I warned you...

...that this place is sort of a (semi-public) diary -- one day I will print all of these posts out and paste them into this leather-bound, inscribed journal/book my nephew and his wife gave me -- and so lately, I have been blabbing away here at great length (dare I say: voluminously? *snicker*)

I realize that this may give some of y'all blog-fatigue (sorry) but that's also why I put in pretty pictures, so you can just skip to the visuals if you so desire.

Like this one of the ENDLESS traffic circle in front of my building. I mean, for pete's sake, my 5-yr ARM has already adjusted and they haven't finished the damn thing yet (as a reminder: they broke ground the week before I moved in), so I'm not sure WHY (besides the desire for time-and-a-half wages) it is suddenly so imperative that they work on SATURDAY MORNINGS drilling and such like. (If you click on the photo for an enlargement, you can see two of the workmen crouching in front of the Frederick Douglass statue in the lower half of the picture, one in a dark shirt and one in white.)

The contrast is especially jarring since NYC feels like it empties out on the weekends during the summer: note the number of vehicles visible, and the rest of CPW is just as empty.

While I am glad that last week's microburst didn't kill any of the no-longer-tiny trees in the circle (these suckers were saplings when first planted... think about that for a sec... consider the relative size of the men vs. the trees... yes, it's been THAT long... who? me? bitter? what makes you say that?) I begin to wonder if we will ever be able to actually enjoy their shade, or the supposed fountain that is to be installed (is the water going to flow forth from the slots in the black slab?)

Maybe I am just displacing (if that is the correct psychobabble term) my weariness at the length of my treatment schedule. On the whole, I am truly honestly grateful at the excellent (and insured!) care I am receiving at Sloan-Kettering, and I know I have it so much easier than many other women (despite my vast amounts of shedding, f'rinstance, I didn't lose all of my hair, or need a mastectomy, etc.) but the finish line feels like it's receding further and further into the distance: since my next visit to the radiation team is on Sept. 3rd, I'm thinking the actual weekday treatments won't start till Labor Day, Ergo, it looks like my zapping (M-F, for 6 weeks... sigh) will now continue until Friday, October 16th. (It's a good thing I decided to switch my Avon Walk to the Boston event on May 15-16, 2010.)

That would make it almost exactly 7 months since I started my first chemo session (March 13th) and 10-1/2 months since my diagnosis (Dec. 30, 2008 -- a date it seems unlikely I will forget). Just thinking about these numbers makes me tired. Or maybe it's the mournful giqin (Chinese tabletop zither) music I am listening to on WKCR's Sounds of China.

Normally, I love listening to that stuff, since the Chinese pentatonic scale system, is just plain different, and this week they are NOT playing Chinese opera -- ick: I am just too American to appreciate the falsetto screeching, although oddly, my engineer likes it. Go figure.

Thank goodness the much more funkalicious Across 110th Street is coming on now (12-3). Maybe that will make me less morose. And a nap. Definitely time for a nap, as I have problems letting go of that weekday "must power through my fatigue" habit (so much for learning to listen to my body). And then later today I'm off to see my sweetie, once he has finished some more demolition work as part of his seemingly neverending apartment renovation.

Hmmm... his renovation started around the same time as my chemo... yep, some days, time seems to stretch like taffy.

Okay, time to make like my 1-year old grandniece Lillian and have a midday nap. Maybe like her, it will result in a better mood afterward.

Surfing my sofa

Aaaah...back, after dinner. Much better. :-) I made roast chicken with paprika & onions. Quick and tasty (if not exactly photo-worthy, hence, no shots here) and a recipe I'll keep on hand. My particular version tonight used 3 chicken thighs I had lying around the fridge, along with some red onions which were on the verge of mutating, so it had the virtue of also using up Stuff. Yay!

I am still beyond tickled by the recent news articles regarding the "radioprotective effects of moderate wine consumption in patients with breast carcinoma". It seems to imply that drinking one glass of wine (not half, not two, but ONE) on the day of radiation reduces the likelihood of skin toxicity by almost 25%!! And since I will be having radiation treatment days a week for 6 weeks, well, YOU do the math. Woohoo! (heh) And yes, that means I had a glass of riesling with dinner.

And now that it has safely passed (i.e., won't spoil the surprise) I can post a photo of my present for my friend Jackie's birthday on Thursday. The blue square is a pizza stone (hers broke) wrapped in Japanese cotton. There is a Japanese word (of course) for this fabric giftwrap: furoshiki. I think of it as origami with cloth instead of paper.

It's pretty cool, since it's green (reusable cotton instead of disposable paper) and pretty. Plus, if your friends sew, they can also use the fabric for quilting, etc. The Japanese Ministry of the Environment even introduced some beautifully printed fabrics -- made out of recycled PET bottles! -- for use in furoshiki. And if you want to create a wrapping that is also a basket or carryall, well, there are designs for that too. (The Japanese are masters in the art of presentation, neh?)

