Where did the snow come from?

I finished the dress in plenty of time (and I think it looks awesome, even though I know it isn't perfect) but the weather turned against us. Snow started falling around 3pm or so and by 5:30 we had almost three inches of heavy, wet snow. The roads were slick and we decided that we shouldn't risk ourselves by driving to Stratford. We will have to remember Kevin in our own ways instead as we can't make it to the funeral tomorrow.

I was looking forward to seeing the team, even though the circumstances suck, but that will have to wait. I hope to see one or more people this weekend; that Fabricland is having a 50% off sale for members. I have a membership for Mississauga and I hope that it can be transferred to Stratford.

Tomorrow I have my Pamidronate infusion and if all goes well, they'll be using my port for the first time. It's really healed well, except for one end where the stitch came up. It hasn't dissolved yet so they'll have to take it off tomorrow. It's going to be a long day, as I arrive at 12:40pm for bloodwork and then I have the infusion starting at 2:45pm. If it started earlier, I might make it to bellydance, but there's no way that I'll make it there in time. I hope the infusion goes well tomorrow.

Not another one

I thought I said that I was tired of people dying? One of the fellows that paddled with the Silvermasters dragonboat team died today. He had chest pains this morning and died of a massive heart attack as he got to the hospital. He was quite young, in his fifties. I don't need to tell you that this sent a shiver down my back.

This man was very involved in the dragonboating community as well as the city in which he lived. Everyone knew him and although he would say that he didn't like people, he always treated everyone with respect and dignity. He wrote long, eloquent emails to thank people or wish them well and was liked by most. His death will leave a gigantic hole in the community. We will be going to one of the visitations on Tuesday.

Rest in peace, Kevin. You will be sorely missed by your wife and kids as well as everyone that knew you.

How weird am I?

There was a link in the forums on etsy the other day to an online quiz that would tell you what your Autism Spectrum Quotient was. I scored 30 which is at the very high end of normal. I scored 32 on this one which is the low end of Autism around Asperger's Syndrome. Some information on Asperger's is here.

So does it seem strange to you that I scored that high on these tests? Wellll......

I'll tell you a secret: I don't know how to behave in new situations. I don't know the right things to say or do and so I watch other people to get clues on what I should be doing. I'm withdrawn until I "learn" the behaviour. After that, I come across as having known how to behave all my life. One thing that is helping me get over this is pretending that I'm someone else who's good at behaving in a given situaiton.

I tend to take things very literally. Whatever a person says, that's what they mean. I also don't get jokes, and often don't know when someone is being teased - I take things like that very literally. I think I know when people are bored, but I don't always understand facial expressions. I remember being in my teens and asking someone why movies showed such close-ups of people when they were looking at others - I couldn't tell what those people were feeling. I can now tell when people I know are happy or unhappy, but I'm still not very good at figuring out what people are thinking or feeling.

I don't know how rigid I am or how devoted to routines I actually am, but I can say that I really dislike being interrupted. I am not one of those people who has an open-door policy at work. Really, I want a door so that I can shut people out! I very much dislike being interrupted at home, too. If I'm watching tv or working on beads or reading a magazine and someone calls, I'm not going to want to take the phone. Some of you may have noticed that when you call, I seem uninterested in talking on the phone or that I'm somewhat abrupt with you. It's not that I don't want to talk, but it's that I prefer not to be interrupted (I hope that makes sense). For that reason, I encourage people to contact me by email (or for me make the phone call so that I'm doing the interrupting :) ).

I also have a hard time when people stay with me. There's no way that someone else in the house won't interrupt me in my daily routines, because even talking to me when I'm accustomed to things being quiet in my own house is an interruption to me. I love seeing people but I need my own space, too, where I can be me. That's one of the reasons that I don't have many people stay with me.

Of course I relax my own routine and work to be less sensitive when I'm staying in someone's house. : ) It can be tiring to do this for a long time, though, so I generally don't try to do this at home.

I can also handle more interruptions when I'm not tired - when I'm feeling good and when I'm not exhausted, I can better handle things. I get MUCH more rigid when I'm tired.... and I'm much more tired these days than I was a year or two ago.

