Three days without internet access.

Better get caught up!

Yosemite was beautiful. The weather was crisp and clear -- bundle up weather, with no rain -- and there were gorgeous fall leaves still on the trees. I've always been there in season, along with all of the other tourists. This time the crowds weren't overwhelming, and it was nice to see the park in a different light.

We went on walks, listened to a lecture on crows and ravens, went on a ranger walk about trees. Then on Sunday we drove home, ran errands and rested, and then went to the city, where we met folks for dinner to celebrate Eric's birthday. Forty-seven years old, and three hundred percent more handsome than the next most handsome man... those are some fine statistics.

I worry that I complain too much in this blog. Complain too much for what, you may ask? Well, that's a good question, and I don't have an answer. I don't know. It's just my sense of things.

It feels ungrateful. If I write about the bad stuff, am I giving all of the good stuff short shrift?

On Saturday night in Yosemite I tripped and fell onto my hands and knees. My advise to you: if you have a broken clavicle, and cancer in your sternum, don't trip and fall onto your hands and knees.

I can't string together the words that will tell this story. It wasn't the worst fall in the world. It wasn't horrible or anything. I was reassuring Eric, whose heart had jumped into his throat, before I even got off the ground. I don't know how to say what I want to say. It's two in the morning, and I'm dying by drips and drabs.

I'll drop it.

I'm leaving work a little after noon today, to go to Kaiser for my 90-minute infusion. I keep forgetting to drink water, so that I have nice veins for the nice nurses in the chemotherapy suite.

I'll drop that.

In five days I'm leaving for Los Angeles and a cruise to Mexico. A lot to do between now and then.

November has been a busy month, and it's getting busier all the time.

Eric was 29 when I met him. (I thought he was kinda old.) He was handsome and tan and carefree. He had the sweetest smile, and he was just so.... bitchin'. He knew things, and he could do things -- he was capable and playful, hooked up, dialed in, and and so cool that he wasn't a bit worried about playing the fool. I'd never met anyone like him, and I haven't since.

On Tuesday I'll have shared 18 birthdays with Eric, who has lost his dark brown tan, and who definitely has cares, and who is more handsome to me than I ever could have imagined then. He's still the bitchingest person I know. Eighteen birthdays is a beggar's ration of birthdays to me now. There could never be enough years to be with Eric. (Sappy, yes... but it's true.)