nearmiddleagerantings

Australian Debbie and Turkey - the place, not the food

2009-07-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

I met Australian Debbie way way way back in 1987, when we were both about four years old, err, or thereabouts. I went to Australia in 1991 to visit her, the first of what has turned out to be a few jaunts around different parts of the world.
I haven't seen her in 18 years (lordy, some of my students are younger . . .) but we now keep in touch thanks to the glory and honour that is facebook. We facebook chat quite frequently, despite the 17-hour (I think) time difference. This morning we were chatting - 10 a.m. for me. 2:30 a.m. the next day for her. She always was better at staying up late.
"I'm bored," I lamented to her, "And lonely." She responded sympathetically and suggested I take up my blog again.
"I've lost the wee fanbase," said I.
"They will come back," said she. "And say something nice about me."
I think she may have been worried I would write something not-so-nice. Not sure why she would think that but then there was that person threatening to sue me after I wrote about my elementary school friend Bonnie-the-former-gymnast. So you never know.
Debbie and I were just young ones when we met in Vancouver and it is interesting to see how different our lives have turned out. She lives in the outback (but may be moving back to Adelaide) with her hubby of 17 years and her 6 children. I am single (bitterly so but still) and live in Vancouver near the beach. I sometimes travel.
"I have the heart of a traveller but the nervous system of an armchair traveller," I tell the lesbian minister at the wee United Church I sometimes attend. Is it important that the wee fanbase knows that she is a lesbian? I think it's my way of saying that I attend a very liberal church. Oh, oh, coolness - there are 3 elderly women who sit right in the front row - 2 94-year-olds and a recently turned 95-year-old. Amazing! I say. They get the bulletin in large font to follow and people help keep them up on things - like this morning they unveiled the new church labryinth. in our tiny church's case, it is a large piece of fabric on the floor. We are allowed to walk on it but only in socks - dirt will be a problem. The 3 women were given the labryinth on a piece of paper to trace with their fingers.
I like the hokiness (sp?), the liberalism and the calm of that little church.
A bit of a tnent there. In another tangent, my 81-year-old landlady (must everything be about age!) is setting up a mouse trap for me cause I think I have one in my wee apartment.
"I can't, I won't be able to cope with seeing it or hearing it or blah blah," I said.
"I'll come and get it for you," she said. Ick, I'll still have to hear and see it. I think I'll just pretend to put the mousetrap out. There's only been a tiny bit of mouse poo.
Travel. I went to Wales for a book festival for a week and then on to Istanbul for 10 days. The first five days I was on my own in Istanbul, which let me tell you, was oy boy all kinds of things. Hot, amazing, stressful, people people, body odour (mine too I'm sure, no air-conditiong in the cheaper place I chose to stay), men following me to the point where I wouldn't make eye contact with anyone, meat on a spit in the hot sun, french fries in a pita, amazing buildings from a thousand years ago, bread for breakfast, a bit of diarrhea, cold showers, street cats running into my room, BBC Prime channel on TV, heart pounding, hot, hot, hot, lady lady, hey rich lady, the Black Sea (the photo here) tour which was awesome, a Swedish girl on the tour who had cut herself all up and down her arms and legs but didn't hide it and she had a boyfriend twice her age who wore pants and a long-sleeved shirt, narrow cobblestone streets, drivers amazingly not running me over, swimming in the Black Sea and a fine vegetarian plate meal there, crowds and crowds and 35C heat and lady lady lady and let's bring my heart rate back to a better speed, I'm sure I have only so many beats. I am amazed by the history, by the fact that I have gotten myself out to Turkey and broken down my barriers yet again. This was a trip I'd booked four months in advance and had as a carrot on a stick.
I am lucky to have been able to go again to Europe (and Asia, thanks to Turkey being on two continents). I love the UK, I even love the food there.
I'm back now, got back three weeks ago. Caught on odd virus on the plane me thinks and was kinda down and out for a couple of weeks - lots of odd symptoms like night sweats and day sweats and a cough like a seal. I still haven't recovered all of the energy but have returned to my bicycle, the outdoor swimming pool (!) and to neck/back/shoulder pains that have me running to the massage therapist. Back to my life that is lonely and I haven't worked out yet in life how to get around that. Lucky me to be able to travel, oh yes, that I get don't get me wrong.
I think I'll try to keep the blog up a bit more. Wee fanbase, I hope I can woo you back.

Here I am

2009-02-13T17:43:00.000-08:00

I think the wee fan base is gone. But here I am.
I've been reading some other blogs lately - www.mattlogelin.com is quite a touching one. Matt lost his wife 27 hours after she delivered their baby.
Touching and kinda wrenching but gosh his little daughter is adorable.
Facebook.
A few cousins have found me on there - most recently, Carole. These are all cousins from my mother's side o the family, since I don't know any from my dad's side. That's almost entirely true - I have seen pics of the three of them and have met two of their wives when they visited Vancouver - but haven't actually met them. Seeing a picture of my father's brother choked me up - the resemblance is striking. And the three cousins - brothers and sons of the aforementioned (now dead) uncle - look strikingly Segalish and I see myself in them.
Weird. Orthodox Judaism has kept them away.
Anyway, Carole. I have lots of cousins - my mother was one of 14, 12 of whom made it into adulthood with only one nun amongst them. Carole is the daughter of the (now dead) Uncle Raymond (mom's brother) and Auntie Maria.
I haven't seen any of my cousins in years upon years and some I have never even met.
Weird.
A couple of my (still alive) uncles could walk up to me and yell in my face and I wouldn't know who the heck they were. Apparently, they look quite First Nations-ish. I remember when I was really tanned one summer back in my 20s, this guy said to me, "you a sister?' "No," I said. Well 1/64 but not really.
Anyway, Carole.
She is younger than me by 3 or 4? years. She's lived at home her whole life and was very close to her father.
He used to cut my hair when I was a child.
Auntie Maria has a really high pitched voice.
Turns out Carole suffers with depression/anxiety. This i figured out from her Facebook status updates. Mental health supporter/obsesser that I am, I suggested a wee bit o therapy to her. I waxed on, waxed off a bit about my great shrink (my great shrink who is going away for a month so tonight I gotta get a whole month's worth of advice).
Carole says no to therapy for now, then tells me a bit more about her life.
Turns out Auntie Maria has an irregular heartbeat and a type of colitis that hits her so hard she pales and passes out. Her lack of energy is frustrating for her, says Carole.
This hits me very hard and I feel so bad for Auntie Maria I can barely breathe (really). She's terrified of running out of money apparently, although that won't happen, Carole keeps encouraging her.
They live in a very very small house I remember.
I haven't visited my hometown of Winnipeg in 10 years - Sept. 1999 was the last time.
I've seen my folks since then of course - in Hawaii a couple of times and in Vancouver as well.
Later this year I'll be spending my holidays in Wales and Turkey.
Exciting.
And far away.
When Uncle Raymond died I read his obituary and it said something about his love of, gosh I don't remember, love of bowling, or something like that.
"I'm too hard on myself," Carole says, who won't post a picture on Facebook because she hates pictures of myself, "dad was like that too."
And I'm hit in that deep darkness again.
I think of Auntie Maria's life - she's bewildered, perhaps, terrified and holed up in her house, waiting for the irregular heartbeats, the passing out pain from the colitis.
She's very very thankful Carole lives at home still.
And Carole is quite worried about her when she (Carole) is at work all day.
Carole's been a secretary for ten years this August for Agriculture Canada, she tells me.
She writes in such a way that I see she has so much more there.
I see such a line of depression/anxiety through the family - Uncle Robert, Uncle Tony, my grandmother I think.
My mother.
My father, but he's on the other side of course.
The side with three cousins (brothers) who don't ever want to meet him.
I've always been so so ashamed and embarrassed by my own anxiety, my own anger-fueled depression (I'm not the kind of depressed person who stays in bed all day, I'd rather be with people actually, I get energy from that. I dig it. Instead, I'm angry, obsessive, some other things) and here I see it in the lineage.
I can't imagine the despair that Auntie Maria feels.
There was never ever any speaking of mental health - even after Uncle Robert hanged himself in his basement when he was 36. Sorry, a tiche depressing here.
36.
I was 19.
Thought 36 was young but didn't realize just how young
until I surpassed it.
For me, it is like a black hole - this denial of darkness. Generational I know and some other things.
Shame
fear
abandonment pops into my head.
French Canadians growing up in rural Manitoba on a farm in the 30s and 40s
didn't know for
what I get to talk about every week.
It's hard enough for me to get my head around.
And really, it's still not that around it.
I've always despised denial of any kind.
To the point where it has become a kind of denial of its own.
Myself
my pokey bits
poke at others.
"It's like you have your foot out on the bus," says my pal, Tracy. She grappled for this analogy but it turned out to be a not bad one.
"And you know your foot is there but you just can't seem to pull it back."
"Can you, you know, cut it off for me?"
"I don't think so," said she. She's gotten wise, that one has, from her own crap and her own wonderful weekly person. We're open about these things and I have permission to say that.
I poked too much at a 4-year friendship awhile back.
Resulting in its end.
Except we still work together.
So that's hard, I find.
Daily evidence of my poking.
And her poking back.
There are a remarkable number of pokey people at work.
Not so shiny, not so happy.
Work used to be - and my god I've been there almost 5 years - a record for me- more fun I'd say in the staff room.
Laughing, god sometimes laughing till I cried.
Then a few people left.
And some friendships died - to the point where we ignore each other even in passing.
And her friend at work, she ignores me in solidarity I think.
High school was a bit like this.
I took it too hard then too.
We even have lockers at work, for goodness sakes.
Turkey will be amazing. I'll be meeting up with Maggie, who I used to work with and who now lives in Ankarra with her great Turkish husband.
She's mellow that Maggie.
and beautiful.
Mellow and beautiful Maggie.
And Wales - a huge book festival. Bill Clinton called it the Woodstock of book festivals.
Two very different cultures - await me in May and June.
In 14 weeks and two days, I will go away for three weeks.
Plane, train and plane and bus and and
Shiny
happy
people

