Memorable Moments

Taking a cue from some of the other bloggers who are doing the 10 memorable moments meme. Being one of the younger bloggers, I’m going to try to think of some especially applicable moments. There will of course be overlap, but I think the reasoning behind the defining moments might be a little bit different.

Feel free to argue against me, or hey, why don’t you create your own damn list?

(Edit: I realize now that these aren’t true specific-moment-in-time moments, but that’s because Nicole and George didn’t do that either, so I got confused. Let’s just go with moments-slash-inventions, ok?)

Ten Defining Moments of My Generation

Wikipedia, Google and Napster, Oh My!
These were among the first online megacompanies that influenced how our generation learned and consumed media. It defined how we and our teachers, professors and parents approached our education. I remember when my 10th grade history teacher forbade us from using Wikipedia because it wasn’t “legitimate.” Libraries were a thing of the past, and copyrights became debatable.

Our First War
I remember on the morning of 9/11 my father telling me that I was watching history. The first tower had already fallen by the time I woke up on the West Coast, and I sat on the couch in the living room with my dad and watched the second one crash into Manhattan. The rest of the day, the weeks and months afterwards were consumed by 9/11, but it didn’t stop. A significant portion of my life has been marked by the second Gulf War in Iraq. I was only five years old when the first one happened, so this is truly my first experience with the words “combat”, “troops” and “casualties” in the vocabulary of our news anchors. I was fifteen when 9/11 happened, and since I just celebrated my 23rd birthday, about a third of my life has seen the war on terror.

Boy Bands
Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, Hanson, 98 Degrees… they weren’t the first boy bands, that’s for sure, but they were our boy bands. And we loved them dearly. Now we have a fresh new crop of boy bands (hello Jonas Brothers!) which are, of course, merely a reincarnation of the past. But boy do they strike frenzy in the hearts of teens and fear in the hearts of parents and boyfriends across the land.

VCRs
This was one of the first pieces of “new technology” that I truly remember. That and cordless telephone. But truly I think VCRs for the first time made the idea that you could control what you watched when you watched it, and allowed people to enjoy other activities without missing their favorite shows. It’s something we take for granted now with DVRs and On Demand television, but VCRs were pretty kick-ass back in the day.

School Shootings
First it was Columbine, but in the months after there were mimic attacks in public schools around the country. I was thirteen when Columbine happened and I remember that it was the first time that I was truly afraid for my life. Every school has their outcasts, their delinquents, the guy or girl in all black, who sits by themselves in class or in the cafeteria. For the most part, you just ignored them. But after Columbine, you couldn’t help but wonder…

Cell Phones
For me, this was an indication of independence. It allowed us to make split-second changes in plans and freedom from our parents while, of course, still being within arms reach. Cell phones are now required by law (c’mon now, sure feels that way!) and I don’t even have a land line. My generation is probably the first generation who will turn down - repeatedly - offers from the phone company to get the hook up.

E-mail and Instant Messenger
The only time I ever write a letter is when I’m writing to my grandmothers, because neither of them use the Internet. Well, one of them is starting to use it a bit more but I’m not sure how often she checks it and she only got the Internet about three years ago. However, with my friends in high school and college, e-mail was the way to communicate. Honestly, I hardly even used my cell phone or landline when I was in the house. I was always on the Internet, and thus, always on IM so I could chat with my friends no matter where they lived. I know people claim that instant messaging is ruining the structure of communication with LOLspeak, but I like to think it’s enhancing our ability to interact with those who are different from us, to share ideas and have a dialogue with people we would otherwise be unable to.

America’s Obsession with Celebrities
Alright, I know this isn’t terribly unique to my generation - people have been admiring celebrities for decades - but I think our generation is especially influenced by the media darlings like Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and others. For example, the fashion choices now made by young girls and teens usually have a direct correlation with what a celebrity is wearing. Sure, fashion influence for adults is one thing - but having teens and tweens wanting to look like a 25-year-old is a little creepy to say the least. The fact we have multiple - THAT MEANS MORE THAN ONE! - television shows about celebrities is kinda freaky and I think it sets the wrong example of the kind of people our society should value.

