SUE'S ESCAPE FROM CANCERLAND

Old San Juan

2012-02-16T08:47:00.001-05:00

Sunset from the night before

Plaza entered after the cruise pier

Gate of the Old Wall

Love the colored houes

The streets were paved with ballast from the Spanish ships. The empty ships would arrive filled with slag from the smelting industry which would be dumped at the harbor and replaced with gold. These are not bricks. The blue color comes from the iron salts we were told, but I think it must be copper giving the color.

Cute coffee shop where we stopped to rest a bit from walking in the heat and to get good coffee for a change

Basketball court of La Perla neighborhood. Hard to see in this picture but a flock of chickens were running across it followed by a pit bull. We were told not to visit this neighborhood if we wanted to be safe. While we were looking at it from on top, an old man who lived there told us that Carmelo Anthony recently restored the court. His father grew up there. Puerto Ricans are very proud of Carmelo and he brings back a lot to the community. Carmelo is a favorite of Naomi's, not only for his skills but because he is co cute. Outside investers have been trying to bulldoze this neighborhood as it obviously is prime land

There are two forts guarding the harbor of Puerto Rico, both 500 years old. I had visited El Morro on a previous trip. This is San Cristobal. One of our dining conpanions was trapped in an elevator on this visit, scary for them.

Bookstore for El Morro and a bathroom for me. As it had wifi, my friend tried to reconnect with the world there

San Juan harbor at night in the rain and through a window

As we pulled into San Juan Harbor, my chest tightened painfully. What was going on? No digestive issues; breathing normally and my pulse was just slightly elevated as I had run about 4 miles an hour or so before. Most of the pain centered around my right rib cage (where the cancer was..the heart is on the left). I worried about a heart attack. Both arms were sore from my frantic paddling against the current from snorkeling the day before but this hurt more than sore muscles. I debated whether I wanted to be walking around in the heat with this going on. After resting for about 20 minutes on a lounge chair watching the antics of the frigate birds, it passed and fortunately did not surface again.

Old San Juan is muy lindo! We debated how to see it all: I kept turning corners every time I saw something I wanted to photograph; my friend favored a more systematic approach. When it became too hot, we would duck into one of the many shops. I ended up buying a very pretty necklace, which I will eventually take a photo of, and some earrings. We had a brief break at a coffee shop. We also walked on the grounds of the 2 old forts and went through a very pretty park in pursuit of the noisy parrots that kept flying above us. We saw those strange caterpillars. In the stretch between the two forts, a slum, La Perla,(oxymoronic name) just a few blocks wide, hugs the coast. The houses there are a sharp contrast to the beauty of Old San Juan. But its residents are very proud as the father of Carmelo Anthony grew up there. Carmelo for his part has contributed a lot to the youths of this neighborhood, his old Baltimore neighborhood and that of Red Hook, NY. Good for him!

All that walking in the heat led to another case of Golfer's Vasculitis for me, though it was much milder than what I got from walking in 95+ degree heat in Rome for 8 hours. It is ugly though and looked like a fungal infection. The weather went from not a cloud in the sky to overcast to drizzle. Time to return to the ship. A wonderful day!

Golfer's vasculitis redux

2012-02-15T11:54:00.002-05:00

When I was in Italy the first time, we had three field trips that involved walking in heat for hours. There I developed a very ugly red rash on my legs which lasted only 24 hours the first time but lasted a full week the third time. It was not sunburn as I was quite tan going there and besides, Italy has about the same latitude as Michigan. It did not itch so exposure to some strange plant was not a possibility.

It turns out that this is quite common but by the time one can get an appointment to see a doctor, it is gone. The unofficial name is Golfer's Vasculitis as they do most of the complaining but it is also known as Three Day Walker's Rash, Disney Rash, Epcot Rash, etc. To get it, one must be over 40, it must be hot, and one must be walking for at least 3 hours.

All of these conditions existed as we walked around San Juan for 5 hours. The redness is due to broken capillaries. It did not itch but it burned for a day or so. It felt hot to the touch. Pictured above is a poor picture (again, my friend will have a better one). I am surprised that I got this given my good cardiovascular system (can run for 90 minutes without stopping) and veins (I never have had a varicose vein in my life) but there you go.
It is now a week later and there is no sign of it on my legs.

The caterpillar from hell

2012-02-15T08:27:00.001-05:00

From Wiki..will replace with my friend's photos

We are walking in a park near Old San Juan trying to find the tree that the parrots landed so that we can take pictures. My friend is pointing to a palm tree where they love to pick palm fruit. I can't see what she is talking about but a tree in front of me, stripped of most of its leaves, gets my attention. It is covered with enormous caterpillars in pairs munching away. These things are thicker and longer than my fingers! The abundant bird life were giving them a wide berth. We ask a lady walking her dog what these things are? Evil things. The tree had all its leaves that morning.
We have since researched this. They are pseudosphinx tetrio caterpillars that will turn into large, gray hawk moths. They eat leaves from only one species, the frangipani (full of feathery flowers that the Hawaiians make leis from). Frangipani (plumeria) leaves contain a bitter, toxic substance (related to Oleander trees, remember the Michelle Pfeiffer character poisoning her lover with this stuff in White Oleander?)that give the caterpillars their bad taste. Also they look like coral snakes which make other creatures leave them alone. It is a two way street. The fragrant frangipani lack nectar to attract bees but the odor attracts these moths that help pollinate them. Some how the trees survive the caterpillars' destruction.

On the left are two trees of the same species: one covered with these caterpillars, the other not. This is where my small camera failed me but fortunately my friend with her big lenses was able to capture the caterpillars.

Swimming with the Fishes

2012-02-14T07:39:00.000-05:00

Our first stop was Grand Turk Island, part of Turks and Caicos Islands. We quickly found a shuttle to Governor's Beach where I was told that we could snorkel from shore as there is a small reef there. The whole west side of the island is considered a national park, Columbus Landing, where the locals think Columbus first landed in 1492 (some dispute this). On the way to the airport, I had bought my own gear as I am tired of renting it and finding it old and dirty. I need to use my seldom put in contacts as I am blind without glasses. They are 15 years old and my prescription has changed so a mild

headache for me. As you can see, the beach was white and powdery. Cruisers from our sister ship intent on just chillaxing offered to watch our stuff while we were in the water.
I love tropical fish. I have been to better places to snorkel but I still got to see lots of pretty fish including blue tang, French Angel fish, peacock flounder, lots of yellow striped snapper. The main coral there was a magenta feathery variety and some black fans. I snorkeled on and off for the next 3 hours taking breaks when sea sickness started to rear its ugly head. In the top picture, one of the specks is my friend in an air mattress. I nervously watched her hoping she wouldn't drift too far away as there were strong currents. We did take long walks up and down the long beach with me collecting sea glass. I now have quite the collection. Per usual, my friend is more diligent in taking pictures and she will share once we get back to reality. Not many shells to be found though, at least dead ones (there were pretty sea snails but they were firmly attached to their rocks). We did not get the full 8 hour stay as promised because of the medical evacuation the day before, a five hour detour consuming 40,000 tons (pronounced 'thons' by our Dutch captain)of fuel, ate into our stay. The town itself, 3 miles away? was allegedly full of Bermuda styled houses, which would have been pretty to see. Also there were salt ponds, the main industry before tourism, that have interesting wildlife. As we could see the ships clearly from the beach, we decided it would be a good walk back though hot and unshaded and going by an abandoned US military base which had blocked the shorter beach route. I had only a few spots of sun burn. I swam with a long shirt as it was noon when were there, full sun to my winter white skin. My friend tans much more readily. Right outside the cruise pier, they had a touristy collection of shops which we visited. Pretty flowers all around and steel drum music from the huge Margaritaville complex surrounded the space. The picture below is the water right next to the ship with the sun giving it an eerie but beautiful peacock blue glow..this doesn't quite capture how pretty it was. Back to the ship to wash out the sand that had accumulated in every crevasse of my body.

Our Quotidian Life on the Dam Ship

2012-02-13T12:09:00.002-05:00

The twin Dam ships docked side by side in Grand Turk. Ours was on on the left

If we were not at port, I would don my running clothes first thing in the morning, hydrate with
fresh squeezed orange juice (excellent) and caffeinate with coffee (not so good but sometimes
the cappuccino at dinner was OK). This ship was excellent for running having a third of a mile
teak track that was mostly covered (larger than a standard high school track). I hate treadmills
especially now that I have no balance on top of the waves. I spent no time at all in the fitness
center though my friend did. It was always toasty and humid even in the morning. I am used to
running outside in the 30s with just a T-shirt so the heat took a toll on me. I needed to take
several water breaks but I was able to run my quota or close to it on this trip (I am obsessive).
We would take walks around and around this in the evening when we were feeling especially
indulgent and guilty. After my shower, I'd grab a buffet breakfast (omelet, Belgian waffles,
and Eggs Benedict stations..usually just finished the first) and find my friend basking around
the pool, which had hot tubs surrounding it.

We had different opinions on where it would be best to eat. I favored the fancy sit down
dinners (we had an open seating arrangement that required us to reserve each day instead
of having a fixed time with the same people); my friend favored buffets. She thought the
dinners led to overeating; I thought the buffets were more likely to. So we compromised
with dinners most of the time in the sit down places and lunches being the buffet salad line.

Sample lunch menu: must click on it to read.
Sometimes they had BBQ dinners by the pool. At one, I had an especially yummy sirloin steak whereas my friend enjoyed the grilled mahi-mahi. One night they had a fancy dessert buffet with some photos below

but I had my heart then set on the crepes suzette.
The usual fancy drinks that were constantly peddled were $8(after automatic tip) but at certain times and at certain bars, we could get them for $4.50 a piece. We were suckers for fancy drinks and spent much time agonizing over our choices.. We agreed to be in some bizarre exercise called Pool Games in return for a rum punch at the end. What is a little public humiliation in front of people we would never see again. One of the drills involved us running around the deck with a pool noodle between our legs passing it without hands to our teammates; another back paddling on a swimming ring 2 laps in the pool and another passing a t-shirt from person to person with our arms locked. We also attended cooking classes, how to make fancy drink classes, how to make towel animals along with listening to a string quartet and one fancy show in their big lounge. We watched The Help one night. We attended two teas though one was offered every day ( I love English teas). These were dangerous things for the overeater. One was an Indonesian tea with their special goodies (most of the ships crew was from Indonesia). Most of the time we just lounged around sometimes in a hot tub (less fun on a hot day) reading. We watched almost every sunset outside. The ship gave out too much light for star gazing. We would have a glass of wine before and after dinner. One night, our dinner companions for two of the dinners, a very pleasant gay couple, shared their champagne with us. We usually ate with interesting people. One was a couple who lived far north of Jasper, Alberta who hunted all their food from their front porch: moose, bear, elk. Lots of stories.
The bars were interestingly decorated. One was entered by going through a narrow hallway with Andy Warhol pictures of Marilyn Monroe lighting up as you passed. We went to the library a few times trying to look up wildlife that we saw. I would go there by myself when the sun was becoming too much for me.
Below is some of the decor:

Our rooms were made up twice a day. At night we'd find chocolates on our pillow and a fancy towel animal (will post these once I get my friend's pix). They had fancy toiletries in the bathroom but the shampoo dried out my hair too much and the strong mint in the shower gel burned some places of mine so I used my own. After our final glass of wine, I'd fall asleep while my friend watched movies or details about the ports we were visiting. Or we'd watch the map showing where the ship was. It was totally quiet at night as we were on a dead end far from the elevators and public rooms.

We also had fun at the stores although this ship did not have as many as other ships I have been on did.We'd try a different perfume every night. This is how I discovered that the good deal at the Art Fair on J'adore was probably a fake. The liquor tasting was especially fun and led to us buying a bottle each of Marula fruit liquor from South Africa. Damned if the TSA agents at some point on the trip back didn't pry this box open and all my careful wrappings. I did declare it though and at least it came back unbroken.

Two formal nights..I do have fancy clothes but they take up a lot of space and my fancy shoes are all painful to walk in especially the distance the cruise ship required. Still I was underdressed lacking all the bling and sequins others had. I am not a bling person.

Sea Legs

2012-02-13T07:12:00.001-05:00

Sun setting over Florida from plane window

Even though it has been almost 24 hours since the ship docked, I still feel its sway back here in the cold north. Oh did I need some sun and warmth!
This was to be the MOM's cruise. We have been meeting for over 32 years having our little bobbleheads laying on our hand crocheted blankets in front of us while we shared stories of their little triumphs. One by one our potential cruisers dropped out leaving just the two of us but that was enough for a party so we went. The cruise line we took was one of the few (if not the only one) which lets you bring your own wine to the room. I fretted a bit while packing. Did I want to risk wine breaking over all my 'nice' clothes? Solution: Boxed wine! Doesn't break, needs no corkscrew and the box is lighter than the glass.

We flew to Ft. Lauderdale where the airport, the hotels, and the cruise port are all in a short distance from each other.Theoretically we could walk! On our last cruise chosen in part for its price, we ended up a $100 taxi ride from port..not doing that again. We also flew in the night before so I wouldn't be worrying if we would be snowed in missing the cruise but no snow on the day we left or the day after.We chose a motel whose price was half that of the going, inflated rate. After we had paid for it, I started reading the reviews (wrong order of things I know). Lots of Worst place ever! Bugs! Avoid like the Plague! Dangerous Area! There were a few reviews addressing its charm and friendliness but maybe the owner threw those in.
The plane itself was full of cruisers. I could not sit with my friend (must make reservations way earlier!) but I sat with two very excited sisters eager for their trip, one missing her first grandchild's birth (I booked this cruise back in March! I had no idea she would get pregnant!)Very chatty ladies and packing every kind of snack food imaginable which they shared with me.
Haitian Taxi Drivers: This seems to be their competitive niche. While we waited in the taxi line, a fight broke out between two drivers shouting loudly in French Creole. They were vigorously punching each other: were weapons coming next? The dispatcher broke it up. Soon it was our turn to hop in a 20 year old falling apart car driven by the surliest man ever. There was a fixed price presumably and the motel was close but he seemed real put out to have to be driving us there. He pointed to the trunk when we arrived for us to unload our bags ourselves. Our motel host told us that all the guests complain about the rudeness of the taxi drivers but he would arrange for 'nice ones' for the following day.

Our Charming Dive: This was a small stucco motor court built in the 1930s and not updated much since. An indie film director rented the whole place out a few weeks before for its shabby ambiance I guess. My friend took numerous photos of this place which I will share (she brought 2 cameras: a large fancy one with multiple lenses and a small one such as mine..she took ten photos if not more for every one I took)It had various flowering trees, a lit up palm tree, brightly painted Adirondack chairs in its court yard, and a swimming pool. The manager, a young, friendly British dude, offered us wine. We sat in the steamy Florida night eating our makeshift dinner of hummus, cheese, olives, crackers (I took the 'no food anywhere' review to heart) underneath the lit up palm tree. We stayed up until one in the morning with Chris the dude sharing his views on the world and class struggles. In Britain, the divide between the Posh (as he calls and hates them) and the working class is great. We broke open one of the boxes once the motel's happy hour policy was exceeded. The area was a mix of car rental lots and fuel storage tanks. In the morning, we could see the tops of the cruise ships. In the room, I checked the sheets carefully for bedbugs (though no reviewer complained of this in this place but did in the other hotels). I did not see any of the dreaded Palmetto Bugs (Floridian for extremely large cockroach)that some reviews referred to. We did see some little ants. The room was clean but small. It had a photo of Billy Idol on the wall. I got up early to read under the palm tree and eat the reasonable continental breakfast knowing that soon I would be in food heaven.We had time to kill before the ship would let us on. We dangled our toes in the pool. Already I was worrying about being sun burned. We investigated the various flowering trees which I could not identify beyond the hibiscus.But flowers! When I have I seen a flower bloom outside of my confused quince! Other cruisers started to surface and we compared notes with them.

From the Lido deck waiting for us to leave port. The ship to the left was a twin of the ship we were on and went to the same ports. At port we would ask Which Dam ship are you on?

After standing in several lines, we were finally on our floating home for a week! So excited. My friend had not been on a cruise before. Believe it or not, we were on the young side on this ship. No hip-hop: no kids running all over the place..very quiet.

According to the cruise line, the ship had 2 million dollars of art work throughout the ship. The overall decor was art deco. On the left are the designs in the elevator doors. Our favorite elevators were the glass ones suspended over the sea and outfitted with color changing lights at night. Others avoided these elevators as being out in the open made them ill. We were on a budget and chose an inside room which was efficiently finished and had great mattresses. I think I will opt for a window at least the next time. But plenty of places to lie in the sun or in the shade (one of us preferred shade to sun). We easily made friends with other cruisers throughout the week. In short, we had a blast! I was afraid of becoming seasick but the seas were calm for the most part though others complained. The cruise director's favorite question: What religion are those people with the spots behind their ears?Answer: Equeasiasticals.

Throughout the week, many saw porpoises and a few saw the migrating humpback whales. All I saw were the flying fish and firigate birds.
We were to have 4 ports of call and two whole days at sea but we were not able to do the last port, the one I looked most forward to, due to it being too dangerous to tender in the high waves. The ship needed to medically evacuate two people: one required that the ship turn around and backtrack 2.5 hours to land so we missed a chunk of time in our first port. The other evacuation required just an hour or so. The sister ship had someone helicoptered in a swinging box right off the ship itself.
At the cruise port, one mega ship had to come in 2 days early as the ship was infected with norovirus, my favorite. Other ships were delayed due to this. Fortunately this was not a problem on our ship. As a precaution, for 48 hours, no guest could reach for food or have skin to skin contact with the help. All surfaces were swabbed regularly.

The City of Many Colored Houses

2012-02-12T18:04:00.000-05:00

All of the above are from Old San Juan.

I'm back..and there is snow on the ground. It was 80 degree in San Juan.
Still unpacking.

Made with real ingredients that you can actually see

2012-02-03T08:35:00.000-05:00

..and other corporate inanities

Our most recent car was recalled. We dutifully made an appointment to fix the offending system. But at the appointment, the needed part was not on hand. The whole recall was news to the service department. This means yet another trip. Fortunately it can be done very close to where Don'tae works.

Border's, an Ann Arbor company, closed some time ago. All that is left is its inferior competitor. Borders must had sold its mailing list in its dying gasp to them and I was sent a coupon for the competitor last standing. I needed some new reading material for the cruise so I decided to use it yesterday. I was told that I already used the coupon even though I was sent it that very morning. Really. They aren't the last place to buy books; there is always on-line. Just as I was to remind them of that, they honored the coupon.

The title for this post came from a commercial for a snack product I heard last night. As opposed to fake ingredients that are invisible? Even sawdust is real, natural and visible..yeah I know, they were trying to stress how wholesome their product is.

Dear Readers, this might be the last post for a while unless I find some time tomorrow instead of rushing around at the last minute like I am wont to do. Internet access on the ship is expensive and during my time in port, I hope to be having fun outside an internet cafe. I will take notes.

Places that we will be: Ft. Lauderdale, Grand Turk, San Juan Puerto Rico; Sint Maarten; and the cruise's private island in the Bahamas. We will have two beach (snorkeling!) days in the Bahamas and the Turks. In San Juan, we will visit by foot the Old Town where I have been, too briefly, before. We have only one official excursion scheduled; to visit an ecological reserve featuring parrots in Sint Maarten.

My Life of Magical Thinking

2012-02-02T11:28:00.000-05:00

In honor of Groundhog's day

How do I define magical thinking?

Having at least one the following beliefs:

If I think it, it will happen. This pertains to both positive and negative events.
If I don't think it, it won't happen.
If it hasn't happened yet, it won't happen.
If I leave it alone, it will go away on its own.
If we don't discuss it, it doesn't exist.

Steve is especially fond of reducing #3 and #4 to practice much to my continual frustration. The game of gasoline roulette as discussed previously is a favorite of his. He still likes to play it even though we have lost in inconvenient places. #5 is practiced by both of us to maintain peace.

But despite being Suzie Skeptical Scientist, I have been guilty too many times of #1. My main indulgence was in the distant past when I tried to effect the attention of the love interest du jour by merely thinking positive thoughts. This actually worked in several cases. But fate is cruel and loves to laugh in my face; by the time my wishes came true, I was no longer interested. In one case, there was a 5 year gap between desire and the chance of fulfillment.

The object of my obscure desire (OOD):

Right before my last year of college, my relationship with my fiance PC (now only one of my readers knows what that stands for) dissolved. Even though this was for the best in so many ways, I had difficulty accepting this and was quite distraught. I refused to move on and was mired in self-pity. A few months later, I zeroed in on a man that I thought might bring me happiness. I want him, only he will make the whole PC thing liveable. I really didn't know much about OOD nor did I ever treat him in a way to encourage him. But I wanted him. And through the power of magical thinking, this time in a reasonable time frame, I had him..sort of.

On some levels we connected; on other levels we did not at all. Over the next couple of year, he would go in and out of my life telling me that he would be gone for good this time and then appear again. He said he would want to make things better this time but we ended up not being able to understand each other. Finally he left town though he surfaced the night that Josh was to be conceived.

OOD has an unusual name. A few weeks ago, I googled him and there he was all over the place complete with his opinions on everything. Maybe I can understand him now from afar. He is dying now of a neurodegenerative disease, albeit slowly as he has had the disease for at least 12 years. He is an activist of sorts. A coincidence ( I almost typed in irony; my life is chock full of irony but I guess coincidence is most apt in this case) is that my grubby little hands synthesized a potential cure for this crappy disease. It ameliorated the symptoms in rats at least but in humans it caused unacceptable side effects.

