The two weeks leading up to my Chorale’s 25th Anniversary Silver Jubilee Concert were pretty crazy. I had big important deadlines at work, with a lot of people relying on my reports and data in order to meet their big important deadlines. I put in a LOT of overtime at work. I brought my laptop home many nights and weekends. Some days I worked from 9am (let’s face it, I’m not a morning person!) until 1am, almost non-stop. The days that I wasn’t working overtime for work, I was working on stuff for the chorale. I made an arrangement of music sheet paper flowers which apparently received a lot of compliments at the concert! They were part of a 25th anniversary memorabilia display on which our little committee worked hard. I also made a looping slideshow for the display, worked on a contest and prepared the necessary stuff, I had a pretty good idea for a special Silver Jubilee gift for our choir director, got the rest of the board of directors..’on board’… etc etc.

The concert was pretty amazing. I got to sing at the Capitol Theatre, I loved our program, I sold 27 tickets!! The entire third row of the capitol were there because of me, with a few more scattered in the theatre. I loved knowing exactly where everyone that came to see me were sitting as soon as I came out on stage, even though I couldn’t see them very well because of all the lights. The after party was also a hit! I normally dread those things. I always find it such an awkward change in dynamics in a group when we all bring our spouses and other family members. It’s like the majority of us turn into slightly tamer versions of ourselves. But that night, Julien and I were sitting with Sharon and her husband Allan, Judy (who had worked so hard with me on the memorabilia display) and her husband sterling, and our pianist Toto. You know when everyone sitting at the table is so fascinating that you don’t know which conversation to listen to? That! Did I mention that both my parents, my brother and his girlfriend all came together for the first time? My brother came to one concert before, my mother to another one, my father had never seen me sing with my chorale! My parents and Julien’s parents finally met for the first time. I missed it all, I was backstage, but I hear it went well.

The minute the concert was over and that I walked off stage, I started coughing and feeling like – BAM, there’s a cold in my face. Perhaps the few shots of Jagger before the concert helped delay it until the very last note of the concert.

I was off work Monday, I was supposed to volunteer. I didn’t do very much volunteering; I was flat on my ass with this chest cold. Everything hurt. Tuesday, I couldn’t get out of bed and I called in sick. Wednesday, I dug deep and got ready and went to work. After being told 100 times that I looked like shit and that I really shouldn’t be there, I told my boss that I was going home at noon and he said YES – GO HOME! Thursday, I called in sick again, still flat on my ass. Friday, I was feeling a lot better (compared to earlier in the week), but I only made it until 10:30am when they literally kicked me out and sent me home because my director didn’t want me contaminating the whole unit.

It’s Saturday morning, and I’m waiting for the after hours medical clinic next door to my apartment to open in a little over an hour, because although I feel a lot better, the right side of my face hurts and is swollen and it freaks me the fuck out. It kind of feels like something to do with my right ear… it’s super swollen right in front of my ear and around my jaw. I hope it’s something they can just give me a pill for and send me on my merry way.

I remember exactly the last time I was (almost) this sick. It was during the beginning of the end of my marriage. Sharon (the fascinating one sitting at my table at the chorale after party) told me that night that a head cold means a lot of confusion. Back then, the last time I was really sick, I definitely had a lot of confusion. I didn’t know then that this would be a bad chest cold, so I haven’t asked Sharon what this means… but in case it means there’s too much stuff on my heart and chest, I’m going to unload a few things which have been weighing heavily on my heart:

Chanel : My mother called me 2-3 days prior to the concert, and informed me that for a slew of reasons, my brother and her are unable to take care of Chanel and wait for me to be ready financially to buy another house. (I’m soooooo ready mentally!) Ever since, I have been scouring kijiji looking for ground level rental places that allow dogs, in my budget, etc. I have been thinking about this all day every day. I realize that with the fees associated with a damage deposit, a move, the reconnecting of all my utilities, mail redirecting, etc…. it would cost me at LEAST $2,000 for this move. What if I hate the new place? What if I’m not ready yet for the responsibility of a dog again? Chanel has been living in Bathurst for 1.5 years now, it might be time to just let someone else who is able to, love her and take care of her. I asked my ex-husband if he would consider keeping her forever. They had refused my last offer of taking care of her ‘until I can take her back’, and I understand why it would be hard to not get too re-attached. So I asked him if they would like to take her back, and keep her forever. He said that he would let me know, he really had his heart set on a Pug.

