i’ve been officially sanctioned by my departmental manager to sabotage the office of our returning supervisor (yes, the one who left two months ago — causing me to cry like a baby). the instruction was to do anything which would “take a long time to clean up”.
so… this is where i entreat you, my faithful readers, to help me exact our revenge. i’m thinking vaseline on the door handles, shredded paper in the drawers, dozens of balloons all over the floor.
what would you do if you could do anything to someone’s office… without getting in trouble for it?
oy.
last week? last week was rough.
between still being beleaguered by the horrible, horrible plague i think i got from all that French kiss-kissing i did at a show opening, the utter lack of quality sleep, the screaming from my neighbour’s apartment, work taking my soul out back and kicking the shit out of it and stealing its milk money by the time Friday rolled around, i was completely out of sorts.
i was so anxious about rising gasoline prices, the rice rationing in American Costco’s and the utter inability to hear anything but bad news about the planet and its inhabitants that there was nothing for me to do but become overwhelmed and curl up in a ball and whimper.
to top it all off, i missed getting my polaroid photos in the ‘roid week pool on flickr by 5 hours because i was too upset to figure out that re-hooking up my scanner wasn’t any big deal at all. le sigh.
Christopher braved my ridiculous moodiness long enough to watch some tv and eat utterly horrible pizza and then leave me to hopefully get some sound slumber.
Saturday morning, sometime around 8 o’clock, the screaming from across the hall started again. this time, it was beyond anything i’d heard before. it was shrill and manic. as i was trying to figure out if i should call 911 or just the non-emergency police phone number, i heard a knock at their door and my upstairs neighbour asking if everyone was all right. about fifteen minutes later, more knocking, this time followed by very officious voices asking what was going on. boy… that sure was a great way to start my day!
luckily, i put the rest of it to good use getting my space all cleaned, tidied and sorted. laundry was done and there was even a little tv-watching. a super-hot shower followed by an afternoon out in Kerrisdale with Christopher and the best sushi in the world and i was right as rain by Saturday evening which was perfect timing because i had plans to head downtown to have drinks with people from high school i hadn’t seen in 8 to 18 years.
the micro-reunion (it was too small to even be called mini) was nice, but as everyone else there has been in a lot more contact with each other in the intervening years, i felt just like i did in school: friendly, but not really connected to anyone. i kept feeling like they all knew so much more about each other’s lives while i was just kind of… there. i’m glad i went, but i think i had expectations of a greater feeling of shared history, especially with two of the attendees. unfortunately, it just wasn’t there. i’m not quite upset about that, but it does leave me feeling a little like a small piece of my personal history has faded away.
ugh. i just realized that i hadn’t seen the majority of those individuals when i was HALF my current age. wow. now that’ll make you feel old. sheesh.
anyway, i’ve got to go visit Mr. Physio to pick up my prescription orthotics. i’m hoping they’re going to be the miracle cure for all my aches and pains. once i get them, then i can start looking for new sport shoes. i have it in my head that Nike Free 5.0’s are what, in combination with the orthotics, are going to make me walk and run and work out like a whole new person. heh. i’m such a sucker.
since buying my 1991 Volkswagen Golf, i believe it’s been in the shop, on average, every six or seven weeks. let’s run down the list of things which have required service/repair/replacement since i bought it in August:
– pre-purchase inspection (duh)
– post-purchase major tune-up (including new front brakes)
– front passenger window stopped working (needs new regulator – to be replaced next month, finally)
– rear passenger window replacement (remember when it exploded at the car wash?)
– noxious fumes entering cabin (oil cap was left off after oil change, but i thought it was the exhaust system)
– scary moaning noises when running fan and windshield wipers on high during major downpours
– ran out of gas on way to work (yay for BCAA)
– windshield replacement
– engine vacuum — to address power problem
– leaky rear wheel cylinder replacement
– fuel filter replacement — to address power problem
– headlight bulb burned out
– coolant leak due to coolant hose rubbing through spark plug wires — the cause of power problem, who knew?
– accelerator pedal started sticking when accelerating (throttle cable was rusted through)
– slow leak in rear tire (to be fixed next month)
don’t get me wrong, i really like my new-to-me car. it’s definitely a step up from the Geo, but sweetness and light, i certainly hope i can get through the summer with only the most basic of routine service visits to my mechanic (although, i’m not hopeful as i think the master cylinder might be on its way out and it’s due for a new timing belt fairly soon). it’s getting to be a joke about how much time i’ve been spending there lately.
well, either that or i need to dump Christopher for a VW specialist. just kidding, honey!
p.s. there’s major construction going on at work and i think the constant vibrating of the building might just make me go insane.
