New Year... New Chapter?

It is a new year and therefore time to re dedicate myself to this blog, or admit that it has run its course and served its purpose. 

I wish I had the answers. 

I'd like to say that my life is not so interesting now; but the truth of the matter is that it wasn't that interesting before when I was prolific, so that is no excuse. 

I hate my laptop because it runs slow, runs hot, and likes to crash. And while that is a good reason to slow me down, I am typing this on the iPad and it isn't that evil to type on. It isn't as fast and it is riddled with a few more errors, but with practice I am sure I can gain speed. 

One reason I have given my wife - which she rejects, so I should too- is that writing about my life and observations means sharing or exposing parts of her life that she might want to keep private.  I continued to revolve around the anonymity theme because it gave me freedom to write about people in my life as though they were characters. It gave me room - poetic or more accurately narrative license - to embellish, exaggerate or mold their stories or actions to fit mine. They didn't read my blog so they couldn't be upset or hurt by my characterizations.

My wife assures me she is made of tougher stuff. 

And I do believe her. 

But I fear that a minor thread could be woven into something more. I have learned through experience that a careless word or sentence can hurt deeper than one might realize until it is too late. 

My ex had what we might politely refer to as self-esteem issues. To say that she didn't take criticism well would be quite the understatement. She didn't even take compliments well - always looking for some deeper hidden meaning. Rather hidden insult. Except to her, in her twisted mind, it wasn't hidden.  It was blatant. And she would never forget it.  It would eat away at her.

I wish I was kidding.  I wish I was exaggerating. And, again, in hindsight, she was mentally ill. 

But she was also human. And while she was overly sensitive, it is well known that we often hear the negative - or more accurately what we perceive as negative - much more loudly than the positive. 

And as such, because of her oversensitivity, I am now oversensitive. What a wonderful gift. ;)

I need to get back out and re-expand my social network. Both in physical presence and virtually. I have not been on Twitter much and have come close to closing out my Facebook account altogether because their privacy hypocrisies drive me nuts. At least with Twitter there is no illusion of privacy.  

Early on, I was told one way to generate attention, or at least to see that you have received attention is to make the post more interactive. So I am going to challenge you, in the comments, to come up with FREE no-cost ways to better occupy my days besides watching TV.  Note that I cannot volunteer or work for pay, the weather is often inclement, and transportation does cost money.  I can do some limited travel, and even though I do live near the SkyTrain, the cost to go downtown is not in my budget. My wife is supporting both of us on her one income until CIC says I can work, and my part is not spending any more money than I have to. 

I will pick one of the ideas contributed below and write a blog entry about what I do. 

Then I will have more to write about than just my wife and her side of the family. :)

Let's see where this new chapter takes us... 

The Blog Hole

There must be a blog hole out there. 

A place where us bloggers - once quite prolific - have seemed to have slipped into.  Well, not all of us, but some of us.  A place, you'd imagine, where we would all be sitting on a desert island somewhere, unlocatable by GPS, somewhere in Bermuda sipping Mai Tais.  I can almost imagine it, if it weren't for all the rain here in the Vancouver area.

I don't know what it is, frankly, that have caused so many of us collectively to lose our voice - or our expression.  Many of my favorite bloggers have gone quiet lately, too.  Some have written an "I'm back" or "I will be back" post in the recent past, but few have returned full speed. 

Maybe it was a wave we were all on.  Maybe Mercury is in retrograde - or whomever the God or Goddess of blogging might be.  (Well, of course, the Bloggess IS the Goddess of blogging, that kind of goes without saying...)

My wife feels bad.  That my life is so good, that I am no longer beleaguered by nagging posts that need to be written.  Frankly, it is true that I have found a live human audience to share much of my observations on life with on a day-to-day basis.  But I'm also not going out into the world so much, either.  I am not yet able to work, so I am conserving what funds I can by sticking close to home.  They think they can fool me by pricing their gas here by the litre and I won't realize what unbelievably astronomical price that gasoline is here in Canada.  But I can do rudimentary math.

The reality is that I am most often inspired - or the ideas for a blog post are most often going through my head - as I am trying to fall asleep.  More importantly, as she is trying to fall asleep, and as she is the bread-winner of the family, I think it important for me not to disturb her sleep.

But tonight I slipped away.  Not just because this blog entry was in my fingers, but what may become the next blog entry, too.  We'll see what actually gels and publishes. 

I have recently begun helping my nephew here academically, and one of the things I have been pushing him to do is write daily.  So, perhaps, in the spirit, I should regroup and begin writing here, again, on a more regular basis. 

I think, unfortunately, I am now down to only three of my regular Ukrainian readers, but hopefully news of the Borg will spread again, and those who used to come will return again.  :) 

I have missed you my friends. 

Be Careful of the Internet...

