Pre-amble on smile stories -- term came from my time as a toastmaster member where a meeting starts with a simple little story by someone about something amusing or heart-warming. i'm going with that tradition and going to keep at it.
Might I talk about my cats from time to time because they drive me nuts sometimes? Other times they just amuse me. It's a 50/50 because I have no idea what they think of me but i get a kick out of their odd habits.
With gradual introduction of course, I shall try to sum one up. Black as a shadow, Gabe causes me more grief than is normal. Eats too much and protests too much when we cut down his diet getting under foot in the kitchen. Without being superstitious, I trip over him.... CONSTANTLY; as he looks for attention.
So any time I can get a chuckle from something dumb he does that seems like karma being justified for the times he trips me up is just great.
Fooling around on a bass guitar, I do get some R&R on occasion. Put the guitar down on the couch and didn't think anything of it to leave my amp turned on as I walked away.
Should be noted how Gabe has a particular pattern in the evenings. He has a crush on a ginger cat that prowls around the block. Without fail, he jumps up on the end of the couch and looks out the front window, whipping his tail back and forth. Being a house-bound cat with no hunting instincts ever displayed, it's a fantasy far from happening kind of hope.
Countless times Gabe's tail has ended up in the ear of whomever has the misfortune of sitting down on that end of the couch. This pattern repeats nightly and frequently.
So as Gabe jumped up to watch for his fantasy ginger kitty and connected with my bass guitar, you can imagine what followed in quick succession. Guitar amp thrummed; startled cat jumped 2ft in the air; amp reverberated from additional tail thrashing; confused cat fell off couch; bass guitar for the win; cat sulked off; Phil laughed at ridiculousness of it all.
Karma justice to ear tickling kitten was served.
-- PLR --
Monday 31 January 2011
Ice Cream & Heart Attacks
And now for something more serious. With more people in the western world having heart attacks, it doesn't make sense to me of why we still eat so unhealthily. There's a real long list of things that potentially can clog arteries which directly supply and valves that work within the heart muscle, yet we still enjoy guilty pleasures.
Yes this is personal because my dad had a fourth heart attack last week and I didn't feel like writing much because I was too worried about him. And too far away to be of any help while he was laid up at the hospital.
Back-tracking six years, a neighbour had to drive my dad to the hospital because he was having trouble breathing. Turned out my dad's heart had murmurs. No it's not like murmle murmle murmle by Robert Munch. It's when a heart beat is irregular. No biggie, just a tattle-tale heart-beat that Poe would have loved to have learned about -- heart attack imminent.
Three years later, ice cream, nachos and greasy food without much exercise in the balance caught up to my poor father. He was down for the count as my poor sister put her CPR skills to use. She very calmly broke a couple of ribs, which is a side-effect but kept dad going until the impressed paramedics arrived. Turns out she'll make a fine nurse when she's done her program. My heroine.
So my dad recovered and walked 5km a day, not an easy task to work up to from sedentary life. However he was on track, having given up smoking long ago, given up most of the greasy foods and ice cream and even the weekend bottle of wine & cheese. He actually listens to his doctor and even went to acupuncture for detoxification of kidneys and lungs. Dropped 30lbs and was feeling quite well.
This Christmas... we were really good and didn't eat too much fattening food. This past week I got a text message from my pastor in Victoria stating, your father had a heart attack again, but he's fine now, thanks to your sister's CPR skills and in stable condition. Oh good....
Turned out that a random fat particle got dislodged and carried up and into the heart, causing blockage. Turned out to be a bad thing requiring a stet to shore up the heart's artery. Healthier than he had been in years and still, attack on the heart like lightning. My dad cheated death yet another time, and continues to help support my sister's nursing schooling.
Knowing my dad gets that much exercise, I had a good heart to heart with my sweetie who is also in nursing and with my diet. Decided that I'm doing okay for diet mostly, doing yoga and walks. That said, needed to hit the gym and get back on a bike, drink more water, less of the missing hours of sleep.
