I must be tougher than I thought

I had my annual physical Wednesday, where I wanted to talk to my doc about the increase and changes in my back pain issue. Turns out I have a kidney infection.


:O


I had no idea! I thought that the extra pain higher up in my back was because I was holding myself so stiff all the time. If there were any other symptoms, I missed them. What the hell? How do you miss something like that?

And so I got scolded for waiting until my physical to come in about my back pain. *blushes* I'm under strict orders to call RIGHT AWAY if anything changes. Off to physiotherapy and to get a CT scan on my back...and the dreaded antibiotics for the infection. So far, so good in terms of allergic reactions. These ones I can take. However, they've knocked me on my ass. Of the past 48 hours I've slept 36.

I wonder how long I would have wandered around with a kidney infection? Probably until I fell over. So I have to revise my opinion of my immune system and such. I've had a cold during the kidney infection, plus my sinuses of course, and I shook off the cold plus I was still walking around. Of course, this does explain why I've been so draggy and feeling cruddy for the past couple of months.

I feel like such an idiot!

That's just silly!

I happened upon some "advice" on replacing bad for you comfort foods with healthier alternatives that made me laugh.

In place of mashed potatoes, boil up some cauliflower in chicken broth (low-fat and no salt, of course) and then mash or puree it with a bit of olive oil and a little skim milk. Supposedly, no one will notice the difference.

Yeah, sure. Mashed cauliflower is exactly like mashed potatoes. Oh, except for the taste. And the look. Or the texture. Oh, and how about THE SMELL???

Really, do you think no one would notice? "Hey, Ma, why do these potatoes taste like cauliflower, chicken and olive oil? And why are they so watery and thin? What the heck did you do to them?".

Silly.

Some anger and some reflections

I'm putting my kid on a train this afternoon to go to a funeral. It's not going to be easy for her, I know, especially since she's staying with her biomom and things are still really strained between them. But what else can you do? It's the best way for her to get to the funeral and to go and see her friend in the hospital.

More on the accident-while it was a pure case of wrong place, wrong time for the girls, eyewitnesses say that the other driver (who was in a rented Kia Rondo SUV) was driving aggressively while speeding and talking on a cell phone. This is where the anger comes in, for certain. It's one thing that he paid for his stupidity with his own life-although I still feel for his family-but his assinine behaviour caused so much devastation for a family that didn't deserve it.

I've been thinking all of this over since I heard about it. As a parent, it strikes so close to home. I mean, you do so many things for your kids to protect them, to give them the best chance that you can, but you have to send them out into the world. You always have a bit of fear in your heart that something beyond your control will hurt them. In your upper mind, you think about smaller things. Will someone be cruel, will they get cheated, will they have their heart broken? Deep down, though, you dread the random. You know the odds are so against your child running into a serial killer or a rapist or a drunk driver. It's not likely that a bridge will collapse or a building will catch fire.

It's not likely. But it does happen. And so you hope that it won't happen to your kid. You worry when they're late. When you see the school phone number during the day, your heart speeds up a bit. "Ah, crap! What did she do?" while part of you is actually praying that it's only a bit of trouble and not a call to meet your kid at the hospital.

I've lost my train of thought on this one. I think that I was going to say that it's an act of faith to let your kid out of your sight. You have to surrender control and trust that the universe will send your child home safely to you. Of course, it's the same with anyone you love.

And maybe this is part of what drives faith. It's too scary to think that you're sending your loved ones away to be at the mercy of random chance. So you call on the blessings of benign and protective entities to watch over them while you can't.

For me, though, that very randomness is part of my world view. I accept that bad things will happen, no matter what, and that sorrow and grief are a part of life. It doesn't make it any easier to bear the sorrow. It just means that I don't (anymore!) rail and fight against the unfairness of it all. You can play the "if only" game to the point of ridiculousness when something happens. It won't change the facts.

But if it were my child that had died, I wouldn't be so accepting so soon.

In an instant

It's just a typical day. There's a ray of light, because a young woman living back at home with her family after being laid off has a job interview in Toronto. It's good news for the family of six people; all four of the adults had been without work until recently, when the son got a job.

The hardships had had an upside. The family was forced to mend some fences and re-establish their closeness again. A grandchild is on the way, too.

