insufferably narcissistic

slow.news.day @ the kathedral

~
Current food for thought: Waking Beauty by Elyse Friedman
(a few years back...maybe like 7 years...i stumbled across a book by elyse friedman called Then Again and thought it was one of the smartest and funniest books i'd read in a long while...and i love finding great local authors...so i waited and waited for more, searching for her books, and nothing. then jon comes home the other night with this book--i'd obviously missed its release--and it's so absurdly funny in a social ideology darkness kinda way).

dark chocolate covered goju berries

at what point does avoidance cease to be a positive coping strategy?
with ptsd, one of the biggest symptoms is avoidance...for some, dissociating.
at the same time, it's also a coping strategy...if something is "triggering", avoid it. step away from the situation and move to a safe place, a place that will keep you grounded...keep you from having a flashback.
but when is avoidance no longer conducive to moving forward into recovery? at what point is avoidance used to not get any work done towards managing the illness?
because learning to manage and control a mental illness is hard work.
just a thought.

~
Music to my ears: Chris Clark
Words to live by: I used to think the human brain was the most fascinating part of the body and then I realized, "What is telling me that?" -Emo Phillips

dreams of candy and springtime

confetti
sulmona, l'aquila (AQ), italy

~
Music to my ears: Clint Mansell - soundtrack to The Fountain

enough snow for 321 snowmen

a random sampling of photos from my back door.

~
In reality: yes, yes, let's all listen to the UN and stop our harm reduction programs because of an INCB convention from 1988. nice work.
(the good thing about Smitherman is he recognizes that our city is grossly underserviced for care and treatment in mental health and addictions)

my vicarious return to the motherland

clearly vicarious is my word for this week.
plus i'm hungry for anchovy pizza.
these delicious pies were from a wonderful little restaurant in trastevere (rome)

~
Music to my ears: Beauty Pill
Words to live by: the leash is loose enough to feel like autonomy ~ Beauty Pill

In reality: it won't stop!
(pics to come tomorrow, after my foray out into the great canadian snowstorm this evening)

only the promise to try

i wish i had seen this sooner. that's what happens when you don't post regularly.
so from here on in, i vow to try to post daily (i'm not making any promises or anything).
but i hope whomever it was that was actually reading wasn't scared off by my lack of posts during this past year.
it's a whole different motivation when suddenly the thought of somebody else looking at this is in my head. it won't change what i have to say or how i say it, but it definitely makes me want to keep refreshing the site.

~
Music to my ears: slow.news.day

In reality: hell in a handbasket

vicarious trauma

this girl is one year younger than me and yet she seems 10.
yet sitting and listening to her, i shudder.
we share the same issues. the same financial stressors, the same relationship with food (bingeing and sneaking sweets or extra helpings...from who? don't know).
but i am on this side of the bed. in the chair. as if i'm the expert.
this is not to say i am more mature, or older in personality.
but, unlike her, i have no attachment issues.
there are stages in life which, at times, i struggled with. between these stages are periods of turmoil. (i am starting to see more and more why this theory appealed to me).
and i see how splitting from the parental units (for those of us blessed to have some) and becoming independent means having to create a sense of self. your own identity. it's confusing. i still struggle with the identity bit (i don't want to, but i do. maybe it's different when i'm aware of it?)
but breaking free can be stressful. especially when you're expected to live up to a social norm. or the norms are so embedded in your head that you truly believe there is no other way. when you don't fit into the mold, the ideology, you feel like a failure.

i've been there. i am there. still. sometimes.
what separates me from her? or her. or her...or her.
the fact that i don't think ending my life will solve it all. make it all go away.
i do cry sometimes when things don't work out, but i'm trying harder to laugh instead.
and although jon questioned me, and perhaps got frightened that i'm just going through every day coping with these stressors, i'm not. some days are worse than others.

and the fact that i know it. i know that i'm being pulled by society's strings. and i try hard to overcome that. and i have the most wonderful sounding board....who also likes to share after work pints of guinness and shots of jameson's.

~
Music to my ears: panda bear
Current food for thought: What is the What by Dave Eggers

In reality: No food for you
yeah, that's it...let's deal with our obesity problems by instead giving individuals mental health and affective disorders (ie: depression), because really, who cares about peoples' insides if they look good on the outside?

conversations with jon #543

conversations over a pint of guinness and a shot of jameson's...

me: "i see myself in them. it's scary. we're all like that a bit. we've all dealt with these issues. i think it just comes down to coping mechanisms. some of us find ways to cope and others don't"

j: "i hope you mean sometimes. that only sometimes you feel like you have to cope"

me: "i don't know. i mean we're dealt shit every day and some of us let it roll off like water off a duck's back, some of us stress out more but have coping strategies in place, and some people can't handle it and have a breakdown."

j: "if you're telling me that every day is just comprised of ways that you're coping with feeling shitty, then what am i doing here?"

a month too late

i'm always thinking about what the media is feeding our kids today and if we're breeding a stupid generation. the torontoist makes a good point.
we don't give the kids enough credit.
how could i ever believe that youth are as stupid as the media thinks they are?
it suddenly made me feel like a bitter old hag.

one nation under god?

while watching jesus camp, jon says: "do you think george bush actually believes in god?"
we agreed on no.
but he is building quite the army of christian fundamentalists, isn't he?
none of whom are ranked in the upper class (indoctrinate the poor).
all of whom think that george w is one great christian.
all part of the master plan to merge church and state.
build the army, starting with young soldiers.
and we're back on the discussion of good intentions and the ideology behind missionary work.
these people think they're preaching the word of the lord, the right word.
it is their mission to help people believe in what is right.
they want nothing less for our children.
it is true: the path to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.

~
the gospel according to narnia

conversations in a hospital #1

(first character to be read in the voice of Bruce the performance artist from Family Guy)

- so you can see what's going on with me (in the hospital~m.), tell me what's going on with you
- i listened to the opera today
- oh how nice. which one?
- la boheme. when pavarotti was in his prime.
~~
- and television, well, there was never really anything on it anyways.
- only for the news...and i watched the canadian skating championships today
- oh that'd be nice
- it's getting quite exciting because of the upcoming olympics. Jeff Buttle lost it to a newcomer Chan. he's only 17
- heavens!
- it was nice but Chan didn't impress me much
- ohhh. did it lack lustre?
- it was a stunning performance. very clean. it just lacked stillness.
- my lord. what happened to Buttle?
- i was more impressed by his performance actually, but he made very two important technical errors.
- oh darn.

managing online identities

this is why i hate sites like facebook. as if we're not fucked up enough trying to manage our real selves.

maybe it's just the interweb i hate. it's like a choose your own adventure book.
i hated those books when i was a kid.
i always felt like i'd miss a piece of the story, so i used to keep my fingers placed at every possible choice so i could always go back and make sure i never missed an option. then i would read the book from cover to cover in a linear fashion and put the story pieces together in my head.
it used to drive me nuts!
i feel like that's the way most websites are. thank goodness firefox has tabs. usually after a foray into the world wide web i have like 20 freakin tabs open for all the possible links elsewhere.
it's gotten kind of crazy.
here's wishing for a simpler online life.

