Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Guest posts, life and Marijuana

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I’ve been busy in the last few days. Did you miss me terribly? Ah, just as I thought, you didn’t even notice I was gone did you. Now I’m cryin’.

I did a guest post over at Matt’s site this week. If you’re interested in reading about one of the strangest classes that any high school has ever held, head on over to Matt’s place and read the story of my Ass Backwards Adventure.

Warning- it’s a long post, but I’ll bet that some of you come away from reading it wishing you’d had a class like that back when you were in high school too. This was the first time that I’ve done a guest post on someones site and it was fun to do.

I’ve been busy working on my other sites too. My photo site is now up and running. I decided to call it Breath of Life photography. I named it after one of my favorite roses that I have growing in my garden. I’m not sure if I’ll keep that name or not. It’s hard coming up with names for new sites and new domains isn’t it? Heck, I even have trouble naming new pets!

I haven’t had much time to work on my other new site which is tentatively named As the Garden Grows. It’s up and running now, but I have to work on the theme and of course start posting on it too. Now that the photography site is up and running I should have a bit more time to work on it. I’m actually very excited about the new gardening site as gardening has become on of my favorite hobbies. I think I’ll enjoy writing about it.

What else has kept me away in the last day or two?

Well, I finally had my follow up appointment with the sleep doctor. As I expected they didn’t find any terrible sleep disorders when I did the sleep study. I only slept for 90 minutes and I didn’t reach any deep sleep states. The doctor was concerned about that, but I told him that I was in a lot of pain the night that I did the sleep study and I was unable to sleep well as a result.

What is concerning though is that I had a number of PVC’s while I was sleeping or trying to sleep. PVC’s are basically skipped heart beats. Everyone gets these every now and then and in the absence of any other heart problems they can be considered normal or harmless. I do have a problem with one of my heart valves. It’s called Mitral Valve prolapse. This too can be considered a relatively minor problem in most cases but I guess it’s time I went and had my heart checked out in light of all the PVC’s that I had during my sleep study. Yep, I’ll just add yet another doctor to my every growing list of specialists that I’ve been seeing.

While I was seeing the sleep doctor he decided to walk me over to the research office where they are doing that study for pain related to insomnia. They are doing trials on a marijuana pill to see if it helps people with chronic pain get better sleep. I’ve been offered a spot in the trial but I might not do it. The study is 10 weeks long and during that time I’ll have to do 6 day and night sleep/awake studies which will be broken up into three visits to the sleep study clinic. This means that I’ll have to stay at the sleep study clinic for two days in a row each time. I just hated being there for my one and only sleep study so I can’t imagine enduring two days straight – three times in 10 weeks.

Oh, and I’ll have to stop the pain meds that I’m currently taking while I’m in the study. If I do choose to do the study I’m guaranteed to get the marijuana pill for either the first or last 5 weeks of the study. 1 pill at bedtime.

Since I’m trying to get better so I can get on with my life and get back to work I’m not sure that stopping my pain meds- which is the only thing that has made life somewhat tolerable and that has helped me actually be able to do somethings each day rather than lie around moaning in pain – for a full 10 weeks is going to be a good idea. Yes I would get the marijuana pill for 5 weeks of the study but only at bedtime and there is no telling how well it might work to control my pain. I do believe that it would help me sleep, and that getting better sleeps might help lessen my pain to some degree, but I think overall my pain level and other symptoms might increase during this study.

I’m going to spend the weekend trying to decide what to do. I’ll talk to some of my friends and see what they think. I’m also seeing my family doctor again next week and it might be interesting to see what she thinks of the whole situation.

What do you think I should do? Go on the study and try a new drug – one that if approved for use in pain patients might make their lives more tolerable; or not put myself through this study and possibly more pain?

I’ve had a few more interesting things going on in the last day or two but I’ll tell you about them over the weekend. I really want to hear what you think about this drug study that I’ve been invited to join.





Sounds in the Night

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I thought I heard a noise!

I was sitting on my couch last night watching T.V. It was about 11 p.m. and my husband was working an evening shift. Chris wasn’t due back until after midnight.


