I was already starting to feel sick last night when I got home, but sometimes that sick-feeling is the result of low blood sugar, which I certainly had. So I tried to convince myself that I hadn't caught a cold from my Station Manager, and -- with a lot of trouble -- finally conked out around 11:30pm.
Midnight - 6:00am - Slept intermittently and suffered the usual "I'm getting sick" dreams. I dream that somebody's given me a box with four racoons in it, and when I open the box I see that the racoons are dead and that bats are attached to their heads. I dream that a very young Robert Jan Stips -- member of the band "Nits" -- offers to buy me both a Nits T-Shirt and a "very thumpy keyboard" if I'll loan him $25 until Christmas, and meanwhile my mother tries to explain bisexuality to my grandmother. In between these dreams I often wake up to find the cat lying on or against my torso, which is both cute and uncomfortable.
6:00 - 7:00 - I wake up briefly and make the sensible decision not to go to work in a Hallowe'en costume. I set my alarm from 6:30 to 7:00 and go back to sleep.
7:00 - 7:10 - A reporter on CBC radio is interviewing a child who apparently is the world ambassador for UNICEF. He asks the child why they're doing away with the old orange UNICEF boxes, and the child replies, but his voice is cut up due to technical problems; only half the words are transmitted. The thing is, the technical problem doesn't really SOUND like a problem, it sounds instead like the child is only saying every second word. The reporter doesn't seem to notice this problem and he asks how one becomes the world ambassador for UNICEF. The child doesn't hear the question and I quickly turn the radio off because I hate listening to awkward situations. Though I do wonder if one of the criteria for UNICEF's world ambassador is to "speak English."
7:10 - 7:30 - I evaluate my health. I have a headache, I've got gunk forming in the back of my throat, I'm slightly achey...in short, I'm 100% sick. I decide not to go to work, because I know (from experience) that if I don't take today off I'll just get sicker. But I can't call in sick until 8:30 because I'd like to speak to my supervisor about it rather than just leave a message. I think how incredible it is that only three hours after meeting the CKMS Station Manager I was already showing symptoms of her illness. This makes me sad because all my life I've gotten sick easily and often, while this year -- thanks to better food, sleeping, and vitamin-taking habits -- I've been ill much less, to the point where I proudly crowed that I'd turned my life around. But now I've gotten sick twice in the last two months, which makes me feel like I've both failed at looking after myself, and that people will once again be justified in considering me unhealthy. I think about all this while eating tasteless Golden Grahams, then offering my cat the tiny 1/2 spoonful of milk at the bottom, a morning ritual that we both love equally.
7:30 - 8:30 - I lie down and read about windmills, views of the Niagara, wildflowers, forest fires, bullfrogs, mosquitos, squirrels, and rabbits. At 8:30 I call my supervisor and she gives me her blessing, so I fall asleep.
8:30 - 12:15 - Surprisingly benign dreams considering how crappy I feel. Something about finding intruders in the basement of my new apartment, and about "Men Without Hats" releasing a new song, and then a short fat man is walking along Hollywood Blvd with me and we go into a diner. The narrator in my head says that the man's flabby arms "hang like gaffs on the counter," then says "Everybody hated Joe Comb, but they loved what he could do for them." The script-writer in my head wants to describe Joe Comb as looking like Danny Devito, but the producer in my head complains that men like Joe Comb are always being played by men like Danny Devito, it's stereotyped, it's type-casting. I wake up feeling stubbly and thick-throated, thirsty but not thirsty, and the litter box is starting to smell.
12:15 - 1:30 - Battlestar Galactica episode 2.6, thanks to a lovely loan of DVDs from Henning. I still find the series to be contrived and obvious, but they're doing a good job of tackling human issues in an easily digestable form, and their story arc has me hooked. I love these "working towards a goal without knowing what the goal is" sorts of stories. But it makes me sad that it's an ongoing series instead of a mini-series. In a mini-series, you know that the people who write it are working towards a conclusion, which tends to mean a more logical and thought-out storyline. But with an ongoing series, they can tantalize you as long as their ratings hold out, they tend to artificially "stretch" the plot and create a lot of convenient loose ends to give them something to hold on to later. This is what I mean by "obvious."
1:30 - 2:00 - Finally get my crap together, shave, and walk to Belmont Village for the cat necessities. It's windy, but warm, and I'm reminded as always that it's a bad idea to sit cooped up in a house when you're sick. The fresh air does me good. I take a side-trip to Vincenzos to explore their daunting list of expensive and exotic groceries. Buying halva is a no-brainer -- it's a comfort food -- and the Eggplant Parmiggiano is a tried-and-true slab of healthy deliciousness. I also buy rosemary raisin pecan crackers. A woman is painting a Remembrance Day scene on the window of a shop, with lots of gravestones and a sign that says "Freedom wasn't free." I wonder if this is a message in support of the Bush administration's "Stay the Course" meme, but I doubt it. What Canadians think about the Iraq war doesn't have much of an effect on American policy, but there's a hard-core minority in this country that is definitely in lock-step behind it. They seem to think that making definite decisions and taking an aggressive approach to a problem is admirable, even if the decisions are flawed and the aggressive approach just makes things worse. We're a country that doesn't make many definite decisions and that frustrates people who are a tad more knee-jerk than I am. And oh yes, I buy stuff for the cat.
2:00 - 5:15 - It's pathetic that the days I have off are usually the days when I'm least able to accomplish anything. Sore throat and fever now. It's not like I'm dying of bilious fever, just that I've got the flu. Instead of cleaning the house, recording music, or solving world hunger I sit and watch episodes seven to ten of Battlestar Galactica, season two. I really am hooked. Just when I think there's no new complication they can add to the storyline, they throw in something new. This doesn't disguise the fact that the characters all continue to have diametrically-opposed character traits: their heroic traits and their flaws. Maybe this really IS the basis of human nature, but I like to think some of us have traits that are ambiguous. You know, most of us can't be described as, for instance, "heroically loyal and dependable, yet unable to love and a maker of snap decisions." Or, say, "defenseless, maternal, in love, a source of good intelligence, but a Cylon." I suppose the rest of us would not make good characters on network TV: "Quite talented, good work ethic, okay lover, but bad with finances and can't cook." I am NOT describing myself. And oh yes, I cleaned the litter box, partly because I didn't want to say that I still hadn't done so by 5:15.
