Take it Upon Yourself.

Randomness from the beginning of a long week:

1) Work stress = blargh. This is why this week has been/is going to be long. I also had a stress stomache this evening, and I haven't had one of those in years.

2) I'm reading a really good book right now: Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. It's so engrossing. It's about Frank Lloyd Wright's mistress. Both of them left their respective spouses and families to be together, which was a very controversial move in the early 1900s. Anyway, it's a fascinating story, and I admire the way that the author plucked a little-known figure from history, took a lot of time researching her, and then wrote a novel from her voice. I'm the type of reader who reads the author's notes/afterward while I'm reading the novel because I like to get an idea of the writing process. This book's been sitting on my shelf since the summer, and I'm so glad I just picked up.

3) Sloan have a new EP. Yay Sloan!

4) Rilo was chasing her tail this morning as I was getting ready for work. It really made me want to stay home.

5) This had me laughing. (Note: only interesting for those who like cats.) Actually, I've never seen this site before, and I really like a lot of their cartoons, especially the one about proper use of the apostrophe.

6) Today kids were asking me all kinds of questions like my age, my marital status, how many kids I have, and my middle name. I'm a fascinating figure, I suppose.

7) Argh. This post rather sucks, but I don't know if I'll be able to post again this week on account of the work stress. So it's a sucky post for posterity's sake.

All is bright.

I had a very lovely weekend.

On Friday night, I had dinner at one of my favourite restaurants with two of my best work pals. I love this restaurant, and I'm pretty sure I haven't eaten there in two years which is pretty sad since it's in my neighbourhood, and it's oh-so-good. I hereby resolve to eat there more often. They now have belly dancers performing on weekends (it's a Middle Eastern restaurant). The girl performing was really good. She balanced a sword on her head and on her hip, but I missed the hip balancing part 'cuz I was too busy complaining about something work-related. This is a danger of having dinner with work pals, I suppose.

After dinner, we met up for drinks with a former co-worker who moved away from Toronto this year. I miss her a lot, but it was very fun catching up with her.

On Saturday, my pal Mathew and I had plans to go shopping in the US, but his car was sick, so we decided to cancel the trip. We went shopping around here instead, and I got a good start on my Christmas shopping.

After shopping, we spontaneously went to see the movie Precious. It's an excellent movie. I just read the book last weekend on the train home from Stratford, and I was looking forward to seeing the movie. The movie is just as good as the book, and I recommend both. Even though it's a graphic story of abuse, it is very hopeful and moving. Oh, and the movie has Lenny Kravitz, and I found out that I still have a grade school crush on Lenny. Awesome. And then we went for sushi!

Today was an errands and chores day. I got my Christmas tree up, which I'm happy about. As I did all of my cleaning and such, I finally listened to the new Tori Amos holiday CD and I really like it. Most of the songs are traditional songs that she has put her own twist on, but there are originals too.

Anyway, it's almost Monday of a busy week. The weekends go so fast, eh?

Last Song Playlist

Now that all of the transit kerfuffle is over, I can post the music meme that I had kicking around.

Oh, but before that: two pieces of good news! My dad's vision has returned, and they've put him on a lower dose of rat poison. (That last bit of info is for Siobhan.) And, a more trivial piece of good news: I finished my report cards. Woot.

Now onto the music meme. This is stolen from Aaron. It's simply a playlist of really good last tracks from albums. I had fun thinking of them ('cuz I am such a music nerd), and I came across some oldies but goodies, and some songs I haven't thought about in forever.

Ben Folds Five – Evaporated (Whatever and Ever Amen)

Ben Folds Five – Lullabye (The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner)

Coldplay – Everything’s Not Lost (Parachutes)

Constantines – Do What You Can Do (Kensington Heights)

Damine Rice – Eskimo (O)

Elliott Brood – Miss You Now (Mountain Meadows)

Foo Fighters – New Way Home (The Colour and the Shape)

Foo Fighters – M.I.A. (There is Nothing Left to Lose)

The Get-Up Kids – I’ll Catch You (Something to Write Home About)

Great Lake Swimmers – I Became Awake (Ongiara)

Hayden – Lullaby (Skyscraper National Park)

Joel Plaskett – Love This Town (La De Da)

Joel Plaskett – On & On & On (Three)

Kathleen Edwards – Goodnight, California (Asking for Flowers)

Kimya Dawson – My Rollercoaster (Remember That I Love You)

Los Campensinos! – 2007 (The Year that Punk Rock Broke My Heart) (Hold On Now, Youngster…)

Matthew Good (Band) – any last track from any MG/MGB album is outstanding. Change of Season from Underdogs is probably my all time fave last MG track.

