The Day After…

So last night I was feeling a little weak/tired, but not too bad, and I was downloading random songs that I’ve been wanting to get for awhile now. Barb wanted me to download some Aaron Copland songs for the wedding. Naturally, the geeks in the file-sharing world aren’t too keen on his music, so I found nothing. Barb decided to go on a quest for an actual CD, so I went along with her since I’m Mr. Music and I wasn’t feeling that bad.

We went to Best Buy (since we have no other place around here that sells CDs cheaply), found no CDs with “Simple Gifts” on it. Then we started wondering if it was really Copland who composed it. Incidentally, the little “Find Music” kiosk at best Buy sucks for classical music information. She found a couple of his CDs with “Appalachian Spring” on it, and I had seen something somewhere that led me to believe that “Simple Gifts” might just be a part of “Appalachian Spring”. Especially since “Appalachian Spring” is over 25 minutes long (we’re gonna edit that down for the wedding 🙂 ). So she got a couple of CDs, and I got a couple of CDs with the songs I downloaded (since they seemed good enough to justify the purchase and I’m an honest guy) as well as the brrrrilliant idea to go to Barnes and Noble. What better place to find out about classical music and pay way too much for it?

We drove on over to B&N and they had a whole SECTION devoted to Copland and his music. As it turns out, I’m brilliant in many ways, since we find a CD telling us that “Simple Gifts” is indeed a part of “Appalachian Spring.” I rock. I’m ascribing my re-found supersmarts to the chemo, because during the treatment Barb and I played Gin and I beat her ten hands to four. Nyah nyah nyah 🙂 I picked up the new Racer X magazine while we were there ’cause it had an article all about Texas motocross and the reasons why no winning pros seem to come out of there anymore. Purty interesting and purty accurate once I thought about it.

Since Target is across the street from B&N, we stopped by there to add some things to the wedding registry and see if they had one of those little folding luggage carts I could put my 3000 ton work backpack on. Their little cart was jinky, but I found a cool CD player/radio thing made up to look like an old-timey wood one. It actually sounded pretty good and the CDs get put in the top of the machine by lifting the holding arm, just like a record! Sweet! We don’t have anything to play CDs downstairs and it’s looking like I might not be up to stringing cable to get a computer down there this summer, so we’re hoping for that in the interim.

By this time, I was really feelin’ the tired, so we came home. We watched the American Idol final (which was rigged) and went up to bed. I woke up this morning and needed to go to the bathroom, and that’s the ONLY thing that could’ve gotten me up those stairs. Holy moly, where did my legs go? And now I’ve typed so much that my ARMS are feeling tired too. What the hell? This is gonna be a long six months. Luckily, I only have to get out once today. I have to go back to the doctor’s office around 3:45 for that shot (it has to be given 24 hours after chemo treatment) and stop by CVS to pick up my anti-nausea pills. So far, other than the runs last night, my stomach’s been doing okay.

So now I think I’m just gonna post this, rip my new CDs for my iPod and slither downstairs for some more sleep. That third floor chemo-nest is sounded like sheer genius at this point 🙂 Some friends are coming over Friday night to drag all of our newfound goodies upstairs for us, so I’ll be better prepared after the next treatment.