Back to Nature, Ahhhhh...

Bill and the kids survived their day of tourist-mania and Grandpa Bud came to visit on Monday. Yesterday morning, I took two half-asleep grown children off to the dentist for cleanings and checkups. There are wisdom teeth extractions in both their futures, but Juli will wait until she marries Kerne and gets a dental plan, and Alex will find a dentist and oral surgeon when he returns to Seattle.

We played Settlers of Catan (a diabolically vindictive board game) in the morning, where we each won one game. The grudge match will be settled today.

We spent the afternoon on the far ridge, marvelling at the greenery, staying out of the poison ivy (which has sprung up with a vengence this week), taking pictures and hiking up steep slopes.

My city kids managed very well:

We saw no snakes, which pleased me. We also saw many new natural wonders:



And I got a chance to be with my favorite people in the whole world:

Tomorrow, we send Alex to Florida to pick up his ride on the nuclear sub with Jared Fuller, and Juli goes home to Seattle. I plan to take to my bed with a cold cloth on my head.

Tourism Run Amok

Today, Bill and the kids are going to the Tourist Mecca of Sevierville, Pigeon Forge & Gatlinburg--a twenty-plus mile stretch of eight-lane highway, cluttered with every possible establishment frantically designed to Hoover every speck of money out of tourista pockets. I've been. No thanks.

Just the sight of this kind of rampant landscape blight really depresses me. Is it the go-karts, parachute jumps, bungee-leapings, autopias, tramways, Mr. Bouncy-Bounces, roller-blade parks, hang-glidings? Is it the wall-to-wall dinner theatres, comedy clubs, teddy bear emporiums, pancake houses (We Can Seat 2000 of you Right Now!), Sharks of the Smokies, Ripley's Believe-It-or-Not, wax museums, acres of Christmas shops, wineries, breweries, fast food, slow food, drive-by lattes, snow cones, gelato, cotton candy, souvenir shops, shoe outlets, candy outlets, sporting goods outlets, dollar stores, wedding chapels, cabin rentals, time-shares, Country Music Extravaganzas, Dollywood? All I know is that this is not what I call a relaxing experience. I get heart flutters just thinking about going down there and seeing what humans have done to supposedly entertain themselves.

There are such places all over this country--Niagara Falls, Hwy 1 in Florida or Maine, the Black Hills in South Dakota (spewing out along the highway all the way to Mt. Rushmore). Orlando. I honestly think that this is the worst though, right here in East TN. Tourist Hell.

I don't begrudge them the experience or the trip. I think everyone who wants to see it should go. But I plan on curling up with a book and my dog, and having a relaxing day.

Daughter Juliana Engaged to be Married

Juli informs us that she and her long-time innamorata, Kerne Fahey, are to be married this year. Juli has tentatively decided on the Winter Solstice, December 21 for the wedding date.

As you can see, she looks quite happy about this!

She and Kerne have known each other since 2001, when they met in Annapolis, MD at St. John's College. They reside in Seattle, where the wedding will take place. Kerne has requested that they be married "someplace up high," so acrophobes are not invited, presumably.

Juli designed their rings and had them made by Bruce Boone, an artist who works in titanium. (http://www.booneti.com/) Her stone is a hexagonal, lab-created ruby with 91 facets, designed and cut by Precision Gems (http://www.precisiongem.com/). Kerne's ring is also made in brushed titanium, but without a stone. Here is her ring:

We are very excited for Juli & Kerne, and wish them continued happiness as they begin their stressful wedding-planning process! They both have very definite ideas of how they want things to be, and we look forward to sharing their special day with them, however loony or untraditional it sounds to us right now. This should be quite an experience for everyone!

Baby Ducks!

Bill discovered a mama wood duck with 5 baby ducklings on the pond yesterday!


We have concerns: We know there is a turtle lurking somewhere about, and wood ducks are notoriously shy and skittish. But the babies can't fly yet, so mama is stuck trying to protect them. We didn't want to disturb her, but had to get a picture.


This morning on our walk, we only saw this one loner duckling:

We heard a "plop" and then saw this guy. Maybe Mama is keeping them in the tree above the water? Maybe the turtle or other predator got all but one last night?

We will continue to look for them quietly and hope this one isn't an orphan. In any event, having this family here is wonderful!

What a torturous day!

First the good news: We found Juli at the airport without further mishap. We had a big family breakfast at Shoney's. We got to Chattanooga on time and found the storefront where the TWIC cards were being administered.


From there, things went seriously downhill. Yesterday was the second day this "center" was open, consequently, no one knew anything about doing their boondoggle government jobs with anything resembling efficiency or minimal competency. The appointments that everyone signed up for online were calibrated in Central Time--never mind that Chattanooga is really on EDT. Appointments that were slated for 15 minutes each were actually taking about 30 minutes to complete. No one knew who was coming or when. The staff of two was about 3 hours behind schedule. The "office" was a large, bare-floored room filled with multitudes of angry transportation workers sweating (no A/C) in rickety folding chairs, waiting. And waiting. We went to the mall for an hour. We went back to the TWIC office. We had a picnic on the median strip of grass. We went in the office and glared at the woman at the desk (I brought the dog inside too, just itching for her say something about that!) Bill was highly embarrassed, and I think, increasingly fearful that I was going to blow my stack at this very nice, but thoroughly incompetent woman. He got directions to a nearby park on the Tennessee River, and the kids, dog and I went there for a couple of hours. The kids read. Echo ate grass. I knitted a scarf. Bill was finally done with his business around 3 pm.

Then we started the long trek home, via Sweetwater and The Lost Sea caverns. We arrived just in time for the 4:30 tour. Bill babysat the dog in the shade, while Juli, Alex and I explored the caves. It was very fun, and deliciously cool underground. Our tour was small, just one other family of four, so we had plenty of time to poke into corners and ask all our questions. It was also very dark:

Then, back in the car for more driving, more driving. Bill was feeling perky again by the time we got to Sevierville, and wanted to stop for still MORE fun at the Smoky Mountain Knife Works. I put the big kabosh on that idea--by this time, it was 7 pm and they weren't open anyway! We finally got home to La Casa Redondo after 8--hot, tired and very, very hungry.

Some of us were more annoyed than others:

Juli made a huge salad, Alex made garlic bread, I cooked pasta, and we sat down to a family dinner at last around 9 pm. Ridiculous!

Echo did so much panting yesterday, it's amazing that she's breathing at all this morning.

I have half a mind to write my elected officials and tell them what their latest Homeland Security nonsense has wrought on this American family. Like they care...

Herod's Census

Well, we're off (once again!) to try and get our daughter at the Knoxville airport this morning.

Bill also has an appointment in Chattanooga this afternoon to apply for his new TWIC card, the "Transportation Worker's Identification Card," yet another document to prove who he is, pay for, and carry, along with his passport, Z-Card, and Merchant Mariner's license. This one has to be applied for and picked up (6-8 weeks later) in person, at a designated facility. Our choices were Huntington, WV, Nashville or Chattanooga. Homeland Security is all about the inconvenient, that's for sure. Bill likens it to traveling to Bethlehem for Herod's Census.

We decided to combine the trips today, since Knoxville is almost halfway to Chattanooga. So we're packing up dog and Alex too, and will make it a family trip, hopefully stopping at The Lost Sea (www.thelostsea.com) on the way home.

A full day ahead, and it's just started. (But maybe this time, we'll be able to collect our daughter).

Well, that was dumb!

Bill & I were up before dawn, and at the Knoxville Airport on time. When Juli didn't show, I called her:

Juli: "Good Morning!"
Me: "Hey, where are you, we're here to pick you up!"
Juli: "Uh, I'm at work."
Me: "Weren't you supposed to be on a plane this morning?"
Juli: "Don't think so--I'm getting on a plane tonight..."
Me: "Never mind, see ya tomorrow..."

I have no excuse. I was at the airport on the wrong day.

