My First Mammogram!

I know that there will be the reader out there who is going to find this seriously offensive, so take warning.

I photographed my first mammogram! Because of the insurance we receive through Vince's work, I needed to drive to Soldotna for the procedure. It was a lovely drive in the snow and slush.

The Radiology Department got me right in and took care of business quickly. I'm not sure yet why this hospital seems so efficient. Could it be the lack of a union? Or are people from Soldotna just free of the burden of having the artist temperament which can be so intrusive and unproductive?This is the machine that presses the breast down and x-rays the tissue. Contrary to popular belief, it does not hurt and even if it were a bit uncomfortable it is not a long procedure. I know, everyone has different sensitivities. But after this experience, I am thinking that what people are most uncomfortable about is having some strange woman flinging their boobs around.

Yes, there were foreign hands manipulating my boobs. It's strange, but so important! Gosh, now that I am looking at this picture I wish I would have worn a bikini in Saipan...the halibut belly white flesh is blinding!Here is a picture of my boob. I've always had smallish, dense breasts. I think my boob looks good in the x-ray. Much better than it does in real time. I also think that squishing the boob makes it look bigger. Right there are two exceptional reasons to get in and have your annual exam!

They say that 30% of the people who go in for their first scan have to come back for a more thorough examination. I have a strong feeling I will be one of these people. I kind of hope I am because I like seeing my husband at his job. He looks so cute in his button down shirt. No, I am not manifesting a second exam just to check him out. My breasts are dense, like I said, and the images have each breast displaying a different amount of mass inside. This x-ray did a nice job of imaging the muscle behind the breast (edge of picture), but they are going to want to look more closely at that white area inside the breast. 30% chance. We will see.

Marina made Vince this candy lei because she "misses him so much and never gets to see him". He reluctantly made her this cute video. Following is a message from Vince to Marina while standing in the pharmacy at Central Peninsula Hospital.

Regular Tuesday with Irene

From the days when DeeJay used to let me take his picture

I don't know what has changed in my creative outlet, but I have not been able to remember to take a picture of ANYTHING lately. This is a bummer because there is a lot of coffee dates I could document.

Today,

7:35 am Suzanne's

Suzanne has hurt her back and we had a nice chat while she laid on the floor. Don't worry. She was able to get up.

10:30 am Paul G's

Great news about DeeJay. He is really doing well. Well for DeeJay. He is doing so well in fact that he has gotten his phone back and is not obsessed with it. Nice!

11:15am Irene's

So many things were discussed, it's hard to pinpoint. The most important thing though is that we made DeeJay candy Lei's for his birthday for Willie to drape over him at school on Thursday. Can you believe it? 18. Wow

2.00pm School

Pick up kids and drive them to

3:10pm Swimming

Had a great chat with S. about her sons IEP and how they told her that he has not gotten any service this year. She's going to be calling me tomorrow to tell me what she's going to do next. We seriously need to get IEP club up and running.

4:45 Johnny and Brandon are over riding snow machines. This activity without a snow machine capable adult around stresses me out, but since there was no amputations of anything today, I guess it's all alright.

Oh, it just goes on and on, but it is a good busy.

Tomorrow I'm off to Soldotna for my first Mammogram!

Saturday - Ball in the House

Some days I get to have exactly what I want. Today was one of those days.

Today, I got to have my entire family together for the entire day and evening.

DeeJay and Willie each got haircuts and it is very unusual and lucky that for each haircut we were able to walk right in and sit right down.

Yes, Vince had to work, but Marina and the boys went to the hospital to visit him and walked in the sun down to Mema's Shack while Falcom finished his "Friendship Walk." (This is the walk he gets to take when he has been misbehaving in the car and I kick him out and make him walk a way so that he can think about what happened. Instead of a punishment this usually turns into a happy time for him because people he knows talk to him, he plays around a bit, gets to explore and be his usual distracted self. I like to pretend that I am driving away, but I hide my car and watch him while he meanders along. This is a picture of Falcom on his march. Notice how shiny the snow has become. It looks like the entire world has become an ice rink, but when you put any weight on the snow it crunches beneath our feet. Spring is officially six weeks away!)

