Boston Babies

Steve in the White Mountains






We are now in Boston with the babies. When I saw Daniel last, he was struggling to breathe and put on weight. Now he is huge and can look around, smile and chortle.

As soon as I saw the sun start to rise, I took off running while we were in Longueuil, on the south side of the river facing Montreal. After about 7 minutes of crossing over expressway entrances and busy streets, I was on the rail to trail that gives right aways to the bikes (and runners). It was cold. A few puddles were frozen solid. It was nice to run after taking a few days off. The downtown has cute stone houses that are probably quite old. We stopped at a patisserie for breakfast. In Montreal, they serve cafe au lait in huge bowls (bols).We had really good amande croissants. I brought back some for the Boston folks.We went to visit the ladies one more time before leaving. Jeannette is 90 but her skin has very few wrinkles as she always avoided the sun. Her main bane is congestive heart failure which has swollen her ankles quite a bit. When she was my age, she had ovarian cancer but survived despite the lack of treatment in those days other than surgery.

We went down to Boston mainly through New Hampshire. There were several ways to go: with Naomi I went via Burlington and Waterbury so she could see the Ben and Jerry factory but it involved a no expressway route through numerous small Quebec villages and was slow.This time we went through the White Mountains after stopping at a Thai restauratnt in the bit of Vermont we were in. We had camped there years ago in the Franconia Notch State Park. I wanted to walk through the Flume again-a narrow canyon that you walk on a boardwalk with water rushing below your feet but they took out the boardwalk for the seeason. The Old Man in the Mountain's nose had fallen off so it is no longer recognizible. It still is on their license plates along with their bizarre "live Free or Die' slogan. There was a sign on the border exhorting us to 'drive the New Hampshire way, with courtesy'. In rural Quebec there were numerous moose crossing signs (none seen) and signs saying we should have snow tires on by December 15 to be safe.

We scheduled our arrival at rush hour. Good planning (not!)but we only suffered halfway through the tunnel to her exit-about 4 miles of stop and go.

It is good to be with the precious sweeties again.

O Canada!

Many of the islands along the Thousand Island Parkway have their own little houses on them
One of the many other inns on the street we stayed on. This one looked the nicest from the outside but I prefered the inside of the one we ended up staying at

Kingston from Fort Henry. This was a fort used to defend against us land-grabbing Yankees.

Our Inn at night. Naomi thinks it looks haunted but it is very pretty.

Half of our two person shower. Note the 19 heads. It was called a 'walk-in' shower but how else do you get into a shower?

Thousand Islands on the way to Montreal


Kingston waterfront with windmills on the island across from it


Our breakfast at the B&B. Yum!

Detail of an angel in the dining room


The inn in Kingston we stayed in.

Right now I'm in Longueiul across the river from Montreal just having visited my 90 year old step Grandmother Jeannette. She was only 42 when she married my 72 year old Grandfather making her just a few years older than my father, her stepson whom she has outlived.

So yesterday we began our adventure. I noticed that we will have good weather for the next few days, a good time to travel. We stopped in London Ontario for lunch. We had come there several years in a row when Josh was on a travel soccer team. They always felt it necessary to spell our city Ann Arbour.(At the inn we stayed at, our host registered us as living in Ann Arbour too). The teams he played always seemed to be made up of one nationality in Canada. Anyway, we ate the Quebec speciality poutine with Montreal smoked meat on top. Poutine is a(un)healthy mix of French fries, cheese curds and gravy.Smoked meat is similar to corned beef. We were going to stay some place closer such as Belleville but couldn't find a nice place so on to Kingston, which is a very nice town with beautiful limestone buildings. We stayed in a place I stayed before, the Rosemount, styled like a Tuscan villa only with better plumbing. Our walk-in shower had 19 heads!Not all used at once though. Ten when you used the sit down shower feature but 9 otherwise. A good place to shave legs if I only had anything to shave. We had a very nice gourmet breakfast and took long walks in the city. I thought I was getting a cold so I didn't run but that seemed to past. We went along the Thousand island parkway on our way to Montreal. We ate in a pub in the town of Brockville and made it to my step-Grandma's exactly at the time I said we would despite very heavy traffic. I tried to practice my French. Not so good. But we had a nice dinner and Gilberte made her special drinks for us-a champagne cocktail. Gilberte is Jeannette's cousin who lives near her and helps her handle her affairs. Down to Vermont tomorrow and eventually Boston to see the little pumpkins.

Indian Summer

It is 70 degrees here. I was able to run out in the country in shorts this morning. In the past week, on 3 occasions, I've been stopped by people congratulating me on trying to run so often. These people don't know the whole story but it's nice they are trying to encourage me.

We will probaly go to Montreal tomorrow (although we are stopping in Kingston along the way) to see my step-grandmother who seems to be becoming increasingly confused. I tried to speak to her by phone with a really bad connection. I have trouble enough understanding "Parisian" French (what they teach in schools): the Quebecois variety is very hard to understand with the bad connection. The expession c'est moi (it's me) in French French is pronounced Say moah. In Montreal it's pronounced Sah moy. Presumably the Canadians speak the 18th century French and modern French has evolved away from that. I will call her cousin who isn't so confused and speaks English still.

