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ShinyHappy - Thoughts for March 2nd - 15th
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03/15/05 Neeeeeear, faaaaaaar ... whatever.
Today was not a tremendously exciting day for me. I didn't have to do anything in particular that involved going anywhere in particular. Not so for Andrew. Today was the first day of the course that he's teaching at Algonquin so I spent much of today being totally nervous for him. I may have been far more nervous than he was, in the end. I've already tee-heed about it to my mom and him, but Andrew was telling Jenny on the phone the other night that his problem would likely end up being not having enough time to say what he needed to in the first class (which ended up being the case). That would so not be my problem. I'd talk fast and rush through whatever it was I had to say, then we'd be left with like forty-five minutes where I smiled weakly at all the students.
To take my mind off of my sympathetic nervousness I decided to watch Titanic while he was gone. I've had it on VHS for a few years and it's been a long, looong time since I watched it. In fact, I think the only time I've seen it was in the theatre in 1997, so that's a while. It wasn't as good as I thought it was back then, unfortunately, and I wasn't extremely thrilled with it to begin with. It did the job I needed it to do, though, and when Andrew came home he ended up watching the last half-hour or so with me. Every now and again I threaten to make him watch it with me, so now that he's seen the ending I don't have to do that any more. He saw the most hyped bits, too, where people are flying through the air and bouncing off of things, and the ship itself going down.
His class did go well, though, like I should have known it would. That Andrew is a good talker, and he knows his subject well.
We finished off the very yummy pasta tonight, and now Andrew is going to have to fend for himself while I'm in Kingston. Not that it'll be much different than having me around, frankly. He always says that his cooking skills are limited to sauteing vegetable and making homemade macaroni and cheese, but I honestly don't have much more in my repertoire either. And what is the deal with me worrying about cooking lately? Am I nesting or something? Sheesh.
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03/14/05 At least the vampires won't come around tonight.
Now my computer clock is losing time. Very quickly. At least twice a day I have to adjust it five minutes ahead so it reads the same as the microwave clock. Computer, you are sucking my will to live. You are a problem child, one that frustrates me to no end but that I still love because you mean so much to me. You give me internet capability and lots of freecell and mah jongg. At the end of the day I'm glad you're in my life, but you make me want to cry sometimes.
I can't imagine going back to timesharing Andrew's computer, which is what we did for a while when we first moved in together. Our little setup here is nice, with our dining room/office/art space. Our desks are across the room from each other and we are comfortable and happy. If my computer soon crashes and burns it'll suck. We can't really afford to do much in the way of repair on the thing, which is why I'm constantly whining about it and not fixing it. So, let's see: It's rejecting mice (although not currently, which is good), it's having display issues and now it's losing time. Oh, and it crashes almost every time I use the digital camera. Grrr.
Today I really wanted to make something a bit different for dinner. Since Andrew can't even eat chicken any more without getting sick I knew I had to steer clear of that, but I wasn't in the mood for anything with beef in it either. So, I went the vegetarian route and whipped up a very simple, yummy dish that I think I'm going to make a lot more of. Penne pasta with garlic, olive oil and parmesan, and broccoli on the side. I think it'll be delicious cold, too. It was very garlicky, though. Very, very garlicky. It's a good thing we both had it for dinner or we probably wouldn't even be able to spend time in the same room together.
I bought some more hairstick blanks online tonight, but now my PayPal account is officially out of money to do that sort of thing. It's not really worth it in the long run to buy them online, since shipping usually costs more than twice the price of what I'm buying and I'm paying American prices. Very few sites that sell these accept PayPal, and they're just plain old hard to find. So, I'll have to make these ones really special, I guess. When they arrive (in three months, probably) I'll get all bead-happy again.
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03/13/05 I'm almost out of hairsticks!
Today was an O.K. day. In fact, it was pretty good, overall. I started off the goodness by deciding to go back to The Sassy Bead store and find a really great bead to make a really great hairstick with. Once I got outside I was amazed to find that it was a beautiful day! In Ottawa! In March! I forgot days like that existed. (Yeah, I'm just rattling a whole bunch of chains, here.)
Anyhow, I've already mentioned that I really like the pair of hairsticks that I made for Jen and wanted something similar for myself. I wasn't sure that I wanted actual fish on mine, since I'm not fond of fish like Jen is. It's more the style of the wooden stick with the silver bead that appealed to me. So, I went hunting for something that had the same feel, with very little luck. Finally I picked up the jar that had the fish beads in it and kind of looked in, wondering to myself if I should just make the fishsticks and try not to commit the awful faux pas of wearing them at the same time and place as Jen. There were very few of those beads left, and I saw that there was a bead that didn't look quite like the fish beads, although it was the same size and general shape. I picked it out and lo, it was a bunny bead! A curled-up bunny! Very much like a baby bunny! Glee!
