Month: July 2009

Boy. This is Ben’s day. My son lives and breathes video games.

Ben was 2 1/2 when he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, stage IV. He was in treatment from February, 2004 to June, 2005. I’d say that 90% of that time was inpatient at Children’s Hospital. I’d also say that more than 3/4 of that inpatient time was spent in bed. Ben’s oncologist said that Ben was receiving some of the strongest chemo possible for a human, let alone a child. This kid had anything but normal toddler years.

There were only so many videos that would entertain him. Ben was really into Thomas the Train at that time of his life and I think we had every single Thomas video ever produced. I can still recall many of the stories by heart. Ben knew every single character. But it only went so far. Even Ben got bored with Thomas (yay!).

We had a Nintendo Game Cube that we always brought to the hospital. The Legend of Zelda and Pac Man World were Ben’s favorites. Dad would lay on the bed with him, running wires from the TV to the bed, making the doctors do the limbo every time they came in to check on Ben. They’d spend hours playing games. When Ben wasn’t feeling well enough, he’d watch Matt play games. I know it was something for Ben to hold on to, something to help him forget that he was laying in a hospital bed. He couldn’t get up and play. He couldn’t get out and make friends. It was his only escape.

When Ben was in transplant he would hold his controller for hours. He didn’t play, he just held it. The music from the video game would play on a constant loop. He was on a constant morphine drip during transplant, and trust me, he’d get very cranky if we attempted to turn it off when we thought he was asleep (I liked to call this “Morphine Meltdown”). His sweet little brow would crinkle in disdain as he tried to shout at us because we were messing up his game. His words just came out as gurgles because his mouth was destroyed by sores. We just let the music play over and over, and never tried to take the controller from his hands.

I can’t do this today. My Ben has scans in exactly one hour to see if his cancer has returned or if he has maintained his no evidence of disease status. If all of his scans are clear we’ll move to annual scans. We are incredibly blessed to have our son. He is doing well. I KNOW he’s doing well. And I think that it’s totally appropriate for Ben to have scans today – on his very favorite day – because it’s HIS day.

I love you, Ben. Praying that you’re well, little man. Knowing that you are.

Have it for breakfast, lunch AND dinner. Why not? It’s a special day.

Madeline and I just had our weekly day of beauty (every Sunday) and we gave ourselves chocolate facials. As I was applying hers I reminded her that it’s not REAL chocolate and she shouldn’t eat it. “But mommy, it smells like real chocolate.” I looked into her eyes, surrounded by brown goo, and said sternly, “But it’s not REAL chocolate”. Just moments later as I was applying my own chocolate mask, I heard spitting noises coming from her direction. “Ick. Mommy, you were right. It’s not real chocolate.” Live and learn.

When Ben was in treatment he didn’t eat a real meal for 15 months. After his first round of chemo he got terrible mouth sores. The inside of his sweet little mouth was riddled with what looked like the aftermath of a land mine blowing up. It was heinous. So, the kid didn’t eat. He was on daily IV nutrition instead. Occasionally, he would be having a mouth sore-free day and would request chocolate. In Ben-speak, it was “chockwat”. He’s had a terrible time with “L’s”, which is tough for a kid who likes chocolate, Lego’s, and his sister “Madeline”. That was the best, though, he called her “Mad-e-win”. Thinking of him calling her that still makes my heart melt like a Hershey bar left out in the sun.

Speaking of Hershey, my sister used to live there. She moved to Pennsylvania to pursue a love interest. Once they got married, they moved to a house in Hershey, PA. It was right across the street from Hershey Park, which is actually a very cool amusement park. The whole town smelled like chocolate. I think it was a nice place to visit but I don’t know if I could handle that smell every day coupled with the noise from the amusement park during the summer. However, we’ll do crazy things when we’re in love – even tolerate screaming on a daily basis.

The main street in Hershey is lined with streetlights fashioned as Hershey Kisses. The local residents actually call this the “Hershey Highway”. I still can’t get over that. Sadly, Cassi doesn’t live in Hershey anymore. They moved to Hummelstown. I’ve not been there yet, but I’m hoping they don’t have those freaky little Hummel kids all over the place. Along with the Precious Moments figurines, Hummels are things that my nightmares are made of. And clowns. Oooh, and ticks, too. Creepy.

When I was a kid, I loved walking down to the carry-out in Kirkersville with my allowance. I got a dollar each week for cleaning out the cat litter box. With that dollar I could get four candy bars – or actually three candy bars and a bunch of Swedish Fish. I’d be set for the week. They’d give me my brown paper bag with my treasure trove of candy. I would take it all to my secret hiding place – a tiny area wedged between two dressers – complete with a beanbag chair, diary, Judy Blume books, etc. I loved that space. I wish I had something like it today.

