April 1st

In the interim of posting about health crisis, it occurs to me that I never posted about HOW I GOT MARRIED on April 1st. And it was not a joke. Steve's the best ever, because he went along with my date without batting an eye.

We'd been planning an outdoor wedding at a friend's house, but the closer we got to the date, the more obvious it became that I wasn't well enough to be discharged, so Judy enlisted the help of the hospital chaplain in securing the hospital chapel.

We were married between 10 and 10:30, on a beautiful Friday morning. I was drugged out of my mind, and weak beyond words, but it was the happiest day of my life. Not only because I was marrying the kindest, most compassionate, best man I've ever known, but also because I was able to look out and see the faces of so many friends and loved ones from so many chapters of my life. That, especially in current circumstances, has been such a blessing. I love my people.

I love my Steve.

Here are a few pics from the happy day.

The last 48

So... Thursday morning (to clarify, this was the middle of the night morning), I woke up, DRENCHED in sweat. Like, crazy wet. Pillow soaked through, sheets wet, even down by my feet.  It was bizarro. Because it was the middle of the night, and I was exhausted, I was able to freak back asleep, but when I woke up in the legit AM, I told Judy what had happened, and we had Instant Laundry Day. I didn't think much of the fever, outside of needing fresh sheets on my bed. Thursday was the first day I was at all hungry, so I'd had all kinds of hope that I'd turned a corner and was getting better.

You know me and me unrealistic hope in things that cannot be true. (This damn optimistic spirit can be a real kick in the pants sometimes.)

Anyway, I ate breakfast, but then got back in bed. Katie and Judy left to go shopping just after 11, and I fell asleep shortly after they left. I slept until 1 or 2:00, and woke up warm and out of breath. Did it click that I probably head another fever? Nope. I got up to make some lunch, and head to sit down to rest twice in the process of making myself a bean burrito. (Don't judge. I had to open the beans, and I have a manual can opener. It was really hard work. ... Insert eye roll here.)

After eating and showering  (a 2+ hour process, all told, because I was so out of breath that I could hardly move without winding myself), I was back in bed.

Don't worry about how I still hadn't even thought about checking my temperature.

Steve came over around 4:00. By then, I was in bed, so he came back to lie down beside me. Katie and Judy left to run another errand, and we slept until about 5:30. I had been cold, so I was under the covers and Steve was above the covers, next to me. I'd been dozing in and out for the hour he was there, and was out when he woke me up, rubbing my arm to get me to respond, because he was certain there was something wrong with me. The heat emanating from my blanket covered self had woken HIM up. He went to get the thermometer, and... yeah, there was "something wrong".

I had a temperature of 103.5.

I got out of bed, tossed the blankets, took some Tylenol and set out to prove that I could get the temp to drop.

Thirty min later, I was at 103.3. ... Not a significant drop. By now Kate and Jude were home and up to speed. They all agreed to give me another 30 min.

103.4, half an hour later.

So, at about 7:00, Thursday night, the caravan to the hospital began. (Any fevers over 100.4 send you straight to the ER when you're on chemo.)

We were in the ER for almost 8 hours, while they ran tests to find the infection that was driving the fevers, to no avail. I mean, it's good that I don't have a UTI, or a blood clot in my lungs, or the flu. But I still have these wicked fevers that keep spiking for no apparent reason. The ER doc decided to call it "Neutropenic Fevers", prescribed fluids and an intravenous antibiotic and shipped me up to the oncology floor, where I've been since about 3:00 in the AM, Thursday night/Friday morning.

Steve's spent the night with me both nights, and Judy sleeps at my apt in the night, then comes here in the day while Steve is at work.

They still have NO IDEA what's causing the fevers, but just since I've been here, my blood has gotten worse. Thursday, my platelets were at 140 (should be 700-1400, or something like that). This morning, they were at 70.

I've been on constant IV fluids to keep me hydrated, and an IV antibiotic to fight whatever mystery infection that's keeping me sick.

Really, I don't feel much worse than I usually do at home. Maybe a little more tired, because I have people checking vitals every hour on the hour through the night, so I can't get solid sleep. Definitely more cranky, because I just want to go home and get in my own bed.

I'm resigned to at least one more night, because the rule is that I need to be fever free for 24 hours before they'll let me go home, and my last fever broke in the middle of the night. It's pretty annoying, but there's nothing I can do outside of drinking a lot of fluids and not over exerting myself. So, I'm doing and not doing those two things.

Other than letting ya'll know that I'm here, with no apparent reason to be here, outside of the fevers that will not die, there's not anything new to report. Should you feel so inclined, I'm currently accepting prayers, well wishes, juju, good energy and intentions specific to keeping my fever down. And heck, if you'd like to throw in a line about how the doctors will be able to determine the root cause of all of this, that would be fine, too.

A true story about how my love of chocolate is greater than my fear of anthrax poisoning.

Judy and I have been watching The West Wing for the last couple weeks. (I so love this show. Witty and tight dialogue, characters you love even when you hate them. It's, seriously, the best. And all seven seasons are at your disposal on Ye Olde Netflix. ... Not a paid advertisement, but for real. If you've never seen it, you should. And if you have, you should probably watch it again. I should know, this is my third time through the series in the last year and a half.)

Anyway, Judy and I have been watching TWW, and this afternoon, we hit Episode 20 of Season 5, in which Bartlet and some of his staff come into contact with a powdery pathogen and have to go into lockdown, and it reminded me of the time that we had to evacuate the building at work because we happen to share an office complex with a US Senator who isn't... uh... beloved, exactly, and had received some hate mail with white powder all over it.

I'd left the building earlier that morning to run down to Walgreen's and had just come back with a box of tampons (I thought about cleaning that fact up for the internet, but it's a true story) and a three lb bag of Hershey's kisses. (Also, true. I remember that there was a massive Hershey's display at the register, and a bag of kisses that was the size of a throw pillow? Sign. Me. Up.) I remember pulling up to the bank, walking in through the back door, setting my purse - and my kisses - down on my desk, and... the emergency lights going off inside the building at the same time we heard sirens screaming outside. Staff immediately rushed into the offices with windows facing the courtyard, and we watched as people with hazmat suits walked down the sidewalk and into the main entrance of our office complex.

