I was asked by the United Way last week to visit the offices of RBC and do a speech for their campaign and one of the things they asked me to address was the impact of the economy on the social services industry and how we're seeing a lot more people using our homeless program for meals and overnight accomodations, as well as our Employment and Training programs. It was an issue that I was more than happy to address, mostly due to the fact that I've become increasingly tired of listening to people bitch and moan about their jobs when I'm of the belief that people should be grateful to have a job. I have very little sympathy for the person that's not getting a bonus this year or their 2% pay increase when they get fairly well paid in the first place. Neither can I really find it in me to really sympathize when someone is fighting to get time off to go on a vacation when this is their third or fourth vacation of the year. I'm tired of hearing about how people don't have the money to shop, or to afford the extravagant luxuries in life that they feel they deserve when they're living in a house that is well beyond their means and are carrying a mortgage that is more than they can afford.
It's this sense of entitlement that has taken over so many people that pisses me off.
Last week I listened to the VP of RBC tell his staff that they need to be grateful to work for one of the best companies in the world - and that wasn't just his opinion but it's been rated as such. To be grateful to have job security and regular hours and a nice office and a healthy paycheck every other week. I listened to him and I nodded my head and when it was my turn to speak, I reinforced what he had to say - told a roomful of people that I dealt with homeless people that used to have jobs like theirs - that were investment bankers and accountants and account managers. They used to have jobs on Bay and on Front, used to dress for work every morning in their own suits, commute on the Go trains, sit amongst them eating lunch at Jump or Canoe until their circumstances changed. How they lost everything - their jobs, their families, their cars, their houses.
When I do speeches like this, I like to remind people that they're just three paycheques away from living on the street - that's how fast things can change. Sometimes, the message gets through and the person goes back to their desk and fills out their United Way form, increasing their pledge (or filling it out for the first time) and sometimes it does not - and these people go out on their lunch hour, and spend $20 on a salad and drop $200 on another pair of shoes that they don't really need and then they bitch to their colleague when they get back to their desk that they don't get paid enough.
I'm getting so tired of all the whining and the complaining from people that have so much and don't realize how much more they have than the average person. Yes, the economy sucks right now and yes, maybe they've had to make cuts this year that have hurt just a little bit but at least they're in a position where they can pick and choose what they can do without.
I'm tired of opening my blog feeder or my facebook account of checking people's Twitter accounts to see what their up to and every single time it's a complaint about how much their life sucks for whatever reason. It's lost on me how their lives can truly be so bad when they have so much and now, it's getting to the point where whenever I post anything, I make sure it's not a bitch about something that, when it comes down to it, is really pretty trivial.
I said to my husband last week that I was done, that I didn't want to be around people that only ever complain - all the negativity, the bitterness, the resentment, the shallowness. I'm trying to be around only positive people these days, people that appreciate what they have, that enjoy life, that remember how to laugh and to smile, that take great pleasure out of the simple things in life like a hot beverage on a cold day, or the sun shining after three days of rain. How many people will wake up to a sunny morning and when you comment on it say "Yes, but, it rained for the past three days."?
Where's the joy in what we have, rather than the resentment for what we don't have?
A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend and she was referring to the baby that I'm having as a princess and I asked her to please not refer to her that way. It wasn't the first time that I had to tell someone not to refer to the baby as a little princess and each and every time, they were puzzled for my resistance to the word princess. And then I had to explain to them that her father and I have made a very conscious decision of how are child will be raised and what she will be able to expect from others, and that we will be trying very hard to raise this child to not have the sense of entitlement that the rest of the world seems to have adopted. I don't want my child to ever greet a visitor to our house by inquiring what they brought for her or did the bag they were carrying hold a gift for them. I don't want to have to deal with a kid in a store that's throwing a tantrum because they can't have whatever item they pulled off the shelf, or to hear her tell me that she'll be good as long as I give her this. I don't see those kids as being any different than the adult that complain that they don't make enough, that their house isn't big enough, that they don't have enough shoes filling their closet.
I want my child to have the best of things, there's no question about that. But she should have what she deserves, not what she feels she's entitled too.
I grew up with hand me downs most of my life, never had my own room, grew up eating meals that my mother convinced us were fun to have (toasted tomato sandwhiches and hotdogs and sauerkraut and sometimes, slices of potatoes fried in the frying pan - something we called round chips - that we dipped in ketchup. I never realized then that some of the meals that my mother cooked for us were not what she probably wanted for us, that she ideally would have served, but were meals compiled of the food that she had in the cupboard and that she made do with the best that she could. Meals that she could afford to buy when she went to the grocery store each week.
If I learned anything from my parents when I was growing up was that they lived well within their means, they did not give us things that they could not afford. We didn't have an allowance growing up because they did not want us to get accustomed to something that they might not always be able to provide. When we wrote our letters to Santa each year, we knew that Santa had a budget of $100 for each of us, and we tailored our lists with that in mind. Perhaps we put one extravagant item on our list, knowing that would be all we would get, but more often than not, we carefully selected a number of items that always cost less. When we passed a grade in school, my mother threw a small party for us and filled the dining room table with all our favorite foods. There were no expensive gifts on the last day of school and it didn't matter to us - because we were so looking forward to the banquet of food that'd be waiting for us. I remember on report card days my parents would pile us in the car and we'd go to Dairy Queen and I would be allowed to order anything off the menu and I would go for what I thought was the most extravagant item on the menu - a banana split. I remember the taste to the banana, mixed with the ice cream and the hot fudge and the peanuts sprinkled on top - that, to me, was luxury.
We received what my parents could afford to give, and while I grew up sometimes bitching about the second hand clothes, I always looked forward to the box of clothes that my mother would receive from her sister who's own children had outgrown the designer labels that she dressed them in and yes, I got a great deal of pleasure when something had the right label and fit me the right way. Yes, I enjoyed being able to wear that outfit to school the next day but the day after that, I put on my Kmart or Biway special and still went to school and even though I thought it might, the world didn't end because of it.
We made the most of what we had and I like to think that I still live the way. I have a closest filled with some really nice things, clothes and shoes bought brand new from expensive stores but those items sit next to items that I bought at the Superstore or at Walmart, or even better, at a second hand store. I don't hesitate to tell people when something I am wearing cost me $9.99 - in fact, I'm more willing to reveal the price on that piece of clothing than I am on something that cost me a $100. I buy what I can afford, and what I think is a good value and what I can make work with my wardrobe and I have a feeling that our daughter's wardrobe will be much the same, as will the rest of her things. She will have what we can afford, and if she has things that are expensive, she will have them because we think they are worth the money and not because we feel that she's entitled to them.
Our child will have what she needs, and what we feel she should have. She will want for things which she may or may not get but she will not be spoiled, will not feel entitled, will not be a princess. Some nights, she will have slices of potatoes fried on the stove and with lots of salt and ketchup - and hopefully it won't be because that's all we can afford to feed her but because it's something FUN to have. And if I do my job right, she won't recognize the difference until she is much, much older.
And hopefully, when she is that much older and that much wiser, she'll be one of these seemingly few that are grateful for what she has and not resentful for what she doesn't have.
She'll be someone that I want to be around, and not be angry, bitter or resentful.
It's this sense of entitlement that has taken over so many people that pisses me off.
Last week I listened to the VP of RBC tell his staff that they need to be grateful to work for one of the best companies in the world - and that wasn't just his opinion but it's been rated as such. To be grateful to have job security and regular hours and a nice office and a healthy paycheck every other week. I listened to him and I nodded my head and when it was my turn to speak, I reinforced what he had to say - told a roomful of people that I dealt with homeless people that used to have jobs like theirs - that were investment bankers and accountants and account managers. They used to have jobs on Bay and on Front, used to dress for work every morning in their own suits, commute on the Go trains, sit amongst them eating lunch at Jump or Canoe until their circumstances changed. How they lost everything - their jobs, their families, their cars, their houses.
When I do speeches like this, I like to remind people that they're just three paycheques away from living on the street - that's how fast things can change. Sometimes, the message gets through and the person goes back to their desk and fills out their United Way form, increasing their pledge (or filling it out for the first time) and sometimes it does not - and these people go out on their lunch hour, and spend $20 on a salad and drop $200 on another pair of shoes that they don't really need and then they bitch to their colleague when they get back to their desk that they don't get paid enough.
I'm getting so tired of all the whining and the complaining from people that have so much and don't realize how much more they have than the average person. Yes, the economy sucks right now and yes, maybe they've had to make cuts this year that have hurt just a little bit but at least they're in a position where they can pick and choose what they can do without.
I'm tired of opening my blog feeder or my facebook account of checking people's Twitter accounts to see what their up to and every single time it's a complaint about how much their life sucks for whatever reason. It's lost on me how their lives can truly be so bad when they have so much and now, it's getting to the point where whenever I post anything, I make sure it's not a bitch about something that, when it comes down to it, is really pretty trivial.
I said to my husband last week that I was done, that I didn't want to be around people that only ever complain - all the negativity, the bitterness, the resentment, the shallowness. I'm trying to be around only positive people these days, people that appreciate what they have, that enjoy life, that remember how to laugh and to smile, that take great pleasure out of the simple things in life like a hot beverage on a cold day, or the sun shining after three days of rain. How many people will wake up to a sunny morning and when you comment on it say "Yes, but, it rained for the past three days."?
Where's the joy in what we have, rather than the resentment for what we don't have?
A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend and she was referring to the baby that I'm having as a princess and I asked her to please not refer to her that way. It wasn't the first time that I had to tell someone not to refer to the baby as a little princess and each and every time, they were puzzled for my resistance to the word princess. And then I had to explain to them that her father and I have made a very conscious decision of how are child will be raised and what she will be able to expect from others, and that we will be trying very hard to raise this child to not have the sense of entitlement that the rest of the world seems to have adopted. I don't want my child to ever greet a visitor to our house by inquiring what they brought for her or did the bag they were carrying hold a gift for them. I don't want to have to deal with a kid in a store that's throwing a tantrum because they can't have whatever item they pulled off the shelf, or to hear her tell me that she'll be good as long as I give her this. I don't see those kids as being any different than the adult that complain that they don't make enough, that their house isn't big enough, that they don't have enough shoes filling their closet.
I want my child to have the best of things, there's no question about that. But she should have what she deserves, not what she feels she's entitled too.
I grew up with hand me downs most of my life, never had my own room, grew up eating meals that my mother convinced us were fun to have (toasted tomato sandwhiches and hotdogs and sauerkraut and sometimes, slices of potatoes fried in the frying pan - something we called round chips - that we dipped in ketchup. I never realized then that some of the meals that my mother cooked for us were not what she probably wanted for us, that she ideally would have served, but were meals compiled of the food that she had in the cupboard and that she made do with the best that she could. Meals that she could afford to buy when she went to the grocery store each week.
