A quiet Halloween night

7:30 p.m. and our trick-or-treaters seemed to have called it a night.

When you were a kid, did you race against the clock to get to as many houses as possible within the 6-to-9 timeframe? I remember leaving at 5:55 and not returning until 9:05, unless I was faced with the predicament of having to empty my bag.

In all, we had about 30 t-or-t'ers, all polite as could be, bless 'em. The best costume award goes to a trio of young boys, whose leader explained, "I'm a ninja, he's a ninja zombie, and he's the zombie from Resident Evil 1." (The Resident Evil zombie added, "You know, the one that walks like this," then gave us a demonstration of the foot-dragging, undead gait peculiar to that zombie.)

Sadly, we didn't have any gangstas, which was always the costume of choice on Hollywood Avenue.

One sweet little girl opened her bag, and inside, I spotted an unusual treat: Charlotte's Web. Some health-conscious neighbor (probably a dentist or a hippie or a hippie dentist) was handing out books instead of sugar. Nice thought, but come on -- Charlotte's Web for a treat?!

"Eat that candy, kid," I wanted to tell her, "and get you jollies out now. By the time you get to the end of that book, you'll be curled up in the fetal position, crying your eyes out."

Maybe this will cheer the little lass up if she's feeling down, because let's face it, nothing says "eternal salvation" like a smiling jack o'lantern. (Thanks, Karla.)

Getting ready for Halloween

Last Saturday, SMH and I drove down to Portland for a day of sales-tax-free shopping. We really did our part to improve the economy. Our big purchase was a new digital camera, which will translate (in theory) to more visual blog entries.

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays. So, SMH and I were keen to spend our Saturday night carving pumpkins. I know, I know, we're so wild and crazy.

We decided to document the occasion with the new camera. This morning, SMH retrieved the photos... and edited out all the photos of himself but one, leaving only photos of me. OK, Mr. Photo Editor, time to let me have some say in the editing process.

Yep, that's me, hard at work. Please ignore the cluttered room behind me and through the door. That is our ramshackle laundry room/Loki's lounge -- it will be one the first rooms that we'll redo. In the photos that I took, which have since fallen victim to the editor's cuts, I cleverly cropped out all evidence of clutter. But now you know the truth -- some of our rooms have clutter.


Looking through the eyes of the jack o-lantern.


















Feline. Pumpkinhead. I have had both of those nicknames at different times in my life. Seriously.
















SMH and demonic dog. We didn't stuff Loki into the pumpkin. It just looks that way.









Even though this new camera is a simple point-and-shoot, SMH felt the need to experiment extensively with the settings. This is about two seconds before I said, "Take the damn picture or else I'm leaving."

This is our front door. Yesterday, we locked ourselves out of the house. About 2 seconds after I shut said door, we realized we didn't have our keys. Fifty bucks later, a locksmith was letting us into the house. Unfortunately, this incident made me extremely crabby. But, if you look on the bright side, we discovered that our house is pretty impenetrable when locked.

Thanks, everybody!

Wow, I had no idea that people were actually reading this thing!

Thanks, everybody, for your kind thoughts and e-mails following my last entry. Now I feel like I was out campaigning for a sympathy vote! I wasn't, really!

Sigh... it's always nice to get e-mails from friends and family. Especially nice because I am notoriously bad at keeping up on my end of e-mail correspondence. (This is my weekend to catch up on e-mails.)

Yesterday I received a hilarious e-mail from Karla, a friend from Freaks + Weirdos, a friend with a side-splitting sense of humor, a friend who could bring me to tears (of laughter) simply by walking past my cubicle. Karla's e-mail made me realize how much I MISS having friends who make me laugh. It's not that there aren't any funny people in OlyWA -- I just haven't clicked with anybody who can make me belly-laugh the way my Cincinnati friends could.

To get my humor fix, I have been relying heavily on "The Office."

Fortunately, there is somebody in my office who shares my love of this show. His name is Bill, and he is the receptionist. And, he is one of my favorites coworkers.

