My mother became ill in August 2008 with ovarian cancer. This is a story of the final months of an exceptional woman.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Wonderland

Wonderland Lost

Wonderland Regained!!


A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July--

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear--

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream--
Lingering in the golden gleam--
Life, what is it but a dream?

Reverend Dodgson

I munch on my Madeleine and converse with Proust as I read.

An image of legions of Princess Dolls flooding the land will sometimes invade my Repose.

Ethereally yours,

Judy (via jeff)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/books/review/Max-t.htm

Friday, October 17, 2008

Halloween Here I come!

Judy: Flower Child!

Riding Fortuna's Wheel


My Dear Friends,

Today is an especially lovely day.

Perhaps it should not be since my side hurts a bit which is not good...but not too bad either.

The sun is shining and my spirits high.

That exuberance is sharpened by bittersweet. I feel for my son-in-law, Chip, who will be undergoing surgery on Wednesday next for colon cancer ... the same day I will be sitting quietly getting my own treatment.

Judy, Flower Child (via Jeff)


Judy's Waltz

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Moustache?

Chef Paul Edmund reveals Slo-Cooked Piggy Recipe

Judy: T-Rex of Appetite

Lard: the best Emollient

Chef Paul Edmund is at his finest this morning. What a feast. PJ's Big Biscuits! Cackling golden eggs! A tiny piggy slow-cooked through the night! I'm like a stump grinder...a cloud of biscuit dust floats around my head as my fork flashes up and down through the air stabbing eggs and piggy bits. I even had to take a piggy-biscuit-egg sandwich with me for my quick "pause that refreshes". Hard to quench a hunger like mine these days. I am a T-Rex ... insatiable, prowling. Don't visit here with bon bons on board. You may have to run for cover once I scent you out.

Saw the doc yesterday and he said I am fluffing up nicely. Everything is adding up to indicate my cancer is having a major setback.

I will have 5 chemo treatments in total. The third one is scheduled for Wed, 22 October. I am more or less on schedule for a tratment every three weeks so I hope to have chemotherapy completed by Bodhi Day (8 Dec, mark your calender!)

My biological war has been filled with the unexpected. Unexpectedly good. Miz Flounce quite approves.

Basta! Enough writing. I will now whisk out my Maybelline compact mirror to relish my new moustache of bread crumbs and lard. That combined with the sight of my bald pate shining in the background is the stuff of dreams! One serious concern: Queen Janita, my daughter, has sent me a photo of herself implying my hands are in need of reconstitution. She recommends piggy fat as the emollient of choice. Given Paul Edmunds style of cooking I am in luck there.

Your Gracious Gourmand,
Judy (via jeff)

PS I found a "Sarah Palin Bonny Bouffant" at a fire sale. I ran that rug through boiling bleach and the color is now a perfect "sexy blond". This hairdooz has proven a glorious addition and festoons my head nearly constantly. Perhaps I should hit the campaign trail and stand side by side with Miss Alaska? What say you?
PPS I have reviewed all of the "comments" lo these several months. Some of you (mostly friends and relatives) are obviously repositories of a saucy, satisfying wisdom. You "others" induce heart palpitations and gas mor often than not.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

What's a Girl to Do?

Local Prayer Meeting Guest

My Inner Child


Internet Friend?!


Example of Outrages sent to Moi!


I suppose I just cannot escape the fact that I may be around for awhile. Now, don't hold me to that since I don't want to be held accountable for goods I cannot assure delivery on.

Dr. Muldoon wants to meet with me tomorrow. Whoa baby!! What could that be about?? Part of me cannot help fretting. The Miz Flounce Inner Child don't like being called in for an appointment that breaks routine. "Must be Bad!" But, my not always dominant Cerebral Cortex tells me that Dr. M is going away for a short while either for re-fueling or to stoke the fires of his prodigious mind with Greater Learning. Whichever edifying scenario is true I am certain he wants to just lay hands on me briefly in order to shove me gently toward my next chemo treatment.

But, back to being around for awhile. Part of me thought I might be off the hook in terms of the whole "voting thing". Seems that will not be the case. My kids just harp on me relentlessly about "being a good citizen", "get out there and vote", whatever. That the product of my loins would be such moral Nazi's!!! Jeff is especially relentless and annoying in this area. I get off the phone being browbeaten only to hear Murdoch's Fox TV Minions braying about the terrorists/USA!USA!/depraved gays/heart of darkness democrats/family values/welfare junkies, etc. You can feel the froth and spittle. Rational discourse at its finest!

King Lear and I are on the same page when he lamented, 'O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; No more of that'. Should I put a passle of rocks in my sackcloth and march right into the Lake? Just be done with it? Or, should I hold out a bit longer? I sense Elijah's chariot approaching, don't you?

What's a girl to do?

I think I shall follow my chemo guru's advice and just slap back half a bottle of those happy pills I now have to treat my cancer aches and pains washed down with 5 shots of chilled Stoli and sleep through the election. I will then swill down sufficient coffee, wake up a bit to try and discern how the children would want me to vote (the Foxy Friends on TV in the other room are not at all subtle, they tell you exactly what to say and think...over and over and over. It's called "news"). I will then chirpily proclaim whatever each person wants to hear to then return to the arms of narcosis! Same approach for you... Mark Twain once pointed out, "In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination." No need to even try and discuss it!

Why do they even want to run for office given the Twilight Zone zeitgeist we and the current Administration have created? Gazing through a glass darkly our American Life renders my mind more than boggled. Whomever gets the office of President will have a moral and financial legacy bestowed upon them by the current Executive so toxic they probably will be undone. A bit like being impregnated with plutonium.

