Yellow Slippers

There is a term, which I can’t remember, for a phrase that describes a condition in terms that are immediately understood. That’s the $64 question, what is that term? Like I said, I forgot.  Anyway, as an example, the term ‘pizza face’ would describe someone with acne, or if I was looking at a guy and said “nice rug”, you would know I was referring to his hair piece. If you were a urologist, or go to one like I do, you would learn that the term used to describe a man with prostate problems is, that guy with a ‘rusty zipper and yellow socks’. “If the shoe fits.’ But don’t take me too seriously, although there is some truth to things like this, which is the reason they are humorous. Anyway, I got up this morning and was headed to the John to avoid the ‘rusty zipper and yellow socks’ thing when I was confronted at the bedroom door by Kat. She informed me that I could only pass after a kiss. I told her ‘this is no time to mess around and we better make it quick or your pretty blue slippers are going to be yellow”. I did make it and got a much better kiss later.

I did have what I thought was my last chemo treatment. But now I am scheduled for three more. My doctor thinks it’s best and I want to do what is right. I’ll have the next on the 18^th and then the last on the 1st of February I believe. Then I’ll have an evaluation and maybe we can get out of here. And the Doc knows that and agrees. We’ll see. Right now we’re thinking we’ll try the VA hospital in southern Oregon. Roseburg. The reports we’ve heard are all very positive. Neither of us is all that excited about Portland or Seattle. Just too much of hassle in terms of population and traffic. And southern Oregon is much more RV friendly. Not too far to the coast or mountains. The southern coast of Oregon is really neat. But! As is the case with extra chemo, I will do what’s right. If we have to go to a more complete facility like Portland or Seattle, we know the way. And we have the motorhome so we are likely to roam all around the Northwest most of the summer. I should only need to be at the VA hospital in late April for a while and then again in late October. That’s my six month rotation on the uretal stents and hormone therapy. And I’m really looking forward to doing some exploring in the Northwest. I don’t have much of a ‘bucket list’ but maybe I can dream up a few items just to cross them off.

Tidbits: A few days last week it almost felt like winter was upon us. Arrghh !!! Winter sucks ! Right next to chemo. But then just a few months ago up in Hondo in the throes of summer I would have paid big bucks for a couple of those days. Not now! This is a little out of date, but did anyone besides me notice that the Army-Navy football game as listed on Direct TV gave a subject description of “Military-War”. No kidding ! Right in the spot where they put the genre of a listing like Romance, Comedy, Action-Adventure, it was listed as “Military-War”. Does that kind of demonstrate a bias in the media or what ????? It was a freakin football game for Crisakes !!! We are nuts !! Oh and just so you know, I have now been cooking (off and on) for 59 years, 7 months, and 17 days (figuring I started at 8 years and some months) and have yet to need one of those egg crackers advertised on TV that I just can’t live without. And a Happy New Year to all. We braved the fallout, put on our flak vests and steel pots (helmets) and went out on New Years Eve and watched the fireworks all around us. Fireworks are huge down here. It sounds like a war zone on every holiday. And based on the fact that every once in a while a bullet hole is found in some building around here, all that goes up is not just a Roman Candle or Sky Rocket. Steel pots can come in handy.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas

Since I’m starting this on Christmas Day I’m guessing it won’t be read until after Christmas. So….. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas; if you were looking for a Happy Holidays, you’ll have to go to another Blog. No political correctness here. Not a chance! I will go out of my way to avoid being PC. If you want PC go to CNN (the Commie News Network, or maybe MSLSD, any of the networks will work too. But back to Christmas.

We couldn’t wait to open gifts and not having kids around to so as not to spoil the belief in Santa Claus, we opened our gifts last night. I got a really neat set of wireless headphones so I can hear the TV while Kat plunks away on her laptop and doesn’t have to sit under a blaring TV. Hooked it up and it really works well. I would recommend it highly to all of you old guys out there who have the same trouble. You can even go to the bathroom and keep listening in case you miss something and need to hit the back button on your DVR. It’s not at all like the same thing I had tried from Radio Shack. Not knocking RS, it’s just that this set works. Name of Sennheiser. I got it working really easy but I do have to do a better job of hiding what little wire there is. Then I got a folder to keep all of my medical stuff in for when we go to the MD’s. I carry current things like appointments, vouchers, new records and stuff. Just a good thing to keep it tidy. Actually I had a better one, sorry Kat, but I lost it for being too slow to use it. Kat bought it for me but then absconded with it before I put it to use. She figured it was really neat for all her crocheting and knitting patterns and stuff. I guess it was kinda’ my fault, but I do think she took advantage of a sick old man in this case.

