For those who read my blog regularly you will recall a very tough hospital visit I made a few weeks back for a former colleague, Judy. I once read a quote by someone years ago online – something about work and jail being the only two institutions in life where one is forced to spend their days with people who they wouldn't necessarily spend time with otherwise. Judy for me was one of those who presence and wit separated her from the other 'prisoners'.
I was honoured to work with Judy for the past four years and I envied her laid-back and ageless state of mind. A bright light in the day, snappy dresser and one of the best accessorize-ers I have ever met. A fan of current affairs, chats about faith and life and intelligent conversation, something I have come to cherish in this world as its hard to come by sometimes. Great laugh, beautiful smile. Positivity.
She survived cancer multiple times and was ready to enjoy retirement laden heavily with international travel and time with her gorgeous young granddaughter she doted on and her two sons. Only to be diagnosed with stage four Leukemia, unable to qualify for any type of treatment. There was some talk regarding an experimental treatment that never panned out. Three to six months. It's unfathomable. It's unfair. It's never the people you want it to be.
On December 18th Judy unfairly lost her fight with evil Cancer.
In my old(er) age I am recognizing the impact some spirits have upon one another, how others can add (and subtract at times) from your values, morals and thoughts. I am a better person for having known Judy. I have gained from her wisdom and will look back upon her emails with tears in my eyes and warmth in my heart.
Dear Judy,
Thank you for the kind words in my darkest days. Thank you for the laughs, the patience, the no questions asked approach to my vendor invoices. Thanks for the joy and smile, laughing at my stupid jokes.
You were always an angel. Just now have you received your wings.
Much love and thanks,
Christina (Foxzen)
I'm a fortunate gal. I have tremendously rattling friends and each year I attempt to arrange a gathering to celebrate my birthday. Usually something goes south and I too quickly admit defeat and cancel the whole shindig. Being born during December can really throw a wrench in to birthday function design. This year I was determined to overcome both hell and/or high water to celebrate myself.
Mostly everyone was able to come out for the dinner Monday night. We just went to a local pub as I had left the reservations until last minute and wanted to keep the vibe casual and affordable as opposed to downtown chic which typically equals mucho dinero. It is a recession after all kids. Anyway, good turn-out, about fifteen people, old friends, new friends, older friends, younger friends. My meal wasn't great but the gin and tonic sure did the trick.
All my favourite people at one table equals big satisfied sigh. Different walks of life, different points in their lives but alas everyone got along swimmingly. Someone who is attempting to recapture her youth via me did slightly embarrass herself due to drunkenness but it's all good. Along for the party was a lady from work whom I refer to as 'Mama'. Along with my mother she is the consummate dinner and conversation companion. Always ready with interesting facts, location oriented suggestions and laughs. You can take those two broads anywhere!
Wasn't a late night, we all left the pub around nine and what followed made the evening extra special. A little impromptu high school reunion at my cat Marty's apartment. My Bestie, Pinks, Steph and Jeff. Oh, and Marty of course. Lots of fun. Not to pigeonhole anyone but when you know people for that long and you spent your adolescence in the location we did...there's common bonds. Maturity and ambition have driven us in different directions in adulthood but the familiarity is there. Bound by force, together for birthday by choice. Aw.
Tuesday? God knows what I did.
I take it upon myself to mastermind a lunch for our department at work each year and that was Wednesday. There is a fantastic holiday buffet at The Academy for Spherical Arts in Liberty Village and that's become our choice for this event. Due to the current economic conditions it was a BYOL (buy your own lunch) event and there was mild protest but whatever. Also because of this everyone required a separate bill and to say the least the waitress became a little flustered and rude. My boss/wrangler had to contain me from loud complaint. Ugh.
