it really isn't fair

There's a woman at my company who is vibrant, energetic, kind, strong, well respected, and just found out she's got advanced breast cancer. Advanced advanced... like not good advanced. I wish her the best for a peaceful journey through what must be a terrible ordeal. In the blink of an eye her life changes track from family and career to doctors and drugs.

I struggle with the frustration of knowing that the all powerful and knowing God doesn't really choose who gets to live a long and happy life and who dies before they are 45 and doesn't get to see their kids grow up. It is what it is - but the irrational part of me has petty thoughts, and I will confess the worst of them right here:

There's a second woman at my company who is the tiniest, weakest, little woman I've ever met. There's no way that she tips the scales at any more than 90 pounds; she is so frail that I think a strong gust of wind would send her flying. I see her outside in the morning when I come in, and almost every time I head out to lunch, or to a meeting she's outside huddled next to the building cigarette in hand. She is a chronic, take 6 smoke breaks a day, wake up in the middle of the night to take the edge off smoker. Seeing her outside purposely sucking tar and smoke deep into her body makes me angry.

I don't for a moment wish that these two women could change places, nor do I think that one is more deserving of cancer than the other. It just feels like one woman is playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun and the other woman is laying on the floor wounded from an unloaded gun.

When I was a kid and things didn't seem right and I couldn't express it I would default to "but dad, it isn't fair" and he would always (and I mean always) reply, "nobody said life was fair." You got that right Dad -- not only isn't it fair, sometimes it stinks.

I would be whining about the lack of fairness regardless of the other woman but it is hard to see every day. I just want to shake her... SMOKING BAD LITTLE WOMAN ---BAD!!!!

I know we're supposed to see the light in the situation, my colleague has time with her family, she gets to make peace with her life, we get to acknowledge and show her how wonderful we think she is. We are also reminded to take stock of our own lives and take advantage of every minute... blah blah blah... Forgive me if I take a moment and wallow in the unjustness of it for a day or two.

Seattle Center

That's Hot (not)

Gosh, don't those big wheels make you want to date this guy?

Have you got everything now?

Moving day for SadRico. It's been about six weeks since the marriage has been called off and good things are on the horizon for SadRico. He bought a super cute condo and has been spending his time purchasing stylish but manly things to put in it. He finally got the keys last Friday and painters and carpet installers have been in and out erasing the damaging effects of a two year old that apparently felt obligated to touch every flat surface in the house. Rather than a door jam with the special child’s height marked off by month, the size of the hand prints on the wall get bigger as they get higher.

Since last week he has been popping over to Ali's house (his former residence) to pick up this and that. These have been legitimate visits, but it's time to finish up. We were there last weekend for a number of hours packing, purging and puttering. I was working with the kitchen things and he was upstairs in the office. I packed six boxes and headed upstairs to see the progress. I found SadRico sitting in his office chair going through the old birthday and valentines cards. Honestly, I really tried to maintain a balance between ass kicking and sensitivity over the painful situation. i had ask, "are you going to keep the cards?" "no" "Is reading them doing anything for you?" "no" "then throw them away, you're torturing yourself."

All during last week he had been talking about Friday (yesterday) being the 'moving' day. He gathered his big strong friends, rented a truck from U-(we don’t bother with maintenance)-Haul, and made arrangements to be at the house when Ali was out. He and I had a date to meet at the U-(what, two miles to the gallon seems wrong to you?)-Haul place to return the 3.17 mpg truck (seriously 6 gallons for 19 miles) at 8am this morning. (btw... I AM A GOOD FRIEND... out of bed at 8 on a Saturday.) We get in the car and he tells me that he forgot the TV at the house and he has to go back over.