If I learned anything from my parents when I was growing up was that they lived well within their means, they did not give us things that they could not afford. We didn't have an allowance growing up because they did not want us to get accustomed to something that they might not always be able to provide. When we wrote our letters to Santa each year, we knew that Santa had a budget of $100 for each of us, and we tailored our lists with that in mind. Perhaps we put one extravagant item on our list, knowing that would be all we would get, but more often than not, we carefully selected a number of items that always cost less. When we passed a grade in school, my mother threw a small party for us and filled the dining room table with all our favorite foods. There were no expensive gifts on the last day of school and it didn't matter to us - because we were so looking forward to the banquet of food that'd be waiting for us. I remember on report card days my parents would pile us in the car and we'd go to Dairy Queen and I would be allowed to order anything off the menu and I would go for what I thought was the most extravagant item on the menu - a banana split. I remember the taste to the banana, mixed with the ice cream and the hot fudge and the peanuts sprinkled on top - that, to me, was luxury.
We received what my parents could afford to give, and while I grew up sometimes bitching about the second hand clothes, I always looked forward to the box of clothes that my mother would receive from her sister who's own children had outgrown the designer labels that she dressed them in and yes, I got a great deal of pleasure when something had the right label and fit me the right way. Yes, I enjoyed being able to wear that outfit to school the next day but the day after that, I put on my Kmart or Biway special and still went to school and even though I thought it might, the world didn't end because of it.
We made the most of what we had and I like to think that I still live the way. I have a closest filled with some really nice things, clothes and shoes bought brand new from expensive stores but those items sit next to items that I bought at the Superstore or at Walmart, or even better, at a second hand store. I don't hesitate to tell people when something I am wearing cost me $9.99 - in fact, I'm more willing to reveal the price on that piece of clothing than I am on something that cost me a $100. I buy what I can afford, and what I think is a good value and what I can make work with my wardrobe and I have a feeling that our daughter's wardrobe will be much the same, as will the rest of her things. She will have what we can afford, and if she has things that are expensive, she will have them because we think they are worth the money and not because we feel that she's entitled to them.
Our child will have what she needs, and what we feel she should have. She will want for things which she may or may not get but she will not be spoiled, will not feel entitled, will not be a princess. Some nights, she will have slices of potatoes fried on the stove and with lots of salt and ketchup - and hopefully it won't be because that's all we can afford to feed her but because it's something FUN to have. And if I do my job right, she won't recognize the difference until she is much, much older.
And hopefully, when she is that much older and that much wiser, she'll be one of these seemingly few that are grateful for what she has and not resentful for what she doesn't have.
She'll be someone that I want to be around, and not be angry, bitter or resentful.
As thrilled as I am to my very core to be pregnant and having this baby, her timing could have been a little bit better.
At first, my slight frustration with my being due in February was two-fold. First, it was because it would be mean that I would miss the entire 100th Anniversary of the community centre where I've worked for the past five years - and the knowledge that pretty much everything I've done there since starting has led to this day. My boss, when she found out that I was going to be on maternity leave likely starting the end of January, went into planning overdrive and the majority of my time in the past 3 months and the next 3 months has been spent on planning and coordinating every little effort that will be required for our organization to pull off the 100th - there are days where I feel like I'm doing the work of two and a half people, this not being a number that I've pulled out of thin air - seeing how two and a half people are who my boss will be hiring to fill my position in the coming year. I'll work my ass off for the next three months and when the 100th rolls around, my 2.5 successors will get the credit when it all goes off without a hitch.
Second? Earlier this year (or was it late last year?) Tay and I had made the decision to attend the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver if we could get tickets and find a place to stay. We purchased our tickets earlier this year, about $3,000 worth, and I re-established contact (and invited myself to stay) with a friend of mine that I knew from living in Vancouver and who still lives there - her apartment, in fact, is in the same part of the city where they're building the Olympic village. When we found out that I was pregnant and that my due date was two day after the start of the games, and exactly when we were supposed to be in Vancouver, we sighed a little but quickly accepted that this pregnancy, and the resulting baby was so worth it and and so much more important than the Olympics. We tried not to think about the next time the Olympics would be in Canada, or how far off that would be. Because it didn't matter, and it still doesn't and once we find out how to turn in our tickets for our refund, we'll breathe a lot easier.
And then, then H1N1 hit. And I was able to avoid thinking about it for the first part of my pregnancy because a vaccine wasn't available and wouldn't be for quite some time. I did some preliminary research, talked to my fertility specialist, took some comfort in her telling me that if she didn't work in the health profession and was pregnant would absolutely not take the vaccine even when it became available. I'd made up my mind then and there that even when the vaccine became available, I'd not get it. I was 100% decided and felt confident in my decision.
And now, that's all changed.
I am becoming inundated with information on H1N1 and the vaccine, and advice as to whether or not I should get the vaccine, a lot of it unsolicited. I sat in a meeting last week with a funder from the City of Toronto, who asked me rather bluntly when I would be getting my vaccine. My mother called me twice in the past week alone to discuss getting the vaccine and what my options were - she hasn't gone so far as to tell me to get it, but the intent is there. I tell her I'm undecided still and try and get off the phone, not because I don't want to talk to her, but because I don't want to talk about the vaccine and the risks of not getting it. My husband, who wants me simply to be informed, has been giving me regular updates from the Fluwatch site. My OB, who I saw on Friday, told me very clearly that she is recommending to all her patients to get the vaccine. I've browsed pregnancy message boards and have seen posts from dozens of women that have gone ahead and gotten the vaccine, and I, quite frankly, am starting to envy their peace of mind that they've gotten from making their decision.
And yet, the decision to vaccinate or not has not come that easily. And this is coming as no surprise to me seeing how I am often in a state of indecision - I can spend 2o minutes deciding what to wear to work in the morning, or where to go for lunch when I'm out with friends. Many times, I've deferred to letting others make the decision for me when it comes to simple things like that, and they laugh and shake their head at me because the question is, when the time comes to make a very serious decision, what am I going to do then?
Indeed, what am I going to do?
My OB on Friday expressed her frustration with the decisions that the province has made about H1N1 and vaccinating pregnant women. Pregnant women are being told absolutely, 100% to get the vaccine, but you can't go into a public health office like the rest of the general public and get a vaccine. We're considered to be the population at the highest-risk, and yet, clinics are refusing to vaccinate pregnant women. If you're pregnant, you're supposed to go to your doctor's office, and when I asked my OB if she'd be doing the vaccination at her office, she had to tell me no - she had indicated that she would be interested in providing the vaccine in her office but so many other OBs said that they wouldn't and therefore, her request to do so was denied.
She suggested that if I decided to get the vaccine that I try my family doctor but warned that he may not be doing it because thousands of doctors across the country and refusing to do the vaccine because of the paper work involved. If his office told me no, she gave me the number of a doctor that she is working with who has agreed to vaccinate her patients. I'm familiar with the doctor that she is referring me to, and familiar with the walk-in clinic that he works out of, and familiar with the extreme number of people that are in and out of his clinic on an hourly basis. If he's agreeing to take her patients then he's agreeing to take other patients and the thought of sitting in a waiting room filled with potentially seriously ill people while I wait for my vaccine is not very tempting at all.
And that is of course, if I decide to get the vaccine which I obviously haven't decided to do.
We were chatting with our neighbors today about the decision to vaccine or not and I said how frustrating it was for me to be in this position to make this decision and the reason to vaccinate is solely to protect yourself for those that choose not too. You hear about how it's a person's social responsibility to get the vaccine, to wherever possible, protect others from being exposed to H1N1 and there's truth to be had there - I think about all the people that do not exercise preventative measures to keep themselves from getting sick, or who insist on going into work when they are very clearly ill. And I absolutely get that some people can not afford to miss the time from work, that work part-time and can't take that cut in their pay to stay home and recover. But I also know that there are people that can't afford to stay home from work because they've already used up all their sick time, whether they were sick or not and so they have no choice but to go to work. For whatever reason (none of which are truly acceptable to me - when you're sick you're sick, stay home) these are the people that are on public transit, sneezing and coughing and spreading the disease, with no real regard for those that are trying to avoid catching the very illness that they are suffering from.
So get the vaccine, people will say. Protect yourself from getting it. Is it really that difficult of a decision?
It is when you're pregnant and carrying a baby and they can't say for sure what kind of side-effect that the vaccine will have on your unborn child. The health profession will tell you that it's safe, that it's produced in a manner that is similiar to the regular flu shot and that the flu shot has been tested on pregnant women with no known side-effects. In fact, it's being produced by the same company that does the flu-shot so the assumption is that it must be okay. And I get that it probably is, but the word that I focus on here is probably. Probably, but they can't say for sure.
The second you get pregnant, you are given a list of things to do and not do to protect your child and mostly, it's because they can't say for sure the effect that it will have on your baby because it hasn't been tested. Don't drink ANYTHING because we don't know what alcohol will do to your fetus. Don't eat red meat that's undercooked, don't eat lunch meat or raw fish, avoid these cheeses, don't color your hair, don't run 10km, don't do housework, eliminate all caffeine from your diet. And yes, I get that I'm being extreme here and that a lot of this is just unproven, mass hysteria (I eat at Subway, I've colored my hair, I enjoyed the occasional steak that was still pink in the middle, I was running right up until my doctor specifically told me not to, for a reason other than me just being merely pregnant).
Based on what I have done despite the warnings, you would think that I would be comfortable with getting the vaccine, that it would be easy for me to say that the risks of getting it far outweigh the risks of not getting it. And the reasoning behind my getting the vaccine are a lot more serious than the decisions that I made to get my hair colored or eat lunch at Subway. Those reasons are superficial, the reasons to vaccine are not. And yet, it pisses me off to no end that the conservative experts that have been so adamant that women not do certain things while pregnant because they can't say for certain what the risk to the fetus is, are handing out recommendations to pregnant women to get the vaccine like it's Halloween candy.
So where does that leave me?
I very rarely get sick, and have never had a flu shot. The last time I got the flu was probably 5 years ago. I had a terrible cold in September of this year, but prior to that, I hadn't been sick in a year and a half. Most times, when I feel a cold coming on, I go to bed early and it's gone in the morning. I'm not a heavy drinker, I don't smoke, I exercise on a regular basis, I eat fairly well. I am (knock on wood), a healthy person. I don't have an underlying medical condition (other than being pregnant) that would cause me to get as sick as some people have that got H1N1. The odds of me contracting the disease are pretty slim, and I don't buy that my health would deteriorate overnight if I did. With the proper precautions, I SHOULD be able to avoid H1N1.
Except that this weekend, I changed my life because of this conscious effort to avoid H1N1. I avoided stopping by the house of some friends who's daughter was celebrating her 5th birthday because I didn't want to be around children that have potentially been exposed. I told other friends that I didn't want to see them this weekend because one of them works in a hospital and hasn't been vaccinated. I went through the list of my friends in my head that all have children that I would probably avoid seeing over the next few months because of their exposure risk. I think about having to tell people in February to not come visit the baby if they themselves haven't had their H1N1 vaccines. These are all precautions that I will be forced to take if I choose not to get the vaccine.
I think about the bubble that I will force myself to live in for the next few months, and continue to live in when the baby is born because she won't have the benefit of the vaccine. How isolated I will be, in general and now through the holidays. How do you tell someone you can't spend time with them unless they've been vaccinated, when you're refusing to get it done yourself?
Our friend, that's married to the nurse that hasn't been vaccinated, told me he understood my hesitation about seeing them this weekend, that it was better for me to be safe than sorry but then wanted to know when we WOULD see them and made a crack about seeing us when the kid was maybe three. And I was quiet as he said that, because there's a big part of me that's thinking that I'm being ridiculous, that I'm buying into the hysteria.