You never quite know where random searching where your ADD whims might take you on the internet might land you.

I just found the obituary for a friend of mine who I happen to know is quite alive - just receiving texts from her, in fact - and the woman's surviving brother has the same name as her son.  Kinda gives me the willies.

Oh, you know how it goes.  You see one thing on FaceBook or Twitter, and your mind goes wandering, and then you start googling.  Google counts on it.

I don't spend as much time on my laptop as I used to, it overheats, and I don't use it for work or for viewing television any more.  So every once in awhile when I get on it, I do that old sport of random browsing.  I don't do much random browsing anymore - I tend to be fishing for specific answers these days when I pull out the iDevice (whether it be iPhone or iPad), rather than random strolling through the Internet.

But today I went looking for an old friend (a different friend, in fact) and there, as one of the results was the "images on the web", and there really was an image for her.  So I went to see if there were any images for me, and was surprised by what I found that actually did relate to me, but that's a whole different story, and then I decided to punch in my other friend's name since I noticed her FB posts are being broadcast to the world.

I did NOT expect to find her funeral notice.  Nor I am sure, would she, and I don't plan on telling her.  If it gave me the willies, imagine how she'd feel?

Just goes to reinforce that the Internet can be a scary place...

Hidden Objects Game

So my wife and I were given an iPad as a wedding present, and we've been having fun exploring the opportunities available to us with this new powerhouse of technology and potential productivity.

What we've probably spent the most time doing, however, is playing hidden object games.  You know the ones, Mystery Manor and the like.  You go from room to room or area to area and you have a limited amount of time to find a particular set of objects.  Often these objects remain in relatively the same places, and sometimes they move around.  To suck you in, of course, they try to make it a little easier for you and keep things in the same two or three places so you have a chance at finding the objects.

Living with ADD, sometimes (and probably even without it) can be like playing a Hidden Object game.  In an ideal world, everything has it's place, so it takes you no time at all to find the hat on the ironing board, and for you to be ready to move onto the next thing.  But sometimes, things get tricky and they move around.  And you can't find them as easily even when they are sitting in front of your face.

Good habits teach us to put things back.  Life, however, often gets in the way.

So, for example, that hat that's usually in the closet next to the ironing board, if it doesn't get put back, could be anywhere within the apartment.  I know I wore it last night.  I wear it out sometimes when my hair is a bit of a mess - short hair, likes to spike up in all the wrong places sometimes.  Last night, in a brief lull in the thunderstorm we ran out to get pizza, and well, I wore the hat.

But where did I put the hat?  I'll tell you where it isn't.  It isn't in the closet next to the ironing board.  Nor is it on the couch or the coffee table, where it sometimes hangs out when it's not in the closet.  It's like one of those hidden object games.

I'm lucky.  Even though with my ADD I may play these games more often than others, I happen to have a wife who has a reasonably good memory. Definitely an above average memory.  And if I really needed that hat now to take down the pizza boxes, for example, to recycling, I could call her and ask her where it was.  She'd have in three guesses, I imagine.  The first would be the closet, but I might give her an early hint that it wasn't in there.  She might next think about the coffee table / couch, but she also might remember exactly where I was when I came back from bringing the soda up from her car, and where I put the hat when I returned.

It's probably on the soda.

An Open Letter to the Bloggess

This is too long a response to try and type and risk having my comment be erased, so I'm just going to write you a blog post.  My first blog post in well over a month.

I have bad news for you.  

You are human. 

Some days being human just sucks.  I know you know this already.  To answer your question, yes, we all have days where we feel that we don't measure up.  Even the perfect stepford wife looking parents all have moments where they don't feel that they measure up.  IN FACT, it is BECAUSE they feel that they don't measure up often that they work so hard to create a facade that suggests that they have it all together. And if someone knocks a chink in that facade, it might all fall apart like a house of cards.

Flylady is a website that often reminds me of this.  Not specifically relevant to the things you specifically mentioned, but it has a lot of people writing in about not being perfect, and always feeling that they're behind and that they didn't and don't do enough.  In fact, their motto, on their hundreds of emails that they send is "You're not behind"

Part of the secret of life is trying to figure out how to (or if to) measure oneself, and one's life.  At the end of the day, we must each find that way, that measure, that ideally will bring us happiness, or at a minimum, comfort.

I'll tell you a little about what works for me (and this from a woman who hasn't "worked" in the traditional sense in six months now; and I ain't no house-wife, either, my wife (God bless her) does 98% of the "housework" including the cooking and the dishes).

My goal is not to make things worse.

It's a real simple goal.

