handflowers for mother's day

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my mom's name is elizabeth

but people call her liz

but they should call her supermom

for that is what she is.

winning prestigious awards is a great way to start off mother's day

i just got an email that says i won the tobacco award and please to send my address to this strange email so i can collect my reward.
word cannot express how excited i am to have won the tobacco award.
i bow. i curtsey. i gloat. i shimmer, and sparkle.
sometimes, i love junk mail. and the fact that they have obviously begun using random word generators.

dirty caving suzy

here is me as a cave explorer.
cave exploring is ok.
i felt most of the time like i was on the inside of a turtle shell, and someone was going to sit on the turtle and we were all going to die. in the dark. shivering and wet. covered in mud and turtle intestines.
hey: i named a cave once, did you know that?
they used to just call it "that cave" and i thought that was stupid so i called it something other than that--not that i have any right to go around naming things--but i called it something and the thing that i called it stuck.
they still call it today what i called it then.
i feel like if i die tomorrow, at least i will have named something. something more permanent than a cat or a vehicle or even a person.
something that is part of a mountain, something that isn't going to just go away and be forgotten about.
seriously, the last time i named something, i named my car vysvan, and then it died.
but not my cave. they give people tours of that cave, and they call it what i called it.
that's great. that's good.
awesome.
...
...except, i think that if i'd known the name was going to stick around this long, i'd have thought a little longer and harder about what to call it, and i wouldn't have called it what i did.
i just picked a very stupid name. i wasted my good name on the car. [which is dead.]
i'm not even going to tell you what the name is. you might explore my cave someday and think to yourself, "boy, this cave has a lame name," and you're probably right and that's probably the cave i named. and maybe even for the rest of your life you'll wonder every time you go into a cave if that's the cave i named.
it might be. it might very well be.
well what would you have called it?

friday list five

my friday lists are not really of anything at all. a thing i know, my favorite color, stuff about people. those kinds of lists are the funnest to write, i think.
1. i can't believe it is friday again. every time i turn around, it's friday. if i had a dollar for every time it was friday, i could buy an expensive yacht, and a brand new mac book, and some freelance whales songs off of itunes, and mangos, whenever i wanted them. but only if i lived to be a bit older.
2. is my favorite number.
3. i've got an idea. i'll tell you what it is later. it's a really, really good idea, though. the kind that has the potential to taste very terrific.
4. once, i got my grade 10 in rcm piano. i practised 3 or 4 hours a day. but that was a long time ago; i don't play much at all anymore.
5. yesterday, a girl came up to me and stomped on my foot with her heel. on purpose. she was like, seven. and i'd like to know who told her to do that.
6. a memory from summer camp: laying on my bunk bed looking up at the ceiling where someone had written a poem in jiffy marker:
"if you love something, set it free
if it comes back it was meant to be
if it doesn't, hunt it down and kill it."
7. swans.
8. one time, when i was working at staples, a man came in and bought fifty calculators. and then he paid for them and forgot them at the counter. he never came back for them. i'm not sure what that was all about.
9. i made a button for you. it's over there on the side. you just copy and paste the html in the little white box to wherever you'd like to pin it!
10. i found a nice self-portrait i'd like to share. from the time i tried to fly:

[fail.]

my tuesday drive

i was driving down vic east on tuesday and i was late for my doctor's appointment and the traffic was getting thicker and thicker and slower and slower and then it stopped and i was very sad about that because my appointment was in five minutes--over there, somewhere, through all that stopped traffic. i cast a woeful look at the car ahead of me.

rats.

i changed the radio station a couple of times, because sometimes i feel like if i'm doing something while i'm doing nothing at least i won't be wasting time.

