A Little Something To Think About Sunday Morning

And I've always loved Liv Ullmann.

Whistling While We Work To The Old Folks Boogie

Cleaning at Z's

I'm off to carry my lovely little French canister vacuum cleaner to Z's to do some sprucing up of her small room. We'll clean the last closet, and reorganize her desk beside her bed. Children with children of their own can't seem get to these personal tasks.

I'll be back later and will either collapse onto my bed and drift into a dreamless sleep or write something or come visiting at your place. I will not be bringing my French vacuum cleaner to your place, so don't ask.

Because Sarah Silverman Told Me To

Sarah Silverman is one of the tweeters I follow on twitter. She just said this is the most beautiful song ever. Well, I can't let something like that go uninvestigated. You be the judge

Stones

These are the stones throughout my garden and yard. Every one of them was moved and placed by me. This is how I gave myself sciatica that lasted a year. This is why any work that requires using my back now hurts. Take vacuuming for instance. Raking leaves too. But these stones are reminders that I was once very strong and very determined. Like these stones, I'll be here for a long time.

This Is My Clean and Peaceful Street Any Day of the Week

This fire hydrant is directly across the street from my house, much to the delight of my dogs.

A Quick Update

Dogs do talk in their way. There is a difference in their vocalizations. Happy is indeed different than a warning. And so much more. Yes, Darkblack is right. You heard it here.

Therapy was much needed and mostly spent sobbing, wailing, and cursing. It was cathartic. And the conclusions we came to about my reaction to what is happening to my friend is completely normal. I am neither manic nor depressed. I am sad, terrified and very very pissed off.

Z may be running out of options for treatment. She has refused chemo so far. When she first saw Dr. Ackerly after he'd seen her medical records, he told her she had a 30% chance for a good outcome with immediate and aggressive treatment. She didn't like him and was thinking over her options. Now the latest estimate is a 10% chance for a good outcome. I think she's going to take her chances with a course of radiation and then trust her own instincts. How do I feel about this? See paragraph 2.

Ms M is on vacation and Roscoe sleeps at the foot of my bed for a few days. He is a comfort.

New Use for That One Lone Sock

We all have at least one. You do the laundry and when you empty the dryer find that somewhere along the way you have ended up with one lone sock. In the past I used them as dust rags. I would apply the oil or Pledge to the oak surface of my bookcase and that one lone sock with my hand inside it would become a very useful tool for awhile. When it was too dirty to use again, it was too dirty to wash. And since I would, in the past, have tossed it, it's loss didn't matter much. Well socks have gone up in price over the past couple of years, as my income has shrunk. But I now have a new use for that one lone sock.

I have never had a dog before who had anything but disdain for squeak toys. If they showed any interest at all it was to rip them to shreds in 2 or 3 seconds flat always seeming to be going for some big-dog gland-slam hall-of-fame demolition in the name of distain. Every big dog I've ever had loved to defuzz a tennis ball and then tear the remaining ball into 5 or 6 pieces just as fast. They destroyed Kongs, they destroyed any toy claiming to be indestructible. Sadly these toys do not come with a guarantee since they are very expensive. But Marley loves her squeak toys. Yes, she too loves the act of killing her Mr. Doody, but it takes her a couple of days. But once killed and gutted or missing his brain, emptied of his squeaker, he's no longer any fun and I have a mess of toy stuffing to clean up. So I am always on the look out for very inexpensive squeak toys. Today I hit the mother load. The All A Dollar store was stocked. I brought five of them home and then before throwing out the old useless well mauled discards, stuffed the remains in that one lonely sock and now it's Marley's favorite squeak toy. Ask her which is better: the stolen knot of a rawhide bone that Cyrus wasn't guarding well, or that old squeak toy stuffed in a knotted sock.

Why I love Dogs

Dogs listen, but the don't talk back. Dogs pay close attention and learn quickly to attune themselves to you. Any kindness shown a dog will be returned a thousand fold. Dogs take pleasure in the simplest things and express their joy in every gesture. Dogs love unconditionally. I've never had a dog whose love I lost or forgot. My days and nights with dogs have been peaceful and a comfort, fun and a joy. Dogs may not talk but they sure can express themselves.

I live with three dogs. Roscoe is Ms M's dog, but I'm the person he spends most days with. I'm his babysitter, nanna, the bossy old woman who lets him in at 7 AM when Ms. M goes to work. He takes his place across the foot of the bed (he is careful not to bother my feet) and we all go back to sleep. I sleep best when Roscoe is at the foot of the bed. He's a weighty, muscular presence. He snores gently.

