Will the end of the world come to Australia first?

Early in the morning, we are up and out of bed because we have a flood in our apartment and the disaster people are searching for the cause of the water that has broken out of the pipes and gone onto our floor. So we listen to a bit of the morning news, where they report that Australia has already celebrated the New Year.

So if the world really is going to end - let's see, the latest estimate is on December 21, 2012 - will Australia be gone before we wake up here in Vancouver?

It seems rather anti-climatic to have the world end while we slumber. So will the end of the world be on the morning news? Or will the end hit everyone at once, so the timing will be off for most of the planet?

What if the world ends when it's midnight in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Only the smallest fraction of people on the planet will see the world end at the time it's supposed to end. A bit of a dull end for the doomsday mongers.

Of course, if you look closely at the latest date for the end of the world, it's actually defined as the start of a new cycle. If you are an optimist, it's the start of something - but it's hard to make a compelling movie out of that, nothing blows up and L.A. does not do a swan dive into the ocean. If you are pessimist, not only can you make movies, but books, books, and more books can be written about the impending disaster.

Right now, another flood in our apartment seems much more likely than the whole world ending. Bad plumbing will end the world, mark my words.

If you can hear me... can you turn the sound system on?

Falling asleep in front of the TV can be a dangerous thing. The programs begin to blur together.

For example, if you fall asleep during an "ultimate rooms" program that is showing ultimate home entertainment rooms, specifically showing a room with a million dollar sound system that vibrates the chairs... and wake up to a ghost hunters program where people are asking "If you can hear me... can you make a noise?" the mind goes into some really weird places.

"If you can hear me... can you turn the sound system on?" is the question I heard when I woke up. I wondered who had died without telling their heirs how to turn the million dollar sound system on. That would be so annoying. Instructions should have been left... so am I having a really weird dream, or is the world going nutty?

That may have been OK as an isolated incident, but more recently I found myself not paying much attention to the TV when some monster hunters were showing the cage full of chickens they were going to leave out to tempt the monster to show itself. The ghost hunting show often has people trying to "provoke" the spirits into making a noise or moving something. The thought "Wouldn't leaving chickens in a room provoke those spirits more than moving the furniture... maybe someone should suggest it for the ghost hunters..." popped into my head.

Way too much TV. Or is that way too many ghost or monster hunting programs? Maybe I have my own ghost who is muddling my mind... that must be it.

Are they singing to the statues?

Half a dozen people in red pointed hats with white balls on the top. Hanging out together around an art installation of 7 foot tall statues next to English Bay beach. We couldn't tell for sure from our table inside Raincity Grill, but I think they were singing Christmas Carols to the statues.

It was Christmas Eve, so that's the last day carolers would be wandering around annoying people with off-key renditions of old worn-out songs. But would the statues be enjoying it? The statues look like they are made of a metal of some sort, so maybe the music would resonate quite nicely around the circle of statues.

Of course, if the carolers had vivid imaginations, that could be quite frightening. Voices echoing off 7 foot tall semi-human versions of fierce ball players. No, that one in the corner of your eye didn't move, really, it didn't. It's just shadows from car lights, it's just dark out, so you notice it more. Very dark. No snow on the ground, it's not raining, there aren't many stars out, but the moon is a half-crescent. The clouds passing in front of the moon aren't scary, and the coyotes that live around here are probably sleeping, not hunting.

And don't worry, people always drive that badly, they aren't drunk during this time of the year... none of those cars are going to careen into the open field and hit the statues and the carolers, really. I'm just an alarmist, sitting in a restaurant watching extremely bad driving outside the window I'm sitting at. Really.

Singing to the statues sounded nice at first blush, but an overactive imagination could make a horror story out of it!

Did we just get transported to a war zone?

Honk.

Honk. Honk. HOOOOONK.

Sirens, sirens, more sirens.

It sounds like we've been transported to a war zone. Our wonderfully livable downtown Vancouver is now a battle ground.

Canadians generally feel it's rather rude to honk their car horns. A brief tap if someone is sitting at a light that went green several seconds ago is about as much as we venture to do.

But it's Christmas. So damn the politeness, honk the horn. Forget counting to 10 before getting angry. Get into that car with the intention of beating everyone to wherever they are going. Shop, shop, shop until you've bloodied at least one nose getting what you want. Grab whatever you can reach because you can, whether you want it or not. Hit as many other people with your bags as you can reach.

'Tis the season... to be nasty... it will be over soon, we bloody well hope.

How do you have a control group in a surgical trial?

The key to a good medical trial is having a control group of patients who do not get the actual medical procedure being tested. This is a group of people who should not see any benefit to the treatment if the treatment actually works, because they didn't get the treatment. If they do see benefit, it's due to the power of their own minds convincing themselves that they are getting better (called the placebo effect).

So how does this work for a surgical trial?

I asked my Neurologist this question today. There is a new hope for MS patients called CCSVI, and I absolutely want in on it if there is a trial here in BC. So I wanted to know if I was in the control group that didn't get the surgery involved, wouldn't it be obvious that I didn't get the surgery?

She said they do placebo surgery! They cut just a little into the patients then they sew up the hole. That's not taking sugar pills instead of real medication, that's cutting into flesh! That would be soooooo annoying.

It was the first time I met this particular doctor. I've decided I don't like her. I told her that as an overriding stance on the subject, I don't like taking medicine. All medications have side effects. All medications are open to the "we thought it did this good thing, but now we know that it does that bad thing" future possibilities. She completely ignored me and suggested about 5 drugs I could take to help with this symptom or that symptom.

