Le Monde de Fromage de Kate

Last LIVESTRONG® Day, May 17, 2006, I participated in one of the suggested activities: Blog Against Cancer. It was in a comment from this entry that I first became “acquainted” with Mic:

Hey you all,

for the LAF I’m a Cancer Survivor. I have recently lost my father for a tumor, but I continue being strong and wearing the yellow wristband in memory of my dad, granddads and other people. Few years ago I received some advices from Lance and the LAF and they still are very preciuos[sic]. I own a blog on www.micheleer2.splinder.com: here there are on the right-hand side some links to the LAF etc and I was wondering if I could add this blog (and possibly others for the fight against cancer) to my links.

Look forward to receiving an answer.

Yours Sincerely,

Mr. Michele Capaccioli

We exchanged links (oh, this cyber age) and I began to correspond with Mic (that’s the equivalent of “Mike” for all you Americans – but pronounced “MEEK,” more or less). I learned a few things right off the bat from his site: He loves “sport,” he likes Family Guy and The Simpsons – and – sheesh – there was something else – OH YES – he is a passionate, articulate grassroots supporter of Worldwide collaborative cancer advocacy.

As I have mentioned in passing, my Italian is not too great (unless you’d like me to speak the lyrics to arias and art songs in a realistically conversational manner); I also know some threatening phrases and several that could get me in *ahem* trouble on the streets of Italy. Luckily, Mic’s English is FAR better. In fact, he speaks SIX languages – WAIT – seven: Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, and some Russian and Japanese. I hate him. (I’m KIDDING Mic – I’m being FACETIOUS.) He has a university diploma in Social Science and is now studying International Sciences and European Institution. I HATE HIM. (Again, Mic, you know I’m teasing, ci?)

He began discussing his goal to build a website that focused on important social issues, particularly cancer advocacy, and invited me to take part in this endeavor. I feel very strongly about these issues (as if I haven’t made that obsessively clear already), so I was honoured by the invitation. He did all the hard work, I made a few suggestions, and the site launched officially, as I mentioned in passing, on February 23, 2007. I am the American/English Web Site Advisor and I have a section on the page called “Believe in Life.” Mic, Official Site Founder Extraordinaire, writes about five hundred sections (slight exaggeration) and has coordinated with friends, family and colleagues who are writing or editing other sections.

Please Visit the Site

Please bear in mind that I have not successfully fulfilled all my obligations as American/English Web Site Advisor, but you are not to hold that against Mic. His English is impressive, especially considering that when you speak seven languages English can only be MORE confusing and illogical than it already is. Wait – I should tell you HOW to access the English site (unless your Italian is far better than mine). If you land on the Italian home page, just hit the tiny American flag (top, right-hand) and you’ll be in the English-language section.

Now I’ll mention another of Mic’s worthy undertakings. He and a colleague are putting together a European Cycling Team to participate in the Ride for the Roses at the LIVESTRONG® Challenge in Austin, Texas. In order to participate in this celebratory event honouring the LAF‘s most successful and enthusiastic supporters, each participant much raise at least $10,000 (USD) before September 4, 2007. Mic’s personal goal is to raise $25,000 (USD). I have made a commitment to assist him in this ambitious undertaking. Mic has explained to me that it’s difficult to raise money in Europe; people aren’t well acquainted with the Lance Armstrong Foundation and don’t understand the amazing scope of its influence and the positive effects this charity has in the World. I hope that the International collaborative work compiled on WeMustAct.org will be influential as an educational tool in this regard.

If Mic makes it to Ride for the Roses, he made this promise to me:

I would like to do that this year, riding in memory of the people you mentioned in your first two articles if you allow me to do that. In fact, even if I have to wear ‘hundreds’ of piece of papers in which there will be written names and names It does not a matter.

