Quotes

"You are an investment for my heart."

-Paul, who managed to be a complete sweetheart for 75% of the weekend

"Horray horray, the first of May. Outdoor screwing starts today!"

-My Dad, via text message.

and then a miracle happened . . .

and she passed chemistry! Whoooohoooo! Didn't think that was going to happen!

Your Daddy Is Mike Tyson

What You Call Him: Daddy Dearest Why You Love Him: You don't love him, you just love calling him "daddy"

Who's Your Daddy?

she's back from the land before blog

Apologies for the delay in posting, I've been busy trying to keep my head from exploding. But the term has done, and I survived it! More importantly, I managed to get through the term without killing Paul, though I plotted ways to do go about it for at least the last 6 weeks of the term.

On my mind today? Worms! No, not the kind that you can get from biting your fingernails that make your anus itch at night (you should NEVER bite your fingernails), the red wrigglers which can be used in worm composting.



One of the things that has really bugged me about living in an apartment is the inability to compost, and on this earth day I've been searching around for ways to reduce my waste, and I've come upon the worms. What fun! You can read all about how to start your own apartment friendly worm compost system HERE. Now I just have to convince Paul we want about 1000 new roommates . . .

Also, Paul and I have agreed that we need an 'us' activity. Something we can do once a week that is not school, triathlon, work, watching tv, etc. Something we do together that isn't physically demanding (not after a 6hr training day, anyways) and doesn't have to be the same every week. So far pottery class and playing cards are the top suggestions. More suggestions welcome.

In closing, three of my close friends and my boss all lost a close family member within a 3 week span. I won't discuss the details, because it isn't my place, but I will say this; count your blessings, and tell your loved ones you love them. You never know what's around the corner.

Strange man, nice pictures

I suppose it was nearly three years ago now when I first met Brian. It was at the Squamish Triathlon, and we started chatting because we both had dalmatians. We were standing and chatting, it was at least 10 minutes before anyone expected to see a rider come off the bike, and Paul came whipping around the corner. I took off after him, yelling and cheering, snapping as many photos as possible before he zipped off for the run, and was gone. Brian came and found me again to enquire about who the heck that fast guy was, and a strange sort of friendship was born.

Brian coaches for a local triathlon club, so while he doesn't race, we bump into each other at nearly every local race. We're both support crew, and it's nice to have someone else to talk to while our athletes are off being important. It's nice to have someone who understands the role being played behind the scenes, and how important it is. And it's nice, though a little weird, that Brian feels compelled to take a picture of Paul and I at every race we are at.

And he finally sent me some. The top one is from The Tour de Gastown last summer, where Paul and I were both spectators, and Brian was there. I think it's a horrendous picture of me, but I like the picture as a whole. The one down below is more recent, from the First Half Marathon in February, where Paul placed 10th overall, and ran a personal best. I like that picture a lot. It says a lot about us as a couple, without saying anything at all.

Buddy Trant - King of the Avulsion

Poor Mr. Bubbaroo. Nearly 1 year to the date of his infamous Big Bad Birthday Walk, when an unfortunate misunderstanding with a German Sheppard left him in stitches - about 20 on the side of his rib cage, he does it again.

This time he does some spectacular damage to himself. Anyone who has ever knocked on the front door to my parents house has experienced what I like to call the 'Bark N Slam'. Upon hearing the knock, Buddy launches himself down the hallway, screeching along the hardwood floor so fast he can't stop, slams his whole body into the front door, and then continues the barking and growling. If you didn't know there was a 12 year old 65lb dalmatian behind that door, you'd think it was a 2 year old 150lb rottweiler trained to attack. Buddy has given himself some pretty nasty nosebleeds via the 'Bark N Slam', but never an injury like this.

Yesterday afternoon, a friend of my brother's knocked on the door. Buddy started hurtling himself down the hall, as per usual, and as the viewing window at the top of the door was open, Buddy could see someone out there. So not only did he launch himself at the door, he also launched himself upward. Will, my brother, said the dog was literally airborn for a few seconds, and splatted himself against the door cartoon style. Somehow, and no one has really figured out how, he did some damage to his left rear leg, tearing a triangular avulsion, and exposing tendons.

Now, normal people would bundle their dog up in the car, and take him to the vet. My family has never been normal people. My mother, as some of you already know, is a doctor. A people doctor, that is, but she seems to think that she is a doctor to all creatures at some time or another. She also seems to think that Krazy Glue and Duct Tape are all she needs to fix the dog. She also wanted to break the pet rat's neck one time, but that's a whole nother story. One time, one summer, when Buddy went into some other dog's house, and that dog told him to get the fuck out by biting him in the leg and tearing a chunk open, my mom attempted to fix the dog by first gluing the wound together* and then when the dog kept moving around and the glue wouldn't stick, she thought it would be good to wrap the tape around his middle to help hold it shut. My Dad eventually made her take the dog to the vet, and explain why he was covered in tape and glue. Furthermore, my parents being the thrifty type told the vet that a general anesthetic would not be necessary, so they simply froze the wound, held the dog down, and stitched away. He was pretty good. Last year, when I took him on the Big Bad Walk, the lady whose dog bit him drove me to a vet before my mom could get to him, so he did get properly stitched up, but again, we refused the general, and all held the dog while he got his stitches. Well that was $400 well wasted, since the skin never took, the stiches fell out and he just had a gaping wound on his side, which eventually healed into an impressive looking scar. I guess old Bud figured now that he's 12 and all, he doesn't have so much time left to impress the ladies, so better up and get some more scars. Back to the current wound . . . yes, you guessed it, Momma T fixed him up herself. Not with tape and glue this time though, she went to her office and got a proper suture kit, and some freezing, draped the kitchen table with a clean table cloth, hoisted the dog up there, and while Dad, Pamela and Will held him down, Buddy got 15 stitches.

And now he has to wear a cone.


* My mother isn't totally insane, they use krazy glue type stuff in operating rooms now.

Things I will do when I have more time

I've made a hefty decision not to take any summer classes. Furthermore, I've decided not to kill myself with contract teaching, working 16 hour days this summer. No, all I will do for the months of May - Aug is work one full time job. And probably teach the odd NLS pre/recert, or something like that, but those are quick one or two day jobbies, so I'm allowing myself that. I mean, I've been going at this pace for two years (and before I went back to school I used to do a lot more contract teaching, so I've really been going at this pace for much much longer) so it'll be a lot to get used to having all that free time in the afternoon.

Here are some things I intend to do:

-A thorough spring clean of each and every room in my apartment, which will include going through EVERYTHING and tossing stuff out.
-Steam clean my carpets, which will hopefully remove the splotches from cleaning up bike grease
-Go and purchase some additional shelving and reorganize the storage system in my living room/kitchen/dining room areas.
-Finish knitting the cabled hoodie (started a year ago)
-Finish knitting the alpaca scarf (started 18 months ago)
-Finish knitting Muchi's hat (started in Dec. His b-day was in Sept!)
-Start and finish knitting Chris Lee's hat (b-day was in Jan!)
-Knit Tatjana's hat OR go to Nanaimo for a weekend and re-teach her how to knit it.
-Finish the quilt I started BEFORE Paul and I moved in together (should be more inclined to do it now that I have an actual sewing area set up in my apartment).
-Make Dolmades, which I bought a jar of grape leaves for over a year ago.
-Make creme brulee, or SOMETHING I can use the blowtorch I got for Christmas on.
-Do something with my VSB credits. Another sewing class, or maybe cake decorating?
-Go visit Jacquie and meet her new baby (Brenna, born in Nov!)

That oughta tide me over for a while! And of course, spend time with all my neglected friends and family, dust off my social skills, and have a good ol' time. Friends welcome to participate in any of the above activities, especially the cleaning ones!

moments of clarity

Every so often, every once in a while, comes a defining moment in my life. A moment where I realize I have to do something, change something, say something . . .

I've had a few this week.

The important one, between spells of vomiting, is that I do not believe I can continue to live my life at it's current pace. I want to be happy and healthy, and I am currently neither. It does not matter how many classes other people think I should be taking, or if other people think I'm working hard enough, it only matters that I know I am challenging myself, and doing what I need to do for me. I need to find a balance. I need to find some me time. I need to find my sewing machine and my knitting needles and my blow torch (mine is for melting sugar, not glass) and I need to find my sanity, and that place in me where I feel good, and empowered, and like me again.

The other one is, it is rather important to use the finger guard included with your mandoline.

Where She Been?

I've had a few emails and other gentle nudges this week reminding me it's been a WHOLE WEEK since I updated my blog last. Shocking.

Here's where I'd like to explain why I am currently a bad friend, a bad partner, and a bad blogger;

I work full time. It's effectively a 40 hour work week, plus more some weeks, depending on the current state of chaos at the pool. Plus I go to school, which is 11 hours a week of actual in class time, and they say for every 1 hour in class, you spend on average 2 hours out. I'd say between studying, doing assignments, being with my study group or my tutor, that's pretty accurate, making school a 33 hour a week engagement. If you put the two of those together, that's a 73 hour work week, every week. Now that doesn't include travel time - it takes me 15 min to drive to work in the morning (I go a smidge faster than I should since there are no other cars on the road at that time of day), and about 25 min to drive from work to school, park far enough away that the parking is free, and walk to school. I typically eat at least 1 meal a day in my car, while driving from work to school. Another 25 min to walk back to the car, and drive home at the end of the day. So that's 65 min travel time every day, 6 days a week. That's 6.5 hours a week commuting. I try to do most of my cooking for the week on Sunday and Monday, and have everything well organized so I don't starve or become malnourished the remainder of the week. But if we average it out, I'd say it's about an hour a day, including making breakfast and lunches, which I pack with me to work, prepping dinners, baking muffins and bread for our packed meals. So that's another 7 hours a week. House work, including laundry, dishes, cleaning, probable 2 hours a week, and Paul and I have agreed we just won't freak out if the place isn't totally clean and neat until May . . . there are little piles of stuff happening all over the place . . . chem notes, clothes, triathlon gear.


