Beyond Elsewhere

hey, remember when i was interesting?

Cat — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 01:06:14 +0000

Or at least slightly more-so than I am now?

I just can’t think of anything to write about. Well, I do think of things to write about only that happens as I am falling asleep every night and then I can’t think of it the next day or I just don’t have time to write.

I have been impatiently waiting for that special part of my brain to develop so that I can just think things and they will appear written on the screen. Sadly this is taking a lot longer than I had hoped. What with it being 10 years into the 2000′s I’d have thought this would be a lot more common. And on that note – where the hell are the flying cars we’re supposed to have by now?

My neighbourhood looks nothing like the one on The Jetsons.

We’ve been robbed of our awesome future, my friends.

So, yeah, this is all I’ve got for now.

© 2010Beyond Elsewhere | hey, remember when i was interesting? originally published by Cat for Beyond Elsewhere . | This post cannot be republished without permission of the author. If you're reading it anywhere other than a feed reader (or my own blog!) you are in violation of copyright. Illegal is wrong!

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destruction chronicles – are we there yet?

Cat — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:00:38 +0000

Last week I complained about the unfinished job on our front lawn. I will admit I honestly did not think that our walkway was going to be finished. We were the only ones on the street by last weekend who had not had their various walkway stones put back.

But then today I came home early (after a particularly brutal and stupid day) and saw this:

Good heavens! A WALKWAY! And with SHINY NEW PATIO STONES!

Now there’s a shock!

They are even all nicely lined up and solid when you walk on them (unlike our old ones that wobble to and fro).

I guess this waited so long because they had to order the stones? And they even replaced the two broken ones! And took the old ones from our lawn and carried them away!

So here we have the finished product! I highly doubt we’ll get new grass at this time of year. Never mind the fact that it’s currently 39C (103F) as I write this post – which is HIGHLY unnatural for this time of year. It’ll start dipping below zero soon enough (I hope!) so any new sod will just die out quickly.

My only complaint? This -

They left the – whatever the heck that thing is - thingy really high up. This will be broken/knocked over/whatever once winter starts and the snow plow (or us with the shovel) removes the snow. I don’t know if they plan on coming back and hammering it into the ground a little more? I think it’s rather hazardous still and there’s no cone or anything to flag it. I’m not sure what I am supposed to do with this now. I know that *I* will likely drive over it if I attempt to drive any time soon.

(On that note – I have NOT been driving since this was paved because I STILL CAN’T SEE CLEARLY FROM MY LEFT EYE! Argh. Follow-up appointment for that on September 8th.)

So maybe this is done now? Maybe I will be safe from construction vehicles, holes in the ground and dirt and dust soon? Maybe we can finally wash our car for the FIRST TIME in 2010 since there was no point while the construction was going on because it coated out car in dirt every day?

I certainly hope so.

But I will say this – the construction crew that was working on this for 90% of the time (they’d come back and dig up more stuff as the streets were being repaved, etc) were exceptionally friendly, polite, clean and professional. I will sort of miss waving to them every morning. Especially Young Cousin John. I got used to seeing him on daily basis. This was the best construction experience I have ever had that was run by a city. So kudos to my city for a job well done – AND it ended BEFORE October. Impressive.

© 2010Beyond Elsewhere | destruction chronicles – are we there yet? originally published by Cat for Beyond Elsewhere . | This post cannot be republished without permission of the author. If you're reading it anywhere other than a feed reader (or my own blog!) you are in violation of copyright. Illegal is wrong!

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dog spa saturday

Cat — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:13:43 +0000

You know it is time to give your dogs a bath when you wonder “Why does it smell like pee in the house? Did someone pee on the carpet?” and then you realize it’s the DOG that smells like a hobo. Considering last week Jinx was all about the throwing up for two days straight, after Annie was all about it from a tomato binge… (and that Jinx threw up ON Annie one morning… so much fun!) – it was time. The weather will be turning soon and since we have a lovely warm (but not TOO warm) weekend ahead of us, I thought – let’s wash the dogs before I send them to live with the hobos on the streets of Montreal!