Someone posted a question asking whether people who scored high on this test had sensory integration issues as well, which I do - I'm highly sensitive to certain loud noises. We had budgies when I was growing up and they would chirp and I would have done almost anything to make them stop because the noise hurt my ears. More recently, I remember covering my ears and screaming because I couldn't stand the sound of people drilling through concrete. I also have problems with the sound of a fork scraping against china.

So do I have Asperger's? Probably not, but I am not exactly what people would consider "normal", either :)

Oh - we went to see our old dragonboat team, the Silvermasters, in their last event in Stratford today. It was cold and windy and we were happy to not be paddling (although we were asked several times to paddle). The team came in 18th out of 59 which is a pretty good showing.

This and that

Because I stayed up really, really late to finish the bag, I have quite a sleep deficit now. I ended up sleeping a LOT today; 14 hours last night and then another 2 today. We're going to bed now and I expect to sleep 12-14 hours tonight as well.

I found out today that I was approved for CPP disability. Sigh. I'd kind of hoped to be not approved, you know? I can't even say why - although the fact that it's taxable and my LTD payments (which will be lessened by the amount of the CPP) isn't is certainly a factor. In many ways, being on CPP disability seems so final because the government is involved. Now it's like the whole disability thing takes on gigantic proportions, and I'd rather just tuck my illness away, thank you.

This afternoon I went to a Qi-Gong class over at Hopespring. It was interesting. We'd done Qi Gong during the retreat in June and I found it relaxing. At the end of the class I had to leave and the instructor made her way over to me to give me a big long hug. I thought that that was kind of strange. Do I look like someone who needs a ginormous hug like that from someone I've only known for 90 minutes? :)

Tomorrow we plan to go and watch the Silvermasters (our old dragonboat team) paddle in their hometown Stratford event. It's the last race they do in the season and we'd like to watch them and hang out there for a bit.

A very sleepy day

They say that radiation makes a person tired. I'd been doing ok over the weekend, but I slept until noon today, had a nap in the afternoon, and could go to bed now. Yes, I took Ritalin today. I'm wondering if I'm taking a high enough dose. I went to Well-fit and was able to do the weights but I couldn't do the cardio. I just couldn't. I tried and made it for 10 minutes - my pulse went up to 160 and I just couldn't go on. So I stopped. I'm also having trouble with hot and cold - I'm either broily hot or freezy cold, almost like I have the flu. I thought that the tiredness was supposed to be like the flu, but not that I had the rest of the symptoms of the flu! I hope this goes away soon.

The pain in my sternum had been sort of down but it's up again a little. I hope that it does go away. I want to be awake and pain-free. Is that too much to ask? Sigh.

We take the Mazda 3 Sport back tomorrow. I'd leased it almost three years ago and tonight is the last night I'll have it :( We got it because we'd started paddling on the dragonboat team in Stratford. At the time, we were getting a ride from one of my coworkers to Stratford and then we'd borrow his other car to get him. He would pick it up at work the next day, having got a ride into work from a third coworker. Sound complicated? It was. So we got the car. I got the first car I test-drove because I liked how it was sporty and powerful and fun to drive. We managed to get the car right off the lot - someone had ordered it but didn't want it. It didn't have all the bells and whistles but it was fine for us.

I remember that getting insurance was a nightmare because although I'd had my license for 10-ish years at that point, I'd never been insured in Ontario. Therefore, I was considered to be a new driver and they wanted to charge me $3600/year - more than I was paying for the car! Ian's mom suggested that I try Meloche Monnex because they have a special rate for University of Waterloo alumni. I did, and their rate was about a third of what the other companies wanted to charge me. It worked out well in the end; they take care of all of our insurance needs.

Anyways, I'll miss the car. I've enjoyed driving it around for the last three years - to and from Stratford, to dragon boat events all over the place, and everywhere else. It was my first car and even though I knew I wasn't going to keep it, it served me very well.

Keeping fit

I had my Well-fit post assessment today. It turns out that I'm more fit than I was three months ago. I'm glad that going to the gym twice a week has helped :) I'm going to continue with the Well-fit graduate program twice a week. It costs money, but I think that it will make me go to the gym which helps keep me in shape. I feel healthier than I did and I look better than I did before.