that was when i looked out my driver's side window and saw some men dressed all in black, carrying machine guns.
fancy that. men with machine guns right by my door and i hadn't even noticed.
to be fair, they were moving very stealthily. people not noticing them was maybe the point.
but then i noticed the dogs. big police dogs. and at least three news teams with their camera crews and police cars with flashing lights and more guns and more policemen.
i began to wonder if i'm maybe awfully self-absorbed not to realize an event of this magnitude was taking place all around me as i flipped through the radio stations in search of something other than lady gaga.
and then the traffic started moving again.
and i left.
how anticlimactic.

i'm sorry. i was hoping to become involved in some way so i could have an exciting story to tell, and i've let you all down.

i'll try harder today.

however, i found a picture of the incident on a news, so that you would know how it ended:

they got the bad guy.

floods in my basement, floods in my head

while not fully restored, my faith in doctors is, at the very least, touched up a little. shout out to dr.#2, whom i love.
after my lame visit to dr.#1 last week, i decided that doctors were for the birds and i was just going to go home and die because at least at home there wouldn't be some bushy-browed old lady bludgeoning my tonsils with a popsicle stick and yelling at me to "calm down, man!"
but monday i got a call from dr.#2's office because, for whatever reason, she wanted to see me. i still am not sure how that happened exactly, since last week when i called she wasn't taking any new patients and i've never even met her before. but i'm only telling you what happened, not why or how.
so anyways, she checked me out, thouroughly and gently, and gave me a diagnosis and some drugs. i wanted to buy her a condo in maui, i was so thankful.
i didn't, though.
...
...anyways.
guess what i have?
labrynthitis. doesn't that sound just thrilling?
it's not, really. it's just an inner-ear condition that makes you dizzy. there's liquid in my head where there's not supposed to be, and inflamed nerves and whatnot. and then you fall over.
i'm officially, medically, dizzy-in-the-head.
but the point is not that.
the point is that i got a prescription for this medicine that's supposed to keep me from being so dizzy and nauseous and exhausted all the time, and i was so pumped about it, but when i got it home and read the label i was, how you say, nonplussed.
it read, take as needed. will start to take effect within a few hours. possible side effects include dizziness, nausea, and fatigue.
i made a puzzled face at it.
so basically,
when you get dizzy, pop a pill. the dizzy spell will probably pass within the next two hours, but that's not the drug's fault. that's just because that's how it is. the medicine will kick in pretty much right after you're done being dizzy and make you dizzy all over again. you'll probably need to take another pill. have fun paying for more symptoms.
it's a cruel, expensive joke.
i have a mental image of a friend of mine at the fair three years ago, running towards me fresh off the tilt-a-whirl yelling, "i just puked all over myself! i have throw-up in my eyebrows! SUZY, I JUST HURLED IN SOMEONE'S SHOES!!!"
i've been feeling like that, lately. minus, i haven't puked in anyone's shoes lately.
anyways, i took my new drugs for a test drive today.
i can't tell if they're working or not. is this side-effect nausea, or just the regular stuff?

cell phones: a paper rant

first things first and third things last and middle things second

ok. first things first: my friend joy [who took our wedding pictures], entered a couple of them in a photo contest. i feel a bit vain doing this [just because i happen to be in my wedding pictures] but she's just starting out and i think it would be cool if she won. she's a dang good photographer and i really love her pictures. you can vote for her here [before may 17]. please don't think i'm vain.
but i do have a blog, so i guess i'm probably a little bit vain. rats.

second things second: my friend erinn [remember her? she's the one traveling all around the world for a whole year] sent me a house to add to my collection. well not a whole house. but a picture of a whole house. would you like to see it? of course you would. ladies and gentlemen, all the way from new zealand...
...a house [yay!]:

and last things third:
i really am sorry for being a whiner this past week. i'm going to try to do better at the whole "when life gives you lemons --" oh. that reminds me.
today, barclay and i went for supper with kiersten and jordan. halfway through the evening, for some reason or another, or maybe just because i was feeling snarky, i picked the lemon wedge out of my water glass and hucked it at my husband. [i know, i'm lame.] it slid down his neck in that gloppy way that lemons slide down necks, and he just calmly wiped it off and guess what he said?
"well, when wife gives you lemons..."