When Ms M first got Roscoe he was a puppy. In the first two years of his life she had to move five times. Always because of Roscoe. He chewed up and spat out every single thing she owned including her mattress and DVD remote control. He never stopped barking when left alone, greatly annoying anyone within a block of his loud and pained voice. He was an escape artist. When he started chewing on her round oak table she came to see me again. I said yes again, and she and Roscoe moved in. The only reason it worked was that Roscoe was not alone anymore. Roscoe had finally become a member of a pack. And then there's the big fenced yard. Roscoe had never had a big fenced yard. Here with us, Roscoe had Geeky, wise old dog, attuned to my habits, the limits of my temper, the precise amount of foolishness I would tolerate. Geeky knew the ropes. I've always known that cats and dogs are amazingly psychic little mind readers, attune to subtle shifts and waverings. Geeky was a very good judge of character and I trusted his hunches about strangers. So I turned Roscoe over to Geeky to train in the world of this little universe, this roomy forest. They patrolled the fences. They shit in the vinca, not on the lawn and far from either house or the gazebo. They didn't bark at women pushing strollers, but they did bark at the mailman, the UPS truck, the dog walker, walking a dog luckier than they. I can tell that bark. It is like no other. Envy is in it's tone.

When Geeky died, Roscoe was five years old. He took over all Geeky's old odd jobs. And every other animal who's been introduced to the friends and family of pets here since Geeky's death has been protected and warned, gently bullied into good sense, taught the ropes by the newly promoted leader of the pack.

Roscoe's bigger than Geeky was and his power, when giving a warning to a strange man, is hard to ignore. So, even though I know Roscoe will not attack a man who listens to me (and follows my instructions to ignore Roscoe, look at me, not Roscoe, don't reach out your hand or try to pet him) it isn't always possible for a man to know that I really mean what I'm saying and know what I'm talking about, and so they look back at the barking overlarge male yellow lab giving the strange man the skunk eye while barking now and then as we cross the backyard to the little house. And as long as the man doesn't recognize that I am the real leader of the pack, Roscoe will always give him shit. But if a man is willing to follow my instructions, Roscoe settles down pretty quickly. I feel safe with Roscoe and he feels safe with me.

Cyrus the Elder joined our pack almost two years ago. We're giving him the best hospice care love can buy. He's now exceeding lifespan. And the past seems to be leaving him. He grows more glossy and confident by the day. His is a sweet old soul. And all the dogs respect him. And anyone who comes to my door unexpected by me is alerted by first the sound of his loud authoritative bark and then the sight of him rising up and leaning forward. He weighs roughly 170 pounds. It is my voice he responds to; he takes his cues from me. He has the hip dysplasia and arthritis an old Rottie is prone to, but his presence as he rises is impressive. I watch the intensity of his discomfort and adjust his pain medication. Half the time I forget to lock the door at night. If the "Beware of Dogs" sign and the locked gate hasn't stopped an intruder Cyrus will. And if anyone's ever cased this joint they've seen Roscoe on the job.

I feel secure with dogs. I feel loved and appreciated by the dogs I live with. There gentle presence is a comfort to me even on the very worst of days.

Now we have little Marley who is the comedian in this group. She is going through the adolescent phase of checking the boundaries of ranking in this pack. This is her first experience of a pack, taken from her family young and kept for almost a year in a kennel, taught nothing, kept for future breeding. Now she has been spayed, and now she is learning what all our expectations are. First off we won't be dominated by a charming little clown. We will play, we will indulge up to a point. We all have our own set of expectations. But Marley's smart. She's learning English and body language very fast.

Death Is An Inconsiderate Lover

It all results in tears
One kind word, one instance of incompetence
That receptionist, anyones disappointment
Spoken, written, imagined, remembered
I can't make my friend
Do the things I think
Will save her life

I must not show my complete disappointment
I'm not sure I can live without her
Last night the tree removal guy called

Words make me cry, like the word deadline
The tree guys were an hour late today and I was
Screaming by the time they got here
Only one hour late for tradesmen
That's not bad, yet I feel responsible
I could not take her
Feed her what she what wanted
She wants so little in the larger scheme of things

She wants the food she wants from the store she wants
Is that so hard? The tree guys were only an hour late
They worked fast and efficiently without damaging my roof
Or fence and their competence makes me cry
My sense of guilt makes me cry.
Why must I always be guilty?
Never quite good enough. Is it like my mother said?

I offered them fresh cold watermelon cut in bite sized pieces
Cold cokes and water and their thirst made me cry
In seconds the watermelon was gone and I feel so sorry
That they don't get better treatment from women like me
And why do I assume that?

