my plucky seven-year-old pen pal recently wrote a very lovely poem for a school assignment. the students were asked to write a poem called "i am from..." and to link what they wrote to the five senses.
these are the official instructions.
her mom posted the poem on another blog, and then suggested that we readers borrow a page from seven-year-old scribes and write an "i am from..." poem of our own.
so that's what i'm going to do.
this morning, as i got ready to head out, i made a deal with lefty.
despite all the changes i'd made and the hopes i had, i knew it wasn't gone -- for the past several weeks, i've had a slew of symptoms and lots of abdominal discomfort -- and i feared lefty had actually grown larger, so i wanted to make one last effort at finding a peaceful middle ground before meeting with dr. textbook.
"lefty, you can still be there... as long as you're smaller," i said (seriously) as i gently patted my lower-left abdomen. i was still having pain last night and today, so i hoped that this truce offering might at least calm lefty down.
i ran a few errands then walked to dr. textbook's office (about an hour), and i had a strange sense of calm come over me, as though somewhere deep down my body was unclenching and letting me know, "it'll be okay. you don't need to worry anymore."
i arrived at the office fairly early, but dr. textbook was free and took me right away.
"so, how are you feeling?" she asked in a chipper voice.
"well, i'm feeling like i want to hear my test results because i'm really nervous," i said.
she apologized and immediately flipped through my chart... to my blood work.
"good news, your thyroid is fine!" she said, quite happily.
and, though that news was undeniably good, it wasn't the news i was eager to hear.
"can we skip the blood work for now and just get right to the ultrasound?" i asked.
"oh! of course."
she flipped to the ultrasound results and said, "it's good news. your cyst is still there, but it's shrunk."
a massive wave of relief swept over me.
long story short: lefty is now about 2cm smaller in diameter, so it's now the size of a large grape instead of a plum. while "gone" would have been the ideal result, this is certainly the next best thing and i was more than happy with this outcome. and it also explains a lot of what's been happening, symptoms-wise, of late.
dr. textbook went on to say that this ultrasound also revealed something new -- a small fibroid -- that wasn't visible before (probably because lefty was in the way), but it's nothing serious and can be re-checked in a year.
then dr. textbook flipped back to the blood-work results and said my iron levels are still very low, but that they've improved somewhat over the past three months.
and that was that. i don't have to go for another ultrasound for a year, unless anything troublesome begins happening, and i don't have to have more blood work until august.
to say i was hugely relieved would be an understatement -- i so worried this medical mess was going to drag on or that everything had somehow gotten worse but, overall, everything is better. perfect? no. but better. and better is better than worse.
thank you again to everyone who sent good thoughts and nice messages. i have no doubt it helped. (and, even if it didn't have any physical effect, i know it made a difference to me, emotionally.)
this concludes any and all blog postings regarding vickie's lady business. we thank you for your patience and now return you to your regularly scheduled rambling...
i get my ultrasound and blood-work results tomorrow afternoon.
and i will try to go to bed tonight hoping for the best.
earlier tonight, i started writing a blog entry called “dominoes.” it was going to be about how so much of my life is interconnected – people linked with experiences, experiences associated with people, feelings wrapped tightly around both – and how i often fear this intricate, delicate web of invisible threads suspended in the air all around me will collapse because of me. that, with one misstep or blunder, i will accidentally break a thread and suddenly lose a branch, or a quadrant, or an entire piece of my life will just drop away.
this afternoon, i was emailing back and forth with a friend and we were discussing this very concept (sort of): how something can happen, or maybe nothing happens, and someone or something in your life just stops being there. more specifically, how the parts of who you are that were connected to that person or that experience seem to just disappear, and you feel like, for whatever reason, you're no longer able to access them.
so, i thought i would write about those things this evening, but the “dominoes” entry stalled out right around the time i realized, though the core idea was similar, i was actually writing about threads and webs and not dominoes. the whole thing had also spun itself into a confusing mess of stream-of-consciousness rambling. so i deleted.
