I have been on several whale watching trips off the coast of Provincetown, in the national marine sanctuary known as Stellwagen Bank, but yesterday’s trip beat them all. In the past, a typical sighting would have been the end tip of a whale tail way out in the distance. Sure, that was exciting, but…nothing compared to what we saw yesterday.

Yesterday, we had whales swimming near and under our boat (by the way, I have always chosen the Dolphin Fleet, mainly because of their commitment to responsible whale watching, information concerning the welfare of whales, collection of scientific data, having a naturalist on board, etc.).

Stefano and I chose different sides of the boat so we would have most of the water surface covered. As luck would have it, he was on the BEST side…at one point, two and sometimes three whales surfaced right next to his side of the boat to feed, so he got some super duper photos with his super duper digital camera. I got some decent shots with my not-so-super-but-certainly-adequate camera, too…so, since his photos (400 or so) would be more difficult for me to post right now, you will have to be content with mine (“only” 230).

In total, we saw 14 humpback whales, 2 minke whales and 1 right whale. Not bad, eh!

After our exciting whale watching trip, we spent a couple of hours walking around the charming, lively and picturesque town of Provincetown. Since Stefano and I are magnet collectors, we bought an Obama magnet…and also T-shirts depicting a black cat, yes, a black cat, not a black dog (those of you who have been to Martha’s Vineyard will know to what I am referring!). Anyway, another lovely lovely day. In fact, I hope we have the time to go on another whale watch before returning to Italy…(by the way, the last photo is of a T-shirt that I did not buy…but I liked the message, hehe…).

Moving on to another topic…my first order of supplements has been delivered, and I am now waiting for the second. I intend to test most of the substances that I have posted about in recent months—boswellia, ashwagandha, reishi, inositol, IP6, etc.—I am probably forgetting some, but these are the main ones. I have chosen only reliable sources, organic whenever possible…and none of my capsules contain silicone dioxide.

The upcoming year should be an interesting one…!

Yesterday we drove to Boston and spent a few hours at the Museum of Fine Arts. I hadn’t been there in years and had, er, forgotten how wonderful it is. We particularly enjoyed the Egyptian exhibits…and the room filled with Etruscan finds (as a child, I thought that I would be THE one to solve the mystery of the Etruscan language, so I have a soft spot for Etruria…), including two extraordinary volcanic stone sarcophagus lids, both portraying the loving embrace of a husband and wife.

But then we wandered into the Impressionist area…and I saw one of my favorite paintings in the world: Renoir’s “Dance at Bougival.” I’d forgotten that it was there. Super! To my amazement, photos (no flash, of course) are allowed in the museum…so I don’t think that I have broken any laws by publishing this photo. Of course, the REAL painting is…much better!

From the MFA, we drove to Cambridge, where we spent a couple of happily nostalgic (for me) hours wandering around Harvard Yard, taking photos, having hot fudge sundaes at Herrell’s…yes, a perfect day…and today we are off to Provincetown, hoping to see some whales!

I grew up in Italy, where patriotism is not overtly expressed. The only time you will see lots of Italian flags waving about is when Italy wins the World Soccer Cup. And perhaps on a few other occasions.

The opposite is true here in the U.S. There are flags everywhere. I don’t mean that in a negative sense, eh, please don’t get me wrong. It’s just different, that’s all.

But…a flag stuck on top of a…beach umbrella?

Fabulous long walk on the beach this morning. We happened upon a laughing group of friends playing bocce and having a great time…further down the beach, a few brave folks who must have been related to polar bears were in the chilly water…but what kept my attention was…this (see photo). Hmmm, not something that I would personally choose to do…but today was certainly a glorious windy day, perfect for flitting about over the water…I guess!