I also want to vacuum my house because it currently looks like we have 73 dogs living here and not just two. So I put the leash on Annie and walked her into the kitchen where I proceeded to torture her for a good 45 minutes, the aftermath of which was this:

It does rather look like we tortured her, doesn’t it? Poor thing. I didn’t even know she had that much fur left on her to come off! She was matted like hell. Shawn had to help hold her head because she is old and crotchety and kept trying to snap at me. But in the end she looked MUCH better (and younger!):

We told her she was now as awesome as The Magical Mr. Mistoffelees from CATS. You’d never know she was 12.5 years old!

Jinx took it upon himself to hide upstairs in the bedroom while we groomed Annie, but Shawn got him down and then we tackled him. His brushing was NOTHING like it was two months ago, but I still trimmed his tail and pantaloons and feet. He doesn’t like that.

After we got all the dead fur off the pups we stole one at a time, put them on the patio table and washed them! They were thrilled as you can imagine!

Annie shook right before I took this which is sad because she really looked much goofier right before. Heh. Can’t you see the unconditional love in her eyes?

Completely forgot to take a photo of Jinx while he was on the table looking miserable. It’s rare he doesn’t look happy and being hosed and/or brushed is one of those times. He tried to show us his paws to distract us, but we weren’t fooled!

It was nice enough today that I could leave them outside to dry. Not too hot for Annie so no fear for heat stroke (which Lappies are very prone to being an Arctic breed and all) and it was nice and shady on the deck. A little fresh air is good for them! I could have hung them on the line like we did with the clothes we wore while washing them. They should be thankful!

I might have to do one more washing before the winter really sets in, but that will be in the bathtub. I sort of like being able to bathe them outside in the summer.

They each need one more brushing (tomorrow!) before I can clean the rest of my house. We got most of the dead fur off of them before the bath, but there’s more to take off now that they have dried. Poor Annie is a matted mess again only I’m scared that if I take off any more fur she’ll be bald come winter!

© 2010Beyond Elsewhere | dog spa saturday originally published by Cat for Beyond Elsewhere . | This post cannot be republished without permission of the author. If you're reading it anywhere other than a feed reader (or my own blog!) you are in violation of copyright. Illegal is wrong!

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destruction chronicles – paved with good intentions

Cat — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 00:15:47 +0000

I am curious as to how long I will get to appreciate all the shiny new streets and sidewalks and driveways before the snow starts. I am very ready for all of this to be over now, please. It’s almost done, it has to be.

On Monday I was home sick but I did happen to get out of bed in time to see a man slice up our driveway with a very powerful handsaw.

I’m sort of glad I staggered out of bed when I did Monday afternoon because I was able to close the windows in the living room to keep out the huge amount of dust that thing kicked up. Also it was loud. Not the sort of thing one wants to hear with a migraine so bad it’s causing vertigo and nausea. Luckily most of the driveways had been done the week before – no idea why they waited until I was home sick. Oh! Maybe they wanted to be sure I could capture it on film for my chronicles! How nice of them!

Today we were woken up at the crack of dawn by the sounds of someone trying to tear down our house.

Or…

Perhaps it was this here tractor pulling up our asphalt and the men with pickaxes helping them. I tell you what, at 7AM, with your open window right above the driveway? It sure sounds like someone is trying to tear down your house, or at least break through the front walls. Yeesh. I leaped out of bed and woke up Shawn and said “I think we need to move the car NOW or we’ll be on the bus!”

And may I take a moment here to tell you all how ticked off I am that even with my earplugs in this wakes me up and yet Shawn sleeps through the whole bloody thing? REALLY! What the hell!? This is so unfair! Gah!

But I digress, or as a lovely blog friend of mine says, I’m tigressing.

Since the line was so close to where the car was the men had to help the tractor pull up some of the driveway. I am sort of baffled that they didn’t want us to move the car (Shawn ran out and asked them). How do you explain “A tractor dropped asphalt on it” to your insurance company?

Then it took about 5 men to figure out what to do with some tough roots and weeds under the patio stones. I kid you not.