frankly, i also scrapped the entry because i was getting a little teary. for me, blog entries - like people and experiences and life - are very much bound to feelings. and, not surprisingly, this one was veering towards feelings: the blog territory.
i have always been acutely aware of time.
that, whether it seems to fly by at lightning speed or inch forward like an exhausted snail caught shell-deep in tar, it marches on. that it can run out before you know it, that it stops for no one and that, no matter how desperately you might wish otherwise, it can never be turned back.
often, when i think about the passage of time, i feel a strange, heavy pulling on my heart. a melancholy ache slowly swells within my chest, pushing itself outward in all directions, and i know that if i linger on the feeling a second longer tears will follow.
as i get older, time is on my mind more and more often. how much has already gone by, how much is left, what i'm doing with mine. and, more and more often, it fills me with uncertainty and sadness and anxiety.
i spent this weekend at my parents’ house. there, i can feel like time has somehow managed to stand still... but only briefly. reminders that time continues to pass are everywhere. in my mother’s arthritic fingers. in my father’s fading memory and clumsy gait. in my own mirror as i get ready for bed.
and, at night when everyone has gone to sleep and i lie awake with my thoughts, in the tick-tock-tick-tocks of the clocks in every room.
reverberating through the stillness.
i enjoy crackers.
i bought a box of my favourite brand recently. they are a spicy, wheaty well-known store brand.
i opened the box and discovered that all the crackers in it were terribly overbaked.
i noticed they were actually on the brink of burnt. some had black edges.
i went to the company website and wrote a very nice, extremely pleasant email, explaining my discovery in a bid to notify the manufacturer that its ovens are obviously set several dozen degrees too high or its crackers are being left to bake for several dozen minutes too long.
i hit "send."
two days later, i received an apologetic reply, and notification that i'm being mailed a $5 grocery gift card as compensation... which is enough to buy three boxes of these crackers.
i like it when stuff like that happens.
first of all, i’d like to thank everyone who put out good thoughts or energy or vibes on my behalf, or sent me supportive messages and emails. sitting in my apartment over the past couple of days, stressing out more and more about the ultrasound and what it might reveal, it was all very comforting... even if i still felt sick to my stomach as i got ready to go this morning.
if you recall, my last experience with an ultrasound was utterly horrible, and i was sore for days afterward, so i’d been dreading this follow-up appointment for weeks. by the time i woke up today, my hands were shaking because i was so nervous. and, though i tried to distract myself or tell myself it would all be fine, i wound up so internally knotted that i could barely eat anything for breakfast.
i decided to walk to the imaging center, which i knew would take an hour and a bit, in the hopes of working off some of the nerves, but i was still crawling out of my skin when i arrived. i’d planned to get there very early, which i did, and i’d tried to time the water-drinking and the peeing accordingly so that i wouldn’t have to sit and wait in bladder-busting agony. unfortunately, the best laid plans mean nothing when you’re me and you’re scared – my kidneys immediately switch to panic mode and become overactive, and today was no exception.
there was also some confusion about my appointment time. i’d made the appointment for 1:30pm, but they had me down for 1:40pm... yes, only a ten-minute difference, but ten minutes are an eternity when your bladder’s reached critical mass.
thus, despite stern instructions to the contrary, i sprinted to the washroom and peed. twice. 20 minutes before my exam.
i could almost hear ludmila cursing me in russian as i flushed.
by the time i was beyond desperate to pee a third time, a slight, bespectacled woman, who looked like a librarian and who spoke with a russian accent, came into the waiting room and called my name.
“oh, thank god. you almost missed me,” i said, motioning towards the washroom. “i was just thinking that i can’t hold it a second longer.”
i braced myself for a reprimand, but none came. instead, to my utter shock, she said, in a very kind voice, “do you still want to go? you can if you really need to.”
wait. what?