F*ck a DUCK dude... So, we decide to go over and try to get the TV in my car (we were close to her house) try as we might - the 700 pound tv wouldn't fit through the door of the jetta. But. while we were there I noticed that there were things of his still in the house. Uh, what about your DVD's? "oh, yeah I thought I get them later." Ok, Sir-cries-a-lot, you moved yesterday... the time to get everything is now. We literally filled my car with stuff (except the tv) and with barely enough room for he and I we took a load over to the condo where we picked up his car. Back to the townhouse, pick up the tv, one more sweep through the house (two bags of clothes) and a snuggle with the kitties. That has to suck... I mean leaving your home (suck), ending your marriage (super suck) but walking away from the kitties... (boo)

I foolishly asked him how he was holding up, which then caused him to break down. He cried for a bit (which I allowed because I'm not dead inside -- really) and then I scooted his ass into the car. He said he forgot to lock the back door and asked me to go check. While I did that I took the front door key off his ring and pocketed it. He noticed and thanked me. I know it was a dangerous move... it could have gone either way but it had to be done. I figured he didn't need the emotional memory of taking the key off his key ring.

Later, after a trip to Home Depot and Seattle Lighting, we were in the condo hanging the Shower-Curtain-Rod-of-Death and he thanked me for making him take all of his stuff. He admitted that he hadn't wanted to really take everything because that would mean he was never going back. I held back the "yeah... I know" and left it at the friendly nod. (I don't have to verbalize that I'm right about everything... I can simply know it in my heart.)

The good news is that his condo is fabulous. It's manly yet homey. not overly IKEA Batchelor nor is it QueerEye. I'm thankful that it feels like a real home and not the Baremont Arms Apartment Homes for the Newly Divorced Man. "Swing on in Mister!"

All in all I think he did very well today, and I'm hopeful that he will soon lose the SadRico title and go back to being just Rico

...sigh

While scanning the 'paper' tonight, I noticed a familiar name. Phil Webber, photographer died in his home on Saturday. I know Phil from way back when at the paint store. He was a character who was a delight to be around. His wacky clothes and never ending flirting was endearing.

Phil was a well known photographer for the SeattleTimes and the PI. This photo was his favorite:

Wonder Twins

Sometimes, when you've been friends for a long time you get into sync. Usually this represents itself as a secret language or worse the elimination of the need to finish any sentence. Yaz and I are there, but we also seem to be dressing alike. She and I made a date to go to Half-Price-Pots Saturday. When she showed up at my house she and I had on the exact same outfit: green Khaki pedal pushers, black t-shirt, with a black zip up jacket and white athletic shoes.



Also, if I'm going to continue to take photo's in my office I should find a different place to store the holiday wreath. It's not Christmas... and yet there's a little bit of X-mas in every photo.

Random Thoughts

DVR'd the tonight show, Jay Leno kept referring to Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw. As much as I'd like Sex and the City, I think it's probably better to refer to actors by their real names.

I wonder if it is hard out there for a pimp?

Bully to Yahoo who doesn't block Mac users from playing the free games. Poop on you MSN.

I now have five e-mail accounts. Yahoo wouldn't let me read the IHS reunion site without signing up. I'll be checking THAT one everyday I'm sure.

The starbucks cup cakes have the perfect of cake to frosting ratio. The chocolate one is pretty but I love the white cupcake with the yellow sprinkles. It pleases me.

My toaster is dying. It won't toast even the smallest piece of bread. I'll have to stop by Target tomorrow. I could run to Williams Sonoma but do I really need an $80 toaster?

I think it's funny that I agonized about buying a digital camera and now am taking a lot more photos. I still think film photography is the best, but for fun weekend shots the digi is handy.

I am a terrible friend. I had a date to go to 1/2 Price Pots and IKEA today with Yazmine and SadEric mentioned that he needed to go to IKEA and I didn't invite him to join us. In my defense... I did help him pack all morning and buy him a more than expected birthday dinner the night before. I can't spend every waking minute of the weekends with SadEric - it's not healthy for him or me.

Speaking of SadEric... it use to be funny when he would call me by his wife's name and visa versa. Now (with the divorce), it's not so funny. Plus, in mixed company it confuses people and gives them the impression that I'm the stand-in wife. (LIke I was waiting in the wings for their mariage to fall apart so I could nab him. Creepy.)

Is it horribly sad to be enjoying a Saturday night at home alone? I was playing computer games my new favorite is Spinster City - it's like SIM CITY where you build a city and by managng taxes and the infrastructure so your city grows. In Spinster City, you manage the number of cats the single gal has and for fun sign her up for online dating and she has to weed out the psychos and the unemployeed married predators. If she goes on too many bad dates she has to join "Great Expectations" and endure the sorrowful looks from her happily married friends who think her life is sad, but secretly envy her control over everything in her life. She wants shoes... she buys them (in black AND tan) because she can.

