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YUP. I was right. A good win (or three) definitely makes a difference. I’m happy- no, ecstatic- tonight. Just got home from the Mountain Town Stages benefit $287 lighter and two glasses of wine drunker. Great night. But my $10 in raffle tickets netted me $25 to El Chubasco, $10 to Granny’s Drive-in, $5 to Kneaders. I won $500 in house painting for $125, $110 in dog poop removal for $47, $700 in headshots (includes makeup and stylist, 4 looks and 3 locations) for $80, and $267 in bike tuning, tanning, and 3-month membership to Park City Racquet Club for $25. Can you say “SCORE”??? Anyone want 5 tanning bed sessions? 😉
This evening simply capped off one of those killer Saturdays. Dropped Sage with a sitter, shared coffee and morning sex with Ryan at 10 a.m., picked up Sage and let her play in the bounce houses at Brighton for their end of season Beach Bash before cruising to the Benefit. Ah, the perfect spring weekend. Tomorrow we close out Park City Mountain Resort with Sage on the slopes and a spin on the Alpine Coaster before grazing the tailgaters in the First Time parking lot. You can count on them blossoming everywhere after noon. And so another season at Park City comes to a close.

I need to win something. I always feel better when I win something. For some reason, all day today I’ve been grumpy; feeling like I’m a failure- ok, well that’s too harsh. Just feeling unsatisfied and like I’ve messed up big time. You know how you would feel if you got a C and were hiding it from your parents? Or you found out that the super cute guy who acted like he liked you really doesn’t even know your name? Sage is fine, my health is fine, I skied powder today and had great afternoon sex when I got back.
PMS! Trouble is, I haven’t had my period in months thanks to the chemo and Tamoxifen. My doc says it’ll come back but maybe not until I’m done with the drugs…IN FIVE YEARS. My body must be faking me out. Talk about lame. All of the symptoms without the relief. So I need to win something. It helps me feel fortunate, excited, alive. I’ve won all expense paid trips (the most memorable was a trip for two including airfare to Vail and the Teva Mountain Games. My trip to Boston for the Dating Game doesn’t count cause the guy was icky), gear (backpacks, sleeping bags, sweaters, shoes, skis), a kayak, a car rack system, lift tickets, hotel stays. I’ve even won writing awards. Ryan jokes that I’m the luckiest person he knows. Sigh. So why can’t I feel lucky? It’s got to be hormones because – aside from completely missing my massage appointment today- I haven’t done anything wrong; not even scoring a parking ticket. You know what the next best thing to winning something is? Sleeping!
Off I go now. Toodles.

