May Day and start of Skin Cancer and Melanoma Awareness Month

Happy May Day. I always associate May day with a maypole and dancers. I also associate May with flowers and all the shots in this post are recent ones from my garden. May Day is also International Workers' Day and Mayday is a distress signal. There are many more events associated with May Day. The entire month of May is a national (U.S.) Skin Cancer and Melanoma Awareness month. One reason some campaigns say skin cancer and melanoma is because some forms of melanoma do not originate on the skin. I'll discuss that more in upcoming posts. The first Monday in May is Melanoma Monday and the origin of that was to have free skin cancer screenings. Many universities, as well as other centers offer free screenings on Melanoma Monday. There are also similar campaigns in countries besides the U.S.I recently followed a link that someone on the MPIP left about how lip gloss can invite skin cancer. I had no idea of that so I thought I'd mention it on this first day of skin cancer awareness month.

“These lip glosses can make more of the light rays penetrate directly through the skin instead of getting reflected off of the skin’s surface,” says Dr. Christine Brown, a dermatologist at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. (You're covered, however, if you wear lip gloss with SPF.)

Since most of the links and information I usually post are about melanoma, the cancer I have had, I thought I'd mention that Skin Cancer Net has a lot of information about all of the skin cancers. There are many other sites which are useful but I picked one for brevity sake.
I started thinking about how so many skin cancer campaigns feature blond, blue eyed, light skinned people. It is certainly true that those are the characteristics of people who are often at a higher risk for skin cancer. The problem is too often people who have darker skin tone, eyes, and hair, think they are in the clear which isn't true. I am caucasian but I thought I was at a low risk for skin cancer because I tend to tan not burn and don't have a particularly light skin tone. Below is a shot of me around 1988 and as you can see I'm not blond and my skin isn't porcelain toned but I did end up with melanoma.I didn't know until I had melanoma that an artist whose music I admired died from melanoma, Bob Marley. He had Acral Lentiginous Melanoma (ALM). Only 5 percent of all diagnosed melanomas are ALM but 50 % of melanoma which is diagnosed in Asian and people with dark skin is ALM. Of course that means that 50 percent of the people with dark skin have other forms of melanoma. I mention that because there is sometimes a misconception that the only form of melanoma or skin cancer for that matter which non caucasian people are at risk for is ALM which isn't true. For the start of Skin Cancer and Melanoma Awareness Month, I thought I'd give you the music and face of Bob Marley below.

Bob Marley's melanoma began in an old soccer injury on his big toe. Part of what makes ALM so deadly is that it's often diagnosed later than other melanomas and skin cancers. I've read that if it's diagnosed when it's at the same depth as other melanomas, the prognosis is similar but too often it's diagnosed later. I'll be mentioning some of the other manifestations of skin cancer and melanoma which often have delayed diagnosis in posts here and there throughout the month.

Never promised the roses wouldn't bite back

I've been taking more wide, landscape, type shots of my garden but I don't seem to be able to do as good of a job with them as I like. In part it's because my garden is a big old beautiful mess and the individual flowers look better. Part of it is my limitations as a photographer.I do think it's sort of funny how I practically have to climb through the roses to get from one section of my garden to the next, and I can tell you from experience that roses bite back.
It got me thinking about that line, I never promised you a rose garden. The idea of rose gardens as this calm, quiet, serene place is rather contrary to the plants which have rather sharp thorns.
Don't get me wrong. This time of year when I step out my back door, all I have to do is take a deep breath and I'm positively giddy with the lovely scent, and bowled over by the sights.
I even like that sweet smell of the meadow in the morning which is, in my garden's case, compost that's wet and strong; not the dung in cow pastures from which I think that phrase originates.I tried taking some shots of my garden standing on a ladder to get a wide view but I couldn't safely climb high enough and there is so much work I need to do that I wasn't happy with the photographs.I guess for now I'll stick with the small section shots and individual flowers. Hopefully, I'll get my garden in good enough shape to where I can get some better wide shots but I'm not counting on it. I'll probably keep climbing through the wilds and hope I don't get turned in to the garden police for my garden run amuck.

