Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Carlos Carra I'm fighting a cold.
Flues, colds are always dangerous for chemo patients, I mean ex-chemo patients, or former, whatever.
Don't have enough immune system left so a simple cold can knock you out for a week, 104 temperatures, a near certainty of pneumonia. That kind of thing.
I've been able to avoid them for the last few years. I might be able to fight this one off too. My temperature is 97.5 (which is normal for me), I've just got the scratchy throat and the inflamed sinuses.
Watched a lot of movies yesterday. An old Johnny To, Andy Lau film "Full Time Killer" was far more entertaining than it had any right to be.
The real find was a Canadian flic: "Lars And The Real Girl". It seems so long since I've enjoyed a film where the actors spoke English . . . Its an odd little independent comedy, mainly American actors. As with all little movies its incumbent on the actors to carry the load. They do so here with nice touching real performances all the way around. Patricia Clarkson (I remember her as playing one of Frasier's important girl friends) does great work.
The lead, Ryan Gosling, had a miserable sort of part, very difficult to play, and only rang false or seemed to be reaching once or twice. Most of the time he was totally believable and managed to suck you in.
The plot is weird. Lars orders one of those love dolls off the internet. He accepts it as a real woman and treats her elegantly, chastely. He takes the doll with him to church, to visit his parents grave, to parties. He has his brother and sister-in-law chaperone.
The people of the small town accept this and while they all have some snide asides at first come to see the doll as real as Lars does.
There's no pat answers as to why Lars has the delusions. I thought that was nice. It lead you to some places to speculate but doesn't slam you in the head.
Its funny, unpredictable and I wouldn't dare to think of it as life affirming but it does give insights into people, insights and thoughts I'd never would have had on my own.

Click images for desktop size: "Dreaming Of Texas" by Anonymous
The beta 40 from ecto seems to have corrected the nastiest, most time consuming bugs. Its still not perfect. For me, its further from perfect than it was in beta 32 . . . or some number in the 30's. I still prefer it. I tried using MarsEdit for the whole caboodle and found it too tiresome. Keyboard shortcuts and things were just aggravating and wouldn't remap properly in MarsEdit. MarsEdit was also worthless for doing the layout. Because this jumbly crowded mess pleases my eyes.

Yesterday ended with a sad email from my puppy's breeder, her gramma. My puppy's biological aunt passed away from lymphoma . . . cancer.
This thing always brings up sad thought. I had two of my dogs fight cancer. At least when they had it I had the money to help them fight the disease.
One had bone cancer and had to have his right front leg amputated at the shoulder. He lived for five more years that way. He really never slowed down. I called him Tripod after the surgery.
Then their was another dog who had pancreatic cancer. We got her on a Good Friday. Adopted her from the pound in West LA.
On the way home we stopped at Delores'. Its gone now. Its a parking lot at Wilshire and LaCienega. We ran into Sandra Locke there and started chatting. She named the new puppy.
I don't want anything to happen to my puppy, or any of my dogs.
I love them all. They give so much and ask for so little really. I wish they all had eternal life. What a world full of pettings and laughter that would be.
I'd like the same for children. While I'm at it I'd want the same for all of us. But mainly for kids and dogs.

The holiday weekend has been sort of wonderful. Its been too long since I've done so little and had so much pleasure and fun. Even sleeping 12 hours a day can't detract, it only seems to enhance.
When things go back to normal I hope the buoyancy carries on.