The Assertive Cancer Patient

Life, Wheels, and More Ego

If you've been reading this blog regularly, you know that my 13-year-old car died last week, and my "fun car," the Corvair, doesn't have a functional top--and it's a convertible, and this is Seattle, in the winter, and it rains pretty much every day.

So my transportation options are somewhat limited. (Please don't e-mail me and suggest the bus. I am not a bus-riding person. More on that some other time: I love mass transit when it's done well, like in Tokyo.)

Yesterday, I couldn't maneuver the red Corvair out of the backyard by myself, so I walked over to Paul's Auto Upolstery, which is run by a guy named Carl, I think, to give him a check so he would order me a new top for the Corvair. This small business doesn't take credit cards, so only a check (or cash) would do.

Then this morning, my friend Laurie came over and helped me get the Corvair out of the backyard. Laurie is much more coordinated than I am. Plus, I was acting as the flagger, letting her know how much room she had at each zigzag. Once the car was liberated, I drove to my bank, made a deposit, and recovered the title to the Eagle from my safe deposit box.

(It's so nice when things are where you think they are. I would have given only 50/50 odds that the title was actually IN the safe deposit bos, but I was hoping it was.)

The next thing on my agenda is to call the place that supposedly accepts donations of junker cars (according to my mechanic, a guy named Eric who owns a shop called, I kid you not, "Carl's"). This place, according to Eric, benefits PAWS, the animal welfare society. I am assuming that they will come and haul the car away, because I certainly can't drive it anywhere. The transmission is dead.

Once the Eagle is out of the backyard, I will be able to put the Corvair back in, with some chance of being able to maneuver it back out without calling for help, which I would be embarrassed to do, two days in a row.

For now, the Corvair is parked on the street, but it can't stay there for long--rain is forecast for later today.

The second thing on my agenda is to join FlexCar, since the Corvair is not a go-everywhere, everyday sort of car, and I can't afford to buy a new car, or even a used car. FlexCar lets you rent a car by the hour. A car-less friend of mine who lives in Berkeley uses a similar service down there, and he loves it.

More Ego
I have pretty much decided that the cancer dating site is a bust--three times as many women as men on the site, and not one of the five men I've e-mailed in the past few days has responded. Big hit to the ego.

I've been e-mailing my friend Dee on this topic. She met the man she's dating online, and she had lots of good advice about that experience. But if I go back to dating sites, like craigslist, that are for the general population, the big question is this: WHEN do I tell the guys I'm meeting about my cancer history? Which isn't so much a cancer history, in my case, as it is an on-going cancer drama.

Oh, boy.

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Monday's Woes: A Car Dies and More

The car, my 1995 Eagle, actually died on Friday, as I was driving to meet a friend for lunch.

The friend is also in treatment for metastatic breast cancer, and we hadn't seen each other for awhile. We were going to meet for Japanese food at Shun and compare war stories.

On the way south on NE 25th Ave., the Eagle, which I have treated with benign neglect for the 10 or 11 years that I've owned it, started making noise and the transmission felt like it wasn't catching.

So I detoured over to my auto mechanic, who fortunately is in the same neighborhood. I left the car with him and continued to the restaurant on foot--it was only three blocks.

We had lunch, then I walked back to hear the bad news about my car: "Time to go car shopping!" was the mechanic's verdict. In other words, not worth fixing. This is a mechanic I trust, so I didn't question his judgment, but he doesn't know about my cancer either.

A new car is not in the budget. Even a new used car is not in the budget.

But wait, there's that red Corvair that I'm always blogging about, right?

Except that the Corvair is my fair-weather car. The convertible top has shrunk over the years, and I can't get it latched in the up position. It also has a few tears in it. Replacing it has been an item on my long to-do list for months now.

Just called Paul's Auto Upholstery to get an estimate: $1,225, which is actually about what I was guessing a new top would cost.

They need a deposit before they will order the new top, which will take two weeks to arrive and then two days to install. They don't take credit cards, so I have to take a check over there tomorrow.