They pondered this a while actually, it was funny to watch. Best was the two older men with big burly mustaches tried to poke at the weeds a little and seemed to have been thrown off by their toughness because the gestured at each other as if to say “Unh, huh, huh huh (french person noise) dis is impossible, eh? We cannot dig up dis weed!” Only in French. So they left them for the younger (Young Cousin John) guy to do and they walked away and smoked cigarettes. This is NOT a joke!

Then Young Cousin John used the “ba-dump-a-dump” machine (as I called it) to flatten down the gravel they raked into place. Then he left it behind our car and went on to the next driveway. They promised we’d be able to get the car out by 8:30 but then they sort of left their heavy (had to be moved by tractor) ba-dump-a-dump machine behind our car. *tsk* So I said to Shawn we should go back outside and start to get into the car to see if they’ll remember us.

They did.

And when we got home today -

WOOHOO! Paved driveway! Half of it anyhow. Was really hoping for the entire thing since there wasn’t much left to add to it.

But they did do this…

Not entirely sure why. I mean, they didn’t fill the grooves in all the way and the car wasn’t even in the driveway today! Not sure what this deal is but they did it on my neighbour’s driveway, too. Maybe there was a gap between the new pavement and where the grooves were in the old? Maybe it levels it out? But it still drops down at the end.

And it LOOKS STUPID. I am way too OCD to have my driveway look like this. ARGH!

Not to mention they didn’t put our patio stones back either. So it’s sort of hazardous right now.

We don’t even have a cone this time to note the hazard. You’d think we would. And it’s not a very straight line now is it? I mean, even if we put our own stones back (which I refuse to do, they took them up, they can put them back, yo!) it won’t line up very well. Plus we’re down two full squares that they broke and took away with the trash. So we’re OWED two patio stones. Hmm.

And we have this pipe/drain THING sticking up and in our way. Yet another hazard! And there’s this gap thing now and a drop and I could break something! Knowing me it’s more than possible!

But I am trying to focus on the GOOD things, like,

our street is paved
we’re getting mail at the house (and today I got a boxalope from Penguin Canada! It’s not quite an envelope or a box, it’s a BOXALOPE!)
our driveway is paved
it’s the weekend and I shouldn’t be woken up by trucks and tractors beeping at 7 in the morning
our street and driveway are paved
I AM GETTING MAIL AT MY HOUSE!

These are all very important and happy things. I can almost see the end… of course even when we think we see the end it just keeps on going and going and going. Sort of like some really long and born English literature book you were forced to read in high school for 90% of your final mark.

© 2010Beyond Elsewhere | destruction chronicles – paved with good intentions originally published by Cat for Beyond Elsewhere . | This post cannot be republished without permission of the author. If you're reading it anywhere other than a feed reader (or my own blog!) you are in violation of copyright. Illegal is wrong!

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destruction chronicles – you’ve got mail!

Cat — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:59:47 +0000

This is a photo-less post but it’s a happy update – sure my drive still isn’t paved, but my street is and that means…

I’m getting mail at my house!

This is the most wonderful feeling! I feel like the mail system was just invented and I am experiencing the miracle of mail delivery!

The first bit of mail we got yesterday wasn’t even bills (which really would have sucked). I got bills today, but that’s fine because I also got our new cheques. It’s like a present in the mail, even though they are used to give other people our hard-earned money. Heh.

Many of the driveways on our street have been paved and they stopped a driveway away this evening. I guess we’re up next. So far no one has asked us about doing the entire driveway so I am slightly concerned about that. Looks like a couple of people on the other street had their entire driveways done and they didn’t even have more than half of it dug up like we did.

Hopefully we’ll get asked tomorrow. I won’t hold my breath but it would be nice.

© 2010Beyond Elsewhere | destruction chronicles – you’ve got mail! originally published by Cat for Beyond Elsewhere . | This post cannot be republished without permission of the author. If you're reading it anywhere other than a feed reader (or my own blog!) you are in violation of copyright. Illegal is wrong!

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cat the singular

Cat — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:37:53 +0000

Oh, my friends, do I have a story to tell! I bit the bullet and bought us some CATS tickets earlier in the week because I was running out of time and not winning any of the contests I had entered. I could not live with myself had I let this weekend’s run of CATS go by without getting to see them in all their graceful and furry musical glory. Money is tight these days and I wasn’t going to buy tickets, but this was the most phenomenal thing I had ever seen when I was 12 and just knowing those dancing creatures were right near me and I wouldn’t be able to see them made me twitch.

