Yo ho, haul together, hoist the colors high

I spent Christmas in Canada with my best friend and her family. We had Christmas crackers, and my prize was a little mini compass on a carabiner.

It’s been a long-standing joke in my family that I’ve got a built-in compass in my head. For some reason, though, Canada always seems to mess with my internal compass (Ontario especially), and I have issues figuring out which was is north. So for me to get the mini compass at Christmas gave Emily & I a bit of a giggle. Using the compass, I got my bearings, confirming with her that the compass was indeed pointing north.

Flash forward to today at work. I’ve been using the carabiner part of the compass to hold my hair elastics so I don’t lose them. I set it down on my desk, and noticed that the compass wasn’t pointing north any more. I moved it around several times, trying to see if it would correct itself, but it consistently tried to tell me that south was north.

That led to the following exchange in email:

Me: OH! the compass I got in my christmas cracker at your place? It’s….. confused. Very. I have it w/me at work. It’s saying that south is north. this makes me laugh. So see… when I say I get all confused and turned around in Canada…. there’s a reason! Your north is south! 😉 *giggles*

Emily:: Hahahaha it’s Canadian! That’s all!

Me: hahahah. It’s backwards! I have a compass that doesn’t point north! … Capt Jack was Canadian!!! 😉

Emily:: Hahah that makes a lot of sense 😉

Ramblings

It’s been 7 years today since my dad passed away. Sometimes, it feels like it’s been a lot longer. Other times – it feels like it was very recent. Lately, it’s been feeling very recent. In remembrance, I want to link to a post I made later that year – scans of a letter about my dad that we received in a Christmas card.

I am currently filling out some new patient paperwork for my ob/gyn appointment on Friday. There is a section listed as “Contraception: Which method do you use to prevent pregancy?” One of the choices I can pick from is “Female partner.” Now, yes, I know how biology works and all, and that 2 women can’t knock each other up. I just wasn’t aware that having a female partner was a FORM of contraception — like something you can pick up at the pharmacy counter. *giggles*

I have a dental appointment tomorrow – just a cleaning. But it’ll set up another long series of dental appointments. I have to have work done on both of my upper cuspids, as well as a molar or two. Ugh. Friday, in addition to my gyno appt, I have the first in a series of Euflexxa shots in my knees. I’ll have to get those the next 3 weeks in a row. I hope they don’t hurt too bad.

I’m .. rambly tonight, but I don’t have anything to ramble about. Not really.

No fire brigade, just pyromania

Okay, first and foremost — it was a great big no go on the MRI. When I had an MRI on my knees 2 years ago, the tech only put me in the machine up to my chest. It was no big deal at all, I could handle that. The guy today? Wanted to put me practically all the way into the MRI machine. Um. No. Not just no, but HELL NO! I really truly do not see the need to put me into the MRI machine up to my nose, just to get scans of my knees. I’m not claustrophobic per se, but when you put me into a teeny tiny tube? Yeah. Not going to happen. I had a hard enough time getting through the one they had to do on my brain last year, and there’s no way I could do that again.

If it was going to be maybe a 5 minute test, I might’ve been able to stick it out. But I was going to be in there for about 40 minutes per knee. Almost 2 hours. Oh god no, there’s no way. I started to have a panic attack when the guy put me all the way into the machine. I’m still having little mini-attacks now, heart going insane, but I’m slowly calming down. So, the front clerk gave me the phone number for the Plano facility, since they have an open MRI machine. I have to call them tomorrow and get an appointment scheduled there to get the MRI done. Thank god for open MRI’s! hah.

But. Yes. Now to finish the Halloween Hell Adventure. After I left on Wednesday, Deb & Barney & IT moved our PCs down to the first floor, as well as all my cash office equipment. We’ve been down there since, and likely will be until the end of this week, or beginning of next week. They’ve got our part of the 4th floor mostly dry, but it still REEKS up there. My work phone was ruined, but they got me a brand new one. Yay! Outside in the hall, directly under the flow of water, was a metal rack holding a couple of printers as well as a fax machine, tons of paperwork, etc. All of that was completely ruined.

Now, for the theories. The Fire Marshal claims that the sprinkler was set off by someone standing directly beneath it, and holding a lighter right up against the cover. Ummm. Sorry, but no way in hell. The big boss in my dept is over 6’3″ tall. He cannot reach the sprinkler without standing on something. Even the (rather tall) fireman who plugged up the sprinkler so I could escape had to have a chair to stand on to reach it. Now, if some one managed to stand on a chair directly in front of the open door of my office and hold a lighter to the sprinkler without me seeing it, wouldn’t they have also ended up pretty damn wet when the sprinkler finally activated? And yet, I was the only person who got doused. And if the Fire Marshal wants to imply that it was me who did it? HA! I invite their investigators to come meet me. I’m only a mere 5’3″ and overweight with bad arthritis in my knees. Not only that, but on Halloween I had that holter monitor which could not get wet, and I could barely walk (much less climb on anything) due to worse-than-normal problem with my knees.

The more plausible situation was provided by the building maintenance guy. He mentioned that apparently there have been people in the building for about 2 weeks leading up to (and including) Halloween who have been working on the sprinkler system on the upper floors. He wasn’t sure what they’ve been doing, he just knows they’ve been doing work. So, it’s a little too coincidental that there have been people working on the sprinkler system for a couple of weeks, right before it breaks. I have a hunch we might not find out what really happened, but I’m more inclined to believe our own building guy, than the Fire Marshal. Especially since I know there was no one standing outside my office with a lighter. Hah.