Down to the studs

The bathroom is down to the studs, with the bathtub leaning on its side. I will try to bring the camera tomorrow and take some photos.

I went to Art Tile and chose (and paid for) floor tiles and shower wall tiles. It came to twice the estimated amount, but then again I have expensive tastes. I think I will like it when it's done!

We are enjoying our co-housing stay with the G family. All the dogs are getting along extremely well. I cooked dinner last night (halibut, rice, leftover caponata and cherry pie for dessert). H and her friend who is staying here for the week also offered to make dinner tonight. Here's hoping they remember they offered to cook!

recipe for low-tech fun

1. Take down kids' playhouse that has been up for almost a decade.

2. Leave dogs unsupervised in back yard.

3. Set two six year old boys up with sprinkler and water slide.

4. Leave six year old boys unsupervised for two minutes.

5. Find small lake filling hole previously dug by dogs.

6. Consider becoming annoyed but remember how much fun you had playing in the mud as a kid.

7. Sit and knit while boys dip their hands in the water.

8. Watch as boys wade into mud hole.

9. Listen to imagination game as boys run mud through their fingers.

10. Observe the inevitability of mud in fingers leading to mud covering bodies and faces.

11. Intervene only when mud is being flung against the house.

12. Watch boys rinse mud off house.

13. Interrupt game only when it is time to leave.

14. Ignore pleas for five more minutes.

15. Hose boys down.

16. Drop one boy off at home.

17. Apologize for mud encrusted in ears and other places.

18. Smile every time you think of those two boys covered in mud.

Black Humor Thought of the Day

This image just popped into my head:  Cheryl Hickey, at my door, saying, "This whole year and a half of crap that was your life?...It was all a ploy for ET Canada's "'Celebrity Makeover'!"  Or worse, Ashton Kutcher pops up around the corner and screams, "You've been PUNKED!"

Oh well.  Either way, I still got to look pretty and take home shoes.

BEER OF THE MONTH JULY IS READY FOR PICK-UP!!!

This month's selections:

1. Russian River Consecration
Batch #2

2. De Proef Signature Ale
(your choice of Tomme Arthur or
Jason Perkins collaboration, while supplies last.

There were a lot of issues with declined/expired/cancelled credit cards this month.
Please try to remember us when you change your credit card information.

cheers,

dave

Samurai Night Fever

On Sunday, I came close to attending a kendo tournament in the South Bay. At the last minute, I found out I wasn't needed to help out at the A3M bone marrow drive, but the anticipation of dueling swords got me thinking about my own experience with a bamboo blade.

I'd almost forgotten that I was once a samurai in training. When I was in my early 20's and desperate to get in touch with my Japanese side, I took kendo lessons at a dojo in Monterey Park. Back then, an adult sword-fighting woman was a rarity.

Here are a few of my favorite kendo memories:

Tora! Tora! Tora! My sensei and classmates called me Tiger because my birth surname (I hate "maiden name") was Strother, pronounced Su-to-ra-da in Japanese. The middle part of the name, tora, means tiger.

The Kanji symbol in the center is for tiger.

There's something about a girl in uniform: Sometimes Kumie (my little-sister-like friend), her family and I would stop for food while wearing our kendo uniforms. It never failed: men would chat me up and then ask for my phone number. I felt like a Samurai seductress.

Lessons Learned: Fight through the pain and clean up after yourself: Once while I was practicing with an opponent, a sliver of glass became embedded in my bare foot. When I saw the trail of blood on the wooden floor, I asked the old-school Japanese sensei if I could stop. He nodded at my opponent and I knew I had no choice. I continued to wield my sword while smearing streaks of red on the floor. Of course, I was responsible for mopping up my own blood when the match was over.

If you go back and read old Cancer Banter posts, you'll find that I've never used the popular lexicon of battling or going to war with cancer or eosinophils. (I don't have a problem with other people using this language; it just never felt natural to me.) So why do I suddenly want to embrace my inner Samurai? To paraphrase Lance Armstrong, it's not about the sword.

According to this site that lists the top ten characteristics of a Samurai professional, the ultimate warrior maintains integrity, displays loyalty, is resolute, plans relentlessly, seeks advantage, continuously improves, flows with (not against), has personal discipline and self control, displays personal courage and acts industriously.

