Well, I have a sad update on the cat laryngitis. When we looked up cat laryngitis online, it said it’s nothing to be concerned about—but that if you notice the cat panting, or breathing through its mouth, a vet visit is warranted. And the cat breathed through his mouth a couple of times, and so I called the vet, feeling like a Right Fool who was about to pay $500 to find out her cat had a cold. But instead it seems to be lung cancer.

This does not mean you should panic if your cat temporarily loses its meow! And in fact, the one thing bothering the vet is that the Area of Concern on the x-ray is not in an area that explains the cat laryngitis. She says the most likely explanation by far is that there is an additional Area of Concern in/near his larynx, and that it just didn’t show up on the x-ray, as many such things do not; but she says there is a Slim Hope that this could instead be a lung parasite, which WOULD account for the Area of Concern AND the laryngitis. So she has given him a course of anti-parasite medicine Just To Make Sure before we start having Hard Discussions. But her entire manner told me she thinks this will not work and that we will be having the Hard Discussion.

One of the things I love about this vet is how easy she makes those hard discussions. She always acts as if she would be 100% Here For It if I were to tell her I wanted to do everything in our expensive power to save the cat—but she also acts as if she personally thinks it makes absolute sense to instead choose NOT to do those things.

I am sad, of course: he’s a good cat; and he’s Elizabeth’s baby, and so I also feel sad for her. But—this is a 12-14-year-old cat with Cat IBD; and one of his kidneys shut down for no apparent reason; and he had kidney stone surgery recently, and the lab analysis of the stones shows they are the kind that will almost certainly recur and can’t really be prevented. The wheels are coming off this cat, is what I’m saying. And although I was willing to pay for the original kidney-stone surgery, and also pay for the expensive food just in case it DID work and he never needed more surgeries, my feeling was that with Elizabeth leaving for college in a year…and a cat who is not happy when Elizabeth is not home…well, perhaps we could consider the cat to be in his Final Year. And if the stones didn’t recur, well, lovely! We’d be happy to continue having him with us! But…if they DID recur…well, I mean, the timing seemed about right. Lung cancer may change the timing, but not by MUCH.

I wish I had asked the vet what kind of timeframe we were looking at. She mentioned that we can keep him comfortable for awhile / until it’s Time by switching from the IBD Dose of his steroid to the Cancer Dose, but I don’t know if we’re talking about weeks? months? It seems like if he DOES have something in/near his larynx, and it is already messing with his breathing, that it won’t be very long before there are Quality of Life issues. Well, we are giving him lots of skritches and cuddles, and we are taking lots of photos.

Hello! Do we have any BOURBON aficionados in our midst? (I had THREE spelling errors in my first attempt at spelling the word “aficionado” AND had to look up the definition to make sure I was using it right. I was using it right: it means KNOWLEDGEABLE AND ENTHUSIASTIC about something.)

My brother had a fun idea for his birthday this year—oh, but first I should tell you that we are a WISH LIST family. I think that’s important to know, since otherwise you might be thinking, “Wait, your brother is TELLING YOU what to give him for his birthday??”—and no, he would never, this is an idea on his wish list, and wish lists are only for family members who WANT to use wish lists: that is, there is no feeling that anyone MUST or SHOULD choose from the wish list, and plenty of feeling that it is EVEN BETTER to go off-list; but SOME members of our extended family (NOT ME, it may surprise you to learn) are TOO ANXIOUS to buy anything that isn’t explicitly listed and linked to. Plus, most of us find wish lists fun, and a good way to get an idea of what SORTS of things the person might be interested in this year: some years someone might have a lot of novelty t-shirts and jewelry; other years they might have a bunch of books and mugs and treats; other years they might have mostly postcards and Etsy art. (Those are all me.)

Back to where I was. My brother had a fun idea for his birthday this year, because his wish list is very sparse right now, and he knows this will lead to some hand-wringing. He suggested that, since bourbon is perpetually on his list and he loves to try new kinds, anyone who wanted a wish list idea should choose a bottle of bourbon and then he’d have a bouquet of birthday bourbons to try, which he would find very fun.

I am NOT a bourbon aficionado (one misspelling this time, and that was WHILE LOOKING AT THE CORRECT SPELLING), but I AM an aficionado of OTHER things, so I know how sometimes an aficionado can look at someone’s likes/dislikes in their aficionado category and immediately get excited and start making suggestions. So I am hoping some of you are bourbon aficionados or perhaps you have a sibling/spouse/friend/co-worker who is a bourbon aficionado, and that you/they would find it fun to look at my brother’s list/chart and make some suggestions:

I could, of course, just buy a bottle from Old Favorites, or from Liked and Want More (ignore Looking For: it’s a standing category that happens to be empty this year), but it would be more fun to buy something he hasn’t tried yet, so what I am hoping is that someone is looking at that list right now and saying “OOOOOoooooo you know what I think he’d like??” and then going to the comments section to answer their own question.

Ignore PRICE: not only am I INTERESTED in hearing even about bourbons outside whatever my price range might be, but also there are other people buying gifts for my brother who might have different price ranges, and also-also I might want to buy a more expensive bourbon for a milestone birthday later on.

