Paws Off My Bagel!

The Grape and Wine parade was downtown this weekend, but I wasn’t feeling well enough to watch.  I did get a glimpse of some of the floats and things as they headed back after the parade.

I was really bummed about not feeling well enough to go for a flight.  It didn’t help that I had to hear a plane towing a banner, fly around the apartment for over an hour!

Oh well.  At least I had some company to enjoy the sights and sounds with:

“Hey, Mya!  Look over here!!!”

It was a nice day for the parade temperature-wise.  Unfortunately, it was VERY windy.

So that was the extent of my day on Saturday.  Sunday I was feeling well enough to visit my micro-mother.  We threw in a load of wash and then headed over to Tim Hortons.  After placing my order, I brought everything over to my mother who had already grabbed a table.  I then went to the other side of the establishment to await my lovely, toasted bagel (cinnamon raisin with butter on the side.)  There was another guy waiting for his breakfast sandwich on a cheddar cheese bagel (I heard him order it).  The woman on the other side of the counter said “Cinnamon raisin bagel!” then set the plate down.  The guy standing next to me said “That’s not mine!” and proceeded to pick up the top half of MY bagel and inspect it.  He could clearly see that it was NOT a sandwich.  I said “I think that’s mine.”  Why he decided to finger my bagel, right after he said “That’s not mine” is completely beyond me.  He then said “I just touched your bagel.”  I said “I noticed that.”  The woman behind the counter picked up the plate and said she would make me a new one.  I’m very environmental plus I hate to see food go to waste, so I told her it was OK.  I was going to ask the man if he had picked his nose in the previous fifteen minutes, but didn’t think that was appropriate.  I then thought of telling him that I was going to wait for his SANDWICH to be ready to I could finger and lick it, but decided that this too was inappropriate.  So, I took my soiled bagel back to the table and asked my mother for an alcohol wipe.  I told her what happened and she took her napkin and diligently wiped off my bagel.  It was actually really cute.  So far, I have not come down with any strange diseases, but I’ll keep y’all posted.

Today’s symptoms:  I had much more energy yesterday and I enjoyed every minute of it!  I kinda figured I would pay for it today, but it was worth it.  Hopefully it will be a bit better tomorrow.  I also had quite a bit more pain in my bones and joints than normal today.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/28/2010 7:08 PM

Amazing Co-workers

Last week, we had our annual off-site meeting for work.  I was feeling pretty poopy that day, but really wanted to attend the meeting.  I’m so glad I did because it was a total blast.  In between the presentations, we played “Minute to Win It ” games.  There weren’t enough games for everyone at each table to play, so I was a spectator – a very amused spectator.  Here are some photos from a few of the games:

Face The Cookie: the player had to move the cookie from their forehead to their mouth, only using their facial muscles.

Don’t Blow the Joker: the player had to blow all of the cards off the pop can, leaving only the bottom “joker” card on the can.

I forget what this was called, but the player had to knock down all the cups with elastics.

Speed Eraser: the player has to bounce a pencil into a cup.

The whole day was great, mainly due to the company.  If you would like an indication of what my coworkers are like, check this out.  A few months ago, I emailed a couple of my coworker friends “The Spoon Theory .”  It was written by Christine Miserandino, regarding her fatigue with Lupus.  This is a perfect description of what MS fatigue feels like.  Anyway, this morning I was sitting at my desk, diligently working away, when a friend of mine tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to help her with something.  I was a little confused as to why she was going in a different aisle than her desk location.  When I rounded the corner, there were about ten people, two with cameras, standing there facing me.  I had no clue what was going on.  I think I looked behind me to see if someone else was coming around the corner, thinking it was their birthday.  I honestly don’t know what was said when I stopped.  As you can see, I was a little shocked:

The next thing I remember is feeling really light headed, because I think I was starting to comprehend what was going on.  Someone brought me a chair:

My wonderful, compassionate co-workers took their time, creativity and energy to create me an inspirational spoon bouquet.  About twenty-five people beautifully decorated a spoon, and wrote words of support and care.  I was completely (and still am!) blown away!