Learned a lot about going to the trainer and getting my body composite. With textbook heart rate 130/80 & 60 bpm, I'm have 17% fat which was a few percentages above the limit for my age, but on the fluids end of things, i have 50% water -- right on target for freeing up toxins out of the body.
My sweet girl and my dad as well are very happy to see that I had taking pro-active measures on my health. As for my dad, he was up and about flirting with nurses the day after and recovering while watching the hockey games. So what did I have to eat for supper? Creamy beef stroganoff. However, by draining off the excess cup of grease after browning the pound of beef, it wasn't too bad for me.
Now my dad gets a heart monitor embedded up under the left side of his collar bone and mini defibrillator leads connected to his heart to restart heart and activate an early warning to call 911 if his heart tries to stop again. A bit cyborg rebuilt stronger with the technology, but I'm muchly relieved for this amazing sounding invention. Guess what didn't make the cut on my latest grocery shopping trip? Ice cream.
Yes this is personal because my dad had a fourth heart attack last week and I didn't feel like writing much because I was too worried about him. And too far away to be of any help while he was laid up at the hospital.
Back-tracking six years, a neighbour had to drive my dad to the hospital because he was having trouble breathing. Turned out my dad's heart had murmurs. No it's not like murmle murmle murmle by Robert Munch. It's when a heart beat is irregular. No biggie, just a tattle-tale heart-beat that Poe would have loved to have learned about -- heart attack imminent.
Three years later, ice cream, nachos and greasy food without much exercise in the balance caught up to my poor father. He was down for the count as my poor sister put her CPR skills to use. She very calmly broke a couple of ribs, which is a side-effect but kept dad going until the impressed paramedics arrived. Turns out she'll make a fine nurse when she's done her program. My heroine.
So my dad recovered and walked 5km a day, not an easy task to work up to from sedentary life. However he was on track, having given up smoking long ago, given up most of the greasy foods and ice cream and even the weekend bottle of wine & cheese. He actually listens to his doctor and even went to acupuncture for detoxification of kidneys and lungs. Dropped 30lbs and was feeling quite well.
This Christmas... we were really good and didn't eat too much fattening food. This past week I got a text message from my pastor in Victoria stating, your father had a heart attack again, but he's fine now, thanks to your sister's CPR skills and in stable condition. Oh good....
Turned out that a random fat particle got dislodged and carried up and into the heart, causing blockage. Turned out to be a bad thing requiring a stet to shore up the heart's artery. Healthier than he had been in years and still, attack on the heart like lightning. My dad cheated death yet another time, and continues to help support my sister's nursing schooling.
Knowing my dad gets that much exercise, I had a good heart to heart with my sweetie who is also in nursing and with my diet. Decided that I'm doing okay for diet mostly, doing yoga and walks. That said, needed to hit the gym and get back on a bike, drink more water, less of the missing hours of sleep.
Learned a lot about going to the trainer and getting my body composite. With textbook heart rate 130/80 & 60 bpm, I'm have 17% fat which was a few percentages above the limit for my age, but on the fluids end of things, i have 50% water -- right on target for freeing up toxins out of the body.
My sweet girl and my dad as well are very happy to see that I had taking pro-active measures on my health. As for my dad, he was up and about flirting with nurses the day after and recovering while watching the hockey games. So what did I have to eat for supper? Creamy beef stroganoff. However, by draining off the excess cup of grease after browning the pound of beef, it wasn't too bad for me.
Now my dad gets a heart monitor embedded up under the left side of his collar bone and mini defibrillator leads connected to his heart to restart heart and activate an early warning to call 911 if his heart tries to stop again. A bit cyborg rebuilt stronger with the technology, but I'm muchly relieved for this amazing sounding invention. Guess what didn't make the cut on my latest grocery shopping trip? Ice cream.
The point is, changes to diet and establishing exercise routines can do a heck of a lot of good when the crucial time comes. I don't want to think about the alternatives, but am proud of my dad for dropping the weight and getting back in shape. The ticker might be wearing out, but the mind is still super active so my dear father, thank God above, got another chance with another cat life down. So my mother is renewing her CPR training and I'm trying to cut down more grease from my cooking.
