A Night For America

They say you will always remember certain moments in time, and where you were when you hear news that makes history. In 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, I was home from school and in the car with my mom, able to look into the sky and see the smoke and debris. On that horrific 11th day in September 2001, I was in my apartment in Gainesville getting ready for morning class, and watching events unfold on the Today Show. I actually saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center live. In March 2003, when we invaded Iraq, I was in a computer lab taking the GRE in hopes of going to grad school. Now I can add one more; where I was when I heard the news that Osama bin Laden was killed yesterday.

Here in Australia, it was a brilliant day, and some friends and I had driven down to Burleigh Heads to watch a mass of surfers go after some incredible waves. As we approached the car to drive home, I saw two people lying in the grass, holding a small radio that was broadcasting news about the USA. The scene struck me as odd, but I didn't stick around to hear what was being said. It was not until I got into the car and looked at my phone that I found out the news about the firefight that killed the world's most wanted terrorist. I quickly told everyone in the car, and we switched the radio to the news for details. Yet I couldn't help thinking as we drove that I was the only one in the car that was truly shocked, relieved, even downright jubilant about this news. Don't get me wrong, my Aussie friends were happy, but I just don't think they can begin to understand how greatly 9/11 affected all Americans. I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that it changed my life forever. Furthermore, I never thought this day would come.

It gave me chills to watch the news from halfway across the globe and see Americans celebrating in the streets. I've read that perhaps we should have kept quiet out of fear of retaliation, but after all that has happened, didn't we deserve this moment? Especially those in New York City at Ground Zero and those in our nation's capitol? I didn't see one image of destruction or anti-al Qaeda sentiment, only happy faces, patriotic cheers, American flags being waved. This is the American spirit at it's best. We deserve this.

So thank you to our troops who continue to endanger their own lives to protect our freedom, especially my friends Scott and Zach. Because of you, perhaps little people like this will never have to remember a tragic moment in time.

"Let us remember that we can do these things not because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." - President Barack Obama in his address to the nation

Rev-olution

Arguments about the origins of human life are as old as time. Was it creation or was it evolution? I've never really taken a firm stance on this one, but for my purposes right now, I'm a big fan of evolution.

And for me, evolution in my life currently looks something like this:

January 2011

March 2011

May 2011

Watch out Australia, I'm on the move! And the bonus for anyone coming for a visit is that you no longer have to ride on my back or in my basket...

Where Have I Been Hiding?

Wondering where I've been lately? This wouldn't be much a of a travel blog if I didn't at least periodically update you on my adventures, would it now? To sum it up, I've been...

Here:

Tagging along with my friend, Julie, to South Stradbroke Island, where we spent the afternoon lazing around in hammocks.

And here:

Byron Bluesfest. Highlight of the day was seeing Michael Franti, but also enjoyed Kim Churchill and Xavier Rudd. Regrettably left before seeing ZZ Top due to cell phone failure...

Festival feet - GROSS!

And spending a whole lot of time here:

Burleigh Heads, about a 20 minute drive or hour bike ride from my place. Amazing spot to watch the surfers and enjoy the gorgeous 'winter' weather. Also good for a bit of nostalgia, as it's the first place Jaime and I stayed on the Gold Coast last year.

Other than that, I've been enjoying everyday life, trying hard not to take for granted how lucky I am to live here.

Feeling My Age

People on the Gold Coast, scratch that, men on the Gold Coast, love to yell out their car windows as they drive by you walking, jogging, biking or pretty much doing anything that catches their pervy attention. I like to think that I've become somewhat desensitized to this for the most part, but an incident today definitely threw me for a loop. As I walked down the sidewalk toward the beach after dropping off my bike down in Miami (sidenote: there is a Miami Beach here, and I vow to get a picture next to the 'Welcome to Miami' sign before I leave), I heard a high pitched voice shout

"YEAHHHHHHH, MAMA!"

out the window of a passing car. I whipped my head around and saw that the offender looked something like this:

And all I could think, as I walked on shaking my head, was yes, young man, I am sadly old enough to be your mama!

Are Sweatpants Killing This Blog?

For my long trip back to Australia from Orlando, my mother was kind enough to pick up some of the latest gossip rags for me to peruse. I'm touched that she not only recognizes but supports my penchant for this respected form of journalism. Just wait until she comes here for a visit and sees that I've hung a magazine rack on my living room wall that is chock full o' tabloid goodness.

While picking through the pages of InTouch Weekly somewhere between hours 9 and 12 over the Pacific Ocean, I stumbled upon an article that at first made me laugh, but really stuck with me and is now ticking me off. Sounds straightforward enough - 'How He Broke Her Heart' details the breakup of Bradley Cooper and Renee Zellweger, who (full disclosure) is not one of my favorite leading ladies (Bridget Jones' Diary aside). My personal feelings about her, however, do not excuse this magazine for creating an entire sidebar within the article to blame the fact that she wears sweatpants as a key to their breakup.