This is one of the most thoughtful, loving and amazing things anyone has ever done for me.  I just still can’t believe it and will cherish my gift forever:

As you can imagine, I was completely overwhelmed after this amazing surprise:

I had to go to Toronto for a test today, and a couple of my friends gave me an individual “Spoon To Go” to take with me to the appointment.  I asked the lab technician to take a picture of me with my spoon before starting the test:

I felt like a bit of a dork when I initially asked her to take the picture.  However, she thought it was wonderful what my coworkers/friends did for me today.

Today’s symptoms: I’m still in shock after today’s experience!  Although I’m physically drained, I’ve never felt so alive.  Corny, but true.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/21/2010 7:52 PM

Pink Floyd

Another item off of my Bucket List.  Chuck and I went to the Pink Floyd – The Wall concert this weekend.  We arrived in Toronto just before 5:00 and took our bags up to our hotel room.  While we were checking in, I noticed a little bit of a spelling mistake on their sign:

We were “breathing” easy the whole time we were there!  Who wouldn’t “breath” easier with this view:

The room was small, but quite nice.  Fortunately, the Air Canada Centre was only a few blocks away from our hotel.  Just before 6:00pm, we walked over to the arena.  We had VIP tickets, so we had the joys of a buffet dinner and drinks before the show.  There was really great food – especially the desserts!  Chuck snapped this picture while I tried to flee with both dessert platters:

We made our way to our amazing seats, centre, fifth row from the stage:

After a brief fireworks display:

…Roger Waters entered the scene:

Also to enter the scene was this spooky dude:

Chuck and I both agreed that with its googly eyes, it looked much like our youngest daughter, Abby:

Some kids from the Toronto area were invited to sing “We Don’t Need No Education” along with Roger:

Soon after, these two massive inflatable dudes came into view:

The wall which covered the entire stage, was put up throughout the first half of the show.

Here’s the Wall in its entirety:

The second half of the show was equally amazing.  Again, we stood the entire time and I easily burned off my meal from all of the dancing!

I didn’t get a very good shot because it was so far away, but they had a huge, remote controlled hover-pig floating over the fans:

It was an amazing show and the perfect seats made it even better.

Today’s symptoms:  Just a little weary from our exciting weekend.  Pain is not too bad today.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/20/2010 8:00 PM

What Would You Do?

I’m having a much more interesting week than the previous one.  It all started this past weekend.  Someone who previously told me that he was deathly afraid of flying and would under no circumstances EVER fly with me, asked to join me on a flight.  Of course my immediate reaction was to laugh, since I knew how bad his fear was.  He told me he was serious, then started to freak out.  I thought it was great that he wanted to face his fear head-on.  I didn’t waste any time in calling the Flying Club and asked them to pull my plane out of the hangar, and I would be there in about half an hour.  I really had a good feeling that he was serious about this and I would see him out at the airport.  Sure enough, just after I finished my inspection, he arrived with his spouse and son.  I gave the spectators my camera so they could take some shots from the ground.  I took my smaller camera up with us so I could video his flight.  After my run-up (checks done once the engine is running), we headed over to the runway.  He was seriously stressed but already made the hardest decision – deciding to take the flight.  We quickly took off.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the smoothest flight, but certainly not the roughest.  The Control Tower asked if I was going to do some aerobatics today, but I told him I had a very nervous passenger with me, so that would be a no!  Another pilot who was just coming into the airport, radioed the Tower and said that it was quite a bit smoother above 3000 feet.  However, soon after take-off, my passenger informed me that he was done.  I told him I had to fly around the circuit and land the same way we took off.  Just as I was about to turn final, he said that he would like to keep going.  I told the Tower I was going to overshoot the runway.  We headed above 3000 feet, and it was quite a bit smoother.  I had to ensure my passenger that the small bumps and slips we were experiencing would not cause the plane to lose control.  We were up for 27 minutes in total – I was really impressed with him!  Here is a pictorial of our flight. 

