Walking

 When I used to live in this city, a million years ago now, I walked everywhere.  We all did.  A big family of walkers, we were.  We were not well off, and the one car we had was for my father to get to work in.  This meant that for most of my youngest years if anyone who wasn't Dad wanted to get anywhere, we walked.  Why didn't we take the bus? I have no idea.

I try to patch together these memories sometimes.  At one point there was a school bus. It must have been during middle school, because I went to that school for two years.  I know I walked to elementary school.  I rode the city bus to high school.  It must have been middle school.  But why didn't the school bus stop at my house?  I remember it stopped instead near the elementary school, which was a 15-20 minute walk away.  A funding issue, maybe? Things were different then.

But we walked.  We walked around the old road turned into a trail.  One end had that patch of fossils.  Along the trail were wild grape vines and Mum would collect them for jelly.  My sister and I would walk along the circle path and there was the time we found a huge head of black elderberries and brought them home.  Sometimes we'd find puffball mushrooms in the grass and bring them to Mum to cook.  Much less frequently there might be morels.  She took us to the schoolyard to climb the Rowan trees.  Why were we getting that fruit? I can't remember now.

These were daily walks, not unusual ones.  Our legs were strong and this is what we did.  If we needed groceries we put on backpacks and walked 45 minutes to the store and then home.  If we had a doctor's appointment, or needed new socks, or wanted to get out of the house or be alone with a friend or a boyfriend, we walked.  There weren't places to necessarily walk TO, but we walked.

And then I went to university.  I was even poorer.  I also had fewer places to go, so there was less walking.  I finished school and came home.  My walking had slowed at this point and mostly what I did was ride the bus. Over the years it has waxed and waned.  The small Eastern Canadian town we lived in had no bus. We lived in a slum apartment on one end of town and all of the shopping was at the other end, so we walked.  We walked pushing a stroller, carrying a baby, with all of our groceries, in all weather.  We had no car, so we walked.

The 8 years we spent in Northern Ontario were in a tiny village, and there wasn't really anything to walk to.  We both got out of the habit - now we HAD to drive everywhere.  We grew lazy and plump and more middle class than we'd been before.  

And then the move back to the city where it all began.  

When I started at the first job, I had to walk again.  Up and down the stairs at work, back and forth to the train station many times a day. It was hard to get back into the long-disused habit.  I wore compression socks to help the swelling, reminded myself all day to sit up straight and tighten my abdomen to strengthen my core.  At night, before sleeping,  I lay in bed and wrapped a cord around my foot and carefully stretched out my hamstrings.  It took almost a year to get back in the habit of walking.

After 18 months, I moved on from that first job to another one, closer to the apartment and with better pay.  I walked.  I walked up and down the four flights of stairs to the offices, back and forth to the bus stops again, playing the old mental games I would play in high school: can I beat the bus to the next stop? Can I make it to that street over there in X amount of time?

This story isn't going anywhere, much like my walks, but it just feels good to regain this part if my childhood again.  It's one of the things I missed most about living in a city.  Suddenly, there's somewhere to go to again

Apologists. I guess.

So. Hi.

I'm not dead and I've been thinking about writing again for a while,  and then I saw THIS little nugget pop up on my Facebook feed and, well, IT SEEMED TIMELY.   (Also my friend Jenny is slogging through dealing with the racism rampant in college applications and I feel like fighting.  Here we are.)

I really hate the above conversation for so many reasons but I also kinda feel like I need to pick the reasons apart to fully understand them so welcome to our program today.  

1) The question is "regardless of your worldview, what safeguards do you put in place to ensure you embrace TRUTH rather than what you want to be true?"

I like this question! It has its problems, sure - it's treading pretty close to the idea of truth being a relative concept, 'live your own truth' sort of thing.  Which, I feel like hopefully we are maybe moving away from this as a society a bit?  But I can overlook that and try to read the question as I think it was intended.  Namely, taking away the first part entirely and rephrasing the second part to read "what do you do to ensure that you remain open-minded about the things in your life that matter most to you?"

And THAT'S a GREAT question.  As I have told every faith-curious individual I've come across, God is not afraid of your questions.  Ask them!  Ask the stupid ones and the hard ones and the ones you've asked a dozen times already! Sometimes,  you'll even get answers! Hah.

And I think of this question as so perfect for all of us, regardless of our faiths or jobs or lifestyles.  Hey, that thing you really believe is true? Can it stand up to scrutiny? What if I showed you this other thing over here and it was also very compelling but gave an entirely different answer?

Now we get to the response.  Acknowledging that there are unknowns in the world is important, and certainly it's true that any one human cannot know the sum of all knowledge and furthermore humanity as a whole possesses such a small sliver of what it's possible to know in the grand scheme of creation.  Absolutely accurate. 

Not really RELEVANT to the question though, eh? How do you make sure you're keeping an open mind, Jim? Well, I remember that it is impossible to know everything.   Okay, but it IS possible to know MANY things and if someone has an opinion or fact about a topic and presents it to you...this implies that this is something it's possible TO KNOW ABOUT.  Yes? I mean, it says 'worldview ' right in the question.  We're not arguing about if there are microbes on a planet we haven't discovered yet.  If someone is adamantly defending that topic they are, excuse me, but probably unhinged.  MOST people have OPINIONS about such topics but they aren't using those as utter, undeniable truth - we're talking about your worldview,  the things you believe act as a user manual for who you ARE as a HUMAN.  The things you firmly believe are the TRUTH.  So, yes, obviously it must BE POSSIBLE for you to believe they are true and know they are true if, in fact, you have done both of those things!!!! Ipso facto and what have you.

But sure, okay, that's one way to look at it I guess.  If I can overlook the imperfect wording of the question then I suppose I can rephrase the first answer.  Let's go with:

"What do you do to ensure that you remain open-minded about the things in your life that matter most to you?"

"Well, firstly I try to remember that I don't know everything. I stay humble."

Better? But the second part is possibly even more aggravating.  "I accept there are, currently, some things I believe that are not true."

I think it's safe to say that I do not intentionally believe ANYTHING that is not true.  On some things, I disagree with others.  Absolutely.  I'm not a big dessert fan, for example.  My husband LOVES gummy candies.  That man would eat an entire bag of gummy candies and not think it was too sweet.  We have a difference of opinion. It's not POSSIBLE to know the truth about whether eating an entire bag of gummy candies is 'too sweet' because the idea of 'too sweet' is completely relative.  Likewise, I like to think that on a distant planet there might be microbes, and maybe you don't like to think that.  It's not actually possible for us to know for a fact whether either of us is correct and there are microbes on Planet X. That's okay! It's not a knowable fact so we can both have our ideas and back them up with whatever we like.

But to ACTIVELY believe something that it is possible to know the truth about and which you do know the truth about and yet you cling to the lie is...mentally ill.  It's some sort of strange trauma survival response or possibly a psychotic episode of some type.  If you are presented with the facts, and you look at the facts and say 'I don't agree with those facts' then fine.  Then you're wrong, maybe delusional, but fine.  No one can force you to believe something.  Ask the flat earth society.

But if you are presented with the facts and you say 'upon careful consideration, yes, actually, this is not true.  I recognize this is false and a lie. But I'm going to make a conscious choice to continue believing it because I want to.' Then you are having An Episode Of Some Type.

Again, this is not an opinion question.  This isn't a question that's asking what you do to ensure that you have lots of opinions and you can shift them around.  Because opinions are a dime a dozen- I have different views on the same subject depending what week of the month it is, for heavens sake!

No, this question is asking about The Truth.  It's asking how we keep striving to learn in more detail exactly what is true.  Not what we WANT to be true, but what IS ACTUALLY TRUE.  I want lots of things to be true.  I really reaaaally want them to be true.  But they aren't.  So I can acknowledge that they aren't true and keep holding on to the things that are true despite my own wants, while always holding truth up to the harsh light of each new idea that comes along, or I can be convinced by a new idea and decide it is actually true, but I simply cannot be SANE and acknowledge that something is undeniably true, but that I am going to advocate for the lie.

I'd also just like to point out that the bracketed text is insulting as hell.  What on earth?! Christians are rarely taught to think this way? What way? Discerningly? Intelligently?  Let's just brush aside a few thousand years of the church academic shall we? Come over to my theology library and look me in the face while you tell me I'm not thinking critically.  I dare ya.

Oil Sticks or Something

 Laura Calder is probably one of my favourite cookbook authors- her lemon pasta sauce is fantastic, and she has this honey and herbes de Provence chicken that is life changing. 

But there's this one recipe of hers I've thought about for probably a decade now. The only reason I can come up with for why it's in a cookbook is that she needed to fill up space in the appetizer section.   

I can't remember the exact name.  Probably it's in french anyway but it was something like Herbed Oil Branches or another equally ridiculous-yet-intriguing handle.

Anyway, here's the recipe, more or less:

You get some fancy olive oils and put them in little bowls.  Then you cut up tiny branches of rosemary or thyme or another woody herb, and you instruct your guests to dip the herbs in the oils and suck them clean.

Now I know what you're thinking because I am also thinking this, but no, I'm serious, it's an actual recipe. 

Okay so let me just get this off my chest.

The FIRST problem with this idea is explaining it to your company.  People in Canada are not super into sharing food Quite This Intimately with other guests.  I mean, we get a little nervous around fondue.  People eat from their 'own' sides off a plate of nachos.  This is going to be a tough sell, is what I'm saying. 

The SECOND problem is gravity.  You dip something in oil, and then you lift it out of the oil, see what happens next is the oil drips off! It drips off on tablecloths and cloth napkins and the other herb fronds and everyone's pants and hands and chins and...this becomes the exploding spaghetti with red sauce on a first date problem only with warm oil.

The THIRD problem is of course that woody herbs are strongly scented and flavoured so if the point is to sample a selection of olive oils, y'aint gonna taste much over, say, a big ole branch of rosemary.  Why not bread? What's wrong with a nice baguette???

FOURTHLY  have you seen how much fancy olive oil costs?? This could, no word of a lie, EASILY become a $100+ appetizer.   Easy.

And finally, DOUBLE DIPPING is going to tear its ugly head pretty early in the game no matter how civilized you believe your friends to be.  And it is probably better to just assume it's happening from the start.

Running Things

It's 6:30 in the morning and I'm commuting to work. I keep getting passed by joggers.  Finally I wake up enough to ask myself...

Who ARE these people??

Seriously.  They are almost always young, so not retired people.  They are obviously not disabled physically, and statistically can't all be disabled in a non- physical way, so these are working age adults who almost certainly have jobs. This is not a new sport for them - they are wearing special running clothes and shoes, and moving with ease and speed.  The clothes look expensive - these people have the money to purchase expensive clothes and shoes.  They are healthy looking, clean and fit, even the middle aged ones; they're eating well and often and they're frequently working out and obviously doing things like maintaining hair routines and such.

Despite the majority appearing to fall within child bearing/rearing age, they never have children with them.  No strollers, no kids on bikes alongside, no teens keeping up with dads, nothing.

And they're alone, always, not in groups or with accessories proclaiming allegiance to a running team or competition.  To all appearances these are 25-50 year old, well-to-do, employed people who are doing this for enjoyment or general exercise and not for team training.  

Which brings me back to the original question.   Who ARE these people? Who, at 6:30 in the morning on a Wednesday, in the prime working and parenting years, is free at for a run? No children to get ready for school, no lunches to be made or cars to be warmed up or commuting to do.  Or if there are children, then the resources to not care for them, at peak waking up time, on a school day.  And not just once but CONSISTENTLY.  Over and over again, extensive running time alone when others are working.  What jobs do these people have?  What lives must they live?  How much do those shoes COST??

I've decided they must be successful self-employed tech people.  Childless. Or maybe medical staff who work shifts in the afternoon and have nannies? Or professors, possibly.  Real estate agents.   Maybe they all look the same to me but are actually different people?

Another reality, running alongside my own.

I'm Not Fighting With My Gastroenterologist.

 I can't decide if I'm more miffed by my recent gastroenterology appointment, or by any number of other things - so let's just start with the doctor stuff.

I left a recent appointment with a pamphlet that essentially says I can't digest food properly anymore because 'people today eat too much processed food'.  And that makes me mad.  

1) Almost no one is able to eat a low-processed food diet in urban Canada.  For one thing, it would require access to fresh or naturally fermented/dried produce year round, which might be available but hardly within the budgetary constrictions of everyday workers.  I can get dried apricots at the grocery store, but they're processed with sulphites.  I can buy tomatoes in January, but they came from California in a polluting truck and were probably sprayed with stuff and coated with things and genetically modified to withstand the trip.  I can buy pickles, but they're not natural pickles - they're in a jar, with salt and sugar and citric acid to keep them crispy and lots of other stuff.  And were prolly made in Sri Lanka or something anyway.

2) Which brings me to the fact that unless you are consuming organic, heritage, non-gmo, local foods in close to their natural state...guess what?  You're eating processed foods.  You think bananas are supposed to look like that?  You think cows naturally evolved to give dozens of gallons of milk a day?  You think corn, what, comes out of the husk in cans or something?  Don't be absurd.

3) And just exactly what is TOO MUCH processed food even supposed to mean, anyway?  I can't eat homemade bread because the flour was, after all, genetically modified wheat that has been sifted, likely bleached, probably sterilized, bagged, and shipped to me?  I shouldn't have strawberries in the winter?  Or is this about sugar and salt?  Is this about the nefarious 'chemicals' of...whatever chemicals we're all worried about at the moment?

4) And FURTHERMORE, I would like to point out that I DON'T eat too much processed food ANYWAY, thankyouverymuch.  I'm not sitting on the sofa scarfing down a bag of cheezits for supper, ma'am.  I have oatmeal or eggs for breakfast, everyday.  I have a piece of fruit, some rice or vegetables, and some kind of protein for lunch - leftovers from supper, or maybe another egg, or a can of fish.  I have meat and vegetables for supper.  I drink tea, coffee, water and watered down cranberry juice.  That's it.  Every once in a while I have dessert.  Every once in a while I have a piece of toast or something.  Sometimes I have a handful of seeds or nuts if they're in the house.  I have a weakness for a cup of Ovaltine and some wine gums if they're hanging around.  Once a month I eat a few slices of pizza with my kids.

5) Hrumph.

Image credit: Marc Noorman via Unsplash

A Passage To India

I've finished A Passage To India.  Otherwise known by its alternate title - In Which Everyone Is Disappointed By Everyone Else: A Story About Sex Where Absolutely No One Has Sex.

And I should warn you - I'm going to spoil the book thoroughly for you.

We open with Adela Quested arriving in India with Mrs. Moore, ostensibly to see if she really likes Mrs. Moore's son Ronny enough to marry him.  And are introduced to Dr. Aziz, a handsome young Muslim doctor in Chandrapore who is much too flighty and poetical to know his own mind.  Aziz was disappointed in his first marriage to a woman who he thought rather plain and ugly and who nevertheless gave him three healthy children and acted the part of a caring wife until she died bearing child #3, at which point Aziz seems to have changed his mind about her and decided she was much too wonderful for him and he will never find her match.  He dumps his children on some relatives and devotes himself to being a doctor, writing poetry, making beautiful statements about things, and occasionally thinking about visiting brothels.

Miss Quested was disappointed by life in England, and is subsequently disappointed by Ronny, who elicits no passion in her whatsoever.  She's referred to many times as prudish, prim, and a cold fish - but I never really saw this in her character.  To me she seemed ignorant, or maybe harshly naive is a better reading.  Intentionally blind.  She wants to see 'the real India'.  Meanwhile Mrs. Moore takes her shoes off when visiting a mosque and because of this gesture earns the undying affection of Dr. Aziz.  As a favor to her, he arranges a picnic to the nearby Marabar Caves for her, Miss Quested (who had a moment of passionate hand-holding in the back seat of a car with Ronny and has agreed to marry him after all), and various other people including his new best friend the British Dr. Fielding.

Here let's take a side step.  Dr. Fielding and Dr. Aziz have essentially nothing in common but somehow seem to spend a lot of time together.  I can't help but wonder if Forster had any male friendships that weren't sexual in nature, because he seems rather at a loss for how to write this one.  And a great many thinly veiled moments of oddness exist between them.  Dr. Aziz joins Dr. Fielding as he gets dressed, for example.  Fielding mentions later in the story that it was irrelevant that Aziz visited brothels because everyone does when they're younger.  There's a lot of...well, no actually there aren't a lot of layers.  There's one layer, and it's laid on nice and thick.

So, the picnic.

No one knows what exactly happens to the two women during the picnic.  At one point Mrs. Moore feels claustrophobic in a cave and talks about people touching her.  When she gets out of the cave she discovers it was just the normal crowd.  The weird fleshy thing she felt on her face was the hand of a babe in arms.  All was nothing.  Aziz and Miss Quested and a guide go on to see the next cave without her and have a deeply awkward conversation where Miss Q asks Aziz if he has more than one wife, being Muslim and all.  And wants to know 'what marriage is like'.  He's insulted, and dips into a cave for a moment to collect himself.  When he comes back out, Miss Quested has gone down the hill to see a friend newly pulled up in a car.  The two drive off together.

On arriving home from the picnic, Aziz is arrested.  Miss Quested has accused him of accosting her in a cave.

At this point the deeply racist but tightly controlled narrative spins out and this is where Forster, I think, really comes into his own.  The only British person on Aziz's side is Fielding, who insists that Adela must be mistaken.  The pre-trial tensions rise.  Adela is apparently 'taken ill' and cannot see anyone.  She's haunted by an 'echo', which also mimics what Mrs. Moore says had bothered her in the crush of bodies in the first cave.  We're back to her thinking she can't marry Ronny after all.  Aziz is in jail, but then released on bail, and then arrested again for driving a car into a ditch.  Things are spinning out of control and the story ceases to make any real logical sense.  Is the vigorously anti British lawyer a good idea or not?  Is the Nawar Bandahur losing his title?  Is Mrs. Turton going to utterly and completely lose her ever loving mind over this frothing indignity to English femininity?

Wait now...Adela is saying no one ever touched her.  It was all just horrible.  Horrible.  But they just propositioned her.  Except she can't remember what they said.  But they broke her binocular strap.  Or, or maybe they didn't.  Could it have been the guide, and not Aziz after all?  Could she have been wrong?  Is she sick?  

The trial begins - on one side, the Indians.  Ready for a fight, and to defend Aziz.  On the other side, the British.  Already victorious before a word has been said.

And Adela stands up and declares she was wrong, it was not Aziz, it was no one.  She had hallucinated the whole thing.

Now of course everyone is furious with everyone else and nothing at all has been resolved.  Aziz is filled with hate towards the British and Adela in particular, who he claims would have been lucky to have been accosted in a cave at all, seeing as she's so ugly it might have been her only opportunity for human affection.  Mrs. Moore has gone from the intelligent and loving elderly lady and turned to a demented, bitter harridan of a woman who is turned into a saintly figure by the people of Chandrapore despite having left before the trial even began and conveniently died at sea, saving us all from having to deal with her abrupt about-face and her from having to deal with her other two exhausting unmarried adult children back in England.  Ronny, who stuck by Adela through her role as 'besmirched maiden', is struck by the thought that this woman is now everyone's enemy and also a turncoat so informs her that the engagement is off...again.

Fielding misses a parade in Aziz's honour and this is the beginning of the end for the two of them.  Things spiral downward in every corner.  Suspicion kills all the relationships.  Aziz cannot understand how Fielding could have offered Miss Quested refuge at the medical college when the mobs were out for blood post-trial.  He can't understand why Fielding would continually insist on Aziz releasing Adela from her financial responsibilities to Aziz in the way of court fees and payment for destroying his good name.  Fielding can't see how Aziz could be so ungentlemanly.  Aziz can't see how Fielding wouldn't tell him he was having an affair with Adela (he wasn't).  Fielding can't believe Aziz would accuse him of such a thing.  And on and on the tiny misunderstandings mount.  

And eventually, the inevitable.  Miss Quested has returned to Britain, of course.  And Dr. Fielding has been called back to England temporarily.  And Aziz knows...he just knows that of course the Dr. will marry Miss Quested. That perhaps that was why he had been so adamant that Aziz release her financially, so that he himself would get her inheritance.  And yet at even at the end we're not given a clear 'winner' or 'loser'.  The holy bees never attack those pure at heart, but they attack Fielding and his brother in law.  Fielding must be evil, then.  But it comes out that he never married Miss Quested after all, and Aziz has been petty and ridiculous all this time.  Aziz must be in the wrong.  Misunderstandings....misunderstanding...

Fielding was no cad - he truly believed in Aziz, and he truly believed that Adela had been honestly sick and hallucinated and shouldn't be made destitute in recompense for her mistake.  Aziz was no cad - he behaved honorably, and meant no harm to anyone, and attempted to please all around him.  The evil in the story was the situation itself, where community was naturally pitted against community and there could be no winners.  Where the only 'cross cultural' friendships had to end in death (Aziz and Mrs. Moore) or eternal estrangement (Aziz and Fielding).  There could be nothing else.

Of course the irony of it all is that in wanting to see the real India, Miss Quested sparked the most defining Indian thing of the time - the indignity of colonial rule.  

***********************************************************************************

By rights the story should end there, since multi-generational engrained prejudices tend not to be wrapped up neatly at the end of stories.  In this case, though, Forster gives us all a break of sorts in the final chapter.  Aziz and Fielding reconcile.  Aziz writes to Adela, finally forgiving her.  Things are not the same, but they are mended with the stitches showing.  I appreciate this immensely as I'm rather a completist at heart, but at the same time I fully recognize that it doesn't make a 'better' story.  It does give us a bit of hope, though.  Maybe that's a good starting point.

A Homeschool Reading Conversation With the 11yo

 The 11yo and I discussed books the other day on a walk.

"You see, there are books you want to read, and books you should read.  Sometimes the books you want to read are also good books that you should read.  And sometimes they aren't.  Sometimes the books you should read are books you also really want to read.  And sometimes they're not.

There are books that are 'good' books because they are beautifully written, and explore themes in insightful or eloquent ways.  But you may not personally like those books.  You not liking them doesn't mean you shouldn't read them, necessarily, because they may very well be books that are worth reading.  Books that should be read.  Even if they aren't everyone's cup of tea."

I sympathize with the desire not to read those books.  It's a standing joke that the only way I ever got through Thackeray's Vanity Fair was by pausing periodically to smack it against the radiator.  There are some titles that I really don't want to read and probably won't just because they will utterly destroy me.  I put titles such as Toni Morrison's Beloved in that category.  But I don't not read those books because they're bad books.  They're excellent books.  Books that should be read, and that readers (shall I be daring?) have a responsibility to read.

It's true.  The way that good, true, beautiful things are guarded from one generation to the next isn't just by collecting them in hermetically sealed vaults, but by experiencing them yourself.  If you can read, and enjoy the delicious freedom of literacy and access to all the free books you could ever read courtesy of your library, I would say that you have a duty not to squander that gift.  Read the good books.  Hide the stories in your heart.

Image Credit Alfons Morales via Unsplash

Day off, Giraffes, The Worst of the Great Readers.

Image credit: Daniel Hansen via Unsplash

1) I booked today off work because of having a medical procedure done yesterday morning and being informed that I shouldn't 'make any business decisions or sign contracts' for 24 hours afterwards.  Well, I don't really do either of those things at my job, but I also don't need much of an excuse to take a day off apparently, and so I got a long weekend.

And by long weekend I mean I went to pick up a free bag of cat food being offered through the local neighbourhood buy nothing site, then went to visit my 82yo mother in law for her birthday and ran an errand for her, and then came home and made a shepherd's pie, two loaves of banana bread, a pork cottage roll with vegetables, a stock pot of spaghetti sauce and the filling for cabbage rolls.

Honestly I felt fine anyway and could probably just have gone to work against doctor's orders, but as I said, I'm not one to look a gift vacation in the...mouth?  That sort of fell apart there a bit at the end, didn't it?

2) Best headline today?

Image credit: Jeremiah Del Mar via Unsplash

Asteroid half the size of a giraffe strikes

Earth off coast of Iceland

3) I'm not sure exactly how my book reading has fallen so very much to pieces these days. It might be that I usually read on the commute to and from work, and now I play a game of Wordle, and then a game of Quordle, and THEN sometimes a game of Semantle. None of which is a problem in and of itself but all together does not give me much in the way of reading time. Probably should stop playing word games and looking up recipes I'll never have time to make and gardens I'll never have space to grow and lessons I'll never be able to teach...and just read something edifying.

4) Actually I did successfully read one book this week (it sounds so strange to say that. One book. A solitary book. In a WEEK.) and it was Brother Andrew's classic - God's Smuggler. Not the first time I've read it but it remains riveting and fascinating and ranks up there with Father Ciszek's With God In Russia as one of my favourite mid-20th century Christian memoirs.
I'll go to bed now, at 8pm, and read a chapter of something before sleep. Probably. Sigh. It's a season.

Book Review - Winterhouse

 

Winterhouse was well-received in middle-school book circles, so when the current 9yo and 7yo suggested it as a read aloud, I said yes.  Here's what we thought!

The Good:

This is a very imaginative and interesting story with a lot of unique points to it.  You can tell that the author has researched his genre well, and is very familiar with other modern novels in the same age group - I'm thinking of Book Scavenger, Mr. Lemoncello's Library, etc.  The characters are fairly straightforward and don't necessarily grow during the story, but are good illustrations of their types.  I appreciated that between the two younger characters, the emotional roles were reversed from traditional tropes; the girl was bossy, difficult and authoritative while the boy was biddable, quiet and reserved.  The plot was intriguing and we honestly were not sure what would happen next, despite numerous clues and hints given, and there were lots of little rabbit trails that wound off into the distance, and that sort of thing appeals to us immensely.

The Bad:

I am usually pretty permissive about fantasy elements in fiction when it comes to children's books.  Magical creatures, witches and goblins and elves, make believe and pretend is all generally fine.  Which is good, especially if you're reading this level of book - because a lot of fiction for children involves elements of fantasy.

But where I start to feel uncomfortable is when the fantasy becomes dark, and it isn't always clear that it's still 'pretending '.  I felt this way, if you recall, reading The Boundless.  The line between fact and fiction was faintly drawn at points, and so when the story turned dark, it was harder to separate the truth easily in a child's mind.

And here we have the main issue with Winterhouse.  It wasn't dark in a deliciously creepy but child friendly way,  not was it 'traditional fairy tale dark', where evil is acknowledged to exist,  but is ultimately overcome by good.  This was just...weirdly dark for a kids' novel.  There's a coffin shaped box holding the half dead body of a dark arts practitioner that's carried around by her daughter in the hope of restoring the soul to the body.  The children are chased through the woods by that same disembodied soul, dark arts symbols are etched on a bridge, etc. etc.

Like so many modern books advertised for the 8-12yo set, the actual storyline is fine for the age group, while the content is probably too old.  

Book Review - The Thief Knot

This is the third book in the popular Greenglass House series.  In this one, we're following Marzana, who is introduced to us in book 2, The Ghost Of Greenglass House.   Marzana lives in a section of the city of Nagspeake called The Liberty of Gammerbund, which functions as a self-ruling sanctuary, and is populated by thieves and criminals of the more Robin Hood type.  Good thieves, you know.  Fighting against the tyranny of customs agents Deacon  and Morvengarde.  Smugglers,  dealers in information,  forgers, magicians,  sneaks.

Marzana, however, seems to think nothing interesting ever happens to HER in the Liberty, and so when a girl from Nagspeake is kidnapped and rumors start that she's been hidden in the Liberty,  Marzana disobeys her parents instructions to stay safe, and puts together a crack crew of friends to find her.  They call themselves The Thief Knot.

This was probably my favourite of the Greenglass House books so far.  The Liberty is wonderfully magical and bizarre and the storyline is fantastic.   There is more language in this one than the other two, and also a kiss on the cheek, but nothing that couldn't be edited if you needed it to be.

In the previous two books in this series we've read a lot about Milo's struggles with his adoption and his panic attacks.  In this book, we get the interior life of Marzana,  who feels left out from her parents' other lives as smugglers and underground agents, and who also has social anxiety and a fear of saying the wrong thing.   The author never gives us pat answers about these mental health issues or relationship complications,  but somehow still keeps the stories moving forward and the characters showing growth. 

My only real issue with this story focuses on a scene where Marzana expresses herself to the rest of the Thief Knot, in a totally justified way, and yet the other characters end up 'trumping' her painful outburst with issues of their own.  It struck me as a little thoughtless. 

In short, we loved it!

January 1, 2022 - The Great Reading List Re-Cap

 Happy New Year, y'all!

As a friend of mine mentioned on F-book, "If Betty White didn't want to live in 2022, this doesn't bode well for the rest of us."

My fingers are too worn out to be crossed, but please, Lord, let it be better.  It doesn't have to be perfect, but not 2021 level.

ON TO THE BOOKS!

According to Goodreads, I read 95 books this year.  My goal had been 100.  I'm pretty impressed with myself that I accomplished what I did, actually!  As always, my definition of a 'book' for the purposes of adding it to my list is fairly broad.  I don't count picture books or young children's books that I read aloud to the children.  I don't count collections of comics (unless I read the Complete Works of something), or anything that isn't a substantial example of its genre.  I do count graphic novels, YA books, stuff I read aloud, stuff I pre-read for the kids, stuff I read myself, e-books, print books, and I'd also count audio books if I ever listened to them, which I don't.

My shortest book was A Girl Called Echo - a graphic novel exploring Indigenous time travel.  It clocked in at 48 pages.

My Longest book was Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers - 501 pages!

32 of the books were classified as 'children's' or 'young adult' books and 63 were 'adult' books.  I never really understand those arbitrary designations but there you have it.

20 were nonfiction, and 75 were fiction.

My LEAST favourites of the year were these ones:

The Dan Harris book was a long, whiny ridiculous piece of garbage, and I wrote a fairly scathing review about it.  

Olive Kitteridge was very well written but just so harsh and dark and sad that it didn't appeal to me at all.  

The NYPL book was full of neither peculiar questions nor practical answers, thereby negating its whole point of being, and I just didn't like Tony Hawks.  No good reason, just thought it was a silly book is all.

My MOST favourite (new reads) were:

I hadn't picked up a Nancy Mitford before and I thought she was hilarious, witty and cutting in the best possible way.  The Pursuit of Love is the first in a trilogy (I only read the first two) and I thought it was the best.

Piranesi was absolutely outstanding.  I loved...I loved everything about it.  It was a little creepy, which usually doesn't appeal to me, but honestly if ever a storyline required an atmospheric eeriness, this was that story.

Gaudy Night is one of four Sayers that feature the Wimsey/Vane relationship prominently, and again I managed to read three of those books and thought this was the best of the ones I read.

Ella Minnow Pea had been on my to read list for years now, and I was so taken with it and how the author managed to not handle the topics he did with a heavy hand, which would have been all to easy.

Twice this past year I challenged myself to read a book 'blind'.  The first time, I went into a store and selected a novel based only on the cover illustration, with no other knowledge.  That gave me this one: 

 A very disturbed family consisting to two parents who put on performance art pieces and their two children, Child A and Child B, unwillingly roped into the pieces and eventually betrayed utterly by themselves, their relationships, their friends and finally, their family.  Imagine if The Royal Tenenbaums had all been deeply mentally ill and psychotic.  It was...it was a different book than I usually read, that's for sure.

For the second, I actually wrote an article about choosing a book totally without knowing what it was about.  Since The Family Fang was chosen for the cover, which gave me some control, I ended up picking this one by using Libby Overdrive and writing down the first five titles that came up under 'popular'.  Then I had my husband randomly pick a title.  Which is how I read this one:

I haven't read a Moriarty before.  I find it interesting that these sorts of plots are so popular amongst women - it's all spousal abuse and cheating husbands and disagreeable children.  Not really the sort of things I find myself drawn towards, frankly.  I mean, ANOTHER high society murder of rich white people?  It's all not really my cup of tea, I guess.  But I read it.  It wasn't a bad book.

And finally, only 8 of the books were read aloud to the children this year, which is my most disappointing statistic.  It was a rough year for read-alouds.  Let's hope that changes in 2022!

December 29th

Credit: Ivana Cajina via Unsplash

It occurred to me that this, this Right Here, is the first real time off I've had since I started working.  There were two days when I had to be absent while taking a child for a Covid test and awaiting the negative results, and there was one time I left a little early in order to sign our lease, and again a day I left a little early to arrange passport paperwork.  None of these really count as 'time off' in my books.  There were several days in a row I took off in order to be home with the children while David relaxed in the hospital pre-heart surgery.  Very relaxing, that.  But this time right now, this is my first real 'vacation'.

I'm spending it catching up on stuff.  

One of the first issues on the docket has been The Parking Problem.  It goes a little something like this.  We pay a lot of money for an apartment the size of a sneeze.  Said apartment does NOT come with parking.  Shocker.  You can, however, PAY more money on TOP of your rent for a parking space.  I believe it's something like $120 a month more for an outdoor space and $170 for an indoor space.  Something like that.  Whatever it is, it's  insane.  The outside spots won't actually FIT our minivan and I don't think it would be possible to back the sucker up.  The indoor spots are beside the dumpsters and are, if this is possible, even smaller than the outside ones. Smelly and Miniscule.

So...I went on a search for a Better Option, and I discovered the Baptist Church just down the road rented out their parking spots, which were the size of ACTUAL parking spots, for $90.  It means walking about 2 minutes down the road, but still...I'll do a lot of stuff to save $30.  The thing is that to get a parking spot we had to do a song and dance.  First, get them to respond to our enquiries, which finally happened.  They sent us the list of information they needed to create a parking pass, plus the email address to transfer the money to for the first month, plus the waiver owe had to sign and return electronically.

Issue the first!  No ink in the printer.  Off I go in my pajamas to the office supply store and back on the bus.  Why the bus, you ask?  BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE PARKING SO THE CAR IS AT MY MOTHER IN LAW'S SO WE DON'T GET TOWED.  Back home, install the ink, print the waiver, signy signy.

Issue the second!  The scanner driver has been deleted by...someone?  Something?  Who even knows.  Spend time trying to get scanner to work, can't figure it out, attempt to take a picture of the waiver instead.  Can only take a picture on my phone, so email to David, who then attaches to the email.

Issue the third!  What...is our license plate number again?  Dig out insurance paperwork, dig out everything, cannot find it!  Twenty minutes later...there it is at last.

Filled out, sent, deposit e-transferred.  Now we wait to hear back, I suppose.  In the meantime today was Do All The Laundry And Pay All The Bills Day.  It's my least favourite day.  One child complained that I was using their computer time to pay bills, and I gave them a nice, motherly lecture on how I was paying hydro...so the computer would work.  And paying internet...so the computer would work.  And paying renter's insurance...so the computer had somewhere to live.  Obviously they listened intently, understood intrinsically what I was getting at, and have changed their ways for the better.  They did NOT, clearly, roll their eyes at their mother and say "Yes, YES I GET IT".  Because that would be wrong.

December 26th

It's Dec. 26th, so I suppose it's acceptable at this point to reflect on the challenge I set myself to read 100 books this year. To cut right to the chase - I have not succeeded in doing this. I think I may be in the mid-90s, mind you, but I have not read 100 yet. WILL IT HAPPEN? Stay tuned.

Christmas this year is also strange. No tree (no room in our small apt.) no decorations (all still in storage) no family gatherings (Covid) and no 'usual things' like a Christmas eve service, an Advent wreath, or a walk to see the lights (mostly because I'm working so much that nothing else fits in our spare time) means that it felt just like every other day. I imagine it was an authentic 'non christian' Christmas, actually. All distilled to a dead bird and some wrapped sundries and the funny stories of our rude or elderly relatives.

We've added a hamster to the menangerie, which now consists of two adults, three children, an 18yo cat, a standard poodle, and a small, tyrannical rodent named Peaches. Peaches likes to poop on everything, and pee especially on me. Charming creature, really, and the absolute apple of his mistress' 7yo eye.

And finally, here are some pictures of the sky:

August 22

 Let's talk a bit about this garden I found.

1) I have no idea if I'm allowed to actually be in this garden.  I could ask, but where would the fun be in that?  Also I wouldn't really know who to ask, and also they might say no, which would be awful, and ALSO ALSO it SAYS 'Community Garden' RIGHT THERE on the sign.  I'm community, ain't I?

2) Whoever planted this garden subscribed to the 'scatter wide and deep' philosophy of plant management.  There are lovely, deep garden boxes filled with soil and....plants.  I'm not a horticulturist but my best guess is several packages of seeds marked 'salad mix' liberally spread amongst the tomatoes, beans, cucumbers and such, and a healthy dose of "Wait!  Doesn't Susan have a herb garden?  Ask her if she'd donate anything!"  Nothing has been watered much at all this summer, or possibly ever; you can tell from the lack of plant growth and the paltry returns.  The sage seems happy, mind you.  You know you're a negligent gardener when the sage is insane.

3) I'm not harvesting anything, because again...not my garden.  But I am making some executive decisions - y'all can't tell me you want to eat lettuce that flowered, went to seed, and then partially died.  I'm pullin' it.

4) I noticed tonight that some of the plants are trees with tags on them.  The tags read 'Serviceberry', and I happen to know those are edible.  The trees are too young to produce fruit, mind you, but they seem pretty healthy and are about 5' tall - so perhaps next year?

5) The children have taken to calling it 'The Secret Garden'.  It is, isn't it?  It will stay a secret, because we can only go in the evenings once the temperature has cooled enough to be outside, and by that point no one seems to be around.

Image by @leafoureaux via Unsplash

The Return

We moved, and we are here.  The move itself was long and hard and is blessedly already fading into memory and the edges of it are becoming fuzzy.  We arrived in the city, and stayed about 6 weeks with David's mother, which was also very challenging for everyone.  And then we signed a lease for a very tiny apartment, and we moved here.  Some of our stuff is here.  Much of it is not here and I still feel like we're camping out a bit with mattresses on the floor and such.  It's slow.

I've been at my job for about 2 months now.  It's fine - I don't love it but I don't hate it with a passion or anything.  I do my work, I come home, I get paid.  

***********************************************************************************

A few years ago I had a bout with agoraphobia.  For a few months it was almost impossible to leave my house, and even within my home I felt unsteady, unsafe and uncertain.  It was a deeply unhappy time for our whole family, and although I got better, it left its mark on me.

I feel that same unsteady, uncertain, unsafe feeling these days as well.  To some extent, this makes sense; after all everything in my life is completely different than it used to be a short time ago, and the pressures on me are fairly intense.  Especially intense for someone who lives with an anxiety disorder.  I have had brief, fleeting moments of wanting to hide, wanting to run away, wanting to curl up and not answer the phone or the door or the emails.  They have passed, but they might return.  I've also been very sad and depressed and overwhelmed these past two months - feelings that have been increasing as time goes on.  Some of this is likely my over-extending myself, some of it is my own perfectionism, some of it is probably forgetting to take medications on time, the extreme heat and humidity that make sleeping almost impossible, the lack of access to my counsellor, my current convenience-food-based diet, and any number of other factors.  