Boy, do I feel dumb.

Another FABULOUS day in East TN

I woke up this morning to another gorgeous sunlight-filled morning.

Ray and Elaine are headed north to Vermont today, after buying another investment house in Rogersville yesterday. It's been fun having their company, but Juli is due in tomorrow morning and the house is a little crowded as it is. Alex and I are going to Bean Station to pick up his laptop from Steve, the computer doctor.

I want to spend some time down at the pond, gathering more mulch from the piles the electric company left, and bring it up to the place by the house where I want to do more gardening.

So, another beautiful day to just putter and enjoy. Life is good.

Busy Day

I had a very busy day, but I can't say that I accomplished much.

I took a walk and fed the fish down at the pond. I checked to see if there was any mulch left from when the electric company trimmed trees 2 years ago. I washed the dog's muddy feet. I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast, hot dogs for the boys for lunch, had coffee with Shirley, Elaine and Ray, made a potato salad and chicken and brownies for dinner ahead of time so I wouldn't have to fuss tonight. Bill drove me to my doctor's appointment in Kingsport, and then we came home and I took a nap.

And before you know it, the sun was down and it's time to go to bed again.

Perhaps I will be able to be more productive tomorrow?

Seeking meaning in random events?

One of the questions I still ask myself is "why me?" A BC site I occasionally go to is Y-me.org, so I don't think I'm unique. When you're smacked upside your head with a cancer diagnosis, and make it through to the other side of treatment, you're left with a sense that at the very least, it all should mean something profound. What is the point of going through all of this if it doesn't have a positive outcome, a mind-changing perspective, or life-altering repercussions?

This is definitely human rationalization, not objective fact. No matter how this happened or why it happened to me, I'm left with the obvious outward changes and naturally want the mental universe to balance out. I contemplate what has changed inside, but am left feeling a bit hollow and superficial. Surely I must have gleaned some new insight, gained something significant to add to my character or world view?

Shouldn't I be kinder, gentler, more filled with humility, more seeking of grace? Shouldn't I be soldiering on with a renewed appreciation of optimism and gratitude? Shouldn't I be looking at life with renewed zest, and a passionate, energetic determination to commit to living the rest of my life with the volume turned all the way up? On one level, perhaps I am, but the response I'm noticing lately is the impulse to cover over the trauma with some emotional scar tissue and just try to go back to "normal," whatever that was. It is so easy, so tempting, to want to slip back into the amnesiac life of before: Trusting. Oblivious. Nothing bad can happen to me.

I think I desperately want this to have changed me in some significant way, because if it's just a random occurrence that I randomly survived, then it could just as easily happen again (when I'm back to my unconscious, non-vigilant self?), or worse, happen to someone else I care about. This line of thinking is intolerable right now. I'm just now moving beyond the physical pain and frustrating inabilities, and still trying to get a grip on the torque wrench that will adjust the mental attitudes to something I can live with from now on.

But if it just happened without reason or purpose, and I haven't learned anything new, then... what do I do now?

Aesthetic Sensibilities and Living With What Is

I was always fairly modest about my body, truthfully because I was just not very comfortable in my own form for a very long time. You'd never find me in a wet T-shirt competition or a bare-chested Mardi Gras video, even in my twenties when I looked really awesome and didn't know it. (Maybe that's a testament to my good sense rather than a poor body image?) The progress of years and gravity are rarely kind to any of us, but they give us perspective on how we didn't appreciate what we had when we had it. My bad body image was an illusion, I know that now. Do any of us see ourselves objectively? Or are we always too fat, too short, too top-heavy, too flawed in our own minds, comparing ourselves to some mental ideal that can never be attained?

I got better as I got older, and despite getting fatter and flabbier. The body didn't seem to matter so much, so long as it functioned efficiently, was strong enough to do what I wanted and didn't hurt too much when I got up in the morning. My husband seemed to like the way I looked, whether I was svelte or pudgy. My kids didn't care what I looked like. My girlfriends were all battling sags and pounds too. Looks don't last, even in the most ideal of us.

But because we are women, we still want to feel attractive, no matter what our shape, age or circumstance. It's a mild shock, inevitable but still sad, when you discover sometime in your forties that no one is checking you out anymore. As a middle-aged woman, you no longer appear on the radar of random men. As annoying as it was in your twenties, when the construction workers stop whistling in your forties, there's a twinge of visceral regret. That time is over.

Now, I'm relatively okay with my physical shell of fifty-five. I find I am relatively comfortable with who I am and how I look, even with the surgical horrors that were visited upon me last year. That is, as long as I don't have to be reflected in someone else's eyes. On one level I can take it, this scarred up version of me in the mirror. As long as I'm by myself (and I don't linger in front of that mirror). But add a subjective viewer to the picture, and I become shy and embarrassed about the way it looks. Almost as if I am to blame for the fact that I am so "damaged" now. Even as I try to rationalize that it doesn't look that bad.

On an objective scale, this is not even close to the female form in an artist's vision. This is not a picture of the aesthetic beauty of the human body. This is downright gruesome, if I'm telling a factual truth. But this is what I've got, and this is what was necessary, to save my life. Whatever mental-clenching I'm doing when I view this vessel, I have to remember to be grateful that I'm alive, and hopefully will be for years to come.

But there is also truth in realizing that we don't see objectively when we look at the people we love. Bill thinks his beard is "terribly gray," and he is "bald" on the top of his head. The fact is that after 25 years, he is just as attractive to me as he was in his twenties. I don't see "gray" or "bald" when I look at him--I see Bill, the man I love. The flaws are out of focus, dismissed in the light of love of the total package.

So why would it be so incomprehensible to me to think that when he looks at me, he sees me through a lens clouded with his own subjectivity? Not the scars or the outrages that surgeries have inflicted or the embarrassment I feel under his gaze. Just me. Alive.

It is scary to be this vulnerable, this unsure about my attractiveness to my husband. There is a temptation to become overly sensitive and project my own insecurities onto him, making him responsible for making me feel better about how I look on a constant basis. But I instinctively recoil from this--knowing him as I do, I think he would find this extremely annoying.

Better to become militantly defiant: This is how it is now, and everybody is just going to have to get over the boo-hoos about it. Especially me, since I seem to be the only one around here obsessing over it.

Father & Son Projects

In the hours that they are both awake at the same time, Bill and Alex are doing projects together. This just pleases me so much--I get to sit on the couch or at the computer, and listen and watch as they do all the work! My only responsibility is to make sure the meals and snacks keep coming, and not nag when one or the other (or both) fall asleep on the couch midday.

The big one was putting together the futon bed I purchased from Sportsman's Guide, in anticipation of having a whole house full of people this week.

The operation actually went pretty smoothly. They had the right number of parts, and there were no arguments, just an honest exchange of ideas. They worked out a division of labor that seemed to suit them both. A minimum of tools and no first aid were required, and now we have an extra bed!

























My handsome son now wears glasses. When I remarked that I thought they made him look great, he said he has noticed, all of a sudden, girls are checking him out. His friend Doug said, "No Alex, they've always been looking, you just couldn't see them looking at you until you got the glasses!"

Echo is happy to have Alex around again. Alex likes both dogs and cats, and the animals know it and gravitate toward him. They spend a fair amount of time just hanging out together on the couch.

Bill and I finished out the day with our own project--we fired up the wood chipper and made mulch for the garden bed he dug out for me yesterday. Tomorrow it is predicted to rain, so I will plant peas and beans and give them a good start!

Sleeping Alex and Snoring Thoughts

I'd like to post a pic of our son, Alex, but he is still sleeping! He spent most of yesterday on planes, and arrived in Knoxville around 4:30 pm, looking very tired. This was because he decided there was no point in going to sleep the night before, since he had to be on a 6 am flight to Houston. Ah, the energy and illogic of youth!

