The ultrasound tech said he saw nothing of concern - it looks like my lump is normal tissue. In a couple of days, the radiologist will look at the screen captures. So I'm reassured for now.
The cool thing is I got to see my elbow joint - actually both of them, since he was comparing them. Freaky.
The other bonus: that's my first ultrasound with an empty bladder!
PS: Now I'm having a holy sh*t, PTS comedown. You discover a lump - it happens just like that - and it's either okay or not okay. A friend of mine, just this weekend, lost one of her friends to cancer. I'm gonna go take a stress-tab, pack up my stuff, and ride home now.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Funny, lumpy me
We are, inadvertently, hosting Christmas dinner for the entire family. If we try to visit everyone, it'll mean driving great distances many times in bad weather.
Thanks to me trying to be funny, I emailed family members asking them what we-all should do, getting-together-wise. However, tacked on the fun, ludicrous (I thought) idea, that we should gather at our small, crowded, overheated apartment, making it a big pyjama party - because obviously we don't have room for people to stay over and no family members live in town any more.
Everyone responded with great enthusiasm. M3I, the cooking member of our partnership, not so much.
In other news: I have a weird bump on my arm - I'm getting an ultrasound to see what it is at 1pm today. It should be a cyst, but we're making sure.
Thanks to me trying to be funny, I emailed family members asking them what we-all should do, getting-together-wise. However, tacked on the fun, ludicrous (I thought) idea, that we should gather at our small, crowded, overheated apartment, making it a big pyjama party - because obviously we don't have room for people to stay over and no family members live in town any more.
Everyone responded with great enthusiasm. M3I, the cooking member of our partnership, not so much.
In other news: I have a weird bump on my arm - I'm getting an ultrasound to see what it is at 1pm today. It should be a cyst, but we're making sure.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Punkin
My husband has made the most delicious soup I have ever had in my entire life. I am not exaggerating.
Hub, who I'm going to refer to, intermittently, as M3I, made pumpkin soup yesterday and while it was delicious yesterday, it is ambrosia today.
The recipe? I haven't the foggiest. I know my sister in law made us a version of it at Thanksgiving that she got out of a cookbook and amended it, then sent the details to M3I, who put his own wonderful spin on it, and what we've ended up with has made my day, week, month.
Re: my sad rant from yesterday, I committed the sin I was complaining about, going on and on about things I really know little about. I was also ranting about the folks posting on the websleuths site, and that's not fair either. I think that many of their speculations - particulary opinions of what the girl might have done based on a very cursory look at this neighbourhood - are weak, only because I know the area in question much better than they do. Which leads me to:
There's no valid reason I know of to rant at the police and their proceedings in trying to solve this rotten situation and find this girl. I don't have their files, or their expertise. Just a lot of reading of Sue Grafton. That don't make me a detective.
I saw a fellow slumped against a building yesterday. It looked like he was asleep, and there was a group of lunching construction workers nearby. So I figured he must be with them and he must be asleep. Nothing more.
However, his slumped body looked uncomfortable; not a likely sleeping posture. And he was there on my way to the bank and he was there on my way back to the office. But still, the construction workers were there, so he must've belonged to them.
It bothered me. We're all encouraged to be aware of our neighbours. We all live in this city together and we should all look out for each other. I felt like I was being cowardly for just walking on by yesterday.
So I went out there again this morning, just praying he wasn't still there in that odd position. And he wasn't and that's good, but I'm not going to let a whole night go by like that next time.
Hub, who I'm going to refer to, intermittently, as M3I, made pumpkin soup yesterday and while it was delicious yesterday, it is ambrosia today.
The recipe? I haven't the foggiest. I know my sister in law made us a version of it at Thanksgiving that she got out of a cookbook and amended it, then sent the details to M3I, who put his own wonderful spin on it, and what we've ended up with has made my day, week, month.
