A Little Sensitive, Are We?

Had the following comment posted today in regard to the Pink Ribbon Fairy post:

“Bryan Smoak Says:   How grand. I am the artist of this work and was pretty surprised that you would put this in a negative light. Let me clarify a few things for you. I only get 25% commission on any item sold from this line. Of that commission, I donate ALL, every dime of my commission to the cause of breast cancer research. I not only donated that, but my creative talent, time and marketing as well. Since you seem to be pretty good at bashing things that are going for a good cause…I challenge you to do better. Try to make a difference in saving lives, instead of ridiculing those who are attempting to make a difference…in their own way. FYI, the image here, stolen as it is, needs to be removed as you do not have permission to host it here as I own the intellectual property rights to this image. Take it down immediately.”

Dear Bryan,

Your wish is my command.  The image has been removed.  Seems ironic to me that someone who claims such altruistic motives for advancing the cause of fighting breast cancer has no problem whatsoever bashing a breast cancer survivor—me.  I guess it’s all about the big picture and not the individual, huh?  I realize that having your work criticized is probably offensive to you, but let me assure you that this image is highly offensive to me, and many other survivors.  We’ve had breasts removed, and really the last thing we want to see is some big boobed fairy to remind us that we don’t have those (or if we do, they are reconstructed—which is not the same) any more.

I do commend you, however, for donating the proceeds.  I’m glad to hear that you are truly doing that and I apologize for my snarky comment in regard to it. 

~TheMoodyFoodie

I’ve Been Robbed

Perhaps you guys have seen the recent news story about an American family’s Christmas photo that mysteriously ended up in advertising for a grocery store in Prague.  Apparently, this lady had sent out Christmas cards with the photo of her and her husband and their two kids last year.  Recently, an old college friend of hers was bopping down the street in Prague, when he spotted the life sized image in a store window.  So he emailed her.  Turns out, she doesn’t have a clue how the picture ended up there.  (This scenario immediately made my think of the stolen video camera in European Vacation—but I digress.)

 I can guarantee that, in spite of having posted my picture on here numerous times, this would never happen to me.  Oh, I’m not saying that the Kroger of Lithuania wouldn’t cob onto my picture—you know, The Foob  may be hocking croissants in France this very minute. It’s just that if they did, I’d never know, because I certainly do not have friends fancy enough to be motoring around Europe.  Moody’s friends are lucky to get to the Indiana State Fair on vacation, let alone someplace exotic.   Deep Fried Twinkie, anyone?

 However, I recently discovered that, indeed, someone had lifted a picture off of this blog for use on another website.  A picture of me.  I first noticed this because WordPress keeps track of incoming links.  When I saw this one, I was like, “What is that?” and of course I clicked through to see for myself.  Turns out it’s one of those generic websites that purports to contain info about a topic, but is really just a collection of links to other sites.  Wanna know what this one is about?  Coloring Hair After Chemo.  Wanna know what picture they used?  Well, see for yourself.

 Um, yeah.  I’m bald in that picture—except for the maimed, purple and grime colored, rubber spiky ball I’ve got stretched over my cranium.  That’s great!  You have no idea how funny that is to me.  That somebody earnestly seeking information about coloring the hair they just spent the last 6 months growing would come across that picture just slays me.  Look at me—I even look like I could be trying to sell you something.  “Yes, ladies, with Dr Follicle’s Instant Hair Growing & Coloring System, you too can look like you’ve got a nasty purple spiky ball on your head!  [insert shiny tooth bling here] Simply apply the two-part formula, and then sit back and enjoy a glass of sweet tea.  By the time you’ve quenched your thirst, your hair will look like Molly’s dog chewed a hole in a purple, spiky ball and you pulled it over your scalp!  It’s that simple!” 

 (Also available in Canine  Breath Cancer Black, and Hot Flash Fuschia!)

I Fed Josh Bell and He Liked It—the Taste of Raspberry Pastry.

