Annoyed Rant UPDATED

This week at work I saw a new client.  That is not unusual in itself, but I thought it was a good place to start this story.  This particular client was from out of town, from another country to be precise.  When he arrived for the appointment the first thing out of his mouth was, "I didn't have time to stop at the bank for cash, can I go after the appointment."  This happens on occasion, as our clinic only accepts cash or cheque, though we are always very clear on the phone, especially with new clients, that we do only accept cash or cheque, so come prepared.  I said "sure" and proceeded to give the treatment.

When it was over, he asked where the closest ATM was and I sent him on his way.  He came back about five minutes later saying that the ATM would not accept his foreign debit card, and could he come back to pay me the next day (this was at the end of the day).  I would like to say that after dealing with people for the last seven years as an RMT, I feel like I have a pretty good feel for who's honest and who's a schyster.  This guy really did seem honest, so I told him fine.  He even offered to give me what cash he had....$15, but I told him that if he was going to come back he might as well just pay for the whole thing the next day.

The next day came and he didn't show up.  So I called and left a message for him, on what I assumed was a cell phone.  Never heard anything back, so I have called him again the last two days and left messages.  I am beginning to think I may never see my $40 and it really ticks me off.  I can't imagine being in a foreign city on business and not checking my messages.  I guess from here on out I won't be so lenient with people.  I have never had anyone not pay me before.  I have had to deal with two NSF cheques that were never settled up in the last seven years, but never this.  Maybe he will still come and make things right, but I am getting less hopeful.  Though I will keep calling him!

Update:  I got paid today!  After humming and hawing about calling him again, I bit the bullet and called him today.  For the first time I was actually able to get him on the phone, rather than an answering machine.  I told him I would like him to drop off payment today around noon (this was at 11:40AM).  He was like, oh, uh, yeah, noon is in 20 minutes.  I said, yes it is.  He said he would be here, and he came.  He claims that he was laid up in bed for a couple of days last week.  I just don't understand why he didn't call or come down here today if he was back at work and feeling better :P  Oh well, I got paid, and that's what matters!!

I'm cranky

It has been a trying day.  It started out good enough.  We had a really nice time last night with some friends who we had over for supper to celebrate a birthday.  I was happy as I headed to work, little did I know what was awaiting me when I got there.  I got to the office, turned on the computer, went to the back room to put my stuff away and went into my treatment room to get my table ready for my first client.  The first thing that struck me when I opened the door to my room was heat. 

For the last few weeks when I have gotten to work in the morning it has been cold in the office.  Today was no exception.  Usually somewhere between 16 and 18 degrees in the office, but as the day goes on it warms up.  However, my room was abnormally warm.  And a millisecond later I was hit with a rather foul smell.  At first I thought maybe the building had turned on the furnace after months of not using it.  At first it smelled a little like burnt dust from a heater that has been unused for a period of time.  My second thought was my space heater!  But I looked at it, and it was cold and turned off.  I finally realized it was my electric roasting oven.  It is an 18 quart electric oven that I use to heat stones for doing hot stone massage.  I looked at it and the dial was turned to 300F!  I grabbed the lid and opened it.  After being met by a billow of black smoke, I realized that the rubber mat that I use in there to keep the stones from sliding around in the bottom was thoroughly melted and burned to the bottom of the roaster.  After choking and gagging a bit I grabbed the roaster and unplugged it and pulled out the insert that comes out to wash and put it in our sink and ran water on it to cool it down.  I then proceeded to call both the building manager and my coworker who owns our clinic to tell them what had happened. 

I am assuming that the cleaners must have accidentally turned it on last night while they were cleaning, so it was roasting at 300F for at least 14 hours.  Thank God it didn't start a fire!  My room smells awful, but by the end of the day today it was tolerable.  I don't know if my clients were just being nice to me, but when I appologized for the awful smell, they all assured me that they weren't sure they could smell anything out of the ordinary.  My roaster is now in the garbage and I am hoping that either the building, or the cleaning company will buy me a new roaster.  I realize it was an accident, but I think that someone should be held accountable for it.

