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Friday, June 21, 2013

Chicken Tikka Masala

Okay, this isn't about cancer, or bikes, either.

I love Indian food.  I have to.  Being a Buddhist, especially a Buddhist who is part of a community in Boulder, means you have to love Indian food.  There's no getting around it.  It's a moral imperative.

Sue and I eat Indian food quite often.  We went to a nearby Indian joint last night.  I ordered Chicken Tikka Masala.  I like Chicken Tikka Masala and it's what I usually order or choose from the buffet when we visit a restaurant we've never been to before.  I don't get the Chicken Tikka Masala at new places simply because I like it.  It's much more practical.  I don't like surprises when it comes to my dinner plate unless it's a surprise I'm ordering.  I don't want to order something I really like from a menu only to find out the cook has his head shoved up his snerve.  So why Chicken Tikka Masala?  It's simple.

All Indian restaurants, everywhere, make their Chicken Tikka Masala exactly the same way.

Chicken Tikka Masala
It doesn't matter if you're at the Taj, or the Himalayan, or Sherpa, or Yak and Yeti.  It won't matter what city, state or perhaps even country you're in, because ....

the Chicken Tikka Masala is always exactly the same, no matter where you go.

I swear that it's a massive conspiracy, a benign and helpful one, but still a conspiracy.  It's a conspiracy to help people find something in Indian food that they can like and feed it to them everywhere.  The humus and nan may be different, the Dal may be spicier, the samosas may be unique, .....

but the Chicken Tikka Masala is always the same.

You can't even make it yourself and not have it taste just like Chicken Tikka Masala at Every Indian Restaurant In The Universe.  A friend of mine's wife makes it at home and he tells me that his wife's Chicken Tikka Masala tastes just like everyone else's.

I'll bet that if you added rabbit turds and small bits of broken glass to Chicken Tikka Masala it would still taste the same as at the Old Bombay Cafe.

It always looks the same.  It always tastes the same. It's even presented pretty much the same way.

You may be scratching your head over the rest of the menu, but if your waiter's come back to the table for the third time, you can always say

Aw fuck it, I'll have the Chicken Tikka Masala.

and you'll know exactly what you'll be getting.

On the other hand it seems very unimaginative, almost Scandinavian, that the Chicken Tikka Masala is always the same.  You wonder why they couldn't try something a little different for a change.  Chefs for other types of cuisine do it all the time.  Why can't somebody try new twist on the Chicken Tikka Masala?  It's simple.  They can't make the Chicken Tikka Masala differently because, well, it's Chicken Tikka Masala and it's an immutable law the universe that ......

Chicken Tikka Masala is always the same.

Want something different?  Try the Pakora.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Homesick

Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til its gone?
~Joni Mitchell

This isn't about bikes or riding them.  It might not even be about cancer - at least not directly.  Ok, it isn't about cancer, either.

I'm from Minnesota originally.  I was born, raised and for many years lived in Duluth.  About 25 years ago I pulled up stakes and moved to Colorado.  I've been here since.  Until recently, I never thought of Colorado as home.  It takes awhile for that sense of place to settle in, but in the last few years I've come to think more of Colorado as home.  Actually, as I told my wife not too long ago ....

My home is wherever you are.

Anyway, today I got homesick.  Not for Colorado.  Homesick for Minnesota.

Courtesy of SS & DS
An old friend, back in Duluth, posted to Facebook some snapshots of a weekend outing with her husband.  One of the pictures was shot across a lake to the far shore, maybe a mile away. The water is dead calm.  Low-hanging clouds.  Green like you can't imagine. So Minnesota.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I could feel the air - warm, humid - palpable.  Even silence has a sound to it and I could hear it.  The smells - rich, heavy, wet - pine mixed with maple, water over black muck. Somewhere, across the lake, a loon calls.....

There's a new man on the lake.

In a rush, there's this pull at the heart - something calling me home, even if only for a day, or an hour.  A feast awaits; a feast for the soul.

And I can't go.

A deep sense of loss.

... you don't know what you've got till it's gone.

