Recently in photos Category

since you arrived from my friend Jodi Chromey, you've been my constant companion for the last eight years, six months and 18 days. you've travelled with me through four countries, in cars, on boats, in planes and on buses. you've written letters, cheques, daily drivel and secret notes.

today, as i was screwing in a new ink cartridge, you finally collapsed. your beautiful red barrel cracked. i couldn't believe my eyes. i denied the reality before me as you tore yourself apart trying to get one. last. cartridge. inside you for me to use.

i've ordered your replacement, but know that you'll never truly be replaced. thank you for all the words, dearest Lamy. you will never be forgotten.

i am so tired of everyone complaining about the weather.

i don't know what it is about Vancouverites and their extremely short memories when it comes to sunshine. we can have two weeks of beautiful, warm, bright days, but as soon as there's a solid bank of clouds overhead or a sprinkle or two, out comes the whining, moping and general shitheadedness.

hey, it's not the end of the world! it's water. in the sky or falling from it. you know, H₂O? aqua? the stuff of life?

and, really, who the fuck cares if it's shitty from 8-5 M-F? most of us can't be out enjoying any "good" weather then anyway, what with our cube-lives requiring us to hide under fluorescent lights and breathing recycled air for five-sevenths of our days.

yesterday morning was dark and dreary; but, it was also hot and muggy -- ew. then the clouds broke and it got gorgeous just in time for you all to leave your office-cells! how is that possibly something to complain about?

today, it's raining; but, the sky is pretty bright and, c'mon! the sound of ALL THE RAIN EVER falling? such a fantastic sound to wake up to (after i forgot to set my alarm and Rose stuffed her furry face into mine to ensure i wasn't late for all that fluorescent recycled air)! i wanted to be able to lay in bed longer just to listen to it.

would you rather have 36°C with a 45°C humidex like they're getting in the rest of the continent? are you insane? that's just stupid and untenable. i'll take 25°C and partial-clouds any day of the week, thanks.

grr.

because @strombo touched mine!

Kimli took me to see George Stroumboulopoulos at the CBC today. he is shorter than he looks on tv, but nicer, funnier and oh-so-chatty. thanks to Kim & Ed being in line way early and Ed's excellent seat-snagging we were DEAD CENTRE for the taping.

afterwards, we loitered longly in the meet'n'greet so i could do two things: get a photo taken with Canada's Boyfriend and not make a fool of myself asking for either: him to talk to my mom on the phone (she's in love with him) or make a new voicemail message for me. guess which i asked for? sorry, mom!

anyway, i'm super headachy from all the clapping and lack of proper snacks, so this post is short and hyper. but, yeah, i met George and he's really nice.

that bastard.

and here's a photo of me being adorable while George records the above message, taken by the talented and happily handy John Biehler:

(p.s. hey, rss people. there is audio content in this post you must click through to the site to hear. click! go on!)

i'm going to make a confession. sometimes, when i think about my kittens, i start to cry.

yup, i'm a nutbar. i just can't help it! i waited SO LONG to have cats and now i have two amazingly adorable, awesome, playful, pretty, crazy and hilarious cats... i get a little overwhelmed with just how much awesome they've brought into my life. it's astounding to me how much i love them after only knowing them for a few weeks. i look forward to going home from wherever i am because i know they're there waiting for me. yes, i may walk into shredded toilet paper or broken window blinds, but i don't care. they're my fantasti-cats!

gush.

they follow me around and mew and purr and want to help me with everything -- especially eating my yogurt. they run around like little horses and wrassle on the bed and greet me with snuggles in the morning dark. they love everything about the bathroom and paper balls... oh, the paper balls. even when they're shitheads or distracting me from what i'm trying to do, they're perfect. i count myself very lucky to have found them and have them pick me to be their new handmaid. two kittens is not what i set out to find, but now that they're with me, i couldn't imagine making any other choice.

mrrf.

