osheas::blog

Apple announced the new iPhone 3GS this week, and good little Apple fangirl that I am, it made my heart go pitterpat. But once my heart rate returned to normal, reality set in (well, actually reality in the form of a $399 upgrade cost) and I decided to really take a look at what I’d be getting with the iPhone 3GS. Happily, Gizmodo has made things easy with this nifty article and its various comparison charts: http://gizmodo.com/5288488/smartphone-buyers-guide-the-best-of-the-best.

After reading it, I think I’m going to stay put with my iPhone 3G for a while (at least until I qualify for the reduced upgrade price – but hey, at that point they should be nearly ready to announce the iPhone 4G or whatever they’ll call the 2010 iPhone).

We’re just home from a week in Colorado visiting family and doing a bit of sightseeing. Chuck’s niece Katie had been visiting us in California for a few weeks with a friend, so we all flew back to Colorado together and Katie’s mom (and Chuck’s sister) Angie met us at the airport. We then rented a van and all drove to Chuck’s other sister’s house where we were staying. After a day of rest (and work on Dina and Kenny’s part, we drove to Steamboat Springs for a few days of fun in the semi-sun (the weather was all over the place, from sunny to windy to rainy to thunder and lightning). Steamboat is mostly known as a ski town but we were there in what is known as “mud season” – the period post-snow but before it really warms up enough to swim and play in the Yampa River. AS a result it was not very crowded and a lot of places weren’t open yet (like the gondola), but the Old Town Hot Springs were very neat so we spent some time there. We also went kayaking in Steamboat Lake (the Yampa River was VERY cold – 55 degrees – and was very fast-moving still due to late snow run-off so we opted not to kayak there).

The highlight of the week came after our return when we had a family reunion of sorts. After a few years of no communication we reconnected with Chuck’s brother Dan and his family. It was a lot of fun meeting still more family. Dan’s daughter Kelsie bears an amazing resemblance to Dina so we made poor Kelsie pose with a picture of Dina at her college graduation. After the big party, some of us went over to hang at Dan and his wife Diane’s for a while. They live in an area of Arvada where people own horses (as a southern California native, it always surprises me to see how much of Colorado is still so wild west-ish!). We went over the next day to go riding – well, Chuck rode. I just watched. Horses in my mind should be seen and not ridden – they are pretty darned big! It was great to see Chuck and his brother reconnecting. I know Chuck has missed Dan a lot over the past several years.

Pics of all the action here. And here’s a short video of Frasier, Dina and Kenny’s Cairn terrier with jaws of iron.

We had a great time yesterday at the second annual Long Beach Civil War Reenactment this weekend. It was absolutely fascinating. I’m something of a Civil War buff, but we went with some friends and some kids, and everybody enjoyed it. After the battle, we heard a Lincoln look-alike deliver the Gettysburg  Address and the Second Inaugural Address. Then we spent some time touring the encampment, where the reenactors had set up a period camp with period tents, period you name it. The only modern day items were the port-a-potties. When they fired the artillery, you definitely sat up and took notice!

Pics here. We’d go again, for sure. And I’d love to see a reenactment back East, on an actual historical battlefield.

Chuck and I went in to see our dermatologist for our six month check-ups today. That means full body checks for both of us. As former sun worshippers, we almost always have something that needs to be frozen off or cut out. Today it was my mole – the mole I have ad my entire life – that the doc decided looked a little different so he took a chunk to biopsy. Chuck had a little guy on his lower back that was of interest. So we both got a bit of snipping. And for good measure, he got the tip of his nose zapped with liquid nitrogen. Consider this a public service announcement from us O’Sheas to use lots of sunscreen this summer.

Oh, and our Internet is STILL down – the nitwit we talked to on Saturday noted that our modem was down but failed to fill in an order for a new one. *sigh* So we have ordered a backup fiber optic modem of our very own for $140. We figure it’s one of those things: if you have the redundant backup, you’ll never need it. But this has officially become a real drag and inconvenience. Grrrrr.

Our fiber optic modem decided to give up the ghost, pushed up the daisies, kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile (to paraphrase Monty Python)!! We’re not quite sure what caused it, but because it happened right before the Memorial Day holiday, the earliest they can get a new one out to us is Tuesday. Soooo…, I’m spending a lot of time at our neighborhood Starbuck’s which is closest wireless that I can access (what ever happened to trust? all of our neighbors have secured wireless!). As I can’t just go to Starbuck’s and use their wireless (hello, Catholic guilt!), I am getting pretty jacked up on chai lattes (my favorite afternoon Starbuck’s drink). I work on files at home, get everything ready to upload, transfer it over to my laptop then hustle over to Starbuck’s for a few hours. Then I have to go walk or run off the excess energy that all that caffeine gives me.

