Federal election day

We played some games of a version of Jenga at a housewarming party early this evening. I'd never played the game, but it's quite fun. The game consists of 54 thin blocks from which you make a tower 18 rows high with three blocks in each row. Each rows blocks are crossed over the previous and next row. Each person uses one hand to remove a block from the tower and then to place it on the top of the tower. The person taking their turn when the tower falls loses.

I'm sure lots of people have played it but as I say, I'd never played and it was really fun! The blocks are not all exactly the same size so there are some spots where blocks will easily come out while still maintaining the integrity of the tower. I think that people of all ages would enjoy this one.

When we got home we started watching the election results. So far, the final results have not been called but it looks like it'll be a conservative government again; the only question is whether they will have a majority. It could be a minority government again. If it is, I hope that we get to wait for an election for more than just a couple of years.

Once this election is over, we can all focus on the upcoming US election. People posting in the forums I read have been very vocal and polarized on the candidates to the point of insults and poor behaviour. I very much hope that there is a clear winner in that election and that there is no fiasco like the 2000 election. With the US and global economic crisis, I don't think it would do the US good to have to go through a protracted election count.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that you all have had a good Thanksgiving weekend, eating turkey or other yummy food.

We got some beautiful weather today! The blue skies, together with the changing colours of the leaves, is making for some gorgeous scenery. I love being outside looking at all of the fall colours; those colours make this one of my favourite times of the year.

For those of you in Canada, tomorrow is Federal Election Day. If you haven't already voted in an advance poll please be sure to vote tomorrow. Every voice matters and it's important to make sure your voice is heard.

Gobble, gobble, gobble!

We got to have a very yummy turkey dinner at Ian's parents today. There was turkey and stuffing and vegetables and - my favourite - pumpkin pie! The entire dinner was yummy and for once I didn't eat too much. I might have had a second piece of pie but no one else had any. This is probably just as well because extra pie isn't going to make me smaller, you know?

Ian and I have been going to the gym regularly since we joined. I don't think I've lost weight but my waist and hip measurements are definitely down from what they were this summer. I'm very happy about this :) I'm hoping to lose about 15 pounds by next summer and I think I've made a good start.

Thanksgiving weekend movie day

It's Saturday and we actually got to go out and see a movie in the theatre! Some of you might be able to guess what we saw, knowing our movie tastes.... and if you guessed Quarantine , you'd be right. It's a movie about  people in a building who are quarantined due to a fast-moving, aggressive illness. Which is trapped in the building with them, of course. The movie is shot by the cameraman from a two-person camera crew who were following the firefighters into the building before the quarantine went down.

It's sort of like Cloverfield in that it's a "shaky-cam" movie shot by one person - the cameraman. This makes the movie more realistic because it limits what we can see; there were several times that I found myself trying to look around something to see better. There are parts that I would have loved to see more clearly because they gave an explanation to what had happened. This kind of shooting-style is also more like a first-person video game, in a way, which is one of the reasons that I think this type of filming is gaining popularity.

We both really enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to people. There are a few very gory bits but not as many as in other movies. It's mostly a very suspenseful film.

This evening we went to a friend's place and watched 88 Minutes . It's sort of an interesting movie where after the first 15 minutes or so, the protagonist gets a phone call that says that he's got 88 minutes to live. The rest of the movie is all about the guy trying to figure out who's behind it and at the same time trying to fend off the police, who think he's committed a bunch of murders. It wasn't as great as it could have been - there were a couple of issues with the acting and dialogue - but it was entertaining. There's an alternate ending on the DVD that is a bit better than the actual movie, but it's longer, so I think that's why it was cut.

Yesterday I meant to write here but I ended up with a chill and had a hot bath to warm me up. I start sweating when I'm cold and I can get a chill afterwards, especially if my clothes get wet and it's breezy. Getting a chill isn't just shivering; my hands and feet get extra-cold and numb (I have Raynaud's Syndrome in my hands and feet so the circulation starts to dwindle in them) and my lips go blue.

Apparently what I'm experiencing are cold sweats and they're menopausal side effects. So I guess I'm getting these cold sweats instead of hot flashes .... but I'm not sure it's a fair trade. People understand hot flashes but not everyone has heard of cold sweats.

Anyways, if I can catch it before I get a chill, I dry off and change my clothes, which results in a lot of laundry. With the colder weather over the last few days the chills have been worse and I've found that a hot bath is just about the only thing I can do to get warm again. There have been days lately where I've had two hot baths just because I'm so cold and chilled.

If anyone knows of something I can do to make me warm after I get a chill *other* than a really hot bath, please let me know. I can't always stop the chills from happening, even if I change my clothes. It's like once the chill starts, I have to get overwarm for it to stop. And I'd like to not have to spend the entire winter in the bath, you know?

Still alive but sleepy

Last night I meant to write here and then I went and fell asleep. Not that I have much to say these days - all I've done in the last couple of days is sleep. It was very nice today but I ended up sleeping most of the day away. I've been getting up early for the last couple of days and after doing that for a while, I need to catch up on my sleep.

I'm typing this while enveloped in the smell of the brugmansia flower. We brought our plants in because we had frost here. Since then, the one plant has blossomed twice and the other one (the transplanted one that we thought was dead) has grown new leaves. The smell is quite pretty, if a bit heavy, and it's something that we don't get to smell often.

I started curling today and my new shoes are awesome!!! I can slide so much further on them than I could with my old ones, and they were lighter than my old ones, too. I had an easy time delivering my rocks and sliding forward - it felt sooo much better to be on these shoes! The left foot was slipping a bit on the heel and so I have a blister on that heel. I should have worn both pairs of socks tonight.

In case you thought I wasn't doing anything with my days, I'm still working on sewing things. I traced out a skirt and have made all of its alterations so I can cut it out tomorrow. I've still got the other dress I'm working on - it's on hold while I find the right trim colour between the regular and bias portions. I want to insert something like piping just to make the dress look a little more finished.

Sadly, with the dropping dollar, I don't want to (well, I shouldn't) buy much more in the way of patterns or fabric so I'll have to work with what I have (which is admittedly quite a lot). The only thing I want to buy right now is some gorgeous fabric. The fabric is out of print so it's hard to find but I love it! The thing is, I just can't decide which colourway to buy: the blue or the red. I think I'm leaning to the red (although I do love both!) but buying both isn't/shouldn't really an option. Thoughts?

Surrounded by another person's memories

When I'd seen my late friend last , she told me that she had a bunch of her bellydance stuff that she wanted me to have. Her husband got all of it together, got in touch with me, and I went over there this afternoon to get it. He showed me a picture album of her when she was bellydancing. She was so beautiful! I could tell from the pictures that she knew what she was doing and was very graceful and elegant.

What's more, she taught herself how to bellydance, made all of her own costumes, taught other people, and set up her own business delivering bellygrams!!!! She was a single mother with two kids, working somewhere and doing all of this to try and make ends meet. I looked through the things she left me and I have all of the jewellery she made and bought (the earrings! headpieces! neckpieces! sterling silver!) as well as all of the costumes she made, including the bras, belts, skirts, and veils, and the leftover embellishments. I also have the books she used to teach herself, the books on costume design, *and* all of her music. I was so excited when I looked through it! It was like finding the perfect pair of shoes (some of you have seen that reaction and you know how obvious it is).

Ok, all of this stuff is from the late 70s and early 80s (and the music is on cassettes), but in a way that makes it even more valuable and interesting. It's not just bellydancing costumes  and information passed from one bellydancer to another - it's a piece of history, both hers and the bellydancing community.

I wish I had known how much bellydancing she had done - I knew that she had bellydanced but not that she had done everything else - and I'm sad that I didn't ask more about it. I wish I had told her how much I admired her.

Tonight I went out with a group of people for dinner to celebrate my friend's life. We toasted her and conducted ourselves in the fashion of which she would have approved: lots of laughter, food, wine (for those who drink it), and yummy desserts. At least we could give her this. 

Awash in memories

One of my sisters was given a stuffed animal made of fabric panels when she was very young. That animal was loved to death by her and was a huge fixture of my childhood. Today I found replacement panels! I was so excited because it was like bringing back my childhood to me.

Later on I came across an envelope addressed to me and Ian in my father's printing. As soon as I saw it, I burst into tears. It had contained a gift from my parents and I could just imagine my Dad addressing the envelope, excited (in his own way) about giving the gifts away. He liked to give us gifts.

Seeing my Dad's handwriting brought back another childhood memory. Leading up to one Christmas I was coming to believe that Santa didn't really exist but I wasn't sure of that one way or another. I wasn't sure how to prove it and so on Christmas morning, I compared the handwriting on the packages from Santa and from my Dad. They were the same and right then, I knew that Santa didn't exist.

I miss my Dad so very much. I think about him just about every day but this is the first time I've cried like this in weeks.

