Chilly weekends = chills from a head cold

The view from the apartment on Monday, after the snow last Sunday

Last weekend was a quiet one around the house - no major updates just small things that needed to get finished. These included putting the two basement windows in, installing the sliding patio door & the front door and cleaning the house of wood scraps/construction waste. The kitchen cabinet person came by for measurements. We were supposed to start shingling the roof as well - all the materials were on hand and the elaborate staging was in put in place. But then it started to snow, which hampered the shingling. This is the last step that needs to be complete prior to out second draw for our mortgage, which means we can't get money until it is done. The options were to take three weekends and do it ourselves (weather permitting) or hire someone to do it for us for $1000 in a few days. We went with the latter, and they are almost all done. The plumber was in this past week and has pretty much finished the rough in too. As soon as the roof is 100% complete, we will contact our mortgage person for an inspection.


One piece bathtub, with robin's egg blue finish


Just kidding. Blue protective film, which will be removed to reveal white finish, from the other side


Playing in the snow at the house last weekend. My mother-in-law and I made a big box out of scrap plywood to hold excess wood (headed for the fireplace, one day soon). We put Tyvek on the bottom of it so it would slide easily on the snow. It turned into a sled when I jumped inside and my husband gave me a push.

My in-laws have been visiting and helping every weekend for almost two months. My mother has offered her help as well, but feels she is better suited to indoor work like insulating and drywall (although I'm sure she would kick ass at anything we asked her to do). So...I want to get her/my uncle/other family members up here to help March 1st weekend to drywall. Many, many things must occur before this can happen. Namely, the electrician must come in (which he will only do when the home is roof tight) and finish his rough-in in time for a municipal inspection. It will be a tight squeeze. But if it happens - we'll be rocking, time-line wise. Although we closed on the lot in mid-October, we really only started building the first week of January, so it hasn't even been two months yet.


Roofing

And despite battling a head cold, I was out helping install vinyl siding on the house. Not my personal fav as a siding option, but cedar shingles are time-consuming and expensive so we'll save those for our "real house" and not the one we plan on selling. It was nice to do something that gave observable progress. After last weekend, we needed a psychological boost and siding was the way to go, even though it really didn't need to be done now.


Installing vinyl siding on the back (I'm on the very left)


Vinyl siding from the front,with basement windows


A picture of the two walls of vinyl siding that I measured, cut, and installed all by myself!

The weather was mostly cold, but sunny (except for the last hour on Sunday). The wind was chilly, maybe - 15 Celsius and I had to warm up in the car every 45 minutes which was relatively often compared to colder days when I could stay out for longer. I blame my illness - it makes sense to me that my body would be hoarding blood for sick internal organs and view my limbs as expendable. Fucking freezing though, my feet felt like frozen stones the whole weekend, and would hurt when I would thaw them out in the car (picture included of our set-up; a plug-in portable heater sitting in the front-seat of the van. Hmmm...toasty).

Toe-defroster

And the neatest part of the weekend: our neighbours went skating on the pond behind out house. Yay!

Skating neighbour.


Check it out (narration provided by yours truly, nasally from the head cold no less...enjoy!):

Forgot the best one

Don't know how I missed this one!

The casualty

Boo:(

Pictures

Building mini-roof in livingroom in the rain

Different angle

Our casement windows from Piercey's - no grills.

The frou-frou front door insert. It was the last one , so it was a discount buy. Not my favorite glass insert, but not bad.


Looking in from the front door, into the future laundry room/guest bath.

Standing in the laundry room/guest bath

Bay in dining "room" (more like a nook, really)

Standing in the bay, looking out to the future kitchen (currently storing the windows) and the entry area

From bay to stairwell/livingroom area

Plywood stairwell

Looking up from stairwell landing to second floor

Looking down from stairwell into dining nook (note the two inches of water we had to sweep away on Saturday...)

Bedroom #1 with lake view

Close up of lake in backyard

"Hall" - Master bedroom on left, bedroom #1 at the end, bedroom #2 on the right

Upstairs family bath

Master bedroom view from stairs (with unfinished chimney)

Master bedroom

Master bedroom window - looks out onto the industrial park (and, hopefully one day in Spring, a big tree!)

