back from the Bliss

Once again this year, I was fortunate enough to attend the Blissdom Canada conference in Toronto.  Last year was my first time attending and I think I had already planned to sign up for 2012 before I'd left Blissdom Canada 2011.

I got home yesterday afternoon, exhausted but very happy.  My brain and my heart are full from everything I experienced and absorbed during Blissdom.  It may take a few days to process it all.  I felt like an emotional mush ball for most of the day yesterday.  A weird but very good way to feel.


The format of the conference had changed significantly this year.  Last year, I think we had almost 2 full days of sessions, round tables, panels, speakers.  This year, we had "micro sessions" in the morning (which were like the roundtables from last year) and there were "TED Style" speakers in the afternoon.  It was a lot of information to absorb in one day.


If I had to chose, I would pick last year's format over this year for one reason.  The two-day format gave us a fair amount of time between sessions to process and reflect upon the information you received, at least that is how I saw it.  I know that this format changed to allow the conference participants to have an excursion/experience on Sunday morning.  From what I saw on twitter yesterday, the excursions were a wonderful success.  I opted out of those and spent the time with friends and family and headed home in the early afternoon.

Again, the "Bliss Chicks" outdid themselves with securing amazing sponsors who I felt treated us all like royalty.  As a person who has a lot of experience in event delivery, I know how much work goes into something like this and I felt that there is a lot of heart and soul involved as well.  I feel like the Bliss Chicks really care about everyone who participates in the conference, whether you are a speaker, sponsor, community leader or just a sponge, like me absorbing all of the awesomeness.  They are working to ensure that Blissdom is a rewarding experience for everyone.

During the Blissdom Canada conferences that I have attended, I have challenged myself to step outside my comfort zone and participate in things I normally wouldn't do. These small risks have big personal payoffs and I can't say enough about how much fun I had. On that note, I'd like to thank Annie and Dee for inviting me into their picture on Friday night.  Honestly, I feel a bit like I photobombed them but they were very sweet and lovely to include me.

Thanks to them and all of the other amazing ladies I had the great good luck to speak with over the weekend.  You're all beautiful and wonderful and so inspiring.

Oh, I Feel Fine

It's sunny outside, and it's Friday.  These are two wonderful facts.

Another wonderful fact is that the Polyphonic Spree are releasing a new album in 2013.  I think that they are amazing.  If you think that they are amazing too, or if you just think "hey, I like them, I'd like to hear their new album" why not check out their kickstarter project.

I don't normally do things like this but I backed their project because I know I'm going to buy their live CD when it comes AND I'll buy their forthcoming DVD and you KNOW I'll be buying their new album so, instead of waiting until spring, I have pledged to give them my money now and it'll help them finish up their projects and finance a tour. 

If you haven't seen them live, it's a sight to behold.  I would say that it is a unique musical experience which cannot really be described.  Having said that, if you watch the video (above) for "Oh, I Feel Fine" you'll witness Tim DeLaughter trying to explain it to Abby the Beagle.

Happy Friday.

Boo!

Boo!
Originally uploaded by Julep67

I just had a four-day weekend. Ordinarily, I do try to book an extra day off when we have a holiday weekend but this past weekend was a bit different. See, this weekend, I had a cold. A nasty, yucky, head cold.

About 12 days ago, I started feeling sort of off. I had a headache for about three days and my eye was twitching. I just chalked these symptoms up to work stress (there is A LOT going on at the office right now) and sort of ignored it. I had to work last Saturday and when I got home, I started sneezing. Mark looked at me and said, “You’ve got a cold.” I protested though, insisting it was just my allergies playing up. The next morning when I woke up, I couldn’t breathe through my nose and realized he was right. All that day, my only day off, I felt like hammered crap. I took some ibuprofen, went to bed early that night and hoped for the best – I couldn’t be away from work last week. When I woke up the next morning, I felt much better. Still a little congested but totally functional. I went along about my business until Thursday when I started feeling like crap again, charming. My extra-day off was spent doing stuff around the house instead of being out and about, getting errands done.