Back in the land of wishful thinking, be careful what you wish for, I am taking a break from running so that I can concentrate on getting ready for the cruise. The biggest problem: footwear. Shoes just take up so much space. I am also finished up a photobook. I have purchased so many of these Groupon and its ilk deals, I am losing track of them. I know this one will expire as soon as I get back from my trip. This one features my trips to England and Canada. Eventually I want to have complete childhood books of each of the kids but as everything is non-digital, this involves lots of scanning and organizing.

Maya's favorite things

2012-02-01T14:50:00.000-05:00

Playing with the remote. We got her a colorful pretend one that makes many sounds but she prefers the real thing

Eating S'mores flavored goldfish

Driving the car with her impatient passenger

David is trying to escape

At the doctor's visit last week, Naomi had to fill out an autism screen. Does she like to watch other children? Show affection? Try to communicate? Maintain eye contact? Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

I read recently of a screen for autism for babies less than 14 months. As they sit on their moms' laps, they can look at two videos in front of them. One screen shows geometric designs and patterns; the other show kid playing and dancing. The kids that prefer the geometric designs all end up autistic; the ones preferring to watch other kids mostly do not.

57 degrees yesterday! But the snow had piled up quite a bit so it took a while to melt. It will be above freezing until I leave for my cruise. Temps will be in the 80s in the Caribbean. This should take a huge chunk out of crappy winter.

Idle time

2012-01-31T10:04:00.002-05:00

Our fair city is now considering an ordinance banning the excess idling of engines, excess defined as over 5 minutes. This includes autos, trucks, lawn mowers, and generators. Being stuck in traffic will be excluded along with waiting in line at the drive throughs. It is unclear whether one would be permitted to warm the car up to melt ice that can't be chipped off but maybe garages will be made mandatory or maybe it will be all right to drive with ice on your windows. Some people pull over to take cell phone calls. Well they better turn their engines off. The chief area of enforcement will be the schools where students have to run the gauntlet of waiting cars and buses and their 'toxic' emissions. As the school bus services have been cut, more students come to school by private car.

In the past, there were recommendations by the car manufacturers to never drive a cold engine but now, due to superior oils, that is no longer the case. Why the ban? Air quality experts cited the extra toxins that idling engines produced. Some were carcinogenic. There have been studies citing the increase in autism as a function of nearness to expressways (hotbeds of idling) in LA. There was even a study of the decrease of autism near toll booths along the New Jersey turnpike since E-Z pass has been adopted.

I've looked at some of those studies particularly the LA one. Small sample size. Also, the expressway is hardly the sole source of idling cars.

No one likes to breathe in exhaust. At work, the 'fresh' air intake vents were stupidly situated right where the delivery trucks would idle filling our labs with truck exhaust smelling worse than our work. We complained to no avail although finally the delivery site was changed more for their convenience as our site expanded.

If the city were sincere about reducing exhaust due to idling, it would have more timed lights.

This seems unenforceable as most idling is on private property. If idling around the schools is a problem, ban it at the schools.

The last ordinance passed by our council ended up costing some of them their jobs. This was the one requiring a full stop, even on major trunk lines, if one even thought they saw a pedestrian intending to cross. The problem was judging this.In one case near our house, the bus stop was located right next to a crosswalk. Are they waiting for a bus or going to cross? People seemed to stop for no reason leading to collisions. The state has no law about this so out-of-towners had no idea what the expectations were.The ordinance has since been amended to the potential crosser actually having to step into the crosswalk. Presumably when the city get more money, key crossings will be activated by flashing lights, much safer.

It appears to be spring again. I am impatiently waiting for the sun to burn a hole through the ice so I can go for a long run.

Yesterday I heard from 3 people who seemed to be missing in action. One a work buddy who had told me that he was moving out-of-state last June and I hadn't heard from him since. Another was a woman who was diagnosed the same time as me with TNBC reported a year ago that she was seeing about a suspicious mass and was scared to death. She never updated her blog until yesterday (she was fine). And another is a stage 4 very young BC survivor; I assumed no news was very bad news but that does not seem the case.

I also had a nice afternoon with a good friend, so that was fun.

My beautiful DIL

2012-01-30T10:02:00.000-05:00

In anticipation of their 30th birthday, Julia had these photos taken of her. For their birthday, I will convert one to canvas assuming I can get the original photo and not the thumbnails pictured here. They are not readers of my blog so maybe it will be a surprise. Which one?

I do like the bottom one for its artistry but the second one is most representative of how Julia looks.

It is icy outside again though it will melt by tomorrow. Yesterday we had a belated birthday dinner for Steve at Josh and Julia's. Maya charms everyone.

Mal de mer

2012-01-29T13:57:00.003-05:00

In one week I will be in the sun instead of snow. We are going down a day earlier than the cruise as flying in on the day of seems a recipe for disaster. I am trying to get ready. The cruise has 2 formal nights, maybe one formal dress of some sort will be good enough. The amount of luggage one can take has changed since I last went on a cruise; must pack carefully.

I am nervous about possible seasickness. This has been a problem in the past, though usually scopolamine took care of it. I would get it when others did not. I think the situation has gotten worse since chemo (balance still off too). I got seasick last summer just holding on to an air mattress in very gentle waves. I have been on boats only twice since chemo: once in Lago Maggiore (covering a distance I could probably swim) and later in the Mediterranean along the Cinque Terre coast. No problems then but the waters were very calm.

It is snowing hard again. Fortunately I was able to run before the snow became too heavy. Still had to dodge lots of icy patches. I will be so happy when this winter is finished.

Family dinner tonight at Josh's..what I look forward to.

Super tasters versus non-tasters

2012-01-28T11:00:00.003-05:00

To be filed under:
Yet another reason that I'm fat

Back in 9th grade biology (an interesting class that I partially discussed under Hamster Husbandry and will in the future, discuss the strange introduction to Sex Ed I received there), we were introduced to genetics in part by examining our own traits and comparing them to our parents' and siblings'. (This must be done very carefully these days, if at all, due to privacy concerns). Traits discussed: blood groups, tallness, hair and eye color, tongue rolling abilities, relative finger lengths and whether we could taste a bitter chemical, PTU, or not.

Only 30% of those with Northern European ancestry are non-tasters ( being a non-taster is even rarer amongst other groups). It is an autosomal recessive trait (though men seem to express it more). If you have this trait, the shorthand is tt.

tt=no ability to taste this substance and chemically related compounds
Tt=can taste this in the 'usual' concentration
TT=super taster. Can detect this substance in even the most dilute concentrations

With gene sequencing, now you don't even have to ask if one is a taster, it is an easy lab test.

So who cares if you can roll your tongue or not (I can) or taste this stuff (I can't)?

Well for starters, when I first came down with Graves' Disease (or at least when I was finally treated), I was given PTU to block the excess hormone that my strange antibodies were stimulating my thyroid to produce. I could not taste the stuff; others would complain how absolutely nasty it was. But more importantly the gene that controls this trait is also associated with taste bud density, taste in general, thyroid disease, smoking and coffee drinking preferences, and fat seeking in foods. Apparently we non-tasters love our fat more than the Tts and the TTs of the world and it shows.

On a somewhat related note, there was an interesting article today in the WSJ about how different cultures perceive others' taste in food disgusting or not notably in what fermented foods a given people will love. The assumption in this article was that taste is culturally determined.

Rotted ungulate bodily fluid anyone?

Yeah, that would be cheese, sometimes covered with obvious mold. We Westerners eat this with relish though we may be divided on the stinkiness we will tolerate. According to this article, many Asians find cheese absolutely disgusting, even the bland "American" cheese that Naomi requested in a Canadian restaurant (the waitress thought she would only eat cheese that was produced in the US and found her request odd and insulting.). The Sardinians push the envelope with their casu marzu, a sheep cheese that is riddled with live maggots. If the maggots have died, it is considered unsafe to eat.

Only Icelanders could tolerate their fermented shark festering in pits for 5 months.
The Japanese eat a fermented soybean dish known as natto for breakfast, which even the most adventurous westerner gags on upon tasting.

So I have no taste. My poor victims last night of my cooking; poorer as I usually cook only by taste. I try to make new things each time although I made my teri-yaki grilled scallops before (who doesn't love scallops? So tasty and quick to prepare. Downside: these suckers cost a lot). I served them over a pseudo-Asian salad of baby spinach leaves and a transparent, mung bean noodle. No I didn't forget to pluralize the word noodle. It turned out that what I had cooked was one, long hundred foot noodle making it impossible to toss amongst the greens. Lesson learned: break the mass up before cooking. It did taste good, if I say so myself, but as I have no taste, that would be suspect. I made coconut rice. I also served these things I didn't make but purchased from the new, huge Asian section of our local grocery store that serves the large local Asian population in our neck of the woods : seaweed sesame salad and steamed leek and mushroom buns.

But perhaps their tastes were blunted by the many bottles of wine consumed late into the night (and next day). It was fun as always. Love the Moms.

Maya goes to school

2012-01-27T11:12:00.000-05:00

Her favorite activity: pretending to drive the car

Close-up of the papier mache dragon head made to celebrate the Chinese New Year

Dragon march: the instructor envisioned the kids marching under the dragon's body while shaking their noise makers. No kid wanted to be covered up.

She likes to scribble preferably with both hands at once

The car's motor: a headless grandma

Ms. Maya goes to a class once a week with others ages 12 to 24 months in which half of the time is free play and the other half, circle time in which the same songs are sung week after week. During the free time, lately she just wants to be pushed around in the car and is very resistant to being transitioned to another activity.

Twice a month she has speech therapy. This is not going well. It is scheduled during her nap time (must see about changing that) so she is crabby. Although they have taught her sign 5 or 6 words, actual words are not used. This is how the other day went. Maya was given a wagon ride, which she enjoys. Suddenly the wagon stops. To make it go again, Maya must indicate the sign for go. Instead she screamed while pushing her body back and forth, her indication that she wanted the thing to move. After starting and stopping about twenty times, all we were left with were a frustrated baby and an instructor.

Today is her 18th month check-up (although she is almost 19 months). We know that from a WIC visit a few weeks ago, she is 50%tile for weight and 75%tile for height so they should be happy about that.(Update: she is 42%tile for weight and 87%tile for height according to the pediatrician) The lack of speaking, not so much but we are doing all that we can. Naomi is being watched carefully as they assume a low income young mother needs extra watching. And I guess I must be suspect as a grandmother because, if I were a good mother, I would not have had a child who became pregnant at 18.

I presumably did not speak until I was three although I don't know how much I trust the reporter of this. I do know that people judge intelligence from how articulate one is. This goes two ways: Naomi was put in the highest reading group in first grade because she was a fluent reader. It took another year to realize she had no idea what the words actually meant. I do not believe Maya is mentally slow otherwise. She is very alert and eager to try new things.

The Moms are coming over tonight. Must prepare.

Double birthdays

2012-01-26T14:45:00.000-05:00

Baby Steve with his mom in the summer of 1953

The birthday boy Oliver with his brother Daniel

A recent picture of Oliver

Oliver doing what he likes to do the most: dig dirt

What better present to receive than what Steve did 4 years ago today but a healthy, beautiful grandson?

I got the phone call early the morning before that maybe Shanna was in labor, she wasn't sure. Plus it was 2 weeks before her official due date and she felt she would go past it. Fortunately my car was already packed with the baby equipment that her sister-in-law was lending. I had Steve gas up the car while I hurriedly packed and made coffee. It was the one day it didn't snow not even in the lake effect areas and the mountains in my path. I kept myself awake learning Italian. Twelve hours and 750 miles later (yeah I drove fast stopping only for gas and to pee), Shanna still was wondering whether she really was in labor. She hadn't bothered to pack for the hospital.
What are you waiting for?
From her south-east facing apartment, we could see the downtown Boston skyline. There was fireworks that night. Cool. As soon as I started to take a nap, the contractions started to intensify and off to the hospital we went around midnight. At 4 or 5 centimeters, she was in active labor.
Early in the morning, Oliver came out screaming and kicking by C-section. It was not determined that he was in a frank breech position until Shanna was getting ready to push. Very, very annoying that the midwife never checked by ultrasound what was going on. But the baby is what is most important, not the delivery.

Oliver is a budding engineer with his building projects. A cheap thrill is to take him to see construction equipment, preferably in action. Firetrucks are very fascinating to him too. He likes to spell words and at a very early age, could identify letters and the sounds they make. What he does not like to do is sit and eat. He wants to be on the go.

For my more local birthday boy, I am making his favorite dessert, cherry pie. He does not like cakes or hardly anything sweet for that matter but cherry pie, he'll eat.

Nocebo/placebo

2012-01-25T16:09:00.002-05:00

Recently a ER+ positive BC survivor was told by her new oncologist that she should switch from taking tamoxifen to the newer aromatase inhibitors (AIs) due to her decreasing bone density and presumably better survival with the AIs. I asked what did he tell her about the side effects of the AIs?
Nothing.
Many women report crippling joint and bone pain from AIs (many of these women are my readers). This is a well known and very common side effect. Why wouldn't he have mentioned that to her? Certainly he knows..
I am going out on a limb here and assuming he is trying to prevent the nocebo effect. The nocebo effect is just as real and strong as the placebo effect. You tell someone certain things can happen and then they report that that they do even with inert "sugar'" pills. The negative are the 'nocebo' and the positive are the 'placebo'.
Well I wrecked that by rattling off the all side effects I knew. Of course she could have read the package insert too. IMHO, she should know all the facts ahead of time before making a decision.

Before I had babies, I was listening to a friend practice for being a LaMaze instructor. She accidentally used the word 'pain' a few times and quickly corrected herself and told me she was told never to use that word because anticipation of pain increases the perception of pain. She already had two babies with difficult, painful births. I asked her if she didn't feel a tad dishonest implying this all will be a piece of cake if you just would breathe correctly. She thought her births were exceptions (she is tiny; husband big: babies got their size from Dad).

The placebo effect is especially powerful for antidepressants. Allegedly effective ones are barely statistically superior to the placebo. I can understand why the placebo effect is so strong for treating pain but I was puzzled with its effect in depressed people. Don't they feel hopeless and nothing will ever become better? But I was told that even depressed people really want to get better.

What is shocking to me is that physicians actually prescribe known placebos to their patients. Of course they have to tell them or it would not be ethical. I imagine the speech goes something like this:

I am going to prescribe you a placebo today. In some studies, it is just as effective as X and with fewer side effects.

Sounds good to me, doc.

Our Dragon baby

2012-01-24T09:52:00.000-05:00

On Chinese New Year's Day, Shanna's baby remained in utero, good as she is only at 31 weeks gestation weighing in with a probable 3.5 lbs or so. She will be a dragon baby, the most auspicious sign. In areas with high Asian populations, there will be a huge increase in births this year as there was in 2000, the last Dragon year. Although Steve and I were born in the same year, he is a Dragon baby whereas I am the much more inferior Snake baby, due to differences in solar calendars versus lunar calendars.

We were watching one of our favorite shows House Hunters the other day (Josh's house had been featured on one of the shows as the house that a couple out-grew). An educated Asian couple with a big budget were searching for a house in this particular episode. They listed their Feng Shui requirements, among them was the house had to face east versus west and have a curved walkway versus straight leading up to it. I forgot what the north versus south importance was.

So maybe that is why my luck hasn't been so good; having been born a snake and having been lived in houses with straight walkways and facing west for the past 35 years.

The main problem I find with our west facing houses is prevailing winds. Everyone's leaves, snow and general flotsam ends up in our yard. The worst case was our first house in which we were directly east of a neighbor's huge cottonwood tree and compost pile. Shortly after we moved there, the neighbor came to introduce himself as Mr. Doe, NOT Mr. John Doe, call me John, please. Well I guess we were very young. I knew the man from before as he was my instructor in the Know your Auto class I took a couple of years before but after the icy introduction and no glimmer of recognition on his part, I didn't remind him of that. My former boyfriend took his class in high school. When one of his fellow students said something about how gross the engine grease on his hands was, Mr. Doe told him to wait until he was married because he will have much more gross substances on his hands then. That popped in my mind every time I saw him. He had a request, after we bag all of our lawn clippings, will we please add them to his compost pile. So we got to smell this too along with the rotted manure he added to his garden. And that crappy cottonwood capable of producing tons of choking cottonballs and yard debris (added to the compost pile). Finally the impressive derecho of 1980 (no power for more than a week) with its 100 mph straightline due west winds, knocked that sucker over. Our lawn was covered with its broken branches.

I don't put any stock in horoscopes and I am surprised when people do. One of my current middle of the night readings is Galileo's Daughter. Galileo first started out as a medical student. Part of practice of medicine then was knowing astrology. From gazing at the stars for his astrology classes, he became an astronomer, which led to him publishing his observations that were in contradiction with church doctrine, thus the heresy trial. I think it took more than 300 years for the Church to apologize.

Five years ago today: A dividing day

2012-01-23T16:23:00.000-05:00

One day you're this and the next day you are that. And it has to be a big thing too; not yesterday I had long hair and today I have short hair. We have thousands of those little moments. I would say that becoming a mom is a big dividing day though it gradually creeps up on you; no big surprise when the baby is finally born but you are in for a whole lot of change from the baby's birthday on. Learning I had cancer was a dividing day; things would not be the same although gradually they are becoming more that way.

Five years ago, all 2100 of us co-workers were told to go to a mandatory meeting at noon. Since not all of us could be held in one place, we were split up by departments. Steve's department was bused off-site about 15 miles away; mine stayed on-site. Blocking the entrances were plains-clothed security guards; defibrillators were wheeled in. We were then told that our huge complex will be completely shut down, no time table was given and more would be revealed in the next few days but for now, we all could go home and process this information. And BTW, no talking to reporters as it might impact our severance package. Initial responses: tears, anger, disbelief. Some of the workers accused the management of 'coastism', the belief that intelligence only could be found a few miles in from either coast. We in the middle are just fodder.We were the most productive site; we provided most of the blockbusters despite our size. But life was not fair and this company especially was not.There was no one to blame in the room. Our local management fought to save us, I believe that.

Not everyone was crying, Steve was actually cheering although he had the good sense to keep this to himself. He was just sick of it. Work was increasingly causing more and more anxiety. Although we were fairly young to retire (53!!!), getting an extra two years of salary and a promise to have health insurance until we were Medicare aged made things easier. Plus we could start collecting our pension although we would really take a big hit if we touched it before we were 60. Our house was paid for and we only had one kid left at home. Shanna and Josh were finished with school. Plus we were sure opportunities would present themselves after awhile, which they did though not particularly high paying ones.

Work actually was easier for me. I no longer needed to justify what I was doing. I made potential drugs that I thought might work and it looked like I was being very productive. I received a couple of bonuses for this. Because I was being so 'good' I was asked to stay on to the bitter end. Steve's department lasted longer, which was good so we didn't receive 2 mega checks in the same year. During this time, he was sent to England to work there for a month.

Previous to this, any of us thought we would have no trouble getting a job anywhere. We were presumably working for the best, we must be the best. And for those under 40, they still had a full dance card with multiple offers. But for the older workers...,not so much. You could feel the anxiety; months of looking with no prospects. Michigan already was suffering the downsizing of the auto industry. The bank/mortgage meltdown was about to happen. Meanwhile the company was by far, the city's biggest tax payer and the biggest contributor to various charities so even our neighbors would feel our pain.

So I no longer go to work; the world is my oyster; I could do anything I want. I no longer have to prepare absurd reports to justify my existence. The first thing I did was plan Shanna's wedding and then deal with the aftermath of my mother's death, just 3 days after my last day. We received a 'retraining' allowance to spent at an accredited institution of some sort. I enrolled in a summer abroad program in an Abruzzese hill town in Italy. How being fluent as a toddler in Italian will get me a job is yet to be determined. Fighting cancer, however passively, took up a great deal of time and energy. And although I never was a stay-at-home mom (excepting one summer), I am a stay at home grand mom.

The pension we receive turns out to be really small and our expenses turned out to be really big so Steve reluctantly returned to work although in a much more relaxed atmosphere. Plus he can quit at any time.

Back in the land of winter thunderstorms that kept me up last night, I am getting better. I tried to run just a little bit yesterday and it was a huge chore plus very icy in our neck of the woods. The warm rain put a dent into our uncleared streets so I gave it another try this morning. Much, much easier so it was a joy to be able to move again. Still not loving food, which may be a good thing. I went shopping yesterday and was having a hard time finding anything I could stand to eat. My formerly favorite red pepper tomato soup caused a reflexive gag just looking at it. It was the last thing I had consumed before my vomit fest a few nights ago.

I watched Ms. Maya while Naomi tried to straighten out the latest snafu with her benefits. It does not pay to get a job as it turns out. And Shanna received another demand for jury duty. Living in another state should be a good excuse. Being very pregnant, probably not. Last year, Naomi was supposed to do jury duty and found out that breast feeding is not a reason for exclusion nor was being a part-time student. She went anyway and was not selected at the last minute. I was supposed to start jury duty right before I was to begin radiation and was given less than a week to get a medical excuse meaning an extra hospital visit for me during a time I felt like death itself.

