Daisy VS. The Tissue Paper

Although Daisy is valued at over $24,000 (but really invaluable) with all her training I guess she missed the day of service dog school when they went over what to do when tissue paper gets stuck to your lip. Of course she's my dog.

Happy One Year Anniversary!

One year ago today Dr. Neville Allyne a very skilled surgeon and a great smelling man along with the help of a giant robot, sliced into my back. They scooped my vertebrae out, shoved a titanium rod and some donor cadaver bones to fashion vertebra, a few bolts and screws...bing bang boom; congratulations Jude, you just had a spinal fusion! 

A year later and my mom asks, "well, would you do it all over again?" And without missing a beat I answered, "yes, without a doubt!"

My back is not perfect,yet! Three days ago I had my third injection in my SI joint on my right side. Did it work? Lets just say, I sneezed yesterday morning and saw Jesus. Oh my me I am in a daily battle against pain but I am in a far better place today than where I was a year ago. I don't randomly fall down because my foot doesn't drop. I can sit for more than a minute at a time, sure it's two minutes, but this is a building year. I can't run but I consider that a plus. I still haven't reached my goal of stepping back into the water and surfing but doc has benched me for this year. If I hurt my back in the water before everything fuses that could be a HUGE problem and frankly, I'm sick and tired of those. 

Daisy has been a tremendous help getting me back out walking. First a minute at a time then five minutes, up to our first mile, three miles up to five until Dr. Allyne said to bring it back down! Also Marc Garber my physical therapist puts up with my late arrival to PT and his staff puts up with me only because they love Daisy so much. Of course my mom and dad feed me, walk me, dress me and my dad reminds me that I have two more surgeries to catch up to his four surgeries. 

My first back surgery was just a little microdiscectomy that I regret but was a necessity at the time since the vertebra which was pushing out was pushing on the nerve that controlled when I would go tinkle. Since I hadn't tinkled in 2 days it was a pressing matter, pun intended. 

Leading up to my fusion, which we had time to get ready for. I spent about 4 weeks teaching Tri City Hospital about the ADA and how Daisy played into it and what that meant about her coming into the waiting area and yes she does get to spend the night. Why? Because she's my service dog and she's with me 24/7. No, I don't want her in the O.R. that's gross. I don't want one of her frequent flier hairs to lodge into my spine and...anywaaaaaaaay after some lawyer phone call threats every visit to the hospital visit for pre-op was met with no less than three hospital administrators meeting us at the doorway! Ha! Go ADA!

Happy anniversary titanium and donor bone that makes me move! We might not able to dance with pelvic thrusts anymore but we can walk AND we know when we have to tinkle and isn't that what it's all about?

The Dennis Miller Show

I found some more photos from my appearance on the Dennis Miller Show a few years back. Going to a taping of the Late Late Show a week ago made me think I had been there before. I could have sworn the DMS taped there but of course nobody working there had been around long enough to remember. Ah showbiz. I wish I had hair and makeup people everyday to help me achieve maximum awesomeness. Also, did I mention the DMS show had a chimpanzee and I got to play with it after my set? Best part of the day! I mean, other than being on TV. Anyway, enjoy. 

The Late Late Show with Jim Gaffigan

Don't ask me how but Daisy gets me places no agent or publicist could ever! 

Long blog to follow. 

 

Daisy turned 5!

Judy McDonald Comedy - San Antonio, TX NFCYM 2014

Daisy's View of the YM Extravaganza

I'm Like An Old Car

Don't bring me in to the mechanic, all you find is problems!

Daisy & I went for a walk last week with Theresa Phan on the beach & while looking at a tide pool I took a step on a slimy rock & saw sky then saw an inside of a tide pool. A week long headache didn't seem normal even for me plus I  just wanted to make sure that titanium in my spine was smack dab where it was suppose to be. 👍 

All was well, no blood on my brain. Just some narrowing of the spinal canal and arthritis just like I had in my lower back. Some cars just shouldn't be driven. 

Dog Shot

Yep, it happened. I'm that lady now. The one with the dog in her head shot!

