The Name Game: 150 Barrier BROKEN!

Production has slowed down in The Name Game. That's OK. I had a slow week, too.

Of course, it's hard to compete with a week like last's, and it might well be that the trough is close to empty. Let's take a look.

Janice came up with Jed from the Beverly Hillbillies. I miss the days when TV shows had words to their theme songs. Especially when those songs described the whole situation of the sit-com that followed, unlike the weanie kind of theme songs from shows like Family Ties and Golden Girls. "Thank you for being a friend?" Sure. You're welcome. Now will you please explain to be why these 4 broads are living together in a Florida Dream House?

Amanda hit the cartoon well and gave us:

Tyrone
Austin
Pablo, all from The Backyardigans--a show that even I don't mind watching.

Diego, who needs no explanation. He's like the hotty of the kid cartoon world.

Franklin, who is a nerdy turtle. LOVE that kid!

Tuck
Ollie, from Wonderpets, which I've never seen, but I totally take Amanda's word for it. We do already have Oliver on the list, but I don't think Ollie is always a derivative of Oliver.

Laurie, who gave play by play postings on my surgery, made an oral submission: Cletus. I don't remember which song it's from, but therein lies the danger of oral submissions.

Finally, last week, I did not include "Luka," as submitted by Nick, because I thought it was a girl's name, describing a battered woman. Why did I think this? Because it's sung by Suzanna Vega, and she starts the song, "My name is Luka, I live on the second floor. . ." and that was always enough for me to reach the conclusion I reached.

Turns out I was far too hasty.

Nick writes:

"Considering that Luka is a boys' name (although that is not dispositive -- in "Nikita" by Elton John -- Nikita seems to be girl -- though considering it's Elton, who knows?), I stand by my belief that "Luka" is about a boy that is being abused. I thought the music video was pretty clear on this point. But a quick youtube viewing (admittedly cursory) reveals this to be more ambiguous than I remembered. Is Suzanne singing about herself or the boy in video? Neither one has bruises. But I think it's the boy that lives upstairs -- not the singer. By the way, that boy grew up to be Meadow's boyfriend in the first season of The Sopranos. (Thanks IMDB!)"

Extra points for using the word "dispositive," Nick!

Amanda confirms his point in the comments section, the song is about a boy.

But, honestly, who knew that Luka was a boy's name to begin with?

So Luka is in.

This gives us, for this week:

Jed
Tyrone
Austin
Pablo
Diego
Franklin
Tuck
Ollie
Cletus
Luka

10 Names! That's pretty good. Tough that it falls in the shadow of last week's gargantuan 60+ total, but a solid performance none-the-less.

Our grand total is now:

1. Abie
2. Adam
3. Al (taken as different from Albert, because it might be short for Alan)
4. Albert
5. Alex
6. Amadeus
7. Andy
8. Anthony
9. Austin
10. Ben(nie)
11. Bernie
12. Bill(y)
13. Bob(by)
14. Brady
15. Branigan
16. Brian
17. Buddy
18. Cadigan
19. Cain
20. Casper
21. Charles(Charlie)
22. Chester
23. Chris
24. Cletus
25. Connely
26. Daniel
27. Davy
28. Dean
29. Diego
30. Donnely
31. Dooley
32. Duffy
33. Duke
34. Earl
35. Eddie
36. Eli
37. ElRoy
38. Elvis
39. Ezekiel
40. Felix
41. Fernando
42. Flanahan
43. Flannigan
44. Flynn
45. Fogarty
46. Frank
47. Franklin
48. Fred
49. Gabriel
50. Galileo
51. Gene
52. George
53. Gilligan
54. Gus
55. Hagen
56. Harry
57. Henry
58. Hogarty
59. Jack
60. Jed
61. Jeremiah
62. Jeremy
63. Jerry
64. Jessie
65. Jesus
66. Jim/James
67. Joey
68. John(ny)
69. Jonas
70. Jose
71. Juan
72. Jude
73. Julio
74. Kelly
75. Kenneth
76. Lafferty
77. Lanahan
78. Lawrence
79. Lazarus
80. Lee
81. Lenny
82. Leonard
83. Leonid
84. Leroy
85. Lester
86. Levon
87. Lloyd
88. Louie
89. Luka
90. Luke
91. Madigan
92. MaGinn
93. Mahone
94. Malachy
95. Malcolm
96. Malone
97. Manahan
98. Manny
99. Marciano
100. Marty
101. Marvin
102. Maurice
103. Max
104. McGuffy
105. McGuinness
106. Michael
107. Micky
108. Milligan
109. Monty
110. Moses
111. Muldowney
112. Napoleon
113. O'Fagan
114. O'Hooley
115. O'Houlihan
116. O'Kelly
117. Ollie (perhaps not always a derivative of Oliver)
118. Oliver
119. Pablo
120. Paul
121. Peter
122. Pherb
123. Phinnas
124. Rafferty
125. Rasputin
126. Rene
127. Richard
128. Ricky
129. Rico
130. Robin
131. Roland
132. Romeo
133. Ronnie
134. Roy
135. Sam
136. Shanahan
137. Silas
138. Stan
139. Sue
140. Thomson
141. Tim
142. Tom(my)
143. Tony
144. Tuck
145. Ulysses
146. Victor
147. Vincent
148. Walter
149. Wayne
150. Whelan
151. Willie
152. Wyatt

