Dear C.L.

I’m reading a message from a friend and I’m furious. How DARE she flippantly suggest suicide

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in such a casual way. Guess what, it is NOT funny in any way. Hey, lady, you know that my father died, 12 years ago on New Year’s Eve. Did you ever think of what I would give to spend 5 minutes with him again instead of you faking your suicide attempt saying “good-bye all.”

YOU didn’t say one word about taking a break from Facebook so that’s all kinds of bullshit and yes, my son gave me your message but I am not calling you back tonight. Maybe sometime but not yet.

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I’m not laughing, C.L. Not only that, I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for this. Really, now you are joking about suicide and saying “good-bye?” WHAT THE BLEEP IS WRONG WITH YOU? How dare you? I wrote on your message  if you are serious, someone should please call 911 because I don’t know the town you live in. If you AREN’T serious, they should be called anyway, to teach you that life is worth living, that life is Precious.

There is steam coming from my head, sparks

 

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that I feel, oozing anger like fireworks. Is this what you want your children to see? That mommy is threatening suicide when people hurt her feelings? You have a job, to be a mother and they come first, before you, always.

I want to rip the book I gave you out of your selfish hands, I want to shake  your shoulders. and tell you to wake up and grow up. I am so mad and so sad and angry at life and death that if I started crying now I could not stop.The word for me is Inconsolable.

How dare you take life for granted? Grief is no fun, trust me, I know and it lasts forever, it will be 12 years tomorrow that my dad died. It does not get better every year. At certain times, anniversaries or birthdays, the pain is ripped apart, raw, bloody, new again.

Thanks for all that you have done for me.

I can’t think of you as my friend now..

 

I’ve calmed down a bit but I’m still mad and angry and very sad so I will be in touch NOT on the phone but when I can and do not Bullshit me. There wasn’t a word about FB on that post. You know it and so do I.

Thanks for ending 2014 just the way it started, in the trash.

 

 

 

Food Fighters




Adam Richman, host of the new show Food Fighters on NBC has finally found himself a respectable job. Adam of Man vs Food show, the gluttonous, eating pig-out contest (see Man vs Food on my blog )

 

Man v. Food (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

record-breaking, heart attack making show was in one word, disgusting. It was Adam, a lot heavier, breaking stupid records  for example if  someone had eaten  15 triple cheeseburgers in a row, Adam, of course, would have to top it and eat 16. Ugh. It was not a pretty sight.

 

Ninety-nine percent of the time, he took the title which is why his weight probably ballooned up, I guess the restaurant has to win once in a while. Apparently now a thinner, but nastier Adam is in a Twitter/Instagram (?) fight about remarks he made to some fans which were really distasteful, ugly and insensitive. Not smooth Adam, not good for Public Relations. Your manager is probably eating themselves up in cronuts right about now.

 

I love this show Food Fighters which puts together talented home chefs against professional chefs to cook a meal. Of course, if you are like me, you are always rooting for the home chef to win and to wipe the smug grins of the celebrity chefs right off their faces.

 

Tonight’s episode featured a home cook that really seemed to need the money and I was rooting for her. She beat every single professional chef that was on the show winning a total of $100,000. I had tears in my eyes when she won. She had come from a bad place, was unemployed and really needed a new start. I’m not positive but I thought she said she was living and cooking for her brother and family.  This win, gave her the opportunity to start over.

Aside from identifying too much with the contestant (which I did ) she was a woman you just wanted to cheer for. Her name was Elisha and the only thing I missed was a seat at the dinner table to taste her food and that of the celebrity chefs.

I LOVE THIS SHOW. I haven’t been this excited about a new show in a long time. Thank goodness for this, it’s the little things that make me happy, like the tiny sliver (okay big) slice of chocolate mousse cake

 

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that I stole from my daughter’s birthday cake. Heaven. Moist, creamy, fudge-like icing, my husband was aghast with horror. “Since when have you walked over to the dark side?” What happened to Vanilla Girl?” he asked. I didn’t think it required an answer because basically I was eating the frosting and did not intend to distract myself with an answer.

