Cancer, the serial killer, is at it again

Not only is the Chief undergoing treatment for cancer, but a friend's MIL has a stage-4 diagnosis, and another friend at church was recently diagnosed and will soon start chemo.  One of her daughters, also a church friend, lost her husband to cancer just a few years ago, so she's having a particularly difficult time of it.

Last week, a couple we know who for the past decade or more have done fund-raiser bike rides for cancer research came to the show I was teching.  (She's a cancer survivor.)  I shared about how VERY many people the Chief & I know who have had cancer, and how many we've lost to it.  "Kill it with fire!  Bury it with a mouthful of garlic and several stakes through its heart!"

This is the first January in 3 or 4 years when we haven't attended a funeral.  When I start to think of all the people I've known who've dealt with cancer, I keep thinking of more - there are SO MANY.  😢

Wow, it's been a while!

Let's see, what's been keeping me busy?

1. overlapping shows since October
2. the news that the Chief's cancer is back
3. dealing with all his pre-treatment tests and assessments
4. a relatively last-minute decision to host another Christmas open house, once we knew the Chief's medical schedule
5. a quick trip to visit my family over the weekend between Christmas and New Year's
6. a show that loaded in the first weekend in January
7. rehearsal and design work for my late-February show
8. TONS of pre-class homework for my musical theater workshop

Yep, been busy lately.

staying local for Christmas

The Chief and I just decided that, given the schedule for all his medical stuff, we won't be traveling this Christmas.  I'm disappointed - I haven't been home since my aunt's funeral in February - but as I told the Chief, I want to celebrate Christmas with him.

What is it with January?!?

The Chief's BIL died of his cancer in mid-January and his widow, the Chief's sister, was put on hospice for hers at about the same time. This is 3 years running that we've had loved ones die, nearly all of them from cancer, in January.  And the Chief's mother got her terminal diagnosis in January.  T.S. Eliot was wrong: April isn't the cruelest month; January is, at least for us.

2017 continues to pile on

Let's see -

• neighbor & friend lost to cancer about 4 days apart in January
• Chief's brother, sister and her husband all dealing with various cancers
• Chief diagnosed w/ cancer at end of March, surgery at end of May
• two friends widowed very suddenly, about a month apart
• cousin diagnosed w/ cancer, died 3 weeks later!
• SIL and her husband both having to keep going after their cancers, which don't want to stay treated.

I think we could be forgiven for feeling like the universe is sorta piling on lately, and wondering "Who's next?"

More bad news

Just learned of someone's inoperable, stage-4 cancer diagnosis.  What IS it with this year?!?

Bad news can do that to you.

Sunday morning, just days after we got the Chief's diagnosis, a friend posted on Facebook that her husband had died suddenly during the night.  Needless to say, Sunday was a write-off.  Getting picked apart at that audition felt that much worse because of it, my continuing "juggle struggle" the same - it seems the tears are just plain closer to the surface while I digest all this bad news.  I haven't been sleeping as well, either, which makes me a bit crabby; poor Chief!

We'll get past it, of course - we've both survived worse - but oh, it's exhausting in the meantime.  Pray for our sanity as the Chief & I weather this latest storm.

My nephew the Eagle Scout!

After years of work, one of my nephews just became the family's FIRST EAGLE SCOUT!!!  Yes, I'm shouting - that achievement represents YEARS of hard work, and we're all very proud of him.  I don't blame him for smiling that big - I would too, with an accomplishment like that under my belt.  (I wonder how much of it is relief that it's all finally finished. 😉)

This semester's butt-kicking class

... is Intro to Lighting Design.  I did want to get a little familiarity with the basics of lighting design, not because I have any delusions about becoming a lighting designer, but so I can at least talk intelligently with lighting designers when I'm doing community theater.  I also wanted to develop a better idea of what I'm looking at in that respect when I go to see a show.

I'm developing a very healthy respect for what lighting designers do!  After finishing the latest homework assignment, I told the grad student teaching the course that lighting designers must be part engineer.  All the technical details—how many lights you can put where without tripping a circuit breaker, making sure the lights are positioned so that you have no "dark spots" or funky shadows on stage, angling the lights to highlight actors' faces but not blind them or the audience, ...—are rather intimidating in their numbers and complexity.

Part of our homework consists of attending the university's four main-stage productions this semester and at least one professional production and doing a write-up of the lighting design for each one.  My first write-up was pretty thin, partly because it was right at the beginning of the semester, when I was still learning what to write about, and partly because I was an understudy in the show, so when I attended, I was paying more attention to the person I was understudying than to the lighting.  I've since done two more, which I think were rather better.  The third one was on a professional production.  The lighting for that one was so dramatic that even the Chief noticed a lot of the things the designer did.  That one just about wrote itself.

