We are all ok

I'm sorry it's been so long--just the usual busy one thing after another. Manford just finished his fifth course of chemotherapy, and is in the process of tapering off of steroids, we hope. The combination of steroids and chemo has made his skin so thin that he has all kinds of bruises and blood blisters under his skin, and cuts himself at the drop of a hat. Friday I was trying to change a bandage and tore the skin just taking it off, so now we have elaborate procedures, and luckily the nice hospice nurse came today and changed it, as I was scared...but he is feeling better, walking better, with more energy and better short term memory. All that probably mostly the effects of radiation wearing off, and maybe also decreasing steroids. We are planning some travel over the next few months, when he is likely to feel his best. In October, we hope to go to Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef, and then in the summer (maybe December or January), we will go to the South Island; he'd like to see some whales, and there is a famous whale-watching area in the northeast part of the island, and then maybe see Milford and Doubtful Sound in the southwest.

The kids are fine; I will post a picture of Joseph all spiffed up for his school ball (prom) last night; it sounds like it was a good event, no pressure to bring a date, or even to dance...the theme was "Cluedo," which is the game we call "Clue" (Professor Mustard in the kitchen with a lead pipe...). Joseph did his first bit of useful driving since he got his restricted license; he went and picked up Charlie at the doggie day care, where she has been going to avoid the man digging up the back yard, which would deeply offend her sense of territory. Joseph is not allowed to drive anyone else who hasn't had a license more than two years, but we have interpreted that to mean humans...

The backyard is being dug up to put in a patio for a hot tub, which we are looking forward to. Emily and I went around "wet testing" various models and settled on one, only to discover that the deck in the back was not strong enough to hold a hot tub, and the one that had been there previously was set into the deck, anyway...so no more deck, extensive digging and leveling, and lots of gravel and complicated procedures, and maybe next week we will have a patio.

Emily is very excited at the imminent prospect of getting a baby bunny. We succumbed to a hutch on sale, so now we need to follow through and find a bunny, which looks like it will involve a trip to Auckland in two weeks, when some baby dwarf rabbits will be old enough to take home.

I finally got out in the garden a bit yesterday, and pulled up a bin's worth of weeds. It is early spring, and alternating rain with bright, cool sun, sometimes in five-minute intervals--but good for weeding. Daffodils are blooming, and it is time to start planting things. I still have to think carefully about what month it is; I'm not sure how many years it takes to get used to being upside down.

Yesterday in the hallway outside my office, which leads to a door marked all over with "emergency exit only" signs(which cowed me at first, but is used routinely by everyone all the time), a man was heading out and then stopped, saying "I guess I can't go this way." I assured him that he could, and everyone did, and he noticed my American accent, and asked where I was from. It turned out he was from Sacramento, and had gone to Rio Americano High School a few years before I did...so even on the other side of the world it is a small world. Come visit us!
Carrie