Re: my sad rant from yesterday, I committed the sin I was complaining about, going on and on about things I really know little about. I was also ranting about the folks posting on the websleuths site, and that's not fair either. I think that many of their speculations - particulary opinions of what the girl might have done based on a very cursory look at this neighbourhood - are weak, only because I know the area in question much better than they do. Which leads me to:
There's no valid reason I know of to rant at the police and their proceedings in trying to solve this rotten situation and find this girl. I don't have their files, or their expertise. Just a lot of reading of Sue Grafton. That don't make me a detective.
I saw a fellow slumped against a building yesterday. It looked like he was asleep, and there was a group of lunching construction workers nearby. So I figured he must be with them and he must be asleep. Nothing more.
However, his slumped body looked uncomfortable; not a likely sleeping posture. And he was there on my way to the bank and he was there on my way back to the office. But still, the construction workers were there, so he must've belonged to them.
It bothered me. We're all encouraged to be aware of our neighbours. We all live in this city together and we should all look out for each other. I felt like I was being cowardly for just walking on by yesterday.
So I went out there again this morning, just praying he wasn't still there in that odd position. And he wasn't and that's good, but I'm not going to let a whole night go by like that next time.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The search continues
Is this usually how a search for a missing teenager goes? I just heard that police are going to search the computers at the Forest Hill library. NOW? Jesus! Mariam Makhniashvili been missing since September 14. The library is, like, three doors up from where she and her family live. She's been described 10,000 times as a bookworm who can be found at the library. And they wait six weeks to check the computers at the library that is not only a three minute walk from her apartment, but it's located right in front of the high school she went to (for only four days).
Plus as her father said in this report, "Why would she use the library computer when this library only has only (a few) computers and it's always busy?" Yeah! He's right! You have to sign in to reserve one.
And just imagine how many different people have been on those computers in the last six weeks. Maybe the week of Sept 14th might've been a useful time, or when there were phalanxes of police officers marching up and down the street looking for... what?
Okay, now that I'm on a roll, the whole thing seems as if the search has been managed badly. Obviously, I have little idea of what else has been done, but seriously, as a citizen who lives on the same street as this poor child (who apparently turns 18 today), it'd be very nice to know.
I've already gone on about how long it took to launch the search. But the description of her says light brown hair, shoulder length. All the photos released have her with her hair in a ponytail. Was it in a ponytail that Monday morning?
And, seeing the photos and the video, there's no way she weighs 140 lbs as was described. I am a bit more than her 5'3" and I weigh just over that and trust me, I'm much thicker than she is in the video. Seriously. My bet is that her parents, being Europeans, gave her weight in kilograms, and some bonehead "translated" it. But, oh, check out the Interpol alert - it says: 54 kg, 119 lbs. That sounds right.
I look out our window and see the path she took. I take the same path myself, every day, and have taken that path to the bus, to the street, to the library, a zillion times at that time of day. And in fact, I walked it the very day she disappeared, and depending on what you read (she was last seen at either 8:30, 8:40, or 8:45) I walked by 40, 35, or 30 minutes after her. It would not be difficult to abduct someone along the street. Yes, there are lots of cars stopping and dropping off students, but there's also cars just parked there sometimes, with people sitting in them, smoking, whatever. And often even during that busy time between 8:30 and 9:00 am, there's no cars moving along the street at all. It can be very quiet.
I know that on the websleuths site thingie, people have gotten all upset at the school's principal for saying she didn't think there's been an abduction - lord knows, she doesn't want her students any more scared and freaked out than they are, but let's all save our anger for whoever is actually responsible for this girl's disappearance.
Oh, Jesus, check out the ctv news report - they've got aerial video of the top of the library, for f888 sake. Not exactly hot on the trail, eh! Boy, that's news helicopter money well spent! Plus you get to watch an AD, and then they get to torture the parents. Very, very depressing. My heart goes out to her family.
Plus as her father said in this report, "Why would she use the library computer when this library only has only (a few) computers and it's always busy?" Yeah! He's right! You have to sign in to reserve one.
And just imagine how many different people have been on those computers in the last six weeks. Maybe the week of Sept 14th might've been a useful time, or when there were phalanxes of police officers marching up and down the street looking for... what?
Okay, now that I'm on a roll, the whole thing seems as if the search has been managed badly. Obviously, I have little idea of what else has been done, but seriously, as a citizen who lives on the same street as this poor child (who apparently turns 18 today), it'd be very nice to know.
I've already gone on about how long it took to launch the search. But the description of her says light brown hair, shoulder length. All the photos released have her with her hair in a ponytail. Was it in a ponytail that Monday morning?
And, seeing the photos and the video, there's no way she weighs 140 lbs as was described. I am a bit more than her 5'3" and I weigh just over that and trust me, I'm much thicker than she is in the video. Seriously. My bet is that her parents, being Europeans, gave her weight in kilograms, and some bonehead "translated" it. But, oh, check out the Interpol alert - it says: 54 kg, 119 lbs. That sounds right.
I look out our window and see the path she took. I take the same path myself, every day, and have taken that path to the bus, to the street, to the library, a zillion times at that time of day. And in fact, I walked it the very day she disappeared, and depending on what you read (she was last seen at either 8:30, 8:40, or 8:45) I walked by 40, 35, or 30 minutes after her. It would not be difficult to abduct someone along the street. Yes, there are lots of cars stopping and dropping off students, but there's also cars just parked there sometimes, with people sitting in them, smoking, whatever. And often even during that busy time between 8:30 and 9:00 am, there's no cars moving along the street at all. It can be very quiet.
I know that on the websleuths site thingie, people have gotten all upset at the school's principal for saying she didn't think there's been an abduction - lord knows, she doesn't want her students any more scared and freaked out than they are, but let's all save our anger for whoever is actually responsible for this girl's disappearance.
Oh, Jesus, check out the ctv news report - they've got aerial video of the top of the library, for f888 sake. Not exactly hot on the trail, eh! Boy, that's news helicopter money well spent! Plus you get to watch an AD, and then they get to torture the parents. Very, very depressing. My heart goes out to her family.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
A refreshing change from the ujjjh
Write, write, write. Edit, edit, edit. Grumble, kvetch, grumble. Email, curse, curse.
I do like my job, but lately the frustrations have been causing my eye to wander a bit. You know how they say if your relationship has a certain proportion of negative interactions over positive interactions, it's time for intervention before things hit the rocks? Well, I don't think it's that bad, but I truly needed a change of pace.
And got one this morning.
A big bunch of us at our office got to spend several hours volunteering at Foodshare, a totally cool organization with a mission to provide, teach about, make available, "Good healthy food for all."
Here's an example of why I think they're wonderful. One of the many, many, MANY things they do is to help enable community organizations to pull together the resources to host farmers' markets in neighbourhoods without great access to fresh food. There are huge sections of this city which while being planned communities, were designed for people who own cars. Meanwhile, many of the original residents of those neighbourhoods have passed on, one way or another, and there's a new population of people living out there - within city limits - who rely on public transit, which is very sketchy out there, and walking. Foodshare helps to bring farmers' markets right to these neighbourhoods, and with their financial support, make it worth it for farmers to set up. At least, that's how I interpreted the talk we got this morning.
What we did was move a ton of boxes, chat with each other, then chow down on a nutritionally complete, delicious hot lunch.
In other news:
On Sunday, Charlie and I went to the 20th annual Word on the Street book festival. It was our third annual, and we bought a bunch of cool magazines: Dandyhorse, Spacing Toronto, and, of course, Chirp! We also ate roasted corn on the cob, giant yams, hot dogs, tiny tom donuts, coffee and freshly squeezed lemonade - lemonade served by a remarkably good-natured busy young fellow standing in a giant lemon, surrounded by wasps. He'd been stung, but, as he said with smile, only once.
