Fourteen Years

Today is part one of the two day celebration that is our Wedding Anniversary.

Gerry and I were married by a judge on Friday, Aug 20, 1993. Then on Saturday we had a larger 'spiritual', non-religious, ceremony for family and friends.

Fourteen years today. The traditional gift for a 14th anniversary is ivory or an elephant related gift. I got Gerry a refurbished ipod. It's black, but it has white earbuds (almost ivory?)

He's been listening to it all morning - Confessions of an Economic Hitman - during his 5-hour stem cell harvesting session today. I can tell it's wearing him out, but so far he's not suffering the side effects they've mentioned; tingly fingers or nose, nausea.

Our big celebration today will be returning to the hotel and putting Gerry to bed. I'll run out and get him a nice grilled chicken breast or salmon (he's supposed to have protein, but not fatty stuff, during the harvest)

I'm going to see if it's okay if he has a little champagne.

Our nurse today, Ken, turned Gerry onto Duckman - here they are watching it on youtube.

Couple of nuts.

RAINCHESTER
You may have heard about the flooding in Southeast MN. We're a little west of there, but down the street from us a creek overflowed it's banks, so we stopped to take some photos. Gawkers. It was fascinating to see this water running so fast, so hard - fascinating and scary. It's very easy to see how someone could be swept away in an instant.

Today we're supposed to get another 3 inches here in Rochester.

It feels like it's happening on another planet, we're so engrossed in Gerry's own drama.

During a break in the rain we went out to pick up dinner last night, but as soon as we hit the highway the deluge started. So hard, so fast, this is NOT the kind of rain that's needed down here... It's not good for anything.

This is either a car ahead of us, or two VERY angry Mooses.

VICTORY GARDEN
I really love vegetables as landscaping.

I remember about 20 years ago when I first saw cabbages used in front of hotels in Philadelphia for decoration.

And I really loved the uncle in the movie, Withnail & I, who wore radishes on his lapel like a boutonniere.

So ladies and knitters, I bring you the Minnesota version of yard beautification, Veg-scaping.

Extra Musical Note:
As we were leaving the Gonda building, the music of choice today was "Seasons in the Sun" Seriously.

I walked all the way to the car and had the walker and our various bags half packed up before I realized what I was humming. Now we're back home and Gerry's been asleep for a few hours, he'll sleep all night and tomorrow at 8:00 we're back to the aphasis machine!