In Thanks of Daddy

Since it's Father's Day, I'm devoting this week's "10 Things of Thankful" to my Daddy:

1. I'm thankful that my dad has never noticed things like hair or make-up or clothes or that colors match or whether they should be worn out of the house at all. When I was in high school, I could have gone out in anything short of a hooker ensemble, and he wouldn't have stopped me. 

2. I'm thankful that my dad's family moved all over the country until he left for college, because he never did that to us. He was very shy and didn't like the moves, so he never moved us away from our friends and family.

3. I'm thankful that my dad has always been handy. Age has slowed him down quite a bit, but until recently, he always fixed stuff that was broken around the house, including plumbing and  electrical issues (and taught me to be a pretty fair plumber, myself). My grandma once told me a story that when he was around five years old, he got a new wagon for Christmas, and the next thing she knew, he had taken off the front wheels, turned it into a trailer, and hitched it to his tricycle.

4. I'm thankful my dad had (HAD) a full head of curly hair, because that's what I have now. 

5. I'm thankful my dad is a practical joker. One of his famous pranks was pulled on my Uncle Gale (his sister's husband). My aunt and uncle's family went on vacation and left their guinea pigs with us to pigsit. When my uncle dropped them off, he told us the black one hadn't been acting right, and if it died, just quietly bury it in the backyard and don't save it for them. 

The day before they were due back, my dad took an empty half-gallon milk carton, cut the top off, filled it with water, and submerged a piece of black fake fur in it. He then put it in the freezer, and when my uncle came to pick up the guinea pigs, my dad said, "Well, we have some bad news," and handed him the milk carton.

I can still see the look on my uncle's face. 

When my dad couldn't stand it anymore, he started laughing and confessed it wasn't really the guinea pig. My uncle (and here's where it all turned south) thought it was GENIUS and decided to pull the same prank on my aunt and two cousins. To say it didn't go over well at their house is an understatement. I suspect my cousin Cynthia may still hold a grudge about it to this day. 

6. I'm thankful my dad liked black licorice, because he taught me to like it, too. And when you have black licorice, not very many people want a piece of your candy, so you hardly ever have to share.

7. I'm thankful my dad made the decision to take over my grandfather's farm supply store when my grandfather became ill and then passed away. While it was hard on my mom (and this is the ONLY time they moved away, from our suburban Kansas City neighborhood to a small town 100 miles to the south), we have all enjoyed "the store" and were all very saddened when he chose to liquidate it two years ago and retire. I have many memories of growing up in the store when it belonged to my Grandpa, and my kids have them from when it belonged to THEIR grandpa.

In the office of his farm supply store.

8. I'm thankful my dad taught my husband and son to fish for trout. It's been a fun father/son activity for them.

9. I'm thankful for all the goofy sayings my dad has had over the years. Two of my favorites are "Two zeroes don't add up to one" (which he usually said to me when a friend and I were going to attempt to do something he didn't think was going to work out so well) and (this one is for my friend Christine) "What's time to a pig?"

August 1993

10. I'm especially thankful that I still have my Daddy around. He is 78, and his health is meh, but he and my mom are still plugging along, still an active part of our lives, and still has much to teach us.

Daddy's weekend uniform.

BRA Day: Remixed

I already posted to Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop with one of this week's prompts, but I couldn't let an additional writing prompt saying to write a post inspired by the word "bra" go by untouched. Just couldn't. Because I wrote one a few months ago, and I think it bears repeating (or is it BARES repeating?). Welcome to:

BRA DAY (AND IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK): REMIX

(originally posted 12/3/12)

There's a Breast Reconstruction Awareness Day and I MISSED IT?! HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS?

This past December, an article in the Kansas City Star about breast reconstruction stated the American Society of Plastic Surgeons launched the first BRA Day (cute, I know) on October 17, 2012. The purpose of the campaign was to promote awareness and patient access to breast reconstruction. May I say, American Society of Plastic Surgeons, LOUSY JOB WITH THE PUBLICITY! If our local newspaper hadn't picked up a truncated version of this article (probably as filler), I wouldn't have known about it still.

