Stork Award

It's been a tough couple of weeks in Megs Land.  Dad switched his chemo protocol back in September, and the first 2 cycles went great, but during the third cycle, he got pretty sick from side effects.  It's a story for another time, but it's very hard to watch him go through that, especially when I'm not there to hover and meddle like I did when I lived with him.  And then this week, Abbott stopped eating.  We took him to the vet yesterday, and his lymphoma is progressing.  The vet gave him a shot of dexamethasone and B vitamin, and increased the oral meds I'm giving him.  The dex did perk him up, but does not appear to have done a whole lot for his appetite.  The tough part is that while we always knew the time we had left with Abbott was limited, I think it's a lot more limited than we realized.  The vet did say that she didn't think he was in pain, just that he isn't feeling well and is tired.

And then this week has been all wonky with my pregnancy symptoms.  I had my first honest to goodness bout of morning sickness, where I thought I was going to toss my cookies on the bus ride home from Dad's, and also on the subway and the walk home.  It passed and now I'm generally back to my typical food aversions, bloating, general eating unpleasantness.  But then my boobs stopped hurting.  I'm trying not to think about it too much.  But this year has generally been so crummy, and last night I said to Jeeves that the only thing that was making the situation with my dad and Abbott remotely tolerable right now was that I'm pregnant.  And then I said, "If I have a miscarriage now, I just don't know how...." and I trailed off, because he knew what I meant.  The truth is, that we're all a lot more capable of handling horrible things than we think we are.  You breathe in and out and you put one foot in front of the other.  It sucks, but you do it.  But holy hell, if my cat dies, my dad continues to deteriorate, and I have a miscarriage, someone is getting punched.

But a nice little bright thing happened in my week - fellow Jersey girl Kasey at Stupid Broken Eggs nominated me for a Stork Award!  The Stork Award was started by Teresa at Where the Bleep is My Stork.  I've been reading her blog for a long time.  Here's how it works:

1. Include the Stork Award icon in your post
2. Link to the person(s) who nominated you
3. Answer the 10 questions about yourself
4. Nominate as many bloggers as you want to receive the award 

5. Ask your nominees 10 new questions 

6. Link your nominees and let them know they've been nominated

7. Post the Stork Award icon on your blog side bar if you are so inclined

What a nice treat.  Ahem.  Shall we begin?

Kasey's questions and my answers:

1) What is your dream vacation?

This is a tough one because there are many, many places I'd like to see.  But if I had to choose one, I'd say I would like to go back to Italy and see parts of it that I didn't see last time.  I'd like to go to Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the norther lake district, Sicily, Sardinia....  And I would like to eat all of the food.  Going back to France is a close second.  I've also never been to Scotland - I'd really like to go there.

2) Do you have any regrets in life? Would you redo something differently if you could? 

I'm not a big believer in regrets because I think that the decisions we make, even when they are the wrong ones, get us to where we're going.  For instance, I used to say I regretted going to law school.  But if I hadn't gone to law school, I never would have met my husband.  I will say that if I had a time machine, I'd like to go back to my early 20s and encourage younger me to stop crying over dumb boys who broke her heart because they are so not worth it and something much better is just around the corner.  So I guess that's a regret - I wish I hadn't spent so much time being sad about my romantic life in my early 20s.

3) What is your favorite thing to do to distract yourself?

Reading and cooking.  If it's really bad, reading cooking magazines.

4) What makes your family special? Any rituals or holiday plans that are special to just your family? 

This one was tough.  My family is quite small - just me, Dad, my sister, her crazy-ass husband, and my three awesome nephews.  I have cousins, an aunt, a couple of uncles, but they all live very far away and I was never close with any of them.  So when I say what I think is special, I really mean my immediate family.  My family really listens.  Well, sort of.  My dad (and my mom while she was alive) really listen, and they taught me to really listen.  When they asked, "How was your day?" they wanted the honest truth, not just a perfunctory "Fine."  I love my sister, but listening is not one of her strongest suits.  Still, she always wants an honest answer to "How are you?"  As for holiday traditions, on St. Patrick's Day, we make a giant corned beef and watch the movie The Quiet Man.  I don't really know any other families that do that.

5) What are you doing for the holidays?

Jeeves and I agreed when we got married that we would trade off holidays with our families.  So, this year we are with his family for Thanksgiving and mine for Christmas, and next year we will flip that around.  For Thanksgiving, we will go to Jeeves' parents' house and I will bring my pumpkin pie that no one eats except me (and then I will steal the leftovers of that pie and share them with Kate's family at our annual day after Thanksgiving holiday - Leftover Day) and I will make the giblet gravy, which is my mom's recipe, and somehow the turkey will be left up to me as well, probably.  For Christmas, we will go to my sister's house where she will make her famous standing rib roast and I will make a chocolate mousse pie.

6) Are you a coffee drinker? (I need my second cup now)

Um, yeah.  I even wrote a post about it.  Sadly I am on seriously reduced caffeine consumption right now.

7) Do you live in your dream home? If not what would you change about it or add to it?

NO.  We live in a one bedroom apartment.  It is a good apartment, but very far from my dream home.  If I could triple the size of the kitchen and maybe add some more cabinets, and magically give it a private backyard - well, that would help a lot.

8) Do you rather host parties or attend parties?

Both!  I love both.

9) Which season is your favorite? Why?

I actually think all of the seasons have their bright spots, but I think I'll go with Spring on this one.  I love the flowering trees, and seeing leaves sprout, and the days start to get longer.  It feels like such a hopeful time.

10) If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive who would it be and what would you talk about? 

My mom.  She died in 2006.  I miss her a lot.  I wish we could talk face to face (we talk in my dreams some times, but it's not the same because in my dreams I never remember that she's dead)  so I could tell her what's been going on in our lives and get her advice.  

My nominees - I would have a lot, but I don't want to re-nominate anyone:

Rach from A Little Bit More

Melissa from Ask an Infertile

Smile at My Lady Bits

My questions for them:

1.) What is your guilty pleasure movie/music/book/TV show?

2.) The best vacation you ever went on?

3.) If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

4.) Time travel is a thing, but you can only go back and observe - you can't change anything.  What time period would you want to witness?

5.) What would you choose as your last meal?

6.) The best book you've read in the last 5 years?

7.) What do you love about where you live?

8.) What's your biggest pet peeve?

9.) Who was your favorite teacher in high school and why?

10.) What was your bravest moment?