There's a big part of me thinking that I need to make the call, I need to find out where I can go to get the vaccine and then just do it. Get the vaccine and live my life outside a self-imposed bubble and not have to worry about getting H1N1.
And yet, there's a big part of me that's thinking, okay, but what if, what if, what if.
What if it's not safe, what if it harms the baby you've wanted for so long, what if it causes some kind of damage that you have to live with for the rest of your life? Will the benefits of getting the shot be worth it then, when there's a chance that you might not have even contracted H1N1 without the vaccine?
How long is this post, how much have I vented, and I'm STILL no more decided than before I sat down to write it, thinking that if I DID, maybe I could convince myself of deciding one way or the other.
I'm still, after all this, undecided.
At first, my slight frustration with my being due in February was two-fold. First, it was because it would be mean that I would miss the entire 100th Anniversary of the community centre where I've worked for the past five years - and the knowledge that pretty much everything I've done there since starting has led to this day. My boss, when she found out that I was going to be on maternity leave likely starting the end of January, went into planning overdrive and the majority of my time in the past 3 months and the next 3 months has been spent on planning and coordinating every little effort that will be required for our organization to pull off the 100th - there are days where I feel like I'm doing the work of two and a half people, this not being a number that I've pulled out of thin air - seeing how two and a half people are who my boss will be hiring to fill my position in the coming year. I'll work my ass off for the next three months and when the 100th rolls around, my 2.5 successors will get the credit when it all goes off without a hitch.
Second? Earlier this year (or was it late last year?) Tay and I had made the decision to attend the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver if we could get tickets and find a place to stay. We purchased our tickets earlier this year, about $3,000 worth, and I re-established contact (and invited myself to stay) with a friend of mine that I knew from living in Vancouver and who still lives there - her apartment, in fact, is in the same part of the city where they're building the Olympic village. When we found out that I was pregnant and that my due date was two day after the start of the games, and exactly when we were supposed to be in Vancouver, we sighed a little but quickly accepted that this pregnancy, and the resulting baby was so worth it and and so much more important than the Olympics. We tried not to think about the next time the Olympics would be in Canada, or how far off that would be. Because it didn't matter, and it still doesn't and once we find out how to turn in our tickets for our refund, we'll breathe a lot easier.
And then, then H1N1 hit. And I was able to avoid thinking about it for the first part of my pregnancy because a vaccine wasn't available and wouldn't be for quite some time. I did some preliminary research, talked to my fertility specialist, took some comfort in her telling me that if she didn't work in the health profession and was pregnant would absolutely not take the vaccine even when it became available. I'd made up my mind then and there that even when the vaccine became available, I'd not get it. I was 100% decided and felt confident in my decision.
And now, that's all changed.
I am becoming inundated with information on H1N1 and the vaccine, and advice as to whether or not I should get the vaccine, a lot of it unsolicited. I sat in a meeting last week with a funder from the City of Toronto, who asked me rather bluntly when I would be getting my vaccine. My mother called me twice in the past week alone to discuss getting the vaccine and what my options were - she hasn't gone so far as to tell me to get it, but the intent is there. I tell her I'm undecided still and try and get off the phone, not because I don't want to talk to her, but because I don't want to talk about the vaccine and the risks of not getting it. My husband, who wants me simply to be informed, has been giving me regular updates from the Fluwatch site. My OB, who I saw on Friday, told me very clearly that she is recommending to all her patients to get the vaccine. I've browsed pregnancy message boards and have seen posts from dozens of women that have gone ahead and gotten the vaccine, and I, quite frankly, am starting to envy their peace of mind that they've gotten from making their decision.
And yet, the decision to vaccinate or not has not come that easily. And this is coming as no surprise to me seeing how I am often in a state of indecision - I can spend 2o minutes deciding what to wear to work in the morning, or where to go for lunch when I'm out with friends. Many times, I've deferred to letting others make the decision for me when it comes to simple things like that, and they laugh and shake their head at me because the question is, when the time comes to make a very serious decision, what am I going to do then?
Indeed, what am I going to do?
My OB on Friday expressed her frustration with the decisions that the province has made about H1N1 and vaccinating pregnant women. Pregnant women are being told absolutely, 100% to get the vaccine, but you can't go into a public health office like the rest of the general public and get a vaccine. We're considered to be the population at the highest-risk, and yet, clinics are refusing to vaccinate pregnant women. If you're pregnant, you're supposed to go to your doctor's office, and when I asked my OB if she'd be doing the vaccination at her office, she had to tell me no - she had indicated that she would be interested in providing the vaccine in her office but so many other OBs said that they wouldn't and therefore, her request to do so was denied.
She suggested that if I decided to get the vaccine that I try my family doctor but warned that he may not be doing it because thousands of doctors across the country and refusing to do the vaccine because of the paper work involved. If his office told me no, she gave me the number of a doctor that she is working with who has agreed to vaccinate her patients. I'm familiar with the doctor that she is referring me to, and familiar with the walk-in clinic that he works out of, and familiar with the extreme number of people that are in and out of his clinic on an hourly basis. If he's agreeing to take her patients then he's agreeing to take other patients and the thought of sitting in a waiting room filled with potentially seriously ill people while I wait for my vaccine is not very tempting at all.
And that is of course, if I decide to get the vaccine which I obviously haven't decided to do.
We were chatting with our neighbors today about the decision to vaccine or not and I said how frustrating it was for me to be in this position to make this decision and the reason to vaccinate is solely to protect yourself for those that choose not too. You hear about how it's a person's social responsibility to get the vaccine, to wherever possible, protect others from being exposed to H1N1 and there's truth to be had there - I think about all the people that do not exercise preventative measures to keep themselves from getting sick, or who insist on going into work when they are very clearly ill. And I absolutely get that some people can not afford to miss the time from work, that work part-time and can't take that cut in their pay to stay home and recover. But I also know that there are people that can't afford to stay home from work because they've already used up all their sick time, whether they were sick or not and so they have no choice but to go to work. For whatever reason (none of which are truly acceptable to me - when you're sick you're sick, stay home) these are the people that are on public transit, sneezing and coughing and spreading the disease, with no real regard for those that are trying to avoid catching the very illness that they are suffering from.
So get the vaccine, people will say. Protect yourself from getting it. Is it really that difficult of a decision?
It is when you're pregnant and carrying a baby and they can't say for sure what kind of side-effect that the vaccine will have on your unborn child. The health profession will tell you that it's safe, that it's produced in a manner that is similiar to the regular flu shot and that the flu shot has been tested on pregnant women with no known side-effects. In fact, it's being produced by the same company that does the flu-shot so the assumption is that it must be okay. And I get that it probably is, but the word that I focus on here is probably. Probably, but they can't say for sure.
The second you get pregnant, you are given a list of things to do and not do to protect your child and mostly, it's because they can't say for sure the effect that it will have on your baby because it hasn't been tested. Don't drink ANYTHING because we don't know what alcohol will do to your fetus. Don't eat red meat that's undercooked, don't eat lunch meat or raw fish, avoid these cheeses, don't color your hair, don't run 10km, don't do housework, eliminate all caffeine from your diet. And yes, I get that I'm being extreme here and that a lot of this is just unproven, mass hysteria (I eat at Subway, I've colored my hair, I enjoyed the occasional steak that was still pink in the middle, I was running right up until my doctor specifically told me not to, for a reason other than me just being merely pregnant).
Based on what I have done despite the warnings, you would think that I would be comfortable with getting the vaccine, that it would be easy for me to say that the risks of getting it far outweigh the risks of not getting it. And the reasoning behind my getting the vaccine are a lot more serious than the decisions that I made to get my hair colored or eat lunch at Subway. Those reasons are superficial, the reasons to vaccine are not. And yet, it pisses me off to no end that the conservative experts that have been so adamant that women not do certain things while pregnant because they can't say for certain what the risk to the fetus is, are handing out recommendations to pregnant women to get the vaccine like it's Halloween candy.
So where does that leave me?
I very rarely get sick, and have never had a flu shot. The last time I got the flu was probably 5 years ago. I had a terrible cold in September of this year, but prior to that, I hadn't been sick in a year and a half. Most times, when I feel a cold coming on, I go to bed early and it's gone in the morning. I'm not a heavy drinker, I don't smoke, I exercise on a regular basis, I eat fairly well. I am (knock on wood), a healthy person. I don't have an underlying medical condition (other than being pregnant) that would cause me to get as sick as some people have that got H1N1. The odds of me contracting the disease are pretty slim, and I don't buy that my health would deteriorate overnight if I did. With the proper precautions, I SHOULD be able to avoid H1N1.
Except that this weekend, I changed my life because of this conscious effort to avoid H1N1. I avoided stopping by the house of some friends who's daughter was celebrating her 5th birthday because I didn't want to be around children that have potentially been exposed. I told other friends that I didn't want to see them this weekend because one of them works in a hospital and hasn't been vaccinated. I went through the list of my friends in my head that all have children that I would probably avoid seeing over the next few months because of their exposure risk. I think about having to tell people in February to not come visit the baby if they themselves haven't had their H1N1 vaccines. These are all precautions that I will be forced to take if I choose not to get the vaccine.
I think about the bubble that I will force myself to live in for the next few months, and continue to live in when the baby is born because she won't have the benefit of the vaccine. How isolated I will be, in general and now through the holidays. How do you tell someone you can't spend time with them unless they've been vaccinated, when you're refusing to get it done yourself?
Our friend, that's married to the nurse that hasn't been vaccinated, told me he understood my hesitation about seeing them this weekend, that it was better for me to be safe than sorry but then wanted to know when we WOULD see them and made a crack about seeing us when the kid was maybe three. And I was quiet as he said that, because there's a big part of me that's thinking that I'm being ridiculous, that I'm buying into the hysteria.
There's a big part of me thinking that I need to make the call, I need to find out where I can go to get the vaccine and then just do it. Get the vaccine and live my life outside a self-imposed bubble and not have to worry about getting H1N1.
And yet, there's a big part of me that's thinking, okay, but what if, what if, what if.
What if it's not safe, what if it harms the baby you've wanted for so long, what if it causes some kind of damage that you have to live with for the rest of your life? Will the benefits of getting the shot be worth it then, when there's a chance that you might not have even contracted H1N1 without the vaccine?
How long is this post, how much have I vented, and I'm STILL no more decided than before I sat down to write it, thinking that if I DID, maybe I could convince myself of deciding one way or the other.
I'm still, after all this, undecided.
Remember this post that I did in September, 2008 called A Man's World? In which I confessed to my "fanatical obsession with Don Draper and his confidence and smoldering good looks" and also included a picture because I think he's just so damn hot?
That was over a year ago. And today, the rest of the world seems to agree.
"According to over 500,000 voters on AskMen.com, "Mad Men" character Don Draper - played by Jon Hamm - is the Most Influential Man of 2009." The article is here. (And there's another article here)
Not Hamm the actor, but Don Draper the character.
He smokes, he drinks, he drives his car WHILE drinking (anyone see the episode where he throws the empty glass out the car window?), he has a temper, he cheats on his wife and yet, he's considered to be the Most Influential Man of 2009. I don't blame men for wanting to BE him, I would want to be him if I wasn't in love with him.
