Get your mammograms ladies

An article about a new study claims mammograms over diagnose breast cancer and that mammograms should be used less frequently. Sorry, I disagree. Women should be checked regularly once they reach a certain age. Better safe than sorry. Also, I imagine it is cheaper to catch and treat early.

My wife has been getting mammograms since she was 35 as her mother had breast cancer. At age 41 a tumor was found. Though very aggressive, the tumor was caught early and she only had a lumpectomy (plus chemo and radiation). If my wife was being checked less frequently, who knows when the cancer would have been found as the tumor was near her rib cage, meaning the lump wouldn't have easily been found until it was much larger. Granted my mother-in-law's prior history statistically put my wife at greater risk (as it will our daughter when she gets older), so she might have been checked anyway, making my argument moot.

However, contrast that with a larger woman in my wife's office who went for her first mammogram at age 40 and discovered cancer all over her breast. She had a mastectomy and is currently undergoing chemo. There was no prior family history and she wasn't showing symptoms. Also, due to her size, it is unlikely she would have found a lump through self examination. Though her cancer is advanced, and doctors say she may have only bought a few more years. those are years she may not have even had without the mammogram finding her cancer. While she may not make it to see her grandchildren, she should at least make it to see her children through childhood. It may only be a short time, but that time will be precious for her younger daughter.

I don't know what my wife's co-worker's medical bills are, but I imagine they are substantially higher than my wife's, which are not that low to start with. As coastal communities in NY and NJ that didn't build sand dunes or sea walls, or buried utility lines  due to costs are discovering, it is sometimes better to spend a few extra dollars up front then spend many more dollars after cleaning up the mess. I'm sure my wife would love to look back on spending that week between the initial finding and the follow up exam that confirmed she had an aggressive tumor as a week spent worrying about nothing.

Santa the hostile workplace employer

Tonight CBS is airing the annual holiday special celebrating discrimination based on a physical disability with regards to a reindeer, bullying, workplace prejudice, ADA violations, Title VII claims and possible OT violations. Yep, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is on. The annual special that teaches children about bigotry, cruelty, and the triumph of discrimination.

Let's start with bigotry. Santa  promotes a hostile workplace, where management is allowed to discriminate against a potential employee because he is "different." And I'm not just talking about Rudolph. Look at what happened to poor Hermey the elf who wanted to be a dentist. Forced out because he wouldn't conform. Granted he was hired as a laborer, not a dentist, but to ostracize him from his own community just because he was different? Shame on Santa for allowing this to happen. I shudder to think what would happen if a couple of same sex elves wanted to hook up. 

And what is this nonsense about allowing his employees to not allow Rudolph to play in any reindeer games while they laughed and called him names? How cruel. Though it seems to me that those games were part of the workplace environment, meaning Santa should have made an accommodation for Rudolph's disability, Santa is at the North Pole and not subject to the ADA. Outsourcing is good when you want to avoid regulation. Still, if Santa were a stand up guy, he would have put a stop to this cruelty as soon as became aware of it, especially the name calling. That he did not speaks volumes of Santa's inner corporate heart. Of course what do you expect from a man who straps spare reindeer to the roof of his sleigh? And though I am not sure if there are possible OT violations in Santa's workshop (no idea what the law is in the North Pole), by working those poor elves non-stop I suspect he is violating his workshop's mission statement of bringing happiness and joy to all.

Face it, the only reason Santa put an end to the discrimination is because Rudolph had something Santa needed. Fine, all employers do that to an extent but Santa craftily put Rudolph in the no win situation of either accepting the years of harsh treatment and helping Santa or disappointing millions of children world wide. Let's face it, if Rudolph was shunned by his peers for just being born with a birth defect, how would he have been treated once the news broke that Rudolph refused to to use his special skill because he was just too emotionally depressed to get over his years of terrible treatment (good thing there was no social media back then)?  Well played Santa, well played. Personally I would’ve told Santa which part of my red-nosed anatomy he and the others could kiss but I guess I'm not as good a man as Rudolph. And, if it wasn't a foggy Christmas Eve, would the discrimination against Rudolph have continued? I bet a lump of coal that it would have.

Maybe he was just having a bad day. Santa is kind of a self centered jerk through the whole thing, which goes against his reputation for being a jolly old elf. Could be he was mad at his agent for getting caught in such a lame story? Or maybe he is a man whose past his prime and should be given a gold watch and thanks for his many years of service. A corporate leader with his skill set wouldn't last five minutes in today's environment. He has this weird mix of bullying those he perceives as weak while promoting the idea that if someone is not "useful" (Rudolph, Hermey, the Island of Misfit Toys) they are worthless. And he is so blinded by old ideas that he can't even see when something different can be an asset. Perhaps it is time for new management at Santa's Workshop?

So, in conclusion, light the fire and make some hot chocolate as you tell this true corporate tale. Time to indoctrinate a  new generation of serfs to know their place in life. Marginalized people are not supposed to rise above their station in life. If a bigoted employer wants to make you his bitch that is his right.

Thanksgiving

Not too many months ago I didn't think I'd have anything to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. How wrong I was. I am thankful for all the doctors, family and friends who have helped us this year, I am thankful my wife is on the road to recovery (and she is undoubtedly thankful chemo ends soon), I am thankful I work for a company that was very generous in allowing my work schedule to be as flexible as needed these last few months, I am thankful for our children, I am thankful we are in a warm, dry house -- with just a few less trees, and I am thankful for whatever else I have forgotten in this post. Happy turkey day all!

A little free advice to the GOP

Hi Republican party. Middle aged white guy in the top 10% here. How are you? I'm fine. Managed to keep my family fed and warm, plus get the tree off my roof, the last 2 weeks as my area recovers from the double blow of Sandy and the Nor'Easter, without requiring government help. Thought that you would like that as it is kinda boot-strappy. I even helped create a few jobs by hiring a traveling tree service to help me get at some high tree branches I couldn't reach, plus remove the rest of the tree that hit the roof (chainsaws and 45 year old Jewish NYC area lawyers just don't go together as I'm sure you'd agree). Mom's doing well, but you wouldn't like her now as, after a full life of working hard, raising a family and teaching children, she is part of the 47% (though I don't recall her voting for Democrats in presidential elections) in a nursing home sucking down that government juice, but thanks for asking. Anyway, I digress. I'd like to explain why I didn't vote for you last week and, at this rate, may not vote for you again, at least on the national level, and it is not because I want "gifts."

Traditionally, especially as I am Jewish and a Middle East war seems imminent (we all know you love Israel, while the Democrats are a little more reserved), I should be in your base, except I am probably a little too progressive (I'd say liberal in the traditional sense since that means open minded but I know you've twisted that word just as conservatism as been twisted)  for you these days. I'm educated, pretty tolerant of others, don't care what people don't do in their bedrooms or who they want to marry, agree there should be less abortions but feel that should be a personal or medical decision, don't have a problem conserving for tomorrow while keeping the family's debt limited to our mortgage, and don't mind paying taxes to invest in our country's infrastructure. I think that used to be called a Rockefeller Republican or maybe even a Regan Democrat. I don't know. What I do know is that not only did I not vote for your presidential candidate, but I didn't vote for my local Senate and Congressional Republican candidates because your radical right and financial overlords scare the heck out of me and what they would mean for this nation's future.

