Babies are not unlike zombies

Babies learning to walk and talk are a lot like zombies. They make funny noises and they don't really have that much control over their movements. Ian and I figure that it would be fun to teach one to say "Braiiiins" so that it could stumble around (preferably after eating something like ketchup) and say braiiins like a zombie :) I guess it's just as well that we're not going to have kids :)

This comes up because we spent the weekend in Ottawa with some friends who had a baby boy in January as well as some other friends. We had a wonderful time visiting and hanging out. It was great fun. The people in that circle have all spread out now and so we don't see each other as much as we used to. We're all growing up and getting lives and if we didn't meet once in a while some could drift away completely. Keeping my friends is much more important to me now than it used to be; while I'm not great at keeping in touch with people, I do try.

My new glasses are in!

Yep, my glasses came in a whole day early :) I'm really happy with them; they are comfortable and I find it easy to look through them. I still think they look good on me although it's a different style than I've been wearing; they have a darker top than bottom and they're a bit more rectangular. The colours are similar to my old glasses. I also found out that fixing my old glasses won't cost very much so I'm going ahead and doing that, too. Since it won't cost much I'll be able to have a more recent backup pair of glasses. My eyes are -9.25 now and the latest backup I had is around -8 or so.

I rode my bike to and from the glasses place - I should have known that the wind was against me coming back uphill when I could hardly pedal fast enough getting there. It's the first time I've been out on the bike this season and I hope to be able to go out riding some more.

We're heading up to Ottawa this weekend to visit with some friends there. We leave tomorrow afternoon and expect to be back on Monday sometime. I don't expect to be posting while we're gone, so I hope that everyone has a good long weekend.

Pamidronate day

I had my Pamidronate today and so far, it doesn't seem to have knocked me out like in other months. Maybe that's because I already slept almost around the clock - I was only awake for about 5 hours yesterday.

My injury seems to be healing ok. I had the nurse check it and she said that it looked fine and that it could use being aired more. I tried airing it this afternoon and I got a woogly back every time my hand brushed it. Silly me :) I hope this doesn't scar too bad - the long one is over 1" long and the shorter one is maybe 1/2" or 3/4" long.

I remember the accident from 1991 very well... I'd biked to work to pick up my cheque. On my way back, I was clearing an intersection when a woman (76 years old, speaking only German) stepped in front of me. My brow hit her forehead, slicing open an artery, and the bike and I took her groceries and went flying..... and then skidding down the road. The lady and I rode in the ambulance together and were fixed up. I went back to get my bike and rode it home as I couldn't think of anything else to do. When I finally got home, my mom was waiting anxiously for me because I was so late. My bike didn't even work that well going home because it was all out of alignment so I'm sure that she heard my bike as well.

My mom came out and gave me a big hug and I knew that she was worried about me and that she loved me. She was upset that I hadn't called but being in shock I didn't think about doing that - honestly, I would have if I'd thought about it, but as Ian will tell you I don't always think of the best thing to do. I was glad to be home. Later that night I went out with some friends as I thought I was ok - my head felt fine and we didn't give my road rash a second look. My dad found the small article in the paper about my accident the next morning (this is very much the kind of thing my dad did), and that evening I went on a first date with a man I ended up seeing for 3 years. Did that man like my bruised look? Or did he like the fact that I acted normally in spite of the bruises? Hmmmmm.

In any case, that accident marked the start of a very bad 5 years. I wonder if things would have been the same if it hadn't happened? I'm determined that things will go much better than that over the next five years. I like that things are going pretty well, overall, and I'd like things to stay that way.

Home at last

We made it home safe and sound. Aside from being a bit late to the airport, the traveling was uneventful.

I'm still very tired from the travel or the injury or something. I think that my body crashed pretty hard after the adrenalin rush from the fall and stitches. The injured area feels ok, at least.

As a result of this adventure, I highly recommend travel insurance if you're traveling out of country. I can't imagine how much it would have cost to go into the emergency room and to receive a tetanus shot plus three stitches but I'm glad that I don't have to pay it.

The world was a blur

The juggling festival is just about over and we'll be home tomorrow. We've had a pretty good time watching the juggling shows and stuff. There is some controversy over the judging for some of the competitions; they've implemented a new scoring system and I think that some of the judges had a significantly pro-American bias and scored that way. Some American performers scored higher than the Taiwanese or Japanese performers and to me (and others), they had a better performance overall. The trouble was that it was a non-American-style performance. In any case, some people are questioning the results.

We'd planned to go to the Lexington cemetery this morning before it got really hot out. As we were walking there, though, I tripped on the sidewalk. I was holding my coffee in one hand and my purse in the other and I'd looked back to read a sign when I tripped. I took three steps trying to save myself but then I went down. The temple of my glasses broke and cut me above my right eye. Sigh.

For the first time, I understand what people mean when they talk about seeing stars because I saw them for quite a while. I felt better after I sat down for a while and we were able to walk back to the hotel. I ended up going to a local hospital to get some stitches put in (there are three) and we were able to fix up my glasses so that I can wear them, at least. The world was very fuzzy for a while.

The injury was pretty scary and I know that Ian was worried. I'm glad that we had travel insurance as we don't have to pay for the hospital visit. The weirdest thing was that almost exactly 17 years ago today, in July, 1991 I had an accident on my bike which gave me the first scar on my right eyebrow. I'd like to live at least 17 more years but I hope that I don't have to get yet another scar over there. I have enough, thank you. :)

Made it to Lexington

We made it! We're in sunny Lexington, KY for the juggling festival. This is horse country, it seems - as we flew in we could see all of the ringed horse fields. The flights were pretty uneventful. We flew in from KW through Detroit and were the first plane (of 19 passengers) to go through immigration. It's very strange being just a few people in a hall designed for hundreds but I was just as happy to get through quickly.