Oh, and I am familiar with the idea of a gift box / advent calendar of small bottles of various bourbons, but he’s had that gift at least once, and I think at least twice, so I am less inclined to go that route unless you are thinking “Well okay but THIS PARTICULAR GIFT BOX is especially great!”

I have taken the twins on some college visits! We went on an overnight trip and saw three colleges, though one of them was a self-guided tour because we couldn’t find a regular tour that worked with our schedule. We all felt that the self-guided tour was almost useless. We had THOUGHT that a self-guided tour, where we walk around and read little paragraphs the Admissions office has composed, would be as good as a tour led by a perky student the Admissions office has hired to say things the Admissions office has composed, but for some reason it absolutely was not. We came away with almost no impression of the college at all. Well, now we know not to bother with self-guided tours—and we can go back another time for a regular tour.

I think the biggest accomplishment was just DOING ANY TOURS AT ALL. It is so hard to get started! With each kid after the first one, I resolved to get started on tours EARLIER—like, spring of junior year. Yet each time, here I am in late summer, barely begun. And very soon it will be fall of their senior year, and they will be too busy to take days off for college visits! I wring the hands.

Part of the issue is that Paul usually does quite a few of the college tours (he has most Fridays off during the summer, so that’s when he took Rob/William on tours), but he has been significantly affected by his kidney-stone issues for over a month now. Which reminds me to update you: he has had his second kidney-stone surgery, which went SO MUCH BETTER than the first one. Just for starters, this time we knew what to expect from the whole process, so this time his blood pressure at the hospital was at reasonable “nervous about impending medical procedure / feel uncomfortable in hospital smock and leg-squeezing things” levels rather than “so um do you take anything for high blood pressure? are you feeling okay right now? let’s just leave that cuff on and try again in a few minutes, okay?” levels. Also, the first procedure removed the stone that was hurting him, so this time he went into it well-rested, well-fed, etc. And finally: THIS time he didn’t come out of anesthesia to hear that it was NOT all over and there would have to be ANOTHER SURGERY. That was not good for morale.

Another medical update: the cat with kidney issues has lost his meow. We looked it up online and found that cats can and do get Cat Laryngitis. Let’s see if I can post this little video of me asking the cat in my Talking To Cats voice if he has cat laryngitis:

Oh! and I wanted to ask you about your favorite things to bake for bake sales. Henry’s theater group is going to have a concession stand at each performance, and they’d like contributions from the families. I’m curious to know what you personally like to make for bake sales, but I am also hugely hoping that we have in our midst people who have volunteered at bake-sale tables and KNOW WHAT SELLS WELL. I am also planning to donate some pre-packaged manufactured items (snack-packs of Oreos, snack-size bags of chips, that kind of thing), since I know it can be difficult/impossible for people with food allergies to buy things from bake sales.

One important thing to know is that the concessions stand will be OUTDOORS in SUMMER HEAT, so I don’t want to make anything TOO MELTY. I’m going to go right ahead and make things with chocolate chips in them; but for example I have a recipe for yummy bars that have a thick layer of chocolate/butterscotch on top, and those would just be a MESS, so I will not make those.

Things to discuss when we have the time and energy:

1. Postcards to Voters. Is it a great way to manage those evenings when one’s mental health is not what it should be? (I recently managed a very bad brain day by alternating doom-scrolling and postcard-writing.) Or is it a giant waste of time and money, and a way to FEEL like one is Doing Something when one is Not?

2. Follow-up biopsy feelings. I still have a bruise, and in fact it’s a little larger now. I also still have irritation from the adhesive. It’s been nine days.

3. Follow-up cat kidney issues. The vet got back to us and said that the kidney stone analysis shows they are the kind that can’t really be prevented, so Repeat Issues are very likely. The STARTING recommendations (prescription food, regular x-rays, regular urinalysis) are $$$ per year; each surgery is several thousand dollars; I don’t know yet if there are procedures between prevention and surgery, or what they cost. At what financial point does a person decide that a 12-year-old pet should not be…er, sustained? What if that particular cat’s Support Person is leaving for college in a year and we were all already kind of worried about how he would survive that, considering how weird and clingy and yowly he was when she went to camp for two weeks? Well. Prescription cat food for thought.

4. Follow-up Paul kidney issues. He has a second procedure a week from now. Maybe let’s wait for the follow-up until after that.

5. I have been panicking. I wish to re-tell you the story about the time I was seeing a psychiatrist, and I was explaining in a fraught, breacking voice the weird side effects I was having from a medication (for example, seeing pedestrians and feeling certain that Something Bad was going to happen to them) and she listened carefully, and then said in a very calm, almost bored, diagnostic tone, “Panic.” She wrote it down. She prescribed some short-term medication. I have been once again having a rather extended session of panicky feelings. Also: I got together with friends, and it seemed to snap the panic streak. I recommend having friends, if that’s an option where you are.

6. Henry has been doing a summer youth theater thing, and I am so happy he is Finding His People/Interests and so forth, but also I am so exhausted by this. The transportation alone!! IT CONSUMES MY LIFE. And it is nowhere NEAR what parents manage for a kid in sports!! This reminds me of high school and college, where we as students would complain that every teacher/professor acted as if their class was your ONLY CLASS. Every kid activity acts like it thinks they are the ONLY ACTIVITY for your ONLY KID.