I know you are trying to broaden your base without resorting to "gifts" but here's the thing, I don't consider the social security and medicare I will receive at the end of my working life a gift. I don't consider new and improved schools to be a gift. I don't consider improved infrastructure to be a gift. And while, technically, my taxes being used to help those less fortunate then myself can be called a gift, I am thankful I am not in a position to need that gift, whether it is food stamps to keep my children fed or FEMA grants to help me rebuild my life. I consider all that, and more, part of what makes this a civilized nation.Maybe I am just too stupid to understand how torpedoing our fragile economy while worsening the plight of a huge majority of the country  to further fatten the wallets of the rich so they can continue to outsource jobs and invest their money overseas is good for America. Or maybe I am not as dumb as you think the majority of the population are in rejecting such a divisive Presidential candidate who, through his words before and after the election,  demonstrate he really held the 99% in disdain (and was an emptier suit than W).

Even though I am not a member of "those groups" you so despise, I don't mind paying taxes to pay for new schools, transportation projects, utilities etc for my grandchildren to live just as I have relied on all my grandparents generation built for me. I consider those "gifts" that I paid for with my payroll taxes since I was 16 to be paying me my money back, whether I see all of it or I don't (and I really, really hope I do see all of it as I'd like to die quietly in my sleep in old age like my great-uncle, not screaming in fear like the passengers in his out of control car). And I am fine if some of that goes to a disabled widow to help her raise her underage children because, well, that's how I think the richest nation to ever walk this earth should roll.

But going back to the broadening of your base, ain't going to happen until you stop being slaves to those who care more about a bunch of cells that could potentially be human life inside of a woman's body over what happens if and when those cells become a human and who believe men should be stoned when sleeping with a man because you misinterpreted that part of the bible that approves drug legalization and gay marriage (think about what I just wrote for a few seconds). Not saying there isn't room at the table for those who oppose abortion and gay marriage for whatever reason, but until you lock your radical righthwads in the damn closets the way Democrats locked their looney, truly liberal associates, you aren't going anywhere near 1600 again. And just picking a token woman for a leadership post to demonstrate your openness is not enough, especially as your leaders imply that there was voter fraud because blacks voted. You have to mean it in your hearts.

There are other things too that bother me. I could mention that, as you continue to politicize the Benghazi attacks, that 9/11 happened on your watch, plus several other attacks on diplomatic sites (including a certain embassy in Lebanon that President Reagan pulled marines out of after a suicide attack killed hundred of Americans). I know its politics etc, but not everything is a conspiracy (though I agree there is more to the Petraeus affair than what we have been told as of this writing). If you want to win again, not only do you have to stop looking backwards at ideas that worked 30 years ago, but you also need to stop making every statement a passive-aggressive attack on Democrats. Half the country agrees with them. 

But how can I explain all this to those who believe the Republican Governor of NJ saying nice things about President Obama for helping his state recover from Hurricane Sandy, caused Mitt Romney to lose the election. Heaven forbid, a leader serving those who voted for him first. I'm sure the loss had nothing to do with a candidate so out of touch that he thought cuts in the capital gains tax would help the middle class when they sold all their stocks. What stocks?! My wife and I make well more then $150,000 combined, our only stocks are in our 401(k) accounts and in the college education cuts we have set up for our children -- if we don't have enough disposable income for stocks, how does a family making just $60,000 have enough to worry paying taxes on dividends or capital gains (the tax on our savings, which would have been cut, is miniscule thanks to low interest rates). Don't any of you watch something other than Fox News?

And, going back to my mother, if you ever saw her medical bills from her nursing home, you'd see that her medicaid payments to supplement her social security and my parents' pensions, were not gifts, but a lifeline in return for her decades of hard work (now if you want to argue that limiting medicare/medicaid payments to grants will force nursing homes etc to lower their prices, I'm listening, but I don't trust the free market that has you where they want you as much as you). And I am not going to get into the fiscal cliff you want to throw the country over because a few of your friends, who will be rich no matter, don't want to pay more taxes unless the entire middle class, already reeling from four decades of your wealth consolidation programs, givers even more of the few crumbs they have left (can't leave the serfs with anything that might look like savings now can we?). As long as your opening bargaining position is to hold a gun to the country's head while telling the other side "no and no discussion until you do what we say," there is no point.

So, in conclusion, GROW UP! Stop blaming others for your failures. People don't vote for you because they don't like what you say, don't like what is in your hearts, worry that the increasing concentration of wealth is bad for a republic and a whole host of other concerns. We are individuals making up a nation of one, not a nation making individuals of 300 million (yeah, that got away from me too, sorry). No matter how much we adore individualism, we all need each other to some extent. Not many of us live on small family farms anymore, with fewer every year. This isn't the 18th or even the per-industrial 19th century where Americans could live easily enough by themselves, off the grid, without any help from neighbors (assuming the army kept the Indians away and local law kept the bandits at bay). This is the 21st century. Maybe you should remember that.

Signed, Moderate, but conservative, independent white guy

Petraeusgate

I'm amazed the major media outlets haven't labeled the stories revolving around the resignation of CIA chief General Petraeus and the stalled nomination of Marine Gen. John Allen's to become NATO's supreme allied commander due to a brief affair and some naughty e-mails Petraeusgate yet.  I've seen the term Petraeusgate in a few news headlines from smaller players like the Daily Beast, Mother Jones and, of course, Twitter but not the NY Times or Washingtion Post so I know that this is not a major story. We've thrown gate onto every scandal for the last 40 years, so it seems, so why not this one?

Seriously though, I know I am not the only one who smells a rat in this hornet's nest. I find it hard to believe that this scandal at the top of  our military and intelligence community was brought on by a bare chested FBI agent doing a favor for a well connected friend. Something is fishy here. Whether it is political foes of Generals Petraeus and Allen seeking an opportunity, a chance for the Obama administration to take the focus off of intelligence failures, misleading statements or lies regarding the Benghazi attack in Libya or the attacks on our soldiers in Afghanistan from "friendly" fire, a chance for political foes of the president to distract him as he waste resources on this scandal instead of focusing on our long term budget issues or something more I don't know. It is a little hard to do investigative journalism from my home in NJ, that is what professional news outlets are for. But if I can connect the dots and see some coincidences that seem too coincidental, then why can't the media see something beyond the emails?

Instead of concentrating on the bedroom activities in Petraeusgate, or whether this was a November surprise delayed for the election (which doesn't make sense as the General worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations) I have better questions for our media and leaders. On the assumption that there really isn't anything else going on, why are we tearing up our military and CIA leaders over this insignificant stuff? So they cheated on their wives, big deal. That is between the generals and their wives. Maybe this is all just the latest version of our reality based TV culture where we seem to be fascinated with fluff and tearing people down, especially as we enter television's November sweeps period. Maybe it is not. It is still silly.

How about we get out of the bedrooms and focus on what is really important, like the security lapses and conflicting information the CIA gave the White House regarding the  attack on our embassy (ok, consulate)  in Libya, the murdering of our soldiers by "friends," our crumbling infrastructures at home (or not), how the economy still struggles as we approach our self imposed "fiscal cliff,"  or how the increasing concentration of wealth by a few is a detriment to our republic, at least for most of us. And, if the Petraeusgate story is "merely" a cover for something much more nefarious, why are the media stalking  Mrs. Kelley and Broadwell? Either throw a gate onto the story or get back to work already (and I prefer the later).

