Was testing out a new emoticon the other day…
[3:54:18 PM] crunchy frog: it’s a dancing poop –> *poop*
[3:54:33 PM] Henrick ~: huh??? bjork?
[3:54:43 PM] crunchy frog: ? what?
[3:54:44 PM] crunchy frog: lol
[3:55:41 PM] Henrick ~: i thoght u were singing some bjork song
Yesterday was one of those days where I would have just been content to lie in bed and pretend that the events that had just occurred had never transpired. There was nothing frivolous about what happened–it was serious: a matter of life and death.
Late in the work day, my cell phone went off. I usually have it on vibrate, but this time I’d forgotten to turn the ringer off. So, amidst the silence of the office, the opening to “Back In Black” pierced people concentration. In a rush, pulled it out and saw that it was my father calling. I thought it was just another one of his calls to announce something like someone had called me from the bank, or similar. When I opened the phone, it turns out I’d missed the call by just nanoseconds. I thought nothing of it and was just going to call him soon after. However, he called again right away.
This was a sign that whatever the message was, it was urgent.
When I picked up, he seemed a bit frustrated with me that I wasn’t answering my phone. I was away from my desk temporarily earlier, so I must have missed those calls. He was speaking sort of quickly, and kind of incoherently. What he was saying was lacking context to me. None of it stuck up until I heard a phrase that kind of cut through the rest of the dialogue.
“Mom was in an accident.”
Holy hell. I tried to absorb it all, but none of it really hit home right away. He asked if I wanted to talk to her, and I agreed. I took it as a sign that she wasn’t hurt badly. When I heard her voice, I could sense her shock at what happened. When I hung up, I left work early to head home. When I arrived, the first question I asked was “where’s mom?” There she was sitting on the couch, still in her nursing scrubs, looking a bit vacant. I remembered back to my collision in 2001, how I was feeling pretty much the same way for a few days after. I knew exactly how she was feeling. It turns out that she was t-boned by another car as she was entering the intersection.
I don’t think the seriousness of it all really hit me for a while. I was sitting alone in my room in silence just thinking of what it must have been like inside the car at the time of impact. When I had the visual, I became scared. I was absorbing the level of fear that must have been there at the time. Imagining the physical jolt of the collision shook me mentally. It wasn’t a good thing. I honestly started crying at the thought that that might have been the end of her. I left my room, and went to sit down next to her. She had moved to her bedroom, lying in bed, probably trying to block it all out of her mind. I told her that I loved her. I told her that I was scared. She told me: “I really thought I was going to die.” This is where I really broke down, just thinking about it. Of course, she wasn’t dead–she was very much alive. I felt blessed to have her. I told her that I honestly didn’t know what I would do if I had lost her or dad before their time. Like I mentioned in a previous entry, I’m just not prepared to deal with their death right now. As a family unit, we’re a strong trio. I just can’t imagine it any other way. It pains me greatly to even think of that changing any time soon.
So anyway, mom is taking the next little while off work to get all the insurance worked out. The car is pretty much ruined and will need replacing. I think the big question that was on everyone’s mind yesterday was “now what?” Indeed. Now what? How will this affect our family? It all remains to be seen. Cars, money, physical things can all be replaced, but my mom…irreplaceable.
I’ve been meaning to write this one for a while–I’ve just been too busy to get my thoughts together.
So, over the past month or so, some song recommendations came in. I think in my last music notes entry I stated that I wasn’t going to review any tracks. That will still hold, but I think some commentary is warranted here and there.
Tracks suggested to me:
Tracks suggested by me:
I wasn’t entirely anticipating doing a themed selection, but I think this set is worth mentioning. I mentioned a little while ago about that Esthero song playing during a Zellers commercial. I still smile when I see it. So, here’s a small list of songs played in Zellers commercials that I have on my playlist. It’s by no means exhaustive in terms of songs they’ve used (obviously).
Recent CD Purchases:
Look ma! No mention of Björk!
Comments? Suggestions? Leave me a comment.
What the hell? What the hell? What the hell?
Last night there was a small get together at a neighbor’s place. There was a lot of food involved.
This morning, I took a look at the scale and I was expecting some damage. Oh, I got it. I remember in my Month 5 Progress update, I said that I was slowly gaining weight from running. I can understand that. However, big jumps like this are kind of shocking. Today I’m back to a point that I haven’t been at since my first month of this attempt at losing weight. What a waste!
OK, so maybe after today the numbers will stabilize back to something a bit more normal. If not, I’ll just have to work harder. It’s not like I’m terribly fat either; a lot of the weight is from muscle–a lot. Still, I can see in the mirror where I can afford to improve. On the inside, I think I’m doing well. I have great cardiovascular health as a result of all the running. However, no one ever looks at someone and goes “check out that guy’s cardiovascular health!”