Winter vomiting bug

2012-01-22T11:25:00.000-05:00

This is just one of the many names for the norovirus responsible for 90% of 'the winter crud' in the US. I have been referring to it in my previous posts as the Norwalk virus, which is just one strain of the norovirus. The norovirus is an RNA virus that lacks the waxy coat that other viruses and I assume most bacteria have. Why does this matter? It means that alcohol based sanitizers and detergents (hand soap) do not kill it. Chlorine bleach will however. It is amazingly infectious. As little as one to ten viruses will lead to an infection. It is spread on surfaces, through air , through direct contact and through food prepared by an infectious person. It can even become aerosolized in a public restroom when the toilet is flushed. What is amazing to me is that more people don't have it. Some how I have lived many years without having it but this year, I have gotten it twice as has Steve and Naomi. For reasons I can't understand, people with Type O blood are much more likely to contact it. I think I am the only one in my family who has Type O (though I am not sure about Ramy or Julia). I guess knowing what I do now, it was not wise to invite everyone over for dinner the day I was so sick around Thanksgiving though I took many precautions. Shanna got ill a week later but usually one gets it within 3 days. The rest of my guests did not get it.

On the positive side, no one dies from it and it is short-lived. One gets a short term immunity from it so hopefully I am good for the cruise leaving in 2 weeks. My friend and I made some arrangements for it last night so most of our stay is planned. She is still deciding about whether she wants to get up close and personal to the sting rays.

I did read a funny story about the norovirus outbreak. Recently there was a conference for journalism students in which the virus spread like wildfire. During the main speaker's talk, 50 students rushed out to vomit leaving the speaker puzzled.

Pain

2012-01-21T14:40:00.000-05:00

One of the last projects I worked on was Pain. As we were taught, there are two types of pain: nociceptive pain (good pain; warns the body to stop doing something hazardous like leaving your hand in the fire) and neuropathic pain (bad pain: serves no useful purpose). We were interested in treating both, preferably with the same medication (aka Magic Bullet) but this probably does not exist. Not all nociceptive pain is 'good'. Arthritis for instance although perhaps it discourages the sufferer from continuing to grind bones against bones due to no cartilage left. Narcotics treat both types with various success but have too many side effects. Neuropathc pain is due to damage to the nerve itself. Diabetic neuropathy and fibromyalgia seems to make up much of its cause.

Taxol can also cause lasting neuropathy. In my case, it only lasted for about 12 hours per drug cycle. Every muscle fiber seemed inflamed particularly in my hips and thighs. Fortunately it went away but it does not in many cases.
The best treatments so far for neuropathic pain were developed at our company and we were trying to do better. I am out of the loop now and legally can't discuss my previous work.

I have been told, not at work, that there are two types of pain; memorable and non-memorable. An example of the former is dental pain and of the latter, childbirth. I suppose the latter serves an evolutionary function. If you truly remembered how awful childbirth was, would you do it again? I am guilty of this. I do remember thinking that I was experiencing severe pain but I couldn't even describe it to myself soon after the birth. Yet I do remember my adventures with an incompetent dentist when I was about 8 who insisted that he numbed me (no he did NOT!) extremely clearly. I got a taste of it the other week when they were preparing me for the crown.

It is hard to measure pain. In the hospital, they ask you what it is on a scale of 1 to 10 or they have pictures of distressed people and you point to the face that most mirrors your own. Not that they believe you. I was only 1 cm dilated and experiencing what I thought was severe pain and I was told that was impossible given how weak my contractions were (that could be measured). Naomi had the opposite: strong contractions that she could not perceive as pain.

It is annoying how little patients reports are trusted. The definition of asthma are three wheezing episodes witnessed by the doctor. Although many episodes have been observed by Shanna, Oliver will not wheeze on command.

From ages 14 to 18, I had severe dysmenorrhea that made me useless for about 8 hours each month. I would say that sometimes the pain would approach end stage labor. I would have dry heaves. I wanted this stopped. I went to the library to research it and was distressed to find out that it was not real and probably some psychological maladjustment on my part to woman hood. I started my periods at 12 but they were painless for a while. How come I suddenly started rejecting my 'womanhood'? This is before they knew about prostaglandins and blocking their pathway. My grandfather used to give us his medical journals. In it I read that those on birth control pills did not have cramps. Well sign me up. Of course my mother would not consider it but as soon as I got to college, I got on them and they worked. Or maybe I just accepted my womanhood. Later, simple anti-imflams did the trick, ibuprofen being the preferred medication.

I feel better today though I am still queasy. Ms. Maya did come down with a milder version of this crud. She still has a bit of an appetite so I take that as a good sign.

And the shoe dropped

2012-01-20T12:41:00.001-05:00

I am miserable right now with this probable Norwalk virus thing. It feels just like the crud I had around Thanksgiving but that was worse as I was expected to entertain and cook.

So if you ever feel nauseous, don't eat anything tomato based and definitely do not have a glass of red wine. I really didn't think I ate much yesterday but from the sheer volume of vomit, it appeared that I did and that my stomach must have a capacity twice as big as the normal person. I do have some heavy duty anti nausea medication left over from my chemofest days but I figured that would be counter-productive as perhaps it is good to remove the virus that took up residence in my upper digestive tract (not lower as it usually does).
The good news is that this thing should be gone by tomorrow and I haven't thrown up in almost ten hours. Coffee is out of the question. I have been drinking raspberry tea to get some caffeine.

Also Maya does not have it. Norwalk doesn't seem to attack babies but rotoviruses do. This would be life threatening to her.

As Steve was too ill to leave the house yesterday, I had to deal with the repairman. The good news is that the condo's wiring is all right. The bad news: Maytag sucks. Due to a faulty design, once this foam housing wears away, a sharp metal edge touches live wires and sets off enormous sparks. The place could have burnt down. It burnt out the circuit board. There will be a complaint filed with the consumer safety people. the repairman hasn't seen it before: just our dishwasher is faulty apparently.

Naomi is recovering too. As Maya napped we played 'seven little words'. Trying to increase her vocabulary in a fun way.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

2012-01-19T12:20:00.000-05:00

I am surrounded by illness. Naomi spent some time in the ER the other night hooked up to an iv getting rehydrated from some sort of intestinal virus that is going around and last night, Steve came down with it. I spend much more time with Naomi than Steve or maybe they caught it from separate sources. I am hoping Maya does not get it. I had her for most of the day yesterday so Naomi could recover. Then I was around people with respiratory symptoms..
So far, I am just a bit more tired and was not very enthusiastic about running late yesterday in the cold wind which seemed to bother me more than usual. This morning would not have have been a good time to feel pukey as I spent a good deal of the time in the dentist chair getting my crown, repairing another chipped tooth that just happened the other day (gravel in my fig butter?), having a general check-up and cleaning. No cavities at least. It finally snowed giving me a slippery drive this morning. I lost control trying to make a Michigan left.

So this has been a week of ups and downs. Downs such as having a blogger friend die and Naomi's dishwasher almost bursting into flames (repair person is supposed to show up today). Ups include a nice lunch with a friend and Happy Hour on another evening and a good visit from Josh. Also, through Internet sleuthing, I found the address of a child of a lost friend and sent a letter to it. Hopefully this will reconnect me with my friend. I last spoke to her in the middle of the night about 6 or 7 years ago. She was very upset and about to leave her third husband. After about 2 hours, I said that I really had to go to sleep (I was working that morning). I said I would call back in a few days but didn't until about a month later. By then, her home phone and her cell phone numbers were disconnected. Maybe she was mad that I didn't listen to her longer but she didn't contact me. I have a feeling she moved to be close to her sister who lives in another state but I can't remember the sister's last name for the life of me. Unfortunately my friend had a very common last name as did all her husbands. Her first child was born before she turned 19. I found someone with that name and birthdate close to where the sister probably lives. Hopefully the address is still good and he just doesn't throw my note away.

I did enjoy watching the Golden Globes or at least the part that didn't interfere with Downton Abbey. I love looking at the gowns. My favorites? Angelina Jolie's and Jane Fonda's. Ms. Fonda is in her 70s and of course she's had a lot of work but looks fabulous. They did show her back briefly and time has done a number on her back skin.

They eat horses don't they? And bunnies..

2012-01-18T13:22:00.001-05:00

I love to visit grocery stores in other countries. One can get a real feel for the culture from what is sold.
The yellow box is what we found on a Stresa, Italy grocery shelf. We couldn't believe our eyes! Recommended age for eating horse? After 4 months. Recently I looked into this further and found another company that produced homogenized horse baby food. They also sell lamb, rabbit, and 'struzzo' baby food. Any guess what the latter is?

Ostrich.

I am chomping at the bit to get out and run but alas, I am baby sitting. My little charge is sleeping (finally!). Her mom went to the ER last night all weak from throwing up with what I hope is food poisoning (versus stomach flu). Maya does not seem to be affected. I took her to her class this morning. Her favorite activity today was pretending she was driving a Little Tykes car with me providing the motor. She did not want to quit this. When it finally became 'circle time' she threw her very first tantrum clawing at my face as I took her screaming out of the car and then pounding the ground furious. Finally she was distracted with bubbles being blown every where and all was suddenly right with the world.

Snark

2012-01-17T08:13:00.004-05:00

From my favorite Passive/aggressive notes

Maya in action

2012-01-16T18:20:00.000-05:00

A Rare Blossom Dies

2012-01-16T09:16:00.003-05:00

Pictured above is the waratah blossom, a rare flower that grows in Australia, the symbol of New South Wales. My dear fellow blogger Cheryl of Indigo Dreaming (http://chezradford.blogspot.com/) nurtured it for years. It finally bloomed this fall giving her a little joy as she lay dying. This is her photo of it. Yesterday she died of the breast cancer that spread to her skin and underlying organs. She would update her blog regularly with pictures of its hideous advance. Most cancer keeps its ugliness hidden.

But despite this, she read my blogs and commented frequently with humor and wisdom. She was a rare blossom and will be so missed.

I pledge allegiance..

2012-01-15T09:56:00.000-05:00

Our fair state faces many problems but what do certain legislators concentrate on?
Ensuring that every school child , including high schoolers, recite the pledge daily. I am not sure what the penalties are for non-compliance..cutting the district's funding? Firing the teacher?

In New York, I remember having to recite the pledge. I didn't have the slightest idea what it all meant. Not to toot my own horn here (although that's all I seem to do) but if I didn't understand it, I am sure my classmates did not either. I remember the one year, we recited it to an empty flag pole since the new 50 star flags hadn't come in yet or our school district couldn't pay for them yet they had discarded the 48 star ones. Yeah, just how old am I?

I don't remember reciting it in Michigan but maybe I did. I am sure that I did not do it beyond elementary school. Years later, when the New Jersey chemists were transferred to Ann Arbor, they got together for support I guess being stranded here in the wilderness, the Fly Over Zone, poor them. As I was dating Steve, (one of the NJ chemists), I was there. The NJ spouses were all full of negativity about having to be here in the Midwest (go home then). One was astonished to find out that her little darlings weren't regularly spouting the pledge and was going to make it a one woman mission to make sure they did. This wasn't a person I wanted to friend.

I see several problems with this potential law. First of all, not everyone here are American citizens, especially in Ann Arbor. Second of all, some people's religions prohibit this. Third of all, separation of Church and State anyone? Fourth, the teaching hours in high school are too short as it is..is this how we want their time spent?
And lastly, enforced patriotism seems a bit fascist to me. And for certain marginalized groups to repeat 'justice for all' when they have experienced little justice just increases cynicism.

Also being considered by the same people..drug tests for anyone who gets any sort of assistance..unemployment, WIC included. Wouldn't this be expensive? Nope. The recipients will have to fork over the money themselves to take the test..too bad if they don't have it. Too bad for their children if for some reason they test positive Too bad that there are false positives (see blog about Julia's wealthy friend being screened against her knowledge while she was giving birth, she had to prove the test was a false positive..she had the resources fortunately for her..meanwhile they threatened to take her baby away).
Yeah I know..no one wants their tax dollars used to support a drug habit. I don't either. I also didn't want them spent to support certain contractors that made out like bandits during the 'war' but there you go.

Interference Engines

2012-01-14T12:45:00.002-05:00

Over the years, I have had many old cars and I think I have bought a few cars piece by piece as almost every part has failed at some point on some car. I hate being ignorant about things so at one point, I took a Know your Auto class. One of the skills I learned was how to gap spark plugs, useless information now as all cars now have fuel injected engines.

A friend called yesterday and asked if I ever had a timing chain or belt fail? Yes indeedy, at least twice, maybe even three times, in relatively new cars at that. I know the symptoms. And if they fail, you aren't going anywhere. One snapped on a railroad track when Josh and Shanna were quite young and Steve was running in a marathon miles away. He also had all the AAA info. All of this was before cell phones. Somehow I pushed the car off the tracks and went into a nearby store to beg for a ride to our house 6 miles away. Shanna was old enough to be embarrassed by that. The fix was fortunately inexpensive.

But in my friend's case, she was quoted thousands of dollars. Could this be right? And the car is fairly old so it would not be worth it but she is not in the position that she can replace it right now. It all hinges on whether the car has an 'interference engine' or not. This is a particularly crappy design flaw in which a broken timing chain could result in 'catastrophic' engine failure due to cams colliding with pistons at the wrong time. And these things are not rare. I suspect the one car that we let Naomi drive has one and even the car that stopped on the railroad track had one. I suppose the car companies can always say that they recommended that you change the timing belt at regular intervals if you complain. And according to my research, my friend does NOT have one despite what the mechanic says. If they had a dealership in the town the car died in, she could find out for sure but it closed.

Another strange term I learned recently was Supreme as in the orange was separated into its supremes. It is also a verb as in The grapefruit was supremed. And then we have Chicken Supreme which if I had to guess was chicken better than the rest or maybe with some cream sauce. But no, it means the breast meat has been separated from the bones, nothing more.

Winter is back. Yesterday running in stiff winds on ice was not too inviting so I waited until today. No wind but colder and more snow (not enough to ski on though). I ended up finding a parking lot that had been plowed and salted..boring but better than nothing.

Homelands

2012-01-13T10:15:00.000-05:00

All of the above are scenes from York, a city in Northern England, in Yorkshire. This is the fartherest north I had ever been and coupled with the fact we were there in 2007 on the summer solstice, it was the the longest day I ever experienced. Steve had been assigned to work in Kent County for 3 weeks. He was then free to travel for about 10 days with me. I chose York because we were both New Yorkers so we might as well see the original York. (Steve will argue that I am not a New Yorker because I came from 'upstate' and I only lived there about 8 years).

When I was studying in Italy, many of my fellow students were Italian-Americans discovering their roots and they went to connect with relatives. I was envious of them..lots of joyful discoveries and homecomings for them. I was asked many times there about my 'genitori'..my parent's people..not genitals. Saying that I was una americana wasn't good enough so I said I was tedesche (German), which was their second guess after danese (Danish..lots of Danish ex-pats there). But I am a mixture of Scottish, Irish, English, possibly French, Prussian, German, Polish, I have no real identity. On my mother's side, the country that many of her relatives came from no longer exists (Prussia). It has been hard to pin down anything from her side due to lack of education on her relatives' parts, lack of interest, lack of English, etc. For instance, when my mother's maternal grandfather died, the widow could not provide names of either of her parents-in-law or their birth places for the death certificate. I do know that from naturalization papers that they had a child born in Bergfriede, Prussia, my mother's uncle.

But things were different on my father's side. Lots of attention to detail, high education, good record keeping, etc so my roots are much easier to trace. Almost all the relatives on my father's father's side came from Scotland, but more than 200 years ago and these people are documented very thoroughly. My father's mother's side is a tad more interesting. Her father is from Dublin but I have conflicting reports whether his mother was a French woman named Jeanne Devereux or an Irish woman Jean Downy. His father was born in Dublin also so I guess if I went to Dublin, that would be a homeland of sorts. Her mother, Florence, born in 1860 in Iowa had gone to the Boston Conservatory of Music for what I assume was piano as she was listed in a census as a piano teacher. Florence's mother, was Sarah Mason, (my great-great grandma) born in 1824 in Halifax, Yorkshire, England to William Mason and the former Mary Lockwood, also born in Halifax , England. Sarah lived almost 87 years dying of Bright's disease, a catch-all phrase for various untreatable (then) kidney problems.

So Yorkshire is one of my homelands. When I watch Downton Abbey, I can pretend that it is about from whence I came (though I think it is not actually filmed in Yorkshire).

The first time I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer...

2012-01-12T15:48:00.001-05:00

was about 12 years ago.

It was a false alarm but I didn't know that for another 7 very long anxiety filled weeks after dealing with rejecting insurances, blizzards, what have you until I was told by UM that the lump wasn't worth biopsying.. I received this diagnosis from a radiologist in a small imaging center that everyone speaks highly of (except for me!) during the holiday season. All that was left that night was me and the radiologist. I remember she approved of me because after looking at my shoes, she said it was obvious that I care more about comfort than style or maybe this was a back-handed compliment like my former frenemy Cupcake gushing that I had the most perfect shade of dish water blonde hair. She also told me that I was LUCKY because my tumor was small, it was probably very early and thus treatable. I had a hard time wrapping my head around that..lucky would be NO cancer.

While I waited between numerous scans and the confirming ultrasound, I looked at a poster on the wall plotting women's deaths from heart disease versus breast cancer as a function of age. Excepting for the very young, heart disease looked like a bigger killer. How many women under 70 did I know that have been killed by a heart attack? None. How many from breast cancer? Plenty. I am not sure why that poster was even there.

She told me that I shouldn't have been too surprised by this diagnosis as from my history, she could see that my mother had had breast cancer.

But she was 64!

Well women are getting it these days ten years earlier than their mothers.

I then was miffed that she thought I was so old.

Age difference between my mother and I when I got 'real' cancer. Nine years. (and that suspicious lesion was removed in my 2nd surgery and was benign).

So the radiologist was wrong about my cancer, thankfully, but she wasn't wrong about the creeping downward age of diagnosis. Even daughters of women with the BRAC1 deletions are getting it ten years younger than their moms..this really points to something in the environment changing in the interim. It breaks my heart to find women on the internet in their twenties and thirties battling this dreadful disease. And it seems to be much more fatal in their cases in part because there is some disbelief that their lump could possibly be cancer due to their tender age. And what does this downward creeping trend mean for my daughters and granddaughters?

Last night was the Cooking for Survival class. We are trying to be good, us cancer battlers, trying to incorporate more green things, less fat, more whole grains, etc into our diet. Our salad was made from whole wheat bulghur, arugula, parsley and tomatoes. We had this multi-vegetable stirfry thing that was very tasty but involved lots of slicing and dicing. Our dessert was a pear upside down ginger cake (fat was substituted with applesauce.) I am collecting all the recipes; all I need to do is get on the stick and make them more often and stop whining.

I try not to be too political in my public postings but yesterday I got something from some obvious Tea Party fan. Her point was that she keeps herself healthy by eating right etc so she really is steamed about having to pay for health insurance when she doesn't need it and even worse for people who do need it because they didn't keep themselves healthy. I know it is wrong to wish cancer on someone but it would really pop her bubble if she got it despite being 'so good'. I didn't even try to respond.

I ran in the dark drizzle and fog this morning. It might be the last 'warm' day for a while. Spring in winter was too good to last.

A touch of glamour

2012-01-11T11:15:00.002-05:00

My DIL is a natural beauty who rarely wears any make-up except for lip gloss but here she is is glamouring it up a bit. I assume Josh took this picture.

Today is a Maya day. We already went to her Fun at One class in which she is the tallest and least hairiest but the youngest. She had fun. Favorite activity: Jumping on the trampoline and getting frog stamps on her skin.
Later we go to the speech therapists' to see what they can do.
Then it is off to Cooking for Survival for me.

More excuses for being fat

2012-01-10T14:26:00.000-05:00

So even though I might be smarter than the average bear and realize that excess weight is due to a surfeit of intake versus output and that consuming more vegetables might be more beneficial than eating fig crackers spread with cookie butter (yes cookie butter..had to try it from Trader Joe's), I remain fat.

When I first met with the Moms 32 (!!!) years ago, I told them despite their lying eyes, I was really a thin person. I had gained 80 lbs pregnant with Shanna. As she weighed somewhat less than that at birth, there was still a lot left over for me not to love. The excess was gone by the time she was one. The same story not much later with Josh though the weight gain wasn't as severe. Still I lost it all once I took up running. Same story with Naomi much later but then the pregnancy somehow triggered Graves' Disease. It made it much easier to lose the weight and I ended weighing as little as I did in junior high. Fine by me but GD has its own problems (heart failure anyone?) and it took almost 3 years to figure out what was going on. Since I was treated (by radiation), my weight has slowly crept from thin, normal, slightly chunky, to fat and then once I broke my arm and couldn't really move anything except the fork to my mouth, to very fat. And then I was hyPOthyroid, which helped preserve my new obesity even though the arm wasn't hurting so much. Just as I was recovering from that, CANCER, not a weight loss opportunity as one would think no thanks to steroids which made me ravenous and a low red blood cell count, which made exercising challenging.

OK so now I am not injured, have no signs of cancer, have normal blood counts and thyroid hormone levels, am able to run (albeit very slowly) for an hour and a half without stopping, know the basic rules of input and output, I should be back to my thin self or at least my normal self but NO...

I read a lot and now have come up with some new excuses all gleaned from science pages:

I am fat because my gut is infested with these bacteria which extract nutrition from even celery and share it with the host. I recently met a woman on a research project at UM who is sequencing their genome in hopes of developing a drug that will just kill them. Strange, though, as I am the only one in the family infested with them (everyone else is thin bordering on underweight).
I am fat because I can't sleep.Sleep deprivation leads to low levels of leptin which signals saiety and high levels of ghrelin, which increase appetite particularly for cookies covered in cookie butter.
Stress..yep plenty of that especially in the past 8 years. Higher levers of cortisol, stimulates neuropeptide Y, which stimulates carbohydrate cravings. (I was on a project at work trying to find an antagonist to this, unsuccessful).
And today, I read that I am fat because I have a fat personality or a tendency to 'easily experience negative emotions'.
Multitasking which leads to mindless eating. Should convert my behavior to 'mindful' eating.

