We Got Reviewed!

It's official! Someone not related to me liked my show:

http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/estr5771.htm

The Berkshires

I knew I wanted to go somewhere to celebrate the end of chemo, the trick was figuring out where to go.

My first thought was to go back out to the North Fork of Long Island and back to the Red Barn. The hubby and I stayed there a couple of years ago and had a wonderful time exploring the wineries (yes, there are wineries on Long Island...lots of 'em). Plus, the innkeeper is an "amateur" astronomer with a kick-ass homemade observatory behind the house, complete with a HUGE computer-controlled telescope through which the hubby was able to observe "deep space objects" in the wee hours of the morning. The inn itself is small and charming and the hot breakfasts feature local and organic foodstuffs. Alas, the innkeepers were off to a wedding the weekend in question.

My next thought was Woodstock, NY and the Onteora Mountain House, where the hubby and I also stayed a couple of years ago for the weekend (courtesy of an Xmas gift from my dad and his wife) and had a lovely, relaxing weekend. The rooms are a bit spartan, but the views are spectacular, as are the common areas, and the breakfast is phenomenal. But, they do alot of weddings and so were booked solid.

My NEXT thought was the Mansion at Saratoga Springs, where my mom and I go every summer. This is actually my favorite B&B in the world (at least, so far). The rooms are lovely, as is the house, the breakfasts are unbelievable and they serve wine & cheese each evening--making the whole thing a really good deal for the money--but September is racing season so rooms that are normally $135/night go for twice that. Plus it would be crowded.

Finally, I thought of the Berkshires. We'd never been up there, but Edith Wharton's house, "The Mount," is in Lenox and that seemed like a good enough excuse to make the trip. We stayed at the Hampton Terrace. The room was large and featured a very cool jacuzzi tub and the house itself was very graciously proportioned and appointed. The location was perfect: just around the corner from "downtown" Lenox (which stretches for all of 2 square blocks) and a quick drive to the Mount. But the breakfast was very underwhelming (albeit, this is based on being spoiled by the 3 places mentioned above) and it was a little on the pricey side.

That said, we still had a great weekend. Here are the highlights:
- The Mount (of course) - This was Edith Wharton's summer home for about 10 years. She not only lived there, she designed the house and gardens. In fact, Edith Wharton's first book was not a novel, but was a non-fiction manual on interior design. "The Decoration of Houses" (co-authored with architect Ogden Comden) is still considered one of the seminal works of the interior design field and is still in print. Unfortunately, when she moved out of the house, she took all her belongings with her, but the estate recently (2005) acquired 2,600 of her books from a rare book dealer in England, so the "heart" of the house is in place.

- Dinner by ourselves at Rumpelstiltzkin's - The food was unexceptional, but it's pretty rare to have a restaurant to yourself. Saturday night we decided to stay in town and go to one of the local inns for dinner. As it turned out, pretty much everyone in town was at a wedding and so the hubby and I were literally the only ones in the restaurant for dinner. Afterward, we went down to the inn's bar for a drink, where there were 3 other customers, one of whom was our waitress. And I thought Hoboken was a small town...

- Chocolate Springs Cafe - Oh. My. God. The cafe is not located in downtown Lenox, but in a strip mall north of town. The inauspicious location, however, was more than compensated for by the welcoming decor and, of course, the CHOCOLATE. We went there on our way out of town to get my mom a thank you gift for loaning us her car for the weekend. Our expectation was that we would pop in, buy a box of chocolates, and leave. One look and sniff was enough to convince us otherwise. We grabbed out books and curled up on one of the sofas with some of their "Serious Hot Chocolate." We also decided we needed a "thank you gift" of chocolate too, so left with 2 boxes of hand-picked deliciousness.

- Stagecoach Tavern - This former stagecoach stop has retained the look and feel of an old-time tavern, but serves modern cuisine. The rustic ambiance combined with the excellent wine and food created the perfect "capper" for our weekend.

Out, Out, Damn Port!

Huzzah! It's out!