I remember sitting down at my desk and popping open that bag of kisses, while the blue lights flashed, and chain-eating bite sized pieces of chocolate while we waited to hear what to do next.

Because it was a potential airborne toxin situation, the building shut down the power and killed the AC. For a few minutes, we had to stay on site. (In case of exposure, they needed a headcount of everyone who'd been in the building. You know, in case we all had to get shipped to the same hospital for treatment.) Once the envelopes had been cleared, the bank evacuated employees to our emergency location and we waited for senior management to determine who would be resourced to another office, versus who was able to work from home.

I remember sitting in a plastic chair, with my bag of chocolate in my lap, while my coworkers struggled. Once the immediate threat was gone, people had calmed down. But still, there were a lot of tears. The adrenaline rush was something else, and we had easily a dozen people who were currently displaced. Because the threat had been to a senator's office, we had been asked not to communicate and/or share details with friends and family until such time as the news could break. It was super surreal. Men and women visibly shaken, very emotional, which totally understandable, considering the roller coaster of the morning.

And I just sat there, eating my chocolate.

I was one of the few employees sent to another office for the rest of the day. I remember that afternoon, an employee who worked out of the other branch - the branch I had been temporarily assigned to - came to my desk and asked how I was. I was fine. I was stressed, because I was one person doing the departmental work of four, and I'd lost a couple hours that morning to all of the hullabaloo, but I was fine. She stared, and asked me if, really, I was okay.

And... I was.

I had a bit of a stomachache from all of the chocolate (I ate the entire three lbs in that one work day), but I was fine. I had been fine, all day. I just hadn't realized it until I was pressed for an answer that afternoon.

Because, here's the thing...  I already knew that life is fragile. I already lived, every day, knowing that I have very little control in how or when I die.

It's funny. I don't think of that day very often. It's usually an episode of TV, or a movie with some weird hazmat/airborne toxin situation, that takes me back. But that was a defining day, in that it was a day in which I realized that I'd come to terms with how little control I have overead death. ... Not that I want to die, or would walk right into it, because I don't, and I wouldn't. But I'm really glad that I had that super surreal day at work, for the knowledge that I was okay that day, with whatever came next. (I mean, I had three lbs of chocolate. And I'm sure that helped. But still.) That day, I was given a gift, in that I was able to recognize and actually see how living with cancer has helped me roll with the punches. It's not always easy, and it's not - on any level - constant, the acceptance that I have next to zero control in how matters of life and death play out, but I'm grateful for moments in which life (the universe, the Lord) hold up lessons I've already learned and remind me that I'm smarter than I was.

That awkward moment when you have to tell a stranger you're wearing a wig...

So, here's a fun story from my actual life.

After my little daytrip last week, I'd been needing to put some gas in my car for a few days, so I ran over to Danny's (or what used to be Danny's, for the life of me, I can't remember the new name of that gas station) to get some gas. While I was there, I decided to let the staff wash the bug guts off my grill. And I figured I should buy some peanut M&M's while the car was getting wiped down. (Can I eat an entire package of M&M's in one sitting yet? No. But I'm working on it. And I'm currently up to eating six M&M's consecutively before my tongue swells and my mouth hurts. Dang these stupid mouth sores all to heck. I hate them.)

Aaaaaaaanyway, this is the conversation I had with the gas station cashier when I was buying my M&M's:

Cashier: I really like your hair.
Me: Thank you.
Cashier: No, I really like it. It's so pretty!
Me: Thank you.
Cashier: I don't know why, but I never do my hair like that.
Me: You have really pretty hair, too.
Cashier: So... how do you get the curls to stay like that?
Me: (pause) I don't know.
Cashier: No, really. Is it your curling iron, or is it hairspray?
Me: Honestly, I don't know.
*dramatic pause while she looks at me suspiciously, like I would lie to her about how I do my hair*
Me: It's a wig. And it was styled before she sent it to me. So, honestly... I have no idea what she did to make the curls at the top/front stay this perfect.
Cashier: But you have a part!
Me: I know.
Cashier: It doesn't LOOK like a wig!
Me: Thank you.
Cashier: It's so pretty!
Me: Thank you.

And then she handed me my change and my wig and I walked outside to sit in the sun and eat our candy.

Awkward wig moments are my new favorite.

A day in the life of a bald girl

I was running low on hummus and flat out of avocados here at Casa de Cancer Girl, so I made a Walmart run this afternoon. Don't worry about how I used no less than seven of those antibacterial wipes they provide to decontaminate the shopping cart before I went into the store. (Mostly because chemo has brought out the OCD in me in a way that was heretofore unimaginable, but also because when I tried to pull just one wipe, seven came out in a string.)

I made my way through the aisles:

Ensure (because it qualifies as a legitimate snack/meal in my current world, and the dark chocolate kind is NOT disgusting). Check.

More fake eyelashes (because now that my real lashes are gone, I am all over gluing fake ones on - every day). Check.

Toilet paper and Kleenex with lotion (because one can NEVER have too much of either of these things). Check.

White wheat flour, in case I ever want to make baked goods again. Check.

And then I moseyed on over to the produce aisle, where I swear I bought three of everything. (Except lettuce. Because, I swear to you, if I ever eat salad again, it will be too soon.)

As I was standing over the avocados, I had a clear view of the people walking into the store. So, I watched them. It has been interesting to me to gauge the reactions of people when I'm out in public without anything covering my head. Children generally stare and then smile or start giggling. (I love how honest kids' reactions are to the baldness!) Adults' reactions can usually be split into three different camps: the look away and then look back and then stare off into the distance (rinse and repeat... ad nauseum), the quick glance and then hard stare at anything that's not affixed to the top of my shoulders, and those who look straight into my eyes and smile. (I like the smilers the best, in case you were wondering.)

Watching the incoming traffic for a few moments, I clocked a few looky-loos, a handful of hardcore avoiders, and couple smilers. Grinning from ear to ear (human behavior fascinates me, and one of my favorite things about being bald has been the social experiment of seeing how people react to it), I went back to picking avocados out of the bin. As my head went down, I saw one of the smilers walk past me and into produce section to the right of me. He made it about 15 feet past me, and then, out of the corner of my eye I saw him stop walking. He stopped, turned, and came back towards me, asking, "Ma'am, can I give you a hug?"