That evening had my last massage of the decade (Carrie is amazing) and promised myself I would finish up the Christmas shopping, and by default, ruined all the benefits of the massage with heavy shopping bags. I stumbled home at 9:30, exhausted and poor. Thank Jebus for Urban Outfitters...Bestie is so hard to buy for and last week I had checked out a rather clever book of pickups and come-ons that was a last resort for his gift. Only to find the previous display of these books had been replaced by Bibles! Bibles! They were relocated...close call there.
Thursday was the corporate Christmas function. Jenny was able to attend, she is the lass I am closest to at the office but has been away since March for maternity leave. Baby Brody stayed home so I had Jen all to myself! Yays! I truly miss her. You consume eight plus hours daily with someone for three years and suddenly she departs on her own adventure...it's tough. Very much have I stayed at my current employer due to the people, which may not be the best choice but was my choice at the time. People make it or break it.
After the party Jen and I strolled along Queen street and I picked up the team Jacob (gag, Twilight) t-shirt at Bluenotes I have had my eye on for Katya. I also sadly returned a laptop bag I picked up for myself the evening before, could not accommodate the wideness of my wide-screen. I did however use the credit to snag a pretty killer pair of snake mittens. (To which I used to harass most of my co-workers on Friday.) Then I got a text from Steve to meet him for drinks and Xmas shopping.
Ah, Steve. We used to work in the same building but he has since moved on. Seriously, Steve-o is one of the top five people I have met since moving to Toronto. Neat guy, intelligent and a good person. I headed back to work, tried to convince the president to borrow the new snake gloves and met Steve to shop for his dad. We chose some cologne and a pretty swell tie. I love ties. For me. For him. For Marty. For everyone.
It was bitter cold out and we had issues trying to find space in a local pub to grab a bite to eat and I had the best idea at the time ever. Hello to the Ziploc bag of frozen chili mother gave me recently but also to the two bottles of Merlot and the dinner rolls sitting at home. Lightbulb! We sat on my couch, talked about everything for hours, watched a filthy banned Ramstein video and finished off the vino. Cheap and cheerful! Synergy! Troubleshooting!
Friday morning I could not remove myself from the comfort of my boudoir and ended up being half and hour late for work. Naughty. Did the work thing, forgot to change my voice-mail but did remember to set my out of office and headed to Kat's with a burger and fries for our little Christmas party of deux. I gave her the offending Twilight shirt, Hello Kitty toothbrush holder, Hello Kitty tissue holder, twilight magazine (please, someone stop this insanity) and a set of mushroom stapler and pushpins.
I got saffron, neato Matryoshka measuring cups, a cookbook, a Dorothy from Oz t-shirt and these great paper doll type hings but they are stable/equine oriented and are magnetic. WoooooHooooo! She knew exactly what to by for little ol' me. We did speak about the types of situations one would wear her new Twilight Team Jacob t-shirt and quite luckily I am not involved in those specific situations. Phew, close one again. We watched 500 Days of Summer and Four Christmases, both were okay. I forgot how precious Joseph Gordon Levitt was. Adorable, cheek pinch-iness.
And that darling concludes the last week of my twenty seventh year. Cheers and here is hoping twenty eight totally kicks twenty sevens ass. Cause...twenty seven I wasn't that impressed with to be honest.
...but.... I would like to take this opportunity to celebrate my TWO NEW NEIGHBORS! who added ME, making me feel both Important and a little Self-Conscious (sorry about the mess... I've been.. away...)
I like falling asleep, but i hate 'going' to sleep. falling asleep means i'm tired and comfortable, and i've found myself laying flat somewhere with time to sleep. falling asleep usually happens on the couch, on my fiance's lap, or in bed on top of a book. falling asleep always happens ON something.
I am young.
I am beautiful.
I am out of here.
