Detritus from our trip

• It feels like we were there for a week. We were constantly doing something the entire time we were there. Deb cleaned silver and watered plants[1] while I set up her new TV, her new Apple TV and the Logitech Harmony Remote. It took me 2 weeks to program mine but I did hers in about an hour. We went out for dinners and didn’t get anywhere near enough sleep. I am so freaking tired, I don’t even know if I will stay away for dinner.
• I did notice that in Calgary, power lines do not run across major highways – they run parallel. Who would have thought that was a good idea!
• So, I am still getting those WordPress daily topics in my email. I noticed one recently that was asking bloggers where they would put a third arm if they had one. Seriously, what kind of dumbass stupid question is that? Aren’t there more important things to write about in the US like the de-funding of Planned Parenthood or the talk now about the debt crisis? Apparently the people at WordPress are much more interested in extra limbs. Maybe they think people will blog more.
• Oh my god! We went to Danier Leathers for purses!!! I scored! Deb got a great bag and we got one for Angelina too. It was very much fun!

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[1] And a couple of hours later the skies opened up for a monsoon of biblical proportions. I am not even sure how we got back there was so much water on the road.

W00t!

On our way to my mother’s we stopped for a chocolate cheesecake for her birthday. This was not any cheese cake but a Bernard Callebeaut chocolate cheesecake. I thought it was ok but a little too rich for my liking. Plus, I am not really a big chocolate fan. I would much rather have something far less sweet and fruity. I love cherry cheesecake or strawberry. Although I do have to confess that they ‘Rolo’ cheesecake looked mighty fine!

Once we arrived we made up a cheese plate with crackers. Deb had this amazing cheese plate at the Delta hotel last night. The presentation was awesome. I should have taken a picture but I didn’t think of it. We were tired and pretty stressed out and hungry. I had a beef dip and managed about 4 bites and that was it. I am not sure why I bothered.

Anyway, the w00t part of this post is about a topaz ring my mother bought on the cruise. She bought it knowing it would have to be sized as it was too big. When she took it in to get it sized she was told they couldn’t make it smaller as it would compromise the structural integrity and make the stones lose. She was showing it to me and I decided to try it on. Well, it fit me perfectly! I have never had a ring like this before. The setting is very high and it is very big. I love it! It catches the light very well. And we all know how much I love shiny things!!!

We did have dinner with my sister, who, in spite of melting down earlier on the phone, held it together. We also got to see my step-sister and her husband. We always enjoy getting together with them. They are fundamentalist Christian but we don’t hold it against them!!! To their credit, they do not proselytize.

Anyways, must sign off as I am being asked what I am doing for 10 minutes on the iPad with a keyboard. ‘What are you writing?’ ‘Who are you emailing.’ Not much more to add at this point. I will post a picture of the ring, on my hand, once we get home.

Not my world

I really dislike coming to my mother’s. There are the obvious reasons – the ones I talk about all the time. But there is more to it than that. When I am here I miss my world. Here everything is shallow beyond belief. My mother and sister had a conversation about the size of their asses for over 20 minutes the other day. They push my buttons by bringing up all of their right-wing political views. I am learning to be quiet. They don’t have the education to understand the complexities of political discourse. They just simply repeat what the Harpie says. They can’t stop and think about why it is a bad thing that we are bombing Libya. As far as my mother is concerned if NATO says we do it and we need new fighter jets to continue bombing Middle Eastern countries then that is what we do. I get so frustrated. Then they laugh when I don’t participate.

I am not used to being laughed at. In my world people treat me with respect (as much as possible) because I treat them with respect. I try my best to be a kind, thoughtful person. I never want to hurt anyone else. Yet here the goal is to hurt or insult me. My mother was on me again about my weight. She keeps saying ‘calories in, calories out.’ However, with PCOS and ZERO hormones it is not that simple. I eat less than she does and she still blames me. I am so very tired of this game.