This is disappointment mixed with a dash of terror
It should be me. I'd decline all but hospice care
Not because of cost or debt or obligation or estate
Is it because I've chased you death like a needy lover?
So now you strike my innocent friend. Is that how we play
This final game of longing and regret? Does it all end in disappointment?

Now This is A' Cappella

Thanks for sending this to me Scott. The first few seconds and tears start flowing. The opening is is a very moving sound. It makes me feel human again.

I'm starting to unravel. But I have an emergency therapy appointment tomorrow morning with my very generous therapist Fred who has given me his cell phone number in case I really need to talk and there is no one who can understand this pain, this fear, this rage. Thank you Fred.

Thanks to all of you who have looked in on me and left a kind word.

Anita, I'm sorry I disappointed you. You may have thought I was actually a better person than I am. I wish I had lived up to your expectation of me. But I'm just one very imperfect and frightened old woman. Please forgive me.

The Time of Illness

I had two days off. No schedule for radiation, but
The tests for clotting factor went on as usual
Without me. I rested like a long distance runner
My drug fueled system humming along as if I ran
On chemicals alone. Did you know that Warfarin is
Rat poison? This is proof to Z that all medicine is poison
To me it means that someone found a really good use for
Rat poison. I take twice as much Warfarin as Z to keep me
From blowing a gasket, to keep my heart humming along
Like a clock that runs a bit too fast, but steady as she goes.
The bruises that cover my arms and legs don't bother me at all.

Z hemorrhaged again last night but refused to go to the hospital.
She determines that she just needs to cut back on the Warfarin
I ask her why and she says, "What can they do? All they can do is
Give me a transfusion." I wonder why that is such a bad idea. I want
Oxygen. I want oxygen rich blood. I think they might give her Oxygen
But keep my mouth shut. I took her fresh peach cobbler hot from the oven
Vanilla ice cream. She eats it as if she were a starving child and I choke back
The truth that the peaches were purchased at the grocery store and were only
99 cents a pound. I make up a perfectly plausible story about my neighbors friend
Drew who grows peaches in Southern Utah for peach brandy. He always has too many
Brings a bushel basket for the neighbor who passes plenty to me for fresh peach cobbler
Thankfully she doesn't ask about the ice cream. It is Bryer's All Natural, Natural vanilla
She eats it like a starving child. I took certified organic red potato soup, organic milk,
Watermelon cut into bite sized pieces and chilled. I know from having spent a lot of time
With Z that she does not get enough fluids to stay well hydrated. I liked the idea that when
She was in the hospital they pumped fluids into her veins. She says it made her swell. Well,
Yes, when the tissue is hydrated it plumps with pulsing life.

I'm a woman who takes a handful of pills every morning with her first mug of latte.
I don't do a lot of research on the drugs I take or study inserts for dire
Side effects.
Life has some nasty side effects. Life can kill you.
Don't we start dying from the moment we're born?
I took so many risks, still do, daring death to take me
Like a lover, who sees an opportunity when I sleep
I should be so lucky

So, the schedule is set for this week. Radiation every day
Clotting factor and food are on Z's agenda and mine
If all her radiation treatments are in the afternoon
I can take her, park the car and wait with a book
Patiently. I hope I live up to her expectations
I hope I don't disappoint her. Today it was peach
Cobbler and vanilla ice cream, tomorrow begins
The hard part, now that the tumor is bleeding
She's no longer just getting rid of the blood clots
In her lungs. Now the tumor is bleeding. Isn't that
A bad thing? I try not to show my extreme distress
I come home and take a handful of pills with my
Evening cup of Earl Grey Tea and smoke half a dozen
cigarettes. I resolve to keep on doing what I'm doing
As if it will protect me from her loss. What are the odds?

The Morning After the Party

Cyrus and Marly have a little conversation under the picnic table. Everything is cleaned and cleared and we survived the Fourth of July. Oh the joy of a peaceful Sunday in the back yard.




Marley tackles her boyfriend Segundo. She likes rough sex. Humm. Wonder how it is I end up with a little dog who plays rough with the boyfriend? She chases him, throws him down and has her way with him. Atta girl Marley.
My friend T who lives three houses away brings her Chihuahua, Seggie over to play with Marley and then he goes home and sleeps it off. Not Marley, she goes off to dog park with Ms M and Roscoe.

Oh to be a dog and live with me.

Party Prep

Ms M is having a Fourth of July party. I like this part of the party plans. The yard is picked up, the yard furniture arranged, the dogs snoozing in the late afternoon sun or investigating a spider. It's peaceful and pretty. I like the quiet before the fireworks or the crowds of festive drinkers. Cyrus needs to go out one last time before I give him his tranquilizer. The loud noises distress him terribly.

