Hugh, this week

No, this is Lizzie, Hugh's ferret.
She's groggy, because we woke her up to take her picture.
No. This is Louis, Hugh's Bunny.

And this is one of Hugh's plants.
He has cancer AND glaucoma, so just give him a break.

On Jan. 8th we went to UCLA, to the dentistry dept. to get a flouride tray for Hugh's teeth, to protect them from the radiation.

After UCLA we went to the Cinerama Dome and saw Avatar. Gorgeous.

Then, on the 11th we drove to Santa Barbara and met with Dr. Han, the herbalist recommended by Emily and Randy. We liked him. Very down to earth, knowledgeable, & practical. He checked Hugh's pulses and asked some questions and put together a collection of herbs to make tea out of. He told us that they would help the radiation & chemo to do their jobs. He said that in China, herbs are usually used along with chemo and radiation.
These are the herbs (plus ginger)
then we drove home. It was a gorgeous evening.


Later Hugh and I had a fight about something (I forget what). He asked, "Do you want to break up?" I said, "Well, this would certainly be the perfect time to do it."

Hugh is doing well. He's funny and philosophical and sweet and cuddly. And beautiful. I was so happy to hear that the chemo won't mess with the moustache.

We've both been very lucky and we know it. I'm doing good, too. After living with my mom's alzheimers and so on, I realize that nothing you can do will make life easy and unsurprising.

Apropos, here are some words about the future from Emerson:
From "The Oversoul."
... But we must pick no locks. We must check this low curiosity. ...Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and tomorrow you arrive there and know them by inhabiting them. No answer in words can reply to a question of things. For the soul is true to itself, and the man in whom it is shed abroad cannot wander from the present, which is infinite, to a future which would be finite. 
... By this veil which curtains events it instructs the children of men to live in today. The only mode of obtaining an answer to these questions of the senses is to forego all low curiosity, and, accepting the tide of being which floats us into the secret of nature, work and live, work and live, and all unawares the advancing soul has built and forged for itself a new condition, and the question and the answer are one.

---Ralph Waldo Emerson