This morning I read about a very interesting and important McGill University study on vitamin D and cancer and decided it would be just purrfect to put on the blog today. Here’s the link: http://goo.gl/dRR3e

Another VERY good reason to keep taking our vitamin D, I’d say. Eh! 

And, once again, I would like to thank my friend Sherlock publicly for having convinced me years ago (must have been 2006) to test my vit D levels, which turned out to be abysmally low…Without her, it would probably have taken me much longer to realize how important this vitamin is for us myeloma folks…Grazie, Sherlock! 🙂

Uhm, by the way, not that this bit of news should be a shocker for anyone who reads my blog, but curcumin inhibits the nasty aberrant c-MYC cancer gene, too. Another eh! 😉

Okay, time for our tortellini in brodo and salad with pomegranate seeds. Off I go!

BUONE FESTE A TUTTI! 🙂

Today I’ve been food shopping and cooking up a storm…mainly making broth (= brodo, Italian style with a few of my own variations, which include the addition of Nigella sativa, cumin and turmeric), with heaps of herbs and spices, so that tomorrow my parents and I can have the traditional Italian “tortellini in brodo.”

Yummmmmmmy!

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful Xmas day…and that Santa will be bringing you 500 kilos of catnip…or whatever else you might want…Though, come to think of it…

…What else could you possibly want???!!!

😉

Have a Merry Merry Merry one!!! 🙂

Yesterday evening I “skyped” with Stefano, who was already in bed, since it was late at night over there (Italy is six hours ahead of Massachusetts). After we’d been chatting for a while, I suddenly heard a rather pitiful little sound and recognized my Pinga’s meow/chirp. Stefano turned his iPad around so that I could see her, my sweet, lovely kitty, whose name means “turmeric” in Sanskrit…

I was so overcome with love and fuzziness that I called to her in my cooing tone of voice, the one I always use with the cats (unless they’re putting their little paws in whatever I might be baking or cooking aaaaaggggghhhhh! 😉 ). This time, though, she not only heard my voice (which had prompted her meowing in the first place) but she also saw my face…Well, let me tell ya, my poor kitty went absolutely berserk. She began running up and down the bed and batting her head into the iPad, meowing frantically…looking for me, you see…

Stefano hid the iPad immediately, and I stopped talking until she had calmed down. I felt terrible…but the selfish part of me was also happy to know how much my cats love and miss me. 🙂

Stefano then showed my face to Piccolo (= the “skyper” in our feline family…I mean, he really “gets” Skype). Piccolo looked at me intently, meowed softly, letting me know that he realizes I won’t be gone forever but will return to him as soon as I can…Well, okay, perhaps I’m reading too much into our “conversation,” but that is what I thought he was telling me. 😉

One bit of good news: Stefano finally has his plane ticket. He is going to arrive on Cape Cod on January 9th. He can’t get away any sooner because of his job (in fact, until a few days ago, we weren’t even sure he’d be able to get away at all, so this is such good news!). So even though we are going to be apart for the holidays for the first time since we met, many many years ago, we will be reunited shortly thereafter, which is wonderful, since I miss him a lot (and I know he misses me terribly, too)…

Until then, we have Skype, so in a way we will be together on Xmas day and New Year’s Eve…And I also hid a few presents for him in my closet at home…shhhh…

Well, it’s a beautiful sunny day on Cape Cod today, so I’m going to go out now, instead of, er, doing the editing I’d planned to do this morning. On a post, I mean. That will just have to wait a bit…Soooo, ciao…and…A Very Merry Merry Merry!!! 🙂

I can’t believe I’ve been in the States for more than a week and have completely ignored my blog. Well, okay, not “completely.” I do read blog comments, and I have replied to a few messages, but I just haven’t felt the urge/desire to write any posts, I have to confess. I’ve been running errands, cooking, getting and decorating the Xmas tree (after poking around in my parents’ garage, I found our family Xmas decorations, including a red glass ball with my name on it. My Mom decorated this ball when I was born, more than 50 years ago!, and it has traveled to Italy and back…Amazing that it hasn’t broken, in fact…I also found my sister’s glass ball, which is even older. They are now hanging side by side in my parents’ living room, next to the Xmas tree, which is too small to hold them).