I'm signing up for more bellydance, too :) I will be taking a technical workout on a day that I'm not doing Well-fit. I took a choreography class last time, and they kind of fudge the moves in those classes. I'd like to get my moves more perfect than they are. Plus it'll be a great workout :)

We won't be paddling with the dragonboat team on a regular basis this year. I don't feel up to paddling twice a week even if I wasn't doing everything else. We'll help the team out if they need it, though - I'm certainly willing to do that :) I'd hate to never paddle again, because I really enjoy it. I just can't do it all the time.

I have updated the previous entry with everything we did in Las Vegas. I hope to get the pictures up tomorrow.

A little sleep, and a big day

I was up (comparatively) early today - I managed to get up at 11:15am. That's much earlier than the last few days :) First we watched Lucky Number Slevin. It's great! We both really liked it. It's got a lot of funny bits and a lot of puzzles - nothing is quite what it seems, which makes for a fantastic, spellbinding movie. We'd highly recommend this one as it's quite entertaining. I also especially liked the wall coverings everywhere.

We spent a few hours at a baby shower for one of my dragonboat teammates - she had a son a couple of months ago. He was very cute - but then, he slept the whole time we were there :)

I didn't hold the baby, because I'm not ready for that, but I did look at it. I didn't even cry afterward, which is a big step. You may recall that the last time I saw a baby, I was very, very upset. I guess that since I was less upset, I must either be getting better or the antidepressants are working. Either way, it's a step in the right direction.

When we got back to Waterloo, I curled. We'll be curling on Sunday nights. Normally we'll only curl 6 ends, which is manageable for me, but tonight we curled 7 which was a bit much. I ended up pretty exhausted afterwards. Now I'm worried that I won't be able to do both Well-fit and bellydance tomorrow - that it'll be too much for me. I'll just have to wait and see tomorrow.

Stratford

The Stratford event, held today, marks the end of the Silvermaster dragonboat season. The Silvermasters came in 19th out of 66 in the event, which is a strong finish for the team. There were a number of very good teams there, as well as 12 breast cancer survivor teams. We were lucky to have a reasonably nice day; it was neither too hot nor too cold. It was overcast for most of the day but cleared up in the afternoon.

So here are the things I liked about the festival:

• Lots of friendly local people turned out to watch. Many of the teams include people who live in Stratford, and so their friends and neighbours came out to watch.
• The portalets were plentiful and cleaned often.
• There were two flush toilets that were also cleaned regularly.
• Recycling was available.
• Free water was given to the participants after each race.
  
• The event was well-organized. It ended up running a few minutes late which isn't too bad given that there were 66 teams competing in heats of up to 4, and that they started late.
• The beer tent had a big tv that showed the finishes of each race, live.
• There was lots of competition at every level.
  

Nothing's perfect... here are the things I didn't like:

• The event ran a little long. It started at 8am and wasn't scheduled to finish until after 6pm, and then the awards ceremony is held afterwards. They could have done without the breast cancer challenge (the breast cancer teams tend to race each other anyways) and the women's challenge. This would have sped things up a bit. As well, they had 2 extra teams and therefore extra heats, which contributed to the lengthy day.
  
• The female announcer. Her voice is rather annoying. Also, right when the teams finish each race, ashe asks them for a cheer or a yell and when they don't (because they've just paddled like crazy for 500m and are panting to try to catch their breath) she says things like the team doesn't have enough team spirit. She has improved over last year - she correctly calls the activity "paddling" instead of "rowing". Also, when she is repeatedly extolling the virtues of the beer tent, this year she mentioned that there were pop, coolers, and water there in addition to beer.
  
• There were no programs. Normally each event prints up programs that might include team bios and sponsorship information as well as a timetable.
• There were early delays due to megaphone issues (as in, the first two megaphones they took to the start line didn't work. What are the odds?).
  
• The water in Stratford is awful - it's narrow, shallow, and, well, not that clean.

I'd go back to this event. It's one of the nicer ones that the team attends. Although I am glad that the dragonboat season is done for the year, and perhaps that makes this event all the nicer :)

Port Dover followed by buskers

The Silvermasters placed 8th out of 19 teams at Port Dover today. It didn't rain!!! It wasn't too hot, although it was a little humid. Still, we were all grateful not to be soaked all day.