And this is an overall measurement.  Overall in the day, try to make things a little bit better, not worse.  Try not to offend people (that one might be hard for you... *grin!*), try not to hurt others, try not to add to the discord that is often swirling around us.  AND, if I'm lucky, try to add a bit of good.  Bring a smile to someone's face, a laugh (my sense of humor is one of my greatest strengths, I believe).  Help restore someone's belief, if only for a moment, in the kindness of their fellow human beings.

And if I make it through the day and make someone else smile, alleviate their burden for a moment, make someone else feel loved, then it's been a pretty damn good day.

I'm not that ambitious.  I prefer to think of myself as realistic.  I realized long ago I was never going to make some grand scientific discovery (I dropped out of college chemistry a lab or two in... I am sure beakers were broken, but I can't remember).  I will not develop penicillin (of course since it's already been discovered, it's kind of late now).  I won't be a great explorer, a record holder, a great athlete, or even a (great) parent.

And the most freeing realization is that I don't need to be any of those things to be a good person.  Neither do you.

I can list off like many would and you asked us not to do all the good things you've done.  But me recognizing it isn't the issue, is it?

The short answer, though, is no, you are not alone.  

(Really, have you NOT been reading your Twitter feed lately, or what??)

(P.S. Tonight I intend to check this off as my something good for the day, so-o-o....)

ID

Okay, so here is the question:

For what type of things should a photo identification be required?

I'll be honest.  It's the whole voter ID question that is raising it for me today, but let's face it, there's a lot of different places where the question could be raised.  Medical care, perhaps?

And the problem with raising the issue over voter ID is that apparently there is a whole lot of other issues at stake.  And I respect that the application of a law could be discriminatory even if the law itself on the face of it is not discriminatory.  If I remember correctly, this is a good legal argument to use in front of the Supreme Court.

BUT, given that we're required to provide a photo ID for just about everything else in life, including leasing a property, banking, cashing a check, obtaining a marriage license, and sometimes even to receive medical care, it seems that someone who does NOT have a valid photo identification at this point in life is missing out on a whole lot more than possibly just voting.

In Canada, a photo-ID is required to vote.

I was shocked, frankly, when I first showed up to vote and wasn't required to provide a photo ID.  And I'm in my 40s.

I think, long-term, a photo identification should be required to vote.  There may be legitimate arguments against requiring photo identification.  And I think we should address these arguments.  In the meantime, however, I think we should provide some sort of step-up system so that we reach that long-term goal, but we address the short-term issues.  For example, if the issue is that the people can't afford to get IDs, let's set up a fund that will help pay for the photo IDs.  Let's allow people to use Medicare cards for the next x number of years, since I admit, often that was enough for some medical care providing.

In a hundred years, perhaps, we'll only need our retinas to provide positive identification...

SCAM! Please, please, avoid....

I'd like to think all of you are smarter than this, but clearly there are some unknowing victims who fall for these phone calls that they continue.  And, the operators sound quite insistent and firm that they are legitimate and not scam-artists even when told to their face (well, it's by phone, so not "face") that no, thank you I'm not interested in your scam.  "No, ma'am, this isn't a scam.  This is legitimate".

I didn't have a home phone back when I was most recently living in the states, and my cell phone number used to belong to a woman who apparently applied for a lot of pay period loans and was surprisingly behind on her credit cards, so I didn't answer my phone unless I knew the caller.

But now, for some reason, I get amused answering the home phone.  My wife thinks I'm nuts to participate in these calls, but I get some sort of amusement.  Until I get pissed that is.  Maybe that's the part my wife worries about? Nah.

I love the ones that call insisting my computer is having a problem, and they are the ones to fix it.  Since, gees, I got my computer oh, several years before I ever arrived here, and my wife didn't have a computer that she used before I came, so I know there is no computer registered to this phone number here.

But this morning they called again telling me that Microsoft has not been able to update my computer.  Amusing, really given that yesterday when I shut it down it did update.  So, I called him on it.  He said, quite insistently, that no, there was a problem, and if I would let him, he would gladly show me what is wrong with my computer.  I was quite clear there was no way I was allowing him to remotely access my computer, thank you very much.

He never gave in.  Eventually I bid him a good day and hung up on him.  But I know there are people who actually believe them.  In fact, when we went to the RCMP to get fingerprints for me, there was a guy ahead of us in line who was stopping by to make a complaint about having been scammed just like that.

It is tough, in this day and age, to figure out sometimes what is and what isn't safe.  My wife is surprised that I don't have more apps for games downloaded given how much I enjoy playing them - but the reality is that I'm scared to download apps much because even though there hasn't been much on iPhone viruses, I don't want to be one of the first to find out.  Ideally iTunes and the App store would weed out damaging apps, but I still am anxious.  I don't download stuff if I don't know where it's come from, for the most part, but it is impossible in today's day and age to always be that careful.  Sometimes there is no choice.