My friend, Tracey, is from England. She swears that American chocolate is disgusting. She’s not impressed with Hershey’s. She says that Cadbury’s is so much better. I point out that we, too, have Cadbury’s here in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. “It’s FAKE!”, she says. And, apparently, she is correct. Much to my surprise, I learned that Hershey owns America’s Cadbury. So American Cadbury is really just Hershey chocolate dressed in a different outfit. We are frauds!

Fine. I’m done talking about chocolate, for Ben just came up behind me, put his hands on my waist and said “You’re squishy.” Thanks, kid. Guess I’ll skip that chocolate after all.

More tomorrow 🙂

Seriously? This is all I have to work with? Bummer.

So. After staring at the screen for about 10 minutes now, I’m just going to wing it. Scarecrows. Michael Jackson. The Wiz. “Come on and ease on down, ease on down the road.” Poor Michael. I think he was semi-normal when he did that movie. I remember watching it at my step-mom’s house when I’d go to visit my biological father (who I usually referred to as Uncle Dan). They had cable at their house. He couldn’t afford to pay child support but they had cable. Priorities. I’d stay up for hours on end watching bad movies just for the sake of enjoying cable. Hey, I deserved to get the most out of what was replacing my child support payments. My step-mom and I would watch the craziest movies. Mostly horror films. I like a good scary movie, and “The Wiz” was one of them.

Scarecrows. Living in Kirkersville, Ohio for most of my life, which used to be a very small town surrounded by farms, one would think that I’d seen my share of scarecrows. I just can’t recall ever coming across one. Many people had lawn ornaments, but no scarecrows. During my high school years my best friend was Jill. She had her driver’s license (a novelty to me since I had killed that kitten and refused to get my own license). We would go to a couple of the houses that were the “big daddies” in the lawn ornament world. Deep in the dark of night, we would sneak into these worlds of landscaping horrors: mini towns of dwarves, families of deer, angels, lawn jockeys, and that big rear-ended lady bending over. We would carefully rearrange them so they’d be looking into the homeowners’ windows. And then we’d steal away, laughing at our mischievousness. (Spell check says this is a word.) Ridiculous? Yes. A pain in the butt to the homeowner having to rearrange their lawn? Yes. Funny? Are you kidding me? It’s hysterical. And harmless. We could have done any number of ridiculous things but this is what we chose. It could have been worse.

I’ll tell you who needs a few scarecrows. The Grand Canyon. They’ve got crows bigger than Texas. While Matt and I had exactly one day to marvel at one of the modern world’s greatest wonders, we saw a tremendous amount of crows. They would lurk close to the visitors because – despite all the signs clearly pointing out that you shouldn’t feed the wildlife – there were a gazillion idiots flinging food at these birds saying “Hey! Is that an Eagle?!” I guess we’d technically need a scarecrow for the idiots flinging food, not for the crows. This is where Michael Jackson would come in handy.

Actually, Michael Jackson died while we were on this trip to the Grand Canyon. Cellular service was spotty at best so – as I was reading Facebook updates on my BlackBerry instead of marveling at one of the greatest natural wonders of the world – I saw hints that suggested he had died. My friend, Wal, had posted “I think Michael Jackson’s been dead since 1987.” I thought that was an odd post, so I scrolled down. Someone else had written “Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett AND MJ all in one week. Sad.” What? I’d gone to the Grand Canyon and all these people had died? I was furiously trying to get information on my BlackBerry as the scenery of this beautiful area whizzed by me. They don’t call ’em CrackBerries for nothing.

Hey! Is that an eagle?

As I’m writing this I keep singing a song called “Let’s Build A Snowman” from the movie “Cannibal, the Musical“. This movie, by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (yes, the “South Park” guys), is a musical based on the life of Alfred Packer. He’s the man who attempted to lead a mining party from Provo, Utah to Breckenridge, Colorado but was stranded in the Rockies during a winter storm and eventually resorted to cannibalism. I know. It’s a gruesome story. However, their musical is loosely based on facts and has quite a snappy repertoire of tunes. While I found the movie to be wonderfully funny, I cannot recommend it to anyone. You might lose all respect for me. However, I can recommend you listen to the following link and replace the word “snowman” with “scarecrow”.

lets-build-a-snowman

Now wasn’t that a peppy tune? My bet is that you’ll be singing it for the rest of the day.

Enjoy your Sunday, everyone. More tomorrow. 🙂

Great. We’re taking a trip to Idaho Springs today. The plan is to hang out at the hot springs pool. Fantastic. So, I’ll just knock two things out right away: I’m going to be disobedient by playing in the sun today.

