Good news, bad news

Sometimes, it's just easier to focus on stupid little things. When your life is full of big messy problems with no easy answers, or heck, no answers within  your control at all, it's just easier to focus on stupid little sh*t which annoy you, instead of things that are large and unmanageable like the national debt -- or you know, a continuing health saga.

So the easy little nit to be annoyed at is that I was a mere $25 short of my AvonWalk total to get a "free" running shirt, which wicks moisture. TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS! I am a freaking idiot.

You see, once I decided it would be more sensible (duh) to switch to the May 2010 Boston AvonWalk because my radiation treatment would still be going on during the October 2009 NYC AvonWalk (the original estimated end date, back in the spring, was end of September; I actually finished more than a week after the NYC walk) I kind of got distracted from my fundraising. Also, the transfer paperwork to switch to the Boston Walk -- which STILL isn't completed yet! -- was (and is) still utterly confusing.

So, I blew it for lack of $25 out of $3,600. Twit.

Yes, I know that the overall goal of fundraising for breast cancer treatment and research is worthy (do NOT get me started on that [CENSORED] bullsh*t non-governmental panel suggestion that mammograms for women under 50 is unnecessary -- THAT gets its own vitriolic posting! a**holes) but I got fixated on that racewalker shirt for some reason.

I suppose I will just have to focus on my 2010 NYC total instead. That would be October 2010, since I am not going to bug everyone again for May AND October.

Okay, on to more cheerful topics, like my 5th anniversary at work. It was on December 20th. Amazing. Especially considering the spectacular flameout of the financial sector this past year.

And when I told my mom about the occasiona, she was so surprised that she uttered the equivalent of a teenager's "Get! Out!" but of course in Shanghainese, and not quite in that phrasing. Heh.

I had kind of forgotten, but my coworkers hadn't, and sweetly surprised me on Monday afternoon with a little cookie, brownies (WW brownies -- they're not sadistic, since weigh-in is TODAY!) and chips party that they put together. See? SQUIRREL cookies! Heheheh.

And since I will be on vacation until January 6th after this Thursday, it was a combined (and unexpressed) birthday surprise luau. (One of my coworkers is of a religious persuasion which does not celebrate birthdays, so we didn't specifically mention my birthday on Monday.) But that whole effort was very sweet of them, no?

Now, I had better finish getting ready for work so that I can stay employed!

Pink Glove Dance

My old boss sent me this, and it is FABULOUS (but I could be biased).

In any case, I think it is sweet, funny, touching, and smile-inducing. (It also made me all sniffly, but then, almost anything does that these days.)

According to the director, after one million hits, Medline will make a donation to the hospital.  The current count is over 5,000,000 :-)

Oh, and anyone who knows the song, please tell me, as I am woefully having not the musical clue these days.

Running a blitz

So I've discovered that probably the least painful way to "watch" the NY Giants lately (when I remember) is to put it on TV on mute, and listen to WNYE-FM (currently playing The Brazilian Music Hour, after an hour of Putamayo World Music, and shortly to be starting Mo'Glo) or WNYC (vicarious food thrills on Sunday nights with The Splendid Table, where Thomas Keller was the guest tonight). Of course, if they're on during the afternoons, I have to find other audio wallpaper to cover the car wreckage.

But no, I didn't spend all evening on the couch covering my eyes. Actually, I finally cleaned out my fridge tonight, since there were items in there that were older than my niece's children. (You think I kid, but some of the expiration dates were truly eyebrow-raising. Trust me.) There are now visible areas on the shelves. Shocking.

I also made some turkey spinach lasagna for tomorrow night, when I will feed my friend Sam "a home cooked meal" (vs. his usual quick meal a la Trader Joe), complete with some previously frozen dough I made from King Arthur Flour's chewy chocolate cookie recipe. (Bonus: I managed not to have a serving of the lasagna, despite the yummy smell, since I had already had dinner!)

As I may have mentioned before, I once asked Sam's sister Sarah what foods he may prefer. She responded wryly that as a bachelor he will like anything I make for him. Heh. Nonetheless, I did check with him that the turkey spinach combo was acceptable. The lasagna also was the impetus for the fridge cleaning, since I needed room to store it overnight!

Between the frosty (9 degree windchill) and/or wet weather lately (rained 3 out of the last 7 days), and going out for some veal lasagna with Sam last week (yes, I am an unreformed carnivore AND politically incorrect) at Lasagna Ristorante (tip to my NYC pals: don't order anything else except what the place is named after and you'll be much happier) I had the overwhelming urge to make lasagna tonight.

Our comfort food cravings were also satisfied when I treated us to dinner last night at Skinner's Loft in JC where my sweetie had strozzapreti with pork ragu, and I had apple cider-brown ale braised pork shank. Oooooh... SO. GOOD. And both were gigantic enough to feed both of us again today.

The evening was also enhanced by the grown up atmosphere at the restaurant -- subdued jazz music in the background, with a fireplace insert, exposed brick, and good service -- which invariably also has delicious food. You can see why it's one of our favorites in his neighborhood.

And during those periods when I'm not crying like a NFL player on the team that loses the Super Bowl, I can occasionally have some sane moments. Thank g*d. So tonight my engineer and I had another Talk (we had one last weekend too) and that also helped both of us defuse some stress.  Hooray!

So I can now retroactively rationalize, er, I mean -- justify my purchase recently of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1 which was on sale at Amazon for US$20 last week.  At 50% off,  I couldn't resist ordering it. (By the way, it is now $19.00 or 53% off! Holy...!)

And the other book is a cookbook from the pottery studio formerly known as the NYC YWCA Craft Students league, which has since morphed into the Brickhouse Ceramic Art Center where we've just wrapped up the last week of classes for the semester. I think the studio director was cleaning house before this weekend's holiday show and sale, so there was a sign on the counter last week: "FREE!! Take one!" Offering me a free cookbook... how could I resist?

