69 and Oxley Field

69 years of age is rapidly approaching. Two and a wake-up and I’m there. Who’d a’ thunk it ??? I mean I really do recall not thinking I would make it here. Even before I approached retirement and gave thought to the early death of my parents. Then, given all indications I thought if I could get just a few years, two or three, out of retirement I would be happy. But even before that, going back to as early as 1957 I recall having a conversation with my best bud, Bruce Rogers, about the subject. I think it must have been about ‘1957’ ? Somewhere in there. It was a summer night in Grandview Heights, Ohio, where I grew up. A suburb of Columbus. And like lots of summer nights we were at Oxley Field watching Little League baseball. If we weren’t watching we were playing. Oxley Field had lights, an adjacent playground, basketball hoops, tennis courts, and of course a baseball field. It was also just a stones throw from Bruce’s house. Literally, about a hundred yards down the hill which was his front yard. This particular night there was a ‘Old-timers’ game. Mr. Guyton (I think it was Mr. Guyton? Pretty sure, and BTW all dads were Mr. back then) was playing center field. The batter hit a hard liner to Mr. Guyton’s right and he gave chase. He made a dive for the ball at the end and did a real good somersault to finish his move. Unfortunately he remained on the ground because he had broken his collar bone. This gave Bruce and I pause and we wondered if these guys who were in their 40’s and 50’s should even be playing softball? The thought gave momentum to a rather lengthy discussion of growing old. Remember we would have been 14 or 15 at the time. I really do remember talking about what it would be like to live into the 21^st century if we could possibly live that long. And Mr. Guyton; he walked off. But he didn’t make the catch. No matter though. The game was over. And after Bruce and I pondered all the possibilities of growing old, if we had any money in our jeans from cutting grass or delivering papers, we probably wandered over to either the DQ or Leonardo’s pizza. Ahh Leonardo’s!! Where you could get a really good pepperoni pizza with all the grease you wanted at no extra charge. And that didn’t count the grease already floating in the middle of the turned up pieces of pepperoni. That was just the regular ‘comes with it’ grease. Leonardo’s had anchovy pizza too. Brother in law Dom still maintains you are not a real man until you’ve eaten a whole anchovy pizza, anchovies of course live and flapping. I dunno ?? I think I made the real man thing, I just took a different route.
Damn !!! I just about broke my collar bone by tripping over our 3 dimensional carpet and RV site stain. Of course I’m talking about our favorite pet, Jade. She gets no respect. Well…… maybe some. She’s a good pet. Takes the blame and barbs with aplomb and the flick of a her tail and the showing of her rear end parts.
Do you know I have been breaking eggs regularly since about 1951 and still haven’t made a mess like those people on TV who need one of those egg breaker pieces of crap. How pathetic must you be to not be able to crack an egg without assistance? I just had to get that out. It’s even worse than Father Garducci’s Mister Tea. Remember that? I think it was Father Garducci on Saturday Night Live back when SNL was funny who did the take off on Mister Coffee. A stick on a stand with a ring at the top that you poured the hot water through into the cup on the stand that you put the tea bag into. So in effect you were pouring water through a whole into a cup the held a tea bag. SNL’s best, and it cracked me up. But it was a long time ago. Don’t watch anymore.
So we are well in Phoenix. I have all my appointments lined up now. I should know all of what I need to know by the 10^th after seeing urology and oncology. By the end of April we should be mostly done and ready to roll now that I don’t have chemo. Chemo sucks, as does Agent Orange, but, the hair is thickening.


Hooray!!!!!  An explanation of Debt Ceiling that makes sense. ___________________________________
THE DEBT CEILING

• Democrats don't understand THE DEBT CEILING
• Republicans don't understand THE DEBT CEILING
• Liberals don't understand THE DEBT CEILING
• NO ONE understands THE DEBT CEILING

So…. allow me to explain...
Let's say you come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood. Your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings. What do you think you should do?
Raise the ceilings or pump out the shit?
Your choice is coming in November. Don't miss the opportunity.