Of course I said yes, but I'll be honest and say that I went into that hug wondering if and/or why he'd felt impressed to approach me, a perfect stranger with one hell of a space bubble, and ask for a hug in the middle of the produce section. But as soon as he touched me, I knew it wasn't about me. His arms went around me, and his face went into my neck. Both his shoulders and his voice shook as he held me close and told me about his mom.

Lung cancer. Stage four. She's been gone almost a year, and he misses her every day.

We stood like that for maybe five minutes while he talked about his mom. Then the grown man who had let himself fall apart in public put himself back together again and pulled away. He thanked me, wished me well and told me to keep fighting. I thanked him back, told him I was so sorry for his loss, and assured him that I have every intention of keeping up my end of this fight. And then he walked away.

I don't know his name. He didn't ask mine. Names didn't matter. Heartache and a shared experience of having cancer rip our lives apart bound us together in a way that introductions and small talk never could have.

As much as I miss my hair, I am grateful for the time that I have had without it. I have both seen and been seen differently as a bald girl. Today, I am grateful that I was in the right place, at the right time, with an obvious tell to the battle I am fighting. I never would have imagined that my bald head would be the impetus for making such an unusual, yet strong, connection with someone I had never met, and am unlikely to ever see again.

Cancer sucks, but people don't. And I love that both the universe and the people of the world keep reminding me that people are awesome, and that we have - and share - experiences in mortality for a reason.

I am turning into my second grade teacher

Mrs. Tubbs was my second grade teacher. She had a steel bolt reinforced refrigerator box that was painted mint green in the back of our classroom that was full of throw pillows. When we'd do well on our timed tests in the beginning of the week, she'd let us sit the tests out for the rest of the week and we had the option of sitting at our desks quietly or lounging about in the box. (One week - I stress, ONE week of my second grade career - I got 100% on the timed math test and got to sit in the box. Between not having to retake the test, and the "mystery" flavored Dum-Dum sucker I pulled out of the candy bowl as I went into the mint green, pillow-filled, haven from multiplication tables, that day was the highlight of that school year.)

Mrs. Tubbs was short. I mean, shooooooort. I mean, granted, I have always been tall, but no seven year old should be anywhere near as tall as her teacher. She had super curly hair, a gap between her front teeth, and I loved her with my whole heart.

She was sweet, and she was funny. She taught us patriotic songs and she let me stay after school to clean her erasers and help with bulletin boards.

Oh, and she stuffed EVERYTHING down the front of her shirt.

Need a dime? She'd pull one from her shirt. ... It was the most incredible magic trick I'd ever seen.

She was constantly stuffing and then pulling tissues out of her shirt. ... I'm pretty sure it took me half the school year to realize that she was using her bra to hold her money/tissues/keys, etc. (In her defense, it was the early 80's and polyester pants didn't come with pockets sewn into them. ... In mine, I was seven and hadn't really been aware of bosoms or bras to that point. I just thought her shirts had magical powers.)

Anyhoo... I just got up to throw away a thoroughly used up kleenex and... uh... threw not only that tissue out, but also a few more that I'd had stuffed into my bra for who even knows how long. (In my defense, all I'm wearing are either yoga pants and t-shirts or nightgowns, neither of which come with pockets sewn into them. ... And because I have to sleep in a bra - thanks to the port that has changed my life in so many ways - there's really no telling how long they'd been hanging out in there.)

I walked out of the pantry and told Judy she may as well start calling me Mrs. Tubbs right now, and, knowing my childhood fascination with Mrs. Tubbs' magical shirts, she asked how many wadded-up tissues I'd found in my bra... Four.

I'm telling you, the stuff you learn during those formative years really does stick with you.

Living the dream

When I was a kid, one of my favorite be-sneaky/amuse-myself-at-church games was to see if I could hold onto my sacrament bread until the water came. (I'm not kidding you. Instead of eating the bread when it came around, I'd hide it in my skirt until the water came, so I could sneak it into my mouth and then throw the water back like a shot. All in one smooth motion, so none of the brothers would see and get me in trouble with my parents for combining the sacramental parts that were meant to be taken separately.)

Why?

Because I loved how the bread would get all spongy in my mouth when the water soaked it. And then I could swallow it whole.

I know, I know. ... What a weird kid.

But I tell you what, all those sneaky Sundays did me some good, in that I learned a very long time ago that it's really easy to swallow water-logged bread.

So now, when my mouth sores are so bad that I can't swallow yogurt without crying, I still have a viable meal choice.

That's right. I've been having bread and water. As a meal. At least once a day. ... Pretty much all week long.

Party of one, living her childhood dream of all-you-can-swallow bread with water, right here.

It's so sad, it's funny, right?

I tell you this story for two reasons:

1. It cracks me up.

2. I feel like it illustrates why I've been MIA on the www this week. I'm tired, you guys. Real tired. And pretty sick.

While I will give that the lower doses in Round II did help with some of the side effects (hooray for blood work that came back with no anomalies this week!), I feel like some of the other side effects have been harder to kick. I'm tired-er than I was with the first round, and I've been sicker. My appetite seems to have come back (see what a steady diet of bread and water can do for a girl?), but I'm still nauseated at night. I'm tired and I'm dizzy. My feet are still killing me, which has made it harder to walk around the parking lot, like I was doing every day at the end of the second week of Round I. (Not that I want to be outside, because you should see my face. It's been red and blotchy since last weekend when the fevers hit along with the mysterious infection... and today it started to peel. No way am I exposing this brand new skin to the sun!)

Anyway, mostly this post is to say that I'm okay. I'm tired, and I'm sick, so I haven't been online much this week. But I'm still laughing (even if it's at my own self). And, hey! Last night, I found the energy to paint my fingernails. So, things are definitely looking up. ... Maybe I'll post again in the next 48, to prove it to ya'll.

"Chemo Brain" is a real thing

So, I have this awesome new antibiotic that goes with the "infection" I was diagnosed with yesterday. (I have no idea what kind of infection this is. I gave a urine sample. Said sample was full of blood. - Which is gross, but not unexpected, as it's a documented/expected side effect. - I'm not sure if it's another UTI or some other matter. All I know is that I have an infection that merits a round of antibiotics for the next week. Yay for drugs that provide a false immune system! (Now, not to digress, but... On the subject of UTI's. Who goes 36 years without a UTI and then possibly contracts two UTI's within 3 weeks of each other? This girl. Thanks, Chemo. You're the best.)

