Flying Goats and Two More Words That Should Never Be in the Same Sentence

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I have a new rant about more words that should never be together, yet there they are.  But first, has anyone else seen a mountain goat in the Italian Alps called Ibex Alpine Goats?  One of the places they like to hike is the front of a dam (What appears to be a smooth, vertical surface) that has been holding back some very old Italian lake (the name of this has escaped me, of course), we saw them on television and now I want to see them in person up close.  We saw it on National Geographic and it was amazing!  It looked like these goats were floating hundreds of feet off the ground unsupported by anything.  Even with an explanation your eyes don't believe your ears when you see these animals hop (I said "hop") from one death-defying spot to another.  The Nat Geo explanation goes something like this; Cingino Dam is ancient, and as such has stones that protrude anywhere from 1/4 to 2 inches at varying intervals on the front of the dam.   The mommy and baby Ibexes have specially adapted hooves and no pesky horns to worry about.  And why do they climb hundreds of feet up a concave, nearly flat surface?  To lick the salty walls of the dam!  Apparently, their diet is pretty devoid of salt.  It's rare that I see anyplace or anything that I must see firsthand, but those goats on that Alpine dam requires my personal attention.  Has anyone seen this?  Does George Clooney live around there?  Anyway, flying goats in summer, in Italy, how bad can it be?

As promised, two words:  "cancer" and "comedy" appear together repeatedly on Google and one site even has a list of the top "cancer comedies".  I forgot how many movies used cancer as a tool to move the story along.  At the top of every list was last year's "50/50" with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the cancer victim) and Seth Rogen as his goofy friend.  It was pretty funny and I couldn't help but notice he looked great, bald (Gordon-Levitt) and he looked pretty good until the end he got all his hair back which is always a cinematic signal that indicates recovery.  I liked the movie because I like Seth Rogen comedies - warm-hearted and   raunchy.  It definitely had cancer in it.  Those boys used cancer to shave, to pick up girls, discard girls and try on lots of hats!  I revisited "Dark Victory" with Bette Davis, the hallmark of cancer cinema.  Again, I was stymied in my search for meaning, Bette's only revelation was "she needed to live!"  She looked really glamorous and full of energy right to the end.  So that was no help either.

Blatant tearjerkers (Brian's Song) or uneasy comedies (Funny People - Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen) there are no realistic representations of cancer or it's horrifying aftermath.  In film, anyway.  People don't look like they're back from a three-week-stay in Mauii as cancer progresses.  There is nothing comedic about tumors.  I cringe at the phrase, at the idea of a "cancer comedy"  there is nothing funny about cancer.  Believe me, I've looked.  I will continue to look for any humor everywhere, anywhere.  That is all cancer left me with.

Homeland? Poor General Petraeus!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

There is this program my spouse really likes on SHOWTIME called "Homeland".  It's dark and has actors I mostly like and is about spies and the C.I.A.  I never really liked it and it is too convoluted even for me.  Is the Clare Danes character crazier or saner than everyone else at the CIA?  Is she having obsessive fantasies about Brody or is she just a little slutty?  Did Clare Danes move back in with her TV Dad for a month?  A year?  And why?  Did she move in because she was unhinged by the CIA and needed supervision from her father (the always compelling character actor James Rebhorn you know him, he was the go-to guy in the 90's when a movie needed a weasely, bad guy.  Here he is very sympathetic,  just a concerned Dad.)or did she live with Dad because she was unemployed? And  why did she go rushing back to the CIA when Mandy Pantinkin said he believed her?  Then she's nuttier than a fruitcake and brushes old Dad(and presumably most of her meds) off on her way out the door. Is she psychotic?  Is it just a tough job market? And the POW/Congressman Brody Dude, what's his deal?  Is he a real   American who cracked under torture after eight years of being a POW?  Or was he a terrorist all along?  The fact that he looks a little like my spouse just adds to my confusion.  Are Brody's wife and kids moles or dupes?  You know I like a complex storyline as much as anyone,and I mean anyone!  I keep track of Dexter, some of the Housewives Real or not, The Good Wife (?), Boardwalk Empire, Weeds, True Blood, The Simpsons - and that's just Sunday!

I feel like life is complicated enough.  Case in point:  The Petraeus Sex Scandal.  At first, it was just another, garden variety extramarital affair.  A famous  general having an inappropriate relationship with his biographer; regrettable  but not original or unusual.  General is exposed and even though he hasn't seen his paramour in  months he tenders his resignation because he says it's the honorable thing to do and the President accepts resignation.  Sad but fairly predictable, right? Business as usual, right? Wrong!

Every day since Gen. Petraeus did resign there has been a new character added or some new circumstance that is really distracting and not even remotely connected to the President or National Security or really to even to Petraeus himself.  I say, "Poor General Petraeus" because by all accounts he's a good guy, trying (Or who tried) to do a good job as a General and then at the CIA(If you can do a "good anything" there he was doing it), and what will he be remembered for?  Fooling around with his biographer, that's what.

Like that irritating spy show my beloved is so fond of, these Petraeus details and associated men and women leave me with more questions than answers.  When did the CIA know that 4 Americans were killed by an act of terrorism?  Who is that military guy?  The other one.  What does Ambassador Rice have to do with anything?  See what I mean?  I barely grasp the real-life situations that comprise our news.  I can't absorb fictional stories that are as pointless and fuzzy as what I get on TV and the internet as news.  Life is ambiguous.  People can be ambiguous, I get that.  I need my TV to be instructive or at the very least, entertaining, not ambiguous.

"I dunno", Answer that Supposed to Elicit A "Well,that's OK then!" or "Now I Understand. I'm really glad we had this talk!", from parents.

