B-9.....BINGO!

It's Friday, boys and girls, and if I'm writing this it's good news!  It means, boys and girls, that I've made it through another long week in civilized society without being arrested for having, no, absolutely being required to, punch someone in the throat because of their stupidity.

Also exciting?  Getting word that we do NOT have breast cancer.  Woot!  Knew it all along, I was just waiting for the doctors to concur with my instinct for these things. 

Not very exciting?  Having to have your ta ta biopsied because you had an irregular mammo.  Boooo!  Muy mal.  And may I interject here that if you are frightened of needles, you will definitely shit your pants after this little procedure.  What a winner episode this was.   No one will tell you what to expect with a stereotactic until you are actually in the radiology room ready to have your "biopsy" performed.  Only then when they have you at their mercy do they become the gods of transparency with all the information your little heart desires!   All this is great if you are the sort of person who does well with not knowing what to expect before you get there - the "what you don't know won't kill ya" type of person....Not so great if you are a control freak, please talk me off the edge because I need to know everything out there about this upcoming procedure or I'll freak out right here right now type person. 

So! Being the mega-helpful soul that I am, I'm going to give you all the inside skinny, the 4-1-1, the dirty low down on this whole matter - because I just love you like that.  It's like.....it's like...well, an 8th grade spin the bottle fest only you are the only girl in the group whose breast is getting felt up by like 20 pre-pubescent, acne-riddled boys who wouldn't know what gentle petting was like if their life depended on it.

Ok. Not necessarily accurate.  Let's try: you have to lay, face down, with your lil lady part dangling through this opening on the table.  Then they compress your dangling mammary with a machine that is vaguely similar to the mammo machine that got you there in the first place.  With this one, however, they take a bazillion images of your compressed boobala to help plot the coordinates to where the offending area is so that when they go in with the needle and excavator thingy, they are hitting the right area.  Translation?  Squeezing the you know what out of your bubula, x-raying it a bazillion times, checking those images each time, and then repeating the process because they needed to be absolutely, positively, without a doubt sure that they were right on the area.  If there was any hint, even a modicum of doubt about these coordinates, they started it all over: lather, rinse, repeat.  The whole time you cannot flinch or move because if you do, you'll mess up their coordinates.  When they finally locate the bad part that they need the tissue from, the numbing needle goes in, followed by the excavator, so on and so forth.  The whole time, did I mention?, YOU CANNOT MOVE....not even an inch.  This was the truly sucky part because I am not a belly sleeper and stuff was just going numb left and right and my neck was like, really? you're keeping me turned like this and we are going on hour two?, this totally sucks.   Oh, as distressing as that whole process was, having a needle phobia like I do and being instructed not to move when it goes in was enough to finally send me over the edge - as in thumb sucking "I want my mommy" over the edge.  I could put up with not moving for 2 hours - but the "here comes the needle you may feel a slight pinch but for F***'s SAKE don't move!" - that was a whole other level of WTF.

As I'm thinking about this friggin needle I start to panic.  My breath starts getting super fast, then the beads of sweat started to roll down my forehead, then my eyes started to tear, then I started to shake with fear....I know, ridiculous, but I have this total fear of needles.   Happens all.the.time.  It's big league fear not some puny, ooo, I am scared to stomp out the life of a spider with my shoe type fear.   Needles: big league phobia. 

The long and the short of it meant that for the biopsy, my poor boobala was compressed for almost 2 hours, poked by needles and bludgeoned soooo much that even 5 days later it still looks like it went 5 rounds with Mike Tyson.  It is a rainbow of colors that I no longer think can be found in any natural environment; shades of puce, neon greens and yellow - purple that is beyond eggplant - just the nastiest collaboration of Crayola you could ever see.  And it's all on my lil lefty lady part.  Poor girl. 

The uptake of all that?  BENIGN!  

I am grateful.

What I Am Reading Now.

THE HAPPINESS PROJECT

(Photo courtesy of Amazon)

Sooo, our book club is back up and running!  Or rather, it's never really stopped operating per se.  I've just missed the last two meetings which makes me the all time wanker of the group.  The Happiness Project is our next book and last night I managed to progress about two chapters into it before collapsing in a heap and passing out. 

I think this little diddy should prove interesting as it kept my attention despite the promise to myself that I'd be sound asleep by 9 p.m. and not actually reaching that goal until well after 11.  So far I can identify with the author who is about my age, has kids, a background in law but otherwise content in a completely different profession that does not require time in the court room (aka "writing").  She's introspective about her own happiness quotient and whether she is on the right path in her life and if not, assessing how to move in that direction.  So far so good.  While the chapter on decluttering is already like preaching to the choir for me, I'm going to see this one through as I, too, would love to know how she mainlined happiness and lived to tell about it.

Will post a review - maybe.



Yoga in my office? You bet!

Mondays when the kids come back to me and we have an opportunity to finally catch up face to face, it's funny to see how that moment erupts into 3 highly excitable faces chattering within inches of my eyeballs and all at once.  Not sure if they realize that the art of conversation dictates a slightly more give and take appraoch - slightly more wait til your sibling has finished before you interrupt him or her, but we are building on that momentum.  Our dinners on those first nights will often last over an hour with everyone consumed with their version of "away time" as the next family member.   Wouldn't trade these times for anything - they are just non-stop with the chatter and I know I should appreciate all this now as one day they won't think it's cool to talk to their Mom as much. 

