Random Musings

This is one of those weeks ... yesterday marked the third anniversary of my sister’s passing from lung cancer, and then tomorrow will mark the ten year anniversary of my mother’s passing from lung cancer.

Not a day goes by ...

The Grammy’s. It was an Adele v Beyoncé showdown and, well, the best woman won when Adele beat Beyoncé in every category ... and onstage.

As usual, Adele sings and Beyoncé “performs.”

The singer was fabulous, even when she flubbed a lyric in the George Michael tribute and asked to start over. The performer did some kind of bizarre sing-talk song and then tilted back in a chair. WTF does that even mean? Oh, she didn’t care because she is an artiste!

Sidenote: when Adele won the last two awards she stood onstage and said Beyoncé should have won because her album, and song, were Adele’s favorites. That was sweet ... now, picture it going the other way with Beyoncé winning; does anyone think she’d say Adele should have won?

I know, right?

And speaking of the Grammys ... Celine Dion hijacked the presentation of an award to talk about herself, and her late husband, and a Grammy she won eighteen years ago.

Sit down, Celine, please.

Oops ... more retailers are Dumping _____.

Both Kmart and Sears have dropped Hair Furor’s crappy, made in China, merchandise, again citing poor sales.

The statement from Sears says it all:

“As part of the company’s initiative to optimize its online product assortment, we constantly refine that assortment to focus on our most profitable items. Amid that streamlining effort, 31 Trump Home items were among the items removed online this week. Products from the line are still offered online via third-party Marketplace vendors.”

The #GrabYourWallet movement is claiming this as another victory—in addition to having Ivanka’s made in China crap removed from Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus last week.

The drop in sales of all _____ merchandise, from father and daughter, is the result of the majority of Americans who are disgusted and repelled by anything bearing that name.

Good.

So, we recently saw Hidden Figures, about the group off African-American women who helped get our astronauts into space and onto the Moon. Great movie, great performances and a couple of Hot Men ...

Aldis Hodge played Levi Jackson and he is just fine, while Glen Powell, who had played a nerdy perv on Scream Queens, was John Glenn in the film.

And last week, Mistress Maddie pointed me in the direction of the actor who played Prince Albert on PBS’ Victoria ... Tom Hughes.

I saw this at Biki’s place today—reposted from JoeMyGod—and thought I’d share it, too:

Some people are saying that we should give Donald Trump a chance, that we should "work together" with him because he won the election and he is "everyone's president." This is my response:

•I will not forget how badly he and so many others treated former President Barack Obama for 8 years...

•I will not "work together" to build a wall.

•I will not "work together" to persecute Muslims.

•I will not "work together" to shut out refugees from countries where we destabilized their governments, no matter how bad they might have been, so that we could have something more agreeable to our oligarchy.

•I will not "work together" to lower taxes on the 1%.

•I will not "work together" to increase taxes on the middle class and poor.

•I will not "work together" to help Trump use the Presidency to line his pockets and those of his cronies.

•I will not "work together" to weaken and demolish environmental protection.

•I will not "work together" to sell American lands to companies which then despoil those lands.

•I will not "work together" to enable the killing in any way of whole species of animals just because they are predators, or inconvenient for a few, or because some people want to get their thrills killing them.

•I will not "work together" to remove civil rights from anyone.

•I will not "work together" to waste trillions more on our military when we already have the strongest in the world.

•I will not "work together" to alienate countries that have been our allies for as long as I have been alive.

•I will not "work together" to slash funding for education.

•I will not "work together" to take basic assistance from people who are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

•I will not "work together" to allow torture and "black op" prison sites.

•I will not "work together" to "take their oil."

•I will not "work together" to get rid of common sense regulations on guns.

•I will not "work together" to eliminate the minimum wage.

•I will not "work together" to support so-called "Right To Work" laws, or undermine, weaken or destroy Unions in any way.

•I will not "work together" to suppress scientific research, be it on climate change, fracking, or any other issue where a majority of scientists agree that Trump and his supporters are wrong on the facts.