Pedophiles
Have you noticed I haven’t actually put the Internet on this list, but just various incarnations of the Internet? While the Internet has obviously been very influential, there are certain aspects of it that have had a much greater impact on my specific generation. Pedophiles are one of them. When my parents and your parents, and perhaps even you, were growing up, the main fear was of adults taking children from malls, playgrounds and even off the front lawn. Then children were told to stay inside. Then they started going on the Internet, thinking they were safer there. But they weren’t. As a young girl, I have been propositioned more than once on the Internet. When I was 12, it terrified me. Now that I’m older, I have a better sense of who is safe and who isn’t, and I can quickly halt or redirect the conversation. But being afraid of strangers who sound like friends is something no other generation has come across.

Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon was founded under its original name, Pinwheel, in 1979 (thanks Wikipedia!) and was later renamed in 1981, just four years before I was born. Thus, Nickelodeon has been around for my entire life and I spent much of my childhood addicted to its programming. My brother and I even subscribed to the Nickelodeon magazine, the first magazine I ever read on a regular basis. There is something extraordinarly nostalgic about those TV shows, almost like our entire childhood is wrapped up in the shows that aired in the early 90s. Many people call that classic Nickelodeon and that the shows of today just aren’t nearly as good. I tend to agree. Pete & Pete, Clarissa Explains It All, Who’s Afraid of the Dark and All That may have launched the careers of a few famous actors, but for the most part, the casts remain a constant only in the reruns and DVDs of these shows, like a visual scrapbook of my childhood.

My Ten Defining Moments

My Birth
I agree with Nicole - my birth is a fairly significant defining moment in my life, so I’ll put that one first. August 6, 1985 at 10:48 p.m., I, Allison Michelle Blass, was born at Beth Kaiser Medical Center which is now - as my father has told me - Reebok’s Portland office.

The Birth of Eric
That would be my younger brother. This is a fairly significant date as well because without him, I would be an only child and probably have a lot more stuff. Okay, okay, I’m kidding. But being an older sister is certainly a defining characteristic, and has probably made me far more bossy than if I was a younger sister. My brother and I actually got along fairly well when we were growing up, and I appreciate the fact that he was more easy going than I, because it made doing things like going to the corner store for ice cream, picking blackberries and going to the movies actually fun and not a painstaking chore.

D-Day
Being diagnosed with diabetes is probably the second most influential day next to actually being born, because it has shaped more of my decisions than just about anything else I can think. I can honestly say that much of what I have done and much of what I have learned about me as a person is related to lessons that diabetes has taught me. I may still have been a totally awesome person, but in this life, I know that diabetes is a big part of why I am the way I am. For better or for worse.

Becoming a Christian
This is actually a moment seven years in the making. That’s right. It took me seven years to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. And let me tell you, that is a LONG time. Like, way long. I was 12 years old when I first approached a pastor about Jesus when I was staying at a summer resort with my family. Seven years later and I was baptized on a Thursday afternoon in the August after my freshman year in college. It was a long and bumpy road full of doubts and questions, and it’s still a bumpy road. But I also know it was the best decision I ever made.

Children’s Congress 2001
This was my entrance into the world of diabetes advocacy. I literally hadn’t done anything except a handful of Walks before this. But the people there inspired me to fight the good fight and I was connected with the right people and shown the right attitude to do it. It’s been an amazing ride.

The Death of Darcee
Darcee was a girl in my fourth grade class who had a degenerative brain disease called MLD. If you visit this website, you will actually see a picture of Darcee in the banner on the upper right hand side of the screen. MLD is a complicated disease that causes personality changes and mobility disfunction among other things. It made Darcee… different. My classmates treated her badly, and even though she wanted to be my friend, I didn’t like her so I wasn’t particularly nice to her either. We didn’t know she was sick. Just as fifth grade started, we found out that Darcee was sick and that she was going away to get better. While she was gone, we sent her get well letters and pictures. I knew how fake it was, but I did it anyway. On December 15, 1995, Darcee passed away at age 10. It was the first death I had ever experienced of someone I knew. Of course, death is hard but when it’s the death of someone who was sick and that you were mean to, the guilt was devastating. Since then, I have always tried very hard to be considerate and respectful of everyone, even if I don’t understand why they do what they do. Darcee would have turned 23 years old on June 28 of this year.

