Saturday January 30
Beautiful day but very cold. Wanted to stay away from Recovery Kitchen work but got sucked in as usual by spreadsheet lure, with the only break being a call from our former neighbor Gail Lee, now living in South Carolina in one of those massive retirement villages, which she loves but would made me crazy. Pastel homes, classic rock, movie nights, sculptured ponds with alligators.
CNN reported that white people were getting the covid vaccine at the armory in Washington Heights designated for Hispanics. I think that’s where Harris and Neville got theirs, using some young woman who is finding vaccination sites for people (she doesn’t get paid). Harris has been texting and calling urging Michael and me get hold of her. If I tell them about the CNN report Neville will never recover from the guilt.
Reheated the pizza.
We watched west Wing and a Fran.
Willie was doing speed dating tonight, which sounds grim. We didn’t hear much about how it went. He’s been reporting back to Shannon, however, the single mother who Willie likes but has rejected as a serious relationship because she is a complete lapsed Catholic. They have been maintaining a friendship, however, and recently Shannon joked would he marry her if she agreed to go to church but would only want to hear the speech and could she play Candy Crunch on her phone. Willie said he’d take her phone away.
Sunday January 31
Really cold today with a storm heading our way. Took Willie to the train station and came home to a lot of cooking: green chili, poached chicken, and roasted apples and cranberries cooked down to a compote.
Talked to Wendy who sounds tired. Ginny has suggested a zoom memorial service for Jim. I think that’s a good idea. I wonder if Ann might be interested in that for Eamon, although doubt it.
I got an email from Kani Xulam, my Kurdish acquaintance who asked me to be on the board of AKIN, the American Kurdish Information Network, the organization he founded that supports a Kurdistan homeland and a hatred of Turkey. Right now there are five AKIN board members: three Kurds, two “goy” (Kani’s words) and one woman. Given a longer life span than a few months, I’d love to do it.
Talked to Harris and it turns out they didn’t get their vaccinations at the Armory but some Hispanic church in the Bronx. He was insistent at having Michael and I sign up there but I told him I was happy with the SUNY Albany appointment. I suspect the Hispanic Church is also targeting Hispanics and no white people who commute down from the Hudson Valley.
Monday February 1
Watched a Pema session on dealing with kleshas, the Buddhist term for specific negative emotions that cause suffering, which are translated differently depending on the practice, Pema defines them as aggression, craving, ignorance, jealousy, envy, and pride. Pema uses the behaviors to use when works with them—refraining, retraining, and relaxing. Useful
Am aggravated with the women I work with at the recovery kitchen and then with Jill following her email criticizing Kani for using the word “goy” in his invite to the AKIN board. Started to write a defense of Kani and his uphill support of the Kurds, but realizing I was responding only to her negative comments not to the rest of her email, which was friendly. Refraining from the pride Klesha! Go Pema and Dorothy!
Talked to Ann. Want to have her over on Thursday if I’m feeling all right after Chemo. She sounded ok. “Sometimes I just sit and stare at the wall.” One positive outcome from Eamon’s death was reuniting with two old friends in Cincinnati from whom she has been estranged for a few years. Ted’s house, which he had deeded to Eamon and now legally falls to Ted and Ann, is a monstrosity, now ghost haunted. She shouldn’t deal with this at all, and promised she wouldn’t. Ted’s stuff is still there, including model trains and their layouts that had huffed and puffed throughout his basement. Ted had dumped them and everything else onto Eamon because he was too lazy to deal with it.
Made a rice, cheese and ham casserole. Tasted ok but heavy.
Watched Call My Agent and West Wing.
Tuesday February 2
Snow fell all night, over a foot this morning. Poor groundhog, can’t see how he’ll even get out of his hole. Michael spent the morning snow blowing. I spent the day trying to clean up the RK spreadsheets and answering emails from Jill and Peter Brown.
Watched a Pema session. Then did mindful walking back and forth down the hall, timing if for twenty minutes. It was grueling. I don’t get the meditating part but the persistence it probably worth it.
Chemo tomorrow, which I greet with no hope and some dread. It’s not going to cure me. It will make me sick and tired for two out of the four weeks, but if I quit or it stops working, I’ll be dead in a couple months, which still has no reality, I guess because it has no reality. I continue to make commitments to the Recovery Kitchen and pretend to my kids and friends that I’ll be around indefinitely. The true sign of my denial is if I buy vegetable seeds.
