It has been a couple of months since move-in day and we are settling down. The house is beginning to feel like our home. It is taking time, but the neighborhood is beginning to feel like our neighborhood as well. The neighbors, all very friendly, have been stopping by, bearing gifts and eager for the house tour. With the arrival of warmer weather and the imminent delivery of our pond swans, we will feel even more in touch with our surroundings.

The last month has seen the IQ of the house rise dramatically. Not the IQ of the inhabitants, our brains are no longer adding neural networks, but of the house itself. First I discovered that our garage door opener was more than a motor and lights switch.I can check my phone and find out if once again I have forgotten to close the garage door on my way to work in the morning. The opener also tells me for exactly how long the door has been closed, a feature whose necessity I have not yet fathomed. Maybe if we had teenage kids trying to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night…

Next I got tired of switching on five different lights switches scattered all around the house to turn on our outside evening lighting. Sure, I could have installed individual in-wall timers for each of those, but resetting each of those as the days become longer is more than my slightly past middle-aged eyes can handle. So while our low voltage/wireless/wi-fi/cable team was tweaking our alarm system we asked them to install a smart controller system for the outside lights, and then, in for a penny in for a pound,  added in controllers for the inside lights that Barb likes for ambiance. It has taken me a while to master the “scenes” and “schedules” the controllers provide for, but I am well on my way to becoming a smartphone lighting impresario.

Our wireless house sound system is doing just fine as a smart feature on our phones. It is the hard-wired stuff, the interface between Comcast and some of our TV’s that has been an issue. Some online research has revealed that we are not the only ones having problems with Xfinity boxes not behaving well with newer Sony sets. So far neither Abt Appliances, Comcast, or our cable team have a solution to this one. A swap out may be the answer. Any suggestions on the best brand to replace our Sony’s with?

Yesterday we had a long awaited walk-through with our HVAC contractor, a nice young man, rightfully proud of the job his company had done in the house. We reviewed furnaces, humidifiers, air balancing, and the new thermostats. Of course, the ‘stats are also much smarter than mere mortals, anticipating our needs and wants, calling for service whenever they feel the need, and changing colors to match our wall paint.  When starting this project two years ago we didn’t dare dream we would have chameleons on the wall with brains bigger than IBM’s Watson.

The crystal is shining, prismatically fracturing the rays of light into rainbows on the dining room walls. Shades and shutters are being installed,  and we are making plans for our first ever holiday celebration in the new house. The grass is growing greener, and every day we, and the house, grow a little bit smarter.

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We are in the Westchester Panera.  Barb has brought our granddaughters to the western ‘burbs for a rare treat, lunch out followed by a visit to Baba’s lab. The girls are entertaining the crowd as they always do, generous with their giggles and smiles and waves. An older couple, who tell us they have five grandkids of their own, seem particularly entranced.

Our food arrives and we begin the balancing act of eating our own lunch while keeping a one-year-old and a three-year-old fed, clean, and happy. Nana and Baba are quick with the wipes, not wanting the macaroni and cheese to fuse with the squeezable yogurt into an organic Gorilla Glue on the girls’ chins.

“hold my hand”–Hootie and the Blowfish

Barb nudges me. “Don’t look now, but they are holding hands.”

“Huh?”

“That older couple we were talking to. They are reaching across their table and holding hands. It is so cute!”

“holding hands and skimming stones”–Elton John

I casually look over my shoulder to witness the elderly couple as they hold hands and chat while waiting for the server to bring their order. They see us watching and smile.

“How long are you married?” Barb asks, gambling that this is a long-lived love affair and not a new infatuation.

“53 years,” they say in unison.

“I want to hold your hand”–The Beatles

Barb and I both do the math. That’s 15 years longer than the two of us have been married. Not such a long time. We will hit 53 years of marriage in our mid-70’s. Will we be sitting in the 2032 equivalent of Panera, holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes?

Barb still takes my hand when we walk across a parking lot. Sometimes we hold hands in the car, even as I barrel down the fast lane of the Tristate, cruise control set and just one hand on the steering wheel.  It’s not something we think about, just something that happens.

“hands, touching hands” –Neil Diamond

There are supposedly scientific reasons for hand holding. Yeah, that kind of science is air quotes “science.” For us, it is a connection, and more than that, a contentment. I think we can keep that up for another 15 years. Better yet, I think we will shoot for another 30! What do you think, Barb?

