Calin and Ian Are Moving to New Zealand FAQ

Q: When are you leaving?
A: Well now, this is an excellent question. Our tickets say April 15^th. We don’t have our visas yet, but we’re confident we’ll get them in time. Or not. Regardless, we will sleep somewhere other than 3902 Wallingford that night. Even if it’s somewhere else in Seattle. Moving on.

Q: Provided the visa thing works out, where will you be?
A: We’ll be living in Wellington, the capitol city, population 160,000 (420,000 in the region). Wellington is at the southern tip of North Island, and seems to have pretty much the same weather as Seattle, although windier. We’ve heard that, with the combination of Antarctic winds and the local hills, it frequently seems as though the rain is falling up. Calin likes to wear skirts. She may learn not to.

Q: Tell me more about the sheep thing. Are there really that many?
A: For a little perspective, the entire human population of New Zealand is 4,000,000. The entire sheep population is 60,000,000. That’s not a typo. That’s a lot of sheep.

Q: How about Lord of the Rings? How will that mega-blockbuster be affecting your lives?
A: Well, we will be living in a Hobbit Hole.

Q: Okay, so what are you going to be doing there, anyway?
A1: Ian is going to be working as a fish population modeler for NIWA, which, sexy as it sounds, doesn’t actually involve him wearing different outfits and sashaying around on runways. Rather, he’s most likely to be sitting in front of a computer writing statistical programs.
A2: Calin is looking forward to a new career as a kept woman.
A3: Spackle is going to live with Grammy and Grumpy (aka Liz and Marsh), where he will be spoiled rotten and (we hope) won’t notice we’re gone. We’re trying not to think about it too much.

Q: What’s the time difference?
A: Only three hours, although it’s really 21 hours. New Zealand is virtually the first place in the world to experience each new day (there might be a small island nation that insisted on fudging the date line for Y2K), so you can pretty much assume that if you’re calling us from the US, it’s tomorrow where we are. And it’s three hours earlier.

Q: Can we come visit you?
A: Of course! We’re planning to have a couple extra bedrooms to facilitate overlaps. We expect to be that popular.

Q: Uh, how long can I expect to be in a plane for the privilege?
A: 13 hours from San Francisco to Auckland, and another one hour flight to Wellington. It’ll be 20 or 21 hours for us all told. Don’t think about it.

Counting Down

Three weeks from two days ago we get on a plane (or rather the first of a series of three planes) and fly off to Wellington. Preparing for a major move like this involves a strange combination of limbo and rush, kind of like planning our wedding did (although most of the details don’t overlap, except for changing information on certain things like bank accounts and the house title . . . although, come to think of it, I didn’t, in fact, change anything about the house title when we got married, which is why I just filed a quit claim deeding Ian’s share of the house to him last week, after 5 ½ years of marriage. Well, I wanted to make sure it would stick).

I’ve spent the last two weekends away, visiting friends and relatives, which has necessarily ramped up my activity level when I’m at home, and has helped me start to feel disjointed. For example, I wonder “what’s the point in unpacking my bags and putting away all my clothes again?” And yet, in the next three weeks we’re holding a garage sale and hosting a going away party and potentially having out of town guests for a night or two (A&E in SF, are you reading this???), so in other words we’re actively living in our house still, so it can’t all go to shit yet. But there nevertheless seems to be some futility in putting things away in a chest of drawers that, 2.714 weeks from now, will be stored in someone’s basement anyway.

A while back I made a list of things I wanted to do and people I wanted to see before taking off, and I’ve crossed off all the people (by seeing them, not by deciding not to see them), but I can’t even remember what was on the list of things to do. I don’t feel like I’m missing out, though—it seems I just do a pretty good job of enjoying my life while I’m living it. I try not to focus too much on leaving the dog behind—he’ll be happier with Mom and Marsh than he would be for 20 hours of transit and a month in quarantine, and a kennel whenever we travel, etc etc . . . but it’s sad. He’s a very sweet dog.

The necessary details are marching along. We’ve rented the house, we’ve sold our cars, we’ve hired the movers and scheduled them to deliver a couple major pieces around the city. I typically don’t care that much for spring—it doesn’t grab my soul the way fall and winter and summer do—but I did notice the other day that I was starting to seriously look forward to asparagus and fava beans . . . and the thought of another 7 or 8 months of squash and sweet potatoes made me sigh. But the adventure, the opportunity for a different global perspective, those I’m excited for.

Now we just need our visas to come through soon . . .

No Thank You

Last Monday, the day before I had my port removed, I completed my second to last appointment for all things cancer related. I had my meeting with the radiation oncologist, which I appreciated very much indeed. I spent some time with a resident at first, and then with the doctor herself, and both were willing to answer all my questions. The doctor in particular was convinced that radiation therapy would increase my long-term chances of remaining cancer-free. She works closely with my surgeon and my regular oncologist, and I think the three of them make a fine team, and will help numerous other people whose challenge is breast cancer.

She didn’t pull punches in trying to convince me, letting me know that possible side effects include reduced bone density in the ribs under the radiation site (which could lead to easy fractures if I, say, ever fell off a horse) and ulcerated skin at the site which might ultimately need to be healed with a skin graft. These, of course, are unlikely outcomes.

But in the game of probabilities, are these side effects any more or less likely than the possibility that some cells escaped surgery and the naturopathic remedies I was using, and are ominously at large in my body?

The doctor apologized for not having a study that really spoke to my (agreedly unusual) situation; I explained that my husband is a statistician, and I therefore know pretty well that statistics say nothing whatsoever about individual cases, so I wasn’t likely to be swayed by numbers anyway. I’m not sure if that helped or not.

The upshot was, though, that the entire two hours I felt like I was at a documentary screening or something equally unrelated to my specific life. Informative, but in a vaguely distant way. The thought of the possible side-effects didn’t make me afraid; the thought of what might happen if I didn’t do six weeks, everyday treatments didn’t make me afraid. At this stage in how I feel about my health and my life, the entire scenario simply did not apply.

The Last Step

Two days ago I got my port removed, rather than cause the shit storm that teaching Ian to access it would’ve engendered. It’s great—I feel, now, completely free. In fact, for the last couple days, I’ve felt huge buffeting waves of energy flowing into me and knocking me around. I should clarify—this is definitely spiritual energy, not physical energy. The procedure was relatively short and minor, and took place with only local anesthetic and sedation (something like Valium but with even stronger amnesiac effects—don’t ask me what I did Tuesday afternoon but I’m pretty certain it didn’t include signing any legal documents), but the physical after effects have, nevertheless, included many naps and a lot of richly dream-filled sleep. No, the waves of energy? electricity? come when I’m lying in bed, or on the couch, and something hits me and I feel like I’m suspended, washed this way and that, on a warm, wild sea of possibility. It’s exhilarating, this life.

Say That Again?

Last Thursday Ian and I went to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance for my post-surgical check-up with the oncologist. As I’ve chosen, this go-around, to behave non-traditionally in terms of my care, it wasn’t clear that this appointment was going to be much more than jumping through a hoop, particularly because of my current oncologist situation.

If you’ll remember, my previous oncologist, the one that I had for about 7 years, from June 1999 through the end of May 2006 (okay, that really is exactly 7 years), left Seattle at the end of my maintenance treatments for the infinitely warmer and dryer climes of Tucson, Arizona. My new oncologist, whom I met for the first time in October, right about the time I started having panic attacks, went on maternity leave virtually as soon as she delivered my new diagnosis. She seemed very nice, and more or less willing to not argue with me about seeing a naturopath (she even referred to herself as an allopath, which is a term I’d only seen applied when referring to “the other”) . . . but I can’t say we had time to develop much of a relationship. She’s still on leave (until a week before we take off for New Zealand so I probably won’t see her again), so the oncologist who saw me for my check-up was almost completely unknown to me.