Fall is here

I've finding that my everyday activities have been changing a bit to deal with the autumn in the air. I get chilled - and hot - really easily and I've started taking baths to warm up. And so after being a shower person my entire life, I think I'm becoming more of a bath person. I make it really hot and read my book and soak in the bath. I never really understood why people would want a hot tub or jacuzzi but I do now. Oh, the luxury!

I've always associated baths with my mom - when I was growing up, she had a bath most evenings. At that time, she was my age and I was at an age where I was really starting to see her as a separate person from me. Now that I'm the age she was then, I sort of feel like I understand her so much better than I did before. And so every time I find myself doing something that she does or did, I feel so much closer to her. I like this.

Adventures in curling shoe shopping

I got new curling shoes today. I'd meant to replace my shoes last year but never got around to it. The shoes had metal eyelets that had shifted and that left scratches on the curling ice, and I'd worn through the heel cup. I wavered between two pairs: the Goldline Regal and the Asham Slam (second from the top). I very much liked the fit of the Slam but the disks on the bottom were weird. As well, the outer part isn't leather and I was worried that they wouldn't last as long as a leather toe. The Regal is leather and it's a shoe that should last a long time - part of the point of buying a good-quality curling shoe is to get something that will last a long time.

I ended up with the Regal but I have to say that the buying process was quite an adventure. The first pair I tried on was my normal size (36.5, or a 5 1/2 in their sizing) but I couldn't get my foot in because the tongue is stitched down to the top at a higher point than most shoes (most likely for stability when delivering). If I can't put the shoes on, I can't curl in them, so that pair didn't work.

Next, I tried on the half-size up and the right foot was fine but the bottom of the tongue dug in strangely on my left foot. I kept saying "ow" and Ian finally told me that it sounded like something was wrong. And that if it hurt now it wouldn't stop hurting later. So that pair didn't work, either.

The sales guy then said that the shoe I was trying on was the *new* version of the Regal and that there was an older version still available in the back. He went back, searched around for a bit, and brought me out a pair to try on. It fit just fine on my right foot but it was a bit loose in the heel on my left. This isn't unusual - my left foot is about a half-size smaller than my right foot - but I don't want to buy a shoe that didn't fit. So that pair didn't work too well, either.

After that I went back and forth, trying on first the Regal and then the Slam and then the Regal and then the Slam, trying to figure out which pair to buy. Another sales guy came by and said that sometimes different pairs of shoes in the same brand and size can fit differently. He also said that as long as I bought a right and a left shoe in the same size and version, he'd be fine if I got the two shoes from two different pairs. So he went in back, searched around for a bit, and found another pair of the same size in the old Regal version. He brought them out to me and the left shoe fit perfectly! The pair I got was a combination of the first right shoe I tried on and the last left shoe I tried. Crazy, huh?

This whole process took quite a bit of time and the help of two different salespeople. I am very pleased with the result and I'm grateful for all of the help I got. I'm also grateful for Ian's patience - he was there the whole time and encouraged me to be absolutely sure that I was happy with the shoes. Hopefully we won't have to go through this process again for a while.

A new vintage pattern

I bought this vintage pattern off of etsy - the top is very similar to one I used to have, with princess lines and lots of buttons. It was black and I remember replacing all of the original flat buttons with little round buttons (there were 16 or 17 of them, if I remember rightly) and it looked so awesome. I don't know what happened to that top - it either fell apart or I got too big for it.

Anyways, I bought the pattern and it arrived today. The listing said that it was in good condition but when I checked it, the collar piece was missing and there were three extra pieces in the pattern. I didn't think that "good" meant "incomplete + extra pieces" and honestly I was a little annoyed. I sent a message to the seller and she's giving me 20% off the purchase price (or a refund, but I'll take the 20% because I can draft a collar), which I appreciate.

I was looking at the pattern and instructions to try and figure out how the buttons and buttonholes are applied. These are the worst pattern instructions I've read, and that includes other vintage pattern instructions which are notoriously scarce. Apparently the dress need not have a collar but can have a sort of sweetheart neckline instead - but there's no picture anywhere of what that pattern would look like. As well, the picture makes it look like the top closes via buttons and loops, not buttons and buttonholes, but the instructions don't say anything about making button closures at all.

So when I get around to making the top, it'll be quite an adventure (and I might make a princess line in front, like in back, so it's more like the top I used to have). Fortunately, I've made tops like this before so I think I'll be ok.

Curling already?

Today was the first night of curling for us. We went to a workshop tonight on improving our delivery in preparation for the actual season which starts next week. The first thing we had to do was deliver without a rock. If you're balanced correctly, it should be possible to go through the entire delivery without actually holding a rock. I think my body forgot how to deliver a rock because I fell while trying to deliver. :) Things got better by the end of the night.

This season Ian is curling three nights per week and I'm curling twice a week. That's all assuming that the Friday night curling goes forward; at the moment, there aren't really enough people to carry a league through the entire season. We'll see. It wouldn't be all that fun if hardly anyone shows up.

My favourite book into a movie

Thanks for your tips on finding argyle sweaters. I looked today and saw a few but they didn't fit right - some were too long and others were too boxy. I also did a search on eBay and there are a few there that I think I like. I'll keep looking.

I think I remember mentioning that Blindness is one of my favourite books ever. There is so much to the book that every time I read it, I get something new out of it. Now, I'm very excited because the book has been made into a movie (shot partly in Toronto)opening this weekend! The movie isn't getting great reviews but I still hope that it will be a movie worth seeing. From what I've seen, I think I'll like it.

I'm watching a show right now on the making of the movie and it seems like the director really worked to capture the anonymity and humanity (or lack thereof) in the book. Before shooting began, apparently all of the actors had to wear blindfolds and be led around, following the sound of a bell. There are special contacts that the actors wore that prevented them from seeing well during critical scenes so that they would act blind.

I am annoyed that the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is calling for a protest of this movie because they feel that the movie discriminates against blind people since it shows people becoming monsters after going blind and being unable to take care of themselves. WTF? It's a post-apocalyptic movie! It's not like newly-blind people automatically know how to take care of themselves, and it's likely that they'd make a mess. Think of the mess in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina - those were sighted people in the dark, and the mess they made and things they did are equivalent to the mess and actions in the movie. And as for monsters - well, people do what they need to survive. If they weren't blind but were in the same sort of situation, they'd still be monsters. I'm thinking that this group hasn't got that much credibility, really, and their protest is a knee-jerk reaction without thinking things through.

Fortunately, no NFB people will be protesting here in Canada. I'm very much looking forward to seeing this movie even though I know that it can't possibly be as fundamentally moving and thought-provoking as the book. Still, I'm interested in seeing how closely the movie follows the book and what, if any, new things the movie brings to the already multi-leveled story.

A mostly regular day

When we rented the movie over the weekend, we also rented Storm Warning . It wasn't really all that scary or gory. It was one of those couple-gets-lost-and-find-themselves-among-lunatics movies. I very much liked the way the woman handled the lunatics - some things were very creative and had a definite "eewwww" factor. The first half of the movie was sort of boring and it would have been better without most of that bit.

I haven't been able to sew for the last couple of days. I realized that the dress I'm making should have been done with the plaid on the bias but I didn't do that. I looked briefly at one store to see if there were any good plaids there but there weren't. I might see if another store has any... or not. I think the dress will look great as-is, but I also think that another dress in a bias plaid would look awesome :)

I'm also looking for a decent argyle sweater. I tried one on today but it didn't have the right neckline - the V was too deep. There was a cardigan version that was ok (it was petite; the other sweater wasn't) but it was a cardigan and I want a sweater. And not one of those fake shirts under the sweater, either, or a vest. You'd think it would be simple to find a sweater in cotton or acrylic (not cashmere) with an argyle pattern on some part of the front. Well, I thought that - and I was wrong, as so far my search has proved futile.. but I'll keep hunting. There's got to be one somewhere. I don't know if I dare to hope for one in petite sizing, but wouldn't it be awesome to find that, too?

Another look outside my bubble

I've been reading some of the news lately and I saw that the US House voted against the bailout package. I knew that people didn't necessarily like it - some didn't like it because it was a vague plan, some didn't like it because they felt the money shouldn't go to the people who made the mess in the first place, and some didn't like it because they thought it was the first step on the road to socialism. And of course we can't ignore the fact that all of this is happening when there's an election a few weeks away so there's all sorts of political crap involved that wouldn't be there at another time. For whatever reason, the bill was defeated. As a result, the Dow tanked in its greatest point drop ever.

No one can really say what's going to happen now. Maybe the bill will come forward again, and maybe it won't. What happens if another major financial institution in the US files for bankruptcy? How far away is the US economy from a Depression? What about the rest of the world - money and banking are global now? I thought I read that banks aren't lending as much right now... what would happen if banks stopped lending money to each other or businesses?

And what's going on in Europe? Banks are collapsing there, too. How often do banks normally collapse - is it happening more often than usual?