5:15 - 5:45 - Finish reading the book about early pioneer life in Upper Canada. It's a bit of an anti-climax, ending with appendixes. At this point I'm just killing time. I'm exhausted but I don't want to sleep too early, otherwise I'll wake up at midnight.
5:45 - 6:00 - A nice bath. My legs aren't too hacked up from that useless shaving exercise yesterday. The cat moans horribly and glares at me like I should know what she's moaning about. I think that just being around water puts her into an hysterical state.
6:00 - 7:15 - Start reading "My Canadian Journal," a book written by Harriot Dufferin -- wife of the Governor General -- between 1872 and 1878. These things can be hit or miss, but Harriot is a real gem, spunky and outspoken and adventurous. By day she's hosting croquet parties, by night she's going fishing for salmon and making snarky remarks about her attendants. More on this later. Anyway, it's time to do the final bloodwork and try to sleep; I'm looking forward to aspirin, Halls, and an easing of this crappy sore throat.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
A Day in the Life: Monday
Contrary to popular belief, I only go on self-destructive drinking binges in my spare time. So what do I do during the rest of the week?
For my edification and perhaps yours:
7:00am - I awaken from the usual dream of running from a namess evil. The cat's food has almost run out, and so has her litter. I promise myself that I'll be a good parent and stock up on my way home from work. I feel horrible. I need to shave and wash my hair but I decide I can survive another day. Read the New Yorker from 7:15 to 7:45 while eating Golden Grahams cereal, wondering why it doesn't taste as good as it did when I was a child. Set the clocks back that didn't automatically do it for themselves. Wonder what's going to happen to all these automatic clocks next year, when Daylight Savings Time changes. Pet the cat, dress, and go.
7:45 - 8:30 - Walk to work. Since my clocks are always set incorrectly, my walk only takes half an hour but it appears to take 45 minutes.
8:30 - 9:00 - I read the news today, oh boy. Google news keeps me updated all day, actually. Some idiot in England is saying that humans should use their ingenuity to "adapt" to increased global temperatures, which is so stupid that it will probably catch on as a talking point. Dick Cheney says that violence is "spiking" in Iraq because the insurgents want the Democrats to win, which is so stupid that it has already caught on as a talking point. I pray for a shift of power in the USA.
9:30 - Eat peanut butter and greet the new employee in my department. Am given a pep talk about Hallowe'en. I consider dressing up for Hallowe'en tomorrow for work, which is a large enough investment to be daunting without alcohol.
8:30 - 12:00 Noon - Hefty work, which -- due to the non-disclosure agreement I signed today -- I am even less able to tell you about. Not that you want to know anyway.
12:00 - 12:30 - Eat lunch at Subway. One of the women who works there annoys me to no end: she's cocky, subnormal, useless, and ugly. Don't get me started. I read about threshing, maple sugar, quilting bees, butchering day, and racoon hunting -- among other things -- in "Pen Pictures of Early Pioneer Life in Upper Canada," written by "A Canuck" in 1905. I pause to reflect that these are my ancestors.
12:30 - I return to work and receive an email from the CKMS Station Manager, wondering if I can come in at 6pm to review applicants for the Administrative Assistant position. So much for getting the cat food and kitty litter.
12:30 - 4:30pm - Keep working. I'm glad to note that the folks who like to play Go have found themselves a table to play on. The Go pieces look like candy.
4:30 - 5:00 - Walk to University Plaza en route to CKMS. I get a soaker walking through Waterloo Park, and I'm dismayed by the mass defoliation to make way for a new sewage system. As if the trees didn't have enough problem dealing with this creepy leaf fungus.
5:00 - 5:30 - Eat at Curry In a Hurry, which is tasty but ridiculously overpriced for microwaved leftovers. Lamb Vindaloo, hot. Mango Lassi. I read about hunting, fishing, country dances, tarring & feathering, spelling bees, and early country courtship. I notice that the waitress is acting like I'm somehow there to serve her.
5:30 - 6:00 - Walk to CKMS. Gosh it's getting dark. I see a majestic blue heron standing in the wake of the setting sun. Actually he's slowly pushing his way across the horrid man-made lake in the new Industrial Park. He looks like the Loch Ness Monster, or a farming implement. A man rides past me on a stinky scooter that keeps stalling.
6:00 - 7:00 - At CKMS, drop off tomorrow's episode of "Repeater" and sit down to go through the applicants for Administrative Assistant. I consider this a delicate issue so I'll leave it at that. The Station Manager is ill, I sit in an unventilated room with her and then use her pen.
7:00 - 7:30 - Walk home in the dark. It isn't the best place to be walking, muggings are not unheard of. Halfway home I start seeing darting shadows and smelling smoke: it's Devil's Night, I totally forgot. Fortunately the moon is only half full. The smoke gets stronger, something is definitely burning which shouldn't be burning. To me this always means that my apartment is on fire and my cat is dead, though fortunately there's no visible smoke in any direction. I start hearing sirens but I never find out what the fire is, it smells like tires burning. I live close to a rubber factory of some kind. Passing the Bauer Lofts, I note that they've put up another pumping station on the last stretch of unclaimed sidewalk.
7:30 - 8:00 - It's definitely too late to buy cat food. I contemplate dressing up for Hallowe'en tomorrow. Just in case, I decide to shave my legs. This is not a comfortable thing because I just shaved them on Saturday. The cat drinks water out of the bathtub, and as always I'm amazed that she doesn't fall in. She's just happy that I haven't poisoned the water with bath oil or bubbles or something. I decide to do a quick check of my Hallowe'en costume, to make sure I haven't lost it in the train wreck that is my apartment post-weekend. Thank goodness I do, because when I find the skirt I see that there's dirt all over it. Then I remember, all in a flash: I fell really badly when I got out of the cab, partly because I was seeing double but mostly because my heel broke as I was climbing out. This explains why my left arm and left leg are sore.
