Arkansas Crossroads Quilt

I saw this quilt in a photo and had to make one.  Or I supposed I could say I had to make two, since we're doing one at our church quilting group with white X's.  But I wanted to see what it looked like in my usual black/bright colors.  I finished the blocks today, and I think I like it...

Will add one black and one bright border -- probably pink -- after it's put together.  

I'd Like To Buy A Vowel

A set of rings, spotted on Amazon by an alert friend who posted the link on Facebook.

Eeva' jewelry

Stainless Steel Cz Gem "You're My Love" Engraved Couple Rings Set for Engagement, Promise, Eternity R001 (His Size 7,8,9,10; Her Size 5,6,7,8). Please Email Sizes

 Price: $13.99

The rings are cheap.  Proper grammar, however, will cost you.  I'm guessing the "e" and the apostrophe are an additional $500.

This Is What We're Going Back To

It is May.  The Supreme Court will be ruling on Healthcare Reform in June.  I find myself pacing again, the way I did before Obamacare finally passed in 2010.  This is real, and this matters, and this will affect millions of lives.  If the questions the Supremes asked are taken to their logical conclusion,  the Affordable Care Act is doomed.

The funny thing is, chances are that this will no longer affect me personally.  My son, my cancer survivor kid, has managed to become one of the lucky ones, joining the ranks of College Grads With Good Jobs and Benefits.  He has health insurance. HE HAS HEALTH INSURANCE!!!! Assuming he keeps his job, (say a prayer, cross fingers, knock wood,) he will not be facing a life where he cannot get healthcare due to his lifelong pre-existing condition.  At least not yet. 

But here's the thing:  Millions of others will.  

Millions.

So it seems like a good time to take look back at the world we will be returning to.    

 ********************

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Our Healthcare System, OR: Crying and Throwing Up. And I'm Just the Mom

It was last Monday, maybe halfway through our first appointment with the chemo doctor, and she was explaining to my son and me all of the potential side effects of his going through chemo this summer.

Higher chance of leukemia, for one thing. Oh, and vascular (circulation) effects. As in, for the rest of his life, my son's heart and lungs will be similar to those of somebody who smokes. Several times higher risk of heart attack, high blood pressure, strokes...

And that's when the tears started pressing against my eyelids, and the coffee started boiling in my stomach, and I wanted nothing more than to flee the consultation room run to the bathroom so I could throw up and cry.

I didn't, of course. This was a meeting of grownups, and we were here to figure out the best option, which right now appears to be chemo. So I swallowed both the tears and the bile and pretended this was what was right. And it probably is.

Understand, though, (and I'm speaking here especially to our politicians, particularly to the Republicans and blue-dog Democrats who think our healthcare system is just fine, thankyouverymuch) that this is not the best medical option.

My son's AFP numbers have dropped from 2200 back into the normal level of less than 8. There is less than a 20% chance that the cancer will return. Given the risks of chemo, it would probably be best, medically, to sit back and wait to see if the cancer comes back. If it were to do so, they would then treat it with both chemo and surgery. 

The problem is that this is more than a medical issue. The peak time for testicular cancer to return is 2 to 5 years after the original surgery. My son will be a college junior this year. Two to five years will put him just out of college and in the workforce.

But, unless he's one of the lucky ones to get a job with a large company, it will be almost impossible for him to find health insurance he can afford once he's no longer on our health insurance. He will have a pre-existing condition, which makes him uninsurable. A return of the cancer then would be disastrous, as would a return of cancer while he's still in school, when he'd probably have to drop out for treatment and, because he would no longer be a fulltime student, could no longer be on our health insurance.

And so, next week, he will start chemo, because it's covered, and because he can do it this summer when it won't affect his schooling.

And so we will be embarking on thousands of dollars of treatment which may damage his health in the future almost solely because our healthcare system is screwed up and may not be there for him later on when he needs it.

It's enough to make you want to cry and throw up

Bright and Sharp

And lo, the first of many, many quilt tops made from the Bali batiks has been finished.

Now I need to figure out how to free-motion quilt on my sewing machine. (Quilt pattern is Scrappy Mountain Majesties by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com.)

For Better or Worse

Me, reading the headlines: "Blind Chinese activist flees house arrest. That sounds like the kind of headline that's going to have a punchline at the end."

17-year-old son: "Hmm. I don't see it."

Uh-oh. These kids are just like me.

Word-Lover Musings From a Balinese Mountaintop

Stop laughing. Sarongs are required to enter the temples, okay? 
And these were the only hats we could find. 
P.S. Don't tell Scott I posted this photo

The guide's name was Wayan Bon Jovi. 

At least that's how it was pronounced.  I have no idea how it was spelled, and he couldn't tell me, because he "can't write, can't read, never been to school.  If not for tourists, I be dead in cemetery."
 