7. Henry has a rash spreading over his face/torso/arms/legs. Trying to get this looked at has been such a surprising hassle. Our (Catholic) pediatric clinic has switched to a (Catholic) health management system that has RUINED EVERYTHING. It used to be that if one of the kids was sick I would call the pediatrician phone number, and I would say “Oh, good morning, may I please speak to a nurse?,” and then I would tell the nurse what was going on, and either they would make me an appointment or else they would tell me what to do instead. NOW, I call an automated phone tree, which gradually allows me to select the numbers that indicate I wish to make a Sick Child appointment for an Established Patient—but then I talk to the same receptionist who answers allllll the calls ANYway, and she LEAVES A MESSAGE for the nurse, who calls me back HOURS LATER, and if I can’t answer the phone at that moment (driving; at an appointment with another child; in the bathroom; at work) they leave a message and I have to call back and LEAVE ANOTHER MESSAGE and WAIT MORE HOURS. HOW IS THIS BETTER. Anyway, the nurse told me it sounded fine and he didn’t need to be seen, and to give him benadryl and use hydrocortisone cream. And the rash continued to spread over the next couple of days, so I had to call back and do the entire system again, and the second nurse was quite alarmed that the rash was also on his face (“It’s not on his FACE or anything, right?,” she asked, despite me having told the first nurse that it was on his face and around his eyes); and eventually I got an appointment for him for this morning, and the doctor thinks it’s a result of contact with some kind of poisonous plant—BUT HERE IS THE THING: HE HAS NOT ENCOUNTERED ANY PLANTS. So. I mean. I will give him the steroid. And maybe it will work! But why did NEITHER the nurses NOR the doctor think my REPEATED “No, he has not been in nature” answer was relevant for the diagnosis of “contact with poisonous plant”???

8. One reason I emphasize “(Catholic)” in the previous item is that the medical center itself is emphasizing it. I used to give NO THOUGHT AT ALL to the “St.” part of the medical center’s name. But now there is a new, large poster in the pediatric waiting room, explaining that this is a CATHOLIC medical center, and as such they must HONOR their CORE VALUES above ALL ELSE. Isn’t that ominous, in the current climate? My loose plan is to MOVE US ELSEWHERE. Religious institutions can KEEP IT.

9. Some summers feel kind of languid, with lots of time for fun—or possibly I am misremembering, and they ALWAYS feel as if they OUGHT to feel languid with lots of time for fun, but ACTUALLY they are SO BUSY and we have NO TIME FOR ANYTHING? In any case, this is a summer when we have not even had time to discuss what we want to do this summer—and now it is almost August.

10. Rob got a job in Seattle! It is…fully remote. I am concerned he is going to LOSE HIS MIND if he is living AND working in a one-room studio apartment in an expensive big city where he has NO NEED TO LIVE for a fully-remote job. But he is a grown-up and this is up to him to figure out.

11. Next week I am taking the twins on a two-day road trip to visit a couple of colleges, including the one Rob went to. I am REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS. Hotel room! (I got one for the twins, and another for just me.) Car snacks! A couple of days away from home!

As you will likely remember but let’s have a link anyway, I don’t want to act like I assume you are hanging on my every word, I was scheduled for a biopsy today to investigate some microcalcifications. I loved the radiologist, who explained excitedly to me that the biopsy involved using TRIGONOMETRY. I have such a crush on women in STEM who love their jobs (I am similarly smitten with our oral surgeon, who wears a headlamp at all times); I hung on her every word, even though I myself would not remember how to use trigonometry even if you dangled me off the side of a cliff and threatened to let go unless I could find a cosine. (I got an A in Trigonometry in high school, but it is because I am very good at test-taking and at figuring out which problems to plug into which formulas, and not because I ever remotely understood what I was doing.)

Where was I? Oh, yes: so today was the day of the biopsy. I was a little nervous. The instructions said I could wear deodorant if I wanted to, which was nice. I was not supposed to take any blood-thinners of any kind (including ibuprofen) for 72 hours beforehand. It was suggested that I have a meal before the appointment, to avoid getting faint/shaky. I did not like the sound of “getting faint/shaky.”

As with a mammogram, I was instructed to undress down to the waist and put on the hospital smock “like a bathrobe” (opening in front). Unlike during a mammogram, I had to climb up onto a high table (as in, I had a two-step stepstool to help me, and I used both steps). The table had a hole in the middle of it. I am always anxious about positioning myself on tables for medical purposes (I feel clumsy, and when I’m nervous it’s harder to understand/follow the instructions), and I would say this particular positioning was one I was glad to have had a chance to gear up for (the radiologist gave me an overview when she was telling me I needed a biopsy). I talked myself through it by telling myself that I am HARDLY the only person who does not have experience in how to correctly lie down on a breast biopsy table, and that I am DEFINITELY NOT the only person who needs to be adjusted after the first attempt.