In some ways I feel like I'm living in an Ayn Rand novel. Even the new conditions under which the mortgages were to be loaned could have come right out of Atlas Shrugged , as could many individual's reaction to the bill. Not that I always subscribe to the theories in the books (there's an implicit assumption that the people who are the most industrious have an internal sense of responsibility - but there's no room for, say, sociopaths), but it's kind of strange to see things happening as though they came out of a book. And scary, too, because in that book the entire economy and society collapsed. I hope that this doesn't happen here.

In any case, like many people, I'm watching what's happening with the US economy very closely.

Fun hobby day

I've been working on a pair of earrings for someone and I finished them today. They're here . I thought they were gorgeous! I used the pink amethyst stones I bought at the show the other weekend. I can't wait to use some of the other stones that I bought. Right now, I keep picking them up and playing at them, looking at them in the light, and looking at the facets and the shine and the colours.

I've started work on another dress in a plaid - I thought it was a brown and black plaid but it's got navy blue and forest green in there, too. I'm using a pattern I'd sort of used before - it's a vintage reproduction pattern. So it was an actual pattern issued in the 60s but it's been updated with current sizing and (possibly) construction. I hope this doesn't take too long as I want to start work on a new pattern - I think it'll work in the corduroy I have. It's got tabs under the collar and in the center back that I think might look good in a red contrast (like, say, the red contrast I used on the last dress ). We'll see.

It's Saturday so it must be movie night

We rented The Cottage tonight; it's a funny English movie with kidnapping, a crazed psycho, and lots of improbable plot points. The first half is sort of funny with the botched kidnapping and then the second half is really gory and bloody. I can't remember the last movie we saw with that kind of gore and violence - it was definitely unusual, which was a nice surprise. If you like these kinds of movies, you'll like this one a lot.

You know, finding good horror/zombie/scary movies is really hard. Most of the ones that are made are direct-to-video because there isn't that much demand for these movies in the theatres. Not to mention the fact that the kind of gore and violence that we watch would get an 18+ rating which doesn't make as much money in the theatre. As well, these movies don't usually come with recommendations or ratings, so it's possible to end up watching some really awful movies.

Fortunately for us, there is a company that distributes a good subset of these movies: Dimension Extreme! Even better, our local video store carries them :) The best part is that we know we're getting a decent movie if it's distributed by this company.

Oh, and I guess I should make something clear: it's mostly me that picks these movies. I don't know what Ian would choose to rent if he was on his own but when we're there together, I push for the horror/zombie/gory movies. It's probably better that I don't think too hard about why I like these movies so much :) How about I stick with this: I've always had a fondness for the genre. I've been reading horror stories since I was quite young and it's not such a big jump from this kind of book to this kind of movie. How does that sound?

What if there were no humans?

Going to my friend's funeral today definitely did help. It was more a celebration of her life than sadness at her passing and so while I cried, I felt a lot better. My friend had written something in her funeral program thing - I haven't been able to read it yet. It's definitely written by her in her "voice" to the people who attended her funeral and I'm not sure I can read that just yet.

This evening we watched Aftermath, a tv program that examines the question of what would happen to the planet if humans suddenly disappeared. It's an interesting show and I'd recommend you see it if you get a chance. After 200 years, traces of humanity would be almost gone! In a way it's shocking to think that people have had such an impact on the planet in only a short time. We've polluted our atmosphere, totally changed the paths of many major rivers (causing problems at various points of those rivers), and interfered with many, many ecosystems. And yet within a few centuries of the disappearance of all humanity, all of that would be reversed.

If only we could clean up the planet without having to leave it. Part of our problem is that we do things without fully realizing what the impact would be. For example: the Mississppi used to flood its banks regularly. So they built walls to contain it and force the course to change. But now the Mississippi delta is basically destroyed because of that "solution", which means that there is less natural protection against hurricanes there. Who's the winner here?

If only we sought to fully understand the natural forces we're playing with, maybe we'd do a better job of "fixing" the problems they cause us.

What to sew next?

I've been sleeping a lot over the last couple of days - 18 hours yesterday and then another 13 today. I'm not sure why; my best guess would be that it's because my friend died and I'm a little depressed. Tomorrow morning is the funeral and I hope to get some closure then.

I am hoping to do some more sewing. I'm waffling a bit on what to sew. I have some gorgeous kaufman cherries corduroy - it's as light as dress fabric but drapes well and doesn't wrinkle. I also have the menswear-type fabrics that drape well. A couple of them have some stretch to them and I'd like to use those for sheath-type dresses, maybe. I'm also thinking about shirtdresses... but I'm not sure. I have patterns that are similar to the last dress I made and I'm sort of thinking about those, too.

Hopefully I'll be able to make a decision about what to sew next soon. I'm itching to make something - maybe I have too much to choose from?

Some test results

Unsurprisingly, the fine needle biopsy results are negative - there's no cancer there. That's good, of course, but I wonder how many more of these tests I'll be having. I also found out that the CT scan for my jaw will be on October 16. It's not urgent and those take about a month to schedule.

On the bright side, some mets people on one of my online support groups are getting together in Westport, CT for a few days in November. I'm going to go with them and have booked my ticket (I get to fly out of Waterloo!). I'm looking forward to meeting them in person instead of just online.

Recently, on that board, someone was caught lying about some serious stuff - like, that they had lost a son in one of the recent hurricanes. The person had been posting sporadically for about a year and people had sent her gifts and stuff. Some suggested that the person was deliberately misleading people. My guess is that the person has a serious mental illness because her posts were inconsistent.

Meeting people in person is a good idea :)

A few appointments

I saw the oral surgeon today. He basically said that he didn't think that there was anything wrong but of course he didn't have the previous xrays to compare. My dentist dropped off the comparison films and the surgeon did see a small change. Because of this and my history he's going to send me for a CT scan just to be sure that there's nothing going on.

He said that most osteonecrosis shows up as exposed bone in the mouth. (Umm, yes. We are hoping that if it's this, we have caught it early - looong before the bone starts showing through my gums.) He said that it's possible that the lower teeth have shifted from the previous orthodontic work, and that the roots of those teeth did appear shorter than the other teeth but again that this was probably from the orthodontic work as well.

So he's not worried and doesn't want me to worry because all of this is most likely nothing. But it is good to be thorough.

Oh, I also had my port checked - the doctor was able to get a good blood draw and it didn't hurt when he accessed the port. I wish the nurses were as good as that doctor was :)

Another friend gone

Remember I drove a less-mobile friend to a mutual friend's visitation a week and a half ago? The friend I drove died tonight.

She'd run out of treatments and went into hospice this past weekend. I knew last week that things weren't going all that well as she had the same colouration as my friend did in March which was a sign that the liver had failed. Still, I didn't expect her to decline so quickly and had been hoping to visit her before she died. I had sort of thought of going tomorrow or the next day because I thought there was still time. I was wrong :(

It's so hard to think that I saw her only a little while ago. I told her then that if she wanted to go somewhere, I'd be happy to take her and she said that she would be at a dinner (that I'm also going to) this coming Thursday. She was a wonderful woman - so kind and so caring. She always seemed positive, even when things weren't going that well.

When I last saw her, she showed me her head: her hair all came out because of the whole-brain radiation treatments she had, so she went to a hennaist and had butterflies and strawberries hennaed on her head. I wish more people had been able to see it because it really represented who she was.

I miss her so very much.

Another movie

We finally got around to watching Save the Green Planet, a movie we'd recorded ages ago. It's a South Korean movie with English subtitles. The subtitles were one reason that we hadn't watched it yet because they require more attention than a non-subtitled movie.

The movie is very, very good. The main characters' acting is amazing; they were able to convey their emotions and thoughts even though I couldn't actually understand a word they were saying. The movie references a number of different genres and incorporates them all seamlessly. The plot is believable and the dialogue well-written and there are twists in this movie that make it quite compelling. Some of the movie could be quite disturbing as while there is quite a bit of implied violence, but this violence is an intrinsic part of the movie. We highly recommend this movie.

BTW, in case you're interested, here's a picture of the beads that I bought yesterday. I didn't get a chance to brighten the picture or anything but the beads are still quite visible. You may notice that much of the picture is sparkly because all of the beads are faceted :)



From left to right, the beads are: faceted crystal coins (2), faceted rose quartz rounds (2), faceted pink amethyst hearts, faceted amethyst hearts, faceted amethyst rondells (2), faceted amethyst rounds (2), onion-cut iolite briolettes, onion-cut labradorite briolettes. Some of the strands have been doubled in this photo and these are noted with a (2) in the list of items. Aren't they gorgeous? Don't you just want to reach out and play with them and start making things?

A little shopping

Remember I was working on that vintage pattern and I finally finished the dress? I wore the dress today and we got a picture of it.

Here's the pattern and the dress:

I think that it turned out ok. I don't look as thin as the pictures but I think that the dress looks pretty good, all things considered and I'm quite pleased with it.