We've broken the 150 threshold! Can you feel this vehicle starting to shutter from the sheer force of our achievement???

Will we crack 200??

Theme Song Thursday: Ultraviolet Light My Way

It's not like you didn't expect another U2 song at some point. There are many more to come, surely.

This week, it's this one, from Achtung Baby! This CD was released my Junior year of high school and. . .it owned me for months. There are some things I used to like that I now think of as "youthful indiscretions." But not a single note on this album has faded for me.

So why is this song the song for this week?

Because the Friday before my last round of chemo, when I was feeling as well as I will feel until this stuff is out of my system, I played Achtung Baby! for the kids. We do this often: put on music as we're hanging around the house. Usually, it's for when I'm folding laundry, or cooking. And I don't play children's music. No one ever pandered to me when I was a child, and I'm a better person for having known the words to "Start Me Up" when I was in the 5th grade.

This time, instead of folding laundry, I found myself dancing on our mini-trampoline, singing the songs into the kids' plastic microphone. Gemma and Josh pulled out their drums (a set of 3 tribals, from Indonesia, which they play with the eraser ends of un-sharpened pencils) and their instrument bucket. And we were the Ponce Family Band for about 40 minutes.

I don't mind telling all of you this. I wouldn't do it in front of you. And there are not too many bands that would make me want to do this with my children, either. But U2 is one of them. And around here, at this time, an activity like this is what makes for a very good day.


The first is the complete studio song, with no video.

The second is the studio song with a collection of U2 photos. But for some reason, the guy who posted it cut off the last minute of the song.

20 Questions

There is a game of 20 questions going on in the post titled "Herceptin Part III: HER Diary," below. Scroll towards the end of it. The game is to guess who wrote/said a certain quote as found in Genentech literature.

HER Moments

I'm introducing a new label here at The Big "C," in honor of Genentech literature, and the recommendation to "live each moment as though it were a full life."

Because I've been having a lot of "moments" lately.

I don't want to plead chemo-brain. That's just like pleading PMS, isn't it? I mean, my behavior is my behavior, regardless of what causes it.

But if I'm looking for an explanation . . .

The first HER moment was a few weeks ago when I planned to make tuna salad for dinner. This dish requires hard boiled eggs. I set them in the water. Turned the gas heat on.

And then left the house.

I don't even remember having a good intention at the time like, "Let me help Joshua get his shoes on for a minute," or "I'm just going to dash outside to make sure the kids are OK."

I just left the house. Sat down in front. Got to chatting with my neighbor, JenJen.

About, oh, an hour later, I smacked my head and said, "I'M BOILING EGGS!"

Raced inside. Smelled them. They were hard boiled, all right.

The water was gone, the pot was black and the eggs were cracked and burned within their shells.

After dousing them with cold water and opening all the windows, I went back outside. The whole cul-de-sac was stinky.

We ate out that night.

The most recent HER moment was yesterday. I had a meeting to go to at our church to be trained as a leader for AWANA. I knew it was on September 1. I'd told Bryan the kids and I would be gone that evening so he'd have a night to himself. I got ready for it as though it were a big night out. I wore not only a wig, but a skirt and blouse, too.