He came in briskly, a man of a type I’m particularly familiar with, in his sixties, looking much like Marsh and much like Ian’s dad, not too tall, with a gray and white beard and a fringe of matching hair. He looked like the kind of doctor who expected his word—however kindly delivered—to be law, and who went home comfortably at the end of the day to his suede-elbow-patched tweed jacket, fireplace, and pipe.

“Why do you have such an enormous file?” he asked, plunking two thick binders on the desk in the examination room.

“Oh, this wasn’t the first time for me,” I said casually. “It’s been several years.”

“Have we met before?”

“Only briefly, for about five minutes last fall. I had a waiting room full of friends in town for another friend’s wedding, and we were late for lunch.”

“Ah, yes. Well, let me take a minute here to catch up . . .”

He proceeded to pull up my recent files on the computer, and Ian and I read over his shoulder as much as we could. It seems that lots has been written about me, which I find warmly comforting. My surgeon’s report in particular was pleasing: “Calin is 34 years old,” it began. “She is delightful.”

After a few minutes of scanning, the doctor was evidently able to come to the conclusion (which was correct) that I had not yet met with a radiation oncologist, even though it had been recommended that I do, and he proceeded to inform me that that was, pretty much, unacceptable.

“I am not asking you to make a choice for radiation,” he said, as I tried uselessly to defend myself. “I’m asking you to make a choice for information. I wouldn’t call you crazy to not meet with a radiation oncologist . . .” he said, leaving us to understand that, in fact, he would.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll meet with one. You’re right, information is a good thing to have.”

“Excellent. It also says here that your doctor recommended you go back on Herceptin and Zoladex and Letrozole?”

“Yes, she did. And I have chosen not to.”

“What are you doing instead?”

“I’m seeing a naturopath who specializes in homeopathic remedies and herbal cancer treatments.”

“And how do you feel?” he asked.

“I feel great,” I said. “My blood counts, all of them, have normalized since I’ve been seeing him.” I paused. “I feel powerful.”

“Alright.” He paused. “Well then . . . what can we do for you?”

I had a list ready. “I do have three requests. One, I’d like a copy of my mammogram to send to New Zealand with our visa application. Two, I’m supposed to include a specialist report with every medical issue that’s out of the ordinary, and this qualifies. Three, I’d like to get my port out.”

“The mammogram is easy . . .” he said, turning to the computer and hitting print, “although I have no idea where that will print. Why do you want to get your port out? Is it hurting you?”

“No. If necessary, could I get it back in?”

“Yes. But if it’s not bothering you, why get it out?”

“Because the every-four-weeks flushing is getting to be increasingly inconvenient.”

“Ah. Well,” he said, looking at Ian, “your husband seems to be a reasonably competent individual. We could teach him how to do it so you wouldn’t have to come to a clinic.”

“Huh! Well, that’s interesting,” I said non-committally, but he continued.

“It would cause a bit of a shit-storm,” he said, “but not more of a shit-storm than the rest of the choices you’re making.”

Our mouths gaped, shocked, and then we burst out laughing. Suddenly, I liked the man a lot more, and he became a bit less of a hoop I was merely jumping through.

“I do so appreciate you suggesting this option, I really do,” I said. “Nevertheless . . .”

“You’d like to get it out to put some end to this whole episode.”

“Yes, I would.”

“Okay, you got it.”

He retrieved the mammogram report, reminding me to note that the right breast, the one with the problem, was no longer anywhere on my person. He suggested that we wait and see what, if anything, New Zealand immigration wanted from an oncologist (“If they just want to know if you can tie your shoes, well, I can confidently say that you can, no matter how strange those shoes might be [I was wearing my “rabbit” lace-up boots]”). Then he wrote out the referral to the radiation oncologist and the orders to get my port removed, and sent us on our way.

Go, FBI!

In a totally unexpected attack of expediency, the FBI returned our fingerprint cards (required for our visa applications) yesterday, a mere 10 days, or only 6 business days from when I sent them in! It probably helps that neither of us has any criminal record, but nevertheless, this was 2 weeks faster than I’d requested, and 8 ½ weeks faster than they said they could get them done! Ah, the government. Likes to keep us guessing.

I guess.

Proof of Adjustment

I went to the spa today, to sweat out toxins from surgery and the filthy, filthy air we Seattleites have been living with for the last week or so (a downside to the gorgeous, heavy-frost pink and gold dawns we’ve been having, and the windless sunny days, is the pressure inversion that’s keeping all our copious exhaust here on the ground where we can really get to know it), and I have to say, it was a bit strange to see all these women with two boobs each. I have yet to see anyone with a mastectomy at the spa, so I’m not sure why I was surprised to not see anyone else today, but there you have it. I made it a point to not stare at women who might be in a position to look at me, so that they would be comfortable checking out my scar if they wanted to.

I’m definitely feeling the effects of my surgery physically. I want to go rock climbing, but can’t stretch that easily over my head yet. I’ve stayed off the treadmill for the last three weeks to not put any undue stress on my lymph system, and to not sweat until my scar was healed over completely, but I think I’m going to give it a go tomorrow. I’ve unconsciously started using my left hand and arm more for lifting, so I’m bulking up on that side and atrophying on the other side, and in general I’m a bit soft—like I’ve spent the last three weeks recovering from surgery or something. I can even feel the slightly different weight of the left side of my chest (con-boob) compared to the right side of my chest (sans-boob). My sacrum and hips keep bumping out of alignment and sending twinges all up the right side of my back and over the top of my head, but in another couple weeks I’ll be able to wear the prosthesis regularly, which should help balance things out a bit.

It looks like my adjustment to the new me is psychological rather than physical at this point—but the mind’s generally the bigger battle, so I’m doing fine.

Thought for the Day. No, for Life.

From Marianne Williamson (oft credited to Nelson Mandela, who used it in his inauguration speech):

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Read "God" as the Universe if you wish. Embrace your power. Shine.

The Long Winter

Ian and I are moving to New Zealand for a time. He’s accepted a job counting fish for an organization there, and I’m going to go and see what a dilettante can find to do when her husband, who’s been a student as long as she’s known him (minus 48 hours or so), suddenly becomes gainfully employed. I’m looking forward to it very much.

We’ll be living in Wellington, the capital city. The weather will be much like Seattle, although not quite so extreme (cooler in the summer, less bone-chilling in the winter, although pretty much just as damp year round). The latitude is more or less equivalent (although opposite) to Eureka, CA, but the proximity of Antarctica will keep us from getting too hot or, indeed, bored from lack of wind. The wind is significant enough that pilots have to have a special endorsement to land at the airport there. Yay.

In a stroke of genius on our part, we’ve managed to be friends with a brilliant person who’s living in Wellington right now, and blogging about it with great flair. We’re looking forward to making her show us around town in April when we arrive.

Yes, that’s right, we’re leaving Seattle on 15 April.

There are three challenges to this date, so, so soon, so rapidly approaching.

