The exclusive Sister Wolf Samurai Award is only for heroes, so you won’t be surprised that the newest recipients are the partners of DI$COUNT.

Cami and Nadia are fashion designers but much more. They had the courage to move to Thailand from their home in Australia, only to find themselves in the middle of a violent political clash. They were forced to flee to safer ground but their spirits are unbroken.

Last week, they posted a sharp and gleeful parody of Luxirare, an internet sensation known for striking but relentless branding.

They’ve replied congenially to people who scolded them for being “negative” and/or jealous. They’ve explained that they were blocked (and thus essentailly banned) from Luxirare’s website.

Here are two issues that won’t go away:

1. If you accept comments, should you censor them?
2. Is it bad etiquette to mock another blogger?

Personally, I think the answers are obvious: NO and NO, respectively.

As for parody, it is an art form. Nadia and Cami executed their parody with wit and style. It’s hard to see how it could be improved upon. If you don’t understand parody or satire, go see Spinal Tap again. Many years ago, The New Yorker ran a parody of Time Magazine, mocking their formulaic, awkward syntax. No one in those days would be so idiotic as to deem this effort “negative.” Why are people today such big babies??

Nadia and Cami are talented, passionate, funny, warm and as an added bonus, beautiful. They are Challenging the Paradigm, as Faux Fuchsia would say. They are Samurai and they rule.

A trusted advisor told Max last week,”Wallowing in self pity is a choice.” Ha, I beg to differ.

Sometimes, self pity is the rational response to one’s situation. Just as depression, anger or grief are rational responses to heartbreak, betrayal, and loss, for example.

Our culture insists that we have the power to change things by being positive, and inherent in this thinking is the disapproval of “negativity.” If I were in Max’s position and someone had delivered such an inane assessment of my mood, I hope I would sock him in the face.

Barbara Ehrenreich has written a book about the pressure to be positive, and I couldn’t agree more. She recalls being admonished at a cancer support group, soon after she was diagnosed with the disease. At one point, she was even offered a book called “The Gift of Cancer.” Having hope is one thing. Denying fear, rage or self pity is unhealthy at best, and it’s often just another way to blame the victim of disease or tragedy or unlucky circumstances.

Me, I am full of negative emotions. When things are hard, I freak out. But I know I will keep fighting. That’s why I like to identify with the samurai, and I guess that part is a choice. I could choose to identify with Sylvia Plath, or Joan of Arc, but there is no resonance there for me.

I like the idea of staying on my horse no matter what. I intend to plunge into any battle with total commitment, even if I’m outnumbered.

In the case of the pretend “hospital,” they told me once again that Blue Cross had denied further treatment there, even though Blue Cross denied this. I told the case manager at the “hospital” that we would refuse any discharge plan and appeal any refusal of payment by Blue Cross.

Meanwhile, Max’s current roommate, the one with the noisy oxygen machine, now has an infection from his PICC line. His family has not returned after one visit. I’m afraid he won’t get out of there alive. I ask him every day if he needs anything, and he shakes his head, No. A social worker came to see him last week and asked him to rate how tired he was on “a scale of 6 to 20.” I swear I’m not making this up. Where are numbers one through five??

Today, Max stood up for the first time in nearly ten weeks. Hallelujah. I’ve found a great hospital with an Acute Rehab Unit, but he’s not quite strong enough for their program.

Everyone who has sent their blessings and good wishes, the saints who donated to the Sister Wolf Fund, and the people who made purchases from the Sister Wolf Museum of Hoarding, you have given more comfort and cheer than you can imagine. My sword would be so much heavier without you.

But I am nothing if not a mom.

I was too depressed to write a Mother’s Day thing.   I was planning to link back to Mothers Who Kill, to get a discussion going.   Then I considered posting a photo of my mom, back when she looked young and beautiful and full of hope.   In the end, I went to bed ignoring the subject and feeling sorry for myself. An obscure self-pity. You know the kind, if you’re a mom with teenagers or grown-up children.

I am writing a book in my head about motherhood, and the first chapter will be titled “Relax: Whatever You Do Will Be Wrong!”

The last chapter will describe The Samurai Mom .   But first I need to bestow the Sister Wolf Samurai Award upon my friend Hammie.   She represents the essence of what being a Samurai Mom  is all about.

Hammie rides into battle every single day. She will stay on that horse no matter what. She will battle for her children whenever necessary, fearlessly and often thanklessly.   She will battle with her children, too, since raising them involves standing up to them when it would be easier to give in or just hide under the bed.

Hammie’s two kids are autistic, which means she must be their advocate and attorney as well as their mom. She isn’t daunted by the A word, and has made it her business to uncover and celebrate the ‘other side’ of austism, i.e. the gift of the unusual mind.

She is a noble Samurai who constantly finds new ways to help her children blossom, and to cherish their successes. She finds strategies instead of complaining or seeing problems as either/or situations.   She reaches out to parents and kids who seek her wisdom or friendship.

I wish I’d had a mom like Hammie! I wish I could be a mom like Hammie. In difficult situations, mom’s could do a lot worse than ask themselves, “What would Hammie do?”

You can even go to her blog and ask her. She will not only answer, she might just send you a box of chocolate Tim Tams.

Once upon a time, a Crazy Russian Bitch launched a bizarre attack on me on a blog I visited. Then, she started attacking me on her own blog, mocking the way I wrote about my broken pelvis. She blocked me from commenting on these personal attacks, and she finally became so belligerent about me on the first blog that she ended up in a feud with its authors.

Then, she mocked me to one of her readers, David Duff. I found David Duff’s blog and left a friendly comment there.

The Crazy Russian Woman was beside herself. When Mr. Duff refused to be discourteous to me, she was furious. She wrote a post about why he was a bastard, and why she was deleting him from her blogroll!   Ooooooh!

Since then, she has written a vicious post about another blogger who has cancer and had inadvertently enraged her by turning to God.

She has continued to behave like a crazy African dictator, so obviously she can often be enjoyed just for her delusional arrogance. Here, she calls Obama a ‘socialist piece of shit.’

Meanwhile, David Duff has continued to defend my honor by maintaining a civil and warm cyber-friendship with me despite the fearsome wrath of Her Craziness.

The internet can be full of potholes for the unwary, but it’s nice when someone turns out to be a true gentleman, even if he’s an archconservative. David Duff is therefore the first recipient of the Sister Wolf Samurai Award. All hail him!