Seriously though, skin cancer is a big flipping deal. Kids, wear your sunscreen.

My older sister, Cassi, used to BAKE in the sun. And, quite honestly, I was jealous. Jealous because it takes me 90 days of consistent exposure to get any sort of tan – and that’s just all the freckles finally merging together. My sister, however, could be outside for two hours and be a bronzed beauty. In fact, back in the late 1970’s, the only reason I had any friends in my neighborhood during the summer (I was the lone female in a pack of males) was because all of my “buddies” wanted to come to my house to watch Cassi sunning herself in her ultra skimpy bikini. And she had quite a rack back in the day. Meanwhile, I couldn’t get a tan AND I didn’t need to wear a bra until college. Nope. No sibling issues here. 🙂

We used to take a family trip to Myrtle Beach every summer up until I was about 12 years old. I hated these trips because 1) I burst into flames in the sun, and 2) I’m not a fan of sand. I like to swim. I love water. I love boating, fishing, most things that go along with H2O, but I’m just not a fan of the beach. Plus, I’m pale. You can see me coming a mile away. And no one wanted to see me because I didn’t have any boobs. It’s a no-win situation.

Nearly every summer I got a burn bad enough to cause nasty blisters (I know! I know!) I’d walk around for a week or so afterward holding myself as still as possible. It hurt terribly. One particular summer, sporting my usual crispy-fried skin, I was gingerly walking up the stairs to my bedroom. As I rounded the corner,  holding my neck as rigid as possible to avoid searing pain, I saw a BAT hanging upside down from the top of my Map of the United States. He was sleeping. I was terrified. Do I scream? Should I move? Ouch! Moving will cause friction to my sunburn! What if this bat has rabies? Then I’ll get bit and end up having a sunburn AND rabies! As I began my retreat and started to call for backup, the bat woke up. Sunburn be damned! I was out of there! We both started flying. The bat was flying circles around my room as I was flying down the stairs. I found my brother-in-law and persuaded him to go clear it out. He did, using a Tuperware bowl and a creative use of the wall. My advice: Never wake a sleeping bat when you have a nasty sunburn.

Disobedience Day. I’ve made a career out of being disobedient – at least in a passive-aggressive way. And I’m a believer in the old adage that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I will be disobedient until I spontaneously combust. If I were a dog, I’d be in remedial training, eventually returned to the shelter, and awaiting some sweet person who just doesn’t care about my disobedience. At least I’m lovable. But if you ignore me I’ll eat your favorite shoe.

Compliment Your Mirror Day. I like this. Some of you may not know this but I suffer from a debilitating disease: Low Self Esteem. I think it’s because of the whole “no-boobs” issue. Anyway, I struggle. Recently, my husband has been trying to help me with this by drawing a great big heart on my side of the bathroom mirror with a marker (not permanent). Above the heart he writes things. This week, it says “You’re Yummy-licious”. He’s made other statements like “You are Loved”, stuff like that. It’s very sweet. So, after my shower this morning, I’m going to look into the mirror. I’m going to say, “Hey. You’re Yummy-licious. You’re Loved.” Let’s all give it a try!

And then I’m off to Idaho Springs to scare everyone with my crazy pale legs.

More tomorrow. 🙂

Forgetting. I forget all the important stuff and hang on to the ridiculous. I have so much unnecessary trivia in my head that it has crowded out everything that I “learned” in high school, college, and even my MBA program. I can’t remember how to write a business plan but I can remember that if you say good-bye to a friend on a bridge, you will never see each other again. Triskaidekaphobes are people who fear the number 13. And cows lifting their tails is a sure sign that rain is coming. Or they’re pooping.

Many students believe in the theory that taking a test while in the same state of mind of which you studied will bring you success on said test. In other words, if you studied while you were tired, you should take the test when you’re tired. If you studied while you were drunk, take the test when you’re drunk. Crystal Meth… you get the idea. Here’s what you probably didn’t know (and simplifies the test taking process a hundredfold): If you use the same pencil to take a test that you used for studying for the test, the pencil will remember the answers. There you have it. Just use the same pencil. You can forget everything else. The pencil will remember. Amazing.

Check out this link. This is how I operate on a daily basis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OMiRL5cSMk

I personally like this cartoon better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jdP7HUPbVs&feature=fvw

Sesame Street rocked. And it’s a shame that they’ve only just recently come up with the ADD diagnosis because I’ve had it for years. Between my son and I, we’re always forgetting something important. We just blame it on the ADD.

So. You have permission to forget something today – ADD or not. Hopefully today is not your anniversary (besides, it’s unlucky to get married in July) or an important birthday. You could even tell someone “Sorry, I forgot to come home. I wrote it down but I didn’t use the same pencil.”