While Ian juggled I spent some time wandering around downtown, where we're staying. I went to this fabric and variety store that is run by this woman who couldn't be less than 70, sitting in her chair watching the tv. The place was filled with fabric bolts and boxes and trim and stuff. She said that she had a lot of dress fabrics for sale but that they were all in boxes and so if I didn't know what I was looking for, well, she couldn't really help me. Which was fine with me as I just wanted to poke around anyways - I didn't expect to buy anything from her. She did have a fantastic selection of trims and laces, though!

We went to the festival opening show this evening, which was pretty good, and now we're waiting for the late-night Renegade show to start. It was posted to start at midnight but then someone said that it was oging to start at 11pm.... but it hasn't started yet. Hopefully it'll be worth staying up to see it.

Tomorrow I plan to go to a fabric store and mall - the mall is apparently the biggest in Kentucky. I'll take the bus as the center is only a few minutes from the hotel and it only costs $1 :)

Leaving tomorrow

Early tomorrow morning, we're leaving for our vacation. Did I spend the day doing anything useful? No :) I worked on that dress. I'm completely finished except for sewing in the buttons and I'm quite pleased with the result. I had to make some modifications and I think it fits pretty well now. The hardest part of making the dress was sewing all of that seam binding. I hadn't really worked with it before and it took a little while for me to figure out how to make sure that it didn't torque.

The hardest part of sewing the seam binding was sewing it over the button tab extensions at the waist. It's quite a sharp curve and I didn't want to have to pleat the seam binding. I figured out that I have to streeetch the seam binding over the curve, and I also ended up basting the stretched outside curve in place as well as the inside curve. I'm really proud of the final result. No pictures yet but I hope to have some up soon :)

I am bringing my laptop with me on vacation but I don't think our room itself will have internet access; the nearby convention center has it for free and I'll probably use that. This means that I might not post every day or possibly at all. We'll be back Sunday afternoon and I'll definitely post then.

So much sewing, so little time

I'm almost finished a second vintage dress and I'm thrilled with it. I decided to put a full lining in this one (although I'm still putting facings around the neck because the lining doesn't stabilize the neck enough). Mainly, I put the lining in because the fabric showed the seams too much and the lining prevents that to some extent. I have to finish the facing, tack down the lining to critical points, and hem it.

We're going away the week after next to the IJA convention (juggling in Lexington, KY - this should be fun!) and I want to have all of the things I'm working on ready for that. I'd like to make at least one more dress before we go - hopefully that'll work out :) I have enough fabrics and patterns that I can make almost anything I could want to :)

Home again

I'm back in Ontario again. I really enjoyed spending time with my mom in Edmonton these past few days and miss her very much already.

I knew that planes could be delayed in the winter because of weather but it didn't occur to me that the same thing could happen in the summer. There were thunderstorms last night that delayed my flight out of Edmonton by about 40 minutes. That wasn't so bad... but there were more thunderstorms this morning when the plane got to Toronto. We circled for a while and then the pilot announced that we were going to Ottawa. I guess there wasn't enough fuel to continue circling, so we landed in Ottawa and stayed on the tarmac until we could be refueled. After refueling we went back to Toronto.

All in all, my 3 1/2 hour flight took 7 hours (not including transportation to and from the airports). I was very glad to get off the plane and back to Waterloo. I've slept almost all day but I'm still tired; I'm hoping to return to normal tomorrow.

I'm not radioactive anymore

The tracer used in the bone scan I had on Monday can trigger security screening devices like those at airports. Because I knew I was flying today, I got a letter explaining that I'd had this tracer in case I set the device off.

I was kind of hoping that I'd set the device off - I thought it would be sort of cool to be that radioactive, in the way that I think it would be cool to be a superhero. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), I did NOT set the screening devices a-buzzing. From this I conclude that I'm not radioactive anymore.

In case you're wondering, I'm in Edmonton for a few days. I'm taking the redeye back Monday night and arrive back in Toronto Tuesday morning.

Home now

I made it home, safe and sound. The flights were pretty uneventful; I slept all the way to Calgary (I think I may have been talking in my sleep) and I had the row to myself on the way to Waterloo.

Of course I still miss my dad, and as I got further away from Edmonton, it seemed to hit me pretty hard that my dad was dead. It's a good thing I had that row all to myself as my face and neck were covered in tears for a good part of the way.

I miss my mom very much as well; I appreciated being able to stay there and I liked staying with my mom so I found it hard to leave. I know it was time... but still, part of me wanted to stay. I left a bunch of things behind so there is a little piece of me still there :). I hope to see you all in Edmonton soon.

Leaving tomorrow

I'm going back to Waterloo tomorrow. As much as I like being here, helping out my mom and stuff, there comes a point where I have to go back to my regularly scheduled life. And I would like to see Ian as I've missed him. I'm not sure how much I'll feel like doing when I first get home. I have all sorts of activities I could do (and an appointment on the 27th) but I might want to just cocoon myself at home for a bit.

I saw my sister this evening - just the two of us - for a while. I wish I'd been able to see her longer as we had a really good visit and I would have liked to have talked to her more. At least I did get to see her :)

I'll miss my mom a lot when I leave. I know that everyone needs their own time and place to grieve and although I've been able to help with some stuff, I think that it will be sort of easier for my mom if she's on her own. I'm so proud of her because I think that she's been very courageous in getting through this difficult time. I love that she is putting one foot in front of the other and getting through things - I know how hard that can be to do, and I love that she's doing it. I appreciate that I was able to stay with my mom and I hope I was able to help a bit with things.

Made it!