Tyvek on the back of the house

A house, not yet a home

I took a bijillion pictures of the house this weekend in anticipation of putting them up here but lo and behold the camera USB cord has gone missing so I'll have to root around more carefully. Hopefully pictures will be up by tomorrow. But the verbal low-down is as so: The house looks like a house now- there are four walls the entire length, with a roof clad in plywood (shingles are not done yet). The windows are in (well, mostly - see below). There is a make-shift stairwell made of plywood which is a darn good approximation of real stairs and are much nicer to ascend/descend than a rickety ladder. Many of the interior walls are up, with closets for the bedrooms. The interior door is sitting in the "livingroom", waiting for the drywall to be delivered after the tradesman have done their thing. The bathtub (a 1 piece acrylic unit) hasn't been brought in yet, nor the sliding doors. Since we drive a tiny mouse of a car ('99 Tercel) we need to borrow a work truck to get these items to the site. As you can imagine, it is much nicer to work on the house now that the walls are up and roof is on. There are, of course, two hundred small jobs to get finished (along with one big one-the roof shingles) but hopefully we can do those together in the evenings with a few bright work bulbs and some rocking tunes (and maybe, a small space heater!).
The windows arrived on Friday, three and a half weeks after we ordered them. On Sunday, I wanted to help out by placing all the windows in their appropriate rooms, next to the cut-outs in which they were to be placed. The large fixed window (4' x 4') belonging to the bay window in the dining room was dragged over to the opening, as well as the two smaller side casement windows. We stopped for a bit to do another job, and didn't bring the windows upstairs to the bedrooms. Glad we didn't. The large 4x4' window got pushed over by a gust of wind, knocked the two smaller windows down too, and they all landed in a giant heap in the middle of the floor. It was cold on Saturday, maybe -2 Celsius, so the plastic window frame pretty much shattered on the larger window. Astoundingly, the smaller two windows were intact (one had a slight dent in the frame of the screen) and the actual glass section of the large fixed window was not broken. I was told afterwards that experienced carpenters know better than to set the windows up against the opening, but I am not an experienced carpenter. I am thankful that the damage was so little (it appears that we may be able to get the plastic frame redone, but use the same window so it won't be the $400+ to replace the whole window). And the fact that it was the windows crashing to the ground rather than the way more worrisome husband or father-in-law that I immediately thought about upon hearing the sound was a relief. At the time, they were working on the second floor and some of their precarious moves give me pause for concern. Broken windows=fixable with a couple hundred dollars and a few more days. Broken people=not so much.

Weekend House Update

Framing in earnest has begun, as Hubby takes a two-week "vacation" from work to build the house with help from his dad, and anyone else we can rope into it. Below are some pictures from this past weekend. Since the last post, the plot has been backfilled, and a temporary power post has been erected.










It turns out we had scheduled longer than necessary for the first steps (laying the engineered floor, raising the walls for the first floor) so we are already ahead of schedule.

Similar (but better) than a lump of coal

Finally. Finally! Last week we came home from Christmas holidays to a poured concrete foundation! The entire month of December was a write-off – it snowed every three days it seemed, with unseasonably cold weather. The worst December for construction in years, said many people in the business. Damn La Nina.

The man pouring our concrete has been exceedingly patient with us, given that we have taking to hounding him every few days about the foundation during the entire month of December. He knew it was our first house, and that we would mostly be building it ourselves with the help of family and friends – a low-scale production. And so to make up for the long wait for the foundation, he offered to lend us his crew of workers for one day for free to help “catch-up” with the framing, as well as lend us his generator for free. These are significant and well-appreciated gestures – the generator alone would run us $50 a day for rental fee. And the offer to help frame could cut the time husband needs to take off work, therefore doubly worthwhile.

