And....I'm Off

I'm sitting in the airport in Nanaimo waiting for my first flight that will take me to Vancouver and thereafter to London.  I've picked a strategic seat in the boarding lounge -- close to the electrical outlets which are all currently occupied.  Last night I charged everything, but I'm still eyeballing the battery level on my iPad as I type this. Partly because I have a book downloaded to read and I don't want to run out of juice somewhere over the Pacific.  When did traveling become all about charging cords and free wifi?

For this trip alone I have cords for...

...my camera...

...my phone...

...my Fitbit...(I'm going on a long walk after all)

...my iPad...and iPod (luckily the same cord for both)...

...two...what do you call them...the plug in bit that the USB fits into...

...and...

...the converter plugs for once I get there. Just what do they think I'm plugging in -- a refrigerator?  These things are huge.

And I can't forget this new little gadget...

Thanks to my trusty travel guru, Katrina, I can now download photos from my camera directly to my iPad.  Because I don't want to be one of those travel geeks hauling out their iPad to snap some pics. And I learned from the Camino that a lot of my phone pics come out blurry.  Mind you, that could be attributed to the copious quantities of fine Spanish wines that were being consumed.  Didn't want to risk a similar fate while consuming fine British and Irish ales.

And so the journey has begun, a journey seven months in the planning.  Well seven official months.  Katrina and I have been throwing the idea around a lot longer than that.  It all started with a promise to do the Harry Potter Studios together and has morphed into a trip of epic proportions.  I won't give away any of the details.  I'll let the fun unfold as we do it with daily blog posts...hopefully.  If the fine British and Irish ales don't get me first.

Won't you join me?

Just Breathe

Here's the thing with a dog's paws -- if you slice through that hard outer shell on the pad, the inside is like a gel that just wants to ooze out.  The longer the cut is left, the wider it gets, until the pad threatens to split apart.  So what appeared to be a rather minor cut after the injury, was worse by bedtime, and gaping this morning.  Luckily my vet was able to squeeze me in.  That's pretty much where luck ran out.  She shaved his foot, cleaned and manipulated the wound, all the while shaking her head and bemoaning had hard it was for pad wounds to heal.  And that he'd really done a number on his.

How long would it take? I dared to ask.  A couple of months, she admitted. That first sinking feeling hit my stomach.  Then there was infection to worry about.  If the cut would even stay closed.  Stitches tended to pull out of the hard shell.  And he'd have to come in every few days to have the bandaging changed.  Things were starting to go white. I felt woozy.  I think I'm going to faint, I told them.  Nothing to do with the injury to my poor pooch.  I've seen my share of blood and gore, attended some pretty nasty autopsies.  This was all about stress and I knew it.  How selfish does that make me sound?

I had to sit down, put a cold towel on my neck.  In two days I was leaving for a month, the kid just over two weeks after that.  Would the kennel even take him with an injury?  And if he needed the bandages changed how was that going to take place? Maybe I could find someone who could pick him up when needed, take him to the vet, and return him to the kennel.  I was starting to feel totally overwhelmed.

Okay, the vet decides, she's going to stitch the pad. But the freezing is going to hurt like hell going in.  With three of us holding him she started to administer the needles.  What a big tough trooper he was.  Stitched, bandaged, and ready to go with a five day supply of anti-inflammatories and two weeks worth of antibiotics.  And an appointment for the first bandage change.  With luck, the stitches and bandages could be removed in two weeks.  Within our window of opportunity, before kennel time.  Don't we deserve a little luck right about now?

I'm thinking back to two previous blog posts, the one about how I shouldn't look forward to things because something always seems to go wrong to take the edge off, and the one about karma.  Too prophetic maybe?

I've gone through many emotions today -- frustration, depression, anger.  I mean totally pissed off angry.  But I've called the kennel and they'll still take him if he's injured.  And the kid is more capable than I give her credit for. She grows up a little more every time I go away and she has to step up to the plate. She agreed -- and told me I should go away more.

So I'm starting to relax a little.  Letting the excitement build again because I can't change what happened.  Getting back to my usual mellow self.  Writing this has helped.

And worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair -- it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere.

Damn You, Murphy

Apparently the excitement of my impending trip is turning my brain to mush. As succinctly as possible...

Three cars, three sets of tires -- mine (Prius), the kid's (Corolla), my mother's (Chev).  I had my winter tires changed last week.  Today we were taking care of the Corolla and the Chev.  Dropped the Chev off, returned an hour later. Oops, wrong tires in the car.  Okay, we obviously put them in the Corolla. Leave the tires that were in the Corolla.  Go home.  Call my mother to tell her about the mix up, that her car won't be ready for a couple of hours and I would pick her up to take her to her dialysis.  Out to the garage with labels I will put on the piles of tires to avoid doing this again.  I have the Prius sign to put on my pile and -- SHIT SHIT SHIT!!  It clearly says CHEV on the top bag. Apparently I labelled the bags last year to avoid the very thing that is now happening.  But which means I have again supplied them with the wrong tires. Load up the tires in the Corolla and head back to the tire shop.  Drop them off and pick up the other tires, which were my winter tires.  Pick up my mother and deliver her to her clinic.  Home again.  Get the call, the Chev is ready.  Pick up the Chev, leave the Corolla, head home to drop off the tires before taking the Chev to the clinic to leave for my mother.  Cell phone rings.  Kid answers.  It's the tire shop.  They put the Corolla tires in the Chev.  Back to the tire shop. Drop off the Corolla tires.  Pick up the Chev tires.  Tire guy informs me that the winter tires for the Corolla are shot and she won't get another year out of them. Onto the discard pile they go.  Drive to the clinic, drop off the Chev, put the Chev tires in the Corolla to take home.  Where now there are only two piles of tires.  Two clearly marked piles of tires.

This whole tire changing process should have been done by noon.  It's now after 4:00.  Think the day ends there? Think again.

Poor dog has been stuck inside all day while we ran back and forth like the proverbial headless chickens so it's time for a nice relaxing walk.  Up the hill on the trails so he can go off leash.  The very same walk I do with him every morning.  And during which I always think, just don't hurt yourself chasing through the woods because I'd never be able to pack your 65 lb body back down.  After one particularly long foray into the brush he reappeared panting and plodding -- and bleeding from a front paw.  The kid sacrificed a sock and her hair elastic to cover his foot and we slowly made our way back down and home.  Please don't be serious, please don't be serious.  A cut to the large pad.  Not deep, but the bleeding won't stop with the pressure of him standing on it.  I clean it and wrap it.  Fingers crossed that come morning I won't be making a last minute trip to the vet.

As for Murphy, he better not be showing his face around here tomorrow.

Because I'm rapidly running out of "last minutes."

Book Review:  Because I enjoyed his first book so much, I picked up The Guise of Another by Allen Eskens.  Another quick read, not as compelling as the first, but still a decent little mystery that has series potential with the character of Det. Max Rupert who also appeared in the first. I'd read another.

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.