Where Does the Time Go?

I did a Google search today and was surprised to be reminded that today is the first day of Autumn. That prompted me to think, and I realized that my cancer diagnosis came just a few weeks before the summer solstice. This mean my entire summer was consumed by cancer. It was the Summer of Cancer, which totally sucks.

Even worse, if the oncologist's projections are correct, autumn will be the Autumn of Cancer, possibly (and probably) followed by the Winter of Cancer, depending on what's involved in any post-chemo follow-ups.

Given this, I'm ready to start gearing up for the Spring of Ignoring Anything and Everything That Even Remotely Relates to Healthcare. Accordingly, my birthday present to myself was a book called The Best Place to Be Today, published by Lonely Planet. It's a catalog of 365 entries telling you the best place to be and the best thing to do on any given day of the year. 

For example, the recommendations for the first week of March are: 1, leopard spotting in the Yala National Park in Sri Lanka; 2, hiking the Mountains of the Moon in Uganda; 3, tubing down the Caves Branch River in Belize; 4, attending the Auckland Festival in New Zealand; 5, watching hawksbill turtles lay their eggs in Borneo; 6, throwing paint at Holi, the rainbow festival in India; and 7, kicking off the Iditarod race in Alaska.*

I will be very grumpy if I don't actually make it to one of these best places (or one of the eighty or so other options) on its designated day sometime in the coming spring. Three seasons dedicated to cancer is plenty; by spring I will be ready for something that's as far from cancer as a person can get. 

But in the meantime, tomorrow is Cycle 5. I'd much rather be in Borneo.

* Clearly, one has to choose which day of the month on which to maximize one's experience. I'm not sure you could even get from Sri Lanka to Uganda to Belize to New Zealand to Borneo to India to Alaska on a day by day basis, even if you thought for some insane reason that it might be a good idea to try.