Anyway. The basic idea is this: one lies down on the table on one’s stomach so that The Breast in Question is down through the hole in the table, but the Breast Not in Question as well as The Ribcage Below the Breast in Question are well-supported by the surrounding table, so you don’t feel as if you will fall through. They give you a couple of thin soft pads to position under your head as you prefer; I found it most comfy to use both pads and also put my hand under the pads for a little extra lift—but this is how I sleep, with a hand under my pillow, so maybe that’s just what felt Right to me, and not what would feel Right to others. In my case, The Breast in Question was the left one, so I was supposed to turn my head to my right, and it was my right arm that was up under my head; I wanted my left arm up like that too, in a sort of Sunbather’s Pose, but they did not let me do that: my left arm had to be down by my side, palm up. It felt okay once I got used to it, but still a little awkward.

The most difficult part is RELAXING. You don’t have to hold yourself up! You are lying down, and well-supported! But it FELT like I had to hold myself up. I kept having to remind myself that I could just lie there and rest and be as comfy as possible, considering the circumstances.

Both the radiologist and the nurse were good about telling me what was going to happen next. It feels pretty weird, because you are lying there on your stomach and someone is messing with your boob FROM BELOW. It is hard to wrap one’s mind around it. And one ear is squashed, which makes it a little hard to hear, or makes it feel like it’s a little hard to hear.

There is a sort of mini mammogram machine underneath the table, so they arrange the breast into that, and then the machine squeezes—not as hard as during a mammogram, just a sort of firm grasp. The machine does imaging to make sure the breast is positioned correctly; they had to ungrasp and regrasp a few times to get things right.

I am hoping I am remembering to mention all the steps. They raised the table at some point, even higher than when I had to use a two-step stepstool to climb up onto it. It’s so the radiologist can sit UNDER the table to do the biopsy. This table-raising might have happened before the grasping/ungrasping/regrasping. (By the way: the radiologist mentioned that for people who CANNOT climb up onto the table or who would PREFER NOT TO, this procedure CAN be done with the patient seated. She said but most patients find it easier not to have to hold still in an upright position, and not to have to see the radiologist RIGHT THERE, and WITH THE NEEDLE, and so forth.)

Then the radiologist warned me she was going to clean the area, and there was a cold wet wiping sensation. Then she said she was going to do the numbing medication, and that there would be a pinch, and that I should NOT “rise up” but should instead “wiggle my feet.” Feet-wiggling was so distracting, I almost don’t remember how much the pinch hurt, but my memory is that it was less than a vaccination, but in that general range of pain: a little stab, but nothing that made me want to jump or gasp. Then she said she was going to do a second dose of numbing medication, but that I would probably feel it less than the first one, and that was correct: I still did feel something, but not much. A mosquito bite, a tiny sting.

Then the procedure itself began, and she warned me that the machine was going to make funny noises, and it did; I suggested it was the sound of trigonometry being done, because I was trying to impress her, but she said “What?” and then I had to repeat it. The noises were like…low-volume vacuuming noises, intermittent machine-running noises, cycling motor noises, that kind of thing. Nothing gross or scary, but I was glad she mentioned them. I could not FEEL much while this was happening. Sometimes I thought I felt Something, but nothing upsetting or painful—just, I could feel something happening in the breast region. At one point I felt a burning sensation inside the breast, but not painful, if that makes sense combined with the word “burning”: you know how if you take a perfectly-too-hot sip of tea/coffee/cocoa, there is a “burning” feeling in your throat but not ACTUALLY burning the way there is when you burn your tongue and you hate it? or if you get in a slightly-too-hot shower when you are chilly, it is a “burning” feeling but you are not actually yelping and turning it down? It was like that kind of burning: definitely I would use the word “burning,” but it did not hurt-hurt, it just caught my notice, like “Oh there is a burning sensation.”

Then it was done, and I don’t think this doctor and nurse had worked together much in the past, because there was a little bit of a dance about getting me out of the machine / up off the table. I am not certain, but I think the issue was that someone needed to apply pressure to the biopsy area the entire time I was (1) being extricated (i.e., as the mammogram machine was releasing its grip) and (2) extricating myself (i.e., as I was moving from lying on my stomach to sitting up), but there were not enough hands to do all the things, or rather not a coordinated/understood allocation of hands; and there was some concern that I would be pinched by part of the machine, but I was not. Anyway, it was managed: I was sitting up on the table, and the nurse was “applying compression”—that is, squeezing my breast hard between her hands, with a wad of gauze over the biopsy site. It’s not an everyday sort of thing to have happen, but she was so normal about it and that helped.

She had to keep squeezing for Quite Some Time. Five minutes? Something like that, possibly longer. Periodically she would peek under the gauze to check the bleeding. I don’t mind blood, so I looked too. There was more blood than I was expecting. When they said “needle biopsy,” I was picturing a needle like a vaccination needle, where sometimes there is a teensy little pinprick dot of blood. In this case I estimate there was half a teaspoon of blood involved total (and that’s only counting the times AFTER I was able to start looking); and the first two times she checked it, there was a sudden welling of blood about the diameter of a pea, maybe a little smaller. The diameter of a petite pea. It made me grateful I did not know beforehand (or afterhand) how big a biopsy needle is.

