Resident evil

I was using one of three baskets to hold odds and ends and books. I finally became a real cat person when I put their favourite blanket into one basket last week... and it's been a hidey-place for which all three kitties vie on a daily basis. When they aren't weighing me down with their combined 30 lbs in my bed at night, that is.

On the Internets

There are a couple of sites I go to regularly for humour of the quasi-literary sort.

The first is aptly named: Passive-Aggressive Notes dot com. It's kind of like that "Post Secret" site that was so hot a couple years ago (and still might be, for all I know) but much funnier. People take pictures of p.a. notes other people have left. The comments are, predictably, mostly hilarious.

The second is one I've mentioned before is The "Blog" of Unnecessary Quotations. As you can see by the "quotation" marks, it's not "really" a blog. But it is a consistently amusing look at the terrible license taken by people, people with a certain authority or level of administrative power, who can't write.

Because I am THAT lazy

30 Questions

Lifted from DJ

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
“Why does my new haircut always look like shit in the morning?”

2. How much cash do you have on you?
About $14

3. Favorite planet?
Is the Moon a planet or a star?

4. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?
Don't have a cell phone.

5. What is your favorite ring tone on your phone?
I told you, I don't have a cell phone!

6. Bright or Dark Room?
Bright for day, mellow for evening.

7. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Sleeping.

8. What did your last text message you received on your cell say?
*sigh*

9. Who told you he/she loved you last?
Trish.

10. Your worst enemy?
Myself.

11. What is your current desktop picture?

Cootie.

12. What was the last thing you said to someone?
“See you tomorrow.”

13. The last song you listened to?
Loreena McKennitt - The Mummer's Song

14. What time of day were you born?
I don't know because nobody seems to remember.

15. What’s your favorite number?
I don't have one.

16. Are you jealous of anyone?
No.

17. Is anyone jealous of you?
I believe so.

18. Do you consider yourself kind?
Yes.

19. If you had to get a tattoo, where would it be?
On my wrist.

20. If you could be fluent in any other language, what would it be?
German.

21. Are you touchy feely?
Not overmuch.

22. Name three things that you have on you at all times?
Pen, Tylenol, keys.

23. What was the last thing you paid for with cash?
Groceries.

24. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper and mailed it?
Last Friday (3 days ago).

25. Can you change the oil on a car?
No, but then again I don't have a car.

26. Your first love: what is the last thing you heard about him/her?
After his mother died, I never heard a thing.

27. How far back do you know about your ancestry?
I'd have to consult the family tree, but offhand I know it goes pretty far back.

28. The last time you dressed fancy, what did you wear and why did you dress fancy?
Halloween 2008 - large velvet hat with feathery border, black faux-velvet Renaissance dress, high-heeled black boots. Went to an AA meeting that way.

29. Does anything hurt on your body right now?
Lower back, as usual.

30. Have you been burned by love?
I think I did most of the burning.

Today I am H.A.L.T.

Hungry, angry, lonely (not really), tired.

People can suck such energy from you, even with the simplest phrase in email, such as the one I got this morning in response to a bouncy message I sent late last evening:

"I had the impression you were going to call me last night. I am suffering but am I just being manipulative?"

Gee, sorry, I got busy with other stuff. Like talking to my son about issues that concern him and then having a fun chat with a lovely Internet contact. And yes, you do sound manipulative.

Why are some people so needy?

Why do they preach self-sufficiency and yet are unable to spend time alone?

Why do they expect the rest of us to attend to them when we have our own needs for solitude, contemplation, a good book?

Why can't they feel a measure of equilibrium in everyday life?

Why is this AA person with so many years of sobriety such a grabby needy man?

Do you know people who are unable to go to a movie alone, eat in a restaurant alone, walk alone because they somehow feel... too exposed, too vulnerable, too lonely-looking? I feel sorry for them. I've always been able to be at ease with myself. Years of practice. I've had friends pf both sexes who've jumped from one relationship to the next because they can't bear to be on their own, living with themselves, surrounded by 3 or 4 rooms or an entire house.

