It is not uncommon for us Flight Attendants to chat about wishing that some of the older ladies would retire. We’re all for anti-discrimination laws, but seriously, when you’re 300 pounds or 100 years old, maybe this job isn’t for you anymore. It IS a job with heavy physical requirements. But those ladies don’t ask me what I think. We joke about how old some of them are…but then it happened. Last week one of ours passed away on a trip to Japan. Wow. We weren’t kidding.

I am not making light of her death – it is indeed devastating. I did not know this particular lady, but she was clearly loved by many and I cannot imagine her shocked and sad family. But it is just so…well, shocking. She was older (I don’t know exactly but she was a super-senior mamma, as we call them) and apparently she had a stroke on the flight over. I wonder if it will make anyone take a new look at the requirements for passing requals each year. Then again, she didn’t look that old.

In brighter news of “what’s happened”, hubby and I also bought our first piece of married furniture. Real furniture! A gorgeous chest from Crate & Barrel that we’ve been waiting for just the right time to buy – having been assured it is a top seller and wasn’t going anywhere – only to go to buy it and get told that it is discontinued and no longer available anywhere.

Blah blah blah, long story of a determined husband calling high and low and placing ads on Craigslist, ending with a nice stranger here in DC seeing his ad and emialing us when he one day stumbled across an imperfect, but local one. I thought Del was crazy to be so insistent about it, but viola – I now have a truely loved first piece of furniture and a very happy hubby. Exciting! (Isn’t it cool/gorgeous?)

I know I’m not posting much these days. I’ll try to be a bit better, but if I don’t get back here again before Christmas, let me wish you a happy one!

Not me. My sister!

After more than three years of engagement, the family is going to be 3 for 3 (3 weddings in 3 years) when my oldest sister takes the plunge. It’s funny because “she started it”, getting engaged before any of us. I remember clearly because it happened after they visited me in Belgium for one of my chemo treatments in Fall 2006. Then the middle sis got engaged and married. Then I got engaged and married….I swear this one was just wanting us to deal with the planning drama first, so she could take strategy notes. (It would fit her profile!)

There was one close call actually. When we were all in Britain for my and Del’s wedding a romantic spur of the moment flared – the family was there, our ministers were there, why not?! – and they looked into tying their own knot during that trip. But a requirement for how long the couple has had to be in the country couldn’t be met. But it’s just as well because I’m really excited about a New Mexico wedding!

In other “news”, I pulled a Betty Crocker last week and cooked my second roast chicken ever, having some friends over. I was so proud…I made roast garlic spread for appetizer, pumpkin soup for first course, the chicken and veggies for main…if my old Belgian roommates (all boys who kicked my butt in the kitchen and often ribbed my cooking) could see me now! Except, when the bird came out and I went to carve it, there were odd bones in the way. What the…? we all asked. “You’ve got a mutated chicken,” they joked. “It’s upside down!” I joked. Er…until we realized it was upside down! (No wonder I couldn’t find the popper.)

I did discover that people do that sometimes to make the meat extra moist. Well, it was extra moist! But I don’t think I’ll do it again. I like the beautiful crispy skin on the breast, and while the bottom skin crisps nicely, the chicken looks a little wet and creepy when you turn it over to carve. So, let’s pretend I did it to test out the method for you, dear readers.

And lastly for news items, I got my December schedule for work. Not only will I be working Christmas, but also Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and New Years. The first time I’ve ever had such crappy luck, which just goes to show how relative the power of “seniority” is. (We’ve laid off so many that our most Jr. Flight Attendants now have 10 years, and most all French speakers below me got pushed to Domestic.). Double boo. I guess I better make Thanksgiving count!

My goodness, people like to judge other people, don’t they?

The Edwards were in the news again today, briefly, because Elizabeth has said that she is not going to divorce John. And I just had to vent somewhere about all the dirtbags judging her like they know crap about crap.

John’s actions were as smarmy and disgusting as they can get. But that’s that. His political career is beyond over, so I don’t much care any further about what their personal relationship decisions are. But you would not believe the people calling Elizabeth horrible names, accusing her of terrible things, because she’s staying with him. Ugliness aside, I could understand the opinions if she were in a normal situation. (“She’s just being power-hungry.” Um, power-hungry for what? His public career is buried. And running for office is not in her future, so…) But she’s not, and clearly none of these people have terminal cancer, nor the class, brains or empathy to understand or respect how that might affect EE’s decision here.