When the bleeding had mostly stopped, the radiologist applied two pieces of tape, and there was a word for the kind of tape but I have forgotten it. Steri-strips? Steri-tape? Something like that. [Update: I see the paperwork says “steristrips.”] She put them in an X shape over the area. The nurse then took me to have a “gentle” mammogram to make sure the little piece of titanium they put in there was in the right spot. (The radiologist called the titanium “internal breast bling,” and I could not love her more.) It was like a regular mammogram but much less squeezy, and they said the little piece of titanium was where it should be. (If it had NOT been where it should have been, there was no way to adjust it, but they would have noted the situation in my record to avoid confusion later on.)

The breast/skin area around the needle site looked a little deflated to me, but maybe I was imagining it. (I don’t think I’m imagining it. It looks a tiny bit caved in. Puckered.)

The nurse gave me a little (pink, everything breast-related is always pink) ice pack to put in my bra. It felt soothing and nice, but also it was a very hot day so I think it would have felt soothing/nice regardless. I may put ice packs in my bra every summer going forward. (The ice pack had adhesive to hold it in place, and I often get pink/itchy from adhesive, and it didn’t NEED adhesive because it could be tucked into the bra, and I DID get pink/itchy from the adhesive—so if there is a next time, next time I would ask them to skip the adhesive.

She asked me to rate the pain of the procedure on a scale of 1 to 10. I HAAAAATE those scales, and can’t believe how unscientific/subjective they are: dramatic people will say 10, it’s 10, MY SUFFERING IS ALWAYS A 10!! MAYBE A 12!! Careful anxious hand-wringing overthinkers will say “Well, 10 is supposed to be the worst pain I can possibly imagine, and I can imagine some really terrible pain like if I were shot multiple times or if I were being chewed on by an alligator or maybe I mean crocodile or maybe a shark would be worse, so I guess this excruciating, about-to-pass-out pain is probably a 4 or 5 compared to THAT.” Anyway, I told her the pain of the procedure was less than 1, about 1/2, and I feel good and non-hand-wringing about that assessment. Mayyyybe it was 1 at the worst, but I don’t think so. I think it was 1/2. Maybe less.

On the way home from the hospital, the numbing stuff started to wear off. I don’t know if everyone is like this, but when I get novocaine at the dentist office, as it wears off I get a fair amount of pain that seems to be THE PAIN OF THE NOVOCAINE DEPARTING, rather than THE PAIN THE NOVOCAINE WAS CLOAKING, if you see what I mean. That is, once the novocaine has fully worn off, I am not feeling that pain; it’s more like when a limb falls asleep and is waking up again, and you feel pain as it wakes up, but not after it is awakened. It’s one of the reasons I dread novocaine. Anyway it was like that: I felt an ache like novocaine wearing off. It was not VERY painful, but it was enough to make me want to stick my lower lip out and make a small self-pitying whining sound but not a SERIOUS one. I listened to soothing classical music, which I rarely do, but neither NPR nor my usual pop stations seemed right for the situation.

The ice-pack was small, and by the time I arrived home about 40 minutes later it was not cold. They’d mentioned it was reusable—but what to do while it is re-chilling? I am definitely saving it in case I ever have to have this done again, so that I can have one ice-pack in the bra and the other recharging. [Update: I put some frozen corn into a snack-sized ziplock baggie and tucked that into my bra, and swapped it with another snack-sized ziplock baggie of frozen corn each time it got uncold, and it was as good as or better than the ice pack they gave me, so I will just do that instead of indefinitely saving a used breast-care-center ice pack Just In Case.] I put the single ice-pack I had into the freezer, and I would say the sensation at the site of the biopsy could best be described as “stinging/aching.” Again, not terrible, not VERY painful—but stinging/aching. Putting the ice-pack back on awhile later was pleasant. The whole area feels Kind Of Sore—not agonizing, and I’m not flinching much if I accidentally touch/bump it, but I’m aware of it and it’s uncomfortable, and I am enjoying the cold of each fresh ice-pack.

There was a little bit of blood on my bra. They instructed me to wear a bra to the appointment, but I’d add that you should wear one you don’t mind getting a little bit of blood on. OLD bra. Old COMFY bra. They said I might want to wear the bra to bed tonight, to snug the owie part in and keep it from getting unexpectedly jostled. And I might. But I am someone who does not mind my bra, as opposed to someone who can’t wait to take it off each day, so your experience may vary.

I’m allowed to shower/bathe normally, but I am supposed to avoid washing the area of the biopsy, and I’m supposed to gently pat the area dry afterward. I am supposed to leave the special medical tape on until it falls off, or for four days, whichever comes first. (They said it will probably fall off after three days.) I am supposed to let them know if the area of the biopsy becomes hot/pink (infection). There is apparently a small chance of internal bleeding, which would leave a big swollen bruise but would be fine, and it would go away, it would just be icky/uncomfortable for a little while.

The radiologist will call me when she gets the results; she expects that to take two days, but says because today is Wednesday there’s a possibility the results won’t come in until after work Friday, in which case I wouldn’t hear from her until Monday.

When last we chatted, I’d just had a call about my mammogram: they wanted me to make a follow-up appointment so they could get a better look at some microcalcifications that were new since my scan a year ago. I had those scans today. If you’re curious, it was almost exactly like getting a normal mammogram, but they only did one side, and the technician said “I’m sorry, but it’s going to squeeze harder”; I don’t think I would have noticed, but it was good to be warned. And afterward, instead of getting dressed, I was sent back to the waiting room in my hospital smock (just in case the radiologist wanted more images) while the radiologist took a look at the scans.