And in keeping with the spirit of slackertude that I have been indulging today, there is a guilty hankering to watch (online) this sitcom on the ABC Family Channel (yes, leisure to find mental junk like this dangerous) because it stars both David Cassidy (who looks like he's had more than a little work done) AND his half brother Patrick Cassidy (who is so ridiculously good looking I was shocked to read that he seems to be straight -- will wonders never cease?). By the way, Shaun Cassidy*is busy behind the camera as he is a successful TV producer [Cold Case, Invasion, Roar, American Gothic, etc.] ... wow: who knew my favorite teen idol would grow up to become a tycoon?) Executive produced (of course) by their brother Shaun, Ruby & The Rockits, there will also be a guest appearance by their real mom, Shirley Jones. (I always hoped I was named after her, but who knows what my sister was thinking when she picked my name?) --->*[Hey, Margaret, I know you will be thrilled (not) to know your due date is on Shaun Cassidy's birthday... hee hee hee!]

(Pause while I watch a snippit of the show online)... Okay, there are reasons I never watch sitcoms, canned laughter being the most obvious, and neverending moments of embarrassment being another, but if I can figure out which episode it will be, I will make an exception for the Shirley Jones episode. Hmmm... going to go put on my Partridge Family Greatest Hits CD while I type out the rest of this goofball post. (It just struck me -- yeah, I'm slow that way -- but although I mock people who have way too much time on their hands, um, how many hours have I spent blogging away here?!)

Speaking of ways to rot your brain while watching TV, have you SEEN the latest cast lineup for Dancing With the Stars?! Tom DeLay?! Say WHAT? I think I will flee to my TiVo and watch the premiere of the new season of Project Runway now... but before I do that, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you this evening's installment of food porn: Jackie's birthday dinner at Elettaria --

Appetizers included a detour from their Summer Restaurant Week Menu for the house specialty of crab resala - crab meat with "Parisienne gnocchi, turmeric-onion soubise, basil seeds, and fried herbs"... *drool* as I've said before, any time someone else will do the hard work for me re: crab meat, I am THERE!

Scallops with tripe, endive, and merguez -- yum! for this, I even tried the tripe (I am so American and have not had tripe before, despite it's frequent appearances at the dim sum buffet table) which was chewy and mostly tasted like the merguez and seasonings -- the photo of Jackie's lamb meatballs unfortunately turned out to be all blurry, so, no shot here

Entrees included cavatelli with lamb ragu and ricotta (me)...

...and pan-roasted skate with Israeli couscous and vegetables (Jackie & Marci both had this) which I have to admit looks more like squid or octopus in this particular photo

Desserts were all FABULOUS: Buttermilk Rice Pudding w/ Rhubarb Sorbet; Sour Cherry Clafoutis w/ Créme Chantilly; Milk Doughnuts w/ Rose Water, Ginger Custard, Chai Gelato -- the doughnuts may look weird, but they were absolutely delectable, deserving their stature as "THE" dessert to have there...

Slothfulness

This was actually an accidental photo -- I meant to take a shot of the vast underground tunnels, but due to the shutter lag of my camera, I got this shot of a train pulling into the station instead, which I think is kinda neat, no?

Today I took my last, and hereforeto undiscovered, discretionary day of the year. Yippee! I really, really needed it. I slept 11 hours last night (EUREKA! a solid night's sleep at last!) and spent today just puttering around and doing a whole lotta nothing (she says, trying not to think of all the tasks around the house that await her: assembling the console table, going through mail, laundry... you know, life) since I haven't really had a chance to just veg out and rest in a while, and sometimes you just need to do that (i.e., nothing very productive).

Made an oddball yogurt shake (iced coffee w/ milk + fresh blueberries + plain lowfat yogurt) with stuff I had on hand -- since no one else but me had to drink (or like) it, I felt free to experiment. As the book Alone in the Kitchen With An Eggplant points out, we are more relaxed about trying/eating weird food combos when no one else is there comment, disapprove, or be grossed out.

Also got sucked into an episode of The Young & The Restless since (a) it is part of my home-on-a-weekday guilty pleasure routine, and (b) one of the younger characters is going through chemo for breast cancer. Her fake bald head is a little too shiny (and her acting is still pretty lame) but they remembered to put in the blue shadow from having her head (ostensibly) shaved, and the chemo drip looked realistic. HEY! Come to think of it, if her character is having chemo (3-hr. drip) for the first time today, why is she already bald?! That's bass-ackwards! Well at least they're trying to get it right, I suppose.

Then had a chance to chat with my friend Helen in London using my newly downloaded version of Skype (yippee! free "phone" calls to London, Beijing, and Abidjan are in my future!) after discovering that yes, once again, various versions of my name have already been taken. (FYI - My Skype name is my full name with a hyphen, so: FName-LName, and it's linked to my yahoo e-mail address.) This was after my friend Ellen told me to go look at a hilarious video of remixed footage showing squirrels dancing to Michael Jackson (and I thought I spent too much time on my 'puter -- this person spent HOW many hours messing with the video till the squirrels were synchronized to "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough"? [or whatever the title of that song is]).