We still haven't gone into detail about how to decide which instrument (that's what the lights are called) to use, but I imagine that'll come.  There's SO MUCH to know about lighting design that I can well believe that it's impossible to cover it all in an introductory class like this one.

Doing the most recent homework, I couldn't help thinking Dad would be so proud to see me using my scale ruler like a pro.  Here in the US, we use architectural (english) rather than engineering (metric) scale for theater, but you read them both the same way.

Cancer is a murdering serial killer!

Cancer is a murdering SOB.  The list of people I've lost to it, or people near & dear to me have lost to it, is lengthy:  Both my grandmothers; the little brother of 2 high school friends (while we were still in HS); the Chief's younger sister (and his older sister is now battling it); parents of too many friends; the Chief's mom; my mom; Mom's older brother; a friend last year; a neighbor earlier this week; and now The Flibbertigibbet.  She went suddenly (she was only diagnosed last month), and much too young.  She was the heart & soul of the local community theater world; odds are excellent that if you never worked on a show with her, you worked with someone who did, and everyone who's ever worked with her loved her.

I had to call a couple of out-of-town friends last night to let them know. The first one immediately asked about the Chief's and my health and ordered us to "stay healthy!"  I'd share that advice with you - please, for the sake of those who love you, take good care of yourself so you'll be around for a good, long time.

The first family wedding!

Last month the first of my siblings' children got married!  How and when did he get to be old enough?!?  Anyway, he & his new bride have known each other for 8 or 9 years, so it isn't as though they married in haste.  It was a lovely ceremony; LOTS of readings, nice music, the bride's gown was beautifully elegant, and the groom was grinning ear to ear. :)  The reception was nice, too.  The music was a bit loud for my taste (I loathe having to raise my voice to be heard), but because the newlyweds are both dancers, it was VERY danceable!  I got to dance with both the groom and my brother, though not terribly skillfully.  The floor was just a tiny bit slick, and I had trouble following because it's been years since I've danced with C, and the groom & I had never danced together before.  Didn't matter; we had fun, and the bride got a couple of funny pictures of J & me out on the dance floor.

His brother is getting married in October.  Another dance couple, so that should be a fun reception too.

The two couples have already started a family game night, and their marital homes are only about 5 minutes apart.  The bride who's an only child will now have siblings and the bride whose siblings live in the next state will now have siblings close by.  I love it! :)

It's the little things

The other day I removed Dad from my phone's contacts.  Actually, I could have done it a year ago, or whenever it was that I realized calling him was just frustrating him, so I started writing him little notes instead.  Every so often I still start to head down the greeting card aisle in the store to look for a card for him, then stop myself.

The inurnment ceremony was short but very nice.  The "family priest" (cousin of Mom's) did a lovely job as always.  He shared a memory of Dad.  Father M was at Mom's bedside when she died and told us of Dad holding Mom's hand that last time.  The Army also sent a bugler to play Taps (I think we all started "leaking" at the first note) and two NCOs to do the flag thing.  Dad would have been so pleased and proud.

M&D have two side-by-side slots in a "quadruplex" at the columbarium.  When the cemetery rep asked if we'd like to have the divider between their slots removed, we said "Yes, please!"  It won't make any difference to them, of course, but we love the idea of their "dusty boxes" (as Sister3 christened them) side by side.

Been a very eventful few weeks

The biggest event was that Dad finally succumbed to his health issues on Jan. 15th.  We're relieved for his sake, and glad he's reunited with Mom, but of course his passing leaves a big hole in our lives.

The Chief and I flew out for the funeral.  My siblings planned a very nice one, so we gave him a good send-off.  (Mom would've loved the music.)

Getting back was tricky, however.  The East Coast got hit with a blizzard that weekend (one of Dad's cousins and his wife decided, wisely, not to fly out), so our flight home Sunday was cancelled.  We finally got home Monday afternoon.  Classes were cancelled both Monday and Tuesday, which gave me a little time to get ready for a new semester at a new school.

Getting into the new semester has been tricky because I was waitlisted for two classes I needed.  I did manage to get into both, but I only got approved for the second one yesterday, and didn't get my shop hours scheduled until this morning.  

This has made it hard to reschedule my voice lesson, too.  C's schedule is pretty full, so I was afraid we might not be able to work something out.  As it is, I couldn't get a lesson this week, but we did work something out.  Good thing, with NATS only a few weeks away!

Quiet Thanksgiving

The Chief and I had a quiet Thanksgiving a deux.  We found out we weren't going to have guests before we pulled the turkey out of the freezer, so we pulled out lamb shanks instead.  Very tasty, but greasy and a lotta work getting the meat off the bone (back to leg of lamb or chops).  Beautiful weather, too; I walked a few things to the post office today and didn't even need a jacket!

