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Everyone Loves A Baby!

So, everyone’s been asking – well, close friends anyway – what’s up with the tongue thing?

I don’t want to overload the blog with personal stuff, especially somewhat distasteful (ha, I made a punny) personal stuff, but this is important to enough people to make it worthwhile. For which I am grateful. If you are looking for real estate stuff, skip this post.

Back in 2006 or so, my great dentist Pam Marzban became concerned about some white-ish material on the lower left back of my tongue. She suspected it to be leukoplakia, a possible precancerous condition, and sent me off to an oral surgeon (Dan Labriola) who could take a biopsy and ablate the area with a laser procedure, which he did. The leukoplakia was confirmed, but no cancer.

In 2008 Dr. Pam saw the leukoplakia again, but ran a new “Swish-and-Spit” test which came up negative.

This May, Dr. Pam saw a more dangerous looking red spot - erythroplakia. Back to Dr. Dan, who excised two chunks for biopsy and thought he got it all. The biopsy on one chunk was squamous cell carcinoma, with apparent negative edges; the other was negative but had enough interesting dysplasia that the area from which it was taken deserved careful monitoring.

Dr. Dan set me up for a C/T of head and neck to check for anything spreading, which I had done in mid July after the swelling from the excision was minimized. I went on vacation, and didn’t hear from Dr. Dan since we already had a followup set for October. The C/T didn’t show anything but a little swelling of the lymph nodes hanging over from the surgery.

Good ‘ol Pam (who insists I get cleaned at least 3x year – bad flossing habits) in late July saw the “bad spot” once again. When I got back to Dr. Dan in October, he took one look and said, “Kim, I want you to see Dr. Patty Lee [who is an otolaryngologist or ENT to most of us] because I think it’s back, and we need a broader view.”

I saw Dr. Patty right away and last Monday she took an even bigger chunk (under general anesthesia this time). Yesterday was my first followup and all looks “well.” The biopsy showed residual SQC at the prior site (not sure which one) but all the edges were clear. So once again, looks like we got it all. Next followup in mid-December.

Important things to think about:

• Oral cancer is nasty. Nasty-looking, nasty-feeling, and if you like to eat or drink (who doesn’t?), nasty to deal with. And, it can spread (metastasize). This most often happens when the cancer is in the back third of the mouth like mine, especially if you don’t regularly see a good dentist who looks for it.
• Using tobacco causes cancer. Don’t smoke or chew. I gave up the weeds in 1987 and got it anyway.
• Immoderate alcohol use can contribute. My use is moderate or less and I got it anyway.
• HPV is another known contributor. I don’t have it, but I got tongue cancer anyway.
• Cancer tends to run in families, so I understand. Not in mine, but I got it anyway.
• Tongue excisions hurt. I have Percocet (Oxycodone) and Lidocaine (in viscous form in a squirt bottle!) but it’s been over a week and the best I can do is sip soup or (with difficulty) slurp pasta that ’s creamy enough and small enough that no chewing is required. No tomato sauce or citrus, please. It’s going to be another couple of weeks before I can bear to move my tongue and have it risk scraping my teeth without causing enormous pain. (I have sharp molars that tilt toward the “bad spot.”) I stopped using the Perc after 2-3 days because (a) pills are hard to swallow and (b) even if I put them in a smoothie, I can’t drive and it’s not good for the ol’ digestive system, if you get my drift. I can’t brush my teeth, but I can gingerly swish mouthwash (ProHealth, no alcohol) to keep the halitosis under some semblance of control.

OK, this evening I am seeing some new clients! I will take my little whiteboard and my Lidocaine squeeze, and try not to breathe on them. Hopefully they will understand my rather clipped speech pattern. Yes, I could’ve put them off another week or so, but even though the mouth doesn’t want to work that much, the head, heart and hands gotta do something productive.

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Here is an update on one of our TJHSST kids from 2002 – Teresa (Thao) Nguyen and her band Get Down Stay Down.

New album – Know Better Learn Faster – released on October 13, featured on iTunes (as Chris says, “making it”), and including help from the Portland Cello Project, the Decemberists, Laura Veirs and others.

It’s vintage Thao on steroids.

See previous Thao post for the history and connections!

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Notice anything different?

Over the past week I have moved from my old wordpress.com blog site to a new platform where I can (a) use my domain kimhannemann.com (formerly a rather bad template site) and (b) incorporate a great search tool called RealBird and other new features.

I’m still in the process of working all of this out, but I think you will find the changes worthwhile.

Let me know if you like or dislike anything about the new site.

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Chris On-site

eSolar Plant

OK, for those of you who care about my family (of course all of you do) you might be interested in watching the National Geographic Channel at 5 PM on Thursday, July 16 where Sean Riley in World’s Toughest Fixes will participate in constructing America’s first large-scale solar power tower, courtesy of eSolar, Chris’s company.

Not literally his company, but he does have stock options. And he’s R & D-ing power tower designs.

In Fairfax County, that’s Cox HD channel 719 or Cox Digital Discovery Tier channel 160.