Anyway, I have now been diagnosed with a condition that requires antibiotic intervention.

And this isn't just any old antibiotic. It comes with its own set of (bizarro) rules: Take every twelve hours, do not take within 2 hours of ingesting dairy or a multi-vitamin, avoid sunlight, as medication has shown an increased rate of sunburn in those taking the drug.

I AM NOT KIDDING YOU.

I took my first pill last night around 8:00. (Luckly, I had spaghetti for dinner last night, so I was void of all things dairy in my system. Oh, and the sun had gone down. So, that dosage was relatively risk-free.)

This morning, I was awake early and spent some time in bed planning out my 8:00 AM dosage. (I kid you not. I lie in bed and think about these things. ... Who's kidding who? I lie in bed and think about a lot of things these days. But this morning, I was thinking about my new pill and I was planning my breakfast around it.)

I wanted yogurt, but knew that would be bad. I wanted a bagel with cream cheese (the top half, because that's my favorite), but that would also be naughty. (Not to mention, there's not a bagel - or cream cheese - in this house.) Then my mind wandered to biscuits and gravy. ... Uh, no. White flour is the enemy right now. (Have I mentioned the constipation issues? Like pouring actual glue into my intestines would be a good idea? Please.) 

After carefully considering all of my options, I got myself up out of bed, *toddled into the kitchen, opened all six bottles that I am currently taking my morning pills out of, piled the pills on the counter and systematically downed them with my bottle of water.

Then I took my breakfast over to the recliner (I don't have children, so I can eat anything I want, anywhere I want) and sat back to enjoy my... bowl of Shredded Wheat.

That's right. I had cereal for breakfast. And it didn't dawn on me until I was sipping the milk out of the bowl that I had just done what I had been told I couldn't do.

Milk IS Dairy, Evans.

And I'd totally taken my antibiotic right before I ate.

The kicker is, I knew I couldn't have dairy. And spent a good 30 minutes in my bed, planning my breakfast, to make sure I was following the rules, before I got out of bed and "made" myself breakfast.

I'm blaming this one on chemo brain.

*Oh, and in case you're wondering why I'm toddling about these days it's a combination of being tired and dizzy aaaaaaand (drumroll, please) bone pain. The bottoms of my feet were hit yesterday with a really insane amount of pain. As in, the heels of my feet feel like I'm walking on glass, every time I put a foot down. So, needless to say, I'm justifying staying in bed a lot more often these days. Which is just as well, since if I went back to taking a walk around the pool every day, this new med might make my lily white head go fuchsia. Fast.

Bucket Lists

As anyone who's known me for, say... half a minute knows, I am a list-loving FOOL!

I make:

Grocery Lists
Shopping Lists
Packing Lists
Cleaning Lists
Baking Lists
Lists of Lists...

Seriously, I am a list-loving fool! (One year, one of my girlfriends gave me a list-o-graphy book. It's like a journal, sort of. But it's organized in lists that tell the story of one's life. I love it!)

Anyhoo... I am a lover of a list. I like writing my tasks down, and I like scratching them off. Lists bring me joy.

And yet, there's one list that I simply cannot bring myself to make: The Bucket List.

It's funny, I never knew that I had strong feelings about TBL (yeah, I totally just made that acronym up) until I had the cancer.

There are all these songs about bucket lists, movies about bucket lists. Most people I know have a Bucket List (at the very least, in their head). But not me.

Here's the thing... as much as I do love a list, I only like to write things down that I know I'm going to be able to cross off. And TBL, by its very nature, screams to me that there may not be time to get it all done.

I don't know... it makes me nervous.

So, I don't have ABL. (Did you catch that? A Bucket List, acronymed. ... I must be slap happy, because I am breaking grammar rules left and right, making up acronyms and VERBING "acronym", while I'm at it.)

Tonight, Gone With The Wind was the classic movie at the Cinemark in my neighborhood. It's been on my calendar in my phone for weeks, if not months. I'd been so looking forward to seeing one of my most favorite movies of all time on a big screen... but here's the thing: My spine feels like it wants to pop out of my body. Usually, I get enough rest and down time on the weekend that I start the week w/o pain, and then it just gets gradually worse throughout the week... but this week has NOT been typical in that way. I woke up in pain on Monday, and it's gradually gotten worse.

I was still planning on going to the movie, until about 4:00 this afternoon, when I realized how much it hurt to sit up in my chair at work... which meant that going to a theater to watch a four hour movie that started at 7:00 wasn't in the cards.

And, luckily, seeing GWTW wasn't on my (imaginary or otherwise) BL, because... as much as I would have loved to hear Tara's Theme in surround sound and look at a larger than life Rhett Butler on the big screen, my body needed me to ground myself to my couch tonight.

Once again.

I sort of hate that I've had to break plans twice this week (and it's only Wednesday), because I'm too tired and worn down to do anything in the evening after work... but, at the same time, I'm glad I've been able to put in some extra hours at work in the last few days, because the next two days will be shorter work days, due to my medical schedule.

And I'm glad that my laundry is done, and every dish in my kitchen is clean, and that I have actual, bonafide, vacuum lines on my cheappie carpet.

And I'm glad that I don't have ABL, because it was a bitter enough pill to swallow that I couldn't see the movie in the theater tonight, because my body needed me to stay home... if I'd missed a chance to cross an item off A BUCKET LIST, I would have been truly bummed.

But since seeing that movie on the big screen was just Something I've Always Wanted To Do (and not Something I Want To Do Before I DIE), I was okay with sitting at home, watching the dvd, and typing this random post.

Sometimes, I think it's super awesome that I have this brain that's all over the place, because it helps me have Pollyanna moments in my own living room. (Other times, I just give myself a headache. But tonight, I'm happy with my DVD and glass full of tap water. And, for that, I am grateful.)

Mmmmm... Bacon.

