Always Eat Dessert

I ran into my building’s caretaker on the steps a couple of days ago as I headed to the basement to retrieve the cold wash I’d just done; it’s his girlfriend—my across-the-hall neighbor—who has Leiomyosarcoma, the rare cancer that she’s just begun to battle. They went to Boston last weekend and met with an energetic and passionate doctor who spent 3 hours with them discussing options—“The difference between Midwestern Protestant and East-Coast Jewish,” as my neighbor said—and in about a week and a half, she’ll begin a course of chemotherapy.

It’s true, in an odd, guilt-producing sort of way, that someone else’s adversity (in this case, my neighbor’s discovery of her cancer) can help put one’s own life and neuroses into sharp perspective; I thought of this as I enjoyed a cookie in a meeting at work.



It's not (and I do feel it necessary to qualify this) that my neighbor's cancer is a grim-yet-convenient excuse for me to compare circumstances and how "lucky" I am to not be coping with it myself, but rather, a dire just-across-the-hall reminder of how much menial bitching I've done--and still do--about truly inconsequential things. I used to have neuroses about sweets, about eating too many of them and what they might do to me: diabetes, cellulite, rotten teeth, pimples. Sweets were “dangerous” and “powerful” and could affect my body negatively and the pleasure of indulging in them was always superseded by the weird, unhappy, nearly obsessive bout of negative self-talk that invariably ensued.

I’d left my neighbors some chunks of homemade gingerbread; I was caring for their cat while they were in Boston, and I like to cook (and bake), and I personally adore gingerbread. But I don’t need a whole pan, and I wanted to share it. The caretaker mentioned this as we spoke, in passing, how much they’d liked it. I thought it might be nice for them, after that, after the flight and the news and the anxiety, to come home to their kitty and the familiarity and comfort of a plate of home-baked sweets.



And I thought, yeah. I think I get it after 41 years of "Oh, I shouldn't eat that" neuroses.

It goes without saying that a preventative mindset is a good thing; it makes sound sense, therefore, to be conscious of where your food comes from and to make healthful choices and avoid trans-fats and eat your veggies and get plenty of fiber and don’t smoke and get plenty of sleep and pop a few vities and take your flaxseed oil and exercise regularly and drink in moderation and....yes, all of those things.

Of course, there are no guarantees.

And so, because of this, because there are no guarantees, the finest, most life-affirming, optimistic, glass-half-full thing you can do, without making excuses or offering apologies or attempting futile shows of "willpower" and absolutely without the merest smidgen of self-consciousness, is always eat dessert. Make room for it. Order it. Bake it yourself, and get drunk on the aroma. Lick the batter from the pan. Eat the cookie dough. Enjoy the hell out of it. Share it. Savor it.

Savor it.

Always. Because sweets are good. And life, I am learning, finally, is really, truly, laughably, ridiculously blink-and-you-miss-it short. And very unfair.

No guarantees. Even if you do everything right. But do everything right anyway, just in case. Cause it couldn't hurt.

And always eat dessert.

A Breed Unknown

Such is how my female pound-adopted pedigree-less tabby is described on Catster where, yes, she has her own page.

I feel that this latest turn of human-feline events is good to admit.

I also feel that it is quite possible I have now officially crossed that quaveringly delicate threshold from mere mellow cat owner to rapacious Kitty Stage Parent, vicariously living my life through and for my cat like a feline-owning Mama Rose ("Mew out, Abby!")

Is it possible that, sooner rather than later, I will, with no hint of shame or irony, start wearing sweatshirts bearing puffy cat appliques in public and join cat-chat groups and go to cat shows and collect pillows with playful embroidered cats on them and all manner of folksy, cutesy wood, ceramic & wind-chime-y cat-themed tchatchkes?

In my own weak defense, canine co-habitators can be just as whacked; all you need to do is go to a gathering of pugs & their owners where you will bear witness to some of the most frightening displays of gross and humiliating (for the pug) anthropomorphism known to man and beast alike. Pugs dressed like fairies and food and brides and Darth Vader and God-Knows-What-All...it's like something out of David Lynch, or maybe Fellini, though I've never actually seen a Fellini flick so I'm only assuming.