So I will recite the steps upon hearing the foundation was done (ps best Christmas gift ever!): Jump up and down/do a happy dance, call the municipal inspector to get inspection, call the bank for mortgage inspector to come in once we passed the municipal inspection, order lumber for framing the remaining three feet of basement, order windows, and order floor joists/roof trusses.
The last bit was a tad frustrating, since we thought we would have them for the first weekend of January in order to completely seal in the basement. Not so. There was, um, a misunderstanding between my husband and the engineered floor people. Hubby wants open web joists for the floor, and we were assured they could be made in less than one week, so we “ordered” them Dec.29th as soon as we heard the foundation was in. Guy told us since everyone is off until Jan.2nd, that they would start then, but still no problem for timing, we should have them by Jan.5th. We get a call Jan.2nd – apparently, I faxed over an older set of plans to the company, when the floors were 20 feet across. Since then, my husband had modified the plans and added 6 inches to the length of the wall. This 6 inches, we were told, would add $1500 to the cost of both floors. Let me repeat that: 6 inches, a 2.5% increase in floor length, would increase the price an additional 50%. Seems a smidge DISPROPORTIONATE, wouldn’t you fucking say? But we needed the floors done, and the other company we received a quote from told us two weeks, minimum. So we decided to eat the cost. Then came a second call from the company, and it was disclosed that the joists we were now paying an extraordinary amount for weren’t even the kind hubby had wanted.
Them: “We don’t make open-web joists”
Us: “WHAT?!? What have we been talking about over the last week then?”
Anyway, we ended up having to go to the second company, saving us $1500 BUT we only get the floors mid January. Whatever, I’ll take it.

This past weekend my in-laws came to stay with us, and helped frame the rest of the basement. My hand was cramped after the first day of hammering, and the muscles between my shoulder blades and my neck are still sore. We were able to finish what we could do without the floors. These are pictures of the house prior to the wood wall and after we’ve finished framing the basement:







One from the interior:


You’ll notice the roof of the neighbour’s house just peeking over the basement wall. We’ve always had reservations about how big our house would seem compared to neighbouring houses since our property had been filled in significantly before we bought it (increasing the height of the lot compared to neighbouring lots). In reality, our house is about the same size as the green house next door (basement, 2 stories + roof), but, the green house is sitting on ground that drops about 15 feet from where we started our basement. The house on the other side is 1.5 stories + roof. The visual difference might be jarring. We plan on reselling the house shortly after we are done building it, and we’re not sure how appearing to be the biggest/newest house along the road will affect that.

I only wear a lab coat when my boss's boss is around

My friend, a grade six teacher, hates teaching Science. She is a great woman, and undoubtedly a fantastic teacher, but science is not her thing. For this reason alone, I signed up to become a volunteer with the Let’s Talk Science program. The program links up volunteers and teachers so that smarmy kids can learn about the big bad world of Science from a RealLife Scientist. I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty damn excited to be designing and implementing several hands-on activities. The beaut = the program is well-funded enough that I got to order some awesome shit from Ward’s. It was better than shoe shopping! (Brrr…is it cold in here?)

I remember being an excited fifth grader who knew all the names & positions of nine planets off by heart and having a fucking mean twit teacher whose hate for Science was exceeded only be her loathing of us, it seemed. What a let-down. And it’s a damn shame, too, because that age (11-13 yrs) is so crucial in developing an identity - it was for me anyway - and connecting to the things that I still love today. Astronomy. Science Fiction. Science. Geology, anatomy, molecular biology.

So we’ve got a few activity modules planned out. The first will be in astronomy in January. From Ward’s Science I got a few eclipse/solar motion activity sets, as well as an overhead planetarium. (Apparently, there is a ginormous blow-up/crawl-through planetarium available to the school district, but since there is only one and it’s often out for repairs, the back-log of requests is huge. Another reason why the LTS budget is much appreciated by the utterly cash-strapped teachers). In March will be the forensic section. Twelve year olds watch a lot of CSI apparently (young much?), so that module will be a particular hit. Ward’s has some luminol detection & fingerprinting kits for mock crime solving activities. I’m also planning on introducing some anthropological forensic science too, a covert anatomy lesson per se, because that’s how I got interested (Quincy M.E. huzzah). Finally, the diversity of life module will be about good bacteria/bad bacteria, which is, essentially, an excuse to bring in cheese & yogurt to bribe the kids into good behaviour. It’s going to be geek-licious.

