Long story short: The rheumatologist I saw on Friday afternoon does not think my rash/itching is an auto-immune issue; she does think the all-over itching is a reaction to chemo (which makes sense since they no longer give me a steroid pre-chemo.)  So I will be sure to talk to my oncologist about it before I get my next chemo!  In the meantime, she prescribed Atarax which does seem to be helping quite a bit with the itching - but unfortunately makes me quite sleepy.

The music festival in Flagstaff yesterday was wonderful!  Patti and I were amazed at how quickly the day flew by, and were both sorry to leave at 7:00.

The festival wasn't quite over (there were lots of encores and things started running late so the last act, scheduled to begin at 5:30, didn't actually start until 6:30) but it was a tad nippy by 7:00 (plus we had the 2 hour drive ahead of us... and we're not as young as we once were!)  The weather was absolutely perfect during the day, and we scored some shade under one of the canopies in the back when Diane (a lovely lady from SoCal who had driven in with a group of friends) offered us some of their space.

Although we had brought some nibbles of our own, we still managed to find room in our menu for Kettle Corn (always!) and Fratelli's pesto pizza.  The pizza booth was near us, and every time they took a new batch out of their ovens the wafting smell was tantalizing.  Happily it tasted as good as it smelled!

No surprise that Fratelli's has been voted the Best Pizza in Flagstaff for quite a number of years.

By the time we got home it was a little after 9:00 and I was wiped out so I went straight to bed.  This morning Sapphire woke me up at 6:00, when I fed her and went back to bed.  The phone woke me up at 10:00, when I answered it and then went back to sleep.  I finally stumbled out of bed at noon!  (Alex was getting ready to head out the door to go watch the Cardinals' game with friends, and was stunned and amazed that he had gotten up before me.)

Sometime today Patti is going to trim my hair at the neckline -  I now have enough hair  to look scraggly, although still better than this guy!

Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown tonight.

Apples and Honey for a sweet New Year!