Staying home also allowed me to see one of those midday, apocalyptic thunderstorms, where the sky got so dark that I looked up since the living room was suddenly dim. The clouds were even darker than in the picture, but this will give you an idea of what it was like:

It reminds me of the microburst the other night, with some really spectacular lightning strikes, and winds that decimated about 100+ trees in northern Central Park. This photo of a venerable old tree, violently uprooted, will give an idea of the strength of the winds, since the root system is wider than this little girl is tall!

Okay, more later (most likely food porn of recent birthday dinner outings) but right now I am off to seek ACTUAL food: hungry!

Mad, mad, munchables

I've been awake for 2 hours already. That is damn annoying. For a person who loves sleeping in her comfy, air-conditioned bedroom, waking up before dawn really SUCKS. It's a good thing I actually went to bed at a decent hour last night so I at least got 6 hours of sleep. Begone, chemo drugs! Leave my plump, pin-pricked, and tattooed body! BAH!

The only bright sides are that I (A) can enjoy a leisurely breakfast [so okay, it might involve Kashi frozen multigrain waffles, but I top it with cashew butter or my friend Ellen's delicious homemade blueberry jam -- yum!], and (b) I might actually get to work early for once [shocking, I know].

Since I am taking tomorrow off (a heretofore undiscovered discretionary day which I hadn't used yet -- woohoo!!) getting there early to plow through all of my monthly billing and everything else looming over my head might be good. Yes, I decided I needed some Calgon time before my trip to Seattle next week (hi, Margaret!) or I might give in to the urge to smack someone upside da head (always a sign that you need time off, I say).

Tonight, my friend Marci and I are taking our friend Jackie out for her birthday to Elleteria in the Village. (Every time I wander around that specific area, I always wonder if I'll run into my ex, who still lives on Washington Place -- as far as I know -- but so far, so good: no sightings. I don't dislike him, but I think it would be awkward. Plus, I feel blobby with chemo-weight.) Amazingly, it actually IS Jackie's birthday today -- with most scheduling issues (trying to coordinate multiple people in NYC? challenging) these days, that's a miracle.

And now, speaking of my friend Ellen, I leave you with these food shots from our MadMen retro-dinner party as I go off to enjoy my morning dose of In The Papers with Pat Kiernan on NY1 (oh hey, the front page of the NY Times has a shot of the microburst storm centered over northern Central Park the other night -- some truly spectacular lightning strikes and wind which wrecked many trees near me in Central Park)...

An artsy shot of one of my whoopie pies (kinda like round versions of Drake's Devil Dogs)

Pillsbury Grand Rounds (I think) -- fluffy biscuits on an appropriately '60s-ish plate

Our pal Elaine brought a green bean casserole in a retro bowl (see it above, below the biscuits?)

Bacon-topped meatloaf... everything's better with bacon! and indeed, it was very moist and tasty (I think pork was involved: pig + pig = heaven! and oh yeah, lotsa cholesterol probably, heheh)

And classic Maytag blue cheese salad with candied pecans (or were they walnuts? they were candied so I loved them regardless) -- basically the giant head of otherwise boring iceberg lettuce is merely a conveyance for CHEESE, Gromit!

Rx = booze!

Yes, it's true -- it has been scientifically proven that a glass of wine a day is beneficial during radiation treatment:

Radioprotective Effect of Moderate Wine Consumption in Patients With Breast Carcinoma International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, Volume 74, Issue 5, 1 August 2009, Pages 1501-1505
Alessio G. Morganti, Cinzia Digesù, Simona Panunzi, Andrea De Gaetano, Gabriella Macchia, Francesco Deodato, M. Grazia Cece, Massimo Cirocco, Augusto Di Castelnuovo, Licia Iacoviello, Vincenzo Valentini, Numa Cellini, Giovanni de Gaetano

Woohoo! I am so going to put this into practice. Apparently, it minimizes skin toxicity (i.e., nasty sunburn from the radiation).

Please note that the abstract specifies results for 1/2 glass, 1 glass, and 2 glasses daily (those Italians provided plenty of subjects, I must say) and results were best with ONE glass, so my WW training as to proper portion sizes will be called upon again. So hey, a glass of wine a day may keep radiation sunburn away!

When I mentioned this to my radiation team today, one of them asked me to send him the article (ha!) since he is still a student, so I will be happy to do that, both because (a) it's from a reputable journal, and (b) I am a reference librarian and can't help myself.

So yeah, today was my simulation visit, where they aligned me with the CT machine and gave me tattoos for future reference points. So right now I have Sharpie marks all over the left side of my torso, making me look like one of those targeting displays in a big, dumb, summer action movie.

I also have several little pin-sized tattoo marks (instructions prior to punctures: "this will hurt a little but DON'T MOVE") so they can quickly set me up for each radiation dose. Treatment will probably begin on Thursday, Sept. 3rd (I'm not sure if that's another prep visit, or the actual radiation) and go one for 6 weeks, 5 days a week.