Divorce: It’s official, I’ve received my certificate of divorce in the mail. I’m a divorcee. Some of my friends were like: “Wooooo!! Let’s throw you a divorce partay!!” But I’m not going to do that. To me, it would feel like celebrating one of my biggest failures. I had promised to love and cherish him in good times and in bad, through health and sickness, etc. Even though I feel like he had been half-assing his half of the promise for years and years, and that we were best friends who should have really stayed best friends… we were never true lovers… I still feel a lot of guilt. I’m in love now, I’m happy. I think that he’s in love and happy.. at the very least he’s found a good replacement for me. They live happily in our matrimonial home on which my name is still on. That home and his inability to find a solution to re-mortgage in his(their) name(s) only is the reason why I’m stuck in this damn apartment…. still so much guilt.

Mom: I haven’t been able to take care of mom and go visit her as much as I would have liked to. She has been through 2 rounds of chemo so far, both in Moncton. Both times I went to visit her every single day in the hospital, and even though it’s hard for me to change my routine, I wouldn’t have been anywhere else. But it’s when she’s not in the hospital that I feel like a slacker daughter. She does live 3 hours away, and I have a lot on my plate and I can’t teleport… I know I should give myself some slack… but life is too short to not make more efforts to visit my mom.

The clinic next door opens in an hour. Wish me luck!

I haven’t really been in a blogging mood lately, but right now I kind of am, so here are some bullet updates:

* I am currently eating kettle cooked sweet & salty popcorn which I bought in Halifax, NS this week when I was there from Tuesday to Thursday for meetings. 

* During said work trip, I met up with Erin and we had ourselves a grand sushi-fest.

* Erin was on week 2 of a terrible cold, and I managed to not catch it. *knock on wood*

* In fact, for the first time in years and year, I didn’t catch a single cold this year. *knock on wood*

* It’s also the first time in years that I don’t get the flu shot. Coincidence? I usually catch every single thing I come in contact with. I normally catch a cold the minute I get off an airplane. I didn’t.

* I had an appointment with my doctor this week, and after looking at my blood test results, she decided that I need to be back on night time insulin. I don’t get any more last chances. This is it.

* My doctor also congratulated me on my weight loss and great other blood test results, and told me to continue my good work. I feel like being back on insulin is a failure, but maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.

* While I was away for work in Halifax, my mom was here in Moncton in the hospital to receive her first chemo treatment. They kept her for 2 days and then let her go home a day early, she seems to be reacting well. Now she gets to recuperate for 21 days before getting another round of chemo.

* Guess what? My taxes are done!! 2012….. and 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2006. I have no idea why 2007 was filed and not 2006, but I’m so happy to have it all done now. I’m getting a $600 refund! I can’t decide what to do with it – apply it to the $700 cat appointment booked for Wednesday, the 350$ car repair bill I just paid, or… apply it against that new laptop I’ve been eyeing. It would be such a treat to have a laptop that doesn’t crash 5 times a day or overheat!

* So guess what happens on May 6? That day will mark the end of the 31 day period during which my ex-husband and I are allowed to change our mind and appeal the divorce ruling. The judge signed our divorce papers on April 5, so I’m unofficially divorced. I will be officially divorced on May 6!

Two Fridays ago, I took the afternoon off from work to accompany my mom to her oncologist appointment, and to spend the rest of the afternoon with her, stopping by to browse at every store on the list of stores she must visit when she’s visiting Moncton: Wal-Mart, Fabricville, McArthurs Flower Shop, Winners, and Home Depot. She always visits those same stores, probably most often in the same order. The one thing that didn’t go as planned is the oncologist telling my mom that it was time to admit her and do a bunch of testing to determine which kind of cancer treatment to start, and then start said treatments.