Life goes on. So look after the ones you love and look after yourself.
-- PLR --
-- PLR --
v-day approaches so learn from the past
Now for something more light-hearted. Valentine's day cometh and that strikes terror to the hearts of singles and men everywhere. Once upon a time I wrote a cheeky guide for my slightly gothy girl and she loved it. Now I write for the nursing student I do love and adore.
As my sweetie Sharon does read this, I apologize if I got stuff wrong, but it's how I remember stuff. As I'm predictable at times, I have no intentions of giving away any surprises for this V-day. But as tech school grad, I do have the experience to recount what has and hasn't worked over the years when in college.
Writing and giving a poem to a girl I had a crush on? Win.
Finding out she was hoping to date someone else? Worst fail of high-school.
Found out she kept the poem on her wall for years when the other date didn't turn out. Win.
Finding out that knowledge years later in college when I'm already dating someone else? Fail. But no regrets.
Writing a poem for a girl I had a crush on in my college newspaper column while single? Win. Having her friends laugh at me as she walked away indecisively blushing? Fail. Thankfully I had developed a thicker skin by then.
Making brownies? Win. Almost burning them while making out? Fail. Asking Sharon to marry me? WIN three years ago; Hence why brownies were forgotten. Tie game.
Romantic dinner out in Banff? Win. Not making reservations? Fail with bonus round of searching out a restaurant where someone else's reservations fell through. Win. Taking her to the fudge shop afterward? Win.
Feeding on fudge and giggles followed by wine & cheese while watching romance of Mask of Zorro? Absolute win.
Cooking pasta for fancy dinner? Fail if it's a staple student meal.
Cooking grilled fish with white sauce & rosemary? Win.
Roses? Win. Farts? Fail.
Dancing in the kitchen spontaneously? Win.
Asking to go out for Karaoke? Fail. Singing on voicemail? Win.
Taking her to Bedouin Soundclash or the ballet? Win.
Most recently last year.... going out to a look-out point, in the dead of winter -30C with windchill, for a dance atop the hill? Chattering teeth fail. Having her cuddle up with me to warm up? Tie game,
Getting stuck waiting at the train tracks for the freight train on the way to the hilltop and feeding each other A&W fries? Win.
Calculating the number of miles I've walked just to see her? Biggest kiss of a win.
Doing Sharon's laundry or dishes on occasion and helping her with studying? Win.
Bringing coffee and a pastry or her A&W take-out favourite, a mozza mama burger, for supper when she's bogged down with research essays? Win.
Listening to her rant about worries on skype when apart and missing each other? Win.
Lads, the point of the dates is in the efforts. Girls don't really care what you do, as long as you put some logical thought into it to make it memorable. It isn't in the huge date plans made last minute or weeks in advance, it's in spontaneous stuff and the small stuff done weekly, like maintenance on your car checking the oil, listening to her requests. So learn from past mistakes and give it another shot. Cheers to that awesome date on V-day. But make it happen all year around and if she's worth it, it'll be a keeper. Good hunting.
-- PLR --
Monday 17 January 2011
January catch-up
Like katch-up shouldn't appear on mac & cheese when it's done justice, nor should the news when a month old. Yet here I am trying my best to keep an even keel when I've been moving way too much in a forward motion, in personal and working life changes. So I'll try to chronicle it for a while and keep track of the successes and near-misses. Call this a brainstorming session for the weekend edition.
Having always been a fairly scattered personality in my ideas when it comes to writing, photography, planning and everything else under the sun, I have grand intentions but never get 75% done. That had to change, and we've all said that before, just before procrastination hit. But now it's do or die because I realized I was able to get so much done over the past month. Everything except writing on this blog. Screw writers' block because we create messes so we can clean instead of getting to work on something that pays little usually. Enter the dynamite of the spring cleaning and I can't wait until the weather thaws out.