just in time for me to start my first mini-vacation of the year, i’ve been stricken with a vicious illness. i’m not sure if it’s a cold or a flu, but i do know it comes with hot and cold running sweats, hacking, headaches, fever, exhaustion and insomnia. i thought i was feeling better today, but my weekly forty-five minute session at the physiotherapist rendered me spent and dripping with sweat. if i hadn’t been so tired, i would have been utterly embarrassed.
so, yeah. i’m sick and on vacation. how lucky am i?
first, it was the plunger & lubricant.
next, it was “the most painful exercise i have”.
last night, it was 13 needles inserted into my lower limbs.
if my physiotherapist wasn’t so cute (and it wasn’t working), i probably wouldn’t have put up with so much from him.
i heart sunshine.
maybe it’s an april fool’s day joke, but there’s no pain in my lower body today. after several months of various knee, foot and back aches, this ability to walk around pain-free is making me wary.
the feeling of impending suckitude is compounded by the non-problematic running of my car since the latest visit to the shop last thursday. i discovered a coolant leak right where a hose had RUBBED THROUGH two spark plug wires. yes, there was coolant soaking bare wires. last time i checked, water and electricity didn’t go together. a quick (and expensive) replacement and there have been no power problems all weekend — and i did a fair bit of driving around town. i keep touching wood or crossing my fingers, just in case.
i don’t want to get my hopes up.
lucky girl that i am, i was treated to an hour long full-body massage yesterday. sweetness and light, that was fantastic. after all the aforementioned aches and the week i couldn’t turn my head to the right, massage was exactly what i needed. seriously, what took me so long to start going?
in other news, there’s not a lot of other news. the weekend was relaxing-busy, with lots of thrift stores, an ice pellet storm, a family gathering, Portobello West, the single best CFC workout since we started them and a trip to get our last feed of Wally’s Burgers before they closed down yesterday.
the appearance of sunshine on sunday was quite the tonic for my soul. walking around Vanier Park taking photos of cherry blossoms and friendly ducks was exactly what i needed after the last couple weeks of wintery weather. now, i just hope it sticks!
oh, hey! how’s it going? wow, time surely flies, don’t it? can you believe march is almost over? seriously, easter is this weekend and spring is mere hours from being sprung (according to the equinox, that is).
so, yeah. stuff.
let’s see… catching up.
i had an odd, yet very pleasant, interaction at a birthday party with a long-time reader of this very website. i knew of him, through comments and our mutual friend, but we’d not once met in person. it was an interesting flash of insight as to how it must feel to be a celebrity. not that i’m a celebrity, by any means, just that when you first meet someone they already know all this stuff about you. in conversation, you mention “this guy so-and-so” and they reply with “oh, yeah! he’s a central storyline!”… it’s a little weird. that being said, i’m glad to have finally met him. hi, dave! ;)
what else? um…
i’ve been going to the physiotherapist for the last couple of weeks to rehabilitate my injured knee. that’s been fun. no, really! i’m almost inspired to start a new blog entitled “Tales from the Physiotherapist” because every time i go, there seems to be one stand out comment or situation which practically begs to be blogged. like monday, when he came at me with a bottle of gel, a plunger and told me not to be nervous. i couldn’t make this shit up if i wanted to!
knitting has slowed down considerably, but i’m still obsessed with wrist warmers. now that i’ve learned a couple new tricks and found some ridiculously yummy wool (so cheap! at wal-mart!), i’m trying to knit unblemished pairs now. there’s just something awesome about using five double-pointed needle at the same time. to quote the lovely mindy: it’s danger craft!
i got the chance to borrow a co-worker’s SB-600 speedlight flash for a weekend. while i still want one, the time with it mostly served to remind me that it’s not just fancy gear which makes for awesome photos. *sigh* i’m not so much with the awesome photo-making these days. i’m blaming the winter. soon, there will be more outside time. especially once my knee, other knee and feet are feeling better.
filed my taxes, got my return, spent the money.
liselotte has been acting weird and making scary noises. she goes in for a fuel filter replacement tomorrow. i hope it’s a cheap and easy solution to a troubling problem. cross your fingers for me!
my photo didn’t sell, but my boyfriend’s did! the whole exhibition experience was nerve-wracking and weird. i’ll probably sumbit again, but just not go to the opening night schmooze fest. that was exhausting. hated it.
i guess that’s it.
oh, my boss quit. friday was his last day. i was so distraught by the end of the day that when he came into my office to finally say goodbye, i couldn’t say a word. i just barely managed to hug him while trying not to sob hysterically. he… yeah. he was a great boss and a great guy and i’m not the only person who will miss him immensely both now and far into the future. it sucked. a lot.
tomorrow’s a half-day, then i’m hopping on the ferry to go spend easter weekend with the maternal unit (hi mom!) and our adopted family member, karen. i forsee: shopping, eating, tv, laughter, sarcasm and hugs. it’ll be just what the doctor ordered.