Mema asked us all to come to dinner after going to see the Pink Panther movie. Beware. The Pink Panther is not nearly as good as Slumdog.

Dinner was great. Fun to be sitting with my entire family. After we finished eating we seven raced over to the high school to watch a wonderful Acapella group, Ball in the House. They are fabulous and are not like the groups of a long time ago where they play ancient songs. These guys are fresh, original, and have a member who does the beat box in the background! The little kids loved it, we adults loved it, Willie and DeeJay loved it!

After the show, the had a mini-workshop for people who wanted to sing. This did not start until 10pm and they answered questions first. Falcom was sitting behind me and was passing out, "Mom, I'm really falling asleep..." but finally they invited people onstage to sing My Girl with them and here is a snippet of Falcom learning harmony with Ball in the House.

What is amazing to me is that for being so late at night, after such an active day, Falcom was able to actually sing something being totally exhausted at 10.30 pm and not even knowing this song before this night. The men from Ball in the House had high praise for Falcom. It was worth staying up for, for sure!

Our Week

Monday

We started the week with after school skiing and a play date with our friend Madison.

After skiing, we came back to the house and enjoyed a tea party with the Cinderella Cake that the kids won at the Talent Show and Pie Auction. It was fun to have a neighborhood friend come by for some wild "Greear Family" style fun. This is Madison's little brother Lucas. As you can see from this shot he fits right in around here.

Tuesday

Madison's mom is the swim coach for the little kids swim team and she suggested Marina join the team. Thinking it would be nice for her to have something to do that is solely her own, Vince and I encouraged her to begin practicing with the team. She is very Marina-ish about her wanting to keep doing it, "I think that was fine for today, but I don't want to go back."

Yea, whatever.

I took this picture because I have other pictures of her in this locker at other sizes. She'll be unable to fit by the end of the summer, I'm quite sure.

WEDNESDAY

I took a picture of this dragon head when I was at the school picking up Falcom and Marina from after school skating. It is a work of art by Lynn Naden that is hanging in the entrance of McNeil Canyon School. It is fabulous made of paper. I love it!

It also captures my current mood. Yes, I've been dreaming of sailing.

THURSDAY

After a whirlwind of activities through out the day, including every errand I could possibly run in town: veggie box delivering, lobbying, dental appointment verifying, taking Willie for a haircut as Marina was swimming (imagine, she went back!), and shopping, we had a dinner with M.J. and her beautiful sidekick Iris. Suzanne was also able to make it.

We had local style dinner, Fina dent chicken, fried rice, shrimp chips, fried chicken with curry gravy, white rice, and Mayghen brought a moose and broccoli quiche. Suzanne brought an overly delicious cake. Yum!

It is quite a compliment to hear that Iris loves our house. She loves all the kids and all the action. She climbed right up into Falcom's lap to share his dinner and then climbed right up into Marina's lap and shared her dinner. So cute. She played a lot with Willie and it was a great time.

My inner dragon only flared up once when Suzanne informed me of what the Russian words that the kids are teaching Falcom at school truly mean. She was horrified and said that the kids in the village are not allowed to say those things. No, it's not as simple as shut up. I went to bed imagining I was rubbing my magic lamp and asking my Jeannie to get me a sailboat.

FRIDAY

Vince is home! We took the kid. to town so that Falcom could take a vocal lesson from the group "Ball in the House" but the lesson got cancelled when the group got stuck in Seldovia because of bad weather (high wind). The sun was shining and it was beautiful out, but that high wind made the windchill like -55 degrees and so we passed the time doing errands and enjoying being together.

Marina and Falcom also enjoyed our local library with their dad who read books to them. I read an article in the National Review called, "The Best Conservative Movies of All Time". As I read the review of Ground Hog Day I couldn't help but think, "So Conservatives are the only people who want to have high moral standards and strive for the values that endure? Isn't all that selflessness that Bill Murry finds great reward in something that the 'liberals' are also working for?"