Weekend Snapshot: Number 34

Saturday morning I physically took a trip down memory lane, but first I'll begin with a shot of my newly transplanted tomato plants.Since it will be a long time before I have any tomatoes on my plants, I decided to check out a new open air farmer's market in a shopping center near me. Unlike the large state farmer's market I featured last weekend, this one is very small and the farmer's set up booths Saturday morning at 8:00 and leave at noon (or I think that's what it said).
These are hot house grown tomatoes from a small farm east of me. The one I ate Saturday night was delicious. After I left the market, I decided to go to my childhood stomping grounds since I haven't been by there in a long time and it's not far from the market at all.
I was pleased that the field of buttercups in the park down the street from where I grew up was in flower. I used to make long necklaces with the buttercups and I always enjoy seeing them this time of year. After I left the park, I drove up the street to the house I grew up in, and where my parents lived for 40 or so years. I have to admit that I almost didn't recognize the house because of the new landscaping but I really liked what the current owners had done with the front yard. The house itself from the front didn't look that different although I had heard from a family friend that a wing had been added to the back of the house.For comparison's sake, below is an old shot of the house from when I was a teenager, I believe. Although shot at a different angle, you can sort of see how the house is virtually the same from the front but the new landscape is much more involved.My last stop on my trek down memory lane was to the wrong side of the First Baptist Church. Just kidding but Bill used to joke, when people asked if we lived near my parents, that we lived on the wrong side of the First Baptist Church, but not as far as the wrong side of the railroad tracks. We did live very close to my parents, and were indeed on the other side of the big Baptist Church, before we bought the house I still live in. Bill and I met in the house below when it was two very small apartments. I was literally the girl next door. After we fell in love and married, our landlord let us knock a hole in the wall and turn it back into a single family house which is what it had been before it was a duplex. We lived there as neighbors from 1978 to 1980, and as a married couple until 1984. Kind of cool because we had two little kitchens during our early married years.
While I was snapping pictures of the house where Bill and I met, the woman who lives there came outside and asked if she could help me. I said no and explained that I met my husband there and told the story about how we were next door neighbors when the house was a duplex, and then got married in 1980, knocked a hole in the wall, and stayed there for our early married years. She insisted that I come inside and see the house and what it looks like now. It's perfect. It has been restored and improved and is a nice little house. I really like what has been done to it. So that was my Saturday morning trip down memory lane with some delicious tomatoes too.

Monday is the post day for Weekend Snapshot but I tend to post early. weekend-snapshot

ZOEY HAS Been Found

UPDATE - Zoey has been found, Woooohooooo

The host of photohunters, TNChick , is very worried (RELIEVED NOW THAT SHE's Found Zoey) about her beautiful beagle Zoey who is missing. Zoey was last seen somewhere around/near Franklin, KY. If you live near Franklin, KY please be on the lookout for Zoey. You can click on the badge below to contact TN Chick and let her know if you find or have seen Zoey.Thanks to Criz Lai for making this badge to help with the effort to alert people who might be in the area where Zoey was last seen.

Photohunters: Unique/Funny signs

The photohunt theme this week is unique/funny signs. I'm afraid I don't have great examples. The first sign I will post may or may not be unique but I found it funny. For the longest time, I thought one of my neighbors had a very elaborate sign to sell their dog, and I assumed the dog's name was Tess. It wasn't until under contract was added to the sign that the dim bulb went off in my head and I thought, of course, it's a real estate agent. I still find it funny for a real estate agency to be named "My Dog Tess".
My next funny sign is not unique and at face value not funny but bear with me if you will. One of my favorite verses in the famous Woodie Guthrie song "This Land is Your Land" is the one that says: As I went walking I saw a sign there - and on that sign it said "no trespassing" - but on the other side it didn't say nothing, that side was made for you and me. Whenever I see a no trespassing or keep out sign, I'm reminded of Mr. Guthrie's song line and I start to laugh. I also fantasize about stepping over the border and if I'm confronted by angry property owners, assuming they don't shoot first, I could point to the blank side and say, but that side doesn't say nothing. So in my universe the sign below is funny. However, it would not be funny if someone shot me for crossing the line. I thought it was unique of Woodie Guthrie to think of how the other side didn't say nothing and to say that side was made for you and me. The sign at the Art Museum makes me laugh too. In spite of Woodie Guthrie's clever take on signs, we are after all used to a sign referring to what's behind it. Therefore, I find the sign below very funny. It looks like the art museum is actually supposed to be at the construction site and that the construction workers goofed and demolished the museum. I fear I have a rather warped, I mean unique sense of humor.
I'm looking forward to seeing what others have done with the theme. I'm sure you came up with better signs than me. Hope you all have a great weekend.

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