It had the rehearsed sound of a prepared speech, one that was honed each day for the tourists who supported him and the seven other people in his household -- wife, parents and four kids.  In fact, he would repeat this same line later in the hike, almost verbatim.  I didn't mind, though, because there was no question that it was true.  Everywhere we went in Bali, we met people supporting large households on one job, usually something related to tourism.  And without exception, they were cheerful, kind, and hospitable.

But Wayan Bon Jovi was unique.  Three-and-a-half years before, when he'd started hosting these hikes, up Mt. Lempuyang's 1700 steps to the Hindu temples, he had spoken no English.  (English is taught in Balinese schools, but that does you no good if your parents can't afford to send you.)  Yet now he was nearly fluent, despite being unable to read a word.  And not only in English, but also in French, the other language spoken by large numbers of tourists in Bali.  Which means that this man with no formal schooling now speaks more languages than 99.99%+ of my fellow countrymen and women.

C'est le temple
(Balinese temples are all open air, incomprehensible to a Seattlite)

"C'est quoi, ça?" he asks a French woman at one of the lower temples, gesturing around him.  What is this? (A rougher, less formal construction than  he would have learned in an actual French class.)

"C'est le temple," she replies. 

"Le temple," he repeats, rolling the word off his tongue a couple of times before storing it away for use on the next French-speaking tourist.  "C'est le temple." 

Over the three or four hours we're together, he practices his English on us in the same way, appealing hugely to my inner word nerd with questions like, "What do you say, 'I wish you to have a good day', or 'I hope you have a good day'?"  The desire to improve, to get better, is palpable.  I find myself thinking that this is a way to take control of his life after forty-some years of having little control due to poverty and lack of opportunity.  The better his language skills, the better the experience for the tourists.  And, with luck, the better the experience, the more they will pay.  Words are currency, almost literally.  For someone who loves language as much as I do, this is both fascinating and touching.

His charge for the 3-4 hour hike up and back, including "temple offering," is 250,000 rupiah, or about $28.  Twice, he speaks with awe about the American tourist who gave him 300,000 rupiah.  And even though his intent in telling us this is obvious, it's impossible to resent him for it, because it is just as obvious that he has worked hard to get to where he is, and he deserves whatever he can make. 

(Oh, and he protects us from the Evil Monkeys.  Which by itself was probably worth the extra 50,000 rupiahs.)

Much cuter when they're behind bars.

(The monkeys, not the Germans)

We reach the top temple, and the view is breathtaking. 

The entrance to the top temple

In the absence of a Christian church, not a bad way to celebrate Easter.

Wayan Bon Jovi and me, at the peak

We have managed to arrive at the temple during the three-day full moon ceremony. At each of the temples on the mountain there are dozens of Hindu temple-goers, many of them carrying offerings on their heads to be left at the temples.  Wayan introduces one of the temple priests as his uncle. "His uncle, not his ankle," the uncle chuckles, pointing at his lower leg. And I find myself marveling at this ability to create English-language humor on a Balinese mountaintop. 

When we leave the peak, we take a shortcut down, avoiding several hundred stairs by heading down a steep trail that's still muddy from the just-ended monsoon season.  My feet keep slipping out from under me, and it's an effort to not catch myself on the cables running beside the trail.  They look like hiker supports, but turn out to be live power lines.  (Because in impoverished countries, they don't have the money to protect you from your own stupidity.)  Despite my best efforts, I fall a couple of times, landing on my hands in an attempt to protect my favorite capris and borrowed sarong from the sticky yellow clay. 

"You okay?" says Wayan Bon Jovi after the second fall.

"Fine," I say.  "It's just very slippery."

"Slippery," he repeats thoughtfully, absorbing the new word.

"Very slippery," I say. 

He nods, reaching to help me up, saying the word once more before filing it away.  I am certain that it will be pulled out again with each future group of tourists until the mud finally dries.  "Careful," he will say, "It is very...slippery." 

Imagining this makes me smile. 

We reach the bottom of the mountain and he pulls out his cell phone and gives my husband his number, insisting we call him and come to visit if we ever return to Bali.  He shows us photos of his family, and of the tourists -- fresh-faced Australian twenty-somethings -- who have taken him up on his offer of a visit.  This kind of hospitality is everywhere in Bali; people are constantly offering to share what they have, even when they have very little. 

Wayan Bon Jovi hugs us goodbye as we leave, kissing me on both cheeks.  I reflect that he must have learned that from the French, because it does not seem to be a Balinese custom, and it's definitely not American.  Balinese man, American tourists, French customs.  Three separate continents in one act. 

Small world, this. 

As we watch him walk away, I say a small Easter prayer for this fellow lover of language who has found his way into my heart: 

May your words and hard work continue to help you reach your dreams, Wayan Bon Jovi.

The Joys of Jet Lag

Jet lag in Bali meant that I was awake at some time between 3 and 5 most mornings.

But this meant that I could slip outside  and pop into the pool to go for a moonlight swim, all by myself.

Or I could watch the sunrise.