The article went on to talk about a woman who visits cancer patients at KU Med Center who are facing mastectomy and breast reconstruction and talks to them about her reconstruction procedure, allowing them to take a look at her own reconstructed breasts. And the article also talked about a "show and tell" in New Orleans, with reconstruction patients revealing their new breasts to other cancer patients.

Apparently, it is NOT usual for women who have had breast reconstruction to show their new breasts to others.

WHAAAAA???

You have NO IDEA how much I would like
to own this shirt.

My breast reconstruction is a miracle of modern medicine (thank you, Dr. Geter!), and I will gladly, GLADLY, show anyone who wants to see them. Hell, I'll even let you feel them if you want. (Hey, they're mostly numb. I can close my eyes and usually never even know that you've touched them.) 

While it's an individual choice for each breast cancer patient, all it takes is one look at a photo depicting mastectomy without benefit of reconstruction to make you understand just how important of a step this can be for a woman's recovery. Thanks to my awesome reconstruction, I can almost forget that I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Almost.

I won't let it get past me NEXT year... 

Just The Two Of Us

My husband, as a general rule (okay, as a rule), doesn't particularly like to be mentioned in my blog. So, shhhhhh! don't anyone tell him that this post is about him. Well, and me. As in the two of us. Our 20th wedding anniversary is this summer. 20 years. 20 YEARS. Whoda thunk? To commemorate this occasion, here are six random facts about the two of us:

1. We met on the phone, when I was working for a record company in Nashville, and he was working for a publishing/artist management company in Los Angeles, and got married a year and a month later.

2. He is way more romantic than I am.

3. Before we had kids and were living in L.A., we used to go to foreign movies and restaurants with no children's menu and flea markets and antique shops and art galleries.

4. We take turns driving when we're on trips. When we're going through a strange city, he has to be the one driving, because he can't read a map for shit, nor can he interpret highway road signs. 

5. When we were trying to come up with a boy name when I was pregnant with our son, he vetoed about 99% of the names on my list because of associations he had had with someone with the same name OR because it was the name of someone I once dated or thought about dating or just thought was cute at one time. (The joke's on him; the name we settled on was on the list because of an actor of the same name who I thought was hot.)

6. We named our daughter before we were ever married.

Now, remember, keep yer pie holes shut....

A Kitchen Mystery and Proof That My Cats Are Dumb Like Foxes

For your Monday reading enjoyment, a mystery and a musing:

The Mystery

Why is there a knife missing from my kitchen knife block, where is it and who put it there?

It's a Chicago Cutlery knife with maybe a 7" blade. It's been gone for months, but, naturally, NO ONE knows where it is. I have checked every drawer in the kitchen, thinking someone put it away in the wrong place (which is a joke, really, since I'm the only one who ever actually puts stuff away in the kitchen). I looked behind the stove, although it would have been quite a fete to have gotten it back there. No knife. WHERE THE HELL IS IT?  It was my favorite one, next to my completely awesome Wusthof one. 

The Musing

My cats eat from a continuous feeder, so it's a 24/7 kitty buffet around here (which explains Pete). All is copacetic until the silo part of the feeder (the cow analogy is not lost on me here) starts to get low. When this happens, the dish doesn't fill. I don't understand why it doesn't, gravity being what it is, but it doesn't and that's that. It is a simple matter to force the food to fall into the dish by (a) gently giving the reservoir a shake (if you have opposable thumbs) or (b) sticking a paw into the opening, WHERE YOU CAN SEE THE FOOD HOVERING, causing the food to dislodge and fill the dish (for those of us with paws and half a brain). 

Then there's the third option: act like cutting horses and herd me into the kitchen to the empty bowl, sit beside it with pitiful kitteh eyes, and throw in a mournful yowl or two. Don't help yourself by poking it with a paw (and this is doable, because my previous cat did it, and she was no rocket scientist genius fool).  They just stare at me when I say, 'STICK YOUR STUPID FOOT IN THERE AND GET IT YOURSELF, YOU MORONS!"

