Tuesday 31 May 2016

Do-Over for 2016?

If you're Canadian or "Canadian-adjacent" (are super-cool enough to have Canadian friends) then you already know this, but Gord Downie has terminal brain cancer. This news came just over a month after Spirit of the West held their final concert and officially disbanded due to the health of two members. My life's soundtrack is at least 50% these two bands. So far, 2016 has pretty much sucked on the celebrity front.

Granted, none of these people are dead yet but teenage-me is pretty devastated knowing what's coming down the pipeline. 

*sigh*


Other that wonderful news which was a total Downie to read (feel free to groan and tell me how horrible that pun was), things have been going well. I started this week with a root canal because that's how every Monday should start. I am one more appointment away from being done with Phase One of the Great Teeth Fix. Phase Two is 18-24 months away so that's something to look forward to. </sarcasm>

I have also started counting the days until my trip. I take great satisfaction is writing a smaller number each day in my planner. (In this case, planner is a fancy word for the list I make of work tasks each morning.) It's a nice little pick-me-up to add to my large cup of coffee.

After much humming and hawing, and debating of prices, my brother has booked his ticket as well. He'll be joining me for the last part of the trip - also known as the fun part - to go on safari, abandon each other for a few days, and then head to Zanzibar. I'm excited to get to show him around "my" Tanzania. 

My coworkers from 2007. I can't believe I get to see them again soon!

Gym has been steady and regular, and I've had a few people comment that I'm looking thinner. Not going to lie, I enjoy those comments.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to lay in my bed and listen to my favourite Hip song on repeat.

Monday 23 May 2016

Ugh...

I just finished watching tonight's episode of Game of Thrones. If you want to know my response, click here. It's not really a spoiler but it kind of is so you may not want to click if you haven't seen the episode yet and desire to have your heart ripped from your chest and held, still beating, before your eyes as you die.



I don't know how to handle these emotional episodes of Game of Thrones now that the series is entering territory beyond where the books are at. How did the non-book readers do this for five seasons?

In an attempt to make myself feel better about what happened in a fictional world tonight, I present "Random Things That Have Been Rattling Around in My Head".

First, if you ever need to Rickroll someone but, like, in a classy way (I'm sure that's totally a thing), I present Postmodern Jukebox:


I encourage you to go check out more of their videos on YouTube.

While I was sick with teeth pain, I was up at all hours which meant that I was actually awake when the Hillsborough verdict was announced. I'm guessing that few of the people who actually read this blog - hi Mom! - but I tried to write about it and it turned into this long depressing paragraph and I'm not ready for that after tonight's Game of Thrones. If you want to know more, here are the Google results. What I did want to share was the video of the crowd singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" at the memorial.


I mean, YNWA makes me cry on a good day. I was bawling - but in the best possible way - while watching this. (By the way, 'seeing a LFC game and singing YNWA' is totally on my bucket list. Someday!)

I have seen Captain America Civil War. Seen it more than once, actually.

Hello, my name is Andrea. I'm a little obsessive over movies.

I stand by my original assessment that I like Winter Soldier better, but in the way that I like rashers better than streaky bacon. They're both bacon and I'm not complaining if you put either of them in front of me. Bacon in any form = fantastic. Captain America films = fantastic.

Having said that, I do have a complaint. (Just one, mind you.) The map of the Wakanda people - Blank Panther's tribe. Keep up - clearly shows them in what is South Sudan/Ethiopia. In that region, one of the most predominant languages in Nuer. It is even spoken in Ethiopia. But no. They have T'Challa and his father (T'Chaka) speak Xhosa with each other. Xhosa is spoken in a region of South Africa.

Google Maps says you can drive this in 69 hours.
Google maps is ridiculously optimistic.
I've seen those roads.
Yes, many of the languages spoken in the area of the mythical Wakanda are Bantu (I will note that Nuer is not a Bantu language) and Xhosa falls in the Bantu family, but French and Italy are both Romance languages but speaking one doesn't mean you speak the other. AND THEY SHARE A BORDER!!

Still, I doubt there are many people in the theatre pulling apart the movie because it used a real language that occurs nowhere near the real location that a superhero movie gave to a fake people.

Hello, my name is Andrea. I'm a little obsessive over movies.

I lied, I have another complaint. When [someone] doesn't want to hear [that other person] say [something], why did he try and escape? Why not just, oh I don't know, stick his fingers in his ears and say "la la la, I can't hear you" repeatedly?

Despite this, I did come away from the movie very excited about the Blank Panther movie set for release in 2018.

More of this? Yes, please!
I have signed up for another year of GISHWHES because I have no shame and/or dignity.


My sock monkey hat is ready and raring to go. Bring on August 1st!

