Saturday, January 03, 2004
whacked sense of time edit
...cause J.O. was SUNDAY? No. It was New Years' Day, which was Thursday. Where am I? What year is this? Was I supposed to be at work today?what do you mean...
you won't go to a movie with me? Okay, fine! I know I just cried through 'Finding Nemo' but it was cause it was so cute and well done.....(mine? mine. mine.) not cause I'm a big sappy bag of liquid.....really.Damn you, Jamie Oliver, damn you. After 8 hours of viewing on Sunday, I'm indoctrinated...I can no longer cook a meal without trying to make it better. Tonight, I'll be messing with chicken breasts.
ohh, that sounded a bit nasty, didn't it? Good thing I'm reading that book.
Even more frightening, everything so far has been a smashing success.
Friday, January 02, 2004
other people are funny
It's Funny Cause it's Shit.tee hee. Evil woman :)
and finally,
review of 2004.
boop boop be doop
I moved from office to cubicle today. It's very bright in the pit here...I don't like it. The brightness, that is. I'd rather live in a world of perpetual twilight. Some sacrifices are necessary to indicate a clean break from scary and so, rilly, in the end, it's something I can learn to live with. I don't think my skin will start to peel off anytime soon. I can survive the light in the knowledge that once the tenants next door move from their space in June I'll get my own office again, right smack dab in the middle of two of my favorite people.The phone guy this morning had the most beautiful eyes and I am torn between leaving since I'm all settled in and waiting around to see if he comes back today to put back the line he took out accidentally.
Ahh, he just showed up so I'm free to go. Yay. Yay. And, yup, he's still as cute as ever. The current thinking around the office is that once the dog checks out, I will mend my single ways within a month or two cause I won't be able to stand the silence in the house. Maybe that's true, maybe not. You just never can tell. Although, I'd prefer a boyfriend who slept on the floor beside the bed and breathed noisily. That would work.
I'm also torn between going to the bookstore to get something to read or not, to force myself to do the work this weekend from home that absolutely must be completed for monday's return to the real world. As opposed to work since the 19th - no one here, showing up late, leaving early, making the decision to not come in at all here and there. I don't think I've done more than 3 hours of serious work in seven days. Unmotivated and right smack dab in the middle of a drooling numbing rut. I know that the new group of people who are now included under 'my responsibility' have been chomping at the bit to give me work so it may be a bit of a shock come Monday.
Of course it doesn't help that...Currently: -18 C (-0.4 degrees F), light and blowing snow. Wind chill makes it feel like -31 C (-24 F)
Overnight: -29 C (-20 degrees F), cloudiness and a wind chill that will make it feel like -42 C (-35 F).
As labyrinthman put it so perfectly yesterday....
Welcome to Canada. We'll be taking over as hell once it decides to freeze over.
Thursday, January 01, 2004
still waiting for the gunshots
..I can't believe I've been watching this for almost 7 hours. They're just cooking for Tony Blair. It did inspire me to make a wonderful dinner though. *burp*I brought work home. Didn't do it. The only things that gone done today were what could be accomplished during commericals.
I think I have a crush on Jamie Oliver.
Jamie's kitchen
I've been watching the whole schwack of these today since I've never seen them and someone at work insisted I watch.I'm torn between horror at the bloody ungrateful lazy gits. "I'm into it. I'm here. Give me another chance." After 10 chances they still the balls to ask for another.
And awe at the sheer weight of what's he's trying to do, his humor and his patience.
Is the finale that he snaps and kills them all before losing his house and turning the gun on himself?
I can't stand the suspense.
e @ 8:23PM | 2004-01-01| Sadly, these are fairly typical British teenagers- zero sense of responsibilty, zero commitment to anything, zero sense of loyalty, zero understanding of anything not pertaining to themselves or to "youf" culture. Welcome to Yob Britain.
Jen @ 9:54PM | 2004-01-01| jeez, I can't believe he's taking on 15 more. gahhhhh.
in other news
I managed to clean the kitchen and all the walls. However, since my baseboards aren't sealed the gluey stuff collects fricking everything and requires scrubbing with a nail brush, and although I was hyped up for that in the late morning when I got out of bed, in the end the sheer thought of it defeated me. So I vacuumed and mopped instead.I did receive a voice message from the afore-mentioned butthead that showed up in the middle of the night... wanting to take me out for dinner for being a such a good person and letting him sleep on the couch. And, since I didn't suffer any ill effects from not having his presence in my life for a year and a half, not to mention that I didn't even give the lack a second thought, didn't bother to even call back. I can do without such stupidly arrogant and misguided people as a part of my day to day existence.
