saturday night

What is the point of everything we do? Happiness, right? No matter if we want to become a doctor, make a lot of money, loose weight, when we finish asking why is it that we want to do those things, it is to be happy.

Happiness is the one thing everyone wants, the one that that every single person on the planet is working toward. The one thing you have in common with all the other six billion people on the planet. Happiness has been a goal for thousands and thousands of years, yet it still seems to be the most elusive thing in the world for most people I know. Now, I can luckily say, I am very happy, but I bet there is some point in my life where I am not going to feel so happy, and I want to make sure that happens as little as possible.

So I am going to study happiness. I have already read some brilliant books on the subject by several positive psychologists, and some of the revelations are interesting. I shall share as I absorb!

Christmas holidays in Puerto Rico were great, but I am exhausted from the travel (and having low blood counts). I start radiation on Wednesday (it was supposed to be Monday, but whatever), and I am excited for that portion of my treatment to start and be over. I can see a small pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel!

I am going to take some classes at the community college. Right now, I am just signed up for a Biology course, but I am going to take a math test on Monday (in between my dentist appointment and my blood work in Mesquite) that will hopefully allow me to enter a chemistry class. I am mostly interested in taking organic chemistry and molecular biology (to get a better handle on WTF happened inside my boob), but I have to take those prerequisites first!

Hubby and Mommy arrive tomorrow, so I am going to get a wonderful nights sleep so I can celebrate with my husband about his getting tenure at the university. For those of you who aren't familiar with the academic world and the "publish or perish" dictum, you can publish and still perish by not publishing enough or in the right journals, and get a nice kick in your pants out of the university where you have toiled 5 or more years of your life and be left jobless. That powers at be looked at my hubby's CV, and rather than giving him the boot they invited him to stay at the university for ever and ever! Job security! I don't have to move! I can make a garden! I can get a dog! I can get a job! Possibilities are now endless. Best thing of all, I have a great excuse to buy a nice pinot and have a glass with my baby.

Am I the only one with "pants on the floor" running circles in their head? Looking like a fool with your pants on the floor, pants on the floor . . .

Latino Christmas

Christmas has just been lovely.

Christmas Eve was done more in the Latin Tradition. We had a wonderful dinner party for friends that lasted until past midnight where we drank wine and chatted and ate lots of delicious food. Well actually, I ate collard greens, which were not delicious; but everyone else had pork loin cooked in cherry sauce and turkey and cheese and other lovely things that I would have enjoyed greatly in my previous life!

Luis of course wanted to open the presents at 12:01am, which to me is ridiculous. You don't open your presents at 12:01! It totally leaves out Santa! I said maybe you could open up one present that consisted of a set of pajamas the night before, but you couldn't open up everything! You had to go to bed, and Santa had to come, and presents were for the morning!

It's a really hard concept for these crazy Latin people, who don't have Santa. I don't really understand what they have, because they do have presents on Christmas day, but they say that Baby Jesus brings them, which is retarded. How can a baby bring presents? A big fat guy coming down the chimney makes more sense than a three hour old infant, aren't I right?

Luis and I are going to have to really get our stories straight with our unborn children so they aren't traumatized by conflicting Christmas myths.

Anyways, we opened presents, I drank organic chocolate with soy milk, and we enjoyed the snow that had fallen the night before. We slept in, took a nap, and went to bed early. It was lovely and relaxing.

I did get a sexy set of flannel Christmas pajamas from Luis.

it's off to work I go, well, I am trying anyway

I'm frustrated.

Luis and I decided that in January I would get a part-time. I am taking a course or two at the community college, and the part time would give me some supplemental income and make our house payments easier until the end of April, when I don't have any more doctors appointments.

However, it is much harder than I thought to find a part time job because I have several limiting criteria.

- It can't meet every day. In fact, I can only work 4 days a week because one day I have to dedicate one day to chemo.

- I need at least an hour available during business hours (not during lunch) because I need to get to and from my radiation treatments, which are starting the 18th of January, and will run every day until March.

- I need to not be in a receptionist position or in front of people because my fucking nose starts streaming blood randomly, which slightly freaks people (especially kids) out.

- I need to be in a position where crying all the time isn't a problem.

Which makes it harder than you would think to find something. The obvious answer is, work from home, which would be great. Except that most of the postings are scams, and I have tried to weed through them to find legitimate work from home experiences, and I have turned up zilch.

Considering phone sex, but I heard that unless you can keep the other caller on the line for over two minutes, you really don't get paid very well, and these callers are extremely adept at finishing up before the heavy charges start after two minutes.

Any other ideas?

family weekend!

I have been to every Lowe's, Sears, Home Depot, everywhere, and I have given up on finding an affordable faux Christmas tree before Christmas. It needs to be faux because I kill plants and my cats eat anything green that is alive. I want a big ass fake tree. because our living room has huge vaulted ceilings, but they are $700! I mean, if you use it for 10 years, considering you will spend $80-$100 each year on a live tree that you will throw away, it not only makes sense for sustainability but also financially, but it is a big blow to the credit card account regardless.

However, I plan on braving the crowds on the 26th and will purchase one on clearance. I love Boxing Day sales! I prefer them to black Friday because there is less people and items are usually more steeply discounted because the store really needs to move inventory.

Chemo has totally destroyed my taste buds, and nothing tastes good anymore. It doesn't taste bad, mind you, but that joy that you get from eating something really delicious isn't really something I can get anymore. I can get satisfaction from hunger, but eating a delicious lasagna is about the same as eating a saltine cracker. It is just food.

I wonder if that is something that can help people trying to diet or not eat so much. Some sort of pill that takes all the chemical rush you get from eating a juicy hamburger and Micky D's fries. So you eat if you are hungry, but that pleasure center in your brain is not stimulated.