Why did I ever leave?

Why can't I go back?

And with all of my heart and every shred of soul I have left, I want to.  More than anything else.

Homesick.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Climbing


I like climbing.

Sorta.

Climbing goes part and parcel with cycling in Colorado   It doesn't matter what kind of cycling you do.  You have to climb around here.  We have these Big Things called the Rocky Mountains.  They're kinda high.  Because we live close to those mountains the terrain here isn't flat.  At least not for very long.  Sooner or later, on any given ride, you have to climb.

Yeah, it hurts sometimes.

If you ride a bike around here, climbing is something you have to make peace with.

I have a love/hate relationship with climbing.  As I approach a climb, there's a certain loathing I experience.  Something in me doesn't want to do the Work.  I think about walking the climb, or I'll consider possible alternatives.  However, at some point, usually just before the slope changes, something automatic kicks in and I just start working.

I start enjoying myself.

When I finally summit the climb, even a short one, I feel an exhilaration.  I feel like Caesar.

Veni. Ego ascendit. Vici.

It's kind of silly-sounding, but climbing with a bike is serious business.  It takes strength, endurance and intelligence.  You have to have strength to push yourself ever higher, be able to carry on to the end, and smart enough to do it right.

I find climbing a useful tool.  I ride a number of climbs regularly and I find that as time goes on I get through these climbs faster.  It's never easier, either. It's like Greg Lemond said.

It never gets easier.  You just get faster.

Climbs that  a year ago, would kick your ass, still kick your ass, but the difference is that as time goes on you don't have to endure the ass-kicking for as long.

And that, dear friends, is progress.

It shows that I'm getting stronger, my lungs are improving and maybe, just maybe, a tad smarter.

I like that.

I also find that once I make it to the Top, that I've been having fun.

I like that, too.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Climbs: Loretto Backside



Not far from our house is one of the best climbs in the city of Denver. I named it "Loretto Backside" after the old name of the nearby college campus, Loretto Heights.

The Backside begins at Knox and Hampden and climbs for just under a mile.  There is an elevation gain of about 200 feet over that distance which works out to an average grade of about 4%.

Don't let that number fool you.  The Backside qualifies as a Categorty 5 climb.  It  starts out easy, but gets progressively steeper reaching a brutal 20% grade in the last third of a mile.  It's a great climb, a fantastic workout, and one of the most challenging short climbs I know of.

I make this climb regularly as a part of two commuting routes I take home.  The Backside looms over the last few miles of my commute, so when I get to the bottom I'm warmed up and ready for some work.

And the Backside provides it.

I take it slow, staying in the saddle until I pass Dartmouth where I stand up and "dance" the rest of the way to the summit.   My ass is pretty much kicked by the time I get there.

And it feels great.

Although I'm not a great or strong climber, I still get a lot of satisfaction from making a tough climb like Loretto Backside.



Create Maps or search from 80 million at MapMyRide

If you find yourself on Bear Creek Trail and want challenge to liven up the ride, simply turn north when Bear Creek crosses Lowell, cross Hampden, and head on up


Some People Collect Stamps ....



.... and I get to collect cancers.

Lovely

We all know about the Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma I have.  About a year ago my doctor diagnosed me with two more.  One is a Basal-Cell Carcinoma and the other is a Squamous-Cell Carcinoma.  Both are skin cancers. Both are related to sun exposure.  They're fairly common.

I decided i really didn't want to know a whole lot about these additions to my "collection".  I just wanted the fucking things gone.  Fortunately these cancers are fairly easy to deal with.  I had the Basal-Cell and one occurrence of of the Squamous removed late last summer.  I had another Squamous-Cell removed from my right temple just the other day.

I went through what's called "Mohs Surgery".  It's fairly straightforward.  They numb you up with Lidocaine.  In my case they used a Lidocaine cocktail of sorts, tailored to reduce the bleeding that would occur because of the Coumadin I take.  Anyway, they numb you up, and then proceed to cut away the affected skin.  They bandage you up and send you back to the waiting room for a couple hours while they send the tissue to the lab for analysis.  If the lab says they got all of the cancer, they stitch or staple you up and send you home.  If the think some cancer was missed, they repeat the process and continue with that until they get it all.

