On doctors and principles

So I recently had to get a new G.P. From what I can gather, my previous doctor was a relatively new graduate, took ages to see patients (though was very conscientious, which is a good thing), and did not seem to get along with the other members of the practice which she had joined. So basically it seemed she was forced to move – and she chose to move to a completely different area of the city. She made arrangements with a husband/wife doctor team to transfer any patients who wanted a doctor in my neighbourhood.

I had to wait for a few months while they finished setting up their office (having moved to Toronto from another city), but I finally had my introductory appointment with the female doctor last week. She is wonderful. After years of “just okay” doctors and some frankly awful anecdotes (that are too humiliating to publish), I have found the perfect doctor! She was knowledgeable, down-to-earth, accessible, and even chatted with me like I was a pleasant acquaintance rather than a survey respondent! We took care of business such as renewing prescriptions, setting up an appointment for a physical, etc. and she also printed up a letter I could send to my previous doctor to request a transfer of my medical records.

So tonight I came home and found mail from the former doctor. It was a bill for $50 to transfer the medical files. Fifty dollars!!!! Okay, okay – for readers in the U.S. this may not seem like such a big deal, but this is Canada, home of Medicare! Furthermore, when I moved to Toronto, my former dentist didn’t send me a bill for the transfer of Xrays to my new dentist! Hell, even the veterinarian didn’t charge me for transferring the cats’ medical files to the new vet in Toronto!!!! So what’s the deal???? Is this just a doctor trying to pay off her student loans (which granted could be staggering) or is this happening to other people?

Fifty dollars … I think I might just take my chances that my health hasn’t changed that much and start fresh with this fabulous new doctor. Just on the principle.

Safe to go to CraniumOutpost now

... and absolutely adorable too!

Latest baby bump photo

My brother finally got around to posting the most recent picture of Lisa and her baby bump here. She is more beautiful than ever.

Note: this particular post on his blog is safe for reading. His most recent posting - not so much. Way TMI. I will tell you when it is safe to resume reading any future updates of Cranium Outpost.

You're welcome.

Eclecta

Re-acquainted

Update below ...

A very cool thing happened on Sunday. I met a childhood friend after ~20 years of zero contact.

I don’t have a lot of friends from when I was growing up. There weren’t a lot of them in the first place! In grade school, I was just way too different from most of the other kids … and growing up on a farm was isolating in several ways. And high school was such an awkward time. I had a lot of friends in university, but back then I was religious, and so were my friends. Now I’m so not religious and they still are. Not much in common anymore, unfortunately, but they’re still really great people.

So, up until Sunday, my current “peeps” included about zero people who knew me before 1997. Fortunately, I’ve made some great friends since. But hanging out with Lori on Sunday was really special.

Lori was one of my best friends from about Grade 3? 4? to Grade 9. We spent hours playing Barbies and pretending we owned about 50 horses each (I remember keeping lists of their names and carrying them with me “just in case”. Lori’s favourite horse name, if I remember correctly, was Tumbleweed.)

We went through puberty together. She was the one in whom I confided when my mother told me that it was time for me to get a training bra. (I will never forget her instant sympathy and how she touched my arm, looked in my eyes, and said, “I’m so sorry!!!!” LOL)

We were going to write a book together. It was doomed because it was about a family whose mother was a famous actress and they lived in a mansion. Neither of us knew anything about that kind of lifestyle.

We spent hours swimming in the neighbours’ pool but were limited in how much time we could spend on the phone. (That was in the day when parents didn’t buy a separate phone line for their kids.)

We attended each other’s birthday parties (her mother used to wrap pennies in wax paper and put them between the layers of birthday cake; whoever found one was supposed to have good luck).

We both dreamed of world travel, learning foreign languages, and living in sophisticated worlds beyond our little hometown.

In Grade 9 we were sent to different high schools and eventually lost touch.