Looking for that illusive Loch Nessy of organized life I rolled up sleeves and got messy. Having planned out and followed through with vacation plans, I got a lot more done; even though I took three days planning and shooting a wedding for my friend (editing has been a harder task) and organizing my old files and papers from school days. My poor sister protested as I hauled up her stuff from school too.
The recycling box got over-loaded from 4 boxes of old assignments and crud and like-wise three boxes of photos hit the round editing basket. Why I kept all the blurry, ex-gf, bad composition and other photo mistakes was mostly a lack of time and guilty reminder that I needed to get better at my craft. It was an eye-opener of how much film I developed. I'm suitably scared to start doing the same to my 1000x's in digital files, but tough luck. It's called the delete button. Also found lots of gems buried in the rubble so that was encouraging.
My poor mother was fairly happy to get some basement storage back and embarked on her own purging of pre-school teaching stuff too. It was a good waltz down memory lane and I hope to digitalize them all in the spring so I can take them with me from Vic to Calgary. A road-trip is still a wistful idea, but will be a heck of a fun time if I can get everything in line to pull it off, including a car maintenance laundry list.
When I got back home I realized that wasn't so bad and went to work on the other stuff. Revamped my room organization because it was bugging me having no place to sort stuff. Put a 4x2ft plywood board on a bunch of milk crates and voila an editing table. Photos, mail, books & other crud was way easier to get at and sort away. Recycling bin is near by as well. So are plans to re-vitalize my website and photo sharing.
My computer was sluggish and disorganized so that's next. It got the customary yearly nuking back to basic install. All my files were safe on different partitions, but I did a back-up of photo and document files anyway. computer games disappeared and amazing how much I could done. If I could find a better labeling system that'd even be better so I'll look for some freeware. It's tearing me apart on deciding whether or not I re-install them. One game only is the deal as a reward for purging through stuff and staying to a time limit. Same to movies though that was hard to give up. I allowed to watch a few more if I keep writing more.
Although it's been a way cooler reward to tackle my reading list -- aka too many books over-flowing from my shelving and tucked on top of my dresser. So I'm narrowing it down and going to review a bunch of them as I hack through them. A Sony E-reader helped make the transition and eventually I'll find enough stuff from the library to download instead. More on that later.
Next was my agenda book as the year wrapped up and I needed a new one. Got a new cellphone (2nd hand) which has windows mobile on it and the task list and calendar reminder alerts are golden when so busy. My palm-pilot got me through a year of journalism school but proved to die too fast in the cold to be a reliable time piece. So I'll find out how the Motorola Q does. Funny enough I'm still using the 'palm-pilot' of writing on my hand since I can't use my cell-phone at work meh.
Lastly was getting through the musical theatre commitment that was been going on for the past few months. Titanic: the Musical set sail on January 13th and I got to relax finally. Went into high gear and got so much errands done for last minute deliveries of dry-cleaning, seamstress alterations, random stuff like dozens of batteries for wireless microphones and everything else. The car odometer hit 500km in a week but it was worth it. Both production manager and costumer designer, who are both dear friends and asked so much but I was happy to do my small part to get the show on. More on that later about patterns in life and sewing. Through the planning and execution of said plans, the amount I was able to get done on top of editing the wedding photos and university opera productions to the point where I'm like just get everything else into high gear.
SO there ya go.... if you're keeping track, I'm getting way better at keeping track of what I want to get done. yay for Mondays.... stay tuned for more to come. As the radio dj on beloved CBC radio 2 pointed out, two weeks in, the new years resolutions are still good and in a week the three week habits will set in.
Soon to follow this weekend will be eReader vs books, sewing & life patterns, cellphones, photo-shoots as well as a bit of health and world events reflections, a trip from my old archives and some other editorials. It'll be a heck of a January issue. Thanks for reading and peace-out.
-- PLR --
Having always been a fairly scattered personality in my ideas when it comes to writing, photography, planning and everything else under the sun, I have grand intentions but never get 75% done. That had to change, and we've all said that before, just before procrastination hit. But now it's do or die because I realized I was able to get so much done over the past month. Everything except writing on this blog. Screw writers' block because we create messes so we can clean instead of getting to work on something that pays little usually. Enter the dynamite of the spring cleaning and I can't wait until the weather thaws out.
