Dan and I had a great day just doing errands, getting my hair cut while he shopped, and then seeing a popcorn film (Wolverine: Great fun for folks who aren't attached to the original story...and folks who enjoy seeing Hugh Jackman in glorious muscled detail.  That guy Works Out!)

We're home now and hanging out.  Nothing big planned for the weekend.  Just prep work for my doctor's appointment (2nd opinion with Dr. Lenz @ USC/Norris) and some golf.   Always some golf.

I did write a first draft of a new poem today.  It's called "The Stranger and The Word."  Check it out if you like.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend...even if you're not in glorious weather in Southern California.

Phew!  Up early for a walk with Hal and Charlie (it was a doozy, too...hiking hills felt quite good).  Then to the grocery store.  Then to work on several little projects at home.

I also managed to write a draft of my introduction for the book idea I have about cancer and how to deal with fighting the disease in a "360 degree" approach. 

And I made soup for tonight's dinner/novel notes session with a friend who is also writing a (great) book.  I'm going to need to demand more pages from him because I'm nearly at the end of what he's given me so far.

So no political polemics today.  No witticisms.  Just a hello to folks who stop by the blog and a cheery wave from a great day of living this life I've been blessed to live.

A quick blog and then I'm "outie" (as in, headed for bed).  It's been a great two days.  Yesterday, we were joined by a table-full (a BIG table full) of friends at Shelter Partnership's annual fundraising dinner.  Great friends, a good cause, and a night of dress up.  All good except for the high heels...and I didn't get blisters so even that was not bad!  How I used to wear heels all day and never get blisters (and we're talking HIGH heels), I'll never know.

Today was about recuperating...I was so keyed up last night I couldn't get to sleep until about 2:30 a.m.  So I slept in until about 7:00...had a leisurely breakfast over Vanity Fair's article about Bernie Maddox...chatted with Erik (a tremendously fun phone call as we talked about everything and anything)...and then went for a five-mile walk/run where I jogged the most since the surgery.  1200 paces for those keeping score at home.

There were birds everywhere.  I saw a Snowy Egret fishing, a Common Tern and a Common Moorhen (with most uncommon coloring...green legs that are red at the top, a red bill with a yellow tip...black everywhere else) along with awkward teenage goslings and gorgeous little ducklings.  The walk/jog took me 70 minutes and it felt just great!

This afternoon, I worked on some reading (a friend's novel which has been a joy to read and critique, had a chat with Cindy and fixed dinner for Dan and our friend, Mike.  Then we were joined by Jay, Amy, and David...had a blast (which is still going on for them) but I'm off to nighty-night.

I've got some pending research to do on Obama's stance on a few things, courtesy of my friend Steve...with whom I often disagree on things political...so I should blog about Obama's stance on the Gitmo Internees sometime in the near future.

But tomorrow holds more fun.  Golf.  A visit with my best friend from Jr. High/High School.  Down to Dad and Sally's in preparation for my niece Deanna's baby shower.  (The real one this time.)

So if I don't blog, don't worry.  I'm out having fun.  Hope you are, too!

Not to schedule 3 doctor's visits in one day if I can avoid it!  Phew.  I am beat.

However, there is good news (preliminary) on the scan front.  According to a phone call from the tech to the doc, my liver mets (tumors) have continued to shrink.  It wasn't quite as dramatic as last time, but shrinkage is shrinkage.

I had a great session with my therapist today also.  The lovely Anne Arnold.  She really makes me think and inspires me to "high heights" on the ways I'm reshaping my world.  Very fruitful.

And yet, the day yesterday ended with Barium and today started with it...so I am down for the count, my friends.  And on election day in California, too. 

Tomorrow's agenda includes a benefit dinner for Shelter Partnership (driving to LA for that with friends Tom and Renee').  I think I better rest up for the shindig.  See you on the flip side!

Dan and I went to the Farmer's Market yesterday and among its many delights was a table piled high with the most beautiful and fragrant basil I've had in a long time.  (Caprese salad for lunch anyone?)  We enjoyed fresh vegetables from the market for both lunch and dinner.  Quite delightful.

Today, we rose early and Dan got a little golf in before his morning commute--joining me for the front 9 in the wee hours of the morning.  My normal "Golf on Monday, Chemo on Tuesday" partner, Renee' is in Hawaii at Hale Honu, so it was nice to have Dan along for a change.  The back nine was a lot of fun to play solo.  Lots of decisions to make when you're playing golf alone.  Do you play two balls for the practice? (Yes, I did.)  Do you really have to count all of the sand strokes if no one's around to see how many you took?  (Yes, I did...except for one where I was distracted.)  So I posted a 112...could have posted a 114 more legitimately...not my best round by far...but not my worst by an equal distance.