•I will not "work together" to criminalize abortion or restrict health care for women.

•I will not "work together" to increase the number of nations that have nuclear weapons.

•I will not "work together" to put even more "big money" into politics.

•I will not "work together" to violate the Geneva Convention.

•I will not "work together" to give the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi Party and white supremacists a seat at the table, or to normalize their hatred.

•I will not "work together" to deny health care to people who need it.

•I will not "work together" to increase the profits of the insurance companies.

•I will not "work together" to deny medical coverage to people on the basis of an alleged or actual "pre-existing condition."

•I will not "work together" to increase voter suppression.

•I will not "work together" to normalize tyranny.

•I will not "work together" with anyone who is, or admires, tyrants and dictators.

•I will not "work together" with Donald Trump or anyone who supports him, because I will not allow one man to feed upon the fears of the populace, blaming minorities for their condition or their inability to thrive.

This is the line, and I am drawing it.

•I will stand for honesty, love, respect for all living beings, and for the beating heart that is the center of Life itself.

•I will use my voice and my hands, to reach out to the uninformed, and to anyone who will LISTEN for what's really so dangerous about Donald Trump, his friends and the Big Lie they spin to the world:

That "winning", "being great again", "rich" or even "beautiful" is anything more than nothing... When others are sacrificed to glorify its existence.

#RESIST

~Mike Harnisch

Well, it looks like _____’s Minister of Propaganda, Kellyanne Conway, is being bounced off at least one news show.

Mika Brzezinski of Morning Joe revealed that Kellyanne Conway often times texts directly to schedule an interview hit. But after what Brzezinski calls a never-ending cascade of “fake news, [and] information that is not true” she’s done with Conway:

“I know for a fact she tries to book herself on this show; I won’t do it. Every time I’ve ever seen her on television, something’s askew, off, or incorrect. I will say: Kellyanne Conway does not need to text our show, just as long as I’m on it because it’s not happening here. And again, I don’t even think she’s saying things she knows to be untrue, she’s just saying things just to get in front of a TV set and prove her relevance because behind the scenes, she’s not in these meetings. She’s not credible anymore.”

Kellyanne Conway is like a _____ product ... no one wants her any longer.

Now, I’m not saying this is the fault of Betsy DeVos, the new head of the US Education Department, but it is quite telling that this happened just after she was confirmed.

At 8:45 on Sunday morning, the department’s sent out this Tweet:

The man’s name is W.E.B. Du Bois.

And, to make matters worse, the department then tried to apologize for it ...

... and misspelled the word “apologies.”

Again, this from the Department of Education ... but, to be fair, it’s a _____ Department of Education.

Random Musings

Two weeks ago Arizona state Congressman Steve Yarborough, a republican, dontcha know, introduced a bill that would legalize discrimination against LGBT people on the grounds of religious beliefs and this week that Hate Bill was approved by an Arizona House committee.

If it passes, it means that all you have to do when you are accused of discrimination based on sexual orientation is say the Baby Jeebus made you do it.

I have a thought — and you knew I would — why not play it like this: you religious folks stop discriminating against me for being a homo and telling me I can’t have a cake baked, or reserve a room or order flowers or eat at the counter because I’m gay and I’ll stop saying y’all are a bunch of mindless, goose-stepping, one-celled brain dead lunatics using a history book as a weapon.

M’kay?

I loves me some Nashville; not the city — haven’t been there yet — but the TV show. It’s just a glossy country music city soap opera but the Eye Candy is par excellence.

Like one Michiel Huisman who plays hot, sexy sultry musician and record producer Liam.

Someone get me a fan, I’m’a getting’ hot up in here!

So, as someone who saw his mother die from lung cancer, and is watching his sister do the same, this news makes my day.

CVS Caremark, the nation's second largest drugstore chain with over 7600 locations, will phase out all tobacco sales by the end of the year. The move is expected to cut, yes I said cut, CVS annual sales by $2 billion but I guess saving a few lives means more to them than money.