After an hour of listening to the fun stuff and just being grateful that they are back home safe and sound, I find myself exhausted by 9pm.  Exhaustion for most Mom's is like an after thought - they just push through and keep going until everything is done.  Me, not so much.  Exhaustion now for me means sleepy time and dealing with anything else left undone in the early morning.  Loosely translated?  I strike deals with everyone just to get us in all to bed and resting - immediately.  I have also been known to strike deals even with myself about exercising that night because there is still a part of me that despite said exhaustion will rage (inside my head of course) about getting in a workout and think nothing of attempting to squeezing one in right then and there despite energy levels bottoming out. 

Last night I assured myself that I would get in a workout tomorrow afternoon sometime since I am stuck downtown all day and late tonight for a meeting.  Sweaty Betty on the road?  You bet!  No wheels to get me to the gym since grandmother is carting the chilins around in my car all day? No problem....This afternoon, I'm P90X'ing the Yoga right here in my office and have all the supplies that I need.  God I hope this works!    More importantly, I hope I don't fall over during 3rd Warrior pose and wipe out a file cabinet.  Way embarrassing and I'm sure not covered by workers comp if I pin myself under it.

Neck Lifts. My latest body obsession.

I, admittedly, (more like, shamelessly) have an obsession with my neck.  Always have.  My gene pool suggests that my anatomically horrific chin to neck affliction (a.k.a. Beaker from the Muppets Syndrome) runs way, way back in our family.  This holds true for all of our big noses, almond shaped eyes and our wacky sense of humor.  I can live with the huge schnoz, the almond eyes and even the propensity to cackle uncontrollably upon seeing someone concuss their head into a low hanging light when others would instinctively rush to the person in need of head stitching.  All true.  But I've always, always, always, always hated my chin-neck deal.  Hated - capital "H".  Oh, and I can live with the small mammories too (but that is my own recessive gene gig as my sister never had this issue so we can't blame this on an evenly distributed cosmetic hangup.) 

But this Beaker Syndrome that our ancestral make-up has passed down to all of us has driven me to the point lately where I believe my mid-life crisis will result in my having this corrected.  I kid you not.   

This pigeon hole fascination with necks and lifts borders on insanity.  I'll often scour the web looking at "before and after" shots of neck lift patients; I'll vaporize pictures of me which show me Beakering-out; and even avoid having my picture taken at all just to avoid seeing my side profile memorialized for all of perpetuity.  Is this a trivial thing to worry about?  You bet.  Do I treat it as such?  Not on your life.  This obsession has never left me - it just keeps getting bigger and bigger in my head the older I get.  Thank God I'm not into hoarding, right? 

Check it.  Photos courtesy of www.locateadoc.com:

Before

(This was the bio with the above photos.)  After photos were taken 6 Months after surgery/procedure. Performed By Stuart Kincaid, MD

Neck Lift

50 year old, Female, Fair skin tone

Performed by Stuart Kincaid, MD (San Diego , CA)

(866) 379-4414

This 50 year old Caucasian Facial Cosmetic Plastic Surgery patient from Anza, California who was unhappy with her aging face with loose skin, jowls and wrinkles and was interested in facial rejuvenation. She searched for a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and a Board Certified Plastic Surgeon and found Stuart Kincaid M.D to be the best cosmetic plastic surgeon for her. She expressed that she wanted someone that would provide natural results and a safe environment. 

Love this shit.  Honestly.  It quiets the noise in my head just a little about my whole obsessiveness for a normal profile - the quest for the proverbial Holy Grail of Necks and Chins.  

If I hit the lottery my friends, you bet your liposuctioned arse that I'm getting this done the next morning.  Magical thinking, but every little bit helps, baby.   

The Path To Happiness Begins with Courage.

Ahhh. Friday.  The day which magically stops me from wanting to punch someone in the throat who truly deserves it.  The day that is so full of relief from monotony and "ahhhhhh" that it should be duplicated.  Wait, it is....Saturday!

It's not difficult for me to articulate why I feel this way.  Just know that my level of self awareness on this issue is clear, unmistakable and justified.  I've deviated from what has (previously) made me happiest in the past and I need to steer myself back on that path.  There has been only one time in my working life where I would bound out of bed every morning and squeal with joy that I had to go to work.  My friends, sadly, that was many moons ago.  In reality, I need to get back to that feeling and stop monkeying around with my days of lackluster service to the public, to myself, to my future.  I need to be fearless. I need to just jump - just take the risk.  I promise you, this year will be my time.

Courage. 

Ever notice.....

How all the smoke detector batteries in your house all seem to fail at the same time?

Ever notice too how smoke detectors with failing batteries sound like a small team of basketball players doing pivot drills every 2 minutes off somewhere, never sure where, but off somewhere in your f****ng house and always somewhere just out of reach and always right at 2 am?