If Abby knew how to maintain her own site, I'd place that chore squarely in her paws. But not only does she not know how, she does not care. I'm sure of this.

Within 10 minutes of setting up her profile ("Pet-Peeves: nail clipping"), I had two requests from a gaggle of random cats asking if they could be added to her page as "friends." In a matter of hours, the cat had amassed quite an enviable social network. I found myself becoming quite a bit "J," as one of my friends might say, at the ease with which she made friends. I eagerly accepted them all, of course, on her behalf. My cat dwells indoors and needs a social life. Even a virtual one. Says me. Her semi-whacked mama.

I told her this. I told her her page was generating considerable buzz in the form of 4 legs and pointy ears and whiskers. I told her she was the feline equivalent of this year's "It" girl, that this was her 15 minutes of Warholian fame and suggested she get herself a publicist, a handler and possibly a lawyer to negotiate the contracts that would surely tumble forth for all those late-night talk show appearances.



I also told her that never, under any circumstances--no matter how her career might someday falter and nose-dive--should she flash her girl-parts accidentally-on-purpose in public; I said it was a cheap & desperate ploy utilized by Britney, Paris and Lindsay to stay sadly current, but that she had been raised better than that. She was a cat with class.

She just yawned and went back to bed.

She has a point. I mean, I AM only one of the gawking, plebeian, celebrity-obsessed public with no life of my own whatsoever. So, you know, thank God for Catster.



A star is born, indeed.

Randomness

I haven't posted for a while, and my blog-surfing public is getting restless.
Therefore, allow me to extract a vast array of random topics from the nether reaches of my brain and deposit them here for your schizophrenic reading pleasure.

I downloaded a Fergie song I really like--"Big Girls Don't Cry." Playing it on iTunes repeatedly, and the lyrics are bouncing around in my brain. I can relate to them:

I need some shelter of my own protection baby
To be with myself and center
Clarity, Peace, Serenity......

Those who know me, I believe, will understand.

I'm sick of 20-something women. I find them annoying and vacuous and just not very interesting. I'm surrounded by them at work. Moving on.

I have a bunion on my right foot and it's hereditary and I don't like it. Stuffing my feet into chic-yet-pointy shoes for work just exacerbates the issue; to that I say, screw this whole suffering-for-beauty thing. I don't want to have ugly feet.



My co-worker mentioned Foghat on Friday and I was like, shit, that totally dates you, but she just laughed. And then I realized I totally got her reference to them and thus dated myself, too. Sigh.

I'm taking care of the neighbor's cat this weekend while they're in Boston researching cancer treatment options. He seems a little wistful. Hopefully he'll come around. And speaking of cats, I'm weaning (well, cold turkey is more like it) my cat off of wet chow, a holdover from when she had her teeth extracted in August of 2006. Her gums have long since healed and she adores her kibble....so we're done. And she stared at me this morning expectantly but there was no more wet chow and so she gave up and put herself to bed.


I hate this, but then, she'd be a 50-pound freak monster kitty if I kept feeding her. Oy.

I was called "Ma'am" this week; it's not the first time this has happened, but this time, it sorta hit me that I just don't FEEL like a "Ma'am" and I was mildly (though privately) indignant; when did "Miss" give way to "Ma'am," which sounds far less dainty and decidedly post-menopausal? I mean, really.

The thing I think I'll miss the most when I move back out west is my apartment. It's adorable and wonderful and full of cozy character and full of my spirit. I will have to thank it and bless it when I leave. It's been a good, good space.

I know I complained copiously about the below-zero weather when we had it, but there ARE drawbacks to warmer weather, too. The windows are open and I've heard someone in the neighboring building LOUDLY hawking up a loogie. Over and over. ALL DAY LONG. Dude!
Not to mention, I've heard people hurling in the wee hours, or fighting, or blabbing on their cell phones, or sitting in their cars listening to bass-heavy dance music at 3 AM. Ah, the joys of urban living!

