Jesus fucking Christ. Niece's fiance, who's only 26, just found out this week he has follicular lymphoma. What the actual fuck.

Follicular lymphoma is a form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and it's an indolent (slow-growing) cancer. To the point where some patients don't even start any treatment right away, but just have regular tests and plenty of observation, like some men do with prostate cancer. It's often considered a long-term, chronic illness, and about half of the patients with it are still alive at 20 years. But there is no cure, only treatment to manage it.

But Jesus Christ, he's only 26. This is some rough news.

Laura, have you explored either flightarware.com or flightradar24.com? I like to use them to check on flight status and progress for family and friends.

One of the interesting features is "Where is my plane now?" So you can see whether the airplane the flight is scheduled on is on time and en route to the departure airport.

Steph, has he done any genetic testing? Some of the younger guys in my support group discovered they had Lynch syndrome that way, meant their risk for early cancer and multiple types of cancer was greater.

They ran as fast as they could and got on the plane. Helps that nephew and great nephew both jog. They'll get in around 11:45 tonight. The airport is only about 15 minutes away. They live in Otter Lake, so I am looking forward to the 14 yo seeing Fort Lauderdale beach after midnight on 4/20 during spring break. It won't be boring.

Gorgeous night too. Have all the windows and sliding doors open. I'll close them in their room because they won't be accustomed to the city noise. I can sleep through sirens, racing cars, and revelers who want to share their favorite music, but it is way quieter in the mountains.

I'll check out the app, dcp!

Steph, has he done any genetic testing? Some of the younger guys in my support group discovered they had Lynch syndrome that way, meant their risk for early cancer and multiple types of cancer was greater.

Not yet, I don't think. He's a physician's assistant, and his fiancee (our niece) graduates from med school next weekend, and his father is a physician, too, so they have a lot of resources at their fingertips. I'll make sure to ask about genetic testing -- thanks for mentioning it!

It took a lot of thinking on how to prepare for Seder this year, when nothing feels normal and you can't really plan anything. And it's a holiday of freedom, and we are where we are, and there are the hostages. How can one have a Seder like this?

Eventually, two things helped me this year. The first, 'Seder' also means order. And I've been organizing alternative Seders for a while. What's a better year to call for a new order in the universe than this year? The other one was an interpretation of the text of the Haggada. It was a reminder that the text itself refers to a call for freedom when nothing was certain and everything seemed doomed. And Jews read this text for years, at least some of them had their own uncertainties and doominess. So in this year, I can do it too.

I'm not having an ordinary friends' Seder. Some elements will be missing on pourpse. Others added on purpose (lemon on the Seder plate, symbolizes the hostages. Other than the color, "missing an opportunity" and sourness are a wordplay in Hebrew. This holiday in particular is full of wordplays). It'll be outdoors, since so many of us lost their homes this year, and most of us had to stay indoors and take shelter when we were supposed to be elsewhere. 2/3 of my holiday donations are going to Gaza this year. But a Seder - a certain kind of Seder - will take place. Ordnung muss sein.

Have a good Passover, Jewistas. May our Seders bring back the good kind of order into this world.

Lovely to read Shir

Shir, that is a beautiful way to address the situation.

Rough weekend. I messed things up again and today I just feel like I want to go to sleep and never wake up. I spent about an hour just laying in bed and staring at the ceiling, but I figure I could be miserable and stare at the ceiling or be miserable and get some stuff done. I put away a couple loads of laundry, washed the sheets, did another load, went to the grocery store, built a couple of window frames to replace the rotting ones in the sleeping porch, took care of dishes, put away groceries of course, and cooked some chicken quesedias. Still I feel like the house is getting away from me which isn't helping things. Really need to vacuum and clean the kitchen floor, declutter the kitchen, organize my desk, clean up the garage, among other things. Going on a trip this weekend and need to do some work on my Wife's car weekend after, brake pads and oil change, so it's going to be hard to catch up. Also feeling burned out at work, but honestly it's home life that's harder than work life right now.

I went to a soccer game, which was fun, and the weather was unexpectedly lovely (it said rain but was sunny) but even though I put on sunscreen I can already feel less than six hours later, it was not enough sunscreen. Oops.