But people, PLEASE, take basic common sense in dealing with the electronic world and with the real world.  Ask questions.  Don't just take some stranger's word for it.  Use your own head and trust yourself.  And if you don't know, ask someone else you trust.

Please.

But in the meantime, if you want to be amused along with me by the idiots who try, then please, be my guest.  :)

:)

Mmmm....

CSI: Cooking and Pancakes

So, as a single gal, cooking has to be something you enjoy in order to do much of it and eat more than processed and pre-prepared foods.  Because cooking creates mess.  It just does.  If you do it right, apparently.

And I'm not exactly the best about cleaning up messes.  So much of what I eat while my wife is at work is pre-prepared.  Leftovers from the night before, or easily prepared foods that are nuked and don't create much mess.  Because I hate cleaning mess.  I'm good at creating it.  Apparently, not so good at cleaning it.

I was really proud of myself the other morning, though, when I decided to make pancakes.  The first morning I made them was over the weekend when my wife was around to help clean up after.  Cleaning up with her is much easier than cleaning alone.  Hence, no fun cooking and eating alone.  More fun cooking and eating and therefore cleaning with others.

Well, we all know that pancakes aren't that big a deal.  In fact, I'll admit, this is even the mix that is just add water.  This way when I'm having a craving for pancakes, I'm not dependent upon whether or not I actually have eggs in the house.  Single-secrets.

Anyway, no problem making pancakes when my wife was around.  She doesn't actually let me cook much when she's home.  She was involved in something else at the time, though, and she didn't want pancakes, so I just did it.  OMG!

So, on Monday morning, buoyed by my success over the weekend, and craving more pancakes, I decided to make some on my own.

And I admit, I'm the kind of girl that washes the dishes for the day moments before my wife comes home.  I put stuff off. But when you cook, you're better off cleaning sooner than later, because stuff gets caked on and harder to clean.

So I was proud of myself.  I made myself a delicious yummy breakfast, and then, I was really good.  I cleaned up immediately.  All done quite quickly.  Much relief off my shoulders not waiting until the last minute to clean up.  My day was free.  It was all good.  I made progress and cooked on my own, and even cleaned up.  All was good.

My wife came home and unlike usual, there were no obvious signs as to what I had been up to.  Again, I'd cleaned.  And done it well.  Despite my annoyance in cleaning, generally, with cooking, I had a success I was ready to build upon.

Until we were washing dishes that night.  Suddenly dishes that were washed by my wife were suddenly streaky after I dried them.  Apparently, I had left pancake batter on the towels.  And she said that she detected batter on the floor, and in the vents, and on the ceiling and the light fixture.  Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it seemed that she found traces of my criminal, er, cooking activity wherever she went.

My wife is the CSI.  Each day when she comes home, she takes a quick examination and she can tell what I've done during the day.  Mind you it isn't challenging. It isn't as if I do a lot during the day, but, still....

So, here I find myself craving pancakes but wondering whether or kitchen can take it...

Except I know the answer my wife will think, if not say, when she reads this... Don't worry, I'll make sure it's fine and clean... Just, um, Borg, try to keep it out of the vents, okay? Thanks.

Something like that...

Impetus

Recently I have been contemplating the impetus for writing.  Or in this case, not much writing.  And I can't help but wonder if I need to be depressed, or in some overly dramatic place in order to write?  Must I be lonely? Surely that can't be true.

But, the "problem" is that I am happy.  Those are strange words to type or to say.  That happiness is a "problem".  Because it isn't.  It's wonderful.  It's good.  It's all those things we hope for and hope it will be.

Is my life perfect? No.  Do I have everything I want? Ehh... yes and no.  The most important things, most definitely.  But it would be nice, for example, to have the CHOICE to work or not work, rather than just not work.

Although, if I were smart, I'd realize that at the moment writing apparently IS work... and then I'd just do this.

I'll get back on the horse.  When I started this blog, I thought about the things I liked most in a blog and tried to keep them there.  One of them was frequency. You hate to find someone whose voice you enjoy and then have them not write very often.  You want to read it frequently.  It's like handwritten letters found in a mailbox.  It's nice to receive them. (I get very few now here in Canada... postage has become QUITE expensive!)

The other thing I tried to remember when I first started writing this blog was that not all my entries were going to be winners.  And that it was okay.  I'd rather have a few bad posts than no posts at all.  So, I'll try to get better about reincorporating this as a habit.

Forgive me my absence, dear readers.  I am not dead...

"Social" Media

So, one of the things I have been pondering lately is the friending of spouses. Once you go to the trouble of finding a spouse suddenly all these people come out of the woodwork and want to friend you. Whose overtures and invites to friendship do you accept?

It is awkward on the other end too. I has found myself friending spouses I have never met or at least wanting to on occasion but refraining because it might seem weird.

It is not just the Facebook phenomena but also in real life too. How much of a friend are you supposed to be to the spouse of your good friend.

