Archive - 2009

For anyone who still might care, although I can't imagine who would, given my lack of posting, this is the official announcement that I am shutting down The Cake Eater Chronicles. 

For good. 

Mostly because I no longer reside in Cake Eater Land. 

Or in the People's Republic of Minnesota. 

Yes, that's right: I made good on my threats to leave the state entirely, and am pleased to say that once I've registered to vote in my new homeland, I will be represented in the Senate by people who are not a. Stuart Smalley or b. Amy "I'm a publicity seeking whore" Klobuchar.  Their names rhyme with Fay Gaily Mutchison and Fawn Smornyn. 

It's somewhat of a longish story that I will endeavor to simplify: the chemo-induced nerve damage in zee hands and feet was deemed permanent in August, and since I have a weird desire to be productive in the winters (never mind to go out of doors on occasion) the husband and I, at the end of October, packed up our belongings and moved south to observe and record the wild ways of the Texas hippies of Austin.  After some interesting stops and starts along the way, we're finally moved into our new place, the husband will be opening his new store tomorrow, and I can finally sit down and get some work done.  I'm more grateful than I can say because the husband decided to upend his business and to, essentially, start over so that I can be as pain-free as I can get.  He's a good guy and I am not worthy of him. 

I haven't the foggiest if I will start up another blog at some later date.  I might.  I might not. I simply don't know yet.  I'm working on other things at the moment, and they are keeping me involved.  I would rather quit this entirely, than continue to do it quarter-assed.  Because, my devoted Cake Eater readers, you deserve a blogger who can give you serious half-assedness, rather than the quarter-assedness you've been receiving.  While a quarter of my ass might constitute a greater portion of assedness than someone else's full or even half-assedness, it's still not as much as I feel I should be giving, if I were to continue with this.  Yet, I don't want to continue with the Cake Eater. I feel I've pretty much written all I can via this outlet.  It's time to move on.   

I believe the Cake Eater Chronicles has served me well over the years, as an outlet for some of my crazier thoughts and gags.  Not to mention it has introduced me to some fabulous people whom I consider to be good friends---even if I've never met most of them in person.  They've let me into their lives as I've let them into mine.  It's been an interesting six years, and I feel I've gotten about as much out of the Cake Eater as I'm able.  I hope you feel the same way.  

Thanks for sticking around, my devoted Cake Eater readers.  I appreciate it more than you know. 

It's the fifth of October, and I've officially had it with the color pink. 

Pink, in case you're an Eskimo and don't have either a tee vee or the ability to whip down to the grocery store to purchase some seal steaks, is the color of Breast Cancer Awareness.  October is, officially, Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Yesterday, we tuned in to watch the Bears beat the snot out of Detroit, and what were the husband and I treated to?  Pink gloves on the big, badass players, pink ribbons on their helmets, pink towels on the sidelines, pink bills on ball caps, etc.  The other day, while in Austin, I was asked at the checkout line (mind you this was also on the 29th of September.  Not October 1st.) at the grocery store if I wanted to donate money to breast cancer research.  When I went to my usual coffee date at the local Bou with Mr. H. yesterday, the entire store looked like a Pepto Bismol addict had puked all over.  The employees asked me if I wanted to buy a pound of "Amy's Blend," part of the proceeds of which would go to breast cancer research, and then they asked me if I would like to donate a pound to a woman who was going through treatment.  I politely said, 'no, thank you,' and then walked away.  One of the employees, who has been there a while and knew me when I was bald, shot a very understanding glance in my direction and shrugged. 

All of it makes me wonder if anyone cares if I, as an ovarian cancer survivor, live or die because I didn't get the trendy cancer. 

I'm of two minds about all of this.  I cannot deny that the various foundations who have worked hard to make breast cancer an issue, and to raise funds for research, have done a bang-up job.  They have done marvelously. (And bringing the NFL into it is a stroke of genius. Really.  Wow, people.  Nicely done.)  I do not deny this.  I genuinely laud their efforts.  They have bravely trod a path those of us involved in ovarian cancer fundraising want to follow.  Yet, when you see pink everywhere, one wonders if people realize that breast cancer is NOT the only cancer which affects women.  Nowadays, all of their efforts to put pink on the shelves and in every conceivable public location during the month of October and beyond, feels very much like they're bringing coals to Newcastle. 

Particularly to an ovarian cancer survivor.