It's a good thing I've gotten used to arranging my life around medical appointments because otherwise this constant lack of control over my schedule would make my head explode. Granted, they did say they will eventually be able to slot me in somewhere in the 5:00-7:00pm range for my daily dose, so atleast it will have minimal disruption to my work schedule. The radiation team warned me though that the first week I will probably have odd hours until someone else finishes their treatment regime. (It is truly frightening how many people are being treated for cancer at any one time.)

I have to say though that I am not looking forward to the daily slog as the hospital is nowhere near anything except buses, which go nowhere fast during the inappropriately named rush hour (67th & York... oy). While on the bright side, there is no nausea or hair loss associated with radiation, the cumulative fatigue (there's that word again -- the body's revenge against constant targeted poisoning) of the radiation and schlepping makes me tired just thinking about it (or that could just be the effects of the last chemo round).

Oh well. On to more pleasant topics...

Last night, I took my friend Jane out for a much belated birthday dinner (ah, the joys of scheduling conflicts) to Robert DeNiro's new restaurant, Locanda Verde. I kept getting gridlocked between different dishes, so I resorted to my reliable falback: ask the server. My indecision was vindicated because each time she hesitated and said, "Ooh, those are both GOOD." Okay, she may say that about everything, but it made ME feel better, ok? ;)

All of these were damn tasty! The usual food porn follows:

Crispy Artichokes with yogurt and mint (me -- may not look fab, but it tasted gooood; also had some roasted red peppers scattered throughout)

Grilled Octopus with spicy almond romesco and local fagiolini (Jane -- that octo was soooo tender and yummily charred)

Gigantone with sunday night ragu and provolone picante (J -- I think the ragu was with lamb)

Porchetta sandwich (me -- pork with pork cracklings: you should have SEEN the pool of grease it left behind! Yum! thank goodness for the tart vinaigrette of the salad to cut the grease between bites/halves)
Lemon Tart buttermilk gelato, limoncello granita (J)

Toasted Almond Semifreddo bing cherries (me)

Whirlwind weekend

So on Friday, the daily post-fest of last week ended. That was because Saturday we were busy attending the fabulous, 3-hr wedding of my engineer's former colleague, Mihir and his (now) wife, Aditi. Don't they make an attractive couple? He arrived on horseback! I have lots of really fun photos posted online if you are interested.

Since our little cohort of Chinese, Lebanese, Welsh, and American engineers (and me) were almost the only non-Indian attendees, I now know how the non-Chinese guests feel at a Chinatown wedding banquet: clueless. Heh.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to look up Hindu wedding customs BEFORE going to the wedding, so I didn't know (then) why it was customary to steal the groom's shoe(s), among other things. If you are curious, here are some links I found after the fact:

http://blog.regeti.com/?p=732

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/hindu-wedding

http://indianweddingcustoms.blogspot.com/

And then on Sunday, not only did I visit my friend Kieran's family in Princeton (hence the glorious garden photos of their neighbor, above) but then I came home and took my whoopie pies to the Mad Men dinner party last night where we drank like fish (or 1960s advertising execs).

I am now realizing, however, that I am exhausted. Every now and then I am reminded that oh yeah, I am still recovering from the last chemo treatment (duh). So even though I have mentally relegated chemo to my PAST mentally -- physically, I am still slogging through the last cycle and therefore, prone to being uncharacteristically worn out. Well, uncharacteristically in MY mental image of my normal self, but really, quite logically in my current physical state of being, if you see what I mean. (DO you?? I mean, did that make any sense at all to you guys?)

So no, I am not going to post about the the fun food from last night, or the entertaining shenanigans of Kieran's kids, or any of the endlessly fascinating events at the wedding. No, I will save those for another night.

Instead, I am going to go fall into bed. Details next time.

Making whoopie

Whoopie pies, that is.

(What can I say? Couldn't resist the opportunity to use that line.)

My friend Ellen is having a little get together on Sunday night to watch the season premiere of Mad Men on AMC. It will be a period foodfest, with green bean casserole, meatloaf, Maytag blue cheese salad, and gimlets galore.

While I myself have never watched an episode (until tonight, thanks to my beloved Tivo), I am game for an evening of retro food with friends. Plus, the clothes on that show... fabuloso! The photo spread in the current issue of Vanity Fair was just luscious and I was hooked on the eye candy, both sartorial and thespian.

(Sidenote: when I showed my engineer the photos, I thought he might enjoy it, as he has a taste for mid-century design. However his immediate comment was, "That guy (Jon Hamm) looks constipated in every single photo." While I think Mr. Hamm is gorgeous, now I cannot see any of his photos -- or for that matter, most stills from the show with him in it -- without the unseemly urge to burst out laughing because it's TRUE! My sweetie certainly has a way with words sometimes. *snicker*)

Anyway, based upon my viewing of tonight's episode (Ep. 1 from Season 2: For Those Who Think Young) I might give up watching season 2 and just read their detailed episode guides instead.

In any case, although jello parfaits were suggested (since I of course volunteered to bring dessert), I hate STUFF in my jello, so instead, I fixated upon the idea of whoopie pies. I had seen an article from the March 18th edition of the New York Times Dining section, complete with recipe, and it evidently caught my fancy.