She did not listen to me. That means I will give her about the same respect she gave me. I will take whatever she says with a huge crystal of salt, because she doesn't listen well, and I don't think it's just me that she ignores. Her mind is closed.

For example, she said they just do a little cut, then sew it up if you get the placebo surgery. I happen to know that the patient is awake during this surgery, the patient would know if a tube is being inserted into a vein and moved up the body or not. The placebo surgery would need to be far more than a little cut.

I still want to be in a trial, even if I get the placebo surgery. It's the best chance I've heard of for real improvement in the lives of people with MS. Bring it on.

Who moved all the books?

Yesterday I was in the library to return a book, and since it was very cold outside and I had just frozen my hands getting there, I looked around at books in the fiction section while warming back up. I went to the aisle that typically has my favourite authors in it to see if there was anything new... and the books weren't there!

Yes, there were books on the shelves, but not the books I was looking for. Not the books that had been there every time I had looked before.

I did eventually find the books I was looking for... in an area with about 3 rows of bookshelves, the books had moved from row 3 to row 1. They had done a little jump to the left.

Who moved all the books I was looking for a jump to the left?

And who moved the other books a step to the right?

Who put their hands on all the books and risked their knees in the tight shelves?

But it's the pelvic thrust that's really got them insaaane.

Let's do the time warp again!

Sorry, couldn't resist the slip into Rocky Horror there...

So was this a grand scheme to confuse everyone? (Shuffling the books around, not the digressing into Rocky Horror, I've done that so many times over the years it doesn't confuse anyone anymore.)

Did they actually dust the shelves? Was that the point? I wonder what kinds of odd things they found on the shelves... there's more than just books on them there horizontal surfaces. And I'm not talking about dust. Think unconventional conventioneers... a party... musical numbers... a library would be the perfect place for reprising Rocky Horror, lots of twists and turns... maybe some interesting experiments in the storage rooms...

Is that the definition of cacophony?

Oh dear, the world is defining things again.

We had the Santa Clause Parade on Sunday in downtown Vancouver. The parade starts about a block away from our apartment, so we typically hear some warming up of bands before the parade starts. This photo was taken outside our bedroom window at about 11:30am. This year the noise was far greater than normal, making me wonder if this is the very definition of cacophony.

A brief rundown of the noises (note, most noises overlapped each other - thus the cacophony defining):

11 am

• Santa Clause is Coming To Town - live band playing
• Oh come let us adore him - live singers
• Ratta tat tat - live drummers
• On the dance floor oooh ooooh - recording
• You better not cry - recording
• Something that sounds like a Beach Boy's song - live singers
• Oh come let us adore him - live singers
• Wooo hooo - live young girls
• Da da da de daaa da da - live horns
• Smoke alarm going off in someone's kitchen

11:30 am - I gave up on sleeping in and went to have a shower

12:30 pm

• Rock'in Christmas - recording repeated at least twice in succession
• A welcome garbage truck in the alley making it's usual banging noises while emptying dumpsters - a semblance of normality
• Ratta tat tat - live drummers
• Oh come let us adore him - live singers
• Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy - live horns
• Christmas Day in the Morning - live horns
• Bagpipes! Maybe we're getting close to the end?
• Clean and crisp and even - live horns & drums
• I blessed the rains down in Africa - live band - very odd
• Various other recorded songs

1:30 pm Drummers jamming - live band

1:40 pm Go Tell It on the Mountain - live band

1:45 pm Joy to the World - live singing and Santa Clause is Coming to Town - live band (at the same time)

2 pm - Didn't the parade start at 1pm? Shouldn't everyone be gone by now? Ohhhhh, the float for Santa is still in the street below our window... slow parade! Santa Clause is still Coming to Town.

I've recorded the cacophony so I can remember it once we've moved away from here. Typically we have the marching bands practicing in the street and the alley on the other side of our building when the parade comes to town. This is the first year we've had the floats and multiple bands and cheerleaders (they had pink pom-poms - that means cheerleaders, right?) crowding into the street below us. It's much noisier than having just the marching bands. They don't take turns, it's more like they try to out-noise each other. Cacophony. Yep, that's the definition.

Should I start singing now?

I was in Stanley Park taking pictures on a beautiful sunny day a couple of days ago, and I've been having trouble getting the song "Talk to the Animals" out of my head ever since!

Why is this? Because the animals were sitting on me!

This is a picture of one of the chickadees that perched on my hand while taking seeds from me. There were about a dozen of them landing on my hand, on my shoulder, on my wheelchair, some tried for my head, but I was moving about... they were just everywhere.

And the squirrel that surprised me last time I was in the park by climbing up my leg climbed up my leg again. This time I had some walnut pieces ready for it. It sat on my leg and ate! I thought it would grab the nut and run, but it didn't! It was very soft and warm. (I haven't finished up the photos I got of the squirrel yet.)

So I've learned a couple of things from this - one, the breathing exercises from my yoga classes have paid off in my ability to stay still and relaxed while little animals are running all over me. Two, it's still very difficult to take photos of chickadees, even if you know exactly where they will be - getting seeds from your hand - because they are incredibly fast! I took maybe 30 pictures, and this is the 1 that came out. This will take a bit more practice... If I could talk to the animals, talk to the animals...

Is it that time already?

We received our first Christmas card yesterday. It's only Dec 3! Good grief, is it the end of the year already?