I especially like the idea of going with the flow:

Life is continuously in balance. Accept gracefully both victories and setbacks. Contending against instead of working with is a losing strategy. Go with flows. Yield what cannot be won. Adjust. Agility and flexibility are far stronger than direct opposition. Learn to change and progress endlessly.

So, which Samurai should I channel?

Toshiro Mifune as Yojimbo in The Seven Samurai?

Samurai John Belushi from Saturday Night Live?

Or Samurai Susan, who enjoys intimidating unsuspecting pooches.


Samurai can be so smug.


Moments later, I tripped, stained my gi, stubbed my toe and scraped my forearm. I think there just might be a lesson here.

Starring....Me!

I was a star...at least for one day.  I have to say, it was pretty sweet--probably one of the best days I've had in the last year and a half.  If life for celebrities is like this all the time, sign me up!  It was exactly what I needed (and more) to pick me up from the gutter I was drowning in.

My celebrity makeover extravaganza began at 9 in the morning at Holt Renfrew in downtown Vancouver.  My buddy Chris dropped me off, and I was promptly whisked upstairs to the store, which wasn't yet open.  Rebecca, my stylist, put me into a dressing room with four armfuls of clothes.  Thus began my dream come true.

Here I am, looking frightened.  It took a little while getting used to putting on clothes and having a small crowd of producers, hosts, Holt Renfrew people, and camera crew giving their opinions about what I was wearing.

I kinda knew right away that this dress was a keeper.  It's a Tory Burch dress with Prada heels.  I never thought I'd be using the word "prada" so casually, but yeah, I guess I am.

This dress was pretty dope too.  But it kinda made me feel like my Meemaw (godmother).  I think it was the texture of the material that reminded me of Meemaw's muumuus (try saying that five times).

I almost took this outfit home.  It was a freakin' leather pleated skirt!  Talk about hotttt...

Jenn really liked this outfit.  It was her favourite.  It was nice enough, but perhaps too nice, if you know what I mean.  And I wasn't really going for "nice"...

Here I am getting my hair cut off.  Cut it off!  Cut it off!

Makeup and nails.  Between the haircut and the makeup and manicure, I ate lobster sushi and drank champagne while getting a pedicure. Oh yeah...

Weeeeeee! I'm pretty!

Here's Mr. Fussypants attacking a stray hair that was resistant to his industrial hairspray. My photog is in the background. He was nice too.

Do you like that necklace I'm wearing? It can be yours for $900.

Surprise! My buddy Chris shows up.  The expression on his face means, "I thought I was looking at a mannequin, but holy crap! It's Brandy!"  Yep.

This cowl neck thing I'm wearing here was super comfy and soft.  Kinda like a Slanket, except way more expensive.

You might be surprised to know that I hadn't had much practice straddling a chair until that day.

What do you do when you have a buttload of people working on you? Stand very still.

My. Shoes. Are. Awesome.

Me and ET Canada host Cheryl Hickey talking about the radness of the makeover.

My lying, scheming friends and me.  Without their deception, none of this would have been possible.  Thanks, guys!

Jenn would make a lovely ET Canada host, doncha think?

And I do believe that Chris should give up his job as English prof. and switch careers.

Me, Cheryl, and my super stylist, Rebecca.

Bathroom remodel begins today

I got up at 6:15 this morning to be ready for the bathroom demolition crew when they arrive at 7:30. How do people start their work day so early?!

Everything that was in the bathroom has been moved out -- stuff we use but not on a daily basis, stuff we will donate, and the few things we use every day. After I take my shower I'll move the last few items into our suitcases, hang the wet towels in the bedroom, and pack up the bed linens for our move to temporary housing with friends.

In addition to bringing bedding, I have to empty the refrigerator of perishables and cart over any produce, open bags of cereal, etc. Plus the dogs and their stuff, including dog beds. It's like getting ready for vacation except that we'll be back every day to get the mail and check on the remodel.

Family Vacation

We just came back from our family vacation...it's been a tradition, my husband and I have gone for a week away together with the kids every year since they were about 2 and 3. I love the time the four of us get to spend together without all of the distractions of work and activities, just the four of us spending time together. Time away from computers and cell phones and TVs.We've done lots of things, rented cabins for a week in the Smokies and the Dells, camped, gone sight-seeing and to water parks, to Disney. But this year, since my kids are out of high school and I don't know how many more family vacations we will get, we did something more exotic. We spent a few days in Florida followed by a 5 day Caribbean cruise.

