I went to the New Balance factory store today* and, with the help of two salespeople, found a pair of shoes that I think fits. I bought it, then treated myself to a hot fudge sundae before coming home.

By the time I got home my feet hurt, which is from either trying on shoes that didn't fit, or the amount of walking I did in my old shoes. I will wear these around the house for a few days to break them in and confirm that they fit.

If they fit, I'm going to go back and buy another pair in a different color; if not, I'll return them, regretfully. I also want to see about sandals, and have a few stores in mind, but shoe shopping is so often frustrating that I wasn't going to try a second shoe store today.

*meaning Friday, which is yesterday by the computer clock.

I had a colonoscopy this afternoon. The preparation was not fun, though not as bad as I'd feared; the main problem is that I am short on sleep. The worst part of the colonoscopy was the nurse placing an IV, because I was dehydrated (as expected in this context), and what would otherwise have been the best location is bruised from having blood drawn Monday.

I already have results back via MyChart, and since the colonoscopy was done by GI doctor who recommended I get one, I know she has the information. It looks basically OK--no evidence of inflammation and no polyps--but they did detect internal hemorrhoids. She "randomly" biopsied eight locations, so they can look for microscopic colitis, and I will probably have those results in about two weeks. The recommendation is to wait for the pathology report and then see her again.

ETA: Also, I had to take my N95 off for the colonoscopy, because it was done under sedation. The sedative was given via IV, but they had a tube feeding oxygen into my nostrils, and the anesthesiologist needs to be able to see that the patient is continuing to breathe properly. I gave them the mask when I lay down, and they gave it back to me (in a zip-lock bag) when I woke up.

I took the bus to Cambridge today to visit some lilacs near Harvard Square. These lilacs are in the front yards of several houses near Mount Auburn Street (on Ash Street and Story Road), not the impressive collection at the Arnold Arboretum, but they're much closer to transit. There was enough rain yesterday and today to wash away some of the pleasant lilac scent, but there was enough to enjoy when I leaned over to smell the flowers. Most of the flowers on those lilac bushes were already open this afternoon, and they're forecasting more rain for each of the next several days, so this may have been my best chance (especially given my upcoming medical appointments), though I may look for more lilacs near my apartment tomorrow or Tuesday.

I stopped on my way home at Lizzy's to replenish my supply of ice cream. I wasn't thinking about ice cream until Adrian reminded me this morning to take the insulated bag with me, so I'm glad she mentioned it. (Ice cream without nuts, seeds, or pieces of fruit is on the list of things I can have as part of the pre-colonoscopy low-fiber diet tomorrow and Tuesday.) or I might have bought a pint of strawberry or ginger.)

I had my quarterly appointment with Carmen so she can continue to prescribe the Ritalin. I spent part of the time talking about Mom's death, including how the trip had affected me physically, and specifically that my joints hurt much less than I expected given the amount of walking.

A bit later, the three of us went for a walk, and my knees started to hurt a little almost immediately, despite the precautionary naproxen. At that point, I realized that I walked a lot almost every day of the trip, but almost all of it was basically flat, long hospital and airport corridors.

These are focused on my mother's work as a Holocaust educator, and her early life in Germany and France before she came to the United States:

Holocaust Educational Trust: Eve Kugler BEM 1931 – 2025

Jewish News: "She lit up every room"

OPINION: How Eve Kugler changed the world

[Expect multiple posts about this over the next days and weeks, but I'm going to put more than one thing in a post, rather than make a couple of dozen short posts.]

My mother's cause of death was metastatic lung cancer; she'd been short of breath for a while but kept insisting nothing was really wrong. Then she fainted on her way to see her doctor on April 14, and her carer and one of her good friends decided to take her to the emergency room instead.

I wish I'd traveled sooner, but last Wednesday Mom told me that I shouldn't come right away, but wait until she was home from the hospital to visit because hospitals are boring. At that point they knew it was cancer, but were talking in terms of weeks or months, and what treatments to consider. Saturday morning (4/19) my brother said we should get there as soon as possible, and we were on a red-eye flight to London that evening. By the time I got there, my mother was a lot weaker, and not up for much in the way of conversation, but she was happy to see me, Adrian, and Cattitude. On the 21st the palliative care team said we should think about whether to send her home or to hospice. Mom wanted to go home, but said that she wanted whichever would get her out of the hospital sooner. Tuesday they told us "24 hours" and that she was too sick to be taken home or to a hospice facility. She died at 2:30 Wednesday morning, with my brother and his partner Linza sitting with her.