While I have no idea of it's historically accurate or a complete anachronism, I'm gonna go with it.

So though most of you have seen these types of shots (creaming the eggs and sugar, etc.) in your own kitchens, I just LOVE baking porn, so here they are anyway.

After I took the cakey portion of the pies out of the oven -- all 12 halves -- I realized that I only have one cooling rack. Whoops (pun intended).

So I "repurposed" my All-Clad splatterguard. HA!

The filling I will make in the morning, since it should only be added after the pies have completely cooled in any case, and I am tired -- this insomnia, Lunesta be damned, is kicking my ass.

And then in the early afternoon, my engineer and I are off to an Indian wedding, for one of his former coworkers. I've never attended one, so that should be interesting!

Squeezed Dry

The posting streak continues... (and ain't that random sign goofy?)

Tonight I was part of a focus group, a place where critical comments about a database vendor were actually welcomed! Apparently, somewhere, somehow, my many complaints to their support desk got me nominated for this event, or at least, that's what I'm guessing since the vendor supplied names to the market research company and not vice versa. Beta Girl strikes again!

(Beta Girl was the nickname my previous boss Lucy gave me since I would kick the hell out of the tires whenever we had a trial of a new database. She and I joked that there was a cape flapping out behind me in the breeze as I found the many bugs and glitches in functionality which would occur as I put the product through its paces.)

They paid us each quite a nice sum [RTBT!] (which is good 'cos I have 2 birthday dinners coming up next week) but as I found out, it's not exactly generosity: by the time we left 90 minutes later, I realized that my brain felt wrung dry. So they got their pound of flesh, I'd say.

It was kind of odd knowing we were being videotaped behind the 2 way glass... I'm glad I didn't look at the glass until the end of the session though, since the chemo weight was at its most unflattering while sitting, in side view around a conference table. Yuck.

Oh well, it was not my looks that "got me a seat at the table" to use investment banker-speak.

And I gotta tellya, it was really something sitting around the table with 5 white guys and a brunette woman -- hmmm... I was the only "person of color" in a sea of crisply dressed testosterone. Apparently, some things haven't changed since I first started working in the financial sector ... 19 years ago ( !!! ) -- HOLY COW! has it really been that long?! I need a drink -- well, also because work this week has been a nonstop series of brush fires so the week has felt like an eternity, with very few things crossed off my to do list, since some hot potato always lands in my lap at the beginning of the day. But hey, don't me wrong: I am deeply grateful to be over/employed! (RTBT!)

(And by the way, I've taken a Lunesta to finish off the last of the insomnia, so the rest of this post may be slighty loopy.)

As I was saying, some thing haven't changed: if you've won the genetic lotto and are super waspy/preppy looking, this evidently is a prerequisite for being a wizard of Wall Street. (So glad I never went into investment banking as dear old mom had hoped!) While there may be lots of eye candy -- if your formative years were warped as mine were at college: imprinted like a duckling, I did on blond preppies -- being around so may Guys (and guys) might have given me a contact rash just from the raw testosterone wafting through the air.

Tonight's crop arrived dressed in business casual khakis & polo shirt all the way up to pinstriped suit with silk tie. Almost all of them had cheekbones/bone structure sharp enough to slice my fingers on. One guy in particular [Mr. Pinstriped Suit] reminded me of an old boss (from 1990!) Most of them gave the impression of being smart and efficient without being overly macho or BSDs.

But as with many things in life, it's always the problem children who get more airtime. Two of the participants -- the only other woman, unfortunately, and a broker -- struck me as, well, not on the same operating speed as the rest of the room (i.e., not the sharpest knives in the drawer, ok?) Being a native New Yawker, most forms of slowness drive me nuts, so I practically wanted to squeeze the words out of their throats when either of those 2 spoke. Of course, usually when they finally did, I found their comments, well, dumb. Sorry, but anyone who thinks all of their research needs can be solved with "you know, a Google type box" is just plain stupid. (If I knew what firm he worked for, I'd warn you all off his brokerage, but no surnames or actual employer names were mentioned, only overall corporate demographics.)

Considering the heavy duty data crunching conducted by the wealth management, hedge fund & private equity guys there tonight, I suspect they probably also thought he was not too bright either. I bet the video replay of people's reactions to most comments made by "Mr. Why Can't I Just Use Google To Find Everything?" would be interesting. *snicker*

Yes, stupidity irks me, so I guess I am destined to be forever cranky.

And short on sleep. G'night!

Streee-ike!

Remember how I said a friend was supposed to have her 50th birthday party at City Hall Restaurant on Friday night? Well, that morning, one of NYC's ancient water mains broke and flooded the restaurant's neighborhood. Whoops! They had to promptly relocate to another restaurant, but reading the menu intrigued my engineer enough that he decided we were going to go have dinner there tonight.