And I'm back yet again

2008-12-25T21:06:00.000-08:00

A short little entry as I have a cold and feel crappy. A winter cold. A we have a whole lot more snow than Vancouver has practically ever had in its whole life kind of cold. A flu-cold. A cold-flu.
You get it.
It is Christmas Day.
Xmas Day.
The day Jesus popped out of the Virgin Mary, thus breaking her hymen and making sex with Joseph much easier I'm sure I'm sure.
Can you imagine being known as a virgin for eternity? Sheesh.
This has been the month of epic amounts of snow, something Vancouver can't so much handle. Weird. I was feeling generally unsick until Monday evening, when I noticed that my throat was sore. "It's not really sore," thought I, "it's only the excitement of the Christmas season and the upcoming holiday break." Hmmm. Turns out no, it is actually a virus. It's settled in now, moved from my throat to way high in my sinuses and beyond. I missed work before the Christmas break, an odd thing because they kept the ESL school open despite: 1) an afternoon power outage - what's a little darkness 2) snowy snow snow.
I headed off to the lovely Glenda's for Christmas dinner and her lovely son Geoff picked a bunch of us up in his girlfriend's four x four. Glenda is so sweet and if you check out my Dec. blog of 2 years ago, will see how awesome Christmas at her house is. I'm glad I went, a nice break to my being at home sick. Now I'm back at home, sick. Ick. I get antsy and bored but it's cold and the roads are treacherous so I hibernate.
Slowly, thanks to Dr. Wulff and a few other things but mainly, let's be honest, Dr. Wulff, my thinking is changing for the better. In my 40s, I am awakening to some things - others may be re-awakening at my age, but me, I awaken.
It's an up and down life, this living.
Across-the-street-Roma delights me and I am so comforted by her presence there I can't begin to tell you. Her two new grandchildren, Milko and Giametti(pronounced Gimeddi) from Ethiopia, are awesome kids. Milko made me a get well poster and the two of them picked things out of the pantry that they thought I might enjoy - a can of tuna, cream of mushroom soup, some crackers. I'm verklempt.
So, I think I'll bring back the blog.

bored comas, hotwater heaters, etc.

2008-09-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

Oh my bored coma god.
Took today off of work - insomnia, plus, sometimes I know that I need to . . .hmmm. . . good to have a little break from the students (or they from me probably).
Took 1/2 hour to type up the lesson plan, hopefully the sub. had no troubles. I'll find out tomorrow.
Went for a long long bike ride, up the usual big UBC hill. Good times.
Too
much
time
alone.
So, bored coma.
No hot water in the building again. The 80-year-old landlady is away and the owner was simply not answering numerous calls.
I live in an old mansion divided into 12 suites.
I knock on a few doors.
"Do you notice we only have lukewarm water?" ask I.
"Yeah, I've been heating it up in a kettle."
"Were you going to call the owner?" I ask.
"Oh, I guess."
Oy.
We've just had a hot water heater put in so I figured it was under warranty.
I call the hot water heater company, the guy comes over within the hour and fixes it. So I think it's fixed.
I've left another message with the owner, telling her the situation and asking for a bit of a rent break this coming month. Don't know if I'll get it, but I figure two days without hot water and my effort is worth something.
I should have done a test to see how long the other tenants would have put up with no hot water.
It was seemingly an easy job too as it took only about 1/2 hour to fix.
Oy.
So, you see, there is something to be said for my obsessive nature. It may, in general, be kinda wrecking my, well, life but it also got me to fix the water problem.
In other news, I've broken the blinds in my wee living room. They now won't go up.
Is this not fascinating stuff? I'm telling you, bored coma.
Work, for all its workness, is a social outlet of sorts.
Hmmm.
Roma is right now in San Francisco meeting and greeting her two new grandchildren from Ethiopia. Their names escape me. She'll be back up next week and so will her daughter, hubby and kids. All are going to live with her, her partner and her grandson that she is raising. I expect those two new wee grandkids to be feeding the crows with her almost immediately.
Excellent.

Excellent writers

2008-09-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

I just went to hear Joan Barfoot and Miriam Toews read and speak tonight. Excellent, excellent writers.
Inspiring and the like.

I'm thinking of

2008-09-07T20:20:00.001-07:00

starting up the blog again.
Any of the wee fan base still out there?

next writers' group meeting

2008-07-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

July 14

cancelled

July 21 Host: Bruce's at 6:30 p.m. potlucky
Host: Readers: Janis, Raymond

July 28
Host: Karen Readers: Jewels, Alana .

August 4- holiday

August 11 - host: Yaz Readers:

That's as far as we have gotten. With many people away, we'll have to do some re-jigging. Tis the summer.

Writing Group

2008-07-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

Hello, writers' group type people. As you know, this is our temporary page.
So here we go:

July 7 - Back at Raymond's
Readers: Roma, Ann and Edward.

To Cuba I go

2008-05-01T20:26:00.002-07:00

I'll be back in about 10 days (not leaving till tomorrow night.)
I'll post with a million pics.
wish me luck, the Caribbean hasn't always been good to me.

once and for all, online dating is not the way I will meet a man

2008-04-24T18:57:00.001-07:00

I just have to realize this and not keep trying.
Here's a sampling of some responses I receive:
"Are you my naughty girl?"
"I'm not wierd (sic)."
"Are you into attached gents?"
"I'm a proffesional (sic) guy."
A little sampling from a few male profiles:
"I'm not into head games."
"If girls don't like a guy without a shirt, just don't look at those profiles. Geez."
Aaargh.
I'm just feeling a bit bitter about this whole thing. Yup.
I'm finding it difficult to figure out another way to meet guys but I think not meeting any is better than doing this online thing.
Seriously, what is going on in the male underbelly of Vancouver?
I ain't no perfect person and I welcome the quirky, the imperfect, etc. etc.
But this, this is so depressing.
Seriously.
Sigh.
On a good note, I'm off to Cuba at the end of next week.
8 more sleeps and then one overnight on a few airplanes.
yee haw.!

