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puddlelilies.com / proofreading negates the immediacy of feeling

  • I was totally too busy last week. One might think that having Monday as my flex day would have helped but it did not. It started then with dance Monday night, followed by four days of work as is normal, but instead of having Tuesday and Thursday evenings off, I had plays to go to. They were good,  but I guess I didn’t really think about having so much to do in my week when I booked them. It was a long week where I didn’t spend much time at home. I was pretty tired by Friday and had a pretty miserable second dance class – I sort of got my second wind half way through I guess but I was super tired after. Then on Sat I had ballet closely followed by a visit from Susan and Amber and Mia. And in between there I also sewed the edges of my duvet cover to make it fit better. I had about 1/2 hour rest on my chair on Thurs before I went to dinner, but I didn’t get back there until noon on Sunday. After Am and Mia were gone. Fun times but exhausted.   This wasn’t helped by me getting up at 4 in the morning on Sunday to watch Canada in the gold medal hockey game. I snoozed a bit during the third period and Am and Mia (who were in my living room) slept through from sometime in the second period right through until a normal getting up time around 9.

    This week I have much less to do, though I might do flamenco class on Wednesday again. Not to much hardship on my part since it’s right after modern. The only problem is if I am too tired.

    Actually it’s not so bad that I was busy with things to do in the evenings last week as the Olympics were on so there weren’t too many shows to watch anyway. I might have had to read a book or watch a new show or something. I tried watching a new show yesterday. I chose it based entirely because it’s from Australia. I watched part of the first episode. It was actually a soapy medical drama that started in 1998 so it was not only cheesy but filmed on square video that didn’t fill up my monitor as well. Not that this last factor would stop me from watching if it was any good. If it was any good I may not have noticed. I only watched the first half of the first episode so I guess it might get better. I’m not going to bother finding out because the Olympics are over so presumably my regular shows will be back.

    I forgot my oatmeal this morning. Rather, my oatmeal was in the same type of container as my hummus so I had hummus for breakfast instead. I sort of remember thinking as I put the hummus away last night that I mustn’t mix them up in the morning. This wasn’t enough of a warning for me when I was rushing to leave.

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  • I had a massage yesterday after work. I said my neck was sore and my RMT did something that felt like my head was dislocated from my body. It didn’t feel good and now my neck is sore. It’s all reattached though so that’s good.

    After massage I went home for a grilled-cheese sammich and then to a play. It was “Picnic” by William Inge. It felt very surfacy but I was impressed with how some of the young actors portrayed older characters. It was at UVIC so the whole cast was young.

    Tonight I’ve said I’ll do a make-up class in level 3 flamenco. I asked permission first of course and there’s no problem there but I am nervous. That’s normal. It’s all the same people from my own level 2/3 but it’s not my class so I’m nervous. Also I have to remember to take my shoes.

    It’s play week. We have Glass Menagerie at Blue Bridge tomorrow night, preceded by hamburgers at 5th St.

  • I was sick last week. Nothing gross really happened but I didn’t really feel like moving a lot for about five days. I could tell sickness was looming on the Friday but I swallowed a bunch of echinacea and drank a lot of water and went to dance class anyway and that felt fine. Maybe a little more tired than usual after.

    I was meant to go to Vancouver the next day to see West Side Story with Julie. However, when I got home from dance I got a text from her saying she’d been injured on the bus. So we planned to take it easy while I was there.   But then when I woke up sick in the morning I cancelled my going. It was for the best anyway since she wasn’t feeling very good either. She was able to find someone who was not as cursed as we were to take the tickets, so that’s good. 

    I was sickly for five days after that. Seven really, but I managed to go to work on the next Friday. During my sick time I spent a lot of time on my reclining chair, eating various types of porridge (cornmeal, Scottish oats, regular oats with flax seeds). I ate other stuff too.   My throat was sore for maybe a day, but it didn’t prevent me from eating, thank goodness.

    I watched all the streaming TV shows that I could on my computer. Now I’ve watched all the shows and there’s no more due to the Olympics.   I only watched one Olympics and that was the men’s short program for figure skating. I read my book during the parts where there was no skating.

