Stories, Books and Life--October 2008

October 2008--Recipe books. I've been thinking about holiday cooking and baking so I've dug out the recipe books from deep in the old cupboard. I fall asleep while mentally measuring sugar, flour and cinnamon. Kevin uses his iTouch to catch up on a little pleasure reading when he has time. His always present rosary is either on the nightstand or tangled in the morning sheets when he's fallen asleep mid-prayer the night before.

Some Things You CAN Put A Price On

Had an email from the gallery director at The Honeywell Center. My egret photo sold today.

I am inexplicably pleased. Having someone back up their "I like that picture" with hard earned cash is an entirely different satisfaction from that of winning a competition or being chosen for a show.

$175.00 worth of satisfaction. Some things you can put a price on.

Truth, Justice and Lies

As predicted, the Ashley Todd story of the dyslexic mugger with the Obama agenda has imploded. It was a lie fabricated by Ms. Todd herself.

For the partisan record, there was no McCain/Palin agenda at work here either.

Ashley Todd's fate now rests in the hands of lawyers, doctors and courts. There's room to argue that her actions are more the result of mental illness than racial politics.

But I still wonder what it says about the rest of us. Those who embraced it as a truth about race and those who dismissed it as a racist manipulation against truth.

Sometimes a lie is just a lie. Even the ones we tell ourselves.

Homecoming

Home again.

We spent the weekend in Indiana. Stayed at the farm with Mikkel and Mauricio, the exchange students from Denmark and Brazil who are spending the school year with my sister and her husband. With my brother-in-law on a mission trip and my sister running a marathon in Washington D.C. as a qualifier for next spring's Boston Marathon, we volunteered to stay with the boys.

It was Homecoming weekend on the Purdue campus. We met up with Paige and Rob, Hannah, Andrea, Evan and Rose and Haylee, Tamra, Jeff and Tamra's parents for Purdue's Night Parade. It was fun to see it through Haylee's joyful eyes!

Late Friday night Kate played with a band Matt Scherger recently formed, The Early Blizzards. They opened at Scagnoli's downtown. The band's first public appearance and we were lucky enough to be in town to see them!

Saturday morning we took the boys to the booths on Purdue's engineering mall for freebies then sent them off with Paige and Rob for the game. Saturday night we carved pumpkins--a new venture for the boys--and Sunday morning we went to the early Mass before going out for lunch.

Kate rode home with us tonight. She has a class in Cincinnati tomorrow so I'll take her to her class and she'll ride back to Indiana with a friend from work who is driving over in the morning.

As much as we miss our friends and life in Indiana, we're settled in here now and it felt good to get home tonight. Kevin is already asleep. I'm not sure he ever really feels rested these days but we'll shoot for quiet evenings this week and see if that doesn't help him catach up a little.

It's a different homecoming tonight. Quieter, no parade, no band. But a homecoming nonetheless.

Photo Identification

Doing my Happy Dance tonight. The Honeywell Center in Wabash, Indiana, has hung 3 of my photos in their annual photography show. Out of 309 entries, the judge choose to hang 87 photos.

And 3 are mine (she said, with an inappropriate lack of humility!)

Last year I entered 3 pieces and 1 was hung in the show. This year I'm 3 for 3.

I take hundreds, maybe thousands, more photos than I ever print. Hundreds more than I even keep stored on my trusty external hard drive. I print a few for scrapbook pages for Josh and the girls. Of the few I print for me or to exhibit, I remember something of each photo--something about why I took it; where I was, what brought me to that place, why I liked that shot. The technical details often elude me--exposure settings, lighting. But each time I print a shot, I think about why I took it. I identify with it's story, it's heart.

But enough of the violins and heart pulls about why I like my photos. Tonight I'm indulging in a little self-centered happy dancing simply because someone else likes them too.

Lies, Hate and Guilty Politics

The closer we come to the November election, the more I'm forced to realize I live an insulated life. I believed racism, the fear and hate that breeds racism, didn't exist among the educated and faith-filled people who largely populate my life.

I don't know if it was less apparent than now or I chose not to see it.

I have a friend, someone whose opinion I have often sought out, who tells me that Michelle Obama "hates little blonde white girls" and calls Senator Obama "boy." Another repeatedly maintains there's a white hating agenda being quietly put into place by the Democratic candidate. Our daughter's neighbor rants about having "one of those people" in the White House and wonders--in front of Joshua--what our daughter would do if Josh brought home "one of those girls" as a date or a wife. Someone else uses the word "nigger;" a word I had wrongly assumed would never enter into the landscape of my grandchildren's lives.

Today's email brought a forwarded link to a story about a McCain campaign worker being attacked--having a "B" carved into her cheek--by a black mugger. A supposed Obama supporter taking a break from his real job as a thief to teach her a lesson about supporting the other candidate. My emailing friend wanted me to see the horrible evidence of things to come if Senator Obama finds his way to the Oval Office. Black thugs cruising our streets, assaulting good white folks for sheer pleasure and getting away with it.

Initially I thought the whole thing, the entire story, had to be a hoax. There surely is no Ashley Todd working for the McCain ticket to be mugged, let alone branded by her attacker as a lesson to other McCain workers.

I was wrong on that front. The story exists. It's all over the news. Ashley Todd is a real person with a real backwards "B" scratched into her face.

I still think it's a hoax. The attack. The mugging, the ominous "B" carved into her face. My money is on it all being made up by Ms. Todd.

A mugger with a political agenda? Give me a break. Too convenient by far. A dyselxic mugger with the time on his hands to neatly carve a backwards "B" on his victim's face after he grabs her cash? He doesn't dash back into the shadows to count his booty or buy his daily dope; he looks over her car, observes the McCain sticker and decides to make a political statement on her face? He doesn't steal the car too? Or at least urinate on the offending McCain sticker?