There was a bead show in Toronto today and I went. I haven't had the "pleasure" of driving in downtown Toronto for a while. I didn't know that the Gardiner was closed or that there was a baseball game this afternoon, both of which made the drive in and out that much more difficult.

I managed to buy the most beautiful faceted pink and purple gem-quality amethyst teardrops (don't worry, I got a very good price!) as well as some gorgeous labradorite onion-cut briolettes with flash on almost every stone. And I got the rose quartz and amethyst faceted round stones that I'd been looking for. Not only that, I got some beautiful onion-cut iolite briolettes. I can hardly wait to play with them!

I'm finding that I'm much more selective in what beads I'll buy these days. Before I'd buy a strand of beads as long as they were the rightish colour and shape but now I check the strands very carefully to make sure that the beads look the best possible. This isn't possible when buying off of the internet but in-person, at least, I can get some quality stuff.

Movie!

We watched Ratatouille tonight. One of the user comments on that imdb page says it's a "feel-good movie," which it is, but it's not as saccharine as those movies can be. It was a fine movie to watch but it's so much less of a Pixar movie than a Disney one. Pixar movies have a lot of depth: there are sad times and quiet times which balance the unrelenting ups, and the characters themselves are quite deep. In this movie, the sad times were less sad and more predictable and the characters are superficial - more like a standard Disney movie.

As well, Pixar movies usually create their own world where the movie exists and everything within that world is consistent and believable. But because Ratatouille is set in our world, it wasn't as believable. Overall, Ratatouille is a fun and enjoyable movie but not as good as, say, Wall-E or Cars or Monsters, Inc.

There's a short on the DVD off of the main menu describing the history of the rat and it's well-worth watching called Your Friend the Rat. It's description of Alberta's rat-free status (and how that came to be) is hilarious. Definitely watch this one. :)

Looking outside my bubble

Even in my little bubble I've been hearing some news bits. There seems to be a financial crisis happening in the US. All of a sudden it seems that a bunch of these huge financial companies are going bankrupt or being bailed out by the US government. I think it's related to the crazy housing market in the US, including sub-prime mortgages. The US government just bailed out AIG over the weekend... and I think they bailed out Fannie May/Freddie Mac (mortgage companies on the verge of bankruptcy) a little while ago, too. They let Lehman go bankrupt, though. How many other companies could be affected, here?

I just read an article that said that someone was predicting that the US would only be in a recession for a year because the banks will be bought out or merged and that the banks won't be allowed to fail. I hope that's true. If a bunch of banks or other financial institutions start collapsing with no government or industry assistance, I don't think it'll just be a recession that happens to them. And I hope that no Canadian companies or banks will be caught up in this mess, because then we'll follow right along with the US.

Maybe my bubble is a better place to be.

Regularly scheduled appointments

I saw my regular surgeon and my family doctor today. We know that there's some kind of mass around the scar from the 2006 lumpectomy but the mammogram showed nothing there. My surgeon had already done one fine needle biopsy and a core biopsy, and because the mass is still there, he did another fine needle biopsy today. I wasn't expecting that - at least the area there is numb so it didn't hurt. I should get the results in a week or two.

At some point I may get tired of getting needle biopsies done there. Maybe he'd cut the whole mass out? Or maybe just take the breast?

After that I saw my family doctor to get a prescription renewed and to kind of bring him up to speed on what's going on with my teeth and jaw. He says that there is a very small chance that the less-dense areas in the jaw are new bone mets. He's going to talk to my oncologist and see what she thinks. We'll see - a bone scan isn't so bad. A CT scan or MRI might be better to see what the areas look like, but what do I know?

Funny, when going through this kind of diagnostic process, the main focus is the issue itself and the tests while the world around passes by almost unnoticed. I'm trying to stay relaxed so that I don't get anxious (and I'm hoping that nothing *really bad* happens for a while, either in my personal life or the world). At the same time, there's this sense of unreality, as though I'm watching all of this happen to someone who just happens to be me. I think it's partly because I don't know what all the outcomes could be or even which outcome is most preferable, so I'm not all that emotionally vested in any one particular outcome. I'm thinking that this is not such a bad thing, at least for now.

The fun never ends

My dentist called me today to let me know that she is sending one xray to a root canal specialist and sending the rest of the xrays to the oral surgeon. This is because the right side of my face has been aching and we don't know why - it could be that one of my teeth needs a root canal, or it could be referred pain from the less-dense area on that side of my lower jaw, or something else. So my dentist has decided to explore the idea that I might need a root canal at the same time as sending me to the oral surgeon. I'm good with that.

My dentist also asked me if I had any numbness at the sites where the xray showed loss of density and yes, the one on my chin in numb. The one on my right lower jaw isn't numb but of course I have the aching on that side all the way up to my eyes.

My dentist did assure me that yesterday's panoramic xray was within the bounds of normal, which is great. But it's different than the xray taken last year and that's the concern. She agrees that if there's anything going on, at least we'll be catching it early.

Because I didn't have my Pamidronate today (they've been canceled until we figure out what's going on, the home care nurse came to flush my port. It has to be done every four to six weeks so that the port doesn't clog up. My  port is over to the side because I didn't want it to show and apparently my homecare nurse has never seen a port put where mine is located.

Nurses usually have trouble getting the needle into my port and the homecare nurse was no exception. After two tried, she had to call for help. During the conversation, she told that person that the port was over my right breast and that I was very well-endowed so it was hard to stabilize the port. I don't usually think of myself as well-endowed but it's nice that someone thinks so, even if it was just the nurse.

Anyways, the other nurse came and between the two of them, they were able to access and flush my port. The only problem was that they didn't get any blood return; just as the port can be used to inject fluids into my bloodstream, it can also be used to draw blood. And because of that, I'm going to need to get the port checked. The homecare nurses will call the nurse at the hospital tomorrow and figure out what to do.

You know, things were starting to get better

I feel like I'm the mole in Whack-A-Mole. Every time my head pops up and things are going ok, I get whacked down again and things start to go badly. This summer has been particularly bad and it seems that things are not over.

I was able to see my dentist today.

Almost all of my teeth are mobile (or wiggly). I was shocked to find this out as I thought there were only three wiggly teeth. My dentist said that this could be caused by teeth grinding, but I've been grinding my teeth for my entire adult life and they've never been mobile before. And there's nothing in my chart that indicates that my teeth had been mobile before - this is definitely something that would have been noted. So the mobile teeth are new.

My chart also didn't show any crossed or turned teeth and my hygienist didn't see any evidence that my teeth were different the last time I saw her. My dentist looked and there's nothing that would clearly cause the pain and aching on the right side of my face.

So we did the panoramic xray again - it's the standard of care for someone on the kind of bisphosphonates I'm taking - as well as focal xrays of all my teeth and their roots. She then compared the xrays she took today with my older ones and showed me what she saw.

There are differences between the xrays. There are two areas that are dark that used to be light: one located just below my bottom center front teeth that have shifted and a larger one located below the lower molar that has tilted inward. Is it coincidence that the darker areas are under the teeth that have shifted? I don't know. Could it be?

My dentist is referring me to an oral surgeon which is what my oncologist said would most likely happen. I hope to get in to see that person soon - my dentist said that she would send the referral with the xrays today and that she would tell the surgeon that it was urgent.

I'm a little scared. These problems I'm having could be just trauma from the fall but it's also possible that the fall has started in the beginning of osteonecrosis of the jaw. I also found a link (figure 2) that showed how pain from something like this refers up the face to the places that, coincidentally enough, *my* face hurts. F*ck.

I can't figure out whether I'm in shock or whether I'm just learning to accept all the uncertainty that goes along with diagnostic processes. I did pamper myself after the appointment by taking it easy but I also ended up walking around in a daze for a while. And of course I swore a lot.

So this evening - to pamper myself? to try and make me feel better? - Ian and I signed up for a new gym in the building where Ian works. Since my gym has been bought out, I haven't been as happy with some things (the classes have changed, for example, as has the clientele). This gym has state-of-the-art equipment and the price for both of us, thanks to my corporate rate, is quite good. I'm hoping to work out there tomorrow sometime.

More movies! (and a book)

With the remnants of Hurricane (now tropical depression) Ike on their way, bringing rain and wind, we spent a lot of the day inside. We got to watch more movies!

First up was Doom, which is based on the video game. It's not bad, although there are some silly fighting scenes in there. Still, it's an interesting story and there are zombie-like things in it. Who doesn't love zombies? :) We'd recorded this movie from tv and that's how I recommend you see it: for free. Unless you like action moves based on video games that star The Rock, of course, and then this movie is definitely for you.

Second was The Machine Girl, a Japanese movie about vengeance and loyalty. Our heroine loses her brother and his friend to a gang of scoundrels headed by the son of a Yakuza Ninja. She ends up with only one arm and teams up with her brother's friend's parents to give her a machine-gum arm. The two women end up seeking vengeance against the Yakuza. The movie is sort of silly and over the top in that Japanese movie sort of way. There's lots of fighting with many unusual instruments. There's lots of gore but it's made less real by the fountains (really. fountains - like something you'd see in a pool) of blood.

