This phrase “The Intrepid Little Flower” popped up yesterday when I was writing.  It seems appropriate when thinking about my experience living with cancer.  I am just a little plant growing in a crack in the concrete doing what I can.  And to actually flower is a joyful experience.

Just yesterday I saw two little blue flowers right together each on a stem less than an inch long.   The whole thing was miniature and easily missed by the hurried traveler.  Then last evening I returned to look for them and the stairs where they were growing had been cleaned and they were gone.  Yea.  Makes a guy want to carry a camera.

Ah, one of my adorable nurses just told me she is going to do the Camino next month.  And she just saw Phil’s Camino last evening so she is getting pumped.  And I am pumped up just hearing about it.   I M getting high just thinking about her going.  So happy trip and godspeed to her and her group.  “Buen Camino!” I think is the phrase.

At the hospital today because of the holiday yesterday my usual day.  And the sun is out so brightly.  Will be done in maybe two hours.  So much stuff to do back at the ranch most involving beating back the jungle.

Time to go.  Fun being with you, Felipe.

Here we are once again at the birthday party for our nation.  It is still early in the day before the noise and hoopla.  Our usual round the Island boat race got canceled because of rough water conditions.  But our  amazing Island fireworks show will go on this evening at dusk like always.

Rebecca, was just telling me that one of her teaching associates is leaving on a two year stint in the Peace Corps to rural South Africa.  She is a two time cancer survivor and now seventy years old.  So, apparently they do make them like they used too!  Way to go Georgia!  Think about that Camino for a minute.

We had a whole family here yesterday to walk and they stayed for a  tapas get together afterward.  Plenty of time for great conversation and sharing.  In this group there were three generations, two nurses and a cancer patient all happily traveling together.   Obviously a lot of good dynamic going on there.  They were here April 12th of this year, we looked it up in the logbook.   I am pretty sure that we will see them again down the trail.

Those of us that are the intrepid little flowers that are growing out of our particular cracks in the concrete need to cheer each other on.  It is a place that we find ourselves that we as yet don’t totally accept but we are learning to make the most of it no matter what.  That is the name of the game so to speak.

OK, the corn calls me.  Glad you stopped by loves, Felipe.

Well, I guess we will run with this and see where it takes us, this cougar thing.   Steve-O sent this in and this is exactly up to date.  Big cats popping up all over the place!

Pretty exciting stuff and just in time too.  The darn deer here are getting so cheeky that we need some active predators to push them back into the primeval forest.   I was out in the corn last evening weeding and looked around and there was a two point buck in there with me just having a good old time feeding away.  Wild Kingdom is fine but Not In My (dang) Backyard, right?  Only paying customers please!

Boy, I got to cool down.  So what else do we have here?  Dr David Zucker and myself are showing Phil’s Camino to the oncology nurses at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in the evening Wednesday July 18th.  QandA afterward I am sure.

Annie is cooking up a bunch of sneak showings of Phil’s Camino – So Far So Good (the new long version) in California in the near future.   Here are the details that I just copied from Facebook

Happy to announce we will be screening the rough cut several times in July!
1) Wednesday July 11 in Santa Cruz, CA 7 PM
2) Thursday July 12 in San Jose, CA 7 PM
3) Friday July 13 at Adventure 16 in LA, CA 6:30 PM
4) Saturday July 28 in Lake Forest, CA 10 AM

I am attaching the first two posters below, so please share with your SJ and SC peeps! Posters for the other two dates to come. Thank you and I hope to see you all there!  (Annie)

OK, off we go.  See you tomorrow loves, Felipe.

Well, OK, I brought up the cougar topic yesterday and I keep forgetting that cougar has this additional meaning these days.  Maybe this doesn’t occur to Washingtonians as we have the WSU Cougars.  Anyway it is always good for a few giggles.  Dear Esther from California had a good comment on this topic if you want to wonder over to Comments and check it out.

So here we are in the week of the Fourth.  Vashon will have it’s big fireworks show as usual in Quartermaster Harbor.  There will be lots of noise and partying.  I am trying to get up to speed for all this.  Have been feeling fatigued the last few days and I am trying to talk myself out of that.

And this summer in general is maybe busier than usual with pilgrims coming and going to Phil’s Camino.  Lots of individuals and parties have contacted me to pick dates to come on.  Surf’s up here at the trail.

Then there is Wiley and Hanna’s wedding in early August.  That is going to be here at Raven Ranch so this excitement isn’t letting up anytime soon.

OK, I talked myself out of writing a long blogpost, time to get going and get a start on some of this stuff.  Surfs up Felipe.

Hope that your summer is shaping up well for you there, Love, Felipe.

Locals have been reporting seeing a cougar on Vashon once again.  I forget when the last one was killed but it may have been a year ago.  Well, this will put a little more of an edge on being out walking around.  It is a spice to know that we are not completely in control of our environment.

