Save the date . . .

Had visitors yesterday afternoon, two old friends of mine from way back when, Ronda and Corey, who live in Kansas now, but are in MN for the week, for a family wedding down near Rochester. Ronda and her family were next-door neighbors of ours back in Mt. Lake; we spent countless hours of our childhoods, playing house, monsters, kick-the-can, sleeping over at each other's houses . . . Corey and I were in speech and theater together in h.s. . . . Ronda's parents were two of the most wonderful people I knew growing up, such kind, gentle, generous souls. . . Ronda, Corey and I reconnected on the time-sucking vampire that is facebook; a week or so ago, they told me they'll be up for the week for the wedding and was wondering if we were up for visitors.

Corey is a 7 year cancer survivor—brain tumor—and incidentally, just celebrated his 7-year anniversary of his surgery. He was the one who made the shockingly accurate analogy I'd mentioned a while back, of getting the phone call for his surgery and feeling like someone had called to let him know his car crash had just been scheduled . . . he had a helluva ride—whole family did, actually; Ronda was caring for both an ill husband and their son, who was just a babe when Corey was diagnosed—but he's here, seven years later, doing so well, enjoying life, a wonderful living inspiration . . . Their visit was a great surprise, as I haven't seen them in over five years, at least. Thankfully, the weather was gorgeous, so we all sat out on the deck and shot the breeze for a few hours.

Of course, the conversation turned to cancer, treatments, etc. now and then—so many familiar stories to share, along with new details to learn—the frustrations as well as the miracles of the medical world, the awful side-effects of medications and infuriating crap-shoot method of finding ones that do the job and can be tolerated, the life on hold, the doctors—some great, some not so much (and all of them "practicing" medicine, as Ronda pointed out, which cracks me up! Can't believe I never thought of it that way before . . .{{{shaking head}}}) . . .and family, friends, strangers, even . . . the kindness, generosity, thoughtfulness and love of the countless people who swoop in to be by our side, to help support and carry us during the battle . . . but honestly, that was just a fraction of the day's visit; the conversation was really more delicious home-town gossip, family updates, and other things far removed from cancer. Bob even joined us for the duration of their visit, mostly just listening, but nice to have his presence with us, as I know it was a huge effort for him to be sitting with us as long as he did . . . Such a nice afternoon, catching up with old friends, lots of laughs, good company. . . and before we knew it, two hours were gone, and they were saying their goodbyes . . . for a while, life felt a little normal again . . .

No sooner had Ronda and Corey pulled out of the driveway, when my cellphone rang. I recognized the U of MN main #, wondering who could be calling about what. . . turned out to be the surgery scheduler. "This is Tanya calling to tell you that Robert's surgery is on for August 27 th, I'm told. What?!? I asked her to repeat what she just said—that the 27th is the date? Yes, that's correct. So. We're set. In stone. So many mixed feelings about it, I could go on and on, but I won't. The main one we have to focus on, and push everything else aside, is that this surgery is what will give Bob his life back, bring a semblance of normalcy to our lives again, let him move on, start to really live again . . . He'll be hospitalized the week before, likely going in on the 20th, to be put on the IV blood thinner and monitored all week. He's already told me to spread the word that he wants visitors, and lots of them, because he's going to be bored to death, waiting around all week . . .

After a day or so's hiatus from messin' in the kitchen, I was back at it last night; the recipe was a complete and utter experimental one (as if all the others haven't been, Jen?! hmmmm . . .). I mean that I kind of made it up, a collage of about 12 different recipes, because I couldn't find exactly the one I had in my head. (Again—how is that different from the others, Jen?!?) ANYhow, it was one of those recipes that I spent an inordinate amount of time on, lots of putzy work, dirtying up about every pot and pan in the joint, the deeper I got into it, the louder the voices got: "What the hell are you doing . . .nuh-uh—don't have a good feeling about this one . . . all this hard work and it's gonna taste like crapola and you'll end up tossing it over the side of the deck . . . " Despite the voices, I persevered.

Oh, what was it, you ask? Sorry! It was {{{drum roll. . . .}}} Zucchini boats! When my friend,

Karen, dropped off the load of veggies last week, from her hubby's garden, there were two ginormous zucchinis in the box. Gargantuan. Monumental. Elephantine. Titanic. Really, really big. Karen planted the seed about the boat idea back then (though calling them "boats" is really a disservice to those mammoth beasts. Ocean liners, really. . . ), and I've been obsessed with the idea of edible boats ever since. Unfortunately, Bob hasn't been "on board" (ha-ha—get it? Boats? On board? ummm, nevermind . . . ) with the idea, and has been threatening to have a TV dinner on stand-by . . . I shredded and froze one of the Chernobyl zukes for future use, then last night, I finally succumbed to the haunting call of the zuke-boat. I halved the colossal squash, scooped out the innards (chopped up and set aside). Then made 1 c. brown rice and 1/2 cup wild rice, cooked up 2 large chick breasts, then shredded/chopped it. I added onion, mushrooms, garlic and the chopped zuke innards to the cooked chicken, chicken, then mixed all that together with the rice. Seasonings were: couple tablespoons of tomato paste, fresh chopped basil, a splash of mushroom stock, sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Load boats up with bounty, sprinkle with a generous amount of grated cheese (I used my proprietary 3-cheese blend made from hard cheeses from Surdyk's. Bake 1/2 hour.

LOVED 'em, peeps! Absolutely LOVED 'em!! Even Bob, aka Mr. Naysayer, enjoyed them, though he wouldn't eat the boat for some reason—it's totally edible, gets nice and soft after cooking. The hard work was worth it. This recipe could be made totally vegan by skipping the chicken and add more 'shrooms, other veggies—some cubed squash would rock, beans, even—whatever you want, to give it a little more substance. I am not kidding when I say this one huge zucchini, with its contents, could easily feed 4-6 people, if you had a few other veggie sides (I had roasted beets, too). Doing my part to reduce the zucchini population this time of year . . .

btw, I seem to be getting the reputation of Ice Cream Nazi lately, as though I am absolutely forbidding Bob from the delicacy (and my suspicions are that he's the force behind the rumors, but I could be wrong . . .). I am simply scaling back on the treat, to normal serving sizes, and now to a few times a week, instead of a few times a day. For the longest time, it was basically two of his daily meals, and not much else. I'd conservatively estimate that he was consuming almost two cups of ice cream in a sitting—a serving of ice cream is 1/2 cup, at 250 calories, peeps. His ice cream consumption alone was haulin' in close to 1000 calories a "serving"—not to mention topping that off with least 1/2 an Ensure (another 175 calories), a big ol' hosin' down with Hershey's syrup and caramel topping (another 100+ calories) in one sitting. THAT, my peeps, is insane, and absolutely not healthy.

I am not a fan of the "calories, no matter what" philosophy of the medical community, in regard to the chronic, critically ill, but that's what's pushed, by doctors, nurses—so many in the medical field. Which is so crazy, especially when so much evidence strongly supports that nutritionally sound food, mainly from plant sources, is what helps heal the body, help build the immune system—hell, helps all the systems and defenses battle the demon, cancer. The ice cream can supplement, but should not be the main source of calories/nutrition. I know, I know, I know, I'm not the one with cancer, I'm not the one who's emaciated, who had debilitating nausea, severe loss of appetite, horrible mouth sores, but I honestly don't think we've been doing Bob any favors by letting him shovel ice cream at whim into his already critically ill body. This is a matter of tough love, doing something to help, not hinder, Bob's fight. Funny, how we have no problem choking down pills with horrific side effects, or subjecting ourselves to torturous treatments, but "forcing" us to eat well, even when very sick, hell, especially when very sick, is seen a bad thing . . . Sorry, but it's a soapbox upon which I'll step any time . . .

We've got his weight up dramatically, in a relatively short period of time, which rocks the house, man, and now we're on a maintenance program. And, now I'll step down from the soapbox for today . . . oh, and disregard any e-mails, texts, smoke signals or other messages Bob might be sending out, to anyone and everyone, asking to smuggle in extra "goods". . . he is not being held in a dungeon against his will, barred of all real food. He can serve himself up a bowl of ice cream whenever he wants. For the record, we had blueberry pie with ice cream for dessert this noon. Right now, in this moment of time, life is good. . .

Anyhoo, mark August 27th on your calendars . . . big, scary day ahead. . .