Doing my best imitation of a Victorian invalid

So, I think that the WWII course took everything out of me.  After that whole "I was so tired after giving the final that I was pretty much sleepwalking outside, and ended up with a scraped nose and a concussion" episode, I finished all the marking, packed, drove to Saskatchewan, attended a church camp, and promptly caught the Cold That Ate Vancouver Island.  Two and a half weeks later, I'm finally getting better.  Well, I had been getting better, and then had an allergic reaction to a cat, and spent a few days where I hardly could get out of bed.  So, that was an adventure.  There wasn't much to blog, since my thoughts were mostly occupied with such thoughts as "Naps after taking Benadryl are particularly strange naps," and "It is convenient that my in-laws possess a fainting couch, because I really am doing my best imitation of a Victorian invalid this week.  Sometimes I'm worried that this cold is just in my head and is an excuse to sit around on a chaise lounge and read Sherlock Holmes mysteries,* but then I try to move around and start coughing like I have consumption."

But today I'm starting to feel better.  I even felt well enough to tease the in-laws' cat (without actually touching her, since that would cause an allergic reaction), which is how Chris knew I was feeling better.  Maybe tomorrow I'll even leave the house, and start visiting people in town.  You know, since I'm IN SASKATCHEWAN and all. 

***********

In other news, I'm trying out Google+ now, and am still figuring out what I think about that.  If you're trying it out too, you can find me using the gmail address on the sidebar. 


* You know, it is a surreal experience reading the entirety of the Sherlock Holmes stories in the course of a few weeks.  You start noticing funny things, like how apparently everyone's response to traumatic experiences is to suffer from "brain-fever"?  What is a brain-fever?  Dramatic things happen in Prague, secret societies happen in the United States, murder is apparently okay if a lady's honour was at stake, mysterious wives come from South America, and Empire and racism are everywhere (unsurprisingly).  Also, I have trouble not picturing Holmes and Watson as Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, but I picture Mycroft Holmes as Stephen Fry, even though the new Sherlock Holmes movie isn't even out yet.  But I digress.

Half-formed thoughts by the girl with the scraped nose

On Friday, I gave a final exam, and then came home, packed and went on a camping trip.  It was kind of an abrupt transition, to go from the insane pace of the three-week course to a camping trip by the ocean.  I was so exhausted on that first night of camping, after all those late nights of lecture writing, and early mornings of teaching, and then that long drive through rush hour traffic and then setting up a campsite, that I was pretty much sleep walking while I was trying to get ready for bed.  I thought that I was used to the dark enough that I didn't need to use my flashlight to walk between the tent and our car, as I went and got a few last things.  I was wrong: as soon as I turned back from the car, I tripped over a large boulder, fell and landed right on my nose.  I was so tired that I hardly even noticed that I was falling; Ky said that I fell in slow motion, and she thought it was strange how I didn't put my hands out to stop my fall.  Really, I was asleep while walking, and while it registered a little bit that my shins hit something hard, it really surprised me when suddenly I felt my nose scraping against rocks. 

Chris and Ky came running, as they heard me quietly say "Owie.  Owie.  My nose."  We got me cleaned up and I went straight to bed (and to sleep), and it wasn't until the next morning that we discovered that I had a mild concussion.  (It is a good thing that we were camping with a nurse.)  The dizziness and clumsiness made the rest of the camping trip interesting (I was like a baby deer, trying to walk around the beach the next morning), but I was camping with good friends and I enjoyed myself in spite of myself. 

And now I'm back to the real world, and I have so much work to do.  It's strange trying to get a lot of marking done while you're still in the midst of post-camping chaos.  (Not to mention the post-concussion headache, and the scraped face that makes it difficult to wear my glasses!)  It's even stranger realising that we will be leaving for Saskatchewan within the week.  By this time next week, we should be with my family.

What a strange month June has been.

We're going to Hawaii!

So, happy new year and all that, hey? 