We made it to Edmonton! Our cab was 45 minutes late picking us up to go to the airport and it took two hours to get there, but that was ok because our flight was dealyed about an hour and a half as well. Once we started traveling, everything worked out well. It was just getting going that was the problem.

This afternoon we watched American Gangster. It was pretty good, although we felt that it was long and we didn't always understand what the minor characters were doing. The ending was good but felt shorter than the rest of the film. Not that this was all bad :) It is a good movie and we would recommend that you see it, if you have some time on your hands.

Winter traveling woes

Ian and I were supposed to be flying to Edmonton tonight. We had planned to fly on Westjet out of the Kitchener-Waterloo airport, which is much closer than Toronto.

Traveling in winter can be unpredictable here because we get wicked storms here; flights can be delayed or canceled depending on what's going on. We had a ginormous storm come through today and this evening. Roads are closed all over the place and there are accidents everywhere. There was snow, rain, ice pellets, and freezing rain. As a result, the plane on which we were supposed to leave tonight couldn't land and was diverted to Hamilton, so our flight was canceled.

The Westjet people were very helpful. They booked another flight for us (which wound up on the wrong day, but we've just called and corrected it) to leave Toronto at 7:15am tomorrow. Westjet also arranged and paid for us to take a taxi home from the KW airport and gave us a taxi chit for the cab to Toronto tomorrow morning.

I know that not everyone was happy with how things went, but I have to say that I thought that Westjet handled everything very well. Within 45 minutes of the plane being canceled, everyone had worked out an alternate plan and taxis were on their way. And when we had to call and change the re-booking, the person was super-nice and helpful even though they're crazy busy because of the weather.

I highly recommend you fly Westjet if you can choose to over the other airline. Even though the weather makes traveling suck, Westjet makes it suck less.

Home again

My flight was almost 2 1/2 hours late leaving Edmonton; I guess the stormy weather in Eastern/Atlantic Canada caused delays. I hung around the airport and read magazines, so the time wasn't a complete waste :)

The plane was only an hour late coming to Toronto but it took almost 45 minutes to get bags. Apparently there was only one baggage person working on that side of the terminal and so it took a while to get my suitcases.

Once I got home, I slept all day. I'm up now but I expect to sleep again soon.

Homeward bound

I've very much enjoyed my stay here in Edmonton but it's time to go home to Waterloo. My flight leaves later tonight - I'm all checked in and packed and everything and I'll be heading out in a couple of hours.

I got to visit my other sister this afternoon :) We wandered around one of the local malls, poking into the stores and chatting. It was a very good visit and I enjoyed spending time with her. I'm so glad that I got to see her before I left.

I stayed at my parent's house this time and I felt really welcome here, which made my visit here much more comfortable - thank you! I've really enjoyed your company this last week and so I will miss you both very much. I'm glad that we got to spend as much time as we did talking and visiting. I'll also miss the rest of my family and my friends. I was able to see everyone and while the visits tended to be a little short, I was happy just to see you all and check in.

Thanks, everyone, for making my visit awesome and memorable. I'm looking forward to seeing you all next time :)

Back from Mississauga

I managed to get a ride home with some friends who were in the GTA today. When Ian and I had gone to Mississauga for yesterday's appointment, I didn't drive our car because I was too tired and nauseous. Ian is staying in Mississauga but I needed to get back. Thanks to all my friends who offered to drive me :)

I watched two episodes of Meerkat Manor on TVO today. I loved it!!!!! It was a really great show, much more interesting than I thought it would be. The meerkats are adorable, and they really do have dramas - both in their own clan and with other clans. I highly recommend it.

Cottaging vacation last week

As promised, here is the blog entry about the cottage vacations. Enjoy! :)

Sauble Beach

We started our cottage vacation at a friend's parent's cottage near Sauble Beach. We were there last year with university friends and most of those same friends were there again. It's great to be able to catch up with our friends again. It's amazing how much has changed in a year! One couple is expecting their first baby in January and another are getting married in September. I guess we're all growing up now and being adults. It feels weird, in a way. I don't feel grown up at all, so how could our friends be getting married and having babies?

Everyone slept in tents which was fun. It was like camping but with a shower and flush toilet right there. Ten people shared the one bathroom so you can imagine that there were some lineups! It wasn't that inconvenient, though, and fortunately there were no bathroom emergencies :)

We enjoyed our time at this cottage. both because of the people and the location. It's very low-key, with no internet access or tv, and it's very comfortable. The beach is very, very shallow - you walk 20 minutes just to get to the beach (they have a lakefront cottage) and then you walk 20 minutes to get to water above my shoulders. I spent my swimming time learning how to tread water.


Whitestone Lake Resort

We left Sauble Beach to go to Whitestone Lake Resort with a different group of friends. The resort is very nice and kind of casual in a bed and breakfast kind of way. It There was a restaurant on-site and a small store with snacks and gas at the dock.

The hotel is right on the water and has a small beach and dock. Our room overlooked the lake and had a balcony on which we could sit and read (or dry our swimsuits) which was very nice. The room had very high ceilings and a ceiling fan but no air conditioner. Fortunately it wasn't too hot while we were there so it wasn't too bad in the room. There was no tub although there was a shower. All of the furnishings were solid wood and antiquey, if a bit small for the scale of the room.

The restaurant ran on cottage time. Breakfast took 45 mins, lunch one hour, and dinner two hours. The service tended to be as slow it wasfriendly - and they sure were friendly! One weird thing was that they mis-named some things. For example, the menu said that pancakes were served with maple syrup when they were actually served with packets of pancake (table) syrup. Also, they served something they called a creme brulee which was neither creme nor a brulee. Things like this struck me as weird - I think the person who owns the place makes up the menu and I don't think she really knows much about food. The food did taste ok.

