Advice from West Point Grad (my dad)

"In the infantry it was always about improving your position. You didn't need to win the next day - you just had to be in a better position than you were the day before ...

We all live in a world of uncertainty - yours is just a lot more uncertain than most." - dad



1975 - Army Base in Washington

Visiting Hemingway's House in Key West

Hemingway drank and wrote about whales; Ginsberg tripped and wrote about God. Same thing.

Shore Musings

View from Our Shore House Deck

This past weekend, I took my 89 year-old grandmother to her beloved second home at the Jersey shore. Our shore house has served as a family gathering place for the past 23-years, and despite two decades of family changes (divorces and marriages, deaths and births, losses and hopes) our little house on the bay has remained a safe haven - a respite from our troubles.

Last summer was filled with hospitals and worry. My grandmother had major heart surgery, and there was a strong likelihood that she would not survive the operation. The fact that she and I were able to sit side-by-side at the Ocean together - finding joint solace in the rhythmic tide - was one of the greatest blessings in my life.

6/9/12: First Time My Grandmother Has Seen the Ocean in 5 years

Whenever I'm at the beach, I make it a point to go for a run with my soccer ball. Soccer was my way out as a kid; it kept me on a road toward college and away from a dark path filled with devastatingly bad choices. This past weekend I was able to push myself to complete a 3-mile sprint work out in the soft sand. It felt good - and then it hurt like crazy. 

"The ball is round. The game lasts 90 minutes. This is fact - everything else is pure theory." - Sepp Herberger 

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, Gary bought me new cleats and a soccer ball as motivation. Everything is different now.

This Thursday is another CT scan and Dr. Nash appointment, but for the first time Gary's not going to be there. I have a new life and new friends who are helping me pick up the pieces, but I'm tired of always being tattered. I just want to be that strong girl again, with a wicked left shot - full of fire and anger. I feel like I'm always chasing the ball, but just can't seem to get it under control.

I know these emotions are "normal" and probably even healthy to an extent. Thursday will come and go. It really doesn't matter what they find or don't find... there's always another underdog match around the corner.

Christopher Reeves said "either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out into the Ocean." I guess I'm trying to build up the courage to wade out into the terrifying awe of truly living again.

Home from China

We got back from China on Sunday. 

I couldn't post while I was overseas because blogger - like many other social media sites - is blocked by the Chinese government. I really want to share some of my incredible experiences, but quite frankly I'm too darn tired. (I'm still adjusting to a 12 hour time difference.)  For now, I'll  just post a few of my pictures in order to preview some future posts on the history, cuisine and culture of China.

We saw such historical structures as The Great Wall (above) and Terracotta Warriors.

We were able to sample some traditionally authentic Chinese food - jellyfish and all.

We also got to chuckle at some of the extraordinarily awkward translations... like this one - a donation box at the airport labelled: "Shanghai Workers Foundation for Assisting the Difficult" 

Zaoshang Hao

Good morning from Newark Int Airport! Gary and I are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime - 11 days in China.We have already hit a few minor snags:

* On Monday Gary found out that he needed a root canal or his tooth might explode in-flight. He got some emergency work done yesterday.

* We got to the airport and Gary had no seat. That's since been resolved.

* I had a minor setback with my walking pneumonia, but the steroids seem to be keeping it under control.

But otherwise we seem pretty ready: we put travel notices on our bank and credit cards; got a charger and dissolving caffeine strips (coffee isn't common where we are going); and saw our doctor who prescribed antibiotics in case we get sick.

We also exchanged $140 for 800 Yuan.

Next stop Beijing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

February Break in CA

Mom's Backyard Today:
74 degrees and sunny

I'm lucky enough to be back in paradise at my mom's house in Fallbrook, CA for February break. I have spent the last couple days lounging around with our dogs and hanging out with my mom, sister, and stepdad.  Since Gary and I can't have dogs where we live... I'm really trying to soak in all the canine cuteness I can while I'm here.

My alarm clock...

Can you tell Bently stole Charlie's favorite toy?

My mom's backyard has several statues... including this little angel

Bently smelling the flowers

Lil and I picking some oranges in mom's backyard

Mission Accomplished

This weekend's trip was centered around one purpose: buying a dinning room table. We moved into our condo four years ago, and we have been looking for a dinning room table ever since. We had several near purchases over the years, but nothing quite perfect enough to invest in. One Saturday, we were eating at a restaurant in Chelsea Market, NY and fell in love with the restaurant's tables... They were thick slabs of reclaimed wood on metal welded legs.