The kids had Yurt time with Jeanne from three to five and while they were there Vince and I went to the beach to have coffee together. Being a fan of trucks with bench seats, I fell asleep in the sun while Vince was holding me. Where is the paparazzi to take a picture of that wonderful scene so that I could have it to remember always? Gosh I love that guy!

That evening he and I went to see 'Slumdog Millionaire'. Wow! It deserved every Oscar it won. Heavy, deep, wonderful, amazing. Hard to watch, but since we have traveled and have friends that travel, all these hard heavy scenes that the movie reveals were things that I already knew existed in the world and so I closed my eyes from time to time, but I did not have to endure the heartache that comes with the new discovery of suffering in the world.

From the second scene in the movie Vince and I knew that those boys in the movie could have been played by DeeJay and Willie. From the hair to the temperament, those boys could have been our boys.

I wonder if the National Review considers Slumdog Millionaire another vehicle for the liberals of Hollywood to propel their government regulation loving and intuitionist policies agenda into our consciousness or if they would see it as a moralistic tale of two brothers ...a Cane and Able of sorts... whose fate compels us to examine our own values as conservatives? Hum...

Pictures from the Weekend

Scenes from the Spit

Saturday Falcom and I took Mema to the movies. We saw Hotel for Dogs. It was an emotional roller coaster for the audience at the matinee. I knew something was up when Falcom had stopped eating popcorn. I looked over and tears were streaming down his face. In an unscientific study after the show I found that 5 out of 6 kids aged 11 and under cried during the movie. Oh, yea, and also one 60 something grandma named Priscilla was in tears... whew!!

Afterwords, I decided it was a perfect evening to drive out to the spit and have dinner with two of my favorite people, Mema and Falcom.

Falcom was wondering if there were people actually buried under the Seafarers Memorial. The answer is no, it's just a place we like to visit to place our love, saddness and worries from the sea.

Marina trying on Falcom's false eyelashes with DeeJay in the background. He is at that camera shy age and so I have to be very sneaky!

Marina looked so Alaskan Glamorous, with her snow machine gear and sparkle false eyelashes. What an Alaskan Girl!

Vince and Marina had a Daddy/Daughter overnight to the cabin Saturday night. Marina is an excellent rider. Her coordination really shows on the trail. They had a great time together.

I took my first foray into making a curry 'local style'.

I know what you are thinking...and yes, this is a colorful hot dog curry with rainbow chard, red peppers, carrots, and broccoli. Remember this when you want to eat hot dogs but the idea of a bun and a plate of chips just won't cut it. It was good...for not being shrimp

Wonder how long until Costco will steal my idea and start making this at it's deli...

Falcom spent the night at Mema's where they watched movies, built a new fairy house (spring is on the way you know), knocked down icicles, laughed and talked. This relationship is like magic! Can you believe that Falcom self staged this shot? He is really funny.

Valda, if you are reading this from Africa, you will be pleased to hear that the frogs have a new home. They do about the same things that they did before; float around, eat, float around, but the added space does seem to make them look like they are growing.

For those readers who aren't familiar with the story of the frogs, about 10 months ago we ordered frog eggs as a science experiment because finding frogs around here is really tricky. The instructions in the kit read, "If one egg reaches adulthood you will be lucky." Can you guess how many of these little suckers made it? That's right...At least they don't smell like turtle.

Stage Mom Season Begins!

We survived the first round in our three month theater season: the McNeil Canyon School talent show and pie auction!

For those of you who may not realize this, there is a member of my family who is very theatrical and who really needs opportunities to perform. Can you guess which of my children this might be? Irene has a very long and intense hockey season, and we have often discussed which is a more challenging occupation. Irene thinks stage mom-ing is more intense. I have dismissed her often thinking that stage mom-ing is intense, but it is quick...boom/boom...in and out. Whereas hockey is like...Anchorage this weekend, -15 on an outdoor rink next weekend, um, the parents...

I have decided that both are intense but in different ways. The parents are challenging in both arenas, but the challenging parents at hockey are 'in your face' aggressive challenges, whereas the theater parents are passive aggressive behind your back challenges. What I think is funny is how spirit has seen fit to give Irene and I both the opportunity to grow through these experiences. I am much better suited to the aggressive challenges and so this passive-aggressive stuff is very difficult for me. For Irene it is visa versa. Very interesting.