During the process, they uncovered the reason my mom had been limping in pain for two weeks; her femur was cracked and ready to snap at any moment. They told her that she was going into surgery the next day, and that they were going to insert a metal rod inside her femur, from her hip to her knee. The surgery went really well. Today, after 9 days in the hospital, she was discharged to go home to properly heal and recuperate before starting 6 chemo treatments, 21 days apart each. She will have to come to Moncton for the first treatment and they will keep her overnight to see how she reacts, and then she will be able to receive the subsequent treatments in Bathurst.

I went to visit my mother each of the nine days she was hospitalized. I called ahead every day and picked up the things she wanted that day. Every day she wanted an orange Gatorade, and I snuck fast food into the hospital for her. I felt so guilty bringing fast food into a hospital that I brought grocery store recycling bags every day to smuggle the fast food in! But it made her happy. My father came to Moncton for a few days with his big truck, and had to sleep here on the couch in our tiny 1 bedroom apartment. I did everyone’s laundry.

It was a really intense nine days. With my car broken down in the hospital’s parking lot, my brother’s truck broken down in Bathurst, my dad’s big truck in the garage, work, chorale, voice lessons, committee meetings, hospital visits… My right eye has been twitching for days. I’m so tired. My period is really late. I’m not pregnant, just stressed. I’m on birth control, and I tested to be sure. But I wouldn’t want to have been anywhere else. I baked her cinnamon rolls. I was happy to be able to make her happy.

So how fucked up is it, that I still feel that mild feeling of elation the moment they either drive out of town, or that I drive out of theirs? I don’t think that I’m evil, I think that it’s just so exhausting for me to try to live up to their expectations of me…

Last Sunday, after the snow storm, we were to remove our cars out of the parking lot and park on the street, as the norm after a snowstorm, so that they can remove all the snow from the parking lot. My car wouldn’t start. Nothing. Then when you tried to take the key out of the ignition it would start PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEPing. Nothing electronic worked. The key became stuck in the ignition switch. I had to call a towing company to have it towed to a (closed) garage, since it was Sunday. Adios $50. I’m so lucky that J had the money to pay and paid, because I didn’t and couldn’t. This was 3 days before pay day and I was broke.

On Tuesday morning around 8am, the mechanic called with an initial estimate amount to fix my car. $640. He explained in detail the work that he had to do, and said he would call me back with news later. I said okay and hung up. I was almost ready for work. My hair and make up were done, my jewelry was on, and I was in my bra and panties talking to him on the phone. I hung up, I walked in my closet to pick and outfit for the day, and started hyperventilating. I know from experience that it’s so much easier to just cry when holding it in causes a panic attack. I was crying in my closet. J heard, hugged me, and convinced me to call in sick and stay home. 1 – I found it a little ironic that I was staying home on National Mental Health Day, because I had had a crying meltdown. 2 – If only I had known that the final bill would come up to nearly twice that amount…

In the end everything worked out. Well, it’s working out so far and I hope it continues to. My car might very well have more electronic problems pop up again, but I hope they don’t come up soon because I seriously cannot afford it. Because of my amazing boyfriend who paid for my towing and kept reassuring me that it would be okay, because of my friend Sophie who loaned me $500 until mid-March, and because my friend Robyn asked to buy the pair of ankle boots I had loaned her, everything is working out so far.

The silver lining: At least I was able to pay the $1200 car repair bill. A few years ago, a $1200 car bill would have been a lot more devastating. My ex-husband and I were terrible with money like that.

But it still really really effing sucks!! I could have taken a nice all inclusive vacation down south for that price!

I love v-day! If you know me you know this, and you know why. I love everything positive about it. (Of course everything has negatives. The worst in my opinion, regarding v-day, is unrealistic expectations.) I love seeing men buying flowers and carrying them around, I love seeing women carry their delivered flowers home from work, I love seeing couples everywhere, I love seeing groups of single women getting together and having a blast. All the happiness and all the love. That’s what I love about it.