The month of December is our stay away from the stores, except to buy food month. The shopping for stuff insanity is just too annoying for words. It's just so depressing to see so many grumpy people frowning and arguing with each other. So the Christmas cheer - which is really a snarl - is not something we participate in.

We do send out cards and newsletter-type updates at the end of the year, but we always wish people a happy new year instead of trying to figure out who is following which religion this year. We really do wish people will have a happy new year, so there is no false cheeriness we have to put on just because society wants us to.

We're such rebels - which smiley face is the one where the eyes roll up? Hmm, you'll just have to picture it in your mind, blogger doesn't seem to do emoticons.

Will the universe restart, or will some scientists just get happy?

The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland is back up and running! (Yes, that's it's name - who ever said scientists weren't creative - put an adjective in front of the noun, that makes it special, right?)

This is the machine CERN created to try to find the Higgs bosun particle, as well as any other interesting things that can be found when particles are smashed together. The particles they are looking for are the ones they expect were created 1 trillionth to 2 trillionths of a second after the Big Bang, and then disappeared almost immediately (I think). So they are trying to replicate the conditions that existed at the very beginning of the universe.

So will this be effectively hitting the "restart" button for the universe? That is a fear that some people have.

Or will this just get some scientists a Nobel prize? That would make some scientists very happy. That would make me happy, the "not the end of the universe" option.

Could humans actually do something that would end the universe? It seems a bit overly ambitious somehow. The good thing is, if it does happen, we will never know. Anything. Ever again. It would be the end. It's a nice, clean, full stop. I like the simplicity of it. It works for me.

For more interesting details see this and many other news articles available around the world: CBC news article

Where is the best handicapped washroom?

The best handicapped washroom I've ever been in is on one of the new BC Ferries Coastal ships!

Press large buttons to open the door. The door closes automatically behind you. There is a big button on the wall to lock and unlock the door. There is plenty of room for any maneuvering you want to do, and the toilet has lots of hand rails. The sink is totally accessible. Then press the unlock button and the open door button, and try to avoid exclaiming too loudly "This is the best washroom ever!" as you leave the room :)

I didn't really expect to be using my wheelchair onboard the ship, I can still get around with walking sticks - more slowly than most species of turtles, and not for long distances, but it's still easier to maneuver without the wheelchair. But as we were going through the payment booths at the ferry terminal the woman asked "Is that a wheelchair?" We had my manual chair in the backseat of the car because the trunk was full of our luggage. So my spouse said yes, and we got a special handicapped person sign to put on our dashboard and got to go to the front of the line! As we were boarding the ship all of the traffic was stopped and the person directing cars came and asked "What can we do for you?" So we asked to be near the elevator, and he said "Do you need extra room to get out?" So we said "Sure!" and were directed to tell the person who directed us to our spot to make sure we had room. So the person who directed us to our spot laid down traffic cones from where we parked at the front end of the boat back to the elevators so we would have room to get the wheelchair to the elevator.

At this point, we decided there was no way we could leave the chair in the backseat - it would just seem rude!

There's lots of room on this planet! So I have to say the new Coastal class ferries have a vast amount of space on them - for parking, for your butt while sitting in a lounge chair, for wheelchairs in the cafeteria area (every table is accessible), and in the washroom! It's like we've all come from Lilliput to visit!

And the handicapped washroom has got to be the best designed washroom ever!

When did laundry become therapeutic?

I'm not sure if this is one of those "you're getting older" signs, or if I'm just going a bit funny.

After a long and stressful weekend visiting my Mother, a full day at home doing nothing but laundry was actually quite relaxing for me. The methodical sorting, washing each load, doing the hand washing items, putting the clothing in the dryer, and calm, relaxing folding of the warm clean clothes.... I am going insane.

When did laundry become a form of stress therapy? I've got to admit it's cheap therapy, but it makes me feel like quite the drudge.

I have to get out more.

Is this a "wrinkly reunion"?

This could be one of those "you are getting old" indicators!

I've just had a visit to an optometrist, my regular one was out of the country, so I saw his partner optometrist. She's about my age. Actually, she's exactly my age.

I noticed something that looked very familiar on her office wall. It's a bachelor's degree from the University of Alberta. I have one of those too! Looking closer (drops in the eyes to dilate the pupils make it hard to see, I'm not loosing it that quickly) she got her degree in 1989... me too!

This by itself doesn't mean we're getting older, but the fact that immediately before this we were having a discussion about hair dressing appointments and how important they were, particularly for colouring over the grey hairs... oh dear.

It's actually quite cool to run into someone with the same background. We have a lot in common. We even have the same glass frames - something you notice in an optometrist's office. But the ensuing discussion of "I can't believe it's been almost 25 years since I graduated from high school" was a bit of a stumble.

Oh dear, we are getting old. I think this was my first "wrinkly reunion". This is when people of the same age get together and discuss the indicators of the onset of age that they are experiencing... and everyone else is experiencing them too!

Is that 21 years of bad luck or just 7?

If you break a mirror, you will have 7 years of bad luck. Or so the saying goes.

If you break 3 mirrors at the same time... is that 7 years for the one event, or 21 years - 7 years for each mirror? HMMMMM

No, I haven't broken any mirrors lately, I was just sitting and watching men loading old mirrored closet doors into the back of a pickup, and expecting an inevitable span of bad luck to descend upon them. The doors were similar to the ones in my apartment, and they were being removed from my apartment building, so I know they are about 20 years old, and they are fairly sturdy from what I can tell. But as the one man got out of the truck and put his wallet in his back pocket as he walked towards the other man who had the mirrors ready for removal, I didn't think this was going to be a professional move. (If your wallet is too big to fit in your back pocket while you drive... suck it up and buy bigger pants, you've gained weight, bud.)