The munchkin and I went for a (relatively) long walk. It feels like it's going to snow. It could be just the fog. We don't get much fog in Calgary and it's all very high up, from my window it seems to sit up near the tops of the skyscrapers downtown. I like fog but I much prefer the low-lying fog of the west coast. The kind that collects in little patches and waits for you to be driving along in the middle of the night before creeping out in front of the headlights. I would venture to say it has a personality and that may be because I miss it but I also have to qualify that by saying that the area I lived in had such a history and many mystical 'happenings' and so I also tend to think of the fog as a sentient 'thing'. Mostly malignant, but sometimes a comforting blanket. Something, here, from part of a larger piece I wrote during/after the trip to Seattle last year with Billy.....
I find the simplicity of this strangely comforting and have been thinking of making my own little religion of it.
With the Pacific Ocean to the west it's like a room with one wall missing. Your instinct is to look out, not back, and it's a good instinct.
Some of the oaks and elms around them rose over a hundred feet and the place was filled with dark, mysterious places that whispered of things you couldn't see but could only imagine and secretly wish for.
I spotted the fog only briefly before disappearing into it and this made me wonder whether you ever saw things for what they were while you were inside them, a part of them. We almost always know where our best interest lies, I think, but sometimes what we know means very little compared to what we feel or end up doing.
The fog forced me to drive more slowly, and it gave me a few minutes to think. Seems like all I do is think - that's how a person all alone spends her time, I thought, trapped inside your thoughts and dreams as this car was trapped inside the fog. Moving slowly. Crawling. Waiting for the workday to start. Waiting for something to entertain me. Waiting for daylight. Waiting for night. Waiting. Waiting. Always thinking ahead, never really being where you are, but somewhere you hoped to be.
The conversation with my stepmother was strange last night. Well, strange as opposed to just painful, as they tend to be normally (and I use the term "normal" very loosely). It's usually a litany of all the things I've done wrong with my life and how those things have affected her life, always adversely, of course. Which is completely wrong, since nothing I've ever done has affected them in any way at all, her problem always being their perception of someone she's never taken any time to get to know. (I have an issue here with "her" "them" statements as I tend to assume my father always held her opinion as truth.) It used to bother me (but now I take a pill for that - just kidding) but they've not been a part of my life for a very long time now. She mentioned that she'd broken her toe the night before so the feeling I got was painkillers + cider = disjointed babbling interspersed with weird silences. And, as usual, blanket statements that have nothing to do with who or what I am. When Billy lived here with me, I told her (and my mother) that if they didn't like it they could fuck right off as they weren't the ones paying the mortgage, nor were they the people who would inherit if I got hit by a bus so they were quite welcome to just go away . Her response to that was.....'you seem to be growing up and more confident in your choices.' Apparantly she missed the last twenty years of my life, but regardless, has treated me with a little more respect since then. Well, the two times I've talked to her, anyways.
There have always been a lot of nasty things between her and I. The passage of time has only allowed me to be more direct but it has not lessened the animosity. She's been a part of my life for 22 years. Twenty-two long years. The thing I remember the best is: she never let up on the the "are you seeing anyone" thing, so once she said to me, "I was your age when I met your father." And, for once, I was happy with my response, "So, you're saying I should go out and find a man 20 years my senior, with a wife who's never worked and three children and sleep with him?" I never heard that particular question again. Last night as she waxed philosophical about happiness (on my behalf, although I have never indicated I'm anything but blissful) she mentioned that she never saw my little sister (half- who's 17) and that my father's priorities were much like mine, she believed that he loved the dog more than them. Oops, like father like daughter, I suppose. Such a shame I look like my mother. Maybe that's been the issue between us. I honestly couldn't say why she's been so .... her ... all these years, but I get the feeling she's like that with everyone, and so I don't take it so personally anymore.
Having said that, there is my side of the equation, there being always two people in any dysfunctional relationship, I chose to no longer be chastised because I didn't grow up to be the person they wanted. Although, in hindsight, it may have helped slightly to know what it was they were expecting. But, alas, they never shared that with me. Nor did they give me the tools to achieve it, whatever it was.
When I left my for-life job with the government eleven or so years ago, I remember her holding the phone away and yelling... "John, come and tell your daughter she's an idiot." My father's reply? "Jennifer will do what Jennifer wants to do." I have never had the feeling that he's not proud of me, although he never came right out and said one way or another. My father was notorious for not saying much, or anything, for that matter. I find it strange that my older sister and I both put so much stock into what we thought he wanted for us, having no idea, then or now.
