Make You Feel My Love

 

Hurray for me! I haven’t thrown up in over a week and have managed to stay out of Cancer house. The Cheezits, Oyster Crackers, Lorna Doone cookies and Zofran are helping. Sharon showed up with a container of crystalized ginger. I must admit it tastes a bit like soap, disguised with sugar, but I think it’s working!!! (How do you know what soap tastes like Barb?)

Last weekend was highlighted by a fully clothed swim at midnight in the Mudd’s pool in honor of Elizabeth’s birthday. I have the video but too much swearing to share, ahem. This weekend just past included a long walk around Castle Island, lots of heat, and dinner with some of my favorite people, Stephen and Carol, Elizabeth and Brian. Somehow the conversation devolved from medical marijuana to gummy bears shaped like genitalia. I can be a 12-year-old with the best of them.

Kristin B. stopped by with some lovely magnetic healing words for my refrigerator, Betty, and some beautiful rose quartz and shungite stone that is definitely older than me. This stuff must be working if I am feeling better, right? Betty is getting full.

I get to see Bridget daily but I haven’t’ been able to see the older coconut much because our work schedules don’t coordinate at all. It is her turn to take me for my next Pet Scan–family bonding in  nuclear medicine. Scanxiety!!!!!

If you want to donate any cash next month, please think before you pink and consider Metavivor.org.  All the money goes to research for Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer. October 13 is the one day in the month that they actually devote to Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness—-wow, one day. Another MBC blogger mentioned that someone said to her “you can always get hit by a bus first.” Apart from that incredible lack of sensitivity, she replied “Yes,  but I am standing in the middle of the street watching the bus coming to hit me.”

Since I am writing this blog for the coconuts I thought I would share 15 little known facts about myself for their benefit. Here goes:

1. I have a rare blood type, RhB-. Both of my parents weirdly had it but not my husband or kids–we are not a match. Give generously to the American Blood Cross if you have it because no one wants my blood.
2. I spent a semester in England my senior year of college and backpacked across Europe. Boring, I know, but they spoke my language.
3. I had a miscarriage in 1987 followed by two years of infertility with lots of poking and prodding and a surgery. Yes, I conceived Kelsey on fertility drugs which led to the discovery I had a “luteal phase defect”—–Tim Blanket had to give me an injection everyday of Progesterone for 3 months with both kids. My body has always conspired against me.
4. We were married in a Catholic church by my Uncle Fr. John. He also married my parents and  my siblings, baptized me and my coconuts. He passed away like 2 weeks after my first diagnosis of cancer, probably better that way. I wouldn’t want him or my parents to go through this yet again with a final destination ahead.
5. Our wedding reception took place on a 95 degree day at a mansion in Waltham built by HH Richardson called the Robert Treat Paine Estate. We had steamed clams, lobster tails and steak. No air conditioning and the power went out for most of the reception. When I say it was hot, I mean it was HOT!
6. My favorite travel destination—Santorini, Greece, probably always will be.
7. I have two graduate degrees from Boston College which makes me a double Eagle.
8. I grew up on a beach. My parents had a tiny cottage next to my uncle’s (the priest referenced above). Because I went to Catholic School, which let out early, we were gone from June 1 to September 1 every summer of my life. I grew up water skiing, fishing, swimming, diving, snorkeling, you name it. We had many boats but the biggest and best was named the “Barbara D”. No comment.
9. In high school I got a lobster license for 15 traps–that summer we brought home over 200 lobsters, most of which we gave away to neighbors as we walked back from the beach. There is no smell as great as gasoline on the ocean on a breezeless August morning when the sea is like glass. My Dad and I spent a lot of time out there.
10. Every October my Dad would take me out of school when hunting season started. We would go to Littleton and Ayer and walk for miles in the woods with my dog, an English Springer Spaniel named Rumpelstiltskin, looking for pheasants. Can’t really say we ever actually shot any. I do know how to shoot a rifle and a hand gun although I despise guns today. I could split a pencil hanging on a string from 20 feet away.
11. I am a dare-devil–especially anything involving water. I hate roller coasters and amusement parks. Nothing good seems to be happening there.
12. In high school all of my electives were in Art.
13. I played basketball and field hockey–neither very well–and gymnastics because I was great at jumping over things, just sayin.
14. I have a had a job of some sort since I was 13. My first job was as a chambermaid at a run down motel–it was baaad. Then I worked in department stores until after sophomore year of college when I started working at a nursing home for children with severe disabilities. Hard work but I learned a lot about special needs in a mostly non-verbal population. Then I did an internship at a halfway house for runaway and drug involved adolescents. I met Tim Blanket at McLean Hospital where we worked on a locked in patient unit for boys—-It is with great fondness that I think about those days.
15. I hate sleeping on anything but white sheets–the patterns make me crazy.
16. Bonus–I have been best friends my whole life with Jack, who I met in college at 17, and we were born 10 days apart in the same hospital.

Okay your turn!

My song: “Make You Feel My Love” by Bob Dylan but the Adele version

When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love
When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love
I know you haven’t made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I’ve known it from the moment that we met
No doubt in my mind where you belong
I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue
I’d go crawling down the avenue
There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love
The storms are raging on the rollin’ sea
And on the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
You ain’t seen nothing like me yet
I could make you happy, make your dreams come true
Nothing that I wouldn’t do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
To make you feel my love,

Barbara xoxo