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Whazzat?! Whazzat?!

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Now, my family doesn’t believe in the Great Pumpkin, exactly, but we do love to watch the Peanuts cartoon about Linus and his undying faith in the Great Pumpkin.  (My favorite moment in all of cartoondom is when Linus is in the pumpkin patch keeping vigil for the appearance of the Great Pumpkin.  When Snoopy rises up, a silhouette in the darkness, Linus’ hair stands up on end as he is overcome and cries out, “Whazzat?!  Whazzat?!” just before he collapses in a faint.)

All I can say is that we must have a pretty sincere pumpkin patch, because the Great Pumpkin came to our house last night.

It’s all because of Auntie Dawn.

Let me explain.

Dinah came to me on Thursday morning and said, “I wonder what the Great Pumpkin will bring me as I sleep tonight.”

I said, “But Dinah, the other day you said you didn’t believe in the Great Pumpkin.”

She said, “But AUNTIE DAWN sent us something from the Great Pumpkin, and now I believe.” (Auntie Dawn, my husband’s twin sister, sent the girls cards and stickers and Halloween bracelets made by her oldest daughter.)

So, I want to publicly thank Auntie Dawn for restoring my daughters’ faith in the Great Pumpkin (and for making us scurry out to get Halloween presents so that we don’t disappoint our daughters on Halloween morning, that most blessed of all mornings).

The hubs (who told me yesterday, after reading my post, told me, “It’s Mr. Hubs to you”) went out and bought our daughters a little something, a couple of pets from the Littlest Pet Shop collection (another tradition we can thank Auntie Dawn for).  He put the new pets in the middle of the coffee table, innocently there among the pets left there last night.

The girls were so excited about Halloween that they came into our bedroom to climb in with us (and to horrify us with their little icicle feets) at 5:30 am.  They were absolutely wriggling, unable to fall back asleep.  But then Mr. Hubs put a fan on for a little white noise, and they collapsed back into sleep until it was time to get up and go downstairs to see if the Great Pumpkin had visited.

He had.

Here’s to the Great Pumpkin (and Auntie Dawn)!  Happy Halloween!

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Me and Obama, takin’ a walk

I was getting dressed for work, and my 5-year-old daughter came to me, holding a drawing. I asked her what it was of, and she said, “It’s me and Obama, takin’ a walk.”

I looked at the drawing, and those curved legs and big smiles and said, “Yes, I can see that now.  Of course.  You and Obama, taking a walk.”

Since the hubs and I have been watching more TV than usual in the last few weeks, I started explaining the election to my daughters.  I’m so glad I have done this because it’s been the source of some funny and memorable moments, not the least of which was the illustration above.

When we first told the girls about the election and informed them that Daddy and Mommy will be voting for Obama, Djuna kept making gagging sounds whenever she would see a McCain sign.  The sounds grew increasingly dramatic as the days passed and included wilder and wilder gesticulation.

So, we had a talk about how people believe different things and just because Mommy and Daddy want Obama to be president, that doesn’t mean that we have to make a big show of distaste when we see a McCain sign.  We talked about how the McCain signs belong to our neighbors and that we need to act neighborly, even if we don’t agree about who should be president.

The true test of this was when a McCain supporter across from my daughters’ school put out awesome Halloween decorations, including a giant purple and black blow up spider.

You could see their 5-year-old brains ticking, sort of like a robot in some sci-fi movie, when their eyes look like typewriter carriages going back and forth, necks ticking, just a little, from left to right as if they were reading something across the front of their robot cerebral cortexes: “This does not compute, this does not compute.  A McCain supporter with cool Halloween decorations.  Does not compute.”

Djuna really struggled with this.  And suddenly, the gagging sounds stopped.  Now, when we pass by that house, we merely comment wistfully on the McCain sign and then spend time really discussing the variety of decorations.

Another morning on the way to school, Dinah kept looking at all the Obama signs and saying that that house must be Kimmie’s house (not her real name).  I asked Dinah why she thought that, and she explained that Kimmie has an Obama sign in front of her house.  Knowing that my daughters have never been to Kimmie’s house, I was really confused.

