So tired

Pamidronate can be counted on to leave me extremely sleepy the next day. I had Pamidronate yesterday and slept today until 2... and I'm still exhausted. I'll be going to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight for sure.

I get my next Pamidronate the day after we get back from our vacation at the end of this month. For some silly reason I went and scheduled a doctor's appointment for the very next day. Even if the trip doesn't exhaust me, the Pamidronate will, and I just don't see how I'll be wanting to drive to Oakville for a 10 minute doctor's appointment. I think, to save myself unnecessary exhaustion, I'll change that appointment.

I very much hope that I'll sleep well tonight and be able to sew tomorrow. I really, really need to get this dress and jacket done.

Movie

It was busy at the hospital today because yesterday was a holiday and so it took longer than usual to get my Pamidronate. That's ok; it's not like I was going to work afterwards or anything, unlike a woman I spoke with. She's on treatment "forever" and is now receiving it weekly instead of bi-weekly and is finding that her work isn't happily accommodating her anymore. She said she didn't qualify for short-term disability but I talked to her about long-term disability and I think she might try and get that instead. I'm glad that I don't have problems at work. :)

This evening I watched Vinyan. It's the story of a couple who's son was taken by a tusnami; the mother believes that she saw her son alive on a video and so the couple pay a guy - a human trafficker or pirate - to take them up the Burma coast to find him. What follows is a journey up the river into a world where there are only boys or the elderly; where nothing is quite real or imaginary, and where the couple are reduced, finally, to who they really are. In this way, it's much like Heart of Darkness (which I've still never read) or Apocalypse Now. Intertwined with the journey is a lot of sexuality and cruelty that feel sort of offhand or incidental, as though they're just part of life. Maybe they are.

The move is billed as a horror movie but it isn't one; I'm not sure it is so easily classified. It's a psychological thriller, sort of, except that it's fairly slow-moving and gorgeous, like any journey up a river, and not like a horror film. The movie's pace is balanced by the awesome cinematography (done by Benoit Debie, the same fellow who did the cinematography for Irreversible, another favourite of mine - and a movie that is most definitely not for everyone); I particularly loved the floating lights and the jungle.

There's a lot to this film: the relationship between people, the role of the mother, children, the true self, the difference between Western and Eastern coping methods, grief, ritual, and the cost of the search. I very much enjoyed Vinyan even though (or because?) it's not the right movie for everyone.

Vinyan and other movies I've watched and really enjoyed were shown at some point at the Toronto International Film Festival. I think one of these years I'd like to actually go to the festival and see these fantastic movies there.

Happy Canada Day!

This is the first year, I think, where we haven't gone and participated in the Canada Day celebrations held by the University. We're also not going to go and watch tonight's fireworks.

The reason? It's been raining off and on for a few days now so the ground is soggy. My hip has been bothering me and I don't feel like walking or sitting on soggy ground. I also didn't feel like getting rained on while looking at stuff. We haven't had bad weather for the holiday so today is weird; Ian's been home almost all day with me so it feels like a Saturday.

I did make good use of my time to get some sewing-related things done today. I didn't do as much as I maybe could have, but I was able to cut out the pieces and mark them. I lay and cut the fabric on the floor and that was harder than usual today because my hip was hurting. Damn hip.

Even though tomorrow is Pamidronate day; I hope to get a bit more sewing done. It could happen. :)s

That went well

We met with a financial advisor today. We were pleased to find out that that we can afford the amount of house that we thought we could afford. The advisor thinks that we should hold off on buying a house until the new year because she expects house prices to go down some more. We'll see.

We hope to meet with a realtor when we're back from our vacation at the end of July so that we can start looking at houses. The idea will be to get a sense of what we can get for the money. We have some ideas of what we'd like to buy but we could always change our minds after we see examples. And of course we don't want to rush into buying a house - it's a big commitment, and we want to be sure that we're buying the right house.

Between all of that and the rain and everything, it's been a very long day. I'm soooo tired; even though tomorrow is Canada Day, there's a good chance that I won't be doing much of anything to celebrate the day.

I guess it's time to grow up

I think I've mentioned to some of you in passing that we're thinking of buying a house one of these days, after which we'll get a dog. We finally took the first step in getting a house: we have an appointment on Tuesday with Ian's financial advisor.

In preparation for the appointment, we've each sat down and figured out what money has come in... and what goes out. I put this exercise off for as long as possible because I *knew* I spent too much money... and it's true, I do. Over the last 15 months, I'm rather ashamed to say that I've spent 13% of my income on beads, patterns, and fabrics, most from eBay. I knew I spent a lot on these hobbies... but I didn't know I spent quite that much. Eeep. Even worse, I spent almost as much in untracked cash. Gulp. That money would have been better put into savings or something instead of being spent.