And I got to enjoy the birds, the scenery, the serenity of playing on my own and the joy of making a par on a tough par 5!

I spent the rest of the day cleaning up my in basket (yaay!) and now am about to join Chad for dinner.  I am both looking forward to my infusion tomorrow and also feeling a bit apprehensive as the neuropathy begins to approach the point where the doc recommends a vacation from that part of the arsenal.  But I've got my Ipod stocked up with new videos and a book I've been listening to on tape.  I've got my stack o magazines to take with and my prayer quilt.  And my angel-friend, Erik, on his way to shepherd me through this round.

Oh, and a lovely Laguna Niguel evening blessing me with a cool breeze.  Nice weekend plus one.  Thanks be.

Today was waffle day at Chez Morefield, so we started the morning with whole grain waffles and some amazing blueberries from Trader Joe's.  After a fun morning together, we headed off to the OC Airport to pick Chad (our godson) up on his return from Vegas where he'd hooked up with his high school friend.

We had a nice lunch at Maggiano's where I was treated to lemon cookies and wished "Happy Mother's Day" based on the assumption, I suppose that Chad is my son.  (There were times where Shari would call him my son, but mostly when he was misbehaving and she wanted to give him away rather than kill him...<grin>)  Then we were off to see the national tour of Grease, in which his NY room mate/College chum, Bridie Carroll, is playing.

The production was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed Bridie's performance, of course.  She has a beautiful voice and a wonderful stage presence.  She and her partner for the show (Will Blum) have a great natural chemistry and were a joy to watch.  I hadn't expected to really enjoy the show, but found it to be quite fun since I am a long-time fan of the movie, all things 50's, Rizzo and a sucker for love stories.

My only quibble with the show, other than an early missed note by a principal who shall remain nameless, was Taylor Hicks as Teen Angel.  He dialed in his one number in the show (to deafening screams from the audience), missed timing deliberately on the closing number (I suppose to "make it his own"...if that's what he's doing, he should learn at the feet of Emily Padgett (Sandy) who managed to make all of the well known songs her own rather than a parody of Olivia Newton John by infusing them with her own interpretation of the notes and inflections).

And then, to my utter confusion, after the end of the show we got a "preview" of one of the songs from his new album.  Grease to adequate country western without warning can be quite jarring.  I'm sure it's in his contract, but the producers should reconsider having him do self-promotion after the close of the show.  Truly tacky.

However, as I said, I quite enjoyed the show overall and we loved having dinner with Bridie between shows.  We asked her to tell us stories about Chad and ended up instead regaling her with our stories of his growing up, the first time we saw him dance and said, "Oh my God, he can DANCE."  So many great memories.  Dinner at Pinot in Orange County was delicious and I indulged in a glass of cabernet...a rare treat these days.

We're home now and settling in to watch Slings and Arrows with Chad.  Lovely to have this time with our "son."  Lovely to be alive on such a gorgeous day filled with so many delights.

Dan and I were up with the birds this morning, on our way to play golf with Tom and Renee' Dobyns.  While neither of us burned up the course, Renee' had her best round to date and it was great fun to see her chip in on the 9th hole (if memory serves).

I had some great drives worth remembering, but my short game (other than the sand, where for some peculiar reason I did very well, very often) was off.  No worries.  I only got grumpy on the 17th hole where I put 3 balls in the water for my maximum 9x.  Grrr.  And I knew better, but chose the route to the green based on my imaginary game rather than the game I brought.

Dan and I had lunch at the club and then decided to sneak off and watch the new Star Trek movie.  Overall, (and forgive my fan-boy slavering) I loved it.  They did a great job with updating the franchise for a new generation while also giving us longtime Trekkies the nods we wanted (and deserve!).  The guys behind me said it was the best one yet.  Dan and I still vote for The Wrath of Khan as number 1.

It was more of an action film than a sci-fi film...and I did note, with a bit of sadness, that the original series' idealism and vision of the future as an adventure in discovery and peace (rather than mostly a battle) was missing from this more rough and tumble Star Trek world.  But Roddenberry was speaking to another generation at another time, with a medium that was high tech for the time but seems dated to this younger band of merry travellers.  I found the film riveting.  I will buy the DVD.  I'm glad I lived to see it, even, in a way that feels frankly spiritual to me.

And I am also nostalgic for the Original Trek sense of the world.  I know there are idealists out there in this new generation.  I'm related to quite a few of them.  I hope the future looks more like we projected in the 60's than the one we saw today...but that's going to be up to these new idealists.

OTOH, I love Aliens and Terminator...so I'm all for a good, well-developed action flick that respects the lore of the world it wants to inhabit.  Go see it if you like sci-fi, Trek in any form, or even if you just like Spock/Syler (from Heroes)/Zachary Quinto.

