May 4: Kinda gamma-y

I’m like Spiderman. Or Godzilla. They were radioactive, right? Now I am too!

I even got a certificate that says so in case I have to go through security at the airport today. It’s only good for a day, though, and it clearly states that the amount of radiation in me poses no danger to the public, so really, what good does it do me at all? Pffft.

This is all because I had my CT/PET scan today to see what our next move will be in my cancer treatment. I’ve had several CT scans, but today was my first PET scan. Although the procedure was similar to a CT, the information a PET gives us is very different (here’s an idiot’s guide to a PET scan, if you’re interested)—I’m eager to see the pictures.

One of the strangest things about the procedure today was all the nuclear symbols around the machines. There were a lot more than what you see in x-ray or CT areas. Disposal containers were thick, lead, and kept sealed tightly. The syringe that held the radioactive tracer thingie they injected into me was encased in lead. Even the cotton balls were, um, well, okay, they were just regular cotton balls. But everything else was veeery nuclear power plant.

What I hated most about the PET scan was having to follow a high protein/low carb diet for 24 hours beforehand. It was not fun. I’ve eaten like that for weeks at a time, actually, but wasn’t prepared for it this time and hadn’t stocked up on bacon in a while. It made me grouchy, all that not eating bacon. But even worse was not getting coffee this morning. As soon as my scan was finished this morning, Victor and I went out for a lovely breakfast in which we drank coffee and drank coffee and ate potatoes and drank more coffee.

The weird thing is that the 24 hours leading up to becoming radioactive were way more inconvenient than all the hours since then.

Results of the PET scan will be shared as soon as we can get our hands on ‘em.

Jan. 22: “Forks” is somethin’ different to me

You’ve met my friend Random Sunshine™, right? She’s adorable and funny and if I didn’t love her I’d have to hate her, because the girl’s got it ALL. Ever since we met last spring, we’ve said to each other, “No way! You do that too?!” lots of times—LOTS of times. She loves Zac Efron just like I do (shut up, Sheila). We text back and forth during TV comedies. We quote Liz Lemon (our hero) to each other. We laugh a LOT. Being friends with Sunshine makes me feel like I’m not all alone in my weirdness, and possibly that I’m maybe not all that weird after all.

We’re a lot alike, Sunshine and me, but we’re not identical. For instance—and this is a big’n, folks—Sunshine is a Twilight fan or Twilighter or Twi–head or Twerd or Fan-pire or whatever they’re called. And I am sooo not one of those. (If you’ve been paying attention, you know that I have an extraordinary fear of vampires and vampire accessories.) When I discovered that Sunshine is a fellow blogger, I was thrilled… until the first time I read one of her posts, which was the first of what ended up being three friggin’ entries about how she went Twilight-scouting. (I know you’re totally clicking through to read it, Jen E… I’ll wait.)

Several scenes of the Twilight movies were filmed within a couple miles of where we live, though most were in the farther reaches of the Portland area and beyond, even up into British Columbia. This makes Twilight-Scouting a super-popular activity for those wacky Twilight fans who think the many locations around here that were at one time meant to be Forks, Washington are the most romantic places this side of Full-of-Freaks-Crazytown, USA.

And I am friends with one of these freaks. Gah.

Alright, well, in spite of her fixation with all things vampire, Sunshine and I continue to hang out. And I read her blog faithfully because she sometimes posts non-Twilight things. There might even be nut-job stuff about me that she suffers through too. Probably every time she says goodbye, she thinks “How am I supposed to put up with this girl’s obsession with perfect hair skin teeth posture punctuation?”

After our PTO board meeting this morning, Sunshine and I went out for coffee. That was our intention, anyway. By the time we’d run a couple errands, we decided we were not just in need of coffee, but food too. We threw a bunch of restaurant ideas around, and finally settled on Carver Café. I’d never been there before but Sunshine promised it was yummy. I like yummy.

Carver Café is not very far from where we live—within a couple miles, in fact. Can you guess where I’m going with this story?

Just as we walked in the door to the restaurant, Sunshine said, “Maybe we can even sit at the Twilight table!” and all of a sudden it hit me where I’d heard of Carver Café: it played a starring role in Part Deux of her Twilight-Scouting blog featurette. I was all NO WAY I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU BROUGHT ME HERE WTF?

But don’t worry. I totally forgave her and we’re still friends.

