Scenes of everyday life

DAY NINETEEN:

Today was a day of talking on the iPhone to friends from afar; taking a walk in the cold air and bright sunshine; Max having a friend over to play - Olivia; watching the Tarheels squander an 18-pt lead to be beaten by Louisville in OT; reading "Diary of a wimpy kid" to Max; eating good food prepared by Ellen; cleaning up the kitchen; Paul and Jenny going to Jackson for a spa, dinner and movie;  writing notes for some letters for Katie; talking with John to see how his day went (quietly); a varied day.

Here are scenes of everyday surroundings:

                      Our bedroom

                     Our bathroom

         The downstairs TV room

         The aquarium downstairs

        Ellen prepping in the kitchen

          Olivia and Max playing outside

      The walk out from the front porch

   The living room with snowflakes in window made by Max, Ellen and Paul

      Paul's mounted calendar scenes

              Upstairs study with TV

These are some of the things we see every day. Now it is night, Paul and Jenny are back, Max is in bed, Ellen is watching Huckleberry Finn (we tried watching it earlier but it was too scary for Max - he doesn't mind cartoon violence like Batman, but realistic violence gets to him. - which is probably a good thing), and I'm blogging. Soon to bed. 

Sports weekend

DAY NINETEEN: Everyone is home this morning. Paul will be watching soccer - he has a special channel on the TV which accesses British club soccer games in addition to US pro soccer (he's a Real Salt Lake fan ), and then afternoon he and Jenny are going to Jackson to a spa and I'll be watching a UNC-Louisville men's basketball game and of course tomorrow is the Super Bowl. But i hope to get in a couple of good walks too. It 's cold but sunny and underfoot it is not icy anymore on the road.

I think I 've worked out alternatives to the computer so I can work on files using Jenny's computer or the one at the library, I'm blogging from my iPhone using the Blogger app, and I'm deleting unneeded emails in my Sover Net inbox so it doesn't get too big. I finished Lila, Marilynne Robinson's amazing novel, and have started Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness - which I have never read. Richard Rorty put me on to that. 

Betsey seems to be doing well with her radiation treatments, she feels good and she and Rob have actually been at a music conference these past two days - amazing! John suffered a mild concussion from a fall  while ice skating and is trying to take it easy so that his brain can heal. Gosh! My brain is ok I guess other than the usual predations of old age. But please send what healing energies you can to these Crockett brains!

No school

DAY EIGHTEEN: Today is a no-school day for  Max so he 's happily playing at home all day. He's really into the "Wimpy Kid" books (being read to ) and loves to read Mo Willems books by himself. He seems to really like having word balloons.  Last eve, Jenny was out late at a Sporting Club members dinner and Paul, Ellen and I watched a fascinating Nova program on medieval cathedral architecture and construction - esp. domes.

A different kind of life

I'll have to say that this is a different kind of life - slower, simpler. I get up fairly late - usually after checking email on the iPhone so I have been awake awhile before getting up, so let's say 9 am, and I make the bed, and then go upstairs to make breakfast (we 're sleeping in a "basement" suite). Ellen has usually gotten up before I have and is reading (Max is at school and Jenny  & Paul are at work). My typical breakfast is a high-protein smoothie and oatmeal. Ellen sometimes makes Scott's emulsion. Then I may shower and get dressed, or I may stay in my PJ's and do something on the computer  (not mine - Jenny's). This a.m. It was the latter - I wrote out notes for another letter for Katie ( in the letters from  Shirley series) - today it was letter no. 46 from Kansas State Teachers College. It was quite a letter (it was to me- we had met about six weeks earlier). Shirley had been up until 3am talking with a student who was revealing a very difficult part of her life. It had been very intense, Shirley felt she had never had such an intimate conversation  before, and she wanted to tell me about it. After finishing my notes I showered and dressed and then had to print the notes out and then go to the Library to copy the letters and then buy envelopes. So I did that and came back. Max came home early today - short school day - so he was just getting off the bus when I got back. I fixed myself lunch of leftovers while he and Ellen played Sorry and then I went to Etna ( about 5 miles) to the P.O.  to mail my packet to Katie and some cards for Ellen. Now Max and Ellen have gone to the Alpine Market and for the rest of the day I hope to get in a walk, play with Max, maybe read. Ellen is cooking tonight. Not sure what we'll do after supper - maybe a Scrabble game. It's a low-key life. No meetings or rehearsals!