We actually bought The Machine Girl and I do think it was a worthwhile investment. If you get a chance, you should see it.We give it two big thumbs up.

Since I was speaking of zombies earlier, I thought I would recommend a book to you: World War Z by Max Brooks. It's written as an oral history of the war against zombies, ten years after the war was assumed to be over. Various accounts describe how things got started, how they escalated, where people finally took a stand, and what happened afterwards. The only suspension of disbelief really required to get into the book is the existence of a zombie; the bulk of the book is about the people who lived through the events.

One of the things I really liked about this book was that I thought it perfectly described government's and people's reactions to the threat (not often called zombies, more like zack or zed-heads). I felt like I was reading something that could have actually happened. The book isn't especially gory but it can be sort of scary. Not just because of the zombies - but think of what people can do to each other, especially when they're scared.

Early on, the book has hints about exactly what has transpired in various places, and later those hints are filled out in more detail. Sometimes that detail is a single line; when I ran across one of those I had to go back and re-read the earlier bit because I couldn't believe the earlier hint until it was confirmed. Some events are never explained in detail, probably because the events in which many people were killed had no survivors. By the end of the book, the reader is able to put together quite a bit of what happened.

I very much enjoyed reading this book and I can honestly say that I haven't loved a book this much since I read Blindness by Jose Saramago. I think I like World War Z for many of the reasons that I like Blindness - each assumes that a previously-unthinkable situation has occurred and then shows how people survive. It isn't always pretty, but it is real, and because of that, I'd highly recommend either of these books to you.

Movies and more movies

At our last game night we borrowed a movie from the host and last night we finally got a chance to watch it. The movie is Black Sheep and it's a New Zealand horror movie with were-sheep. There are funny bits and gory bits and ludicrous bits (sheep that eat meat is ludicrous all by itself!) and overall, I'd say it's a pretty good movie. It's got something for almost everyone: for those that like childish humour, there's lots of flatulence that's integral to the story. If you like this kind of film and you get a chance to see it, then you should sit down to watch it.

We also watched Suspiria, a classic 1977 horror movie by Dario Argento. The film itself would have been quite scary and gory back in the day, especially if you saw it on a movie screen, but with today's special effects advances it looks a little dated. The acting could probably have been better, and the fact that the movie was apparently shot in english and then re-dubbed doesn't help. In spite of all that, it's still a fairly compelling movie. The soundtrack creates a lot of suspense, but then so does the lighting and colours. All things considered, this is a very good horror movie and if you like them then you should definitely take the time to watch this one.

Suspiria is apparently going to be re-made in the next few years. If it actually is made and released, it could be very good. Or, like many other remakes, it could be awful. I'm hoping for the former.

Fall fashion trends, 2008

As usual, I've spent some time looking through fashion magazines to find out what's in style these days for women. It is one of my favourite activities :)

Overall:

• Much more somber in tone for daytime, probably related to the coming recession
• Definitely 40s-inspired but with some 60s touches as well, probably due to Mad Men
• Colours are muted; interest comes from layering plus architectural details and textures
• Lots of menswear-inspired shapes and fabrics for women
• Architectural shapes, origami, ruching, pleating
• Lace and frills soften the menswear-type fabrics and clothes
• Brighter colours including aubergine and other purples, teal blues, and burgundies, and reds for accessories
• Mid-40s silhouette with larger shoulders, nipped-in waist, slim hips plus a hint of the 80s (which borrowed from the 40s anyways)
• Dresses haven't left us; they're still everywhere. Skirts and blouses are popular, too
• Focus is at the waist and the waist is covered by clothes

Clothing:

• Pants, both wide legs and skinny legs
• Skirts, especially pencil skirts but also pleated and gathered fuller, longer skirts
  
• High-waisted and at-the-waist skirts and pants
• Smooth waists; fabric skims the waist to show it off
• Vests and weskits
  
• Blouses with soft fabrics with ruffles, lace, frills, and other architectural shapes
• Dresses in many silhouettes, but mainly that skim the body
• Sweater dresses
• Cardigans
• Blazers
• Structured coats
• Leggings, knee-highs, and patterned tights
• Sparkle for evening ONLY - sparkle and rhinestones are out for daytime

Fabrics and patterns:

• Laces
• Corduroy
• Knits
• All menswear fabrics/patterns: flannel, glen plaid, houndstooth, windowpane, herringbone, argyle, tattersall. Some playing with scale to get BIG patterns
• Plaid, plaid, plaid, plaid, plaid!!!! Everywhere - every kind of plaid or tartan is out there. Yay!!
  
• Checks of all sizes
• Animal prints
• Florals
• Silky, drapable blouse fabrics add femininity to clothing

Colours:

• Black, grey, white, silver
• Metallics for evening
• Browns, tans, earth tones
• Muted colours
• Deep, luscious plums, purples, burgundies, teals

Shoes:

• "Booties" or "shoeties" are still around: stiletto heels with brogue, wingtip, or oxford shoes. Some of these have peep-toes and they're supposed to be worn with tights. Peep-toes in winter? Silly fashion.
• Lots of high stiletto heels
• Pointed toes in the almond shape
• Patent leather
• Mary-janes
• Some flats and ballerina slippers
• Flat boots still around but not as prevalent
• Not as many platforms except in model shoots

Accessories:

• Structured carry-all top-handle bags
• Chunky gems (fake is ok) for necklaces and cuffs
• Cuffs seem to be replacing bracelets - things on the wrist are kind of big
• Non-gem pieces like earrings are smaller

Hair and makeup:

• Simple shapes for hair
• Foundation and lipstick are more natural colours
• Some lipsticks are bright reds or berry stains
• Eyebrows are not thin or overplucked
• Smokey eyes are done in colours other than black/grey so they look less harsh

I think that's it :) Happy shopping, everyone!

More sleep, less awake

Remember when I said that I was getting up early every day and not napping? I should stop saying that. As soon as I do, it's like I jinx myself and I end up sleeping for days. Which is what's happened over the last few days (and is why there was no blog entry yesterday). I've been very tired lately and I've been napping. Yesterday I got up and had lunch with some friends; when I got home, I crashed, sleeping until 8pm. I went to bed at midnight and then got up at noon today and could have slept into the afternoon.

I went to the visitation for my friend tonight - I drove another friend who isn't very mobile who had also known this friend. I talked to my late friend's husband and apparently she had done a *lot* of traveling all over the place just before she died. She felt worse and worse while traveling and had pains in her liver and was swollen on her abdomen and down her leg. And then she went into the hospital and died. I guess that's how someone could die so suddenly - in this case, maybe it wasn't quite so sudden. At least she was able to do everything that she wanted to do.

On another subject: my teeth hurt. Blah. I wish they'd stop aching, or that there was an effective painkiller for the pain. I'll try Tylenol tonight and see if it works.

Tomorrow: my fall fashion forecast.

That's enough, really.

I went to a new meditation class today - it was great. I've missed seeing the facilitator and I've missed doing meditations. I find that meditating regularly helps keep me emotionally even and that's definitely something I need.

At the end of the session, I found out that one of the people who had been in my Spirituality and Healing group died yesterday. She was 42 and leaves lots of kids - I know she'd planned to take the younger ones each on a trip and I think she managed to do that before she died. I last saw her in June when we met at the CT scan waiting room and I stayed with her after my scans because she was alone and scared. I knew that things weren't perfect but I'd had no idea that she was on her way out. We weren't great friends but I'm sad that she's gone. There are visitations this week and the funeral is Saturday; I'll definitely try to make it to one of those.

I think that this is the year where I get to really learn how to handle death. I wish the lessons were easier. And over, at least for a while.

The bright spot in the day was receiving my Japanese fabric. It's gorgeous. It's on a natural, not white, background. I can't wait to use it.

Is the cure worse than the disease?

My oncologist called today. The CT scan showed that I have a brain. :) The radiologist said that my scan was normal although my oncologist thinks that there is some damage on the right side. If there is any, it's within normal parameters. It could be that my brain is healing (does the brain heal?) or that it's old damage from my bike accident 17 years ago. My mammogram was also normal, which is a relief.

I told my oncologist about my teeth and she was quite concerned. She's cancelled all my Pamidronates until we figure out what's going on because there is a possibility that my teeth are loose due to osteonecrosis of the jaw, a known side effect of the Pamidronate. She said that I might need to see an oral surgeon and that I might need a biopsy to confirm what's going on. It could be that the loose teeth was caused by my fall - that I ground my teeth really hard or else the fall itself caused problems. On Monday, when my dentist comes back, I'll try to get in to see her right away. My oncologist has asked me to keep her posted about what's going on.

