery is tomorrow.

The good news from yesterday is that the PET scan came back negative. That is, the cancer is not elsewhere in my body at a size bigger than 1/2 a centimeter. (It might be somewhere smaller than that, I suppose. . .)

It is "locally spread," meaning the tumor in my right breast, the lymph nodes in the right arm pit, and a few lymph nodes up under the collar bone that the surgeon will not be able to remove.

I am thankful for this. The reality of the surgery--a radical mastectomy, which means a big portion of my pectoral muscle too--is kind of hanging over my head and overshadowing the sense of relief I should be feeling. But it's OK for all of you to feel relieved.

The PET scan began with an injection of radioactive glucose. Many of you know that I have a bizarre allergy to refined sugar--even a little bit of it gives me the effects of severe food poisoning. About 6 hours after the injection, I had a "sugar reaction" and spent the entire night in the bathroom with vomitting and toilet problems. It is very hard to recover from a night like that under normal circumstances, but with the added stress of the surgery, today has been a very, very difficult day indeed.

I'll have to ask next time if they can use organic radioactive glucose.

I keep thinking of the part of Christ's passion where He prayed in the garden. Knowing what was coming ahead of Him. Not really wanting to go there. And yet He did, and He did it for love. I feel like I'm tasting a small sip of that cup--there is so much sadness and grief in this. And yet I will do this for my children and for Bryan.

Romans 8 has also been a real comfort to me. It happens sometimes that you read a verse that you've read before many times only this time it shines in a different way. This is what has ministered to me:

"Those who live in the Spirit set their minds on things of the Spirit. Those who live in the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh."

I live in the Spirit. And what is true about the spiritual world is that my Redeemer lives, and He reigns, and He walks ahead of me in this. So, grief. . .yes. But there is comfort for those who mourn. And His joy comes in the morning.

Sweeping

Blogspot has a stats tracker I can see behind the scenes, and I confess that it's a thrill to see that people are stopping here to read.

Why would I use the verb "confess"? Because it feels a little like vanity. . .

On the other hand, writing for an audience is a lot different than writing for one's own self. And it's thrilling to have an audience. So thanks for reading.

Some of you leave comments, which I am delighted to read. It's totally OK that most of you don't. But it's time to respond to the comments we've all been able to read.


RE: Speeding tickets, guilt and, in general, justice.

The consensus is that there are two kinds of people in this world--those who've been pulled over, and those who haven't.

Among those who have, there are two kinds of people--those who've been ticketed and those who haven't.

But MLQ cites some helpful nun-wisdom and suggests that among those who have not gotten a ticket, even among those never pulled over, there is none, no not one!, who has been innocent of speeding at all times always.

Thinking about this, and hearing a bit of MLQ's nun story got me to thinking about one of my own, which became yesterday's essay. 

See?  Your comments: bearing fruit.

I also enjoyed your own traffic-cop stories and am now thankful that I have one of my own.  Thank  you for sharing.



RE: Boxing List

Several great entries.  I've updated the list.

And I'm betting that a lot more of you find yourselves thinking about it in your day to day than actual comments would reveal.

Bryan, for instance, wanted to add one:  "Go to the mat over it" e.g. over whatever issue is important enough to you.  Well done, Bryan, who is actually reading this blog.

He didn't read along with the Big "C" and at the time, I didn't know why and chose not to dwell on why not.

I realize now that he didn't want to read about what he was living.  Fair enough.  Glad you're enjoying this one now, Baby Duck.


Submission #2 given to me in person comes from Betsy, who heard me speak of Roberts, our boxer friend, and how he lost his bout.

Her mind went to cancer--that somehow I was talking about a friend who'd died from cancer. 

So, we stumbled upon that reference kind of by accident.


Let's not forget that we can list movies, songs, TV shows that have to do with boxing as well.



RE: Roberts' progress in his tournament. 

He lost that Thursday night, but I was mid-prep for my trip to San Antonio, and am just now getting around to giving you the update I'd promised.

I was so bummed for him.  But he walks away proud that he fought an excellent fight, lost a close one to the #1 seed, and, in his words, "Fought (his) heart out." 