Yeah lots of excuses. But this should be fixable right? I did get rid of the cancer weight...

One more day of spring and then the real weather returns. I could see a beautiful sunrise again this morning but it didn't look as nice through my camera lens. Yesterday, Ms Maya and I went to an indoor playground. The squishy floor set off a dance reflex in her..she tries to invent steps, which have been becoming more complicated. Music isn't necessary to entice her to dance. She of course looks adorable doing her little dances.

To friend and to defriend

2012-01-09T08:22:00.001-05:00

Alternate title: Defriending Frenzy

Yesterday we sit across from Josh and Julia at brunch on a crisp, sunny day. They are treating us with a Groupon that includes mimosas and bloody Marys. Steve doesn't drink (not since a few weeks before Maya's birth) and Josh does not drink 'in the middle of the day!' so Julia and I drink their share. Waste not, want not. We usually eat together about once a week but this brunch is a treat in part to make up for me being roused out of bed to drive through the dark and ice to rescue Julia the other day from being stranded. On this day, Julia is being unusually chatty fueled by the 2 mimosas slowly metabolized by her tiny body. She says something about a friend of mine.

And how would you know that?!?

Oh, we're Facebook friends.

Let me get this straight. You will be friends with my friends but you won't be MY friend.

I wasn't going to say anything. I thought for sure after the rescue, the friend request sitting in her in box would be fulfilled but no. And I knew she had been on Facebook. OK, some people want their privacy but those some people are usually teenagers. Why do I want to be her friend? She takes lots of photos and posts them of my son.

But Julia said that she accepted my request (no you didn't). We are now friends one click later on the smart phone.

In the past week, I also have been defriended, a slightly sad but predictable event. Through a short grapevine, my opinion that a nephew was perhaps sharing a little too much, set off a defriending spree. I am sure I was the first to go. As that silly saying goes, he fixed my wagon.

Naomi and I were not friends while she was a teenager. I would send requests and was not at all surprised when they were rejected though she accepted those of some of my friends. Hints of Maya's conception were posted on Facebook which after a long interval, finally were revealed to me. After Maya was born, she finally accepted although she has defriended me a couple of times in anger. Josh refuses to do Facebook. I originally joined because Shanna would post videos of my distant grandsons, which of course I wanted to view.

Spring lasts until Thursday or Friday here.

CANCER versus cancer

2012-01-08T11:26:00.001-05:00

Recently in the NYT's science column, there was an op-ed about perhaps renaming very early stage cancer, so-called Stage 0 or sometimes carcinoma in situ, to something other than cancer as generally these conditions are survivable with very little treatment. Proposed name? Abnormal cells.

Cancer is hardly a single disease and all cancers certainly aren't created equal. A Stage 4 diagnosis with one cancer means almost certain death and something 60% survivable in another. I do remember being a tad resentful of a breast cancer survivor who was currently battling cervical cancer saying Breast cancer was nothing; try having cervical cancer! No one likes to have their suffering trivialized.This was just another variation on what I like to call My Tumor is Bigger than Your Tumor.

And you never know. A woman I know was diagnosed with BC in situ the same time I was diagnosed with Stage 2 TNBC. She was told the chances of it turning into 'real' cancer was only 2% and it was treated minimally. I went to her funeral this fall.

But today I did read of a situation that might truly be called cancer vs CANCER. The president of Argentina, a woman my age, had a swelling in her neck suggestive of thyroid cancer. Headlines: The President Has Cancer!
New headlines: after removing the thyroid, no cancer cells were found but now The President Will Need Hormone Replacement for the Rest of her Life!!!!!

Almost all my friends are on thyroid replacement, which I find amazing. Why do our thyroids so often become non-functional? But at any rate, not to trivialize, the president's suffering, but the headline might as well read The President Will Need to Brush her Teeth for the Rest of her Life.

Still relative 'spring' here. Almost another week of it before winter returns. I am taking a short exercise break. With so much ice free weather, I can afford to.

Are you smarter than a chimp?

2012-01-07T12:11:00.002-05:00

This is from Amazing Videos. Please watch
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10151074491215405

Spring in Winter

2012-01-07T10:23:00.000-05:00

This picture has little to do with the post. I recently had it converted to a 16x20 canvas that I picked up
yesterday
and hung on the wall. It looks real good. I tried to make photo to canvas prints about 2 months ago and was
rewarded by being ripped off by a company that still advertises

For the past few days and for at least 2 days to come, it has been sunny and almost 50, a welcome
relief to me who hates the ice and drabness of winter. I have been trying to take advantage of this
as much as possible going out for long walks and runs. Yesterday I had Ms. Maya who happily
toddled back and forth on the sidewalks chortling over her ability to jump curbs.

What is warm is relative. One morning in a small, Italian village on the Mediterranean in October,
we awoke to temperatures in the 50s. Our Swiss hostess informed us that this was the coldest it
ever got there. Being Swiss, it didn't stop her from her early morning hour long swim in the sea.
We went to a bakery with me being dressed in shorts and a short sleeved shirt (my friend was
dressed more warmly spoiled from living in California for 26 years). The local ladies were
dressed for a blizzard. One laughed as she saw me.

A week before, we were in Switzerland. It was in the mid 40s there when we took our morning
walk. A middle aged man dressed in only a Speedo crossed our path and then jumped into the
swift moving Aar (crossword puzzle alert: Swiss river almost always is Aar or Aare). Our first
thought was that he was mentally ill, second thought, he is Swiss.

Where we were staying wasn't well known to Americans (unlike the nearby Cinque Terre region
overrun with them no thanks to Rick Steves). We took a long hike through the mountains. The
Swiss could be identified from afar as they usually wore no shirts and had walking sticks. The
Italians dressed way more warmly and didn't have the sticks.

I saw a few people yesterday wearing shorts even though they were not running. We Michiganders
try to soak up the sun when we can.

Ms. Maya's remaining teeth seem to be all coming in at once making her crabby at night so we
were giving Naomi a break. We took her shopping with us. She was dressed all in bright pink
but still several commented on what a cute fellow ' he' was. She does have a lot more hair than
in picture above but it is mainly on the back of her head. In the bright sun, the front straight
hairs glint blond but the longer hairs in back are curly and darker. The hair still isn't very thick.
One can easily see her scalp. She also isn't speaking. The pediatrician was all concerned that
she wasn't saying anything at one; can't wait until she sees how much little progress that has
been made at 18 months. But she is in speech therapy; we are doing all that can be done. She
does like to imitate all sorts of behavior that aren't verbal and seems happy and engaged. Also
fresh in my mind was the anxiety I had with Josh not speaking in a manner that anyone could
understand for almost 4 years and how he was classified by one tester as 'slow' even though
the little scamp could play chess and now look at him.

At one of the stores, I bought a fruit smoothie for myself. Maya instantly demanded her share
happily slurping it up with a straw; the cold must have felt good on her gums.

As I drive off into the sunrise..

2012-01-05T14:42:00.000-05:00

A Facebook friend from Ann Arbor posted this from today

Twice this week I have found myself driving into a sunrise. At least they have been pretty..all pink and orange providing a beautiful backdrop to the snow covered trees. The first time was Tuesday rescuing Julia from my key stealing son: today to get some dreaded dental work done. On X-mas eve, a tooth broke in two. My dentist was gone until this Tuesday. Fortunately this thing did not hurt. For part of the 2 weeks I have lived with this, he had emergency back-up but I really didn't want to deal with that person. The dentist has a new way of pre-numbing one for the shot; instead of just swabbing the area with a local, he sticks a huge wad of cotton impregnated with the local. Unfortunately, it dripped down my throat which felt like it was swelling shut. I thought I was going to choke to death.

My sleep cycle sucks. I was so happy the other night, I actually slept through the night. Usually I have no trouble falling asleep, I fell asleep just as Michigan was making a comeback in the Sugar Bowl for instance. Almost every night I wake up around 3 am and useless thoughts go through my mind. I read to think of something else. Last night, I couldn't even fall asleep and then once I finally did, I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to get up extra early to see the dentist. Well I guess I have all the time in the world to sleep..I just don't.

We will have a week of relative warmness. I've been gamely trying to keep up my running in very bad conditions (strong winds, ice). I will take a walk in the sun. Below is a photo I took in England. How I long for flowers again!

Jumping into that New Year

2012-01-04T17:42:00.002-05:00

The point of no return

2012-01-03T10:57:00.000-05:00

Lately our yellow rag, which sunk to new lows today with its sensationalistic story of a doctor looking out his own window, has been dutifully reporting on a spate of suicides around our fair city. The reasons were not given. In at least one case, mental problems were hinted at but in the other cases, everything on the surface looked just fine. Well it is dark and around the holidays...and our economy really is bad here.

In the US, suicides are the 10th most common cause of death versus cancer, which is number 2. Rates really vary according to sex and age. Teenage boys for instance are four times more likely to kill themselves than teenage girls. A boy a few years older than Shanna killed himself when he found out that he was not admitted to Harvard (though he got into all the other Ivies). Over the years, various other boys have killed themselves, many just on an impulse.

Despite having many family members that have had cancer, cancer never killed them but in two cases, suicide did. In one case, mental illness was involved; in the other, despair due to the Crash of 1929 led a great-uncle to shoot himself. He left behind a widow and two kids. He must not have lost everything because his widow was able to buy cheap and after the depression, was quite wealthy.

In Steve's family, cancer has killed more of his relatives than anything else.

I never knew anyone really well who killed themselves though I was acquainted with three women who did. One woman I had only met once but I thought I knew her as her significant other discussed her for hours with me over a period of a year. I knew that she was profoundly sad but she had a child, how could she leave her?
Another was a neighbor who I had spoken to on several occasions. She was a bright, pleasant woman giving no hint on the darkness brewing beneath the surface. Her two, young children found her, which she should have anticipated. Another woman was a co-worker who did a swan dive off a parking structure; again WTF?

Could these have been prevented? The ex-significant other beat himself up over this..he ignored a crisis call having dealt with them too many times before. Not too long ago, an older brother of a friend of Naomi's had some sort of break-down and left a note leaving parents frantically scrambling to try to intercede. They were too late. He seemed to be one of the most popular boys at school.

About 8 years ago, I came across, through snooping, a suicide attempt. I alerted the mother. Was there any gratitude here? No..far from it (See shooting the messenger) but I thought ( and still think) that potentially saving a life was worth it.

I was awakened quite early this morning with a request to drive my daughter-in-law to work as her keys were mistakenly taken. Argh! Of course it was near rush hour, the roads right around my house covered with snow and ice and they live 15 miles away. Fortunately only a small area right around my house had the ice (although this sort of screws up my running schedule) but the whole adventure took an hour. Maybe she won't ignore my Facebook friend request...

A long, tall drink of water

2012-01-01T12:00:00.001-05:00

We should have shot this from the side to show how big these stilettos were

Happy

A few years ago, the host in a restaurant looked at Naomi in amazement:

My, aren't you a long, tall drink of water!

Naomi hadn't heard that expression before and found it hilarious. Teetering in her 4 inch bright red stilettos last night, she was almost as tall as Don'tae. The mini skirt made her legs look especially long. This photo doesn't quite show how she looked. They went out last night for part of New Year's. We had Ms. Maya.
Josh and Julia were in Chicago having a night on the town while Naomi and her family kept Sunny company.

High wind advisory! Fortunately the winds didn't pick up to their gale force self until after my run. It felt good to be out in the relative warmth. Lots of people out there getting their runs and walks in before all turns sour.

A brand New Year! I won't put my resolutions out there but I have them.

Blessings in 2011

2011-12-31T14:48:00.001-05:00

Baptism

Me and my X-mas necklace and sweater

Don'tae told Naomi that he didn't realize that Shanna's last name was "Noel"

Blessings: We all have our health, a new baby is on the way, Shanna's family has a new house, Naomi had her dream wedding.

There was sadness this year too. Our more than 15 year old pug Spud did not last the year. There were other situations that are so unfair that I get angry and sad when I think of them. But one situation has passed and hopefully the other situation will be resolved.

I did not not travel much this year. I went to Boston twice and Steve and I had a minivacation in Western Michigan last spring. We had the Moms weekend in the Thumb. Next year, I will travel more.

Yesterday I was having lunch again with Josh. He said that his MIL told him that Julia probably inherited a condition in which only female eggs are produced as the MIL only had girls as did all her sisters. He asked me if this could possibly be true. (He really wants a son).
I told him that there are no such thing as 'female eggs' though there are male and female sperm and that maybe this was the MIL's idea of a joke. Note to her: we have the same goal here..don't scare him away!

Happy New Year to all my Dear Readers!

Being paid with gum or maybe with yard waste

2011-12-30T10:25:00.001-05:00

Last night, two of my children and their spouses went to the opening conference basketball game UM vs Penn St. UM won; Tim Hardaway Jr. looked especially good and the half-time show consisting of women whose outfits changed in a second was entertaining. (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv84yiVLc4M )With Maya between us, we watched at home. I was trying to get a glimpse of my former co-worker's son, but alas, no playing time for him. The tickets are part of Steve's compensation package for his duties as an election official for the city. The actual pay is quite low so this sort of makes up for it though Steve sees this more as a civic duty. Previous compensation hadcome in the form of a few rounds of golf at the city's greens and my favorite: a few bushels of compost from the city's yard waste recycling program.

The former company that we both worked at liked to remind us regularly of how we are being compensated beyond the obvious cold, hard cash: health insurance, retirement, life insurance, subsidized cafeteria and..free parking. The last item I thought was stretching things. the company was on the outskirts of town..of course they should provide parking. They might as well listed unlimited access to their waxy non-adsorbant toilet paper and the gallons of various flavors of mouthwash equipped with pumps lined up in every bathroom (the company used to own a well known mouthwash). Also unlisted or maybe it was..I threw out all those silly employee handbooks recently much to Steve's chagrin, was our company store in which we could buy, cheaply, just slightly out-of-date gum, antacids, mouthwash among other things. Also one at one time could purchase a pregnancy test for 25 cents. Such a deal. I used one of these bargains to detect Naomi. I think a positive test was the test strip turning pink. In my case, only one edge turned pink, most of it remained white. Although our control strip (Steve's) was all white, Steve wasn't that convinced my test was positive and I was fresh out of pee to confirm. Later that day a competitor's product purchased at the greatly inflated market price (I had access to medical supply catalogs..I knew how much these things were worth) indicated that I was indeed pregnant.

Another benefit that persists even now in retirement is free, prescription drugs made by the company. Somehow I have always had medical conditions specifically not treated by the company. Now it is true they have acquired the Red Devil but since it is only administered in the hospital, it is not considered a prescription drug.

Free parking. The same bit of land the company owned is now owned by UM. For UM parking lot fees seem to be a money making opportunity for them. The city is covered with various colored lots (the lots have various colors associated with their convenience and the price to have admission to these lots varies). Woe to those who overstay their welcome on University property. The tickets cost 4 times as much as city tickets do. So Steve now works on University property. One of his few perks is getting a coveted Blue Pass. The only thing better would be a Gold pass. There are also yellow and orange and maybe green ones. I've been told that the Blue is worth $600.

The compensation package now for many chemists is that instead of being paid entirely with cash, one is paid with 'stock options'. These are essentially lottery tickets. It is a good business model in that you will do everything in your power to effect these things actually being worth something and they don't cost the company much. In my former company, you only got these things at a certain grade level (Steve just started to get them) or as a reward for outstanding performance at my lowly level. The year that I was responsible for producing 10 % of the company's development candidates despite representing only a tenth of a percent of my fellow chemists, I was rewarded with a zillion options. In better years, these could have been parlayed into houses for my whole family but as it turned out, being given a stick of gum would have given me something more tangible. My brother is paid with these lottery tickets. In his case, he won so miracles do happen.

As for the gum commercial in which I got my title, we did make that gum at one time but it was divested.

Little victories...

2011-12-29T12:31:00.000-05:00

Internet fraud: The credit card company reversed the charges posted by the fraudulent photo to canvas company that took my money and ran. The only communication I ever received by this company was that there would be a slight delay in shipping. The same e-mail was sent to about a hundred people, whose addresses all were on the memo sent to me (so much for privacy). Of course mass e-mails have been going back and forth between the fellow victims Anyone get their prints? etc. Only one person ever did and spoke suspiciously glowingly about the service so we are all fairly sure that the bogus company put that one in. On the website, the company claims to be All-American but it is really Danish. Hints that this might be the case: FAQ written in broken, British English. and also company posting credit charges was in Denmark. Added bonus: foreign transaction fees. Never again will I be suckered into this. I reordered now through Costco. I don't pay until I pick up my stuff. The same company that runs blogger put the bogus company on the top of my internet search. I tried to contact them but written all over the place is that they have no responsibility for fraud. Caveat Emptor indeed!!!

Health Insurance fiasco: The same company (a very big, well known one) that administers our 401K also administers our 'benefits'. Scary as to how incompetent they are. All I wanted was my own health insurance and with a different company than the crappy one we have now. Hours have been spent on the phone haggling what should have been an easy thing. They warn that anything promised on the phone means nothing without written confirmation and for a while, they insisted that I have been sent this confirmation 5 times. Finally they admitted to a computer glitch but said they would send something overnight Fed-Ex confirming my insurance in a different way. Overnight ended up taking 6 whole days (really?I know X-mas was in there..they used a competitor to FedEx..another service never to use). I wasn't too concerned as the insurance cards that I was told I wouldn't get for another whole month arrived in the meantime. But then I got insurance cards for the other company that I am getting rid of...Good news: I am insured Bad news: need to make more phone calls.

One week fight over in a day: Steve and I don't argue often and when we do, it is quite quiet unlike the screaming matches we were both exposed to growing up. But it usually involves me getting the silent treatment for a whole week, rarely is my sentence shortened. It was this week.

Big unexpected bonus for Steve: Steve went back to work this year to cover lots of extra expenses incurred. Even if he were working fulltime, the pay is well less than half than he used to receive. But it is well more than nothing and he can come and go as he pleases. He was told that they got bonuses and he just assumed a few extra hours of pay but it was quite a bit more than that. Still won't put much of a dent into the 'extra expenses'.

Shooting the messenger

2011-12-28T08:41:00.000-05:00

More than three years later, I am still angry about the way I was told I had cancer though technically all I was told is that I had something needing biopsying. As soon as I tried to question this radiologist, she would cut me off with a disgusted sigh. She was busy and she didn't have time to deal with my silly questions. I had forgotten her name within seconds of being told but I have since tried to find her by matching photos with names through staff directories. The only contact she has with patients is to tell them that they might have cancer. I wanted to give her some constructive criticism but I think she is gone.

But if I had been told 'nicely', would it of hurt less?

Flashback to when I was thirteen. This is the age when what your peers thought of you meant much more than anything else. My friend is relaying to me that the Queen Bee of our social group doesn't want to hang out with me any more because I am gasp!....boring. As Queen Bee, she had considerable sway and all would follow her though my friend assured me that she didn't think I was boring. I don't remember what I said then..maybe.well F her! I remember how I felt. First I hated the friend that told me this. There was just too much glee in the delivery. I went home and cried bitter tears. I have no friends! This put me in a black hole for quite a while.

I got out of it eventually.

Over the years, people would relay mean things said about me to me. It didn't have such a devastating impact as when I was thirteen but I usually questioned the motives of the informant. I also vowed never to do this myself. I worked with someone who bitched non-stop about his boss. For the most part, he was just blowing off steam. Finally he decided to leave the company and did. The boss went to me and noted that he knew that we spoke a lot. Did he ever say anything negative about me?

Ah! Sue doesn't play this game! If I dutifully reported all I heard, I would be hated. Nothing will be gained except an enemy. I just told him that he didn't leave because of him. There was a situation that had nothing to do with him. This was the truth BTW.

Oh but maybe the man could have some 'constructive criticism' and learn? No...not worth it. Not my job.

And just how good am I at receiving 'constructive criticism'?
Short answer: Not good.

Flashback to about ten years ago. I am now a big girl and should be able to deal with all that is dealt. A good friend gingerly tells me that I am probably not aware of this but I really can be condescending sometimes.
Big girl response: You are right. I am not aware of this. Can you provide me with some specific examples so I know not to do this in the future?

Sue's response: Immediately burst into tears and walk away. Issue never discussed again.

So am I condescending or not? Don't answer that..

I got part of the answer a few years later. I was with a good friend who happens to know many languages among them French. In the middle of a conversation, he mispronounces soupçon . All I said was that the cedilla was there for a reason but he had a hissyfit. I had hurt his pride and I was a show off.

Just 86 days 'til spring...

2011-12-27T09:47:00.001-05:00

Above are some paintings of Josh's mother-in-law. Their house is full of these. The bottom two pictures are of her two children: Julia is the middle picture. She also makes jewelry. One of my X-mas presents this year is a necklace made up of polished white stones that the MIL made.. Marble? I will post a picture of it at some point. I do like it a lot.

Ah the doldrums of winter! It is snowing out now. I try to run when the pavement is dry, which has been the case for the past 4 days. Steve is back at work; my baby sitting duties are temporarily suspended. I do have plenty of projects to keep me busy but here I sit..

Today is my sister-in-law's birthday. Last year we surprised her in Seattle for a birthday that was divisible by 10. Here is her and her husband at the wedding:

Right above is a picture of her after graduating from kindergarten. I have pictures of Shanna that look so much like her. See below though Shanna is just 4 here.

