Enough gloom, enough doom. It’s time to focus on something positive around here.

Like being asked to participate in what is going to be the HOTTEST THING AROUND for the next two weeks. It seems that in blogging, as in business, it is all about who you know.

You never know which of your fellow bloggers is plotting World Domination, so it pays to be nice to EVERYONE. And then one day you might get an email from a beautiful, equally coffee-addicted blogger  asking if you would like to participate in a little pre-BlogHer interview. Then she asks two bloggers who are contributors to the BlogHer network, and they ask one of the co-founders of BlogHer if it’s okay to base our button on the BlogHer logo, and not only does she say yes but she asks if it’s okay to mention it on the BlogHer site? Um, YES!!

And I might have just set a record for the most mentions of BlogHer in a single sentence.

See that button up there on the top of my sidebar? Each day starting Monday, that button will link to another of the Original Eight women participating, including the blogger who is interviewing me, and the woman many of you already know who I will be featuring here.

We will each answer five or so questions, and then tag other bloggers to answer the questions, who will then tag bloggers they know, and so on and so on. You don’t have to be going to BlogHer to participate. The button will soon be available to grab here.

Although she might not have been referring to me directly, the blogger I linked to mentioned me in the same sentence with the words “hilarious” and “talented”. I know I have been FAR from hilarious lately, and I’m still working on the talented, but I am honored, flattered and excited to be asked to participate. Let’s get to know each other better, people. Let’s share our thoughts, opinions and blogs with each other. Let’s stretch our community out to include new friends. Let’s show the world who we are.

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After my last post announcing that my husband’s Grandma had died, I got this comment from Dawn:

“I declare that this is enough for your family. No more universe. do you hear me? No more for this family”

In a follow-up email, she even threatened to bring down the wrath of Vlad the Impaler should the universe decide to fuck with my family again anytime soon.

Apparently the universe is not at all scared of Vlad, and in fact would like to invite Vlad to kiss it’s hairy, universal ass.

In the hospital, my Dad had an endoscopy to look for the source of the blood in his stool. During the procedure the doctor saw a polyp on the lining of his esophagus, which he took a scraping from and sent to the lab for a biopsy, which is standard.

Did you catch the keyword biopsy? 

That’s right, the polyp is malignant cancer. In my Dad’s esophagus. He sat here today, his voice catching and his eyes swimming as he told me about upcoming meetings with Oncologists and Radiologists, and how there is an award-winning cancer treatment center near Detroit, and then he segued directly into how he wants to be cremated and buried next to my Mother but doesn’t want a funeral because it doesn’t interest him anymore.

And the whole time I’m wondering to myself, “why am I so calm? Why am I not crying?”

Then I went into the kitchen to make the baby a bottle and took an internal inventory. I feel…numb. Blank. Like there is something I am supposed to be feeling here but it hasn’t hit me yet. No one should have to have this much…what? Misfortune? Bad Luck? Misery?

When Vlad catches up to the Universe, I hope he makes it suffer.

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This morning I have a vague memory of cracking open an eyelid and telling my husband that I wanted to go walk around the mall tonight. This is a long-standing ritual that goes back to when we were first living together and had no money for entertainment, so we would go to one of two area malls and just window-shop, with a stop at the Food Court for a terrible but cheap dinner. We have continued the tradition with the boys, although we almost always end up buying new books at Barnes & Noble because it’s so HARD to say NO to a kid who is standing in front of you clutching a book. NO, NO reading for you!

Anyway, after Chris got home and changed his clothes we began the long list of pre-outing tasks that must be completed: let the dog out to pee, get the boys cleaned up and into shoes, change the baby’s diaper, fix her a bottle to drink in the car and another bottle for later, pack the big diaper bag with diapers/wipes/change of clothes/bib/spoon/ food/changing table pad/Aquaphor/cloth diaper in case of spit-up/small diaper disposal bags/extra toys. Get the boys in the car, decide to change from big purse to small purse, transfer phone/keys/wallet/lipgloss, decide to put hair back in clip, decide to pee before we leave, run back in to grab camera, finally everyone is in the car, let’s GO.

We get to the mall, park, get out of the car and Chris says, “where’s the diaper bag?”

Fuuuuck. Okay, I will take the boys and Kaitlyn into the mall and get them some food, Chris will drive back home (it’s five minutes away) and grab the bag. We order our food and start eating when up walks Chris swinging the SMALL diaper bag. He looks pissed.

“Yeah, it’s great to drive all the way home just to get the EMPTY diaper bag”. He is pissed.

Me:”It’s my fault, I set it down to change purses and forgot to grab it”. Him:”I’m the one who looked right at it but grabbed the small one instead”. Me:”Didn’t you notice the small one felt kind of light?” Him: “Do you see me shooting invisible glaring death-rays at you for asking me such a dumb question?” ( He didn’t really say that, but there were glaring death-rays).

So, this time he sits down with Kaitlyn and the boys and I drive home to get the big diaper bag. Which is sitting right where I left it.

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You may already know that Canadian bloggers are some of the coolest, funniest writers in the Blogosphere. If you’re not already reading those four blogs, you really should be.

I’d also like to recommend a new blog, Bread Crumbs in the Butter. Her three most recent posts have me completely hooked. I could have written the one titled “How to clean for a visit from an old friend”. And you definitely should read the third post, about how she stopped a flirt from stealing her fiance while she was pregnant with their child.

I was going to title this post “O Canada! Your bloggers are so great”, but I didn’t want to come off like I was disrespecting the Canadian National Anthem.

Oh, and thanks to Mama Tulip, I am pulling my cropped maternity sweatpants out of the Goodwill pile and wearing them again, because they are comfortable.

                                                                                                                                       

Edited to add:

Ladies, you have been holding out on me. I just went to Mommy off the Record, and I started reading her posts and the comments, and I realized that practically every one of my regular readers also reads her! How the heck have I been missing her? She’s on my blogroll now, AND she’s coming to BlogHer but only to the cocktail party on Saturday. So Dawn, Nancy, Jennster-make sure you introduce me to her at the cocktail party? mmkay?

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Today was an okay day for me. My Dad had all of the tests he needed at the hospital, and is feeling pretty well except for being bummed out about still needing blood transfusions. His nurse said he was very anemic (but his hemoglobin was NOT two as I originally reported but rather 7.2. It has gone up to 9.5).

On the way home from the hospital, I decided to be spontaneous for a change and go do something completely indulgent just for myself. So I went and got a manicure and a pedicure. I know, watch out, I’m pretty wild.

I can’t remember my last manicure, my last pedicure was at least four years ago (sorry, Dawn, I’ll do better, I promise). I am not familiar with pedicure procedure, and was therefore somewhat taken aback by the non-verbal signals of my non-English-speaking pedicurist. I didn’t realize that instead of asking me to lift my foot out of the heavenly warm bubbly water, that she would tap twice on my leg. The first time she did it, I took so long trying to figure out why she was tapping my leg that she did it again. I’m sure after I left they laughed at the pedicure virgin who didn’t even know what the tapping was for.

I’m pretty happy with the results. Photos are on my Flickr page . But let me warn you, no matter how I held my hand out, it looked freakishly wrinkled. I am OLD, dammit. The color on my nails is “Up the Amazon without a paddle”, and my toes are “Don’t Socra-tease me”. So witty, O.P.I.

Speaking of Flickr, I would love to have more Flickr contacts. If you have photos posted there and wouldn’t mind me looking at them (I leave comments, too!), you can go to my Flickr page, put the mouse pointer over my buddy icon, and then click the little blue down arrow and select add as contact. Come on, let’s Flickr together!

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