I know it sounds bitchy, selfish and horribly, horribly wrong.  I can't help it, though.  A straight-up look at the statistics decrees that 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, whereas only 1 in 71 will receive an ovarian cancer diagnosis.  That's a lot more women who are affected overall.  Yet, breast cancer, across all the stages, has an 89% five-year-survival rate, whereas ovarian cancer, across all the stages, has a 45% five-year-survival rate.  More women may ultimately get breast cancer, but fewer women die from it than those who contract ovarian cancer.  Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths, and it's, hands down, the deadliest gynecologic cancer.  Yes, more women will die from breast cancer, but that's not because they don't have an early screening test (which breast cancer has in the form of mammograms) and it's not because they don't have effective treatments (tamoxifen, anyone?)---it's simply because more women are affected with breast cancer.  They run the table when it comes to the numbers---and I'm not denying it's a problem that needs working on---it's just simply that, well, how can there be room for the rest of us to raise awareness and money for a cure for a deadly cancer when they hog the limelight?

God, I'm hating myself for writing this.  Sour grapes extraordinare. But on I go. 

My young-survivors group puts together survivor swag bags, to hand out at our annual walk, and, this year, one of my fellow young survivors had the ignominous honor of ripping plastic off five hundred donated bottles of pink nail polish because the plastic was festooned with pink ribbons. The nail polish was, of course, originally sold as a breast cancer fundraiser---we simply got the leftovers.  You want to piss off an ovarian cancer suvivor?  Put something in a bag meant to be a treat for them, for surviving ovarian cancer, that has pink ribbons on it.  You would have thought someone at the company who donated the nail polish would have had a clue, but they didn't care. We, of course, couldn't say a word about it because it's hard enough to find items for the swag bags without spitting on very generous benefactor.  It sounds wrong to me (and others in my situation) when someone suggests, in a very well-meaning way, that because there is an ovarian cancer-breast cancer link (even if no one can define that link than there's an increased occurrence of the other when one is diagnosed with their primary cancer), we should hook our star to the breast cancer people.  It suggests that the only way ovarian cancer research can be relevant is to link it to breast cancer, as if it's not a problem in its own right.  I went to a luncheon sponsored by OCRF two weeks ago, where they provided us with a gynecologic-oncologist/researcher, so he could talk about the latest advancements in ovarian cancer research.  You want to know where he'd started his latest research program, which related to estrogen potentially feeding tumors?  Breast Cancer research about the use of tamoxifen, which suppresses estrogen and has been wildly successful in the treatment of breast cancer.  Yes, that's right: it's getting to the point where we have to feed off their research. Is it providing new insights? Yes, obviously it is.  But tamoxifen is not, he said repeatedly, likely ever going to be used in ovarian cancer treatments because the estrogen affect appears to be different in ovarian cancers than in breast cancer.  The overall fact is this: they're coming up with effective treatments; we have to feed off their research to learn more about ovarian cancer because we have very little knowledge about ovarian cancer's mechanisms in the first place.  We're decades behind.  When Dr. Academic told me he had no idea how the cancer got from my left ovary to my right, without affecting anything in between, it became apparent to me that for everything they do know, there are ten more things they don't.  The knowledge gap is staggering---and it shows up in the survival statistics.  

There is no early-screening test for ovarian cancer.  We simply have a list of symptoms to look out for, then you have to bully your doctor into ruling it out by banging the drum for three different tests.  And that's simply to rule it out.  It's better than nothing, but still, it's not exactly as definitive as a pap smear or a mammogram, and I say that with the full knowledge there are plenty of false-positives with either test.  At least there is a mechanism to find it early for cervical or breast cancer---that is not the case with ovarian.  We try to fundraise, and to raise awareness, but we're hampered by two problems.  First, we simply don't have as many survivors.  Which doesn't seem like a big deal, but it is---any progress we make in advocating for our cause is hampered by the fact some of the women involved die.  As Dr. Academic put it when describing the local ovarian cancer foundation: "They've got a longevity problem."  And, second, we run smack up against the breast cancer people.  What philanthropically-minded company wants to go teal, to raise money for ovarian cancer research, when going pink will make them more money?  And will improve their philanthropic profile by partnering with one of the largest causes?  Said companies have to choose: they cannot retool their packaging quickly enough to accomodate both causes, as they run up against one another in monthly timing. 

No one wants this to be a competition---but in reality, it is.  It's David v. Goliath, and no one really wants to take Goliath down.  But if we're ever to get anywhere significant, then we're going to have to go after them. 

And that's just simply sad.  It shouldn't have to be this way.

Boy oh boy, did Vlad the Impaler score big today. 

President Barack Obama on Thursday overhauled plans for a missile defence shield in eastern Europe, promising instead stronger, swifter defence systems to protect U.S. allies against any threat from Iran.

