pysanky egg 2013

intergal-egg-tic.

take it from a life-long wallflower...

this movie is excellent and SO worth seeing.

developments

* in early december, my therapist had a fall and wound up with a concussion. she had to cancel sessions for the remainder of the month, and planned to return to work in january. then, in january, i got a message saying she would be off for a few more weeks because her balance had not yet returned. that turned into "won't be back until april," as recovery was slow. and, now, i've just found out she's been advised to take an extended medical leave through to the end of summer. this means i haven't seen my therapist in almost four months, and probably won't see her for at least four or five more. but you know what? much to my pleasant surprise, it's been okay. sure, there have been moments of anxiety and stress, but it's actually been quite fine. i've grown used to not seeing her each week, and having my tuesdays back.

* at work today, we found out that the department landed another magazine contract -- this time, for a monthly gaming and tech publication. it's another fairly high-profile score and, if i'm lucky, it might mean i get to do some fun writing. we're still waiting to hear on the huge multi-million-dollar bid.

* in other work-related news, the new art director we've hired is wonderful! she's smart and funny and super-nice, and she and i hit it off immediately. too bad she's stuck working primarily for the editor i don't like, on the magazine i (apparently) won't be writing for anymore. that's fine, though. there are bigger, better projects on deck. see above.

* this coming monday, the elevator in my building will be taken out of service for "a maximum of four weeks" (per the property management company). this means i'll be hiking up and down the stairs at least twice a day, almost every day, for the next several weeks. if not more. not surprisingly, the landlord hasn't posted any kind of notice or reminder to tenants -- we received a notice LAST OCTOBER, and not a peep since. i expect more than a few people will be surprised come monday morning. or tuesday. or whenever the switch is flipped to "off."

* tomorrow is the annual pysanky party! yay!

five days' worth of updates

* let me begin by saying: i canNOT be getting sick. this coming friday is the annual pysanky party, and i don't want to miss it because of cooties. i'm hoping all the sneezing i've been doing today, and that weird burn-y feeling in my nose and throat, are a result of allergies or all the salt dust in the dry air.

* i was offline for most of the past four days, which is why the blog went unattended.

* on friday, i went to my parents' place to do my taxes. i've done them there, myself, ever since i first started filing. every year, it's the same routine, the same calculator, the same pencils and the same eraser. i sit at the dining room table, surrounded by all my organized receipts and collated forms, and work out how much i owe or am owed. this year was my most profitable ever -- like, ever ever. even when i worked full-time, i never made as much as i did in 2012. fortunately for me, i came in juuuust under a tax-bracket limit -- had i earned just $600 more, i would have been bumped up a bracket and would have had to pay thousands of dollars more in taxes. as it was, i cut the government a hefty cheque. this year was also my most-complicated year, which is why my taxes took approximately nine thousand hours to complete.

* i stayed over at YB's on saturday. we had a great day: shopping in the morning; lunch and samples at whole foods; dessert and a plethora of fancy samples at mcewan; a 90-minute hike through the don valley; portuguese stir fry for dinner; and we capped off the day by watching Looper (emily blunt kicking ass!).

* sunday, trix and i went shopping in the morning but were pooped by noon. so, we headed to my parents' house where she napped and i made cookies (under mom's supervision). after dinner, YB headed home and i decided to stay over. watching All-Star Celebrity Apprentice has become a sunday-night routine for mom and me.

* today, i'd planned to work on a couple of stories i have due -- one is a small-business profile (due wednesday), the other is a james franco story (due next monday) -- but wound up doing neither because i spent almost the entire afternoon editing my colleague's sub-par work. it was incredibly frustrating, to say the least. so, i'll get to my stuff tomorrow. i hope.

* this morning, i picked up Magic Mike, The Perks of Being a Wildflower and 10 Years at the library. i'd planned to watch one tonight but, instead, will be watching this on PBS at 9pm.

* tomorrow, i have a bunch of errands to run -- pick up vegetables, mail tax return, buy subway tokens -- and then work to do. i'm back in the office on wednesday, and i'd like to be ahead of the game.

five good things that happened today

* this morning, i walked to work in the cold, crisp sunshine. the sun was still out when i left the office at the end of the day so, despite the rather icy wind, i walked home, too.