Don Draper is ALL OVER my Friends Five list. Not Jon Hamm (I saw him on 30 rock and Saturday Night Live and oh so not the same person) but Don Draper. With the hat and the suspenders and the drinking and the smoking. In fact, right now, he can have spots 1 to 5. But you'd need to put me in a 60's style dress and heels with red lipstick and transport me to the Mad Men era for this to really work.
(As an aside: I've been conscious of the fact that I haven't blogged in what feels like a super long time, mostly because everything the past couple of weeks has been related to being pregnant. But at some point, I'll do a post on here about some of the stuff that I'm struggling with in the past week or so - and while it's pregnancy related, it's kind of not, because it's not about the baby, but more about me. It's a post that's coming but for now? The Don Draper buzz that's all over the net today? It's sufficiently and enjoyably distracting.)
That was over a year ago. And today, the rest of the world seems to agree.
"According to over 500,000 voters on AskMen.com, "Mad Men" character Don Draper - played by Jon Hamm - is the Most Influential Man of 2009." The article is here. (And there's another article here)
Not Hamm the actor, but Don Draper the character.
He smokes, he drinks, he drives his car WHILE drinking (anyone see the episode where he throws the empty glass out the car window?), he has a temper, he cheats on his wife and yet, he's considered to be the Most Influential Man of 2009. I don't blame men for wanting to BE him, I would want to be him if I wasn't in love with him.
Don Draper is ALL OVER my Friends Five list. Not Jon Hamm (I saw him on 30 rock and Saturday Night Live and oh so not the same person) but Don Draper. With the hat and the suspenders and the drinking and the smoking. In fact, right now, he can have spots 1 to 5. But you'd need to put me in a 60's style dress and heels with red lipstick and transport me to the Mad Men era for this to really work.
(As an aside: I've been conscious of the fact that I haven't blogged in what feels like a super long time, mostly because everything the past couple of weeks has been related to being pregnant. But at some point, I'll do a post on here about some of the stuff that I'm struggling with in the past week or so - and while it's pregnancy related, it's kind of not, because it's not about the baby, but more about me. It's a post that's coming but for now? The Don Draper buzz that's all over the net today? It's sufficiently and enjoyably distracting.)
Preferring Avocado Over Small Gerbil
4 Comments Published by Tawny on September 08, 2009 at 4:29 PM.
A friend lent me a pregnancy book this weekend that claims that at sixteen weeks, the baby growing inside me is the size of a small gerbil. I was horrified when I read that to Tay, much preferring the produce comparison that most books and websites stick too. According to them, the baby is about the size of an avocado and that is a MUCH better comparison for me, and not just because I love avocados.
Of course, the avocado comparison is quickly becoming inaccurate - I hit the seventeen week mark on Sunday, and according to the produce classifications, we're now talking turnips.
I'm not as big of a fan of turnip as I am avocados however.
I've been purposely quiet on this blog about the fact that I am pregnant, and have been for just over four months now, and I've done this for various reasons. Mostly, it's because I don't want to be one of those pregnant women/new mothers that only talk about their child, whether it's inside them still or attached to their hip. And I don't think this is anything new - I've always been very clear to seperate the things in my life that are all encompassing for a period of time with the regular flow of my blog. The best example I can think of was my wedding blog, but I had other blogs, for things like exercise, knitting, writing, reading etc. This blog is about me as a person (well okay, so lately it's been about me as the gardener ;) not me as the bride, the runner, the writer, the knitter, the amateur chef. Nor is it a blog about me as a mother (or mother-to-be).
When I told my sister that I was creating a new blog for the pregnancy and the baby, she asked why I had to have a bunch of blogs, and wanted to know why I couldn't just blog about everything on one main blog, saving the people that read my blog the hassle of tracking all my different blogs. Maybe I could be more like Dooce, she suggested, because she loved reading Heather's blog since it was all in one place. And yes, I suppose I could be like Dooce but for a while there, when Dooce was all about the pregnancy and subsequent arrival of her new baby, I got tired of reading it. I thought if I read one more pregnancy post that I would lose my mind and when I'd had enough, I started reading her blog less and less. Or reading it less frequently.
I don't have a million people following me on Twitter (I'm not even on Twitter) nor do I have comments on my blogs in the THOUSANDS, nor do I make a living off my blog. But I DO have a few people that seem to be pretty loyal readers (even the anonymous posters and the lurkers) and the last thing I want is to lose them to incessant baby talk.
It's not who I am. So I started my pregnancy blog and shared the link to a select few, and said in the email that I sent out that I wouldn't be offended if they didn't use the link and I didn't see comments from them on any of my posts. I'm taking this stance for two reasons, the first being that I get that pregnancy and the talk related to it is not for everyone but secondly, and perhaps the more important reason, is that the pregnancy blog is not for them, it's for me, and for my husband and for our unborn child. It's a momento that I will cherish, and will look back upon over the next few years, and will share with my child when he/she is old enough.
But there's no denying that this pregnancy business is taking over my life in a very big way and I couldn't imagine not acknowledging it on this blog in some form or another. So here we are, a random post that says, Hey, I'm pregnant! But don't worry, you won't be subjected to incessant pregnancy chatter every time you open my site. Instead, you get to read long, boring posts about my garden. Except that I DO have a post in mind that relates to my trip to Halifax and how I took my nephews to Taking Woodstock on a rainy Saturday afternoon and bought them a large pizza to share, along with super sized cokes which I let them refill AND a bag of Skittles. And how, at the end of the movie, the thirteeen year old looked at me and said, "THAT WAS AWESOME." His comment probably had something to do with his unexpected education on acid and hash brownies and hippies dancing naked in a field.
Below are some of the questions and comments that I've received so far, which may or may not save the people that read this blog from asking their own. It's like a dozen posts in one, and hopefully not quite so boring.
When are you due?
The obvious question. February 14th - except my OB says I have a 4% chance of delivering then.
How am I feeling?
Better than I ever expected to feel. I've not thrown up a single time and have only had the occasional nausea. I've had minor symptoms that a lot of women complain about (gas, constipation, heartburn etc etc) but it's been very occasional and very manageable. I did come down with a brutal head cold this weekend and I've been fairly miserable because of it. I haven't been sick in 18+ months and all I can take is Tylenol, which helps a bit but not a lot.
Was this baby planned or an accident? (This question came from my favorite aunt, who leaned in close, and with her hand on my arm, asked it in a very quiet voice).
This baby was very much planned. Not only did we try for two years to get pregnant, but the eight months before we conceived was spent at a fertility clinic where I went through a battery of tests and cycle monitoring and drugs and a painful laparosopy that determined that I had endometrosis and both my fallopian tubes were stuck down. My doctor treated the endo and three months later, I was pregnant.
It took you long enough, it's about time, and what took you so long?
Yep, I'm fully aware that I'll be thirty-four on my birthday (which is on Thursday) and that I've theoretically been racing the clock. I've also had the ultrasound and part one of two blood tests to determine if my age is putting the baby at risk. But I was still 31 when I went off birth control and we started trying and at the time, that didn't seem so old. And of course, we had no idea that it would take so long.
Have I gained any weight, am I showing?
I haven't really gained any weight so far - I lost 4lbs in the first 2-3 weeks of finding out and have gradually gained 6lbs back, so as far as my OB is concerned, I'm +2lbs and she's very happy with that. I think in the past week I've just started to show and the other night, we were out with another couple and I caught the female glancing discretely at my waistline (they hadn't heard the news yet) which was my first indication that I am showing. But the next day, I went to visit a friend and her mother and grandmother, and all three of them insisted that I wasn't showing and that it was hard to believe that I was pregnant.
Will I find out the gender of the baby, do I have a preference, and what do I think I'm having?
It's no coincidence that I've been called Monica (off of Friends) when it comes to me planning things. Tay's a planner as well, so of course we're going to find out. I never used to believe it when couples would say that they didn't care what they were having as long as the baby was healthy but I understand now how they can feel that way. We had one scare during the pregnancy so far that made me realize that it didn't matter what gender the baby was, I just want him/her to be healthy. Originally, I always wanted to have a girl and because of that, I've convinced myself that we're having a boy. But more and more lately, I'm becoming very excited about the idea of the baby being a boy.
Do we have names picked out?
We're hoping to find out the gender when we go for the 18 week ultrasound next week. If the baby's a girl, we've pretty much agreed to name the baby after my grandmother (Clara). If it's a boy - who knows. Both Tay and I are coming up with names we like and we'll discuss. I do have two names that I love so far, but I'm waiting to hear Tay's names before I reveal mine to him.
Will I have a midwife or an OB?
I tried for a midwife, calling when I was 8weeks and there was already a waiting list for February, which they put me on. I was disappointed because I had decided long ago that I would want a midwife, but I didn't realize that there's a shortage of them in my area. I did, however, find an OB that was rated and highly recommended online so I asked my fertility specialist for a referral and she got me one and after meeting with her last week, I LOVE her. I've also pretty much secured a doula to assist with the birth - she's a former yoga/pilates teacher of mine from the gym I go too and she's currently training to be a doula.
Will I have a natural birth or one with drugs?
I've been doing a lot of reading, asking a lot of questions and have pretty much decided to at least try and have a natural birth, despite the looks I am getting from female friends that think I am crazy for wanting to attempt it.
Have I had any cravings?
Not really. Certainly nothing that has me sending out my husband in the middle of the night, which I don't see me doing at any point really. I went through a phase where all I wanted was sour things - pickles, lemonade, sour candies - but that was around 8 weeks and it's long gone. I've also had a thing for Zesty Cheese doritoes, periodically, but for the most part, I can resist those things for a few days or even a week or so before I give in and indulge, so I'm not convinced they're actual cravings.
Will I continue exercising?
Absolutely - everything I've read indicates that exercise throughout pregnancy will make labor easier. I've also read that women who exercise 3 times a week for a minimum of 20 minutes right up to their due date have a good chance of delivering early - I'm all over the thought of not having to be induced and delivering a smaller baby than if I were to go full-term or beyond (and risk having to be induced, which I don't want). I still run 3 miles on the treadmill at the gym, which I'm trying to do 2-3 times a week and I still go to my weightlifting class (the infamous Body Pump) 2-3 times a week. I was working out 6 days a week pregnancy, now I'm down to about 5 times a week except the past 2-3 weeks because of the trip to Halifax and then my getting sick. There's also a yoga class during lunch hours 2x a week at my work that I want to start taking, and a swimming pool, so that if running gets to be too much, I have a convenient alternative.
Am I taking pictures? Do I have ultrasound photos?
I'm not taking photos of my belly yet because even at 17 weeks, it doesn't quite have that roundness that I can't wait for and instead kind of just looks like chub. As soon as it's round and firm and very clearly a baby, I will take photos and post them at my pregnancy blog. But I do have the ultrasound photos, and a photo of the positive pregnancy tests that I took on June 7th.
Of course, the avocado comparison is quickly becoming inaccurate - I hit the seventeen week mark on Sunday, and according to the produce classifications, we're now talking turnips.
I'm not as big of a fan of turnip as I am avocados however.