The Deaths of Teddy, Dr. Hansen and Mr. Othus
Eight years later and I went through three more excruciating deaths. The first was Teddy, a classmate I had known for years, who took his own life during the fall of my senior year in high school. It was the first mourning that I experienced with my close friends, and it also made me appreciate how important it is to recognize and acknowledge depression. Dr. Hansen, my first endocrinologist and the one that made diabetes much less scary, died that spring of the liver cancer he was diagnosed with five years earlier. I have written about Dr. Hansen before, so if you’re interested, I encourage you to read about that. Three weeks after I started my freshman year in college, and almost one year to the date of Teddy’s death, Mr. Othus, my history teacher and the mentor to half my high school, passed away unexpectedly from colon cancer. All three of these deaths impacted me in different ways, but they taught me the importance of life and encouraged me to live my life in the ways I admired about them.

My Depression
I have not always been a happy person, and there were occasional moments during high school and college when that manifested itself in negative ways - namely, the cutting I did in high school and college. It wasn’t something I did on a regular basis, but I had a propensity towards self-harm that I spent a lot of energy on controlling. I eventually sought therapy in my sophomore year of college, which taught me about my need to control situations and the anger I had towards myself when I thought I should be in control and wasn’t. I am a huge advocate of therapy, and medication if that’s something you and your psychiatrist think it’s necessary.

Blogging
Clearly, blogging has changed my life and certainly for the better. Without blogging, I honestly don’t know where I’d be. I have learned so much from all of you, and I truly feel like you have made me a better person. I have had so many opportunities to learn and also share what I know through blogging. I have traveled extensively because of the people I have met, I got my job because of my blog and heck, I was even in the New York Times! Can’t beat that.

Moving to the East Coast
Moving three thousand miles away from everything you know will teach you a lot about how to be alone among millions of people. It’s terrifying. It’s really, fucking hard. And if I knew then what I know now, I probably would have been scared shitless to try it. But I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into and I had only the dream of living in the Big City to propel me forward. Lucky for me, I did the move in baby steps. First a small suburb in New Jersey, now Hoboken, and perhaps in a year or two, the Big Apple. I also had the support of my cousins as well as wonderful co-workers who made it easy to not think this was all a huge mistake. If you want to try it, I say: Go for it. It’s hard, but it’s totally worth everything.

New Opportunities to Share Your Story.

Want to be famous? I’m working on a couple of freelance projects and I need to get some outside feedback so I thought I would turn to all my wonderful friends and readers for your assistance.

The first one is fairly easy. I’m working on an article on celiac disease for the JDRF’s website. I’m looking for a couple people, maybe three, to answer some questions about life with celiac disease, your diagnosis, ways to cope with the new diet, how it affects your diabetes… that sort of thing.

The second article is for Diabetes Health magazine. This article is about how people handle social situations with diabetes. I’m looking for four or five stories from people where you had to deal with the impact diabetes made on your relationships with people. Examples of stories I’m looking for: moving to college and introducing diabetes to someone new, starting a new relationship and explaining diabetes for the first time, meeting the in-laws, dealing with diabetes at a party or event. If you have another story, feel free to send that in too.

Please e-mail me at amblass at gmail.com for either one of these projects by next Friday, August 29. Even if I don’t pick you, I am always working on freelance projects and I’m always looking to hear stories from people with diabetes, so I may use your story in the future. Please send them in! Thanks!

Happy Birthday to me! I’m twenty-three!

Ian and Eleanor (Kevin’s twins) may be freaking adorable, but I think this little tyke is pretty cute too.

Okay, okay. I’ll admit it - that’s me on my first birthday.

In honor of my twenty-third birthday (that’s today), I am starting a 23 day challenge to collect donations for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure Diabetes in October. My goal? To raise $2300.

That’s $2300 in 23 days, from today, August 6th, until Thursday, August 28th.

How do you donate? Visit my JDRF Walk page here. I know many of you already do fundraising for JDRF, but if you are a new reader or if you are feeling generous, I would really appreciate any amount you can offer.

Think of this as a birthday present that benefits you too.

Please feel free to pass this along via your blog, Twitter, Facebook or wherever you like to hang out. Thanks!