So if we add that all up, that's an 88.5 hour work week BEFORE I've done anything for myself, including. I do manage to get about 7 hours of sleep a night, which I would simply DIE without, I'm so god damn tired all the time as it is, so that's 49 hours, and there are a total of 168 hours in a week, minus 88.5, minus 49, that leaves 30.5 spare hours in the week in which I'm supposed to eat, exercise, rest, relax, spend time with my partner, see my family, spend time with friends, knit, craft, have fun, and update my blog. Okay, so I'm currently updating my blog on the company dime, but perhaps now you can see WHY it doesn't happen as often as some of you would like. Or WHY I still haven't finished that sweater, or any of those hats I've promised a few of you.

Until April 18th, which I believe is the last day of my exam period, I will continue to be a bad friend, sister, daughter, partner, and blogger, and there isn't a whole heck of a lot any of you can do about it (except maybe come out for a few cocktails at the end of it all).

I told Paul the other night, through tears of fatigue and stress, sometimes all I want to hear from people is 'You know what Katie? You're doing things the hard way.'

And he said, 'You know what Babe, you're doing things the hard way. But you know what? You're doing it, and I'm so so proud of you for that.'

And that made my week okay.

A place for all that

As requested by Harmony, I have made public the recipe for Log. If you don't know what Log is, you have been missing out. If you do want to know, then you're about to find out. My blogging has been taken to the next level, as per request by my sister Emily, I've created a whole nother recipe page. And you can visit it by clicking HERE.

There is also a handy link to this new recipe page over in the sidebar in the links section. It only took me about a half an hour to figure that one out.

Playin' Hookey

A two day Spring Break? Pffft. Screw that. I need more! I've officially extended my Spring Break by one day, and what have I done? Come home, eaten chocolate, watched day time TV, eaten Popcorn, watched the olympics, eaten cake, and fallen asleep on the couch. It's been glorious. I intend to do the same tomorrow.

Wonder No More

Remember this?



There were many theories as to the identity of the driver of the pink beast, and inspite of my many stakeouts nearby the bubblegum Hummer, I never got a glance. Until now. Curious? Check THIS out.

Getting Closer

My Dad informed me today that his quest to find my blog goes on . . . and though he has yet to have any success with finding me, he has managed to find Christa's blog, and read about how great I am. See you soon, Dad.

High Risk

I had my appointment with the Hemotologist on Tuesday, and while he didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know, he gave me some further information on what I already knew. Basically, I have this inherited abnormality in the Factor V Leiden gene, which increases my likliness of clotting. Duh. He said that with my structural abnormality (extra rib), clotting abnormality, and being on the pill, I was basically a ticking time bomb. I will always be at risk, always. I will be at particular risk whenever I fly anywhere longer than 6 hours, and with any hormone change, such as pregnancy. Actually this pregnancy thing is quite serious. Here is what I've found:





Women with Factor V Leiden (FVL) have a substantially increased risk of
clotting in pregnancy (and on estrogen containing birth control pills or
hormone replacement) in the form of DVT (deep vein thrombosis, sometimes
known as "milk leg") and pulmonary embolism. They also have an increased
risk of preeclampsia, as well as miscarriage and stillbirth due to clotting
in the placenta, umbilical cord, or the fetus (fetal clotting may depend on
whether the baby has inherited the gene). Note that many, many of these
women go through one or more pregnancies with no difficulties, while others
may miscarry over and over again, and still others may develop clots within
weeks of becoming pregnant.

There may be nutritional and lifestyle reasons why some women clot and some
women don't. There is some evidence that low magnesium levels can increase
the tendency to clot (2). Likewise, high homocysteine levels may magnify
the effects of FVL or vice versa. The treatment for high homocysteine
levels is supplementation of vitamins B-6, B-12, and folic acid (3). Both
birth control pills and pregnancy demand higher intake of these nutrients,
so nutritional deficiencies in women with FVL can have extreme
consequences. Likewise, women who exercise regularly and are not immobile
for long periods of time will have better circulation and less opportunity
for clots to form. Given that the vast majority of people with FVL are
unaware of the condition, and the fact that in the U.S. it is a safe bet
that every midwife has had at least one and probably many clients with FVL,
it pays to be aware both of the nutritional issues and the symptoms of
abnormal clotting.

Women who are diagnosed with FVL are generally considered high risk in
pregnancy, particularly if they have had clotting in the past. Standard
medical practice in most cases is prophylactic treatment with low-dose Low
Molecular Weight Heparin (LMWH, usually Lovenox) for women who are not
actively clotting and therapeutic anticoagulation with LMWH for women with
active clotting.





So, further investigation will be done, since a 'slight abnormality' has shown up in another clotting factor, along with the 'significant abnormality' with the Factor V Leiden. And some family testing may be done to figure out if anyone else has inherited this condition, and where the heck it came from. Life goes on.

How Great Am I?

Well, pretty great, according to Xta. She has written an incredible tribute to me at the close of our nearly 4 year period of running the show together at the pool. You can read it here.

She's said some pretty awesome things, and the more I read them, the more they make me teary eyed.

Christa, in short, is the craftiest lady I've ever met. Not in the neat and tidy Martha Stewart-esq way in which I strive to be crafty, but in a wild and crazy 'ooooh, I can melt glass with fire!' kind of way. She has huuuuge boobs. I have tiny tits. She is the yin to my yang. We made such an awesome team, saw totally eye to eye (for the most part) on how things should be done, and earned praise from high up people in the aquatics community for shaping things up. Our boss is an IDIOT and still doesn't think he was the reason she left, and ultimately, he'll be the reason we ALL leave, but I don't think he'll ever be aware of that, so I shall plug on, keep my head down, keep going to school, and one day get the hell out of there and move onto other things too. Christa is moving on to the next phase of her life, which is the self-supporting with her arts phase, so . . .

check out her incredible glass beads at www.christagiles.com

and check our her latest passion, hooping, at www.christahoops.com

Buy a bead, take a hooping class, heck, buy a necklace to wear to a hooping class (hoops and beads and jewelry can all be shipped, ya know)

Christa made a comment in my early days at the UBC AC, that she wondered how many Head Guards she would last through. 2 I suppose, since I'm still there. Now I'm wondering how many Head Instructors I will last through, 1 so far, and the new one hasn't started yet, but I feel very uneasy about it. I am aware of a bit of a wall I already have up, and that is mainly due to anger I have at my manager about not being included in the interview process for someone who is going to be MY partner. I am doing my best to take this wall down, and be unbiased, so I can be warm and supportive of the new HI when she starts at the end of the month. I wonder how many Head Instructors I'll last through . . .

I am very sad about the end of my working relationship with Christa, but she needed to move on, and in the end, I needed her to go too. It's been great - I wouldn't be so sad about it if it had been crappy, and now we can start a new era of being 'just friends'. Wow.


And . . . Speaking of self supporting arty friends, my friend Harmony Trowbridge now has her CD 'Amoraphobe' in music stores all around, both east and west coasts. Check it out now! I have 2!

And shout out to my cousin Katherine, who reads my blog after all! Howdy Darlin!

Nerding Out = Survival

For most of last week, exhausted, weary, bummed out, generally feeling like total crap, I was pretty sure I would end up dropping a class this term. That would suck, cause I'd only have to take the same class again at a later time, much like the ill fated micro economics class of September 2004. Only, on Sunday, a miracle happened: Chemistry study group! And who formed this nerderiffic little club? I did! I did! I did! I spent Sunday afternoon sitting in the cafeteria at school with some of the other 'older' students in the class, going through chem notes, bitching about our prof, and actually absorbing the info. I went home and finished my prelab assignment and my lab write up, and actually figured stuff out on my own.

Here is what I can do:

An experiment calls for 10.0 grams of anhydrous copper(II) sulfate, but the only chemical available in the chemical supply room is copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate. How many grams of the hydrate would have to be heated to provide 10.0g of the anhydrate?

Reaction equation:

CuSO4.5H20(s) --heat--> CuSO4(s) + 5H2O(g)
hydrate anhydrate


Step 1 was figuring out that this was basically the same compound, and all I needed to do was separate the CuSO4 from the water to get the stuff I needed for the experiment. But how much? Well, to do that I need to figure out the percent composition of CuSO4 in the hydrate.

So . . .

% mass CuSO4 = 159.6096g CuSO4 / 249.686g CuSO45H2O x 100 = 63.9241%



then . . .


?g CuSO4.5H2O x 63.9241 / 100 = 10g CuSO4



and . . .

?g CuSO4.5H2O x 0.639241 /0.639241 = 10g CuSO4 /0.639241 = 15.6435g CuSO4.5H2O required



Lets double check that . . .