I thought I heard a noise outside so I turned the T.V. volume down. It was still pleasantly warm outside, so while I had the front door closed, I still had the kitchen window at the back of the house open. I sat there, my muscles tensed, listening carefully.

Then the phone rang.

It was my husband calling from work. I started to tell him that I’d heard a noise but he was in a hurry. He wanted to get one of our friends e-mail addresses for one of the nurses at the hospital. I walked over to the computer and I was looking up the address while I spoke with Chris. As I started to look for the address I thought I heard more noise coming from the front of the house.

The front door knob rattled, then it clicked. I told my husband that someone was at the door. Then the door opened and it was our boarder. He nearly scared me to death and I told him so!

Well, it was actually our former boarder. You see, he packed his bags and moved out yesterday morning. He’d left his big suitcases here because he was going to travel around the province for a few days. He was due to come back sometime today to pick up his bags. That’s why he still had a key. Just in case Chris and I were out when he came back today.

Today. Not Yesterday at 11 p.m.. Today!

He totally took me by surprise and I think he’s lucky I wasn’t sitting there waiting with a gun in hand. We don’t arm ourselves for personal protection here in Canada – not legally anyway. But if I had had a gun, or something worthy of protecting myself with in the house, this would have been the perfect situation since he’d given me some warning sounds first. Now that would have taken him by surprise wouldn’t it?

Tell me folks, if someone has a key to your home but doesn’t live there anymore, and only lived there temporarily in the first place, would you think it wrong of them to just walk in at 11 p.m. at night without at least knocking on the door first to announce themselves?

Hey buddy you don’t live here anymore! You can’t just walk in and scare me half to death.

As you can probably tell from reading some of my posts, our boarder was starting to tick me off in the last few weeks. He came here from Korea to study English so he was away at school all day each weekday. Sometimes he’d come home by 5 p.m. or so but he’d head upstairs and go to sleep. I’d end up delaying our dinner until he woke up or until we managed to wake him up. I shouldn’t have done that, but I did.

Other times he just wouldn’t come home until 8 or 9 or even later, and he wouldn’t call to let me know that he was staying out and that he’d miss dinner or be late for dinner. How am I supposed to prepare a meal for someone when I don’t even know if they are coming home? I found his behaviour rude and disrespectful. The room and board that he paid for included three meals a day, but this isn’t a restaurant.

We have a new boarder moving in on the 10th. She seems like a very nice person. He was too, overall, but as you can see he did some things that I considered quite rude. At least after our experience with our first boarder I know now to have a few more rules, and to set them right from the beginning. I don’t mind if my boarder goes out after school with friends and has some fun. That’s great. All I want is a phone call so that I know whether I have to make dinner for them or not. I think that’s fair.

Anyway. What do you think? Have you ever had someone who happened to still have a key to your house come in unexpectedly and scare you?

Lifes Simple Pleasures

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Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things about Life’s Simple Pleasures

Cat over at Living with Multiple Personalities tagged me yesterday, so I thought I’d combine her Simple Pleasures Meme with this Thursday 13. I’m not going to tag anyone this time, but if you feel like playing just make a post naming some of life’s simple pleasures that you enjoy most:

Simple Pleasures:

1…. Those first warm spring days and the promise of summer to come.

2…. Walking in the rain on a warm day without a care in the world, just enjoying the feeling, the smell and sound of the rain.

3…. The first snow fall, and the feel of snow flakes as they land on your face and melt.

4…. The brilliant colours of Autumn leaves while they’re still on the trees.

5…. The feel of the sun as it warms my skin on a beautiful day.

6…. The sight of rolling hills, valleys, mountains. I come from an area with astounding natural beauty and I miss those hills and valleys dearly now that I live in such a flat area.

7…. Chocolate, melting slowly, delicious.

8…. Being awake early when all is quiet, watching the sunrise and feeling the first warm rays of the sun.

9…. The sound of laughter, be it from a child or adult. Laughter is infectious and you can’t help but join in.

