Free Stuff

Okay, so I totally got sucked into this stupid promotion to get a free IPOD. It all started because my girlfriend Jen, see link to the side, asked me to click on a link to register one of five friends that have to check out the deal.
So I clicked and thought...hey, I want a free IPOD too.

So, please just click on the link below. You don't have to go any further just click on the page. Hopefully that will be enough to get me my goods.

Thanks y'all.

http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=20556312

I'll let you know if it works.

Okay, so it's obvious that I'm bored at work with 45 mintues still to go!

Here's some funny tidbits I found while surfing the net:

Click on these to read more:

Queen buys Dr. Who DVDs

Cat turns up alive at own funeral

What the hell happened to Peter Jackson?!!!

He's even wearing the same damn shirt!!!

G and C sittin' in a tree....

The G-man and I have been talking on and off for the last few months about…wait for it...having a baby. A constant concern for both of us is our finances. It bothers him more than me but considering I grew up poor for a good part of my life it does concern me as well… to an extent. But as times goes on we keep coming back to the idea and it seems as though we are getting more and more “on board”. The recent situation with my dad really brought things into perspective for me. One of the very first thoughts I had when G told me that my Mom had had the stroke was that she will never meet her grandchildren should we decide to have them. Now with what’s going on with Dad, when it first happened, I told myself that if by some miracle he maked a recovery from the heart attack, I wanted to have a baby. G warned me not to let the intensity of the situation cloud my judgment but I offered that perhaps it was giving me clarity on what is important…family. G came back from his tour with the band at the end of June and it seemed as if over the 12 days he was away, it occupied a lot of his thoughts because he brought it up on numerous occasions.

I asked him when he thought a good time would be to start trying. He said that maybe next February and at first I was disappointed because now that the idea is in my head I was thinking that upon no further bookings for The Overcoat over the next 9 months (or more) following San Fran, and during the waiting period for the selling of Exotic Fishing Adventures (I expect that a pregnant woman in a bikini going on exotic fishing tours isn’t going to bring in the viewers) I didn’t see why we couldn’t start in November. If it happened right away we could potentially have an August baby…hmmm a Virgo perhaps?

Recently the conversations have dropped off but now I can’t stop thinking about it. I know I can bring it up at any point without fear of freaking him out but without any answers to my questions or a definate plan in place, it seems sort of “girly” to keep talking about it. And it seems pointless to talk to my friends and family about it as well without and firm (no pun intended...dirty mind...dirty dirty mind) decision regarding the whole thing. So, I’m writing about it.

And so it goes....

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Last night G-man went to bed at ¼ to 11. I was not too too sleepy so I caught up on a little trash TV (Big Brother and Canadian Idol – I had to see if my boy Aaron was still in the mix!) so I stayed up until 11:30. I went to bed and G-man asked if I set the alarm. I said yes, for 7:15. He says “But I need to be at work for 7:30. Can you set if for 6?” Jesus Christ I’m doomed to wake up at least an hour before I have to get up! It’s just not fair!!

So 6am this morning, I’m pretty wide awake as G is bustling about doing his getting ready for work dance. I remember that I need to get him to sign as a witness on a form for my dad. So I get up and put it on the kitchen table for him. I go back to bed and once again try in vain to fall back asleep. Then I remember our Landlord called wanting more rent cheques. For the past year the cheques have just come out of my account and G-man just settles with me. We’ve discussed having them come out of our joint account, so I wait until the next time G comes into the room to get something and I mention this to him. Chit chit chat and I’m pretty awake at this point. Twenty minutes later and G leaves saying goodbye and giving me a kiss goodbye. I toss and turn and try and visualize my white sheet on a clothesline image (I tried a big blank white space but it seems to work better for me to actually use this imagine of a blowing white sheet hanging off a clotheslines …who knows). Low and behold this actually works so when the alarm goes off at 7:15 it wakes me up.

Sigh….

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Last night, G-man and I got to be the voices in a new Podcast that two of our friends have come up with. I don’t know much about this new fad sweeping the internet but from what I understand it’s like an old radio dramas (or comedy, depending). The neat thing about it is that it was the first time G and I actually got to act together. In the 13 years that we’ve known each other, we’ve never acted in anything together.

It’s been a while since I had to “act” and even though it was only an 8 or 10 minute piece, I had to consider intention, motivation, and all that fun acting shtick. I miss it. I wish I didn’t have to go through the audition process in order to land acting work. It’s such a pain in the ass to have a flexible work schedule keeping yourself easily available for auditions at a moments notice. And getting geared up, nervous and prepared for a 2 minute snippet of time is quite exhausting. It don’t miss auditioning one bit…but I do miss the work.

Did she or didn't she?

I don’t want this to turn into a blog about whether Mz. Maizun sleeps or not but… I did a little better this morning. I say a little because I woke up around 6:00 instead of 5:00. On top of that, I went to bed at 11:00 with a Nytol so I got a solid 7 hours. Feeling good today although I find the Nytol usually stays with me for a better part of the morning.

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Went to my ol’ coffee/scone place this morning, mmmuffins. I used to go there every day when I worked downtown and it was a little reunion when I got there. While catching up on the last year, I didn’t feel up to filling them in on “the down” side so when asked “Are you happy? Things are going well?” I simply replied “Yes, very well.”

It’s funny to have a regular “haunt”. I find that because I’ve been a bit of a transient over the last 10 years or so I haven’t had many establishments that know me as “a regular”. It’s nice though to have people that know your name, know what you’re going to order and have it ready for you even before you say a thing. Makes you feel kind of special. Makes the other people look at you like “Well. Who the hell is she anyway?”

