Awesome news

The world is rid of one of the most awful heads of a very ugly Medusa. Good riddance. But there are still many heads to remove. Well done CIA and SF.

 

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Back in Bulawayo

My welcome back to Bulawayo was fantastic up to a point. I will elaborate later.

Ilan and Silvi picked me up at the airport. After temporarily losing 2 of my bags of medical supplies to Zimbabwe customs we went to Silvi's house to watch the hugely important football (soccer) game between Man United and Arsenal. I say temporarily because I am sure I will be able to recover the supplies and take then to the appropriate medical facilities. As far as the football game is concerned, we lost 1-0. It makes for winning the Premiership a little more difficult and losing to Arsenhole is painful enough.

David and Shelley Lasker had a braai(barbecue) dinner for all of us in the evening. As usual it was a wonderful meal and great chatting and catching up with a bunch of my Bulawayo friends. Also there were Dennis (of ZimKids fame) and his wife Elli.

Had a good nights sleep at Ilan’s home until he woke me up at 6:30 am to tell me that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. What a fantastic wake up call that was. Obama 1 Osama 0. Good riddance.

Now, I don’t know if any of you remember the dead bat picture. It was from a while back and it was Ilan’s cats that had killed and dismembered the bat and left me the gift next to my bed. Well, their welcome this time was to bring in a live field mouse, proceed to play with it for a while and then kill and eat it ! Yuch, but I do have pictures. Quite prophetic though. Rat killed in Abbotabad and mouse killed in Bulawayo !

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Call me Grace

Here is how my trip started out at Washington Dulles Airport. "Grace"fully falling over backwards on an up escalator thanks to my 2 heavy bags and a backpack. Two good Samaritans were able to put me right side up with no damage done. It must have looked like a bad Monty Python skit.

So now I'm in London sitting in the lounge contemplating what to do for a number of hours as I wait for my connection to Johannesburg. I thought about going to the wedding but realized it was yesterday. Must have been that fall !

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I'm off

No, not like bad fruit or vegetables ! I leave for Zimgabe tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to seeing the construction progress at the ZimKids Center. Also, hanging with my "china's" and doing the African bush thing. After 14 days of recharging my batteries in Zim and Cape Town it's back to the USA for our daughter Robyn's graduation.

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What a fantastic concert !!!

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Rush

Off to the airport to pick up Brian (my friend from Toronto) and then as soon as Mike gets home we are off to the concert. I'm pretty darn excited as I haven't been to a great rock concert in many, many moons.

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Chemo 11 (Round 7)

Another nice and straight forward day at the chemo parlor. Blood and pee look good. Added another Pound to the fat farm and blood pressure was perfect. I met with Dr. Schraeder and we discussed being given a chemo reprieve some time in the near future. I will be coming up on the 10 month mark for Alimta on June 30th. The protocol is a suspension of Alimta for a short while. I am going to be scanned again in mid June and then we will decide (based on the scans) if I can go off all chemo for 6 weeks. Hell, it's better than nothing. Until then, I move around the globe between poisoning sessions.

Speaking of moving around the globe, I'm off to Zimbabwe and South Africa at the end of April for 2 weeks. Anyone want to go ?

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New York, New York

Monday Diana and I had lunch at Bar Vetro (I'm actually known there) with Queen Dean (no he is not a "queen" but a very good pilot friend). Then it was off to the many/pedy store for a full blown manicure and pedicure for Diana and I. No nail polish for this metro sexual guy but I did get my left toe pinky in black and the right toe pinky in white. Kinda yin/yan, Szechuan and Feng Shui. After picking up 2 dozen roses it was back to the appartment for a wonderful Passover dinner with friends and family (and of course, Max and Luca). Thanks mom and Phil and the Polskins.

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ZimKids quarter auction fundraiser

Once again, the indefatigable Nurse Jen arranged another fundraiser for ZimKids. Diana and I had never been to a quarter auction before nor did we have a clue what was going on in the beginning. Once explained to us, it was pretty cool. It seemed like a cross between an auction and a bingo game. Google "quarter auction" if you want a real explanation !

Other than myself and Gabs Elkaim, no one at the auction had any connection to Zimbabwe. It was truly amazing to see the generosity of the people in attendance. Mostly Jen's family and friends. However, there were a few strangers there as well.

I'm not sure what the final outcome was but whatever the amount I and the ZimKids trust are extremely grateful to all those that were there. Thank you Jen for organizing this fundraiser and thank you everyone else for your contributions.

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Passover in New York

Tomorrow Diana, Max and I are driving to New York to "observe" first night Passover with my mom, the Polskin family and other assorted family and friends. Rob and Mike will be unable to join us and are staying at school.

I plan to ask for directions to New York as I don't want to spend 40 years wandering around the New Jersey turnpike like our forefathers did many years ago, wandering around the desert when they left Egypt. Ha ha ! I can't wait to spend 8 days consuming large quantities of laxatives to counter the effects of Matzo.

Seriously, to all my family and friends observing the holiday of passover I say chag sameach (happy holidays).

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