False friends and palindromes

2011-12-26T09:36:00.003-05:00

For the holidays, a friend gave me a few months of saved up NYT Sunday magazines. Happy days for this one as I love the puzzles (along with the rest of the magazine). One of them featured palindromes.

Clue: Medusa's slayer takes agent to court
Answer: Perseus sues rep

Clue: Students err
Answer: Pupils slip up

Clue: Disparaging Argentine leader badly injured?
Answer: Derogative Evita gored

There were others but I just included my favorites. I am fascinated with how the puzzle makers come up with these things. A neighbor, who also is a math teacher and who also coached soccer with me, makes crossword puzzles. His puzzles so far have been NYT dailies. I am not sure if he has had a "Sunday" puzzle yet.

I've been trying to come up with my own palindromes.

Clue: Sue laments last born child
Answer: Naomi I moan!

OK, that wasn't original. Some classmate of Naomi's pointed that out to her back in middle school (though not the clue). Coming up with ones for Josh and Shanna are difficult. I tried something with Sue and issues and nada. With Steve, there is hope.

Clue: Sue's husband apes animal doctors.
Answer: Steve mime vets.

Well it isn't easy.

And then there was a puzzle on False Friends entitled Polyglot. False friends ( I can't believe there isn't a better term; I was thinking that the term was false cognates but it isn't) are words that look the same in different languages but mean something very different. The languages featured were French, Spanish, Italian and German, which meshed perfectly with my toddler's expertise in those four languages though my German vocabulary consists of chemical terms which toddlers probably don't use such as ameisesaure (formic acid) and harnstoff (urea)

The clues were: alter, arenas, due, mar, tout, court, pane and rot.

I've been collecting false friends for a while. We used to visit Montreal in the winter to see my step-Grandmother. There was a park that featured Ski du fond (cross country skiing) that we would go to that had a brochure all in French. It discussed a class that looked to my slightly trained eyes like the teaching of the fine art of farting on skis.

Farter = to wax

And false friends go both ways. Aimez vous les 'pets'?

pet = fart

At work, some of our chemicals came from Germany with the following warning:

Achtung! Gift!

They weren't warning that the substance was a gift (we probably paid plenty for it) but Poison.

Which leads to a false false friend: Poisson. This was my first one learned in junior high. To my 13 year old fish hating self, I thought, they named that right. (Tu as raison!) (That does not mean you have raisens)
Flash forward a zillion years to the near present. The name of the priest that we share a bequest with translates to Father Fish (I hope this does not google). According to my step-granddmother's will, inconveniently written in Quebecois legalese and saved as an image file so google translaters will not work, much money is reserved for Father Fish to give 'messes' (I love that False Friend alot..means masses) in order to save my grandfather's soul. I could think of better uses for said money.

And why does my grandfather need saving? He died a non-Catholic. Although they were married in a Catholic church, my grandfather did not convert. He had his own church though not in the literal sense that Josh's grandfather-in-law (!?! really, C'est vrai!) has but he attended a main stream Protestant one. At my step-grandmother's request, Father Fish had conducted an unsuccessful exorcism of the demon that was thought to inhabit her roommate. God knows how much that cost! And was there a refund when it was unsuccessful?

I did meet Father Fish at her funeral. He spoke a mile a minute in Quebecois to us, much harder to understand than the Parisian French we learned in school.

In my mind, all I could think of was poison.

For X-mas, we went to brunch at Josh and Julia's with Naomi and her family. It was very nice. Maya enjoyed her gifts (not poisons). It is pure happiness to see her delight.

X-mas

2011-12-25T12:39:00.004-05:00

Wonder

Ours is a mixed household....
Rudolph's half- Jewish brother Reuben

A buche de Noel from 5 years ago. Every year I make a buche..not this year

X-mas hosts

Maya redoing Julia's hair

Presence versus presents

2011-12-24T09:28:00.001-05:00

Josh at 16 or 17 months

Yesterday at lunch I sit across from my handsome son at a new restaurant in his village (which soon might morph to a city). In my mind's eye, he is a smiling toddler in Steve's arms throwing me one last kiss before going to bed. He went to bed willingly but only if it was after 10 pm. He had an internal clock that could not be fooled. It would be hard to reproduce that scene as he outweighs Steve by at least 30 pounds. The blond hair has morphed to brown. If his wife wasn't so diligent about cutting it, it would be a mass of curls. If it were up to me, that is what he would have but it isn't up to me.

This week my grandson lost all his curls.

I have Josh to myself because his wife is working while he is on vacation. Next week he will be entertaining his in-laws. He warns me that the present that they are giving the in-laws might be considered more elaborate than the ones they are getting us and we are not to compare or be insulted. Of course I would not have known this if he hadn't told me and I certainly would not have asked. Also I don't care. What can they give us that we can't give ourselves? His presence. They are here and not outside of DC where the in-laws are. The in-laws would dearly love to come back and have tried. Eventually they will be back. But I love that I can see him so often and that we get along so well.

Yeah, there is something else they can give us and I can't help myself from asking about that (the in-laws probably ask way more than I do). I am appeased but I know it is probably just an appeasement.

Someday.

Updates: After all that kvetching, I got my health insurance card for next year.
Also: Ms. Naomi is featured on the homepage of her school Washtenaw Community college.

A chain of guinea pigs

2011-12-24T08:36:00.001-05:00

It was determined in Switzerland that guinea pigs are social creatures and that it would be cruel to have just one. A law was passed. I am not sure how it is to be enforced or what the penalty is for non-compliance but no matter, apparently the Swiss are law-abiding citizens that will police themselves. But it does raise a question? You buy the mandatory two guinea pigs and then one dies before the other. You are legally obligated to replace the deceased. a few months go by and the original guinea pig dies..now you must buy a companion for the companion. On and on: a never ending obligation unless death strikes your guinea pigs simultaneously (woe to those who might engineer that).

Until now. An enterprising person will rent your pet a companion for $30 or so. When the companion is no longer needed, you return it.

Or the Swiss can stick to hamsters. They are definitely not social creatures, are smaller, have shorter lives and I think cuter. See hamster husbandry blog.

Because the computer tells me so..

2011-12-23T10:25:00.001-05:00

For the past 3 months, I have been having a battle with the benefits department of my former company or at least with the people who they have outsourced to handle these things. I wanted to have my own health insurance instead of being a dependent of Steve's. What a struggle! I asked for written confirmation that I elected such and such insurance. E-mails were not an option with this company. On their recordings, they warn nothing is binding orally so I needed to have this in print. No problem! as I've been told five (5!!!!) times, we'll send that out to you. You should receive it in 7- 10 business days. (they must have especially slow snail mail). I record the names and dates of the conversations. I give them 3 weeks and repeat phone call. Each time they insist the computer says I am insured and I was sent a confirmation on such and such a date. Yesterday I called again to complain. They said the computer says I was sent 4 notices...I should go to the post office and see why I don't get my mail. Yes they have the correct address. Now it is true that some of the mail carriers give us the neighbor's mail and I can assume they get ours. As they are annoying former frat boys, they couldn't be troubled to redirect the mail (they noisily come and go in the middle of the night with their thumping sound systems..they get several newspapers a day but can't be troubled to pick them off their driveway so it is covered in newspaper smush) but all four notices? I ask to speak to the supervisor as this is getting absurd. She repeats that I am covered and if it will make me happy, they will send out a fifth confirmation. I ask if the insurance company could send me my cards as they have already with Steve's. Well they will but it won't be until the end of January. What happens if I get sick? Well in January you can call them and they will give you the plan number but not before then.

Finally late yesterday I get a phone call. They decided to investigate my complaint (could I have been the only one with this problem? I think not). Although the computer says all these notices were sent, they finally figured out that meant nothing. And I can't get a confirmation by their stupid rules. What they will do is send me an invoice for my first month's insurance. This will prove I have insurance (maybe). She said I would get this in 7-10 business days. Why does this take so long? Oh do you want it sooner? Should I put it in express mail? Yes!!!
So if I don't get this by 3 pm Tuesday (delayed by the holidays), I have a specific person to hound.

I am quite jaded now. I am still annoyed that I sent money via credit card to a black hole that seemed to be a service for printing photos on canvas. I should have been suspicious of its prices being half of the other sites. Too late I read it is a scam. The credit card company was billed instantly. The credit card company launched an investigation. I had to mail them all sorts of stuff. Hopefully these crooks won't get away with this. And a bonus..they have the credit card number and security code.

Bizarre internet search results as read from my stat counter:

Nude blond boy: Result, a picture of of seven year old Josh racing down a hill in Washington State. No he wasn't nude but it gives me the creeps that some pederast got on my site and downloaded that picture.

Biracial Downs' Syndrome baby: Result, a picture of 9 month Maya holding a doll. OK, she is biracial (or quadracial depending how you figure it) And she has no signs of having Downs'. It is not even clear that she is biracial from the picture or in person. The school system filled out a report on her as she is receiving services for her delays. They took it upon themselves to classify her as 'Caucasian' as they have only seen Naomi and I. But in the real world, one drop of black equals black. Take Obama for instance: time spent with his black relatives? Close to zero. Despite his white mom, he is considered black.
A search for cute biracial baby resulted in the same picture. This doesn't distress me so much but I have posted much cuter pictures of her.

These are not the main search results: Now the Chia Obama is replacing the Edelweiss replacing the hummingbird imposter replacing the donkey stew. As this is a cancer blog (sort of as I am usually off topic), the number one cancer query result is the color of a tumor.

Amusing internet search of my friend. She is an instructor and assigned a term paper to her charges. One of her low performing students produced a paper filled with phrasing quite unlike her. My friend typed in three words into a search engine and retrieved the entire paper. The student's response? She was just using that paper as a source (uncited) and accidentally sent it in instead. Can she send in her 'real' paper?

Steve got his hearing aid yesterday. Already one isn't working though maybe it is a battery issue.

It doesn't look like X-mas at all but for that, I am happy.

NED

2011-12-22T08:47:00.002-05:00

No Evidence of Disease: the best news that a cancer patient can receive. This sadly does not mean'cancer-free' as some interpret it as in the doctor removed the entire tumor, I am now cancer free. There can always be a few cells lurking around ready to sprout into new tumors. No doctor can really ever say You are cancer-free.

I had been following the progress of a young couple who has a baby just a few weeks younger than Daniel. Last winter within weeks, both received news that one of them had stage 3 rectal cancer and the other had stage 4 breast cancer. As treatments for both would be grueling, they would not be able to take care of each other much less the baby. The woman's cancer had spread to her liver and brain. How unfair is that? I turned on the TV the other day and there they were. The woman's brain and liver mets had disappeared through treatment, totally unexpected, and she was pronounced NED, a X-mas miracle. She is well aware that she isn't 'cured' but at least she will have some time of being symptom free and she does have hope that the NED status could last.

On the same day, I read the obit of a daughter and sister of two women who attended my cancer survivor cooking class She too had been declared NED at one point. She had been in a clinical trial that testing circulating cancer cells in the blood. The thinking was that tumors are always shedding cells that will find their ways into the blood. They had just developed a way to detect these. If no cells could be found, then there was a good chance there was no cancer anywhere. Lots of rejoicing when she was told a year ago that this was the case. But she died last week.

Later on this same day, I went to dinner with friends, one of whom is a survivor of two Stage 3 cancers that are totally unrelated. One is a carcinoma and the other is a sarcoma. They found the carcinoma while investigating the possible sarcoma. How crappy is that? This news came at the same time that we were losing our jobs. Another cancer factoid is that staging various cancers are not equivalent. A stage 4 diagnosis in one cancer can mean almost certain death and in another, beatable with about a 60% chance. My friend's cancers are not equal despite both being designated stage 3. The carcinoma is much more serious yet it has been almost 5 years since he was told the improbable news so he is probably 'safe' from that. The sarcoma is very slow growing. Its treatment was unbelievably brutal but on the whole much more survivable.

Today is the shortest day of the year. As I crave sun, it is not a day I look forward to. The upside is that now all the days will become longer. Also it is unseasonably warm. I will be out there once I figure that I get a temporary reprieve in my babysitting duties. I have had Ms. Maya with me a good portion of the week as Naomi was working all night and needed to sleep during the day. Last night was her last night.
On one of the days, Josh was with me. He is quite fond of Maya. He is alarmed that Maya is not making much progress with verbal communication (though she is signing more). He decided that he was going to help 'fix' her. Ironies of ironies. My number one concern at one time was his lack of communication when he was under 5. Now so-called experts have been assigned to her case. I took her to the speech pathologist yesterday. They can just increase her signing.

She is a happy, cute little person. I do have fun with her though it does get tiring chasing her everywhere.

Party Hearty

2011-12-19T18:35:00.000-05:00

Charlotte before removing side of springform pan. Note to self: Have lady fingers facing the other way so they will lie flat

Brie en croute avec les figues
Tasty!

Festive table

After removing sides. Charlotte not as firm as I would have liked. Need to increase gelatin by 50%

Last night, for the 31st time, we Moms got together for our annual gathering and gift exchange. Very fun. Aside from my enormous brie, we have cocktail shrimp and crudities for appetizers; a wonderful salad, shrimp scampi with rice noodles; a roasted sweet potato and pineapple dish, a cranberry and carrot salad and lots of wine.

And today I met with the neighborhood moms. The former little boys are now becoming fathers, at least some of them. Hard to imagine as the picture I have of some of these boys are of 8 year olds. For the past three years, we have slogged through knee deep snow to get to our hostess's house but today temps were in the 50s.

Naomi passed her state examination to become licensed so hopefully this will lead to a job. As it gets closer to X-mas, her hours in her temporary job are longer and longer. Tough when she had a test first thing in the morning. Don'tae brought Ms. Maya over early before he left for work. I will have her most of this week. I let her play with some of her X-mas gifts early. Steve is working longer hours too. Josh will keep me company tomorrow.

Dancing Maya

2011-12-18T10:27:00.001-05:00

Over the next three days, I have three holiday events. Busy times for this one. Not going to work or having a child in sports really cuts down on the activities compared to my past life.

Tonight is our annual Moms party. My Charlotte Russe is gelling in the refrigerator. One was supposed to line the pan with lady fingers ahead of time but they kept falling down. I will make an appetizer out of brie, crescent rolls and fig butter.

Tomorrow it's The Mothers of Boys Somewhat Annual Tea. This is leftover from when the neighborhood boys were on a baseball team and the moms would go out for drinks after the game. Maybe they started playing together when they were 8? Some of the boys already turned 30. Josh will in a few months. Josh is still friends with most of the boys scattered to the wind as they may be though the son of the hosting mom just moved to his village.

Tuesday it's dinner with some ex-co-workers. We get together twice a year as a small group and I meet with one of them, my birthday buddy, another 2 times a year.

Charlotte Russe

2011-12-17T16:27:00.004-05:00

Instead of making a Buche de Noel, tomorrow I will make a Charlotte Russe for the Moms.
Below are photos of the last few days:

From school X-mas party

Decorate your own sugar cookie

Anniversary flowers

Gift bags

Another one

Cheapie Maya ornament

Vaccine against Breast Cancer?

2011-12-17T11:57:00.002-05:00

This week in Newsweek there was a story about a stage 4 breast cancer patient who didn't want to die (as if every other patient wants to) and enrolled in an experimental vaccine program targeting the her2/neu 5 years ago. She is still alive and furthermore, is NED.(no sign of disease). I can see that there is much interest in developing vaccines but they for the most part seem to be testing in mice. A few years ago, I noticed there was a clinical trial involving TNBC patients with a vaccine that would target Mucin, a protein that TNBC seems to have (along with other cancers). No word on how that turned out. I assume if the results were good, there would be shouting from the rooftops.

What the article did not say is what happened to the other patients in the trial. Did they have their own miracles? An internet search turned up nada.

So a vaccine would be great but cancer is not a single disease. Many vaccines would need to be developed. So far there is one vaccine on the market, against prostrate cancer. The vaccine that targets the virus that causes cervical cancer also is on the market.

I am feeling cynical right now. I had ordered 3 weeks ago some photos printed on canvas for X-mas presents. I immediately was told that shipping would be delayed a week. Still no shipping. The phone line is constantly busy and e-mails are not returned. Meanwhile I found this site is on the scam list. I guess my next recourse is to have the credit card company cut them off. So if you search for canvas prints, their website will be your top hit (and they have two different names). Do not use these crooks.

PANDAS

2011-12-16T11:36:00.001-05:00

No, not the cute furry animals but an acronym for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Strep. I read about this contraversial disorder this week in the science edition of the WSJ.
A child has strep throat and is not immediately treated with antibiotics. The body produces antibodies that kill the strep but for some reason inflame part of the brain releasing excess dopamine. Overnight the child develops OCD. There have been cases of three year olds suddenly wanting to wash their hands repeatedly. Presumably if this child is then treated with antibiotics, the compulsions will go away. This does not make sense to me as although the antibiotics treat the infection, I can't imagine how this will impact the antibody count. Rheumatic fever, now rare, is thought to be caused by these same antibodies attacking the heart valve. But if the premise that antibiotics do help rid the antibodies, it is certainly an easier fix than giving a child potent psychiatric medications.

Is hearing a medical necessity or some extravagance like extra white teeth or firm large breasts? Trying to get our pitiful insurance to cover a hearing aid or even part of one is a frustrating experience. The claims department is staffed by Peggy clones (the Slavic accented man manning the mythical credit card rewards program from some hut in Siberia in the commercials). They have one hearing aid provider. The price this place quotes is about twice that of Costco. They (crappy insurance company)theoretically will reimburse 50% of the cost only if we use the provider. The provider says they really do not want to deal with our insurance company so why have a contract with them? Argh! Steve gives up and just will go to Costco and not have to spend hours cajoling these Peggys over the phone. He has been mulling it over whether he really wants to hear.

Ginger

2011-12-15T17:18:00.000-05:00

Recently I was watching a YouTube video going around entitled Dear 16 year old self in which melanoma patients now in their 20s and 30s rue the behaviors they had as 16 teen year olds that put them at risk for melanoma, tanning beds, laying out in the sun for hours, etc. One young man started off If being a Ginger wasn't bad enough.... He had an American accent. Having several British bosses, I became familiar with their terms. One described Naomi to his own daughter as a ginger. Now ginger to me seems to be yellowish brown, not orangish red. When people came up to Naomi when she was very young and told her that she was a red head, she would correct them and say that her hair was orange. It has darkened into red as she grew older.
Anyway, in England, there seems to be extra hostility against redheads: they call it gingerism.

Ginger is one of my favorite spices. In Asian restaurants, I always opt for ginger ice cream. We had a holiday party today in Maya's class. I did not have time to make anything special. I brought some ginger biscotti and some decorating icings and sprinkles. Some lady made really cute gingerbread men. The teacher brought homemade sugar snowflakes to decorate so all my sprinkles came in handy. Maya's favorite part of the class was getting bells to ring while they sang Jingle Bells. She didn't want to give them back. This class had mainly older kids in it. For next semester, we signed her up for a class just for her age group that is on this side of town instead of the opposite.

Naomi has been working 10 hour shifts all night so I have had Maya a lot. Running after a baby all day is hard.

It was 57 degrees at one point today but the cold front is coming in heralded by a stiff wind. I waited impatiently for Steve to relieve me of my babysitting so I could get some exercise. It is the middle of December and I was out in shorts. A bit tough going into the wind.

Yesterday we made 'healthy' holiday treats in our cooking for survival class. As there was a lot of slicing and dicing that was needed, I spent the whole time doing that. Strangest dish: mock chopped liver. This was made from lentils, roasted green beans, walnuts, onions and garlic. It actually did taste like liver but it was good. We also made a tasty eggplant dip. The desserts were brownies in which much of the fat was replaced by applesauce, not bad, and date bars, which I haven't had since childhood.

My wedding

2011-12-14T14:38:00.002-05:00

No fancy wedding for us..my wedding dress was a prom dress; I catered the wedding myself; I had no attendants; there was no aisle to walk down; no one gave me away (though I never would have agreed to this). I made table decorations consisting of floating candles. Red water with a thin layer of oil on top that fed a wick in plastic glasses. They looked as terrible as they sound. At the last minute, my step-grandmother provided a cake and real dishes (versus paper plates). She helped me get the dinner ready the whole time grousing how awful my father was (her step-son who was only a few years younger than her). She was angry that he didn't pay for the cake or dishes.

We went to Florida on our honeymoon trying to camp on the Keys in winter. We had a small 2 person tent that needed to be staked. However the ground was made up of coral. We were there in a windstorm. To keep the tent from blowing away, we needed to weigh down the inside with big pieces of coral, big because coral is so light. There wasn't much room left for us. Later on the honeymoon, we got in the worst fight of our marriage. He deserted me in the middle of Tampa. I thought he had left for good.

Naomi wants a honeymoon now. I said I would help pay half of it. She was incredulous that she would have to pay the other half.

Steve came home late yesterday to celebrate our 34th anniversary. I have beautiful flowers and a nice gift. We were both too tired for a night on the town.

Plans

2011-12-13T07:49:00.000-05:00

The above are drawings of one of my nieces. She is quite talented.
I think that is a self-portrait to the right of the bottom picture.

Today I awoke to the very loud screeching sound of a rooster about an hour before I usually get up. Steve is not here though usually being by myself doesn't freak me out. Was my house being invaded by aliens? Groggily I got up and went to the next room where the rooster sound was escalating. Was my computer doing this? Next to the computer was a flashing smart phone, not mine. I am one of the few people around here without one. I hit the screen..wrong move. In five minutes the cacophony began anew. There seemed no way to turn this thing off..I could just make it snooze. After a few more cycles, I started messing around with the phone's settings turning the sound off, I thought. 5 minutes later, more racket. I finally figured out how to turn that alarm off...a half hour later.