Some people went to school with somebody who later became famous.  Or they have famous ancestors like John Hancock or Jesse James.  Options like that for me have pretty much been limited to the fact that Alfalfa from the Little Rascals was my grandma’s cousin.  And according to my grandma, after he became famous, he came to visit and tore up the family bicycle riding it on the railroad tracks.  Yeah, that’s pretty much the whole story.  Wow.  Aren’t you glad you know me? You want my autograph, don’t ya?

 But, folks I’m happy to report that I no longer have to rely on good ol’ Alfalfa to fulfill my famous-person-knowing needs.  That’s because one of my old friends is officially famous now.  In fact you may have even heard of him.  His name is Josh Bell.  Uh, no.  Not the violinist.  Yeah, I know, that would be very cool, too. Especially since I’ve harbored a secret crush on Joshua Bell the violinist since the time that I met him when he played with the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra in approximately 1985.

That whole violinist thing has long plagued my friend.  Yes, much to his chagrin, they share even their middle name.  Hard to make a name for yourself when somebody else has already made a name for themselves with your name.

 However, in spite of such adversity, my Josh Bell has still managed to make a name for himself.  In the realm of poetry.  Indeed he’s a published author.  You’re impressed, aren’t you?  Is that better than Alfalfa or what?  And get this—he’s so stinkin’ fancy that he lives in New York City.  (All together now: NEEW YOORK CITY!!) And teaches at Columbia University.  You’d think that would make my Josh Bell-The-Poet too good to come home to visit, or that he’d be so busy buying black turtlenecks, and pipe tobacco and just generally being a cliché that he wouldn’t have time to hang with The Little People anymore.  (The Little People being me, not midgets, but I’m sure that he still manages to have time for both of us.  Generous as he is.)  Fortunately for me and my need to have a name to drop, however, that’s not the case.

 In fact, this past weekend I had the pleasure of spending some quality time with Not-the-violinist-Josh Bell when he came out for dinner.  And I told him, that just as my blog is number two on the google results when you search for Pete’s Pride Pork Fritters, so too, it would soon be one of the top destinations for folks searching for Josh Bell-The-Poet.  And he said, “Great!  I love pork fritters!”  (I know, it’s like every word from his poetic lips is the very nectar of the gods, huh?  Amazing.)  

So, while I’m sure this post won’t do much to promote whatever mystique Josh Bell: The Poet may be cultivating, I hope the fact that I make a killer black raspberry pie will guarantee that he doesn’t dump me to hang out with the midgets.  Or come back to break my bicycle.

Home Again

Hey there folks. Just wanted to let everyone know that the surgery went fine. If you’re looking for a witty post today—this ain’t it. My brain is still kind of idling in neutral from the anesthesia. In fact, at the beginning of this sentence I typed “mean” instead of “my brain”. Yeah. I’d say the old synapses aren’t quite firing as normal yet. But the surgery was no big deal—as a matter of fact, it was so boring that I slept through it. I have a little pain now and then, but nothing bad at all. And I haven’t even taken any pain meds. Nonetheless, I am still prohibited from operating heavy machinery for the rest of the evening. I’m pretty sure that includes the washing machine.

Anywho, thanks for all the prayers and well-wishes. It’s nice to know that you all care. I mean, after going through six surgeries with me, I figured you might be like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah…another surgery…I am SO over your medical drama already. Why don’t you write something funny?”

Cultural Mecca

I live out in the sticks, but my mailing address is attached to a little town a couple of miles away.  This past weekend was the annual Apple Festival, an event which boasts that it’s been going strong since 1970.  Of course, the apple orchards had been bulldozed to make way for bean fields prior to that, but we don’t pay any attention to such trivial matters.  Besides, who’s going to come to a soybean festival? (Other than, maybe, the same folks who would patronize an exhibit all about corn.)  I’m sure that over the years there have been many folks who’ve arrived here expecting some quaint little town, just brimming with orchards, and cider, and apples, only to be met with flea markets and one measly apple selling booth. 

