Supersized me

These are turkeys I saw on my walk this winter-not turkey vultures.

As I was driving across NY state after Oliver's birth last year, I saw a group of birds next to the Thruway that looked very much like vultures but I guessed they must be turkeys as it was cold and they were on the ground whereas vultures roost in trees. Today I saw 10 vultures on the ground giving themselves dust baths at Huron High. Josh who was with me at the time was not impressed. He sees them all the time at his house. I remember there was a time that seeing a vulture would thrill him. We saw one on our first cross state bike trip when he was ten. When he was 16, we took our last trip together (along with 3 of his friends) and that was the last time he was on his bike until today (he is 27). He is going mountain biking at Pinckney. He noted from the speedometer that the highest speed recorded still was from the steep descent on our last day in Traverse City (41.4 mph-I've gone faster on road bikes which have much less wind resistance).
He is going with his buddy from South Africa and his buddy's dad. His friend gave me the idea of blogging from his stay in South Africa (http://marksouthafrica.blogspot.com/).

Yesterday I decided to buy some more clothes from one of my favorite stores-Orchid Lane but alas, their largest size XL was much smaller than what XL usually means. A clerk came to the dressing room to see how I was making out. Not very good, I can't even get this over my shoulders.Well I can get you a larger size. This is the largest size!
Sigh. They must be using Italian sizes. Last summer I bought a top off the clothing truck. (Small villages lack stores so lots of items come by truck going from village to village) Tutti e quindici!! (Everything is 15!!) I selected a top that looked like it might fit and happened to look at the size. XXXL! And sadly I needed XXXXL. Back in the US, I was a mere XL.

Well despite all the abundance of XXXs, I am getting smaller and firmer. I spent some time at the Y yesterday where some of my fellow LiveStrong alums were working out. I noted more hair on one of the ladies and asked when her last treatment was. I will never be out of treatment. She has stage 4 ovarian cancer but her current chemo doesn't cause hair loss. Still she looked well and was working out. I don't know how some people find the strength.

I ran for 6 miles today out in the country. A car slowly pulled up to me in a deserted section of the woods (which always freaks me out) but it turned out it was a woman who was lost and very apologetic for stopping me. I was trying to draw a map for her with sweat dropping all over my drawing (it was sort of toasty today) and then I noticed I reversed east and west. I've been making lots of mistakes like that since cancerfest and I type the strangest things (I try to do spellcheck so not all of these things get through).

Tomorrow I see Oliver!!!

Fl*pped

Our neighborhood school

Temporary house. For those who have read the book, this is Juli's house

Some of the vintage cars

Yesterday in the middle of my run (I stuck to the neighborhood because it was supposed to rain) I stopped to watch some of the filming going on. Steve said that within 15 minutes of me leaving, it rained very hard at our house. Even though I wasn't very far away, not a drop on me.

There was quite a crowd watching including one of Josh's buddies who I had a nice talk with. Josh has hung around with him since kindergarten. A very sweet man. According to one of the neighbors, the crew had approached several of the residents asking them to please mow their lawns as part of the plot of the movie was that every house was nicely kept up excepting one house. Well I know what I would have said if they asked me to mow my lawn.... The movie is supposed to take place in the late 50s (although in the book, the word 'internet' was used)so they had to find about 20 vintage cars. Their owners made up a portion of the crowd. On hand were plenty of extras-mainly kids dressed as they would have been in 1959. The star teenage boy was very nice, although he isn't what I would have pictured from the book. So we saw plenty of stars including the director, the former Meathead of the 70s. Cheap thrills for our humble neighborhood.

So almost all of my lower lashes are gone. How can this be so long after I have been poisoned? 16 weeks! But I have been warned as others have reported this-I just was hoping that it wouldn't happen to me. One lady said that her lashes fell out 3 times. The uppers still look OK and I do have some very tiny regrowth taking place in the lowers. I know, pretty petty in the over all scheme of things. I seemed to have escaped many of the nastier side effects that fellow BC buddies are experiencing. But it makes me wonder what else has been destroyed in the process. My immune system? I haven't gotten sick but I have a fairly low white blood count. Is it high enough to attack rogue cancer cells?