The moms came over last night for our Italian night. A fun time for all although my walls, floor and table cloth got drenched with red wine.

Ypsilanti

Ypsi is the next town over from us (pronounced Ip-see not Yip-see). Although I never lived there, I did have a Ypsilanti address when I lived out in the township. It was always fun spelling it out on the phone. Naomi lives there now near EMU's campus although she is going to a community college nearby.

Today I went to the BC support group at the Wellness community. We had a new woman there currently going through chemo. Glad to be down with that.

So for my Italian dinner I am making for the moms: penne pasta (not pene pasta which would be penis pasta)with lemon marscapone walnut sauce; melanzane ripiene (stuffed eggplant- means crazy apple as they thought eggplants were toxic and would cause craziness) and trofie (type of pasta with a sticky surface good for pesto to stick to) with basil pesto that I lugged back from Italy. Along with wine, I have limoncino (similar to limoncello but made with 'northern' lemons) Someone is bringing a zucchini salad: another a Caprese salad. Another is bringing an appetizer that will be a surprise. (Una sopresa: I bought back some Kindereggs that have una sopresa inside)For dessert: cannoli (singular: cannolo).

Chestnuts

Can't argue with this logic!

Chestnuts are tired sayings. In Cancerland we hear a lot of them: When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. etc. But chestnuts also are one of my favorite foods. It also is what our last name means in Croatian. I'm not sure when Steve's relatives spent time there but at one point, they must have. It was chestnut season in Italy while we were there. There are especially a lot of chestnut trees in Tuscany though I think the ones that make their way here are from Silicy. Chestnuts for many years were considered peasant food. Even if you couldn't afford to buy much, you could always forage for chestnuts for free and convert the nuts into flour. In Lucca, we had crepes made from chestnut flour-castagnaccio filled with sweetened ricotta. Yummy. In Roman times, bread was made from chestnut flour as it is resistant to spoilage and also contains Vitamin C.
Chestnut blight wiped out most of the trees in the US though my friend has a tree that was saved due to its isolation. She has to battle with the squirrels for the nuts.

I had my cancer cooking class last night. Most of the participants there this time have dealt with breast cancer including the instructor who had it twice unrelated to the other incidence (different breasts: one ER-, One ER+) Basically the idea is how to include nutrient rich, healthy foods into your routine to decrease recurrence and to increase ones quality of life. We made this pesto from lime, cilantro, and pinenuts last night that was particularly tasty. A big debate always amongt the folks is the danger/benefits of soy especially with the ER+ ladies.It also is comforting to be with people who understand what you are going through. Non-cancer people just expect you to move on as soon as you finish treatment if not before. I'd like to move on too but somethings remain.

I run 5 days a week and go to the Y on the other 2 days where I use the ellipitical trainer at the highest level I can stand using different muscles than running. I then do the weights. I like to have a fan on me while I am doing my ET workout as I really work up a sweat. Today some woman wanted to work out next to me and started to move the fan away. There were planty of free machines all around that were fan free but this machine 'was her favorite'. She allegedly gets 'chilly' easily. Well work out harder or wear more clothes!!! No I didn't say that but said that I really needed the fan and got here at this time when I knew I wouldn't be bothering people. She sighed and disappeared.

I will try to make some of the Italian dishes I had while in Italy tomorrow for the 'moms'. Then maybe Sunday or so I'll go to Montreal and visit my step-grandmother who seems to be getting weaker and weaker. Hopefully it'll be too early for snow.

New Hair

My new hair

Aside from a year when I was 13 of putting Summer Blonde on my 'dirty blonde' hair, I have never dyed it. It started turning white when I was in my twenties. Premature grayness is linked to the Graves' disease gene but although others in my extended family had Graves', I'm the only one with the early grayness or even late grayness. But it really wasn't gray until after cancer. It was a mix of white, blonde, dirty blonde and light brown.My hair was silky, thick, and straight as straight can be. But in July, it started growing in salt and pepper and curly and it made me look even older than I am. But what to color it? Naomi thought I should go brown as light blonde is too close to gray in her eyes. So now it is dirty blonde. I was hoping for my highlights but I could add them later. The necklace is this silk band I bought on Isola Bella in Italy. Now I need to lose the rest of the weight and may be some plastic surgery and then maybe, I'll be ready to face the world.

Beware of bears!!!

Make sure you read the last paragraph on how to distinguish between grizzly bears and black bears!

It's nice to run in November wearing shorts and a T-shirt and still get hot. I love Indian summer. Today will be nearly the same but I've run so much in the past 3 days, I will lift weights instead.

We had a marathon studying session yesterday afternoon as Naomi (my own little bear) tried to catch up on her schoolwork plus plan a schedule for next term. After almost 5 hours, she was getting more and more frustrated. She did a slightly better job at not taking her frustration out on me but the whole afternoon was a challenge.

Later we went to Josh and Julia's house for a nice dinner. I hadn't seen Julia since I've come back. Sunny, their energetic German Shepherd was happy to see us too. Naomi was in a good mood by the time we got there but took her own car (ours!!)so she could escape lest we become too annoying.

I had a dream last night in which some stranger started speaking to me as if I had cancer. I told her in the dream, How can you tell, I have hair!! Everyone can tell.