Ha. Next come the 78 cats! Deal with it!

Momma & Daisy

Patricia Ward Kelly at the Moonlight

 

Daisy's newest Auntie PK.

Anyone Who Works For, Volunteers For or Has Anything to Do with the Church Will Love This

Liturgy Clones from Holy Spirit Church on Vimeo.

My surfing Service Dog

Bad family photo

Guest Post By George

Post by George W. Bush.

Louisiana This Weekend!

by PAUL F. TOMPKINS

by PAUL F. TOMPKINS @ThisIsFusion

Posted 08/11/2014, 08:40PM

Updated 08/11/2014, 08:46PM

One of the first comedy albums I was ever given was "Reality... What A Concept." I loved it. I loved "Mork & Mindy." I even loved Robert Altman’s "Popeye." Robin Williams meant a lot to me when I was a kid. I knew nothing of drug use or depression. It never occurred to me that comedians, these magical creatures that I worshiped, ever felt anything other than the serene satisfaction derived from making people laugh.
Eventually, I started doing standup myself, and I very quickly learned that comedians were all too human. There is no less sadness in the comedy community than there is in any other workforce; that is to say, jobs are jobs and people are people and no occupation makes anyone depression-proof. This both comforts and frustrates me.
Robin Williams made me laugh so many times. So many times. When I was a kid, having problems of my own, feeling unpleasantly different from the people who populated my world, I found sanctuary watching this guy on TV who was celebrated for being a weirdo, for being an oddball, for being silly. He was praised for having a mind that produced delightful absurdities with great speed. No one told him to be quiet. No one tried to make him act like everyone else.
He was a hero to me.
I had occasion to meet him once, not too long ago, and he could not have been nicer or friendlier or calmer. He was just there to watch the show that was happening that night. He wasn't trying to get on stage; he just -- still -- loved comedy.
I didn't tell him any of the things I just wrote here. No doubt, he heard similar things from countless people over his decades-long career. And it's a colossal shame that being a meaningful presence in the lives of many people, family, friends and strangers alike, isn't an impenetrable bulwark against despair. It's profoundly unfair that, if he couldn't live forever, he couldn't at least feel able to keep going for his allotted time. I know something of depression, and how bottomless and relentless and insurmountable it feels, but I have never known the unfathomable despair that Robin Williams must have felt. I can't even begin to imagine it.
Robin Williams will live on in shadows and light and sound, at least. He will continue to comfort weird little kids (and odd adults, for that matter) with his performances, those who know his work today and those who have yet to be born, who may experience him ten, fifty, a hundred years from now. But this is cold comfort indeed.
There will be much celebration, in the coming weeks and months, of Robin Williams’ life and career. But perhaps the best tribute to him would be if we all reached out to the troubled people in our lives and let them know that we are here for them. Because Robin Williams was there for us.

Robin Williams

@robinwilliams One of the reasons why I am a comedian today. I believe the joy you brought to people here earned you the elevator to heaven!
— judymcdonald (@judymcdonald) August 11, 2014

Jude in Da Bayou - Byherself - NFYCM _ New Orleans

                   New Orleans Comedy 2010 - Judy McDonald from Judy McDonald on Vimeo.

Thanks Southern Cross!

Catholic Comedian Promotes  

‘New Evangelization’