Wrong! Tonight, the restaurant was hosting the filming of a Law & Order episode. Heh. (By the way, speaking of franchise crime dramas, I was stunned to realize that the actress who plays the current 2nd chair, Alana Del La Garza, played the doomed wife of David "I always pose with my hands on my hips" Caruso on CSI: Miami. On there, she was a total airhead and frequently looked like Bambi in the headlights... though I suppose having to stare at David Caruso's sunglasses all the time could have that effect. On L&O Classic, she actually seems smart enough to be believeable as an attorney. I guess that's what they call acting!) Anyway, my sweetie has taken tonight's barring of the gates at the restaurant as a sign that this means we are destined not to eat there. Heheh.

Actually, this turned out to be not such a bad thing, as we wandered across another restaurant which turned out to be very well-reviewed (I only found out about the well-reviewed part after I got home -- while we were there, it was just damn tasty). The photo above is actually from Marc Forgione f/k/a Forge and it was nice because the kitchen (and staff) really seem to CARE about executing well. I strongly urge you to read their menu for the full details of each dish, because I am just going to give you the Cliff Notes below.

We started off with some amuse bouches from the chef, scallop tartare on the toast (him -- I'm not yet ready for sushi ) and sorry-but-I-forget (me -- it was tasty though; I blame chemo brain and my longing for sushi)

And then some potato rolls with scallion butter -- the rolls were soft and fluffy but way too salty, alas

I had the watermelon and shrimp soup (I know it sounds odds, but it works)

He had squash blossoms stuffed with 3 cheeses (he liked them but said the sauce was overly assertive -- having tried a sip, I just called it too tart; dunno about the squash blossom tempura)

He ordered English cut lamb chops (thumbs up he said, though I'm not sure what English cut means...)

I had seared sea scallops with super-crispy pork belly (yummmmmmm... scallops AND bacon, how could it miss??)

My dessert looks blobby in the photo but was quite appealing on the tongue: sauteed peaches with orange blossom mousse and almond cake (drooling now just typing it up...)

His dessert was apricot bread pudding with bourbon creme and toasted almond ice cream (note his prescient sign of approval)
We had wine with dinner too (Hungarian reisling for me, a wonderful rose for him) and he had Madeira with his dessert.

And now, I will finally stagger off to bed and hope that I won't wake up at 5am again, as the heartburn from hell has finally subsided. This heartburn was not from dinner. Oh no. It's another pleasant parting gift from the chemo: this afternoon I was in such pain that it felt like I had been waterboarded with seltzer saturated in cayenne pepper. (Gee, guess I will be refilling that $50-copay prescription of Nexium after all. -- Oh hey: finding the manufacturer's webpage will save me $25 on each refill for a year! They have a rebate program on their I never knew about -- Score!) Luckily, it had subsided by the time I left work, only to return late tonight. (I will spare you all an accounting of all of the other unhappy GI bonus parting gifts I experienced today.)

On that note, it is now 1:59 according to my PC clock, and I bid you all adieu (we'll see if I continue my post-[or more!]-a-day marathon this week... )

Chemo brain - the saga continues

And just PROVING the fact that chemo brain yields an endless succession of senior moments before I even have my midlife crisis, I meant to post about today's Science Times article: Taking Steps to Cope With Chemo Brain

And now, really, good night!

Vampire-proof

So tonight I decided to cook for just myself. Shocking, I know. Normally, between portion sizes (most recipes are scaled for starving families) and laziness/fatigue, I opt for no-cook dinners. But tonight, this morning's insomnia-inspired flipping through the recipes from Jacques Pepin's More Fast Food My Way (have YOU visited your local public library lately?) I was inspired to make the rather unfortunately named but quite tasty Crusty Chicken Thighs with Mushroom Sauce.

Alas, I was a little heavy on the garlic (oops) so while appetizing, the sauce was a wee bit strong.

Of course, it could be that having a 32 ounce bottle of minced garlic makes me rather reckless in that regard. Yes, thirty-two, not 3.2 oz. You know, like the size of a giant jar of Hellman's. I accidentally ordered it from FreshDirect a while ago because I thought it said 3.2 oz. Lawd knows when I'll finish the dang thing...

Anyway, the stuff in the pan is leftover. I think I'll leave cleaning the dishes for the morning since I seem to be waking up at 5am all the time anyway, dammit. Hmmm... maybe a Lunesta before bed (I'm feeling kinda desperate after 4 nights of this) which I'm aiming to hit before the late news begins, or the early (10pm) news ends.

So yeah, apparently, I am through with chemo, but it's not through with me yet. Feh.

On the bright side, check out the loot I got using the PaperBackSwap book club. The principle (have I raved about this already?) is a 1-for-1 trade of books, of any kind. Your only cost is postage to the other members. So for instance, I list a novel (book 6 of the blah blah blah series) and someone requests it using the online system (which cleverly bases everything upon ISBNs). I mail it to them, and get 1 credit which I can them use to request book 7 from of that series from someone else, assuming it's available.

I have been stalking their recipe and knitting books and listing my mysteries. (I mean, come on, am I ever gonna reread a trashy thriller? I think not.)

