In 2014, I was invited to join an online cancer support group which had been loosely formed when some members of a parenting forum realised they all had one very shitty thing in common. Cancer.

We are all women, all young, all in the midst of normal when cancer came calling. We decided to call ourselves the Cancer Clique, to make a mockery of being a member of a select, secret group which nobody actually ever wants to join.

The conversations we have, well there are no words to explain those words. Awful, sad, desperate, painful, agonising conversations; so raw. Mostly punctuated with the most exquisite black humour, debauched jokes, inappropriate memes and self-deprecation that often had us punctuating our cries of pain with tears of laughter.  Sitting in our lounge rooms and bedrooms, on verandahs and in cars and hospital wards, on beaches and up mountains, across Australia and the world, we cry, laugh, cry some more.

Despite the fact that our group’s reason for being was cancer, I never expected any of us to die. To my mind, it was as if the camaraderie and shared experience would buoy us, carry us all above the waves of death, and see us safely landed on the shore of complete remission. But cancer is heavy, hefty, an anchor to stark reality.

Deb. February 2015.

Amelia. May 2015.

Jen. June 2015.

Emma. June 2015.

Nat. January 2016.

The unexpected has happened. Over and over. I have learned so much, things I never wanted to know, but that now see me richer for the knowing. I’ve seen so much of death, but so much more significantly, of lives lived, bold and bright, right up until the very last moment.

I am a witness. The privilege is mine.

It’s currently awards season in Hollywood, with all the famous (and in some cases infamous) folk lining up in ridiculously beautiful (and in some cases just ridiculous) outfits to give and receive Golden Globes, Emmys, BAFTAs and Oscars. The only saving grace of the vacuousness of these shows are hosts like Ricky Gervais and Amy Schumer who show no fear in making jokes about – and of – the arseholes, divas, hypocrites and egomaniacs.

Speaking of egomaniacs, this week I was nominated for a blogging award. Yes, another one. Look I’m not really counting or anything, but you’re probably curious to know so I’ll humbly mention that it’s actually my third nomination in the past year. I’d like to thank you, my readers for recognising just how bloody awesome I am, my family for supporting me in sharing my prodigious talent with the world, and finally, I’d like to thank cancer. Without cancer, I’d be nothing but a healthy person living my life without ongoing physical pain and the fear of recurrence, writing about totally uninspirational stuff like rainbows and unicorns. Oh cancer, you saucy minx of juxtaposition.

So the award I was nominated for is called the One Lovely Blog Award.

Nominations are chosen by fellow bloggers for newer or up-and-coming bloggers. I was nominated by Mandy from The Mandy Diaries (hi and thank you Mandy!). The goal of the award is to help give recognition and to also help the new blogger reach more viewers.

In order to accept the award the nominated blogger must share seven facts/or things about him/herself and nominate 15 bloggers you admire and inform nominees by commenting on their blog.

So, seven facts about me …

1. I cannot eat poultry (chicken, duck, turkey etc) of any kind because of a food allergy (actually, technically speaking an intolerance). People find this freakish and fascinating. I find it tedious, especially as my husband and son both worship at the Altar of Chook.
2. I used to play volleyball. One day I was playing in a game, and on the next court over there was a very serious mens A grade game going on. Our ball rolled onto their court, so I ran over with the intention of stopping it with my foot and picking it up, and getting off their court as quickly as possible. Things didn’t quite go to plan and I tripped over the ball and ended up sprawled in the middle of their court. Play had to be halted on their court while I was reinstated to an upright position, and on our court because my team-mates where pissing themselves laughing.
3. My uterus is the wrong shape – normal ones are shaped like an upside-down pear, mine is shaped like a love heart. The love heart thing would be cute if it didn’t cause failure to conceive, recurrent miscarriage, and premature birth.
4. I must have a huggy pillow in order to sleep. A huggy pillow is just a normal pillow which I clasp to my chest whilst sleeping. If I am in circumstances where a spare pillow is not available, I will fashion one from whatever is at hand, such as a towel, item of clothing, or my son’s panda toy. Things can get a little awkward when he wakes up and asks for it back.
5. I love animals and find it very difficult to relate to people who don’t feel the same.
6. Writing a Mills and Boon type romance novel has been a life-long goal of mine. I just need to come up with a catchy title, and the rest should be a cinch.
   

   So I’m thinking something like … Singly Titted, Prosthetically Fitted??

7. I am now waiting on a call from Mills and Boon.

As for new and up-and-coming bloggers I admire, there are many, but to be honest, I can’t list 15 here because I simply don’t have the time to read that many blogs. The whole making a living, being a mother and wife, having friends thing tends to get in the way of my desire to endlessly read stuff on the Internet, so I’ll have to cheat a little here and list fewer than 15. What this list lacks in numbers, it makes up for in quality:

Puddleducklane – beautiful photos, fabulous food and amazing craft.

Shitty Tittie Bang Bang – breast cancer – same, same but different.

Kiz B Kool – a really useful blog for those of us with kids who are into all things technomological.

Pickles and Pords – all about kids and reading, two of my favourite things!

Good Food Week – some great recipes here.

Right, now over to you Kanye.

 

After my cat Cosmo died last year, Dave made it clear that he didn’t like the idea of getting another cat. His reasons were good – we already have two dogs and a fish, we live where paralysis ticks are rampant (and one had nearly killed Cosmo a few years prior), and perhaps most significantly, Cosmo was a bit of an arsehole.

Then, towards the end of last year, and quite possibly after an undiagnosed head injury, Dave rang me one afternoon at work and said, appropo of nothing, ‘So, do you want a cat?’.

Someone at his workplace needed to give away their cat, and Dave has a very soft heart, so offered to take it. As it happens, that cat ended up getting a last minute reprieve by its owners, so we were still catless but the seed had been planted. Cat nip, actually.

A few weeks later, our friend Jules, who’s a vet, posted on Facebook looking for someone to take two kittens who’d been found dumped in a box on a school oval. What I think about people who dump defenceless animals in boxes would take up an entire post, and would consist mostly of words like ‘fucking’ and ‘arsehole’, but suffice to say the photo of these two bundles of cute tugged at my heartstrings, and we went to check them out, with the prospect of possibly bringing one home.

We got both.

Meet Lulu:

and Inky:

They enjoy playing with Lego

having mock sword fights with their tails

shooting lasers out of their feet

and licking each other’s backs

But most of all, they enjoy being arseholes.

Cosmo would be so proud.