Looking for that illusive Loch Nessy of organized life I rolled up sleeves and got messy. Having planned out and followed through with vacation plans, I got a lot more done; even though I took three days planning and shooting a wedding for my friend (editing has been a harder task) and organizing my old files and papers from school days. My poor sister protested as I hauled up her stuff from school too.
The recycling box got over-loaded from 4 boxes of old assignments and crud and like-wise three boxes of photos hit the round editing basket. Why I kept all the blurry, ex-gf, bad composition and other photo mistakes was mostly a lack of time and guilty reminder that I needed to get better at my craft. It was an eye-opener of how much film I developed. I'm suitably scared to start doing the same to my 1000x's in digital files, but tough luck. It's called the delete button. Also found lots of gems buried in the rubble so that was encouraging.
My poor mother was fairly happy to get some basement storage back and embarked on her own purging of pre-school teaching stuff too. It was a good waltz down memory lane and I hope to digitalize them all in the spring so I can take them with me from Vic to Calgary. A road-trip is still a wistful idea, but will be a heck of a fun time if I can get everything in line to pull it off, including a car maintenance laundry list.
When I got back home I realized that wasn't so bad and went to work on the other stuff. Revamped my room organization because it was bugging me having no place to sort stuff. Put a 4x2ft plywood board on a bunch of milk crates and voila an editing table. Photos, mail, books & other crud was way easier to get at and sort away. Recycling bin is near by as well. So are plans to re-vitalize my website and photo sharing.
My computer was sluggish and disorganized so that's next. It got the customary yearly nuking back to basic install. All my files were safe on different partitions, but I did a back-up of photo and document files anyway. computer games disappeared and amazing how much I could done. If I could find a better labeling system that'd even be better so I'll look for some freeware. It's tearing me apart on deciding whether or not I re-install them. One game only is the deal as a reward for purging through stuff and staying to a time limit. Same to movies though that was hard to give up. I allowed to watch a few more if I keep writing more.
Although it's been a way cooler reward to tackle my reading list -- aka too many books over-flowing from my shelving and tucked on top of my dresser. So I'm narrowing it down and going to review a bunch of them as I hack through them. A Sony E-reader helped make the transition and eventually I'll find enough stuff from the library to download instead. More on that later.
Next was my agenda book as the year wrapped up and I needed a new one. Got a new cellphone (2nd hand) which has windows mobile on it and the task list and calendar reminder alerts are golden when so busy. My palm-pilot got me through a year of journalism school but proved to die too fast in the cold to be a reliable time piece. So I'll find out how the Motorola Q does. Funny enough I'm still using the 'palm-pilot' of writing on my hand since I can't use my cell-phone at work meh.
Lastly was getting through the musical theatre commitment that was been going on for the past few months. Titanic: the Musical set sail on January 13th and I got to relax finally. Went into high gear and got so much errands done for last minute deliveries of dry-cleaning, seamstress alterations, random stuff like dozens of batteries for wireless microphones and everything else. The car odometer hit 500km in a week but it was worth it. Both production manager and costumer designer, who are both dear friends and asked so much but I was happy to do my small part to get the show on. More on that later about patterns in life and sewing. Through the planning and execution of said plans, the amount I was able to get done on top of editing the wedding photos and university opera productions to the point where I'm like just get everything else into high gear.
SO there ya go.... if you're keeping track, I'm getting way better at keeping track of what I want to get done. yay for Mondays.... stay tuned for more to come. As the radio dj on beloved CBC radio 2 pointed out, two weeks in, the new years resolutions are still good and in a week the three week habits will set in.
Soon to follow this weekend will be eReader vs books, sewing & life patterns, cellphones, photo-shoots as well as a bit of health and world events reflections, a trip from my old archives and some other editorials. It'll be a heck of a January issue. Thanks for reading and peace-out.
-- PLR --
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