Celebration of Life.

The last stop on my summer Lemonade Tour was Washington D.C. for the Quilt for Life exhibition on the National Mall. A huge tarp was erected on the grass directly in front of the Capitol building. As I walked closer, I saw rows and rows of quilts hooked up to boards with wire and clips. Over in a smaller tent, there was a collection of navy blue T-shirts milling about.

I volunteered a couple of hours for the Children with Diabetes Quilt for Life, which is a collection of nearly 700 quilts representing children and adults with diabetes. We listened to Jeff Hitchcock and Ken Moritsugu talk about the Quilt and what it represents. Jeff spoke about his daughter Marissa diagnosis, but the emphasis was on our lives - not on diabetes - that makes the Quilt for Life so special. While it is certainly a dramatic reminder of all the people diabetes has touched, but Jeff said this was a celebration of life.

I walked up and down the rows, examining each quilt and the child behind it. Some of the quilts represented adults, like Scott Strumello and Amy Tenderich. I also saw my quilt, number 457.

Towards the end of my shift, I spotted Jillian and, as I do with everyone I meet, gave her a big hug. If you’re affected by diabetes, you’re in my family. Plain and simple. (Unless you’re a psycho, but so far, so good.)

Jillian told me that Kevin was down at the other end of the tent.

Yes. You read that right. Kevin. THE Kevin. With his wife, Meg, and his freaking adorable children, Ian and Eleanor.

Rumors of his death have been greatly exaggerated.

Kevin (with Eleanor and Ian), me, Jillian and Meg.

Afterwards, Kevin had to return to work, so Jillian, Wendy and I went to Ruby Tuesday’s for lunch before taking off.

It’s been a long long few weeks for me and I’m thrilled to be grounded for longer than a couple of days. While July was nothing but a great adventure, I’m looking forward to a quieter, mellower August. Exploring my new town and the larger one across the river sounds exactly what I need before my big voyage across the pond.

If the past couple of months, with all the people I’ve enjoyed spending time with, have taught me anything it’s that there is nothing so rejuvenating and inspiring as spending time with people who understand you and encourage you. Thanks to everyone who have come out to the meet-ups and I promise there will be more.

Eventually.

More photos are in the Quilt for Life set on Flickr.

We Came, We Saw, We Cut, We Conquered.*

Time for the CWD Friends for Life recap.

Short version: It was awesome.

Long version: Most of the time when I go to diabetes conferences I don’t really go to learn. Aside from the information overload you get during your first year or so of living with diabetes, it’s really hard to learn much that is “new” in diabetes. Besides, as someone who both writes and reads diabetes blogs, information about new technology, like CGMS and insulin pumps, and research is readily available to me.

So why did I go to a diabetes conference? Simple: for the people. In addition to the bloggers I’ve already met, I also had a chance to meet Manny, Sara, the “Other Allison” and Mandy. This also means I’ve officially reached meeting 10 new bloggers (actually, I’ve met 11) in just seven months! This isn’t even including Kevin and Jillian, who I am meeting on Monday.

It’s true what they say: going to CWD is like coming home. I am involved in several different communities and through it all, the diabetes community is the one that feels like family. It was a phrase that was used several times throughout the conference by all the staff. The people who were attending the conference were a part of our family.

I flew in Tuesday night and Mandy and her parents picked me up from the airport. After an exciting adventure in finding out hotel, we finally arrived and settled in as we had an early morning the next day. Wednesday was an unofficial conference day. Many people were there for the receptions and the focus groups, but the conference had not officially begun. I attended the Young Adults breakfast with Sara and Mandy where we discussed some great ideas for how to expand the conference to include young adults. It’s not quite the all-inclusive adults with diabetes sessions that I’m aiming for but it is a step in the right direction.

The conference itself was amazing and Jeff Hitchcock should have a full report of all the activities in a couple of weeks. I’ll post a link when I see it online so everyone can read the re-cap.

In addition to the two day conference, we (Sara, Mandy, Heidi, our new friends Alex and Beakal and ourself) also spent a day at Universal Studios. We went on all the rides and had lunch at the CWD’s buffet area in a closed off Latin Quarter. We escaped the clutches of Lord Farquaad, fought off aliens and survived a twister. We even had our picture taken with Shrek and Donkey.