Meeting up with her on Sunday was surprisingly easy and natural. Neither of us was surprised to learn that the other had cats (Lori basically wondered how many I had rather than if I had any at all – see how well she knows me??? LOL), and we quickly got caught up on our life histories, disappointments, challenges, and accomplishments. We had met at the Ansel Adams/Alfred Eisenstaedt exhibit at the AGO, and had a fun moment in front of a photo of a cactus that, we agreed, was distinctly phallic (it was just like being back in Grade 7!). We talked about Miss Brath (someone I had not thought of in years!) and Lori reminded me of her sandwich analogy for writing a paragraph (“the intro and closing sentences are the bread …”).

In short, it was really great to see her again, and I hope it won’t be nearly as long again before we meet up once more!

Update: After reading this blog entry, Lori sent me this e-mail, which is just too fun not to share (my notes are in green):

Great seeing you last weekend. That was such a nice write up on your blog! I couldn't have summed it up better myself. I can't believe you remember that my mom put buttons in the cakes! And "Tumbleweed"???? - How on earth did you remember that? I had even forgotten that one!

Okay, here's more: playing "On the Ranch" (yes, we named our fantasy-games!) (Actually, I didn't forget about this one at all, but considered too embarrassing to include ... Thanks, Lori! ;-> ); G-force (enough said) (100% agreed! LOL); riding our bikes up and down the [road] in the summers (baskets, bells and banana seats!); hanging out with the cats-in-the-straw in your Dad's barn; Friday night sleepovers at yourhouse, watching the Dukes of Hazard (I like Luke. No, I love Bo!) or Miami Vice (yes, the two great loves of my life, Bo and Sonny! You had to remind me ... ugh. LOL) and drinking Pop Shoppe pop (what flavour was 'green'?) (That would be lime – and it was yummy. As a side note, I know someone who experimented a great deal with recipes for BBQ ribs, and the one she finally determined as the best included marinating the ribs in lime Pop Shoppe pop overnight before cooking them!); tormenting your brother with "Women's Lib" signs and jeers ... (I swear I was born a feminist … I have NO IDEA where it came from …) And everytime I hear that old song, "Because your kiss, your kiss, is what I miss...." I think of hanging out upstairs at your place and listening to your Barbie stereo, while making our Barbie dolls do very adult things! (Call me a liar or repressed, but I truly have no recollection of the “making our Barbie dolls do very adult things”, but sadly I do remember playing with Barbies. I wish I'd done something more valuable with my time ... LOL)

And don't even get me started on school - from Miss M. all the way up to Miss K! We'll have to get together soon and see what buried treasures we both can dig up!!!

Thanks again for blogging me!

Trying to be a better blogger

You may have noticed a few changes around here ... a few more links along the right-hand side, some opportunity to sign up for RSS feed or mail notifications if you don't want to manually go and check whether I've updated this blog, etc.

Another thing I'm committed to doing is responding to your comments. I truly believe that even if no one read this blog, I would still write it. It is a wonderful tool for self-expression (and I am a bit dismayed at my need to express myself, as stoic and as practical as I would like to consider myself). However, if no one read this blog, I'd write it much differently. So you, my audience, are important to me. Your thoughts, your feedback matter (except for the dork who once made an oblique comment about me being Canadian when I posted a photo of a thistle that I thought was cool. But I'm sure he'll never find his way back here.) Besides, when I comment on someone else's blog, I'd like to see a response and it ticks me off when there isn't one. So treating others as I would like to be treated ... It's a conversation, and I am honoured when you engage with me.

Heck, I'm honoured even when you just read this humble blog!

:)

Eclecta

Next step: Responding to all my e-mails!

Update: FeedBlitz's e-mail subscription service sucks. That code is now removed from this blog.

Takeoff of a Red-Tailed Hawk

Takeoff - 1:38pm
Originally uploaded by Chris Seufert.

I noticed it's been a while since I've posted any pictures. I don't have any of my own that I'm ready to share, so here's a great shot from one of my Flickr contacts, Chris Seufert. Chris writes: "This red-tailed hawk strikes an angelic form springing from a telephone wire outside my office. This is hard to time and I stayed framed on him for a while to get this when I should have been working. Looks like an album cover... Chatham, Cape Cod."