Things I liked about the festival:

• People were friendly.
• It was fun.
• The bands were pretty good.
• Many people like the fish fry that they have in the evening.
• They ran mostly on time.
• The results and placements were available really quickly.
• There were lots of portalets with hand washing stations.
  

Things I didn't like:

• There was an issue with the garbages. The organizers said that since the park was the responsibility of the Lion's club, they were the ones to put out garbages. And that's supposed to excuse the fact that they didn't have garbages by the portalet banks? Or that the garbages, once they arrived, were never emptied? It's wasp season, and full garbages attract a lot of wasps.
• The lanes were completely biased and the timing wasn't particularly accurate.
• The drinking on our team bothered me today. Many people on our team were camping there tonight, even though it's supposed to pour down rain. Therefore, they drank all day. Some drank some kind of kool-aid/vodka mix, some drank homebrew beer, and one or two actually drank from the beer tent. Those drinking the kool-aid/vodka mix were drinking pretty steadily and heavily all day. I get that people like to drink, and that a beer or two during a sporting activity day is fun for some people - I just disapprove when people are drinking heavily during a physically demanding sporting day on water. After the races finished, one of the team members brought out the jello shooters (she made about 200) and most of the team started in on those. We left at that point.
  

I liked the event. I think I would go back, but not with our current team.

After we got home we went to the Busker festival again. We saw Flyin' Bob and the Handsome Little Devils. Flyin' Bob was ok. The Handsome Little Devils were awesome!! They did a vaudeville-type act that was fantastic, with great timing and talent. Their club passing was crisp and fast and good. Their fire torch passing while on pogo sticks (which also shot out flames) was cool. Their bowling ball/chainsaw/juggling ball juggle was pretty good, too. This troupe is there tomorrow afternoon, too - for those of you in the Waterloo region, I'd recommend checking them out.

Paddling aftermath

Hmmmmm, maybe paddling in an event isn't the best idea ever. I had a lot of pain last night that prevented me from sleeping (I ended up having to break out the Percocet, which is something I really don't like doing). I also had quite a bit of pain today. It's really hard to get the pain under control once it's broken away from the painkillers. I'm starting to get the pain back under wraps now, though.

The team is going to Port Dover next weekend. I'm still going to go and paddle - even though the pain was bad, I'm not yet willing to give up the things I enjoy doing. I think we have extra people going to the event, though, and so I should be able to sit out one of the races. That will help a lot. Also, I suspect I'll be paddling on the left (I was on the right this weekend), so it may be that I don't get as much pain then. Paddling is a very asymmetrical motion that uses different muscles on each side of the body depending on which side of the boat you're on.

Given all that pain, we took it easy today. We watched all of the reality shows that we'd recorded while Ian was away. So now we know who won Hell's Kitchen and So You Think You Can Dance, and we know who was eliminated on Rock Star: Supernova.

London

The Silvermasters came in 10th out of 40 teams in the London dragonboat festival today. It didn't rain as much as it did in St. Catharines, but it still rained and drizzled all day. I guess when you're participating in a water sport, you can't complain when you get wet from rain :) Fortunately, it wasn't too cold, and we had our fleeces and rain gear. Another thing of note was that there was a blue-green algae bloom (aka "pond scum") in the lake. The lake was actually closed for swimming, which makes you wonder how safe it was to get drenched in it. It also smelled something awful, and made anything white turn green.

Now, for the lists.... here are things I liked about the festival:

• They were on time almost all day.
• They had the results from each race posted very quickly.
• The awards ceremony was quite short. Last year, it dragged on for about an hour and a half, so this ceremony was a pleasant surprise.
• There was shelter from the rain.
• There were flush toilets. When all of them became clogged in the ladies room (apparently some people have trouble flushing slow toilets), they fixed them quite quickly.

And here are the things I didn't like:

• There were no volunteers directing traffic and parking. As a result, parking was somewhat chaotic.
• One of the volunteers on the docks was very, very rude to our caller (the person at the front of the boat behind the drum). That volunteer wasn't there afterwards, though, so I guess that's ok.
  
