I Feel Naked Without It

I have kept my hair very short for maybe 8 or 9 years. I would have no trouble passing the haircut regulations of any military service. This is done for two reasons, one it is easy to take care of and two it diminishes the noticeability of the thinning hair. Consequentially I haven’t needed a comb for nearly a decade, but I have continued to carry one. I carried it for my wife. We drive in a convertible so every time we’d stop she would ask for the comb to realign her tousled locks. Somewhere along the line she stopped asking to borrow my comb and started to ask for “her” comb.

Now that Donna doesn’t have any hair I felt safe stopping carrying a comb. It does feels weird though because I’ve had a little black comb in the same pocket as my wallet since I was probably 12 or so. Now every time I pull out my wallet I notice there is no comb and start looking for it on the floor near me to see if I dropped it.

2-1/2 Weeks

Last Friday, May12th, the body shop guy said he needs a couple of hours to fix my laundry list of complaints. I told him that the Miata is my only car, so I would need a loaner. He said he’d call me back and let me know when he could arrange for a car. When he called me back he asked if the 29th was OK. With my always nearly empty social calendar, I instantly agreed. Later when I went to mark it on my calendar I realized that that day was the Monday of Memorial Day Weekend. It was too late to call back then and change it, so I waited until to today. When I told him of the conflict, he replied, “Well just bring it in the next day.”

Why did it take so long to reserve a loaner? Why was it 17 days in the future? If in the end he just goes bring it in one day later?

Were they hoping I would just give up?

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 138

Please Hit The Damn Home Run Already

I’m not a fan of Barry Bonds, but I sure hope he hits #714 soon, so they will stop interupting baseball games on ESPN to watch him bat.

The Other Shoe

We kind of thought the first session of chemo went too smoothly.

Started out emotionally bad on Friday when there was a chance of not getting the scheduled second session. We were so excited by how high Donna’s white blood cell count was last week after the neupogn shots, but as it turns out now they are saying it was some sort of anomaly and it was probably only 1/2 of the 11.9 the test showed. This Friday it was 3.5 (4.1-10 is the normal range) and her total blood count was 1500 (the low border for administering chemo.) I’m not sure how long this doctor has been practicing, but he seemed genuinely flustered by Donna’s tears, at the possibility of not getting the chemo. You see she has geared herself up for doing this in a certain time frame and does not want to have to extend it for any reason. Eventually, she got her poisons.

Saturday morning we went back to to the cancer center to get a shot of neulasta (the long lasting version of neupogen) and in the early afternoon we made a grocery shopping trip which were just about all the excitement that Donna could stand. Most of the rest of the day consisted of laying around on the couch with a heating pad on her midsection to soothe the painful stomach and a wet washcloth on her head to ease the headache. By late evening she could not stay comfortable in any position on the couch or bed, but did seem to feel better when standing. So we took a slow walk around our mile long block and then we went for a nice little 25 mile top down drive. Both were nice, but temporary relief from the discomfort, so when we got home, Donna showered, took a compazine and we went to bed.

Sunday morning started early and badly. Donna felt horrible and couldn’t get comfortable at all. I think if we had a gun in the house she might have asked to be put out of her misery. Finally around 8 o’clock she felt good enough to have a craving for a pecan waffle and some scattered and smothered hash browns from Waffle house. While I was gone she tried to vomit, but had nothing to throw up. By the time I got back she told me to stay away as just the smell of the food was making her sick. I got her to take one of the Zofran samples and in about 15 minutes she sat down at the table and managed to eat a quarter of the waffle and about the same of the potatoes. By lunch the stomach issues had been quieted to a dull roar, but then the bone aches from the neulasta kicked in. Poor girl. I think because her blood count was low to begin with for this chemo, she got hit with the side effects a little harder.

Because of that too, instead of trying to be a hero, Donna is going to only work 5 hour days this week instead of putting in a whole eight, hopefully this will help dealing with the upsets and aches of cancer treatment. Let’s all see if she can do it.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 137

The Rat

A tourist walks into a curio shop in San Francisco. Looking around at everything, he notices a very lifelike life-sized bronze statue of a rat.

It has no price tag, but is so striking that he decides he must have it.

He takes it to the owner and asks, “How much for the bronze rat?”

The owner replies, “$12 for the rat and $100 for the story”.

The tourist gives the man $12 and says, “I’ll just take the rat, you can keep the story.”

As he walks down the street carrying his bronze rat, he notices that a few real rats have crawled out of the alleys and sewers and begun following him down the street.

This is disconcerting, and he begins walking faster. But within a couple of blocks, the herd of rats behind him has grown to hundreds, and they begin squealing. He begins to trot toward the Bay, looking around to see that the rats now number in the MILLIONS, and are squealing and coming toward him faster and faster.

Concerned, even scared, he runs to the edge of the Bay, and throws the bronze rat as far out into the water as he can. Amazingly, the millions of rats all jump into the Bay after it and are all drowned.

The man walks back to the curio shop.

“Ah ha,” says the owner, “you have come back for the story?”

“No,” says the man, “I came back to see if you have a bronze [insert current villainous group here].”

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 136

It’s An Action Figure, Not A Doll

From the trailer to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest due in theaters July 7th.

Elizabeth Swann: There will come a moment when you have the chance to do the right thing.
Jack Sparrow: I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by.

The merchandising is already starting to crank up. We were in Target the other night looking for a swim cap for Donna. She wanted to go to our health club and swim in the pool and didn’t want to frighten any other swimmers with her recently shorn pate. We found a couple different ones to choose from and opted for the more expensive silicone one over the vinyl. Right next to the sporting goods was the toy section where the end of one aisle was loaded with boxes full of “Talking Mr. Cotton’s Parrots” and skull & crossbones alarm clocks. I wandered further down the aisle and found some TDPM II action figures. There was a sword slashing Jack Sparrow that I just had to have, it was destiny, Cap’t Jack was $7.99, exactly what the swim cap cost…

In other movie news: This September you will be able to step back to 1977 and relive the greatest movie of all time the way it was presented back then. That’s right, just in time for winter solstice gift giving season, the Star Wars Trilogy as they were originally run in the movie theaters arrive as “bonus” material on 2-disc DVD sets of each title.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 136

39,000 Dust Enhanced Water Spots

Thirty-nine thousand flickered by on the digital odometer during the trip home from work today.

When I picked up the car from the body shop they had washed and waxed the back part of the car (the parts they painted), but didn’t really clean the front. Sunday’s rain left behind spots on the hood of coagulated body shop dust. I have been meaning to wash the car for the past couple of days, but they have been calling for rain. The last chance of precipitation for a while past this morning, so tonight when I got home I broke out the hose and bucket.

While cleaning the car I noticed a couple of things that need addressing from the body shop. When closing the trunk the sound has been a little different. Does the latch need replacing or is it because the trunk is off align of straight by about 1 degree? There are also a couple of dust pimples in the pain on the left trailing edge of the trunk lid. There is also what looks like a milky haze in the clearcoat in a couple spots on the trunk and left fender. The kicker is what at first I thought was dirt and suntan lotion build up on the shift knob turned out to be several small scratches in the clear coating on it. Guess I’ll give them a call tomorrow.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 136