Cooked beef sausages with a great relish and a salad with avocados that actually tasted good.
We watched Call My Agent and continued to stream West Wing, which is one part of a liberal trilogy I’m currently engaged in, the other two being Obama’s new memoir Promised Land and tracking Biden’s first 100 days. Thirty years of leftish efforts appear to have changed very little, given the Republican consistent adherence to the Gingrich playbook: if we don’t have control of the government, we will oppose all Democratic legislation and compromise on nothing, and when nothing gets done, we blame them and regain control in the next election. So far, so good for the creeps. The Democrats see the guns pointing at them and are deer in the headlights and have been for thirty years.
Wednesday February 3
Back in the chemo salad again. Today they pumped me full of Benadryl, Dexamethasone, Pepcid AC, carboplatin and Taxol. Ready for the onslaught. I slept through most of it thanks to the Benadryl and the ministrations of my nice nurse Melissa, who is pregnant with a boy due in April. She won’t get the vaccine. She doesn’t think there’s enough evidence on it for pregnant women, although \ the indications are that it’s safe. I trust the vaccine more than I do the covert effect of the virus on a fetus.
I am home and it’s 4:30. I’ll try to get some Recovery Kitchen work done. Need to set up the meal and driver spreadsheet by the end of the weekend. Pam must be rid of this work, or at least the inordinate amount that currently buries her, managing drivers and meal recipients. Chemo steroid high still at play. Hope it lasts through tomorrow.
Baked chicken breasts and potatoes on a sheet pan. Cooked spinach. The dinner tasted pretty good but I browned the food under the broiler and set off the smoke alarm. Very sensitive.
Watched Little Things, the new Denzel movie with peculiar and inexplicably popular Ramy Malik. The film got deservedly low critic scores but Denzel is always worth the watching.
I posted an article on imby and sketched out a report from the spreadsheet. Nothing is simple.
Thursday February 4
The dexamethasone still has me hopping. Was up last night and read C.S. Lewis’ reassuring chapter on faith, which I could apply to Buddhism. Thought will deride, oppose, and neglect faith, but faith is foundational and we can sustain and reveal it using regular practices, like prayer and meditation. So, although sleep was fitful last night, the meditations the walking periods were loaded with joy and revelations about spiritual and physical love. The downside was a certain goofiness. Almost peed on a kitchen chair instead of the toilet, almost forgot to switch underwear this morning with a new pad, and I started to brush my teeth with the toothbrush upside down. Still love the dex; it was the only drug I was certain would turn me into an addict. No interest in the sleepy downers.
Worked all morning on the RK spreadsheet. Hope to finish before I crash but not optimistic.
Had long talk with Ann who isn’t coming for lunch. She’s sleeping a lot which is good.
Dave dropped by. Janet is having hip replacement next week. Am I envious? No, I feel lucky that my arthritis isn’t very painful. I’m lopsided from my knock knee and lack stamina from low physical activity, but not much hurt.
Willie called he’s having addictive scrabble games with Shannon and she is beating him.
Reheated ham casserole. Yuck. Appetite is leaving me right on schedule.
Watched Expanse, Call my Agent, and West Wing.
Friday February 5
Wiped today. Worked very slowly on the spreadsheets. In the afternoon we had a Recovery Kitchen zoom meeting with Carla Sadoff who is helping us strategize. She’s a partner in the Lumeri Group, a consulting firm with many claims for world saving (the focus on trees). and a website so overloaded with bullshit that it could support several organic farms. Carla herself is appealing and earnest, with quirky behaviors and expressions (running her fingers through her hair, ducking her head down in thought, pursing her lips) establishing herself as the Fundamental Thinker in the Zoom room. Too many good intentions with a lot of meandering. She made an obvious but also necessary observation that we needed a long-term strategy. We’re a classy soup kitchen. Pam, Carole, and I are used to thinking in terms of small businesses, but in the end, the goal isn’t to grow; it’s to go out of business. And I’m crashing.
Made a puréed carrot and sweet potato soup with coconut milk and chicken stock, red chili sauce and a Spanish spice I bought online. Really good!
Watched Agent and two West Wings.
