Four fights in five minutes

So I have been recuperating  at my wonderful boyfriend’s house since Sally* came out a couple weeks ago.  All this quality time together can be a bit grating on the nerves, since I am basically doing nothing more meaningful than sleeping and eating, and my boyfriend works from home.  22.5 solid hours together in a 900-square foot condo can do things to you.  Here, for your reading pleasure, the most ridiculous kerfuffles we’ve had so far during my recovery:

Mr. Neat Freak - My boyfriend is a sporadic cleaning nazi!  He will let dishes pile up on the counter, but God forbid I leave my clothes anywhere but my designated drawer!  This leads to situations where my man knows more about where my belongings are than I do.
Me: Babe, do you know where my pyjamas are?
BF:  Which ones are your pyjamas?
Me: The grey pants and grey tank toppy-thing.
BF:  You mean the grey tank top.
Me: Yeah, the pants and the tank top.  They were in my bathroom, but they’re not anymore.
BF:  Why do you say ‘thingy’?
Me: I dunno!  Have you seen them?
BF:  I put them in the hamper.
Me: Why?
BF: I thought you were done with them.
Me: If I was done with them I would have put them in the hamper!!!

PMS/tendency-to-worry-too-much – I sometimes over-react to small spats.  For instance, my bf comes back from the gym in a weird mood sometimes (I guess it’s all the testosterone and manly aggression that you need to push stuff around) and doesn’t like to talk a lot until he’s settled down.  I know this, intellectually at least, but it doesn’t stop me from having a hormone-induced breakdown!
BF:  Hey, baby I’m back.
Me: Did you have a good workout?
BF:  Meh.
Me:  Are you hungry?  I’ll heat something for you.
BF:  Thanks honey.
Me: How much chicken do you want?  The whole breast?  Or the breast and the leg?
BF: Yes…
Me: So, the whole thing?  And how much other stuff you want?  I’ll split the carrots and the greens between us?
BF: ‘K.
Me: (tears welling) Babe, do I make you happy?
BF:  Yeah, why do you ask?  (looks up)  Aw… don’t cry!  It’s ok.  What’s wrong???
Me: I just…*sob* want you to be happy.  And… *sniff sniff* if I can’t make you happy, I want you to find somebody else *sob*
BF: Honey, I think you’re over-reacting.
[He takes me to the couch where I messy-cry into his sweaty tank top]

Conference Call Conundrum – there is one toilet in the condo that seems to act up occasionally.  Of course, it’s the one in my bathroom.
Me: Babe?
[No response]
Me: Oh shoooot…  *start trying to plunge and flush the toilet to fix it*
BF: [Opening the bathroom door]  What is going on?  I’m on a call!
Me: I was trying to fix it…
BF: It’s really distracting and loud.
Me: You’re mad at me because I didn’t just leave a mess?!?!? 
BF:  Could you do it later?  I have to get back on the call.
[I sulk in another room, and he has to fix the toilet when his call is over]

The Opposite of ADD – I am not good at multi-tasking.  I know I’m a girl, and females are supposed to be excellent multi-taskers but I really can’t watch television and pay attention to anything else at the same time.  It’s one or the other when it comes to tv, or reading e-mails, or watching a movie, and talking to my boyfriend. 
Me: [Watching some show or other on the tv]
BF:  Honey?  Maves?  Mavis?  MAVIS???
Me: Huh?  Yeah babe?
BF:  I called your name, like four times!
Me: I’m sorry!  I was concentrating on my show.  What did you say?
BF:  Nevermind.  I was just asking you when you think we should go to the grocery store.  Before or after we stop at the bank? … Babe?
Me: *watching tv again*
BF:  Oh for crying out loud!
Me: Huh?  Were you talking to me?

*Sally is the name that Morag  gave to my homunculus cyst.  I had to have surgery to evict Sally from my lady parts.

The horror…. the horror…

So, it is almost exactly one week after my cystectomy, and I am out of the big house!  Yes, I was discharged last week and am now enjoying being completely useless at home rather than in the hospital.  Before having my surgery, I freaked myself out about hospital super-bugs and getting flesh-eating disease.  I was also semi-convinced that I wasn’t going to wake up from the anaesthetic, or that they would ‘put me under’ but I would be able to feel them cutting Sally out of me during the procedure.