I had the procedure Friday morning and it really couldn't have gone better.

I was a little nervous about it because I had read a couple of horror stories online (the down side of support group discussion boards is that you always hear the worst-case scenario) and so thought the removal would be more difficult/painful than the insertion. However, that turned out not to be the case. The surgery took less than an hour. All told, we were at the treatment center less than 3 hours. I took a nap in the afternoon (after-effects of the anesthesia) and took regular ole Tylenol as a precaution, and that's it. Haven't taken any pain meds (haven't had any pain) since Friday.

So, life--at least for the moment--is back to normal.

What Have I Been Doing w/My Month Off?

As I previously reported, I'm on a 1-month break between chemo and radiation. So, what have I been doing with all my free time?

1. Working.
2. Volunteering (back to doing my regular weekly shift at the Source)
3. Seeing my play! (It opened last night as part of Estrogenius Week 1 and runs until Saturday. Tickets are available here.)
4. Helping produce Week 2 of Estro.
5. Getting a new surgeon (my original surgeon left NYC).
6. Scheduling scans--mammo, ultrasound and MRI--so we can make sure everything's ok before I start rads.
7. Getting my port out. Tomorrow!
8. Celebrating--the hubby and I went to the Berkshires for the weekend in early September.

So, basically, it's been a busy month. And I need to get better about posting. But that's the basic update.

Life Without Eyelashes - Hair Chronicles #10,052

Well, chemo is over but my hair is still AWOL.

Granted, I have this sort of peach fuzz on my head, but I'm just not convinced that it's hair, despite what the hubby says. It's more like a hair precursor.

And my eyelashes and eyebrows are pretty much a memory, except for a few brave stragglers. Suddenly, the saying, "you don't know what you have until it's gone," has a whole new poignancy.

Oddly enough, I miss the brows and lashes more than I miss my actual hair. On the support group discussion boards, people have reported theirs growing back literally over night and so every morning I run to the mirror to check, but so far, they're no shows. (Well, ok, I don't "run," I don't do anything particularly quickly in the morning, but you get the idea.)

After checking for the non-existent brows and lashes, I recreate them using brow- and eye-liner and so must give props to my MaryKay education (I'm a part-time consultant), which is coming in VERY handy.

Bummer!

If you've been paying close attention, you would have noted that I was due to get my medi-port removed today.

Alas, it was not to be.

The surgeon's office called yesterday to tell me had an "emergency" and they needed to reschedule.

So now it's coming out next Friday (Sept 21).

An Addendum to Yesterday's Post

I've been thinking a bit more about September 11th and how our observation of it has changed in six years.

At work yesterday, we had a moment of silence at 8:46am. We used to have 4: one for each plane hitting the towers and one for the moments each tower fell. Now we're down to 1. I'm not sure when it changed.

As I mentioned, I commute to work via the WTC PATH. For those of you who haven't been on this train, it runs along the inside edge of the hole/construction site that is Ground Zero. When PATH service to the WTC stop first resumed, a hush would come over the riders as the train emerged from the tunnel and entered Ground Zero.

In time, of course, that dissipated, and the WTC stop became just another train station. And, in the main, I'd have to say that that's a good thing. If everyday, twice a day, every commuter through the WTC station thought about September 11th, I think we'd all be in therapy for major post-traumatic stress disorder. As it was, it was all I could do to make it to work yesterday after walking through the gauntlet of silence without breaking down.

But, here's the weird thing--which I'm having trouble capturing: Commuting, at least in the NYC area, is generally a silent activity. We're New Yorkers, we don't talk to strangers. And it's very rare for someone to be commuting with a friend or colleague. And cell phones don't get service on the train. Yet that everyday quiet is completely different from the silence yesterday. Maybe because it was more people in a smaller space being quiet. Maybe it was because those incidental conversations just weren't happening. Maybe it was that no cars were on Church St., so there was no traffic noise. Whatever it was, the silence was palpable. And reverent.

Which leads me to the conclusion that the September 11th observances will officially have lost their poignancy when the silence is gone.