A Humbling Experience

Bathing suit shopping.

That's it.

Book Review:  Turning Angel is the second in the Penn Cage series by Greg Iles.  Top notch.  Better than the first in that it wasn't so heavy on description. The setting of Natchez, Mississippi is as much a character as, well, the characters.  I'll keep reading.

Are Ya Kidding Me?

Well, it's back.  That chronic, recurring pain in my foot.  I don't know whether this is good timing or bad timing.  It's bad timing in that it's two weeks from today that I leave for the UK and a 160 km hike.  It's good timing in that I have a doctor appointment this week to have a prescription refilled.  So while I'm there I'm going to demand that he send me for an x-ray.  Because I've come up with a new diagnosis.  I had nothing else to do at 4:00 a.m. so I researched the whole foot pain thing again.  And here's what I've come up with -- Accessory Navicular Syndrome.

An accessory navicular is an extra piece of bone in the foot right above the arch.  Something one is born with.  And you can go your whole life never knowing you have it.  Unless it starts to give you problems.  Like pain on the inside of the foot.  Like when it aggravates the posterior tibial tendon.  That's where the "syndrome" part comes in.

So I lay there in bed poking and prodding my aching foot and damn if I don't think I can feel a more protuberant bone on the inside of my right foot.  Sure, it could be some swelling.  And yeah, it could just be me being delusional.  It's not noticeably visible but it definitely hurts to press on that bone.  The usual treatment protocol applies:  RICE -- rest, ice, compress, elevate.  Ibuprofen.  I found a few physio exercises to add to the mix.  Surgery is a last resort to remove the piece of bone.  

And if the x-ray shows no accessory navicular?  Well then I'm going to demand an MRI.  And if that's negative for anything involving the tendon, I'm going to demand a referral to an orthopedic specialist.  I had the best one some 35 years ago when I lived in Ottawa and suffered from debilitating shin splints. After years of "try this, try that" from my doctor in Toronto, this guy took one look at my bowed legs and recommended surgery to remove a wedge of the tibia to straighten them out.  He told me he couldn't guarantee it would cure my shin splints but he did guarantee that if I didn't have the surgery I would be crippled from arthritis in my knees by the time I was 50.

I had the surgery, one leg at a time, spending six weeks after each in an ankle to hip straight leg cast.  I never suffered from shin splints again.  Had I not had the surgeries I never would have been able to handle the physical training required to get through the police academy.  And at age 58, no sign of arthritis.

So yeah, I'm going to "demand."

Because the advice "if it hurts, stop doing it" just ain't cutting it anymore.

Does Size Really Matter?

I love musical theatre, think I might have mentioned that before.  So I'm pretty jazzed that we have tickets for Motown: The Musical when we're in London. And I'm even more excited now that I've read some reviews.  It sounds freakin' amazing -- two hours and forty-five minutes long and featuring sixty Motown hits.  The venue is going to be a big change for me.  While I have seen shows on the big stages in New York, Toronto, and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, for the past 25 years my theatre experience has all been at the little theatre in Chemainus.

Chemainus is a small town on the east coast of Vancouver Island, a town that nearly dried up and blew away in the early 80's when the large sawmill was closed and replaced with a smaller one.  Instead of shutting down, the town was revitalized for tourism with the creation of over three dozen murals painted throughout the town.  In 1993 the theatre opened coupled with a restaurant offering a buffet meal in conjunction with a theatre ticket.  Best smoked raspberry chipotle ribs ever...just sayin'.

Their latest offering that I had the pleasure of attending was Million Dollar Quartet.  Picture Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis all coming together for a jam session.  Sounds like a nice little piece of fiction, doesn't it?  Except that it actually happened.  Who knew?  On December 4, 1956 Lewis was in the studios at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee to play piano on a new Carl Perkins recording when in wandered Presley and Cash.  Now to be perfectly honest, I was never really a big fan of any one of these artists.  But I like music and I like theatre and I really like seeing talented actors who are also musicians and singers.  So all in all, a good night at the theatre.