Hello, wee wee fan base

2008-04-20T19:39:00.001-07:00

Not my dog.
The weather has been wacky. It's been the coldest April since 1955. Really cold in the mornings, vaguely warmer in the afternoons. But thankfully, it has been quite sunny as well.
The beach, as always, is beautiful. But because it's been so cold, I've only swum naked in the ocean twice so far this year. Brrr.
I'm in denial but my upper tooth on the right hand side is sore. I actually think it might be loose. I hope to continue my denial until I come back from Cuba next month.
Ah yes, Cuba.
What else?
I have some not so good brain patterns, destructive mainly to myself. I'm experiencing one lately, I'm going to be vague because it involves another person, that I just can't seem to break. It goes back a really long ways with different people and while I know I shouldn't do what I do and say what I say, I continue to do so. Why? Because it's oddly comfortable, because in a twisted way I feel like I have to. Control really. Can I change a person's behaviour by my immature behaviour? No, but that track is in my brain.
And if you are reading this, it's not about you because who it is about doesn't read my blog.
I'm trying to work it out and writing about it may help, but not really this vague writing about it.
Oy, my tooth.
I actually went to a yoga studio in Kits. today, one my work colleague-Thursday after work-yogi recommended.
To really get the benefit of yoga, said she, I should go at least twice a week. I want to see more improvement in my body, fewer aches and pains and an increasing ability to be in my body, as it were, and not so in my brain. Yoga, which has been really good for my sore back, also has something really really deep about it. Those of you who do this already know this. It works at a level that is beyond my both tortured and non-tortured thinking. Because I am sarcastic and a blurt-out-what-I think kind of a person, I may not appear to get this deep spiritual type stuff. Alas and thank god, I do, in my way, of course. I see that in yoga I will head toward a kind of deep acceptance of myself, of my body, of me, something that talking or analyzing can not do. It doesn't come quickly and actually, it is almost imperceptible.
It is spirituality that saves me really - it is the one thing that goes beyond my mind, if that makes sense. When I think or talk abou the god of my understanding without the crap, I could cry for hours. It is an intense relief that is perhaps indescribable. Does yoga do all of that? No, but it is in the same vein.
Oy, my tooth.
So I went today, to a studio my Thursday yogi recommended. Have I mentioned my work-colleague-Thursday-yogi? Wow, she is funky.
Anyway, I'm sticking with Hatha, the gentle yoga. It was a bit harder than the Thursday class, with some new moves I hadn't done before. I liked it and the instructor.
Yoga in Kits is expensive and I did a first-timer's drop in. I think I'll go again.
This afternoon I had my third meeting of the book club I formed. I didn't go last month because I was sick. It was at my wee place and three women popped over. We discussed the book for awhile and then had a great time discussing everything else. A really good time and I look forward to next month when we will be discussing Catcher in the Rye.
Have I mentioned my tooth hurts?

perhaps I want some sister wives

2008-04-16T19:02:00.001-07:00

I'm oddly obsessed (it is not odd that I'm obsessed, but rather what I'm actually obsessed with) with these polygamous Mormons in Utah and B.C. I've been reading a book on the BC ones as I've mentioned before (it's taking me awhile, I'm reading lots of stuff in between) and been keeping up with this whole Texas raid. Some of the sister wives were being exploited, I mean interviewed, on Larry King Live tonight. Kinda heartbreaking actually, as the women truly did not understand why their children had been taken away.
I never say or write truly, but it's also kinda how they spoke. In their up to the ears clothing and bizarro way of speaking (yet oddly relaxing to hear), it felt eerily like they were in the 1800s. Fair enough that the women are so confused. They've been raised from birth to believe that their roles in life are to be the subservient wives of anyone who is picked for them. Nonetheless, they LOVE their children. They let the exploiters (and yes, yes, this makes me a voyeur) into their compound. Room after room was filled with empty bunk beds.
"This is my mother's room," said one woman who ws in her late 20s or so. "And her three daughters slept in the room with her." The youngest daughter was 8. Thunk. Oh yeah, the children were taken away because they are being married off at minority age, kind of a rape thing really.
Then Larry interviewed Winston Blackmore, the leader of the Bountiful, BC cult. Larry asked him how many wives he had and all he would say was plenty, not wanting to get into it. Seems it all only went wrong when Warren Jeffs wouldn't listen to his dying father's edicts that because of the new law, that the men should stop marrying children. If Warren had listened, insisted Blackmore, all would be well.
So it's a conundrum. The women are victims as much as the children and yet if the children are returned to them, then they will be sooner or later married off and the cycle of abuse will continue. To "de-program" these women I imagine is almost impossible, if not completely impossible. Perhaps the Texas government should have allowed the mothers to go with their children and simply kept the men away.
A thought - has their ever been lesbian polygamy? That might work better, be more egalitarian. The women wouldn't have to birth so many children, since it would be more expensive and more difficult to get the whole artificial insemination thing. There would be less of a power differential, I think, between women and women than between the one-man, 10 or more wives scenario. I imagine the women could dress more as they wanted, since they wouldn't be so afraid of the uncontrollable lust of men. Not to say that lesbians don't lust, the L-Word tells me that they do.(and have lots of sex in the outdoors) But I think women would be more reasonable and not as worried about the whole covered up thing.
Now could this work? Well, the Mormons also believe in the Bible, which has been wrongly interpreted in recent times as condemning homosexuality. (love the sinner, hate the sin. 'we hate your lifestyle and all that you do and what makes you truly you, but we love you. You know the you without the sodomy and blow jobs and cunnilingus and dental dams and such. So, just don't be doing the nasty of any sort with anyone of the same sex. Now off I go to convince my wife that she likes anal sex.' But I digress.) So it would have to be rather progressive Mormons. Like the United Church of Mormons, if there is in fact such a thing. Would the Osmonds be part of the United Church of Mormons? Well, maybe Marie but i don't think so of the rest.
Oooh, my other religious hope is that the next pope is a lesbian black Jewish woman in a wheelchair. I really think that that would get more followers into the Catholic faith.
I apologize for my more squeamish wee fan base (and I'm really in trouble if certain relatives still read this) for the frequent anal sex references.

odds and ends type of a thing

2008-04-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, what is up with Ashley Judd? I was youtubing Craig Ferguson because I think he is funny x 9 million, totally my sense o humour.
He was interviewing Ashley Judd recently and I thought I liked her.
I dug it when she sobbed on Oprah four years ago when her sister, Wynonna, sang, "I want to know what love is." I then ordered Wynonna CD on Amazon and then never listened to it.
I want to know what love is and I want you to show me . . . sniffle.
And then Ashley hugged her.
I dig that sister-sister relationship.
Anyway, there she was on Craig Ferguson.
First, I think she looked damn weird. She now seems to look like Naomi, but in a skewered kind of a way. Off kilter really.
And then every damn thing she was saying, how she was saying it, was annoying me. I know I know she is super smart, but I think she used the word disabused just to show off. She kinda talks like she is measuring every word.
Annoying and I thought, has her voice always sounded like that?
Oh, Ashley, what has happened since you did, Ruby in Paradise in 1993?
Beautiful weather these days. I've spent a fair amount of time at the beach near my house and I even rented a bike and biked around the seawall yesterday. Nice nice.
I'm off to Cuba in 2.5 weeks. My tour documents are not in from Australia yet (the adventure travel company is based there) and I'm trying not to worry. Ha. I'm going on a midnight flight and changing planes in Toronto. The Vancouver-Toronto leg is actually farther and longer than the Toronto-Havana. On the way back, the Toronto-Vancouver is almost 6 hours, making total time in the air about 9 hours. Woo! It's all Air Canada so hopefully all will connect well - there's not much wiggle room and my tour starts the very day I get there. Eeek.
Exciting.
I must admit I'm obsessing about my age. Eeek. One woman I know, well, Debbie, Marty Banana's wife, is my age and has SIX children. Kathy, just a bit older, has five children. "Stop comparing," says Kristina (she is in Taiwan on a vacation at the moment, so she's not actually saying it now). Yes, she is right though. I compare so much it fills much of my brain. It's true.
Age.

