this blog is huge in malaysia...AND canada!

one of the great things about having an account with Blogger is that you can very easily check and see how many people are actually reading what you're putting out there {vs how many people 'say' they're reading it, but really they're watching football....um, EVERYONE ELSE!}

so imagine my surprise when i read where my audience is concentrated and of course, yes, my core followers are in the great U.S.of A, but i have two people in Canada AND one person in Malaysia that are keeping up with Besa, too! this is inspiring! makes me want to do a special Canadian post {an homage to DeGrassi Junior High, perhaps?}, and i'm not sure what the heck to post for my Malaysian reader. maybe they're sick of their own surroundings and would like to see a little slice of where it is i am? {let's hope so, otherwise i'll immediately lose my international fan base, a la David Hasselhoff}

so Gig Harbor is where we are fortunate enough to live. it doesn't rain all the time as some of you suspect, the community is awesome and the people are truly wonderful characters. add to it, it's not an ugly place to live. {except when the Seahawks get pounded; then it gets really ugly}

come visit some time, won't you?

we've found Nemo, and tonite he'll be served in a lovely tomato butter sauce with capers.

today is much the same as any other day wherein my son and i go stir crazy at about 5 o'clock, give or take. you see, here on our planet, by the time 4:30p rolls around, it is inky black outside and cold here. our day is essentially done, except for the fact that we have oh, about four more hours left to fill with still more learning and togetherness.

(oh, we do origami here. we bake cookies. i make homemade play dough. we draw. we read and read and read. we're not sitting idly by, i assure).

this is also the time where Beau has finished his snack and tossed the house and wagged the dog's tail (literally), and so one of two requests fall from my son's delicate lips.

request number one: "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnn't Thomas! aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnt Thomaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas!"

request number two: "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhn't Me-mo. aaaaaaaaahn't Me-mo! Me-mo! Me-mo!"

*sigh*

this evening (and my ability to blog about it) is brought to you by a sympathetic friend and good soul who gave Beau the Ratatouille DVD for Christmas. {because before Remy, my choices were limited to a talking train or a talking fish. at least now we're adding in a little variety with a talking....... rat. excellent.}

i have always had an uncanny (read: ANNOYING) ability to remember television and movie dialogue. i'm the friend who lends you the movie and then wants to rewatch it with you, and then surreptitiously (and inadvertently, i might add) turn into the over-dialogue-talker, or (much, much worse), the 'oh-my-god-this-next-part-is-so-funny!' girl.

i have two Ikea bins on the living room shelves {ask anyone who knows me. i hate clutter}. one is full of kid-friendly movies, and one with my DVD's. strange thing is, this kiddo has only been actively 'watching' shows for about the last six months, yet he has more DVDs than i do at 31 39 years old. huh.

so imagine my fright at having my recall abilities turning on me as i now can quote any Pixar film ad nauseum, but i can barely remember which character wore what color in Heathers. gah! Pixar is the kryptonite to my ability to quote from every season of Sex and the City! Miranda has been replaced by Marlin, and i can easily name off six...no, eight(!) of the train names in Thomas. this is a slippery slope, my friends.

now if you'll excuse me, i need to post this before i trip over 17 Matchbox cars on the way to flip the laundry. {my days are SUPERGLAMOROUS. i'm pretty sure i speak for lots of SAHM's out there when i ask- 'um, what are these bon bons you speak of?'}

well, a girl's got to eat, after all

while the pictures that i posted from my surgery yesterday elicited some upset stomachs* from some {read: most}, i am here to redeem myself!

i decided to pay it forward and cook dinner for my good friend and neighbor-foodie, darci. after all, she surrendered herself yesterday as well, to the hospital regulations of no cell phones, no internet, long wait times and very few answers. basically, she gave up a solid 7 hours of her life to be there for me.

so the least i could do was make her this little number from the Barefoot Contessa: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/crunchy-noodle-salad-recipe/index.html

hope you all enjoy!