After that wonderful excitement my day progressed alright.  I had a large gap in the middle of my afternoon that I was able to at least partially fill with going to get the van plates canceled and giving my coworker a massage.  My last client was booked to come at 5:15pm.  It was a new client and I sat and waited until the phone rang around 5pm.  It was the client's girlfriend.  She explained that she had been in for a massage with my coworker this afternoon and that my coworker mentioned that the boyfriend's appointment was at 5:15pm, but she had booked it for 5:30pm.  I said, no it is at 5:15pm.  She went on about how much her boyfriend needed the treatment, and how sore he was and blah blah blah.  I told her that I would do what I could, but that the appointment was for 5:15pm and I would not be able to treat him at 5:30. 

When the boyfriend showed up, it was about 5:20 and then he had to fill out his form.  By the time he did that, and he got on the table it was closer to 5:30pm.  When I was going over his health form with him, I mentioned that there had been a mix up about the appointment time and that our treatment would be a bit shorter, but I would do what I could in the time we had left.  He told me that his girlfriend had called him and told him that the appointment was set for 5:30pm, after I had talked to her. :P

I just get really annoyed with people who show up late for an appointment and either expect to get their treatment extended, OR people who show up for an hour treatment 15 minutes late and say something like, "Oh, you can just give me a 45 minute treatment."  No, you booked for an hour, you will get 45 minutes and pay for an hour long treatment.  I couldn't believe it a couple of weeks ago when my coworker had a no show client who had booked her appointment the morning of the appointment.  When she called her to see if she was coming, and to inform her of our cancellation fee, the client had the audacity to ask if there was any way she could get out of paying the fee.  It bugs me how people can be so selfish.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest I am going to go eat a big piece of leftover birthday cake and all of life's troubles will melt away, like the rubber mat in the bottom of my roaster. 

Take a little responsibility people...

This morning I had the great joy of attending the Massage Therapist Association of Saskatchewan's annual general meeting. Typically the only reason I attend these 2-3 hour snooze fests are to get the three continuing education credits that are given to everyone who attends. I have to say that this year's meeting wasn't too bad. They have brought in a parliamentarian for the last couple of meetings I have attended, and it helps the technical side of the meeting run a little more smoothly. There is more discussion of relavant topics than trying to figure out how to make a motion and amend a motion, etc.

The one thing that got my eyes rolling was a proposed amendment to the bylaws that would remove the two month grace period for people to pay their membership fees. Membership fees are always, and have always been due by October 31st each year (at least as long as I have been a member, anyway). They have allowed a two month grace period until December 31st to allow the slow pokes to get their payments in without penalty. However they want to ammend that to make it mandatory to pay by October 31st or risk being removed from the association.

I could not believe the number of people who were against it. Like I said above, it has always been due by that date, what is the problem? Don't you pay your power/water/telephone/gas/tax bills on time or risk having your services cut off? I am sure that you would likely get a warning letter/phone call/etc before they go ahead and cut off your services, but can we not take a little responsibility people? This one member got up to speak, and I know that she has been a therapist for at least 20 years. She whined that last year she had lost her renewal letter and so had forgotten to renew her membership on time. Is that MTAS's problem? Just felt like shaking my head, and maybe I did a few times.

So after a whole whack of people got up and spoke for or against it, it was voted on and it was a close vote, but there were more people in favor of changing it, than not. I was happy to see that, and hoping that a few irresponsible people might learn to get their acts together or lose their membership. However, a little later in the meeting, the parliamentarian spoke up and appologized for missing another bylaw that stated that for an amendment of a bylaw to be approved that there had to be at least 2/3 of the votes in favor and we were just shy of that. So no change :P Seems like an awful waste of time.... Oh well, at least I got my credits, and got to have my say, even if it didn't amount to anything happening!

Stinkin' Computer!

I hate how much I have come to depend on this little machine in front of me. Computers seem to rule our lives. Not in the artificial intelligence sort of way....but it's hard to think of not having access to a computer and internet in our homes. I love the ability to go look up an obscure detail that Jason and I can't think when we are getting ready for bed at 11pm. We don't have to wait for anything anymore.

Anyway.....I just have to say that I believe this computer might be on it's way out. I don't know what happened, but it is misbehaving! About a week ago it told me there was some sort of threat of a virus so after removing some bogus anti-virus software, we thought we were good. However this machine has been very temperamental in the last week. It may be time to get a new computer. I am thankful that prices seem to keep coming down. I definitely do not need anything fancy, so probably for a couple hundred dollars we should be able to fix me up with an adequate machine for my limited computing needs.

