Talking Turkey

I have heard stories about turkeys and how dumb they are. Supposedly they stand in the rain and drink water and drown. Who does that, really?

There is a turkey that hangs out where I work (and I'm not talking about someone in upper management) and this turkey seems to have great self-esteem. This is the second year that a turkey has spent time around work gazing at itself in a car bumper. This happens day after day after day, rain or shine.

Sometimes when I walk by my reflection, I look away in absolute horror though when I was much fatter I would avoid my reflection completely, yet this turkey gazes into it's own eyes lovingly.

How dumb can it be to look into your own reflection and have that kind of admiration and love?

Farrah Died and I'm Sad

Farrah Fawcett died. I'm really sad. She and I did not have the same cancer, and sure as hell didn't have the same money to put behind our treatment. Farrah had anal cancer. I can't even imagine though one hole is as good as the next where cancer is concerned.

Image credits: CelebritySmackBlog

In the TV documentary, 'A Wing and A Prayer' shown on TV about a month ago, she was back in Germany getting more treatment. The rain had been pouring for days. Her voice was narrating the documentary, and upon considering what it would be like after death, she said, "I wonder if I will miss the rain." And at that moment, I wondered if I would miss the rain too.

Moron Ninja Parents

Today, it's the second day of real summer weather, warm sun, no sleeves (jiggly arms). We rode bikes over the weekend, not far, but on the other side of the hill. We rode part of the Los Gatos Creek Trail, (not too many hills).

I celebrated Father's day with Chris. We had a good, mostly healthy dinner. His daughter called me on Friday to ask what I had planned for Father's Day? (I told her my dad's dead.) She said, "If it costs money, I have no way to pay." I cracked up. Chris and I talked about how if his kids wanted to take him out to eat, either he or I would have to pay and that would take a week's worth of our pay. At least Chris's daughter thought of him. I told her she could clean the kitchen and Chris would be happy. So much for my advice on gifts. In this photo, Chris is not drunk but he wishes he were.

This is my gift to Chris's kids.

I'm going to post this picture to both his kid's walls on Facebook.

The Infamous Monterey Bike Trial

Over this past weekend, Chris and I rode bikes from Monterey to Pacific Grove. It's not a long ride, about 5-7 miles, maybe more, riding there and back. Best of all, the trail is level.

You should hear me quizzing Chris about the trail particulars. You'd think I was F. Lee Bailey and Chris was on trial which in a sense, he is on trial (trail? pun!) because if I find out he's lied to me about whether the trail is level or not...I can't even begin to explain the wrath that would befall him.

Below is a brief transcript from the trial about whether the trail was level or not.

• F. POD Bailey: "Now, you're sure the trail is level?"
• Chris: "Yes, it's level."
• F. POD Bailey: How do you know it's level?"
• Chris: "I rode on it many times."
• F. POD Bailey: "How do you know it's level?"
• Chris: "It's the track where the old train used to run."
• F. POD Bailey: "Well, was that level when the train used it?"
• Chris: "Yes, it was level."
• F. POD Bailey: "Were there any hills?"
• Chris: "There could be a few hills."
• F. POD Bailey: "ah Ha! I knew it!"

(If you keep pressing Chris, the truth will be revealed.)

The Monterey Bike trail (not trial) is one big fun ride with no hills though maybe a couple of slants. I am not into riding uphill (can you tell?) or downhill (too scary) though we had to go up one small hill (and back down) to get to the restaurant for lunch. (I will do just about anything for food.) Guess what? I didn't die (yet). When we arrived in Pacific Grove, we ate lunch at Zocalo because we are both creatures of habit and they have beer.

Still on Saturday the bike trail was filled with tourists (probably no locals because they have a brain in their head) and everyone seemed to cope with the masses.

Years ago while walking with crowds of walkers, joggers and bicyclists on West Cliff in Santa Cruz, I heard a young mother behind me tell her very young, tricycling toddler, "Just run into them if they won't get out of the way, honey." What a sweet thing to say to a child! I'm sure the mother regrets her statement now the her child is in his teens, spending nights in juvenile hall.

Meanwhile, here's an item from the New York Times about exercise and health and how the two have been oversold as a panacea. Why is it so much easier to eat 1000 calories than to burn 1000 calories? On Planet POD if you eat 1000 calories, you burn at least that much just eating it.

Pièce de Résistance

"Every one of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of job... And onward full tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another -- that is surely the basic instinct...Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is."

