November 10, 2011 — As part of my children’s cooking class business, all teachers have to be fingerprinted as part of a background check. I had this done a few years ago when we first began the business, but needed it done again as we have signed up a new school district. When the fingerprint tech was doing the fingerprinting, she told me the system would “reject” my fingerprints and I’d have to come back in and have them redone. Apparently, my fingerprints don’t make regular swirls and are hard to read. After the second set of fingerprints, the Dept. of Public Safety which does the background check will just use my social security number since my fingerprints are worthless. On my second visit to get fingerprinted, I asked the tech why this was happening because my first fingerprinting in 2009 went fine. She commented that some medications, especially chemotherapy, can affect your fingerprints. Who knew?

October 21, 2011 — Yesterday, our wonderfully funny preteen told me she was reading Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. I was impressed that she had checked out a classic from the library since her prior reading loves were more along the lines of “My Sister the Vampire.” Sara then revealed that she had picked the book because she had wanted to impress her classmates that she was reading a thick book. “But then, I started reading it and it’s really good! I really like Jo.” Yes, Sara, you do because you are Jo!

October 13, 2011 — Today I woke up thinking how sad it was to have a day without Midknight. A friend who knew Midknight when he first adopted me wrote me a condolence email and quoted a poem.

Raymond Carver – Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Beloved Cat.

I’m sure I’ll rally. Soon.

October 12, 2011 — Today, Midknight died. I am devastated. He was the Best Cat in the World.

Midknight the Cat

October 6, 2011 — Today at breakfast, Daniel was working on his first grade homework. It’s a poster “All About Me” that has the child’s favorite color, favorite food, family members’ names, etc. One of the questions is “When I grow up, I want to be…” Daniel hasn’t thought much about what he wants to be when he grows up. His answer was “hobo.” Apparently, a recent television show had a hobo on it and the description was “someone who doesn’t have a job or home and travels around the country.” I guess that does sound pretty good, phrased like that. A friend told me to remind Daniel that the hobo career also requires some ignoring of personal hygiene and urinating off of retaining walls. We need to stop pushing our children too much, Greg. Their ambition is out of hand!

October 4, 2011 — Yesterday I received a second membership invitation from AARP. Really? In what database am I 50? When I showed it to Greg with an exasperated huff, he smiled smugly. I told him this invitation had an offer to get a membership for my spouse as well. Does this mean we have to start going to Luby’s for the early bird specials at 5 p.m.? Oh yeah, we have children with early bedtimes, we’re already eating dinner with the senior citizens.

September 26, 2011 — I saw Dr. K today to discuss the results of my myriad lab work to get to the bottom of my troubling leg pain. Since it’s not bony metastasis, I wasn’t too worried about my oncologist’s visit but asked my brother Paul to go along with me since Greg was still in Denmark for work. It’s always good to have a second pair of ears at any doctor’s appointment. My lab work looked clean. One factor regarding rheumatoid arthritis is elevated but since Dr. K doesn’t usually run that lab he called a rheumatologist to discuss my results. That doctor said he doesn’t need to see me unless my bloodwork is above 200, which mine isn’t. So, Dr. K will repeat that test in a few months to see if it continues to rise, indicating a need for me to add another physician specialist to my posse. Since my leg pain has been improving, Dr. K would like to “challenge” me with the Tamoxifen by putting me back on it. Since the Tamoxifen does decrease my chances of getting cancer, I guess I’ll try taking it again. Apparently, all of the drugs in the same class as Tamoxifen that my doctor could switch me too have bone, joint and muscle pain as a common side effect. Cancer vs. pain? I guess it’s an easy call. I guess… I complained to Dr. K that his cancer-fighing drugs have also decreased my libido and made me fat. He wouldn’t prescribe me any Ladies’ Viagra (he claims it doesn’t exist, ha!) and said he didn’t think I was fat at 132 pounds. But after taking the Zoladex shots for two years, he thinks he can take me off it in a few months and see if that improves my menopausal complaints. I know it’s about preventing cancer from returning but it’s also about quality of life, right? As we were leaving the doctor’s office, I asked my brother what book he had brought to the visit. He had A Moveable Feast and I gasped in surprise and showed him my reading material: A Place in the Sun. I know we were both English majors in college but what are the odds that we would be rereading Hemingway? That was the most freaky and interesting part of my visit to the oncologist!

September 15, 2011 — Those of you who know me well have heard me complain over the past year or so about my hip and leg pain. Recently the aches have been waking me up at night and making it hard to function. It became intolerable when I couldn’t get up in the morning this week to take the kids to school. So, I broke down and called my oncologist, fearing the worst. Dr. K ordered a complete skeletal bone scan but told me he doubted my symptoms were metastases because “cancer pain doesn’t tend to get better when you take ibuprofen.” He suspected side effects of the Tamoxifen or Zoladex so took me off those medications temporarily. Of course, does that mean my cancer might come back if I’m not on the cancer-preventing drugs? He also put me on Celebrex and has run seven blood vials worth of blood tests. The bone scan was “normal” with “no evidence of bony metastases.” When the nurse called to discuss the first series of blood tests to come in, she said all seemed within normal ranges although one of my kidney functions was a bit low so I should drink more water. She asked if I had been a bit dehydrated and not drinking enough. I replied, “well, I’m drinking too much coffee in the mornings and too much wine at night.” I’ll add some water to my afternoon drinking routine.

September 12, 2011 — Today in prepping for our first week of Adventure Cook hands on children’s cooking classes, I gathered about 20 books about kids and cooking and recipes. Gulp, Gulp, Chew, Let’s Bake a Cake, and Dinner for Mouse were all titles. I was reading out the name of each book to my fellow teacher/cooks as they were packing kits for class. The last book was Earwigs! We all started laughing as I realized I had picked up one of Daniel’s early reading books and accidentally included it in the Adventure Cook books. Can you imagine our teachers’ surprise if they would have been baking zucchini-apple muffins with the kids and pulled out the cute kids book, only to discover it was Earwigs instead of If You Give a Moose a Muffin?

September 9, 2011 — Yesterday, Greg brought a letter into the bathroom where I was running a bath for 7-year-old Daniel. Greg said, “I thought I’d better hand deliver this letter,” in an ominous tone. It was a welcome letter from AARP. For some reason, that organization thinks I’m 50. For the low cost of $16, I could activate my membership and have all sorts of benefits. Greg assumed I’d be offended and throw away the letter. Instead, I wondered if the senior citizen discounts might be worth the membership!