It's completely natural for the younger sisters, 17 and 15, to accompany their 26 year old sister on the long ride down to the city, offering up some moral support on the way. Nothing that all of them haven't done hundreds of times. Despite the age gap, the siblings are very close.

Suddenly, an SUV going too fast in the other direction loses control and flips over after hitting a snow bank. It slides into the opposite lane, directly in the path of the sisters' car....

And just like that, both drivers are dead and the teen girls are in the hospital.

Two families are mourning their dead. And the girls' parents are completely devastated, with their world turned inside out. The 17 year old is home now; she and her unborn child are OK. The 15 year old is still in serious condition with a shattered lower leg and after a bowel resection; she's been in surgery twice so far. So far, they haven't told her her beloved oldest sister is dead.

So quick and so unexpected.

I know this family. The youngest girl is my daughter's best friend and has been since kindergarten. When my kid still lived with her biological mother, the kid spent almost every weekend and school break that she wasn't with Bear and I at her friend's house. And she spent part of one summer at our house. It's surreal. My kid has a facebook wall post from her friend from a short time before the accident.

My heart bleeds for the parents. The oldest girl was airlifted to Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto while the younger girls were taken to Newmarket. The parents were on their way to Toronto when they got a call telling them to go to Newmarket instead; their oldest girl hadn't made it. I can't imagine facing that situation, having to decide which hospital to go to, and then realizing that it was too late.

So never let an opportunity to hug someone you love go by. It's too important to miss out on. Don't let the people you care about leave angry or hurt. Life can change in a flash.

Back again?

For a longer time, this time, I hope.

Had the weirdest cold ever last week. It settled into my eyes. They were hot and dry and itchy all week which made trying to do anything impossible. Everything I tried to read or watch went all blurry after a couple of minutes.

Of course, I was fearing the dreaded Pink Eye. *screams in horror* Ugh! I had stupid pink eye everytime it went around my school, sometimes twice. Awful.

This wasn't and it doesn't seem to be allergies, either, since it's going away as the cold does. Just a random weirdo virus, I guess.

Phew!

I've got all my technology working again (I hope!).

My back isn't so co operative, though. Can't sit for very long in the computer chairs.

I was hoping to blog today at least a little, but it's been crazy busy here in the store. People stocking up on books for the big winter storm coming this weekend. Yep, another one. I've heard everything from 20 to 50 cms, with my town apparently right in the eye of the storm. Terrific.

Yahoo!

Tech Wars

I think I've got things running again. Stupid computers. Grumble!

I'll be reloading plug-ins for Firefox for the next little while but I didn't actually lose any data this time.

I hate being the IT department.

Paranoia

What the heck is going on with my technology?

I've had to use system restore or recovery on both home computers and the one here at the store lately. Scary stuff. I feel contagious.

Man sought for breaking into woman's apartment and viewing computer porn

THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - Police in Ottawa are looking for a man who they say broke into a woman's apartment to view pornography on her computer.

Investigators say a woman in her 20s woke up at 4 a.m. Wednesday to find a man with his pants down looking at pornography on her computer. She confronted the man, who fled through the front door of her apartment.

He is described as white, about five-foot-seven and 170 pounds, roughly 30 years old with pale skin, short, dark hair and thick, black glasses.

Police are asking for anyone with information to come forward.

© 2008 - The Canadian Press

Holy crap! What a thing to wake up to!

Lucky for her he was more interested in looking than touching. It's still a horrible violation...but it's kinda funny all the same.

I can't help but thing one's ego might be a bit bruised. "What, you break into my apartment and I'm not good enough to molest? You gotta go and look at sleaze on the internet instead?!?"

I admit, I have a really odd sense of humour.

Scary Movies

Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!


I watched Jesus Camp on the weekend.

I had no idea. Wow! They are out there, and they are training their children to save you.

Whether you like it or not.

If you've never seen this documentary I highly recommend it. It's the most bizarre combination of radical religion and politics. Or religion and radical conservative politics. Whichever. Sprinkle a huge dose of pig-headedness and a heap of "We're the only ones with the truth and we know what's best for everyone" and you have a situation brewing.