As many of you know I tend to be VERY flexible when it comes to dessert. I like many different types of dessert and I will have a slice of cake over a scoop of ice cream any day. I eat ice cream, of course, but it has to be in warm weather, outside of Ben & Jerry’s, seated in their cow couch outside licking a cone with rainbow sprinkles. Rainbow sprinkles

 

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make me incredibly happy. To me, they are what dreams are made of, my husband will only eat chocolate sprinkles or jimmies as they called them in Massachusetts.

It’s a particularly hard world out there now and very difficult for our family as well as many families that I know. We do what we can to cope with our situations but if an ice cream cone or a good cup of coffee, once in a while, makes you happy, I say, go for it. It might very well (no pun intended) perk you right up.

 

Just one blogger's thoughts. Allegedly.


*Where MY Wild Things Are

mischievious max (Photo credit: massdistraction)

Just call me Max, because tonight I live in my own storybook. I’m in a cranky, bad mood and while no one sent me to my room, I almost wished they had. It started off with not knowing where my husband was, he was missing. He didn’t leave a note but he could have left one word on a napkin and that would have been fine. He also left our whining dog, prowling around the house while I was trying to rest and get a little sleep because I felt extra crummy. It wasn’t fair.

It was a bad day for Fibromyalgia and chronic pain, my jaw hurt so much, I had ear pain and TMJ and a headache and no one cared. I wasn’t able to sleep because my dog was annoying me. She wouldn’t even settle down on the bed, up and down, up and down she jumped and I was too tired and achy to get out of bed to put her in the crate. Friends tell me I’m in a Fibro Flare but all I know is that I feel worse, much worse. The weather gets damp and now it’s pouring buckets like my expectations and mood, dumping down on the roof, bypassing the dirty, leaf-filled gutters and ending up in big, thick, muddy puddles. I don’t have rain boots and I can’t play anyway anymore.

I ended up eating a tuna sandwich standing up, alone, in the kitchen, with one foot crossed over the other and I ate it so fast that I didn’t enjoy it one bit. I even gave the dog, “the whining one” some of it. Just as I am shoveling down the sandwich, Mr. Last Minute Ambulance Aider comes strolling in with his fake, perky voice and I feel even angrier. I march up the stairs with the rest of my crappy dinner and the dog follows me for food, not for compassion. My only hope at feeling better is getting to eat the two last bites of the brownies that we saved and I am NOT going to share.

The last two weeks haven’t been good at all, okay, they sucked.  I had the hospital procedure and the horrific mammogram both done this week and I know it’s over but maybe not over one hundred percent because now I’m fuming inside like a chimney with an angry orange fire.  A new friend that I met over the summer,” sisters in spirit,” never sent me a birthday card when I thought for sure she would and I miss not having a dad. I believe in the good in people and then they disappoint me. At the same time a new friend thinks I should self-publish my blogs into a book with photographs. What? It came out of left field for me too. I guess we need to learn about balance sometimes.

My daughter is away at college and is sick again and I hate that. I offer to come up there or asks if she wants to come home but she says “No” and I worry, no matter how old they are and then I say out loud ” I wish you weren’t in college so far away.” I probably should have kept my mouth shut too but I couldn’t.

I am going to sneak down to the kitchen and at the end, I do announce taking the two brownie bites because after all, my husband wasn’t exactly doing a bad thing. They didn’t even taste good. I know that this stupid, horrible, unjust day will look much brighter in the morning when the sun shines, when my jaw stops hurting, after a good night’s sleep. All I’ve been doing is whining, I guess my dog and I have a lot in common.

*Based on the enchanting book:Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Feeling Purple by Peter (9 1/2)

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I feel purple today, dark purple. I’m cranky and in a bad mood. I’m being bothered by my stupid family and everyone is talking all around me.  I want to kick my heels into walls and leave black marks. I want to take my fists and punch lots of holes in the walls and it wouldn’t even hurt me; I wouldn’t feel a thing but whatever I touched would be in really big trouble. I want to do it so badly, maybe I will.