For my emailer the story is true; real evidence that, after years of discrimination, all black people harbor violent resentment against white people. A black guy who steals isn't simply a thief. He's now a political machine out to balance the scales of oppression.

I think it's a lie. And not a good one at that. I haven't figured out why Ashley Todd would fabricate such an elaborate lie. Maybe she's just a liar.

What I've spent time trying to understand is why my emailing friend--or anyone--is willing to believe it. To embrace it. Without reservation.

Is it hate or fear of anything, anyone, appearing different from us that drives us to accept an outlandish story in an attempt to maintain the status quo? Is it guilt--our white response to years of an entire race being treated with inequality here in the one nation founded on equality--that lets us convince ourselves there's a violent "black agenda" in motion and we are the target?

Are we overwhelmingly driven by hate, fear or guilt?

By The Numbers

Tangie called from the cancer clinic with the results of Kevin's bloodwork. She'll be mailing us a copy but wanted to let us know things "looked fine." His CEA level has risen to 2.1 from 1.3 in July. That concerns me but Tangie says we don't worry unless it gets above 3.0

Easy for her to say.

I want it to go down, not up. Not even a little up--and a rise of .8 doesn't fall into my range of "little" if three is the max point.

Knowing there are other things which can elevate CEA levels, I'll try not to obsess too much on this until his next check up. For those of you who like to keep track, some of the crucial numbers are in the image here. Just click on it for a larger view in your browser. The far right box shows the previous numbers. White count is finally into a "normal" range, as are red count and hemoglobin.

Tangie called as I was settling down onto a boulder to look out across the Adirondack Mountains. It's a lot easier to let the little things stay little when you're in the midst of such grand beauty.

The mountains amaze me. Ageless. I can see signs of changes that have occured through time. Smaller rocks broken from enormous boulders. Some are cracked yet holding onto their place on the mountain. Some have fallen and settled in a new place to carry their share of the load. The scars of centuries of environmental assault on their faces, trees growing up--new life springing forth--through deep gouges in the rock. And the mountain endures.

The mountains remind me of so many people we've come to know with cancer and other chronic illness. A growing number. Ageless in the spectrum of life from infants to the elderly. Cracked,maybe broken, but holding on to the mountain. Fallen and redefining their "normal" from a new place. Scarred from treatment as well as disease, deeply gouged, yet continuing to witness to the power of life.

Grand beauty.

Published

If you're here to inquire about an autograph, get in line.

Someone. Please. Start the line. Anywhere.

Had an email from a friend in West Lafayette today. She says my HONORABLE MENTION photo of Purdue's bell tower is in the current issue of Helen magazine, a local publication. She was, appropriately, wowed and has graciously spread the news.

Well, to be honest, her email was titled "Lorri's First Loser Photo" and went on to explain where the FLP could be viewed.

Nonetheless, published is published and I intend to wallow in my milli-second of glory.

So, if you happen to have access to the current issue of Helen magazine, grab it and get in line for my autograph on page 3. Bring a snack. I'm certain the lines will be long and tedious.

Three Month Check-Up

Check up day.

Appointment went well. Dr. Skinner isn't requiring another PET/CT now as she indicated in July. The doctors agree the 'hot spot' seen on that scan is nothing more sinister than inflammation related to his chemotherapy port, an area that is still in that itchy/achey healing mode so would likely show up again if another scan was done now.. His spleen is a little enlarged but that's not unusual as a response to the Neulasta he was given to bolster his blood counts. We'll get blood work results next week which will tell us more about his recovery from the side effects of chemotherapy and monitor for indications of new cancer. Mainly we are watching his CEA level now, an antigen which might indicate the presence of active tumor growth.

Low. That's where you want a CEA level. Low, low, low

The more indicative prompts, though, are the follow-up PET/CT and CT scans which will be alternated at 6 month intervals. Kevin and I are both glad there's no scan and waiting for results this round. The waiting period is a painful nails-on-chalkboard period of remembering ten plus months of treatment did not come with guarantees.

Kevin's fight with neuropathy continues. He is using Glutamine, which does seem to make a difference in the day to day response. Dr. Skinner says to expect additional regression of the numbness and tingling over the next 3 months. She is very enthused about the response she's seeing patients get from the Glutamine. Kevin was one of the first people (many thanks to friend and nutritionist Sue Zuck) to use Glutamine both here and in the Lafayette clinic. I like it because Glutamine doesn't come with any baggage--it doesn't cause a new problem while addressing this one, a rare thing in medicine.

The greetings at the clinic were warm today. It was good to see him remembered and greeted like an old friend, not some by-the-wayside patient they had forgotten in the passing months. Even one of the radiology techs stopped him in the hallway with a handshake and a joke. It's been how long--8 months?--since Kevin was a patient on that side of things and still John recognizes him, asks how his doing, takes time to listen to the answer and tease about us being transplants to Ohio State territory.

I wish no one would ever need cancer care again. But that's not going to happen. So my prayer is that those who do need this care will find themselves in a place--with people--like what we've found here at Boyd.

First Loser, Round Two

I have again attained "First Loser" status, to use Joshua's description of the Honorable Mention category in competition. The full story of Josh's nomination of me as First Loser can be found in the post archives from sometime last September.

My photo of Purdue's bell tower at night was included in the HM category of a recent photo contest, thus Josh's resurrection of "First Loser" status for his granny.

Rotten kid. Next time I'm photoshopping a t-shirt for that boy's soccer team, someone remind me to put pigtails and lipstick on him for payback.