We booked the cruise when swine flu was in the news...between that and the struggling economy, we got very good prices. I loved the four of us eating dinner together every night. For most of the years my kids were growing up, we all ate dinner together as a family. That was really important to me. In high school things changed as they were involved in so may activities. Nowadays, we all work and work different shifts, so eating dinner together is a rarity. We had a nice table for four for dinner every night we were on vacation, with great food we didn't have to cook and no dishes to wash! Lobster tails on our plates in this pic, can't beat that!

We spent a day in Cozumel, Mexico where we went snorkeling and shopping in the Mexican markets, ate at a Mexican restaurant.

We also spent a day in Key West, where the highlight for me was a butterfly conservatory...I love butterflies, to me they are symbols of eternal life. There were hundreds of different kinds of beautiful butterflies there in a huge garden setting.



We spent another day in the Central American country of Belize. What I loved most about Belize was being in a jungle/rain forest (tigers, monkeys and jaguars are native wildlife there!). I loved seeing iguanas running around like we see squirrels here at home. I also loved learning a bit about the culture from a Belizean native.

I am often asked about alternative medicine. In Belize a native told me that for most illnesses they go to the jungle to select plants that they boil and use to treat illness. She told me she had only been to a doctor once in her life. An infusion of Key Lime leaves is used for headaches, another plant for childhood fevers, another to induce miscarriage.

At my most recent AACR conference, I listened to a presentation discussing the development of the chemotherapy drug Taxol. Taxol was originally derived from the Pacific Yew tree. My sister-in-law is receiving Taxol now for breast cancer. One of the chemotherapies I was on was similar to Taxol, CPT-11 (Irinotecan/Camptosar), also initially derived from the Pacific Yew.

This Time article states that "According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, more than 25% of the ingredients in cancer medicines today were either discovered in rain forests or synthesized in labs from discoveries made there." In Belize they have the equivalent of our drug stores, but many instead go to herbal drug stores for prepared herbal infusions. I wish we could have spent more time in the jungles and rain forests of Belize (though mosquitoes were the most abundant wildlife there). As a medical professional, I would love to spend time with an herbalist in a rain forest.

At any rate, I'm back on-line now...and truly refreshed! But most of all, I'm so glad to have had the time with my family....I hope I get a few more family vacations!

Chutes and Ladders

WCK has been begging for months for the game Chutes and Ladders. I don't think she even knew what it was, but she wanted it desperately. We needed to run some errands on Friday, so I told her that if she cooperated with the errands, she could cash in a Target gift card that one of her friends gave her for her birthday. Of course, she selected Chutes and Ladders, as well as a book about frogs, and her very own copy of Watch Out for Jabba the Hutt. You can imagine how excited I am that we now have our own copy of Watch Out for Jabba the Hutt.

Anyway. While we were paying for everything, I was very distracted by WCK's constant questions about everything. This is how I go though life now. I don't pay close attention to anything. Someday, we're going to get into a fiery wreck as I'm trying to merge onto the interstate while trying to answer the question, "Why don't bees take showers? Why, Mama? Why? WHY??!?!"

As we headed toward our car in the parking lot, I started thinking that the total I paid was really low, even with the gift card. I checked the receipt, and sure enough, they hadn't charged me for the Chutes and Ladders game. For a few moments, I thought, "Cool. Free game," and I kept walking. I knew, though, that I had to head back into the store because

1) It's important to be mature and set an example here, blah blah blah
2) If I shoplift, I am no better than those lowdown, dirty goose thieves
3) It's bad enough to shoplift anything; it's really, really low to shoplift Chutes and Ladders. I mean, shoplifting is even worse than any of the bad deeds depicted on the game, including pulling kitty's tail, eating all of the cookies, or skating when the sign clearly says, "NO SKATING." I could not play a Chutes and Ladders game day after day knowing that I really deserved the biggest chute of all.

So, I turned around and headed back into the store, where the lines were now enormous, and WCK was screaming that she wanted to go home. The checkout lady looked at me like I was insane, and she even seemed a little annoyed that she had to ring it up again. I felt much better, though. Now I'm headed up my ladder toward some great reward, instead of sliding down a giant chute into the fires of hell. Whew.

Achoo! Achoo!