Originally, I looked upon this as a great way to send books on to new homes and clear out some space here. I forgot that this only works if I don't request any more books myself! (Hmmm... a librarian practicing restraint on acquiring new books... riiiiight.)

And now, I leave you all with a macro shot (I find the macro-focus feature on my digital camera lots of fun) of the lilies my friend gave me: every single bud has exploded like demented floral popcorn. Wheeee!

Oooooh... hey, it's time to go SLEEP! Excitement!

Lilly and lilies

You know that old childish refrain, "You're not the boss of me"? Well, with chemo, it sadly IS the boss of me: I can't sleep sometimes, no matter how tired I am. Somehow I had managed to forget this periodic side effect (a Freudian thing, I know). I. Hate. Insomnia.

So yeah, despite not being able to fall asleep until a little after 1am, my eyes promptly sprang wide open at 5am. Yes, before dawn. Poetic justice, I suppose, for not going to bed earlier, when I was already tired. I will be SO cranky at work today. You know it's bad when I'm already longingly thinking of leaving work at 5:01pm...

The only way to be at least moderately pleasant is to think of the good things in my life. Like flowers. The lilies on the right, given to me by my visiting college pal this past Saturday, merrily went along blooming while I was gone on Sunday and Monday. (I am still damn exhausted though.) Almost all of the buds bloomed, with their threatening load of pollen (have you noticed how much those suckers shed & stain? Nature at her most ingenious I suppose). I didn't know you could do this, but he had had the florist pinch off the pollen from the open blooms when he bought them. However, this of course, doesn't affect the sneaky late bloomers.

Speaking of things which are exhausting, I had not realized that the baby birthday party on Sunday involved about a dozen or more actual babies, above and beyond the 3 tots in my family! (And of course, a dozen infants and toddlers yielded about 2-3 dozen attendant adults.) Remarkably, most of the children (I would say 99%) were very well behaved -- not really any major meltdowns apart from a brief cloudburst or two. (I am always awed, however, at the ear piercing volume capable of being generated by such a small being.)

Happily, I can say that (a) the birthday girl was quite the little lady, and (b) she is, like all of the youngest generation of my family, is really adorable. See? I am always grateful that this is true because then I am not called upon to politely lie and can actually say with real feeling, "Awwww... s/he is so cuuuuute!"

The photo to the left is baby Lillian with her dad, my nephew. (Yes, every now and then I am still bemused by the fact that my nephew, whom I used to baby sit, is now a proud daddy. And yes, I feel old when I think about that.)

The photo to the right is my mom, being amused by the houseful of super preppy babies, and being dwarfed by the mountain of borthday presents. (The little yellow, animal-covered gift at the top of the pile is my gift, the Little Bubbles sweater.) Mom is darn cute too, if I may say so.

Oooh, speaking of which, there was one baby who I SWEAR was the embodiment of baby Stewie from The Family Guy, but in a more benign, less erstwhile-demented-ruler-of-the-world way. Baby Linus was very cute, and I had to restrain myself from telling the dad, "Hey, did you notice that your son looks JUST like Stewie?" since I did not know if he was a fan of the show and/or would be offended at the comparison. Instead, I contented myself with telling my nephew, who acknowledged that yes, Linus did look like Stewie. Hee!

I am so tired. Wonder if I can squeeze in a 45 minute nap before "officially" getting up for work....

Buttery goodness

Went to see Julie & Julia tonight with some girlfriends and am left in a haze of butter-basted bliss. While everything did indeed look scrumptious (talk about food p*rn!) I am feeling vaguely heartburn-y (with apologies to Ms. Child, but there CAN indeed be such as thing as too much butter) just from the visual consumption. However, it has left me vastly curious about reading her classic book, Mastering The Art of French Cooking, preferably in an older edition.

In the meantime, watching a mini-marathon of her show The French Chef on WLIW (one of the local PBS stations) with my mother the other night (a wildly entertaining combination of ladies, let me tell you) I discovered that they have shrewdly offered DVD sets of her shows as pledge drive thank you gifts. For $75 each you can get either series 1 or series 2 on DVD, so my sweetie and I are plotting to each donate and pool our resources. (Of course, they also have other packages, such as getting both sets for a $120 pledge, and if you want her cookbook... well, you get the idea.

So it seems only appropriate to lovingly photoggraph my newly arrived small-size Oxo cookie scoop. You can see the difference in sizes when compared to the medium scoop, and an ice cream scoop (better known as my favorite cupcake batter dispenser).

And now, some random photo scenery shots...

...such as the Calvin Klein boutique on East 60th Street. I just thought their window display was cool, and so took a photo of it while walking by a few weeks ago (during my cookie scoop buying trip, coincidentally -- all roads lead to food!)

...and one of the elevator doors in my office building, which as you can see, is decorated in a beautiful Art Deco style (well, it WAS built in 1929). Since we sold the building, and it has not ever been landmarked (!) I thought I should snap a pic or two before it potentially gets ravaged by the new owners. Didn't realize that building security frowned on photos though (whoops) so the stonework will remain unmemorialized (for now).

