Recipe: ginger teriyaki sauce

Wisk the following together:

1 Tsp freshly grated ginger
2 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce
2 Tbsp honey

Coat 2 salmon filets with mixture and cook in the oven wrapped in foil packets.

It is super yummy!

Ho ho ho!

Like many people, this is my favorite time of year. The temperature drops, football season is in full swing with the playoffs in sight (Go Steelers!), I pull out my winter coats (I have several, all different colors so that I can match my outfit with my coat), and I look forward to Christmas. This year, I decided that I was going to get the most out of my tree, so I unpacked it and decorated it the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I love to sit with Theo and Sassy and admire the tree when it is all lit up.

My dad is to blame for my love of Christmas lights. For as long as I can remember, he has taken Christmas lights very seriously. It may have taken a couple of decades, but he has accumulated an attic full of outdoor holiday decorations and lights. The whole process of getting the yard decorated takes several weekends. He carries the ladder up the driveway and proceeds to outline the front of the house, hang wreaths at the windows, and my mom paces in the house totally freaked out that he's going to fall and break a bone. It is reminiscent of Clark Griswald in the National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation movie. I think Clark is his inspiration and that house in the scene when it finally lights up is his ultimate goal. The past few years, dad has taken it up notch by purchasing two animated light-up moose, giant blow up globes and cartoon characters, a santa complete with his sleigh and reindeer that are animated and light up (of course), and a Christmas cow. Yes. A Christmas cow. He has become my favorite. And the reason it takes several weekends to get this spectacular display of holiday cheer completely set up is because he does this all in stages and plays around with the actual arrangement of everything in the yard. Hey, he does have to carry all of this down from the attic. What I think is super special is that he doesn't forget about the back of the house. He lines the patio with lights, puts up a separate tree, and I think there is a blow-up snoopy back there too. It is pretty impressive.

My sad little Kmart tree with target ornaments just doesn't compare to what my dad creates every year in his front yard, but until I have a house of my own or an actual outlet on my balcony, I am restricted. I will say though that I get pretty competitive when it comes to door decorating if there is a contest. Normally, I am not a competitive person. I couldn't care less if I win things, but one year, I wrapped up my door in pretty paper and hung a wreath and stockings on the door. My neighbor then did the same, copying me, but she had that special wrapping paper cutter so that she actually measured and cut out the door knob. So I had to go and get candy canes to put out for people to take. She did the same damn thing! So I fixed her wagon and got battery operated twinkle lights and put them on my wreath. I don't know how I didn't win that contest...I had a light up, blinking wreath!

Another thing that I do this time of year is not only shopping, but gift knitting. Since I learned to knit, I have made most of my gifts. Hats, scarves, mittens...you name it, I've made it for someone as a gift. Typically, I start out with the best of intentions and plan on beginning my holiday knitting early. Inevitably, I am knitting right up until dinner on Christmas day to finish. I am proud to say I have never given anyone something on the needles and told them I would finish it and they would get it in a few days. Yes, people actually do that. This year, I am almost done way ahead of time! I picked a small project and I did it for my immediate family only--my parents, sister, brother-in-law, and my neice. Izzy always gets something special, and this year it is leg warmers for her to wear to her dance classes. I think I will also make her a fair isle hat, but that will only take a few days and I have plenty of time. The rest of the gifts I bought and they are stuffed in places throughout the apartment.

I even designed Christmas cards! I decided that everyone I know sends me cards with pictures of their kids on them. I don't have kids, but I do have 2 cute cats. So to embrace my current "cat lady who knits" status, I put my cats on the card and signed their names. Either people will think it's funny, cute, or sad. They can make their own judgements. I personally think it's cute and funny :)

Oops.

So it has been forever since I posted on my blog, but I have been very very busy. I have started a new job! I am a senior editor at the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI). This job is perfect because it blends my interest and education in cancer biology and research with my love of writing. I never thought that my major in English at W&J would ever amount to anything, but it really was a factor in my getting my job. I think that overall, being able to critically evaluate published literature and clearly communicate my thoughts were two skills I learned in college that I have always applied to my work as a scientist.

