Fight of the Hummingbirds

Ms Whitetail

So we are down to two hummingbirds. The other three have been chased away. The two remaining ones are equally matched. They will not let the other feed in peace. If they are not at the feeder, they are on this wire guarding the feeders. Steve took a movie of their antics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g02zcCexGiA

Will our block party be rained out? Should I make a dish to pass anyway?

On my bike ride, I go through flocks of gold finches. At my turn around, there was a field with 4 vultures on the ground but  they didn't seem to have anything to feed on. The blackbirds are amassing to fly south.

If the weather would just stay this way...

A good night for sky writing

The "go" had become fuzzy

What the restaurant does with its left over oyster shells

Calm and clear (and cool). A perfect tableau for sky writing. Last week, there was a much bigger audience but persistent cloud cover made sky writing useless. This morning, more of the same but the large trees around my house make viewing difficult.

Josh and Julie took us out to our lovavore restaurant in appreciation of my drawer handle job. Eating downtown would have been impossible as we probably couldn't park. As it is, this restaurant was very crowded as it has a national reputation. Lots of alumni there. We at least had chairs for our hour wait. I suggested to Josh that he let a pregnant lady have a seat. He asked why don't I give her MY seat.

Hey, I'm a sexagenarian.

But it was a good dinner. Less than 2 weeks to go. My prediction? The 20th. She will be 39 weeks 1 day then.

It is so much easier running in the cool air. Got a bike ride in too.

But the game....not so good. It was predicted to be a blowout but as it turned out, we were lucky to win. I couldn't bear to watch it though Steve kept updating me.

Sexagenerians and senior coffee

Soulmate called me yesterday despondent as he was offered senior coffee unsolicited. Little sympathy here as I've been offered senior discounts for the past 10 years. Even Steve was recently offered the senior discount on coffee recently which surprisingly shocked him and hurt his feelings. A lot of my friends are becoming sexagenerians this year, not so surprising as about 5 months ago, I became one too.

I guess we are shocked that others see  us as 60 i.e. OLD. Can I really be 60? I remember dating a man I thought was impossibly old because he was 30. I don't feel that old. I look at my well-muscled legs perfectly smooth and with no visible veins and think I don't really look so old though I certainly have the crepe thing going on around my neck and upper lip. My own fault for being in the sun so much. I seem to have almost as much energy as I used to though I am so much slower than I used to be. And I am fat, which isn't so much a sign of age but I wasn't so heavy before I was 53 or so.

Actually I haven't been offered any senior discounts since I started dyeing my hair. When my hair started growing back in after chemo, it was no longer straight and blondish such as the photo of me and Steve on the far right. It was white and black. I had a brain MRI done as part of a study. The technician let me look at my brain which I scanned visually for tumors. I then asked what would an Alzheimer's brain  look like. Much less folds. He then added that my brain looked pretty good for my age.
And what age would that be?
He said 60.
I was aghast as I was 56. He was very apologetic saying he was especially bad at guessing but usually the ones who thought I was Naomi's grandma or the offerers of premature senior discounts were very young or of a different race. So I arranged to have my hair dyed within that week.

As a child, I usually was in the 99%tile for height. I had been asked numerously
 how many grades I flunked. The last time I went trick or treating, a woman told me I should be ashamed of myself trick or treating when I was so old. I was 11. I was on track to become 6'6" but fortunately I suddenly stopped growing at 12. It was hard being tall when all the heroines were pretty petite princesses. Ugly mean step-sisters always had big feet.

But then I started looking young for my age. As a teacher, I went to the office to get a certain form. I was asked who my teacher was?
I am the teacher.
But I guess we shouldn't take these things so personally. Shanna and Naomi are 12 years apart and I tell people that. Still they think Naomi must be the older one as she is taller.

Sphinx hummingbird moth

These were moving so fast that I couldn't focus

It was dark and drizzling when I returned from my Cooking for Survivors class. Steve was outside with his camera trying to take movies of this flock of hummingbird moths frantically flitting from flower to flower. We've had hummingbird moths before, the slow moving tiny clearwing moths. These were nearly the size of the hummingbird and moved almost as fast as one. Their wings are solid but move so fast. At one point, I looked and found a real hummingbird hovering just a foot from me along with the moths. That would have been a nice picture. Unlike hummingbirds the moths didn't care about my presence but they only spent a few seconds per flower unrolling their 4 inch tongues. I have identified these as the white striped sphinx moth.

The torrential rains began shortly there after.

I hadn't been in my class in a while due to all my travelling. They were about to call me figuring that I must have become injured in my June bicycle trip. Aw I was missed. More antioxidant food: cauliflower salad, vegetable pasta and blueberry quesadillas.

The storm caused the temp to plummet from 93 to 68 just like that. Still sort of warm today and then it will be cold.

Ms. Maya Goes to School

Maya upset that Naomi can't go to school with her but once she found her cousin in her class, she was smiling again

It is becoming more difficult to have her stand still for a picture

Building a tower in free play at the library yesterday

Yesterday was the last day I will take Maya to the library reading hour for a while as of today she will be in school four afternoons a week. During her school time, she will receive speech therapy twice a week. Her vocabulary has increased dramatically in the past 2 months but she is very difficult to understand.