Got in a videochat with Dad yesterday on my brother's phone, talked to 2 sisters last night.  Left messages on 2 friends' voicemail and had a nice little chat with another friend this morning.  The Chief's brother is doing well.  And we'll be having lunch on Sunday with a friend we haven't seen in person in much too long.  Good weekend!

Feeling productive

Had a very productive day in the scene shop yesterday.  Only two of us showed up to earn shop hours, so we didn't have to share tasks or take turns with the tools.  We finished the steps and decking for the set, then removed a temporary backstage step to an entrance onto the set and replaced it with a platform.  The platform is at the same height as the entrance it serves, so the actors don't look silly stepping up to come into an apartment from the hallway.  Because the platform is so high, we also built a truss and step to make it easy to get onto and off the platform.  I got to cut the pieces for the truss and also drilled pilot holes for the screws putting it together.  I also "perforated" a bit of truss that needed trimming back to accommodate one of the steps on the front of the set, then cut some plywood for said step.  I don't drive the screws; I don't seem to have the hand strength or something.  However, I can measure accurately to 1/16" and can tell by the measurements I'm given whether I'm cutting a stile, a rail or a toggle.

This afternoon was spent in the kitchen: sweet potato-black bean chili, unstuffed cabbage rolls (tomorrow's dinner), and 15-bean soup with ham.  As you can imagine, the house smells oh, so homey and delicious right now.  Most of this bounty will go into the freezer so the Chief can have a ready dinner while I'm at the theater.  (The Odd Couple techs in next weekend.)  Tomorrow I'll make a batch of oxtail soup and, homework permitting, a batch of pumpkin-oatmeal-cranberry bars ("breakfast bars", as the Chief calls them).

Now that's love!

The Chief is what I call a "peanut butter purist" - only eats peanut butter in a sandwich.  He's not interested in peanut butter in any other form (ingredient, flavoring), and thinks peanut butter/chocolate candy (especially peanut butter cups) is an abomination.  Imagine my surprise when I was unloading the groceries today and found he'd bought me a package of not just one, but two, Reese's chocolate-covered peanut butter pumpkins!  He had fun making a big show of shuddering at bringing such "contamination" into the house, but he obviously enjoyed bringing home a little something he knew I'd enjoy.

That's this year's batch of family graduations

Three nephews are now graduated - congratulations, gentlemen!  V, I hope your freshman year will be a relatively smooth transition.  J, best of luck on your job hunt.  S, may your roll continue at your new institution in the fall.

First college graduation in the family

Today my godson received his B.A. (Classical languages), making him the first of that generation of our family to earn a college degree.  Beautiful day for it, despite a wind that sometimes had hats, gowns, etc., blowing wildly.  The keynote speaker gave an excellent commencement address, the transcript for which I hope will be available on line for future reference.  The ceremony closed with the singing of the alma mater, the cheer, and the fight song.  Great fun!

It was interesting to see what was the same as my graduation from the same institution, and what had changed (e.g., the fancy-schmancy electronic scoreboard, on which we saw J and his friend as they started into the procession).  I also couldn't help wondering what the commencement festivities are like at the institution where I hope to be enrolling this fall. :)

Had another nephew graduate from high school Thursday night.  He'll be attending his dad's alma mater in the fall - the other state university.  As I teased both him and his dad, I suppose someone needed to try to balance the distribution in the family. :D

Goodbye, 2014

2014 has hardly been the worst year of my life - I finally sang a principal role with a company I'd worked in the ensemble with for years.  (Now if only I'd been more ready for that opportunity...)  I also got to spend the year laying a good, solid vocal foundation with my new voice teacher.  Designing hair and make-up for The Arabian Nights was a blast - very talented cast, who were willing to go where I pushed them, and the crew were equally talented.  The new neighbors who bought our late, lamented neighbor's house bid fair to become friends, which is always good news.  We learned at Christmas that two nephews will be receiving degrees in May, and that there's other good news due in late summer or early fall.

We also buried a neighbor, a church friend, and a former stage-manager friend, and Dad's health continues to decline.  I know I should focus on the good, but losing loved ones, or watching them hurt, definitely casts a pall on things.

C'mon, 2015 - you can do better than 2014.

How on earth did I manage that?!

Yesterday I got home from a week spent with family.  The Chief and I stayed in a hotel, which meant eating out a lot.  (We did have a supply of cereal, milk and bananas in the room, so at least breakfast was reasonably healthy.)  And of course we ate the usual holiday fare, though perhaps not quite as much as usual because the food was at Sister3's house and we were at that hotel.  Still, I ate nearly all my WW points and was very sedentary.  Despite all that, I actually managed to lose weight!  The last time that happened, I had two wisdom teeth extracted a few days before Christmas and couldn't chew much of the holiday food.