Great Big World Out There

Reclamation

I have, among many other things, a degree in English to my credit.  I am writing tonight not because I particularly wanted to, but because I had to.  If I have to explain that, you'll never understand. 

I lurves me some words. I lurves me playing around with the language to suit reflect my mood (even bastardizing it as I just did). I have a usage dictionary that I love to flip through when I have a spare moment and it is sitting right in front of me.  I love when I can use the exactly perfect word, but sometimes it means I use some crazy ass words.  This morning I told someone, 'there's a veritable plethora of people behind me.'

The blank stare I received in response clued me in that I probably needed to translate from English: nerd with degree level to English: common user level, so I quickly rephrased to 'there's a bunch of people heading this way.'  

Anyway, I knew what reclamation means, but I wanted to see how a dictionary would choose to describe it:

reclamation - definition of reclamation by the Free Online Dictionary ...

www.thefreedictionary.com/reclamationShare

rec·la·ma·tion (r k l -m sh n). n. 1. The act or process of reclaiming. 2. A restoration, as to productivity, usefulness, or morality.

It is starting to feel like I am being restored to productivity and usefulness. Jury is still out on that morality thing.  I might not be able to do quite everything I would like to - the urge to start running again is burning a hole in my soul (and eventually, one hopes, in my soles. Ha. I kill me).  I don't want to start running until I get an ok from my doctor. I ran for miles on the beaches in Brazil, but I was not even close to right in the head while I was there.  It didn't occur to me until much, much later that maybe I shouldn't have done that.  

 I told some friends at lunch today that I feel kind of like a new crocus that is peeking out in a snowstorm.  There are parts of me that feel almost normal, at least part of the time.  I can have thoughts! Make sentences! I can even remember why I went out to the garage (after 4 tries, but still)!  I make up random dance steps to the music that is playing inside my head!

I think the weirdest thing about the past 4 1/2 months is how unaware I was of how monumentally messed up I was.  I think a case could be made that it was even longer that I was not-quite-all-right.  One of the things the pathology report noted about my thyroid was that it had 'background' Hashimoto's syndrome.  That's an autoimmune disorder where basically you attack your own thyroid.  I always tested in the normal range when I went to the doctor saying I was tired all the time.  We blamed that on my abysmal iron stores, etc.  I can't help but wonder how much that was messing me up.  When changes happen incrementally you really don't notice how bad something is until it suddenly disappears or you fall and hit your head and realize, damn. I've had a giant weight around my neck for years!

Anyway, that got me thinking about reclaiming my life.  The new bursts of energy are so awesome I almost can't stand them.  One of these hours days weeks I might actually start to believe that the hourly daily weekly crashes may no longer be inevitable.  It's Friday night and I'm exhausted.  I went to work at stupid o'clock this morning and I fully intended to go for lunch with my friends and drive my sorry self home, but I got distracted by a pile of receipts on my desk so I did up an expense claim (took 2 hours. yikes. So much for my brain working). Turns out I was owed over$2200 in expenses. No wonder my credit card and bank accounts were sad!  Happy to reclaim that money.

I am truly making an effort to stay connected to my friends and family.  I let work and being busy get in the way of that for way too long. I will not do that anymore.  No. Just... no. 

I was unexpectedly invited to a thing this evening that would have likely been quite entertaining, but then I got an even better offer of dinner with some of my favorite people at one of my favorite restaurants.  I think maybe I need to work on my *don't-be-an-asshole* filter because I actually texted them that I had a better offer for dinner.

Brenda=jerk.  Reclaimed/retained that title, thanks.  Do I need to apologize? I'm thinking that if I had to ask that question, I probably need to do a mea culpa or three? (there, done. I'm still a jerk, but at least I am a contrite jerk).