Through the fogginess of the cold though, we got some stuff done around the house. While Mark was at work on Friday, I got some long overdue housework done, put up my Halloween decorations and caught up on some of my “guilty pleasure” tv (my DVR had a few episodes of the Real Housewives of New Jersey waiting for me). On Saturday morning, when I woke up, still stuffy and cold, it was a nice treat to sit in my clean living room, sipping coffee while it rained outside. I hate cleaning but I sure do love a clean room!

The rest of the weekend was spent doing work in the yard and more puttering around the house. We accomplished a lot. I saw “we” but most of the heavy lifting was done by Mark. There are still one or two small yard work things I need to do before we’re officially ready for winter but they should get done this weekend, weather and construction permitting. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll have proper water pressure and an actual driveway soon. This construction can be over any time now!

slow news day

I know that when you talk to folks who live in the areas surrounding Kingston, they sometimes refer to it as The City.  It's known as the Limestone City but it's always felt like a small town to me.

That feeling was reinforced for me today, by our local TV news reporters.
Our street has been under construction off, and on, since June.  It was pretty ripped up in the spring and then it was patched back up until August.  The city needs to work on the water lines which go up our street, to the reservoir at the end of 3rd Avenue.  Since Mark was in the hospital in mid-August, we've had "temporary" water while the project has been underway.

Currently, our water is coming into our house via the external valve (for our garden hose).  Bright blue pipes snake their way across our neighbourhood, in a network of valves and eventually everything comes together a few doors down from us, connecting to the hydrant on our neighbour's lawn.

When the weather was really warm in August and early September.  The water tasted and smelled horrible.  Imagine water sitting in a plastic pipe, being baked in the sun.  Water from Lake Ontario is not the freshest tasting in August at the best of times, baking in a plastic tube just made it even more disgusting.  In our house, we filter our water through our refrigerator and we've been going through a lot of water filters (at $35 a pop) and even then, it has been tasting funny.

We have also noticed that our water pressure was lower than normal but it was tolerable, until last night.  Upon arriving home from work, we discovered that we had NO water at all in the house.  I found a friendly guy who works for the contractor doing the work and he checked our intake valve (between our house and our neighbour Pat's house).  He made some adjustment and I went into the house.  We had water again, but the pressure was really low.  The contractor told me that was normal, I thanked him and he went back to work.

Construction continued later than normal last night.  It was around 7:30 p.m before I heard them packing up for the night.  I think they must be feeling panicked because, if the temperature drops, those exposed plastic pipes are going to freeze!  All evening, our water pressure was just barely there.  It took forever to get water for dinner, to clean up with, our shower was almost unusable.  As it was way too late to call the City and report the problem (technically we still had water so I didn't think this was an "emergency" to report), I took to bitching about it on twitter.

While I was bitching, Mark was outside with a flashlight, checking to make sure that all of the external valves were open and working.  Pat came out of his house to see what was happening and told us that his pressure was super low too.  I felt relieved knowing it wasn't just our house.

In the middle of my tw-itching, our awesome city Councillor, Sandy Berg, tweeted to me that she had passed my comments along to the engineering and utilities folks and advised that I call them in the morning.  This morning at 8:01 a.m., I called the Utilities office, spoke to someone who works on the project and by mid-morning, when Mark was home for a break, our pressure had been restored.  Oh Happy Day!! Life can resume to close to normal now.  I tweeted my thanks to Councillor Berg, she let the city know that we were happy, all's well, right?

Uh, not so fast.  While all of this was going on, two different folks from our local TV Station News contacted me via twitter looking for a story.  It has to be a very slow news day here in Kingston.  I wrote back to both of them and explained that there wasn't any news going on, that we were working stuff out with the city and folks were just doing their jobs.  I'm not sure what kind of angle they would have presented the story from.  We have been inconvenienced by the construction but that's hardly newsworthy.  At the moment, we cannot use our driveway or really, our front lawn.  We're parking a block away from home and climbing through a giant sand pit when we come and go but again, not news, just life in a construction zone.

