Author Archives: Heather

Yesterday afternoon, while driving home from work, I was tuned into The World Today as I am often wont to do. During the four o’clock news, there was a woefully short blurb about a seventy-one year old, wheelchair-bound man who was left in a HandyDart van overnight on Christmas Eve.
Sitting in my car, waiting for the light at Kingsway & Griffiths to turn green, I was completely overcome with emotion. I very nearly had to pull off the road to regain my composure enough to continue my commute.
I know most people won’t understand the depth of my reaction to this story, especially at a time when there are tens of thousands of lost lives half a world away. I find the plight of this elderly gentleman so heart-wrenching because it wasn’t an unexpected, unpredictable, uncontrollable act of nature which caused his suffering; it was due to someone rushing home on Christmas Eve, not giving so much as a second glance into the back of his vehicle just make sure it was empty. Neglect and lack of conscience caused this poor man to suffer on the one night of the year when everyone, EVERYONE, should have a warm, loving place to be.
While I recognize that news is business and time is precious, I had hoped to find some more information as to the victim’s location in order to, at the very least, send him a note or card to try to express to him my sincere regret that such a horrible, negligent, heart-breaking thing could happen to him. Unfortunately, at the time I write this, there is no mention of this story on the CKNW website which I can find.
I don’t know if you’re the right people to ask, but since I heard the story during your show, I’m taking the chance. Can you help me find out where I might send a card to the gentleman in the piece? I thank you for any information or direction you could provide.
I’m very fond of your show,
Heather L.
North Vancouver
(if i had date stamps on my entries, you’d see it’s 2:55 am right now.)
update:
thanks to shelagh and google news, i found many links to the story and superpages‘ search actually worked well enough this time for me to find both mr. halland’s nursing home address and his wife’s as well. i will be sending them both cards before the weekend is over. i’m still not sure if i’m going to send a letter to the town, which operates the shuttle, or the nursing home, for not noticing the gentleman hadn’t returned before bedtime.

holidays are exhausting! thankfully, it’s a short week and there’s another long weekend coming up. those three days will be much quieter than the three previous. it may be a short week, but it’s going to be hella busy at work. ugh.
for some reason, my friends and family decided that it was the year to spoil me. i feel wholly unworthy, but totally grateful for all the bounty i received under the various holiday trees i visited.
unfortunately, i’m still kind of sick with the nose-blowing and coughing and such. i’m definitely on the mend, but nowhere near 100%. it’s been over a week, already. why am i not better yet? i guess i need to go buy some orange juice on the way home tonight and load up on the vitamin C.

well, it’s that time of year again. love it or lump it, the sound of carols, the smell of cookies and the ever-present sight of MILLIONS of frenzied shoppers indicates it’s time for xmas. i made one last trip to the mall of horrors on the way home from work. i managed to leave with a bag full of liquor and a stocking for karen. a mighty successful venture, i must say. i hit the “get home to make dinner” lull, i think. no lines at any cashiers and a parking spot almost immediately outside the door. and to think all the news agencies were predicting mayhem. amateurs!
friday should be a short, but still busy, work day. then keb and i are off to nanaimo on the harbourlynx in the evening. i thought it would be nice if i treated us to a little aquatic luxury this time. actually, it’s really just an attempt to avoid the screaming, annoying, ferry-travelling masses. one-fifth the amount of people should serve to lessen my travel stress by at least twice that amount. then again, as i was packing up the presents i’m taking i realized i went a wee bit bazook this year. on top of the stuff i have stashed in my duffel, i have two paper shopping bags filled! oy! i don’t have enough hands! they better have luggage stowage and lots of room around the seats.
well, merry holidays to everyone who stops by my little corner of the internet. i hope this festive weekend finds you all healthy, happy and otherwise content. my love to you all! happy ho-ho! *mwah*

didn’t sleep much last night what with all the snuffling, gasping, drooling and such. i hope the dayquil kicks in pretty damn quick.

