Happy Tidings of a New Year

On this dawn of a fresh new year, I considered making resolutions, but resolutions are useless because I don’t know a single person who actually keeps to his or her resolutions. I myself make resolutions each year and then follow them for a week or two and then crash and burn. And my resolutions are always the same. I will lose weight and I will write more. I will try to appreciate family more and I will stop being such a bad person. I always make my resolutions and start the new year off and I am pretty good up until about halfway through January and then things start to fall down. I am a master of procrastination. This year I shall set more realistic goals. So here goes my list of resolutions:

• I will watch all seven seasons of MacGyver.
• I will tidy my desk at least once a month.
• I will take the dishes out of my room at least once a week.
• I will drink less soda and eat less fast food.
• I will try to get over most of my shows being cancelled.
• I will try to email my friends more regularly.

There are a couple which I really need to work on in all seriousness. I need to go back to school and get a job. I now have expensive tastes in everything and I need a way to fund this terrible habit. These I pledge to do in the memory of my mother who I know would be quite annoyed with me because I’ve let myself get far too lazy. But I think that I need to look at this year and not put quite so much pressure on myself. too much pressure makes me collapse completely and then I have a tendency to give up things.

Well here’s hoping I can at least keep up with these things and if all goes well maybe next year I can work on stepping it up a bit. Happy New Year to all of you! And lots of Holiday cheer!

~Jade

My new Get Healthy plan…

It started with my sister, desperate to have someone to play tennis with, convinced me to sign up for tennis lessons on her dime. She is paying for the lessons and I bought my nice new racquet. Then my sister joined a gym, LA Fitness. She just went in to talk about prices and get information, and she walked out with a membership. Then she convinced me to join because her friend gets a reduced fee for registration. So now we are both signed up to this gym. Its been about a week since I signed up and i’ve been twice. The trainer I am working with for the introductory lessons is really nice. Mike said to only work on one body part a day. So three times a week and separate workouts. That way each section gets a week to recuperate. Fortunately tennis was canceled for this week because I forgot and trained my arms on tuesday and class is wednesday. I am working on getting a good playlist on my ipod for my workouts and i think I am really going to stick with it this time. I really want to be fit for my 10 year high school reunion next year. So lets hope I can keep it up!

Also to do with my new healthy kick, I went to the doctor on Friday because my glands in my neck are swollen. Upper respitory infection and he gave me antibiotics. I also have an epidermal inclusion cyst. Lovely. So I have to make another appointment to have it removed but then I should be mostly healthy.

So I know that this post will be far less popular than my NYC trip, but I can’t really compete with famous celebrities. But blogging must go on…

Best two days of my life!

So I’ve put off writing up this entry for awhile. Mostly because I am lazy, but also because I didn’t want to sound like a giddy fan-girl. I will be relatively giddy but hopefully not over the top. So here goes!

On July 22^nd, Spaced, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced) my favourite television show from England was released in Region 1 format at long last! Which is good because considering the exchange rate, I could never afford it before. The reason for finally releasing it over here was to circumvent the Americanized version of the show. I can’t say with absolute certainty that it would have failed on tv here, but it definitely should have. There is just nothing like the original.

So in honor of the dvd release, the director, Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead), and the two leads/writers, Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes née Stevenson attended events across America in a few of the bigger cities. The event in New York City coincided with the actual date of the dvd release and its merely a short train ride away so I made plans to attend with my sister who is also a fan. So we booked a hotel room near Times Square and headed up. We got to NYC and attempted to walk about a million blocks to the theater where the screening was being held. But we gave up about halfway and took a cab. It was really lucky that we caught a cab when we did because when we got to the theater, the line was around the corner and halfway down the block already and it was about 2 hours before the event started on a boiling day. The heat was getting to a lot of people. The line was sort of lounging along the street. Then about an hour before the screening, a cheer rose up from the end of the line and traveled up the street like a wave as a limo passed by with an arm out the window with a devil’s horn hand gesture. Simon Pegg greeting the fans from the limo.