Challenge one is the Visa application process. The lovely and brilliant Chiara filled out the one-page on-line Working Holiday visa, and was accepted within two days. We, on the other hand, are filling out the standard 32-page work visa form. We each have to apply, even though I have no intention of working in any traditional sense. And, in fact, I could theoretically be denied a visa. Sixteen of the 32 pages are an exhaustive medical examination and report, and mine says I’ve had cancer. Recently. New Zealand, having socialized medicine, isn’t interested in new residents who are likely to put a huge burden on the medical system. It is also, naturally, not interested in people with TB, or HIV, or Hepatitis B, or syphilis, or people who need dialysis. We understand this. In a country of only four million people (and 60 million sheep), two more can have a significant effect. Fortunately, 98% of my medical form shows me to be the extravagantly healthy person I am, and since I will be, from now on, cancer-free, we’re not worried. And so we’re boldly forging ahead with our other two challenges (we’re not even giving a moment’s consideration to the possibility that our FBI records—yes, that’s right, we’ve been fingerprinted and everything—are anything but clean).

Challenge two is finishing a doctoral dissertation, which lies primarily with Ian, with encouragement and minor editing from me, as well as a willingness to take on Ian’s habitual household tasks.

Challenge three is cleansing our house of a combined 66 years’ worth of accumulated craps (both our parents have already bequeathed our childhood projects and stained math club T-shirts to our own long-term storage in our own basement). I’ve taken on this job, and have been surprised at how much I’ve wanted to cull. We were watching an episode of Seinfeld the other night and Jerry said something about people keeping books they’ve read, for example. “Why do you keep them?” he asked. “They’re like trophies. ‘Look what I’ve done!’” Bingo, I thought sheepishly. More evidence of how Seinfeld mirrors life. So, books, many many many of you, gone. The 26 matching glasses we bought at Goodwill for our New Year’s 2005 party, as well as the various unmatching glasses left over from years of collecting glassware? Gone. Any cooking apparatus with Teflon or an off-brand non-stick coating? Gone. Strange knick-knacks given to us by people who don’t know us quite well enough? Gone. Piles and piles of clothing that either 1) works best with two boobs or 2) I won’t want when we finally get summer again, 18 months after the last time? Gone.

Yes folks, that’s right. Since we’re moving to the southern hemisphere in April, in early, early spring, we’re going to miss the glorious Northwest summer. And we’re missing the evidently not too shabby Wellington summer right now. And we won’t actually get a summer until one year from now. Sigh. Although Ian’s right; I don’t like spring all that much, and I do like fall, so I’ll be trading one for the other pretty neatly. And, being that Ian’s job is not in the US, he’ll be getting about five weeks of vacation per year. And Fiji is very, very close.

Accessory Boobs

I went to Nordstrom for my boob fittings yesterday, and it was a pretty enjoyable experience, actually. Mom came too, and took me out to lunch afterward at the Nordstrom café. The first bra I was given to try on for size (34 B, for those interested in such things) was the classic granny bra, also the classic mastectomy bra. Enough said. But I gamely let the fitter put it on me, and indeed it seemed to age my upper torso by about 50 years. One nice thing about getting prostheses and mastectomy bras at Nordstrom is that they have an excellent alterations department, though, and “pocketing” is free on any bra in the store—meaning they’ll stitch in a pocket for my accessory boob (which keeps it from migrating my toward my throat throughout the day). So the fitter, about my age, looked at me and said, “Um. I’ll be back.”

When she returned, she had several bras that looked like something a 30-something would be comfortable wearing, as well as an awesome halter top bikini. I ultimately decided on something very similar to the bras I’ve worn before, two black and two beige, then I tried on the swim top.

I was suddenly very, very happy about the smallness of my remaining boob. For one thing, it’s not all that noticeable when I don’t stuff the right side of my bra (N.B.—I do recognize that it’s winter here, and I spend most of my time in thick sweaters and down jackets or vests. The one boob thing might be a tad more obvious in the summer . . . which is actually a good thing about our upcoming plans . . . more on those soon . . .). For another, my body isn’t totally out of balance (one of the reasons for wearing a prosthesis is to keep the body balanced—over time, even a small boob can cause muscle shortening and structural problems). For a third, my boobs are the size that fit entirely within the fabric part of the halter top—both my real boob, and my accessory boob.

I tried on the bottoms, too, a low-cut bikini with metal loops on the sides, but it was cold yesterday and I was wearing black long underwear under my skirt so I just took off the skirt and tried on the bikini over my long underwear. I had taken off my boots, too, but had orange knee-high socks with pink and blue polka dots on, pulled up over my long underwear. Hands on my hips, I looked like a superhero, but one or two clicks off from the paradigm. More like a sortahero.

I’d been referring to my upcoming prosthesis appointment as my trip to get press-on boobs; it turns out they do, in fact, make them. They’re very sticky, and have these strange bumps on them, like magnified gecko feet (or so I imagine, never having seen a gecko foot, although geckos stick pretty well to things). You have to wash them every night, though, and that is absolutely not something I can see myself doing. I don’t wear my contacts mostly because I have to clean them when I do wear them.

Anyway, it’s a bit soon to wear my real accessory boob (more healing is necessary), but I do have a lighter-weight foam one to play with in the meantime, which is also good for exercising because it doesn’t get so slippery as the silicone.

In all, a good day.

Path Report

Clean margins all around, although the one between the tumor and my chest wall was a very, very narrow 1 mm. Still, it was clean, and the narrowness was more due to the “geometry” of my small breast, as the surgeon put it, than anything bad about the cancer. So I’m continuing my non-invasive naturopathic/energetic/Neurolinkic protocols, my healthy eating, and starting my stretching program to get my flexibility back. It looks really cool—I’ll post a (tasteful) picture once the rest of the purple Sharpie has washed off.

The Worst Part

*NOTE: If you haven't checked in yet today, be sure to start two entries below with Wow Girl*

I got my drain out yesterday. To make sure the surgery site doesn’t fill up with fluid, at the end of the procedure the surgeon installs a bit of perforated tubing, about where an underwire sits if you’re wearing a bra (except under the skin), that exits the skin under the arm (held in place by a stitch) and ends in a flexible, transparent bulb. There’s a slight vacuum in the system, created when you squeeze the bulb to empty it, then cork it back up before letting go. This vacuum draws the fluid slowly out. The tubing can get clogged with blood clots, so you occasionally have to “milk” it, by pinching the tube up near the stitch with one hand (you don’t want to pull on that stitch!), and pinching and sliding the other hand down the length of the tube to the bulb. I only had one blood clot in the tube, which formed while I was still in the hospital. When I’d cleared it, a long, dark red worm lay coiled in the bottom of the bulb.

The bulb has been inconvenient, as you might imagine. It’s been pinned to my surgical bra, with the extra tubing taped to my side so I don’t accidentally pull at the stitch in some nocturnal flailing (fortunately, I sleep virtually without changing position all night long. And Ian, who is a flailer, is on my left side, so I was pretty safe). Since I’ve been wearing a huge flannel shirt that I bought in college at the height of grunge fashion, the bulb, coupled with some bandage padding, has done a pretty good job of simulating my boob, which wasn’t all that big to begin with (either 230 grams or 280. They told me, but I can’t remember.).

A good thing about me is that I still have lymph nodes under my right arm, and they have done a banner job of keeping the fluid running through my body. So actually, from the time I came home, I never went 24 hours with more than 20ml of fluid accumulating in the bulb, and the cut-off for getting the drain removed was 30ml in 24 hours. I briefly considered just leaving the drain in until my check-up with my surgeon on Thursday, but decided that it was enough of a bother that I’d rather just get it out. You see, not only was sleeping somewhat hazardous; showering was virtually impossible. Even with a handy invention called AquaGuard, which covered the stitch and the tubing exit, I still had the bulb to contend with. Ultimately, I tied it to a ribbon around my neck like a gory accessory for some underground cult. It worked . . . but I’m a little too mainstream to really appreciate all the nuances of such an adornment.