This however is sad, its 10:15 and I'm headed to bed. Woohoo party girl. (Don't feel sorry for me, I got dressed up and went out last night.)

G'night

Erin Go Brah-less

Happy St. Patrick's Day

How TIVO saved my life

It's not really TIVO, it's digital video recording but it's awesome. I know I know, I am a late adopter to this technology. People have been raving about TIVO for years now but I didn't understand - now that I have it, I see the light.

Not only do I see the light - but I'm actually watching LESS tv. I've set TIVO up to record my favorites: West Wing (I'm a hanger on), Law & Order: SVU, ER, Lost, the Daily Show, Colbert Report and I'm able to move on and do my own thing. Before there was TIVO on Lost night, the TV would go on while I ate dinner, and I would still and flip until the show started. The show would end, and I would go to bed. NIGHT WASTED. Now, I still eat to the TV but it's last nights Daily Show (sans commercials) and then I turn the darn thing off and move on to something else. Plus I don't have to choose between conflicting shows, so if I was into Veronica Mars (which I'm told I'm foolish for not watching) I wouldn't have to worry about the passengers from Oceanic flight 315. I could watch one, and TIVO the other.

For the first time in a LONG time all of my laundry is not only clean but put away. The checkbook is balanced, and the cat box is clean. I AM FREE! I knew it was wrong to be in such a close relationship with my tv and I will admit that for a long time it's been my only boyfriend. Now that I'm free I might be able to venture out and date someone with feet.

Because of my new found freedom I didn't have any guilt about watching the new HBO show -- Big Love. It could be the next Six Feet Under - except with Polygamist Mormons- I thought it was great and it should hold me over until summer when Entourage comes back. (Oh Ari, how are you holding up?)

Will I have to live under my bed too?

From Salon.com's warroom: (thanks to SYP for the link)

If you liked Iraq, you're gonna love the avian flu
Maybe they really are tired.

We weren't particular impressed when we heard Donald Rumsfeld's plan for Iraq, but that was before AMERICAblog's John Aravosis tipped us off to Mike Leavitt's plan for the avian flu.

Speaking at a flu summit meeting in Wyoming Friday, the president's health and human services secretary said that Americans can't expect the federal government to take care of them if a pandemic strikes. His advice: Stockpile food in your bedroom.

"When you go to the store and buy three cans of tuna fish, buy a fourth and put it under the bed," Leavitt said. "When you go to the store to buy some milk, pick up a box of powdered milk, put it under the bed. When you do that for a period of four to six months, you are going to have a couple of weeks of food. And that's what we're talking about."

The problem with this preparation tactic is that it assumes you'll be able to get under your bed, and that you'll have potable water to drink. I don't want to be an alarmist (see the folks who moved to the stix to ride out the riots of the scary millennium) but when (not if) the pandemic becomes a reality our reliance on magic water faucets and the never ending electric supply could seriously come back to haunt us. Can we not stop and learn ANYTHING from the Katrina disaster? Imagine even a mild hurricane, tornado, earthquake that hits during the same time that a third of the population is suffering from about of the bird flu (But mom, I told Jimmy not to lick the sick chicken) for our 'stable' infrastructure to crumble under us like a tar-papered house in the 9th Ward.

So, go ahead, stock pile the tuna and the yummy powdered milk but don't plan on basic services like garbage removal, cleaning running water, or electricity. But while you're at the store though, could you pick up some Twinkies... I hear they last forever!

Shelf Saga Part Tres

When we last checked in our heroine was overwhelmed with 6 foot tall shelves arriving at her condominium unit from points all over the globe. Her order for two shelves from the inferior shelf company had been cancelled, but shipped to her anyway.

After contacting the eBay seller, a return packing slip arrived in the mail. This is important... a (single) return packing slip. Our heroine was instructed to re-package the inferior shelves and place the UPS sticker upon the outside and take it to the nearest UPS store.