The better offer was actually another reclamation. I'd had standing dinner plans with two of my favorite people for literally months. Then I got sick and well... things slipped away.  So the chance to reclaim that little tradition was a big deal.  I refused to miss out on that, even if I did have a lovely invitation to a BBQ. It was raining. The BBQ was indoors, but still. Hard to feel BBQ-y when it is raining.

OK, full disclosure. The real problem with the BBQ invitation was that I'd have needed to be *on* to wade through a room of people I didn't know. I can do that, quite successfully and happily if I've got the energy to do it (thank you, introverted yet still awesome brain).  Tonight was not that night.

With my cousins, I could bleah all over the place, show to up to the restaurant in the same clothes I wore to weigh chicken bits this morning and they wouldn't care. In fact, they were pleased just because I showed up.  They changed their plans to come eat dinner with me! 

You know, I think the greatest happiness is to be with people and it doesn't matter if you're *on* or not.  I am wired such that I will always need to be *on* with a roomful of new people and frankly, it exhausts me even when I'm feeling great (thank you, introverted yet still awesome brain).  With the right people, it doesn't take any effort to be *on.* Sometimes you know instantly that you don't have to be *on* with somebody.  Sometimes you just need to get to know them. And then there are the people with whom you will always have to be *on.*

In my all-time favorite book there is a line about being able to sit in complete silence with another person and be completely comfortable.  If you can do that for half an hour, you can be friends.  If you can't, you'll never be friends and you needn't waste time trying.

Full disclosure: this is totally true. 

There's also a line in that book about the greatest happiness being able to sneeze whenever you wanted to.

Full disclosure: this is also totally true. 

I think I have typed enough nonsense for tonight.  Unrelated: Go Esks Go!

please, let it be so

In the past few days, something in my brain has changed.  It's still interspersed with exhaustion so profound I can actually hear my cells weeping from fatigue...but....I think my brain might be waking up from the craziness that I will always remember from Summer 2012.

How do I know this?  

1. I had about 6 legitimate bright ideas today. At least 3 of them were research related AND I was excited to go read some papers about them. I actually got a little bit excited about phd research.
2. I spent an hour reading a couple chapters on logistic regression last night.  It's not enough for me to know how to plunk some code into Sas and get an answer. I need to know the how and the why Sas is giving me that answer.  So I'm looking at equations and trying to work out what exactly is going on. 
3. I am working tomorrow night, meaning I don't have to leave home for work until about 4:45pm.  That's a whole day with nothing scheduled.  I came home from work tonight and stood in my kitchen thinking (rather despairingly, I might add), 'What on earth am I going to do tomorrow? That's so much time!'  I was bored in advance!  I've been spending most of my non-working, non-out-of-the-house hours lying in my bed and quietly hating my almost-new-curtains while watching the amazing piles of things that accumulate on my PVR when I'm not paying attention.  Then I gave my head a shake. I could go out for lunch with my friend Melody! I could take my stealth peeing cat to the vet! (There's a story for another time. Frigging cat). I could go replace my dive card! I could go find myself a craft beer advent calendar!
4. It snowed this morning, and instead of being depressed about it and letting it get to me, I decided to fight back and... dress inappropriately for the weather! I think I either need to dress nicely more often because I think I weirded people out.  Nice to get compliments though. And if I do say so myself, I looked good. I think it was the knee high boots that completed the ensemble.
5. I am reading up on Peru. Since I kinda think I might go there in 2013.
6. I got excited about maybe going back to Mexico in January. I just need to book the trip.... unless I need to have some treatment or something done at the cancer hospital then. I haven't actually had my first appointment there so maybe I should hold off on plans? Ehh. Life is for living.
7. I spent a few hours working when I got home from work.  
8. If I go to California in November, I have a friend that will go with me to the coast to do some diving. SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS.
9. I don't feel like my brain is encased in a very stupid slow moving jello ALL THE TIME.  (WOW. IS AMAZING).
10. The idea of going for a run (on my treadmill, not in the snow, thankyouverymuch) didn't stike fear into my cells, but in fact, sounded pretty good to all my cells. Will check with my doctor before doing anything crazy.
11. During a presentation about very science-y stuff this morning, I managed to make a joke related to shakespeare.  So happy to combine my english degree into my current day science life. Shakespeare no less! I think the only thing that would have made me happier was finding a way to bring Chaucer into the mix.  There's gotta be something in the Book of the Ducchess. 
12. I am thinking about Chaucer! And it wasn't because my giant riverside Chaucer fell on my head! There's a sign right there!