Birdbone

So if humans make blood cells in their marrow, and the marrow is in the bone, where do birds make blood cells? Aren't their bones hollow for flight? They have such high metabolic demands, with increase energy and waste production, they must have hardy blood cells. Where is bird blood made?

Update: Kyle, a friend studying cancer (and obviously, more bird biology than me), explains why B-cells are called B-cells.

Level zero

Our lawyer is taking Christmas vacation starting Dec.14th...which forces us to hustle big time if we want to get our first draw from the construction mortgage signed off before she leaves. If that doesn't happen, the two companies we've hired to prepare the foundation of the house will have to be paid after Christmas. Ouch.

So the footings were poured on Monday, which was excellent timing because we got a shitload of snow that night, into the following day and trailing into Wednesday. But luckily, it was done before the snow fell, and Wednesday we had the municipal inspector pass the footings. Yay! I was worried because we had made a substantial change to the height of the basement walls since we first put in our building permit, and the change had to be OK'd before the inspector would pass it. Since it had been less than one week since I submitted the revised plans, it was possible the inspector would have failed it just because the old plans didn't match up with the new set-up. Phew.

Yesterday, the foundation people set up the forms for the five feet of basement wall that will be concrete. We went to check it out last night, and it looked good. It will be a tall house in the end (2.5 stories, with an 8/12 roof pitch) but hey, all better to see the lake view once it's finished. And so hopefully today or Monday the concrete will be poured, and we can get a location certificate, a municipal inspection, and a mortgage inspection (through CMHC) done before Friday, Dec.14th. The municipal inspection won't be a problem, and the location certificate could be done in two days (if the engineer dude ever returns my calls), but the we'll be damn lucky if the CMHC inspector can make it out with less than 1 week notice. Hope, hope, hope (and rely on our mortgage girl to do her thing, again. She is super friendly and so willing to throw the word "urgent" on all our documents!).

Canadiana

Yesterday I was forced to attend a useless biosafety seminar. (Unless you work in a level 4 biosafety hazard lab dealing with ebola infected rats. Oh wait. There's only one of those in Canada and it isn't at this fucking university). I swear, you would be worse off swallowing a mouthful of seawater than if you accidently ingested some of our culture organisms (algae fer chrissakes, they sell the dried up stuff in holistic medicine departments). And yet, I spent six hours learning how to double glove when I'm at the fumehood, and how to import recombinant organisms over the border. Mandatory is overdone.

Anyway, a new lab recruit was sitting near by. He is from Yugoslavia, has spent the last few years in Switzerland, and has been living in Canada for a few months now. CBC recently had on a program describing "Canadian foods". Sounds like a good program, wish I had caught it. He asked if we had ever had poutine, and where he might get some here in town. He described it as french fries, with mozza cheese and gravy. I wanted to get into the minutae of poutine, and how actually it's cheese curds and not just grated mozza as it is sometimes served around here, but held my tongue. I haven't had much luck finding a good poutine spot in town so far. Although, as a public service announcement, I should have pointed out the difference between poutine they serve at KFC & arena canteens:



(Yummy artery-clogging fatty fatty goodness)





and the poutine rapee my grandmother makes with her acadian Catholic church ladies group every Saturday as a fundraiser for the church:



(Gooey grey shredded potato surrounding a lump of salted pork)




Both of French Canadian origin, both potato based, but not at all the same.


He also mentioned pemmican as being a true canadian food. We learned about pemmican in fifth grade, as my school spent the bulk of the social science curriculum devoted to learning how Native Canadians lived. My husband has also wondered what it tastes like, but it's not exactly the thing one can purchase at the grocery store (as I explained to my coworker). So I googled it to see if I could order some over the net. Don't know exactly how that would work, but might be an interesting cyber-adventure.

