Virginia Lakes (I Have No Idea Where I Was Relative to the Rest of the State of California)

We went camping. Yes, there was a cabin, but it was of the log variety, and it was small and smelled of wet, so don't judge. We went camping.

Ozzy very much welcomed the opportunity to be dirty. In fact, he actually spent the week in a cloud of fine dirt, like Pig-Pen from the Peanuts Gang.

This photo screams boy.
He spent hours throwing rocks into the creek while I tried very hard not to get all reflective about never the same river twice, time and change and dying, death--quick! Throw more rocks boy! Build a dam and make it stop!
Anyhoo.
Zoey threw a few rocks, too.

 Both my menfolk look delicious in the Great Outdoors...

We also visited a Ghost Town called Bodie and I couldn't help but think of The Brady Bunch, demented prospectors and socks. Please tell me you know what I'm talking about.

Looking a bit like a demented prospector himself...

Quite possibly our 2013 holiday card. Act surprised if you're on our list...

We saw a bear. I caught a fish. Ish. I threw it back. My feet are still grimy and Ozzy has a new word: ew.
We are back from camping.
xo,
S

Musical Interlude

Somewhere someone is having the best summer ever. That person is most definitely not yours truly, but that doesn't mean I don't blast this song and get down dancing silly with Zoey, Ozzy and Bryan at the end of the day.

 As an I guess I am, yeah, sure feminist and a mother, I am pretty positive I shouldn't like this song, the lyrics, and most certainly I should hate the video. The boobs! Those boobs. No, seriously. Those boobs. When Bryan asked I said yes, they are definitely fake, but I was just being horrible because I think they might be real. And I think they are amazing. See also: I love this song.

Anyway, carry on with your summer, fantastic or otherwise.
xo,
S

Lalalalalalalalala...

Let's not talk about it, ok? Instead let's buy stuff with a credit card on ModCloth. Let's eat a salted caramel cupcake for dinner and a red velvet cupcake for dessert. Let's read blogs, clean the house, pick at our pores, take an Excedrin PM and fall asleep reading that biography about Steve Jobs that everyone else read about two years ago, except, wait--in roughly 500 pages he dies of cancer, doesn't he? Fuck.

Not thinking about it is kind of like trying to smell the color 8 which is to say shut up already. Have you ever wondered if blind people can draw? I have. Like incessantly. Which is why I think this video is all sorts of riveting on a Wednesday night when I close my eyes and see too much.


xo,
S

This Is Happening (Not What You Think) (Unless You're Thinking of Pink Fluffy Unicorns)

Good god, people. Thank you for your comments and emails. Internet hugs are real, yo,' and if I sound flippant it's only because I don't know how else to act and thank you is not enough.

Cancer is still a total dick and I am still walking around wondering how I could possibly still need to buy more cat food when this is happening, but that's a lot of stills and let's face it--nothing stays still even when you are pretty sure your world has stopped. I asked my mom's oncologist the question we all see in movies, i.e. how much time, and he gave a very wide range of somewhere between I don't know and cover my ass. His ass. This sucks ass is pretty much the only thing we all know for sure. Titshitcocksucker, caught in a limbo of please, fuck no. I just might be in the anger stage of grief.

At the same time I have this song stuck in my head, something that Zoey showed me online, and I am trying very hard to make it my mantra seeing as how it makes as much sense as anything these days.

It's Monday morning. My mom is dying. There, I said it. Now go ahead and watch the video and try it with me. Pink fluffy unicorns, dancing on rainbows, pink fluffy unicorns dancing on, dancing on rainbows...

xo,
S

Sorry

I am trying so hard, you guys. To be happy, open, a picture full of smiles all hi! like this:

But I'm tired of trying when really I don't feel like smiling at all. When really all around me the world looks cross-eyed and sweaty, caught in mid-blink, imperfect and quite frankly fucked up like this:

The thing is, no one wants to read a blog that is relentlessly down. I know I don't. But I also don't want to read a blog that isn't honest. And honestly things are really sad and scary right now. My mom is not doing well, which is a euphemism for she's really not doing well. We got a PET scan back yesterday which showed that despite all the internal and external radiation, the chemo, the blood transfusions--that despite everything the tumor has grown and spread to lymph nodes. Which means that there is nothing left to do but manage the pain. Which means that--fuck. I'm fucking scared and cannot breathe and I have to make lunch for Zoey's camp tomorrow and write a press release and buy more milk and I love my mom so fucking much and when I whistle it sounds just like her.

So I don't know how to write here right now. I don't know how to do any of this.
xo,
S

p.s. You better believe I pressed this button over and over and over but I'm beginning to think it's just for fun. Fuck that.