They got mine on the first try.

So they stitched me up.  They had removed an area about the size an almond.  Fortunately the doctor is a plastic surgeon and does a great job making sure I don't end up looking like Frankenstein's monster.  They covered it with a dressing that made it look like I'd been gun-shot, gave me a prescription for Vicodin and sent me home with instructions.

The instructions were of the usual sort.  They included things like keep the area dry, no bending over, keep my blood pressure down ......

And stay off the bike.  For two weeks.

Two fucking weeks.

I was pissed.  Bad enough to loose a day's pay to have somebody dig a almond-sized hunk of flesh off your head.  But to leave the office with instructions to cease a beneficial and fun activity was bordering on the intolerable.  I have a couple centuries in June to train for.  The weather is starting to warm up.  It's glorious out there, and I'm stuck with doctors orders to take it easy.

Bullshit.

But what can you do?

You contemplate your growing collection of cancers and follow doctor's orders.

Bastard.

On the bright side it's less that two weeks till I'm back in the saddle.  I have a dressing change on Friday and maybe the doctor will see that I'm healing beautifully, relent, and let me get back on the bike.

With my luck they'll want to biopsy a suspicious spot on the other side of my face and plan the next Mohs Surgery.

I can hardly wait.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Zero-Sum


Cancer sucks.

Having cancer sucks even more.

For me the suckage comes from a persistent frustration.  I don't feel sick.  I'm not in any pain.  I'm not symptomatic.  I'm not going though chemo or radiation therapy.  It would be the Best Of All Possible Worlds if it wasn't so damned frustrating.  This frustration seems to come from a knowledge that this whole cancer .... thing ...... is going nowhere.  It's not growing or spreading.  We are simply watching it, and waiting for it to grow, or spread to the point where something must be done.  In the meantime, life goes on, pretty much as usual, with the difference being that I know there's a cancer in my body and it's not going away.  There's nothing to do except wait for some event, some indeterminate point in the future, when the shit will finally hit the fan and something will get done.

I hate waiting - waiting for that indeterminate date to arrive.

That's where the frustration comes from.

It's not like I look forward to that day.  The thought of having poison pumped into my body, or my guts burned up from the radiation is repugnant.  Repulsive.

I also understand ..... or believe ..... that day is inevitable.   Sooner or later, my oncologist will say the magic words ....

I think we should start you on some chemo.

The frustration will evaporate, to be replaced by fear - or at least that's what I'm afraid of.

Having a port installed, being nauseated and sick to my stomach all the time, hair falling out, chemo brain, it all scares me and it'll get scarier when it actually begins.  That's what I'm afraid of and it's always there in the back of my mind.  It haunts me.  It frustrates me.

That sucks.  Out loud.

Sometimes I feel lucky that despite the cancer, I still have a reasonable level of good health.  Then I feel guilty when I think about the people I know who have been though things far worse with cancer than what I'm going through.  It's back and forth and back and forth in a perverse zero-sum game I play with myself.  One minute I feel pretty good about things, and the next I feel like shit about it.

And that, I guess, is my karma.

I've been painting a rather bleak picture and for that, gentle reader, I aplogize.  My life isn't non-stop misery.  Having cancer, even a low-grade malignancy like mine is frustrating, but I've found ways to cope.  Perhaps one day soon I'll write about it.

Good has come of it.  I feel I've learned a little something about compassion.  I ponder my own situation and then I consider Shelly, and Jody, and Andy, and Rob and Kelly's wife and all the others who have been through worse than I, and I find in myself a heart that is softer, gentler, and more available than it used to be.  If I'm frustrated by my situation, how must they feel about what they are going, or have gone, through?  How can there not be a place in my heart for these friends, and I wonder, did it take cancer for me to find that place?

Is this the upside of a zero-sum game?

And that thought frustrates as well.