At this point, the seminar restarted, but I was distracted enough to think about other distinctly Canadian foods. Donairs came to mind, as did garlic fingers. Someone just came into the lab and said he had never even heard of BBQ chicken pizza before moving here. What do these things have in common? Carbs slathered in high-fat/high-sugar sauces. Mmmm...
Have I forgotten anything important? Anybody catch the CBC program?

The opposite of warm

The boiler broke down in our apartment building last night. My husband came to pick me up from work and he informed me of the situation on the way home. There, in our apartment driveway, was this rusting hulk of metal. We both laughed at the fact the thing made it this far. Luckily, we purchased an electric fireplace last year because we missed our old, REAL fireplace and it spits out heat like nobody's business. Well, like electric fireplace maker's business, I guess. I felt slightly guilty at not inviting anyone from other (perhaps less fortunate) apartments to come over and huddle. I wish we could be a super-friendly-community, but, *sigh* we aren't (Evidence of this: nasty notes discouraging obnoxious laundry hours and stealing apartment number one's Saturday newspaper). I also imagined a nice holiday beer/wine meet & greet but, meh, we are leaving soon and moving to a house so why put in the effort? ...I hate city living. The apathy it instills is depressing.

Speaking of the house. We swung by last night after dark to discern, as best we could, the work that had been completed. We were met by a gaping 40 x 40 foot hole, about 4 feet deep. The excavator ran out of gravel surge to fill the hole to make an engineered pad, so that's what they were going to do today. Actually, correction, they misquoted us on how much (a known volume of) gravel would be needed, and so now they are adding about $1500 to the bill on account of "not having enough". Grr... this is why we should get things in writing. I've tried to force the excavators & foundation people to sign, but they always have an excuse. Without hubby backing me up, I get a weak comment like "are you a lawyer or something?" & a shrug. Fine for now, we have the money. Not so good later when we're scrounging for pennies.

Holiday cheer

Started the holiday shopping this weekend. Egged on by the strong Canadian dollar and an utter loathing of crowded places, I've initiated the season by making multiple purchases online. I've tried to limit these purchases to items I would get at large chains anyway, like DVDs or books, while still supporting local shops and artisans for more unique, used or one-of-a-kind items. And being the poor student that I am, I've also contributed to the (small) lot of gifts with my own hand-made stuff, including a pair of socks for my sister:



It's the first pair of socks I've ever knit, and it is taking me forever! I'm so used to dealing with large needles & thick wool because my previous projects were almost all toques that I knit to donate to various charities (including the local "Knitters for Critters"). The picture is from *three* hours of work last night...it may be warm again when she gets them :S

Alternate Universe

In an alternate universe, I ended up being a hardcore cosplayer that journeys all over the world dressing up in immaculate detail as her favorite comic book/nerdy sci-fi character. Evidence for this being:
1. My pre-occupation with clothing/costume.
2. My nearly incapacitating attention to detail.
3. My obsession with fanciful, unnaturally coloured hair.
4. I collected Star Trek figures when I was a kid.

I spent a very long time trying to justify purchasing this wig, by imagining where I could wear it:


(Wig styled by Kate Bair at Petting Zoo Wigs)

...All I could come up with was the bus. Specifically, the one bus that runs near my house, carrying all the university kids to their downtown classes. I have seen, on numerous occasions, gigantic woolen dreads on commuters in great, UV-reactive colours. The bus crew also has a fair share of piercings/tatoos/modifications. An enormous blue wig may blend in more easily here than, say, the supermarket.


On a slightly unrelated note, the bus driver this morning sported a handlebar moustache ...



...And was chewing bubblegum. I thought that was charming.

Foundation, Part Deux

The foundation for the house has still not been poured, one week from the day they were supposed to break ground. And it will be mid-week at least when it is excavated because the weather around here:




Maddening that the foundation hasn't been poured yet. Even more maddening that I can't do a thing to change the weather.

So it still looks like this over at the lot:



(I enjoy that view so much. Can't wait 'til I see it out the kitchen window!)