8:00 - 8:30 - Write this!
For my edification and perhaps yours:
7:00am - I awaken from the usual dream of running from a namess evil. The cat's food has almost run out, and so has her litter. I promise myself that I'll be a good parent and stock up on my way home from work. I feel horrible. I need to shave and wash my hair but I decide I can survive another day. Read the New Yorker from 7:15 to 7:45 while eating Golden Grahams cereal, wondering why it doesn't taste as good as it did when I was a child. Set the clocks back that didn't automatically do it for themselves. Wonder what's going to happen to all these automatic clocks next year, when Daylight Savings Time changes. Pet the cat, dress, and go.
7:45 - 8:30 - Walk to work. Since my clocks are always set incorrectly, my walk only takes half an hour but it appears to take 45 minutes.
8:30 - 9:00 - I read the news today, oh boy. Google news keeps me updated all day, actually. Some idiot in England is saying that humans should use their ingenuity to "adapt" to increased global temperatures, which is so stupid that it will probably catch on as a talking point. Dick Cheney says that violence is "spiking" in Iraq because the insurgents want the Democrats to win, which is so stupid that it has already caught on as a talking point. I pray for a shift of power in the USA.
9:30 - Eat peanut butter and greet the new employee in my department. Am given a pep talk about Hallowe'en. I consider dressing up for Hallowe'en tomorrow for work, which is a large enough investment to be daunting without alcohol.
8:30 - 12:00 Noon - Hefty work, which -- due to the non-disclosure agreement I signed today -- I am even less able to tell you about. Not that you want to know anyway.
12:00 - 12:30 - Eat lunch at Subway. One of the women who works there annoys me to no end: she's cocky, subnormal, useless, and ugly. Don't get me started. I read about threshing, maple sugar, quilting bees, butchering day, and racoon hunting -- among other things -- in "Pen Pictures of Early Pioneer Life in Upper Canada," written by "A Canuck" in 1905. I pause to reflect that these are my ancestors.
12:30 - I return to work and receive an email from the CKMS Station Manager, wondering if I can come in at 6pm to review applicants for the Administrative Assistant position. So much for getting the cat food and kitty litter.
12:30 - 4:30pm - Keep working. I'm glad to note that the folks who like to play Go have found themselves a table to play on. The Go pieces look like candy.
4:30 - 5:00 - Walk to University Plaza en route to CKMS. I get a soaker walking through Waterloo Park, and I'm dismayed by the mass defoliation to make way for a new sewage system. As if the trees didn't have enough problem dealing with this creepy leaf fungus.
5:00 - 5:30 - Eat at Curry In a Hurry, which is tasty but ridiculously overpriced for microwaved leftovers. Lamb Vindaloo, hot. Mango Lassi. I read about hunting, fishing, country dances, tarring & feathering, spelling bees, and early country courtship. I notice that the waitress is acting like I'm somehow there to serve her.
5:30 - 6:00 - Walk to CKMS. Gosh it's getting dark. I see a majestic blue heron standing in the wake of the setting sun. Actually he's slowly pushing his way across the horrid man-made lake in the new Industrial Park. He looks like the Loch Ness Monster, or a farming implement. A man rides past me on a stinky scooter that keeps stalling.
6:00 - 7:00 - At CKMS, drop off tomorrow's episode of "Repeater" and sit down to go through the applicants for Administrative Assistant. I consider this a delicate issue so I'll leave it at that. The Station Manager is ill, I sit in an unventilated room with her and then use her pen.
7:00 - 7:30 - Walk home in the dark. It isn't the best place to be walking, muggings are not unheard of. Halfway home I start seeing darting shadows and smelling smoke: it's Devil's Night, I totally forgot. Fortunately the moon is only half full. The smoke gets stronger, something is definitely burning which shouldn't be burning. To me this always means that my apartment is on fire and my cat is dead, though fortunately there's no visible smoke in any direction. I start hearing sirens but I never find out what the fire is, it smells like tires burning. I live close to a rubber factory of some kind. Passing the Bauer Lofts, I note that they've put up another pumping station on the last stretch of unclaimed sidewalk.
7:30 - 8:00 - It's definitely too late to buy cat food. I contemplate dressing up for Hallowe'en tomorrow. Just in case, I decide to shave my legs. This is not a comfortable thing because I just shaved them on Saturday. The cat drinks water out of the bathtub, and as always I'm amazed that she doesn't fall in. She's just happy that I haven't poisoned the water with bath oil or bubbles or something. I decide to do a quick check of my Hallowe'en costume, to make sure I haven't lost it in the train wreck that is my apartment post-weekend. Thank goodness I do, because when I find the skirt I see that there's dirt all over it. Then I remember, all in a flash: I fell really badly when I got out of the cab, partly because I was seeing double but mostly because my heel broke as I was climbing out. This explains why my left arm and left leg are sore.
8:00 - 8:30 - Write this!
Sunday, October 29, 2006
The Repentent Drinker
You're looking at an example of the old addage, "God looks after drunk and stupid people." This is my left boot. Doesn't look much like a boot, does it? Fortunately the heel only detached while I was limping into my apartment and not at any point earlier...for that alone I can be humbly thankful. If the heel had done this earlier I don't know WHAT I would have done.Hallowe'en. My birthday night out. Seeing Dan Haner -- who I haven't seen in about two years -- back from Calgary. Wearing a costume that *I* thought was obvious but just confused everybody else. Drinking too many shots and filling up my stomach with awfulness. Head spinning, speech slurring. Wind, rain, sleet, and snow. Escorted out of the bar by the sweet busboy. Catching a cab instantly. Heel falling off. Lots of vagueness involving showers, weeping, and vomiting up something that looked like 3M Scotch tape. A disappearing cat. Calling Vanilla at 1:30am to please please please share my suffering and distract me. Thank goodness for Vanilla. Reality check. Wind whistling through the windows. Shivering and being a total suck. Spinning myself to sleep at 5am watching John Candy and Eugene Levy. The usual nightmare about needing to take a plane someplace but being unable to find the ticket. Daylight Savings Time. Awake for breakfast and a snowstorm. Listening to Aimee Mann and thinking what a beautiful birthday, what a horrible aftermath, and what was that stuff I threw up?
