Don't Drink the Water! I'm Serious Don't!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Recently, my best friend sent me some fabulous home-baked cookies and an article all about my favorite round food which I initially thought was a cookie catalog but was, in fact, an article about cookies.  All kinds of cookies.  I'm always thinking about words (and cookies) and then came the inevitable association; by putting the word "cookie" in front of almost any somber word renders that word less scary and more fun!  Casket, funeral and Nazi are all buzzkillers.  But by placing the word "cookie" in front of these words, it takes the downer vibe out of the most serious of words(I mean, how bad can a "cookie funeral"  really be anyway?  And a "Cookie Nazi" is obviously just someone who refuses to share their baked goods thereby making them truly evil)!

Go on and try it,  I'll wait!  See?  It works with "cupcake" too!  But nothing lightens the mood like the word "cookie".  It just makes everything "funner"!  It's just an expectation based on the universally fantastic experience everyone has had with the cookie.  But that expectation cuts both ways.  Not too long ago I was at my in-laws and my brother and sister-in-law (who are very sporty) gave me a sample of "coconut water".  It comes in a nifty carton and I think I know why.  If people had to look at the cloudy, vaguely salty liquid, maybe they wouldn't buy it.  Or drink it.

I was thrown by the expectation of what I thought coconut water would be!  I was expecting something that would be cold and  sweetened, like shredded coconut (also not found in nature).  I was expecting a burst of coconut yumminess!  Like a Mounds Bar!  What I actually received however, was some liquid that looked good for you!  Despite Matthew McConaughey's ringing endorsement of this product (Wasn't it "Anchorman - The Legend of Ron Burgundy" that offered the best description of it?  "It smells like a used diaper full of Indian food!") coconut water was neither coconut or water.  It defied all expectations I ever associated with coconut!  It was not even really clear or really white (also not typically found in nature) like I expected.

It did, however, seem healthy!  My brother-in-law said he'd acquired a taste for it.  Anything you have to get used to I have no use for. Or time to get used to whatever "it" is.  I don't have that either.  "Acquired taste" is just another term for things that no one really likes, like caviar.  I like my water clear and uncomplicated.  And  full of artificial sweeteners!  Like my tea!  Or cookies!

So, I'm going to continue trying to hook up "cookies" with "Nazis"  ("Cookies: Inside the Third Reich - A Culinary Retrospective") and you people continue to do whatever it is that you do.  I really believe that putting a cookie in front of almost anything will improve it!  But I also enjoy "Cupcake Wars", so what the hell do I know?

Reading Really IS Fundamental! Who Knew?

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Like most wordy people, I'm a big reader, I always have been! I read my first whole book at age five (Charlotte's Web) and I went on from there.  Growing up I'd read anything, anywhere I could.  I still like to read but nobody told me how neurosurgery would impact my reading - immediately following surgery on your brain the printed words sort of around for awhile.  They finally settled down long enough for me to go to magazines and then short stories and finally books.  When I was a teenager I would reread books I really liked which gave me the words to mentally play with and rearrange when I couldn't read normally.

Recently, my track record as a first-class smart aleck came into question.  I now co-exist harmoniously with all living things (except spiders) but back in the day when I muckraked, the muck stayed raked!  I could (and did) stir things up with the best of them, albeit briefly, because muckraking just for my own amusement  is pointless and stupid and I quickly became bored.  Now when I consider proper situations for "muckraking" (not to be confused with "rabble-rousing" -  a different matter altogether,) I think back to our founding fathers. Those guys were really wordy and put the "muck" in "muckraking"  After they muckraked they started a revolution!  And they wrote a lot of letters and speeches too!  With quills and beautiful penmanship! As the Japanese Charlie Brown answered in "Kill Bill 1" , when asked if he'd like to get his head chopped off, "No, I don't think I'd like that!".   Well, if I had to wear hoopskirts and churn my own butter I'd like to think I'd draw the line if some wig-wearing, Revolutionary MD offered me a stick in lieu of anesthesia.  That's the best you've got in 1775 Dr.?  A stick?  Nay, a small stick!  A twig?  Come on!

Sometimes I think it would have been really special to live back then and revolt with my wigged countrymen, but with my luck I'd get cancer and some "doctor" would come at me with a stick for anesthesia and then I really would have to punch him in the face, and things would get bad fast for all concerned from there, let me make sure I understand:  You want to perform a double mastectomy and the most modern pain treatment available is a stick?  A stick?   From a tree!  Really?  Really, really.  I'm going to let this medieval barber type operate without anesthesia and I'm going to die anyway and this jackass gives me a twig to bite down on?  I can't.

So the olden days look like they probably were - olden, not great or "a simpler time" just simple.  Maybe their paintings were great but the food sucked and it wasn't safe to drink the water. ( Not really that different from today, when you think about it!) and they had awful healthcare!  Aw-ful!  If you lived to 40 you had "a full life".  I don't know why sticks surprised me!  These people thought leeches were a medical treatment!

