Update

A couple of years between calls from the mountain top-- my brother did have agressive medical treatment and the later unexpected recurrence they went for the herbal treatments and nutrition. He worked up until last week on his homeplace. He has had a good stretch of living, though, IMHO, still way too short.

Strange Day

My younger brother is a Viet Nam vet and this week it seems, he will be taking his leave of this life via agent orange. I knew this was coming, when he was diagnosed with his cancer a year ago, he thought the treatment was butchery and decided to go an herbal route his wife prefers. He has been strong and done his work of clearing and caring for his off-the-grid solar-powered, self-water-collected homestead in the mountains near Snowflake Arizona. I talked to him this morning and he sounds as strong and cheerful as ever in his hospital bed in a VA hospital 200 miles from his land. I had a hard time connecting this deep hearty voice with his encroaching death. He tells me matter of factly that his organs should start failing soon as he is not going to have anything more done to give him a few hours or days. I have moved back and forth between this was coming and they made this unmedical choice, to deep sadness and tears and memories of childhood. The thing that bothered my aging mother more than anything was losing her siblings and one by one they died until she was the last. I am the oldest and have already lost 2, 3 if you count the one that was kept a secret from us until we were nearly grown, but I have no memory of her at all. She certainly counted to our parents, but we were unaware. I am not even sure if our lives overlapped a bit. My Dh is really fond of Bob, so today is very hard for him, too. I had put that in past tense, but it isn't past tense yet. Everytime the phone rings today I think it is past tense. All I have done today is knit and weep silently. It may be time to knit again. He was still working his land last week, and is not in pain right now. Did you know that unitl they start amputating your body parts, you aren't 100% disabled from agent orange? That is my other news of the day.

Another Hat Knitted for a Colleague

I say I can't price and she says she can't either but she's generous. While I am knitting this soon to be felted hat,(now ready to be felted) I suddenly want to do one in chocolate brown with a turquoise or aqua band knitted in. Yumm. I have worn the red one and want to send it or hand it to Leah. (I love it) Jen has the peacock blue I one and I am sure her eyes glow under it. It is cold enough today I hope she wears it. They are truly warm. I can't look at my blog from school because of weighted phrases and I can't figure out what about knitting, exercising and adoring preschool grandson with no dirty words at all ever can be weighted and denied. Oh well, shouldn't look at it at school anyway.

A couple of weeks ago I signed up to prepare food for two of our teachers who are down, one on nearly bedrest with a dicey pregnancy and one with breast cancer and now a procedure to rid her of a great big kidney stone. I decided I was going to grill in the afternoon, I have a courtyard at my room and my husband grills porkloin to perfection. I bought a brand new grill so I wouldn't have to cart the dirty old one from home and a couple of bags of mnatchlight charcoal. Rain, rain, rain. I came home on my lunchbreak to get the meat and a pan and some tongs and DH was home and said he'd grill it for me. He is the master griller anyway so I was grateful.
As it turned out, I was a week early on grilling and the FACS teacher hopped in and prepared some potatoes and a couple of other things and all was well. It was a comedy of errors and weather on my side, but it ended up OK. The gal with BC and kidney stone really needed the hunk of meat that night as she had her 4th chemo and it made the evening so much easier. You can't imagine how typical it is of me to get something so far off, but thanks to friends, it seemed seamless after all!

Visibility Zero

2 hour delay last Friday, ice and snow, mainly ice, today it is warm and there is so much fog we have a two hour delay for fog!
I got to go sit for the preschooler Saturday evening and we had a great time. After a light dinner, we watched the fox and the hound, version 1, when scarey things were about to happen, H would assure me that all was well, that Copper still loves Todd no matter how it looks, and he rushes upstairs to go to the bathroom and to fire his lasers. That is his new way of dealing with "bad". He has gotten invisible lasers from Buzz Lightyear and fires them when he is a bit frightened. Evidently this is getting him in trouble at daycare..invisible lasers. ... ???? He quickly fires those elbows with sound effects, great imagination.

Daughter and SIL went out for an adult dinner with friends, what followed for daughter was food poisoning, she had a miserable night and morning. Clam sauce with fresh clams in central Illinois? maybe not.

It's off to the shower for me. Later.