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Vastly Stressful: Tipping Hairdressers
Most things in life stress me out, but "tipping a hairdresser" is exceptional.
Why? Firstly because it's not standardized...everybody has a different way of calculating a tip for their hairdresser. Some people say 10%, some say 15%, some say $10 every time, some say don't tip at all, some say you have to give money to whoever shampoos you as well. And when you ask the hairdresser what to tip, they always act all humble and say they want less than you know they actually expect.
It's also stressful because my bill is always presented to me only seconds before I'm expected to leave the tip; I'm always dealing with sort of informal stylists whose prices fluxuate based on some inner calculation that only they understand, so I don't know how much I have to pay and therefore can't mull over a suitable percentage.
Also, the stylists I deal with are all independents who either own their own salons or rent a chair in an existing salon, so it's not possible to deal with them through an intermediary: the tip goes to the stylist, directly, hand-to-hand. They also need to be paid in cash, so no handy VISA or debit tips. I have to give them bills.
And finally, I'm FRIENDS with my stylists. We get pretty close. It's one thing to tip somebody you barely know, it's another thing to tip somebody you've just had a heart-to-heart with, especially when they've spent more time and effort on you than they would an average client.
All this leads to my fumbling with my money almost as though I expect them to either visibly approve or disapprove of my tip. And then if they look a little odd -- probably because I was just standing there fumbling with my money -- I assume it's because I undertipped them. That's how I feel right now.
I wish that we could drop off tips LATER. Or send them in the mail. The system we have now is unsatisfactory.
Why? Firstly because it's not standardized...everybody has a different way of calculating a tip for their hairdresser. Some people say 10%, some say 15%, some say $10 every time, some say don't tip at all, some say you have to give money to whoever shampoos you as well. And when you ask the hairdresser what to tip, they always act all humble and say they want less than you know they actually expect.
It's also stressful because my bill is always presented to me only seconds before I'm expected to leave the tip; I'm always dealing with sort of informal stylists whose prices fluxuate based on some inner calculation that only they understand, so I don't know how much I have to pay and therefore can't mull over a suitable percentage.
Also, the stylists I deal with are all independents who either own their own salons or rent a chair in an existing salon, so it's not possible to deal with them through an intermediary: the tip goes to the stylist, directly, hand-to-hand. They also need to be paid in cash, so no handy VISA or debit tips. I have to give them bills.
And finally, I'm FRIENDS with my stylists. We get pretty close. It's one thing to tip somebody you barely know, it's another thing to tip somebody you've just had a heart-to-heart with, especially when they've spent more time and effort on you than they would an average client.
All this leads to my fumbling with my money almost as though I expect them to either visibly approve or disapprove of my tip. And then if they look a little odd -- probably because I was just standing there fumbling with my money -- I assume it's because I undertipped them. That's how I feel right now.
I wish that we could drop off tips LATER. Or send them in the mail. The system we have now is unsatisfactory.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Muffy's Extreme Panache Scared the Bridesmaids...
...But Her Ankles Were Like Fatty Sausages!(Please note bonus Funkadelic CD)
It doesn't matter how happy you are, or how much dancing you do, or how many complements you receive...if your ankles aren't thin enough then you might as well be DIRT! And nobody wants to be DIRT, girls. But "Onyx Pointex" hosiery can turn your dirt into gold!
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Galatea's Beauty Tamed the Dreaded Cyclops...
...But He Probably Never Looked at Her Ankles!
Nature was generous in the way she chiseled Galatea's classic features. But, she was more than generous in the girth she bestowed on Galatea's ankles. Even her fabled facial beauty could hardly compensate for her ankles--unless, of course, she wore "Onyx Pointex."
The New Yorker, December 4, 1926As usual the folks at Onyx Hosiery were taking a swipe at a defenseless statue. Tell a girl today that "ankle girth" is more important than "facial beauty" and I hope she'll laugh at you. And then kick you in the ankle.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Ouch, My Hand! In Stratford
I've been having an awful time with my right hand and wrist: quite a bit of pain and numbness, which started in March and just hasn't gotten better. A sports doctor put me in a wrist splint, but that hasn't helped. After a while they started whispering "Carpal Tunnel" and on the heels of that, "Diabetic Neuropathy?"
The only way to find out more was to get an EMG (electromyograph) done, and since the people who do them in Kitchener suddenly quit their jobs, and since our hospitals in this region are horribly overbooked, I found myself scheduled for an EMG at Stratford hospital on October 20th.
Stratford Ontario is a 45-minute drive from Kitchener, and it's a pretty little town, the kind of place that would have stayed small if not for a shrewd move by a Stratford native back in the 1950s. He started the "Stratford Festival," a yearly theatrical blowout that has only increased in popularity since. The town of Stratford now has a thriving artistic community. It also has the ubiquitous "rustic knick-knack" shops that small towns get clogged with, presumably because the only people who visit small towns are people who like rustic knick-knacks.
I left all my planning for this excursion until the last minute (yesterday, shame). I have no car so I knew I'd have to take the Greyhound bus...but I figured, heck, Stratford's a popular place -- and what's more it's halfway to the metropolis of London -- so there must be at LEAST six busses a day.
But no. There are two busses. I realized that mine would arrive in Stratford just half an hour before my appointment at the hospital. What's more, Mapquest informed me that the bus station was at one end of the town, and the hospital at the other. And I started to wonder: what if they don't even have CABS? What if my bus is LATE? What if I get lost in the HOSPITAL?
I knew I'd enjoy the actual bus trip, as it goes directly through the towns I grew up in -- Petersburg, Baden, New Hamburg -- and the landscape out there is almost unbearably pretty, all rolling fields, patchy forests, weed-clogged ditches, old curches, farms and grain silos. On the way down I contemplated the girl in the wheelchair who had to go through the ten-minute procedure of being strapped onto an external elevator and hoisted into the bus, and I wondered if it embarassed her.