So that's my story. I *suddenly* seem to feel much better.  I still get kinda tired every now and again, but my TSH levels are suddenly in an normal range (possibly the only thing about me that could be classified as such). My doctor think they may have over-medicated me so we're trying an alternating dosage scheme.  This means I have to remember if it is a 200 or a 137 day.  I expect this will be interesting and fraught with angst.  Tomrrow, for the record, is a 200 day.

I think the biggest change in me over the past couple of days is that I am EXCITED about things.  Life is full of possibilities. I have a shit ton of work to do at work, but I'm finally excited to get started on it.

I haven't felt like that in.... well. I can't remember when that might have been. Hell, I'm even excited about going to weigh some chickens tomrrow night. 

Now I just hope I don't wake up in the morning feeling like crap.... but even if this is a temporary thing (hyper and hypo thyroid has symptoms in common) I am cheered because - we're getting closer to getting this figured out.  

Whew.

That's exciting, no matter how tired you are.  G'night.

weird: side effect of being AWESOME

The title just makes me laugh.  A friend told me that the other week and I've been laughing about it ever since.

I think it sums me up perfectly.

There are so many things that make me weird.  Some of them are just a side effect of getting older. For example: I love shows like CBC's Fifth Estate. It's on my list of PVR'd shows and I like it so much I actually tried watching it when I got home from a party at 2am a few weeks ago.

I wish I were kidding. I also wish I could say I stayed awake through the whole show but I did not.  I wish I could say the same thing about the party, but alas, I cannot. However. That little 10 minute micro nap on the couch right after I arrived fixed me up for the night.  Is this how people that nap regularly manage their tiredness? If so, it is awesome and I wish I could do it without the whole endocrine imbalance thing I've got going on right now.

So. Other weirdness.  I disliked math most of my life but am now fascinated by statistics.  I also wish I'd paid more attention during calculus during my (happily) misspent youth. (Dang, really?)

I like the opera. I think I could totally get into the ballet. However, I also love football and hockey. I like writing my own music but I never write it down because I hate scoring with the flaming passion of a thousand burning suns.

I like geocaching, wandering through random spots in random cities to find often manky containers simply to write my name in a book or tiny strip of paper.  However, some of those random spots have been totally awesome so... it evens out.

I am a total space nerd. I've read all the extant  biographies of all the apollo astronauts and other people associated with the apollo program.  I went to the Kennedy Space Center AND the Houston Space Center this year.  Now when I watch movies about space and they show the launches, I am quietly pleased because I know exactly where everything is.  I am not so quietly jealous of my younger brother that got a special tour of the Houston space center when he was there on business a few years ago.  Someone at his company was related to someone that worked at the space center and so my brother got a behind the scenes, don't tell anyone you're Canadian tour.

SO JEALOUS. BUT. I've been to the Kennedy space center and he hasn't so I win there. Ha! 

I despise dirt in my house but I can totally live with clutter. I clean around the clutter if dirt appears.  

I thoroughly dislike being the center of attention but I am an excellent public speaker.  

I despise being afraid of things and I go out of my way to conquer my fears.  Hence why I tried hang gliding and learned to scuba dive this year.

I am a seat of the pants, decide things on a whim type person. I don't understand cautious people. I really don't - even when my impulsiveness gets me in trouble.  Which, I must be honest, it rarely does.  Usually it just opens up new opportunities that I never thought about.  

