Joy to the World

Yes, I have been away...so much to say and catch up on, but I am going to start at the present.  But first, a huge thank you to you all who have continued to check back and request that I write something -  I am giving you this small offering, with the promise of more and better to come.  

So I have survived another Thanksgiving holiday with minimal pain and angst.  Only one of my guests drank entirely TOO much and sort of slept through dinner and then needed to leave before dessert.  In her last moments of semi-lucidity, she regaled us with maudlin stories about her cat whom she had euthanized the previous day.   We hurriedly tried to ship her off at that point in the evening - luckily she is a petite woman, and so we were able to sort of sling her up and around and stuff her into the car.  Other than that, the day was a reasonable success.  Boy overdosed on sugar, and Man, turkey.  As for me, I lustily and uninhibitedly imbibed in all the delights the day had to offer, effectively saying "go to hell"  to my usual healthful diet.   All in all a lovely day!  

A portmanteau of the words "Spiced" and "Ham"...

So, this blog post is for Boy. He specifically requested that I write about Spam. Not electronic spam, because he knows I know nothing about that, but the other one. Much to his surprise, I know nothing about the other kind, either. I was 50 years old and had never tasted Spam. I had never even held a can of Spam in my hand. So because he is a teenager and gets obsessed with things like this and believes it is his mission to expand his parents horizons, the other day Boy coerced Man into buying a can of Spam at the grocery store, insisting that it tastes good. Man was doubtful (he was a Spam virgin, too) but relented and home came the tin of Spam. Spam is evidently an cultural icon. There is an actual Spam museum in Austin, Minnesota (Spam Town USA) which is the Spam capital of the world. And, there are about twelve different varieties of Spam, including (I am not kidding) Honey Spam and Hot & Spicy Spam with Tabasco flavor. Spam is so popular in Hawaii that Burger King added it to it's menu in 2007. In South Korea, Spam is such a delicacy and so desirable that it is often presented as a gift to one's host. There are restaurants that serve nothing BUT Spam, and Spamarama Festivals. Spam Cook-Offs and Spam Parades. The list goes on. So, when Man asked Boy what he wanted for lunch the next day, Boy decided he wanted a Spam sandwich out came the little blue can, and Boy had a Spam sandwich with mustard on whole wheat. Boy proclaimed his lunch as "Delicious". The next day, I was making eggs on English muffins, and Boy suggested that he would like some cooked Spam on his. Cooked Spam? Were you supposed to cook it? What would happen to it when it got hot? And more importantly, how was I to cook it - grill it? roast it in the oven? fry it? I decided to mush it up with the back of a spoon into a paste and sauteed it like a pancake and put it on Boy's egg sandwich. It also rated a "Delicious. You should try it". But I did not. The next day (for such a small can, we sure got a lot of miles out of it) Boy thought it might be a good lunch if I made it like a stir fry - his reasoning was that I really love vegetables, and so I might be tempted to try it. So I diligently cubed the Spam and stir fried it with broccoli and celery and onions and carrots and some garlic and ginger and soy sauce. I was thinking at this point it might actually be like firm tofu and I was pretty interested in tasting it now. So I did. And all I can say is I don't like Spam.

Cluck

So, I want a chicken. A real live clucking pecking egg bearing chicken to keep in the backyard of my suburban home. I don't really know why I want a chicken but in my mind, I picture myself, in a Zsa Zsa Gabor-like ensemble gracefully traipsing through the grass, beneficently dropping feed for my new pet as it adoringly follows me through the yard. I can envision the perfectly constructed and charming coop which the chicken, after a long day of cavorting and frolicking, will return to at night so that she can rest soundly for her adventures the next day...In the dewy morning hours (in my fantasy, I actually awake before noon) with a porcelain egg basket on my arm, I quietly and gently remove the numerous eggs she has so generously bestowed upon me. I tenderly pick her up (I think her name might be Eugenia or maybe Portia, I can't decide) and remove her from the coop and place her in the green grass. As I wander down to the pond she follows happily, and the two of us spend the day enjoying the warm spring day, me daydreaming in the sun and she...well, doing what chickens do. Man however, unequivocally does NOT want a chicken. He can not appreciate and share my vision, but instead regales me with tales of how the four vicious and territorial cats that share our home will torture and eventually mangle the poor thing to death and how the coop will smell really disgusting unless it is cleaned all the time and how chickens really don't frolic but rather cluck incessantly and peck at the ground and eat bugs and all manner of disgusting things. He has also provided edification regarding the egg bearing habits of chickens, in that despite being named Eugenia or Portia they will only lay, at the most, one egg a day and only then, when they feel like it. So in order to provide just our family with sufficient eggs one or two times a week, one chicken will not do. Man says we would need probably six or maybe even more chickens to get the job done, at the rate Boy eats. And SIX chickens would be even noisier and smellier and even more entertainment for the cats. And then, he dealt the final death knell to my fantasy: with all those chickens, when I strolled languorously through the grass, I would likely get chicken poop on the hem of my dress.

