There’s no way to know when I’ll live my last tomorrow

The weather sets the mood perfectly today. It’s dark and grey, a nasty misty haze everywhere. The cold front finally moved in, so that extra chill in the air just puts the cap on the depressing mood of the weather. To make it even more fitting, that mist was beginning to turn into rain as I pulled into the parking garage at work, waiting to find out how much longer I’m here for.

That’s the part I’m hating most — the freaking waiting. I’ve been here for 5 hours now, and I still don’t know any more than I did when I left on Friday. Consensus seems to be that we won’t find anything out until closer to the end of the week, and that makes me crazier. I just want to know how much longer I have my job, so I can make doctor appointments, and make sure I’ve got the medication I need, or am off stuff that’s not as needed; since I won’t be able to afford most of it when I’m unemployed. Most of the stores know how much longer they’ll be open, so they are more informed than those of us here at corporate!

One of the amusing things though — the old head honcho of my department is actually back here as a consultant for the company that bought us/is closing us down. He popped in to see us earlier, just to say hi. It’s nice to get to see him again, even if it’s under these circumstances.

I’m pretty good, though, other than all the depressing unemployment crap. That MRI I had on my knees a while back came out ok – nothing torn/broken/etc. There was a lot of fluid on the knees, and the doc was pointing that out to me in the scans, as well as the arthritis. Final diagnosis was that I managed to severely wrench my knee. It’s pretty much better now, most of the problems I’m having with it are my normal arthritis ones. I’m still having issues with my heart, they haven’t been able to get the extra beats under control. I’m headed back in there this afternoon for a check up. While I’m in there, I need to let him know I don’t know how much longer I’ll have insurance, so we need to come up with a long term plan, since I won’t be able to go in every few weeks like I am now. Ugh.

Mom’s citizenship test is this coming Saturday. She’s getting more and more nervous the closer it gets. We’ve been over all her documentation a few times now, making sure she has everything she needs to take with her.

The owners of the building our offices are in are having their annual Christmas treat for the tennants today. They’ve got tons of cookies and sweets set up, different drinks, and a violinist playing. Someone in line joked that we had our very own violinist to play as the ship sunk. haha. It is ironically fitting, though.

Come with me and escape

Okay. I’m going to go from not writing much at all in my blog for the last few months, to probably 3 or so posts in one day. Whee. 😉 haha. I was going to put all of this in one post, but I started thinking and even though a lot of it is very entwined together, I’d really rather focus on just specific parts in specific posts, so that nothing gets lost in the shuffle. (And because I’m just completely weird, but we knew that one already.)

So. First post: the good stuff of late. On Oct 24th, I headed up to Canada to visit Emily again. When I got to the airport and checked in, I got offered the chance to upgrade to first class, for a small fee. Since I had used my airline miles to book the flight, it cost me only taxes & processing fees for the trip, so hell yes I jumped at the chance to fly first class up there. Even with that upgrade — it was still considerably cheaper than it would’ve been if I’d bought an economy ticket. Hee! I absolutely loved getting to fly first class. (I’ve flown it once before, but that was on a shorter flight, so I didn’t get the full experience.) It was total pampering the entire flight, as well as a delicious hot meal, salad, dessert… I was absolutely beyond stuffed by the time we landed. And of course there were the hot towels, and bowl of warm nuts, and incredibly attentive flight staff, and one of the flight attendants had a bag of candy & toys that she brought around so we could all trick or treat from it. Haha. I got through customs very quickly as well, since I was one of the first people off the plane. (Second person on, fourth person off. Hee!) And my luggage was also off pretty quickly too.

The trip was wonderful, too. My knees gave me a bit of a problem because it was a good bit cooler there than back home, so it made my arthritis go all nuts, but I still enjoyed myself very much. We went downtown on Thursday, to see Raine Maida (of Our Lady Peace) busking on a street corner, to raise money to help War Child build a school in the Congo. I snapped a few pictures, but they are on the PC at home — I forgot to upload them. So… consider this a place holder for where the pictures will go: *insert place holder here* Haha You can check out the pictures here.

Friday night, we went to see Matthew Good perform at Massey Hall. I wouldn’t consider myself a big Matt fan, but I do enjoy his music. The concert was an acoustic show, and he was absolutely incredible. I was definitely blown away — he sounds amazing live. The show went for almost 2 hours, and it seemed like it was over way too quickly. I could’ve definitely stayed there a few more hours to listen to him sing. I love shows where the artist sounds as good or better live than they do on their CDs.

Saturday & Sunday, Emily and I got in some nice R&R, before I had to head home. :'( I never want to leave when I’m up there. Aside from one thing that I’ll get into in another post, the plane ride home was nice and easy. No first class this time, but I kept myself occupied by playing Sudoku on my DS Lite and we were landing in Dallas before I knew it. I used to dislike Sudoku, but I started it as part of my training on the Brain Age game, and I’m starting to get quite good at it. And maybe a little obsessed with playing it. lol. (So far, my best time to solve a board was just under 3 minutes. YAY!)

Hmmm. More good things for this post… oh yes! I finally picked a license plate I wanted to try for. I couldn’t get the spelling I wanted, so I just added an extra O, and voila it’s mine! I just got my receipt last week to show that it was approved and the plates were ordered, I should be getting the instructions on how to pick it up soon. So, by the end of the month, my plates will read “WHOO R U”. *giggles*

My mom got a letter from immigration on Friday. (She is applying for citizenship, if I haven’t mentioned that before.) They gave her a date, time, and place for her test and interview!! She’ll be taking the test on December 15th. So, mom could end up being a US citizen by year’s end. It’s only taken her 35 years to apply, but… better late that never? hahah.

Okay, that’s all that’s coming to mind for the good stuff, right now. Plus, it’s time for me to get back to work since my lunch break is over. Two more posts to come soon!

Who am I and who are you and who are we?

Mom is in the process of applying for US Citizenship (she’s British, living here as a legal alien). For the past week or so, I’ve been quizzing her daily on the questions, and she’s been working on filling out the application. This weekend she’s been gathering all the additional documentation she needs to provide with her application. One of the things mom needed was a copy of my dad’s death certificate.

When she was going through the files from my dad’s death, she came across the sympathy cards we received, and was looking through them. She noticed something that we apparently missed completely 5 years ago. The inside of one of the cards was addressed to “Linda, Kerri, and Kevin”. I’m assuming that I am supposed to be Kerri, and my brother Aaron would be the Kevin. (Although, I do get a lot of mail addressed to Kevin.) At least they got my mom’s name right. The funnier/sadder bit — this card was from cousins. People who SHOULD know our names.