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You spend sixteen years with someone, you learn to read signs. The funny thing is, your optimism also gets the better of you. And so, we’re playing that game now. Good moments are blown way out of proportion, bad moments are horrifyingly painful to watch–and quickly pushed back to the cobwebs of the brain.

From the information sheet on Emma’s latest cancer medication:

So, the harsh reality is that Emma’s cancer is so progressed, she’s not ever gonna beat this. We discussed our various options with the vet today, and have decided to continue with the Prednisone and she got a shot of something else today too, some Elspar-something-or-other. IV fluids and “Pred” are the plan of attack. We’re essentially opting for the junior varsity squad; the other, more aggressive options carried too many negatives for us. Heart risks with one protocol, bone marrow issues with another, and all of them would require Emma to take a ride to the vet on a weekly basis for shots and probing and general unpleasantness.

Let me start with a quote, because I heard it in my head repeatedly throughout my (two) viewing(s) of ESPN2’s new miniseries “The Bronx is Burning”:

It’s Lymphoma; both the mediastinal kind and the alimentary kind. Stage IVb. And as we all know from Johnny Sack, there really is no Stage V. Emma’s in serious trouble.

Welp, it looks like Emma’s probably got cancer.

Well, we just returned from the vet, and our fears have been confirmed. Emma is at least in the beginning stages of kidney disease, and she may have cancer to boot. We’ve heard this crap before, and Emma’s always dodged the bullets, but white blood cell counts and BUN values don’t lie. The immediate order is for hydration, and so–armed with a large bag of lactated ringers and a fistful of syringes–I get to do my very best John Gage impersonation on Emma tonight as we try to gradually re-hydrate her in time for tomorrow’s scheduled ultrasound test. Hopefully the ultrasound will allow the vet to get a better look at both the kidneys as well as the mass the she feels in Emma’s gastrointestinal tract, see what that’s all about.

Our beloved cat Emma is just not herself lately. She’s eating less, and as a result, activity at the other end has dropped off sharply as well. She’s lost weight, quite a bit. She’s also broken her last remaining fang, and at 17 years old the vet doesn’t want to operate to remove the root because they’re afraid she won’t survive the surgery (she broke her other fang about ten years ago, and that one’s remains were extracted; she was born without her upper ones – swear to god).

Yeah so last week I wrote a post that purported to be about a cool cruiser bike, but was really a platform for me to bitch about a local bike ride that I felt had fallen into a sad display of Boulder elitism. I railed against these people and their policy of requiring costumes and cruisers on the ride. Since that time, some of the people I was complaining about found my little rant, and posted some seemingly witty retorts; what they really did was show their true colors. Meanwhile, several other bastions of the true spirit of the ride emailed me off-line and showed me the seamy underbelly of the Boulder bikeride/cruiser/chill/hangout groove, and as you might expect, it ain’t pretty.

Begbie was my friends’ dog. Wait, no, he was a SuperDog. And he was their kid, in much the same way Emma is Brenda’s and mine. Unfortunately, Begbie had cancer, and despite battling it like the SuperDog he was, he ultimately decided it was time to concede defeat. Last week, my friends Bill and Lauren had to make that painful decision to euthanize their kid. Lauren sent me some words and some links to pictures, a fond remembrance of their dear departed Begbie. And I just posted it to my site. It was my honor. Go have a look; if you didn’t like Scotties before, you will after this:

My dear friends Bill and Lauren recently lost their SuperDog, family member and all-around great pet, Begbie, to cancer. They put together this tribute for him, and it’s my honor to host it here.

I must have one of these! The Ellsworth “The Ride” is the coolest cruiser bike ever, and I am now accepting donations towards the purchase of one of these bad boys. And I promise to ride it around Boulder and not be an elitist asshole like the local “Boulder Cruiser Bikeride” jerkoffs who have taken their little (formerly large) ride underground (sort-of) and excluded all people who show up on non-cruiser bikes or not in costume (and, let’s face it, costumes are, like, totally stupid, even on Halloween).

One thing I miss out here, having moved 1,797 miles from Yankee Stadium, is of course the chance to see the boys in pinstripes with the white interlocking “NYs” on their chests take the field. Last year was my first full major league season living in Colorado, but the Yankees didn’t make it out here for inter-league play. This year, while reviewing the Rockies schedule I noticed the Yankees were coming to town and I suggested to Brenda that we go; she was very non-committal. I should have figured out what that meant, but of course I didn’t. I found out on my birthday, when I opened my present, which was a pair of tickets to game one of the series, tonight. Not only that, but we would be sitting behind the visitors’ dugout. The Yankee dugout.

Well, Sundays seem so empty now, with Tony Soprano gone and all. But I was pleasantly surprised when Brenda & I sat down to watch the premiere of Flight of the Conchords. Not really knowing anything about these two kiwis or how they were gonna make their “funny folk” act into a TV show, we went in blind. But fifteen seconds into the intro I was hooked. Exactly four minutes in though, the protagonists broke into song at Dave’s party and I was laughing so hard at the lyrics and the presentation that Brenda thought the neighbors were gonna call the cops.

There’s an old joke that goes like this:

So, after eight absolutely fantastic fucking seasons, The Sopranos run has come to an end. The finale was a mixed bag, and the salt in the wound is that the lame-ish ending is followed by the premiere of a fucking surfer show.

Holy crap…

The latest evidence of Outlook’s suck-osity (right-click and select “view image” to see at full resolution):

Three years today; three years since my dad died. And at this point, I’ve got mixed emotions. Today was also the final day of the Giro d’Italia and the penultimate episode of “The Sopranos”. Interesting.

So, my fabulous weekend came to an abrupt halt this morning, quite literally. As I was flying though the air, I thought, yep, weekend’s over. Lemme back up a bit.