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My youngest child Victoria . . . no more a “child,” to be sure . . . graduated from James Madison University on Saturday, with her older already-anointed brothers looking on with pride. It’s hard to believe this was the angsty teen who four years ago  in her first dorm room was putting her stuff back into the boxes as fast as her Mom was taking it out, insisting she wanted to go home.

Somehow we all survived that first month and she made the Dean’s List. Fourteen months later she was off to London on her own for a semester of history, literature, theater and pub crawling. Then it was the rigors of two years of regimented nursing school curriculum, and now she’s a BSN – or Bitchin’ Sexy Nurse, as I like to say. And a good one, apparently, because INOVA Alexandria wants her on the Labor & Delivery floor badly enough to drop an open RN2 position to pick her up as a fresh grad. She must have impressed them when she interned there last summer, and did her student nursing there afterwards. She impresses me, that’s for sure.

But I might be just a little biased, perhaps. A father’s prerogative.

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Special Education Teachers in Demand – washingtonpost.com.

I bask in the reflected glory of my friend and neighbor Beth Curtis. She truly is “a natural.”

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The last of three (3) posts coming up today, all related to some talented young friends of mine who are alumni of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ).

John Petersik (2000) and his lovely wife Sherry have developed a tremendous following for their remodeling/renovation work. The best place to catch up with what is happening for, by, and to them is at their primo website, This Young House.

For starters, they’re writing columns for regional and national publications such as R. Home Magazine and Do It Yourself Magazine; they’ve been featured on HGTV in Rate My Space; and they’ve done both a video tour in thenest.com and an 8-page cover spread for [thenest] Magazine.

Check out the terrific photos (1, 2, 3, 4) from the magazine spread and read their blog post on the process of the photo shoot – pretty funny.

John’s degree is in Communications and Sherry’s is in Fine Arts – and it’s clear that they are putting both to good use.

My connection to John? I carried his mellophone and toted water for him at Marching Band Camp and on numerous Marching Band Trips. How’s that for A-List, huh?

The other two posts are on Sam Willmott (2005) and Thao Nguyen (2002) – both performing in DC on Friday evening, April 17!

It’s Good To Have A Friend In The Business®

If you would like to discuss real estate questions, sell or buy a home in Northern Virginia – including Alexandria, Annandale, Arlington, Burke, Centreville, Chantilly, Clifton, Fairfax, Fairfax Station, Falls Church, Kingstowne, Lorton, McLean, Reston, Springfield, or Vienna – contact Kim today.

4.5% Listings with First-Class Service — Cash Back to My Buyers!

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The second of three (3) posts coming up today, all related to some talented young friends of mine who are alumni of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ).

Thao Nguyen (2002) – most TJ alumni know her as Teresa – graduated with degrees in Sociology and Women’s Studies from William & Mary. In high school she worked mostly with vocalist Brenna Clerkin as the duo Brenna & Teresa. Here’s a selection from their EP Three Words:

[audio http://members.cox.net/khannemann/knocksmedown.mp3]Knocks Me Down – Brenna & Teresa

From this morning’s Washington Post:

Falls Church native-turned-Kill Rock Stars darling Thao Nguyen plays tomorrow at the Black Cat with her band the Get Down Stay Down, and offers more than enough smart heartbreak to go around (sorry, no faux-lebrity melodrama, though). Nguyen and her band broke out last year with the album “We Brave Bee Stings and All,” a jaunty collection of soulful pop tunes spiked with downer lyricism delivered in a staccato sing-speak.

“I’m a huge Motown fan, and I enjoy the juxtaposition of a bright-sounding song with a melancholic lyric,” Nguyen told us when we chatted up the 25-year-old recently by phone in Portland, Ore. The sad thread isn’t a put-on; her childhood seems to have consisted of toiling in her mother’s laundromat (“I feel like I was an indentured servant,” she says jokingly of her days spent making change for customers) and time spent alone.

“I would say I spent the majority of my time in my room, being sad or watching television. Growing up there helped in that I had nothing else to do but focus on playing music,” Nguyen says. She has since moved to San Francisco, where urban living seems to suit her, uh . . . better. Tomorrow’s show is something of a homecoming.

“For all the lamenting I have done,” Nguyen confesses, “I am a product of the place I came from. And everyone [here] has always been so supportive and hospitable.”

The Black Cat is at 1811 14th St. NW. Tickets are $13. Show starts at 9 p.m, also featuring Sister Suvi and David Shultz and the Skyline.

Move quick, or you’re gonna miss Thao because she’s off to Durham, NC on Saturday.

Here’s a recent video for Bag of Hammers (you may have heard the tune on a Clorox commercial):

My connection to Thao:  she rehearsed in my basement. That’s right – some of her first collaborative work took place there in the summer of 1999 after summer school computer science sessions, playing songs like “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Cocaine,” and Cake’s “Let Me Go” with a band (that term is used loosely) calling itself Cool Whip. [Note - most TJ students go to summer school to fit in all the classes they want to take with the ones they have to take. It's like camp for them.] Later, my son Chris backed her and Brenna on drums at a TJ talent show and at Jammin’ Java in Vienna. Yes, another A-List connection, folks.