10…. Rainbows in the sky after a rainstorm. They are always so magical.

11…. Enjoying the sunset, sitting on my porch or in the backyard with my husband. Watching the sky turn purple, then pink, then red.

12…. The look in my husbands eyes every time he sees me.

13…. My husbands warmth. His warm hands and body, so nice when I need warming.

What are your simple pleasures?

The Birds are taking over!

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Ok, how do I get birds to not build a nest under my window air-conditioner? I’m afraid that this is going to be like when we lived in an apartment and the birds are going to take over!

After a mostly too cool month of May we’re suddenly in the midst of a hot humid heat wave here in Toronto, and we don’t have central air. We have two window air conditioners that we put in each year and for the most part they do a pretty good job.

But, last year, the day we put the upstairs air-conditioner in the window some birds started making a nest between the bottom of the AC and the outside window sill where there is a good sized space. I think the birds were little house wrens or something similar. I didn’t mind having them there, but they did get noisy, especially early in the morning. Chirp Chirp and small little bird squabbles at 5:00 a.m. are not how I like to wake up.

Yesterday when Chris installed the upstairs air-conditioner he put a row of bricks underneath it to try to prevent the birds from noticing the gap and building a nest. It didn’t work!

I’m afraid the birds were waiting for their favorite spot. As soon as the AC was in and running we started hearing a lot of chirping outside that window and we could see the birds flying back and forth through the drive way with pieces of grass and other wonderful nest building materials in their beaks.

When we lived in our apartment we used to be bothered by pigeons. For the first few years they just visited, but after one particularly warm winter we could see the pigeons visiting our balcony regularly one February so we decided to check out our winter abandoned balcony and low and behold the darn birds had build a nest in a protected corner and already had eggs! We removed the nest and eggs but that didn’t stop them, they did it again and again.

The next year the pigeons succeeded and actually had their eggs hatch before we noticed. Being animal lovers we couldn’t hurt the babies so we let them raise their two young ones. I was actually curious to see a baby pigeon. I’d never seen one before. I can tell you that they are pretty big right from the start and quickly grow to look like smaller versions of their parents which is probably why I hadn’t noticed baby pigeons before since they are almost the size of their parents and look quite a bit like adults within a month.

Over our years in the apartment we tried everything to get rid of the pigeons and keep them off our balcony. We put out the fake owl. Didn’t work. We strung fishing line strategically across the balcony rail so it would catch their feet and disturb them when they would land. Didn’t work. We strung fishing line from our upstairs neighbors balcony and attached each line to our balcony railing. We put the lines about two inches apart. Yeah, that’ll work, they won’t be able to get through, it will hit their wings and scare them. Nope, didn’t work.

We ended up abandoning our balcony in the last two years or so that we were there. It ended up being a pigeon poop covered mess despite our efforts to get the birds to stop landing on and using the balcony. I hate pigeons!

Now, I’ve got birds building a nest under the air-conditioner. Oh, yes their cute harmless birds, but considering what happened to us last time birds started liking our property, I’m afraid. Very afraid. The birds are going to take over. I just know it! LOL Help!

ChrisLand where time stands still

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Peter Griffin I’m married to Peter Griffin! Well, not exactly. My husband isn’t a cartoon character, and he sure doesn’t look like Peter from the Family guy … But at times, well, he sure acts an awful lot like Peter!

He’s always starting projects around the house, and coming up with ideas that end up getting him into trouble. Usually into trouble with me.

I’m thinking of this past weekend as Neighbors weekend. It started Saturday with Chris going outside to hang our Canadian flag. The whole post, flag included, blew off our house in a windstorm late last fall and with the bad weather we just decided to not put the flag back out again until spring. That day was Saturday.

He’d asked me to give him a hand positioning the flag pole as he had to drill new holes into the brick, but before I could come out of the house our neighbors adult kids were over and offering advice. It was like watching a construction crew at work; one worker and the rest standing around looking like foremen telling the one working what to do. It shouldn’t have been a difficult job, but it some how became one.