Something handy about the location of our house is that it’s within 10 minutes of every clinic and hospital I’ve been associated with since returning to Seattle in 2000, so when the nurse called me back yesterday morning as the snowstorm waned (Monday the clinic had been closed in honor of MLK), I was able to assure her that not only was I still interested in coming, but I actually could (the 4-Runner always appreciates the chance to show its stuff in the city).

The nurse, Cari, showed me into a room and seated me on the bed. I lifted my arm and she took a scissors to cut the stitch. I felt a touch of wooziness as she grabbed a tweezers and yanked out the last bit of nylon thread, and she asked if I needed to lie down for her to pull out the tube itself.

“No,” I said, “I’m fine.” Automatic response. My brain flitted back for an instant to the first day home, when I attempted to swab the stitch site with a Q-tip dipped in peroxide and water, and found myself immediately having to sit, light-headed, on the side of the tub before I pitched head-first in and made the entire operation moot. Something about a bit of surgical tubing coming out of my body really didn’t sit well with me. “Actually,” I said, “I do need to lie down.”

I lay back and lifted my arm over my head, and Cari said “Okay, this is only going to take 3 seconds, and it’s going to burn 1 2 3 and it’s out!”

“Aaaaaaauuugh!” I cried, as the tube, evidently become a red-hot, glass-sharded poker, ripped out of my chest and fluid started to leak down my side onto the pad I was lying on. In 6 days, my body had clearly already begun to incorporate the tube into itself, and it was loath to let it go. The thought of the procedure after two weeks instead of six days made my stomach turn, but I held it together and the burning eased within a minute.

Later, on the phone with my mother, I realized that the drain removal was by far the least comfortable part of the whole mastectomy process; in fact, the only part that was remotely uncomfortable.

But, as they say, no pain no gain. Glad we got that taken care of.

Narcotics: Not Really a Girl’s Best Friend

Four days after my surgery I felt more woozy, and had more vertigo, than on any of the previous days. I blame withdrawal, from the false god Oxycodone. Oxycodone comes to you in the depths of your discombobulation, offering an easy-going, pain-free existence, certainty about life, joy in all your gifts, and an ability to sleep at the drop of a hat. The price—an intensely satisfying voiding of the bowels—seems small and insignificant in the face of the benefits. And so, without question, even without pause, you pop the pills—two every three hours for the first 24, then two every four hours for the next 36, then one and a Tylenol, then another and a Tylenol, and then it suddenly occurs to you, looking in the mirror at your previously flat stomach that is now distended and taut, and appears to be carrying a 4-month-old fetus, that the price—an intensely satisfying voiding of the bowels, remember?—is in fact way too steep.

So I picked at the prunes my mother brought, sipped a bit of the grape juice, strolled casually around the neighborhood, and otherwise cavalierly assumed my body would do its job regardless. And then I cried, and then I took some over-the-counter Sennakot and had a good nights’ sleep, and then, ah blessed relief!

Just in case, I’m not even taking the Tylenol anymore.

Wow, Girl—It’s Been, Like, a Really Long Time

And measured in spiritual growth, in soul growth, in the growth of my gratitude for life, and my love for others and myself and this amazing, complex world we live in, it’s been much longer than that.

You last heard from me when I was in Idaho, enjoying yet another interlude of peace and quiet in one of my favorite places in the world. This particular visit the peace and quiet were much more critical than other visits, because one week prior to going, the day before the wedding of two of my dearest friends, I was diagnosed with a second recurrence of breast cancer. Or, yes, a third overall occurrence of breast cancer. It started in my right breast, again, same place it had started the previous two times. This particular time I seemed to have caught it early—a huge battery of tests (mammograms, ultrasounds, CTs, MRIs, PETs, biopsies, X-Rays, etc) confirmed that there were two tumors, but they were both contained tidily in my right breast.

You may remember from reading this entry that I was not going to truck with cancer anymore. And I meant it . . . but I meant it from a position of hopeful yearning, of bravado, but of no confidence. But how could I have had any confidence? I’d entirely given over responsibility for my health to my oncologist and Western medicine, and they , the authorities, don’t believe cancer can be cured, at least not with the tools they currently have. Certainly not with the chemical ones they used on me. So, within that framework, how could I possibly believe it?

Sure, I appeared to have a modicum of control over my health. I ate healthy foods, and exercised regularly, and lived, overall, a pretty clean life. And I’ve also always been strong—of body and of mind and of will—and I used my strong will to convince myself that my health, to a great extent, to the ultimate extent really, was out of my hands. I had convinced myself that, when I got cancer, it was a sign to give myself over to the care of others, and let them choose my path for me.

Well.

It doesn’t work that way.

Sometime last October, I started having anxiety attacks. Without knowing anything (in the must-be-measured-by-scientific-equipment-to-be-true way), I suddenly knew, on a cellular level, that something was wrong. My intuition, which had given me subtle signs over the years, stopped being subtle. “Listen to me!” it screamed, as I sobbed hysterically on the couch at my grandmother’s house, gasping for breath, my arms tingling and black spots swimming before my eyes. “Something is wrong, and you need to figure it out now!”

I began feverish self-examinations of my breast, and noticed changes. Is this particular lumpiness related to the return of my hormones? I asked my nurse. Because if not, than something is wrong. Can I get my mammogram next week instead of waiting two more weeks? Maybe, she said, maybe the changes are normal. You could try to talk to other survivors at Gilda’s Club. But no, we’re not going to change your mammogram appointment; we don’t want to enable hysterical behavior. You can talk to a clinic psychologist, though; he’s very nice.

He was very nice, and briefly helped. At my first appointment he seemed to listen. But at my next appointment, he didn’t. He spent the whole hour teaching me how to control my breathing to keep from falling into another anxiety attack, a technique that I demonstrated back to him in the first 5 minutes. Invisibility doesn’t solve problems, so I went to my third appointment only long enough to tell him that what I needed was something else.

When I finally had my mammogram, I immediately stopped being invisible to my Western medical doctors. Because, of course, what I had felt wasn’t normal, and there was now scientific evidence to prove it. I had ultrasounds as well, right after the mammograms, and the following week a biopsy that clinched the evidence. The cancer was back.

Somehow, even while railing at the Universe for making me go through this again, and feeling—despairing, even—that my life was coming to an end, a tiny, fierce part of me refused to believe that I couldn't be cured. And so I started to take back my life, my will, my spirit—or embrace those things fully for the first time ever—and I started to make decisions based on my intuition and not my desire to have someone else solve my problems.

I began to understand that we are each, individually, responsible for our own health and well-being . . . but that doesn’t mean we can’t seek assistance. In fact, we should seek assistance. We humans are community-oriented beings, and our communities are richly populated by people with myriad strengths, strengths we could not possibly embody all at once, all in one person. So I began to seek out assistance from all the richness around me. Here is the thing, though—intuition cannot be subsumed in a desire for someone to take care of you, no matter who you’re asking for assistance. A naturopath isn’t the answer any more than an oncologist is the answer. An energetic healer isn’t the answer any more than a Neurolink practitioner is the answer. All are the answer, and none are.