One of the benefits of age is that I don’t have to look forward to another 70 or 80 years of the direction this country is going. I know I’m not alone in saying “Thank God I’m old!” But I do wish with regret that I had done more to forestall what we have become. What a mess huh?

Gone today-Hair tomorrow

We had our appointment with the oncology doctor yesterday at the VA hospital in Phoenix, and the news is good. No more #@&%$* chemo. Whoahh, whoopee and yahoo !!!!!!!!!! It’s not like I am magically cured or anything, Consider this just a second opinion and a different approach. My lady doctor, Dr. Harrington and another oncologist have looked over all my stuff and think that the hormone therapy is a better approach. I am still not a candidate for surgery, and that includes Cyber-knife, because of the spread to my bones. It wasn’t that chemo was wrong, the thinking here is that that can be used later as it becomes necessary. You may remember that we heard something similar in San Antonio when they started me on hormone therapy. So now I have a new pill to take; biculutamide. One tiny pill a day and no more chemo. Yip yip whooooahhh!!!!!!! Did I ever mention that chemo sucks? This new pill is one specifically used in conjunction with the hormone shot (leuprolide ??) I already take. Anyway, I almost danced out of the hospital. All of this is based on the shrinkage of my tumor shown on imaging. As was explained to us before, the hormone therapy blocks testosterone which is the culprit in prostate cancer and is the equivalent of surgery. Kind of like cutting off the ‘boys’ as Kat would say. Much less disturbing I would say.

Gone today

So now I will see have to see the urologist and find out about the stents and have a ‘PET’ scan. That’s a whole body scan, kind of like a CT I guess? So they’re still looking. Mostly I can report we have seen the doctor, I am getting done what needs to done, and I like the results so far. Kat is happy!!! I’m happy. Now I can grow some hair !! Chemo still SUCKS !!!!!!!

Kat has been having some trouble with arthritis or carpal tunnel or ???? She says, I've had to put away my crochet and knitting because I have carpal tunnel in both wrists. And the computer mouse is bugging me too. So I need to spend less time playing FB (Facebook) games. Can't play on the computer, can't crochet or knit, can't hold even a paper back book without pain. Guess I'll just have Randy open my Twinkies and I'll sit on the couch and watch Oprah all day. Sounds kind of like a ‘THIS SUCKS’ to me. Where’d she get an attitude like that ??

In other news: Doris and John are moving in, minus one old coffee pot, Katy is all better, there is some kerfuffle with the Y-Cook, the China Sea is open, and the last I heard there were nine carvers who showed up. That, of course, all relates to BGR. We went to an RV show at the University of Phoenix sports complex. That’s where the NFL Cardinals play. We walked in to the arena and were greeted by 32 salesmen. I said “no fair, you guys outnumber us by 16 to 1”. I think my math is correct? I told them we were happy RV owners and were just looking but a couple of them wanted to waste some time for a while. So they did. Eventually they realized that they weren’t going to have a pay day following us around and gave up. It wasn’t like I didn’t warn them. We looked at most of what might marginally interest us but truly didn’t see anything that ‘blew our dresses up’. We did see a couple of things that we need to change or improve. We don’t like our audio-visual set up and the new ones seem less complicated. We’ve got this supposedly fantastic system but it requires a degree in engineering and robotics. We still need to exchange or modify our dinette table and get some new (better) cushions and we would like one of the new, smaller, non-movable, no cranking up and down, looks like an aircraft, digital TV antennas. Other than that our RV is just dandy.