Now that the surgery is over, I can happily say that the whole experience wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.  My initial fears were partly because of my pre-operative appointment at the hospital.  Suffice it to say, I am very relieved that the surgery went more smoothly than this visit.  Let me detail for you the horrors below:

12:10pm – Arrive for my appointment twenty minutes early and request my overnight accommodation at  patient registration
12:20pm – Check in with the receptionist for my pre-op appointment and take a seat.  Thankfully I have a book with me.
12:40ish – Get called by the receptionist and moved to a smaller, more claustrophobic room down the hall.  And this is where the horror begins, people!

Once I deposit myself in this other waiting room, I notice that there is a family with two small children.  The children are probably between 2-5 years old with over-developed lungs.  I presume that one of these unlucky kids is here to have tests done, if merely by witnessing his parents drag him screaming into the bathroom to get a urine sample.  The unlucky kid is particularly cranky and cries almost constantly for the next 40-50 minutes, with the crying being interrupted for play sessions with his dad in the hallway, which are even louder and echo through the small waiting room.  I am not impressed with this child or his parents, and try to cause him to spontaneously combust with the power of my mind for a few minutes.

Also in this waiting room is a man who is cerebrally challenged, and cannot guage the volume of his voice while speaking on a cellular phone.  Between his yacking, the kid crying and not spontaneously combusting, and having to wait almost a full hour with this cacophony, I am having a nervous breakdown.  I’ve long given up on reading, and can’t put in earplugs for fear of missing my name being called. 

I suddenly notice that I’m hyperventilating, so I pick up my things and rush out of the room and down the hall towards the elevators.  I have to grab hold of a metal handrail by the windows while I continue to hyperventilate.  Thoughts of abandoning this whole operation thing are running through my mind.  ‘I don’t have to do this’ ‘I can live with it until it ruptures’ ‘I’ll just stab myself with a steak knife in the emergency room and get it taken out’. 

It takes me a few minutes to calm down, and eventually, I make my way back to the waiting room of death.  The lady who was ahead of me was called in a few minutes ago, so I’m thinking I must be next when an elderly nurse-lady who I will call Crazy Nurse Helga walks in… but she calls “Mrs. Mavis Smith?  Mavis Smith?  S-M-I-T-H, Mavis Smith?”  I am staring daggers at her, but don’t move cuz, who knows?  Maybe Mavis Smith is here for her pre-op appointment too?  Crazy Nurse Helga shrugs her shoulders and walks away with a huff.  A few minutes later, she returns and calls out “Mavis Peabody” - I get up as soon as I hear my last name, and she launches into apologies.  Now, I know last-names can get tricky… but I had a chance to read the label she was looking at, and nowhere on that thing were there any combination of letters and vowels that resembled ‘SMITH’ on it.

Crazy  Helga turns out to be a nice person, and talks me through everything that’s going to happen on the day of my surgery.  I had come with a list of questions, but she managed to answer most of them during the course of the appointment.  The last gift she left me with will probably be the most traumatic blood-letting of my adult life (at least I hope so).  She has to take 2 vials of blood from me.  No biggie, right?  Except that she has to fish for my vein and then forgets to remove the turnicate after finally finding blood.  I, as a normal person, don’t notice since I’m not the health professional here!  But she is having me pump my fist to fill two vials while this turnicate is restricting the blood flow!  Two thirds of the way through the second vial, she notices and releases the turnicate, but my arm is already massacred.  Then, after removing the needle, she pushes her thumb so hard on my gaping needle wound that I still feel a bruise TO THIS DAY!

The total appointment plus blood-letting time was probably less than 30 minutes, but the wait time was more than an hour and I now have ever-lasting trauma.  Thankfully, my surgery went much better.  Shout-out to the nurses in the Operating Room, in Recovery, and 5South at NYG.  Holla!

Fantasy Farewell Picnic!