15.6435g CuSO4.5H2O x 63.9241g CuSO4 / 100g CuSO4.5H2O = 10g. CuSO4!!!!


Some of the cancellations may be a little unclear, but that's about me not being a computer genius, not anything to do with the chemistry.

Horrah! Chemistry study group rules! This makes me ridiculously happy, and I think I may survive the term after all!

To Skip, Or Not To Skip?

The dilemma: sit through a god awful two hour Chemistry lecture, absorb nothing, take really patchy notes, go home exhausted, make dinner, attempt to prepare for tomorrows Math quiz and do poorly on it . . . OR skim chem, go directly home from work, have over six hours to plow through three units of Math and get ready for tomorrows quiz. I hate skipping classes, and almost never do, but I'm so friggen swamped, and had such an unproductive weekend (my own fault, as a result of birthday festivities which shall remain undisclosed) that I really feel like I'm drowning. The semester is showing no signs of letting up, and I really feel that I must spend this week, and this weekend buried in the books, attempting to get ahead, and then perhaps I will feel slightly less stressed out. So, I suppose I'll skip one class, and hope I don't miss anything TOO important.

Such is life.

Computers ARE wrong!

You scored as Journalism. You are an aspiring journalist, and you should major in journalism! Like me, you are passionate about writing and expressing yourself, and you want the world to understand your beliefs through writing. Dance 83% Journalism 83% Art 75% Sociology 67% Psychology 67% Theater 67% English 58% Anthropology 50% Engineering 42% Philosophy 33% Biology 33% Mathematics 33% Linguistics 25% Chemistry 8% QuizFarm.comtable> Seriously? Journalism was the main thing I was NOT interested when I was studying writing at UVic. I guess they don't have a category for the aspiring Craft Lady of Steel. They were right about Chemistry though . . . >shudder< Thursday, January 26, 2006 Best Birthday Ever This has been the best actual birthday day I can remember in a long time. Why? Just lots of little things made my day. Got up for work, and Paul had put out a new ipod shuffle for me. Got to work, and there were various happy birthday signs up around the staff room (thanks Wednesday night staff!), a special birthday desktop on my computer (thanks Xta!), and the best birthday song ever waiting for me on my voicemail (thanks Kimmie!). The many phone calls and emails and text messages I got throughout the day were awesome, and yes Harmony, I DO think we should patent our special birthday song and overthrow the current birthday song and make millions . . . Lunch out with work folks, on to school, and many more special calls, and a message from Kimmie saying he had just finished BAKING me a special birthday treat! What fun! (I'll get it tomorrow). Home after school, and Paul went out to get me some cake (okay, pieces of cake, but we shared, and I shared the cake at lunch too, and I went for a longer than usual run today . . . hey man, it's my birthday!) and really made me feel special and wonderful and loved. In fact, I felt special and wonderful and loved all day long, which I guess is why it was the best birthday ever. Gosh! My 27th year has certainly started on the right foot. Wednesday, January 25, 2006 Abnormal According to my Vascular Surgeon, tests have shown that I have a 'slight abnormality' in Factor V Leiden which is one of the eight genetic clotting factors. This little bugger doesn't appear too serious on it's own, but in the presence of oral contraceptives (check), surgery (okay, a while ago on that area, but check), and physical abnormalities (uh, an extra rib? check) it can cause clotting (yes, I could have told you that). So what does all this mean? Well, I will have to see a Hemotologist, and then I'll know more. Tribute "It's a low-risk way to learn about investing, which is appealing to women," said Emily Trant, head of investor services for DigitalLook.com, which oversees the 12,000 ProShare investment clubs in Britain. That is my sister. Yes, the same sister who I so hastily accused of blog ruining back in December. Clearly, the blog has not been ruined, as the blog goes on, and Emily admitted to me recently that she feels a little betrayed by the blog, since she so enjoys reading it, and it snipped at her a little. So I'd like to play a little tribute to my not so little sis. There is an age difference of exactly 1 year, 3 months and 12 days between us, I being on the slightly older side, and she being on the slightly younger side, but the age difference is trivial. So trivial, indeed, I believe it caused an intense sibling rivalry which started the day she was born, and ran rampant for nearly 16 years, which was about when I moved out of the house. It rears it's ugly head every so often, but for the last 10 years or so we've gotten along reasonably well. Our mother blames herself for the trouble, and quite frankly, I blame her a little too. Her mistake, according to her, was not moving me into my 'big girl room' prior to bringing the new baby home from the hospital. Instead she brought the new baby home, put her in MY bed in MY room, and then proceeded to show me this new large place I'd be living in. I was, apparently, pretty pissed for a child of less than 16 months old, and seemingly, stayed pissed for most of my childhood and adolescence. There are many moments from our childhood, adolescence and teenage years where I did and said things which were pretty mean, and I don't think we need to revisit those moments, although Emily is pretty good at re-telling them, particularly once she's had a few cocktails. I acknowledge the fact that I could, and still can be, a pretty mean person when I want to be. The point is, having survived all those years with a horrific bitch of an older sister like me seems to have only made her stronger, and turned her into one of those annoying people (in the best possible way) who excels at absolutely EVERYTHING she does. (This is perhaps why I get so annoyed when she takes on an activity I enjoy, since I feel like I need SOMETHING that just I can be good at) So what has she done? Well . . . Played Ringette all through highschool and University, and I couldn't tell you whether she was any good at it because honestly, I never went to a game, but I know she had a butt-load of fun. Put herself through University by lifeguarding, and graduated DEBT FREE with a degree in Economics (honours?) Annoyed Olympic Swimmer Mark Johnston by being better at English than him Was a second runner up in the Miss Iberostar Barlevento contest Put a hole in the neighbour's garage by backing the trailer hitch of the van into it Moved to London (England) after graduating to get herself out of her comfort zone and got a job doing some important investment related mumbo jumbo Was so good at that they made her the head of some portion of said mumbo jumbo Took up Rowing, and despite the ugly calloused man hands, is loving it, and of course kicking ass (sculling ass?) Canoed the Bowring Lakes Did the West Coast Trail Has been traveling around countless places Lit her hair on fire at the office Christmas party the first year she was working in London I'm sure her proudest moments are yet to come, and whatever she chooses to do, she'll kick ass at it, cause that's just what she does. Don't worry Pamela, I'll do you another day. Tuesday, January 24, 2006 Let's have a free vote on the issue . . . Right. Let's have a free vote on issues, on rights we have fought and fought and fought for, people have died for, rights we are entitled to. Let's take a vote and see if all that fighting was in vein. Do you not think that ANY two people who are in love have the right to be married if they want to? Do you not think that a woman should have the right to control what happens to her body? Perhaps if you were a woman you would feel differently about this issue. Perhaps if your daughter or sister or mother were raped and as a result became pregnant you would change your mind. You know what, Mr. Harper, we're lucky you're a minority government. You are such a schmuck, you have inspired people like my partner, who at 30 had never once in his life voted before, to take the stroll over to the polling station, register, and vote against you. So it wasn't enough, it still got people motivated. How do you like that, you motivated people by being an asshole. And you know, I don't really care about this whole sponsorship scandal. I think your buddy Mr. Mulroney did far worse when he was in power, and I'm sure you woulda done the same. Mr. Harper, you've now topped the list of the 3 people I would punch in the face if given the chance. Thanks to you, Celine Dion can now sleep safe at night. Thursday, January 19, 2006 I am wearing Size 27 jeans. TWENTY-SEVEN, which incidentally is also how old I will be in exactly one week. This is the smallest pair of jeans I have ever squeezed my hiney into, and it's quite exciting. How I acquired said jeans must be blog worthy . . . Rebecca, our chock-full-of-british-attitude cashier at work is a fashion-a-holic, and also an ebay shopping whiz, and also the tryer of every fad diet to hit the market and so very skinny kinda lady, brought in a pair of jeans she had bought on ebay but turned out to be too big for her. They're Rock & Republic, a brand I'd never heard of before today, but apparently Victoria Beckham (aka Posh Spice) designed these jeans herself, and they retail for around $300, but internet savvy Becca got them for a steal of $80. Alas, the size 27 in the 'sexy fit' stretch denim was not the right fit for her, but they slid onto me like a fricken glove. Amazing. So she just handed em over, refusing any cash in exchange. I'm going to buy her a nice bottle of red wine, probably Liberty School, my favourite semi-pricey red, which is well worth each and every one of the thirty dollars. And a steal of a deal in exchange for well fitting jeans. Although I must admit, my ass hardly looks like the one in the picture. Sigh. Wednesday, January 18, 2006 chick peas If you have ever read this blog before, you will know I've been on a bit of a bean kick. Again, credit must go to Jill for inspiring this whole thing, and credit must be passed along to Isa Chandra Moskowitz the author of Vegan With a Vengance who inspired the whole bean shanadagans in the first place. Anyhoo, onto the Chick Pea, aka the Garbanzo bean, aka friggen delicious. Yummy in hummus, yummy in soup, stew, or just plain and dandy cold from a bowl. I usually toss about a half a cup or so into my spinach salad on Monday or Wednesday night for a little protein kick me up. And here's why. Chick-peas/1/2 cup cooked Calories 135 Total fat (g) 2.1 Saturated fat (g) 0.2 Monounsaturated fat (g) 0.5 Polyunsaturated fat (g) 1 Dietary fiber (g) 6.2 Protein (g) 7 Carbohydrate (g) 23 Cholesterol (mg) 0 Sodium (mg) 6 Folate (mcg) 141 Manganese (mg) 0.8 Copper (mg) 0.3 Phosphorus (mg) 138 Nutritious AND delicious. And the re-hydrated dried ones DO taste better than the canned ones. I've been eating them raw all