No, the mirrors didn't fit well in the pickup truck. No, they didn't put any padding around or between them. Yes, they did use a bit of red as a flag tied to the end of the door runners that they took away with the mirrors because they were sticking far off the end of the pickup. Unless they weren't going very far, I think those mirrors are now sharp pieces of glass strewn about the bed of a pickup truck.

I hope for their sake that it's only 7 years for the one event!

Can I have another arm?

You know you're in trouble when a doctor says "this is going to hurt".

I got a flu shot on Monday. Actually, I got 2 flu shots on Monday. My doctor gave me the regular seasonal flu shot in one arm, and the H1N1 flu shot in the other arm.

The jabs themselves were a mere pinch. That's not where the pain comes in.

The doctor warned me that the H1N1 flu shot will hurt "for about 3 days". It's now day 3 after the shot and it still hurts! It was a red angry hurt at first, but now it's an achy, can't sleep on either side because both arms have been assaulted by the flu hurt.

So can I have another arm? One that doesn't hurt? I'll give it back later...

What is crawling up my leg?

Oh my goodness, it's a squirrel!

Yes, really. Yesterday a squirrel decided to climb up my leg. It was a rare sunny November day yesterday and I was taking photos in Stanley Park. Just as I got to the little bridge over the western end of Lost Lagoon, I was greeted by a grey squirrel who thought my leg looked like a good thing to climb. I didn't have any nuts to give him, so I shooed him off when he got to my knee, and thanked him for the mud his paws got on my pants.

It has become very obvious to me that, as I've admitted I need a wheelchair to get around, I am now in the "weak and vulnerable" section of the human herd. I have no illusions of humans being above primal pack instincts to prey on the "weak and vulnerable". This makes me very wary of other humans. I would not be in Stanley Park by myself unless I was sure there would be a lot of other people there, including many park workers, who could potentially help me if an individual human was being beastly. Safety in numbers... I have primal instincts too.

It's shocking how this has changed my relationships with other animals as well. I smile at dogs, and I'm closer to their level now, so they often wag their tails back at me. I have to slow down and make "pigeon, pigeon, pigeon" noises very loudly to get pigeons out of my way when I'm driving my wheelchair around so I don't run over them. Cats glare at me and stay as far away from me as they can go while still watching me. And now I'm considered no risk at all by squirrels! At least not by the grey squirrels in Stanley Park who are used to being fed by humans. Another couple of squirrels bounded up to me a while later, but I shooed them away before they started climbing. (See the photo above for one that was bounding up, as I shooed at him.)

As I contemplated this event while taking photos in the park, I also realized I keep my left-hand pinky up in the air while I'm pointing my camera... because a chickadee landed on it! That made me shriek just a little bit. Those claws are sharp! So I'm not a risk for little birds either!

Now I have to figure out how to take photos of these animals while they are visiting me so closely... and I need to find some bird seed and some nuts for my new friends before I go out again. You're not supposed to feed the wildlife... but obviously I'm not considered the average human anymore, so maybe I'll side with the little animals.

How does the Olympic flame stay lit on a plane?

The Olympic flame is coming to Canada from Greece for the Winter Olympics & Paralympics in February. The plane carrying the flame is going to land on Friday in Victoria, BC and then the flame does a tour of Canada before the games start.

So in the era of having airport security confiscate those ever dangerous nail clippers and shampoo bottles that are too big... how does the Olympic flame stay lit on a plane?

According to Wikipedia, the Olympic Flame is preserved in a back-up lantern overnight and for when it goes on airplanes.

So someone has convinced airline security forces that a lit lantern (or several of them - apparently there are always many backups to make sure the flame came from Greece) on a plane is OK. Just how many security personnel travel with this flame to make that safe?

According to the Vancouver Sun newspaper, the fuel tank portions of the torches - 675 of them that were used in Greece - are also coming back in the plane. It's good to hear that they will be fully emptied then recycled properly, but isn't that lots of incendiary material on a plane - fuel that isn't running the plane, so not in the tanks designed to carry fuel on a plane?

The engineering and security considerations around these torches must be truly significant.

OK everybody, enjoy that flame. It's taken a huge amount of human effort to get it here, and not just by the people running with it.

Did they yell "Timber"?

We had a bit of excitement on the weekend. There was a fire outside in the alley. Close to the top of a wooden power line pole, there were flames licking up around one of the bobbly attachments that the power line sits on. (Bobbly attachments, that's a technical term :)

Today there are about a dozen people working outside. They've replaced the pole. I wasn't here when they took the old one down, so now I'll never know if they yell "Timber" when they take an old pole down. Bummer. I kinda doubt it. It looks like they may have cut it in half before removing it, thus reducing the chance of it falling on someone, so they didn't really need to yell.

They are doing a great deal of work up the new pole now. They attached some wooden cross braces at the top. Now they are attaching the wires and some new bobbly attachments to it.

It's quite the pole actually. There are 6 poles over there. One pole has 3 round drum-like things hanging close to the top. Two poles have a platform strung between them close to the top and 4 square mechanical boxes sitting on it. The pole that had a fire only has wires and bobbly attachments on it. There is another pole with only bobbly attachments. And there is one pole with only one wire between it and the one next to it that looks like it's there to keep the other ones stable.

