Sixty-Three Minutes to the Next $30,000 Thursday

A few quick updates since it's late and tomorrow's a dreadful day:

1. The SCCA sent me an email today letting me know they've scheduled my next scan (not a PET scan, thank god): Next Tuesday. I probably won't get the results before I leave for Antarctica, but I should get them at the following appointment which is right after I get back. It's good timing, as this one's going to feed the next big decision: continue with the chemo or stop treatment completely. The last "I'm done" decision came at the turn of last year, so there's some nice symmetry here.

2. Why is it that if you give a cat a play toy, that toy is inevitably going to wind up under the couch? I gave Kevin the two sparkly glitter balls that came in her package of presents, and almost immediately they went under the couch. I tried to get a picture of Kevin trying to extract them, which was pretty amusing, but it didn't take. 

3. Another leg has been added to the GCW Tour. My siblings are leaving their spouses, children and pets at home and the four of us are going to spend Christmas week in Costa Rica. This will be the first time the four of us have been on a vacation like this since, well, ever. We might have taken family vacations with our parents as kids, but after that, the closest we've come to a siblings only trip was a long weekend on Catalina Island that Mum arranged when I was in college, and for that trip spouses (and boyfriends and girlfriends) were invited along. So this will be something new -- and will check off a box on my pointless accomplishments list -- as I thought it would be fun for the four survivors of our particular family dysfunction to have some time together before there's only three survivors. 

4. Speaking of my pointless accomplishments list, there are just forty-five days remaining before the new Star Wars movie comes out, so unless I get hit by a bus, it's hard to see me not completing that task. However, yesterday I read about the "Force for Daniel," a campaign to get the filmmakers to arrange for an early screening for Daniel Fleetwood, a thirty-two-year-old Star Wars fan who is dying from cancer, is now in hospice and isn't likely to live the necessary forty-five more days. A number of the stars of the new film, including Mark Hamill, have expressed their support, so here's hoping Daniel gets the chance to sit in a dark theater and watch the force awaken -- and Luke, Leia and Han Solo try not to break a hip as they shuffle their walkers out of the way of the stormtroopers -- before he passes away.

5. Kevin continues to make progress towards becoming a social being, though I fear that she may ultimately be hindered by the fact that I'm her model. I heard a number of jokes today about the irony involved in me trying to train anyone, or anything, to be more social. Fair enough. 

And now I'm going to go to bed and try not to think about tomorrow. Or maybe I'll stay up, kill zombies on my Xbox and try not to think about tomorrow. Or I could watch Ash vs. the Evil Dead on my DVR and try not to think about tomorrow. Or consume the cannabis-laden brownies, chocolate and tea now in my possession and try not to think about tomorrow.

Who am I kidding? If I ate the five remaining brownies, and the chocolate, and drank the tea, I'm not sure my brain would even be able to form a coherent thought, so I don't think we'll do that tonight lest I fail to make it to the cancer clinic tomorrow.