This morning, while waiting for Stefano to wake up so we could go for a walk on the beach before the crowds took over, I came upon a bit of online news that explains something that happened to me a few years ago: http://tinyurl.com/m2xf24

Now I know why I screeched a few, er, unladylike words during my second bone marrow biopsy (I have had three in all, and the first two were excruciatingly painful)…in my defense, the person performing the procedure was a medical intern…and I was her guinea pig, though nobody told me that until it was too late to say NO! There was an overseeing doctor, of course, also a woman, who began guiding the intern through the procedure: “do this, do that…no, don’t do it that way.”

As the intern pierced my hip bone with the needle, though, instead of continuing in a calm and reassuring manner, Dr. Nutcase began yelling bloody murder at the trembling intern. Right over my head. Things that a patient should never have to hear: “no, don’t hold the needle like that! Can’t you tell that it’s shaking??? Hold it steady, for crying out loud. And push, darn it, push, no push harder, puuuuuushhhhh!!! Harderrrrr!” (=the equivalent in Italian.)

I remember an initial attempt at humor on my part, something like “oh yeah, please do be steady with that needle, will ya???” As my pain increased, though, I remember moaning: “sorry, guys, but I have to do this…” And then I let out a couple of Italian swear words…similar to “darn it,” nothing too strong, mind you (“ma porca miseriaaaaa!!!”). And I really did feel better. Now I know why…

This morning I woke up thinking how easy it is to forget that I have cancer cells inside of me…I haven’t given cancer half a thought since I’ve been on holiday (until now, that is!). Even my daily dose of curcumin and fish oil doesn’t remind me…

It’s easy to forget about the evil cells when you are walking along a nature trail in Nickerson State Park and practically stumble upon a couple of red squirrels at play…chasing  each other around and on top of a pile of dead branches, putting on a real show for Stefano and me.  What a fantastic moment that was…

It’s easy to forget…while on a Cape Cod beach at sunset, watching children fly kites or try to save their elaborate turreted sand castles from the advancing high tide. Ah yes, it’s easy.

Sherlock sent me a study that I mentioned in a recent post…but I am in no mood for research right now…and even though I am and will be answering e-mails and posting a few photos on my blog, the serious stuff will just have to wait for another couple of weeks…

Stefano and I arrived safe and sound last night at my parents’ home on Cape Cod, Massachusetts (U.S.A.)…our Florence-Paris-Boston trip was uneventful…hmmm, well, okay, except for a bit of turbulence toward the end…oh, and having to sprint like cheetahs through the Charles de Gaulle airport, pant pant sweat sweat…now why the heck were we not allotted more time to catch our connecting flight to Boston? We ended up having only a half hour or less to change terminals and go through security checks again, hello???…Afterwards I thought that if we’d caught the wrong bus to the wrong terminal (an entirely possible scenario), we would have missed our flight for sure (not that being stuck in Paris for a night would have bothered me that much, eh!)… 

This morning, after five hours’ sleep, we went out for breakfast (if you visit Cape Cod, you have to have breakfast at the “Red Cottage” in South Dennis, yum yum!)…then we stopped by the supermarket to buy some food (y’know, I could spend an entire week wandering around a U.S. supermarket…an entirely fascinating experience!)…and late this afternoon we went for a walk on the beach. It’s so lovely here. I feel fabulous…so relaxed…hmmm, could be the jet lag…zzz…in fact, I think I need a nap right about now 😉 

I’d like to leave you with a link that my cousin sent to me…an adorable UK cat story that made the Italian news, too: http://tinyurl.com/l3xzpz Enjoy!

I found a verrry interesting item while reading “Jaymun’s Journey” (see: http://tinyurl.com/l5te4c Thanks, Dave! Incidentally, I am so thankful and happy that Jaymun is home now, what a relief!), which then led me to the following abstract: http://tinyurl.com/klxuvf Wowiezeewie!

In September, I will ask Sherlock if she can get me the full study…in the meantime, we will have to be content with what can be gleaned from the abstract, such as this glorious titbit: Ganoderma lucidum extract has a profound activity against leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma cells and may be a novel adjunctive therapy for the treatment of hematologic malignancies. Profound effect??? That sounds super…but what is this stuff?

