smells like Thanksgiving around here

despite anxiety and medications...tonight felt really, really super good. I ate more than I have in a couple weeks(due to meds), drank too much(sorry doc, but it was Thanksgiving), and new friends merged well with old friends.....gotta love that. I love having a successful dinner party. I do. It means lots to me. And I really, truly enjoyed the experience, which kind of suprised me. It's not like I put too much into it until the very last moment....I couldn't concentrate on it.
I am thankful...for small miracles...and good friends...and a warm house...and for grace.

thankful...

Living between the U.S. and Canada does have some bonuses you might not even be aware of. For instance...I get to give thanks(for everything) twice a year now, in a feasting, public sort of way. Although I do give thanks and say my prayers(to god, whatever I conceive him to be) every day, it is brilliant that I get to celebrate my favoutite holiday twice a year with others...technically, today is not a holiday here in Canada so I am working(at a place that I love and am thankful for that), but come Sunday, my house is open...full of feasting, festivities, friends who are family and fun. Despite the anxieties and the blue meanies of late, I am fully aware of all there is to be thankful for... and I am so very thankful. For everything. To friends and family back home, I wish I was there. I love you so. To those friends here with me now, come on over on Sunday....there are never enough days to give thanks. The bird comes out of the oven at 5. I'll save you a space at the table.

walkies, anyone?

It's cold...the time of year that gets these two sharing the bed under the pellet stove again. This old house is never quite warm enough...at least for me. Maybe I should get a bigger pillow and join them in the radiant pellet stove heat. I have had to scrape my windshield a time or two now. Ick. But, it's also that time of year, that when the sun does come out, it is deliciously crisp and clear, and everything seems to be in sharp focus. Shadows are perfect, the play of light on water, the feel of the sun on skin is just warm enough...of course, there isn't much skin exposed.

There is that most particular shade of blue in an early winter sky. You know the one I mean? It was meant to be the exact perfect colour for setting off these red berries. Whew. Beautiful, eh?

The greens of the mosses are at their most succulent, too, with all the rain that's fallen. With all the leaves off the trees, the moss doesn't have to compete to be seen right now. It has all the green-y glory it could ever hope for.

The funny thing about walking Morrell Wildlife Sanctuary is that the only wildlife I really see there is ducks or squirrels...or sometimes people's wild kids and dogs. I guess there are bears out there right now, but I didn't see anything...except the ducks.

But ducks are enough,

and these guys are enough, to make for a great walk in the sun.

Okay then, how about that? We finally went for a walk together again.

Thanks for coming along with me.

still here....

not too much to talk about right now, still acclimating to my new prescription(gasp, yes! i did it. in some ways i feel like it means i gave up, but dang! i was so very tired of fighting it, too, and for all my fighting, it seemed i was losing ground, so...) ...and not a lot of time off this week...today looks like a beauty, if a little crisp and cold.

maybe a walk at Morrell Wildlife Sanctuary is called for....i haven't been there in a good long while...and maybe i will even take the camera out of the camera bag for this walk.

hmmmn....maybe the meds are working. haven't even thought of photos in a while.

alrighty, then, one day off, and i got a lot to get done...so, talk to you soon???

I got a McDreamy....

so yeah?
My new family doctor?
Cute. Cute. Cute.
Yay for me.

Ah, come on now! For real? Really real?

So, trying to import this damn car....first had a helluva time with making sure the seatbelts would pass safety inspection(old automatic kind that had a faulty mechanism...they don't make them anymore, of course). Finally fixed and sorted.

Went to CanTire for inspection today and they said my car needed automatic daytime running lights in order to pass inspection. I said, "Well, that's great but can we do the inspection first because what is the point of putting in running lights and me paying for labour if it's going to fail because of something else, right?" Logical, eh? Got there at 8(my appointment time), they finally took my car in at 9(what's the point of an appointment, eh?), left there at 11:30, after paying for an inspection, the installation of running lights and still failing the safety inspection. Um, why, if my car was failing inspection, did you put in the running lights? Why would they do that??? And why did I just pay the bill and leave?

Because I am acting like a lunatic lately. And I didn't want to start bawling in the fucking automotive department of Canadian Tire...I can't seem to have a normal reaction to anything right now. I had to come home and cry.

