Day 174 - updated, tired, but happy

It's unclear to me why I'm so tired tonight, and it's also unclear why I haven't had a chance to blog yet today, but both are true and I'm going to bed now. I wanted you to know I'm fine.
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update:
I spent the morning being errand central, not much fun, but these things have to be done and it's best to get them done before one goes back to work. Then, our landlords came over because about two years ago the heat in the bathroom stopped working. It never really bothered us until just recently when Ellie started complaining of being cold in there. They determined that the problem is that the bathroom heat is plumbed with the second story heat even though our bathroom is on the first floor. When Emily (largely) moved out two years ago, we stopped needing the heat on the second floor so the bathroom heat stopped going on. It didn't bother us--in fact, we barely noticed) until this month and Monday Gary is going to re-plumb the heating so the bathroom is on the first floor where it belongs. It is funny how Ellie spending more time arranging her hair has led to Gary needing to re-plumb the heating system.

Later in the afternoon, Tanya and I went on a field trip to see the looms in "A Loom with a View" in Newburyport. The last time I was there, they had a big room with about six or eight looms in it. Tanya's loom needs a little refurbishing and we thought we'd go look at their looms and see how they were done so we could copy. As long as we were in Newburyport, we had to stop for delicious Indian food. I had Goa shrimp curry which is one of my favorite dishes to eat. I ate a lot, lot, lot of it when I was pregnant with Emily and when she was little at our favorite Indian restaurant in Berkeley, Ajanta. (Look at that! They're still open and thriving! One of my favorite memories of there is that Emily's favorite vegetable when she was three was cauliflower. We used to order her vegetable curry, but just made with cauliflower.) OK, back to the present and Newburyport. After lunch, we went to Loom with a View and they had moved to a smaller storefront and no longer had looms. So, we went on a field trip to Newburyport for Indian food. Totally worth it.

Tommie came over later in the evening to learn how to do credit cards on her iPhone. You need a special piece of equipment (square something or other which she had, but didn't know how to set it up or something). She needs to do know how to do this because she is having a show on Sunday. I have been remiss and not linked to it sooner, but if you are looking for something to do on Sunday and still need to buy presents for people, this might be a good way to solve both of those problems. Tommie will be at RollingGreen Nursery in Greenland with 22 other artists. She doesn't have a website yet, but if you look at the third of the pictures at the top of the page, it's Tommie's. Afterwards, since it is almost up to Maine, you could go to Kittery Trading Post and finish your shopping or to The Beach Pea and just relax or to Byrnes and Carlson and finish your shopping, depending on who you have to shop for.

I did want to report (in the spirit of long chains of events) a closing of a loop of sorts. You may recall that I told you (or you may not recall if I didn't include it in the blog--I thought I did) that when I was taking my boards, I mentioned it to a patient and she said she would hold her thumbs for me instead of the usual crossing  fingers. I really liked that and told many of my patients when they needed luck that I would hold my thumbs for them and I would tell them about this really wonderful lady who introduced me to the phrase. I liked it because it was cute and interesting and because it helped me to remember this woman I was very fond of. One of my patients got a kidney transplant when I was out with my leukemia and sent me a photo of himself in his hospital bed, holding his thumbs for me. I thought that was incredibly sweet and touching (and one of the hundreds reminders of why primary care is so rewarding). Last week, I happened to see the daughter of the original thumb holding patient and was able to tell her the story. She loved it, too. Who will we be holding our thumbs for next?

You may recall how in July-ish I ran into the mother of one of Ellie's chums from kindergarten in the grocery store and she sort of stared at the small part of bald head you could see under my hat and I just didn't feel like telling her I had leukemia so I didn't. Friday, I ran into the mom of a different kindergarten chum of Ellie's and she said to me, "Gosh, I didn't recognize you at first because of your hair cut. It looks nice." I thought to myself, "I don't feel like going into leukemia, chemo, neutropenic fever, second opinion, etc. right now." I said, "Thank you. I like it too." We both went on with our days and it was all good. I must be getting better. It's weird to think that there will be lots of people in my life who never know about this whole experience because I will meet them in the future when it's just like "o, I had a burst appendix in 1982. It was a tough couple of months recovering, but now I don't really think about it." (I still have my appendix, but as an example.)

For myself, I will wish a relaxing and fun day (we're going to Cambridge for one of Terry's friend's openings).  For you, I will wish the same.

(speaking of chains, I started thinking about Terry's friend's opening's poster's lettering's color. how many 's can one stack up?)