And on that happy note, it's time to take the dog out for a quick pee and an even less quick sniff around the block. lyric at post:
..doesn't matter what I say, only what I do..
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
reflection
I guess this could be included in the meaning/purpose/justification series (last linkages are here, although I've linked to the one before cause I still have issues with permalinking). Anyways, it's an excerpt from a book I bought in Winnipeg last November (a link to the 'this time last year' post is here) and is called "The Meaning of Things, Applying Philosophy to Life" by A.C. Grayling. A.C. Grayling is Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London.And so without further ado....
Courage and hope both depend on a crucial virtue: perseverance, the ability to keep going in adverse circumstances - with a cheerful countenance if possible, but if not, then at least in the spirit of Seneca's world-weary observation, 'Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.'
It is said that perseverance is a good trait except when applied to inappropriate aims. This places the emphasis on knowing when aims are the right ones. Someone might say that the tone-deaf, lump-fingered man who persists in his endeavours to play the violin is obviously on the wrong tack, and it does not help to praise him for persevering. But someone else might reply that any worthy aim, such as playing the violin, dignifies the struggle to achieve it, and however difficult it might be for such a man to learn to play, he has still gained much from trying.
This is an encouraging reply. Arguably, most of us could do most of what we desire - or at least, like the aspiring violinist, could gain a great deal from trying - if we found the right way to approach it. Some techniques suit some people, others suit others; one has to find the method best adapted to oneself.
One of John F. Kennedy's speech-writers left a fingerprint on history in 1961 with the brilliant remark that America was going to put a man on the moon by the end of that decade not because it was an easy thing to do, but because it was a hard thing to do; and doing hard things is what makes you better.
I have to say here....that yesterday when I was showing Tony my new cell phone, he made the comment (being into things like that) that my cell phone had a more sophisticated computer system than the first space shuttle. Just think about that for a second...
Anything that requires perseverance is a hard thing in the meaning of this saying, and therefore improves you. The secret to persevering is an understanding of the 'learning curve', a graph with a line that rises, then dips somewhat, only to rise higher,- and so on, rising then dipping then rising again, continuously to the top of the page. It represents the standard shape of the progress people make in mastering anything new. All goes swimmingly; then suddenly one seems to regress, to lose what advance has been made. At this point most people give up. But if they were to persist they would find that each dip is followed by a higher rise, and the overall pattern is upward and onward, making true the Latin motto, Per ardua ad astra (through adversity to the stars).
It is a commonplace that perseverance tends to be more successful than violence - dripping water wears the stone that could not be hammered to pieces. It suggests a number of further traits in anyone who perseveres: determination, ambition, strength of resolve. The cynic would say that we should frequently substitute 'obstinacy;, 'folly' and 'blindness' respectively. The opposite of perseverance is giving up, trying something else, abandoning ambitions. Let it be conceded that if the ambition was to join the Shuttle crew, the decision was probably wise, but generally speaking the best and most satisfying choice is to see things through. As Ruskin said, it is not what we get but what we become by our endeavours that makes them worthwhile.
So, the last two years have been, for me, about perseverance. And I have learned many valuable things. Among them, the things I am willing to sacrifice and the things I'm not. Some of those things have come as a shock to those who know me. I've been told how stupid I am more times than I can count.
But, hey, you guys, you don't have to look into the same mirror that I do in the morning. And the person that looks in my mirror every morning has things that you don't have, things that you put me down for wanting. And maybe they're things you don't need. But I'm not you. The job I've always wanted. My own home. The knowledge that I really don't have to do the things I don't want to. That I can walk away from the bad people and things in my life, without looking back. That I can survive a serious illness relying only on my own strength and weather the fallout that follows. That my choices for relationships are different from yours, but that that doesn't make either of us wrong, only different. I understand that, do you?
The understanding that my expectations aren't too high, because the only people who say that are the people who want to treat others like crap and blame their actions on everyone but themselves. That sometimes, people you don't know are more important than the people you do. That people you may never meet are still important relationships worth nurturing and effort. That sometimes, the people who have known you for years want only that you stay the same person they want you to be, instead of recognizing who you are now, and sometimes, those people aren't worth any effort at all.
I learned to take responsibility, real internal responsibility for my actions. Not all the time but more often than not. I make the right choice, instead of making the wrong one, more often than I used to. And even the wrong ones, I stand by.
And 2004 will be more of the same. So, get out of the road if you don't want to get mowed down. Cause the best way to play chicken is to tear out the steering wheel and slam your foot down on the gas.