The line was livelier after than. And my sister really perked up. She loves Simon. Now everyone in the line was standing up in excitement. Then we heard shrieks and cheering from the front of the line and a general buzz was passing all the way down. Then we saw why. Simon and Jessica were walking down the sidewalk greeting the fans. My sister looked like she was going to faint. Simon was slapping fives to everyone he passed but was gentler on her hand. His hand was probably stinging. Mine was after he had passed that’s for sure. Jessica was sweet. She tried to pause so I could take a picture but the only camera I had was the one on my phone and it blithely decided to not take the picture until she had turned away to greet another fan. Still I was relatively close to her. Which was awesome! She is my inspiration. She is one of my favourite screen writers. I love her work. So then they went inside to prepare and the line finally started to move.

As this was a free event, it was first come, first serve. As the line started to inch ahead, I was nervous that we wouldn’t get in. But we did get in as well as our line companion, a really nice guy we met from Long Island who was right behind us. So we got to our seats and I ran to the bathroom before the show started. I walked into the bathroom and headed for the stalls as a woman headed for the sinks. I couldn’t believe it. I was staring into the face of Jessica Hynes. Hoping to not make a complete ass of myself I started to head past her, but my mouth got the better of me. Besides, how often do you get the chance to talk to your idol away from all the other fans at events like this. So I told her that I loved Learners and she thanked me and we ended up talking about that and her guest role on Doctor Who and working with David Tennant. She was so sweet and patient despite me sort of trailing behind her and prattling on. Then she thanked me for the chat, excused herself and left the bathroom. I practically floated all the way back to my seat.

The screening included 3 episodes. Art, Epiphanies, and Gone. I was hoping for Mettle, but Epiphanies made up for it! After a quick Q & A led by some random guy who didn’t seem to be listening to the answers, it was off to get a bite to eat and the back to the hotel.

The next day, we got up early, and headed out to get some breakfast and coffee. I am now officially a fan of bagel carts. Yum! Then it was off to Virgin Megastore. First the wrong one and then catching a cab down to the right one. We found our friend from the day before, bought our dvd copies and got our wristbands to get in to the signing and went to kill time. So we hit up a Barnes & Noble and a PetSmart. Then it was back to the store to get in line at the cafe. We stood there for about 20 minutes and then got filed into the store and set up in a loop around the cd racks. Eventually we made it up to near the cafe entrance and my sister sat down on the floor to read. Next thing I know, I look back and Edgar is skimming along the cd racks toward the front followed by Simon and then Jessica. I called out to my sister, who had her legs in the walkway. Thankfully she didn’t hear me the first time, cause she probably would have tripped Simon Pegg. Jessica looked back at us to smile in greeting to all the fans and I saw her eyes pick me out and recognize me. She said hi as she headed up to the front and I grimaced. By this time I felt embarrassed because I followed her around the bathroom. I felt like Honey from Notting Hill. As we got very near to the table, Simon and Jessica decided to break while Edgar announced that he had a super bladder and proceeded to nap with is feet on the table and then crawled under the table to lay down. He’s such a lovely goofy man.

So then it was our turn. My sister and I did a quick round of rock, paper, scissors to see who would go first. I won and headed up next to Simon. I stepped up onto the platform and posed for a picture between Simon and Jessica and after the picture was done, I apologized to Jessica for accosting her in the bathroom for which she chided me. She said that there was nothing wrong with it, We’d had a nice chat in the bathroom and she quite enjoyed it. That about made my day. Then it was a picture with Edgar and I collected my dvd set. Then my sister got up there to take a picture between Simon and Jessica and Simon put his cheek against her cheek. Then a picture with Edgar, who also politely agreed to sign an envelope for her bf at the time. “Ethan, Where the fuck were you? We had a great time! Edgar” LOL. And then it was over. I really didn’t want to leave the store but there was no point in hanging around really. So we headed straight to the train station to catch the next train. (Cabbie had a hard time finding Penn Station… wtf?) The entire ride home and for the next two days at least, if you mentioned Simon’s name or our trip to NYC, my sister would squeal with glee “His cheek touched my cheek!”

All in all I would say it was a great trip. And a long blog entry. I’m not sure, but it may be the longest entry I have. And now its finished. At long last!

Our trip to Utah

Beautiful!

Looks like a Turtle.

This is the room that we stayed in at the inn.

This is the front view of the inn.

