Category Archives: stress

A slight “paws” in my heart beat

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My dog is near me more often than not.  She has become an extension of me and that bond has only been strengthened over this past winter because she has been able to come to work with me when the lodge is quiet.  It may seem like an unnatural relationship to those who do not understand the dynamic between human and canine but I cannot imagine my life without her.

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My two best friends were visiting over the past weekend and Callaway and I got to spend some much-needed time reconnecting with them.  It was great to see them and know that my puppy is just as fond of them as I am.

On Saturday morning while I was working, “Auntie Sami” had offered to take Callaway for a walk to her cottage which is a few short kilometers from the lodge.  A short time later, my cell phone rang and my heart missed a beat when I saw the number.  It was Sam and my brain automatically switched into panic mode.  I immediately began to formulate scenarios of what had potentially happened to my dog even before I answered the phone.  I calmly picked up the call and heard that Callaway was nowhere to be seen.

I trusted that she was fine but, being the protective mother I am, I sprinted across the parking lot to my car and began the short drive to the cottage.  Before I was even halfway out the first road, I saw a very familiar black shape in the middle of the road.  I slowed my car, whistled and watched as a ton of loyalty on four legs came sprinting down the road.  She jumped into the car and we made our way to the cottage to pick up Sam and tell her everything was fine.

Poor Sam was still searching for Callaway when we pulled up beside her.  As it turns out, Sam had deemed that everything in her cottage was fine and made a comment to my dog about going back to find mommy.  When Sam bent down to tighten the straps of her snow-shoes, Callaway had taken it upon herself to do just that and began running back to the lodge to find me.  She was out of Sam’s eyesight before Sam had stood back up and she was smart enough to make the necessary turns and follow the two roads back to the lodge.

I wish everyone could have the opportunity to have a dog.  I wish everyone could experience that type of loyalty and unconditional love.  I’m not her pack leader.  I am her family.

 

 

 

It’s all fun and games until you can’t have a shower

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I have been fortunate to live in this beautiful place called Muskoka for most of my life.  I was born in a larger city and we relocated when I was seven years old.  I left the comfort of my little town for a couple of years when I went to college and, when I could no longer stand the sites of the concrete jungle, I eventually made the move back home.

Friends from college still ask how I can live in such a remote location and I always respond the same way ~ how can I not?  I am not a city girl, by any means.  The crowds of people at any given time make me very anxious and the pace of the city is way too fast for my liking.

Being a “country bumpkin” and living in an old out-building of a farmhouse does, however, have its challenges.  I try my best not to watch the heat slowly escaping through cracks in the house by filling in holes and covering door jambs with towels to block the drafts.  I try to tune out the sound of the furry little freeloaders living rent free in my attic and my basement.  But the one thing I am unable to ignore is the frozen pipes after battling frigid temperatures for a few weeks.  I had been lucky until my return from home on Monday.  As much as they fought to stay warm enough, the pump and the pipes were no match for Mother Nature’s steady -34 Celsius temperatures without factoring in the wind chill.

Thankfully because I have been living this lifestyle for so long I am able to adapt but I am hoping to have the situation rectified by this afternoon.  Adapting to my lack of running water is one thing, this is why I always keep bottled water in my house.  But not being able to shower in my own home will soon become an issue and I’m sure my neighbors don’t want to see me “bathing” in the snow on my deck!

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I want that prescription just for the side effects

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I was wasting more precious moments of my life on Facebook when I came across a friend’s status – it read:  “Why do medications always have side effects like ‘stomach bleeding’ and ‘suicidal thoughts’? Why not ‘invisibility’ or ‘spontaneous orgasms’?”  It makes me laugh every time I read it.

I have never been a pill-popper.  Even when I am sick, I will only take pills if my symptoms are at Defcon 2 and I have no alternative.  It seems every commercial for any “wonder drug” spends more time touting the ill-effects of the drug rather than the benefits.

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It makes me happy that I am not a fan of taking over the counter or prescription medications without serious deliberation.  Unless, of course, the side effects become much more beneficial.  🙂

 

Ho Ho Holy Shopping Wars Batman!!

