You Take the Good, You Take the Bad

What a day of ups and downs. I've only got 5 minutes before American Idol starts and I really need to laugh right now, so I'm going to try to make this brief. The following things have happened within the last 24-48 hours:
- had a good outside run at lunch; felt like I might survive 15.5 miler this Saturday;
- took dog to vet because doggie daycare folks kept hounding me about something I had already run by the vet. Figured I'd just take her there, find out she was ok, and then I could tell them to stuff it. That really should have been my first clue;
- vet aspirated the same growth he told me not to worry about six months ago and informed me it's a mast cell tumor -- the dog equivalent of a malignant carcinoma;
- came home and had a mini-meltdown over dog's surgery (scheduled for this Friday), my role in her illness, and her prognosis;
- consequently, I'm probably not running 15.5 miler on Saturday because after neglecting her so much that she got cancer, I probably shouldn't neglect her the day after her surgery;
- discovered Heath Ledger had died;
- received word that my friends were organizing a charity kickball tournament to raise money for the family of a recently-slain local police officer -- I'm incredibly proud of them for thinking of this and making it happen;
- and all the while, running through the background of my mind is the suspicion that two acquaintances/friends of mine who have been in a committed relationship for close to a decade have broken up and a new friend of mine has played a part in that.

Very sad, almost all of it is very sad. And yet, life just marches on. I was on the phone with my mother before, checking on my great aunt who has finally returned to my mother's house following her triple bypass surgery of a few weeks ago -- and after crying about Bodhi (my dog), I found myself cracking cancer jokes in Bodhi's voice. The "Bodhi voice" is just something I do. And if you like me, you find it somewhat charming/disturbing, while if you don't, I imagine you think it's just disturbing.

Ah, American Idol's on. As to the point of this blog, I really have no idea. I just know that the first girl just sang one of my favorite songs, "Someone to Watch Over Me." It's also a song that reminds me of my late father. Who in turn reminds me that life just marches on. Whether you've lost your parents, or your dog, or your husband has been murdered, or relationships that were never supposed to end have ended....life marches on. It can seem so incredibly cold at the time, but I imagine it's the only way we can survive. If we were to stay in the pain for too long, it would drive us mad. So I find myself doing "the Bodhi voice" and saying to you, "Buy a daffodil -- my mam gave me cancer."

Be well my friends, and find the funny. :)