The 'Did Sweatpants Kill the Relationship' sidebar left me both amused and appalled. Amused because it is so far fetched and shows a lack of hard facts in the article (what did I expect from InTouch?); appalled because I take offense to the implication here that women have to be dressed to the nines and made up perfectly at all times in order to keep a man interested. Of course I believe there is a time and a place for that, but there is no way a woman can be comfortable with herself if she's that high maintenance 24/7. The article captions one picture with 'so sexy before' and shows Renee in a dress and Bradley with his hands all over her arse, then moves through a shame spiral of more casual shots until the last one depicts her in *gasp* running shorts and him walking two steps in front of her as if she's not there. How symbolic.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt, as I'm single and no expert on men at this point in my life. But I'll be damned if I'm going to buy into this notion that being casual or sporty or, I don't know, YOURSELF around your partner is going to drive him away. Isn't it supposed to be what's on the inside that counts? I mean, I'm sure Renee had to overlook more than a few nasty habits of old Bradley's throughout their relationship, but she still kept him around! And look where that's gotten her...

I'm hopeful that the author of this piece has a sense of humor and is trying to be tongue in cheek, as potentially evidenced by the closing line of 'One can only wonder if the right low-cut dress might have changed Bradley's mind,' but if not, shame on him! And even more shame if the author is a her!!

Time to face the facts, people. They actually broke up because he was cheating on her with Tom Cruise.

p.s. - I don't think I've ever felt so strongly about a feminist issue until this moment. And it's really so dumb AND was brought about because of a trashy magazine.

p.p.s. - I'm wearing Old Navy sweatpants as I write this :)

Holding My Breath

This just in: I'm becoming quite the expert at holding my breath here lately. I've honed this talent through the ultrasound, CT Scan and MRI that I've had in the past month, where they each require you to suck in and hold for about 25 seconds at a time. And repeat. For upwards of 45 minutes in some cases! Apparently, this helps to keep your internal organs from moving so they can be ready for their close up. I don't mean to brag, but even my liver surgeon remarked that my breath holding skills were top notch, as there wasn't a single blurry image in my report!

My talent at work! 'The Todd' (my tumor) is the white mass in my liver (on the left of this picture).

As a currently unemployed, and admittedly somewhat confused, person, I'm looking for ways to cash in on this newly discovered talent and someday make a living from it. In the meantime, I'm practicing my skill until July, when I will learn whether the lovely tumor that is occupying nearly 40% of my liver will shrink, remain the same or grow. As long as it's not the last of those options, I believe it will be smooth sailing from there...

I hope you will each do me a favor and hold YOUR breath that there is only good news from here on out. And you just might find out you have a hidden talent too!

What a Difference a Week Makes

Life is funny, isn't it? And I don't mean ha ha funny, but more of the strange and unpredictable variety. I actually intended to post about this train of thought a couple of weeks back when some small fun things were changing my blase mood, but it is really more relevant than ever right now...

One week ago, I was on my way back to the US from Australia for a last minute trip to be with family in Florida. I had been told prior to planning this trip that I had a tumor in my liver, the cause was unknown and that carcinoma (cancer) 'should be considered.' How's that for some news out of the blue?!? One week before that, I had no idea that anything was wrong and that I would be returning to home in the near future. It's truly amazing how much can change in such a short amount of time.

Well, here we are one week into my visit here at home. And again, what a different frame of mind we all have now than we did last week. I have seen a doctor who has all but assured me that my tumor is benign, my blood work has come back cancer free and clear of any other major issues and I just have to get past the hurdle of tomorrow's MRI before I can put my mind totally at ease. And in one more week, I am sure that I will be 100% worry free and nearly on my way back to Australia!

In the meantime, I have thoroughly enjoyed visiting with my family and especially Bailey. I was pretty worried that she was going to forget all about me in the time that I have been gone, so the silver lining of this emergency trip home has been that I get to keep that from happening. I am not looking forward to leaving her next week, but on the bright side, I'll be seeing her again in July!

I'm starting to get the hang of these self-portraits

I'm sure that the fact I'm Stateside right now comes as a bit of a shock to many of you, but since this wasn't a social visit and I didn't know exactly what to expect while here, I decided to keep a low profile. I would love to see every last one of you if only I had the time! But I'll do the best to keep you in the loop on the blog until I do get to see you again. And in the meantime, here are some random pictures from this Orlando visit...

Celebrating St. Patty's Day, the sale of my house and my great health news!

Bailey cheering the Gator basketball team on to victory

One of the most clever things I've seen in a long time