What is the protocol?

It is tricky to navigate. At one level such overtures from a spouse to a friend could seem overprotective. Domineering. In some circumstances it might seem sweet - taking an interest in those your spouse cares for.

But then you create a triangle and potential problems. What if your friend now bitches about the spouse you have become friends with. Whose side do you take? What if you realize after spending just a little time with your spouse's friend you recognize how toxic he or she is - do you say anything?

Then there's the insecurity that these two might become better friends with each other than they are with you!

In "How I Met Your Mother", Lily used to have a front porch swing test for the people Ted was dating. Would she want to sit on the front porch together when they were old? Lily went so far as to sabotage any relationships Ted would have with women who didn't fit her vision of the future.

Making friendships - any relationships - entails a certain amount of risk. But which folks should immediate red flags of danger rise?

Something to continue to ponder..

Today's Opinions - A Little Constitutional Law 101 - Initial Thoughts

One of the secrets I've kept all along is that I once was a licensed attorney.  So, I know a little more than the average bear about the legal goings on, and I went to law school, frankly, because my partner at the time and I could not get the same rights and protections that other opposite sex couples could get simply by saying "I do".

So, I know a wee bit about this area of law since it was my personal area of focus, and I did practice same sex law in a former life (that sounds MUCH kinkier than it was).

The Supreme Court has many ways in which to issue an opinion on a matter brought before it, including a decision not to make a decision at all.

Today's Supreme Court decisions have focused a lot today on whether or not they are allowed to even make a decision.  It's a great way for the Supreme Court to avoid making decisions when it wants to.  One way is to say that the people who are bringing the suit have no right to.  This is the basis by which the Court dismissed the Prop 8 case.

The Windsor case - the tax case - could have been dismissed had Obama actually refunded the estate tax and not simply refused to defend.  But because there was harm done to Windsor by the refusal to refund the estate tax paid, the Court had to issue a ruling.

All of the principles I learned in my law school tax classes came down.  If Windsor had refused to pay the tax herself, we might not ever have heard the case.  ALWAYS pay the taxes first, and then fight the IRS in court.  If you don't, you end up in tax court, and there is very little remedy for appeals.

Arcane geeky law stuff.

These cases however open the door and pave the way for further progress.

Basically, the Supreme Court has declared that states have the authority to define marriage, and the federal law cannot discriminate amongst people the state has like-determined.  However, this doesn't solve other states which don't recognize marriage, and it doesn't necessarily recognize what another country does unless the state in which they are residing does (Windsor was married in Toronto).

These cases will come, and they will probably be resolved in favor of same-sex marriage, but we haven't gotten those opinions yet.

But this is a positive step.  :)

Sharper Mind...

Being in Canada has been an interesting experience in observing slight variations between the way things are done or referred to here and how they are done in the States.  Some things are inconsequential, and some things have bigger effect.

Here they pronounce car manufacturer Mazda differently.  Inconsequential.  Here gas is sold in litres at around $1.40 per litre.  At approximately 3.78 litres to the gallon, that translates to over $5 per gallon.  A little bit more consequential.  Fortunately I've only had to fill my tank once since I've gotten here because I live a rather non-vehicular life.

One of the things which really struck me as odd at first is cheese.  In the States, cheese may vary from mild to sharp.  One of the more common examples is when these terms are used to describe cheddar cheese.  I think, in theory, the descriptions are, well, self-descriptive, but essentially the milder tasting cheeses are labeled mild, or medium, and the more pungent, or, well, sharp the taste of the cheese, then it is labeled "sharp".  It seems fairly straight forward when that is all you know.

In Canada, however, the sharper cheese is called "old".  Or older, if you're describing varying degrees.  And, well, that's I guess a fairly accurate description of the process of making cheese, and makes sense.  Except us from the States might find a cheese described as "old" a bit too accurate and may be less likely to eat or get our children to eat.

Lately, my wife has gotten me sucked into the King variety of games.  The first teaser drug, er, game, is Candy Crush Saga.  Such a teaser it is that I even saw an ad for it on TV this morning which really surprised me.  But there it was.  My love is always looking for a new challenging game, and often when she finds one she likes, she finds all the varying options of it.  Think of Angry Birds.  She has at least two folders on her iPhone just of Angry Birds games.

So, about a week after starting to play Candy Crush, she decided to download onto her iPhone Pet Rescue Saga also from King.  And when she came home from work, she was excited to share with me.

I'm frankly leery of downloading every app that looks interesting.  I guess it's left-over protective instincts worrying about viruses and such.  But, if my wife has tried it out and her phone hasn't started making calls to Europe, I'm less leery and willing to download and check it out, too.  One of our ways of sharing time together.