There are times when I don't like myself much, but I'm accustomed to me and my foibles and I can and will very easily take me and my relatively few demands on myself.

So, back to H.A.L.T. I was hungry when I started this post, but I've since had a bowl of my own chicken soup, which is laden with rice, beans, pasta and all manner of other good things. Angry, I guess I still am. Resentful is a better word, though. Lonely, not much. I had my usual busy, people-filled week and I do enjoy a day alone. It's a fabulously chilly, sunny fall afternoon and my windows are open and there is a fairly bad science fiction movie on the Scream channel and I don't feel particularly lonely. Tired, yeah, cuz I stayed up later than usual last night.

All in all, I suppose things are alright.

I just had to write this here rather than take it out on the person who instigated some of these ranty feelings.

AA doesn't change you, except...

If I had a million dollars for each man who's hit on me since I've attempted sobriety...

I can't even finish that sentence!

OK, I calculate I'd have 2.5 million dollars. Hah.

Ever wonder about girls who actively look for sugar daddies? I can't really imagine doing that. I suppose you've got to have such low self-esteem, or be so young -- although both pretty much go hand in hand -- that you'd stoop so low as to blow someone just because they have a beautiful house and a hot car. Or so some male members have told me, much to my amazement (naive me). Girlz on the prowl!

Good thing that in spite of my almost three-decades of attempted self-oblivion, I never quite lost sight of me. Never let my feet really get off the ground. (Momentarily, yes. But never for long. And I suppose the lack of real crystal chandeliers, columnades, butlers, maids, chauffeurs, limos, and endless fresh flowers has nothing to do with this innate groundedness I feel. Bah.)

On a more mundate note, I am getting a hair trim tomorrow. One of the best things about not drinking is that everyone slices 10-15 years off my real age. And that's because I'm not pouring toxins down my throat hourly. I thought it was Estée Lauder, but it's a lot simpler than that.

I admit...

I have no faith.

I tell myself it doesn't matter, because I'm not American and I won't be voting. But it does matter, because I don't want a newbie helping run the world's allegedly most powerful country.

Animals I would have

The sucker-footed bat.

I love bats, no matter how weird or ugly they can be. Bats can eat up to one ton of insects in a single night. There are only two known species in the sucker-footed family, both in Madagascar.







This little dude looks like a Japanese anime character.

It's a Dumbo Octopus! And it appears to have a case of "Stimpy tongue"!!! (It is actually an ear-like fin.)









But my all-time favourite animal is the Sugar Glider!

I thought I was more interesting

You Are Times New Roman

You are formal and conservative. You're concerned with how you appear to others. For you, maintaining a good reputation is important. You want people to trust you. Elegant and classy, you always maintain your composure. You are never crass. You are professional, competent, and upstanding. And it shows!

What Font Are You?

I was running a variety of money-consuming errands yesterday, and when I was almost done I sat on a bench on Main Street to take a break. Two men were standing near me, one had a rosary draped around his hand. The pretty amber beads caught my eye -- I am part magpie and do love sparkly things.

I stood up and asked him where one could acquire a rosary here in Cowtown. He said he buys his at the Oratory in Montreal, and then held out his hand and said, "Here. Keep this one."

Sweet.

I tried to take pictures of it, but I am lousy at close-ups of inanimate objects.

Rosary - from the Latin 'rosarium' meaning Rose Garden.

A Rosary is a system in which a set number of prayers are recited. A string of beads is usually used to keep count.The string of beads is what is known as a Chaplet ... but it is often referred to as a Rosary.

The practice was started by the Eastern Christian Monks in the Third Century. The Roman Catholic Rosary is associated with St. Dominic in the 13th century.

Perspective

My son called me this morning... when the phone rings at 7:30 you just know it's him, he knows I'm up early.

I miss him on daily basis... think about him all the time. We hang up with "I love you, too" and I mean it with every fibre of my being.

Then, sometimes, I remember what a slug he was when he lived at home.

His messy bedroom... his rolled-up socks in the laundry basket... his grunts by way of conversation...