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photo credit: JPott Love is in the Air via photopin (license)

Good things come to those who wait. Back when I was an underaged Northwestern undergrad, circa 1972, football and basketball, the “big” sports of the Big Ten, were an afterthought, or more truthfully, a non-thought for most of the student body. The last place football team had just graduated Mike Adamle, its only star, and the basketball team was  rooted even more deeply in the cellar. I got my education, my degree, my med school admission without once getting the nerve to scream out “Go Cats!” And no one cared.

I didn’t even think about NU athletics until the mid ’90s. Then came Fitz, Darnell Autry, Gary Barnett and an upset win at Notre Dame. Son Michael pushed me onto the bandwagon and with him I went to Evanston to watch NU play for the first time in over 20 years. Soon there was a Big Ten Football Championship and I almost won Rose Bowl tickets from Roy Leonard, my WGN radio favorite.

But then Barnett left for Colorado, Fitz and Autry graduated and after a few years Purple Fever lost its heat.

Despite the cooling, Mike and I  maintained a tradition of one NU football game a year. We cringed through critical broken bones (receiver D’wayne Bates), historic blown leads (against Michigan State 2006) and a scary road trip to Madison. We threw in a basketball game now and then, highlighted bywatching 6th year Senior Evan Eschmeyer and his  ‘Cats lose in the NIT to local rival DePaul.

This year, basketball hopes and hoops were of a higher caliber. Then Mike and I sat in the cheap seats for the Northwestern-Illinois game last month. As we left Welsh Ryan Arena with all the other disappointed fans, I thought the NCAA Tournament dream was ending again. But no–some big late season wins and here we are, dancing! The exciting first round win aided by bad Vanderbilt mistakes, clutch free throws, and lots of screen time for player-mom Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Tomorrow we face number one seed Gonzaga, a school that was almost unheard of not that long ago. I’m afraid that game maybe a rough one, but as Michael told me, I need to just sit back and enjoy the ride. And always be proud to scream out “Go ‘Cats.”

Pass it on!

 

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Thanks to all for their kind thoughts on my previous post about Barb. She and I saw “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” last night. Among other things, it reminded us of the power of rock’n’roll. And political movements need a sound. After all, the French Revolution had La Marseillaise and people have been singing that number for more than 200 years. We have Trump. So turning to my rock’n’roll musical roots, here are my

Fifteen for Freedom:

1. Blowin’ in the Wind, Bob Dylan:

   Sure there were folk singing protesters before Bob, but his music changed the world. How many years can a people exist?

2. London Calling, The Clash:

   Punk rock of the ’70s, challenging police brutality and nuclear accidents with a great howl.

3. Sunday Bloody Sunday, U2:

   Bono says this is not a rebel song, but with that military beat, you you want to get to your feet and fight for what’s right.

4. For What It’s Worth, Buffalo Springfield:

   “There’s something happening here.” Say it Steven!

5. Where’s The Revolution, Depech Mode:

   The only current song on the list, it speaks directly to today. But that is something all of these songs do.

6. Dialogue Part I and II, Chicago:

   Maybe not the song that finally got Chicago into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame, but “don’t you feel repression, just closing in around?”

7. Pompeii, Bastille:

   Of course natural disasters have always been around, but our new EPAChief shouldn’t be guiding us to avoidable calamities.

8. Shape of Things to Come, Max Frost and the Troopers:

   From the 1968 movie Wild in the Streets, “a cult classic of counterculture.”

9. Imagine, John Lennon:

   I don’t particularly care for this Lennon classic, but there is a requirement that it be included on any list of songs of the past 50 years.

10. Street Fighting Man, The Rolling Stones.

    Mick went to the London School of Economics. he gets it.

11. Revolution, The Beatles:

    Cause I love the great guitar intro, and you know, its the Beatles.

12. Volunteers, Jefferson Airplane:

    For Grace Slick, I “got a revolution”.

13. War, Edwin Starr:

    Be it trade war, currency war, or fighting war, do I even have to ask, what is it good for?

14. Holiday, Green Day:

    When Billie Joe Armstrong wrote “Sieg heil to the president gasman” in 2005 was he looking at the future through a crystal ball?

15. Won’t Get Fooled Again, The Who.

    The greatest album, the greatest song, the greatest scream. But this time around, the new boss just ain’t the same as the old boss.

It’s not an all inclusive list, feel free to add your own thoughts. Or better yet, write the new song of sanity. Maybe people will be singing it 200 years from now!

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Sometimes I forget. Five years ago this month, we were parents of the groom, busy preparing for Michael and Becca’s upcoming summer wedding. Dresses were being bought, tuxedos fitted, showers enjoyed, revisions being made to the rehearsal dinner when the intended site went out of business without a word to us. Almost incidentally, at the time of a different surgical procedure, Barb had a small lesion removed from her calf.