Placing one of the packages in her car was a miracle that would easily qualify as Bible-worthy. The trunk had to be propped open, the back seats folded down and the front seats adjusted to an ungodly configuration rendering the car mostly undriveable. It was, if you will pardon the pun.. the parting of the red seats! Getting both packages in the car at the same time would be equivalent to the heroine's love life... NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

Our heroine who has lost her patience with these darned shelves refuses to take two trips to the UPS store. The two 41.8 pound, 72 inch tall by 18inch wide packages have been joined together using enough tape to repair the levee's in New Orleans. Once the two packages were securely made one, the heroine realized it was a mistake to use her 100 year old dining room table as a work area. She was able to move the package off the table by rolling it to the living room and sliding the 83.6 pound (plus tape) package onto the couch and then woman-handling it on to the floor where she was able to use a small throw rug to slide the package toward the door.

(point of reference, the top of my head reaches the line marked by the big arrow.)


Calling UPS and working her way through the Voice Recognition System... "PACKAGE PICK UP" she clearly spoke to the computer, "I'm sorry, Breakage Trickup is not an option, please try again" the computer replied. Finally reaching a perky human, she begged them to pick up her package. She almost lost her cool when the perky operator told her to take the package to the local UPS store. She checked herself and apologized to the perky girl noting that her beef wasn't with UPS it was with the Inferior Shelf Company also known as LAKESHORE FURNITURE.

The shelves are packaged, ready to slide out the front door Monday morning and our heroine will be happy to see them go. She's been thinking about getting a new couch and found one "just like the one she likes from PotteryBarn" on eBay for a third the price - gosh now what could ever go wrong with a purchase like that?

The Shelves in action:





















The inferior shelf (can you tell the difference?):

Post Procedure Update

I had my endoscopy Tuesday morning. All is well. I did have two issues a stricture in my esophagus which the doctor stretched and some damage due to acid reflux. Apparently the two things acting together were causing all the throwing up. The RN assured me that this type of thing is actually pretty common.

The procedure didn't hurt at all - or maybe it did, but after the injected the IV and sprayed my throat with some nasty spray I woke up in a different room. My ICOEP (in case of emergency person) helped me out to her car and I like the drunken little friend obeyed every "watch your step, look both ways and buckle up". She let me into my house, made sure I was in bed and left for work by 9am. I slept all day... and by all day I don't mean nap until 10 and lay on the couch for hours, I mean I woke up at 1pm, sipped some soup, went back to bed, slept until 4 - moved to the couch, slept until 7 - talked on the phone from 7 until 9 and went to bed and slept all night.

WOW.

It's been a few days and other than some minor irritation in my throat I am back to normal. I don't have the cancer and thanks to the stretching and the anti-acid medicine so far no episodes since the Westlake Public Puking Incident.

Whew.

Oscar Review

I love Jon Stewart as presenter this year. I thought the "commercials" for the sound editing nominees were hilarious. The gay cowboy montage was a riot. Fingers crossed that they ask him back again next year. (Delayed props to Chris Rock for last year, I thought he was great too.)

I'm torn between being excited for Crash and disappointed for Brokeback Mountain. I am pleased that the Academy chose to split the two big awards, best director and film; it's a great way to honor both movies. Ang Lee has a beautiful vision and an impressive ability to put it on film.

For the most part folks dressed well, although what the heck was on Charleze Theron's shoulder? Poor Naomi Watts' dress looked like it was designed by Santino from Project Runway in under an hour. The green screen joke kind of bombed, but I finally got it when a bronzed J-Lo presented a montage (or something) and she blended with the background so well all you could see was her teeth.

My people have a tradition where we cast ballots and the folks with the top scores take possession of Oscar and lil'Oscar. This year P&J finally took home both trophies. They look so happy.

Where's Chuck?

I am a fan of The Daily Chuck but am distressed that he hasn't posted in ages... Oh Chuck, where have you gone?

The Morning After

Well-- it didn't suck. The music did reek a little. So, imagine a room full of robust people (and believe you me, some of these folks are RO-BUST some with more RO than others and a lot of them with a a LOT of BUST) drinking giant margarita's and waiting for decent music. That's about all it was.

