Author Archives: Jill Adler

Where the Wild Things Are- FILM REVIEW

Saw “Where The Wild Things Are” tonight. Sage loved it and actually sat in my lap the whole time without squirming. My little 3 year old is growing up! As cool as the scenery and the monster puppets were, though, there’s not much to engage adults. The boy is a brat with no insight or chutzpah to communicate with the Things and help them understand how to get along and be happy. Max tries to order them around but he’s often stumped and silenced when the Things call him out. Finally when he does confess that he’s not a Viking King he has absolutely NOTHING to say for himself; no way to elonquently explain why it doesn’t matter that he’s not a real king. What impresses the most are the Things themselves. The actors (especially James Gandolfini) do a phenomenal job of bringing their beings to life-especially when the 1963 book never explores their characters. This film adaptation by Spike Jonz attempts to put some meat on the bones of a nine-sentence children’s story about a neglected little boy who gets sent to his room without supper and finds himself in a far-off land where he finally gets to be the boss and the one showered with attention- even if it is by a bunch of large creatures who thump the ground and roar.
The monster-play in this movie script drags on and on and there’s no cool moral that ought to hit your rugrats over the head with. Still, I did shed a tear when Max said good bye to the Wild Things. I hate good byes. If you’ve got little ones, take them to see it. They’ll have nothing to fear.

Finally To Bed?

I’ll make this one a shorty seeing as how it’s five minutes to 2 a.m. and I have to get up at 7 a.m. to do this breast cancer strides walk. Hope talked me into it. I’m not one for getting up this early unless there are killer yard sales or there’re two feet of fresh snow at the resorts. The mountains in Utah aren’t open yet (that’ll come in Nov.) and it’s too cold for garage sales. I think it was guilt that motivates me. After Hope’s piece on Fox13 (see link in my FB posts), I received a few emails calling me an ‘inspiration’. Huh? I’m just doing what I’m told and trying to ignore the fact that I have a life-threatening disease.
I finished round three of chemo a week ago and am just fine thank you! Halfway through treatment now. Was a tad queasy last Saturday but that had more to do with lack of sleep and then doing nothing but sit around the house all day. By Monday, I was climbing and jumping on my Stair Master. The past two days have been spent researching the possiblity of doing radiation concurrent with chemo instead of waiting until chemo was done before starting 6 weeks of radiation (which, btw, would mean really f*^king up Christmas and January).
I figured since I was handling chemo so well, I could take the extra punch. None of the doctors in Utah seem to be up on this little time saver so I’ve had to Google like mad and contact cancer hospitals outside of the state. And here I thought the Huntsman Center was state of the art! After my research it seems that not only is CMF/radiation together viable but it may increase the longterm survival rate by 10 %. Plus, it keeps me from dragging my treatment into the next health insurance calendar year. Any sane person wouldn’t think twice. The side effects? They tell me my boob might not look as nice. Anyone out there can attest or deny this claim?
The stuff I’ve read so far says there’s no difference in looks at the 3 year point. You might be wondering how the twins are holding up at this point. Still small and perky. You can barely tell I had surgery. The scar blends in and there’s no divet from the chunk of tumor they removed. Thank you, Dr. Neumeyer! Ryan can even squeeze them now and there’s no pain or difference in touch between left and right. If it weren’t for my head I could be ‘normal’ again. My head though constantly takes me on walks where I wonder if there will ever be a time in the future that I can say to someone, “I had cancer” instead of “I have cancer”.
It’s a strange thing to feel like this disease will stick with you longer than family. Speaking of which. My sister’s birthday is this week. I sent her a blanket. 🙂

Another one bites the dust

My public voice strikes again. My sister this time. We’ve been ‘defriended’ on FB and I say “Good Riddance!’ She’s such a phony and a hypocrite. That makes my victim tally up to three. My brother, my ex-best friend Kristen and now Julie. Tee Hee. Perhaps I’m in denial of this loss or perhaps I feel good about cleaning house. Ding Dong, the witches are dead.

Everyone complains that airing your laundry in a public forum is inappropriate and wrong. It should be handled in a personal and private forum. But where do you go when the relationship is fucked anyway, there’s no ‘repairing’ and you simply need to vent? You want the world to hear your side, and (maybe) side with you? I love being able to blog. Sure, some things stay private in my journal but others find a happy little home in my blog or on FB because just maybe someone out there can relate.

Julie was a super bitch last night and she shut down any hope of reasonable communication. For two nights in a row, not only did she open a door in my parents’ house, setting off an alarm warning and effectively waking my three year old at 6 a.m., but she refused to turn on the AC to prevent this from happening on yet another night. She slept on the couch in the living room, Sage and I were in the spare room.  There would be no need to open the door, if we used the AC. No need for me to try to get cool air into our room via a window that offered no breeze, tons of traffic sounds from I-5 and stickiness from the heat and humidity here in San Diego. She wouldn’t listen. She blocked the AC controller like a 13 year old little bitch trying to boss things the way she always did. I was on my last nerve with only 5 hours of sleep at night to de-stress because of her selfishness. She had the luxury of falling back asleep. I had the task of dealing with a toddler that would rather jump on me and the bed than close her eyes again.