In other news, I sold my car and I am officially car-free. I have been having my groceries delivered (thank you, Peapod!) and renting zipcars to get around when I have heavy shopping to do. Otherwise, I am taking the metro to work and learning the bus routes and schedules. So far, so good!

So if anyone actually reads this blog, I will be better about posting now :)

A Slave to Fashion

For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with shopping and clothes. Growing up, we had special church clothes and I loved Sundays because it meant I could wear a pretty dress and my white puffy poncho. Yes, I had a white puffy knitted poncho. Mom and Dad would take us to Hills and we would spend what seemed like hours picking out new school clothes to put on lay-away. Then my mother would wander off and Dad would assign Stacey and I areas of the store to look for her. The idea was that once one of us found her, we were to stick to her like glue and bring her back to the front of the store so that we could check out. I have no idea how she does it, but that woman can disappear in a store. Literally disappear. You are talking to her one minute and the next you realize you are talking to yourself and she is no where to be found. Then after you hunt for her and finally find her browsing in a random aisle. You ask her why she disappeared and she just shrugs her shoulders at you. I have had this happen so many times in my life I can't count. The worst is when she does it at a busy shopping mall and it takes you 45 minutes and several phone calls to her cell phone (which is in her purse, turned off or dead) to find her. One time in Kohl's, her phone was actually turned on and the ring tone led me to the shoe aisle she was in but unfortunately many stores don't have cell reception and she is notorious for carrying around a phone that is turned off, gone dead, or set to silent. Okay--I think I've totally gone off track here, but if I could get back the time I've spent searching for my mom in stores I would have enough banked for 6 month trip to Thailand. Seriously. When your feet are aching and you need a nap and all you want to do is get out of a crazy store, hunting her down was not fun.

Back to business. So I love clothes and shoes and accessories and anything else that I get to wear and makes me feel pretty. All throughout my life I have been devoted to fashion. As any fashionista knows, you must keep abreast of the latest trends. So I am a regular reader of the blog, www.thefrisky.com. I love it! It has posts from a wonderful group of women that focus on fashion, relationships, women's health, and pop culture. Yesterday I read a post about how throughout her life, the blogger keeps coming back to overalls. I realized that I myself have had an on-again, off-again love affair with overalls, too! I know I wore them as a child for convenience and comfort. Then sometime in middle school, I remember pairing them with polo shirts and converse sneakers. In high school, I had a pair that I bought from the gap that were my absolute favorite overalls. I wore them with simple tanks and sandals in warm weather and with a tee and a flannel over top in the winter. I thought that my overall days were numbered when I started college. Looking like a farmer just didn't seem like the way to make friends at W&J College. I was lonely and having a hard time finding friends because I didn't live with the other freshmen--I had been put in a building with all the sororities. I put my overalls in the back of my tiny closet and saved them for holiday breaks. After pledging Kappa Alpha Theta during the spring semester of my freshmen year, the time to get matched with our big sisters (a mentor) finally came. I received Theta-themed presents plastered with pansies, kites and cats for an entire week with clues about the identity of my big sister. My final clue the night before the big reveal told me to show up for the scavenger hunt in a pair of overalls! I pulled those suckers out of retirement and wore them with pride as I ran around the frat houses fulfilling tasks and earning the clues that led me to my big sister and the rest of my Theta family. It turned out that I had become a member of a branch of the tree that calls itself, "Theta's Overall Best Family." Hence, the overalls. I have pictures in my scrap book from that night of four generations of my family all wearing overalls. My family line still exists today, but I'm pretty sure that the overalls have been nixed. The Frisky blogger said that overalls are sure to reappear on the runways and in the stores sometime soon due to the cyclic nature of fashion. She posted some pics of a striped tee and a blazer that she would pair with her overalls along with a cute belt and some gorgeous platforms, I tried to imagine myself throwing on a pair again. Yet, I just don't think that I could pull off overalls at the age of 30, no matter how cute I think they would look with a pair of pretty platform heels. I will never say never. My sister thinks I'm a little off since I swore that leggings were ridiculous and I'd never wear them again, then I showed up in a pair under a dress. Although I did swear off the skinny jean and cowboy boot trends, and tight rolling my jeans (thank you Katie Holmes for bringing that one back). I think I will hold strong and resist the temptation with this trend as well.