afternoon, they sure taste more pea-y that way. Saturday, January 14, 2006 the bean craze goes on I found this book on my Mom's book shelf and snagged it last night. She's out of the country right now, so what ev. It's AWESOME! So many beany recipes. Even cookies and muffins and breads with beans. It's not a totally veggie book, but I think the veggie sections are totally worthwhile. It's put out by the bean growers of Ontario, or something like that. Good people to support. Last night I made the white bean stew a la Jill, a la Katie. Since I didn't have specific instructions, I winged a lot of it, so if Jill and I were to each freeze a portion of our stews and fed ex them to the other, I'm sure we'd have 2 entirely different, yet equally wonderful stews. Here is what I did: Sauteed 1 whole onion, and 3 cloves of garlic in the biggest pot I have. Add 1 1/4 cups of white wine, and 2 Tbsp tomato paste. Cook a little while. Add 2tsp crushed up fennel seeds, 2 tsp oregano, 2 tsp rosemary, 1/2 tsp sage, 1 tsp tarragon . . . and something else I can't remember right now. I put all the spices in my little garlic crushy thingy my Dad gave me for Christmas, and it did a nice job of breaking them up a bit. Then I sprinkled in 2 tbsp of flour as a thickener, and let simmer a mo or two. Toss in 1 parsnip, cut into little cubes, 2 carrots, chopped up, 1 head of cauliflower, chopped up. Simmer till tender. Then it looked like there wasn't going to be enough liquid, even for a stew, so I added another splash of wine, and 2 cups of veggie broth. Added 2 cups of cooked white beans, 1/2 cup or so of frozen peas, and let all the flavours hang out a bit to develop. Served over barley, cooked in veggie broth, which was delicious. The whole thing was incredibly tasty and healthy and wonderful. It will be made again. The whole thing was amazing, and my apartment smelled incredible. It made sooooo much stew, we each ate a heaping bowl, a serving went to paying of my debt to Xta (gotta love that barter system) and Paul has eaten another serving today for lunch. There are still at least 3 or 4 servings left. Friday, January 13, 2006 rediscovering The following have both been rediscovered after an absence of nearly 10 years. 1) THE LIBRARY!!! Wow, has it been that long? Yep, cause when I navigated my way onto the Vancouver Public Library website and logged myself in, it turns out I have a $0.50 fine from 1996 for some book I had on reserve about Generation X. Did you know they give you books FOR FREE???? And they will ship them to the branch closest to you? It's incredible. They even have DVD's you can borrow AT NO COST. Amazing. I have 3 cookbooks and 1 documentary on order. I may never buy a book again. Okay, that's a total lie, I'm addicted to buying books and I know it. But I am on a budget, so the library it is! Hurrah! 2) DRIED BEANS!!!! I remember when I went to UVic eating a lot of dried beans (nicely soaked and cooked, that is) and that too was nearly 10 years ago. I have to give credit where credit is due, so you should all know it was Jill who started the dried bean craze. Did you know a can of black beans can cost anywhere between $0.89 and $2.49 depending on the brand, and whether you hit a sale or not. And did you know that I went to my favourite bulk food store (favourite, though geographically undesirable unless I'm stopping by my parents place) earlier in the week and filled up a 1L jar of dried black beans for less than a dollar? And did you know when soaked and cooked that jar of beans will TRIPLE in size? Hot dang! So far this week I've soaked a cup of black beans, which turned into nearly 3 cups of black beans, and made our typical Tuesday night brown rice n beans dish (which made tasty leftovers last night for me, and a wrap for Xta's lunch yesterday, since she's terrified of rice and beans on their own, but disguised in a tortilla, she finds them quite tasty) and I'm currently soaking a cup of cannelini beans which will become this awesome stew inspired by Jill. I'm going to see if the library has a book about beans. Come to think of it, my Mom, who has unsuccessfully been trying to push beans on me for years, has a whole bean book at her house. I'll have to stop by for a visit today and see if I can find a turnip. Or a parsnip. Whatever. Bean away! Tuesday, January 10, 2006 trying to be a better me I don't like New Years Eve, really anything about it, but I did make a resolution this year that I feel strongly about keeping; I am not going to support Starbucks any more. Why? Well, mainly, I think there are too many of them. Anyone who has stood at the corner of Robson and Thurlow in Vancouver, trying to decide which Starbucks to go to, knows what I mean. There are now two locations in Kerrisdale, on the same street, just 2 blocks apart. A new Starbucks sprung up in place of the old pet food store on Arbutus and Valley Dr, after most of the stores there never re-opened their doors after a devastating fire in the Schezuan restaurant in that little strip. A new Starbucks on the corner of 16th and MacDonald, in the new retail complex where I cannot remember what was there before they started building. Nothing, perhaps? And on UBC campus, there are at least 4 locations that I know of, and they are all busy, all the time. I'm sure it will make no impact whatsoever, the absence of my occasional $5 Chai tea latte, or $2.62 London Fog, but I feel strongly about my $2.62 going to support the little guy instead of the jolly green giant. In further efforts to reduce, reuse, and recycle, I'm attempting to always have my travel mug handy, make my beverages at home or work and use my handy thermos, take my own plates/bowls/tupperware to take out places when I go to them, which isn't often, buy more from bulk food places and take my containers with me to fill up on location to reduce packaging, and drive my car less when possible. Kudos go to Xta, who has chosen to continue to feed her Starbucks addiction (grande tazo chai, no water, no foam . . .) but not unless she has a travel mug. No mug = no drink. Horray! Every little bit counts, right? Wednesday, January 04, 2006 The C Word Is it really that offensive? Based on the shocked looks on the faces of two of our dinner guests new years eve up at the cabin, when I landed on Park Place, with a hotel on it, during an extremely competitive game of Monopoly, and yelled out, "FUCKING CUNT!!!" in dismay, I suppose it is. The rest of our dinner party either live with me, work with me, or have spent considerable time with me under the influence of a couple of cocktails and well know it doesn't take much for me to start talking like a trucker. I really consider the word FUCK to be an essential part of my vocabulary. It can be used in so many ways. An adjective; my fucking dog. A verb; fuck my dog. It can mean something bad; fuck you. It can mean something good; fuck me. It can explain confusion; what the fuck? It's just so fucking versatile. My sister got me this great book for Christmas called Fuck This Book where someone has taken the word FUCK and pasted it over one or more words in a variety of signs. It's awesome. But back to the C word. I think it's only so negative, harsh and offensive if we give it that power. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that theory applies to all words. There are certainly words out there with a historical context which I don't think are appropriate to be used at all, though the music industry tends to disagree with me. But the C word, CUNT, it is what it is. It's 4 letters, one vowel, three consonants. I don't think a word which is often used to refer to women's genitals should be treated with such taboo, because I think, quite frankly, our genitals are quite lovely. Wednesday, December 28, 2005 Hap-hap-hap-happy Holidays! Okay, the picture isn't great. I really want a digital camera - these pics are from my cell phone camera, or a camera belonging to someone else, or my good ol' film camera which I have carefully scanned into the computer. Anyways, I got a great haul this Christmas, top gifts including the accessory pack for my Kitchen Aid Mixer, (which includes pasta extruders, so fresh pasta here we come!), and an ice cream maker (there is already a batch of Dulce de Leche ice cream chillin out in the freezer), but as usual, it is the things I make as gifts which bring me the most happiness. Above is a shot of the cheeseboard I made, already in use. I had the marvelous assistance of my father, who is a retired shop teacher with all the toys you can imagine. The base of the board is ash, which we milled from someone's old curtain valences. The boarders are mahogany, and the darker pieces surrounding the glass centre are rosewood. Fabulous. things in my living room Perhaps I should have thought this through more thoroughly. I bought Paul a fluid trainer for Christmas, knowing that he really really wanted it, and I got a sweet sweet deal on the thing thanks to uber connected friend Don, and Paul is smashingly excited about it and all. Now he rides his bike in the living room. Horray. Friday, December 23, 2005 foiled, for now. Yesterday I spent time with my sister. She's been here about a week, so the accent is mellowing out and she sounds a lot less snooty. She isn't actually snooty at all, rather she's quite lovely, she just sounds that way. Anyways, I informed her about her blog ruining and my previous post, and she said she hadn't realized it was supposed to be a secret. I said it's not a secret, it's just not a place I thought I wanted certain people to peruse. She said, oh well, I think they've forgotten about it anyway. I said, I doubt it. So we go to their house to drop off Emily and loads of fruitcake which my Dad promptly started gnawing on, and a few minutes after I arrive both of my parents inform me that they have unsuccessfully googled me, and want the address. I said they'd have to google a little harder. If they're going to get here, they better work for it. So shout out to Mom and Dad, if you've found me. Shout out to the cashiers at work, who apparently peruse this regularly, shout out strangers, hey, shout out Jesus. What up? PS - the blogger spell checker still makes me laugh. It suggested I replace the word FRUITCAKE with the word BRITCHES and does not recognise the word BLOG. Tuesday, December 20, 2005 this blog is about to get a whole lot less interesting . . . Thanks to my jerk sister who was all like 'I've been home from London for like 2 hours so I'm going to ruin your blogging fun by telling the address to our parents and insist on calling it a URL in my half British accent cause I work in an important web based finance related field in England so I can't possibly slum and just call it an address, and I'll sit here and laugh at you and tell our previously unaware parents all about the exibitionism of the world of blog, and now even if I don't tell them the URL, our Dad will just google you anyhow, so there, your blog is ruined.' So it's all Emily's fault, and I'm considering posting her personal information (including SIN) in retaliation. But