It is like Wonderland, not as in 'Winter' but as in 'Alice in'

Ok guys, seriously.  I understand if the Olympics is making you cranky because you work downtown and there are HOARDS or you are a paramedic and Vancouver sucks at organizing things like sufficient paramedics.  You guys may feel free to bitch.  But everyone else who is just nay-saying the Olympics because you think it makes you sound world-weary and cultured, you need to go down there and let random shit happen to you.

Because you will waste an entire morning trying to get curling tickets, only to realize that the O brings out the professional scalpers who still want $100 for a $60 ticket when the event is an hour gone, and you will laugh at them because this is ridiculous.

And then you will see a really patriotic dog, and it might try to bite your face off, but it won't try really hard.

And then there will be Russian ladies dancing,

And then you will be offered free poutine but you will still be full from lunch, and you will only be in the Quebec pavillion to use their bathroom anyways.

And then you will watch bobsledding in a bar and everyone will groan every time your country doesn't win a heat (which is every time) and they will bring you chips and salsa in to-go containers so that they don't have to do any dishes.

And then a guy will drive by with a goat in his car.

And then you will eat a cream puff the size of your two fists.  With caramel sauce.

And then you will watch speed-skating on a giant screen with hundreds of other people who will all hold their breath when you are in second place for the briefest moment, but you will lose it and end up last.  Everyone will moan, but you kind of won't mind because you will be petting a puppy.

And then there will be a Coke parade and you will get a free Coke, but you will not drink it because it is nighttime and cold so you will put it in your purse for later.

And then, just when you will be packing it in for the night, a man will try to sell you hockey tickets at face value and you will talk him down to face value minus $30 and then you will go see a hockey game and they will confiscate your parade Cokes at the door, which you will find ironic because Coke is a supporter of the Olympics, no?  But you won't really care because you will be at an Olympic hockey game!

And because it is between Germany and Belarus, everyone will cheer for everything and there will be lots of cheering.  Also, a fat Jack Bauer wearing eight t-shirts will strip one off and dance every time the camera is on him, and it will never not be funny.

And then the next day you will wake up at 6am to see if any curling tickets were released late, and none will be so you will go back to sleep and then wake up at 9 and watch curling in your sweats and it will be way better that way.

And then you will go wait in line for over an hour (in the sunshine, with other charming people and their adorable Russian girlfriends who are always scampering off to see how much Russia is winning by and seriously, it will be adorable) to get into the VAG for free to see Leonardo Da Vinci's anatomical drawings that the queen lent, and your husband will explain to you all these things that Da Vinci figured out that science did not yet know, and it will be surprisingly interesting.

And then you will head to the ferries, thinking that you are making good time to catch the 5 and can watch Canada play USA on the ferry, but everyone (including you) will forget that not only is this Sunday, but it is the end of UVic's spring break and you will be nearish the front of a line of several thousand foot passengers and you will count yourself lucky to catch the 7.

But the sun will still be out and the general carnival atmosphere will make the wait like your own personal Olympic event, and the cameraderie will extend to the ridiculously long food line-ups inside the ferry and a very nice lady will offer you both a ride home because the line-ups for the buses stretch around the parking lot.

Disclaimer: not all of thsi stuff will happen to you.  But probably some of it will.

That time I was radioactive.

I am out of the clink!  And probably don't have cancer anymore.  We have to wait on some scans and some bloodwork but thinking about it will freak us out so we're just going to go with yes and move on to telling you about my incarceration.

Ok so.  They gave me my own little lead-lined room with a teeny tv and a bathroom that I could contaminate to my heart's content.  The walls were cheery and yellow and Joel had sent me with some spring-in-a-pot (tulips! daffodils! crocuses! those asparagusy-looking flowers that bloom into a bunch of bitty purple ones!) and I had two windows that overlooked the hospital grounds that I could open to flush out the hospital air.  It's like they were begging me not to go crazy in there.  Also, it was sunny.

The first RN they sent to install my IV couldn't have been more than 25 and had flunked out of Teeeny Veins 101.  He spent a few minutes poking around my right arm, and then poked around in my left arm for a long while, and then he hit a nerve which was like rapping my funnybone HARD, only worse and shooting into my thumb, and then he threw in the towel because I was getting fainty.  Like I do.  And guys, I am the valedictorian of getting fainty and not actually fainting, I KNOW there's nothing you can do besides lie down and take deep breaths and put a cool cloth on your forehead, but he looks at me from the door and is all, Just try to, you know, breathe.  Which, THANKS now why don't you go get another tattoo, child.

And then they sent in the fairy godmother of IV nurses and she gave a good stab and was in.  I told her she could put in my IVs any time.

And then they took a BUNCH of blood and we watched women's snowboard cross on my tiny tv and joked about how slow my blood moves, which is why I'm bad at donating it (see also, fainting).

And then the doctor came in from nuclear medicine and this was the best part, because she had on the lead bib and gloves and whatall, and one of those heavy yellow cylindrical canisters like in spy films and when she opened it it went *shhhhunk* and I expected steam to pour out but none did.  She took out a really boring-looking pill bottle and put it on my table and then immediately backed into the hall, watching me from the doorway.  Go ahead and swallow the pill in there, she says.  Don't shake it into your hand, you don't want to touch it.  But I am GOING to touch it with my STOMACH, which I sort of thought was the point?  Science makes no sense.

And they let me stew in my own radioactive juices for about 10 minutes before coming in to scan me, and the scanner beeped over my stomach like I had pennies in there.