“are you sure?” i asked, certain that this was some kind of trick, and that i would inevitably exit the restroom to discover my ultrasound had been angrily cancelled.
“yes,” said the technician. “just count to ten.” (meaning: only pee for a count of ten, and then stop peeing and hold the rest in. no easy feat, let me tell you.)
“oh, i’ll just count to three,” i replied, knowing that a count to ten would mean an empty bladder.
“no, three is too small! do at least five,” she said.
i was stunned that i was being allowed to pee, but even more shocked that the woman granting me permission seemed... friendly. still, memories of ludmila (note: "memories of ludmila," soon to be a president’s choice marinade consisting solely of lemon juice and rancid milk) were swimming around in my head.
“i did a four,” i said as i hurried back into the exam room, hoping she’d laugh. and she did! i took that as a very good sign since, you know, it meant that at least she had a sense of humour.
“my name is rita, and i’ll be doing your exam today,” said the technician warmly. “please open your gown and lie down.”
i did as rita instructed. she squirted the gel onto my abdomen and i was pleasantly surprised – it was delightfully warm! when i commented about it, and said that my previous experience involved gel that felt like it came out of a freezer, she said, “oh, i’ll have to tell ludmila to remember to warm it!”
then came the part i was dreading most: when ludmila performed my previous ultrasound, she jammed that transducer into my stomach so hard and with such force that i was pretty sure she was actually trying to break through my abdominal cavity to touch my spine. and, not surprisingly, that hurt.
but rita? she gently placed the transducer on my stomach and began. i kept waiting for her to apply more pressure, yet she never did. she just moved it around gently, click-click-clicking her way along as the machine snapped images.
and she actually chatted with me as she performed the ultrasound. i told her about lefty and she said, “oh, i know. i looked up your file on the computer before you came in.” when i asked if a re-check would be shorter than the initial test, she sort of sighed apologetically and said, “no, i’m sorry. i still have to do a complete exam.”
“how long do you think that’ll take?” i asked, again ready for a ludmila-esque smackdown for daring to ask any questions.
“a full exam usually takes about 20 minutes,” rita answered.
TWENTY MINUTES?!?!?!?! i nearly soiled myself. i’d already been there for five, and figured i could maybe hold off peeing for another two or three minutes... but another FIFTEEN?!?! there was no way.
“but i’m almost done,” added rita. “i’ve already done one ovary and your uterus, so just one more ovary to go.”
“you’re already 2/3 finished?!?!” i asked, just to be sure i’d heard her correctly.
“yes.”
“rita!” i said. “you are AMAZING. and FAST!”
she laughed.
and i could NOT believe what a vastly different experience i was having.
one minute later, rita began putting the transducer aside.
“rita... are you finished?!” (and, yes, i actually kept using her name because i found it fun to say.)
“yes, you’re all done,” she said.
i was amazed. floored. i was so not in pain that i actually got up slowly and cleaned my stomach off and just kept praising her.
“rita, that was SO much better than my last ultrasound. i wish i could have you do mine every time!”
“if you have to have another one, just let them know at the front when you make your appointment,” she replied.
“you mean, i can actually request you?”
“sure.”
oh, done and done, rita!
as i closed up my gown, she said, “now you can pee. empty everything out!”
“thank you so much, rita! seriously. you are AWESOME,” i said as i was leaving.
she smiled, sort of tilted her head bashfully and said, in her russian accent, “why thank you.”
i was so immensely relieved when it was all said and done that i practically danced out of that office today. all i kept thinking was, “that was so much better than last time! that was so much better than last time!”
and all it took was a little kindness. a good bedside manner. someone being nice when you’re in pain. i mean, don’t get me wrong, it still wasn’t any fun, but it wasn’t anywhere near as horrible or traumatizing as my previous visit simply because rita, unlike her asshatty predecessor, treated me with warmth.
