The Reach Out Project

Death does strange things to a person. My father passed away right before the 4th of July in 2009. W

Breast Cancer: The Divide Between Awareness and Progress

This past Sunday, New York Times Magazine had an insightful cover story entitled “Our Feel-Good Wa

Haters Gonna Hate: East Bay Edition

When considering a move to the Bay, it quickly becomes obvious that people are very territorial and

 

The Reach Out Project

May 5, 2013 in Virgin to Life

Death does strange things to a person. My father passed away right before the 4th of July in 2009. We were never close, but we didn’t have a strained relationship either. Years prior, I realized what our relationship was, and I was fine with that. Yet his death changed me. It came at a time when I was growing apathetic to my faith. It also came at a time when all of the walls I put up around me over the years left me with few people in my life. I had no problem moving on and not keeping in touch; it was easy. After he died, I went through what Chris and I jokingly called “The Existential Crisis.” It was the first time in my life I really confronted the idea that when we die, That’s It. Prior to my father’s death, the thought would briefly enter my mind in the darkest part of night and I’d quickly push it out. Ain’t nobody got time for that shit. After he died, the idea consumed every “quiet” moment of my life. I’d lie in bed at night and look outside the window, nearly panicking at the prospect of ceasing to [...]

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Breast Cancer: The Divide Between Awareness and Progress

April 29, 2013 in Op-Ed

This past Sunday, New York Times Magazine had an insightful cover story entitled “Our Feel-Good War on Breast Cancer” by Peggy Orenstein. The title jumped out at me for very personal reasons: my best friend is an Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) survivor. When she was first diagnosed in 2009 (at the age of 34), I saw the pink ribbon as a symbol of hope and solidarity. Times have changed a bit. From 2009 to the present, my friend had chemo, a double masectomy, some lymph nodes removed, radiation, reconstructive surgery where they used muscles from her back to create breasts, a part of her lung removed when her cancer metastasized, and then a hysterectomy because they found estrogen in the tumor in her lung and it confirmed to the doctors that she can’t have estrogen in her body if she wants to have any shot of keeping the cancer away. During all of this, Races for the Cure came and went, a local TV station threw annual telethons where they gave out pink canvas bags emblazoned with their station’s pinked-up logo to donors (costing $6 for shipping, by the way), and pink-infused football games trampled on in all their pink-cleated [...]

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Haters Gonna Hate: East Bay Edition

April 22, 2013 in General Humor

When considering a move to the Bay, it quickly becomes obvious that people are very territorial and judgy with their city choices in the area. As we were doing research on where we wanted to live, Google searches kept on bringing us back to one particular website, where the two most common questions appear to be: “is x safe?” and “what’s it like living in y?” After perusing the forums on that web site for the past six months, I have compiled a summary of the every “pro” and “con” argument you will ever see for a number of cities in the East Bay:* Walnut Creek: PRO: “Great Schools! Safe! Near Mount Diabolo!” CON: “All white and snobby! It is the epitome of Blaffluence. What is Blaffluence, you ask? It’s when you have a bunch of rich people who only want to eat and shop at homogenous, overpriced chains where the staff only wears black – it’s like they built a society around The Keg. Also? It’s super hot. For two days in the summer, it get over 85 degrees…so yeah, it’s basically a smoldering hell that shits cash and Neiman Marcus cookies.” Oakland: PRO: “It’s like San Francisco, but [...]

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The Other 90%

April 14, 2013 in Advice

So, I am now officially moved to the Bay Area – yay!  I am still temporarily tied to my job in Arizona, so there is only so much I can say about that experience for the time being, however I feel like things are finally getting better. It’s been a rough 6 months with new experiences I would be happy to never encounter again. I’m recovering, and part of that recovery is dusting off the Kitten. That does not quite sound right. Anyhooz, for today, I want to talk about assholes. I recently witnessed an exchange between two strangers where it was clear one of them made an honest mistake and apologized profusely for it, whereas the other person chose to be an asshole.  It got me thinking: what qualities make up an asshole, and what percentage of the world is made up of them, really? I conducted a highly scientific study where I hypothesized that the world is probably 20-30% Asshole. Recalling my experience as a waitress, I decided to round that down to 20% – it just seems there should be more because assholes take up a lot more time, space and energy than your average human. Then [...]

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Menacing Kitten Headquarters Melts Down, Cries Glowing Chernobyl Tears

February 18, 2013 in General Humor

As you know, I am moving. What you may not know is my shit is moving out six weeks before I do, nothing is working the way it’s supposed to, nothing is happening on time, everything sucks and hatehatehatemeltdowncry. Allow me to back this up a little. So, we put a bid on a beautiful home. Here’s a picture of it: The walls, ceiling and crown molding are all plaster and I love it. Here is a picture of the crown molding: We were supposed to close on said house last Friday. Our mortgage is going through a large banking outfit we will simply call Bells Cargo. We’ve used Bells in the past and had zero problems with them; since our last dealing with them, they instituted a corporate policy of spiking the water cooler with Ambien.  Our initial documents were way, way off: misspellings, incorrect zip codes, years of employment that only make sense if you have been a companion on the TARDIS, and financial numbers that didn’t add up. After a few iterations of documents, a checklist of things to correct and finally a “fuck it, I’ll just scratch it out” resignation, we signed off on a bunch [...]