I got Kat a little crank up flashlight in the shape of a Black Kat. She just has a thing for cats you understand. She was giggling as soon as she started to open it all the way thru seeing how it worked. I felt like it was a real hit. Actually that was from me and Jade. Santa brought her a pearl Tennis Bracelet. Kat says that it can’t be a Tennis Bracelet because its pearl and it has three strands. I maintain that it is, but as long as she likes it I don’t care. Moot point! Correction. She found out it is in fact a tennis bracelet.

27 ??? Twenty Seven ??? I typed that in below what I was working on to remind me of something and now I don’t have the foggiest? Let me know if you figure it out and I’ll finish it. Old Timers or CRS?

Christmas day was the potluck and we did that. We have sign up sheets for about 4 different potluck groups that probably total somewhere around 400 folks. You may remember there were 337 for Thanksgiving. I’m sure a few more folks got here for Christmas. We took Creamed Peas and Potatoes and a Seven Layer salad. Kat made the Peas and I did the salad. I have been informed by family and friends at our table that I will return to my standard of Scalloped Potatoes for all future potlucks. OK! It’s nice to be appreciated. And it’s just as well. I sure ain’t doing no Seven Layer salads again. It must be a West Coast thing. Like I said we don’t have any West Coasters here that I’m aware of. It’s all Mid-Westerners. Maybe a more meat and potatoes, green beans and corn, and Jello salad crowd. I say that because by the time we got to the chow line somebody had stirred my Seven layers into One. And I think that was after they dirty picked the bacon and cheese and topping. Now I wonder if I can send this to my whole list of recipients. But I’m sure it wasn’t anyone I know so I guess I’m safe. And I’m just kind of kidding anyway. Although it is a true story.

So now I will wish you all a Happy New Year and get this off.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!

Common Yellowthroat

Or so it seems. We have for the longest time, had this little, I’m talking 5” maximum, little yellow bird trying to get to the nectar in our hummingbird feeder. I think I mentioned it once before. I believe it’s a Common Yellowthroat. It’s the closest I can come by picture if I look at the range of the other little yellow jobs in the bird book. Some look like better possibilities but wouldn’t live in this neck of the woods. Anyway we’ll call it a Common Yellowthroat and today for the first time ever (a musical) ‘ta da’ and a drum roll here, it landed on the feeder. What a struggle, and it’s been a long time. So then the poor little thing, or dumb yellow job, DYJ, as opposed to the normal LBJ, finds it can’t get anything from the feeder anyway, except maybe a better sniff of the nectar. All those days of work for naught. So maybe I’ll look up DYJ and see if there isn’t something we can fix up to feed it. What a softie huh?  Alas, there is no picture. He may have landed but I’m not that quick. But here are a couple of other pictures. One you will recognize and the other is of two Green Jays.

 

  

 

At coffee this morning Kat says she had this dream and it was ‘maybe?’ about me. I ask if it was somebody with Fame, Fortune, and Good looks. She said ‘yeah’, I said ‘it wasn’t me’. That was the end of that! I guess I ruined her train of thought. Dreams are elusive buggers aren’t they. I did tell her that ‘I wasn’t dreaming when she kicked me in the shin last night. But it was probably my fault. I was trying to snuggle up too close. We do sleep well together. More information than that ‘you don’t need’!

So it’s about 12 days since my last chemo treatment and I am finally beginning to feel better. But my two week break is almost over and it’s time for my last, hopefully, three sessions. I start again on Tuesday. And if it follows the same pattern it will only be a couple of weeks until I can look forward to being ‘all better’. It takes about a week to get the full impact, so by then I’ve had two treatments and then one more week ‘till the third treatment and then I can look forward to feeling better. ‘Piece of Cake’, as they say. While I’m on the subject of chemo, Kat spotted a car from Washington State in the Texas Oncology parking lot and put one of our business cards on the windshield saying, “we’re almost neighbors”, Oregon-Washington you understand? Turns out the folks are from WA and are both being treated for cancer. They got back to us via email and Facebook and we got together and had lunch Thursday and again on Saturday. They are also fulltime RV people and stay at a park not to far from here, also in Mission. Kinda’ neat in that we don’t see many West Coasters down here in the Valley. They all go to California or Arizona. I haven’t seen any Left Coast folks in our park this year. My standard joke is that when we have our Oregon Potluck all we need here is a TV tray and two chairs. Sharon, of Sharon and Chuck, is scheduled for her first chemo on Tuesday so we’ll no doubt see them and compare notes.

