I blog, therefore I am

Blogging and business moving mainstream

While it's interesting that MicroSoft and IBM are pondering the ways to utilize and/or cash in on the blogging concept, the tiny little piece of this article that lead me to blog this was the phrase "Thousands of blogs, characterized by some as the height of self-importance, are posted daily."

Height of self-importance???!!!

Okay, sort of. Who am I to think that I deserve to take up web space, server time and the all-important web-surfer's time with what could arguably be described as meaningless drivel? Am I actually under the delusion that even an insignificant number of people will stumble across
a thought gone further off track..., read it and, more tellingly, get something out of it? Does anyone really like strings of rhetorical questions?

In that light, I suppose I may be considered an ego-maniac. I have not only started this blog, I already have one fully functional website and a second one in it's infancy. Neither one of them have the potential to contain profound life-changing knowledge. It's bits about my dog, my cat, my poetry, my photos, my genealogy and other sites that I like to visit.

So, what's feeding my drive to maintain my sites and post my verbal diarrhea online? Truth is, every now and then, I get an unsolicited hit from a complete stranger. It's true! It's very wierd, but true. I have proof in my guestbooks and in my website statistics. On the rare occassion, someone other than a friend or family member actually stumbles across my web pages and (gasp!) finds something helpful, useful or enjoyable about them.

That hasn't happened here yet.

I've absolutely no proof that anyone (other than my husband, who I believe only reads this to take a sanity pulse) has read these entries. And so what? As with my website - it's out there. Someone is willing to give me this space and I'm damned well going to take advantage of it. Yes, I am adding to the vast amounts of unintelligible verbosity that currently exists online. So be it.

But I get the last laugh.

Some day, someone will take the time to read it.

sweaty eyelids

It's a freakin sweatbox around here.  The last two days (since we returned from Alaska) have been absolutely eyelash-melting, tooth sweating, god-forbid-you-wear-anything hot.  According to the weather website, it's currently 23 Celsius out, but feels like 29.  No kidding.  My thermometer actually says 29.  And that's now in the evening when it's supposedly cooler.  As if.

No, I don't have air conditioning.  Every year we threaten to go out and get a little unit just for the bedroom but piss around about it until it's no longer that excruciatingly hot out.  After that, why bother?  It'll be another 50 weeks before we have to deal with temperatures like that again, so we can just wait until next year, right?

This is the same skill set with which we have successfully put off finishing the basement, painting our hallways and seeing the sites that our own city has to offer.  This kind of procrastination takes practice and dedication.  Not everyone has the fortitude to continually ignore dingy hallways, gorgeous local scenery and sticky kitchen chairs.

While tolerating the sticky kitchen chairs, though, I am left too drained to do anything but contemplate all the unfinished and undone things around me.  (never mind the laundry - it's definitely too hot to do laundry)  It's kind of sad, really, since I know the time is there for me to accomplish these things, but I just don't get around to it.  Apparently I have time to think about it; I know exactly what I want done in the basement and what colour I need to paint the walls and what local sites I want to see. 

I'll have to look into doing something about that next weekend.

where am I again??

I returned today from a trip to the USA - five nights in Anchorage for the aforementioned wedding and one night in Seattle as part of the return trip.  Despite living so close to the border, I rarely get into the states as I really have no need to.  I just don't have enough reason to justify digging out my passport and sitting in a line up at the border to fight it out over parking spots at warehouse sized outlet stores. 

This trip brought to light something that I keep forgetting: the US is a different country.  I watch American television shows, I see a bit of American news and I guess I kind of figured we're all the same after a while.  Of course there are the significant differences in government structure, demographics, geography and all the obvious stereotypical traits touted by the media and anyone who's proud to be either a Canadian or American citizen.  blah blah blah

But the little differences took a while to sink in.  The cities seemed more sprawling.  I kept trying to pay people with one dollar bills, since they're the same colour as Canadian twenties and I kept looking for two dollar coins in my change.  News broadcasts and newspapers were more intense.  I didn't recognize many of the songs on the radio - I knew a fair few, but it was disconcerting how many I'd never heard before.  A lot of my food was heavily battered and, while I'm good with most Asian, Indian and European accents, the southern drawls kept tripping me up.  And, yes, there were a surprising number of southern drawls in Alaska and not just on the tourists from the cruise boats. 

Now, I'd been in San Francisco last spring and noticed some of the same things, but thought it was a result of being further removed from home.  Now, however, I was seeing it in two states that both border on Canada!