It was the only bunny bead in the jar, and there weren't any other jars with that kind of bead that I could see. I took it as a sign and bought that bead, then came home and made myself a baby bunny hairstick. See it and the stick I made yesterday. I'm so over yesterday's stick now because I'm so happy with the bunny stick, so I'm not all concerned that it's not a great picture of it. The bunny shows up very well. The bead on yesterday's stick has a red band on black with gold crackle-type veins all through the red, but it's hard to tell in the picture. Sorry.
It was determined today that I will not be leaving for Kingston until Wednesday. Mimi is perking up a bit and since Andrew just has far too much to do between now and Tuesday night it makes more sense this way. I'm O.K. with that. Mimi will probably be home from the hospital by then, which will make visiting with her much easier.
Tonight I watched America's Funniest Home Videos, of course, and made Andrew watch much of it with me. He didn't fight it very hard. Once it was over a new episode of The Contender came on. Now, I watched an episode of it last week because it was on after The Apprentice and I wanted to see what it was all about. I wasn't too excited by it because I just can't get too into people who are so serious about punching other people in the face. I don't get boxing and I doubt I ever will. I can't make the connection between boxing and all the 'heart' and 'courage' and 'dreams' that are said to go along with it. It's punching other people. While more people watch. What am I missing?
All that said, I ended up watching the entire episode tonight. Why? Because I'm a reality television jezebel and I admit it. Perhaps I've sold my soul to Mark Burnett, but I don't think that's true because I'll watch reality television produced by anyone. I watch Fear Factor, people.
I was a bit disturbed by this. Do I have low standards? Am I a person who doesn't have a filter enabling me to see the difference between things that are good and things that are not?
The answer, my friends, is no. Why? The proof lies in the fact that I do not think that this is a good or tasteful idea.
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Today I called my little Mimi sister to see how she's getting along after being hospitalized with pneumonia last weekend. Well, I tried to, anyhow. I found out that she's back in the hospital, this time with a serious lung infection. I called her hospital room to chat with her a little and see how she is, but since she's all drugged up on morphine for the pain it wasn't a lively conversation. She's lonely and bored and she didn't want to get off the phone despite the pain and being all high and stuff. Poor thing.
I'm leaving for Kingston on Monday to spend some time there. Hopefully I'll get to visit Mimi in the hospital as much as I can, and it'll be nice to be around my family for a little bit. Andrew has a very busy week ahead of him. I keep saying it'll be nice for him to have me out of his hair, but he always disagrees with that so I should probably just quit saying it.
In other news, there isn't much other news. We had a fairly quiet day around here today. Andrew has lots of schoolwork to do, and other than a trip to the grocery store tonight we didn't do much of anything else. Actually, that's not true. Andrew (dear Andrew) did laundry. I will fold laundry before going to bed. Also, I made another hairstick today but I'm out of camera batteries so can't show a picture of the most recent creation. So, it seems we're rather boring people. Oh, except for the moment today where Andrew came into the bedroom to try and scare me, but didn't know I was just on my way out of the bedroom so ended up scaring the holy living crap out of both of us. I was so terrified that I didn't realize he'd also nearly pee-peed in his pants, but he admitted to it later. Craziness.
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03/11/05 I'm not laughing at your peg leg. Honest.
Today I did not have brains that writhed in agony inside my skull, so I'd have to say it was a pretty good day, all told.
Tonight Andrew and I went for drinks and funtimes with Colin and Jen at The Arrow and Loon. I was excited to go because I had a wee gift for Jen that I'd been planning to give her the next time I saw her. As I've mentioned, I've been making some hairsticks and made a special pair just for Jen since she and I share an appreciation for all things hair. I made a few other pairs as well that of course I'm going to show off to you! Here's a rather dark shot of the three pairs I've made so far. The pair to the far right with the round fish is Jen's pair, which I love so much that I'm tempted to make a similar pair for myself. Here's a blurrier but lighter shot of the same sticks. And, here's a single stick as well. That last stick is a single because that bead was kind of expensive so I only bought one of it.
Now, those wooden sticks are all right, but someday when I get my own lathe I'm going to make much better quality sticks. I still have a few left so will have to buy a few more beads to use them up. I didn't want to buy a whole bunch of beads if it turned out I was crappy at putting together hairsticks and didn't end up using them.