oops. well, i guess i haven't been all that diligent about posting this month. but, i will say i think i did pretty well for someone who hasn't been in the habit since, oh, last NaBloPoMo. 22 out of 30 days? not bad, indeed. go me!

sorry about all the cats. but, just like when people start spawning, all i have to talk about these days are my infuriatingly adorable purr babies. you know, like how they managed to destroy two framed photographs last night while i was down in the laundry room for no more than seven minutes. sigh.

as i was talking to my mom last night, i mentioned to her that i've been reading a lot lately about the minimalist movement, i just didn't realize that adopting kittens would force me into the lifestyle with the removal of all my stuff from my walls, shelves and floors in the name of kitten-proofing. or, as i said to Christopher, i just can't have anything nice now that i have cats. oh well, at least i have the cats. they're pretty nice. most of the time.

i've been reminded lately of how hard it is to have friends who live very far away. i'd almost forgotten what it felt like after i started to have friends who actually lived in the same area code as me. it's a strange sensation. on one hand, it's so amazingly awesome to have a connection with someone fantastic who really gets you; on the other, it's such a heart-breaker to not be able to spend real time with them because of epic geographical impedance. and to think, for a good seven years or so, those were the only kinds of relationships i had. how sad for me. it both makes me very glad of my awesome local friendships and disappointed for all the things which get missed because my other friends aren't nearby. everybody needs to move to Vancouver. we'll get a giant old house and live commune style! but with more frequent showers and no fucking patchouli.

tomorrow night is the finale for ANTM cycle Boring and there will be people playing with my cats to enjoy it with. this weekend, Kingsley goes in for his second service and i will be exercising my bumper-to-bumper warranty and getting yet another set of new windshield wipers because the ones they put on in July are shitty streaky and gross. seriously! they only last four months?! blah. stupid cheap wipers! a least they'll be free. oh, and Sunday is Got Craft? day! i'm almost considering lining up at 7am just to get in on the swag bag magic. anybody want to come line up with me?

oh, yeah, i think i'm skipping Christmas this year. i can't decorate because of cats and i shouldn't bake because of the size of my ass. my work party was last Friday, so i boycotted and trying to organize a department lunch is full of frustration. if the weather co-operates, i'll be going to Parksville to spent a couple of days with my mom, leaving my cats alone to destroy anything left out in my apartment. if the weather is prohibitive, i think Kimli has said she's going to kidnap me, which might be the most festive option available to me.

content? right! content!

look! bath cat!

sorry, t'was wayyy too busy playing with cats. there will be more words tomorrow.

i'm waiting for cat-related news, so instead of words, you get a pretty picture.

after six years, i'm finally ready to bring a cat into my apartment. the super's been asked, the screens have been installed and the bathroom is ready for it's kitty-friendly addition. the only thing missing is the cat.

there sure are a lot of cats out there waiting for new homes.

i've been to three of the seven SPCAs in the lower mainland over the last week. every time, i leave wanting to take all the cats home with me. with the exception of the Richmond SPCA, the cats live in sad 2'x2'x2' metal cages. some reach out their paws through the bars to beg you to grab your attention. others hide in their boxes or bury themselves under blankets, too scared or depressed to interact.

it's been a heartbreaking process.

yesterday, Christopher and i went back out to Surrey and Richmond for second visits with three potentials we met on the weekend. unfortunately, one showed a nasty side (and drew blood) and another was far too much of a scaredy-cat needing a lot more time and work than i have to give, so they're off the list. the third wasn't quite as lively and affectionate as our first visit and has proven without a doubt she's not a cuddle cat, which is definitely a characteristic i'm looking for.

but, they say that when one door closes, another opens, and i met two fantastic tabbies i kind of fell in love with.

this is mitsy, a one-year-old female:

and this is stax, a five-month-old male:

mitsy took everything i threw at her. picking her up, scratching her butt, holding her like a baby. she even let me rub her belly without an attack! and, more adorably, she was up on her hind feet trying to catch the hummingbirds playing on the tv in the Surrey cat room. SO CUTE! her coat is silky smooth with very little white in with the brown tabby.