One of the perks of going to a conference for people with diabetes is that they make all kinds of wonderful arrangements for you. This year, those of us who went to Universal Studios (or Islands of Adventure, which was the other option) received a Community Relations pass that allowed us to use the Express line which is usually reserved for people who are either handicapped or who pay extra. I have mentioned a few times about going to Guest Services and requesting a disability pass because standing out in the hot sun for several hours can damage insulin (which, for my new readers, you need to live). When I was in Orlando two years ago, I went with some of the other teens with diabetes to pick up these passes on our own, but this year they were included with our park tickets. However, rumor has it that Disney is getting very, very stringent about who they give these passes out to but I say it’s a fight worth fighting. Not only is it a legitimate reason (the July heat from the Orlando sun really can do serious damage), it’s also a nice perk. Considering everything I have to do to stay healthy as a type 1 diabetic, this is the least the universe can do to repay me.

P.S. Shout out to Dorothy, one of my faithful readers!
*Thanks to Sara Mandy for letting me steal this as the title for my post.

Rolling out the Welcome Mat

To all the people who received my business card at BlogHer this past weekend and have decided to check out the URL scribbled at the bottom of my business cards, I say “thank you and welcome.” Pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the ride.

Conferences are a whirlwind of activity because people try to fit in so much learning and socialization into just a few hours. Like my upcoming CWD Friends for Life conference, BlogHer conferences is the once-a-year opportunity when most of these bloggers are able to interact with their online friends face-to-face instead of monitor-to-monitor. While most bloggers, including myself, are fairly comfortable talking about intimate feelings and personal life stories in front of an entire audience, there is no replacing having a personal conversation, just the two of you.

One thing I found interesting were the similarities in opinions surrounding communities, language and the age old question of how to get more traffic that affect every blogger, no matter which niche they are in. It was also interesting to hear how blogging has helped people in almost identical ways - there really is something to this whole “baring your soul on the Internet” thing that has a way of changing someone’s life for the better, whether they are a mother, a tech geek or someone with a chronic illness like me.

It also reminded me once again that not everyone who reads my blog has diabetes. Whoops. Sorry about that, folks.

There were a few sessions that I plan on elaborating later, but unfortunately I have a mountain of work to attend to. That’s what happens when you leave the office for two days and are about to leave for another three days.

One thing I will say before I go:

Throughout the conference, several women shared some very personal, intimate stories from their life and how blogging helped save them and keep them from giving up on their life. While it was amazing to recognize the sheer good that can come from a complete stranger, it also made me appreciate even more the lasting friendships that I have made through my own blogging community. Although many of you I have not met and some that I don’t even know about, the power of blogging was tangible at this conference. Everyone at the conference was connected to someone else. No one was alone. Anyone who has ever been cynical about bloggers only being obnoxious, self-centered ranters standing on their soapboxes have obviously never been to BlogHer or met anyone who truly uses their blog as a gateway to support and friendship.

23 Days Until 23

There are only 23 more days until my 23rd birthday on August 6.

The years of exciting milestone birthdays are over, sadly, so I’m not exactly on pins and needles about it. I’m looking forward to August because that means I’ll be living in Hoboken finally and I will just have returned from a weekend in Philadelphia and Washington D.C.

On August 2nd (the day after I move, keep in mind), my family is throwing my great-aunt a party for her 90th birthday. I’m really excited because my grandmother, my aunt and my dad are all flying in for the event. Afterwards, my dad and I are driving down to Baltimore, where he will be working on business and I will be taking the train down for the day for the Quilt for Life showing. I haven’t decided if this means I’m going to cancel the Washington D.C. dinner and just see who is around on Monday or if that means I will go down to D.C. on Sunday night and on Monday. People who are in the area, please feel free to leave me a comment letting me know if you have a preference or if you are planning on attending the Quilt for Life showing (I will be there at 10 a.m. and would LOVE to meet people, so feel free to come say hi!), otherwise I will just send out an email to those who I already have spoken with.

It will be a busy, busy time but I’m definitely looking forward to celebrating an early birthday with my family and friends and seeing the ENORMOUS Quilt for Life presentation at the National Mall. That will be a sight to see! Having a quilt representation of my life on display in our nation’s capitol is definitely an achievement, I think.

