Author: wyde1340

Stage 4 NSCLC Squamous Lung Cancer with MET amplification mutation

Not a Funeral but a Yacht Party?

My friends and family:

I will not be having a funeral, but I’m not opposed to having “Celebration of Life” or even a “Yacht Party”. I want all Yacht Rock playing. Yes, I love this music as it reminds me of growing up in the backseat, with the windows down, in the summer, listening to 93.7 WSTW with Mom & Dad in the front seats.

And, Chris can’t stand this music…like at all…I know this will likely make him shake his head and roll his eyes, but it will always remind him of me 🙂 Maybe that’s selfish, but I think this would be fun. I know, I’ll be dead…but I’ll be watching over ya’ll. Lol!!

Front Doors…

As I started my day, I noticed that most people’s front doors are closed. Most houses where I live have storm doors or screen doors on them. It’s still kind of chilly here, so I can understand people not opening the solid door.

My question to the masses is: When it’s nice out, do you open your front door?

My front door leads to a dark hallway, which is kind of depressing.  I always like the idea of keeping the solid door open, but then I worry about solicitors. Haha! 

No, I don’t want them to know I’m home and I don’t want to be stressed thinking they know someone’s home. I don’t want to feel forced into answering the door either. Nowadays,  it’s not kids hawking cookies or gift wrap, but giant cable providers (and this one lady with a petition for water quality).

Why do we have to do door to door sales? If I’m interested in changing my cable provider, I’ll go online. If I’m worried about water quality, I’ll go online.

My house is my safe space and in most cases, I’m trying to stay away from whatever bullshit is outside that door.

That said…I remember when I was a kid, my parents had that door open all the time and for some reason, it seemed sunnier back then. I miss it…

5+ Years and I was Worried…

It’s been 5+ years since I’ve ridden my bike any real distance. Today was 22 miles.

For 5 years, I worried that I’d fall…that I’d get too far out and not be able to get home…that my replaced hip would hurt. None of this happened!

Here’s to me being back on the bike, hoping to lose some weight and help keep my sugar down.

Lilies Abounded…

“I hope death is like
being carried to your bedroom
when you were a child
& fell asleep on the couch
during a family party.
I hope you can hear the laughter
from the next room”

Uplifting Credit: Lilies Abounded
Artist: Mother and Child is by Xi Pa

This description brings back so many memories.  I wish they weren’t memories but everyday life.

Blue Skies & Cheese Rolling…

I took this picture at the junction of I476 and I276 in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania region.

This is what they do now with dirt that’s left over from extending the road and honestly, I hate it.

It’s these giant mountains of dirt on the side of the road. Gone are the days when you could see the landscape around you. Now we build cheese-rolling mountains and fake stone sound barriers.

The “fast” road trip excitement is gone. When you wanted to get somewhere quick, but you were still interested in what you passed. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve doubled back to find a business or interesting, odd site that I saw off a main highway. 

Now, we see these somewhat green mountains and beige stone walls (great spot for more graffiti) driving along. Massively boring, sadly disappointing, destroys small businesses just so the highway isn’t so loud.

Why we keep building next to highways or move into houses near them is beyond me. I live about a mile away from I476 and I hear the highway noise…even with those beige stone walls. It’s not a terrible noise and can be oddly comforting.

I suppose we can remove all of these monstrosities when we all get forced to use electric vehicles…

I’ll miss the noise and the landscape.

PJ the Baby Squirrel

Coming out of a restaurant called PJ Whelihans last night, I found a baby squirrel in the parking lot. He was cold, confused, and running in circles. I picked him up out of the way of cars and put him on the median. I looked to see if Mom was around…she wasn’t.  There are no large trees and really no place to have a nest. I have a feeling he was curled up in someone’s engine bay.

Anyway, I told my husband I couldn’t leave him there. So, I picked him up in towels and put him against my body. I brought him home, set up a comfortable area in a cat carrier. I tried to get him to drink some water… no luck. I put him in the carrier and he started moving around and making little noises. I thought he had a chance. He just had to make it through the night. I was taking him to Aark Wildlife Rescue in the morning.

He didn’t make it. I’m really sad. I named him PJ (after the restaurant) and put him in a cigar box for burial later.

I’m happy that he didn’t die alone, cold, in the dark of that parking lot. I’m happy he was warm for the last few hours, but I’ll always ask myself, “what more could I have done?”

With this said, please do what you can for those that can’t speak. Please help those that fall or look disoriented (human or animal). You may be the last hand of care they know.

Bye little guy!

Broken Record…

I’m starting to feel like a broken record…I’m not okay.

Besides the fact that my husband can’t get a job, I can’t get a job, I have Stage 4 lung cancer, his mind might be slipping, we’ve had to run our 401ks and IRAs empty…we just did our taxes. On top of the $8000 we owe from last year, we get to owe another $10,000 on top of that. Yeahhhh us!

I had to quiet fire a petsitting client tonight who is family. Last minute, they asked me to watch 4 pups, so I did. All was going well until I couldn’t get back in time to clean up any messes because our taxes turned into a 3 hour cluster fuck and they came home early. I’ve been watching these people’s pups for 2-1/2 years…I’ve never had an issue. All of a sudden, I didn’t feed the dogs, the whole house was covered in shit and no lights were left on…yeah, nope, didn’t happen. I explained that sometimes life happens and I was running late. I then proceeded to say that I am unable to do constant care and maybe they’d like to find someone else. These people have “forgotten” to tell me there was an extra dog, asked me to be at their house at a certain time for a delivery, forgot to tell me their dog had come into heat and covered the whole house in blood for days that I had to constantly mop up (ok, I should have gone and bought diapers)…it continues…and I was lucky if I got paid within a week.  I’m upset because I failed…it’s not on them. They have every right to be pissed, but don’t come at me like I wasn’t taking care of the dogs and that I can’t handle 4 dogs at a time.

I feel like I’ve done some bad shit and someone is paying us back for it….or that someone has a pin cushion of us and every day it’s another pin in our lives.

I used to think life was bad when I was a teen…now that I’m an adult, I completely understand why older people end their lives.

That being said:  if you’re reading this and you’re not ok in the United States, please dial 988.