I needed to be up by that time anyway as Naomi's shifts are getting longer and longer and I might be needed to watch Maya so her husband can go to work.

It is Steve's and my anniversary today and he is gone. The project he is working on has run into some hitches. Maybe he'll be back tonight...

Last night a friend (the phone owner) and I were planning a cruise for early February. As years go by, winter drags on me more and more and I look forward to some sun and warmth. So we will be hitting the Turks, Bahamas, Puerto Rico and St. Maartens; all but one being new to me. I will be hoping Shanna junior will stay in utero while I am gone. She will be at 34 weeks when I return. By dates, Daniel came at 36 weeks but his immature lungs indicated that maybe he was only 34 weeks. (His size, close to 8 lbs, indicated an almost full term boy, the world's biggest preemie).

Technically it is not even winter yet. Yesterday it was a balmy 42 degrees and it might be warmer today.

A gift for Steve?

2011-12-12T08:33:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow is our 34th anniversary. What to give? Last night I saw an advertisment for a Chia Obama. It comes in two models: smiling Obama and serious Obama. (smiling is pictured) I'm sure Steve would love it. (Does sarcasm travel through the internet?) He is on the western coast of the state for work. At one point, it was going to be a multiday assignment and I was going with him but that changed.

Aside from giving Obama that green 'fro, chia seeds are considered 'super foods'.

I am devoting at least part of today to decluttering. I made a little progress last week. Do we need copies of employee handbooks for a company that doesn't exist? Do we need baseball registers for the past 30 years? Do we need 20 years of financial reports? Well those handbooks are now gone but I think our marriage won't make it to year 35 if those baseball books go missing.

Maya in her cat hat

2011-12-11T17:54:00.001-05:00

Cursing through pain

2011-12-11T09:58:00.001-05:00

Imagine this: you are walking barefooted through your house and run toe-first into a table leg. Response?

!@#$%!!!

Does this help?

According to recent research reported in the Journal of Pain, probably. The length of time undergraduates could tolerate having their hands submerged in ice water increased significantly when they were told to swear throughout their ordeal. Proposed mechanism of action? The swearing activated the fight or flight response which in turn released endogenous opioids. But there was a problem of tolerance. Students who reported swearing as part of their every day lexicon had much less of an effect.

So imagine a child experiencing the same situation as above. What would be their response?

Usually crying until the pain passed.

Steve and I always wondered at what age does the response to acute pain morph from crying to swearing. Adults rarely cry in response to pain. Scream maybe. I remember my experience giving birth to Shanna during a time in which LaMaze training strongly suggested that you were a bad mom if you asked for pain killers. During the moments I wasn't focused on my own misery, I was very aware of the screams of my fellow laborers. Was I in a torture chamber? I heard no crying. This screaming seems to be a thing of the past. I've been on labor wings at least 6 times since then with my own children's births and while coaching my grandchildren and nieces' births.

Josh has played soccer since he was 6. He and his fellow players have had plenty of opportunity to experience pain. There are strong prohibitions against boys crying that increase as they age: from both the soccer dads whispering Man Up!! and the teammates and opponents disdain for crybabies. Below ten, crying was an accepted response. After 14, no one dared cry though a teammate at that age had a compound arm fracture (bone could be seen penetrating the skin) and there was some crying but the accident was so horrific that no one dare criticize the response. Around the same time, the boys' response to pain morphed into wreaking revenge on whomever they thought responsible. The older they got, closer to 19, the more bent on revenge. I called this testosterone poisoning. Now that they are adults, they are much more able to control their impulses though not all the time.

We have been dog sitting Sunny. She was very unhappy about it and whined and moaned for about an hour straight. Her voice sometimes sounds human. At night she paced so not much sleep for us. Her owners should pick her up any minute.

Golfer's vasculitis

2011-12-10T09:00:00.001-05:00

During the summer I was in Italy, on three separate occasions I developed these angry purplish-red plaques on my legs after spending a day walking for hours in the heat. They did not itch or were painful. They were very ugly and it was so warm there, I could not conceal them by wearing long pants. They faded after one or two days the first two times I had them but after spending 8 hours walking in Rome in nearly 100 degree heat, the plaques lasted for almost a week. I wish I took pictures.

I was puzzled about the cause. I have had prickly heat before but it looked different, it itched, and usually was on my arms. I thought maybe I had walked in poison ivy as it likes to grow in blackberry patches which I certainly went through on my cross country jaunts. But this stuff didn't itch and it was confined to my legs. Many of my fellow students complained about weird insect bites. Small transparent things that would attack at night. One girl had a severe allergic reaction to them and could barely see. My roommates would douse their bodies with insecticide but I never seemed to be bitten. Others had plug-in bug killing spray. I really did not want to be exposed to that. The only bugs that bothered me were the flies. Fortunately they only were around in the daylight. They would get me up in the morning for my just after dawn runs. I also considered contact dermatitis. Maybe something was leaching out of my shoes? But my feet had no lesions on them nor were my legs scratchy or swollen.

Once I returned home, I matched up my lesions on the Internet with those of 'vasculitis'. Reading about it in my Merck Manual, it is defined by the inflammation of blood vessels. However the causes listed are all very dire. I was fairly healthy, excepting for the cancer brewing unbeknownst to me just below the surface. I was just recovering from hypothyroidism due to the many calcium antacids I was gobbling interfering with my synthroid. I had been taking high doses of ibuprofen to deal with the arm pain from breaking it. That shredded my stomach lining. The hypothyroidism made me especially puffy and running very difficult but as I recovered, running was becoming easier even in the mountains. I never had had circulatory problems or even varicose veins so I was puzzled by how easily my blood vessels became inflamed.

It turns out that this condition is very common and not serious. By the time most patients can schedule a visit with a dermatologist, it disappears. Or they go through extensive allergy testing with no clear cause. Only recently it has been described as 'golfer's vasculitis' due to it occurring in older golfers. Another term for it, is Three Day Walker's vasculitis as many women walking for the cure show up at the medical tent with it. Yet another term for it is "Disney World" Rash as it appears on people unused to heat and walking for hours and they assume it's due to some allergic reaction to the surroundings.

As I was trolling the internet looking for a photo that a fellow student took that I was in showing my ugly rash (which I finally found, see below), I came across this video that another student took of our experience.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6R_BGFY68o

After our Rome trip, others in our group had less severe cases of it so it wasn't just me. I have run marathons and never have seen this on my legs nor has it occurred since.

This is almost a week since I got the lesions still visible on one of my calves

It is so pretty outside but so cold. Cold doesn't bother me but the resultant ice does. I finally was able to go out yesterday after accepting that it would never be above freezing. I felt fine.

Hamster Husbandry

2011-12-09T10:06:00.001-05:00

Some of my pet hamsters from earlier days. Usually they were the mostly dark brown kind as pictured above versus the cream pictured here.

For a ninth grade biology project, I found it necessary to obtain hamster babies of the same litter in order to eliminate one variable. I decided to raise this litter myself from a male and female purchased. I named them Male and Female with the not-so-cleverly pronounced accent on the last e.

Hamster factoid: Hamsters are solitary animals. Pairs should not be raised together. They will fight to the death to have sole possession of the space. Winner of the Female vs Male battle? Female. By a whole lot.

It was necessary to start over with a new male. Female meanwhile had grown into an adult. As time was a wastin', I needed to find an adult male, a not easy task. Eventually I located Male the Second, a fine animal weighing 350 grams to Female's 225 grams. Both were larger than average.

Hamster factoid: There is sexual dimorphism among hamsters. Males are generally 50% larger than females. They are easily identified by their oversized testicle sack.

Hamster factoid: The female comes into estrus once every 4 days.

What the hamster book didn't tell me was how long this estrus period lasted. All day or just for a few minutes? Also I could not tell just by looking at her whether this estrus was occurring. (Dogs and cats; very easy) I had to go by her behavior. If she was in the mood (very rare), she would let Male the Second approach her without her orange teeth bared. If she was not (almost all of the time), she would proceed to kill Male. Male, for his part, was a sex machine with only one thing on his mind. Even when his face was being chewed, he didn't abandon his sole aim. He made no attempt to defend himself even though he was much larger. Female was a very sweet hamster to humans as evidenced by never biting the hand that fed her. To other hamsters, not so much. Finally after a week or so of gingerly introducing her with gloved hands so I could reach in and save Male without losing my fingers, she submitted. The hamster book gave no indication on how long the sex act lasted. I was too afraid to give them the privacy they probably didn't need as the moment could pass for Female and she would be back in killing mode. They coupled repeatedly for over an hour.

Hamster factoid: The gestation period for hamsters is the shortest of any mammal: 16 days.

16 days had passed and no sign of hamster babies. I had looked for signs during this period and found none. Female had retained her girlish figure. I went back to introducing Male carefully waiting impatiently for the magic to begin. It took a long time. Finally she submitted to a 2 hour frenzy bumping hamster uglies. I would not be fooled again and introduced her a few more times in the next 2 weeks and to my dismay, she still behaved if she were in estrus which led me to believe, she was NOT pregnant.

But she was. On day 16, she delivered 8 totally bald, blind pink babies of greatly varying sizes. So much for the invariability of siblings.( Later when I practiced 'human husbandry', I ended up with 3 very different progeny in terms of skill sets, temperaments, and appearances). Initially I thought my project was off to a good start (though delayed by all of the above) but each day that went by, I was finding fewer and fewer babies. Apparently Female didn't limit her rage to her sex partners. Sometimes I would just find half a body. To her credit, she ate the smallest babies. Maybe they had died before being consumed. I was down to four babies. I forgot what the minimum nursing period is for hamsters but I know I cut it short a couple days for fear that she ate them for fun. They survived their abrupt weaning though one escaped, dangerous as I had a cat who had displayed too much interest in them. She didn't kill it; a mattress spring was inadvertently dropped on it when trying to capture it. I needed more hamsters. Even though it was a flaw in my first thinking, I bought 2 outsiders.

The experiment itself was stupid. The title was the Effect of Diet on Hamster's Learning and Growth. Their ability to learn was measured by the time it took them to master a maze I elaborately constructed from Masonite. The two diets were plain sunflower seeds versus a diet supplemented by vegetables. Growth was according to weight gain on a very good pan balance the school lent me. One major fly in the ointment was they were not motivated to run the maze unless they were hungry. If I had just let them run it a few times, then they would not have been so hungry. This impacted their growth. The vegetable group did gain more weight and learned the mazes faster, marginally. I typed up all my experiences, did an elaborate error analysis, etc. I did get an A plus. At the end, I had 8 hamsters. Male the second was a borrowed hamster. My teacher offered to find 'good homes' for the rest. I didn't question him too closely on this. I kept Female and the surviving runt of the litter as I was afraid that his smallness might impact his chances of finding a home.

Snow, snow go away. At this time of year, I can't waste 'good days' such as yesterday which was sunny and dry. I am hoping that there might be some ice free pavement later.

Photos

2011-12-08T17:16:00.001-05:00

This is me at 4 or so

Ren cen (in Detroit)

I have boxes and boxes of transparencies that various agencies have sent back to me. These were all taken by my father who had a side line of supplying stock photography agencies with his photos. Some photos would fetch a few grand a piece but digital photography has made all his photos obsolete. Any rate I haven't looked at them much but today I got the brilliant idea of using my computer screen as a light box and started looking through them. I found this picture of me. My scanner isn't the best method of copying these pictures but oh well...

I spent most of the day with Ms. Maya taking her to her class while Naomi recovered from her night job. While Maya napped, I spent a frustrating hour trying to adjust the straps of her car seat so they would fit better. I tried to find a manual on line to no avail.

It would have been a nice day for a run but...I had company.

The quince blossom in winter

2011-12-07T16:01:00.001-05:00

My poor confused quince has set out several blossoms. In the spring, the bush is covered with bright red blossoms that turn into small yellow quinces. Alas they are just ornamental but smell like oranges.

Spy vs spy

2011-12-07T12:19:00.001-05:00

Last week I reported that a 65 year old pediatrician was accused of watching a 12 year old girl undress from his bathroom window 4 times in a 2 week period. A very strange case. How can this be proved? Well the mom set up an iPad from another window that recorded the doc peering at her daughter while appearing to 'pleasure himself'. So it is illegal to watch someone undress but is it legal to take movies of someone 'pleasuring himself'? And is it entrapment to let your daughter undress and attract such attention?

The court of public opinion is divided. All sorts of comments were posted that mama has a few screws loose but these were removed in the spirit of 'not blaming the victim'. But who is the victim here?

And then we have the case of the 'green' bank robber who used the local bus as an escape vehicle. Should the bus driver be indicted for abetting a crime?

I did my long run today given that today is the warmest and least snowiest for the next few days. It was a rockin' 28 degrees out ( I used to listen to a radio station in which all degrees reported were 'rockin'). I can't run on the dirt roads any longer as they are icy and stay icy unless it is well above freezing several days in a row. That kept me off them for 4 months last year and that winter wasn't all that cold (only needed gloves one day).

My husband is trying to get a hearing aid before the end of the year before our insurance turns even worse. Big surprise when they found almost no hearing at all in either ear at the higher frequencies.

There is a special ringtone at a frequency that presumably only those under 20 can hear. It has been used to drive young loiterers away. My son, well over 20, takes pride in that he can hear it.

Guidelines and bizarre image search results

2011-12-06T09:17:00.001-05:00

Last month while in my favorite place waiting impatiently for my mammogram, I read a brochure for the newly diagnosed BC patient curious to know what they are telling people these days. I learned two things:

Sentinel node biopsies are done only on patients with tumors less than 3 cm. Now this sounds like a step backwards. I guess I fit the guidelines because my tumor at first discovery measured 1.6 cm at its largest dimension. By the time they got around to removing it, it was 3 cm and had multiplied into a second tumor. Good thing that they didn't remeasure it or I would have had the full node dissection and would suffer for the rest of my life from its consequences. Of course, if they had remeasured it, then maybe I would not have needed 2 separate surgeries. I seemed to get 'special attention'. During 'breast cancer education day', I was removed from my fellow patients to have my nodes looked at closely by ultrasound. Grossly they seemed normal but they would not rule out micrometastases. I thought the new thinking was even if they found micrometastases, there was nothing to be gained by a full nodal dissection.

BRAC1 testing is to be done on estrogen negative patients less than 60 regardless of family history. This was not offered to me as I could not pinpoint any family member who had cancer before the age of 60 on either side. It is a dominant gene so to have it, I would have needed to get it from my mother or father. My mother and her sister had BC but were diagnosed in their 60s and 70s. There is no smoking gun on my mother's side. Inheriting it from ones father is trickier as just because they have the gene doesn't mean they would get cancer. Also he had few relatives but none died of cancer and the majority died of old age. But now they are finding it in women with similar histories to mine and I have daughters and granddaughters....

Bizarre Image search results. Nerd as I am, I love Statcounter and look at it often. My number one hit these days is a post entitled Edelweiss. I sometimes look for keyphrases that lead to my blog. One was biracial baby with Downs' and it came up with a picture of Maya. Although she is biracial, she does not remotely appear to have Downs'. Another image search was huge feet. This is what they came up with:

Sigh....

Topography maps

2011-12-05T18:25:00.001-05:00

Ponte Vecchio from the windows of The Uffici

In the Van Andel Museum in Grand Rapids, which I visited as part of ArtPrize, there is a 20 foot tall topography map of Michigan. I would have stared at much longer if only I had some time. One could quickly see all the high points of Michigan and the low, flat areas that start just south and east of Ann Arbor. I have biked through almost all of the lower peninsula and through some of the upper. I haven't biked east of St. Ignace or much west of Dickinson County. You can see that Gaylord is the high point of a plateau. My ride from Ludington to Reed City was made difficult not only because of a rare east wind and the sandy trails but a steady uphill. The steepest hill I went down ended up in East Jordan. I was in a crowd so I couldn't brake. My odometer clocked 42 mph. I couldn't read it as my eyes were watering. I just hoped for the best.
I did buy a US geological map of our county with its isoalts but it isn't immediately clear if you are ascending or descending unless you look very carefully. I need a three dimensional map where I can feel the hills.
Biking south of Ann Arbor, the only hills encountered are the expressway overpasses, it is so flat.

Today was a slow day. I thought I would have Maya but Naomi must have gotten out of work early. It was rainy most of the day and then it turned to snow. Naomi was here last night making a calendar of Don'tae's family for his mother. I made one today of my trips to Italy. It was fun to do.
I watched too much TV mainly a few episodes of Boss. Well acted and photograhed but so, so depressing. There isn't a single redeeming character on it. Satan, your kingdom must come down, indeed.

Some of the Italian pix I included:

Castelvecchio

Confetti in Sulmona

Sulmona

Duomo in Milano

Gargoyles in Duomo

Gagliano Aterno

Manarola

Monterosso

The above is Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore outside of Stresa

Animal hats, the gold kimono and an avocado boat

2011-12-04T10:25:00.001-05:00

Cute hats for the grandkids

Fancy embroidery on back

My silk kimono. My friend modified it so it didn't go all the way to my ankles. It had looked more like a robe before instead of a pretty top

I am a sucker for cute hats for kids. I will send 4 of them off to Boston though at least one of the boys hates hats but maybe when he sees how cute he'll look.... There was a really cute penguin hat too but as it had so much white in it, it would be hard to keep clean.

The kimono I bought a few months ago at a resale shop.Beautiful silk but the lining was falling apart and it was way too long for a top. My friend offered to fix it. It looks gold in this picture but in the low light that I am sitting in, it appears tangerine, a color that I would never have worn with my dish water blonde hair but now that my hair is lighter, I have been wearing more oranges and yellows.

Last night a friend and I went to the nicest sushi restaurant in Ann Arbor. The waiter suggested that we get an avocado boat, a whole avocado filled with spicy shrimp and then the whole thing was deep fried. Sounded weird, but why not? Turns out that the avocado was served on a bed of fried crumbs, tasty. It was a very pretty dish. I should have taken pictures (I usually have a camera). The spider roll and the bad boy roll were good too.

It is raining and very windy on my running day. I am hoping it will be better in a few hours but that seems unlikely. We will have lunch in an hour or so with Josh and Julia. The latter will graduate with her Masters in Accounting in a few weeks. She just found a job with her anticipated degree. When will they fit babies in?

Rabbit, rabbit..

2011-12-03T12:17:00.001-05:00

From web

I have a Facebook friend who posts "Rabbit, rabbit.." on every first of the month. I assumed this was some secret code between her and one of her followers but apparently in some cultures it is considered good luck to repeat rabbit, rabbit (sometimes three times) at the first of the month.

It's been a while since I have seen my bunnies or my chipmunks or my mice. Not missing the last two creatures so much. What I do have is a neighborhood cat that lurks around the edges of my house. Could there be a connection? I chase it off in the summer as there are so many baby birds but now, she can hunt as much as she wants.

I am eagerly awaiting spring.

Gasoline Roulette

2011-12-02T12:47:00.001-05:00

This is a game my husband loves to play. I do not enjoy it one bit. Basically it is to see how far one can drive on fumes with the Needs Gas! light on. If I protest, I am told that we have plenty of gas. I try to reason that the dregs have water and other sediment that will destroy the engine but to no avail. We have run out of gas at least 3 times: all at very inconvenient times but still he does not learn the lesson. I try to annoy him by saying I was forced to buy gas around our house (at least 25 cents/gallon more than the 'cheap side'). I was again reminded of this game today when I tried to go somewhere in my ice encrusted car that I hadn't driven in 2 weeks. He has though and had drained the tank.

A variant of gasoline roulette: see how much gas we can stuff in the tank! Also, always end up with an even amount (like $35.00; not $34.79) even though we are paying by credit card and gas is dribbling down the side of the car. Also this takes time: To fill up the first 99% of the tank takes as much as he spends getting that last 1% in. I have given him warnings written by 'car experts' about the dangers of over-filling the tank. Again to deaf ears.

(Speaking of deaf ears: he is finally taking the first steps towards dealing with his hearing loss today)

Another annoying game: see how long we can drive a beater. We had an Aerostar forever because its engine was still good. No transmission or brakes but gotta love the engine. This was during a time in which we were both working and could afford something other than a beater.

See how many trucks and slower cars we can pass before we exit even though we might occasionally miss the exit during the heat of the game. Reminders that we are exiting soon and really are not in any kind of hurry just result in annoyance.

More snow fell last night. I hit the malls instead of running.. Not as fun as I had hoped.

Taxing taxol

2011-12-01T14:55:00.001-05:00

Recently I learned that my neighbor was taking oral Taxol for the treatment of metastatic prostate cancer. Prostate cancer has much in common with breast cancer: about the same number of men are diagnosed each year as women with breast cancer; BRAC1 mutations increase incidence of both prostate and breast cancer; it is usually sex hormone driven; and if it spreads, it goes to similar places: bones, liver, lungs, brain...
How it differs is that it is half as deadly as BC but a pain to biopsy and surgically deal with. In general, it is much slower growing than BC.

But ORAL Taxol? It is very hard for a drug to survive the digestive system. Assuming the drug survives the highly acidic stomach, it has to be absorbed in the gut and survive all the liver enzymes. Having the drug injected directly into the bloodstream avoids all those problems. In the past, it was found that the cytochromes in the liver deactivated Taxol. They had a formulation with cyclosporin which would neutralize the cytochromes but the cyclosporin would also deactivate the immune system. Not good. I am assuming they found something relatively harmless to deal with the cytochromes. I know grapefruit juice interferes with some of the liver enzymes leading to spikes in blood levels of certain drugs (statins for example).