Would I stay? Ugh. I don’t know if I could stomach it, but should she spend the end of her life in a series of lawyer meetings and court-dates, wallowing in the insult of it all? Of course no one wants him to seem to “get off easy” by his wife’s forgiveness. But if she divorces him, what is that doing to get her at this point, where quality of life is her concern? Is she going to pull a Stella and “get her groove back”, go to Jamaica and meet a hot new younger hunk to treat her right just so they can…awkwardly bring him into the family, struggle for him to win the affection of her kids and fit in, (possibly) just in time for her to pass away?

It just goes to show you, there’s a lot about cancer that people who’ve not had it may never understand, even if they read every medical article out there. Though it sure won’t stop them from pretending.

A week after my high school reunion and I’m finally back to say what you can probably guess by my slothful follow-up: there is nothing much to say. Indeed, we are all blissfully, perfectly lacking those drama-inducing teenage hormones and it was nothing but nice to see everyone. Mostly, it strikes how you odd it is to see everyone looking exactly the same, but adult. Like meeting everyone’s twin brother or sister all at once. There were of course some who surprised us by not showing up (often those that live within a 20 mile radius, oddly) and vice-versa. The only shame is that I found myself dividing my time exactly the way I did in highschool – a few minutes here and a few minutes there, but mostly hanging out at my own table with those who had been my closest friends, glad that our husbands all seemed to get along smashingly, so that we ex-Trojans didn’t feel so guilty that they knew no one. There were many people I meant to spend more time with, but before we knew it, it was over.

…

Yesterday was perhaps the biggest waste of a day I’ve ever had. It poured rain outside, which gave Del and I a convenience excuse for not trying harder, but still. You know when you want to go somewhere and do something, but you don’t know what? So you do nothing but sit around and moan that you’re wasting your day? (Spoken like someone without kids, right?) Well that’s what yesterday was, and I moaned all day about wanting to call this friend or that friend or go to this or that. And did nothing. I didn’t even write. Instead I just felt guilty about wasting a precious day of my life – though I did tell hubby that I was happy to waste it with him.

Which is a good thing, because this morning Del rolled over and looked at the calendar on his clock. “Was yesterday….?” he counted off silently on his fingers. “Oh dammit. It was.” I knew exactly what he was going to say.

Six months. Our six month anniversary, and not only did we not even acknowledge it – it was the most wasted day to memory of our entire adult lives. Gah! Again, at least we wasted it together. Are we romantic or what?

15 years. Yowza, that’s hard to believe.

So I’m home this weekend at my dad’s place, out sick from work due to a mysterious (and damned) headache that has lasted for 5 days. Five days! (As a side note to that, yes, I went to the Dr. here today, finally getting really worried when it spiked up again last night. She thinks it is just a “wierd presentation of a sinus” issue…so fingers crossed it goes away by Monday, or I’ll be needing to have another look at it.) And – finally – we’re having a high school reunion.

It’s hard to believe it’s been 15 years. And also that it took us this long to get a reunion together.  (So much for Sr. Class Pres.!) Like many of you who have gone to these things, I’m ambivalent. I’m not terribly bothered either way about where people ended up, though I am happy to find that I have no particular need for anyone to know about me either.  I feel neither the pressure of an under nor over-achiever that one might expect from these things.  I am a real sucker for wanting to know how stories end though, so I’ll satisfy that cat. Mostly I fear being confronted with a bunch of people that I don’t remember. (Hopefully that’s just normal and not the sign of incredible arrogance on my part!) I’ve rounded up a couple of must-have old friends to commit to showing and though there are a number who won’t make it*, I’m hoping we’ll have so much fun that we’ll just have to do it again and next time everyone will come! I do like the idea of talking to some of these people that I knew for so long, without the dramatic blur that is teenage hormones tinting our thoughts and conversations! (Mystery: what will we see without that blindfold?!)

It’ll either be a blast or a train wreck – I’ll let you know!