Nor'Easter

Seven days after the hurricane, both my wife's and my offices reopened. By then odd even gas rationing had started, which meant I could pull right up to the pump at my choice of now powered local gas stations. However, school remained closed in our town. Originally scheduled as a week off (with Election Day and the two day NJ Teachers' Convention at the end of the week, so many families schedule vacations for that period that the superintendent decided to make the week a week off to get around low attendance), the schools remained closed as half the town remained without power. I tried to begin to catch up on my work (helped the office was closed all week too due to lack of power) as I worked from home that Monday. A later trip to the supermarket to get milk, eggs and meat proved to be a waste of time -- with so many getting power back that weekend, the supermarket was out of those foods (though I did get egg whites and turkey burgers).

Tuesday, with my wife off for Election Day, I drove into my office. I noticed traffic lights out and still closed intersections of Route 9 about 4 miles north of our house, but the section of darkness was soon replaced by powered areas. That scene repeated itself with some closed roads as I go to my office. People seemed generally happy to be there, especially those still without heat and electricity in their homes. Many children, still out of school, wandered around the semi-empty office -- with the NJ Transit line that runs by our office still out of service, nobody from NYC was making it physically in that day. Aside from talking about the lack of power the previous week, the big concern was the forecasted Nor'Easter, especially for those still without power, for the next day. I was able to get milk and chicken on the way home.

Wednesday. With school closed, my son had a sleep over at his friend's house the previous night, so it was just my daughter and I as I worked from home. She happily watched TV and played video games as I worked. I had previously arranged to pick up my son at the end of my work day, around 4PM, before the storm really hit. Around 2PM my daughter came in to my office to tell me it was snowing. I looked out the window and thought to myself, guess the storm is going further east, as forecasters had speculated earlier in the day, meaning more cold air and, hopefully, less wind. This is good I thought to myself.

By 3PM I noticed the snow was sticking to the grass. Odd I thought, I didn't know that would happen so early. By 4PM the snow was sticking to the streets. Now, after last year's October snow storm, this early snow shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. We live fairly close to the ocean and, at this time of the year, warm ocean waters usually prevent snow from falling in our area this early in the season. Not this time.

Before long, the snow was accumulating on the street. Now I have lived within 10 miles of the Atlantic Ocean in the NYC area my entire life and have never seen an accumulating snow before Thanksgiving, with only a handful before Christmas. My wife came home, we ate dinner, I lit a fire and we settled in for another evening in front of the fire hoping the power wouldn't go out. Well the power didn't go out, can't say that for the trees.

Around 6:30 we heard a thump from the roof towards the back of the house. While I wondered what  had fallen, my wife looked out the window and saw that our old cranberry tree had split in half and struck the house. Then I realized, that while many of trees had lost their leaves during the hurricane, there were still a lot of leaves up in the trees. Rut roh.

That night we heard the sounds of thousands of trees snapping in half then suddenly silenced. By morning we woke up to a beautiful winter wonderland, if you weren't a tree lover. In addition to our crab apple, our weeping cherry tree lost every branch but one, and the maple tree we planted when our son was born a dozen years ago lost its top. A branch from another tree grazed my car, but did no damage. Looking around the neighborhood, we saw the tree damage was much worse than from Sandy. But at least we didn't lose power, can't say that for my office.

Telecommuters are broken into two groups in my office. Those like me who have laptops and can work from wherever they are and those who remotely log onto their desktops from home. To remotely log on, the PC needs to be on at work. Unfortunately the power outage at the office knocked all the machines out. With traveling still a little difficult, between Sandy and snow storm, not many people wanted to go in. Long story short, we found a new use for Facebook -- trying to determine who is physically in the office who can turn on desktop computers for remote log on. Still have a bit of a ride to the 21st century.

As to the tree on the roof, we were very lucky. The bulk of the tree landed in the front yard, with only the tops of the formerly upper most branches hitting the roof. As soon as the snow melted, I cut off the branches and was relieved to discover was only a small dent in one of our gutters. So while my tree forts line the street, ready to be converted into mulch by the town, I am relieved we dodged another bullet. Considering all the shots we've taken so far this year, it's nice when a break doesn't go bad for a change.

Sandy

The lights are on. The children are back in school starting Monday. The gas lines are gone. Our offices are open for business. It has been a crazy two weeks here in my corner of NJ: first Hurricane Sandy knocked our lights and heat out for a week, then a Nor'Easter that turned into a snow storm when it sucked more cold air than expected which snapped several of our trees in half. I am ready to move to Nevada.

The day of the hurricane started out simply enough. My wife's office and our town's schools closed for the day, giving the rest of my family a day off. My office closed for the day but many of us were able to telecommute as normal. I did my early morning workout as usual and, upon leaving, noticed the sign that all classes after 5PM were cancelled. When I got home, I told my wife that her evening spin and dancing classes were cancelled, so she decided to go early while I worked and kept the children from killing each other. Things quickly deteriorated weather wise. Before long she was calling me to say the Y would be closing at 1:30 due to weather. I told her to try to get bread as we were running low, the one thing I forgot to buy enough of before the storm. Ha ha. By then all she could find were bagels.

She came home and I finished my work day as usual. Dinner and watching TV that evening were also pretty normal, except we were just watching the news from NYC. The lights started flickering around 6PM and at 7, just as flood waters were starting to hit Manhattan, we lost most of our cable stations, save the ones from Philadelphia. I soon turned to Facebook, which became a lifeline for us through the following week. Friends from the city started posting pictures of streets flooding in Manhattan, and not just in lower Manhattan. Just as I was thinking this going to be worse than realized, the lights went out with a sudden certainty. At that point we knew that was it for electricity and we were back in the 19th century. 

The next morning the storm had mostly passed. I put the tea kettle on my outside grill to make instant coffee for my wife and I as we dined on cold cereal, mostly to get rid of the milk. I took the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood, checking out the tree damage and walked up to Route 9, a major north/south highway with many commercial establishments that adjoins our development. Traffic was moving, but as I walked up to the nearby intersection with a traffic light I saw it was dark. Uh oh. Our development has underground wires, so I  knew we'd come back once the grid was re-energized. At that time I didn't appreciate how long that would be.

We didn't have much storm damage, just some big branches down on our lawn, and we are far enough away from the shore to not have to worry about flooding, so we took a long walk around the development with the kids after lunch. We saw many large trees down, but, with a few exceptions, little damage to structures and cars. After seeing power was still out on 9, except for the generated powered supermarket, where things were so crazy that the police were called and employees were checking receipts (I now know it will take less than 48 hours for this town to go full anarchy if there ever was a disaster worse than a power outage). We went back home, turned on the radio to a NJ news station, lit a fire and settled in for the night. Except, unlike previous blackouts, we had smart phones and were able to keep track of very local news.It was then I learned that almost the entire town (and surrounding areas) were without power (I swear Facebook kept me sane). I also saw a very brief clip about a fire in the Rockaways, near where I went to high school, and flooded basements in my old hometown of Howard Beach. It would be another day until I saw how bad things were. My wife said we should just consider it camping out with comfy, if cold, beds. Fortunately we have a fireplace, a full rack of wine, and, courtesy of Sandy, plenty of fuel for the fire, so we spent the evening relaxing in front of the fire, the kids on their newly charged video games, my wife reading a book with a flashlight, and me reading an ebook I downloaded from the library just before the storm, on my back-lit iPad, as I knocked out a bottle of wine.