So if I can spend a couple of hours enjoying music that isn't on my personal hit parade, Motown should be pretty awesome.  Right?  All enjoyed within the 1400 seat Shaftesbury Theatre.  Our seats are dead centre in the 2nd row of the 2nd balcony, grandly labelled the Grand Circle.  Aka the cheap seats...or cheaper seats.  'Cause theatre ain't cheap.  And did you know you can even google a review of any seat in the Shaftesbury Theatre, that is if someone has bothered to write a review.  Of our seats -- B18 - 20 -- only seat 19 has a review, but it's a pretty good bet the seats on either side will match up.  The reviewer gave seat B19 three stars (out of five) for comfort, two for leg room, and four for view with the following qualifying statements:  "really good view of the stage considering the cost of the seat" and "the only problem is the legroom isn't great, especially for tall people."  Good thing none of us are giants.

In the little 265 seat Chemainus Theatre there's simply left, right, and centre. I always buy my seats on either side, two in from the aisle because they're "the cheap seats."  Adequate leg room and not an obstructed seat in the house.  I was recently comparing reviews with a friend who loves Les Mis while it tops my list of worst play ever.  It's depressing and the music is boring.  She attributes this to my having seen in on the small stage in Chemainus.  Had I seen it on a grander scale...she says.

Nope, I don't think so.  I don't think size matters.

It's all about how you use what you've got.


Book Reviews:  I was on the brink of packing it in with my book club.  There are just too many books out there to read without having to wade through some of the crap we get. Our latest offering seemed destined for the "crap" designation during the first couple of chapters.  Jo Walton's My Real Children just wasn't grabbing me, I was confused...and bored.  But I stuck it out and while I can't rave about this book I can certainly say I enjoyed it more than I thought it would.  For me the sci-fi aspects didn't work but ultimately I would label this book 'thought provoking.'

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens was a good basic mystery made all the more enjoyable by an excellent cast of characters, each one deeply flawed, and without a cliche in the lot.  Highly recommended.

Send In The Clowns

"Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away."

- Ben Hecht

Today I can say it -- it's ONE MONTH until I leave on the next adventure. Thirty-one sleeps.  It will be here before I know it...now.  Wasn't always that way.  First it was a glimmer of an idea, probably, oh, a couple of years ago. When my friend, Katrina, promised she'd wait to go to the Harry Potter studios with me.  Last August we agreed -- the spring of 2016.  London, Liverpool, and Dublin. We added another friend.  Then things started to solidify.  In October I added two extra weeks and The Cotswold Way with Camino friends to my itinerary.  In November we bought our airline tickets.  Is it 2016 yet?  We started booking and paying for tours, admissions, and in-country travel.  But it was always 'next year.'  We were going 'next year.'  And damn -- next year was a long time away.

And then it was 'this year.'  On January 1st I started my official count-down. 100 days.  I loved the symmetry of that.  But it still seemed so far away.  More bookings followed.  I bought pounds and euros at entirely the wrong time. Emails and messages flew fast and furious.  Was it April -- yet?  And they have longer to wait than I.  We're meeting at Paddington Station on  April 28. How do we fill the time from now until then? Without driving everyone around us crazy?  

I FaceTimed with my friends in the UK.  Even they, who live there, are excited for our walk.  And then yesterday we received our itinerary for the Cotswold Way.  We'll be staying in a 17th C inn, a country house on 8 acres, a stone cottage from the early 1820's, a 17th C coaching inn, among others.  Ramp up the excitement meter.  How can it not be April yet?

But now, the circus is oh, so close.  I can almost see the flags of the Big Top over the hill.  There's a faint whiff of popcorn and cotton candy in the air. What's that I'm hearing?  Elephants and monkeys?  The roar of the crowd?  It won't be long now.

And I've got tickets to the circus.