Here is a True Story From My Actual Life:

Last week, I fried up a pound of bacon like I am a woman who has both the strength and energy to cook dinner after a hard (half) day at work. (That's right. Bacon for dinner, don't judge.)

And then... once it was all fried up, I took a good, hard, look at that plate of bacon and I thought to myself...

"I should probably only eat half of that, because I don't want to make myself sick."

True story. I only ate HALF a pound of bacon. ... Because I was wanting to take it easy on the ol' gastrointestinal system.

And here's the kicker... even half a pound was too much for my sad little body to handle.

That's right. I CAN'T EVEN EAT HALF A POUND OF BACON WITHOUT GETTING SICK!

(What kind of person says something like that? ... Wait. Don't say anything. ... I know the answer: A lame one.)

...................................................................................................

Anyhoo... I made bacon again this week. You know, because I am not a quitter.

And, instead of eating half the bacon, I divided it into thirds and only ate 1/3 a lb of bacon.

Drumroll, please...

And, good news, kids! My sad little system can handle that!

Wahoo!

Bacon and Laurie = FRIENDS ON AGAIN! (In limited quantities.)

Stuff I've run (as in "driven") into...

I'm sure the seven or so people who still read this blog have been thinking that it's been a while since I've bared (born?) my soul and told the www something STUPID I've done.

Well, today's your lucky day.

I've been thinking (and laughing) about some of the stuff I've run into over the years, and I thought I might make you a short little list:

* Basha's (yeah - the store ... or, at least, one of the pillars in front of it)

* Dunaways' van (who, besides me, has EVER gotten a ticket for "reckless parking"?!)

* a multitude of curbs (I totally curbed it on the way out of the dealership, the day I bought my first car. Left the wheel cover thing there on the side of the road. ... True story. Kirk was with me, and I don't know that I've ever seen him laugh so hard - before or since.)

* Mark Nguyen (it may have been over 20 years, but I still remember the name of the dude who was riding his bike down 9th East on that fateful night)

True stories, every one of them.

I was born to have a driver. Obviously.

Places I've peed my pants

We all know about that time I peed through my pants (and filled my shoes) at the movies when I was 33. But what you may not be aware of is that this is something that's been happening for YEARS.

True story.

For years.

Here are just a few examples of when/where I've ... erm... lost control:

* The brown chair (Mom & Dad's house - High School, because I was laughing so hard at something Rhonda Daniels said when we were talking on the phone)

* My sister's bed (Christmas Eve - 2007 ... It's a good thing she doesn't read my blog, because she has no idea I totally had an accident while we were sharing her bed. Ha!)

* In my parking lot. (2006 - Now. ... I can't even tell you how many times I've peed my pants trying to make it from my car to my door, and/or on my walk home from church. ... My church, btw, is literally across the street from the complex I live in. It's not a far walk, is what I'm saying.)

* Lowe's garden center (October 2013 ... I went into the bathroom and took my panties off and wadded them up and put them in a bag inside my purse and continued shopping. ... This would be one of the perks of peeing yourself when you're wearing a dress. No one knows.)

You'll note, I am sure, that I didn't mention any prepubescent pee stories. It's not because I had a steel bladder as a child, in case you were wondering. Oh, no. I just wanted to impress you all with how wide and varied my accidents have been WHILE I'VE BEEN A GROWN UP. (And I'm sorry to say this is not all of my stories. Not by a long shot.)

I hear it's worse for women after they've been pregnant/given birth. ... It's frightening, really, to think that my "urgent bladder" issues could have been made worse by carrying a child. Thank heaven the only things I've ever grown in my belly are tumors!

What's in a name, anyway?

As I sit here, watching White Christmas, I am reminded of Betty and Judy Haynes.

The kittens. Not the fictional sisters from the movie.

That's right. We had cats named Betty and Judy Haynes. (They were sisters. As in, literal sisters (get it?) in the same litter of kittens and we ended up keeping them.)

Who names their pets after Christmas movie characters? We do!

Other crazy pet names: Arizona (though we didn't actually name him that, we inherited him from a couple hippies and he was already christened) Josephina (originally named Jose, but then he turned up pregnant and we had to rename her to something gender-appropriate). And who could forget *Beavis and Not-Beavis? 

*Beavis and Not-Beavis were not actually OUR pets. (As you may have guessed.) Judy did not like any kind of strong language, esp the kind of strong language that would be implied by naming one cat Beavis and the other one... something other than Beavis, that also started with a B. (Children of the 90's, you get the reference, I am sure.) Beavis and Not-Beavis liked the eats better at our house, so they moved in when they were teenager-cats. I'm pretty sure Not-Beavis had a litter of kittens at the same time as Kitty and Josephina. ... As I recall, there were 17 kittens living on our patio that summer. (No wonder Josephina was always trying to find a way into the house, stooping so low as to rip a hole in the screen and try to smuggle her young in through the window in the family room. Too bad we typically kept that actual window closed and she'd invariably get stuck between the screen and the glass, howling through her mouth full of kitten, begging to be let in. To no avail. Poor sap.) 

You mess with the bull, you get the horns.

Hands down, the best pet we ever had was Kitty. (Aka: Purrs and/or Mama Z)

She "followed" Tyler home from school when he was in kindergarten. (Like cats follow people, but whatever.) She was a big kitten - what my mom likes to call "a teenager cat" - when she came to us, and she stayed until she died. I don't remember how old she was, but she was oooooold. Like, toothless-wonder old. But she was sweet until the bitter end. We loved her. We ALL did.

This is a pic of Kitty that I snapped when I was in high school, I think, when she was in her prime.

She was a beautiful creature, wasn't she? So soft, so fluffy, so sweet. ... Unless you messed with her babies, and then she was a holy terror.

One fine summer day, the Curt brothers came to play, with their dog in tow. The pooch followed Jared into the backyard and onto the patio. Kitty had a relatively new litter of kittens in a box under the window, and she was lying in the box with her babies when the dog came snooping along.

Jared looked over at the animals and said, "Your cat better watch out". Kirk looked right back at him, and said (if I remember right), "I wouldn't worry about her."

Just about then, the dog got too close to the box, and Kitty came barreling out at him. She slashed him across his nose, and as he buckled and starting to cry, she launched herself onto his back and dug in for a long, hard, ride.

