Courage My Love - February 14, 2011

It's Valentine's Day!! Love is in the air. Unfortunately none of it is coming my way... I did get a red rose from Wayne on Saturday, which was nice, but if you knew Wayne you would know neither one of us was getting lucky (ex-seminarian, ex-alcoholic, anger issues, married to our best friend). It was the thought that counted. We went for dinner at Wayne & Kim's house on Saturday evening and Wayne arrived home with a dozen red roses for his wife (smart man) and one each for Andrea and I.

Love has left me I think, and I am okay with it. I do miss the sex however. I am back to my early teen years where I have crushes on people. Right now it is a toss up who makes my heart throb harder - Mark Harmon or Mark McKuan. I'd  fuck either one of them in a heart beat, but I'd love to snuggle up to one or both of them on any given evening. Be still my beating heart....

So dinner was spectacular, as it usually is when we visit Kim. Prawns and scallops sauteed in garlic butter, fresh sockeye salmon stuffed with crab meat and baked. Jesus wept. It was awesome. I could not finish it, and made sure it went home with me. I provided dessert, which was a baked rubarb and strawberry crumble with Hagen Das.... I am also at the time in my life, where food is better than I remember sex was. Not seriously, but since I'm not getting any, it is a magnificent substitution. Oral fixation and all that.

We did get out of the house for a few hours on the weekend, in addition to dinner on Saturday. That sounds pretty mundane to most of you, but in our lives it is akin to ramping up for an expedition to the Himalaya's. First we fold up the cart and take it out to the car, making sure the basket that goes with it is also there. Then we fill up two, maybe three tanks with liquid oxygen and cart at least two of them to the car. We make sure we have extra tanks of compressed oxygen in the car. And then I have to gather up all my stuff and Andrea gathers up her's and we hook her up to a portable tank and then, and only then are we prepared to spend the next 10 minutes walking the 25 feet to the car.

We have to plan where we are going, not waste any time and have to return home within 2 hours. So on Sunday after the aforementioned prep, we headed out, first to the library to drop off books (she stayed in the car) and then to Safeway for a prescrip pick up (she stayed in the car) and then for gas (she stayed in the car) and finally down to the NW Quay to see how the rennovations are coming along. We checked it out, had a tea and were  home in our prescribed time. Not exciting but about all we can manage these days.

We hear on Wednesday whether or not they will go ahead with the transplant. It's tough waiting, because option number 2 involves dying pretty shortly. Waiting takes courage.

Courage My Love - Feb 11, 2011

Fucking casino. That's all I can say today. Like some crazy whore giving blow jobs, those slot machines sucked me dry. How's that for a picture in your head. Okay, no more casino, at least until the stars and planets align.

At work. Raining. This is different how?? OMG start the freaking weekend already. I am so not here tonight. One of the only guys I like at this place has decided to leave (better offer). Shit. He's one of the boys in my "Men in tight pants picture". Won't tell you which one, because then I would have to kill you.

So, here is the weekend plan.... Saturday morning, hit the market, stock up on food supplies. Saturday afternoon, veg out, read a book, have a nap, make a pot of soup. Saturday night, spend the evening with Kim and Wayne and the girls (yahoo good food, good movies). Sunday morning, sleep in. Late Sunday morning catch up on all the chores you should have done yesterday. Laundry, floors, dusting, change linens, yadda yadda. Sunday afternoon, best take another nap, especially with the pace we're living. Oh don't forget to take books back to Library.

One of the books I'm taking back is Pray, Eat, Love. What was all the fuss about, okay it's mildly amusing if you are a mid 30 something that is not getting laid on a regular basis, and the author is pretty good with words, but it was so overhyped. I really expected Italy to be better, and I am most of the way through India and it makes me snooze. That is so not the India I remember.

My horoscope today said to stop being so critical. Ok. So I should probably stop writing. However, there is little else to do. So, on the good news/bad news front, Andrea and I went for an assessment by the transplant team last week. She has passed from good risk, to high risk for transplant. The drugs they give her to keep her alive (and let her lungs take in air) are killing her kidneys. There is a strong probability that on transplant, or post transplant for the lungs, that the kidneys will fail and she will be on dyalsis. Rock and a hard place. They are still willing to go ahead with the transplant, because the alternative is less than a year of life. So that's a no brainer, go for the transplant. I guess it becomes a quality of life issue. Is it worse to be on dyalisis, or be dead. I'd take the dyalisis. No question.

I set up a blog for her on this site, Andi's Journey, hopefully it will be a never ending story. If you think living takes courage, then you must know that dying really takes courage, my love.

Courage My Love - February 7, 2011

This picture was taken on a warm September day in the Napa Valley. I could not decide which was neater that day, the hummingbirds or the dragon flies. I have always found the aerodynamics of both to be fascinating. The dragon fly is the precursor of the helicoptor and the hummingbird of the STOL aircraft.

Anyway, another weekend flew by, time is accelerating as I get older. They say there is a speed at which time stops and then it actually reverses. It seems I am approaching that turning point of speed. With any luck, by the time I am seventy, I will actually be 25. Wahoo!!!

Okay, I have to tell you a funny story from work. This company is pretty darn good to its' employees. The union contract spells out all the benefits for employees, and one of the benefits is that employees can take time off work for schooling or starting a business or whatever. They can take up to a year off at a time, and for certain leaves, their seniority is accrued, which is a big thing with unions. Seniority rules. I have an employee who went on leave last June, it was an educational leave. Several months later I overhear other employees talking about this person hiking through South America. What? How's that working for you?? So I report it to HR, but they don't take any action because we are in the midst of contract negotiations. Right. Anyway the new year rolls around and employees are selecting their vacation time for the year to come. This is the perfect excuse for HR to call this person.