We ordered really unhealthy food and it was delicious and I’m definitely going back when I’m hungrier so I can eat more just like it. Because look at this:

That is the sausage-iest country gravy EVER. Sooo good.

And here’s Sunshine’s order. That bacon is thick and meaty and, like, right off the pig! (Pssst… I like when breakfast is so gravy-laden that it spills over the edge of the plate. It’s good luck, right?)

We didn’t sit at the Twilight table. In fact, Carver Café didn’t even seem like a very Twilight-y place (I don’t know what a Twilight-y place would be, exactly, but my guess is it would involve lots of teen girls taking turns sitting IN THE CHAIR EDWARD ACTUALLY SAT IN OMG! and asking the waitresses to take their pictures.) There were Twilight Barbies on display and I asked Sunshine if she needed a moment alone with the Edward Barbie—she didn’t. Big, grown-up girl… I’m so proud of her… <sniff!>

The most Twilight-y thing I did in the Carver Café was use a FORK to eat my delicious meal. (Ha! A FORK. Get it? I’m hilare.)

Sep. 29: Bacon makes it better?

I haven’t done a Plinky prompt in a while. I thought about it last week, when one day’s prompt asked what kind of technology I could live without for a month, but then I couldn’t come up with a good answer because I don’t think anyone really calls my toaster “technology.” And now that I really think about it, I’d rather not live without my toaster for a month. Unlike my friends Cassie and Dina, I don’t LOVE LOVE LOVE toast like OH MY GOD it’s the most amazing thing EVER, but I do kinda like it when I need to eat and nothing else sounds appetizing. So, never mind.

Today’s Plinky prompt is totally easy:

True or false: bacon makes it better.

Discuss.

Duh! True.

TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE.

And is there really any discussion necessary here? I mean, we all know that bacon is one of very few things that proves God exists AND that She wants us to eat pigs or why else would She have made them so delicious?

Maybe the next Plinky prompt could be something about how bloggers can alienate their vegetarian and Christian friends. Because, um, I totally know.

Aug. 9: Catching up

It doesn’t take long to get out of the habit of blogging regularly. I didn’t post anything yesterday or all day today and I’m sitting here, thinking I should post something but I have nothing specific I feel like writing about and that means—lucky you—it’s time for a bulleted list.

• For the past couple days I’ve been collecting music for our 2009 Christmas compilation CD. Please offer suggestions if there’s something you’d like for us to put on it this year. Last year I was thrilled to find that Partridge Family song, and the Bobby Sherman one was a silly little bonus. So far I’ve only got one fun surprise and I need more. Know this: I will not put on anything by Mariah Carey or Jessica Simpson or Celine Dion even though they all have Christmas albums, because I hate them. I make no promises when it comes to Neil Diamond and The Jackson 5.
• Yesterday morning I met my friend Sheila for breakfast. She’s on a little vacation on her own in Portland and I felt very privileged to be a line on her itinerary. We had a wonderful visit that would’ve been only slight less better had it not included bacon. And I did not rub the VD wart-like things on my arm on her, no matter what she tells you.
• Call me a good deed do-er; I saved a dog. I saw him jump out of the canopy window of a parked pickup as I was walking into the restaurant, and he started running all over the parking lot and then headed out to a very busy road. I grabbed his collar and another customer went into the restaurant and found the owner. The guy was surprised to see his dog at the restaurant door, and very appreciative that I caught him. (Sheila was no help at all. If I *did* have VD warts I totally would’ve rubbed them on her).
• I do not have VD warts. Well, I don’t think that’s what they are. I’m pretty sure they’re just bug bites, but they look grosser than regular ol’ mosquito bites. It doesn’t help that I can’t stop scratching at them. I look like a skanky meth addict whose teeth have not yet fallen out.
• We spent a good portion of yesterday at Loveliest Lori’s house in Salem. She has family visiting from out of town, and besides the celebrating of Theo’s eighth birthday, there’s a huge new home for everyone to see. Katie’s and Jack’s favorite part: the pool. My favorite part: Lori. My favorite very close second: Lori’s new Margaritaville machine. Mmmmm.
• We were back at the Lassen Compound again this afternoon for Theo’s birthday party and more Margaritaville treats. Once again, Katie and Jack spent most of the time in the pool. It looked inviting and I might have gotten in if the cannonballing contest had ended. (Mystery: most people scream “CANNONBALL!” when they cannonball into a pool, right? Jack screams something that sounds like “TERR-RANNEN-BOW!” Is that some silly Spongebob phrase of which I am not aware, or is it just another brain development thing we can blame on me only breastfeeding him for three months?)
• There’s huge, huge news coming out of Colorado that I can hopefully blab about later this week. It’s killing me not to say anything, but I was sworn to secrecy. Here’s a hint: it has to do with my neph. The one in the band. I KNOW!
• Pandora is the coolest. I’ve used it on my laptop a bunch, but just installed the iPhone app the other day, and we listened to it on our drives to and from Salem this weekend. So fun.