Going Too Far

I am generally a pretty calm driver. I am not much of a road rage type of person. One thing that frustrates me to no end, however, is when people who are well aware of a lane closure ahead change lanes and zoom to the front of the line instead of waiting their turn in the long line up with everyone else. Sometimes when I see people do that, I will try to stay as close to the person in front of me as I can, just so I don't let them in. I hate tailing the person in front of me too closely though, because it can be dangerous, so I typically do end up letting people in because I like to leave a reasonable amount of space.

On the way home from work today, I came across the Idywyld bridge and up the freeway (it is really nice that it's finally fully open after months of construction) and before I got to the Ruth Street exit the traffic all of a sudden came to a halt and I assumed that there had been an accident or something. I did notice that most people were getting into the right hand lane, which I was in, so I just inched along. I soon realized that because the freeway and all its many on-ramps had reopened there was now a big bottleneck created further down the freeway where there is still construction going on.

Sitting in the lineup of traffic, I saw numerous people swerve out of the right hand lane and go zooming up to the front of the line to avoid the wait. I sat there and was annoyed, but just kept creeping along. I then noticed that the car two cars ahead of me had decided that he was going to drive half way in both lanes to try to prevent people from getting past him. The first vehicle that came up to him was a half ton truck who decided that he would go around the car even if he had to drive in the shoulder/ditch a little bit. When the truck went to go around, the car swerved at the truck....on purpose. Now THAT is a bit much! Thankfully the truck was paying attention and also swerved to avoid being rammed by the car. My heart jumped into my throat a little bit. He came close to hitting that truck. I was telling Jay this story and I am sure that he if he would have hit that guy the other guy could have had him charged with something....assault, reckless driving....something. I understand the frustration, but I would NEVER do something that irresponsible. After that happened, this guy still drove half way between the two lanes, but when other people went around him he didn't try to stop them.

I think that this summer of construction in the city has taught me a lot of patience. Most days when I would leave work between 4pm and 6pm it would take me at least 25-30 minutes to get home. Usually when there is no construction I can be home from work in 10-15 minutes. I would just get in the line up of cars and just relax because that's all you can do when you are stuck in traffic. I am just thankful to live in a city where bad traffic holds me up for an extra 15 minutes, not hours. I can't imagine being in a large city where you are possibly crawling along the freeway for an hour or two commute.

Breast Cancer Awareness

I got a couple of email messages on Facebook this past week from girls I am friends with. This email said that in the name of breast cancer awareness, that you should change your Facebook status to "I like it..." and where the ... are, you should name the location that you keep your purse. For example someone's status might say "I like it on the kitchen counter" or "I like it in the closet".

My first thought when I read this, is that these foolish people are telling possibly hundreds of people on Facebook where in their house they keep their purse. I felt like responding to some of these people and saying, "Thanks, I will know where to look when I break into your house!" :P People can be so silly!

And another thing....how in the world does this promote breast cancer awareness? Probably in the same way purchasing a sponge with a pink ribbon on the package is supposed to make you feel good about supporting the Breast Cancer Association. If you want to support the Breast Cancer Association, donate to the Breast Cancer Association. I know that breast cancer is a big concern for a lot of people, and I don't take it lightly, but I just cringe when I see all the pink ribbon items at this time of year (October is breast cancer awareness month).

If I may rant for a moment...

I have a cold. I feel pretty crappy. I just wanted to go to Walmart and get some cold pills to help me feel human enough that I might be able to do something productive with myself this weekend. I headed to Walmart this morning around 9:30 only to find out that it is now the law to lock up cold medications. I figured, okay, no problem I will just go talk to the pharmacist. Oh, no wait, the pharmacist doesn't get in until sometime AFTER 9:30am :P So I looked at my very limited options. Dayquil, Dristan...and well that was about it.

I grabbed some Dayquil and a couple of other small things we had been meaning to pick up for a few weeks and headed to the check out (I had three items). I went to the closest open til. Not sure why Walmart has eight dozen tils and only opens 3 of them (closest to the door, furthest away from the door and somewhere in the middle). Anyway, I went to the closest open til. The cashier had just finished helping someone and there was NO ONE behind me. She looked at me and said, "You only have three items, you should go to the express lane." I sort of blinked at her in shock and with my cold addled brain just walked away to the next til. I did not see any specifically marked express lanes (since they renovated to add the grocery section they appear to have gotten rid of the self checkouts that I usually go to). I went to the next til and she rung me through and I was on my way.