Stratford DOES have a bus station...barely. It's in a small room in a warehouse, next to a hallway with six chairs in it. It's also in a typically Southern Ontario edge of town: petrochemical company, run-down steel storage buildings from the '70s, railroad tracks, no sidewalks, and a feeling that you could walk forever without getting anywhere.
The women at the station told me that there was no way I could walk to the hospital, so they called me a taxi. The man in the taxi also told me there was no way I could walk to the hospital. It was inconceivable to these people that anybody would want to walk from the bus station to the hospital, but I kept my eyes on the route and started thinking, hey, I could do this. As a side note: all taxis in Stratford charge a flat $7 rate for calls within town. I don't even think the cab had a meter in it. Quaint!
I love hospitals, and the Stratford General Hospital is a nice mix of '40s relic and parasitic steel-and-glass addition. I DID get lost, entirely due to my own stupidity -- I asked for an MRI instead of an EMG -- but finally found myself with electrodes taped to my arm, and a nice lady telling me that bikers and armed-services personnel often can't stand the pain of an EMG.
Let me clarify: in my case, the EMG consisted of the woman placing groups of four electrodes on various parts of my arm, then giving me sets of three progressively more powerful shocks on various nerves. This made me jump and it was all very unpleasant, especially after you've had about fifty of them. According to the woman (who does this all the time and confesses that she's very unpopular) some people just can't stand electric shocks, and they tend to be burly guys, perhaps because they've had awful shocks before. Other people, however, barely notice it at all. I fell somewhere in the middle.
But it was all worthwhile and they made an almost magically occult diagnosis: I have TWO problems. One is tendonitis and is aggravated by typing, and the other is a nerve in my right elbow that I'm messing up by resting it on hard surfaces with my elbow flexed, which I definitely do. The pain is caused by the first problem and the numbness is caused by the second. So it all comes down to ergonomics, no nerve degeneration, nothing that cortisone injections and a change in work furniture won't fix.
But then the real adventure: I had to decide if I wanted to try walking back to the bus station, or if I should hang around the hospital for two hours and then call a cab, or if I wanted to go downtown, sit in a coffee shop for two hours, and THEN call a cab.
As always there are pros and cons. I can certainly afford a $7 cab ride...but I like nothing more than seeing new sights. I LOVE walking through strange neighbourhoods, seeing the houses, getting a taste for the people who live there. I decided to risk it (and it was a bit of a risk, because if I missed my bus...well, there wouldn't be any more busses).
So I started walking. It was chilly and overcast: just grey clouds and dark blue clouds, all pressed together and completely hiding the sun. An autumn day when the light doesn't seem to come from anywhere and you have to keep telling yourself that the sun isn't going down yet. Whirlpools of crackling leaves in the wind, occasional spitting rain.
Most of the houses were pretty '50s red- or yellow-brick middle-class dwellings, with big yards and Hallowe'en decorations. I walked and walked, using the Stratford Visitor's Guide as a map. I saw the biggest, most gorgeous, most easily-accessible abandoned building I've ever seen, an enormous burnt-out warehouse by the railroad tracks with no fences or guardposts.
I passed the huge Via Rail station which looked overdone for the two passenger trains they get every day. Then I found myself alongside the wide, flat switching yards, so many overgrown tracks that nobody uses anymore, so many rotting boxcars covered with graffiti, and nothing on the other side but fields. Unused and abandoned desolation, but beautiful until somebody builds a suburb.
I took a brief detour around the old Krug factory. There's something majestic about an eighty-year-old factory covered with gables and flourishes, dusty windows you can barely see through, redundant rooms and huge ventilation ducts that were probably added when somebody realized that ventilation was important. I also patted a shaggy dog.
After that, the industrial section at the edge of town, pre-fabricated metal buildings thumped down around small, delapidated houses from the 1800s. I passed the Petrochemical plant (and "The Greatest Little Warehouse in Stratford")...and then I was back at the bus station. I felt like Livingstone: everybody told me it was an impossible walk, and I'd done it in 45 minutes.
I think most people just don't walk much anymore.
I sat on one of the six chairs in the hallway and waited for the bus. Soon a woman brought her two daughters into the station; all three had the goat-like look of the born-stupid, people who look at you and stare at you and you can tell that the gears just aren't turning. The mother was enormously fat -- probably the biggest person I've ever seen -- and there was a four-inch gap between where her blouse left off and her track pants started. She could barely breathe. They all had the same unflattering shade of red hair that looks like dying weeds.
Later, outside, the mother lit up a cigarette, and then lit up another for her pre-teen daughter. They coughed horribly. The other daughter, about 10 years old, was taking the bus to stay with her aunt in Kitchener. Part of me wanted to listen to their conversation and another part didn't, but in any case the mother panted and coughed so much in the wind that she was barely audible except when furious, which was much of the time.
Things came to a head when the younger daughter realized she'd forgotten a stuffed animal at home. She wanted the mother to go back and get it. The mother objected to the expense, and instead dug out her wallet and gave something to the daughter, saying "here, sleep with mommy's picture." The daughter started crying, so the mother started yelling "Don't fuckin' do this now! End it now! Why're you doin' this now? Shut the fuck up! END THIS NOW!" in her hoarse, breathless, chain-smoker's voice, complete with that peculiar accent that people recognize as "Canadian Trash." Through it all there was a strange love and respect between the three of them, but they were horrible to be around, and we were all very glad when the bus finally came.
The only way to find out more was to get an EMG (electromyograph) done, and since the people who do them in Kitchener suddenly quit their jobs, and since our hospitals in this region are horribly overbooked, I found myself scheduled for an EMG at Stratford hospital on October 20th.
Stratford Ontario is a 45-minute drive from Kitchener, and it's a pretty little town, the kind of place that would have stayed small if not for a shrewd move by a Stratford native back in the 1950s. He started the "Stratford Festival," a yearly theatrical blowout that has only increased in popularity since. The town of Stratford now has a thriving artistic community. It also has the ubiquitous "rustic knick-knack" shops that small towns get clogged with, presumably because the only people who visit small towns are people who like rustic knick-knacks.