So, I have to have a leeeetle surgery done on my mid-section in about 10 days.  My doctor felt “something” during my last checkup and sent me to the ultrasound clinic to get it checked out.  I expected to receive news of a tilted uters… instead I got news they found a cyst the size of a grapefruit in my girly bits.  Not such great news.  My friend Morag nicknamed my homunculus “Sally” after the jabba-the-hut like representation of Sally Struthers in South Park. 

Anyways, Sally needs to go.  Hence my surgery has been scheduled for the end of the month.  In honour of my soon-to-be-departed guest, I was inspired to host a farewell picnic with medically-themed foods.  However, all the cooking and prep would be a huge pallaver, so I’m going to share the menu for my imaginary picnic instead!

Farewell Picnic Menu:

“Tennis Elbows” – Macaroni pasta tossed in green pesto (pine nuts, garlic, parsley, olive oil, salt, pepper)
“Ruptured Spleens” -Stuffed Red peppers (recipe below)
“Severed Digits” -boiled hot-dogs cut into shorter pieces to resemble toes or fingers, and one end dipped in ketchup
“Fatty Liver” – Foie gras, served with cruncy croustinis, of course!
“Savory Sallys” – Scotch eggs, molded into Sally-esque shapes before frying
“Eyes-ing on the cake” -white chocolate truffles, with pupils painted on to look like eyeballs

I love the idea of a party to send me off to the hospital in good spirits.  If nothing else, it gives me fun ideas to distract me from thinking of my painful recovery.  Just for funsies, I found a recipe for ruptured spleens on foodtv.ca.  Enjoy!  And Bon appetit!!

*Recipe by Doug DiPasquale, Holistic Nutritionist

Ingredients

• 4 red  peppers, tops removed and seeded
• 1 cup brown rice
• 1/2 cup dried red lentils, soaked overnight, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup kasha
• 1 cooking onion, diced
• 1 small zucchini, diced
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons organic olive oil
• 4 teaspoons organic butter
• Unrefined sea salt to taste

Directions

1. In a large saucepan, sauté onion and zucchini in olive oil with a pinch of salt until browned.
2. Add rice, lentils and kasha, stirring well.
3. Add garlic and 4 cups of water.
4. Add another pinch of salt. Cover and simmer until all water has been absorbed.
5. Remove from heat, uncover and let cool for several minutes. Stir in walnuts.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
7. Spoon mixture into peppers. Top each with a knob of butter.
8. Place peppers on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until pepper is soft. Serve as a side or as a vegetarian main course. Enjoy.

My deprived childhood?

I am constantly being made fun of for not having seen certain movies that are ‘defining of my generation’ or ‘must see films’.  I like movies, but never really went out to see them when I was a young kid.  My parents had three of us, and movies are expensive.  Plus we lived in a town that was probably 30 kilometres from a movie theatre so… needless to say, we didn’t take many trips to the cinema.

Even as a teenager, though… the only movies I really remember going to a theatre to see were the Matrix, and… uh… the Matrix (I saw it twice).  It’s the only one I remember having to buy tickets for, and watching in a theatre between the ages of 12 and 18.  I’m not totally movie illiterate… I just haven’t seen as many as other  people my age.

The other day, I had a Toffifee for the FIRST TIME EVER IN MY LIFE!  It was delicious!  So good  in fact, that I had four.  I couldn’t believe that I had lived my life until that moment without something that good!  But I had, in fact, lived my entire life without ever tasting that candy.  And I survived!

The fanciest toy I ever had was the Barbie Ferrari.  I asked for it one year as my birthday or Christmas gift… or maybe I begged and begged to have both my presents combined into one magnificent, white, stallion-emblazoned glory.  It was huge!  And the doors even opened and the steering wheel turned all four of the little black tires!  There was nothing electronic about it… it didn’t need expensive batteries or even a functioning top (it was a convertible).  I used my imagination and made it an awesome toy (much to the chagrin of my mother, who found Ken and Barbie having a tryst in the back seat one evening).