Here’s a thought! There should be some strict qualifications to be qualified to vote. First of all, you should have some ‘skin in the game’. There needs to be risk involved. Non taxpayers and welfare recipients need not apply! If your only interest is to vote yourself a part of the treasury you had no part of creating, you shouldn’t be voting. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of moments thought of the Occupy crowd to convince you of that. Talk about ‘wastes of flesh’ and the need to ‘thin the herd’ (big grin here). I could definitely live with a required high school graduate, or equivalent qualification. I mean if you walk into Dunkin Donuts and can’t read the menu board well enough to order coffee and a donut, you probably shouldn’t be voting. I know that it’s the 2000’s and just because you have a high school diploma doesn’t mean you can read, but you have to draw the line somewhere. But don’t despair, I wouldn’t stop there. Mostly you should have some worldly experience hopefully giving you some semblance of knowledge that would justify the privilege. Let’s not forget that is what it should be, a privilege. Soooo…. I believe a hitch in the military, or maybe the reestablished CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) or perhaps the Peace Corps. I guess you’d have to be careful about calling anything the Corps because Obama can’t pronounce that off is reader board. But, you get my drift! Man o’ man would that change the political landscape or what? Can you see the reaction of your liberal friends to that. They’d probably want military service to be a disqualification. Oh well, it was just a thought! Did I ever tell you about Coventry? Maybe I did?

My oldest wrote to me on news of the chemo and she said “Hip, Hip Hooray

I'm chuckling about your subject.. gone today - hair tomorrow, so funny.

That's great news, cuz I'm not sure if you knew this, but apparently - Chemo SUCKS!”

Like the idea of a little pill instead :)

I thought it was cute and I see some potential here for someone to perhaps carry on the recording of the family history. But that’s way down the road. My job for a while to come.

Hair tomorrow

Bentsen Palm to Royal Palm

Bentsen Palm Dr. that is, to Royal Palm RV park. It’s an OK park. True to its name, for you RGV folks, it kind of looks like Victoria Palms in the RGV from a distance. That is every site has its 30/40 ft Royal Palm. Pretty close-in, north of downtown Phoenix. Rather typical I guess? For a 55+, long term stay park. According to the brochure there are 334 home sites and 124 RV sites. All the RV sites are together. There is a nice pool, library, pool tables, laundry, and rec room. Typical !! I think it’s about 7 miles from the VA hospital. Where we have spent some time.

The VA is not as bad as you may have heard. We did spend 10 hours in Urgent Care/Emergency that one day and night but other than that it’s been pretty good. Kat just gets kind of protective and in that mode her claws seem to come out. Not a bad thing. It just makes it seem it’s worse than it is. But with some persistence and phone calls, Kats’ specialty, we’re getting results. We took my records in yesterday, for the second time, to be reviewed by the head of oncology. Being the second time, that was a little frustrating.  We got a call today and have an appointment with a doctor on the 15^th. So we’ll see what they have in mind here. Originally I was not really due anything until late April. Chemo was coming to an end and all I had was my hormone shot and stent replacement. We thought we would be heading west with nothing to do until April. But then my Texas chemo doctor thought we should continue chemo. Frankly, I’d rather not. Chemo Sucks !!!! Big Time !! It’s been a month since my last chemo and I’m just beginning to feel better. But I will do what I have to do. I’d just rather it weren’t chemo. Did I say Chemo Sucks !!!!!!!!! Guess I did.