But taking the Taxol daily would eliminate the very long infusions that are necessary. I had 4 doses spread out over 8 weeks. After I complained about the severe muscle and nerve pain, it was suggested that maybe I should have 12 weekly doses instead.
Nein danke.
This would extend my stay in chemoland 4 weeks and involve 12 painful infusions versus 4. From then on out, if I were asked how I felt on Taxol, I would just say, Fine.

On various boards, there is a debate on which is worse: the side effects of Taxol or those of Adriamycin. In general, people vote for the Red Devil. Aside from the nausea, fatigue and mucus membrane sores, it can cause some long term though rare side effects down the road: heart failure and leukemia. Taxol rarely causes nausea but the numbness and pain due to nerve damage is really no fun.

I had to wait until late afternoon yesterday for the sun to burn a path in the snow for me to run. Today was Maya's enrichment class, which she enjoys.

Tried in the court of public opinion

2011-11-30T09:13:00.001-05:00

Yesterday the yellow rag that passes for our newspaper reported that a respected pediatrician was accused of window peeping observing a 12 year old girl in his neighborhood undress. He presumably was observed doing this 4 times. The reader was left with the impression that this man has his nose pressed to the window. If the observer indeed seen this, why weren't the parents warned of their daughter's undressing habits? Why was this observed 4 times without some sort of intervention? This man has access to undressed children all the time, why would he need to look at more bodies?
Public outcry was swift. Although there were a few voices of reason (not guilty until proven so) and support for such a caring, professional man, most wanted this man burnt at a stake. He was forced to take a leave of absence and spent a night in jail. His personal computer was seized. Some wondered about this alleged change of behavior. Early Alzheimer's perhaps? An OB years ago (my OB's partner) was accused of suddenly groping patients and acting 'improper' was found to have Alzheimer's.

Today it was reported that according to the defense lawyer, the alleged window peeping occurred from the windows of the accused house. The reporter of the peeping was one of the parents of the 'victim'. So the parent was aware that the daughter undressed in front of a window and then just looked though another window to see if anyone watched this? Who is the criminal here? How do they know what the pediatrician was looking at?

We now have snow on the ground. I fretted that Naomi would be driving in it in the middle of the night as it fell. I don't want to wake her up just to see how that went but I assume Maya will wake her up soon enough. I am waiting for the sun to melt the snow on the streets enough for me to run. I am antsy.

Maya's speech therapy was yesterday. It was decided to have some of the sessions at Naomi's to minimize distractions. Still few words from Maya's lips but she is learning sign language. She is imitating more and more. She showed off her soccer skills dribbling the ball back and forth in the apartment. The therapist thought she was better at that than some on her 5 year old's soccer team. But Maya's gross motor skills are not in question.

The Rocking Horse Winner

2011-11-29T11:21:00.001-05:00

From the web:

I have always been a reader. Bits of stories and plays stick with me. I was watching a House rerun the other day and the character used one of the phrases that had stuck in my mind from my readings as a teenager: bumping uglies. This was from an Albee play (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). At the time, I tried to drop it in any conversation I could.

Call me Ishmael... (Moby Dick)

He could always hear the cry of the pilgrims (Lord Jim)

"Mistah Kurtz! He dead!" (A Heart of Darkness)

There was a constant whisper in the house "There must be more money!" (The Rocking Horse Winner)

I could relate to that. Only the constant whisperings were literally screams and loudly vocallized anxieties on 'who's going to pay for that!" in my house. In the short story, a young boy tries to buy his mother's love by providing money for her. He has the ability to predict race horse winners by rocking hard on his hobby horse. The bigger the stakes; the harder he has to rock. Although his mother is thrilled with this influx of money, it is never, never enough and he has to rock harder and harder. It ends badly.

Years later when living in the same house as an English major, I had told her that I had read that story in eighth grade in my 'special' English class (I had been identified as a high ability reader, not much an honor given the number of low performing greaser queens in our school). She was amazed, not that it was a difficult read, but because to her the story was full of sexual overtones. It was written by D. H. Lawrence after all.
You know there was no actual rocking horse.
She was apparently taught that the race horse winners came to the boy in his masturbation bouts. I don't know what young boys think of during this activity but I suspect it is not racing odds.At any rate, my earnest young teacher had been trying to stay away from anything controversial. He had made the mistake of requesting parental permission so that we could read Flowers for Algernon, which involved some extramarital sex. A mom wrote back that she would not expose her daughter to 'such filth'. I knew which mom had written that. A mom who couldn't afford to send her daughter to Catholic schools. I am not sure if the teacher shared the specific name but I knew it somehow. We read instead, without permission in advance, 1984, which to me, had just as much sex in it ( I of course got a copy of the first book).

Another image that stuck with me was on the last page of The Grapes of Wrath. The Joads' teenage daughter had just delivered a stillborn baby that had died of starvation in utero. They encounter a boy and his starving grandfather. The boy says If only he could have some milk....
The last scene: the teenage girl/young woman is nursing (literally!!!!) the old man back to health with a smile on her face.
Teenage Sue's reaction: Ewwwww!
Old Sue's reaction: Um..first of all, death in utero of starvation is real rare. Second of all, the amount of milk coming in the day of a birth even in a well nourished mother, would not amount to more than a few teaspoons of sugar water and a few immunoproteins. Third of all: Ewwwww!

Shanna et al are safely back in MA. We have a 'winter advisary' and a 'flood advisary' on the table now. Yuck! Non-stop rain, strong winds, dropping temperatures. When to run? I wore a hat, which kept my head warm but I was sopping wet otherwise. A few more degrees lower and it will be snow. I do hate winter. I wasn't out there very long.

Heart of Darkness

2011-11-28T17:00:00.001-05:00

Again our neighborhood was subjected to an almost 24 hour blackout. Very annoying and inconvenient in so many ways. We had Shanna's family over for their last night in Michigan.. Fortunately we had dinner early so I didn't have to cook in the dark with no electricity. Shanna had just finished the wash but not the drying (had to take it all over to Naomi's). It was cold and dark in our house. Naomi had brought over all of Maya's outgrown things, which Shanna had to sort and pack by flashlight. We took the kids to run around in a McDonalds as it is hard to entertain preschoolers in the dark. They left before 6 this morning trying to organize all by flashlight. The hand-powered flashlight that one of the moms gave me for X-mas a few years back is certainly getting a workout this year.
Naomi started a temp job just for the holidays last night and had her last class and tests today. She needs to take a state test in a few weeks and then hopefully she is employable. She's gotten As on her tests. Usually I have Maya on Mondays but she would have turned into an icicle here. Naomi returns to work all night soon. I suspect she will be really dragging sometime in the middle of the night. Perhaps she'll develop a taste for coffee, which her company specializes in and has some available at all times.
It had rained most of the day yesterday, another big problem as we are dependent on that sump pump. Steve got the generator going to empty it out a few times. Others on the street were not so lucky. After coffee in the local coffee shop (I really needed to warm up), I ran around the neighborhood looking for answers and found a snarl of DTE trucks. A large tree had fallen on some wires (no wind yesterday) causing a pole to burn. They were having a hard time getting the pole in place. The utility man blamed our huge trees for all these outages.
I returned this evening to lights and heat. What luxury!

Birthing dreams

2011-11-27T09:14:00.001-05:00

I dreamt the other night I was giving birth before a crowd. I am not sure who was in this crowd but I felt compelled to entertain them. Alas, nothing was happening contractionwise. I asked the nurse to check me and she pulled a baby out. The boy had a 10 year old's face and a full head of blond hair. It wasn't even wet. I immediately named him Charlie and felt bad that the birth wasn't more of a show.

Why do I dream such weird things? Maybe I am identifying with Shanna though I am sure she wouldn't want a crowd watching her. Another of Maya's many cousins was born about a month ago (Don'tae has 8 siblings). This birth was a well attended event. Naomi's job was to position her smart phone close to the business end to record this baby boy's birth, which she did.

Having the family all show up for a birth must be a tradition in Don'tae's family. Some showed up during Maya's birth, which I found distracting. When we had moved the labor operation into the tub room, they seemed to disappear.

While I was in labor with Shanna, a friend showed up and constantly questioned the nurses. She was not allowed in the delivery room, thankfully. Every stupid thing I said while in labor she would repeat for years to come. I was not amused. She never has given birth so I was not able to return the favor.

Shanna was in the room when I gave birth to Naomi. She was almost 12 and fairly mature. I more or less 'suffer in silence' so I didn't think I would scare her from ever having babies (as she is carrying her third, that worked out). Still every birth is different and I reserved the right to send her away if I could not control myself. I needed to be induced as my waters had broken 2 days before. I went from no labor to end stage labor just like that so it was rough. The plus side was that Naomi was born within 2 hours. The negative was that I worried that the quick birth affected her somehow though usually oxygen deprivation results in motor difficulties and she was a great athlete.

And why would I name a baby Charlie? Lately I have been doing genealogy searches. My great-grandfather Charles named his third son, my grandfather, after himself. My grandfather refused to use the name as an adult and went by his middle name Howard. To my 1960s ears, Charles seemed like a better name than Howard. I had asked him once why he changed his name. He said he hated the name Charles. Was this a form of rebellion? My grandfather had plenty of nice things to say about his mother but was silent about his father. He didn't believe in speaking ill of anyone. My grandmother also chose to go by her middle name though this did not seem to need an explanation. Her birth name was Sappho Cecelia. Her mother had a college degree (rare in the 1800s) so she must have known the details about Sappho. My grandmother was not too excited about the name Cecelia either. When it was proposed that I be named after her, she nixed that idea right away saying she didn't like the name.

Our nice weather is gone. I had run 5 days in a row so I am taking a break. Shanna's family comes to dinner later today and then she will leave. I feel that I haven't spent much time with her but she has many competing claims on her time so I should just grow up and not pout.

Another side activity we have been engaged in is making photobooks. I have been purchasing these at discounts from Living Social and its ilk.I made a very nice one of Naomi's wedding and Naomi made one too. Even Steve has gotten into the action. His brother has never been one to keep photos or anything for that matter. His wife has wanted pictures of his childhood. Steve made one of his brother's life from birth to Naomi's recent wedding in which there were plenty of shots of him dancing. Steve mailed it in time for his brother's birthday, which is today. His brother seemed genuinely touched by the book.

Houses

2011-11-26T13:32:00.001-05:00

I love being able to look inside houses just sitting here at the computer. The top house is one in Ann Arbor that my grandfather had built when he moved here in 1927 to begin med school at the ripe old age of 37. According to the 1930 census, the house was worth 11,500K. A house next door of similar quality and size rented for $75/month. It is currently on the market for $535K. overpriced, but the neighborhood is considered very desirable. I never was inside the house but now I can view each room.
The bottom house, image reversed, is the house my grandfather had built just outside of town once he was a successful doctor, in 1938. He handbuilt the terraces, now gone as they were a pain to mow (he had a manual lawn mower suspended with ropes). It has been remodeled several times. I would love to look inside it. It was huge with hidden closets. My grandfather sold it in 1968 as it was too big for just two people.

I also would like to look inside the house I grew up in in Corning, NY. It was built in 1950 for $17,500. They had to sell it for a loss in 1961 as the town was shrinking. According to Zillow, it is worth $100K now. A house nearby for sale is that of my best friend's grandmother. I had been in that house hundreds of times. I now can stroll virtually through the empty rooms nearly 50 years later. Some of it looks familiar.

It is a sunny, relatively warm Saturday afternoon. I was able to run in shorts trying to make up for the beginning of the week in which I was too sick to move.
I had been looking forward to another Shanna night. I had even made her favorite dessert. But it is not going to happen. Oliver is sick and only she can comfort him.
I am sad.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T18:25:00.001-05:00

A 7 year old's essay. From Passive/aggressive

A bad joke: How do you call a running nun?
On Virgin Mobile
Or maybe it is what do you call a running nun? Same answer.

I did spot my running nun again out in the boonies still dressed in her habit. So I am thankful that today I can resume my longer run without it feeling like a major ordeal. I am thankful I can run at all however slowly. I am thankful that cancer did not return to me or to others in my family. I am thankful for my family, especially the grandchildren. I am thankful for my friends.

Julia cooked Thanksgiving dinner this year. Shanna's family and Naomi's family fit the dinner in between several on their husbands' sides. The boys had fun throwing the ball to Sunny. Maya had fun chasing the boys. Good food..everyone got along. Not sure when we all will be together again.

There is a 2 mile stretch of road near Josh's house: Deer Alley. Although deer/car collisions are down in Michigan this year, not in Scio Township. It is mating season. Not that deer generally look both ways before crossing a road but with them chasing each other, they are more likely to cross. Josh hit one last week. We took another road back as it was the deers 'active time. They are crepuscular.

Name that baby!

2011-11-23T16:33:00.001-05:00

Naming little girls is especially fun. The little girl currently under development had a name even before she was conceived. I like the name but alas, not everyone is in total agreement here. IMHO, the mom's opinion should count way more. Unfair you say? Who is carrying the child and will be responsible for most of her care?
No one is asking me as I have been told almost daily how much I suck at naming babies particularly my first born. But as I am a meddler, I have been consulting name lists and suggesting back-ups. One of the requirements is that the little girl has a Top 100 name. Shanna, short for Shoshanna, did not appreciate her relatively unique name. When she named Oliver, I was surprised as it was not on the Top 100 names in the US (it is now!). She said it was one of the top 5 names in England and Australia. So we are not confining our list to that of the US. Here before me I have the top 50 girl names in England. The top 10 are very similar to that in the US. Isabella seems to popular everywhere now. Her chosen name is much more popular in England than here. Names on the English list that don't seem to be used here: Ruby, Freya, Isla, Poppy, Daisy, Imogen, and Matilda. I never even heard of the name 'Freya'. I assume it must be some character on British TV.

How the popularity of names, especially girl's names, change! From my name alone, one could guess my age within 5 years. My classes were full of Pattys, Sues. Debbies, Barbs, Nancys, Kathys, and Marys. None of these names seems to be used anymore. At Shanna's school, there were many Katies; three in my GS troop alone. Emily seemed to be the top pick for little girls Josh's age though that name still seems popular.

I think we need the services of Dr. House here to identify our mystery illness claiming first Naomi, then me, and now Steve. Symptoms: Chills, fatigue, crabbiness (especially in Naomi), stomach pain (not gut pain), very acid stomach, nausea with vomiting,headache,anorexia, no sneezing, coughing, or runny nose. Weird symptom that developed in Naomi yesterday just as she thought she was over with it: a rash creeping up her body before her eyes, swollen fingers and numbness. The rash itched. The doctor on call did not seem alarmed and told her to take an antihistamine for the itching. The rash is now gone but not the numbness and swelling. I'll have to wait to see if I get the rash too as I am 2 days behind Naomi. I do feel better except for a mild headache and queasiness. Running is still hard but it was so nice out today, I felt that I would be wasting good weather if I just stayed inside.

I got to have my alone time with Shanna yesterday and today. Loved it. I might get another night in a few days.

The Sign of the Hamburger

2011-11-22T11:28:00.001-05:00

This shot is taken from on top of the butt. Directly to the right of the word GIRL are the three lines that signify girl though they are not as clear as seen on some ultrasounds though much clearer than Maya's

The ultrasounds were taken at 20 weeks gestation. These pictures always look scary to me. Other pictures show arms and legs so Shanna Junior is not just a head and torso.

I was finally able to run just a little this morning although my belly still feels sore. It is no longer my turn to host the family as they will spend time at Ramy's mother who lives about 5 miles from here. I will have some alone time with Shanna, which I am looking forward to.

Ms. Maya styling in her coat and boots. She isn't allowed to have that pacifer under my watch

Statistics and Associations

2011-11-21T15:15:00.001-05:00

Try to figure THAT out above!

Or my favorite statistic..

Nearly half of Americans are torsos.

When I first was diagnosed with BC, I tried to read every study I could concerning its treatment. A headline would denote that a certain drug extended life 'significantly' and then I would read that survival was 6 months vs 4 months for the controls. Statistically significant but to me, not much help. Many studies I read contradict each other. First hormone replacement did not cause breast cancer, then it did for everyone, and then it did only for those over 60. Most of the studies on TNBC suffer from too small of a sample.

And then there is the problem with cause and effect.

There are studies showing that breast fed babies have higher IQs. But are they higher due to the breast feeding or the types of people most likely to breast feed?

The night of my first high school parent orientation, we were told to encourage our students to play sports as athletes had better GPAs.. But if they had poor grades, they would be kicked off the team.

I am not sure what to think about denying Avastin to metastastic BC patients. It works wonders in a small number of 'super responders'.. But it does not work for many other patients. Finally the company is getting around to figuring out exactly how to identify a super responder in advance. VEGF levels? Or something else..

Today was the morning of babies as Naomi was gone and I had Maya for the day.
At one point, we had a 3 year old, a 2 yr old, a 1 year old ,and a 4 month old. Then we have the 4 months to appearance growing in Shanna. The 4 month old was the son of a high school friend of Shanna's, an OB. It was interesting hearing how a doctor responds to being a patient. The little baby weighs just slightly less than Maya despite being a year younger. He has a perfectly round Buddha face.

I feel better finally but still can't eat much without feeling like throwing up. I've been sticking to bland.

Yesterday I still had to cook for everyone but no homemade dessert or salad. These were store bought. I did like having everyone in one place. Thanksgiving will be at Josh's. I give thanks for that!

Splendor in the Grass and Angry pencils

2011-11-20T14:20:00.001-05:00

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; WORDSWORTH from Intimations of Mortality

Shanna and I watched this last night. For its time, it was a breakthrough movie showing the angst of adolescence, a welcome change from the Beach Bingo films slightly later on. Basically 18 year olds played by Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty have this all-consuming hots for each other. They so much want to have sex but only bad girls would agree to have sex. This is told to them over and over. She asks her neurotic mother if she herself ever desired her father. No, never...sex is just a chore and you better not give in or you will lose him and your reputation. Now this didn't quite ring true. Not that one would deny ones sexuality but who would ask their mother, especially in 1928, what sexual desires they felt? Who would dare admit to their mother that they want sex? Not me, that's for sure. Not my daughters. Meanwhile, the Warren character falling in love interferes with his father's vision for him. The girl has to go and Natalie is dumped. This leads to a nervous breakdown evidenced by Natalie throwing herself in a steaming bath tub. If this bath water was so hot, why isn't her skin red and why doesn't her mom get her out of there? Then we noticed the water only was steaming in part of the tub..we could see the tell-tale chunks of dry ice providing the steam.

The title is of course from the Wordsworth poem they are studying in class, a class that no one is actually paying attention to anything aside from their own hormones. The Natalie character wiles away her time writing her beloved's name over and over. During the time she is having her nervous breakdown, she is able to correctly interpret its meaning as she is living through it. Her happiness will be just a distant memory.

Interesting. I could not pronounce the title of the poem. I thought it was Imitations...

Whatever crud Naomi had, I have now. I spent last night shivering despite all my blankets and throwing up. I can't ever imagine eating again.The last thing I ate and I will never have this again, is penne arrabbiata, literally angry pencils. Meanwhile I agreed to cook for our ever increasing family tonight..

I am so tired and feel so bad. I never even threw up on the Red Devil though I was in a constant state of queasiness.

Cancer the crab

2011-11-19T15:23:00.001-05:00

Cancer the crab creeps in all directions. Benign growths usually have smooth edges but cancerous growths are jagged, some appear to have tentacles. It is probably just as well that I didn't see my mammogram last year. The growth, or mass as the radiologist put it, was more than 5 cm across; if it were cancerous, my prognosis would not be good. But its edges are smooth; its insides are liquid; it looks identical to what it looked like last year.
One of my dear readers has skin mets from breast cancer. Bright red lesions creep across her chest choking off blood vessels and lymph passages below the surface. She posts pictures of it. It now covers almost half of her chest. Due to little circulation, there are patches of necrosis. Secondary infections are smelly. Systemic treatment would do little good due to poor circulation. Radiation might slow it down but be painful. at first, it was thought to be radiation necrosis.

In my cooking class the other day, of us 6 BC survivors, 4 of us are TNBC although one of those was never tested for the her2 oncogene. One of the women just started chemo, still in shock about her diagnosis made right before her wedding. Some people are supporters of cancer patients, their spouse or their child. One woman's experience has been so draining, she wonders what is worse? Being the patient or being the cheerleader. Her husband has no more signs of cancer but there has been so much treatment induced damage that he is finding it difficult to want to live.

Another supporter never has had cancer before but has had 58 pounds of benign ovarian tumors removed. 58 pounds!!!

I did not enjoy my visit this week to the Cancer Center. My onc thought I needed a flu shot which was administered in the infusion room. I never wanted to see that place again. In the lobby a sextet of sweet voiced Mennonite women sing. I assume they are not Amish because their modest dresses have small flowers printed on them whereas Amish always wear black. And my aerobic nun that I encountered in the middle of the wilderness was all in white.

A few days later, I was back again on the deserted road. A man on a bike stops in front of me. I wonder if I am in some kind of danger. He isn't wearing the usual bicycle apparel and is shabbily dressed. He leaves the bike in the weeds and walks into my path carrying...a cross-bow! I guess he is a hunter and it is deer season. It will be tough carrying a deer back on a bike. He is not in orange. Maybe he is after birds.

