The flowers in my yard

Last week, I told Carver that my rhododendron was blooming and she said that the one that she had in her yard died in the drought last year. So, I took a picture of my rhodie for her . . .



Also, here's some pictures of my irises and one of my azalea. My roses are blooming, but they don't look very nice yet, because I think the very hot weather we had followed by rain made them kinda brown and then soggy/wilty. When they look better, I'll post those, too.



I planted these irises in 2002 (I think) from some single bulbs that my ex-husband got from someone at work. Three of them are really doing well, shooting up lots of blooms. This is the longest that I've ever lived in a single place and it's kinda fun watching things I planted grow from year to year.



I wish I had Carver's macro lens because these bearded irises (my favorite flower, by the way) look like they have fuzzy caterpillars in them.



There's a deep purple iris, too, but it just bloomed and I took the other pictures a few days ago. So, in the meantime, here's my azalea:



Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

A Nun in Hooters

One of my friends, Rick, forwarded this joke to me. It's bad . . .



The Nun in Hooters

A nun, badly needing to use the restroom, walked into a local Hooters.

The place was hopping with music and loud conversation and every once in a while "the lights would turn off."

Each time the lights would go out, the place would erupt into cheers.

However, when the revelers saw the nun, the room went dead silent.

She walked up to the bartender, and asked, "May I please use the restroom?

The bartender replied, "OK, but I should warn you that there is a statue of a naked man in there wearing only a fig leaf."

"Well, in that case, I'll just look the other way," said the nun.

So the bartender showed the nun to the back of the restaurant.

After a few minutes, she came back out, and the whole place stopped just long enough to give the nun a loud round of applause!

She went to the bartender and said, "Sir, I don't understand. Why did they applaud for me just because I went to the restroom?"

"Well, now they know you're one of us," said the bartender, "Would you like a drink?"

"No thank you, but, I still don't understand," said the puzzled nun.

"You see," laughed the bartender, "every time someone lifts the fig leaf on that statue, the lights go out. Now, how about that drink?"

Doing Okay

Jeanne (from NYC) asked me today how I was doing.

I'm doing okay.

I got a good 9 hours sleep last night, which I needed. I am getting frustrated about this skin wound and the lymphedema on the right side, which you could tell from my last post. I think the frustration was colored by the fact that I had work to do, too, and I'd already promised to hang out and help during Eddie's Field Day, which meant my work was going to be delayed.

Field Day was fun (but someone needs to show about half of those kids how to throw!) - I was able to cheer Eddie on the 440. He just kept running, even though he was near the end of the pack. I then stayed at his school and had a barbecued hot dog with the rest of the group. I was hungry, so it tasted wonderful!

So, after a quiet night and being lazy this morning, I have now finished the laundry, the dishes and the grocery shopping. Then took Eddie to the arcade and then to my sister's so that I could go garage saling with my folks. I found a few books, an unusual but nice, comfy warm jacket for work (I have a collection of unusual jackets that I wear with slacks for work - not the outdoor jackets, but more like blazers, but I hate saying "blazers"), a couple of games for Eddie, and one of those dish-like things to put under a potted plant. What are those called?

Eddie and I are relaxing and then in a little while, we take off to pick up Brenda and then we're going to play cards. That is, Brenda and me, and Eddie will get to play video games on the Wii, the Nintendo, or the Playstation.

And, Jeanne (NYC), thank you for the compliment about my smile. It made me smile! : )

Skin Wound Update

I am heading to Wound Care next Tuesday. While the original skin wound is healing, more or less, it still isn't completely healed. It looks better than it did. However, the rest of the area over the tissue expander was a dark color, so sometime in the last week or so, I started putting turmeric paste over that. That skin seems to be healing, too, but it is weeping a lot more. I think Dr. Kenyon today said that it was "skin necrosis". Also, he said that the lymphedema under the right tissue expander was probably swollen because the cancer cells are causing the lymph fluid to back up. He decided to go to the wound clinic in order to maybe do some preventative stuff prior to starting radiation on June 2. He's afraid that the radiation will cause more of an open skin wound.

All I know is that I'm sick and tired of having it.

Things could be worse. Overall, I am doing okay, if a bit tired and dehydrated from Xeloda. Now, I really need to get some work done. Writing up a summary for NSF and also I need to draft up an application to get bought out of a class next year. Aargh!

Tomorrow will be fun, though. I am going to help Eddie's school with their annual Field Day - where they have track and field competitions. I will help with the softball throw.

We're both tired . ..

Jeanne left this morning, on a 9:45am train to Portland. We both admitted that we were tired and I suspect that Jeanne was more tired than she let on. She said it was okay giving three talks to three different audiences. Most felt that the presentations were very interesting.

I teared up, however, when I showed the students yesterday my blog. I was hoping to get them laughing at the boob jokes, but I had pulled up the post called "My Xeloda by Heather Kenagy" and remembered how touched I was that Heather composed and sang a song about the side effects of Xeloda - that she had done it to make me laugh.

Jeanne and I didn't even get near to finishing our list of things to talk about. I guess that means we'll have to meet up in Seattle sometime soon!

OSU Barometer writes about Jeanne's Tuesday talk

Hi everyone,
I noticed a young man in the audience at Jeanne's talk yesterday - he had a camera - so I wondered if he was from the OSU student newspaper . . . so I checked and there it was! Here's the link:

http://media.barometer.orst.edu/media/storage/paper854/news/2008/05/21/News/Assertive.Cancer.Patient.Speaks.To.Writing.As.Help-3374166.shtml

Overall, he (Daniel Acee) did a decent job writing the article. Good job.

A Boob Joke

A friend sent me this joke (didn't know if she wanted to claim it or not, so I didn't name names):

How do you make five pounds of fat look good?

You put a nipple on it.

LOL!