The purpose of this visit was to attend a meeting about how she wants to structure our inheritance into trusts. She had been acting all coy that she didn’t know what the meeting was about but I had figured it out. I was much more in my element during a professional business meeting. The people in this meeting treated me exactly like I am used to in my world. They asked questions about what I did for work and they kept telling me that my questions were excellent. My mother did well in the meeting because she has been in business. My sister, on the other hand, was a fish out of water. I am sure the nuances went over her head.

Last, there is my physical comfort. The furniture in the main part of my mother’s house is horrid. The TV is positioned so only one person can see it. She does not like to sit downstairs where the big TV and comfier furniture lives. The shower for the guests is in a very deep bathtub, which means I have to be careful, getting in and out. Then there is the smoke. The god-forsaken fucking smoke that is killing her quickly. She won’t stop. She knows how badly it affects Deb and me. We can’t breathe. We wake up with seared lungs even though we are on another floor. I really don’t understand why she can’t just put on the patch for a couple of days. The smoke is insidious and really represents what is completely wrong here.

I want to come home. Thankfully we fly out tomorrow and then we are attending an event as soon as we get off the plane. We miss our dogs. She wants us to move back here but she has no idea what she is asking us to give up. We have friends and a life in the lower mainland. I like where we live. I love my job. Both of us need medical care and we have no idea how we would find it here in Alberta. The medical system in AB is much more clogged than the BC system. Plus we are both ‘complicated’ patients so it will be difficult to find a doctor that would take us on. I still have friends in Calgary and it would be nice to be here so see them more often.

The other reason I don’t see a move here is that I don’t think there is any point. I think my mother is close to giving up and once her will is re-done she will be finished. I think she will make it through the summer but I don’t anticipate she will make it through next winter. It is simply just too hard for her. Her oxygen saturation levels were in the 70s at the COPD doctor’s appointment the other day. She does not want an oxygen machine in the house as she doesn’t want tubes on the floor. She will take aesthetics over health. She is also not going to quit smoking. Even though she says she doesn’t like it and it tastes bad she simply cannot quit. This is sad as she is severely shortening her life with this decision. Then again, I think she has given up completely and wants to go.

Being here is so difficult for me on many levels. It triggers me and sends me back to my childhood where I felt completely disempowered. I walked on eggshells lest I set off either my mother or my sister. I prefer my world and I can’t wait until I can get back to it.

Off to Alberta

Well, we are off to Calgary tomorrow. Hopefully it will all go well. I am going to attempt to try to follow some advice I have been given:

• I am going to envision myself suited up in armour – then they can’t get to me.
• I am going to try to not take the bait. My mother is infamous for pressing my buttons. I am going to try to ignore it.
• I am going to be agreeable. I am going to do whatever my mother wants me to do.
• I am going to try to make it a very nice Christmas for her. I will do my best.
• Deb and I will be a team and nice them all to death.

I will attempt to blog while I am away. It does not always work though!

Dispatches from the Swamp – the ‘Has hell frozen over?’ edition

§  We have lived in the swamp for 4 years now. We have never had any problems with rodents until recently. We found evidence of a mouse about a week ago. We put some traps out and we got one yesterday. I hope that is it but the traps are still out just in case. For now, Swamp Dwellers 1, Rodentia 0. I suspect the mouse got in under the house when the drain pipe was put in. I hope there was only one!

§  In my daily conversation with my mother today she said that she now thinks Naheed Nenshi will be a good mayor for Calgary. From turning down city perks to holding city councillor’s accountable for their expense accounts, she thinks he is smart and fair. Amazingly not one word about his religion or marital status.

§  Operation no food waste at the swamp is working well. We’ve been doing it for 2 weeks now and the dogs love it. Plus we have been getting 2 meals for 7 dogs each week by adding a little meat and rice to our leftovers.