Poor Jared didn't know what to do, except cry "Get her off of him!". We all stood by and laughed as our fluffy little Kitty brought a Queensland Heeler to his knees.

I'm pretty sure that dog never came in our yard again. Jared did, sure. But not his dog. ... Still makes me laugh out loud.

My secret pet

I know this is going to be really hard to imagine, but by the time I was in 6th grade, I was quite a character. (And no, this week's story won't involve any allusion to my checkered past. ... Except for that last sentence, anyway. ... So don't even ask.)

We hadn't had any family pets since the chickens of the summer before. (Not actual pets, btw.) And, sadly, the pet we'd had before that was my sweet dog Harvey (who we had to let go to another home because he got out of our yard and ate some of Pearl's chickens). And I was, like, in third grade when the Harvey/chicken fiasco went down.

What I'm saying is, it had been A LONG TIME since we'd had a pet. And, in an effort to change that, I started making regular visits to the feed store in downtown Taylor. (Just cracked myself up with that, btw. There is no "downtown Taylor".)

I weighed my options. You know: horses, cows, chickens and ducks. (That's basically what they market towards in a feed store.) We didn't have the land for a horse or a cow, and I'd already found out that I didn't know how to tell the sex of a chicken (or four). So, really, a duckling was my best bet.

I made friends with the dude who worked the counter and asked him how to tell which ducks were boys and which were girls. Turns out, it's pretty easy with ducks. Something about the feathers... I don't remember.

All I knew was that I wanted a boy Mallard (because they're prettier when they grow up), so once the ducklings were old enough to sell (they'd hatched them right there in the store, under an incubator light!), I put on my winter coat (it was Spring) and rode my bike to the feed store. (Remind me sometime to tell you about my bike. I still get annoyed, thinking about that stupid thing. My parents told me I could have a new bike, and I could pick out whatever I wanted. ... As long as it was a men's bike in a gender-neutral color, so my brothers could ride it, too. Yeah, that sounds EXACTLY like what a pre-teen girl would pick for herself, doesn't it? Twenty-seven years later, and I still roll my eyes whenever I think about that gray men's style 10-speed. Grrr.)

Anyhoo, I rode my bike to the feed store and I walked out with the cutest little Mallard duckling and as much duck feed as I could buy with change from a $10. Because I didn't have a basket on the front of my bike (like most girls, who had proper bicycles with banana seats), my only option was to balance a grocery-sized brown paper bag FULL of feed on the handlebars as I rode home, with my new little duck friend in my coat pocket.

You read me right.

I was toting my new little duckling inside my coat pocket. (It was the sweetest coat ever. Had a big three color chevron stripe across the chest, and there were zippers on the pockets. Welcome to the late 80's, ladies and gentlemen. Those were good times.)

By the time I got home, I realized that maybe I shouldn't spring my duck on my parents right away. (The upside of a duck v. a chicken is that a duck's bill is flat and wide - no poking of any brothers in the eyeball. But still, I decided I'd keep him my little secret for a while.)

I walked in through the front door, made a beeline for my room, and started to make a my little duck a home in the top drawer of my dresser.

That's right.

I said... I. Kept. Him. In. The. Top. Drawer. Of. My. Dresser.

I cleared out the drawer, and put some newspaper down. Then, I poured in some duck feed and got the little dude a water bowl, and closed the drawer with about 1/2 inch to spare (so he wouldn't suffocate) and went and joined the family for dinner.

For two weeks, I kept that duck hidden in my closet, in the top drawer my dresser. I'd come home from school, wear my jacket back to my bedroom, and take my little buddy out of his drawer and shove him into my right pocket. I'd zip him in (both to keep his fuzzy head hidden and to muffle the quacking) and I'd take him out to the side yard (where there were very few windows) and let him run around for half an hour or so. Then I zip him back up, and go back into the house and make a beeline to the hall bathroom, where I'd run him a sinkful of water and let him swim and splash for a while. After he'd had his play time, I'd take him back to my room. I'd let him walk around while I changed the newspaper and got him some new food and water, and then I'd put him away and go watch Gilligan's Island or something, like a normal kid.

Kirk knew about him (he'd followed me outside once, early on), but he knew that he was a secret, so he never talked to me about the duck unless we were totally alone.

On the last day I had him, Spencer followed us outside and got SO excited about our new pet that he went right in and told Mom.

Argh. Brothers.

Mom took the duck back to the feed store that very afternoon, and gave them some sob story about how her daughter had bought a duck without her permission (and/or knowledge) and she needed to return it. They took the duckling back, and even gave her a refund! (How nice are they?) But they wouldn't take the feed, so she brought it home and told me I'd need to get rid of the duck food, somehow. ... So I told her that I would, and promptly stuffed it onto the top shelf of my closet. Where it stayed until I graduated from high school and cleaned my room out because I was moving to St. George.

True story.

I guess it was just as well. I mean, the duck was getting too big to stuff into my coat pocket. He was also getting too big for the dresser drawer. (He couldn't really stand in there anymore.) And he was JUST ABOUT to have to upgrade to taking a daily swim in the bathtub, which would have been a hassle. (And I don't even want to think about how much poop I'd have had to deal with once he got officially grown up.) But he was super cute. And he was an awesome (secret) pet. Unlike the chicken rooster fiasco of 1984, I've never regretted the duckling. Not even once. (Note: I'm not saying that I'd do it again, but I've never regretted it.)

The trouble with chickens

Okay, so... when I was, like, ten years old, I bought some chickens at a yard sale.

Yup, you read that right. I bought CHICKENS at a YARD SALE.

They were $4 apiece, which at the time, seemed like a steal. ... Probably because I'd stolen the money I was spending at the yard sale. (This was smack in my prime of shoplifting and serial thievery. Don't ever let me tell you the story about how I used to steal suckers from The Sucker Lady's house and then sell them on the secondary market (aka: the playground at Taylor Elementary). You'd never get over what a hoodlum I was, and you'd probably have to stop reading my blog - which would punish us both.)

Anyway, the chicks were going for $4 a pop, and I somehow had $16 to burn, so... I bought four chicks.

I'm not entirely clear on how I got them home. (Maybe Hudsons dropped them off? No way did I carry four squirmy baby chickens home. ... I mean, it's not FAR - if you're not carrying chickens - but still. I doubt that I carried them myself.)