I will post a Do Not Disturb sign on my door and watch the Margaret Cho comedy special I taped on Showtime. That's what independence day means to me. Let the party begin!

Jazz on Saturday

Atmospherics

Atmospheric pressure is the force per unit area that is applied perpendicularly to a surface by the surrounding gas.


Yesterday when I was getting dressed to go get Z for her first radiation treatment we had a downpour. It was the kind of thunderstorm with great crashing thunder that pours buckets of cold rain. It rained so hard when I walked to the car my sleeveless top and khaki skirt got soaked and I was wading in ankle deep water. As I went through the gate I realized that the basement was probably flooding just then.

Every intersection on the way to Z's neighborhood was a lake, and oncoming cars didn't slow down enough to keep from creating a wave of spray. I remember once in my distant past going through an intersection in a sports car and then hitting the breaks to slow for a car in front of me and my breaks didn't grab. I know wet roads are slick. Now standing water in an intersection makes me remember that experience and adds a bit of terror to my ride to pick up Z. As if there were not terror enough in this day. Yet oddly when I get a few blocks from her house the rain stops and there is no standing water in the intersections.

I left home early since it was the deluge. So, despite the heavy rain most of the way, I arrive at her house early. She's not thrilled that I'm there before she's dressed. And it is in the couple of moments of watching her slip into her pants and don her long sleeved T shirt that I notice how terribly thin she really is. She has always worn oversized clothes. Part of that is the length of her incredible legs--it's hard to find pants that fit her hips that are long enough. But most of it is body dysmorphia. Oh she knows she's thin, she's just never been quite comfortable with her body.

I'm apologetic about arriving early. It hasn't rained hard at her house, so she cannot fathom what I mean when I speak of the deluge downtown. Her house is just outside Salt Lake County. It's possible to drive through quickly moving storms and have them stay just over head, so as we head back to town and it starts pouring again, it's as if the storm has found its home and is staying put. But now we are on the upper East bench of Salt Lake heading toward the U of Utah where Huntsman Cancer Institute is located on the side of a small mountain. This rain is running in little streams toward my house down below. Again I think about my basement and my ears pop.

Atmospherics: effects intended to create a particular atmosphere or mood.

She wants me to wait in the little circle where patients are dropped off and picked up, but we're fifteen minutes early for her appointment. I'm jonesing for a cigarette and think its a bad idea to sit in my mommy mobile smoking a cigarette while the cancer patient's family members are waiting for their loved ones to come out after radiation or chemo. So I drive down the hill to the University Hospital and pull in the lower level of the parking lot. It's huge so I can find an uninhabited corner to park in for a couple of stolen moments. I stand outside my old Dodge Caravan watching scrub jays shit from the rafters where it splats on the concrete ramp below. I watch like a criminal afraid of getting caught. I hear children's voices and drop my cigarette and stamp it out. Half a cigarette and my nicotine level is now high enough that I can drive back to Huntsman and park in their lot. Once inside radiation is one level up.

Huntsman is a gorgeous facility. No expense has been spared on its marble floors, it's three soaring stories of pale blue glass so every interior space has a stunning view of the Salt Lake Valley. On a clear day you can see Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake and the Ocher Mountains behind the lake. But today, not so much. It's a steady rain up here. And every drop is headed for my basement which has no drain and a furnace with it's essential parts about half an inch above the damp concrete. Even with the furnace turned off for the summer if that control panel gets wet it has to be replaced. Once the washing machine overflowed it's drain and killed the furnace below. It cost several hundred dollars to replace the control panel.

I am the only person in the huge and luxurious waiting room in radiation. I walk to the reception desk and ask the attractive, middle aged brunette with an unidentifiable accent to please let Z know I'm waiting in the waiting room and not in my car out front. She smiles and says "Off Corze" and disappears for a couple of minutes. When she comes back I'm seated across the room in one of the tasteful chairs, thumbing through a Harper's Bazaar. She smiles at me when we make eye contact, so I figure all's well. An hour goes by. Z was scheduled for a half hour of radiation. And then another woman joins the brunette and they start closing the security gate at the reception desk. This alarms me. I put down the Harper's Bazaar and walk across the big open room. When I get to the desk, I say, "Is my friend Z still back there?" She says, "Yez, Zer ah schtill zeveral Pashunz boc dair," with a reassuring smile on her face. Somehow this does not feel right. I turn around to scan the rotunda and see Z leaning against the marble terrarium. I cannot see her face but it is impossible to miss that lean, old dancer's body and long light brown hair. Oh christ! I rush over apologizing. She is scowling ferociously and says, "What happened to you! I thought you were in a car wreck." I begin my explanation, and she waves my words away in a dismissive gesture with her arm. I keep trying to explain and then realize that nothing I can say will change the fact that she's been waiting where she said she'd be and I was not there. I hate myself.