These little things sometimes make me wonder if having the latest and greatest toys and gadgets, or going out for expensive movie outings, or being ‘up’ on all the latest things is important in any way to a great childhood.  It seems like kids growing up in Generation Z are bombarded with messages that they have to have a certain toy or piece of clothing or something or other to give their existence meaning.  I obviously disagree with this kind of thinking.

Now that I’m approaching “that age” when one begins thinking about marriage and procreation, I hope upon hope for my little nieces and nephews and friends’ kids that they’re able to escape the materialistic thinking that is perpetuated in the media.  Their cute little heads are being filled with messages that their lives just can’t be complete without a laundry list of consumer goods.  Most people my age have (I hope) realized that material goods aren’t what define a person’s life.  Material goods are good only insofar as they perform their intended function well.  Just having something really doesn’t help you much.  Things don’t define who a person is.  And the pursuit of things is a horrible waste of a life.

If I do end up having kids, I hope I can explain to them that their worth as people is defined by their strength of character, their abilities, their compassion, and their actions.  Even though peer pressure is hard to ignore, and kids can be cruel, I don’t think that parents should buy their kids tons of stuff to make them ‘popular’.  It just feeds the consumerism that ad companies and toy manufacturers are banking on.  To that end, I will endeavour to stop excessively buying things for the kids in my life unless they’re educational or absolutely necessary.  Instead, I’m going to start investing in the complete works of Tolstoy and Hobbes for them.  Hopefully, they’ll be so wrapped up in reading and deciphering the 1900′s prose that they’ll never see the tv ads for the latest inappropriate toy.  Fingers crossed!!

Ambivalent attitudes on parents

The subway was down the other day, and I had to take a packed shuttle bus to my destination instead of a packed subterranean bullet train.  Oh well, such is life in the big city, I s’pose.

On the bus, sitting way in the back, only a few rows behind me, a mom was sitting with her toddler kid.  I really couldn’t say what they looked like (not that it’s important), because I didn’t turn around to get a good look at them.  Now, a mom and her kid on the bus wouldn’t be noteworthy on most other occasions. But, on this occasion, the lady started to read a book to her kid out loud.  It was one of those rhyme-y books with a repetitious and brain-invadingly catchy repeated phrase; so that kids will remember the words and stay interested.

For some reason, the sound of this woman reading a book to her child made my skin crawl!!!  I really don’t know why.  Intellectually, moms who love their kids: good thing.  Moms who want their kids to be literate: good thing.  Kids who like books: gooood!  Books about how you can grow up to be whatever you want regardless of arbitrarily mandated gender roles:  SO GOOD!  But my gut reaction to hearing this woman read out loud was just: “SHUT THE HELL UP!”

This worries me.  It worries me because I’m afraid that if I have kids, other people will react to me reading/talking to my kid the same way I reacted to that lady.  I’m also deathly afraid that I WILL BECOME THAT WOMAN.   I don’t want to annoy people, even if they are unreasonably irked by something so innocent as a mom reading to her kid.  But I sometimes find that once you push a 6-9 pound meatball out of your hoo-ha, you start to have a feeling of entitlement.  “I created LIFE, you assholes!  I can read annoyingly aloud to my child WHEREVER THE HELL I WANT!”

I really don’t want to become one of those people who thinks they are entitled to anything.  I certainly don’t want to be the kind of person who annoys strangers and doesn’t think twice about it.  The world is already too full of inconsiderate people like that already.  And I’m now realllyy afraid that I will become one of those people!  It’s another fear that I have about becoming a parent…

What are your thoughts, reader(s)?  Am I a DB for wanting that woman to stop talking?  Have you ever reacted poorly to a situation that was totally innocuous and then felt like an ass after?

Random Rants (Warning: contains foul language!)

There are some things I notice while I’m going about my days in the city. There are nice things, neutral things, pretty things… But there are also infuriating things. Here is an open letter to my city, because I care.

Dear Toronto:
Just because you’re carrying a laptop bag, or have your headphones in your ears does not make it possible for people to pass through you if you’re blocking the subway doors.  Get your ass out of the way!  And take that backpack off your back and pull up your pants!