~
Music to my ears: futuristic '70s synth soundtrack while watching Logan's Run

crazy going slowly am i, 123456, switch

sometimes i feel like i have so much in my head that i can't organize my thoughts. it's no wonder i have a problem articulating them.
this year is like peeling off an old layer of skin, but in one gigantic piece, like a really good sunburn.
i feel like i've been completely fucked up for the last little while. i thought, and sometimes still think, that i've been going crazy. but what really is crazy?
a lot of time crazy is mistaken for retarded. it's a common mistake. i think.
i'm a little disjointed. like arms and legs moving at different times, but mostly my brain synapses being delayed at the source or something. i'm not even making sense.
being coherent has never been one of my strong points. as long as i know what i'm thinking in my head. which scares me at the same time.

ps - there will be blood is a wicked ass movie. daniel-day lewis has always been a favourite of mine and now i'm thinking he's a veritable god among men. that and p.t. anderson is somewhat of a genius...capitalism and salvation...it's always about salvation.

was i sleeping all this time?

i quit smoking in may.
i've had a fuzzy head and mixed emotions for months.
i suddenly feel like i've woken up.
at first i felt better about that.
my head seems to have cleared, like i pulled it out of a stormy rain cloud.
but now i feel as if i let all this stuff happen and nothing is the way it was.
i've somehow gotten fatter...not even my body is my own.
i don't even know how i managed to pull off school this past semester while still maintaining a GPA of 3.5
it's like driving for 20 mins only to realize you don't remember the past 5 km, never mind changing lanes...complete auto pilot.

funded by the national nuclear power organization

i always get weary about stories like this.
who has funded the writer's grant?
a story about how nuclear waste is not good, but atleast it's better than coal ash?
for real?

things my boyfriend says

"stop taking pictures of me!"
"stop being so gorgeous"

talk about ego booster.
he definitely has a way with words.

a chilly climate

so in 2005, the head honcho at harvard, lawrence summers, basically says that women are naturally not as smart as men.
and while i appreciate his idea to state something so simple as that intelligence is innate so you can't blame the victim, i don't appreciate the poor little girls as victims approach, as this totally absolves society of all of its failures.
and while i appreciate his gall and bravery for saying something that would surely put him under attack, i will attack not him, but rather the magazine that i am so fond of, for pretty much emphasizing summers' idea.
the whole article to address this issue spends the first 2/3 going over all the biological and innate reasoning, and the differences in boys and girls spatial/mathematical/cognitive skills...which reinforces the dominant ideology that men are just better at techy stuff than women.
not until the second last page does the article make reference to the idea of choice, and even still doesn't even suggest that perhaps a woman's choice not to choose fields of math/science is because of a chilly climate. yes, the glass ceiling, as mentioned, is a definite probability for choice, but it goes beyond pay and promotion. working in an environment where women are inadvertently made to feel inadequate and less worthy is frustrating.
and the sheer fact that even as young children we have begun to think that this is alright because of the differences in the way girls and boys are taught. school is an institution after all--an institution that reinforces men's and women's roles in society and conditions us for those roles.
and the idea of a woman's double day gets the honour of a measly little paragraph at the end.
if the article really set out to refute summers' statement and challenge the ideology of men excelling at science and math, surely it would have given equal discussion in all possible factors.
i love science and biology and physiology and the amazingness that is the brain, but if we're talking biological psychology, then other contributors need to be considered in they way we perceive things and the way society's dominant thinking has conditioned us to believe things.

~
music to my ears - slow news day

summer and sandalwood

today, as you sat across the table, eyes tearing, remembering that boys don't cry.
"hey, i'll give you something to cry about", you said, explaining your father's fine parenting skills.
all those years spent with a bottle, more recently a pipe.
overwhelmed and wondering if it will ever end.
kids who think you're the biggest loser--can't be good for the psyche.
and i remember summer and sandalwood.
a not so distant past where i didn't even know you existed.

~
music to my ears: Radiohead - Hail to the Thief

why i hate the ttc

so i make the decision to not ride my bike in the cold this morning.
i guess i shouldn't have jinxed it by adding "man, i hate the ttc"
i walk out the door and think "hmmm, it's really not as cold as the -15 they were claiming, i should totally go back upstairs and get my bike"
but at this point i'm already committed. so i continue to walk to the subway.
i put my ticket, worth $2.75, into the money thing.
i run down the stairs, and there is the train, packed, with the doors wide open.
"attention passengers, we are currently experiencing a delay on our bloor-danforth line due to an incident at track level at our jane station"
dammit. a jumper at jane and instead of diverting service somewhere and getting the show on the road, we're at a standstill with constant annoying updates while i'm left cursing myself for wussing out of riding my bike in between hot and cranky people sighing and huffing.
my alternative is to leave immediately and go back to get my bike, but at this point i've resigned myself to paying $2.75 for being late for class.
when we finally begin to move, the train is so full that the transfer at yonge has line ups to the train and i wait with thousands of impatient and shoving people for 3 trains to go by before i can get down to dundas.
fuck. i hate the ttc.

~
music to my ears: The Weakerthans - Virtute the cat explains her departure
(saddest song in the world - m.)

my reality is not facebook

i don't exist. it's true.
deleting my facebook account has distanced me from a social network that has taken over our cultural communication.
interesting blog entry.
the non-facebook akin to non-existing is very true, as i have been finding out.
i am excluded from all sorts of events because "sorry, i forgot you're not on facebook"
i barely even talk to my roommate anymore because facebook is her primary means of communication.
i miss human contact.