“Dinah, how do you know that Kimmie’s house has an Obama sign in front of it?”

Dinah responded, “She told us.”

The idea that my daughters are hanging around the playground or maybe in the line for the water fountain, discussing the election with their Kindergarten compadres cracks me up completely.

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Watching my wedding clothes as they are dragged on the floor

My husband was desperately trying to meet a deadline this morning, so I got my daughters to play upstairs while I did some badly-needed clothes weeding.  He had the downstairs to himself, nice and quiet so he could concentrate on his work.

At some point, while scooting hangers from side to side in the closet, I remembered that I have been promising my girls that we’d look at my wedding clothes and that they could try them on.

Without too much trouble, I found the gorgeous cape that a close friend made for me to wear over my wedding outfit (a white close-fitting sweater with gold thread woven throughout and a creamy white floor-length trumpet-flare skirt, both very simple pieces by Nicole Miller).  The cape is creamy white velvet, with a deep red satin lining.  The red is the color of garnets, my birth stone.

My dear friend Nancy had worn a cape when she got married, and I had loved it.  Also, I thought a cape blowing in the wind would be very romantic.  Dwayne and I were married in Carmel, CA, on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Djuna tried on the cape first.  Before I could say anything, she lifted up her hand — with the cape on top of it — to wipe her nose.  I winced.  But I didn’t say anything about it because she looked so excited to be wearing the cape she’s only seen in pictures up to now.  I told her to go down and show her father.

She headed down the stairs to show Daddy, and I stood watching her and the cape, my pretty, pretty cape, as it dragged on the floor behind her.  Then she came back upstairs to give the cape to her sister so she could drag the cape behind her on the stairs.

Remembering that my own mother used her wedding veil — to my grandmother’s horror — to make a mosquito netting for my fancy English pram, I watched Dinah sashay down the stairs to show Daddy the cape, and I figured, well, what else are wedding clothes for, for goodness’ sake?

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I actually made roll-out Halloween sugar cookies! (Gluten-free, no less)

Having a couple of Play-Doh fans for kids has meant promises to make cookies, the kind where you roll out the dough and use cookie cutters.  The kind I’ve never made before.  The kind everyone knows is a mess!

To boot, I need to make them gluten-free because one of my daughters has a gluten intolerance.

I looked around for a gluten-free sugar cookie mix, but I haven’t been able to find one.  So, I went to the fabulous Gluten-Free Girl blog and found her roll-out sugar cookie recipe and adapted it.  (Adapted it?!  I can’t even believe that I adapted a recipe.  Who am I?  Who have I become? But I did it.  We basically succeeded with our cookies, but what I *really* did was inadvertently discover a pretty good recipe for gluten-free shortbread.  More on that in a minute.  First, the cute pictures.)


Mixing Halloween-colored frosting


Here are some cookies, all rolled out, ready to bake!


We did it!

I originally thought that maybe we’d share these cookies with some of my friends at work.  But, after a bona fide licking party: licking fingers, licking knives, even licking the container holding the sugar sprinkles … once I even caught Djuna rolling the rolling pin uuuuppp and dowwwnnnn her clothes.  There were some sneezes and coughs thrown in for extra flavor.

So I decided, maybe I’d better not share the wealth this time.  Everyone will thank me for it.

The recipe I adapted from Gluten-Free Girl came out delicious and flaky, just like shortbread, really.  But it was hard to frost. The pumpkin-shaped cookies fared well, but anything with arms or legs, like the ghosts and cats, suffered casualties — multiple appendage loss, to be exact.  The cookies were just too delicate.

I followed Shauna Ahern’s recipe amounts exactly (note: in the comments section of Shauna’s recipe, Shauna added a note about not beating the shortening too much).

