Summer's Not Over Yet

Frank

I performed comedy at St. Francis on Saturday night for parishioners who had donated to the building campaign and I was a bit nervous.  I have been performing at St. Francis since the first time I lied about the whereabouts of my homework and since have done a few show performing stand up there too.  But this time was different.  Why? Because this time, OK, no it really wasn't that different but it was fun. 
Adults (mostly over 50 years in age), food, wine and comedy.  Really, you can't go wrong with that combination. 

I also know for a fact that 3 people there were legally deaf without their hearing aids, but they seemed to love it even more.  I'm trying to take that as a compliment. 

As always having my parents there is a little nerve racking.  Not because they don't know I do jokes about them but the opposite, they love the jokes I do about them and both gave me suggestions on what jokes I should do.  "Talk about how I put you into the fan, Jude."  People think I'm picking on them but they love it!  I think they secretly do things just to get in the routine. 

Performing on front of our new pastor was also scary, this was make it or break it time.  This could either help or hinder my future penance with him, but every time I looked his way he was bright red.  So either he was laughing a lot or choking on an egg roll, either way, he looked like he was having fun. We will see at the next 'confession-palooza'.


I head up the 5 tomorrow for a show, it's nice not having to get on an airplane.  It cuts down on travel time and jet fuel. 

What I Do When Ellen is On (and Being DVR'd)

There was thing on Ellen's website about sending in a video about what you do when watching her show...I dvr it so I can play catch with my dogs in the pool.  I suppose I could make another video about what I do whilst watching the dvr'd show but really, who has time for that...I think I did the assignment wrong.

God Bless You

What NBC says:

When NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd sneezed during a White House briefing, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' first natural reaction was a polite, "Bless you." Her second was an exasperated demonstration of sneezing into the crook of your arm, eliciting chuckles from the crowd and Todd himself.

What I say:

Kathleen Sabelius then denied him a hall pass to go to the restroom and told him to "spit his gum out and sit up straight."

Pat, I'd Like to Solve the Puzzle but Probably Can't.

One of my mom's favorite shows other than the Golden Girls and Neil Diamond specials has to be Wheel of Fortune. Pat Sajak and Vanna White can be found in our living room most week day nights at 7pm.  Usually when I'm watching the show with her she will turn to me at least once during the show and say, "you should really go on this show." I get this a lot.  No, I'm serious, I get it a lot.  My friends and family who watch TV  always say I should go on different shows and I totally agree with them.  If only it was that simple.  If only my mom and dad's word could vouch for me with producers.  But in reality that's not quite how things work (I think, I mean it's been awhile since I worked on a show, I could be wrong).
So when my mom left me a note saying "September 19-20 San Diego Wheel Auditions", I knew I was in trouble.

The Wheelmobile is coming to San Diego...get out of the way!  

This weekend me and ma will drive out to the Wheelmobile.  What is the Wheelmobile you might ask?  Here is what the official Wheel of Fortune web site says:

What is the Wheelmobile? It's 39 feet long, 13 feet high and bright yellow. It rolls through cities, down highways and into America's heartland. Wherever it stops, huge crowds are waiting. It's giving fans all over the country the chance to try out for America's favorite game show. The Wheelmobile serves as the preliminary screening process before the final Wheel of Fortune contestant audition.

  Oh happy day, this is it, Jude on the Wheel.  But hold on flap jack, I doubt I will even set foot into the Wheelmobile.  Don't get me wrong I would love too but I'm sure it won't happen.  Here are some reasons why.

People discriminate. 
At first it was against the Irish.  Now it's against comedians.  When people hear that you are a comedian they think you are nothing but a chuckle head.  Please don't think I have a complex since I've mentioned this before. But any comedian will tell you people treat us different and it's not always a good thing.  Sometimes I just want to play the wheel not tell you a joke. So, don't think I'm trying out to boost my comedy career.  I'm trying out because I love my mom and want to sublimate my comedy career with some wheel cash whilst also winning a fabulous trip to sunny Acapulco.

