UPDATE and adorable faces seen here and there over the years

UPDATE: I had another good night's sleep! Hooray! When I ran my plastic-bristled brush across my head this morning, it felt so good. To be expected, more hairs ended up in it. Blueberries do not taste like they are supposed to, so they're out of my diet now. I imagine it will be long after chemo is finished that I'll try them again, sometime in 2016, y'all. Just because I have a box of them in the frig, I won't keep eating them now that they don't taste right because that could ruin them for me, long term. Next Tuesday, I go for blood to be drawn for pre-chemo tests. If all is well with those tests, Chemo Round Two will happen next Wednesday. I don't know what to expect exactly if there is a problem with one or more of those tests--I'll get a phone call or an e-mail, I imagine, with the news if changes are afoot.



It's a lot of fun to look through my thousands of photos and find one that inspires a post. This adorable little guy certainly did that for me! I took this photo in Sherwood, Oregon, when I went to Cruisin' Sherwood, June 13, 2011. I went looking for more adorable faces and easily found a few more to share with you.



Here's another adorable young man, with his dad I'd guess, at National Train Day festivities at Portland's Union Station, May 10, 2014.



I understand a lot of folks find clowns to be scary. I don't. But, it looks like this adorable little guy has yet to make up his mind. And I have to wonder how long that hot pink stick-on dot remained on his nose. This is another photo from May 10, 2014, at National Train Day.



At the risk of scaring folks, here's a photo that proves adorable faces come in all ages. One more National Train Day photo, y'all.



Scary? Maybe. Busy. For sure. The addition of the hot pink stick-on dot seems like overkill. Surely it was done to make unsuspecting little people accept a dot stuck to their own noses--she's the clown in the photo with the little boy sporting his own pink dot.



A little person off and running at the Portland Farmers Market in the South Park Blocks, downtown at Portland State University. I took this photo on June 6, 2015, when I had recovered enough from the April 24 hysterectomy, so that I had gone back to work for that entire week, then got myself by bus to the market for some shopping and people watching.



For my final photo of adorable faces, I give you my sweetheart friends, Milton and Kay, who came to Portland by train from Jackson, Mississippi, in August, 2011, to be here for the sprinkling of Mama and Duncan's ashes.

National Train Day, May 10, 2014 - two photos of a hug and the resulting joy, plus a bit about my personal joy

The hug. In the space between Union Station and the tracks, the Oregon Zoo's Titus the Tiger handed out hugs to all who approached.



That single hug sent this little girl over the moon. Such joy!

By the way, I'm sure that you've noticed I've been gone. In fact, I've been off my game to one degree or another since May 13. My repetitive refrain, spoken only in my mind: Allergies, get the behind me!

Finally, I say finally, I believe I have won! My energy levels returning to normal, my eyes not itchy and/or watery, my left ear just about completely unstopped, I no longer have to take allergy pills regularly because of whatever is blooming, pollinating, blowing through the air. And I no longer have to worry about busting out in ugly sneezing fits that always, always, always happen when allergies impact my body, and I feel the slightest chill. Ask anyone who has heard a sneezing fit of mine--they'll tell you just how ugly they are.

While in my work cube I endured and sneezed until the fit ended, miserable among a few co-workers, but I recognized that I needed a method to keep me from sneezing among a larger crowd on the homebound bus, once the air conditioning came into use in June. When I waited at the bus stop, I knew as the sun shone on me and my backpack that I'd be sweaty, warm, the perfect prey for chilled air. The only thing that saved me on those after-work commutes was my rather voluminous black rectangular scarf which, before I stepped onto the bus, I tented over my head and shoulders, hiding my arms and hands. I sat down and held my backpack on my lap and carefully kept the scarf in place. As long as I remained covered until I stepped off the bus once I reached the stop near my building, I didn't sneeze. And let me tell you, I felt joy every single time I made it without a sneezing fit. Real joy.