Tag Archives: celebrations

Yaaay it’s margarita time!!!

Posted on by
22

Hi all:

It is Hubby again celebrating the good news.

Alice had her post-treatment PET/CT scan this morning and we met with the Oncologist this afternoon.  While we were not expecting any bad news, it was good to hear from the “horses’ mouth” that everything looked fine with the scans and there was no evidence of disease (NED).  What was even better, as far as Alice was concerned, was that the good news was initially delivered by none other than Dr. McG as in DrMcdreamy.  Alice wants me to call him just Dr. G as in “G for Gorgeous”.  If you all remember, he is the good looking 6’8″ doctor with excellent bedside manners and exhibiting extreme competence.  As it turns out, Dr. G was doing his turn as a Fellow in the Oncology clinic working with Alice’s Oncologist (another Dr. G as in Michelle G).  Dr. McG explained to us some of the results of the PET/CT scan and told us that there was nothing to be concerned about.  A little later, we had a short session with both Dr. Gs and we were told to go ahead and re-plan our trip to India  and start to live our life normally.

I had been thinking for a week or so about how we were going to celebrate the good news but had no real plan.  However, having run into Dr. McG the only thing I could think of was to make a big pitcher of margaritas and invite Alice to help me drink it.  So we stopped at a State Liquor Store on the way home from the hospital and bought a bottle of tequila and margarita mix to go with it.  I always thought that nothing  symbolizes  celebration better than a margarita.  Besides, I knew that Alice, who is a non-drinker, liked margarita more than any other alcoholic drink and this was the only way for me to do a “one up on Dr. McG”.  Also, we may not see him any more as the next appointment for Alice is 3 months away.

Here are a couple of pictures of Alice helping me with the margarita.  You can also see that she is not wearing her wig in the pictures and her hair is about half an inch long.  I am trying to convince her that she really does not need her wig any more.  I am sure that she will stop being self conscious in a week or so.

Salute

lickin’ all the salt off

no longer a “baldy”

As I expected, we are at a loss.  We had always expected the good news, but now that it is here, we are not sure how to deal with it.  I am sure you all will help us.

H

How well do you remember your first birthday?

Posted on by
12

So last February I read about a couple in Florida throwing their son a first birthday party. The mother said, “These are the memories I want him to have. I want him to know how important and special I think he is.” Then she invited 60 guests to join the boy, his father and herself at the local country club for a big affair  catered by a professional party planner and featuring pony rides, a magician, and a pinata. 

Birthdays weren’t a big deal in my family as I was growing up; just another day. Somebody might or might not casually mention that this was so and so’s birthday, but I can’t remember special meals except for twice, milestones you might say, when I was six, and again when I was seventeen. That last one was probably because I cried and pouted when No. 16 went by un-heeded or heralded. My teary episode must have gotten to Mama, because the following year she surprised me by inviting several friends from the Church youth group to come for cake and ice cream on my 17th birthday.

The only big birthday bashes were for the oldsters. I suppose it was because if somebody was that old, you never knew how much longer they had. Might as well see them once a year anyway. Great-grandma Pearce was feated year after year with a big family reunion/birthday celebration from around the time she was 80 until she died at 92. Distant relatives scattered all over Florida came with loads of food prepared at home and loaded into boxes that somehow survived the bumpy dirt roads that brought them all back to the “homeplace.”

Grandpa and other men in the family put up wooden sawhorses with plywood tops covered with quilts and tabletops. The women unloaded all the potluck boxes and spread everything out on the tables, while someone else took pictures of Great-Grandma with various family members. Big time partying where gallons of iced tea were consumed all afternoon until everyone departed bone tired and in time to make it to evening services at church. That’s about as big a birthday celebration as I ever saw growing up.

When I started my own family, we made it a point to make each birthday a special day. The birthday person was allowed to choose the menu and I learned to decorate cakes so that each birthday featured a cake tailored to the particular interests of the feated person. Hubby in turn began making cakes for me each year, and decorating them as well. They were so special it more than made up for any I had missed in childhood.

Things today seem to have changed quite a bit if the Florida couple is indicative of the norm. I don’t mean to sound like a sour puss, but I just can’t help wondering how long their one-year-old will even remember it, or even if he understood what the fuss was all about. They may not realise yet what a hard precedent they’ve set up so early that may prove impossible to follow in years to come. When he’s sixteen or seventeen, or about to attend his first prom . . . well I just don’t know if an ordinary limousine is going to do it. And unless he follows in the footsteps of Michael Jackson, I doubt that pony rides and magicians will work either.