And of course, our kids are good at what they do and so not participating is not an option.

I have been involved preparing for this show by helping coach the kids and help them with their staging. This was not a group of children with stage fright. They all really seemed to be confident and to know exactly what they wanted to do. Their enthusiasm was terrific and their support of each other was surprising. There was no back biting or up staging or anything. It was wonderful to work with them.

If you were one of the fortunate (or not) people who got to read my flaming blog yesterday about my personal frustrations as an educator....um...sorry? Sorry-ish? After the show I decided that the rant of my frustrations, although real and authentic, was inappropriate to post for the world.

If you read that post, I hope that what you take from it is that for gay, lesbian, trans people in the world, most of their experience in their early life is tainted by peoples misguided judgements and assumptions. And how I can only imagine how people who have to deal with it day after day after day must get so beat down, having to fight for their self esteem day after day. Please remember, if God did not want us to see a colorful world, the Alpha and the Omega would not have put cones in our retinas. The world is colorful...embrace it!

It was a full house. The kids were excited and wonderful. They knew their numbers and no one had any major missteps, well, everyone but Mema, who, bless her heart, should not have been put in charge of the camera. I will say that choosing her as the cinematographer was a better choice for me than the choice I made in choosing DeeJay last year as the cinematographer at Jubilee.

Falcom took the stage and was a little stiff at first, but I think that even with a small cold his vocals were true and I was so proud of him! He did not wear a dress. He did try to put on some sparkle fake eyelashes and clip on ear rings, but they were way to distracting for him to try to wear at the last minute. The only "Wild Child" thing he had on was his high boots, and believe me, as his mother, I have to say that those are NOTHING! Everyone had very genuine compliments for him after his performance. I think the coolest part is the kids who are his classmates who have never seen him in action who then came and told him that they loved his singing. It is so cool to build bridges.

While I was behind the screen staging the kids and organizing them, Marina was in desperate need of attention. I could not give her any of the attention she needed and she was acting out like she was this deprived orphan on the streets of Mexico City looking for a peso. I don't know where her aunties or Mema's were, but they were not enough attention for her! It did not take long for me to loose my temper and tell her that she needed to get lost.

At intermission I found that after she slinked off from the show she had gone out into the pie auction hallway and bid on plenty of pies and cakes! Behold also that she is not cheap! Her starting bids were all $10.00! Falcom also took liberty to bid on cakes that he found interesting. Having a math learning disability does not help a mothers sense of calm as I was having to go about putting decimal points into all of his bids or we would have been paying $1000 for each cake that he had written his name on! I spent the entire intermission checking each bid on each cake and pie to make sure that we were not bidding thousands of dollars for pies.

In the end we only won 3 cakes and we were great fodder for Mr. Swanson's Pie Auction jokes.

Below is the video of Falcom's performance. Andrea will be giving me a better copy of the video in the next week or so which I will upload onto YouTube. Until then, enjoy...

Cabin Weekend

We escaped together this weekend to the cabin. No phone, no electronics, no interruptions. Not only was I looking forward to a restful weekend with my family, I was poised for a perfect nights sleep.

The big boys fell asleep at 7.30. Little kids passed out at 8. As I was tucking them in Falcom said, "I'm not feeling well." So I put him downstairs on the couch next to me. Sure enough he was up all night vomiting. I was up all night with him while he was vomiting.

What is it with that cabin and me being sleepless?

The next day was all fun in the sun. Vince let the kids surf behind the snow machine. Willie and DeeJay took off on their own and managed somehow to find their way back home. I played a lot of Sudoku. It was a very nice time.

Mema and Suzanne then came over for a lamb roast and we went to Valda's where we watched the Oscars after witnessing this amazing sunset. What made this one more fantastic than most is the way Cape Douglas is jutting out of the ocean. We usually do not get such a perfect view of it's peaks and valleys. Of course, the camera does not do it justice, but I tried.

Thank you Valda for letting us crash your house while you are in Africa!