8 WEEKS

and counting in the life of the most brilliant niece. I will lift the following photo from the KAS archives (photo credit:FSM):


Remember how (I can say it now) scrawny and puny, yet extremely lovable, she was when she was born? 2.2 kilos, the weight of two bags of flour and a box of baking soda. Now she is just plump and substantial enough. And strong. The recipe for this is: plenty of milk and morning calisthenics.

Luckily K is very good about sharing her baby with Auntie so I don't have to take drastic underhanded measures. Also I am able to manipulate the situation due to my sickie status. When Kazzie is at her pleasant and appealing best, I have her placed in my lap for some conversation. We have tons of plans to make for when she gets a little older. When she becomes an insane crankypants, I have to pass her off because I can't hold her standing up or dance her around because I might drop her due to lack of power. Although she has a pretty good grip so she could probably hold on. But I wouldn't take the chance.

SUDDEN K.A.S. BULLETIN!
IRREVERENCE TOWARD A LOVING AND UNDESERVING (OF IRREVERENCE) AUNTIE!
(The following photo just reached the offices of the KAS):
(I don't believe any further comment is necessary.)

La raquette anti-moustiques

This from the rat's nest:

The Telemarketing people have my vote, folks. There's this thick catalogue with all the wacky stuff you see on late-night infomercials-- all kinds of exercise equipment (tons of weight-loss crap), gadgets, etc. The girl that lived next door kept getting the catalogue after she moved, so I just grabbed it one day. It's fun to look through, kind of like a Miles Kimball or something. Anyway, when I needed a thin mattress topper to cover my hospital bed because my back hurt so bad I started hallucinating that the bars of the bed were pushing up through the mattress, I ordered the brilliant "Dormeo" from the catalogue, and rounded out my order with a great metal LED flashlight for ten bucks (I never really owned a flashlight for the apartment, weirdly enough) and 3 mosquito rackets!!! Delivery smooth as you like in two days, follow-up call to make sure I'd gotten it, additional follow-up call to make sure I liked everything and to thank me for my business. Who does that these days?

SHOUT OUT to my three readers, Rach, Mer and El (age before beauty, El):

So ladies, let me get to the point of the post. Let me take you back 20 years to the N........s back yard in Wilmette. Recall, if you will, the triangle of black-light-lit bug zappers whose musical dzz would accompany any barbeque, gathering or concert of Captain Apathy, eliminating any small winged night creature within a several-mile radius. God, the neighbors must have thought we were so weird. Those zappers were probably our trademark in the summer. Everybody else seemed to follow some kind of cookie-cutter West Wilmette status quo, and I think we may have been the nutters. But I digress.

So the mosquito "terminator" (instructions and label in French!?!) is like one of those bug zappers, except on a stick. You wave it around and kill flies and mosquitoes in mid-air. I had seen one last summer at Eva's and experienced how cool they are so when I saw them in the catalogue, I snapped up three: one for the rat's nest, one for the perch and one for the priests' hole. Kazzie's baba has the racket down to a science and my father is also getting the hang of it. In bed at night, when he hears a mozzie, he just waves it slowly in the air over his head without even getting up. Dolly and I have not had much practice since the rat's nest doesn't get that many mozzies, thanks be. But you know how sometimes you spontaneously give somebody a little present, and you hear they are really getting into it and use it? Isn't that a treat? Especially when it was relatively cheap. Cheapskates like me always get that extra little bit of glee from something like that.

I will close with 4 words: "Savoury Potato Cheese Soup" (Gram's recipe)

It's getting harder and harder

to find spazzy pictures of the Kaz to post. Pretty soon she will have outgrown her nickname but no worries, nicknames are thick on the ground around...

the priests' hole, from which we write.

I had some time with Kazzie this morning, absorbing valuable life-giving energy. In the following photo I am holding up her head, not giving her a right hook to the chops.

Compare the size of her hand, no, the size of her head, to my hand. When I tell you she's small, you've got to believe me. I don't remember what we were talking about and why her expression is so spazzy. I DO remember that we were listening to a Luis Miguel tune. You Trevia folks remember my poster, right?

Jelly legs

I cannot convey how absolutely weird it is, how utterly unnatural, to be in your mid-thirties and not be able to walk across a room, to be exhausted all the time and need to lie down between the simplest of tasks. Looking out car windows, you see people twice your age booking around on sturdy limbs, and you feel envious. It's crazy to read about friends preparing to run marathons and you're wondering if it's time to buy a walker or rent a wheelchair. I don't feel sorry for myself, exactly. Supposedly this is going to pass when the chemicals from the last rounds of chemo (which you've already guessed was ineffective or I'd be partying, right?) wear off a bit more. It's just that this mollusc is not me (I). I don't like or know this person. She lies around while time slips by. She is completely dependent on other people; can't carry her own water glass into the living room...GO AWAY I'M SICK OF YOU.

KAZZIE POWER: ACTIVATE!

This is one of the phrases on my new board of inspiration, a strip of cork my parents helped me (I watched) attach to the back of the bedroom door. I have included pictures of myself when I was well, pictures of my life-giving niece and inspirational notes.

It's worth noting that about a month ago, maybe a bit more, I lost a biggish scab shaped like the island of Krete. I mean it totally disappeared off the face of the earth. I had been so careful not to pick at it and I was really looking forward to getting a good look at it when it finally fell off. It was a remnant of that gaping hole I had left over in my side from the garden-hose sized (zero exaggeration) tube I had leading from my chest cavity to the plastic graduated container which caught all the yucky fluids. So anyway, one day in the hospital I asked my mom to look at my scab and see how it was doing, and she said it was gone, and there was only a scar in its place. We looked everywhere for the scab (bed sheets, floor, etc) but it was nowhere. We didn't really think anybody else would want it...so what happened to it? I think it must have come off at night and when I got up to go to the bathroom, it fell out of my shirt without my noticing, and the cleaning lady swept it up the next morning without realizing what it was. So I never really got closure with that chest hole. I mean I did in the literal sense, but not in the emotional sense. Now sometimes I feel the tug of a phantom scab, like amputees and their phantom limbs. Very strange.

I am now the proud taker of anti-depressants, along with the ten other pills I take every day. When the consulting psychiatrist asked me if I'd like something to boost my mood, I said, Bring it on, it can't hurt. So in about a month or so I will be chipper, pleasant and optimistic. For now, not quite.

Dude it is weird to type with no sensation in your fingertips.

Para la victoria siempre

Somehow the Spaz knew that the KNE festival is taking place these days. The day this particular photo was taken, there was Maxairitsas, Paschalides, Thalasinos and Tsaknis (possibly featuring Cheese Pie Guy). Don't worry, Kaz, we'll go next year. She will be one year and seven weeks old. Old enough to appreciate good music.

Speaking of good music, why is the Kermit the Frog version of "The Rainbow Connection" so lame? Obviously Willie Nelson is superior in every way...

you choose

Would you rather hear about my failed chemo and hopelessness or see pictures of Kazzie?
I thought so.


I apologize that every picture of my niece I post has to include my thighs. I am spending some quality time with the Spaz since getting out of the clink (hospital) yesterday afternoon. The Vincristine leaves me with very little strength so I sit up with my knees bent and sit her up facing me. We have serious conversations, tell important secrets and sing songs.

Our favorite songs:
On Top of Spaghetti
Monster Mash (without the scary sound effects at the beginning)
Back to Back, Belly to Belly (Zombie Jamboree)
Hokey Pokey
Rubber Duckie (just joined the list)