The “dead pine” is an inside joke here. It is so dead
(how…dead… IS IT?) Thanks for asking. It’s SO dead, that its needleless
branches have become a modern art masterpiece, but it also sports ideal
branches for lots of our other fly-in friends. All-size perches, with unlimited
views into it and out of it. Good for preys. Good for predators.
For the hawks, it’s a prime overlook/launchpad for swoop-downs
and keeping their role in the food chain intact: nesting birds, chipmunks, snakes, mice,
insects, frogs, and other hawk fodder – all of which abound hereabouts.
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**Warning! Liberal Blogger’s Political Privilege, Confidential
To Everyone**: Am I digressing? You betcha,
but nobody digresses better than I do. Everyone will tell you that I digress longer
and better and smarter than anyone anywhere in the world, that I can tell you. When
I digress, no other digression even comes close in all of mankind! No, in all of history!
(See how stupid that sounds, Donald?)
-----
Okay, entering the infusion room for chemo today, and
the nurse smiles, points to the corner of the room, and says: “All ready with
your usual chair.”
“Nooooo! Not that!” I said, with all the mocking fun I
could muster: “Please, can’t you move things and give me an unusual chair? I just don’t feel usual
today, and I hate being a usual anything.”
Good laughs had by all, then we got to the usuals: Insert
IV port, blood draw, lab report reviews, twenty question weekly update, weight (gained 2 lbs!), pre-treatment
nausea meds, then the big chemo guns, and later the best and most unusual hospital
cheeseburger I’ve ever had. Food eaten during infusion, for some reason, is
particularly satiating.
Later, on to my irradiation. New development (not permanent and not unexpected)
as an itchy diffuse rash has appeared on my upper chest where the treatment is
focused. I’m given moisturizers, anti-itchers, additional pain meds as needed. This is temporary, so I’ll quote directly from my favorite humorist, no
frills: “If you can get through the twilight, you’ll live through the night.”
Meanwhile, there’ll be a few more weeks of cancer treatment
fallouts through these courses, all influencing appetite, bowels, skin,
thinking, sleeping, effects, side effects, and yes, because medicine and our
bodies are such capricious lovers, side effects of the side effects. Egads.
This sign in the bathroom, one we're all now accustomed to, just hit me as deeply funny and ironic and profound today as a metaphor for life, death, love, all in one sentence. I'll let you figure it out.
Oh, and the hawk that Diane spotted up there? She now
informs me (her research biologist history slip is showing) of the marked
variance between the sexes. She’s just played a recording of their respective
voices for me. “Ah! Listen, El! The male voice is an octave higher than the
female! What does that tell you?”
Hmm … I don’t know where she's going with that, but I’ll bet it’s great. I do know
what I'll try to do with it tonight, however. Maybe, when she’s on her oboe and I’m at
the piano, we’ll play an octave apart.
Counterpoints.
Thanks again, Ma Nature.
More as we go, El