He's only 23!  I'm going to enjoy seeing what comes next for him. . .  And if anyone is looking for a fitness trainer in Chicagoland, you let me know.



RE: My friend's little son's little hand

Is doing just fine.

The story prompted a few friends to share their angel stories with me.  I love hearing them.  And they are never "glowing, winged person hovered above me" things.  They've been "From out of nowhere, there was a guy standing there" and he does something practical to get the person out of the potentially perilous situation. 

One day, on the other side, I'm going to have a lot of fun looking back to see what angels were where and when in my life that I didn't even recognize at the time.




RE: Riddles

Thanks for playing along!  Stay tuned every Thursday!



RE: Airplanes, in particular, my bumpy ride. . .

Helen comments, in part:

• WIMP! You almost needed to use the barf bag? HA! You should have been flying with me back in the fifties!

I simply want the blog record to reflect that I wrote my entire post without using the word "barf."


Thanks for reading, folks!  I am so enjoying myself on the blog and you are all a big part of that.

Snowball Fight

The talk about speeding tickets and guilt and authority has called to my mind  an episode from my 8th grade days at Visitation Catholic School.  It was winter.  When the gaggle of kids walking home south of York Rd headed out, a snowball fight ensued.

I intend  that passive-voice to say something right there.  No one starts a snowball fight.  Snowball fights start themselves. 

A snowball fight is not a game where captains pick teams.  It's a spontaneous combustion of the energy of youth that has been percolating in the pressure cooker of a Chicago-land-crazy-damp-too-cold-to-do-anything-outside-and-run-around-winter.

But then the sun shines all day and wets the snow into primo-packing powder and it's warm enough--finally!--to walk with your puffy winter parka unzipped and when you had walked into the school that early morning, the sun had only just risen, but now it's over 7 hours later and it is time for the lid to blow.

And, boy, does it blow.

I remember feeling sorry for all my friends who walk home to the north and all my rich friends who take a bus home to their rich neighborhood that they had all missed it.  30? 35? 40 kids (?) at least! 

No one got hurt. Everyone had fun.  4th graders all the way through 8th graders--just a marvelous, marvelous snowball fight!

I should have known that some nun would object.


That evening, I was at the girls volleyball game,  spectating.  Sister Thomas Leo called me over to where she sat at the end of the bleachers. 

She wanted names.  From me.  Who, from my class, had "thrown snow"? 

My heart was in my throat.  It always was when this woman spoke to me.  I call her "woman" now, because I'm 37.  But as a girl of 14, it did not occur to me that she was a woman.  Or even mortal. 

(This mortality is still somewhat in question.  She was so old back then, and she is still principal of this school 23 years later.)

She was "Sister,"--the teachers called her this, as in "Sister has asked us to remind you that you must wear hats, boots and gloves when outdoors" (Sister called this "Mandatory membership in her HBG Club") or "Sister will be coming in at 2:00 to speak with our class" and when she arrived at the door, we all stood to the sides of our chair-and-table-in-one desks and said, "Good afternoon, Sister Thomas Leo" which was the only time we ever said her whole name.

Who was this person?  She was a force.  Discussions with her never ended with my feeling good or confident about myself.  I only ever felt, vaguely, that I had somehow miss-spoken.    Whatever I'd said, it had probably been somewhat wrong. 

So there at the game, when she asked, "Miss Ferrone, which students were throwing snow?"  I thought, "Almost everyone" but I said, "Not me." 

This was true.  I hadn't thrown snow.  Because I knew that a by-law of Sister's HBG club was that students cannot throw snow when in school uniform.  Reflects poorly on Visitation.

 More than having the raucous kind of fun my peers were having in that snowball fight, more than wanting to laugh along not just as a spectator but as a participator, I wanted Sister to think that I was wonderful.  I hated the idea of some important authority like her, or any teacher, not thinking of me as one of the good girls. 

That afternoon, had I even been tempted to join in the fun--30 kids! at least!--no.  I admired them all as they went for it.  Maybe even took a hit or two myself in the commotion.  But I wasn't one of them enough to be one of them.

Not that I was mindful that afternoon that she had been watching.  But rule-keepers keep rules, regardless. 