Except, Pet Rescue Saga isn't available in the US store.  And even though I'm in Canada, and can apparently see it in the Canada App store, my phone isn't authorized to purchase (even though it's free) from the Canada store.

So, that led me to another evil.  Yes, that's right.  Facebook.  I *could* play the game on my Facebook account.

A long time ago, I was one of the pioneer game players for Zynga.  Long before everyone had their own farm, and their own factory job at Yo-Ville, I was one of the early Mafia players.  And then, you really needed to have friends to build your Mafia.  If you wanted to get anywhere, you needed to have more people.  So, you became "friends" with a lot of strangers.

I admit that for awhile there, I played the game religiously.  I had spreadsheets, and timers, and knew how to best maximize everything that I could get from playing the game.  This was about four years ago when the rest of my life was falling apart, and I soon realized part of the addiction was this was some place where I could measure my success.

Eventually I broke the habit, and I've stayed away from Facebook games.  I know their tricks to lure you in and keep you in.  They can be very seductive.

And yet, here I am...

As I have a bit of insomnia here, I have tried to persuade myself that I am playing these set of games to keep my mind sharper.  That the brain needs challenges to keep growing new synapses and such.  That it's use it or lose it.  And at some level these justifications do have merit.  I have lost some interest in Candy Crush because at the level I'm at, it seems that the success is more dependent upon the luck of the candy than any skill.  And I'm quite interested in Pet Rescue Saga because I can see how I have to really think about the puzzle although some of them are still dependent upon good shakes of the pieces.

Sometimes I wish that keeping a sharper mind, though, was as easy as making a sharper cheese.  That getting older meant simply getting better and sharper.

#250 or.. so who am I? (Third time's the charm?)

I must admit that knowing this is the 250th post is kind of daunting.  Of course, if I'd been writing daily since I started, I would have blown past this milestone a ways back.  But I do feel like there should be something momentous written on my 250th post.

And lately, I've been contemplating what might become a series of posts about "Who am I?"  Early on in the blog, I posited a random list of things about myself that I might have expounded upon in full posts at a later time.  I was single, grieving a relationship or two, living in a small town in the mid-West and trying to find an audience for my voice.  On my 25th post, I decided to go to Twitter, and see if I could get The Bloggess to look at my blog.

I was a, um, cynic of Twitter.  I kept my presence on Twitter quiet from those around me.  Surely there is nothing of value on Twitter, but maybe I might be able to find a few folks to come over and read my blog.  Maybe I might find an audience.

I had no idea.  There is no way that woman writing that blog and trickling on to Twitter in February 2012 - not really that long ago - would have had any idea what the future held for her.  Fifteen short months later, and here I am living in another country and married to the most wonderful woman I could never have imagined.

In December, when our relationship and our intentions had solidified enough to be willing to share in public, I had modified one of the items on my "list" - which was to cross off that I was single.  Now to look at the list, there are so many other items to cross off that are not presently true about myself.  For example, I can't watch too much Hulu now because Hulu won't stream in Canada.  :(  I clearly no longer live alone - I am living during my temporary visitor visa period with my wife, and of course, I hope and intend to make it a permanent thing.  This is the first year in four that I won't be coaching soccer, and while I will miss it, soccer was not my passion.  And I most definitely do not live in a small town anymore.

But the core of who I am is still the same.  It's just that some of my circumstances have changed.  I am a person who chooses not to take life too seriously, who loves genuinely and strongly, who gives people the benefit of the doubt and believes in the good of people.  Writing this description of myself feels more like trying to write an online dating profile, and it is impossible to capture who a person is in just a few sentences.  Frankly, I prefer medium length walks on the beach, not long ones.

And in the beginning, I felt detailing who I was didn't really make sense.  Because frankly, I hoped my stories would strike you as familiar.  I'd remind you of that person you know who lives down the street, or who you grew up with, or perhaps even remind you of yourself.  I think finding the commonality between people helps bring us together.  And so I planned to assimilate you.  Borg-style.

Because resistance is futile...

Trading Places...

So here it is. Daylight. On a weekday.  And I am wide awake and out of bed and my love still lies sleeping.  To be clear, she is the one who goes to work every morning.  And here in Canada, it is not a holiday.

Most mornings, even if I am awake before she leaves, I typically stay in bed until she leaves.  I do this, auspiciously, to stay out of the way of her morning routines.  While I say this tongue in cheek, it is actually a habit I developed during my year of living as a guest in other people's homes.

Let's face it.  In the morning you have certain routines you go about and do.  It's not that you're unmalleable, and you can't alter them to accommodate someone else, and perhaps even YOUR routines DO involve someone else, such as kids or even pets.  But you have a certain order of things that you typically tend to do from when you first open your eyes, to when you finally put your feet on the floor (or for some of you, there's just an instant second between the two), to when you pad towards the bathroom and begin your morning routine.  If someone else is in your bathroom, or in your kitchen, you need to make some adjustments.  Not unreasonable adjustments, but still...