Most of all, though, I’ve been spending time with my parents. We’ve been laughing a lot and enjoying our time together. Among other things, we’ve been watching, or rather, re-watching!, Season 2 of “Downton Abbey” while waiting for Season 3 to begin (January 6th!). I’ve already seen Season 3, but it hasn’t yet been shown over here in the States. My parents and I are huge fans of that BBC series…so beautifully done and acted…Incidentally, I just read that there is going to be a Season 4…what a relief! 🙂

And then that horrible horrible horrible massacre took place in the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. I really can’t find any words to express the horror and shock I still feel…But horror and shock are not enough. So a couple of days ago I signed a petition urging the White House to take action on the issue of gun control. I urge you to sign it, too (link provided below). I mean, if that young man had NOT had access to his mother’s weapons, this massacre would never have taken place. Case closed.

Fact: there are way too many guns in the U.S. And even if gun-restricting legislation were introduced and approved TODAY, there would still be too many guns. But…at least…it would be a start.

Here is the link to the above-mentioned petition: http://goo.gl/0bd0x And here is an interesting interview with a Harvard professor of health policy, which gives us some food for thought: http://goo.gl/YP1c0

I would also like to post links to a few articles I’ve read recently and that might be of interest to you, too. This one tells us about a (not too surprising, truth be told!) study on sulphorophane and lymphoblastic leukemia cells:  http://goo.gl/kgWle Turmeric and curcumin are also mentioned…

A liquid form of curcumin is being tested on children undergoing chemotherapy and suffering from oral mucositis, in Israel: http://goo.gl/GmuAQ I have read about this before, and I think I’ve reported on it in a previous post, but…no matter.

Last but not least, a Phase II clinical study testing curcumin on breast cancer patients undergoing chemo and radiation is about to begin (note: the study is not yet recruiting): http://goo.gl/9jwOZ. Interesting.

Stefano sent me a few photos of our kitties. I particularly loved this one, showing Prezzemolo (6 months old) about to jump on Pinga…probably…judging from the intense look in his eyes…

Yes, I’m HERE! In the States! I had a fabulous transatlantic flight yesterday (read: no major turbulence! 🙂 ) and was hugging and kissing my parents by 10:30 PM last night. By then, I’d been up almost 20 hours. I did get some shut-eye on the plane, but I spent most of my time watching movies. As usual. By the way, I skipped the ones that I’ll be sure to watch with Stefano, like the Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter one (huh?)…

Anyway, the first movie turned out to be one of THE worst I’d ever seen in my life (I finally fast-forwarded it to see the ending and be done with it): “Two days in New York.” I think Chris Rock is rather funny, but no, not in this movie. Then I watched “Hope Springs,” with Tommy Lee Jones and fabbbbulous Meryl Streep (my favorite U.S. actress). Okay, so it’s predictable blablabla, but I really enjoyed it (and was glad that my marriage isn’t anything like that!)…Great performances by these two excellent actors. Thumbs up, in my book. Finally, I watched “The odd life of Timothy Greene,” with Jennifer Garner. Unexpectedly good. So, another thumbs up…

Okay, fast forward to Cape Cod. Mom, Dad and I stayed up chatting for a while, then I took a shower (to get rid of all those nasty plane germs, yuckkkk! As usual, I had people coughing and sneezing all around me…one woman sitting in front of me, in particular…I really tried NOT to breathe, but that’s a bit hard to do for EIGHT HOURS in a row… 😉 ) and went to bed. I slept like a log until 6 AM…then I woke up, a bit confused (jet lag can do that to ya), thinking that I had to go downstairs and feed the cats. Oh wait, Margaret, there aren’t any cats here! My parents, who are huge cat lovers, haven’t had a cat since our 17-year-old Micia (our beloved Italian kitty who traveled with us across the Atlantic as a very young gal!) died several years ago.