• They didn't disqualify the team that didn't have enough women. The rules stated that each team requires at least 8 women, and this team only had 4. Worse, they won a division and received their prize.
• There were no speakers in the shelter, so we couldn't hear what was going on while we were in there. Fortunately, there wsn't all that much happening at that time.
  
• There were portalets on the way to the docks, and they were never emptied or replenished.
• There were no recycling facilities.

Overall, the festival was good. If the water didn't have the algae bloom, it would have been fantastic paddling. I'd definitely go back to this festival, and I'd recommend it to others.

A relaxing day

I spent most of the day reading and napping. I didn't really feel like doing too much after the last few days, and so I took it easy.

I did paddle today. If I go to the London event, I'll be paddling in right stroke. I expect that I'll be able to go, but I don't want to make a commitment until after my doctor's appointments this week. It was good to get out and paddle - I actually felt like I did an ok job :)

I also watched the Animatrix tonight. It's supposed to be an animated prequel to the Matrix series, but only 2 of the shorts make sense if you haven't seen the movies. The other 7 require knowledge of the movies. If you have seen the movies, they're well worth seeing.

St. Catharines

Our hotel fun wasn't over last night. We had gone to bed at a reasonable hour, since we wanted to be up early, only to be awakened by the music from a Caribbean bar facing our parking lot. They had all of their windows and doors open and appeared to be blasting out Caribbean music in a desperate attempt to get customers to actually enter the establishment. We saw a guy playing pool by himself - that's not a sign of a healthy, profitable bar. While we knew that our hotel room was right downtown, and we knew that there were bars in the blocks surrounding the hotel, we didn't expect to be able to hear all of the music through earplugs. We complained, and then we checked out and went to another hotel.

When we got up, we checked the weather network for today's forecast. We were expecting sunny skies and a high of 25C when we left yesterday. The forecast changed sometime between yesterday afternoon and this morning - what we got was rain. And more rain. And then some more rain interspersed with periods of very heavy rain. They were expecting about an inch of rain to fall altogether. That may not sound like a lot, unless you're out in it all day.

Now, keep in mind that we were in St. Catharines because we were paddling in a dragonboat festival.... and we paddle rain or shine. The only time an event is cancelled is if lightning is spotted and isn't likely to let up, which unfortunately didn't happen today. So we spent the whole day in the rain and wind. About an hour after we got there, we bought some fleece jackets to help keep us warm while we waited for the rest of the team to arrive. It was a miserable day. I don't think I've ever been that happy to change into warm, dry clothes as I was at the end of the day.

There is limited parking at the St. Catharines event. There are three lots: one for people with tents, one for all other participants, and one for spectators. The one for spectators was on tarmac. The one for most participants was on a grassy field that was fortunately protected by trees. The one for people with tents was a dirt field. At least, it was dirt at the start of the day. By midday, it was a shoe-sucking field of mud (I'm pretty sure you could lose a small animal in that field without trying at all). The highlight of the day for our team was watching people get stuck in this field when they tried to drive out. One van had sunk in the mud up to its rims, and another truck kept fishtailing towards the embankment. Everyone did make it out safely and there was no damage to any of the cars or trucks in the mudfield.

The Silvermasters came in 5th out of 45 teams. That's a pretty good showing, if you ignore the fact that about one third of the teams were community teams that had never paddled before :)

Here are the things I liked about the event:

• it's a permanent dock and permanent course with really wide lanes, as it's a course for a rowing club.
• the water was deep (deeper water is better when paddling).
• flush toilets. Lots of them.
• lots of recycling bins.
• things moved very quickly.
• they moved very quickly to bring hay in to cover the other mudfields on the way to the docks.
• the awards ceremonies were held after each division finished paddling the final race.
  

... and here are the things I didn't like so much:

• the timing was messed up. They didn't have photo finishes, just some people with stopwatches, and so the times posted were not always accurate.
• there were only two portalets, and they were never cleaned or replenished.
• the lack of good teams at the event.
  