*On that note, have I said recently that I hate cancer? Tonight I called one of my friends whom I had lost touch with over the years, to hear that her younger brother – who has struggled his whole life with  severe, debilitating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – is in the midst of the whirlwind that is cancer diagnosis and planned treatment. His case sounds rare, advanced, complicated and painful, with a terrifying prognosis. Talk about a kid who can’t catch a break…so if you have some spare thoughts/prayers/whatever-you-do lying around, I nominate this family as a deserving candidate for those attentions.

Ok so this isn’t yet a posting of the Mt. Vernon Sunset Wine Tasting Tour. But if you read here regularly you know that I am always a bit slow with the photo posting. (It is a slight pain since my current version of iPhoto doesn’t allow me to download selected photos only. Strange but true – so I always have a 300 photo download of shots that I’ve already rejected off my archive 10 times over. And now I’m flat out busted, since I’m out of town for probably 5 days.) But I will get there.

First, some big breast cancer news – especially interesting since I just completed my second go-round of the most extensive gene testing available: a new gene mutation has been discovered that is believed to be responsible for up to 50% of breast cancers! (Just for reference, BRCA 1/2 are only responsible for about 10%).

Now, according to this initial report, it sounds like this is not an inherited mutation, but one that happens within one’s lifetime. Given my strong family history, this would seem like “not my thing”. However, it does not rule it out. Plus, perhaps there is a genetic component to the gene’s propensity to degrade within a lifetime.

This is not to say that this new NRG1 gene has anything to do with my cancer. Simply, it’s interesting that my genetic results were supposed to be that my cancer has a genetic component, yet one that has apparently not been discovered yet. And here, just on the heels of that opinion, is one such new discovery.

You can find the full article here.

As there is talk about Del and I moving back across the pond within a year’s time or so (we’ll see, don’t ask!), we’re extra-motivated to take advantage of all the cool things there are to do around here. Tonight, for the first time in a while, we’re doing one of those things – a Wine Festival and Tour at Mt. Vernon!

I’m pretty excited. Del and I both think Washington’s Estate is a pretty impressive landmark and, though we’ve been there before (spending a really lovely afternoon there with my sis and niece earlier this summer), this weekend is one of its anticipated special events.

We scored 2 tickets off some nice guy on Craigslist whose date fell through, a guy who only charged us less than what they’re worth even though we offered over twice what they’re worth! But he said he’d stick to his word in his advertisement – isn’t that nice of him?! (Based on that integrity alone I’d like ot be friends with him!) So anyhow, we get two tickets for a wine tasting on the east lawn – overlooking the Potomac River – and a night tour of the house along with the usually-closed wine cellar. Wicked, huh? There were picnic baskets for sale but those were sold out. No worries – we’ll take our blanket and buy some other food while we toast to the view that or first president had from his home! Keep your fingers crossed that the weather will remain beautiful (it’s supposed to rain, though it’s gorgeous now) and if all of your good will succeeds,  I’ll post photos tomorrow. (Ok, you got me.  I’ll post photos anyway. But we’ll drink a  toast to you also if we’re sitting under a lovely warm evening!)

…has been busy. I’d say for the first time in 12 years I have successfully worked the scheduling system at work and gotten the best schedule ever. Sure, it’s on our new sh***y 757 to Europe; however, I am working 3 day on – 4 days off, same days every week (regularity, wow!) and I get to finally go see my friends in Brussels. Considering that I am the only person under 20 years seniority on the flight, I clearly got an enviable schedule. So it’s just as shocking that I got my 2nd choice of work position on the plane. It hardly gets any better! I can only assume that I held this schedule because it touched Labour Day weekend, but I was (for once) clever enough to request a week’s leave in advance for that weekend, so I didn’t have to work that trip. It all makes it worth working that awful plane. (Then again, ask me at the end of the month!)

For said Labour Day weekend, my family all went up to the Finger Lakes, where my grandparents had a farm for my whole childhood. This is perhaps the most sacred place to me in the world, and one of my vacation favorites – right up there with Istanbul and Montreal. We had to sell the farm in 1996 and the only other time we’ve been up there is in 2004 to take my grandparents’ ashes to their graves. So – this was a really special treat of a Labour Day and I think we’ve reignited a tradition, complete with the owner of our old farm being hospitable enough to welcome us when we descend on his property hoping to have a nostalgic look around, taking photos of every little corner that reminds us of our many summers there. (He even offered – several times – for us to stay in the guest house next year when we return. How nice!) I feel very lucky that we sold it to a hospitable and empathetic man who is also a seeming restoration enthusiast (so, although he’s making changes, he’s taking loving care of the place). As usual, I’ll get around to putting some photos of Flickr later this week.

