Cancer, blogging, and other matters

So, just a quick post after a long absence (three years - and the internet is still here!)

Obviously, I got over that whole "cancer" business. I shouldn't put it in quotes, but it makes me feel better about it. I just pretend I was sick and then I got better, with a few extra scars and the inability to bear offspring. You know, small things.

Anyway, I did begin a poetry blog at http://versereverse.wordpress.com where I try to write a short poem every day. If you're at all interested, you can subscribe at the other end of THIS LINK and get one of my poems in your inbox each day. I know, poems are awful, no one likes to read them (this is extremely obviously by the lack of hits my blog receives) but I honestly do like some of them and you might too.

I also have a Twitter account and you can follow me there too, if you'd like. Find me as felesroo.

Lastly, WWWoR is not dead and I will try to post more here, though I'm not sure there is any readership here either. This is more of a personal blog. I can still make fun of Canada though.

Back to making fun of Canada

Welcome to Dildo, Newfoundland and Labrador.

From Wikipedia:

Dildo has a fast-growing tourist industry. Dildo offers picturesque scenery, several bed and breakfasts, eating establishments, the Dildo Museum interpretive centre, the Historic Dildo Days celebration in August, boat tours, the Society of United Fishermen, the Lions centre, several heritage structures, walking trails, many businesses and, of course, the road sign souvenirs.

Dildo won the Harrowsmith Magazine Award in 2001 as one of the ten prettiest small towns in Canada.

Dildo has also been featured on CBC's On the Road Again and Land and Sea as well as a live radio broadcast from the interpretation centre.

In August of 2006, Dildo was also the subject of the "What the...?" segment on the Australian television talk show Rove Live.

Dildo has its own television station, Channel Six.

The town is also mentioned in the song "A Night in Dildo" by The Arrogant Worms

Alive

Yes, I am still alive, amazingly. Since my last post, I have undergone two major operations. I am recovering from the second one, a liver surgery, now. Mother went home today after spending three weeks here in Toronto helping to take care of me. So, I am basically back in one piece and I will start chemo in three weeks. I hope that in four months, this will all be behind me.

Also, I am very pleased Sen. Obama won the presidency and that the Democrats have greater control of Congress. I hope there will be some health care reform so that I will be able to return to the US and get coverage, since I will need tests for the rest of my life. It is frightening to have your life turned over at the age of 32, but the prospect of never being able to afford to return to the US was terrifying.

Roo's fall out of a window

So today, while we were trying to install a window air conditioner because it is horribly hot here in Toronto and I can't sit around sweating because getting dehydrated will land me in a hospital really fast, Roo, idiot Roo, got out onto the ledge. Instead of backing up and re-entering the room, he tried to turn around and he fell two and a half stories to the ground below. Thankfully, he got tangled up in the branches of a tree on his way down, so that slowed his decent, but he gave the ground a pretty good whomp. Of course, I freaked out, started seeing spots, my blood pressure shot up and down like crazy. I yelled at Justin to run outside to get him. We live on a really busy road and even though he is afraid of the road, I didn't know what he would do.

Justin ran out the front door and I ran down and opened up the back door that leads out onto the patio. And there was Roo! He was waiting by the back door. That is the door we always take him in and out of on his walks. I am glad now that we took him on walks because he knows his way around the outside of the building. I picked him up and he was purring like crazy. I think he was freaked out too. He was totally limp in my arms, which he very rarely is, but he was so happy to be with me after that. I called Justin back inside and we gave Roo some treats. He seems fine. Nothing is broken, certainly, but I am worried about internal injuries, so I am watching him. He is acting fine though. Hopefully, he will gain more cat sense now and never, ever do that again. It was my worst nightmare, one of the cats falling out of the windows here. He used up one of his lives, that is for certain.

The "Cruellest" Doughnut Hole

So the "big" story up here lately has been the firing and subsequent rehiring of a woman now dubbed the "Timbits mom". The story is, this woman, a 27-year old single mom of four was a fairly long-term Tim Horton's employee. One day, a regular customer came in, another mom with a baby, looking really harried. The baby was screaming and I guess everyone was rather miserable, so the employee gave the woman one timbit retailing for $0.16 (though they are $0.17 here in Toronto) to the baby to shut it up. I didn't know babies could eat Timbits. Perhaps she was hoping it would choke. Anyway, she got fired a couple of days later for giving away merchandise. $0.16 worth of merchandise.

Well, the bad press got out, and she was rehired at another Tim Horton's owned by the same person, and her lost pay was replaced. All this flurry over a Timbit. Still, even though the manager was a complete ass, it is nice to know the owner did right.

Read about it: Timbits mom fired and Timbits mom rehired

Tumors, cancer, and the individual

When I was studying Northern Renaissance Art as an undergrad, the professor said something about the genre that really struck me, and that was that unlike the Italian Renaissance and Baroque, where the artists always fixated on these huge, earth-changing events like the birth of Jesus, as if the entire world took pause to realize the enormity of the moment, the artists of the lowlands knew that all events - births, deaths, marriages, breakups - are of little to no interest to anyone but those involved.

On Wednesday, April 2, while undergoing an exam, doctors found a large tumor in my lower GI tract. Yes, that is as good as it sounds. It has been very hard to adjust from being a normal person wrapped up in grad school, money, relationships, and what I am going to do this summer, to being a person who has cancer. I am reminded again of losing my father and how much the world changed for me in that single moment.

What is strangest for me, in this process of adjustment, is that it is my battle. It is not just a physical battle, but a mental one as well. I have to come to terms with my world having been changed as quickly as a bolt of lightning. I have to deal with the anger of not having done something sooner, and if I will face the ultimate price for my inaction. I have to deal with it in a world where very few know or care, and I tell myself, why should they? Somewhere, a child has died in his mother's arms. Somewhere, a teenager found out she has MS. Somewhere, a woman had a miscarriage. Today, Beyonce and Jay-Z are getting married.

So I have to face my battle, and the people who love me are hoping, and praying, and supporting me. I am scared, I am angry, I am nervous, but I also know how strong I am. I also know that the farmers will keep plowing, the merchants will keep selling, and the ships will keep sailing even as Icarus falls into the sea.

Earth Hour 2008

Justin and I celebrated Earth Hour 2008 by sitting in the dark for an hour and bitching about how the people across the street were not turning out their lights. Granted, I live away from downtown, where the effect was more spectacular, as you can see by the photo, courtesy of the Toronto Star.

I hope next year that Earth Hour is embraced even more greatly, mostly because it is fun. We had a free acoustic concern with Nelly Furtado down in Nathan Phillips Square, though I did not attend, and many restaurants offered candlelit dining. Me, I like doing things that millions of people around the world are also doing. That is why I wake up at 1 am to watch the World Cup in Japan. I'm not a lemming. Really, I'm not.