You, and what you know to be true about you, and what you believe to be right for you about the teachers you draw into your life, are the only answer for you.
What has been working for me is the following:
A naturopath who specializes in small doses of things and gentle physiological support (i.e. a liver detox that is so gentle you don't know it's happening; you just notice one day that you feel better)
A body worker who also does energy work
My friend the Witch Doctor (a Neurolink practitioner)
An energetic healer
Meditation, and gratitude for this brilliant, amazing life I've been blessed to lead, and learning to live without judging (others or myself)
And a breast surgeon.
(not to mention impressively open-minded friends and relatives, who have stood by my decisions faithfully from the beginning)

I had a total mastectomy on January 10^th. It removed my right breast completely, including the nipple and areola (my cancer was intraductal, and all the ducts come out the nipple), the scar from my original lumpectomies, and the skin over the site of the current tumor. My remaining underarm lymph nodes were left intact, as was my left breast, which had never had cancer, even last time when it had spread all over my chest lymph nodes. I have opted not to do reconstruction. The thought of implanting silicone into myself makes me queasy, and one of the side-effects of being in excellent physical condition is that I don't have enough belly fat to transplant that (and inner thigh fat is, evidently, not used). Besides that, reconstruction involves several more surgeries.

And besides that, Amazons all cut off their right breasts.

Lesson Learned the Easy Way (that is, by *not* fracturing my skull first)

I’ve been trying some self-improvement lately, working on getting to know my inner spiritual mechanism a bit better (note: the fact that “mechanism” seems like an appropriate descriptor is maybe a hint that I’ve got a ways to go before true enlightenment). This includes things like paying attention to my intuitions about, oh, which route to drive to avoid traffic; listening to—and heeding—my heart when it says to play the piano instead of vacuuming the floor or going out to lunch with someone; stopping drinking coffee because I decided I didn’t want to be addicted to anything anymore; and, most recently, starting to think about the role my ego plays in my life and where its noisy voice gets in the way of me hearing from the universe.

It’s been difficult for me to work out the difference between self-esteem and ego . . . and I’m not sure that they are, always different. But sometimes, certainly, it seems that they are, and I’ll use an example from my own life to illustrate my point.

Yesterday around noon-time, I felt sleepy, so I decided to take a nap on the couch. In my defense, I’d already hauled about 10 wheelbarrow loads of horse shit from the three small paddocks, plus split several pieces of wood into kindling and restocked the firebox, in addition to feeding horses and cows and dogs and playing with the puppy. So anyway, before heading out for my ride, I thought I’d just snooze a little.

I went to sleep picturing my ego as a huge block of ice somewhere around my throat (or 5^th Chakra), blocking communication between my heart and my mind, and I pictured a tiny stream of yellow heat streaming through the ice between my mind and my heart, slowly melting it away. When I woke up around one pm, the first thought I had was “I need to wear my helmet when I’m riding.” The second thought I had was “But if anyone sees me, they’ll think I look ridiculous, out there riding bareback with an English helmet on.” My third thought was “Oh, yes, that’s my ego speaking.”

Now, those who’ve read previous entries will know that I don’t invariably stay on the horses I’m riding, and those who read this entry from Saturday will probably think that my mad, fraught dash on Shadow had something do with the decision to protect my head. If it did, it was only indirectly, through Ian who in Seattle read the entry right about the time I was falling asleep in Idaho and said to himself “God, why can’t she just wear a helmet?!?”

No, my crazy ride on Shadow did nothing to test my confidence in my abilities—I know that I’m a good rider (this is not ego—this is self-esteem, and a fact). I also know that I’m pretty much as safe bareback as not (in fact, my record of falls in the last five years, totaling three, are two-thirds from saddles.). I also know that accidents happen, and that people hit their heads, and that from the lofty back of a horse, those accidents can cause serious head traumas. Really, the one thing that kept me from wearing my helmet was that I thought it looked dorky, and all the good reasons weren’t enough to convince me. The helmet isn’t even uncomfortable, and I wear it all the time in lessons.

I got up from the couch and immediately left Ian a message telling him I was going to wear a helmet from then on, and could he please get me a ski helmet (I tell you, when the ego goes, it goes all the way) for Christmas. I then proceeded to put on my riding clothes, which consisted of cowboy boots, flannel-lined J Crew pants, a turtleneck shirt, a turtleneck sweater I knitted, a green puffy vest, a yellow Patagonia rain jacket, and a blaze orange vest. And I thought it was the helmet that would look ridiculous.

(Yes, that's me looking safe. Safe!)

Rest in Peace, Chico

About the 3^rd time I went by the fridge this morning, I saw a photocopied flier? program? memorial, I guess, with a picture on the front of a guy I recognized. He’d been one of about a dozen people to stop by this last summer when I was here, one of the days that K&A and I moved thousands of pounds of hay. The family had driven into the yard in a giant king cab pickup, full of people, and the bed full of people, too, from three generations ranging in age from, oh, 50s down to toddler. This guy, Chico, was of the middle generation, and clearly beloved by everyone. He had an easy energy, and was gentle, but also funny and strong. Just a great guy, which was obvious to me even on such short acquaintance. Anyway, according to the photocopy, which included pictures of him with friends and family, and funny and sweet stories about him, he died October 1. He was 22. I was shocked, and saddened, as if I’d lost a friend. Life is fragile, my friends. Live it well.

That's one big foot! 

84 acres, and *this* is the best grass? 

Up this way to Calin's Loop! 

Too and Eddie. Yum! 

Come along, Sadie. 

Um, the drive took longer this time. Extra almost 2 hours in the pass. 

Puppies and Cows and Clearcuts Oh My

I’m in Jerome Creek again, for my annual fall weekend trip. I left the day after my birthday this year, and didn’t, in fact, eat a birthday breakfast of bacon and toasted banana bread with peanut butter. I’ve got the place to myself for a couple days, and it’s afforded me a much-needed retreat (minus leaping up to put Sadie, the new puppy, outside when she pees on the kitchen rug—or ideally before that happens—or goes into the living room for the fifth time after I’ve told her not to). I’ve been focusing on living in the moment, you know, having my attention here, and choosing not to borrow trouble. It’s not as easy as it sounds, actually. Most of us spend a lot of time resenting people or events in the past, and worrying about events in the future, which wastes a lot of energy. I’m just now beginning to chip off the tip of the iceberg of my own non-present time.

It gets dark here at about 4:00pm these days, and by 5:30 it feels like the middle of the night (I actually took a nap on the sofa this evening before dinner, and argued with myself for awhile when I woke up about whether or not 6:00pm was too early to turn in). I returned home from my ride (on Shadow, of course) around 3:00pm instead of starting to think about going out then. Neither Kit nor Sadie came along; he’s getting very arthritic, and she’s just twelve weeks old, and I left Spackle in Seattle with Ian (although it felt pretty weird to be making rest stops just for myself). Shadow are companions enough, though, and she’s all the more like riding a big stuffed animal now that she’s got her shaggy Appaloosa winter coat on.

We found a lot of new clear-cutting today, one of the hazards of riding around in Potlatch Logging Company land. One of my discoveries, a trail that K&A dubbed “Calin’s Loop”, is now buried under a pile of branches and mud and other logging refuse. We were able to pick our way through some other brush, though, and wend our way down the Long Gallop. I will point out here that the Long Gallop is only that on the way up—it’s steep enough that galloping down is entirely out of the question. At least, I think so. Shadow was itching to try it, and jogged much of the way which, I will say, is not very comfortable bareback, even on a horse with virtually no withers.