What was I thinking?

(He says he finds comfort in the sky... that's my boy...)

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July 21, 2008

Remembering the Moment
Enjoying Life

Life, in all of its fullness, is happening right now. While our thoughts are sometimes elsewhere, beautiful opportunities and moments are being passed over and lost to the flow of time. And though we cannot possibly fully experience each leaf that falls to the ground, sometimes we get so attached to reaching our goals that we don't pay attention to the wonder all around us. When we do that, we live in a world that exists only in our heads, while we miss life itself. There is so much to be enjoyed and appreciated that we need to remember to pay attention to the present moment, because it is the only space in which we can experience being alive.

We learn from our past, but dwelling on it keeps us from being fully present to life in the moment. We create our lives with our thoughts, but focusing so firmly on our imagined future keeps us from co-creating with the universe, so we might never allow ourselves to live our dreams as they manifest. It's possible to be so happy and comfortable in our inner worlds that we lose touch with the business of life. We may enjoy spending large portions of time in meditation, or focused on our thoughts.

Life must be attended to, and if we are wise, we can enjoy it at the same time. We can awaken ourselves to the moment we are living right now by taking a deep breath and simply looking around. In doing so, we refocus our attention to our location in the real world. Then we can learn to appreciate the process of working toward our goals as much as their attainment. Balancing ourselves between the present moment and eternity, we can experience and enjoy the full range of reality available to us as spiritual beings living on earth.


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Good advice

Lifted from Pink's place....

HOW TO STAY YOUNG:

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay ‘them.’

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning! Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever, even ham radio. Never let the brain idle. ‘An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.’ And the devil’s family name is Alzheimer’s.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it’s family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don’t take guilt trips.. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

I hear a basketball

I think of my son.

I am taken back to days when he walked up to the house pounding his basketball.

He'd always leave his big damned shoes in the doorway.

I walked past a front door today where there were lots of running shoes scattered.

For all cat owners

Fed apples to this girl

I fell into the ditch, too. Landed on my ass on a nasty dirty snowbank. And she just stared at me.

Bad left knee! Bad! Ouch. Twisted it all over again just when it was starting to get better.

At least the bison were happy campers. They loved the apples.

Only three of them left... used to be a dozen last summer! Next time you eat bison burgers, think of that face up there. Guilt trip!

A sibling made me laugh out loud

"She gets attached to inanimate objects, which is why she still has
her first car, and why she married me."

My boy

Look at that supposedly innocent face.

Look at the horrible thing on his lower lip! I begged him not to get a snake, but he went ahead and did it, anyway.

*sigh*

I don't know why he always takes pictures of himself in the bathroom. You'd think he'd prefer some other kind of backdrop?

I love him, no matter what. My emo kid.

He rocks the canine world

I've been watching The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan, lately, on National Geographic Channel. His show has become an addiction of sorts for me from 5:00 - 6:00 PM (EST).

Friend B., who finishes work at 4:15, comes over to watch it with me, and we marvel at this man's technique. B. had a dog that was very insecure/dominant.

Millan has taught me ways (several years too late) on how to handle dogs: what he calls the mind-body-heart rule.

My #1 dog, Laika, was an apparently beautiful, well-behaved retriever/shepherd mix. She was rather dominant though, with other dogs.

So yeah, now that I see what I've just written, she could have used some of Millan's techniques. We used to avoid the municipal dog parks because Laika got upset when surrounded by strange dogs sniffing her butt.

My #2 dog, Stanzie, which I thought was a lab/schnauzer mix but turned out to be an exotic breed the name of which I can't remember, was a nervous, poop-spewing wreck. And I did all the wrong things with her. I know this now. Although I felt badly while recently watching the first eps of DW and thinking of Stanzie, I have come to realize that dogs are, in Cesar's words, "all about the now." And the dear lady who adopted both my girls has since rehabilitated Stanzie with several years of calm energy and love.

If I ever have another canine companion in my life, I will know what to do from the outset, thanks to Mr. Millan.