Honestly, talking to my oncologist freaked me out a bit. I was already kind of worried about my teeth but hearing my oncologist's concern worried me even more. I very much hope that the problem is trauma-related, although I'm not sure if my teeth can be fixed due to the Pamidronate. It would suck so much for my cancer treatment to leave with me with something that isn't worse than cancer but is still pretty awful.

I saw another doctor today and at the risk of giving you TMI, he diagnosed me with vaginismus. At least the problems I'd been having aren't due to a physical problem and I don't need surgery. I'd rather not have had this problem in the first place, to be honest, but it can be fixed. Part of the solution might involve psychotherapy of some sort as I suspect that this problem is partly in response to the mets diagnosis and the changes in my life because of that. Not to mention the lack of estrogen, which may have played a role in this in the beginning.

Emotionally, I'd say that today was a pretty rough day. It's hard to hear that this problem is an involuntary response that I've developed over time. I know that this situation isn't my fault but at first that's what I thought - that I had somehow done this, or that I had somehow made this happen. I'm feeling better now after a good talk with Ian. I can also say with some authority that if I didn't have mets, I wouldn't have had this problem. So again my cancer treatment has had side effects that affect my whole life.

I never wanted to have breast cancer or mets and I never really wanted to have the cancer affect my life. The fact is that the cancer and its treatment have or are affecting every aspect of my life and I don't like that. Part of me just wants to hide from the cancer and to compartmentalize it over there. Learning to not do that and to take all of these (and other) side effects of treatment in stride is a goal I have. It's hard not to resent the cancer and the treatments for having changed me and my life completely. I wish that the treatment were like it is in science fiction: nanobots kill off the cancer with no lasting side effects. Wouldn't that be nice?

On to something new

I finished the dress today :) I haven't got pictures of it yet but I hope to have some soon. Now I need another project. I'd wanted to do a dress but it's getting cold and a summer-type dress isn't all that practical just now. Plus I wouldn't be able to use my new fall fabrics :) I was trying to decide what to make, and I'm torn. I think I'll start with pants. I don't have any vintage pants patterns, and I haven't bought any pants patterns, but I have some  in my Burda magazines. I was looking through them today and there are a couple that would work. I want one that doesn't quite go up to my waist and has slimming features - or at least no features that make me look bigger.

Remember the purse I made? The hand-beaded one? I'm going to put it up for sale again. However, before I do, I'm going to replace the lining, zipper, and handle. I've never been happy with the zipper and if I'm taking them apart I may as well take the handle apart as well. So for all of you that didn't love the handle, well, it's going to change.:) I'll have pictures up for you when it's done.

Not your average movies

Last night we watched Triloquist, a movie about a woman, her mute brother, and a ventriloquist's dummy who can talk on his own. They go on a crazy killing spree as they make their way to Las Vegas. The characters - the woman especially - sort of reminded me of the characters in The Devil's Rejects; they're crazy and they do things that make no sense to anyone but them. We enjoyed this movie as it had an unusual premise and it is funny in places. If you like movies of this type, you'll probably like this one.

Today we watched Yo Yo Girl Cop, a Japanese movie about a girl who becomes a yo-yo bearing cop that infiltrates a local school to find out what's going on. We'd expected something sort of light and funny and instead got a darker movie. Still, the movie was pretty good. It seemed to be part of a larger franchise because some things that were said seemed like the audience was supposed to have recognized them. We were right: it's a long-running TV, movie, and manga series. If we had all of them here I'd watch them, so you can take that to mean that we liked it :)

When we weren't watching movies, I managed to get the hand-sewing finished on my dress. Now I just have to sew the hem. I can't believe I'm almost done! It's getting to the point that I'm sick of looking at the dress. I won't have a chance to wear it anytime soon as it's going to be quite cool for the next few days.

We also went for a big long walk today, to the market, then the mall, then the Chapters, and finally home. Of course I ended up with a bit of a sunburn - oops. The walk was great, though. The day was perfect: not too hot and not too cold, with a bit of a breeze.

Errands on a rainy Friday

The building where the breast screening program is located is gorgeous. It's got a great lawn and little gazebo things and stairs and flowers and it smells nice - it had just rained and it smelled like flowers and trees and not pollution. Apparently the building houses people in long-term care, and has a psychiatric long-term care facility, among others. If I had to be put away for psychatric reasons, that would be a good place to be - it's peaceful there.

The mammogram was uneventful. Because we're looking at a particular area, the technician took an extra film of that breast. She also took an extra film of the other breast because she couldn't get a good view with the normal films due to the port on that side. The films are all digital so it didn't take long for her to check them. My oncologist should have results in a week.

Remember I was talking about one of my teeth having shifted? I've been obsessively looking at my teeth and two others seem to be shifting as well. One is the lower incisor (I think) and the other is a back molar. So that's three teeth that have moved. I can also wiggle all three teeth ever so slightly, or at least more than any of the teeth that haven't changed. There is pain when I bite down on the two front teeth and my jaw aches when I bite down on the back tooth. I've had these symptoms for a few weeks and it's only recently that I've been putting them together.

My dentist is out of the office for another week and I'm not sure whether I should be trying to get in to see another dentist before mine gets back. On the one hand, I'm a bit worried because loose teeth (especially when there's any kind of pain) are bad, but on the other, I'd rather see my own dentist. I'd be willing to see Ian's dentist because he knows of the problems with bisphosphonates - but is this enough of an emergency to go to Mississauga? I don't know.

A fun-filled CT scan day

Today's CT scan was uneventful. A CT scan with the contrast injection is so easy - they set up an injection line, you go through the donut, and they give you the contrast via the injection line, and you go through the donut again. The whole thing takes about 15 or 20 minutes (including waiting time). My nurse was weird - she kept calling me things like "honey" and "dear" and "my love". She called other patients these things too but it was still on the weird side.

I asked the nurse where the Freeport Health Center is and she asked me, "when you leave here to go home, which way do you go?" I told her that I went north along Weber and she told me to go south on Weber; when I got to Fairway road, keep going and it's on the left before the bridge. I said, "so it's by Fairview Mall, right?" and she said, "the parking lot is on the left." And then I said, "so it's by Fairview Mall?" and she said, "the entrance is on the left from the parking lot and it's only about 20 steps in." I think it's by Fairview Mall.

The reason that I asked is that tomorrow I get to have a mammogram there and I wasn't sure where the center was. I haven't had one of these in a while but there's a weird thing going on where I had the last biopsy done. There's some kind of thickening there again; we think it's scar tissue from the core needle biopsy. Since it's most likely scar tissue, it's probably not worth doing another biopsy so we'll do the mammogram. Besides, the cancer is more likely to grow in the breast right now since my sternal mets are stable and so doing mammograms is a good idea.

Games night fun

We got to play games with our friends tonight to celebrate one of them being back in town. It was a lot of fun - we played Alhambra with one of the extensions (Wechselstube) and For Sale. I hadn't played For Sale before and I enjoyed it very much. It's fast-moving and easy to understand so everyone could play right away without too much of a learning curve.

I also got to do some sewing today - I've attached the collar and have pinned the neck facing in place. Once I sew that, all I have to do is sew the buttonholes and hem it and it's done. whoo hoo!

Tomorrow I'm the lucky recipient of a CT scan for my head. Remember I fell back in July and gave myself a concussion that took me about two weeks to recover from? My oncologist suggested that it would be good to be sure that I didn't actually do any damage to my head so we're doing a scan tomorrow. I'm actually glad that we're doing this because I've been a little worried about the length of time it took me to recover from the concussion. I'm probably just being a bit of a hypochondriac but I'd rather be sure that there's nothing bad going on in my head.

No dentist for now

I called my dentist but they're on vacation until September 15th. :( Not that I *want* to see the dentist, really; my sinuses have been aching a bit, making my teeth ache, and I don't really want my dentist poking around in my mouth just now. I'll keep an eye on my front teeth for now. Hopefully they won't shift any more.

I'm getting much better at this whole "getting up in the morning and staying awake all day" thing. I almost never have naps and I've been getting up around 9:30 or 10am and getting to sleep around 11:30pm or midnight. This is great news, as far as I'm concerned, because it means that I can actually do stuff during the day, if I want.

And my pain is totally under control; I don't seem to have breakthrough pain now. The worst that happens is that I can start to go through withdrawl when the pain patches need to be changed. It starts with a woogly back and gets so that most of my skin and muscles end up twitching. Then I get clammy and start to feel anxious and nauseous. Yep. That's opiate withdrawl for you. It sucks, I'll tell you, but it doesn't happen all that often so it's a smallish price to pay to be pain-free.

I am still working on that dress - I've got the collar figured out and cut and I'll hopefully be able to get more done tomorrow. The end is in sight - I can hardly wait!

Happy Labour Day

My two bottom center front teeth have moved. The right one has shifted slightly forward at the center and down (so it appears lower) and the left one has shifted slightly back at the center. I don't remember when it happened but I first noticed it last night. I had braces when I was in my teens and I think I remember that they told me that the front bottom teeth *might* move someday because they are pretty tightly packed there. I just didn't expect it to have happened in the last while. I'll call my dentist in the morning.