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My father used to love to Christmas shop.  There was a certain spark in his eye, a unique scintillation that was only ignited when he was donning his overcoat and preparing to get lost in the churning vortex of people at the busiest mall in Toronto. His exuberance always makes me think of the childlike excitement of Darren McGavin’s character in A Christmas Story when he opens his prized “leg lamp”.   Blood would rush to his cheeks, there was a noticeable spring in his step and his baritone voice softly began to echo the songs of the season.  His melodic tone would lure us into his Christmas trance and we were transported into the beauty of all things festive and giving – until we got to the mall.

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Taking a child to that mall during the Christmas rush is like taking a lone goldfish from its tranquil bowl and throwing it into a pool of piranhas.  I was honestly terrified.  On more than one occasion, my tiny hand was ripped from my father’s grip and I bounced like a raft down a cascading white water rapid, lost in a sea of angry strangers.

Never had I seen such a heinous display of the exact opposite of the Christmas spirit – it was full-contact shopping.  People pushed, they shoved, they elbowed their way to displays only to begin a game of tug-of-war for an article of clothing that would probably be returned on Boxing Day.  Many of the words uttered by adults were foreign to me, but they were said with such venom that I knew that my ears should not be privy to those descriptive bits of verbiage.

That shopping experience would taint me for the decades that followed.  For years after that nightmare-inducing display of bad will towards men, I adamantly refused to enter those revolving glass doors into Christmas shopping hell.  Even at that tender age, I had become summarily convinced that hand-made gifts would be more appreciated than something that had been plucked from the floor after the department store carnage in those late hours leading up to Christmas.  I was a pioneer, I was a rebel, I was 7 years old and I was scarred for life.

When the holiday season returned the following year and the threat of mall shopping reared its thorny head, I vociferously engaged in a battle of will with the sovereign of commerce.  Daughter vs father, I expounded on the virtue of hand-crafted gifts and chalked up a small victory as I watched his car pull out of the driveway on the path to the slaughterhouse.

Today, I am a proud supporter of local businesses, and for those gifts that cannot be found here, I shop online.  Parcels are delivered safely, with no malicious intent and I no longer feel the dread of shopping for the holidays.  The mall is now vague memory of a life once lived by a child who still wanted to believe in the true Christmas spirit but didn’t want to get “malled” in the process.

A couple of days, a couple of changes and a couple rays of hope

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I ratted myself out in my post two days ago.  I haven’t been paying attention to my health by way of my food choices ergo I haven’t been paying attention to my overall wellness.  It’s amazing how quickly the wrong foods can wreak havoc on a human body.

The scientific make up of the human body is amazing.  It knows how to properly digest and use the correct foods and it has the hidden knowledge to be able to store “food” it doesn’t recognize and deposit those “foods” into fat cells until it can figure out what to do with them, which will be never.  Processed foods are the biggest culprits and those seemingly benign ingredients you cannot pronounce are the worst offenders.

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It’s so easy to walk into the grocery store and purchase a pre-packaged dinner that you can just pop into the oven and eat thirty minutes later.  But it’s just as easy to buy some chicken breasts and throw them in the oven, saute some fresh vegetables and have a nutritious dinner in half an hour, and this meal is one your body will recognize and distribute appropriately to fuel itself.

For the last two days I have made a concerted effort to eat only food that has been prepared by me.  I control the ingredients, the amount of fat and sodium and the portion size.  I have been a champ about drinking 6-8 glasses of water and have made a pact with my dog to walk her every day after work, barring any more storms similar to The Wizard of Oz!   I can honestly say that, in this brief 48-hour period, I can feel a difference in my energy level and my mood.

My body has been trying to tell me this for while but I have been ignorant to its demands.  At least now, after feeling the effects of this minor euphoric state, I will be more cognizant of continuing this path and keeping myself the happiest and healthiest version of me.

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That glue really is Krazy stuff

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My mom and dad both battled their share of medical problems.  There were many trips to local hospitals and many chats with our family doctor to make difficult decisions.

In early 2003, my dad became so ill that those decisions were unable to be made by us or by our local ER doctors.   He had been flown by air ambulance to Toronto with an upper G.I. bleed and his stomach was sprayed with super glue to stop the bleeding.  According to the specialists, it was the only thing they could do to save his life.   By some miracle, it worked.