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Bay Area House-Hunting, Round ??

January 28, 2013 in Catnip

So, First things first – there have been many rounds of Bay Area house-hunting I didn’t report on, because I was beginning to believe we were cursed.  One of the first things you recognize when looking for a house in the Bay Area is the region is in a little bubble where national economic standards and ways of living do not apply.  It’s kind of like those acropolises in Sim City that would sprout up before you got completely bored and unleashed every disaster upon your unsuspecting residents who already went for 5 years without water because playing God is hard. And kind of boring after a few days. Anyway, there are two trends going on in the area right now: 1) There is nothing on the market and 2) The few houses that are on the market either go for tens of thousands of dollars over asking or stay on the market forever because they are really just one giant 80 year-old termite tube that will collapse into a heap of masticated wood dust when the next quake hits. When we first started looking for a house, we really wanted to live on Alameda; it’s an old-fashioned mom-and-pop kind [...]

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Downton Abbey: The Season 3 Drinking Game

January 13, 2013 in General Humor

Here in the States, PBS aired the first episode of Downton Abbey, season three. I’m not sure of what to make of this season just yet – there was a lot of exposition in the first episode and not a whole lot of meat. Like, 10 seconds of wedding coverage? Hello? Not a big deal…I guess? We’ve only been on the Matthew/Mary Carousel of Guilt and Denial for two seasons now…the wedding wasn’t important or anything, right? The episode gave us a few hints of what plots are to come – the financial downturn of the estate, Mrs. Hughes’ certain potential cancer, Bates and his turn-of-the-century Charlie Brownism, Poor Edith and her own turn-of-the-century MarshaMarshaMarshaism, Branson and that whole ridiculous poison in the drink drama with the Downton equivalent of a Star Trek red shirt… One thing is for certain in these times of uncertainty: we need a drinking game for season three. Grab a scotch or one of those newfangled cocktails the Dowager Countess disapproves of, turn on your TV and play along: Take a sip… …if you yell at Laura Linney, “stop your yapping and get on with the episode already!” …every time someone says some variation of [...]

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50 Shades of Dismay – Adventures in Spray Tanning

January 7, 2013 in General Humor

by Kirsten Benzel I’ve never made a New Year’s resolution. I’m 28. I reasoned that the new year is nothing more then an arbitrary number and I’ll take care of business when it’s time and not when I have a champagne hangover and glitter stuck in my hair. Or maybe I just know deep down inside that I’m incapable of sticking to something unless I’m one hundred percent damn well good and ready, armed with a prepackaged, intellectual response to parrot during the week leading up to January first. See, we paid our dues. We hired a trainer, did cardio, ate the right things, at the right time, in the right quantities. And it worked – mostly. I lost 30 pounds of fat and he gained 35 in muscle: keep the fat girl skinny guy jokes to yourself or I’ll poop in your Cheerios. All of that effort was still stacked against a 40 hour workweek in an office chair. Flat, rippled abs? Never happened. I’d watch the infomercials for whatever the trending workout was at the time while mentally screaming “Yeah! Yeah, bitch!! Let’s see you get through 400 emails in one day!” We did the healthy lifestyle for [...]

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2013 Bucket List: Get the Funk Out

January 2, 2013 in Goals

At the beginning of 2012, I decided to create a bucket list of things to accomplish for the year. Looking at the original blog post, I actually didn’t do so bad: Start an international cooking club Did I do it? YES! It was a hit, and I had a blast experimenting with different dishes – Kalua pork, ribollita, pots de creme, chicken molé … unfortunately, since we are in the process of moving, I had to discontinue my participation. My husband is currently recruiting Bay Area people to take part once I move up there, so hopefully we can start it up again. What did I learn? 1. It’s okay to screw something up.  I totally messed up my garlic aioli. It was inedible. Surprisingly, I was okay with this; I had a back-up plan (gruyere sauce), and failing is a necessary part of experimentation. 2. A good party, even a food-oriented party, is about the people. Pretty design and delicious food is great, but the most important thing to do is to make sure everyone is relaxed and having a good time.  We had a ton of laughs with our friends over good food and wine. Do a DIY/Repurposing [...]

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Help Me Understand

December 16, 2012 in Op-Ed

It’s easy to sit here and type out my opinions. It’s easy to let the rage and frustration I feel take over and shut myself off from the world until the latest tragedy becomes old news and we’re back to talking about Anne Hathaway’s crotch shot at a premiere or Lindsay Lohan’s legal troubles. I debated what I was going to write today. I’ve struggled with writing as of late, because I am not in a place to write funny and happy things. I’ve felt exhausted talking about issues, because there are too many people who don’t want to have a conversation.  They want to scream and plug their ears until they have their way. It’s just too much some times. Suddenly, here we are. As I read my Twitter and Facebook feeds responding to a national tragedy, I realize that there is a way of thinking in this country I simply cannot comprehend. I need to understand this: Help me understand why you think the real solution to preventing a tragedy is to arm kindergarten and first grade teachers. I keep seeing this over and over. See, in my mind, I separate the right to bear arms from a [...]

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