The beer came out and the voices got louder. My husband talks loud, especially when he’s outside with the guys. I could occasionally hear him call out to others as they walked by or stepped out onto their porch “Hey Neighbor!”. Gee, maybe I’m married to Ed Flanders from the Simpsons? That’s what it always reminds me of when he calls out this phrase.

With that job finally finished the neighbors and my husband moved to the backyard. Chris had started painting the small picket fence at the end of our drive a few weeks ago. Our elderly neighbor Sophie shares part of this small fence with us and her son had said he’d paint her side as well. Naturally, her kids never got around to doing it, and after seeing how nice our side looked she’d been insisting that we paint it for her.

We some how seem to end up doing everything for her, rather than her own kids doing the odd jobs around the house. We’ve been getting frustrated with this, so when it came to painting her side of the fence we stalled. Every time Sofie’s sons have been over we’ve mentioned the painting job to them, usually after Sofie herself had pointed it out and asked us AGAIN to paint it for her.

He son promised he’d do it but never did. So finally on Saturday, after Chris went to the store to get more paint (which Sofie paid for), we pulled out our own brushes and handed them to her son and grandson and said here you go- paint! Chris did some touch ups on our side while they painted her side of the fence.

The flow of beer continued, and the small job was finally done.

By this time it was perhaps 7 pm. I was ready to eat and had already prepared dinner – it just needed to be BBQ’ed by the hubby. However, at 6:30 our boarder had mysteriously decided to go out. He’d said he’d come home for dinner … but, uh we were just about to have dinner when he left. Arghhh. He didn’t come home until close to 9 p.m and by that time I was pretty upset at him and my husband was no where to be found!

Now nothing in here describes my husbands “Peterness”, but believe me, if you saw him interacting with the neighbors or the way he acts around me at times, he’s at least 60% Peter Griffin.

While we were waiting for our boarder to return home, Chris was outside and one of the other neighbors called him over and asked if he could help move some things. Chris told me he’d be 10 minutes. Did I believe him? No way! Time in Chrisland is extended. 10 minutes is close to an hour in real people time.

The neighbors he was helping this time are these two really cool gay guys. They’re a hoot to hang around with, but since I was waiting for Chris to come back I wasn’t totally impressed that Chris had gone over to help. Chris ended up coming back with two other neighbors that we hadn’t met before. He was showing them our garden. This time it was two ladies and their dog.

When our boarder finally came back, and I got Chris to stop interacting with the neighbors, we got down to the business of eating dinner. After dinner I went back outside to finish watering the garden- a job I had started while I was waiting to get dinner going. By this time it was at least 10 pm.

Chris came out with his guitar and played for me while I sprayed the garden. How sweet is that? Live music, songs sung to me while I worked in the moonlight? Nice.

We moved to the front yard to finish the garden work, but Chris’ guitar playing was attracting attention. The husband of the only neighbor I really dislike happened to see and hear us outside and waved at us through his open window. His wife is the one that I talked about in an earlier post who, both times that she’s been here, I’ve ended up taking care of her baby. The last time her kid was walking around eating my flowers – ones that I thought might be poisonous. She’s a winner!

The husband seems like an ok guy, a bit whipped perhaps, but he’s definitely nicer than she is. He came out of his house and wandered over to listen to Chris play guitar. More beer flowed. More neighbors poked their head out to enjoy the music. Drunk party girls walked by trying to entice my husband to play something for them – he didn’t.

It was close to 1 a.m. by the time we went back into the house. How does watering the garden turn into a 3 hour job? Well, for most people it doesn’t, but if you are like me and you live in Chrisland that’s the way things go. Everything slows down, sounds get louder, and strangers come over at all hours of the day and night.

Lets see, all in all, we were visited by or visited 8 or more neighbors on Saturday. Sunday was a slower neighbor day – it only involved 5 neighbors and his mom and aunt dropping in unexpectedly. Today will likely include people from work dropping by. Oh life in Chrisland, don’t you envy me?

It’s a wonder that I ever get anything done around here.

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