Day 3. I cooked the remaining eggs, egg whites and cheese in two giant egg omelets on the grill, along with the instant coffee (I am definitely buying a stove top peculator as soon as I can find one, the camping sections of nearby sporting goods stores are still pretty empty). My brother, about 20 miles away as the open roads went, had power and our freezer was starting to defrost so I loaded up the car with our electronics, freezer and family and drove over there. It was then I finally understood how bad the power situation was. Not a single traffic light was functioning on Routes 9 and 18 (similar to 9) until we got to the NJ Turnpike (fastest ride ever, as the intersections were blocked, making the road seem like a real highway). I noticed no gas stations and few generator powered stores open. On Route 1, we again saw not a single light or open business, except for a liquor store, of course, until we neared my brother's house. Suddenly, we saw a working light and then we were in a horrific traffic jam. It took us over 10 minutes to get to the next intersection, but before we even got that far we realized what the problem was, a gas line at an open gas station (I wisely had topped off my car's tank the night before the storm). We eventually made it to my brother's and, after unloading my backpack of electronics, I lost it when I discovered my iPad was not in the box. I basically went into one of my old rages (I later realized that I probably had forgotten to take my meds that morning, once we didn't have heat, lights or electricity, our schedules got all messed up). Very disturbing, but now I know -- 2 days of a disaster is all I can take.

Anyway, we asked my sister-in-law if we could put on the news as we really had no idea what was going on outside our immediate area, especially in New York. It was then I finally saw the videos of the burnt out Rockaways, the flooded Howard Beach and Broad Channel, and all the damage at the Jersey Shore. I saw a report taken from the wrecked the boardwalk a block from the police station near my high school. Not a big deal until I remembered the boardwalk used to be two blocks away. It was very devastating. Anyway, as our county had a 7PM curfew and we left our dogs at home, we went back home. Again, lights were out. The open  gas station we had passed earlier was now out of gas, but we passed another huge jam at a newly open station on the way home. We spent the evening as we had done the night before: fire, video games and wine.

Day 4. By then we had gotten into somewhat of a routine. Heat up food and water on the grill and begin the rotation of the electrical devices to charge in the cars, running partially on the car battery and partially starting the cars up. Our freezers were now our refrigerators, still cold enough for milk, but not for anything frozen, though the water bottles I had stuck in them before the storm were still pretty solid. One fortunate thing aside from the fireplace; because we have an old water heater that doesn't need electricity, our natural gas fueled hot water heater kept on giving us hot water for showers and baths, which things a little more tolerable as the temperature inside slipped into the 50s. This was the day my son and I went out for supplies, seeing what was open. We had two goals: extra batteries and bread, especially the batteries as we had been running our radio pretty much all the time while we were awake, listening to news, music, talk or sports. We went to the CVS near us, no dice, so we decided to go to our local supermarket, on the other side of 9. With the traffic lights down, the only way to cross 9 was to drive north or south to overpasses to cross over. We started down the road to 9 when, about 1.5 miles from 9, we got stuck in traffic. At the time I thought it was traffic trying to merge onto 9, so I detoured to another intersection and found no traffic. Oh those fools, I thought, they really need to detour. It was after I had looped around and headed back towards that intersection, I saw the reason for the traffic -- the gas station on that corner had reopened for gasoline sales. Yipes. The long gas lines had arrived in my town.

We proceeded to the generated powered supermarket and it was there we received our next taste of a disrupted supply chain. The store was half lit with shelves emptied of non perishable staples. Cashiers were checking receipts with the police keeping watch. When I asked if things were really that bad, they said yes, a little anarchy had apparently returned with some power to the store. One major focal point: the line for the coffee bar which apparently stretched all the way through produce, past all 18 cash registers and to the liquor store at the other end of the store. The line for cheap wine was shorter than for fresh coffee so I resupplied myself with what I needed to get through a few more cold nights with the kids. I also managed to buy 6 bags of ice, bread and some grape jelly.

When we got home, my wife told us the cancer hospital called and they wanted to squeeze her in for chemo that evening. It was then we discovered how bored the kids were when they begged her to take them. So, we all got in  my car for it's last long trip until the gas crisis eased, and drove to the hospital. The route closely paralleled the trip to my brother's. We noted a few more traffic lights working, plus an open WaWa with a long line for gas. The kids were so happy to be someplace with lights, hot prepared food, plugs and cable TV, even if it was tuned only to the news. We were like electric junkies getting our 21st century fix. By time we left, the sun had set and we got a better idea of where there was power and where there wasn't. At that point, there were way more without. Power to the north of us, power to the south, but we were stuck in the middle in the dark with the wine and firewood.

Day 5. Rinse and repeat. Except this time, as we were running out of food that we could easily cook, I made more of an effort to find prepared food and batteries. We got some food at Wegmans, but they were out of batteries. We went back to CVS where we were told that if we come back at 4PM, we could get batteries. When we got back at 4, the new batteries were already gone. Sighing, we drove a bit down the road, where I saw 7-11 was still closed, and then made a right at the next light. Yes light, the traffic light was working. So close! As we were going down the road, I looked to the left at the YMCA we go to and noticed their exterior lights looked to be on. Could it be? Well, yes, if you lived on that side of the road. That night another fire, a dinner warmed on the grill and another bottle of wine.

Day 6. Rinse and repeat, though this time the gym was open, so after 4 days I was able to work out again and watch TV. Almost normal. Later, while doing my now daily supply run, my wife called to tell me a friend on the side of the road with power had invited us over. We brought the food and electronics and enjoyed a day of heat and internet. The end was near. Still, when a landscaper cold called our friends to see if they wanted to pay them to cut up their fallen tree and haul it to the curb, I ran out and asked them to cut about 20 pieces of fireplace sized wood from the tree for me. Another night in front of the fire, reading, listening to the radio and sacrificing another bottle of wine.

Day 7. First day of standard time, though with no clocks to change the time and us rising with the sun anyway, it made little difference to us. When I went outside to place the tea kettle on the grill I noticed how cold it was that morning and thought that this was getting old. I started feeling very depressed, even my wife said this had cured her of the camping bug for a long time. My son was still going away that night with a friend so I dropped him off over there and got some extra Irene wood they had (they had borrowed a generator and were now powering their furnace). When I got home, my wife asked me to take our daughter out for lunch, as she needed the daylight hours to fold the laundry we had done the day before at our friends. First I tried to take her to her favorite casual hamburger place in a shopping center with power, but they weren't opened yet. I then tried to go to a nearby diner, but they had lines out the door. We finally ended up at the mall, which had also gotten power back the previous day. We walked by the many chairs, tables and extension cords around the center of the mall that management had set up for people to recharge and warm up. My daughter and I settled in at Johnny Rockets where, around 2PM, I received the message I had been waiting days to hear -- we have power! Woo hoo!

My mood was elated as my daughter and I walk around the mall. Even though I knew our suffering was nothing compared to those who still be without power as i write this almost a week later, or who lost more than power (one woman I went to high school with lost her Rockaways house, business and father in the days after the hurricane), I was getting mighty down about living in a cold dark house. We got home and I flipped on a light switch for the heck of it. Our long cold, dark nightmare was over. Hellooooo 21st century.

And then, after the cable came back on not long after halftime during the NY Giants loss, I put on the weather channel and saw that a Nor'Easter was forecast. Bring it I thought, after Sandy, this can't be too bad. Oh how I was wrong. I should have had another bottle of wine that night.