That wasn’t the only way the universe decided to poop on my this week; I also had jury duty. Before I go off on my rant, I should say up front that I think the jury system, and a lot of our legal system in this country is well and truly screwed up. Jurors are made to feel something like the criminals we are supposed to be helping judge from the git-go from the time we get the threatening summons to the whole way we are treated when we actually show up. We serve under threat of punishment for not cooperating, at least that’s how it feels to me. I didn’t have to go in Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday – but Thursday the bad news came. So down to the courthouse I went to spend the whole day from 7:45am to 2:30 killing time in the jury waiting room. the good news is that I didn’t even get put on a panel. And I don’t have to do it again for at least a year. But really, this whole method of jury selection seems so bogus. What’s wrong with the Napoleonic system of a panel of judges? Or the silent witnesses of Stranger in a Strange Land? Is justice really served by placing twelve people against their will on a panel to render judgment on issues about which they have no knowledge? I know, that’s the point: we’re supposed to be impartial. But what’s the difference, exactly, between impartiality and complete ignorance, specially when it comes to lawyer speak? *sigh* Chuck maintains it’s our civic duty, and the video they always show at the start of the day in the jury waiting room says its a privilege not enjoyed by many people in the world. I have strong doubts. Based on the cheer that went up in the jury waiting room when we were finally released for the day (thus fulfilling our “one day, one trial” obligation) I didn’t get the feeling that anybody else in that room viewed it as much of a privilege. We were there because we felt obligated/frightened/bullied by the summons we all received. How many juries rush to judgment because some of them have things they’d rather be doing and decide to go along with the majority just to get out of there as fast as possible. Is that fair or right? Oh well, that just my $0.02 and the end of my rant.

I think I need another chai latte now. UPDATE: I also need to use spellcheck more often. Typos fixed now.

I just finished uploading some awesome new photos taken by our friend Gerry on Saturday at this year’s El Prieto Handicap race. He caught some great action shots of people running, and he was positioned at a point early enough in the race (at the bottom of the El Prieto Trail) that people still look happy and energetic.

Pics here.

This weekend marked the 16th annual El Prieto Handicap – Chuck’s annual race. It’s a very neat event, held in the San Gabriel Mountains in an area called Oak Grove Park. Two miles of the race is on a single track trail called El Prieto (hence the race name), and every year the direction alternates: one year is uphill, the next year is downhill. We have to keep the number of registered runners below 75, otherwise the Forest Service would charge us. There’s no entry fee, and the handicap means that literally anyone, even the slowest runner on the course, has the potential to come in first place. The race starts consuming his time around mid-April when people begin to register in earnest. As it’s a handicap race, he has to enter people’s expected race times in his big spreadsheet to calculate their handicaps. About 48 hours before the start of the race he goes into high gear, marking the trail, gathering all of the race paraphernalia, making lists and checking them twice – that sort of thing. The night before the race he was up until about 1am doing last minute preparations. Phew! This year our friends Christine and Kyra helped him mark the trail and wrote lots of great messages for all the runners in flour for us to encounter as we ran. Very cool!

Normally part of the race ritual included the design and printing of special t-shirts. But this year, after Chuck’s battle with lymphoma we decided to change things up and ask people to donate money to the City of Hope, in thanks for all they’ve done for Chuck and all the other many cancer patients who have gone there for help. Not getting t-shirts didn’t discourage anyone from registering, in fact we had a record turnout! 55 people turned up bright and early Saturday ready to go. This year we ran uphill. Personally, I like uphill much better. I always feel like I’m about to trip and kill myself when I run downhill on trail. Some folks prefer the downhill years; they like the craziness and speed of the downhill to the relentless slog of the uphill. The race winner pointed out a pretty common flaw with Chuck’s spreadsheet: people who haven’t run before and don’t give good race times end up getting really good handicaps and blow the rest of the course away – but that’s part of the fun; you can count on unexpected victories! The fastest time this year was 34:15, run by John Moss, a really good local runner.

Post-race, a lot of folks gathered at our friend Valerie’s house for what we called a “celebration of life.” It was enormous fun and a wonderful end to a wonderful day. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who shared the day with us and helped to make it very special. The really awesome news is that we raised almost $1900 for the City of Hope! Next year we plan on doing even better!

Pics of the race are here. Pics of the party are here. Thanks to Skip for the super pics at the top of the El Prieto Trail and to Gerry for catching the runners at the bottom of the trail, and Maureen who took some great shots the celebration party.

Time flies when you’re getting your life back to some semblance of normal. It’s been six weeks (!!) since Chuck’s last chemo treatment and he has actual hair growing (versus chia fuzz) on his head and his beard is also returning. His energy is returning and his taste buds are starting to work. The hardest thing now is to keep him from trying to do too much. An exercise physiologist from Anthem (our health insurance company) called last week to follow up and see how he was doing with his post-chemo exercise and was mildly shocked horrified surprised to hear that Chuck was trying to run about five days a week. This guy told Chuck he should be resting, taking it easy, recovering from the beating the chemo had given his body. Of course, once he learned that we like to run marathons his comment was, “Well you probably won’t listen to anything I say…” That’s been mostly true, as our adventure this past weekend will show.