Replica Globe Theater for Othello

So I haven’t blgged in awhile. I’ve fallen back into my lazy habits unfortunately. But I am going to try to make up for it now.

The last little while I’ve been doing more traveling that I usually do. On July 11th my boyfriend and I went to Utah to meet up with his mom and sister and then go to visit his grandmother.

So first off, there is the flying issue. I’m not exactly the best flyer. So I swiped my credit card and watched Run Fat Boy Run. Miraculously it was a calm turbulence free flight. From now on when flying I will always bring Simon Pegg movies with me!

We arrived in Salt Lake City and were fetched from the airport by Tamra and her friend. By then we were starving and so we stopped at Denny’s to eat. Nick’s favourite. So then it was off to meet up with Nick’s mom and grandmother, then head over to Monroe and Elsinore where his grandmother lives.

When we got to our hotel, it was a beautiful albeit tiny 3 room inn. It is a restored house and the rooms are absolutely adorable. They are gorgeous! And the view of the mountains was breathtaking. It was a tiny town so it was nice and peaceful. From there it was off to spend an evening relaxing at his grandmother’s house and then home in time for the Graham Norton show on BBC America.

The next day we headed out early and hiked around the Freemont Indian trails. We took alot of pictures of rocks and trees, but it really was pretty up there. Then it was off to Walmart to remove our first load of pictures and a quick stop at Taco Bell for food. The second leg of our Sunday trip was to head off to Cove Fort, a Mormon historic place. A bit uncomfortable for an agnostic ex catholic, but it was moderately interesting. On the return trip, we took the scenic route back stopping in Fillmore to take pictures of the old capitol building. I mostly got pictures of flowers. They had lots of brilliantly coloured roses. We also stopped at a wood art place with some spectacular sculptures.

Monday, we headed down to Cedar City to the Shakespeare festival. Southern Utah University has a really nice campus. First it was Fiddler on the Roof which sadly was not all that impressive. It was relatively uninspiring and it left us tired. Then after a quick lunch we joined the crowd at the pavilion to watch an outdoor show representing each of the countries from the United Kingdom. I bought a Cornish pasty and a Scottish pie and got them packed to go considering I’d just eaten. I figured that I would just have them for breakfast the next morning. Then we filed into the replica Globe theater and got settled in to watch Othello. I’d never read Othello so I had a bit of difficulty following the language of it, but I read the description so I knew the basic premise. And Iago was fantastic! He really stole the show. I hope I get to see him perform again.

Tuesday we left near midday to head back to Salt Lake City. Somehow the trip seemed longer going back. But when we got to Slat Lake we did a bit of sightseeing. We drove around the city looking at landmarks for about an hour. We stopped by our hotel and checked in and then headed for a coffee shop. After about an hour drinking our tea and coffee and playing around on the laptop a bit with the free wifi, we headed back to the hotel. Nick and I went to the room and Karin and Tamra drove to her friends house. They took a bit of a detour at a canyon and did some more sightseeing.

We ordered in from the Salt Lake City water service. For ten dollars plus the price of your meal they will order your food, pick it up from the restaurant and deliver it to you. We chose traditional pub fare cause it sounded the best. We had Shepherds Pie and Corned Beef Au Gratin with a side dish of Leek and potato soup. It was really good but really filling. Then Karin came back to the hotel after dropping Tamra off and we all went to bed. The next day Tamra and her friend showed up as we were packing up. The trouble with return trips home is that you invariably end up toting back more than you left with. So repacking needs doing before you get to the airport.

Once the repacking was done, we headed off for the airport and we were dropped off at the entrance. We decided that unlike the trip there, we would check both bags since we were less worried about our luggage on the way home. If it got lost, we would still have clothes at home. It was much nicer to not have to drag everything all over the place. This time though, we were sitting on the exit row of the plane. It has its perks on this particular plane. Plenty of leg room and no squeezing past passengers to get to the bathroom but there is the responsibility. Nick laughed because when asked if I could handle the responsibility in the event of an emergency and I said yes. He later told everyone that I lied and said yes. But to be honest, the more I fly the calmer I get. However the concerned look on the flight attendants face as the plane began to line up for take off was a bit disconcerting. The door made a strange noise when we went over bumps. But all was well.