Go figure; and then go shop at CVS.

So, the Sochi games start tonight, even though most of the hotels aren’t finished—some folks complain about the lack of flooring, doorknobs and potable water, but there is one fun story.

New Republic reports that Katya Romanovskaya, a Russian critic of Vladimir Putin, came outside to find a giant wooden cock chained to her car. Lucky bitch.

After seeing the giant phallus atop her car, Romanovskaya examined it further and found that the shaft was made out of one tree trunk, and the veins elaborately, carefully carved. Two other, smaller pieces of wood were attached to either side; balls. And as it weighed over 200 pounds it was a bit of trouble to remove, but Romanovskaya understood exactly why it had been put there:

"Finally, the day has come when my work has been noticed and appreciated."

No one has claimed credit for the stunt, but a local man has offered to buy the piece for his "collection of cocks."

I’ll let that last line just sit there, even though it kills me …

More on the man candy front …

I began watching Justified because it started the oozing-with-sexiness Timothy Olyphant, but I stayed because, well, because of Olyphant, but also because the characters are interesting and well-written and there is always some nice eye candy.

Like Jacob Pitts, who plays one of the Deputy Marshalls on the show and is funny and sexy and cute.

Then this season they added one Edi Gathegi and just as I began to notice him, he was sent to TV heaven by a shotgun blast to the gut. He was delicious, while he lasted though.

Scotland has legalized same-sex marriage by an incredibly lopsided vote of 105-18 in favor of equality; the marriages are expected to begin by year’s end.

That’s big news, but the really cool news is that just as lawmakers began the debate on the marriage equality bill, a rainbow appeared over Scottish parliament.

Take that religious wingnuts! The power of the rainbow!

I didn’t watch the Superbowl, because I am more of a Dowager Countess fan and I was glued to Downton Abbey.

But I did see the half-time show the next day, and while many people freaked at the idea of a Bruno Mars show, he was pretty spectacular. He sang! He danced! He rocked the house! Without a wind machine, a scanty costume, coming in like Cleopatra or a nip slip.

Though Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers did show a lot of skin.

Up in Minnesota, where Rhoda figured it was cold and she’d keep better — man, am I old — Minnesota lawmakers who took a political risk by supporting same-sex marriages have seen big increases in their campaign coffers.

Equality pays, y’all. Even the 13 lawmakers who voted for same-sex marriage in Republican districts or in districts where voters didn’t approve of legalizing gay marriage brought in nearly 3-times as much in 2013 as they did in 2011.

Bam!

So, Clay Aiken officially came out as a candidate for office in North Carolina and it took all of two seconds before his Republican opposition candidate, Representative Renee Ellmers, a Republican dontcha know, to attack him as a gay man:

“It speaks volumes to the state of the N.C. Democratic Party that the primary is shaping up to be a choice between the failed Perdue Administration’s Keith Crisco, a lawyer who doesn’t even live in the district, an activist who’s (sic) own party rejected her in the last democrat primary – and Aiken, a performer whose political views more closely resemble those of San Francisco than Sanford.”

Ooh, see what she did there? San Francisco! Clay Aiken! Scary gays!

Bitch.

So, Carlos and I love The Following even though we admit that the story-telling borders on the incredulous. But there are some good frights, and more importantly, some, yes, eye candy …

There are murderous twins on the show this year and Carlos and debated over which one was cuter. The one with the slick hair seems crazier, but the one with the Bieber cut seems cute and insane which makes him more dangerous.

I wanted to know the names of the actors who play the twins and I was stunned to find that they are played by one actor, the adorable Sam Underwood, who last played another murderer on Dexter’s final season.

The way they film the one actor as the two twins is really impressive, and, well, it’s twice the eye candy.

