Two things.

Yes.  I have a Zune.

And I’ve never done the ipod shuffle post. You know, the one where you put the ipod on shuffle and list the first 10 songs.  So here it is.  My musical taste in all it’s weirdness.

1. Gallows Pole – Led Zeppelin.  Reminds me of high school and Laserium Zeppelin.  heh.

2. Goodbye Love – Rent.  Well we all knew I love musicals.

3. Helplessly Hoping – recorded by me and two of my friends actually.  We used my ancient microphones at school.  And yes.  I do have recordings of our trio on my Zune.  I like to listen to us.  Reminds me of fun times.

4.  Missa De Beata Virgine – Josquin Des Prez – I’m a music geek.  What’d you expect?

5. You Oughta Know – Alanis Morissette.  I’m officially old enough to admit publicly that I listen to her in all her angsty bitter greatness. 

6. Hotwax – Beck.  Love Beck.  One of my favorite concerts.  Although my friend and I were probably closer in age to the moms in the audience who brought their jr. high kids. “I’m the enchanted wizard of rhythm.”  How can you not love lyrics like that?

7.  Love’s Recovery – Indigo Girls.  Yeah.  Love them too.

8.  The Lowlands of Holland – The Chieftains and Natalie Merchant.  Pretty song.  But not my favorite on the album.  I actually got this cd from a student.  One of the best presents I ever got.  Love it.

9.  I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Feel Get Over You – Colin Hay.  He’s still got it.  Long after “We come from a land down under…”

10. Sissyneck – Beck.  Again.  See #6.

So there you go.  A tiny glimpse into what’s on my Zune.

I wonder how many google hits I get for that title.

It seems to me that major appliances have a suicide pact.  Like the year our furnace and our water heater died.  At Christmas.  Or when the oven and the dryer went to that big appliance repair shop in the sky.

The brand new dishwasher.  Is fine.    But the aluminum wiring isn’t.  Next weekend poor husband and father in law are switching out the aluminum for copper.

It makes me afraid for the washer.  Perhaps I can stage an intervention.

Because I’m not remotely old enough to have a 7 year old.  And you look like this in my head.

But you are 7.  And a big first grader.  It’s weird that you spend more time at school during the week than with me and J.  I know you are enjoying school as much as I am enjoying the break, but I still miss our impromptu trips to Georgetown.  And your funny way of telling stories.  I know you are only 7, not going off to college or anything, but you’ll have to forgive Mom for reminiscing about the days when you were my little sidekick.  I love you baby girl, you’re one of my very favorite people.

Happy Birthday L!

My husband told me this story, so I’m going to try and remember it correctly.

On Tuesday, while I was at Planina, L lined up all the cousins and her brother on the sofa and wanted to take their picture.  She couldn’t find the camera, but was undaunted.  She found her sketch pad and pen, readied herself to draw their picture and said, “No problem!  I’ll just do something that people did a looooooong time ago, way back in the days before technology…”

“You know, like 1982.”

1)  you get to keep your drain.  Really bad rhyme.   I know.  Drain stays till Friday.  I’m back on Levaquin (which the doc stopped a while back to put me on Bactrim) because my infection is resistant to Bactrim now.   Yippee.  I get the overachiever bug.  Anyway, Levaquin is scary expensive, even with insurance (For instance, I’m lucky it *only* costs me $50.) with even scarier side effects (like your Achilles tendon detaching somehow…)  Anyway, I’ve just got to keep in mind I’ve taken more toxic things in my life, like chemo and some really bad stuffed green peppers I made long ago.  I still have 8 pills of Levaquin left from a previous prescription and I’m hoping I can take those (I think he only wanted me on it for 5), so cross your fingers for me that the goddess of cheapness smiles on me and I can use it.

2) Pray for a friend’s mother (who is also my friend) whose Mom is dying.  You are never too old to miss your mother.  Or your grandma.  Or your great-grandma.

3)  Pray for my sister and her husband, for his mother passed away unexpectedly last night.  Death is never easy, expected or otherwise.

4) Pray a bit for me, because tomorrow all their children will be at my house.  I can handle it and it will be fine.  But a little prayer never did anybody any harm.  