Metric – Stadium Love (Fantasies)

Neko Case – The Needle Has Landed (Fox Confessor Brings the Flood)

R.E.M. – Me in Honey (Out of Time)

Rilo Kiley – It Just Is (More Adventurous)

Sloan – I Can Feel It (Twice Removed)

Sloan – I’m Not Through With You Yet (Navy Blues)

Slow Club – Our Most Brilliant Friends (Yeah So)

Smashing Pumpkins – Luna (Siamese Dream)

Stars – Calendar Girl (Set Yourself On Fire)

Tegan and Sara – Call it Off (The Con)

Tori Amos – Yes, Anastasia (Under the Pink)

Weezer – Only in Dreams (The Blue Album)

Wild Strawberries – Everybody Loves You When You’re Dead (Heroine)

Any great last tracks you can think of?

Have a nice weekend!

Transit Rant

So, I totally had a cool music-related post ready to go for today, but then something newsworthy affected my day, so I'll blog about that and save the music for when the most exciting part of my day is that I find a nice pencil on the floor or something.

After a very busy day at work (as usual), I heard from a coworker that the subway was closed between Bloor and Eglinton. Of course, that stretch makes up part of my way home. They had shuttle buses running. However, this would mean standing outside forever and ever in a huge irate crowd. No, thank you.

I considered taking an alternate route that would involve a bus, but I figured out a lot of people would do the same thing, so I decided to walk it. Sure I was in work clothes (thank goodness not a skirt) and not wearing shoes particularly appropriate for walking 5+ km in, but it was a really nice evening; not too hot and not too cold.

So, I hiked up Yonge Street for awhile with the masses. There were so many people. It was crazy getting around the crowd of people waiting for the shuttle bus. I'm glad I walked. So much more pleasant than a crowded bus. I had my iPod and I was happy.

Here comes my rant: why the eff are people so negative about the TTC? I have been taking the TTC to work for 5 years now, and I have been late for work *once* because of delays. Once. I'm reading all of these comments about people complaining about the *constant* delays on the TTC and I wonder if I've been taking a different transit system than they have been. Constant delays? I would say very *occasional* delays, perhaps. Seriously, five years of commuting and I have very few complaints. Granted, I live on a bus route with very frequent buses (that I only take in the morning; I walk after work), and the rest is on the subway. I suspect that other bus routes and streetcar routes might be worse.

My point is that I'm highly satisfied with the TTC after five years of very frequent use. It's not perfect, there are occasional delays, but I know I'm less frustrated that I would be if I drove. And I can nap on the way. I'm pretty sure that I would be inconvenienced by construction, accidents, and traffic far more often on the road than I would be on the TTC.

This is perhaps the second or third time I've had to do the walk up Yonge due to transit problems. The other two times were for perhaps half hour closures. (I'm too impatient to wait in these situations so I choose to walk.) This time, the subway was partially closed for six hours, I believe, but they had it fixed ahead of time. I already had an alternate route planned for tomorrow morning, but thankfully everything's fixed.

In closing, nothing's perfect, but the TTC isn't as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. And I had a nice walk this evening. And I don't have to feel guilty for not going to the gym tonight.

Rant out.

Read Becca T's blog!

I had a good Monday. First, I got an email from my friend Alison, who is back from Japan after being there for, umm, three? years. Anyway, she was one of my roommates in university, and we such fun together. When I was hanging out with Claire this summer, she reminded me a lot of my dear friend Alison, and I think I told her so a couple of times.

Then, I got to talk with my dearest Becca T on the phone today after work. Oh how I wish that phone call could be followed up with a frappucino and some sushi, as it would have been in the past, but alas she's in Nice.

And her blog about it is great. Seriously, stop reading this silliness and go there. (Her goal is to blog more, but if more people commented, even complete strangers or random well-wishers, she'll be motivated. Hint. Hint.)

Anyway, it was so good talking to her on the phone, especially with the stress of the past few days and such. I'm so excited for visiting her during March Break. It's the big "look-forward-to" that I have in life these days. I'm hoping to meet Becca T in Paris (oh, Paris), spend the weekend there, spend some time lounging in Nice, and then go on some side jaunts to little towns, and possibly Morocco or possibly Italy.