My Soapbox

I don't often get serious here, but I have something to say. Since a lot of you that regularly read me are actual friends of mine, let me apologize if I am telling you stuff that you a, already knew, or b, didn't know until now. And, please don't be offended if what you read here is news to you as I am really not very good at sharing stuff like this. Even with y'all.

OK, so way back when I was in my very early 30's, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects my immune system. Because it is a blood related cancer, it is very difficult to treat and impossible to cure. When I was first diagnosed, I elected to try an experimental treatment regime which, while it did nothing to stop the progression of my disease, acted as a fertility drug and I wound up preggers after trying to NOT have a baby for the nine or ten years I had been married. We all know how that turned out...I always say that while I may have gotten an incurable fatal disease, I got Boy out of the deal, and that's a fair trade. So, after many years of general medical related suckiness here I am, still beating the odds. Just an aside: survival statistics are very depressing things, but if you are interested, visit http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/non-hodgkin. That I even got this disease was kind of a kicker, because about 70% of all diagnosed cases are in MEN OVER THE AGE OF 67!!!! (see, I've always been special!) Anyway, after many rounds of radiation therapy and chemotherapy and all manner of "shitotherapy", there was a drug that was released which acts like a "smart bomb" towards lymphoma cells in that it only kills off the cancer cells, not my healthy cells. This drug, Rituxan, is intravenously injected once a week over the span of four weeks. So every six months since around 2001 or so, once a week I would go get hooked up to a pump for about 8 hours and get this stuff injected. Which was great, because it actually worked and killed off any lymphoma cells, even those which were hiding in bone marrow, etc. Great stuff, huh? But, about four years ago, the treatment available to me for years became UNAVAILABLE to me because my insurance company decided to refuse to insure me anymore. Every time I got an injection of this drug, it was very expensive, adding up to the tune of about $65,000.00 a year expensive. So, after I had no insurance, I realized I am lucky enough to live in a state that can actually force an insurance company to provide me with coverage. A good thing, right? Except that the insurance company could (and did, in my case) exclude treatment for an existing condition for 18 months, and the monthly premium was MORE THAN MY MONTHLY MORTGAGE PAYMENT. I am not kidding. So, after paying insanely high premiums for 18 months, I was able to get treatment again. After getting my first Rituxan in almost two years though, I had to cancel that insurance coverage because I simply could not afford it anymore (don't worry, I'm not hitting you up for a loan or anything, I promise). Today, I finally have health insurance again that does cover the expensive treatment I need without a waiting period, thanks to the Affordable Health Care Act enacted by the Obama administration. And now here I come with my soapbox: I have to ask you that no matter what you believe or think about our current administration, that you do NOT support the efforts to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, because quite simply put, me and many others will probably die way sooner than we should without the health insurance we so desperately need. And, I don't want to die because you know I still have A LOT to say! Thanks for reading.

My Life in Home Improvement

So, I recently started a part time job at one of the big national chains of home improvement stores.  I am not really terribly excited by this, but I have gotten even more antsy and bored while looking for work in my field.  I figured I have some skills that I might be able to share with some other hapless homeowner who, due to tough economic times must launch themselves into the land of "D-I-Yville".  On the first day at my new job, I learned how NOT to cut vinyl flooring.  Evidently, that long red string that runs under the flooring roller is the accelerator for the roller...not a stray piece of carpet fiber to be yanked and pulled, as I thought.  The roller/cutter machine does not have an emergency braking system, either.   And, I also learned that a new full roll of vinyl flooring can be as much as 168 linear feet, which is an awful lot of very heavy material to wind up by hand, back onto its spool, after one causes the rolling machine to go nuts and spew yard after yard onto the floor...