Okay, long past time for bed!

Brain cramp

Alas, it turns out that the restaurant is booked tonight for a private party, so it will have to be another time. However, I am looking forward to eventually watching the deer feed while we feed ourselves.

Of course, I am such a city girl, and all I can think while looking at that photo are the following:

• Wow! They're so close!
• Clearly they're used to the silly humans enclosed in that weird glass and wood box.
• Thank goodness for the glass keeping the deer ticks away -- no Lyme disease potential!

Oh well. Another time. My engineer has promised me a raincheck. Thank goodness he called first so that we found out BEFORE the drive!

Perhaps I will go take a nap before I go meet him for dinner as I am exhausted, since I was up late noodling around online (because I'm stupid) and yet was not able to sleep in because there was some frakkin' protest march outside my window ... AT 8:15 ON A SATURDAY MORNING! In Spanish! Bah! And once I was awake, that was it -- no drifting back off for me.

Since I was doing dumb things like showing up for work yesterday morning... instead of for my follow up appointment at the hospital with the radiation oncologist! DOH! So after going all the way downtown to the office from my apartment (130 blocks or so), being greeted by my coworkers with surprise ("Hey, don't you have a doctor's appointment this morning?"), going all the way back uptown to the hospital (90 blocks or so), and then going BACK to the office afterward (another 90 blocks or so, past the big Christmas tree in front of the NY Stock Exchange) all in 9 degree wind chill [ bonus! ] ... since I was doing dumb sh*t like that, then perhaps extra rest wouldn't be bad.

I was trying to count up my platoon of doctors this morning and lost track (post.chemo brain + menopause brain = slow moving brain) so here it is written down to help my noggin count:

1. oncologist (a/k/a she who I will be visiting regularly for the rest of my life, or until she retires -- whichever comes first)
   
2. radiation oncologist (a/k/a physician in charge of my medical sunburn -- and she is a TINY Asian woman)
3. breast surgeon (once a year, forever)
   
4. my regular physician / GP (it turns out that HE was the one I kept forgetting since I've only seem him ONCE this year! a piffle, compared to everyone else)
5. eye doctor
6. dentist
   
7. gynecologist (a/k/a she who found my lump)
8. psychiatrist (a/k/a seen 3x/year for Rx)
9. therapist (not technically a physician, but keeps me from cracking up, so hey -- KEY!)
10. all of their attendant staffs: nurses, assistants, receptionists... ay! (all except #9, who is a solo practitioner)
    

Healthcare insurance anyone?

Oh, and it turns out that my boob is still radioactive, and will be for several months! There is even a temperature differential between my left and right torso, which is kind of freaky, if you think about it.

On the bright side, she (#2) is quite pleased with my physical progress (I will spare you all the gross details though -- remember: this is all relative to what's gone on before, so er... let's leave out the word pictures, okay?) and has given me a one year check up appointment (vs. any earlier).

Okay, time for this geriatric to have a nap before dinner!

Potato power!

Happy Hanukkah! Or happy Chanukkah! Or... well, pick a spelling. Last night was the first night of the Festival of Lights and I REALLY want some latkes... yum! Mmmmm... potatoes. And then: FRIED potatoes... ooooh! Well, what other reaction can you expect from someone who went on solitary vacations to Ireland -- twice?

So yes, the other weekend, my friend Ellen and I saw this spectacularly, um, eye-catching menorah during a walk on the UWS (there is a tiny, old-school toy/stationery shop on West 72nd Street that had this in their window) and I thought, "Well, hey -- gotta grab me a photo of THAT! Words won't do it justice." Yes, you too can own this "Musician Menorah" as the box calls it.

Or you can buy a handcrafted set like this cute grouping of animals that is being sold at the holiday show at my pottery studio (i.e., the place where I currently take classes -- it is SO not owned by me) which is going on this weekend.

There are many more photos linked to my Facebook page. Those of you who know my name can go there. Those of you who don't have a FB account, I can send you a link if you ask, that does not require you to join to view the photos.

Gotta run, hop in the shower, and head to JC in a few minutes because my engineer is driving us down to the Delaware water gap for dinner as a treat: there is a restaurant he knows that [I think ] is set in the woods and faces a salt lick, so while humans dine on cooked food, the deer come graze at the salt lick (and no, I will NOT be ordering venison -- even if they have it on the menu -- for those sickos who've asked! but then, that's why you're my friends *snarf*)

Bye for now!

Happier times

So on Monday night, I was at my mom's place, and I finally managed to get my old laptop up and running. Thanks to one of her neighbors ( amazingly, there are people who still run unsecured home networks ) I was able to log on briefly and waste some time on FaceBook. Heh.

I also took a quick look through the hard drive of the laptop, something which I apparently haven't done since Fall 2007!

One of the things I found was this photo from Christmas of 2004, where my brother-in-law, his siter, and HIS brother-in-law were goofing around and spontaneously hit the classic 3 monkeys pose. (My brother-in-law is Speak No Evil.) Luckily, I must've had my camera handy at that moment, because voila! A snapshot of a happier time, before our family ended their long streak of good health.

The photo makes me simultaneously happy (or perhaps more accurately, nostalgic) and sad, since my brother-in-law is now well advanced in his Alzheimer's. (His symptoms appear to fit Stage 6 and there are only 7 stages altogether.) My younger niece tells me that it may be that he is suffering concurrently from another disease which is accelerating his decline.

I will not go into the many details here, except to say that his symptoms have made my sister's life very difficult, so I am grateful that her two eldest children live nearby and can help her when she just is at the end of her rope. Since they each have their own families to take care of (between them, there are 3 children under the age of 4) these stopgap measures are still very stressful for everyone concerned.