spent a pleasant enough evening back at the pub (oy, no more pub!) playing music bingo with m&m. we also exchanged gifts, although meghan wouldn’t let me open mine and didn’t want to open hers. what fun is that? well, at least i’ll have more things to open when i come home from the island.
mark LOVEDLOVEDLOVED his gift, as i was pretty sure he would. i made him open it and everyone was glad i did. i got him these very cool road rage cards (many thanks to tanya for linking them and inspiring me). at one point he held up the “YOUR MUSIC SUCKS” card to the really great lady hosting the bingo. she loved it and it started off our back and forth banter with her for the rest of the night.
just about the time i was about to head out, mr. nelson finally showed up to deliver the unexpected and undeserved gift he had for me. we spent a little time chatting before i turned into a pumpkin. he’s a sweet guy, that nelson. even if he wouldn’t give me his very spiffy camera bag or his even more spiffy zoom lens.
of course, because it’s the holidays, i’m sick. i’m seriously considering a tracheotomy so that i don’t have to suffer the pain involved with air passing through my nose and throat. i should consider investing in a humidifier now that i have a bedroom door to close. i guess i’ll put that on my list for next year.
there was this guy at the pub both saturday and last night. phil, aka rocker guy. it was pretty plain that m&m were trying a mild form of hook up with us. he seems nice enough, but i think i’m way too picky. is it so wrong to not want to settle for less than what you really want? even if what you want could be completely unattainable? is it better to be alone than to be with the wrong person?
again, my prevailing xmas wish list item is really someone to kiss at midnight on new year’s eve. one day it’ll come true. i hope.

i found a camera bag! hooray! yeah, that’s all i got.

it must have been that 1-800-flowers commercial which has been on tv a lot lately which got me thinking about the last time anyone sent me flowers. i know the exact date: july 2, 1997. oy. seven and a half years! stupid commercial making me feel unloved. bad commercial.
for the new year, i’ve decided i need to go on a liquid cleanse. i’ve been polluting myself to a disgusting degree these recent weeks. i need to rid myself of all the poisons i’ve been injesting (ie. martinis, chocolate, caffeine, etc) and start the year off on a fresh footing. anyone have any recommendations for a program to follow?
i could really use a nap.

i just meant to go out to meet m&m for dinner at the pub and then i was going to come home to do laundry and make my dish for the work potluck tomorrow. i didn’t mean to keep having kelly the bartender refresh my martini. they tasted so good. i’m pretty sure he stopped putting alcohol in around the fifth. just when i was ready to go, cam the manager asked us to go to another pub for more drinks. instead, we ended up at his place playing hear me out until 2:30. two-thirty! in the morning.
i’m off shortly to fetch my car at the pub (yes, i’m a responsible girl) then back home to do laundry and my last baking of the season. oh, and buy more tylenol. oh, my head.

mercy sent me presents! it’s quiet torture to just look at them and not rip their pretty wrapping all to pieces.
today is all about the cleaning. as i’ve been telling everyone, the dust bunnies have evolved into dust ponies and even though the apartment is almost twice as big as i’ve been used to, there’s still not enough room for me and all of them. *cue twangy western showdown music*
after the cleaning and laundry is conquered, i have a wee bit of baking to finish. use up the leftover mincemeat, make another batch of chocolava cookies, run to the store for some almonds to recreate biscotti. you know, the usual holiday madness. then, if i don’t hear from m&m about tonight, i guess i’ll settle down with hero to wrap presents and go to bed very early.
do you think it be too much to ask santa for a boy who’ll come over to watch movies, eat pizza, get just intoxicated enough to feel fuzzy and smooch with on friday nights? yeah, i thought so, too. besides, my tree is way too small for one of those to fit under.

this one’s for gill. it’s her birthday.

luckily, i was looking up at the right moment to see davin waving from inside the coffee shop one block away from the coffee shop where i thought i was supposed to meet him. oops!
it’s not really my fault. he said to meet him at the coffeeshop at the corner of 19th and lonsdale with the sign saying “organic” in papyrus font. well, the coffeeshop on 19th has a sign saying organic, but it wasn’t in the right font. i thought maybe i didn’t really know what papyrus font was, even though i was pretty damn sure i did know. of course, he meant the coffeeshop on 18th, and that organic sign is indeed in the font which i know as papyrus, but it was also small and i never would have seen it from the car so it’s a really good thing i saw him waving.
we had a really good chat, stroll and hang out at my place. even if he was sneaky and forgot his cookies.

tomorrow is a social day. my new department is having their xmas lunch and then i have an evening coffee date with a bona fide celebrity-type person. i’m hoping the rain subsides just in case there is wandering to be done.
i just got home from my dad’s house. i took him some baking and he confirmed that my percolator needs a new electrical cord to work. then we chatted for an hour and a half about this that and the other. i haven’t seen him in weeks, so it was good to catch up some. i gave him my crazyass xmas wish list. i told him i’m buying him a birthday dinner next monday. i got soaked on the walk home.