§  Clio was back to the vet for a re-check for her heart condition. She is doing well. The main concern is that she is quite thin as she always has been. Our vet suggested a liquid supplement. It had a lot of fat in it and I asked what it was made of. Turns out it is made of high fructose corn syrup, soy beans and gelatin byproducts. Yummy. These kinds of products really call into question why the vets will sell stuff like this for animals to consume. There was no food product in this stuff and certainly nothing species appropriate. We gratefully declined. I think we will just feed her real food more often instead.

§  NaBloPoMo is going well. I just wanted to give a shout out to some blogging buddies who are also participating. For those of you who don’t know, NaBloPoMo is all about posting every day in the month of the November. If you have a chance check out Dr. Beth’s and Tanya’s blog on NoLa.

§  This just in! It is really hard to blog while watching the puppy hump the rabbit toy. Deb keeps throwing it and he keeps going back for it! Too funny. Deb says: “It’s not supposed to be his fuck bunny.”

§  Oh, and in other news: my mother has re-commenced smoking. She actually went 6 months without. She thinks she breathes easier when she smokes. I think she is delusional.

 

We are in the Kootnays!

Deb and I are on our annual trip to help my mother. This year she needed a new computer installed in Calgary. Off we trooped to London Drugs to get the one on sale and we were told they did not have any. So I asked if we could buy the floor model and they said yes. The only crappy part was that they would have to wipe it clean which would mean I would have to install windows and all the drivers. No problem I said.

I unpacked the computer the next morning and immediately had trouble with the video card. There was a card on board but they had also put in a much better stand alone card. When I finally got the video in the right place I installed windows. Then I installed the drivers. The first one I did was the video driver and as soon as it restarted the monitor did not display anything. I had already ruled out the monitor as the problem so I called. They had me go through all the trouble shooting I had already done and finally the solution was to turn the computer off and press delete as it came back up (he reasoned that the driver may have not sufficiently installed in the registry). I did this and it came back up but I remained suspicious.

I installed all the other drivers and everything was working fine. I set up a network as I had my laptop with me. I did the scanner and then I installed office. We went out for dinner and when I came back the monitor was dead. I restarted the computer and it still did not come up. Tried a few more things and decided it must be an intermittent video card problem.

So the next morning I called LD and got a bit of a run around. I have to say that I don’t think the ones in Calgary are as good as what we have in BC but I digress. We got another new computer and at least I did not have to do windows or the drivers. I got the other one mostly done in less than 2 hours including network, scanner and printer. When we go back on Thursday I will finish it.

I always love to see the Rocky Mountains. I grew up with these mountains and spent a lot of time camping and just looking at how they change on almost a daily basis. I love our mountains at home too but they are not quite as majestic as the Rockies.

This visit has not been as bad as other ones. It is a bit disturbing to watch your mother change from being a strong determined woman to a depressed widow who appears anorexic these days. If she gets sick she has nothing to fight with which I find quite disturbing. At 5′ 7″ she weighs 127 pounds.

We will be back home on Friday. I have a 3-day weekend before I am back to work next week.

Madison is back to normal…

Well Madison has made a full recovery. She is walking as she did before. She has a good appetite and is eliminating well. Even her bright eyes and smile are back.

We are so relieved. We do know that Madison is 15 and this is likely to happen again and next time we may not be so lucky. In the meantime we will shower her with everything her little heart desires. She will get lots of treats and extra attention. It is not often we get a second chance with our senior dogs.

We adopted Madison 10 years ago from the Animal Rescue Foundation in Calgary. Madison was a typical reserve dog – the type that ARF rescues. She had been rescued once from the reserve and spent some time with a family. They had a 12 year old boy who tormented her and she did not like men. Angela from ARF was overjoyed when I called and said we were looking for a dog and that there were no men in our house. It seemed that Madison was a perfect fit. We had her over for a sleep over and all went well so we adopted her.