I remember the kind of thinking that leads to skipping sleep--how efficient life could be, if I could just stay up all night! Now, sleep is the best part of the day, something to really look forward to. Ten o'clock comes with enough yawning to populate an entire Serengeti plain of lazy daddy-lions. I sleep soundly and deeply until just before dawn, and get up with the sun. I also now sleep on my back, something I was never able to do before the chest surgeries, no matter how tired I was. Okay, once I slept on my back for about 3 hours after Juli was born, after 20 hours of labor. But that's the only time I ever remember being able to do that.

I wonder if I snore in this position? When Bill sleeps on his back, he sometimes makes enough noise to rattle the furniture in our shaky house. I usually have to punch him to make him roll over and stop the racket. We used to curl up like puppies in a pile. Now I imagine we look like side-by-side sarcophagi--my arms propped up by throw-pillows and hands folded over midriff, while Bill's arms are up behind his head, hands clasped behind his neck. If we're doing any snoring, at least there's no one awake to hear it.

My dad used to make so much noise while sleeping that our old dog, Loki, would greet the morning with reddened eyes and exhausted demeanor. It was pitiful--Dad literally kept the dog up all night with his sonorous snoring.

Now, typing away up in the loft, about 10 feet away from my sleeping son, it doesn't appear that anything interrupted his slumber last night or this morning. I think we can put the whole snoring issue to bed for now...

Happy Birthday Juliana!

A quarter of a century ago (!) today, our daughter Juliana made her appearance on this earth. After 18 hours of labor at home (yes dear, I suffered terribly, to bring you into this world!), the midwife packed us into my parents' car and we all went zooming to the ER. At first, the doc on call said to prep me for surgery (at which point a nurse waved some ammonia salts under Bill's nose so he wouldn't buckle), but then they decided to give me one more chance to push her posterior-positioned body out on my own. Dehydrated from a day of contractions and vomiting (no one ever told me that there was a possibility I would be throwing up all through labor, a little known and never-discussed side effect, thank you very much!), I was all pooped out. But with one last chance to avoid the dreaded C-section, we huffed and we puffed and we blew her out, just before midnight:

She grew into a lovely and engaging child:

Although, come to think of it, she didn't sleep much and was downright scary in her intellect. But we all survived and she has grown into a delightful young woman:


So, happiest of birthdays to you, dearest daughter. I'm glad we got to share your life for a little while.

Tax Due Day

When I was born back in the Pleistocene Era (1953), March 15, my birthday, was Tax Due Day. I wonder--did my parents file early or were they doing labor AND rushing around with last minute forms the day I was born?

Sometime in the early 1960s the whole system had become so cumbersome, they pushed it forward to April 15, to give employers more time to crank out the W-2s, the IRS workers more time to process the paper, and "the peoples" presumably more time to fuss and fret over the increasingly complex tax code.

Tax Freedom Day (the day the average person stops paying all their various government taxes and starts earning for himself) is April 23 this year, a three-day improvement over 2007.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/

I remember reading a socio-historical analysis about a decade ago about the changing attitudes Americans have had about the income tax. The author's thesis was that back during the Depression and World War II, paying taxes was something of a patriotic duty, a freely undertaken obligation towards our fellow citizens, a tithe to be proud of, rather than an odious chore or a rebellious rant against government excesses. (Of course, the total percentage burden of combined taxes was significantly less than it is today). We also forget that the general world-view back in the 1930s was that socialist principles would eventually triumph over capitalist principles, and we would all march together toward a glorious future of redistributed wealth and classless equality. Right. That worked out really well, didn't it?

I can't complain. (Well, I can and do, but what good does it do?) Our stunning medical expenses this year, coupled with the fact that Bill only worked 4 months in 2008, has made our tax-burden surprising small. I'm just pleased as punch that the darn things are done, and that Bill made it home in time to sign the papers so I can send them off today. And now I don't have to think about it for another 8 months. I'm happy.

The sun is shining, my husband is asleep (still!) in his own home at last, and our son arrives tomorrow for a two-week visit!

And the taxes are DONE! All good things to celebrate!

Back From the Future

Bill just called from Detroit. Having successfully navigated the time travel thing to the Eastern Daylight Zone, now all he has to do is finish transiting the distance from Michigan to Tennessee.

Yippee!

Oh where, oh where?

I made an attempt to understand the International Date Line this morning. Having not heard anything from Bill (is he on the plane, is he back on the boat, Where in the World is Carmen San Diego aka Bill Plemitscher?), I decided to try to figure out if he's presently on a plane yet.

He is 13 hours ahead of Tennessee, so he's actually in the future, wherever he is. If he's in the air, he is there tonight, traveling backwards in time, toward meeting me this afternoon. Am I the only one who is having a hard time with this?

I shot off an email to his company, asking if he was indeed relieved of duty yesterday (meaning: today), and if he is on the plane. We shall see if I get a response. They probably have no idea where he is either.

I saved a few chores to keep me busy today--vacuuming the stairs and the loft, and cleaning the bathroom sink. I bought myself a Swiffer Wet-Jet and did the kitchen and bathroom floors yesterday. Wow! What a great thing. I'll never mop again. Swoosh, and the floor is done! I should be on a commercial, I love this thing so much. Maybe I'll clean floors more often now.
Not likely, but we can hope.

The lettuce almost got zapped last night, due to my ditziness. I went to take Echo out for her last trip before bed, and luckily spotted four pots of lettuce shivering by the door. They looked grateful when I put them inside, saving them from this morning's frosty dawn. The good news is that this unseasonable freeze is temporary. We should be back up in the sunny seventies by the time Alex comes in on Wednesday.

In the meantime, where is my husband? The only thing I'm sure of is that he's somewhere ahead of me in the space-time continuum.

Just bug bites after all -- WHEW!

After 3 days of taking the antibiotics, I no longer have swollen lymph nodes in my neck. I'm now willing to bet that it was indeed a reaction to the bug bites, not a harbinger of Mr. Nasty-Cancer.

It took some self-discipline to avoid touching the darn things, worrying them like a stone in my pocket. I allowed myself one feel per day, in the morning. This morning, I can't feel them at all. All those panic-monger feelings can go home now--Move along, these are not the droids you're looking for.

It's downright COLD out there this morning! They weren't kidding about a radical temp change. The plants are inside now, the furnace is chugging away for the first time in days, and it's supposedly going down to 29 degrees tonight. Nothing to be done about that.

Bill sent a quick email saying that his relief is still not there, the rumor being that he was grounded by fog in South Carolina, not by AA. He'd better hurry up, because I've got taxes that Bill needs to sign. That, and I'd kind of like my husband home now please?

The coffee table is clean--but where's Bill?

I finally "hit bottom" on the coffee table project. It took 3 days and much procrastinating, but here it is:

I should have taken a picture of the "before," but it was just too daunting (also, highly embarrassing). Note the sandals underneath still need to find a home.

This old, scarred coffee table has a lot of memories. It was given to us by Jim and Neva Hahns, who grew tired of its massive size and heavy weight, just about the time we moved into a big empty house when Bill started college. It seats 12 small children around the perimeter at a birthday party, holds four months worth of household clutter (as I have just witnessed), and provides a handy place to prop your feet while watching TV. It's also great for standing on to change lightbulbs. It is the one thing my children will fight over when I die. Since they live 2000 miles away, I say whomever is willing to pay the freight charge for shipping it, wins. It's a beast, and we all love it, just because of where it has been with us.

Now that the table is cleared (and cleaned and oiled!), where's Bill? He called last night, all set for his flight tomorrow. But this morning's email brought disappointment: George, the officer who is set to relieve Bill, did not appear. (I suspect he had an American Airlines flight?). So now Bill is scheduled to take the same flight, but on Monday instead of tomorrow.

