Wow, my cool husband
whisked me off to an actual movie theatre tonight. I can't remember the
last time I saw a first-run movie in a theatre -- I am very resolute
these days about waiting for stuff to come out on DVD.

It was a fun frolic. Dave is such a superhero fan, and in truth, this
kind of movie is best enjoyed in theatres where the special effects can
be fully appreciated. I know that the critics have given X-Men: The Last Stand a rotten tomato, but hey, it's just a Marvel comic flick. Get real.

Fear not! Most of this entry is pretty upbeat, or at least helpful, I hope.

A few of my friends around these Xangaparts either have cancer
themselves or are caring for someone with cancer. I thought I'd write a
bit about this today, since I find myself thinking it over from time
to time as I comment on other blogs.

 Being a cancer patient

I can talk about this because I have had cancer and survived it -- for
16 years so far. Most doctors will never tell you that you are cured, of
course. Once you have it, you have it, and that's that. However, I am
sure that it is gone for good.

I'll spare you the irrelevant details unless you decide to click here.
(No pregnancy was involved.) It was unresponsive to chemotherapy, and
an eventual complete hysterectomy got it before it could spread. Lucky
for me. But I went through months of hell. I became an
expert hospital patient. At one point I sat in a doctor's office as she
matter-of-factly gave me, 25 years old at that time, 4-8 months to
live. So if you have cancer, I know what you are going through.

I reproduce here an anonymous "patient's pledge" which I feel should be
contemplated by every cancer patient. You need to stand up for yourself
strongly as a patient, and you also need a "second" who attends all
your appointments and is privy to your thoughts and decisions, and who
can advocate for you if you should be unable to do it for yourself.


The Patient's Pledge

• I will be heard.
• I will not be intimidated.
• I will listen to my body: my symptoms matter.
• I will be fully informed, and included in the final decision.
• I will have the best care.
• I am entitled to hope.
• I am entitled to compassion and to be treated with dignity.
• I will stand up for my own best interests.
• I will praise good care and report bad care.
• I will be safe.

 Caring for a cancer patient

I can discuss this because I had a lovely friend who succumbed to
inflammatory breast cancer in 2001. She's gone, but in many ways her
story continues and is inspirational. Also, she taught me a great deal
about caring for people with cancer, although I was a difficult student.

Menya was clever and devious
and creative and irreverent and cynical and idealistic and fun. She
managed to stay alive with IBC for about five years, which is somewhat
miraculous. She and her husband started an Internet resource for people with that illness, which continues to help people to cope and to survive longer.

Menya decided she'd like to die at home, and a local hospice organized
nurses, volunteers, friends, and family to try to make this happen.
While a member of this team, I contemplated the difference between a
"friend" and a "caregiver" -- you have to give up, to some extent, your
previous relationship with a person in order to nurse them. But in
taking on some of the caregiving burden, we were giving Menya's husband
the chance to be simply her spouse, and that meant a great deal to both
of them during her last months. After Menya died, her dad wrote a book
about those last months, very useful to those who want to learn about
the hospice experience.

I discovered things I didn't like about myself, such as that I am by no
means a "natural nurse" (unlike my mom), and that I can fall prey to a
terrible loss of morale. In part, I didn't give my all to it because I
was preoccupied by unrelated personal stuff, but naturally I
now regret everything I was too afraid or upset to do for my friend. I
console myself that she understood how much I cared, despite my
obvious shortcomings.

For caregivers, I reproduce from the IBC website a list of instructions
on how to care for yourself so that you will remain capable of helping the sick person.

• Take time to care for yourself. Follow the
  Golden Rule for caregivers: do unto yourself as carefully and as kindly
  as you do unto your patient.
• Try to emphasize "I would like to..." instead of
  acting always according to "I should..." and "I have to..."
• Realize that at times it is normal to feel
  helpless and frustrated, and that such feelings should not make you
  feel guilty or ashamed.
• Be able to say "no" as well as "yes."
• Believe it is more effective to change the way you
  behave with others rather than trying to change their behaviour and
  reactions to you.
• Have at least one special person to turn to as a source of support, reassurance and direction.
• Be able to accept as well as give support, encouragement and praise.
• Have a "quiet place" where you can enjoy a special
  interest - reading, music, gardening, sewing, etc. Make use of it
  regularly because you deserve time off, and you need to rally your own
  emotional energy.
• Believe that caring and just "being there" are sometimes more important than doing.
• Even though a person you love is seriously ill,
  laughter and play are part of being alive; try to make them a part of
  the patient's life, and yours.
• Find positive ways to deal with feelings of anger, frustration and grief.
• At the end of each evening, go over
  the experiences of the day and find at least one good moment.