We spent a lot of our time swimming, playing with the two- and four-year old children of our friends, and doing stuff with the boat on the water. I practiced treading water and am ok at it now :) :) I also practiced swimming and feel much more comfortable in the water. I'm very proud of myself. I'm also proud of my one friend who jumped into the water from the dock. She's not comfortable in deep water but she jumped anyways. Yay!!!!

We did some tubing and I also tried kneeboarding. I was able to get up once and to balance on the board correctly once. In that order, which is not the norm :) Ian helped me a lot. Doing this was a very difficult and therefore rewarding experience for me. I'm afraid of falling into space or overturning in deep water, and I overturned a lot while trying to figure out how to balance on the kneeboard. The first time I tried I got really, really scared and thought I couldn't do it again. I forced myself to try again the next day and I managed to work through the fear then. I was proud of myself for trying something new and working through my fear. Ian was proud of me, too.

Ian had kneeboarded about 15 years ago and picked it up really quickly. He was doing turns and everything! He's very awesome :)

Sudbury

It turns out that Sudbury is only about two hours away from the resort. It was supposed to rain one day so we wemt to the Big Nickel (Dynamic Earth) and Science North. The big nickel is cool. There's a museum there that's like a mine tour. It was cool in its own way but maybe less interesting than the mine tour we did in Scranton. That one took us way deep into the earth and this one took us about 75 feet down. They played a movie thing as the elevator took us down, too. I felt that it was very touristy and a bit tacky.

Seeing the "mine" was interesting - we could see what conditions were like one hundred years ago, fifty years ago, and today. Mining there is almost all automated now. They blast out the rock and then send it to be sorted. This is very different from a coal mine where each vein is worked individually and surrounding rock isn't supposed to be sent up with the coal. I liked the mine tour just fine but I liked the Scranton one way more. Still, if you're up in Sudbury, I'd recommend taking the tour.

Science North was very cool. It's a science museum and there are lots of hands-on activities for kids of all ages. We even got to try riding a Segway! We enjoyed poking around there quite a lot. They have very nice turtles :) If you're in Sudbury, definitely try to go to this place whether or not you've got kids.

Overall, we very much enjoyed our time away from home but as you can see it was very busy. We were in the sun a lot and we both have colour and freckles. I liked it - it reminded me of when I was a kid and played outside all day and evening.

An update tomorrow, really

Yeah, I know I promised to update you all on our trip today, but I'll have to do it tomorrow. I spent most of the day working on the thing I didn't finish before I left and it's past bedtime now. The thing is finished now and it looks awesome! I can't tell you any more about it right now because it's a gift. I'm shipping it tomorrow morning and it'll arrive two days late :( :( :( :( I hope the recipient loves it like I do. I'm including some surprises as well.

Home, sweet home

We are home! We had nine wonderful days of sun, sand, water, and play, but we're very tired now. I'm going to read now (perchance to sleep) and so tomorrow I'll update you on everything we did on this vacation.

One thing: when we got home there was a message from one of my doctor's offices. The test I did for H. pylori came back positive for the bacteria so they'll be starting me on antibiotics by Monday. Hopefully fixing this will fix all of my tummy troubles. Wouldn't that be nice?

On the road again...

And we're off. I'd really hoped to finish the thing I was working on, and I really did work hard to finish, but I ran into a snag in the second-last step :( We have to get going and so I won't finish it until we get back. Sigh.

I'm looking forward to the trip, though :) I won't be updating my blog while we're away, so I'll leave you to read these sites:

Google news
Go Fug Yourself (a sarcastic fashion police blog updated daily)
Bluefly (a shopping site)

It's hot out there

It was very, very, very hot today and so I spent most of it sewing in the basement. I'm making a custom-sewed item as a gift and it is looking really good - just like it does in my head and in my drawings :) I'd hoped to finish tomorrow... we'll see. There's a small chance that I will provided I don't do everything two or three times over again like I have been. Many of the techniques and things on this item are new to me and when things are new I get them wrong the first (and sometimes second) time I do them :)

We are going away on Friday for a fun-filled week at two cottages. Our laptop just died (wah!) so even if we had internet access at the second place (there's none at the first place - we were there last year), well, we don't have a laptop. Unfortunately, this means that you and I will have to go without my blog fixes every day for a whole week!!!!! I'll see if I can dig up some other fun reading for you while I'm away.

The last leg of our trip

As promised, I'm going to tell you more about the last leg of our trip as well as some general observations.

We were in Pittsburgh on the last night. We didn't know anything about Pittsburgh except that it's compared to Hamilton, a steeltown city which is ugly. Pittsburgh is beautiful!!!!!!!!! It's all hilly and has lots of trees and bridges and it's just gorgeous. We had no idea that it was so pretty. The downtown is especially lovely with lots of interesting buildings and bridges. We were in another part of the city that was still lovely. We'd think about visiting this city another time because it is so pretty.

One thing that we thought was really cool about Virginia and Pittsburgh is that we had to drive through tunnels there. Yes, tunnels!!!!! They were so cool - the ones in Virginia that we went through (Big Walker Mountain Tunnel and East River Mountain Tunnel) were about a mile long each so that when we were in the middle we couldn't see either end. I'd have loved to take a picture of the inside of the tunnels but of course we couldn't stop :). We went through two tunnels in Pittsburgh: Squirrel Mountain Tunnel and Fort Pitt Tunnel. There's a LOT of traffic in these tunnels and so they are pretty slow. In one of them a lane was blocked by a couple of young teenage girls in a Mercedes SUV "seat dancing" and driving at about 5MPH. I'm pretty sure these girls were under the influence of something.