* for lunch, i had a hearty, spicy three-bean soup (brought from home) and a freshly baked bagel (bought at work). the combination was perfect.

* on my way to the printer at the office, i looked out the window just as a hawk (we've named her hermione and she roosts somewhere on the building) was swooping past, veryvery close, with a dead pigeon in her talons. i called to my co-workers and, soon, there were four of us watching as hermione soared back and forth, before landing on a nearby ledge... where i'm pretty sure she stared back at us.

* YB scored Looper at the library tonight. i cannot WAIT to see that movie! so, she's saving it and we'll watch it together when i stay over at her place on saturday.

* i found out today that, no matter how much they might want to charge to pay for all the needless (and expensive) renovations, the property management company at my apartment is only legally allowed to raise the rent by 5.5% (2.5% + a maximum of an additional 3%) per year, and only for up to three years. so, that's good to know.

and that's the end of that

in case you're wondering where yesterday's rant-masquerading-as-a-blog-post went, i deleted it.

after not sleeping much last night and being mired in a funk all day today -- and realizing that carrying around a big ball of ARRRRRRRRRRGH! wasn't doing me any good (does it ever?) -- i came home and decided to let go of the frustrations and aggravations and disappointments i'd carried around for the past 24 hours. it was weird that i started to feel lighter and better almost as soon as i made the decision not to keep feeding that anger beast.

then, when i came here to blog tonight and was smacked in the face by yesterday's rant, i realized it was likewise serving no productive, constructive purpose. it was me stomping around in writing.

so, it's history.

and, tonight, i'm going to have a delicious sandwich, take a hot shower, watch Go On at 9pm and then maybe play a video game or two online.

i leave you with a photo of some pretty, happy, non-grumpy flowers.

beating a dead house

remember this place?

it's still for sale.

and, as time marches on (that blog post above was about seven weeks ago), the market is still veryvery quiet. so, today, i found myself thinking about the pepto palace again. mentally calculating how much all the renovations might cost. doing my monthly tally of my finances.

as an aside, subsequently realizing i will be cutting the canada revenue agency a BIG cheque when i do my taxes. thank you, HST!

anyway...

dunno whether i'll go back to look at the PP but, since i now frequently find myself pondering ridiculous housing options -- like overpriced condos in areas i don't even like -- as though they might be good ideas, i figured maybe this one wasn't actually so ridiculous, after all. by comparison, anyway.

maybe i need to pen a letter to my would-be next home to encourage it (even further) to reveal itself... 'cause, at the moment, there's nothing out there that's calling to me.

all you really need to know about my friday

it included one of these.
a limited-edition belgian-chocolate cupcake with irish-cream frosting.
and it was delicious.

the new normal

so, i've had a little extra energy lately.

ever since being on the higher dose of thyroid meds, but especially over the past two weeks or so, i've felt a bit like i've somehow been unknowingly downing amphetamines. like i'm w-i-d-e awake and ready to go, all the time, every day. it's been a jangly, buzzy energy that's meant i've also had trouble sleeping and found myself virtually bouncing around the apartment, looking for something active to do.

at first, and per all the research i'd done about the symptoms, i thought my med dose was too high. hyperactivity, restlessness and sleeplessness are classic signs of (not surprisingly) hyperthyroidism, which is what happens when you've got an excess of thyroid hormone coursing through your veins.

on tuesday, when dr. textbook told me my blood work revealed that everything was, in fact, back to being nice and normal (levels-wise), i told her about this sudden abundance of get-up-and-go and lack of sleepytimes. she said it's likely a result of my body adjusting to the new, higher dose. or, she said, this might actually be what "normal" feels like when my body actually gets what it needs.

i'm not so sure i buy her latter explanation, since my blood levels had been normal for years (on the lower dose), but i'd never felt this jazzy. then again, many experts say that blood-test readings aren't always the best indicator of the medication's efficacy -- that many folks with "normal" readings don't actually *feel* better or as they should. time will tell, and i'll be retested again in mid-may.

for now, though, i've decided to embrace my sudden urges to go for two-hour walks and to take up cardio workouts again (i did 40 minutes of tae bo this morning, for the first time in 15 years, and it felt amazing!). that way, even if this buzz wears off as my body adjusts and i go back to the status quo-slow, i'll burn some calories and get a little more fit in the meantime.