My Uncle had his 50th birthday bash last night, and we went to his house today for brunch. Here is a photo of me holding my little cousin Finnley, (she has a twin brother).

Happy Holidays!

November has just been a crazy month for me, and it has been so difficult to just get on the computer and collect my thoughts. This has to be one of the best months of my year, however. After Japan, I had friends visit me for the first time (besides Lexie to help me out post-surgery) and we had such a wonderful time. My brother-in-law (it still weirds me out to think I have in-laws!) also visited and we had a great time sitting around cooking and eating and talking. Chase and Amanda used to work with me/for me at Meltwater in Washington DC, so we had plenty to catch up on as I really hadn't seen them since I was married.

After Japan in the beginning of the month, we had a huge family trip to Santa Barbara to wine country and that was PHENOMENAL. The first four days was just wine and food with family, and then Friday night and Saturday morning all my wonderful friends drove hours in to see me and hang out. I got to meet their significant others, who were beautiful smart and good looking people that were so much fun to be with.



I got horribly drunk (I can't even remember the last time I was that drunk), but other than a bottle of spilled wine, and a very foggy game of Never Have I Ever, which is never a good game to play with spouses or significant others around because they get all pissed off (never gotten through that game with a boyfriend around without a serious talk the day after), I think I made it through unscathed. A Much better idea would have been Fu** Date Kill, which is a fabulous game that usually doesn't piss people off (since the participants cannot be named during the game).

I learned a new party game called Celebrity, from my friend Joaquin, which was wonderful! You need to be sober, as I tried to get everyone to guess William Shatner by strumming on a guitar. I know what you are thinking, WTF? There is a twisted logic, as the first thing that flew into my head was his perforamnce of Rocket Man in the 1970s. So that is what I went with. I checked on YouTube however, and he didn't even play the guitar when he sang (prosed?) it. Needless to say, no one got it, and I moved on.

So goal in the next three days is to Christmatize (new word) my house. Very exited to pull all the Martha Stewart magazines out, play Christmas music, drink hot tea, and bring the season to my little shack.

Back from Japan

Japan was just wonderful in every way. The best trip. I wish I could have stayed longer, but our pocketbooks think that 5 days in Tokyo, the fifth most expensive city on planet Earth, is just about right. My closest friends from college came, and it was so wonderful being with friends that I have known for over a decade!

Ellie's wedding was phenomenal. She had a Shinto ceremony, which is usually only attended by immediate family members, but all the foreigners that flew in for the wedding, were also allowed to witness the ceremony, which was a once and a life time opportunity. In addition to exchanging sake to signify the union, Ellie also exchanged wedding rings with Eichi.



We were then escorted to a fabulous hall where we had an amazing meal and listened to tons of speeches in Japanese, including one by a haole (Swedish, to be specific) guy who had gone native and spoke Japanese superbly. Even the Japanese people in the audience were shocked at his fluency.

Besides the wedding, Luis and I spent most of the time visiting with Ellie and Eichi and visiting friends. The only touristy thing we did was visit Tsukiji, the largest wholesale fish market in the world. The pre-dawn auction was closed to tourists this year because of hygiene reasons and the fact that flash photography distracted and hid the hand signals from those trying to buy fish. Even so, the visit was impressive.



To be honest, I had a very averse reaction to the market. I have never seen so much dead fish in my life. And I didn't like being surrounded by so much death. No matter what you think about fish, they are animals, and seeing so many dead and butchered animals was obscene. I am not sure if it the cancer, or what, but it wasn't pleasant, and I was really happy to leave the market.

I have been recently paying a lot of attention to the overfishing that is occurring and trying to eat more sustainably (although I avoid dairy, eggs, and land animal meat, and am eating fish once or twice a week). Time magazine (the latest issue with Secretary Clinton on the cover) actually has a long article on the overfishing of the blue fin tuna, whose population is down 90%. The whole point is, eating many fish is the exact same thing as driving a hummer, but no one sees it that way because everyone does it.



Sushi used to be something that was just eaten on special occasions, but for many it is now a weekly or daily meal. It is quite easy to avoid the wrong types of fish with Seafood Watch, a great application on the eye phone that tells you what to avoid and why.

It is harder than I thought, and when I went to the local market the only fish that was in my price range and was a sustainable choice was catfish. Please ask your supermarket or your sushi chef where the fish comes from if it isn't listed. Trust me, someone places those orders and they no EXACTLY where it is caught. It is super easy to check online and see which is the most sustainable sushi to eat if you are a fantastic and can't go without.

NIPPON KOKUSAI!

Okay, this is gonna be short because I need to be up in 5 hours to get ready to go to Tokyo!

Major achievement for the Day: Clear PET Scan! YAY! I am still in remission!

Going to Japan! Going off my vegan diet and gonna eat lots of raw tuna, kobe beef, and whatever else the country wants to dish up! SHRIMP TEMPURA! NOODLES! All Luis and I plan to do on this vacation is eat and watch the Elster get hitched. No sightseeing or boring castles (Japan's castles are pretty lame anyways cause they all burned down every century or so and had to be rebuilt).

Okay, so I am on my third glass of wine (celebration was in order, don't you think), so no deep thoughts. I just bought like 10 apps to keep me occupied on the plane, including a Japanese dictionary because my Japanese sucks-o mucho.

Hulas are prepped and ready! Oh, yea, I am dancing 2 hulas at Ellie's wedding. I forced her to go to every Hawaii Club Luau at Georgetown, so she actually picked the song Henehene kou `aka (super fun for a wedding) and I chose Wahine ilikea because I danced it at my wedding and Ellie has really white skin(the title means Woman with the White Skin) now that she is in Japan and not subject to college trips to Cancun and other beach locales.

Okay enough rambling! Will update from Japan or when I get back!