Red Dress

My daughter is the first bridesmaid, maid of honor, behind the bride. Three of the women in the picture, including the bride were in my girlscout troop. The bride was the smallest looking like a 3 year old amongst the 6 year olds but when she smiled, you could see the typical 6 year girl dentition-no upper incisors. She's now living in Paris expecting her first child in 2 months. Hopefully the baby will be more developed than she was, a very small preemie. How things change in 25 years!

I put this picture up as the weather is such a stark contrast to here-bleak, cold and gray. This photo was taken July 2006 on the Palo Verde pennisula outside of LA. There is not much development on it as the area is extremely geologically unstable. Also the red dresses are in honor of women's heart month. Presumably our cardiovascular health is a greater threat on the whole to our lives than breast cancer but I just don't feel it. The odds computer the onc used was that my chance of death due to my breast cancer in the next 10 years was 25% and due to other causes: 4%. I assume the lion's share of 'other causes' was heart disease. But hopefully I am keeping my heart healthy by my constant running. I am working on the better diet part. Not that I have been running that much this week between getting over the throat infection and spending time in the hospital. I did get out while my friend took a drug induced nap to run along the river. It was brutal coming back, uphill and very windy. The path was part of something I used to run every day when we lived in the township. I would run the 6.5 miles home from work. Since then, they've built this bridge to nowhere on my path suitable for an ocean liner to pass through (the river is dammed right underneath but the train is also there-couldn't have a railroad crossing on a principal hospital route).

While I was in the hospital, Steve and Josh went out to fetch us a bright blue new car. While it is not the sexy, red roadster that 2 of my faithful readers bought after cancer, it's still cute though practical. Now we can come and go as we please without worrying about inconveniencing the other. A few years ago, we had a fleet of vehicles surrounding our house, two cars belonging to Josh and Julia when they lived with us, our two cars and this monstrosity that I inherited that we barely used. For a while, Julia had a second car so we had 6 vehicles to juggle. After we let Naomi use our 2nd car(probably a bad idea), we were down to one. Bright red, bright green and now bright blue: primary colors.

Back to the hospital today. My friend is making great progress (she must have consumed 500 calories yesterday) and is off the iv. I will probably take her home today. Even though she does not feel well, we are enjoying our time together.