UP YOURS!

Nothing like posting every day in Nov. and then taking a two week vacation. Woo hoo. And it's not as if I was in tropical South America taking a zip line tour through the rain forest. I was here. At home. Doing "fun" stuff like wrapping presents, going to the park, trying (and failing) to clean up pine needles and getting a colonoscopy.

For the uninitiated, my mother was diagnosed at 59 with colon cancer and died just shy of her 63rd birthday, 10 years ago. Her father was diagnosed with colon cancer at 59, died at 60. Since I really don't want to keep that family tradition going, I had my first colonoscopy, having reached the magical insurance-company-approved age of 40.

After enduring a "bowel prep" Sunday (you don't want to know), followed Monday by a really long camera shoved through my *cough* colon *cough*, I am proud to announce I ain't got nothin' bad goin' on in there. Woot!

The nurse and I exchanged ways which we would not mind dying. Hers was to fall off a horse and be kicked in the head at the age of 91, thus dying with her boots on. I opted for a tragic chaise lounge/cocktail umbrella accident poolside in Maui at the age of 90. How do you want to go?

BEST.STUFFING.EVER

I will share the recipe for my Mom's stuffing, because I love you, Interweb. And quit your freakin' whining about the raisins. You can pick them out.

Mom's Holiday Stuffing

2 boxes of Mrs. Cubbison’s cubed herbed stuffing
4 apples cubed or diced
3 onions diced
5 celery stalks diced
1 C raisins

Sauté all (except Mrs. Cubbison’s) in 1 stick of margarine or butter until onions are translucent.
Add both boxes of Mrs. Cubbison’s stuffing to a large covered casserole dish.
Pour 2 cans of chicken broth over stuffing, making sure to get it evenly dispersed.
Add sautéed stuff and mix well.

Bake for 1 ½ hours at 325 (covered for 1 hour, uncovered for final 30 min.)

And for the really adventurous, email me (venturamom at gmail.com) and I will send you the coveted recipe for Grandma's Cranberry Jello Salad. Nothing says happy holidays like pineapple, cranberries, jello and sour cream. MMMM...

MORE DEAD MOTHER STUFF

If you are a mom, or just play one on TV, there is a new site that you might like called MothersClick. It is a meeting place for moms. Since I am obsessed with death and am also the official greater for the dead mothers' club, I started a new group called Motherless Mothers. If you are a mother who has lost your mother to death or other circumstances, come on over and join us. Really, it's not so bad.

DAD, DEPRESSION & CHEMICALY GOODNESS

It's starting already. Fall is coming. Depression (I typed desperation first. Hello, Dr. Freud?). It is creeping in along with the crisp evening air and the Halloween displays at Target. I never liked September because of all the back to school bullshit, not to mention the actual act of going back to school. Now September means waiting for the other shoe to drop. Who will say it first? My sister? Me? My dad himself? "Dad seems a little down," we say. September is when is starts. It's the month my mom started to get really sick 10 years ago. Ten Septembers. Ten times I have started worrying, waiting. Ten times I have made a point to increase the phone calls and visits. Ten times I have felt the pain that comes with the Fall. Ten times I have wished that it would be January already, so we could all give a sigh and say, "Dad seems to be doing great, huh?" Ten years of thanking the antidepressant gods for their chemicaly goodness. Guess it's time for a double dose.

Dad called Sunday. Said he was having a blue weekend. He was hoping to stave it off with a round of golf. And promissed he was taking his meds. I hate September.