Unfortunately I didn't sleep well that night. I wasn't feeling well that evening and so I didn't take my evening pills, including my painkillers. I hadn't taken painkillers in the early evening because I didn't need them then. This meant that I woke up at 4am with the start of oxycodone withdrawl symptoms. I had sweated a lot (this could have been a night sweat or a hot flash). I also had a wickedly woogly back and this is a definite symptom of oxycodone withdrawl for me. Sigh. This was very stupid of me. It took me about an hour and a half to get this under control and I'm not going to do that again.

I also learned through this incident that I will not be able to reduce my painkiller usage to nothing. The pain in my sternum was very, very bad during this time and so while the radiation helped to some extent, it didn't make the pain go away completely.

The drive home was uneventful - we pushed pretty hard because we really wanted to come home. We were both quite tired because I was awake in the night but we were able to get through the drive pretty easily. The border crossing took about 15 minutes and then we had a bite to eat. We got home while it was light out and were able to get settled back in and everything.

One cool thing that we saw when we came home was a bunch of orb spiders!!!!!!!!!!!! One or another of the spiders last year must have laid eggs because we have about 9 little orb spiders in the back and some number in the front. They're so cute!!! Their legs are smaller than their bodies but they still have the striping we'd expect. I tried to take pictures but they didn't turn out. I'll try again soon. I'm looking forward to seeing them grow up - and seeing how many we actually end up with.

I really enjoyed our trip overall. I liked the juggling shows and I was happy that Ian had a good time at the festival. I liked seeing the different parts of the country that we saw, from a flora, fauna, and geological perspective. The different types of rock in each part of the country were really neat. The views were spectacular almost everywhere we went. I also liked seeing different buildings and cities with differing architecture.

One thing I didn't like was that I discovered that I had a tendency to panic whenever I had trouble navigating or driving when navigation was difficult. I think that I basically was having panic attacks and winding myself up into them. It was sort of like I was watching myself get more and more wound up and overwhelmed. Ian and I talked about it and he suggested meditation during those times. I think that this is a good idea. I'm also going to talk to someone I know over at Hopespring to see if she can give me some help with this.

Overall I loved our vacation and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I had a great time and I would do this again - I really like a driving vacation. I'm glad to be home, though :)

Home at last

We're finally home. We are both exhausted after all of that driving but we're very, very happy to be back home with all of our own stuff and to be able to sleep in our own bed. I'd love to update you all on the last leg of our trip as well as some other things that I wanted to say... but I'm too tired. I'll tell all tomorrow :)

A long drive and Fallingwater

It's a long drive from Winston-Salem, NC to Pittsburgh, PA via Fallingwater. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day, clear and bright, and the drive was very nice. Ian and I took turns driving and navigating so that we could each have a rest. We drove through the mountains and they were gorgeous and breathtaking. We couldn't take any pictures of those, though, because there was nowhere to stop on the highway. It's not like way up north where you can stop in the middle of the road and take photos without having to worry about any traffic in either direction :)

Fallingwater is gorgeous. The tour was well worth the $18 each. It lasted about an hour and it took us through most of the house. We couldn't take photos in the house but we took a lot outside. When we get back we'll post them and you'll see :) They do strongly recommend reservations (purchasing tickets in advance), and I totally agree with that approach. People who just showed up hoping to get in waited for hours for a tour and some were turned away. Our tour was scheduled for 4pm which was a perfect time of day to go. When the tour was done we could take photos of the house without any people in it.

Did I mention that the house is gorgeous? It's not totally my style but I do respect and admire Frank Lloyd Wright's (FLW's) architectural and engineering capabilities. The house was a cottage for the Kaufman's who owned it. A cottage!!!!!! It has a fair bit of room in it and lots of meandering pathways. When standing in a room looking out you really do feel like part of the nature outside. The windows don't have frames in the corners or where they attach to the wall which helps create this illusion.

The house is made mostly of concrete that has been texturized and painted. Ian thought it looks like an adobe house, which I guess it sort of does. The ceilings can be quite low and the bedrooms felt very dark and close because of the lack of lighting and all of the wood in the rooms. I love the stone walls, myself :) All the floors (except in the bathrooms) are stone as well. The one thing that FLW got wrong was that apparently he didn't think much about the practicalities of the house - ie women's work. So the kitchen was apparently quite awful with metal cupboard doors and no space and there was no room for the washer and dryer apparatus. Had he been a woman he wouldn't have gotten those wrong! He also designed a lot of the furnishings which are very masculine.

All that aside, we do recommend that you try to see this place if you're in the area. It's well worth the trip to see this amazing and beautiful work of art/architecture.

Tomorrow: home!

Last full day in Winston-Salem

I love shopping! I'd actually intended to take a shopping break today. Really. Well, I was going to try and find the bead store that is supposed to be here, but that's for a specific project and so that wouldn't have counted. Unfortunately, the store is out of business :( and so I went to get some groceries for the trip home.

Next to the grocery store was a Burlington Coat Factory which is like Winners with discounted clothes and they were having a sale. They do have a fine selection of coats, and I bought a raincoat that fits very well and looks fabulous! I also bought some purses with frames that I can use. It's hard to get purse frames without special-ordering them so if I can find them at the store I can use them. Some of them are designed to have the lining and outer fabric stitched into the frame (instead of held into the frame via pressure or screws)! I was thrilled! When I realized this in the store, I bought every purse of this type - there were three of them. What a find :)

I have been working on this custom project for a while. Someone gave me some stone beads and asked me to make a necklace and earrings out of them. I'd been having trouble figuring out what to make because I don't usually use these stones. Today I finally I figured out what I'm going to do :) Hopefully I can find the materials I need or I'm going to need to learn how to solder silver jumprings together. :)

This evening we went to the closing banquet of the festival. The service wasn't great; we had a vegan at our table who had requested the vegetarian meal and who didn't get it for a long time. I guess some people decided to go to the dinner at the last minute and then wanted the vegetarian meal. Someone else dropped a tray, too. Between those things, our tablemate had to wait a long time for his meal. The servers didn't clear our table of dinner plates until after the speeches and awards, and we didn't get coffee and dessert until afterwards as well. The awards and stuff lasted about two hours. I'd go again if I could get in for free.