This gives me more time to putter, and procrastinate even further. In the meantime, we are expecting a return to winter--real freezing weather over the next two days. All the veggies I planted will have to be brought inside, and I worry about the fruit trees down by the pond:

(Clockwise from upper left): Pear, Apple, and Black Cherry blossoms, all getting ready to be killed by the coming frost. If I were more ambitious, I could probably find some plastic to throw over the pear and apple trees, but the cherry is almost 30 ft. high, and I don't feel up to getting on a ladder in any case. I'm going to have to invoke the weather-gods and plead for 33 degrees or higher, instead of the dreaded 32. I may get cherry jam and apple pie and wine-poached pears this summer--or not. I'm just going to have to trust Nature to do whatever it is going to do.

So today, I will wash floors and vacuum, and try to keep my giddiness at bay until I know that he is on a plane for sure. Then there's the daily dog-walking to keep me occupied:

And there's the grocery shopping, the gas-getting, the beer-chilling. I can probably drag out the coming-home preparations for one more day...

Weird Stuff that I'm only now finding out about...

For more than 6 months now, it's been all about me and my personal drama of breast cancer. The world however, has been marching on without me, and this morning I decided to go cruising the internet for weird stuff I might have missed. Is this a sign that I'm starting to re-enter the Land of Normal?

I offer the following:

1. The Dvorak Keyboard, (or Howdja Like to Learn to Type All Over Again?)

I once knew about the Dvorak Keyboard, but I forgot about it so completely that it's like I'm discovering this for the first time. Old mechanical typewriters used the QWERTY keyboard to prevent jam-ups of the keys. I learned to type on a giant Royal Manual in 7th grade, and I used my Smith Corona Classic 12 all through high school and college, and even through most of Bill's college, though in his senior year when I faced four simultaneous papers of his, waiting to be typed, I was seduced by an electronic typewriter that could run on a power cord or even batteries (about 12 D-cells, as I recall--not very economical). I was a very fast typist, even on a manual; I could really tangle those keys when I got on a roll.

But August Dvorak decided there had to be a faster and easier way than QWERTY, and in 1936, he invented the keyboard that bears his name. To find out more of its Right-Thing-at-the-Wrong-Time tortured history, and why the Dvorak is so much better for the computer age, read here: http://www.dvorak-keyboard.com/

This is the Dvorak layout--it looks very strange, doesn't it?

Strange or not, if you're a 50 wpm typist on a QWERTY, studies show you can become a 100 wpm keyboarder with Dvorak. That's 100% improvement, and all I'd have to do is reprogram my brain to ignore 40 years of training and relearn my typing skills! Wow, this could be as challenging (or more) as learning Spanish!

As an extra-added bonus, most high-end keyboards include a dual-function to accommodate both QWERTY & Dvorak layouts simultaneously:

And sitting on your desk, being all ergonomic, reducing the chance of repetitive stress injuries, and looking all high-tech is this:

I want one, in the worst way. I don't know why, but I want it right now! Just think of the possibilities for new skills, faster typing, and incredible frustration! Re-grooving my synapses could be just what I need right now. Please send me this immediately.

2. The No-Complaining Bracelet

You have probably heard of this, but like I said, I was busy last year. I missed this completely, probably because I was complaining about my sad state of affairs at the time.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/2007/Apr/20070429News008.asp

More than 5 MILLION of these things have been sent out free of charge and Rev. Bowen's book is just flying off the shelves. I've got to be impressed by the principle of "Gratitude Without the Attitude," since I really do believe in counting the blessings, rather than railing at the fates (though you'll notice I give both equal time, since complaining almost always makes better copy than waxing ecstatic). Okay, maybe not so equal time. I'm trying.

I was especially interested in the FAQ on the church's website, notably the section on "How Do I Know If I'm Complaining?" [insert a big "DUH" here]. Rev. Bowen's response:

To "Complain" is defined as "to express pain, grief, or discontent." Surely, it makes sense to express pain, grief or discontent occasionally but most people do so constantly. In so doing, they are talking and thinking about what they do not want in their life and, thereby, attracting more pain, grief and discontent. Instead, think and talk about what you are grateful for. Talk about what you DO want and not what you DON'T want.

Blogger Princess Peg summarizes for the rest of us:

To Complain IS:

• To be a big, fat baby whiner
• Causing others grief due to one's own self-centeredness
• "Discussing" others' faults - with distinct relish
• To express dismay and disillusionment at the complete dysfunction of the world around oneself

I'm pretty sure I don't want one of these bracelets (there's that silicone-"ick"-thing-around-the-wrist-action), but I admire the sentiment. Please do not send me one. I'll work on the attitude, I promise.

So there I have my plan of action for self-improvement. If I can learn to type Dvorak at 100 wpm and shut up already with the kvetching, I think I will be just about perfect.

I'll admit it...I was freaking out...

Yesterday, I found a "lump" in the left side of my neck, and another one just above my collarbone on the other side.

I called my local doc's office right away and got an appointment with the Family Nurse Practitioner for this afternoon. I figured (translation: desperately hoped) that it was something stupid or trivial. Rather than spend 2 hours and $300 to go see the oncologist right away, I decided that I really needed it to be "nothing serious."

Keeping the monster in the box, I got busy last night on finishing the taxes. Everytime my hand would stray up to the spot to feel them again, I'd take a deep breath, put my hand down and change the subject in my head. But inside, the panic-wailing threatened, barely under control.

My FNP took her time today palpating the spots I showed her. She said she was concerned. They were most certainly swollen lymph nodes, a sign of a problem. Then she lifted my hair back and saw the 3 inflamed bug bites on my jawline, just above the bump near my collarbone. And then the big swollen knot of the other bite on the back of my neck, right next to the other node-of-concern. We have a plausible explanation now for the agitated lymph nodes. They are fighting the toxins from the buggy-bites.

It's a temporary relief, but a welcome one. If they don't resume normal size by next week, I will have to go get them looked at again, this time by the cancer people. I just had a roomful of docs feeling everything from my chin to my waist last week at UVA, so this is the most likely cause. Let down. Big sigh. Probably nothing.

But this is what it's like all the time now--just waiting for something else to go wrong, another lump to appear, more bad news. I absolutely detest that this is what life seems to be about. The gremlin is always there in the background--I can ignore it most of the time, feeling good, getting better, and then WHAM! With a twinge in the bone, an ache in the gut, a bump in the skin, it all comes roaring back like a sleeping beast awakened. And every little thing, no matter how insignificant I think it is at first, has to be investigated as if my life depended on it. Because it does. I can't trust my judgment anymore about what is normal and what is abnormal.

How do I discern vigilance from paranoiac hypochondria? How do I know what needs to be looked at and what can be safely ignored? If I had thought this through, I probably could have figured out that these lumps and bumps were the result of my insect bites, but I still had to go running downtown and hear someone else tell me, just so I could resume breathing normally! I hate crying "wolf," I hate even thinking "wolf;" Is that what I'm doing here?

The problem is that I now expect my body to mess with me. This old crate used to be my friend! And then it betrayed me! I thought I knew my body, and I got shown the extent of that huge delusion last year. Now I have to decide whether I'm ignoring things that are serious or blowing the trivial way out of proportion, and I don't know which is which. I'd like to be able to keep a balance of being responsible and monitoring potential problems without going over the edge into an abyss of speculative hysteria at every little thing. I want to go back to trusting my body, and yet I'm constantly being handed new things to think the worst about. It just seems like it's never really over.

How do you live with optimism and verve, when Mr. Nasty-Cancer is always hanging around the backdoor, looking for a way to break into your house when your alarm system is temporarily turned off?

Fishies! And maybe a...Buckeye?

The Farley's Fish Farm truck made its bi-monthly run to the Hawkins County Farmer's Co-op yesterday. This big fish-farming outfit in Arkansas comes to Rural America to stock our ponds (for a price, of course). Bill usually undertakes this chore, so it was my first time hanging out with the local folks in the hot parking lot, waiting in line, first to order and pay, then to pick up my Bags 'o Fish. It took about an hour. I tried chatting up my queuemates, but they were having none of it. Must be my accent...



