Ramblings of a Wayward Goddess

My daughter is walking in her very first Relay for Life on May 18. She is walking for our friend Donna who lost her long battle with cancer last Oct. She is walking for her friend’s little brother (7yrs old) who is now in remission. She is walking for her teacher, a breast cancer survivor. She is 10yrs old and her life has already been affected by cancer.

http://www.acsevents.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=206509&supId=172218988

On June 9-10th I’ll once again be riding in the Tour de Cure for Diabetes. It’s a 2-day, 150 mile bike ride to sponsored by the ADA to raise money to find a cure for this disease. My father in law lost his battle with Type 1 eight years ago. My own father battles Type 2 and can already call himself an amputee. He’s lost toes from something as simple as an ingrown toenail. Most recently the medication he was taking caused him to retain so much water that his legs were opening up, risking infection, and another amputation. The cure for that was another medication that caused his kidneys so much stress that they were starting to shut down. He’s just recently been taken off all oral medication and put on insulin.

http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=4364&px=2320291

On Sept 8-9th I will be again riding, this time in the MS 150. Another 2-day, 150-mile bike ride this time to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. I didn’t know much about MS last year when I rode in this ride. I was more so just riding to be riding. That weekend really opened my eyes to this devastating and unpredictable illness. It can hit anyone at anytime in anyway. Some days you may not be able to walk. Another day you may be able to walk but you can’t see. Yet another day you may be able to see, but you can’t hold your child. No one knows what causes it, and there is no cure. There are no known environmental or genetic factors. No one can say they aren’t at risk for MS, we are all at risk.

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=1781153&pg=personal&fr_id=5520

Today I turn 32. I love my birthday. I love celebrating another year of being alive. I love that my birthday is on the 13th of the month, and love even more when it falls on a Friday. A lot of people shy away from “Friday the 13th”, but I LOVE IT!

So, how am I celebrating this day of my birth? Well….the kids and I paid the water bill. Then we went to a pet store and bought a gift card for my daughter’s friend who is having her birthday party tomorrow. Then we went to Walmart and bought another gift for another of my daughter’s friends for another party she is going to tomorrow (she is quite the social butterfly, that one). After that we went to Burger King for lunch. Fun, huh.

My husband is on his way home but got stuck in Va on 95. Apparently there was a big wreck that backed everything up. Instead of being home, about now…it will be 8pm or later when he gets home. Tommorrow we have a double header in soccer. One game at 9am and another at 2pm. Meanwhile my party girl has a birthday party from 11-3 then 4-6. I still havent decided what I want to do this weekend. One thought was to leave and let my husband deal with the schedules…but as the kids said when I told them “He wont be able to get us everywhere we need to go!” Funny how no one even questions how I get it all done. And done I get it, day in and day out. *Sigh*

Another thought is to finally get my cherry blossom tattoo. I am thinking 32 blossoms going across my back. I’m just hardcore like that!

I could do both…hmmmm

So, after the 12 hour walking session on Saturday, I wasn’t looking forward to walking in heels. Since our plan was to go into the city, hit the museums, eat then go to the show, we woudln;t be coming back to the hotel for me to change into the dressy clothes (that I spent 3 weeks picking out) that I brought for the show. So, I decided to just go with nice jeans a dressy sweater and my cross trainers. I figured anything goes in NY.

There was a bit of discussion about weather to take the train into the city and sub it all day, or drive in and park. Parking in NYC is a hige expensive pain in the ass. My husband decided that by the time we drove to eth train station, waited for the train and then got into teh city, it woudl be an hour. To save the hour, we drove.