What an enormous amount of equipment to be hanging in the air over there. It didn't look like anyone lost power when the one pole caught fire, so it's not obvious what the wires are doing... makes you wonder.

Does this make me a Cougar?

One of the "hottest" new things seems to be dating services that match up older women (35 and up) with younger men (in their 20s). These women are called "cougars" in the local vernacular. One of the most prominent dating services actually has "cougar" in the name.

It's not meant as an offensive term, but some women seem to find the term "cougar" offensive. I just don't get that. Being called a strong, mature woman who knows what she wants and is willing to go out and get it herself is what I would consider the ultimate compliment.

I'm not single, and I'm not looking for younger men to date... my question stems from the fact that I have recently changed hair stylist, and my new stylist is only 25 and male. This is new for me.

I had to leave my old hairstylist because she was having a mid-life crisis and I couldn't deal with her mood swings anymore. She's 35, recently divorced, and has decided "trashy and stupid" is her sweet-spot for attracting new males. And the men she is attracting are what I would consider "pond scum". It strains the discussion when you frequently want to slap some sense into the woman, and it does nothing good for your hairstyle.

So I'm enjoying having this 25 year old male hairstylist. His life isn't complicated. There is no deep trauma going on anywhere. He's finding it weird that he feels like cleaning his apartment when his roommate is gone for the day and he has the place to himself. He finds it annoying that he has adult-type decisions to make now, and his parents won't give him the answers. It's such a refreshingly uncomplicated existence to hear about.

Does this mean I'm being a cougar? I'm enjoying this non-romantic type contact with a young male. It's not the dating thing, but it's nice.

Did that sign say Reality Advisor?

It was before coffee... that's what I thought the sign said.

It really said Realty Advisor - someone who advises on purchasing real estate for investment purposes. But I think a reality advisor sounds like much more fun.

So what would a reality advisor do?

• Tell you that you look like an overstuffed teddy bear in that sweater.
• Advise that it will rain today. (Repeat every day until April.)
• Let you know it's not your metabolism, it's the high-fat high-sugar stuff you keep putting in your mouth.
• Advise reality show participants that being real will have them off the show in record time, they should go for melodramatic fiction instead.
• Tell you the sky is green. (OK, that was from a bored reality advisor - maybe he got into the wine.)
• Let you know that housework is never done.
• Burst that lottery-winning dream bubble. (This advisor is really getting me down.)
• Remind you that you have a dentist appointment. (That was just mean.)
• Let you know that you can't change the person you are dating, you can just waste a lot of time trying. (Awww.)
• Tell you no one will do your work if you don't....

OK, scrap that idea. That reality advisor is fired. No wonder you don't see signs for reality advisors... they would really bum you out, and people can do that by themselves, we don't need advisors for that.

Can I have one of those elevator keys?

I was in an office building with a lot of medical offices and only 2 elevators yesterday. And yes, you guessed it, one of the elevators was on service.

So when I drove my wheelchair into the one working elevator - I was the third person in, and expected other people would walk in, but not as many as would fit if we were all standing... boy was I disappointed. As many people as could jam themselves into the elevator squished into the tiny little box. They got to know each other very well.

Hey, aren't some of you sick if this is a medical building? No one breathe.

I was only going to the 2nd floor. We see death and dismemberment imminently approaching. If only the chair could levitate, I would have taken the stairs! Why didn't some of the others take the stairs... I guess those working legs are only for show (grump, grump, grump).

I did finally manage to back out of the elevator (I still need to work on the backward movements), but man... there was chaos. I can turn on a dime, but not in a full elevator, bits do stick out.

When I was on my way back down, one of the elevators was skulking darkly on the floor I was on... with still obviously only one elevator working I figured I would be waiting for a reasonably empty elevator for hours.

Then a man got out of the other elevator, which was full and going up, and said "Are you going down?" I was a bit confused, but said yes. He closed the right hand side of the elevator door on the dark elevator by hand (I didn't know those moved separately), and put a large metal key into a hole high up on the elevator door. The lights came on and he invited me into the elevator. I drove in and immediately turned the chair around. Once the door was closed the elevator started going up. He said "No, I want to go down." and put the key into a maintenance keyhole on the floor selection panel inside the elevator and pushed the lobby button. We started going down.

I like that key. I want one too!

I never knew those little holes in elevator doors had a purpose! I will look for them on other elevator doors now!

The man with the key commented on how much he liked being in total control of the elevator. I told him I had never seen anyone with so much power over the elevator as he had and that he should "use the force wisely, Luke".

Where did everybody go?

I'm not saying that Vancouver is now a ghost town - although, with Halloween approaching it would be topical - but where did everybody go?

I was in my local coffee shop enjoying coffee yesterday, and I almost had the whole place to myself! Other than a couple at a table over there, and a woman and her dog at a table out there, about 3 people who came in and got their coffee to go, and 3 people who worked there... the place was empty. How very odd.

The streets aren't exactly bustling either. I was off doing errands before I stopped for coffee, and I ran into very few people (and bounced off most of them knuck, knuck, knuck... tee, yes I know that's a bad joke, humour me, I need more people about for something more stimulating).

I'm sure during the Olympics this will all change for a few weeks, but Vancouver in the winter is really quite empty. Without the tourists it's very quiet, you can just hear the rain coming down...

What are sits bones?