A silly squirrel chewing through some of my solar light wiring. (I assume unless someone sabotaged it somehow). The wires are so tiny compared to regular electrical wiring so splicing will be difficult.

Today will be a Y workout even though the weather is perfect for running. Tired legs.

There was an airline sale so after much plugging in many options, I was able to get tickets to Milan (close to the Cinque Terre region) that a college friend and I will go to this October. I can't wait.

Precious Oliver will be here in 2 days, string bean as he is. He still prefers to explore his world rather than sitting still to eat but since he is growing taller, he must be doing fine. Still isn't quite as tall as his mom at the same age but she weighed more at 9 months than what he weighs at 18 months.

Par-a noi-a will Destroy-ya

So all of a sudden I've become very popular according to Statcounter. I received numerous hits from various places in the Far East-alot from Indonesia but also Japan and Taiwan yesterday. Sometimes I can see why a person got on my blog-the people interested in triple negatives are obvious. Either they did a search or they got on from a link from others' blogs. When I had written about the earthquake, I got many hits from around the world. There must be many people interested in the movie "Flipped" also. But I could see no unifying theme to these hits yesterday so I assume it's some strange virus.

Also, targeted ads bother me. I must have been whining about my hair in an e-mail and suddenly an ad appears for some kind of hair restorer. Hmmmm. I don't like the idea of something scanning my words for something to exploit. I guess there is no free lunch. Something has to be gained by offering free blogs and e-mail.

Of course the biggest source of paranoia comes from within: my body. What does this and this mean? As I was doing my long run last week, my chest began to really hurt over my right breast area (the bad area). Otherwise I was feeling well-slow steady breathing, legs had energy, etc. Was I having a heart attack ?(that would be the left side but presumably in women, the pain could appear anywhere)I was not profusely sweating and felt good otherwise. This breast pain comes and goes. According to Susan Love, radiation causes inflammation of the pectoral muscle and as it regenerates 3 to 6 months later, pain can be felt so maybe that is it. My scar feels bumpy, stiff and somewhat painful. If something was growing right underneath it, the most likely place, how would I know? I did bring this up to the radiologist onc CNP while I was trying to have them justify in writing my treatment for the insurance company (letter allegedly in transit) and was told that all my symptoms were 'normal' especially as I had the 'hypofractionated treatment" (more rads in less time).

The site head of my former company, a man I happen to like and respect even though his out-of state bosses I could live without, is starting a 'green chemistry' initiative research institute (I assume on the company's former land)and wondered, through another former employee who has contacted me whether I would be interested in exploring this. I don't know, maybe someday.

Round abouts

Until the past 3 years, roundabouts (called rotaries in some places)were fairly rare in these parts. There are many of them in Boston and Washington DC but very few in the MidWest, where the whole area is platted into one mile squares and most roads hit at 90 deg angles. But now Michigan has gone roundabout happy despite having no money (we have the highest unemployment in the country). They just built one near our house openning 2 weeks ago and still people don't know how to drive in them (I learned the hard way driving in France for a week with their cryptic signs-vous n'avez pas le priorite du droit). Another is being built two miles away. Hopefully we will learn. For now people come to a dead stop utterly confused so they don't save much time.

Our local newspaper folded last week after being in business for more than 170 years. It has been replaced by a series of online blogs. One story was that a man killed himself Friday in the neighborhood next to mine in a park by shooting himself. But there was no gun near him although maybe some kids picked it up. I think something is being left out of this story. There are updates on the story such as 'no news yet on the northeast side dead man' with some people responding 'That's not news'.

Naomi will need to be tested by the school to receive anything but basic services as I didn't have her tested in high school. She is not a happy camper about this as it cuts into her suntanning time.

Aside from my daughter and her family, my brother in law will also come later next week. He hasn't seen his grand nephew. Starting to plan our trip to Italy too. Yesterday we went crib shopping for Oliver. I am hoping it will be used by multiple babies. I wish I didn't sell the crib we originally bought for Shanna (ironically sold to us by the man in my LiveStrong class). Even after being used by 5 babies (Shanna, Josh, one of my twin nieces, my niece Thea and Naomi), it looked new and nicer than what I see on the market today. Plus I sold it for almost as much I paid for it.