I bought 5 Channel Catfish, 5 Large-mouth Bass, 10 Redear Bream, 20 Hybrid Bluegill, and 2 cups of Fathead Minnows. And yes, that's a dead minnow "floater" in that pix. They didn't charge me for that particular one, I hope.

The program is to get them home within the hour, then pour your pond water in the bag (we call this technique "tempering" in culinary lingo, when you're making a custard or delicate sauce). Wait 5 minutes, then ease them into the murky depths. Then they all swim away, and you never see them again (unless you spot them in the jaws of the big blue heron, standing on your dock).


I'm not sure this is an economical proposition, but in all things fish-related, I defer to Bill's expertise. He said, "Go buy fish and put them in the pond." I merely follow instructions.


Fish-man himself is due home early next week! The plan is that he will be "relieved of duty" on Sunday, and presumably on a plane by the 13th. Due to the mystery that is the International Date Line, he will arrive an actual 23 hours later, but right about the same time that he left. I am more than a half-century old, and I still don't understand this. I am so ashamed.


On the Mysterious Plant front, I think we may have a winner:




The 5-leaf clusters are the key here, I think. It could possibly be a Sourwood, which has the characteristic 5, but the leaves aren't shiny. Elms and beeches were also considered, but come in threes, not fives. So, for now I'm holding out for the lowly Buckeye. I will continue to observe (highly-trained botanist that I am?), and report back as needed.


Helicopters were flying overhead yesterday. My normal state of mild government-paranoia always kicks in, worrying that some yahoo has climbed up my Devil's Nose Mountain and planted an (ahem) illegal crop on my land. Marijuana is the #1 agricultural product in Tennessee, but something I don't want anything to do with. What would I say if the helicopter guys suddenly started coming down on La Casa Redondo on zip-lines, brandishing Roundup sprayers and accusing me of illicit farming? (Drug-test me RIGHT NOW? Where's your warrant? I want a lawyer? I just don't know...) If I told them I was a cancer patient, they'd bust me right on the spot for sure! You know how we are.


Once, many years ago, my friend Leslie and I were hiking in Kauai and stumbled into someone's cash-crop field. We stopped immediately, put our hands on our heads, and backed out quickly and quietly. It was almost as if I could feel the "red dot" of a laser scope on my forehead. This is how I remember it--I don't even know if such things were invented yet back then. But we were very nervous, and justifiably so. The problem isn't so much the drug itself as the illegal nature of it, pushing people who are involved to extreme behaviors, either to prosecute or protect.

This is one of the reasons I walk on the property everyday, alert to any changes or sign that strangers have been in the woods. But apparently, I passed inspection. Or the helicopters have nothing to do with my paranoid fantasies at all, perhaps just transiting the sky on their way to somewhere else.


It's a very good thing that Bill is coming home soon. It's pretty obvious that I have WAY too much time alone in my world, and need a more rational companion to debunk my daily musings and speculative nonsense.

Update on the Mutant in the Forest...

I'm gratified that so many of you enjoyed the weirdness of my Giant Bud in the Woods. Today, your curiosity will be satisfied:

Yes, it's true! All those leaves were packed inside that one bud! And the one in the background was just a tight little pod yesterday. Very creepy...

For those who are interested in all things botanical, the tree behind the tighter bud is called a Shag Bark Hickory. As for the plant itself, I am still doing research...

Yesterday was full of sun, so I planted my Porch Garden:

Tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, parsley, rosemary, thyme, chives, & lettuce. As soon as I find another pot, I will plant some basil too. Putting them on the porch means that I can keep the critters from eating ALL of my crop, at least until they evolve and learn to climb stairs.

End of the day score: Bugs 4, Pam 0. They got me! Three big bites on my jawline and another whopper on the back of my neck. They must be tiny mosquitoes--I never heard them or saw them, but from now on, bring on the repellents! I will not venture out without my traditional "eau de DEET" cologne again.

Cue the Orchestra: Spring!

Echo and I were out and about yesterday afternoon (after my little conniption-fit in the AM), enjoying the sunshine, bird calls and tiny signs of life in the woods. We found:

Wild daffodils--------

Tiny white flowers----------

Blackberries leafing out-----

Lavender wildflowers

& wild violets----------

And this huge escaped prisoner, presumably from The Little Shop of Horrors----

That's a BIG bud of something, about to bloom--You don't suppose it's carnivorous, do you? It's about 2 inches in diameter still closed, and now I'm itching to see what it turns out to be! The redbud and dogwood trees are starting to speckle the hillsides, and yes, the bugs are back.

Insect life is a low, audible thrum out in the forest, so it's time to begin spraying on insect repellent before our walks.

As we tromp up the mountainside getting our aerobic workout and discovering the new, greener world, I can also hear Beethoven's 6th in my heartbeat.

Spring!

Postscript - Sun's Out - Happy Now

Sunshine! Forecast for the next 3 days: More Sunshine!

Yippee!

Land of Gloom & Rain

For about an hour this morning, I thought we were finally over our Seattle-like weather. It's been raining everyday since last weekend, but the sun came up with authority today, and even started to burn off the gloom. Alas, it's clouding up again. Sigh.

Why is my mood so predicated on the presence or absence of sunshine? We went to Olympia, Washington right after we moved here, in late 2005. We spent Christmas and New Year's with my brother's family, had a great time with them and our kids and Mom. And it rained for the whole 17 days we were there. By the time our visit was over, I was ready to check into a mental health facility for shock treatments.

I don't know how brother's family and my kids live in such an environment. I think I would simply perish if I had to endure that much rain. My brother kept telling us that it was abnormal for it to rain like that. He also had an inch of moss on his concrete patio, so I didn't believe him for a minute. His whole neighborhood looked like a scene out of Lord of the Rings, dark and dripping with green things growing, always growing. Ads on the radio promoted companies that would come out and de-algae your home's roof. Their septic tank threatened to flood out (they had an alarm that sounded when it got too full of liquid, very cool, but very telling). But it is very green in Rain-Land, I'll give you that.

Here in Tennessee last year, we had a remarkable period of almost no rain, from May until December. We were rationing water, going to town to do the laundry, practicing judicious flushing, and taking short showers every other day, with sponge-bathing in between. The pond shrank to less than half it's normal size and the fish were complaining. Not out loud of course, but I could tell they were mightily annoyed by the cramped quarters. I was marginally worried about the lack of precipitation, but I have to say that my mental state was pretty terrific.

I keep telling myself that at least it's not snow. I got an email from a friend who lives in New York up by the Canadian border, and yes, it's still snowing there. In April.

But another rainy day means more housework today and a soporific attitude. I keep thinking if we could just get some sun action, I might feel a bit more energetic.

Oh my, this place is a MESS!

Thinking about Bill coming home has made me *suddenly* (duh!) realize that my solitary lifestyle is about to come to an end. Looking around La Casa Redondo with an objective eye, I've decided I'm once again living in the Land of Too Much Clutter. A Hog-Waller of monumental proportions.

The coffee table (four square feet of what used to be clear horizontal surface area) is heaped with detritus--catalogs, bank statements, junk mail, sewing kit, miscellaneous hardware, discarded bras (they get tight in the evening, I'm still doing the bra change-out about twice per day, and somehow can't be roused to do this with a hamper nearby?), CDs, DVDs, clipboards, road atlas, Kleenex boxes (why are there TWO on this table?), remote controls, magazines, birthday cards, stamps, pens and pencils, band-aids, tweezers, nail clippers, shoelaces, hats, gloves, journals, photographs, coupons, postcards, and...you get the idea, I'm sure. It's all starting to reach a critical mass of About-to-Slide-Onto-the Floor.

Don't read any further, Mom. Yes, things have just gone to hell in a handbasket since you left.

The bathroom needs some serious swamping-out, the bedroom is a prototype teenaged girly-mess of discarded clothes (that don't fit!), and then there are the books, piled high on Bill's side of the bed.