Enjoy!

Very cool table of types of graphs

Someone is very creative. I likie!

What a joke

So a college student tries to smuggle powder-filled condoms onto an airplane, gets caught, and is jailed for three weeks for drug trafficking. Tests come back identifying the powdery substance as flour. Student sues the local government and settles for $180,000.

Apparently the powder-filled condoms were a joke.

Don't get me wrong - I tend to believe that drugs should be decriminalized.

But $180,000 for holding someone for packing condoms with flour and taking them on a plane? The joke is on the taxpayer - what did this girl think was going to happen, the customs officers would gather around her condoms of flour and bake bread???

How to Be Remarkable

Interesting. Pretty intimidating to be remarkable by this set of criteria. But I think it's all true. So who has this kind of courage?

Washington Post on abnormally warm weather

So true!

Never has good weather felt so bad. Never have flowers inspired so much fear. Never has the warm caress of a sunbeam seemed so ominous. The weather is sublime, it's glorious, it's the end of the world.

The article goes on to say that it's more El Nino than global warming, although global warming is also having an impact ...

Analysing "Hollaback Girl"

Okay, I know that "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani was released two years ago or so, but I just found this article analysing this song that I personally find very funny. It almost made me feel as though I were back in Seattle listening to Tracy and Monika!

Stupid question

Today at work we were casually talking about the fact that the city of Bangalore in India is in the process of changing its name. Before I really thought about it, I started to ask, "Well, would you want to live in a place called bang-galore?" but halfway through realized I was talking to a bunch of guys who yes, actually, would like that very much, if only for the pubescent humour value! LOL

Sorry to the people of Bangalore. :)

Clean technologies in 2006: a review

Excellent blog - recommended reading if you are interested in learning more about developments in clean energy and markets for clean energy, especially from a Canadian perspective.

Post this under the "No shit, Sherlock" file

2007 to be hottest year ever: Report

I don't know what the weather is like where you live, but it's spring here in Toronto. Temperatures are 5 - 10 degrees Celsius higher than normal. It's been like this for at least a week and the long-term forecast doesn't look much different. I can't imagine what this summer will be like!

Summing up 2006

Via Overdressed and Re-Employed, I found this set of questions summing up 2006 at SundryMourning.com with an invitation to answer them on our own websites. So here are my answers (kind of boring/serious responses as I’m still not feeling like myself, but I’ve cut out my truly boring responses).

1. What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before?

I went hang-gliding! I went to Chicago! I got a subscription to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra! I bought a decent camera! I volunteered at the international AIDS conference hosted by Toronto this summer! I went to the Stratford Festival (to see the amazing Colm Feore star in “Coriolanus”). I went hawk-watching. In general, I stopped making work my life and did a bunch of cool stuff instead and lived.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Well, not beside me or in front of me ... But yes, my friends Ryan and Isabelle welcomed little Audrey into their lives. And early in 2007, I will be an auntie for the first time when my sister-in-law Lisa gives birth to twins!!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, but my friend Nancy’s father passed away right before Christmas, and that family’s grief was hard enough to witness.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Getting a life. Escaping the gravitational pull of work.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not keeping in touch as well as I should have with people precious to me (Wendy, Dirk and Lieve, Melissa, Heather, Leslie-Ann, Joe and Lisa …) "Not keeping in touch" is saying it kindly ...

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Britney Spears, for going commando and proudly showing the world her private parts. (Sorry, if you really want the pictures you can go looking for them yourself.)

Seriously:

Stephen Lewis, for continuing to be the conscience of the world on behalf of African women and children suffering as a result of the AIDS epidemic. The man is a rock star.

Al Gore seems to have stirred the apathetic masses/media with “An Inconvenient Truth”, so he deserves some major kudos for helping to bring concerns for the environment back into the mainstream.

Also, the American voters who finally gave an ass-whooping to the Republicans. Keep up the good work!!!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Surely, George Bush & Dick Cheney are foregone conclusions?