~
Music to my ears: Wintersleep - Welcome to the Night Sky

clementines and christmas

i couldn't resist the little orange mesh bags of unripe clementines.
tiny and sour.
reminds me of christmas and i don't have time to think about it yet.

happy birthday...we're moving

i grab my jacket this morning from the big closet...it's been hanging up for some time now...put it on in the dark, bundle up, and head out.

sitting on the street health bus i'm thinkin it smells an awful lot like piss, but hey, i'm on the street health bus, right? the stench of urine and homelessness sometimes go hand in hand.

but throughout the morning, i smell the pee. but hey, i'm at st mike's hospital, makes sense. i'm walking in moss park. huh. makes sense.

put my jacket back on this early afternoon to go out to an ocap action thing about the new cctv cameras at the corner of dundas/sherbourne, and there it is again. the whiff of piss. huh. well, i am at the corner of dundas and sherbourne.

but then, here i am standing in the daylight, and i look down to my whitish-light blue jacket and huh. that's an interesting yellow stain going all the way down the left side of my jacket. down my arm. could that be sweat from an old jog? let's take a whiff.

ah. cat piss. how lovely.

how incredibly angry i am right now since i just took my jacket off again and now my sweater smells from wearing the jacket all morning. down my left arm. not to mention the humiliation from my jacket being completely yellow.

happy birthday.

hope you didn't find piss in your shoes this morning.

you may find a dead cat or two when you get home.

but vs however

i think that if the word however can begin a sentence, so can the word but.
especially if you're making a much stronger point.
however sounds so complacent. to the point of wussy. very indecisive. "however, it may not be that way..."
but 'but'. now there's a word with meaning. "you say this, BUT i say this". very crude and to the point.
from here on in, i am using but to make my stance in papers.
my profs will be angry but i think it's a worthy cause.

i quit.

i quit my job. finally. that bastard of a boss can shove it.
for 3 years i've put up with his disrespect. treating the staff the way he has.
and he finally put me over the edge.
i feel liberated.
and yet irresponsible.
i walked in a half hour before my shift, picked up my cheque and quit. right there. right then.
how horrible, really.
oddly it felt necessary, but so unlike me.
even with all the shit i have put up with, i still wanted to leave properly.
but it had to be done. and it is.
just because i was getting paid a server's minimum wage--way below regular minimum wage--i don't deserve to be spoken to like that.
nobody does.

a march against poverty + a petty issue

at 30 yrs old, i participated in my first march.
well, participated in the sense of being available for first aid services if need be.
i have mixed feelings about it, mostly because i've always thought that mobilization doesn't have to come in the form of a protest. do protests really reach the right people? i've never thought so. especially organizations like OCAP, which sometimes end up in violence as they take over abandoned houses across the city.
as a matter of fact, this feeling was somewhat justified as i was talking to one of our homeless clients before the march and he said "i didn't really want to march for ocap--they always seem to fuck things up".
the police presence was heavy. horses with face shields hiding behind the hedges at queen's park.
but the march ended up being alright. no violence.
and although i did not participate in any chanting or raising of fists, i did watch the general public's reactions.
passerbys stopped to ask what it was about.
and then i wondered if the people that they're trying to reach, those "right" people, aren't part of the government or political organizations but rather the everyday person.
because ultimately it's people who are going to make a change...well, hopefully, in our somewhat democratic society.
but it is a democracy and people coming together can change things.
or atleast "democracy" gives us the hope that we can.
whatever.
either way, here i was in an anti-poverty march, and every tuesday and wednesday i see people who don't have clean clothes or clothes that fit, and here i am finding myself with a body image issue.
so i've gained 10, maybe 15 lbs...so what? why do i care so much?
i've done so many good things to have gained this weight.
i stopped being so vigilant about exercise and started enjoying activities more.
i quit smoking (!!!)
but my clothes don't fit. and it's very disheartening.
but what's even more disturbing is the fact that something this petty bothers me.
the fact that i know i'm being told that women are supposed to be thin, with no extra rolls on their tummies, and wear a size 0, and yet i'm still succumbing to this ideology.
and every day, walking around the city, i struggle with the fact that this should NOT bother me.
i mean, my life is pretty sweet. i have a strong support system. i have healthcare. i'm not starving. i have a roof over my head. i'm in university becoming a nurse.
and i'm white, so i have nothing pitted against me.
so what the hell?
why can't i shake this?

i'll never know what it means to use

yesterday i got the call i've been waiting for.
one of my best friends is alive.
and has been through rehab. and has been clean for 3 months.
the last time i saw her she had dropped into my apartment to use the couch, borrow money and cry that she needed help.
and there was nothing i could do except comfort her, let her smoke crack on my deck, try to feed her (although all she would eat was reese's p.b. cups and chocolate milk).
i bought her cigarettes, and tried to get her to sleep.
crack makes you an insomniac.
i didn't want her to leave after 3 days but she had to. she was out of drugs. and i was exhausted. and she promised to enter rehab. but i never heard from her. and knew that entering rehab was a lofty goal at this point in time.
i prayed for her safety. i hoped she was alive.
and now i know she made it through.
and i don't know how she did it. i don't know what it's like. i can only imagine.

school is for suckers

back at school with new people and no old friends.
autumn is my favourite time of year and yet i'm feeling miserable and tired and older.
i love the smell of crisp apples, riding my bike with a sweater on and the rustling of falling leaves.
and yet, i'm feeling dissident and blah.
my best friend, with whom i now live, hates me. and now my monday classes are full of people who know eachother but nobody who knows me.

close and no cigar

ok. didn't really stay on that straight and narrow pathway. but close.
plus i'm still not smoking ciggies. yay. so for that i'm awesome.
but couldn't lay off the sauce for 2 weeks.
2 more exams.

and i'm trying to decide what to do with this space.

it has been over a month

this last month has been quite the blur.
the end of school was (and is) looming...it was a time of complete craziness and stress and assignments and essays and turning 30 and drinking and quitting smoking. yay me.
and now, starting today, i'm back on the path of the straight and narrow. one more week of school then exams. today i woke up serious.
serious about studying. serious about eating. and serious about a mini-sabbatical.
no drinking until exams are over in 2 weeks. no junk food bingeing. and no more being late for school and my tutoring job. in which case, i'm out...

much needed purge

it's been a while since i've cried. but tonight my own mother made me cry.
but atleast i feel real again. emotions are overwhelming and sometimes need to be exorcised like a demon.
i believe douglas coupland once called it the "emotional ketchup burst" (generation X, 1991).
i guess i've been bottling it up for a while. and it felt good.
and so does this glass of pinot noir and some dark chocolate.