Today, Ky and I booked plane tickets for a trip to Maui in April.  This isn't the usual kind of trip that you'd expect the two of us to take, but our dear Shannon is getting married, and so we're going to spend almost a week there at the end of April.  (I'm going without Chris, because he's teaching, and because we can only afford to send one of us.) 

Ky and I decided that we should fly out at the same time, and so we booked our tickets together.  Possessing plane tickets has made it all seem more real.  This means that we've now spent our day calling each other, alternating between reeling from sticker shock, and marveling at the fact that we are really going to Hawaii.

Okay, I've also been making hypothetical vacation plans entirely based on TV shows that had special Hawaiian episodes in the 80s and early 90s.  I've decided that Ky's going to briefly fall in love with a surfer, while I'm going to try to save an old hotel (owned by a never-before-mentioned long-lost relative) from evil developers.  It's a good thing that the Cunninghams only went to California, because neither of us will be jumping a shark while we're there. 


What other wacky adventures do you think we'll have?  (Don't worry: we've already decided that we'll do at least the clap/jazz hands from the Very Brady Sequel when we're in the plane, if not the entire "Good Time Music" dance sequence.) 

All is calm, all is bright

 

It's been a long and busy day, and our house wasn't always so peaceful as it is now.

It was a busy day of errands, shopping, sharing in my family's Christmas celebration via Skype, cooking and preparing for house guests.  And then it was mayhem for a while after they arrived, because Andrew and Uncle Chris were so thrilled to be together again.  But then we ate rice porridge (I got the almond!) and cheese ball, lit candles, drank hot chocolate,* read the first part of the Christmas story by the light of the tree and the candles, and now Andrew's asleep (and eagerly awaiting Santa) and Meg and Karl are at midnight mass.

Merry Christmas, you guys.

* Really really real hot chocolate, with just melted chocolate, milk and whipping cream.  And flavoured with cinnamon and cloves.

Back from Salt Spring

 

Leaving town and doing something really relaxing for a few days, right before Christmas?  Best idea we've had in ages.  And the resort was just what we needed: we had a cabin all our own, with an ocean view, a wood stove, and a barbecue.  Firewood was free, as were the bikes and the rowboat, but there was purposely no TV and no phone in the cabins (although you could rent a TV).  Perfect.  I got spa treatments, soaked in mineral water, and watched the fire.

Chris had a good birthday.  He got a Lego game from my siblings (Creationary, the Lego version of Pictionary), and he spent most of his birthday building Lego.  (Well, and we went to a restaurant for its Global Curry Night, which made it a red-letter day for Chris.)



On our last night there, Chris decided that it would be really pretty to have a big, roaring fire.  Of course, that made the cabin way too hot for Chris to handle. I think I'll keep him.

Help me ignore my head cold

It was probably inevitable, after being surrounded by sick people and then after hardly sleeping on the weekend.  Today I realised that it wasn't that I was still tired from all the traveling and the cooking, but that the cold that has been pursuing me for a week has finally caught up.  And so I've stayed home tonight, and I'm looking through the pictures from my previous week's adventures.

Last week I went, along with Ky and our friend Kristen, to the island's West Coast to celebrate Ky's thirtieth birthday.  It's funny how worried I was about the weather, as the forecast (correctly) predicted rainstorms.  In the end, the trip was better because we pushed through and were determined to be adventurous, in spite of (because of?) the rain.  We felt more proud of ourselves because we kept going, and the hot tea tasted better, and the warm cabin after our hikes felt like a reward. 

And, at the end, we talked most about that walk we took on slippery boardwalks through rainforest in the pouring rain.

It was so rainy that we discovered that our rain gear wasn't so waterproof, and we all resorted to using umbrellas. 

But we were so glad that we pushed through and continued, because the rainforest is particularly beautiful when it's raining.   I guess we were seeing it in its natural state, right?

(I stole all these pictures from Ky's Flickr account, because I forgot my camera in our cabin that day.)