Being further west is kind of neat. Stuff has familiar names and looks a little more like were use to. No more HEB (Harold E Butts). Now it’s Albertson’s and Fry’s and Safeway. Imagine that, more than one choice for groceries. We’ve been to Albertson’s and I got some good bagels. No more of those bollio’s Mexican rolls or whatever they were. Now it’s In and Out, Carl’s Jr. and even a Dutch Brothers coffee. One of Kats favorites. And they had almond syrup for her 16 ounce Almond latte, not too hot. I had to turn into that place real quick let me tell you! But it wasn’t like the experience in Missouri. I must have wrote about that a few years ago. Worth another tell. We had been traveling through Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri for a while. If you’re familiar, there are no Starbucks, Dutch Brothers, Seattle’s Best or anything like that within a light year. It’s one of those second star to the right and straight on till morning things. A long way !! Kat is on the phone with her son Rick, I’m driving the motorhome and we’re approaching Interstate 40. It’s an unusual entrance on to the freeway given that there is a stoplight on to a busy freeway entrance ramp. Lot’s of semi’s and big rigs and stuff. And across the freeway is some sort of shopping mall. Now we’ve been in rural America for a couple of weeks. Kat who was very much use to the Northwest and a coffee shop on every corner is still addicted and fighting withdrawal. The only thing we had seen was Family Dollar, Dollar General and Dollar Tree. The last place we had stopped was a fruit stand combination antique store and the couple who ran it didn’t have a mouth full of teeth between them. So there we are, waiting at the red light to turn on to I-40. The light turns green, I start into the intersection to a blood curdling scream from the right seat. I didn’t know whether to crap my drawers or go blind. Rick is on the phone and I can hear him wondering if we have become a long grease spot on the interstate? I come out of shock enough to look for and expect the oncoming semi about to crush us, only to see Kat pointing across to the mall and a Starbucks sign. Holy Crap !!!!!! And we were on the freeway and didn’t even turn around and go back. Something you don’t do on the freeway driving a motorhome and towing a dinghy. It got so I good see those coffee house signs and just pull in and avoid the stress. But now Kat is pretty much over it and we don’t even stop that much, although I do ask. Just to be on the safe side. It’s those claws!!

Just kidding.

Texas in the Rearview Mirror

Now that’s hard to believe! We ain’t been outta Texas in 16 months or so? Don’t get me wrong, I like Texas. So does Kat. But we’re Oregonians. It almost seems like some higher authority didn’t want us to leave. As we approached the border with New Mexico I began to think about it and was afraid to say anything for fear something would happen. But it didn’t. We gassed up at milepost 0 and slid right across the state line. I thought maybe gas would be cheaper in Texas, but it proved to be the same price in NM. Actually it was 1 penny cheaper at one place I saw. Go figure! By the way, It was 980 miles, give or take from the RGV to El Paso. If you figure going backwards to get the tire repaired and some side trips to eat, park, and of course deviate to San Antonio for medical, I’m sure it was well over a thousand miles. But we made it. Most of the drive was OK. The wind was bad a few times. Mostly when we were climbing, like across the Continental Divide, or through the mountain passes. At times it was hard or impossible to keep the rig in overdrive, in our case, 6^th gear. I know buy a diesel !!! Not gonna happen. We like what we got !!! But we weren’t in that big of a hurry so we just stopped a little earlier. We had a little trouble with some blown fuses too. Our 12 volt plugs wouldn’t work for the Brake Buddy, tire monitoring system, and Susie (our Tom-Tom GPS). One of the plugs is on the chassis electric system and the other is on the coach 12 volt system. Anyway we blew them all somehow? But we looked in the book and figured out where the fuse boxes were and finally got them all replaced and everything working. Took a while though. And we had to replenish our supply of fuses. Good to go now!
Does anyone have any idea how much we could reduce the Federal or State deficit if we quit putting up stupid road signs saying that ‘bridges may ice before roads’? For goodness sake! We’re mostly where they don’t ice anyway, and if you’re not, you should know it happens. I say take’em down and if you’re too stupid to know about it………. Maybe that would just be a good way to ‘thin the herd’.
Well !!! Chemo still sucks. And one of the reasons is ‘chemo brain’. It just doesn’t seem like you can function at the same level as you could before chemo. It’s harder to concentrate and stay involved. At this point I know some of you would say, ‘what’s your point’, you didn’t function at that high a level before you started chemo. Well maybe so, but I didn’t read westerns to the exclusion of all other genres of fiction either. Not that there’s anything wrong with westerns understand. But I’m going through Johnston’s First Mountain Man series at a book a day. Maybe it’s just wholesome reading. The Code of the West, the good guys prevail or something like that. I’m enjoying !! Preacher, the First Mountain Man pretty much has it right. He’s the strongest, fastest with a gun, best tracker, injun fighter there ever was and he don’t kill somebody unless of course they really need to be kilt. Then he does it wholesale. My kind of guy!