Well, ganoderma lucidum is a mushroom species…a fungus that has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for more than 4,000 years, making it one of the oldest mushrooms known to have been used in medicine, as we can read in its write-up in Wikipedia: http://tinyurl.com/n5szkn Perhaps many of you will recognize, as I did!, the Japanese word for this mushroom: Reishi. Ah yes. It seems to be another one of those fix-all-and-more remedies…it is used to treat conditions as diverse as rheumatism, heart problems, asthma, fatigue, psoriasis, high blood pressure, HIV and…cancer. And more…

I urge you to have a look at the above Wikipedia link. The “History” section is absolutely fascinating. For instance, the oldest book in oriental herbal medicine (2,000 years old!) states the following: “The taste is bitter, its energy neutral, it has no toxicity. It cures the accumulation of pathogenic factors in the chest. It is good for the Qi of the head, including mental activities… Long term consumption will lighten the body; you will never become old. It lengthens years.” Uhm…never become OLD?!!! Words escape me at the moment…

In Chinese, by the way, it is called “lingzhi,” which means “herb of spiritual potency” and my personal favourite: “mushroom of immortality.” 🙂

Wikipedia also provides suggestions on how to cook this mushroom as well as a list of scientific studies backing its rather impressive anti-this and anti-that properties. Can you tell that I am excited? 🙂 There are also heaps of studies on the mushroom of immortality in PubMed…I have already found a reliable source and will buy some of the, er, immortal extract, even though I don’t have the time now to go through any of these studies (but what I have read is enough to convince me to give it a whirl…)…

Finally, I would like to add that 24 hours from now Stefano and I will be on a flight for the U.S. We are spending our three-week summer holiday in my home state of Massachusetts. Yaaay! I can’t wait!

I will have access to my blog and e-mail account during this period (we are staying at my parents’ house, mostly), so I won’t “disappear” as I was forced to do last summer, when we went to France. But hey, after all, we will be on holiday, so I doubt I will be doing much research! A more likely scenario: Margaret (and Stefano, of course!) on a whale-watching boat or wandering through one of the Mass Audubon wildlife sanctuaries. But I will certainly stop by the blog now and again to say “hi there!” and post a few of the glorious photos that I plan to take…well, I have some packing to do, sooo…ciao for now!

Cat lovers should be familiar with Nora, the piano-playing cat (if not, have a look on YouTube)…well, yesterday my cousin sent me the link to a wonderful piece featuring Nora and a symphony orchestra. I enjoyed it very much and hope you do, too! See: http://tinyurl.com/nolmn4

This morning I took on the task of going through some of my still unread (=for lack of time) e-mails, in particular, my “Science Daily” messages. So glad I did! I found one very interesting item (see http://tinyurl.com/mcac5k): a new study shows that women treating their symptoms of menopause with hormone replacement therapy could reduce their risk of developing breast cancer by taking, tadaaa!, curcumin.

The researchers found that curcumin delayed the first appearance, decreased incidence and reduced multiplicity of progestin-accelerated tumors in an animal model. Curcumin also prevented the appearance of gross morphological abnormalities in the mammary glands. It did this by blocking progestin’s increased production of VEGF (aha, an old nemesis of ours pops up…). The researchers believe that curcumin and other antiangiogenic substances could decrease or delay the risk of breast cancer associated with combined hormone replacement therapy. Holy puffins!

Menopause is a very complicated process…I admit to knowing very little about it, except the basics that I suppose every woman knows…but I realize that I must look more closely into this process at some point soon because I seem to have entered a premenopausal stage…even though I have had no unwelcome symptoms yet (hot flashes, e.g.). I must say, though, after reading this article, I feel much encouraged that perhaps my daily intake of curcumin will protect me in yet another way…a peachy thought!