I decided not to turn this into the tragic cancer blog but in fact, just a week after this last post in June, Akhil was diagnosed with cancer. All I can say is be grateful for your life. It's not all in our control!

So, now he's through all the treatment and they tell us prognosis is excellent. One has to roll with the punches. Can't curl up in a ball and stay in bed all day.

Just two days after the last radiation treatment it was off like troopers to Todd and Leah's wedding in Mystic, CT, complete with an authentic New England clambake rehearsal dinner. Akhil's parents graciously attended and we met all my long-lost cousins, aunts and uncles. Todd and Leah took off for Hawaii the next day, and we headed out for a blissful few days on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard.

Now, it's full steam ahead with work and life. It's hard to stay positive and thankful all the time but something like this really helps in a pinch. Perspective is a gift. Thank you.

June already, in fact, June 14. Wow. It's a glorious weekend. We had rain yesterday but today it cleared up mid-afternoon while we were at the Descanso Gardens, where they were hosting a scavenger hunt/wildlife demonstration/Cobra auto show. Yeah, odd combo, but they were. They had 4 original Cobras there, as in, Cobra, the sports car; they had 10 replicas as well. And then for the kids, there were going to be real, live cobras, as in, the snakes. Well, they're doing something right because the place was packed.

I'm enjoying a view of our seriously blooming garden with the door wide open and the smell of neighbors' BBQs drifting into the house. Debating whether to try moving the mat again on this photo I'm putting into the UCLA show in a couple of weeks. Exciting! Not the Guggenheim or anything, but I was flattered. This is the pic, of Multnomah Falls in Oregon. Akhil and I were up there over a 4-day Memorial Weekend mini-cation last month. We stayed in Hood River 2 nights, hiked the Eagle Trail, drove up to the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, and then drove out to Cannon Beach to spend a night there and see Haystack Rock. We bought loads of books at Powell's in Portland, beach-walked in Ecola State Park, and made it all the way to the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville to see the Spruce Goose.

Next month, Akhil's off to England. I'm headed to Chicago. And both of us will be at the Hollywood Bowl for Eric Clapton.

Two readers this week! Alright, I'm getting there... Well, we've missed four months of exciting updates here, including the fact that my brother got engaged between Christmas and New Years, and the wedding is August 15 back in the 'hood, in Mystic. Chronicling the lead-up to that happy occasion would've made for a great G-rated soap opera. Akhil and I celebrated Christmas here in Pasadena, where we made an entire 12-pound turkey just for him, me and our friend Mai, whose boyfriend couldn't make it because of the flu. I froze a bunch of leftovers. We headed to Boston for New Years weekend, and in the snow and bitter cold, we met up with Todd and his bride-to-be for dinner in the South End. She's lovely.

Between January and now we have been working like fiends, though not as bad as last year, at least for Akhil. We did spend a weekend in San Luis Obispo for my dreaded birthday, and in March, stretched a business trip for Akhil into a long weekend for both of us in La Jolla, after he spoke at a robotics conference there. I took the subway in L.A. for the first time ever, followed by the train, yes the train, also first time ever (this first-time stuff applies only to the west coast; on the east coast I didn't even own a car), to get to San Diego, which was eventful in itself. Once you're underground, you could be anywhere. It wasn't hard, or scary. Nothing compared to say, the C train in NYC. So a friend suggested a San Diego restaurant to us called Cafe Chloe and I just want to sing its praises -- excellent, up there with Sonoma in terms of quality food, wine, and service. Go! On Sunday of that weekend Akhil rode his bike up Mt. Palomar, a badge of honor for those cyclist types. Our garden is off-the-hook this year -- you should see our roses. We got a new President (thank the good lord for that), finished our taxes (not fun), and my mom is, at this moment, recovering from surgery in New Hampshire. That's mostly it for significant events of Q1 '09.

Oh yeah, and Akhil bought a wok. And made fried rice in it. Twice. That, too, is eventful.

I highly doubt anyone is reading this blog, but at an event recently hosted by my friends at FranklinAvenue.blogspot.com, amid a whole crew of L.A. bloggers and fans, someone brought it up and I thought, damn, I better update that thing, just in case. Needless to say, since that last post, we made it back home from Tokyo and have been through a lot more drama since then.

For a moment though, back to November: I raved and raved about our Japan trip for weeks until people got sick of my spiel. In a word, it was FANTASTIC. Kyoto was a friendly, approachable, somewhat mystical combination of gorgeous, ancient temples and Japanese gardens and a super-modern consumer/shopping/fast-food lifestyle. We stayed at a ryokan, traditional, Japanese style inn, called the Three Sisters Inn Annex, and walked or took the bus all over, from the bamboo forest to Golden Temple to the surreal Path of Philosophy. Kyoto is one of those cities that feels like it exists just for travelers to enjoy it, but it's actually a major center and the former capital of Japan. It was of the only cities that was spared during WWII, and consciously so, due to the efforts of a Western scholar who persuaded the Allies to leave it alone as the preservation of the cultural treasures there would be "good PR." And it was. Tokyo was also spectacular. Sure, it's a big city, but if you can handle NYC or London, Tokyo is similar, but easier in some ways, because the transportation is smooth. We spent 3 days there, 3 days in Kyoto. Can't wait to go back.