Shout out to Cesar, alpha male!

*above: Lily the majorly scary looking pit bull terrier, who lives with friends in the next town. Pit bulls are outlawed here in Cow Town, and I don't really mind that too much.

Girly, aka Boom, aka Baby... being her usual adorable Tortie self.

Strong gag reflex

You know how there's this incredible spate of ads on TV nowadays for oral hygiene products -- revolutionary whitening toothpastes and mouthwashes, etc etc etc.

One toothbrush talks about how it takes care not only of teeth, but also gums, cheeks, and tongue.

I don't know about you, but I cannot brush my tongue. I gag to the point of throwing up in the sink. Every.Single.Time.

I do the rest (and still gag, most times) and rely on List@rine to take care of my tongue. And contrary to a current advert for a mouthwash "without the burning alcohol sensation," I personally love the burning feeling. It makes me feel like the product is really working. I think I am hooked on the L stuff, anyway. I use it, like, 3-4 times a day.

Carry a big stick

I talked on the phone with Rox yesterday.

I told her she sounds like a Stepford Wife -- she has this sweet little voice and you'd never guess the foul words that come out of that mouth. She calls one of her best friends a douchebag, for instance, and describes her latest read as "fucking stellar."

How can you NOT love a woman like that.

For her, I will type this word which I hate with a passion when I see it on a blog: LOL!

Rox really does rock!

One of the more intelligent quizzes I've taken

Not sure I want to be associated with Leo DiCaprio -- or is that Matt Damon? --whatever. And who is that chick on the piano? Someone, anyone, Bueller?

I'm a Talent!

You're a risk-taker, and you follow your passions. You're determined to take on the world and succeed on your own terms. Whether in the arts, science, engineering, business, or politics, you fearlessly express your own vision of the world. You're not afraid of a fight, and you're not afraid to bet your future on your own abilities. If you find a job boring or stifling, you're already preparing your resume. You believe in doing what you love, and you're not willing to settle for an ordinary life.

Talent: 62%
Lifer: 36%
Mandarin: 44%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.

Eating apples

Warning!

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION ABOUT MIRAPEX:

MIRAPEX tablets are indicated for the treatment of moderate-to-severe primary Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS).

MIRAPEX may cause you to fall asleep without any warning, even while doing normal daily activities, such as driving. When taking MIRAPEX, hallucinations may occur and sometimes you may feel dizzy, sweaty or nauseated upon standing up. The most common side effects in clinical trials for RLS were nausea, headache, and tiredness. You should talk with your doctor* if you experience these problems.

* or local police officer.

Snagged from Nineteen Sixty Eight...

You're Mother Night!

by Kurt Vonnegut

Nobody knows what to believe about you, and you know least of all. You
spent most of your time convinced that the ends justify the means, but your means were,
well, downright mean! And the end is nigh. Meanwhile all you want is to travel back in
time, if not to change, then to just delight in the way it used to be. You are who you
pretend to be. Oh yes, you're the great pretender.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Senators kick Canadiens' arse

They danced around the Canadiens tonight, it was a delight to see.

What a shame, though. I remember the last big win for the Canuks in 1992. We drove through the streets honking the car horn. The team is now a shadow of its former self.

Ow my eyes hurt.

MANY MANY WISHES TO KATE, WHO IS my craziest friend ever.

I love her tiny squeaky voice to bits.

She will hate me for this, I know.

Like your mother before you

Jack... cont'd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfpK3H5e0S4

And the answer to The Old Boys

You know what? They made nice.

The Old Boys

Immediately after coming home from work at the retail outlet today (it was an OK day, dead in the morning as usual, picking up after 1 PM and then dead again as of 4 PM), I spotted Emphysema Man at the upstairs window. I went up to ask him to front me smokes.

Whilst in his apartment, his nemesis the property manager arrived at the door and, to my utter amazement, they proceeded to have a civil conversation, which I figured was mostly because I was between them and preventing eyebrow ripout.