it is really nice to see her. And the accent usually goes away after a couple of days. Saturday, December 17, 2005 make love, not fruitcake It all started just 10 years ago, and so innocently, as a joke. My friend Sean and I were discussing the logistics of fruitcake - we had this theory where no one ever ate fruitcake, they just re-gifted it. We wanted to see how long it would take if we started making fruitcake, before we recieved one of our own fruitcakes back. And we decided that we would mostly only give the fruitcake to people we didn't like. The plan has backfired horribly for 2 reasons: 1) people assume since we make fruitcake, we must like fruitcake and 2) people eat the fruitcake. So not only does the fruitcake not get re-gifted, people give us other fruitcake. My Dad will eat one of the smaller ones in one sitting. God. So this is 10 years running - we missed a year when I was living in New Zealand, Sean thought it just wouldn't be right to make it without me, and frankly, I'd have been upset if he did. We've been on double batches ever since, and my suggestion to go back to single batches this year was quickly vetoed. We're remarkably efficient fruitcake makers now, not like in the beginning when we just didn't know what we didn't know. We didn't know you could buy candied citrus peel, so when the recipe called for peel, we peeled oranges, grapefruits and lemons, and chucked the peel in the bowl. Sean didn't know that when the recipe called for a lemon, peel and juice, you were supposed to zest the lemon, and then squeeze the juice, he just chucked an entire lemon into the mixer. It blended rather nicely, I must admit. We didn't know you were supposed to make your fruitcakes like months in advance, and soak them in brandy. I think we made them around Dec 23rd one year. Now it happens so fast if you blink, you'd think the fruitcake just appeared out of nowhere. You'd hardly see Sean and I waltzing into the bulk food store and picking up 4lbs of raisins, 4 lbs of currents, 3 lbs of dates, 1 lb of peel, 1/2 lb of red and green cherries, 1 lb of walnuts, 2 lbs of sugar, 2 lbs of butter, 6 cups of flour, and 16 eggs. For the rest of the ingredients, we just raid Seans Mom's pantry. Being a retired home ec teacher, she's pretty stocked, and the only person we know with a bowl big enough to mix this crap up. The recipe calls for 1 cup of pineapple juice, but we basically use whatever Pat has in the fridge - this year we even considered V8, but turns out that Sean cares about the quality of the fruitcake too much for that, so cranberry cocktail it was. Last year, something shocking and upsetting happened. Sean broke our vow to never EVER try the fruitcake. He got a little drunk one night, and broke down and tried a bite. He called me right away and confessed, and he says it isn't good. How can it be, it's friggen fruicake? Apparantly there was a 4th wiseman who got turned away for bringing the stuff! But still, people love it. My Dad starts pestering me for it in early December, and I even get calls from my ex boyfriend's family around October, wondering whether they'll still get a fruitcake this year, even though Doug and I have been broken up nearly 3 years. Rest assured, they'll get a big one. The above picture is Sean with the giant bowl of crap (it was my year to mix it, so I was elbow deep in gunk. He got the date chopping job though, and that's not nice either). Wednesday, December 14, 2005 Here's a picture of Paul and I together at a friend's wedding in August. I think it may be the best picture of the two of us together, and Paul isn't giving anyone the finger! Saturday, December 10, 2005 quote of the day . . . " I think I'd make a really good robot " - Paul Wednesday, November 30, 2005 WARNING - THIS POST MAY CONTAIN FOUL LANGUAGE As if any of my posts DON'T contain foul language. In fact, I have a bit of a reputation to maintain, such that, when I was off work, one of the staff who was replacing me told me that she tried to drop as many "F-Bombs" as possible, but she didn't think she'd met my quota. Anyhoo, on to my rant. All term, I have loved my math class, and excelled in my math class, and even when I thought I bombed a test, I truly didn't. I liked my teacher, in fact, I found him adorable, not in a sexy prof kinda way, but in an *I'd like to take him home and keep him in a room with fresh soft cedar sawdust and feed him small pieces of fruit* kind of way. And try as I might to find a way to turn off the clicky noise on my camera phone so that I might secretly take a picture of him and post it on this blog, I can't. So I have resorted instead, to finding a picture of Kip Dynamite, who I may say, bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Besler, minus about 15 - 20 years. Use your imagination. Last Friday we were supposed to have a big midterm, worth 18% of our grade. I studied my toosh off, and even saw my lovely granola tutor an extra time that week, to be extra prepared. Additionally, I left work a few minutes early such that I could be at class early, stress free, and ready to dazzle with my miraculous math capabilities. As I neared the classroom, I knew something was awry. Students milling outside the door with both panicked and blissful looks upon their faces. The professor wasn't there. Class was cancelled. No exam. (*This is the part where the cursing begins*) What the fuck? No midterm? No prof? No word about what the hell was going on? While many of the students clutched their pencils and ran for their lives, I stayed in the class room talking to a few other students, until I was confident this really was real. He really wasn't showing. But what now? When will the midterm be? Monday? Tuesday? Is he obligated to give us some notice? How will we know? So I went home, did other assignments, worked away, studied more math, saw the granola tutor another time, and then went to school on Monday. There we were again, sitting there, wondering what the hell was going on. 5-7 minutes goes by, and suddenly, in rushes this guy who looks like Geoff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber, and sounds like he's trying to make a funny voice. He tells us our midterm is about to begin, and then slaps the paper down on the desk in front of us. I'm kinda stunned, but pull out my pencil as fast as can be, and start crunching numbers. The girl who sits next to me is a heavy breather on the best of days, and she has a cold. This invigilator guy spends the entire time pacing around the room, and writing how much time we have left on the chalk board about every 3 minutes. This is all very distracting. And of course, since he arrived late, we ran out of time, and the majority of the class didn't finish the exam. Personally, I didn't even get to the last 2 problems, each worth 5 marks (test was out of 50). Tuesday rolls around, and Teach is finally back. He has had a death in the family, and has been responsible for making arrangements. I'm very very sorry to hear this. He has a stack of miterms in his hand, already been marked (it normally takes about a week to get them back). They have been marked by the Geoff Daniels guy from yesterday. He has marked them differently than Teach normally marks them, so accordingly he has scaled them by adding 3 marks to each test. And that didn't make much fucking difference, cause the entire class bombed the test. And then Teach, visibly upset, had the audacity to stand up there and berate us for not studying enough. The following are my issues: -rescheduled the test with no notice -invigilator was late to class, thus reducing time to write it -invigilator was distracting to people trying to write the test -someone other than the person who has marked the 3 previous tests marked this test 3 marks are supposed to make up for this? And the kicker is that now he wants to schedule a 1.5 hour make up class for the one where there was no teacher, and he's scheduled it right in the middle of my fucking work day. What the fuck? Tuesday, November 22, 2005 Letting Go On February 25, 2003, I joined WeightWatchers. I lost, officially, 26lbs, but unofficially, I think closer to 35lbs since there was a time I just didn't weigh myself. I had this pair of jeans that I looked shit hot in on my 20th birthday, and then quite promptly porked up and couldn't even squeeze my fat ass into them. I kept them for 4 years, and when I finally fit into them again, they were so out of date, I immediately threw them away. It felt pretty fucking good to say, "These pants fit me now, but now they're ug-lee! Out pants, out!". I think I cut them up and made them into a skirt I sometimes wear. I also kept a shirt, not for quite as long, but a cool-cat cool shirt. It didn't fit when I was fat, and hey, 26-35lbs later, it still didn't fit. Seems my muscle composition had shifted all around, what with me being more active like, and that shirt just didn't want to fit over my lats. Dang. So, I made sure it went to a good home, and it really does look quite fetching on the lovely Tatjana. To the point. I reached my goal weight in September 2003, right around the time Paul (who has requested I start calling him T.A.), so right around the time T.A. and I started dating (no, there's no reason behind the name change, just something he decided over the weekend, in the car, on the way to the grocery store. "Hey, Babe, do you think you could start calling me T.A.?", "Uh, why?", "No reason, I just think it sounds cool".)I was finally invincibly thin. Ha! I had conquered my fat, my flab, my flubber, my blubber, my rump, my rhind, my pork, my spork, my spam. You get the point. I had done it. I was amazing. I could eat what ever I wanted. Within, oh, I don't know, 6 months, I had gone up at least 15lbs again. So I re started the plan, re committed, and just about a year ago, I reached my goal again. I even went below my goal, and decided I would try to hit 10lbs below goal, but that started to make me feel sick all the time, so I cut out that nonsense. So, letting go. I have been at, or below goal for nearly a year. I have stopped using the resources I pay for. I think it's time to cancel my membership with the wonderful people at WeightWatchers. I have cancelled my membership. I am panicking. I don't know if I'm ready to let go. Can I do it? Can I maintain without the aid of a service I stopped using at least 6 months ago? I'm going to try. I'm going to keep up my weekly weigh in's at home, but without the neat little chart that shows me where I began, and what I accomplished. I'm going to keep telling myself mentally, that salad is 0pts, that oreo is 2pts. Make the right choice. And I'm going to pretend that the after school snack I just ate wasn't 11 pts. Without the pts calculator, I'll never know. It'll be my little secret. Only me, and my ass will know. And everyone looking at my ass. So please, be a good friend, take a look at my ass every once in a while, and let me know how she's a-lookin. I'm letting go. (Note to self, find before and after pictures to post. Then I can direct all the 'you lost THAT MUCH?' inquiries here.) (Note to everyone else. When I just ran this through the blogger spell checker, it suggested that I replace the word 'Tatjana' with the word 'Datsun'.) Friday, November 18, 2005 Whirling Dervish (wurl-ing dur-vish) n. 1. A mystical dancer who stands between the material and cosmic worlds. His dance is part of a sacred ceremony in which the dervish rotates in a precise rhythm. He represents the earth revolving on its axis while orbiting the sun. The purpose of the ritual whirling is for the dervish to empty himself of all distracting thoughts, placing him in trance; released from his body he conquers dizziness. Gregangelo's Whirling Circus Dervish. n. 1. A circus version of the sacred dance combining ancient, contemporary, and futuristic media. The dance depicts the creation of the Universe through a spinning series of fantastic formations, metamorphoses, elaborate costumes, and rhythmic dance. 