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

As you can see, he was a little relieved to have survived the experience.  His son eagerly ran over to greet him.  Actually, his son wanted to sit in the plane.  Once he was in, he asked if he could go for a flight.  I told him he would have to talk to his parents about that one day.  They both looked at each other, looked and me and said “sure!”  So, up I went again!  Mind you, my second passenger was a little less stressed.  Soon after we took off, he asked if I could fly him to Florida so he could go to Disney.  I told him we didn’t pack our bags so we would have to do it another day.  Instead, we flew over Niagara Falls:

Next he wanted to fly to Sherkston, which is where they went camping this summer:

He really was a great passenger!  Certainly my youngest, at only seven!

Next on my list of exciting events for this week was Tuesday.  My friend and I went for a coffee break at the Cool Moose, near our office in St. Catharines.  It was market day, which is right next to our office.  We decided to walk through on our way back.  Just as we were about to cross the driveway alongside of the parking lot, a woman in a black car floored it in reverse, without even looking.  She had her window open and my friend said “Don’t you look both ways?”  The woman screamed profanities at her.  My friend made another comment, with the same response.  At this point, the car was half out on the road and we were across the driveway.  My friend said that the driver made a gesture like she was going to hit us, and my friend made a “Bring it on” action with her hands.  At that point, the extremely enraged woman threw her car in park and jumped out.  I swear, she was so full of rage, her feet weren’t even touching the ground as she made her way towards us.  She was yelling plenty of swear words and saying “You want to go?  You want a piece of me?”  This is where the title of this blog comes into play.  I’ve always wondered what I would do in this type of situation.  I really didn’t have any time to think, but reacted in about a second.  I immediately stepped in front of my friend and faced the crazed psycho-woman head on.  She stopped a few feet away, still screaming.  I didn’t budge.  She turned around, went back into her car and drove away.  Wow!  What a crazy experience!

I had another very interesting day today, but will discuss it in my next blog.

Today’s symptoms:  This has been the second day in a row of worse-than-normal weakness.  Fortunately, today was a bit better than yesterday.  I have quite a bit of pain in my bones and joints today.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/16/2010 7:12 PM

Cat Rescue

Gee, I feel bad for the amount of time that has passed since my last blog.  Needless to say, nothing much has happened this past week. 

I went shopping on Sunday and purchased a couple of baskets for the shelf in my closet.  When I arrived home, I put them on the floor of the bedroom.  I only turned my back for a second and when I turned back around, this is what I found:

I think it’s cute that Mya climbed into the smaller one, since she’s so petite!

I had something interesting happen yesterday and today.  A supervisor at work told me that she just lost her cat on the weekend and she was planning on getting another one.  The same day, I received a call from someone who knew that my mother was considering getting a declawed cat at some point.  She said there are two cats in Dunnville that needed a new home immediately or they would be put to sleep on Saturday.  Their owners had to move to a smaller home and were unable to bring their cats with them.  They tried for over a month to find their cats a new home.  They called all of the vets, Humane Societies, SPCA’s, etc. in Niagara and Hamilton, but no one would take them.  Their only option was to have them put down.  I quickly phoned the supervisor at her home and asked if she wanted two adult kitties.  She readily agreed!  I was so happy and excited to phone back the owners and tell them I had found their cats a new home.  I took a couple hours of vacation leave today and my mother and I drove down to Dunnville to pick up the cats.  I got quite emotional at one point, knowing how hard this was for the owners.  We managed to get them in their cages and headed back home.  They’re very cute.  The female is seven years old, and an average sized kitty:

The male is four years old and is quite the little heifer:

I was very relieved that the new owner was able to pick them up as soon as I got back into St. Catharines.  I didn’t want them to have to go through the trauma of being transferred from home to home.  I really hope they have a happy life with their new family.

Getting to leave work early today was actually quite a blessing.  I wasn’t feeling very good to begin with, and having to hear the construction going on outside was really starting to get annoying.  The whole office was vibrating so much, the noise was deafening!  Here’s the view from my window:

My mother is coming by for a short visit tomorrow, then I hope to go for a flight.  It’s supposed to rain on Sunday, so no flying for moi.  I’ll head over to visit my tiny mother and do some grocery shopping.

Today’s symptoms:  Feeling much more weak than normal.  I hope to get a good sleep tonight and hopefully have enough energy for a flight.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/10/2010 7:44 PM