The good news is that it's midterm time too, which means the calendar is getting ever closer to March Break.

I also went out for sushi for dinner in honour of Becca T, and because I was really craving salmon rolls. And then, I did officially start my Christmas shopping today. Let the madness begin.

If you are wondering if I want you to, I want you to.

First of all, thanks so much to everyone for their support on my last post. It's always nice having a built-in support network when you need it.

Anyway, here's the dad update. On Friday, he had to spend the whole day at the hospital getting various tests done and talking to various people, which is his least favourite way to spend a day. The doctor seems to think the vision he lost will come back on its own. And he's been put on all sorts of medications and treatments to ensure the whole stroke thing doesn't happen again. So, overall, I would assess this whole situation as unnerving, but phew in that I think everything will be OK.

And, as usual, my family tends to take things with a bit of humour. When I saw my dad on Friday when I arrived home, I said "so I hear you've lost sight in one eye. That sort of matches the one foot you have." (He had to have part of his foot amputated a result of a blockage in his leg back in 2006.)

My dad replied: "Yah, all I have to do now is to figure out a way to lose an arm and I'll be half a man!"

It was quite funny.

So, I've had a nice weekend at home. Yesterday, I spent the morning driving my dad around to do some errands, then I chilled in the afternoon, and then went out for drinks with many members of the group of 9 and affiliates in honour of Sandee's birthday, which was super fun.

Well, I could go on but I can't because I'm posting from a coffee shop and my battery's about to die. I'm taking the late train back tonight, which means Monday is going to be painful, but I'll survive.

Hope the rest of you had great weekends!

Family and friends.

Last night I had a rather, well, unnerving phone conversation with my mother.

She mentioned that my aunt, not my dad, was going to pick me up on Friday at the train station, and I said "oh don't worry, my friend Wendy's going to pick me up and then we are going to go out for coffee."

"Oh good. Well, your father can't drive because he had two mini-strokes on the weekend and didn't realize it."

What? Strokes? Two? This weekend? And you're telling me now?

"He couldn't see out of one eye, and I made him go to the doctor, and then they did a CAT scan, and it turns out he had two mini-strokes in the part of his brain that controls vision."

So I did my research and I found out that what my dad had is called a transient ischemic attack, and it's a warning sign for a potential stroke. However, since my dad is now getting care and has been put on new blood thinning medications, the risk of a stroke in the future has been greatly reduced. So phew, I think. I just hope that his vision will come back and he'll be able to drive again. Of course, we don't know if this is possible, so we'll have to be patient and wait to find out.

And, it's good that I had already planned to go home this weekend since I can help my parents by picking up groceries and whatever they need. And luckily, my aunt's around to help them out until, and after, then. And perhaps more weekend trips to St. Ratford will be in the cards in the near future.

But, I think why I've found this so unnerving is because it's bringing back all of the familiar emotions that I felt when my parents were both quite sick way back in 2006. (My dad had bypass surgery, and my mom had an MS attack brought on by the stress of my dad's surgery.) I constantly think about how glad I am that that whole part of my life is over, but hearing that my dad had two mini-strokes brought back all of those scary, awful feelings.

And it made me feel so alone. Especially since the person who I lean on for most stuff is in France. And being an only child sucks during these times. I'd gladly give up the extra toys I had as a kid, and not having to split the college fund for a sibling nowadays. (I would have had liked to have a sibling as a kid too. I played Monopoly with my cat for goodness' sakes.)

But, then, I posted about what happened on the Group of 9 message board, and I felt so much better. Within hours, I had offers from friends who would go visit my parents and get their groceries, and stories and words of encouragement.

Also, my friends at work who I'd usually tell about these things aren't there (and I just had dinner with some of them hours before the news), so I didn't have anyone to talk today, until the end of the day where I opened up to another coworker, who made me feel better.

And now typing this out is making me feel better. It sucks, it's scary, but I know that my dad will be fine for now. After enduring 2006, and the fact that my parents are older, and my mom has MS, I think I'm very aware of my parents' mortality and it freaks the hell out of me, since they *are* my family, besides my aunt.

But so are my friends. And thank God for them. And I'm sure Rilo would be up for a game of Monopoly if I need it.