One thing I forgot to report and that is I had to get a haircut this week. You guessed it! I’m losing my hair to chemo. Started a few days ago. I fill up my comb like you wouldn’t believe. So I decided to take the initiative and get my hair cut ‘high and tight’. I pretty much look like a recruit or as Kat says a Marine. But shorter hair falling out is better than long hair falling out, trust me. I suppose it will come back? That’s what I’m told anyway. And the Doc said I could lose some. How much, I guess time will tell?

I also see the Doc again on Tuesday and we will discuss long term plans. We have already made it clear, and will again, that we intend to head to the Northwest in the early spring. For us that may be as soon as mid February. I want to transfer my care to Seattle where the VA has a Cancer Treatment Center. I could go anywhere but that seems like a good idea to me. Other possibilities include, Phoenix, Southern Oregon, and Portland. We intend to check them all out. Because of my stents and hormone therapy I have to be treated every six months. Stents replaced and hormone shot. When you figure two weeks prior and two weeks post for what needs to be planned and then checked on, that requires a seven month stay in one location. As much as we like south Texas it is just too damn hot to stay here again in the summer. That’s April through October the way my treatment falls. So, I figure if we get to the NW we can be treated in April, hang out on the West Coast, and come down here in November for three or four months. The other thing about staying here is distances. It’s 1500 to 2000 miles from here to halfway to anywhere. So there isn’t much roaming around down here if we spend the summer. Not so in the Pacific Northwest. There we can go anywhere from Washington to California in a 1000 miles and throw in the whole Pacific Coast, plus Alberta and BC, Canada if we want. And there is always a cool spot even in the hottest of summers. Kat is a little concerned about being stuck in the cold and wet but I think it’s better than summer in south Texas.

Elizabeth Blossom

Huh? You say. Well, I’ve been doing some genealogy on the Randolph name which is my mothers side. So let me tell you about Elizabeth Blossom. Elizabeth was my Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Grandmother. That’s 7^th Great Grandma if you weren’t counting. She was born in Leyden/Leiden Netherlands in 1620. Her parents were born in England so it holds that I am a lot British on my mothers side. Not that there isn’t lots of room for other stuff to be mixed in. And lots of that other stuff is German from my fathers side. But that is another story and right now we are talking about Elizabeth. She was born in the Netherlands because her parents, Thomas and Ann were from England and migrating to the New World in hope of having greater religious freedom. I haven’t done lots of research on the period but I’m guessing it was safer to reach the New World thru the Netherlands than directly thru England. Thomas and a son originally departed on the Speedwell accompanying the Mayflower in 1620. However the Speedwell proved not very seaworthy and was forced back. It was not until 1629 that the Blossom family left the Netherlands and arrived in the Plymouth Colonies. At the time there were some 300 folks living there. Among them one Edward Fitz-Randolph who would become my 7^th Great Grandfather. He was originally from Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, England, and built the 38^th house in Scituate, Massachusetts, one of the Plymouth Colonies. Then in 1637 he married Elizabeth. Edward was a yeoman or farmer and referred to as ‘Master’ indicating he was from a good family. ‘Just saying’! The family wasn’t always just a bunch of ‘Rednecks’. He and Elizabeth had 12 children as listed in my genealogy record. They were born between 1640 and 1663 and three died very young. Edward and Elizabeth moved to Cape Cod and then Barnstable and West Barnstable Mass. Before finally settling in Piscataway, New Jersey, in 1669. Once again the move was precipitated by religious freedom, the religious practices in New England being too restrictive. There is a record of one of the daughters becoming pregnant at age 16 by a married man and he being taken to court where he agreed to support the child. But that was in 1673, four years after the move to NJ, so it wasn’t part of the reason for moving. Edward died in 1676 and Elizabeth carried on. She was granted 300 acres after Edwards’ death and then in 1685 married a Captain John Pike when she was 65 years old. Captain Pike passed in 1688 or 1689 and Elizabeth lived to the age of 93 and died in 1713. She is buried at St. James Church in Piscataway in the west corner with Edward her first husband. Although the headstones were lost when the British built breastworks there during the Revolutionary War.
So there you have it. Pretty cool huh? Maybe I could be so lucky as to have the age gene from Elizabeth. Or maybe it’s where I derive some of my love for travel, my wanderlust. How scary must it be to take your family, referring to Thomas Blossom, on a trip from England to the New World in the 1620’s. A trip lasting 10 years. What kind of courage and perseverance does that require. How many of us would be willing? I guess I’d like to think it is something I would do.
As to Fitz-Randolph? We’ll do some on them next.

Are we nuts?