 

 

 But, this year, the town has almost made up for the lack of apples with its latest cultural addition to the festival.  Yes, indeed, an event so classy and artsy that a new attendance record was set on Saturday.  I’m referring to that that modern Roman circus known as lawn mower demolition derby.  Such an impressive event, that I heard it drew a film crew from CMT—Country Music Television. 

 

 Why, God?  Why? 

 

 Why does it have to be my town?  You know, this is already the place with the apple-less apple festival—like that’s not embarrassing enough.  Now, it’s drawing record attendance for lawn mower demo derby, a “sport” which seems to me to be just one big set-up for an episode of Rescue 911.  And as if it’s not bad enough for this to be local knowledge, now it’s going to be featured on CMT.  From now on, when I tell people where we live, they’ll no longer say “Oh, the home of the apple festival.”  Instead they’ll say, “Isn’t that where they have that hilljack lawn mower demolition derby?”

 

 But, hey, I guess it could be worse.  It could be the lawn mower-less lawn mower demolition derby.  Who am I kidding?  It’s probably just a matter of time.

Pork Fritter Popularity

It’s always interesting, and sometimes downright disturbing, to me to see the search engine terms folks have used to find this blog.  As I’ve mentioned before, more people have come here after searching for pork fritters than anything else.  In fact, the top three search phrases leading readers here are Pete’s Pride pork fritters (29 hits), pork fritters (14 hits), and pork fritter (9 hits).  There have been a total of 65 hits resulting from pork fritter searchers.  I mentioned this to Hubster the other day, so he googled Pete’s Pride pork fritters.  This blog was the second listing to come up—beaten out only by Sam’s Club, which is probably paying to be number one. 

 I laughed pretty hard when I heard that. How on earth did I get so high on the list?  Is it perhaps because of posts like this where I mention pork fritters, like, seven times in the first paragraph?  Because, hey, I’m all attention starved, you know, and once I find out pork fritters are a portal to internet popularity, well, there’s just no telling how many times I’ll talk about Pete’s Pride pork fritters. 

 Interestingly, almost no one gets here by searching for breast cancer.  Seriously. Like three people have found me that way.  Do I just not talk about it enough to rank high on google?  Or is it just that there’s way more info out there about breast cancer than there is about pork fritters?  Or maybe it’s both.

 Still, sometimes people do find me by searching for things like “breast cancer bald school”.  Shoot!  I didn’t know there was a school for learning to be bald and cancery!  Why didn’t I think of that?  I can just picture those late-night commercials with Sally Struthers saying, “At In The Pink Breast Cancer Bald School, you can get your degree in TV/VCR repair, chemotherapy, basket weaving, radiation burns, ditto machine operations, or breast cancer baldness.” 

 And other times, I get hits from searches like “high waist open bottom girdle”.  Now, I’m not really sure why that brought up my blog, but even more confusing to me is that the person felt like they needed to specify that the girdle be open at the bottom.  Presumably, a girdle would at the very least be open at the leg holes.  Unless you’re needing a girdle for your weeble, which might even be more of a specialty item than the “aunt girdle swimsuit” that someone else was apparently looking for. 

 Not sure how I feel about people googling girdles and having my blog come up as a possible place to find them.  There are no girdles here.  Only pork fritters.  Lots and lots of pork fritters.

She Gave Me Woht-tah

As you all know, on August 14^th I had surgery to place the tissue expander under my pectoral muscles.  I’ve been asked by some folks what the expander is like.  They want to know if it’s like an implant.  The answer is no.  It is not like an implant.  It is like a man’s wallet.  Seriously.  It has approximately the same size and rigidity as a wallet.  An angry, painful wallet. 

The angry boob wallet will gradually be filled with saline in order to stretch out a place for an implant to go.  No, this is not the same procedure that is used for the standard breast augmentation.  In that case, the implant is stuffed under the breast tissue, but on top of the muscle.  Remember, I have no breast tissue on that side.  The remaining skin does not have an adequate blood supply unless it’s attached to the muscle.  So, the implant needs to go underneath. 