I think I've done enough cheering myself up since watching Game of Thrones that I can head to bed. It's a long weekend in Canada so I plan to enjoy my last day off!

Monday 16 May 2016

One Step Closer to Being a Queen

Update on my teeth: if you put on money on root canal, you'd be wrong. TWO ROOT CANALS, BABY!

Wait. Why am I happy about that?

Also, I'm getting a crown. My teeth are royalty. I mean, I'm still a peasant but whatever.


Happily, my jaw was better in time for the annual Reynolds Alumni Band Mother's Day Concert. Nerd goal complete! Is it wrong that our annual concert is one of the highlights in my year?

Sax 4 life!
We had our social closer for this year's Alumni Band last Thursday. Thirty- and forty-something band geeks drinking with our former band teacher who we all idolised? It was pretty much doomed to be the saddest thing you will ever see in your life. I should know. I've gone to the social closer 5 years in a row now.


I finally remembered to step on the scale in the early morning (I didn't even have to leave myself a nasty note) and was pleasantly surprised to see that I'm down 7 lbs since the start of March. Given a bit of a slip up in food choices in March (also known as when some shitty things happened to people I love), I'm happy with that number. I had noticed a change in how my clothes were fitting me and that I was looking smaller through the midsection, but it's nice to have a number to go with those changes. I feel like I should celebrate.

Unrelated to this post, but I started watching Suits on Netflix.
Why am I always the last to find awesome shows?
My dear friends, Noah and Rachel (not their real names), have been having a rough go of it. Noah was diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome 10 years ago. This past November, he took a turn for the worse and as a result, Noah is unable to assist much with work around the property so I try to get over as often as I can to help out. This past weekend, I got to be a lumberjack. It's something I got to help with at my dad's house growing up. I kind of miss it. Felling trees and stacking wood is oddly fun and satisfying.

The maples were extending out past the shed. It meant that the shed couldn't be used
for storage because it remained dark, damp, and mouldy.
That will not be a problem anymore!
I bring up why I go to their place to let you know that anyone can get tested and registered to be a living kidney donor. Hint, hint.

For more information on becoming a living donor in Canada, visit The Kidney Foundation of Canada. In the States, visit The National Kidney Foundation.


Monday 2 May 2016

ER: A Wednesday Night Medical Drama

I realised last week that I had no dramatic middle-of the-night emergency room stories I could share over a pint of beer and decided that I should rectify that. More specifically, my jaw decided it should rectify that.

I had been having a dull ache in my ear since my boss left but it was never so bad that I thought much of it until Sunday night and the great inability to fall asleep left me running on roughly 4 hours of sleep. If there's one thing you should know about me, I need a minimum of six hours to function but 7-8 ensures I don't punch anyone.

By the time Wednesday night rolled around, I had averaged 3 hours of sleep the previous 3 nights. I was exhausted and crawled into bed at 4:30pm having left work early because multiple coworkers told me I looked like shit. Although they may have been a bit more polite about it.

The only relief I got was from drinking cold water. Unfortunately, I had to drink so much to alleviate the pain that I was drinking from one water bottle, swishing the water in my mouth, and then spitting the water into another water bottle. I had to do this approximately once a minute to keep the pain down. Realising there was no way I was going to get any sleep that night without some sort of medical intervention, I called my mom at 11pm to take me to the emergency.

Somewhere in all that there may have also been some delirious crying when one of my inner voices told me to tough it out, everything will be better in the morning. Turns out, my inner voice is a bit of a dick.

The wait at the emergency wasn't as horrendous as it could have been. I mean, it was three hours in which I was exhausted and in pain, but there was only one annoying patient (in the sense that he was making noises because he was detoxing - I think - but he sat off by himself so it wasn't that bad) and everyone else was pretty chill.

It turns out that my ear pain was due to an abscess far enough back in my mouth that it was affecting the nerves in my ear. A shot of something I can't remember the name of and a mild dose of morphine meant that I slept like a log. I woke up at 6:30 (usual wake up time) but was back to sleep before I had rolled over.

It. Felt. SO. Good!

I had texted my boss that I was going to the emergency so I wasn't surprised when she didn't phone me for not showing up at work. When I finally did have an actual conversation with her, I found out that my coworkers told her she wasn't allowed to call or text me at all on Thursday. I love my coworkers a bit for that. Her main question was, given the report she received from them about my state, why did I even come in on Wednesday?

Good question. Short answer: because I'm a devoted idiot.

I'm doing much better now. The pain is all but gone and I have an appointment with my dentist this week to figure out what needs to be done. My money's on root canal. I was back at work today and pretty much everyone told me how much better I look. Given that I'm still a bit lethargic from the medication and the fact that it was Monday, I must have really looked like shit on Wednesday.