This was a bit of a relevation for me - I hadn't truly appreciated before this how different the Canadian and American cultures can be.  Perhaps I hadn't truly appreciated, despite hearing it so often, that there are distinct Canadian and American cultures.  My friends in the states (alright, they're ex-pats - but I've met their fully American friends too!)  never expounded on these little differences. 

At the most basic level, I've always had the belief that everyone, no matter where they're living, needs the same Big Things: to love, eat, sleep and pee.  But, at the moment, I'm left to wonder how many of the other Little Things does it take to add up to a Difference?

The Difference tomorrow?  I'll be going to the bank to re-convert my American money back into a more substantial amount of cold hard Canadian cash.

yay! 

  
 

my cat's tummy is bare

Mesquite had her stomach shaved on Monday. On purpose.

She was bereft of her fur for an ultrasound after "something" could sort of be seen on an x-ray. The preliminary conclusions of the ultrasound don't sound very good: soft tissue sarcoma. The prognosis doesn't sound very good either. Surgery is an option but this mass is close to her spine (presumably the source of the pain that led her to wake us up early July 1) and that makes it harder to ensure the entire tumor can be removed. Add to this the facts that she is around 14 or 15 years old, overweight and has had problems under anaesthetic in the recent past, and she is a very poor candidate indeed.

So, I now sit and wait for a phone call from our vet. She will have read the full report from the radiologist and have her own ideas about what could and should happen next. Meanwhile I'm left with the internet as a source of too much information and a tonne of hypothetical and often redundant questions regarding causes and treatment options.

Cats, it seems, are not particularly good at voicing their discomfort in it's early stages. Nor has this one been clear about what exactly was bothering her when it did become apparent. It is apparent, however, that she is uncomfortable with nudity.

I will worry about her tumor, her elevated liver enzymes and what will come over the next while. She's distraught enough over the possibility of someone catching sight of her pink tummy.

Wedding Plans

Okay, it's not my wedding. One of my friends from high school is getting married next weekend (not really, she's already married, but this is the public ceremony). I just spent a significant portion of today purchasing not only a wedding present, but outfits for the multiple events, a new purse to go with said outfits and new shoes for my husband.

I hate shopping and my husband flat out loathes it. This is an awful lot of production for a wedding and I'm only a guest. I don't even want to know what she and the wedding party are going through.

Yes, I mentioned my own husband earlier. How can I not know what she's going through? I am married and will have been for 8 years this fall. I am only now glad that I got married when I was way too young and naive to know that I was doing everything wrong. I didn't arrange to have all the parties and gatherings that I should have. I had only my maid of honor and I didn't ask anything of her other than to show up. We had the same deal with the best man. There were no planned speeches and no time or space designated for dancing or photos. We blissfully took advantage of every offer of familial help extended to us - from crashing at relatives, to the DJ, to the decorating, to the photographer, to the catering, to the petsitting while we were on our honeymoon.

Were I to have been more in the norm and waited to marry until my later 20's or early 30's, planning such an event would now involve a significantly greater amount of stress, less reliance on the kindness of friends and family that always carries that hint of obligation and more reliance on the guarantee of paid help. I've since been to others' weddings. The night is planned from start to finish and practically everyone gets up and says something; whether it's just a speech or a toast or a roast, they are scheduled and timed between specific songs on a carefully thought out playlist. Dinner is choreographed and dances are served up to pre-arranged partners. It's the kind of night that only happens with the will of a true martyr or the clout of a deep pocket book. I don't know very many martyrs.

It's truly amazing that everyone just doesn't elope.

I anticipate that this will be a gorgeous wedding. I don't know if her event is an occassion worthy of a plea for sainthood or a roll of the dice. However planned or free the day is though, knowing my friend, it will be nothing short of a fine affair. I plan to enjoy their day with them and offer my obligation and guilt free assistance should she need it.

I must now go co-ordinate my jewellery with my new dresses...
j

First Post

Okay. So, this is a blog. I just signed up for this for the heck of it to see how this whole thing worked and what it looked like. I'm thinking it'll take a while for the potential to sink in. Do I want to go in for the group blog and make it a communication tool - an alternative to the cc'd emails from distant family? I suppose I could leave it as a personal rant venue...somewhere to vent and practice articulating. That seems a little less, I dunno, productive. Attempts at personal growth in a public venue (never mind how few people will actually ever see this) seems rather masochistic, no?

Ah, dear. I think I'll leave off before this gets too wacky, and go adjust all my settings and profile stuff.

more hopefully soon
j