Anyway, somehow I got home with my chickens and told my parents I'd bought us a farm.

You can imagine how well that went over, I'm sure.

After much discussion on where we were going to KEEP the birds, I made a deal with my parents that if I could make them a coop, I could keep them.

Armed with a pair of wire cutters and ten able fingers, I went into the back yard and commenced building a chicken coop. Out of leftover fence.

You read that right. I cut FENCING with a pair of wire cutters and then bent and twisted the cut ends towards each other to fasten them together. With my bare hands. (Over time, I did enlist the help of the brothers, but it was my vision - and they were MY chickens - so my bloody fingers bore the brunt of the work.)

After a good summer day and a half of twisting metal, I came up with a chicken pen of sorts (heavy on the "of sorts") and my parents agreed to see how this would play out.

About a week later, the chicks started to grow up. As in, get bigger, fill out, turn red (they were Rhode Island Red, which I thought were just bee-yoo-tiful), and...

It turns out none of them were CHICKENS. Oh, no. They were ROOSTERS. All four of them.

Insert a whole heck of a lot of pent up testosterone-laden hostility here. (Also, you can kiss all my future egg income goodbye.)

Pretty quickly, the roosters got a little (read: a lot) feisty. One day, Spencer went out to check on them, and he got pecked in the eye.

And that was the day my parents made me get rid of my beloved chickens those hateful roosters. I can't remember if they took them back to the Hudsons (home of the ill-fated yard sale), or what, but all I know is that I didn't turn out to be a very good egg farmer. (Which is just as well, because my homemade "coop" probably would have rusted over, come winter.)

And I haven't bought a chicken since. Not even one.

I've been a cat lady since I was 4 yrs old.

My first pet was a black cat.

I named her Snow White.

Because I had an insane sense of irony, even as a young child.

(Also, because I was a little girl and I was obsessed with princesses, as is evidenced by the fact that I somehow got my little brother to name his kitten Cinderella.)

Snow White was a totally awesome cat (until the year that I was in kindergarten and she got this weird rash on her neck that she scratched until her hair fell out, but we're not going to talk about that). I mean, she was fabulous. As in, the best little kitty-turned-plow-horse that ever lived.

For real.

I'd harness her to boxes, sometimes to the inside of the baby brother's carseat (I'm not kidding) ... basically, anything I could tie a piece of yarn around ... and I'd have her pull my baby dolls (and other assorted toys) around the yard.

See Exhibit A:

Snow White, harnessed (if you want to call a red ribbon around the belly a "harness") to an avocado green baby carseat liner, with Little Laurie and her baby dolls in tow.

Maybe it's best that I don't have a pet these days. ... Or a baby, seeing as how I have a history of dismantling carseats and using their innards as outside (snow) toys. Sheesh!

A little bit of this, and a little less of that...

Here are some fun morning facts about me:

I have to sleep with my alarm (which is my phone) in another room. If I sleep in the same room as my alarm, I'll turn it off in my sleep. So, it's in another room. That way, I have to get out of bed and walk into the living room to turn it off. (I won't lie, sometimes I'll still hit snooze and take it back to bed with me - and then turn it off instead of re-snoozing after ten minutes. ... I'm adorable.)

I have to plan what I'm going to wear the night before, or I will literally stand in the middle of my WALK-IN CLOSET and think "I have no clothes." For fifteen minutes. ... Or more.

Much like making wardrobe choices the night before, I have to pre-pack my lunch. If left to my own devices at 6:00 AM, I'm liable to walk out the door with a can of pineapple, a sleeve of saltine crackers and a Tootsie pop. ... That, my friends, is not a well-balanced meal.

And because three odd facts DO NOT a blog post make (and also because I'm too tired to take the time to actually write the whole stories... I tell you what, this two-week-old-cold-that-will-not-die is wearing me out), here are a couple little morning-time vignettes for your reading pleasure:

One fine morning when Jule, Weeze and I were living in the blue house, I started a fire in both the kitchen AND the bathroom. At the same time. Because I'm an overachiever. (Kitchen fire was a result of me trying to dry my sweater in the oven. - Turns out that acrylic yarn spontaneously combusts. - Bathroom fire was my curling iron melting through the plastic crates that we liked to pretend were furniture. In my defense, the bathroom fire never would have happened if the kitchen fire hadn't been taking up so much of my morning time.)

Once, when I was house-sitting for a co-worker, I woke up in the morning and saw a scratch on the headboard of the fancy bed I was sleeping in. I rolled out of bed, got down on all fours, and swiped my ring across the furniture to see if it really would scratch the wood. ... Sure thing. (I spent the rest of that weekend rubbing walnut oil into the headboard, trying to make my original scratch disappear.)

And it's not like that scratch-in-the-headboard sleepover was the most damage I ever did at DiAne's. ... Oh, no. There was the time the horses got out and I had to Hansel-and-Gretel the horses back into their pen by dropping an entire bale of hay all over the property. And the time HER DOG DIED on my watch. (It's astonishing that she ever had me back after that, really.)

Anyway... now that I've been laughing about my disasters whilst house-sitting, I'm coughing again. So, I'm going to stop typing and break the honey out. And maybe the NyQuil, too. ... At 7:30 on a Friday night. Wahoo! I'm such a party animal.

I need constant supervision

Lest you think I only do stupid things in the morning, please allow me to reassure you that I have also been known to be D-U-M-B in the middle of the night. Please see the photo below:

Here’s the back story:

Just a few short weeks ago, I woke up with a solidly WET bed, with this cute little floral-pattern glass lying next to my pillow. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what had happened. (I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was really glad when I saw the glass, because I’d been trying to figure out how I’d wet the bed in the general vicinity of my shoulders, when my pee-er was more in the middle of the mattress. But still. Confusing.)

As I thought about it, trying to figure out how that glass got into my bed, I remembered a dream I’d had the night before.

In my “dream”, I was thirsty. Super thirsty. So I got up in the middle of the night and walked into the kitchen – in the dark – and got myself a glass FULL of water. I took a couple sips, and then brought the FULL glass of water back to bed with me.

In said dream, I debated on whether or not I should put the FULL glass of water on either of my bedside tables and decided that, no, I’d be able to just hold on to it while I slept.

