Montreal

Spent the Victoria  Day  weekend in Montreal,  that will be remembered for the Canadiens losing to the Flyers in the Stanley Cup finals. Churches and sex shops side by side. Lots of graffitti. Very cool exhibits at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art 

Paint Job Part 2

It's a hundred times worse than I could ever have imagined. My house is a total shambles. The paint job is looking good  though.

Check out this fully accessible pay toilet in Toronto  We need lots of these!!

Paint Job

Not sure how much blogging I'll be able to do in the next couple of weeks I'm having my house painted inside and out! This is something I have never done before, so I'm not  sure how it's going to work.

In the good old days this is a job I use to do myself,  one room at a time, at different times. MS put an end to that!!  Now I'm having to pay to have the work done and figured I may as well get it all over with at once.

When I moved into my current home it had the strangest wallpaper everywhere.  Imagine; shiny  brown vinyl swirls, covered in big orange roses, or shiny white vinyl swirls, covered in giant lillies, trimmed in silver.  Add to that glossy white painted trim and a brick  fireplace painted in eye popping white gloss paint. Yes that was my dear little home when I move in. Oh yeah and the three different blue  floral papers in the kitchen with a contrasting wavy blue border!! Oh wait! I have to mention the pure white carpeting that was dirty from you just looking at it. How sweet was my  bedroom immersed in pink roses!! 

Amazing when I got rid of all that junk, which took me nearly a year of weekends and evenings; that the place looked pretty good. Under the crazy carpet, decent hardwood floors that just needed a good cleaning.

Then MS hit me really hard. All the work came to a dead halt.  I still have unfinished laminate floors that need to get done. One day I got up and I couldn't do anymore, spent a weekend in bed from awful dizzy spells,  and that was the end of that.

Now I'm just waiting on the paint guy to show up in order for me to pick colours. I really have no clue what they will be. Stay tuned.

Niagara Postcard Meet Up

Cynic vs Alcoholic

Return to winter here and I'm not liking too much. Ok I was silly and got carried away making up containers of plants for the veranda. The last few weeks have been so mild how could I resist. Now I'm having to drag them in every night or risk losing the works to frost.

Haven't felt much like blogging these  past few days. So much to think about after that demonstration last week. There was  much good news but that was outweighed by the bad. All the doctors in North America who were offering the surgery, some of whom were doing it  no charge, have stopped. So have all the clinics who were doing testing for CCSVI. There are various theories as to why, which I won't get into except that it is my feeling they have been pressured by the establishment to stop.

When I was at the rally I did speak to the small, but very vocal crowd. I waved to the cowardly politicians sitting behind closed curtains in parliament.  I challeged them to ignore the lobbyists and drug companies.  I   challenged the MS society to honour the wishes of the people who support them.   I made it very clear that I would not give them another dime of my money if they did not give more money to CCSVI research.  I stated that it was ridiculous for people to travel to India to have surgery to unblock their veins, when Canada has one of the highest rates of MS in the world.!! And so on and so on, me and  many others spoke, and shouted, and made noise.  All over Canada there were similar demonstrations.

It must have had some effect. The MS Society has annouced that they will be asking the government to allocate $10 million to CCSVI research.

Afterwards I felt so drained I went home and crashed out.

The next day  I was telling a friend about the whole vein thing and my feelings of frustration toward the medical community. She went on about how I should be more positive and then proceed to tell me about different ways to achieve this.

Please note: I am not intersted in yoga, meditation, new age philosphy, special diets,and self help books . If you find them helpful that's great. Interesting that you need a whole lot of booze to go along with it.

I prefer to be a cynic rather than be an alcoholic. It works for me.

Oh yeah and the MS Society of Canada bought the web domain www.ccsvi.ca   Hmmm wonder why?

CCSVI Rally In Toronto

Here's a few of photos from todays rally. A picture of the Ontario parliament building, some MS humour,  and a sign with the web address for a website you should check out

I'll comment another day Tonight I'm way too tired after a demonstration in the hot sun and getting caught in rush hour traffic. Amazing how many commuters eat junk food for dinner!!

Bus Capades

Warm, muggy weather, with rain and a  high of 27C forecast. Thank goodness for ceiling fans. I'm simply not ready to turn the air conditioning on yet.

Yesterday I used public transportation for the first time in ages and what a trip that was!!
Any urban deweller who uses this way of getting around, has had similar experiences I'm sure .

It all started with a phone  call saying I had won a gift certificate from a store called Fabric Land. I needed to go out to buy ant traps(ant invasion in the house) so I figured may as well go find out if this prize was for real.
It started raining the minute I left the house which was no big deal since I had my super, huge, umbrella with me.
It was so nice to walk in the rain with no sun. I kept going past the bus stop and down a street that has some cool shops . Made the mistake of browsing the window of the shoe store and ended up buying two pairs of sandals that I won't dare tell how much I paid for them. I justify spending too much money on shoes due to having very big feet (size12). Well bonus!! I received a coupon for a free pedicure from a new place just a few doors down from the shoe store. Went in there, found out it was for real  and booked it for Tuesday afternoon.

Kept on walking and walking,  missed two buses, didn't care. The hot sunny days will be here soon enough which means not being able to enjoy a nice long walk when I feel like it.

Two hours later!! I arrived on the street where the fabric store was located. I was so hot and tired I went across the street to Logan's Rest, a family run restaurant. Damn  the diet!! I treated myself to an ice tea and the best perogies you could ever eat, figuring I had earned them.

Well the gift certificate turned out to be legit. I was able to buy everything I need to make a summer dress.
I won't be making it, as my sewing days are over, another causualty of MS. Ces't la vie. No, a very nice young lady who also just opened a business will be doing that for me. It's nice to shop and support local merchants. So much better than wearing myself out at the mall and getting treated like crap at the chain stores.

Had just enough energy left to  go get the ant traps and picked up a watering can for the garden. By this time I was totally exhausted and loaded down with parcels. Lucky the bus stop is right  in front of the store. 

I thought to myself what a drag to get on the bus with all this stuff. Sure enough it was crowded, although most of the room was not taken up by people. Wow! I thought I had  lots of bundles. Beleve it or not there was a guy with a 40 inch TV set !! Another guy with four empty beer cases; the glass bottles rattling like crazy. He was already loaded too and totally reeking of booze. Then it seemed like every mother decided to go out at the same time, so the bus was full of these huge baby strollers .  I swear these things are the size of an all terrain vehicle. Then a bunch of older women got on with all their shopping from the Farmer's Market. What an adventure!! Amazing though that the trip went really fast.

I got home, unpacked my shopping, had a shower, and crashed out on the couch. Got up about two hours later, putted around for awhile, had an ice cream bar and some veggies with dip. Yes in that order.

Still so tired, I went to bed .
Ever notice, that you don't notice how sore your feet are until you take your shoes off?