Category Archives: Rancho Roly Poly

Uncertainties

Posted on December 26, 2014 | 1 comment

Mrs. Charm’s cancer treatments were going well until the other day when her latest scan found good news and bad. The good news: her lymphoma tumor load seems to have significantly decreased across the board just four doses into her eight-dose chemo regimen.

The bad: the scan showed there was a dark mass on her small intestine where it connects with the large one. It could be a hard tumor, possibly a sign of small intestine lymphoma which is not an unusual development in lymphoma cancers. Or, as her gastroenterologist said, because she has none of the expected symptoms of small intestine lymphoma, it could be a false reading and he could be chasing a ghost.

So this morning he made what Atul Gawande says in Complications, A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, is the hardest medical decision of all: to do nothing, not even a biopsy. Only to continue the chemo doses. And wait until the next scan six weeks from now, unless symptoms set in before then, to see if the mass is still there. And so there we are, still uncertain about what’s going on but still seeing progress and hoping for the best.

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Posted in Cancer, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Science/Engineering

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The spoiled genius at play

Posted on December 23, 2014 | 4 comments

Mr. B. often retreats into the “my generation” stance to justify something odd that he wants to do anyhow. Like wearing basketball shorts everywhere on icy winter days.

Tonight I took him for some last-minute shopping and when we exited the store I saw him drop some coins on the sidewalk. Hey, I said, picking them up. Three quarters and three pennies.

He shrugged. Said he dropped them on purpose and didn’t want them back. Said his generation doesn’t like coins, only bills. The spoiled genius at play.

No wonder he got a B in algebra while getting A’s in everything else.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Rancho Roly Poly

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Choppers last at Radio Shack

Posted on December 18, 2014 | 4 comments

Stopped off at our local Radio Shack the other day for a radio-controlled “toy” for the almost-15-year-old Mr. Boy who has been busy acing his first-semester high school freshman finals. Just for fun. Radio Shack, alas, is going out of business. The retail empire will be missed hereabouts and certainly in its home base of Fort Worth.

Anyhow, the RC vehicles were consequently marked way down, most at 50 percent off, some more. I got him an RC stunt car for $10. It’ll probably break pretty quick. Most of them do. Still be fun for however long it lasts.

Longer, I’m sure, than one of the twin-rotor choppers so popular the last few years. Until people figured out that, however cool they look, they are expensive to buy, hard to fly and easy to break. Mr. B. and I still have the two Mrs. Charm got us last year. Still in their boxes. Cowards, yep.

Likewise the choppers at Radio Shack, almost the last kind of RC toy still on the local shelves despite markdowns of as much as 70 percent. Which still leaves the price at $30 plus.

Back in the day (in the 1980s, when we never used that expression), my first word-processing laptop for work was a Radio Shack Tandy, complete with rubber ear cups for transmitting back to the newsroom over a land-line phone receiver. Which I once did to my own amazement on an assignment in Pennsylvania. Later I got a better one (larger, flip-up screen) of my own, then called a Notebook. Memories.

Bye, bye Radio Shack. Rest in Peace.

UPDATE:  My RIP link turns out to be a slam on the company by a disgruntled employee. I was fooled by the “eulogy” headline. It’s a long gripe about how tough retail is for the cashier-person, the lowest of the low. I remember it well. It was/is low-paid and exhausting. It’s what high school and college kids often wind up with for jobs, until they find something better. When they vow never to go back.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Obituaries, Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles, Texana, The Economy

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Shoppin’ used clothes

Posted on December 12, 2014 | 1 comment

Goodwill recently opened a boutique (true story) in a strip shopping center not far from the rancho and I have been encouraged to look through the racks of used but still good condition clothing. I have passed on the shoes and boots.

Andy at MyOldRV does me one better, buying his clothes off eBay. I knew he was buying old wide-brimmed straws there but not his shirts. Of course his shirts are the pricey specialty kind, made in West Point, Mis’sippi. Where slo-drawling Wynell answers the phone. When eBay hasn’t got enough used to satisfy him.

Via MyOldRV

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Posted in Blogosphere, Rancho Roly Poly, The Culture, The Economy

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When boring is good

Posted on December 11, 2014 | 4 comments

Mrs. Charm’s struggle with Stage III Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma, DLBCL continues towards apparent remission. So little has changed in the past month it’s become boring to write of and easy to forget to do it.

Fourth chemo session Monday is producing the same familiar exhaustion, and the white-blood cells booster shot on Tuesday some bone pain, but neither was unexpected.

She’s due for another scan next week, a PET this time, after which we’ll know for sure if the cancer continues to retreat from her lymph nodes. That’s what the most recent blood test suggests and the doc found nothing worrisome.

So there are times when boring is good and this is one of them.

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Posted in Cancer, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly

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Mr. Boy’s straight A’s

Posted on November 13, 2014 | 4 comments

He still wears shorts in the winter-time, despite the Arctic blast that settled into Central Texas overnight Tuesday. But I now have to concede that it makes a certain sense.

He rides a school bus now, a bus which stops a short distance away on our street. Then, as he says, he spends the rest of the day moving from classroom to classroom, most of them overheated and drowse-inducing. No, public schools still haven’t solved that problem.

And you have to admire him for his straight A’s so far in high school, including the 90 he pulled out of algebra again for the first semester’s second of three cycles. Thankfully he has his mother’s academic work habits instead of mine.

UPDATE:  The 90 turned into an 89. He was angry at himself, another good sign.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, Weather

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Spook City

Posted on October 31, 2014 | 6 comments

With trick-or-treat falling on a Friday this year, we’re expecting an overflow crowd ringing the doorbell at the Rancho tonight. Unfortunately, I won’t have my usual candy give-out helper, as Mr.B. will spend the night with friends at their house.

The costumed little ones and their proud parents are always a treat and I hesitate not to be generous with them. It’s the tall teenagers and near-adults who’ll wear just a funny hat or a grotesque mask we’re more inclined to think of as a trick. So when it’s bedtime for the little ones we’ll probably turn the porch lights off.

UPDATE: Too chilly (temps in the low 60s) for the candy-mongers. Only drew five altogether—fifth through seventh graders—before I cut off the porch lights. None were little ones, alas.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, The Culture

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