I was glad no one asked about or remarked upon the little patch of sunburn in my cleavage. I had a fun afternoon outside with friends yesterday, and I did pretty well with the sunscreen application, but apparently missed a small portion down the front of my swimsuit. I am a little surprised the sunshine managed to get in there: I am not amply bosomed, and even the word “cleavage” is a stretch. Well, the sunshine managed, and it is a good lesson about how well sunscreen works, because the rest of me is nearly as pinkly pale as ever.

After I’d been in the waiting room for ten or fifteen minutes, the technician came back for me and brought me to the radiologist. The radiologist showed me the scans, which were pretty neat to see. First she showed me last year’s scan compared to this year’s, and sure enough: little tiny white specks on this year’s but not on last year’s. Then she showed me the close-up they did today, and mentioned some positives: the general shape of the cluster is oval, which is good; and also some other things which I have already forgotten.

She said she is 90% sure these are just calcium deposits and not cancer, but the close-up did not give her the information she would want to see in order to be completely sure, so she would like to do a biopsy. She says when she does the biopsy, she will leave behind a tiny little smidgen of titanium to mark the place, in case they need to go back in (like if the biopsy DOES show cancer or pre-cancer), or in case later they want to remember where those little microcalcifications were. It all sounded pretty cool, though of course 10% does not sound like a small chance to me. But the radiologist said if it IS cancer, we have caught it at absolutely the earliest possible stage, and she gave a little laugh that I found reassuring—like, we’d have caught it so early our timing would almost be comical. Ha ha. Ha ha.

I am trying to think of another update. OH. So, I mentioned a fun afternoon in the sun. Friends and I lounged in THESE in the water, with beverages in the cupholders:

(image from Target.com)

It’s a SwimWays Spring Float (Target link) (Amazon link). (One friend had the very similar Kelsyus one, if that’s easier to obtain where you are.) Once in a while we would paddle lazily inland and holler for one of the husbands to bring us a fresh drink. It was BLISS. I have ordered three of the loungers and may order more: I got overwhelmed by the Exactly How Many decision, but didn’t want to miss the Target sale, and knew I wanted AT LEAST three for an upcoming family vacation, so I got the sale price on THOSE anyway, and will order more after I’ve had some time to think.

This morning the mammography place returned my call, and I had to let them leave a message (one does not answer one’s cell phone when one is a library employee out in the stacks), but then I zipped to the break room and called them right back.

The nurse said that I have microcalcifications that are new since last year’s mammogram. She said they were too small to be felt during a breast exam and could only be detected with imaging. She said the radiologist would like another look at them from a different angle, and that I will need to have the new scans done at the hospital instead of at the local mammography place.

I started to look “microcalcifications” up online, because they sounded so unalarming I was certain I would be reassured; then I saw the first few search results and decided I’d rather wait for each step to occur and find out more THEN, if necessary, since there are plenty of outcomes where there is no need to have spent any time worrying about it. If necessary, I am an excellent and speedy worrier, and can easily make up the time.

Paul is still doing a lot of sighing and groaning. I already knew I was not great in the spousal role of Nurse, but I have had a new realization: I would not have been a good childbirth partner, if my spouse had been the one in labor. I would have had to find ways around this—perhaps showing support by buying gifts/treats, and encouraging the use of a doula, and then making myself available to run and fetch whatever was wanted/needed by either my spouse or the doula, or really anyone else on the maternity ward. I am pretty good at darting out to do specific tasks. I am very bad at listening sympathetically to panting and moaning, or dealing with someone making Suffering Eyes at me—EVEN IF THE PERSON IS IN FACT SUFFERING. (Though I might find myself better at it if the person making Suffering Eyes had not been doing so for every little sniffle over the past couple of decades.)

An update on the Paul/cat kidney stone situation: today, a day short of two weeks since he started feeling pain at a level that made him unable to drive, and a week after the cat had HIS surgery, Paul had a procedure done to break up the stones. (My co-worker: “He should have asked if the vet would take him!”)

I don’t know if you know this, but Paul is extremely squeamish. So he has been very conflicted: his very strong urge to get this taken care of and make the pain stop, but also his very strong urge not to go near a hospital, or near an IV, or HEAVEN FORBID near a stent. All of those things he wished to avoid have occurred. And also: the doctor told me they were only able to get one of the two large stones, and Paul will have to go back next week to get the other one taken care of. In the meantime he is peeing blood and feeling, as the nurse described it, “as if he has a UTI.” As someone who has had many, many UTIs over the years, it did briefly flit through my mind that this would give Paul an invaluable opportunity to work on empathy. (It gives me a similar opportunity for personal growth, as he keeps explaining to me that it feels like he has to pee ALL THE TIME!! and when he does pee, it HURTS!! and he can’t CONCENTRATE or SIT STILL!! And I have to work hard not to turn my head nearly upside down like an O RLY WHAT’S THAT LIKE sarcastic owl.)

Meanwhile, the cat has had a week to recover, and is doing very well and is not complaining about how frequently he needs to visit the litter box. I am still putting his cone on him at night just in case, but I suspect we are past the nightmare scenario the vet laid out for us, where he might lick his stitches open. (I am not extremely squeamish, but I did grip the countertop when she described that possibility in compellingly vivid detail.)