I've lived with my anxiety and depression for decades, and I know my brain and body very well by this point.  I don't **think** I'm heading for another downward spiral, but I know the signs to look for if I am.  Some days I feel like I have some space, some margin still there on the edges, and some days I feel like I'm moving around covered by a wet wool blanket.  It will pass, but it will pass like a glacier, leaving lots of potholes behind it.

What does a Christian do in this sort of situation, you wonder?  It's probably easier to say what a Christian SHOULDN'T do.  Or perhaps what I shouldn't do.  I shouldn't berate myself for a prayer life that has been stripped to the bare bones of "Lord, help, help, help".  I shouldn't refuse the small, insignificant step towards the light because it isn't the big, impressive one.  I shouldn't feel guilty for realizing that in every relationship, even one with the divine, a time comes when one party is completely coasting.  I am coasting.  God knows this, and I know this, and it is okay.  Eat the food, even if the food is a spoonful of cheez whiz.  Drink the liquid, even if the liquid is flat diet coke.  Sleep, even if you sleep in the clothes you wore all day.  Live the next day, the next step, the next breath - and do so, if necessary, cranky, unshowered, ignorant and tearful.  Coast, dear friend - it's okay.

All the same, I'm not quite so mired in shadow at the moment that I can't feel a desire for joy.  I've been trying to grasp tiny slivers of it as I see them.  I've been walking the dog, because exercise and sunshine are good for me, and walking down all the hidden slices of the city.  Today I found a secret garden, and this evening I went to it as well.  I have no idea if it's allowed, but I dug my hands in the dirt and weeded the beds and straightened the vines.  We'll go back tomorrow and do it again, breathing in the dirt smell, until someone tells us not to.  Considering the neglected state the vegetables were in, I think it's more likely they'll return to clear the beds in October and discover with amazement that 'fairies' were there before.  I might even hang up a bird feeder.

And I find joy in writing, so there may very well be more blogging around here for the next little while, as I process all the changes and come to a new equilibrium.  

Even more discussion on moving, plus bonus memories and a horrible trip down memory lane!

Image by Handiwork NYC on Unsplash

Remember how in my last post I talked about how we would be moving by the end of June, but it might be sooner?  Remember that?

Well, it's sooner.  Actually, it's the day after tomorrow.

I have a lot of Leaving Feelings, but I don't want to sift through them right now, surrounded by boxes of all of my things.  Instead, I want to talk about Returning Feelings.

David and I left our hometown approximately 13-14 years ago now.  We moved from there to a bigger city, and then out East to a mid-sized town where we lived first in a terrible apartment, and second in a lovely house.  Then we moved all the way back to our home province, but 10 hours from our hometown, and lived here for almost 8 years.  We've been back a handful of times over the years, but never for more than a week or so, and always very much in the form of a guest, busy seeing everyone who wants to see us before disappearing for another year.

When we left, everything was different.  Public transit, buildings, bus routes, restaurants, parks, rules, everything.  Everything was different.  The city is still familiar to me in its essence, but not in form.  I know where Main Street Mall is, for example, but all the stores inside have changed, the doors open on different streets, the employees are all complete strangers, the merchandise is foreign, and I can't figure out how to drive or take a bus there.  You know, other than that - it's all exactly as I left it!

Despite this, David and I turned to each other today and said 'We're going...HOME!"

The things I've been worried about have not happened...yet.  The children are still excited and not at all worried about moving to a city of over a million from a village of 600 souls.  The cat and dog are not vomiting with stress over their home turning into a maze of crates.  So far, we haven't broken or lost anything desperately important.  Things always look like they aren't going to get done in time, but I think that if I'm being reasonable I could admit that actually we seem to be essentially on schedule.

"That's pessimistic, Amy!" you say.

Ah, friend, I see I haven't explained to you the true horror of my moving history.

Many years ago, David and I lived in a small apartment over a pizza shop.  At some point the smell of smoke, the police knocking on our door, and the huge breakup fights in the bagel shop across the street lost whatever draw they had once had, and we decided to move.  We found an apartment we now remember as The Hottest Apartment In Existence - because there was a south facing WALL of windows that didn't open and made the space equivalent to living on the surface of the sun.  Anyway, it was a big step up in the world, and we packed to move.  Unfortunately, neither of us read our lease very clearly, and I thought we had until midnight on the last day of the month, but it was actually NOON.  We were in a total panic of throwing things in boxes, in fact the new tenants even arrived and we had to yell 'we're sorry!  We're leaving!'  All of our stuff ended up outside as we desperately called everyone we knew and split all of our belongings up into half a dozen houses while we waited 24 hours to access the new place.  My hands were raw and bleeding and so swollen that when we had to attend a wedding (the day we moved.  I know.  No, I do know how insane that sounds) David had to cut my food for me.

Now, unfortunately, that was only the first in a long, long string of terrible moves.  The move to the East coast actually took a total of about a month and involved me, newly pregnant, having to hand over all of our savings to a slum landlord.  That was also the move where we ended up staying in a friend's apartment because the place we had intended to stay, had, in fact, been assured that we could stay in, turned out to not be available more than a night or two.  We ended up putting things in storage and I took an overnight bus to try and interview for a job that I didn't end up getting so we could afford to move and oh my gosh the whole thing was a disaster.

There's the move where we packed our $200+ tv box that had to be returned or we would get charged money we didn't have.  Packed it at the back of the 26' truck.  At the back.  At. the. BACK.  That was the move where we tried to get our dead car onto a tow dolly by rolling it down a hill.  Ah, yes.  I was alone with the two babies at that point, sleeping in a trailer in a friend's driveway.  

Anyway, what I'm getting at here is that this is not a horrible move comparatively!  We have a truck, we have a place to go, we have an income, we have stuff in boxes, we are not having a complete meltdown of epic proportions.  Things are going okay!

I mean, wait and ask me tomorrow.  But right now, it's all alright.

Let's talk about moving!

 I did a little moving update a while ago, but then life kicked my butt so I guess I'm due for yet another one.  These are the questions I'm getting a lot of, and none of them have straightforward answers.  Sigh.

When Are You Leaving?

There is a long answer and a short answer to this.

Okay, so technically our contract ends in August.  That's the short answer.  There's no need for us to leave before the end of our contract, theoretically.

The long answer is: We wanted to give the congregation time to refresh the parsonage.  Repaint, fix things, that sort of stuff.  The district recommended that we give a leaving date a few months ahead of our end of contract.  So we told the church we would be gone at the end of June.  The new minister is now arriving mid-July, which is early than we anticipated.  The church, then, has approximately 2 weeks to do whatever it is they are going to do to the parsonage.  This means that we pretty much HAVE to be gone at the end of June, whereas before there was a certain amount of casual flexibililty where we wouldn't be paid or do work, but if we were a day or two into July or something it wasn't the end of the world.  Now June 30th is a firm, hard stop.

We could leave earlier, though.  In Ontario churches are still not open to the public so all of our in-person services are suspended.  This may end in the next week or so, but it may not.  Since the church doesn't need us for anything, and there is no in-person programming, they would probably be just as happy to stop paying us for the month of June and have us leave earlier and also get more time in the parsonage to work.

Therefore the answer is that we leave sometime in June, no later than the 30th.

Are You Going to Another Church?

I feel pretty confident in saying no.  Or, rather, not right now.  The Wesleyan denomination has a yearly general conference for the district which happens in early summer.  In preparation for this, most transitions (ministers moving around to different churches) happens in the spring.  That time has pretty much passed, and almost no church positions opened up, so there wasn't anything to put our name in to.  What this means is that when we leave here we will no longer be serving actively in ministry.  That will be...weird.  It will be weird.

Where Are You Moving?

People are still asking me this, and I still don't have an answer.  Although I imagine my facial expression is slowly changing with each enquiry.  Here's the best answer I have - David's mother lives in a city 10 hours away from us in Southern Ontario.  Staying in her house is our default plan right now.  We have other applications in the works, and if one of those ends up working out then we might not be with her, and that's quite possible.  But if we leave her without any employment whatsoever, then that is where we are going.

Where Will Your Pets Go?

They will go with us.

Where Will Your Stuff Go?