I've been purposely quiet on this blog about the fact that I am pregnant, and have been for just over four months now, and I've done this for various reasons. Mostly, it's because I don't want to be one of those pregnant women/new mothers that only talk about their child, whether it's inside them still or attached to their hip. And I don't think this is anything new - I've always been very clear to seperate the things in my life that are all encompassing for a period of time with the regular flow of my blog. The best example I can think of was my wedding blog, but I had other blogs, for things like exercise, knitting, writing, reading etc. This blog is about me as a person (well okay, so lately it's been about me as the gardener ;) not me as the bride, the runner, the writer, the knitter, the amateur chef. Nor is it a blog about me as a mother (or mother-to-be).
When I told my sister that I was creating a new blog for the pregnancy and the baby, she asked why I had to have a bunch of blogs, and wanted to know why I couldn't just blog about everything on one main blog, saving the people that read my blog the hassle of tracking all my different blogs. Maybe I could be more like Dooce, she suggested, because she loved reading Heather's blog since it was all in one place. And yes, I suppose I could be like Dooce but for a while there, when Dooce was all about the pregnancy and subsequent arrival of her new baby, I got tired of reading it. I thought if I read one more pregnancy post that I would lose my mind and when I'd had enough, I started reading her blog less and less. Or reading it less frequently.
I don't have a million people following me on Twitter (I'm not even on Twitter) nor do I have comments on my blogs in the THOUSANDS, nor do I make a living off my blog. But I DO have a few people that seem to be pretty loyal readers (even the anonymous posters and the lurkers) and the last thing I want is to lose them to incessant baby talk.
It's not who I am. So I started my pregnancy blog and shared the link to a select few, and said in the email that I sent out that I wouldn't be offended if they didn't use the link and I didn't see comments from them on any of my posts. I'm taking this stance for two reasons, the first being that I get that pregnancy and the talk related to it is not for everyone but secondly, and perhaps the more important reason, is that the pregnancy blog is not for them, it's for me, and for my husband and for our unborn child. It's a momento that I will cherish, and will look back upon over the next few years, and will share with my child when he/she is old enough.
But there's no denying that this pregnancy business is taking over my life in a very big way and I couldn't imagine not acknowledging it on this blog in some form or another. So here we are, a random post that says, Hey, I'm pregnant! But don't worry, you won't be subjected to incessant pregnancy chatter every time you open my site. Instead, you get to read long, boring posts about my garden. Except that I DO have a post in mind that relates to my trip to Halifax and how I took my nephews to Taking Woodstock on a rainy Saturday afternoon and bought them a large pizza to share, along with super sized cokes which I let them refill AND a bag of Skittles. And how, at the end of the movie, the thirteeen year old looked at me and said, "THAT WAS AWESOME." His comment probably had something to do with his unexpected education on acid and hash brownies and hippies dancing naked in a field.
Below are some of the questions and comments that I've received so far, which may or may not save the people that read this blog from asking their own. It's like a dozen posts in one, and hopefully not quite so boring.
When are you due?
The obvious question. February 14th - except my OB says I have a 4% chance of delivering then.
How am I feeling?
Better than I ever expected to feel. I've not thrown up a single time and have only had the occasional nausea. I've had minor symptoms that a lot of women complain about (gas, constipation, heartburn etc etc) but it's been very occasional and very manageable. I did come down with a brutal head cold this weekend and I've been fairly miserable because of it. I haven't been sick in 18+ months and all I can take is Tylenol, which helps a bit but not a lot.
Was this baby planned or an accident? (This question came from my favorite aunt, who leaned in close, and with her hand on my arm, asked it in a very quiet voice).
This baby was very much planned. Not only did we try for two years to get pregnant, but the eight months before we conceived was spent at a fertility clinic where I went through a battery of tests and cycle monitoring and drugs and a painful laparosopy that determined that I had endometrosis and both my fallopian tubes were stuck down. My doctor treated the endo and three months later, I was pregnant.
It took you long enough, it's about time, and what took you so long?
Yep, I'm fully aware that I'll be thirty-four on my birthday (which is on Thursday) and that I've theoretically been racing the clock. I've also had the ultrasound and part one of two blood tests to determine if my age is putting the baby at risk. But I was still 31 when I went off birth control and we started trying and at the time, that didn't seem so old. And of course, we had no idea that it would take so long.
Have I gained any weight, am I showing?
I haven't really gained any weight so far - I lost 4lbs in the first 2-3 weeks of finding out and have gradually gained 6lbs back, so as far as my OB is concerned, I'm +2lbs and she's very happy with that. I think in the past week I've just started to show and the other night, we were out with another couple and I caught the female glancing discretely at my waistline (they hadn't heard the news yet) which was my first indication that I am showing. But the next day, I went to visit a friend and her mother and grandmother, and all three of them insisted that I wasn't showing and that it was hard to believe that I was pregnant.
Will I find out the gender of the baby, do I have a preference, and what do I think I'm having?
It's no coincidence that I've been called Monica (off of Friends) when it comes to me planning things. Tay's a planner as well, so of course we're going to find out. I never used to believe it when couples would say that they didn't care what they were having as long as the baby was healthy but I understand now how they can feel that way. We had one scare during the pregnancy so far that made me realize that it didn't matter what gender the baby was, I just want him/her to be healthy. Originally, I always wanted to have a girl and because of that, I've convinced myself that we're having a boy. But more and more lately, I'm becoming very excited about the idea of the baby being a boy.
Do we have names picked out?
We're hoping to find out the gender when we go for the 18 week ultrasound next week. If the baby's a girl, we've pretty much agreed to name the baby after my grandmother (Clara). If it's a boy - who knows. Both Tay and I are coming up with names we like and we'll discuss. I do have two names that I love so far, but I'm waiting to hear Tay's names before I reveal mine to him.
Will I have a midwife or an OB?
I tried for a midwife, calling when I was 8weeks and there was already a waiting list for February, which they put me on. I was disappointed because I had decided long ago that I would want a midwife, but I didn't realize that there's a shortage of them in my area. I did, however, find an OB that was rated and highly recommended online so I asked my fertility specialist for a referral and she got me one and after meeting with her last week, I LOVE her. I've also pretty much secured a doula to assist with the birth - she's a former yoga/pilates teacher of mine from the gym I go too and she's currently training to be a doula.
Will I have a natural birth or one with drugs?
I've been doing a lot of reading, asking a lot of questions and have pretty much decided to at least try and have a natural birth, despite the looks I am getting from female friends that think I am crazy for wanting to attempt it.
Have I had any cravings?
Not really. Certainly nothing that has me sending out my husband in the middle of the night, which I don't see me doing at any point really. I went through a phase where all I wanted was sour things - pickles, lemonade, sour candies - but that was around 8 weeks and it's long gone. I've also had a thing for Zesty Cheese doritoes, periodically, but for the most part, I can resist those things for a few days or even a week or so before I give in and indulge, so I'm not convinced they're actual cravings.
Will I continue exercising?
Absolutely - everything I've read indicates that exercise throughout pregnancy will make labor easier. I've also read that women who exercise 3 times a week for a minimum of 20 minutes right up to their due date have a good chance of delivering early - I'm all over the thought of not having to be induced and delivering a smaller baby than if I were to go full-term or beyond (and risk having to be induced, which I don't want). I still run 3 miles on the treadmill at the gym, which I'm trying to do 2-3 times a week and I still go to my weightlifting class (the infamous Body Pump) 2-3 times a week. I was working out 6 days a week pregnancy, now I'm down to about 5 times a week except the past 2-3 weeks because of the trip to Halifax and then my getting sick. There's also a yoga class during lunch hours 2x a week at my work that I want to start taking, and a swimming pool, so that if running gets to be too much, I have a convenient alternative.
Am I taking pictures? Do I have ultrasound photos?
I'm not taking photos of my belly yet because even at 17 weeks, it doesn't quite have that roundness that I can't wait for and instead kind of just looks like chub. As soon as it's round and firm and very clearly a baby, I will take photos and post them at my pregnancy blog. But I do have the ultrasound photos, and a photo of the positive pregnancy tests that I took on June 7th.
Am I excited?
Excited is an understatement. I've wanted to have a baby for a very long time and I don't remember a time when I was quite as happy as I've been during these past few months. As cliche as it sounds, this is the missing piece on a puzzle that I've been working on for quite some time.
Maybe I Should Become a Chef in Halifax and Have the Best of Both Worlds
2 Comments Published by Tawny on September 01, 2009 at 11:20 AM.
I ate a lot of yummy things in Halifax last week including some of my favorites: May Garden chinese, a Kaisers Sub and finally, a donair, at 1am Saturday morning after getting back from downtown (I purposely had just a soup and a small salad for my dinner to save room for the donair).
We spent the day at the beach on Thursday, and ate sandwhiches and Doritoes on blankets on the sand while we listened to the Beach Boys. The funniest thing happened as my brother ate his sandwhich and danced and sang along to the music. Just as he uttered the words that this was a really good sandwhich (like really good), his dancing got the best of him and his sandwhich flew from his hand and landed in the sand. He attempted to brush off the sandwhich but without any luck and kinda sort of sighed (the remaining sandwhiches all had mustard on it which he hates) before he shrugged, tossed the sandwhich in the garbage and resumed enjoying the sun and the music.
That night, my mother cooked her panfried haddock that I love, and I ate 5 pieces of it, ignoring the potatoes and the beans that she made to accompany it. The next day, Jody and Stacy and I headed to Chester for lunch where we sat on the deck of the Rope Loft in their Muskoka chairs and ate bruschetta, scallops and fish and chips.
For dinner that night, we headed into Halifax for some greek food at It's All Greek to Me - I eagerly anticipated this meal perhaps more than any other meal during the trip (well, I kind of wanted the donair most of all) and for the first time on the trip I had an appetizer (sharing tzatziki and pita and a plate of olives with my sisters), an entree (the horiatiki salad with tomatoes, cucumber, olives and feta with a chicken souvlaki skewer, more tzatziki and some pita on the side) and dessert (loukoumathes, 6 of them of which I could only eat 2).
We spent the day at the beach on Thursday, and ate sandwhiches and Doritoes on blankets on the sand while we listened to the Beach Boys. The funniest thing happened as my brother ate his sandwhich and danced and sang along to the music. Just as he uttered the words that this was a really good sandwhich (like really good), his dancing got the best of him and his sandwhich flew from his hand and landed in the sand. He attempted to brush off the sandwhich but without any luck and kinda sort of sighed (the remaining sandwhiches all had mustard on it which he hates) before he shrugged, tossed the sandwhich in the garbage and resumed enjoying the sun and the music.
That night, my mother cooked her panfried haddock that I love, and I ate 5 pieces of it, ignoring the potatoes and the beans that she made to accompany it. The next day, Jody and Stacy and I headed to Chester for lunch where we sat on the deck of the Rope Loft in their Muskoka chairs and ate bruschetta, scallops and fish and chips.
For dinner that night, we headed into Halifax for some greek food at It's All Greek to Me - I eagerly anticipated this meal perhaps more than any other meal during the trip (well, I kind of wanted the donair most of all) and for the first time on the trip I had an appetizer (sharing tzatziki and pita and a plate of olives with my sisters), an entree (the horiatiki salad with tomatoes, cucumber, olives and feta with a chicken souvlaki skewer, more tzatziki and some pita on the side) and dessert (loukoumathes, 6 of them of which I could only eat 2).
