Transitioning...

Last week was a tough week for anyone whose been dealing with the "C" word.

Let's be brutally honest here, cancer not only assaults the individual fighting the disease, but it can render entire families and care giver networks straight into a dark sense of powerlessness. Especially when treatments can seem so difficult to get through. Especially when remission ends without warning and fear once again takes a leading role in thousands of what if scenarios.

Whatever your political affiliations, the public fight that Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow wage against cancer is the stuff of hero's. To fight bravely onward, even while constantly in the public eye, all the while being second guessed and scrutinized by the press, is a burden no cancer survivor should bear. But bear it they have-as have their caregiver networks. Suddenly these two public figures have gone from talking heads to fully human representations of every one's worst fears.

I've always liked the term "after care". It's generous use and application in the addiction-recovery world implies that while indeed life moves on after a major crash and burn, that does not mean that the need for gentle post recovery care will diminish. I often wonder why similar terms aren't used for those who have faced life threatening illnesses. Just because cancer or AIDS or a heart disease crisis turns from life or death to manageable or goes away altogether, a person is still forever changed. There is always a nagging fear that a health adversary might return. Such emotions also haunt everyone in the downstream support network. How do you talk about an invisible companion that will forever accompany one's life journey? How do you acknowledge those fears that silently linger on the tip of every one's tongue?

After care is not just about addiction but sure seems appropriate for anyone whose faced serious challenges, whose transitioned into a different place in their life, and who recognizes that despite advances in modern medicine life is always fatal. Remission is a word of healing. Recurrence is the stuff of ultimate nightmares. Aftercare is the scale that balances those two worlds and helps everyone involved manage this messy business of living.

In other words, aftercare is for everyone.

Morning in Bonners Ferry Idaho...

At Long Last...

A friend of ours is the lucky recipient of a Habitat for Humanity Home. We've been documenting the construction progress on the house now for several months. The open house prior to her gaining possession is scheduled for early June. Wahoo!

Spring Fever Back at the Home Front...

Life in a frontier town...

Things to remember: Moose have a serious temper. They are very near sighted and easily charge those who get too close. It's hard to feel sympathy for those idiots who get stomped trying to snap a perfect picture. Especially when a cow moose has a calf by her side.

Kelcy Turns Five

Top, standing left to right- Tracy, Kevin, Jaime. Kelcy and Kelli sitting. Celebrating the most important day of the year-Kelcy's Birthday...

Kelcy gets a mobile V Smile game...and she is stunned...

Kevin want's a mobile v-smile game too!

A Very Hip Future Trucker

The Final Solution

Because it was Kelcy's Birthday recently, we found a solution to help guide all that creative energy. Yet will Princess Lauren and Princess Kelcy find such a small space too limiting? Time will tell.

"You Will Attract Cultured and Artistic People To Your Home." Fortune Cookie Fortune Presented to Kelcy Yesterday. After the Fact.

There are many gifts children bring in to our lives. Joy. Laughter. Happiness.

The wonder of play time.

Yesterday, as Kelcy played with her best friend Lauren, the two girls explored their untapped artistic talents. Alone and briefly unsupervised, the young artists succumbed to powerful urges. Color crayons, markers, and pencils came to life. On walls, carpet, collectibles, and bedspreads.

Sitting downstairs, unaware adults conversed around the kitchen table, completely oblivious to the spiritual blessing about to unfold. Indeed the only foreshadowing was one adults prophetic remark that the two princesses were certainly playing well together. Yes, there had been a small M & M hurricane that inexplicably rained down earlier over the playroom but this was hardly a serious matter.

Suddenly our fascinating dialogue was interrupted as two young troubled artists bounded down the stairs, excited about "something" mysteriously appearing on the carpeting upstairs. Neither witness seemed to understand how all of this could have happened, but both young women felt it was urgent that these strange signs must be acknowledged by an adult.

Now.

Among the adults, it seemed quite obvious that each girl felt a reward was at stake, and that the first princess to tell of this miracle would receive the greatest treasure. Such is the way with these artistic princesses-being first to communicate the latest miracles in the kingdom is a princesses primary duty.

So the adults trudged upstairs and gathered together, standing in awe. We surveyed the land of Princess Explosions in shock. Seeking a course in miracles, we patrons of culture were so unprepared for our introduction to Princess Kelcy and Princess Lauren's newest "art gallery premier."

The showing, "still life on Princess Pink", exposed and prompted many intense emotions. Indeed the audience felt each theme: The vivid conflict. The abstract movement between pencil and crayon. That Orange and Pink were never meant to go together.

Indeed the girls had even stumbled upon the truest magic for they had discovered the secret to making erasable markers permanent.

Add to this education, our new found speechlessness at the marvelous gift of creative expression displayed on so many varied surfaces seemed overwhelming. Here was a new take on Wonder What Happened Land as best seen through the eyes of an almost five, and almost four year old. Even the princesses could not precisely explain what force overtook them.

Instead, the only sound we heard, was each princesses desperate attempt to claim that the other was somehow most responsible for this miracle.

Meanwhile we collectively accepted a new reality. This was exactly what the world of a fairy princess would look like after having just been tagged by the gang from Crayola. We were among young genius. Only one thought came to mind as we ooouuuhhhh'd and ahhhhhh'd over these spectacular demonstrations of movement, medium, and unbridled expression.

It was so naughty spot time in the Kingdom of Not So Happily Ever After.

PS

ACT UP! hits the mean streets of New York. Looking very much like an AARP city tour. So much gray hair. So few young people.