After doing a bit of research, we found out that the tables were made by a company in VT called Vermont Farm Table, that builds their tables out of wood recovered from old Vermont barns. The concept of the company, along with the unique look of their tables, won us over -- so we drove to Vermont to talk to the owner, Dustin, who would be hand crafting our table.

He couldn't have been nicer, and with the help of his iPad, he walked us through all of our custom options, and showed us pictures of beautiful but dilapidated VT barns where the wood came from.

We decided to go with a rich, golden reclaimed Pine, and should get the table in 5-6 weeks... after so many years of looking, the relief of finding "the one" was well worth the 4.5 hr trip. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory Tour

I love ice cream ... wait, let me rephrase that: I worship ice cream. So when we discovered that the Ben and Jerry's Factory was only 30 min south of our hotel, it was a no-brainer that we'd start our day off with a trip to my Mecca.

We arrived at the Ben and Jerry's Factory just in time to take the 10:30 am tour, which was very impressive - and included a bird's eye view of the production floor. One of the things that we learned on the tour was that all of their ice cream is made exclusively with milk from Vermont dairy farmers who do not use growth hormones.

After our tour, Gary and I drove out to their "flavor graveyard"... where various flavors are forever "put to rest" - either because they flopped or because the ingredients became too expensive. Some of the flavors sounded amazing (especially the peanut butter and jelly ice cream)... If I was ever going to become a grave digger, this is the place I'd dig up!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Marriott Residence Inn, Colchester VT

We arrived at our hotel a little after midnight, and were pleasantly surprised with the accommodations. For $98 we had a spotless, well-appointed studio apartment, complete with a full kitchen. It was almost a shame that we were only staying for a few hours.

This morning, we enjoyed a complimentary breakfast, complete with a DIY waffle bar. While it was fun making my own waffle (without having any of the clean up), the waffle itself wasn't crispy at all, and tasted a lot like a warm, limp Eggo. Still, it was better than any other "continental hotel freebie" I've ever had.

Overall, the hotel was a GREAT bang for our buck.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Crossing the Mid-Hudson Bridge

On the way to Vermont...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Kavos Gyros in Poughkeepsie, NY

This weekend, Gary and I are on our way to Vermont to pick out a dinning room table. Then, we are heading to Canada.

As soon as we were on the road, our first order of business was to find a place for dinner in between NJ and VT, so I grabbed our copy of Roadfood from the back seat of the car... but for the first time, our trusted gastronomical guide let us down. Literally there was nothing listed along I-87 - just a long, lonely, squiggly line moving north along a barren page. Sorry eastern upstate NY - you're apparently a virtual Roadfood wasteland.

Changing tactics, I hopped on the Internet with similar frustration ... until I studied a map and determined that Poughkeepsie was close enough off of I-87 for a slight detour - I was certain that we could find something to eat there.

And find we did.

We needed something quick but local. (Our one cardinal rule while traveling is: no fast food or restaurant chains.) TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Urbanspoon all gave ridiculously high ratings to a little gyro place called Kavos, so we decided to give it a try.

The gyros were awesome. If you've never had a gyro, they are sort of like a Greek version of an overstuffed soft taco.

I had a gyro with hummus, carrot-cabbage slaw, tabouli and pork (pictured below), and Gary had a gyro with roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, goat feta and garlic arugula.

The flavors in my gyro worked well together -- the pork was slightly sweet and smokey, the hummus was rich and creamy (but not too heavily applied), and the entire flavor profile was brightened by the carrot-cabbage slaw and tabouli (which is a fresh, finely chopped salad of tomato, cucumber, parsley, mint, garlic, onion, olive oil and lemon juice).

We also ordered a side of fries with oregano, lemon and sea salt. The fries were the thick cut kind, which I like, but a little dry. Gary and I both loved the oregano and lemon, but we couldn't taste the sea salt... with ketchup they were perfect.

We did, however, have two "non food related" complaints: 1. No bathrooms, and 2. Only 8 tables (seating for 16) and half of the tables (like ours) were made out of wire... so the juices from our gyros seeped through the holes in the table, and got all over our pants.