I want to take my chicken noodle soup with smashed up crackers and toss it on the rug and not feel sorry that I did it at all; I would let my dog eat it all up because my dog is the only person I like. I hate everyone. “Screw you, you idiot” I would scream over and over and no one would tell me that it was bad language. After that I would laugh and laugh and not care about anything. I would eat whipped cream straight from the can right into my mouth, as much as I wanted. After that I would have ice cream sandwiches, maybe three of them. Or four.

Everybody is mean and stupid and a poop-head and I would tell them but if my mom heard she would give me a time-out. As if I cared. I would just PLAY with my dinosaurs and have fun anyway. Like when mom and dad took away dessert from my sister and me for three days and we pretended to care a lot but we had a secret pact, we didn’t even care but THEY thought we did, it was awesome. Someday if I become a dad, I will let my kids do whatever they want and I won’t be mean like my parents are cuz I will be cool and not strict. Signed, ME.

By Peter, AGE 9 (and a half)

Blowing Off Steam (Plinky: How Do You Blow Off Steam?)

Life’s Lessons

I find walking my dog as one great way to blow off steam (and I have had a lot of steam to blow off the last few weeks!!) I’ve tried doing deep breathing but that doesn’t really help me as much as it should. Listening to music and singing out loud works well too. As lousy as I may sound, it makes me feel happier. I don’t want to spread my anger and bad mood around…..I try the best that I can but I’m certainly not perfect. My teenage daughter blames “my bad mood” on everything. Life will have to teach her how to claim and work through her own bad moods, I’ve tried my best but failed. Time and life’s lessons will teach her, of that, I have no doubt.

Tales of the youngest child…..

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I have an older sister who is five and a half years older than me but in some ways I feel like an only child. We are nothing alike and since she never wanted to have anything to do with me growing up, there are not a whole lot of memories that we share. I always told my sister that I would never “pick her to be my friend.” That says a lot. It sums up everything in our relationship. When I needed HER she was never there for me, when I got mugged and asked her to walk me home the next day, she wouldn’t. When I was abused and woke her up she told me to go away and let her sleep. When I had surgery my sister had to be prodded and pushed by our parents to help me; they told me that. She flew to my college graduation and left before my name was called to the stage. My parents had driven up to my graduation which, agreed, was a very long drive, she flew and they let her. I was always the one left to mop up her messes, to parent our mother and father, sometimes, to parent her. Even now at age 54 and almost 60, we are not close; I may love her but I do NOT like her. When my father was in the Emergency Room many years ago I begged her to come. She refused. I begged her again, to come there FOR ME and she said “no.” She did not come, she didn’t feel like driving in the dark even though it was only a 30 minute drive from her house. How can one forgive that? I try to help people, and do good deeds for others, she doesn’t. My mother says “she’s good at calling every day” and “she knows the daughter to call if she needs someone.” Trust me, I am not bragging, believe me, this is not a competition, I don’t consider myself “winning.” How could I? If she is forced to help it is only when if it is convenient for her. I don’t like having a sister that I can’t rely on for anything. My best friends fill that role. I trust them, I can rely on them. I probably could rely on Facebook friends that I have never met before I could count on her. When my first-born, my son, was born she told me to leave a message on her answering machine because she didn’t want to wake up for the news. She is totally self-involved and selfish and she has no clue how she comes across to others, she doesn’t even know herself. She once told our ill mother that she wanted to have lunch with me but I couldn’t and continued to tell our mother that she would NOT drive the extra 20 minutes to visit our mother. My mother, in tears, tells me these things but not her. She has always gotten away with a lot, my parents did not want to make any more waves in her tumultuous past, not even a ripple. That was their big mistake and I knew that as a teenager but they did not. My mistake? For sometimes thinking she will come through, having a tiny flicker of hope and always being let down. My husband questions me: “but it is your sister” he says, “you KNOW how she is” and he is right. I do know how she is; I will never be sure of why she is like that but I have to accept it because she will never change. The ONLY good thing that came out of my sister and me is that we each have a boy and a girl and the “cousins” adore each other. This is one good thing, maybe it needed to skip a generation; they have each other.