Knit This, Not That

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originally uploaded by labkat02.

The past few months, my knitting output has drastically decreased. Since I am no longer teaching knitting classes, I thought I would have a lot of time to finally focus on my own projects. I was sadly mistaken. It seems that I am now busier than ever! I am a new volunteer writer for the NIH Office of Communication and Education, Cancer Publishing Branch. So I was assigned a short review of a paper that was recently published about a new technology to discover and test autoantibodies as cancer biomarkers. The plan is for this Research Advance article will be published on www.cancer.gov when it is finished. I am hoping that if I'm successful at this assignment, they will have more for me as well. Also in my spare time, I am the volunteer editor for the Montgomery County Story, the bi-annual Montgomery County Historical Society publication. I stumbled upon this as a way to get experience editing and learn something new about the county I work in. From the previous blog posts, I think it is clear that I have been spending more time in the kitchen as well. I love trying new recipes and expanding my culinary palet.

As a result of all of these extra-curricular activities, knitting has not been on the top of my list of priorities. Until a few days ago. I was trying to pick out what sweater pattern to knit for a new baby that is expected at the end of this month (shout out to baby boy Lewis!) and I realized that I had planned on beginning my holiday knitting in July. Somehow, July came and went. I have patterns that I bought last January. I just need to choose the yarn and get it done. It is actually a really cute, but easy and thoughtful gift that I'm giving to everyone in my immediate family. I have failed. So the baby sweater is at the top of the list, along with one for the best big brother ever (Yea Hayden!) because being a big brother is an important job that deserves a special new sweater too. I already am half-way done with H's sweater and I'm excited to send it to him. Then I realized that I have no plans for Izzy's birthday present. I make my neice something special for her birthday and Christmas every year. Her birthday is in early October, so I have time, but I need to budget for the yarn which means I have to pick the project and plan it out. So in summary, I have three little sweaters and about seven holiday gifts to knit. This seems reasonable, right? Of course not! To complicate the matter further, you have the fact that I am neurotic and very task-oriented. I have a shawl/scarf that I began a few weeks ago that is still sitting on the needles taunting me. I hate unfinished projects sitting around in my knitting basket. For example, the pair of slippers I knit last January that still need to be felted. I am ashamed of myself for being too scared to felt them. I've never felted anything and the process is seemingly easy--hot water, a top-loading washer, and lots of friction. I am not even going to mention the insane afghan I decided to make that is going to take me about a year at this pace because I have to make 48 separate blocks that need to then be seemed together to create a blanket that is 72"x54". All of this has left me reeling and unsure of what to knit and what not to knit. I am about to resort to my old system--post-it notes. Lots of post-it notes all over my laptop and coffee table to keep me focused.

Favorite recipe of the week

Amanda's Non-fat Peach Mango Smoothie

1c ice cold skim milk
1c fat free vanilla yogurt
1 large peeled and pitted peach
1 mango (peeled with pit removed)
2 Tbsp honey

Combine in a smoothie maker or blender and mix at high speed until smooth. It's the perfect treat on a hot day!

Favorite recipe

My sister first told me about making a salsa-based chicken soup a couple of months ago. I have added a little bit more to it every time I make it and I think I have created a great version of my own. It's one of those super easy but flavorful crock pot recipes that I think everyone loves. Put it on in the morning and by the time you get home, you have a great pot of soup.

chicken broth (one of the big boxes you can get in the canned goods aisle)

1 jar of your favorite salsa

2 frozen chicken breasts (you can use more if you want)

1 can black beans

1 can of corn

fresh chopped cilantro (1 cup)

1/2 bag of frozen bell pepper strips (or use fresh red, green, yellow and orange bell peppers)

*I crush up some tortilla chips over top when I serve it.

Hot Hot Hot!