Integrity
Peace
Compassion
Love
Birch Bark Trees
Charity
Forgiveness
Humility
Personal Responsibility
Accountability
Honesty
Truth
Grace
Healthfulness
Niceness
Empathy
Happiness
Poise
The Brand of Confidence That Does Not Put Others Down In Order To Exist
Knowing True Beauty
Never Having To Build Yourself Up
Never Putting Yourself Down
Genius
Creativity
Selflessness
Courage
Bravery
Kindness
Hard Work
Direction
Ambition
Trying
Doing
Never Relying On Speech
Always Relying on Action
Foresight
Caring
Effort
Effortlessness
High Standards.
Hey guess what I just figured out? I easily get sucked in to the vortex of inner sadness and self pity, it wounds me and lasts for days. Then I snap out of it and realize life is kind of imperfect and beautiful in every aspect but with the correct mindset this is the only way to visually take in the beauty of it all. My therapist has decided to change her title to 'reminder' in my case. Reminding me of the beauty of life, reminding me of the art of living that I do so enjoy. I adore the daily twists and turns. Honestly.
Also we discovered together just how remarkably intuitive I am about my own feelings and 'roots' of issues. Easily are my issues traced, hurrah! My dad fixed everything. He could fix anyone and anything, oozing a sort of calm along the way. In one fellow swoop extinguishing the fire of the situation, removing any future concern by ensuring the problem didn't even have a faint pulse remaining. I strive to be this person, I feel I need to be this person and 'fix' everything.
However! Some people and some things I cannot 'fix'. I cannot make them happy, chose the forks in the road they take, push them towards greatness, calm, happy lives. It turns out, unbeknownst to me, that everyone and everything around me have their own agendas and feelings and thoughts and likely won't respond well to threat or force. Especially Mister, who remains wounded and who is obviously interested in me but still very hesitant.
No.
I can't.
This. Sucks. Unfairness overload.
You can't be me, I'm a rockstar. (Note to self: Self, marry Pharell Williams...skater rock punk urban dude who can sing and design jewelry for Louis Vuitton. Purrfect.)
Numerous muses and project starters swimming around my head , alike hundreds of cold and ambition hungry guppies. I want to grab my guitar and figure out how to both slow down and folk up T Pain songs. I spoke to my friend Steph yesterday and we spoke about Vlogging, something I may add as a weekly feature to my website/Blog thingy currently under construction. Found an amazing web designer via the Alchemy portion of Etsy.com. She is a godsend and every progress report or picture attachment gets me even more excited to get this thing going.
Adding to the excitement is also having been bestowed an amazing honour at the pink dinner party. More about that in the future, very exciting. Have new-found confidence in going public and realizing this opportunity could likely propel me in all sorts of new directions. Future forks in my winding road of adventure. I need a sprinkling of fairy dust here and there. I like a little excitement within my day. I like something interesting and foreign strewn about during my commute. This is what makes everyday just a little memorable and special. Something I am trying to concentrate on.
I have this very poignant, interesting entry at least halfway done and sure enough my Open Office software is being a spoiled child and suddenly, without warning, closing down the application. Sigh. I even went to all the trouble of making bullet points below the written text to remind myself of the other things I wanted to tell you folks. Nevertheless it seems that entry isn't ready to be posted so I will elaborate slightly on the happenings of the past week.
Anxiety. I got it. It comes and goes. I find it hard to concentrate, I find it difficult to daydream and I read way too much in to everything. And by everything I mean mostly everything, one, sight, sound, overheard, under-heard and so forth. I have ways of dealing with this, mostly saying out loud to myself 'stop' and concentrating on the task at hand. My stomach is in knots at times as well, that's just poor digestion I think. Or possibly the chili I had on Wednesday. Likely the chili but with all this over-analyzing who has time for reason?
I went swimming at the Rec centre twice this week. If you don't feel you require the exercise then I suggest you go solely for the rather impressive selection of men who choose to swim there. My. God. On Monday the whole lot of them were in the 8-10 range, I saw one 6 once. Once! The others were all basking in the glow of that high range of desirable male, at least in an attractive, fit, excellent hair, sense. And we all know how much I enjoy a man with a nice head of hair!