If you ever stop thinking FoxNews is filled to the rafters with idiots, think on this: Fox News contributor and wingnut radio host Laura Ingraham thinks Puerto Rico is a foreign country and it all began when Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking to Yale Law students, commented on the fact that she was the first Supreme Court Justice to use the term "undocumented immigrant," instead of "illegal alien," saying "[t]o call them illegal aliens seemed and does seem insulting to me."

 Ingraham highlighted Sotomayor's comment on her radio show the following day and suggested that using the term "undocumented immigrant" demonstrated a failure of Sotomayor's duty "to defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America." 

According to Ingraham, the word choice shows that Sotomayor's "allegiance obviously goes to her immigrant family background and not to the Constitution of the United States."

Sotomayor is a Puerto Rican American who is both an American citizen and the daughter of American citizens and what Ingraham failed to realize is that Puerto Ricans have had U.S. citizenship since 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act.

Typical FoxNews sh*t stirring dumbass blowing the facts to smithereens.

It looks like actor Cheyenne Jackson will marry his boyfriend Jason Landau.

Not really big news, except that the engagement comes just six months after Jackson divorced his husband of 13 years Monte Lapka, whom he married in New York in September 2011 after 11 years together; they announced their divorce last August.

This is just further proof that The Gays are equally as bad at marriage as The Straights.

I mean, The Straights have JLo and we have …. GayLo?

Notes From Smallville ... From Fun to Frivolous to Factual

So, we purchased the riding mower, AKA tractor with a mower attachment according to Sears, and we were so ready to use it. Then it rained. And rained. Then it cleared up for one morning and then rained again. Then it rained.

Two weeks of rain nearly every day and so the mower, er, tractor, er, mower, sat in the shed, unused. I ran into our neighbors downtown and, well, let me say they are rather odd; I'll leave it at that. But, they are both retired and have one of those perfectly manicured, perfectly trimmed, perfectly plotted yards. Ours is more of the natural woodsy yard and, to be honest, with some rather tall grass in the backyard. The Lady neighbor said to me, "Yard work time is here!"

And I thought, Is she trying to tell me to mow my yard? Bitch.

I said, however, "I know! We just bought a riding mower and have been waiting for the rains to stop and the yard to dry out so we can use it."

We chatted some more, though I cannot remember what was said because, as I told you a moment ago, they're odd. Then as they left, the Lady Neighbor turned to me and said, "Happy mowing."

Needless to say, Saturday morning we were up at the crack of dawn, firing up the tractor, er, mower, and riding it up and down the fence-line between our yards hoping it stirred them from their sleep. Sadly, our houses aren’t that close together so maybe we didn't annoy them as much as I'd hoped.

Sidenote: we played nicely, and took turns on the mower which, considering how juvenile Carlos and I are known to be, is a feat unto itself. Of course, it didn't hurt that the new mower has cut our backyard mowing time from over ninety-minutes to under forty minutes; plus, the whole sit down while you do it and drink from the cup of whatever in the cupholder aspect.

I have said before that Tuxedo is the Most Handsome Cat ever, and, well, to brag some more he is also incredibly smart. And understands English.

See, when it’s dinner time, no matter where he is in the house, I can shout, ‘Tucky, are you hungry?’ And he races into the kitchen for his meal.

Sure, you say, but he’s a cat and he’s hungry.

But then, explain this: when I am ready to go to bed, I say, ‘Tucky, are you ready for sleeps?’ and her runs down the hallway to the bedroom.

I know.

And then this: our cats do not go outside. We have no way to contain them in our yard because we have an on-the-short-side split rail fence that they can jump. Plus, there are all kinds of other animals and diseases that they could catch being outside. So, inside they stay. But, Tuxedo, being the King Cat of the house, is allowed to go outside with supervision, meaning I carry him around the yard and he sniffs the trees and the flowers and bird watches.

So, Sunday afternoon, after working in the yard, I came inside, and yelled, ‘Tucky? Wanna go outside?’ and he came meowing down the hallway and ran right to the sliding doors of the sunroom, ready to tour the yard.

Smartest Cat ever; and, of course, the most handsome, too.