We had a rager of a gallop, though, to make up for the missed Long Gallop, when we got to Maple Creek Meadow. I wanted to gallop, and Shadow wanted to gallop, but she took off slightly before I was ready, tossing me up her shoulders a bit. She wasn’t paying any attention to mud, ditches running with water, or major cow wallows, either (all things that can make a horse slip or lose footing), so I had to try and steer her, and try to not fall off, even though I was way too far forward which was making her run in a really weird up-and-down, bucky way (and then she jumped a couple logs). I eventually relaxed my thighs’ death grip on her enough to sit back, and I managed to stop her just before I’m sure she would’ve tried to jump a tree that lay across our path, probably killing both of us. Or just me. Anyway, we were about 10 minutes from home, and she was, naturally, still sweaty when we arrived (although I made her walk all the rest of the way), and so, rather than let her just dry out in the 33 degree wind, I walked her around the yard a bit, and she was perfectly content to hang out with me. As long as I had the lead rope.

Earlier in the day, I’d taken the two dogs out for a walk, and I started eating an apple as we came to the horses grazing in their pasture. We paused to say hi (allowed) or bark (not allowed) at the horses, and then Sikem caught the apple scent, evidently registered the complete lack of halters, and suddenly I had three horses milling around me, noses in my pockets, in my face, nibbling my braids, snorting in my ears, and basically trying to eat the apple out of my hand. I gave each one a bite and starting walking again (I took the bite and then fed the horse by hand), and Toby was satisfied and went back to her grass, Shadow dropped off in a few paces, and only Sikem followed me for several yards before giving up. I felt bad, briefly, for not holding on to the apple core to give him on the way back. But only briefly.

In addition to Sadie, there are also two new cows, called Eddie and Eddie Too, or just Too. They’re very cute palomino-colored steers, but I don’t remember what the breed is. Ian asked today and without thinking I said “Probably something tasty . . .” and he said “Oh! Right! Farm cows! I should probably stop forming an attachment to them . . .” I do like cows, though. They’re just kind of dopey and non-threatening.

Doucely is still around, doing her own thing, and the people in the family will be back tomorrow night.

After a seemingly very long hiatus . . .

Noble (or should I say Patient) readers, this post is mainly to let you know that I still exist, and still intend to travel, and still intend to post about it. There are a couple reasons I haven’t posted in the last month or so, the main one being that the journeys I’ve been on have been far more internal than external. The body does surprising things when it’s taken off of five years of medical treatments, and the roller coaster of going through puberty as a 33-year-old afraid of cancer has been, shall we say, a little distracting for everyone involved.

I have slept in two beds other than my own, and flown somewhere, since boat class (come on, people, hire me! Really!), so I’ll give a brief rundown of those.

First, the flying: Ian and I, in September, took our architect up to Orcas to walk around the property and talk about where we wanted to build our house. Rather than pay him for six hours of transit time (which is about how long a round-trip is on the ferry), we decided to fly on Kenmore Air, which is the largest seaplane fleet in the US (that may be true; I maybe made it up.).

Let me tell you, if you’re not planning to plant trees or slash long grass or otherwise carry a lot of stuff, this is the way to go. It took us less than ten minutes to get from our Wallingford house to the South Lake Union terminal in Seattle, about 20 minutes to wait for our plane, about an hour to fly up there, below the clouds, looking down on the tops of people’s private lives, and then the plane lands in West Sound within walking distance, about ten minutes, of our land. Boy, it was awesome. And, it turns out, I’m not afraid of flying in small planes at all. We all had lunch in the West Sound Café, meandered around wet pasture for a couple hours, then caught a flight back to Seattle. So convenient. So awesome. So expensive.

About two weeks later, I was up on Orcas again, this time for the annual West Sound Water Users Association meeting. It was far less interesting than last year’s contentious event, as tempers have been boiling all year this year already, and so lots of people just didn’t come. But the cookies were good. And I stayed at the Kingfish Inn, upstairs from the West Sound Café, which was a lovely place to stay. I particularly enjoyed drinking wine and eating cheese on my own private balcony looking over West Sound, after spending the day clearing brush out of our willow copse.

And just last week, Ian turned 32 and I surprised him with a night in a fancy new hotel in downtown Seattle which is perhaps most notable for the pedestal tub that fills from the ceiling, without splashing. We had a great time.

Stay tuned, we have a couple other small things coming up. But the next big thing? Who knows . . .

Um, you might want to think again about that name. 

Me and the boys: From left to right, Cap'n Glenn, me, D and S. Home safe. And smelly. 

Not as Easy as it Looks

I spent last weekend up in the San Juan Islands, learning how to operate a twin screw power boat. Last June, when I spent the day on a friend’s boat, a whole torrent of memories and reawakened emotions came flooding back (nice use of water metaphor, no?), and I realized that, disgraceful as I am coming to find the guzzling of fossil fuels in which our society participates, there’s something about power boating—the speed, and the challenge of operation, and the fact that you have a roof over your head and a gently rocking bed at night—that I can’t get out of my soul.

So I looked around online, and found this class out of Anacortes, where I’d go out on a boat for three days and two nights, and learn everything from navigation to basic engine checking to crewing to operation. Considering my background in the islands, I was pretty sure the entire class would be review, and a snap. I packed accordingly, bringing a novel, Harper’s, a 4-star Sudoku I was working on, my iPod, and a new knitting project, to take care of in my down time*.

Ahem. Well, I wasn’t wrong about the stuff that actually was review for me—I’ve used charts, I’ve spoken on the VHF radio, I’ve hooked up a docked boat to shore power in the appropriate manner (make sure the main circuit switch on board is OFF and all the individual circuits are OFF, and the circuit switch on the dock is OFF; then hook the cord into the boat, then into the dock, then flip the dock switch, then check to make sure the polarity sensor on the boat is green, then flip the boat master, then turn on the individual switches), I’ve been a good crew member, almost always making things easier for Captain Dad. I’ve even spent not an insignificant amount of time as captain through open water, following a course. I was rusty on these things Friday afternoon when we first boarded our boat, but they came back as quickly as I’d expected.

What I hadn’t done at all, or more than once or twice, was moor. And, really, what the entire trip comes down to is whether or not you can arrive in port safely.

There are an infinite number of factors affecting safe mooring, including wind (into or away from the dock?), current (into or away from the dock?), water depth, shape of dock (long or slips?), and who else is around. Also, my habit of jumping for the dock from the bow and quickly cleating . . . well that, it turns out, is allowing the skipper to cheat a little. The skipper should bring the boat in until it’s parallel to the dock, and no more than a foot away. The crew should only have to step off and tie up (and, I have to say, now that I’m 33 and my knees are going bad, I really appreciate this idea.). Anchoring or mooring to a buoy are a little easier, as far as people around you go, because if there’s any chance you’re going to hit someone as you set your anchor or grab your buoy, you definitely shouldn’t be where you are.

There were four of us on the boat (a 34-foot Bayliner called True Story): me; Cap’n Glenn, a 65-year-old retired career Coast Guardsman; D, a 61-year-old retired insurance man from Vegas; and S, a 43-year-old Microsofty. As expected, I was the only woman, although S was much younger than the 60-something of the other two. And as I also expected, even though I brought my sleeping bag and could easily have shared a cabin with one of the other students, I got my own (I also never once did the dishes, which was purely unintentional, but nice nonetheless, I will admit).

D, whose boating experience has been on lakes or on the Sound as a passenger, was a little outmatched by the entire weekend experience. S and I, however, seemed to be pretty well-matched in our ability to pick up the new docking skills. I won’t go into great detail—after all, I spent about 25 hours over the weekend learning these things and it would be tedious to recount them in greater detail than I already am (unless it’s already too late to avoid tedium). Suffice it to say that four levers—two shifters and two throttles—can become confused in your mind the sixth time in a row you come in to dock, and you might freeze up completely as your boat drifts forward, because you can’t remember which levers to push back (to reverse) and which levers to push forward (to do it quickly, or “Get ‘er done!” as Cap’n Glenn liked to say), and getting them wrong would be, frankly, an error of potentially thousands of dollars. Suffice it completely to say that someone standing next to your left ear (or rather, port ear) yelling “what are you doing? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?” doesn’t make it easier to figure out the levers. I think what I did in this situation was turn to glare at the person by my ear and entirely remove my hands from the levers at all. He took us back out, I brought us in flawlessly on my second try, and then I said, probably still glaring, “that’s it. I’m done for tonight.”