All these showers bring summer flowers

Day lilies and Black-eyed Susans

Neighbor's six foot high lilies I've never seen lilies so big

My hibiscus although in real life, it is burgundy (pinot noir) not red. It is a very big blossom

What grows well really varies from year to year. Lilies, impatiens, begonias, and geraniums really are doing well. My gerber daisies and verbena, not so well.

I am currently engaged in a game of phone tag with the hospital. The radiologist is supposed to send me a letter justifying why they took more than the insurance allowed positioning x-rays and it has been 2 weeks since it has been promised. All I know is that I am not paying for them. According to Aetna, I was supposed to question every single procedure as it was performed to make sure it was covered and really necessary.

My Cuban lunch with Josh and Julia was nice. One of my side dishes was mashed tropical yams. The yellow things usually served as 'yams' aren't true yams but a variety of sweet potato. The tropical yams are huge and white. The chemist who first synthesized the hormones for birth control bills used Mexican yam extracts as his starting material. The Yoruba people of Nigeria eat these yams as a major part of their diet and have the highest rate of twinning in the world-super ovulaters. They also have a high rate of triple negative breast cancer. Could it be these yams? As I was spouting this trivia, Josh lost his appetite for my yams though I wanted Julia to eat more. Maybe she can have twins down the road.

I was too tired to run yesterday though I lifted weights at the Y, which isn't that far from the Cuban place. I didn't want to carry my shoes with me so I just wore socks. I was told that was unacceptable. All day, sudden rain showers would pop up and then disapppear after a minute or so. Got hit by several of these. I was able to have a good run this morning-6.5 miles.

Apriums

As part of my recovery plan, I have tried to increase my intake of fruit and vegetables. The other day, I bought some fruit that appeared to be apricots but the label said 'apriums' so I assume they are a apricot-plum hybrid. I've heard of plumcots before. These look like apricots but taste more like plums. I eat plenty of peaches and blueberries also. My raspberry crop is almost gone but I have my wild black raspberries and gooseberries. I really don't like gooseberries but I have a friend who eats my crop.

One of many vices is pomegranate green tea. If it had more than 5% juice in it, I suppose it would actually be good for me. I dilute it out with seltzer after a run.

So the lady who made my blue top wants to put me on her website (http://www.artweardesign.blogspot.com/) website: http://www.Artweardesign.com/. So my short pineapple hair will be seen by more.

La Pina-my new name. I don't have the necessary accent marks to write that correctly. The hair continues to grow out only on top. They used to called that Panama dictator -the pineapple but that was due to his bad skin, not his spiky hair. My skin is fine, even has some oil glands now but the eyelashes are getting thinner and thinner.

Running was very hard for me yesterday. I waited until the rain stopped but it was very humid. I keep going for more records-28.8 miles this week but my legs are now dead. Today I will go to the Y. Right now I am waiting to go out with my son for lunch.

Last night a friend came over and we had Vietnamese-always tasty in Ypsi at Dalat. We then watched junk TV. "Hung" is pretty funny.

Deer, Hummingbirds and S'mores

I am waiting for the rain to stop so I can get a run in. Although I don't mind rain once I've started, I find it is hard to get going initially. Seems like in 2 hours it will be gone.

My friend whose house I was at last night lives in the country so she gets a lot more wildlife than I do in my suburban house. Many more hummingbirds and finches but she also has deer who eat her plants but are fun to watch. A mom and her twin fawns, still with spots, visited us while we sat on the deck drinking 'remedies'-a ginger-lemon based drink. A stag would run through too. As night fell, the wind died down and the mosquitoes came out but the firepit deterred them quite a bit. Her lone bat came out to swoop some of them up. The fire-flies were out too though not in the numbers that they have been in years past. We cooked s'mores over the fire. (Are they called that in the UK and Wales?) It was a very pleasant evening with a good friend, good conversation and good food.