I am still blowing my nose, sneezing, and honking away after a week of this summer cold. Who knows? Maybe it's allergies. All I know is that my nose is still running merrily away. Thank goodness we have lots of tissues on hand from a prior Costco run. (I should buy stock in Kleenex.)

Grant system good at ruling out bad things?

Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe, by Gina Kolata, The New York Times, June 27, 2009. [Page 1][Page 2][Page 3][FriendFeed entry].

Excerpts from Page 1:

Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped, with only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years since it [the "war on cancer" initiated by President Nixon in 1971] began.

One major impediment, scientists agree, is the grant system itself. It has become a sort of jobs program, a way to keep research laboratories going year after year with the understanding that the focus will be on small projects unlikely to take significant steps toward curing cancer.

.....

Even top federal cancer officials say the system needs to be changed.

“We have a system that works over all pretty well, and is very good at ruling out bad things — we don’t fund bad research,” said Dr. Raynard S. Kington, acting director of the National Institutes of Health, which includes the cancer institute. “But given that, we also recognize that the system probably provides disincentives to funding really transformative research.”

Excerpt from Page 2:

“They said I don’t have preliminary results,” she said. “Of course I don’t. I need the grant money to get them.”

Excerpt from Page 3:

Some experienced scientists have found a way to offset the problem somewhat. They do chancy experiments by siphoning money from their grants.

Comment: The focus of the article is on the grant funding system for cancer research in the USA. The author, a well-known science journalist, is pessimistic about the success that the current funding system has had in yielding research outputs that have led to any substantial decrease in cancer mortality rates. However, other than briefly mentioning overall cancer mortality rates, she does not attempt to analyze current approaches to cancer control.

In Canada, age-standardized mortality rates, for all cancers and all age groups, have decreased from 248/100,000 in 1984 to 212/100,000 in 2004 (about 15%) for males. In contrast, the corresponding mortality rates for Canadian females were 152/100,000 in 1984 and 147/100,000 in 2004 (a decrease of only about 3%). A detailed analysis is beyond the scope of this brief commentary, but a major reason is that age-standardized mortality rates for respiratory cancers have been higher in males and have been decreasing, while they have been lower in females, and have been increasing.

It has been estimated that, in the USA, "reductions in lung cancer, resulting from reductions in tobacco smoking over the last half century, account for about 40% of the decrease in overall male cancer death rates" (Tobacco Control 2006; 15: 345-347; doi:10.1136/tc.2006.017749). Strong evidence that tobacco smoking and lung cancer rates are related has been available for more than 50 years, since the research work of Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill.

We now know a great deal about success stories and best practices for effective, evidence-based tobacco control programs. (See, for example, Success stories and lessons learnt, Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI), World Health Organization).

So, does research play a crucial role in cancer control? Of course it does.

Can it take a very long time for research outputs to have a substantial impact on cancer control? Unfortunately, it can.

Do we have good ways to identify, in advance, areas of transformative research? Unfortunately, no. It can even take a long time to demonstrate that certain research has, indeed, been transformative.

So, what to do? My answer: investment in research is much like investment of venture capital. Only a very small minority of investments yield a big payoff, but one can predict much more easily which investments are likely do badly than which ones are likely to do well.

Homo sovieticus: panel

She said that in East Germany they got Russian-accented calls from strangers saying they heard the wall was going to fall down. This was before the Germans knew. They said that with the collapse of the USSR, anti-Semitism came out. They said that after the end of Communism a quarter of a million Russian Jews came to Germany. The press assumed they were on their way to Israel, that they wouldn't settle in the land of the murders. They did.

They said one year more Russians immigrated to Germany than Israel. They said most of the Russians were atheists. They said many of them were old. They said they would not and will not integrate. They said they live in settlements around the country, closed and separate like Chinatowns, with their own newspapers and stores and gathering places. They said they brought the Soviet Union with them. They said they were used to a paternalistic state. They said the Jews had been engineers and teachers and doctors and economists. There were few jobs in Germany and the Russians thought most of the available ones were beneath them. They said the Russians were forced to join the official Jewish communities. They said the Russians weren't forced to join them. They said the Russians were forced to spread out to all the German regions. They said they were not forced.

(She said, Shh, shh, such loud voices and arguing on Shabbat!)