I was in Halifax for 10 days and did not cook a single meal.
On Sunday, after I flew in from Halifax (after eating the other half of my donair for breakfast) Tay and I drove downtown to do our selections for TIFF and afterwards, we went to East! on Queen Street for some thai. By the time we got home, I was too exhausted to cook anything for dinner and instead slept for a couple of hours on my bed, before getting up and sharing leftovers that Tay had in the fridge from the night before. Yesterday evening was the first meal that I prepared in almost two weeks and as mentioned in my previous post, I made a pasta sauce with some of the tomatoes from the garden, some garlic, onion, salt and and olive oil and added the sauce to the organic italian sausage meatballs that Tay rolled for me and that I then browned in a frying pan. Boiled some penne and added it to the sauce and served the plates of pasta with fresh basil from the garden and freshly grated parmesan.
I ate very well in Halifax, lots of yummy things, but nothing quite compared to the meal that I prepared myself last night, using fresh ingredients from the garden and good, quality ingredients that I have come to rely on when I cook. There's still a ton of sausage in the freezer and still two big bowls of tomatoes on our kitchen table - I see me making this meal again this week and even though I've just had it (and the leftovers for lunch today), I am already looking forward to it.
We left for Halifax the day that the tornadoes blew through Toronto. Our flight was delayed because of the weather, which we fortunately found out even before we left the house and so we sat in the kitchen, watching the rain fall and the wind blow, listening to the lightning crack in the very close distance.
The storm caused a power surge in the house that blew Tay's server - he spent that extra hour trying to get his machine to restart without any success. I sat in the living room and watched the storm batter my garden and wondered if the plants would survive - they danced in the wind, reaching down towards the ground in a way that made me nervous. Unlike Tay, who could try and do something about his server, I was helpless - I could not go outside and do whatever I could to protect the plants that I've spent so much time this summer taking care of.
By the time we left for the airport, the storm had passed. The air was eerily still, the sky clear but tinted yellow, rainbows curved down and around barns in the distance of the countryside. I gazed out the window at the tinted sky from the terminal, and listened to the constant announcements on the PA about flights being delayed. Ours was delayed numerous times, and included a gate change - as we walked from one end of the airport to the other, through the chaos of people heading to and from their own gates, the air was heavy. If the world was going to come to an end, it would feel like this Tay and I agreed. When we finally arrived at our gate, we again took seats next to the window and I gazed out into the dusk and then the night that quickly fell. I watched mechanics spend almost an hour changing the front tire on our aircraft and tried not to see it as a bad sign. We finally boarded our flight some time after 10 o'clock, three hours after we were supposed to leave.
Tay came back from Halifax a few days before me and began the process of replacing his server (which I'm guessing is why my blog image at the top of the page is gone). When I arrived home yesterday afternoon, I looked out at the garden to see how it had faired through the storm. All the pepper plants, low and dense and close to the ground held up well. But the tomato plants, some of them taller then me, were permanently bent over, reaching for the ground.
But I could see tomatoes - warm and bright red showing through the leaves though and so I went out with a large bowl to collect what had ripened while I was away. And then went back for another bowl and then two more. The plants, despite their damage, had continued to thrive and the bowls that I carried back to the kitchen were so heavy that I could only carry one at a time. When I dumped them in the sink to rinse them clean, there was so many that it pratically filled the basin.
And then, when I removed them from the sink and transferred them to the counter, on dishtowels to air dry, they took over the counter. I stared at them, overwhelmed, and tried to figure out all the different ways that I could possibly use the tomatoes, as well as which of my friends I could give some too. It's a bit of a problem since I'm the only one in the house that likes tomatoes.
There were a number of tomatoes that I tossed aside, tomatoes that had started to split from being too ripe and Tay and I stood and stared at the bag filled with them and wondered what to do with them so that we wouldn't have to throw them out. I suggested bringing them to the neighbors; their dogs Stewie and Einstein like fruit and veggies (almost to the point of obsession) yet the amount we have would make them sick. I'll bring them over a few this evening, as well as some of the better ones for our neighbor, but the rest of the split tomatoes will be used in a pasta sauce - tonight we'll have meatballs made with organic Italian sausage and penne in a crushed tomato sauce, likely with basil from the garden.
(A post about the trip to Halifax to follow.)
The storm caused a power surge in the house that blew Tay's server - he spent that extra hour trying to get his machine to restart without any success. I sat in the living room and watched the storm batter my garden and wondered if the plants would survive - they danced in the wind, reaching down towards the ground in a way that made me nervous. Unlike Tay, who could try and do something about his server, I was helpless - I could not go outside and do whatever I could to protect the plants that I've spent so much time this summer taking care of.
By the time we left for the airport, the storm had passed. The air was eerily still, the sky clear but tinted yellow, rainbows curved down and around barns in the distance of the countryside. I gazed out the window at the tinted sky from the terminal, and listened to the constant announcements on the PA about flights being delayed. Ours was delayed numerous times, and included a gate change - as we walked from one end of the airport to the other, through the chaos of people heading to and from their own gates, the air was heavy. If the world was going to come to an end, it would feel like this Tay and I agreed. When we finally arrived at our gate, we again took seats next to the window and I gazed out into the dusk and then the night that quickly fell. I watched mechanics spend almost an hour changing the front tire on our aircraft and tried not to see it as a bad sign. We finally boarded our flight some time after 10 o'clock, three hours after we were supposed to leave.
Tay came back from Halifax a few days before me and began the process of replacing his server (which I'm guessing is why my blog image at the top of the page is gone). When I arrived home yesterday afternoon, I looked out at the garden to see how it had faired through the storm. All the pepper plants, low and dense and close to the ground held up well. But the tomato plants, some of them taller then me, were permanently bent over, reaching for the ground.
But I could see tomatoes - warm and bright red showing through the leaves though and so I went out with a large bowl to collect what had ripened while I was away. And then went back for another bowl and then two more. The plants, despite their damage, had continued to thrive and the bowls that I carried back to the kitchen were so heavy that I could only carry one at a time. When I dumped them in the sink to rinse them clean, there was so many that it pratically filled the basin.
And then, when I removed them from the sink and transferred them to the counter, on dishtowels to air dry, they took over the counter. I stared at them, overwhelmed, and tried to figure out all the different ways that I could possibly use the tomatoes, as well as which of my friends I could give some too. It's a bit of a problem since I'm the only one in the house that likes tomatoes.
There were a number of tomatoes that I tossed aside, tomatoes that had started to split from being too ripe and Tay and I stood and stared at the bag filled with them and wondered what to do with them so that we wouldn't have to throw them out. I suggested bringing them to the neighbors; their dogs Stewie and Einstein like fruit and veggies (almost to the point of obsession) yet the amount we have would make them sick. I'll bring them over a few this evening, as well as some of the better ones for our neighbor, but the rest of the split tomatoes will be used in a pasta sauce - tonight we'll have meatballs made with organic Italian sausage and penne in a crushed tomato sauce, likely with basil from the garden.
(A post about the trip to Halifax to follow.)
Sunday morning I was awake at 6:30 so that I could get out into the garden before the humidity hit. The garden has been flourishing this year and if I don't stay on top of it (which I haven't been) it becomes incredibly dense, which makes it difficult to get at the vegetables as they ripen.
I spent a good eight to nine hours in the garden four weeks ago while Tay was finishing the patio stones with our neighbor's son, and two weeks later, it had grown back so much that you couldn't even tell that I had been out there.
When I went out Sunday morning at 7am, it looked like this:
This guy kept me company while I worked:
By the time, I finished, FIVE hours later, it looked like this:
I will need to go out again on Thursday morning and lay down three bags of compost and treat it with some Miracle Gro - another couple of hours I expect.
I didn't mind all the work because the garden is a very nice place to be, especially now that the patio areas are all finished.
We had friends over Sunday night, and had dinner outside. None of us wanted to go inside, even when it grew darker, the mosquitoes came out and we knew we had to work in the morning. It was a mexican fiesta, with fresh salsa that I made using stuff from the garden - four types of tomatoes, two types of hot peppers (cayenne and jalepeno) and onion. We had guacamole and a chilled cucumber soup, chicken fajitas (with fresh bell peppers, picked last week), chorizo tacos and ice cream cake for dessert (with fresh berries).
The salsa made the work in the garden SO worth it, and so did the dinner the following night which included the following from the garden:
Green beans, which were quickly boiled, blanched and added to the mushrooms, red onion and walnuts that I sauted in butter.
Plus tomato salad for me, which Tay doesn't eat:
And some of Tay's cheese toast which is one of the reasons I married him:
(All with steaks that I got at the Healthy Butcher but didn't photograph.)
I spent a good eight to nine hours in the garden four weeks ago while Tay was finishing the patio stones with our neighbor's son, and two weeks later, it had grown back so much that you couldn't even tell that I had been out there.
When I went out Sunday morning at 7am, it looked like this:
This guy kept me company while I worked:
By the time, I finished, FIVE hours later, it looked like this:
I will need to go out again on Thursday morning and lay down three bags of compost and treat it with some Miracle Gro - another couple of hours I expect.
I didn't mind all the work because the garden is a very nice place to be, especially now that the patio areas are all finished.
We had friends over Sunday night, and had dinner outside. None of us wanted to go inside, even when it grew darker, the mosquitoes came out and we knew we had to work in the morning. It was a mexican fiesta, with fresh salsa that I made using stuff from the garden - four types of tomatoes, two types of hot peppers (cayenne and jalepeno) and onion. We had guacamole and a chilled cucumber soup, chicken fajitas (with fresh bell peppers, picked last week), chorizo tacos and ice cream cake for dessert (with fresh berries).
The salsa made the work in the garden SO worth it, and so did the dinner the following night which included the following from the garden:
Green beans, which were quickly boiled, blanched and added to the mushrooms, red onion and walnuts that I sauted in butter.
Plus tomato salad for me, which Tay doesn't eat:
And some of Tay's cheese toast which is one of the reasons I married him:
(All with steaks that I got at the Healthy Butcher but didn't photograph.)
My father grew up on a farm - I think that gardening is perhaps in my blood.
We went to see Yeah Yeah Yeahs last week at the Kool Haus - Tay recently bought their latest album, It's Blitz off iTunes and we've been killing it lately. A few weeks ago, when we went to see Santogold at the Phoenix I had said to Tay that I was done with concerts and this would probably be my last. Except then, a couple of days later he msn'd me at work to tell me that Yeah Yeah Yeahs were coming and did I want to reconsider. I sighed inwardly and said out loud, "FINE" trying to show how exasperated I was to have yet another band in the que that I really wanted to see, but who's concert I knew I probably wouldn't enjoy once I was actually there.
I was talking to a friend a couple of days ago and she commented that she was jealous of all the concerts that I and Tay went too - and not just the big concerts but the smaller ones, with the less heard of bands and so much of this surprised her because she just doesn't see Tay and me as being concert people. And she's right, to a certain extent - Tay is a concert person for sure, he dresses the part in cool t-shirts and jeans and funky shoes and he gets into the music, standing there with beer in hand or some form of mixed drink. I'm not that person, as much as I've tried to pretend to be. I go to the concerts in the clothes that I wear to work, since most shows are in the city on a work night and by the time I get there, I feel wrinkled and worn. I'll touch up my makeup in the bathroom at work before meeting Tay, and sometimes I'll change my shoes but I still feel like a 9 to 5er standing at the concert, thinking only that I should be home getting ready for bed since I have to be up early in the morning.