Buckled the kids in. Drove up to the church. Into the parking lot and Gemma said, "There aren't a lot of cars here, Mom."

No. That's because last night was August 31, not September 1. It's not like I didn't know. Chris mentioned during the protein treatment, 'Can you believe tomorrow's September 1 already?' and I wrote the date "August 31" in my homeschool notebook that afternoon.

Despite the clear evidence I knew the date to be one in August and not September, and despite my knowing that the meeting was scheduled for September 1, I went to the meeting anyway.

So. 2 more moments I could live as though they were a full life. Or, er, 2 full lives, I guess.

Name List: Men's

1. Abie
2. Abraham
3. Adam
4. Admetus
5. Al (taken as different from Albert, because it might be short for Alan)
6. Albert
7. Alex
8. Alfie
9. Alonzo
10. Amadeus
11. Andy
12. Anthony
13. Augustus
14. Austin
15. Beau
16. Ben(nie)
17. Bernie
18. Bill(y)
19. Bo
20. Bob(by)
21. Bojangles
22. Boris
23. Brady
24. Branigan
25. Brian
26. Brutus
27. Buddy
28. Cadigan
29. Cain
30. Casper
31. Charles(Charlie)
32. Chester
33. Chris
34. Claudius
35. Cletus
36. Clyde
37. Colm
38. Connely
39. Corey
40. Daniel
41. Davy
42. Dean
43. Diego
44. Don
45. Donnely
46. Dooley
47. Duffy
48. Duke
49. Earl
50. Eddie
51. Eli
52. ElRoy
53. Elvis
54. Elzic
55. Ernie
56. Ezekiel
57. Felix
58. Fernando
59. Finian
60. Flanahan
61. Flannigan
62. Flynn
63. Fogarty
64. Frank
65. Franklin
66. Fred
67. Gabriel
68. Galileo
69. Gary
70. Garreth
71. Gene
72. George
73. Gilligan
74. Gus
75. Hagen
76. Harrigan
77. Harry
78. Henry
79. Hogarty
80. Ivanhoe
81. Jack
82. Jacob
83. Jara
84. Jason
85. Jed
86. Jeremiah
87. Jeremy
88. Jerry
89. Jessie
90. Jesus
91. Jim/James
92. Joey
93. John(ny)
94. Jonas
95. Jose
96. Juan
97. Jud
98. Jude
99. Julio
100. Keith
101. Kelly
102. Kenneth
103. Lafferty
104. Lanahan
105. Lancelot
106. Lawrence
107. Lazarus
108. Lee
109. Lenny
110. Leonard
111. Leonid
112. Leroy
113. Lester
114. Levon
115. Lloyd
116. Louie
117. Luka
118. Luke
119. Mack
120. Madigan
121. MaGinn
122. Mahone
123. Malachy
124. Malcolm
125. Malone
126. Manahan
127. Manny
128. Marciano
129. Marty
130. Marvin
131. Maurice
132. Max
133. Maxwell
134. McGuffy
135. McGuinness
136. Michael
137. Micky
138. Milligan
139. Monty
140. Morrison
141. Moses
142. Muldowney
143. Napoleon
144. Ned
145. O'Fagan
146. O'Hooley
147. O'Houlihan
148. O'Kelly
149. Ollie (perhaps not always a derivative of Oliver)
150. Oliver
151. Otis
152. Owusu
153. Pablo
154. Patrick
155. Paul
156. Peter
157. Pherb
158. Phinnas
159. Plato
160. Plutarch
161. Porgy
162. Quinn
163. Rafferty
164. Rasputin
165. Rene
166. Richard
167. Ricky
168. Rico
169. Robin
170. Roland
171. Romeo
172. Ronnie
173. Roy
174. Rudolph
175. Sam
176. Sancho
177. Seamus
178. Sean
179. Shanahan
180. Sigmund
181. Silas
182. Soolaimon
183. Stan
184. Steve
185. Sue
186. Thomson
187. Tim
188. Toby
189. Tom(my)
190. Tony
191. Tuck
192. Ulysses
193. Victor
194. Vincent
195. Vito
196. Walter
197. Wayne
198. Weatherby
199. Whelan
200. Willie
201. Wyatt
202. Zaccheus

Wellness Update

It's Tuesday morning. I finally woke up feeling human again. It's weird how it just lifts away. I am still fighting something in my throat and nose, but this might be the shift in the season around here. I usually feel a little like this when Autumn falls.