In the meantime, if it rains, I guess I will rent a car that has a roof. Or I may check out FlexCar. With FlexCar, you have to join, and then you pay by the hour to use a car.

This has put me in a bad mood, of course. Nothing like spending money to bring on a bad mood. But I did manage to pay the rest of February's bills this morning. Since it usually takes me till mid-month to get them all paid, this feels like a victory.

Now I need to take a shower, walk the dog, and go grocery shopping. Daily life! I don't do daily life very well. Give me a crisis any day. The day-to-day stuff is both stressful and boring ...

The Fate of the Eagle: Eric, my mechanic, suggested that I donate the Eagle, and he gave me a number to call. So as soon as I can find the title to the car, I'm going to call and see if I can give it away. At least I'll save on auto insurance!

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

"Red, Red Shoes ... "

Sing the above line to the tune of "Red, red wine ... " (Who sings that song? Anybody know?)

I just noticed as I was unpacking after my trip to Tucson (OK, the trip was three weeks ago, but that's how long it takes me to unpack. Live with it) that I now have three pairs of red shoes. Well, two pairs of red shoes and one of red sandals.

When did this happen? I don't think of myself as a red shoes kind of person, but somewhere along the way I guess I became one.

I also have a red car--the Corvair--and gorgeous red earrings, a one-of-a-kind pair made for me by my friend Jacqueline of Rebel1in8.

Then there are the one-of-a-kind clothes that Jacqueline has made for me. I love having clothes that no one else has. I was never a clothes horse either, and don't think that I'm one now, exactly. I just like being unique.

Read more:

Tucson

The Red Corvair

Rebel Fashion

Here's the link to get Rebel1in8 earrings:

Rebel earrings

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Front Loading My Life

My parents, both children of the Great Depression, taught me to defer gratification. They never bought anything on credit. Vacations were camping trips in the family Ford. If you wanted something, you saved and bought it when you had the money in your hand.

While I still agree with my parents' views to some degree, since my cancer diagnosis, I've broken ranks.

If I want a ripe papaya out of season, I pay $4 for it and enjoy it to the last slippery bite. If I want a few potted flowers to brighten my front porch, I buy them and get my money's worth every time I enter or leave the house.

And last summer, when I still had the money, I paid $6,000 for my 1964 Corvair.

Now, sometimes, I play first and clean the house later (or not at all), rather than "work first, play later," as my mother taught me. The past two days, in glorious weather, I've been out running around town in the Corvair. Even going to the post office and the bank is fun in that car. People smile when they see it, and I smile back.

I call this new view of life "front loading." It means that I do the things that are most important to me--and to my children--now. Because all I have is now.

In November of 2003, my younger son and I squeezed a trip to Charleston into a busy week that included cancer treatment on Friday and taking the plane for South Carolina on Saturday. Why? Younger Son has been a serious student of the Civil War since the age of 10, when he read "The Boys' War" by Jim Murphy. He wanted to go to Charleston to see the Civil War submarine, the Hunley, and Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the war were fired.

I've been trying for years to take Older Son, a student at the University of Washington, with me to Tokyo for a week or two. He was born in Japan, and he wants to spend some time there practicing martial arts, but he's also ambivalent about visiting the country of his birth after so long away.

I've been back twice since my cancer diagnosis, once with a friend, and once with the military-history-nut younger son. I let him set the intinerary, which included Hiroshima, Himeji Castle, the war museum at Yasukuni Shrine, and the Japanese Self Defense Forces PR Center. If this boy doesn't earn a Ph.D. in history, it won't be my fault, that's for sure.

Japan has been a big part of my life. I have a master's degree in Japanese language and lived in Japan for a total of seven years, including a couple of years working for Newsweek. I have good friends there whom I see all too infrequently.

And next October, when the entire U.S. retail world goes insanely pink, I hope to be out of the country, in Japan if possible. That's part of my Boycott October plan.

If you've read this far, you might draw the lesson that all anyone has is the present, regardless of whether they are sick or healthy. And you might conclude that everyone should "front load" their lives and eat dessert first.