Also, Steven Harper (current Prime Minister of Canada) and the Progressive Conservatives for introducing a plan to address global warming by the year 2050????

And after watching "Manufactured Landscapes", I can't forget the average North American (including myself) whose voting and buying practices and general ignorance/apathy have undermined the well-being of our planet.

23. What was your favorite TV program?

“The Hour” with George Stroumboulopoulos. That’s about all the TV I watch these days (TV during gym workouts doesn't count). However, I did watch season one of “Weeds” on DVD and thought it was very good.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Hate would be more destructive to me than to whomever was in my bad books. But there is at least one person of whom I think much less than I did at this time last year.

25. What was the best book you read?

Hard to pick, but I think I’d have to say that “A Mighty Heart” by Marianne Pearl was the best. Runner-up: “Race Against Time” by Stephen Lewis.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov. A wonderful orchestral work that’s beautiful and passionate. I was introduced to it by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra! (If you ever get the chance to see it performed live, go for it – and get seats that will allow you to see the entire stage.) If you don't normally listen to classical music, this might be a good introductory piece for you to listen to! :)

27. What did you want and get?

A life. A camera. Some wonderful new friends.

28. What did you want and didn't get?

Sufficient sleep. Too busy doing absolutely everything else.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
“Casino Royale”. I have never left a theatre so elated as after that movie. Runners-up: “Pride and Prejudice” (which, like Kalisah, I do watch over and over again), “Borat”, “Who Killed the Electric Car?”, “The Constant Gardener”, “Brokeback Mountain”.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
“Wait to shop until I lose a few more pounds and wear the same old worn-out crap in the meantime” LOL

33. What kept you sane?

“95% of the things we worry about never happen.” My boss. Exercise. Journaling. Photography.

37. Who was the best new person you met?

Several – it’s been a good year: Mélanie, Leslie-Ann, Aamer, the other volunteer supervisors from the AIDS conference, Andrea …

Amazing waves

In this blog posting, you will see awe-inspiring photos of waves that I would have been too much of a chicken-shit to take!

Mystery tree at sunset (see the tiny moon?)

Mystery tree at sunset (see the tiny moon?)
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

I stopped to some pictures of a glorious sunset on my way to my parents' place for Xmas. Now it's bugging me that I can't identify this tree. Can anyone tell me what kind of tree it is???

Trees in fog II

Trees in fog II
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Taken at the edge of a golf course near my parents' home on Xmas morning. But don't think of it as a golf course - think of it as a moment of Tuscany in Ontario! :)

Tree in fog

Tree in fog
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

I took this photo on Xmas morning. I love it, though unfortunately the majesty of this tree is not adequately conveyed because there is nothing for scale.

I love trees that are somehow allowed to grow in the middle of a field. (I know my dad never would have tolerated it - there's competition for water, sun, and nutrients, and then there's also the real damage that tree roots and branches could do to machinery).

I wonder why some trees are left when all others have been cut away?

When I lived in Korea, there was a massive old tree in the middle of a major street (opposing lanes of traffic had to go AROUND it), but many people did not want it to be chopped down because they believed it was inhabited by a spirit.

I don't think I'd find a single Ontario farmer who'd admit to believing trees were inhabited by spirits ...

Going a little crazy

Happy new year ... or should I say happier new year. My new year began at 3:00AM with a distinct stabbing sensation in the abdominal area. After a night of being violently ill (trust me, I don't use the word "violently" loosely here - I've paid my dues!), and a day and a half of sipping water and barely eating, I can tell you the following:

1. I have a wonderful roommate, Farzanah, who bought be rehydration salts (she might have also passed this bug on to me, but that probably could not be helped. Besides, the Gravol I bought her on Friday certainly came in handy for me on Monday!);
2. I'm well on my way to meeting my weight-loss goals for 2007;
3. I currently have the attention span of a - of a - damn, I'm too tired to care about finding an appropriate comparison;
4. Despite feeling tired and weak (or because I feel tired and weak?) I am bored. I hate that!
5. It may be a loooong time before I can eat salmon again;
   
6. 2007 can only get better from here!