Considering Walmart is all but a 3 minute drive away from our house we don't shop there very often. Maybe once or twice a month for a couple of items that we forgot to pick up while grocery shopping. I think I could easily boycott Walmart and not feel bad about it in any way. I would not miss them.

Some Thoughts on McKay

I have thought in the past about going back to McKay (where I went to massage school) to teach. From what I have heard recently, they are pretty desperate for teachers and will hire pretty much anyone. That is rather disappointing to me. When I went to school there I felt that our instructors were very qualified and knew their subject matter well. For anatomy, physiology, assessments and pathology classes we had grad students as well as a chiropractor teaching us. For our massage therapy classes we had massage therapists who had been in the field for a number of years, so they had plenty of hands on experience with which to answer our many questions.

Talking to one of my coworkers who graduated from McKay a little over a year ago, she had some pretty awful teachers. Mostly they were massage therapists who had only graduated a couple of years prior to going to teach. They did not know the ins and outs of the anatomy and physiology classes well enough to be teaching them and to be able to answer the questions that would inevitably arise. But their class managed to learn what they needed to learn and I think most of them that chose to take the MTAS board exam passed it. So obviously they did learn enough. However, she said that only three of their class of eight students are still doing massage, a year later!

This same coworker of mine decided to apply for a position at the school teaching Q1 massage (first term of class). Q1 is a pretty basic class, however there is a lot to teach, like techniques, informed consent, history and theory behind massage, general contraindications, etc. She went to the school today, and gave the program director her resume and was basically hired on the spot. She will get the chance to TA in the class for a few months so thankfully she won't just be thrown into it by herself.

When I was in school, the requirement for teachers was that they had to TA for one term (6 months) in the class that they wished to teach and they had to have graduated a minimum of 2 years previous. I realize that they are desperate for teachers, but their lax attitude about hiring really bothers me. It is part of the reason that I have opted not to apply for a job there. I don't really want to be part of a school that has really taken a turn for the worse since I went there. I have heard that the other school in Saskatoon is in a similar situation. If someone approached me about going to school to become a massage therapist, I don't think I could recommend going to school in Saskatoon and feel like I was being honest with them. It really is a shame, considering that massage therapy is a pretty expensive course to take.

A few observations on February 2, 2010

• Going through the conveyor belt type touch-less car wash at Co-op makes me feel dizzy/seasick.
• It's a lot harder to walk through snow than bare pavement.
• Ground Hog Day is completely irrelevant in Saskatchewan. We will always have six more weeks of winter after February 2nd. That will only bring us to the middle of March. It is usually winter in Saskatchewan until at least April.
• I feel that there is very little excuse for people to have NOT shoveled their sidewalks since the blizzard a week and a half ago. Shoveling your sidewalk is part of the responsibility of owning a house. If you cannot do it yourself, either hire someone or call up a friend/relative or someone to come help you with it. Not to toot my own horn, but I shoveled our driveway and sidewalks after the blizzard. Little ole Angie. I am not particularly strong. It took me about three hours in total to do it, but I did it. I was stiff and sore for a few days after, but I did it. You have no excuse!!
• On a similar topic, if you own a house on a corner lot, it is your responsibility to shovel the snow on the sidewalk beside your house.
• I had winter tires put on my car on Saturday and I have noticed a pretty significant improvement in how the car handles on the slippery roads.
  
• I can't believe how weird it felt to drive my car on Saturday after driving the Chevy Avalanche for a week. I felt like I was a tiny little thing sitting so close to the ground.
• I did level two of Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred DVD this morning for the first time. Wow, I don't know if I have ever sweat so much. I was huffing and puffing so hard at the end. Near the end of the workout Jillian says something like, "By now you should feel like you are going to die." I almost did. I don't know that I will do it again tomorrow, but I will definitely work it into the rotation. I felt like it was a good thigh and glut workout

I heard on the radio this morning that we can expect our water bills to go up 7% in each of the next three years. The reason..... People are conserving water, so the city is not making as much money as they need to. What a kick in the butt! Makes me want to have 20 minute showers every day and run our dishwasher and do 20 loads of laundry. At least that way I would actually be paying for the water that I am using, not just paying for the lack of water use. Boo!

Get the Point Already!!!