I used Whole Foods’ 365 Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Mix (it already has thickeners in it, so I didn’t add xanthan gum … but I might reconsider adding some next time).  Also, instead of 1/2 lb. of margarine and 1/2 lb. of butter, I used 1 lb. of Plugra style butter because I read somewhere or other that there is more fat in this kind of butter, and I thought it might help strengthen the dough.  I think this was a mistake from the sugar cookie point of view, but if you want gluten-free shortbread, this is the way to do it.

But I’m proud of myself for adapting a recipe — it’s probably the most daring adaptation I’ve ever tried, except for that time that my friend Allison and I tried to make cookies without a recipe when we were 10.  Of course, that was at Grandma’s house, where you could get away with experiments like that.
After our Halloween cookie adventure, we were exhausted, but the project was a blast, and I can’t wait to do it again with a new adaptation of the recipe and Thanksgiving-shaped cookie cutters!

P.S. I recommend listening to Jack Johnson’s soundtrack for the movie Curious George as you frost.  Lovely.

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Everyday I write the book

Thinking that tomorrow marks the halfway point through six weeks of daily radiation treatments, I walked into the hospital late this afternoon, looking around me like I always do, down the long hallways of the radiation wing.

Elvis Costello’s song “Everyday I Write the Book” was running through my mind, and I could actually feel the sound of the groovin’ piano accompaniment in my fingertips, some of which are still numb and tingling from surgery and months of chemotherapy.

For all the years that I have loved that song, I’ve never really known all the lyrics.  So, I thought about the title while I walked past people on rolling hospital beds, vulnerable-looking lumps with hospital socks sticking out the bottom of rumpled hospital blankets.

Everyday for the last three weeks I have come to the hospital.  Everyday I am reminded of how, only a few months ago, I was one of those lumps in pathetic nubby hospital socks.  The day of my surgery I was also in the hallway on a rolling hospital bed, waiting for a procedure in the radiation department.  I had to wear one of those sheer, poofy head coverings over my bald head.  I was so scared, but still, somehow, peaceful.

Everyday I come here and go through all those emotions again, from beginning to end, as I see all the people on beds, waiting in the hospital corridors, looking so ragged and so alone.

I went through the double doors into the radiation oncology wing, changed into a soft hospital gown and put my jewelry, blouse, watch and purse in a little locker.  Hugging the gown around my bare torso (do those strangely-placed ties ever close the gown to anyone’s satisfaction?) I headed to the treatment room where the kind nurses and technicians were waiting to radiate the site where the cancer used to be.

As I laid down on the table, watching red laser beams criss-crossing my body to help line up the beams of radiation, I thought: Everyday I write the book.

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Even the guacamole is pink

It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, in case you hadn’t noticed.  But, of course you’ve noticed.  You can’t help but notice when it seems like every single product commercially available this month touts a pink ribbon or a redesigned package that features the color pink.

Even though every month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month for me, I really do get the purpose of the special month for breast cancer, and I am not complaining.  I really do appreciate the money going to research and the increased awareness and acceptance from the public.

I haven’t personally researched it or anything, but when something like the pink ribbon becomes so commonplace, so ubiquitous — I think it’s called pinkwashing — I can’t help but be suspicious.  How much money is really going to research?  How many of the redesigned packages are just PR?

Sorry to be negative, but I’m just supposin’ here.

And then last week I went to pick up a few things for a taco feast for debate night, and I saw that even the guacamole was in a pink box.  That, frankly, grossed me out.  Breast cancer pink and guacamole green don’t look good together at all.

I would like to find a really helpful way to contribute to the cause.  Buying guacamole in a pink box doesn’t feel like the solution, somehow.

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Every day is glow day

That’s what my friend Lisa said when I told her that I had to get all glow-y at my radiation treatment the other day: “Every day is glow day.”

Yup, every day for the next six weeks (except for weekends), I get a little glow at my ultra-personalized tanning salon, a.k.a.: the radiation oncology department at the hospital where I had my surgery.