I also learned about the advantages of tennis shoes (or trainers, as the Brits call them, which really is a more sensible name for once). I have a new favorite workout, and that is the Masala Bhangra class at my gym. You know, Indian style dance…it’s a ton of fun and an intense workout (at least arranged as an aerobic class routine as this is). This weekend I went barefoot. Just to try it. I’ve seen the instructor do it, and after all, real Masala Bhangra is done barefoot. And going barefoot is in general supposed to be so good for you. So there I went, slipping of my flip-flops in the gym, noticing that 4 of 5 other girls followed my lead and removed their own trainers about 10 minutes into the class. But I wonder if they also regret it, as do I.

I loved it during the workout, but 1) the floors aren’t that clean, which is uncomfortable if you get a gathering of dust from the hardwood floor on the ball of your foot and 2) the class routine involves lots of superfast (double time), jumping-jack style jumps both side-to-side and back-and-forth. This is, I can tell you, rather hard on your little tootsies as they get your weight and the friction on the floor necessary for stopping your movement on the contact end of each jump. I now have bruises on many toes, most notably the ball of my big toes-a big deep yucky bruise that makes it necessary to walk the house in both socks and slippers to cushion the area. I didn’t even know that was possible. It’s very hard to bruise the bottom of your toe! And thank goodness because it’s really uncomfortable. So – I’ve done it for you. You don’t have to. Wear gym shoes to the gym – that’s the moral.

Back in a few days to share about Del’s birthday and the surprise “party” that Del helped me plan for himself.

If you read my blog you know that I try to stay away from politics. I’m not here to offend anyone. But if you read my blog, then you also know that I occasionally fail in that endeavor – and today is going to be one of those days. I am in such disbelief that I just have to vent. Feel free to disagree, but here I go.

I am absolutely speechless over the “controversy” of Obama’s upcoming back-to-school speech. Some Righties – actual government representatives! – are going along with and repeating the hysterical claim that his speech is going to “foment socialism”.

Now, at first I thought this was kind of humorous. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t heard that line again and again about everything Obama does for 8 months now. You’d think the man ran on a platform of mandatory toilet paper rationing and eating small children, so evil do they think he is (some loved ones included). But today I happened to watch the evening news to see that 6 states’ schools are actually refusing to air the speech based on that fear – and  some have come up with the brilliant “compromise” that they will tape the speech, see what it says and then determine whether or not to allow it to be shown!

I. Uh. Ahem. Wow. My breath is taken away. Umm, I can get if people are tired of hearing him speak. As my sister pointed out, Obama does make a heck of a lot of speeches and ask for a lot of airtime. I get that. I haven’t listened to him speak for ages myself. I like the guy and all, but I’m not wild about political speeches and I don’t like him in the way that makes me want to stare at him with a goofy smile and clap all the time. However, no one is saying, “we’re tired of hearing him speak.” No one is saying “we have important lesson plans to get to” or whatever. They’re saying he is going to say inappropriate things! What the…? Besides the fact that he’s not the first Prez to do this (controversy-free), do people realize they are talking about censoring the President?!

Let me say that again: they’re talking about censoring the President cause they don’t like his ideas.

Who is a school principal (or whomever) to judge that the President is going to say something inappropriate for kids to hear? We live in a de-mo-cra-cy. He was e-lec-ted. Elected, people. He didn’t conquer his way to the throne with guns and pestilence to force a take over. We put him there. This man has our nuclear codes – but now some of you think that he can’t be trusted to make a public speech to children? Give me a flipping break.

No really, please. Give me a break. At what point can we call a paranoia hysteria psychosis spade a spade? The right says, “But…but…there was a school plan where kids were supposed to write about what they could do to help the President”. Oh, horror! The President has the audacity to act like we are all invested in his success! That we should want to support the man to whom we’ve asked to run the country for the next 3+ years! How evil is he?!