On Saturday mornings I like to sleep in and laze around. When I do get up I usually spend some time hanging out in my pajamas before I go shower and get dressed and start my day. This morning was no different. Around 11am I was sitting in the kitchen reading some blogs on my laptop and eating some yogurt. Suddenly the doorbell rang. Because I am not comfortable answering the door in my little nighty, I made a dash for the bedroom to hide. However I could tell that the guy at the door had seen me through the frosted window in our front door. I figured if no one came to the door he would give up and move on. No, he proceeded to knock quite vigorously on the window. I started to wonder if it wasn't something really important so I started digging around in my closet for my bath robe. When I was putting it on the guy rang the doorbell again. I said to Jay, "If this isn't important I am going to be some ticked off!" As I was coming around the corner to open the front door, I saw the culprit, run across our front lawn to our neighbour's front door and then realized that it was a kid (maybe 12 or 13 years old) in a hockey jersey with a garbage bag. He was collecting pop bottles and cans. And that was really worth two door bell rings and a knock that sounded very serious. I am sure he saw me when I ran for the bedroom, but really, if someone doesn't answer the door, there is probably a good reason!!

I remember one time when I was in youth group and we went door to door collecting for the food bank. One door we went to it took the lady a long time to answer the door, and when she did, she was wrapped in a sheet (or possibly a blanket) and very little or nothing else. I am sure this kid did not want to see me in my little nighty :P

The Fun Never Stops

The latest symptom of my hyper/hypothyroidism that has emerged is hair loss. It has been going on for a few weeks and is quite frustrating. There is hair on my clothes, sometimes in my food, in the shower, in our bed. I started to think, where is all this hair coming from and how can I could lose so much hair and not show any signs of thinning? I would say last week I noticed that when I put my hair in a ponytail that the ponytail was a fair bit thinner than usual. This morning when I went to blow dry my hair I noticed some fairly significant thinning patches right near my hairline. This sucks! I am thankful that I am mostly healthy, but this really sucks.

Know what else sucks.....(sorry if this is too much personal information....) but the last couple of months I have gotten two periods each month. Even with being on birth control, I have been having a week of spotting while on the pills. I haven't specifically mentioned this to my doctor, but in all the reading I have done about hyper/hypothyroidism these are possible symptoms. I don't imagine there is anything my doc can do.

I have a client at work who had graves disease a few years ago, then when they treated it she became hypothyroid. I asked her if she lost hair, and she said she had called her sister (a nurse) at one point in tears because she was pulling out clumps of hair and didn't realize it was part of the thyroid problem. Who knew that this one silly gland could cause so many crazy symptoms?! Sometimes I feel like I was better off having hyperthyroidism. But when I really think back on it, I didn't feel well when that was the case either. Plus it can be really bad for your heart, with the palpitations and jitters. Not fun. Though I wouldn't complain about the weight loss :P

While I am whining and complaining, I should say that in the last week or so my shoulders have been hurting while I have been treating at work. I don't know if it just tight muscles, or possible a bit of tendinitis setting in. It is quite disheartening. Especially since things were SO slow in September at work, then when October began the phone just seemed to magically start ringing. Not that I am so busy, but a lot more than I was in September. So now I finally have some work to do and I feel like my body is going to quit on me. I am thinking of maybe going for some physiotherapy. I don't think it would hurt for me to learn some proper stretching/strengthening exercises to look after myself better. I could also stand to have a weekly massage. I just don't always think of it and it gets expensive when you don't have benefits to cover massage.

Cranberry Flats

Jay and I decided that we couldn't just stay home today, quite possibly being the last +30C day of the year. We decided to go check out Cranberry Flats. Neither of us had ever been there before and we actually looked it up online on the Meewasin website to figure out where to go. According to the website there are 'wheelchair accessible trails'. We packed up the dog and headed out. When we got there (after missing one turn and nearly missing another because of poor signage), I was immediately concerned about their idea of 'accessible'. The path was gravel, which if it's packed hard enough can be navigated with a wheelchair. This wasn't too bad, but within a few feet of the parking lot there was a rather large pot hole, across most of the path. Jay managed to sort of go around it and we carried on until we came to a hill that just looked too rough and too steep for Jay to feel comfortable navigating. He decided to head back but told me to go on (if I wanted to) to at least see more than the bald prairie. I did go on a little further and came to a boardwalk and thought, hey this wouldn't be too bad for Jay, but then there was another steep portion that he wouldn't have been able to maneuver himself. Then came the stairs. I stopped and took this picture of Kiwi at the lookout point that would have been as far as Jay could have gone because of the stairs. It definitely wasn't worth the time, but I guess now we know that Cranberry Flats is not a place for Jay and I to go. I think Kiwi might enjoy walking there on a cooler day. As you can see her tongue was hanging out pretty far by the time we walked a the little ways we did.