I mean, the thing about docking is this—if you get it right, you never do it again. It’s the most stressful part of boating (barring disaster, of course . . . but it can lead to that easily), your nerves are keyed to an almost inaudibly high pitch, and the body just isn’t made to withstand that much pressure for that long. The next morning, I practiced docking three times, did an excellent job, felt my nerves start to fray, and handed over the wheel to S. “But you’re doing so well!” said Cap’n Glenn. I gave him a look. “I know,” I said.

As much as I don’t like to be yelled at, things do have to happen in a split second on a boat. And it made a big difference to me that, soon after my near melt-down in slip 25, we went to the grittiest tavern in Friday Harbor and, over beers (I ordered an Arrogant Bastard Ale), Cap’n Glenn admitted that he’d had a long day, too, and was also tired.

The day had been exhausting, on a par with the intensive language courses I took in Portugal several years ago. I could feel my brain laboriously building new neural pathways, grinding through gears long abandoned in sea water. One thing about living the life of a dilettante is that you don’t actually have to work hard, extensively, very often. At all. And I was really out of practice.

But Sunday was great—I didn’t lose reverse at all, especially when I really needed it; I learned to anchor and un-anchor; I was the only one not hung over from the 3 pints of beer and half a bottle of wine from the night before (water, my friends. You must dilute.), we toured yet more of the San Juans, occasionally triggering sharp nostalgia.

“I once said to my dad ‘you know, it’s much easier to drive a boat than a car,’” I told the boys as we motored along Guemes Channel toward home port, “and he looked at me incredulously. ‘Are you kidding me?’ he asked.”

Cap’n Glenn laughed. “Sounds like he was a smart man, your dad,” he said.

I docked back in Anacortes to fuel up, a maneuver that involved a pivot in a narrow channel. Rashly confident in my new abilities as a yachter, I started filling the fuel tank, only to have it burp up at 10 gallons (miles to go before full), spilling probably no more than a pint of diesel into the water, but that small amount spread out fast. Suddenly we’re running up and down the dock in a panic, trying to mop up the mess with spill towels before it got out of reach—this is, naturally, a fineable offense. We did our best, and surreptitiously sprayed a little dish soap on the small remainder, which vanished magically (except from my hand and arm, which continue to smell a little like an auto shop).

Sigh. Boats afford endless opportunity for learning humility.

But they’re also really, really fun, and I can take you out on one now.

Seriously, I can, and I’m ready any time. So call me whenever! I mean it!

* Uh, yeah. I maybe placed 3 numbers per night in my Sudoku, before I collapsed into the sleep of the dead.

One Last Summer Fling

With my husband, of course. Ian’s friend, T, visiting from LA with his girlfriend, E, took her to Bellingham to meet his family and see where he grew up, and he invited Ian and another friend, D, to come hang out. T&E got a room at a hotel rather than stay with the parents, D and his girlfriend K decided to get a room at the same hotel, and Ian and I were going to just drive up and drive home. An 80 mile drive isn’t such a good idea after a night on the town, however.

We had two dogs for the weekend, though, so it hadn’t, at first, occurred to us to try and stay (that and the fact that we’ve been gone all summer.). But on Thursday, when I realized that an 80 mile drive isn’t such a good idea after a night on the town, I called the hotel and asked if dogs could stay. Yes . . . but dogs smaller than ours. Ian did a bit more research and found a motel right across the street that did take dogs, for a $5 fee, and suddenly I felt the rush of excitement that comes when you’re going to stay overnight somewhere. And I realized, somewhat sheepishly, that I’ve totally trained myself to be gone this summer—like really gone, a lot. That’s it, I’m addicted to weekends away.

We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, reveling in farmer’s markets and good food; friends and cheap cocktails; our own queen bed and another for the dogs. Ian and I bought coffee at the hyper-efficient drive-in Cruisin Coffee—quad grande rice latte for me (at home I make my own and one of the shots is decaf but that seems a bit too much to ask when ordering an already weird drink), single tall for Ian. We strolled through Whatcom Falls Park with the dogs and let them off their leashes near a huge swimming hole. After tearing around after each other, careening up and down massive boulders while I winced and pictured them overshooting and plunging to their deaths down the sheer rock face behind us, we finally got them down to the swimming hole and into the water, where Spackle immediately transferred his focus from Marlee to the stick Ian found, and Marlee completely failed to transfer her focus from Spackle.

Bagels, one last visit with the in-laws, an uneventful drive home (because we went the speed limit, because there were cops everywhere on I-5), and a low-key barbecue in our back yard with the same players, rounded out the summer perfectly.

Really now, I’m going to buckle down and stay home.

For a time.

Whirlwind Whistler Weekend

We only went for two nights—not quite long enough—but it was a great trip all the same. We came up with the idea last April because we see N&K, Ian’s brother and sister-in-law, on average about 3 times per year. Is it because they live far away? Only if you consider two miles to be far. Sigh. Anyway, a planned weekend, where we have meals and leisure time together, seems to be a great option for us (a hint into why we see each other so rarely: we had to plan almost five months in advance to find a weekend that worked for us all).

Highlights of the trip:

N&K sharing the driving, in their ultra-fancy and ultra-comfortable Acura, so I could knit the entire time and not have to be behind the wheel through Everett, which has really become the quicksand, the tar pit, the black hole of I-5.

Meandering around entirely pedestrian-zoned Whistler Village.

Hiking with Ian along the nature trail to Lost Lake. Arriving at the lake and finding a parking lot, a manicured lawn, and dozens of high school girls in bikinis. Well, I’m not sure that the bikinis were a highlight.

The dog beach at Lost Lake, complete with off-shore float, itself complete with a doggy-ramp so Rover can climb out of the water and rest. 30 or so dogs swimming.

Lying by the pool reading The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. An excellent book.

Tasty food.

Great company.

The official Canadian Royal Mounted Police gift shop.

Finding nine cans of San Pelegrino Chinotto soda (it's really good! If you like weird sodas!)

and my personal favorite:
sipping Gibsons and champagne cocktails at the Westin Hotel’s FireRock Lounge, while knitting. Heaven.

Berkshire Bliss

One of my dear friends got married in the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts on August 19^th. This is one of the girls from my Memorial Day Weekend trips, and all of us made it to the weekend’s events, including Ian and me who set five alarm clocks before our 6:30am flight and didn’t even sleep through the first one, and C, who came with beautiful 2-week-old Avery. Yes, that’s not a typo. Even L and S made it, although Continental did everything in their power to keep that from happening. It’s a long, bitter story, but the upshot is, or rather upshots are: 1) don’t fly into Newark, but 2) really, really don’t fly Continental. We were on Delta, on the other hand, and had a lovely time—flight attendants were friendly, we got food and movies even in steerage, people went out of their ways to fix our seat assignments, which disappeared without exception before each of our four legs of flight. It turns out that at least some of my phobia of flying has to do with my feeling of being a target. And a flight from Seattle to Cincinnati didn’t seem all that threatening to me, and the 50-passenger Comair flights from Cincinnati to Albany seemed entirely safe. Until this Sunday morning, that is.

