New Salem MA is a *very* small town – fewer than 1,000 residents. The center of the town consists of a few public buildings and maybe 20 houses. There just isn’t much there. But if you ever lived there you are invited to return for the annual “Old Home Day”. Presumably it is intended to be a day for reunions of current and former residents, but mostly it is an excuse to party.

This civic party was on July 20th this year. It is a very small party, consisting of some homemade food sales, a luncheon served in the basement of the Congregational Church, a 5-minute parade and, most notably, a really fine book sale at the library and two really fine bands giving free concerts: the Bad News Jazz and Blues Orchestra (18 pieces!) and the Original Blues Brothers Band (a Blues Brothers tribute band). Both bands were excellent. Fortunately we had a shady seat near the entertainment tent – important since the temperature was pushing 95 degrees.

We met Jett’s siblings Sybil, Christine and Ray there, along with our sister-in-law Kim. A fine time was had by all and ended with a brief (for us anyway) visit to Ray and Kim’s New Salem cabin. The book haul from the library sale – 16 books – pretty much guarantees that we won’t run out of reading material while we are in Massachusetts.

When Jett and I left Flagler Beach, headed north on Amtrak, we took as many of our belongings as we could carry in one large suitcase and four small shopping bags. A few days after we arrived, I returned to Florida to return the RV to its home base and to collect more of our belongings – what would fit into another large suitcase and a small carry-on. I think I did a fabulous job in selecting items to bring north as so far the only thing that regret not bringing is my back-scratcher.

So, for the first two or three weeks in Massachusetts, we were operating with a fairly small subset of our possessions – or “stuff” as George Carlin would put it. It was obvious that we would have to replace some of the things we left behind if we were to live in Massachusetts all summer without our RV.

When we moved into our Extended Stay America studio apartment, the need to clone our life intensified. We started acquiring things needed to enhance our apartment – a coffee maker (and I chose red because I decided we needed a little color in our lives), additional cookware, silverware, glassware and kitchen utensils. The bathroom, which is spacious with a wonderfully comfortable shower and fine water pressure, lacked any kind of shelving or cabinetry, so I acquired one of those cheap ($19) three-drawer plastic dresser units. We also started buying additional clothes – underwear, shirts, shorts, slacks – until we had a sufficient quantity that we didn’t have to do laundry every four days. A clothes hamper. A DVD player and a few DVDs. Fortunately we will not have to replicate our RV collection of over 500 DVDs as Jett’s brother has a large DVD library (alphabetized!) from which we can borrow.

I bought a minimalistic set of 3 golf discs so that I can play disc golf. And just yesterday I purchased, second-hand, for under $150, a complete set of golf clubs so I can also play real golf.

Must of this will not be going back to Florida with us. The golf clubs will probably be put into our storage unit until I decide whether to bother moving them south. The other stuff will probably be donated or discarded.

But in the meantime all of this duplicate “stuff” will assist us in cloning our life.

In an effort to get to better know the city where I am doing time this summer – and to, perhaps, make this blog just a little less depressing – I made a brief visit to Worcester’s EcoTarium yesterday. TripAdvisor ranks it as the #2 attraction in Worcester (the #1 attraction, the Worcester Art Museum, was closed for the day). It is described by one TripAdvisor reviewer as “a good place to take young children” so my expectations were low. But I was moderately impressed. It is indeed a good place to take young children, but there were plenty of exhibits that I found interesting as well.

I would characterize the EcoTarium as a science museum with an ecological slant, with some zoo animals added as a sweetener. The zoo exhibits were not very interesting. They had a couple of rescued bald eagles, which might be of interest to people who have never seen a bald eagle up close and personal. There were also some interesting turtle species in their wetlands exhibit. But I was most attracted to the science exhibits which, while small (a shadow of Boston’s Museum of Science), were well done and engaging. Too often, in a small museum, exhibits tend to be broken or out of date. That wasn’t the case here.

There were small exhibits of the dynamic flow of both fog and wind and a nice explanation of why the top of Mount Washington is so windy. The balcony on the top floor had a glass floor which wasn’t actually an exhibit, but did test my trust of the strength of glass.

The grounds are not extensive but are well-kept and had some hiking trails (which I didn’t try). There is also a small train that runs around the perimeter, which I also didn’t try.

Summary: not great, but not bad. I may bring my granddaughter here, to see how a teen reacts.

Jett had her first chemotherapy infusion on Monday. She approached it with a great deal of trepidation. She had, of course, heard all the horror stories of violent upchucking and generally feeling like crap. But she was committed to doing a minimum of one treatment, so Monday morning she got showered and dressed, took a deep breath and she went off to take her medicine. So to speak.