Barbara Kingsolver from High Tide in Tucson

I had my tête-à-tête with Dr. LePew, the gynecological oncologist yesterday. After the physical exam, ("Remember if you're ever given a gynecological exam without a rectal, you're being cheated"), he sat back on his office chair and pronounced with a smile "A plus!" I took this "A+" pronouncement to mean as far as the doctor could feel, the cancer has not returned. Plus I look fabulously healthy. I have that certain je ne sais quoi that doctors find appealing. I'm breathing.

Remember this is my doctor who, on the Planet Weirdo would like me to speak French with him? C'est la vie. Throughout my appointment with him, our repartee is spot on though. He speaks to me sometimes in French, making assorted remarks about the fashion I've brought into the room. My fingernails, my hair -- exclaiming that I looked "extraordinarily blonde!" (though most of my hair is no longer blonde). Even though visits with him make me feel as if I need to bathe afterward, I feel like I may be finally warming up to him after almost two years, probably transference due to the ongoing success with surviving cancer. *knock on wood.* He had a hand (or two, a speculum, and surgical instruments) in the process.

Dr. LePew changed offices since I last saw him in December. He now shares his office with a female obstetrician. He said the esprit de corps was much better between he and this new staff; his move from the other office, a fait accompli. Now surrounded by baby pictures, magazines, toys, a soirée of kids, scared husbands, pregnant women, and wall advertisements directed toward young mothers, his new office doesn't feel like a place, (or maybe it is?) for wrinkling women who've been diagnosed with cancer; uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes removed due to dis-ease. We are ancient by comparison to these new mothers yet I remember my own days of mothering as if I were burping babies just this past week. I am too young to be passé. Though cancer certainly has a way of making a person feel used up. Then again, a person's outlook has so much to do with how they feel and present themselves to the world, and in turn, how they're perceived by the world. And once every three months for about 15 minutes, I present as a bon vivant; a young(ish), cancer-free, wanna-be French speaking, though still-mute-in-front-of-this-doctor, hipster. C'est magnifique !

Puzzled

I haven't written much though I don't know what's stopping me because I certainly don't find myself silent around work. June, *this* June is birthday month for a lot of folks I know and it's also cancer check up month. I have scans, x-rays, visits to oncologists, visits to gynecological oncologists, mammograms (and the cancer I had was not breast). I am not so worried as inconvenienced. I hate to have to leave work to go to appointments. I hate to go to work late due to appointments. When I was in full-blown cancer mode, a week did not go by that I wasn't finding out some new piece of the cancer puzzle. I will never forget that day walking into the Stanford clinic and feeling from the looks of things, that I might survive when so many patients appeared other worldly.

I am faced with these appointments again, each time becomes a search for a possible missing piece when I feel as if I've already put everything back together. These appointments, doctor visits, scans, x-rays will go on for a long time. I'm grateful for the inventions and the medical community though I'm annoyed at myself for being less than accepting of the process. But I know it's very human to want to get on with life.

Catage

My cat woke me up about 10 times during last night's "sleep." At 2:30 am, she wanted something; she was howling but I couldn't get her to tell me what she wanted, QUIETLY...except maybe to be put. to. sleep.

In my email this morning there is a advertisement from REALAGE asking what age my cat is? Like I care at this point. The first thing their website asks is  "What is your e-mail address?" They also want to know if my cat wants them to keep a password for next time? I doubt there'll be a next time.

The Bottling of the Shrew

We had a bobcat sighting a week or so ago. This morning he was back again. I hope you don't have to strain your eyes to actually see the bobcat in these less than stellar photos. Bobcats like satellite dishes. FYI only.

Some bloggers write and post photos of their animals so I thought I'd share photos of mine. As for my own animals, I'm down to one obnoxious cat. I had her sister put to sleep and now this remaining cat meows all night long. It's funny that I had her sister put to death because she sat up all night bitching at me, with diabetes that I gave to her, screaming at me to give her more food in cat talk. Now I've got the remaining cat I thought was healthy, going nuts all night long. There has to be a pill. I don't care which one of us has to take it.

Years ago we found a mini Coca Cola bottle with a tiny, dead shrew inside at the dump in Keeler, CA in the Owens Valley. Don't ask me why we took it or why I still own it. The shrew was probably hanging out in the dump, dying of thirst, found this old cola bottle, climbed in for a drink (you know how that one last drop lingers even in 100 degree heat?) drank up, got his fill and didn't give a shrewish thought to how the hell he'd be able to get out of the heated bottle that had been baked for months in the blazing hot sun. All of this does not explain why we were hanging out at the dump. That was another life time.

That's really my only other pet. A bottled up dead shrew.