Since when is acting as if constituents wish for a successful representative akin to some evil plot? Did I miss the part where the famous phrase, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” was a Communist motto? I’ve heard that phrase a lot, but never in a way that indicated it was “socialist propaganda” or anything like. I guess I missed the memo.

Now, I know a little something about disliking the President. But I’m pretty sure talk of censoring Bush for claims he would “try to spread Conservative ideals” (or, a truer comparison to the socialism claim, that he would “foment Fashism” or something of the like) would have led to cries of “Unpatriotic” and worse. You don’t have to like Obama. Really. It’s your right and it doesn’t matter to me personally. But can we at least aim for some semblance of mature debate? That’s all I’m asking. I think there are solid reasons to dislike Obama and some of his proposals, and I am open to them. But so far I’m mostly hearing hyperbole and conspiracy theories. At this point I am at a complete loss to see a line in the sand at which the country would collectively say “now that’s just silly”. Cause at the moment, there doesn’t seem to be one.

So, it’s official – I’m negative. After a second range of the most exhaustive gene testing available, I still came up negative for BRCA 1/2. It seems crazy, but it’s true. Yes of course I am happy, but I agree with the “consensus of the genetic team”: that there is most surely some genetic connection to my breast cancer, but it’s something that we’ve yet to discover. Even though there are no more tests we can do now (except for some rare genes that also carry other obvious physical markers which I clearly don’t have), I have left some extra blood behind and signed a bunch of papers giving permission for my blood to be used in future studies should something appropriate come up. Perhaps I will help discover a future mutation after all, even if I don’t know it.

What I didn’t get back here to explain yet was what I learned in the meeting about BRCA 1/2. Of main interest is the fact that, because we use the language “I tested negative for BRCA 1/2″ (and phrases like that), I always thought that BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 are the names of two mutations which cause breast cancer. But that is not so. BRCA 1 & 2 are the names of two regular ol’ genes that we all have, genes whose job it is to defend against cancer (and it seems breast cancer in particular).  So if you “have BRCA 1″ that means you have a mutation in the BRCA 1 gene which makes it less successful in its quest to ward off bad breast cells. It is because of these 2 genes’ general cancer fighting job that there are other cancers that are liked with BRCA 1/2. This also clarifies why the two genes each have a unique set of other illnesses that they indicate a predisposal to.

This understanding has made me realize that having a BRCA mutation may well be likened (in my own mind) to alcoholism. I didn’t get how the risk factors of my job and a family history worked together – I thought they were opposing possibilities to why I got cancer. But in fact, they would have worked together, just like a person with alcoholism in the family may or may not become an alcoholic. Put them in the right conditions and they are very likely to do so, while someone else subjected to those conditions (without alcoholism in the family) is less likely to become an alcoholic – but they still could anyway if the conditions are strong enough. For me, this is very insightful.

So, we all have BRCA 1 and 2 genes – it’s just a question of whether or not they’re “normal”. Put into context, the repeated gene testing reveals that I have no malignant “misspellings” in my BRCA 1/2 genes. But the suspicion is that there is a mutation on another gene that we haven’t yet mapped or perhaps have not yet identified as cancer-involved. While this could be seen as good or bad news, I choose to see it as good. The best of both worlds perhaps, since my female family members are motivated to be extra vigilant (and their insurances have a convincing case history to support that), yet there are no other particular cancers or illnesses associated with whatever that may be for us to be panicked about. Of course there is always the slight possibility that I just hit some statistical lottery with my cancer. Even if I didn’t win a desired prize, I will choose to consider myself lucky.

Side note: The concert ticket mystery is solved. A European friend needed an American address to where he could order tickets, as he is coming over for the concert. I didn’t realize the tickets would be coming from a random-seeming private address and had no idea just what kind of tickets he was ordering. I didn’t even know he was coming over for a concert! So hadn’t put 2 + 2 + x together. Which is fine, because – although I’m almost embarrassed to admit it – there wasn’t actually anyone playing at the concert whom I particularly cared to see. I know I should want to see Earth, Wind & Fire or Eric Clapton…but I don’t really. So it’s all good – enjoy the concert, friend!