Of course, I’m not really in Buffalo Wallow, which must be somewhere in flatland. I’m up here on a pine mountain in the ancient land of the Chumash, who regarded it as the center of the world. Apparently, a Chumash trickster spirit, Coyote, or whatever he calls himself has been toying with us, so my gratitude this day is a little skewed.

I am grateful that Ikea’s designated delivery company finally delivered the bed. I bought it on Oct 23 by phone while I was still in Canada. I was told the first delivery date possible on this remote mountain in California was Nov. 8. This remote mountain is 40 minutes up the I-5 from the Ikea distribution center in El Tejon. While I slept on a mattress on the floor, my bed sped past me down the I-5 and came to rest in a warehouse south of Los Angeles, where it sat in a tight roll and disassembled pieces. Meanwhile my 82-year-pld body lay in a tight roll trying not to disassemble in agony. I missed the delivery date – they had been phoning my Canadian landline, but I am grateful that they delivered it on Veterans Day. I am also grateful that my daughter’s good-man-good assembled it with only minimum  damage to his body. So he says. I try to believe him.

It is 10 days later, my body is beginning to unwind.

Meanwhile, Mr Coyote’s trick involved a whole raft of medical specialists – general surgeons, radiologists, ear, nose and throat fellows, urologists, neurosurgeons, pain specialists, and a raft of CT scans, x-rays, MRIs, blood tests, cell cultures and biopsies. The diagnosis was kidney cancer, then metastatic kidney cancer, then benign tumor and early stage kidney cancer, then two benign tumors, one kidney, with a dissenting vote from the radiologist, who’s still got his money on the big C.

Update: a neurosurgeon has removed one tumor and it seems as though years of sciatic pain and months of insomnia have been cured. So thank you, Dr. Liker and all those friendly nurses at Henry Mayo.

Next stop, the urologist.