Tomorrow we're leaving for Pittsburgh. We have our tickets for Fallingwater so we'll see that on the way to the hotel.

North Carolina

Yesterday we drove to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We left around 7:30am and arrived at about 1:30pm. Ian juggled and I rested in the afternoon, and in the evening we went to the Ice Cream Social and then to see the Welcome Show. That was some pretty good juggling :) After that I was exhausted and went straight to bed. Ian juggled some more.

Today I went shopping at one of the local malls. Mostly I tried on dresses, because I like dresses, but I tried a few other things on, too. I bought a couple of non-dress items but that was it. If this non-spending keeps up, I won't reach my $750 in border-crossing allowance :) Luckily, I plan to shop tomorrow as well. I don't seriously plan to spend that much because I can't afford it but I do like trying things on.

This evening we went to the Junior showcase juggling and the Junior Competitions. Some stuff was boring but some of it was really, really good. I'm glad we went even though I was a little tired. There were some Japanese jugglers there who were really amazing!!!!! They were elegant and their moves were flowy and artistic... who thought that juggling could look so pretty?

In a few minutes we're going to go and see the Renegade show which is kind of like a juggling open mic night. Anyone can get up to perform. It's usually adult-oriented and it can either be funny or really, really bad. We'll see how this one goes :)

Washington, DC

I'm sure you've all been waiting with bated breath for another blog update. Unfortunately we couldn't get free internet on our last night in Washington, DC and last night I was much too tired to turn on the computer, let alone write my blog. We have been very, very busy. This first post is about Washington.

We woke up pretty early for our full day in Washington. We decided that we would take the Metro over to a stop near the White House and then circle the White House and head to the Lincoln Memorial. Following that, we'd walk along the National Mall to the Capitol. We ended up stopping at the Smithsonian because we were hot and tired but went back after a rest and finished the tour as planned. We have lots of photos but none of them have been posted yet, of course :) We think one of the conditions of free internet here is that we don't download or upload a lot of stuff.

The Metro is Washington, DC's subway system. It appears to be quite comprehensive and covers parts of Virginia and Baltimore as well. To ride it you have to figure out your fare in advance based on where you're going from the station and what time of day you're traveling and get yourself a farecard from the machines. It looks like if you're traveling after 9:30am most destinations are $1.35 which is very cheap. Machines read your farecard when you enter and leave the Metro and deduct the appropriate fare from it when you leave. We had actually miscalculated our fare needs and got farecards with $0.45 more than required, so we gave them to someone purchasing a farecard at our last stop. You can't get money back from a farecard, but you can add more money to it.

The White House is heavily guarded, as expected. You can only view it from behind an iron fence that is some regulated distance away from the building itself. I expect that we were videoed and possibly recorded during our sight-seeing there as well. Sigh. Armed police were everywhere; the police presence was very, very high there. Really, there isn't much to see there; it's the White House as seen from the street.

We made our way around and got to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I found it very moving but it lists all of those names. There are so many of them.... and all of them were killed fighting the Vietnam war. They died for no good reason. Here the dead are personalized. They're not just abstract crosses or included in some faceless, nameless monument. The names of the dead are all there. I was deeply touched by this even though I didn't know any of these people. Most of the people there also appeared to be deeply moved by the memorial. They spoke in hushed tones about the people they knew or the events surrounding the Vietnam War. The Vietnam war can be especially hard to think about because the Iraq war is quite similar to it.

After that we went to the Lincoln Memorial. I felt a sense of deep reverence as we climbed the steps to it. There are lots and lots of them as you've seen on tv or in movies. When we got to the top I almost felt like I should have kneeled before Lincoln's statue. The eyes in the statue seem to follow you as you move around. We read the declarations on each side of the memorial and I felt that even though the dead from the Civil War were not named, it was powerful enough to make you think about war and its consequences. The words there were written after the Civil war when the country was torn in two, brother against brother, and so many died.

We took a break to eat lunch after this. I needed one because I had been very affected by both memorials and I didn't want to encounter the next two (the National World War II Memorial and Washington Memorial) without giving myself time to even out. It turns out that I needn't have bothered.

While the first two memorials deeply affected me and others around me in showing the human toll of war, the WWII memorial is a tribute to American might. It doesn't celebrate or revere the dead; it instead describes how the US fought back against Pearl Harbor and won because of its strength and, well, might. This memorial has big pillars for each state (plus a couple of territories) around a pool with fountains. You can't see the whole thing in one view. It is big and white and kind of epitomizes the conspicuous consumption after the war as well as its own victory in WWII - it comes across as almost arrogant. Looking at the monument you'd never know any other countries were involved in WWII.

The Washington Memorial is little more than a phallic symbol that apparently represents George Washington. It looks nice in the reflecting pool.

The only Smithsonian building we stopped at was the Information Castle. I'd hoped to see some of the museums but we were just too tired and by the time we resumed our tour, the museums had all closed.