Brain Freeze
I have never actually had stage fright.  Believe it or not, I could care less.  But I have had occasions in my living room where I have not been able to think. Have you had this experience?  Knowing an answer to something and not being able to get the answer from your brain to your mouth and out?  Some people have referred to this as a brain freeze, or even a brain fart, how ever you say it, from time to time it happens to me, while playing the wheel from the comfort of my own lazyboy.

Happy Crowds Make me Angry
Do I really have to explain this one?  Or maybe I do so I don't seem like a socially inept person. While I'm on stage I love a crowd that makes a lot of noise and is interactive with me. Responsive to what I have to say, they want me to like them. This is just one of the things that the producers of game shows looks for.  People who can actually play the game and look like they are having a good time as they do it.  The problem is when you gather hundreds of people together in a room all vying for attention of a few key people,it can get loud and annoying.  Truly genuinely happy people are awesome.  But people who yell, jump and wear outfits and are fake happy near my personal space are not ok and make Jesus cry...that is why it rains.  I'm sure as the producers look out and see a sea of jumping, screaming smiling people, one scowling Sandra Bullock looking annoyed woman will certainly stick out and promptly be crossed off their list.

Spell Check
The final nail in the Wheel of Fortune coffin might be inability to spell.  The fact that spell check could not even recognize my first several attempts to spell 'inability' might be a clue.  I am a victim of technology. I might never be able to spell the words 'different', 'weird', 'occasional' or 'embarrassing' unassisted.  Wow, the words I misspell sure have nothing to do with me...weird.
This might be a hinderence while auditioning for a show that to do with spelling.  Also, consonants and vowels, confuse the heck out of me...so, "A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y", are we not sure about Y yet?  This isn't shtick, I really have no idea.

Wardrobe
Maybe this is a problem in itself, how do I impress the producers of What Not to Wear? I'm not opposed to new clothes as much as I am opposed to spending my money.  If someone else would shell out the clams for me to sport a new look that would be perfectly acceptable. If I could just get on that show before auditioning for the Wheel of Fortune in a casino with hundreds of my closest really happy friends in polyester, it might help my chances if not just really boost my self esteem.  


Hopefully my next television appearance will be telling jokes on purpose and not being the joke because I couldn't solve a phrase like: D_N'_   J_D_ _.  Don't Judge, but, that would be horrible.

Baller Remembered

My People, My Haggis

Watching, almost makes me want to go back...

Kindle: To catch fire; burst into flame...I'd Read That.

I’m thinking about investing in a Kindle.  Kindle is Amazon’s digital book reader.  You can download books, newspapers, blogs, magazine from anywhere you can get a cell signal for a fraction of the price of a real book. It reads like a book, it doesn't hurt your eyes like reading from a computer screen can. It sounds so cool and as I have observed on countless flights, looks cool too. And that’s the real reason I read, to look cool.

But of course I started thinking (the one thing that usually helps people usually hinders me, thinking). The Kindle would be really cool but what happens in a few years?  When I first got my Intellivision system (bastard child of the gaming industry in the late 70’s) it was the coolest thing ever, until I got my Nintendo system.  Will the same fate be true for my Kindle?  Will I invest money in books through my Kindle only for it to stop working like my beloved Intellivision?

To some people, books are things to be cherished and passed down to younger generations or friends.  That would be lost with the Kindle. 

Being stranded on a desert island with any 10,000 books (which a Kindle would hold) would be awesome!  Awesome until you run out of batteries.  Last time I checked, desert islands lack power outlets.  I guess after the Kindle runs out of batteries you could crack coconuts with it or signal a rescue plane.  If it got really bad you could hit yourself over the head with it until you pass out. 

With a real book on a desert island you could read it a couple hundred times, act it out with monkeys (and after a couple of weeks the invisible people you start to see), tear out some pages and use the paper for things you need paper for but the desert island store doesn’t carry, use pages from the real book to make a house out of paper mache or fuel for fire (good thing you packed your flint!).

So the desert island test, I think it’s obvious, the Kindle totally wins!