I always felt it more respectful as a guest not to interfere with my hosts' morning routines. It wasn't that I couldn't insert myself into it, but most of them were heading off to work, and I usually wasn't.  Part of the reason I *was* a guest.

So, I'm used to hanging out in the bedroom out of the way, while my love does her morning routine.

THIS morning, however, I woke a good hour before the alarm even started going off.  There I was like a meerkat, bright eyed and bushy tailed looking around checking everything out, realizing that it was much too early for me to be awake and yet...

There I was.

So I did what any newlywed would do, I started to snuggle in closer to my wife, nudging her and kissing her and hoping, perhaps, she might enjoy a little morning rolling around before she had to go to work.  I mean what better way to start your day than to have someone wide awake make YOU wake up an hour early, right? I mean let's face it, I can take a nap later this afternoon on the couch, so what's there to lose? Oh, wait, yes, you mean SHE's not allowed to nap mid-day at her desk? Oh... yeah... well....

Actually, my poor girl gets killer headaches on occasion, and this morning happens to be one of those occasions.  Now wait! I can hear you now.. "Oh, only nine days into wedded bliss and she's already giving you the 'headache' excuse... Good luck with that one!" *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*.  Well... gosh.. when you put it that way... Well, thanks.  Way to make my day.  *sniff*

But seriously, my poor Poo is down for the count... and here I am bright eyed and busy tailed.  VERY unusual for me.  So, to be sweet to her, I decided to get up and head into the living room and WRITE about her instead.  Because isn't that what the wife of every blogger dreams of?

That's what I thought...

One Word At A Time...

A blogger friend of mine has this tattooed on his arm.  To remind him to keep writing.  Tattooed.  Permanent.  It's like he takes this writing thing seriously or something?  What's up with that?

I admit the last couple of months I haven't been taking the writing thing seriously.  I've written a whole 10 blog entries - well published a whole 10 blog entries - since March.  It's been a combination of things.

First, the easy excuse to lay down is that I have kind of moved (visiting, I swear, CIC, just visiting, but hoping to move) to another country.  I've left behind a good group of friends that I'd managed to develop - a community - over the last four years.  I drove 2600 miles (give or take) in a short period of time (like three and a half days), and have shacked up with my Twitter love.

Well, um, last weekend we made it official.  No longer just "shacking up", we married each other.

That's my second excuse.  Yeah... that's it. :)

But actually, that has been another issue.  Blogging - for me - sometimes is writing about nothing (that's what I promised you in the early entries!).  It's about taking something small and just writing my (ideally amusing) musings.  Shampoo.

These days, though, I'm not running solo, and I'm not talking about people who are anonymous and who have no idea that I'm writing about them.  Now, though, if I write about those endearing idiosyncrasies, I'm talking about someone that others who read this blog know.

I admit, that this has stymied me on occasion.  There have been a few blog entries gestating, gurgling, waiting to find their way to the surface, that I have squelched out of a sense of decorum.

But I need to remember my friend's tattoo (tattoo! Permanent! Still impressed by that) that I need to just write. One. Word. At. A. Time.  And I know that my love loves me, and if I write something gently teasing her, that she'll still know how very much I love her.  But I can also find many other topics of interest to write about too, and if I can't, then I need to get out into the world a little more.  After all, I'm in a whole new country - surely I can find something amusing to write to you about.

I'll try a little harder... One word at a time.  Thanks, Ken! :)

Big Brother

So, I'm one of many people who have many email accounts.  I created one a few years ago when I got a new iPhone for work to create an iTunes account that was separate from my home account.  This was after I'd left my old life.

In my old life, I was a member of CostCo.  Where I was geographically there was no CostCo - Sam's Club was the local warehouse store.  I was no longer a member of CostCo, but at some point I started getting CostCo e-mails at the new account which I was reserving, I admit, for mostly commercial e-mail kind of stuff.

I really didn't think twice about it.  Until they told me my annual renewal was coming up.  I scratched my head wondering, but, again, didn't think much of it.  Thought they were mistaken.  Whatever.

Now I've been in Canada almost two months.  And this is an account I only access on my iPhone.  I may have logged in once or twice on the computer, but it isn't an account where I am particularly active.

So imagine my shock - still in quite a bit of disbelief - when a little over a week ago, CostCo sent me an email from Costco.ca.  The Turbo Tax ad had a maple leaf and all.

WTF?

How did they know I'm in Canada to customize / change the emails they are sending me?  At what point did they realize I'm here for longer than just a vacation?  I mean really?

And since then, there have been three more e-mails from them.

Makes me wonder what communicates with what around here.  Did Gmail communicate to them where I was when I opened (or frankly, just likely deleted immediately) their prior emails?