Radiation is painless.  You lay there on a narrow bed while this machine aims radiation at your body at what seems to be a pretty oblique angle.  I think this is so the treatment affects the places where the cancer was and not the areas you don’t want treated, like the lungs and heart.

The technicians know where to direct the beams because they used a CAT scan machine to figure out exactly where to aim the radiation.  Then they tattoo you and take pictures, and I think they create some sort of template so that they can replicate the treatment each day.  Some days they put a rubber mat over the treatment site.  It looks and feels like a dish mat to me, so that’s what I call it.  Its purpose is to somehow make it so the radiation comes more to the surface of the skin.

It’s very quick.  My whole daily appointment is only 15 minutes.

During the treatment, I try to go somewhere else with my mind, or I do some sort of imagery or meditation to let my body know that these strong beams are healing beams, beams that will scorch the earth, making it impossible for cancer cells to live, thrive or to take up residence on or anywhere near where my tumor was.

Good riddance.

The first day of radiation I went to a breast cancer awareness event at the same hospital where my treatment is.  (Here is the article from the Pasadena Star-News.) After donning enormous pink t-shirts, we all linked arms and waved at honking cars that drove by.  I stood there, wondering how I got there, how any of us got there.

But the really strange moment was after the event, when we took a group picture of the attendees.

Someone called for the survivors to come to the front for the picture.  I scooched my way to the front and was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion.  I looked around at all the survivors, the women of all ages and ethnicities, and I felt a wave of great hope and humility wash over me at the same time.

Freaky.

Then, I went into the hospital cafeteria to grab lunch before my appointment.  When I was seated, I saw two women looking for a place to sit.  I gestured to them to come share my big table, which had plenty of room.

Turns out that Susie and Ellie, the women who joined me, were 8-year survivors.  Both had had cancers and treatments similar to mine.  It was so great to talk with women who are doing great, feeling great, feeling hopeful and who have been cured.

These wonderful women offered to escort me to my first radiation treatment.  They introduced me to everyone there, and I felt like a celebrity by the time they left.  The treatment was easy-peasy, and after counting the number of treatments I’ll have, I realized that I’ll be done with my cancer treatments by Thanksgiving.

Every day really is a glow day.

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Breast cancer took my morning

I tried a breast cancer support group a few months ago, at the beginning of summer, but it didn’t work for me that day.

After hearing everyone’s stories, I came home flooded with emotions and fear and couldn’t stop thinking about all I had heard.  Really, I couldn’t handle it.

So when a friend told me about an event at the local Wellness Community — an event that was scheduled at the butt-crack o’Saturday morning, no less — I was hesitant, figuring that even excellent speakers would leave me spent and overwrought like the support group had.

Besides, I love spending my Saturday mornings with my husband and kids, and I already feel like breast cancer has taken so much from us that I don’t want to give it any more space than it has already gobbled.  Literally and figuratively, if you get my meaning.

But, I do actually have breast cancer (or maybe I can now, after chemo and surgery, say that I had breast cancer; or do I have to wait until radiation is through to get to speak of breast cancer in the past tense?), and if I intend to be around a good long while, which I do, then I need to remain informed and connected with the disease and the folks it has touched.

Plus, since my diagnosis I have been trying to do some things just a little, well, differently.  Exactly why I am doing things differently is the topic of a whole nuther blog post, or two or three.  Suffice it to say that lately, when I feel pulled in different directions, I’ll say to myself, “Just do it different, Diana.  Do something different,” and then I do something different than what I would have done as my pre-cancer self.  Just for the heck of it.

This means that I had to go to the Wellness Community event this morning.  I met my friend there, and it was really nice to see her looking so good and moving through the last parts of her treatment.

It was really worth it.

There was an excellent keynote speaker.  I am not sure if I can use her name, now that I think about it, because during her presentation she said that she tried to keep her struggle with cancer private from her professional life.

She used a labyrinth as a metaphor, and this image really spoke to me.  I had never realized that labyrinths are different from mazes.  A maze has dead ends, tricks, traps.  A labyrinth has one way in, and the same way out.