I would agree, except that I hate "shoulds" and I try never to tell anyone else how to live, even if I'm asked. But you are free to draw that lesson if you choose.

The Boys' War

@ Jeanne Sather 2007.

Screenplay: The Best Summer of My Life

In May 2006, I bought a 1964 red Corvair convertible. It was an impulse buy, and I never make impulse buys, except that I'd been in a retro stage for a while, and the thought of owning an old car really appealed to me.

Also, my father, who was a veterinarian but also a trained mechanic (he was a truck mechanic in the Philippines during his military service), had always loved old cars. At one point before I was born, he owned a classic Auburn roadster.

So, the minute I bought the car, I decided to write a movie about it, "The Best Summer of My Life." It's about a woman, loosely modeled on me, her two closest friends, her dog (Constant), and a red Corvair. I'm still working on the screenplay, although I set it aside for awhile to get this blog launched. I plan to get back to it within the next month or two.

THE BEST SUMMER OF MY LIFE
Genre: Comedy/Chick Flick
Log line: Jane, a 40-something Seattle writer, decides that the summer of 2006 will be her best ever. To get things started, she buys herself a classic red 1964 Corvair convertible, one of the sexiest cars ever made. But this is more than a chick flick about a woman with a new car: Jane has a painful secret that makes every moment in the sun doubly precious.

One of the subplots is Jane's learning to take care of the car. Here's a scene where a group of her friends try to teach her to jump the car after the battery dies.

JANE
So, who wants to jump the car? Tomo, will you do it?

PAT (a friend)
Wait a minute, Jane. You need to know how to do this.

JANE
I know how, sort of, I just don’t like to do it. Isn’t that why women have sons, so they can jump their cars for them?

TOMO (Jane's older son)
Ha, ha.

JANE
Joke, Tomo. Joke. I had you so you could cook for me.

ERIKA
Here you go, Jane. (Handing over the jumper cables.) Do you know how to do this?

JANE
It’s been a long time. I forget.

WARREN
Take the cable. Do you know where the battery is in the Corvair?

JANE
In the back. I know that much.

WARREN
OK, open the hood, and find the battery. Do that for both cars. Be careful—prop the hood open.

Jane raises the hood on the Honda, then raises the hood on the Corvair. Everyone else is clustered around, giving advice and talking over each other.

PAT
Red, positive. Black, negative.

JANE
You do the red ones first, right?

JAMES
Look at the battery—see those terminals?

JANE
This part scares me. What if I get a shock?

JEFFERSON
See the plus sign?

PAT
You’re making a circuit…

WARREN
Red to positive on the car with the good battery … Don’t worry, you won’t get a shock.

Jane attaches the first clamp, gingerly.

PAT
Now the other positive terminal …

WARREN
OK, attach that one here, see?

Jane attaches the second red clamp to the Corvair battery.

PAT
You’re making a circuit…

JEFFERSON
Red, positive. Black, negative.

ERIKA
Now the black ones…

WARREN
OK, black is negative, attach it here …

Jane attaches the next clamp.

JANE
This is the part that scares me, it can blow up, right?

TOMO
Really?

ERIKA
Can it?

LAUREL
Be careful…

WARREN
So, instead of attaching it to the terminal, connect it here, on this bolt on the engine. Then you won’t get a shock. Good, now start the Honda, someone.

Tomo starts the engine on the Honda. Jane starts the Corvair with a roar.

WARREN
Now, it needs to run for a while to charge. Who wants to drive around the block?

Tomo backs the Honda out of the way, and Warren, Jefferson, and Daniel pile into the Corvair and drive off around the neighborhood.

JANE
Wow. OK. Who wants more coffee? I need to take an auto mechanics course.

LAUREL
Yeah, when you have an old car you need to know this kind of stuff. Maybe you can find a cute mechanic to give you lessons …

Interested in producing my screenplay? Send me an e-mail at jeanne.sather at gmail dot com.

@ Jeanne Sather 2007.

Happiness Is ... A Red Corvair