Dear Friends,
As many of you know, I am very excited by the thought of Christmas this year because I will finally be finished with my chemotherapy. To celebrate, Julie put up some Christmas lights last week and we decided to wait until Thursday to light them, something to look forward to when we returned that night from treatment. Sure enough, while Catherine and I were at chemo, Julie came home and turned them on so they would be lit up when we returned. Kathy and Yves learned of this plan and they too turned on their lights that night (the second picture is of Kathy, Yves, and their sons Isaac and Felix). Thanks K and Y for sharing in my enthusiasm. If anyone else might like to share their lights, please send me a picture and I will post them.
I'm managing some nausea today and I'm really tired. I'm taking the max dose of Tylenol 3s and I have the high dose Percocet ready for when the second layer of pain hits tomorrow. We now have this down to a science and know what to expect, so it's just getting through it. I'm incredibly grateful for Catherine and Julie and all of you tonight.
Kip
Big Love to you Kip!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the wonderful posts to your blog.
For some reason, this song is playing through my head when I look at the photos above... not at all Christmas related... but kind of in that "glee" spirit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b07-yKnKRMQ&feature=related
keep well
stay strong!
Davina
Toward the Winter Solstice
ReplyDeleteby Timothy Steele
Although the roof is just a story high,
It dizzies me a little to look down.
I lariat-twirl the cord of Christmas lights
And cast it to the weeping birch’s crown;
A dowel into which I’ve screwed a hook
Enables me to reach, lift, drape, and twine
The cord among the boughs so that the bulbs
Will accent the tree’s elegant design.
Friends, passing home from work or shopping, pause
And call up commendations or critiques.
I make adjustments. Though a potpourri
Of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Sikhs,
We all are conscious of the time of year;
We all enjoy its colorful displays
And keep some festival that mitigates
The dwindling warmth and compass of the days.
Some say that L.A. doesn’t suit the Yule,
But UPS vans now like magi make
Their present-laden rounds, while fallen leaves
Are gaily resurrected in their wake;
The desert lifts a full moon from the east
And issues a dry Santa Ana breeze,
And valets at chic restaurants will soon
Be tending flocks of cars and SUVs.
And as the neighborhoods sink into dusk
The fan palms scattered all across town stand
More calmly prominent, and this place seems
A vast oasis in the Holy Land.
This house might be a caravansary,
The tree a kind of cordial fountainhead
Of welcome, looped and decked with necklaces
And ceintures of green, yellow, blue, and red.
Some wonder if the star of Bethlehem
Occurred when Jupiter and Saturn crossed;
It’s comforting to look up from this roof
And feel that, while all changes, nothing’s lost,
To recollect that in antiquity
The winter solstice fell in Capricorn
And that, in the Orion Nebula,
From swirling gas, new stars are being born.