But no, we adjourned to the upstairs lounge (an indoor "perk" enjoyed by those who don't have a real outdoor balcony -- ask me which one I'd prefer?) and the boys, the old coughing boys, sat down to an apparently decent convo. I sat with them for precisely 20 minutes then rose, saying, "I am starving. I must make myself dinner." (Which was true. I'd had a great lunch but was... faint with hunger, some days are like that. But also, there is only so much I can take of these old dudes. They are... not in my age or my class. There, I said it. They just aren't. We get along for weather and stuff, but that's about it.)

As I stood on the edge of the stairs, I looked at them sitting companionably and asked, "Hey, didn't you guys used to totally hate each other and not talk at all?"

One of them answered, "Check my voice mail, 0317, you'll understand."

So I did, when I got home.

A giggle

Found chez Infinitepink.

About female suicide bombers

In the wake of the latest two suicide bombings by women in Baghdad markets made me do a search for WHY women are doing this.

— Remote-controlled explosives strapped to two mentally retarded women detonated in a coordinated attack on Baghdad pet bazaars Friday, Iraqi officials said, killing at least 73 people in the deadliest day since the U.S. sent 30,000 extra troops to the capital last spring.

		The Women Suicide Bombers Andrea Dworkin There are good reasons for women suicide bombers, and anyone who knows what's happening to women in the Middle East can't be surprised. This is not the first time there have been women martyrs from Palestine. Between June 1967 and October 1985, there were 353 terrorist attacks inside Israel and each caused casualties. In the era of Oslo and the early days of the Palestinian Authority there were a near endless parade of suicide bombers who murdered Israeli civilians in acts of terror. There were, in the interstices of the terrorists, young women, often women who had been raped, sometimes by men in their own families. Rather than face an ignominious death, the young women wrapped themselves with explosives and committed a glorious suicide, one that would raise them up into the elite of martyrdom. Now one sees the same happening with exemplary young women, whose motives have to do with trying to scale the heights of a woman-hating society. How does one rise up in a land where women are lower than the animals? If one does what the men do, does one get a measure of the respect the community gives the men? It is better, easier, and more logical to blame the Israelis for women's suffering than to blame the men who both sexually abuse and then kill them according to honor society rules. Says one woman: "It is as if we were in a big prison, and the only thing we really have to lose is that. Imagine what it is like to be me, a proud, well-educated woman who has traveled to many countries. Then see what it is like to be an insect, for that is what the [Israeli] soldiers call us-cockroaches, dogs, insects." The female suicide bombers are idealists who crave committing a pure act, one that will wipe away the stigma of being female. The Palestinian community is not sacrificing low women, women of no accomplishment, women with no future. Instead, the women suicide bombers are the society's best in terms of human resources, a perverted example of the best and the brightest. There are reasons for this. The first has to do with sexual abuse. Israeli and Palestinian feminists have worked together in rape crisis centers to repair the torn hymens of Palestinian rape victims. This is a life-saving procedure, since sexual abuse is perceived as a form of the woman having prostituted. There is no empathy, no post-traumatic stress disorder, no redemption, no revenge against the rapist, no legal prosecution of him. Instead for the woman or girl there is secrecy or death. In becoming suicide bombers, women trade in the lowly status of the raped woman for the higher status of a martyr. The fact that women suicide bombers have not been recognized as such before this current onslaught of anti-Israeli aggression has to do with the invisibility of women in general and the necessary silence of injured women. The second reason for women suicide bombers is to try to rise in the nationalist struggle so that when that struggle is over the status of women will be recognized as deserving of citizenship and equality. In Algeria women fought heroically. All the rules that bind women seemed to change. Women were in the company of men. Women were brave. Women were not hidden. After liberation the women were pushed back down. A similar dynamic took place with Israeli women, needed to fight and to settle the land early on, now distinctly second-class, especially under increasingly influential religious law. The third reason is pride: the deep-seated belief that a young woman can be as brave, as sacrificing, as willing to submit to revolutionary imperatives as men. Girls and young women want to stand up to the Israelis, hard to do in a landscape of maniacal fighting men. The best and brightest are motivated to stand up for their families: their beaten fathers, their destroyed homes, their angry mothers, and the brothers who are civilly superior to them. In this time of terror, there is no tie between Israeli and Palestinian women, no conviction on the part of Palestinian women that the Israeli women they are killing have anything in common with them. Even though policy is made in both communities by aggressive, angry men, there is no sisterhood to speak of, no sense that there but for the grace of God go I. Instead adult Palestinian men pick out those needing or desiring martyrdom, strap explosives around them and send them into Hell, not Heaven. The more women want to prove their worth, the more women suicide bombers there will be. The lower the Israelis push the "cockroaches," the angrier the accomplished Palestinian women will be, and sisterhood between them and the young bombers will also disappear. The older women will let the younger women do the dirty work. They will not stop them. Both Israeli and Palestinian men push women into an anti-sisterhood camouflaged as nationalist liberation. Andrea Dworkin is the author of "Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation." Her most recent book is "Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant."