Washington, D.C. is in the middle of a heat wave. It was over 100 degF yesterday and today it is the same only the humidity is higher. My hair is poofy no matter what products I put into it in an attempt to keep it straight. Just a few seconds after I step out the door, I can feel the makeup sliding off of my face. Going outside, it feels like I'm underwater because as I move, I can feel the air being pushed away from me because it is so thick and humid. In short, it is miserable outside. Last night, after spending an hour swimming, I was making myself dinner and a bottle of merlot on the kitchen counter caught my eye. As much as I like a nice glass of red wine with dinner, it was just too hot and I needed something more refreshing. I began to wonder why on earth someone hasn't marketed and sold wine popsicles. So I emptied out an ice cube tray and decided to try it. I'm not sure of the alcohol content and how that correlates with the freezing temperature of a liquid. I do know that liquor, for example, freezes on dry ice but not in a regular kitchen freezer. When I go home today, hopefully I will have four ice cube-sized merlot popsicles to enjoy. If not, then I will need to get some dry ice :)

Recently, I’ve been trying to work my way through a sizable stack of magazines that have accumulated in my apartment. So while walking on the treadmill in the gym, I’ve been catching up on the fashion and beauty articles in Glamour, Elle, and Marie Claire. Mostly I like to look at the columns devoted to new beauty products and the pictorials telling me what heel height is “in” for the next season. One of my favorites is the splurge vs. steal section where one magazine throws up pics of trendy outfits including jewelry and shoes and tells you what was a splurge and what was a steal. I like to see if I have anything resembling these trends at home. I am a product of my generation. I really can’t explain the appeal to anyone that didn’t spend his or her teens hanging at the mall.

I’ve noticed lately that these magazines also attempt to highlight issues in women’s health beyond the regular articles featuring questions you are too embarrassed to ask your doctor. I was about 20 minutes into my walk when I turned the page and skimmed over a headline that caught my attention in the May 2010 issue of Marie Claire. Anne Wojcicki, one of the co-founders of 23andMe, a genetic testing firm was interviewed about her life as an entrepreneur in the biotech industry. I read through the article and my first thought was disappointment. I was so disappointed. I felt that the author should have focused on the controversy surrounding the impending sales of these test kits at retailers such as Walgreen’s. Instead, the focus was on Wojcicki—her hair color and clothing preferences, the way she and her husband live in a humble home considering their measurable wealth, and her background and ultimate success as a businesswoman. While I applaud the journal for highlighting her as an individual, they glossed over the controversy surrounding the release of this technology and presented a completely one-sided account. I suppose that given the magazine I found it in, I shouldn’t have expected riveting journalism.

I think that if I had not read an article earlier the same week announcing the sale of the kits, produced by a few companies including 23andMe, then I wouldn’t have been nearly so disappointed with the Marie Claire piece. I had no idea that such tests were in development let alone ready to be stocked in pharmacies. I think the principle is a good one—using a swab, you collect some saliva and send it off to the company for analysis and find out if you are at risk for heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, etc. Each company is a bit different, but using your DNA, they determine if you have genes for a host of diseases including ones that are not preventable, such as Alzheimer’s. You get a report from the company giving you the statistics and your risks for developing these conditions in the future based on your unique gene profile.

While I am a proponent of what is being called “personalized medicine,” I understand why these at-home gene test kits are currently a subject of debate with the FDA. First, I would like to note that you can easily undergo genetic testing by a licensed doctor and speak with a genetic counselor. I know this because I’ve had friends who are pregnant and it seems like all of them have gone in for tests because of a history of miscarriage or other reproductive issues. So tests like these are not novel. They have been around in the healthcare community for quite awhile. In Marie Claire, Wojcicki is quoted as saying, “the paternalism of the medical industry is insane. But scientific advances are changing all that." You have got to be kidding me! I personally think that her company and others like 23andMe are offering a service without proper support for their customers. The information that they are giving to people is potentially life altering and could also cause great emotional distress. If I found out that I had a gene that increased my risk for Alzheimer’s, for example, I would have to take that into account when I considered getting married and having a family. Furthermore, a small study by the Coriell Institute for Medical Research in New Jersey, gave 44 participants a genetic screen much like the ones the FDA is currently scrutinizing. Interviews with the study participants found that one-third had shared their results with a doctor. Of these, half received behavior or lifestyle recommendations from their doctors based on the test results, but a quarter of these patients said that their physicians “didn't know what to make of the information.” I think that the customers of these at-home kits may not completely understand the results because even clinicians aren’t 100% clear on the role that behavioral factors like diet have on many of the conditions these tests examine. Also, similar studies have shown that the participants didn’t make any significant changes in their lifestyles based on genetic test results that they hadn’t already begun to make.