The 80s are back

I think I will begin this post by quoting grandpa Simpson "I used to be with it, then they changed was it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary. It'll happen to yoooou."

Karen and I ventured out this afternoon to browse some bridesmaid dresses. Arleen asked us to be bridesmaids in her wedding in March and we thought we would go out and just try on some dresses and maybe get an inkling as to what size we wear in fancy dresses. We will likely have to order our dresses online since it is pretty short notice. I am a little apprehensive about ordering something sight unseen, but what can you do when it takes 3-4 months to order in a dress to a bridal shop in the city!?

I know that I am getting old (28) and it has been 10 1/2 years since I graduated high school but I was just appalled at some of the prom/grad dress selections out there. I realize that the girls who are graduating this year were born in the 1990's but don't they realize that the dresses they are choosing to wear are from the 80's? That in 10 years they will look back at their big hair, blue eye shadow and their taffeta mermaid dress and wonder what they were thinking?? I will admit that looking back at my grade 12 grad dress it looks dated. I think it was pretty when I wore it, but I don't think that a person would look at it and say, that is such a late 90's dress. And the prices they pay for those things....goodness.....$500 for a dress that you wear once, for a couple of hours? I know that some people are fortunate enough to get a second use out of a dress, but not $500 worth of use!

Another thing that bugs me are all the mini dresses. These are dresses with poofy skirts that end far above the knee. They are fancy ball gown type dresses, that suddenly stop. Here is an example. I just don't get it. And in that example, the floofy skirt. I don't know the technical term for it. I think that those floofy skirts are going to be this decade's poofy sleeves. And the bubble hem, what is up with that??

Distorted body image

I think this caption says it all. On first glance of this picture I thought to myself, "Wow, she's sort of chubby." Then I realized that this is Marilyn Monroe and that she was a major sex symbol in the 40s and 50s (I didn't realize she died of an overdose in 1962 at the age of 36). So 50-60 years have passed since this was considered sexy. No wonder so many people have self esteem and body image issues. I recall reading somewhere that Marilyn Monroe wore a size 12. Now a model who wore that size would probably be considered plus size :P I did find a website that claims that no one really knew her actual clothing size but that her measurements were about 36-24-37. She had a very tiny waist, but definitely had some curves.

Overall, it's been a great day

It has been a great Saturday. Flyball with Kiwi was fun. I even made her a new tug toy by cutting up one of her $1 Dollarama dog blankets and braiding three strips together. She seems to really like it. Then grocery shopping was good, I enjoy grocery shopping. Hung out for a while at home then gave Jay a massage.

Most people probably assume that since I am a registered massage therapist that my husband gets massages all the time. Well I am ashamed to admit that he doesn't. He gets 5 or 10 minutes when I can find the time and/or strength. Today I gave him almost a whole hour and I think he appreciated it. That's what he told me afterwards anyway.

On to making supper. We roasted a whole chicken which we had never done before. We have bbqed a whole chicken (mmm beer can chicken) but never roasted one. It was so juicy and tender and we had it with some stir fried veggies and jasmine rice (a new favorite type of rice, love it!) and finished up with a piece of apple pie we got at the grocery store today.

After supper I watched a couple of episodes of The Office. I have been sucked into watching. In the last week I have watched the first two seasons in their entirety and let me be the first to admit that my heart melted just a little bit when Jim and Pam kissed in the season finale of season two. It has been quite some time since a tv show has made me laugh like that show does. I love the way it is filmed (documentary style) it's just so unique. I think that Michael and Dwight are hilarious and have been enjoying the fun times that Jim and Pam have had pulling pranks on Dwight. I am interested to see what seasons 3 and 4 will bring. I imagine within the next week I will be done the whole first 4 seasons and will have to wait from week to week to see the wacky adventures of those at Dundin Miffler. Great show!

