I Really Wanna Know....

I'm thinking about my friend Nancy...and I love that she started the blogger challenge to share 15 Random Things about ourselves. So much fun to learn more about our blogger friends.  I had to go back and look at mine from last year to make sure I don't repeat the same stuff...

So here are mine for this year. 

1. I have, at this time, 4 tattoos. I got my first tattoo as soon as I was legally old enough to get one. It is a crescent moon face on the back of my left shoulder. I also have one on my right ankle, lower back tramp stamp, and lastly, a friendship matching foot tattoo my bestie M and I went together and had done.  

I would like to do some cover up work on the ankle, and also a half sleeve, but it's too pricey for me right now. And even if I had the money, not so sure I could tolerate the pain. I mean, that tiny foot tattoo hurt like a mo-fo! A friend told me to ask my oncologist for the numbing cream prescription they give you for the port. I didn't use it for my port, but just might ask for it, if'n I ever win the damn lottery for future bod-mod.

Dec 7, 2010

2. When I got my port out in December 2010, I asked to take it home. Is that weird? Surely others kept their port, right? And the top I'm wearing under my jacket is the same top I was wearing the day I got the phone call that I had breast cancer. Wasn't on purpose though.

 3. I love to watch the daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless. We DVR it daily, and watch it while we get our cardio exercise done. I'm on an elliptical and he on a treadmill. Distracts us from how boring this type of exercise is. And most of the time, the show is as good, if not better, than most of what is on Prime Time lately.

4. I have, just this actual year, discovered the Beerita. The wonderful libation of a margarita with a beer turned up in it. Yeah. How I've made it to 47 years of age and didn't know about this deliciousness? I dunno, I sure do now....And it's a very bad thing for my South Beach eating lifestyle. Staying away from Fuzzy's Taco Shop for a bit...

5. I can drive a stick shift. In fact, there was a time that I actually preferred it to the automatic. My feeling was that, you are actually driving a manual, while just riding along in an automatic. That was until I moved to the Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex and experienced crawling rush hour traffic...and trying to crank down your non automatic window, shift the gear, throw the change in the toll booth (thank you for the new cashless toll booths of today), roll the window back up, all while smoking a cigarette....LOL! Yay for automatic! (And I quit smoking in 2004. Cold Turkey style.)

6. I am absolutely terrified of spiders. I don't care if it's even the teeny tiniest of spiders. Terrified. I have been held captive in a bathroom once by a jumpy spider that seemed to be guarding the doorway...and watching...my...every...move. Omg...I might still be traumatized by that one...lol! And some of them here are so damn huge....like you could throw a saddle on it and ride it....Well, everything IS bigger in Texas....

7. I am a fan of horror movies. I love all things horror and macabre. And I just like to use the word macabre. Macabre macabre macabre. LOL! One of my favorites is the silly and campy "House of 1000 Corpses" by Rob Zombie. It's one of those, like Napoleon Dynamite (a horror in and of itself lol), that you have to give a second look after your first attempt to watch results in you turning it right off in about 15 minutes. My favorite scene is the liquor store scene. Check it out.  

8. The number 11 seems to pop up in my day to day life a LOT. Like, 11:11 on the clock, or just 11s on signs, receipts, or sequences of numbers that add up to 11. Just lots and lots and lots of 11 in my life. The Hotel Room we stayed in when we came to Texas to find a place to move back into...the room number added up to 11. The house we found on that trip, and are currently living is, the street address number ads up to 11. The house we moved out of in Georgia, street address number added up to 11. There are 11 letters in my husband's first and last name. Our anniversary date adds up to 11. But what does it mean?

9. I love seafood. Especially crab legs. And shrimp. And crawfish. Pretty much love any kind of seafood in any way I can have it. Except for weird stuff like octopus or squid or those creepy little baby octopus looking things you see on the Chinese Buffett. 

Yuck!

10. Halloween is my favorite thing ever. O and I will start checking certain stores for Halloween decorations and stuff right after 4th of July. It just makes me happy. And for the last 12 years, we totally deck our halls for Halloween. And sometimes, that happens as early as mid September. I have already seen fun Halloween stuff out this year.