Learning to be spontaneous

This week, we were suddenly given the opportunity to go spend a night at a nice beach resort "up island."  We decided on Sunday and left on Monday, making this the single most spontaneous trip I've ever taken.  (I think.  Except for short trips from Regina to Moose Jaw, but those hardly count.)  And by "spontaneous" I mean that, as soon as we'd decided to go, I was doing laundry, packing food, and making lists like a madwoman for the next twenty-four hours until we left.

And with all this preparedness (I marinated steaks overnight, because I found out that our suite had its own patio with a barbecue), I forgot our camera.  We were on the most beautiful beach I've ever seen, attempting to get photos using our cellphones.  I also forgot to charge my cellphone, but it was kind of nice being away from technology for a while.  (Well, there was wireless and so I did end up checking Facebook a couple of times...)

I'm so thankful that we were given this opportunity to go.  Chris's first day back at school (just with the other teachers) is tomorrow, and so today was his last day of summer vacation.  We've both been working heavily lately, and so I'm glad that we stopped and took a couple of days to relax before it gets busier again.  When will we next have the chance to pick up and leave town on a Monday?  When will we next leave town? 

You know, for all my complaining about how crazy this place is, this island isn't too bad.  But now I have to adjust back to a world without perfect beaches, king-sized beds and spas.*

This picture is so us, it's ridiculous.  I'm squinting and am probably leaning so much because we'd been walking and I'm out of shape, and Chris is grimacing because he can't figure out whether the camera's taking pictures, because he shut off the shutter sound.  

* Man, I wanted to take that bed home with us in the car.  It was officially the Best Sleep of My Life and it saddens me a little that I will never sleep that well again.  I miss it already.

Oh my Papa

Today is the birthday of this shady character, who was spotted on Vancouver Island several months ago.  I have it on good authority that he wants to spend his birthday practicing with his new RC helicopter and playing with his new iPod.  I asked him where he wanted to go for supper for his birthday, and he said that he wanted to stay home and have "more of that pot roast that Janice made," and then "sit in [his] own big chair."  That sounds like the right kind of day.

Love you love you, Papa.

Home. Couch. Bed.

Traveling Minuses:

• The air conditioning just barely works, and the temperatures were high. I was delirious from the heat when we got to Swift Current (only about two hours away from Regina), so much so that I ended up hugging a bag of ice in Safeway.
• Driving through road construction in the mountains at night is stressful. 
• Why do we always travel on the long weekends? Why is the majority of the final day spent in the vicinity of Vancouver?
• Half-way through our day today, we blew a fuse on our stereo (while playing the Glee Cast's version of "4 Minutes") and then for the rest of the day had to be a little more creative about entertaining ourselves.
• Too little healthy food eaten and too much money spent.

Traveling Pluses:

• We got through all 467 songs on my Driving Playlist before the stereo went out, and it was truly Epic.  
• Because I was in a car with Ky and Chris, it was not hard to entertain ourselves without the car stereo.  Seeing as we were already at the punchy stage of the long trip, we ended up pretending to have a brass band while stopped in a traffic jam. 
• We also sang old-timey songs in rounds.
• Bad air conditioning = good excuses to buy Slurpees.  
• Traffic was better than I've ever seen it on the August Long Weekend.  We made the ferry three hours before Chris had predicted we would.  We were home before it was dark.  
• We didn't have to drive straight through this year: in the middle, we got to attend the wedding of a good friend.  I got to spend time with my oldest friends, and meet another one of this past year's babies, and it was good.
• I did my annual Check For Spiders, Since We've Been Away For A Month, and I haven't found any spiders yet.  It worked well to cover all of our drains before we left.  

Neither good nor bad, but interesting:

• It is disorienting to arrive home after a long trip.  Everything looks a little different at first, as you notice things that you usually don't. 

Last day

Our suitcases are all packed.  I just finished a list of everything we need to do tomorrow morning.  I can't believe that our last full day in Saskatchewan is over now, and it'll probably be another year until we get out here again.

