Avoid Mosquito Bites, and other handy tips from your local government
Today I went by the sign that has been up on the TTC Streetcar Stop near our house, but this time, it spoke to me. It said, "Avoid Mosquito Bites". It is a clear campaign to try to help preven the West Nile Virus, or some other such nonsense. But I say to you, is it really mosquito bites you should be avoiding? Why not just avoid mosquitos in general? Demanding people demand to know.
[image:2059:r:s=1] The week has been rather terrible. So maybe I'll skip that and talk about the weekend before last, which was quite the revelation. I keep thinking that we can't really get much more Canadian. We drink beer. We've developed a bad bacon habit. We are no longer surprised by the unusually high number of Beavers in advertising (tm). But we had not, yet, gone to the Toronto Festival of Beer, (sponsored by "The Beer Store"). We went two weekends ago, and realized that there is still lower to sink my friends. Most people would not find it normal to wander about, beer festival or no, with a beer box on their head. But these people didn't just stop at beer boxes. Some had moose antlers. (There were also crocodiles, squids, bat wings, angel halos, and even church shaped beer boxes on people's heads.
[image:2036:l:s=1] [thumb:2050:l] Of course, Jo and I were in usual form, so one can't be entirely judgemental. I had convinced Jo that he should wear my flashy sombrero, because I can't wear it anymore with the dreads making my head too big. Oddly enough, someone had the brilliant plan of selling cheap sombreros. Given it was a hot and sunny day, soon most of the crowd that was not wearing some sort of beer box hat creation was wearing an inferior straw sombrero. There was only one other person there who gave Jo a run for his money in sombrero finery.
Lots of fun was had with Keri and Craig at the Beer fest, many stories will be skipped, however, as there is much more to tell.
Briefly, since I haven't written since the occasion, Liza and Rob's wedding was overall, a brilliant sucess. I will put the pictures at the end of this post (on the http://wolverog.com edition, anyhow). I think the pictures on that one really say it all. I got a new pet as a result. A Beta named Fred. I know, it's terribly unoriginal. Fortunately, the cat's seem sufficiently distracted by the plant on top of Fred that he seems safe from devouring (unlike the plant). Also, who knew that beta fish food made cat's insane?
Other highlights included going to a random "Goth" meetup which we ended up dragging the unsuspecting Keri and Craig to as well, as they landed on our doorstep the Friday past looking sad and lonely. Well, or like they happened to be in the neighborhood. We actually had a really good evening doing that. It was nice to go out and actually have people to talk with, which is so rare at this city.
And now, back to the sad events of this week. Some of this may qualify under the TMI clause, but when has that ever stopped me?
So off an on, I've been having a dull, but extremely annoying, pain in my lower left abdomen. Nearly a year ago, I went to doctors demanding an explanation. I got the usual round of blood tests, and ultrasound, and nothing.
A few months ago, I got pretty sick with a bad fever and noticible amounts of blood in my urine. It was off to the doctor, then off to the hospital where I was given some nifty three day antibiotic, more blood tests, and later an ultrasound. Still nothing. The obvious blood in urine problem cleared up and I was no longer sick after the antibiotic, so I figured it was just an infection of some sort triggered by the sickness.
Recently, we went to the doctor for our physicals for the Immigration stuff. Guess what they found in my urine? Blood! (Just remember, all you need is blood.) They checked again the next week, as sometimes, because I have an IUD, it can be hard to tell if I am having a girly moment or not. It was still there. So now they are trying to get me a referral into a specialist who can look into these things sometime sooner than November.
Earlier this week, I was having more pain than usual in the same old spot. I determined I was growing suspicious of the IUD's potential role in the matter, so went off to have it removed. (In the process, may have finally found some decent doctors too, but that is beside the short of the story.) While I was waiting for all of that, I was exceptionally cold. I figured it was just because the waiting room at the doctor's was exceptionally cold. I had a bad headache too, but that could have well been due to some wine I'd had the night before, which can have unexpected results sometimes. Well, I decided not to worry about it, as the main goal was to have the IUD removed, and I didn't want to chicken out of that. I knew it would be painful. It was. I also explained the situation to them, and they took more exciting tests, and I got sent home with instructions to call if it was still causing issues a couple weeks after having the IUD removed.
When I got home, I discovered I had a good fever going, much to my dismay. And spent the next day and a half in bed with a fever that went up to at least 102.7, but no higher that I know of. And, lots more blood in the urine, like the last time. That did break however, on it's own, and I'm mostly over it at this point. I don't know what to think yet, but it's been annoying. And, it's a really bad time for something to go wrong. Let's all hope pulling the plug helped whatever mysterious thing it is...
Jo just announced to me that his hat is growing mold. I think I will leave on that note.