Words to live by: "Your 20s are muck and shit and pain and loneliness and horror." ~Douglas Coupland

turning 30

why is 30 such a milestone? i don't know why i don't want a big party, i just don't.
and it's not that i think i'm getting old...the number means nothing to me.
if anything it's a celebration that my 20s are finally over.
so why must everyone insist on having a party?
why is it any different than any other birthday?
and why do you think i'm going to regret not having one?

stoopid facebook

so here i am...addicted to facebook.
and i stayed far far away from myspace...successfully.
and now this.
i got suckered in and now i can't stop.
who are all these people? i can't even remember these people who want to be my friend.
this is so very strange.

hypersensitivity in the morning

after my morning jog i passed a lady who smelled like that cheap soap you get at the dollar store...like fa bodywash or something.
flaring my nostrils, i happened to cross paths with an old tanned man who smelled of florida...like panama jack tanning oil.
made me want to go on vacation.

blueberry pancakes and bad news

so it was dad & daughters day yesterday.
sis and i took pops to a toronto rock game (lacrosse is the best ever)
went for brunch before the game.
as i'm shovelling eggs and hashbrowns into my mouth (i was hungover and starving) pops decides to tell me that they found a mass on his kidney.
i looked up mid-forkful and the rest played out like a movie.
i laughed and said, "get outta here"
and looked across at my sister.
she dropped her eyes. there was no smile there.
"you're joking right?"
"no", pops says.
as the smile slid off my face. suddenly i couldn't swallow. my throat constricted, like last week when boiling hot soup got past my tongue somehow and my throat clamped shut to protect my esophagus from being burned, but instead gave me burns in the very back of my mouth.
it hurt. like this hurt.
i looked at my sister again, who looked at me. her eyes were empty. i couldn't read anything on her face, except that she didn't know how to feel either.
my dad kept eating. he was never one to show emotions.
very machismo. comes with the heritage i guess.
just like the cancer that runs in his family.

snow snow snow and more snow

we finally got some of the good ol' canadian white stuff this past v-day.
so we did what any good canadians would do...bundle up like stay-puft marshmallow men, grab some krazy karpets, and hit the closest hill.
let me tell you, when you're approaching 30 you're just not as light and nimble as you once were...so the karpets move slower, and in your attempt to push yourself even further down the hill, the walk up seems way longer than it used to.
we lasted a good 20 minutes or so before we were so frozen that a cold beer seemed like the best idea.

check out our deck...we opened the door and a whole bunch of snow fell into the house.
i think it's time for a bbq (if we can find it)

feng shui and monkeys

this is why the L.A. zoo is publicly funded, i guess.

oh wait. here's my favourite quote:

"we don’t have any books on feng shui for monkeys. we have to assume that Darwin is correct and that there is a connection and what is good for humans is good for monkeys"

brilliant.

the rise or fall of the ttc?

one by one the passengers let out sighs of anger, helplessness, distress--all bundled into one heavy breath....between pursed lips and open mouths.
and it's making me giggle ridiculously while the driver adds to the tension by consistently braking at the last minute before a stop--the sound of grating metal.
maybe the streetcars breakdown as ttc's secret revolt: get the loyal riders frustrated during rush hour in the hopes that the people will get through to the government.
the union's not working anymore--there's no funding for our public transport.
maybe the new grassroots revolution begins on the 504.

fat fingers with big rings

i don't know why it bothers me so much. but when i see a man with fat fingers wearing those big gold rings, i shiver.
it's not the fat fingers alone...but with those crazy rings.

health and human rights

i've always entertained the idea of going overseas either as a nursing student or when i become an RN.
and it's not so much the ideology of "saving the world" so much anymore, as it was when i was 16...i'd like to think i'm much smarter than that now
but i did still have a small hope that maybe i could help out in some way...put my skills to use, even if it just helped one person.
two weekends ago i attended UofT's Health and Human Rights Conference....some really great speakers--among them Dr. Gerald Caplan, senior advisor to Stephen Lewis...he was fascinating and entertaining
much of the talks related to war zones and/or africa's hiv/aids epidemic.
a couple of the speakers brought up the notion of humanitarian tourism, as opposed to humanitarian aid.
it really made me re-think my ideas.
to sum up, they pretty much said that humanitarian aid shouldn't be just a band-aid. it can only be that way for so long, until you have to start advocating for reform in the country's own health care system. as an HCP going overseas, you should be going with a plan...the plan being how to make it so that you're actually not needed there.
with about 25% of med school students taking electives overseas, some countries have become saturated with students who are there as band-aids...and many times not knowing what to expect once there...potentially not being of much help at all.
and the money spent on airfare by students could actually be of more help if donated to trained professionals on the ground.

i can definitely see the point there for countries in conflict. however in order to find somebody who is willing to commit themselves to helping make those changes, that person has to see and experience first hand what they will eventually commit to.
so if out of those 25% of students go, 24% are of no help, perhaps there will be that 1% that will be the ones to have a plan and make those changes.

aside from war-torn countries, i think i'd still like to go to a country that could use help with education and or clinical rotations. maybe somewhere in south america, or parts of africa that aren't necessarily in conflict, but need bodies to help with hiv/aids education and clinic set up.
and yes, i'd have to pay for it. and yes, i realize that the money i spend could go to potentially stock a whole clinic full of medical supplies. but i know this, and still wish to experience it myself. and i don't look at it as anything other than humanitarian tourism on my part.

the inner eyelids of cats

i actually have wondered this.
my crazy kitty sleeps on my face, so i have plenty of time to check out her eyes.
it's weird.

cleaning out gmail

old story, i know.
but seems fitting, considering it's 12 degrees and raining in ontario on january 6th.
have i secretly moved to vancouver and forgotten?
it's also not january 6th anymore. but that's when i wrote this.

resolutions

i hate new year's resolutions.
they never work.
too much pressure.

so my resolution is always to never make resolutions and then secretly tell myself to get in better shape, eat well, keep running.
because those aren't resolutions for a new year, i tell myself.
those are just things i should do.

and now more.
it's not just calories and jumping jacks.

back to school

starting monday, i sleep a lot more.

snoozing my way to straight As...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

death by firing squad

this is crazy.
same story, different angle.

take action.

confessions of a cyberchondriac

combine the internet with my nursing textbooks and i swear this schooling is making a hypochondriac out of me.

funny story.

good food for good fortune

if you tried all of these wonderful food traditions from all over the world, are you then guaranteed atleast some good fortune in the new year? if you love food like i love food then it doesn't really matter. just eat.

spain & grapes - eat 12 grapes at midnight, one for each stroke of the clock. if any of them are sour, then that month will be no good. for example, if the 3rd grape you eat is yucky, then march will be yucky. make sure to swallow all grapes by midnight. if you're in peru, you can swallow a 13th grape for good measure.
(see also: portugal, venezuela, peru, cuba, mexico, ecuador)

greens - a common good fortune food across many cultures because the green represents moolah. the big buckaroos. sometimes folded. the more you eat, the more money you will receive in the new year. and the more you will have to be on the toilet, in my opinion.
(ie: germans-sauerkraut; danish-stewed kale; southern americans-collard greens)

legumes - also represents money. this time coins. beans, lentils and peas all swell when cooked, symbolizing financial gains.
(ie: brazil-lentil soup; japan-kuro-mame; southern us-hoppin' john)
usa's black-eyed pea symbolism (the main ingredient in hoppin' john) goes back to civil war era when some small town in virginia apparently ran out of food while under attack and discovered the bean(pea?). have considered it lucky ever since.