Apparently, there is a resurgence of people using this mythical icon as a metaphor for life’s journey, for the healing journey.

The speaker got me thinking about so many things … where am I going?  What am I leaving behind?  Is it peaceful at the center of my own labyrinth?  Shedding, doing some things differently like I’ve been trying to do — is that a part of the journey to the center of the labyrinth, or is it a part of the coming out, since one goes out of the labyrinth the same way one goes in?  Just thinking about it is labyrinthine!

In any case, I’m glad I gave my morning to breast cancer.  I met some wonderful fellow survivors, and I have some new mysterious things to think about.  I came home feeling peaceful and enjoyed my family completely.  There was still plenty of time in the day to make gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and cocoa for my girls and their playdate friend.  A close friend brought over a great soup, and we all shared an impromptu feast of soup, salad and Trader Joe’s jalapeno blue cornbread.  And now my husband and I are happily waiting up to see if Tina Fey will appear on Saturday Night Live.

A perfect Saturday.

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Weight, weight, don’t tell me

As I come to the end of nearly six months of treatment for breast cancer, I find myself a little underweight.

I feel guilty saying it because I know there are many people who struggle with being overweight.  Even though I am only a few pounds underweight (and none of my doctors are worried about it) I can’t fit in any of my clothes, and it’s kind of hard to feel healthy.  A couple of people have even commented that I look skinny, and they didn’t mean it as a compliment.  (As a side note, dontcha just wish sometimes that folks would keep their opinions about your appearance to themselves?  Here I am, after 8 rounds of chemo and then surgery after that, I’m trying my best here folks.  I don’t need to be stopped in the parking lot at work and told that I look skinny.  You could tell me that I’m positively glowing from the radiation treatments, and I would chuckle with you; or you could tell me that my new hair is so soft and ask to pet it — people have done that, and I have to say that I really do like getting pets on my fuzzy head in the middle of the day — it makes me smile!  But being told you’re so skinny does not make me smile.)

Now that I am dealing with a minor weight issue, I suddenly have developed a new empathy for people who struggle with their weight in any capacity.

I have always eaten what I wanted to and never worried about it.  Extra piece of cake?  Sure.  Cream in my coffee?  Why not?  Indulge in a chocolate binge?  Of course!

I was a comfortable 155 lbs. before my diagnosis at the end of January this year.  Then, after my diagnosis, I immediately dropped 10 lbs.  I honestly think this was because I stopped drinking a decaf cafe mocha (or two) every day, and I started exercising regularly.  So, I didn’t worry about it.  But, since surgery, I have dropped another 8 lbs., and then I started to worry about it.  As I said, my doctors aren’t worried at all.  Even so, I decided to speak with the dietician at the radiation oncology center.

She was very helpful and taught me a lot about nutrition.  We discussed how I might bulk up a little, so I started really looking at food labels and putting extra consideration into what I was putting into my body.

One thing I learned is that all the big national associations for cancer (here is the nutrition page from the American Cancer Society, for example), heart disease and diabetes all agree on the diet that can help avoid these major illnesses.  They all pretty much say to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, to avoid red meat, to eat whole grains and that most of your diet should come from plant sources.

From reading labels I have also learned — and this is my new soap box issue — that a lot of common drinks, like sodas, teas, sports drinks and even lemonade, have just about 30 grams of sugar in an 8 oz. serving.  Yick!  That’s an incredible amount of refined sugar that you can consume in an instant!  30 grams of sugar.  That’s about 9 sugar packets or 6 teaspoons or 2 tablespoons.

So the trick for me is to up my calories and protein, without upping my refined sugar intake.  My big solution is a giant turkey club at lunch time, though I can’t yet do it without the bacon.  (But I’ll keep trying.)  With some avocado slices on there, I get a nice (healthy) fat and protein boost and stuff in a couple of servings worth of fruit/veggies.  Yum!

I also learned a trick that I hear is an old Weight Watchers stand-by: only weigh yourself once a week.