610 days, 2 hours, 3 minutes, 31 seconds

For the second night in a row, coconut sorbet soothes her throat and lungs. To hell with diabetes. Coconut and pumpkin have become her favorite foods. Then she remembers those coconut heads her parents brought home from Nassau on their one vacation. Her mother, she learned later, was cracking up at that point. Spooky to the child. Who turns her thoughts to Jack-O-Lanterns.

610 days, 3 hours, 41 minutes, 52 seconds

Amsterdam's new airport security system reveals all, the headline says. In these terrified days, this is a first. It sees through clothes, outlines body contours. Analyzed by attendants in a separate room, the face blurred beyond recognition to maintain the illusion of privacy. It's sure to find drugs, smuggled money, or weapons. But she wonders if it would have found the tumor. If anyone would have looked, or cared. If, given the choice (and travelers, at least for now, can elect to have normal body scans), she would have thought to choose it. It's been over thirty years since she was in Amsterdam. The man she worked and studied with there is dead already.

610 days, 8 hours, 7 minutes, 17 seconds

Funky pink socks for $1 a pair, a strawberry and raspberry crepe, and a $10 for 10 minue chair massage outside at the Amsterdam Ave. street fair. This is what it's come to.