Upstairs, where the kids will do their all-night, slumber-party thing when they come, the floor is filled with eBay staging materials--boxes of merchandise, empty shipping boxes, tape, packing paper and peanuts, labels. The dog has claimed the guest futon (so those blankies are going to have to be washed!) and there are stuffed toys littering the floor around her nest by the window.

And the basement? I can still get from the stairs to the outside door, but it involves some stepping-over and shoving-out-of-the-way.

I am a terrible person.

When the kids were growing up, I could always justify my marginal housekeeping skills (and sheer lack of interest in housework), by saying that we had more interesting things to do than keeping the house picked up. We were creative people! We were doing educational things! We were also lazy and drowning in clutter. And that educational process could have included a few lessons on respecting our personal environment!

In fits and starts, I would become enraged by my lack of discipline and my inability to get anyone else to join in a cooperative effort to pick up after ourselves. I would often marvel when watching my children or husband walk across the floor and step over a dirty sock or dropped jacket, without ever breaking stride. They never even saw it, let alone stooped down to pick it up!

Occasionally, I would reach a level of frustration and chaos known as Hiring Someone to Help.

"Your house isn't dirty, it's just messy," one such helper told me. "Also, you have more pencils than I've ever seen in my life!"

Yes, that's my problem right there--too many pencils. Sheesh.

Today, I resolve to put something away whenever I move through the house. I will clean a part of the bathroom everytime I go in there. I will wipe a kitchen countertop when I go to get a glass of water, throw away a piece of unneeded paper when I start to step over it, and at least start the process of decluttering my coffee table.

I know it's under there, somewhere.

More Memorable Photos

I'm running late this morning, and I'm headed to Mo-Town (Morristown) to have lunch with Melanie and drop packages off at Fedex. But before I go, here are a couple of photos that Dave and I found in the box:

This is a candid Dave took of my Mom & Dad (Aileen & Glenn), at a Thanksgiving Dinner in 1978. Molly and I cooked four turkeys in ovens all over town, and invited 120 people (We had delusions of grandeur even then, and not a very good sense of logistical party management). Since I lived in a 900-sq.ft. condo, we repaired to the development's rec center for the festivities.

(Mom looks a little stunned at Dad's shot, while he seems insufferably pleased).

Here I am singing and cooking at the same party (but thankfully, not at the same time). Just what everyone needs, a Singing-Cooking, Bug-Eyed, Big-Be-Spectacled Hostess!

Yes, it's still the same hairstyle...

...just better executed in those days.

Almost thirty years ago, people!

Here, my co-conspirator Molly tolerates a happy party-goer, John from KUCI, the campus radio station. It was the seventies, all right? We didn't know any better!

Have a great day!

Memory-Flogger

New Feature! A walk down memory lane.

This is my Nuclear Family (see how we glow?), at my brother Jerry's wedding, 20 years ago this summer:

Man, we look GOOD! (See what 20 years off the old faces & bods can do?) I need to go talk to Dr. Huddleston again!

My Family -- I think I'll keep them

I had a tough email to write yesterday. I had to tell my beloved brother and sister-in-law that we just can't afford to go on the Big Family Vacation together in June. Part of me really, really, really needs to go sit on a beach in a bikini (no matter how bad THAT'S gonna look, I just don't care anymore if I look like Buddah-in-a-Diaper!), bask in family togetherness, celebrate my mom's 80th birthday with the whole kit-and-kaboodle of us--which was the point of all of this. It is a great idea, and my brother has been trying to make it happen for almost two years.

But the reality is, we just don't have the money. It's embarrassing, really. Talking about money with people you love is worse than talking about sex. Well, maybe not, but it's pretty far up there on the stress-o-meter.

Bill and I try to live very frugally, mostly because of the nature of his job. When he first started California Maritime Academy in 1984, people told us that the Merchant Marine gig was a dying industry. They weren't kidding. In 1984, there were about 1500 U.S.-flagged merchant ships. By the time he graduated in 1988, there were about 200 left. Today? I don't want to even know. Yet, for 20 years, he's managed to make a decent living of it. We just never know if the last job he had might turn out to really be the last job he'll ever have.

Part of it is our choice, though. We made a commitment a long time ago that time together was worth as much to us as the money. Bill tries very hard to be away for only six months out of every year. There's a safety aspect to it as well--how long can any of us maintain a working schedule of 12-16 hours per day, 7 days a week, without a break? He works in a very dangerous, very physically demanding environment; after several months of it, reactions slow, fatigue sets in, making him a danger to himself and others if he doesn't get re-charged. Whenever he comes home, I can count on him doing pretty much nothing except sleep and eat for the first two weeks. This is our life, for better or worse.

Everyone just assumes that merchant sailors make a pile of money. Back in the 1990s, there were Congressional hearings on Cargo Preference Laws televised on C-Span (I know, it sounds just gripping, doesn't it?), where Senator Charles Grasley (Iowa-R) excoriated the "Pirates of the High Seas!" for making in excess of $250,000 per year at the expense of the American taxpayer! Bill and I looked at each other on the couch in astonishment.

"Somebody owes me some big backpay," said Bill
"Ya think?" I snorted.

What Sen. Grasley neglected to tell everyone in the chamber that day was that he calculated the daily rate of a New York City Harbor Pilot (this is the level above Captain of a super-tanker), and multiplied it by 365 (or maybe 366 for a leap year, just to make his erroneous point). Nobody works that much, even Sen. Grasley, I dare say. There aren't even enough jobs in the industry for everyone to work that much--every job that exists now is done sequentially by two or three mariners a year, rotating home every three or four months.

So, the bottom line is that we do it like everyone else in America, we get by; some years, just barely, other years with a little extra. And this year, all our getting by and extra is going to the doctors and hospitals who saved my life last fall. It's just the way it is. Reality. Some days it just bites to be a grown-up.

Most of all, I do hate disappointing the family. But of course, they tried to make me feel better about it, because they are wonderful that way. Or maybe, they just re-thought the idea of me in a bikini? Nah...

Come Drive with me - Part Two

You've probably figured out that I've been channeling CrazyAuntPurl lately--what a fascinating blog she has; I feel like she and I are long-lost siblings born twenty years and a thousand miles apart, yet sisters nonetheless. She has cats, I have the dog. She got a divorce laid upon her, I got cancer. She knits, I do the scrapbooking & basket things. She grew up in the South, and now lives in L.A., I grew up in L.A. and now live in the South. But we both have an unholy addiction to Post-it Notes, childhood books and classic movies, a fondness for the grape-beverage, a positive outlook and a quirky sense of humor. I'll probably return to my usual style (whatever that is?) in a few days, but it's been fun to live with her voice in my head. You can start worrying when I start drawling. 'Nuff said.

As promised, I'm not going to leave you out in C'Ville-land, I'm going to bring you home via the fascinating return trip down I-81 in bad weather. First, we have my morning at UVA Med Center:

The Breast Care Clinic (note how they are careful not to use the scary "C" word) is housed in the old medical school building, adjacent to the new hospital, and connected by a labyrinth of tunnels and hallways. There are four separate elevator systems in the building, and you have to always be aware of which elevator goes to which part of the building. It's a practical application of the old adage "you can't get there from here." I enter at the back of the building, pass the "D" elevator, turn left at the T-hallway, jog left up the tiled ramp, make a quick right-then-left at the Psychology office, down the hall, and left at the "A" elevator. Somehow, even though I entered the building at ground level, I have ended up on the 3rd floor. I take the "A" elevator down to the first floor, turn right into the reception area, and down the hall to the third door on the left, Patient Registration.

As I tell the receptionist who I am and why I'm there, she types everything into her computer. I pay my co-pay with the MasterCard, since I discover that I have forgotten to refill my checkbook with any new, blank checks. (I discovered earlier this morning that I have also forgotten to bring a hairbrush to Virginia, but that's another problem altogether).