Anxiety

Anxiety. Anxiety is my biggest enemy. Due to it I tend to not have the ability to be graceful under fire. It has harmed relationships and kept me from living my life to the fullest, such as a fear of elevators since childhood, that generally morphed into a fear of being stuck or trapped in an enclosed space, such as a subway car stopped in a tunnel or even stuck in traffic sometimes while in my own car. I thought that I was better, or at least getting better. Now I'm not so sure.

For the last few months I have been taking Celexa to help me deal with the additional anxiety that the stress of my wife's breast cancer was bringing out in me. And for the most part it has worked wonders on me. I no longer find myself getting angry, or at least reacting inappropriately (blowing up) when upset. I find I enjoy life more, am able to play with the children better. I even was able to ride the elevators up and down to the 22nd floor at the Manhattan office building my company's headquarters is located in without freaking out (at least too much -- I still don't like elevators that make noises or have floors that fall away).

What set off my latest anxiety attack was relatively small. My wife and I  set up trust funds for our children in case we die young back in the spring. The trusts would be primarily financed by life insurance policies owned by the trusts. There are a few steps to take to make sure that the life insurance premium on me is paid. Three months ago was the first payment and it required a bit of work. Fast forward to this month and my premium bill came due again. I made a mental note to transfer the money from one account to another and placed the bill where our bills go to remind me to do it over the weekend when I and my wife do our bills. All our bills go in the same slot and my wife each pay them from our own checking accounts (long story, both our accounts are joint, it's just easier with direct deposit and direct billing to keep things as they are). I noticed the insurance bill was gone and figured that my wife paid it. Then, the day before it was due she told me it wasn't. Here comes the problem.

My wife is very bad about using specifics, sticking to generalities like "transfer the money from your account to the trust account" as if I know what accounts she is talking about. I am very bad with general terms; like our Aspberger's son, I need specifics, like what specific account are you talking about. Written instructions are best. I just can't handle generalities. And, as I almost always leave my cell phone, shoes, keys or glasses in a specific place (or places), I also need no disruptions to my bill paying system. If my phone is not in one of it's designated spots, I'm screwed. If a bill is not in the to be paid slot, I assume my wife has paid it. That is what works for me. I have enough things to worry about, the systems I have created for myself helps me easily find what I need to find. When I was done with the bank I wrote out the simple, but direct steps I took to help me next time.

Going back to this morning, I asked my wife what to do with the bank and if she needed to be with me since the account the money was going into was hers (accounts are at same bank). And here is where her public worker mentality that really annoys me kicks in -- when asking a question, she just gives the most basic information instead of spilling her guts. I had totally forgotten how to do things with the bank and couldn't find my notes from last time, she remembered but I had to tweak the information from her, practically line by line. What is the account number? Do I need the bill? I started getting upset, because I still didn't understand what to do. Finally she dropped the final bit of information that helped everything make sense for me. I successfully made the transaction and when I texted her to tell her she turned around and told me I got too anxious from dealing with a simple bank transaction and here lies my question: was I upset because I was anxious or was I upset because she wouldn't share the information she had? 

I initially believed it was the later, but then wondered what if she is right, and my getting upset was because I was anxious about doing something unfamiliar. Compared to our son, whose reaction to hitting a wall when he runs into a new challenge is not smashing through, but crying and screaming until it dissolves, my anxiety levels are nothing. While I don't like being taken our of my comfort zone I am usually OK with it. And I know that was part of it with the bank. Was my getting upset over the lack of sharing the information equally annoying or was it just my anxieties taking over? Or perhaps, it is just how I am.

As an attorney, I know the importance of keeping certain information close to the vest, and I suspect that all these years or working with attorneys and judges (I work in a non-judicial setting) she is just used to that, even with her spouse (or maybe it is a defensive mechanism she developed as our marriage became dysfunctional -- but that is for another day). For some reason that just hits my anxious nerves and gets me upset, but no matter how often I try (and it could be this only comes up in the heat of the moment), I don't know how to convey this to her. She rightfully calls me anxious for wanting all the possible information I can have before doing something but I can't seem to get through to her, even after all these years, that that is just how I am wired and nothing will change that. And in fairness to myself, my anxiety would have been much worse before the medicine.

Many years ago ago, my company ran all of us through a Briggs Myers workshop, where I discovered I am an introverted, judging, thinking, sensitive person (ISTJ: Introvert(44%), Sensing(12%), Thinking(25%), Judging (56%)) (note: that score is from a recent test I found online, I don't recall my exact score but it was something similar). No real surprise. I have always been an introvert. And, as an attorney, it should be no surprise I am a bit anal retentive. I like strict observance of established rules after  careful planning. I am almost never late for an appointment, whether it is going to a party or meeting the school bus, preferring to leave early to make sure I am not late. I end to get upset when we are late, practically irritated. And, after taking the test, it was a relief to discover that I was not weird, I just marched to a different drummer.

I am not a spontaneous person. I am generally quiet, almost shy. I am happy just reading. I like a plan of action with a lot of facts. My electronic calendars, all synched, are filled with reminders to myself to do certain things. I need to understand an issue before I can react to it. Before Briggs Myers, I always hated these features about myself, envious of extroverted friends who could light up a room with a quick quip. It was this test where I learned that being introverted is OK.

And now that I've written all this, I see the problem is mine. Just as I get irritated when my wife makes us late, I was irritated when she she wouldn't give me all the information for the bank. While getting angry is OK, getting upset and reacting poorly is not. My wiring makes me anxious when things aren't properly aligned, even with the medication. And I find that incredibly frustrating.

Looking back, that period just after the workshop were my best years, at least personally. It is when I started learning how to be comfortable in my own skin. I need to relearn how to make my anxieties work for me, not against me. Just as our son has had to learn techniques to calm himself down when he feels himself going over the emotional cliff, I need to relearn them for myself. Something for me to work on next time I see my therapist.

Electronic publishing

When not worrying about my family's health or commenting on various political issues, I do have a day job in professional publishing (by this I mean we create research materials for a certain professional field, in our case, attorneys). Over the years I have seen many changes. When I started at my company, the big excitement was about the creation of electronic versions of our books on DOS based CD-ROMs. Today an entire library can be downloaded to an iPad in seconds. To outsiders, the offline print versions of our books look the same, but the production of them has changed tremendously from tapes being converted into metal camera ready copy sheets for the printers when a book was ready to be published, a process that could take several days, to sending the files via ftp in seconds. So it is with interest that I saw yet another article about the demise of print, particularly, the weekly news magazine.

Really this should be no surprise. Like the CD-ROM of 20 years ago, the print magazine has been surpassed by something newer. However, while physical books can compete with the newer technologies for quite sometime, magazines can't due to one fatal flaw: timeliness. By time print magazines and newspapers reach readers' hands the news contained in them is out of date. Not a big deal for magazines like Rolling Stone with feature articles or even those with in depth news analysis that doesn't have to be particularly timely, but death for print newspapers. I'm thinking of switching our weekend NY Times subscription to digital only because by time Sunday rolls around, I've already read most of the paper on my iPad. And, working in publishing for nearly two decades, I am still amazed that "books" that once told up a full bookcase in my office can now fit in my pocket on my phone as ebook files (down side is I can't access them if the phone loses power).

Still, there is something to be said for print copies. I enjoy re-discovering hard copy books on my bookshelf, paperback or hard copy, to read again. Physical books are easy to lend and always accessible, with or without an account with a private vendor or electricity. I also enjoy walking the stacks at the library to see what strikes my fancy. Still, while I gave up print a while back for news, I find myself moving to electronic books for two main reasons. One, I find it easier to read a 1,000 page book on an e-reader that weighs just a few ounces, as opposed to a book that weighs a few pounds. Second, and more importantly as my eyes reach their mid 40s and find it increasingly hard to read small fonts without glasses, I can make the fonts on my e-reader larger to make the letters legible. Vanity no longer has to go before the fall.