In Yoga you are often encouraged to sit yourself down "on your sits bones". A quick google gives you back "did you mean sitz bones"? (I love it when google goes "are you silly, or did you just type that wrong?") Google does come up with definitions for "sit bones" which are correct, and at least one of them does say yoga instructors often call them "sits bones". My yoga instructors have used the term many times. A good definition I've found is:

Anatomically part of your pelvis (the ischial tuberosity, to be exact), the sit bones are quite literally the bones under the flesh of the butt that you sit on.

So you can understand why I felt a bit odd yesterday having an Occupational Therapist, a wheelchair saleswoman, and my husband all putting their hands under my "sits bones" while I sat in my new wheelchairs. One at a time, they each put their hands under my "sits bones" to test the inflation level of my seat cushion while I was sitting on each chair - that's 6 times, for those of you wondering.

I do like my air filled Roho cushion, it does work well for me on both my power and manual wheelchairs, but it does come with an initial feeling of discomfort due to all the hands that have ended up under my butt testing the inflation level!

I am sooooo glad that this wheelchair purchasing process is finished. It is exhausting and can be very uncomfortable.

Do you really want me to test this?

After the disastrous start to my power chair wheelchair ownership (where the chair came to a sudden, jarring stop at the bottom of a hill) the dealer wanted to know if everything had been fixed by their mechanic and if it was working properly now.

That's an invitation to do a bit of testing, now isn't it? And it wouldn't do to just take it out on a short run to ensure it works... I would have to try to break it, that's what testing is really about, finding where something breaks, not where it works.

So armed with my spouse for support in case the chair did fail, yesterday I took the chair for a reasonably easy ride down to Coal Harbour to check out some new artwork displayed by the water. That worked well.

So then we headed over to Stanley Park. It's more of a very well kept garden, rather than a wilderness area, but not all of the paths are paved. Around Lost Lagoon for instance, it's a gravel path with the occasional puddle, rocky bits, some hills, and many birds and squirrels. So of course that's where we went.

The chair did very well. I was happy. I was freezing cold in the early morning (you don't generate any heat while sitting in a chair pushing a joy stick) but the chair kept moving!

I reported back to the dealer that the chair survived the test. She was out so I just left a voice mail message with the details of the testing. I think she may listen to it more than once. She thought she should probably put me in their files as a "heavy user" for expectations of maintenance needs in the future. (This doesn't mean weight, it means the chair will be used a lot.) I think she's probably right.

She did want me to test it didn't she?

This is a picture I took of the fountain yesterday morning. Nature's Pride Flag flying high!

Ever had one of those days?

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Am I really supposed to believe that?

Last Friday I took delivery of my power wheelchair!

Last Saturday my spouse and I went for a trial run in the wheelchair to get used to it. It's sized just right for me - unlike the demo chair I had, which was way too big. And it seemed to be a piece of freedom for me. I was all set to escape from my home and go exploring to places I haven't been able to get to for years. I could leave the confines of my comfortable - but seeming more and more like a prison - home and get fresh air, sun, and all on my own!

But then the wheelchair came to a jarring stop.

There was no power to the joystick. There was no power in my wheelchair.

It became an exceedingly expensive sculpture. The winner in a game of statues.

Luckily, my husband was there. Luckily, he is very fit. Unluckily, we were at the bottom of a hill. He likens the effort to push the chair back up the hill to running up the Grouse Grind. He ran home to get my walking poles and foot splint, so I walked back up the hill to home while he pushed the chair.

I left a phone message with the dealer on Saturday, and today a mechanic came to fix the statue... er, power wheelchair. He said a connection was loose in the engine. He had never seen that before, but he got his tools and took the chair apart in the hallway outside our apartment. He said it was a connection that is usually almost impossible to disconnect, but it wouldn't stay closed. So he took a plastic tie and tied it together. (A plastic tie like you see cops using to tie up criminals on the news... an apt piece of plastic for the chair.)

So I asked, "What are the chances that this will happen again?" He said "Zero."

So am I really supposed to believe that?

It wasn't suppose to ever happen to begin with. Now am I'm supposed to be confident that I can take the chair out on my own? Cross busy streets without fear of it dying in the middle? Go down hills and believe that I can get back up them? Have the freedom I was hoping to obtain?

Call me jaded. But this chair is looking more like a death trap, and less like freedom to me. That's depressing.

Is that green? Or is that green?

I've finally taken possession of my manual wheelchair (the power wheelchair is coming later) and not much of it is in colour, but what colour there is, is definitely green! See the image! It's a colour called "toxic green".

My only regret is that the rest of it is a rather depressing black. I don't really want to be in stealth mode when in the chair - people will have enough trouble seeing me down here without my trying to make myself more invisible. But none of the other components come in colour. Oh well, it's better than the free loaner from the Red Cross, which really wasn't quite the right size for me.

The chair works wonderfully. It's significantly better having a chair custom made to my measurements - and my spouse's measurements too, he's the one who helps by pushing, so his hand height was measured! We took it out on Sunday for a trip around the Stanley Park Seawall. I can push much more now that I have a chair that fits me - more exercise for me, which is fabulous!

As a celebratory dinner we had fish & chips on the beach. Rain City Grill is a very good restaurant just on the edge of English Bay Beach, and it has a takeout window just for fish & chips for people who want to eat and watch the sun set. All of the packaging is biodegradable and the forks are made from bamboo, so you can dispose of the packaging in one of the garbage cans on the beach without feeling too guilty. And the fish is extremely well prepared! Yum! This kind of experience is why we moved to Vancouver... well, not the wheelchair part, but the seawall and beach part for sure, and now I can be back there again! Yay!

Is that a threat or a surrealist promise?