And then I give in and shake the food down.

And, smugly, they dine.

I'm Thankful And It Isn't Even Thanksgiving!

My friend Christine @ A Fly On Our (Chicken Coop) Wall is the brand, spanking new co-host of a brand, spanking new link up, "10 Things of Thankful," the goal of which is to challenge us to find the joy in each day.  When we think about what we are thankful for, we are probably all guilty of looking mostly at the big picture: family, shelter, employment, food, health. But what about the little picture? What about the every day things that happen that, when you stop to list them, prove that life is pretty good? Here's my list of ten things that happened today* for which I can be thankful:

1. I am thankful that I'm not Rafael Nadal's wife mom housekeeper and have to wash these socks he wore to the French Open.

2. I'm thankful that I didn't backhand my 17 year old son when he went all know-it-all while packing for a one week mission trip to Colorado. And wasn't planning on taking more than one pair of jeans. And hadn't read the checklist of what to take for all the activities they would be doing (and, more importantly, what NOT to take). And wouldn't believe me when I referred to said checklist.

3. I am thankful that I made a trip to Walmart today and did not lose the car in the parking lot. This is an anomaly.

4. I am thankful that my husband agreed to get up with me at 5:30 (as in A.M.) every day this week to work out at the Y, and that he wants to go on Saturday as well. And that he admits I was right that, as trite as it sounds, it gets your metabolism going and gives you energy all day.

5. I am thankful that I am home during the summer and am able to take a nap during the day when that 5:30 workout hits me between the eyes and I can't hold them open any longer.

6. I'm thankful that my husband didn't seriously hurt himself when his socked feet slid out from under him while he was leaning against the sink this evening, eating homemade pizza (which was DELICIOUS - spinach, sauteed mushrooms and caramelized onions on whole wheat crust).

Ouchie.

Mmmmm.

7. I'm thankful that he didn't get mad at me when I laughed, even as I was checking to see if he was okay. (It's a family trait that we laugh when someone falls, which is completely inappropriate,  I KNOW.)

8. I am thankful my parents bought too many freshly picked green beans and new potatoes at the old order Mennonite settlement's produce stand and shared them with me. I have a ham bone in the deep freeze that I've been saving for an occasion such as this.

9. I am thankful that Teri Biebel @ Snarkfest and Jenn @ Something Clever 2.0 have both favorited comments I made on Twitter, because it makes me feel like I'm all that (and also implies I know what I'm doing on Twitter, which, sadly, I don't).

10. I'm thankful for my sweet friend Christine @ A Fly On Our (Chicken Coop) Wall because she (1) always encourages me, (2) was brave enough to do this link-up, (3) writes posts that always get to me on an emotional level, from raucous laughter to tender tugs at my heart, (4) draws the best pig/elephants I have ever seen.  (I could list about a hundred more, but I don't want her to get all big-headed about it.)

*Okay, I fudged a little. #9 actually happened over the course of about a week or so. So sue me.

Ten Things of Thankful

That One Time My Brother Really Bugged Me

It was the morning after Thanksgiving at my mom and dad's house. I was in college; my brother was in grad school. My Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Bradley (you can read about my relationship with him here) were visiting for the holiday, and we had just finished a leisurely breakfast when it happened. 

I had come downstairs that morning to find my brother, a notoriously early (and obnoxiously cheerful) riser, and my mom, who is much the same, in the kitchen already. My mom was frying sausage, my brother was sitting on the kitchen counter. When I entered the kitchen (my dad and I were the grumpy ones, although after I had kids I found out that I no longer could afford the luxury of being a crab in the morning), my mother told me she was going to make biscuits and gravy to go with the sausage.

Canned biscuits. Because she didn't want to mess with making them from scratch (or Bisquick, which is as scratchy as she got with biscuits).