So I went to Place des Arts armed with my credit card and I justified that this will be paid off by the fall. Hell, I spent a crap load of money on my eyes in February and they aren’t bringing me much joy, I thought for a mere pittance of that price I could at least have SOME joy. And my husband graciously said he would go with me. I love him. And he wasn’t bored out of his mind, either. Woohoo!

So we dressed up:

And we got in the car and attempted to drive to the theatre… then our adventure began!

The show started at 8PM and we decided to leave at 6:45 just in case we had any trouble finding parking. Little did we know it wasn’t the parking we had to worry about. We decided to take the Victoria Bridge for many reasons, most of which were we take it normally, there’s little traffic and it was closer to where we wanted to go. So we drive there only to notice – it’s CLOSED to inbound traffic. What?! Gah! Now it was closer to 7PM and we had to turn around, go in the opposite direction back to the Champlain. (Yes, we could have taken the Jacques Cartier, but neither of us are all that familiar with where to get ON it from our end and Shawn had already turned the opposite way.) We thought we were in luck because our exit for the Champlain wasn’t backed up. Easy as pie, right? Until we merged onto the bridge and everyone stopped. I read the sign on the bride “Electrical Work – CAUTION”. They had the outbound side of the bridge completely closed and one lane with outbound traffic on the inbound side. Argh! It took us a while to get over and take the exit for downtown – only to be stuck behind TWO CARS GOING HALF THE SPEED LIMIT! Argh!

I was really hoping we could get to the PDA parking lot, and we did – behind a line up of cars waiting to get in. But we managed to get there with 15 minutes to spare before the show. I was agitated though. I tell you!

But then I picked up my program and my excitement quickly distracted me from the road rage. When we got to our seats I was happy as a cat on a roof!

The program was pretty chincy – back in the day (read 1988) I am sure they had cast photos next to their names, but whatever. Did I mention I know the guy who knows Rumpleteazer? He’s a student in my Faculty and he grew up with her. I was totally hoping for a shout-out before her song, but alas, I was not recognized!

I wish I remembered from my 1988 experience that I wanted to be on the FLOOR of the show. I would have gotten to meet and see the CATS up close as they wandered through the audience a couple of times and even at intermission. Drat my lack of 22 years ago memories! We were still happy up in our 3rd balcony box seats though (the cheaper ones). Had I bought the tickets when I first heard it advertised I would have had closer seats. Oh, well, next time! (if there IS a next time! I mean the last time they were here was 1988 (I think!) hence my justification for these tickets, it’s a once (twice) in a lifetime deal!)

The show was breath taking, even from our vantage point. We were a little too high up to hear the words very clearly in some songs, but I do know most of them by heart so it was ok. Shawn was also in awe of the grace and ease with which these actors moved. Not a sound was made as they leapt and fell and jumped. Such grace. I think that’s one of the things that filled me with such wonder when I was 12. I still have that wonder today. I still want to be in CATS (and sing the Mcavity song!)

I am so happy I went and I got to share it with Shawn. He even found the same parts boring or exciting as I did. I knew he was perfect for me somehow!

Thoughts:

Mr. Mistoffellees was a FANTASTIC dancer. His spins were awe-dropping to watch. I don’t even think figure skaters could do a better job.
Sadly Rum Tum Tugger wasn’t as awesome as normal. We didn’t feel the voice of the actor playing him, but his personality was hilarious. He made up for his less rugged voice with his actions.
The woman playing Grizzabella made me WEEP with her version of Memories. When she fell to the ground I just started crying. Shawn even said “all of a sudden her voice was IN OUR BOX” when she hit the climax of the song. Brilliant performance.
Old Deuteronomy wasn’t as large and deep voiced as I would have liked. He was ok, but I am used to my Old Deuteronomies sounding and seeming like large black men!
Every time they make that train in Skimbleshanks I tear up and get totally giddy. I don’t know why, maybe because I love trains and the musical? It’s just so EXCITING!
The guy playing Munkustrap had a fantastic voice and I realized his costume resembles this stunning grey cat that’s in a ton of tv commercials these days. (the costume has been around longer, but the resemblance is uncanny – or is that uncatty? heh)

This is one of those shows I think I could watch over and over again and never tire of. I remember I used to sing along with the Original Broadway Soundtrack from the 80s’ in my room and dance around. The music and songs are just so thrilling to me.

