Cancer Sucks

I made Lenore a prototype button, but here's a better quality option via my Zazzle page.


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Lenore is getting her strength back after surgery and appreciating help from my parents (dinners and making Walgreens runs); Dave, Kathy, and Joules (raking and bagging about 300 bags of leaves); Steve (for hauling bags into the garage before it rained); The Measuring Cup ladies (goodies!); and family (a delicious fruit bouquet and a tab at TMC for more goodies). The surgery staples come out Wednesday (see Laura's scar page for documentation!), and we hope to find out just what the heck caused this reoccurrence and how they plan to treat it. The pathology report has the doctor stymied. We're also hoping to get the treatment plan transferred out here to St. Joe's in Elgin, which will be much easier to deal with, especially during rush hour, bad weather, etc.


Lenore spotted many hospital faces during her week-long stay -- I suspect some of them talked to her whilst she was on morphine, but that's another story. Click here to see the full gallery of faces. Here's a face I saw when Lenore was trying to drink all the junk they make you choke down before surgery to "prepare your bowels."


Speaking of hospitals, Lutheran General may be a good one, but accessing it can be a real bitch. Not only is the hospital under construction, there is no way to get there without going through construction -- much of it seems to be a permanent feature of the road system. I've never been on these roads when they've NOT been under construction. But I digress. The other outrage is you have to pay to park there, which just peeves me to no end, especially since the parking is a good block away to begin with, and we're not talking a couple bucks. It's $9. WTF?! It became my personal quest to avoid paying these fees while I was there. In retrospect, it was probably therapeutic that I had something so stupid to be outraged about. I may not be able to conquer cancer (which I will not dignify with a capital C), but dammit, I can stick it to the man!

Day one Lenore had gotten her ticket stamped in the doctor's office, day two I had no cash and they don't take credit cards (again, WTF?), so the surly parking guy just sighed and let me out for free. (Score!) Day three I got out so late there was no one in the booth, and the gate was up, so I booked. I think you're supposed to put money in an envelope slot or some such thing. Yeah, that'll happen. Day four, so many people were trying to get out, they opened the back gate so I zipped out that way. Day five they wanted to charge me five bucks and I offered him three. The guy was baffled and said, "But it's five dollars." I said, "Well, all I got is three, so you can either open the gate or we can sit here all night and talk about it." So then he wanted me to fill out a form so they could bill me for parking there. So I carefully filled out the form. Let's just say Mary Queen of Scots is going to be getting a parking bill. Jerks. It's bad enough you have to be there in the first place without getting soaked to park your damn car. Not that I'm bitter.

In other news, I had to send back the German engineered bifocals, because they were impossible to see out of without getting nauseated. Now I have the old fashioned lined version, which allow me to see without throwing up, but they are also driving me crazy. Lenore thought maybe I should try bigger frames. They are fetching, aren't they.

The Edisto Visit

Lenore and I flew down to SC/Edisto toward the end of October to celebrate October birthdays, which included me, Tommy and Graeme. It was a relaxing visit that included bagel making, eating, shark tooth hunting, eating, watching a glorious sunset and more eating. Also spider watching, as there was a HUGE spider that took up residence near the front steps. We named him Mad Max. I don't know why. Here are a few photos from the visit.

Of course, we first had to establish that EVERYONE is now taller than I am, including Little Tommy, who I must now call Not So Little Tommy (NSLT).



Graeme, who has been taller than I since he was like, 11, is fast approaching the twice as tall mark. I do believe I can fit both of my feet into one of his shoes.



When we got there on Friday, it was raining, and it continued to rain all day and all night (a total of 5 inches I believe). It made for a good excuse to just sit around and visit, read, stare out the window and, of course, make some bagels! Lenore took most of the photos, in between making a popyseed cake with her mom.



Doesn't Lenore look like she should be on the Food Channel? Unfortunately, the heating element in the oven was on the fritz, so this cake took about 4 hours to bake. It turned out wonderfully though -- it was extremely tasty. Then again, that could have just been from lack of freezer burn. (Hey, I didn't say that, someone else did!)


Muffins were also in the making...did I mention about the eating that went on?


Mmmmm...caaaaake. Lenore hid this from Tommy 'til it was time to sing.



I made a little video of the bagel making with photos that Lenore took.

Bagel Making with Tom @ Yahoo! Video

A few other scenes for your viewing pleasure...remember you can click any photo to see it larger.











Here's Mad Max. Note the hairy legs! (I don't feel so bad now.)

Yeah Baby!!!

(This is one of the photos I took when PRESIDENT ELECT Obama was here at MCC before announcing his bid for office. And below is one of the best Barack-O-Lanterns I've seen -- carved by Bryant Ruedas from Las Vegas, NV. I'd send him a potholder if I had his address.)

Winning Pumpkin II

Congratulations to Pat in the state of Washington (as opposed to D.C.)! It's such a striking resemblance to John McCain. And thanks again to all who sent photos. We now return you to election monitoring...

Happy Halloween again...

A couple more entries came in while I was out trick-or-treating. Here's Greg and Howard's spooky entry from sunny CA followed by Graeme's squinty entry from equally sunny SC. I believe Graeme's pumpkin is entitled, "Noooooo!" Thanks to the creators for joining the pumpkin show! My panel of judges should have a verdict tomorrow...stay tuned!




Addendum from Lynda: "Did Graeme set the scene for his entry? His pumpkin is a Samurai whose top-knot has just been cut off. Hence the NOOOOO."

Happy Halloween!

Thanks to Pat waaaaaay over on Bainbridge Island (near Seattle) for this grinning entry.

And just to prove that we here at PP Headquarters are indeed open minded, below is an entry from our eggplant friends currently residing at The Measuring Cup (the one-stop pie shop responsible for my widening girth). It came with the following message:

Hi,

This is Pepe & Margarita. Being part of the Perky Potholders Club, we feel that we should be allowed to participate in the pumpkin contest even though we are not pumpkins. We are vegetables too you know!!!

Truly Yours,
Pepe & Margarita

Also, it doesn't hurt that they sucked up to the judges by including a Perky Potholder in their Halloween still life.

And now for something really scary...

My department at work decided to go Goth this year for Halloween. Unfortunately, the party committee at work scheduled Halloween for today instead of Friday, which is kind of dumb and also makes for an interesting trip to and from work. I think my favorite accessory is the tattoo sleeves. In fact, I may just wear them all the time now. I got the dress at the new Dundee thrift store and restyled it (with scissors). The boots were donated by Lenore. Amazingly, this is an extremely comfy outfit. The fishnets are cotton and very stretchy, and the dress is like pajamas. I may be on to something. I'm including the full group shot because I think the variety is amusing. My boss had a meeting to go to, so she adopted a "soccer mom goth" look. Molly and Jesse are "grudgingly goth," Hua is...I don't know what. Her concession was wearing the choker over her turtle neck and, after much cajoling, allowing us to put black lipstick on her "just for photo!" We had scheduled a photo shoot yesterday for some new faculty members, but then they cancelled, so we put the studio to good use.





I have to include this one too, because it cracks me up. Someone said, "OK, strike a pose," so Donna pretended she was on the phone (?!). It's "how may I help you goth"! As an aside, Donna made a festive Halloween punch in which she floated frozen hands (made from cranberry juice frozen in vinyl exam gloves). I highly recommend this for your next party.



When we were walking back from lunch, a passing co worker said, "Oh, how cute!" and I was all, "We are NOT cute, we are DISENFRANCHISED!" I think it may have frightened some students, but I can't be sure.