Prednisone, Bitchiness And Me aka The Prednisone Bitch

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I’ve been on Prednisone before, twice, and both times made me feel groovy, great. I was high on life, my muscles didn’t ache and I was a joy to live with…Not this time. There seems to be an evil lurker inside of my body making me say things without my usual filter and ultra-edit.  I don’t think I am making up the things that I am saying, I just think that Prednisone is making me babble. Like some people on alcohol, their defenses are down, their mouths are open and wide and sputtering. Prednisone to me, is like alcohol and it’s not being easily tolerated by me or frankly,  by my husband.

The worst thing about it? I really don’t care. I feel like a fight and am already on the way to one without stopping at GO.  I’m a loose cannon, feel a little speedy and don’t feel the love tonight. Not from the Prednisone and not from my husband who was/is the unwilling recipient of my sudden quick-fire burst of anger. I don’t think he is in the least bit amused.

I am a lioness growling, a bear attacking, a leopard changing and colorizing it’s spots.   I have never felt this way before but I believe I know what the side effects to Prednisone are….well, at least one of them. I’ll probably gain ten pounds just from eating salad and dry chicken and then I will really be hooting and hollering. Back off, man up, stay away, give me a wide berth. NO, I did not say GIRTH.

I am trying to breathe a little normalcy into my body but the nice person inside me, way deep down inside me, is not having anything to do with it.  It’s laughing at me, taunting me, making me grimace and snarl. This is only my first day of Prednisone, I have 8 more days to go. This could get ugly, oh wait; it already is.

The Methotrexate Blues

Oh me, oh my.  My poor, poor stomach. I am feeling sorry for myself and I don’t care.   I take the drug, methotrexate,  twice a week for Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an auto immune disease. I hate it. A few hours after I take it (with food, without food,  after food, after a lot of food) my stomach feels like it’s going to explode, and generally, it does. I get cramps, feel horrible, and look worse. I look pasty, have NO energy and have to stay in bed. And I sleep. A lot.  Is it worth it?  I really do not know. That is what I am grappling with today as I lie under my covers feeling cold and weak and on your one to ten stupid scale, Dr. Guru, I am a 2, and that’s rounding up.

Yesterday was one of the best days I’ve had in about 18 months. I had energy, I had spirit, I had faith. I went to the grocery store and happily shopped for an hour and a half. I walked, I strolled, I tilted my head to face the warm rays of the sun. I was so happy. So I napped for a couple of hours in the afternoon, I was fine with that!

In the early evening, my husband Dan and I went to my sister’s house for a cozy  dinner with her and her husband. She made tacos, with chicken, cheese, yellow rice, crisp lettuce, red beans…..and we all laughed and chatted amiably and I shared a Diet Coke with her. We sound exactly the same and we usually interrupt or laugh at the same second.  She told me that I “looked really good” and I was absolutely delighted. I felt good, I felt happy and now I am paying a price. A huge, unfair price.

Went to bed at midnight last night and woke up at 12:00pm this afternoon.  Took four of  those horrible tiny yellow pills, the “M” medication and from then on  felt like_ _ _ _. (Fill in the word of your choice). I couldn’t make it out of bed, except to use the bathroom, and I had no energy; believe it or not, I needed a nap during the afternoon.

I’m resentful and disgusted and depressed. I went from such a wonderful day to a pathetic day. I AM thankful for the one wonderful day I had, believe me, but at what cost?  If there was a pattern I could adjust to it but there is none. I don’t have an instruction booklet for my own body and my body has a life of its own.  The only change that could possibly  made in the future is that I inject, yes, you heard correctly, inject the drug directly into my thigh. Hopefully,  this avoids the stomach complications but I haven’t gotten a definitive answer from the Dr. on that.  I’m cranky and frustrated and  the next time I see an orange it will probably be to teach me how to inject myself.  Swell.