Examples of Maya speak:
Yuk Danpa!
translation: Look Grandpa!
She uses Danpa for Grandma too. When prompted, she will amend it to Danma but then will revert to Danpa to mean either of us.
I want bitch!
I want a picture.

So many health forms to fill out including more lead testing. If she didn't have lead poisoning before she was two and still is in the same environment, how would she be exposed to lead? She no longer puts things in her mouth. The only possible lead exposure would be cheap Chinese toys. At every step, Naomi gets dire warnings, If this isn't done by such and such, she will be excluded. If she is late one minute, she will be excluded. f you don't attend this meeting, she will be excluded.

The school is on the other side of town. Maya will be bussed in a few weeks, which Naomi is nervous about.

Still too warm here but a cold front will move in late today and then it will be fall. I will bike before the storms.
Josh finished his home improvement projects for now. The baby is free to pop out now. Still 16 days to go.

Glass and ceramic backsplash. He was quoted $1500 to install it but he did it himself with some help from a work buddy

Note all those handles that I helped put on  a couple of weeks ago. 42 of them (some of them were in the 3 bathrooms)

Happy Fifth Canceranniversary!

Black dots represent recurrence risk for TNBC; White dots are for estrogen positive breast cancer.
 At 5 years, the risk of recurrences for TNBC dips below that of ER+, which more or less holds steady
 for 10
years. Note at one year, the risk is about 6 times as high. I've seen similar results in other studies.
The 'n' for
TNBC is not high but you can see a 33% recurrence rate versus 16% for non-TNBC

So what do you give a girl who has survived five years past diagnosis for her 5th anniversary.
 Peace of mind! Honestly I rarely think about cancer any more..bigger fish to fry. But for at
 least a year and a half or so, it was all I could think about. Dark, dark thoughts. How unfair 
this all was! An early possible, painful death! The oncologist gave me a 70% chance of 
surviving 10 years assuming I did chemo. If not, then only 50%. 5% of that risk was death 
due to non-cancer issues which I took to mean heart attack or stroke.

Although I tolerated chemo much better than most, it still was highly unpleasant. I felt bad; 
I looked bad. But the dark thought treadmill in the middle of the night was the worst. 
How lucky were people not to have to face this!

Early in this blog, I said something stupid about how lucky the estrogen positive ladies
 were. If only I picked that cancer out at the cancer store instead of the one I got! Stupid, 
stupid stupid. I apologize to you all and there are unfortunately legions of you. I was feeling 
sorry for myself about the chemo ( 4 long, cold months!) and the increased death risk 
not helped by not only the popular press but scientific articles openning with 'lethal,
 non-curative, aggressive, non-treatable' etc. Meanwhile, if you look at the graph,
 five years out is not much different than 10 years out. And now they are 
recommending antiestrogens for that period of time, very unpleasant drugs that I don't need to take.

So what am I left with here. A mangled half- breast that is hard as a rock.
 A divot in my armpit making it difficult to shave. I still get stabbing pains in my ribs
 that take my breath away but not as often as I used to. I can't remember when
 it happened last. When it happens, I think bone mets but then the pain goes away. 
I assume it is neuropathic pain..damage to the nerve causing it to misfire for no reason.
 Taxol can do this along with radiation or even surgical  damage. Who knows?
 But it seems to be going away. I need to be checked out just once a year a
nd my next mammogram will be coded as 'screening' (meaning free in insurance lingo)
 versus'diagnostic' (meaning me paying thousands as we have a high deductible). 
I still will be nervous during these mammograms. New cancers can always pop up.

Already a sauna here at 8 in the morning. Dew point humidity and heat. I did my run 
dripping sweat for an hour even after a cold shower.

All things British...

I think I watch more British TV than American TV. Newest show to watch?
Last Tango in Halifax So far, it is very interesting. 

This show piqued my interest as I assume it takes place around Halifax. This is the town that I traced my English ancestor to Dr. Saxby, who would be my great-great grandfather on my father's mother's side born in the early 1800s as was his wife. It is in Yorkshire, which I visited in 2007 with Steve only we went to York as I did not know at that time about my relative coming from Halifax. For my travel blog see http://suzannekesten.blogspot.com/2008/11/england-travel-blog-june-2007.html. I guess I could see the city on TV.

We missed seeing Oxford, where we had planned to spend an afternoon due to torrential rains causing numerous train delays and rerouting. At least I can see the city on Endeavor and Inspector Lewis  where they say even the criminals have higher degrees than you do. Lots of murders going on in such a tiny town.

I also have been watching Silk, a story about two ambitious lawyers vying to become a judge, one that would wear a silk robe. I knew British judges wore those silly wigs. I did not know the barristers (lawyers) wore them too. They look sort of silly especially on a young black woman. The show is hard to follow due to differences in procedures and the names of the crimes. Drunk driving is Drink Driving? And I had to look up what cottaging was.

And of course I love Downton Abbey, which allegedly takes place in Yorkshire, home of at least a branch of my ancestors, though they do not film it there.

The count down continues for Baby Girl. 18 days to the due date. They are finishing up some home improvement projects during the next few days then they will try to entice the baby out by stepping up the walking routine.
It is supposed to be 96 tomorrow. Yuck!