It's a strange place to be, at this point of every summer, when I've had too little sleep, have done too little work, and have not always been the best version of myself because I'm not getting a lot of time to myself.  I'm longing for my bed and my own routine, and at the same time it's hard to face the fact that it'll likely be more than eleven months until I'm in this house again. 

This was a funny summer, because I really only saw immediate family and a few really close friends, and didn't really venture further than that.  There are a few friends whom I didn't even get a chance to contact this time.  That's a first for me.  This week, I spent a lot of time finding ways to stay home and be with my family.  I originally planned to invite people over for a barbecue tonight, but instead Chris and my mom went for a bike ride, while my dad and I watched a football game while I packed.  We were all happier that way. 

And now I'll stop rambling and go to bed.  I'll see you all either in Alberta or BC, folks. 

Five

As beautiful as ever

I

It doesn't seem that long ago that we moved to Victoria.  A new friend from my department found out that we had just gotten married two weeks before we moved there, and was amazed because we acted like we'd been married forever.  Recently, another friend from the department found out that we've been married for five years and responded, "I had no idea you guys have been married for so long!" 

II

Two weeks ago, Chris and I camped on our way to North Battleford.  Somehow, we seemed to bring rain everywhere we went, and so five minutes before we arrived at our campsite, it started pouring down rain, which didn't stop until half-way through the night.  Setting up a complicated tent in the pouring rain, with cold temperatures more suited to early winter than July: we kept joking that this was our anniversary trip.  It reminded us a little too much of the camping we did for our first anniversary. 

In the morning we were so amused by our horrific hair that we took a self-portrait (seen above), and I promised Chris I'd post it on my blog. 

III

Before we got married, I confess that I fairly regularly mocked the whole "On This Day I Marry My Best Friend" variety of wedding invitations.  My response was usually along the lines of "I wasn't aware that I was marrying Ky." We lived fairly separate lives, frequently lived in separate towns, and had such different interests.

But then Chris and I moved 2000km away from all of our friends and family.  Before we moved, we talked to a few different friends who had done the same, who said the same thing: "It was the best thing for our relationship, even if it was hard to live so far from our family."  And we found that to be true for us: Chris has become my best friend.  (A best friend with whom I have far too many inside jokes and sayings, the origins of which we can't always remember.)  I watch football as a result of him, and he grew his sideburns to look like Mr. Darcy's as a result of me.  The general consensus is that we've each gotten stranger and sillier as a result of marriage.   

IV

Upon reflection, most of our in-jokes are the result of the katrillions of hours we've spent in a car together on road trips, not to mentions All Those Years Before We Had Cable TV.  I keep wondering if I'll someday reach the point where I don't find Chris endlessly entertaining.  It hasn't happened yet.

V

We're going to have a funny anniversary today.  We've been helping Chris's mom with yard work, and now we're going to carve a helmet out of a watermelon for tomorrow's football game.  This evening, we're going to a neat restaurant that serves local and seasonal food, so that Chris can eat wild boar.  This promises to be a good day. 

Thursday Cat- and Helicopter-Blogging

I'm not formulating very big thoughts right now.  I'm working on a fifth anniversary post for Chris, which means that I spent the early part of the week also processing that it had been five years since The Day When Everyone Died and Then My Wedding Was At The End Of The Week.  And so there's going to be more Not Much Content, But There Are Pictures. 

I've been keeping myself busy.  We've been getting around to visiting a couple of people, and going back and forth between our parents.  We got remote control helicopters for both of our fathers, and so our week has had a lot of this:

This morning, Chris and I were cleaning up around here, and I got distracted by taking pictures of his parents' cat (I take pictures of her because I can't pet her, on account of the allergies).  And then it occurred to me "This is the sort of thing that people post on their blogs."


























 Eddie is thinking, "One of these days, I will destroy this strange woman who sticks a camera in my face."