given that patients are assigned to a tech at random (unless, as i now know, the patient has requested someone specific), it’s a crap shoot as to which person does which procedure on which patient. whichever tech is available at the time of your appointment is the one you get. i saw that ludmila was on duty this afternoon, and even ran into her in the hallway, so i could have easily fallen into her hands again today. there was also a rather angry-looking (also russian!) older male tech on duty who could have been the one handling my exam.
but i wound up with rita. calm, chatty, friendly, kind rita.
and i really believe i have the collective power of everybody’s good thoughts to thank for that ever-so-fortunate turn of events. because, in many ways, i was fearing the ultrasound as much as – if not more than – whatever it might find, and i had so hoped that this second experience would somehow, in some way, erase the truly awful memory of the first.
and it did.
so thank you.
(btw, in case anyone’s wondering, i won’t actually get the test results for at least ten days. but i will update accordingly when i do.)
okay. so my follow-up ultrasound is tomorrow afternoon. and i'm really nervous.
as readers of this blog, i don't really ask much of you, but i'm going to ask for a tiny bit of karmic help.
if you have a second or two to spare today or tonight, would you please send some good, healing, cyst-be-gone energy my way? specifically, aimed at my lower-left abdomen. it doesn't matter what you do or how you do it -- say a prayer, light a candle, cross your fingers, think a good thought -- because i believe every little bit makes a difference... even if it's just a matter of you saying "please let lefty be gone!" quietly to yourself when you finish reading this sentence.
many, many thanks.
victoria,
tsk. that was a lovely letter you penned to me! thank you. as a cyst, it’s not often i’m addressed in such a fashion. you’ve been a wonderful host, even if you did want to show me the door the second i arrived. no offense taken – i know living with me can be a challenge. and, now, the time has come for me to depart.
as i pack my things and head off, i must say i’m immensely relieved our parting does not come with any sorrow, sweet or otherwise, and that you seem to have a firm grasp on why i chose to take up residence within you in the first place.
my work here is done, then. good.
the you of today is a positive change from the you i first met, my dear. being a cyst, my default is "painfully blunt" and, as such, i feel i can tell you honestly: that girl was a mess. you weren’t eating, you weren’t sleeping and i’m fairly certain your walks to and from loblaws weren’t really enough to qualify as “regular exercise.” i don’t think a day went by without you crying at least once, if not several times, and you slowly retreated so far within yourself that i feared you might actually turn completely inside out.
fortunately for you, i thrive on all the things with which you were filling yourself: fear, worry, sadness, stress, loneliness, depression, anxiety, self-criticism, self-loathing... and, of course, copious amounts of sugar – it was like a (beautiful for me, awful for you) smorgasbord of all my favourite dishes! no wonder i eventually became fat enough for you to notice my presence! my sincere apologies for all the unfortunate side effects you also had to endure as i settled in, but i needed to make sure you knew i had arrived.
as a visitor with unprecedented access to your insides, literal and metaphorical, i promptly toured around at length and what i saw was not pretty. that swirling black hole i found, while immensely nourishing for me, was doing absolutely nothing but causing you to suffer. do you have any idea how harmful those things can be if left unattended?
of course you do, because immediately after we were introduced, you sprang into action. it was less than a day before you began making changes, and the fervor with which you undertook your new challenge was impressive. you did it all, victoria – your diet became healthier, you made sure to get outside every day, you leapt back upon the meditation horse, you started sleeping better, you researched and you left no stone unturned. and you weren’t just working on your body, you started fixing your heart and mind. you reached out for help and found some – i’m so proud of you! that took courage. i know it wasn’t easy but, more than anything else, that crucial decision and your newfound health regimen will likely ensure i never see you again.
i came to give you a wake-up call -- to remind you, in an admittedly dramatic but ultimately effective manner, to take better care of yourself in every way -- and you listened. you’ve begun walking along a new and improved path, victoria, and i’m glad. you’ve used our time together very wisely, learned some lessons, and i applaud you for all that you’ve managed to accomplish so far.
please keep going.