Yesterday we again went to Max's martial arts class - which is very much a class in exercise and following directions, usually through a game of some kind. Here's Max in one of his positions.

Photos

I'm still figuring out how to do this blog using my iPhone instead of computer. I have down-loaded the Blogger app, so I can access my photo library on the phone. 

Frustration

Well, I took my computer to Simply Mac in Jackson and they started it up and it seemed fine. So I did a back up with Time Machine on my external drive and also put several files I want to work with onto a flash drive and all that went without a hitch. Then we went for a wonderful walk in the elk reserve, we saw lots of elk, we saw two eagles feeding on carrion not far from the road, and we saw lots of longhorn sheep right by the road and I got great pictures. Then we went to see The Imitation  Game - and found it to be quite gripping. Then we came home, had supper,  I got out the computer and immediately had the same problems all over again. It will start up, but when I try to do something it won 't respond - the colored ball just spins endlessly. So do I go back to Jackson - an 90 mile round trip - or just wait till I get home?  I'm doing this post on my iPhone and can also use Paul & Jenny's computer or the library's. Any advice?

P. S. I can 't figure out how to upload a photo off my iPhone onto this blog. Anybody got some advice?

Thanks for your patience !

Going to Jackson

DAY FIFTEEN  We're heading up to Jackson to get the computer checked out. At the very least I hope to transfer some files to a flash drive from my external hard drive. It's cold and clear here today, unlike the Northeast. But Vermont got spared, as did most of interior NE.

Pretty quiet

DAY FOURTEEN:  Things are pretty quiet here. Paul and Jenny are at work and Max is at school. Ellen is reading and I'm trying to figure out what to do about my computer. I called Simply Mac in Jackson and tomorrow I may go in there and see if I can transfer some  files from my external hard drive onto a flash drive that Paul and Jenny's computer can read (it doesn't seem to recognize my external hard drive).

I went to church yesterday at the Star Valley United Church in Thayne. They have had an interim minister, Rev. Allan Schoonover, ever since their regular pastor left last year. Rev. Schoonover was  coming down from Jackson, where he was pastor of the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, and that required a 4:30pm service. Now he has retired from Good Shepherd and the congregation was voting yesterday on whether to call him  to a regular but part-time ministry, which I presume they did. He will be working 30 hours a week, 45 weeks a year. I told him that a part-time ministry was one of the great fictions of the church, and he laughed.

While I was at church, Ellen, Paul and Max went to the movies in Jackson to see Barrington. The adults thought it was a very well-done movie, but the villainous Nicole Kidman character got a bit scary for Max so they left early.

We are planning to meet Max after school today at his martial arts class. That will be fun.

I talked with John and they are gearing up for a major blizzard in New England. Sounds like NYC and So. NE will be esp. hard hit, but they could get 2 feet and high winds in VT!

It's fairly mild and quiet here, weather-wise.

I continue to be enthralled by Lila.

Computer crash

DAY THIRTEEN:  Well, we arrived safely in Alpine Friday evening at about 6pm. One of the first things I did was to show Max the pictures I had taken of the Lego exhibit we went to at University of Colorado.  Almost immediately I began to have problems accessing iPhoto, so I rebooted the computer, still had problems, and to cut the the bottom line, now the computer won't boot at all. So I'm without the use of my computer - I'm using Paul and Jenny's at the moment. I have the option of taking it to Simply Mac in Jackson to get it fixed or waiting until we get home. I'm inclined to the latter, and get by using Paul & Jenny's computer or the one at the Library here in Alpine. But I may change my mind. Meantime, blog posts may be a bit fewer and far between. I may have to switch to a reading program. I also don't know how to put photos up on this blog without my computer. So please be patient!!

Meanwhile, I watched the TarHeels play Florida State yesterday (they won), and have started reading Marianne Robinson's LILA and am enthralled. Maybe a simple life of walking, reading, playing with Max, eating, etc., is what I need at this point.

Today (Sunday) we've been talking, Paul has been reading aloud from Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, and now everyone but me is planning to go to Jackson to see a movie (Paddington) and I'm staying to go to church at 4:30pm.

What a day!