Then I decided after buying a Christmas tree a few days ago that I would try to set it up downstairs just to make sure all the lights work and maybe work on fluffing and shaping it then just move it upstairs in a few weeks when it's time to have a tree set up. Well I set it up and you would not believe that a section of lights was burned out. I tried ever plug in and could not get this one section to work. GRRRR! The same thing happened last year when I bought a prelit Christmas tree except this one only weighs about 20 or 30lbs and the one last year was 75-100lbs and was a REAL hassle to get home and then to return. I have come to the conclusion that we are not going to EVER have a prelit tree. What are the chances that would happen to us two years in a row!? Maybe we should just get a real tree again. It wasn't so bad, we would just have to wait until later in December so it doesn't dry out like it did last year. We will see. I saw a decent looking tree at Costco last time we were there, with absolutely NO lights on it.

After that Jay and I played Wii tennis and had some night snack apple pie (I am surprised we are not chubbier than we are). Oh yeah, and somewhere in there we picked out a picture for our Christmas card this year. I am going to order them from Costco and hopefully Jay can pick them up when he is out there on Tuesday. The day is drawing to a close and I am getting sleepy, very sleepy..... Nite nite.

Waste of time

Last week at work we got a brochure in the mail advertising a lecture that was taking place today at the University. It was being put on by a doctor who has done research on massage therapy as well as written a couple of massage text books. The brochure said she would be presenting on evidence based research findings and it sounded quite promising. From what I have heard since I was in massage school there is very little concrete research proof of the effectiveness of massage in treating various conditions. There are plenty of people who would agree that massage is beneficial in the treatment of specific or general muscle pain. However people saying that does not mean that there is research data to support it.

The doctor who presented today started off by saying that it is very difficult to do massage research because there are SO many variables that are hard to control, such as therapist training, various techniques, treatment frequency, people's preconceived notions about massage, etc. So after saying all of that she proceeded to specifically speak about the effects of massage on edema, asthma, type 2 diabetes and neck pain. Basically said there is no conclusive evidence that massage is helpful in any of these conditions. I beg to differ..... However she did say that a lot of the studies performed were very inconsistent with poor sample sizes, as well as one of the neck pain studies, the people involved only had one massage. That doesn't seem like a very reliable research study to me.

When we first got this brochure at work I thought, hey this will be great. Maybe finally we will have some better credibility with the Worker's Compensation Board and SGI. I thought, maybe someone should call up the representatives from these organizations who keep telling us there is no conclusive proof that massage is effective and tell them to check out this seminar. Well I sincerely hope that none of them were there today. What a disappointment! I am not quite sure why this lecture took place at all.... Waste of time and effort if you ask me! :P

Jeopardy

I enjoy watching Jeopardy, it is one of my favorite shows to watch. I have learned a lot of little trivia tidbits watching that show. This season they have switched from CTV to CBC which really doesn't bother me at all. I don't mind turning to a different channel than it's been for the better part of my whole life. I am frustrated, however, with the fact that they have decided to air it at 7:30pm now instead of 5:30pm. We would usually watch it during supper, or just after supper (I know we are old...sometimes we eat supper at 5pm....). Now I am never going to remember to watch it, or if I do watch it, it will interfere with other evening activities, or things I should be doing. I hope that CBC will get back to Wheel of Fortune at 5pm and Jeopardy at 5:30pm.

A little frustrated

A couple of months ago I changed the radio station on our alarm clock. I was getting annoyed and sick of the morning show people on Rock 102, so we decided to give The Bull a chance. I had listened to them some and found that they played a lot of good old country from when I used to like country. It has been good for the most part, however the news casts leave something to be desired. This morning they reported on the 37 year old man who had been attacked and stabbed over night. However they chose to include the detail that the two thirteen year old kids were 'native'. Maybe they were, but typically they do not say those things on the news. Secondly they announced (much to my delight) that city council had decided to change the speed limit in high school zones back to 50km/hr. However, in listening to News Talk 650 a half hour later they informed us that city council had almost unanimously voted to keep high school speed zones at 30km/hr. I just don't quite understand how The Bull could report like that, but I guess I know from now on not to take what they say as truth. Not sure what options we have for waking up in the morning anymore......we need to start broadcasting Fuel 90.3 FM from Calgary!

chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp

There are so many stinkin' crickets in this area. I am sitting here, with all the windows and doors closed and I can hear them chirping. They chirp day and night. I don't know if it's the weeds they like, but hopefully once there is more landscaping done in this area the chirping will cease. I can always hear the chirping coming from the neighbours wood chips in their front yard. I bet there is a cricket family living in there.