Back from Mass with Catherine my carpool and tailgating partner.  So great to have someone that you feel like you need to keep current with.  The church book club referred to as the ecumenical book club usually just choose her new book to be their next reading.  That’s cool.  It is a great tale of reclamation after tragedy.  Well done Catherine.  The title, let’s review,  is Finding Mercy in this World.

Speaking of authors, Teresa Matthews and her husband Dr Joe will be here next Thursday to walk on Phil’s Camino.  She penned Cancer: Exploring Your Path which I recently read.  It is a how to book for navigating through those early stages after diagnosis when the whole world has fallen on you.   I think that she taught a class and this was the textbook.  I will find out.  Well done Terry.

OK, I really and truly have to go.  The corn is calling for me to get there and pull weeds.  Thanks fo being here with me.  Hope that you enjoyed Cris’s report on Pope Francis yesterday.  I hope that there is more to come on that.

Have a good one, Felipe.x

Monday 0900-1000

Tuesday 1600-1700

Thursday 0900-1000

Sunday 1600-1700

Just stop by, you don’t have to call or email.  Felipe.x

(Here is a report from Cris your South American Bureau Chief while in Rome at the Vatican within the last few days)

I Was With The Pope

And that is true!!! Although our encounter was not one to one, I was with him, in the Papal Audience on Wednesday and then, I saw him even closer in the square after the festivities for St Peter and St. Paul. He did a round in the mobile and I was at arms length distance from him…
Half an hour later, or more, when people were already leaving and mostly the tourists were in the square, he showed up in the little window (little for the eye as it is huge!!) and gave a short homily and prayed the Angelous.

I am still processing this all, like your Lourdes, like our Camino. All I can tell now is the joy and love this man has. He has so much love, calm, his voice and tone are so loving… and his smile is infectious, he was at some point very close to me, and his smile made me smile, you cannot do otherwise…

And interestingly enough, he gave us an exercise, he asked everybody to close our eyes and go to our heart and search for the blessings God gave to us… very moving… so much grace altogether with so many people recognizing that at the same moment…

More soon!
You were there too! (In the square with me and in my heart as your friendship is a blessing!)
Love
Cris

Getting to the end of June with the Fourth looming in less than a week.  Lot’s of tourists visiting the Island and lot’s of pilgrims coming in from all directions to walk Phil’s Camino.   The corn is growing and yes I will try and get a pic for you.   Things are busy.

I had a two day plumbing adventure and Wiley helped out with that yesterday and we got it all buttoned up yesterday afternoon thankfully.  At one point I called in a local expert for a consultation on the problem.  Half the folks on this Island are colorful characters and he is with the program with that.  As part of the technical talk he told me to remain positive and to count my blessings.  Well OK, we can do that!

Remaining positive and counting our blessings are familiar topics right here at Caminoheads and the stuff we deal with a lot but what can we learn something extra from a plumber or better yet plumber/philosopher?  What he was saying with “count my blessings” was that my problem was not the worst that it could be and I had options that are not always available to others.  I had room to maneuver.

And he said when trouble shooting the problem I  should remain positive about the potential outcome.  A best case scenario could be right around the corner.  Don’t get bogged down by all the “what if’s” or possible possibilities.   Just work through things one at a time and check them off the list as you come to them.  Sounds like a plumbing camino to me.

OK, and I have good news to report that we followed his advice and a best case scenario did appear in a very timely manner.  We are lucky or blessed or all three.  So, onward to the next project here at the ranch.  Live and learn as they say.

Sunny loves, Felipe.

Right now sooo busy, a summertime frenzy of activity around here.  And as I eat my meals from my chair at the dinner table I am looking out at a rose bush that My Rebecca planted decades ago.  It so totally loves it in that spot that it outgrows the ability of the deer to eat it.  It outgrows my ability to civilize it as it climbs all over anything around.  I do my best to keep it from coming in the door and occupying our living room.  It is the very definition of happy plant!

And there it is now in the midst of it’s summer flowering right out the window from my chair at the dinner table.   Actually it is a little over it’s prime which was probably a week ago.  But that is making my point.  Am I, are we appreciating the many blessings around us?  Here is this crazy wonderful rose that is basically shouting at me to take a minute and appreciate before it goes into it’s fall and eventual winter.  Right now sooo busy.  Yes but, take a minute, some of the best things are sooo fleeting.

Catch’em while you can loves, Felipe.

“It never gets old!”  I am quoting what Mary Margaret, one of my old Camino buddies said about walking and talking with her fellow pilgrims as she went into Santiago for the third time now.  Good for you MM!

It was like Christmas in June around Raven Ranch today.  A nice book showed up in the mail and a box of wine showed up.  Not wine in a box but a box of wine bottles.  Yes, thank you guys, you know who you are.

It’s a shorty post today.  I have a date to watch an episode of Father Brown with My Rebecca here in a few minutes.   They are “who done it’s” that always have trick endings.

Ok, all this Mr Rogers’ stuff has been really great.  It warms my little pea picking heart, oh wait that was somebody else.  Thanks for stopping by, love, Felipe.