The bottom line for me is that it is irresponsible to give a person this information without proper education and a medical support system that could help the individual make lifestyle changes. Wojcicki’s assertion that the medical community is attempting to somehow control patients by not supporting these gene-testing kits is absurd. I think that if these kits were offered and used under the direction of knowledgeable healthcare professionals equipped to help counsel the patient, the controversy would be hampered or not exist at all. For me the controversy is in giving this information to someone who won’t know what it means or what to do with it in order to try to prevent developing disease.

Reunion videos make me cry!

First, we had Christian the Lion. It was a video that went viral on youtube a while ago. I actually watched the documentary on Animal Planet. I have it saved on my DVR. The two men that raised Christian bought him at Herrod's Department Store in London sometime in the 70's and released him into the wild in Africa after they realized that London wasn't a good place to keep a full grown lion. Someone posted the reunion video with Aerosmith's song, "Don't Want to Miss a Thing," but I've also seen it with Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" playing in the background. To see that grown lion bound toward his former owners and lick and paw at them makes me cry every time I see it.

Then today, I was introduced to Kwibi. Kwibi is a gorilla that was released into the wild at age 5. Five years later, his former owner went back to Gabon, West Africa to reunite with his dear friend. This video chronicling the reunion made me smile. What struck me was not only the fact that Kwibi responded to a call from Damian as he drifted in a boat down the river, but that he introduced Damian to his new family!

The fact two different potentially dangerous animals were able to recognize their past owners is amazing to me. To me, it clearly shows the bonds that we make with the animals in our care. I think it also demonstrates how intelligent these animals are as well.

My Work

The following is an author's commentary that I wrote in September 2009 for the website, www.MDlinx.com. It's a website for physicians and patients that is dedicated to provide users with the most recent, innovative published research on a variety of topics. I was asked to provide a brief commentary on my paper that was published in Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapeutics.

Commentary for “Concurrent vaccination with two distinct vaccine platforms targeting the same tumor antigen generates phenotypically and functionally distinct T-cell populations” by A. L. Boehm, et al. 2010. Cancer Immunol Immunother 59:397-408.

Combination therapy is not a new concept for the treatment of cancer. For years, oncologists have combined chemotherapeutic drugs, radiation, and most recently small molecule inhibitors to achieve maximum therapeutic efficacy. The first FDA-approved therapeutic cancer vaccine will be approved at the end of this year, while several other therapeutic cancer vaccines are in the late stages of development. It is foreseeable that the combination therapy trend will continue and as is the case with currently FDA-approved anti-cancer therapies, therapeutic cancer vaccines will be combined to target a single tumor-associated antigen. Our study is the first to show that two vaccine platforms targeting the same antigen can be concurrently administered due to their induction of distinct T-cell populations. Furthermore, our data show that this combination of therapeutic vaccines results in significantly increased antitumor effects in vivo, setting the stage for future studies employing combination therapy for cancer with two vaccines targeting the same tumor-associated antigen.

I would like to note that since this paper was published, the first therapeutic vaccine for cancer, Provenge, has been approved by the FDA. My work demonstrates that two vaccines can be administered at the same time without deleterious effects on the immune system. Given that Provenge may quickly become the standard of care therapy for prostate cancer, in the future, it will be important for researchers to study the combined effects of provenge with other vaccines to improve survival. My work provides evidence that this may be possible through the development of a more diverse T-cell population to target the cancer cells.

A long wait...