I am then directed to present myself at the BCC, so it's out the door, turn right, walk past the reception lobby and into the big, wide door next to the potted plants and under subdued mood lighting. I think the impression is supposed to be that this is a calm place, a comforting place; as if anything could give you calm comfort when you're freaking out inside? But I have to admit that it's better than garish fluorescents and dead plants, what do I know?

Inside another large waiting room is another receptionist, who is magically taking my intake forms off her computer, just transmitted by Registration. I sit. I wait. Patients look around and surreptitiously check each other out. Newly diagnosed? Old hand? We guess at each other's status. (Here's a clue--the newly diagnosed are often accompanied by male partner, holding patient's hand and looking much more worried than patient).

Then it's escortation into the inner sanctum, down more hallways, into an exam room, and the Pink Gown transformation. A knock on the door, and it's the med student/intern/resident lottery, where 1-3 very young people enter. Today I have 4th-year med student Cory Maxwell doing the intake (my son went to school with a Cory Maxwell, who dressed up as Adolf Hitler in the 6th grade--but this isn't him, thank heavens!). "Cute kid," I think. (This is always what I think when showing off my naked chest to someone 30 years younger than me). He's nice, he's scribbling furiously, I'm performing my Good Patient routine, telling the story of how-I-got-to-this-point-and-where-I-am-now.

Inevitably, I become bored with the re-telling of the story and start to interject questions to test the mettle of this soon-to-be-real-doctor. "So when can I get some camouflaging tattoos to cover these ugly scars under my arms?" I ask innocently, waiting for a telltale blush or a horrified gasp. "I'm thinking some dramatic winged stuff like Kara Thrace a la Battlestar Galactica, or maybe just some vines, what do you think?" Almost-doc Maxwell snorts (a little), and recovers to tell me we don't want to irritate the current scarring for at least a year. ("Sure," I'm thinking, "you'll be rotated out by that time and won't have to deal with crazy-middle-aged-woman-who-wants-an-excuse-to-get-a-tattoo...or two").

He leaves. I sit. I hear him repeating everything I told him to Dr. Brenin outside the door (it's a teaching hospital--Maxwell is jumping through his training hoops). Dr. Brenin enters, (almost-doctor-Maxwell in tow), shakes my hand, and asks what I'm reading (I was deep into Tom Clancy just before my surgery back in November, and he actually rolled his eyes--so nineties!--just before they rolled me away and put me under). He seems gratified that I've moved on to Gabaldon's time-travel-with-kilts romantic fiction, and recommends Crichton's Timeline. I recommend he rent the low-budget, Canadian-cast, movie version. OK, enough of the normal stuff.

My breasts and what's left of them. Things to watch for. Exam.

Questions?

Genetic testing for BRCA to protect my kids? Yes. I had true bi-lateral cancers, plural. Must be checked out.

Billing problems with his procedure, was it coded correctly and who do I talk to?

"Me, and yes it was coded right."

Transfer to someone else, like maybe closer to home?
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm concerned about you, and I know what to look for and you don't, and nobody is as good as me." (Smile) It's a soft joke, but not really a joke, if you know what I mean.

Done. I'm outta here!

I drive back to the Goldbergs' house through the rain and the campus traffic, and snap a shot of the Rotunda through the window, while waiting at a stop sign.

This is the Rotunda, designed by Thomas Jefferson. It has a white, domed roof, which blends perfectly with the grey/white cloudy sky, making it appear as if aliens came and stole the dome away in the night. It houses the Library (also designed by said Founding Father), that makes perfect use of the round perimeter walls. I am always interested in what people do to cope with round buildings, since La Casa Redondo presents similar space-usage problems.

I stop at that gourmet heaven, Harris Teeter, (this is a name for a grocery store?) and buy 3 cases of beer for Bill and one case of wine for me. The cashier gives me a funny look--it's 10:30 in the morning, for crying out loud. I explain that I live in a dry county and I'm just stocking up for the year. Right.

Back at the house, I pack up the Walmart bags of stuff, the dog bed and my toothbrush, check my email, and say goodbye to Mark. Echo gets her traveling harness put on her furry chest and races to the car! Off we go, into the rain.

I-64 in the Fog & Drizzle

This stretch of road has some serious weather issues. Giant flashing signs warn "Dense Fog Ahead!" "Slow Down!" "Use Caution!" "Use Headlights!" "This Means You, Idiot!" (Well, not really that last one, but you get the idea). The little bots-dots on the lane lines actually have little lights in them so you don't go carooming off into the abyss, at least not without being warned. I am going as slow as the trucks laboring up the big uphill grade, and I'm fine with that. At the summit, the muffy cloud I've been driving through magically clears to just a grey drizzle, and it's smooth sailing down to Staunton and I-81 South.

Exit 221 to Exit 128 - Counting Backwards Now

I am hungry and I have a goal: Dixie's American Cafe, Exit 128, at a truck stop in a place called Ironto. I drink water, concentrate on driving safely in the rain and getting past Roanoke traffic while listening to talk radio. Rush is on a rant again, what else is new? This guy cracks me up. I'm a fan, but not an obsessive one--I only listen when I'm driving and need entertainment.

This is Dixie's:

Lovely Krystal is there in the foreground, and check out the extremely attractive, multi-colored tile motif and the special neon-light decor above the coffeemaker. It's a classy place. Well, not really. I'm seated at the counter, next to a road-warrior, who is eating cobbler and smoking at the same time. Sheesh. He has his Motor Carrier's Rand McNally Atlas there on the countertop, encroaching on my space. Is he lost? Unknown. Is he gross? Oh yes. I avert my eyes, and close my nostrils. I can see Echo out of the corner of my eye, waiting not-so-patiently in the car. She's got me under close observation, I'm not going anywhere without her knowing about it.

I concentrate on why I'm here:

The Grilled Chix Sandwich. Heaven-on-a-bun. Ignore the fries, I'm only going to eat four of them, they are not the reason I am here. It's the humble chicken breast, and for the life of me, I cannot figure out what makes it so good. Do they marinate it?All I know is that it is hot, and juicy, and toothsome, perfectly cooked, dressed with fresh, fresh tomato and lettuce and pickles, and just what I wanted! Reluctantly, I save two bites at the end, wrap it up in a napkin for Echo as pennance for leaving her in the car, pay my bill, tip generously, and it's back on the road for woman and dog.

Dixie's to the Good Rest Stop - Still Raining

The potty break for doggie and me happens about 20 more miles down the road. Here, the dog walk is expansive, full of trees and grass and even a scenic overlook, once you walk down behind the people facilities and through the mini-forest. It's a nice walk in good weather. It's tolerable even in the rain, because the downslope is asphalt-paved.

Coming home after my surgery in November, Bill and I stopped here for a break. I was dressed in leggings and post-surgical camisole (complete with floppy surgical drains pockets), covered by the big, fluffy fleece robe my mama sent me, strapped into my seat with a big bed pillow over my chest, under the seat belt. Once Bill got me extricated from this womb of softness, I shuffled slowly to the rest room in my slippers and robe, as people visably shrank and detoured to get away from the weird-woman-dressed-in-her-nightynite-clothes-at-3-pm-in-the-rest-stop. I didn't care. I needed to pee, and I knew I wasn't a sketchy person, and who cares? I'm never going to see these people again. Ah, good times. Thanks for the memories.

Last Hunnert Miles - Almost Home

As we left the rest stop, the rain eased up a bit. I wouldn't go so far as to say the sun came out, but by the time we made it to the Tennessee border, the sky was lightening up and so were my spirits. As we got past Kingsport and headed home via 11-W, Echo perked up and started wagging. I was looking for my first glimpse of my mountain, Devil's Nose. I always feel a boost when I spot it, it's the tallest one around:

That's it, almost home now. Thanks for riding along. We'll get back to real life soon enough. And pick up your trash when you exit the car, please.