Bedtime stories

I saw this article in the Daily Fail, suggesting that bed time stories for children may be a thing of the past due to declining attention spans of children. Horse hockey!  Our children are 7 and 12 and have been read bedtime stories since they were born, even with the internet, TV, video games etc. The only nights missed have been ones where one or all of the parties was tired and just wanted to go to sleep -- which is the exception not the rule.

Granted it has become a bit different as our children have aged, but that is a maturity thing. Our 12 year old, who reads/gets read to, longer novels like Harry Potter or the Chronicles of Narnia and our 7 year old is just as happy reading to us (or me taking a library book and reading in "funny mode" -- editorial comments by me). Still they read, as do many children. And these are children who are actively engaged in screen-based activities such as watching TV, playing computer games and surfing the web for a few hours in the morning and evening after school activities and we are winding down. They get an hour or so, depending on when they wake up, in the morning and an hour or so in the evening for screen time. Less for the 7 year old, more for the 12 year old who "hangs out" with his friends online playing video games on the xBox -- and before you mock me, think about this -- my son hangs out with his buddies and we don't need to drive/pick-up our son or host, clean the house or feed his friends (xBox is in the living room so we can keep an eye/ear on things).

I don't think my parents ever really read books to me, or maybe I was just too young to remember it (there were 4 of us and I was the oldest -- they had their hands filled dealing with my younger siblings), but I do remember reading to them and being really excited at reading to my grandparents. In addition, my parents always had a book in their hands or at their nightstand. Our house was filled with books then as it is now, though we've pretty much switched over to e-books. If you surround kids with books and they see you reading (print or electronic), they'll want to imitate you and start reading too (well at least for our 7 year oldm our Aspbergers 12 year old doesn't read for pleasure for the most part -- just for learning, school assigned or on his own).

To say bedtime stories are going away due to shorter attention spans, especially for younger children is just silly. However, if you want to blame today's parents for short attention spans, then you are being overly simplistic -- parents have always ducked out of bedtime stories if they really wanted to. If attention spans are shrinking it is because parents have become more adept at finding activities or electronic babysitters with which to preoccupy children rather than trying to nurture them with a little time, such as by reading.

Low white blood count

My wife couldn't get her chemo today due to a low white count. Her numbers were only 800, apparently doctors get concerned when the number is below 1,000. On the plus side she wasn't admitted to the hospital. For now, it seems that the medical staff is taking a wait and see attitude. On the home front I'll have to see what we can do.

For now I've changed our weekly food (I cook for the week on the weekend) to something heavy in spinach, kale, navy beans and other ingredients that are good for producing white blood cells. I've added more of her chores to mine (never enough) but the real thing she needs is sleep. Problem is our children are still young(ish) and like for her to read bedtime stories. I've suggested she give that up and go to bed earlier but she refuses, saying it would upset the kids (truth is, I think she likes the down time with them). We're avoiding visiting my mother, who is in a nursing home. I'm included to make sure I don't bring anything home, though as my wife works with the public I'm not sure if that really makes a difference. Making physical changes is easy, mental ones are harder.

I did make one mistake though, concerning her abilities to do things on her own versus me working at home more to help her out. I recently applied for a managerial position at my company's headquarters that went to somebody else. My director and I spoke about why I didn't get a promotion recently (I was one of the finalists, guy who got it is equally qualified, if not better as he worked in a law firm much more recently than I) and one reason was the bad timing here as I really didn't want to commute to NYC more than 3 days a week. They knew about my wife's condition and know I'm a bit distracted. Truth is, for the money they were offering, a 4-5 day a week commute wouldn't have been financially rewarding and I would have only taken the position for a resume filler (that and I really was interested in the job), but I let them think my wife's condition would prevent me from going in more than three days a week. A no harm, no foul type of thing as I would be looked upon as someone interested in moving up but for temporary personal issues in my family.

When I mentioned that to my wife, she asked me if I blamed her for not getting the promotion, noting that she could do everything with the kids on her own if need be. Whoops. I apologized as soon as I realized how my comments were seen by her. While it is true I am happy taking on more responsibilities and giving her more time to rest, exercise etc, that telecommuting gives me (her office is 10 min from the house, mine is an hour), I rather enjoy the work/life balance telecommuting gives me and, at our older ages, commuting to Manhattan more than a few days a week no longer appeals to me. At least I am getting better at realizing when I've put my foot in my mouth and said something hurtful. Still, I have to admit, if we lived closer to Manhattan (or still in the city) and there weren't family issues right now, I would have been more disappointed I didn't get the promotion but I've come to believe that things happen or don't happen for a reason. It is better for my entire family that my schedule remains flexible for now and my wife is better able to heal.

But, to put everything in perspective, these are a minor setbacks, for now. A woman I went to high school with has been battling  angiosarcoma for several years. Most recently she was clean and ready to live again. Earlier this week she went for routine scans. Today she got the results; it spread to her lungs and she needs to start chemotherapy again -- today. I don't know what her prognosis but the general long term prognosis for angiosarcoma is not too good. Hopefully we never find out how that is.

Worries

My wife's attitude regarding her treatment for her Stage I breast cancer has deteriorated lately and I'm getting worried. Up until now, she has had a fairly positive attitude and, for the most part she still does. However, I've noticed a shift in her mood the last few days. She has become really worried as her chemotherapy is getting close to the end, expressing concern that her only barrier between her and a return of the cancer cells will be gone. Even though the surgeon got the entire tumor and they are medically shutting down her ovaries since her breast cancer was estrogen fueled, she is convinced the cancer will come back and she will die young. While she has had that fear since her diagnosis back in May, this has gotten worse the last few days.

Her white blood cells were very low when she went for her chemo last week, so low that she needed a shot (not sure what) to get her count up so she could get her treatment. She is trying to do everything right, exercising, eating correctly, drinking her water, etc. but still her count is down. That is a concern as she is more susceptible to catching a cold, not hard to do when you have a 12 year old and a 7 year old in the house. But that is physical and there is not much you can do about that aside from take precautions. Mental health is another matter and for the most part, hers has been pretty upbeat. She has been pretty open as her moods and opinions on things, like me, have swung wildly the last three months and I have been able to take the body blows knowing that this is just part of the process (only put me on anti-depressants and sent me to a shrink). She has told me she is very happy that my anger issues have faded away and our marriage seems to be doing better than it has in years. However, it is what she is talking about lately that bothers me.

This weekend she was looking up information on different cancers. At first, probably due to her low white cell count, she focused on Myelodysplastic Syndrome, the same blood disorder GMA's Robin Roberts contracted after her chemotherapy for breast cancer. Understandable. And then yesterday, she spent some time on rectal cancer lately, presumably because the husband of one of her friends was just diagnosed with it (outlook isn't great). However, some articles she found have suggested that survivors of breast cancer have a slightly higher risk of getting colorectal cancer, among other things. At that point that was all she could think about.

Ok, I know my wife tends to obsess about things so I originally thought that this is what that latest round of research was -- looking into treatments for her friend and she just happened to stumble upon this. But then she mentioned she wants to lower her 401k contributions so we could buy a new car and travel a bit. Sounds nice but I reminded her that my 401k alone won't be enough for both of us to retire on. She replied that she didn't think I would have to worry about that. When I asked her if she thought she was going to die young, her answer was yes. That's the first time, at least since she started her treatment, she has said that.