And that was sort of it.  I sat in my room and watched tv and the nurses brought me food periodically and I tell you what, plain old hospital food has nothing on iodine-free hospital food for grossness.  Because for lunch it was a slice of grey, flavorless turkey between two slices of dry, iodine-free bread and then for dinner it was a slice of grey, flavorless turkey atop some soggy, unseasoned rice and some steamed carrots (also unseasoned).  The next day was a ditto for both meals except that beans were subbed in for the carrots for dinner.  And I never got any yogurt or muffins or jello or anything hospital-delicious (which is different than regular-delicious, and is a matter of relativity).  It is making me throw up in my mouth to think of it, let us move on.

Some kids from Joel's class came by for a visit Tuesday afternoon, but they didn't wear plastic booties over their shoes (because no one told them to) and got an ass-chewing from the nurse, and then I got an ass-chewing for letting them in, and then the nurse sent a doc from nuclear medicine to give me an ass-chewing but she was just all, Ehhh, don't do it again.  And I don't really understand, because unless you're in the habit of walking around the house in your shoes and then licking the floor, I don't see how booties will help you.  Anyway, they had to stay two meters away from me, as did Joel when he came later, which was hard because my room was about two meters long.  I curled up on one end of my bed and did my best not to give any of them cancer.

And then the nuke med doc came in on Wednesday and scanned me again and my radiation levels were waaaaaaaaay down because I'd been drinking ALL of the waters and juices (I got two waters and two juices with every meal, and more with snacks.  Also, many laxatives, to which my poos are apparently immune) and had flushed the hell out of my kidneys.  I was technically safe to wander free among the public, but they kept me for another twenty-four hours because hospitals are sadists.  This gave everyone time to come visit me again and wear booties this time.

There was a fly in my room at one point and I was going to try to catch him so I could either kill him with my mind or gain his powers (flying, multi-faceted eyes) but he got out the window.  I also petted my flowers to try to turn them into mutants, but I guess I wasn't there long enough. 

I was there long enough to get horribly stir-crazy.  Small rooms and no salt makes you something something.  I'd been pent up for so long (ok, two days, but I was pinned to my bed with THE LETHARGY for three days before that) that by the time they let me out I was all FIDDLE-DEE!  Let my exhaustion be damned!  And I spun myself home and picked up a donut on the way and ate it before I'd made it half a block and then Joel and I ordered a bacon-chicken-bbq-pizza for lunch because it encompasses all the things I couldn't eat before (mmmmmmmmmpork products! condiments! cheese!) and then I slipped into a food induced coma and now I can't leave the couch, because I am actually really exhausted.

This is a long post and I am worn out from the typing (also, I am still digesting that pizza).  Thank you for reading through all this drivel and listening to me bitch about salt for the last month and for sending good vibes my way the last few days.  You are the best ones.

Happy day of the Valentine, lovers!

This morning for Valentine's Day Joel took  me down to the hospital so I could get a shot in my ass, and then picked me up a coffee because I am too tired and too stupid to do anything as complicated as make coffee anymore.  I went off my thyroid meds a week ago in preparation for my radiation, as as of yesterday I am officially a pile of useless.

They tell you that you'll get fatigued when you're hypothyroid but fatigued is one of thsoe words that doesn't seem to mean anything except I'LL tell you what it means.  Ok so say you've spent the morning painting your dining room (especially the ceiling) and then done the Grouse Grind in the afternoon and then come home and collapsed in a chair and then realized that you have to get up to lock the door/let the dog out/get a beer.  THAT feeling, that realizing that you have to get up, that is fatigue.

Also, being hypothyroid makes you crazytunes and last time I would have an emotional breakdown every evening at around 5.  Friday I felt fine and yesterday morning I felt fine and then I started to get achy and tired and then I tore my sweatpants and then I started to cry, and part of me was watching myself cry over my torn sweatpants and being all, Oh shit, we are at this stage again where I cry over torn sweatpants, and then the part of me that was actually really sad because I'd torn my sweatpants got even sadder because I hate being in this place where I cry over torn sweatpants, and the part that was watching me cry was trying to talk me down from my tree because this is only for a few days but the part of me that was crying was so wrapped up in how fragile my state of mind is now and how torn my sweatpants were that I couldn't seem to hear myself.  I felt completely unhinged.

I am now re-hinged, and have come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to get anything useful done in these next two days because besides being fatigued and crazy I'm also incredibly stupid and have had to marshall all of my ganglia to write this one post.  I'm going to lie here and watch men's moguls and maybe read some trashy Tudor fiction if I can muster up the wherewithal to hold a book.  Merry Feb 14th, amis!

Haute decor

Amigos, may I introduce?  This is Sam Skellington.  I bought him one year after Halloween because he was on the cheap, he's fairly non-flimsy and all of his bones are more or less where they ought to be.  I used to bring him to daycare to teach my kiddies about bones, and then I stored him in a box in my parents' garage for a few years, and last weekend I dug him out.  Now he sits in the living room and dresses up for holidays.  For you, his Valentine, he wears his heart on his...ribcage.

Don't cry for me, Argentina

My saltless hell continues apace, but the good news(es) is that it's only for nine more days, and that for three of those nine days I'll be in the hospital and won't be cooking for myself.  Victoire!

Also, I made more bagels and they are waaaaaaaaaaay more bagelly-looking than the first batch.

Although one of them deflated.

And then they went moldy but I was kind of sick of them anyways.  But, BUT!  I made pitas.  Pitas = moderately more difficult than bagels, but easier to fill with things, so it evens out.

Also, they will make tastier chips when the inevitable day comes where I never want to see their faces again.

I pita the fool that doesn't enjoy a fine avocado pita from time to time.

They are so fresh, you will want to slap them.

I am a happy clam, jokesters.

In other hijinks, I went mainlanding this weekend and we bought my sister a frock to get hitched in.  It is the fabricky equivalent of her spunkiness.