Conversely, her grandchildren (whose photos I have proudly posted here in the past) bring joy and light into my sister's life every day, so that she is not constantly surrounded only by decay and disease. I understand more viscerally now why my mother insists that families need children. (I haven't told mom yet about The Change coming to visit me, although she can do the math and knows 5 years of tamoxifen mean I will never have any biological offspring. And no, that does not mean I am contemplating adoption either.)

Anyway, when I think of the psychological and emotional (but not legal or physical) widowhood that my sister endures every day, I understand why my mom yells at me to "not bother your sister with ANYthing!" since it is her only way of venting and being able to help my sister.

Between that, my stupid hormones, and all of the many other things that have been going on, I thought, "You know, it is really a shame that my sister and I were raised so that we never say I love you" (although my sweetie has broken me of that habit in his case). So as I sniffled my way through a phone call the other night, I told my sister that although I never SAY it aloud, I do love her very much.

It made me smile when she muttered, "Me too" since those were the only words I could bring myself to reply to my engineer on the phone at first. (He would then laugh affectionately at my embarrassment.) So I told him about it and that now I knew how he felt back then. HA! (And yes, more amusement from Le Engineer upon that newsflash.)

Okay, now that I have unburdened myself somewhat, and shared a HAPPY photo, it is definitely after lunch time for me.

Holiday-free zone

Yesterday morning started off with a bang (in a manner of speaking) since I evidently ate something that really didn't agree with me, making the 16 subway stops to my office feel like an eternity. Thankfully, I managed to make it to my building and then my floor without mishap, whereupon I dashed to the ladies room straight from the elevator and we'll leave the word picture right there, at the door, thankyouverymuch.

The physical misery made an interesting (and semi-merciful) change from the hormonal hell I have been experiencing lately. Honestly, the hot flashes and night sweats aren't so bad, but the emotional schizophrenia from the hormone wackiness is horrible. It makes me feel like I have no control over my sanity, which is worse than any of the physical discomfort. Yes, one deluxe menopausal combo pack, delivered direct to my doorstep. Yum.

I am always tired these days, or hormonally crazed, because chemo really is the gift that keeps on giving (one of its more morbidly humorous nicknames) since I have leapfrogged directly over my older girlfriends to get a giant head start on menopause. So my body is crazed (3 week periods, 1 week off) and I am a nervous wreck because my hormone levels are always out of whack (the urge to sob wildly at the drop of a hat is NOT my normal state of mind). Once I am DONE with menopause, it will be good (less estrogen to feed any hidden cancer cells) but in the meantime, I feel crappy all the time. Unfortunately, I don't know when that happy DONE day will be.

I imagine that the next several months will not be much better, pharmaceutically speaking, since my oncologist and pill doctor agree about the tamoxifen conflict flagged by the pharmacist (so no, I haven't started taking it yet). Evidently, there is some metabolic conflict between my Wellbutrin and the tamoxifen, so my options are: keep the antidepressants but don't take the anti-cancer drug, OR, take the anti-cancer drug and mess around with a neuropharmacological balance it's taken me years to achieve. THESE are my choices?!

Now when people commented on my previously chipper, perky, and positive attitude throughout my treatment this year, this does not mean that the Wellbutrin made me artificially happy. It just prevented me from sinking into the (a)pathetic heap I tend to become when left to my own devices.

You see, I have been taking it for years because otherwise I tend to get clinically depressed and: stop eating (I mean altogether -- not in that dieting kind of way people joke about), sleep all the time / have perpetual insomnia, cry constantly, lose the ability to concentrate, lose the energy to get dressed, much less leave the house (kind of an important factor in remaining employed, no?) and generally think I'm just a useless human being -- ALL THE TIME. Every time I stopped in the past (under doctor's supervision), sooner or later I wound up a soggy mess, and after a few years of trying, I just gave up and decided pills were the way to go.

So yes, once again, I get to go on that delightful merry-go-round of "let's try this anti-depressant and see if it works OR screws you up too badly" since, well, my pill doctor and I both agree that cancer trumps depression (although at this rate, cancer is going to CAUSE [menopausal] depression).

You can see why I am not looking forward to more pharmacological experimentation until I find an effective AND well-tolerated replacement. Just read the package insert / warning label for side effects if you want to know what I mean about well-tolerated, like this one. Consider also that it takes weeks at a time to figure out the results for each new formulation I may have to try.

We are not even going to get into all of the emotional repercussions -- for my whole family -- arising from my brother-in-law's severe Alzheimers as that subject alone... well... I just can't deal with thinking about it all right now (and do you know how selfish and weak I feel saying that?) -- so yeah, not feeling festive this December.

I have not bought a single present. Not sure I will either. And as for cards, I haven't even checked my stash to see if I need to order more. And I think my little tree will stay in the closet. Maybe if I feel really energetic one evening I'll buy a wreath. But doubtful. Yup, despite reading A Christmas Carol (yes, THE Christmas Carol by Dickens) for one of my book clubs, I am feeling like pre-reformation Scrooge.

One mental anchor I'll be clinging to when I feel that I may lose it in the next few weeks is the thought of TWO WEEKS OFF. I had put in for vacation during the last week of December, but this past weekend I realized that perhaps taking off 2 solid weeks might have a geometrically more beneficial effect upon my sanity. Ergo, I am thinking the first week of January as well, since hey, I do have the accrued time from this year. My engineer and I had been talking about going away but I'm not sure that is in the cards, due to financial and logistical issues. We'll see (but don't hold your breath). In the meantime, he and I are talking about day trips here and there instead.

And just because it seems truly cruel to force you to endure my lengthy whining without any visual distraction, I am throwing in photos from my March 2008 vacation in Vegas. The appropriately ominous top photo is from Valley of Fire or Red Rock Canyon (I forget which) and the bottom one was taken on the grounds of the Flamingo Las Vegas. I just thought the reflections and ripples turned out to be really cool.