pork - swine signifies progress. who knew?
(see: cuba, spain, portugal, hungary, austria--all of whom eat a roast suckling pig)
(see also: germany-sausages; sweden-pigs' feet)
(see also: italy & usa who think the fat content is indicative of wealth and prosperity...of course they do.)

fish - apparently a very wise choice around the globe. my favourite reasons go to japan: herring roe for fertility, shrimp for longevity, and sardines for a good harvest.

cakes & baked goods - always a reason to consume cake. although with some cultures, the cake is a gamble.
(see: mexico & greece who hide a trinket in a cake. whoever bites into that trinket is the one who gets the good fortune of the new year. and perhaps a hefty dentist bill.)
(see also: sweden & norway who have cut down on broken teeth by putting an almond, which is indeed edible, in rice pudding for the same reason as the trinket in the cake.)

whatever you do, do NOT eat the following (in no particular order):

lobster - they move backwards, which could signify setbacks
chicken - they scratch backwards, which could cause regret or dwelling on the past
(see also: any winged fowl - your good luck could fly away)

happy 2007.

drinking tears of sleeping birds

this story title sounds like the title of a gwar song...or cannibal corpse...or one of those crazy death metal bands. haha. when you read the story, use gwar speak in your head...it makes the story really funny.

moths drink the tears of sleeping birds

yellow water

recycling pee in europe (where else?)

happy christmas eve

whirlwind 4 days in NYC.
tried my feet at chopsticks on the giant floor piano at fao schwarz a la tom hanks in big, c. 1988
are you jealous? you should be.

regulars at the bar

a conversation:

[irish bloke]: "you know what you need to do? take a hot bath, with candles...and oatmeal."
[me]: "oatmeal? i eat oatmeal."
"well, don't eat it, but i'm serious it's so good for your inside and your outside. your skin will be wonderful. and it's relaxing."
"oatmeal."
"don't forget the champagne."
"then i may really try and eat the oatmeal."
"no, no, don't eat it...now, what do you do when your car breaks down?"
"smack my hand on the steering wheel and curse."
"well, besides that."
"walk."
"no, no. you just leave it where it breaks down?"
"no. i get it fixed."
"exactly."
"and?"
"that's the whole philosophy of life. something's not working, you get it fixed and move on."

police reports

both my roommate and i work at bars.
we come in pretty late at night sometimes.
last night some guy followed my roommate home and tried to talk his way into our apartment.
around 5am i woke up to hear her talking loudly to someone from the top of the stairs.
this guy was claiming to be our neighbour, and needed something for a leaky water pipe that he said would leak into our apt...i don't think he realized that behind the door were stairs to the top floor, and there was nobody above us to be leaking water into our apt...nor did he realize that our only neighbour doesn't speak english.
nice try though, buddy.
standing at the top of the stairs we told him we couldn't help him and waited for him to leave. it's a frightening feeling to hear somebody waiting outside the door and wondering what they were going to do next--was he going to try and get in? or was he going to leave?
after what seemed like an eternity, i heard him going down the stairs and out the front door.
my roommate ran to the window and all she saw was a baseball cap and baggy pants walking up the sidestreet across the way.
i was definitely in fight or flight mode.
i thought for sure my heart would pop out of my chest.
scary stuff.

i heart NY

i'm going to nyc.
can't wait.
a much needed reprieve from school and exams
my head is about to explode. there's too much stuff crammed in.

i gave my first insulin injection last week. a subQ injection which means it's going in on a 45˚ angle. tricky.
it actually wasn't so bad.

tomorrow i give a heparin injection, change a colostomy appliance and suction a trach tube.
and then exams next week.
i'm exhausted.

can't wait for nyc.
last time i was there, did all the touristy stuff.
this time i plan on hittin up roosevelt island, to check out these ruins
maybe a knicks game...i don't particularly like basketball, but how fun would the $10 nosebleed seats be against the utah jazz? i'm betting pretty fun.
and tons of art to check out. never got to the whitney or the moma last time.
and i heard that the night of the living dead (the musical!) was off broadway. but i can't find it anywhere except some old listing at the greenwich theater. that would be zombifyingly fun.
i don't even care that zombifying is not a word.
it is when there are zombies involved.
in a musical, no less.

good food + good band = good night

saw a great band tonight
slow news day

ate a great meal in the annex at mt. everest
and had a wonderful fish jalfrajee. it was delicious.
had a baskin robbins ice cream on my way home from seeing slow news day

back to candy and essays.

i'm glad money's not on my brain.

today in psychology class...

you are kind of always aware of the influence that famous psychologists' theories have on popular culture...sayings like "he's so anal" wouldn't be in existence if it weren't for Freud, right?

but today i learned something new.
my psych prof said that george lucas was such a big jungian that the whole star wars trilogy is based on jung's idea of the duality of man and embracing your dark side ("luke, i am your father")

i was so intrigued that i looked it up. and although this particular reference is missing, wikipedia does have a fairly comprehensive list of jung's influence on culture...

even though i am a fairly big TOOL fan, i never really thought of aenima as being synonymous with jung's anima/animus
i've also read robertson davies, chuck palahniuk, and ursula leguin and really didn't put 2&2 together.
even northern exposure dj chris stevens made many references to jung.
who knew?

check it out here

random ttc exchange

i love transient ttc conversations.
who was that random guy?
he told me that it must be a good book i was reading because it was thick.
he told me that che wanted to be a doctor. and he thought he would have made a great doctor.
had it not been for that revolutionary stuff.
and he knows this because he's mexican.
and then mid sentence he got off the car.
just like that.

the gizzardly joys of thanksgiving

i cooked a bird.
me, the quasi-veg-head....cooked a bird that i won't even eat.
but i cook a pretty mean bird.

