Nazis & Cancer, It Must Be Christmas!

Season's Greetings, Fellow Travelers!

Last week, my PS referred to my post--surgical haircut as the "Lesbian Seagull Look" whereas I found the crude head shaving on one side to be far more reminiscent of a certain 70's mini-series, whose extras came directly off the boxcars and were marched directly to the "showers".  very quickly.

Those extras didn't have names or backstories because they didn't have lines, they were killed and disposed of that fast!

That's how I saw my haircut.  As some 70's TV mini-series producer's idea of what a WWII-era death camp victim would look like.

And not the stars either.  No Meryl Streep or Tovah Feldshuh!  No, sirree!  An extra. A lowly extra whose only purpose was to serve as a background of misery for the "principals".  No speaking parts.  Just guards yelling, "Macht schnell!" a lot.  No names.  No discerning characteristics.  Just doomed.   With really bad haircuts!  Really, really bad!  We're talking butchered bad.

It always gets back to those pesky Nazis!  A wise woman recently reminded me that hair, particularly mine, does in fact, grow.  Does it?  When it's chopped so short. and so uneven maybe it just sort of gives up!

70's Made-for-television Mini-series .
                                        My shorn head might have been an extra in another series,  AMC's, "The Walking Dead" - I could have been a zombie extra.  Even better!

Now?  A week has gone since my hair was assaulted and it no longer resembles either a seagull or a 70's TV producer's idea of what an Auschwitz victim looked like:  I just look like someone who had a really bad haircut.  So that must mean it's growing!  Right?  It's a "good news" sort of thing.   I mean who hasn't had a bad haircut?  Am I right? 70's mini-series TV drama death camp bad?  That's just a click or two up from "Bride of Frankenstein" (Elsa Lanchester (old school) or Nikki Minaj (new school) you choose), anyway, it's universally recognized as the worst haircut ever given!  (Who can forget those bolts?)

The great thing about having perspective?  It doesn't matter!  I'm alive! Who cares about hair?  Or Nazis, for that matter?  Life is the only thing that counts!  And the people in yours!  And the pets!  Can't forget our four-legged comrades!

I feel great!  Every day is sugarplums and cookies!  Life is a Julie Andrews musical.  "The Sound of Music"?  Maybe, it  does scream "winter", but there are those Nazis again...

Cookies and the Donner Party? It's a Festivus Miracle!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Yup, it's that time of year!   Cookie Time!  (Of course, any time is a perfect time for round snacks  but I've been waiting all year for these to become available and by some magic (some of my in-laws,  Thank You, M & M!), I received a magical two pounds!  It will  probably add more than that to my daily weigh ins but you know what I always say, "Is it cancer?  No?  Then who cares?"
                                       
So I was freezing (OK, Slightly Chilled, but it feels frozen) and jealously guarding my tin of ginger happiness and I came across some travelers who were really hungry and cold.  The Donner Party.  On The Weather Channel!  Who knew?

Living in Northern California, (and being a history fan), I knew a good deal about the Donner Party.  It wasn't "a party", and they were "old school" travelers, in a covered wagon who were outmatched by the weather, they never had a chance! Everything that could go wrong, went really wrong.  In pretty short order they were eating their shoes and living (and dying) in frigid conditions.

Usually documentaries about the horrendous journey focus on the more salacious aspects of that ill-fated group (the cannibalism, the fate of Tamsen Donner).  What appealed to this survivor about their tale of misery, was that many of them made it through the snow and brought back help.

Several "Party"  survivors went on to lead happy, prosperous, lives.

I've been to the Donner Memorial (Statue, Gift Shop), and once I finished reading "Ordeal by Hunger", I had a newfound respect for the Donners and what they went through.

Like The Donner Party, I too will persevere!  I'll keep training and working until I make it through to neuroplasticity.

The Donners didn't let little things like starvation and blizzards stop them.  No siree.   Comparatively, I have it relatively easy!  I really have nothing to complain about.

But I won't  let that stop me!

When I feel peckish, I'll refrain from "nibbling on a neighbor", I'll eat a cookie!