Upon landing back home in Philly, we ran into a different sort of problem. The trains were running on a ’special’ schedule meaning rather than running on the normal schedule, they were only running once an hour. And we missed the first one due to a combination of me running back up the escalators and over to the other side of the tracks to get to the ATM and the train was mislabeled. Plus we were hungry but there was no where to eat on that side of security. But we had some snacks left over from our trip in our bags, and the train arrived. First, into Center City and then onto the Septa line to Colway where my dad was waiting. We stopped and got something to eat on the way home and then relaxed. And finally when my sister got home, we handed out souvenirs.

All in all it was a fun trip. Plus we got to see family that we hadn’t seen in a year and a half.

To see the rest of the pictures you can go here: http://s36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/JadeFirenze/Utah/

Companions, Daleks, and Davros… Oh My! (spoilers)

With Doctor Who season 4 coming to an end, I am filled with trepidation for the future.

This weeks episode was a really good one. I was actually quite surprised that both me and my friend liked it. We normally don’t really like Russell’s writing and we rarely agree. I loved the looting bit when Rose intimidates the men with her big gun! And her reaction to the transmission with Harriet Jones and the former companions and the fact that she couldn’t talk or be on cam with them. I was giggling at the jealousy and I felt the frustration of being cut off. “She wouldn’t let me get one because she said they were naughty.”

And then that beautiful reunion that should have been. It was so perfect. The music, Rose’s smile, David’s grin, her running with the big gun and him running full out to get to her not even thinking about the enemy at that point. And then Russell just had to ruin it. Grr! And Jack got there just a bit too late. It bugged me that he left this team to be slaughtered though. They might get out, but given his reaction upon hearing the Daleks talking, he basically left them. He’s traveled with passengers before. It might be because the Doctor had made it so it could do that and now it can’t anymore but he didn’t even try. And he took the only big gun!

I must admit, the reactions of the companions upon hearing the Daleks and then Sarah Jane’s reaction to Davros were great. They really emphasize the dread. I like that Jack kissed Gwen and Ianto on the head and said that they were dead. And that creepy giggle of Dalek Caan.

All in all I’d say this was the best episode of the season, and possibly of the series. I just hope they end this well. If the next episode is as good as this one, I’ll forgive Russell for his past mistakes!

EXTRA SPOILERY BITS (WHITED OUT FOR SAFETY)

And as for David possibly leaving. I would be gutted if he did. Plus that would be a fantastically kept secret if he was. I will say that I’ve seen pics of the new Christmas special being filmed and David was in them along with his Blackpool co-star David Morrissey. My friend told me that he’s certain that David will still be around next season and I’d like to hope, but I’m not going to firmly place myself on one side or the other. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Ew, ew, ew!

So tonight I told myself that I was going to clean. I’ve been saying this a lot lately but I was in a tidying sort of mood this evening, so I turned on Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos and proceeded to tidy near my desk. Things were going well. I had a good pace going and I was starting to make progress. Then I sat down in my desk chair to organize some papers for a second while I fast forwarded through the credits between episodes and out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. Cold dread flooded through me. This couldn’t be good.

I looked down only to see, between my stuffed Nemo and O’Reilly’s Dynamic HTML book near my bed, the biggest centipede I’ve seen since I was a kid. I gasped so suddenly and so much that my throat felt like I’d been coughing all day. Its not something that you expect to see around your house. We’ve had them before but they’ve always been on the walls and not moving. This one was running around. I never realized that they moved so fast. Though I suppose with that many legs, they are bound to move fast. I jumped out of the chair and to safety and launched myself over the bed to get to the stairs. In a flash, I was standing next to my boyfriend and poking him until he removed his headphones.

“There’s a centipede on the floor of our room,” I gasped. He got a look of disappointment on his face. He doesn’t like centipedes either. He trudged down the stairs as I described the general whereabouts of the centipede upon last glance. After a few seconds, I impatiently joined him in the room and stood on the bed to watch the hunt. There he stood searching the area I’d described with his tool of destruction, a hatchet. I wanted to giggle but at the same time, the fear of the gigantic bug prevented that. However in hind sight, I can giggle because it really was a funny scene to behold. A man chasing a centipede with a hatchet.