I Feel Great All the Time! Magic? No, My Neurosurgeon! Dr. Aliabadi!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Another fantastic side effect of having a large, cancerous growth removed from my noggin is that I feel pretty great all the time.  That's right!  I said, "All the time!" 24 - freaking - 7!  I'm not kidding or exaggerating.  I have every reason not to feel so sunny but I do and it's great!  It keeps me motivated and focused on the monumental challenge in front of me.

I see the world differently since 2011.  I haven't had a glass of wine in years, I never will again, I can't handle it at all, it goes straight to my head.  I don't miss it at all either.  I've figured out a way to bend pain to my will, and I've been medication free for years too.

You know why I feel so good?  Any guesses?  I had a cancerous tumor removed from my brain!  Duh!  Dr. Hamid Aliabadi did an awesome job removing the huge tumor from my fourth ventricle (wherever that is!)
I have no balance and I can't see anything straight but I feel fantastic!  For a long time I didn't know the reason for this amazing sense of "well-being" then my mother pointed the obvious out to me - I grew a nasty brain tumor and had it removed!  That's probably why I felt so bad too! Double duh!  Thanks, Mom!  Thank you, Dr. Aliabadi!

I've discovered a completely new appreciation for desserts and cookies that I have to completely ignore but amuses me nonetheless.  I'm getting stronger and more flexible every day.  I work furiously at the gym and on daily BDMs (Bataan Death Marches) but I'm never furious.  I'm rarely ever more than irritated.  So, thank you, Dr. Aliabadi!  You saved my life!

So between the advent of high-definition television and my "Incredible Lightness of Being" (in my head, anyway) I've been trying to wrap my brain around the concepts presented on the new Cosmos.  The main message in the first episode seemed to be that the Universe was much bigger and older than scientists had originally thought, like lots bigger and is expanding infinitely.

I had always thought there were two hostile and totally separated schools of thought; the Christians vs. Science and if you believed in one, you couldn't believe in the other.  At the risk of sounding a little Kumbaya, why not?

If the Universe is huge, old and ever expanding there is room for science and faith.  Having a belief in both is possible!  Believing in one doesn't mean you're superior or stupid, there's plenty of room out there for everyone!

If a superior being does, in fact, exist, why wouldn't it be present in every molecule of the Universe? I'd venture to say it would be!  "God" in fact, does care about Christian Singles and every other subspecies at every level because "God is everywhere and in everything".

Wheelchair Part II - Yep, I Still Despise It! More Even!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I was near Sacramento State the other day getting some physical therapy when I spied a young lady who had what I've always thought of as a tricked out wheelchair.  She had lots of gears and electricity and "Hello Kitty" accessories.  This "Cadillac of wheelchairs" also had a tiny turning radius, lights and a groovy horn, and was turned out perfectly in cream and fushia.  The "captain" of this "vessel" also had a personal something (assistant?  nurse?  valet?) or someone handy to anticipate any other needs that might come up that required legs and feet.

So this gave me pause to evaluate my own chair, something I've avoided doing because I've only accepted it's annoying presence as a very temporary necessity in my life.  Well,  that "very temporary" is still here after three years!  Looking much worse for wear, I'm going to have to make a decision about replacing this chair fairly soon!  My preference, of course, is to walk and skip the chair altogether.  If I am forced to possess a "chair", I want the least in-your-face model available.  No bling, no power (except human), no fancy rims, in a word, temporary.

Maybe I am the Queen of Denial but if I start caring about the condition of my wheelchair people might get the misimpression that I plan on occupying that chair one moment longer than is absolutely necessary.  I do not.  Having a tricked out wheelchair just tells the world you're invested in your disability,  you see your wheelchair hauling you into the future!  I don't care how many "Hello Kitty!" do-dads are on that chair, it' still a wheelchair and the only objective of being in a wheelchair for me anyway, is getting to a position to get out of it.

Otherwise, it's a lifestyle and that's a whole other story I'm not prepared to consider.

When you invest in a motorized wheelchair with all the bells and whistles you're trying to compensate for the fact that you can't drive a miniwhatever.  So I guess I'll keep working and juggling these chainsaws until neuroplasticity kicks in.  No motor, no cupholder, ever,  Temporary.  Not comfortable. Not remotely.

As I mentioned a long time ago, when I turn my chair back in I really hope there is a box that you check off that is some acronym for beat-to-shit (BTS), because my chair will most certainly be BTS.  I despise the wheelchair I now have.  I have only come to hate this first chair recently with a hatred that grows daily! I don't want a new one!  That would definitely be like giving up.  Actually, that truly would be giving up.  And I can't give up!  I've been on this journey since 2011, I have to see how it turns out!  Who's with me?  Well, I'm going anyway, you coming?  You know it will be interesting, you know you want to...  Ah, come on!  It's an adventure!

PS - In case you missed it The-Original-Gift-That-Keeps-Giving, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, showed up this week on Jimmy Kimmel, Live", and he was all I hoped he would be!  Bizarre, surreal, humble, hilarious, he was all these things and more!