Bread and Bread

Our plan had been to camp for a couple of days in Idyllwild, where we’d once celebrated AK’s birthday in a luxury cabin and where, longer ago, I’d gotten a cheer-camp sock tan that made the remnants of my radiation burn look like nothing much. Then Idyllwild caught fire. It seemed tacky to complain about the dissolution of our vacation as people and animals’ homes were getting charred. Selfie with radiation tan. Meehan offered her dad’s house in Carmel as an alternative, so on Friday night we drove north instead of east. A couple of weeks before, Meehan’s wife Sally had told me, “Meehan and I were talking about how great you’ve handled these past months. So many people would have shut down, but you opened up and weren’t afraid to ask for help.” I’d almost cried right there in the middle of C.C.’s graduation luau. Lots of people had expressed admiration for my stamina during cancer treatment, but most had viewed my vulnerability as a sort of understandable evil. Well, of ...

Here are some things that happened last weekend. 1. My car died. In a CVS parking lot two blocks from my mechanic. I hiked up the hill and talked to Jeff. “You have Triple-A?” he asked, not unkindly. “Call Triple-A.” I trudged back down the hill and waited by my dirty car until the tow truck came. I got a jump and drove back to my mechanic. 2. Because of #1, we got a late start on our drive up north for Meehan and Sally’s wedding. 3. Meehan and Sally got married. 4. But we missed it, because first AK got sick. We pulled off the 101 thinking maybe we’d use the bathroom at Starbucks in Soledad, California. There was an urgent care next door, so we used that instead. The doctor thought she was having a bad reaction to an antibiotic. 5. Oh, but between #2 and #3, I ran over a squirrel on an off-ramp. I know I probably kill a dozen polar bears a day just by consuming products that come in plastic packaging, but I still burst into tears. Later Jody tried to make me feel ...