Well, today I have heaps of things to do, the most important of which is to go get a Xmas tree and set it up! Soooo, ciao! 🙂

I’d planned to write a million and a half posts for the blog this week (slight exaggeration! ;-)), but I just wasn’t able to…for lack of time, mainly. I mean, I’d even planned to have my usual set of blood tests this week, but then things just began happening, one after the other…So no, no tests. I’m such a busy gal! 

And now it’s Friday (!), and I’m leaving for the U.S. tomorrow. TOMORROW!???! 😯  Yikes! How did THAT happen? How did December creep up on me like that? What happened to the fall? It’s winter (a few snowflakes fell on Florence today!). Mamma mia… 😉 

Well, okay, in a nutshell, I’m leaving Florence tomorrow for Massachusetts, my home state, so that I can be with my parents for the Xmas holidays and most of January. I’m very happy about that, of course…  

The only downer is that Stefano won’t be traveling with me. In fact, he won’t be able to leave for the States until our main cat sitter returns to Florence in early January (then he and I will return to Florence together, after the middle of January). Very stupid of us, but we really don’t have a Plan B for the cats (that is, a second, super reliable cat sitter…sounds simple, but it isn’t…), and all of our friends are going to be out of town during the holidays, so…we’re stuck…  

Well, no matter: my parents and I can celebrate a belated Xmas with Stefano when he gets there. And in the meantime we can communicate via Skype, which is THE BEST invention ever! I want to see my kitties every day…yeah!

I still have a zillion things to do today, as you can imagine, and after I get to my parents’ house I’m sure to have at least a bit of jet lag, so I probably won’t be posting again on the blog until Sunday…

Too bad, since I have so much to write about! A few new SMM studies that are worthy of attention and a bit of discussion…I found one of them particularly irritatingrrrrrrrr (grrrrr!), but…okay…I shouldn’t get ahead of myself…So I’ll stop here and go back to packing…I’m in a pre-departure frenzy mode! Agggggh! So much to do, so little time! 

Take care, everyone. I’ll be back online soon!!! Ciaoooooo! 🙂

P.S. Here’s a lovely, heart-warming video on dogs driving cars (nope, it’s not a joke! Wait and see…): http://goo.gl/1OxtS

 The new Simon’s Cat video, “Icecapades”: http://goo.gl/xBvUt

And now, to get us in a holiday mood, let’s watch Aunt Chippy show us how to wrap a prezzie: http://goo.gl/os3BQ (I laughed out loud…hehe…)

I imagine all of you know what IKEA is. Yes, the Swedish ready-to-assemble furniture/home products company.  

Well, anyway, I have a petite IKEA story…

On Friday, yes the day after I was sick (by then I was purrrrrrfectly fine…), a couple of friends came over for dinner, and I brought out some dark lager beer I’d bought at IKEA…

One of our friends asked if he could keep the beer cap.

“Of course you can…but…why?” I asked, puzzled.

“Because it’s great! Take a closer look at it,” he replied. So I did. And I laughed…(We all laughed.)

Isn’t it hilarious??? 😀

…I seem to come down with an out-of-the-blue, 24-hour bug of some sort: a bit of intestinal trouble, a bit of vomiting and, most of all, an overwhelming desire to sleepsleepsleep. So that is exactly what I do when this happens: I sleep. All day.

Well, the bothersome yearly bug hit me yesterday morning. I got up as usual and went downstairs to feed the cats. But I knew something was wrong. So I went back to bed without eating or drinking anything (luckily!), and stayed there all day, surrounded by four of my cats, including our new kitty, Prezzemolo (=in the photo; as you can see, he’s exhausted from all the nursing yesterday!), but especially Piccolo, my big boy, who snuggled up next to me and wouldn’t let go of my arm all day, and Pinga, who refused to budge from my chest, purring all the time (except when she fell asleep, exhausted).