yup, so a bit about some of my friends

2008-04-12T23:16:00.000-07:00

I've had it up to the proverbial here at the moment of guys on these internet dating sites I prowl through sometimes.
"Get off of those," suggests Kristina, because she hears all about the hmmm, kinds of guys I meet on these things and just the general unpleasantness of it all.
"So right," I say to her, using a British expression because I'm not British.
And then I prowl again, always vaguely hopeful.
Eeek.
Not
good.
There are at least 532,651 single women in Greater Vancouver and one guy who isn't gay, alcoholic, unable to commit, committed, etc., you get the idea.
Thank god for my friends.
I've waxed poetic about them before and I think I'll do so again because they make me feel all happy. It is the kindness, unselfishness and fun of my pals that is very cool and I'm honoured.
Ooh, Ricky Gervais is on TV at the moment in his series, Extras. I do love him.
But I digress.
Across-the-street-Roma.
"Staying for dinner, Karen?" "k". "Would you like a piece of strawberry shortcake?" "k."
I've mentioned before that I've sat on her couch for hours at a time when I'm home sick. One time I hadn't really eaten for a few days, nauseous, etc.
"Would you like an apple that I'm going to make you in the nicer dicer?"
"What's a nicer dicer?"
"I ordered it off of the shopping channel in the middle of the night." Roma is an insomniac.
The apple tasted good all nicer dicered up like that.
"Roma, I'm lonely and bored and navel gazing."
"Come on over."
"Roma, can you talk (on the phone) right now?"
"No, I have to go and watch America's Next Top Model."
Glenda.
"Wanna go for a walk in the forest (Endowment Lands)?"
"Sure."
"Karen, I've made some lemonade out of brown sugar, so I'm calling it a refreshing citrus drink. Would you like some?"
"K."
"Use 'I' statements," says Glenda, when me and someone else get a bit jokey/semi-seriously into something at work.
"We're having a barbecue, want to come over?"
"K"
"Glenda, I'd like to host a Scrabble-off but my 20-square-foot apartment is too small. Can we have it at your house?"
"Sure. I'll make lentil soup."
"You don't have to."
"I want to."
"K"
Tracy.
"Tracy, wanna go Cuban dancing at the Waldorf Hotel on East Hastings? It might suck, I haven't been."
"Sure."
(It sucked)
"That was fun, Karen. I'm just happy to get out of the house."
We had a rather intense argument a few months ago. I was flailing and crying and you'd have thought we were wife and wife.
"I still love ya,"
"Yeah, ditto."
"Karen, would you like to take home some of this organic turkey,stuffing and potatoes I've made?"'
"K"
We talk about our respective shrinks. She helped me to find mine cause she used to work for a shrink who recommended her.
"I love my shrink."
"I love my shrink."
Some people are strangely embarrassed to speak of their shrinks and shrink away from it.
Ha, good one.
Not us.
"I'm gonna try and get a crazy person bus pass," Tracy informed me one day.
"You're not crazy."
"True. But I'm broke."
"True."
"Will you have to wear it around your neck?"
"No."
"Did you get it?"
"No the wouldn't give it to me."
"Too bad."
"Yeah."
Kristina.
"Karen, do you think you should do that? Remember, you want to stay under the radar at work."
"True, good point."
"I don't think that person was thinking what you thought they were thinking when you said what you said because of what you thought the person was thinking."
"Oh. I hadn't thought of it that way."
"I don't agree with you on that point, Karen."
"Oh, eeek. Agree with me!!!! Agree with me!!!! See it my way!!!!"
"No."
"Oh."
Sometimes I can get her to really guffaw at something I've said, so I know it's funny.
Michelle
"Michelle, I seem to have e-coli poisoning from my trip to the DR. Could you come over please and bring a thermometer, gravol and imodium and then please wait at my apartment until I actually throw up and put your hand on my back while I do it and not run screaming out of the room with your hands on your ears as I would do? Oh and then could you please take me to the hospital?"
"Sure."
These are some of the people in my life.
Lucky, eh?

Hello, wee fan base

2008-04-10T19:44:00.001-07:00

I suspect my wee fan base has gotten wee-er and yet I'll keep writing.
Congratulations to Katie from work and her band, Pawnshop Diamond, for being the song o the day on CBC Radio Three's podcast.
That's cool.
I think Katie only started singing/playing the guitar a few years ago and she's doing really well, touring, etc.
Another big success who used to work at our wee ESL school is Mark Berube, who's gone on to live back in Montreal. He too is folk style and he has some national acclaim and he is about one of the nicest guys I've met.
Katie's been encouraging me to get more serious with my writing and with actually sending it out to places. "Send some stuff to Stuart McLean" said she to me. (He is a CBC radio guy with a quirky, some would say folksy type Sunday show). Interesting because my writers' group also tells me to send out some stuff to the CBC.
I may have mentioned before that I've written a series of short stories (and continue to write) based on a former roommate I once had. It started out about 4 years ago as a way to vent when we were still roommates and now, it's taken on a rather quirky, sardonic life of its own. I think I may have a talent in that area, this sarcastic kind of writing.
I was reminiscing atwork today about my time, in the mid-90s as a reporter at the Medicine Hat News. Yes, Medicine Hat. It was a baby Southam paper at the time and I was an arts and entertainment reporter. Yes, in Medicine Hat, land of stampedes and stampede queens.
Some people didn't know this history of mine and were wondering why I wasn't still at it. Well, I'd wanted to come back to Vancouver and I'd found it too competitive out here, which it is.
I seem to have a problem with motivation in regard to writing more or writing at all except when it's my turn to read at writers' group. Part of it is that I'm just genuinely generally just always fucking tired. Part of that is insomnia, working, my nervous system, etc. I'm hoping my vaguely healthier eating habits will help me here. I can spend hours and hours reading or surfing the net or even watching TV but I can't seem to spend hours and hours writing or sending my stuff out.
I can spend far far too much time in my own brain, picking myself apart, wrapped up in a negative loop that has been my thinking pattern for many a year.
"You have too much time to think," jokes across the street Roma, "get a pet or something."
She's right, in a way.
When I am motivated it does indeed feel good - like when I go on a massive cleaning spree.
I wonder about the contents of other people's heads. I'd like to check that out one day.
And yet - I still somehow think that all of the blackness in my mind leads me to be more, more, more . . . you get it.
But perhaps it also leads to this tiredness.
I strive to relax. Funny that, I don't think that that works.
Yoga was relaxing after work today - lots of stretches for the back.
"I worship you more everyday," I told yogi-Sandra.
There was some kind of massively chocolate cake at work today and I had a wee piece. It was rich and amazing.
There will never be a person walking around the earth with 50 per cent of my genes.
I walked home after yoga, along the beach and because the sun is finally out, it was amazing, ocean sounds, etc.
Sometimes I think my muse is this incredible ANGST that exists inside my head that listening to Martha Wainwright can actually help to get out at times a bit.
Or Peter Gabriel.
Or, if the moon is right, even the Beegees.
My shrink has recommended a book to me by Alice Miller. I will go now and put in on hold at the library.
There is a library book sale on this weekend but not a Friends of the Library book sale which is excellent.
Kristina is off to Taiwan for a week tomorrow. Have fun, Kristina. I like Kristina, she's a damn calm woman who makes me smile and when she makes a suggestion, I often listen to her. Well, I didn't about that thing last year but I still don't regret that. Well, maybe the first one but not the second one - neither of them were great but it was what it was.
This is the kind of mood I'm in, wee fan base.