Sister said, as we talked at the end of the bleachers, "I know you didn't throw snow."  That was it.  The end of the conversation. 

She didn't ask me, again, to inform.  And if she knew I hadn't thrown snow, then she must have known because she witnessed it, in which case, she'd have seen for herself that everyone else had been throwing snow.

"You may go sit down now," she said.  And I did.  Feeling as though I should have said something else. 

Maybe she knew I hadn't thrown snow because she knew I was a rule-keeper.

Maybe she knew about the snowball fight because the residents of that block, on whose lawns the fight had taken place, had called to complain.

The next day in school, Sister's voice came over the PA. 

Whenever she spoke to make her own announcement--which hardly ever happened--she did so without the slightest sense that she should be brief, or efficient with words. But this time, she called all students in the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades who walk home South of York road to report at that instant to the 8th grade Chemistry lab room. 

I reported there.  It was next door to my classroom.  And the other 7th and 8th graders who reported had a few moments to exchange glances and questions before Sister could complete the long walk down to our wing from where she'd just made her announcement in the school office.

What was this about? 

My friends were not at all worried.  Especially the boys.  Albert, Larry, John--all rolling their eyes.  Who cared what this was about?  Another stupid BS thing that they had been hearing about and getting into trouble over for 8 or 9 years.

Then Sister stepped in and those boys all stood a little straighter and seemed to care a bit more.  We were confused as to protocol.  To go from sitting to standing and to say your thing when Sister walks in is clear enough.  But what if you were already standing?

No matter, younger kids starting filing in, too.  The 4th and 5th graders looking quite worried, indeed.

I knew all along what this was about.  And Sister wasted now time filling the others in.  She didn't raise her voice--never did, come to think about it--and she didn't berate or use hurtful words.  She calmly informed us of what a disrespectful, embarrassing, poorly chosen, ill-conceived, undisciplined and shameful thing had happened the day before.

A snowball fight.  In school uniform. 

We would all answer a question right then, to her face, looking her in the eye.  "Did you throw snow?"  And she would believe whatever answer we gave her.  The "No's" were to leave the room after answering.  The "Yes's" were to remain.

She started at one end of her line-up of students and the answers came one by one, some, "No, Sister," and some, "Yes, Sister" but all of them somber. 

The "No's" left.  My 7th and 8th grade friends answered, one after another, "Yes, Sister," and seemed to do so without fear, probably without regret because whatever was coming would be worth what they'd enjoyed the day before. 

Then she got to me and knew already what the honest answer was.

And I said, "Yes, Sister."

Her eyes blinked at this, the only sign in her wrinkled, impassive countenance that she was not sure what to do.  Either I was lying then, or I'd been lying the night before.

Sister stared at me.  I stared back, terrified. She moved on. 

If Sister felt any commendation towards me for throwing my lot in with my peers, she never mentioned it. 

If Sister was disappointed that I'd lied to her face at least once over the matter, she never mentioned that, either.

Sister never told me that she thought I was wonderful.  Never made any remark to me that suggested I stood out to her in any way come graduation. 

I saw her years later, actually, when I found myself on the grounds of that church and I spoke to her in friendly tones and would have launched into how much I appreciated my school days at Visitation, except that she had no recollection of me whatsoever.  Understandable.   Plenty of kids have passed through those doors during her tenure. 


The punishment for being part of that snowball fight/claiming to have been part of it?

We were to draw a map that showed the school and our house and all the streets between and we were to draw a red line demonstrating the most direct route from the school to that house, a route that, of course, we were to follow every day, as expeditiously as possible, without throwing snow on the way.

We were to have a parent sign this map, which, she presumed, would prompt a discussion, "Why on earth did you have to draw this?" and our parents, therefore, would know about the snowball fight. 

Did any of our parents care?  Did anyone get into trouble at home over this?  I don't even remember what my own mother's reaction was, it must have been that slight. After all, and I haven't yet remarked upon this classically Catholic School theme of turning misdemeanors into small crimes, the offense we'd pleaded guilty to was throwing snow.

Finally, we were to write a 300 word essay on 'Why God Gave Us Snow.' 

Possibly the stupidest writing assignment I've ever been given, but what I wouldn't give to have the essay I wrote.