Buttercups and bananas

I guess you might say parts of this post are dedicated to my friend Margaret, what with a photo of the UWS location of Buttercup Bake Shop, their supertasty banana pudding (which I shared with my friend Ellen the other day) and a final one of her adorable baby boy, born October 1st.

Of course, it could also be my sadistic streak in showing her a bakery she can no longer visit... but hey, would I do THAT? ;)

Actually, food is kind of an unfortunate subject, since I overate tonight. Ooooh... I feel like I swallowed a bowling ball. On the plus side, I managed not to eat all of the fries, and subbed a turkey cheeseburger for a moo-cow cheeseburger. On the minus side, I ate the whole, NYC-diner-portion, an almost frisbee-sized burger. [*burp*] I guess the fact that it has been a really long time since I felt THIS overstuffed (no, not even during any of my Thanksgiving dinners) means that in general I have been diligently following the rules of moderation helpfully outlined by WW.

I will have to remember this unhappy feeling the next time I am tempted to overindulge. Indulging per se is fine and dandy. Eating like I'm a pro linebacker, not such a good idea.

On a more positive and productive note, I was playing kitchen cabinet tetris over the holiday weekend, and rearranging my cupboards, which normally had precariously stacked mounds of pots, pans, and containers behind each door. I was pretty pleased with the end result, which not only fit everything I wanted, but was organized in a logical manner, with the least frequently used objects on the top shelf, etc.

Also very satisfying was my progress in clearing out counter space so that I have more workspace for prepping food, which will be especially helpful now that the company cafeteria in our building has closed (just in time for cold weather -- natch) and I am just too darn lazy to walk several blocks overs to our other downtown building. Luckily, I would say that even before the lunchroom closed, I'd been bringing my lunch about 80% of the time.

And although it is tempting to once again skip discussing the latest medical developments in the apparently neverending saga that is the joy of boob cancer treatment, I will bite the bullet tonight and just give the highlights.

Remember how I mentioned that I will be taking tamoxifen for the next 5 years to minimize the risk of recurrence? Well, it apparently conflicts with another medication I am taking, so the pharmacy will not release it to me yet. Now, my oncologist is conferring with my other physician and they are trying to figure out what to do, once they stop playing phone tag.

In the meantime, I have also discovered the results of my oh-so-fun endometrial biopsy, and will skip all of the many multisyllabic medical terms and sum it up as: the answer really is 42, if the question is "when do I start menopause?"

The chemo has probably hastened the winding down of my biological clock, and less estrogen (post-menopause) is better for me, since my cancer is estrogen-positive, but I have to admit, "The Menopause" (as my sweetie's mom calls it) has thrown me for a loop, since well, that really kicks me firmly over into "you're middle-aged" territory. Plus, the endless cycles (I have supplies stashed at home, my mom's place, my engineer's apartment, the office, and my purse) are damn annoying, with particularly vicious spikes in mood due to wildly fluctuating hormone levels.

Speaking of crazy, my mom is feeling better these days, since she is back to complaining about everything under the sun, especially anything my sister and I do about getting her better medical care.

I'm signing off with a photo of baby du jour (my older niece is due again in May), who is really pretty darn cute. (By the way, the compressed version of the photo is a bit blurry, but if you click on it, it will open full size and crystal clear.) We had a very nice time during my jaunt out to Lawn Guyland to see Margaret and her men (they were visiting her husband's family for the holiday). I also thanked Margaret during the visit for having such a cute bambino so I wouldn't have to lie when I made admiring noises about his adorability. Heh.

All the trimmings

Lots to tell you all, but I'm way too tired and it's way too late.

So here's the Cliff Notes version... on second thought, even the Cliff Notes version makes me tired, so I'll just show pretty pictures instead.

And no, it's nothing horrible (as in: DANGEROUS) but it is rather complicated (welcome to my medical life this year).

The title of this post is a pottery pun: "trimmings" refer to the shavings from the wet (okay, leather-hard) clay which has not yet been fired. Trimmings are generally removed from the foot area of each piece; they are "trimmed" (hence, the term).

And since it is Thanksgiving weekend, well, the pun amused me.

Examples of leather hard greenware (i.e., unfired) clay are shown below.

Once they are fired, but before they are glaze-fired, they are called bisqueware, examples of which I have shown previously.



The example below is a bowl that was well shaped, with interesting glaze patterns, but I found the color too dark for my taste. However, my sweetie found it pleasant enough that he took it home with him. Hooray!



As you can see, I have many, many (so much more than enough) pieces at home in any case, from the pieces I had left unglazed when I abruptly disappeared from the studio before surgery and treatment, etc.



This bowl is actually a combination of 2 glazes and warped slightly during glaze firing. You can't tell from this view, but if you look at it from above, it looks like an egg-shaped ellipse (is that redundant?) instead of a round circle. (Okay, I know that is redundant.)



Okay, since it's now INSANELY late, it's a good thing I am taking Monday off from work, so I can go visit my friend Margaret and her husband and baby out in Long Island. (They are back east visiting his family for a few days.) All I have to do in the morning is go meet the doctor first, for a consultation regarding some questions I have, and then not sleep past my stop on the Long Island Railroad.

Deliciousness

Last night my friend Ellen had her annual pre-Thanksgiving potluck, accurately described as all of the food and fun, without the familial angst. The spread was photo-stitched together above (think of the blurry arms and hands as action shots) and most of the menu is listed below.

There was homemade guacamole which I avoided only because one bite would have led to eating half the bowl. Unfortunately, I did not follow this wise tactic with Lawrence's dangerous and diabolically delicious duck fat mac and cheese, which is adapted from a 2006 NY Times recipe, Creamy Macaroni and Cheese. Lawrence is a neurologist, not a cardiologist, so I guess keeping our arteries clear is OUR problem, and not his, although he did helpfully prepare a vegetarian version for our non-flesh-eating friends.