We registered a long time back for the Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathon, a race we have run before and really enjoyed. After Chuck’s diagnosis, we still planned on going to the race – whether he’d be able to run it was a big question. As the date got closer, and Chuck was not bouncing back as quickly as HE had hoped, it didn’t look very promising that he’d be able to complete the distance. We drove up to Santa Barbara last Friday (the day before the race) with his sister Dina and brother-in-law Kenny. I thought Chuck was feeling pretty  discouraged about not being up to completing the race, as he was very quiet and generally subdued. To add insult to injury, his taste for wine had yet to return. On race day, we all headed to the start, with the plan being that Chuck would go half the distance then take a van or bus to the finish (halfway was a relay point, so we knew he could catch a ride there). We agreed I’d call when I finished and we’d find each other. Dina, Kenny and I all ran the race and finished around our expected times (Kenny was actually injured so shouldn’t have been running but did anyway). I called Chuck and found out why he had been so quiet the day before: he’d been plotting to run the whole race! And complete it he did in 3:29! I watched him cross that finish line with tears in my eyes, reflecting on all we’ve been through over the past several months. He ran those last couple of hundred yards as fast as he could and all I could think about was his unshakable spirit and indomitable optimism and raw gumption. It turns out he had been planning to try and finish the race the whole time – he wasn’t discouraged, he was anxious and more than a little excited but didn’t want me to worry so was keeping his plan to himself. Argh! As has been the case more than once over the course of our years together, I couldn’t decide whether to slug him or hug him!

Dina, Kenny and I and some of our running friends went wine tasting after the race and Chuck was our designated driver since, sure enough, he couldn’t taste any of the wines (and the ones he could taste all tasted bad). Pics here of the fun.

We’ve set our sights on a marathon in October in Healdsburg. And by then Chuck will get to do wine tasting, too!

I started this post on April 21 with the words, “I am sitting in a waiting room at the City of Hope…” I was doing that yesterday as well. Over the past six months, I realize, I’ve done a LOT of waiting in waiting rooms at City of Hope. But yesterday’s doctor visit officially put a period (well, most of a period) to my time in waiting rooms. Chuck got the results of his latest PET scan, and doesn’t have to go back to City of Hope for three months which feels like forever right now. Along with his April 21 PET scan results, he also had blood work done, and it was amazing to see how quickly his white blood cell, red blood cell, and hemoglobin levels are recovering four weeks out from his last chemo treatment. We mark April 20 as the first day of real recovery – three weeks after the date of his last chemo treatment.

His hair is already coming back. Currently it’s still fuzzy and seems largely white. It’s really too early to tell at this point, it’s just nice to see some head covering. He was looking at the pics of his head’s journey today and decided that he liked the bald with goatee look best (even better than the mohawk). We’re planning on heading up to Solvang for the Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathon on May 9 and his goal is to finish in about 3:15 – which translates to about 15 minutes per mile. The other big thing we’re keeping fingers crossed about is that his taste for wine will have completely returned by May 9. We’re going up with his wine-loving sister and brother-in-law and all of us are looking forward to doing some quality tasting. This past Saturday we went to dinner with some friends and Chuck tried white wine and didn’t spit it out in horror (his normal reaction for the past six months to anything except sickly sweet cream sherries and crappy white zinfadels). We’re hoping that in another week reds will start tasting like wine versus toxic chemicals.

We are also deep in planning for Chuck’s annual El Prieto race. Normally we have a special t-shirt designed and printed for all comers. Given the economy this year we’ve decided to go in a different direction – as in different from us spending a boatload of money putting on the race – and are asking folks who come to bring a donation for City of Hope. We’re feeling really, really grateful at this point, and without exaggerating believe that City of Hope helped save Chuck’s life and want to give something back and this seems like a good way to start.

So life as we know it goes on. The biggest challenge for me is to just get on with things – to let out the big breath I feel like I’ve been holding for six months. For Chuck it’s more a matter of not being too impatient as he gets back in shape after beong beaten down by chemo for so long. That and he doesn’t get to whine, “But I have caaaaaancer,” whenever he doesn’t want do things around the house. Not that he ever did that.

Chuck is starting to let his hair grow now that he’s done with chemo. It’s early days yet but so far it appears to be coming in kind of like a chia pet – fuzzy. Color is indeterminate. It’s not black or straw, but it’s too soon to tell if it’s his former grey. I will say it’s really fun to rub his head. We haven’t tried watering it yet (unless showers count).