When Yeah Yeah Yeahs played last week, I left work early, thinking that I could go home, perhaps grab a nap, freshen up, change my clothes and head back downtown. Except when I left work, it was pouring out, absolutely POURING and there streets were bare as people huddled under doorways and awnings to avoid the torrentialness of it all but since I had a train to catch I pressed on, hopping on the subway rather than doing the 20 minute walk to the station that I normally make. Despite getting on the subway, and my umbrella, I was still drenched when I got on the train. And then the train got delayed, numerous times, the first time being because some stupid kids had gotten the brilliant idea to trespass onto the tracks at one point and drag pieces of lumber across the tracks and then left them there which therefore meant the train had to stop and the Go employees had to get off and clear away the debris before we could proceed. The parents of those kids must be SO proud to have raised such stellar people who I would PUNCH IN THE FACE if I ever met them. By the time I got home, I was damp, I was cranky, I was tired. I laid down, thinking I'd sleep for about half an hour and then get up and salvage my hair and makeup. I did not want to go, not at all.
Tay came in as I was falling asleep, to give me good news and bad. The bad news (to me) was that they had added an opening act (Amanda Blank, who opened for Santogold and that I actually like) but she wasn't scheduled to go on until 9, which meant that Yeah Yeah Yeahs wasn't scheduled to go on until 10:15 and that pissed me off even more because I knew it meant we wouldn't get home until after midnight, and when you get up at 6:30am because you have a plus hour commute into the city, being out until midnight is hardly ever worth it. But the good news was that we didn't have to leave until 8:30 instead of 7:30 like we thought and so I rolled over and went back to sleep and when Tay came back to wake me up, he had made dinner and the smell of it had wafted up the stairs and I thought to myself that maybe it wasn't going to be that bad after all.
Except that I forgot how much I hate standing in a crowd of people that are constantly shoving and pushing, and the girls that unknowingly hit me with their purses and the really annoying people that stand in front of you and keep moving so that you have to keep moving because if you stand one way, you can see past them perfectly but then they move and their head is in your way. I don't dance at concerts either, so the people gyrating in front of me, waving their hands in the air pisses me off to no end and I know it's irrational because you're at a concert, you're supposed to dance and enjoy yourself otherwise why bother being there in the first place?
I was talking to a friend a couple of days ago and she commented that she was jealous of all the concerts that I and Tay went too - and not just the big concerts but the smaller ones, with the less heard of bands and so much of this surprised her because she just doesn't see Tay and me as being concert people. And she's right, to a certain extent - Tay is a concert person for sure, he dresses the part in cool t-shirts and jeans and funky shoes and he gets into the music, standing there with beer in hand or some form of mixed drink. I'm not that person, as much as I've tried to pretend to be. I go to the concerts in the clothes that I wear to work, since most shows are in the city on a work night and by the time I get there, I feel wrinkled and worn. I'll touch up my makeup in the bathroom at work before meeting Tay, and sometimes I'll change my shoes but I still feel like a 9 to 5er standing at the concert, thinking only that I should be home getting ready for bed since I have to be up early in the morning.
When Yeah Yeah Yeahs played last week, I left work early, thinking that I could go home, perhaps grab a nap, freshen up, change my clothes and head back downtown. Except when I left work, it was pouring out, absolutely POURING and there streets were bare as people huddled under doorways and awnings to avoid the torrentialness of it all but since I had a train to catch I pressed on, hopping on the subway rather than doing the 20 minute walk to the station that I normally make. Despite getting on the subway, and my umbrella, I was still drenched when I got on the train. And then the train got delayed, numerous times, the first time being because some stupid kids had gotten the brilliant idea to trespass onto the tracks at one point and drag pieces of lumber across the tracks and then left them there which therefore meant the train had to stop and the Go employees had to get off and clear away the debris before we could proceed. The parents of those kids must be SO proud to have raised such stellar people who I would PUNCH IN THE FACE if I ever met them. By the time I got home, I was damp, I was cranky, I was tired. I laid down, thinking I'd sleep for about half an hour and then get up and salvage my hair and makeup. I did not want to go, not at all.
Tay came in as I was falling asleep, to give me good news and bad. The bad news (to me) was that they had added an opening act (Amanda Blank, who opened for Santogold and that I actually like) but she wasn't scheduled to go on until 9, which meant that Yeah Yeah Yeahs wasn't scheduled to go on until 10:15 and that pissed me off even more because I knew it meant we wouldn't get home until after midnight, and when you get up at 6:30am because you have a plus hour commute into the city, being out until midnight is hardly ever worth it. But the good news was that we didn't have to leave until 8:30 instead of 7:30 like we thought and so I rolled over and went back to sleep and when Tay came back to wake me up, he had made dinner and the smell of it had wafted up the stairs and I thought to myself that maybe it wasn't going to be that bad after all.
Except that I forgot how much I hate standing in a crowd of people that are constantly shoving and pushing, and the girls that unknowingly hit me with their purses and the really annoying people that stand in front of you and keep moving so that you have to keep moving because if you stand one way, you can see past them perfectly but then they move and their head is in your way. I don't dance at concerts either, so the people gyrating in front of me, waving their hands in the air pisses me off to no end and I know it's irrational because you're at a concert, you're supposed to dance and enjoy yourself otherwise why bother being there in the first place?
And that is the question I ask myself each and every time.
My patience ran thin after Amanda Blank performed and while we waited for Yeah Yeah Yeahs to take the stage, when they played this really annoying metalish music in between sets because I was like what the hell? The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (and Amanda Blank for that matter) are so far from metal-type music so why play something that is so obviously different than the type of music the crowd as a whole are into?
Regardless of the reason why, I was annoyed by the time Yeah Yeah Yeah's came on and everything about them and their performance was absolutely perfect - they sounded great, looked great, sang all the songs that I love. When I looked over at Tay, it was so obvious that he was having a fantastic time. I was not. After the umpteenth person knocked me with their purse and the person in front of me changed his position for the hundredth time, I'd had enough. I pulled out my phone, typed on the display to Tay that I was going to get some air and then disappeared into the crowd. I used the washroom, got myself a drink and wandered over to the long leather couches they have running the length of the bar, with neon lit tables in front for people to place their drinks. I couldn't see the stage from where I sat, but I could see the audience, the hundreds of people enjoying the show and as I settled on the couch with my drink in hand, I realized I had found my concert niche after all. Off to the side, watching the audience watch the show but still able to hear everything - the loudness and the clarity and it was better than a recording because it was live and there is something about listening to Yeah Yeah Yeahs that made me just really, really happy.
I said to Tay on the way home, that this was it, that I was done, I was retiring from the concert-going business and that from this point on, he'd have to find a new concert-buddy. And this came as no real surprise to him, because this had been coming for a very long time. For someone that's not a big fan of concerts, I've been to quite a number of them, some of them pretty impressive bands and some really big names and yet, I can probably count on one hand the ones that I truly, truly enjoyed. My completed list of concerts is below and doesn't include the various opening acts that we've seen over the years. The opening acts that I made note of are marked with an asterisk (*) and the concerts I absolutely positively enjoyed are bolded. There are only two groups that is not on the list, and for them, I would come out of my early retirement and that is Radiohead and Vampire Weekend, two concerts that I would absolutely love to attend. I've also included (in brackets) the city (other in Toronto) they played in that we attended. And actually, that there might be the concert loophole - because for whatever reason, I enjoy concerts differently when I'm in a different area code from where I live and even better, when I'm in a different time zone.
The List:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Amanda Blank (*)
Santogold
Beck
MGMT
Jamiroquai (x2) (Las Vegas, Toronto)
No Doubt
Black Eyed Peas (*)
Tori Amos (*2) (Vancouver, Toronto)
Sting
Great Big Sea (*)
Prince (Vancouver)
Howie Day (*)
Janet Jackson
Mary J Blige
Tina Turner
Nelly Furtado
Macy Gray (New Orleans)
Pink Martini (x2) (New Orleans, Toronto)
Tegan and Sarah (New Orleans)
Bryan Adams (Halifax)
Beuna Vista Social Club
Preservation Hall, New Orleans (x4)
Preservation Hall Touring
Colin James
Pearl Jam
Bjork (Toronto Island)
K-OS
John Legend(*)
Cirkus (Paris)
Ndidi Onukwulu
Because what's he's doing instead is so much better.
Last summer's project was the installation of a raised vegetable garden in the back yard, which Tay did mostly himself over the course of a week. I helped a little bit, by helping digging the perimeter of the garden itself but to say that was helping is a big joke because of the amount of work that Tay did throughout the following week.
Last weekend he began the task of installing an irrigation system, laying tubing that connected to a series of sprinklers throughout the backyard area. He began work on Sunday, with the help of Will, our neighbors teenage son, and what he didn't finish on the weekend, he did over the course of the week, going outside either before work, during his lunch hour or at the end of the day.
This is what the yard looked like at the begiining of the week:
Last summer's project was the installation of a raised vegetable garden in the back yard, which Tay did mostly himself over the course of a week. I helped a little bit, by helping digging the perimeter of the garden itself but to say that was helping is a big joke because of the amount of work that Tay did throughout the following week.
Last weekend he began the task of installing an irrigation system, laying tubing that connected to a series of sprinklers throughout the backyard area. He began work on Sunday, with the help of Will, our neighbors teenage son, and what he didn't finish on the weekend, he did over the course of the week, going outside either before work, during his lunch hour or at the end of the day.
This is what the yard looked like at the begiining of the week:
Tonight, after getting home from work, I peeked outside and this is what I saw:
We're installing patio stones in three areas. The area inside the L-of the vegetable garden, the area pictured above where Tay is kneeling, and a long rectangulare section next to the house for the barbeque, the steps and the storage bench where cushions go in the summer. We picked out three different shades of stone, in three different sizes and everything was delivered today. Tay began working early this morning, was joined later in the morning by the neighbors across the street (Will Jr and Sr) and this is what they have managed to accomplish in about ten hours. I am in awe!
I'm preparing to pick up a shovel tomorrow and helping and we have other friends coming to help as well, Kat and Keith, and it looks like the project that I thought would take much longer to do is going to be finished in less than three days. So much of it was done today, all the digging and the lugging of the dirt that was dug up to the bins that we have in our driveway, that tomorrow is going to be a breeze.
I am so grateful that we have such kind, generous friends that are willing to share their time the way that they are because otherwise I have no doubt that Tay would have continued regardless and done it on his own and a job like this is much to big for one person.
I am planning on throwing an elaborate inaugural barbeque out in the backyard once the stones are laid and the furniture is set up and let me tell you, margaritas and beer and steaks on the BBQ are going to be PLENTY. Invitations will be extended to those that have helped and I will happily wait on these guests hand and foot in appreciation of the fact that I did not have to be out there alongside my husband, digging up the yard with no one else to help.
If you're not doing anything tomorrow and you desperately want an invitation to the inaugural barbeque, it's not too late to volunteer - we've got more than enough shovels to go around.
