Sick

I don't consider myself overly tough. But I also don't consider myself to be a girly girl or a fraidy cat. Even with my intense fear of spiders, I still don't usually react like I did today. Yet here I was putting away some packing materials and a large brown spider was all of the sudden on our kitchen table less than a centimetre away from my hand. Without thinking I screamed and ran about 15 feet away. I screamed. Everyone in the office could hear me scream. Not a yelp or a quick intake of breath. An actual scream. I've seen way bigger spiders than that before. I've seen gynormous wolf spiders in Florida washrooms. I've seen scary gross huge spiders in crawlspaces province wide. I've seen good size spiders in my own bathtub. And while all of them freaked me out, I usually tremble in silence and deal with it (unless someone else is around who will kill them for me). To scream and run while at my place of employment was so embarrassing.

Turns out, according to a knowledgeable staff mate, it was a brown recluse spider - which is poisonous. They aren't supposed to be in this province, but I was unloading shipping materials that could have come from anywhere.

I'm totally not doing the shipping next time.

Things I think are cool

The Galapagos Islands. I have decided that I want to visit them. They have 3 kinds of boobies there. Blue footed, red footed and masked. I want to go and see the Galapagos boobies.

Been awhile. I go through these cycles of debating whether I want to continue my blog or not. I can't say I'm a natural at writing these things. And what it might come down to, is that I'm just a little bit on the lazy side sometimes. I'd prefer to read someone else's than think of something clever for my own. But I think I shall continue for a bit yet - because I have a trip in the planning stages! And that was the whole point of this - to tell you of my journies. I've been doing a lot more managing at the office recently, though, so I haven't been travelling much for work. And most of my work stories that I do have, have to remain confidential anyway - so I've found it hard to talk about on here. But before I descend too far into rambling, I shall show you a picture of the place I just returned from. It is a family church camp in Washington that I've been to a couple times now. Beautiful, relaxing, surrounded by pleasant friendly people. I quite like it.


I wish I'd gotten a picture of the lake but you can imagine that if you turned around 180 degrees, you'd be looking at a pretty lake with a big hill (that some might call a mountain) in that background.

I live in a very awesome city. It is especially fantastic in the summer. A couple of weeks ago a good friend and I attended a Shakespeare play that was done in a tent next to the river. Here is us at the play.


We tried to get a shot of our faces but in ever single one either Ang's eyes were closed or I looked high. (And just so there are no rumour's started - I wasn't actually high - just looked it.)

At the intermission we went outside and looked at our beautiful city which is known for its bridges.


How I love it here during the summer. The temperature is dropping dramatically this month. We went from a July full of above 30 degree temperatures to barely hitting room temperature during the day and getting down to 6 and 7 at night. I preferred the hot and if any weather controllers are listening - please give us a wicked hot Indian Summer.

I've started using my arm a bit in the past two days. I've been typing with it, writing (I'm so not ambidexterous - I think my left hand writing has gotten worse in the last three weeks). I think I'm probably using it more than I should - it's pretty sore tonight. But I can't even put into words how satisfying it is to wash both hands instead of trying to one hand-ed-ly wash my left hand.

Jazz festival still going on in the city. Last night I went to a French-ish jazz band at a favourite local restaurant. A friend and I went there specifically for the performance. We were hoping a few other friends we'd invited would meet us so we got a booth - but no one else showed. We started off drinking some tea and coffee and went to some appetizers after that. I know we weren't spending a lot of money (which made me feel slightly bad for taking up a table for the whole evening) - but we did go there for the show and we did at least order some food. And there weren't really any smalled tables left when we realised our other friends weren't going to show. But by the end I didn't feel bad anymore. Our waitress pretty much ignored us the entire time and never did bring us the bill. So we stayed late and enjoyed the band and had a grand night. I love live music.

jazz it up

my city's annual jazz festival started tonight. i went and saw a local band who were playing on the free stage. i've seen them twice now and am almost ready to consider myself a fan.

the whole outdoor festival feeling is so great. and the local entertainment in the crowd is so enjoyable. there was this older man, distinguished looking from the neck up, who showed up around 7pm. He was wearing a very hippie style bright yellow shirt with blue and black embroidery around the plunging neckline. he had bright blue tapered pants - the kind that the bottoms can zip off to convert to shorts. what really made the ensemble was the black and blue water shoes. i wish i'd had my camera. my mom would have loved how he'd matched everything so well. anyway, as i was noticing his shoes a slightly overweight lady in a too tight black mini skirt and skank tank walked by. she had a tatoo that looked like vines growing from her ankle to her mid thigh. i was hoping hippie guy would ask her to dance. but he seemed content to dance on his own.

along with the hot band members, saskatoon berry pie, small vendor shops, good music, fantastic weather, no mosquitos, and good company, it was a fairly fantastic evening.

i get my cast off tomorrow. it will be very nice to finally have a shower. i've never been a big fan of baths and that's all i've been able to do. although i am thankful for my bathtub because i have no idea what i would have done with only a stand up shower. i'm impressed with how much better my one handed typing has become. also, i can now brush my teeth with my left hand like a maniac. my left handed writing skills, however, have not improved one bit.

actually, i have no idea how a maniac would brush their teeth or even if they would. somehow i don't see dental hygeine being very high on their priority list. what i meant is that i can brush really fast with my left hand.

In a simple, and somewhat ironic, follow-up to my last post I'm here to report that I have dislocated my elbow. Apparently I'm not an overly accomplished horsewoman. Thus, typing is quite slow. I have, of course, dislocated my right elbow. If you assume by my tone that I am right handed you assume correctly.

It's funny how some things I didn't think about are way harder than I expected. Brushing my teeth for instance. Washing my hair. Taking off a t-shirt (way harder than putting it on). Hanging up clothes. Washing my hand, and subsequent drying. Writing with my left hand is even slower and messier than I anticipated. Putting my hair in a clip or ponytail is downright impossible.

Then some things are way easier than I'd dreaded. Putting on deodorant, once I got the top off which now stays off, was way simpler than you'd think. Shaving my legs. Turning the pages of a book. Eating.

Anyway, I'm bound to my house at least until my first doctor's appointment where I find out how long I'll be in this cast thingy. So I'll be reading lotss of blogs. I hope all of you have exceptionally newsy and comedic weeks ahead!