Maybe she is just tired. Between the hot flashes and medication that causes her to go to the bathroom constantly, she is barely getting two hours of sleep at a time. And even if she does get back to sleep, she is not finding it as restful. Or it could just be another reaction of her hormones bouncing all over the place. I've checked out several breast cancer boards and have seen similar issues so I am not too worried. And I hope that is all that this is. Because if it is not, then she is the one who needs to see the shrink, not me.

And I don't mean that in a negative or nasty way, it's just that I don't know what else to do. I've picked up more chores, do most of the cooking, work at home more often to help with the kids and give her time to go to the gym and generally try my best be positive. I can cook the right foods and try to say the right things but, at this point, like her physical condition, her mental condition may need professional assistance.

Time over a promotion

I didn't get the new job I applied for last month in NYC and I have to say I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I wouldn't have minded a challenge in an exciting work environment again, the other hand looks at our crazy home life the last few months and realizes that it is best if my time reminds flexible for the next six months or so as my wife continues to heal from her lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation from her breast cancer surgery in June.  While it is nice I don't have to eliminate our nice leisurely before school mornings I am a bit concerned what this does to my long term career plans as more and more of my position's duties, which are highly skilled, are getting shipped overseas.

I hadn't planned on interviewing for a new position last month, although  my wife and I had been talking about both of us looking for new opportunities in the spring, once she was healed. But sometimes opportunities just happen. The position is a managerial one in a fairly new division of my company. I have been working with them as borrowed talent from before the days that division officially started up and am familiar with the work and the players involved. The previous manager retired and, when her job was posted, I debated about applying for it, leaning against it as I wasn't sure this was the right time for our family. I worried about time, time away from caring for the children and what that added time restraint would do to both my wife's and mine health (less gym time for both plus her ingoing cancer treatments). And I didn't want to commute to Manhattan five days a week again, which is what was originally required.

But then they reached out to me, which was flattering, so I decided to apply. And I am glad I did. It has been a long time since I was excited to go to work and, after interviewing with the higher ups, I saw this may be an opportunity to get excited again.  Career wise, assuming I stay in the company and I and the initiative succeeded, it would be an excellent long term move. Working at the company's headquarters in NYC, not a pleasant semi-back office in the suburbs, would have made me more visible. However, there were personal time issues I had concerns with. 

Some of my fears about time constraints probably wouldn't mattered as much as they could have. On the day of the interview I left the office at 6:15P and was walking in my door by 7:45P. This may sound lousy to most of the country, but is actually almost decent for those commuting from Manhattan. With evening activities keeping my wife and children out of the house until the 7 o'clock hour anyway many evenings, coming home close to 8PM is not as bad as it was when the children were younger and required more hands on dealings (and I will still be able to pick up the slack two evenings a week). Add in 20-30 minutes on the treadmill in the morning and evening and I could have made it work.

But, I still worried what this would mean for my family. My wife has finally admitted how much all the flexibility my current job allows me in taking care of the children, food shopping, taking care of the pets, doing laundry and, just in general, taking care of her in little ways, has helped her get through this. She has time to rest, though never enough, and time to go to the gym. Because I have time to cook, she always has a healthy meal waiting for her to be warmed up when she gets home from her evening gym classes (which she has time to take as I can drive the kids around in the evenings. Though my wife was able to leave work on time, get the kids from their aftercare programs at their schools and still make a family spin class at 5:30P at the Y, while I was in the NYC office until 6:15P, that was at the start of her paclitaxel, treatment and the wear on her body is cumulative. She might have had problems with that by mid-November when I would started in the new position. Still, these short term positives could be meaningless if my job is eliminated in a few years and my resume doesn't have a managerial position in it.

As to the person who got the position, I feel they made a good choice. The person is a friend of mine who had been working on this new initiative for about as long as I. His skills set was very similar and, when he told me he had applied, I thought that this was the one person who could beat me out. Still, the job may have almost been mine anyway. They low balled him on salary, which my company does, sticking to the typical raise they offer to promoted employees, before they upped their offer (they wanted to give a 10% raise calculated from his base pay, he successfully got them to include the OT with the base pay and up it from there -- which still would not be enough in my view).

However, there are some things money and a more exciting work life can't buy -- time to care for my family and time to take care of me. If I'd have been promoted I would have had to head to NJ Transit before the school bus came (unlike now where, even on non-telecommute days, I am home until the bus comes). For our youngest child, this would have meant going to a neighbor's before school or being enrolled in a before school child care program, for our older child, this would have meant being a latch key kid (he vetoed going to a neighbor's like a younger child). Whereas I can currently help my wife get the children fed and out the door, much more of this would have fallen back on her. As to me, I would have had give up a huge portion of my exercise time. I recently took off a large amount of weight through diet and exercise and wondered how having less time to exercise and cook properly would affect that. Now I still get to hit the gym at 6AM and be home in time to see the children off to school and let the healthy foods cook in the slow cooker while I work in the other room.  Things a job in Manhattan would have prevented.

So while I may not have won this day, the interviews made me realize that while I was on the fence about taking the position, I am ready move on to something more challenging closer to home, where I can have the best of both a challenging position and a home life. While the timing is not right now, I want something that will knock me out of my comfort zone for some time as I've discovered that I usually have the ability to get done what needs to get done. It is almost time to move onto the next stage.

Healing

I know that at least a few people are following this blog and as the last few posts have been about me and my issues, with a side trip to a recent news event, I thought I'd do a quick update on my wife. [Note: April 2013: If you have been reading this blog, you will notice many entries since July, where I wrote of how the chemotherapy was affecting my wife's moods for the worse. When I originally posted this in October, things were still rocky from her cancer treatments.Things are better now so I decided to delete, from public view, all that I wrote. Those posts were a big help to me and helped me reflect on what I needed to do to make me a better person. The chemo was rough but it did help us clear the air and start rebuilding, almost like a forest fire clears out the dead wood so a new forest can emerge. I still have a ways to go, but I am on my way. - DD]

If it was the breast cancer, then it probably helps that she is done with the worst of the chemo. The bi-monthly doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide  portion of her treatment, which is so toxic that there is a lifetime dosage limit is done. And while the weekly paclitaxel treatment is no walk in the park, it is much easier on her, though it does leave her more tired. It has also put her into menopause, which is a whole other story. But, while she didn't want me driving her to chemotherapy at the start because she wanted to be alone, she recently suggested that maybe I could (or should) start coming with her again (partially because she is more tired and finds it harder to drive home). The paclitaxel is leaving her much more exhausted, possibly because it is weekly (or they are giving her too much benadryl) and the cumulative affects are adding up. As it will continue through mid-December (little break around Thanksgiving), she is starting to realize her energy levels can't keep up (I do wonder how much this aging her -- good things she works out and eats healthy, I'd hate to see what this would do to someone who isn't staying as fit as possible).

For now I am just happy that we are in a healing period. Our daughter's broken arm continues to mend, she is even able to restart dance now that she is in a permanent cast, though no hand stands yet. The drugs in my wife's body continues to poison whatever microscopic cancer cells may still be hanging out. The celexa my doctor prescribed continues to heal my bio-chemical imbalance in my mind.

