Miscellania

St. Mary's had a Vestry retreat over the weekend at the Church of the Good Shepherd in the Corral di Tierra area. They let us use there facility in exchange for our letting them come in and have there retreat at our facility. It was nice to have the change of scenery, and the weather couldn't have been nicer, with blue skies and temperatures in the 70s. The church is nestled in a valley among the oak trees, and has a small hill as its back yard. During the lunch break many of us took a short hike to the top, and were rewarded with the above view looking over the hills of Laguna Seca and Fort Ord all the way across the bay to the Santa Cruz mountains. It was a very relaxing and restorative time.

I went to see the radiation oncologist again last week to tell him of my decision to have the implants. The next step is to have some testing done to make sure there is no problem with the urinary tract that would rule out such a procedure. It is not something that the patient is normally aware of, but can be very problematic if not identified prior to treatment. The encouraging thing was his characterization of my tumor as "minuscule with a small 'm'". Stay tuned!

My mother seems to be doing somewhat better. She has been taking walks up and down our block every day, and I even got her to the grocery store on Monday. At first she protested, but once she got inside she had a ball. Everyone was glad to see her (she is quite an institution there) and she was able to pick out some things she had been wanting but had been able to describe correctly to allow someone else to get for her. Case in point - Bok Choy. She kept thinking it was Endive, and would be so disappointed when we would pick up the one she had named instead of the one she meant! The visiting nurses and physical therapists are still coming on a regular basis, and she takes all of the exercises they have assigned her to heart. She is a real fighter, that's for sure.

Last night was the first Camerata rehearsal for the May concert. We will be singing (among other things) an arrangement I wrote of Idumea, so I am very excited about that. The program is very different from what we usually do, with lots of songs in the folk and patriotic idioms. It is going to be a lot of fun.