and i know that, when i cross into the hyperthyroidism zone, i lose weight. it happened before, for about five months, and weight loss was the big red flag that something was amiss. thus far, that hasn't been an issue, so i figure that's a good sign.

say what you will...

i found today's election of the new pope strangely moving. something about seeing all those people standing shoulder-to-shoulder in st. peter's square, waiting breathlessly for white smoke and, then, the announcement of the new leader of the catholic church as media from all over the planet trained their cameras on the same balcony.

and then to think of newly elected pope francis, standing before all those people, knowing that he's now "in charge" of a church of roughly 1.7 billion people around the world. when the news cameras shot from behind him, outward at the crowd, i wondered what it might feel like to be him in that moment... that first moment, putting on the vestments, stepping out onto the balcony, being greeted by such a massive, joyful roar at your mere presence. i got a little choked up.

finally, there's something beautifully majestic yet old and simple about the whole process. in this digital age, it was refreshing to see, as al roker (of all people) noted this morning, an "analog" tradition -- of paper ballots and chimney smoke -- that lives on more than a thousand years after it began.

tues. news.

* went to see dr. textbook this morning to get my thyroid-related blood-test results. result? everything is A-OK and back to normal, my new dose is doing what it should and i'll be rechecked in about two months just to make sure everything is still copacetic. (please note: dr. textbook looks NOTHING like the accompanying photo of generic dr. hottie.)

* did not make soup or bake anything over the weekend. what i actually *did* do was rediscover my love for raspberry coffee cake from no frills, which is a taste of my childhood and still delicious. mom offered me a slice on sunday and i was instantly rehooked. i have another slice in the fridge right now, and it's all i can do not to trek 30 minutes to the closest no frills to buy a whole one.

* followed up on another possible assignment today but, admittedly, it's one for which i don't believe i'm suited. and one for which i likely don't have time. and one on which i will probably pass -- unless it has a big, fat payday attached. it's putting together a sponsor-related presentation for a large local festival, but the project description sounds like it would be better suited to a designer, not a writer. still, one of my former editors recommended me, so i figure i'll at least hear what's involved before i politely decline. as much as i love having a lot of work, i don't want so much of it that i'm working 9am to 9pm, and on weekends. live to work vs. work to live and all that.

* picked up fixins for what promises to be a delicious sandwich-based dinner. sometimes, a multigrain baguette, some freshly shaved black forest ham and mozzarella, and a pile of cut vegetables (with, of course, a slice of raspberry coffee cake for dessert) puts the cherry on the sundae of a good day.

one letter can make all the difference

yesterday, i went in to the office to proofread a Big Important Proposal being submitted as part of the company's bid for a multi-million-dollar contract.

i was proofing printouts of powerpoint slides, so there wasn't much text per page. sometimes as little as four words. sometimes, at most, a couple of paragraphs.

as i neared the end of the process, i came upon a page/slide with a *photo* of a cover mock-up that had been done. there was no actual text on the page, so i was about to move onto the next one when i thought maybe i should proof the photo just to make sure the cover didn't have any typos.

and there, in the photo, i saw the word "anchient."

for real.

i knew this wasn't good. if this page/slide was a photo reproduction of the cover, then that meant the cover itself had the typo.

the cover that had already been printed out and used across various media platforms.

but no, i thought, surely someone caught the errant "h" and had fixed it and had simply forgotten to update the photo in the PP presentation.

i brought the page to my boss, pointed out the typo and said, "this doesn't appear anywhere else does it?"

"F**K!" said he.

the typo was EVERYWHERE.

cue a multitude emails and phone calls and staff from various departments being called in to fix the ubiquitous "h."

my boss thanked me profusely and said the VP also sent her thanks. i should think so.

not to pat myself on the back or anything, but that "h" could have meant the difference between landing the contract and having the potential client say, "why would go with your company when you can't spell basic words and have the audacity to give us a cover with a big, fat typo right in the middle?" and i kind of can't believe no one noticed it before.

i went home feeling very pleased with myself.

saturday musical interlude

i ♥ beth hart.

pre-weekend update

* guess who's going in to the office tomorrow? i spoke too soon when, earlier today, i declared that i had finished all the things and had no homework for the weekend -- just after 5:30pm, my boss asked if i had any interest in doing two-or-so hours of proofing tomorrow from about 11am to 1pm. if it weren't a Big Important Proposal for a multi-million-dollar contract that needs to be proofed, i might have said no. but i know this is a huge deal, and i know the folks putting it together are NOT writers, so having two sets of eyes (his and mine) is better than one. going in on a saturday also earns me (even more) big brownie points AND he said he'd pay me for a full day regardless of how few hours i work.

