Yeah — and Another Thing!

What do you do in cold, rainy April week in Des Moines? You set goals with firm dates and you keep your commitments. Simon and I, on our own while Karen was in Vancouver, decided to see one feature movie every night. We nearly succeeded. Two bank heists, a painful history of growing up in Iran and a delicate story of Egyptians and Israelis. Not bad, considering that we had a couple of social obligations as well.

How odd to be almost alone in each of the theaters. Not once were we accompanied by more than a few others and at one cinema, we were half the audience. We drove great distances to shopping mall cinemas where we could have parked a tank division and we were alone. We drove a few blocks to the university district on a Saturday night where a small lobby-full of people were heading home after the early show, leaving about eight of us to see the nine o’clock. That was a weekend crowd by local standards. We are continually amazed that despite the appearance of prosperity here — new construction and the vast western suburbs — so few actually “live” here.

It was no surprise then to have I-80 almost entirely to ourselves Monday evening. And just as well. We were experimenting with a GPS receiver. I had it propped on the dash and was reading out the speed changes while Simon drove. Despite the moderate numbers on the GPS, it felt pretty fast and we were certainly covering the ground. It was only as we approached Omaha that I realized I had set the device to read in nautical miles. Quick trip.

It was a happy and sad trip too. We picked Karen up at Eppley Field early in the morning and then took Simon out there again to see him fly away to Toronto. I’m am a lucky guy to have all of these travel plans made just for me.

Karen after a red-eye flight: Vancouver, Seattle, Minneapolis, Des Moines.

Doctor Julie has taken away my Cellcept (mycophenolate). Coincidentally, the FDA is reviewing data reported in the last few months that may show a causal connection between this and a similar drug to progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), “a life-threatening disease”. Well, what if life if not threatened? Tacrolimus is also on the suspect list and I still have those little yellow pills.

The more I learn about cancer treatment, the more I suspect that we are trying to suppress a prolific and endlessly ingenious system that has as its only goal self-preservation. Like us. I suppose you can have all the numbers reading correctly and still arrive at your destination much earlier than you expected.