so, yeah. you’re fully updated on the rich and full life of me. are you sated? i’m feeling a little spent, myself. that was a lot of words for someone who doesn’t type much anymore. go chomp the ears off some chocolate bunnies for me and i’ll try to put more characters on your screen a little more often. ‘kay?
applebee’s is evil. someone remind me to never go there again, please.
big opening night tonight. not quite excited, definitely starting to get nervous, though.
sometimes, i just get tired of sharing the planet with other people.
i love my massage therapist.
that is all.
standing in the gallery, just about to hand over my framed photo for the exhibition, there is a loud and gut-wrenching *CRASH* as it falls to the concrete floor.
oops.
earlier this week i attempted to post something via imified, but it kept erroring out. i never found out if it was a problem with their stuff or my stuff, but it was annoying, so forgot to post it when i got home that night. then, i thought about posting it today, but upon reading it, i realized it was woefully out of date — scary that three days can have such an impact.
one of the items in the post was me talking about how i’d reached a dangerous part of my CFC journey. i had started to feel really good physically. i’d dropped a few pounds, but mostly i was experiencing a re-connection with the strength my body hasn’t felt in many years… and i was enjoying it. that part of my fitness experiences is dangerous because it’s when i tend to stop trying to progress. why bother when i already feel results? isn’t that enough?
the very same day i wanted to tell you about the potential motivational hurdle, i encountered a very different obstacle in my journey: knee injury.
i’d done my very sweaty thirty minutes on the elliptical. i’d stretched out. i’d done my upper body free weights. i was on the floor working my core when a mis-placed foot during a bridge pose caused too much torque on my left knee and SNAP! i was injured.
as soon as i felt that snap i knew what had occurred. it’d happened to me 11 years ago on a plane to Boston for Heather’s wedding. i couldn’t extend or bend my knee fully and any lateral movement was quite unstable. i was beyond upset.
i hobbled home, applied ice and took some naproxen for the swelling and went to bed. i kept waking up in the middle of the night as i rolled over, fearful of twisting something more out of place. silly me, i went to work the next day. silly, because the elevator doesn’t go to the floor my office is on, access is only by stairs. silly, because my work involves a lot of different locations and ambulation is fairly mandatory. i smartened up enough to call the doctor and make an appointment for that afternoon. i wanted to get any treatment needed underway as soon as possible. i had CFC to get back to!
the doctor pushed up my pant legs, poked, pulled, yanked and wiggled my leg for a few minutes all the while looking up at me waiting for me to wince or cry out in pain. the lack thereof was determined to be a very good sign. the diagnosis: twisted tendons, resulting in inflammation. the treatment: more anti-inflammatories and ice packs. the prognosis: full range of motion will return, give it 10 days.
the latter was the most important news. i was so happy to hear it.
i’ve spent the last two days at home, avoiding all those work stairs and required hobbling. my boyfriend has been incredibly sweet and attentive, quite overprotective and adorable, actually. range of motion has improved 50% already and i hope i won’t limp too much when i go to drop off my photo for the gallery show this afternoon.
slow and steady will have to be my mantra when i return to CFC. proper form, don’t exceed my body’s limitations, take it easy or i won’t be able to do anything at all.
while this could have been a Very Bad Thing, i believe it’s actually a Very Good Lesson. i just have to remember it in a month when i’m feeling cocky and strong again. over-confidence is the mother of all disasters.
i’ve had a photo accepted to be part of this group exhibition at a downtown gallery. i can’t express to you the intense combination of excitement and disbelief i’m experiencing.
if you’re local, i certainly hope you’ll be able to come to the opening on the 29th. if not, do take some time to visit the show on a quieter day. it should be lovely.
back in November, which is like three lifetimes ago to someone who can barely remember what she had for lunch, Darren the world-traveler put out the call for bloggers who were interested in taking a Brother laser printer for a test drive. being a blogger and someone who hasn’t had a printer of her own in over ten years, i jumped at the chance to support deforestation.
a few weeks later, UPS left one of those annoying sticky notes on the front door of my apartment building. after four phone calls and three more days of sticky notes, i had taken delivery of a very large (and very heavy) box containing the Brother HL-4050CDN Colour Laser Printer. did you know that a colour laser printer just barely fits in the back door of a 1991 Volkswagen Golf? neither did i, but i sure was glad considering i hadn’t yet removed the baby seat bar thing in the hatchback, so there was no way to get it home that way.
after squeezing it in and out of the car and then hoofing it up the Very Steep Stairs, my boyfriend and i went about the task of unpacking and setting up. my first impression was that it was much larger than i had expected. the dimensions of the box had me a little worried, but i lucked out and the unit fit almost perfectly in it’s designated spot in my “office”.
