Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto
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This weeks theme is Smelly
I think it’s finally starting to cool down a bit here. I’m not a big fan of winter so I almost wish that we could just skip winter and move on to spring. At least then I’d be able to admire my lovely Karl Rosenfield peonies again.
These peonies have a delicate sweet scent. So yes, this flower counts for todays smelly Photo Hunter theme.
I was just thinking about two of my friends that I haven’t seen in a very long time. Funny that both of them now live on the other side of the country in Vancouver yet they don’t even know each other.
I was thinking about them in part because I haven’t seen either of them for quite a while and also because I was reading a story about the increase in online dating and how many people are having success with it and as it turns out both of my friends ended up meeting the men they eventually married through online dating sites or communities like Meet You Later. I’m not sure if that was the one, one of them used or not. Don’t quote me!
I think they are the only friends of mine that I know of who ended up marrying a person they met online, but I know several men and women who regularly meet others online and then in real life and begin dating.
I wonder … how many of you have met someone through the internet, not necessarily a dating service, and started dating or even married?
Again I need to find a non-ajax poll to use on this site. If anyone knows of a good one that doesn’t slow down site load I’d love to hear about it.
When I woke up this morning my right arm was asleep.
That’s not uncommon.
Back in the 90’s I discovered that I have Thoracic Outlet Syndrome which to keep it short is basically a disorder that causes a nerve to be pinched in the lower neck and it causes numbness in the hand and often pain in the shoulder area.
For the most part the Thoracic Outlet Syndrome doesn’t bother me too much. When it does it mostly causes my shoulders to hurt for a day or two. Usually my left shoulder.
I do however think that waking up with either my left or right or sometimes both arms asleep is a side effect of this disorder.
Anyway … so we’ve established that I often wake up with one of my arms asleep. A good shake or two and within a few minutes the arm is usually back to normal.
Not this time.
My right baby finger, ring finger, outer palm and outer right wrist are numb and tingly. They’ve been that way for hours. It’s a little better than when I first woke up, but it’s still there.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to type or do pretty much anything when half your hand is numb and tingly? My hand is doing everything I tell it to do. It just feels weird and I don’t want to trust myself to hold a hot coffee in my right hand either. Just in case.
Good thing I’m a lefty!
I’ve taken an aspirin just in case I’ve got some inflammation around a nerve in my neck, shoulder or somewhere in my arm. I was hoping that once the aspirin started to take effect the tingling would go away, but so far it hasn’t.
I’ve also been doing a lot of neck rolls, shoulder rolls, shoulder shrugs and stretches and shaking of my right arm.
I’m very well stretched out and limbered up … but I’m still unhappily numb.
This had better go away! I really don’t need any more strange health problems, thank you very much.
Anyone else have Thoracic Outlet or wake up with one arm asleep regularly?
I think it’s time I started thinking about the upcoming holidays. By this I mean Christmas. I always have to try to force myself to do this early each year although it does seem kind of strange to be thinking of what to get people for Christmas in August, September or October.
Still … if I start thinking about it now I might be able to find some good deals and save money. Traditionally I’m one of those last minute Christmas shoppers and I really don’t want to do that this year. I hate shopping in crowded stores and picking over the leftovers.
So I’m trying to be smart this year. I might even do a lot of my shopping online if I can get my act together and come up with some great give ideas for all the people on my list.
I’ve already been searching and I was thinking I might get one or two of my young nephews some RC cars as I’m sure they’d love them. My oldest niece is going to have a baby so I might get her some things to pamper herself during her last trimester. My sister … no ideas yet. She’s really hard to buy for at any time as she likes to keep her home very minimalistic … so what do you get for someone that doesn’t want a lot of stuff?
I probably shouldn’t ask this, but … how many of you are actually already finished your Christmas shopping? Note to self – find a good poll thingy as I’m sure that 60% or 70% of my readers will say they are done or almost done.
What is with all the long distance telephone calls that I’ve been receiving in the last three months or so?
There are days when I get as many as 10 long distance or 1-800 number calls.
I’ve always been in the habit of not picking up the phone if I don’t recognize the number and uhm, well sometimes even when I do know who’s calling. For me, answering the phone depends upon what I’m doing at the time of the call, who’s calling and how I’m feeling. I often don’t feel well and it seems that many of the people I know are quite chatty on the phone and for me, there’s nothing worse than talking on the phone for an hour when I feel like roadkill.
When I do answer some of these long distance calls I’ve encountered people telling me I’ve won a prize, recorded automatic messages for anything from political parties calling about provincial election that took place yesterday (most of those were local calls actually) to companies trying to get me to buy things.
One of the most irritating callers was a company that told me that sometime in the past I had applied online to work for a company and they wanted to talk to me about how I could make money with them, but they needed my credit card number first. Huh? No I didn’t apply online to work with any companies lately and why on earth would you ever need my credit card number. When I started questioning the caller they’d hang up.
Out of the 100 or so calls they made to my home we answered maybe 4 of the calls and they hung up each time we questioned them or told them to take us off their call list.
They seem to have finally given up.
Still … I’m getting so many long distance calls from people who don’t bother to leave a message when they don’t get an answer that it’s becoming ridiculous.
When these companies do end up leaving a message it’s often on my cell phone as I leave our cell number in our home telephone message. Of course, we rarely use our cell phone so if someone is trying to reach us about something important it doesn’t make any sense to leave a message on our cell.
What’s worse is that if these people have called long distance and they leave a message if it’s legit and I want to call back they often only leave a true long distance number instead of a 1-800 number for me to call. No – unless it’s something vital I’m not spending money to call you back long distance during business hours. Leave a message, and leave a number that doesn’t cost me anything in order to return your call and just maybe I’ll call you back. Maybe.
Earlier today I answered a 1-800 call. I had an automated “secretary” inform me to wait on the line as they tried to connect me with the caller. The automated secretary tried three or four times and then told me they’d call me back another time when they could connect me with the caller.
Huh? If you are calling me you’d better be on the other end of the line when I pick up.
It would be nice if the automated secretary could have at least told me who was trying to call. I’ve found that sometimes when my bank or Visa has called in the past there’s sometimes a delay in the connection as if they were using some automated calling system. So I suppose that call could have been something official, but I still have no idea why they’d call.
It’s not like I’ve done anything to bring this on. I rarely leave my telephone number on anything online unless it’s with a company that I’m doing some work for, have partnered with or if it’s for something official like online banking or something similar. Plus, I always read the fine print in the terms of service or privacy pages on sites that I must give personal info on in order to register with and if I don’t like their terms I don’t register.
As of this moment I’m naming these kinds of nuisance long distance called telephone spam. Are you with me on this? Do you frequently get calls like this too?