i think we need to learn to laugh at this stuff otherwise we'll just cry all the time part, what, five? this is getting ridiculous

i came into the bedroom today and walked over to the dresser and my foot said, "squoosh."
squoosh?
i looked at barclay.
i looked down.
i was standing in a puddle.
oh bother.
i shifted my weight from foot to foot.
"squoosh, squoosh, squoosh squoosh."
i wasn't going to whine at all in today's post, because i feel like it's all i've been doing lately, and whining is lame. so i resolved to be chipper. even though the cathedral village garage sale got cancelled, and even though i've been overly nauseous ALL DAY, and even though it's snowing outside [hey, clouds, it's may first!]. and then i came home and my bedroom was all soggy.
i still might not whine. but i will say this: AAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
say, i know what might cheer us all up! [assuming you're as sad about my soggy toes as i am]
houses.

that should do it.
oh ALSO. i need to point out the fact that [this time] the flooded basement is not my fault. i haven't done laundry since tuesday.
[it's not barclay's fault either. there's a new crack in the wall. how'd that get there?]

friday list number four

my friday lists are not really of anything at all. a thing i know, my favorite color, stuff about people. those kinds of lists are the funnest to write, i think.

1. for our wedding cake, our mothers used angel food cake to reconstruct a giant star-shaped sand castle that barclay and i made at the beach the summer we started dating. it was pretty much the best thing ever, and also the biggest wedding cake i've ever seen.

2. a baby is born with 300 bones. but an adult only has 206. if someone can explain to me how THAT works, i would really appreciate it.
3. another word for junk food is "lubberwort."
4. i'm so hungry right now. i could sure go for some lubberwort.
5. "for the first time in our lives, let's just be whatever exactly it is that we are. and that'll be better, ok? i think that'll be better." -zach braff
6. i have a folding machine at work. it folds paper, any way i want it to--tri-fold, brochure fold, hamburger style...whatevs. it has a turbo setting, probably for those times in life when you need to fold paper like a superhero.
7. i have rug burn behind my ears. not sure how to explain that one.
8. i can't think of a good number 8.
9. if i could speak any language other than the one i'm speakin, i would pick norwegian.
what would YOU pick?

the rest of the story

so i decided i would go see a doctor. that's what this is all about. a doctor. 

i have heart tests coming up in two weeks, but i still have this nagging flu/cold/fevery thing that's been keeping me in bed for about a month now and, you know, enough's enough, and my mum-in-law suggested i just go to a clinic and get checked out.

indeed.

so i book an appointment with doctor..um...for the sake of not naming names, we'll just call her doctor. [though since going to this doctor, i've heard from a few reliable sources that my experience with her were about par for the course, so i'm almost tempted to name names. almost.]
so i get in there and doctor says, "what's up?" and i tell her exactly what's up, but she's looking at a thing on the wall and chewing her thumbnail and doesn't seem interested.

when i finish talking, she takes a moment to deposit her nail clipping the garbage before asking, in her thick accent, "and what do you want me to do for you?"

now, the last time i went to a doctor was after my wheelchair accident, [that's a whole nother story] and my legs were black and purple, and when the doctor asked me what was wrong, all i had to do was roll my pant legs up and say, "fix them, please." 

so this question throws me.
so i start at the very beginning again. and i repeat my whole spiel about how i feel flu-y and cold-y and fever-y and dizzy and how i've felt this way for a month and wonder what's up because i've never felt this way for this long before and it's starting to cut into work and living and stuff.
and she goes, "so...you want to know if you're sick?"
i gape a little. "um...no. i think..i mean, i know i'm sick...i just...uhhhhh. can you...tell me what i'm sick with? and if there's a nice banana-flavored medicine i can take to make me better?"