this post is a little late because canadiana thanksgiving was at the beginning of october.
but i was uploading some photos from my camera to the computron and i had forgotten about these photos:













so i decided to cook a bird and trimmings for 13 family members (is that a sign of age? who knows...i just love cooking for people--always have)
to make my conscience feel better, i ordered a free run, grain fed (raised just for the occassion) bird from a local mennonite farm.
this baby, we called her chantelle, was a 20 lb beast. and she still had some pin feathers stuck to her. you see, when the birds aren't massed produced by butterball™, they actually have feathers. and hefty breasts.
the night before the big day, i decided to give chantelle a salty bath.
i was reading all about how to make my bird delicious and read about brining the bird, especially an all natural, non-frozen, non-butterball bird.
so with a mixture of salt water and herbs, i double bagged chantelle and soaked her for 12 hours. unfortunately her wing tip broke a hole in both bags and the kitchen floor was cleaned with a salt water, sage and black peppercorn cleanser
thanksgiving morning i woke up like it was christmas morning...ran to the fridge to get chantelle and prep her for her spa day.
rinsed off the brine, and made my own herb butter.
ever so gently i pulled the skin from her breast and slipped my hand between the two to rub the butter in. then i put some sage leaves under the skin.
it was beautiful.
it was masochistic.
and a bizarre practice for someone who doesn't eat turkey.
but i actually didn't mind. maybe it was the biologist in me?
and it left my hands feeling supple.

so an elephant goes into a black hole...

two fascinating articles and a whole lotta dung

i have never seen so much s**t in my life. honestly.
to spare the gory details, i cared for a client yesterday--progressive ms, quadriplegia, aphasic (doesn't speak)--who had been given a suppository the night before. need i say more?
made me wonder if this is what i got into nursing for.
the RN said "this is nothing".
good lord.

what interested me this week was the idea that you can't have everything.
where dung beetles get compensated, in terms of growth (in this case big horns), other parts suffer (in this case, testicles):

horniest male beetles have tiniest testicles

and this is just sounds like oodles of fun:

working invisibility cloak created at last

cauliflower and avocado

after leaving my pathophysiology class on wednesdays, my brain is starving. plus it's well after lunch time.
today i stopped at my favourite falafel place on the way home, an egyptian eatery on the danforth called the prince of egypt. although similar to lebanese cuisine, they make their falafels with lima beans instead of chick peas. they are the best! and cheap, cheap, cheap.
today i stopped in and was trying to decide on something different. the young guy who runs the place with his father suggested i try his favourite breakfast wrap: battered cauliflower with avocado. sure, why not?
although his father gave me a weird look of inquiry when he relayed the order, i went ahead with it.
while i was waiting, i had a wonderful talk with the son.
right now, muslims are in the midst of ramadan.
adam was telling me how it was hard being in the restaurant business when fasting because he's serving food all the time, smelling the food, and talking with customers, which makes his mouth very dry and parched.
but he really believes in god, and believes that fasting is a very humbling experience. through fasting, muslims can feel the effects of starvation and feel the effects of poverty.
in the many years he has fasted during ramadan, he has never once broken his fast. i found this so impressive because he's a young guy and only human. i can't imagine how hard it would be to refrain from food, drink, tobacco, and unpure thoughts from dawn until sundown.
many hours are spent reading the qur'an and reaffirming your faith in islam.
it was a wonderful conversation and i learned so much.
i was so intrigued i even forgot my wallet, which i didn't realize until a half hour later, when i was trying to purchase some fruit at the market.
i ran back, and as soon as i opened the door, adam smiled and extracted my wallet from his back pocket, while his dad and his friend made jokes that it had taken me so long to come back they had used my amex to make calls to egypt.
and you know, even when i realized my wallet was missing and i remembered how much cash i had in there (i'm a server...i always have cash on me), i wasn't even concerned about it. i knew it was in good and honest hands.
and it was.
and that cauliflower and avocado pita was damn good.

i don't know anything

many people believe wisdom comes with age.

Meacham (a psychologist) believes that wisdom is characteristic of young people because they have more of an open mind; older people know too much and are too stuck in their ways
he thinks that when you can admit that you don't know anything, is when you have attained a certain wisdom, and that this is a completely young perspective...fresh, new thinking.

Eastern thoughts think that knowing you don't know anything does pertain to wisdom, but this transpersonal wisdom can only happen with age. it is only when you are older can you transcend your ego and see the "big picture". this is enlightenment.

i guess it depends how you define wisdom.

(*photo: my friend beebs, transcending his ego and attracting leeches at a hidden waterfall on manitoulin island)

conservatives and counterculture

after a lengthy pause from a great book, The Rebel Sell: why the culture can't be jammed, i've picked it up again for my long subway ride to and from my clinical placement.
just as i'm reading about the difference between dissent and deviance and what's acceptable in public by society's standards, a girl gets on the streetcar, headphones on, singing at the top of her lungs.
which was fine, except she's singing rap lyrics...which would also be fine, except instead of a rhythmic flow she's singing only the ends of sentences that are emphasized.
and emphasized by serious profanity.
it was a funny situation because aside from myself and another adult, there was nobody else on the car. but how funny would it have been if there were children? would she have stopped singing? or did she even notice she was only rapping the emphasized disses and cusses?

so back to this book...
there's this regular at the bar where i work, whom i do like, even though he's admittedly (and proudly) a conservative. he's a very intelligent guy, very sweet too, but we don't have much in common--which inevitably leads to some heated debates which are always abruptly ended.
i think he's given up trying to change my young mind about the evils of the left, and instead our conversations are now only about karate...which is fun, but getting tiresome.
it seems he's simply refused to try and get through to me. which is unfortunate, because i always enjoyed our arguments.
the other night he nonchalantly mentioned how much he likes george w. and everything he stands for.
and in my tiredness, all i could muster was "what?! warmonger." not very intelligent convo, i know. but sometimes i forget just how conservative he really is, and i am rendered speechless.
what i really wanted to say was something along the lines of this:

"...to this day, Republicans in the United States go to almost comical lengths to denounce the enemies of America as "evil." In their minds, they are striking a rhetorical blow against the counterculture, which they believe denies the reality of evil. (As usual, American politics is dominated by the compulsion to refight the battles of the '60s.) What conservatives fail to observe is that this rhetoric directly feeds the countercultural idea that they are so desperate to oppose. "We need to get tough," the conservatives claim. "We need to use force, because our enemies are evil." What they tacitly admit, thereby, is that if their enemies weren't evil, then there would be no need for the use of force. This sets things up for the argument that the enemies in question are not actually evil, they're just misunderstood. And so there is no need for coercion! Thus the conservative backlash feeds the countercultural ideas whose conclusions it tries so hard to oppose." ~ Heath & Potter, 2004, p. 74

time to rest.
my brain is chock full of g-tube feedings, colostomy bags and catheters.