We were dealing with some complications of the primary surgery when the surgeon, herself stunned, told Barb that the leg lesion was a malignant melanoma. In disbelief, I did what any pathologist would do, and asked for the slides. I reviewed them and circulated them to additional colleagues,  especially dermatopathologists, who specialize in diagnosing diseases of the skin. Although the presentation was unusual, and the slides a little confounding, there was eventually no doubt that the original diagnosis was correct.

We entered the world of the Northwestern University medical system. Consultations and scans, and at the end of March, a major leg excision and lymph node dissection. As Barb lay in recovery, I was busy texting and calling friends and family, passing the word that the surgery had gone smoothly. The oncologic surgeon and plastic surgeon were both confident in their work, though I have yet to meet a surgeon who was not.

Barb came home to a painful post-op period, perhaps made a little more difficult by my aversion to narcotic pain killers. She probably suffered a bit more than necessary, but was able to keep a clear head and avoid any risks, long or short term, from opiods. The recovery, tough as it was,  was aided by the attention of her loyal friends, who I tagged as the Sisterhood of Barb. These ladies gave of themselves to ensure that all of our needs were met or exceeded. Their support was a Godsend.

The final pathology report was what we had hoped for. No residual tumor at the leg site, and no malignant cells within the lymph nodes. At this point the oncologic surgeon admitted he had been a bit concerned at the time of the surgery, the nodes being somewhat larger than he had anticipated. Fortunately, that was just the result of Barb’s immune system responding to the insult of the original operation.

For the next few months joy over the wedding was interspersed with ongoing medical follow up. Frequent appointments with an oncologic dermatologist and the two surgeons. My battles with them over proper staging of the tumor, and what it meant for the long term prognosis. (Why does it have to take a pathologist to correctly interpret a pathology report?) We learned the intricacies of the Northwestern parking garage and waved goodbye as the less than patient friendly dermatologist moved to the East Coast. Finally, the pièce de résistance, full body surveillance photography au naturel. Those are photos that I have never looked at and have promised to Barb I never will!

Barb and I are no strangers to the ravages of cancer. Barb lost her dad, and I lost my father and sister, all before their time, to malignancies. I see it every day professionally. While we know of the advances in therapy, with Jimmy Carter the poster boy for successful treatment of advanced melanoma, we also know that the new immunotherapies don’t work for everyone. So five years later, as we prepare for Laury and Alex’s wedding, this time as parents of the bride, it is time to take a break and give thanks for the good life the last five years have brought us. Because sometimes I forget. But Barb never will.

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Sitting at my microscope all day, I listen to a lot of radio. Since the reception in my office is poor for the public radio station and since I don’t have a satellite receiver, most of that time is spent listening to good old fashioned terrestrial commercial radio. So I hear a lot of ads. On the sports channel they are aimed at young males, on the high brow rock station the baby boomers get the pitch.  Most of the spots go right past me, just background noise between Beatle songs and Bears’ rants. But recently I was in the market for a new wireless printer, so I paid attention when I heard talk of toners or ink.

The ads I was hearing most frequently were for the new Epson printer with their EcoTank ink technology. No need to refill ink for two years! And to let us know just how long two years is, Epson was running two different commercials. The first, with a male voice, was telling us that in two years you could fly to Mars. And the second commercial, using a female announcer, told us that two years is enough time to have babies. Twice!!

I may not be the most sensitive guy. I may still have some of my 1950’s-1960’s gender prejudices intact. But even I know it doesn’t sound right telling men to be astronauts and women to be mommies. I know Silicon Valley is a Big Boy’s Club, but didn’t Carly Fiorina crash that microchip ceiling when she became CEO of Hewlett-Packard? I know it didn’t last long, and that eventually Candidate Trump had his way with her, but shouldn’t the tech companies, or at least their ad agency, have progressed from the Neanderthal age?

In an effort to set Epson straight, here are a few things women have done in the two years it took to empty out one of those long lasting print cartridges:

• Win over 65 million votes for President of the United States.
• Be Chancellor of Germany.
• Be one of more that 20 CEO’s of Fortune 500 Companies.
• Prepare for that flight to Mars.
• Get behind the wheel of a Nascar racecar.
• Qualify for a national spelling bee.
• Chair the Federal Reserve.
• Make Music.
• Make More Music.
• Assume the Iron Throne.
• and yes if she wants, have babies!

Because there shouldn’t be anything a woman can’t do!

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