Yep, American Evangelical Christians are plotting to take over. They're going to do it by voting, by praying and by creating a politically active, radical group of kids. The big thing on their agenda-outlaw abortion again. It's pretty chilling to watch a group of little kids being led to pray fervently to have abortion outlawed, and to watch an anti-abortion activist shameless play on an impressionable group of youngsters by passing out dolls of fetuses to them and telling them that a third of their friends aren't here today because people ended "God's plan" for them.

This is one of the workshops depicted in the film, which follows three children to a month long summer camp meant to prepare these kids for their place in God's Army, fighting the culture war that's going in in American today. Another one involved the leader of the camp berating and chastising the children for being phonies and hypocrites until they started to cry and beg God for forgiveness. It was like watching something about a cult operating. First you break them down, and they you tell them how much you love them. Eeeeeeeeee!

Anyhow, it's a very eye-opening and thought provoking film.

Another new look

I got bored again.

So we'll try black and green for a bit and see how I like it.

Parking Wars

I hate being an enforcer. It goes against my nature in a couple of ways.

First, people should know better, right? There shouldn't be a need for enforcement-people know what's expected of them and they shouldn't need fear of punishment to do what's right. Now, that's a nice thought but I'm not that hopelessly naive or optimistic about human nature. It's much more likely that the reverse is true. People know what's expected, but they'll do exactly what they figure they can get away with, regardless of anyone else affected by their actions.

And I am generally a rules and law abiding person. I dislike rules and such that are blindingly obvious-don't like having my intelligence insulted or my morals questioned. :D I'm also not above bending or breaking regulations that either don't make sense to me or I'm willing to accept the consequences of forgoing (like Prin and her speeding ticket-the justified one-if I get busted, it's a fair cop and I won't dispute that I was in the wrong). I do like to make up my own mind about things, and I expect that others do, too. I still expect them to be considerate in their choices. I can't stand a drunk driver that tries to justify their behaviour by saying that they'll only hurt themself (bullshit!) or that they are willing to take their lumps if they get caught. Taking responsibility for your own actions, by definition, requires that you make responsible decisions, right?

I hate being a tattle-tale or a snitch, too. Blech! That's a hold-over from childhood. No one wanted to be the rat.

All that said, I find myself needing to be the parking police. :( For some reason, there is a person that insists on using one of my two store spots to park in. She lives in one of the apartments upstairs and her assigned spot is much farther away from the back steps than my spots are. Well, tough! All of the tenant spots are farther away than the merchant's spots. Merchants pay higher rent. Rank Hath Its Privileges, after all!

I do understand that the weather stinks, and it would be tempting to park in the best spot to avoid as much snow and ice as possible. I also could care less if she did so after hours. What do I care then? While the store is open, though, I need that spot for my customers. Especially the older or handicapped ones. They truly need to park closer. The annoying parker does not. She is hale and healthy-apparently just lazy.

She's even hovered around in the lot, waiting for me to leave. That tells me that she knows who I am and that she shouldn't be parking where she does. That's even more irritating. She avoids me, so that I can't say anything directly to her.

Well, tickets speak louder than words anyhow, right? Apparently, the price of a ticket is worth it for her to park in that spot. ARRRRRGGGHHHH! I finally left a note on her car, pointing out that my customers are complaining and I was about to go to a daily ticket plus a complaint to the landlord about it.

So now she parks in her own spot.

I won, but I won by being a bully. I don't really think that this is a victory. Not only did I fail to get her to do the right thing willingly, but I sank down to her level to get rid of her. I had to find my own lesser nature to deal with her.

If you need me, I'll be looking for some anthills to kick over or some little kids with milk money I can steal from them.

February blahs

Yep, I got 'em.

Every year, really. By the time February rolls around, I'm ready to become a bear and curl up in a cave until spring. Pass me that blanket, will ya?

This year, of course, I delayed the onset of the blahs by getting married. I don't think that that's going to work every year, somehow. Especially since that is a one-time deal for me. I'm married, and that's it.

So I'm dragging my ass around lately. Tired all the time, gloomy and irritable...bah! Not much of a honeymoon.

It does reinforce how well Bear knows me, though. I've been apologizing so much for being blech, and when at first I was saying I didn't know what the heck was wrong, he just looked at me and said "It's February.".

Pause.