I left all my planning for this excursion until the last minute (yesterday, shame). I have no car so I knew I'd have to take the Greyhound bus...but I figured, heck, Stratford's a popular place -- and what's more it's halfway to the metropolis of London -- so there must be at LEAST six busses a day.
But no. There are two busses. I realized that mine would arrive in Stratford just half an hour before my appointment at the hospital. What's more, Mapquest informed me that the bus station was at one end of the town, and the hospital at the other. And I started to wonder: what if they don't even have CABS? What if my bus is LATE? What if I get lost in the HOSPITAL?
I knew I'd enjoy the actual bus trip, as it goes directly through the towns I grew up in -- Petersburg, Baden, New Hamburg -- and the landscape out there is almost unbearably pretty, all rolling fields, patchy forests, weed-clogged ditches, old curches, farms and grain silos. On the way down I contemplated the girl in the wheelchair who had to go through the ten-minute procedure of being strapped onto an external elevator and hoisted into the bus, and I wondered if it embarassed her.
Stratford DOES have a bus station...barely. It's in a small room in a warehouse, next to a hallway with six chairs in it. It's also in a typically Southern Ontario edge of town: petrochemical company, run-down steel storage buildings from the '70s, railroad tracks, no sidewalks, and a feeling that you could walk forever without getting anywhere.
The women at the station told me that there was no way I could walk to the hospital, so they called me a taxi. The man in the taxi also told me there was no way I could walk to the hospital. It was inconceivable to these people that anybody would want to walk from the bus station to the hospital, but I kept my eyes on the route and started thinking, hey, I could do this. As a side note: all taxis in Stratford charge a flat $7 rate for calls within town. I don't even think the cab had a meter in it. Quaint!
I love hospitals, and the Stratford General Hospital is a nice mix of '40s relic and parasitic steel-and-glass addition. I DID get lost, entirely due to my own stupidity -- I asked for an MRI instead of an EMG -- but finally found myself with electrodes taped to my arm, and a nice lady telling me that bikers and armed-services personnel often can't stand the pain of an EMG.
Let me clarify: in my case, the EMG consisted of the woman placing groups of four electrodes on various parts of my arm, then giving me sets of three progressively more powerful shocks on various nerves. This made me jump and it was all very unpleasant, especially after you've had about fifty of them. According to the woman (who does this all the time and confesses that she's very unpopular) some people just can't stand electric shocks, and they tend to be burly guys, perhaps because they've had awful shocks before. Other people, however, barely notice it at all. I fell somewhere in the middle.
But it was all worthwhile and they made an almost magically occult diagnosis: I have TWO problems. One is tendonitis and is aggravated by typing, and the other is a nerve in my right elbow that I'm messing up by resting it on hard surfaces with my elbow flexed, which I definitely do. The pain is caused by the first problem and the numbness is caused by the second. So it all comes down to ergonomics, no nerve degeneration, nothing that cortisone injections and a change in work furniture won't fix.
But then the real adventure: I had to decide if I wanted to try walking back to the bus station, or if I should hang around the hospital for two hours and then call a cab, or if I wanted to go downtown, sit in a coffee shop for two hours, and THEN call a cab.
As always there are pros and cons. I can certainly afford a $7 cab ride...but I like nothing more than seeing new sights. I LOVE walking through strange neighbourhoods, seeing the houses, getting a taste for the people who live there. I decided to risk it (and it was a bit of a risk, because if I missed my bus...well, there wouldn't be any more busses).
So I started walking. It was chilly and overcast: just grey clouds and dark blue clouds, all pressed together and completely hiding the sun. An autumn day when the light doesn't seem to come from anywhere and you have to keep telling yourself that the sun isn't going down yet. Whirlpools of crackling leaves in the wind, occasional spitting rain.
Most of the houses were pretty '50s red- or yellow-brick middle-class dwellings, with big yards and Hallowe'en decorations. I walked and walked, using the Stratford Visitor's Guide as a map. I saw the biggest, most gorgeous, most easily-accessible abandoned building I've ever seen, an enormous burnt-out warehouse by the railroad tracks with no fences or guardposts.
I passed the huge Via Rail station which looked overdone for the two passenger trains they get every day. Then I found myself alongside the wide, flat switching yards, so many overgrown tracks that nobody uses anymore, so many rotting boxcars covered with graffiti, and nothing on the other side but fields. Unused and abandoned desolation, but beautiful until somebody builds a suburb.
I took a brief detour around the old Krug factory. There's something majestic about an eighty-year-old factory covered with gables and flourishes, dusty windows you can barely see through, redundant rooms and huge ventilation ducts that were probably added when somebody realized that ventilation was important. I also patted a shaggy dog.
After that, the industrial section at the edge of town, pre-fabricated metal buildings thumped down around small, delapidated houses from the 1800s. I passed the Petrochemical plant (and "The Greatest Little Warehouse in Stratford")...and then I was back at the bus station. I felt like Livingstone: everybody told me it was an impossible walk, and I'd done it in 45 minutes.
I think most people just don't walk much anymore.
I sat on one of the six chairs in the hallway and waited for the bus. Soon a woman brought her two daughters into the station; all three had the goat-like look of the born-stupid, people who look at you and stare at you and you can tell that the gears just aren't turning. The mother was enormously fat -- probably the biggest person I've ever seen -- and there was a four-inch gap between where her blouse left off and her track pants started. She could barely breathe. They all had the same unflattering shade of red hair that looks like dying weeds.
Later, outside, the mother lit up a cigarette, and then lit up another for her pre-teen daughter. They coughed horribly. The other daughter, about 10 years old, was taking the bus to stay with her aunt in Kitchener. Part of me wanted to listen to their conversation and another part didn't, but in any case the mother panted and coughed so much in the wind that she was barely audible except when furious, which was much of the time.
