Shopping for a birthday present....

I've been on the phone with my sister today.  Twice.  She suddenly had to go because she was getting sick from her Chemo.

The one thing I've feared my whole life has come to pass.  My sister has lost all of her hair.  She was telling me how painful it was to keep it because the chemo has killed her hair follicles, so for her to keep it was a bad idea, so she went and had it all shaved off.  What she was left with was the stubble from the clippers and it was annoying her, so my mother suggested she go over her head with a sticky lint roller.  Well, as you can guess, it worked.  She's got not a single hair left, even her eyebrows have decided to leave the scene.

So, in about 7 hours, I'll be picking up my sister for an afternoon with her and my mother.  I need to get out.  Linda even said so, I agreed.  I told her "I'd love to go out on a date" but the problem is, I don't know anyone and I don't really have any friends so to speak, so it's one of those things...I need to get out and a movie with my mom and sister seems to fit the bill just fine right now.

Linda's birthday is coming up on the 15th.  I've been trying my hardest to figure out what I'm going to give her.  I asked her what she wanted, and well, she isn't feeling too hot, so she said that she'd much rather take a bye on this one and let it go by.  I disagree.  It's times like this where you celebrate life the most, right?

I gave her birthday present a lot of thought.  From silk scarves for her head to baseball caps with custom designs, to spa candles, cd's, you name it, I've thought of it.  Then, as I was sitting and playing WoW with my pals KP and Andrew, it hit me. 

I was sitting, smoking my cigarette and looked at the smoldering cancer stick in my fingers and said...hey...I wanna quit smoking, right?  Well, what better gift to give my sister than me quitting smoking?  Yeah, I'll be a bitch from hell for a while, but at the end of the day, I'll be healthier, I'll save money and my apartment will smell better.  There's a laundry list of reasons to quit smoking.  And well, what better gift to give my sister than my last cigarettes and my lighter and ask her to throw them away for me?  What better time to quit than the most symbolic of all?  That way every year on her birthday I can celebrate another year smoke free!  I think it's a damn fine idea.  It gives her something both she and I want.

I think we'll both breathe easier with that gift.  It's inexpensive, but it's worth its weight in gold.

Yeah, nobody likes a quitter, but you know what, I'll take that like I've taken everything else, with a middle finger in the air for the people who don't like it.

I can do it.  If I get wigged out or freaked out, I can chew some Nicorette.

Wish me luck.  If it works, then it's the gift that'll just keep giving.