11. I have had the extreme pleasure to work with the great actor, Burton Gilliam. You probably remember him from "Blazing Saddles", or "Back to the Future III", or "Fletch", Pace Picante commercials... O directed him and I ran boom mic for him in a feature film production based on the high school "Shattered Dreams" program. He was in the last one we did, and he was awesome. And a nicer person you will never meet. 

12. I do not have a green thumb. I will even kill silk plants. I have, however, managed to keep this vine looking plant alive that was given to me after my first surgery. I always think I want to grow all my own veggies and herbs, but then I realize that involves getting down in the dirt. Where there are bugs. And spiders...Yeah, see #6 above.

13. I won the big Bride's Magazine Honeymoon Sweepstakes in 2001. I filled out and mailed so many silly little entry forms in the back of several bridal magazines when I was planning our wedding. And actually won the big prize from Bride's Magazine! It included 7 day, 6 night stay in an Ocean View Room at the Hilton Waikoloa Village on the Big Island of Hawaii, Champagne and Bubble Bath Amenity on arrival, free breakfast daily, Seaside Massage for Two, a dinner meal at any of the resort's restaurants, Sunset Catamaran Cruise, a $2500 Zales Gift Card, and an Alfred Angelo Wedding Gown. And the Airfare was also included, which was awesome. When they called to tell me I had won, I missed the call. I was ending my day buying lottery tickets. Seriously. 

14. I have been involved in several alcohol related car accidents. Mostly getting hit by drunk drivers. I used to say there must be some target on my car that only drunks can see. 

15. Although I do love Halloween, horror movies and all that, I do not like to go through haunted houses at Halloween. I just don't. They're icky.

And that's this year's 15 Random Things About Me. Hope it wasn't too much of a snoozer.

************Edited: Originally #13 said I won the sweepstakes and was married in 2009. NO! It was 2001!!!**********

It's Just A Jump To The Left....

Or a hop. A Time Hop.

Gonna ramble around a bit here....

My love / hate thing with Facebook and Social Media is ever evolving more toward the hate side of things.

One of the last times before I knew I had cancer
June 2009

My Time Hop App and the "Memories On Facebook" thing is becoming very difficult for me. Two terrible things are looming if I continue to open the App or look at Facebook...a cancer diagnosis, and the epic fail of an attempt to move to the east coast to improve our life.

I really don't have a whole lot to say on the subject, other than, it's very hard for me to be reminded, by seeing actual posts and comments from my Facebook, on how life was b.c. 
Before cancer. 
Even now at seven years out.

I keep thinking I'll turn the "Memories" thing off on Facebook. Can you even do that? (Ooooh, just learned it has filters that will filter out people or dates of your choosing!) And that I'll just delete Time Hop from my phone for a few months. But then I don't. I look. It's like, I have to. Like when people pass a bad car accident. You look to see what carnage is there, and then sometimes wish you could unsee what you just saw.

And I think I'm that way with these stupid apps. I have to try to remember the feelings. 

I don't know why. 

But then, I've kind of always been this way, even before technology took over our lives. I always have kept a pretty detailed wall calendar & will, from time to time, go back through them & just remember when.

I know why there wasn't anything in there from this day in 2009, that's for sure.

On this day in 2009 (June 24 at the time of my typing this), I was having an ultrasound of my breast and being told to come back tomorrow for a biopsy. 

And Time Hop or no, I will not, can not, forget it. It's stuck in my brain like it was yesterday. Why can't chemo brain lose that memory for me?

Anyway...just a rambling musing. 

Let's (not) do the Time Warp again!

Bully For You...

Chilly for me...

Fame!

Looks like you've achieved it, Chewbacca Mom.

Ok, so yeah...I've been in a bad mood for a bit, so, is it any wonder that I break the blog silence with some bitching? Didn't think so. 

First, this rant is NOT in any way directed at this lady. She is clearly a really nice person with a great disposition, wonderful attitude and outlook on life. I'd probably very much enjoy hanging out with her. She seems like a lot of fun to be around.

But no, this is more directed at our society and the way we are now...a result, no doubt, of social media and reality TV.  Similar to a previous rant I did about the Grumpy Cat.