she gives me a look. i can't read it. her eyebrows are too bushy.

she gets out her tongue depressor and jams it so far into the back of my mouth that it TOUCHES THE BACK OF MY THROAT. 

and i gag.
and she goes, "SIT STILL!"
i'm generally pretty obedient, so i open my mouth again and she goes in for round two and i gag again, harder this time, and she glares and me and says, "you're going to have to do better than that! i can't see down your throat!"

at this point i start saying things to her in my mind that are kind of impolite and mostly actually very rude. things like, "i think you're a terrible doctor," and "you have really bushy eyebrows."
she goes in three more times, and i start to slide down in my seat.

i feel like a three year old. i imagine i'm maybe on candid camera, or one of those other hidden camera tv shows. is this woman for real?

finally, FINALLY, she gives up.

and goes and gets her little flashlight ear thinger. 

jams that so so so so far into my ear that i [actually quite loudly] say, "ow."
she goes in farther. i start to wiggle a little bit.
"SIT STILL."
"ow. OW!"
i understand how much i must sound like a baby. but my ears still hurt. she ground that sucker into my brain. when she pulled it out, it had cerebellum all over it.
"girl, you have to be patient. i can't see."
"i'm sorry....it just hurts...quite a bit, actually."

she forces it in farther. i lean away.
"calm down, man!"
this little old woman actually just told me to "calm down, man."

i try to calm down. but my mind hurts. like, the part of my mind that's responsible for addition is getting punctured. "ow...ow...OW! i'm sorry, but that really, really hurts."
she clicks her tongue at me. i resist the urge to put my finger in my ear and check for blood. i resist the urge to ask what a punctured ear drum feels like.

she plops down on her chair and rolls her eyes. "you're fine."

"that's it?"

"that's all. take an advil." she nods at the door. 

i later find out that she has a reputation for stuff like this. 

and that was that.

i strode out to my car and cried a wee bit. i was mostly upset that i was still sick and still didn't know why and would probably be sick for the rest of my life, and doctor didn't even care. 
and then i went home and melted cheese on a muffin for supper.

and it was so hot that i burned my tongue. 

the lava in my head is boiling

something happened this week that has never happened in the history of this whole year--
maybe even ever [but i hate to say that because i can't really remember much past fifth grade]: i had an experience that was awful but also kind of funny, but i was so grouchy about it that i couldn't bring myself to write it down.
you may wonder what, exactly, the big deal is.
it's because i'm one of those people. you know?
an experience is not an experience until i've shared it with someone else--in great detail--and gotten a satisfying reaction.
[that's why i have this fancy little chunk of internet. but the point is not that.]
the point is that i can't remember a time where i've been so grouchy about something that i couldn't even put it into words, and then yesterday this thing happened and i just ran home and sat on the couch and pouted and ate a muffin with cheese melted on it and i heated the cheese too hot and it burned my tongue and then barclay came home and i asked him what he wanted for supper and he said "how about a hamburger?" and i said "how about a muffin with cheese on it?" because i was clearly too grouchy to make a hamburger.

oh bother.
i need to go get a drink of water. i'll finish this later.

the pros and cons of getting teeth pulled [not an exhaustive list]

i've got no words for today. just some crappy-camera pictures of friday.

the artists in the ambulance

i made a lot of new friends today when i fainted in the mall.
a security guard, 2 policemen, 3 paramedics, a doctor, a cardiologist, 3 x-ray techs, a few nurses who kept asking me stupid questions like, "where does the pain rate on a scale of 1 to 10?", and a gang of "nice" ladies who gouged my flesh with needles.
i'm being completely serious when i say it was actually a fun day.
i got to ride a stretcher through sears, go in an ambulance for the very first time, meet some really sweet people, and just hang out with my husband [whom i have been married to for exactly seven months today] for several hours in between tests. we played traveling games, even though we weren't going anywhere.
lauren was a rockstar - she caught me when i passed out at the booster juice counter, got someone to call 911, called barclay, and hung onto my booster juice smoothie until i was conscious enough to drink it.
and barclay took the day off work to play traveling games in the hospital all day. so i kind of think he's absolutely the best ever also.
so i suppose the long and short of it is: i feel like crap, but look how happy i am!
happy as a clam in a hospital gown.
[those things are drafty and stupid.]
[also, later on in life, i will tell you about my roommate.]
i go back tomorrow for more. "yee," and also, "haw".