I just need to lose about 50 pounds, regain my flexibility and learn to dance and I think I would be a perfect CAT!

I have the 1920s glamour down, does that count?

(When I am an official rock star, I am totally making a music video with the cats of CATS! I don’t know what the song will be yet, but I swear I will be in CATS regalia and dance around with the cast in one of my videos. Mark my words!)

© 2010Beyond Elsewhere | cat the singular originally published by Cat for Beyond Elsewhere . | This post cannot be republished without permission of the author. If you're reading it anywhere other than a feed reader (or my own blog!) you are in violation of copyright. Illegal is wrong!

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under construction

Cat — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:22:58 +0000

If you happen to stop by on a whim and not from a google reader you might notice that today my blog looks like crap and is all over the place. I have been playing with the theme to get it to look like something I want it to look like but it’s not going so well.

Grr and argh is what I have to say.

When I get tired of trying to figure this out I’ll just put my old theme back and then pick up where I left off tomorrow. This is the weekend I will get both of my blogs updated and changed, darn it! Especially the book blog because I have wanted it to be a 3 colum theme for a long time and I am tired of the blog themes I have been using for so long.

So, there is no need to email me that my blog is broken, because as of the time of this post – I have not broken it… yet.

UPDATE 8:20 pm: I think I am done for now. Good heavens. Stupid CSS. I can’t get the comments to format the way I want and I can’t seem to figure out where to change the bullet style in the options. I’m tired now though. I’m at least fairly happy with how things look for now and with the easy to customize header and colours I can update the blog nicely when the seasons change! (So tempted to put up an autumn theme now but I am trying to enjoy what summer remains!)

© 2010Beyond Elsewhere | under construction originally published by Cat for Beyond Elsewhere . | This post cannot be republished without permission of the author. If you're reading it anywhere other than a feed reader (or my own blog!) you are in violation of copyright. Illegal is wrong!

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destruction chronicles – omg! i have a street!!

Cat — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:08:37 +0000

I love my husband. He happened to be home yesterday (looking after a puking Jinx – who is better now!) and emailed me to say “Our street is being paved!” I was so excited I yelled out “they are paving my street!!” in the office as everyone there has of course been suffering along with me as I detailed every single aspect of this stupid destruction since April.

When I got home I quickly changed into non-work clothes, grabbed my camera and started to head out the front door to snap some photos when Shawn said, “Oh, I took photos for you today.”

I LOVE my husband! He’s so sweet and thoughtful! And now I have chronicles of paving!

Look at the entourage the man on the paving machine has! I’ll bet those other guys have to protect him from rampant fans as he finally paves their street after MONTHS of gravel and holes! He’s like a God!

It almost looks like they just put down a tarp! But that’s the first layer of asphalt being smoothed out on the street. Hallelujah!

I’ll bet that man is standing there in bright orange to make sure the machine guy knows which side has the asphalt on it already so they don’t make a mistake!

I sort of wish I was home to see this. Looks like the asphalt gets put down in a similar fashion to the cement curbs from mid-July. It would have been really interesting to watch.

When I got home last night there was still a 3 inch drop from our curb to the layer of asphalt. I was sure they would have to come back and level that out. Just in case they started early in the morning we parked our car on another street last night so we could get out ok this morning.

When we got home tonight – FULLY PAVED STREET!

Look! Even nature is happy! Sunshine! Green leaves on my tree! (Although not as full as it was before it died.) Just a half an inch drop off the curb.

I AM SO HAPPY!

What’s left is half of our driveway & walkway. We believe an independent contractor will be hired to do the driveways as many are much smaller jobs than ours and our neighbours’. What we’re hoping for is a deal to have the entire driveway redone at once. I know my neighbour on the left is hoping for that!