The small town my son lives in features a 'deer pole' near its town square. There are 12 deer hanging off of it now, a gruesome sight. For some reason, Japanese dignitaries were in town. They were fascinated with this spectacle.

But my cancer week is over. Shanna and her family came yesterday. It was fun having the grandbabies all in one place. Currently they are visiting the other side but this week is what I live for.

For those of you who wonder what a deer pole is, I've posted a photo from our local paper. You have to scroll down for it. As it is disturbing...

Maya's first art work

2011-11-18T13:28:00.001-05:00

Maya is so delighted to make marks with the crayons though she doesn't limit these to paper.

Shanna's family is slowly inching across Canada as I write. I think they escaped most of the snow.The trip is very long as it is but with two antsy boys plus a little girl in utero, it can't be that much fun. The boys do get to watch movies as they sit. I've been trying to get the house ready for them but Naomi is sick so I have been doing Maya duty. I have been finally relieved by Steve and we are hoping for a nap soon.

Maya's class

2011-11-17T16:23:00.003-05:00

A late fall walk

2011-11-17T16:23:00.001-05:00

From Parker Mill park a few miles away

The Dead Bosses Society

2011-11-16T11:07:00.001-05:00

A disproportionate number of my bosses died before their time. New bosses of mine were warned of what bad luck it is to be my boss. I did not wish these men dead: I was actually quite fond of them and wished them well. My worst boss ever is still alive; an evil bitter woman who was profoundly depressed and committed to take those down under her control. I remain friends with most of my former bosses. A few more may not be among the living but three died either while my boss or shortly thereafter.

Boss one: Age 55. Gunned down by a 19 year old prostitute at the order of her pimp. As I had alerted the police to her possible involvement, I was afraid I would be her next victim. She still is in prison; her pimp was sentenced to 'involuntary manslaughter' and probably was quickly out.

Boss two: Age 42. Drowned while trying to save his 7 year old son caught in a riptide. The son was saved by is 11 year old sister. A nine year old sister watched the tragedy unfold from the shore.

Boss three: Age 74. Died of a BENIGN brain tumor. Aside from the brain tumor, he was a very healthy, engaged person destined to live the 100 years his father did. His mother did not fare so well; she died shortly after giving birth to him due to a blood clot that formed while she was just laying around as the custom in those days.

I have discussed the first two bosses on other occasions. Boss three was a man two years older than my father and in his spare time was a photographer with quite the artistic reputation. His work was shown in galleries around the country. He also usually had a booth in the juried section of the Art Fair though his best seller was a ciba chrome print of the law quad that law alumni seemed to like. As my father was a photographer too with a completely different focus ( commercial photos ultimately purchased by ad agencies and puzzle manufacturers), their paths would cross occasionally. My father would dismissively refer to my boss's ilk as 'artsy-fartsy'. My boss was amused by my father's pink hair (once red, it faded to pink) and not so amused by my father peddling his photographic inventions. They knew some of the same people including this creepy friend of my father's who I was fairly sure would give me obscene phone calls when I was only 10. I asked my boss if from what he knew of that man, would that be consistent? Yes it was. The boss lived on the very same street my father grew up on (until my grandfather moved them to the mansion just outside of town). The boss had many interests and opinions. One thing that he didn't find particularly interesting was our job and he failed to keep up. But we had lots of interesting conversations and we were fond of each other.
Shortly after our company made him an offer he couldn't refuse, he developed olfactory hallucinations. He specifically smelled acrylates. Once he figured out that was impossible, he went in to see if he had a brain tumor. Although they didn't find it in the specific lobe responsible for smelling, they found a tumor in another lobe not causing any symptoms. It was considered benign. Here is where common usage and medical usage part. To most people, benign means harmless. But a benign brain tumor is one that grows slowly, does not cause inflammation and it does not spread to other parts of the brain or the body. For a couple of years, it did not grow nor cause symptoms. But then it started to grow. They tried to remove it causing 'collateral damage'. Now that they have 'cyber knife' I wonder if that would have cured him. The parts that were left, continued to grow and ultimately killed him.

But to his knowledge, he had this thing more than 10 years versus a glioblastoma that kills almost everyone in less than two years so I guess that makes his 'benign'. My friend managed to live a record three years with a glioblastoma but it was not a good three years. Yesterday I read that a herpes virus has been selectively modified to kill glioblastoma cells in mice. As these patients have next to nothing to help them, hopefully this will pan out to use in humans.

A good portion of the last two days was taken up with Maya watching so I was not able to run, which made me antsy. I was out there today trying to make up. Aside from Maya's lack of speech, she also was found lacking in fine motor skills. I have been trying to concentrate on that. She is fascinated by people writing and wants to do it too. Alas, she tries to hold a pen sideways. Finally we got her some giant crayons and she was able to make marks on the paper while squealing in delight.

Tomorrow, my grandsons and their parents will make the long trip here.

The last woman sitting

2011-11-15T12:17:00.001-05:00

Today was a day I dreaded for months, my mammogram and follow up. For one thing, my bad insurance will not cover any of it. Screening mammograms yes; diagnostic ones no. If you have a medical condition, nothing will be paid until you reach a high deductable so every repeat scan costs me several hundred a pop. Yes I better hold still. Last year's scan revealed that I have a large seroma around the area of my incision that looks identical on the mammogram to a tumor, a large white spot. But by ultrasound, it is not a tumor. As long as this thing exists, all my mammograms will be the expensive diagnostic one with plenty of repeats. This time I begged the technician to let me look at this year's scan versus last year's; they looked identical so that's good. But still I had to wait and wait with everyone leaving before me despite coming after me to get that all clear. I took my pulse: near 90. Later, after I got the all clear, it was down to 60. I could hear my heart pounding and felt sick. As time goes on, I am at less of a risk for a recurrence but lightning can strike twice. So finally I was given the all clear without any additional scans or the ultrasound. I then saw my onc, nothing to report there. I did talk her into having one of my follow-ups be replaced by my primary (free to me).

Allegiance

2011-11-14T10:14:00.001-05:00

Rooting through some of the historical papers of my family, I came across a couple of Declarations of Intentions of one of my great-grandfathers and his brother to become a US citizen 'renouncing forever all allegiance and fidelity to all foreign princes particularly Wilhelm, first Emperor of Germany', dated March, 1880. I assume my other German great-grandfather, although he had a Polish name, coming from Bergfriede Prussia, signed a similar one somewhat later though before fathering a Wilhelminia (my grandmother).Way to show your renunciation of allegiance, Great- Grandpa! but by then Wilhelm the second was in power. I know he came after his first son was born in Germany (1890). He had a second son in the US in 1891.By 1910 ( I have the census record for his street), he had 8 living children ages 20 down to 4. My grandmother, baby number 4, was 13.

Allegiance, such a strange word. For my first couple of years in school in NY state, we dutifully pledged allegiance to the flag every morning. When I was in first grade, initially there was no flag, a fact my teacher brought up several times, as the new flag was still in production showing all 50 stars as opposed to the one showing just 48 stars we used the year before. If you asked me exactly what I was pledging, I would have to tell you that I had absolutely no idea. Once I moved to Michigan, I don't remember pledging every morning though maybe I just forgot.

But this will be no more for Michigan school children. A bill was already passed in one of the houses of the Michigan legislature making the pledge mandatory for all children, every morning, even for high schoolers. There will be inspections to make sure there is a flag displayed in every classroom. It will be up to the student to opt out for religious reasons or if they are citizens from another country (very common in Ann Arbor with all the foreign grad students). So while Rome burns, a special committee is formed to make sure the fire hoses match the fireman's uniform? Way to focus on what is important, Michigan House!

A nun on the run

2011-11-13T14:12:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I wish I would take my camera on my runs. My longest run since I had cancer took me within a mile of a convent of an order (Dominican) that still dresses in habits, rare these days. A nun dressed in full white dress with a black top piece, wearing long white underwear under the dress with black boots and a black coat or cape RAN by me. I saw her face just for a second. It appeared that she had gray hair. I thought, just great, an elderly nun can outrun me though she was taller than me and definitely thinner. I ran behind her for a long time on the 'scenic beauty' road. As it was Sunday morning, I think I saw only one car the entire time I was out there. She had some difficulty with the hills and would walk up them but still I couldn't catch up. She finally turned around and faced me smiling. Her hair wasn't gray but blonde (and she is definitely younger than I) and it looked like she was wearing a brown bonnet under the black shawl. Maybe she isn't a nun at all but Amish? Amish somehow make their way to our Farmer's Market so they must live near by.. I wouldn't think that running on a Sunday morning would be something they would approve of. When I got back, I looked up the Dominican habit, looked just like what I saw. And the Amish, they favor black or brown, never white. But such a strange sight!

Doing my exercise routine after such a long break made me very sore this morning. Fortunately after a few minutes of running, the endorphins kick in and I don't feel it.

We had lunch with Josh at our favorite sushi place, always nice.

A lazy day otherwise.

LiveStrong

2011-11-12T10:58:00.001-05:00

Today at the Y they were having a spinathon to raise money for the LiveStrong classes. These classes are for cancer survivors to help regain their strength after cancer treatment with the help of exercise counselors who work with the survivor individually and in groups. Also you work out with people who have gone through similar treatment as yourself so there is a sense of camaraderie. I started my class along with my neighbor who had the same diagnosis as I and had gone through the same chemo, while I was doing radiation. Aside from the fatigue probably due to my low red blood cell count, I had lost muscle mass, endurance and what I didn't realize, my sense of balance. Although I was the strongest survivor (in the amount of weight I could lift), I could not balance on one foot for more than a few seconds. Alumni were asked to come to share their stories to motivate the spinners. I told them I would be happy to come there at 9 am but somehow this was changed to before 8. Too early for me and besides, my car was covered with a thick coat of frost.
But I am glad I went even though it is a tad condescending to a cheer a person for just surviving. The spinners were quite earnest and good for them! Last year they raised enough money to have the program for a year. One of my fellow speakers looked very familiar. Turns out she had been in a support group in the beginning with me and said how helpful I had been to her as I was able to tell her things that her doctors chose not to share with her. She had a much more dire prognosis than I but I see she has survived. There was a wall with names that the people were spinning for. I saw the name of a woman who was on a running relay team with me; my last race. I had no idea she had had cancer. While I was doing chemo, Naomi's basketball team had a fundraiser for this program at the Y. My friends came out to see Naomi play in the fundraising game though I think I had to buy all their tickets, but no matter, they came out.

And now I have a bright yellow T-shirt and mug along with a water bottle and gym bag. Cancer Bling!

It is a pretty fall day. Normally I would be out there running but I spent some time lifting weights instead.

11-11-11

2011-11-11T13:47:00.001-05:00

We had our first snow yesterday. Very large flakes slowly floating to the ground where there was just a dusting this morning. Part of the past 3 days has been spent with Maya. Because of her delays, she will receive speech therapy twice a month and can go to an enrichment class weekly. Unfortunately the classes more appropriate for her were closed so we took the only one left, a class for ages birth to 5 with most of the participants between two and three. As Naomi had other things to do, I took Maya to the first class held in a kid's dreamland: lots of indoor play equipment, a train center, a kitchen center full of kid sized pretend appliances, every toy one could imagine. Every week there is an art project but Maya was a bit young for that. She zipped from activity to activity excitedly. There was a whole assortment of pretend food which Maya promptly mouthed. All mouthed toys have to be disinfected so that kept me busy. She especially enjoyed snack time. There is a circle time in which they sing songs that the kids can participate in. She can clap and raise her arms when asked to in the songs but that's about it. She enjoyed watching the others. There is only one child younger than her though Maya is taller than some of the two year olds (she is tall and thin for her age).She did enjoy herself and the moms there seemed very friendly even to this old grandma.

So how do you make a one year old speak when they won't or can't? I sat in on her therapy session. Lots of repetition and association of certain movements with words and signals. I am not sure that this will speed up her development but we will see.

This morning when I was watching her, she amused herself transferring little candy packets from one box to a bucket one by one for 30 minutes straight back and forth. During testing, she was downgraded for refusing to put items in a bucket.

Her idea of a joke: she will offer up an object to you but soon as you look like you are going to take it, she whips the hand back and laughs.

As soon as I found another person to do my hair and finally get it colored and cut, my old hairdresser offers her services at her house. The new one who looks like just a slightly older Naomi, examined my hair and said that there was absolutely no curl left to it, only a bit of a wave in part of it. So I didn't even get to keep the one gift from cancer, curly hair, very long. I went back to the page boy I had before cancer. As for my hair, I am trying to get used to it. I do like the color. It looks exactly like my wig did.

We have had a string of minor victories here: the new baby is definitely a girl (as opposed to probably a girl) and added bonus, it has a spine, not visualized on the first ultrasound. We had received an annoying notice that we were being fined by being non-compliant with the condo association but that was taken care of and no fine needs to be paid. One of our chief sources of cash had taken a severe nose dive the month before but has almost recovered. Josh's medical problem is not as serious as first surmised (though still worrisome to me). Naomi has found a holiday job though it will be long hours and she will need a car. I was asked to edit a book, which I did hopefully to everyone's satisfaction. And tomorrow, I will give a talk on how LiveStrong helped my recovery.

Pushing back the foreskins of science

2011-11-10T08:27:00.000-05:00

Over the years, we had various company logos and slogans that we routinely made fun of. These slogans usually were just empty fluff:

PEOPLE WHO CARE (not!)

THE PATIENT IS WAITING (but the stockholder waits for nothing)

We proposed alternate slogans. My contribution is the title above.

Recent pushbacks:

Injecting a substance that blocks the gene that is responsible for blood flow to the fat cell. Without the blood flow, the fat cell dies. This worked in monkeys. Human trials will begin soon.

On the Triple Negative Breast Cancer front: a variant of the herpes virus selectively kills only TNBC cells in vitro (petri dishes) and in mouse xenografts (human cancer cells grafted onto mice).

Busy day here. Some Maya duties and later I will deal with my hair.

Dreamland

2011-11-09T10:03:00.000-05:00

Stuff of nightmares: roof of Notre Dame Paris April 2002

Le Lapin Agile et la dame non agile: Monmartre

Villandry: Loire Valley: On my 49th birthday

More gardens and the town of Villandry

As said before, I hate the night. Either I am worrying about this and that, I am reading to concentrate on something else or I am having nightmares. Last night, I dreamt I was on a soccer team but the coach would not let me play though promises were thrown my way. I couldn't even see the game as it progressed as it was in some cellar that only players could enter. At half time, I said that I should be able to start, shouldn't I? the second half. Well the game was close, so no. But if it were not close, I could maybe play defense. (when I was coach, I would let the weakest player play offense). I woke up thinking how unfair this was. when I was coach, my teams usually won and then I remembered: I never have played soccer in my life and if I did, my coaching notwithstanding, I would suck. But usually in my dreams, I am travelling. And usually I am running, 60 miles at a time. and I go down the same paths which have no basis in reality. I visit places that don't exist but I still go back to the same ones. They all seem so familiar.

But morning comes, my favorite time, and I am up and happy to have my coffee prepared for me while I do my one allotted puzzle and troll the internet. My new BFF, the cable guy, was here for almost 2 hours replacing almost everything. Of the 6 visits we've had in the past 3 or 4 months, this one has been here 3 times. I don't need to show him where anything is: he knows the house now. Let's hope that 6 times the charm. My running was delayed until the afternoon. I dressed for the 40s and felt uncomfortable most of the run. Turns out that it was almost 70 degrees out.

Today is Maya's first speech therapy. At the same time, my son will hopefully be getting some answers to a medical concern.

You Will Be Fit!!!!!

2011-11-08T08:42:00.001-05:00

I understand the extra costs to health care that smokers and overweight people incur and that companies that help their employees with insurance premiums have an incentive to help rid these people of bad habits but Josh's company seems to have gone too far. In order to receive a sizeable discount, they don't just take your word that you and your family members are non-smokers, a blood test needs to be taken screening for smoking residue. Overweight people can enroll in WeightWatchers or be fitted with a computer chipped pedometer that reads into a central database making sure there is enough movement daily. Josh is not overweight but he took one of the pedometers for fun and now sees how many steps he takes. Ms. Maya was running in circles around his house so he fitted her with it: lots of little steps but her fascination with buttons annulled his steps for the day.
Our insurance so far is not so invasive. In return for filling out a questionnaire with our weight and cholesterol results, we get a minor discount.

Again I am waiting for the cable guy. For the sixth time! We went an entire two weeks without any outages but for the past 3 days, we have had several. Yesterday, the computer and phone were out for 3 hours.

I am an election day widow again. Steve left well before 6 am and might not return until midnight to be an election official. Burning issue here: whether the city should pay for the maintenance for the sidewalks rather than the homeowner whose property they cross. The city came through our neighborhood spray painting bad blocks at $150 a piece just a few years ago. A neighbor and I followed them looking at how arbitrary these markings were. Totally crumbled blocks ignored but minor chips marked. Number one reason for sidewalk damage? City trees but you are not allowed to kill them, just pay for the damage they do. So it would probably be fair for the city to pay for all of this but annoying as we just paid for the damage caused by Ms. Norway Maple. As the bond issue is tied to a bridge repair request (why not separate bonds?)it might not get passed.

Also there is a growing sentiment to cast out all city council members responsible for writing this absurd crosswalk law. If anyone is seen to approach, not just enter a crosswalk, cars have to stop even if the speed limit is 40 and the road is a 5 lane state trunk line. As could be predicted, numerous accidents have occurred because of this on the big road near our house as drivers did not interpret correctly what 'approaching' means and out of city drivers had no idea exactly what our bizarre laws entail. No one has died yet but pedestrians who thought that everyone is going to stop for them have been narrowly missed. Also these crosswalks are not all lit at night. Lots of rear enders. What they need to do if they insist on the law is having the flashing overhead lights so it is clear to all that they need to stop. These are expensive but the lawsuit just waiting to happen will be expensive for the city too.

I did have nice weather yesterday to take Ms. Maya to the park. I am trying to encourage speaking with no success. She is getting good at copying my hand signals however. Her first therapy session is tomorrow. We will see what 'experts' can do.

Steve with Naomi at the same age Maya is now. Maya's hair finally looks like it is beginning to grow but her mom had more hair at 3 months

Simpatico

2011-11-07T09:43:00.000-05:00

Simpatico..I always loved this word. Friends that are on the same same wavelength in their values and concerns are simpatico. But in Italian 110, we learn that simpatico means..nice. Nice, a word to describe someone you barely know but so far you have seen no signs of meanness or evidence that this is an unlikeable person so you describe the person as nice.

While were in Italy learning the language and taking a film course, we saw the movie Le Fate Ignoranti which translated is The Ignorant Fairies though the English version was retitled His Secret Life. My Italian teacher, not Italian himself but he taught the class, said that the fairies in question were the gay people in the film. I asked the 'real' Italians who stayed with us learning English whether Italians ever use the word 'fairy' to describe a gay person. No they don't. This pejorative probably hasn't been used since the 50s here and probably never at all in Italy. Even English English has its own silly pejoratives, Daffodil anyone? Anyway, the Italian teacher's explanation made no sense as the ignorant one in the movie was not gay. The fairies in question I believe are similar to the ones in The Midsummer's Night Dream who have magical powers to make mortals fall in love with inappropriate people (or a donkey in the play) for their own amusement although in Shakespeare's play, eventually the fairies made things right. Or Fate could mean The Fates, similar to fairies but have even more powers and are not necessarily benign and are under no moral obligation to make things right.

Sometimes I think Le Fate are messing with my life and they are NOT simpatico or simpatiche to be grammatically correct.

The 'real' Italians puzzled over our slang. As an assignment, they were to interview us. The man I was interviewed by was puzzled by our use of the word piss, which originally was a vulgar noun and verb to describe urine or urinating. Here is another example where the English English deviate from the American. To be pissed in England is to be drunk. Here it is both a transitive and intransitive verb.

I am pissed. (annoyed with everything in general)

I am pissed at so and so. (annoyed with a particular so and so)

My interviewer was especially puzzled by the last preposition. Shouldn't it be 'on'? He could see pissing on someone but to piss at someone did not make any sense.

I suppose an alternate title for this post could be Lost in Translation. Another post I recently made should have been titled Isn't it Ironic? I could change the titles but the original always sticks around unless I delete the entire post. One of my recent posts was entitled 'post' as I hit publish before I could type anything.

Today is my Maya day. I hope that the rain holds out so that I can take her to the park. Yesterday I was feeding her treats. She clearly wanted more. I asked her to say 'more' Instead, she signed with ASL to indicate more which the therapist last week was trying to make her do.

Fall back

2011-11-06T11:40:00.001-05:00

Burning bush and yew

The other burning bush

Last of the leaves on our Norway maple. Last spring, the city tree guy said it was a sugar maple but I think he is wrong. Yellow vs orange leaves plus the leaves are the last to fall.

Daylight savings time or daylight saving time? The latter is correct. For some reason, the daylight saving time was extended one week. Michigan didn't use to have it at all as we are on the Western edge of the Eastern time zone. Growing up, I listened to my tinny transmitter radio to CKLW, which broadcasted from Canada, south(!?) of here. They had daylight saving time and we didn't so I tried not to be confused when the time was an hour off. I spent a week biking in Indiana, which seemed to let each county decide what time zone they rather be in. Confusing sometimes. I had stayed the night before in a hotel that promised coffee at 7:00 am. At 7:15, still no coffee and I was becoming crabby and vented to the desk. I was then informed it was only 6:15 am.
Oh.

Still is pretty outside here. Maybe I will see some of the kids today. Below are my purple toes and sparkly orange fingernails.