Here is a review of her most recent work written by Chris after he caught up with her when she played at Berkeley in 2008.

UPDATE:  See Washington Post Weekend feature from April 17 – may require free login, may not be available more than two weeks or so.

The other two TJ Alumni posts are on Sam Willmott (2005) – also performing in DC on Friday evening – and John Petersik (2000).

It’s Good To Have A Friend In The Business®

If you would like to discuss real estate questions, sell or buy a home in Northern Virginia – including Alexandria, Annandale, Arlington, Burke, Centreville, Chantilly, Clifton, Fairfax, Fairfax Station, Falls Church, Kingstowne, Lorton, McLean, Reston, Springfield, or Vienna – contact Kim today.

4.5% Listings with First-Class Service — Cash Back to My Buyers!

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The first of three (3) posts coming up today, all related to some talented young friends of mine who are alumni of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ). Coming from the country’s preeminent nerd academy, you would think they’d be, oh, maybe scientists or engineers, but au contraire – they are artistes. They could also be scientists or engineers, but in the context of today they are budding if not fully flowered artistic talents.

I realize this is supposed to be primarily a blog about Real Estate . . . but hey, if I can get the TJ Alumni business, I’m gonna be set!

Sam Willmott is a 2005 TJ grad now finishing up at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture. He is a composer and lyricist already gaining some terrific recognition – in fact, his Standardized Testing – The Musical!!!! earned the 2009 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Musical Theatre Award for music and lyrics. Here’s an excerpt:

And you can see it tomorrow night (Friday, April 17) at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater for a measly ten bucks, along with the national finalists of the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play and the KCACTF Ten-Minute Play Award, performed by an ensemble of Washington, D.C.’s leading actors.

My connection with Sam is that he was Tony, the male lead, and my daughter Vicky was a Shark in West Side Story. I had the privilege of not only seeing him perform but actually feeding him and the rest of the cast at multiple rehearsals! That’s an A-List connection, folks!

The other two posts are on Thao Nguyen (2002) – also performing in DC on Friday evening – and John Petersik (2000).

It’s Good To Have A Friend In The Business®

If you would like to discuss real estate questions, sell or buy a home in Northern Virginia – including Alexandria, Annandale, Arlington, Burke, Centreville, Chantilly, Clifton, Fairfax, Fairfax Station, Falls Church, Kingstowne, Lorton, McLean, Reston, Springfield, or Vienna – contact Kim today.

4.5% Listings with First-Class Service — Cash Back to My Buyers!

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A post from The Dilbert Blog:

Last week, my in-laws were in town. While they were out visiting some other relatives, I took my turn watching their dog, Mollie. At this point, I should pause and mention that I haven’t had a dog since I was a kid. And in those days, in the country, when the dog felt nature’s call, we’d simply let the dog out, and it would use any part of our 2.5 acres as its toilet. Later, if you wanted to throw a ball around, you just kicked the (usually) frozen logettes to the side to clear a path. In those simple times, you weren’t playing a sport unless someone ended up covered in dog feces. It was just part of the game.

These days, things are quite different. Today, if you go to school covered in dog feces, there’s a stigma. And of course there’s the leash law. But nothing takes the joy out of a walk in the fresh air quite like being required to carry a plastic purse full of dog poop.

Back to my story, I took Mollie for a walk, thinking I understood how this process worked. The leash was no mystery. It had a cool spring action with a pistol grip. I liked that part. And I grabbed an official poop bag on the way out of the house. I was ready for anything.

Within a minute, Mollie laid down a steamer. I think she had been eating the cat food, because it wasn’t the firm little log I was expecting. But I soldiered on, turning the bag inside out like a glove, and grabbing the warm pile that melted in my hand. It wasn’t pleasant in the usual sense of the word, but I experienced some satisfaction in a job well done. I tied the bag into a tidy little package and intended to head home.

That’s when I noticed Mollie had just begun to poop. I don’t know if she was trying to spell “HELP” in case a rescue plane flew over, or what, but by now she was in full production. Step, squat, step, squat.

I looked at my tidy little bag, now sealed, and realized I was screwed. I knew the neighbors would be looking, or feared they might. I couldn’t leave this Katrina-sized disaster and get another bag lest someone think, incorrectly, that I had abandoned my doody. So I decided to see if I could untie the pooper bag and have another go at the new deposits. This plan did not work as smoothly as I had hoped.

Do you know what is NOT effective for picking up warm piles of poop? If you guessed “other warm piles of poop,” you might have been in this situation yourself. It was like trying to pick up mashed potatoes with a catcher’s mitt. And I was hurrying, so needless to say, back at the house I needed the Karen Silkwood treatment to feel clean again.

Later, when my in-laws returned, I told the story. Larry, a laid-back gentleman from Arkansas, turned to his wife Cheryl and drawled “Mollie double-bagged him.” Let me tell you, the only thing that could have made my experience worse was finding out my in-laws have a name for it.

And that’s why we have a cat.