In more fun news, I discovered that as a blogaversary present (well, not really), Guy Kawasaki’s blog directory, AllTop, has listed myself and many of our fellow bloggers in the Diabetes category. I helped with some of the recommendations, but I had no idea I would land in the first line, alongside Kerri and Amy! I’m very excited to be listed, and everyone else should be too. Many of you may not know who Guy Kawasaki is, but he is a prominent figure in the social media world so I have known about AllTop for several months because of my job. I wrote to them originally recommending Amy for their Health category, then found out they were creating an entire Diabetes category!

Speaking of presents, if anyone out there loves me enough to consider buying me something for my birthday, feel free to check out the Amazon.com Wish List I created for my family. Or just visit Amazon.com, click on Wish List and search for my name. Not that I’m expecting anyone to buy me a Nikon D80 or a Macbook, but if you’re feeling generous, a subscription to Glamour would be pretty sweet… Something to decorate my new IKEA coffee table!

A Blogging Birthday.

Tomorrow is my blogaversary.

I am writing this today, however, because tomorrow I’m going to be wandering around Beaver Brook Reservation in Massachusetts with a bunch of the coolest, craziest cats this side of cyberspace. Because I’m one of the 12 people in the world without an iPhone, I’m not able to post on my actual blogaversary.

As most of you know, I’ve been involved in the diabetes community since day one. My family participated in all the JDRF Walks to Cure Diabetes, I went to diabetes camp, I was a Children’s Congress delegate and I’ve been to conferences. I’ve done all the “in real life” stuff that you can do, but there is still something incredibly remarkable about blogging and how much I have seen this change not only my life, but the lives of everyone else involved in this community, whether they are a fellow blogger, a commenter or a lurker.

I’m involved in social media on a daily basis. I read blogs for a living. I see communities formed around everything from music to food to motherhood and everywhere in between. It’s amazing the trusting relationships that can form between complete strangers. The instant communication and the constant support that comes from reading and re-reading blogs, message boards or IMing someone I’ve never met (well, in my case, it’s more like “I’ve only met once”) is incredibly uplifting. I know some people have said that when there is a cure they will stop blogging. I don’t think I’ll ever stop blogging. Sure, I will stop writing about diabetes, but all of you have become a part of my life and have helped me in so many ways. You have been a part of my life, from my West Coast life to my East Coast life, from the good days to the bad days, sharing in my accomplishments and supporting me in my depression.

I wonder if the people who first blazed the blogging trail realize how much they have changed the lives of so many people.

To me, you are not just people with diabetes. You are not just my imaginary internet weirdo friends.

You are my friends, in every sense of the word. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate my three year blogaversary than at the First Annual New England Diabetes Meet-Up.

From Your Friendly, Neighborhood Event Planner

The clock is ticking, folks, and we’re merely nine days away from the next Diabetes OC shindig!

This time, we’re heading up north to Massachusetts (and yes, I spelled that correctly on the first try!) for a wonderful picnic in the park just outside of Boston. This gathering is actually be organized by Bernard, one of our resident technophiles. You can find more information at his TuDiabetes event listing.

I’ll be driving up next Friday with my friend Katie, who has never been to Boston. We’re staying at hostel at Boston University that is only open during the summers (obviously - the rest of the time, the students are actually there!). I’m really excited about that. I was a bit bummed the Back Bay hostel was booked, but this will be something new to try. Katie won’t be joining me at the picnic, but I will be there for a few hours in the afternoon. This is actually my third time in Boston since I moved to the East Coast last year, so I’ll once again be donning my tour guide hat to show Katie around town. Hopefully we’ll be able to check out some of the bars and hang with a younger crowd, which was unfortunately impossible to do when you’re traveling with your mother.

I hope everyone can make it. The weather should be great and I’m excited to meet some more of the New England members of our little (ha!) clan.

Weekend in Philly

You know those weekends where everything goes terribly, horribly wrong?