I thought I'd end by posting a funny photo that I shared a couple of
years ago. It shows a much younger me with a group of friends, stuck in
an elevator during a funny New Year's Eve costume party. Menya is the
angelic one in the middle, with the halo. Her name tag reads, "Hello.
My name is Archangel Muriel." I will always have a place in my heart
for the Archangel Muriel and all that she stands for.

A neighbour hired a plane and snapped this pretty aerial photo of our
little patch of the world. I thought I'd share it with you all. [I
posted some on-the-ground photos of this neighbourhood just a few days
ago. If you had any trouble viewing those, check the album out here.]

Later today (Done! see below) I'll post some fresh new pictures from my flourishing garden. I'm so happy about it this year.

I loved your randomly generated answers to my survey yesterday. That was fun!

Here is the promised bouquet of garden flowers, all taken this week and
mostly this very afternoon, just for the enjoyment of you, my Xanga
friends. They include some fragrant roses. I hope you like them! [For anyone who cannot view the gizmo below, check the album out at this address.]

Here's how to have fun with my version of this survey.



1. Go to this random-number generating site.

2. In the first four boxes, type "1" "1" "1" and "57".

3. Press "Randomize Now!"

4. Whichever number you get, answer that question if you comment to me.

That way you can participate in this survey without the hard work of
answering every single question, some of which are just plain silly
anyway! And if some of you get the same number as some others, I'm going to have some fun with that, too.

Later Edit: Today's prize for Google searches resulting in my page goes to "blind alley intrusion."
My vote for nicest Google so far: "Wishes for good luck for a friend that is moving away."

1) How old do you wish you were?
Definitely 21. But with all the brains I have now, of course!


2) Where were you when 9/11 happened?
In a cab on the way back to my studio from a client office. When I
arrived at my own business, people were grouped around the TV, and an
atmosphere of thrilled crisis prevailed. I had quite a job persuading
them that they should stay in the office and continue their work,
rather than going home to watch an endless repetition of the day's
events on the television while my clients went begging for their
projects.

3) What do you do when vending machines steal your money?
I call the telephone number provided, or pay a visit to whichever
office is indicated, in order to get a refund and complain about the
dumb machine. It's all based on some principle or something... not sure
what... sheer cussedness I imagine.

4) Do you consider yourself kind?
Yes.


5) If you had to get a tattoo, where would it be?
On someone else.

6) If you could be fluent in any other language, what would it be?
German, to go with my Anglo-Saxon, my French, and the Old Norse and Medieval Latin that are in my near future.

7) Do you know your neighbors?
Pretty well -- I love my neighbourhood.

8) What do you consider a vacation?
I like to visit other cities, stay in hotels, tour museums, historical
landmarks, and choice restaurants, and see plays. My husband likes to
pack lightly, get into a canoe, and paddle deep into the wilderness,
where he sets up camp on a remote shore and jumps with glee from rocks
into water. I think we'll both manage to be ridiculously happy going on
each other's vacations each summer.

9) Do you follow your horoscope?
I never pay the slightest attention to such things.

10) Would you move for the person you loved?
The loved person and I would do whatever we reasonably decided, upon discussion of all factors.

11) Are you touchy feely?
Only with my husband! I do hug my family and friends.

12) Do you believe that opposites attract?
There’s no such thing as "opposite" people, is there, really? But I
have observed a person being attracted to another for certain traits
which they affected to admire, only to detest the same person later for
those same traits. I guess that's not "opposite," it’'s "contrary." Also
"annoying" and possibly "hypocritical."

13) Dream job?
The lifestyle of the jetsetting idle rich would do nicely. However, the
lifestyle of the ground-bound idle poor is not so bad in actuality.

14) Favorite channel(s)?
I have not owned a television for over 20 years, thereby saving over
20,000 hours of my life for actual... living. (I also know that you
don’t really watch much TV, only the news and the educational channels.)

15) Favorite place to go on weekends?
My garden. Or anywhere my husband is going. Although a little less hardware store haunting would be all right. (patient sigh!)

16) Showers or Baths?
Showers.

17) Do you paint your nails?
Not since I bought the laptop. Long nails + laptop = gobbledygook! I used to like French manicure, though.

18) Do you trust people easily?
Nope.

19) What are your phobias?
Medical appointments. Physical danger. I guess those two are related!