Dan and I went out for breakfast this morning.  It was lightly raining and he took a short cut to Mimi's through a preschool parking lot.  As we drove, I noticed a stroller sitting out in the rain on a raised area between parking rows.

"Someone's going to be sad when they get home without their stroller," I said.

Then we turned and noticed that there was a little boy sitting in the stroller.  Startled, we both looked around and noticed a somewhat harried Dad bending inside an SUV.

The kid in the stroller was sitting in the rain and the Dad hadn't pulled the little cover down so that his head would be shielded.  I cracked up.  "What, he doesn't know there's a cover?"

Dan said, "He's a Dad."

Which made me laugh even harder.  Hope the little tyke doesn't get a cold.  At least it wasn't raining hard.

We're off to the beach tomorrow for a much needed getaway, celebration of our anniversary.  So probably no blog tomorrow...Sunday question should be a doozy though!

One of the things I battle with (in staying positive about my current fight with cancer) is my tendency to predict the future...usually in dire terms.  My mantra to contradict these unhelpful thoughts is "I am not a prophet."

So today, when I read through a journal entry from September, 2007--well, I was struck by how much application the lesson I was learning then has to my situation now.

By way of background, several friends were confronting severe issues in their lives.  One of these friends was having an old problem crop up again.  Of her, I wrote:  "She is approaching this unexpected circumstance from a point of view that asks, 'How do I make this work?' rather than 'Why do I have to do this?' "

I went on to write:

"It occurred to me that a) life will continue to get more challenging and b) thank God for learning, growth and maturity or we'd all be stuck as bitter old farts and c) most lives are filled with good and bad.

The good is sometimes so out of proportion it seems we'll never come down off the mountaintop.  The bad is sometimes so oppressive and overwhelming, it seems we'll never laugh again.

It's when we believe either of these extremes that we set ourselves up for trouble.  Maturity reminds us both that good times follow bad and vice versa.

If we believe, like many addicts do, that life should be fair, that we should only experience blessings and grace--that suffering is an assault and unfairly assigned to be our lot--well, then we grow bitter, angry and depressed.

If we believe that health, wealth, and ease are signs of God's approval or our own worth or value, we set ourselves up for a mighty judgment when, inevitably, the shoe drops.

So today, I praise you LORD for the growth that has come from adversity.  I am a stronger, healthier, wiser, more compassionate and loving woman because I have been melted down by trauma and reborn by your grace and a lot of hard work.

I wish a lot of these challenges hadn't happened.  And yet I am informed by these experiences.  And in an amazing way, I have both witnessed and participated in the way you subsume evil and create beauty from the whole."

Maybe that entry doesn't make me a prophet...if it did, I'd have gone for a colonoscopy two years ago and every six months since.  But my self from September 2007 sure had a lot to say to myself in February 2009.  I'm glad I flipped the page over and listened.

I had a great day today.  It started with a good night's sleep and some chilly weather prompting a midnight snuggle for sheer body warmth.  Then I was up early for breakfast with Dan, and also eagerly anticipating meeting the famous Charlie.

Charlie, for those who don't know, is my friend Hal Zieglar's dog.  He's been featured on this site once just because he's so darn cute...a "Golden Doodle," Charlie is a combination Golden Retriever and Standard Poodle.  He charmed everyone (and every dog) he met today.

I think it's been at least 15 years since Hal and I last saw each other...back in our San Diego, First Interstate Bank days.  He was easy to spot with Charlie and he seemed to recognize me right away (especially when I stole his parking space).  We had a nice walk and a good chat as we strolled through Laguna Niguel Regional park.

One of the great things about walking with Hal is that he's a genuine birder (whereas I am interested in birds and can often name familiar ones, Hal can spot rarities).  We saw a rare American White Pelican, mellowly paddling around the middle of the lake with his bright bill all ready for mating season.

We also spotted cormorants, a breeding pair of mallards and some turkey vultures.  Charlie seemed more interested in the geese that were in the park than the more exotic, acquatic birds.

After about 40 minutes, we parted company after agreeing to make this stroll a regular, non-chemo week occurence.  Considerably uplifted, I went on to the doctor's office (no news is good news), the grocery store...came home for a nap, did some office work, took a chat with Cindy, napped (again!) and then just finished doing a bit of writing.

I'm off to fix myself some dinner.  Pork chops tonight with some asparagus.  Then I feel some reading or tv viewing coming on.

Oh...and what almost went unnoticed?  I'm glad you asked.  I had to park in the north forty at the doc's today.  A bit cranky about it at first but fine once I found a parking space.  Then when I came out, I got in my car and noticed that all but about 4 of the trees were in full blossom.  I sat, watched them bloom for a while, sang a refrain from "This is My Father's World," and said a prayer of thanks for old friends, gorgeous dogs, and for spring come again.