Anyone with any plausible explanations would be useful.

Drop the shovel...

Sometimes you just watch your friends shovel themselves into the hole that they are in.  You can see the complaints coming ahead "Help! I'm stuck in a hole!" but you know if you say, "Hey, if you keep digging, you might find yourself in a hole shortly" they won't stop.  And they always look surprised to find themselves in the hole.

Sometimes they'll get a rope and some help out of the hole, but often they just begin to start making steps out of the hole when, oops, there goes that damn shovel again.  There they go digging like they're in that old 80s video game of Dig Dug.  And there, again, is that surprise: "What? How did this happen? How did I get in this hole?"

So, next time you find yourself in a hole, and wondering how you got there, check your own hands: are you holding a shovel? Often the answer to how to get yourself out of a hole is to begin by stopping digging.

Drop the shovel.  And just because you begin to get your head out of the hole and think you're out of it, don't pick up the shovel again.  Look around.  Is your whole body out of the hole? No? And why do you need that shovel anyway?  Where exactly do you think you'll go?

This happens with relationships, with money, with possessions, with dreams, with all sorts of scenarios.  We find ourselves in holes.  It's natural.  It happens sometimes.  But for goodness' sakes, just drop the shovel.  And drop the surprise.  And, um, the whining.  Yeah.  That too.  And find a way to work your way out of the hole.  Chances are you didn't get in the hole overnight - it takes a long time to dig a hole deep enough for us to fit in - and chance are, then, you won't get out overnight.  Do the hard work.

Teddy Bear Nursemaid

So, I've been in Canada about a month and a half, and my poor sweet baby has had two incidences of feeling sick enough or bad enough to stay home from work.  So I've had two opportunities to play nurse-maid to my sick baby.

And I must say I've done a smashing job of it.  I've discovered that the job is quite easy.

Let's face it: what we need most when we are sick is rest.  Sleep is the best way to allow our body time and opportunity to heal itself.  So, sleep is what my baby gets.  The first time she was sick - battling strep throat, she slept about 21 hours each day for about three days.  I did what any good partner would do.  I stayed with her while she slept.  And, um, slept myself.  It was, after all, a good way to allow my immune system to stay strong to avoid contracting the strep throat myself.  (I could post a gruesome picture showing the infection growing on her tonsil, but I imagine she'd rather I didn't...)

Today (er, yesterday?) my baby had a horrible headache when she woke, and I did what any good girlfriend would do.  I stayed in bed with her and slept while she slept it off herself.

Unfortunately, my friend insomnia decided THIS time to come visit me this evening.  He thought I'd had enough rest and sleep in the last few days, particularly considering I had gone to bed early the night before myself.  And so she sleeps now, in the middle of the night like she's supposed to, and I return to my old craft of blogging.  The lost art.

Because I am the teddy bear nursemaid.  I heal by allowing you (well, not YOU, but, the sick person who happens to be my partner) snuggle up to me like I'm your teddy bear, while we let Mother Nature do the hard work.  Who needs chicken soup (particularly when your baby IS a chicken, and there's all sorts of cannibalism questions there) when you can have rest and snuggling?

Old Friends...

It is natural that when you move, you may lose a few friends along the way.  There are some friendships that require your presence to be maintained.  And some friendships that survive the distance, and which may also survive infrequent contact.  Time, often, is the only way to tell which friendships will be which.

Some old friends, though, frankly you are glad to be away from, and you hope they'll lose your number, your e-mail, and forget how to contact you.

Tonight, one of my old friends, nonetheless, whom I was hoping to leave behind has seemed to catch up with me.  Yes, that's right, my old friend insomnia.... My how I've missed you.  NOT.  You could have stayed back in the U.S.  Nothing here in Canada requires your presence.  You may move on, my friend, and return from whence you came.

Insomnia when you're single and when you live alone looks different than insomnia when you're with someone else.  First of all, when you're alone, and you toss and turn in your bed, at least you aren't keeping someone else awake.  Second of all, then, you can stay in your own bed while you wait for insomnia to be on its way.

Sharing a bed with someone else means that there is a moment when you finally decide you can't be helping her sleep, and if you're going to continue to be wide awake, well, then, you might want to be nice to the one you sleep with and go some place else to be wide awake.  Trouble is, of course, is half the time they realize you've gotten up and left, and you may not have solved anything.  Except, of course, you can blog in peace without worrying about the tip tap of fingers on the keyboard waking them further and making them wonder when the hell you're gonna fall asleep so they can too.

In the time that has passed while trying to fall asleep, my mind has wandered in many different directions.  But I will spare you those wanderings.

Suffice to say, my old friend, I wish you'd stayed back in the old place.  And with that, my eyes begin to droop...