Paul’s doctor did not give me a cone for him, so I assume he doesn’t have to wear one.

Meanwhile, not to make this all about me (though I did already mention all my UTIs in a paragraph about someone who just had KIDNEY STONE SURGERY), but on the way home from the hospital I got a call I couldn’t take because I was driving, and I listened to the message when I got home and it was someone calling from the mammography center about the mammogram I had yesterday. They tell you at the mammogram appointment that no news is good news—which means it is not pleasant to receive news. The message was left at 4:15, and said that I should call back at my earliest convenience and that someone would be available to talk to me until 5:00. I arrived home at 4:30, and I called back at least every five minutes (approximately once a minute for the first five minutes, then every five minutes after that because I was imagining my number showing up embarrassingly on a call log) from then until 5:00, and no one ever picked up, I just got the recording; I also left a message (as instructed by the voice mail) fairly early on (I’d wondered if, like at the office of one of Edward’s specialists, the nurses really ONLY return messages), and no one returned that call.

I realize things can get unexpectedly busy. But THEY should likewise realize that when THE MAMMOGRAPHY CENTER (WHERE NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS) calls and leaves a message, it is a CONCERNING THING. And if they choose to say in their message that they will be available to take a call until 5:00, they should BE AVAILABLE TO TAKE A CALL (or return a message) UNTIL 5:00. This wasn’t a situation where they left a message at 8:30 a.m. and I tried to get ahold of them five minutes before closing: they called me at 4:15, they said they would be available until 5:00, and they were not; so now I will spend all of tonight, and also all tomorrow morning because I have to work and can’t call them again until afternoon, wondering why they called.

I am speechless with rage and despair at yesterday’s Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade. I was at work when the decision was announced, and we gathered around someone’s computer to watch as some of us lost the right to make certain crucial lifelong decisions for ourselves, and we listened as part of the crowd around the courthouse screamed in dismay and horror, and part of the crowd screamed with joy and victory, and I was glad of my Pandemic Mask because it helped partially hide/absorb my Dystopia Crying.

There are plenty of places to go and talk about that decision that resulted in the sudden loss of human rights and bodily autonomy for only a certain segment of the population. You can talk about it here in the comments section, if you want. What I am mostly doing is reposting on Twitter/Facebook what other people managed to say about it, because I can’t think what to say but other people are saying things that I wish to say too. I am also deleting (without reading) all emails from the various Democratic politicians I follow, and I sent an “Our leaders have failed us. YOU have failed us” email to my state’s congresspeople. But otherwise I don’t have anything to say; I am still in the silent internal screaming / gentle hopeless weeping stage, which feels like it started in 2016 and never stopped.

It seems stupid to do a grocery store report at a time like this, but it feels like it’s either “post about how it’s all downhill from here and let’s brace ourselves for the loss of marriage equality, contraceptives, religious choice, etc.”; or else the weird Facebook posts I’m seeing from people I know/suspect are anti-abortion-rights, and who know enough not to rejoice openly, but are posting blithe things asking what TV shows is everyone watching / it’s so hot today! / love this fresh garden produce, or whatever. In a sea of people posting about how if you like to GO CAMPING in a state that DOES NOT ALLOW CAMPING you can COME VISIT ME AND I WILL TAKE YOU CAMPING AND NEVER TALK TO ANYONE ABOUT THE CAMPING, it comes across as nauseatingly obvious that some of us feel like walking into the sea and others of us feel like it’s a beautiful day for celebrating the everlasting union of church and state. A nice mild collapsing-systems post about grocery shortages seems like it might be in the vicinity of what we might want to talk about in between sessions of inchoate shrieking: somewhat anxious, so that it’s doesn’t seem perky or oblivious, but not adding TOO much anxiety to the already overwhelming dread and despair.

I don’t know if you heard the news that sriracha sauce is suspending production. I use sriracha sauce at a slow but steady rate, and consider it pretty essential—but it’s in that category where it isn’t ACTUALLY essential, the way reproductive healthcare is essential, it’s just an emotional support food that makes me feel anxious to imagine going without. But I COULD go without, and/or I could find substitutes. But I don’t want to go without or find substitutes, I want the comfort of PLENTY OF SRIRACHA.

At such times, it is important to find balance: one does not want to HOG the sriracha so that OTHER sriracha fans cannot have THEIR sriracha, but nor does one want to run out of sriracha and regret not buying more of it when one had the chance. So, the next time I went to the grocery store after seeing those articles, I bought two bottles: that felt reasonable. And the fact that the grocery shelves were FULL of sriracha made me wonder if I had fallen for a sneaky marketing trick: perhaps this was just a clever ruse to get people to buy more sriracha! Well, it has a long shelf-life.