It was much nicer in the evening after we had rested. There wasn't that much that we wanted to see. We ended up taking a few photographs, but our main destinations were the Capitol and the Supreme Court. We saw both of those buildings and were happy :)

More Scranton and on to Washington, DC

We spent the morning looking at some other touristy things in Scranton. We did make it to the Scranton Iron Furnaces - they are very cool! No one else was there when we were there and we were able to wander around by ourselves. It was really interesting to see the remnants of the historic technologies in the city. I took a bunch of photos but we haven't checked them yet. I hope they work out :)

After that, we went to the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour. It was well worth the $8 admission. We only had to wait about 30 minutes for the tour to start and it lasted about an hour. We actually went down into the mine!!! Apparently the mine was shut down in 1966 because there is no demand for coal these days. It had a devastating impact on Scranton that lasted about 30 years. The mine could be re-opened at any time as there is still a lot of anthracite coal there and it is still in tip-top shape.

We got some history on the people that worked in the mine. They were all boys and men who were 7 years old and up. 7!!!!! I couldn't imagine working in the mine. There are lights there now, and they can string electric lights on areas that have been blasted, but when working in new areas the only light is the one from the miner's headlamp. There were rats, too. The guide said that there weren't any these days, but I don't think that's true - they probably don't come out when people are around, but I'm sure that they're there. Also, I guess they'd work any vein that was 36" wide or more. Can you imagine trying to drill and blast when it's only a yard wide?

I was also amazed at how they put structure into the mines. Each vein of coal that's being mined has cross-cuts and gangways and other things - basically, they honeycomb the coal veins and prop them up with pillars of coal together with timbers. No wonder they collapse! Working in and around the mine is/was very dangerous.... definitely not something for me :)

After the tour we hit the road to Washington, DC. Traffic was quite heavy the whole way, partly because we drove on expressways in the middle of several big cities. We had a little trouble finding our hotel (I got us lost) but we made it here. We're right near the Library of Congress. The hotel is pretty nice but is in the middle of a management change. The room and lobby are quite nice, but the toilet is slow and the door is weird - it's hard to lock. Parking will be $28 tomorrow; we can park on the street until 8am tomorrow. If we couldn't do that we'd have to pay for two days of parking. Gulp.

I tried to do my blog in the lobby (there's supposed to be complimentary wireless internet there) but after connecting to sites once, the laptop wouldn't connect to anything. It's not our laptop; there's something wrong with the service. Grrrr. Internet is $9.95/day which seems like a lot.... so to write this I've connected to a nearby unprotected network and am using that. Yeah, I know that that's not really good but we can't use the lobby and I don't want to pay a lot, so, well, I'm "borrowing" someone else's internet. :)

Tomorrow we plan to explore the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol. Unless it rains, in which case we'll do something else fun and touristy :)

First stop: Scranton!

We left early this morning and managed to get to the border by 10am. It took an hour to get through and we arrived in Scranton, Pennsylvania at about 4pm. We might have arrived an hour or so earlier but we did stop a few times to eat and stuff. We didn't want to just drive straight here without stopping; we want this to be a relaxing adventure. The scenery on the drive was very beautiful! There are lots of mountains and trees and pretty views everywhere. Apparently the Poconos are just east of here. We didn't know that :)

After we checked in to our hotel, we went to see the Steamtown National Historic Site. I guess it's the only one of its kind anywhere. We got there at 4:30 and it closed at 5pm, so we didn't see many exhibits inside. We were able to wander around and look at various steam engines, though, and that was quite interesting. Some of them have wheels as tall as me!

As we were driving around looking for this museum, we wound up behind someone driving slowly. After we'd stopped at a red light, he didn't start after a reasonable time when it changed so I gave a light tap on the horn. He waved his arm out of the car and banged his hand on the roof of his car. Does anyone know what that meant? Was he trying to give me the finger (he couldn't because he had a lit cigarette in that hand)? Or does that particular gesture mean something else? It was very strange.

Our hotel is nice enough. It's not that expensive and has free internet and a free continental breakfast. We like those things :) There is a 24-hour grocery store just across the parking lot. We actually went there a few minutes ago to get a few things for sandwiches as well as apples and stuff. We have a plug-in cooler in which we'll keep these things; we're doing this because we won't have a fridge in our room in Winston-Salem.

One thing that is odd about Scranton is that very few lanes are marked on city streets. Left- and right-turn lanes are marked but nothing else. Sometimes we wondered whether there was one lane or two, and, well, we guessed. Speaking of odd things, people don't always park in the same direction as traffic. There were quite a few cars facing us as we were driving down the street - this was very strange and a bit unsettling. One other thing - a mall completely encircles the historic site, making it almost impossible to find. I don't like the idea of a retail shopping place obscuring the country's heritage and culture. Sigh. It wasn't even that good of a mall.

We didn't make it to the coal mine today, but we will go tomorrow before we leave for Washington, DC. If there's time we might go and see the Scranton Iron Furnaces - four big stone blast furnaces from the mid-nineteenth century. Providing we can find them, of course :)

As we were picking up maps and stuff, we found out that Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house is about an hour outside of Pittsburgh!!!!! I'm sure some of you knew this, but we didn't and we are quite excited about this discovery. We're going to see if we can get tickets for a tour - since we'll be so close it'd be a shame if we didn't try to see it. There's apparently another Frank Lloyd Wright house (Kentuck Knob, aka the Hagan House) near to there as well. I don't think we'll have time for both, but we'll see.

Tomorrow: more Scranton and then off to Washington, DC.

A full Friday the 13th

There is no cancer in my liver. Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so happy about this. I'd had a funny feeling in my liver and I was worried, but I guess there's probably something wrong with my stomach or something.

IU also talked to my oncologist and I think it went really well. I approached it from the standpoint of "we never really got off on the right foot; I love your compassion and caring and I need that as well as more technical information." I also apologized for behaving angrily last time. I felt really comfortable afterwards - at least I feel like I can talk to her if I need more from her or need a lot of technical stuff. She is going to give me copies of all of my test results and I got all of my tumour markers. I'm good with that.

