Celebrations, Chemo, and Corona, OH MY!

My dear friends and (remaining) readers, I am so sorry it has been so long since my last post. It has been an incredibly busy month or so, during which I've had two more chemo treatments, received the best visitors (including a surprise one), celebrated multiple birthdays (including my own!) and one big brother's wedding in California, continued working/hanging out, and more recently, tried hard not to catch COVID-19! So consider this your photo bomb of the highlights from the last 40 some-odd days.

I continued to be a cancer patient, while also heading to downtown Gotham for interviews for my dissertation research:

I received a lovely care package from my lovely HS friend, Roxanne, which included a badass shirt, and forgot to take pictures of other lovely high school friends Kate and Katie visiting me at my second carbo chemo: 

 

I received a copy of the first book with my name on the cover: 

I celebrated Austin and Allix's little Milo's first bday party, and bought him the cutest, littlest backpack:

Greg and I went upstate with these two cuties, and amidst all this past year's changes, decided to list our country contemporary for sale: 

                                                  

For the SECOND time, I had my best girl from Paris Audrey come in and surprise me for carbo chemo #2.* I also had a lovely care package come in from her and Kathrine (no photos but super thoughtful, unsurprisingly): 

In addition to Audrey, I had the magical Lou and Anna Laura drive up from DC for my birthday weekend: 

                                   

We also had the chance to celebrate our friend Chris' phenomenal collage of our terrible President....: 

                                               

... at a party which resulted in a very rare appearance of a very drunk and hilarious Greg: 

The second picture happened to fall on my 32nd birthday, which I enjoyed thoroughly with our 40-50 nearest and dearest New Yorkers + visitors through a brunch at home, which included tons of bagels, two cakes and homespun karaoke:

 

The very next day, I left for California to bask in the sun and hang a bit with both bros: 

                                              

 But the TRUE reason for going out west was to celebrate the nuptials of big brother Jeremy and new sister Crystal at a beautiful (loaned) Ojai, CA home on leap year:

Before I get ahead of myself though, festivities really started with a drive up to Ojai on Friday with Jer's lovely friends Tanya and Thomas in a convertible that we rented. We arrived in time for a beautiful Friday night shabbat dinner for 40 people, prepared entirely by our stellar mom (with help from me and others): 

            

On Saturday before the festivities, we enjoyed the adorable town of Ojai and the insanely beautiful house where the wedding took place: 

And on Saturday night, we partied our big hearts out, including, but not limited to, a tennis court horah: 

After all the wedding fun, on Sunday, Greg and I began our grand tour of seeing friends throughout Southern California via convertible: 

                                              

We also saw some pretty things at the Huntington in Pasadena: 

 And some cute friends (Stan and Trez+Chris) with equally cute dogs in Carlsbad and Long Beach, respectively:

Oh and we pretty consistently ate some yummy stuff in the sun:

                 

After all that, we were supposed to head directly to CANCUN for some rest and relaxation*, but this nasty old coronavirus got in the way. Our trip was cancelled, which was a serious bummer. California was wonderful, but it was also intense, and involved a lot of friends and fam time. We were really looking forward to holing up on a beach, just the two of us. Instead, we got a red eye back to NYC last Wednesday, Greg got some serious food poisoning that I was terrified was actually coronavirus upon our arrival, and we camped out at home through the weekend. At the very least, I got to do some apocolyps-baking:

Yesterday I had my 3rd of 4 carboplatin chemos, and today I've done some work and remembered that I had this little blog! Because I am indeed one of those immunocompromised people, I'm being extraaaaa careful about the spread of coronavirus. Washing my hands like crazy, avoiding public transit, and staying out of contact with people who are even remotely in touch with anyone who has been exposed. It sucks, and will likely get worse before it gets better. It'll also likely impact a ton of our plans for travel over the next few months, as it is currently advised that I stay off long-haul airplane flights. But if the photos above show, we're lucky to have a great support network that will continue to keep us company throughout this crazy cancer ride.

 *Last year, Greg dispensed enough hearing aids that he earned an all-expenses-paid company trip to an all-inclusive resort in Cancun.