They continued. They said there are about 28,000 German Jews who have registered with the official community. They said there are Russians who come to synagogue for the free meals. They said many Russians refused to be circumcized or to have bar and bat mitzvahs. They call them Russians though they are not all from that giant republic. They said there aren't enough Jewish nursing homes for them. They said the German Jews are overwhelmed. They said the German Jews were used to their German-Jewish life, their language, their traditions, their tragedy. They said the Red Army veterans like to meet together and argue over who suffered most in the Great Patriot War. They said Germany wasn't built for receiving immigrants. They said no one knows exactly how many have come. They said the German Jews expected 250,000 Natan Sharanskys, davening. They said about half of the Russians have joined the Jewish community.

They said the Jewish infrastructure collapsed in the Shoah. They said that young, creative Americans and Israelis flock to Berlin and some of them stay. They said that most immigrants have to prove they've studied German, but not the Russians, or the Americans, or Japanese, or Canadians, and other privileged groups. They said the immigrants were considered Jewish in the USSR if they had a Jewish father, but according to Jewish law in Germany, they are Jewish only if they had a Jewish mother; they said that about half of them were not really Jewish. They said after the Russians settled, they sent for their non-Jewish families. They said that if Russians divorce, the non-Jewish spouses might be deported.

They said the German Jews don't want to complain about the Russians in public, they don't want the non-Jews to hear. They don't want to air their dirty linen. They said nobody will criticize the official German Jewish communities in public, either. They said the official Catholic, Protestant and Jewish communities get government funding, not proportional to their numbers. (The Jews get more than their share.) They said the real scandal is that the millions of Muslims don't get state funding. They said it was because they had no spokesmen. They said the older Russians are isolated, and the young distance themselves from the past. They said the young go out into the German world and act as interpreters.

(They raised their voices. She said again, Shh, shh, it's Shabbat, and held her jacket up to her mouth, as if for protection.)

They said the law has tightened so fewer of them are coming.

They said without this immigration we wouldn't talk about Jewish life today in Germany. They said we're the last German Jews.

Goose theft

This morning, WCK and I went to the front window to wave goodbye to Jay as he left for work. We were stunned to discover that our concrete goose had vanished. Yes. SOMEBODY STOLE MY GOOSE.

Here is a photo of the goose in happier times, dressed as an apple for WCK's first day of school:




My grandpa bought this goose for my grandma maybe 20 years ago as a special present. My grandma had a great sense of fun; she had lots of outfits for the goose, and she'd dress it up for holidays and family gatherings. When my grandma passed away in 2001, I inherited the goose and her collection of outfits. I continued to buy my own outfits for the goose, mostly from a great web site: www.gooseclothesgalore.com. I try to remember to dress the goose up for all the big holidays. Every time I dress up the goose, I think about my grandma.

Since WCK was born, photos with the goose have become a big family tradition. When WCK turned one year old, I bought a special birthday outfit for the goose. We took her picture with the goose in the birthday outfit on every birthday. Every year on Halloween, I would dress the goose as a vampire and take a photo of WCK next to the goose in her Halloween costume. We even have a photo of a tiny, two-month old WCK in her baptismal gown, and the goose is dressed as a nun. (My grandma called this outfit "The Holy Goose").

Last fall, I bought the apple outfit, planning to take a photo of WCK with the apple on every first day of school until she graduates from high school or becomes annoyed with me.

NOW MY GOOSE IS GONE. Who would do this? Who? That thing is solid concrete and probably weighs about 80 pounds, so they probably made a big effort to steal it. Sure, I can -- and probably will -- get another goose, but it won't be my grandma's goose. It won't be the same.

WCK was devastated. She cried for a lot of the morning. She insisted that we go for a walk though the neighborhood to look for the goose. I filed a police report and e-mailed the Neighborhood Watch Lady, but I'm not sure what good it will do. I feel like Pee Wee when his bike got stolen. I believe the Soviets are involved.

My only hope is that it's part of some kind of whimsical prank, that someday we'll get a Polaroid of the goose, say, in front of the Great Wall of China, and then he/she will be returned in time for WCK to pose with the apple again before school starts.

Happy travels, goose. Happy travels.

PAPIER CONTEST IS OVER

We have just reserved the last bottle of the Bruery Papier, so the contest is officially over. Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to all for continuing to follow our blog.

Cheers

Nate

BRUERY "PAPIER" CONTEST!!! READ CAREFULLY

Due to the demand for the Bruery's

extremely limited "Papier" 14.5% bourbon barrel aged old ale, we are

going to settle this impartially.

At the bottom of this page,

you will find a beer trivia question.