So I got home and found a letter waiting saying we owe 200.00 plus dollars for importing the car in the first place(a well-maintained car that is not, as yet, passing the importation safety inspection while there are rust buckets belching black smoke and leaking gallons of oil EVERYWHERE around me as I drive ). I know that is not the case....my car is 15+ years old and exempt. In fact, the year, make and model are printed right there on their letter. WTF????? I KNOW that I don't owe that money but now I have to get a hold of this government agency to tell them their own rules? Like, really? And? Is anyone going to answer the phone?

Because, also, right now? Dealing with PharmaCare who wants my 2006/2007 tax returns in order to cover me...um, I just got legal residency in April of this year. I don't have tax returns for 2006/2007. I wasn't working. That would have been illegal. Federally illegal. But can I get anyone to answer the phone there? Hell no. And I really want to be covered because after my trip to Urgent Care last week, I actually landed myself a family doctor. For real. I see him on Wednesday...and, because I am acting like a lunatic lately, I was going to maybe see about getting on something that might make things less lunatic...for a while...but if I don't really have coverage? Cuz I don't have tax returns for years I didn't work? See? Lunatic?

Maybe it's not me at all. But I just don't know for sure. AAAAAAAAAAARRRRGHHH!!!

But......... I don't like barely avoiding a breakdown at Canadian Tire when I should be hopping mad....and I would like to be able to deal with these tiresome, endless phonecalls with fellow lunatics without this sense of fruitlessness and the desire to pound my head against the wall...yeah. That would be nice. And? Would like to get back to enjoying more things, too. Obviously, this little funk I am in isn't as little as I would like to think...and obviously, oh so obviously, I would like to get myself back to me...and then head back to the Canadian Tire Auto Service Centre....possibly kick some ass...

It's a whole new world out here but I am not sure how I fit in it right now.

Have you received the memo????

I can't seem to find the time or place or the words lately....so locked in my own dramatic mindset that I don't even know what's going on around me anymore. Apparently many women my age are going through this, too. And always have. Still, it doesn't make it any easier...especially since it all seemed to come on so suddenly. The craze, the anxiety, the chest-achey-ness....
You know what finally slowed my crazy brain down? I had five days off this week. Spent the last three sick in bed. Sick. Like really sick. Went to the clinic, got a prescription, made me feel both ravenously hungry and ready to puke at all times....the only thing that made it better was sleeping 12 hours at a stretch, waking up and reaching for my Dexter books, reading until I slept again. Today, I feel part of the human race again. Tomorrow, I am going hiking in the morning, rain or shine. I might even take a picture or two. Yup. I gotta breathe air. Outdoor air. I gotta be outside. Thank goodness I had these days off already. Not that this is how I really wanted to be spending them...then again, being forced to stay in bed, distract myself with books and tea and lots and lots of sleep(that there really hasn't been a lot of lately), has taken an edge off of me that has been poking me lots lately, right up under the right shoulder blade and making it hard to breathe. So, yeah, I hope that part lasts.
Maybe soon I can tell you about the trip home I took WEEKS ago now!

Miriam Makeba....

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – Miriam Makeba, the South African singer who wooed the world with her sultry voice but was banned from her own country for more than 30 years under apartheid, died after collapsing on stage in Italy. She was 76.

In her dazzling career, Makeba performed with musical legends from around the world — jazz maestros Nina Simone and Dizzy Gillespie, Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon — and sang for world leaders such as John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela.

"Her haunting melodies gave voice to the pain of exile and dislocation which she felt for 31 long years. At the same time, her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us," Mandela said in a statement.

He said it was "fitting" that her last moments were spent on stage.

The Pineta Grande clinic in Castel Volturno, near the southern city of Naples, said Makeba died early Monday of a heart attack.

Makeba collapsed on stage Sunday night after singing one of her most famous hits "Pata Pata," her family said in a statement. Her grandson, Nelson Lumumba Lee, was with her as well as her longtime friend, Italian promoter Roberto Meglioli.

"Whilst this great lady was alive she would say: 'I will sing until the last day of my life'," the statement said.

Sleep well and sound under your African skies, Mama Africa.

we are watching

history being made.....
breathe deep