The summer is normally the time of year that slows down for me at work. In late May/early June I finished my year end report to the United Way, completed my annual funding submission to the City for our homeless program and finished the 2008 annual report, a full color booklet that ended up being 36 pages and summarized everything the agency did throughout the past year. The booklet was handed out at the annual general meeting and a few days later, after our past president had a chance to really look at it, he approached me at a staff function and told me that it was the best annual report he's seen to date, and how very proud of me he was.
That was the same night that I first heard the news that MJ had died - a colleague at work told me the news and said it couldn't be true then asked me if it could be. I pulled up the story from the LA Times on my phone and showed him and his face fell. I ran into him a few minutes later as I was gathering my things in my office and he asked me if I really believed it to be true or did I think maybe it was a hoax. I looked at him for a long moment and sighed at the sadness I saw in his face. He's a few years younger then me, a young black kid familiar with the streets and that works hard and has a kid at home; a genuinely nice guy that is kind and respectful and it was then that I realized that the news of MJ's death was going to be really big.
I could go on about it, how MJ changed the way that the world, and the way that the kids from my generation, listened to music but I'm no longer convinced that those words are being heard, and are instead falling on deaf ears as the people around me are most interested in talking about MJ and what a freak he was and a pedophile, as if they know something that the rest of the world doesn't. I grew up believing that you don't speak ill of the dead, that you remember the person that they were and what they contributed to the world and if they didn't contribute anything at all, then there was nothing to be said and you moved on. I've kept the person that MJ was publicly seperate from the person that he was perceived to be privately and it pisses me off to no end that people can't get past some trash story that a greedy dentist behind on his child support payments made up when he brainwashed his own child to say bad things about someone that he felt that he could exploit and make a lot of money off. Don't get me started, either, on the number of kids that testified that they weren't abused and the fact that the only people that came forward with stories of wrong-doing were ex-employees who, instead of going to the authorities, took their stories to the tabloids and pocketed the money.
The world is a judgemental place and god forbid if you are different in any way.
When I was much, much younger, I exchanged emails with an inmate on death row in Texas who received a life sentence for killing a couple of individuals in a botched robbery (he was also charged with assaulting and raping a woman). I didn't write to him because I thought that he was wrongly convicted and misunderstood. He was guilty by his own admissions but claimed that the deaths were accidental, the victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time and that he didn't deserve to be on death row. Something about his story compelled me to write and I did. Not because I was taking his side but because I wanted to understand how someone could do the things he did to another person. In retrospect, I don't think that I ever did understand but I like to think that I at least I tried. I didn't read about him online and what he was convicted of and quickly and easily classified him as a rapist-murderer that deserved to die. If I got anything from that experience it was how to be compassionate, and to not judge people - especially when all you have is the mass hysteria spread by the media and it's all just speculation.
And that's all I'm going to say about MJ.
The next morning, we packed the car and followed our friends Dave and Jackie up north to the cottage we had rented for the week, the same cottage that we had visited twice last year and our friends Chris and Amanda joined us later that afternoon. I would normally have lots to blog about, being at a cottage in the Muskokas in the early summer (I did last year) except the weather at the cottage was so bad that we packed up and left to come home on the Monday having arrived only the Friday. We had one really nice day, the Saturday, but it was lost on me because I spent the morning golfing with Tay and Chris and because we opted to walk the course instead of renting carts, it took us FIVE hours to get through the course. By the time we got back to the cottage and had some lunch, I was wiped OUT and spent perhaps a half an hour down by the lake before crawling onto a lounger on the slope that stretched down from the cottage where I promptly fell asleep, with the sound of the wind rustling in the trees above me. It rained the next day, and I slept through most of the day, curled on my bed listening to the rain in the trees outside the window and the next morning, the morning we decided to go home, the sun came out long enough for me to go for a quick kayak and an even quicker swim. And then it poured the rest of the day.
Other than that, I've been going to my golf lessons (I booked three private lessons with a golf pro named Paul) and he's helped me with my swing substantially enough that when we played the 18 holes in the Muskokas I hit my first par 3, much to the admiration of Tay and Chris and didn't care so much that the rest of my holes were 6s, 7s and 8s, because it was a damn hard course, with some of the greens running 400-500 yards. I'm now addicted to going to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls and I still get a kick out of the fact that a good percentage of balls are not only going straight but are getting a lot of air - and now they're even getting past the 100 yard mark which I used to fall short of when I first started out. My favorite moment on the driving range had to have been the other night when I went over to hit a bucket of balls while I waited for my lesson to start. As I took my two bucket of balls in hand, the elderly man behind the counter asked if my husband would be joining me and I gave him a smile as I replied, "No, he's at home cooking dinner."
And finally, when I'm not golfing, or sitting at my desk at work trying to find something to do, or forcing myself to read these really truly annoying books that my book club keeps picking for us to read (with the exception of the ones that I or AL have selected), I'm out in the garden, trying to control the jungle that seems to have sprouted up in the past few weeks. I've been using Miracle Grow this year because it's what Tay said his aunt used on her garden last year and according to him, her yield was much more that our yield and so I figured it wouldn't hurt, I'd give it a try except that the garden that is growing in our backyard is completely and utterly out of control and even though I spent an entire afternoon out there last week cutting it back and restaking the plants, my work was in vain because I need to get back out there AGAIN this weekend. Don't believe me? See for yourself.
Last year, fairly late in the season. You can tell, because the tomatoes are turning red. I'd say this was late July at least.
This year, taken last weekend, so early July. The plants in the front are green beans, hidden beyond them are the peas, beyond them are the tomatoes. There's green onions in there too, plus basil, but you can't tell unless you look for them. To the left of the beans are the pepper plants. Cayenne, red chili and jalepeno!
That was the same night that I first heard the news that MJ had died - a colleague at work told me the news and said it couldn't be true then asked me if it could be. I pulled up the story from the LA Times on my phone and showed him and his face fell. I ran into him a few minutes later as I was gathering my things in my office and he asked me if I really believed it to be true or did I think maybe it was a hoax. I looked at him for a long moment and sighed at the sadness I saw in his face. He's a few years younger then me, a young black kid familiar with the streets and that works hard and has a kid at home; a genuinely nice guy that is kind and respectful and it was then that I realized that the news of MJ's death was going to be really big.
I could go on about it, how MJ changed the way that the world, and the way that the kids from my generation, listened to music but I'm no longer convinced that those words are being heard, and are instead falling on deaf ears as the people around me are most interested in talking about MJ and what a freak he was and a pedophile, as if they know something that the rest of the world doesn't. I grew up believing that you don't speak ill of the dead, that you remember the person that they were and what they contributed to the world and if they didn't contribute anything at all, then there was nothing to be said and you moved on. I've kept the person that MJ was publicly seperate from the person that he was perceived to be privately and it pisses me off to no end that people can't get past some trash story that a greedy dentist behind on his child support payments made up when he brainwashed his own child to say bad things about someone that he felt that he could exploit and make a lot of money off. Don't get me started, either, on the number of kids that testified that they weren't abused and the fact that the only people that came forward with stories of wrong-doing were ex-employees who, instead of going to the authorities, took their stories to the tabloids and pocketed the money.
The world is a judgemental place and god forbid if you are different in any way.
When I was much, much younger, I exchanged emails with an inmate on death row in Texas who received a life sentence for killing a couple of individuals in a botched robbery (he was also charged with assaulting and raping a woman). I didn't write to him because I thought that he was wrongly convicted and misunderstood. He was guilty by his own admissions but claimed that the deaths were accidental, the victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time and that he didn't deserve to be on death row. Something about his story compelled me to write and I did. Not because I was taking his side but because I wanted to understand how someone could do the things he did to another person. In retrospect, I don't think that I ever did understand but I like to think that I at least I tried. I didn't read about him online and what he was convicted of and quickly and easily classified him as a rapist-murderer that deserved to die. If I got anything from that experience it was how to be compassionate, and to not judge people - especially when all you have is the mass hysteria spread by the media and it's all just speculation.
And that's all I'm going to say about MJ.
The next morning, we packed the car and followed our friends Dave and Jackie up north to the cottage we had rented for the week, the same cottage that we had visited twice last year and our friends Chris and Amanda joined us later that afternoon. I would normally have lots to blog about, being at a cottage in the Muskokas in the early summer (I did last year) except the weather at the cottage was so bad that we packed up and left to come home on the Monday having arrived only the Friday. We had one really nice day, the Saturday, but it was lost on me because I spent the morning golfing with Tay and Chris and because we opted to walk the course instead of renting carts, it took us FIVE hours to get through the course. By the time we got back to the cottage and had some lunch, I was wiped OUT and spent perhaps a half an hour down by the lake before crawling onto a lounger on the slope that stretched down from the cottage where I promptly fell asleep, with the sound of the wind rustling in the trees above me. It rained the next day, and I slept through most of the day, curled on my bed listening to the rain in the trees outside the window and the next morning, the morning we decided to go home, the sun came out long enough for me to go for a quick kayak and an even quicker swim. And then it poured the rest of the day.
Other than that, I've been going to my golf lessons (I booked three private lessons with a golf pro named Paul) and he's helped me with my swing substantially enough that when we played the 18 holes in the Muskokas I hit my first par 3, much to the admiration of Tay and Chris and didn't care so much that the rest of my holes were 6s, 7s and 8s, because it was a damn hard course, with some of the greens running 400-500 yards. I'm now addicted to going to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls and I still get a kick out of the fact that a good percentage of balls are not only going straight but are getting a lot of air - and now they're even getting past the 100 yard mark which I used to fall short of when I first started out. My favorite moment on the driving range had to have been the other night when I went over to hit a bucket of balls while I waited for my lesson to start. As I took my two bucket of balls in hand, the elderly man behind the counter asked if my husband would be joining me and I gave him a smile as I replied, "No, he's at home cooking dinner."
And finally, when I'm not golfing, or sitting at my desk at work trying to find something to do, or forcing myself to read these really truly annoying books that my book club keeps picking for us to read (with the exception of the ones that I or AL have selected), I'm out in the garden, trying to control the jungle that seems to have sprouted up in the past few weeks. I've been using Miracle Grow this year because it's what Tay said his aunt used on her garden last year and according to him, her yield was much more that our yield and so I figured it wouldn't hurt, I'd give it a try except that the garden that is growing in our backyard is completely and utterly out of control and even though I spent an entire afternoon out there last week cutting it back and restaking the plants, my work was in vain because I need to get back out there AGAIN this weekend. Don't believe me? See for yourself.
Last year, fairly late in the season. You can tell, because the tomatoes are turning red. I'd say this was late July at least.
This year, taken last weekend, so early July. The plants in the front are green beans, hidden beyond them are the peas, beyond them are the tomatoes. There's green onions in there too, plus basil, but you can't tell unless you look for them. To the left of the beans are the pepper plants. Cayenne, red chili and jalepeno!
The green tendrils reaching for the sky are from the beans - they are absolutely out of control and would take over the world if I didn't keep an eye on them.
I plucked some of the peas from the garden last weekend and when we went to hang out with our neighbors by their pool, we ate peas from the bowl, shelling them right then and there and popping the little green peas in our mouth. Better than candy, and Tay says he's going to hold me to that and he absolutely can.
And that's it, the last three weeks, wrapped up in a nice little package. If I had a bow, I'd stick it on top.
