Ian and Avery

Blanket, originally uploaded by duxman15.

Are getting SO big!

Thanks for Flickring so much Eric.

Yelping out

While I will continue to blog about food at our house (when I am actually blogging - I'm missing it a bit lately - and life seems to be getting back to 'normal'), I'll probably move some of our restaurant sharing to Yelp; it has really helped in our exploring and I'd like to give back some of what I've taken.

If you're a Yelper, let's be friends: cameronmaddux.yelp.com

Oh and the delicious picture above is a chicken box from Farmerbrown's Little Skillet on a sunny afternoon in SOMA.

The ordeal

I took this picture of Mary walking the labyrinth just outside the hospital on Saturday, October 10th.  We'd just found out that her numbers had dropped again and were a bit discouraged.  Because of her low numbers, she had to wear this duck mask outside her room - I wore one as well.  We were in between antibiotic IVs, so were able to take a walk without having to take anything hooked up to her.

I am a big fan of labyrinths (especially after reading Daniel Pink's discussion about them in his chapter on Meaning).  Here we are at the Grace Cathedral Labyrinth last year:



These distraction-less healing walks are wonderful in getting grounded.  We had a lot of fun doing them together - on one of them I remember us plotting how we were going to bust out of the hospital and go find a cabin in Western Montana to live out our existence.  I think the labyrinth helped Mary build her energy and focus for when she finally told them, "I am leaving the hospital and I'm going to go heal."  Which she did - thankfully.

The Swell Season

Fun phone camera shot of Glen and Mar's opening song in Oakland. (The seats/view were incredible despite what it looks like in this picture.)

One date night in the summer of '07, Mary and I happened to wander into the movie Once in Sausalito and fell in love with it. At the time, the movie wasn't even on our radar ... we'd never heard of it.  Of course it ended up being a smashing success, becoming one of the most critically-acclaimed films of the year and took home the Oscar for best song.

We've become huge fans of The Swell Season & Glen and Mar.

Well, thanks to some heads-up from our friend, Dana we were able to secure some front row center-balcony seats to their Oakland show at the Paramount for their new album, Strict Joy.

Wow. Wow. Wow.  It was better than expectations.  I hadn't really gotten into the new album, but there is something about the intensity in Glen's energy and Mar's sweetness that makes their authentic pleasure in performing wrap around you like a blanket.  It is beautiful.  You can feel that a Muse truly travels with those two when they are together.

Anyway, if you ever get the chance - check them out.

House Crushing in Tiburon

House Crushing in Tiburon, originally uploaded by Cameron Maddux.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera around to get a video, but I shot a few pics with the phone of somebody performing one of the best occupations in the world:

Structure destruction with a large machine-claw

Numbers are looking good.

Popping up, originally uploaded by Cameron Maddux.

From Mary's Facebook status:
"Good news. After what I saw as two drops in my blood levels last week (anticipated because of reductions in medication but still discouraging ), my WBC & Neutrophils were UP w/in normal levels yesterday (WITHOUT an increase in meds). I'm having less post-op pain too and am hopeful things are finally starting to stabilize.

Even better news, the hematologist said he saw nothing suspicious on the CAT Scan. Apparently, he was checking for cancer or lymphoma. Phew."

Things haven't been this stable in quite some time. We are doing well. Enjoying the California sunshine and laughter in the house.

Another spectacular Pacific sunset

What do you do when your favorite college football team suffers a disappointing loss?

Head to the beach and remember how good life is!  Lots of pictures of Sam staring at a sunset bathed ocean: