Sick Vyc

I’m having a little issue with my high voltage light coming on in my plane.  My mechanic asked me to head up for a flight after making some adjustments to Vyctor.  I was greeted at the airport with this lovely new windsock:

I went up for a fairly brief flight, until the light came back on.  Bummer.  I landed and fortunately, my aviation mechanic and his son (also an aviation mechanic) came out to check on things.  His son was trying to figure out if there was an increased load on the electrical system.  He asked me “What do you have on when you fly?”  I said usually a shirt, hoodie, jeans….  Apparently he wanted to know what electronics I had on.  Ohhhh…  Hehehehe!  I love being a smart-ass.

After an adjustment, they asked me to head up again to test it out.  Unfortunately, the light came on again so we’re going to have to dig a little deeper.  I offered to grab them some Timmies, but they were good to go so I made myself a joyous coffee in the Club.

Who holds their coffee like that?  Anyway, no more flights until we get some stuff figured out.  Vyc is sick until further notice.  😦

I came home to Pinky sitting like an angel in the bathroom with her friend:

And Boo being naughty, sitting on Ralphie’s (the snail) container.  Nice.

Later that evening, tiny Mya seemed to get big Pinky in a headlock:

Poor Pinky – she usually just sits and tolerates Mya sitting on her, but I’ve never seen this before.

Speaking of pink, tomorrow is Pink Shirt Day for anti-bullying.  For work, I picked up the shirts people from the St. Catharines and Hamilton offices ordered. One Hundred and Thirty-Seven!

I was so relieved when I counted a few times and the order was perfect.  More than half of the shirts had to go to Hamilton so I got them all sorted and boxed back up to go.  At least I didn’t have to worry about cat hair getting on them.

Over the last few days, I’ve been teaching Mike piano lessons.  I got up to grade nine in my lessons, back when I was in public and high school.  Also, four or five years of theory classes.  I could not believe how much I forgot!  I have already spent a few hours trying to relearn stuff plus put lesson plans together.  Kinda fun though.  Mike seems to be enjoying it so far:

Ah yes, playing the piano and making Sponge Bob Square Pants cakes (over ten years ago for Jan’s birthday).  Could I be any more gifted?

Hehe!  I hadn’t seen that pic in quite a few years.  He actually didn’t turn out too bad!

Today’s symptoms: The insomnia has been back for the last few nights.  I’ve been up since before 4:00am today.  Ugh.  Very drained, especially after three nights of poor sleep.  I’ve had a really bad headache all day, likely from the lack of sleep.  Lots of MS aches and pains – always worse when I’m super tired.  I still can’t believe my body is so dumb that it doesn’t take advantage of my attempts to sleep.  I lay there so tired, I don’t have the energy to roll over when I’m uncomfortable, but still can’t sleep.  Geesh!

Cluck Norris!

I have to introduce the newest member of the family.  I’m a big fan of the electronic game Hay Day.   One of the first animals you get in the game is a chicken.  I named my first one Cluck Norris.  Check out what Mike got me for Valentine’s Day.  It’s actually from the makers of the Hay Day game:

I have my own Cluck Norris!  Tee hee!

This weekend, I met up with my Army buddy Ken again.  We had a great visit with him last weekend as well, over to the Casino to enjoy the buffet and see Jersey Nights.  Mike did a family thing that day so couldn’t join us.  Ken took the bus down from Hamilton and I met him at the bus stop in St. Catharines.  We arrived at the Casino for around 11:30.  I watched Ken at the slots for a bit and then I played a $20 I brought (big spender!)  I won $71 after a few pulls, which was kinda nice.  Then we went and picked up tickets for the Wayne Brady show at 3:00.   Then it was a later lunch at the awesome buffet!

The show was SO good and funny!  I can’t believe how quickly Wayne comes up with things.  The whole show was improv with audience participation.   I wouldn’t hesitate at all to go back and see him again.

I played with the kids a bit when I got home.  As you can see, they were thrilled to see me:

Adorable, eh?

On Sunday, I was surprised I was feeling as good as I did after the long day Saturday.  Mike and I hopped in Vyctor and headed to Kitchener for some breakfast.  Here’s the Burlington Skyway, looking all bridgey:

We ordered our breakfast and I excused myself to go to the little pilot’s room.  I came back to see that Mike wasn’t too nice to Donkay:

Yum:

We were almost done our meal, I saw something I had never seen before (beyond online), another Cessna 150 Aerobat!  I could tell it was an Aerobat right away because of the checkered pattern.  They parked it right next to Vyctor too!  Vyctor was so excited to see his brother!

One of the flight instructors came out and had a little chat with me.  They don’t have anyone there to teach them aerobatics so the plane is just used for regular ol’ straight and level training.  So sad!

Nice flight home.  We had a tail wind so the trip was a little quicker.  We went up and visited the nice folks at the Niagara District Airport Tower once we got back.   Then home to see the goobers and chill.  I see that Mya and Pinky were already chilling:

They don’t look too happy – I think they missed us.  A little different than Mya’s expression that morning:

Kinda looking a tad stunned there.

Had a good day at work today.  Since most people get Family Day off and us Federal workers don’t, quite a few more people answered the phone than do on a normal work day.  Some asked why we were working today and I said that we are just so committed to our jobs that none of us have families.  Therefore, no need to partake in Family Day!

Today’s symptoms: I felt pretty good until starting around 2:00, then my energy dropped pretty quickly.  At least things weren’t too bad pain-wise.  My insomnia is still slowly improving.  Where I went through five months with about four out of five nights being bad (one – four hours sleep), now it’s about two out of five.  Plus my bad nights aren’t quite as bad. 

Life Is So Short…

I had the absolute pleasure of seeing the cutest sight when I got up this morning.  I bought my gecko Zim a little green plastic dinosaur.  I think he likes it:

Seriously – how adorable is that???  Snuggled up with his buddy, sleeping peacefully.

I was off today and as I do on most Thursdays, I spent time with my adorable little mother.  What is one of the most enjoyable things anyone could do on their day off?  Yup, go to the dentist.  Woot!  I actually don’t mind going at all.  I’m happy to report, I am officially 40 years cavity free!  Check out these adorable teeth:

After my appointment, we hit a few stores and then headed back to her place.  We played a round of Words With Friends, chatted, had a few laughs and then I headed home.  I was planning on spending the last part of the afternoon cleaning but instead, had to deal with a rather sad and difficult situation.  I found out that one of my retired coworkers passed away.  Being a very private person, there will be no service.  This seems to be what a lot of people are doing lately, as the cost of a funeral service is so expensive.  I heard from someone she was in hospice so I made quite a few phone calls to try and find her.  I finally managed to contact a friend of hers and was given the very sad news that she is no longer with us.  I’m certainly not looking forward to going to work tomorrow and sharing this.

A couple of nights ago, I was thinking about how fragile and short life is.  We tend to put so much focus and emotion on the trivial things we have to deal with. When you look at the grand scheme of things, they are just that – trivial.  The time we spend on things that really don’t matter takes so much time away from the important things in life.  At my appointment today, the hygienist (who I had just met for the first time) said she couldn’t believe how positive I was, despite having MS.  I told her I was having a good symptom day and that basically meant that life was great!  Sure there are still the pains shooting through my body, the constant headache, fear of what MS can do (loss of vision, sensory impairment, loss of mobility, cognitive issues, etc) but today I feel better than I did yesterday.  All I can focus on is the positives in my life and I’m so grateful for everything I have.  Fixating on the negatives in life is such a complete waste and it’s very draining emotionally.  We always hear “life is short” but it’s so true.  I just wish more people would realize this and take advantage of every positive moment they experience.

Today’s symptoms:  I slept well last night and what a difference that make for the severity of my symptoms.  The pain is certainly less as is the dreaded (my most hated symptom) fatigue.  I started to crash around 6:30, which is never fun.  Fortunately, the first half of the day was wonderful.  I feel so lucky to have these good symptoms days.

You Know You’re Tired When…

The last week has been quite good.  On Tuesday, Mike and I went to the Niagara Recycling Plant with my father and he gave us a private tour.  I couldn’t believe there are so many people working there.  They have machinery that sorts much of the recyclables into general categories, but then human power is used for finer sorting.  The rate that the conveyor belts fly by is insane – pretty neat that the folks working there are able to keep up!

The rest of the week was decent, and the weekend was quite good.  On Saturday, Mike and I met up with my Army buddy from Hamilton for a day at the casino.   Ken has gold card status there so he gets tickets for shows and free meals at the buffet.  Yum!  He brought us to see Jersey Nights, which was awesome.  I have seen the live performance of Jersey Boys twice as I am a huge Frankie Valli fan.   It was an awesome show.  We were at the casino for much of the day and I was sure spent by the time I got home (only physically, not financially as I only gambled $10 and won $25!)  I was watching My 600 Pound Life before bed that night.  I had paused the show at one point and the pic on the screen was a little disturbing, because of her eyes being in mid blink.  I texted the pic to Mike and then I was a tad surprised at what I replied to him:

Then I created this and sent it to him:

He replied that he was surprised there was a burger just sitting on her chin.  I said that she was in the process of eating it.  I sent him this to make my point more clear:

He said the arm and hand were too skinny so I sent him this:

The whole time, I couldn’t stop laughing.  Man, you know you’re tired when!!!