unlike the hype Darren advertised, the printer did not quite come with everything i needed for a two month trial. the major lack was any kind of printer cable. i was panicking, especially considering my printerless status of the past ten years. luckily, even without a spare parallel or USB cable, the printer supports connection via network cable (which i happened to have plenty of).
setting up the machine was a yummy piece of cake. the poster-sized getting started guide was easy to interpret and all components in the box were well-labeled. the biggest obstacle was our own inability to get the front door of the printer open. that sucker ain’t going nowhere without a lot of kinetic force, let me tell you! once we accomplished that task, i was quite impressed with the slide out toner tray into which you put each of the four cartridges. everything is colour-coded and easy enough for my mom to assemble on her own. after the physical pieces were put together, it was time to stick the CD in my computer. there were absolutely zero hiccoughs in installing the drivers and getting the Brother set up as my new default printer using Windows XP Pro. no more than 3 minutes later, i was all set to start printing… except i had no paper!
the next day, after procuring some dead trees, i was all set to print to my heart’s delight; and i did. recipes, knitting patterns, New York Times articles, there was more printing going on than at Gutenberg’s! double-sided, landscape, colour, black & white… you name it, i printed it in that first week.
then i got my electricity bill, which had a 600% spike in energy usage for the month of November and i immediately blamed the fancy new printer, unplugged it and stopped using it for well over a month. two utility bills later, there was a large credit to my account, so i’ve forgiven the printer and plugged it back in again.
it’s relatively fast to warm up, printing is fast and hassle-free, yet all is not perfect. one of the reasons i was looking forward to the test-drive was to utilize it to jump start my button-making empire. i’ve tried on several occasions, but i could never get the colour profile right. i can send digital images to photo labs both down the street and across the planet, but i couldn’t for the life of me get the printer at my elbow to render colours correctly. i don’t know if it’s my inexperience with colour profiling or a lack in the printer drivers, but i gave up my quest for photo-quality colour reproduction very early in the experiment. and it made me sad.
in my inexpert opinion, the Brother HL-4050CDN would be a fantastic printer for a small or home office, or maybe a student who tends towards the verbose in their essays. it’s definitely not for someone such as myself who has happily survived an entire decade without one and mostly wants to print photo-quality colour images.
update: unbeknownst to me, during the review period Brother decided that the reviewers could keep the printers after they’d written their reviews. thanks, Brother!
– i’m not hobbling nearly so badly *crosses fingers*
– think i’ve caught the plague i’d deftly avoided so far
– visited with friendly neighbour cat this morning in the snow
– really have to get a fuzzy rug for the livingroom
– spending far too much time looking at yummy knitting patterns
well, that didn’t take long at all.
i was feeling a lot better with my crazy, sweaty cardio workouts where i turned a lovely shade of purple and was panting like a sheepdog in the sahara. i was accomplishing more reps with weights and getting a little stretchier each day.
now i’m limping.
yeah, sometime between the elliptical and the bike last night, something snapped in my left heel and i’m hobbled like james caan. bleh. i really hoped that a good night’s sleep would find me prancing around my apartment this morning, but it wasn’t to be. i’m gimpy spice for the time being and it sucks!
i don’t know what i’m going to do for cardio tomorrow night. i hate hate hate the bike and we have plans afterwards, so i’m not going to swim and get all wet and chlorine-y. this is the suck.
anybody have a left foot i can borrow three nights a week?
hopefully, you’ll be able to see this. if not, it means imified isn’t as good as i hoped it would be.
anyway, i’m beyond grateful i only have to work until 11:30 today and my departure is immediately followed by pho and a little bit of shopping (even if it is for safety footwear for work).
after that… i think i’ll go fall down and pass out for a while. celebrity fit club kicked my ass last night. it was probably made worse because i skipped tuesday due to snow/commuting issues. ugh. my ass, my thighs, my knees… the pain!!
meh, it’s not so bad. it’s a good hurt, right?
[huh… i was using imified.com to post this and there really was content to be in this space. here, i’ll add it now. sorry for any confusion!]
due to overnight snow accumulations from 3-10 inches depending on where in the GVRD (i refuse to use that new name for the region), i had to take transit into work this morning.
i have no idea how people commute this way every day. yes, it was nice not to have to white-knuckle it down the hills, across the bridge and up more hills, but geez… at least i had THE nicest bus driver ever and ran into some of my favourite co-workers along the way.
too bad my hands were full with bags and brollies so i had no way to carry down something hot and sweet from Starbucks. instead, i’m treating myself to a cup of actual coffee. on a work day. i may pass out from the excitement.
have a good day, even if it snowy!
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