Riding for Roses

Today was one of those awesome breaks from routine that make life a lot easier. I volunteer at the Lance Armstrong Foundation and today was another picnic for the LAF staff and volunteers. We joined about 50 other people for a day playing in the river and Rudy’s barbecue for dinner. Spencer is still feeling well. He’s just finished 7 days of steroids and the hormonally induced mood swings are on the positive side today. He was manic enough that he was acting about like he did before his cancer. We got to hang out with wonderful people, talk about the Tour de France, talk about cancer, talk about fishing in the river, play in the water, and have a great time. Jacob (our 16 month old) was a little skeptical about the river. He’s never been in anything bigger than our Endless Pool which is the size of an over-sized hot tub. He was almost crying when we got in the river (creek, whatver, it leads to the Pedernales downstream and I can’t find it on a map so it probably counts as a creek), but then he discovered that rivers are made of water, just like his bath and our pool, both of which he loves.

There is something special about hanging out with the staff and volunteers from the LAF. So many have either had cancer themselves or an immediate loved one with cancer, that there is nothing unusual about being a cancer survivor there. When Spencer said “here’s my port”, several other people were able to show their scars from where their ports had been. The very normality of cancer makes it easier to just talk about other things while neither ignoring cancer nor making it the focus of every thought. On top of that, everybody there is just plain great people. I’m a classic Myers-Briggs introvert. It’s not that I am shy (though I was when I was young) or that I don’t like people; it’s just that social activity tends to wear me out rather than energize me. It’s rare that I come back from 5 hours spent at a party and wonder how it got that light and wish that it didn’t end. This was that kind of party.

Now it’s back to everyday life for a bit and then some. This week is going to be a pressure cooker for me. In addition to final preparations for the Tour Watch 2005 that is running from July 2-24, I have business stuff going on and a Discovery Channel film crew is going to be in Austin and will be spending a few days filming us and the opening of the Tour Watch event. I’ve been working on Location and Appearance releases for likely targets of filming as the production crew follows me around this week. Read my blog entry about Tour Watch 2005 for more information on the event. Keep watching here for updates on this whole Discovery Channel film crew thing.