On Sunday, I spent the day with my little mother.  We did a bunch of sorting and I cleared out some stuff.  Came across my ID from when I spent a few months in New Brunswick with the Army:

Sometime I forget that I used to wear glasses – thick ones too!  I was so blind.  I had laser eye surgery during university (waaaaaaaay back in 1999) and my vision is still better than 20/20!  Actually, my corneas are still so thick that I could have the surgery another time or two if I ever needed it.  My mother didn’t even know I had booked the surgery. She came up to Windsor to bring me home for Christmas and I informed her that we had to go get my eyeballs zapped that evening and I had to go back the next morning for a check-up.  Hehe!  Good times.

Today’s symptoms: Really drained today.  My pain level has been minimal though, so that was kinda nice.  To be honest, many times I find pain easier to deal with than the dreaded MS fatigue.  I think if I “just” had the pain, my life would have gone in a completely different direction.  I would have likely still been able to be a cop after graduating university.  Bummer but that was the paw I was dealt!

I Can’t Believe What I Bought!

I was off Thursday so my little mother and I went to the PEN Centre.  There wasn’t really anything we needed, but it was just something to do.   After a coffee from Timmies, we hit a few stores.  While walking by a shoe store, I found this tiny shoe on the clearance table.  I held it to my mother for a size comparison.  Since she is so petit, this size 4 shoe looks far larger!

It was a very nice day out together.  When I got home, I was surprised I still had some energy left so decided to quickly wash my floors.  Despite giving Mya some food as soon as I got home, she didn’t think it was quite enough.  The whole time I was washing the floors, Mya followeded me around, looking at me in a pitiful manner:

 

Needless to say, I was forced to give her more noms once I was done.  I mean, who can say no to a face like that???

Abby was thrilled with the freshly cleaned floors, and their now fresh scent:

Despite the cruddy snow this weekend, Mike and I found a window of flyable weather and headed to the airport.  I was the only one flying, I assume due to the high and gusty winds.  I had the whole St. Catharines Airspace to myself.  Just to be silly, I radioed the tower a few times and asked for a traffic update.  The only plane up there was moi but it was nice to hear him say my position.  We didn’t go too far since we could already see the snow coming in over Grimsby.  We flew over to check out the Queenston Heights monument.  Then, slightly east of the Niagara River (into the States, which is fine to do without a flight plan, as long as you’re not landing there).  That’s us heading north so Canada is on the left.

Back to the empty airport, we flew over the Outlet Mall to see how busy it was.  We were planning on going there next:

Alas!  Other air traffic spotted just after we landed:

When I was at the PEN Centre with Jan, I saw a girl with the coolest boots.  I hate buying shoes and don’t typically notice them on other people, but these were really nice.  I asked her where she bought them and she said over at the Niagara-On-The-Lake Outlet Mall.  I hate buying shoes and now I’m making a special trip somewhere to get ones that I really don’t need, but they’re so nice!  I was quite happy I found them but then there was a quandary.  I wasn’t expecting three colour choices.  Black, grey and brown.  They fit perfectly and were surprisingly comfy – but which colour between the black and grey?  They were both staring at me – right through to my sole (hehehe!).  Welcome home, my friends!

I feel like such a rebel but considering I only buy shoes every two to three years, I don’t feel super guilty.   Just call me Sparkle-paws!

Today’s symptoms: Felt kinda meh today but that’s because I’ve mostly been awake since 3:30.  My really bad nights are still getting fewer and further between, which has been quite nice since this insomnia journey started many months ago.  From the lack of sleep, felt quite drained, bad headache and just generally blah.  Tomorrow is going to be much better.

Where Are The Sunbathers?

I was lucky enough to head out for another flight recently.  It’s always nice when I can do more than one in a week – rare though (health and weather).  I first flew over my little mother’s house.  Being as tiny as she is, I really had to look hard to see her waving from her driveway:

After our “visit” I headed south to the Lake Erie shoreline.  It was only about -7.  Where were all the sunbathers?

People in Niagara are really getting soft!  Did a few touch and go’s when I got to the Airport.  I was heckled by the Tower guys, despite good landings.  Hehehe!  I went up and beat them up…..errrrrr…..I mean visited them later.  First, called the Fuel Garcon and had Vyc filled.

I asked him to just charge the fuel to one of the Flying Club planes, but I don’t think he went for it.

I had a joyous visit with Jan (on the ground!) this week.  Speaking of ground, I think the Town dude who plows the sidewalks needs to work on his aim.  What a mess:

I’m sure Jan and her neighbour are going to have fun fixing that in the Spring.  Geesh.  Something else she needs to fix is her shoe:

Can’t take her anywhere!

On a final note, does anyone remember these awesome scissors?  I had a pair when I was a kid.

I love how her hip and arm dislocates with each snip.

Today’s symptoms: I had a pretty decent night last night.  What a difference it makes physically after I’ve slept well.  After a few cruddy nights in a row, my MS symptoms are always much worse.  The main complaint for today was a bad headache that didn’t start to subside until a few hours ago.  I guess better late than never.