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Recipe: grilled marinated flank steak

A yellow dusting of pine pollen appeared on *everything* just two days ago. Pine tree sex has begun in earnest. Before long, nothing that remains outside will be safe from a plastering of yellow pollen – NOTHING! I don’t mind the pollen powder getting all over the place as long as I don’t think of it as a major orgy going on in my yard… But it does wreak havoc on my allergies. It didn’t seem to bother Kaweah much while she sprawled out on the deck this afternoon.

what, is there something on my face?

We were all chilling out on the deck this afternoon because our second visitor P.C. (post chemo) arrived at noon. My dear friend was in the state for a wedding and dropped by our mountain abode for lunch and a short stroll before flying home. Neither of us considers ourself to be an emotional creature, but we could not help a few tears when we greeted and embraced.

a lovely friend on a lovely day

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Recipe: blackberry ice cream

I’m not cooking or baking as much as I’d like and that’s mostly because I’m dealing with unpleasant physical issues related to my least favorite of my chemo drugs. [I know that the last infusion was almost 6 weeks ago, but please tell that to the drugs…] I met with my oncologist this morning and he hasn’t seen it before in his many years of poisoning cancer patients. Great! I’m exceptional in every frakking way… Meanwhile, it would seem that all of my medical appointments have piled together lately such that I fell asleep on the table last night during my heart scan. Well, I’d rather sleep through Journey wailing over the speakers than listen to it while isotopes go racing through my heart.

[While waiting for my radiation appointment this afternoon, I’m killing time by blogging from a bakery in Boulder. Dude half my age just walked past and winked at me. WTF?]

Yesterday evening as Jeremy drove me to my heart scan down on the flats, I spied some mammata forming in the distance. Mammata clouds are typical precursors to tornadoes. In very simple terms, they indicate instability in the atmosphere. We see a lot of them in the summer around these parts.

mammata: look like giant grapes or… boobies

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Recipe: chinese stir-fried pork and soy beans

Admittedly, I haven’t been cooking much lately. I’ve been having a few issues with my left arm as well as a few other annoying and lingering side effects, thanks to chemo – the gift that keeps on giving… or not. I’m doing my best to ride it out and be patient (ha!) because getting my panties in a wad over it isn’t going to make anything better. On Saturday, our pal drove up to our place and we all went for a nice hike with the crazy (Kaweah) in tow – or rather towing Jeremy along at the end of the leash. The spring runoff is the highest we’ve seen it in our three years here. We’re having a late thaw and we also had some nice late season dumps in the high country.

runoff was high

but that didn’t stop miss crazy from gettin’ her swim in

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