The Seated View

When selecting the winner of the birthday contest, I thought of asking Mojo to get involved, but she tends to look at me as if I've grown an extra head whenever I've asked for assistance in picking winners, so that didn't work. The Tinks didn't quite get the concept of picking a number, so I decided to wait until they're little older before I called them again. So naturally, I chose numerology (what? Naturally? Well, why not...). I added the numbers in my birthdate and came up with #9. Congratulations, LynnM! Depending on the state of my shoulder, I may be updating my Flickr page this week, so you if you want to wait until that happens, just let me know. If not, e-mail me your choice and your address and I'll get it off as soon as I can. And on to the link-o-rama… I'm starting with a few favorites from the lol group: this one (turn up the speakers) had me howling and I keep laughing every time I play it (which has been more than once). It's

In the grand tradition of the shameless self-promotion that happens in this space on this day, I'm going to be All About Me and announced that today is my birthday. Well, the beginnings of - today is the actual day, but celebrations will, as usual, be stretched out over a week or so. I'm not sure exactly when my circle of people switched from birthday to birthday weekend and then to birthday week, but I can highly recommend it. This year, my birthday present to myself is a three-day weekend of doing nothing that I don't want to do. As usual, Kathy Reichs has released her latest book in the last week of August and the usual, I'm more than half convinced that she's doing that especially for me (thanks, Kathy!). Today, that might be a lunch thing, the odd phone call or two with misc. international birthday songs, Reichs in the park and this weekend, there are no plans at all. Nothing. Nada. Just whatever floats my boat and I cannot tell you how much I am lo

This week, I post about pirates at HealthCentral: "I got hijacked last week. Not by pirates with cutlasses, eye patches, bad teeth and a shoulder-perched parrot squawking obscenities. Instead, my week was hijacked by something much more bureaucratic: an agency deciding I needed to devote days to doing enough paperwork that I suspect they'll need to build an extension to their offices to store it all." The rest of the post, pirates and all, is here .

About six months ago, I finally gave in and joined the Canadian version of Netflix. I'd resisted because I tend to watch movies based on what I'm in the mood for and that's not something you can do when you never know what's arriving next in your mailbox. However, my local video store now has the poorest excuse for a library of old releases I've ever seen and since I love old movies and weird movies, I really had no other choice. And it turns out I may like surprises after all Brief pause to allow a number of my family and friends time to hoot hysterically at the thought of me liking surprises. Done? Right then, moving on. On my list that Rogers Video Direct is a bunch of movies I never got around to seeing for various reasons and last week, The Lake House arrived in my mailbox. And it was better than I'd expected, sweetly mindless, as long as you ignore the gaping holes in the plot. Keanu Reeves wasn’t too bad, although he really made me awar

It all started with Bridget Jones's Diary .   The messing with Jane Austen, I mean. Well, I'm sure that there have been people messing with Austen before that, but if you're looking at the most recent tendency to mess with her, Bridget started it. And did it well. It’s a fantastic book, turned into a fantastic movie that I watch on a regular basis and the only problem with it was that it persuaded all kinds of other people that they could successfully mess with the master. Some have been pretty good and then… then there’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies . Somebody got the idea to take Pride and Prejudice and add some zombies by inserting period-appropriate bits and dialogue about zombies.   The idea is that 25 years or so before the book takes place, a strange plague hit England creating Unmentionables (i.e., zombies) and these Unmentionables are fought by men and women alike. In fact, the five Bennett sisters have spent several years in China learning the art of

My life is requiring my extreme attention, so this is going to be short. Real short. Inspired by something Beth posted the other day, here's a question for you: If you could have one superpower, what would it be? (for the record, I'd love to have telekinesis. Aside from the cool factor, it'd be way practical - wouldn't have to wait for other people to get things off shelves, etc)

When thinking about my first post after my time off for alleging healing. I had two choices. I could talk about how that healing process has been going, but after almost 2 months and not nearly enough progress, it's boring me senseless, so I can't imagine how you're feeling. Or I could set the cat among the pigeons and invite a possible flame war. Given how exasperated I've been with my existence lately, guess what I'm choosing... And little while ago, I wrote a post for HealthCentral about health care reform and got an interesting comment on it. Someone felt that as a Canadian, I had no right to express an opinion on a US issue and felt so strongly about it that they wanted their subscription canceled. This was not a surprise - over the years I've seen commenters on Steph's blog get a little irate when they believed her Canada Day posts were a slam on Americans and more recently, a very disturbing extreme example of that opinion. That as Canadians we hav

This week, my HealthCentral post is about pain and how to manage it. How apropos. I really am trying to practice what I preach. Most of the time. "Rheumatoid arthritis is a pain in the... well, it can pretty much be a pain anywhere and everywhere. Whether you're dealing with the intense pain of a flare or the cranky muttering in the background when your RA is mostly controlled, you'll probably need to find a way to manage pain. Unlike the "minor arthritis pain" of commercials that magically disappears when you take Drug X, real RA pain needs more - it needs a toolbox." The rest of is here .

Yes, I know. Looks like this has turned into a photography blog. It's temporary until the blasted neck/shoulder thing will allow me to spend more time at the computer. Hoping for words by Friday.

As a writer, you get used to thinking that a nicely crafted bit of writing can do pretty much anything - bring peace, start a revolution, win an election, evoke anger, sell a product, capture the transcendency of love… Carrie’s husband Rick has died , suddenly and unexpectedly. And when the unthinkable happens, leaving a friend without someone as essential as her husband and their two little boys without someone as vital as their father, no words can heal any part of that wound. Still, to know that you are loved, thought of and prayed for may offer the tiniest bit of solace during a dark time. I know this of the blogosphere: the people who are in it are good at rallying ‘round. So please, pop over to Carrie's and leave a word of comfort. Sending you love, dear friend.

You know how when you stub your toe, somehow it becomes a magnet for impact? You haven't stubbed it for a couple years, but the moment you do, furniture starts leaping out at you and despite not having dropped anything in weeks, now you drop an apple and it lands on your toe and when you're in line at the bank, the person in front of you steps back right on - altogether now! - your toe. My neck and shoulders have been like that for well over five weeks now. The thing gets injured - or rather, my old permanent whiplash injury gets highly aggravated - and I sit still so for a while, get a shot of steroids/lidocaine and get better. The week after that one of my attendants accidentally whacks her elbow on my head as she is helping me take off a sweater (this has never happened before in the 13 years I've received attendant care where I'm living now) and everything seizes up again. I sit still, get a shot of lidocaine, sit still so more, feel better and the week after that,

Last weekend, a replica Viking ship came to Toronto and being proud of my heritage, I naturally had to go check it out. As we're waiting for the bus, the latest monsoon hit Toronto (making it look much like this , causing things like sinkholes ) and by the time we're on our way, west on Lakeshore Boulevard, it is much more Lake than Shore. Seriously. Huge expanses of water, up to well past ankle height, creeping up your leg/tire. By the time we got to the drop-off point that harbor front, the street looked like this. Yes, that's a curb. It was beautiful, though, the aftermath of the storm lending a light to the sky and the lake that I've never seen before, a strange murky green in the water and above, metallic blue with a strange glow, almost impossible to capture in a photograph I went out on a small pier and was surrounded by water and a westerly wind and when I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, the scent of wet sand and big water hit me and it was thisclose