I don’t like being in this state of obsession. It’s not good at all, and it’s generating unhealthy body image. Still, I think some of it is necessay or else I’m going to lack some drive to actually attempt to accomplish something.
I worry. Am I just feeding fears and insecurities? Is this really starting to become unhealthy? What am I going to do?
Some people were over today to clean out our air ducts. They were pretty much in and out and didn’t linger very long. It caused a little bit of disruption here, only because a lot of effort actually went into cleaning the house. You should see my room! It’s disturbingly tidy. Those of you who’ve lived with me before will know just how unusual this is.
Anyway, my father, being as nice as he is usually puts a couple of beers in the fridge whenever we’ve got service people in. I kind of disagree with the idea of giving the workers a drink while they’re on the job (and expected to continue working after). Yeah, it’s a nice gesture, but they’re being paid to perform. Alcohol is just going to hamper productivity–if not for us, then the next customers. That’s just my opinion though, right.
More often than not, the people accept it in gratitude. Many people can’t say no to a cold one, yes? These two workers though, they politely declined and were off to their next job. I have to admit that I was impressed by that. That shows some responsibility while on the job. It’s appreciated.
Yesterday, my company had their annual “team building day/BBQ” over at a golf resort about an hour north of the city. Despite my introverted leanings, I still managed to have a good time. The socializing aspect did me a lot of good. Frankly, it was just good to legitimately get out of the office on a weekday to enjoy the strong sunshine.
I tried my best to be active when I had to be. By the end of the day though, I was pretty exhausted. I was already feeling achy and tired by the time I got home. The pain intensified over night. I woke up at about 4 in the morning trying to roll over, but finding myself too sore to move well. I would have gone downstairs to take some Tylenol, but that would have required significant movement, so I decided against it. All day at work today, I heard several colleagues bemoaning their sore bodies. So, at least I was in good company.
So, yes, it was a good day overall. Thing is, the actual most memorable thing of the day wasn’t a very good thing at all. It didn’t even really have anything to do with our time at the resort. The event happened on the bus ride back to downtown. A couple of us were at the back of the bus playing briscola when the bus seemed to screech to a halt. There was a lot of horn honking and murmuring among all the passengers. When we looked out the window, we saw that the bus seemed to have stopped right in the middle of the intersection with cars lined up in all four directions. We were facing a red light. The bus honked as it slowly continued through the red light. Everyone was in shock. The secretary went up to speak with the driver.
I dunno. If he left it at that, we might have not cared way too much. However, the driver decided to make an announcement. He apologized and explained that we were going 95 kmh and it was hard to stop. He couldn’t stop in time for the red light. He said that he would have braked hard, but he didn’t want anyone to spill their drinks, so instead he just honked a lot and drove through.
Right. He didn’t want us to spill our drinks, so instead he risked us spilling our blood instead. I’m so glad he had his priorities straight.
Seriously. After that point, no one had any confidence in the driver. There were whispers among the passengers: was he drunk? Was he insane? No one knew. When we ended up on the highway, some people were questioning whether that was a good idea. When he honked, we all darted our eyes towards the front and held our breaths.
I’ll be honest, it was kind of frightening. When we arrived at Union Station, I scrambled off of that thing quickly, just glad to have made it off alive.
OK, so I’m exaggerating a little bit. Still, after such a terrible judgment call, it almost feels like I’m not exaggerating at all.
So, it’s now the end of Thursday. There’s just one more day to go before I can get some proper rest. I’m looking forward to it.
Man, yesterday I had a really rough time running. From the beginning, I was breathing harder than normal, and my legs didn’t seem to want to move as smoothly as I would have liked. By halfway, I was running in slow motion, just attempting to maintain a pace that was even slightly more than walking. By the last legs, I had to walk. The rest of the group pulled out far ahead of me, and I was forced to try to catch up.
My instructor slowed down to speak with me. I was really feeling discouraged, especially since I had just had a fantastic run on Sunday morning. After some discussion, I figured that the only variable that changed yesterday was that I made attempts to try to eat more during the day. My reasoning was that I needed the extra calories to motor through–I wanted to see if my performance would improve with more fuel. Throughout the work day, I was grazing on some small heavy items. At around 4 pm, I topped it off with an apple, which I had hoped would give some small boost right before the run. I guess it wasn’t beneficial at all. I was feeling slow and lethargic. I guess most of my energy was going into digesting things. I didn’t take into account the fibre content in the apple. All of the food matter and extra absorbed water content was also making me heavier.
My instructor told me not to feel bad. She said that everyone has bad days, and that it’s only through the bad days that people are able to figure out what works and what doesn’t. I’ve heard it all before, but this time was a bit more meaningful to me. I’m pretty sure now that eating like I did on a run day (even though it wasn’t really all that much) isn’t the best thing. If I need the extra energy, maybe I should find sources that are quickly metabolized, no? I’m still figuring things out. Hopefully the next run will go a lot better.
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