don’t give up, and don’t lose hope. you can do it.
i will now take my leave of you and get out of your way so you might begin to focus on better things.
goodbye, and good luck.
with fondest wishes and a final pang of farewell,
lefty
dear lefty,
it’s been two months since i first discovered you existed.
i wish i could say “time flies!”, but i cannot. time has passed in a strange, slow manner since the day dr. textbook told me about you, and i’ve spent a good portion of the past nine weeks with you on my mind. thinking about where you came from, how you grew, what i could do to heal you, whether anything was working and if you were shrinking. you’ve been a part of me, every single day, literally and figuratively.
thing is, the time has come for you to leave. (if you haven’t already.)
while i understand your arrival, and truly do appreciate the wake-up call you delivered me, i’m now ready to keep traveling along the road of self-improvement and healing without you. you’ve more than served your purpose, and the message you carried with you has come through loud and clear: fix your life.
and, lefty, i’m trying.
as soon as i found out you were squatting on my left side, i turned things upside down. i started eating better, exercising every day, meditating, taking extra vitamins, sleeping properly and reading everything i could find to try to figure out what else i could be doing. thanks to you, i’m probably in better physical shape than i’ve been in in years and i’m sure my impending blood work will be spectacular.
but i also know you didn’t just spring into my life to force my body back online.
so, you’ll be happy to hear i’m working on getting my head and my heart back together, as well. they’ve been scrambled and screwed up for a long, long time, and i've realized i can’t let them go on like that anymore. i’m only just beginning the process, and i know there’s a lot more work still ahead of me, but i’ll get there. eventually. as much as i would love for it to be otherwise, i can’t undo in two months what it took a lifetime to create. one day at a time, right?
anyway...
thank you, again, for everything you’ve done. while you’ve certainly caused your share of your pain and problems for me, you’ve ultimately provided a frightening but much-needed opportunity for me to change for the better. while i really do hope we never have to cross paths like this again, i’m grateful for the encounter and ready to keep moving forward, lefty-free.
happy trails, little one.
love,
vickie
* i think my hair dryer is dying. the other day, while blowing my hair straight, i kept hearing clicking noises. from within the dryer, not my hair. so, while it was still running, i turned it towards me and looked inside... and saw sparks. thus, i will be sporting wavy hair until such time as the device is fixed or replaced. (given that it was about $12, i suspect the latter will happen.)
* my huge-ass walk on sunday left me with extremely painful quads for days afterwards. it wasn’t the walking that did it, it was all the crouching and rising and squatting and standing that i did while taking photos of bernard. by the time i posted the blog entry on sunday night, my quads were screaming and i was having trouble sitting down and getting up. several days, and several hot baths, later... my legs have regained the ability to move freely and painlessly.
* YB and my mom returned from their buffalo jaunt with all the items i’d requested. yes, that means mint milk. deal with it.
* there are some days when, for a fleeting moment, i consider deleting my facebook account.
* i refuse to put away my winter duvet just yet. today, the weather is quite warm, but i want to believe it’ll still be cool for a few more weeks before summer temperatures arrive for good.
* yesterday, i was walking in my neighbourhood and saw a young woman walking her very old, very frail dog. they were barely moving. the dog, which looked like a mix of staffordshire terrier and border collie, was taking steps that were exceedingly careful, slow, deliberate and clearly very difficult. one paw after the other, gingerly, one inch at a time. the dog’s head hung very low, its body was thin and its tail looked like a knotted branch of bone. the owner, ever patient and kind, just waited. and together they “walked,” probably as they’d done countless times before. it broke my heart and, by the time i passed them and turned the corner, i was trying to hide the fact that i was wiping away tears.
* speaking of tears, i had my very first appointment with a therapist this week. it’s been something i’ve felt the need to do for a while, because i’ve realized that my life is not working for me and that i need help addressing all the issues at play, but it took some time for all the pieces to fall into place. i owe it all to my nurse friend, her connections and her persistence. anyway... i was extremely nervous, it was surprisingly emotional, and i discovered how much more difficult it is for me to speak about feelings than it is to just think about them or write about them.