Also left is the paving of the street that ours intersects with. The street that the bus normally travels on. I’ll be looking forward to a completely finished street and section in a couple of weeks.

I can’t believe this is almost done. Just on Monday I was moaning to my coworker (who lives on that other street) that I didn’t think they were EVER going to pave our streets. They were just going to continuously dig up and put back all the sewers over and over and over again.

I feel like this is a small miracle. I should have bought a lotto ticket for tonight. Drat!

© 2010Beyond Elsewhere | destruction chronicles – omg! i have a street!! originally published by Cat for Beyond Elsewhere . | This post cannot be republished without permission of the author. If you're reading it anywhere other than a feed reader (or my own blog!) you are in violation of copyright. Illegal is wrong!

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what do you mean the internet isn’t private?

Cat — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 00:51:13 +0000

Apparently other people can read what I write on this here personal journal I keep. Who knew that? Why didn’t anyone tell me?

In my 6+ years of official blogging I just had the creepiest thing happen to me this week. For those of you who have been paying attention, I posted last Sunday about how much I regret having the lasik procedure done. I wrote about how badly my eyes have been healing and how I still cannot see clearly.

Well.

I left work on Monday at 5PM and as I was walking to the bus terminus with my friend my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but I still answered (and I never do when I don’t recognize the number normally). The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello?
Caller: Hello, may I speak with Catherine, please?
Me: That’s me! (thinking: I don’t want to do a stupid survey, so I am about to hang up on you)
Caller: I’m calling from lasik.
Me: Ok. (thinking they were phoning to reschedule my appointment in September but suddenly wary)
Caller: Well, this is going to seem like an odd question but… we found this blog post on the weekend…
Me: (holy effing crapsticks! what the hell?)
Caller: and it was sent to me as it was maybe from one of our clients in this office and we’re trying to track down the person who wrote it because they seem really discouraged…
Me: Um.. well.. I guess that was me. But I DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING WRONG ABOUT YOU!

(as a lapsed Catholic I have of course still held on to the GUILT and even though I didn’t have any reason to BE guilty it sort of just took over on auto-pilot)

Caller: oh, I know, but we don’t want our clients to feel sad and discouraged and we don’t want you to feel frustrated and sad or regret the procedure!
Me: (AHHHHHHHHH!!!!! WHAT DID I DO??)

Meanwhile I had literally stopped in the middle of St. Catherine street (corner University – so you know, not really the BEST place to stop in the middle of the road during rush hour) and my friend had to pull me out of the street. I was shocked, stunned, embarrassed and just… shocked.

I was asked to come in this week since the surgeon who had done my procedure was in this week and they wanted to look at my eyes and see if they can’t solve my problem. There was no reason to suffer until my appointment in September. Since I had Friday off this week I said I could come in then, but I had reservations – would my face be plastered up in the office with a MOST WANTED written under it? I didn’t want to walk into the office and have everyone stare at me and go “Oh, so SHE’S the ONE!”.

I was assured I would not be targeted with bull’s eyes or singled out, they would just really like to help me not suffer. After all I paid THEM to fix my eyes and it’s supposed to be a wonderful thing to have lasik and be able to see!

So I went in today. I was nervous and I have to say I still feel a little weirded out by the fact that this company must Google Alert anything that is written about them and I stand by my statement that I wasn’t saying anything about them, just that I was frustrated by my lack of healing and not being able to see. It’s not their fault I have super uber dry eyes. And every time I have been there the staff have been beyond helpful and friendly. (My only teeny complaint would be the waiting times for a few of my appointments, not all, but some have been very long. But there are free cookies, so you know, score!)

I now have silicone plugs in the upper tear ducts – which they provided for free (thankfully because there was no way I could afford them at this time and to be honest, I have already dropped more than enough cash on my stupid eyes) – and I have prescriptions for a new allergy eye drop that should hopefully work better than the last one (that DRIED MY EYES as soon as I put it in), a steroid drop (aptly called “FML” I kid you not. That made me laugh, but the Dr didn’t seem to get it. ), and a prescription that I hope my insurance will cover for a new daily drop that will replace my Systane ULTRA because apparently I have been using that so much that it’s increasingly toxic to my eyes. Good to know. Mental note: toss out rest of that stock. Yikes!