I wanted to talk about all the crap happening on the political front but just can’t seem to figure out where to start. I had notes but they seem a little outdated because I just haven’t been either upright or in a seated position long enough to do anything. Chemo sucks! Fortunately I’m in the middle of my two week break before my last (at least for now) three treatments. So far, today has been pretty good. You couldn’t know but I just posted the last entry and then started on this one. Which will hopefully be posted today also.
So…………where are we? Well, they got rid of Herman Cain. The media I mean. I guess all you have to do is make the charge? Whether it’s substantiated or not is not at issue. Are we nuts? The Attorney General is lying through his ass about Fast and Furious. Are we nuts? The Keystone pipeline deal and 20,000 or more jobs will be vetoed by our Commie President. Are we nuts? There are larger oil deposits in the U.S.A than in the Middle East combined and they are off limits. Are we nuts? The New York Times is concerned that the Chinese governments interference in their economy is bad for the country. Yet they don’t have the same concern for the U.S.A. Are we nuts? The mainstream media is admittedly in the tank for Liberalism, the Democrat Party and Obama. Are we nuts? I really do think Commie is a fair description of our President. Am I nuts? And the worst cut of all, at least in my opinion, or IMHO, our education system is pretty much going to make certain it stays that way. We are nuts !! And I didn’t even mention the National debt.
We finally got some rain the last few days. Unofficially about 2.5”. I don’t know where that would put us with the yearly deficit but I know it’s a welcome thing. I don’t think we had experienced rain since August and that was just one day of T-storms up at Canyon Lake. I’ve even had to wear pants and a jacket the last few days. Today though is back to normal and I had to turn on the AC just a bit ago ‘cause it’s getting a little warm in here. Maybe now we (I should say Kat) can slow down a little on the watering. The trees here in the park are really suffering. Almost no fruit this year and what there is ain’t much good. We have almost no oranges or grapefruit on our trees this year. I think since we started watering we have 3 or 4 new oranges and some small grapefruit, but the trees seem to be all confused as to what season it really is.
So now I’m going to go outside and watch the fruit grow and do some carving while I have the opportunity. Later!

Chemo

I don’t think it’s a secret that I had prostate cancer and was treated in early 2007 and cleared. I must have mentioned somewhere in the ‘Blog’ that it returned as a metastatic tumor and the hormone therapy I’m on causes ‘hot flashes’, and I apologized for all the kidding I gave friends and family subject to those ‘hot flashes’. They can be a #@%@. Well now it has spread a little and has somewhat of a different signature so they have decided I need ‘chemo’. Not an exciting prospect but if I expect to live to be 125 and get killed by a jealous boyfriend, and I do, then it becomes a necessary procedure. My oncology Doc says what I am getting should be ‘well tolerated’. I was encouraged by that. I say ‘was’!! After two treatments I have learned that ‘tolerate well’ is a relative term. What it really means is that if you haven’t lost your hair or fingernails, you’re not puking your guts out, and don’t have blood pouring from at least three body orifices, then you are ‘tolerating’ chemo fairly well. OK, I’m mostly kidding! I don’t have any of that but I will be glad when the last of my 6 treatments is over. I have three treatments a month for two months and then a reevaluation. And I’m pretty sure my Doc was right. Not so bad but it’s still no fun. Each treatment is a 4 hour I.V. drip procedure with six bags of stuff. But I take a book and the I pod, and I’m really good at naps. Kat sits and watches and crochets or shops and gets us a sack lunch. All in all it has slowed me down but I am glad to have the treatment. This too will pass and I will be well! I can still carve and get around but spend more time in a prone position than I would like. No Pickleball or softball so far. I don’t feel up to that. I guess I could write more too. Oh joy !!!!!!
I’m guessing that this has been a pretty euphoric few days for the folks in Columbus, OH. First they sign Urban Meyer as the Buckeye football coach and then the basketball team really thumps Duke. But let them not be too over confident. They have a ways to go to catch the Ducks of Oregon. I guess you can surmise that I have now made the complete transition from Buckeye to Oregonian. I don’t even tan in the summer anymore. “I rust”!
Oh, just so there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind, as far as I am concerned, all the Occupy crowd can ‘eat @%$# and die. OK that may be a little harsh,………………. or not? Maybe it would be kinda’ cool if cities kicked them out and the gov’t stopped supporting them. Like Richmond where they charged the Tea Party for their rallies and let the Occupiers slide. I think I’ll write the Mayor a note on that one. Just for giggles!
I guess I’m going to have to blame chemo on my not getting this post out in a timely manner. I’m finding that the side effects of chemo are cumulative and maybe just a tad more difficult than I would like to admit. But I’ll stick with the original date which was a couple weeks ago and you’ll have to make allowances