Thank you for your prayers. :-)

Hercepting Part III: HER Diary

I'm not done with their literature yet. Well. I'm done reading it. But I'm not done making fun of it.

I meant for yesterday's post to be on the funny side, and as I continue today, please see me smiling as I write this. It's all very grim in some sense. But it's also pretty amusing. When I unpacked it weeks ago, after my meeting with She Who Shall Not Be Named, Bryan looked at the stack and asked, "What are you going to do with this?"

Heh heh: Blog fodder.

My favorite item in the bag (OK, wait a sec, about that bag. . . I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it. It's clearly a Breast Cancer Bag. And because it's the over the shoulder/backpack hybrid, it's even kind of shaped like a breast. It has the archer girl embroidered on it. Where do I take a bag like this? I suppose it would be received as another item in the vast array of breast cancer support-pink, and THAT is a blog entry for a future day. I don't know. Maybe it's cute.)

My favorite item in the bag is one titled "my diary." Smaller case letters. Because that's a little more chic than upper case. Archer girl is shooting a line through the title. The front and back covers are hot pink.

I am told on the inside, next to the picture of a pink ribbon and under the phrase "especially for you," that "This diary is for you to record your thoughts and experiences during your treatment."

Oh. OK. So I turn the page to find it labeled "week 1," and on the first line is the direction, "Start your journey here."

Oh! Directions! For how to get through breast cancer! Thanks, Genentech!

What should I do during weeks 1 through 8, because I'm already on week 9 (at the time of getting this diary).

Well, week 2. . . On the opposite page. No directions that week.

Week 3, "Reach out for support." Nothing on week 4. Maybe they didn't have the budget to come up with directions for the even weeks.

Week 5, "Consider joining a support group." Oh. Maybe that's for the people who spent weeks 3 and 4 "reaching out for support," but not finding it. Damn. Now they've wasted 2 weeks when Genentech could have told them to join a support group during week 3!

Week 7, "Keep going." Geez! I really wish I'd had my meeting with She Who Shall Not Be Named earlier, so that I would have read this in time for week 7 because during week 7, I was thinking, "Hmm, maybe I should stop doing what I need to do to save my life--" and hearing that Genentech thinks I should "keep going" would have been a real help right about then.

Week 9, "Stay hopeful." Again, really helpful. Not as helpful as week 11, "Stay positive."

This diary is truly. . .and artifact. Of something. Week 13 is "Challenge yourself with a crossword puzzle."

?????

Has a crossword ever helped anyone feel better about herself if she weren't already a person who does crossword puzzles?

Every odd week offers a little gem. Some of it is actually bad medical advice: Week 35, "Take time for yourself with a relaxing bubble bath." Uh, Genentech? Stepping into a hot bath after having your lymph nodes removed could trigger lymphedema in that arm. I know your yoga models wouldn't have a concern about that, but those of us whose lives actually need saving by your drug are now kind of limited that way.

OK, OK, you get the picture.

On the last page are "inspirational quotes." And here's your chance to play along!

There are 3 quotes. I'll tell you who wrote/said the first 2. For the 3rd one, how about we play 20 Questions in the comments section?

"Laughter is teh shortest distance between 2 people" - Victor Borge

"When I discover who I am, I'll be free" - Ralph Ellison

And the one that you will guess over:

"Let your light shine--shine within you so that it can shine on someone else. Let your light shine." -- ??????

Rules:

1. You are all on the same team. I'll log in to answer Yes or No to whatever questions are in the comments section. Not sure how painstaking that will be, but I'll try to check often.

2. NO USE OF THE INTERNET. You're only data set for guessing should be my answers to your questions.

3. Go!

Herceptin Part II: HERs

A disclaimer: No breast cancer patient has ever had it easier or better than I am having it. I am surrounded by love and support and help. All of you. All of my neighbors. Everyone in my life is our corner. The sheer wealth of it is almost an embarassment.