So, PLEASE, in accordance with the well-worn proverb, “Every little bit counts,” consider making a donation to Mic and to this cause. Every single dollar goes to benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the incredible work it does. Click below to get to Mic’s fundraising page:

In the middle of December I received a holiday dispatch from dear friends of mine, The Andersons. Amber wrote the letter (with the support of her “posse”):

Emmry Kate, Morgan, Kendyl & Amber

Here’s the excerpt from the letter that delighted me the most:

In March the daughter of a former smoker, still known as Glen, encountered the scare of a child’s lifetime: the big C. Lung cancer not only brought us together, but it strengthened us all in individual ways. Though my dad can now be referred to as “one-lung Houdy”, he is also proudly known as a lung cancer survivor. I now formally believe in miracles. Who knew that my mother who became a teacher because she couldn’t be a nurse (couldn’t stand the sight of blood) could be the best nurse in the world through two surgeries and three months of chemo? They are my heroes.

This was, truly, unbelievable news. The prognosis for Amber’s Father had been extremely grim; this was a thrilling, unforeseen miracle.

Then, a little more than a month ago I received an email from Amber that said, in part:

My dad’s recovery from lung cancer was joyous the past 3 months, but suddenly there was a problem, and the cancer spread to his brain. The doctors say he has a week to months to live.

So devastating. Today I received the news that Amber’s Father, Glen Houdersheldt, had succumbed to his disease a little more than a week ago. I write this entry in his memory.
Glen F. Houdersheldt

December 10, 1937 – February 16, 2007

Here’s a link to his obituary with a guestbook you can sign, which will be available, I believe until March 20, 2007.

My deepest sympathies and all my love go out to his family and his friends. I feel deeply honoured to have been acquainted with such a wonderful man – always so full of life and humour; I am truly lucky to know such an incredible family. I believe that it must have been a great blessing that Glen had the comfort of his loving family around him when he died. And as difficult as it was (I cannot conceive of how hard it must have been), I can only imagine that they felt privileged to have been there.

I love you, Amber and Morgan!

Today is the official launch of WeMustAct.org, an International collaborative effort to present information about cancer issues and advocacy as well as other important social concerns. I have a lot more to say about this site (I suppose I have plenty to say about MOST things), but I’m going to get back to it just a little bit later.

Please check out the site! It may be in its infancy, but it still has a lot to offer.

“My Year” has ended – the Year of the Dog戌 – yes I am a Dog [insert your own jokes here at the PERIL of being disrespectful to the CHINESE ZODIAC – I’m sure that’s extremely BAD LUCK]. To be more specific, I am a “Metal Dog.” And not to be ungrateful, but I’d like to request a do-over on “My Year.” I think I’m out of luck.

Today ushers in the Year of the Boar豬, evidently an auspicious year in which to bear children.

My Mother is a Pig (in a GOOD way); she is, in fact, a “Fire Boar.” Considering the abundance of porcine collectibles in this house, her Zodiac sign seems very fitting.

Here’s a little surprise: For many years we’ve though that Janet was a Rat 鼠 (in a GOOD way). It turns out that we were not taking the Lunar Year into account. So, Janet, I though you should know that you are a Pig – a BOAR (a “Metal Boar”). So this is YOUR year, too. Live it up!

Wishing You Joy, Harmony and Good Fortune

Also, I want to wish a Happy Birthday to Dearest Morgan (sorry – you are a Rat – a Water Rat) and very overdue Birthday Greetings (sorry – I stink) to the Most Lovely Amber (Hey – I think you’re a Pig, too!). My thoughts are with you both; please take care.

My friend, Terry, scared the living SNOT out of me over the last couple of weeks (and don’t argue about the “living” part of snot because if you don’t think there are organisms in one’s mucus that are ALIVE then you reside in a world of DENIAL – so don’t make me get all scientific on you). In the first place, she just disappeared. And she just doesn’t do that. She emails, she blogs REGULARLY (not only because she’s a writer and a translator but because she works at home), she is a presence.