Beans

I had forgot that I wrote this a few weeks ago and then never ‘posted’ it. So here it is if you’re interested.
I have always maintained that I eat a lot of what my body tells me I should eat. I suppose that is true, to one degree or another, for us all. So It’s not always hamburgers, pizza, steak and eggs (fried in axle grease), ice cream, or potato chips (potato chips, now there’s a food group all by itself), sometimes I do eat vegetables and I do have a diet somewhat south of being a true carnivore. Lately I have taken a liking to soups and especially bean soup or just beans. I’m guessing it’s related to my medical condition and the trouble I have because of it. Beans are easy to digest, I think, and they do help me do what I need to do. Or as you will read below maybe it’s just hereditary. But without giving you more information than you really wanted, let me get to the real point.
I was eating a bowl of Bush’s Best Great Northern beans and a slice of bread for lunch and thought of my dad. My Dad was a true bean eater. I remember having navy beans cooked with a soup bone lots of times growing up. My Dad liked beans and to some degree we needed to eat cheap. Money was tighter than most of us would find now and I guess we had to save money where we could. I grew up on peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and oatmeal or cornmeal mush for breakfast. Don’t get me wrong, I had plenty to eat, it was just cheaper stuff. Anyway Dad liked beans even to the point of eating cold bean sandwiches. And when we would go down to the ‘hills’ to visit family and old friends we went to this one old place where there was always a pot of beans on an old electric burner and I can still see him digging in. Beans, beans, beans!
That gets me to thinking of going to my Uncle Binks place. It was just on this side of the ridge from the ‘bean house’ in the previous paragraph, up at the top of Skeeter Hill. No kidding! Binks was a short, plump guy that wore nothing but ‘Bib’ overalls. He lived in the old Sines family home. At least as far as I know it was the old family home? And Binks was the only Sines relative I remember. I think my sister Sandy remembers an aunt and cousin and she may refute some of this, but it’s what I remember. And even though I have done quite a bit of genealogy on both family trees, it’s a little difficult to sort out. Didn’t ask when I could and now it’s too late. I’m sure a common affliction. And, ‘by the way’, the reason I write some of this stuff. Anyway, the house was relatively small, I only remember one bedroom, a parlor, and a kitchen/dining area. There may have been another small room. It wasn’t much but it was really neat! The parlor was virtually unused and had a big old overstuffed sofa and what I remember as nice stuff all covered with doilies. The kitchen had a coal burning stove as a center piece, a hand operated water pump next to a sink, and a wooden table with benches for seating. No running or hot water but a big kettle on the stove. And as I recall Dad liked a big drink of that cool well water from the pump. I remember being a little skeptical. The bedroom was lined with bookshelves holding every Louie Lamoure, Zane Grey, or any other ‘western’ ever written. That is what Binks did. Read westerns. No TV and I don’t even remember a radio. The kitchen had a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. To me it was like two homes. There was the real nice parlor and outside the door on that side of the house was a brick walkway with neat flower beds, two huge pine trees and a combination wood/wire picket fence. I remember peonies all along the walk and by the fence. Then there was the very rustic and utilitarian kitchen side and a porch where you would expect to see two rocking chairs and old folks smoking a pipe. But I really can’t remember the furniture. I do have a visual of maybe just a two or three person bench. Off the porch was an old shed just full of old tools and treasures and I remember playing there a lot. About 50’ up the toward the gravel and cinder road, on an old well worn stone path, just passed the outhouse, no indoor plumbing, was an old, old garage that probably had a model “T” in it that Binks took to town. But I can’t see a car. I just kind of feel it! Weird !! Beyond the shed was the garden. A large garden. I remember lots of potatoes and corn especially. And I remember Binks digging potatoes. Mostly though I remember cheese and bread. Saturdays Uncle Binks made bread in his old coal stove. That was a regular thing when we went to the ‘hills’ on the weekends back in the late 40’s and early 50’s. Fresh baked bread and big hunks of ‘longhorn’ cheese from the old ‘general’ store in New Straitsville, Ohio. The old ‘general’ store had a cool room that was built back into the side of the hill and that’s where they stored big wheels of cheese. Damn!! That was good stuff. Made more so by the years I’m sure. Anyway…………………… I guess that was my Dad’s home. I know that in the 1910 Census he was two years old and the youngest of 6 kids. Interestingly, what I learned from my Dad does not agree with the record. I can’t explain it, but the little that I remember from Dad and Uncle Binks just doesn’t match my genealogy search. But!! That is another story. Stay tuned for another exciting episode of ……………….