mae eats a lemon

i went home this weekend to find a little girl named mae sleeping in the spare room upstairs.
she was very cute and very friendly.
i gave her a lemon to suck on
because i thought that would be nice for her.
[i am obviously a very friendly person myself.]
i think she liked it...







until her taste buds kicked in.








isn't she a doll?

friday list trois

my friday lists are not really of anything at all. a thing i know, my favorite color, stuff about people. those kinds of lists are the funnest to write, i think.

1. grapes taste better if you peel the skin off first.
2. every thursday, a little girl named georgia comes to visit me and gives me a little paper heart that she's colored with pink and green highlighters. as of yesterday, there are fifteen neon paper hearts tacked to my bulletin board.
3. i'm wearing purple tights. and some other stuff.
4. i have been sick now for three weeks and am starting to question if i am ever going to get better. i might not. but i might get used to being so sick and 'sick' will be my new 'well'. and people will talk behind my back about how i sniffle and cough too much.
5. when i was little i wanted to be a librarian because i thought a librarian's whole job was to sit in the library and read the books so she would know which ones to recommend to people if they asked.
6. have you ever heard of Foreign Accent Syndrome? google it. the human brain is absolutely fascinating.
7. the truman show. sometimes, i'm afraid that i'm truman. you'd tell me if i was truman, right?
8. spring is here! it's supposed to rain today. thunderstorms are better than caramilk bars.
9. i've been watching a lot of andy griffith lately. it's my favorite right now. if i could go home and watch andy griffith today during the thunderstorm, i'd be t-h-r-i-l-l-e-d. 
10. but seriously. you'd tell me if i was truman, right?

the pros and cons of africa [not an exhaustive list]

a plea [do i plead too much?]

i saw a couple breaking up yesterday,
in the chapters/starbucks parking lot.
his hands drummed out a steady beat on the steering wheel and he let his head loll back carelessly as he talked. i imagined him saying, "please don't feel bad...you're a great girl, such a great girl, believe me, but...[insert poorly thought-out break-up excuse here]." but really, he looked like he wanted to push her out of the car and drive away.
her eyes were all red and puffy and shiny with tears, and she stared out the window at another couple across the parking lot who were hugging and hugging and hugging like they were never ever going to let go of each other.
barclay raised his eyebrows at me as he started the car, and we left the two couples alone.
it felt sad.
anyways, the point is not that.
the point is that this morning when i woke up i felt as though i'd been sucking on a porcupine. my throat was completely raw and i was talking like molly johnson (cbc radio? anyone? nevermind).
i guess this is what blogs are good for: does anyone out there in the blogosphere have a nice little cure for my itchy, pained throat and raspy witch vocals?
i'm kind of dying here.

palmtrees and handflowers

this morning, i was too tired to move, but too antsy to just sit there, and there was a pen and a piece of paper so i picked it up and drew a hand and then i drew another hand and before long i had a lot of hands and no people. so i hung them all on the branches of this tree and thought, fancy that, a palm tree in canada.

don't worry; they grew there. they don't belong to anyone.















oftentimes i'll fill up a piece of paper and then realize i still haven't had my fill of doodling. so i found another piece of paper and drew more hands.
i gave these one stems, because i didn't want to be redundant.
in case you're wondering what's wrong with the flowers on the far left: they're holding hands. i just can't draw very well and it looks more like they're eating each other. bear with me.