*ironically, i added chicken to the recipe. go figure.

 rough chop of parsley, julienne red peppers from Harbor Greens

 sugar snap peas in a cold bath after a quick steam

 nummy peanut sauce {see all ingredients in Ina's link}

 added in rotisserie chicken from Costco

TAH DAH! dinner for darci & the big guy!

surgery, schmurgery {that sounded better in my head}

so today's surgery was a success! for the prelude, see:  http://besary.blogspot.com/2011/01/youll-never-eat-chicken-tender-again.html

anyhoo, i have a bandage on my upper shoulder and 14 needle pricks on my hand and in my arm, plus i scored a pair of non-skid hospital slippers out of the whole thing. DEAL!

the only low point for me was not being able to see what it is they pulled out of me. so i Googled it (of course i did.) if you're not of the faint of heart, look here for what they may have gotten:

or since i was totally under and i never got to see it, maybe they got this: 

{which is cool, because my cell has been a little cumbersome these days}

either way, thanks to everyone for the well wishes and prayers upfront (they clearly worked!) special thanks to kristi for watching the kiddo and sending me home with a vegan (!) dinner, and to darci whom everyone should take with them to hang out with, waste time with (and get lost with, but that's a story for another time!)

that said, it's time for me to scrub off some of this iodine. just because i'm a fan of george hamilton, doesn't mean i have to look like him.

will follow up with real before and after pics once bikini season rolls around (read: probably never).

you'll never eat a chicken tender again.

this friday i have out patient surgery to remove a lipoma* (i'll save you the time: it's a fatty mass). my fatty mass is in my left collarbone and is pronounced enough that i feel like Quasimodo when i wear a tank top. or like i'm constantly shrugging my shoulder, take your pick.

so today i spent some quality time getting poked and prodded for pre-op, during the course of which, i was handed a detailed pamphlet outlining the anesthesia.

to be clear, i'm not scared of the surgery. i'm actually looking forward to it so i can see what this tumor thing looks like. after smushing my thumb into it over the past year or so, i imagine it's about the size of a chicken tender {told you so}. i even asked my doctor if i could not only see it, but keep it after they scoop the thing out of my clavicle. i thought the doctor would be slightly confused (if not downright concerned) with my request, but due to 19 spin-offs of CSI airing at any time you power up on Hulu, i'm clearly not the first person to ask.

i come by my curiosity honestly. the last time i had something growing inside of my body and getting bigger by the day, i got to take it home. and now i have a college fund started for it (ahem, 'him'). also, when my dad had a stint put in one of his artery or valve thingies in his heart several years ago, the doctor gave him the plaque they scraped out to take home. i think he still has it in a little glass bottle that looks like a sand timer. only filled with plaque, not granules.

so my concern is not the surgery or what they're pulling out, but the anesthesia. by all accounts, i am terrified that i will say something so profoundly stupid or personal or start singing 'the wheels on the bus' when i'm coming out of the fog that i will end up on youtube. add to this that i am to wear no makeup or contact lenses or jewelry to this scenario and my panic really starts to kick in.

for a person who never is at a loss for words, the ones i choose take time to get out there. i am mortified that i'll turn into this chick. (stick around for the 1:04 minute mark, you won't regret it...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1IKPV9Emds

so wish me luck, and stay tuned for how things turn out. with pictures, no video. because that's how i do.

*it's worth noting that the doctor doesn't think that this gelatinous mass is anything to be concerned about, and since i never had a shot at a modeling career, the scar will go largely undetected and probably ignored at that.

Patricia Mae Andrzejewski is 58 today. Say you didn't know...

if my parents named me patricia mae andrewhqjdopdmskdsidkdski, i'd have changed my named to Benatar, too. actually, hindsight being what it is, i would have changed my last named to Benetton and tried to score as many free sweaters as possible.

so pat benatar is 58 years old today, and i know this because i am unemployed.

i am currently at http://forzacoffeecompany.com/index.asp with my friend heidi. we have our laptops in dueling positions that any onlooker could reasonably conclude that instead of surfing job sites {me} and actually working {heidi}, that we are engaged in a heady game of online Battleship.

i have been scouring the interwebs for a job back in advertising out here that will allow me to bring in some money and also not spend too much time away from my son. so far my two most viable options to do so are 1) start my own agency or 2) become a barista.

i know a lot of people who are struggling to find work these days and it's pretty easy to get bummed about the propects. maybe if i open up my job search to include sniper, food demo girl, and archeologist assistant i'll have better luck. {i wonder if 'sniper' really is a job description on Monster. huh).

anyway, wish me luck trying to bring in some extra dinero {otherwise you're all in for a LOT of postings about 80's band members getting older.} OH! and for all of you 16 Candles fans, heidi informed me that JAKE RYAN turned 50 this year.

*swoons*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjY_uSSncQw

take a hike.

as soon as the kiddo wakes up from his nap, we're going to head outside for some fresh air, as far away from CSPAN and the terrible news in tucson as we can get.

the picture below was taken a few months back. right now the harbor looks like the Blair Witch Project, what with the leaves having fallen off the trees because they were too cold to hang on.

enjoy your day. go take a walk, and hug the people you love. (or just be a little bit nicer to those people who make you a little nuts. it'll help to shift a little more good into the world today).