It will be put in storage.  Our initial plan was to put it in storage in the city where my mother-in-law lives, but actually that's very expensive so we're considering a much cheaper option that is a few hours away.

How Will You Move Everything??

This one is a much asked question, so I'll try to be thorough.  The plan is that our friend A will come to us on Day 1.  He will arrive probably in the afternoon, maybe with his wife K, on his motorcycle, and pick up the moving truck from the depot and bring it to our house.  We'll have supper, and pack the truck, put the motocycle in the moving truck, and then get a decent night's sleep.  In the morning we'll get up early.  David and I will load the kids and pets into our van, and do a last sweep of the parsonage to make sure we've cleaned everything out.  Then we'll start the convoy!  Some combination of peoples will drive various vehicles, probably with A and K in the truck and us in our van, and drive down to the city where A and K live.  They are about 3 hours away from David's mother's home city.  We'll unload the moving truck into a pre-arranged storage facility, and return the truck.  Then we'll all go to A and K's house, and sleep there for the night.  In the morning we'll get up, say goodbye, stick everyone in the van again, and drive to Mother-in-law's house, arriving there before lunch.

Yes, that does sound stressful.
No, I don't want you to help me find a 'less stressful option'.

Then What?

Well, it will be the very end of June/very beginning of July at this point.  We will get work, and then move out of Mother-in-law's house and into our own place.  Then we will go get our things from storage and set up our new home.

Septoplasty & Turbinoplasty - A Very Long and Detailed (And Very Graphic) Account of Surgery

Skip ahead if you don't like details about people get their faces cut open.  Or at least me getting my face cut open.  I dunno.  People have asked me to describe the procedure and what helped/didn't help so this is that.

On May 12th, at about noon, I got a septoplasty and a turbinoplasty to fix my severely deviated septum and let me breathe again.  I wanted it done before we moved in June, and I'd been trying to have this procedure for over two years now.  Here's a good image of the inside of your face.  If it's normal.  Which mine is not.  But anyway, you can see that you have three sets of turbinates and one septum.

Here's a good image of what a normal septum looks like, and a deviated septum.

So a septoplasty is a procedure where you have the septum partly removed (if it is too damaged to save), or straightened.  A turbinoplasty reduces the size of the turbinates inside your nose.  I'm not going to go into details because 1) I don't want to and 2) Just google it but it is gross to watch - FYI

To start with, a lot of people told me how they got these procedures done and they regretted it and everything was awful.  So, that was fun to hear.  You know, when someone tells you that they are getting elective surgery to fix a longstanding and painful problem and that they will now have the chance to breathe normally for the first time in living memory, you don't say how terrible their choices are.  C'mon, humans.

When I saw my ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat Dr.) he ordered a CAT Scan to make sure everything was where it should be and so forth.  It was, so he booked me for four weeks in the future.  Four weeks was good!  Very soon!  Woohoo!  I started making preparations.  Here's what I bought/did:

Vaseline Healing Jelly with Cocoa Butter - For keeping my lips and nostrils moist, since I would be breathing out of my mouth alone and my lips would chap, and I would be bleeding continuously from my nose so I figured my nostrils would chap.

Arnica Cream - For helping with swelling and bruising.  I bought A535 Brand.   I think that's also for muscle soreness, which actually also applied for this situation so hurrah for multitasking.

I had flexible cooling pads in the fridge, and also clean, wet washcloths kept cold, too.  

A HydraSense Neti Rinse with an extra package of saline powder.  Enough to wash out that nose for days and daaaaays on end. 

Extra Strength Advil and Acetominophen, just in case one was better than another.  I tend to be an Advil person, but doctors always seem to suggest Tylenol, so better to be prepared.

I already owned a humidifier - A Sunbeam brand warm mist one.  I sterilized it and set it up.

A comfortable recliner I could sleep upright in.

I also boiled a big jug of water for 10 minutes and let it cool for my Neti Rinse kit.

The week before the procedure I stopped taking all my medications that might affect the surgery, and the night before I took the last dose of the steroid spray I've been using for years to let me inhale through my nose.  I fasted from midnight the night before - from food and liquid.  And the day of I only took my two inhalers for my asthma - my maintenance inhaler that I take twice a day anyway, and then a shot of my Ventalin emergency inhaler just to make my lungs especially open for intubation.  I also bathed very thoroughly and did not use any lotions, creams, hair products, anything afterwards.  I didn't wear my glasses or any jewelry or makeup.  I also took two Covid tests - one 5 days before, and one 2 days before.  Just to be especially safe.

My surgery was scheduled for 12:15.  I was asked to arrive at 10am.  I was asked all the usual Covid screening questions, sterilized my hands, and switched my fabric mask for a new surgical mask.  Then I went to day surgery and signed in.  I waited for maybe ten minutes before the nurse took me back to the change rooms, asked me the Covid screening questions again, gave me a hospital gown to change into and a robe to put overtop and booties.  I put all of my clothing into labeled, sealed bags and she put them in a locker.  I had also brought my insurance card and a baggie with all my prescription medications.  And a book.  Everything but the book went into the locker.  Then I went back out to the waiting room with all the other people sitting around in pjs to be called back.

After about 30 minutes or so they called me back to the triage nurse.  She asked me all the Covid screening questions yet again, verified all of my registration info, weighed me, measured me, took my blood pressure, temperature and heart rate, made a detailed list of medications again, and then led me to the day surgery ward.  That had me go to the bathroom again, and then got me into a bed.  I was there for maybe 15 minutes and then a nurse arrived and we started The Great IV Debacle.

I hate hand IVs.  Hate them.  My veins are very deep inside my body and it never ever goes well.  So first we tried the left hand, and it HUUURT and then the we blew the vein.  So that didn't go well.  So then we tried the right hand and she gave me a shot of Lidocaine first and that did almost nothing but there was a lot of rummaging around with the needle (I assume.  This is what it felt like but I sure the heck wasn't watching.) And eventually it went in a vein and stayed in the vein and Hallelujah that was over.

The anaesthetist came in and asked me a bunch of questions.  The ENT came in, we said hello, he went off to do his thing, everyone left.  Then the anaesthetist came back, handed me a few warmed blankets and had me walk with him to the theatre.  I walked in and put the blankets on the bed and took off my robe but kept on my gown, but undid it.  Then I laid down on the bed and they put one heated blanket over my body and another under my calves and raised my legs slightly.  There was the anaesthetist, two nurses, and the surgeon in the room.  They had me spread out my arms on the table and hooked my IV up to a saline bag.  

I commented that I felt a little light-headed and the anaesthetist laughed and said that was because he had slipped me a little something when I wasn't looking.  I assume this was standard because I certainly wasn't nervous or anything and in need of 'calming'.  Then the nurse put an oxygen mask on my face.  I breathed deeply through my mouth - it was just oxygen.  Then they said 'okay, we're all ready now Amy.' and I said 'okay, bye.' and then that was it. 

My understanding was that the surgery lasted between 30-45 minutes.

I woke up in a different bed, with my head raised, in a curtained off room with a nurse.  She said "Hello!" and beyond that I don't remember much of our initial conversation.  As I woke up I was in a lot of different kinds of pain.  The nurse explained that my neck and shoulders hurt because they position you oddly for surgery.  My jaw and throat hurt because of the intubation.  And I had my standard level of facial migraine pain through my teeth, cheeks, eyes and forehead.  I'm used to that particular pain but if you aren't that would be something to remember.  And then of course my nose hurt quite a bit.  It was about a 6-7 on the pain scale.  Very, very sore, but not agony or anything.  I really wanted pain medication, but I was not in a panic over getting it, if that gives you any idea.  I said I hurt, and the nurse gave me Fentanyl in my IV and two of...something.  I think they were Advil.  I think.  I'm not sure, though.  But they were either Advil or Tylenol.  I also got some ice chips and then a glass of ginger ale.  I was in that room for just under an hour or so.