Add to this sad list of childless and "useless" women the mentally retarded females, who were told to go out and sell something and then were remote-controlled blown up.

All work contained in Feminista! (TM) online journal is owned by the respective contributing authors or artists, including all copyrights contained therein, and may not be copied, reprinted, or otherwise used in any form without the express written permission of the copyright holder. Please contact Feminista! or the author/artist for information.

Copyright © 2002 the author(s)
All rights reserved by the authors

Like in a hospital room

Every evening, as he sits and watches his TV quite loudly, the semi-deaf guy next door makes this really weird noise like, every 10 seconds.

Sometimes he coughs, but mostly he does this "HUHHH-UH" halfway between a cough and a painful exhalation.

It has increased in frequency in just the past two weeks. Used to be I'd hear this sound every minute or two. Now I hear it all evening and after his TV is off and he falls asleep.

The sad thing is, he quit smoking for a couple of months and these noises stopped. But he claimed he gained 26 months and was so disgusted that he started smoking again. (To his credit, he also went on a diet and bought himself an exercise machine, and lost much of the weight.) He said he was only smoking 5 cigs a day and planned to cut back until he was down to zero. But from the sounds of it, he must be back up to a pack or more daily. You don't breathe like that on 5 smokes a day.

The walls being what they are here, we might as well be separated by a hospital curtain.

I'm thinking he must have advanced emphysema. I know the older dude upstairs has got it, but he just wheezes quietly. I don't hear him much except when he does his "morning cough" (smokers will know what that is) and I sometimes get to hear that at 4:30 a.m. when he arises.

Between those two and Miss Heavyfoot at 5:00 a.m. each day, it's no wonder I never get a decent night's sleep without resorting to a pill!

What a bunch we are!

Christmas in July and other tidbits

At the rate I'm going, the Christmas presents I bought for family and friends will get delivered this summer. Maybe.

My son called me at 6:30 a.m. today. I didn't even hear the phone. Perhaps that's because I was awake from 2:00 - 3:30 this morning, wide awake, and doing translation. But wow, it's nice to get a message from my boy, who I miss daily. Almost every minute, in fact.

My sleep patterns are shot lately. So imagine my amazement when I saw an ad for a natural alternative medication for menopause on Facebook. (Yes, that is how Facebook works: when you sign up for a new application, they use your info and target ads to you.

So this med, it's called MenoControl24. You take a daytime pill and a nighttime pill. And it is supposed to control ALL THESE SYMPTOMS WHICH I HAPPEN TO HAVE:

- hot flashes
- fatigue
- nervousness
- night sweats
- migraines
- sleep disorders
- temporary depression

And the other symptom, I'm not even going to mention because it has no bearing at all, since I'm not currently married or in a relationship. Let's just say if I was a man, they'd call it penile dysfunction or something.

So I called my doctor and asked if I can safely take this homeopathic product. She said she doesn't see why not but I have to ask my pharmacist.

I had fun today at the store, in spite of all those customers who are going to Playa Del Something in Cuba. I am jealous.

Peace at last?