I emailed. I worried. I mulled over calling her, but as I was already concerned that something had happened to her health or well-being, I resisted for her own good (it’s a long story – let’s just say I talked on the phone at length with her once and during our conversation she had TWO attacks of some sort – one in which she could not breathe for a bit – all very unusual for her – and I just KNOW it was my fault and I couldn’t take THAT chance). Then, about a week ago, I received an email that she’d sent to a few folks in which she indicated – oh hell – here’s the whole thing:

I have to make this fast cuz I’m in the hospital piggy backing on someone else’s network….and the connection’s a bit iffy

I want to try to get to my blog but for now, I thought I’d let you know that the MOST RIDICULOUS THING HAPPENED — I had my own heart attack!

Incredible, eh?[Canadians say, “eh.” They’re funny that way.] Incredibly ironic and stupid.

Anyway I hope to be out of this hell hole soon.

I also hope to get into my blog soon with all the gory details

Still alive and pissed off,

Terry

The irony is two-fold: First off, she’s a YOUNG thing and eats many vegetables and lives in the bucolic countryside where it’s lovely and quiet. Secondly, she has spent the last number of months attending to her roommate after SHE had what was originally thought to be a heart attack (turns out it was a pulmonary embolism); she’s waited on that woman hand and foot. Okay, so perhaps the idyllic countrified life can contain SOME stress…

Well, I figured if Terry was furtively emailing she was not in the ICU or critical care ward (I’ve worked in health care – I can figure THAT much out). Besides, she was PISSED OFF. That’s always a good sign.

So I began a great adventure: I called hospitals in Quebec and tried to figure out WHERE SHE WAS. I had started with a proximity search in which I called the closest hospitals radiating out from where she lives. I’m going to write all about that another time (because this post is not about MY festive humiliation du jour – or should I say de la semaine or even du mois, but about gratitude for someone’s recovery and so on – see, perhaps it ISN’T all about me). Let me just tell you that she was NOT in the L’HÎpital Sainte-Baguette as someone on the phone so kindly suggested (well it SOUNDED like that; I did not fall for it).

I gave up, finally, on what Terry called, my “intrepid trek through the Quebec hospital telephone system” after the appropriate quota of sheer mortifications on my part and when logic dictated that I was no doubt calling much farther away than they would have taken her.

Today we received word that Terry is HOME, and will not, I imagine, be wantonly plied with carrots at every single meal in some demented form of repetitive vegetable torture – that’s socialized medicine for you – and is looking forward to the peace and quiet of the pastoral landscape (which I gather sometimes means “in the middle of nowhere,” but right now is literally and delightfully heavy on the peace and tranquility quotient).

So this deferred Valentine goes out to Terry and her BEATING HEART!!! I may be whatever the Scrooge-like character equivalent is when it comes to Valentine’s Day right now (?), but all of this got me thinking. And you know, this is what it’s really all about: The people I care about seem to be hanging in there, bless them.

Oh – and I LOVE YOU ALL! (Clever, eh? This way I haven’t accidentally excluded anyone for whom I have great affection and for anyone who I DON’T esteem all that much, you’re probably too stupid to know any better, so no harm, no foul.)
Happy Slightly Belated Valentine’s Day!

I have “mourned” over the last couple of years the fact that I have been living away from what had for so many years become “my city” – Salt Lake City. But in light of what happened last night at Trolley Square it would be utterly ridiculous – the worst possible narcissism for me to use the term “mourn” merely because I miss the life I once had in “my city.”

Last night, in a matter of minutes, six people died at Trolley Square* and others were critically wounded. Grief and mourning belongs to those who lost their loved ones who were innocently shopping for Valentine’s Day, having birthday dinners, or just spending a night at the mall.

True mourning also belongs to a Bosnian family, having come to this country to escape the horrors of being Muslims in the wrong place and time, and having lived a ravaged, horrific existence. They now are forced to struggle not only with the death of their child and brother, eighteen-year-old Sulejman Talovic, but must grapple with the inexplicable, incomprehensible concept that this “good boy” had become a mass murderer. And no one will ever know why.