(I interrupt this post to present a joke, ca. 1945, that my mother thought was a riot when she was a girl:

          Knock Knock
                Who's there?

          Bisquick.
               Bisquick who?

         Bisquick! Your pants are on fire!

Back to regularly scheduled post.)

I immediately started whining that I didn't want canned biscuits, and my brother joined in. My mom wasn't having any of it, until my brother said, "I'll make them. Do you have Bisquick?"

My mom pulled a box out of the pantry, saying, "It's kind of old. I don't use it very often," and my brother set to work. He produced a pan of beautiful, golden biscuits.

Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Bradley joined us, and we sat around the table, visiting, long after we had all finished eating.

There was one biscuit left on the plate, and as I listened to the conversation, I reached over and picked up the biscuit, cutting it in half across its equator. As I began to spread butter on half of the biscuit, something caught my eye. I looked closer....

A dead weevil was baked into my biscuit half.

I quickly placed the biscuit half, cut-side down, on my plate, then reached for the other half of the biscuit, which I crumbled into bits on my plate, looking for evidence of another weevil, but I didn't find anything. As everyone began leaving the table, I carried my plate into the kitchen, flipped over the biscuit half, and showed my mother the baked-in weevil.

She was horrified.

My brother came in the kitchen at that point, and my mother said, "Show him."

I proffered the biscuit half to him.

He gave it a glance and said, "Huh. Missed one."

Our mouths dropped open.

"I really wanted biscuits," my brother continued, "but when I opened the box, there were bugs inside. I sifted through all of it and fished them out, but I guess I missed one."

Shout out to Christine at
 A Fly On Our (ChickenCoop) Wall:
this drawing thing is HARD!

We never told Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Bradley about the weevils in the biscuits. We figured it was best that they never knew about it.

And I never eat anything that my brother bakes (and he's a pretty darn fine baker, I must admit) without it crossing my mind that he wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing again.

And probably has.

I figure it's best that I never know about it.

Linking to Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. Prompt #3 Share a story about a sibling that still makes you smile.

An Observation, A Confession And An Aberration

First, the observation:

There seems to be a correlation between the weather getting warmer and Fletcher, one of our cats, getting very needy and wanting to be all up in my business the minute I sit down. 

And he doesn't take "no" for an answer.

And he is furry and hot. And I have hot flashes. And this is not a good combination.

He's no longer cute when
his furriness and my
hot flashes conflict.

The highlight is always when he waves his butt into my face as he gets comfortable.

I've learned to type while he lies partly on my lap, mostly on my laptop keyboard.

I am nothing if not adaptable.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The confession:

I have been a bad, bad girl.

I have not been doing my weight-bearing exercises for the past two months, which are, in turn, supposed to keep me from suffering some of the side effects of the Zoladex and Arimadex that I am taking. And I had been dutifully exercising 4-6 times a week for almost a year by walking, taking Zumba classes and hitting the elliptical machine at the Y.  

I'm blaming my daughter, because my usual Y time was when I had to pick her up from track practice or attend a track meet. 

OKAY, OKAY, I COULD HAVE GONE AT A DIFFERENT TIME. Don't make me feel any worse about it than I already do.

But the result? In spite of the heavy dose of extra Vitamin D and calcium I take every day to stave off side effects, the lack of weight-bearing exercise has caused my knees and ankles to ache. A lot. 

Tomorrow, I am going to the Y.

No, really, I am.

EARLY. Before I can talk myself out of it.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The aberration:

My son has been gone for ten days to the beach with a friend and his family. Before he left, he and my daughter were squabbling so much I thought I would come home one day to find they had torn each other to bits, like the Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat.

I hate to say this, but I was just a little bit glad to have him out of the house for a few days. Call it practice for when he leaves for college this fall.

He came home this evening, and he and his sister, while they won't come right out and ADMIT it, are very glad to see each other.

They are half hugging, half wrestling on my bed right now. It's really very sweet.

Of course, it will quickly deteriorate to slapping, pinching and yelling, but until then, I shall sit here and enjoy it.

They have their moments.