DAY TEN was quite a day. It began with the rosy light of early dawn on the freshly fallen snow outside our bedroom window

Dawn at 5657 Sunshine Canyon Drive

After breakfast, a repairman arrived to try to fix Rob's storage unit that keeps wine at a constant 55 degrees. It had started to malfunction and go down to 20 degrees. Not good for the wine! After he left, Ellen and I were free to do as we wished until we had to pick up Betsey at 3pm. So we decided to take a ride up Sunshine Canyon Drive, through the village of Gold Hill, and on to the Peak to Peak Highway and over to Ward, CO, a very funky little town that friends had told us about.

The General Store in Gold Hill

Ward, Colorado - an 1860's mining town revived in the 1970's by hippies

The drive to Ward and back was gorgeous - a blue sky day with great scenery. Here are a few shots from out of the car window:

These scenes are all just a few miles from Rob and Betsey's house

After we came back from Ward we went down into Boulder to the University of Colorado campus to Old Main where there is a museum of Colorado History that was featuring an exhibit of the UofC campus made out of Lego. It was amazing:

Everything in this scene is Lego - even the mountains

The Quadrangle with a whimsical excavation of a dinosaur skeleton in foreground

Folsom Stadium - the players are Buffaloes (the nickname of the UofC football team)

After we picked up Betsey, we came home and got ready to go out to eat at the Hotel Boulderado, and then - the highlight of the day - go to a dance performance by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, one of the premier dance companies in the world. The meal at the Hotel Boulderado was delicious, and they even catered to Betsey's macro-biotic diet. Here's the hotel:

Hotel Boulderado

Then we went to Mackey Auditorium on the UofC campus for the dance performance. Here's Mackey as it appears in the Lego exhibit:

Lego version of Mackey Auditorium

 And the real stage:

The prosenium at Mackey

Rob and Betsey before the performance:

Betsey's looking and feeling great!

They did not permit photography, but these scenes from the Bill T. Jones website are exactly what we saw in their absolutely stunning performance. The music was a live string quartet drawn from the College of Music, and the dancers were absolutely out of this world!

The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company

It was an especially full day for Betsey who not only went to work and then had her radiation treatment, but also had an hour session with an energy healer at noon, who she felt did good work with her and she felt stronger when she came out (she'll see her weekly), and also had her weekly appointment with her radiation oncology doctor, who feels everything is going well. Betsey is amazing!

We leave in the morning for Alpine, WY. Thor and Julia, friends from Columbia, MO, arrive tomorrow evening. It's quite a remarkable time at the Shay's!!!

Betsey's radiation therapy

Ellen and I had a rare opportunity yesterday to be present at Betsey's radiation treatment. It was held at Tebo Family Medical Pavilion, home to Rocky Mountain Cancer Center on the brand new Boulder Community Health Foothills Medical Campus. The precise name for this therapy is 3D Conformal Radiation Therapy, which is a  sophisticated type of external beam radiation treatment. Computers calculate a three-dimensional model of the patient's tumor. During treatment, multiple beams of radiation conform to the  tumor's size and shape, limiting exposure to nearby tissue.

Normally, family members are not allowed into the area where patients are being treated, but Betsey asked and got permission for us to be present, and we observed her being prepared for the treatment, took photographs, and then left the room during the actual application of the radiation but were able to be in the control room where one of the radiation therapists was controlling the equipment and administering the radiation. The radiation was applied to the tumor from four different angles. The entire procedure, from arrival in the building to departure,  took less than a half-hour, and the actual exposure of the tumor to radiation is measured in seconds.

As indicated above, at the heart of this treatment is its accuracy - the technology has been developed to the point that at every treatment, the patient's head is positioned in exactly the same way, so that the radiation is beamed only at the tumor, and does not affect surrounding tissues -  the healthy brain cells. In addition to a great deal of computer technology that is involved, there is also a very practical device that makes this possible - a face mask which is contoured exactly to the patient's face, and fastened to the gurney, holding the head in exactly the same position for every treatment. Then both the gurney and the radiation machine are moved to provide exactly the right angle of exposure - that is controlled by a complex computer program. The team member that prepares that program is called a dosimetrist - a job title that was new to me.

