Been a Long Time Since I Rock And Rolled

Entry 1    9:10 a.m.

“Feminism isn’t about making women strong. Women are already strong. It’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.” — G.D. Anderson

 Hell to Pay

Buddy has met his match in now 8 week old Willow Ruby Ida Miller Gamache.  She will weigh as much as him, likely in the next two weeks, and then forget it.  

I love him, don't get me wrong, but he's a dick.  He is mean to her, and constantly tries to dominate.  Chest bumping, biting her throat, just generally asshole behavior.  Meanwhile, she frolicks, worships him, and tries to do everything he can, all while having paws three times too big for her body.  The reign of terror won't last, and we saw a bit of that last night.  We gave each of the dogs a new rawhide-like safe bone to chew.  She is incredibly mouthy, but has the attention span of a baby, so hers was barely touched during the day.  He, on the other hand, took his bone, jumped up on the ottoman, held it between his paws upright like a microphone, and proceeded to gnaw it to nubbery.  She circled the ottoman, not yet adept enough to jump up, and would place her paws on its edge and enthusiastically bark at him to come play.  It didn't happen.  That was all in the morning.  By the evening, his nub of a bone, and her largely intact one, were laying in front of me on the sectional, when Buddy decided to claim her bone and reduce it to ashes.  I didn't think she'd notice.  She did.  She came over, floppy eared and adorably dorky, and with her head inches from him and on the floor with butt in the air and tail moving like the blade on a blender, started puppy barking at him.  Buddy, unprepared for this assertion of power, abandoned the bone, which she picked up, and jauntily carried away to be gnawed upon with happiness for about 30 seconds, until she decided more importanet business awaited.  She who must be obeyed will come into her own soon.

Entry 2    10:37 a.m.

My foot is at 95% today.  Its a miracle I didn't get an infection.  I am not complaining.  Just happy.  

Entry 3    10:45 a.m.

House Hunting and Saint Leisure Suit Larry Strike Again

We fell in love, Jenny and I, with an early 20th century Craftsman in upper Rainier Beach (which is quite bougie these days), fully remodeled.  I watched it, and when I saw it hadn't gone pending the evening of offer review, reached out to our realtor.  It was 925, which means we thought, it would go for a cool million.  We told Patrick, our realtor we wanted to find out more.  He reached out to the listing agent, and told her our story.  She told him, as he relayed to us later,

her dear friend died from pancreatic cancer, so even though they had an offer on the table for 975, they'd wait for us to look at the home, and consider taking an offer for 950. We had to go by lunchtime the next day and look at the house.  So, on Wednesday, during my lunch at work, we zipped down to see the house.  It was lovely.  Smaller than the last Craftsman we owned, with fewer built ins, no French doors, and very little leaded glass.  On the other hand, it had a new kitchen with Miele appliances, a beautiful new bathroom, forced air heating and gas.  It was lovely.  But, it had drawbacks.  

Ultimately, we decided we would rather not commit to the price and

told our realtor hard pass.  He contacted us soon after and said the realtor wanted to know our bottom line.  I said 850, but not to bother telling her that if it is insulting. He reminded me she told him she had an offer for 975.  We said we'd find another home.   

The house didn't go pending Wednesday night, strange in this environment--trust me, I would know--and neither did it go pending Thursday morning.  When I checked on it in the afternoon, the listing said there would be an open house on Saturday.  Interesting.  My realtor reached out to the listing agent again.  Crickets.  The slimy bastard was lying, trying to get us to think she was doing us a favor.  My annoyance quickly gave way to schadenfreude when I

saw a home of similar provenance three blocks away, completely remodeled, listed for 125k less.  

On Saturday we are stepping into the dreaded Columbia City market, where there are three houses which pique our interest. Since this began the feeling of racing against the clock, given the skyrocketing asking price and offer acceptance price, Jenny's chemo schedule and terminal illness, the desire to make her as comfortable as possible and the need to do something to change the fucking narrative in my head, just keeps increasing.

Entry 4   10:00 p.m.

Tonight, maybe Jenny is coming closer to understanding what it means when one is told an illness they have is terminal. We live in hardwired denial so much of our lives, most of us lying and bargaining until the end.  I still remember, when my mom told me at 5 that I would die someday.  It was a summer evening, she was cleaning the kitchen, and I was on the stairs.  As I got up to climb to my room, I told God that wasn't going to include me, thank you very much. I was to be granted an exception, because, like Buddy today, I was a very good boy--the best boy.  Hardwired denial, hardwired fear of the end too.

When I know we both clearly understood, well before she ever got sick, what this diagnosis means, to struggle to accept it, even now after 41 chemo treatments, the loss of a grandmother and father to it, a friend's mom just dying from it, watching Ruth Bader Ginsberg succumb, and most recently a new friend made at chemo, the path is clear. When you are told the treatment is palliative and not curative, the path is clear.  When the stages of the cancer go from 0 (the least lethal) to IVb (don't make any long term investments), and you have stage IVb; when the oncologist tells you his longest surviving patient is at 53 weeks and that you have beaten the odds by living more than 6 months; well, there can be little doubt. Little doubt, that is, absent the subroutine of denial constantly running quietly in our lizard brains, some sort of malware that creates God and devils, believers and infidels, the cursed and the blessed.  There are days when even I succumb to hoping against hope, but it is a child's fancy, a fool's errand to rely on such self-whispering.

It brings up this rhetorical question, which I have posed before, what can I offer in response, save pablum, platitudes and placations? There are 273000 words in the Oxford Dictionary, and I can't string together two fucking sentences with any hope of meaningful comfort.

It doesn't matter that at some level she knows the truth. The reality she is living hasn't allowed her to do all the things she needs to get done.

What I think about a lot is a deathbed conversion, not conversion to Christianity like the criminal on Calvary crucified next to Jesus who converted as he hung by nails through his wrists on the cross. No, I worry instead about her asking me to forgive her her trespasses against us, against me.  Can I?  If I can't, given it's  her deathbed, I imagine I would lie.  It's a kind lie.  The vindictiveness of my mother, I am sure it lies in me now, but my resentments have never been so fallow to allow hate to form, so I can fantasize all day long about leaning down and whispering in her ear that I don't forgive her.  But, I could never be that inhuman.  Instead I would more likely feign acceptance, while cursing rhe pinché motherfucker for his existence and his selfishness.