Cats are THE best! 🙂

This morning I’m fine…as if nothing had happened. Weird. I mean, I got up early as usual, had my cappuccino and breakfast as usual, and since then I’ve been doing all the housework etc. that I should have done yesterday. I will rest a bit this afternoon, just to make sure the bug is gone for good, and then I’ll get back to my (full) daily routine tomorrow…No big deal…

Boyohboythough, my emails are reallllllllly piling up (I have about 700 unread emails, just to give you an idea, urgh!)…which reminds me: sorry if I haven’t answered your messages/blog comments…I’ll try to get to ’em this weekend…but Stefano and I are going to be super busy, so I can’t make any promises…Sorry about that!  

Anyway, take care, everyone, and don’t forget the daily belly laugh! 🙂

Things have been absolutely crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrazy over here. A lot going on (nothing to do with my state of health, though…no worries there! 🙂 ). Anyway, as a result, I never seem to have any free time to finish editing my posts (I have two drafts that are almost ready to pop) or do any research. Sigh. Well, I hope to have a bit of time tomorrow…fingers crossed…

In the meantime, have a look at this hysterically funny video (thank you, Rada!). Especially funny if you have a dog or a cat in your life (…and if you have SIX cats, it’ll be even funnier, hehe! ;)): http://goo.gl/vMKKU Enjoy! 🙂 

I’ve been incredibly busy lately, with a million things to do, but I apologize for letting so many days pass without publishing even a couple of words here on the blog. That shouldn’t have happened…Anyway, sorry! 

I hope to have enough time tomorrow or the day after to post about a couple of new SMM and MGUS studies I’ve come across recently. Right now, though, I have just enough time to post about the kitties. I know, I know. Boringgggggg! But I’ll make it up to you! 🙂

Let’s see…Last Thursday our vet pronounced Prezzemolo (our new kitten who has been very ill in the past few weeks, see previous posts) fully recovered…Hurray! 🙂 So Stefano and I decided to free him from my parents’ bedroom…finally!!!

Introducing a new kitty into a multiple cat household is not as easy as it sounds. You can’t just open the door and let the cats meet face to face. You have to introduce the newcomer gradually. If you don’t, the cats might never get along, which would really be too bad. Stefano and I have created our own introduction system that seems to work quite well. So here’s a summary of what happened this time…in a nutshell…sparing you lots of details… 🙂

On Saturday evening we shut three of our cats–Piccolo, Priscilla and Pinga–inside our bedroom (where we’d all been watching a film). Then we let Prezzemolo out of my parents’ bedroom. We decided to let him first meet Peekaboo (5 years old).

As soon as he set eyes on Peekaboo, he joyfully and playfully bounced up to her. As for her, well, she just couldn’t believe her beautiful blue eyes. “What the heck is this…THING???,” she seemed to be asking us. Whenever he got too close, she hissed and growled at him, so he’d stop dead in his tracks. But he’d fallen head over heels in love with her, and, as we know, love is stronger than fear, so he kept running up to her, meowing and chirping seductively. All he got in response, unfortunately, was hiss hiss and growl growl. This went on for some time…

We finally put him back in his room but kept the door open a crack. Stefano stayed with Prezzemolo while I released the other adult kitties from our bedroom. One by one, they all came up to sniff the new kitty through the door. When it was Pinga’s turn, I saw a little black paw appear at the crack and tap Pinga right on the head. Spunky boy!

On Sunday morning we opened the door for good: hiss hiss growl growl, chase chase, whack whack. But no blood has been shed so far, no big fluffy tails have appeared…and that is a good sign. Another good sign is that Piccolo let Prezzemolo sleep on our (messy unmade sigh) bed yesterday, as you can see… 

Then today Pinga and Prezzemolo touched noses, and she didn’t hiss at him at all…Yay! These two are going to love each other, I’m sure of it! 🙂

Okay, time for dinner…time does fly! Ciao! 🙂