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My mom and I basically moved in with my aunt and uncle in Burlington and drove into the hospital in Toronto each day.  I became an amateur resident doctor in a span of a few weeks.  I would check his chart each morning and even yelled at a nurse when I read that he had been given Aspirin, a blood thinner, during the night to control his fever.

When he finally regained consciousness, he had been in a medically induced coma for two and a half weeks and suspended in his own state of consciousness for another four days after that.  He had been on a respirator that had since been removed and he was initially unaware that he had to cover the hole in his throat to be able to speak.

It took him a while to acclimate and, once we showed him that he had to put his finger on the opening to have a voice,  the first question he asked me was “what day is it?”

“It’s Wednesday, Dad.”

Without missing a beat, he put his finger back on the opening to his throat and croaked, “I’m not happy about that.”

I looked sideways at my mother and we both had to look away.  After three weeks of sitting vigil at his bedside, wondering if he would even recover from all of the things going wrong in his body, we started to giggle.  I was dumbfounded.  He was mad because it was Wednesday!  He wasn’t angry that he was attached to a plethora of medical equipment.  He wasn’t concerned that my mom and I were covered from head to toe in gowns and masks to prevent contamination in the ICU.  He wasn’t upset that he had to put a finger over the gaping hole in his throat to utter any words.  He was mad because it was Wednesday.  The stress-releasing laughter continued and my mom and I were quickly ushered out of the ICU.

That moment in time left an imprint on my brain.  I regaled my co-workers with the story and, since my dad was home and on the mend, it became our go-to phrase in the office.   Every time something went wrong, one of us would cover a phantom hole in our throat and squawk, “I’m not happy about that”.

My  dad passed away in March of 2006.  That memory had sadly disappeared until one of those friends typed the line “I’m not happy about that” into one of her emails today.  After all of the things we had gone through with my mom recently that moment in my life had become buried in the recesses of my brain, but I’m glad it’s back.  I forgot a big part of the journey with my dad and “I’m not happy about that”.  At least the memory is back and I will hold onto it this time.

The art of procrastination

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procrastination

I am not usually one to procrastinate.  I like to take the bull by the horns and just get things done.  But more and more lately, I am putting things into piles and some of those piles are collecting a great amount of proverbial dust.

The piles of tasks that I am pushing to the side are things nobody can see because they are in my head.  But I seem to have a found a wonderful corner of my mind that has a giant rug and all of those things I want to be doing have been swept under that giant Persian beauty!

It’s unlike me to be this unmotivated.  I’m not going to be in that deadline-induced panic but I am going to be disappointed if I don’t lift up that rug soon and deal with what is hiding under there!  I guess I’m going to have to buy some steel-toed boots and give myself a good, swift kick in the ass.  (another of my mom’s great sayings)

What do you do to get yourself back in the saddle?

 

I’m loading the arsenal and preparing for Defcon Two

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It seems I may have taken the fortitude of the Red Squirrel completely for granted when waging my war on the furry little bastards.

I entered the battle with the most humane of intentions.  I brought home a live-trap so I could capture and relocate the hairy little mercenaries that have been seeking asylum in the walls and ceilings of my home.  With my dog and I at sentinel posts, we have been rendered helpless and can only try to figure out how the bristly little vermin have been able to extricate themselves from their metal incarceration -twice! – and re-enter the sanctity of our home.

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I have not yet reached the moment when I clench my fists, indignantly throw my hands into the air and scream, “This means war!”.   I am certainly bordering on enough sleep loss and misguided rage to window shop in the hunting section of the local Home Hardware.

I have warned my co-workers – if I come in to work on Monday with traces of black dye under my eyes and remnants of any camouflage, things did not go well on the weekend.  I can only hope if I reach Defcon One that I am a little more adept in the woods than Elmer Fudd!

“Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet.”

 

There’s a lot of DNA and it’s not a Criminal Minds episode

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I am officially glad I am no longer in my twenties.  Even when I was in my twenties, my regard for a sanitary living space and the respect of my roommates trumped any need to party like it didn’t matter.  I have recently discovered that this is apparently an old-fashioned way of thinking!