stax is a little younger than i was looking for, but he's a riot. he would lie down on the floor and stretch alllll the way out, easily doubling his length, and loving a tummy scritch.. for a while. once he was over it, he let me know with a couple of back claws. he's got such an expressive face and pretty yellow-green eyes.

so, i'm back to square one. i have two and a half cats i really like to choose from.

this process is kind of killing me. i think it's because i utterly fell in love with the first cat i saw: buddy. he was a beautiful grey tabby at the North Van Bosley's pet store. unfortunately for me, he was already spoken for when we met. ugh.

i joked with Chris that maybe i shouldn't get a cat at all, just keep going to visit them at the shelters. but, we both agreed that's not the same thing at all. i think he should get stax and i'll get mitsy and we can all live happily ever after. see? that wasn't hard at all!

so, my 37th year was... eventful. among other things i:

i had surgery (and woke up), but ended up nearly dying a week later. luckily, i'm smart or something and had a good idea what was happening and had the wherewithal to advocate for myself while being rolled around the medical system. unfortunately, i learned a little too much about fear and anxiety. i also learned that i am so unbearably lucky to have the family and friends that i do.

i also gave up on trying to be debt-free for my 41st birthday and bought a much-needed new, and warrantied, car.

i met someone i've wanted to for many years when my friend Paige came to visit in May.

i've gone to a lot of parties and have, shockingly, started not hating the idea of them!

i started going to boot-camp and got my ass KICKED twice-weekly for three months. the scariest thing? i loved it and can't wait to get back to it! Christopher isn't sure how he feels about my shrinking ass, though. ;)

i believe it's no longer possible for me to pretend that i'm young. 38 is way too close to 40 for comfort.

so... 38. what do you have in store for me? whatever you do, please be gentle with me. i may seem to be all tough, but i'm still a little tender from the whooping i got last year.

six months ago (minus three days), a blood clot which formed in the back of my left leg after my knee surgery broke off, zoomed up my leg, through my heart and got stuck in my lung. it went from being a DVT to a PE in a millisecond. and it almost killed me.

for the last six months (minus three days), i've been taking a daily dose of rat poison to thin my blood enough so that i wouldn't form another clot and to buy my body time to "deal with" the clot that now resided in my lung, like a ticking time bomb.

every week for the last six months (minus three days), i've had to go to the lab and get poked with needles (sometimes multiple times) to draw my blood to ensure that i was taking enough rat poison to keep the clot(s) at bay.

every minute of every day for the last six months (minus three days), i've worried about that clot in my lung. the doctor in the hospital said one of three things could happen to it:

1) it could just go away;
2) it could get scarified and permanently attached inside my lung; or,
3) it could, in some cases, get bigger.

he also said they wouldn't do any follow-up CT scan or testing to find out what it did after my six months of anti-coagulant treatment. take the pills and then stop taking the pills and you'll be fine, he said. so, i lived with the fear that it was just growing and getting more and more ominous because that's what i do. i worry and practice hypochondria.

today, i got the news.

my lovely and wonderful hematologist told me that the radioactive fog i breathed in and radioactive solution i got shot up with two weeks ago showed that my lungs are completely clear. my clot is gone! my lungs are absolutely normal and i am not going to die at some random moment because i exerted myself too much and dislodged my unwanted lung tenant! i can eat broccoli and take vitamins with abandon! i can have beer! i can go jump on a treadmill and not fear heavy breathing!

i started to cry as i walked to the car. i knew i'd been depressed and anxious the last six months (minus three days) and that i was under some extreme stress, but this news, those three little words, have lifted a giant weight from my shoulders. as i told my dad, there aren't enough exclamation points in the world to express just how happy this makes me.

I AM NORMAL!!!

and i'm so happy i could almost float. =)