* speaking of work, i finally finished a style guide for the department today. it outlines all the rules and particularities for heds, deks, copy, spelling, numerals and the like, so that everything is consistent across the brands and publications. i then emailed it to the writer i wrote about earlier this week -- the one with all the typos and grammatical errors -- with a friendly but somewhat stern request that, going forward, he not only use and follow the guide, but that he please read over his copy before submitting it because we'd been finding errors consistently. because he's a very nice guy and i actually genuinely like him as a person, i was not surprised when he replied with an apology, promising that he's going to try to up his game from now on. i appreciated that. i will appreciate him actually following through even more. we shall see.

* i completed last night's agenda in fine form! Salmon Fishing in the Yemen was absolutely lovely and emily blunt was, as expected, COMPLETELY swoon-worthy. the two chapters i read of my due-soon library book made me realize that i actually quite like it and want to finish it (i'd previously been kind of meh about the writing, but it found its groove). so, tonight after Shark Tank, i'll read a few more chapters. i have three days before it has to go back!

* YB has a cold, so she's out of commission this weekend. i'm almost out of banana bread and am once again out of soup, so i expect there will be some kind of baking and/or cooking happening on sunday. i'll also be making some stove-top popcorn -- seasoned with all sorts of spices -- because it is gooo-oood. and, when you make popcorn with white popping corn (instead of yellow), there are far fewer hulls. there's your factoid for the day.

thursday-night agenda

» hot shower, followed by pyjamas and fuzzy socks.

» leftover pasta. with pesto and a peach bellini mocktail. twix singles for dessert.

» Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and some serious swooning over emily blunt.

» a couple more chapters of a book that needs to be back at the library on tuesday.

» bed by 11pm.

work meh-thic

you know what really chaps my hide?

laziness in the workplace.

and, more and more, i'm encountering it from my peers at the publishing company.

work is done half-assedly, if at all, and then turned in late... usually after reminders were sent out. stories are very clearly written in about 20 minutes and pulled out of thin air. stuff that no one really feels like doing is given to me -- administrative tasks that are a drag, but need doing... by people who *should* be doing them but just don't feel like it. i'm the mikey of the department, it seems.

today, i spent much of the afternoon re-editing four stories that had allegedly been edited on tuesday but which had very obviously NOT been edited. yet they had subsequently been forwarded on to the CLIENT. filled with grammatical errors, typos and MISSING WORDS. i was astounded and suddenly understood why the client's feedback today was, "could you give these another read? the language is off-brand."

no kidding!

the writer who'd submitted the stories is notorious for phoning it in when it comes to work -- he's the one who's paid much more than i am, for doing about one quarter of the work i do -- and everyone knows his stuff needs to be carefully edited. and, often, seriously massaged before it goes to print, to the client or online. why my colleague in the office (who was tasked with editing his stories and submitting them to the client) opted not to actually EDIT them is beyond me. when i asked her about it today, she said she was "swamped" and "didn't hugely closely" edit the stories.

how about, "didn't edit them AT ALL"? i forwarded chunks of the "edited" copy (complete with all the mistakes) to my boss to say, "yeah, i'm fixing all this stuff but thought you should know that THIS is why the client was unimpressed." he was equally frustrated, and said he'd talk to the parties involved, but also said that he's noticed a distinct "disengagement" in the department of late.

i dunno, i don't get it. when i'm hired to do a job -- no matter how small or menial or tedious -- i do it to the best of my ability. i make sure my writing is clean and strong, i reread everything at least a half-dozen times before i submit it, i dot every i and cross every t and, most importantly, i stay until it's DONE. the "swamped" colleague who didn't bother editing is, evidently, not so swamped that she comes in early or works through lunch or stays late to relieve the swampage -- no, she's in at 9, out at 5 and, often, out for more than an hour at noon.

so, i stayed until 6pm tonight to finish what should have been done by someone else yesterday. it wasn't the first time, and (sadly) i know it won't be the last.

five good things tuesday brought

* went for my blood work and was in and out of the lab in under 10 minutes. new record!