Yeah, that two word sentence completely sums it up. Or, in his expanded version, "February always sucks ass for you." And it does. I tend to have a migraine pretty much constantly because of the abrupt weather shifts, I'm tired and grumpy, jittery, and miserable and the weather is grim. But my wonderful husband was way ahead of me and expected this. He just quietly started doing stuff to make things easier for me and is around for hugs and reassurances when I need them.

I can live through this. There's no real reason for it because my life is good. It's temporary. I guess that makes it easier to bear?

Ah, hell! Pass me another blanket and wake me up when Spring gets here, OK?

A list

A list of things I've found tucked into books traded in:

• bookmarks-from this store and others, as well as purchased book marks
• pictures-sad, because I normally can't get them back to whoever.
• bus transfers
• bus or train or airplane ticket stubs
• grocery lists
• receipts
• scraps of paper with phone numbers on them
• a ticket stub for a hockey game (Islanders vs Canadiens March 28 2006-season ticket, too!)
• a tourist map for County Limerick, Ireland
• business cards
• old lottery tickets
• fortunes from fortune cookies
• string
• elastics
• yarn

Weird stuff.

I'm thinking ink...

One of my regular customers owns the tattoo place down the street. This is bad news for me, because I like tattoos. I only have the one, though, because I find it very hard to justify pretty pictures for my body when there are other bills to pay.

That, and I don't have good skin for tattoos. Even though I am fishbelly white (or Celtic pale), which you'd think would be a good canvas, it's not good because I also have dry, dry skin that's sensitive to everything, so I'm often red and blotchy and everything leaves marks on me. And you can clearly see much of my venous circulatory system burbling away underneath my skin, too. Oh, and when I get cold, I turn purple. It's very attractive.

And even though my immune system stinks in many ways it's over active enough to absorb the tattoo ink pretty well. See? (and it's not a seagull-it's a tern.)



This is my almost 19 year old tattoo. It's on my leg, a couple of inches up from the ankle and I know that it's a crappy picture-but you try and get a good picture of the outside of your own lower leg, OK? Then you can criticize. :D

So you can see why I'm thinking of at least getting it re-inked. The sun used to be yellow. You can see the little tiny bit left now. And all the lines were crisp, the colours were sharp, there was so much detail in it...kind of sad. Seems my immune system wanted to absorb it.

The tattoo lady looked at it, and she said it's easy to recolour it. I guess that they have to do that fairly often. Tattoos aren't quite as permanent as all of the "Why did you do that?!? You know you'll have it for the rest of your life, don't you?" people would like to have us believe. At least, not in their pristine state.

Hmmm, but she said something about "improving" it. The sun should have more than just yellow in it, and she prefers designs to sort of wrap around themselves, not just end like mine does. And she would have added a crescent moon, too. Yikes! Will it really be my tattoo after that? I need to mull this over.

But here's the real problem. If I go and get it re-inked, it will be so tempting to add on to it. And now would be the perfect time, really, having just gone through so much and ending up married. Feels like a chapter of my life has ended and a new one is starting.

I could get the waves wrapped around my whole leg (which I've always wanted to do). Maybe have moon-lit water on the other side, to match the sun. An island? A rock? LOL! It's air, fire and water right now-no earth. But I'm feeling more grounded than I ever have. So maybe now is time to reflect that. A shoreline? and do I put something on the shore, like a starfish or a shell? Will it look weird, being an entire piece from different artists?

Ah, well, in the end, I probably can't afford to do it anyways. But it's an intriguing notion, all the same.

Hey, I just realized that I'm 37 today!

LOL, with so much going on everywhere lately, I completely forgot that it's my birthday til now. I'm such a clown somedays.

Uh, so 37. *silence* Feels pretty much like 36. Yep. Except that whole legally married thing (which doesn't feel any different than unofficially married). I think I noticed much more when I crossed over from my mid-twenties to my late twenties. Going from mid-thirties to late thirties? Not so much of a deal. :D

Soooooo, what's next? Well, I really don't know.

Oddly enough, lately I think I've made some peace with the idea that life is never "settled", not really. Things always change. I guess I finally realize that there's not so much point in waiting for things to settle down and level out. The chaos began on the day you were born and it doesn't end until the moment you die. Everything in between is in constant flux and motion-which means it's all growth.