I might think about going back to this event, provided it wasn't going to rain :)

Waterloo

The Silvermasters paddled in Waterloo today and wound up 17th out of 53 non-university teams. That's a pretty good finish for us :) We had some great race times today - we did a 2:21:00, 2:21:26, and 2:18:26 (in that order). Those are really good times for a 500m race. Our third race was AWESOME! We did a series of 10 hard strokes and then the finish was called at 300m. That's a much longer finish than we've been doing, and it works really well for us. We did, after all, shave 3sec of our time - that's a HUGE improvement!

So, anyways, here are the things I liked about Waterloo:

• participants got free bottled water after each race
• everyone else got free bottled water whenever they wanted. It was really hot today (30C)
• there were recycling facilities
  
• flush toilets with soap and running water
• portalets were cleaned once
• great view of the races
• friendly competitors and organizers
  
• starter was good at lining people up to start the races
• lots of good competition and some really good teams there
  

... And these are the things that I didn't like so much:

• it was slooooooooooow. They finished 1 1/2 hours late, which made for a very long day.
• little shelter at the marshalling area. Not only was it hot and humid out, it was sunny.
  
• the band moved/appropriated the speakers that let us hear the announcer. We couldn't hear our team called to the marshalling area (or who was racing, or really anything about the races).

We'd go back to this event - it's very fun. We are very tired, of course... but it's a good kind of tired :)

St. Jacob's

We went up to St. Jacob's today. It's a small community that has a lot of interesting stores on the main strip downtown, and it's only about a 10 minute drive north of my place. We spent most of our time in the Mill and the Village Silos - they're a few old buildings that had been converted to tiny shops. Vicki bought some stuff at these places :) There's a great model train exhibit; they've got all sorts of trains and stuff, and they've built an HO scale track there. They have a website outlining their progress here.

I paddled tonight as well. This time, I paddled on the right at the front of the boat (the position known as "stroke right"). I am much more comfortable on the right side, although I wasn't quite ready for the full race that we did :) I'm much happier with the practices I've attended this year - they're more demanding than the ones last year. I'll be paddling at the Waterloo festival on July 15, and it looks like I'll be paddling on the left at the front of the boat (in "stroke left").

Paddling

I paddled with the Silvermasters for the first time this season. It went better than I had expected; I was paddling on the left side, since that will be easier on the incision right now. I was a bit clumsy on that side last year, and that hasn't changed :)

I've also started work on a jacket that I'm making. Since I have all this time off, I thought that I would do some sewing. To make it more interesting, I'm trying to sew things that I've never done before. The jacket I'm trying out has a standard jacket collar and it has piping; I've never sewn either of those before. I'm working with a seersucker fabric. I got the pattern from the Burda pattern magazine - Ian had given me a subscription to the magazine for my birthday a couple of years ago. The magazine means that I rarely, if ever, need to buy patterns.

I also found out today that the abdominal ultrasound hasn't been ordered yet. I called because I'd have thought that I would have received an appointment booking. While I'm sure that the care I'm receiving is good, I'm concerned that I'm somehow falling through the cracks a bit. I'm sure it'll all get straightened out once I see the oncologist that I'll be seeing permanently.

Mitchell

Today the SilverMasters paddled at the Mitchell Dragonboat Festival (aka the "Riverboat on the Thames Jamboree"). It was the first event of the SilverMaster season, and we came in 5th overall. That's not too bad :). We spent the day under sunny skies, low humidity, and a light breeze.

Things I liked about the event:

• The portalets were clean and handwashing facilities were provided.
• There were flush toilets available.

Ok, those don't sound like much to like... until you've spent all day at an event like this with too few portalets that aren't cleaned through the day. We always take hand sanitizer with us to these events :)

Things I didn't like about the event:

• The organizers allowed a team that was visibly drunk to get into a boat. That team almost swamped and capsized, and should never have gone onto the water.
• The people seemed a bit unfriendly.
  
• No recycling facilities were provided.
• The event took forever and was somewhat disorganized, especially at the start line.
• There was a ton of poo all over the loading dock and in the viewing areas. We think it was goose poo. Or at least, that's what we hope it was.
  

I won't go back to this event. Clean portalets don't make up for all of the other problems :)

In other news, I'm going to paddle with the team for the next few weeks, until the next treatment steps start. I'm hoping that I can paddle in Waterloo on July 15 and maybe St. Catherines on July 22.