a hodgepodge

2008-04-08T18:23:00.001-07:00

Yup.
Oy, my insomnia is back and eeek, it came back ugly. It comes and goes and is much, much more under control than it was a couple of years ago. Nonetheless, here it be. I find it vaguely horrifying and it makes it nearly impossible for me to function well.
So I'll see how coherent I can be here.
This polygamy thing is all wacky. Sounds like they raided one of Warren Jeff's compounds in Texas. Fascinating and horrifying. Not horrifying like my insomnia but horrifying in a different way. Seriously, read, "Escape," the memoir by former cult member Carolyn Jessop.
It was quite upsetting to hear more details on how that young Japanese ESL student died on Whistler (Blackcomb?) mountain more than two weeks ago. They found the 25-year-old's body and from what they can piece together, she fell and then took off her snowboard in an attempt to climb out of the stream she fell into. She wouldn't make it out and would die of hypothermia, her body buried and hidden by later snowfalls. My god.
And then there's the Merritt man who murdered his three young children in the time it took his estranged wife to go to the corner store.
Oy.
On a much lighter note, my lost Lulu Lemon yoga mat, a present from work Michele, has been returned safely to me. I'd somehow left it on the bus last Thursday and it was brought to BC Transit Lost and Found. I called and they said that they had it. Funnily enough, when I went to get it today, they showed me a different pink one. She thought she didn't have mine (oy!) but it turns out she did and she quickly called me back.
Thank god. Seems two pink yoga mats were lost on the same bus last Thursday evening.
Well, yup, the bus goes through Kitsilano, which I believe is the yoga capital of the Western Hemisphere.
I had tried an Iyengar yoga class a couple of years ago with co-worker Kristina. Oy. Poor Kristina had to put up with my indecent mutterings during the class and my ragings after.
"I fucking hate this fucking yoga class."
I'm sure she was filled with not only the love of Christ but peace in her very soul after hearing such things from me.
It was too hard for me and not relaxing (really?).
I was gun shy (uh yes, guns, Charlton Heston must still be on my mind) when colleague Sandra, a newly minted yogi, started up a beginner Hatha class late last year.
It took me about a month to work up my courage but there I finally was with my towel and fear in the basement of the church in the West End.
She does a great series of stretches and poses and I do believe I cried near the end of the first time.
"Oh," I thought, "this is what relaxation is."
It has really helped my lower back and my hamstrings. My shoulders are problematic, so I don't do downward dog or keep them up in Warrior or such poses.
She has a very soothing voice, does Sandra.
A few weeks into it, work Michele, a long time yoga devotee and former Lemon employee (no shame, Michele, no shame, we all have our crosses to bear) gave me her old Lemon! yoga mat. It is a fine fine fine mat. I love this mat. I am genuinely proud to have this mat when I am walking from the bus stop to my wee place.
I do enjoy Kits. I was reminded of this when I took the skytrain to the Lost and Found. I was rather thrilled not to be taking it anymore or to be living in that direction. Now settle down, Kristina, I am not anti East Van. I love and still worship Commercial Drive and 4th Avenue has nothing on it. Commercial Drive makes me happy to be alive, it really does. But I do not miss . . . the skytrain or the skytrain crowds of people.
By the time you read this I hope to be sleeping.

I enjoy a little Costco

2008-04-06T18:21:00.000-07:00

For my out of North America wee fan base, Costco is a warehouse store where you can buy things in bulk and you need a membership card, or to know someone with said card.
Pal Glenda has said card.
"Glenda," said I, calling her late in the morning, "Would you enjoy a little Costco?"
Turns out she would. She went yesterday, but forgot a few things.
Off we went, me behind the wheel of my 22-year-old car, hoping it wouldn't feel the need to break down during the rainstorm.
The streets of Vancouver were empty today, as everyone was at the Richmond Costco. Glenda and I split up, promising to keep up commmunication via cell phone.
I'd never wandered through Costco on my own and had to begin singing, "Oh Christmas Tree," in order to keep from having an inappropriate meltdown. There were a few people there. And they have inherited the Superstore virus, which is to stand in the middle of the aisle, three or four people across.
Little children were quite resourceful and scurried between the carts.
There was quite a lineup for the pizza free samples, about 10 people deep.
I was quite pleased to get a hardcover book I've been wanting for only $19.99. It's non-fiction, about the polygamist community in B.C. As you know, wee fan base, I have just read about polygamy in Utah. This one is written and researched by a Vancouver Sun writer.
Neato.
I found two good pairs of shorts of all things for my trip. And get this a 2GB camera memory card for $20! That's almost 1,300 pictures, good for trips and such.
Frozen berries, vitamins, flax seed oil, all there. Oooh, I spent a bundle but so awesome.
Glenda and I met up at the end, paid and had some ice cream cones. Yummy.
I see that Charlton Heston has died. I wonder if they had to pry a gun out of his cold, dead hands. I've read that George W. has been leading the tributes. yup.
He did part a nice Red Sea.
A huge protest in London against the Beijing Olympics. It's fascinating, me thinks, to see how this is going to play out.
And finally, I caught the last ten minutes of a CBC special on Fidel Castro. Part two airs next week. Good timing for my trip.
Day three of eating vaguely healthier.
The woman in the picture with me was my great aunt. She had Sitting Bull's ring. When she died, it went to my uncle, where it was stolen in a robbery. The significance of her having this didn't hit me until years later. Fascinating.

oh, I see, healthy in, healthy out, etc.

2008-04-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well well well.
Well.
Even for me, me who has watched Celebrity Apprentice and just today Days of Our Lives (is Hope pretending to be Kayla? And why is Bo in the hospital? And why does Patch have his patch again?) is thinking that TV has gotten, well, worse. Now the writers' strike, just recently over, has not helped. It will be awhile before some shows come back. But, oy. What the heck is Dennis Miller doing on this evening game show where couples have to remember things about each other for money?
I'm vaguely hopeful about Canterbury's Law, which I'm just about to watch. It's supposed to be the same type thing as The Closer, but not as good. And it has Julianna Margulies, who I never really liked on ER but I'll have to see.
I'm doing just fine with my 13-inch TV. About two months ago, my 21-year-old 21 inch TV, well, died. I felt I needed to have a TV that very evening, being rather OCD. The only one I could carry home was a 13-inch one. The colours are so vibrant! And the small TV fits into my small apartment.
So I've been seeing a naturopath. The most recent time I had to bring in a six day food diary - everything that went in and well, out.
Oy, the processed food.
Oy.
I was embarrassed.
"I've seen much worse," said she.
Oh no, it appears that Julianna Margulies is simply playing angry, because if a woman is strong, she must be angry. Right.
Anyway, the naturopath says we are taking baby steps and I feel that this has been a good kick in the pants. I am to drink a protein shake in the mornings (rice protein powder, flax oil, soy milk!, berries, banana and acidopholous, which I can't sepll at the moment). So I bought my first blender. So proud. I keep looking at it. It's a basic little thing.
A few other changes are being introduced as well.
Hopefully this will help the out stuff too.
Too much information I realize.
Julianna Margulies looks weird. Perhaps it's the vibrant colour.
I still think I don't like her.
Oh, I see her name is Canterbury. I'm not sure what Canterbury's Law is but I'm sure it's a play on something.
Oooh, I find her acting a bit not so good here.
Kyra Sedgwick and The Closer, far superior.
I think this show will not last.
Why is it that George Clooney, while he is wasting a bit away, still looks quite good but Julianna looks a bit, hmmm, odd.
Obviously, wee fan base, I have far too much time on my hands.
Speaking of which, I am still thinking about taking a continuing ed. course Wed. evenings - beginner Spanish. I think it's 8 weeks and I would get in 4 lessons before my trip to Cuba. At least I would learn a few greetings. And it's at a school not too far from here.
Julianna is really speaking in this odd slow cadence. Sentence. Pause. Word, pause, another word. And then she emphasizes certain words.
Krya Sedgwick is so superior.
Sigh.
That rice protein was hard to find, I finally got it at Capers, at a crazily high price. The naturopath says rice protein is calming for the digestive system. Excellent.
Soy milk is filled with goodness but I think the taste will take some getting used to.
What is on her lip? A scar? I don't remember it from ER.
The actresses playing the guest teenagers are painfully bad.
Stop, Karen, stop perseverating about this bad show.
"If you could channel your . . . energy," said co-worker Kathy, "you could be a stand-up comedian."
Hee.
I do have energy spilling out in weird, and often not good, places.
"Too much navel gazing," says delightful and I worship her neighbour Roma. She often lets me lie (lay?) on her couch when I'm sick. "You need a pet."
Roma is raising her grandson, is 26 years older than me and has far more energy than I do. But my fatigue rubbed off on her the other evening.
"I'm watching Jon and Kate plus 8." That's a reality show about a couple that has twins and then six at the same time (sextuplets?)
"I find Jon kind of wimpy," I said to her.
"I don't like Kate, she a bit domineering," said Roma.
That's true, she is always yelling at Jon.
It's no Little People, Big World.

So what's new?