Though the laughter fades as I hold my feet up above the floor to keep them away from any of the centipedes relatives for fear of retribution. And my cat just sidled in with mild curiosity. Where was he a minute ago? He’s right useless! So as I sit here and type this, shuddering every time I look at that spot on the floor where I first laid eyes on that bloody bug, I have decided that I’m going to skip cleaning for now. And I think I will sleep on the couch tonight!

~Jade

Campy at best!

Ok so I’ve decided to review a movie that I saw this week. I won’t give away spoilers. Or at least I will try not to. Normally I would just allow people to watch it for themselves and form their own opinion but I felt strongly enough about this movie to put my opinion down in print.

The movie I saw this week was M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening. Before I went to see this movie, I read a few comments on the dGeek forum saying that it was not a good movie and that no one should waste their money on it. I trust those who commented, but I found myself roped into going anyway. My sister convinced me and my boyfriend to go on a ‘double date’ with her and her boyfriend to be. All three of them wanted to see it but I had my reservations. And rightly so it would seem. This movie was rubbish. I was really surprised at this movie. In all fairness, he had a decent idea to start with, but the man loves his twists. In the end the entire movie came off campy at best. It had nothing to do with the actors in my estimation. But the script was poorly written and it seemed like in order to get a twist, he sacrificed a good plot.

The first trailer that I saw for this movie made it seem like a creepy movie that had some virus having to do with the bees disappearing. Then a later trailer showed more of the plot and the airborne virus got a bit more interesting. And then we saw the movie. Huge disappointment. I will put in one bit of a spoiler. Highlight it to read. The only really funny bit of the movie was when Mark Wahlberg talked to the ficus in the corner of the room only to discover that it was rubber.

Upon the ending of this movie, we all declared that this movie would be best aired on weekends on the SciFi channel when the b-movies are shown. It was campy and should be played and mocked along side the other campy movies aired.

Canadian Trip #2… Finally!

The second trip went better than the first. I left on time. Two o’clock the day after my birthday. I must admit that I love the 8 hour trip to and from Canada on my own. I put on the ipod and sing along to my hearts content. Its relaxing, very zen. It sounds very lonely to most people but I find the solitary journey not lonely at all. What’s that say about me then?

So the trip up was uneventful. Stopped for gas and coffee in Watertown, NY as usual. Its pretty much the last chance to get gas before the border and while gas prices are high in the States, Canada’s are higher. I stopped for food at a service center on the side of the highway and had to use the credit card again. I forgot to change money at the border again. Though it was rather late so who knows if they even would have.

So first thing I did when I arrived at the house, I checked to see if the dvd player would show my Blackpool dvd’s. The dvd is region 2 and was worried that I wouldn’t get to watch it. But fortunately the dvd player is region free. I settled in for the evening and fell asleep to David Tennant. Lovely.

The hospital was the same as ever. I brought my lunch every day but the first, sat on the floor and read a book from my grandmothers bookshelf at home, and tried to keep myself busy while she napped. The book this time was Deception Point by Dan Brown. There were two copies on her bookshelf and I figured that if I didn’t finish it before I left, that I could take a copy and no one would miss it. Good thing too because I didn’t finish it. Its a good book so far.

Each night, I would make myself dinner and watch So You Think You Can Dance on one of those Canadian channels and put on a movie to fall asleep to. I did notice that for this second trip, I stayed fewer days but without really thinking about it, I bought the same amount of food as before. D’oh! Fortunately my uncle arrived for the weekend shift and I told him about the food. I also warned him that when I’d gone to make the first of the chicken breasts that there were no normal spices in the kitchen and rather than experiment I’d stuck with salt and pepper and I wished him luck.

My uncle and I overlapped our trips by one evening and a bit of a day. He arrived Friday evening as I was leaving the hospital. We decided to go to see a movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We pronounced it decent. I wasn’t particularly fond of the ending. I found it a bit too predictable. And they’ve made a leap from religious artifacts to Alien? I think they should have left it at three movies. If they were going to make a fourth, they should have done it years ago before they lost some of the actors. Anyway, that’s all I’m going to critique that movie.