Speaking of which, Mister. Promised me a walk this week and suggested a lunch next week. The walk is untaken. The lunch unplanned. I took it upon myself to plan a couple of hours for the two of us to go Christmas shopping for his niece and nephew. Personally I can think of not a better date then both spending his money alongside browsing childrens toys and books. I did mention out of pure desperation that I do need some progress on this before I go on vacation and suffer from mister-withdrawal for two weeks. We'll see, when it comes to Mister...there hasn't been any coming yet.
(Have not heard from Married. Miss him. Miss getting fucked on a regular basis, possibly too graphic but it's true. I have taken matters in to my own hands however it is not the same, I am so predictable with myself. Why can't he just leave the chubby wife and make the obviously better choice? DON'T answer that, I don't want to hear it.)
Ohhhhhhhhh snap! Guess what just decided to work...my good friend O squared. I will back-date that entry and post it after this one under Rockstar. Tell your friends, and their moms too.
Toronto gets cold in the winter...Torontoians forget about this. This one did. The wind? She is as bitter cold, as most of my past relationships. I bought a new coat from Lornes after work today, got 10% off just for asking and scored myself a little down filled black number that can seamlessly go from corporate to casual. Lornes has amazing stuff, Michael Kors can make one hell of a winter coat trust me. Kors has such a great eye for colour, the selection was impressive...all jewel tones; ruby, sapphire and emerald. Had I six hundred extra dollars lying around I would totally go back and get me some Kors. Instead I went with fashionable and functional.
Look at me I'm an adult!
Kind of left my passport project to the last minute and now have to scramble to get the needed document so perhaps mother and i can take a trip down to Florida in late December or early January. Mister was thinking he would go to South America over the Christmas break, he didn't invite me. I have over two weeks of vacation left and plan to use them by physically going somewhere. Over the past few years I have mostly subscribed to the 'stay-cation' and spending my vacation time up north at my parents house.
I miss my dad. I really do. In dreams he is always alive and my mother has passed on instead. WTF? It bothers me. Wrote this down for my therapy appointment next Tuesday. Next Monday I am having a birthday dinner for about a dozen of my friends at a local pub. I will post pictures, trying to get excited about it but to be honest I am exhausted from anxiety this week and can't wait to spend two and a half days up north with my mom. Sleeping in, 2.5 hours of Coronation Street on Sunday., dogs, cat, one mom and eight horses. My mom sold my dad's horse. Initially I was devastated but then realized he is going to a good home and my poor mom can't take care of everything all by herself.
Which brings us to...my brother decided to battle again with drug addiction and last week was forcibly moved out with his skanky girlfriend whom I cannot stand. Yesterday while Christmas shopping with my bestie Katya I texted him asking if he needed anything in particular for the new apartment. No response, tried calling my mom to see if she knew and she didn't answer the phone. I got slightly concerned considering she had to let out, let in, clean up after eight horses all by herself. I envisioned her bad knee giving out in the blizzard while the horses run amuck around her. I tried my brother again, girlfriend answered and I asked her if she could possibly ask my brother if he could possibly make the five minute commute to mom's for a checkup. I was civil! My brother didn't go over or call.
Today he told my mom I had 'freaked out' about her to the girlfriend last night. Bull. Shit. \He also took his dog who my mother was very attached to considering she was his main caregiver. Ugh. Which leads me to a question for you all that I have been asking around about - do you like your siblings significant others? I've gotten a mixed bag of answers, certainly it's an interesting subject non?
i wish i could even wish that i were at all sorry for what i said, but the fact is
Hypothetically if you were walking towards me on the street and I didn't have my glasses on until about five feet away I likely wouldn't tell it was you. Unless I gained some sort on hypersmell typce disorder without my glasses I am in a world on fuzz at a distance. Driving at night before glasses? Not recommended. Driving at night now? Roadtrip? Sure!
I am excited can you tell? They were a small fortune but worth every penny.
Yay!