And so, for those of you who are interested in cats with pink noses, helicopters, and pictures of my silly father: you're welcome. 

One more sleep

I have a stack of papers beside me, with all the information for our accommodations and reservations for tomorrow and August 1st. I've been making a lot of calls, booking motels and campsites and ferries.  The iPod and all our cell phones are charging.  I spent a bit of time and put together an Epic Driving Playlist, with more than a day's worth of music.  Every item of clothing in the whole house is now clean. Chris has emptied out the fridge. We have fifteen pounds of dry ice for the cooler.  I've made so many lists and have talked to my landlady four times today.  I've spent as much time as possible resting (with the exception of Chris's high school's grad) to get over this cold, and it's almost gone now.

All that's left is packing and a little more cleaning, and then we're ready to leave for Saskatchewan tomorrow morning. 

I'm excited, because we'll be driving through Jasper for the first time in both our lives. People keep describing that road as "one of the most beautiful in Canada." [Note to self: charge all the camera batteries.]  We've been making a lot of plans around making this trip enjoyable: we were going to take the first ferry of the morning, but then found out that the 8am ferry was the really nice new one, and so we made a reservation for that one instead.  Tomorrow night, we're camping near Mt. Robson.  And then, after another day of driving, we'll be together with almost all my extended family and oldest friends at Camp. 

I'm more than a little excited.  Home.

My Weekend in Pictures

 Why yes, it did take me until Wednesday to blog about the weekend. But I've been moving in slow motion and only got the house cleaned up after the houseguests today.

By the way, we had a girls' afternoon on Monday and went to a new tea house in Chinatown.  It was so good! It was quiet and airy, right in the middle of busy Chinatown! It had gluten-free food for Ky! It now has its own line of tea! And it was decorated in a style that would have made my whimsical 14-year-old self faint with joy.  (I wish I had photographed the old-timey bicycles that are hanging from the walls, with their baskets filled with flowers.)

I always end up blogging during the lull

Chris is buying supplies for tomorrow's Easter Egg Hunt and our Easter Sunday dinner.  (Wow, is our wee house ever going to be full tomorrow.)  Meg, Karl and the wee Andrew are on the Island already, but haven't arrived at my house yet. I'm sitting beside a pile of laundry that needs folding and have Jacques Pépin on the TV in front of me. 

I like these little lulls during busy holidays.  Yesterday we were gone for most of the day, and surrounded by people: a city-wide Good Friday service at an arena with 1400 people, lunch at a barbeque place, an afternoon with Ariann. It all seemed even busier because we were in the middle of a wind storm that knocked the power out at our house for four hours, and caused crazy damage all across the city. 

Yesterday was a good day, and tomorrow will be lovely, but I'm thankful for the lull right now. 

And like that, they were gone

It seems surreal to me that Mom and Dad were here this morning, now that they're gone. I've settled back into my old routine, and it's odd now to realise that my parents were actually at my house, and that they were here for a week. It also seems strange to me that it's Saturday again already; I'm pretty sure that was the fastest week ever.

The sun was shining yesterday and today, and so we ended up getting a little bit of nice weather at the end. I'm glad for that, because it even snowed this week. But yesterday we had a nice day and we drove around and took pictures of the ocean. That was Dad's only request for how he wanted to spend his last day: to drive somewhere where he could look at the ocean.

...those are pretty much the deepest thoughts you'll get from me right now. I purposely didn't use my SAD lamp today, so that I'd be really sleepy tonight and go to bed early (thanks to the stupid Daylight Savings Time and the loss of a whole hour from my night).

Precious Pat

On Tuesday, we loaded up into the car and drove to Comox (taking the scenic route) to visit Precious Pat.

Pat is the most energetic 87 year old I've ever met. She sleeps in a fifth-wheeler (so that she still has space of her own), hauls chairs up the stairs, and the last time we tried to visit her, she was away to Costa Rica. And she's a wildly good story-teller (which should not be a surprise, since that's pretty common on that Irish side of the family): she started off one of her best stories with the words: "Mr. Humphries (he owned the sugar factory)..." I wanted to have a video camera set up all the time, so as to capture the brilliance of it all.