20) Do you want kids?
I can't have kids, and I haven't wasted time regretting that, since the
operation in question saved my life. People have suggested adoption. I
don't know if I can imagine it.

21) Do you keep a handwritten journal?
Only my Xanga.

22) Where would you rather be right now?
I love my home and garden and neighbourhood! Hmm. I guess I would like
to go to France with my husband and show him where I went to school,
where I lived, etc... so if we were doing that now, it would be great!

23) Who makes you feel warm and fuzzy?
You know who it is? Whoizzit? Whozzafuzzyman? It's Davey! Yessitizz! And other such nauseating stuff.

24) Heavy or light sleeper?
Heavy. Dave’s snores do not wake me. Nor do mine wake him! Yay!

25) Are you paranoid?
Only when it's completely warranted.

26) Are you impatient?
Fairly. And easily irritated, too. But never bored.

27) Who can you relate to?
This is an odd question, far too vague to answer. Who made this up anyway?

28) How do you feel about interracial couples?
Delighted, optimistic, hopeful, warm.

29) Have you been burned by love?
Oh yes. But more often I've been the burner.

30) What's your favorite pick-up line?
Never used one. Not sure one's ever been used on me either.



31) What's your main ring tone on your mobile?
It sounds like a stick tapping on a hollow wooden tube. Hard to describe, easy to recognize.

32) What were you doing at midnight last night?
Watching Casablanca with my husband. And before you ask, when I moved
into my husband's house, he had a TV already, which we now use to watch
movies only. I love movies, which I rent through an online service.

33) What did the last text on your cellphone say?
I <3 u!

34) Whose bed did you sleep in last night?
My own, on the right-hand side. My goodness, these questions are tamer when one is happily married, aren't they?

35) What color shirt are you wearing?
Navy blue plaid.

36) Most recent movie you watched?
Casablanca.

37) Name three things you have on you at all times?
My purse. My peridot engagement ring. My wedding band.

38) What color are your bed sheets?
Dark blue and gold.

39) How much cash do you have on you right now?
About $30.

40) What is your favorite part of the chicken?
Breast.

41) What's your favorite town/city?
Toronto. Closely followed by Chicago.

42) I can't wait till:
My husband gets some time off so we can enjoy the summer properly.

43) Who got you to join Xanga?

GapGoddess is my Xangamomma. We met on an online game called Medievia. You can go thank her if you are glad I am here!



44) What did you have for dinner last night?
Greek pizza with feta, black olives, red peppers, and onions, homemade hermit cookies, cranberry juice.

45) How tall are you barefoot?
5'8".

47) Do you own a gun?
That
is illegal where I live, thankfully. None of my neighbours own guns,
either. No matter how mad they get at me, they won't be shooting me.

48) What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Coffee or tea, either is fine.

49) What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex?
My stunning personality.

50) Where do you think you'll be in 10 yrs?
Probably right here. If I'm as lucky as I'd like to be.

51) Last thing you ate?
A yogurt with granola.

52) What songs do you sing in the shower?
I just don't. Dave sings "Magical Trevor." (If you don't know what that is, I suggest you avoid googling it! You've been warned!)

53) Last thing that made you laugh?
A horrid episode of Judi Dench's 1981 "A Fine Romance" which I rented by mistake. I love Judi Dench... but this was awful!

54) Worst injury you've ever had?
I slipped down some carpeted stairs in my early 20s and broke a couple of toes. That was very painful.

55) Does someone have a crush on you?
I should hope not.

56) What's your favorite candy?
Rockets. I also like sponge toffee. I have an unfortunate sweet tooth.

57) What song do you want played at your funeral?
Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." It was sung at my wedding, so it must be sung at my funeral too!

I have a wonderful dad. He's a retired elementary school principal,
aged 69. He lives perhaps two-and-a-half hours' drive away from me with
my mom, in the house I was raised in.

They have had an active, busy, healthy retirement. My dad loves
carpentry and photography, and they are both hugely into keeping
tropical fish. In fact, they are somewhat famous for their success in
breeding certain difficult or rare types of fish. Their house still
contains dozens of fish tanks, both upstairs and down, although they
have reduced the number a bit recently, I notice. My mom's arthritis
may be one reason for that.

I didn't get along so well with my parents when I was living with them,
sad to say. I was what they liked to call a "willful" child. Looking
back, I think it was a combination of my own pig-headedness and my
father's  restrictive discipline. He was one of a family of four
boys, himself, and despite his vast experience with children in his
career, it seems to me that he was utterly freaked out to have such an
outspoken, strong-minded girl child. He lectured endlessly and tried to
keep me under lock and key. I felt that he didn't value my positive
qualities or trust me to make responsible decisions. We just couldn't
see eye to eye on anything. I'm sure many of you will understand what
I'm talking about here.