2. A figure of speech used in reference to one who exhibits vigorous energy. Thursday, November 17, 2005 Updated updates 1) I still have not spotted the owner of the beastly pink hummer. I've tried, oh, how I've tried. I typically arrive at school at about 13:25, and it is not there. When I'm leaving at about 14:35, it has appeared. Does the driver have a 1:30 class, a 2pm class? What? There is one teeny little fake n baked blond girl who routinely breezes into math class about 5 minutes late . . . hmmmmm. 2) The IUD is settling into it's new home quite nicely. Uterus was pretty pissed off about it for about 5 days, but I think she realized that the IUD is here to stay, so she settled down. Thar she goes, thar, thar. 3) Turns out I didn't bomb my math test after all. I got 84%! Not quite as well as I would have liked, but hello, I didn't even think I passed it. Glancing at it when it was returned today, I was on the right track for all of the questions, and yes, number 6 COULD be solved by factoring and then using the zero product property, but alas, it couldn't be solved the way I was going with it. Why? Because 3 x 5 is NOT 8. No, it's 15. Geeze. And the big bad word problem, I was doing it perfectly, only for some unknown reason, instead of writing the number 25 down (as in 2500/25) I wrote the number 125. Where that 1 came from, I'll never know. So then the answer, which SHOULD have been the square root of 100, which is 10, turned out as the square root of 20, which is 4.somethingsomething. Blah. Reasons not to write your math tests in a state of bleary wide eyed tireness and complete panic all at once. But I did have a nice chit chat with the prof after class, who said he sensed the panicked state of my quiz, but boosted my fradgile little math ego by saying that at least my math is strong enough that I can be that rushed and panicked and still salvage the test. He thought it was silly that I'd been depressed and embarassed all week. Still, I'm going to see my math tutor TWO times next week. A little math therapy. 4) I just had coffee with my ex boyfriend, ConstaPle Doug (who inspite of having checked his badge for the correct spelling, still used the P when signing his emails), and wow, does he ever look young. I wonder if he looked that young when we were dating? No, younger. Still cute as can be, but my cradle robbin' days are ovah. Especially now that he has a gun. That last one isn't really an update at all, but I thought I'd throw 'er in anyhow. Ta Ta. Wednesday, November 16, 2005 A quick note to let you all know I've changed the settings on this, so you now don't need a blogger ID to leave comments. Comment away! Ga-Rumble Grrr grrr grrrrr. I felt like the biggest rock star in my math class up until yesterdays mini-midterm. I made the classic mistake of spending way too much time on one problem, and then knowing I was running out of time for the rest of the test, panicking and doing a really sloppy job of it. I even was trying to solve word problems in my sleep last night. Okay, this is only 1 of 5 tests we right this term and I scored in the high 90's on the first two, and still have 2 to go, including the big final, so I'm still in a good position to come out of it all with an A, so long as I dust myself off, admit this was just 1 bad midterm, and carry on. I'm almost a little embarrassed though, like I want to send my prof an email and say, hey, I studied, I really did, I just couldn't remember the formula for difference of cubes, and I had to figure that out, and factor the heck out of it before I could carry on with solving rational expressions. And I KNOW that number 6 was not supposed to be a quadratic equation. Oh, or was it . . . could it have been solved using the zero product property? FUCK! I am taking a small amount of comfort in the fact that all of this frustration is coming from a girl who only 10 years ago (only . . .) got a whopping 9% on the math 12 provincial, and flunked the entire year. Now I've faced my old nemesis head on, and am actually succeeding, and not only that, ENJOYING it. Wow. That boggles my mind. To further that, the frustration this time around comes from KNOWING where I went wrong, and desperately wanting to fix it, not from knowing absolutely fucking nothing, and feeling like I'm drowning in a sea of curly brackets. There are not enough hours in the day. I do not get enough sleep. I wake up every morning and wish it were the weekend, and I didn't have to get out of bed. It was an insane idea to go back to school and work full time all the while (though I'll readily admit that while I am over worked, over tired, and stressed out, I am also happier than I have been in years. Perhaps since I lived in New Zealand and first experienced serenity. I am by no means serene right now, but quite satisfied). Friends, brace yourselves for next term when I will attempt to tackle math and chemistry simultaneously. I will be a whirling dervish. Thursday, November 10, 2005 Contest Contestant In the spring there was this contest on the Food Network that I wanted to enter, but didn't. It was called 'The Superstar Chef Challenge' and the winner would get an opportunity to sit down with Food Network executives, and pitch and idea for their own show. I didn't enter, mainly because I was too embarrassed to have any of my friends tape me for the necessary 5 minute video of cooking/ loving the camera. Many friends offered, don't get me wrong, the support was there, I just didn't get around to it. Paul kept bugging me about that, saying that if I was going to do it on TV, I should be able to do it in front of him. I maintain that it would be easier in front of strangers. I know this is true (for me anyways), because when I teach courses I have no problem getting up infront of a group of strangers and making an ass out of myself, but if there is anyone I know in that group, it's another story. So anyways, the contest finally aired, and I kicked myself hard for not entering. I thought I could have done as well as any of the 6 finalists they had on TV. The winner did have formal culinary training, which I do not, but I thought she was perhaps lacking some presence, and since I have not (yet) seen a show on the Food Network Starring her, I guess the executives agreed. Now a second chance has been granted. They're doing the contest again. And this time, I'll enter, I swear I will. I have to have everything in and done by December 15th, so now it's brainstorming time. I have to create a 5 min tape of me cooking my 'signature dish' all the while hamming it up with the camera. I also have to send in a recent photo, a release form, and 100 word answers to 3 questions. I have decided on one friend who I feel alright about filming me, and since we've taught together before, I feel comfortable doing ass-making type things in front of her. Plus, she's got oodles of free time on her hands at the moment. So now I just have to figure out what I'll make, and how I'll squish it into 5 minutes, or how to edit a video. It's all very exciting. Tuesday, November 01, 2005 Yippie-I-yee my IUD Well, it's done, it's in, it's there. I got a quicker-than-expected appointment with the specialist (thanks to some string pulling by Dr. Mom) and yesterday had an appointment for a simple consultation to discuss my post-clot birth control options. We discussed a special progesterone only birth control pill normally prescribed to breast feeding mothers, the depo-provera injection, which wasn't really an option at all, the Mirena IUD, which in addition to being an IUD, also has a slow release progesterone hormone in it that is released over a five year period, and the regular plain ol' copper T type IUD, the ParaGard. I went with the basic one for one main reason: 1) There are no hormones in it - while the Mirena is said to be slightly more effective, it also can have the side effect of making your period stop altogether. I'm not cool with that - as much of a pain my period can be, I like the assurance of it's presence. So, the consultation ended, and the nice doctor asked when I would like to get it, I said the sooner the better, and she said how about right now. Okay! So she injected some freezing into my cervix, which probably hurt more than the whole insertion, but maybe that would have been a different story had my cervix not been frozen. And then quick as could be, it was in. Wow. I feel a bit weird now knowing that I'm wandering around with a foreign body embedded in my uterus, and even weirder knowing that I have to check frequently to ensure my uterus doesn't reject and spit it out. And for you visual folks, here's a picture of the little bugger Wednesday, October 26, 2005 The Fever That's right, I have it again. It's been occurring more and more frequently the older I get, and each case is a little more fierce than the previous one. I'm talking baby fever of course. Gah! And I'm not talking about the 'oh, look at the cute little baby' type twinges I'd get once in a blue moon in my early twenties, I'm talking full scale earth shattering uterine twitching type physical cravings for motherhood. And they can't be shaken, no, I've discovered that I've got no choice but to let the fever run it's course. It'll end when it wants to, and in the mean time I am at it's mercy. Each time the fever hits me, it gets a little stronger, and lingers a little longer, accompanied by dreams each night of babies and baby accessories and baby smells and big pregnant bellies. Last night I actually dreamed that I was holding my baby, still covered in after birth goop and not being totally disgusted by it. It doesn't help that Vancouver is positively infested with young, hip pregnant women right now, maternity stores popping up at a similar rate to Starbucks and Lululemon. In fact, Lululemon has a maternity line now. It's like pregnancy is the latest accessory in Vancouver, and I, being legitimately ill with the baby fever, am enraged by that. Furthermore, I have a friend who is less than a month away from her due date, and I got to spend a weekend recently staring at her lovely round belly and mentally blocking out the talk of gestational diabetes and sore backs