When I start the car in the parking garage my windshield wipers are swiping like crazy on dry glass making an annoying scraping sound. She says in her newly breathy high pitched voice "For god's sake, shut those damn things off!" And I feel just like a stupid and irresponsible teenager. I have a moment's empathy for her youngest son. It only lasts a second. And then the rain is pouring and I have to turn the windshield wiper on again.

How Sane Do You Think I Am Twittascope?

My Twittascope: Gemini
Things slowly begin to come back into focus today, but it may take another day or two before you fully return to earth. But as the volume is lowered, you are tempted to turn it back up. When that doesn't work, a wave of fear or even desperation could provoke you to express feelings that might be better kept to yourself. There's no need to shock someone with your unconventional desires just so you can experience another adrenaline rush. Thursday, July 2, 2009

Jesus twittascope I'm a gemini, born in the year of the monkey. Cap that off with the fact that I'm bipolar and you have six of me living in here. What do you expect, balance? Get a grip! This is real life! I move from disaster to disaster throughout the day. So really, is this a reasonable request? I was raised to shock. Why do you think my mother taught me to smoke and mix cocktails at five years old? Snap out of it will you?

To Whom It May Concern

If I have made radiation treatments seem terrifying to any of you I am sorry. I have been telling you about my friend's discovery that she has cancer and her reactions to the reality that she cannot treat this with "alternative modalities." She is a life long proponent and practitioner of naturopathy and homeopathy and Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture and magic water, and I have grown impatient, afraid, furious, and terrified that she would not act soon enough to avert her own premature death. It took coughing up a lot of blood to get her in the hospital. It frightened her youngest son who was the one to call the ambulance. My fear has never been that the medical professionals at Huntsman Cancer Institute would be unable to treat her cancer, but my fear was that she would fight them so hard that there would be no radiation, no chemo, no time to save her life. I did not doubt for a second that she could be saved. I feared she would refuse to be saved or wait too long. I feared she had more "faith" in the "alternative modalities" and no faith at all in western medicine. She has hated all but one of the doctor's she's seen so far. The only doctor she's liked was the doctor from India who treated her at St Marks Hospital where they took her when her lungs started hemorrhaging. I am grateful to that one doctor for earning her trust, for making her entertain the notion that western medicine might just work. It is not western medicine, nor radiation or chemotherapy that scares me. It is my friend's belief in "alternative modalities" and her revulsion toward western medicine that scares me. It is like "faith healing" at the expense of medical care, this acceptance of one approach at the expense of the more traditional that scares me. I have no faith "alternative modalities". I believe in science. I am sitting here typing because of science. I'm taking bipolar drugs, drugs to treat my heart arrhythmia, blood thinners to keep me from having to face the future that claimed every member of my mother's family--the slow crawl toward dementia and a nursing home. There is no one to take care of me. And with any luck there will be no need.

My therapist called me while I was gone this afternoon. I need help. I know that. I am on shaky ground, but I keep doing the things that keep me semi-sane. I have not skipped my meds yet. I'm not the one with cancer, but the one with cancer's reaction to her treatment is cause for worry for me. And worry isn't going away real soon. I'm venting on the blog. I've been a recluse for years and now I'm going out every day on one errand or another. It's probably good for me, but I'm hating driving in traffic and having to be nice where ever I go. However the biting my tongue is starting to take its toll on my personality. And apparently my running blog about this situation is starting to piss people off. Let me make this clear. This is me writing about the things that I care about or that interest or concern me. So in that sense, it is all about me. I'm sorry if that's offensive. I am many things, but saintly I am not! I can be a right vicious asshole as we all know. Ask Cal.

Email From An Old Friend

Peggy

I know that with all the caring you already are giving in so many ways to Z the following may not be worth much to you. But I offer it anyway.

I remember the terror I felt, inside, when I first saw this huge machine that would soon be bombarding my body with killer radiation beams. It made a most unwelcome whirring sound as it rotated and zeroed in on the little red targets that had been painted on both sides of my throat.

It bothered (and frightened) me even more when I had to return years later for another bout with the
"terror rays."

I then read in some periodical that an individual should make make friends with the killer machine that can also heal. So I did. I went in to the room before a treatment and just sat on the bench that places you inside the maws of the monster. And I communicated with it.

Following treatments because easier as I let my mind wander n healing ways.

It worked for me.

Scott

Miles Davis, Blue in Green