The Naked Truth about a Prince, a Vampire and the Astronaut

The Naked Truth about a Prince, a Vampire and the Astronaut

 

            So here we are in the middle of social media and what do most of us do with it.  Well if I am seeing things right we’re acting like complete fools.  If someone has a breakdown on a plane we get our cell phones out and aim it at the person who already has it tough, but who cares we can sell it to the news like FOX or CNN, we can be rich by selling our souls. Where are the Walter Cronkite’s of today?

            The naked truth about Prince Harry and his photo’s is he wasn’t acting very royal except maybe a royal pain to his family. In my youth if someone did something stupid that involved the birthday suit we didn’t have cell phones for the quick pic of the moment and we didn’t have paparazzi following our every move.  I love Harry but honey zip it up and think twice before you have too many drinks and pick better friends. For the person distributing them I feel sorry for you that you feel you need to profit and destroy someone else’s reputation while you were butt naked taking pictures.  He wasn't being smart but remember you treat others as you want to be treated so don’t feel bad if someone plasters your family jewels for your children and future generations to see.  What a proud moment on the family tree.

            I want to know who was in the bushes stalking Kristen Stewart and that much married Snow White film director?  Was it a stupid act on their part? Yes, but she is single and he’s married with children and twenty years older than her so why are people calling her a trampire for entertainment. I’m not going to be up on my soap box on this but all I have to say is whoever took that picture obviously needed the money because if they really wanted to help they could have exposed this affair in private and not put the families through all this media frenzy.  I’d hate to see what is hiding in your closet.

            Last but not least my hero died just a few days ago Neil Armstrong.  When I was turning five and living in Conroe, Texas my mother called me in from play and made me watch the landing on the moon.  I was mesmerized watching the old black and white.  Times were much simpler then and I didn’t have a cell phone to text anyone but I had a family that sat down with me and we shared a historical moment together.

            Upon his death the internet and twitter were a buzz but to my dismay when I turned on my computer and saw Lance Armstrong’s picture under the title First Man on Moon, Neil Armstrong dead at 82 I just lost it.  Are we so in a hurry to be the first to have the story of someone’s failure or torrid pictures of a disaster that we don’t check the facts or care what it might do to someone?  Remember what you put on blogs, facebook, twitter whatever the media, its forever out there.  Calm down your anger when it comes to comments on social media all that swearing shows you don’t have the intelligence to come up with something wittier.  You’re smart.

            You may think we can’t see you behind the lens or the key board but what you put out there shows everyone who you truly are.  If you can’t say it face to face or you don’t want embarrassing pictures of yourself than think twice before you push the publish button because most of us are not interested in your personal hygiene moments and other classless stuff that are best to be deleted.

            In 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first person on the moon and before he left a historical foot print in the dust he said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." So here’s a thought, let’s leap forward and go out there…turn off the twitter and talk to someone face to face use the cell phone for taking pictures of beauty because you might miss something historical in your own life.

CATS ARE ANGELS TOO!

Cats are Angels too!

          I moved around a lot as a child but even though my sisters and I were uprooted every two years we seem to manage to adopt a pet off the streets or from some pet store.  The sad thing is when we moved we had to give up the animals.  Our mother would tell us they would be going to good homes, as I got older I stopped asking because I didn’t want to know where these “good homes” were.

            I’m sure I’m not alone in the tragedies of loving a domesticated animal only to lose them to other families or for some to be truly lost or killed due to living in city traffic.  I was mostly a lover of cats and every pet I have owned is still a part of me, but it wasn’t until my illness did I realize how important animals are to our everyday life. 

            When my father had a stroke years before he died I had moved away for a short while and left my parents with my much loved Calico cat.  After a couple of years I moved back and got an apartment in the next town.  I wanted to have my cat with me.  I was too stupid to recognize the bond that my father, who was mostly bedridden, and the Calico had formed in my absence.

