Artemis, dearest friend of my life, has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. General nausea and indefineable pain after eating led eventually to a CT scan on September 5, which showed a 4x5-cm mass on her pancreas. It was not operable. Six weeks later (last Friday), a biopsy was finally done. The results confirmed adenocarcinoma, with metastases ( Read more... )

Artemis invited me over for her birthday celebration on Saturday. It was just her and Amy and me, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. First, she opened presents. Arti is one of those people to whom it is very satisfying to give presents: ooohs and aaahs and whoops of surprise and happiness, then lots of time taken to peruse the gifts. I gave her ( Read more... )

And the beat goes on...

Saturday was mostly clear, and sunny, and the hills are that rich winter green from all the rain. I got to Chance's party late, but managed to be clobbered by soak up some of the je ne sais quois of Chuck E. Cheese's riot atmosphere. I took a few pictures-check out the photo albumAfter the party, Dad and Annie invited me ( Read more... )

Christmas day was very full, in a good way. Ruth drove to my house, then I drove us both to Galt, to Terrie's house. Ruth called for directions shortly before we got there, so Jim was waiting outside for us, wearing his Santa hat. I got a good pic of him with Ruth, then we went inside. Baylea's looking so grown-up! (Sorry, my indoor pictures are ( Read more... )

Here are some of the pictures I took of the Entomology 101 class show. The first four are part of Artemis's tile set. The next three are of the taxonomic hierarchy laid out on one long table. The last two are the chess set.

Click on the thumbnails to see the entire photo.


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I keep skipping periods of time in here. I don't mean to, but it happens, usually for different reasons:

1. I'm busy and feeling swamped and the journal takes a low priority.
   
2. Depression has set in and I can't find the motivation to write anything.
   
3. I've "checked out" for a few days just to do my own stuff, like read. Sort of a mini-vacation.

This last ( Read more... )

(Click on the small picture to see a larger version.)


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By design, this is a quiet birthday; no one at work knows, and that's fine with me. Marilyn's taking me out to dinner later, and that seems like the perfect celebration this year.

Phil called yesterday to sing me his traditional "Birthday Dirge" (sample verse: So you've lived another year/And your death is drawing near), and Artemis gave me a ( Read more... )

Marilyn and I are going to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban tonight, and I'm pretty excited. :-) It'll be a mob scene: opening night, Friday night, etc., but I'll get to see it at last ( Read more... )

Though I did sleep a lot, I did get to talk to several people today. Jim and I talked for about 2 hours; it always amazes me how much of our conversations have to do with computer stuff (maybe 75%?), in connection with his work or whatever. Always interesting ( Read more... )