I Kissed Banana Pudding, and I Liked It.

I eat sugar. This has nothing to do with triple negative breast cancer, or maybe kind of, but I thought I'd put it out there that I do eat it, in moderation. That hoo-ha about "cancer feeding on sugar?"

Tobacco-in-a-spittoon pt-ting!

People with cancer are robbed of a whole world. We are robbed of safety, of comforts, of the ease of eating anything without worry. We are robbed of a sure future (and I know that's illusory, but health allows you to take tomorrow for granted) and we are robbed of time. With stage three triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), the risk for recurrence is higher than average.  Life's urgency increases and the recipe magazines - they call my name.

And so, one of the lifestyle changes I have made is to increase my intake of fruits and vegetables, as well as green tea. I have exercised my whole life. Reader, these do not make me special and cancer could come back anytime, even with these changes. I point these out to highlight that there's nothing unique about what I'm doing. Thousands of people make dietary and lifestyle changes every day; thousands of people get cancer, thousands go into remission. Ebb and flow. Ebb and flow.

Which brings me to banana pudding. I was salivating over old issues of Taste of Home magazine and found one with a recipe for banana pudding with - get this (eyebrows up and down, up and down) - Cool Whip, sweetened condensed milk, cream cheese, and SUGAR. Also, bananas. And vanilla extract. Gathering all my pastry mouth and lick-the-bowl anticipatory mojo, I baked and whipped up a glorious feast of cloudy sucrose, underscored with the yellow banana sweetness and capped with sweet cream. Dante Alighieri, you would not live here.

Bliss.

Thus, the point. Do not, in this short earthly measure, deprive yourself of pleasures. Hell has levels enough, and baldness makes no saints. Push off the tire swing and lift your feet; eat and savor and whirl at the bar, because you know, you know, after all the crazed spinning, you will always return to stillness, to the ground.