In which I relate the events of the past

Bad movie night was a success, especially because the movie was so freakin bad. There was random sound effects, fishes popping out here and there, nudity where it hardly made sense, and a bad plot I can hardly remember, something about zombies I think.

We had a great time getting drunk ready for the movie, (thanks for the gin Carl!) and a certain guest brought the weirdest host gift of all time, wait for it... mammogram films. Apparently these are the pictures that didn't turn out and they get held for a month and then pitched. So I was gifted a few of them, because I am apparently a boob man. (Shocking I know.) That wasn't enough embarrassment, so she dug out some nipple markers (see illustration) out of her purse, much to the stark amazement of all the guests. These are round nipple sized pieces of tape with a little metal ball, about 1 mm attached. They get stuck on the nipple for the mammogram so the radiologist can determine the location of the nipple in the radiograph. There was much laughter about all of this, with one male guest covering his nipples with his hands and saying softly, "I'm invisible". Dude, you crack me up.

Seriously, mammograms are a good thing, even if as Danielle put it, "it's like having your boob slammed in the refrigerator door". I have a friend that works for a company called R2 that makes a device that scans a mammogram radiograph and highlights the points where the radiologist should take a good look. The scanner uses an algorithm that was developed by analyzing many radiographs and determining how to find the beginnings of tumors. He tells me that around their office they have seen thousands of radiographs and that he has seen some that were really bad cases where the cancer was advanced. In those cases the women had waited too long to get a mammogram and their first news was, "You have a bad case." That's pretty sad.

I mention all of this serious stuff because both my mother and father both waited too long to seek effective medical care for what turned out to be really bad diseases. In dad's case he ignored the pain until he couldn't walk any more. It turned out to be cancer and it had advanced quite a ways. He died two years later after enduring a lot of very unpleasant treatment and really bad days. If he had sought treatment earlier it might have been different. Mom failed to deal with her arterial disease, denying that it was a big enough problem, then had a massive stroke that could have been prevented. She will never fully recover. She lives in an assisted living home. She can't carry on a normal conversation because of the ephasia and short term memory loss; she can't speak very well and she can't remember enough of the conversation to continue it. The stroke took away an enormous amount of who she was at 62, and she'll probably have to live this way for a long time.

I love my mom and loved my dad. It really hurts that they could have avoided some really bad things if they had taken care of themselves earlier. Don't scrimp on the medical stuff. It really can matter a lot. Sorry to go all serious on you there.

So the audition for Gilligan went well, though I haven't heard back yet. I leaned and sang a song, did a few dance steps, and read a couple of scenes. It sounds like a fun show. You'll all be informed as soon as I know. I will expect you all to come see me, clap loudly, and gushingly praise my talent in glowing terms.

So we all (ok the majority of us) went to casa faire today to get our gate passes so we can go there and act like people who died a long time ago in a country far far away. We saw a lot of people we know and there was hugging all around. Then we built the stage which consists of legging up four platforms with varying height legs to make a flat level place on top of the up and down ground. Everyone cheered when it was done. That was nice. I'm excited to be able to be involved in faire because I can finally get in on all the fun that the ladies have been enjoying and I can be there with them instead of home alone. We just need to figure out the kid care.

We're all trying to figure out when exactly we'll be where and the schedule of everything. It seems that we'll all be busy from now until Christmas eve with renfaires then Dickens Fair. There may even be a musical comedy in there.