Okay, I should have been in bed an hour ago (since that was when I started getting really tired) since while I may not be receiving any more chemo treatments (to which I say again: yippee!) my body is still busily processing the latest dose. Nitey!

Low battery (cont'd)

Now that I've FINALLY finished my chemo treatments (EUREKA!!!) maybe my hair will quit falling like raindrops on my neck and shoulders. Ugh. (Plus, that tickles.)

And I guess, now that it's done (minus the lingering fatigue and immunosuppression of the next few weeks) my brain is finally allowing itself to freak out: I woke up this morning (early, @ 7am on a Sunday, which is just so WRONG) from oddly jumbled dreams mixing multiple limb amputations --of another Asian woman -- and discount bra shopping for me. (I told you it was weird.)

I'm going to leave the limb chopping dream alone (ick!) but the bra shopping is easily explained: between my weight gain from the chemo, and the upcoming radiation treatment (where I've been warned by the radiation oncologist that I should buy a larger size due to the irritation from the treatments) I sense bra shopping in my near future.

And unlike the odd but amusing scientific studies sometimes published where you think, "Someone gave you FUNDING to study that?!" there was finally an article on chemo brain in last week's New York Times where it was acknowledged that yes, chemo does affect neurochemistry (or something, anyway) and that it wasn't just the patient's imagination, or fatigue, so that concentration and multitasking become somewhat challenging. Imagine having senior moments constantly. Yeah, like that. Lovely, eh?

At least I may or may not recover from that eventually, but I found out last night that one of my college friends -- whom I met even before Freshman Week! that's like... almost 25 years ago! EEK! -- has had to leave his job due to permanent memory/concentration effects from a stroke a few years ago, similar but nowhere as severe as the Guy Pearce character in Memento. (However, when you are a lawyer, finely tuned concentration skills are a must.) He is currently fighting with the disability insurance folks over that issue, so really, I really, REALLY mean it when I say that I don't have it too bad (for one thing, my health and disability insurance did not argue with me about any of my treatments or diagnoses -- the drug plan people suck, but that's fortunately, a relatively small matter in my case, financially).

Therefore, when people sometime say that I have a remarkably positive/low-key attitude about my breast cancer (e.g., "oh yeah, I have chemo on the 24th so I can't meet you that weekend... *shrug*), I honestly feel like I don't have such a horrendous burden. Okay, I'm not saying I'd WANT to have this if I had a choice, but it could really be so much worse: I could have had to have a single or double mastectomy if it had been found later... (and besides the psychological issues involved there, that is major frakkin' surgery! that goes on for over a year!!)... I could have lost all my hair... I could have been laid off while dealing with this... all sorts of stuff come to mind, so I am not just mouthing off when I say I am very lucky.

I am also lucky that I didn't turn off my phone yesterday morning, despite the low battery beeps, since that is how my college friend got in touch with me unexpectedly: he normally lives in San Francisco, but was in town for the week. So he came over and I made dinner. See the pretty lilies he brought me? (waaaay up at the top of the post)

Having somewhat limited energy this weekend, I decided that I would prioritize cooking over cleaning (hey, he's known me for over 2 decades -- he knows I ain't Felix Unger) and so I made sausage pasta bake, based on a 2005 Cooking Light recipe, and a gigantic salad. In fact that photo to the left is of the LEFTOVER salad. Oops.

Yes, between the fact that most recipes are portioned for 6-8 servings (!) and my inherent (and apparently inherited) tendency to keep throwing stuff in until I have a kitchen sink dish, I -- ah -- have a lot of leftovers. See below?

And I did alter the pasta recipe quite a bit, since I discovered that I didn't have penne (I used a combo of rotini and macaroni), didn't have enough diced tomatoes (I subbed crushed tomatoes and extra tomato paste), and had extra sausage (so I threw in extra green and red bell peppers). Well, I guess the dish is like those TV movies of the week: "(extremely loosely) based upon the strue story of..."

And I have this weird quirk about HATING to smell food in the apartment the morning after, or even -- if regarding my bedroom -- the evening OF a dinner. (Unless it's baking -- those smells can hang around as long as they like, but unfortunately, they seem to dissipate rather quickly.) So I close the bedroom door while cooking, and have discovered a cheap, homemade version of using Oust or Febreze candles (which are not cheap and which I can go through rather quickly).

Instead, I boil a pot of water on the stove which has large amounts of ginger powder mixed in -- it's been boiling away for the past hour this morning. I find the ginger smell pleasant, although (alas) like most baking-related smells, rather fleeting.

Okay, I'd better start getting ready to head off to CT. It's time for baby Lillian's very first birthday party, where I will FINALLY have finished a baby sweater early enough to giftwrap it (!) instead of frantically weaving in ends after dinner. HA!

Come to think of it, it's birthday weekend, since my engineer is off visiting his parents down in Toms River because it's his dad's birthday this coming week.

And now, just for fun, and for no particular reason except the fact that I think it's neat, I leave you with a link to an Audi TV commercial using human pixelation. (You know, like those crowd-held flip cards during the Beijing Olympics.) Ciao!