Of course, if you were abducted by a UFO, you have every excuse to forget. They do that anal probe thingy that completely wipes your memory. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything. I like the idea of aliens, but I don’t have any proof that they exist. I LOVE the movie “Mars Attacks”. It’s not uncommon for me to walk around the house saying “Ack, Ack-Ack ACK!” I even have a hat that says ACK.

ACK is really the three-letter code for the Nantucket Memorial Airport. But, in my mind, when I wear this hat I’m ready to meet the Visitors.

OK, gotta go mow the yard. I think I’ll wear my ACK hat, make some crop circles in our back yard, fire up the bug-zapper and wait for the Visitors to come. I’m ready. Unless I forget.

More tomorrow. 🙂

Happy July, everyone. I have until the 9th to enjoy being 40. I’ll be moving up a notch.

So, I have to start off with a joke. I’m not good at remembering jokes so I looked one up online. Here goes:

An Irishman walks into a bar in Dublin, orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn. When he finishes them, he comes back to the bar and orders three more. The bartender asks him, “You know, a pint goes flat after I draw it; it would taste better if you bought one at a time.” The Irishman replies, “Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in America, the other in Australia, and I’m here in Dublin. When we all left home, we promised that we’d drink this way to remember the days when we drank together.” The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and leaves it there.

The Irishman becomes a regular in the bar, and always drinks the same way: ordering three pints and drinking them in turn. One day, he comes in and orders two pints. All the other regulars notice and fall silent. When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, “I don’t want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your great loss.” The Irishman looks confused for a moment, then a light dawns in his eye and he laughs. “Oh, no,” he says, “Everyone’s fine. I’ve just quit drinking.” 🙂

It’s birthday time for my family. Ben’s bday was on June 22, My step-dad’s birthday is July 5, my brother Scott, cousin David and drunk grandfather Jake’s birthdays are all on July 8 with me missing the boat by a mere 25 minutes and being born on the 9th. You’d think it would be an ice cream extravaganza around here. Honestly, I’m not a fan of ice cream. I’ll eat butter pecan once in a blue moon but my standard is vanilla. Plain, boring vanilla. So for a holiday to solely celebrate creative ice cream, I’ll just leave that one to the rest of you ice cream eating people out there.

I know Graeters has that raspberry chocolate chip stuff that everyone seems to like. And they’ve gone national with it. I actually saw a coupon in the Denver paper for this frozen treat available at King Soopers. They are part of the Kroger’s chain. I do shop at King Soopers even though I have major issue with how they spell their name. I consistently tell the lucky one scanning my groceries that they should really consider contacting their corporate office to complain how the misspelling is contributing to our Nation’s illiteracy issues. Their eyes become heavy-lidded as they give me that “you’ve got to be kidding” look, only to ask “paper or plastic” when the bagger is already placing my groceries in plastic. I should get some of those “green” bags.

See? I can’t even stay on topic here. Ice cream is clearly not my thing. I guess we’ll take the kids to Coldstone tonight where they can get blue ice cream with sprinkles and kit kat mixed in. *Shudder*. I’ll just have vanilla.

It’s also Canada Day. I wonder if they’re interested in ice cream? It’s so cold up there – they probably don’t care about it either. Maybe I’m Canadian? I don’t know any history on Canada Day, but my step-grandmother was from Manitoba. There was always an emphasis on the third syllable: Man-i-TOE-ba. I kinda like the Canadian accent. What’s that all aBOAT? I’m actually a big fan of accents in general. I perfected my New York Jewish accent while at camp back in the 80’s. My Jewish alter ego is named Sally Rabinowitz. She’s married to Murray. And then I’ve got my West Virginia alter ego: Sally Mae Skinner. She longs to leave her river town and attend one of them-thar universities. And, of course, my Southern Belle, Sally Jean Vanderbilt, who occasionally likes to make prank phone calls. Today I’m going to create my Canadian alter-ego. Sally Man-i-TOE-ba. And that’s how I’ll celebrate Canada Day. Drinking a Canada Dry ginger ale. Singing O Canada. And perhaps getting out my hockey stick and skates. Ya.

You might like to know that July is also: National Blueberry Month, National Anti-Boredom Month, Unlucky Month for Weddings (Where was this information when I got married the FIRST time – JULY 24?), National Cell Phone Courtesy Month, National Hot Dog Month, and National Ice Cream Month.

And then my favorite – and one I’ll be celebrating – the second week of July is Nude Recreation Week. Nude hiking, nude biking, nude water skiing, nude mowing your yard… the opportunities are endless. ENJOY!

Here’s a picture of me enjoying my nudity at an early age.

More tomorrow 🙂 Not more nudity. More writing. Don’t be disappointed.