In a move that may ease tensions with Moscow but spur regional fears of resurgent Kremlin influence, Obama said he had approved recommendations from U.S. military leaders to shift focus to defending against Iran's short and medium-term missile capabilities."This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defences against the threat of missile attack," Obama said in a brief statement on scrapping plans for ground-based interceptors in Poland and a related radar site in the Czech Republic

Moscow said it would welcome the decision to drop the program, which had complicated U.S. efforts to enlist Russian support over Afghanistan, Iran and nuclear arms control.{...}

The new plan is to send Aegis destroyers to defend Europe against any rogue nuclear threats. Yeah, that'll work.  Like Russia wouldn't take issue with them cruising the Baltic. 

{insert slap to forehead here}

Failing to earn big points in the bonus round, the nimrods in the Obama adminstration apparently are unable to bookmark Wikipedia, because on this day seventy years ago, Stalin invaded Poland from the east, creating a second front for the beleaguered Polish troops who were doing their damndest to hold off the Nazis. 

Now, seventy years later, we're well out of the Cold War, but we have a ruler in Russia who seemingly longs for it, and enjoys rattling his saber and his natural gas supplies to get what he wants, signalling a return to Russian hegemony in what he considers Russia's historical sphere of influence.  President Bush puts forward a missile defense program, to, ostensibly,protect NATO members in eastern Europe from a rogue attack from Iran. The added benefit of the program is that no matter what its intended design, Russia doesn't like it.  These countries are its former satellites; part of Russia's former sphere of influence, and if Russia can't have them back in the fold, as it were, Vlad certainly, at the very least, does not want western influence in his backyard.  Then Vlad goes and invades Georgia. It's no coinicidence that Poland, which had been dragging its feet on the program, signed on a few days later.

Now, a little over a year later, our rube of a president, ostensibly to gain access to Russian train tracks for the shipping of supplies into Afghanistan, to avoid Taliban-infested routes in Pakistan, dumps this program entirely.

Just how far does a Ginsu go when shoving it into the back of a Czech or a Pole? Can you get that puppy all the way through their bodies, or is it just a flesh wound which will heal easily? Either way, don't expect either country to be on board with anything the US does for quite some time---as in until a new administration is elected.

What doesn't make sense is that this is, purportedly, for Russian rail access into Afghanistan.  THIS is the purported end game? It doesn't make much sense because the give and take is not proportional.  And as much as I would like to think Obama really is this stupid, he's got decent foreign policy analysts on his team who would prevent him from making such a deal. No, the deal only makes sense if the US is getting something else in return---like, say, Russia's cooperation at the UN Security Council when it comes to Iranian sanctions? Bigger, badder sanctions they've been blocking in the Security Council for some time because they're making too much loot selling Iran nuclear "power" components.

Next week, Obama planning to be the first US president to actually chair a meeting of the Security Council---"devoted to nuclear proliferation and disarmament."  Did he give up missile defense, in effect giving in to Russia (and Teheran, by the way), so he could make a bigger, bolder splash at the UN next week? Did Obama throw Poland and the Czech Republic under the bus to bolster his own international statesman whimsies?  Would he really go that far? 

Yep. I believe he would.  The guy's ego knows no bounds. 

If this is the case---that this move is, essentially, laying the ground work for Obama's big UN day next week---one wonders what other concessions will be announced in coming days.  There will have to be other concessions, because Russia isn't the only country who's been dragging their feet on Iranian sanctions: the Chinese have been blocking sanctions, as well. What is Obama going to give up to the Chinese to get them to play ball?  A lessening of pressure to get the PRC to control its neighbor, North Korea?  The removal of hasty and recent tarriffs on Chinese tires?  A withdrawal of the Navy from the Taiwanese Straits? Do tell! 

Just how much of "this" is Obama going to give up for "that"?  I suppose it all depends just how much Obama wants to become the international statesman of our time. Which, I gather, is rather a lot.  

No, I'm not going to explain the title.

Just click on this link and all will be explained.    

I open up the Cake Eater mailbag this morning, and inside is a missive from "best"  Cake Eater Brother Timmy:

Subject: Putin

Where has he been?

Truth be told, it's (was) August: the slowest news month of the year because everyone (besides me) is on vacation.  But, never fear, we do have some newsworthy coverage from almost a month ago. 

Putin Strips for Stardom, Again

MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin drew scrutiny reserved for Hollywood action heroes this week, as Kremlin images of him fishing, swimming, rowing and riding bare-chested on a Siberian mountain were snapped up by media all over the world.

