I was burning a copy the other day of Woody Allen’s Radio Days for a friend and loaded up the start to make sure it was working. It opens up with a scene of some low rise apartment buildings in New York near the stormy shore. He voices over

forgive me if I tend to romanticize the past. I mean, it wasn’t always as stormy and rain-swept as this. But I remember it that way… because that was it at its most beautiful.

Its kind of a day like that here. Lots of rain, very overcast, but beautiful. If you haven’t guessed already, I am quite a sentimental person and I really like that part of Allen’s films. He is so in love with his city and all that’s beautiful in it. Although the reasons for being here are awful, Kathleen and I look forward to the time we get to spend together. And the Cancer Centre’s architecture is wonderful and the people are genuinely friendly and kind. So what’s not to like. Yes, there is that little business of the cancer, but sometimes its just a contrast to bring into focus the good things around. Sometimes anyways.
Our friend Alice is here visiting all the way from Tunis and its great for us all to chat away about non cancer matters. Kath is so much more energetic and peppy as they talk stats and research. I kind of feel like the 3rd person narrator from the movie today. Sitting back, commenting and reflecting on the day while I watch Kathleen and Alice gleefully chat, is giving me a nice checkpoint day.

She needs some breaks and topics that engage her mind are just the thing. At one point, it was like Kathleen was running a Parisian Salon at the cancer centre. Her cousins Terry and Colleen came for a visit and her brother Drew is in town for the weekend. As well as being a great brother-in-law, Drew is always ready for a great picture. To riff on an internet meme, he is the ridiculously photogenic brother-in-law 🙂

Dinner at Phoben Thai

We of course have a bit of background anxiety worrying that round two will not beat back the shoulder pain as a result of the cancer spread (which was slowly coming back again as of Wednesday)… but to deal with that, we are channeling our boss level procrastination powers… ‘Cancer ? Ummm, yah, yah… we will deal with it tomorrow…Today was just a beautiful day’

—Mike