There's that saying about regrets.  You don't regret the things you did, you regret the things you didn't do.  So far, for me, that is true.  The regrets I have about the things I didn't do when I had the chance? Propel me into the crazy and not so crazy things I do today.

Whether it's running off a cliff or finally cleaning the spare bedrooms in my house. 

My year with a pink unicorn

It was about a year ago that I had a text conversation wherein I thanked someone for helping me out with... something. I wish I could remember what he did. I was either just about to travel to or perhaps already in Vancouver for the weekend to go to a football game.  This is a thing I do every year, not necessarily Vancouver but a football city within Canada.  I've been doing this for more than 10 years.  2012 could be a repeat Vancouver year since my options are limited to Montreal and Vancouver or a not-so-likely playoff game.  

I offered to bring something back from Vancouver as a gesture of thanks.  Since my noble friend is rather weird, he requested a pink unicorn. He probably thought I would never deliver. He probably thought it would be too hard for me to find a pink unicorn.

Ha.

Haha.

Hahahahahaha.

He clearly doesn't know me that well.

Challenge accepted.

Not being from Vancouver, I was at a bit of a loss. Where exactly would one go to buy a pink unicorn? I appealed to twitter (and by extension, facebook) for help.  

Having friends scattered over the globe is extremely useful at times like these, for in no time my friend Laura clued me in. She told me about a cool market in north Vancouver (that I have since forgotten the name of, I'd have to go back to facebook to figure it out and I am too tired and ill to bother right now) and we made plans to meet up when I was going to be back in Vancouver for a conference a few weeks later. Win win.  

So I went to the market and wouldn't you know? I found a gorgeous stuffed pink unicorn. The horn was shiny and pink and the body was fluffy and pink. Perfect. I think it cost me $20 with BC's outrageous taxes.

I think the first emailed picture of a pink unicorn, sent from my Vancouver hotel balcony, surprised Earl when it arrived in his email.  

 

I think that the lesson here is simple: don't ask for something if you're not prepared to receive it.  Anyway. Now I had this pink unicorn.  I'd bought it while traveling, and it seemed logical that the unicorn should come with me when I went to Banff the following week for a conference.  

It was on that trip that the pink unicorn got her name. Punicorn, Puni for short.  

Top left photo, the namer of Punicorn, pictured at the delicious donut wall at the Donut Mill, in Red Deer. I considered teaching Puni to drive, but she wasn't really a natural. We stopped at a bale sculpture advertising Big Rock beer, my friend Val posed with Puni and there's a record of an unfortunate incident between Punicorn and a bear in Canmore where we'd stopped for beer and some juice.  I didn't send every picture to Earl. Pretty sure I sent the one with the bear, though.

She came back to Vancouver with me a couple weeks after the visit where I'd acquired her.  

We spent an early morning run/walk together that Sunday morning and visited the olympic torch from 2010, above. That afternoon I flew to Ottawa for a meeting. Naturally Punicorn and (more unusually) my guitar came with me for the ride.  Taking guitar lessons is kinda hard when you travel as much as I do.  I've missed probably as many lessons as I've attended in the past 2 years. Despite my crazy travel schedule I've actually gotten better at guitar, likely because I started taking it with me whenever I was traveling. Thanks, westjet for letting me gate check my guitar.  

 When in Ottawa, one must visit Parliament, and naturally, Punicorn did just that after meeting Earl in person for the first time.  He was surprised by her size and general shiny pinkness.

Strangely, Earl seemed reluctant to take possession of Punicorn.  So she stuck with me.  

Once you start carrying a pink unicorn around to landmarks, it kinda just becomes a thing. Kinda like a flat stanley gag, except with a less-easy-to-mail stuffed pink unicorn.  I'd carry her along whenever I left town and for good measure I'd even equipped her with a geocaching travel bug tag so I could log our travels from city to city.