We are actually going to do it, after keeping old furniture and other junk in our storage locker for 10 years (after moving it from the storage locker in our Toronto apartment building, where it sat for 5 years...) we are having the 1-800 Got Junk people cart it all away!

When we booked the removal appointment online, one of the steps was to give additional comments. They have examples of additional comments. The punctuation and placement of the example comments makes them fascinating:

I have to leave by 11:15, or it's a sofa bed, TV and yard waste

Dude. If they don't leave by 11:15, it's a sofa bed, TV and yard waste. Is that a threat of metamorphosis? Does Salvador Dali come in and change reality for them?

Is this what happened in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when Ford and Arthur are thrown into space and the spaceship Heart of Gold picks them up? They changed into sofas for a while. Was it because they didn't leave by 11:15?

A sofa bed would be a major item to pick up and remove, is the threat really that the soft feather pillows will get to stay and the junk removers will have to take the couch if someone doesn't leave by 11:15?

The mind boggles. I think I need more coffee. Or maybe less coffee. Or maybe a couch...

Does the shushing help?

It's a cool, calm, still night as I sit next to an open window reading.

A car alarm goes off. They do that. They do that all the time. Once we had to live through a car alarm going off every couple of minutes all night long. Visions of throwing a large piece of furniture onto the car were dashed by the spotting of the objectionable car too far down the street for us to drop anything on it. Shit happens. It's the insurance company's way of making life hell for everyone even if they don't own a car and can't be financially tormented with it. As if it helps cut down on cars being stolen. I "pssff" in the insurance company's general direction.

There is now a bylaw on the books where we can call the police and waste their time coming to tag and have a car with an endless alarm going off towed away with a stern talking-to promised for the car owner. That way people all over the city can listen to the offending car whine as it is being towed away.

Last night the silliest of all methods was used to try to silence the car: "Shhh!" A little voice in the night said "Shhh!" I almost laughed out loud.

A minute or so later the alarm stopped. Maybe that was the first stage of the car alarm stopping. First, you chastise your car with a stern "Shhh!" and then you put the key in the door and turn it. I can see technical writers all over the place implementing that suggestion for the instruction manual. "For idiots who set off their own car alarms, give the car a stern shushing, and then turn off the alarm and open the car door properly. Look embarrassed."

What sport is going there?

While driving up to the ferry terminal at Horseshoe Bay recently we were telling our visiting guests that one of the mountains we were passing was going to be used for some of the Olympic sports next February. Just as we were trying to remember which sports in particular those were going to be... a sign beside the road gave us the answer! Freestyle skiing and snowboarding events will be held on Cypress Mountain.

Who knew we were going to be wondering that right there? That is some spookily good placement of the sign!

Where is the most dangerous place to have a wheelchair?

In a bookstore!

I used to have to cut my time short when I went into a bookstore because I couldn't stay standing for very long. Now that I have a wheelchair on order, and have been using a loaner wheelchair, getting used to the idea... no more problems with the standing, the only limit is now carrying capacity.

Oh dear.

Is that a bird or a fish?

Yesterday my spouse and I were going around Stanley Park on the Seawall when we saw things jumping out of the water just to the east of the Lions Gate Bridge. It looked a bit like white birds fishing, but after looking closely for a couple of minutes... it looked like fish! Yes! It's fish jumping out of the water!

We've never seen fish jumping out of the water! So a googling was called for.

I think those exuberantly jumping fish were Coho Salmon! From the scientific sites my googling found, it seems they are spawning right now, and the Burrard Inlet is one of the places where they do that!

I've seen films of salmon jumping out of the water to get up rocky streams, but the Burrard Inlet is a deep body of water. A cruise ship on its way up to Alaska went out of the inlet shortly after we saw the fish jumping in the same place. So there are no rocks for them to jump over out there. Are they just so jazzed to be going upstream that they are jumping happy? Are they trying to get rid of parasites that started letting go once the fresh water started hitting them? I've heard this is one of the reasons why whales breach (jump out of the water) - to get rid of unwanted parasites clinging to them.

It was a really cool thing to witness, fish jumping out of the water so close to where we live in a big city!

Ever had to sneeze whilst yawning?

I didn't think it was possible. Last night, after finishing a very long book, I was settling down to sleep. Without really knowing it, I was yawning a big yawn... and then I sneezed!

I didn't know that it was possible to sneeze whilst yawning.

It was very, very loud. My spouse was worried something had exploded. And the giggling afterwards while I got up to get a kleenex was confusing for him.

Surprise attack sneezes seem to be plaguing me!

Are those self-flushing toilets or sea monsters?

I pondered the sanity of self-flushing toilets on boats before now... see this blog post. I'm now wondering if this is more than just an awkward situation.

I think there is at least one child who thinks there are sea monsters in the washrooms on BC Ferries boats.

Whenever you step into a washroom stall, the auto-flush goes off, and you are lucky if it goes off only another 2 times before you are done in the stall. The sucking and popping noises of these toilets are extremely loud. At the beginning of the sailing the washrooms are very busy and many of these toilets go off at once, making it even louder. You can hear the sucking and popping noises from well outside the washrooms.

I was unfortunately in the stall next to a woman and a child. They were not speaking English, but it was clear that the woman kept crying out "it's automatic" and trying to calm the child. Since the toilets go off when they sense movement, it was a non-stop popping festival.

I'm afraid that child will have bad dreams for years! The sea monsters aboard the ship may turn her off boats for life. And being terrified of toilets is not a good thing for a child's normal development!