I’m working a whole bunch this week. Please don’t expect much here.

Apr. 10: Bacon!

Did you see that bit on The Daily Show when Jon Stewart ate Baconnaise? I’m too lazy to dig around for the clip, but this article describes what happened in amusing fashion. It also talks about the bacon craze that seems to be sweeping novelty shops across the country.

I was the lucky recipient of some bacon-themed items on my birthday last year; April gave me bacon and eggs bandages, bacon mints, and a bacon air freshener for the car. There’s not much I don’t love about bacon, but I’ll be honest: the bacon air freshener manufacturers didn’t try hard enough. It stinks. It also does not taste like bacon (oh yeah, like you wouldn’t have tried it). The bacon air freshener is best kept in its wrapper and simply laughed at because if the sun hits it, your car will smell less like delicious bacon and more like the hole right below a pig’s adorable curly tail.

Sep. 5: Raison d’être

Yikes! The Savage Chickens are in my head!

May 9: Mmmmm... bacon...

From XKCD, a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

Feb. 22: This is 200 calories

Here's a site with pictures of 200 calories' worth of individual foods. Of course, there's a lot of celery, apples, etc. Peanut butter? Not so much. It looks like about a spoonful of peanut butter comes to 200 calories. That makes me cry a little.

Some questions:

• "Blackberry pie," about 2/3 of the way down the page, is obviously a Hostess fruit pie. Do Hostess fruit pies really qualify as pie? Aren't they just sugar cookies stuffed with fruit-flavored goo? I mean, if we're going to call Hostess pies "pie," then we can call Velveeta "cheese," right?
  
• The Bailey's Irish Cream. That isn't enough to get my buzz on! How can I be expected to stick to my diet if I'm not drunk?
  
• Yeah, like I'm gonna snack on two red onions. (I know that's not a question. I don't care.)
  
• Mmmmmm... fried bacon... it's actually not such a sad amount. I'm OK with it. (That is also not a question.)
  
• The pic of butter, another one of my favorite foods (I put it in my coffee), looks funny, doesn't it? That's, like, one of those whole-pound cubes and someone resized the image, thereby distorting it. I'm pretty sure.

This site is soooo not what I'll be referring to as I make our weekend meals plan.

I'll leave you with a quote from one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons, in which Homer intentionally gains weight so he can go on disability:

Dr. Nick: "Hi, everybody!"
Homer and Bart: "Hi, Dr. Nick!"
Dr. Nick: "Now, there are many options available for dangerously underweighted individuals like yourself. I recommend a slow steady gorging process combined with assal horizontology."
Homer: "Of course."
Dr. Nick: "You'll want to focus on the neglected food groups such as the whipped group, the congealed group and the chocotastic!"
Homer: "What can I do to speed the whole thing up, Doctor?"
Dr. Nick: "Well... be creative. Instead of making sandwiches with bread, use Pop-tarts. Instead of chewing gum, chew bacon ..."
Bart: "You could brush your teeth with milkshakes!"
Dr. Nick: "Hey, did you go to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College too? And remember, if you're not sure about something, rub it against a piece of paper. If the paper turns clear, it's your window to weight gain! Bye-bye, everybody!"

Jan. 1: Your vote = bacon

I subscribe to Jim Gaffigan's MySpace blog because I love him and bacon. He promised that for every vote he gets for this Comedy Central thing he'll eat a piece of bacon. I don't believe him, but the thought made me feel hungry and generous. Also, I'm a big comedy nerd. So click this thing:

I did not like The Brothers Solomon (no, this is in no way related to the above topic). It was not a funny movie. It was stupid and I want those 91 minutes of my life back.

What a positive, uplifting start to 2008, huh?