I do like my job, but lately the frustrations have been causing my eye to wander a bit. You know how they say if your relationship has a certain proportion of negative interactions over positive interactions, it's time for intervention before things hit the rocks? Well, I don't think it's that bad, but I truly needed a change of pace.
And got one this morning.
A big bunch of us at our office got to spend several hours volunteering at Foodshare, a totally cool organization with a mission to provide, teach about, make available, "Good healthy food for all."
Here's an example of why I think they're wonderful. One of the many, many, MANY things they do is to help enable community organizations to pull together the resources to host farmers' markets in neighbourhoods without great access to fresh food. There are huge sections of this city which while being planned communities, were designed for people who own cars. Meanwhile, many of the original residents of those neighbourhoods have passed on, one way or another, and there's a new population of people living out there - within city limits - who rely on public transit, which is very sketchy out there, and walking. Foodshare helps to bring farmers' markets right to these neighbourhoods, and with their financial support, make it worth it for farmers to set up. At least, that's how I interpreted the talk we got this morning.
What we did was move a ton of boxes, chat with each other, then chow down on a nutritionally complete, delicious hot lunch.
In other news:
On Sunday, Charlie and I went to the 20th annual Word on the Street book festival. It was our third annual, and we bought a bunch of cool magazines: Dandyhorse, Spacing Toronto, and, of course, Chirp! We also ate roasted corn on the cob, giant yams, hot dogs, tiny tom donuts, coffee and freshly squeezed lemonade - lemonade served by a remarkably good-natured busy young fellow standing in a giant lemon, surrounded by wasps. He'd been stung, but, as he said with smile, only once.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Cycling daze
You know how when you were a kid you just played outside in pretty much any type of ordinary weather. Rainy days are not crappy days to Charlie. They means there's puddles to jump in. Don't know about you but once I got older, most of the time I got a lot pickier about the type of weather I liked to go out in.
One of my favourite things about cycling (or camping, or having a kid) to work on a regular basis is that it puts you out there and reveals to you the delights of non-sunny perfect weather.
After I got home tonight and looked out the window into the dark, I remembered how much I love riding home from work in the dark and in the cold. It's quiet and private and stealthy, and it always seems a lot darker outside when you're inside than when you're out in it. It's your little secret.
One of my favourite things about cycling (or camping, or having a kid) to work on a regular basis is that it puts you out there and reveals to you the delights of non-sunny perfect weather.
After I got home tonight and looked out the window into the dark, I remembered how much I love riding home from work in the dark and in the cold. It's quiet and private and stealthy, and it always seems a lot darker outside when you're inside than when you're out in it. It's your little secret.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
You play editor: A contest
Last year I participated in Blog Action Day. I saw it mentioned sometime today, so I googled it and found the Blog Action day website.
Now, for a chance to gain the satisfaction of winning the editor-of-the-day award, please tell me what you think is the most irksome thing about it (the website, that is).
A hint: I find this page to be equally irksome for the same reason.
And this one. And this one.
C'mon Blog Action folks, get a clue! This could be really cool, but you've got to do better on your end. I will email them with my suggestion, but I'm going to hit the hay now, so I'll do it tomorrow.
Now, for a chance to gain the satisfaction of winning the editor-of-the-day award, please tell me what you think is the most irksome thing about it (the website, that is).
A hint: I find this page to be equally irksome for the same reason.
And this one. And this one.
C'mon Blog Action folks, get a clue! This could be really cool, but you've got to do better on your end. I will email them with my suggestion, but I'm going to hit the hay now, so I'll do it tomorrow.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
I found it - my joy
All day today and most of yesterday I've been rather joyless. The cop cars outside and the nagging worry, combined with a nasty sinus infection and some minor annoyance at work have brought me down to a flat, joyless plain.
Even coming home tonight - early - didn't jar me out of my funk. But sometime after dinner, hanging out with my delightfully funny, lively son - who's riding his bike now without training wheels super fast! And went underwater at swimming lessons today! And was just full of hilarious stories about his day - I found that I was laughing and smiling and feeling much lighter of heart.