They called him, but his phone was disconnected. So they called his next of kin (mother) and she says. "Oh, he is out of the country right now". Perfect excuse to call him into work to explain why he is abusing the leave of absence policy with false pretenses. And so they do, via his email address. Turns out he is in the Phillipines working on his tan. He has five days to get back to work. Man, that must have been an expensive flight. So he is back tonight. Tomorrow, we will have a sit down with him, his shop steward and his passport. I don't think they will can him, but he will get suspended. The guy is such a complete doofus, and he gets away with this shit all the time. They call him Teflon man, because nothing sticks to him. Ballsy.

I think I told you I am working on a detective novel. I used to write quite a bit, but for the last twenty or so years, not so much. It's really hard. Just picking the main character is tough. You write what you know, so they say, and what I know is me. So the damn main character is becoming a cranky cynical old lady that has a lot of shared history with me. Maybe I should write about the person I would like to be, young, strong, thin, beautiful and rich. Sort of a female Lord Lynley. Hmm. Trying hard not to write a story full of stereotypes, you know the kind - crazy neighbor, sinister cousin, that kind of thing.

I love to read and I am still consuming a book a day, or there abouts. Right now I am in the midst of the Scandanavian field of writers. I found Stieg Larson a few years ago and absolutely fell in love with his characters, as seemingly the rest of the world has. Prior to that, I was a Wallender fan, and before that - Smila's Sense of Snow rocked my boat. Now I am on the second of two books by Camilla Lackberg that are very good. There is something sparse, spare, almost minimalist in the writing, but it conveys a depth of land and culture and character that I find compelling.

Perhaps it is because I grew up in country very similar to Scandinavia. Plenty of rocks, snow and trees. A whole different mindset in a really cold land. North of Lake Superior is as cold and desolate and as beautiful as any Scandanavian country. It has the requisite granite cliffs, the towering pines and howling winter winds. It has wolves and bears and all manner of wicked wildlife. The people are plain in their thinking and speaking. The only new technology they want to talk about is snowmobiles.

Life is short and harsh, people fall victim to the perils of the universe as they know it. Hard living and hard drinking, tethered to short tempers and small minds make for a chaotic existence. Though I know this area well, I will refrain from using it as a backdrop in any of my stories because that would be over the top autobiographical.

So I have picked the west coast as the locale, but it could be anywhere, I may not even name the town or city. A fictional sort of place, a conglomeration of several towns I know and love. It is surprisingly tough to do, to write that is. When I read a well written book, it flows, the words become my words and I can instantly see and identify with the characters. When I write, I find it hard to make people likeable, since I have so few role models to work with. So I am in chaper three, main character is introduced, main story line is introduced and a few minor characters have managed to enter from the sidelines. What I am having trouble with is not making it sound like a 12 year old wrote the story. Every chapter ends with a "surprise unknown" and that's a bad habit. It's not an action thriller for crying out loud.

So now as I am reading books I am paying more attention to how they are written. I can't even decide on 1st person, 3rd person perspective. Who'd a thunk it? Writing, not just writing, but writing well takes courage my love....

Courage My Love - Feb 4/11

Seeing an eagle at any time can uplift the spirits. They look so noble and strong and graceful. This was taken at Brackendale, British Columbia on the Squamish River. Eagles are not always  noble or graceful, I have had to endure an eagle dump on my sailboat several times. YUCK! Four pounds of well digested rotted salmon all over the deck, the sails and yes, me.... Apparently it is good luck. Yeah right, as opposed to what? Getting hit by a nuclear missile? Being attacked by rabid seals? Maybe, if there were only those three choices, then an eagle dump is not so bad.

I need my spirits lifted, it is that dark cold February, the shortest month that takes the longest to get through. On the good news front, I am getting a 10G bonus at work. More good news, on May 6/11, I will be officially debt free! Not one cent owing to anyone! More good news, the company put more than 12G into my retirement plan in 2010. How can I not love my job? All that, and they let me do this too...

I was reading the local paper two days ago, and I read something that made me so mad I wanted to go out and rip the testicles off the author of the column. I think it was like a working advice column, you know the type, workplace situations, how to get a raise, acing the interview that kind of shit. This GUY writes in and says something like this:

Dear Jack

I work in an office with twenty people. There are two women in our office who dress very provocatively. It really bothers me and it is distracting. I know it bothers others as well. What can I do about this...

Joe

and Jack the Jackass writes back: "Yes it can be very unproductive in an office atmosphere to have women dress in a provocative manner. If your company does not have a dress code, maybe you could suggest to HR that they put one in, so that the expectation is clear to everyone. If there is an older woman in the office that you can trust, maybe you can approach her to tell these two women how distracting it is. If that is not an option, perhaps you can approach a woman in HR and ask her to deal with the problem. You should have others come with you to show that it is not just you, they are bothering, but others as well. "

WTF? Seriously WTF is that? Did we just flip back in time 50 years? What Jackass should have written, is something like this:

Joe:

Why don't you put your dick back in your pants and get back to work? The way someone dresses is their business, but your decision to view it as a sexual come on is redolant of the 1960's. Man, grow up! If they get raped, will it be their fault? You are an unbelievable cretin, I am surprised they let you out at all. Who raised you - a wolf pack?

I read it, then threw the paper out, but the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. So tomorrow, I'll find that paper, and get Jack's email address and tell him how I really feel. Am I wrong here? Are we so close to the cave man era that we have only a thing skin of civilization over us? Sadly, we probably are. Were something to happen to our western world as we know, we would disintegrate quickly into violent mayhem. Witness the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina. Lose our lights and grocery stores for a few days, or a few weeks and all hell will break loose.

Apparently since our appearance on this earth, being a woman takes Courage, my love.