This has been bothering me ...

Why am I in such a minority? I fully expect to live out my life without dying of breast cancer. It looks like something else will get me first. Survival? Pure luck, random event.

Who are these "positive attitude people"? They had a lot of high tech medical care for a disease that is not all that lethal and they attribute their survival to a "positive attitude"? Keep these women away from me

thoughts on weather and dogs

Gloomy summer headed toward infamy
CHILLY: Anchorage could hit 65 degrees for fewest days on record.

Snow on the mountains this morning. I didn't actually see this because the skies were so overcast. But here is the Anchorage Daily News photo. With a long story about how this may set all records for the coldest and rainiest summer ever.

Everyone complains about the weather. But to put this in perspective, we had snow from early October through late April last winter.

Summers are usually brief but so glorious that no one is ungrateful enough to complain. This cold, overcast drizzle is hard to take.
___________________

Last night I watched a documentary on suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm not sure why - I think Netflix told me I would like it. In a way I did. The bridge was so gorgeous against the sky and the water. There were interviews with the families of some of those who died there. These were people with severe and long-standing mental illnesses, and the stories of their lives were more painful than the stories of their death.

One couple described the unbearable story of their son's life and death in a dozen different scenes. In each scene, they were sitting on a comfortable couch in a cozy living room with their dachshund.

The dog moved back and forth between them. Each person petted him, rubbed him, cuddled him. The dog sat quietly, or rolled over to show his belly, or carefully licked their hands. He never barked or made eye contact with camera.

I tear up thinking about the dog. He was a working lap dog, providing comfort to people who were suffering an intolerable loss. Working with tact and skill. A heroic little wiener dog.

I want a bumper sticker that says "lap dogs are working dogs too". Mine do their work with great dedication and sensitivity.

Rocky once gave me career advice. I was working a nursing management job with 24 hour call and lots of clinical time. (Except for working all the time and being paid less per hour than any of the people who worked for me, it was a wonderful job). One night I came home late as usaul. While I was making dinner, Rocky went into the closet and got up on his hind legs to get to my parka. He took the beeper out of my pocket. Then he hid under the bed and chewed it to pieces.

The next morning I went in to work and turned in the fragments of beeper and my resignation.

Everyone should have such a good dog.

beware the ferns!

This summer has been cool and overcast - perfect fern weather. I have some ferns in my garden and struggle to keep them under control.

But Linda has this glorious fern garden on her east wall.

I don't think I could sleep with these gorgeous prehistoric creatures filling up the garden and blocking the exit and threatening the house...

4th of July in Alaska

The Fourth is always a big holiday here in Alaska. In the gold mining days, the mine closed only for Christmas and the Fourth of July. Every town celebrates with enthusiasm, but Juneau's holiday is my favorite.

I flew down Thursday night and got to my friend Alena's house in time to mix a batch of margaritas and watch the fireworks from her living room. Perfect view out over the harbor.

Then the parades. There are two parades every year, the first in downtown Juneau and a second smaller parade in the center of Douglas - the island across the bridge. Parades included pipers, a Tlinkit Elvis, and a pack of marching pugs and their humans.

This year I've been thinking about how much the Filipino communities in Alaska add to the Fourth. The best float (Anchorage). The best marching band (these eagle-costumed folks in the picture in Juneau). Then, of course, there is the traditional Fourth of July lunch of chicken adobo, steamed buns, and panncit.

Fifteen years ago I had never eaten any of these wonderful foods. Moving to Alaska was like moving to New York only better -
diversity and great stuff to eat!

Cosmo

Cosmo - the big blond guy - is a funny looking dog. He gets a lot of attention at the dog park, with everyone asking about and speculating on his ancestry.

He has an enormous head and a very handsome tail. His short legs are all knees and ankles and his feet might be on wrong. His long heavy body makes him enormous when he stands on his hind legs.

Cosmo is a sociable dog, always ready to be petted and admired. People laugh out loud when they look at him.

I gave him a DNA test for his birthday. We half expected a call from the company to say "what the hell is this?" They reported that he is predominantly (more than 50%) german shepherd. None of his other DNA matches anything in their data base,

The shepherd part makes sense, although he is little dim for a shepherd. But he herds other dogs by running in circles and loves rules (many of which he makes up himself).

No explanation for the lack of legs.

George Carlin

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?ex=1372046400&en=7833db74595042b7&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

I've been hearing George Carlin's voice in my head since I was about twelve, and his death isn't going to change that. I can recite "dogs and cats" and "football and baseball" from memory - they are on my iPod if I start losing my mind. I never mastered the "seven words" and the sequels because I laughed too hard when I got to "tit - OK if it is five am and there is a cow in the picture".

Whenever I hear a weather report I re-phrase it in Al Sleet's terms "Darkness begining in the evening and continuing through the night". I rarely pick up a bottle of water without hearing him say, "What the fuck, is the nation so dehydrated? Get a drink of water before you leave the house!"

"When will Jesus bring the pork chops?" is on my bedside table right now.

I was so lucky to see him on stage once, about ten years ago. In Fairbanks, in the winter. (No one plays Fairbanks in the winter). Slim and intense in black, what came through so much more clearly live was his anger. It glowed, it thrilled, it made me gasp when I tried to laugh.

And I was moved by Seinfeld's tribute, above. I was surprised - I don't really think of Jerry having human feelings.

Years ago I saw a PBS special on Carlin where he and his brother talked about his background. The alcoholic mother, the absent father. And the amazing fact of the unusual Catholic school where he was recognized as a genius immediately and treated with great respect and kindness until he ran away.

He hated religiousity above all else and insisted we go nowhere when we die. But he lives on in our language and metaphor - I don't think he would mind that.

He riffed on death all the time. "Wouldn't it be interesting if the only way you could die was that suddenly your head blew up? If there were no other causes of death? Everyone died the same way? Sooner or later, without warning, your head simply exploded? You know what I think? I think people would get used to it".

more about martial metaphors and cancer

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/health/01stoical.html?ex=1370145600&en=78723bd41cb12ce7&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

You'd think that all these years after Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor" we would be over this....

I never battled cancer. Hell. this is a part of me we are talking about. I don't regret the slash/burn/poison, but this was never a war.