The Weekend and Beyond

It's the end of the long weekend and I've spent really the entire day switching off between reading, watching TV, surfing the net (for non-cancer-related stuff) and playing video games. Some might think that it's a waste of a day, but first off, the weather wasn't that great here, and secondly, I was frankly exhausted after yesterday.

Overall, the three-day weekend was just what I needed. Saturday morning I hung out with my friend Kim, and Saturday evening, in more of a last-minute thing, Matt, Danner and Carlos took me to the A's-Red Sox game. It was great to hang out with those guys; the only problem was that it was maybe the shortest game of the season, a 3-0 A's win that lasted all of two hours and 20 minutes. This would have been a great time to sit through one of those four-hour 10-8 American League specials that I seem to have attended so many times, but the evening went quickly -- too quickly for my tastes.

Still, I was really happy to see those guys and it's always fun getting part of the gang together. Matt asked if I was going to blog about it and Danner (rightfully?) accused him of just "wanting some ink" ("ink" being the newspaper term for publicity); Matt's had some ink on this blog already, but now he has some more, and I'm sure all those guys will get even more before this is all said and done.

In all seriousness, no one has asked for any ink since I started this blog and if there are personal interactions I have with you that you don't want made public here, let me know. I don't plan on publicly recounting every single detail about each of my social engagements or medical treatments -- some things are indeed sacred, and others are just obviously personal -- but feel free to give me a "hey, please don't share that with anyone else" if there are things you definitely want kept private.

I will then decide, on a case-by-case basis, on whether or not to actually keep it private, and what sort of nominal fee I will charge you if I do indeed determine that I will honor your request.

On Sunday, I had lunch with Barry, and then Chris, his girlfriend Virginia and her mom Lacy stopped by for a visit. After that, my mom and I went to Carlos's house for dinner, and then he and I caught Indy 4. Yep, long day, and not having slept well the previous night (see my last blog post for more on The Dream), I was completely exhausted by day's end. That's why today's veg session has been so welcome -- because of yesterday's mental and physical fatigue, and because tomorrow the ball will really get rolling quickly.

Tomorrow we're really going to step up the pace of this thing. I have a scheduled consultation with Dr. Cecchi in the afternoon but since Stanford appears to be driving this bus now, I am going to call in the morning and see if we still need to meet. I expect Stanford to call at some point tomorrow and schedule all the necessary tests -- probably for Wednesday, but the tests could even be run tomorrow -- to determine our next course of action (immediate surgery or radiation therapy). I need to mail some forms, and also speak to the Sega HR people to see if they can help with the upcoming battle with the insurance company. We also need to do some grocery shopping and Mom needs to hit Costco for some things. Big, big day, and the rest of the week isn't likely to be any lighter.

So yeah, the pieces have begun to move around the board and the preparations for battle are picking up speed. That's why I refuse to begrudge myself a day of lounging around doing nothing but relaxing -- and I'm sure there will be more of these sorts of 'do-nothing' days in the future during treatment, although there might be various side effects or levels of pain that would make 'relaxing' a rather inappropriate word for what I'll be doing.

Mom and I are going to duck out and grab a bite to eat before settling in for the night. How was Indy 4, you ask? Well, just know that I am a huge aficionado of the series. Raiders of the Lost Ark is probably my all-time favorite film, and I liked the other two as well, although I thought Temple of Doom was the worst, in large part because it was the least realistic. Of course, Indy World isn't particularly 'real' to begin with, but I tend to like my action films to have a sense of plausibility about them. When stunts occur that are beyond the realm of the ridiculous, that's when I tend to tune out.

That having been said, some of the action in Indy 4 was the least plausible of all the movies. Harrison looked fine, the script was okay (although a bit muddled in parts) and I had no qualms with the subject matter -- but there are just several things that happen in the movie that broke my suspension of disbelief and made me scoff "oh, c'mon." I never once felt that way during Raiders -- as crazy as it was in spots, it never made me feel like it was completely implausible.

But then, I knew it wouldn't capture the magic of Raiders, because likely nothing will in my mind ever again -- the magic will be different, anyway, when it happens with some other film. Treated purely as a piece of fun escapism, and as part of the overall series, Indy 4 was fine, but it definitely trails well behind Raiders and Last Crusade in the overall series, if you're asking me to rank them.

Which you didn't, but it's my blog, so I did it anyway. Next week, we'll rank the Police Academy films from best to worst, and talk about the perplexing career decline of Charo. Stay tuned.

With much love,
Dino