In its most basic form, pasta can be made from only two ingredients: flour and water. But while true, it’s deceptively simple, and far from the tastiest or most expressive pasta you can make. Flour is delightfully complicated; there is some interesting chemistry at work within flour and it’s fun
Continue readingTag: Personal reminiscences
Scripturient: Musings on Making Pasta No. 1
Long-time readers here may recall that I used to post about making my own pasta and bread quite frequently some years back. Last spring when I was diagnosed with cancer and then went through surgery and then radiation, I stopped doing both. This week, I finally got back to
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 24
My final week of radiation treatment is here. I should have felt elated that I would no longer be required to drive every day for an hour or more each way as I have for the past six weeks. Everyone told me it would go by in a flash, but
Continue readingScripturient: Musings of a B-Film Junkie
I put a DVD of the 1939 film, The Gorilla, into the player and sat back to watch. Bela Lugosi (above, centre) starred beside the Ritz Brothers (trio above), a popular American comedy trio contemporary with the Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, and the Marx Brothers. This would be the
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 23
I started the New Year with another welcome three days off, with the final third of my radiation treatment ahead in the next few weeks. I can’t say I’ve ever been quite as happy to see a year pass as I have with 2020. As if the widening pandemic, lockdowns,
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 22
Three days off over Xmas from the daily drive felt like a longer holiday, although it wasn’t enough time for my bowels to heal properly. So far an irritable bowel, reduced urine stream, and my hot “flashes” (or surges) are the only side effects I’ve noticed. They are, however, enough
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 21
Hot flashes are becoming more frequent, but I was warned they would be thus in the latter part of the treatment. I’m about halfway through the first stage of the hormone therapy process. My next hormone treatment (Lupron shot) will be given in about six weeks, shortly after my next
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 19
I was fortunate in being able to get my tooth fixed within 48 hours of losing a portion of it. I hadn’t expected to be able to see my dentist for at least a week, maybe even more, but there was an opening, a cancellation, and I grabbed it. I
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 18
Radiation treatment, 2nd session Same process as the first one, albeit a little shorter time to get ready since I already knew what was expected of me, and what items to disrobe. No hiccups or delays. I lie down, get positioned by the therapists, then the bed moves back towards
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 17
Well, it has begun. Today I drove to RVH for my first radiation treatment session, the third stage of my treatment. One hundred forty-one days since my prostate surgery, and roughly 290 since I was first advised of my dangerously elevated PSA level. This is the first of approximately seven
Continue readingScripturient: Still Watching the Three Stooges
There’s a bittersweet pleasure in watching the Three Stooges these days, knowing about them, their careers, their lives. What seems like zany comedy on screen was, like so many celebrity stories, much more complex, contentious, and even tragic at times. But there’s also an insuppressible joy in their work that
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 16
Yesterday, I went for my second bone density scan — aka bone densitometry or dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry — the one that had been planned, but scheduled then delayed twice previously. My first bone scan, like my first CT scan, was done in June, before my surgery. This one was ordered
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 15
“… my only object was that all the world should enjoy itself and live in peace and quiet, without quarrels or troubles; but my good intentions were unavailing to save me from going where I never expect to come back from, with this weight of years upon me and a
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 14
More back and forth to RVH, this time for another CT scan today. I arrived early, as usual, and then spent most of my time there waiting and reading. Not as long as I’ve had to wait in the past, but still a lot longer than the process itself. Like
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 13
It’s been an emotional, roller-coaster week for me (if you’ll pardon the cliché…). Back and forth to Barrie for consultations, scans, and tests, more blood work, phone consultations with doctors and hospital social services staff, schedules set, schedules changed, confusion over medication, appointments upset. All in all a rather trying
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 12
Well, that was easy. Relatively, so. Last Monday I got to remove my catheter all by myself. Not the sort of thing one looks forward to — doing the removing, that is — but I was looking forward to having it gone and able to go back to some normality
Continue readingScripturient: Back to Montaigne
When I find myself in times of trouble, I go back to read Montaigne. Seeking words of wisdom, Read some more… (to the tune of Let It Be, with apologies to the Beatles) I was up late these last few nights reading Michel de Montaigne into the wee, dark hours.
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 11
Anaesthetic must be one of the most remarkable inventions of the 20th century. While various forms of anaesthesia have been used since the ancient Egyptians (with varying degrees of effectiveness), it really wasn’t perfected until the last century. It’s difficult to imagine the horrors of surgery before it became commonly
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 10
My father died of esophageal cancer several years ago. It was a horrible, lingering death, and I watched him shrivel and die, in constant pain towards the end. On one of my last visits to his bedside, he asked me whether I thought it was better to die with the
Continue readingScripturient: It’s *NOT* Junk Mail
I recognize that we all like to apply labels to categorize things, as shorthand in communication and in conversation, and to identify common views and beliefs. I do it myself; we all do: labels are our everyday metaphors. They are fast and easy shortcuts. But I weary at times of
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