I had been saying that 2012 sucks due to all the bad things that happened this year -- our pet turtle dying, a leak in the slab under our wood floors, our daughter breaking her arm and, of course, my wife's diagnosis and lumpectomy for breast cancer. My wife disagrees, feeling 2011 was the bad year as that is when she started getting sick and that 2012 is the good year as this was the year she became a survivor. Good attitude and if we somehow manage to get through this with a marriage stronger than ever, I will agree. For now, while the verdict looks promising, the judge is still out.

Fat bully police

By now, most of us have seen or heard of Kenneth Krause, the "man" who wrote a letter to an obese news anchor to tell her she is obese, and her response. Many people have many opinions on this but to me it comes down to this: Mr. Krause is an insecure loser who needs to bring down others to feed his own ego. Why would he write such as condescending letter, practically imply that   being fat equals not knowing you are possibly living an unhealthy lifestyle and he, as a buff bike rider, knows better and is here to help?

Trust me, Ms. Livingston knew she was obese just as I know I am currently overweight. And here is a dirty little secret -- fat people usually are very well informed about what foods are good for you and what are bad. We know how to count calories, and tricks to eat more food for our calorie buck such as chicken and fish over red meat and filling up on salads and vegetables. We know what foods are healthy and what aren't. And yet, we're over weight. That is our problem, not a complete stranger's problem.

We've all run into people like Krause whether it is the "do-gooder" offering unsolicited parenting advice, a person offering unsolicited advice to a stranger on how he or she can "fix" their appearance or speech pattern, telling a very thin woman she needs to gain weight or in this case, telling a fat person they are fat -- all as if the target is an idiot who does not already know the obvious. It is my experience that those type of people aren't being helpful, they are acting in such a way to make the recipient feel bad while giving themselves an ego boost, even if they don't see it in themselves. 

I still remember the time my wife and I took our son to a street fair 11 years ago, when he was 1 (it was a few weeks after 9/11) and, we were still learning the ins and outs of being parents (which we still haven't mastered but are much better at) and were still very nervous of whether we were making mistakes. Unknowingly to my wife and I, he had grabbed a clam shell from somewhere and was chewing on it. As he was much lower than our sight-line in his stroller, we didn't notice, but he couldn't have been doing this long as we usually looked down to see if her was OK every few minutes.  Anyway, a woman came up us to point this out. Now if she had been sincere she might have said something like, "Your son is chewing on a clam shell" to alert us, for which we would have been grateful. Instead, she asked me if a baby chewing on a shell was OK. When I mumbled a yes, trying to save face as my wife went for the shell, she replied "Well I'm a dental assistant and I know it is not." Really?! So why did you ask me the question in the first place? To make me feel bad as a failing parent and ruin our afternoon as she succeeded in doing? It was only later, when I rethought about the afternoon and noticed she had a smug look on her face (probably the same reason I don't like Romney, but that is another issue), that I realized she was the one with the problem.

Those who are confident in themselves would never make such a comment to a complete stranger but, as Mr. Krause is showing, and that dental assistant showed us over a decade ago, sometimes those with insecurities of their own look to beat on somebody weaker to make themselves feel better (which is probably something most people have done at some point in their lives). Maybe that type of intimidation doesn't fall directly under the definition of bullying but you can not convince me that deep down his behavior was not meant to hurt his target, just as the dental assistant did not want to hurt me. Maybe Mr. Krause, a "working-stiff" security guard, was being honest when he said he never meant to bully "a big media personality" like Ms. Livingston. And maybe the Pope isn't Catholic. Sorry Mr. Krause, but as anyone who has been bullied in the past could tell you, you know bullying when you see it and I sure saw it in your obnoxious letter. As one of my former professors constantly reminded us, "[i]f it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it must be a duck," even if it says it is not and your assertions that you want to help are as believable as Mitt Romney saying he was wrong when he made his 47% comment (I am of the opinion a politician really speaks the truth when he or she thinks that the cameras are not on, I'm sure President Obama has said some equally poor things when the cameras were off).

I have been on and off fat or obese most of my life. Even in my worst, denial days I knew I was eating unhealthy. It takes a lot of work to eat healthy and find the time to exercise, something very hard when you have small children. I'm not making excuses, just stating a fact. After a 12 hour day of commuting/working and helping your children with school work, it is much easier to just plop in front of the TV at night, or hit the snooze alarm in the morning, then to hit the treadmill for 30 minutes. It is so much easier to nuke some convenience food than to cook from scratch, even if all that cooking takes place over the weekend to be rewarmed during the work week as we do now. Again, no excuses. I chose a career with little physical movement and long hours that prevented me from finding time to exercise. We also chose to have children, taking more time away from ourselves. And, as many parents know, once you have children in the house, especially small children, that left over chicken nugget at 9PM, after a full day of work and child care, can be awfully tempting when you are exhausted and hungry. Again not an excuse, but also not the concern of a complete stranger.

Two years ago my weight was starting to get out of control. I'm talking NJ Governor Chris Christie out of control, almost to the point of no return without a surgical procedure, when I finally said enough is enough. Since then both my wife and I have taken off about 70 pounds each, changing our diet to mostly vegetarian and increasing our exercise time to (as of now) about 10 hours a week. It has taken a long time, and a lot of work but we feel better, which is what we want. We also look better, but it was what was inside that we wanted to improve. Our philosophy on food and exercise has changed for better, probably somewhat similar to Mr. Krause. We even look at fat people eating unhealthy with a bit of disgust, not because of their looks but because we see ourselves from not that long ago and know how we were poisoning ourselves.  Still, while I am happy to tell people I don't know, such as fellow obese gym members who have seen my weight loss, who ask me how I lost the weight, I would never walk up to somebody I did not know and offer unsolicited advice. The fat people know they are fat. They will deal with it, or not deal with it, as they please.

Staying fit is almost a second job, especially when you age and find yourself sitting behind a desk, a steering wheel or a bleacher at a child's sporting event most of the day. You start to find you don't have the time or energy to exercise like you did and it is easy to pack on the pounds before you realize you need to lower your calorie intake due to less movement (when my mother was initially confined to a wheelchair she quickly discovered how many calories you burn each day by simply walking). The only times in the last 20 years when we were fit were the years when we lived in Brooklyn, a childless couple, with plenty of time to walk and talk -- our happiest days were our mornings where we took a 20 minute walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to catch the subway in lower Manhattan instead of our corner,  a brief period between babies back in the aughts when we discovered we had a little extra time during the work week and the last few years, where we find we have the time and energy to once again take care of ourselves. It helps that this coincided with me being able to work at home more often. I find it ironic that just as we started eating better, my metabolism began the inevitable post 40 slowdown and wife, got breast cancer. 

Speaking of my wife, she is 5'6 and about 125 pounds. I can feel her bones when I hug her. She generally eats healthy and exercises about two hours a day, partially to deal with the stress of chemotherapy and partially because the exercise makes her feel better. She has become quite muscular the last few months. Yet, thanks to two children, she will always have a little belly. Guess what Mr. Krause, this is normal. You better learn to accept this otherwise I feel bad for whatever woman you sucker into mating with you.

Oh, by the way, the ability to store fat and not burn it off as fast would have been considered a major asset not that long ago, when most humans were not sure where or when their next heavy meal was coming. Fuel economy isn't just for cars, evolution has made sure humans can live on as few calories as possible and hasn't caught up to cheap food at 24/7 supermarkets. Those who can burn weight off just by thinking about it may have been the ones mocked as weaklings as their bodies  shut down due to lack of fuel.