Another thing I would miss about real books is my fondness for throwing them.  When I’m reading a particular challenging book (i.e. Dick and Jane) I often times throw it across the room out of frustration or discuss. In theory I could still do this with a Kindle but I think it would not bounce back like a traditional book would.

I would have to be very careful while reading the Kindle near the pool. Taking it in the pool to read on a tube would just be stupid since my dogs would probably think it was a chew toy and I would eventually give in and throw it like a Frisbee for them. 

The other thing that worries me is reading a Kindle on a plane.  You have to turn off your Kindle during takeoff and landing.  A flight attendant has never asked me to stop reading a real book during a flight.  I have been asked to stop reading aloud, but never all together.

The great thing about traveling with a Kindle would be space saved.  Sometimes I bring anywhere from 1 to 5 books with me on a trip because I tend to be a fast color-er. Kindle would cut the weight of my carry on way down, something that would be very helpful to me as I sprint through airports.  I do this not because I’m late for a flight but just because I am serious about cardio and love running in indoor spaces. 

In conclusion my Kindle should be here on Tuesday.

During the prayers of the faithful at 5pm mass we prayed for our Pope...Benedict the 14th.
I guess no one has updated the prayers of the faithful at our Parish for a while.

Tommy Plunkett: Hero

My oldest nephew Tommy has a new edition to his wardrobe.  It's that black sock, isn't it awesome!  He also has a cast.  He got it because he is an extreme skateboarder.  This is how he hurt it:
Tommy was skateboarding in Oceanside just minding his own business when he saw a giant bird swoop out of the sky and pick up an old lady's dog right out of her hands.  Hearing the lady's cries and enraged that a bird thought he could eat her dog made Tommy furious.  He started to skate as fast as he could as the bird took the poor dog higher and higher into the air.  Tommyt saw a man putting his longboard into the rear of his truck and without hesitation threw his cell phone at the back of the man's head which made the man fall forward onto his board which in turn made the longboard into a perfect launch ramp.  Tommy went up the long board into the sky and grabbed the little dog from the clutches of the bird.  He landed perfectly and skated back to the old lady and gave her back the dog.  She was so happy she hugged and kissed Tommy.  Her breath was so bad he fell backwards into oncoming traffic and his foot got run over by a guy in a Hummer who was texting on his phone while driving.

Or at least that's what I heard what happened.  Only 3 and a half more weeks in the cast to go, until then, old ladies, hold on to your dogs.

Twittering Tony Hawk Pays Off

Today, Twitter told me Ellen was a new judge on American Idol, Garrison Keillor had a mild stroke (so now he might speak even slower?) and it earned my nephew Mikey a brand new bike from Mr. Tony Hawk.

For real.

Here is my Twitter time-line which lead to a happy fourth grader.

Around 7pm I was perusing Twitter when I saw that Tony Hawk, Pro Skater and video game character (whom I have personally done seriously screen damage too on many occasions) was going to hide his last Huckjam bike somewhere in the 760 area code. Tony likes to stash bikes, skateboards and small woodland creatures around San Diego and then lead his Twitter followers (better known as 'Tweeps' on a scavenger hunt to find the stash.

A little after 7 p.m. this evening he put up the clue: "There is a big "L" in Carlsbad, the first letter of the a place as you drive in. I hid a bike behind it. You're gonna have to walk a ways."

I quickly sent it to my sister over IM and then called her. After she figured out it was the sign outside of the Lego Land entrance she got Mikey in the car and off they went. Mikey kept calling me and I would check Twitter to see if anyone had beaten them to the bike yet. A couple times my sister thought it was too late, but since no one had claimed victory I told her she might as well drive to Lego Land and if they saw Tony Hawk she should have Mikey cry and maybe Tony could sign his forehead or something.

Then Tony posted a clue: "Hint: The L is made of small bricks. That's all you get."

Great, now all the people just hanging out in Carlsbad who just at that time checked their Twitter have the edge on my sister and Mikey who are still four miles away on the 5 South. I called her and told her the clue and she dug deep and found a new sense of purpose in life (not really, but if I didn't pep up the story you would have been out of here two paragraphs ago).