Things came to a head when the younger daughter realized she'd forgotten a stuffed animal at home. She wanted the mother to go back and get it. The mother objected to the expense, and instead dug out her wallet and gave something to the daughter, saying "here, sleep with mommy's picture." The daughter started crying, so the mother started yelling "Don't fuckin' do this now! End it now! Why're you doin' this now? Shut the fuck up! END THIS NOW!" in her hoarse, breathless, chain-smoker's voice, complete with that peculiar accent that people recognize as "Canadian Trash." Through it all there was a strange love and respect between the three of them, but they were horrible to be around, and we were all very glad when the bus finally came.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Common Mounted Police Problems In 1889
Police today think they got it tough? "The New West" -- a collection of reports filed by the North-West Mounted Police in 1889 -- should be required reading.
In 1876, the North West Act was passed, providing governance to what was then the North-Territories (now essentially Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba). I can find very little information about the act itself, but one particular part of it caused a lot of trouble for the Mounties: the Liquor Laws.
These laws forbade the importation and sale of liquor (though apparently not beer) without a permit from the Governor-General, the point being to prevent Indians from drinking it. But the Mounted Police found it impossible to enforce, especially since lawyers were always finding ingenious new loopholes in it. Not even the local government seemed sympathetic to the law; one judge even ruled that people could sell liquor as long as they had SOME permit, even if it was somebody else's. Every single report in this book contains a frustrated screed by the officers: everybody hates the law, we can't enforce it, it must be changed.
Equally annoying to the Mounted Police was the state of their barracks furniture, which they had to make themselves out of rough wood. This lowered morale almost as much as the lack of recreational facilities, and the officers were constantly pleading for iron bed frames, mainly because the iron frames could be folded up to allow the men more room to move around. Superintendent J. Cotton made the typical comment (so typical that it starts to sound like a coordinated campaign): "The ordinary boards and trestles furnish the men with a wretched substitute for a bed, and, at best, present a sorry appearance in the barrack room."
Once you joined the Mounted Police you signed up for a specific term and could only leave by buying out your contract. Even then it often took months for a buyout to be authorized. Since most of the men were skilled farmers and craftsmen -- and the life of a Mountie was cruel, harrowing, and ill-rewarded -- many of them saw better opportunities in the nearby towns and couldn't wait to be authorized to leave. Some of them deserted the force, mainly by crossing the border into Montana. This seems to make the officers more sad than angry.
Apart from difficulties with fire protection (not enough equipment for storing water and too many fires caused by locomotive sparks), a lack of bridges and ferries (making crossing rivers a life-threatening exercise), and dissatisfaction with the armaments (especially the Winchester carbines and the revolvers which were "too powerful"), the reports are mostly positive.
They get most colourful when they start talking about their dealings with the Indians. They generally divided the tribes into good (Bloods, Piegans, Stoneys) and bad (Cree) categories, except for the much-maligned "half-breeds" -- AKA Metis, or French-Indians -- who were generally described as shiftless criminals: "Many are idle and have no settled occupation, and if they get any money waste it in drinking and gambling."
Indians occasionally stole horses, slaughtered ranch cattle, and drank too much, but these were always stressed as isolated cases. Sometimes they camped close to ranches: "They have numbers of dogs, and these dogs chase calves and colts, kill poultry, etc.; Certainly a camp of Indians near one's house is not a desirable addition." The general tone was that the Indians were "good-natured" and needed to be prodded in the right direction.
From my 21st century point of view -- aware that the Native Americans have legitimate grievances, then and now -- I'm always on the lookout for racism in these reports. I started getting suspicious when officers kept mentioning Indians leaving their reservations "without a pass." Not having access to the laws of the time, I got more and more concerned: was there REALLY a law saying that the Indians had to get some sort of "pass" before they could walk on non-reservation land?
Then I came across this little gem of subdued horribleness, thanks to Superintendent R. B. Deane:
Not altogether surprising, but these 19th century Mounties sounded like such even-handed guys until then.
In 1876, the North West Act was passed, providing governance to what was then the North-Territories (now essentially Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba). I can find very little information about the act itself, but one particular part of it caused a lot of trouble for the Mounties: the Liquor Laws.
These laws forbade the importation and sale of liquor (though apparently not beer) without a permit from the Governor-General, the point being to prevent Indians from drinking it. But the Mounted Police found it impossible to enforce, especially since lawyers were always finding ingenious new loopholes in it. Not even the local government seemed sympathetic to the law; one judge even ruled that people could sell liquor as long as they had SOME permit, even if it was somebody else's. Every single report in this book contains a frustrated screed by the officers: everybody hates the law, we can't enforce it, it must be changed.
Equally annoying to the Mounted Police was the state of their barracks furniture, which they had to make themselves out of rough wood. This lowered morale almost as much as the lack of recreational facilities, and the officers were constantly pleading for iron bed frames, mainly because the iron frames could be folded up to allow the men more room to move around. Superintendent J. Cotton made the typical comment (so typical that it starts to sound like a coordinated campaign): "The ordinary boards and trestles furnish the men with a wretched substitute for a bed, and, at best, present a sorry appearance in the barrack room."
Once you joined the Mounted Police you signed up for a specific term and could only leave by buying out your contract. Even then it often took months for a buyout to be authorized. Since most of the men were skilled farmers and craftsmen -- and the life of a Mountie was cruel, harrowing, and ill-rewarded -- many of them saw better opportunities in the nearby towns and couldn't wait to be authorized to leave. Some of them deserted the force, mainly by crossing the border into Montana. This seems to make the officers more sad than angry.
Apart from difficulties with fire protection (not enough equipment for storing water and too many fires caused by locomotive sparks), a lack of bridges and ferries (making crossing rivers a life-threatening exercise), and dissatisfaction with the armaments (especially the Winchester carbines and the revolvers which were "too powerful"), the reports are mostly positive.
They get most colourful when they start talking about their dealings with the Indians. They generally divided the tribes into good (Bloods, Piegans, Stoneys) and bad (Cree) categories, except for the much-maligned "half-breeds" -- AKA Metis, or French-Indians -- who were generally described as shiftless criminals: "Many are idle and have no settled occupation, and if they get any money waste it in drinking and gambling."