    I read the Divergent series of books. I had bought one on sale at walmart a few weeks ago and read it and it was satisfying enough so I downloaded the others on to my old phone and read them while I was sick. They’re young adult books in a post-something-happened-in-America-to-make-it-significantly-different type setting. You know. And the kids living in it are part of the changing it. *You know*. There is a healthy dose of boys and girls getting together and touching and kissing and relationships and blah blah blah. I wasn’t turned off by the first person narrative this time (like I was with Hunger Games) but the last book gave a hint of what was to come when it was split into 2 points of view. I didn’t catch on until the main characters seemed a little too happy in their relationship late in the book. A definite give-away with so many pages still to come.   Also, the lesser characters maybe weren’t developed as well as they might be (for one of them I just pictured Draco Malfoy).

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  • I have acquired for myself a new blackberry phone, which means more writing in my blog journal, right? I think I have forgotten how to compose one of these. I shall simply keep writing blather until it comes back.

    At present I am at the cinema watching a play. This is how things work now. On the one hand it makes it so that I don’t have to go to London.   Also, I was able to procure a ticket.

  • I thought I broke my toe last week.  I can’t remember exactly but I guess my feet were sore after my two flamenco classes on Monday.  But the thing is, they’re always sore after two flamenco classes in a row so I didn’t do any worrying.  At the very most, I think I might have rolled them around on my tennis ball because generally that helps (usually it’s the balls of my feet that hurt and a tennis ball is pleasant for those).  On Tuesday I may have thought “hm, hurty feet,” but again, my feet are usually sore after two flamenco classes, and this usually lingers into the second day.  I couldn’t be sure what toe was affected, or if it was both my second and third toes.

     On Wednesday I deffo noticed that the pain was toe-centred because I had sharp pain there during my modern class.  I had bare feet and kept looking to see if there was anything wrong, but couldn’t see anything.  It felt a bit like a blood blister, which I sometimes get on the bottom of my feet, at the joint where foot meets toes.  I tried walking home after but my foot was too sore.   At home, I removed my sock to find my third toe all purple and blue along the side next to my second toe.  Thursday and Friday: too sore and had to skip class on Friday.  Thought I had a broken toe and wrapped it accordingly, taping it to my second toe.

     Saturday and Sunday I rested, thinking I had a broken toe.  By Sunday it didn’t hurt but I was still worried.  I didn’t want to skip dance, but I didn’t want to go to dance with a broken toe.  Internet said I didn’t have to go to doctor unless numb, or disfigured, or bleeding.  Injured toe had a bump on the side of it that hurt when I poked it.  Decided to visit doctor first thing Monday morning.

     Doctor squeezed my foot and toes and said nothing was broken.  Then she pressed on the bump on my third toe until I squirmed from pain and explained that I had a ganglia, which is a protective measure created by ligaments when they are bashed about (perhaps sustained in flamenco class).  But not broken! Happy as to not have to rest it for 4-6 weeks.  I just have to cushion it in class somehow so it doesn’t get so bashed.  I wore my jazz runners to flamenco class that night, just to be cautious (consequently, I do not recommend wearing running shoes for flamenco class).

     I was keeping it taped to the second toe this week, just because it keeps them from rubbing together and hurting, but I graduated to just wrapping a band-aid  around it last night for modern and that’s what I’ve done today.  It reminds me of that time I bashed my pinky toe against something and could think of no other cure for the pain than to put a little band-aid on it.  It made me feel better even if it had no actual use.   This time, though, I want the little bump on the side of my third toe to not rub against anything and so the band-aid is more practical.  I’ll have to try and notice it, however, so I’ll stop wrapping it when the bump goes away.

  • A Review of “Nation” by Terry Pratchett.

    The last Tery Pratchett book I read was loaned to me by a friend because the cover was yellow (I like yellow) and it was about an assassin (I like assassins).  That was in grade 12 and I read it several times while consuming banana granola bars (provided by same friend.)  I don’t remember anything else about this book.

    “Nation” was also loaned to me by a friend, because appaently I am only ever friends with Terry Pratchett fans.  I spent the whole time reading it thinking I’d read it before, which I’m pretty sure I haven’t.  It was probably just similar to other books I’ve read (Especially where we’re stranded on an island after a storm and a shipwreck with the main characters).  Also, I kept thinking how similar the tone was to E. Waugh and P.G. Wodehouse (For example.  I guess it’s the British dry mockery voice. Or something.  I just notice it, I haven’t studied it.  How funny English people are with their Ways tut tut.)  And now I just realized that while I’ve read several things by Wodehouse, I haven’t acutally read any of his Jeeves and Wooster stories, which is odd, as I’ve seen the TV show, and this is why I’d know of him.  Funny.