If I were to be making a budget - which I guess I will be... buying a house is no small task and requires financial responsibility - I'd say that I need to set a reasonable amount to spend and stick with that. Right now, each win is a separate transaction and it's really easy to just buy and buy and buy. That's going to have to change.

Sigh... this growing up thing is hard. I liked to think of myself as a free-wheeling, happy-go-lucky gypsy girl who could move at the drop of a hat... who could go anywhere, anytime. I know that I haven't been that person for quite a while, but I still sort of think of myself that way (or wish I was like that, maybe). Having a house is scary, not just because of the financial commitment, but because it'll keep me firmly rooted to one place. I guess I'll have to let my inner free-spirit out through travel and hopefully that'll be enough.

As scary and life-changing as the prospect of home ownership is, it's also exciting. I'm looking forward to it (although not the crazy looking for houses part - things sell fast here). And the idea of getting a dog - a pet - is one that I like. I'd like the company during the day, you know? Especially because I won't be able to shop online all day long like I do now.

Some of my favourite places

As you know, when I'm not watching movies or tv, I spend a lot of time surfing the internet. I spend time on cancer-support boards and a variety of blogs. I thought I'd share two blogs that I recently discovered that I love.

The first is Clothed Minds. Have you ever noticed that sewing pattern art can be..... strange? Yes, the picture illustrates the clothes you can make with the pattern, but sometimes there's so much more to the picture. For example, the expressions on the faces on the cover might be weird weird, or maybe the expressions don't match the clothes. Or the women look like men (or vice versa), or the hands look like lobster claws, or limbs are missing.

In fact, you can make up a whole story based on the picture you see on the envelope... or at the very least, you can make up funny one-line descriptions. That's exactly what you'll find at Clothed Minds: funny one-line descriptions (and the occasional very short story) based on the pattern envelope. The contributors are internet vintage pattern sellers and the patterns usually come from their personal collection.

The second is No Pattern Required. The author is a fan of all things mid-century modern - atomic, I guess you'd say. I love love love atomic stuff from the fifties and this blog has great examples of houses and items from that era.

But that's not why I love that blog. I love it because every Tuesday night, the author picks the craziest recipe from one of her mid-century cookbooks, makes it, photographs the process, and the blogs about it on Wednesday. Some of the recipes work out, and others don't have a hope of working. These entries are hilarious and not just because the recipes can be odd (like a spam, peach, and clove dish, for example). It's the descriptions of how (in)edible the results are that makes those entries laugh-out-loud funny.

I like these blogs because they're not that well-known but they're funny. We can all use some more funny in our lives; there's so much bad stuff around that finding funny things and laughing are even more important. Enjoy.

What's up with all the people dying?

What a week! Not for me, so much - although I did get some stuff done - but for so many other people. Both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died today.

Farrah Fawcett died of stage IV anal cancer and recently did a TV special about life with her stage IV cancer. I didn't see it; I don't even know if it was on here in Canada. By all accounts it was an honest and forthright account of what it means to live with a stage IV cancer.

Michael Jackson died of apparent heart failure while preparing for an upcoming tour in the UK. He was a ground-breaking artist and performer before he went nuts. I was reading that all of his kids' names include "Michael Jackson" in them. Creepy.

It's not even only that Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson are dead... so are Ed McMahon and Dr. Jerry Nielsen.

I expect you know who Ed McMahon is; he introduced Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show and he was a big entertainment guy. He supposedly did the Publishers Clearing House winner's visits. He died a couple of days ago.

Dr. Jerry Nielsen was the woman who found a lump in her breast while in Antarctica and no one could be brought in or out to do the biopsy so she did it herself. She found out that she did have breast cancer - a particularly aggressive and fast-growing type - and received chemo with the help of non-medical personnel while in Antarctica. Her cancer metastasized in 2005 and she died yesterday.

Dr. Nielsen's death is a bit more difficult for me to deal with because she died of breast cancer... I always have a hard time when I hear of someone dying of it because that'll almost certainly be my cause of death also. When I read or hear about someone else, it feels like something is walking around my grave, showing me where it will be.

The other deaths have hit me, too. One thing that's really brought home the fact that these people are dead is that their Wikipedia pages say that the article is about someone who has recently died. It's weird when people die that you knew when growing up. I guess I sort of expect people that formed part of my experiences to be around forever, you know? It's just more things circling, reminding me that it's going to happen to me, too.