We watched the most awful movie this evening: Darkest Hour. We'd looked at it in the video store a couple of times and finally rented it tonight. It's about a group of people who put on a murder mystery weekend for people based on a serial killer in the area during the late '80s. During the game, someone starts really killing the players... in the same way the serial killer used to kill people! The plot isn't awful, but the acting, lines, lighting and camera-work, and sound are terrible. There's a part of the movie where we get to hear the sound mikes bumping against people's clothes. This was loudest when one guy took his shirt off: bump bump bump bumpity bump bump bump thump. Thump. Thump thump bump. Bumpbump.

Don't waste your time with this turkey - it's not even bad enough to be funny.... it's just sad.

The best part of the movie is not the movie at all - it's this article from the filmmaker. I liked this quote the best: "When you take [Government funding] they want to control your film's content. As far as I am concerned... that is unacceptable. The result is a pile of film's [sic] made with tax payer [sic] dollars that are less than spectacular." I guess that makes his movie less than less than spectacular :) Aside from the rampant inappropriate use of apostrophes, it's hilarious that he thinks that this film is good - I can't imagine what the film would have been like had he taken taxpayer money :)

Oh - Project Runway 5 is finally starting here in Canada!!!! Now that it's September, tv shows are coming back. Yay :)

More staying home with more sewing

I ended up doing more sewing today. I could have gone to our friend's cottage with Ian this afternoon but I wasn't really up for going anywhere. I feel pretty good, overall, but I'm still a bit tired. I am feeling stronger each day, at least.

After all my talk about leaving the side darts alone on my dress, I did wind up moving the the dart point 1/4" down. It looks so much better than it did before! I probably could have moved it down a little bit more but it's fine the way it is. I mostly worked on the collar pieces. It fits the neck quite well but it's not quite big enough at the bottom. I need to open up the collar at those pivot points to make sure that it fits better. At least I didn't try to sew the collar on with the actual collar fabric :)

I don't know what we're going to do tomorrow. It's not a special day for me, really, because I'm home all the time - but Ian is home because tomorrow is a holiday for him (and almost everyone out there!) I think it's supposed to be nice tomorrow, at least.

A full sewing day

I actually got up at a decent hour and managed to get some sewing done. I've drafted the armhole facings and attached them; they look good! I'm finally pleased with the armholes; they're the area that I've had the most trouble with on this pattern. I also managed to draft the neck facings and re-draft the collar but I haven't attached them yet.

Of course I'll baste a trial collar on first because I don't have much of that contrast fabric. The collar is basically traced off of the neckline but it's not a direct trace; there are two pivot points on each of the front and back neck (and at the shoulder) where the collar is turned. This means that the collar neckline is shaped a bit differently even though the neck measurements are the same as the dress. This is probably so that the collar will drape properly over the shoulder. Anyways, I made sure that my collar also had those pivot points in approximately the same locations.

The only thing I might have changed on this dress is that the side bust dart is a little high. I would like the point to be about 1/4 or 3/8" lower, although I'm not sure that many other people will notice this. I'm not going to go back and change this now.

The pattern calls for taffeta interfacing and I actually managed to pick some up in a gorgeous blush colour; it is 60" wide and it was 75% off. Yeah, it's polyester, but that's ok. The dress is cotton, after all; it's not like I'm making a couture gown out of rare materials, after all. I usually use fusible interfacing for my projects but it almost always bubbles up after a few washes, even though I pretreat it. So this time, I thought I would go with a sew-in interfacing. I couldn't really find anything else cheap that had the same weight and drape as the taffeta, so I went with the taffeta. If I had silk organza I'd use that but I don't have any (yet).

I'm kind of hoping to finish the dress this weekend. I've pre-washed all my fall fabrics and I'm itching to make stuff with them :)

Dare I say that I'm better?

I think I'm finally feeling better because I'm hardly coughing at all. I did manage to get some sewing done today - yay! The dress I've been working on for forever is really almost done. Really! :) I've actually sewn - and serged - the major seams! Now I just need to trace new facings and a new collar piece and put the buttons and buttonholes on and it'll be done. I'm very much looking forward to finishing this project so that I can start the next one.

I've bought a lovely selection of menwear-type plaids and fabric and I really want to make some more fall-type dresses in preparation for the cooler weather. Of course it's been a cool summer and so the dress I've been working on (which is sleeveless) might not even be worn for a while. Anyways, I looked over my patterns and fabrics and am trying to figure out what to make. Doesn't this sound like a fun way to spend a long weekend?

We just finished watching Damages in a marathon viewing of fourteen episodes over three days. We loved the show in part because there was a lot of puzzle-solving and whatnot; the story was multi-faceted and unfolded in pieces. The only trouble was that our recordings missed the last couple of minutes on every episode so some things weren't totally clear. And now we're arguing over who tried to kill Ellen - I remember one thing and Ian remembers another but we don't have the recordings anymore. We might just have to buy the DVD. And you should, too, because it is a great, suspenseful show. Apparently they've committed to two more seasons and I'm very much looking forward to watching it going forward.

Sleep, sleep, sleep all day

Yes, really. All I did today was sleep; I woke up when Ian called to let me know that he was coming home from work. :) I'm still quite tired and will sleep well tonight. I'm glad that I got all that sleep because I think I might be feeling a bit better, maybe. We'll see.

I tell you, I'm looking forward to being awake for more normal hours.

Not quite better yet

I slept most of the day and thought I was feeling better so I went to the store. It's only a five minute walk away and I needed milk but really I thought I should get out of the house. By the time I got back I was panting and breathing heavily as though I'd just run a marathon. And then I started coughing and coughing and coughing.

So I'm not all better - but the coughing wasn't as bad as it has been, and I'm hoping that the cough will go away completely sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, I'll keep watching endless movies on TCM and reading magazines. It's Tony Curtis day today on TCM - Some Like it Hot was just on, and Marilyn Monroe was definitely sexy in it... but she might have been less sexy if she had been wearing different clothes. The clothes she wore in the movies, especially while performing in front of the band, would be scandalous today.

Still sick

I'm still feeling like crap but at least I'm getting lots of sleep :) Mostly I've been sitting around doing nothing much of anything. You know, like watching nameless movies on tv and surfing the internet.

I have got the September fashion magazines and am going through them to figure out the fall trends. I'm hoping to have something for you all in the next few days.

Visit with my oncologist

I saw my oncologist today. My tumour markers are hanging out at 38 - just above normal :) None of my bloodwork was abnormal or remarkable. That's all good news!

So I talked to my oncologist about my fall and subsequent concussion and she feels that I should have a CT scan done of my head. That's scheduled for September 4. She also feels that I should be having regular mammograms again so I have one scheduled for September 5.

My oncologist did a physical exam on me today and as part of the exam, she listened to me breathe. You all know that I've been sick lately and you might know that I'm not completely better. After listening to the lower right lobe and then listened to me cough (oh yes, I'm still coughing, and I'm still coughing stuff up), she told me that I almost certainly have walking pneumonia. Apparently the difference between pneumonia and walking pneumonia is that with the latter, the person can walk around and doesn't need to be hospitalized. I guess that's the "walking" part. :)

She's put me back on azithromycin and had me get a chest xray done to confirm that I do have walking pneumonia. The area she identified as being a problem is one that I've noticed because it has been feeling funny.

I tell you, I'm pretty sick and tired of being sick and, well, tired. I would love to not be tired and to not feel like crap... and wouldn't it be awesome if I could have my summer back? At this point, I'll settle for being able to enjoy my autumn.

The Olympics are over

The Olympic closing ceremonies were quite spectacular. There were tons of fireworks - I wish we could have some of those awesome shapes! - and lots of movement and colour. It was very splashy and slightly more casual than the opening ceremonies. It was almost over the top, in a way. There was a hand-off to Great Britain, who are holding the 2012 summer games, and that stuff was... even more over the top. The double decker bus in the film turned into a *real* double decker bus! And it transformed into a sound stage! With dancers! It was something else, all right.

With the Olympics over, I'm not completely sure what we'll do with all of our free time. I did manage to get to the gym this afternoon. I haven't done that in a while because I've been sick for so long. The gym I go to has been bought by one of the big gym in the region so there are likely to be changes. At the very least, the company I work for used to have an employee price with this big gym and if they still do, then I could get that discount and stuff. I'll need to investigate.

Tomorrow afternoon I see my oncologist. I'm interested in knowing what my white blood counts were - when I had them done two weeks ago I was still sick. I'll also get my tumour marker results but I expect they'll be fine.