Guess what? It turns out that a person can’t HOLD ONTO A GLASS FULL OF WATER while she sleeps. Lying down. In a bed.

The amazing thing is that I didn’t wake up when I spilled the water – which, I’m telling you, SOAKED the upper part of my bed. Nor did I have a concrete memory of how it had happened. Just a "dream".

It seems that sleep walking isn’t just a thing of my childhood…

AKA: Further proof that I require adult supervision at all times. (And, yes, I live alone. Scary, I know.)

Look for lights, Evans. Look. For. Lights.

The year was 1994.

I had recently moved from Arizona to the beautiful (and oh, so snowy) Provo, Utah.

And when I say snowy, I mean SNOWY. ... I knew that it snowed in Utah before I moved there, but I was shocked and horrified by how EARLY it started and how MUCH it snowed. In OCTOBER.

(Don't worry about the all caps. My winter-weather-induced rant will be over in a minute.)

Anyhoo, it was October. In Utah. In 1994. ... In the wee hours of the morning, after a big, fat, snowstorm the night before.

I'd agreed to pick up my friend Kat in the AM and drop her off at work, because her car was in the shop and we worked within two blocks of each other. She lived a good 5 miles away from me, which really isn't all that far, but the drive was going to add another 20 minutes or so to my morning commute, so I was forced to wake up a little earlier than I usually would have. (And we all know that I wake up stupid in the best of circumstances - after a full 8 hours. You can imagine where this is going.)

As I'd recently made a move from the land of Not-So-Much-Snow, I did not (sadly) have an actual snow scraper to my name. Nor, amazingly enough, did I own a pair of gloves.

At approximately 6:00 AM, I walked out of my apartment and into the darkness that is a Utah winter morning and, I am sure, said some choice words when I saw that it had snowed a good six inches overnight. (I'm getting all tense and irritated, even know, just remembering those frigid winters. Ugh. ... I'll take 117 degree summers, any day!) I made my way to my car and commenced wiping the snow off the car with my arms, then used my driver's license as a snow scraper.

You heard me. I used MY DRIVER'S LICENSE as a snow scraper. Without gloves.

After I'd cleared the snow, I fumbled through my purse with my frozen/numb fingers and pulled out my keys so I could unlock the car and get in and turn the freaking heater on.

Oh, except that the key wouldn't go into the lock. Weird. So, I tried again. And again. And again. ... Until I realized that the 4-door gray sedan I was trying to get into had a gray interior. ... And my 4-door gray sedan had black interior. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the car I was trying to get into was a Honda. ... And my car was a Mazda.

Awesome.

Rolling my eyes, and shaking my arms at the sky, I shuffled away from the gray Honda and trolled the apartment complex parking lot, looking for my own snow-covered gray Mazda. (I'm sorry to say that it's been almost 20 years, and I am still unable to remember where I park. Like, ever. ... I wander in parking lots a lot. Reason #324 why I was meant to have a driver.)

Upon finding my own car, I wiped the snow off the windows/hood/roof/trunk with my arm. Again. And commenced to scraping the ice off the window with my driver's license. Again.

A few (long and semi-frozen) minutes later, I was in my car and headed to Orem to pick up Kat.

Oh, except that the needle on my gas gauge was pointing straight at E.

Did I know that I was out of gas the night before? Yes. Yes, I did. But, because I like to buy myself gas station breakfasts, I'd put off buying gas until the next morning. Had I forgotten that I needed to buy gas, when I'd gotten up that morning and then delayed my actual departure time because I had to clean, not one, but two, cars after a heavy snow fall? Yes. Yes, I had.

Awesome.

Being the wonder problem solver that I am, I did not panic. Instead, I mapped out a route up 9th East and over to University Parkway that I knew would take me right past a gas station, where I could fill up and then head up the hill to get my friend.

I chugged up 9th East and pulled in to the gas station on the corner across from Kent's Market. (For those of you who didn't know Provo in the mid-90's, Kent's is now a BYU Creamery and the gas station is now, I think, a jewelry store. Or maybe a Subway. Or both. ... Which I know sounds ridiculous, but I'm telling you, Mormon college kids heart sandwiches and getting engaged - and they'd love to be able to stop by the creamery on the way home for a double scoop, I am sure.)

As I pulled into the gas station, I pulled up alongside the pump, and then got out to start my gas pumping before I headed in to get breakfast.

Except the gas wasn't flowing out of the pump.

Huh.

That's weird.

I put the pump back into the tank, took the pump out of the tank and flipped the lever that would signal the tank to let the gas come, and it didn't do anything. So, I tried again. And again. And again.

And still, the pump was dry.

At this point, I was starting to get frustrated. I mean, I'd already wasted a good three minutes cleaning off a stranger's car. And now, I couldn't get the darn gas pump to work so I could fill up and go get Kat so she'd be to work by 7:00.

Argh.

So, I did the only thing I could think of.

I got back in my car and pulled forward to the next pump, then got back out of my car and tried that tank.

Still nothing. No fumes, even.

And that's when the first car started honking. (Have I mentioned that this is a fairly busy intersection in a college town, so there's almost always a line of cars... even at 6:30 in the AM?) Once one car honked, it became a free-for-all. There was a line of cars in front of the gas station, waiting for their red light to turn green and there were drivers honking at me, gesturing at me, pointing to something behind me. And laughing.

And that's when I turned around.

The gas station? Yeah... The lights weren't on. Because they weren't open yet. Which is why the gas wouldn't pump. 

True story. (Can I tell you how much I love the advent of debit/credit cards and the fact that, now, almost all gas pumps are manned with credit card machines that will allow you to swipe, pay for, and pump gas 24 hours a day? No. No, I cannot. Because there are not words for that kind of love.)

Epilogue: I did not die of embarrassment. In fact, at that point, I'm pretty sure I threw my head back and laughed out loud at my silly self, gave my honking friends a double thumbs up, and then got in the car and prayed my way to another gas station that WAS open, so I could gas up and get myself to Orem. I was a few minutes late to pick up Kat, but I still got her - and myself - to work. Neither of us got fired for being a smidge tardy. And I never ever tried to pump gas at a gas station that was closed again. Amen.