We left Kavos with happy bellies, anticipating the bathtub jean scrubbing awaiting us just a mere 4 hrs and 27 min. down the road. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Surfing Irene

While most of the island is trying to get away from the ocean in preparation for hurricane Irene's landfall - NJ surfers rush in... There were at least 15 surfers right in front of our Sea Isle place tonight. (We are evacuating tomorrow.) Sorry, Gov. Christie.

Sea Isle Seashell Still-Life

These are some of the shells I collected during our morning walks on the beach - the clam shell in the middle is the "affirmation shell" that I got after completing my beach yoga class on Monday. Below is my first attempt at watercolors; not too bad a for a first try. Life (and vacation) after all is about trying new things.

Before the Evacuation

August 24, 2011

For the past 5 summers, we have rented a house in Sea Isle City, NJ for a week in August with a couple of our friends. This year, our place was a million-dollar home right on the promenade; we moved in last Saturday and are supposed to check out tomorrow - but there is a hurricane coming, and the town is busy boarding up windows and throwing down sandbags... so we are thinking about leaving a day early.

Evacuation is only "suggested" for today - but mandatory tomorrow; Gary just went to get gas because a local said the gas stations are running out. I wonder how badly the Jersey coast is going to get hit by hurricane Irene. At least we had a beautiful week at the shore (see below).

Our Friends' Baby in Front of Our Rental

Our Balcony, Overlooking the Beach

Balcony Dwelling

Morning View from Our Balcony


Afternoon at the Beach

Evening View from Our Balcony

Octreotide Scan Recap

August 16, 2011
On the way up to Boston (for my Octreotide scans), we stopped in Mystic, Conn. for my "meet and greet" with a beluga whale. Afterward, we ate at Sea Swirl, a seafood and ice cream stand which is housed in an old, converted Carvel Ice Cream storefront.

Mystic Sea Port (where Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall spent their honeymoon)

I Love Sea Swirl's Logo: a Fish Eating an Ice Cream Cone

Sea Swirl's clam strips are simultaneously flaky and chewy - in a good way.

Sea Swirl has both soft serve and hard ice cream (including black raspberry); I was especially excited to see watermelon soft serve - but discovered it was vanilla ice cream with a "flavor blast" of watermelon... still delicious.

After we left Mystic, Connecticut, we went to my aunt's place in Wakefield, Massachusetts - where we stayed for a few days in preparation for my Dana-Farber appointments.

August 17, 2011
We arrived at Dana-Farber at 8:00am, and after we wandered around the wrong building and the wrong floor for a while, Gary and I finally found the nuclear medicine department. Perhaps the coolest thing about the entire experience was the crazy-looking metal container that my radioactive iv shot came in - the nurse explained "this container is to protect me, not you." Ok, that's comforting I guess.

After four hours, the scans started. I hated it. I thought I'd be fine after conquering the MRI, but I was wrong. While the Oscan machine is open on both sides, a massive, flat camera gets lowered down until it's right above your nose (for much of the time). Even with a blindfold, meditation music, and deep breathing - I spent nearly every moment fighting panic.

At first, I couldn't figure out why I was having such a problem with the tests (which are a couple of hours long) until I remembered that in my early 20s I went through a phase of having really vivid nightmares of being buried alive. Worse than the nightmares themselves, however, was the fact that somehow I'd manage to crawl UNDER the bed during my sleep... so I'd actually be touching the underneath of my mattress while dreaming that I was feeling the inside of a coffin. I would scream and scream until someone in the house would pull me out from underneath the bed and wake me up. I think having a large flat surface over my face triggered those memories. Hopefully, I won't need to get another Oscan for a long, long time.

My Radioactive "Non-Warning" Label


Octreoscan Machine (the flat screen lowers down once you slide into that doughnut looking hole)


Gene Display at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Post Oscan Activities
Since my first Oscan was an all-day event, Gary took in an afternoon Red Sox game at Fenway. I had some time to kill in between my testing and the end of the ballgame, so I went to the Gardner Museum, which is one of the most eclectic, fascinating, beautiful museums I've ever been to. (Travel note: Fenway Park and the Gardner Museum are both within walking distance of Dana-Farber, and totally worth a visit.)

August 18, 2011
After my second day of testing, Gary and I headed home - and hit Frank Pepe Pizzeria in New Haven, Conn. for a clam pie. Gary thought it was absolutely pizza hall-of-fame material; I thought it was solid, but not mind-blowing.

We finally got our clam pie (See previous blog post: Not So Clamtastic aka Shell Shocked)