In reality: this is just awesome because i now know all about what this guy discovered.

more school = less blogging

my first real day of clinical practice at toronto rehab consisted of another member of my clinical team swinging the door to the locker rooms open and smacking me in the head.
6:45 am, 15 mins before i'm due on the floor in my unit, i'm bleeding profusely, seeing stars and wondering how the hell this could have happened to me.
after freaking out my new clinical instructor with the amount of blood on my hand and saturated paper towel, i'm left with a 2" vertical laceration above my left eyebrow and a massive goose egg (not correct terminology, i know) which is every shade of blue/purple/yellow, combined.
looks lovely.
but it did initiate conversations with patients and nurses alike.
i am now known on the floor as "the girl with the big bandage above her eye". atleast i'm known on the floor, right?

my clients are a mix of lovely and interesting.
i'm drawn to 2 in particular, one being lovely, and one being interesting...and difficult.

i have a woman, whom i thought was only about my age, but discovered later is actually 41, who, as a result of cerebral palsy, has very limited movement & function, and has kyphoscoliosis (kyphosis=hunchback, scoliosis=an s-curvature of the spine).

i also helped care for a woman who has a history of drug/alcohol abuse with ODs relating to suicide attempts and withdrawal seizures but was admitted after a domestic dispute with her then common-law spouse left her with severe brain damage, resulting in left-sided hemiplegia (paralysis). when she came into rehab she had a trach tube and had staples holding the skin on her skull. she's been on a slow road to recovery, although it'll never be complete. she has learned to read and write at a about a grade 2 level. she yells at me and she likes to throw her shit on the wall.

speaking of trach tubes, i got to clean the mucus spewing out of someone's whole in their neck and see the stoma created to attach a colostomy bag. i saw intestines. amazing.
what's not so amazing is the smell from the bag.
i figure, when your waste goes through the intestines, it's reabsorbing water to dilute the concentration before it exits your anus. if you're catching the waste before it's been through the intestines, it is pure, undiluted, concentrated waste, mixed with bile and acid. it's enough to make anyone vomit.

while visions of marshmallows danced in my head

i woke myself up the other night making this noise, like "ahhhh", but in a sexual kinda way...and you know when you're so noisy in your sleep, you wake yourself up, startled?
so it seemed kinda like a sexual thing when i woke up, but in fact it was a laughing type "ahhhh", kinda like "ahhh, don't!" because i realized i had been dreaming about being pelted with marshmallows.
a fun, harmless, marshmallow fight.
not sure why, with who, or how that came to be, but it wasn't sexual.
although, i suppose it could be...if you think in that perverted sort of way.

yesterday as i mad dashed to the mall to find some new white shoes for my clinical tomorrow, i realized that in the 8 years i've lived here in the city, this is the first month that i've ever purchased a Metropass™.
it's a liberating feeling, really. not that i hadn't already started to feel like a part of the city a few years back, but now it's official: i am a Torontonian.
i like how i can just scan my way through the turnstiles. a little beep and i'm through.
no more fumbling with tickets or change.
i guess moving east means using more transit. but it also means carrying my bike down two long flights of stairs. so i guess it boils down to laziness.
dammit. my liberating Metropass™ has gone from the height of my status quo, to reaffirming the fact that i've gotten lazier. and perhaps a part of the blue collar masses that use the subway on a daily basis.
dammit.

school: week 2

Levinson did a research study in the '70s and found that peoples' lives are like seasons. all stages have their place and no one is better than another.

he said that every lifetime has 3 eras (after childhood): early adulthood, middle adulthood & late adulthood.
within each of these eras were periods and transitions. the transitions between eras were big "cross-era" transitions, lasting ~5 yrs, and a source of turmoil and confusion. the transitions between periods were small.

just before early adulthood comes a cross-era transition when you're half child/half adult (~17-22 yrs) where you're trying to gain independence.

as you enter early adulthood there's a calm period, the novice period (~22-28 yrs) where you develop dreams and have mentors. then there's a small transition (~28-33 yrs) where you question if you're heading in the right direction, which is followed by another calm period he called "calmination".

before you enter the second era of middle adulthood, there's another cross-era transition which causes the mid-life crisis (~40-45 yrs).

this pattern continues into late adulthood, where there are periods of self-reflection and coming to terms with dying.

alhtough this is just one man's theory and has many criticisms, as do many theories, i can honestly say that i've been through the first periods of early adulthood. i had that novice period, where i formed my dreams, and then the small transition where i questioned whether i was headed in the right direction. and i answered it. and did something about it.

if this psychologist is on the right track, i am still in that small transition, and just as i graduate, i'll be headed into my period of calmination.

interesting.

Music to my ears: tool - lateralus

In reality: Neanderthals and humans lived side by side

trying to focus when everything is new

back to school. and orientation always just serves to disorient me.
i'm overwhelmed and having trouble focusing.
getting distracted and not getting back to reality in a reasonable hour.
summer is over but the feeling won't stick.
new place, new people, new toys.
a desk with an uncomfortable chair.

==
my placement is at toronto rehab this year. could be cool.

Food for thought: still reading Into Thin Air (which is fantastic, by the way) but now i'm also reading Adult Development and Aging, Canadian Essentials of Nursing Research, Pharmacology and the Nursing Process and Medical-Surgical Nursing in Canada. ahhhh.

In reality: i can't believe that in the UK you could get away with taking someone's DNA and getting it tested without their knowledge...until now.

a brief descent into the land of poutine & pepsi (and apparently hotdogs)

i love montreal.
i've decided. and it only took the 2 hours we spent there to come to that decision.
i don't care if there is only pepsi.
the real cheese curds on the poutine make up for that.
and i don't care if the waitress snickers while you try to order in your broken and basic conversational french, but refuses to speak english even though she can.
sometimes there's no other way to learn than to be laughed at.
i love the houses and the low-rises and the lack of high-rise condo complexes.
it's all very european. and, like europe, smartly designed.

somewhere between hwys 20 est & 720 sud-est (which is essentially the same road, save for some merging in the tunnel) bob says:
"the bridges here are crazy. look at that! it's so bladerunner."
later, over a pint of rickard's at a pub nearby the station centre-ville, waiting for the overnight bus to take us back to t.o., we both decided to live in montreal for a while, sometime in the future.

food for thought: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
(found a copy in a used bookshop in kingston, on the way to quebec. having already read Into the Wild--actually, devoured in one night--i was happy Bob pointed this one out to me. it's based on his deadly adventure to the summit of Everest as a journalist for Outside mag...here's the original story: http://outside.away.com/outside/destinations/199609/199609_into_thin_air_1.html
it's already addicting...i guess since school starts again tomorrow i'll just have to finish it today...before working at 5...heh)

**sidenote to Bob: you're mildly suspicious (but i hope still trusting) at the secrecy of my online adventures. but just so you know, this is it. there is no rich old man from tallahassee on the other end, begging me to come bear his children. nope. the secrets lie in this. something i said i'd never do: have a blog. and i never made it completely public. but i never lied about it either...well, not really. and truth be told, i KNOW you're the only one who reads it, even though you pretend it doesn't exist. you can find just about anything by googling it. it's amazing, n'est pas?