The first few people to answer the

question correctly will have a bottle

reserved for them. DO NOT post your

answer on the blog!!! Send it to:

healthyspirits.sanfrancisco@gmail.com

with the heading PAPIER CONTEST, and your name and contact info. If your answer is chosen, we will contact you and let you know as soon as possible. When the contest is closed, I will post again on the blog.

THE QUESTION:

WHAT IS CENOSILLICAPHOBIA THE FEAR OF?

Send your answers to healthyspirits.sanfrancisco@gmail.com. Again, DO NOT POST ANSWERS ON THE BLOG!!!

Good luck to everyone.

cheers,

-dave

KICKASS DAY FOR NEW RELEASES!!!

1. Old Rasputin XII (aged in bourbon barrels)

2. Bruery Tradewinds Tripel

3. Cascade Brewing Co. Kriek

4. St. Feuillen Saison (1st ever release!)

Delicious.

-Dave

Healthy Spirits Awarded "Best of the Bay 2009" in San Francisco Magazine!

Article:

http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/be-very-entertaining

-Dave

Celebrity deaths

The deaths yesterday of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson have stirred the internet. So many of my friends are posting on Facebook about the profound impact MJ had on their musical lives. I think what disturbs them the most is that an age peer has died an untimely death.

Well, that's one I've grappled with many times in the past seven years. I've sat the death watch for young women in their 20s. One friend only wanted to live to celebrate her 30th birthday. She did -- and a month later was dead. And when I worked in the AIDS world, my colleagues had all been to many more funerals than their parents had ever attended.

Yes, it's a tragedy when a young person dies. It's not supposed to happen that way. Death is supposed to come when we have lived a rich, full life, accomplished our goals, and are surrounded by those we love. Preferably when we are in our 90s. So my guess is that MJ and Farrah's deaths hit too close to home for my friends who are in their 40s and 50s.

And by the way, what's up with all the coverage of Farrah? I tuned in to Dateline last night and not once did anyone mention anal cancer, much less advanced or metastatic disease. Now I don't know the details of Farrah's cancer, but maybe those words are just too scary to say on TV.

Greetings from Sofia--a jumble

(synagogue--I didn't take the pic)

Cancer Bitch finds herself in Sofia, Bulgaria, which is dingy but smells good, like lilacs. Garbage is collected at night. There was laundry hanging on the roof of a building across from our hotel. The Jews were saved in the Holocaust (though those from Macedonia and Thrace were sacrificed) and from 1948-51 most of them immigrated to Israel, specifically, to Yaffo. After the war, why didn't the Bulgarians fight back? one person in our group (mostly-European Jewish feminist conferees) asked on our walking tour yesterday. Fight back against the Soviets? They should have fought back against the Nazis in the first place. But look at Poland--it fought back and the result was about a 5-year occupation. Bulgarian is difficult if you don't know the Cyrillic alphabet, which was invented here. It's hard to figure out where you are if your map has Roman letters (like these) and the street signs, Cyrillic. But I found the synagogue yesterday where our tour began. The first night I went to a French restaurant (stumbled upon) and was excited that I could read the menu.
The women here are very skinny and wear tight skinny jeans and carry plastic shopping bags. Most everyone who's young wears jeans. THe women have dark eyebrows and some have dyed blond or red hair. No one takes notice of me, of my tourist-ness. You can look at a map on the street and people won't bother you. (Some of you will say that I'm no longer harassed on the street because of my age; I also learned a while back not to look people in the eye in foreign countries). The Jewish museum is in the synagogue and is one room. There are photographs of Jewish and Bulgarian history and a harmonium that used to belong to a Jewish musician and was used to a Jewish cultural center. Wizened old men and women sit on the sidewalk and sell giant thin and hard-looking bagel. Gypsy children ask for money. I saw, for the first time I can remember, a kid sitting on the sidewalk with a long open cut on his leg. I can't remember seeing such a large open wound before. Our group has more baggy clothes and curly hair than a Bulgarian group of middle-aged women. I learned today about the Falasha Mura, Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity 100 years ago and are trying to prove that they're Jewish so that they can move to Israel. But Jewish converstions are against the law in Ethiopia. In DNA tests, these Christian Jews as well as Ethiopian Jews in Israel do not have "Jewish DNA" characteristics found in both Sephardi (eastern) and Ashkenazi (western) Jews. I read somewhere that the two countries most obsessed with blood and land are Israel and Germany.
When Russia helped liberate Bulgaria in the 19th century, the soldiers destroyed all the mosques, except one, overnight. They told the Muslims that God did it. (Of course I thought: Therefore, they couldn't claim it on their insurance.) Our guide (Jewish Bulgarian) warned us against going inside the mosque because it is populated with many Palestinians. I can't imagine anyone attacking or harassing in a mosque. (Well, at least not here and now. We're not talking about Kashmir.) I also learned today that many young Israelis go to India seeking enlightenment and then come back to Israel, and use their new spirituality to connect back to Judaism. It seems like I have been away a long time. I left on Tuesday afternoon. I had a middle seat on the flight from Chicago to Dusseldorf, and from Dusseldorf to Vienna. Luckily the flight from Vienna to Sofia wasn't full so I had an aisle seat with an empty middle seat. The overseas flight was one long hot flash. We each had our own monitors and could choose among movies. I watched He's Not That Into YOu and then a Dustin HOffman movie. The kid next to me (on his way back home to Rome from a year in Berkeley as an exchange student) watched the Dustin Hoffman first and then He's Not That Into You. I wanted to ask him more about what he thought of Berkeley and Berkelians but I didn't want to intrude. I keep thinking of Huxley and his fear that triviality and cheap entertainment would take over.