Come Drive with me, Come Drive, and Drive, Let's Drive...

Being a complete nerd with my new-found picture-taking and within-text posting skills, I got this idea on Sunday, deciding to take you all along with me on my 600+ mile roundtrip to Virginia. C'mon, it'll be fun, just like (almost) a roadtrip we're all taking together!

I play mental games when I drive, constantly figuring where I am, how long it will take, subtracting the miles and the hours, readjusting the math with each new chunk of mileposts. I break up the journey into fractions (never percentages!), like one-third there, half-way done, only one-quarter to go.

Hour One - Rogersville to I-81 in Bristol, TN

The first hour of driving is all country "four lane," watching for stupid drivers in big, over-compensating trucks, as they misjudge the flow of traffic and pull out onto the highway from a dead stop, usually right in front of me. Or even better, crossing in front of me and swinging into the left lane. Sheesh.

Kingsport is just a big 10-mile strip-mall along the highway. Sorry I didn't take a picture, but you already know what it looks like, because every small city in America now looks the same--Subway, McDonalds, Lowe's, Home Depot, gas station, tire store, Office Max. If you really want to know what it looks like, go to your own local "main drag." It looks like that.

VA border to Marion - First Hunnert Miles - 1/3 done

Ah, bucolic bliss. The four-lane enters I-81 about a mile or two before the Virginia border, and it's smooth sailing through Bristol, VA, then Abingdon, then...a whole lotta nothing. But look, here comes Marion, (milepost 45-47)! That means we've gone 100 miles and we're one third done! Echo sighs in the back and starts to settle down for the long haul--she's finally realized we're not going to the dump or the post office. Time to open another bottle of water and search for a decent radio station. Just keep pushing that SCAN button--there's got to be a station somewhere out here!

Back in 1991, I took the kids to Birmingham, Alabama to celebrate Christmas with my brother's family. We drove from our home in Corinth, NY to Washington, D.C. the first night, did a little drive-by sightseeing on the mall, found a parking space (will wonders never cease!) and tromped around the Capitol, before setting out west to pick up I-81 south. It was full-dark and the back seat noises were getting cranky when I pulled off in Marion, and crept through the town looking for a cheap place to spend the night. We found a Mom-and-Pop Motel. And that's all I remember about Marion.

Hour Two - "Rest Stop" at Rural Retreat, VA

This is one of the saddest Rest Stops you'll ever see. It is a mere dimple in the highway flow, a hair-raising 65-to-10 mph deceleration that must be accomplished in about 20 feet, belching you into a confused parking lot (angled-in spaces around the tiny perimeter, double row of angled spaces in the center, like an old downtown shopping street). The dog walk is a patch of dirt and a tree. Your picnicking options are this bench, sitting next to the trash can and overlooking the scenic panorama of the cars jockeying for position in the wacko parking lot:

However, this is the two-hour milestone, and both human and dog bladders shall not be denied.

Bill and I stopped here on our first trip up to UVA, when I was less than a week diagnosed, and I had yet to process any of it. Someone complimented Echo, saying "Nice dog, where are you headed?" and of course the first thing out of my motor-mouth was "UVA Medical Center, because...I have breast cancer!" Rest stops are like airplane rides though, where you can get away with saying anything to anyone, because you'll most likely never see these people again. Still, now I cringe at what a mess I was back then.

Echo and I share a container of Yoplait:

(This means I ate what I wanted and gave her the remainder--I wasn't swapping spit with the dog, OK?)

Through the mountains - Blacksburg to Roanoke - Half-way There

After the pathetic little stop at Rural Retreat, it's time to make our way through the mountains to Christiansburg and Blacksburg, home of Virginia Tech. They have the oddest mascot ever, the "Hokie," pronounced Ho-kee. (Ok, the "Saluki" of Southern Illinois U is pretty weird, but the Hokie is my personal pick for the strangest). On our first trip up, Bill & I kept seeing car decals of Three-Toed Chicken Feet and Rooster Heads with Garish Combs, all in that oh-so-chic color combo of orange and purple. "What the...?" we'd say to each other. I tried to get a picture of a car tricked out all V-Tech for you, but my taking-pictures-while-driving skills are still in their infancy. Here's the mountains, instead:

Traffic picks up as we come into Roanoke. Speed limits drop to 60, then 55 (which everyone ignores) and the volume of trucks require maximum driver attention.

Hours Four & Five - More of the Same - Shenandoah Valley to I-64

You've got your big power lines, high plateau valley, Blue Ridge to the east, Appalachian Mountains to the west. Cows. Lots of cows. Rest stop in 33 miles, can I hold out that long? Can Echo?

Oops, I forgot, I won't go far enough to ever see that Rest Stop, further on down the I-81. I am all about not missing the turnoff for I-64 towards Richmond, Exit 221 (meaning 221 miles from my TN-VA border crossing this morning). Now it's time to congratulate myself for having come so far! Wow! Only about 30 more miles to go, and that doesn't make for a nice tidy fraction, does it? OK, it's sort of 9/10 of the way there, how's that?

I-64 to Crozet Rest Stop & Charlottesville

Now for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, a big climb up over the mountains and a snaking swoosh of a decent on the other side, down into the valley where Charlottesville is nestled. Many scenic overlooks, Virgina DOT memorial sites (apparently, being a Virginia highway employee is a very dangerous job--this place looks like The Wall in D.C. for the number of names on it). I, however, am hell-bent for the rest rooms, which are almost at the bottom of the big hill. Echo is in the back, crossing her legs too.

See, how snarky I am? I can even type text next to the photos, just like I knew what I was doing! The Crozet (pronounced Cro-zay) Rest Stop is really nice, a big patch of green for Echo to sniff to her heart's content, and find the perfect place to leave her masterpiece. I avail myself of the indoor facilities, wander the spacious picnic area, and generally kill time, because ONCE AGAIN, I am about an hour-and-a-half earlier than I said I'd be.

(Why do I think this drive takes 6 hours? Because 300 miles at 50 mph is 6 hours? No one drives 50 mph, even with bathroom breaks)! Sheepishly, I cell phone everyone I can think of to chat with, postponing the inevitable--calling Mark & Jo to tell them that I'm early. I use the excuse of asking if there's anything I can pick up in town before heading out to their semi-rural abode, but they always say "No, just come on ahead."

As I drive the last 20 miles or so, I picture them throwing on clothes, stuffing socks under couch cushions and exclaiming to each other, "Why does she always show up so EARLY!?!"

La Casa de Goldberg:

Destination at last! Mark & Jo completely renovated this 1970's contemporary house with high-ceilings & triangle windows up by the roof line. I love their house. It is my dream house. Fill it with two of the most generous and fun friends in the world, and you have a little slice of heaven.

Mark & Jo know who they are dealing with, but they break out the fabulous 1997 La Mistral anyway, for cocktail hour. Funny how I always time my arrival for that "sun's over the yardarm" time of day, isn't it? Seeing as how the kitchen garbage seems to be the center of this picture, perhaps I should work on my photo composition skills? Later. Let's open another bottle of wine, shall we? Just to make sure all those 1990s vintages haven't gone bad.

Travel-weary, and a little libated, I get a chance to be Dogs' Best Friend. Kona is the best-behaved dog EVER, and I keep hoping Echo will emulate this paragon of dog-virtue, someday. I call them Light Brown and Dark Brown, but they don't pay attention to that at all, probably because in their visual world, they see each other as Light Gray and Dark Gray. And why would dogs understand the whole concept of color anyway? Nevermind. The doggies--they love me.

All is right with the world.

And since this was so much fun, tomorrow we'll do the return trip. It's shorter, because the weather was really pretty bad, and who wants to just look at the southbound side of the highway (since the northbound was so edge-of-your-seat exciting)? I can offer some twists however--the return trip includes a stop at the Dixie American Cafe, and a scintillating description of my lunch.