I have done the research for my blog/op-ed on the Obama administration's ultimatums (ultimata?) to GM and Chrysler...alas, I ran out of time to post it.  So the work's all done for tomorrow's post.

In the meantime, had a good meeting with the oncologist.  Somehow, I managed to go UP in all of my blood counts to normal ranges DURING chemo week.  Guess all the visualization, resting, prayers and good nutrition paid off!

Also, the burn is not of concern unless it starts opening up...so in the meantime, he's had me bandage it (not trusting the germs on the inside of my sweat pants...hmmm...) and it was fine for my workout today.

Yes, today was an official workout by Laura definitions.  I ran for 800 paces of the 2 mile course and then did core work when I got home.  Hence, running out of time for blogging and I have dinner yet to fix before I meet with a fellow writer and we work on our novels.

So I gotta "run" for tonight.  Tomorrow, my good intentions should pay off with a semi-educated opinion about the car industry situation a la Obama.

Okay, I'm officially a doofus.  Yesterday evening, I thought it would be such a nice idea to relax with a nice hot cup of chamomile tea.

And it would have been, too, if I'd put the tea ON the table instead of on the edge of the table by the couch.  The boiling hot water spilled over my right thigh (as photographed above) and I'm afraid to say cursing and tears ensued.

Dan, having been to "boys' school" (which is something akin to Boy Scouts...to which I was never invited), knew that the best thing to do was to put a cool, wet cloth on the leg.  A phone call to the doc later (everything is more complex when you're on chemo), and I was ensconced once again in my chair with a cool pack on the leg and a half-vicodin on board.  Man, 2nd Degree burns HURT!

I postponed my birding expedition with Hal and Charlie this morning (to avoid rubbing the burned area with workout pants, etc.) but it looks like I should be good to gimp around the neighborhood slowly this afternoon without adding to the damage.

One of my daily affirmations is that I "look for jewels in the mine."  This means that even though sometimes things in life are hard or painful, there are gems alongside the difficult circumstances.  In this case, I think the lesson I was reminded of this weekend is that life is not an either/or proposition.  It is neither all good nor all bad but some crazy mixed up proposition of both.  We have moments we treasure in days with severe pain.  We have moments of pain in the midst of joy.  It's life...and I'm glad to be living it.

Even if I am a doofus.

My Traditional Medicinals teabag tag (wow, that's a mouthful!) has a quote on it.  "Your choices will change the world."

I agree with the fundamental principle that our choices can shape the world we live in.  Sometimes it's the World and sometimes it's just "our" world.  Which leads to the Sunday question:

What choices have you made that changed the world?

Tonight is the night (again) for Earth Hour.  You may remember that I posted last year on this same topic, asking each of you to join me in turning out your lights for one hour tonight. 

From 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm, local time, turning out your lights for an hour will help reduce energy consumption, will send a message that you're serious about the need for change in the way we use energy, and may even provide some serious candle-lit snuggle time with a significant other.

(Just be sure not to burn the house down!)

If all goes according to my plan, we'll be snuggled up watching our DVR'd last episode of Battlestar Gallactica with a candle or two going.  Hope your Earth Hour is fun!

On a personal note, it's perfect timing for a little downtime for me.  Today is the two day after d/c power fade and I'm fully into it.  I had about 4 hours of extra energy yesterday morning...very enjoyable shopping and hanging out with Dan...then by afternoon was napping and reading.

There are far worse ways to spend a day! 

While chugging through the LA Times this afternoon, I came across an excellent article by David Lazarus addressing an upcoming State Senate Bill in California.  SB 35, sponsored by State Senator from Long Beach, Jenny Oropeze is a watered down version of an earlier bill that was rejected after heavy negative campaigning by the California Restaurant Association.

What would the CRA be against?  A law requiring that individuals and businesses be informed that it is their right to ask that leftover food from their events be donated to a local Food Bank or Food Pantry.  As Lazarus points out, in a state where 1.3 million children go to bed hungry each night, it's nigh on criminal for 1.5 million tons of food to go into landfills each year from caterers, hotels and restaurants.

(Let's fill bellies, not land.)

At the Santa Clarita Valley Food Pantry, where I was President of the board for a few years and volunteer for a few more, I was firsthand witness to how an effective partnership between restaurants and caterers can be easily and efficiently built.  We even received a grant from the City of Santa Clarita to help us buy needed equipment for proper food handling and I believe they sponsored our training as well.

Lazarus's column inspired me to write Senator Oropeza, encouraging her to put some bite back into this second bill.  If anyone should feel pressure in today's economic climate, it should be an industry that would prefer to waste food than find ways to use it to help those in need.

If you want to be an activist on this issue, too...write to Senator Oropeza (and your local Senator too for good measure).  Here's what I wrote:

Honorable Ms. Oropeza:

I know I am writing from outside your district, but I am compelled to add my voice to that of David Lazarus at the LA Times regarding your developing legislation, SB 35.

As former president of the Santa Clarita Food Pantry, I have firsthand experience with the necessity and value of partnerships between restaurants and food pantries/food banks.  We worked with several local businesses and the City of Santa Clarita to turn what would have been landfill into “tummy fill” for local children who made up over 50% of our client base.
 