Since I reunited with my highschool sweetie, though, a very warm,
loving relationship has grown up between me and my parents. I value
this relationship so much. It would be hard for me to describe how
relieved and happy I am that things have improved so much. I'm sure
part of the credit is due to my new husband. They adore him and he
thinks the world of them, so it’s a great atmosphere. (My last partner thought of parents as a species of inconvenience.) My husband's father was a drunkard who died when Dave was twelve, so he loves to say, "Hi Dad!" to mine.

A couple of years ago, when my dad noticed that we had no coffee table
in our living room, he decided to make one for us. Now, I always knew,
in the back of my mind, that my dad is a terrific woodworker, but
believe me, I had NO IDEA. I sent him a few photos from the Internet of
the kind of thing I wanted. Since my home is vintage 1950, I wanted a
nice clean retro Danish look. I sent him pictures like this one:

And he drove over one day with THIS, swathed in old blankets:

Holy moly! I never saw anything so lovely, even in a furniture
showroom. The latticework on the second level there is incredible -- my
mom described my dad on his knees in the workshop cutting all 400 lap
joints by hand. He is an absolute perfectionist, and even he can't
think of anything to fault in this table.

He was over here yesterday and had a look at how his handiwork is faring
(very well, I’m glad to say!). Every time I enter my living room I stop
to adore this table. My husband says there's a lot of love in it, and
he is so right. It looks even nicer since we had a splendid hardwood
floor installed in the living room last fall.

We are always looking for something to help my dad enjoy his workshop,
and yesterday we got him an Arrow electric staple gun with boxes of
every kind of staple and brad that it will fire. My mom says he's very
pleased with it, since his old one was a laborious manual lever affair.

A Happy Father's Day to all the dads, including mine!

Family BBQ today!

Two hours from now! *frantic rushing about!*

Aren't you glad you're not here?

I'll update you all later. I'm sure you're on the edge of your seats wondering how it'll all turn out.

P.S. Welcome to featured-content readers. Laugh, always happens when I'm too busy to enjoy you all!


Edit: My
parents showed up half an hour early -- DOH! I am one of those people
who is ready for a party 1.5 seconds before it technically begins.
Actually, sometimes about 5 minutes after! But my parents like to leave
so much drive time that it's just funny, and they are always surprised
when they get somewhere early. Wow! No accidents on the highway! Fancy
that! *laughter*

My aunt and uncle were an hour late. That's normal too, and it gave me
a break between BBQ shift one and shift two. Problem with these parties
is that they are so short. Guests' return-trip drive time was longer
than the party. Oh well! It's only once a year, and my wonderful
husband cleaned up! (Well, 90% he says. But that's a lot!)

Be around to read your pages sooooon!

I spent yesterday in Toronto helping a great friend, Deb, pack up her
family's belongings. She is a stream biologist, and on July 1, she is
driving down to live in Kansas for the next two years to do some
post-doctoral work.

It'll surely be a big change for her. She's vegetarian, for instance,
and she mentioned with relief her discovery of the right kind of
grocery store in her new town. She's used to living in a big city, but
I know that she is ready to enjoy the relative peace and quiet of a
smaller place.

I'm going to miss the whole family so much. Her husband is one of my
oldest friends – I actually introduced the two of them to each other,
now that I think of it, about 20 years ago today! She was only 16 then,
but she hasn't changed much. She's one of those lucky women who weather
well despite two small children and the challenges of being both a mom
and an academic career person. And since I can have no kids of my own,
I'm an honorary auntie to her sweet little boy and girl.

Nowadays there are great new ways to keep in touch. And in fact, maybe
Dave and I will make the two-day drive down there to visit them at some
point. Hmm, perhaps that could be combined with a trip to Chicago, one
of my favourite cities.

It seems that a whole chapter of my life will close when these people
drive away, but I'm glad Deb is taking this step to continue her
career. That's what I'll try to focus on. They've only rented out their
house here in Toronto… I could always dream that they might return one
day. It doesn't seem too likely though, since there's not a lot of work
for stream biologists around here!

Edit:
Oh yes, her husband is certainly supportive! He is a technical writer,
but since she is the "Dr." in the house, it's plain that her career is
very important. So many years invested in getting a doctorate should
not be allowed to get stale and go to waste! So he's going to see if he
can continue freelance for the company he now works for, or barring
that, if he can get some contract or freelance work in Kansas. It
matters much less where you physically are, these days, for some kinds
of work anyway.