Let me tell you a few facts that I've learned about Bill: He is 60-something years old, a Vietnam vet, and a Native American. He wears cool turquoise and silver rings. He grew up on a farm, and he can't stomach strawberries because he had to pick so many when he was growing up on the farm. He performed CPR on his wife last year and saved her life. He dotes on his grandkids. He loves to make jokes and tell stories about his life -- and I love to hear them (or eavesdrop on them -- his desk is right outside my office, so I get to hear everything). He would be a perfect candidate for the StoryCorps project... I keep meaning to tell him that. And, he loves "The Office," which puts him on the super-cool list.

So, I am meeting plenty of great people out here in Oly. But, I have to admit, I am looking forward to seeing -- and laughing with -- old friends at Christmas.

Breathing easier these days

I am writing today in a better state of mind than I have experienced in weeks.

About a week or so after my last entry (yes, I know, a loooonnng time ago), I went to the dermatologist for a check-up. Long story short: They found melanoma in my leg. Melanoma in situ, that is, which as the doctors put it, "If you're going to get melanoma, it's the best kind you can get." I was surprisingly undaunted by the news, mostly because the doctor reassured me it was not anything to worry about. OK, I admit, I was neurotically worried -- not about the cancer, but about the surgery to follow; I had barely made it through the biopsy -- a virtually painless biopsy -- without passing out, so the idea of undergoing a giant incision to have the melanoma removed gave me the serious heebie-jeebies. (Yep, I am a wimp.)

And so, undaunted, I told my boss about the melanoma the next morning. I reassured him it was nothing even though I would be out of the office for numerous appointments, telling him, "It's cancer with a lower case "c," not an upper case "C." (Yep, we are editors. Nerds!) His response: "Yeah, but there's still the "-a-n-c-e-r" that makes it scary." Touché.

Another long story short: In the weeks, that followed, the follow-up X-rays showed a spot on my lung. And, in the same week, my family doctor found a lump on my breast.

No need to worry -- all is well. After many rounds of CT scans, ultrasounds and blood tests (good times!), no sign of cancer. Big sigh of relief.

I had the surgery a couple weeks ago, and they have confirmed that they removed all the melanoma. I had a lovely 4-inch incision, bruised and swollen, with giant Frankenstein-like stitches.

So, in the end, it was nothing to worry about. But what a strange experience. Isn't it bizarre how we respond to serious news? As, in the kind of news that brings us a few steps closer to our mortality?

I am embarrassed to admit, my very first response to the news that cancer was a possibility: "Wait, no, my running is the best it's been in my life. I am on the best streak ever. I can't stop training." Ah, yes, vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

My second response: "Wait, no, I can't stand needles and blood. I can hardly face the prospect of having a tourniquet put on my arm, much less having to be poked and prodded on a regular basis."

My third (and more nagging) response: "What if I leave this earth never having contributed anything to the world? Why me?" -- But why not me? Why shouldn't it be me? Doesn't it seem more fair that I get cancer rather than somebody who has a family, or somebody who is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, or somebody who is feeding starving children in Africa? -- "What would I be remembered for? And why is it even important that I be remembered?" These are the kinds of things that kept me awake at night, as my thoughts dipped into issues a little more existential than running PRs.

In any case, I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders -- which makes me feel more than a little guilty when I consider all the hundreds of thousands of people who have to face the true reality of cancer, and who have to go through round upon round of treatment.

Today I ran for the first time in about 1 1/2 months. The doctor told me I should take a little more time off if I wanted to prevent scarring from the incision. (Screw the scar, I'm crabby as hell when I don't run.)

It was an ugly, awkward, clumsy run. I looked like a fool, I know. I tried to spit off to the side in the grass and ended up spitting on myself. Nice. But it was sunny and beautiful, and Mt. Rainier looked gorgeous, and I felt great, despite feeling alarmingly out of shape. Who would've known how wonderful such an ugly run could be?