To help the patient be perfectly at ease and relaxed during the treatment, the therapists are, first of all, very supportive and gentle in their work; a heated blanket is put over the patient, and in Betsey's case, a second blanket that was given to her by her running group back in Columbia,  and embroidered by them, was placed over the heated blanket. The lights were lowered,  a beautiful scene was projected on the ceiling above the gurney, and if she wishes a favorite CD can be played. Betsey reported that she feels nothing during the treatment and she uses the time for visualization of the destruction of the cancer cells and the happy growth of the surrounding healthy cells. After she comes home she spends time in meditation, and then has a delicious supper, eating only foods that balance the combined effect on her body of the cancer cells, the radiation, and the chemo pill she takes at bedtime. This lessens the side effects, and thus far she has felt little or no side effects from this therapy.

Betsey's face mask is fastened to the gurney. Masks for other patients are in the background

The machine is positioned

The gurney is positioned

A therapist runs everything from the control room

We are grateful to Betsey for making it possible for us to share in this experience, and to the staff at the Cancer Center for permitting us to be present for and observe this therapy.

A bit more from the Prairie Museum

The Prairie Museum featured the Cooper Barn, the largest barn in Kansas and called the "Eighth Architectural Wonder of Kansas."

The Cooper Barn

You can see why it's a wonder

Inside on the ground level was a display of farm equipment. Of particular interest to me was a Model-T Ford truck.

I worked on the Ogden farm as a fifteen-year-old boy in Anamosa, Iowa. I helped mainly with the hay and oats harvest. I loved it. I rode the oats binder, helped make shocks and then helped to toss them into the wagon. Helped make bales of hay and bring them into the barn. A favorite time was threshing when several families shared the threshing machine and it moved from farm to farm threshing the oats. Every day there was a huge noon meal, with all the wives bringing their favorite dishes. As a teenager with a hollow leg, this was heaven.

Riding the binder

But back to the Model-T. Every now and then, Parke Ogden, my boss,  would get out his Model-T Ford truck, which had a tank on the back, and go into Anamosa to the dairy to get buttermilk for his hogs. I would ride with him, and occasionally he let me drive. In the Model-T, you started it by cranking from the front, the gear shifts were foot pedals on the floor, the accelerator was a lever on the steering wheel, and the brake was another foot pedal - but it braked the transmission, not the wheels. There was a manually operated brake lever for emergencies. 

Model-T Ford Truck at Cooper Barn

Ah! Memories!

More from the Prairie Museum

Here are a few more photos from the Prairie Museum in Colby, KS.

These quilts caught my eye:

Close-up

Close-up

The sod house was especially interesting because we have been thinking a lot this past year about "tiny houses,"  and just how  much room we really need to live in. The sod house is a classic small house. Here is what it looks like:

Sod house

Interior looking at cooking area

Interior looking at sleeping/sitting area

 It's pretty cozy but entire families must have lived in these houses. They probably weren't furnished quite like this (e.g., I doubt they usually had a reed organ!).

In Boulder

On this DAY EIGHT, we have arrived in Boulder and I am so moved to see my daughter, Betsey,  looking wonderful - she is in her 2nd week of radiation therapy and chemotherapy and is feeling good, experiencing no side effects as yet, but aware that there may be some down the road and prepared to meet them with a fighting spirit. She feels she has an amazing medical team working on her behalf, she is aggressively pursuing all the resources of healing, a macro-biotic  diet (which we got a delicious sample of this evening), supplements, visualization, meditation - she is determined to be a survivor and help others be survivors. She is an inspiration! Tomorrow we will get a chance to tour the facility where she receives radiation therapy and see first-hand what is being done for her there. So, the journey continues, and I feel privileged to be on it with Betsey in some small way.

Today we traveled from Hays, KS to Boulder, and our route took us through Colby, KS, where there is the Prairie Museum of Art and History, where we stopped for a visit. It was very interesting. It is a collection of buildings representing life on the plains in the late 19th and earlier 20th century- it included a quilt exhibit, a farmstead house of the 1930's, a sod house, a one-room school, a Presbyterian Church and the largest barn in Kansas which houses a collection of farm equipment. The main museum also houses a huge collection of artifacts. We concentrated on the buildings and the quilts. Here's the museum entrance and a quilt - I'll post more photos tomorrow:

Entrance to the museum

Fan quilt

Quilt closeup