And Ellen cooked a beauteous bird indeed, helpfully prepped by Fairway -- it was a Murray's organic turkey -- arriving complete with cooking instructions and a roasting pan which nearly set her new stove on fire. (As EG put it, the new appliance is now officially baptised.)

My spicy sweet potatoes were paired with a consolidated version of a cranberry sweet potato bake, which combined and altered 2 different yet overlapping versions, eliminating extra sugar, OJ, granola, and replacing dried cranberries with raw. (I brought not one but TWO sweet potato dishes... Am I turning into my mother?! But I was determined to bring something besides the "classic" overly sweet mush buried in 'mallows.) Let me know if you want me to e-mail you the recipe.

Laura L's super munchable (and aptly named) best brussels sprouts ever came from Molly O'Neill's A Well Seasoned Appetite. It was originally published on the NY Times website in 1995 (!) but without Laura's helpful warning that prepping the sprouts is VERY time consuming.

Mel's dangerously addictive spicy pecans and light and fluffy whipped carrots and parsnips both came from a 1996 cookbok, Stop and Smell the Rosemary: Recipes and Traditions to Remember. I'm not sure if her pumpkin pie came from the same cookbook.

Laura S. made collard greens with dried cherries. Yum. (I will post an update/link if I get the recipe.)

EG's huge and yummy apple crisp used Mary Ann White's Apple Crisp recipe, substituting with Courtland apples instead of Crispins.

Jackie's pear olive oil cake was FANTASTIC... and I'm still drooling over it and today, I savored the slice I took home with me. (Gone, all gone, of course.) She's sent me her recipe so let me know if you want it. It deserves its own star turn.

Ellen also sent us home with "party favors" of individually wrapped yogurt mini-cakes (the size of mega-muffins on steroids). I forgot to take a photo of mine before I attacked it this evening, and I sent my sweetie off with his early this morning, when he went off to work, so it will remain a mysterious object of gustatory desire for those who weren't there...

And now, time for bed, since Fresh Direct is showing up bright and early during the 6:30 - 8:00 am slot in the morning!

Zombie food

This poor beastie (an appropriate symbol considering my alma mater's mascot) really captures the way I feel these days, so much so that I am contemplating adding a new label/tag category to the blog: STRESS (a/k/a, the opposite of my RTBT). I was so frazzled that tonight I left the office, walked across the passageway to our neighboring building (soon to be sealed off by its new owners, presumably), walked down the hall (in other words, I walked 2 city blocks) and was waiting for the elevator before I realized that I had left my MetroCard on my desk... along with my card key. This meant that not only could I not get on the subway to go home, but I couldn't get back in the office to retrieve the cards either!

So I went back and started dialing for dollars: calling various people in the analysts' group next door, hoping they were still there, so that they could let me in.

Yep, really doing well these days. (I even forgot to take a photo of the dinner I made for my sweetie & myself last night: sausage and sweet currants with whole wheat pasta, an event I thought would never happen, says Ms. Food Photophile [is that even a word?])

I feel like a pseudo-victim of a zombie attack, since it feel like someone has eaten my brains. "BRAINS!" (gobble, slobber, burp -- for more vivid descriptions of gore, check out the zombie world trilogy by David Wellington; I've only read the middle one, Monster Island, courtesy of the public library, and I'm working up the nerve to read the others... maybe on his website, where he's posted them in serialized format... hmmm... )

Now where was I? Oh yes, besides my mom's health scare, and my unnerving confrontation with her mortality -- (sure she's healthy [er, sorta, for 80] but 80 is not a number to be blase about like, say, 60 ) -- one of my coworkers was wiped out by a bug for a week (tiny microbes: 5, Big Mike: 0) leading to a wee bit of stress on our cut to the bone team, especially with all of the new planning projects landing on our desks (i.e., they're doing planning, so we're doing vast amounts of research for each campaign), right next to our regular workload.

Don't get me wrong, since I am SO GLAD to have a job still, but more pressure + less staff + personal stress (hi Mom!) + other family obligations + lack of sleep (I've apparently forgotten all about my "take care of myself" rules from treatment time... and blathering/blogging here at all hours is cathartic/self-destructive, can't decide which) = BEYOND FRAZZLED.

Clinging to the edge of that mental cliff until Turkey Day holidaze. I even skipped my Tuesday night ceramics class because I was feeling so queasy.

Ahem. End of whining. For now. Mostly.

Today was my coworker Julia's 25th anniversary with the company. Yes: Two. Five. I was still in high school when she started -- what a funky concept. She was the one who saved that tiger cover art above -- "Tigers Catch Cold" from a 1998 Asian reinsurance mag -- because a then-colleague had photocopied it with a caption that read, "Not another research request!"

So we all had one of our little potlucks in the morning (she was taking off this afternoon) and I originally made almond apricot muffins last night (even toasting the almonds), since her twin sister said almond was one her favorite flavors. However, they felt worryingly hard and dry this morning (although my colleagues later claimed they were fine and tasty) so after my sweetie left at his usual unearthly hour of the morning, I made chocolate red velvet cupcakes (nee cake, but cupcakes are easier in an office setting) with NO FOOD COLORING thank you. Of course, that is also why they are not day-glo red.

Oh well. Two recipes to work on refining, but damn, a whole cup of butter does make that red velvet cupcake taste fine! (5 pts for one! eek!) But I was highly gratified to note that out of the 21 chocolate and 8 almond munchables that I brought in, only 6 and 1 (respectively) were left by quitting time. Heh. AND I managed to only eat ONE choco-vel!

And on that thought, I will leave you with my "junk food" reading, By The Sword (a Repairman Jack / horror series which I am so fried that I borrowed 2 copies from different branches of the library without realizing it!) which is an intermission from both The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble (set in historic and modern Korea), and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan for one of my book clubs (set in pre-modern China... morbidly fascinating footbinding details, in case you ever wanted to know, with a cringe-inducing photo montage on YouTube which I refuse to link to -- search for it using the book title and "trailer" if you really want to see the ickiness).

