BATMOM

Ambiguity

U.S.A.! Hoorah Landon Donovan! Yes... we were up at 7 AM (okay 7:31 for me) watching the US beat Algeria. They finally scored 92 minutes into the game and around 2 minutes before it ended. 

As I just set up the link to Landon Donovan, I stopped to reflect on how much this blog has changed over these past years. And I'm unsure of what it will become. 

I am settling into life without cancer. My chick-fluffed head and new wrinkles are the only real clues of the endured ordeal. Tom and I have been trying to find our new balance now that I have energy. The systems and routines have been created around the understanding that every routine is temporary (until I get better). And now that I am, we really have to rethink those patterns. 

Adeline dropped my cell phone, and now I can hear it ring but cannot answer it. The screen is white. My computer is fixed now (a dislodged battery. whew.), but I am out of the practice of checking my email and so haven't. The boys have been in the park behind the house doing tennis and swimming lessons with a few friends. Two high school neighbors have been entertaining them in between lessons. I can hear them all splashing and enjoying from the house... the sounds of summer... I love being close enough to hear those sounds of new found freedom.

Meanwhile Tom and I have been working on systems. We've cleaned out every room in the house and reorganized. It was long overdue. Our goal was to finish by the time we leave for Tahoe (this weekend), so that when we come back we can get down to writing and editing sans clutter. It's symbolic, too. We're starting fresh and cancer-free: things are different this time. 

The kids are really believing that this cancer business might be done. Each one has asked more questions of me regarding cancer during these past 2 weeks than during the entire 3 years I was fighting it. Adeline wanted to know what they cut out exactly. Cole wanted to know the name of what made me sick. George wanted to tell me that he had been right... mine was not the kind of cancer you died from. I guess he was right. 

So here I am trying to get back into the flow and enjoying the ambiguity of it all. I don't need to know what the balance is, what the blog is, what the exact systems are... They are all a work in progress and will remain happily so. 

Sunscreen

I just paid $19.99 for a small tube of sunscreen that will last perhaps a week in Tahoe. After the Environmental Working Group study came out showing that only 8% of sunscreens actually work (they keep you from getting sunburnt but do not protect from UVA and UVB rays) and 41% are loaded with some unpleasant, potential cancer-causing agents, Tom and I committed to only using safe sun screen. But $20 a tube? 

The list of sunscreens that they recommend is HERE.

If you find one of these for a decent price... please pass on the information!

I have found Badger's 30+ at www.gear.camping.com for $13. 

Update: found KidsSport for $9.99 at Berkeley Bowl! Very exciting!

Lounging...

The boys began summer break this week, and I'm feeling the summer fever myself. We're doing a lot of lounging on the lawn and jumping in the pool... and not much more. I have spent most of my energy (when I have had it) fitting in everything that I can in an attempt to have a future. And now that I have that future, I feel safe enough to slow down and lounge. 

Entries may be sporadic for a spell. This lounging business is very time consuming!

Shakescene

There was more great news this week. My littlest sister Juliet (also the tallest sister) became engaged to Harry Alabaster! When my kids found out they screamed (well, George did), "Aunt Juliet is going to marry Harry Potter!" To which Harry replied, "I am never going to live up to their expectations."

Over the weekend, we produced a Shakescene. Shakescene is the first known reference to Shakespeare... a critic made fun and ridiculed the man by calling him "this shakescene." Back in the days of Transparent Theater (pre-children), we took our actors up to Mendocino County and produced a staged reading in the woods and rocks and waters of Covelo. This year we did it in Berkleley in the park behind our house. 

It was a fundraiser for our children's school Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley and had about 200 guests. We feasted on wild-fennel and lavender-marinated 125 lb pig, herbed potatoes, local wine, and every kind of decadent dessert known to French cuisine (or so it seemed). Families placed themselves on the lawn after a swim and watched a shortened version of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM as the sun set behind them.

Some Ecole Bilingue 6th and 7th graders and English and drama teachers joined the assembled cast and crew. Tom directed and acted. I did costumes and produced (oh, yes, and marinated the pig to whom we gave thanks before we did so). Friends made dessert, gave clothes off their back, wired bottles, cleaned platters, carried watermelon, carried trash cans, built a roasting space for a large beast and roasted it, you get the picture. The result was, I think, what happens when a village comes together with all of its talents. It was beautiful. A magical evening.

 The scene:

 

The play:

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
   

 

 

 

 
 
   

 

 
 
 
  

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 
 

 

And Puck ends the play!

 

Thanks for the comments. I feel like you're my team and I just got my jersey.... OKay, okay, I'm really bad with the sports' analogies.

4 fairies wings are completed with the help of some champagne corks, old CDs, ribbon, and a little diet coke (seriously those cans have shrunk since I used to drink that stuff).

... To sleep mere mortal...

Still beaming.... and working on costumes for this weekend's Shakescene (outdoor Shakespeare). Who knew an aluminum ball could look so classy ;-)

Oh, YES

I had a CT/PET scan yesterday. I cried my way through the radioactive sugar injection, feeling that I was spent. My needle phobias were mostly cured by a hypnotist so it must have been that darn radioactive sugar cube. (Now my clever mind has turned to my nose to protest... I gag and yes, vomit when I enter a the cancer center or now, as it fully develops, use soap that disinfects).

But just before scan, I had a moment alone. I looked at myself in the mirror and suddenly smiled. 

"It's over." I said to myself very clearly. And somehow I knew it was.

Today I met with my doctors. Scan clear. And no more chemo. We decided that I have done enough, handled it, and now we're all moving on. 

Good work, body.