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I am feeling very sad today.  I can't find my younger niece on the internet and she needs me.  Her parents split up several years ago and she lives with her father.  She was always a live wire.  In recent years I have been reduced to following her exploits on Facebook.  She's funny, fearless and is completely honest about her life as only the young can be.

Recently, she made some poor choice or other that got her kicked out of school (Temporarily,I hope) and of course I heard about it and when a parent asked why she did that particular thing she said something uncharacteristic for her but terribly routine for those in her age group, "I dunno".

What is making me so sad is there is almost nothing I can do to help her.  I can't drive or even fly to help her.  I can't even talk on the phone.  This is where this brain tumor situation gets really tiresome.  I'm not by nature, the type that will sit on the sidelines and hope she grows out of it.  This condition I am in forces me to prod others into making phone calls to find out if my niece is still among the living and I get a second-hand answer at that.  It really is hard!

One day, for a split second, I thought I was waking to the sensation of everything being back to normal.  I was not the person plagued with pain.  There was no ringing in my ears  and the constant feeling of falling and spinning.  It was only for a second or two and I'm sure I dreamed it, but it was so real.  I was so relieved!  It all was a long, really bad dream.  Nope.  I really woke up and it is all here; the vertigo, the double vision and the lost-in-space feeling.

I hope she can hold on until Spring.  I hope I can, too.

PS:  From the Network that gave us, "Who the @#$!!! Did I Marry?" comes, "Wives with Knives," seriously, next week on ID.

The World is Full of Food and I Can't Eat All Of It - or, as it turns out, any of it

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I had several good ideas about cancer stuff to write about and all those happy World Series feelings are gone because Serious Storm or Super Storm Sandy was bearing down on New York!  Airports were closed!  Water was flooding subways!  They forecasted snowfall!  I watched Katrina closely and Sandy sounds a lot like Katrina in reverse.  Black President being closely watched to see if he bungles the Federal Response the way Bush did in '05.   Thankfully, Mr. Obama seems to have been keeping an eye on Sandy. Apparently most of the people told to leave, left.  Sandy was a big, nasty, storm made a long assault on Manhattan and  Atlantic City.  History making weather!  Lady Liberty is dark! Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane, Sandy wasn't even a hurricane but she pounded New York so it got a lot of media coverage.  And you could  tell it was going to leave a big mess behind.  And then those same places and poor people are getting slammed by a Nor'easter, whatever that is, it brings snow.  So there are situations worse than a cancerous brain tumor.  No, not really.  Being cold, damp and in darkness temporarily sucks but it probably isn't permanent.  Probably won't last months let alone years.

However, today I want to talk about  food, something I have always held in low regard has begun to become a big problem for me.  Specifically, I have tremendous difficulty operating a fork and a spoon.  Forget the knife.  I have always thought of food as a necessary evil - as fuel and this belief I have firmly held all my adult life.  That, and I really only eat things I really enjoy.  This might be another example of an old way of thinking that no longer applies.  I have enough to contend with, it suits me just fine to forget food altogether.  That has always been my failsafe, fallback position.

I find eating to be pretty disgusting anyway, my big problem with food is essentially the same problem I have with trendy clothes and new houses:  It's too impermanent.  I like to do a chore or spend money one time and be done with it.  Eating is a constant process.  It really seems tedious to me, and if made more difficult by brain trauma, something I'd just as soon skip.  It is really low on my list of things to fix.

My patient spouse who has been producing food without fail, produced (on three separate evenings) the two foods I hate above all others:  meat loaf (it sounds like what it is, gross!  I mean who the hell wants a loaf shaped out of meat?) and bbqd salmon .  You know the sideways cut of the fish that leaves the bones in and the skin on, keeping in all that salmony goodness.  Yuck!  My son really likes a loaf made of meat.  You know why?  It involves ketchup, my least favorite condiment.  I recently saw a Stouffer's commercial for their "homemade" loaf o' meat, and theirs looked exactly like my spouse's!  If Stouffer's is making it people somewhere are eating it.  My spouse is making the right kind, I just don't believe that "meat" and "loaf" belong in the same sentence, let alone on the same plate!  The spouse can make it until the world ends (December 21, Happy Birthday Ian!) as long as he doesn't expect me to eat it.

Thought for the Day:  Just when I stopped watching ID (it moved even too slow for me)they came up with a snazzy new title to draw me back.  Ready?  From the network that brought you "Who the @#!! Did I Marry?"  now comes,"Wives with Knives" destined to be a classic.  You can't make this up!  It practically writes itself!

Normal Wear & Tear? I Think Not! Existing Trauma + Every Day Living = Too Much Stress

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Well I knew I was nowhere close to being finished with all the medical people and places attached to my tumor and the last week was a painful testament to not being done.  I broke yet another rib and an expensive cap fell off.  So that means I have to put aside everything else I'm trying so hard to repair to devote entire mornings or days to seeing doctors and dentists to assess the damage of the most recently inflicted  injuries.

Ordinarily there be a follow up visit or two spaced out over decent intervals of time.  With plenty of time for me to rant about the ridiculousness of my world. Being a patient already managing a variety of other serious symptoms, a broken rib and a broken tooth are just collateral damage that has to repaired as easily as possible, with as little downtime as necessary.

You keep telling yourself that none of it matters.  It really doesn't matter in the scheme of things, but it is difficult to hold onto your perspective when lots of pain and visible damage are the results of simply living.  It would at least seem so much more worthwhile if these damages were the result of creating some amazing piece of art.  Even eating something special is a good reason to break a tooth.  I think it is anyway,.

Unfortunately for me, most maladies big or small can be quickly traced back to my brain tumor/removal/radiation.

PS - Go Giants!  I told you that being compared to a cockroach wasn't necessarily a bad thing!