The process to educate employees at the restaurants and caterers was easy.  Food handoffs were scheduled cooperatively.  Hungry children, seniors and adults benefited by being fed more nutritious and fresh foods.

Since I moved to Orange County, I’ve kept in touch with the folks at the SCV Food Pantry.  This economic crisis has nearly tripled their client base over the past 18 months.  Enhancing the public/non-profit partnership to feed hungry people during this time makes sense on every level.

 Please do not bow to the pressure of the California Restaurant Association.  If anything, in this public climate, they should be on the defensive if they try to undermine your timely, compassionate and foresighted bill.

Feel free to use any part of the letter in writing yours...except the part about being President of the Food Pantry.  That would likely confuse the issue!

As a side note, it feels great to be an advocate on this issue again!

While I was happily ensconced at the Estancia Hotel and Spa last weekend, I watched the movie Doubt with Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and the superb Viola Davis in a small but pivotal role.

I loved the movie for its richness of text and subtext.  For the multiple storylines that are going on at once...and not really story lines in the sense of an A-line, a B-line and a C-line...as they teach us in screenwriting classes.  In those cases, the story lines are about characters.  In this case, the story lines are about different aspects of faith and their tensions.

Faith versus doubt.  Compassion versus justice.  Suspicion versus Certainty.  Responsibility versus Adaptation.  Black versus white (and not just metaphorically).  It's one of those movies that I will want to watch again and again to glean more about what the writer (John Patrick Shanley) was saying and trying to say.

From time to time, I have found both Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman to go over the top in their roles.  It usually happens when they are surrounded by actors who are less powerful than they are.  In this case, they clearly brought out the best in each other.

And Amy Adams.  What a revelation!  She's been cute in fluffy movies but here she is complex, with motivations of her own that are not altogether altrusitic.  She plays the ingenue nun with convictions of her own to a "t".

Viola Davis plays the mother of a young black boy that Meryl Streep's character suspects has been molested by Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character, the parish priest.  The movie is set in the 60's, just after John Kennedy's assassination.  The black boy is the only African American in the school.

There's a dynamic and wrenching scene between Streep and Davis where the need to protect the boy becomes a wrestling match.  Protect him from molestation?  Protect him from not completing school and being able to get out of the life of African Americans in that time frame?  Protect him from his violent father?  Which is the greater need?

And ultimately, what's best about the movie is it doesn't answer these questions for you.  It asks you to answer them, or at least to ponder them.  I highly recommend the movie to you!

So, I'll have to see the rest of the nominated pictures (especially Slumdog Millionaire) to see if justice was served in the final analysis.  Sounds like an excellent LE/VLE day activity to me.

Stray Bears:  I'm most disturbed with FTD.com.  I ordered a bear with balloons for my father-in-law, Dick.  He broke his tibia last week and I thought a bear was a good way to say "I love you and wish I was there."

Since it never showed up in his room, I have no way to test that theory.  I am doing battle with FTD.com now for a refund.  But really, the bear would have been nicer.

Chemo Week Mondays:  My new working theory about chemo week
Mondays is as follows:

1.  It's my best day from a stamina, tastebud and physical coordination standpoint.  So it is most logical for me to play golf on this day (18 holes today for a 110 score...the front 9 was very impressive...the back 9, not so much.  But Renee' and I did have the unusual experience of pressing the foursome in front of us.  It was kind of pleasant to be playing faster than the boys for a change...granted there were only two of us but still...we were faster and seemed, from observation, to have a much more enjoyable round than they did.)

2.  It is also most logical for me to eat a yummy meal before chemo knocks out the taste buds for several days.  So Shari Riter and I enjoyed a lovely, garlicky dinner at Spasso's this evening.  Now if I can just stay awake long enough to pick Dan up at the airport I can give him a very fragrant welcome home kiss!

3.  It's also most logical for me to take this day and make it a play day (golf mostly but other things too...hikes or trips to museums or other such fun stuff).  So that's my current plan.  Sort of eat, play and be merry for tomorrow we infuse.

Hello, Is This Thing On?  Seriously, not one person commented on the distinction of compassion?

I thought it was a great discussion starter, myself.

Humph.

A confluence of influences leads to this week's Sunday question.  First, there was my viewing of an excerpt from a speech about meditation by the Dalai Lama.  He urged the new student of mediation to start by meditating on compassion.

I've done so a few times this week, finding a deeper meaning each time I focused on this mutifaceted characteristic.

Then, last night, I watched the movie Doubt.  There are many themes and subtexts to the movie (which I highly recommend for its acting, writing and excellent ambiguities).  One of the main themes, imho, is compassion versus righteousness.

And, of course, there is the compassion that I have received since my diagnosis.  (Which is much different from the pity that I have received.)  And which leads to the Sunday Question (put in terms that David Gerrold used to put Socratic questions to his screenwriting classes).

What is the distinction of compassion?

(In other words, what defines compassion and makes it unique?)