Parts of your life settle and get settled at various times, and there are times when everything is up in the air and times when most things are harmonious and flowing smoothly.

Right now, many parts of my life are sorted out. I have Bear and the kid, I have my furkids, I have a house and a business, I have friends and family...all of these are anchors in my chaos. At the same time, I have no idea where anything goes from here. Will there finally be another baby or two? I hope so. Maybe not, though. Either way, it's OK. Neither path will ruin my life, nor will either path be the absolute fulfillment of my destiny.

Will my poor little store manage to survive or will we have to close it down? Again, I don't know. I hope it will manage to make it. I really do. But if it doesn't, it won't be the end of me. Bear and I took a huge risk on something I've always dreamed of doing. If it doesn't succeed I will always have that; that I tried it. I don't have to regret and wonder "what if?".

In a few years the kid will be finished High School and off to University somewhere. That'll be a new chapter in my life. Someday, I will have to deal with the loss of my parents. It's not something I can avoid. It's all far off and hidden from me right now.

Hee-apparently a birthday makes me philosophical. Anyhow, where I'm going with all of this is that I'm strangely serene and comfortable about facing it all. I'm good inside my own skin. I think that I finally realize that I am completely capable of dealing with whatever my life will bring.

Or I'm in a complete blind panic and this is a coping mechanism to keep me from realizing it. Whatever.

:D

I have a very sweet kid

She took one look at me squinting in the faint light in the living room and offered to work the store for me today.

I got slapped hard by a migraine yesterday that hasn't fully faded away yet. Part post excitement let down headache and part standard February migraine, I'd say. Whatever, it was a real doozy.

I got razzed by my brother online yesterday, too, because I called my parents to tell them I was married, and then changed things on facebook. LOL! I forgot to call my brother and warn him! His common-law wife saw it first on facebook. Oops! So I predictably got joshing grief from my brother before I got congrats. :) Plus the grief for putting the pressure on him to get married...I told my sister-in-law not to hold her breath, but not to give up hope, either. He may come around.

I really, really do not know how anyone does the year or more planning leading up to a big wedding. I guess my hat's off to them for being able to do it? I don't understand it, but I admire the stamina. 3 days was plenty for me. And there was nothing to plan, either. We got dressed, we went, we got married.

There is the beginning of a family legend, though-we walked to City Hall through a blizzard to get married. :D It's half a block and we would have walked in any weather, but it sounds all romantically dedicated, doesn't it?

It wasn't until we were leaving City Hall that I remembered my camera was in my pocket, though. D'oh! No pics. Oh, well. It's not like I'm going to forget.

And here's the song that would have been the First Dance song for us:

Sunshine On Leith-The Proclaimers

My heart was broken, my heart was broken
Sorrow Sorrow Sorrow Sorrow
My heart was broken, my heart was broken

You saw it, You claimed it
You touched it, You saved it

My tears are drying, my tears are drying
Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou
My tears are drying, my tears are drying

Your beauty and kindness
Made tears clear my blindness
While I'm worth my room on this earth
I will be with you
While the Chief, puts Sunshine On Leith
I'll thank him for his work
And your birth and my birth.

Not the best video, since it's concert footage, but here's the song live:

The deed is done!

So, I am wearing...

Something old-my Grandma V's necklace.
Something new-a new ring
Something borrowed-my daughter's favourite necklace wrapped around my arm like a bracelet.
Something blue-my engagement ring-a sapphire.

And I am now officially, legally Mrs Bear.

Yep, at 2pm today we got married at City Hall. Bear is happy that I finally married him after making him wait 11 years. *blushes* I'm happy that we have that piece of paper, too.

But I honestly don't feel any different than I did this morning. Still deleriously, goofily happy.

Today is the day....

Woo hoo!

I think she really, really wanted gum.

Take one sick, tired child and add the tempting rack at the grocery store and what do you get?

You get 10 minutes of high volume whining about wanting gum. Not a chocolate bar; she wanted gum.

I doubt that there's a person that was in the grocery store that doubted that fact.

She wanted the gum soooo much that when her mother threatened to take the chocolate bar away, the kid handed it right back-"I don't WANT a chocolate bar! I want GUM!!!!".

No indecisiviness there.

She really wanted gum.

I wanted to pack my groceries in peace and quiet. Neither of us got what we wanted.