And now, a more serious topic:

My sister has cancer.

Try as I might, I keep hearing her voice in my head from the day I answered the phone and she said that to me. But, and it's a big but, she has a positively stubborn outlook on the whole shebang.

Which she will need, because after her last round of tests, she learned that she has Stage Four cancer and that it has metastasized to her lymph nodes.

She has an appointment with her oncologist tomorrow, and has the most amazing outlook, which I think is a great great thing.

While we were out of the house Saturday morning, she called and left a message, talking about how she was home from the hospital, and all four of her girls had come for a visit. And, again, she reminded me not to cry about this--which is hard--and ended by saying, "This old lady is not ready to stop dancing."

That's my sister's attitude and just one of the many reasons why I love her and why she's my new hero.

And, as I learned from my posts about my sister, a lot of readers are dealing with the same issues themselves, or with a family member.

My father, who went through cancer treatments with my mother found all kinds of links about lung cancer treatments and questions to ask your doctor, so I thought I’d share them, with anyone who needs them:

Questions to Ask My Doctor About Lung Cancer

Being told you have lung cancer can be scary and stressful. You probably have a lot of questions and concerns. Learning about the disease, how it’s treated, and how this information might apply to you is a lot to do on your own. You might need some help. Your American Cancer Society can give you general information about this disease and its treatment, but your doctor is the best source of information about your situation.

It’s important for you to be able to talk frankly and openly with your cancer care team. They want to answer all of your questions, no matter how minor they might seem to you. But it helps if you know what to ask. Here are some questions that you can use to help you better understand lung cancer and your options. Don’t be afraid to take notes and tell the doctors or nurses when you don’t understand what they’re saying.

The questions are grouped by where you are in the process of cancer treatment. Not all of these questions will apply to you, but they should help get you started.

For information on lung cancer please contact your American Cancer Society toll free at 1-800-227-2345 or online at www.cancer.org.

Questions to Ask My Doctor About Lung Cancer: When you’re told you have lung cancer

1. Exactly what type of lung cancer do I have?

2. How do I get a copy of my pathology report?

3. Where is the cancer located?

4. Has the cancer spread beyond where it started?

5. What’s the cancer’s stage? What does that mean?

6. How does this affect my treatment options and long-term outcome (prognosis)?

7. What are my chances of survival, based on my cancer as you see it?

8. How much experience do you have treating this type of cancer?

9. Will I need other tests before we can decide on a treatment?

10. What are my treatment choices?

11. What treatment do you recommend and why?

12. If I need to have surgery, how will I manage if I’m missing a lung, or part of one?

13. What’s the goal of my treatment?

14. Should I get a second opinion? How do I do that?

15. Should I think about taking part in a clinical trial?

Questions to Ask My Doctor About Lung Cancer: When deciding on a treatment plan

1. What are the chances my cancer will come back after this treatment?

2. What would we do if the treatment doesn’t work or if the cancer comes back?

3. Will I be able to have children after treatment?

4. How much will I have to pay for treatment? Will my insurance cover any of it?

5. How long will treatment last? What will it involve?

6. Where will treatment be done?

7. What risks and side effects should I expect?

8. What can I do to reduce the side effects of the treatment?

9. How will treatment affect my daily activities?

10. Will I be able to work during treatment?

11. Will I lose my hair? If so, what can I do about it?

12. Will the treatment hurt? Will I have any scars?

Questions to Ask My Doctor About Lung Cancer: Before treatment

1. What should I do to get ready for treatment?

2. Will I need blood transfusions?

3. Should I change what I eat or make other lifestyle changes?

4. Where can I get help to quit smoking?

Here are some websites my father also sent along that answer questions, offer treatments, etc. I can tell you I felt less fearful and unsure of what lies ahead for my sister after reading some of these sites.

Stages of Cancer, National Cancer Institute

Cancer Fighting Strategies

Tarceva tablets

Xalkori, non-small cell lung cancer treatment

Web site for clinical trials that are recruiting