Jen seemed to love her sticks. She promptly dubbed them 'fishsticks', and modeled them in a bun for us a bit later. While we were still at the Loon, though, she stowed them away in Colin's mitts for safekeeping.
We had a very good time hanging out. I had a couple of Long Island Iced Teas and found that I got tipsier than usual. I can usually hold my booze pretty well, so I'm not sure what was up with that. We were discussing how my migraines make me a weather barometer since they come on when there are changes in barometric pressure. Jen went on to inform me that I was like those sailors with wooden legs who fall down, and then everyone knows to run away. I have to say, that's the funniest thing I've heard in a loooong time. I'm so glad I don't have a wooden leg! Aren't you? (Unless you're someone reading this who actually has a wooden leg, and then I urge you to please be careful when the barometric pressure is changing.)
After the Loon we went to Kettleman's where we all bought bagels to take to our respective homes. And then we went to our respective homes. What a nice night!
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03/10/05 My brains are ungood.
I had kind of a strange day. Andrew left early this morning for Toronto with his dad and won't be back until tomorrow morning. That's not that weird, of course. I woke up a bit later and was puttering around a bit, planning my day and just kind of doing not much in particular. I took a shower and did some things around the apartment and ate some food. A bit later while I was at my computer reading news I became aware that something was bugging me. Do you ever get that sense? You suddenly realize that you've been feeling a particular pain for a while but haven't acknowledged it until that very second? Well, I realized that my head had been hurting and the hurt was getting worse.
Andrew bought some Advil Migraine yesterday so I popped a couple, hoping to head any impending nastiness off at the pass, but after an hour or two of trying not to aggravate it I could tell it was just going to keep building. Bah. I hate migraines, and this is my second nasty one in a week. I still had some errands to run out in the Glebe (does it make me a full-fledged Glebeite to say things like that? Is it Glebeite? Or Glebeian? Or Glebelet?) so I made some snap decisions. The first and most regrettable was to cancel my evening plans with Jen and Colin to watch Survivor. The second was to go out and run my errands quickly, worsening migraine and all, and then come home and crash with a cold, wet washcloth. Cold, wet washcloths are the best thing ever for migraines, you know. Better than anything. Better than Advil Migraine, which does not, funnily enough, work for my migraines. It works for absolutely everything else under the sun, though, so I like having it around.
Anyhow, I went out to run my errands and was pretty miserable about it. The sun is not my friend when I have a banging headache. I could feel the nausea waves rising up on me, and as I was waiting to cross the street outside of Starbucks I started to sense that I might have to actually find somewhere to barf, ASAP. I pictured myself dashing into Starbucks for the sole purpose of upchucking in their well-used bathroom, but managed to hold it together and the wave passed. Phew.
So, I made it home without embarassing myself in public and really spent the whole evening waiting to come out the other side. It started gradually fading and by the time Andrew called at 11:30-ish to say that he and his dad were on the train and heading home I was in a better place. I think it'll be totally gone by morning. It had better be, since Jen and I are rescheduling for hot drinks at Bridgehead tomorrow night.
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03/09/05 Now Andrew can be a Pepper too!
Today the Glebe Pet Hospital called to tell us that Halo's ashes were ready to be picked up. I honestly didn't know what to expect. I knew that there wouldn't be much to them, he was so tiny. When I went in the ladies had a taped-up cardboard box right there and handed it to me with sad faces, since I'd been so upset and bawling last time they saw me. In fact, they must have seen me walking past the front windows because as I came in the door one of them was walking up to the desk with the box in her hands holding it out in my direction.
I supposed the ashes would be in some kind of nice container. It turns out that they're in an actual urn. I think it's tasteful and it's very small, only 4 1/2 inches high with a dark grey granite texture finish. I don't know if anyone's first thought in looking at it would be 'remains', but I certainly don't mind having it around.
I had other errands to run this afternoon, including going to the Sassy Bead Company, the post office, the grocery store, Home Hardware and The Body Shop (all in the handy-dandy Glebe). I wanted to see if The Body Shop had any more wooden combs but they were all sold out. Ah, well. I'll get another one some other time, I suppose. Because yes, I need two. My visit to the bead store was more fruitful and very fun. Beads can get pretty expensive, though. There are some beeeyooootiful Canadian Jasper beads that run six bucks each. But did I mention beeeyooootiful? In the end I got much less expensive beads and will make some lovely hairsticks with my purchases. Yay.
