The Happy Home

...you know, the one reserved for child molesters and people who talk in the theatre, you will also find people who refuse to give up their seat on the bus to cripples and pregnant women.

I may have written this before, but maybe it bears repeating.

At the moment (about fourteen months ago) in which I fell out of my wheelchair and broke my back, while I was lying on the cobblestones screaming bloody murder, I was also having an epiphany.

When they make a film of my life, it will be a black comedy.

I hate losing my voice. It's one of the few things about myself that I really like. Hopefully, I'm almost done with this stupid cold.

The good news is, my stomach is empty. The bad news is, I'm sure of that.

I wonder where the term "lukewarm" comes from.

Just discovered (the hard way) that the milk has gone off. Ewwwwwwwww.

I just discovered that my Sponge Bob Square Pants bandaids are ALSO glow-in-the-dark!

...I'm having a zombie day. Anybody got some spare brains I can eat?

Diet-coke-Sarah made an appearance. Apparently, there is enough aspartame in sugar-free Halls to trigger my horrible alternate personality. Condolences should be sent to Dave.

That was last week. I'm almost over the cold, Dave is almost over my alterego, and I'm sunburnt after spending a weekend at Dave's family's cottage. Despite the after-effects of the aspartame and the fact that we had to bring Dinger with us (Dave's mom hates cats) it was a good weekend.

Dave is a brave, brave man.

He got an ear infection, probably from aggravating our other cat which resulted in a scratch in the ear. Ultimately, this led to a large polyp, which required surgery. He's home from the hospital now, and doing alright, but I think Newton is laughing at him because he has to wear one of those ridiculous Victorian collars. Ahh, well. Poor beastie.

Heat is sucking my brains out.

But I did manage to get a student card. I will go to bed less stupid.

...that life is good?

Everywhere I go, I carry around a bag full of stuff.  It's a backpack, because I couldn't fit all my meds and the kit for my feet and my house shoes and the stuff that other women carry all into a purse.  So I often feel silly dragging this big bag everywhere I go.

Today, it was useful.  Just after I sat down on the bus, a kid got on who had just cut his hand fairly badly, and I was able to provide everything necessary to clean it up, staunch the flow of blood and bandage it.

Then after I got off the bus I stopped in front of one of the houses on my home to pick up the recycling bin because the lady who lives there has a hard time getting down  the stairs to the road  (I do this most Monday afternoons). The house number on her bin is so faded that she can't read it.  She said she couldn't find her marker, and I was able to produce a Sharpie from my bag of tricks, which did the job quite nicely.

Some days, I'm glad I'm forced to be more practical than fashionable.

I spent today and yesterday up north at the LARP terrain (again).  Today we built a pretty decent road through what used to be a swamp.  There is now a stream with a bridge over.  I also used the log splitter (very fun toy!) to make lots of small bits of wood that will fit in the Inn's wood stove.

A friend gave me some nastursiums (sp?) that got planted as part of a house warming thing we did with her, so they will get added to my garden soon.  Less carrots, I guess.

Long time no see, all.  I was recently reminded that I like to keep in touch here... see what's going on.  So this is me checking in.

Many things have changed.  In theory, my leg and back are both fine now.  In practice, I get a really sore blister on the end of one toe on my left foot all the time.  This at least means new orthotics.  I'm hoping that's all it means.

I've been working.  It's a bizarre job, but I've never been happier with my work.  A friend of mine is a professor at Concordia.  She's on maternity leave now (since she gave birth in January.  Since early March, I've been going in a few hours a week to help out with the baby and around the house so that she can write.  For the last two months, I've also been working as her research assistant.  The research is really interesting and the baby is beautiful, and as long as my foot doesn't hurt, I look forward to going to work every day.  It's amazing how much difference that makes to life.

The LARP season is about to be begin (two more weeks!) and almost every weekend since the snow melted I've  been spending time up at the terrain working on our camp or the roads, clearing trees, stuff like that.  It's been nice to be where I can hear birds and see woods and smell... freshness.

I've planted some herbs, but I won't have much more of a garden this year since I my landlord is going to be replacing our front balcony, so I can't plant anything that would attach to the railings.  Ahh well.  Maybe some carrots, anyway.

Facebook is eating my livejournal brain!!!

It's been a weird week for music.

Last Tuesday I went to see Flogging Molly.  Irish/Celtic/Punk.  It was fun.  It was at the Metropolis, so no seating just wee tall tables and a mosh pit.  I did not go anywhere near the mosh pit, but nonetheless, I was in pain the next day because neither my ankle nor my back were completely prepared for me to stand on the balls of my feet and bounce for a few hours.

Sunday I got talking to the pianist after church and it looks like I'll be performing a classical something sometime around Easter.  It's been like... fifteen years since I've done anything like that.

Last night, for a friend's birthday, we went to the Wheel Club.  For Hillybilly night.  It is operated by the Oldtime Country Music Club of Canada (I would link it, but they don't have a website.)  There were lots of cowboy hats in the room and gingham shirts with tassels and string ties... it was like walking into another world.  Weirder yet is that interspersed between the cowboy hats there were also University students, some of whom I swear I saw at the Flogging Molly concert.  Also, there was a nice young man sitting next to me wearing a yarmulke.  It's a very informal open-mike program.  At one point a young man got up to the stage and played his guitar and harmonica and sang, but then was chided afterward by the hosts for singing a song that was written in 1970.  The rule is "nothing after 1965".  Wow... what an experience.

It's been an eclectic week.

...my dad came out of his house in Toronto, Ontario, Canada this morning to find a possum sitting on his fence. 

Possums are native to the southern United States.  At first I thought it was an escaped pet or something like that, but it's not the first one he's seen.  Apparently, they are now common throughout the Toronto area and the Niagara peninsula.  Weird.

So so glad that 2007 is over and done with.  As for this year?  Bring it on.

I found my passport a moment ago. 

I had been unable to find it since I returned home from Cuba last year, and since we were planning to go again in January, I was getting a little panicky about the fact that I couldn't find it.  I mentioned it while I was out tonight celebrating the birthdays of two friends who are coming to Cuba with us, and I tried to downplay the panic.  It's like... a charm.  I mean, while it's in my head and I don't talk about it, it gets bigger and bigger in my mind until it's an unsurmountable obstacle.  But when I talk about it.... it shrinks.  Sure enough, when I got home tonight, I went right to the bag I've thought it was in all along and looked in a pocket I've searched a dozen times and there it was.  Safe and sound.