In attendance the "A" Gay list of Foreman, Signorile, Musto, Kramer and others...Photo's after both jumps.

http://wockner.blogspot.com/2007/03/act-up-resurrected-gen-pace-targeted.html

http://haloscan.com/tb/joemygod/976245114707229685

Garrison Keillor's essay might not have been so brutal afterall. As blogger/Author Paul Cilwa offers here:

http://highmountainranch.blogspot.com/2007/03/going-coastalsavage-take-on-voice-of.html#comments

and this post argues here:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/03/contra_savage_a.html

It also looks like gay porn actor, escort, Marine Reserve, and FOX poster boy Matt Sanchez might just be looking at defending himself against a fraud enlistment investigation...more details as they come available...

Going Coastal...A Savage Take on the Voice of Prairie Home Companion

http://www.thestranger.com/blog/2007/03/fuck_garrison_keillor

The title of this opinion piece alone tells any reader that the Seattle Stranger's extreme potty mouth, Dan Savage is very, very, over Garrison Keillor.

Savage raises good points, and I share his disappointment with Keillor. Which is to Savage's Credit because most of the time his logic seems strangely disconnected from reality. Remember when Savage may or may not have engaged in biological terrorism in the mid west against the Family Values Chain Gang because Savage thought the end of his tongue justified the means?

Yet, once again a universal truth raises its ugly head. Hypocrisy is a non partisan, equal opportunity curse. I'd argue that "DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO" is a primary ingredient of humanity. As the left finally begins to share in this sordid business of brokering power, we are all about to learn they ain't so pretty either.

God help Keillor with this one. I see Public Radio Fundraising Drives crashing and burning all over the country. Just like the movie version of Prairie Home Companion did.

The 20th Anniversary of ACT UP!

From Joe.My.God. http://www.towleroad.com/2007/03/activist_larry_.html#more

A history lesson for the masses, circa one of the founders of ACT UP!

Even if you don't have AIDS, don't know anyone who is poz, never lost someone you really cared for (or hundreds of such someones), or have never faced an HIV Test, ACT UP watched your back. The members of ACT UP, fed up with a system that seem paralyzed by the AIDS pandemic, realized they had nothing to lose. Many of them were dying, and they became the most amazing and successful agent for change ever to rock modern America. I would argue even more so than the civil rights movement. The country didn't know what hit them, and sadly ACT UP!'s successes won't be taught in most history classes.

ACT UP brought accountability to the FDA, the NIH, the Catholic Church, and both political parties. The one blood stain on Ronald Reagon's legacy that his supporters will never be able to shake is Reagon's blatent silence regarding a virus on the rampage. History will not judge Reagon kindly on this matter.

But ACT UP wasn't just about AIDS. Any person in this country who has faced a life threatening disease owes the visionaries of ACT UP gratitude. Maybe you've just been given a new heart drug or a new cancer treatment drug, or maybe you've been given access to some new fast tracked procedure that was developed less than a year ago, ACT UP! is the bulldozer that made these sorts of changes in health care access possible. They shook up the system, untangled bureaucracy, and streamlined research.

Read the history. Feel the anger. Visualize the possibilities of change. Remember, it's never too late to ACT UP!

Midnight in the Garden of Lawrence Welk

I don't know how many people enjoyed a strong familiarity with The LW Show. In my family, it was required viewing. That show seemed among our most memorable family rituals, like the Walton's or Disney or Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, The innocence of LW Show was must see TV. Like it or not, and as I grew older it was mostly not, I learned the standards representing my grandparents and my parents generation. Versions of the big band classics, and "Up, Up and Away in My Beautiful Balloon" stand out as familiar renditions frequently heard on the show.


Lawrence Welk and ABC's Wide World of Sports Figure Skating segments became early sources of inspiration for my brother and sister. I mean seriously, Lawrence Welk had a very intense stair fetish going on. My brother and sister chased glamour and talent as they faithfully borrowed from countless performances routines, displaying breathtaking precision on stairways, fireplace mantles, and on roller skates in our two car garage. Bobby and Sissie had nothing on my siblings stunning interpretation of dance, song, and pre-adolescent body contortions. At least that's how my grandparents saw it.

Today, those golden days of the Lawrence Welk Show lives on via Public Television, and echo on Saturday and Sunday nights in nursing homes and convalescence centers across America. Nothing has captured the mood of that generation quite like Lawrence Welk.

The music of that era brings back many memories. I am reminded of my grandparents and a time of cultural innocence that seems incredibly naive in this day and age. Even I can admit I don't hate the show like I used to. I sometime wonder if Soul Train and American Bandstand, will represent my generations golden era, and if these classics will one day play in rest homes all across the heartland, as those who watch reclaim a long lost certain gleam in their eye.

These days, as my mother is up painting in her studio, she will TiVo the Lawrence Welk Show and let the music accompany her as she paints. My father sleeps alongside her, as brush strokes and creativity fill the room. If nothing else, there is a serenity permeating mom's art studio, and the time weathered longevity of my parent's decades standing relationship seems to mirror many of the values Lawrence Welk once communicated on his weekly television shows. While it's not really my history, I can appreciate the era it represents.

Now if only my brother and sister would also just fess up to how important that music was in their artistic development., If they would only allow the full telling of the many stories associated with their childhood Lawrence Welk obsessions, I'd certainly have a most interesting new interpretation to narrate on the flip side of all things Lawrence Welk. Sadly, I can't afford the attorney fees required to tell such stories, especially without their full authorization. Let's just hope, for the sake of good literature, that I outlive them. At least long enough to get those classic stories on the record.