Or will have by 8 am tomorrow.  Same problem as last time.  Infected skin, no bacterial growth in cultures.  They took about 200 ml of fluid out of frankenlefty this morning.  Brought it down in size from a freakish stripper boob to a normal stripper boob.  Can’t tell you how much better that feels.  It had actually started to migrate to the right so I truly would have been uniboobed.  PS says I stil have options.  I have to wait another 3 to 6 months to stabilize and we can work up a new plan.  Maybe one that doesn’t involve implants, depending on how frankenlefty looks without the expander.  That’s fine by me.

I have to admit there is just a tiny part of me that is glad to see it gone.  It’s been ridiculous, as I’ve mentioned before. I have to actually haul the thing up and out the window to reach things in a drive thru.  Definitely not going to miss that.  I will also be able to sleep on my left (once the drains are out.  Again.) without feeling uncomfortable.

Oh and I’ll have drains for Halloween.  I figure I can go as a Breast Cancer Awareness Borg.

I am 1 of 8.

Get your mammograms.

Resistance is futile.

I was housebound yesterday since the roofers came and their trailer blocked in my car.  So I had to do some knitting then.  Darn it.  Grins.  Anyway I finished the first hats so I can get them in the mail on Monday.  Princess Isabella Monkey-Bear and Bob were very gracious to model them for me.

The earflap hat is the Thorpe pattern from Through the Loops!  I used LionBrand wool and some purple Jiffy for accent.  The beret is the One Day Beret from the same designer.  I used Wool Ease Thick and Quick that I got from Vera Chappell.  She was a very nice lady who went to my church when I was a kid.  She bought Girl Scout cookies from me.  And probably a lot of other things I don’t remember.  When her health started to fail, she donated her yarn to the crafting people at our church.  She passed away this last week.  I’d like to think this kind of thing is what she’d like her yarn to be used for.

The Thorpe hat is for the girl in Canada who I wrote about already.  The beret is for one of my fellow Stage III ladies.  A mama and 3rd grade teacher down in Alabama.  I hope the wool isn’t too hot.

So my daughter asked me what “Throws Like a Girl” meant.  She’s already heard the negative version at school.   I told her that some people use it as an insult and how it’s not ok to use someone’s gender as a cutdown.   L is a girl and is frighteningly accurate with a ball.  So we talked about how it’s silly to say it and the best response for her would be to say, “Of course, I throw like a girl, I AM a girl.  And I throw just as well as you (annoying little boy, I add in my head.)”

When I named the blog, I had two things in mind.  Using the insult Throws Like A Girl to mean something positive and a clever (or so I thought.  Grins.) play on the knitting aspect of the blog.  I knit by “throwing”.  I’m a girl.  etc.

I am actually quite offended by the idea that being female equals being weak or subpar.  That’s probably why I love Sarah Haskins over at current.com so much.  She is great at pointing out how the media encourages us to stay in archaic gender roles.  She points out the absurdity that yogurt will fix all our problems and that men can’t cook dinner or do laundry without the help of some special cleanser.

I always thought Throws Like A Girl would be a great name for a girl’s softball team, too.

So I’m still knitting.  Socks.  Arm of Mom’s dress.  And hats.

I made a lot of hats last year.  Mostly for myself.  Some for others.

This year I decided to cope with Pinktober by making hats for some of the new girls (and old girls) over at the YSC.

This hat is for a 29 year old.  Who was just diagnosed with a recurrence.  She already went through this once when she was 26.  26!

I guess if there’s anything to take with you as October progresses, it’s that young women can and do get breast cancer.  When it comes down to it, it’s not about ribbons, fundraisers and charitable donations (though they are nice and helpful).  It’s about women being disfigured in a way that’s incomprehensible until it happens to you.  It’s about facing issues with fertility after diagnosis and treatment.  About the possibility of leaving our loved ones behind too soon. Our tumors are measured in centimeters (the average breast cancer tumor of someone over 50 is measured in millimeters.)   It’s a very different disease from breast cancer in older women.  So go check ‘em out.  Stay healthy. 

All lasagna noodles are no-boil lasagna noodles.  Just make sure you use enough sauce.