When I looked at his page that is when I realized that having 1,542,026 followers on Twitter must be really exciting but also a bit annoying and overwhelming at times. There were a lot of comments but none who had claimed to have found the bike, we were still in business (I have to say I am really proud of you for hanging in this long!).

Tony posts again: "& I didn't realize they were closed, so you kinda sorta have to trespass. Hopefully that makes it more fun. If U get busted, forget my name."

At this point I start to feel like a 911 operator fielding a call. I call Mikey back and tell him he's going to have to be the one that climbs over fences or run to get this bike because he's only nine and he can't be tried as an adult, again, in the same day. If Lego Land is closed this might be sketchy. In my head all I could see was bad to the bone dude's in their brown paneled vans hanging out by a giant "L" smoking off brand cigarettes, holding clubs and chains waiting to jump anyone who dare beat them to the bike whilst Tony Hawk hid in the bushes and watched the whole thing play out as he filmed it and then sold the footage to some underground website and use the cash for more bikes to hide again, a sad cycle indeed.

Happily that didn't happen.

What did happen is that My sister, Amy and nephew Mikey got there right in front of another car and both ran like they were being chased and found the bike. Mikey promptly got on it and rode right past the nice Carlsbad Police officers that rolled up on the scene. Reportedly second place got a ticket for trespassing..bummer, her sister must not have been giving her guidance from home.

Amy snapped a picture of Mikey on his new bike and emailed it to me and I promptly posted it saying: "FOUND IT! You just make Mikey very happy Tony! Cops came and everything. Score, whoo hoo." along with this message to Tony I attached a link to the happy boy and his bike.

The awesome and kind of scary part was when Tony Hawk 'retweeted' my post and in a matter of minutes the link got thousands of hits. As I write this it has received over 8,000 views and that's hilarious but also interesting. When you have 1,542,113 following your Tweets and you post a link I guess 8,000 of them clicking on it is not that big of a deal. In fact, it's kind of poor numbers percentage-wise. But for someone who on average gets 5 - 50 visits a day to her site, 8,000 views to a picture on her 'twit pic' account in a brief window is to say the least, impressive.

What did I learn tonight?

I learned my sister is an awesome mom for dropping everything on the word of her little sister to go on a scavenger hunt for a bike hidden behind a giant 'L' for her youngest son.

I learned that there are still celebrities that can have fun and do small things that people will always remember. I also learned that having someone with 1,542,113 followers link to your site plays havoc with your web stats.

I learned that my 243 'Tweeps' who follow me deserve more scavenger hunts from me but have to wait until Mikey let's me borrow his bike.

I learned that since Lance Armstrong and Tony Hawk are BFF's on Twitter, that means there is a good chance @LanceArmstrong looked at that link that @Tonyhawk posted and saw the picture and I just want Lance to know if he happened to glance at the picture next to the one Tony linked too, my hair does not usually look like that. I think the picture was taken after a long training ride, I mean a run, I mean I was sweating cause I had just finished off a box of donuts, back off Lance!

So thanks Tony Hawk. You made a nine year old happy and pretty much guaranteed he would have the best Show and Tell story in the class...FOREVER.! "The night Tony Hawk almost got me arrested."

Your Baby Goes to College.

My parents left Monday for a cruise. I brought them down to the boat myself, on piggyback. I made sure they got on and apparently they were on their second buffet by the time I made it to the freeway. Now if this was the 80’s and I was a member of the ‘Brat Pack’ we would have the making of an awesome movie. Unfortunately it’s 09/09/09 and the only people who want to film me is a government watch group who has me confused with the other Judy McDonald who is a country line dancer in Canada. Some day I hope to have a "Judy McDonald: get to know the other side of Judy" party. I would also invite the Realtor Judy McDonald, as well as the artist and the doctor. A good time will be had by all, except the mime Judy, she's kind of a jerk.

Life without the roommates has been productive so far, I’m almost caught up with my DVR and there is not one dirty dish in the sink (That’s cause I have buried all the dirty dishes in the backyard). I’m working smarter not harder.