But I digress.

Anyone who’s traveled in the Berkshires in the summer (or, probably, any time of year), knows that it’s expensive. It’s also aggressively quaint, full of ancient tree-covered hills and winding roads connecting 300-year-old towns nestled all snug in river valleys and curves of topography. It’s the home of Tanglewood, where the Boston Symphony Orchestra spends its summers. James Taylor lives in Lenox, one of the larger villages. It’s also the vacation destination of every upper middle class family in New York and Boston that doesn’t go to the Hamptons or the Cape. A motel room runs at least $170/night.

To save money, and also because we like each other, we Memorial Weekend girls and our various partners and/or gay husbands rented a house instead. This was a much better deal for the 10-12 of us, at $1800 for the entire week, except that weeks invariably run Sat-Sat in vacationland and many of us were arriving on a Thursday. I found a property that had both the main house, however, and a small cottage as well, and the owner agreed to let us have the small cottage for Thursday and Friday nights—we’d basically be camping—and the large house until we left town (which was two nights before the end of our week, so she got a good deal, too). What I will say about the cottage is that it was definitely rustic . . . and that if Continental had actually gotten L&S to Albany Thursday night as they were supposed to, instead of closing the jetway door in the girls’ faces as they approached from their other Continental flight (this is literally true), it would’ve been a tight squeeze.

I had a moment of confusion at 5:15 Friday morning when I heard, from the sleeping loft Ian and I were sharing, CNN radio start up very loudly directly down from me, where B was sleeping on one of the couches. “I know B’s a lawyer,” I thought with irritable sleep-muddled logic, “but does he have to listen to the news right now?” I eventually figured out that he must still have his earplugs in and be sleeping through the preset alarm, and I stumbled down the ladder, almost pitching head-first onto the pine floor, to turn it off myself. “Goddammit!” B gasped out as I approached, and flailed for the off switch. A couple hours later, Ian and I woke up for good and slipped out of the house to celebrate our own 5^th anniversary with breakfast alone before the weekend’s events swept us up.

The wedding was one of those awesome affairs including nail appointments, a casual rehearsal dinner, short but lovely ceremony followed by a cocktail reception (full bar!) and then dinner (all vegetarian and really tasty, particularly the squash blossoms filled with white bean paste) and dancing and a multi-tiered cupcake “cake”, then a brunch and badminton tournament the next morning at a family farmhouse—so all the guests really had time to get to know each other/get reacquainted. And in our down time, once we moved into the large house and had space to lounge, we ate cheese and crackers and fresh fruits and vegetables and crepes (S brought two crepe pans and a chef’s knife in her luggage . . . TSA obviously checked her bags) and drank beer and wine, and talked endlessly with each other, and talked endlessly with shockingly verbal Paige, now the almost-three-year-old big sister, and watched Avery learning how to observe (“This person’s face is different from that person’s face,” her eyes seemed to say, staring from me to L and back again), and practicing her proto-smile.

And then a last meal with the blissful newlyweds (who received a lot of cast-iron cookware, considering their Brooklyn walk-up).

And then home, to start our own sixth year of (still blissful) marriage.

Falling Behind

I’ve been gone the last two weekends, for a wedding in western Massachusetts and a getaway with Ian’s brother and sister-in-law in Whistler, and I’ve so far completely failed to write anything about either. But I do have some things to say, so stay tuned!

Late Breaking News

It turns out that my ass is not, as I had previously assumed, made of spring steel. Over the last week, my tailbone has increasingly ached, to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore (at least without knowing what was causing the pain), and on Saturday morning Ian and I went to the emergency room. After 8 hours (my problem was clearly not a crisis and there were, in fact, crises going on that day), X-rays, and blood tests, we were finally discharged with the diagnosis Old Fracture. This means that it’s not currently broken, but it was (presumably when I somersaulted over the head of Sikem last May) and I have evidently strained the new tissues around the area, so it’s causing me pain. Particularly when I go to the bathroom, but not, in fact, so much the rest of the time, except during the process of standing up or sitting down.

Contributing factors to the pain could include 1) the active summer I’ve spent: kayaking, riding, throwing around hay, and restarting Pilates, and 2) the fact that my hormones, chemically dormant for 5 years, are starting to reassert themselves, which could affect the tissues. It seems that all I can do is be careful, and not get constipated, and take Ibuprofen if I need something for pain. I said to the doctor, who was very tired and appeared to be about 7 months pregnant, that I didn’t have any riding lessons scheduled for the near future and she said “No. You will not ride a horse until this doesn’t hurt at all.”

Sigh.

Detroit Follow-up

Yes, folks, we did make it. The third person we spoke with once we got to SeaTac finally offered to let us each pay $25 to reserve space on the evening non-stop from Seattle to Detroit, and was surprised no one had given us the option before. (note: if you ask for stand-by, be prepared to stick with your current routing. And don't expect an airline grunt to think outside the box. Ask to pay some small fee instead.) We even got a window and a middle seat, and so were in perfect position to enjoy the spectacular light show taking place over Duluth as we passed (the pilot conscientiously avoided flying directly through the electrical storm). It was so fantastic, in fact, flash after flash, lightening ripping through the clouds in jagged bolts, that a flight attendant got on the radio and admonished us all to turn off our reading lights and look out the window! Which virtually everyone did. It was really amazing, and we only caught a little turbulence at the end, right before landing in Detroit, where it was 12:40 am. This was 8 hours after Ian and I had intended to arrive, before (evidently) choosing to sleep in, in our own beds, instead, so instead of blearily collecting our car, we checked into the new Westin hotel that is right in the terminal, and had a blissful mini-vacation, just the two of us.

The next morning we picked up our rental car and drove to Ann Arbor, which, from what we could see in our two days driving around the Detroit area (which, granted, doesn’t really give it a fair opportunity to impress), really is the best place to go in Michigan. By far.

We stayed with my linguistics friend G and his Swedish wife A, who are charming and interesting hosts, and whose small apartment holds even more books than our house (though not by much, I think). They encourage the local wildlife, so we were treated to multiple birds (I couldn’t even identify one species if G hadn’t told me what they were), multiple squirrels, and even, to my alarm, a late-night skunk. I will say, the skunk is really an adorable animal. Particularly since it seemed to think the same of us, and wandered off without spraying. Houseguests and fish smell after three days, they say . . . but I think adding skunk to the mix might speed up that schedule a little.

We had a couple brief Eminem moments; one when we passed 8 Mile Road on the way to the wedding venue in Rochester, and the other after we returned home and realized that the wedding location was the same as Eminem and Kim’s most recent (and most recently failed) second nuptials. Meadow Brook Hall did not publicize their famous clients.

The wedding itself was beautiful, with the 3 bridesmaids in varying shades of purple to coordinate with the groom’s hair, and a collection of Carleton students I’ve seen now at four weddings (including my own), so I felt like part of the crowd.

The only bad part of the trip was arriving at the airport at 7:00am on Monday morning (or thereabouts) and finding that our seats together—one window, one center—had been switched to two center seats. Which meant we weren’t seated together. And there were no other seats available anywhere on the plane, except maybe one or two middles. It seems that, when we missed our flight Friday morning, our entire reservation had been un-confirmed. The attendant who put us on the replacement flight reconfirmed the rest of our reservation . . . but evidently not our seats. So we arrived after virtually everyone else had checked in online, and snatched up our good seats. This was incredibly distressing to me, up to the point where we actually boarded the plane, and the man sitting on the aisle next to me agreed graciously to switch with Ian.

And so it all worked out, and two more great people are enjoying newly-married bliss.