It should surprise no one that lugging a stuffed pink unicorn to busy landmarks can be a great conversation starter and the cause of some rather odd looks. I've met some interesting people while carrying Punicorn.  Luckily, I stopped caring what people thought of me a while back.

Punicorn met my family, and my favorite niece named Sarah became swiftly enamored of her.

The picture above should make it clear what Sarah's favorite color might be. 

 If you've followed me at all, you know that the past 12 months have been busy for me, travel-wise. But since I've started this bizarre travel diary, I'll keep it up.  The trip to Ottawa was followed by the annual drive to Californa with my parents in November.  I sent pictures to Earl whenever Punicorn and I got somewhere interesting. Like places with palm trees.

If memory serves, the first picture of Punicorn near a palm tree got  me an 'I hate you' email response from Earl. Heh. I'm a bit of a jerk, especially when on vacation in hot places during an Alberta winter. 

That trip to California was a good one. Puni joined my family and friends for an American thanksgiving dinner after perusing the Black Friday ads.  Nothing like a thanksgiving dinner served outside in the hot desert air. If  I don't get to do that this year I will be very sad. 

If memory serves, Earl was impressed by the sheer volume of ads in that newspaper above and requested a Christmas present from my Black Friday shopping.

Seriously? You request a pink unicorn, renege on your request and now you want another present? When I need all the room in my suitcases for things for ME?

I don't think so. 

Punicorn went truly international by visiting Mexico and watched in awe as my mother and I demolished a giant (and wickedly strong) pitcher of margaritas while my dad sadly drank a coke.  We all inhaled that awesome plate of nachos.  I should point out that this was the first time my parents had ever eaten a meal in that part of Mexico. This was not the first time my mother and I have over-ordered on the booze and gotten gloriously silly together while on vacation. 

She went geocaching with my cousins and I, visiting a haunted tree. At the end of that day we enjoyed a cold beer. Later on we visited a casino and beheld the weirdness that is a skating rink in southern California. (It was meeelllting). We had limeade from Sonic.  Puni visited Salvation mountain and looked out over the desert and the slabs.  This paragraph basically sums up every trip I take to California.

Then, my California vacation over, I had to go back to work. I arrived home on Sunday afternoon and flew out again Monday evening. For work this time.  Puni flew with me to Washington, DC to do some training. I had one day for sightseeing so Puni saw both the Lincoln and Washington monuments. She visited the American pop culture museum (riding in my backpack). She even got as close as possible to the White House and saw the rather lame national Christmas tree.  She hitchhiked in my backpack one day while I was taking my sas course.  She is a smart unicorn, but some of the stuff in that course went right over her head.

She was in my suitcase when I woke up at 6:25am for a 7:00 am flight from Toronto to Edmonton. That was the first (if only I'd known it wouldn't be the last) time I was supremely late for a flight. I still get freaked out just thinking about it. I still can't believe I made the flight AND that my luggage did too.

Punicorn was with me when I escaped for 10 days in Cabo.  I only managed a few pictures of her during that trip, since I spent most of my time either trying to dive, actually diving or drinking. She went to dinner and spent time with a horse.  Weirdest thing - I was given a bottle of gringo tequila after passing my dive certification and my housekeeper decided to create some art.

That gets us to February. Took a bit of a travel hiatus until the end of March when I flew to California for my annual spring trip. Puni and I did some serious relaxing, geocaching, drinking, quadding, etc.  Then when the family headed for home, I rented a car and went to the Grand Canyon. Punicorn even went on a brief hike down into the canyon. One day we'll go back and do the complete hike in and out.

I did that thing I love to do. Rent a car, open up a map and see what looks cool within driving distance.  That's how we ended up visiting a pile of national parks, drove through Arizona and New Mexico, and briefly dipped into Texas. We went toboganning on the White Sands (for real!), watched for gunfights at the OK corral and saw a whole lot of cacti and drove through Why. Also saw a giant pistachio nut. How could you not stop when you see that on the side of the road? So glad I did since they had free pistachio wine samples. Naturally I bought a couple bottles. 