During a brief visit to the fields and streams of the Russian republic of Tuva, the Russian prime minister doffed his shirt to break cords of wood with his bare hands, ride a horse and swim a furious butterfly stroke, all for the benefit of government cameras.

Two state-owned Russian television channels broadcast video of Putin's leisure pursuits Tuesday night, and within hours everyone from the BBC to the tabloids seized on the story — perhaps grateful for something to cover in August, the slowest of news months.

The Western media seemed fascinated by the notion that the tough-talking former KGB lieutenant colonel, regarded as the shadowy power behind President Dmitry Medvedev's throne, would bare much, if not all, for an adoring public.{...}

Sexy beast, no?  And by that, of course I mean the horse.

"Da.  Dis is Brokeback Mountain.  Vhy do you ask?"

I don't know why, but I fear for the fish. 

In other, more current Putin news, he did his absolute darndest today, at the Polish commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the German invasion, to say:

{...}I want you to know that Russia has always respected the courage and heroism of Polish people, Polish men and officers who were the first to stand up against Nazism in 1939.{...}

Yeah.  Russia has always respected Poland and the Polish people. They really liked stomping hither and thither, loved the pierogies, and a deep respect for Poland and her people sprang up as a result.

In the words of Mr. Mackey, "Drugs are bad, mmmkay." 

Somehow, Vlad neglected to mention that Stalin, under his agreement with Hitler, invaded Poland two weeks later, and then when the Red Army strolled through again in early 1945, somehow, forgot to leave for the next forty-five years or so.  We're not the bad guys.  Really.  It was all about Hitler and how eeeevil the Nazis were.

Anyway, we live to please here at the Cake Eater Chronicles.  I hope you enjoyed the Vlad shots, and, no, I won't reimburse you for the bleach you bought to pour in your eyes after viewing them. 

Longtime devoted Cake Eater readers already know I'm a big, longtime, fan of Anthony Bourdain.  We went to The French Laundry based solely upon his write up of the place in A Cook's Tour.  If that doesn't get across to you that I'm a fangrrrrl, I don't know what does.  Every Monday night you can pretty much guarantee that I will be in front of the boober, watching this week's episode of No Reservations.    

Last night, Tony answered some "burning questions" the viewers had submitted.  While it's always entertaining to listen to him snark on, the show was completely stolen last night by Adam Lupsha, the visual effects editor. 

Fast forward to 6:46 and enjoy the laughs. 

And the laughs keep coming...

Heh.

It would seem as if I need to apologize to you, my devoted Cake Eater readers. 

I haven't been on the ball when it comes to approving commenting privileges, and people have had to wait days for approval. I am sorry for this.  The problem is thus: once I closed up anonymous commenting, people apply, and they have to wait until I bother to read my email to approve them.  Yet, since the bots that frequent this site also apply for commenting privileges, it takes some time to sort out the legitimate applications from the eeevil Russian-hacker-created bots who want access simply so they can spam me with suspicious links to lesbian pr0n. (Seriously, hackers, do you honestly think I'm going to approve someone who has .ru on the back end of their email address, given that your fellow countrymen hacked me in the past?  I think not.) Over the past couple of months, there have been way more bogus apps than legitimate apps, hence I've slacked on checking my email at all, assuming it will just be filled with spam. 

My bad.  

I'm very sorry and will attempt to do better in the future. 

If David Cameron has a pair, he will move for a vote of no-confidence as soon as is humanly possible. 

The Sunday Times has in its possession leaked documents, which show a completely different truth about the "compassionate" release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. 

It turns out, it was just like anyone with half a brain thought: blood for oil.

During the past year a small ship bristling with computers and seismic equipment has been crisscrossing the Gulf of Sidra, in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast. Its mission: to help to find BP’s next offshore oilfields.

The company’s search for oil off Libya and in a 20,000-mile area in the west of the country potentially offers as much as £15 billion in new revenue. But less than two years ago it was feared that the deal could founder; and the reason was wrangling over Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the jailed Lockerbie bomber.

BP was finally given the go-ahead six weeks after a volte-face by the British government to include Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya under which prisoners could serve out sentences in their home countries. Jack Straw, the justice secretary, revealed this decision in a letter to his Scottish counterpart. He cited “wider negotiations” and the “overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom”.

Sources in the UK and Tripoli said last week that those wider interests included BP’s hoped-for share of Libya’s untapped oil and gas reserves. The decision to include Megrahi in the prisoner transfer arrangement was seen by Libyan officials as paving the way for his release — and BP’s much-coveted deal was finally ratified.