I really hope the BC Ferries people re-think the self-flushing toilets decision.

Did I really want to see actors' faces that close up?

Star Trek on an IMAX screen! Sounds fabulous, and it was, but did I really want to see pores the size of my head?

We were in Victoria last weekend. The museum was showing a display of things from the British Museum (what they acquired and aren't going to give back) from all over the world. It was a sparse, but interesting display of everything from replica rocks from the Olduvai Gorge to modern pieces made within the last couple of years specifically for the museum. But as we were buying tickets to get into the museum, they mentioned that they were showing Star Trek on the IMAX screen... well, that's a goer, so we got tickets for that for a couple of days later.

The movie was sold out, so it was good I had my loaner wheelchair - they reserved a seat for my spouse right beside the spot for me - it was close to the screen, but isn't everything in an IMAX theatre?

The screen in an IMAX theatre is 6 storeys tall. In most movies there are some very close close-ups on many of the actors. They all appear to have lovely skin from afar, but it's not nearly as complimentary when their noses are 2 storeys tall.

I would not enjoy the pressure that a makeup artist must face if they realize how close everyone will be to their art.

It actually produced some interesting dreams that night! I dreamt that I was growing the black hair from the villain's eyebrows on my knuckles. I don't have hair on my knuckles, so I also wondered who had pasted the hair onto my hands... and when questions of reality hit a dream, it wakes you up, but it's easy to remember those dreams afterwards!

I think I can get over it... but I think I could have lived a full, happy life without ever seeing actors' faces that close up.

Is that a really big bug?

A high pitched whine starts up outside our apartment.

It goes on and on.

It goes on and on during the day. For many days.

It does stop at about 4pm each day. But it's been happening for a couple of weeks now.

So is there a nest of really big bugs out there? Are we facing an invasion of giant wasps? Is one of these apartment buildings really a giant wasps' nest? Or is it a bunch of 2-storey tall hummingbirds at a really big bird feeder? Where do they find enough food? Do we have monster flowers growing out there too?

Investigations into this bug invasion have resulted in a discovery of... wait for it... construction. Yes, more construction. After 3 years of construction workers going up and down the outside of our apartment building... they've now started on our neighbours' building. It's a plague of construction, and the next building over has caught the disease. It too is a 30+ storey apartment building, a bit older than this one, with a lot of windows. They are removing and replacing the bits around the outsides of the windows. All of the windows.

It's not nearly as bad as having our own building vibrating with the grinding, or as noisy as having the construction workers just on the other side of a pane of glass, so this is not as bad as the last 3 years of construction that we had to live through.

But we were just beginning to enjoy the relative quiet of just a bit of car and pedestrian traffic outside.

It really is a nice place to live, when it's not a construction site. Maybe I'll just think of it as big bugs. I could actually get a picture of a humming bird with my camera if the humming bird was 2 storeys tall...

Do I want to tilt?

Continuing on my journey to configure a wheelchair - make that 2 wheelchairs, one motorized for getting around, one manual for getting exercise - I need to make even more decisions.

I've already decided on the basic chair items for the motorized wheelchair I am configuring for purchase. I want the swing out leg supports, the TDX SP super-duper wheel motion that can go over all the bumps in the sidewalk pavement (there are many, many bumps in the pavement in Vancouver's West End), the ROHO seat cushion that has a couple dozen little individually inflated pockets in it, and a backrest that can be individually contoured to my back with additions of bits of foam in the right places.

Oh and, I've decided on the chair arm-rests... that's a new item I was introduced to only last week, I hadn't realized there was so many choices.

But now I have the ultimately expensive decision: To tilt or not to tilt, that is the burning question. 

I can still walk short distances, so I'm not in dire need of a chair to get around indoors. Right now I really don't see the point of the tilt. But the ever cheerful saleswoman says that if I don't spend about $4000 now to get the tilt, to retrofit in the future will cost at least $6000. 

Um, yeah, but I still don't see why I would need the tilt.

Some hints from my occupational therapist: if I want to sit in a restaurant in the chair, the tilt would let me reach the table better. I get up and use a normal chair in restaurants, there is usually a place to stow the chair for a while, I've never enjoyed being in packed restaurants that wouldn't have room for that, so that's not something worth $4000 to me.

Some suggestions from a previous wheelchair saleswoman I was tormented by: if you are in the chair for a long time - like all day - it's nice to tilt back and rebalance your weight for a while. She was pregnant, and enjoying this aspect of the chair while taking it away from me so I couldn't try it out for myself. (She gave up my case to the other saleswoman when I asked my occupational therapist if there was another sales company we could deal with.) Again, I'm not planning to be in the chair for hours upon hours.

So what about in 4 or 5 years from now? Yes, exactly. What will happen in 4 or 5 years -> no one on the planet knows what will happen to me in 4 or 5 years. MS is so specific to the individual human that is afflicted with it, no one knows where the disease will take me. I may be running and jogging in 4 or 5 years. I may be paralyzed in 4 or 5 years. Or anything in between those 2 extremes.

I have finally, after much googling, found information on why tilt is a good thing. It's to relieve pressure points from sitting in one position for too long! See http://www.wheelchairjunkie.com/tiltandrecline.html 

I'm not planning to spend hours sitting in a wheelchair day after day, but maybe my desk chair that I use every day needs a tilt stick and motor. Or maybe I need to get up at least every 2 hours for a stretch, like I already do on a regular basis. 

I'm thinking I will forego the tilt option on the wheelchair.