Dr Grasee added some saline when she placed the expander, and because of that, and well, the fact that there’s a wallet in there, I had a little mini-boob immediately.  It’s kind of cool, except that now I really can’t wear The Foob.  This wasn’t a big deal when I came home from the hospital, because when I went out, I simply tucked my drain up in my bra to fill out that side.

That’s how it was when I went a couple of weeks ago for my post-op appointment.  It didn’t even occur to me until Hubster mentioned it that once the drain was out, I’d be pretty flat on that side.  “Did you bring anything to put in there?” he asked.  Oops.  Hmmm…What can I make a mini foob out of?

Fortunately, we had a few minutes before my appointment, and there was a Meijer nearby.  Gettin’ my Macgyver on, I said, “Let’s swing through Meijer, and get some cotton balls and one of those shoe try-on footies.”  The result looks less like our friend The Foob, and more like a prosthetic Quasimodo.  But, it serves its purpose nonetheless.

Yesterday I went back to Dr Grasee’s office for my first fill.  I had read that she would use a magnet to locate the port on my expander, but my attempts to find it using refrigerator magnets had failed.  (Yes, I did try to stick refrigerator magnets to my chest.  This was Angie’s idea, and would have been stinkin’ hilarious had it worked.)  So, I asked Dr G how she would locate the port, and she confirmed that she’d be using a magnet.  I then proceeded to tell her how I’d tried to find it with a refrigerator magnet—I like to establish my reputation early, and reinforce it often.  She chuckled and asked me why I wanted to find it.  No reason, I told her, I just wanted to see if I could get a magnet to stick.

Dr G put 80cc of saline into the expander, which is roughly a 1/3 of a cup.  Hubster got to literally watch the new boob grow before his very eyes.  It has been a little sore, but it’s really nothing compared to the pain I had from surgery.  It is not, however, comparable to the muscle pain one might have from a hard workout, which is what Dr G and Tricia the nurse said it would be like.  It’s more comparable to how I felt after some really bad bike wrecks as a kid, where parts of me were bruised and scraped and hurt to move. 

 ***

Now that you’re all up-to-date, I’d like to announce a new contest.  Or, maybe not a contest so much as an opportunity for some audience participation.  As we ALL know, October is breast cancer awareness month.  If you’ve read me for a while, you know that in the past I’ve poked fun at all of the pink ribbon hype that October brings.  So, I thought it might be amusing to see what kind of ridiculous pink ribbon infested products everyone can find.  I’d love to be able to post one each day in October.  Witty commentary is encouraged.  Email your photos to me at themoodyfoodie@gmail.com

No Clever Title–No Witty Post

Just a post to let you know I’m out of surgery.  I have been for a while, but so far I’ve been too sick to blog.  It’s pretty bad when you puke your anti-nausea meds.  Repeatedly.  It makes me sick to read, and to type.  In fact I just stopped in between sentences to throw up again.  But, I’m so stinkin’ bored, that I’m writing this anyway.  Vomiting just isn’t very entertaining for me. 

Anywho, thanks for all the prayers and encouragement.  Keep them coming.

Bathing Suits

Last Thursday I went up to see Dr Grasee for my pre-op appointment.  It was really pretty uneventful, and there were no changes in the plan so we’re still on for Thursday, August 14^th for the expander placement surgery.  August 14^th also happens to be my one year chemoversary, so it’s like I’m celebrating my chemoversary by getting a new boob—or at least the start of one.  And, when I told Susie the date, she said, “That’s Norm’s birthday—-you’re getting a boob for Norm’s birthday! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

I cannot wait.  Being a uniboober is just such a pain sometimes, most especially during swimsuit season.  I thought the mastectomy camisoles & bras were dowdy, but hey, at least they’re under other clothes.  Not so with the ginormous, blue flower print, high necked, baggy, garments that scream, “Hi, my name’s Opal and my favorite pastimes are shuffleboard, canasta, and wearing clip-on sunglasses.” 