2008-04-03T18:53:00.001-07:00

Here I am, wee fan base, here I am.
I see that I haven't blogged for almost four months. My goodness.
My brain is quite tired at the moment, so I'm not sure what to write really.
Eeek.
Oooh, thanks to the commenter who said they were still here. I'm verklempt.
Let's see, let's see.
Well, I find myself going to Cuba next month, from (to be exact) May 2 (a midnight flight, so really, May 3)to May 11. I will be going on a "rustic adventure tour." This means I'll be travelling with up to eleven other people and a Cuban guide through a couple of places in Cuba. I've always been curious about Cuba and given my, hmmm, less than stellar experience in the DR, I feel that other people being around is a good thing. Thanks to Wendy for the term, "rustic" - cause it describes well the experience - zero star hotels, no air-conditioning, rustic. Part of me (the anxious, tired part) would love to go to an all-inclusive and just chill pill it. But I have two main problems with that: 1) I'd be going on my own and that could suck in an A.I. (68 per cent of the reason) and 2) I'm vaguely philosophically opposed to A.I.'s (32 per cent of the reason). I wondered through enough of them in the DR to get a feel for what they are like and while I like the, hmmm, safety I guess is the word, of them, I wasn't crazy about the "feel" of them. Enough said.
I'm definitely pushing myself out of my comfort zone yet again but less so since it is a tour of sorts and someone will know that I'm alive in Cuba, who is actually in Cuba. I'll be spending an extra day/night in Havana which should be fascinating.
I'm under no allusions about Cuba - it's going to be oh so hot hot hot (DR hot) and poor. Cubans have lived under restrictions for almost 50 years, although that is beginning to loosen up under Raoul Castro. There is a woman in my writers' group who has been to Cuba and loves Castro. She argues that these restrictions are good and that Cubans have been saved from a lot of the crap we have in North America - advertising and the pressures of it, for example. I disagree with her mainly because to have a governemnt not allowing you to have things is similar, in my view, to being infantilized. To stretch a point, I've been reading a memoir by a woman who was living in a polygamist community in Arizona until she escaped, with her 8 children, in 2003. Crazy fascinating stuff. Now the people in that cult are "protected" from many world realities too but that doesn't make it right.
Cuba was said to be an experiment in socialism that my writers' group friend and others would say was a great success. Now, granted, she has been there and I have not, but from the reading I've been doing, many of the Cubans themselves are not too pleased with years of restrictions.
That said, Cuba is not a third world country but a second world one. It is significantly ahead of other countries in the region and has universal health care and education for all. The U.S. boycott of it and sanctions against it are ridiculous and hypocritical in my view and it is remarkable that unlike El Salvador, Chile, Guatemala, et al, the U.S. government has not been able to get in there and control it. Speaking of which, I met an interesting Chilean fellow recently who escaped from Chile with his family during the Pinochet regime, installed after the CIA assassination of Salvador Allende. Now there is a woman president in Chile, my friend tells me.
I think Cuba will be hot hot, beautiful, rustic and fascinating. I'm glad I wondered through the DR last year if only to get a feel for what I can expect in Cuba.
I have a real desire to travel and learn (hopefully vaguely humbly) about the millions of things I don't understand and unfortunately I wear my nervous system on my sleeve. I push to keep myself from boxing myself in to a smaller and smaller box.
India, now India I wouldn't be able to do, even on a tour. India would involve me, a travelling companion or two and a whole lot of imodium and anti-anxieties.
Ha.
On another note, I've been at my current job 4 years at the end of this month, the longest I have ever ever ever held a job. Kudos (I feel like I'm making an acceptance speech) to the union at our school and to Monica, my boss who has put up with some interesting things from me.
And I just had a birthday and I'm struggling mightily with being over 40. It's just a number, says my 33 year old friend Kristina. Indeed.
Work continues to be fun, especially the staff room. Fun and annoyingly shallow and deep and funny and chortling and supportive and weird and strangely competitive in strange ways at strange times. People sometimes bring in goodies from their ultra something ovens and people have begun to make lists about how to improve their lives. I'm thinking of making one too.
I'll be buying my first blender this weekend so I can make protein shakes for breakfast, per the naturopath. Apparently what I eat can help influence my chronically tired state.
welcome back to me.

The re-re return of the blog

2008-04-03T09:47:00.001-07:00

Sure, I've let the blog lapse a few times in the last year.
And yet, like the Rolling Stones, here I am again.
Not sure how i will get the wee fan base back again, I may have to buy ads in the New york Times.
i can't write much right now as I am in the computer lab with the students.
But soon, young people, soon.

I'm still alive, wee fan base.

2007-12-19T17:43:00.000-08:00

The picture is from a few weeks ago, the beginning of December to be exact. I remember because I was in my apartment recovering from my wee surgery so took the picture out of my bedroom window.
I'm three weeks out of that wee surgery now and I am still alive. Perhaps one or two of the wee fan base were wondering, after my last posting, if complications had arisen and I was, you know, in the hospital.
Ha.
Actually, I think I've driven the wee fan base away with my inconsistent blogging.
Speaking of which, I'm mighty pleased to see Marty back in the blogging world. Wonderful.
What else?
Oh yes, I'm very much alive. After a difficult first week back at work, I'm basically more recovered now. I'll save you the unpleasant details but I'm still having some owies and ickiness, but that is apparently par for the course. I won't know for a good six months if the surgery accomplished its mission, so I'll get back to you in June.
Ah yes, June, when the weather will be delightful and I can go to Kitsilano outdoor pool every day after work. Heaven. It is, I believe, 3 times the length of an Olympic-sized pool. Amazing and very very relaxing, even when crawling with people. It is now only a ten-minute walk from my house. Right on the beach, the views are stunning.
I plan to be jogging and swimming most afternoons/evenings starting in May or so. I'm not supposed to swim for another two weeks or so, which is too bad because I have a month's pass to Vancouver Aquatic Centre, an excellent indoor swimming facility. I need to exercise regularly for many psychological reasons but haven't been doing so lately as I've recovered. In desperation, I decided to go for a wee jog after work yesterday. I had about a 40-minute window of time before complete darkness descended (not in my soul this time, but rather outside). I quickly changed and went to the seawall in my neighbourhood. It was drizzling quite hard, so oops. I couldn't see out of my fogged up glasses after about two minutes, so I took them off. Then I simply couldn't see, ha. There were puddles everywhere and soon it was, well, really, really dark. The rain picked up. It was me, the wall, the ocean, the puddles.
Oops.
Uh well.
Tangents here.
I went into MAC cosmetics on Robson after work to get lip gloss. They do make a nice gloss. There were many, many, many x 800 people there. MAC, to me, is what I imagine Hollywood to be like. Women of all sorts, walking about in their designer this and that, their heels, their, their . . . stuff.
I like the lip gloss.
I can be, as you know very well, wee fan base, a judgmental cow. But it's almost always a double-edged thing, where I judge myself as harshly and more harshly.
That's no excuse really for judging others, but there you go.
I was just so so overwhelmed by the overwhelming, I'll say it, dammit, shallowness of the whole atmosphere of the store.
The tragic thing is this is what is so so validated in society. The "right" look, the designer bag, the hair, the right shoes, clothes. The beauty. I checked myself to see if I were actually, in fact, jealous, of these women. Was that it? Was that even part of it?
I analyzed this while I waited in line.
And I realized, much to my relief, that no, that wasn't it.
The feeling I get is so so strong in MAC - I'm tired so I'm not sure I will word this in any way correctly. Simply and again - look right, look good and that is what counts, that is number one.
But if you are in a bookstore, aren't books number one?
In an umbrella store, don't umbrellas reign? (ha! I just made that up on the spot!)
Oy, I am tired, I think I'm losing my train of thought but I think you, wee wee fan base, get the idea.
You are not enough if you are not this.
Look at me, look how amazing I look.
Watch the world
revolve around
me.
MAC
I like their lip gloss.
I do love a good bookstore.