We yelled at each other for a bit; she said using a blanket was unhealthy (yes, she is insanely stupid when she wants things her way) and that had my parents wanted the AC on at night they would have set it to go on. Of course, what were her excuses when the exact thing happened in Palm Springs two years ago when it was 100 degrees at night, the parents were no where in sight and she still refused to turn on the AC and use a blanket? Ryan and I sweated like pigs and prayed she’d leave early. She did and we could rest in comfort.

I called Ryan today and told him what happened. He sided with me and said he couldn’t understand why she has a problem with blankets. That it is much easier to stay warm than cool-off in the middle of the night. Maybe I should have just vented to him instead of the world but I was furious. She pushed all of those childhood buttons where she was the dictator and torturer of all siblings in the home. My clothes couldn’t be in the closet, my bath supplies couldn’t cross a line in the bathroom, I couldn’t use the phone if she wanted it quiet. Absolutely EVERYTHING had to be her way or there was screeching and hell to pay when I whacked her and she tattled to my parents. That’s it. All I could do was hit her because she was incapable of rationale thought and perspective. The blow ALWAYS felt delicious. Of course, then I’d be punished but it was always worth hitting her again when the sitch resurfaced. So Facebook was my way of hitting her. :). I really did feel like slapping the shit out of her last night but I’m an adult and a mother. Instead, I posted a note on her wall calling her a bitch that couldn’t use a F*^king blanket and would rather make others suffer. I knew it would piss her off and also that she could delete it. If I could have texted her instead of Fbng I would have. I was looking for the fastest jab not the most public. She doesn’t text.

This morning were things ever so quiet. Mission accomplished. She was so mad she wasn’t speaking to anyone. Not even my parents. Sage slept till 9 a.m.! When I entered, we didn’t say a word. I can’t remember who finally spoke but when it did it was about how FB was an inappropriate forum. I told her I was sorry but I was angry. There was no communicating with her. I actually thought she was on her ‘puter when I posted but apparently she didn’t see it until this morning and was horrified that her friends and business contacts might see it. Ahhh, poor, baby. She didn’t accept my apology and announced she would not be my ‘friend’. She didn’t own one single thing about last night. No apology on her end. Same old immature bullshit. For someone that claims to be enlightened by Buddha, she is one hell of a hypocrite.

Parents are now on my case about my use of my blog and FB.

So here’s my solution. I’m moving my blog to this new location where no family can read and judge my thoughts for all eternity. If friends don’t like something I said, they can either talk to me or not but at least I won’t have the constant judging and cursing that family seems justified in dishing- even long after a post is published.

Hello, World!

Finally the guts to share this with everyone….
I woke up this morning thinking- wishing – yesterday was just one big nightmare and not real. That I could go about my day as if the bomb had never been dropped.
I have breast cancer.
Well, at least that’s what the radiologist seems to gravely think after surveying my follow-up mammogram and ultrasound. ‘It doesn’t look good, I’m afraid’ he said. Oh yeah- he kept saying he was sorry- like he had bumped my cafeteria tray or something. Your instinct is to say ‘that’s ok’ but I held my tongue … because it’s NOT OKAY! And now it’s the god damn fourth of July weekend and doctors have all decided that medical issues can wait.
I have an appt wed. with a general surgeon that may or may not take my insurance so I’m not sure if I have a ‘next step’ yet, even though I need one. I guess I could just pay for the office visit and find another doctor to do the surgery after Dr. Neumayer makes a diagnosis but then it would be like getting a second opinion and all of this is about time. Get this thing out. We don’t yet know what stage it is, whether it’s spread to lymph nodes and would require radiation or chemo or both. The consensus for sure is that a lumpectomy is in order.
I figure since I was planning on a boob job eventually, that they might as well lop the whole thing off and something good can come from tragedy. Yes, tragedy. That’s how I feel. I always thought that if someone told me I had cancer I would fight like hell (which I will) and have that fiercely positive attitude to carry me through it. How the hell are people positive? I’ve been crying at the drop of a hat since before the doc actually broke the news. I didn’t cry myself to sleep because I was drunk and passed out, but this morning the tears turned back on. This isn’t me- this teary chick. And that hurts even more- to feel so doomed.
The thing that scares me the most in this whole world – death- is sitting on my shoulder. I go get this biopsy, they tell me it’s spread, that I need chemo, the hair falls out, I’m sick and tired all the time, my organs stop functioning and I die. That’s not how I saw the rest of my life the day I met the radiologist.
I’m supposed to be holding Sage on my shoulders at the fair, dancing with her at her birthday parties, taking her skiing in Europe, hugging her at her graduation and telling her how gorgeous she looks on her wedding day. I’m supposed to be arcing at Alta when I’m 80! Not gone. Not someone’s memory. I don’t want people to be sorry for me. I wanted them to be envious.
Could this all just be a scare? They take a lump out like people have cysts removed all the time? But the radiologist with his somber countenance and heavy tone crushed that hope. Ryan cried too yesterday. He heard it as well. Stef talked with us after and he said that made him feel a little better. Like we had a plan and it wasn’t all death and roses. He’s really in this with me. I hate myself for bringing him all of this ‘life’. If he dated someone his own age, he wouldn’t need to experience all of this. Poor guy.
I keep going through my head – was it the junk food I eat, the coffee (but over the year it doesn’t begin to total what the average – healthy- person drinks), karma? But I never killed anyone.
I’ve always been a lucky person. Does that mean I will also be lucky here or that my luck’s run out?
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