Apparently, Sunday is a big day in New York. Traffic was crazy. Heavier than it had been Friday or Saturday. Two and a half hours later we parked. By the time we got parked, we didn’t have time to go to the Natural History Museum or The Met or any others because I had already bought tickets to the wax museum, and it was right by the theater. We had 7pm tickets to the show and we still needed to eat. So we just headed to Junior’s for a lunch/dinner combo. AS far as the food goes, well…it could be better. When you are paying $60 for a meal, you expect a bit more. At least I do. They may be rightly famous for their cheesecake, but that’s about all I would recommend on the menu (wish we had gone back to The Emerald Inn, but oh well). The best part of the place though was our waiter. He was clearly flirting with my husband. Not only flirting but down right scowling at me. I laughed and laughed at the whole scene. We decided that since our theater was right next door to Junior’s, we woudl come back after the show and have cheesecake and coffee.

After we left, we headed to the wax museum. It was interesting. I’m glad we went, so I could at least say I had…but if given the choice I’d do something else next time. I will say that some of the figures were eerily real looking.

When we were done there we had about 30 mins to kill before the show so we headed down the road to Dave and Busters and had a drink. Then we headed back to the theater for the show.

Spamalot was FANTASTIC. As a former theater geek, I was really able to appreciate the humor of breaking that 4th wall. I loved that they didn’t take themselves seriously. It was awesome.  Even my husband, who is neither a fan of Monty Python, or theater liked it. That really says a lot. I can’t even say a lot about the show without spoinling it. You just have to see it. It’s riddled with pop culture references. Just funny funny funny.

So, after the show we walked back over to Junior’s for our coffee and cheesecake. Again, stick with the cheesecake. I guess I’m a bit of a coffee snob after getting my Krueig pot and Green Mountain coffees. Their’s wasn’t great.  But the cheesecake was fantastic. I had Devil’s Food cheesecake and my husband had the Carrot cake cheesecake.

We walked off the calories (humor me) through Time’s Square, then headed back to the car. We drove through the financial district and went past  Ground Zero. It was weird. If you didn’t know what you were looking at it was like just driving by yet another construction sight. It really hit just how close people were too this looking at all the remaining buildings in relation.  Very somber.

After we got back to teh hotel, I got everything packed up and ready to go…then could not go to sleep. I had an 8am flight. Even being across the street from the airport, I was still looking at an early rise. I think I got to sleep at about 5am. Alarm went off at 6:30. Fun.

I wanted to oversleep and miss my flight, but that wasn’t happening, so I got up and got to the airport.

When my husband dropped me off, I noticed a line forming outside. Becuase I’m not a savvy traveler, I had no idea what this line was, so I asked. The guy standing there said it was baggage check and they woudln’t even let you in the airport if you hadn’t checked your bags. I thought…that’s odd, but ok. So I stood in line.

It was the line for the sky caps to check your bags and give you your boarding pass. You didn’t HAVE to check in there, but you could if you wanted.  The guy who helped me was a rather attractive gentleman and when he came back with my boarding pass he said “I need to tell you how appreciated yours eyes are. They are so bright and shining on such a dreary morning”. He got a nice tip.

I headed into the airport, got through security, found my gate, then went on search of coffee. I found some. Hot enough to melt your teeth. So, I was able to hold it until we boarded. Boarding was delayed. We had a flat. When we finally got boarded and taxied out to the tarmac…I suddenly had to pee. You know they wont let you get up at that point, so I had no choice but to wait. And wait. And wait some more. It took FOREVER to take off.  Then I had to wait for the flight attendant to go through with the beverage cart, then go back down the isle. By that time we were 5 mins until we started our decent. I sprinted (as much as you can on a plane) to the bathroom.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the flight itself was just horrible. It was very bumpy. It seemed like we were constantly dropping. I’m not one to get motion sick, but that flight did a number on me. I was so glad to be on the ground.

So , we landed, in one piece, which is always good. My friend picked me up and we headed back to her house. Her house that was filled with children…some even mine. And all teh children wanted to know all abount my trip. No sleeping now.

Monday night I took my friend out for sushi to thank her for being such a great friend and watching my kids without asking or even wanting anything in return. I love her.