My oxygen levels kept dropping and the nurse was worried about this, so I went on and off an oxygen mask for a while.  This might have had something to do with the Fentanyl, since I'm really not great with drugs, but eventually everything stabilized enough to move me from the post-surgery recovery room, back to the same day surgery ward I had started from.  I was wheeled there in my bed, but I could get out of bed and into the new bed on my own.  My IV was detached but the port stayed in my hand at this point.  I was awake but still groggy and woozy and I had some more ice chips.  I also got up and went to the bathroom.  The nurse shadowed me on the way there, but I walked back on my own.  And my second bathroom trip was entirely solo.  They changed my bandages under my nose, and someone helped me to get dressed because I was not allowed to lower my head.  At this point my pain was probably about a 4.  At about 4:30 (so 2 and a half hours or so) after arriving in the ward, they gave me my prescription sheet from the doctor, had me sign my release paperwork, called my husband to tell him I was released, and called a porter.  The porter wheeled me in a wheelchair to the door of my car, and David helped me in.  

On the way home the pain kept going down, and by the time I was home it was at about 1-2, and remained at that level until 4:30 the next morning, when it went up to about a 3-4 again, and I took 2 extra strength Tylenol.  I had been prescribed some Tylenol with codeine but I didn't need any.

I probably went to the bathroom ten or so times in the first few hours, as my body flushed out the saline solution and all the extra fluid I was drinking to help my throat.  Although honestly my throat wasn't that bad after the first few swallows.  By the following morning it was essentially back to normal.  I used my cooling packs on my face and ran the humidifier constantly beside my recliner - where I also slept.  It was fine.

The most challenging part of the recovery BY FAR was the nose packing.  So, my nose was entirely packed with what were essentially tampons, the strings of which were taped to my face.  And then under my nose was extra gauze taped to my face to catch the blood that flowed constantly out of my nose.  The tampons (they weren't called this, but let's be real here...they were tampons) were there to provide structure and support to the surgical site and also slow the blood flow and give pressure to the wounds.  But they didn't stop the bleeding by any stretch of the imagination.  I bled out of my nostrils and also out of the back of my throat, and there was even dried blood from my eyes.  It was all just blood everywhere.  I scared the children.  Anyway, the packing made you feel very suffocated and I did have a bit of anxiety around this sensation, as I had been warned.  I had been told not to be clearing the clots from your nose, but the large blood clots flowed down the back of my throat so I spit them out anyway.  But technically the rules were not to try and clear your throat or nose.

The nose packing also prevented you from tasting your food, so everything was very bland.  And you couldn't move your face normally to chew or breathe while you ate, and I could only open my mouth an inch or so, so I would NOT suggest trying to eat food in FRONT of OTHER PEOPLE.  Maybe wear a bib and take very tiny bites.  In short, I was allowed to eat whatever I liked, but actually it was very challenging to do so.  Also, I did attempt fizzy drinks and they hurt so I didn't do that again.  Parts of the inside of my mouth were also numb, specifically behind my top front teeth.  I assumed this was temporary nerve damage from the surgery, which was expected and would resolve itself.

Day 2

The first night was a bit restless, and I had one episode of post-anaesthetic shaking, which resolved in a few minutes.  But I woke up clear-headed and feeling good about the day.  I took another 2 extra strength Tylenol in the morning and spent all day sitting in the chair, trying to drink lots of water and breathe the humid air.  I was sore and uncomfortable, but not in pain, and I used my ice packs a lot.  This day I started to sneeze a lot, which increased the pressure in my nose and I had to sneeze out of my mouth.  Despite doing my best not to sneeze out my nose, I still managed to force a lot of thick, bloody mucous out of my nostrils.  I wasn't supposed to touch inside my nose at all (not that I really could, what with the tampons) but I did clean up with gentle dabbing and careful and judicious use of a warm, wet cotton swab.  I also found myself coughing up quite a bit to clear my lungs, which I expected and was pleased to see.

I managed lunch, which I ate by not chewing, and took some more Tylenol.  I dozed a bit.  In the late afternoon the swelling and discomfort had really gone up, so I finally broke and took a Tylenol with codeine.  I also brushed my teeth, which wasn't as easy as you'd think when you can't open your mouth, and took a bath and put on clean pjs.  I knew Day 2 would be worse than Day 1, and it was.  The pain was around a 4 for much of the day, and I coughed and sneezed constantly.  While the active bleeding was essentially over, there was a lot of mucus and clotting going on.  I went through a lot of under the nose bandaging.  Day 2 was when I started counting down the hours before I could take out the nasal packing.  The Tylenol with codeine did almost nothing for my pain, so I took two extra strength Advil before falling asleep at around midnight.

Day 3

Unlike the first night of broken sleep, I had six straight hours on the second night and woke up really refreshed.  I also woke up looking like a spittle bug because oh my land can your body ever produce a lot of face liquid after surgery.  I will spare you the details but man.  Maaaaaaaaan.  I sounded a lot better, though, and could open my mouth about halfway now.  My throat was back to being a bit sore, but the bleeding had essentially stopped completely and I started giving myself time 'off' without the gauze on my face, which was nice.  Around 10am I needed 2 extra strength Advil again, mostly to manage the nerve pain in my teeth, upper lip and palate, and the slightly sore throat.  I should point out that the soreness of my throat at this point was likely more due to increased coughing to clear my lungs and all the breathing through my mouth.

I didn't need to sleep as much today, but did nap for an hour in the afternoon.  I went and stood in the sunshine outside again, ate well, had another bath, and generally tried to take care of myself and rest.  My sneezing was still happening, but not quite as much.  My front teeth and palate hurt more, and I looked it up and found that it was a very common side effect to the septoplasty.  I took two more Advil around 4:30pm.  I was sore again by about 10pm, but didn't want to take more medication, so I used my cold packs on my face.  By the evening I could open my mouth about 3/4 of the way.

Overnight things were hard.  The pain in my teeth/mouth/jaw/throat was stronger - up to about a 3-4.  I ended up taking 2 more Advil around 1:30 am after 90 minutes or so of restless sleep.  The pain never really went away but I did fall asleep again after 3am.

Day 4

Very excited to remove my nasal packing today!  The hospital had told me to wait 72 hours, and I timed that off of surgery start time, which was somewhere around noon on Wednesday.  Therefore, noon on Saturday I could remove it.  I couldn't wait that long, though, so pretty much first thing in the morning, around 7am, I removed it.  Here's how that went!

The nurse in the hospital told me that I should stand in the shower for a few minutes to steam everything and make it all soft, so I did that.  There were two strings attached to the bridge of my nose by a piece of tape.  When the tape was removed the strings would dangle out of my nostrils.  They were attached to the aforementioned 'nose tampons'.  I was supposed to slowly pull the string and the packing would slide out.  I had to do this IN the shower.  My two worries about the removal process were as follows: 

1) What if the string broke and I had to try and rummage around in there and that sounds horrible. 

2) What if the movement disturbs scabs or something and I start bleeding heavily again? 

Removing the packing did not hurt at all, although it was a little uncomfortable.  They slid very easily out and there was no blood at all.  I debated whether it was better to pull them both out or one at a time, and opted for one at a time, with the right one first since my septum was deviated to the left and I figured that one would be the worst to take out.  But honestly they were both fine.  I also mixed up a bottle of saline solution in my Neti Rinse bottle with some purified water, and brought that into the shower with me.  After I took out both nostril packing things, I thoroughly rinsed my nose and sinuses out with the sterile saline.  I was gentle, and I didn't want to disturb any scabbing - only a small amount of mucus came out.

After my nose was all cleaned out, I could breathe right away.  I mixed up another Neti Rinse bottle and used that over the sink, and then I used cotton swabs to very carefully wipe the outside of my nostrils of anything that came out.  You can't blow your nose or pick anything out or in any way go into your nostrils afterwards, so this was my only real solution for cleaning it out.

I took especial care on this third day after surgery do not do anything too physically demanding because I didn't want my bleeding to resume.  I also continued throughout the day to wash out my sinuses with the NetiRinse and to use the Vaseline around my nostrils.  

 - I'll stop here, and update later about the remainder of week one. -