And there it was

2007-12-02T18:04:00.000-08:00

"I was chewing gum for five minutes." The youngish woman came out from behind the closed doors and plunked down into her seat.
Several of us said, "oh,no."
We were all sitting in the day surgery waiting room. About 5 or 6 people and me all sat, dressed in blue gowns, robes and oddly warm and long socks. Most people had paper slippers too but I couldn't find my pair. I vaguely worried I would get into trouble for this.
ha.
Chewing gum woman had been sitting since about 6:30 a.m., waiting for leg surgery. I'd been there since 10:30 a.m. and it was now 1 p.m. Her surgeon kept coming out to talk to her, saying that they'd get her in, possibly today, possibly not. Sit tight. Hubby came along to sit with her, telling her about the x-ray he had to get done and his visit to the walk-in clinic. Her cell phone kept ringing, despite the fact they were sitting right under the, "no cell phone" sign.
All of us sitting there are both dehydrated and hungry, well, except I guess for the nauseous and those getting epidurals. I hadn't had a thing in 6 hours, I was cranky. Every time her phone rang I mumbled, "turn of your cell phone."
Hubby says something to her but she says she doesn't care.
Phew, she can get surgery despite the gum chewing.
I continue to wait. It's minor female type surgery (enough said) and after, it's going to hurt to some degree, from nearly no pain to excruciating, depending on what story you read on the internet.
The corners of my lips are cracked, the meds I take for sleeping dehydrate me.
I'm fascinated by how ticked off I am about this cell phone thing, I think low blood sugar does affect my mood.
uh huh.
When they call my name an hour late, I'm off nervous peeing, so a nurse comes to get me.
oy.
I hadn't had general anesthetic in 22 years and that had only been for my wisdom teeth.
It's an interesting thing getting into the operating room. A sleep doctor (can't be bothered to spell his real title), a trainee nurse, a trainer nurse, another nurse and the doctor are all there.
"I haven't had this much attention in years," I say as they put my arms into the Christ position, attaching blood pressure cuff here, heart monitors there.
"Are you allergic to anything?" asks Scottish trainee nurse.
"Yes, pain. Pain of all types. Low low pain threshold. low."
The sleep doctor slips an oxygen mask over my face.
"Breathe in and out deeply."
He is cute.
The surgeon gets impatient when Scottish trainee has trouble adjusting the bed.
"Oy," I think, "an impatient surgeon."
Turns out I'm getting just a light anesthetic (I can't spell that word either) and will only be out for about 45 minutes.
"Think of something good," says sleep doctor, "this anesthesia gives vivid dreams."
Oh boy, I think, worried about nightmares. I quickly turn my mind to Hawaii.
"If I don't wake up," I say to the surgeon, "Remember, I died doing what I loved."
He is not amused.
About 45 minutes later I wake up, breathing out of my mouth as usual and the tail end of some song going through my head.
"You were really deeply asleep," says the nurse in recovery.
On first waking, I remember thinking, "oh please, please, let me be just home in bed."
Ah well.
"How's the pain?" asks recovery room nurse.
Uh yes, out of 10. I seem to remember reading that 5 is the magic morphine number.
I say 4 because i'm not fully awake yet. When I am fully awake, I realize the cramping is kinda heavy.
Actually 7, I revise.
7 gets me dialotid (spelling not correct, too lazy to look it up) in the IV.
Stronger than morphine, I'm told.
Yippee! I think.
It doesn't seem to do much and then i'm nauseous so they're pumping gravol and reducing the happy drug that's not making me happy anyway.
"I have an anxiety disorder," I remind them, not knowing if she has the chart.
"I must admit I'm feeling anxious."
And I was. Claustrophobic come to think of it. Something in the anesthetic (toaster, no need to comment the correct spelling! I'm just too lazy to get it! god bless you, toaster) has made me restless and it is hard to lie on the small stretcher. A fellow two beds away is moaning in that creepy way and the nurses repeatedly tell him that it's just gas, Paul, let it out and no don't take out your tubes.
Poor Paul.
I'm shaking and told this is a common side effect. They figure I'm cold so they put in some kind of heater vacuum thing.
"I'm too hot," I say.
"Good sign," they note and take away the heater.
Pulse is monitored.
"Your pulse is high," I'm told a lot.
"Yes," say I, "I have anxiety."
This seems a bit of a hard concept for some of the nurses. To be fair, one of them was very sweet and calming. A couple just looked rushed.
I felt wimpy but well, anxious.
"Do you want an Ativan?" asks one.
Does the pope want to outlaw condoms? "Yup," I say. I hear them calling my surgeon about it and the next thing I know i've got one nestled under my tongue.
Seems I've developed a bit of a tolerance for the Ativan.
Soon enough I'm wheeled into day care and left to rot. Ha, no seriously. I get up and pee about four times and discover wow, they can do a lot to you when you are asleep.
"Your pulse is high," says another nurse. They keep giving me different nurses, maybe I'm too needy.
"Yes, I have anxiety," I say again, "it's always high. So, it's not really high high right now."
"Well, yes, it has gone done somewhat."
"Yes,"I say.
A lovely senior woman walks around and gets me some ice chips. She's a volunteer and lovely. I overhear her tell another patient she used to be a nurse. I admire her doing this type of thing - I don't think I could handle being in a recovery room with people in all sorts of moods.
I love ice,as you may recall, wee fan base, so I'm in ice heaven. But I'm still feelng throw-uppy and that trumps my love of the ice.
Dehydration trumps all and soon i'm chomping down.
god love the ice, i think, getting up to pee.
"Well, your friend is here and here are your clothes," says another nurse. "Your friend is outside, she's got crutches?"
Right, my pal Sue is in need of a hip replacement and can't walk any distance without incredible pain. Because she's incredible, she'd offered to drive me, wait in North Van and pick me up and take me home.
Tylenol 3's are thrust in my hand, along with a pamphlet.
The senior woman pushes me in a wheelchair down to the door. This feels odd that this older woman is doing this. She helps me on with my jacket.
She will not, however, be my mommy, I asked her, ha ha.
Into the car I get and oy the cramping and the general ickiness.
Turns out there is a Canucks game and the traffic is horrendous but Sue gets us through.
I go to my across the street neighbour, Roma, and hang out with her and her family for a few hours. At about 9 p.m. I decide to go home. Roma is lovely but she has a full, loud and lovely family, Being just across the street is perfect,I say, I'll leave my blinds open.
I go home and sleep.
I bet this is actually boring.
Wow, this minute detail of my minor surgery may not be fascinating.
ah well.
I think medical stuff is kinda cool and would love to hear your own surgical stories in the comments.
So I've been lying around Friday, Saturday and today, Sunday. Friday was weird as the restlessness was really strong, I actually paced for awhile and researched the restlessness on the net. My wonderful pal Michelle brought over a roast chicken and some other things.
I've been nauseous and crampy but nothing as bad as I'd feared. And if it solves my problem - wowza and dellightful.
Back to work tomorrow - a light intake day so that's good. I could take another (unpaid) day off but i think i've sat around alone long enough. I'll take it easy and if i feel weird or bad or whatever, on home I will come.
So there you go.
A Grey's Anatomy type blog entry or for those of you who remember that far back, St. Elsewhere.