All the while this was happening this morning, "Pink Houses" by John Mellencamp was going through my head.  The City was super helpful and professional in dealing with our issue this morning.  The local TV News team, were grasping at straws for some kind of story to show on their program tonight.  It's kind of pathetic when you think about it but then again, their newscast is kind of pathetic when we've seen it in the past.

still waiting

Roger Waters - The Wall - 2012
Originally uploaded by Julep67

We spent the past week and a bit preparing ourselves for Mark's surgery, which had been scheduled for today.

It's a pretty big op and we're a little bit emotional about it. Physically and emotionally, there is a lot of work to be done to get ready. At home, we had things to sort out, arrangements to make regarding work, pets, just general life stuff.

We were both pretty relieved to arrive at the same day admitting area this morning and be taken on time. Mark got into his charming gown, new housecoat and awesome IV. He sat in a little cubby while the nurses too'd and fro'd and tried to find him a gurney. From the waiting area, I saw his surgeon come in. All good signs right?

Next thing I know, a nurse is calling my name. She approaches me and says, "have you been told yet that the surgery has been cancelled." Dumbfounded, angry, sad, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, I say, "uh, no!" She takes me to where Mark is. He's now getting dressed and has big bandages on his hands from the IV stuff.

We're both upset but we understand, things happen. There was no bed available for him to go to once he got out of surgery. That is a problem. I suspect that they were backed up with trauma cases from the weekend. We suck it up and go home. Well, we try to go home.

We get to the lobby and I phone for a cab. While we are standing outside, upset, shaken, a smidgen angry, on the verge of tears (me anyway - I think Mark was probably more composed that I was), waiting for our cab, safely in the 9 m no smoking area. An older man approaches us, commenting on Mark's hair (it's long, silvery white and worn in a braid down his back). I can tell he's going to aks if Mark is aboriginal (he's not, he's a lapsed jew) and wants to start some kind of crazy conversation with us. I notice that he has bright blue nail polish on his very dirty nails. Mark sees his light cigarette and notices his "homeless tan" (not my description, I guess it's something Mark's observed while driving his cab). We both tell him no, to step away from us with the cigarette. The man starts into some discussion of religion. We ask him again to leave and I point out that he's in the no smoking zone. He tells me to call a cop if I don't like it. I pull out my phone and get ready to dial when I realize that there are security guards right inside the door. I tell the man that I'll just go fetch a guard. The man RUNS to the other side of the painted line and says, "there, what are you going to do now?" We say, "Nothing, you're in the smoking zone now, leave us alone." He starts hollering at us that we are hate-filled, are going to hell. Which is hilarious considering we don't believe in hell. We're both pretty sure that dead is dead and there no where to go when your number is up. However, he keeps hollering "well that's where you're going." We shout back at him to just leave us alone and to f-off and get into our cab. He was still shouting at us as we drove away. Mark told me that he sees guys like that all the time. They hang around outside the hospital and bum smokes from patients who go out for a cigarette.

Normally, I would probably just ignored someone like that but we were both so upset and he just picked the wrong moment. When we got home, I was still shaking with anger and frustration but calmed down enough to call the surgeon's office to rebook.

I have to say, the surgeon's office is amazing. They have given us a spot for tomorrow, we're checking in at 6 a.m. and Mark should be having his op by 8 a.m.

We're early birds most of the time so that won't bother us too much and I have to say, the blue-nailed smoking dude probably won't be up to greet us when we arrive tomorrow. We're feeling really lucky to have this new slot assigned to us so quickly. it was a real relief because I know how long these things can take sometimes. We'll both be really glad when tomorrow is over and we start down a road that gets things back to something close to normal again.