I suppose one could be relieved that this didn’t take place less than a month ago, during the Sundance Film Festival. I’ve been to Festival premieres at the theatre directly across the street from Trolley Square. I don’t know if the Festival uses those theatres any more, but if they do and that had been the timing, the Trolley Square area would have been filled with thousands of people rather than hundreds. Also, had this massacre been today and not yesterday, I’m sure that there would have been hundreds of additional last-minute Valentine’s Day shoppers on the scene.

And I cannot help but think of all the myriad times I went to Trolley Square. I have fond recollections of almost every restaurant and store in the place. Those memories will never seem quite the same. Nevertheless, like the perspective I now have that makes my use of the word “mourning” in terms of my own “loss” seem flippant, I acknowledge that I cannot begin to comprehend what the employees and children and families and individuals who were THERE experienced. Those memories burned an indelible mark in each participant’s psyche, I’m certain.

But it’s important to acknowledge that there were champions – heroes – there last night amidst the horror and turmoil. I am proud of the quick and appropriate response of the Salt Lake City Police. I am proud of the off-duty Ogden Police Officer who was having an early Valentine’s date with his pregnant wife, who, having assessed the situation, sent her to call 911 and tell others to “lock down” and then engaged and distracted the gunman and doubtless saved many lives. I am proud of store owners and employees who warned people – some risking their own lives in the process – to stay away from the shooter and those who sheltered frightened patrons in their storage rooms, bathrooms and even a freezer. I am proud of the first shooting victim, seriously wounded from being hit multiple times as he was leaving the mall, who ran back TOWARDS the shopping center in order to warn others not to come outside. If I am not mistaken, his selfless actions also prompted the first 911 call. These individuals claim that they did “what anyone else would have done in the same situation.” Even if that is the case, they are still heroes.

Now I mourn for “my city” – not for myself, but for this senseless tragedy. I grieve, too, that it is a reality in LIFE that senseless tragedy can happen at any time and any place, bringing out the very worst in humanity but also the very best, as though Janus incarnate.

My thoughts and no doubt the good wishes of people around the World go out the seriously wounded:

Alan “AJ” Walker, who lost his Father
Carolyn Tuft, who lost her Daughter
Stacy Hanson
Shawn Munns, who ran towards danger, not away from it

And in honoured memory of:

Jeffery Walker, Father of sixteen-year-old Alan “AJ” Walker
Kirsten Hinckley, fifteen-year-old Daughter of Carolyn Tuft
Vanessa Quinn
Brad Frantz
Teresa Ellis

I cannot presume to imagine how much they will be missed.

*Read more about the shootings in any major paper. The largest Utah newspapers are The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News.

William – wait, I should jump on the “cool” bandwagon and say “Will” – is turning SWEET SIXTEEN. Pardon me, perhaps I should say MACHO/MANLY SIXTEEN (whatever that means). Whatever you call it, it’s not right. I saw him yanked from his Mother’s womb with the Ominous Salad Tongs (That’s the official medical term. Well, it SHOULD BE). In other words, since it’s all about me, that makes me VERY OLD. In fact, two days ago I became THIS old!!! That’s just crazy.

Once upon a time, this was a wee William:

William, Circa…Wee

Awwww – the glasses! I wish there was a shot of the eye patch somewhere… (That was all because he had amblyopia – double amblyopia, if I remember correctly.) Although that would remind me of the time, right after he got the eye patch, that I took him to the amphitheatre where I was in many shows so he could see them working on the set (you know, with super-cool power tools) and I turned my back for one second and he walked right off the edge of the concrete stage. Luckily it wasn’t a long drop… You see, as I, myself, learned years later from donning on eye patch in a play, you have essentially no depth perception when you’re wearing the thing.

But now, his vision is corrected, he’s grown tall and has a basso profundo voice, and he’s…he’s…(can I say it?) A STRAPPING YOUNG MAN!