Saturday morning, my uncle and his friend cut the grass and I stopped packing and tidying to join them on the porch during their break. I felt like a real grownup for the first time in my life I think. I actually managed to hold a conversation… with my uncle. That’s a huge development. He barely talks to me usually. After I packed up the car I stopped by the hospital on my way out of town and visited my grandmother. I said my farewells and told her to ask my uncle to take her for a walk when he got their. Then it was back out on the road for home.

Most of the trip home was uneventful, but for a stretch of about 15 miles or so as I was driving through the mountains, it rained so hard we could barely see and I had the windshield wipers up as high as they could go. It was a bit unnerving as you could see the edge of a drop beside the road, but I made it home safely. And as I got close to home, we had a huge traffic buildup and so i used the ‘driving at two miles an hour’ time to call my grandmother. I got home just in time to watch Graham Norton with Dame Edna, grabbed some Wendy’s for dinner.

And that was my trip.

~Jade

Birthdays never go well…

19 June 2008

Ok so this is way late but I am getting disciplined. At least I am going to try.

So my birthday started with me waking up somewhere around noon. This is always a not so great start to my day. Wonderful. I had lunch and then chatted online for a bit. In the afternoon, I made my cake; Lemon cake with a strawberry glaze. My favourite! And I made plans to go to our regular monday night dinners at a friends house.

So my boyfriend, sister, and I piled into the car and we headed out. But before we could, we needed to do my other sister a favour. We needed to drop her glasses off at Walmart. So we headed over to the specific Walmart which was out of our way, we found that it had been closed. WTF?!? When she called the number she must have gotten a new building but who the hell knows where that was.

So as we headed back towards where we really needed to go, my sister started to feel sick and so we ran home to drop her off. By this time we were so dreadfully late that we called and asked what would be best for them. It takes an hour to get to their house. We all decided that it would be best if we just cancelled the trip at that point. *Sigh* I had been really looking forward to Chicken Pot Pie which she had made specially for me. So we trudged back into the house with the small silver lining that at least we had a cake. We sat around for a bit killing time until the rest of the family got home. My dad then took us out to eat. I did get to open one present before we left which was perfume. Vera Wang Princess perfume. Limited Edition! It smells really nice. I love it.

I didn’t want to go out to somewhere too far away, so we headed around the corner to Applebee’s. It was kinda of nice because we haven’t really eaten out on my dad’s dime lately. So I took full advantage of it. I had a New York strip steak (sorry to my vegetarian friends) and garlic mashed potatoes and a salad. It was lovely! I also had a Strawberry banana daiquiri. Yum! For dessert, my sister and I got one of those shot glass desserts each. We both had the chocolate sundae ones. Not too bad and its a small dessert so you can feel less guilty about it. They offered to tell the waiters that it was my birthday and have them sing to me but I threatened certain doom upon them and they opted not to.

When we got home, I opened the rest of my presents. I got a Tardis USB hub for my computer and it makes the tardis noise and lights up when you press the button on it. Fantastic! (as the Doctor would say.) I also got a dvd copy of Blackpool with David Tennant and Viva Blackpool (the sequel.) I got a Pink Floyd’s The Wall tshirt and a Brazilian Hard Rock Cafe shirt, a wood bracelet from Brazil, and my sister got me Listerine whitening strips cause I’ve been wanting to try them out.

And after I had a piece of my lemon strawberry cake, I went to bed quite happy. So it wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t all that bad.

~Jade

First trip to Canada

11 June 2008

So in the last few weeks I’ve been up to Canada twice for about a week at a time. I’ve decided to write these blog entries up separately.

So Before I’d even started out on the road I knew this trip was going to be aggravating. Before I left, I had to get my dad’s car inspected (it was nearly a year out of date) and in order to do that, we had to get his credit card info over the phone because he was in Brasil at the time. We had to have the windshield replaced to get it done and I wasn’t going to pay for that.

So rather than leaving at noon, it was nearly 7pm before I could head out onto the road and its an 8 hour drive. So that was a bit ridiculous on its own. As it was I would have been arriving at around 3am. But to make matters worse, somewhere around north Pennsylvania, traffic slowed down so much that it took us an hour to go 2 miles. And the reason behind this lengthy delay: people don’t seem to know how to merge. Traffic was whittled down to one lane and they didn’t seem to know how to cope with that. Well at around 1am I was getting near Syracuse and I ended up having to stop for the night. So Nick called a hotel and set up a room for me and so I stopped off for the night.

