Abstract Random

Arun fell while skiing Friday night and broke a bone in his left hand and hurt his foot, thereby dashing his hopes of competing in the Vancouver Olympics and landing us in the emergency room. We got to the hospital at about 10:40 on Friday night and spent the whole night waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting some more.

The ER was pretty much my definition of hell. It was cold, dirty, uncomfortable and full of sick people, weirdos and cops. There were two televisions on either side of the waiting room on two different channels, both with the volume way up. One was on A&E, which was playing a marathon some obnoxious cop drama so there was plenty of shouting and shooting. The other one was on CTV Newsnet, which was replaying the same loop every half hour.

By 6 in the morning I couldn't take it anymore. I was seriously about to lose it. Arun, being the best and most understanding husband ever, encouraged me to go home and get some rest since I'd have to go out and get groceries etc. Saturday day. I felt terrible for leaving but it really was for the best. Arun got seen soon after I left, got x-rays and a cast and got home shortly after 9.

I realize his break wasn't an emergency/life or death situation but I find it ridiculous that he was in emergency for 10 hours. We learned after the fact that the hospital only has one doctor in emergency after midnight. WTF?!

Needless to say, the rest of the weekend was extremely quiet. We caught up on some sleep and watched season 4 of Dexter. While Arun was skiing on Friday I had gone to see A Single Man, it was heartbreaking but visually stunning and well worth seeing.

Arun's still pretty sore. We'll have a better idea of how his hand is healing in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, send your bone-healing positive thoughts his way.

Ugh, I think I may have also killed my office plant. I must have forgotten to water it before I left for the weekend on Thursday and found it looking like this yesterday morning.

Oops. I promptly watered it but it hasn't sprung back like I hoped it would. I think it may be a goner. I should just get fake plants from now on...

Um, what else is new? Arun and I went to Imperial for dinner the other night. It's a cozy neighbourhood spot with amazing comfort food. You should check it out if you haven't already.

You should also check out Adventureland, which is now out on DVD. It's been my favourite movie this year and not just because there's a Jesus and Mary Chain song on the soundtrack.

You know when else I should pay more attention? When I'm wielding a large, sharp kitchen knife. I cut a chunk off the tip of my left index finger last night while chopping scallions.

Arun looked at the bit of finger on the cutting board and immediately suggested we go to emergency. I insisted on waiting for a bit and after about half an hour I admitted it was pretty bad and called Telehealth Ontario to see whether or not they thought I needed to go to emergency. They said yes.

So we went to emergency and the nurse took a look at it and said they couldn't do anything for it (the way I cut it isn't stitchable). When I told her that Telehealth said I should come in and have it looked at she rolled her eyes and said they tell everyone to go to emergency. She then just taped a big piece of gauze to my finger and told me it's the kind of cut that's going to bleed and bleed and take a long time to scab so until then I should keep it elevated and apply some pressure to it.

After taking another look at it this morning, I think I'll be walking around with a heavily bandaged finger for a long time. I just hope my fingernail grows back properly (did I mention I lost part of my nail?). It's gross. And it really hurts. In any case, I'll be staying home today to nurse it and listen to Maximo Park.

My work's annual staff retreat is next week. I'll be stuck in a retreat centre in the forest with all my coworkers for 48 hours.
The actual meeting part of the retreat is tolerable (if boring) and in the evenings I usually get roped into playing cards and/or charades (two things I don't particularly care for) because there is really nothing else to do and there is no escape.

This year, however, could be even worse: there is going to be a karaoke machine. And I have a some coworkers with questionable taste who apparently take karaoke very seriously. In short, it's going to be bad.

I'm starting to put together a veto list of songs that will be forbidden because they make me want to punch someone in the throat and am asking my closest colleagues (who are also mortified by the thought of karaoke) for input as well. Here's the list so far:

Katrina and the Waves - Walking on Sunshine
B-52s - Love Shack
Chris de Burgh - Lady in Red
Any version of It's A Wonderful World
Alphaville - Forever Young
Pointer Sisters - I'm So Excited
James Blunt - You're Beautiful
The Divinyls - I Touch Myself
Anything from the Grease soundtrack
Anything from any musical
Anything by Whitney Houston
Anything by Meatloaf
Anything by Celine Dion
Anything by Queen
Anything by Madonna, unless Tor is singing it.

What are we missing?

I was woken up at 3 on Tuesday morning to the sound of water dripping in our ensuite bathroom. At first I thought our shower head was leaking but then I turned on the light and discovered there was a significant amount of water coming from the ceiling above our shower stall. And, despite our best efforts (our condo property management company was useless and Arun's knocks on our upstairs neighbour's door went unanswered), it didn't stop leaking until 7:30 in the morning. Turns out the water was indeed coming from the apartment upstairs. Specifically, from their toilet. Ick.

So now our entire shower stall and surrounding tile need to be torn out so the insulation and dry wall behind them can be replaced. Nightmare. We'll be able to upgrade the tile around the shower stall in the process so I'm trying to focus on that as the one good thing coming out of this.

In the meantime, I'm so so so thankful we have another shower in our other (smaller) bathroom. 'Til Tuesday* we had never showered in there in the seven years we've been living in our apartment. Now it looks as though we'll be making of up for neglecting it for the next couple of weeks or so.

So yeah, it's been a stressful week. I'm looking forward to the extra long weekend. Hope you have a good one!

*Get it?

My new year didn't get off on the right foot. Literally. Upon arriving home from our new year's celebrating, I discovered that I had somehow managed to zip that little leather strip that lines the zipper of my perfect, waterproof, leather boots into the zipper from bottom to top and the zipper was stuck. Like, stuck stuck. Like, more stuck than any zipper has ever been stuck before.

I was trapped in my boot. At 2 in the morning on new year's day. After a good 15 minutes of trying, we gave up; that zipper wasn't going anywhere. I was left with no choice but to ask Arun to bring me the scissors and cut myself out of my boot. I cut right along the zipper so there is a small chance that a good shoe repair place may be able to salvage them (the zipper needs replacing, anyway) but I'm not going to get my hopes up.

I just hope this isn't an omen for the kind of year that's in store for me.