But for now, you'll have to excuse me, a nauseated dog and Lara Croft are pawing at my leg and beeping on the TV, respectively.
e @ 9:10AM | 2004-01-01| Happy New Year, Jen. And very empowered one at that, I think. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like this. It's still upsetting when to be you, you have to leave behind your family- since that's often who it is. They also tend to have slightly weird expectations, particularly parents, which may have more to do with living vicariously through you than any desire to see you happy- at least mine do. This year for me, and for my husband, has become the year of shedding bossy people who think they can play more of a guiding role in our lives than we feel they should (my mother in law and my father are a case in point). No matter what we do in life, we'll be a disappointment to someone, piss someone off, get mildly in someone's way. Living up to everyone's expectations is impossible; one has only one life, and you have to manage your own life the best you can. That's been my personal philosophy since I was 22 and sick of being pulled to pieces in all directions. Alors, continue comme ça, Jen, c'est la seule façon d'être heureuse! Bonne Année!
decision
...even though I do want to go to acelin's, there's too much of me that's just too damn lazy right now. I had a nap and I am totally unmotivated. Big party animal, I am.So, movie lineup. Dinner is in. And I'm off to put on comfy jammies.
moi @ 9:29PM | 2003-12-31| glad you're staying in with the puppy, especially after last year's debacle ... or maybe that was a different shoeless keyless in the snowy gutter saga. champagne bubbly smoochies for the new year (i'll be snuggly abed well before the ringing in). love you more in the coming year than the last or the prior. (hey! we've got history!) snugglies to munchkin. mwaaah!
Jen @ 12:29AM | 2004-01-01| uncalled for. Really.
moi @ 9:26PM | 2004-01-01| so apparently, all that was gotten out of that was (unintentional) negativity and (equally unintended) judgmentalism and not one jot of (intended) concern for health and welfare. when the message gets so misread, it's time to give up, pack up and go home, apparently.
Jen @ 2:36PM | 2004-01-02| There are better ways of showing concern that to repeatedly bring up something that happened 12 months ago. Something I'd personally rather not dwell on and don't need reminding of. My reaction was intended to point that out. If you choose to consider it a reason to pack up, then that's your choice. I'm not going to fight over who intended what or misread what or did what, I'm only saying that I don't appreciate those comments no matter what the intent.
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
verdict on the puppydog
...I just have to say that she has the best freakin' vet on the planet. The best.Rather than go into the long drawn out three page explanation of the 45 minutes I spent in her office...here's the shortened version....
Dr: How's Lacey's knee?
me: "explanation of last weeks fall, fabulous and that's not even why we're here.
before we start I have to say....new job, 1/2 amount of pay, we should have been here sooner but it's taken me a couple months to get to the point I could afford it....so I have to be very careful about what we do here today."
Dr: "Can I ask how the career move has turned out?"
me: "Wonderful and I'm very glad I did it, the only issue has been she's getting older and requiring more care and more cost and I'm making less than ever, it makes it a very difficult decision."
Dr: "So...let's take a look."
me: "2 issues. One, this thing growing on her lip that I didn't even notice till after we'd made the appointment and two, the whole bladder infection I left too long, I think her kidneys are going thing."
...So, for the first time ever I think with a vet, she and I went over everything and she says, "This is what we should do, urine test, blood test, cultures and xrays." (all very relevant and all would tell us things we need to know). BUT, practically, we can say her kidneys don't work as well as they should, she's 16, and blood tests will confirm that but once the kidneys start to go, there's nothing we can really do. She's not incontinent, which is a good sign and if we go by her behavior and your feelings, since you know her better than anyone on earth, let me propose this. We put her on broad spectrum antibiotics and see how she does. That gives you a financial breather and allows us to address what we think the problem may be. I'll find an antibiotic that should also help her skin problems and we'll zap everything and you call me in two weeks...this is what we should be looking for."
me: "Yes, good. I would also like to put her on a kidney diet and pick that up here as the food in the grocery stores is not as good a standard, so at least we're addressing that too, as much as we can."
We talked about what I expect her life span to be, that I will do what I can as long as she's comfortable but I don't yet see that as an issue as she's still active and happy and remarkably frisky /bright-eyed for her age and my expectations around what is practical and what constitutes 'heroic' measures.
So, antibiotics and 10 Kg of really high-quality food. I had $200, it cost $107. Since her medication for the ear infection was $28 and the last checkup cost was $57, I think she asked them to give me a deal. Grand total = 45 minute exam...$54, 2 weeks of full-on antibiotics= $25.50 and 10 kgs of food= $20.70.
Tony and I went out after and he told me that he's been (even though he doesn't like dogs) totally stressed about this, that he spent the morning at work worried that something horrible would happen, it would be the end and I would be a complete wreck.