The day started at about 8 am with some preparation, including a review of her current medications (I have learned and brought a complete list, which moved things along). They measured her weight and height 3 times (important to get it right as the amount of chemo is carefully matched to physical size). 98 pounds, in case you were wondering, down from about 130 a year ago. Not good.

The infusion began with cleaning the port and injection of some drugs designed to calm her down and eliminate nausea. The “calm down” drug was Benadryl which actually makes Jett hyper – not quite the intended effect. But Jett decided to take it anyway and it was fine. I think it actually did calm her down as she was asleep about 15 minutes after the start of the 4-hour infusion. And she slept until it was over. I did puzzles and slept a bit myself. All in all, a very calm, quiet and drama-free infusion.

Our greatest worry was the morning after. We expected severe nausea but were delightfully surprised when there was none. She did have some tingling in her extremities and a slight headache, but very minor. A non-event, really. The headache was a bit worse the second day, but still not horrible.

Jett now says that she will gladly do more treatments if they are all this benign. That is important because her contract with me and her children was that she would try one treatment and after that it was up to her.

I keep looking for ways to return this blog to the topic of travel, but with cancer looming over our heads and having no RV to live in, that is nearly impossible. So I will have to just record our lives and strive to make it less than totally depressing.

Our first residence in Worcester MA was with Jett’s brother and sister-in-law, Ray and Kim. We took up residence in their lovely guest room for two weeks. We didn’t suffer, for sure: private bath and cable TV with Netflix and Prime Video, among others. I got to binge watch Monk which was a treat. An added feature of the accommodations were many truly exquisite meals prepared by Kim. As we told her several times, she should open a restaurant. Yes, she is that good. Among the meals were the best seafood chowder that I have ever tasted and a huevos rancheros breakfast in a bowl that was just superb. I believe I gained 5 pounds in those two weeks. Even Jett ate! I don’t think she gained 5 pounds, but I don’t think she lost any, which is remarkable under the circumstances.

Ray tried very hard to get us to stay longer, dangling an empty house in front of us (they would be spending the entire month of July at their lovely cabin in New Salem MA). But we needed more privacy, particularly with Jett’s chemotherapy about to begin. We had no idea how she would react to chemo and wanted to deal with it in private.

So, after two weeks in the guest bedroom, we moved to a studio apartment at Extended Stay America in Westborough MA. We took a handicapped room, which gave us a larger shower with grab bars and more floor space to maneuver the wheelchair. The downside is that it has a smaller refrigerator than the regular units, but the manager said she could get us a larger fridge. It hasn’t appeared yet but we haven’t given up hope.

One thing we have learned in the past 2 months is that you can’t give up hope.

The hotel had an “introductory rate” that was very attractive – cheaper than the rent we would have paid if we had brought the RV north – and accepts pets, so Rusty will be joining us in a few days. The family will be back together again.

It is a good thing that we vacated the guest room because Kim and Ray were taking in two new guests on the day we departed: the pet dog of one son and the pet tortoise of another. It would have gotten crowded.

Seriously, we are deeply grateful to Ray and Kim. Getting north and getting set up with life in Worcester would have been very difficult, if not impossible, without their assistance. With their assistance a very difficult two weeks were transformed into a near-vacation. Thank you, Ray and Kim!

The first week was pretty crazy with medical appointments. We got to see Dr William Walsh, the preeminent oncologist at UMASS Memorial Medical Center – a man with 30 years of experience dealing with cancer and a guy who was described to me as “THE lung cancer expert at UMASS.” Seems like we are in good hands. And to get in to see him on the Monday after we arrived in Massachusetts is nothing short of miraculous.

Two days later Jett went back to the hospital for more tests: another CT scan (with contrast) and an echo cardiogram.

The first week ended with my quick trip to Florida (see the previous post) – another thing that would not have been possible without Ray and Kim’s assistance as they watched over Jett while I was away. The second week had no medical appointments but had a lot of shopping trips to prepare for our move to the hotel. Jett also took the opportunity to get her hair trimmed (which struck me as a waste as it was all falling out anyway, but, hey, if it makes her feel better, great) and a pedicure. She also had two visits from her sisters. On one of the visits I got a great photo of the four siblings together, on Ray’s deck.

It was great seeing them all together again.

I tried to repay a bit of their kindness by helping them open their New Salem cottage. The yard was completely overgrown and well beyond my capabilities, so I worked on assembling two new recliners. I managed to complete the task with the reclining mechanism operational and no extra parts, so I count it as a success.