Later Edit:
I've been googled a lot today, and it's kinda funny. I've gotten hits
based on "Keanu Reeves buys bungalow," "pictures of goddesses" (?!),
and part of a Leonardo da Vinci quote I used once. Have you been googled today?

Normally, in university, you never see or hear about an exam again after it's written.

But I have been blessed by an e-mail from the prof about the one I
wrote on Shakespearian comedy! She said: "You wrote an exceptionally
good exam, by the way.  I especially enjoyed your response to
Benedick's passage."

As a result, I have a final grade of 85A. Just posted. Whee! I continue to be hugely relieved that I can still succeed in school despite my years away.

I can't remember any longer what I might have written -- it's all a
blur -- but the passage she mentions is a memorable one from Much Ado
About Nothing.

Kenneth Branagh performed this so well
in the movie I've appended to this posting! Benedick's friends have
gotten together as a joke and allowed him to overhear a conversation
wherein they discuss how much Beatrice loves him (a complete fiction at this point), and what a shame it
is that he can't see it and won't love her back.

Benedick has always railed publicly against love and marriage. In
these few lines, ludicrously and touchingly full of a mixture of pride,
humility, amazement, and acceptance, he overturns the curmudgeonly
habits of a lifetime.

This can be no trick: the

conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of

this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it

seems her affections have their full bent. Love me!

why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured:

they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive

the love come from her; they say too that she will

rather die than give any sign of affection. I did

never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy

are they that hear their detractions and can put

them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 'tis a

truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; 'tis

so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving

me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor

no great argument of her folly, for I will be

horribly in love with her. I may chance have some

odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me,

because I have railed so long against marriage: but

doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat

in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of

the brain awe a man from the career of his humour?

No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would

die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I

were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day!

she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in

her.

I don't think anyone will ever better Branagh's hilarious delivery of these lines.

By the way:
even if you don't particularly enjoy Shakespeare, see this film if you
haven't yet. It's one of the best movies ever, Shakespeare or no,
despite Keanu Reeves's usual wooden face.

(Click on any photo above to see it more clearly, by the way.)

I live in a town near Toronto, Ontario, which was created just after
World War II. Specifically, I live in a lovely neighbourhood,
conceived in its entirety by enlightened town planners who envisioned,
in their optimism, a humane place for people to live, with different
types of houses
and apartment buildings, ample space for community purposes, long
sightlines, lots of green space, and so on. It's all there to read in
the civic planning documents, now 55 years old, and you can admire it
today, still almost entirely intact after all those years.

A community like this one inspires quiet pride in its residents. We
don't have any magnificent mansions, yet we are so wealthy in our
community spirit that it just makes me glow to think about it.
Developers have been trying to target our community spaces, and last
time we went door to door to drum up support, we got dozens of
concerned residents at the council meeting – so many that the
councilors
looked bewildered and extra chairs had to be located.

A home is often the biggest investment a person ever makes.
Naturally, then, it matters to a home owner when a developer proposes
to squeeze 20 incongruous townhouses onto a tiny nearby plot of land formerly
occupied by a church, now sadly gone. Twenty tall, bleak,
barracks-style rowhouses with snout garages that would turn the street
they're on into little more than a blind alley. Twenty ugly
monstrosities, poorly constructed, within which unfortunate people
would probably find they knew little about their neighbours besides
what they could hear through the thin dividing walls. Sure aren't many comfy
front porches to wave from on these new places sprouting up all over.

And that's not to mention the unfortunate impact on property values and taxes of new nearby homes that are up to three or more times bigger, in square footage, than the original homes built in here. Sigh.

I love when a developer says "people don’t want to buy bungalows."
Well, realtors say differently. Houses that come up for sale in this
neighbourhood are sold almost instantly, often for more than the asking
price. Why? Because they are charming, fresh-looking, well-built,
adaptable, reasonably private, reasonably priced… ready for another
half-century or more of creating fond memories for the lucky people who live
in them.

It's just that bungalows aren't so profitable. Why build humanely when
you can get away with stuffing people into rabbit hutches?

There aren’t enough laws to protect neighbourhoods like ours, but it
looks like we’ve made life difficult enough for this particular developer
that he is going to look elsewhere for his next victims. Makes me want
to hold a neighbourhood party just to say thank you to the wonderful
people who live here. Hmm!

Taken last night.