Before he fell asleep, he was telling me about a little girl in his class. "Is she cute?" I asked him.
"No, no. But you'd think she's cute!"
"Really, why?"
"You know in Mickey Mouse? She looks just like one of the ducks."
Even coming home tonight - early - didn't jar me out of my funk. But sometime after dinner, hanging out with my delightfully funny, lively son - who's riding his bike now without training wheels super fast! And went underwater at swimming lessons today! And was just full of hilarious stories about his day - I found that I was laughing and smiling and feeling much lighter of heart.
Before he fell asleep, he was telling me about a little girl in his class. "Is she cute?" I asked him.
"No, no. But you'd think she's cute!"
"Really, why?"
"You know in Mickey Mouse? She looks just like one of the ducks."
Sunday, September 20, 2009
I don't get it.
I'm taking a little break. I'm spending the day sorting receipts from 2007 and 2008 so I can (eventually) do my tax returns for those years (at some point very soon, really) - and I just got a gigantic paper cut.
All this amounts to less than a hill of beans, except that the sorting is allowing my mind to wander. Just outside our window is the sidewalk that Mariam Makhniashvili walked along almost a week ago, only to disappear. Roughly 15 minutes after she took that path, I did. It could've been sooner or a little later - I don't remember the exact time I left for work, but she could've hopped onto my bus, she might've been hanging out on the corner, but I've been wracking my brains and I can't remember seeing her. There's so many teenagers around the school at that time of the morning, and they do truthfully all pretty much look alike, and they all have gigantic backpacks.
Other than what happened to her, where is she, is she okay, is she alive, here's what I don't get: why'd they "scale down" the search yesterday? Friday night there was still at least 10 (as far as we could see) police cars lined up along the street, even blocking the driveway to her building.
Saturday morning, I looked out the windown and saw the top of a satellite antenna from a news truck. When we went outside about an hour later, it was gone and there's only the police "command centre" left. WTF?
And why'd they wait until Thursday and Friday to "scale it up" when she'd gone missing on Monday.
I shouldn't be getting mad at the police - they didn't make her disappear. But I don't get it.
Also, there's messages going out asking for her to return. Are any of them in Georgian, presumably her first language? Or Russian, which she likely understands better than English. The reports keep saying she speaks little English. Obviously I don't know everything they're doing, but...
Most recent news: they've "expanded" the search, which means they can get help from other police units. Hallelujah.
All this amounts to less than a hill of beans, except that the sorting is allowing my mind to wander. Just outside our window is the sidewalk that Mariam Makhniashvili walked along almost a week ago, only to disappear. Roughly 15 minutes after she took that path, I did. It could've been sooner or a little later - I don't remember the exact time I left for work, but she could've hopped onto my bus, she might've been hanging out on the corner, but I've been wracking my brains and I can't remember seeing her. There's so many teenagers around the school at that time of the morning, and they do truthfully all pretty much look alike, and they all have gigantic backpacks.
Other than what happened to her, where is she, is she okay, is she alive, here's what I don't get: why'd they "scale down" the search yesterday? Friday night there was still at least 10 (as far as we could see) police cars lined up along the street, even blocking the driveway to her building.
Saturday morning, I looked out the windown and saw the top of a satellite antenna from a news truck. When we went outside about an hour later, it was gone and there's only the police "command centre" left. WTF?
And why'd they wait until Thursday and Friday to "scale it up" when she'd gone missing on Monday.
I shouldn't be getting mad at the police - they didn't make her disappear. But I don't get it.
Also, there's messages going out asking for her to return. Are any of them in Georgian, presumably her first language? Or Russian, which she likely understands better than English. The reports keep saying she speaks little English. Obviously I don't know everything they're doing, but...
Most recent news: they've "expanded" the search, which means they can get help from other police units. Hallelujah.
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