Columbus Day has come and gone. Nothing much happened here except more brushes with Reality Bizarre. This whole Internet Thing is getting a bit too weird. As if television and Fox were not enough. I have had my first anonymous email forwarded to me filled with innuendo/character assassination/factual distortions-lies and overt manipulation. Jeff kindly quantified and clarified its bountiful supply of defects for me.

One woman he passed his observations on to fired back that he is obviously a fetal child killer, worshiped Satan and tax increases, lusted after Michelle Obama and her children and should be removed from the medical profession, etc. A neighbor at her most gracious. She informed Jeff he will be summarily brought (in effigy we hope) before her Prayer Group and would have their attentions directed at his soul.

I think I may go to the Prayer Group and give a short lecture on the Jungian concept of the "shadow". http://www.shadowdance.com/shadow/theshadow.html The white picket fences of ladies love would then be closed to me for all time, no doubt!!

Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.— Dr. Carl G. Jung

I may eventually have to bail on the torture of trying to deal with mouse and keyboard if these are some of the Entities I have brush against me. Even in digital, disembodied form I would rather not be reminded so many folks like this exist. I had to take a very hot, very long shower to clean off the stain of contact even though I know she has her self-annointed Christ Seal of Approval identifying her as Wholesome.

Whoops! I think my Shadow is showing!!!

Now that I think about it I'd best make "thank you, Lord Jesus" a regular part of my conversation rounds about here lest I be spiritually molested by one of god's Vestals**.

More pleasant gifts do arrive when and if I can figure out how to access my computer (virtually never even after all this time). Another friend sent me a fun suggestion for Columbus Day. The indelicate Maxine Cartoon you see displayed above was the point of inspiration. Paul was to festoon himself in Chrissy Columbus pantaloons and cutlass. I was to dress myself in leather hot pants, moccasins, invisible bodice and heft a psychedelically red fire extinguisher. Together we were advised to promenade up and down the boulevard as I bestow salacious glances on my quivering rod.

I ask you...would you give such suggestions to fragile oldsters? My shock sent me to the Realm of Nearly Beyond Recall. I suspect I am giving vibes that do not fully reveal my profound dignitas, gravitas. Trust me...your Judy is the soul of rectitude!!

Nonetheless, Paul and I dutifully (and artfully) bedecked ourselves only to see that our neighbor, Doak, was already strutting about with his newest girlfriend in like kind!!!

Trembling with Outrage,
MizFlounce (via Jeff)

"Dealt With" in Tongues at a Local Prayer Meeting

Quote of the Day: As above, so below, as within, so without, so that the miracle of the One can be established.” Alchemist's Prayer

**"vestal" is sometimes used to describe someone who maintains an archaic tradition.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Wheels on Fire!!

Jackie, my sister, before I squished her

Chemo Guru, Edith Morgan suggests elegant dress, Agave Tequila
I Obey! With only a minor change in booze

Paul and Judy Jones after Morning Makeover: 12 Oct 2008

My Squishing Machine!

Today Paul and I anticipate two very special guests. Drifting by a bit later today is Jackie, my wonderful sister and her high-spirited daughter, my neice, Gena. Good times!!

Paul and I have been preening and grooming 24/7 since learning of their impending touchdown. Why not give them a big payoff for their efforts in motoring up to Shangri La?

Our morning makeover has been more than successful. We are resplendent. I am wearing my white Chanel with Christian Lacroix accessories. That and the large quantity of Stoli(my replacement for her highly recommended agave tequila...not to be found in this Hottest of Springs, Arkansas) I have ingested as per the instructions of my chemo guru, Edith Morgan, make me primed for fun-n-frolic.

Paul nearly peed his panties as he blurted out his anticipated feelings when he spots the girlies walking through the door! I share his squealing delight.

The last time Jackie was here I ran over her with my Toyota Sienna. Jackie seems to have forgiven me for my fit of pique.


Perhaps the pressure of my large tires just knocked any memory trace of the event from Jackie's noggin'? We may never know.

Whatever. I am thankful for small blessings today and every day.


LaCroix Darling---I'm chanting as we speak,
Judy (via jeff)

Wheels on fire,

rolling down the road,

best notify my next of kin,

this wheel shall explode!

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=7AYjQm-QnxI

PS Although, given my circumstances, I do not want to shed too many pounds my attitude remains jolly and upbeat. Here is my mantra:

I am thin and gorgeous!!

About Me

My photo
Vacherie, Louisiana, United States
Born in rural Arkansas my tongue took up residence in my cheek shortly thereafter. I use it to speak "Genteel Southern Lady". Cussin' I only use when provoked by the Uppity. Paul, my husband, and I have lived in Cajun Country for many years raising cane, twins (a boy and a girl; now adults? definitely old) and other mischief. Alligators, water moccassins and bears have tussled with me as I protect our swampy coastal farmstead. We are stuck now on lovely Lake Hamilton near Hot Springs where we have our second home. We have been here waiting for Godot since my heart valves blew out Late November 2007 and now with cancer diagnosed August 2008. The Furies have me in their sights... I am writing this blog to let my Beloveds know how I am doing so they will not "get off" in imagined ways on my dire straits. The reality is bad enough without turning my story into a B-grade movie of the mind. I know all of you wish me the very best. And I miss you! never no mind your fevered imaginations. This is as close as I can get to a fond and loving chat with you right now... Sadly, Judy aka Mizflounce passed away peacefully early on Sunday morning May 30th 2009 age 78.