A review of the CSC paradigm

Controversial Cancer Stem Cells Offer New Direction For Treatment, ScienceDaily, June 25, 2009. [FriendFeed entry]. First paragraph:

In a review in Science, a University of Rochester Medical Center researcher sorts out the controversy and promise around a dangerous subtype of cancer cells, known as cancer stem cells, which seem capable of resisting many modern treatments.

Based on this review: The Increasing Complexity of the Cancer Stem Cell Paradigm by Jeffrey M Rosen and Craig T Jordan, Science 2009(Jun 26); 324(5935): 1670-3. First paragraph:

The investigation and study of cancer stem cells (CSCs) have received enormous attention over the past 5 to 10 years but remain topics of considerable controversy. Opinions about the validity of the CSC hypothesis, the biological properties of CSCs, and the relevance of CSCs to cancer therapy differ widely. In the following commentary, we discuss the nature of the debate, the parameters by which CSCs can or cannot be defined, and the identification of new potential therapeutic targets elucidated by considering cancer as a problem in stem cell biology.

Chief Scientific Officer leaving CIRM

Chief Scientific Officer Leaving California Institute of Regenerative Medicine by Monya Baker, The Niche, June 25, 2009. Excerpt:

Marie Csete will resign her post from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine as of Aug 1st, according to the California Stem Cell Report, Consumer Watchdog and the Silicon Valley Business Journal. The resignation comes just before a huge round of grants aiming to push stem cells toward clinical trials is due to be awarded.

From the Silicon Valley Business Journal: State stem cell agency’s science officer to resign by Ron Leuty, June 24, 2009. Excerpt:

Csete has been an important part of CIRM’s effort to not only review and award grants but, highlighted most recently, to monitor grants after awards have been made. CIRM terminated three research grants this month due to lack of progress.

From the California Stem cell Report: Csete Quits CIRM on Eve of Huge Grant Round by David Jensen, June 24, 2009. Excerpt:

Csete's departure comes as the agency is about to embark on its most ambitious and largest round of research grants – a complex, $210 million “disease team” effort aimed at pushing research towards clinical trials.

Remodel update

Yesterday I looked for tile at Art Tile on Roosevelt and think I have found the right stuff!


For the shower wall tile, a pale green with a glossy finish.

To accent the Israeli tiles, 1x1 bright blue tiles. They'll make a border around the Israeli tiles in the shower and on the backsplash. I'm trying to decide between the matte and glossy finish. (Ignore the flash of dots on the bottom of the picture.)


For the floor tile (12x12 squares for the main floor and the same tile in 3x3 squares for the shower floor), a darker green with a slate finish so it's not slippery underfoot. Very important in a wet environment!




The extra bonus was finding a local place, Oregon Tile and Marble, that carries Jerusalem stone which we might be able to use as a countertop. I've put it next to the possible finish choices for the vanity cabinet and we have a few days to decide before ordering the vanity.

The pictures don't really do the colors justice. Now I have to call to see if we can afford the Jerusalem stone......