and so on. Normally, to help shake the fever I'd go out dancing all night, drag my sorry ass home at around 9am and try to get a couple of hours of sleep. It's a temporary fix though, I'd spend a week feeling like shit and reveling in the coolness of my all night dance party and reminding myself how I couldn't possibly do stuff like that if I had a stupid baby. Of course in my current state of health, I'm not allowed to drink any alcohol or abuse any substances (they didn't specifically say that, but I'm pretty sure substances are out), so I can't even use my tried and true baby fever remedy. The stupid baby always wins. Now the situation is interesting, because for the first time in nearly 11 years, I'm not on any form of birth control. Yep, they took it away in light of the whole life-threatening blood clot situation, and then gave me a stern talking to about how it would be very very very dangerous for me to become pregnant right now (pregnancy can increase the risk of blood clots) and the medication I am currently taking would be very very very damaging to any fetus I may decide to hang out with. So it's out of the question at the moment for those reasons (along with us both being in school still, money, blah blah blah, really bullshit reasons for not being ready), but is definitely in the not so distant future. So I have an appointment with a gynecologist to discuss alternate forms of birth control, but not until friggin DECEMBER 20th, and that's just the initial consultation. It'll probably be an IUD, which opens up a whole nother can of worms for me, but that'll be another post, another day. I have work to do, and babies to think about. Thursday, October 20, 2005 Book Reports Last night I finished the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia series, 'The Magician's Nephew'. This, among other things, has got me thinking about book reports, the essays and papers of yore. If only I could write a book report today, for marks, rather than lab reports, papers, exams, and such. My father was a highschool woodwork teacher (he's retired now) and so during times of job action by teachers (I can remember 2 strikes from my school days, 1 from primary and one from secondary school), while other children treated the strike like a misplaced sort of spring break, in our house, it was time to work. Book reports were the name of the game, and if we couldn't finish a book in time, we wrote them on videos (some of which we watched on the ill fated Beta), or TV shows (My 2 Dads, Just the 10 of us . . . man, I'm really dating myself here!). Our book reports were marked, grammar and punctuation corrected with a red pen, and handed back to us promptly. In the afternoon we were to bake cookies (foods class) and walk with them to the school (gym class) to deliver the fresh baked goods to the teachers on the picket lines. How I would like to write one of those reports today. I would so kick my grade five ass. I would write about the many biblical references CS Lewis snuck in to 'The Magician's Nephew', how the Lion Aslan's song created 2 of every animal, who rose from the earth. How Digory has to go and get an apple from a very sacred garden, and the evil witch tries to tempt him into eating it. I would write about how, in 'My 2 Dads' it was totally implausible that Nicole could never figure out which one of her deceased mother's ex boyfriends was really her father. I mean, they have paternity tests, hello, even in 1987. And I would write about how having 4 of the coach's hot daughters accidentally enrolled in an all boy's catholic school was probably some writer's wet dream, or how giving the coach from 'Growing Pains' his own spin off sit com was doomed from the get go. Ah, book reports. But as the Chronicles of Narnia are set to be re-made as movies starting this December with 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' (which is book #2 in the series, but probably the most famous), I'd highly recommend giving the series a read. It's like the Harry Potter of yore (Yes! I've managed to use the word 'yore' 2, whoops, now 3 times in this post! Sweet!), and by reading them in order, the magic of the worlds makes sense. Now I know how that famous wardrobe came to be. My support goes to the teachers :) Thursday, October 13, 2005 Blahdidtty blah I don't really have a whole lot to report right now, but nevertheless feel compelled to post and make my blog more current. I know my own frusteration when I do my daily blog checks looking for updates, and then dissapointment when staring at the same post that has been up for weeks and weeks . . . ah, I'll get over it. I do every day. I'm back at work, and I have to say, it's nice. People have really noticed my absence, which makes me feel important, and the old people at the pool feel like they have a new buddy, someone who they can relate to since we're all on the same meds. And it's like, ' my angioplasty was like this . . .', 'oh, well mine was like this . . .' all morning long. Seriously, we're peeps now. And, I'd like to report that all of those years at UVic plugging away at that creative writing degree have finally come in handy. I'm spending some time helping my lovely and super stressed out friend Tat by editing her papers for her. It's really educational for me too since I'm learning all about occupational therapy as I go. The strangest thing has been happening. I swear, I never ever thought it would happen to me. I am enjoying math. There. I said it. I know, it's strange. And anyone who talked to me in 1996 when I ceremoniously celebrated bombing the math provincial by enthusiastically dismantling my scientific calculator in the back field of the school would tell you that I am lying. But it's true. And I'd like to report that I got 90% on my first math midterm, and furthermore that I had to help the guy sitting next to me the other day, who by the way is doing a PhD (not in math, but still, hello, PhD) with a simple math problem. So I guess pigs really can fly. I haven't seen the pink Hummer yet this week, or it's supected big blond haired driver, but I'm totally on it. And, uh, uh, uh . . . I got nothing else. Thursday, October 06, 2005 Proof Ah, my regret at not stopping and photographing the hideous beast was abated today as once again the pink Hummer has graced the Langara College parking lot. This has also confirmed the fact that I did indeed see a pink Hummer, and no, the blood thinners don't seem to be making me hallucinate after all. Thank god for camera phones, eh? I got a nice shot of it's rear, but have decided not to post it, as it would reveal the licence plate to the world of blog, and well, that's just not nice. I would, however, looooove to get a look at the driver of this thing. I have theories. . . Tuesday, October 04, 2005 Urban Monstrosities I'll be blunt - I think that Hummer's are stupid. I mean, what practical use could the Hummer possibly serve, other than the giant flashing dollar signs revolving over the hood, in urban culture today? Sure, they are a useful military ATV, and sure, they can take a real beating if you live way out in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere and routinely need to drive around in muddy, uneven, ditch-filled terrain. But a Hummer in the city? Friggen useless. Ever had to parallel park behind one? No thanks. It's just that they're so good on gas, right? And at a buck twenty a litre, I suppose that the only people who can afford to fill and drive the Hummer, are the same people who can afford to buy the Hummer. But really, I could put up with all that, just scowl under my breath when I saw one cruising down Robson street, really I could. Until yesterday. Yesterday, in the parking lot of my school, yes, I'll repeat that, of my school, there was parked a shiny, scratchless, mudless, ditchless, friggen Hummer. And why are my knickers in a knot over this sighting? BECAUSE IT WAS FUCKING PINK!!!! Fucking pearly shimmery opalescent baby girl pink. Good God! What the fuck? Meh! I have nothing further to say on that. I'm too outraged to even give an update on the clot situation. (It's much better, thankyou. My meds aren't quite stable yet, can't seem to find the right balance of blood thinners - it's a little too thin at the moment, which should explain the constant light headedness, as well as the strange nosebleed I woke up with this morning. Though that could still be a side effect of the hummer sighting. The arm is a bit achey still, but on the mend. I've returned to classes, and hope to be back at work after the Thanksgiving weekend.) Thursday, September 29, 2005 Fun Fun Fun! There's no kodak moment like this one! I believe that this was inbetween my first and second clot busting procedures. Poor Paul, exhausted from a night of worry is sleeping in the chair there beside me. The arm that's all wrapped up in plastic is the clot arm. The plastic is holding the remaining catheter tubing on the outside of my arm, and I am not allowed to move or bend it at all. You can also see my IV pump, and the vitals cart that lived by my bed. What fun! Progress is good. I had a visit with the vascular surgeon yesterday. He said there is still some clot at the end in my chest, and there is still a portion of the vein which is squished a bit (stenosis). He wants to do another venogram in about 2 1/2 months to determine whether or not my rib needs to be removed. I'd like to keep my rib, thankyou. In other news ~ I had mentioned to my friends recently that with station wagons having regained trendiness, I thought that the wood panelled station wagon should also see a comeback. Yesterday while on the way home from something (dr's appt? blood test? pharmacy visit?) I saw a brand spankin new wood panelled PT cruiser. Whaddya know. Monday, September 26, 2005 Subclavian Vein Thrombosis So the big blue arm that I was so sure was nothing, and we were all poking fun at (or in some cases, actually poking) turned out to be a wee bit more serious than just a funny looking arm. After having this arm since Monday morning, I finally drag my butt to my family doctor sometime around 7pm on Wednesday evening. My doc is fairly laid back, and not one to jump to prescribing drugs or worrying about stuff, but she took one look at this arm and sent me to the emergency room. So off I go, clutching the note the doc wrote for me in one hand, and frantically making phone calls to work, to my mom (who is also a doctor), and to Paul with the other. I arrive at VGH emerg around 8pm, wave the doctors note at the fairly unconcerned triage nurse, and take my seat in the waiting room. About an hour later, still waiting, my parents arrive. Both of them, and my Dad had taken a bath, shaved, and put on clean clothes (even his underwear!) for the event. Blah blah blah, many many hours, dozens of blood tests and ultrasounds go by, and sure enough, I have this clot in my subclavian vein. Now when they said clot, I'm thinking some little nugget the size of a dime or something like that. No. This clot was nearly 40cm in length. It extended from my elbow into my chest. So I get