Archive for August, 2014

Lion rider

Friday, August 22nd, 2014

IMG_8848.JPG

Here’s Mia taking a ride on a friendly lion. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at the Oakland Zoo during our recent visit there, and part of my famous Statue series.

Joanne and I have been to the Bay Area twice in recent days. The latest one was last weekend. Katie and Cliff had an engagement party on Saturday evening and we decided to attend. Flew in on Friday morning, visited downtown Pleasanton for some gift shopping, checked in to our hotel, and went back to downtown Pleasanton for dinner. We found a sushi place that looked good. It turned out to be good, fortunately.

Saturday morning, we went to Katie/Cliff’s place, chatted for a bit, and picked up Mia to take her to the afore-mentioned Oakland Zoo for the afternoon. We had a great time! It’s not a huge zoo, but the displays are nice and the company was fun. They have a kiddie land with rides near the entrance, so we stopped on our way out to ride the zoo train (one of my favorite things to do at a zoo), the carousel, and the little roller coaster. Joanne opted not to ride the roller coaster, so that one was just Mia and me. Come to think of it, she didn’t ride the carousel either. I stood on that one while Mia rode.

Anyway. The party was great fun. Lots of people attended, including Cliff’s dad. It was great to see Pat and him again. Joanne got invited into a game of cribbage with a couple of guys. She was delighted to not just beat them but thorough trounce them both. She’s an excellent cribbage player and an enthusiastic competitor. She routinely beats me at just about everything, just to keep me humble. It works. Did I tell you about our family bowling experience several days ago?

We came home from the Bay Area Sunday morning, but we’ll be going back in a couple weeks for a visit to Sonoma and to hang out with Katie and Cliff again.

In the meantime, I’m heading back to Detroit on Sunday morning to be with my mother. I don’t remember whether I mentioned it yet in this space, but she’s been diagnosed with liver cancer. It’s not operable and she appears to be too weak for chemo, so they’re talking about giving her radiation soon. She’s in the hospital right now to deal with complications from an earlier surgery that put in some drains for her blocked gall bladder. Her cancer was diagnosed when her gall bladder was blocked and she turned a pretty bright yellow color. We don’t yet know how much more time she has, but I’m. to sure it’s multiple years at this point. Sandy has expressed some frustration that the doctors don’t seem to be willing to give her an accurate assessment of Mom’s chances. I remember being very frustrated with our doctors’ refusal to state any odds of survival for us. They appear to be trained to try to give people an optimistic, cheery outlook. I understand that there’s a psychological component to fighting cancer and they want patients and their families to stay optimistic, but misrepresenting the magnitude of the challenge ahead of you seems to me like a nonproductive way to generate that optimism. I can tell when they’re hiding the truth from me.

Anyway. I’m looking forward to being with my mom. Chris and Tony are there now. Tony will be leaving just an hour or two before I arrive. Chris may probably still be there, but his return plans are still extremely sketchy. We don’t think there’s an immediate need to be there, but we all felt drawn there just the same.

Joanne and I are going to Green Valley Ranch this weekend. It’s a very nice resort here in Henderson. We’re getting a massage on Saturday and will probably spend the rest of the day hanging out by the pool or some similarly relaxing activity. She’ll take me to the airport early Sunday morning and pick me up Friday afternoon.

More fun trips on the near horizon. Details later. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this chocking food violence news: beef rib fire!

See you Monday.