Saturday, August 28, 2010

Key West and it's characters.


Being back on my little crazy island has it's ups and downs.

It's so nice to see all my old friends and catching up with them as we stumble across each other. I ran into my old friend Josh tonight who used to live with me and 6 Fury employees in the "Fury Frat House" back in 2004, that was fun. (Can you feel the sarcasm?) I also ran into my good friend Mandy whom I lived with for a long while before I evacuated after hurricane Katrina.

I came home and got online to see what I had missed on my happy hour excursion into town. I noticed my drag queen friend RV Beaumont was online. Now, I knew that RV was diagnosed with cancer but I thought she was doing ok, fighting through it and getting better. I had seen pictures of her recently in drag and doing events so I didnt think much of it. But I figured I was home, and I just made tacos, and who doesn't like tacos? So I offered to bring her one. She told me her address (which just so happens to be just around the corner) and a walked over, foil wrapped taco in hand.

I skipped right past the house and into the 801 Cabaret where I asked the door girl Marilyn where RV lives. She said "you walked right past her!" I backtracked to the lamp lit porch where a skinny, bald man with big lumps on his head sat smoking a cigarette. I said, "Is RV here?" and to my surprise (for fucking real, SURPRISE) he said "It's me bitch!". Oh. Oh my. I ran over and hugged him because it was the only thing I could think to do other than burst into tears. He is a shell of his former self. I've never seen anything like it. Last time I saw him he was HEALTHY looking if you know what I mean. I can't really put it in to words my feelings. I just try to imagine what my mom had to go through seeing my father go through the same thing. RV has melanoma and bone cancer. They didnt catch the bone cancer when they caught the melanoma and its caused large tumors to grow on his head and spine. We sat on the front porch and watched people walk by as they watched us on the porch. We laughed and talked about them as they looked at us inquisitively. It's good that he keeps his sense of humor. I'm going to keep visiting him. I think he enjoyed having me there. He's still fighting. They are doing an experimental chemo on him and I hope it works. I told him we need to start designing his fantasy fest costume for next year... he just looked at me like I was crazy.

I put the taco in the freezer. He promised he would eat it when the indigestion subsided and before the next round of radiation on tuesday. I told him he could freeze it forever if he wanted.

This is a video of his before he got sick. Actually he was sick here, he just didn't tell anyone.



And this is a classic RV Yoedel skit. LOL



You can find his YouTube channel here

http://www.youtube.com/user/rvbeaumont

Anyway, just letting you know what I did today. I need some sleep now. Hope you and yours are healthy and happy. I feel so blessed that mine are.



14 comments:

  1. Great post, I don't think anyone is ever fully prepared for the ravages of cancer and what it does to people. It wasn't Katrina, I came down after Rita that year and you left after Wilma.

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  2. Hard to watch friends and family go through it. Kind of scary when you get numb to it...

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  3. Katrina and Wilma were right close together. I rode through New Orleans just after Katrina. I know that.

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  4. Katrina and Wilma were in the same season, but Rita was in between them... remember,they are alphabetical. I just know they hadn't cleaned up from Rita in KW when I got to your house. It wasn't even a month later when you headed home on the bus and went through NO.

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  5. I LOVE that yodeling video. I hope you go back to see him often. I'm sure it's a little depressing, but you're totally the kind of person I'd want to hang out with if I had a life threatening disease.

    OK that sounded weird but I think everyone who knows you knows what I mean by that.

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  6. Nice apple green bike.

    Do visit my Marine Cafe Blog. If you think it's as nice as that bike, let's have a mutual link. It would be my honour.

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