The last two years have been all about moving, moving and more moving – and not the kind I like.

Ours has been boxes and packing tape and negotiating what we could and couldn’t live without. I’ve been from my condo to the big house to the apartment and now the loft and nary an airplane trip has been had.

We’ve had some trips to the beach and I’ve taken a wee independent woman sabbatical in North Georgia, but that’s a far cry from the solo trips to London, Ireland, California and the like that made my heart swell and sing and dance.

Well my little beetches, that’s gonna change.

(This isn’t the part where I explain in painful detail that The Mc doesn’t fly, I’ll save that for another post when I feel I can write about it without excessive swearing and name calling)

The Mc got himself one of them there fancy passport thingies and we’re goin’ on a cruise! Now I’ll admit I’m going into this a teency bit skeptical: what with them being the floating version of Panama City and people flying overboard never to be seen again or getting some heinous stomach bug and having to share a phone booth sized bathroom while their insides explode…yeah yeah. Skeptical. That said, it’s also a means to crossing one more thing off my life to-do list: I’M GOING TO SWIM WITH TURTLES! zomghellzyesyoudirtywhores!

That’s next month. Also next month: a return visit to The Hostel in the Forest with Gwen and Kells. Holy crap can’t wait for that either. What’s not to love about showering in the middle of the forest and sleeping in a treehouse? Crap that’s the goods right there.

In late July if the stars align, I’ll hook up with some of my dad’s family in Omaha for a mini-reunion, to be followed (very appropriately) a few months later by a trip to Ireland with my friend John. Hells yes!

If airfares cooperate hopefully I’ll make a summer voyage back to AK as well, but I’m not totally optimistic about that.

Man, I feel alive just thinking about what this year has in store with travel…realizing of course how incredibly shallow this post sounded.

Ugh.

Let’s just change the focus, then. What makes you so happy you can’t stand it and fills you up?

I remember sitting on his bed when he was barely strong enough to get himself out of it, hunched over more than usual and in sweatpants and a tee that hung off him like he was a walking hanger.

He muttered “see what eating all that broccoli got me?” and started with his contagious belly laugh. Pancreatic cancer had taken his hair and his body, but was no match for the twinkle in his eye or his sense of humor.

I suppose a several years back when I went through this the first time I thought if I did this and that I could prevent more icky bits from growing in my boobs. Walking the 2-day, spending a little extra on the license plate, running more, raising awareness. Eh. *shrug*

I was wrong. Like dad with the broccoli.

I’m still certain it’s nothing, and I’m positive everything I did was right and for the right reasons and resulted in GOOD, but when they say they want you to come back for a biopsy you can’t help but think “well, here we go again…” and after a few minutes of “shit shit shit, stupid body! Why don’t you ever listen to me!? I told you I didn’t want anymore of those!” you take it for what it is: an adventure and a message and an opportunity.

So I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing. Living with as much gusto as I can manage, loving as freely as I can, listening too closely to the spontaneous part of my spirit and generally being boisterous and outspoken.

I’m good, I’m good. Shaken maybe, but not stirred…and by Monday afternoon I fully expect you’ll see me bouncing around saying stupid crap like “merely a flesh wound!” then we’ll get the reports that confirm all is well in boobieville and nothing will have changed, you see, because I’ll still be who I was and who I am: a pain in the arse with a big mouth and an overly ripe mushy heart who needs to write more.

It’s been nearly a decade since I found my first lump. It was in my right booblie, and after monitoring a few weeks I went to see my girlie doc, who confirmed it and referred me to a dedicated boobage specialist.

It was a cyst, but the one the mammogram revealed in my other breast wasn’t.

That nasty little dude was eradicated and in the years since there have been frequent visits back to the doc, more cysts and more bad guys.

A few weeks ago I found a new little fella had cropped up, and a week or two later noted that he must have been lonely, because he now had a new friend.

I’ve been stewing on this for a few weeks now, my appointment is next Tuesday to see which kind of bad guys we’re dealing with.

Knowing that I’ll be in a holding pen for the better part of two hours while they ultrasound and read results and mammogram and read results and then eventually I get to talk to a doctor, I’m lining up the bits that I like to bring to keep me busy. There’s always a book, sometimes some knitting and always my iPod/iPhone.

Make me a playlist or suggest a song. Tell me what kind of good juju beats I should have thumpin’ and keepin’ me company…and don’t say that Melissa Etheredge song b/c it just makes me cry.

The third lump? A subdermal tumor removed from my middle finger last week. Good times!

So bring it. What songs?

Spring has arrived and we finally have the occasion to try out the new super wind turbine fan in the living room. So far I’ve noted these charming characteristics: it sounds a bit like a small plane prepping to roll down the runway, after about 45 minutes it makes intermittent *tzzzt* noises, and lastly – but most importantly – it’s churning up little tumbleweeds of Grayson fur that may have been undiscovered until we moved.

My boys are growing up. Their personalities are finally developed and ever present, for better or for worse.

When Grayson was a kitten we thought we’d go crazy. Windsprints over our heads at 2am, etc. When Monty arrived we realized we’d had it “good” with Baby Gray. Man oh man he was tireless. It probably didn’t help that we brought him home when we were packing up the transient apartment to move to the condo. No no, Monty never knew The Big House with it’s retahdid amount of square footage and it’s carpeted speedway where a cat could really get traction.

Some months later, Grayson has mellowed. He no longer needs to eat his entire breakfast or dinner in one sitting. He’s taken to sleeping on top of the fridge or the back of the couch most nights, coming to the bedroom only in the predawn and an hour before the alarm hours to make needle laden biscuits on my neck and drool on me.

Monty on the other hand, is a passive, laid back hippie cat. He sleeps between The Mc and I as a furry, living, mewing “cockblock”, and stays on the edge of the bed claiming innocence (but is clearly an accessory) to Grayson as he disrupts my slumbers.

With the whirring of the fan and it’s inevitable tumbleweeds of fur comes a new adventure for both boys: the flipping and playing of pillow tags (presumably not removed in accordance with the law) in the wind. They’re fascinated and frightened, and downright delightful reality TV in my very own loft.

I never thought I’d care for cats the way I do for my loyal, sometimessnugglysometimesaloof boys…but I do.

They are my babies, my furry little mewing wish they’d learn to shit in the toilet or at least wipe their feet babies.

High five!