I think I may have just experienced the lamest non-accidental thing of the year. Imagine you won a super cool item in a raffle; a prize you had no idea you could win but also something you really wanted. You got to keep it for 30 minutes, then they take it back. That’s exactly what happened to Sage and me today. Some Denver organization set up a booth at SIA to welcome newcomers to the city and offer a hub where we could find out about the SIA parties and about the various manufacturers gifting swag on the show floor. They had also set up a white elephant swag exchange- you bring something you collected at the show and pick a box from their pile. Some of the boxes contained the regifted swag- a keychain, a hat, a T-shirt; others, have real prizes like an messenger bag. We traded in a ballpoint pen from PolarMax and I opened a box with a wood percussion instrument in it. I was fine with that and was ready to leave but Sage was about to throw a tantrum- she didn’t want it for some reason and was refusing to leave or calm down unless you got to try again- so they let her turn it in for a shot at a box of her own. There were no age rules and plenty of people came by together with each getting a shot at something.
She picked a box with a block in it. At first I thought this was a booby prize. But I turned it over and it said “iPod Touch”. OMG I couldn’t believe how cool this was. They made we wait so they could grab it from a cabinet then took a picture of me holding it. I thought it was because they wanted to post me as some kind of winner. Only then was I informed that they were going to post my photo on the web and tell people to find me and ‘steal’ the iPod. Talk about your crappy ideas of fun. Seriously? I would have to spend the rest of my day looking for stalkers over a prize that might not be mine? You could go back to your hotel and hide, the dude offered. I had meetings to attend, work to do and a three-year-old in tow! I should have handed the iPod right back to him and said no thanks. But then when he told me the other winners were never ‘found’; I thought who was going to spend an hour chasing me down – killing my afternoon and theirs? Some skinny ass kid with no life; that’s who. I was an easy target. I had a rambunctious preschooler and a giant stroller with me. No way to ditch those.
This stick figure comes up to me asking if I’m the “iPod lady” at about 5:40 p.m. I put on my best acting face, look confused and say, “uh, what?” My interview at Klymet tells him we’re in a meeting and he leaves. He honestly bought it. I think I’m clear. Turns out that at 6 he goes back to the “Underground Concierge” and whines about thinking he found me. So they all go back to where I was (and still am) and take my iPod….at 6:10. Ten minutes after the ‘game’ is supposed to end. See at 6 I thought I was home free. Jokes on me. As they leave, Sage starts crying because someone has taken her prize. I almost cried too. I couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t just say “never mind, keep it” or have a second iPod to give to the guy who found me so that they didn’t have to mess with my day and experience and we could both be winners.
That’s not a white elephant exchange btw. A white elephant is an exchange of a odd gift for another odd gift of equal value. What the company did was modify the rules on a regular gift exchange. You pick something, someone else can take it and you have the option of picking an unwrapped gift from the pile or taking someone else’s. But here, I couldn’t touch any of the already open boxes and take an iPod away from one of the earlier winners. 🙁
The guy running the event told me I could come to the booth and pick out another box. Why? So I could get a keychain and feel even worse? Talk about your insult to injury. Ok, so I’m a bad sport. But, I’m sorry. You don’t act all excited for someone winning a cool gift only to take it away from them (without telling them the plan ahead of time) or make them spend the afternoon stressed about some stupid ‘game’ when they have work to do. I was an idiot to think I was actually going to be able to keep the iPod. That’s the worst part of it. Getting my hopes up. Guess I’ll have to go back to begging Santa for a iTouch.

It’s been long enough and enough people have asked how I’m doing that it’s time to let you all know, I’m pregnant. KIDDING. The big, bigger, news is that my very last chemo is this Friday. That’s it. Six down, no more to go! I’m more than halfway through radiation as well. In fact, if it weren’t for my empty bank account and the rash over my left breast, you’d never know what I’ve been through. I have my hair and aside from having to drive to SLC daily for radiation, life is same ol’ same ol’. Just this month, I’ve finished pieces for MSN.com, SkiResorts.com, Draft Magazine and my usual OnTheSnow resports, I’ve skied opening days at Snowbird, Alta (x2), Park City and Solitude, potty trained Sage (or maybe she just lets us think it was all me), painted my hallways and finally found a renter for one of my spots.
The end date for everything is Dec. 19. Talk about celebrating the New Year. You bet this is going to be one of the best holidays of my life. Hannukah’s coming early to my house. 🙂
Some would point out that I was lucky but, to me, ‘lucky’ is not having canser at all (mispelled on purpose, that little fucker doesn’t deserve to be spelled correctly). Having the ‘the best’ kind of canser? That’s a consolation prize. Lucky that it wasn’t worse, sure; but I seriously doubt that anyone would want to be me unless they also have canser.
Can I say that I “had canser” in 2010 instead of “have canser”? I wonder. I’m afraid to try it; like I’ll jinx things and it’ll come back. The docs assure me that I was ‘canser free’ after the lumpectomy in July and all of this poisoning is just a precaution. But I can’t believe them. Once you get a canser diagnosis, your world changes forever. I didn’t just get a tonsilectomy. I had someone dig through my chest then poisoned my cells every three weeks for nearly five months. Plus, I’ve always walked around with the philosophy of expecting the worst so you can never be disappointed. I thought that way all through college. When I got A’s I was pleasantly surprised, psyched even; never disappointed. This does not mean that I am pessimistic. Not even close. I just choose not to get my hopes up until I have Tweetie in my hand.
So on my five-year canserversary, then I will breathe easy- and buy myself a brand new pair of boobs.
Now, if only it would start to snow, I could focus on something MUCH more important.
So how is everyone else doing?

BTW: I’m not pregnant and have no intention of sharing my love with any others outside of a pup, a boy and my Sage.