IN A NUTSHELL...

I stepped on the scale with both eyes closed and waited a minute before sneaking a peak.  150.  Yay me!  I'm still mystified by how I could have lost the weight although Dickidoo is skeptical.  I hardly think its the scale because I don't hear anyone else rejoicing about how they lost 15 pounds as well when they weigh themselves... so it must just be me.  Woo hoo!

Maybe its all the stinky food I enjoy eating.  For instance last night I munched on smoked trout and green olives stuffed with bleu cheese.  Mmmmmm! but peeeeee-uuuuu!  I may be looking better but nobody is going to want to get close to me cos I stink!  I know, I know... it can't possibly be healthy, but neither were those 15 extra pounds I was packing so my Miracle Stinky Food Diet remains.  Pass the bleu cheese olives please.

Mama has a catheter type thingie that will be used to administer her chemo.  She talks about it like one would a side ache.  She's lost weight, and then put a little back on.  She wonders if she should cut her thick salt and pepper hair, just in case.  She doesn't know how to act like a cancer patient.  She feels bad because she doesn't feel sick and yet everyone wants to help her.  She feels like a fake...  her words not mine.

"Mama," I said, "people just want to help you.  It helps them to feel less helpless.  We can't cure you, so let us do what we can for you instead.  It makes us feel useful when there is nothing else we can do."

Her doctor still maintains that she can expect a full recovery.  She says she already feels like herself again.  Yay Mama!

The crayfish escaped yesterday and I spent the afternoon and evening tearing the foyer and downstairs apart looking for it.  My search attempt lasted hours and was in vain.  Art came home after 10 and found the mud bug almost immediately... in the laundry room floor drain.  After a difficult extraction, and some heavy duty TLC the crustacean is back in the tank with Henry Goldfish. Not surprisingly the crawfish doesn't seem interested in climbing up the plastic plants to the top of the tank any more.

Rocky was sick the other day so I brought home a couple of monarch caterpillars.  I think every child should have the opportunity to watch the magical metamorphism of a butterfly at least once in their life.  Rocky is feeling much better now and is out with her friends.  I watch the chrysalis alone.  Oh well.

I'm not really sure what's going on with Dickidoo and me now days.  We don't fight, we don't even disagree any more.  He just sits around waiting for me to morph into 'Suzy Homemaker Does Dallas'.  I think its finally starting to sink in after almost 24 years of marriage, that it just isn't happening.  Of course the smoked trout and bleu cheese stuffed olives don't help my situation any at all.  I do believe I now qualify for the 'Born Again Virgin' bumper sticker.

I passed a dandelion today, its bright yellow flower gone to seed and it waved its fluffy white head at me.  I knelt to make a wish and I found myself at loss for words.  I didn't know what to wish for.  I could ask for things to be fixed again, but then I would miss out on all the lessons yet to be learned.  I could wish for money but what fun is money spent without the added satisfaction of earning?  I contemplated happiness but happiness is a journey, not a one time event.  I have hopes and desires for others but who am I to force my wishes upon them?

So I stood up and looked back at the dandelion, still sporting a full head of fluff, then walked away, leaving the wish for someone else.  What I need cannot be fulfilled by a whimsical puff against a dandelion plume.

What I need I already have, I just need to remember how to find itagain.

Whoa... screech to a halt... STOP!  What was I thinking?  I LOVE to spend money I didn't have to earn.  That's the best kind of money to spend!  I want my wish back.  Where's that damn dandelion?

Tags: colon cancer, chemotherapy