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore...

Oh Celine. Celine, Celine, Celine.

We don’t want you here.

Halifax thinks it’s the shit now that it has hosted a concert (in the pouring, miserable, 4ºC rain) at the public space in the middle of the city without pissing off everyone. There was just a few of us, and we don’t matter. But that was the Stones, fer chrissakes. Do you think my mother & grandmother (who went to Vegas to see Celine), would tolerate an outdoor concert in the ankle-high mud, wearing garbage bags to protect their clothing against the wind and rain like the poor suckers did during the Stones concert?? I.Don’t.Think.So.

So some advice to Celine and her manager husband: Go to Moncton. Not only is the weather more tolerable, gas cheaper, healthcare better and real estate more affordable, but they are friendlier there. You could save my grandmother the trip.

Why three chromosomes?

What does it say about my personality that, while being a smart young woman who tries to keep up with the latest in world news and has other, important things to think about (WHY THREE??!!??), I still spend about 5% of my waking hours pondering what I’m going to wear now/tomorrow/in the near future. Example: Tonight I’m going to the movie theatre to watch the film adaptation of Love in the Time of Cholera with a girlfriend of mine. We both read the book, and we both like to dress up. While doing my DNA extractions today, I’ve mentally changed outfits several times already. There’s a fine line between cute and cold when going to the theatre - the AC is inevitably cranked so high that you can nearly see you breath. Flat brown boots? High heel brown boots?

A second topic for pondering while molecular biology-ing: How the frack did I become the personal clean-up attendant for the lab down the hall? We don’t have a centrifuge to do DNA extractions, but the lab down the hall does. We use it for eukaryotes, they use it for E.coli. It currently smells like death because nobody cleans it. Nobody but me. And I only clean it because the smell of rotting E.coli sludge at the bottom of the centrifuge wants to make me hurl. I cannot be the only one. And yet.

New Diggs

Last month, my husband and I became part of an elite group of people called landowners. With a sparkle in our eyes (the same eyes diligently watching the bottom line), we left the land of hustling renters. With plans to stick it to the over-privileged lords of this mini-feudal system we call the “University-town renters market”, we sketched, and called, and estimated for months. About four weeks ago we became legal owners of a small (75’x 160’) lot that backs out onto a small lake, about 20 minutes from downtown.

Part of the reason for starting this blog was to keep track of the arduous journey ahead, bit by bit. We plan to build the house ourselves; contracting out the trades my husband cannot do himself. The house is intended to be somewhat temporary-the real estate in this town is about 3 times more expensive compared to the city we were born in, and we will probably sell this house for a profit in a few years, move elsewhere and start anew. The blog will help me the second time around, I hope. It will also be a place where friends and family can come to check out progress when they aren’t actually visiting/contributing to the manual labour (*cough cough*).

The first week was productive, we had the existing well tested for minerals and coliforms. Looks like we’ll need 2500.00 worth of water filters. Week two/three was spent waiting for the engineer to “swing by”, and finally ended in a tearful phone call with the receptionist when she informed me the price would almost double if we wanted to be made “a priority”. Once I got a grip on myself, I told her to shove it. We found, and then consulted, with a second engineer (at a fraction of the cost, natch) who helped us decide where the house should go in relation to the existing well and septic. Then Thanksgiving. Then I got sick. So it was last week when we had the excavator person and foundation person in to look at the lot. They work as a team, sorta, so that a large gaping rain-accumulating hole is not left for too long on the future spot of our house. Monday was supposed to be the day when site was cleared and footings poured. They ran into a snag, of course; there was stagnant water where they were going to pour the footings. Past experience dictated that this sort of soppy set-up was not going to pass inspection. We could build there anyway, but we would need to get an engineer to design a pad to be placed over the gravel, which would take time we don’t have (hello, frost!) and also money. A second game plan: excavate the entire area which had been filled in with gravel from a previous construction attempt in 2000. Drain the water with a few ditches, and then fill it in with dirt. Place footings as usual. This plan would cost money, but could be done right away. Hmmm…we’ll see this evening how that went.