Today while trying to fast-forward a commercial during what I thought was a DVR’d show I realized it was actually live television, I know, scary. Being too lazy to hit the guide button and not wanting to mess up my system I had down of checking the “last” button on the remote I gutted it out, I watched the commercial. I know, I am so brave. It was for a product called, “Your baby can read”

The concept is simple enough, a DVD/program that teaches your baby how to read, because obviously you have more important things to do. Babies are such a hassle! First you have to make them, carry them inside you for 9 months, deliver them, feed them, change them, burp them, love them and now you expect me to teach them how to read? Thank God for this DVD, I guess.

The part of the commercial I saw was a lady enthusiastically talking about her two year old that was already reading at a first grade level. I’m sorry, but really? In our current education system, that’s no big deal. I was also sad for this lady because what if this is it for her baby? What if she has peaked at two? What if it’s all down hill from here. Sure, it’s awesome now to read at a first grade level now, but not when she’s in high school. Hopefully her baby has something to fall back on. That’s why this Christmas I will be coming out with my own line of DVD’s entitled, “Your Baby Can Crotchet” and “Your Baby can Weld.”

Walk This Way

On Sunday I went for a walk with a few friends and I learned that walking five and a half miles is really quite lovely. It's the walking the five and a half back that sucks. I also was fascinated at the different view I got while walking as opposed to driving. Because I walk much slower than I drive I see much more and the fact that I am three feet closer to the ground while walking I smell a lot more things too. My view while walking allows me to see houses I never knew were just off the main streets, the size of trees and just how many people throw their trash on the side of the road. People should be like me and just store their trash in the back of their car until a proper receptacle is found, or until the show 'Hoarders' contacts you as a potential participate.

We walked to my favorite buffet; Costco but sadly the sample ladies had packed it in for the day. As a matter of fact by the time we got to Costco it was ten minutes till closing. We had just enough time to use the facilities, buy a snack that just negated the five and a half miles we had walked and sit down for a few minutes. There is something liberating about walking into a Costco and knowing they will not get more money than my Mocha Freeze costs me. Anyone can say as they go into Costco, “all I need is a pallet of Diet Pepsi, 90 rolls of toilet paper and some steak” but it’s another thing all together to leave Costco under budget with just the things on your list. Something comes over me in that warehouse setting. Some primal survival hunting and gathering switch, which makes me, want to store up for winter. It’s precisely this phenomenon that makes it slightly uncomfortable when walking into Costco with only my Camelback as transportation home for anything I buy…needless to say the trampoline had to stay this time. As we left Costco and headed home we realized that the amount of daylight left did not equal the amount of miles we had to walk. Our pace quickened for a good seven minutes until we remembered how much walking fast is almost like running and running is from the devil. And lately I have been adopting some practices from my Greek Orthodox cousins of spitting at the devil. So if I do ever spit at you, do not be offended, just know I find some sort of evil in you, that’s all.

With about two miles to go dusk had arrived and for a brief moment I became a little scared. You will never find me walking in my town at night, never! Not all parts of Vista are bad, in fact the parts of Vista are not bad, just the people who may be occupying them at any given time are; just like anywhere else in the world. My fears subsided when I realized if attacked I could throw one of my fellow walkers in the path in front of the attacker and me and then outrun the others to safety. Of course then I would call for help for the others, of course!
Needless to say we made it back with eleven miles under our belts. I have a new respect for Jesus and the apostles ministering as they walked. I mean they didn’t even have a Costco card.

SAN to CLE

Leaving today for Cleveland, Ohio to perform at Oberlin College. I only have 6 hours of flight time so I will have to manage my time very carefully. This means no small talk with the person next to me. I'm going to launch into my profession right away. I'm going to have to not dance around the fact that I make funny for money. It's always awkward at first, especially because I often have a scowl on my face. It's not that I'm mad, I think I received some bad botox once and my brow just natural gravitates down. So when hearing I'm a comedian it's a bit comical because of my demeanor, but I guess that just proves that I am a comedian right off the bat.
The very best news is that it is September and that means all new movies. This guarantees no more "Hotel for Dogs" or "My Life in Ruins". As a back up my ipod is loaded of Season 4 disk 2 of The Golden Girls. Please control your jealously, it is not becoming of you. I'm excited to leave California because it's getting harder and harder to breathe here. Asthma and wild fires go together like Ashes and sweat or Dorritos and gum. If you hear of a passenger being thrown off a Continental flight today it might because I forgot to charge my ipod or I'm sitting next to a clown.