Sometime this week, the first therapeutic vaccine for cancer is going to be approved by the FDA to treat prostate cancer. The vaccine, Sipuleucel-T, is being marketed by Dendreon as Provenge. The company has shown that the vaccine extends the lives of advanced prostate cancer patients by an average of 4.5 months. Some of the participants in the trial lived for an additional 2-3 years. The side effects observed in the clinical trials were limited to mild flu-like symptoms—a key advantage to Provenge over conventional therapies.

It is being reported that the vaccine will cost approximately $75,000 per patient. When I first read this, sadly, I wasn’t shocked. I had just read an article in the Washington Post by Sandra G. Boodman that told the story of three different cancer patients who had to decide between dying of their cancer or putting their families into debt to pay for their cancer medications. One patient’s insurance company refused to pay for an oral chemotherapeutic medication ($4000 per month) when the i.v. version was cheaper. The patient had surgery to implant a port into her chest for the i.v. When the port sprang a leak, she was rushed to the ER. She bitterly remarks that if the insurance company had paid for the pill version of the drug, it would have been less expensive than the surgery and ER visit, and she is probably correct. This article went on to talk about another man with a form of leukemia that filled a prescription for the drug Gleevec at his pharmacy. The total charge was $10,000 for a 30-day supply. In her article, Boodman uses these stories to frame her report on the greed of pharmaceutical companies and the lack of federal guidelines and legislature that addresses these very real financial issues that are literally forcing people to choose between dying or diving into deep financial ruin in order to live. Of course, the companies cite that the development of these drugs cost billions and years to gain FDA approval. They legitimately have a lot invested and do deserve to profit off of these drugs. I have hard time reconciling the needs of the patient and the rights of the companies. I know that it can take about 10 years and about $1 billion for a drug to be developed, tested, approved, and marketed. It is a significant investment on the part of the company, which includes not only the individuals on the business end, but also scientists and doctors who literally devote their entire careers. The companies like to site that they have programs to cover the costs for patients who can’t afford their treatment. While this is an outstanding service that they provide to their community, many patients will never know about this option or live long enough to maneuver their way through the paperwork.

While Gleevec and other drug therapies simply require the patient to take a pill, Provenge is unique. It is not a pill. Actually, it isn’t a drug at all. Patients undergo leukapheresis, a procedure in which blood is collected and the white blood cells are separated out. These white blood cells include antigen-presenting cells (APCs). APCs are immune cells responsible for the recognition, processing and presentation of foreign antigens to the T-cells. The APCs are sent to a Dendreon facility, where they are kept alive in culture and exposed to a recombinant fusion protein that contains prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP). PAP is an enzyme produced by the prostate and found at elevated levels in the blood of prostate cancer patients, much like prostate-specific antigen (PSA), because the cancer cells produce it and it sheds from the cell surface into the blood stream. Cancer cells have multiple mechanisms by which they can avoid detection by T-cells. The APCs process and present PAP on their surface. Two days after the initial blood draw, the patient returns to the hospital/doctor’s office and the APCs are infused back into their body through an i.v. They undergo this process three times over the course of a four-week period and then the treatment is complete. The PAP-presenting APCs interact with other types of immune cells in the body. Essentially, the APCs are “telling” your T-cells that the PAP protein is “bad” so that they target and kill any cells in the body that express this protein on their surface. The result is that your own immune system is manipulated and used to kill your cancer. It is unlike any other FDA-approved cancer therapy. Every man diagnosed with prostate cancer will undergo this treatment, just as chemotherapy and hormone therapy are the standard today. For these men, the key will be how they pay for it.

From this point on, labs will be writing clinical trials for prostate cancer that will combine their drug with Provenge, as it will eventually become the standard of care for metastatichormone-refractory prostate cancer. This will undoubtedly be a complex undertaking as the workings of the immune system are intricate and easily influenced. It is well established that some chemotherapy drugs are immunosuppressive. It is reasonable to question if other drugs will effect the immune system’s ability to respond to Provenge or some other therapeutic vaccine. This is a question that I ask everyday in my own studies. Clearly, this is a truly exciting development that will benefit patients. However, the FDA approval of the first therapeutic vaccine for prostate cancer is also a significant event for the field of cancer biology. It is going to create an unbreakable bridge between the fields of immunology and cancer biology and will hopefully encourage the development and approval of future innovative immunotherapeutic approaches to treat cancer, leading to treatment options for patients with fewer side effects and better outcomes.