Oh yes, and I've managed to order a box of 200 coconut halves. Muahahahaha!
Here's Rob and Liza's wedding:
[album:70,0:c]
And the Festival of Beer:
[album:71,0:c]
Post with pictures inserted can be viewed here
[image:2059:r:s=1] The week has been rather terrible. So maybe I'll skip that and talk about the weekend before last, which was quite the revelation. I keep thinking that we can't really get much more Canadian. We drink beer. We've developed a bad bacon habit. We are no longer surprised by the unusually high number of Beavers in advertising (tm). But we had not, yet, gone to the Toronto Festival of Beer, (sponsored by "The Beer Store"). We went two weekends ago, and realized that there is still lower to sink my friends. Most people would not find it normal to wander about, beer festival or no, with a beer box on their head. But these people didn't just stop at beer boxes. Some had moose antlers. (There were also crocodiles, squids, bat wings, angel halos, and even church shaped beer boxes on people's heads.
[image:2036:l:s=1] [thumb:2050:l] Of course, Jo and I were in usual form, so one can't be entirely judgemental. I had convinced Jo that he should wear my flashy sombrero, because I can't wear it anymore with the dreads making my head too big. Oddly enough, someone had the brilliant plan of selling cheap sombreros. Given it was a hot and sunny day, soon most of the crowd that was not wearing some sort of beer box hat creation was wearing an inferior straw sombrero. There was only one other person there who gave Jo a run for his money in sombrero finery.
Lots of fun was had with Keri and Craig at the Beer fest, many stories will be skipped, however, as there is much more to tell.
Briefly, since I haven't written since the occasion, Liza and Rob's wedding was overall, a brilliant sucess. I will put the pictures at the end of this post (on the http://wolverog.com edition, anyhow). I think the pictures on that one really say it all. I got a new pet as a result. A Beta named Fred. I know, it's terribly unoriginal. Fortunately, the cat's seem sufficiently distracted by the plant on top of Fred that he seems safe from devouring (unlike the plant). Also, who knew that beta fish food made cat's insane?
Other highlights included going to a random "Goth" meetup which we ended up dragging the unsuspecting Keri and Craig to as well, as they landed on our doorstep the Friday past looking sad and lonely. Well, or like they happened to be in the neighborhood. We actually had a really good evening doing that. It was nice to go out and actually have people to talk with, which is so rare at this city.
And now, back to the sad events of this week. Some of this may qualify under the TMI clause, but when has that ever stopped me?
So off an on, I've been having a dull, but extremely annoying, pain in my lower left abdomen. Nearly a year ago, I went to doctors demanding an explanation. I got the usual round of blood tests, and ultrasound, and nothing.
A few months ago, I got pretty sick with a bad fever and noticible amounts of blood in my urine. It was off to the doctor, then off to the hospital where I was given some nifty three day antibiotic, more blood tests, and later an ultrasound. Still nothing. The obvious blood in urine problem cleared up and I was no longer sick after the antibiotic, so I figured it was just an infection of some sort triggered by the sickness.
Recently, we went to the doctor for our physicals for the Immigration stuff. Guess what they found in my urine? Blood! (Just remember, all you need is blood.) They checked again the next week, as sometimes, because I have an IUD, it can be hard to tell if I am having a girly moment or not. It was still there. So now they are trying to get me a referral into a specialist who can look into these things sometime sooner than November.
Earlier this week, I was having more pain than usual in the same old spot. I determined I was growing suspicious of the IUD's potential role in the matter, so went off to have it removed. (In the process, may have finally found some decent doctors too, but that is beside the short of the story.) While I was waiting for all of that, I was exceptionally cold. I figured it was just because the waiting room at the doctor's was exceptionally cold. I had a bad headache too, but that could have well been due to some wine I'd had the night before, which can have unexpected results sometimes. Well, I decided not to worry about it, as the main goal was to have the IUD removed, and I didn't want to chicken out of that. I knew it would be painful. It was. I also explained the situation to them, and they took more exciting tests, and I got sent home with instructions to call if it was still causing issues a couple weeks after having the IUD removed.
When I got home, I discovered I had a good fever going, much to my dismay. And spent the next day and a half in bed with a fever that went up to at least 102.7, but no higher that I know of. And, lots more blood in the urine, like the last time. That did break however, on it's own, and I'm mostly over it at this point. I don't know what to think yet, but it's been annoying. And, it's a really bad time for something to go wrong. Let's all hope pulling the plug helped whatever mysterious thing it is...
Jo just announced to me that his hat is growing mold. I think I will leave on that note.
Oh yes, and I've managed to order a box of 200 coconut halves. Muahahahaha!
Here's Rob and Liza's wedding:
[album:70,0:c]
And the Festival of Beer:
[album:71,0:c]
Post with pictures inserted can be viewed here