Does it make me an asshole, that I have issues with the fact that this ordinary, regular woman, is now achieving fame from a random moment she had, Live on Facebook, with a mask? And that she is now everywhere?? On TV, going to FB HQ and morning shows and Late Night Shows...and who knows how much more we'll see of her... Yet, so many other TALENTED people...people who have worked SO hard for years and years, sacrificed, are living in their cars, MORE than paid their dues, just trying to achieve their passion...to work in and make a name for themselves in the entertainment industry, hoping to be able to even just cross paths with celebrity like, James Corden, morning shows, etc. and may very well never even see their 15 minutes...or one second...or achieve the career they've longed for...

So, I'm an asshole, right? Because I'm annoyed that this Chewbacca Mask video is all it took to launch this woman straight into fame. No hard work in the entertainment field (that we know of, and if she has been trying, I will stand corrected), no years of auditions with call backs, just to not get the gig even....

I feel badly for all of you with unbelievable, award winning talent, who work so hard...those who, after years of studying this craft of entertainment, actually did the work, will never be more than an extremely talented waiter/waitress, [insert job/career here] still living in your car, cause you didn't just go LIVE, joyfully, on Facebook.

Enjoy your fifteen minutes.

But what do I know?

I'm an asshole.

#NotJudgingJustAnAsshole

#SourGrapesPost 

[Added 6/21/16 - This post has been sitting in drafts since May...wasn't sure it would ever come out, cause, you know, it's such an assholish post...and I really figured the fifteen minutes was over. But Nooooooooo.... Now, Hasbro has come out with a Chewbacca Mom Action Figure. Awesome. *head-desk*]

All I Need Is A Miracle...?

Yeah. It's time for me to bitch about stuff I've already bitched and blogged about. Again. And I realize that I have a new excuse reason for why I don't blog as much as I once did. Know what it is? It's because I'm finding myself writing about the same stuff. Same shit, different day. So, here we go again. What's one more ranty, ramble of the same ol same ol, right?

I dunno if maybe I just need to get off of social media for awhile or what, but I am just getting so so SO annoyed with all the suggestions, some quite ridiculous, about how to "prevent" breast cancer, or "prevent" it's return or "prevent" metastasis, and these "all natural miracle cures"! All manner of silly suggestions scroll by with these "cures"...everything from detoxes, cleanses, super food gorging...try to enhance your calm and stay all Zen all the time...

*rolls eyes*

Like I've said before...
...if "beating it" were as simple as only eating organic, consuming tons of kale and blueberries, chowing down on lentils while burning patchouli incense and singing "Kum Ba Yah" around a fire pit, then surely info on this would take bc treatment more that way, oncologists would prescribe it & proclaim the elusive cure has been found...

Anyway.... I think the one piece of advice that grinds my nerves the most, and I get advised the most is "alkalize your body...only eat alkaline, etc."

I swear to *insert deity of choice here*, if one more person forwards me stuff about "How to eat all alkaline to beat cancer" I'm gonna totally lose my shit. Please read Myth Number 3 of Cancer Myths Debunked.  If you make your body 100% alkaline, YOU WILL NOT BE ALIVE!!! Ok? So just, STOP IT! GAWD!!! (I know y'all mean well, but it's just silly...)

I dunno...I guess I'm just weary of reading about all the "miracle diets" and how a "Zen-like state of mind" can "guarantee" you will "beat cancer forever". 

Look, don't get me wrong, of course I've made some lifestyle changes and eat more Chia Seeds and kale (I actually LIKE kale, thankyouverymuch) than I did before my diagnosis. I didn't even know you could actually eat chia seeds before I was diagnosed. And yes, it's in an effort of prevention. No guarantees, but yeah, I think it's because I gotta feel like I'm being proactive in some way. But I'm not about to pick up a book claiming to have the way to cure cancer written by some all organic garden growing, tofu munchin', yoga posin' health guru and call it the holy fuckin' grail of curing cancer. Ya know? 
*Disclaimer* Yes, I do believe organic is better when you can find/afford it. I do believe yoga is good for you, but I can't do it. And I'm sure there must be some way to prepare tofu that makes it edible. 

If the biggest brains in the oncology world, with all of their experiences and degrees haven't found the cure for breast cancer yet, I seriously doubt it's gonna be found in a damn pomegranate!

</ end rant >

Photo snagged off Facebook