It's a disclaimer because I'm about to start making fun of the Herceptin literature. I can imagine instances when women are not wealthy is this way that I am wealthy, and that maybe this kind of literature is actually a (needed) help for them. That makes me sad, of course, that some women might claim as a main source of support the company that manufacturers their medicine.

But it still needs to be made fun of. This is because there's an unseemly side to cancer. The business side. The marketing that goes with it. Money gets made as lives get saved, so I don't begrudge them. I guess all I can do is mock them.

To whit:

I was given a Herceptin care package of literature, all contained in a pink over the shoulder backpack. It bears the Herceptin logo--the sihloette of a naked woman shooting an arrow. She has a breast. I admit this pisses me off.

She's on this page: Genentech: Access Solutions

Genentech is the company that manufacturers Herceptin. And, I suspect, who discovered the HER2 protein and named it. How can I be sure? Because its real name is Human Epidermal growth factor Receptor 2. Which, conveniently, includes the letters H E and R and lo!

We now have Herceptin.

And the books that explain it are called HER Strenth and HER Hope. So perfect! And they both have women on the covers who are wearing white capris and pink, knit tops, posed in a Yoga stance of some kind and they both have big breasts. Have you no editors, Genentech???

On one piece of literature is this unattributed quote:

"Divide your day into moments, then live each moment as if it were one full life."

Huh.

So. Like the moment that started today at 8 AM as I was still sleeping when the doorbell rang and I thought, "Who could be here this early?" and Gemma yelled upstairs, "It's Miss Chris!" and I thought, "Why on earth is Chris here?" and THEN thought, "Protein day!"

I had completely forgotten.

What were the kids doing? I checked. They'd put a movie on for themselves and gotten breakfast, which, this morning, was Cheetos.

I got dressed in seconds. Didn't have to do my hair.

Chris dressed Joshua and changed his diaper. I poured them milk because milk rounds out Cheetos as a balanced meal, right? Stephanie arrived to babysit them. I grabbed water and a granola bar before heading out with Chris to the Chemo barn.

Is that the moment I should live as though it were one full life?

Or how about the moment when I put Thomas the Tank Engine underpants on Joshua and told him it was time to use the potty like a big boy? He seemed up for it.

I led him to the potty chair, showed him how the underpants come down, made him sit. And then realized I'd spent special little time and energy considering the mechanics of male urination. I had planned--I guess--on having him sit on the potty and point it down.

Once he was sitting on that little chair, his chubby thighs were squished together and his belly rounded out and down and there would be no pointing anywhere but out. He looked decidedly uncomfortable.

But this is one full life, dammit, and we're not going to end it without a real effort. So I had him stand, started talking up how Daddy does his business, and brought him to the toilet. He's not tall enough to whiz into a toilet.

I brought a plastic step stool over, had him stand on it and. . .there! That should do it! Have at it, son!

He looked at me with he eyebrows raised and forehead furrowed. And he didn't whiz.

To date, he's neither whizzed nor pooped in any place that meets with our sewar pipes. Are these the moments I'm supposed to live as one full life?

The point is, what qualifies Genentech to be the arbiter of this "wisdom"? What do they know about it? And what's more, what do they even care about it?

Genentech, if you cared about how I'm coping with breast cancer, you'd have saved the 10 bucks you invested in my backpack and all the literature, and have given me a gift card to Starbucks instead.

So you can take your little archer girl, and your little pink backpack, and your little yoga models and wrap them all into a little moment, lived as one full life, where I tell you that HER hope and HER strength adds up to a lot of HER bullshit.

Sunday Storytime: Or Not. . .

People!

I still feel like I've been run over by a truck. It's Sunday already. I thought, as of Friday, that I was rebounding, but yesterday saw me the most tired of all. It's possible I'm fighting off a throat germ. And I had been so glad to be victorious over lower GI issues, only to have them rear up yesterday and today in full force--with nothing in my diet to blame them on!

Very frustrating. And tiring, as this kind of problem interrupts one's sleep.

So, I'm just going to be patient. Rest. (Again.) And hope that I'll be ready to go tomorrow.

No story for today. I'm going to nap instead.