Dispatches from the Land of Fat Phobia

Deb and I just came back from visiting my mother, sister and brother-in-law in Calgary (and Radium, BC). It always surprises me how food is such a mine field with my family. Growing up I was placed on diets beginning at the age of 8 years old. I remember going to Weight Watchers meeting with my mother who lost the same 57 pounds over and over again. Food was cast into the realm of good and bad. You either deserved food or you did not. If you didn’t work hard and ‘earn’ it then you couldn’t eat it. But if you had done something particularly strenuous that day then you ‘deserved’ a little something extra. This attitude became completely entrenched in my family when my mother married her second husband. He managed his weight meticulously. He backpacked and cross-country skied several hundred kilometres per year. In fact, we spent many summers backpacking for weeks at a time walking well over 200 km with very heavy packs. He was very concerned about food and how much we ate (or didn’t as the case was). Despite his influence my mother remained overweight the entire time they were married.

Once he passed away from leukemia (which was a shock to all of us given his very healthy lifestyle) my mother ceased to have interest in food. Currently she is about 5 feet 9 inches and weighs about 130 pounds. For the first time in her life she is thin and she loves it. The other morning after I got up I was sitting with my mother and sister (who were smoking their faces off) and my mother starts talking about how she can eat anything she wants now. She said: “If I want ice cream, I have ice cream, if I want potato chips, I have potato chips and I don’t have to feel guilty about it.” My internal dialog was screaming about how silly this was and how food should not have this amount of power in our lives. But I know better than to get into this kind of a discussion with them. So I sat there biting my tongue and wishing it would just stop.

Later that day my mother insisted on watching The Biggest Loser – Australia because she enjoyed the ‘personalities’. I couldn’t stand it. It was so contrived. My mother likes this kind of thing because it makes her feel superior just like being around me makes her feel like she has won because I am fat and she is not. She was so excited that I had lost weight (about 50 pounds). The only reason I lost it was because I was so sick for so long but that does not matter to her. She keeps thinking that I am going to suddenly lose all the weight and morph into an entirely different person. I have news for her – it is not going to happen.

Usually these visits take a huge toll on my self-esteem. Not this time though. I look at my mother and sister (who are like one person as Deb says) and I know I am so different from them (I am adopted). I also know that I will never have her approval unless I weigh 125 pounds. I have long given up on this ever happening. Instead I do other things for her. I am her personal computer support department. On this last trip I picked out a new computer for her and set it up in Radium including installing all of her programs and configuring it just the way she likes it. Deb spent her time cooking and filling her freezer with easy to heat up meals so that she might eat. We are also a little concerned as she is having a lot of trouble breathing. Just plugging something in caused her to breathe audibly for 10 minutes. She complains of having no energy, being tired and generally feeling unwell. I am concerned that she is in the beginning stages of COPD. She has smoked for probably for 50 years and now she is likely smoking more than a pack a day. I hope that she sees a doctor soon about getting a physical and a chest x-ray. I doubt she will ever quit smoking.

Other lowlights from the trip: our flight into Calgary was horrible. There was much turbulence and the landing was very hard. Then we went to get our car from Budget and the call centre had messed up our reservation and we could not the same rate I had been quoted ($43 per day). Apparently, they were sold out but they would give us a car for $170 per day if we wanted. So the question was are they sold out or are they not?? I could not get anywhere with them. So we rented from Enterprise who had excellent customer service and gave us a car for $109 per day. We were very impressed with them. Our flight back to Abbotsford (I cannot say enough good stuff about the Abbotsford International Airport – we will never fly out of Vancouver again!!!) was ok with just a bit of turbulence. We were both completely exhausted by the time we got home and slept until noon the next day. Thankfully, the yearly trip is now over barring any family emergencies.

We are off

Deb and I are off to Calgary (and Radium) for the next couple of days. We will be back on Friday.

A quick update on Mabel – she seems to have returned to her normal, demanding self. We are so pleased to hear her barking and demanding food again! She ate 3 times yesterday. It appears her lack of appetite for a couple of days had to do with the medication she was on.