How I spent my evening

I have devoted more than 2.5 hours to mastering my new phone (the LG Rumor). I have charged it and activated it and programmed my numbers into it. I am promised Internet service with this phone, too, but I just can't deal with this right now. I'm not especially tech savvy and this LG User Guide is literally more than 220 pages long!

5 mm

That's the size of the lump in my left breast. Because it's so deep in the tissue and irregularly shaped, the radiologist wants to take another look at it. My doctor says 5 mm is very small and he warned me not to "freak out," that it's most likely benign. I'm stopping at his office tomorrow to pick up my prescription for a diagnostic mammogram.

I've mentioned all of this to my best friend, who tells me not to worry -- that his wife has had to have follow-up mammograms twice and that they both turned out to be nothing. (He also says he fully expects me to worry anyway.)

I told my oldest friend all of this, too. She's going to try to get me in this week at the hospital where she works so I won't have this hanging over my head for weeks and weeks (first for the follow up appointment, then for the results).

I'm still scared. And there's NO CUBS BASEBALL tonight!

For the future chef

Beginning next week, my 16-year-old niece will be embarking on quite the summer adventure. First she is going to "culinary camp" at Kendall College here in the city. In addition to learning from the pros, she will take advantage of much that Chicago has to offer, including theater and fine dining and an architecture tour up and down the River. This is the part I'm most excited about, since my sister and brother-in-law seldom venture down here, and what's the point of living 20 minutes away from a world-class city if you don't ever visit it? For my niece, it's an opportunity to get an idea of what life may be like for her if she attends Kendall -- and a chance to spend a week with Lisa, one of her best friends.

The following week, my niece will take off for Wisconsin, to a small town outside Fon du Lac. There's a resort up there that my family has been going to every year since I was a kid. Because our two families go back so far, the owners of the resort have agreed to let my niece work there for about a month. She'll be helping the chef in the kitchen, waiting tables, filling in at the beach stand and, when needed, cleaning cabins. She's eager to do this because it will give her a glimpse of what day-to-day life will be like in her proposed career. Plus she'll earn a salary and tips that she can sock away into her college fund.

I'm excited for her, and a little sad. I was never this driven, nor did I have a career selected, when I was her age, so I think this is great. But I'm nostalgic because she's no longer the little girl who spent her summer on her bike and lived for the Harry Potter movie premieres. I miss that little girl.

But, to celebrate the future chef she's become, I got her this tote bag. I had a store credit from Zappos so it didn't really cost me anything. And if my niece is going to be living out of bags for the next month or so, one of them should be new and hers exclusively.

Yes, I'm just staring at the phone

It's almost 11:00 and my doctor still hasn't called me back to discuss IT.

Of course, it is Monday. He has two days of messages to return. I'm sure he has to confer with the radiologist, and who knows what his schedule is. I realize it's not very reasonable to expect a call within the first 2 hours of his day.

But I want one!

And damn, wouldn't you know my main client contact (the one who reviews my work and requests next steps) is taking a long weekend and won't be back until Wednesday. This means I won't be swamped with glorious work to take my mind off of IT. Because of the All-Star break, there's no Cub game, either.

I'm looking at a postcard given to me by my friend in Key West: "I WILL NOT OBSESS. I WILL NOT OBSESS. I WILL NOT OBSESS." Let's see if I can live by that.