Chocolate harvests believed to be particularly special might be deemed grand cru, a term borrowed from winemakers.
Tuesday
March 24

Today would of been my mother's 89th birthday. She was a wonderful lady. She must of been a big believer in "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything," as I seldom (if ever?) heard her say anything bad about anyone.

As a child she kept my world centered, she was just always there. As a teenager, well, what can I say, she was my mother and not too bright!! As a young single girl away from home she was who I called to feel connected to the family. As a young mother she was who I called for advice or just to talk. And to her credit she never told me that my kids were my payback!!
She died of a stroke when my kids were young. Jess was barely over a year old. While I know she didn't really understand what was going on, she did on some level. She had just started "talking" to a photo of my parents that hung in our dining room. When Mom died she quit talking to it. I also noticed at church Jess would gravitate to women with hair and style of dress similar to Mom's.
Justin was five and he missed my mom a lot. He wanted to stay home every day and not go to daycare. He was also pretty insightful. The night of the day she died, when we arrived at the house, Justin looked around right before we went in the door and said "Who has the instructions for Grandma's house?" I guess he knew who kept track of things in the house.
A few days after the funeral, he was watching me very closely, finally he said "I think it's harder to lose your mother than your grandmother."

Debbie from Dr. Chiang's office called me today to let me know that he is reviewing the kids' files and will call me on Thursday. So, today I came up with something new to worry about - what if he doesn't think they are good candidates for a BLA? I'm guessing I'll always have something to worry about with this disease. It seems pretty all consuming.

Today I talked with a friend who has a daughter close to Jess' age. We have off and on discussed whether her daughter possibly has Cushing's. I kind of think so but I could be wrong. She's started seeing some local doctors and so far has heard metabolic syndrome and adrenal fatigue. She calls me and asks me what I think. She is taking her daughter to an endo soon. Bill & I have been to see him and I wasn't impressed at all. But someone else may have better luck. I hope so.

We just watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I gave Justin the book a couple of years ago. He really likes anything about WWII. It's a very gripping and sad story. It truly brings home how awful things were.

Incidentally, just last week I was scanning a sack of photos for a customer. She had told me they belonged to her father-in-law and some were taken during the war. She said that he had helped liberate a (more than one?) concentration camp. I've printed a lot of old negatives that were taken during WWII. But none like these. Let me just say that holding a B&W photo in your hand is so different than seeing the same kind of image in a book. It makes it so much more real when someone whose name you know has photos of those horrifying scenes. Absolutely awful.