While Dan is out of town, I've been treating myself to a "spa weekend" in San Diego.  It started out with a visit to Dad and Sally's house where I got to visit with them, get them started on Facebook, play with my grand-nephew, David, and also visit with my brother, Darrell and sister-in-law/new grandmother, Jeanne.

By the time I got to my hotel, Estancia La Jolla, I was more than ready to settle in...have a nice room service meal, do my blog and watch a movie.  The first room I checked into, however, overlooked the parking lot.  Not what I wanted for my weekend getaway.  So I called the front desk and they kindly accomodated me by moving me to another floor with a secluded room that looks out onto a small garden area.  Just perfect!

After trying to fire up the internet, I finally gave up on email/blogging for the night and just watched a movie.  (Not a good one but I'm not doing a movie review this blog.) 

I slept well (all night long...a rare thing for me since November) and got up around 7:00, determined to go for a walk to a local bird preserve.  I got to the preserve alright, but the gates were closed and locked with no sign saying when they would open.

Plan B (which I'm getting better and better at these days) ended up being a walk to Black's Beach.  I got to the head of the downward trail and questioned seriously my ability to make it back up.  Deciding that I had my cell phone and could always call my sister-in-law, Donna, and tell her to go ahead without me on the massage appointment, I trekked down the steep hill.

It was so worth it!  I saw surfers, a seaweed love note, dolphins and a nice older lady (who later lapped me on the uphill trek).  A time of peace and reflection at the bottom and then I slowly made my way back uphill.  I had to rest four times, but had no ill effects from the effort...was even rewarded with an appearance by a Western Blue Jay.

Arriving back at the hotel, I had time for breakfast and journaling before Donna arrived.  We chatted and then had THE most amazing day at the spa.  Massages and facials for us both, then lounging by the pool where she bought us lunch.  We were joined later by my (soon to be a mommy) niece, Deanna.  She looks adorable with her baby bump and we spent some time at the room before heading off to PF Changs for dinner.

We had a great meal there with Dean, Donna, Deanna (and soon to be Brooklyn), Matt and Erin.  Since my mahi-mahi was late coming out of the kitchen, we even got treated to free dessert.  I'm off sugar these days (not good...feeds tumors) so Deanna literally got to eat for two.

All in all, a mountain top day.  One of the items on my "I want to do this again" list is hiking.  What a blessing to know that I can (and will) again.

And to spend time with family in such fun settings, to know their love and support, to laugh hysterically over our foibles and stories...well, how can it get any better than that?

Had a great talk with Erik Kieser today about the faith journeys we've both been on in our lives.  I first said the prayer to become a Christian back when my hand was pierced by a pitchfork by my brother, Bob.

Depressed, stressed by recent abuse by a neighbor, in shock--I told my Mom "I might as well die.  Only bad things ever happen to me."  Mind you, I was about 11 years old. 

I'd been to church most of my young life, so I knew the story of Jesus.  But it was Mom who told me that day about his sacrifice so that I could live...and in that telling, something indelible took hold of my soul.  It would be another 5 years before the "born again" experience of my teenage years.  I worshipped God; loved His radical son, Jesus; felt the whispers of God's spirit in my deepest heart.

Somewhere along the way...partly due to the churches we went to, partly due to my past and my own mixed up thoughts, I forgot about the powerful, muscular, radical Jesus of the Bible.  I confused him with the message some churches teach about fitting into behavioral boxes of piety, self-denial, and martyrdom.  Jesus became the ultimate co-dependent in my mind.  He always gave all of himself away to everyone else.  And thus, so should I.

Except for two itty bitty points. 

1.  Jesus did not always give away all of himself to everyone else.  He went to the desert for 40 days and 40 nights to be alone, to wrestle with himself, his ministry, his temptations. 

He certainly didn't give himself away to the Sadducees and the Pharisees.  He answered their questions with more questions.  Questions designed to show their theological and philosophical flaws.  Not very "nice" of him.

And often, when he healed people, he acted strangely...either asking them to keep it a secret or asking them to proclaim the miracle.  Inconsistent of him.

He stopped people from stoning a woman.  He spoke with an unacceptable woman at a well.  He ate with sinners and tax collectors.  (Today's equivalent might be sitting down to a meal with AIG executives and the octuplet mom.)  But when he sat with these people, he asked them life-changing questions.  He did not pity or patronize them.  He challenged them.

2.  While I believe with all my heart that God wants us to be more like Christ, I also believe that I am human.  I make mistakes.  I fail to live up to standards of even moderate perfection let alone Christ-like purity.  Especially a false Christ.  The doormat Christ.  The one who looks and acts nothing at all like the person we see if we read the Bible.

It is such a blessing to be free of this delusion.  I realize that some of my readers aren't of the Christian faith.  Thank you for reading this entry anyway (assuming you've gotten this far).  Because I also believe that, whether or not you follow Christ, this realization today that I'd traded in my powerful beliefs for a group-think facsimilie has resonance with every human of every (and of no) faith.

We have some powerful paradigms in our culture about what it means to be "good," to be "successful."  We have very few examples of authenticity and the personal and cultural power it imbues.  I'm so grateful for a conversation with an old friend that reminded me of one such example and also affirmed my journey and my reasons for parting ways with the Fundamentalist church.