* spent 90 minutes wandering around downtown, window shopping and relaxing. this was *after* the hour-long walk to *get* downtown.

* had two slices of my banana bread + mandarin-orange yogurt for lunch. scoff not, it was filling AND delicious.

* cleaned my apartment from top to bottom. this is especially good because last week's workload meant cleaning was postponed for eight days. now it's done.

* met the new superintendent, who is young (maybe 30) and seems very nice. she is also a dead ringer for Top Chef season four/nine contestant antonia.

what's cooking

* yesterday, i made my very first batch of split-pea soup. in the same way that i'd had a craving for banana bread and ultimately filled that craving by baking my own loaf, i'd been hankering for a good vegetarian split-pea soup for a while, but had only been disappointed by the sludgy green slop our company's cafeteria had recently offered up. so, i found a hearty recipe online (26g of protein, 27g of fibre per 1 1/2 cups!) and, with mom's help, whipped it. it was... a little too thick. i love a thick soup, but this gradually became mashed-potato-esque, consistency-wise, as it cooled. thankfully, adding about 3/4 cup of boiling water thinned it out and didn't compromise flavour.

* the condos we went to see on saturday were pffffft. yes, they were affordable and in a not-terrible location but, as YB said on our way out, "they don't run a tight ship." one building's security guard was nowhere to be seen, meaning a slew of us had to wait in the vestibule to be let into the building (ultimately, by a resident). the other had a russian security guard so gruff and unpleasant that i'd hate to think of what it would be like to pass him every morning and evening on my way in/out. there were notices posted from the condo board: one was about people dumping garbage where they shouldn't; one was about people letting their pets urinate where they shouldn't (INside! in the hallway!); and one was about people doing construction and making noise when they shouldn't. it was a building full of rule-breakers! no thanks. not to mention that the other folks attending the open houses made me wonder what the demographic of the residents is if these were the people browsing the property.

* All-Star Celebrity Apprentice started last night. i am in my trash-TV happy place. i stayed over at my parents' house yesterday, so mom watched with me. despite herself, she enjoys that show. i explained that i love it because it doesn't pretend to be anything other than a bunch of egomaniacs dishing out reality-TV fakeness. it's cheesy and it knows it.

* much to my delight, i managed to finish all my writing assignments! i crossed the last one off my to-do list this afternoon, then promptly created some (long overdue) 2013 spreadsheets into which i can begin electronically recording my income. up until now, i'd done it on paper, but the lure of excel's "sum" function was too strong to ignore. i've also got a bunch of new assignments for this week, so... i'll have more sums to sum.

* tonight, i will be unwinding with a field roast apple-sage vegan sausage, a gryfe's bagel, an assortment of cut vegetables and the makeover episode of The Biggest Loser. tomorrow: time to get my thyroid levels checked to see if dr. textbook's dosage adjustment has worked. fingers crossed!

the day's deets

* this afternoon at the office, we had cake in the boardroom. it was the VP's birthday, so everyone attended. everyone, that is, except for the new-editor-i-don't-like. she stayed at her desk, surfing the internet. my boss was NOT happy.

* i have finished almost all the things i needed to get done this week. i have one more assignment to complete by EOD monday. then i can get started on NEXT week's writing tasks.

* last night, i attended an impromptu farewell gathering for the departing super. one of the women in the building hosted it at her apartment, and it was a very nice night. bonus: the hostess had a very cute, very nice cat.

* tonight, when i got home, i went to the super's apartment to say goodbye (she moves out tomorrow morning). i could see she still had a mountain of stuff to get packed, so i helped her for an hour. she gave me a hug and her email address and said to stay in touch. i will.

* tomorrow, mom, YB and i are going to look at a couple of condos at open houses. i don't really want either unit -- even though one is a very affordable penthouse suite -- but i do want to take a look at the buildings, since bigger, brighter and just as affordable units have come up for sale there in recent months. the buildings are in the 'burbs, but they're also along a street that will have a brand new transit line by 2020... so property values are going to go way up and commuting will become much easier.