            My mother explained to me that the cat would sleep on my father’s chest tucked in his beard and that the cat would sit on the table next to him as he painted.  The Calico watched patiently as my father applied every brush stroke to canvas with a hand that was trembling.

            On the first night I was in my new apartment the cat ran away not to return for days disheveled and scared.  In my heart I knew she was looking for my father and I wish I was smarter back then to realize she was no longer my cat but my fathers.

            When I had my cancer surgery in October of 2010 two of my sisters were in town and stayed with my husband as they took shifts with me at the hospital.  Little did I know but my beloved cat Mookie was going through her own pain of not having me home.  She would look at my sisters and though they had dark hair and our voices sounded similar she knew it wasn’t me.

            After about a week she was so distraught my husband told me she attacked him as though he was responsible for me being gone.  When I was able to leave the hospital and come home she didn’t leave my side and though in the past she would sleep or walk on my belly somehow she knew not to do so.

            Once my family left and my husband had to return to work she babysat me, literally.  My husband gave the cat instructions to keep me in bed, well its hard keeping me down so when I mustered up the energy I got out of bed and wanted to go down stairs.  Mookie sat at the door of the bedroom all fluffed up and yellow eyes piercing into mine.  Her eyes let me know she took my husband’s instructions to heart and did not budge from the door way.  I had to laugh as she wouldn’t let me through and walked back into bed as she joined me and stayed there till he got home.

            She is my little angel and a life saver during those dark hours when I was home alone until my husband’s return.  She allowed me to cry and many times reached out with her paw to touch my arm.  My husband has also told me how she has come to his rescue during those first days after my cancer nightmare.

            Sometimes we might look at our pets and see them as animals that we must take care of but its moments like these that I realized they actually take care of us.  Go out there …adopt an animal or hug the one you’ve got because you never know how long you have them before they have to find a “new home.”  I’m happy to say my angel has been with us for over 11 years.

 Mookie saying her daily prayers

Here she stands her ground

 She lets us know she doesn't want us to go away

The War on Cancer

The War on Cancer

          Just the other day I had my 3 month checkup at my oncologist.  You ask any cancer survivor or one living with cancer this is one of the most nerve racking experiences someone can go through.  It’s only a blood test (CA-125) but it’s a test that tells you how much sand you have left in your hour glass.

          I remember being upset when I heard that Elizabeth Edward’s (ex-wife to the idiot John Edwards) stop being tested before she died of cancer because she couldn’t take it anymore.  At the time I thought how could anyone give up especially when you have young children.  I was naïve and now see her example was in her strength of living up to the time of her death.  I had just had my surgery (October 2010) to remove all my cancer and started my first chemo, I was in the fight for my life.  This is what I call boot camp.

          You’re learning how to use your weapon (your mind) and studying up on the guns and ammunition (chemo treatments).  I remember walking daily in the cold snowy winter months, because my oncologist told me I needed too, much like a soldier drudging in the mud knowing if he/she doesn’t learn these skills it is a matter of life and death.  My Generals were my surgeon and oncologist.  My captain’s were nurses that guided me through everyday land mines.  I did everything they asked me to do.  I was a good soldier.  I was determined not to have the cancer come back.

          Once you are done with your treatment and your counts are normal (a CA-125 is a blood marker for cancer and normal is 0-35 I started this journey with over 800) you hope you never have to battle cancer again.  They call you cancer free if your counts are good for 5 years.  Insurance companies won’t even look at you to insure you if your counts aren’t clear for 10 years.

          Much like war, the enemy (cancer) crossed the lines and came back into my territory during December 2011 as my counts started climbing and tripling.  Chemo started in the beginning of 2012, what a way to start the New Year.  What doctors failed to tell me the first time around is that once it comes back it becomes incurable which is political correctness for saying terminal.