Indians occasionally stole horses, slaughtered ranch cattle, and drank too much, but these were always stressed as isolated cases. Sometimes they camped close to ranches: "They have numbers of dogs, and these dogs chase calves and colts, kill poultry, etc.; Certainly a camp of Indians near one's house is not a desirable addition." The general tone was that the Indians were "good-natured" and needed to be prodded in the right direction.
From my 21st century point of view -- aware that the Native Americans have legitimate grievances, then and now -- I'm always on the lookout for racism in these reports. I started getting suspicious when officers kept mentioning Indians leaving their reservations "without a pass." Not having access to the laws of the time, I got more and more concerned: was there REALLY a law saying that the Indians had to get some sort of "pass" before they could walk on non-reservation land?
Then I came across this little gem of subdued horribleness, thanks to Superintendent R. B. Deane:
The Indians that have come this way from the Blood Reserve have, on the whole, behaved themselves well... Others come with all sorts of plausible pretexts to account for being off their reserve without a pass. Some do not appear to think a pass necessary at all. One Indian produced a pass which was exactly a year old, and therewith was quite content. Some of them seem to be aware that in point of law they have as much right to roam about the country as white men, and that confinement to a reserve was not one of the provisions of their treaty.You've got to be KIDDING me. The Mounted Police were regularly enforcing a fake "pass law" to keep Indians from leaving their reservations? And this is nonchalantly described in a report, with full knowledge that the reports were published every year for public reading? This has changed the tone of everything I'm reading; if such a basic violation of the rights of the Indians was so casually tossed around, I can't imagine what they DIDN'T put in the reports.
Not altogether surprising, but these 19th century Mounties sounded like such even-handed guys until then.
Anybody's Grandfather?
Imagine my surprise while reading the "Motors" feature in the November 27, 1926 issue of The New Yorker:
* Standard Oil Company of New York
A man in Kitchener, Ontario, has an original system of warming. He keeps his engine running all day! His car is a Nash and only once to our knowledge has it frozen. Loco, Mercedes and Hispano owners are not recommended to try this. It might prove expensive. We believe some one in Socony* started the habit.These magazines only mention Canada when they're talking about bootleggers. Such a surprise they'd mention the city I live in! Though Kitchener WAS a bigger wheel in Ontario back then than it is today...
* Standard Oil Company of New York
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The New West: Mysterious 19th Century Ailments
As part of my personal mission to learn more about the country I live in (and to have fun doing it), I'm reading a fascinating book called "The New West." It's a straight-forward collection of reports from the North-West Mounted Police filed during 1889.
These prototypical mounties had only been around for 16 years by that point. They were still suffering growing pains as they tried to keep up with explosive settlement, the coming of the railroad, forest fires, cattle theft, and some decidedly uneasy relationships with the Native Americans.
I've only just started reading the book, but I'm struck by the reports filed by Senior Surgeon A. Jukes (who, I've just discovered, testified that Louis Riel was not insane) and his group of assistant surgeons. They provide handy tables of all the illnesses they treated during the year. Many of them are easy for a 21st century reader to understand, but there are plenty of cases of Freaky 19th Century Ailments with weird names.
To educate you (and myself), I've done a bit of research. And if you're a really dedicated hypochondriac, try these ones on for size:
Extra-special credit goes to Rudy's List of Archaic Medical Terms. This just goes to show that no matter what weird thing you're curious about, you'll find a website for it eventually.
These prototypical mounties had only been around for 16 years by that point. They were still suffering growing pains as they tried to keep up with explosive settlement, the coming of the railroad, forest fires, cattle theft, and some decidedly uneasy relationships with the Native Americans.
I've only just started reading the book, but I'm struck by the reports filed by Senior Surgeon A. Jukes (who, I've just discovered, testified that Louis Riel was not insane) and his group of assistant surgeons. They provide handy tables of all the illnesses they treated during the year. Many of them are easy for a 21st century reader to understand, but there are plenty of cases of Freaky 19th Century Ailments with weird names.
To educate you (and myself), I've done a bit of research. And if you're a really dedicated hypochondriac, try these ones on for size:
- Two officers spent almost a month recovering from Bilious Fever. It's an intestinal flu/fever that keeps on coming back to haunt you. I've always assumed this caused your stomach to bloat.
- Eighteen unfortunate fellows dealt with Cephalalgia, which isn't a deadly tropical amoeba...it's just a headache!
- Choria took one man seventy days to recover from. It's the infamous St. Vitus' Dance, a symptom of several different illnesses (such as Huntington's disease and rheumatic fever).
- Lumbago -- AKA lower-back pain -- was pretty popular and easily overcome.
- I'm totally confused by Odontolgia, which is listed as a "disease of the nervous system." There are lots of online references to Odontologia, but they're all in Spanish and probably refer to some medical field. Maybe a toothache?
- Good old Catarrh, a chronic inflammation of the mucous membranes.
- One poor guy caught Furunculus and was still being treated by the time of the report. It's a boil. Why don't we hear about boils and carbuncles anymore? Either because our hygiene is better or because we just call them big pimples nowadays, is my guess.
- Three (possibly) uncircumsized men complained of Balanitis, a penile inflammation. The Mounted Police didn't have many opportunities to bathe, apparently.
- Yikes, Desquamative Nephritis took three months to kill a police officer. It's a nasty inflammation of the kidneys.
- One man had Orchitis, an inflammation of the testicles. But don't worry...he got over it!
- Two men suffered Eruptions! I have no idea what this means. Testicles again?
- I sense a trend here...another two men from Calgary spent ten days being treated for Spermatorrhoea, which Swami Sivandra of Rishikesh says has "eaten away the very core of the heart of many brilliant youth." Amazing that a grown man would go to the doctor because he's having wet dreams...those Victorians!
- Incidentally, there was a single tapeworm lurking around Calgary in 1889, poor lonely thing.
- Varix was a horribly swollen vein.
- For guys who were so good with their horses, they sure got kicked by horse a lot.
- When is a police officer felonous? When he's suffering from an infected fingertip! That would be a good joke. Actually, no, it wouldn't.
Extra-special credit goes to Rudy's List of Archaic Medical Terms. This just goes to show that no matter what weird thing you're curious about, you'll find a website for it eventually.
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