admitted into the vascular ward, and they start doing stuff to me. Firstly, they do a venogram. This involves injecting the vein full of a magnetic dye, and taking pictures of the clot with a fancy sort of x-ray machine. They then use these pictures to help guide a catheter, which they insert into an incision in my elbow, up the vein and into clot land. They push the catheter as far as it will go (this does not feel particularly nice, but it was neat cause you could see the whole thing on a tv screen nearby) until the clot gets too thick, and they also reach a stenosis (narrowing) of the vein. So they stop there for the day. The catheter is full of teeny tiny little pores, and they are pumping a) 'clot busting' TPa medicine and b) heprin - blood thinning medicine, directly into the epi-centre of the clot. I get wheeled up to the vascular ward on strict bed rest (can't get out, not even to pee) with tubes coming out of both arms, and the arm in question wrapped up in plastic as to hold all of the catheter tubing in place. I'm not allowed to move or bend that arm. The morphine they gave me for pain made me puke, and those little barf trays that they give you in the hospital are NOT nearly big enough, or were not big enough to contain the tidal wave of orange juice that came spewing out of me. So they changed my pain killers. But apparantly the clot busters are also contributing to my nausea. They give me sedatives, which are nice. They also wake me up every hour on the hour 24 hours a day to check my vitals, which is not so nice. Paul and my parents were at my bedside for the duration of the first evening, but I kicked them out because I was feeling so unwell. Poor Paul went back to our apartment and didn't sleep a wink because he was so worried. He came back about 6am, saw that I was feeling a bit better, and promptly fell asleep in the chair next to me. Round about 1pm on Friday, they take me back down to Angio (where all the vein stuff is done) where they do more venograms (take pictures of the clot) and horrah, it's about 80% dissovled. It's made space for them to shove the catheter the rest of the way into clot-zone, which is up under my armpit, and into my chest. This makes me feel vaguely like I'm having a heart attack ( I think, since I've never actually had a heart attack, but I am recieving similar treatment as if I were having one). Back up to my ward, where I am again feeling nauseated, but no barf this time. I have lots of lovely visitors, who bring me a slew of books, magazines, flowers, fruit baskets and other goodies, none of which I am feeling well enough to read or eat yet, but I really appreciated all of it. 8:30pm on Friday I go back down to Angio for a final time, where they take more pictures of the clot, are satisfied that it is nearly gone (a little nugget remains) and they are then able to deal with the stenosis by giving me an angioplasty, which is where they stick a teeny tiny balloon into the vein and blow it up, thus creating more room for blood to flow. That did NOT feel good, but I am pretty used to this not feeling good by now. They take the catheter out, but leave the sheath (a straw like thing about 4 inches long) in my arm to keep pumping the blood thinners right into the vein for a while longer. Back up to the ward where there is a party in my room (I thankfully got a private room), my brother and sister and their partners, and Paul and Tatjana are all waiting for me. I don't feel very good, my lips hurt real bad, my chest hurts, I'm nauseated and all that good stuff. I have a fight with the nurse about whether or not I am allowed to get out of bed yet, and she wins (I am still in bed) but she also kind of loses, cause it means she needs to bring me the bed pan yet again. Bed pan is now a 4 letter word in my books. Not the most graceful way of doing your business. Saturday morning the Doc's come to give me some options. I can a) stay in the hospital with the straw in my arm until Tuesday, or b) learn to give myself shots in the hip, and go home on Sunday. I choose the b option, so a nurse comes along to take out my straw, and then gives me my shot lesson. I pass. I'm feeling a bit better, and am starting to get a bit of an appetite back. Sunday they take the other IV out of my other arm (which is totally black and blue from the twice a day blood tests I've been getting for the last 4 days), and let me loose. I immediately regret my decision and want to go back to the hosptial. No one is taking my vitals. No one is bringing me water and crushed ice. No one will be there if something goes wrong, and this is very very scary. I cry for pretty much all of Sunday. But really I am not alone, Paul is there, and my Mom is there, and so are all of my great friends and family. But my apartment is not the hospital and there is a mouse in my house and my arm feels funny. So now my life revolves around an injection schedule and daily blood tests. This will go on for 3-6 months. I meet with the vascular surgeon on Wednedsay of this week, and he will tell me when I can do things like go back to school and work. Most likely next week for school, but 3-6 weeks for work. Hopefully less. It depends on my blood, how thin it gets, how I react to it, and all kinds of stuff. I am not allowed to do anything physically demanding, beyond going for short walks, or use the arm much at all right now. And that is the story of my big blue arm. Lesson learned, if you have a big blue limb, you should go to the doctor, and quick. Some Facts for ya: The subclavian vein is the main vein running through the arm. Goes up the inside of the elbow, under the armpit, and into the chest. Subclavian vein thrombosis accounts for only 1-2% of all deep vein thrombosis (DVT's), the majority being in the legs, which are not quite as immediately dangerous. The subclavian ones are bad because of the proximity to the lungs and heart. If the clot gets into the lungs it can cause pulmonary embolism, and if it gets in the heart it can cause a heart attack. In the cases of subclavian DVT's, about 80% are in the dominant arm. Most are in young active people and are triggered by some sort of activity (tennis, weight lifting, baseball, rowing, swimming, etc). They are often accompanied by a stenosis (narrowing) of the vein. In my case, this stenosis was caused by the space between the clavical and the top rib being too narrow. There is talk of removing that rib, once I have been taken off of the blood thinners. Surgery while being pumped full of stuff that makes your blood not clot is apparantly a bad idea. Wednesday, September 21, 2005 My Giant Purple Arm My physiotherapist loves me, because I am putting her children through school. I think they're even nicknamed the college funds 'Katie's back', 'Katie's neck', 'Katie's shoulder'. So, my arm. Well, my bad shoulder (the one I had reconstructive surgery on about 7 years ago) has been a bit grumpy ever since surfing at the end of August. I felt a little unhappy twitch in it as I was paddling my heart out atop a wave, next to my sweetheart, but didn't think much of it. It continued to bug me for a few weeks, and then I so stupidly spent the first week and a half of school being a fashion victim, and carrying my heavy text books on a bag slung over one shoulder. Yes, that shoulder. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Obviously, it got more grumpy, and I noticed that it really really didn't enjoy swimming much, so I was taking it easy, and trying to let it settle down on it's own. Then on Monday morning, I woke up with this fantastically huge, purple, swollen, throbbing arm. My nail beds were dark blue, my fingers purple and unable to make a fist, and the whole arm nearly double it's normal size. It didn't look that bad until you looked at the good arm, and then you realized. Fortuanatly, for once in my life, there was an available appt with my shoulder physio that morning. So something is out of whack in there, and whatever it is is putting pressure on something which is impeding circulation. No duh. The arm is filling with blood, but not draining. The more work I do with it, the bigger, darker, and more painful it gets. It does have the neat effect of totally freaking people out - yesterday, in particular, it totally freaked out Kim Day, who has told me that she plans to start lurking on my blog, so shout out to Kim Day! Mainly I'm just afraid that this will mean another shoulder surgery. The last one was hugely unpleasant, and took ages to recover from, and I'd really like to avoid that gun slinger brace at all costs. In other news, school is going well so far this term. I'm sitting in class feeling quite smug for having finished all of my homework days and days before it is actually due, and listening to the morons around me moaning about how stressed they are and how they haven't even started the work that is due tomorrow. 10 years ago, my first time at University, that was me. Now, not so much. Ah, to be older and wiser. Well, older. Wednesday, September 14, 2005 2 Years Well whaddya know, we made it. Paul and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary this week. Tremendous! We celebrated by going out for a dinner that we could totally not afford, but that was wonderful, and then by going out to our favourite night spot, and getting a little crazy. We had long talks about 'the future' and just loved each other a whole lot. Awwwww. The next night as I lay in bed in a state of stupor, with my arm draped across his chest, my hand feeling his heartbeat, which seemed to be saying 'katie . . .katie. . .katie. . . katie. . .' I opened my eyes and saw a real man attached to that heartbeat. The lesson learned is this: we are both real people with hearts that love each other. We are getting better at letting things go. Settling into that middle zone where the passion sorts it's self out. Ya know? It's nice. Friday, September 09, 2005 Back at the Grind Vacation was so great, and so relaxing, and so grounding. Paul and I reconnected, which was great - not that we were unconnected, but it was nice to be together in stress free, no school, no work, no race situation for a change. We chilled, we slept, we watched an infinite number of terrible movies, we swam (he swam, I rowed beside him), we hung out with Buddy alot, we picked blackberries, I made jam, pies, we camped . . . ah, if only vacation was forever! One one quiet calm morning up at Gibsons, Paul was doing his routine swim from Soames Pt. to Keats Island and back, and I was doing my usual full speed row to try and keep up with him. The water was flat and glassy, and alive with drift wood from the previous night's high high tide. It was so serene, and then a harbour seal popped up to say hello! We checked each other out and nodded our heads at each other, and the curious little fellow swam next to us for a while. It was grand. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) About Me Katie Gainfully unemployed, which rules. Student, which sucks. Married, which is interesting . . . 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