Savor

Getting through radiation one day at a time: one down, twenty-seven to go.

Less on my plate. That is what I'm aiming for these days. It's particularly challenging now that I have a radiation each week day: an hour and a half of driving plus two costume changes (in and out of a hospital gown), ten or fifteen minutes lying on the table with two friendly young technicians lining me up just so. When they leave it's just the machine whirring and buzzing and beeping as it zaps me from all the critical angles, and me with my arms up over my head trying not to hold my breath.

Correction, it's not just me and the machine. There's also the light show on the vaulted ceiling -blue then green then blue then green again, with little lights blinking like stars and painted clouds and jazzy Muzak in the background. I find this more disconcerting than pleasant. It's as if radiation was something invented by Disney, which seems very wrong.

But I appreciate the effort.

I've had technical issues with the vlog - my video editing software keeps crashing. Thanks to Google I have that sorted out now though I haven't had time to put the episode in order yet. Bills keep coming and laundry keeps piling up and now our two-year-old refrigerator has gone on its annual summer strike, melting and sweating while the freezer chokes up with frost. Luckily there is produce in the garden and an only half-broken refrigerator in the basement.

And poor Millie, my sweet dog. She has a wounded leg, a deep gash and another welt, who knows what she bashed into but I think I saw it happen, when she leaped back in the tall grass, abandoning her ball chase. I've been back and forth to the vet two days in a row now for her, getting antibiotics and antiseptic and salve and a second look, since the swelling got worse for a while there and I can't keep her from licking at it.

The point is, I'm busy. Just one-fifth of the way into radiation, I'm already getting tired. Yesterday I took what I expected would be a twenty-minute nap and woke up groggy and shaky to a ringing telephone, two hours later. This morning, in what has become my thrice-weekly swim across the lake at Bigelow Hollow, I felt weighted and slow.

I'm still working diligently on my book, my proposal for a cookbook all about preparing food creatively, eating healthy without recipes. On a good day, I get three straight hours to focus on it. The closer I get to done, the more I realize the challenge I've set out for myself is not as easy as I thought.

But I'm determined.

And trying to accept a slower pace.

And drinking a cup of fennel-peppermint-nettle tea before bed.

In service of the cookbook (and my belly) I made my favorite Thai soup, Tom Yum Goong.

Another cookbook test batch: spicy black bean stew.

A treat: fresh figs with cashew cream (cashew butter, hemp milk, agave, cinnamon, nutmeg)

Savor.

Salad today. Thank you, garden.