* lefty will be rechecked in a week and a day six days. it continues to preoccupy me and i would ask that you please send healing, cyst-free thoughts my way over the next seven days, in whatever way you choose. say a prayer, light a candle, burn some incense... any little bit of good energy you could direct towards my abdominal area would be greatly appreciated.
* i think this movie looks charming.
* i have, at this very moment, remembered that there is an as-yet-unopened pint of starbucks caramel macchiato ice cream in my freezer. as such, i feel i must consume some immediately.
edited to add: lefty's recheck has been moved up by two days and will now happen this coming wednesday afternoon. please adjust the velocity and frequency of any good energy you might be sending my way accordingly. thank you.
a fantastic night's sleep.
bright blue skies and sunshine.
SPF 70.
three-and-a-half hours of walking.
three-and-a-half hours of photography.
spring flowers.
lake ontario.
tugboats.
swans and their eggs.
a donut.
a hot shower.
spaghetti and Sober House.
dark chocolate with mint filling.
pyjamas by 9pm.
the deep sleep of exhaustion and contentment.
(*relax, that's not what i mean.)
as the day for the re-check of lefty draws closer, i've been getting increasingly nervous. and, not surprisingly, lefty has been kicking up a storm. or maybe my mind is just playing tricks on me and making me think that's what's been happening.
who knows.
regardless, i've been doing a lot of reading lately, specifically: books related to mind/body healing. i've always felt that lefty appeared when it did for a reason -- as a wake-up call, certainly, but also as a physical manifestation of emotional distress. as such, i've also known that, if i really want to rid myself of lefty and prevent it from returning, i need to somehow fix my head and heart in order for my body to follow suit.
long, feelings: the blog-worthy story short, i'm going to take some time this weekend to look inward, as honestly as i can, to see what i might be able to find and, perhaps, heal. i've done a lot of work physically already, so i think i now need to fill in the other half of that wellness circle.
earlier tonight, i witnessed a hurtful gesture at my weekly meditation group.
the group itself is a very loving and supportive one, with idiosyncrasies and irreverence that make it unique. i always feel better after i've attended, and it's an environment that many people (me included) find comforting and relaxing.
but, occasionally, there's a ripple in the pond. and, more than once, they've stemmed from the same person... whom i enjoy most of the time, but whose bristly personality sometimes causes problems.
long story short, tonight after the group was over and people were packing up to leave, this person approached my nurse friend (who runs the group... for free... on her own time) -- you recall, she's also the one who's been helping me with my medical issues and emotional well-being, and who's one of the kindest, most generous people i know -- and, in a very calm and matter-of-fact voice, unleashed a big dumping on her. calling her "a disappointment" and "a letdown," and launching into a (low-volume, but still) rant about all the reasons why. i could overhear a tiny bit of what was being said because i was in the room (which is a very large conference room), but was missing most of the details... which i did get from my nurse friend after it was all over.
anyway, this person -- who's now decided to leave the group altogether, despite many years as a regular member -- finished the rant and then... gave my nurse friend a bag of fancy chocolate, turned around and walked out. no further discussion, no exploring of feelings, no rational thought. just dumping + chocolate + bye.
there were three more of us, all women, left in the room at that point and, after the door closed shut, i immediately said, "what the eff was that?!"
my nurse friend was very hurt and very angry and, after filling in the details of what was said and why, held out the bag of chocolate and said, "i don't want this. i don't want any of it. what the f**k? `you're a disappointment, you let me down... oh, and here, have some chocolate?!'"
she wanted the bag out of her hands, and was holding it like it was filled with raw sewage. she asked if any of the rest of us wanted it, and i said we should open it up and divide it. not just because it was good chocolate (a big bag of assorted, filled ghirardelli squares) and didn't belong in the trash, but because the energy around the "gift" and its giving needed to change.