The next morning, I got back out on the road and managed to make it to the hospital just after visiting hours started. After spending about 2 hours there, I was hungry. So I went to get food downstairs but the atm didn’t take my card and neither did the Tim Hortons donut shop. So I left the hospital and got cash and went back and got a sandwich and coffee, ate and then went back up to her room. I sat on the floor beside her bed while she napped until dinner time. That’s pretty much how every day went. Except after the first day I’d gone grocery shopping and gotten food so I started packing a lunch to bring with me. And I stayed as close to the 8pm visiting hours end as I could stand each day because I thought I had to stay even after she’d fallen asleep after her dinner at 5pm. Turns out I could have left as soon as she started dropping off.

Each day I would sit on the floor between her bed and the wall and amuse myself by listening to music or watching a movie file on my ipod or trying to read. First I tried to read Timescape again but kept dozing off, so I started bringing Atonement that someone had left at the house. I got a bit further in that book but the author really got aggravating with his lengthy and detailed descriptions of each setting. It started putting me to sleep so I gave up on that book as well. After that it was just me and my ipod. But its a faithful friend and so I would spend the afternoon day dreaming to The Killers and Kaiser Chiefs and sometimes even listening to the Doctor Who commentaries that I’ve gotten from the podcast subscription up until that point. That’s a tad bit weird when you aren’t watching the actual episode. LOL

Each evening, I would watch So You Think You Can Dance if it was on and that show always makes me want to work on stretching and exercising while watching it. Which is good. (My sister said when I got back, “Don’t take this badly, but I think you lost weight while you were gone. You look really good.”) And when that show wasn’t on, I was going through the Key To Time series from Doctor Who with Tom Baker. I nearly finished all 26 episodes while I was there. They are only 30 minutes long each but still.

Every evening I watched Doctor Who to go to bed to and slept on the couch. My grandmother’s house can be really creepy at night and I liked to have the tv to cover up all the unusual noises that it made at night. And because of this, by the end of my week there, I had a sore back and neck from sleeping at odd angles. But it wasn’t too bad.

The last day was the only really bad day I had there. We put my grandmother into bed after lunch and she slept most of the afternoon. Around 3:30pm, she woke up and asked to go to the bathroom. So I called for a nurse. But she was being ‘feisty’ as my uncle called it and refused to wait. She lightly punched me on the arm several times and them calling me a bully she stood up and started to shuffle off to the bathroom. Now she is supposed to be in the bed or the wheelchair at most times and usually for the bathroom, they would roll a bathroom chair that goes over the toilet to take her to the bathroom. So I jumped up and walked with her to the bathroom and got her onto the chair and before I could get the chair over the toilet, she’d started to pee. Then after she was done, she didn’t wait for the nurse and finished up herself and then combed her hair. As the nurse and I tried to walk her back to bed, she insisted on stopping at one of the regular chairs in the room belonging to one of the other ladies. She refused to move to her bed and refused to move to her wheelchair. She accused us of trying to hold her down and so we tried calling my uncle to get her to listen. But that didn’t work either. Then she refused her medications for her blood pressure. So at around 4pm, they put her in her pajamas and put her to bed early. She sat in bed to eat her meal and gave me the silent treatment almost until I was ready to leave.

I told her that it was my last day and she softened a bit. So I kissed her goodbye and I left explaining that my uncle would be there on Saturday (this being thursday.) I said goodbye to the other ladies and I headed out. On the way home, I stopped to get french fries at the truck on the side of the road. I haven’t had them since I was a kid! I got them home and put the wrong kind of vinegar on them but they still tasted great. I went home, showered, and devised a plan to finish up the remaining food so I wouldn’t leave any behind.

Bright and early the next day at around 10am or so… lol… I headed out onto the road and headed for the 8 hour journey back home. And proceeded to get to the turnpike just in time to hit rush hour traffic so the last hour of my trip took nearly 2 hours. But I was home in time for The Sarah jane Adventures and then Doctor Who so all was well.

And that was my first trip! The write up of my second trip to follow my birthday adventures.

~Jade