And now I need to sleep! Desperately! (I am such a dork sometimes.) Ciaooooo...

CAN you dig it?

So last night they were filming Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps at the New York Federal Reserve Building (and yes, Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen appear to be listed as members of the cast, according to IMDB). So since they helpfully floodlit the facade, I took advantage of the photo op. Nice, eh?

We were on the way to see this year's NYC CANstruction exhibit (they have contests in different US cities). I love those competitions since they donate all of the food (100,693 cans this year) to local food banks after each year's exhibit closes, and have posted photos on my Snapfish page, if you're curious.

Here's a photo of my favorite entry, PumpCAN Pie (does this count as food p*rn?), which while not as structurally challenging as the Walk/Don't Walk sign (the display changed depending on where you stood) or the 4-sided Beatles display (which won for best use of labels), still tickled my fancy.

It used over 2,500 cans of food, and the accompanying sign listed the "ingredients" such as the number of cans of creamed corn needed for the crust. Heh.

It's a good thing we went last night, because apparently one of the sculptures, which I think was based on the still in progress Shanghai Tower, collapsed this morning. My coworker Julia said it was the same location as the collapsed entry last year, which leads me to winder if there is some slight imbalance in the floor. Otherwise, the idea that a structural engineering firm built a structurally unsound object is a little unnerving!

Extra crispy

Today was a beautiful day, as you can see. Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Columbia University looked golden in the afternoon sunshine, almost like a painting, no? Not that I would know firsthand, since I changed back into my jammies in the afternoon (woohoo!) because it was just such a relief not to have to go anywhere or do anything. Woke up early (the early bird catches 5 washers!) and tackled the laundry, fed my sweetie breakfast, and got a Fresh Direct delivery (including 5 lbs. of sweet potatoes for next weekend's dinner at my friend Ellen's place).

Last night, for example, my sweetie and I attended the annual banquet organized by the Wing Tsun school he attends. While it was lots of fun (as you can see by the destruction we wreaked upon our table, Table 4) and the inactive disco lights at Grand Harmony Palace were morbidly fascinating, it was nice to cocoon with my engineer today.

Tomorrow night I'm looking forward to visiting this year's Canstruction NY exhibit after work with my coworker Julia. Sadly, I missed last year's CANda panda display, although the time lapse video of its "canstruction" was entertaining. I will have to keep an eye our for the entry submitted by my engineer's firm. Here is a link to their 2006 entry (although my sweetie was not working for them then.)

Last Monday was my last follow up visit with the surgeon (which I completely forgot to mention since I was rushing around after my mom's health problems last week... she's better now, thankfully, but it's really frustrating to realize that older parents will just never follow medical advice about changing their diet -- I should just get used to that fact RIGHT NOW). Good news on my medical status at least: he was very pleased with my post-radiation healing progress, and indeed, the surgical scar seems oddly better after all of the post-radiation skin peeling & healing. So he kicked me out until next year (yay!) which prompted the receptionist to say, "Wow. You must be doing really well -- a whole year and not 6 months or whatever."

Speaking of diet, I am making excruciatingly slow progress on the WW front, but at least it IS progress, minute though it may be. I just have to get back into the habit of being more attentive to what I eat.

Well, as they say, take ownership of your choices. So while yes, last week was very stressful, which causes me to want to eat, I made a conscious choice about my stress eating (i.e., "Yes I am going to do this"), instead of just mindlessly grazing. Do you see what I'm saying?

At least I can control my own homemade meals. The recipe for this curry, for example, came from Whole Foods and used LITE coconut milk, and not regular. Not only was it surprisingly simple to whip up, but I even had most of the ingredients on hand. I substituted chicken thighs for the pork sirloin, though, since that's what I had on hand. (Bonus: it's less WW points with chicken than with pork too.) Plus, all of the tasty veggies add fiber.

However, staying up late and being tired the next day is NOT helpful, so I need to go to sleep now. More updates on books and ceramics another day (night). So I leave you all with a shot of tonight's sunset. Ciao!

UFOs

I am tired. I am very, very tired. As the parents among us may already know, I have discovered that it is more stressful when your nearest and dearest are sick than when you yourself are sick. This weekend my mom had another intestinal bleeding episode and she waited several hours to tell me about it. (When I vented to my sweetie about this lack of promptness and how at least his parents had each other to keep and eye on themselves -- if you see what I mean -- he reminded me that his mom kinda forgot to mention her aneurysm... for 3 weeks. DOH! And yes, she is fine.)

So yes, I was staying with my mom for a few days and keeping an eye on her. We think it's her diverticulitis again (what a genetic inheritance: between my mom and my dad, no wonder my GI tract is a mess) which occasionally leads to diverticular bleeding. And since she has no GP to speak of, we were staring at an extended jaunt in the ER. (Yes folks, poor people treat the ER as a primary care facility, just one of the many reasons healthcare reform is so desperately needed.)

She is much better now, and since my sister and I can't take the idea of her being without a GP any longer (I count the government clinic/hospital she goes to as on on par with a Wal-Mart walk-in clinic -- actually, I view the Wal-Mart more favorably: they don't even pretend to be a primary care facility) we have decided that she will be using my sister's Medicare-accepting physician in the future. (Mom does not know this yet, but since we are the ones who will be dealing with her heathcare providers, we're picking someone we trust.)

As my poor sister pointed out, (a) one day, Mom will be living with her, so we might as well start building her history there now, and (b) if Mom does need to be admitted, it is easier for both of us (siblings) if she is in the CT hospital and not a NYC hospital. So Mom will be kidnapped in CT for a comprehensive physical after Turkey Day. (Sssh! she doesn't know that yet either.)