Knitting Rut

I am a knitting machine. I have made countless numbers of socks, hats, mitts, and even some sweaters. Most of my knitting is given as gifts throughout the year, but especially at Christmas. I start a project and I become obsessed with finishing it. Because of this, I typically have only two or three projects going at one time, just to break up the monotony. I have found that knitting gave me something interesting to do when I am watching TV. Or I’ll pull it out when my mind is overloaded with all the things that are going on in my life—it feels good to have something else to focus on. But the past month, I have had no interest in knitting. I have three projects that are just sitting in their bags by my couch. I don’t know what is going on with me! It’s not that I don’t like the socks, shawl and tank. I love the yarn I’m using for each, so that isn’t contributing to this knitting block either. Maybe it’s the weather? All I do know is that this is a huge problem. I have several friends expecting babies this fall and I have to start on these projects soon. I have got to get my knitting mojo back!

There are so many things that I love about spring. Tulips! I have always loved tulips! When I was a kid, I would inspect the progress of the tulips in the front yard on a daily basis. When they were emerging from the ground, I would speculate on what colors we would get. I love all of the colors. I think a big vase full of multi-colored tulips is perfection. In college, I lived on the tiny campus of Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, PA. In 1998, when I began my freshman year, the campus was little more than a 6 square block area. I would walk to my 8am biology and chemistry classes and find the best tulips that week. Then under the cloak of darkness, I would take a study break around 10 or 11pm, grab a pair of scissors, and go cut down the tulips I had pre-screened earlier that day. I’m sure that the grounds people were wondering what was happening to all of their tulips. They would last a week or so, and in the meantime, I would keep an eye out for the next flowerbed that was in bloom. I have no regrets that I was a tulip-bandit. I think that having those flowers on my desk while I was studying was a comfort. It reminded me of a time when I didn’t place my self worth on a grade from a biology exam. And it made me smile.

I think that spring holds the potential for provoking a lot of smiles. It’s said that spring is a time of rebirth. After the cold dark winter, spring comes along and everything is made new again. Flowers bloom, trees are leafy green, and the birds are chirping first thing in the morning. The beautiful weather in D.C. is enough to make me smile. It’s been absolutely gorgeous the past few weeks. Other things that make me smile this time of year: squirrels (I just think they are cute), little kids in sunglasses, and local farmers’ markets. Also, Cadbury Eggs. Love love love Cadbury Eggs. I hope that everyone else can take a minute or two and find something to smile about. Happy spring!

Sweet Sweet Tequila

I’ve signed up for a couple of email alerts from different websites that recommend articles for me to read about cancer, immunology, etc. Today, I happened upon the article, “ Ingredient in Tequila Plant May Fight Osteoporosis and other Diseases,” published on the Science Daily Website. Immediately I thought that this is awesome news because now I have another excuse to drink margaritas—to fight off osteoporosis! I did a quick wikipedia search and got some more info on the magical agave plant, which is used to make tequila. Predominantly found in Mexico, Agave is apparently a popular ornamental plant and many parts of it are edible. The sap of the blue agave plant is fermented and distilled to make tequila. Studies have shown that fructans, found in agave, are responsible for the therapeutic benefits associated with the plant. As I continued reading the Science Daily article, studies suggesting fructans have therapeutic potential for the treatment of diabetes, obesity, and constipation were cited in addition to the recent findings concerning osteoporosis presented at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society. Furthermore, studies have indicated that fructans stimulate the immune system. I did find a few articles that support these key points, listed below. Then comes the bombshell, about three paragraphs in. “Fructans do not occur in tequila, however, because they change into alcohol when agave is used to make tequila.” Seriously? I knew it was too good to be true! Apparently a weekly happy hour featuring Patrone won’t save me from a hunchback.