I offer as evidence the portrait of my niephews from January, 2007:

Anders, Will, Leif, Sarah & Paisley

Compare this to LAST year’s “Party of Five”. A few notable differences are evident. Most importantly, I AM FREAKIN’ OLD! Secondly, Anders is crying because his fly is down. We were all thinking that it was because he was tired of the process (as he’d already spent good energy looking dashing for his own portrait – I’ll post that soon), but looking at a very large version of the picture today I realized that he is suffering from the abject humiliation that they are going to let his image – FOR ALL POSTERITY – be captured with his zipper undone. And they had the unmitigated GALL to try and pacify him with a BALL (see how he holds it pleadingly in the air). Worst of all, he is not quite dexterous enough to fix it himself and hasn’t yet the vocabulary to say, “Pardon me, could someone assist me in zipping up my pants?”

But back to Will. I’ve been known to give him a bad time (just once in a great while, right?), but it’s only because I want him to not talk with his mouth full, or speak in that voice that uses ALL THOSE EXTRANEOUS DECIBELS, or have questionable personal hygiene for when he goes on a hot dates. See, Will? I’ve only been thinking of you. And that’s because I love you! I nag you with love.
Happy, Happy Birthday, you Strapping Young Man!

Paisley, what goes well with a lovely, Sage Derby?
Wonder® Bread or a Carr’s Water Cracker?

Ah, yes. That’s SMASHING.

That reminds me; thank you,Smashly! I only steal from the best.

Well, first you’ll have to click on the equation to make it legible, but then YOU do the math. Literally. Solve for “x” (DUH).

Alright, pencils down.

I said PENCILS DOWN!

Sheesh.

DISCLAIMER: Once upon a time, many, many, many, many years ago, I was rather good at math. Really. You could even say I had “skeeelz” – “MAD skeeelz.” Sadly, that time is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, VERY far behind me. In other words, for what the above equation lacks in substance, I have tried to substitute LAYERS. Many layers. As in cake… Cake is good. Isn’t it? Or pie. Most everyone likes pie!

Huzzah! Since we can read memory cards again and access a USB port without getting behind the computer (Merci ad nauseum, Guru), it’s time for me to catch up. Hair-do’s first, naturally.

Sarah had her haircut for the first time in – let’s see – going on TWO YEARS! Okay, though losing it completely during that time period should probably count as a major haircut, I’m afraid you get no assistance from a stylist for that one.

Sarah was understandably hesitant for anyone to get near her lengthening tresses with SCISSORS or the like, but the general consensus was that she needed some SHAPE to her “do.” We all assured her it didn’t have to actually be shorter, but it would really benefit from some selective styling.

Besides, when given the chance, that girl’s hair grows like wildfire! She used to grow “fuzz” between chemo rounds and she NEVER lost very many of her disgustingly-long eyelashes or her eyebrows (as many do as a chemotherapy side-effect). And when her hair started growing out again (during radiation, as it was only her “mantle” region that was the target) it made alarming progress. And the CURLS! I’m not certain exactly where those came from. She had wavy hair (if I remember correctly) as a baby, but these are seriously curly CURLS. It’s possibly a side-effect from the chemo – hard to say.

Anyhoo, my Mom convinced her to go to an appointment with Janet’s special curly-hair stylist and get a “shaping trim” and some advice.

In case you’re wondering, after spending seven thousand years trying to get rid of a weird shadow by her lip (ever so unsuccessfully) I gave up and decided to be whimsically artsy instead. In other words, it ain’t pretense, it’s incompetency.

Of course she looks absolutely lovely. She looked good bald, too. Ah, the young and beautiful. This is the “straightened” version of her new coif – trÚs chic. And even she was pleased.

And as an FYI to those keeping track of these things, Sarah’s last quarterly scans where very good. She still has some bulky scar tissue (and may always), but there’s nothing cancerous therein. And forgive me for being maybe too personal (though isn’t that my privilege as an Aunt, Sarah?), but her ovaries were the only thing that “glowed.” She was assured that this is very good news and may bode well for her reproductive future. I think that’s wonderful.

P.S. Note to Will: Glowing ovaries do not denote any super-powers.