In the days after that purchase, I heard more and more sriracha stories, and began to feel that I had not purchased enough. This could be an EXTENDED outage! And I have tried many hot sauces, and none of them are sriracha. And so the next time I went to the grocery store, I bought two MORE bottles, feeling TRULY silly since, again, the shelves were FULL of sriracha; they even had BOTH SIZES, which is not something they always have even in normal sriracha-rich times. By the time I was unpacking the groceries at home, I felt sheepish, and thought maybe I should donate a couple of the bottles to a local food pantry. But then the NEXT time I went to the grocery store: NO SRIRACHA! None at Target, either!! And this morning when I went, again NO SRIRACHA. NO SRIRACHA ANYWHERE. THE SHELF IS FILLED IN WITH KETCHUP AND A.1. SAUCE.

So now I feel pretty happy about my bottles. If I find I am going through them more slowly than expected (the frequent news about sriracha shortages have made me crave it and I have been eating it every day, but that isn’t likely to continue), I can figure out a way to get rid of some—by giving it to a fellow sriracha lover in distress, or by donating it to the food pantry, or by putting it in some sort of fundraiser. (I did that a number of years ago when I had some Necco wafers on hand and the Necco factory had shut down production. Four rolls of Neccos raised $25 for charity! …Then Neccos resumed production.)

That was FOUR PARAGRAPHS about sriracha. (The sriracha is not a metaphor.)

Then, a few days ago, I was listening to the radio in the car and they mentioned that MUSTARD is the next anticipated shortage. Well, for heaven’s sake. Pretty soon I am going to need an entire cabinet dedicated to condiment reserves. Mustard is another of my VERY IMPORTANT THINGS (not actually important in the way the separation of church and state is important, but still feels important in its own food-accessory way). Paul makes me a sauce out of mustard, mayonnaise, creamy horseradish sauce, and sriracha, and I go through BOTTLES of it (I use it as a dipping sauce for chicken, steak, pork chops, etc.). (He deliberately makes it a little different each time so that it’ll continue to be a surprise to the palate, but if you want the basic proportions it’s like 48% regular yellow mustard, 48% mayo, and then the remaining 4% is sriracha and/or horseradish and/or spicy brown mustard and/or whatever else he thinks might be good; make sure you get the CREAMY horseradish or else the little shreds will clog up the mustard-bottle spout, assuming you mix it in an empty mustard bottle as Paul does.)

Anyway today at the grocery store I bought six bottles of mustard, and I really appreciated the clerk not remarking or asking questions. (Do you remember the time I was buying chocolate chips and the clerk didn’t know what they were? I had COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN about that until someone mentioned it recently.) I am going to buy another half-dozen bottles the next time I go, assuming there still ARE bottles to buy, because (1) like sriracha, mustard keeps indefinitely, and (2) unlike sriracha, mustard is eaten by other members of my household.

Something we haven’t seen on the news but have seen in our store: no bratwurst. Not for weeks and weeks and weeks now—and we’ve only been LOOKING for it since we started feeling like grilling, so who knows how long they were gone before then.

I put a question on one of the household whiteboards, and I thought it was a good question, but everyone else just thought they were in trouble. Which: fair enough. But that wasn’t really why I asked it, and it wasn’t meant to be rhetorical/scolding; it was meant to engage them in what I thought was an interesting discussion about the non-obvious complications of sharing a household and chores with other people.

The question was: “Household/community issue: Who should wash the birthday cake pan, when everyone ate the cake?” I am talking about a 9×13 cake pan, where you bake the cake in it and then take pieces out of it until the cake is gone—as opposed to, say, a couple of round cake pans where you remove the cake from them right away. And I am talking in this case about a cake where everyone ate some, and then everyone ate some leftovers.

Here’s why I asked: because at our house, it will not surprise you to learn it is always, always, ALWAYS me who washes the cake pan. And I don’t think that’s fair, when everyone eats the cake, and when I was the one who BAKED the cake, too.

But I was not having much luck coming up with a way it could be NOT always me, because it’s hard to come up with a POLICY. I think we could start with two policy fragments: (1) It should not be the person who baked the birthday cake. (2) It should not be the person whose birthday cake it was. But after that, I get stuck.

You COULD say that the person who eats the last piece of cake should be the one to wash the pan. Two–no THREE–problems immediately occur to me:

1. It leaves out the issue of SOAKING. I would SO much rather wash a cake pan AFTER it has been soaking for awhile. But not everyone in my household can be trusted to return to their soaking items in a timely manner.

2. More importantly, in my own household, where people do not cheerfully chip in and try to do their share but instead try to find wily ways to avoid it, what would happen is that one tiny slice would be left in the pan until it went stale, and then the question would be “Who should throw away the stale cake AND wash the cake pan?”

3. And of course, the person who ate the last slice could be the person who baked the cake, or could be the person whose birthday it was.

By this point I was fairly irritable and thinking that the real solution was to live with different people than the ones I live with. And that’s not wrong, but neither is it helpful for coming up with a policy for this current household.

The only policy I could come up with is this, and it is not as clear or concise as I would like it to be: The person who eats the last piece of cake should put the pan in the sink to soak; the next non-cake-baking/non-birthday person to be washing their own dishes should also wash the pan. This policy would work GREAT in a household of me and my clones! In my actual house it would result in a bunch of people playing chicken with their dishes: “Oh, mine are still soaking,” or “Oh, but yours were soaking first,” or “Whoops, I’m leaving for work/bed for 10 hours,” or whatever.

I am wondering what you think would be best, theoretically, and also what you think would work in your actual household.