So on to more cheery subjects, like my return to the ceramics studio. I have slowly been making a dent in glazing my pile of unfinished objects (UFOs) from January, and two pieces finally came back from the kiln. The brown pieces above, although similar in color, actually use 2 slightly different glaze combos: new tyler amber + cornwall, and new tyler amber + gloss white. (Not surprisingly, I have discovered that after the past year, I approach my pottery with a more relaxed, more experimentational attitude.)

THe other photograph of celadon objects was part of a gallery display at the studio -- they redecorated while I was gone, and while everyone was gratifying pleased that I am back in the studio, it was a little disorienting because everything have been moved around and some new procedures were added re: clay processing, etc. Well hey, I was gone for 10 months!

Okay, lunch time is OVAH.

Time Delay

So guess what I dug out of my WIP pile? (Or maybe it would be more accurate to call it the MIA pile... since I started this in 2006!) Now that the weather is cooler, the idea of knitting an afghan doesn't inspire horror and actually seems rather appealing, which is good, since the materials for this project take up an entire 78 quart storage bin.

If I finish it in time, my sweetie's parents' anniversary is in December.... On second thought, maybe I should shoot for Chinese New Year, since it IS a bed-size log cabin blanket.

Other time lapse projects include these macerated peaches in sweetened red wine. Yum! I peeled them Wednesday night and dropped them in sweetened red wine, using this recipe. It turned out to be a very tasty use indeed for leftover wine and peaches on the cusp of growing their own feet and walking around the fridge on their own.

Best of all, except for the blanching, there was no actual heat-involved cooking.

On the flip side, here is fairly easy dish which requires only a little chopping: curried pork chops with yellow peppers, apricots and onions. Therefore I found it perversely amusing to serve it all on a yellow plate as well.

Ok, since I could barely finish that sentence, it's time for bed.

More later.

Ciao!

Halloween weekend

Halloween means scary things, and some people think brussels sprouts are scary indeed. I always used to think so until one year my friend Margaret introduced me to roasted brussels sprouts. Yum! I was sold on the idea! And now, if Fresh Direct has a sale on them, I am THERE!

However, this does not mean that I get around to using them promptly. Oops. Same lack of promptness apples to mushrooms, so I was elated when I found this recipe on Recipezaar for marinated brussels sprouts and mushrooms -- two birds with one stone! It turned out to be quite tasty, but then, what doesn't, when marinated?

The only downside is that marination drains some of the bright green color from the sprouts and turns them a bit yellow. Oh well.

And that other bowl in the background was sweet'n'spicy sweet potatoes, a recipe from Woman's Day of all places! Another bonus find, as I needed to use my Japanese and American sweet potatoes (hence the different colors). Not bad, but next time, I will decrease the sugar and increase the cayenne pepper.

Also very scary is this site -- I mean, who thinks up these things? Some of THOSE recipes are utterly terrifying, like Twinkie sushi or the Twinkie casserole encased in strawberry Jell-O. (No, I am not making this up.) Yes, Twinkie seems a popular ingredient on that site (as if they weren't scary enough by themselves).

Of course, some people might think that my banana oat bran muffins (or in my case, banana wheat germ muffins), which I posted about recently, are scary themselves.

Tonight, I made something not scary: cassoulet using this recipe, except with chicken sausage and not turkey kielbasa, and fed my friend Sam with the resulting concoction. (Okay, I used twice as much red wine as the recipe called for because I had a leftover bottle, but how is that a BAD thing?) Tasty as it was, I decided not to post a photo here because, well, it looks like just a big pile of brown slush...

Yesterday, my sweetie drove us up to visit my sister and brother-in-law. We were entertained (when he was not napping) by my great-nephew Nicky, who has the cutest, most pinchable cheeks ever (now I understand why adults pinched my cheeks so much when I was little). My sister and older niece (Nicky's mom) were both cheery and well.

Unfortunately, although my brother-in-law looked well physically, he was doing noticeably worse mentally and I had a very difficult time communicating with (understanding) him, eventually settling for just agreeing with him. His diction is still excellent, but his sentences are incoherent or full of non sequiturs, so after a while I was mentally exhausted.

This dichotomy may be why I still can't quite really grasp the situation: he looks fine and healthy, but it's like someone else has taken over his body because the person I knew is not there any more. I mean, intellectually I can understand the situation, but the rest of me hasn't quite accepted it yet. It's not exactly denial, but... okay, it is denial. Fine. But I'll get there eventually.

Ummm... (continuing to avoid the subject)... speaking of getting there, riding the subways in NYC on Halloween is really quite the spectator sport. Saturday night, on my way to Jersey City to see my engineer, I lost track of the number of pirates, devils, space aliens, punk rockers, princesses, cocktail waitresses, marines, and assorted other costumes I saw, but THIS guy wins hands down for the most entertainment value, I say. And due to the placement of the eyes on his costume and where he was sitting, it seemed as if he was ALWAYS looking at me. Eeek! (But where does his keep his MetroCard?!)

Of course, I should have realized that anyone who wears a fullbody costume is not exactly shy (or if they are, the complete anonymity will loosed them up!) since when another passenger with a SERIOUS camera setup -- and there were many that night: think of the streetscapes! -- moved to get a better shot of him, Mr. Chimp [don't remember seeing a tail on that costume] started doing Charles Atlas poses. Heh.

Moving in the other direction, tomorrow night is my first ceramics class in almost a year! Yippee!

I will be so rusty, but it will be nice to start reclaiming my normal routines and remembering what my life was like before I learned all about the cancer coverage features of my health insurance. And since it's also Election Day, I'll need to go vote (NYC mayoral race) in the morning before work. So... good night!

Enlightenment

More fun and games with a slow shutter speed and tripod. Bonus: orange lighting for Halloween on the ESB. (Click on the photo if you want to see a larger version.) I think this shot was 10 seconds, and not 15, with ISO 80 and f8.0 settings.