At the end of April I jetted off again. This time to Orlando, Florida for another conference.  Punicorn didn't actually visit the Disney parks with me but she did visit the space centre and the Everglades.  I wasn't a huge fan of Florida, but I'm really glad I got to go. 

A few weeks later and I was on a plane again, back to Palm Springs and Mexico so my mom could go to the dentist. 

It was blasted hot.

My mom and I finally took the Palm Springs tramway (much better than in winter, when it would be covered in snow and not a trip you make in shorts and a tank top). We wandered over to San Diego too, taking a seal tour of the San Diego bay.  We even got to see the bomb/mine seeking dolphins being trained in the bay while we were on the tour. That was pretty cool.

The Palm Springs trip ended on a Saturday, and sometime around then I noticed something odd about my neck. I started the Brazil travel visa paperwork the following Monday (June 4). The lump showed up in my visa picture... and well, that story has been told starting here.  

Punicorn naturally came with me to Brazil. We saw the sights.  I really didn't have room in my bags for her, but dangit, she's become such a habit I couldn't send her home with Val when I shipped my early souvenirs and extraneous clothing home. (I'd bought 2 pairs of jeans in Miami and really only needed 1, etc. By the end of that trip though, DAMN. SICK OF EVERYTHING IN MY SUITCASE. Sad, because a few things were new).

I intend to write about the Brazil trip at some point. Just not right now. Above I present Punicorn's adventures in Brazil. 

My favorite kidlets are big fans of Punicorn.

A while back I set a goal.  I'd traveled quite a bit and with a bit of planning I figured I could really go crazy. I wanted Punicorn/me to travel at least 40,000 miles in 12 months.  Thanks to my geocaching travel bug tag and my habit of trying to find a geocache when I travel, I had a pretty reasonable way of tracking my mileage. It's not perfect since it measures the straight distance between geocaches, but I'm ok with that. Punicorn didn't come on every trip, either.  Both my Vancouver trips so far this year were either medically or madonna related.

I'll admit it. I was so preoccupied I forgot Punicorn.

I know. Shame on me.

I am pleased? shocked? to report that I achieved that goal. And then some. A year to the day that I got Punicorn in Vancouver found me back in that city.  The coincidence got me thinking about where I'd been over the past year, and voila. This post was born.  I couldn't log a geocache in every place I traveled to in Brazil, since there weren't geocaches everywhere.  However. I am enough of a nerd that I tallied up the mileage between cities (6,955 miles, thanks, google maps!) and voila. I present my mileage total for you.

49,834 miles. Give or take a mile or two, anyway.

Wow.

Dang. 

No wonder Punicorn needs a seam repair or two.

Now. Throughout the past 12 months, Earl would get random pictures of Punicorn in all these places.  I expect I am far more amused by this than he is, but, hey. That's what you get for asking ME for a pink unicorn. 

Will Punicorn and I travel again? Absolutely. I just booked my flight and ticket to the football game on October 19. I won't forget her for that trip to Vancouver.

Will we make 50,000 miles in the coming year? I'm thinking not. I'm too tired and spent at the moment to plan much.  But then...

I'd drop everything and head back to Brazil and the rest of South America in a heartbeat. I've heard good things about some islands down in the Carribean.  (Curacao is a great dive spot I hear...) I've never seen the rain in Spain fall mainly on the plain. There are parts of Mexico I haven't been to yet. Asia is a place I think I'd like to visit one of these days.  I actually know people in England!

My wandering soul will always keep wandering.  And no, even if Earl changed his mind and decided he actually wanted Punicorn (perhaps to stop the email pictures?) he can't have her.  

We've traveled too far together. And Sarah would be very sad.

Punicorn is mine. Although I could be persuaded to make a bequest in my will...