the late great Bill Hicks

to add to yesterday's post, a quote from one of my heroes, Mr. Bill Hicks:

"i don't care what you believe but you gotta admit: beliefs are odd...a lot of christians wear crosses around their necks. you think when jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross? that's like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on..."

a chance for redemption

a Mormon stopped me on the street the other day.
"do you believe in God?" he asked.
"i think so." i replied. "but as a different manifestation than you, i'd imagine."
(he was a young chap, and i don't think he was expecting me to actually talk to him, let alone possibly believe in a higher being.)
"do you believe in Jesus as the Messiah?" he wanted to know.
"i'm not sure about that one. i believe Jesus was a great prophet, a wonderful storyteller, but i'm not sure if i even think there needs to be a messiah."
"but don't you want to get into heaven?"
"we may already be in heaven."
"or it may be hell."
"either way, it's what you make it. why bother living for that future of what happens when you die? you can be a good christian and have faith while living today."

truth be told, i absolutely love talking to any religious type folk. my beliefs change on a daily basis. i refuse to be an agnostic or an atheist, because i think it's a bit of a cop out.
some days i believe in a god, other days i don't. i'd say most days i'm just concerned with getting through the day while enjoying it, and i wish i could have that persistent faith that keeps christians going each day. there is a beauty in it, for sure.

just then the streetcar came and my young Mormon friend had to run.
"dang!" he said. (seriously)
"here, please go to the website if you want to be saved."
he handed me a card, with a photo of the massive temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. the original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. a beautiful night time shot. a gorgeous building. a nice place to worship, i'm sure.
i use it as a bookmark.

the ant that bit my poon

in our kayaks at bon echo, we stopped for a swim.
sitting on a rock in the sun to dry off i noticed a big carpenter ant with a red bum in bob's shoe. i said "there's a big ant in your shoe" and shook it out.
next thing i know, i'm standing up and holy crap, ow! i'm getting bitten on the right lip of my heynaninani (as cash money likes to refer to it)...it felt like a horse fly bite, so i went down to shoo it away, all the while yelling "you little bastard, that hurt" and what do i find, but a big ol' ant in my bikini bottom. and apparently an angry one.
i must have pissed him off throwing him out of bob's shandal.
yuck. i think that's worse than a horse fly. i think i thought that right away because i nearly fell off the rock.

hippo kisses

have you ever seen hippos kiss? it is quite bizarre, with those massive mouths.
this photo doesn't really do it justice...to witness this in person is quite something.
i did feel a tad embarrassed to be watching at first, maybe a little weird, but they didn't seem to mind the crowd.

a change in space as we know it: plutons or planemos

this is incredible
so, without wanting to get rid of poor Pluto, who barely fits the definition of a planet, we're just going to let more rocks into the planet club. and now Pluto has a partner, Charon. it's a double planet. a super planet.
they're even letting asteroids in.
the fact that there is even a planet definition committee is just amazing. a committee to decipher the definition of a planet, in order to be selective about what constitutes entry into our solar system.
talk about confusing the minds of our future young scientists. it's like philosophy of the milky way.
"is it a planet or is it not a planet?" "and what makes up a planet?"
although a name like 2003UB313 (aka Xena) is sure to spark the flames of memory during exams, much more than, say, Neptune. i think so, anyways.

Food for thought: The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders (speaking of planets, this story about the residents of Inner and Outer Horner is hilarious)
Music to my ears: The Arcade Fire (particularly the song Neighbourhood #2 (Laika) from Funeral)

travel notes: the day we go home

sunday morning on the way to the Chi-Cheemaun

before we got on the ferry this morning, we went to Carol & Earl's for breakfast but the gas station across the way where the ATM was wasn't open yet and they didn't take credit/debit so...heads hung in defeat we walked back to camp, thinking we'd pack up, wait for the ATM to open and hope we'd have enough time before the ferry left to go back for breakfast.
well, a man and his wife saw us and came over to the camp to give us money...we politely declined, stating we had money, just not on us. but he insisted we take $25 anyway and gave us his address to send the money back to him.
sometimes all it takes is one gesture to restore my faith in humanity.
so we got to go and fill our bellies while listening to Earl talk to us about Lennox Lewis and some WWF dude he knows. what a character.

travel notes: day 7

saturday july 8th: the end. we made it.

so it's done. wow. we did it. i did it. unbelievable.
i worked so hard i got to eat all of my favourite foods: pies, fish & chips (local whitefish!), cookies, date squares, pb & bagels, tons of oatmeal and dried fruit...and plenty of red wine.
we earned it...although i don't think i'm going home much lighter.

this morning as we left Providence Bay, i actually left a book for someone. for the girl biking with her dad and brother, who were camping across the way from us.
i left her Strange Heaven (the book by Lynn Coady that i finished a couple of nights ago).
i left it with an inscription about being the girl travelling with two boys and how that can be so fun but sometimes some alone time with a book is a good thing. there was definitely a connection in that aspect. and for some reason, i can always pick out a reader.

went into Mindemoya this morning to find Ted from Gypsy Family Farm at market. talked to him for quite a bit--interesting dude--but he was out of peas and fruit. so we bought some baby rainbow swiss chard for dinner and some peas off of another woman who runs an organic farm in Little Current. her peas weren't as sweet as Ted's though.

i bought a necklace off of some little entrepeneur kids--it's lovely. and we saw the soap lady again. then we had some hawberry ice cream from Farquhar's Dairy. so tasty! wish i could bring some of that home. which reminds me, i should pick up some more hawberry jelly for mum & Sue.

went into another old abandoned house again today (they're everywhere!). got to explore for a while.

also went to Michael's Bay to have lunch and try to find an old lumber mill ghost town. couldn't find it--but we found some people to ask. they pointed us in the right direction, but we found a wonderful waterfall instead. played in the water for a long time--got mini leeches on our feet.


finally started the trek back to South Baymouth. bought an onion, tomato and can of red kidney beans and cooked them up with the swiss chard and peas and some chili powder. mopped it all up with some pumpernickel. awesome camp fare considering we are at ghetto camp tonight, pitching a tent in a picnic area. we each paid an old hag in a trailer 5 bucks to sleep on the grassy area. but we're right across from Carol & Earl's Restaurant (who we hear have the best breakfast) and just down the street from the ferry.

tomorrow we go home. what an adventure.

day 7 stats
28˚ & sunny
total riding time: 4 hrs 19.5 mins
total distance: 64 km (avg: 14.8 km/hr)
max speed: 53 km/hr