Sources:

1. American Chemical Society (2010, March 23). Ingredient in tequila plant may fight osteoporosis and other diseases. ScienceDaily.

2. Lobo AR, Cocato ML, Jorgetti V, de Sá LR, Nakano EY, Colli C. Changes in bone mass, biomechanical properties, and microarchitecture of calcium- and iron-deficient rats fed diets supplemented with inulin-type fructans. Nutr Res. 2009 Dec;29(12):873-81.

3. Ryz NR, Meddings JB, Taylor CG. Long-chain inulin increases dendritic cells in the Peyer's patches and increases ex vivo cytokine secretion in the spleen and mesenteric lymph nodes of growing female rats, independent of zinc status. Br J Nutr. 2009 Jun;101(11):1653-63.

4. Urías-Silvas JE, Cani PD, Delmée E, Neyrinck A, López MG, Delzenne NM.Physiological effects of dietary fructans extracted from Agave tequilana Gto. and Dasylirion spp. Br J Nutr. 2008 Feb;99(2):254-61.

The 5 W's

Who? What? Where? When? Why? Sometime, many years ago, when I was in a reading class in elementary school, I remember that I was taught to always ask these questions when I read something. Read a paragraph out of the grade 2 reading workbook? Well then you have to answer these questions. I think it was a way to get us to begin to think critically about what we were reading, now that we actually knew how to read. And I thought the hard part was over! The 5 W's re-emerged when I was in charge of making my own invitations for my birthday party. I had a pile of construction paper, a glue stick and some glitter laid out on the table in front of me. I spent all of this time making sure that the Care bear on the front was drawn and glittered up properly. Then I was absolutely stumped about what to put in it. I remember my mom telling me, "Just use the 5 W's--list them out and you'll have all the info they need." In the 20 or so years since, I have used the 5 W's in many situations, including the ads for the Prom Fashion Show, the announcements at chapter meetings about the volunteer activities I planned, and again in grad school for the email fliers about the annual bar crawl. So many times, when I am at a loss at how to start something, I use the 5 W's and it has never failed me.

So that leads me to today. I am about 5 days away from turning the big 3-0. And it's occurred to me that there are a lot of things that I want to accomplish in this next decade of my life. I also want to reflect on some of the things I've accomplished in the past 30 years. So while I was laying in bed last night, it occurred to me that instead of keeping a classic journal--with pen and paper--I'd embrace technology and record my thoughts on a blog. Now anyone who knows me will be shocked at reading this. I was one of the last people I know to get an email address. I didn't really become computer savvy until grad school, when it became a necessity. Furthermore, I still refuse to acknowledge the existence, let alone the utility of Twitter. But I'm going to embrace technology here.

About 2 seconds after this blog idea took form, I almost immediately talked myself out of doing it. "Who the hell will read it? I'll be devastated if no one ever reads it! I don't have anything interesting to say." Well, I don't care if anyone ever reads this thing. It would be nice, but, oh well if it doesn't happen. I'll use this as my journal and journals are never read by anyone unless you are under the age of 16 and have a nosy sibling. Or you do something amazing that merits people actually being interested in what you had to say. Oh, and of course, I asked myself, "How do I even start?" So here it goes.

Who? Amanda L. Boehm. I am a science nerd. I have 2 cats. (You'll hear more about them soon enough.) I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. My family and friends are the most important thing to me. That, in a few words, is who I am. But I'm so much more. And that will come in time.

What? A blog. A journal. A way to get all of my thoughts and impressions on the world down in black and white. I want to talk about me and what I do. Maybe talk about an interesting article on cancer that I read or a great recipe or maybe one of those wonderfully thought provoking philosophical questions that always annoy the hell out of me. An exercise in thinking and writing.

Where? Well, here on this blog.

When? Whenever I have something on my mind.

Why? Because it could be awesome in another 30 years to have something to show my kids or gran kids that records who I was before I became that crazy lady with the blue hair and an ornery attitude.

So if you are reading this, you have been officially invited to my blog. Hope you enjoy it!