Last evening, while I was shoveling not only my walkway but that of the immediate neighbours, Miss LaLa (who has many nicknames) from upstairs came out and brushed the snow off her car.

I seized the occasion to tell her that she is very noisy early each morning, waking me up when she walks around her apartment in her boots.

She denied wearing boots (bullshit) but I must say, she was as silent as a mouse this morning.

Now if I could just get Emphysema Man to stop horking at all hours...

Polar bear playing with huskie

What would they think?

I'm pretty sure most of my friends who come here have never had a heart attack.

My first year anniversary is coming up soon, and I am acutely aware of it.

In fact, I've been very aware of my every heartbeat since Feb 6, 2007.

I don't worry overmuch about it most times, I know it's just a matter of time before I have another one, but the thing is...

Sometimes before I leave my apartment I look around. And I think:

"If I died today, what would the clean-up crew say?"

So there are days when I tidy up really good.

I imagine people walking into the messy bedroom, the pile of laundry on the floor. The dishes in the kitchen. The grungy bathroom sink. The piles of papers here and there, with scribbled notes.

I imagine they'd say, "Oh, my. She was a slob. Who is this Langelier person on her voice mail?" (That one would be a wrong number, imagine if they called her back.)

I mentioned this "if I died tonight" scenario many weeks ago to my sympathetic co-worker, Mrs. Gom, (not her real name, but close), and she was aghast. I guess some people don't think in the same fatalistic terms.

So there are days when, before I leave the house for work or even before going to bed, I scrub my toilet and bathroom sink.

In fact, I am about to do that right now.

Because my last heart attack was in Feb 2006 and most heart attacks happen during the night, I feel anxious these days and nights.

Time flies

I spent most of the past 3 days sleeping.

My capacity for sleep is amazing.

Other than that, I've been on the phone a lot. And I'm not much of a phone person.

Who has seen the wind?

She is a'howling today... blown away all our fog and trying to tip over our mature pines.

The weather in Quebec is always weird and interesting.

Minus 22C one day, then 11C and rainy the next.

Today, it's still warm enough to keep all the windows open.

Hey, you know what? Rom changed her phone number AND her email address. Think I made her paranoid by publishing her ridiculous letter and full name?

Think I'll ever see my teddy bears? No, I don't suppose so.

Well, back to work.

Are you reading this, Annette?

Block me in email, don't answer your phone, whatever.

Throw all my 18 boxes away if you want... all I want back is the big bag of Alex's teddy bears.

Actually, call Centraide, give them everything except the plush toys. They will usually send a truck to pick things up.

If you have a sentimental bone left in your body, you would leave me Alex's things. Also, one of those bears is the very first one I remember getting for Christmas as a child.

Oh, man

Since last week I have been trying to help a friend with a gambling addiction.

I have taken his cash and his bank cards. I have held his money hostage in my front pocket.

This is very trying. I don't need this... oh, god. It is so wearing...

But tonight he made a phone call, the usual "first step" which I've found myself making over and over as the years go by. So I'm not calling the kettle black, ya know? It's just tiring to think about another person in this way, to be a "mom" all over again.

Wish me luck.

I bloody well need it, to take care of myself AND a friend.

Ten things you would say if you could

I did this meme a few years ago, but there are new people in my life and old people I've dumped, so maybe it's worth reviewing. I will try to make it at least half positive.

List up to ten things you would love to say to someone or to several people but don’t dare or likely won’t for various reasons. Do not state who these people are and do not confirm or deny any comment speculation.

1. Not everything you say is amusing, even though you chuckle at your every utterance.
2. You need to make some life-changing resolutions, not just New Years' resolutions.
3. Stop complaining about the fucking weather.
4. You are some pretty good people.
5. We've had our ups and downs, but you are my lifeline.
6. You should post more often, because you are amazing.
7. Stop with the road rage, already.
8. You think money solves everything, but it hasn't solved your issues.
9. Stop lolling at yourself on your blog. If it's funny, we'll laugh on our own.
10. You are a relatively kind soul, even though you gossip too much.