          I don’t believe in being politically correct so I asked for the writing on the wall.  When they told me women in my case usually live 1 to 3 years but there is a small case of women making it to10 I’m sure I turned white as a sheet.  But I told myself I’m not like other women and cancer will not define me I will define it.

          I’m sure I’m not original in this thinking, but it is something that anyone facing this kind of a diagnosis must think about.  Do you simply throw in your last grenade or go in full barrels loaded and all the ammo you’ve got.  Save your bombs for that last stretch of beach that is your territory. 

You fight every day in this battle hoping that medical science might help and rescue you, but for now you know you have an army behind you and you are not alone.  There are others in the trenches and you must support one another until the very end.  Some will go before you and others after but one day in time the War can and will be won, I believe that.

I have been doing well and enjoying some R&R, so when I walked into the cancer center that day I was sure they must have misdiagnosed me and had the wrong draft card, but I was thrown back into reality when I noticed a gentleman in a wheel chair.  He wasn’t much older than me but I could tell he was in his last stages.  Battle scars were visible upon his face but I saw a strong warrior.  He was there for his chemo cocktail, frail but fighting. 

Most cancer patients have a port (that is a devise they put in your body to make it easier for you to handle the needles etc…).  I had my first one removed and I refer to the device as my purple heart because of its shape.  I am not trying to compare my fight with the real heroes of today I’m just trying to state that anyone dealing with a life altering disease can model themselves with their courage.

They go on fighting for their cause and have faith in their fellow soldiers.  We must do the same.  Even when you feel your number is up, muster whatever energy you have left and go out there…storm that beach, you might not live through that battle but your courage will help win this war!

My Purple Heart

ICE AGE: A Families Story

                                        Me, Cindy (prowd Mama) and Carolyn

ICE AGE: A Families Story

What are little boys made of?

What are little boys made of?

Slugs and snails

And puppy-dogs' tails,

That's what little boys are made of

What are little girls made of?

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice

And everything nice,

That's what little girls are made of

 

            I have never had children of my own but I have the privilege of being an Aunt to 15 and my Great Aunt status keeps growing.  I’m proud of all of them and their talents. This past week I went with my sister Cindy and her friend Carolyn to see my nephew’s (Cindy's son) latest project, Ice Age: Continental Drift.  He wasn’t the only name in the credits and a movie takes a lot of people to get the project done, but you would have thought that he was the only person of importance in the theater as we went nuts seeing his name.

            There is nothing more exciting than seeing your nephews and nieces grow up and go for their true potential.  Among them I have talented artist, policeman, fireman, coast guard, athletes and businessmen.  Though they all go in their different directions I have to say the arts are particularly a big deal in my family.  My mother was an actress that worked with the likes of Grace Kelly, Alec Guinness, Montgomery Clift and Director Elia Kazan.  Most of her work ended up on the cutting room floor (her parts were small) but she had stories to tell. 

            My father was a graduate of Pratt in New York an art school.  When he was struck down by a stroke in his 60’s and became paralyzed on the right side I challenged him to paint with his left hand.  His craft never wondered as he did amazing work with his left as well as his early works with his right hand.  He came from a line of Irish story tellers and his tales were bigger than life.

            In their late 20’s my father ended up being a business man and my mother ended up being a housewife as their family grew to four daughters but their talent never left them.  My father painted every day after he became home bound and my mother created a studio for him.  She did plays in her later years and I never knew how funny she was until she took a toilet seat cover out of her purse and blew her nose in it from a scene in the play “Harvey”.  It was her idea to use the tissue seat cover and not a real tissue.

            I’m not trying to paint a perfect picture of family, being raised by two artistic people was a nightmare at times but they are my parents and no matter what, we are family.  Yes, we all have little battles within the family structure but very much like this cute, funny movie about family, in the end we are together no matter how far apart the ice might take you.

            Go out there…find your family, hug them and never let go! My parents on their wedding day and my sister's and I (I'm the baby) in Conroe, TX

 

                                                        Nephew's and Niece's