Dear Toronto: 
When you’re walking on the sidewalk, in a hallway, or in the mall, slower people should keep right.  (You’ll know you’re a slow person if people are constantly going around you).  When on an escalator, stand on the RIGHT.  The left side of the escalator is for people who have somewhere to be.  Really people, is left and right so DIFFICULT???  The escalator is not a ride!

Dear Toronto:
Pick up after your damn dog!  I mean, your dog’s cute and all, with it’s little booties and sweater with dog designs on it.  Awww… it’s wearing clothes like people!!  But leaving it’s shit on the sidewalk is NOT COOL! 

Dear Toronto:
What is with these young kids wearing NO CLOTHES in the middle of winter?!?!  Are they so dumb that they can’t feel cold?  If you love your children, don’t let them leave your house in booty shorts in DECEMBER!!  And if you must, creepily follow them in your SUV while they walk to school to make sure they are wearing pants.  And kids, frost bite is not cool!  It’s tissue necrosis!!

Dear Toronto:
Giving up your seat on the subway, holding doors open for each other, helping people carry heavy things up/down the stairs, letting people with only 3 items cash out before you at the grocery store – all these things show that you were raised properly and are a decent human being.  They make the city a better place to live and they make you a better person.  If you care about your parents, don’t act like they didn’t raise you properly!  Show some manners!  I know you can do it.

Running shoes and life support

I, like many thousands of other people in the city lately, am relishing the arrival of spring. The warmer weather and the disappearance of snow have me nearly giddy with happiness. The days are noticeably lengthier, and our old friend the sun has been coming around much more often.  Sunlight people! It’s a great time of year.

Spring is also the beginning of race season, and as a novice runner, an exciting time for me. I have already registered for three races this season, the most challenging of which will be a half marathon in October.   With the goal of finishing ‘the Half’ looming over me,  and my intense desire not to embarrass myself, I decided that I should get a new pair of running shoes – equipment can’t do the hard work for you, but it can help.

I’d heard a lot of good things about the shopping experience at a particular store, so I decided to check it out.  The sales person evaluated my gait and recommended a shoe with more arch support (I have flat feet).  I had no reason to distrust the salesperson, but the hefty price tag of the pair he recommended was a bit discouraging.  I decided to take some time to think about the purchase.  Fast-forward about three hours, and I’m in a Winners trying on discount running shoes.  These shoes are by a good brand, and super comfy. PLUS they are only $50, which my pocketbook finds much more agreeable than the other shoes I had tried on that day.  Always a sucker for a good deal, I buy the shoes and am off to the races (so to speak). 

The shoes look great, feel pretty good, and most importantly, they were a great deal!  I am pretty happy with myself.  That is, until I go to see a physiotherapist who tells me my gait is ‘unstable’…  probably a big contributing factor to the knee problems I’ve been having.  Dammit!  So, I ask the guy, point blank:  “Would a shoe with more support help my running?”  And the dude is like “Yes.”  Crap!  I should have listened to the shoe expert and followed his advice.  Sigh…

Needless to say, I have gone and purchased another pair of shoes… meaning that I wasted spent $50 on shoes that look nice, but aren’t very functional for all the running I want to do this year. In my attempt to save some cash and get a good deal, I ended up spending more!!!   Ne’er has a better example of a backfire been executed by the likes of me.

I feel like this little story is an allegory for the way many of us live our lives.  We get good advice.  It makes perfect sense.  But somehow we think we know better and ignore that good advice.  Only to find out that the expert was right all along(duh!)  And our ill-advised decision to ignore common sense and good advice comes back to bite us in our behinds.  Why didn’t I just listen to the guy when he told me I needed more arch support????  Maybe it’s because I was in denial about just how much support I really need.  I thought I could coast along without any support… play footloose and fancy free.  When really, what I need is some stabilization.

I’ve come to realize that in running shoes, as in other aspects of my life, I should learn to ask for and accept support.  If I’m going to be in this life for the long haul, I should find the best possible way to run the race.  Accepting support from a good shoe, or life partner, or friends, just might make the going a little easier.