so, we dumped the bag out on a table, separated all the squares into piles based on flavour (i think there were eight or nine different kinds!), and then we each -- save for my nurse friend -- took huge handfuls of them home. i now have a tupperware container full.
and, by doing so, we turned something negative into a positive.
what had been given in anger as part of a hurtful situation was flipped, rearranged and given back out as a welcome treat.
and everyone went away happy.
my mother gave me six fancy dessert spoons over the weekend. she found them on sale for 10¢ each (regularly $2 each), so she picked up a dozen to split between YB and me. they are very shiny and surprisingly heavy. these are good spoons.
i brought them home and washed them and, just before putting them away, realized their gleaming, reflective surface might make for an interesting self-portrait. so i arranged five of them on my table, grabbed the camera and played around with positioning myself until i was somewhat centered (or at least visible) in every spoon.
at first, i just thought the resulting photos were kind of cool and interesting. it's not easy taking your own photo in a bunch of spoons, and i was proud of my artistic accomplishment, however frivolous it might be.
but the more i looked at the photos, the more i began to examine the deeper symbolism of a single self-portrait that contains variations on the same face. even though they're all me, and the shot represents a split-second in time, no two spoon reflections in the above picture are the same.
the way each one appears depends on how you look at it and where you are when you do. adjust the angle or tilt your head and suddenly something's changed. maybe the face becomes distorted, or maybe it actually gets prettier. maybe it disappears altogether or maybe just a small portion can be seen. all different sides to the same person, as it were. in art as in life, it's all in the eye of the beholder.
and i suddenly liked the photos even more.
* i spent an hour entering contests online this morning. if i'm lucky, i'll win $10,000 and a train trip across the country.
* speaking of entering, remember how i was going to participate in script frenzy? yeah, not so much. as april 1st drew nearer, my enthusiasm waned. it's now april 6th and i haven't written a word, nor have i felt compelled to do so. i've been having trouble staying motivated of late, which is frustrating.
* it’s now confirmed that the creepy guy and the weird guy next door are roommates. i have not yet figured out if they’re a couple, though. given the creepy guy’s propensity for prostitutes, i’m inclined to think not... yet there’s something distinctly couple-y about their arrangement. and, frankly, i would be HUH-UUUUGELY relieved it turned out they're both gay.
* YB and our mom are heading to buffalo for the weekend, so i am preparing a grocery list. item #1: cranberry-almond crunch cereal. years ago, i would eat it by the case, but then the canadian version changed its flake recipe -- substituting these pale, airy flakes where rich, brown multigrain flakes used to be -- and it became horrible. the U.S. incarnation, though, remained the same. so, i stock up in the states. CAC cereal makes for an excellent evening snack... especially the way americans make it. item #2: mint milk. though i see from the dairy's website that its limited-time offering has run out. maybe i'll try strawberry...
* somewhere outside, someone is either having a fire in their fireplace or something is on fire, because all i can smell coming in my windows is chimney smoke. i would close the windows, but then my apartment will become a sauna.
* i’m seeing Date Night tomorrow and am pretty excited about it.
* why does it take some books more than a week to arrive at my library after i get the “in transit” notice, and yet others arrive within a day that same notification?
* tonight, i am having chili and rice for dinner. i will eat it while i watch Lost, which is on here at 7pm.
* i want to believe lefty is gone, and that the residual cramping and twinges of pain i still have are just psychosomatic, or some kind of muscle strain caused by my amped-up walking regimen... but i’m not sure. i’ve completely overhauled my diet and exercise and lifestyle (mostly) over the past two months – exercising a lot more, eating better, meditating, trying to get at least seven hours a sleep a night – and it has to have helped... right? while i really am grateful for lefty's presence, and the accompanying wake-up call, i'm officially ready to be cyst-free. two and a half more weeks before the re-check.
* i’ve been having variations of the hug dream.
* i have to buy a dress.