I will now be going back for my “6 month” check up on September 8 and not 11 so that I can be there at the same time as my surgeon who would like to follow up with me and make sure this visit provided help. As she does not work on Saturdays I need to go on a weekday, which sort of sucks but at this point I’d rather be there when my original Dr is there for any problems, etc.

Meanwhile whereas my eyes were .25 away from the prescription they should be, I have now regressed to .50 in each eye. That rather sucks, but the dryness is ALSO much worse (allergy season, yo) and it could be effecting it. They can’t tell if my eyes have regressed completely or if it’s the dryness only. So I have to clear up the dry eyes before we can figure it out.

I do know I do not want a “touch up” if my eyes have regressed. The trouble I have been having with the dry eyes so far is more than enough for me in my lifetime. I can’t imagine having the procedure again will not have the same results and I just want to be able to see like I did before – with the glasses on.

We’ll see how that goes when I get to that stage though. At this point I feel like I will never get over the dry eyes hump. I seriously hope that all these new drops will help!

Thank you personal journal, that no one else can see, for being here to listen to me.

Signed,

EDIT: Forgot to mention the Dr had trouble putting the temporary plug in my right eye lid so she tried a permanent one which went in no problem – however my right eye is now constantly dripping tears down my face. I swear I am not Emo! But I think I might audition for a crappy soap opera now since I seem to have perfected that “one single tear” look.

*tear*

© 2010Beyond Elsewhere | what do you mean the internet isn’t private? originally published by Cat for Beyond Elsewhere . | This post cannot be republished without permission of the author. If you're reading it anywhere other than a feed reader (or my own blog!) you are in violation of copyright. Illegal is wrong!

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destruction chronicles – day infinity

Cat — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:13:00 +0000

I feel like this road construction has been never ending even though it really hasn’t been too much of an inconvenience to us. It’s just going on forever and I am sick of rocky roads and Dukes of Hazard’s jumps on the roads. I am stick of mud and dust and construction vehicle exhaust.

However there has been positive progress this week! Our street has been leveled (in a good way) and brought back up to curb height and yesterday morning the entire house shook and I thought there was an earthquake happening while I was in the bathroom upstairs only to run down and see this:

(click to enlarge). This steamroller (or “rolling pin” machine as I call it) was actually a lot larger than it looks in this photo and it was going SO BLOODY SLOW down the street and yet all the dishes were rattling in the cupboards, pictures fell over on the table and I thought my toilet was about to explode from the shaking. Holy cow! So one big snowplow type tractor spreads out the new gravel and this rolling pin guy flattens it and makes the world shake!

The other good news is that when I got home last night – I HAD SOIL! Ok, so they dropped the soil over the rocks and broken cement muck they filled our crevice with, but at least it’s soil. I guess we’ll get sod at some point – you know, just in time for the ground to freeze and kill it all. But still, we’ll have a front yard again – or what we considered a front yard.

Even nature seemed to be happy about the near completion of our street:

Soon we’ll have shiny new (and smelly) asphalt to drive on – and drive I WILL do assuming my eyes get better sometime soon (and BOY do I have a story about my eyes post from Sunday! Will update after Friday happens. You’ll see why then!)

In other completely unrelated to my street news – Our library books were due back today, so Shawn picked me up from the bus depot and we headed on over to my town’s Crappy Library (crappy as in “it sucks in the English book department”). I returned my books and was sad to find out ones I wanted to borrow were signed out again except for one. I did a little squeal and picked up this NOUVEAUTÉE (new arrival) from the shelf!

The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan. I was so happy. I have been curious about this book for a while but wasn’t sure enough to buy it earlier in the year. I was so happy that the library had it and it was the first book I picked up to borrow tonight.

This afternoon Shawn emailed me to say that I had received a parcel from Harper Collins Canada. I was so excited, I know I have a few more review books coming from them this month and I couldn’t wait to see what I got!

This is what I got – keep in mind I opened this parcel within about 20 minutes of signing out the above book from the library.

THE DAY THE FALLS STOOD STILL by CATHY MARIE BUCHANAN!!

Only I could accomplish something as strangely awesome as this.

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