While I was fooling around with the camera, WFUV played a song which caught my attention: it was by My Morning Jacket (whom I had never heard of before, but then, I am so not plugged in to the music scene) from their album Evil Urges (nice title!) and the song was called Librarian (HA! even nicer title!). The lyrics are about the classic cliche of the sexy librarian, but since I've been feeling extremely UNsexy this year (chemo and radiation will do that to you) I'm certainly not going to complain now, am I?

Considering that, it's a good thing I haven't run into my ex (EVER) but oddly enough my dentist gave me an update on him. (Yes, you heard me: my dentist -- since I have referred my not-ex-at-the-time, my nephew, and my mom to him, I'm going to consider asking for kickbacks soon.) Although I answered his query about whether I keep in touch with the ex ("Well, um, NO.") he went ahead and updated me on his status anyway (oh well). On the one hand, I'm glad to hear he's kept up with his dental care, but on the other, he's apparently been unemployed for several months now.

Hmmm... I have to admit I feel kind of weird hearing about him. While I don't wish him ill, it makes me feel a little awkward... I'm not sure why. However, I am grateful that despite the many times I've walked past his block on my way to the subway, I have yet to run across him. (Watch -- I've jinxed myself and this streak will now end.)

While I am off discovering new things (like the effects of different shutter speeds and songs about librarians -- this one in particular is hilarious), I will also need to reacquaint myself with older bits of knowledge, like how in the world to set up my TiVo wireless network again, since my wireless router is kaput.

Tonight I discovered what that router did: it allows my little TiVo to connect to the mothership and download program info. Without that program guide, it has no idea what/when to record, and tonight, at 11:01pm, it finally ran out of the buffer/cache it had downloaded before last weekend. Whoops. Since MY Tivo has been configured to use a wireless setup (thanks to that same ex, who was also the one who gave me my TiVo for Xmas one year) it's not very happy at the moment, and I have no idea how to reconfigure it for an ethernet connection.

So tomorrow, after Mr. FreshDirect shows up, I'm off to buy the Netgear WGR614 802.11g wireless router. Since that is the model the mothership recommends, I'm all for it. (Plus, since it's an older model, it's cheaper -- bonus!)

Yes, life is good when a wireless router is my most looming concern.

Grand Slam

Did I mention that I seem to have (been) scheduled for a grand slam of medical appointments? Once I finished radiation (still worth a "woohoo!") I realized that within the space of a month, I have an appointment with every single one of my health care practitioners -- except, ironically, my GP -- radiologist, surgeon, oncologist, gynecologist, dentist. (Okay, that's actually 5 events, not 4, but I couldn't think of a 5-event tournament.)

Thankfully, all of the visits, except for the ob/gyn, are routine follow-up visits: now that I've finally finished all of my treatments, it's time for my final round of "just checking" visits, and long-delayed dental checkup (they don't really want you having a cleaning while your immune system is suppressed -- all that scraping along the gumline disturbs bacteria which is normally harmless to a healthy person, but may cause an infection in a chemo patient).

(Warning to the guys: more icky girl-med news ahead) The gynecologist visit was for my neverending, 3-week period. She said that it sounded like I had not been ovulating during my period (gee, why ever would my body be all out of whack this year?) and so that confuses the uterus which sheds at an abnormal/continuous rate, instead of a normal/simultaneous rate. Wonderful.

This resulted in experiencing a endometrial/uterine biopsy, which the doctor described, not inaccurately, as similar to being poked in the eye. OUCH. Not having given birth, I can say this ranks right up there as one of the most painful experiences of my life... extended over 3-4 samples, one for each region of the uterus. Lovely.

Being a woman, the gyn was sympathetic when she admitted that although it is less painful if you relax during the procedure, that relaxing is virtually impossible to do while someone is poking you with a sharp stick inside your body (unlike episodes of CSI, these samples do NOT use a cotton swab). (Okay, icky girly-med details over, guy friends.)

Since she is usually very prompt with bad news, as I know from firsthand experience, I take the lack of post-biopsy contact from the doc as a good sign. I am not fond of this preview of menopause, however, since 5 years of tamoxifen (which will suppress my body's absorption of estrogen) are looming in my immediate future.

Okay, on to more pleasant topics, like books (gulped down the Swedish locked-room mystery The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in one sitting last weekend -- now I am hankering after its sequel, which is still only in hardcover, The Girl Who Played With Fire) and -- of course -- food.

The photo above is of Julee Russo's tuna & white bean salad I made the other day (basically a lemon vinaigrette with 1 cup each of chopped parsley and chopped scallions tossed in -- delicious) and the giant sea scallops are from last night's book club meeting at Cucina & Co in The MetLife Building. (Amusingly enough, there was another book club also meeting at the restaurant, which is very well priced -- especially their dinner-for-two specials -- and amenable to diners who linger over their meals.)

Although the menu described the (very reasonably priced) scallops as arriving on a bed of leeks and tomatoes, they showed up on some yummy spinach instead, so I think sauteed spinach was the veggie of the day.

Then I came home and fed my sweetie -- who was arriving from one of his evenings at wing tsun class -- with some oxtail soup from the freezer (recipe from mom) and braised tofu with pork chops (leftovers from mom, who I visited Tuesday night). When my engineer heard that the tofu was from mom that day, he immediately snarfed down the entire bowl (heh). The admiration is mutual, as my mom sent me home with a bag of homemade frozen pork dumplings for him. (You can also tell she likes him -- and that she has concluded I am better healthwise -- because she once again asked me, "So are you two getting married or what?")

Okay, time to get showered and ready to face another day of idiocy at the office. My immediate coworkers are fine, but some of the other yo-yos in my company...! I'm beginning to think that the newspapers are not exaggerating about the brain drain situation... Hmmm... better shut up while I'm still employed!