She's surrounded by a big and cheerful family, all of whom love and dote on her. She calls everyone in her family cute nicknames, referring to her 60-year-old contractor son as "Cy-boy," and her bearded father-of-four grandson as "Jo Jo." When we drove away from their house, we looked back to see the whole extended family standing on the porch and waving at us.

Pat loves everyone around her, calling us "precious," and informing everyone that my Dad's a genius and a "big shot." (We started calling her "Precious Pat" because she walked up to my brother at a church camp -- at a time when he didn't know who she was -- and said to him, "Michael [Ourlastname]. Precious.")

And, from certain angles, and with certain inflections of her voice, she reminds me so much of my Little Grandma. (Which shouldn't be entirely a surprise, since Pat is Grandma's cousin.) Being around her made me miss Grandma, and I had to give Pat extra hugs because of it.

Ready to go to bed and it's only 8:45...

...but it's good having my parents here. We had a warm and sunny day today, and so Mom, Dad and I sat out in my backyard without any jackets, enjoying the sun and playing with Dad's GPS and my camera. The furthest afield we got was to the beach by my house, but that was perfect on such a sunny and clear day: we watched sailboats and people running around in shorts, and marveled at the fact that it's just the first weekend of March.

Posting while Blogger lets me

Has anyone else been having trouble with accessing Blogger blogs for the past few days? It's been off-and-on for me.

I've been continuing to move in slow motion for this week, as I slowly recover from this cold. But it has to be gone after today: my parents fly in tomorrow morning! I may be excited about this. Actually, it doesn't even feel real; it's been months since I last saw them, and years since they were last here.

We've planned for everything by now, thanks to my Dad's love of even planning his spontaneity (and the fact that he's been planning this trip for more than a year): visits with friends and a day trip to Comox Valley (with a detour along the scenic route on the way up) have been planned to the minute. We also know which days we'll leave open for touring around or resting (depending on what Dad needs). I know pretty much exactly when Dad's oxygen tank will be delivered, and have a pdf from their airline that tells me which seats they've booked.

It's one part excitement, one part this-is-Dad's-first-flight-since-his-trach, and one part Classic Dad and Mom. And Chris wonders why I need time to pack for trips, and end up packing for every possible weather we might encounter.

Edited to add: The oxygen guy arrived, and was amused by how well-organized the arrangements are. He referred to my house as "Command Central."

And edited again to add: While I was writing this post, my dad posted this on his blog, which proves my point quite nicely. (My father is adorable.) This visit will be conducted with military precision.

Over and out.

Eagerly anticipating

My mom and dad are flying out here to visit in early March! We've been scheming about this for a long time, but Dad finally booked the plane tickets on Wednesday and so now we're making definite plans.

I can't begin to explain how excited I am about this. Mom and Dad have only been out here once, four years ago. We had somewhat made plans for them to come the next year (or at least Dad and I did), but then Dad got really sick, and then after his tracheostomy he wasn't sure about all the logistics of traveling with his medical equipment. But now, nearly three years after the trach, Dad has strengthened enough and has gotten used to his medical equipment enough that he's braving the flight out here. It's a pretty big milestone in Dad's recovery, and it makes me happy.

I'm also excited to show my parents Victoria, now that we know the city so much better (when they were last here, we didn't even know that there was a beach within walking distance of our house; they found that for us). I'm worried that, in my excitement, I'll over-plan the week and thus kill my father. And so I'm also trying to plan breaks for Dad, including a day off for him in which he'll hang out with Chris at the house (as it's Chris's Spring Break that week), and I'll take Mom walking downtown and to Chinatown.

I have something to look forward to. And I now know that I'll be taking a week off in early March, and so I'd better work accordingly.