Lucky for me, unlucky for me

I remember that some time back in elementary school, my older brother Larry (the middle of 3 boys) had this assignment that involved pairing examples of "Lucky for me foo, unlucky for me bar".  (See here if you're not sufficiently geeky to know what I mean by foo and bar.)  While not entirely faithful to the format, here's a small window into my life, expressed as such a rendition.

Lucky for me, Lodge said they'd be willing to send us a free replacement cast iron skillet for the one that I broke.

Unlucky for me, we still don't have it.  And I forgot to ask how long it would take to receive the new one.

Lucky for me, prior to breaking the french press glass, I remembered seeing replacement glass pieces at Berkeley Bowl.

Unlucky for me, I have foggy chemo brain, and when I went to the Bowl to buy one, it turns out that they don't actually sell them.

Lucky for me, on my third try, I actually found the store that does sell them.  (Andronico's, if anyone else out there is local and ever finds themselves with a similar need.)

Lucky for me, I found a replacement tea kettle on ebay, identical to the one that I broke.

Lucky for me, I received the package within days.

Unlucky for me, the ebay description was a lie.  And the inside of the tea kettle was rusted.  With a hole in the bottom.  Making it somewhat useless as a tea kettle.

Lucky for me, all I really needed was the handle.  Which I was able to transfer to our old kettle.

Lucky for me, when I contacted the ebay seller, he promptly refunded my money.  So I actually fixed our old kettle for free.

Lucky for me, my white blood count is back up.  So I'm off antibiotics.

Unlucky for me, my oncologist thinks the same thing is likely to happen again next cycle.  And that there's nothing I can do about it.

Lucky for me, I had my [hopefully] last Lupron shot this past week.  I hate the side effects.

No unlucky for me yet on that one.  Unless it turns out I need more than 8 rounds of chemo.  Which I'm trying to keep myself mentally prepared for as a possibility.  But it would still suck.

Lucky for me, Lorien's mother is visiting for the week.  Free babysitting!  Okay, there's much more to it than that.  And we haven't actually even taken her up on that offer yet.  But the bits that she helps out looking after Dylan on a day to day basis are very much appreciated.

Unlucky for me, she brought a bona fide physical representation of my latest nemesis, Big Bird.

Okay, I'm (kind of) just kidding.  Lucky for me, Dylan is quite enamored of the Big Bird doll, so I'm happy he's happy.  He even wants to sleep with it sometimes.  And it's adorable when he dances and plays his guitar to Big Bird's rendition of the ABC song.  And the physical Big Bird seems to satisfy his Big Bird cravings, without having to resort to videos.

Unlucky for me, Big Bird doesn't have an off switch.  Seriously.  The only way to guarantee that it won't make any noise is to pull the battery.  What kind of sadist designs a toy that you can't get to shut up?

Lucky for me, even though Dylan is sleeping with Big Bird right now and I didn't pull the battery this time, Dylan hasn't rolled over on it and caused it to make a noise and wake him up.  Yet.

Lucky for me, we took Dylan to the Discovery Museum in Sausalito, and he had a great time.

Lucky for me, we (mostly) got in for free, as the Berkeley Public Library now has a program where you can check out all sorts of museum passes with your library card.  (Our previous taking advantage of this was for the Oakland Zoo.)

Unlucky for me, we (Lorien too) somehow forgot to bring our jackets, despite this being "summer" in the Bay Area, and the museum being right by the north end of the Golden Gate bridge, and it being somewhat cold and windy.

Lucky for me, there was stuff inside too.

Lucky for me, we have an abundance of amazing produce available to us, and it's the peak of stone fruit season, and you can taste just about all of it to decide which of the huge selection is best to get at the various farmers' markets.

Lucky for me, Dylan was really into the live music we saw last night while having dinner at the cheeseboard, even though he was up past what ought to be his bed time.

Unlucky for me, I got us on such a late schedule that I didn't start baking a ginger peach pie (with the above mentioned amazing peaches) until way later than I had planned.  And it took a lot longer to make than I had planned.  Which all caused me to get to bed later than I had planned.

Lucky for me, it was amazing.  Lorien thinks it's one of my best pies ever.  While I think it's pretty awesome, I'm ultimately still partial to raspberry/olallieberry pie.

Unlucky for me, there still aren't any organic olallieberries available in the market.  #berkeleyproblem

Lucky for me, we took Dylan to the Berkeley Marina today to fly kites.  And look at boats (another one of Dylan's recent obsessions).

Unlucky for me, soon after we started flying kites, there was a serious lull in the wind.

Lucky for me, it picked back up adequately.  And you really don't need that much wind to fly a good kite.

Lucky for me, Dylan got kind of into it.  And was even willing to hold the string for his kite a bit.  Last time he was a little afraid.

Unlucky for me, despite all of the amazing kites around, at one point he decided to obsess over a ball that other kids were playing with.

Lucky for me, we had a ball back in the car.  So I went back and got it.  And he eventually got back to paying attention to the kites as well.

Lucky for me, I'm feeling less tired and somewhat more energetic lately.

Lucky for me, I rode my bike today for the first time since last cycle.

Unlucky for me, I know this energy won't last, as it's already about halfway through week 3.

Lucky for me, my next cycle coming up (cycle 8) is planned to be my last.

Okay, I know I said above that I'm not getting my hopes up too much, in case things don't go according to plan and I end up with more cycles.  But you know what, I'm feeling lucky.