Fabric shopping

The Fabricland store in nearby Cambridge is closing and all of their fabrics are 60% or 75% off the regular price. I went there today and brought back quite a fabric haul :) I bought three different plaid/menswear-type fabrics and some other great fabrics. Between everything I have, I should have enough for fall/winter clothes. Mostly, anyways :)

I still want this beautiful red poly/rayon/spandex crepe fabric - it looks fantastic and the colour is awesome, but it's $19/m and even at 20% off (which it is this weekend) I can't quite justify buying it. Interestingly, there's also a wool crepe at twice the price, but I don't like the feel, drape, or colour of the wool compared to the other.

I'm also very interested in some fabrics by Robert Kaufman. I love love love the babycord fabrics in the Cool Cords line. There's an apple print that I can find in turquoise and pink; I think I might like the turquoise one a little bit better. There are a number of new patterns in this line due in September and I might see if I can get some then. If I could afford Liberty babycord I'd get that instead :)

I also love the Robert Kaufman GreenStyle Panda prints made of 60% cotton/40% bamboo. I love the white print on black but the green or yellow on white are also beautiful! I'm thinking that I'd love to get some of that and make it up into something. They're hard to resist, aren't they?

It's busker time again!

We popped into the Waterloo Busker Festival today. We had thought about staying longer but it was very crowded and neither of us felt like fighting with the crowds. For some reason, they've reduced the number of stages from six to five and so there isn't an empty stage between performing acts. As well, the parking lot where they used to have the main stage is under construction and inaccessible so they've just put the main stage facing the construction area. These two things mean that certain areas get very, very crowded and very nearly impassable. It would have been better if they'd moved the main stage down the street just a little bit so that the crowd could push back into the cross-street.

We saw Les Walkyries tonight. We'd seen them a few years ago and wanted to know how their act had changed. They take a much more comic approach now and talk quite a bit more; before, they hardly talked at all, filling time with acrobatics. They did some interesting fire things but they didn't do all of the same tricks as they did before. In particular, before they had done something where they each were spinning two poi on each hand but they didn't do that this time.The group was in better sync with their movements this year. The show was entertaining so if you're walking by and performing you could stop and watch them.

On a completely different topic, I'm also thinking about trying to change my photographs on angelstuff again. There's something about the photos that I don't like and I've started playing with aiming the lights differently and using different paper and whatnot. We'll see if it works. I'm also thinking that I'd like to re-section my items out of the colours and into sections like, "Sparkle it up", "Just for fun", "Everyday elegance", and "Inspired by nature". I'm not sure if those will be my final sections but they're what I've got in mind for now.

I'm also sort of thinking about doing some kind of banner and avatar for branding purposes. For that I'm sort of thinking of trying to use the idea of "stuff made by/from/(for?) angels" as a starting point. It's still very early in this process for me but it's something that I'm thinking I want to do.

Are all sports equal?

I read an article that suggests that rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming be dropped from the Olympics because they are sports in which only women compete. Moreover, the article says that they're sports that were added before women were allowed to compete in such "manly" sports as wrestling and weightlifting.

I think that the author has a point here - I don't see why there should be any gender-specific competitions in the Olympics. So yes, either open up these sports to men or else drop them. But what should they do about gymnastics? Men and women only both compete in the vault and the floor, and even then, women perform their floor routines to music and are judged according to artistic ability. The men don't perform their floor routines to music, so why should the women?

The vault and floor aside, the men and women compete on completely different apparatus; the men on the rings, parallel bars, and high bar, and the women on the balance beam and uneven bars. Clearly the men's competition emphasizes strength - the rings and parallel bars are all about strength - whereas the women's again tend to be more artistic.

Could men and women each compete in each other's gymnastic events? Maybe. We don't really know, though, because they don't do that right now at the lower levels.... and until/unless they do, it's unlikely that there will be changes at the Olympics. Still, it would be nice if they started to look at bringing some equality to the sports competitions in the Olympics, and not just for gymnastics or synchronized swimming or rhythmic gymnastics or any of the other sports in which only one gender completes.

Crazy weather

I don't completely understand why there isn't a closeable roof on the Birds Nest as it's pouring rain there. It looks like it would be difficult to run 100m on a track that is soaking wet even if they do sweep the water off. At least they're not doing any of the field events during the rain today, unlike in beach volleyball, which plays in the rain as long as there is no lightning.

I watched coverage of the men's 200m and of course Usain Bolt won gold, actually looking like he was running at the end instead of jogging. What was interesting is that both the silver and bronze winners were disqualified for stepping on the white line dividing the lanes. The bronze medal winner wasn't even notified right away - and they knew, because the announcers knew - and so he was walking around with his US flag and celebrating. How awkward. Can you imagine being thrilled that you came in fifth overall and then finding out later that you actually win the bronze? What would that be like?

It's amazing to watch Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt compete. Both are the best in their fields and are a joy to watch; there's no wasted effort and both are beautiful in motion. Both have the ideal body types for their sports and both are HUGE - Michael Phelps is 6'4", while Usain Bolt is 6'5" - but they didn't get to where they are just by having the right body type. Both obviously train very hard. I feel privileged to be able to watch athletes of that caliber because there haven't been people who could do what they can do.

Pamidronate day

I got to have my Pamidronate today. Normally what happens is that I get my Pamidronate hooked up and the chemo nurses faxes the home care nurse the time that my port needs to be de-accessed. Wellll, this time, that didn't really happen. I guess the nurse didn't fax the information over until 50 minutes after the port should have been de-accessed. One of the home care nurses had left a message asking me to call her but when I tried, I got an answering machine. But it turned out that I'd called the wrong number (I thought she said "9" and she said "1"), which didn't matter because she'd stopped working by the time I'd called.

So now I have to call the home care nurses the night before I get Pamidronate along with the estimated time that the Pamidronate will be started so that I'm on their schedule and things won't be so hectic. And they want me to call as I'm leaving the hospital so that they know exactly what time they need to de-access my port. Sigh. I don't mind calling one time so that things don't get all rushed and messed up like they did today, but two times? Well, hopefully I won't have to do that forever.

I'm feeling ever so much better - I almost feel like I'm a new person and all better. This comes just in time to get knocked over by Pamidronate, of course :)

I did a little fabric shopping today and managed to get a lovely grey/black herringbone fabric that has a bit of a vertical stripe to it. I also got it on sale so I'm happy with that. This evening, for the first time in a long time, I made some earrings. It's been a while since I've actually sat down and played with my beads. I actually want to make some necklaces and bracelets, too... we'll see how that plays out.

I wish I'd woken up earlier today

I know someone who was going shopping today and I'd wanted to go with them. I wasn't sure what time they wanted to go and I ended up sleeping in until nearly 2pm. It turns out that the appointment was for 4pm and if I'd managed to get up around noon I would have been able to go :( I was just snoozing the alarm, like I do, so it wasn't like I was sleeping deeply or anything... I just wasn't up and out of bed in time. I hope that the shopping was fun anyways.

I am starting to feel just a bit better now, thank goodness. I know that part of the reason I didn't want to get up before noon was because sleep helps me get better. The antibiotics are helping as well I think.

I called the oncologist's office about my Pamidronate tomorrow and they said that I should come in anyways. I guess that since I'm not running a fever, I'm on antibiotics, and I'm not coughing all the time, they figure that I'll be ok. Also, I don't have to be in the chemo suite for that long - first for about 20 minutes to get the blood drawn and then for about 15 minutes to get the Pamidronate hooked up. I'm glad that I called; now I don't have to worry about it.

Been to the doctor

I decided that it was probably worth it to go to a walk-in medical clinic this morning. I've still got a cough, one of my ears hurts, and several of my sinuses hurt. I would have liked to see my family doctor but it's hard to get in to see him right away as he's not seeing as many patients per day as he used to. I totally understand that and support him in that because (selfishly) I'd like him to take care of himself so that he's around for a while.

Anyways, I went at the right time this morning because there were only four people ahead of me when I arrived and when I went in about 30 minutes later the waiting room was full. The doctor gave me a prescription for azithromycin; I took two tablets today and I'll take one every day for the next four days. I'm supposed to feel completely better in ten days and if I'm not feeling better by then, I should see a doctor for some follow-up.

The doctor also said that I should use my Rhinaris nasal spray to help clean out my post-nasal drip and I need to use my Symbicort at least twice a day. I've been waking myself up at night when breathing; I breathe in and then I hear an "oooooooooooo" sound from my lungs. It's creepy and weird because I can *feel* the sound as well as hear it. The doctor said that this was most likely because of my asthma and that the inhaler will help to take care of that and open up my airways.

I'm supposed to receive my Pamidronate over at the chemo suite on Tuesday and I asked the doctor whether I should try and go to that. If I wasn't going to the chemo suite I'd go ahead and go but people in the chemo suite almost certainly have compromised immune systems and I don't want to infect anyone while I'm there. The doctor told me to wait until Tuesday morning and then to call them, tell them what I'm taking and how I feel, and see what they say.

I took the two pills as soon as I got home and then fell asleep. I'm still feeling quite sleepy, which is no real surprise since my body will need all of its strength to fight this off. At least I know that I really am sick with something.