it’s only six o’clock and i’m already exhausted. i was up at seven to take the car to the shop for eight. when i got home, i watched some of my firefly dvds with the commentary on, then i baked like a madwoman: mince tarts, biscotti, chocolava cookies, oatmeal lace cookies (which are really kind of gross) and peppermint bark.
after picking up my car, $700 later, i went to get it washed and now i’m in for the night. i’m kind of upset that my dvds didn’t arrive yesterday. according to the site, i have hero, hidalgo and fahrenheit 9/11 somewhere between vhq and me. i could really have used them to watch right about now. i guess i’m stuck with catching up on season two of dead like me.
i might be tempted to do something other than sloth about, but i’m working tomorrow. whee! what fun. actually, it’s okay. going in will allow me to tackle a huge filing disaster which will make me feel much better about having off my back. and they’re going to pay me double-time to do it. mm, double-time.

mark today on your calendars! i didn’t receive a single piece of spam. not one, and only two were mailing list mail. of course, that was just to one of my accounts, but it was still nice to experience for the first time in years.
i can’t comprehend that tomorrow is friday. i don’t know where this week has gone. the days are just flying past! the workplace festivities have begun. lunches, potlucks, decorations, visiting. for the next two weeks, it’s going to be a big love-in at the big, beige box.
i’ve decided to do my holiday baking. i think buying the big, shiny mixing bowl at ikea last night made up my mind. damn that ikea.
the weekend is basically upon us, and i am planless, which is fine. i have a pretty strong desire to recreate a couple fridays past, but without the having to get up the next morning to go to work so i could continue drinking martinis and being sassy with a tall, scruffy boy. unfortunately, that was probably a one of, never again to be repeated. mm, boy.

i think i love my job. now i’m going to ikea!

work is good. that’s really all i have going on.
i may just turn this into a straight photoblog since i don’t seem to have the time, inclination or interesting things about which to write. of course, that would mean i’d have to find time to redesign. hm, i wonder if i saved that one i had in progress a few months back.
i can’t seem to get excited about any holiday baking this year. mom was disappointed to hear it, but as i told her, it took me a good three years before i felt comfy enough to bake in my last kitchen. she can’t just expect me to dive right in this year! besides, i broke my mixing bowl and i just can’t seem to find a replacement i really like. mixing bowls are very personal things, you know.
i was going to offer to send cards to readers of interest, but i know well enough that i’d never get around to sending them, so i scrapped that idea. i’m having a really hard time figuring out gifts for people, too. i’m usually pretty good, but this year… i hate to use it as an excuse, but all work and no play makes heather a very dull, uncreative, boring, slacker girl.
does whining about one’s life still constitute content?

yeah, a little more research online and misty memories have pretty much confirmed my self-diagnosis as attack of the gall bladder. i’m a little early for the fair, fat and forty disease, but it’s not really to be unexpected. i was surprised that it was triggered by a bowl of minestrone soup, though.
before i knew what it really was and kept waiting for the upchucking to start, i was too afraid to take anything for the pain, so i spent everything between 1pm and 2am in some pretty serious agony. i finally gave in and called my dad to ask him to bring me pepto or something, but he wasn’t home. i probably could have called meg, but i don’t do crying for help well, so i just went to sleep. i did a lot of sleeping. it wasn’t very restful, but it did turn my brain off to the pain for a couple hours at a time.
the only lingering effects have been my intense fear of ingesting anything thicker than water and my letting down mel by cancelling my appearance at her housewarming brunch (for which i feel like a total shmuck). not eating for a day left me woozy, which, with my overactive imagination, meant that it wasn’t just an attack of cholelithiasis, but something much more dire.
at the very least, the low blood sugar lethargy enabled me to finish watching the movies on my 52 movies in 52 weeks list. three weeks early, i’ll have you note. instead of making a list of movies to watch next year, i think i’ll just keep a list of the movies i watch. while the project enabled me to catch up on a lot of films i’d not gotten around to seeing, it was kind of annoying to feel compelled to watch movies which weren’t very interesting.
me and my headache are going to go kill time until extreme makeover: home edition is on. i do love having my heartstrings yanked on by ABC.