My Sweet

I want to take a moment to gush about my wonderful husband for a second. This past year has been filled with so much grief, loss and life altering change for me, that I feel I’ve put a damper on our first year of marriage. He has been so supportive and understanding I don’t know how to ever thank him fully for being the rock during this ridiculously strained time. I guess it’s something I just have to accept with grace and be ready to do the same if ever he should need it.

Thank you my love.

I need a nap

I keep waking up anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours before I need to get up in the morning. No matter how much I try to “clear my mind” I’ve been unsuccessful at falling back asleep. Every twenty minutes or so I open my eyes to see a) how much time has passes since the last time I checked the clock or b) how much time I’ve got left until I have to get up. I will say that the majority of what’s rattling around in my brain at that time of the morning has something to do with Dad and this overwhelming situation I find myself in but I used to get this sort of thing occurring at night when I would try to fall asleep.

I’m the kind of person that loves to sleep until the very last possible second. I time everything out to the very last minute so I can the maximum sleep in my “allotted” time. So knowing that two hours are slipping away and I don’t seem to have any control over it, drives me crazy.

I didn’t get to bed last night until 1 am, which means that I may have fallen asleep somewhere around 1:20 / 1:30 am, so waking up at 5:30 this morning….sucked! Here I am now approaching the 3:00 pm slump and I don’t think I have enough going on to keep me awake in my sleep deprived state. I have some calls to make on my Dad’s behalf but with the office being so open I have to wait for just the right time to do so. Until then I’m tying to look busy so this annoying maintenance man for the company will leave me alone. HELP!!!

Stuck without my Email

I’m temping this week (and probably next week) downtown in the old building I used to work in while I was at “The Bank”. It feels weird being down in the exact same area I spent 2 ½ years. My first day for this assignment was Friday and instead of going to the 42nd floor as I did for “The Bank”, I have to go to the 7th floor. But without thinking I got off the escalator and walked right over to my old set of elevators. Habit…funny eh?

The office I’m in has very restricted internet access plus I can’t get to my yahoo mail so I’m going crazy!!! Mind you, the computer I’m stationed at is in plain view of EVERYONE, including the guy who arranged my placement, so it’s not like I would be playing games or even visiting some of the fun sites like Go Fug Yourself or Awful Plastic Surgery (thanks Rabs). I have a feeling that for the rest of this week at least (I’m moving to another department on Tuesday – seems they have an admin shortage on their hands) my time will be filled with blog entries and wacky Google searches.

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Things are progressing with my dad. Turns out that instead of sending him to a long term care facility, the “powers that be” think that he is showing vast amounts of improvement since his relocation to Cobourg (from Peterborough where he was for the first month after his heart attack) and they would like him to go to a live-in rehab facility. They believe (as do we) that it’s better to work with him to get him to the place of maximum recovery and then assess what kind of care facility, if any (fingers crossed) he will need at that point.

This is amazingly good news for us. Considering that the doctor told us originally that chances of him waking up from the coma were less than 1% and if by some miracle he did wake up (insert harp music here – one miracle performed!!!) he would only be a shadow of the man he used to be. In their defense, for them to be wrong in their dire diagnosis is better than being wrong in their false optimism.

Get Well Soon

Dad took a bit step yesterday. A couple of work colleagues came by to wish him well and they brought him a get well card. The visitor “rules” is that there can only be two visitors per patient in the room at any one time. Well my aunt, uncle, cousin, husband, and other aunt were all there visiting when they arrived. We all went out into the hall so Dad’s colleagues could have some time with him. When I went in to the room to check that things were okay, Dad was pulling the card out of the envelope as he would before his heart attack.

Over the last week and a half his movements have really improved. He pushes up his glasses, adjust his blankets, shakes your hand on arrival and departure, points to this and that depending on what he’s trying to talk about, the list goes on but to walk in the room and see him opening the envelope like it was just another day was really great…but not the greatest thing that happened. I was standing by the bed chatting quietly with Dad’s colleagues when I heard him say something. At first it didn’t register but when it did I realized, he was READING the card. I immediately checked out the front to see if what he had said was actually the words that were there and sure enough, they were. I was dumbfounded. The inside proved to be too much for him because the script was fairly small and quite curly but at that point, I was tickled pink.

Feeling ill?

Oh this is good:

Click here if you're considering calling in sick to work!!!

Check this out:

Jen's blog

On my way

Well, where do I begin?

As some of you know and maybe others of you don't; my father had a massive heart attack one month ago tomorrow. I'm not going to go into all the details of what happened at the time and what's happened since as it would take me a year to write and I doubt anyone really wants to read it all.

I will say that he is slowly - very slowly - making baby steps of progress. Ultimately, we don't know how much progress he is capable of making so we are just taking our lead off of him. He is talking - occassionally, and some days he is more animated and responsive than others. Some days we feel like he knows who we are and others he doesn't. It's pretty frustrating but again, we're trying to take things moment by moment.

Here he is during happier times; the wedding last summer. God a lot has happened since then eh?

Thankfully, out of tragedy a blessing has blossomed. I've being spending A LOT of time with my family. My uncle Barry (dad's brother), my aunt Kathy (Barry's wife) and my cousins: Ryan, Todd and Eden (their three kids) as well as my aunt Kathryn (dad's sister). Plus, Kathy's mom Georgiana (we all call her Dordie...long story)who lives with Barry and Kathy. She's extended herself to me in like one of her own grandkids. She's a doll. I love her. I didn't get to grow up with this part of my family so it feels like over the last month we've been making up for lost time. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I had grown up here instead of out in BC, but then...who knows what would have happened. What I do know is that they have made me feel as much a part of their family and their lives as I could ever have hoped. They've been nothing but generous, thoughtfull and loving to me and this time we've had together during this awful situation has been made bareable only by them.

I do want to take a second to thank everyone out there for their love and support. The timing of all this is remarkable but my friends have been even more so. Thanks all.