That, too, says something about the people who love me that is a precious gift. Cause I totally knew that today would be a minor had-to-be-done thing and not the end of it all. But I still have that precious gift of friends who worry on my behalf.
And that is cool. Very.
And to find a vet that will work with your financial issues when the clinic itself will take only cash and there's no lower-cost care in the city (I checked) is someone shining a light into the darkness who deserves recognition. At the very least, no matter what happens, a thank you card.
When I'm rich (or if I win the lottery) that's where the money's going, to subsidise vets like her....and to buy me a tailor made wardrobe so I don't have to wear clothes that don't fit - although, that's second on my list.
And so, I wander off, a happy girl, to cuddle up with my own little light in the darkness and with the final cloud of the last two months tracking in another direction for a little while.
e @ 7:24AM | 2003-12-31| I hope your doggy stays healthy for as long as possible, Jen- 16 years is a grand age, and a long time to have a friend with you.
Monday, December 29, 2003
hard work
...so, I did do the month ends, endeavored to take a pic of my soon-to-be-no-longer office (shitty camera, they didn't turn out), timesheets from last week, expenses for scary....then in avoiding actually getting down to doing some work, I rolled the boss' change.
No. Really. I did.
He's got this pottery thingy full of spare change. Maybe his wife won't let him empty his pockets at home, I dunno. But, lately he's been hiding it as he's sure the cleaning staff are scooping cash out of it. You figure?
So, down on the floor mostly covered by a briefcase, it sits. And overflows. So, I went down to the bank and rolled $33 of it, which left the pennies. Sorted them into little envelopes and then left early to shop for penny rollers. Cause there's 11 more dollars there and if I do them tomorrow I can pretend it wasn't cleaning-obsessive me and tell him the fairies did it.
SER @ 8:43PM | 2003-12-29| There's no crime in obsessive-compusion.
thank god it's a new day
...I admit, I slept in a little. It's not like anyone is here at work anyways. Eventually the dog's snoring lulled me to sleep, once I managed to stop leaning over the bed to stare at her and think about how I'll survive when she's gone......cause you know, once my body decides to sleep, my mind decides to kick into overdrive and torture me half to death. Doesn't matter the subject, really. I don't think I slept at all when I was sick last year.
Things just have to be resolved somehow before I can sleep. Writing the last post solidified the first part and got it off my mind. The second part didn't resolve itself until I was trying to wrestle the hair into submission this morning. Cause even though my hairdresser calls it 'artfully messy', after 10+ years of having mostly a girlie brushcut and perfect hair, anything over an inch long drives me freaking craaaaaazy.
What was I saying? Oh yeah, wrestling, lightbulb, epiphany. After having to jump through 824 hoops to get the bank to lift the 'you bounced a check in 1995 so we're holding all deposits for 48 hours' last month, I had completely forgotten I could write myself a check to one bank, immediately withdraw money, which would then be processed after I was paid.
Loser. Double capital L.
Although, in hindsight, I guess it's good I didn't remember that. Bad precedent. As previously indicated I would do anything for the dog. And that, in itself, is not a bad precedent. In fact, it's one that more people should follow for our smarter four-legged friends.
Suffice it to say, I feel better now.
And in celebration of the new cool pants and knowing what my weight is, I'm wearing my sexy spike heeled boots that Scott, my high school sweetheart bought me back then. Cause I weigh that much again. Cause they're back in style. Cause that was back in 1986. Yes, 1986.
and I feel a little bad that I used to scoff at my mother when she said...."this'll come back into style one day."
sorry, mom.
Sunday, December 28, 2003
cold without the benefit of pretty white stuff
okay, so I didn't actually check the temperature before I took the dog out for her morning ablutions, but considering it was pretty chilly last night I bundled up.She of course is barely awake and watching sleepily from the couch as I put jeans over my jammie pants, wool socks, a tshirt over the tank top, Joel's old heavy sweatshirt and jam a baseball hat over my freshly showered hair, packing my pockets with 'poo bags', keys and grabbing a mug of coffee. I pick up her leash and stand at the door waving it in her direction until she gets the hint that I'm finally ready to go.
She just doesn't understand that although she's constantly moving and insulated by all that sprinkled gray fur, naked human mommy is just standing around in the wind at the end of the leash, barely moving at all and becoming sluggish from the cold in the first signs of hypothermia.
It *is* only minus 12 C (10.4 degrees F) but it's still a bit of a shock.
I think both of us are missing Shari's fenced back yard, where I could stay inside and she could wander about without the restriction of a leash for the first time in at least six years.