I hadn’t even been to the pool until last week, and since I’d hadn’t invested in one of those beauties, I had to resort to pinning The Foob into my tankini top.  Rest assured, he was not happy.  Especially when he found out that not only were we NOT going to the Riviera, but that he would be pinned into a regular swim suit.  “Zee Foob must have zee special suit for zee swimming,” he said in his snotty, fake French accent.  “Well then,” I replied, “The Foob needs to get himzelf a J-O-B, because those things are nearly as expensive as they are ugly.”  And so, I didn’t get a special foob-approved suit, planning to just make due.  After all, summer is winding down, and next year I won’t be lopsided.

Then we decided to try to squeeze in a trip to Holiday World before my surgery.  I love Holiday World, and my favorite part is the water park.  It has really big water slides, and in my mind’s eye I could envision a day of shooting down the various tubes and funnels before landing with a high speed splash in the pool at the bottom.  Unfortunately, I could also envision going to lost and found to see if anyone had turned in a foob because mine shot off somewhere between the top and bottom of the Zinga.

So, I decided maybe I needed to break down and get a real mastectomy suit.  All I really need is a top, but of course Opal doesn’t like those new-fangled tankinis, so most of the options are one piece.  I know some of you probably think I’m exaggerating when I say these things are ugly, so I thought we’d have a little fashion show. 

First, we have the classic skirted bottom suit.  The neck comes up to your chin, and it comes in blue, blue or blue, coordinating nicely with the target audience’s hair.  This lovely suit can be yours for ONLY $80.  Shuffleboard anyone?

Next, we have a suit that I’m pretty sure was constructed from recycled clogger clothes.  It comes with foob pockets, but has enough ruffles that you could go completely foobless, or take your Chihuahua to the water park, and no one would even notice.  Suggested retail price is $95, but the everyday low price at buttuglybooblessbathingsuits.com is ONLY $80. How DO they keep their prices so low?

Lastly, we have a sassy one-piece-masquerading-as-a-two-piece.  Note the high waisted, girdle-like bottom, and the top with its hot tucked-in look that all the kids are wearing these days.  The description says that this model even affords you the pleasure of wearing your own bra.  I don’t know how many times I’ve been swimming and thought, “Gee, I wish I were wearing my bra under my swimsuit!”  It comes in “moonlight garden sapphire and black” print, for ONLY $80. 

Do you know how many iced caramellas I could get for $80?  A whole stinkin’ lot, that’s how many.  Good grief!  I won’t pay $80 for a suit I LIKE, let alone one of those things.  The good news is that Lands’ End does offer a decent selection of mastectomy suits that don’t make a person look like a polka-dot, ruffle infested, girdle-wearin’ freak.  They also sell mix and match pieces, which is nice since I really only need the top.  They’re not as expensive as those other ones, but I could still buy an awful lot of coffee for the price.

Return of The Foob

As you may recall, The Foob had been missing.  There was even speculation that perhaps he’d run away to join Cirque du Soleil, being a wannabe Frenchman and all.  I’m sure some of you probably suspected that rather than running away, The Foob had simply been misplaced by his Tamoxifen-brained owner.  But I assure you that’s not the case.  The fact of the matter is that he was hiding.  Pouting because he wasn’t getting enough of the spotlight. 

However, even The Foob can only hold out for so long.  And when I said to Mini Me the other day, “I wish I knew where The Foob was so we could take him mushroom hunting” as I was opening one of my underwear drawers, I was greeted with “Bonjour!  Were you looking for me?” 

(Well, well.  Aren’t we unusually congenial?  Amazing what the right motivation will do.)

And so, we took him on his first mushroom hunt.  Of course, since it was his first time and all, we had to point him in the general direction.  Mini Me said, “Okay Foob, I see one over there.”  “I do not see zee truffle,” The Foob replied.  “It’s not a truffle, it’s a morel.  Keep looking,” said Mini Me, “It’s over close to the fence.  Do you see it?”  After a few seconds of intense scrutiny of the leaf-littered ground, The Foob shouted, “Sacrebleu! I see zee mushzroom!”

As you can see, he was licking his chops in anticipation of the evening’s meal.