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Sitting shiva is supposed to be people coming to comfort the mourners. That's part of what happened last night, and it was valuable, but Mom's stepson Ralph asked if Mark or I would be willing to sit on Sunday as well, for the same of my mother's friends from March of the Living (a Holocaust memorial that Mom had been participating in since 2012) could pay a call, and I didn't feel up to that. I wanted to be home, in my own bed, and have my friends comfort me, not listen to more people I've never met tell me how wonderful my mother was. The group had a memorial service for her Wednesday night in Cracow, which was before the funeral.

My mother referred to Holocaust education as her "third career"; she volunteered once to talk about her and her family's experience, and the next time they needed a speaker they asked her again, and she saw work that needed doing and put a lot of time and attention into it. [Put in a link to one of the online obituaries?]

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I'm leaning on Adrian for guidance on how some of this can/should work, given that this needs to work for me, her, and Cattitude. Formally, my brother and I are the mourners, but Cattitude and Adrian both love and miss my mother, and she loved them. (Apparently several people who heard her talk about the three of us said things like "Eve was very...open-minded," which is true but misses that my mother loved them both.)

Things were looking significantly worse this morning, so the three of us are going to London tonight on a red-eye.

I may not be reading much, or I may be spamming everyone's reading pages.

Apparently the reason I hadn't heard from either her or my brother yesterday is that she fainted, went to the emergency room instead of her doctor's office, and then waited hours to be seen.

A CT scan found lung cancer, in both lungs. They're still waiting to talk to an oncologist, and my brother is on his way to London now. The three of us will be going to London in a few days, possibly as soon as Thursday, or maybe Saturday. My brother has a long layover in Charlotte, and is going to spend part of it looking at airline tickets for us, possibly using my mother's frequent flier miles for one or more tickets.

I spent some time this morning looking up travel-related things that we may not need, but will do no harm, and wondering about Oyster cards is better than doomscrolling. I also called my doctor's office and asked whether there were limits on where the patient can be for a telemedicine appointment. The receptionist said she thought that technically, I have to be in Massachusetts; we agreed that I can call back if I need to postpone that.

My gut was bothering me earlier, which is almost certainly from anxiety, but still has me a little nervous about this trip. (It's been just over a week since I saw the GI doctor.)

The advice the GI doctor gave me on Monday seems to have done the job: my gut has been behaving since the visit, which is five days so far:

The doctor told me was to take the imodium (anti-diarrheal) twice a day whether or not I have symptoms, and start taking psyllium (metamucil). I was surprised, because psyllium is generally referred to a laxative; I suspect that's why Carmen didn't think of it. Assuming I'm still fine on Monday, I'll be sending her a MyChart message

I've taken one/day for five days, which seems to be enough. The package instructions are not to take it within two hours before or after other medication, because it can interfere with absorbtion. I'm already taking other medication on something resembling a schedule, which means this one has to be at or a little after 6 o'clock, unless I want to fiddle with the timing on something else. The schedule includes "right after I wake up" and "after breakfast." )

A couple of notes on Consider the Fork, by Bee Wilson, which I read a couple of weeks ago. This started as a belated reply to anne's comment, but I want to post it where other people might see it. (Apologies for any fuzziness, it's past my bedtime.)


I liked it. There's some overlap with the book I read a while ago about the history of refrigeration, but mostly the emphasis here is different. Despite the title, the author starts by talking about wooden spoons, and that they come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Having started there, the book ends by discussing some kitchen tools that are younger than most people realize, such as good vegetable peelers.

As acelightning2 alluded to, the Chinese approach, where food is either cut up into small pieces before cooking, or cooked and then cut up in the kitchen, means diners aren't holding anything pointier than a pair of chopsticks.

Something that stuck in my mind: one 19th-century home ice cream maker made ice cream in only a few minutes, faster than any of the ice cream makers you can buy today. A few of these machines still exist, but their owners aren't using them: it turns out that the zinc-lined bowl leaches toxic zinc into the ice cream.