Don't Drive, They Said

2007-11-13T17:31:00.001-08:00

That's a take off of the movie, Drive, She Said, in case you don't know.
Well, wee fan base. I've been totally and utterly obsessed, down right OCD about going to the States to do some shopping. Our dollar is good, there's more selection, etc. etc.
The Toast and I tried valiantly last Saturday but the 2.5 hour wait was simply too much.
My car is 21 years old. Old, in other words. If it were a person, in the shape that it is in, it would be a 97-year-old Japanese woman (Honda Civic hatchback)with some serious bruising and some dents and oh, lots of broken taillights on her. Poor dear.
Now, I figure that my car can't make it to the Seattle Premium Outlets so I wouldn't be doing that. But just to Bellingham and Bellis Fair? Easy, figure I.
"I'm not thinking that is such a good idea," said Kristina, sounding like she has a cold. She does, but she's in denial about it but that is a different story. Rest, Kristina, rest. Use one of your sick days. We get 7, count em 7 sick days a year,and I'd used mine up by March I think. Well, yeah, let's not forget the e-coli from the DR.
But I digress.
"You're going today?" said Tracy, sounding alarmed when I called her at 11 a.m. this very morn. I have the week off. "By yourself? In your car?" When I answered in the affirmative to all of the questions, she paused. "Sounds fun!" Tracy can positive spin anything but even I could tell she was thinking, "What hospital would they take her to and can I get there on the bus?"
Uh yes.
So obsessed, was I, that I got my oil checked (full, good good, had leaks in the past), put in some gas and headed for the border. I was not to be deterred by News 730 (all traffic, all the damn time) saying a 90-minute wait at the Peach Arch crossing. It was a sunny day. Roads were dry.
And then.
And then.
Well, I get out onto the open highway, something I haven't done in years in my car or in any car for that matter.
My car, when I hit 80 kph, starts to shake, well more. My car and I are very similar really.
Oh, I think, this can't be good.
I'm only going 80 on the 100 speed limit road. Trucks are bearing down on me, etc. and the like.
Oy.
My anxiety, so ready at the surface these days (I am not ashamed! Well, yeah, I am and really this stems from being repeatedly shamed over it by my whole family growing up, but again, I digress. So I'm pissed off about my anxiety.
But mainly, I'm going 80 down a highway not sure whether my car will make it, whether it will blow a tire or the engine will give out. I look at the road ahead and see no end in sight and I start to hyperventilate.
oy.
I really, really, really want my car and I to overcome our fears because I worry that my anxiety is making my world smaller and smaller. Again, a digression. I used to like to travel but now, when I look into it, it just makes my palms sweat and my breathing shallow. oy.
I drive a bit more southbound, I hear more about the 90-minute border crossing and my car continues to shake. It also distinctly lists to the left (or is it right) and I have to keep a good grip on the wheel to keep it straight.
When I see an exit for South Delta, I bail, get off the highway and get back on the other way.
I feel myself begin to calm after I get through the tunnel.
I redeem the day by meeting Tracy and daughter Zoe for lunch on Commercial. Then I do some much needed shopping at - wait for it - Superstore. Kits. shopping is simply too expensive grocery wise for many things and so I load up. They have pomegranate juice for not too pricy, but it's from concentrate and somehow all of the iron has been sucked out of it. "Not a significant source of iron," it said.
I think it's a fairly hard job to actually suck iron out of something. Do they have a machine? I really will have to go back to North Van and the Iranian shops for the pure stuff.
I get home, unpack and here I be.
I think I might just have to give up the American Dream.
In other news, I do have a lovely hour-long, reimbursed by insurance, relaxation massage booked for tomorrow. I'm trying out Kits. Massage, I hope they are as good as the woman I saw in East Van.
Thursday, I will have my eyes checked for the first time in more than two years. I know for a fact that my near-distance is much much worse, not so sure about seeing far.

a week off

2007-11-09T19:30:00.001-08:00

Yee haw!
First though, I'm having trouble getting the comments published, so they will show up whenever that glitch is fixed.
I am taking next week off, simply 24 work hours (I wasn't there this afternoon either). So yee haw. I haven't had time off since that, um, trip, to the Dominican Republic back in March, except for being off sick, which doesn't count of course.
This is the first time I'm staying in town for time off, instead of scurrying off somewhere.
I'm happy of that, I need to chill the heck out and travel doesn't provide me that chilling out so much anymore. All of that getting to the airport early, the waiting, the flying, the landing, the blah blah. You know the drill.
I'm going to sleep (a novelty for me!), write (yes, darn it), exercise and etc. and the like.
Oooh and an hour relaxation massage on Wednesday afternoon.
"Do you need an evening appointment?" receptionist asked.
"No! I have the week off."
Yee haw, say I.
Hallelujah.
Teaching ESL burns a person out. And it's not just me, I told my delightful shrink, it burns out even your normal person.
You'd think only teaching six hours a day would be piece o cakee, but it's oddly not.
Now, mind you, it's not brain surgery (is brain surgery even brain surgery?) but it does cause mental and physical fatigue.
The students are, well, needy.
Hmmmm.
In other news, ooh, I've taped the Osmonds on Oprah today. Donny and Marie and 122 of their relatives are on.
Oooh, and their father just passed too.
Sad.
I often wondered if Donny and Marie had a "special" relationship.
Well, that's not nice I realize, especially with them being Mormons and all.
The Mormons. A friendly people. So fresh-faced. I often see them at library square downtown, speaking to ESL students. One of my students, John, informed me on their approach.
They'll give the students a half hour free English lesson in exchange for a 1/2 hour of Mormon apologetics.
"I'm seeing them again on Wednesday," said John.
He likes the free English.
Crossing the border tomorrow for a day and evening of outlet mall shopping.
A great way to start my vacation but I have to get up almost before dawn.
Oy, the border lineups.
Wee fan base, I worship all of you.

Katie Holmes, iron recipes, etc and the like

2007-11-04T17:57:00.000-08:00

I think I'm blogging less because I'm too tired. Uh huh! Why am I too tired, you ask, you being the one or two people left in the fan base?
Is it the the insomnia, you ask.
Perhaps, say I.
But I'm inclined to think it is my anemia, which resulted from this thingy that dare not say its name.
So, iron supplements but a slow slow process.
So, I've taken up buying lentils - red lentils, green lentils and today, lentils in a can.
So, people, I need some easy lentil recipes if you will. Ones for lentils in a can too. I'm not as crazy about lentils in a can because I notice that salt is added to these lentils in a can.
I've been drinking iron rich pomegranate juice, which I actually don't really like, so I water it down. It's a good thing too because oy, it's expensive. It is less expensive, interestingly, at Iranian grocery stores. They proliferate in North Van and I'm going to google and see if I can find one in Kitsilano. Who knew. Well, the Iranians obviously knew.
Perhaps an Iranian family could take me under their wing.
Toaster Melanie e-mailed that Katie Holmes ran a marathon today, in about 5 and a half hours. Cult leader Tom and wee daughter Surie were there at the end to greet her.
Seems young automaton Katie is not pregnant after all.
Well, go figure.
I was actually quite surprised that Tom let her out of his clutches for those 5 and a half hours. I suspect her Scientology minder/best friend ran along side her.
Run,Katie, run.
Run away, Katie.
What else?
Oh oh, I'm giving starting up another book club a try. This time in Kitsilano. Nov. 18 will be the day and this time we will be meeting in a coffee shop. Much better.
I was in East Van today for a quilt show. Doesn't seem like my kind of thing I realize. Good pal Michelle had a quilt in it. Check out my facebook to see the photo.
I need to meet some new people. Well, not people who have just been created, but people new to me. I need some fresh blood. I was quite bored this weekend and you know, anemic.
I'm taking next week off - Nov. 12-16. Yee haw. I'm going to go swimming every day. Yup, that's it.
I popped into the downtown library this afternoon and it seems they were filming Bionic Woman.
"Are you filming Bionic Woman?"
Yes, said the guy, vaguely surprised that I knew.
Darn, if it had been the L-Word I weould have whipped out my camera and waited for Jennifer Beals.
I haven't seen the new Bionic Woman (although I did see the actress but no one at all recognized her) but I suspect it's not long for this world.
There's an impending writers' strike in Hollywood and this will apparently shut down shooting up here in Hollywood North. With the Canadian dollar now firmly above the U.S. one, I think Hollywood North will be taking a major hit soon anyway.
This will also mean - oh my gosh - that with the strike - new shows will not be seen! Oh my gosh.
The Amazing Race starts tonight and I think I'll check it out. I've never followed it but others speak highly of it.
The high Canadian dollar is exciting to my shopping friends and I must admit I'll be heading south for the day next weekend as well.
A friend who exports information pamphlets to the States is really struggling though, a loss of up to 50 per cent is expected there.
I've noticed that some magazine prices have already dropped in Canada - kudos to Britain's New Internationalist, that now has equal Canadian/U.S. prices.
Books, it seems, will take longer.
So there you go.
A hodgepodge.
Send in your lentil/iron rich recipes soon if you would. Let's pull me out of this, people.
Oh and finally, Jerry Seinfeld is annoying me for some reason. He's come out of hiding recently to promote his new movie, The Bee Movie. apparently it's not that good.
Go away, Jerry.
Run away, Katie.