Shark slippers and a Fish Clock

For Maya: Aren't they cute?

Shanna's kids are allergic to furry things. Their pet beta swims in a fish clock

We did a lot of shopping the other day. Shark stuff of various sorts for the kids. Each grandchild will have their own glow pet too. I even got stuff for myself: pretty color changing lights that I can put in a vase and a new purse. 

I did do a run in the 22 degrees cold. At least the road was dry. Later off to the Y and did work on a bosu ball which really is hard for me with my poor balance.

Then off to watch Shanna's kids while the parents went to a teacher conference.

Covered Bridge Capital of the World!

Are there covered bridges outside of the US? Yes indeed. I photographed this one myself in Bath England

In a few days, Steve and I will be off to spend a night in jail in the self-proclaimed  covered bridge capital of the world. I am suspicious of these claims especially after I read in the Multnomah Falls Visitor center (will I ever be able to pronounce it?) that I was viewing the SECOND TALLEST WATERFALL IN THE US!!! (first being in Yosemite). Later I read that Multnomah Falls wasn't even in the top two hundred. Washington State has a hundred alone taller (though I never saw any of these excepting that Twin Peaks town falls).

But back to the claim. Are there even covered bridges any place else in the world? Yup. Alot in Quebec alone and China of all places. Switzerland has quite a few too. Parke County (where we are headed) has 31; Lancaster County PA has only 29 though the state has more covered bridges than any other state. Vermont has the highest covered bridge density but I think they have tiny counties so a given county won't have as many bridges. We even have a few in Michigan. On our very first Michigander, Josh (only ten) and I rode across one near Centerville Michigan.

Crappy Snow!! First that I saw of the season. I hope it will melt soon.

Yesterday was devoted to shopping..

Triple Negative Breast Cancer: Old Lady Style

It is been known for years that breast cancer is more deadly for younger women. The main reasons given is that it is more likely to be hormone negative than that in older women and that it is discovered at a later stage due to lack of effective screening.(dense breasts that hide tumors, screening not started to 40 etc)

But older women do get TNBC (15% of over 50 BC patients). What about them? Do they have the same scary prognoses as the younger women? I looked and looked for such studies and found nada. Meanwhile I noticed on blogs that I followed that the older TNBC women seemed to be all surviving and the young ones.....not so much. Could this mean that older women should not be so scared?

Yeah I know. Anecdotal evidence should count for squat. I once saw a Tshirt that said I make gross generalizations from an N of one. But finally various groups have decided to study this question that I had. Unfortunately each group defined older differently. One had under 40s and over 70s (leaving a huge number out). Another defined old/young as above  or below 53 as that is the median age of breast cancer. But the bottom line was that yes, though difficult to quantify, things were better for the older ladies no matter how you defined them even when they were under treated compared to the younger (The Red Devil isn't given to women who fail the heart screen).

Why do older women do better even when matched for tumor size? Not all TNBC is the same. Perhaps the various tumor factors are more deadly in the younger tumors. Now there is a company that is studying all  these various factors (quite a few of them) and coming up with a useful test to determine whether chemo would do any good. There has been a test for many years (oncotype) for estrogen positive ladies that considers their tumors various growth factors and places them is various categories of risk so they can make a decision whether chemo will do any good. It had been automatically assumed that all TNBC needed to be treated with chemo but now they are determining that maybe not.

Recently some uninformed reported in a national publication no less stated that TNBC was almost uniformly fatal. Fun to read for the newly diagnosed. She was set straight. The truth is that most people do survive TNBC. For more information about the promising potential test to see the likelihood of your tumor spreading see http://hormonenegative.blogspot.com/2013/11/test-may-determine-which-cases-of-tnbc.html

And the question of who is old? Recently a friend of mine in her 80s was greeted by a minister who said, It is so nice to see you Young Lady. She responded It's so nice to see you too, you Devil-Worshipper.
He was puzzled but she explained that she was not young just as he probably didn't worship the devil.

A quiet weekend. We did have Josh and his family come yesterday. Allie remains adorable. I was permitted to hold her despite my even lower raspy voice.

The days get colder and shorter. Yesterday I awoke to strong winds and cold aborting my planned bike ride.
But very late in the day, the winds died down and it was almost 50 so off I went as the sun was setting. Beautiful, cellar door light. Readers might note this is the same pond I pictured from my morning run last Friday but this is photographed late in the day..better for lighting. I went by the apple tree too but it is best observed in the very early light.

The Worst of States

From the blog Campanastan. Not sure how they came up with some of the statistics such as for North Dakota or Washington

Low November Sun

Ce l'heure d'or. Sounds like cellar door.
When the sun does show up this time of year, it is low and the Golden Hour effect
 lasts much longer. Unfortunately that time had passed by the time I returned to the site of my earlier run but when I passed the apple tree earlier, the sun hit the still wet from frost and dew yellow leaves just right. The apples were so red. The tree was a thing of beauty not captured just 40 minutes later. Same with the pond and the golden grasses. Oh well. I should run with the camera.

Due to very warm weather in March last year that made the blossoms come out too early only to be killed in a frost, we had no apples. This year some how the apple trees know to double their efforts so lots of apples, so many in fact trees are splitting due to the weight of too much fruit. This apple tree is on the road easement. No one planted it there. Must be from animal droppings or a discarded apple thrown from a car.

I hear that anyone who has been in the same room with me is now sick except maybe Allison. So much for my theory that adults don't get as many colds because they have had every variation of the cold virus over the years. I have been around many people with colds over the years and remained cold free. But this one must be a new virus with 100% infectivity. Now it will spread through New York and Seattle.

It will pass except for a nagging cough.

We will be off to spend a night in jail later next week in the county with 31 covered bridges.

Cute Baby Announcment

Gagliano Aterno

Not the poster from our year in 2008. Wish I had ripped down one of the many in town. I am glad that
Dave the Maremma sheepdog  seems to be alive here

Below: all scenes from Gagliano where I stayed in a monastero for almost 6 weeks. As 

I am having problems editing images again, the very top image is our clothes drying

 arrangement in the back courtyard. The air is very dry there and everyone hangs out clothes

 to dry

Procession for San Martino festival

The castle from the main parking lot. The three arched structure is the town's
water source.
It's been flowing for 1000 years. Tastes good

Chapel in the town castle containing the skeleton of Saint Florenza

Dave the Maremma who followed me on my runs trying to herd me back
into town

Little speck is a parachuter