+++UPDATED+++
Someone thought it would be a cruel joke to show "My Life in Ruins" from San Diego to Houston...I was not amused.

Pax

After 2 days of waiting and eating whatever I wanted since I could have a had a horrible disease and drop dead at any minute I marched into my doctors office today and asked for my MRI results. A few months back one of those pesky "suspicious lumps" was found which started the fun process of inconclusive mammograms and the inevitable MRI. Family history and past surgical biopsies make it old hat for me.
Here is a tip from Aunt Judy, when the doctor's office says they will call with the results they are not lying. They just have a different concept of time that you or I might have. Because they would eventually call back but you could have died from natural causes in the mean time. The MRI man (I think that was his official title) told me the results would be read in a few hours and my doctor would be sent the results by the end of the day.
Fair enough. I have played this game before. I get a test done with the understanding that it is probably nothing and in the course of waiting for the results every Lifetime movie, telephone commercial and Hallmark card you see is about breast cancer.
The devil loves to take the unknown and twist it until every worst-case scenario is played out in your head until you are convinced that you soon will be a statistic.
Fear kicks in, maybe even anger, some confusion and before you know it you are standing in front of the fridge at 3am eating straight out of the carton of Rocky Road.

But not this time. Between the “finding” and today I had been traveling. In one of my travels I found myself at a healing service. Without going into too many details, I felt a marked difference after the prayers of healing had been prayed. When I say marked, I guess I am really saying heat. When I say heat, I guess what I am saying is that my boob got HOT! A kind of hot that only the Holy Spirit or a small trash fire can generate and since I didn’t smell smoke I knew the Holy Spirit had gotten the job done. A few weeks went bye and finally went in on Monday and low and behold today after having a sit in at the doctors office until the report was read my ears heard what I had already felt, “whatever was there before is gone now.”
“Well duh!” Is what I yelled on the inside but on the outside I just smiled and used my inside voice to say, “thank you”.
What I realized today while sitting in the office was that horrible disease or not I was ok. (I also realized the people at the front desk kind of freak out when they realize you aren’t going to leave until you are told your results and freak out even more when you bring a cooler and a DVD player with Lonesome Dove).
I have said it before but each time I go through a scare God leads me into a deeper understanding of what kind of peace He can bring. Sure having breast cancer would really blow, but I was confident that God wouldn’t let me go through it alone and not only be healed but be a witness as I went through it. And of course I would be ok, if it was all clear because, well, duh.
I guess the key is to understand that if you can find peace in something like that, you can find peace in the million stupid things that happen everyday, which are in no way as scary or stressful yet they still cause us great worry.
In the end, when you figure this out your either really holy and they fast track you to Sainthood or you die and you have a V-8 moment and think, why did I waste all that time down there worrying when I could have been eating ice cream and playing canasta with the elderly?

My other update is that my niece Sydney came out of surgery last night minus her appendix. Turns out she presented with a classic “appendix needs to come out case” but when they got in, it was fine but they figured, “hey we are already in here, might as well take this thing out so it looks like we know what we are doing”. They think she has a viral infection and the poor kid will spend the last week of her summer recouping from surgery.

But the real thing I would like to discuss happened last night. I went outside to play with the dog and cut some roses for a vase and while walking the grossest thing that has ever happened to me occurred. For those of you have ever had the pleasure of walking on the beach in California you have probably stepped on seaweed or bulb kelp and felt it pop underfoot. Well that’s what happened last night, in the dark and there was no seaweed around. I instantaneously knew what it was and every part of me wanted to have a Silkwood scrub right then and there. I ran in the house (very carefully) and got the flashlight. I came out and after a few seconds of searching found what I knew it was. I had stepped on a dead mouse and it had exploded! I knew it was dead because ants don’t usually gather that quickly in less they are on some sort of performance enhancing drug and if that’s the case I have a whole new set of problems. Praise Jesus I had my sandals on because I can barely get the thought out of Mickey exploding under my sandal and the thought of his spleen doing that on my bare foot would have taken all of God’s peace away and He would have had to come and personally driven me to the “get that terrible mouse exploding under your foot sound out of your head" doctor.