A new friend has had the challenging job of being the General Manager at a fast-paced restaurant in the area where I live.  I have frequented there many times and become friends with the staff through our mutual jobs and our shared love of football.  Sure they are a younger crowd and they like to party, but I had no concept of how many of the rules of human nature those parties violated until just recently.

I had a few drinks with the GM last night after he and the head of maintenance had spent the last two days cleaning the remains of those parties once the staff had vacated the houses for the season.  The pictures he took of the damage and the items left behind were shocking to me.  I would have requested a full hazmat suit before I even entered those seasonal dwellings.

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From 10 staff houses, they collected over 90 bags of garbage, repaired holes in drywall that were cleverly disguised by newly purchased plastic vent covers, disposed of a few comforters that would easily have contained so many samples of DNA they would keep a Forensics team busy for months, steam-cleaned carpets and collected an arsenal of bottles and cans from each yard.  The description of some of the parties left me speechless, and that is a tough feat considering I have a writer’s brain and nothing is off-limits when it comes to a story.

There is something extremely soothing about walking into my house and not fearing the unknown.  There will be no naked parties taking place, there will be no food on the counters and tables that have become science projects over an extended period of time and there will be no risk of seeing things that cannot be unseen.

I sure hope the two responsible for the clean up get to reward themselves with the accumulated amount of security deposits and bottle returns.  After those crime scenes, they deserve it!

There is always a little movement in the shadows

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I was 12 years old when I first saw the movie “The Changeling”.  True to its title, it altered some metaphysical part of my being.  I was a relatively normal child, as normal as kids could be in the 70’s and 80’s, but I still remember my reaction to that movie and the subsequent “change” that happened in me.  I knew from the moment that story ended that I would never be the same.  I didn’t sleep in my own bed for at least three days and I vowed I would never play with that same tri-coloured rubber ball again.  To this day, it still haunts me to see the Pepsi emblem. It reminds me of the horror I felt watching those scenes of a bouncing ball take on a life of its own and subject George C. Scott to interminable terror.

If I were a recurring patient at a psychiatrist’s office (perhaps I should be), I undoubtedly would be told that the reason I prefer a shower to a bath was a direct result of Russell Hunter’s tale of a haunted house and the fury that a spirit could unleash on living, breathing human beings.  If I pause for a moment to put myself back into that mind space, I can still hear that young, disabled boy beating on the sides of that claw-footed bathtub as he was drowned by his father.

This is the feeling that a good horror movie is meant to elicit from its viewers.  That lingering terror, although irrational, invades the deepest reaches of our psyche and makes us second guess relatively commonplace parts of our existence.  Human beings, by nature, are fundamentally flawed, and we seek the terror in the shadows.  The horror genre only adds fuel to that fire.

Although Carol Kane starred in “When A Stranger Calls” in 1979, I did not see that movie until years after I had moved on from The Changeling.  Regrettably, for me, I watched that madness on a big screen during my tenable years as a babysitter!!   I took my role as guardian very seriously, but nearly jumped out of my skin each time the phone rang while the children I had sworn to protect were in the next room.  If anyone had called and asked “have you checked the children”, I would have come completely unglued!!

As the years have unfolded, I have been able to detach most of the parallels of movie horrors from my own perception of reality.  Although my current basement resembles something akin to the “Red Room” in the Amityville Horror, I nonetheless regard the creativity of the horror film genre as it is mean to be portrayed. It is nothing more than scary entertainment meant to ensure I still look for movement in the shadows.

I do believe in spirits, but I am not going to be consumed by the notion that they hold any ill will towards me, nor are they bent on doing me bodily harm.  There are no ghost writings on my walls, nor do I hear evil voices or things that go bump in the night (except the squirrels in my attic).   The only admission I will make is that I will NEVER have a Ouija board in my house – EVER.   Even though I don’t believe I will come to any harm from spirits lingering in between worlds, I am not going to entertain the chance that I open a portal and tempt  a forbidden soul with the vestigial energy contained in that board.  (Watch the movie Witchboard and you’ll understand my paranoia)

What scary movies left a lingering impression on you when you were younger?