  • I read a book called “The Chaperone” written by an American author.  I purchased it because I was on the ferry with a dead phone, and I needed something to distract me while I sat next the the foot passenger exit so I could get off real fast on the other side because the ferry was over-crowded due to several cancellations and I wanted a seat on the bus.  I was desperate and the cover was pretty. The title character is a woman who chaperones a young Louise Brooks for a summer in 1922.  She (the main character) is very flat and boring and I may have laughed at something major that is revealed to her that I was probably not meant to laugh at. To sum up quickly so I can move on with my life, if I wanted to know everything that the Wikipedia entry has written about Louise Brooks I would have read it.  I did, actually, and it was much shorter than this book.

  • I couldn’t go to dance today because I’ve strained all the muscles in my left leg. I did this at the last class, of course, and I didn’t notice it was bothered until yesterday, and today it really hurts. Only when I walk though, and try to stand up from sitting in a chair. So lame. (Literally!)

    I have no plans for the weekend except to clean my bathroom, which is getting crusty (I think that’s the right word for it…) Also I want to make something with the tomatoes that my parents brought me last weekend. A sauce, perhaps, or many many bacon and tomato sammiches. You may guess that I am leaning towards the later, and you would be correct. Or hummus and bacon sammiches, maybe, since those are, technically, healthy, and I enjoy them a great deal (though not as much as the bacon version). Pepper is an important ingredient in either recipe.

    I’ve been reading “Divisidaro” by Michael Ondaatje. I compare all books by Mr. Ondatje to “The English Patient,” which I read when I was nineteen, so there’s never any comparison, really. BUT, he seems to get more “accessible” as he goes (from one book to the next) so that means that more people will want to read them. So that’s good. But for me it means that some of the mystery is lost. I haven’t read anything (ANYTHING) earlier than TEP so I should probably go back and see what he was like before. I’d give an example, but my copy of TEP is in Duncan (I hope). Later.

    I’ve also recently watched “Still Life – A Three Pines Mystery” on the CBC television. I only watched it because it was flashed on their online watching site and I was all “hay! I like mysteries! And it’s Canadian!” (this is how I talk). It took me a few tries to get through it because I kept wandering off in the middle and/or going to bed. After watching a lot of British mystery shows of late, it was refreshing to have a similar set-up only with Canadian accents. (It was like that time I went to England and was so happy to hear Peter Mansbridge talking on the airplane on the way home.) But the novelty of this wore off pretty quick as I kept watching and noticing CBC obviousness (dude’s impatient… so he Looks At His Watch) and some overly dramatic acting.

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  • Tonight I did not want to go to dance.  I’ve had a headache all day and feeling crummy and floaty (from the headache still being there but not being able to feel it due to 2 kinds of painkillers!  Maybe).  And totally unfocused!  But then as usual I got hom from work and immediately made my supper, got changed into my dance clothes, then ate and napped and was off to dance class.

    I walked there, and I was so pleased.  It’s been a while since I’ve had the strength and energy to both walk to the studio and then do a dance class. I wasn’t totally wiped out for class from walking there and then up all the stairs.  I was feeling strong and like I remember feeling when I was in amazing shape one-and-a-half years ago.  Or getting there at least.  Happy.

    I walked home, too, to try and tucker myself out.  Wednesday is going to be a bad day for going to sleep, I think.

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    My goals for the winter are as follows:

    1. Never be cold.
    2. Learn to cook a roast beef.

     

  • I spent this weekend with Amber and Mia, and also with Susan.  We went to the aquarium in Sidney and I wasn’t afraid.  There’s no picture of me there, however, so I guess there’s nothing to proove I was there.

    We went for fish and chips of course, at Fish on Fifth and I had gravy on my fries and all was well. Mia had a maccachee that just blew all our minds, as it was deepfried into triangular pockets.  Crazy.

    On our return home  from we all had super-naps.

    Super late fancy dinner followed.  (It didn’t finish until off unitl after 10! which is way past all of our bedtimes.)  We dressed up, of course and went to Milestones which is our favorite. The taller of us had fancy mojitos.  The short one had a fancy ice cream dessert. We were all happy.

    Time with friends went way too quickly.

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