For those waiting on the edge of their seats to hear more about my computer/mouse soap opera; it appears that so far things are amicable between it and the original mouse. No miscommunications so far.
Tonight we had chicken noodle soup. Yummy, but Andrew felt the need for some pepper in his soup. I brought him the little Club House tin of black pepper. Moments later he freaked out. It seems that he hadn't flipped up the little tab with all the tiny holes under it. No, he'd flipped up the tab on the other end with the large single hole under it, resulting in the pouring of a rather extraordinary amount of pepper in his soup. He did his best to spoon out the worst of it, but he still had very peppery soup. Pepper soup, if you will. He ate it, though.
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03/08/05 Simon Cowell's wet pants warmed my heart.
O.K., so my computer seemed fairly cool about being in a relationship with the grody rollerball mouse, but I was nowhere near as enamoured, so I've forced it back into an arranged marriage with the original optical mouse it came with. I hadn't yet complained about the bluish hue my dang monitor keeps throwing up before Andrew mentioned it in yesterday's comments. I think it's depressed. Poor monitor. If I wiggle its video cable it goes back to happy colourfulness for a while. Ugh. That just sounds dirty.
ANYhow, today was a day of headaches and nausea for me for some reason. I'd blame the weather but it was still cold out so I don't know what caused it. I was still feeling icky by the time Andrew came home tonight, but American Idol was just starting so that might have had something to do with it. It was the girl's night, and they're not doing so hot this season. However, because it was a live episode we got to see Ryan Seacrest angrily throw a well-deserved glass of water at Simon Cowell, which is something you're not going to see every day. Yay for live television!
I need some good recipes. My meal repertoire isn't very exciting or adventureous. We eat too much in the way of stir fries and ground beef-based meals (tacos, sloppy joes, spaghetti, et cetera). Andrew's classes make regular mealtimes a bit difficult, but if we eat one meal a day together it should be a good one, and I definitely need to learn more in the way of cooking skills. So, if anyone has a great recipe (or more), please share it with me. Email me or post it in the comments. I'd be thrilled!
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03/07/05 I may be a wussy, but at least I'm warm.
Sigh. My computer is being stupid. It's breaking up with computer mice lately. First it ended a long-term relationship with the mouse that came with it by simply pretending it didn't exist. Then it went out with another, classier optical mouse that we introduced it to a few days ago. Suddenly today, with no warning, it froze up and wouldn't communicate, so that fling ended with no seeming chance to try and work things out. Currently it's testing the waters again with a less exotic, more down-to-earth rollerball type. In my opinion it can do better and I think that eventually I'm going to introduce it to another optical beauty and see how they get along.
It was stupidly snowy here in Ottawa today. I chose not to subject myself to it and pretended that weather doesn't exist. Poor Andrew had to go out in it a couple of times, unfortunately. He made it home both times but we're supposed to be getting more than thirty centimetres of snow. That's just dumb, and I'm looking forward to saner weather soon. Maybe I'll get a bike this spring and do some riding around town. Walking is also good, but low-impact is the way to go.
Tee hee! I just checked my archives to see what the weather was like in Toronto on this day in history, 2004. I wrote this exactly a year ago in the trusty old weblog:
This afternoon and tonight we had some dumb snow here in Toronto. It looked impressive and all that coming down, but doesn't seem to have much staying power. In case I haven't made it clear, I'm so over winter. If I have to spend the next, oh, rest of my life in Ottawa, I want this spring to be early, warm, and as much like paradise as possible! May assured me tonight at her place that the Ottawa winter is nowhere near as bad as the natives make it out to be when they're here in Toronto and scorning what we call our winter, but we shall see.
That was also the entry that generated the eventual wussy/wuss argument, but we won't go there. And May, I don't want to call you a liar or anything, but maybe you were mistaken about the Ottawa winters. Yeah, that's right. Mistaken.
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It's been a long, quiet weekend. Andrew had a conference to attend yesterday so I slept in late and hung out here. We spent the evening in eating pizza and watching the Survivor/Apprentice tape from Thursday. Today wasn't much more eventful. We basically stayed in eating leftover pizza and doing various quiet things. It's been good, though. I've had my moments where I break down a bit over missing Halo. It's just little things that make me realize he's not around. Walking to the bathroom I find myself glancing in the bedroom to see if he's sleeping on the bed. When I hear the floor creak I look to see if he's coming in the room. It's going to take quite a while for that to stop, I think.