Open Letter

Sometimes, it just feels better to write it out.



Dear Suburban Queen Bee who picks up her kids at the daycare behind my apartment building in a sparkling white Escalade,

All the other parents park at the end of the driveway and walk up to the door to pick up their kids. You are the *only* one who feels entitled enough to drive all the way up the driveway in your fucking monster of a vehicle. I doubt you could even FEEL the jarring motion of running over a small child in that thing due to the lulling comfort of 5 tons of metal. I often wonder at what velocity I would have to pitch my saliva in order to spit on your car from my balcony. I wish there weren't people like you in the world,

Much too sincerely,

Me

P.S. Get off your fucking cell phone.

Post Secret

I try to remember to check on postsecret.com every week. You would think it would be easy since I have a rotation of about a dozen blogs/celebrity gossip/newscast websites that I check on a daily basis, but I guess the weekly thing really throws off my game. Which is too bad because postsecret is damn good blog-style-enjoyment. Today I was flipping through the images* when I came across this one (1):



(*Apologies if this sort of image stealing is not allowed in blogger-land. I just hope that an academic-style reference will suffice. Oh, and a gigantic shout out to go visit postsecret.com rightnow.)
(1) Post Secret (www.postsecret.com), accessed November 14th, 2007



Anyhoo, it is the first postcard I've ever seen that has resonated very deeply with the idea that "I know this person".

Her name is Amber and she is the manager of a former place of employment. Honestly, the log-in screen is the same as the one we used, and the secret left over the screen capture fits perfectly with what I remember of her management style. Heads up Amber: It ain't a secret, honey.

A trek through the Tupper turns up...

A really annoying advert (lacking alliteration, natch):




Maybe this doesn't bother anyone as much as it does me?? The saccharine smiles and underlying message get on my feminist nerves. "All little girls are expected to attend prom, get a higher degree and marry. Preferably on daddy's dime." Um. No. And just for implying that much I will deliberately choose the longer route so I don't have to stare at the poster on the way to the main floor cafe. I think my heartstrings have withered past the salvage point.

Meh.

One of those people

Didn't post at all in October for a number of reasons. Super busy at work, took an extra job for four weeks to help cover some of the construction costs of the new house we are trying to build, became a teaching assistant for a fourth year molecular biology and got soo sick as a result. Like, coughing up blood sick. Upon seeing my x-ray, Doc commented that I had the lungs of an old bum (PCedit: An elderly homeless person). Nice. Had I been travelling out of the country recently, and come in contact with TB? (No.) Had I gone on a bender recently where I potentially aspirated some vomit while in an alcohol-induced semi-conscious state? (NO?!? Who does that??) I told her straight up: I have no time to for the time-honoured art of inducing semi-consciousness with alcohol; for the entire month of October I worked, slept and ate. That's it. Long story short: I may have gotten an anaerobic lung infection as a complication of my otherwise-flawless wisdom teeth extraction at the end of September. So flawless that they didn't put me on antibiotics, so something could have lodged itself in my lungs, waiting until I was so rundown to make an dramatic entrance. That, or pneumonia. Treatment called for an antibiotic cocktail for two-weeks, then a follow-up chest x-ray. Well, last night, while I was taking my pills, I realized with horror that although both pills were to last me the same amount of time, one bottle was heavier than the other. Reading the label (which I *swear* I did when I first got them), one of the pills was to be taken twice a day, and the other pill just once a day. I was only taking two pills in the evening, essentially halving my dose of antibioticB....
.....NO!!!!!!! I'm one of those people!!! One of those people that don't take their antibiotics in full strength and create resistant superbugs as a result. I know how that works, and I don't like those people. I don't want to be breeding the bestest and fittest anaerobic bacteria in my lungs! I'M SUCH AN IDIOT. Regular treatment for anaerobic infection is six weeks, hopefully I didn't extend the life of my infection because six weeks is already $100 worth of antibiotics on my super-saver-brand insurance I have through the university. Although, I suppose the monetary punishment fits. I should really know better. Argh.