Well, time to send the neighbor's cat home and hop in the shower, so that's about it for my apropos-of-nothing mental download.

Oh, and strawberries are back in season. Sweet and full of anti-oxidants, although I could do without the maddening teeny seeds getting wedged into my dental work. But still.

This makes me very happy.

On Giving

My neighbor knocked on my door tonight. She was passing off the key so that I could pop in over the next few days and check on her cat.

Her mom and boyfriend stood in the hallway, overnight bags waiting at their feet; the three of them were getting ready to leave for Rochester, MN. Her black cat and my striped tabby eyeballed each other warily, alternately touching noses and hissing. It was the first time I'd seen her since I'd heard, last Sunday, about the recurrence of her cancer.

Leiomyosarcoma. Super, super rare.

She laughed, ironically. "I won the fuckin' lottery as far as cancer goes," she said.

We talked a little, and I asked her questions. It was in her lungs, and in her liver. And on her shoulder.

They were headed to the Mayo Clinic to discuss treatment options. They might seek second, third, maybe fourth opinions in California, Boston, New York. I would watch her cat. That, and baking, I said, are things I could offer.

I listened to her talk, and then I broke down and cried, a little, and reached forward and hugged her for a few moments. I told her I was horribly sorry, and that it was so unfair. And I was glad I could say that; I don't mind crying. It's as honest as I can get. She said she'd been angry, too, and I told her it was justified. In these moments, I do not feel that God has a sense of humor.

She gave me the key, and I followed her into her apartment so she could show me a few things; there were flowers everywhere.

She pointed to a vase of tulips on her table; take them, she said. Put them in your apartment.

You might as well enjoy them, she said, while I'm gone.

Cosmic Shittiness

I never wanted this blog to be The Blog of Pain; there are numerous such blogs all over the place--just total downer blogs full of total downer entries, one after the other, full of constant bitching and moaning and perpetual oh-woe-is-me-ness.

And I don't want this blog to be that; I want this blog, mostly, to be irreverent, a little quirky, and wildly incongruous--kind of the way my brain works.

But this time, tonight, this entry is going to be about Cosmic Shittiness. Because that's what I'm thinking about, right now, this moment.

I got a call from my neighbors asking for off-and-on cat-sitting, on no real identifiable schedule; we do this for one another, and it's convenient. Living here, in this 8-plex in South Minneapolis has sort of been like a more-functional Peyton Place or Tales of the City, with a Midwestern twist.

Anyway.

My neighbor, who owns said cat, is 28 or so; her boyfriend, also the building's caretaker, is my age, or a bit older. He knocked on my door tonight to follow up on the cat-sitting request, and to explain why it's off-and-on.

My neighbor, the 28 year old, has cancer. All over her body. Her shoulder blade and some other places, but I can't remember what he said.

She'd had it before last Spring, in her sinus, and was operated on, successfully. They took it out, she recovered, life went on. Recently, they went to Mexico, to Ixtapa, and I cat-sat then. They came back tan.

I'll cat-sit again, as often as they need.

The caretaker stood in my doorway, filling me in, explaining it all in scientific details, the options, the chemo. They'd be going to Mayo and some other places. They need to be aggressive, he said. They need to act fast. She's young. It's a rare kind of cancer, and sometimes, those are the worst. She can live with it, for a while. But as usual, no one knows for how long.

No one knows.

And I listened and then he had to get back to his cooking and I closed the door and stood over my sink of unfinished dishes and just said, over and over, to no one, to the universe, to the consistently-unfair cosmos, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

She's smart and laughs loud and is a great, thoughtful neighbor and an all-around kind person. And I'm so angry, because it's so...unfair. But then, I don't really know what would make something like this fair. Maybe if she were 60 years older than she is now and had already done the things she told me she'd planned for herself, for this life of hers, like having children.

I have been given this news, the reason for the cat-sitting, and I don't want to have to know. But I can't "un-know" this. Too late.

Now it's a fact. My neighbor, a young woman, with cancer. Unknowable.

And I will watch her cat.