People don’t show up. Traffic is terrible so the people who do show up are late. The restaurant you picked is full. The back-up restaurant has lousy service and bad food. Everyone wants to do different things so you end up spending half an hour standing in parking lot debating what to do next and you end up all going in different directions anyway. The ONLY museum you want to go to is closed and you ended up just staring at it before you wander away to the nearest Starbucks. Then you consume too much food and take too little insulin, which leaves your blood sugar hovering near the moon and you’re even more pissed.

Yeah. Those weekends suck.

This, however, was not one of those weekends.

Honestly, everything about this weekend went exactly the way it was supposed to, which makes me the happiest person in the universe.

On Saturday morning, I drove down to Philadelphia to have lunch with some of the coolest, craziest cats in the diabetes community. I arrived at a nearly empty Applebee’s, which was great because it made getting a table for nine people very easy! Soon after, Gary Scheiner arrived, followed by Emily, a friend of Kelly’s, who is studying to be a nurse and is interested in learning more about living with diabetes. So of course she was welcomed! Kelly arrived shortly after that. Then Scott and Joe arrived, along with Hannah and her husband, Matt, followed by Betty.

Getting a group of diabetics (and a handful of T3s) is always a recipe for lively discussion. We spent over three hours at Applebee’s talking about everything from health professionals who irritate us to misconceptions that work to our advantage (using diabetes to get a table faster or getting a handicap pass at an amusement park) to Kelly and Scott sharing their experiences of growing up in the early 80s with diabetes (oh the horrors!).

We laughed, we debated, and we took pictures!

(from the lower left-hand corner going clockwise) Betty, Emily, Kelly, Gary, Scott, me, Hannah and Matt.

After lunch, we all split up in various directions. Hannah, Kelly and I went back to her apartment in South Philly after making plans to meet Scott and Joe for dinner on South Street. We wandered around South Street for a bit, poking our heads into some of the cheap jewelry stores, killing time until Scott and Joe arrived. Around seven o’clock, we walked over to the Marrakesh, the Morrocan restaurant we were supposed to meet at. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. Kelly rang the doorbell - no answer. We stood across the street, plotting a way to break into the restaurant (I suggested climbing through the upstairs window), when we saw Scott and Joe come around the corner. Joe went up to the door and knocked. A lady opened the door.

Apparently they just didn’t like us.

Morrocan food is amazing but it was a ton of food. A seven course meal that included chicken, lamb, salad, couscous, fruit and baklava - all accompanied by their pita bread - had us eating more carbohydrates than I typically eat in an entire day! We shared more experiences growing up with diabetes. But it wasn’t all diabetes, all the time! We were also thoroughly entertained when the bellydancer came around.

Hannah and the bellydancer.

After dinner, we waddled back to Kelly’s apartment through the Italian Market. We were so bloated with food that we felt like we were pregnant. Kelly joked that we had “food babies.” When we got back to the apartment, we quickly looked up directions to the studio where Hannah’s husband was recording with his band. We hoped in our car and made our way back to Ardmore, just a couple miles away from where we had lunch and a stone’s throw from Gary’s office (we waved as we past it). As we drove through the mean streets of Ardmore, which involved us passing our turn not once, but twice, we eventually found the studio down a little driveway off a mostly unpaved road. It wasn’t exactly the easiest place to get to, but having those few extra hours with Hannah was so much fun.

Kelly and I slept in on Sunday and after a quick breakfast, we went to check out Independence Hall, which is one of the last few historical landmarks that I hadn’t been to on the East Coast. When we arrived, we stumbled upon a sign that said “NO MORE TICKETS ON SALE TODAY” and we were immediately crestfallen. I was thwarted once again. But then! A man appeared! Okay, he didn’t appear, he was the security officer and was standing there the entire time. He asked us when we were leaving. Kelly replied, “She’s leaving today.” A woman was standing next to him and said that some people didn’t show up, ripped off two tickets from her little booklet and handed them to us. It was obviously meant to be.

I left later that afternoon, quickly stopping by Bank of America and a gas station (yes, I pumped my own gas and this time I didn’t even ask for help!). Traffic was a bit nasty so I didn’t get home until nearly four hours after leaving Kelly’s, but I also stopped at one of the service stations so it wasn’t completely traffic’s fault. I was still home before eight, which meant I had time to upload all the pictures and watch Army Wives.