By Denis Grasska
SAN DIEGO — Some people seem to think that taking their faith seriously and having a sense of humor about life are mutually exclusive.
To them, Catholic comedian Judy McDonald says, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Everything we have is from God and, of course, God gave us a sense of humor,” said McDonald, 37, a lifelong member of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Vista. “He gave us this ability to laugh at certain things, because He thinks certain things are funny.”
Referencing one of the Holy Father’s many comments about Christian joy, she said, “I don’t understand theology as much as I would like to, but I think ‘theology of laughter’ is something Pope Francis is into.”
McDonald sees her stand-up routines as a way of participating in what Blessed John Paul II called “the new evangelization,” the Church’s effort to re-evangelize those who have heard the Gospel but have rejected it or turned away from it, perhaps because of poor catechesis.
When hired for a gig, she said, event organizers typically are interested not only in her comedy chops, but also in whether she is able to “deliver the message.” On stage, the Gospel is not something that is ham-fistedly tacked on to the end of an otherwise secular routine. From the outset, her audiences know that she is “a Catholic comedian,” she said, and her comedy and her Catholic message go hand in hand.
“Laughter is the great communicator,” she said. “It just drops barriers, and people relax.”
She explained that, if the audience accepts that she has been honest with them about funny and embarrassing moments in her own life, like the time she accidentally got ashes in a kid’s eye on Ash Wednesday — a second-grader who “had to wear a pirate patch for a couple weeks after” — then they know that she would never lie about something as important as Jesus’ love for them.
The openness and authenticity of her comedy gives her credibility in the eyes of her audience.
Just as good priests use their homilies to explain the Gospel through the prism of their own life experiences, she said, good comedians devote much of their stand-up routines to simply talking about their own lives.
A professional comedian for about 20 years, McDonald describes her comedic style as “very observational.” If Robin Williams and Bob Newhart adopted a child together, she quipped, “I think it would be me ... but less hairy.”
McDonald’s first foray into stand-up comedy came unexpectedly in 1994, during her freshman year at the University of San Diego. She was serving in student government at the time. A comedian had been invited to perform on campus, but the warm-up act had not arrived. She was asked to fill in.
“I was too dumb and young to be scared,” she recalled, “and I talked and they laughed.”
The $50 she received for her performance convinced her that she might have stumbled upon a potential career. She began performing regularly as an opening act on campus and, later that year, she made her debut at The Comedy Store in Hollywood, where she received a standing ovation.
At one point, she was driving up to The Comedy Store as many as three times a week to perform.
Since her graduation from USD in 1999, McDonald has worked in Catholic youth and young adult ministry as well as comedy. While working for The Gathering, a multi-parish Catholic youth ministry in La Jolla, from 2000-2003, she also was performing at The Comedy Store in La Jolla.
“It was cool because I really started to minister to comedians,” she said, noting that many comedy performers are “just really depressed people” and in need of such outreach.
McDonald herself suffers from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and, for the past year and a half, has been assisted by a service dog named Daisy. The 4-year-old yellow Labrador retriever even accompanies her on stage.
Highlights of McDonald’s career include appearing on comedian Dennis Miller’s CNBC show and opening for such comedians as Paula Poundstone, Caroline Rhea and Mark Curry.
Since 2003, McDonald has taken her comedy on the road, traveling throughout the world and appearing at Catholic parishes, youth conferences, retreats and other forums. For the past three years, she has also had a part-time job maintaining her parish’s Web site.    
The product of a churchgoing Irish-German family, McDonald said that her parish pastors have always been like “older brothers” to her, that she and her mother both have keys to the parish church, and that she suspects that her mother “sweats holy water.” (Her mother is also her manager, a position for which she does not get paid; McDonald quips, “She’ll get her reward in heaven.”)
McDonald prides herself on being “a clean comedian” who does not use “F-bombs” or other crude language in her act. Admitting that she once may have used the word “damn” on stage, she said, “That is technically in the Bible.” (Based on that criterion, she suggests that “whore of Babylon” and “ass” might also qualify for the list of Bible-friendly cusswords.)
As a comedian, McDonald does not just want to make people laugh. She wants her comedy to be “healing” as well.
“If I can make someone who hasn’t laughed in several years laugh ... that is the best gift in the world for me,” she said.
When her shows are over, she gladly sticks around to chat with anyone who wants to speak with her.
“That’s what I’m there for,” she said.
As for how long she will continue as a professional comedian, McDonald said, “I tell God all the time, ‘If You want me to continue doing this, get me more shows; if You want me to stop, stop the phone from ringing.’ But the phone keeps ringing, so I keep going.”
For more information on McDonald and her comedy, visit www.judymcdonald.net.
The Southern Cross