I just hope it wasn’t the mouse from my video just dropping bye to say hey.

Now you are in the loop, like it or not. If you have been offended because I spoke about my hot boob or exploding mice I am sorry, I don’t make this stuff up, I just report on it.

Monkeys, Wi-Fi and No Bugs.

We live in a world full of ways that make our lives easier. This will not be a reflection on that.

I did however have the chance to think about how lucky I am to live where I do, when I do. To live in an age where at any minute I can be in contact with just about anybody I know. Through mobile phones, instant messages, blogs, Tweets and smoke signals we know just about everything about everyone as it happens. Got a suspicious mole? Google it.

A weird looking butterfly just bit you in the neck? There's an ap for that.

I had about 40 minutes or so to think about these things yesterday as I hung out (literally) in an MRI machine. As you may know my Mom, Dad and sister are all cancer survivors and since most of my dad's side did not survive all sorts of different types of cancer, every time I sneeze twice in a row I have to have some test done because it might be the "C" word.

Not only do we have MRI's to see if there is a lump, bump or a tumor but we even have blood tests (that I contributed to after the MRI) that test for mutations in genes...so living in this time with this kind of technology with my genes is pretty awesome.

After being subjected to two hours of tests that would tell me if I had a disease or even if I had a higher percentage of ever developing a disease I had had enough. So I did what any good Californian would do, I paddled out and went surfing.

I thought of how lucky I was to be able to not only physically enjoy an hour of surfing but I didn’t have to feel guilty for doing so because I wasn't ditching out on work to do so. I am so blessed to be able to do what I love for (all be it a small one) a living. To live in a place that is truly beautiful and to have the freedom with my time to enjoy it is a gift.

The more I sat in the water the more my mind went back to where I had just come from and the people who don't have the option to leave. The people who even if they could leave the hospital, would not have the luxury of relaxing but would have to work even harder to pay off the hospital bills.

I even thought of those who would never get to the hospital in the first place because there are no such options where they live. People who never know they have cancer but just get sick and die. There are people who will never set foot in a hospital, not because of their fear of doctors but because there are no hospitals near them.

And that's when it came up again.

I have been having these tinges I guess you could say.

These desires that I dare not tell anyone but since no one reads this blog I can write them here.

I want to go and serve the poor.

Now please stop laughing and listen. I'm not talking for a year or even 6 months but I have a desire to go and push myself to see and help those who I would never meet. Those who never know the luxury of being inconvenienced by an MRI or a stack of insurance paper work. I can’t offer medical care, or plans to build an irrigation system, but I once made a 90 year old Croatian lady who didn’t speak English laugh so hard that she almost died, so I think that could be beneficial.

What good is it to stay and experience life in a comfortable bubble when there is such a great need for people to experience love and laughter? I swear I'm not turning into a hippie but in the past few years my travels that I look back at with the fondness memories have been spent with people in horrible situations who were in need of someone just to be with them. Someone who could be Christ to them if just by giving them supplies, a meal or a much needed smile.

I started thinking, where could I go? I have January and February open, so it’s going to be winter. I need to go tropical, I can't help people if I'm cold, I mean, I could...I would just prefer a tropical setting.

Which country could I go and experience and actually help others for a few months or weeks without hurting myself or them? There would definitely have to be monkeys wherever I go. Monkeys but no bugs. Monkeys, no bugs and Wi-Fi.

So you have been warned. The desire is there to serve my brothers and sisters who might not own more than one pair of shoes, understand what Tivo is or worry about the long term effects of aspartame. I know what I am suppose to do now is pray and listen.

When the opportunity presents itself, I will be ready to go.


That is as long as there are monkeys, Wi-Fi and no bugs.