I talked to my dates and a fella who was making the rounds talking to everybody. After 2 and a half hours of waiting for music that was danceable (there were three songs in that entire set that the folks hit the floor for) we hit the road.

I'm not sure I would venture back out to the next event - but I am glad I went.

I'm off to an Oscar Party and I'm all dolled up (does sweats count?) My predictions:

Best Picture: BBM could win: Crash
Best director: Ang Lee could win: No contest
Best Actor: Phil S. Hoffman could win: again... no contest
Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon
Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weise
Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney could win: Matt Dillon

Ready to go out

here I am ready to hit the club....

Big Fun with Dancing Girls

I'm venturing outside my comfort zone tonight. My friend Crys asked me to go out with her tonight. She is a fun gal with a lot of spunk. She's been through a lot in her life and works hard at finding the bright side of life.

Crys, like me, is a woman of size. She found a club (group, organization?) for people of size to meet others who aren't put off by size. She said she use to go to the mixers all the time when she (and her husband) lived in Detroit. She loved he idea that there was a place where you weren't seen as a "Fat person" but as a person.

I have to admit that in spite of my jovial out look on life (we're all jolly you know) and the amount of enjoyment I get from living life I am self conscience of meeting new people - and by people I mean men. I am a little wary of men who come on too strong and immediately start on "ooh, you're so beautiful" it makes my predator radar go off.

My predator radar is 50% mental illness and 50% experienced based. In college (Co Cougs!) I met this guy who seemed great. He was at the clubs I went to and was fun to hang out and dance with. We made a date to hang out at the library (yes, dad... I did study at college) and I was excited about maybe dating someone for real. He was handsome and on the football team. Translation - he was a very big, muscular man. He would call me every night and we would talk for a while it was nice. Our library date was going to be our first time out alone and I was jazzed about being with him as me, not dressed up party college girl.

The main college library was many floors with desks set up in every free space - my football player took me to a place on one of the upper floors away from where most of the frat & sorority girls hung out (studying was second to checking out the scenery)- he said he knew of a place were there weren't tons of people. He was right, we were mostly alone and things were going well, we were talking, having fun and spending a minute or two in our books. After a while he asked to show me something and we walked to the back corner of the floor. The books were dusty, and seemed like listings of people, maybe former university employees. This wasn't a place where anybody would accidentally happen upon anytime soon. He kissed me which was nice and I will admit that I was a willing participant. I was ok with kissing in the library, but he started to put his hands on me and I pulled away to say I wasn't comfortable with anything like that while standing between the racks of dusty books. As I pulled away he firmly put his massive hand on my wrist and held me there. About this time the danger bells were ringing loudly in my head. We were in a semi-public place so I knew it couldn't get out of hand, so I told him to let go of me. He kept pulling me in for kiss after kiss. I was in a funny position because I had liked kissing him, but he wouldn't let me go which made the situation scary. I claimed I needed to get back to my stuff. We finally went back to sit down and he spend the next hour or so trying to get me to come back to his apartment to hang out. I knew I didn't want to have sex with this guy and going back to his place to "hang out" was a bad idea.

I managed to decline and started to avoid him like the plague from then on. He would call at all hours of the night and go on and on about how pretty I was and how he really wanted to love me. Eventually he moved on. I read in the school paper the next year that a woman had accused him of raping her after she went back to his apartment. At the time it scared the crap out of me and I felt extremely lucky that my radar went off in time to avoid being the victim. Now, with a number of years of perspective I wish I had contact the police just to let them know that he was a predator, I am ashamed of the possibility that I could have said or done something. I know my experience wasn't enough to prevent what happened to her, but it might have established a pattern. So, while my whole experience isn't dramatic enough for a Lifetime Movie of the Week, it was real enough to make me respect that little voice in my head when it screams DANGER!

Ok -- back to the topic at hand... Crys says the events she's been to have been great, my football player was a motherfucker and I shouldn't let it taint my view of all men who like big ladies. So, with my self esteme in check and my adventure hat on I'm going. I"ll let you know how it turns out. Who knows, maybe my Mr. TPgal will be there... maybe that's putting too much pressure on the evening. I'll lower my expectations to, maybe it will be fun.