{...}The detailed correspondence seen by The Sunday Times confirms that the Lockerbie bomber’s fate was regarded by the UK government as pivotal to relations with Libya. It also shows how anxious the government was to curry favour with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi by being seen to open the way for Megrahi’s release.

The government now faces new questions over its exact role in trade talks and whether or not it favoured Megrahi. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, is calling for full disclosure of whether commercial contracts for oil were discussed as part of the negotiations for the Libya-UK prisoner transfer treaty.{...}

The gist of the deal is thus: in 2007, then-PM Tony Blair hashed out a prisoner transfer release agreement with Ghaddafi.  Al-Megrahi was specifically not mentioned in the agreement.  Soon after British Petroleum's deal with Libya was ratified by Libya six weeks later.  Tony then leaves office, Gordon Brown gets his shot at the brass ring, and suddenly, the new justice minister, Jack Straw, is advocating to Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice minister, that, yes, it would be very good indeed for British national interests if Al-Megrahi were to be released.  Which was a switch from what Lord Falconer, Blair's justice minister, wrote to MacAskill a few months previous.  

As the man said, go read the whole thing.

It would seem as if it was very convenient for the UK Labour government for Al-Megrahi to have come down with so-called terminal prostate cancer, as it gave Brown's government an easy way to please Ghaddafi, without ruffling too many American feathers.  And it might have turned out that way had Ghaddafi put a lid on any celebration at the Tripoli airport when Al-Megrahi returned.  

It shouldn't surprise anyone that this is the truth of the situation.  Britain invented petro-politics---does Iran, 1953 ring a bell?--- and that they're still know how to play the game shouldn't shock anyone.   

The only problem with this scenario is that here you have a deeply unpopular government, who is doing everything they possibly can to raise their rankings in the polls before the next scheduled election cycle---and who is not having much luck with it.  This could very well be the final nail in Brown's coffin. 

I don't know. 

But, like I said at the beginning of this screed, if David Cameron has any resemblence of a pair, he should go on the offensive about this as soon as possible. And he shouldn't let up about it.  This is the opportunity he's been waiting for.

A sorority sister posted this on her FB wall, and it was so hilarious, I couldn't help but swipe it. 

Last night, I was standing in front of the sink whilst I was preparing supper.  There is a window over the sink, which looks out into the backyard, and something rather odd caught my eye in the way back. 

It hadn't been there earlier in the day, or the day before.  Because of their abrupt appearance on the scene, I wondered if Number Six hadn't, somehow, snuck into the house in the course of one of his escape attempts. 

Since Number Six didn't appear to be in the vicinity, the husband and I figured it was safe to go out and investigate. 

This thing is the size of a socccer ball, as is the other one.  I'll be interested to see what the little one looks like later today. We had no clue as to what it could be, but the husband did a little research, and it turns out it's a mushroom with an apt classification: Calvatia gigantea or "giant puffball" mushroom.

{...}Most giant puffballs grow to be 10 to 70 centimetres (3.9 to 28 in) in diameter, although occasionally some can reach diameters up to 150 centimetres (59 in) and weights of 20 kilograms (44 lb). The inside of the mature Giant puffballs is greenish brown, whereas the interior of immature puffballs is white. The large white mushrooms are edible when young. To distinguish giant puffballs from other species, they must be cut open; edible puffballs will have a solid white interior. Some similar mushrooms have the white interior (or yellowish) but also have the silhouette of a cap-type mushroom on the interior when cut open. These are young cap-type mushrooms and may be poisonous.

The fruiting body of a puffball mushroom will develop within the period of a few weeks and soon begin to decompose and rot, at which point it is dangerous to eat. Unlike most mushrooms, all the spores of the giant puffball are created inside the fruiting body; large specimens can easily contain several trillion spores. Spores are yellowish, smooth, and 3 to 5 micrometres (0.00012 to 0.00020 in) in size. The dry spores can be used as a coagulant to help stop bleeding.{...}

Can you believe that?  It's actually edible. That's a shedload of mushroom!  And, yes, the husband reverted to his eight-year-old self and poked it, repeatedly, with a stick, and found that the inside is, indeed, white.  We could, technically speaking, eat the thing.  But we won't, because I'm entirely too much of a chicken to eat fungi from the backyard. 

Interesting what can spring up in your backyard overnight, no?  I find it somewhat comical that we've spent all summer laboring to get grass to grow, but giant puffball mushrooms spring up instantly. Weird. 

*Verily, praise will be heavily heaped on those who can spot the source material.