Andy’s off his Central Texas vacation and back gate-guarding again in Webb County (which includes the streets of Laredo), in the far South Texas Puckerbrush:
“It has been 100+ every day since we [him and Tuco the dog] got here and the weatherman is just sayin’ more more MORE! It is what it is I reckon.”
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Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Texana, The Economy
Tagged gate-guarding, MyOldRV, Puckerbrush, Webb County Texas
Once more with feeling. We got those 183 to 290 to 610 to Main Street, Houston, Texas blues.
This time we’re leaving Mr. B. to stay with the family of one of his friends. Once again Mrs. Charm probably won’t start her 3 to 5 days high-dose chemo treatment at M.D. Anderson. We’re still in analysis and waiting for a final test to be delivered to them.
Meanwhile, here’s a word snapshot of the M.D. Anderson wing we were in, and sundry environs:
Across from us last week sat a young couple who were speaking softly, either Castillian Spanish (Mrs. C. said it was definitely not Mexican Spanish) or Portuguese. He of the depressed expression, bowed and bald head, obviously was the patient, whether her brother or her husband we couldn’t tell.
Several young Arab men walked about nervously, trailed three or four steps behind by young and old Arab women in half-Ninja, i.e. covered heads and floor-length black gowns but no veils. Properly submissive. Feminists they weren’t.
Didn’t see a single Saudi “prince” or a South American dictator—the latter, presumably, would stand-out for being accompanied by burly bodyguards in sports coats to hide their shoulder-holsters. Both are rumored to be regular MDA customers. Even Obama’s friend Chavez, supposedly, though they couldn’t save him.
Then there was the short Mediterranean-looking fellow who bummed a light from me in the (understood but unofficial) outside smoking area (yes, agast Nanny-Staters, you can slip away for a smoke at this cancer center). Other than the fact that he spoke not a word (was he mute or just didn’t speak English?) the only odd thing about him, besides his very European black loafers, was his cigarette: a long, skinny one.
I thought it was a clove, at first, but it didn’t smell like it. Possibly one of these, called slims, popular in the UK. Obviously he doesn’t live there. Unless he’s a mute. My lord, you don’t suppose he has throat cancer?
And my favorite, the fetchingly curvy, middle-aged blonde cancer patient (you can tell the patients by their wristbands) who had snuck out for a smoke. “Stand in front of me, please,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to get caught.”
She said to be sure to be out there on Wednesdays when the volunteer harp player shows up. A full-size orchestra harp. I said I would think that would be too pointed a metaphor. The puffing cancer patient shook her head. It’s soothing, she said: “A small miracle.”
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Posted in Cancer, Mrs. Charm, Texana
This article is no revelation for the denizens of Rancho Roly Poly. Been there, seen that.
When we got back from a long trip to Israel a few years ago, we found a rat in the master-bedroom toilet. It had severely scratched the lid trying to get out. It failed and died. Why it didn’t just swim back into the sewer we never knew. We flushed its corpse and back it went. Which is an excellent reason for remembering to always close the toilet lid, in case your mother didn’t teach you to do that.
It had never happened to us before and hasn’t since. Nothing surprises us now.
Via Instapundit.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Texana
Tagged Texas rats in the toilet
Mrs. Charm’s treatment for the return of her cancer should have begun Friday afternoon. Instead we’re back in Austin to wait until next week.
There are several frustrating, angering reasons for the delay, all of which I want to relate, but I don’t want to jeopardize her chances at treatment by mentioning them in public. Suffice to say M.D. Anderson is not as professional as you might believe.
Four hours after leaving Houston and it’s god-awful, bumper-to-bumper traffic, we were home with orders to return on Wednesday—two weeks after Mrs. C. was diagnosed. Her Austin oncologist was almost frantic to get her seen within 24-48 hours of her diagnosis with the return of the high-risk, aggressive B cell Lymphoma that had been in remission since February. MDA said it would take a week. As if.
Mrs. C. is running a constant fever now, she’s in pain from growing tumors in her abdomen and one thigh is swollen from growing tumors in her groin. And we wait. The full treatment, including a bone marrow transplant, will last until late December and cost $1 million. There’d be intermittent periods of treatments and back at home. Hopefully the insurance will pay most of it. Chances of success are 50-50.
“With a little luck,” the MDA doc said, “years from now this will be only a memory.”
They’ll know within a month if it’s working and if it’s not, they’d stop and so would the bills. Then it would be on to experimental trials for which the experimentalists would pay, but she’d have to go where they are and stay until it’s over. Hopefully in Houston.
At that point, it might be more realistic to accept defeat and bring in hospice. But I don’t call the punches here. I just roll with them.
UPDATE: I was rather more candid in private about the reasons for the delay than I care to be here. And one response, from a friend who grew up in the Soviet Union in its heyday, is worth repeating: “An outcome like this would have been expected in a Soviet school clinic but not in a modern establishment.”
“The true danger to Planned Parenthood and the entire [abortion] industry [of the videos] is the exposure of their hypocrisy. The two positions of ‘clumps of cells’ and negotiating over human organs from abortions are mutually exclusive.
“One cannot extract human organs from ‘a pile of goop,’ or from tumors or undifferentiated ‘clumps of cells.’ Human organs come from human beings, and the only way to harvest them from unborn human beings is to kill them first.
“The videos cut through all of the misdirection, all of the antiseptic generalities used in defense of abortion, to expose its true nature — and that’s what has Planned Parenthood panicked over the videos.”
And why, at the moment the Texas Baby Chop Shops are stonewalling a state Senate investigation into the organ harvesting and selling. Not a workable move, folks, as you will soon find out.
Via Hot Air.
UPDATE: PP gets a California state judge to issue a temporary restraining order on the anti-abortion group that made the undercover videos exposing PP’s organs-tissues business. So much for the 1st Amendment. Meanwhile, Fox News doesn’t feel restrained in publicizing the latest sting video.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Obsessions, Texana
Tagged Abortion industry. Texas AG Ken Paxton, Baby Chop Shop, Hot Air, human organs versus clumps of cells
While they’re busy building nuclear bombs under an appeasing American president’s new agreement, the Iranian mullahs need to finally own up to a flaw in their theology.
Their hidden 12th Imam is a corruption, a foolish misunderstanding of the 12th Man at Texas A&M University. That’s why the 12th Imam is hidden. He’s a long way away from Iran.
Now that they’ll be getting all the nukes they want, plus billions of American dollars to help them buy conventional arms to keep up the terrorism they support worldwide, the least they can do is admit their theological mistake.
It’s time for them to bow to the superior Aggie concept of the 12th Man.
Posted in Obsessions, South of the Border, Texana, The War
Tagged Texana, Texas A&M University, the 12th Man vs the 12th Imam
My violin teacher’s latest project, performing the other day at Central Market South in Austin. Their style has been described as “swing jazz,” though they mostly play straight eights. They play a few standard covers such as Black Orpheus but mostly James’ original compositions: Altitude, Nocturne, Waffle, etc.
He’s on the violin. The others, L to R, are guitarist/composer Alan Retamozo, drummer Brennan Howell and bassist/composer Phil Spencer. Elevation refers to James, Brennan and Phil being from Colorado. Here’s an audio sampler of their work on four of James’ compositions: Waffle, Soho, Mountain Time & Tag Team.
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Posted in Fiddle Stuff, Music, Texana
Tagged Alan Retamozo, Brennan Howell, James Anderson's Elevation Quartet, Phil Spencer
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 