In other news, my little Mimi sister is in the hospital with pneumonia. Poor thing. She's five months pregnant and has had to spend the last two days stuck in bed in a room by herself with nothing but crappy weekend television to keep her amused apart from the odd visitor. Eek. I was talking to La on the phone today too and she's getting over some kind of illness herself. What's funny is that La's voice is shot and she sounds like she's doing a million times worse than Mimi, who sounded chipper and healthy (except for the wracking cough). Here's hoping they both feel 100% better soon.
I had ordered some wooden hairstick blanks back in December and they finally, finally arrived last week. So now I am going to be trying my hand at designing attractive hairsticks. I want to see how good I am at making funky-yet-attractive beads from polymer clay, and fully intend to make another set of skull sticks. OH! Andrew also showed me a fantastic lathe and source for wood to make my own hairstick blanks from in a Lee Valley Tools catalogue at Colin and Jen's place on Friday night. Someday I will have my own lathe. Someday.
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03/04/05 Saying goodbye to a friend.
Today was a very, very hard day. However, one thing did make it easier. The thing that worried us most of all about taking Halo in to be euthanized was that going to the vet's office is one of the things that terrified him most. So, I thought that if we could get a sedative from the vet to give him before we took him in that it wouldn't be so traumatizing for him in his last moments.
I called the clinic when I got up and the tech I spoke to said it was no problem, so we got something to give him before we took him in. We spent a lot of time just hanging out with him on the bed, petting him and loving him up. He purred and seemed happy. About two hours before we took him in I gave him the sedative and it worked very quickly. By the time we took him in he was pretty much not aware of what was going on around him at all, so didn't have to struggle or be afraid. I'm so relieved that we did that for him.
It was very fast. They gave us a few minutes alone with him before the vet came in, and then a few minutes after as well. Andrew had taken care of paying for everything when he went in to pick up the sedative so that we wouldn't have to deal with it on our way out. I have to say that I'm really happy with the Glebe Animal Hospital. The vet shook our hands as we left and Andrew showed me when we got home that they hadn't charged us for the sedative, citing it on the bill as, "Our contribution to help lower the cost of pet care." Really, really nice people and business.
It was rough to come home and not have him here. All of his things are still around and we're going to have to gather them up. Some of the good stuff will find a home with other deserving kitties, like Alannah's little Koal and my mom's two ladies, Mang and Keller. I'm keeping his ratty felt fish, Daddy Pompom Legs and Honeysuckle Mouse, though. It makes me smile to remember how much he loved them.
We didn't want to hang around the apartment tonight so we called up Colin and Jen to see if they wanted to get together. They were up for it so we went to their place to gather and decide what to do. It turns out that Jen had gotten together a bag of gifts for us with flowers, treats from The Purple Cow, and bagels and cream cheese from Kettleman's. So sweet. She'd tried to deliver it yesterday but I was in the shower at the time and missed her. We ended up going to So Good for chinese food, then rented Van Helsing to watch back at their place. We'd watched it at Dan and May's in Toronto, and it was just as screamingly bad as it was the first time. But so bad it's good, if you know what I mean. It was really great to get together with good friends and enjoy their company and caring when we needed it most. Thanks, guys.
I don't think I really get that my kittyboy is gone. I know I'm crazy when it comes to him, but I don't mind who knows it. He was the best cat I've ever had.
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I know this is anticlimactic, but we didn't take Halo in to be euthanized today. For some reason he seemed a bit better this morning. He'd gotten up in the night, eaten some dry food, wandered around and just seemed perkier than he had in days. Andrew and I were very confused. We talked about what to do with just a few hours until the appointment. Finally I said I'd offer Halo some canned food and if he ate any, we'd postpone the appointment for at least a day because if he's going to eat anything, canned food is last on his list of likes. I offered it to him and he ate some.
I hadn't made him take any pills or medication other than the potassium supplement since we made the decision to put him down. I just didn't want his last couple of days with us to be filled with unnecessary stress. I think it did make him less stressed, which might have made him relaxed enough to feel a tiny bit hungry and willing to venture out of the bedroom. I don't know. So, Andrew called the vet and rescheduled the appointment for Friday afternoon. We both felt that if he was going to improve, we wanted to give him a day or two to see.
Unfortunately, he hasn't improved any further. He spent the whole day just sleeping and not eating anything else or doing any of the other things he does when he's feeling a bit better. He still won't wash himself, even. So, we know that Friday is the day for sure. Seeing him now feeling just as miserable as he has been for days I feel a little guilty that we didn't take him in today, but also very, very selfishly glad that I get a little longer to say goodbye.
Thank you to everyone who sent us good wishes and sympathy in the comments from Monday. We're going to miss our kittyboy a lot.
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