Because I had radiation two weeks ago, the cancer cells are dying off and sending out the protein that the tumour markers check (this is called "tumour flare"), so the markers will be high right now. We're going to wait until the end of August to do the tumour markers again. I'll be able to call and get the results in early September; they're setting that up for me. I'll my oncologist again in three months (October?). If my tumour markers are up again in August I guess we'll do them again and see. If they're up then, well, something is going on. I don't think that'll happen, though - I really think that my condition is stable.

My pain is really going down; I feel like a completely new person now. I feel a LOT more energized and able to do things. For the first time in a long, long time I feel like I could actually do work. And I'm excited, even, at the thought of working (which hasn't happened in a long time). I think that I'm going to try to go back at some point, either in the fall or in January.

The insurance company sent me the application for CPP disability benefits. Sigh. I don't even know if I qualify - I have to have worked for some number of years prior to the disability, and I don't know if I've worked that amount because of all the coop stuff.

I'm not going to think about any of that, though, because tomorrow we're going on vacation!!!!!! We're all packed up except for our last-minute toiletries and computer stuff and the car is loaded up. Tomorrow we'll get up, pack the last stuff and hit the road. We hope to make it to Scranton in time for the coal mine tours :)

Avoiding tomorrow

As you know, we're leaving for North Carolina on Saturday (in two days). I should be cleaning and packing and getting ready for that, you might think.

I didn't do any of that today. Instead, I spent much of the day driving to Bass Pro Shops at Vaughan Mills to get myself a new tackle box for my beads. I managed to wander around part of the rest of the mall and try stuff on, too. Everyone's got stuff on sale :) I only bought the tackle box. It's got wheels and a handle and can also be carried as a backpack. Since my beads weigh about 40 pounds, I didn't want to get one that can only be carried via a shoulder strap or something as it would be too heavy. I'm very pleased with my tackle box purchase - especially since I got it 50% off when I was only expecting it to be 25% off!!!

So when I came home, did I pack and stuff? No. I decided to continue trying to make a dress. I got to the point where I have to take something out (if I don't sew for a while, I forget about how to attach the lining to the outer fabric when sewing a fully-lined sleeveless dress. Sigh.) and then I stopped.

I don't actually think I'm avoiding packing so much.... I have an oncologist's appointment tomorrow. I don't actually think that the liver ultrasound will show anything, since no one has called me, but of course I am a bit worried about that. In addition to that, I need to talk to my oncologist because I'm not comfortable with the way that she gives us information and I'm dreading it (as is Ian). I kind of get the feeling that she talks down to us and that she isn't volunteering information to us (like if I don't ask, she won't tell). She rounds the tumour marker numbers to present them in their best light, and I'm worried that she's not in my corner. I do know that the situation as-is is not good for me and that something has to change. I'm willing to give her another chance although I might be happier with a referral to one of the other oncologists there.

I am going in assuming that she has as much trouble dealing with me as I have with her - I'm not so conceited as to assume that this is a one-way street. We'll see how it goes. Sigh.

On a positive note, the pain is definitely decreasing. I haven't had to take Percocet at all this week and I've been able to cut my painkillers from 4 times a day to 3 times a day. I can't just go off my painkillers; I have to be weaned off because I'll have a physical tolerance for it. I do hope I can cut my painkillers even more :)

Some good news

I have an appointment with a pain management specialist tomorrow morning!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited! The pain is bad and I'm tired of dealing with it - I'm hoping that the doctor will be able to help me, either by giving me new drugs or new pain techniques.

Ian and I have decided that we are going to go to the International Juggling Association Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in July. I'm really looking forward to this trip :) We're going to drive down over a few days, spend the week, and drive back. We are planning doing the trip in five or six hour legs, so we'll be going to Scranton, Pennsylvania and then Washington, DC. Th We'll spend a full day in DC - the Smithsonian alone makes that worthwhile :) We'll also look at the monuments and White House and whatnot. After that we'll head to the festival. On the way back we'll stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvnia. Sounds like fun, huh?

Leaving tonight

I'll be heading to the airport in another hour or so, and I'll be back in Ontario tomorrow morning. I'm sad to be leaving Edmonton. I've had a really good visit with everyone this trip and I was really glad that I came here. I wish I could stay longer but that wouldn't be practical, really. Still, I don't want the fun and good feelings to end, you know?

I've been staying with my parents and I really appreciate everything they've done to make my stay very comfortable. I felt very much at home here and so I was very comfortable. They were very generous in getting things ready for me and in taking me places. Thanks, mom and dad :)

Happy father's day to those of you who are or who have fathers.

Visiting and some movies

I spent a great day visiting today. First I saw a friend of mine for coffee, which was fun :) Later on, we went to my aunt's place for dinner. She'd been in hospital a couple of months ago for a few weeks but is doing quite well these days. I was very glad to see that :)

After that, my parents and I tried to watch a movie and we just weren't able to get through even one. We started off with Happy Feet, which I kind of liked but which was slow-paced and had too obvious of a story line. Then we tried Alpha Dog but we weren't able to figure out what was going on so we stopped watching that. Finally we tried Ghost Rider but we didn't find the beginning bit all that interesting and I couldn't figure out when it would get better. At that point, we gave up :) We ended up watching tv instead.

Tomorrow will be my last day in Edmonton. I've very much enjoyed my time here and I'm very, very glad that I came. I'll be sad to leave, because I like spending time with my family and wish I could stay longer, but I'm looking forward to seeing Ian again.

Shopping in Edmonton

I had a fun and relaxing day with my parents. I showed off my beads (which, together with my suitcase, weigh 41 pounds) and w