Famous Last Words

After I lost my beloved Sally last September everyone asked, "Are you going to get another dog?"  My response was always, "No."  First off, it would just be too hard replacing the perfect dog.  And I wanted to travel, stay overnight if I went out of town, not rush home from whatever I was doing because the dog needed letting out.  And then my answer changed to, "Not right away.  Maybe in a couple of years."  But I'd be out walking, see someone with their dog, and my heart would hurt.  I started approaching strangers like a drug addict looking for her next fix -- "Can I pet your dog?"  Within the past couple of months my answer changed yet again.  "In the fall, maybe...maybe I'll get another dog in the fall."  It was just too hard not having a dog.

My plan for a next dog was always to adopt an older one.  A dog who needed a place to live out his last few years. Maybe a family moved and couldn't take Fido...maybe the owners were elderly or died...maybe I'd start looking in the fall.

And then a friend from the neighbourhood knocked on my door.  His elderly next-door-neighbours were experiencing health problems and needed to move. They could no longer care for their dog. Would I be interested in adopting him?  My first reaction was, 'no, uh-uh, no way.'  But I agreed to think about it.  The thinking took all of about two minutes after I closed the door.  I mean I knew the dog, sort of.  He would run out to say hello when I'd walk by with Sally.  He was a big brute --  a Giant Schnauzer / Standard Poodle mix -- but seemed oh, so gentle.  After all, he walked so nicely with the old gentleman who owned him.

So the next day I called.  Yes, I'd adopt him, IF his current foster home could keep him until after my trip in April/May.  Turns out she could.  At first.  And then she couldn't.  The owner's son was preparing to have the dog kennelled. For three months.  I talked it over with the kid and she was on board, willing to take on his care while I was away.  Except for the week she'd be away. And then he would have to be kennelled.

And suddenly we were dog owners once again.  Unlike a puppy you get to shape and mold from scratch, this guy is 7 years old.  Pretty set in his ways. So we're getting to know each other.  And comparisons are inevitable.  But what's this?  While drying Sally off after a walk in the rain was akin to trying to towel off a greased pig, this guy leans into it like it's a full body massage. Where Sally would run and hide as soon as the brush came out, I now have a dog who will stand stock still and let me brush every inch of him, including legs and feet.  She squirmed to get out of your arms; he tries to crawl onto your lap every chance he gets, despite being triple her size.  He only half fits.  This guy retreats to his sleeping pad as soon as you tell him to "go lie down."  He won't go down the hall to the bedrooms, leaving at least one area of the house dog hair free.  He curls up in his open kennel cage as soon as we leave the house.

I admit there are moments when I think, 'what have I done?'  The kid admits she's had moments when she thinks, 'Mom, what have you done?'  But now that I've figured out what was causing a little aggression problem, stress levels have diminished.   Just don't hold him by the collar when greeting people or other dogs because he then seems to perceive them as a threat.  Such a relief to sort that one out.  

But if it's tough for us, what about him? We're his third home with two foster stays in between.  Since he's arrived I've taken him to the groomer to clip his overly long nails, to have the waxy hair clumps pulled from his ears.  He's been poked and prodded at the vet for a long overdue checkup.  His food has changed, his house has changed, the people around him have changed.  And still he greets us every morning and every time we leave and return with a lip curling smile and a wag of his stumpy little tail.

No, he's no Sally.  I can't ask or expect him to be.  His name is Indy.

And he's my dog.

Book Reviews:  OMG! You have to read The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian. Could not put it down.  And the whole time I was reading it I kept thinking how happy I was not to be the people in this story.  I've only read a few of Bohjalian's books. Clearly I need to correct that oversight.

I love short stories.  I love reading them and I love writing them.  For me the key to a great short story is the ending.  I love when I get to the end of a short story and the final line makes me go, 'WOW!'  So I spread the joy of reading Stephen King's most recent collection of short stories in between other books. Read a book, read a few shorts.  The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is further enhanced by an introductory post of when / how the piece was written.  There are some gems in this collection.  Except the poetry. Sorry, not a fan.  But don't skip the intro -- some of his best writing is always found in the intro.  Constant Readers know that.