Because I had been sick with IBS/Car stress related stuff all week, we modified our original V-Day plans, but we kept the main two parts – We kept our reservations at Moxies and we went to see a pretty great line-up of bands down town. The original plan included alcohol and dancing, but I was definitely not feeling up to that, and also, the car repair bill had us considering cancelling v-day altogether. We agreed on Restaurant & Bands, but no gifts, no cards, no flowers, no chocolate, no froufrou.

Moxies was SO good! I loved that place. We made a pact before entering: We were both to put our phones away during the entire time that we were inside the restaurant, unless one of us went to the wash room. I confess, this rule was harder to remember for me than it was for J. I loved the light fixtures in there. I thought the washrooms were pretty rad too. They even had a wicker basket on the counter full of v-day cards with a sign to please take one and bring it back to our love. J informed me that the men’s washroom has a little flat screen tv in front of every urinal. I had the tropical mango chicken and it was delicious.

[I just said rad. I never say rad. I just felt like writing rad. This is my blog, so I did. At choir rehearsal tonight, the choir director called something 'nifty'. Then she wondered out loud how uncool the use of the word 'nifty' is these days. She asked B, the teenage girl sitting next to me, what young people call exciting things now. "It's not awesome any more  is it?" B shrugs and says "Kids my age just don't get excited about much these days." Everyone laughed because it's so true... but it's kind of sad. I hope they secretly get excited.]

We went home to change, and my stomach started rumbling. We went to the show, and I spent a fair duration of it in the gross ladies washroom. So.Gross. Why are women so disgusting in public washrooms? Being nauseous in a gross bar washroom is being exponentially nauseous. Inception Nausea. I couldn’t breathe, it was so hot and smelly in there. It smelled like sweet vanilla or something, courtesy of the girl standing too close to me who stepped on my feet, mixed with waves of eau de sweat when all would raise their arms/horns in unison. Man, you could feel the heat wave when everyone raised their arms at the same time. The last time I came back from the gross washrooms, J asked me if I wanted to go home. I asked if he minded, he didn’t. We left in the middle of the set of the biggest named band there.

We had booked the Friday off, for a v-day long weekend. Almost as soon as I got home with my car from the garage, with the paid invoice, sigh, I felt better. It was a pretty awesome long weekend that included ice cream, board games, a little bit of shopping, a movie, kitty cuddles, and a snow storm.

I’m not sure when it started. When I got up at 4am to use the bathroom I saw that it was already snowing hard. It hasn’t stopped snowing hard since. I have no idea how much snow fell down so far…. When I look on theweathernetwork.com all I see is more snow in the forecast for later this week. Where will we put it all? I’ve got to say though, I have plenty of food of both the healthy and junk varieties, good books, good movies and an upgraded internet package. I’m quite liking being snowed in with J and Roxy

This week was incredibly cold. It was near or over -30C (-22F) and I was in training for three days. I wasn’t about to pay 20$ per day to park closer to the building where our training was, so I parked at my usual spot and walked to the building for two days, and the last day, the coldest day, everyone parked near the training facility and paid because it was THAT cold. I’m so over winter.

Who knew the federal budget process was so complicated? Isn’t it really cool that instead of jotting down all this information, now we can just take a picture of it with our phone’s camera? Most of us in the class did this instead of writing it all down.

1/6th of our team trying to put processes and people associated to these processes in order. Out of the six teams in the room, no one got it 100% right. I learned so much during this course. I’m very grateful that my employer supports my career development by allowing me to take such courses that are not in my personal budget.

It’ll be good to get back to my old routine next week though

Last night I dreamed that the skin under my feet was made out of baked cheesy lasagna top layer. I would peel this thick layer of cheese, and a layer of thick cottage cheese like substance would come off with it. EWWWWWWWWW!!! I can’t stop thinking about this. All day long I’ve thought about my lasagna feet and I’ve been nauseous all day thinking about them :/